2023-01-15: Li(a)minal Space

• Cast: Liam 7-020, Gai Kurenai, Shota Hebikura
• Where: Tsutsujidai - Liam's Garden
• Date: U.C. 0097 01 15
• Summary: Stretched so thin he might snap, Liam receives a visit from not just one but two alien strangers. Standing between darkness and light, he receives guidance and kindness in two different methodologies.

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<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

Shota Hebikura, Captain of STORAGE and one of the ranking NERV members, had little left to coordinate or commit to. The hour was late, and the common areas had been either cleared out or left the day. Night operations might be happening, elsewhere in the city, but the Garden still has someone working in it - far later than they (or anyone else) should be.

Footsteps fall between planter rows, heavy-soled boots with declarative strides. Purposeful, direct, the kind affected by military men. Usual, perhaps, for the occupant.

A safety performance for the man in the top-rolled-down grey jumpsuit and black shirt. Hebikura wants to be known as he approaches - and pauses after entering the garden from the park.

"Liam-" 'Riam' is almost where the captain goes, glottal, trying to sound out the name of the NERV Asset he hadn't interacted with before 'in person'. He had read the file, but...

At his stop, just within the garden, Hebikura smirks and blinks slowly. "-did someone post you here? The rest have gone back for the night. For an extended crisis, the best response is taking rests when you can." He recites with a dry humor.

"Is this what's really important?" A beat. "To you?"

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.

        The tomatoes' calcium dilemma has consumed a disproportionate amount of Liam's brainpower. Blossom-end rot--a disease Mrs. Sakai taught him about--isn't the end of a tomato crop, but it does result in a net loss of edible food, and that's unacceptable. A trip to the organic recycling center turned up a few sacks of gypsum, which Liam and the other gardeners added to the soil. Alouette helped with some programming to help the watering system dispense additional nutrients as necessary.

        Liam is doing an in-person inspection for the third time today. The tomatoes have made him wonder if any of the other crops have nutrient deficiencies, so he's been recording data from the sensors. Wireless transmission is less than reliable, or so he tells himself. This is necessary.

        When the Captain finds Liam, he's standing over one of the terminals, copying the readout's data onto a tablet by hand. He's wearing the same hoodie-jeans-boots outfit, and even if he weren't the only person here, he wouldn't be hard to pick out. Compared to the average resident of Tsutsujidai, he's huge.

        He startles as someone addresses him, whirls around, goes to attention instinctually. He recognizes that voice. "No, sir," Liam says. He was expecting that kind of fuss. Everyone's been fussing over him. But he wasn't expecting what Hebikura says next. "I," he says, and his mouth hangs open a moment. Liam /looks/ exhausted. He's been eating a little better, but his insomnia is getting worse and worse.

<Pose Tracker> Gai Kurenai has posed.

Light beaming through the darkness... a beacon to moths, crusaders, and majin alike, it seems. Gai Kurenai is also approaching the garden, curiosity piqued by the signs of human labour while everyone else rests. The power within him lets him stave off the needs of the human form for a time, but eventually he will need to rest in turn. For now, though - exploring the isolated Tsutsujidai while he can is crucial, before violence inevitably erupts and he has to choose where to stand to best leverage his power.

As he approaches the entrance, he recognises a familiar voice, and can't help but smile to himself - albeit with a roll of his eyes as he hears the way his old friend phrases the question.

Liam answers - or, more accurately, doesn't answer, and at this point Gai steps through the doorway, hands in his coat pockets. "Never were one for small talk, were you, 'Captain'?" There is... a tone to the way he says Hebikura's rank - a certain familiarity to it rather than strict hierarchical obeisance. He nods towards Liam, smiling gently.

<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

Moving with pausing purpose, Hebikura continues his plan of walking loud enough to be heard, speaking directly enough to be known, and waiting long enough for the startle to settle.

Knowing - expected. He knew this pattern so well. Familiar, the captain looks --

up, and instinctually looks for a series of dots to talk to, before finding tired eyes

--at the pausing pilot. 'It's fine.' The captain emphasizes silently with the light back of a whisper. He waves his hand neutrally, 'patting' the air at the hanging word of the exhausted soldier, and--

He reacts to the entrant with the whip-about of a stage-play villain on instinct and stored up 'next time I'll--!' energy from a hundred near misses, and holds it there, fist closed and outstretched. Opening up his hand, he turns it to face, palm out, at the garden-'intruding' Gai.

