2022-07-01: System

• Log: System
• Cast: Sousuke Sagara, Anti
• Where: Kamesan Park, Tsutsujidai
• Date: 2022-07-01
• Summary: Anti attacks Sousuke, and tells him one part of the truth. They finally learn each other's names.

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<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.

The mere act of ending up in Tsutsujidai is a strange one for Sousuke Sagara. His nature as a paranoid basket case means that the fall asleep on a train part of the process is rather hard for him to achieve. But, sometimes, one has business on the other side of the world wall.

So anyway six back-and-forth runs later, Sousuke Sagara is in Tsutsujidai. What monumental task will he perform, here in the very palm of the enemy?

We open on our hero lying prone in a bush with what is hhhhOPEFULLY an airsoft rifle on a tripod. He is wearing a green outfit of some kind - a uniform, actually his own uniform with the patches removed, not that anyone here would know that - to blend in better with the greenery. He is peering down the scope, taking slow, deep breaths.

The scope is pointed at a man dressed as some kind of kaiju that was definitely originally mostly made from a vivisected basketball.

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        The force isn't enough. Junius Four destroyed nothing Light; Yuta wasn't Gridman in any way which mattered. If he can't retrieve that boy, Akane might be involved. They are watching.

        Pressure.

        Itching, under the skin -- it comes and goes. Yes, the palm of the enemy... his are covered with white gloves, of course.

        It's here. He's here. Anti hasn't stopped moving; he just hasn't achieved forward movement. Here, in Kamesan Park, his sunset gaze catches a bush which doesn't belong.

        His eyes narrow. The profile of the green... no. That's a human.

        That human, and he has a weapon.

        Instantly the threat attitude inside Anti churns; from his sleeve or himself or thin air he draws a circular saw, and springs to close -- an unfair measure of distance between them, really. Landing not far from Sousuke (but not, one might note, directly in arms' reach), Anti holds his weapon in front of him defensively, rather than pressing the assault with immediacy. His fingers twitch, a little too tightly, against the handle.

        This is obviously the correct way to approach this problem, and he'll definitely have enough time to collect his thoughts and ask just what Sousuke is playing at. Wait, hang on -- what's the opposite of that statement?

<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.

Sousuke is, of course, confident in his total camouflage. He didn't have a full ghillie suit available - transporting his own inconspicuously to Tsutsujidai would've been all but impossible, and for some reason the local area doesn't seem to have the sorts of civilian resources he'd expect. So, there are flaws. Nonetheless, the target should never detect him at this range. All he has to do is monitor carefully and ensure no harm comes to passers by. Once the target leaves the area, he'll have a short window to act.

Is what he's thinking to himself when he hears the nearly-silent sound of grass bending beneath human feet.

The next second is instinct. He surges from his prone position to roll to his back, pulling from his waistband his trusty sidearm. Foolish! His machine pistol's in his bag, out of reach!

Still, he finds himself staring down his ironsight at....that young boy...Who has a circular saw.

His eyes harden and he and he pulls the trigger, the gun roaring once in a noise that has probably never been heard in Tsutsujidai before. Fortunately, Kaname insists he only use rubber bullets, on account of all the murders he would do otherwise.

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        Bang--!!

        Sousuke's aim is true, and if he were aiming at a normal middle-school boy, that boy would be flat on the ground. But Anti leaps straight upwards in flat defiance of the concept, instead, fifteen feet in the air --

        (Elsewhere in the park, someone mutters about cars backfiring, and doesn't bother to look up. The people of Tsutsujidai are tragically incurious.)

        -- and comes down, all in a rush, hands and feet both to the ground. The circular saw rips up the grass and throws it back in his face; Anti sneezes and grimaces, as he hauls himself standing again. "What are you playing at?!" He yells, and the energy in his voice is much more easily matched to the voice of a certain kaiju...

        ... which Sousuke has never fought? Really? Not once? Wow.

        Anti is a very fast young man, but when he charges forward and lashes his circular saw, the best word to describe it is 'predictable'. He doesn't bother hiding any of his motions. Which means that it may well be obvious that Anti isn't trying to hit Sousuke centre-mass, as much as a circular saw to the chest is a decisive way to win any argument.

<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.

Eyes widen. He knew, on some level - too much about Anti made too little sense - but Sousuke wasn't, quite, expecting such physicality so effortlessly.

Well, 'effortlessly.' Anti proceeds to friendly-fire himself with turf.

Sousuke does not recognize the ferocious aggression he hasn't actually heard before. Maybe he's heard tell of that strange, angry Kaiju with the speed and the lasers, from his occasional talks with the Gridman team, but he has no way to connect those two dots. So instead he just has a weird middle schooler with a FLIPPIN' CIRCULAR SAW coming at him. Where'd he even get one of those!? Last time Sousuke saw him he was scavenging trout from trash cans!

'What are you playing at,' Anti asked, and it's only through the blazing time of adrenaline Sousuke remotely has time to consider it. "It's hardly playing!"

The speed of ANti's assault means Sousuke is well off balance, still attempting to rise when Anti comes for him again. He can tell the cut isn't coming for his heart, but that doesn't mean he can take it lightly. Up close against a weapon like that, the best thing to do is...!

