2023-04-20: Time For Crab

• Log: 2023-04-20: Time For Crab
• Cast: Akane Shinjo, Shota Hebikura
• Where: Tokyo-3 - NERV Medical Facility
• OOC - IC Date: 0097-04-20
• Summary: Akane catches up with the Illusion Demon, Jugglus Juggler, now that they're coworkers. They have a talk about what it is to

---

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

Akane doesn't really like the idea of having to be medically examined again after her extended ordeal with Zegga for an entirely different reason; hasn't she been worked up medically enough? Still, though -- the downside of community is that sometimes you have to do things you don't want to.

Besides -- she pushed for it. The latest Angel does require some care.

She's just left her extended examination with only a hint of irritation; she doesn't even like normal doctors' offices, so the extra-sterile NERV environment puts her a bit on edge. Standing outside the elevator, she impatiently pushes the button.

She impatiently pushes the button.

She impatiently pushes pushes pushes pushes pushes pushes pushes pushes pushes the button.

<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

Pochit.
The elevator's light cheerily turns on, a warm yellow. The surface is a bit irregular, tapped repeatedly by use, and each finger-stroke reveals new complexities of the sterile button.

And they don't make the elevator go faster. There isn't a number ahead, just the dark hum of cabling and tension. On boots - and the doctors wear soft soled boots for standing, so it must be military, security, or some administrator - comes the steady fall of feet.

Pochit-pochit-pochit-pochit-pochit-pochit-pochit!
Dok. Dok. Dok. Dok. D-

It is an exhale first, not an inhale, the briefest moment of surprise, and then from behind Akane Shinjo, a man's throat clears politely.

Behind her, S. HEBIKURA stands, hands loosely crossed behind his back. It's clear the man's name because of the large patch and starred wings over the stencil-stitched nametag. It's effortless to determine the man's station - a STORAGE command team member. Hair slicked back, his eyes drift and slide away from Akane, not precisely making eye contact, keeping her in a periphery.

But he can't help but ask. He can't help but open his mouth: "Going somewhere, miss?"

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

Akane barely notices the footfalls until they're about 20 feet away; she's too focused on the elevator. What she does notice, tickling at the edge of her perception, is a familiar sort of feeling; she can't quite place it, though. (Having little experience in the wider world means it's hard to tell when a specific sensation is a specific sensation, due to the small sample size.)

Pushing her black-brown hair aside, Akane -- a little taller than she used to be and wearing her natural hair color, but terribly recognizable just the same -- turns to face the administrator. ... The voice is familiar, too -- just a bit -- but that, too, doesn't quite click.

"Waiting for this elevator," Akane says, with faint irritation. "It's running extra slow today --" she pauses, hitching on the proper form of address, before settling on, "Hebikura-san?" Something about that teases at the part of her brain that adores puns.

She straightens up a bit, tense. "... Akane Shinjo," she adds, by way of introduction. "I'm 3G's new operator." Sufficiently true, at least.

<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

Hebikura - who smiles, eyes closing in a pleased expression - nods when his name is gotten correctly. "Mmhmm!" He adds, a soft 'uhu!' leaking in as he leans on the same wall as the button, set between two elevator doors. Neither open, both tasked elsewhere. Still whirring. Still moving, but not here.

"Shinjo... Akane-san." Hebikura repeats back, dutifully, nodding but having already taken such a casual approach that any formality in returning the understanding-of-greeting rubs against the grain. Arms lifting to cross before him, he gives Akane another once over from the front -

Discerning, with a familiar cant of the head, at a familiar angle of looking-down.

"You and Yuka must know each other. I'm the Captain of STORAGE - I'm surprised you're doing your tests here and not at Orbit Base."

He leans in, now genuinely interested. "Some specialist they've got locked in here, hmm? Miss?"

'Ojou-san', actually, long and lifting into the curled crook of his question mark in tone.

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

That 'uhu!' gets Akane to straighten up a bit. Why is his vibe so familiar? She's only been working here a couple months. She doesn't know everyone -- certainly she's never met Hebikura.

She nods at the mention of knowing Yuka, but touches on the latter point more. "Angel stuff," Akane answers. "They're worried people got exposed to something, I guess." She shrugs, saying, "I've been looked over tons of times since then but I guess they wanted to do some different stuff. Nothing that serious." Hebikura indicating a casual approach to the situation seems to ease her a little, though she's still a little evasive. Moreso than she would've been in Tsutsujidai; she can't quite look him in the eye. It gets a little worse at 'Ojou-san' -- and it's at that point that Akane takes a risk.