"The normal questions are such bores!" Complains the man with the rolled up captain bars on his jumpsuit's shoulders, hidden away since he had arrived at Tsutsujidai. His tone curls with dripping annoyance, 'you should know this', 'isn't it obvious'.

"And ineffective. If-" Captain Hebikura comes back on Liam, tone returned to the slackened-military-laces of the Defense Team captain while his arm drops. "-Liam needed this to be right to function, then there's no issue with currently-necessary upkeep. If someone had asked him to do this, without reason, that would have to be corrected. If this isn't necessary... Then why is he *doing* it?"

And back to that drippingly-annoyed tone as he swings back on Gai. "It's efficient. Kinder," A dark smirk. "-to make one cut than bludgeon it into place and submission."

A dark frown, mouth downturning tragically. "We are making a choice, every time. Moving towards a cry is acting. Pulling back after starting and hesitating after is, of course, *your* style."

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.

        "I," Liam says again, and this time he doesn't get the rest out because he sees someone else. Someone he recognizes from the Christmas concert. The man who tried to comfort him. He glances back and forth between Gai and Hebikura, and he is not too sleep-deprived to miss the tone Gai uses when he says 'Captain', or the way Hebikura reacts to Gai's sudden appearance.

        They know each other. Is that animosity? Rivalry? Affection? He /is/ too tired to try and tease it apart.

        "Calcium deficiency in the tomatoes. Correction in progress. Monitoring remainder of crops, of own volition, to detect nutritional deficiencies. Crop failure unacceptable." /That/ is the tone Liam took during those early kaiju fights, when he was falling back on the clipped, depersonalized cadence. BioNet didn't need him to be a person.

        "Attempted to sleep. Insomnia worsening. Standard sleep aids increasingly ineffective." It is the polar opposite of Hebikura's wordplay.

<Pose Tracker> Gai Kurenai has posed.

"On the other hand," Gai remarks in response to Hebikura's banter, "even a cut, on the wrong material, no matter how artfully made, can cause splinters and fractures so minute they're invisible - at first."

Liam clarifies his condition and Gai's brow furrows, lips pursing. "You can't sleep and the drugs aren't working," he repeats, stepping a little closer to the big young man. "I imagine you're under a lot of stress, trying to... persist."

He thinks about the man at the concert, and the way he held the decoration. "Who are you afraid for?"

<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

They know each other. Definitely.

"Own volition." Hebikura repeats, stepping back from Liam at the console and ambling around with slightly exaggerated steps. "I understand. So, this place can't... rest for a few hours?" The captain asks, curious--

--and souring, as Gai immediately insinuates in with the critiques of cutting.

Rolling his eyes, he straightens and crosses his arms, chuffing to raise his chin at the sunset wanderer. "So you're doubting my aim, then?" An eye back to Liam's direct, clear, unpoetic detail. "Or the material?"

Clicking his tongue, he backs off as Gai reaches out on understanding, head rolling away as he inspects a tomato plant behind. "They seem fine to me. Calcium deficiency. How long does that affect health?"

Another thoughtful moment, with Gai close and Juggler far, a light face in Gai and the reversed in the 'Captain' inspecting the subject plant causing all the fuss.

"From here, it seems like it could rest overnight."

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.

        Liam is used to people talking about him--his strengths, his frailties--like he's not even there. There's a story here he doesn't know, but more immediately, it calls back to all those times when he was an object, passive, because he couldn't escape, and couldn't fight back. The only way to survive was to stop fighting. There's an echo of that now, as he steps back from Hebikura, and keeps his eye on him as he walks around. "Calcium has been administered in the appropriate dose," Liam says. "I was... checking for further abnormalities." Which sounds even weaker the more he repeats it. And Hebikura's called him out on it. "What else," he says, "should I do?"

        Liam's darkened eyes track over to Gai, then. "Yes," he says. "It's... difficult. Have to be useful. But--"

        Who is he afraid for?

        Liam's breath hitches. Tears prickle at his eyes. "Everyone," he says. "I can't stop. I can't be a burden. I'm taking from them just by being here."