Sousuke fires, one, two rounds at the ground, trying to force Anti to change his footing and approach enough that can't quite make that hit. THAT gives Sousuke time to raise his gun up and shoot at a tree...which knocks loose Sousuke's bag.

Sousuke runs for it and dives over the tree's roots for, you know, some reason, catching it mid-fall. He tears it open quickly. "What I'm doing is my mission!"

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        Being fair: Anti wasn't expecting Sousuke to bear arms, either, as much as it makes perfect sense in the now.

        (Part of him wonders, distantly, why Sousuke pulled out a second gun when he was already aiming a gun. That one doesn't quite add up. Questions for later.)

        Bang, bang -- Anti has to spring to the side to avoid those bullets, which he doesn't quite realise are rubber, because all the guns he's ever encountered have been much more serious. Also, attached to giant robots, but this is not about that.

        "Why are you--?!" Anti tries to interrogate why Sousuke turns around to attack the tree next, only for him to realise he was going for his bag. Anti quietly files away a new method for retrieving bags from trees, but, again: he has other things to worry about in the here and now.

        Because Sousuke says it's his mission, and Anti snaps, with an anger tinted with betrayal: "You're working against us?! Answer me, damn you!"

        Unfortunately, Anti is regularly in the business of shooting himself in his own foot, because right after he demands an answer from Sousuke he just bodily throws himself at him saw-first again.

        Hey, how is that thing whirring so fast without being plugged in, anyway? Are batteries really that powerful?!

<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.

Sousuke will happily teach this lesson, probably.

SHOOTING your bag will usually not work, but Sousuke Sagara is someone who pushes things to the cutting edge by knowing precisely what he's working with. So, abusing his bullets being less likely to rip right through. As for what he was going for...

Anti comes at him.

And Sousuke whips out and expands a police stun baton, electricity crackling along its length. He swings it up and sparks clash between that and the whirring saw blade!! Sousuke grits his teeth, already feeling his knees buckling from the force of Anti's superior strength, but he must....hold on...!!

"I saw someone suspicious!!" Sousuke hisses out. "So I was investigating!" Who's us??

Wait.

"Who's 'us'!?"

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        Crackle! Clash! Anti goes "rrrRRRRGH," with a grit-teeth grimace, because all the stunning electricity of that baton is feeding right through the circular saw and making all his hair stand up on end. He has superior strength, certainly -- but creatures like him still hate being overloaded with electricity.

        (Not unlike every other creature of Earth, really.)

        But, Sousuke was investigating --

        And --

        Eyes widening, Anti springs back, dropping his circular saw into -- nothing? He might have put it back into his sleeve, except that his sleeves definitely aren't big enough to obscure an entire circular saw. Tragically, it's too late; Sousuke has already seen someone much more suspicious, in Anti.

        His hair sparks with residual charge. He reaches up to swat it down, only for his electrified scarf to decide to get in on the action and rise up to attach to his bangs. Anti growls to himself as he struggles with his clothing, and eventually manages to get himself to something approaching dignity.

        Which is to say: he can't see the other end of his scarf slapped on the backside of his head.

        "Hmrh..." Anti frowns, folding his arms. He is trying to communicate that he isn't going to attack Sousuke. He is doing his best. "... you really didn't know? Tch... so I can't just tell you to stay out of it now, can I." ... he does regret that. He jumped to conclusions...

<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.

Sousuke manages to hold Anti off long enough that the mighty middleschooler backs off without sawing his arm off. He can feel his heart in his ears but after a few moments of stillness, his jaw unclenches. He doesn't put the weapon away at first, watching every move Anti makes for long seconds, warily. That....was very dangerous. Where'd his weapon go? It's just gone? Sousuke's familiar with sleight of hand and concealable weapons, but -- no, actually, looking for it in this moment is probably even more dangerous than just accepting that it's not where he can see it. Remember it exists and proceed.

Anti's appearance might be comical - perhaps more than Sousuke who, quite mysteriously, just looks like he's just had an extremely dangerous fight, a bit dirty, sweating and breathing heavy.

Didn't know. Well. "...One of my tasks is to keep an eye on this place for abnormalities related to kaiju," he says, simply. Explaining everything is...tricky, partly because Sousuke actually doesn't know all that much, but. "I was simply observing for that." Like, he was totally gonna point a gun at that guy later, but that's all part of the job.

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        It's very mysterious. Can anyone explain this brain-puzzler? Surely not.

        "Observing with a weapon." Anti is sceptical, scowling critically at the other boy. "If you found abnormalities, you were going to kill them, weren't you."

        Which is -- the sort of logic leap which says a lot about Anti, perhaps.

        His gloved hands tighten, against the fabric of his dress shirt. "If you've come to do that, I'll kill you," he promises, pressure coming down through his throat from his heart, and given the threat he just posed -- it's probably a credible threat.

        So why is it one he seems so reluctant to make?

<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.

"I did find one," Sousuke says. He's flustered now and quite unable to keep that cool of his - the calm gone for a bubbling something in his stomach. "I was going to investigate it." ... "And terminate it, if it posed a threat."

