2023-01-25: A Meeting of Scions

• Log: 2023-01-25 A Meeting of Scions
• Cast: Shozo, Kaworu Nagisa
• Where: South Floodgate, Tsutsujidai
• OOC - IC Date: January 25, 0097 (2023)
• Summary: Along the riverside, two unusual minds meet.

---

<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.

The river has been unnaturally calm for hours, a sheet of glass reflecting the city of Tsutsujidai from below. All this time, the young boy has been moving -- usually walking, sometimes skipping, or running -- across it.

It is not until he stepped off of it and back onto the south floodgate that time seems to flow for the water once again, a torrential current gushing forth and cresting behind him briefly, before settling down. His first little trip done, the boy promptly plops down onto the concrete, sitting cross-legged.

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

        Once Tsutsujidai had opened back up, the plan had been to go from Orbit Base down to Tokyo-3. And that is still the plan. But after a conversation with Gridman and Rei over VERTEX, Kaworu feels the need--the desire?--to take one more look at the city before he returns to what is functionally his hometown. At the very least, Tokyo-3 has meant more to him than any other place he's lived.
        
        There's something new there when he returns, stepping off the shuttle from Orbit Base onto the PLANT. There are a lot of new things, admittedly, but this is... a different feeling. An unpleasant one, and of a worrying variety. His gaze turns towards the southern floodgate, and he walks over in that direction.
        
        By the time Shozo plops himself onto the concrete, Kaworu has been watching him for a minute or two. That of course includes his walking, skipping, and running on the still waters of the river. His gaze turns to one side as, physics restored, the water gushes outward before falling still again. Then he smiles politely down at the young boy with the curious pupils.
        
        "Hey," he greets him. "What brings you here?"

<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.

The boy stares at Kaworu for a moment, face neutral even as his cross-like pupils "dilated" to take in his new conversation partner. He seems to digest Kaworu's question for a moment, placid expression changing to a slightly quizzical one, before he wraps his hands around his big brown boots, lifting them up to show Kaworu without taking them off -- and rolling onto his back as a result.

"I used these," he chirps quietly, before rolling back onto his feet, odd blue jumpsuit still immaculate despite rolling around on the dirt and concrete. He takes a single step towards Kaworu.

"Who are you?"

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

        As Shozo stares at Kaworu, he'll take in his pale skin, silver-gray hair, and red eyes; he's dressed in a white button-up shirt that is, for some reason, pinstriped violet on the inside only. A scarf-like purple tie hangs loose from his neck, striped twice in green towards the end with a silver tie pin towards the middle. A silver chain hangs around his neck, though the rest of it can't be seen as it hangs underneath his shirt, while a stainless steel wristwatch bands around his left wrist. His right hand is tucked in the pocket of his black slacks, while his left hand holds a black suit jacket over his shoulder.
        
        From an outside, human perspective, it's kind of an odd choice, given how chilly it is today. It might even snow. But the cold never bothered him, anyway. Kaworu imagines the cold probably doesn't bother this child either. His polite smile evolves into a quiet but sincere chuckle as Shozo shows off his boots.
        
        "I see," he replies. He remains where he is as the youth stands and takes a step towards him, but his own gaze is assessing. This one feels... young. But there's something else...
        
        But for now, he has been asked a question in return. "I'm Kaworu. Kaworu Nagisa," he introduces himself, knowing that that is only his name--and only one of his names--and not who he is. "And you?"

<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.

The boy approaches with a bit more confidence now, eyes still looking straight into Kaworu's without a hint of malice in them, just the strange intensity of an unblinking child... Mostly.

"I chose Shozo," he says softly, parroting his earlier conversation. "Kaworu Nagisa... Interesting." His last word carries a shockingly different timbre to it -- the voice, perfectly replicated, of Alexis Kerib. In fact, everything he's said sounded... off. Almost patchwork. As if the boy was constructing his sentences with a soundboard, one syllable at a time.

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

        Kaworu certainly doesn't mind that unblinking intensity. He's very close with Rei Ayanami, after all. There's something about Shozo's bearing that reminds him of her, in fact, and it helps balance out the creeping discomfort of Shozo's actual presence.
        
        This balance is swiftly disrupted by Shozo's pitch-perfect imitation of Alexis Kerib.
        
