2022-04-26: Trouble Child
- Log: 2022-04-26: Trouble Child
- Cast: Akane Shinjo, Nidaime
- Where: Tsutsujidai - Railroad Tracks Near Sluice Gate
- OOC - IC Date: 0096-04-26
- Summary: Akane explains what just happened to Nidaime.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Finally. One more damn thing off the docket. Akane can, at long last, have some hope that she'll be able to return to a normal life. Sure, she still has to kill a Vessel of Light or two, but that's small potatoes compared to dealing with something omnicidal. She's gotten the ball rolling for her idiot hero friends, which is probably going to be enough from *her*, in her estimations.
... And yet, she doesn't feel super great about what she got. As a result, she's decided to stand at one of the pedestrian crossings over the railroad tracks and mope a bit.
She ascends the stairs, looking out toward the commercial district that she recently rebuilt; folding her arms in front of her, she leans forward and starts to get some good moping in. She did everyone a favor for once. It felt good to plan it. Everyone... mostly danced to her tune.
So why does she feel so bad...? Was she so bored that clearing something intellectually stimulating out of her queue just makes her feel bad?
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Nidaime doesn't feel so great about what AKane got either. She doesn't know what Akane got but the situation, well, perhaps it did work out in Renais's favor in the end but it still doesn't exactly FEEL right and Nidaime dwells in the realm of feeling more than the realm of true hard cold facts. It's literally how she's made. Music may be math but people tend to remember what it evokes rather than the precise structure even if Nidaime has an innate impressive grounding in both.
Akane hears some munching nearby, some behind her. It's noisy enough to take notice of even if it's not so noisy over the din of the pedestrant crossing. She's making anime girl noises as she eats like it's a prozd skit. That obviously.
But she does speak up eventually and asks, "Hi Akane o/~" in a singsongty tone. "Are you busy today?"
She has recently showered due to Rikka but the kaiju smell is already starting to creep back in.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Today, Akane's particularly attentive. She glances over as she's approached, since Nidaime's approach is... not quiet, and bears at least a little notice. She notices that Nidaime smells... less like garbage than she used to, at least, too; she doesn't *comment*, but it's at least a little interesting.
"Oh, hey," Akane says, reaching into the pocket of her hoodie and pulling out a juice box. She fumbles with the straw for a second, then gets it in; she remains leaning forward on the railing, going back to looking out toward the tracks, and beyond them, the water. Her lips wrap around the straw; Akane sips gently at it for a moment, eyes shutting for just a second.
"Nope," she answers, a moment later. "What's up?" Despite her posture, she sounds pretty happy -- playful, even.
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Nidaime's hair looks a little less greasy too but clearly this is something that was done once and not kept up with, as of yet.
"Heey." Nidaime says, wiggling back and forth on her feet. What's up? She isn't sure how to just dive into something like the matter of Renais. She sets the thought aside for the moment as she shoves bot her hands into her hoodie's pockets--
--and she asks, "It's good to see you again. Do you wanna go on a date with me?"
There's decent odds that Nidaime doesn't actually know what a date is even if she knows what the SHAPE of a date is.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
That's a question that -- flusters Akane a little bit. She's in the middle of a second sip at her tomato juice when she's asked; as a result, it goes down the wrong pipe a bit and she sputters.
Rubbing at her mouth a little bit, she starts, "I -- uh -- I think you might have the wrong idea of what a date is." It's rare that she's the one getting 'got' in this way -- usually she's the one inflicting these moments on others! "... But, uh... if you're just asking if we can hang out, sure. I'm not interested in a monster that looks like a middle schooler, though."
Akane straightens up a bit, and asks, "Why... do you want to hang out?" a little tentatively, looking the kaiju over.
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Nidaime says, "Yeah let's hang out!" Does she register what Akane is saying about dates? Probably depends if it's funny to make the same mistake later or not but Nidaime is pretty hard to read right now, she's smiling pretty openly. Having talked to Rikka, she has decided to presume Akane was moving prosocially and Alexis Kerib was just a dick until proven otherwise. She doesn't really know what Rikka was saying exactly but it sounded like Akane was trying(??) to help?? Well, of course, that's how Rikka sees it but the reality might be more complicated.
"Because hanging out is fun and I wanted to ask you some stuff. Is that okay?" Nidaime, a kaiju, generally doesn't feel the need to lie. Giant monsters are honest, that's part of the charm.
"Ehehhh...do I really look like a middle schooler?" Nidaime places both hands on her cheeks, clearly flattered by the remark.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Oh yeah, easily," Akane says, lips still around her straw, answering the question of whether Nidaime looks like a middle schooler first. "Honestly, it'd be younger if it weren't for your eyes..." She takes another long sip, lets out a breath, and...
... stretches out a bit, getting herself fully oriented. "Sure thing, though. Let's walk." She starts moving, though it's a slow thing; she was honestly trying to decompress. She doesn't mind being 'on' for Nidaime, though; a visit from a monster... usually gets her going a bit.
"What did you wanna ask?" she asks, glancing a little nervously from side to side. Nidaime is a little -- abrupt; Akane doesn't want to spook anyone with the range of conversation topics here.
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Nidaime walks along, humming along. She's pretty happy that she made it to middleschool. One day perhaps she can be a cool lady like Bunnie or Sayla! She's only a high school education away! Probably.
"Did you see me?" She asks. "Back when Renais got stabbed?" She swings her arms back and forth like she has true KID energy.