"... Look, can you call me something else?" she asks. "There's only a few people who call me that, and the memories aren't super great." Akane wonders, briefly, how much Hebikura knows, as she continues waiting oh-so-impatiently for the elevator that isn't coming.

<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

He keeps dropping hints, but maybe she'll never get it.
And maybe the elevator won't come, not ever. They'll have to take the stairs!

"Oh, they never examine me for as long as all of you. The children must be special. You, and Rei, Shinji and Kaworu, the other Children. If you're here, you must be important."

The captain lets that go with a completely casual, pleasant smile. All the bullshit of the talking heads, all the doctors with masks and eyewear on, all the deeply authoritarian, deeply lab-*object*, not lab-*subject*, and he carves through it like it's something to chuckle and shrug about at the water cooler.

Or, in this case, the elevator button, which blinks away. It remains just them, in the little hallway cut-out for the elevator access, secluded from main traffic and waiting.
        Waiting.
                Waiting.
                        The elevator will never arrive if something isn't said.

Hands coming up, Hebikura makes a long puff of breath, retreating across the divide between elevators A and B. His hands come up, still half-casual, as he nods along to Akane's demand.

"Of course, Operator Shinjo." His voice is formal, precise, chastened by the assertion of will for a moment. "Or would you prefer me to call you something else? I'm..." The hands drop. "Familiar with your 'file'. As an operation commander, as well."

Behind him, the elevator shocking dings, and a crowd of people in suits start to file out. Hebikura, grinning at Akane's level, slides his hand in the door and quirks an eyebrow. "Going... up-?" He asks, and indicates Akane to receive her name, or in the alternative, her refusal to enter an elevator with Shota Hebikura. But after all that impatient pressing! Will she wait for the next one? This is the secure level, they take so long.

Will she wait, defeated?
Or will she step forward, undaunted?

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

Akane lets Hebikura talk for a little while, taking note that he's less examined than the Children (and the way he approaches the word). She doesn't comment on it; she knows why... well, almost all of those people are weird. (Indeed, it makes her begin to wonder what NERV knows about Shinji Ikari that she doesn't, herself, know.)

It's 'Operator Shinjo' that gets her to frown a little. "Hey -- I never said you needed to be that formal. Jeez, you and Akamatsu both... Shinjo's fine. Honestly, even Akane's fine." The elevator dings before she says something else, though -- and then he asks her if she's going up.

"... Yeah," she agrees, sliding into the elevator without hesitation. Riding an elevator with someone else is fine.

It's at this point that she does say something, once they get in the elevator.

"The 'Hebi' in 'Hebikura,'" she starts, pulling out her phone. "Is that the 'hebi' you can also read 'Jya'?"

To a casual listener, it'd be an innocuous question -- a girl getting ready to put contact information on her phone. "Which would make it Jya-kura... now, maybe this is none of my business, but were you with the Titans before STORAGE by any chance?"

She doesn't look up from her phone. Present a high-specificity prompt or two. See how he reacts.

<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

Hebikura has the ease of using the proper term first and coincidentally it being the Capital term after. Rei, Kaworu, Shinji, and Akane all shared a trait: Youth. Some of the melancholy of their senses is shared, too, but the order's all different, so it doesn't count.

"Hmmmmmmm?" Hebikura turns as Akane avails herself to his elevator-holding him and steps past the questioning rise of the Captain's voice. He follows the rotation off of the door, hits the top floor on his way past and takes a position to Akane's side, and slightly offset to her back. Arms returning to clasped behind him, Hebikura pauses as he thinks of the answer to Akane's question, rolling back to really appreciate the soul of it. Savored, like a wine. "Akane," He immediately goes to the familiar as soon as he is allowed. "You have an ear for characters. I feel like you have me at a disadvantage - wouldn't you have to have read it to know that for sure?" He teases, murmuring, eyebrow raised as he looks down.

"Yes. The 'jya' is a, mm, correct way of *reading* it. But it's really saying the rough part out loud, isn't it?" Hebikura complains. "If you read it 'Jyakura', people without an ear for characters hear something else in the middle, hmm?"

