2022-04-19: Toxicant ~DISENGAGEMENT~

• Cutscene: Toxicant ~DISENGAGEMENT~
• Cast: Akane Shinjo, Alexis Kerib
• Where: Tsutsujidai
• Date: 2022-04-18 (immediately following 2022-04-18: King and Queen, God and Devil ~LIQUATION~)
• Summary: Akane goes through the emotional aftermath of a risky, harrowing experience.

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Akane gets back home at last. She'd eventually realized she needed to be alone -- and snuck off with a, "Kaiju attack or no, curfew is curfew... ahahaha, sorry!" rather than stay with Renais. Right now, she needs to sort out her emotions. This means three things.

First: Laughter. For all the complicated emotions here, it's not like there *isn't* very real joy; Akane asked and Akane got and what Akane got was... substantially great, and there's a lot to be said for that. She slips off first to the top of one of the buildings in the commercial district, and... laughs, and laughs. It's a release -- at least, for part of it. The heat still rolling off of Reine Noire's final battle quenches itself in the rain.

Stretching out, Akane moves on to thing number two: actually heading home. She walks it, naturally, rather than taking the train. It gives her time to put her thoughts in order -- something she simply can't do when she's surrounded by other people.

And that, of course, leads us to thing number three.

---

"What was THAT? I told you to make sure things went okay, not -- wait until the last moment and try to *kill* her!! All the time you killed almost got one of *my* people hurt -- or -- or worse!" Akane shouts; whatever joy she'd felt earlier has been addressed. Now she can focus fully on anger. "Explain yourself! You have five minutes and if I'm not fine with it by the end of that five minutes, I'll --"

What leverage does she actually have?

(A lot. What is a void without something to fill it, if not empty space? ... But let's not tell her that, shall we?)

The devil on the monitor remains impassive as always. "Akane-kun, you have to understand -- your requests put me into a difficult position! We already discussed that this is a problem kaiju can't solve... If I could have acted sooner I would have. I needed the heroes to accept my presence at all." He leans forward, toward the 'front' of the screen, becoming a hair larger. "Heroes can be kinda territorial... so I waited until one of them was willing enough to ask for my help to say as much!"

"What about the spear," Akane asks, coolly. "You didn't need to stab her."

Alexis takes this question, at least, fairly seriously -- though he remains curiously... casual. "I kinda did, though?" comes an answer after a few moments. "She knew you were this world's God."

Brow furrowing, Akane asks, "I don't see what that has to do with anything. If you killed her, that would've made *more* sense!" Throwing up her hands in exasperation, Akane stretches out and stands up. "I'm gonna go check up on her. I need to figure out if she's gonna be a problem, for the reason *you* just pointed out. Besides, even if she's not coming back, I wanna get thanked for this stuff!"

Alexis waits patiently. Akane's no dummy -- he already knows what he put out there. She just needs to notice what she's been given. Three, two...

She's about halfway to standing up, when something clicks, though. "-- Knew? Not 'knows'? You usually don't just say stuff... What gives?" Her expression looks serious, and she reaches standing -- but looks back at her screen. "Did you do something tricky," she half-asks, half-says.

"Aaah... I was wondering when you'd catch on," Alexis answers. "Call it a bit of -- sleight of hand. I extracted a little more with the Aura of Dawn than the Aura of Dawn itself. You don't really need to check on her, do you? Her memories will be a jumble -- more than adequate for your purposes."

Akane takes a deep breath. Sits back down. "So I... *don't* need to test if there's a way I can use the Venora on her," she again half-says. She's starting to get her head around this.

"Oh, dear, no! Perish the thought. I know you'd be terribly upset to have to use *nerve gas* on her, even if it was simply the cost of securing your world," Alexis replies, ever-smooth. "I'm proud of you for coming up with that one! Honestly, it's a pretty good idea. It probably would've even worked, with enough time and enough nerve gas. ... pretty sneaky." He nods slightly, affirming, "But you really don't need to worry about checking up on her. She ought to remain exactly as oblivious as you need her to!"

Akane lets out a shuddering breath. Of course. For all it looked messy, what Alexis was really doing was saving Akane the trouble of doing something cruel and costly. Now she doesn't even need to check up on Renais. She can just... let that relationship float out of her life.

"... Ugh, sorry," Akane says, bringing her feet up onto the chair and hugging her knees. "Thanks for bailing me out of that one. I'm not cut out for this planning stuff... maybe there's a reason I leave all this outside stuff up to you."

She sits there for a long time -- not sleeping, but just... staring off. Whatever feelings are left in her -- for Renais, for the King of Braves, for Dr. Mass, for how that went -- can remain unaddressed.