2022-08-08: Ghost Of You

• Log: 2022-08-08: Ghost Of You
• Cast: Tsugumi Saionji
• Where: Endra-class "Mithra"
• Date: U.C. 0096 08 08
• Summary: The Specter of Axis dances with a ghost.

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          Tsugumi Saionji woke up in her quarters. She waited a few seconds as she lay in bed, the sheets left folded down against the mattress, with her sleeping on top of them as she typically did, before slowly opening her eyes to slits. The cold around her was not just due to the lack of blankets or her lowered metabolism from being asleep, but also from the Nothingness next to her. Inhaling slowly through her nose, and out through her mouth, Tsugumi tried to muster the energy to get up, despite knowing that she needed to do so promptly. The Federation could attack at any moment, and Aiguille Delaz was depending on--No, that's not right.
          That conflict has been over for years now.
          It takes her several seconds of sorting through memories before she remembers which conflict she's taking part in now, and also remembers that the bed she had had delivered from Axis back when it was still called home is only occupied by one person, rather than the two who used to sleep in it. The Nothing next to her makes sense now. Several more cleansing breaths are needed before she can fight off the dread of the vision she sees virtually every morning, as though not looking will make it less real.
          'Today,' she thinks, 'I'm just not going to look.'
          Even as she thinks this, she knows she will. Struggling against her own body, Tsugumi hardens her will and pushes up into a sitting position, long black hair a dissheveled mess that Ken would have said was still beautiful--
          She clamps down on that thought hard, and looks towards her nightstand table as she tugs at the collar of the black t-shirt that used to belong to him. A bottle of wine and a coffee cup with the word 'His' printed on it. A black lipstick stain is on the rim, gradually fading with time. They are both magnetically locked inside of a case so that they don't break if the ship comes under attack. Before even standing up, her hand is opening the case, extracting the contents, and pouring herself a drink.

          After she has a cup of wine to wake up with, and another to get her on her feet, and another for the road, the raven-haired woman makes her way towards the mirror on the wall in the bathroom. Seeing her own pale face with dark rings around her eyes approaching out of the shadows in the mirror just makes her feel even more like some apparition of who she once was. With one hand, she leans on the counter to look at herself more closely, the other holding a half-full coffee cup of wine that she doesn't even remember pouring herself before she began her zombie-like trek across her quarters.
          They'll be expecting her on the bridge. She needs to get in the shower, get into her uniform, apply her makeup so no one can see how awful she looks, and figure out why her cup is empty again. She glares at the cup that she was idly sipping on while trying to get her plan for the day in order in her head, noting it's already in need of a refill. Tsugumi sighs in a long-suffering manner, and then does none of the things she just told herself she needed to do. Instead she wanders back to the nightstand.
          Salamedes said she was a Newtype. Whatever that even means. It's not her field of expertise, philosophically or scientifically. She just knows that they said it, and she has been noticing insights into enemy action that go a bit beyond her combat instincts. Not enough to call it mind-reading, but perhaps Intent-reading. However, the only Intent she has right now is to find out where all the wine went. The attempt to pour herself another cup ends in disappointment as nothing but a trickle comes out. She leans back her head, opens her mouth, and sticks out her tongue as she attempts to shake the last drops from inside, only to get herself in the eye.
          Well, fuck.
          "Going to need another bottle..." she mutters to herself as she goes shuffling to her bureau to get her clothes laid out. "There's a hole in this one."
          Once she has finished off the dregs of the bottle in Ken's cup--HER cup now, she reminds herself, she turns around to put her outfit down on the still neatly-made bed, and regrets the decision immediately.