<Pose Tracker> Gai Kurenai has posed.

"The tomatoes have been properly cared for and will recover, then. Nature is pretty resilient given half a chance, and the likelihood of a sudden crop failure in a controlled environment like this is exceptionally slim." Gai smiles. "What's the next step, then, in your opinion, if you're providing care where it's needed?"

He occasionally glances to Hebikura as well, but it's in a curious way, as though he's trying to get on the same wavelength as the other man - a task that has oft been difficult for him, of course.

"You're afraid of taking up too much space. Of making others sacrifice for you." He thinks. "I've found that those who care about you will make whatever space you need for yourself, happily, because they value your presence. There's no... cost/benefit analysis for that, from a resource standpoint, but surviving in a situation like this needs more than cost/benefit. Everyone is having to live here, not just survive, and that means having to take up space, to have to burden others occasionally."

<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

Still facing the corrected tomato plant, Captain Hebikura lifts an immature on a hanging stem, fingers drawing up the bulb of growing red.

'What else, should I do?'
"Consider the garden." Hebikura suggests. "There are problems for the area, weather for the conditions, and even disease, and the plants can do--"

"Nothing. They are plants. But a-" Smirking. "Kind giant, can step between the rows and pull things away from the brink."

Hebikura lowers and leaves the plant, sweeping behind Gai with an almost-amused chuckle shared with the hero's back.

"The gardener can be a part of a garden."

'to have to burden others occasionally'

"Even giants rest."

The wavelength is, oddly, not that bad. Gai's felt Juggler at far worse stances. Even if it's mysterious... Is he helping?

Amused, chortling, practically giggling, Hebikura has to force himself back to composure - toggles deliberately. "Have you seen those enormous lizards NERV sends us out after? The ones on Earth sleep more than they're our problem. Why do plants in the garden deserve anything the gardener does not?"

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.

        "They're not natural," Liam says. "They're engineered. Look." Hebikura's holding up a tiny little fruit; it'll take a while to grow to full maturity, yet, but the fact they're fruiting this early is a sign that something more than selective breeding is at work. "Calcium shortage would've been a problem."

        There's something significant in Liam's phrasing, there.

        He falls silent for a moment, and listens to the other two. Hebikura is coming at it from one angle, and Gai's coming at it from another. "...Do you--" Liam catches himself. "--Did you work for NERV, sir?" he asks Gai. What was his name? Did he tell Liam his name?

        "I came from a place," the cyborg continues, "where being a burden meant you were hurt. Corrected. Even disappeared."

        Hebikura would know. There were internal reports the day Liam showed up on NERV's doorstep with an experimental machine and the details of a project that was eventually identified as a BioNet cell.

<Pose Tracker> Gai Kurenai has posed.

"Gai," the stranger reminds him gently, and, yes, he said his name at the concert. "It's fine, you had a lot on your mind."

He shakes his head at the question about NERV. "I'm a... free agent," he chooses eventually. "The Captain here and I share a long history, though." He shoots a grin over at Hebikura - he's seen the joke from a mile away, how could he not have?

The grin falls away as Liam describes where he came from. That kind of wickedness... He's seen more than enough of it, in one form or another, across the uncountable stars. "I see. It's as the Captain says, though - even giants need to rest, to allow the other giants to care for them in turn."

<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

Hebikura looks at Liam as he indicates the 'not natural' fruits of the garden. A worry - no, an understanding, a deep kind of empathy, holds the captain's eyes. He looks at the tomatoes, but his eyes cheat towards the augmented pilot.

"Civil Defense-" The 'official title' of the activities undertaken, at least, by STORAGE and the Brave Police that primarily involved stopping Robot Crime and Large Lizard activities in the various Federation action zones. Japan's NERV branch was just among the best funded - and the hardest worked.

"-takes a lot of volunteers and 'consultants' in for our work. Gai and I have. . ." Smirkingly, he leans back to grin at Gai. The timing is too clean to be anything but long relations. "Worked together for many years, yes." Quite a long history. "Feel free to believe in him, if it will help you." He adds, softly. It's free, isn't it? The burden is one Gai's asking for. That foolish weakness of his.