        Kaworu's smile fades into neutrality. It's not so shocking. Someone with this kind of aura, who is spending his newfound time in Tsutsujidai, would surely attract his attention. But to imitate him so cleanly means that they must have at least had a conversation. And with someone like this... Alexis may prefer girls to boys, but who knows how he would have taken to someone so impressionable he's even patching his sentences together like a cut-and-paste letter?
        
        "Am I?" he replies. "I think you're much more interesting, Shozo. If I'm not mistaken, you only came here very recently, didn't you?" He considers his next words; then he adds, "Do you know where you were before?"

<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.

Shozo nods, smiling a bit. "A brand new entity, then," he says in Alexis's parroted voice. At Kaworu's second question, he blinks, and looks behind him. "I'm... Ah." He claps his hands behind him, smiling wider, and beams at Kaworu... before the world behind the young boy shatters.

Shards of sky fall away to reveal a ghastly sight of what Dante surely would have called Inferno. An endless dimension of red and greasy, unnatural neon colors, dripping and swirling like oil and water. Inhuman roars and screams echo endlessly as indistinct shapes shuffle in the miasma, turning towards this broken window before Shozo claps his hands again, the dimensional damage seeming to almost literally rewind to fix the horizon.

"There, I think!"

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

        Kaworu hums quietly and thoughtfully at Shozo once again parroting Alexis. He may be piecing his sentences together from things he has apparently heard others say, but he demonstrates understanding of what they mean regardless. It's more than interesting; it's downright fascinating.
        
        And then, of course, Shozo shatters a portion of the sky. Kaworu looks up at the horrible swirl of colors and sounds and shapes within. He doesn't flinch or even blink, but there is a muted surprise to him all the same. There seemed something amiss about Shozo, but he wasn't expecting this.
        
        But an instant later, and the dimensional damage is gone as if it it had never been. But it had been, and that is very important. "I see," he says, noting how Shozo says 'there, I think,' as if he isn't sure. Even if he hadn't come from there, it's clear he has a connection to that place. The source of his unpleasant presence, perhaps.
        
        But Kaworu knows well that children can't help where or from what they're born, so he smiles at Shozo anew. "Thank you for sharing that with me," he says. "But having seen it, I must caution you to take care in whom you show that in the future. I don't mind, but you may frighten the Repli-Compoids who live in this city with that. They've all been through a shock recently, and the general situation has only just started to improve the other day."
        
        The fact that Tsutsujidai was affixed to reality, and immediately afterwards this young one has appeared from somewhere between dimensions, is not lost on Kaworu. But he can't really say what the purpose of it, or him, is. It's certainly something--and someone--to keep an eye on.

<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.

Shozo's head instinctively tilts at a new term -- Repli-Compoid, but he nods at Kaworu's request like he has been given a very important job.

"Um... He feels the same, I think," he mumbles, pulling out the strange, boxy device from his pocket. "I don't... think he wants people to feel, um . . . <FearDeathPain>bad?" Reality seems to groan gently as the boy somehow attempts to pack multiple instances of intent into a single word, but perhaps the device is a bit more interesting, due to the emanations of Light that seems to be coming from it, a sharp contrast to the unsettling aura the boy himself possesses.

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

        On top of reminding him of Rei, there's quite a lot about Shozo that reminds him of Anti. It's an easy parallel to make, even if Kaworu didn't have the chance to meet Anti in person until he was at least a few months old, but he'd heard a lot of him from Akane. More to the point, he knows that Anti had only recently been born by the time he was tearing up Nouvelle Tokyo's train lines. Shozo... feels similar. But not quite the same.
        
        He looks down at the boxy device when Shozo pulls it out. The layers of intent communicate themselves quite clearly to him, and he hums thoughtfully again as he considers the device. That Light truly is a sharp contrast. And if it--he--is communicating with Shozo, if not in word than in intent, then...
        
        "He seems like a kind person, if so," he replies. "Who is he?" He considers Shozo with curiosity. "Your friend?"

<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.

Shozo blinks as if a new neuron had just fired for the first time.