The questions get more specific. It's just them in the elevator as the doors close, and the whirring passage gets on its way, rattling only slightly. Akane focuses her eyes on her phone screen. In the reflection, she can see the captain staring at her from the screen's bounce, watching her reaction as she listens to his.

"I had an administrative role with the Titans." Hebikura confirms concretely, factual. Then, the humor-tone returns: "I served in Space, and earned the ultimate resting place for people like me: A desk that moves weapons."

Casual, again, light, humor that he lays out so easily. He does so while staring, at Akane's hands and shoulders if she turns away the phone screen - or the reflection of her eyes if she does not. He, too, can draw a blade of words and flourish it. He quite enjoys it, in fact.

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

"I would! That's why I'm asking," Akane agrees, at the question of whether she'd need to read it to know that for sure. "And, yep! You'd definitely get a slide between 'ku' and 'gu.'" It's as much a confirmation as she's going to get or give, especially followed up with two more confirmations --

-- and then he offers that briefest flash of emerald eyes, and 'a desk that moves weapons.'

Moving to the edge of the elevator, Akane decides it's her turn to lean and look. "So this is where you've been hiding," she says, swapping from the polite young operator who knows she's here on sufferance to just a bit of the former God, tone a little playful and not quite a match for her more unassuming, dark-haired look. (But then, that, too, is something they have in common, now.)

"Obviously I can't really talk about the weird alien to NERV personnel pipeline." There's legitimate humor in it -- a parallel or two she finds funny.

Something clicks into place. "You showed up when that combined monster did, too. Just like you said."

It's at this point that she realizes she owes him something:

"Thanks."

<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

Obviously, she can't talk about the weird pipeline...
But it's there. Plain as a slick of dark hair, intense eyes, and a lopsided grin.

"I was not hiding." Hebikura protests, scoffing as she turns away, stepping around as Akane shifts to the edge, rotating to face the door and give her his face in profile. "I remember, quite clearly, my banishment. A final encounter. Are you saying that you were wrong?" Hebikura asks pointedly, patiently, despite his scoffing turn. Thanks hang in the air, and his question hangs back, and he can't hold it like that forever: so he yields first, without leaving the pressure on Akane for every single movement.

"The Dark Ring comes to the one most evil in the world. Of course it would find someone wretched - a girl needed saving. These things happen, when giants are involved." A small smirk lifts the corner of Hebikura's expression. "That combined monster still fell to the corrupted Gridman-" Griddoman. "-so it wasn't terribly much use for your health. But... Yes. It did come."

... Silence expands. Then?
"You're welcome." Hebikura murmurs, grimacing and looking away as he does, a lock of his bangs falling across his cheek.

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

Banished. Akane, too, knows how to grimace and look away. "... I mean, Tsutsujidai's not really my city anymore, so kinda? Maybe it never was. Guess you're right, though," she concedes, the grimace turning into a very awkward looking smile.

Silence passes in the elevator, for a time. Akane doesn't pierce it either, as she grapples with trying to say something. She has a lot of questions -- about his knowledge of Alexis, about his background, about what he really expected their relationship to be like...

... she can't quite find them. What she settles for, instead, proves to be a bit of a sidestep.

"I think if anyone didn't show up, whether they lost or not, things would've gone pretty bad." She listens to the slow, grinding whirr of the elevator. With a slightly exasperated sigh, Akane forces herself to concede a point, with a child's petulance:

"What's inside a kaiju matters," she mumbles.

<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

The silence passes for a while. The elevator comes to a false stop at a floor neither had requested, stopping and drawing the unwary to step out --

but there's nothing outside
and there's nobody there
the lights are off, except around the elevator.

The lights flicker once.
The elevator doors ping, and close slowly. Only when underway, does the captain continue.

"It may not have been yours..." Hebikura begins, standing a little straighter. His chin falls, expression tugging between grimace and grin. "But a Lord Monster has a certain royal right. From one to another, I thought I was banished. And you were busy, becoming."

Akane's petulant, muttered truth gets more than a funny, craning-necked look - Hebikura turning to take a position by the controls (so he can spam closed the next time some messed up NERV Terrible Vibes Floor arrives to have a breakout of their Freaky Stinklines but not find any horror victims or protagonists available to entrap in drama) and lean against them instead.

"If we had time, you would have heard that after you had tried rising into your full size. Now, you heard them in the other order. Tell me. How does it feel?"