"Gai and I... served, were trained, in a mountainous region. Warriors. Only the worthiest, first to the top, would leave the planet with power." The captain's head falls, bangs dangling framingly. "That wasn't actually the way 'the world' worked. And it was the second to the top that left." A dark chortle follows out, rattling the undershirt-topped chest of the tomato-aligned officer. "With the first, of course."

Standing, Hebikura looks out over the garden area meaningfully. "Do you think you are in that place now, Liam?"
'and allow other giants to care for them in turn.' Gai offers.
"Are the tomatoes in current danger?" He asks, looking around. If they were, well, vigil was called for.

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.

        "Gai," Liam repeats. He leans forward and rests both hands on the molded concrete of the planter rim. "I'm scared." His voice is tiny. "I know it--doesn't make sense, but it's like I'm back in the camp. I lost my home, and before they took me, I was in that camp. I had no one. Or maybe it's the lab."

        Liam shifts, and looks back at Hebikura--seen from the front, he's behind one of Liam's shoulders, and Gai's behind the other. "I don't know where I am. Just... a place that hurts. They did all this to me, and I still can't be a weapon right. I can't be a /person/ right, either."

<Pose Tracker> Gai Kurenai has posed.

"That makes sense," Gai answers honestly. "You feel like you're stuck between those two extremes as much as you're stuck here." He folds his arms, thinking about how to approach this.

"... Does being a person mean not being a weapon any more? Does being a weapon mean never being a person?"

He steps back a little, to give Liam space as much to think about what he's about to say as to appear non-threatening. "A long time ago, I was faced with an impossible choice: To use power that would make me a rampaging monster, or allow another monster to run rampant and destroy a place I cared for and harm people I cared about; people who I would be at risk of harming myself if I used the power."

He turns to look at Liam. "Which would you have chosen?"

<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

Pulling back again, a step, because Gai is making a soft action-line that's making progress, Hebikura moves to the console, around Liam, showing brief interest in the results himself. He's not a horticulturalist - unless the garden computer has a friendly-enough UI that any old defense team captain can walk up and interact with it, he'll do little more than hunt and peck around the screen.

His head turns back, Liam blocking a lot of his vision and thus easy to reorient on.

"There is a lot of no-one here right now. The tomatoes had no-one, as well, did not ask for help, made no audible cry, and yet they received thoughtful aid."

Touching Liam on the arm, Hebikura's expression rises with a bit of dry amusement on the tongue. "Don't look only within yourself for confirmation. Allow yourself to move through space."

He awaits the answer to Gai's question, but he awaits with that hand placed. He's curious, as well, to see what Liam would 'choose'.

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.

        The screen's UI is simple and straightforward. It reports everything a garden monitor would need to know: local atmospheric and soil conditions, the status of the grow-lights and sprinklers, and the biochemical signatures of any common plant pathogens. (Whomever did the electronics did a fine job under pressure, since this is a solid, basic setup for a colony agricultural system.)

        "I don't know," Liam says, and he looks back at Gai, next. "It feels... like I can say that /others/ are people, even if they're weapons, but not me. /I'm/ the exception." Hebikura reaches out and touches him, and Liam tenses, just a little, beneath his hand. He doesn't pull away, but there's an uncomfortable standoff going on between his need to avoid upsetting others and his dislike of being touched.

        "No one helped me," Liam says, and something approaching anger rises in his voice. It's not aimed at the Captain. "Not until it was too late. Not until they did this--" His hands tighten around the concrete, and he has to /make/ himself stop; the fear of breaking something with his monstrous strength, ever a constant companion, reminds him it's there. But he's emoting.

        "...I don't know if I could make that choice," Liam says, after a few moments. "But... sometimes I feel like that. Like /I'm/ the biggest danger to everyone around me. It was... it was how Akane brought me here, the first time. The world couldn't hurt me here, and I couldn't hurt the world."

<Pose Tracker> Gai Kurenai has posed.

"... So instead you just hurt yourself." Gai sighs. "I was in that exact place you describe - feeling like a danger to everyone around me - when that choice came to me. The fear paralysed me; the only way to make any choice at all was to get angrier than I'd ever been before - so you can imagine what choice I made in the end."