          She made a terrible mistake. She'd been so distracted over her vanishing alcohol that she forgot about the Nothing in her bed and didn't take the time to brace herself mentally or emotionally for the sight of it. But there it was, dreadful as always, the void that ate away at her day by day, night by night, rain or shine.
          The empty spot on the other side of the bed where her partner used to sleep. It just looks like a normal patch of bed to most people, but to Tsugumi it is a gaping chasm: an abyss of despair that eats up anything she gives it and doesn't give anything back. Her hands tremble as she just stands there and stares at the Nothingness, as if to say, 'Oh, you're here today too, huh?' Her expression doesn't change, still the half-lidded eyes, the glowering-at-rest expression she carries most of the time, but internally she feels like she's just had her heart ripped out all over again. Just like every single morning when she acknowledges the Nothingness that has replaced half of her life, half of her soul.
          Eventually, it is the habit of duty, not inner strength, that allows her to break away to stick her cup back in its case unwashed, tossing the clothes onto the bed haphazardly regardless of if they get wrinkled or not, and staggers out into the living room instead of going to the bathroom to get cleaned up and presentable. She makes a beeline for her liquor cabinet, grabbing another bottle of wine, opening it up with a little bit of difficulty that has her cursing creatively under her breath, and then sticks the bottle straight to her mouth while her other hand slams the cabinet shut a bit harder than is strictly necessary.
          Her drunken stumbling through the living room makes her remember the first time she and Ken danced. She snorts a little bit at the memory of their mutual graceless movements, stomping on each other's feet more than the floor. Their feet were black and blue that night. But god damn it if it wasn't fun to just goof off like the children they were, soldiers or no. Tsugumi attempts to sort through her memories despite her inebriated haze. When was that? On Axis?
          No. It wasn't. But thinking about Axis reminds her of something else. A memory she kept locked up and that she has now tripped over, the same way she did the Nothingness. And also this footstool. More cursing follows. But it's not that which holds Tsugumi's attention, even if the foot pain is very reminiscent of the amateur dancing attempt. No, this was much later. She and Ken had actually gotten DANCING LESSONS, of all things, from someone on Axis who knew how. Garson, was it? They'd practiced a ballroom dance, over and over, despite having so many other things that would be a better use of their time, like fighting a war.
          'Or like captaining a ship.' a part of her mind says, reminding her that she is overdue to be on the bridge. Tsugumi scowls, looks at the bottle in her hand, and just glugs several more swallows from it instead of doing anything remotely responsible. Then, humming a certain tune, she puts herself into that stance, one arm raised as though her hand were grasping someone else's even though all she is grasping is a bottle, the other at the unseen figure's waist. Then she begins to dance. The routine she knows by heart. The dance she could perform blindfolded and twice as drunk as she is right now. As a matter of fact, her eyes are closed as she dances around the room, picturing something all together different.

          The memory of dancing leads to a memory of the event they were practicing for. A much younger Tsugumi Saionji, in a loose white gown, with a braided circlet of flowers on her head, and some light pink lipstick, standing in the enormous hangar bay on the asteroid Axis. Fairy lights were strung up on Mobile Suits and cargo containers (Tsugumi had no idea how they got them), with the rest of the Zeonic Remnants gathered around to celebrate a very special occasion. Her infant daughter was being held by Violetta Vasquez, a trusted friend, in the circle surrounding her and... And Ken. He was wearing a green sleeveless vest over a pinstripe shirt, with some ridiculous suspenders holding up brown slacks.
          She had teased him about his attire, but she still thought he was the most handsome, dashing prince she had ever seen. She was sure it showed on her face. Ken kept saying her eyes were sparkling, and she FELT like they were sparkling. It was like some electricity connected them, even when they weren't holding hands (even if NOT holding hands was something they weren't in the habit of, back then). His spikey hair, his squinty eyes that were so soft and kind when he opened them up. His goofy, love-struck smile when he looked at her. It was a smile she was sure she was wearing too.
          A small ceremony. Not a full wedding. Just a union of two young people in their mid-teens who were trying to forge a family from the fires of war. In this moment, fighting was forgotten, old hatreds put aside, preparations for combat left somewhere in the back of the hangar with no one overseeing them.
          Even Delaz himself was in attendance, and even that stoic man seemed to have a hint of a smile on his lips at the sight of the two of them.
          Tsugumi and Ken kissed, to uproarious cheers, whistling, and clapping. Somehow, the baby Suzu didn't start crying from the loud noise, just looking around wide-eyed and waving her floppy baby limbs in excitement.
          And then the music began to play.