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

Akane glances up at that hallway -- and then decides she's not getting off, with a small shiver. That was creepy -- no two ways about it. ... She's starting to understand how a monster engages the world, though.

A 'Lord Monster.' Before, she found it flattering; now it's a slightly more complex emotion. Sliding slightly away from the door, Akane takes the time to think about the follow-up question. It bears some serious thought.

"It's kinda weird," Akane answers, though it's a strain to reach the truth. "I guess I'm used to my body being all kinds of different stuff at this point, but you never get really used to it. The whole thing's..." Bringing up a free hand, she wobbles it before moving on.

Akane twigs to something -- a way Juggler constructs his statements, his questions. "Hm. When you say 'full size,' are we talking 31.5 meters?" GaoFighGar. "80 meters?" Zegga. "... 153 centimeters?" The 'her' that Juggler now sees -- still a couple inches taller than 'Akane Shinjo.'

She seems more confident again, as she says, "I bet this is where you tell me that's an open question on purpose."

<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

"Different." Hebikura confirms-halfways, choosing-differently his words. He didn't specifically confirm 'weird' at all. "If you continued to do one repeatedly, you would learn new techniques quickly, until you reached your natural peak. And you can be anything, and you can do anything, and you still choose to be yourself, can't get away from it at any size or shape."

His poetry grows more frantic, rapid, and then he stops, as the elevator stops again and the door threatens to open. Hebikura just spams the 'close' button, and the elevator returns to closed with a soft 'hey!' in the background.

Resuming, calmed, he smiles at Akane's deductions and nods. "And if I did that, then the Akane-san I know would say 'ah, how interesting, so that is my full size?' if I name any one, or grimace and chide my for my evasion if I ask open questions to respond to your pointed choice of three? No, I think this jester will choose a different answer:"

"Infinite. You were the whole world. Your feelings became the universe. That doesn't change because you let things de-escalate. But planets stay in orbit with each other, and cities meet only at borders. So..."

A nod. "A hundred and fifty three centimeters will do if you're not feeling infinity in an elevator, Akane."

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

"Yep. It's you no matter what, huh." Different sides, but still you. Akane's still sorting out how she feels about the inescapable 'you-ness' of 'you.' Some days it's more positive than others, but then, that's true of any kind of life.

Somehow, Hebikura still manages to catch Akane, even as she thinks she's caught him. It's a strange sensation -- and one she can laugh about, after a moment. "You've got a way with words," Akane muses. Infinite, yet 153 centimeters... That is a question. How does she feel about it?

"The answer's kinda the same about any size. All of 'em are weird!" There's a little relief in admitting it. "So yeah. You're still you no matter what, so... well, it's like you said, right? You change vessels when you need to. It doesn't change you. I guess that's the point."

She turns her gaze to the door. "I hate owing someone one, and I owe you probably a few more than one," she concedes, pivoting topics. "So now that we're coworkers... what are you really after? I don't mind helping."

<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

The elevator that goes to nowhere rises. The crack in the door flashes with the slow wake of shaft lights passing by. They rise, but neither really see it, shrouded in the dark metal of their vessel. Hebikura, amused at his own mild victory, crossed his arms behind his back, standing at a vague attention besides the controls, facing towards the closed threshold. A familiar face - the 'mentor amused at the growth of a pupil' expressive soft wistful smile under old eyes - and a gentle nasal sigh escapes the demon wearing a man's clothing and an alien wearing a soldier's uniform.

"You could trap the essence of the Illusion Demon in a card or coin, the same as any other with the sort of power that fits in a capsule." He admits, dropping his chin and smirking with closed eyes. "Swipe it in your phone, or stamp it in a press, and call my name, fondly, pleading. But you would only call one of my names. 'Juggler-san!'," He imitates Gai with a sweet venom, a fond hiss. "*Please*!" Indulgent, begging. "And then," Unfolding his hands and widening his stance, Hebikura strikes a Kabuki pose pantomiming a card and ring scan, before finally turning his face to smile once more at Akane. "And then I believe there would be some particles of light, and some slice of me as a moonrise or solar eclipse would shine down on his darkest hour. Perhaps the shoulders would have rivets, or--" Now chuckling. "Armor, at the shoulders and chin and forehead."

