2022-05-11: Struggle
- Cutscene: Struggle
- Cast: Anti
- Where: Tsutsujidai
- Date: 2022-05-11 (0096)
- Summary: Anti reflects on his actions during the concert.
The sluice gate hangs over the fields of Tsutsujidai like a guillotine; below, the water is calm. Climbing atop it is simple enough even for humans. The kaiju, Anti, has no trouble.
Not with this, anyway.
Akane was counting on him. She needed him to handle the Vessels of Light. But... the Second... she met her mother, again. Then her mother disappeared, she crumpled, and... Anti can't say he wasn't thinking. He was thinking very much about his defiance, his unwillingness to disrupt a concert which meant so much to Nidaime. Struggling to find some way to subvert his orders. Valuing Nidaime's happiness, over...
With a start, he looks down, to his hands. "... I'm trembling." He makes the observation at a distance, stern even with those widened eyes. It takes long moments more before he connects his tightened heart and troubled stomach: he is afraid.
His hand tightens, to a fist. It doesn't really help. Anti knows Akane will punish him; he knows, equally, he can't fail to return. He is... afraid of avoiding her, as well. The suspense after failure is never pleasant, and Anti wonders whether hesitating only gives Alexis more time to explain his failures to Akane.
He wonders: is it his fault? If he had never spoken with Nidaime, never shared his name with her... if he wasn't so intent on her, so fascinated with the way another humanoid kaiju moved through the world... if he didn't... hate the way she looked, fallen in on herself like so much old garbage. If not for all those things, Akane could have counted on him. Anti wants that more than anything.
But he's really done it, now. He wasn't just too weak to crush Gridman, this time. He defied Akane's orders... he let the Vessel of Light go unchallenged. He...
His chest hurts. Maybe it's the strange jelly drink that woman gave him, earlier. He folds his arms, tightly, and tells himself it helps.
"Akane..."
He's gone through so much pain, for her sake. Endured the outsiders' anger -- and her own. But, he... wanted that concert to go well... so Nidaime could be happy, too. He wanted that.
Did he want too much?
Liking music... maybe there's no point, for an existence arranged around defeating Vessels of Light.
He... should know his place.
He jumps off the sluice gate, lands, and walks away.