His gaze wanders over to Hebikura. "Having that power was at the same time exhilarating and nauseating. Being able to cut loose, on something that couldn't, in the end, handle what I was doing to it - it was liberating. In the end, though, I was standing in a crater of violence of my own making, the monster's tail in my hands and its body smouldering at my feet. I rejected it."

"... So of course I needed it again - and this time the enemy I needed that power to fight had taken a friend prisoner within its own body." He doesn't feel as though he needs to explain what happened there.

"Despite everything, she survived and thanked me for saving her, even though..." He sighs. "Her faith in me is something I still treasure so deeply, even though I haven't seen her in a long time."

"It was luck I didn't feel I deserved, back then, but... she taught me - reminded me, maybe - that if you have tremendous power, a darkness in your heart like that, you're more likely to lose control of it if you treat it as separate from yourself and hold it at arm's length. You have to trust in your ability to wield it properly, and to do that..."

He sighs again. "It takes practice to accept it, but it is doable."

<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

Hebikura touches Liam, and finds tenseness there. He waits, and it does not get better.
With the same slow, deliberate motion through space, Hebikura withdraws his hand. Tucking the arm back into a cross, he leans around the panel and looks down.

"You can use this, know what all of it means. Even if it is simple, is that the needful knowledge of a blade? Is it the required activity of a missile?"

Chuffing in a 'puh!', disgusted, Hebikura meaningfully moves his eyes from Liam to Gai.

"A blade cuts. A missile explodes. People are more than that one thing. Unfortunately," Sarcastic, upturned, stabbing with words.

"You have been left a person, with a will of your own. Even if your hand has been closed around it by force, a blade is in your hand, and you are a..." Softer. "Liam. Who knew something careful and hidden about the danger faced by innocent and silent tomatoes. I agree with Gai."

Hebikura's eyebrows raise. "It takes practice," Chuckle. "But it is doable. You have time to grow."

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.

        The tension drains from Liam's body as Hebikura lets go. It doesn't completely disappear, but he manages a little smile of gratitude.

        He was not expecting Gai's hypothetical to come from experience. He lets go of the planter, turns, and looks back at the older man; despite the dark rings around them, his eyes are more attentive-looking than they were a few minutes ago. Even then, he finds himself replaying the last moments of subject Twenty-Eight's life: their last words, then the horrible noise, then the silence from their cockpit. "Who are you?" he asks, when Gai's finished. He regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth. Little oddities have been piling up throughout this conversation, and they seem to have hit a tipping point, but the question /still/ feels intrusive to ask. "I--I mean, /thank you/, you've been through so much--" Gai seems wholly and completely sincere. "But. I'm sorry, that was rude."

        Liam shakes his head. "Liam," he says, echoing what Hebikura just said, "means 'protector'. 'Resolve'. 'Guardian.' That was what my parents named me. They wouldn't let me use it, in the lab." His voice has turned thoughtful, now, as he looks between Hebikura and the tomatoes.

<Pose Tracker> Gai Kurenai has posed.

"If I said I was just a wanderer among the lights of the galaxy, you wouldn't believe me, would you?" Gai smiles. "I prefer to interact with humans on the same scale, though, so I'll just say that... I'm someone who's been given tremendous power and has resolved to use it to protect others, no matter where I end up in my travels... and that means accepting the possibility that my power can cause harm, and having to trust myself to use it properly, instead of holding back all the time. There are fights you can win with an arm tied behind your back... but if you need that second arm, having to metaphorically untie yourself can cause more problems than fighting with both arms free in the first place."

<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

"It's interesting, I think, that you thank him for 'having been through so much'." Hebikura observes, in a sort of curious humor. "He is sharing, with you, that he has an understanding. Liam." Another pause, the captain peppering his talking with name-and-stop.

Gai relates his wisdom. Hebikura paces around at the fringe and adds his personal, twisting sequitur.

"That you and Gai share a circumstance. Should we be thanking you for having made it this far, yourself?"

Hebikura considers that, struck by saying it out loud and then considering it afterwards, rare, an unbidden flash. His crossed arms half unfurl, thumb and forefinger couching at his chin. He leans in, and considers the garden planter. "Hmm." Then, well, the answer is obvious, dawning on his brow. His eyes raise, smiling in time with the sunset wanderer. "Yes."