Righting with a casual sway of his arms and a laconic rise of his back into a stretching press of his palms into the small of his spine, Hebikura fails to acknowledge the question despite his great showing otherwise, the elvator's display screen finally showing floors with numbers as they exit secure layers of the organization and merely rise into the Top Secret. As the pair of doors open, Hebikura gives Akane a long look, a slow smirk, and a single wink. "Have you had lunch yet, A-ka-ne?"

ONE WALK TO OFF-BASE AND A CONVENIENT CUT TO A STREET WITH PIER SOUNDS LATER...

Walking up the slight incline of the path towards an unfamiliar intersection, a right at the unoccupied-to-downright-abandoned lit four-way, and around to a market with no humans at all, and an unoccupied food cart outside of an underground set of stairs to a basement bar. The bar is unmarked - the food cart is set for seafood, and iced, but completely clean. There is a black crab icon surrounded by a circle, and a symbol that isn't quite a kanji beneath that nevertheless declares 'CRAB'.

'CRAB' is a universal concept.

Jugglus Juggler wearing the uniform of a STORAGE captain and the hair of a world terrorist, pauses at empty cart, placing his hand on the bar and letting his fingers curl into a hold.

"Before we go inside. I'd..." Something different pauses Juggler. A furtive glance is cast to Akane and then returned to empty, reflective metal. "... like to ask you. Before I admit to anything."

Another nasal, self-deprecating chuff of a laugh follows. "Without telling you: What do you think my plan is?"

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

Akane has at least some understanding of Juggler's Ultraman -- the one known as Orb -- now. She can at least follow some of the particulars of Juggler's description of events -- especially as one who's both somewhat savvy to the genre that reflects him and has spent some time making 'things like cards or coins' herself, in this regard.

A little of the metaphor is lost on her, though it won't be lost on her forever.

"I could eat," Akane says, in a way that underlines all the times that she could not and did not. She straightens herself out a little bit, and --

A SMASH CUT OCCURS AND AKANE IS STILL IN THE SCENE AFTER THE SMASH CUT

Akane looks at the sign, and reflects, "You know, I think I saw this restaurant once, but when I went to look for it without Alexis and Knight there I couldn't find it..." It's only a passing thought, though -- she does not trace it too far. She looks down the stairs, then back to Jugglus Juggler, then to the empty cart. Her gaze rests on the cart for several long seconds, as she tries to sort out what signals she's gotten here.

Akane meets Juggler's gaze -- but she looks away, too. She's never had the greatest track record of meeting eyes. "Hmmm. Let me think a bit. I know you know Alexis, but you and Ultraman Orb were on the same side in Tsutsujidai," Akane reflects, lips pursing a bit. She has to work through this the long way.

"If you're tired of proving points, then you're probably not trying to settle things with Orb in a fight. So that's out. Which brings us back to the other part of it..."

Akane walks herself a little further forward -- puts herself in Juggler's gazeline again as she thinks and paces, though she doesn't look at him. "... You're looking for the kind of power that felt the best to wield." That's as far as she can walk it without asking a question.

So she does, in fact, ask a question.

"Did the power you used in Tsutsujidai," and here she's careful not to say 'my city,' "feel the best? 'cuz that's kinda as far as I can get without a yes or no on that one."

<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

Juggler, holding fast to the bar with steadying grip, awaits judgement of a kind. What was her impression of him? Would she piece together some image of his goal from some image of him? What parts would be left out? How dimly did she see him? How darkly did he present?

How was his performance? He was desperate for a kind review, but wouldn't admit to such. It mattered more, here, nowhere important except for being the spot that a Captain Shota Hebikura found himself responsible for - and wore the colors of a soldier that defended it.

And so, seeing more faces, what did she think? Akane Shinjo, the Lord Monster of Tsutsujidai.

"As long as that man is also Ultraman Orb, I doubt we will ever be settled." Juggler finds himself admitting, introspective. "And as long as I remain the Illusion Demon, I doubt Ultraman Dyna and I will ever be settled." Another chuff of laughter puffing out his cheeks and nose in the same push of air escapes him as dark deprecation.

"Feels the best--" He turns with that, grimacing in a complex way, wincing around the phrase like a noose around his mouth. His eyes turn to the sky.

Above, Akane can see it. The darkest star in the sky hangs red, barely visible, farther away than galaxies, yet shines over Jugglus Juggler all the same. It sizzles on the gaze, evident if she wants to look, and she knows the question it asks:

Is she the most wicked soul in the universe?