          As she swayed around the dark living room, Tsugumi could practically feel Ken in her arms, as though he was physically there. She piroutted away from him, while still holding his hand, gave a half bow to match his, and then twirled back into his embrace. She wasn't going to open her eyes to check. She wasn't going to question if she was drunk, insane, or if this was some torturous Newtype phenomenon, because for just that moment, right then, she felt whole again like she hadn't in a decade. Perhaps, if she opened her eyes, she'd see some ghostly blue-white figure there, smiling at her with that big dumb goofy smile.
          But she didn't. She was too happy to let the illusion go quite yet.
          But like all things good in her life, it didn't last long.
          Tsugumi danced back into the liquor cabinet, losing her practiced grace in surprise, and stumbling to the side, smashing the bottle of wine on the table and slashing open her arm as she fell. As she hit her head on the table edge on the way down, her eyes shot open, and the pain exploded into her mind just as hard as the memories that came with it.

          Tsugumi, Ken, Garson Norad, Violetta Vasquez, Moses Briggan, and a dozen others, all in their respective Mobile Suits, all of them originally heading for Axis to get resupplied so that they could fight the Titans, and all of them under attack. The first shot came out of nowhere, a battleship mega particle gun disintegrating Garson in seconds. Then the Hizacks came swarming in, opening fire on them, and from there it was a chaotic hell of shouting orders, hearing screams for help, and watching her friends and allies disappear from her radar one by one, until there were only a few of them left.
          Tsugumi yelled out that she would cover their retreat, and to get out, but Ken argued with her, saying he wouldn't leave her, even as the rest of the Crescent survivors did as they were told, knowing that to stay was to die. Ken's unit was severely damaged, sparking all over, billowing plasma flames. Tsugumi turned her Zaku III towards Ken's, about to yell at him to stop trying to be a macho man and get out--
          Then beam fire lanced out again from the distant battleship they couldn't even see, and it swallowed him up in one burning moment. Half of Ken's unit was gone. Only the upper body, with one arm outstretched towards her, remained. As she stared in horror, her face twisting up in disbelief, knowing what would happen next and not wanting it to be real, the Hizacks tore Ken's Zaku apart with attacks, rattling it like it was a toy being shaken by a dog.
          Her partner's mobile suit exploded. She felt him die. And with him, half of her soul did too. While she screamed, over and over, shrieking disbelief, horror, and anger, unable to process the pain, she just kept staring at the spot where Ken was seconds ago, alive. She kept on until Vasquez dragged her away from the battle scene, still under fire.

          And then she was here, a drunken and slovenly mess of a woman, bleeding into her spilled wine, with the back of her head feeling like there was a spike driven through it, late for work on a military vessel, just sitting alone in the dark. With her eyes open, she could confirm what she knew in her heart.
          No. There was no ghost. Ken's luminous image wasn't standing there with his hand held out to her, a worried expression on his face, asking her if she was alright like a moron even though he could clearly see she wasn't alright.
          She should have gotten up off the floor, tended to her injury, gotten showered and dressed as quickly as she could to get the smell of booze off of her, and discretely asked an aide to attend to the mess in her quarters.
          But instead, with her head resting against the same piece of furniture that wounded her, she just lay there, half-sprawled on the floor, legs askew unlike the coordinated and graceful dancer she used to be. She just looked up at the shadowed ceiling with her dark-ringed eyes, and cried quietly.

          Just another morning in the life of Tsugumi Saionji.

5 Seconds of Summer - Ghost of You: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stdr6o0-HOM