"Friend?" he parrots in Kaworu's voice -- the first time he's heard the word, perhaps. "He is... Um..." He looks at Kaworu again, a slight pout on his face now. "He does what I want him to do. Is that... a friend?" Clearly he hasn't talked to Alexis that much, if that was still a question to him, but he seems to view the term as thoroughly alien. Perhaps it was, in that hellish dimension he seems to be connected to.

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

        That, too, is interesting. Kaworu had already observed that Shozo seems to immediately pick up on the meaning and perhaps even the nuance of the words he hears. Yet despite that, he does not know the meaning of the word 'friend.' Perhaps indeed that's the influence of that unpleasant space.
        
        "It can be. But it is not that alone," he relies. He smiles fondly, gaze going a little distant as he thinks of his own most beloved friend. "A friend is someone who is dear to your heart, and you dear to theirs. Someone with whom you share a powerful bond, whose company makes you happy and complete. When they are with you, you do not feel lonely. When they suffer, you seek to ease their pain, and when they rejoice, you share in their joy."
        
        Smile still warm, he focuses back on Shozo. "A friend may do what you want them to do, but you will also do what they want you to do. That is because your happiness is important to them, and their happiness is important to you." He pauses a beat to let this all sink in. "Do you understand?"

<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.

Shozo's pout turns into a slight frown as he looked down. There is clearly some kind of disconnect going on in his mind, as if he can see the various elements of the statement, of friendship, but can't quite put it all together.

"Mmm..." he mumbles, sitting down again. "I don't... I..." He looks up, his pupils glowing slightly. "I will... Maybe get it later." He put the device back in his pocket.

"You are... interesting," he repeats from before, this time in the voice that seemed to be "his" rather than Alexis's. He hops up and takes another step forward towards Kaworu, blinking. "You are..." He slowly turns his head from Kaworu, out into the skies of the PLANT, in the direction of the Moon.

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

        Kaworu's gaze is compassionate as Shozo visibly struggles with the concept of friendship, from his pout to his outright frown. Maybe he'll get it later, he says. "Friendship is a very, very wonderful thing," he tells him gently. "You'll understand when you come to experience it for yourself, I'm sure."
        
        Interesting, he says, and this time in his own cadence. Once again, he moves a little closer; once again, Kaworu does not move away. Shozo looks up and outwards, and Kaworu follows his gaze towards the Moon. The corners of his lips quirk up a little higher before settling into his usual crooked smile.
        
        "I am?" he prompts, looking back at Shozo.

<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.

Shozo slowly raises a finger, first at the sky, then up to Kaworu.

"You are... The First?" he mumbles, curious. "You're The First... But you want to be one of them. It's so bright... You want to be like him, for him. Who is him? Is that friendship?" Ordinarily the sparkling eyes of a child are adorable, but instead those glittering crosses... It was hard to deny that the shape didn't resemble the violent death of one of Kaworu's kind, no? All the same, there seemed to be no accusation, simply curiosity.

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

        Kaworu goes silent for a long moment.
        
        These are all true things. But he hasn't quite met anyone who would be able to discern them just after a few moments in his company. For a moment, his heart is in chaos, even if outwardly his biggest reaction is the fading of his smile and the slight widening of his eyes.
        
        But Shozo doesn't see all of it. Only enough to wonder, to ask more. And now, at last, Kaworu finds Shozo reminds him of himself.
        
        For him, that's very important.
        
        "You have a very fascinating way of seeing the world, don't you?" he muses, his heart settling. "Yes. I am The First. I am also The Last. I am the Alpha and the Omega--" and here he smiles in amusement of a joke that normally no one (save one) would possibly understand, "but not the Nova," he concludes, and maybe his sense of humor will get across to someone like this all the same.
        
        He's actually rather excited to see if it does.
        
        That aside, there is also a question that still needs answering. "Yes. He is my dearest friend. I would do anything for him," Kaworu replies, and there is an ocean of love there. "But even if we are of different origins, it's all right. We're already alike in our hearts."

<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.

Shozo reflexively smiles to mirror Kaworu's -- he doesn't have context, but as he talks about this "him," Shozo sees a change in him -- in the balance that defines him to Shozo's eyes.

"Is that feeling what friendship is?" he mumbles, trying to grasp the specific shade of unbalance that is him to Kaworu, eyes darting back to his pocket and the device within. He sits down again, looking up. "What about her? The one who feels... um..." he tries to gesticulate with his hands, clenching and making claws with his fingers to try and find a word he does not know. "This. To him. And you. You don't want to be like her."