"The demon and the knight are reflections. Star-crossed, split by a great mountain of earth and ring of judgement. If I am the demon, and he the knight, what more is there to say?" There is everything. "What more is there to explain?" Hearts, pains, loves, lifetimes. "What is--" A hand comes up - his left - to cover his head. An old migrane flares up, and he winces from it as if hearing a terrible sound played just before him. "... What is the limit of their resolve? The ring, the rock, tests the knight and demon. Challenges them. And the knight must ever win."

"And the demon must ever lose." Juggler answers clearly, of a sort, and drops his hand. "And it is intoxicating, the Dark Ring. I thought to offer it to you - you could have held it, for a time. But it would have found its way to your garbage, or your tormentor. So instead..."

Juggler rises, and his hand comes off the railing. His cringing falls off him. The showman comes back, with only a single flaw. His smirk, knife-edge, still wavers with his eyes. "So I played a trick. A demon told with one phrase, a lie to a devil, and a truth to a girl." Zeppandon. "Wicked, hmm? And in that moment, I was a wicked demon. ... So I was defeated, as demons are. It matters what you accomplish before the destinies you spend as fuel come due, Akane." The firmness comes to him. At least this part is teachable. "Don't forget."

Hebikura marches his boots down the narrow stairs to the unmarked door, and opens it, where a bell within rings. "You have to learn about what the language of your feelings is, before you can follow them to your desires. And I, myself, want to become also someone given and bestowed a gift of power. Do you understand why, now?"

He enters, and allows Akane to find them both a table.

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

"A fight isn't the only way you can settle stuff," Akane counters, though she sees the point. As to Ultraman Dyna, she doesn't have the context for that one -- it takes her a second to wrap her head around it. That part is new data, and it's new data that she has to sort through as that star shines down on her.

... Right now, it's hard to answer the question that star asks of her. What would make her more or less wicked than any other lonely girl? It's not the type of power she can seize -- or wants to, right now. Indeed, it's power she fears, a bit.

Akane allows Juggler his pain -- just as he allowed her hers. Now that she's on the other side, it's hard to say she'd trade that pain for anything, if she lost what she gained because of it; so too must it be for Juggler. The pain is part and parcel with everything else, and must be taken in that context.

"... I think a world with demons (kaiju) and knights (heroes)," Akane reflects, slowly, turning Juggler's statement -- not metaphor, for it has never been one and never will be, over in her head. For a time, she cannot finish the sentence. Her gaze turns a little further from Juggler. "... well, flipping the board over would be the work of a few lifetimes, but I decided I don't want to live in a world like that anymore."

She agrees, after some deliberation, "I do," and there is a momentary ache in her -- as if she has begun to understand a kindness that this world has done her that few worlds could. A kindness that whatever world Juggler comes from could not do him -- or rather, did not grant him.

Akane, sure enough, finds a table. Settling in, she forces herself to fix the Illusion Demon with her gaze. It's a difficult thing, for her -- she's never dealt well with the intensity of emotion she sees in people's eyes.

"As long as we live in a world with those rules, though... I don't mind," she eventually says, "repaying my debts."

<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

Sitting at the table, Hebikura the man and Juggler the demon both, settle into the booth. It's a little hard to just be quiet at a table, but...

A man called Hebikura and a woman called Shinjo could sit there, and an aged gentleman in black pants and vest and a white collared shirt delivered the dishes they hadn't ordered but certainly needed - something savory, boiled from shell to soft, from sinister to sweet-brined. Bowls of fried crab tempura udon, with a whole black crab shell centerpiecing the bowls like a lid. Underneath, fried crab legs leech flavor over into the thick, soft noodles, and lightly salted broth with radish and green onion.

Juggler doesn't look up - he knows - but the grimace he almost wears behind every mustered expression pulls back from the pane of his soul, and his eyes flash a flat veiled green behind the smoke. It's easier, with hot food.

Something simple, something cared for, something served with pride. Even boiled, the shell remains defiantly black.

"A debt that cannot be paid off is just called a burden, and the burdens that come with something, obligations." The green-eyed demon-man offers from behind his simple veil of steam, clapping his hands before the bowl with an unsplit set of chopsticks held in his thumbs, pauses, and reaches across the table, hands together, to offer the 'blessed' chopsticks to Akane instead. "Uhu! But you've already seized the power offered to you to fill in the holes. You stayed hungry. You remembered lack, emptiness, even if it was painful. If you forget the price, it is the same as unpaid. The 'you' do not remember. So you become more, and not less. Try to remember to become more at the end, and not less."

