2023-06-20: Habitual Clause

• Cutscene: 2023-06-20: Habitual Clause
• Cast: Akane Shinjo
• Where: Tsutsujidai - 3G Division Ship Wadatsumi
• Date: 0097-06-20
• Summary: During a little bit of downtime while waiting to take Rikka home, Akane reviews 3G's files on herself and the other captives on the Garuda, as well as a few others. In the end, it's too much for her to handle on her own, and marks the worst she's felt since escaping.

---

The waiting during Rikka's treatments gets unbearable for Akane sometimes. Usually she takes the opportunity to catch up with Yamajii, but after she told Hinoki that she was only pinning him down then because she's starting to get anxious about being around adult men again...

... well, she got cautioned to quit doing that, because in the long term indulging that particular coping strategy would probably make it worse.

Instead, then, Akane sits down in the unused room that's gradually been converted bit by bit for use as her office, resolving to review a few pertinent documents. It's a fairly low-intensity activity, all told -- and something she can do herself. She can debrief afterward.

The temptation to see the truth of what Dr. Murasame thought of her hangs over her, after her conversation with Permanence. Was he grooming her for the lab, or just stringing her along? What was he planning to do with Rikka, Leina, and Alouette? Just what notes did he make when he was negotiating with her?

... it wouldn't be the first time that information about a Titans-era lab lingered within reach -- and Akane is still very much the girl she was in middle school, even if things have begun to change for her.

---

Akane gets to a line in Leina's file. She can read Murasame's shorthand -- she had to learn it fast on the Garuda. That's... a reference back to her own? She shifts her tablet in her lap.

Swipe, scroll.

Swipe to another document, scroll.

Swipe to another document, scroll.

Swipe back to her own, scroll.

Anger wells up in her -- but it's not long after that that Akane feels a warm sensation building in the back of her mouth, as another emotion pushes itself past that reflexive anger, claiming primacy of expression. She's so wrapped up in the anger at first that she doesn't realize, fully, what it is.

It's when she feels her head push reflexively forward a bit that it catches up with her. Abruptly pushing herself off her seat and shoving the tablet onto her desk, she fumbles under the desk for the garbage bin, opens her mouth, and lets everything out.

Sputtering and sniffling, she pulls her head back up.

For the first time since getting off the Garuda, she second-guesses her judgment with the stun baton.

(It doesn't last -- she remembers why she did it, and it's hard to feel like that was wrong on a treatment day. But it gnaws at her a little more, just the same.)

She keeps reading, in spite of it. There's that little itch at the back of her brain now, that tiny voice that says, 'You need to know this for your own safety,' that keeps shouting at her to finish all four profiles and the course of study document, at the very least. What if she needs it to help Leina later? What if she needs it to help Rikka now?

Swipe, scroll. Swipe. Crossreference again. Not throwing up this time. Each document sits at roughly the fifty percent mark overall, though there's been some scrolling up and down for appropriate cross-references. Things begin to click into place. Words and phrases Dr. Murasame had used, things he'd suggested about Rikka's long-term trajectory.

It starts to rain. This office has a viewport, and that viewport proves easy to stare out through.

---

An alarm goes off.

Akane startles -- then realizes it's her phone. Picking it up, she reviews the message. Ten minute warning...

... Rikka's hurt worse than Akane herself is. Akane can't let Rikka see her this weak, not now, not while Rikka's recovering herself...

> Takarada-san
> This is kind of an emergency but can you come pick Rikka up?
> I can ask Porc-Auto if you don't wanna drive it
> Work stuff came up

Swipe over. Next message.

> jsyk I have to go over some work intel w/Dr. Sai after your session
> Sorry Rikka. It's uh

Her face scrunches up. ... No, she can't lie to her, not anymore. That thought doesn't actually make her feel any better.

> ... Saw something screwed up in one of the files. need to debrief with someone
> Called your mom to pick you up
> I'll be back at Aya tonight
> ... not up to watching anything. next ep of W might be too weird-horny for me to handle and serena rewatch will probably wreck me tonight. Maybe video games or something?

Swipe over. Next message.

> Dr. Sai
> Need to talk bad.
> Reviewed Murasame files
> threw up at desk. no one else to talk to about it
> sry
> my office please. i, uh... don't really want to get up

---

Hinoki's going to be another half hour, she finds out, 15 minutes later. That's fine. She has nowhere else she can handle being right now, so...

Akane sits alone in an orange-lit room in Tsutsujidai with several shelves, a desk, two monitors, and a tablet, staring off at nothing and waiting for someone to interrupt her loneliness.

... habitual clause.