Dropping the considering-held arm, Hebikura bats it into Gai's back, tagging in.

"Liam. Thank you, for making it this far. All the way to the tomatoes. Through all the things that are hard to tell us about now, but we might know the words for. For the time... it was a lot, wasn't it?"

He nods, looping his left arm around Gai's shoulders as he comes in alongside. "We'll take the watch tonight. Won't we."

Mmmm"Gai?" He plays with the name, turning his head to look at Gai with an arm about the leather jacketed man.

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.

        Recognition ignites in Liam's eyes. "Ultra...?" he says, and then he glances from Gai to Hebikura, as if drawing a connection. (And maybe salting one of the Captain's old wounds, however unintentionally.) Liam has had... thoughts about Ultras and Ultra-adjacent beings, lately, and not all of them are gentle and positive. He's still coming to grips with the fact that these superhuman protectors /exist/. They can't be everywhere at once. They might not have been here until quite recently, if what Gridman said was true for all of them.

        It's hard for him /not/ to be a little resentful. None of them answered his cries, and he cried a lot. But if they're like /him/...

        The thought is at once terrifying and enlightening.

        "I won't tell," Liam says, and he touches a finger to his lips, swearing himself to silence. He turns back to Hebikura. Should he have thanked Gai? Should anyone thank /him/? Hebikura gives him an answer. A moment passes, and then another, and then the flood comes. Tears spill down Liam's cheeks, and he holds himself, trying to steady out. "You're welcome," he says, to both of them. His voice is so tiny, and so sincere. "I--I'll head back to the Hermes. And... maybe tomorrow we can help propagate the cuttings." Did you know that sometimes, when you cut a plant in two, you can get two plants instead of one dead plant? The world is full of wonders.

<Pose Tracker> Gai Kurenai has posed.

Juggler nails it, and pride swells in Gai even as Liam's tears receive a warm smile. "Don't hold it in," he advises. "Let that feeling run its course, and get that rest you need." He's then voluntold to take watch, Hebikura's grip trapping him in place - and he looks at his old friend and grins back at him. "Sure. There's lots we need to talk about, anyway. Right, Hebi-san?"

<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

'Ultra-'
Hebikura clicks his tongue. "Gai." Beat. "And myself." Beat. "Gai and I are doing the watch." Hebikura corrects gently, though there's not even a whisper of harshness with the upwelling of tears.

Standing up and dropping the chummy act as he's named 'Hebi', he uselessly straightens his undershirt down around his waist like a uniform jumpsuit. He needs to process this without frowning, so toggling through personas spends the wanting to frown and snark energy -- while Liam gets it out.

Flicking back his hair, Hebikura nods with a sighing-breathy tone. "<Sure, sure.>" He drawls in Japanese. "We have *lots*" Ugh. "to talk about. So it is fine to rest, and get back to it tomorrow. Sleep in, if you like, then come for the cuttings after."

Cuttings earns a little smile. He gets the gist of it. When he cut a tree - only one new one sprouted up. But it still sprouted again.

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.

        Validation is a powerful thing. So is gentleness. Liam nods, and does as Gai says: he sits with the feeling, without questioning it. Soft little sobs escape him, one after another, in a display he would be ashamed of under other circumstances. But right now, he has permission to /feel/.

        "I will," Liam says. "Thank you." A small, gentle smile dawns on his face as he looks at Hebikura, and then Gai. The matter of /what/ they are can wait. They've already shown him /who/ they are.

        Liam walks over to the door, where a plain blue umbrella hangs from a makeshift rack. He picks it up, pops it open, and walks out into the pouring rain. It's a little less oppressive, at the moment, knowing he has somewhere warm and dry awaiting him.

<Pose Tracker> Gai Kurenai has posed.

Gai watches Liam go, straightening his own coat as he is released from the death grip. "Take care," he calls out as the young man who dwarfs them both leaves the building, before turning to face Hebikura. "... Hopefully that helps long term," he says of Liam, before growing a shade more serious. "Kaworu told me the name you're going by now," he says by way of explaining his knowledge. "I didn't want to blow your own cover... too hard, Juggler." He grins.