Offering the chopsticks, Hebikura's steam-wrapped expression carries on with his unperformative melancholy. "The fusions that do not split apart, cleavings that remain when the fight ceases, can make us greater or lesser. Save yourself ten thousand years."

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

Everything is easier with hot food. It's an elemental truth. Akane looks down at the crab; it's not a terribly familiar food, all told. Shellfish has always been just out of reach, due to this or that circumstance. It takes Akane a bit of time to get her head around it.

She lets Hebikura speak. This is harder to internalize than some of his other lessons -- it is clearly the sort of lesson it takes some people ten thousand years to learn. She has had two; she does her best to treat herself kindly, though the fact that some of these lessons remain elusive even as she accepts the chopsticks does frustrate her.

"I've been trying -- to become that kind of person," Akane reflects. It's the last thing that really starts rattling around in her brain. She lazily wraps noodles around chopsticks. "I don't really know which parts of which fusions... 'remain,' anymore. I guess that's more interesting than something that just runs clean from one end to the other, but..." A little grimly, she concedes, "Sucks to be in the middle, though."

'Zegga,' 'GaoFighGar' -- even 'Akane Shinjo.' What remains of each of these -- and what new order lies on the other side of it all?

... heavy question for a seventeen year old. "I can keep that in mind, though. I definitely can't handle ten thousand years of this junk."

<Pose Tracker> Shota Hebikura has posed.

Jugglus Juggler, in the armor of a knight of darkness, the crescent moon Alien Spikey of a demon, hunches over his bowl of crab udon with an uncharacteristic creak, and slurps in the rise of smoke from under the shell impossibly. He is invoking a symmetry that she would not understand.

In a way, that he could only smile about within himself, it was redemptive, wasn't it?

Alexis had ten thousand years, and was not even close to having learned it. Zero's catchphrase had a sort of truth within it, a timeless quality. Some people would not change, even with ten thousand years. Others were simply too far behind to catch up. And when that statement was at its most boastful...

The remaining immaturity of the speaker was revealed. True of many kinds, much like Juggler's favorite words. "That kind of person... Is already commendable, Akane Shinjo."

A pause, and not a slurp. A fwoosh of breath, splitting the onsen-thick steam, and Hebikura is cooling a drooping-wet fried length of crab in a pair of chopsticks. A red highlight and a braid to his hair frame the side of his temple as he swooshes it out of the path of his neck's dip for noodles, and pauses just before the consummating moment. He has to issue a correction. A more-true name.

"Akane-chan," Soft, and almost fatherly. He performs, just a bit, for the Captain is also him. Then, properly indicated, he goes for the noodles and leaves the praise in the air.

"You could go on ten thousand years one miserable day at a time. It would pass in an instant. You would wait, and go on waiting, perhaps forever, for conditions to improve. Just one more day, for ten thousand years. Because you asked -- because you reached, Akane, you should receive something. A card or two can be grasped by anyone. Despite pain, you reached, so if no-one else will, then I will tell you. To save you the tears of ten thousand years of one-more-days."

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

'-chan' is an honorific that catches Akane legitimately off guard. Alexis, of course, favored her with -kun, and she addressed him yobisute; at the time she'd thought it familial, familiar, but at the same time...

... that's also the way a supervisor addresses a subordinate, and that, perhaps, may have been more to the purpose.

It gets her to smile, after a moment to be legitimately startled, through the heat of the crab. "... Juggler-sensei," Akane settles on, after a moment. To address a demon yobisute would raise old wounds; 'sensei,' by comparison, makes her perception of him quite clear. Someone to learn from.

A forever built out of individual days -- each intolerable, each filled with pointless waiting. Akane's already lived that kind of life before, and she doesn't much like it; now that that's been brought to the fore, she says, "Yeah, I think I'm through with one-more-days. I think I'd rather take more than just one or two cards."

She settles in to eat a little more fully, now -- to observe the ritual and appreciate the moment.

"Thanks for this," she adds, after a few bites. "I'll have to stop by here again... this is pretty good." It's a first -- strictly speaking, she has no idea where it stands in the grand field of crabs. But does it matter? It's the one in front of her, and she likes it.