What would have ACTUALLY happened is Kaname would have come up the road, harisen smacked Sousuke into a wall for harrassing the poor costumed barker for that hobby shop, and then they would get coffee and she would make him buy her an apology cake. Despite this being incredibly predictable, he still doesn't know that to say it.

And then, Anti threatens to kill him. He could. That's a very credible threat.

And the best way to put an enemy off is to make them talk. "Why would you want to stop me?" he demands.

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        Humans don't want to die. If Anti tells Sousuke he'll kill him, Sousuke will leave. If Sousuke leaves, he won't be involved. If Sousuke isn't involved...

        Something like that is probably running through Anti's head, when he makes that sort of callous statement.

        But Sousuke asks why he wants to stop him, instead, and Anti's scowl deepens. Deliberately, he moves his gaze to the side, focusing on a nearby tree instead. It's a statement. So is this: "..."

        His lips part, and nothing comes out. He wants to stop him because he doesn't want Akane to die, of course. But if he told Sousuke about her -- Akane would be in danger.

        "... self-preservation," he settles on, instead.

        "You found me. I'm the kaiju, Anti. I'm the one." As if it's just him, even though he asked about us, not a few moments prior. "These people aren't involved... so scram! If I ever see you in Tsutsujidai again, I really will crush you!" Anti's voice raises, glaring at some space to the left of Sousuke as he makes a declaration which, for all the threat behind it, comes out a little thin.

        He's lying, of course. He has no interest in killing humans. But what choice does he have? He doesn't think Sousuke will understand any other language.

<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.

Humans don't want to die. But Anti is missing a step: Humans have been very carefully running the razor's edge between what will kill them and what will save them for as long as there's been humans to do it. They're very good at it.

Self-preservation? Anti reveals himself, his nature. 'The kaiju'? Singular? Sousuke does read the documents; he's able to quickly infer what one enemy has appeared several times. But that's not the only thing happening. Maybe Sousuke once would have fought Anti to the death without a heartbeat's hesitation, here and now. But...

...he has a mission to complete.

"...and the one you have to kill is Gridman," Sousuke says simply, making the jump for Anti to confirm. He...does not appear to be going anywhere.

Though he does collapse his baton. "I see."

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        Anti isn't human; he can't possibly understand what drives humanity. Can he?

        Those hidden markings on his hands may depend on it.

        "That's right," Anti confirms, and in the confirmation may well underline just how desperate his posturing is. ... they've talked about this before, after all.

        Sousuke isn't going anywhere, and Anti's grip tightens, on his arms. There's a scrap of dark grey, exposed between the edge of his glove and his sleeve.

        "This is none of your business." Anti echoes what he's been told, the lessons written on him. "You don't belong here. And I'm a vicious kaiju... so there's no one here you need to help. Just go. Just go!" Anti insists, a shade louder, still not looking directly at Sousuke.

        (Because eye contact is something which prohibits movement. Things can only leave and enter when unobserved. He's letting him go.)

        He -- winces, strangely, and perhaps it's because of the way his fingers tighten in. "I'm running out of options... you people really don't understand that."

<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.

He thinks back to what he and Anti have talked about.

'Us.'

...'She.'

'Ask me.'

Sousuke tips his head up just a little. Does he say it....

"...I do not know much about helping people," Sousuke says, thoughtfully, suddenly, seemingly off track. "But on the occasions I get to...I feel satisfaction." What is he saying. He honestly barely knows. He thinks of the look on the face of that girl in the REA wasteland, hollowed out by drugs and unable to decide if she wanted to live or die.

She had asked for his name, as he sedated her.

"...Sagara," he says, finally. "My name is Sousuke Sagara."

He straightens up. And once you give your name, you give your affiliation, right? "I work for an organization that has come here to support Gridman and his allies. To save the people here from being attacked by kaiju."

He tips his head just a moment. "And protect them from 'her', I think."

He watches Anti a moment more. "...you might have more options than you think," he says, and steps back.

Away from the landmine at his feet, just in case Anti lunge again. His battlefield sense is telling him he's REALLY pushing his luck, here.

"I hope we meet again, Anti."

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        "You've got it all wrong," Anti mutters, as his fingers tighten again.

        "She's the one who needs protecting."

        Sousuke doesn't know much about helping people; Anti doesn't know much about being helped. Part of him wants to ask, because if Anti could trust anyone, a boy just like him might be one of the clearest options.

        He wants to. If he can't do this alone --

        "Nnh," Anti grunts, his grip shifting all a sudden to his upper arms. The gloves shift again; those DG Cells are a lighter grey, as they wake up underneath.

        "Sousuke Sagara... don't come back," he hisses, between grit teeth. "The more people come here... the more targets... it's a system. It's... created... we're..."

        He breathes heavily, between his sharp, sharp teeth, laboured, pained; it's as much a battle to finish his sentence as they one they just had. "... trapped."

        Anti's eyes scrunch up, and he yells, shoulders hunching: "Get out! Get out, now!" He's angry, but --

        If he's saying something like that --

        Is he just wishing he'd do what Anti and Akane can't?