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

        "Yes," Kaworu replies, certain and decisive. It's not just friendship, but it is nonetheless friendship, however more intense it is than the average Lilim friendship is. That might confuse Shozo for some time, but so it goes.
        
        And from there, he goes to 'her.' There's no question of who he means when he makes claws with his fingers. Kaworu chuckles. "I don't," he confirms. "I hate her."
        
        He states this so calmly, so matter-of-fact, and so without rancor, that maybe this will tip off Shozo that Kaworu's emotions are maybe not the same as those he's used to. Especially as his smile turns wistful. "...But she's dear to him. And she isn't as terrible as I once believed. But perhaps that's simply because she's had the chance to change. It's a complicated situation."
        
        He shrugs slightly, eyes shutting. "It's in her nature to complicate things--no matter how many pieces she's in."

<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.

"Hate..."

Shozo's eyes go a bit glassy as the word spills from his lips. For someone who is having what may well be his second-ever conversation, he seems to be gleaning a lot from Kaworu's discussion -- much more than he got from Alexis. All the same, perhaps Kaworu's un-Lilim emotional responses are good for Shozo's development, considering the change in the air as he digests the word slowly. After a moment, he looks back at Kaworu.

"Your balance is... complicated. Elegant." He slowly reaches out, hesitating gently as he stops short of touching the Angel's hand.

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

        Just as Shozo is learning a great deal from Kaworu, Kaworu is learning a great deal from Shozo... albeit in a different way. He watches him as he repeats that word, as his eyes go a little glassy, as the air around him changes. He considers it against the feel around him so far, and the feel from that shattered piece of sky earlier.
        
        For the time being, he keeps his thoughts to himself. Instead, his smile broadens as Shozo describes his balance as elegant. "Thank you," he says graciously. And when Shozo reaches out to him, he raises his hand palm-up to accept Shozo's. If Shozo opts to hold his hand, he'll hold it back; otherwise, he'll let him retreat as he wishes.
        
        "Do you have a safe place where you may rest during the night?" he wonders. "If you don't, there's a place I would like to take you. It's called Junk Shop Aya, and there are kind people there who will be good to you. Even if they don't have room for you there, I'm certain they will find room for you somewhere in this city."

<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.

Rather than immediately answer Kaworu, Shozo gently takes his hand and holds his palm to the sky.

"You have followed the same path so many times..." he mumbles, an uncharacteristic maturity slipping into his tone as he traces circles in Kaworu's palm with his fingertip. "The dance at different speeds, different steps, but always the same path, before being pulled back to position 1. Always for him. You have worn grooves, all in the hopes to give him a better path forward... Always with the hope that though you are the First, you need not be the Last... That perhaps one day, side by side, you can greet Tomorrow as... the Next."

He suddenly looks up at Kaworu, as if snapping out of a trance.

"Rest? I don't know what that is... But I can follow you!" There is a greater warmth to that smile now, as if in appreciation for allowing him to cross the distance between the two.

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

        Kaworu lets Shozo take his hand and hold it up to the sky; he lets him trace lines in his palm. It isn't often that he shows his palms to others, and Shozo seems almost to demonstrate perfectly why. But that's irrelevant, really. This is a power entirely Shozo's own. Even the strongest Newtype among the Lilim probably couldn't do what he's just done.
        
        It sends a little tingle washing down his skin to hear him, even. To have someone understand this about him so freely and naturally, at first meeting... It's frightening and thrilling in equal measure.
        
        "As the Next," he echoes softly. "Yes. That would be nice."
        
        He smiles back at Shozo as he snaps back to the present moment. "Rest is when you allow yourself to do nothing," he explains. "Lilim and Repli-Compoids alike are very fond of it. Come, then. Let's go, Shozo."
        
        And from there, it will be a casual stroll, perhaps hand-in-hand, until Kaworu finishes seeing the strange newborn boy to the Aya. He won't be able to stay long, but perhaps he can stay long enough to make sure Rikka or someone else is able to make sure he's taken care of.
        
        After all, Alexis Kerib is going to loathe him.