"So. I have the basic shape of things going on here and I've seen Kerib first-hand. I would... value your perspective on the situation... and on the world beyond this city, too."

<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

Hebikura didn't admit anything!
But... Hmm.
Returning to crossing his arms loosely, Hebikura watches Liam treat himself to an umbrella-cover of dry through the misery of the ambient weather, and smiles. "I don't have a ramune to 'pay you for talking sense into my subordinate'... Perhaps when this is over." Hebikura grunts, waiting fully until Liam is gone in the distance before turning to Gai Kurenai.

"This city . . . Is the bowl, to contain a cry for help. It was held down, below the surface, and held her tears in a pool, and then, was inverted, to trap her in her own misery and drown her. Ingenius."

Jugglus Juggler clicks his tongue, sliding a hand through his hair to grab a rough tousel and roll it between his fingers. "There's no tree to cut here. It is dirtier than our first outing as a pair. But it is not that much different."

Dropping the hand, disappointed-in-the-situation, Juggler pulls the corner of his mouth thin and snorts. "Outside of this bowl, the world's need is too big for one Ultraman, no matter how chosen. So they built robots while they waited. I'm leading one of the groups." A smirk lifts out of his enforced dry truthsaying.

"I wonder what Dyna would say. And..." His grin curls, as his eyes roll over to Gai. "You?"

<Pose Tracker> Gai Kurenai has posed.

"And the bowl was carved from the heart of the prisoner," Gai nods, eyes distant, listening to the world. "'He' does still love his grandstanding, no matter what name he wears now." He rolls his eyes, grinning. "He doesn't have your way with words, though."

"As for me..." He shrugs. "Travelling the limitless possibilities after our trip to Side Space. When I arrived here... I couldn't ignore this place, I slipped in just before it dropped out of realspace. For all Kerib tried to muffle it - maybe because he did - in a way, it's deafening. Maybe that was the point, given how pleased he was about Gridman's injury."

<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

Another of those thoughtless 'puh!'-s of emotive disbelief, little starts of sarcasm that go nowhere, and Juggler raises his shoulders.

"My way with words." He repeats, not expecting that kind of deference. The unexpected motion causing more confusion than an aggressive one.

"Well. If we're carrying the *bowl* analogy - when you cup your hand to your ear, you'll hear better, because the bowl doesn't just trap sound - it directs it."

Pacing, more performatively sour and a little anxious, the dour mood is finally allowed to chip at his stance. Since nobody (but Gai) is watching. "He has my old way with twisting points to prove his own. I knew you never got it - but I don't believe Alexis cares. He's following the pattern quite gleefully, and carving anyone who tries to take things off-course. The only way to interact with him..."

An honest, dark look shades Hebikura's face from his brow. "Was fit into his pattern. Luckily, this one can't hurt me-" He wants to end it there, but he can't "-so much-" because he failed some very important steps already "-any more." as an adult.

"I'll be counting on 'the power of Ultraman' to help me some more, don't worry. You won't lack for work even if I'm giving you a break."

<Pose Tracker> Gai Kurenai has posed.

Something is definitely bothering him - something other than Gai, for once. "... Fill me in when you're ready. Don't let it eat you up."

The distance between them, as ever, is both mere metres and yawning millennia, and yet... He strides towards Hebikura purposefully, and presents his hand.

A long time ago, he utterly misunderstood this gesture.

"I'll be counting on you too, then. Partner."

It's... not enough. Maybe there aren't ever going to be enough words to talk about it.

But it's a start.

<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

Something is bothering him.
First - the end of the world. Then, failures towards children.
It was painful to put off, but sometimes it was necessary.

Hebikura - Juggler - looks down at the hand offered. He hangs, chewing his bottom lip. His eyes narrow, and his hand first raises to rake through already-mussed hair.

Then, drawing in a breath, Juggler straightens, extends his own hand into Gai's grip, and pulls the other man in for an embrace. Close-to-ear, he has an intimate whisper.

"You kept me waiting for a while too, Gai. It's not going to fill the whole gap..." His throaty murmur lifts with a dry, nasal chuckle. "But it is... nice."

"Partners, then. On purpose, this time." He draws away and conversational, arms moving away.

"Something awful enough to unite us... and this time it's not my fault? How could we give up such a chance?"