"I heard she's going to be okay, but I didn't understand, why did that fight have to happen? It sounded like you knew why it had to happen."
She turns her head to look back to Akane. "Were you trying to help her?"
She can't help but be curious about that. Perhaps God is not immune to altering their deific nature.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"I did," Akane says, with a nod. "You made yourself pretty hard to miss!" Akane chews at her lower lip a bit, trying to figure out what Nidaime is getting at -- oh, of course. Right. She had to explain this to Anti... she can explain it to the Second, too.
"Hold on," Akane says, guiding her toward a nearby bus stop. (The transit network links up with itself fairly neatly; it's not a long walk from a train overpass to a bus stop!) "Let's take a seat, okay? I'm gonna go over some kinda heavy stuff."
She brings her tomato juice back to her mouth; it's already about half gone, which means it's light enough that she can keep it from falling just by holding the straw in her mouth. This is because: she needs to rummage in her bag a bit. "So... how much do you know about the Oath Over Omega? Triple Zero? The Aura of Dawn?" A beat passes. She appends: "Those are all the same thing, just, different names, in case you've only heard the one."
She does not answer the question of whether she was trying to help her -- at least, not yet.
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Nidaime seems embarrassed. It's not quite a blush. In fact, she hasn't really blushed even when acting embarrassed. Putting on the affectation like clothes.. that describe how she's feeling but not quite getting it just right. It's not false, but there's some emulation going on.
"Sorry..." Nidaime says. "I didn't want to yell or get mad but I got mad and needed to yell."
This isn't the best apology ever as constructed but she does seem pretty embarrassed by that too! Is she embarrassed about being a kaiju? Or maybe she's just embarrassed at not being human.
"Okay!" She is easy to guide. She's the one who asked Akane on a date so it's only fair that she gets to decide where to 'hang'.
"I heard that it is something that makes you think the kindest thing to do to the world is to end it."
She does add, though, "That is a lot of names for one thing."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
The bus stop is a practical choice; Akane needs room to lay out the stuff in her bag. Some of it is relevant, of course... but a lot of it isn't. She eventually fishes out her notebook. ... This is the second such notebook she's constructed, actually. "Okay, here we go," Akane says, pulling out her notes.
"Yeah, that's more or less it. It's an... assertion," Akane starts. The word is getting more familiar on her tongue in this context, but it still doesn't sound right coming out of her mouth in-sentence. "It says that worlds are supposed to last however long and that people -- humans, aliens, whatever? Stuff that thinks? -- are a problem for that, so, gotta wipe 'em out!" (Laying it out at this level of specificity is why Akane needed to get her notes out.)
Glancing out toward Tsutsujidai, Akane says, simply, "I want my world to keep going forever. And... it was kind of a neat puzzle to figure out how to get everyone in place to fix it. We needed the King of Braves there, we needed enough people to fight Renais to actually take her down... kinda missed it on the needing more people to get the stuff out of her than just Guy, but, uh. Lesson learned!"
She sounds pretty nonchalant about that last part. "Alexis did such a good job at filling in the gaps... it'd suck pretty bad if Guy just up and died and we didn't even fix Renais, right? Apparently his spear can fix that kinda stuff. I didn't press him super hard on it." Vague gesture, shrug, audible shrug. "Outside stuff. His responsibility."
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Nidaime is openly skeptical of Alexis Kerib having prosocial aims but that doesn't mean he isn't capable of doing something prosocial in pursuit of his goals--right? It doesn't feel quite right with the stories she's heard but she shouldn't dismiss something just because it doesn't feel right.
She is more willing to trust Akane though despite ostensibly being the one in charge which is pretty weird if you think about it.
Akane wants her world to go on forever. Nidaime knows that's a bad idea, of course, but she can't deny that it's hard to come up with a logical reason as to why. Sure, you can SAY its unhealthy and she has to live life in the real world but have you seen the real world? It's pretty bad!
Nidaime looks down at the food wrapper in her hands. She crumples it up quietly.
She worries quietly that Alexis may have left a surprise in Renais but....It does make her feel better there was an actual purpose to the battle.
"What was it like..." She asks. "...Working with Team Gridman? Was it fun? You seem..."
She thinks it over. "...Conflicted."
She might as well have said that Akane seems human.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Well, I did learn a lot," Akane says. "I was most of the way there already, but I couldn't nail down whether it was them or someone else in those little mobile suits... but now I'm pretty sure I've got the full run of it." If Rikka's usually in the tank, then Utsumi's probably in the cannon-type... and then there's Gridman, of course.
Was it fun, though...? Akane chews on that. She's always more candid with kaiju, but telling Nidaime about her true feelings, knowing now that she's at least *adjacent* to their enemies, feels... "I'd kinda like it if they stopped going out like that," Akane murmurs. "Don't get me wrong! Rikka came in super clutch dealing with Renais's crap, and now Renais is out of my hair and she can just -- stay gone and stop coming here. I mean, I can read between the lines. The only reason she was hanging out here is because it was a lower murder priority for the Aura of Dawn. Now that's one less thing I gotta worry about!"
That's a little meandering and disorganized. "What I'm saying, though, is..." ... it's nice to see the three of them acting on their own? Stupid. Insane. This whole space exists to cater to her -- they should just do what she wants them to do, which is not take stupid risks. (... Anti takes stupid risks, too, she reflects.)
"... Mostly I'm saying it sucks that I'm gonna have to kill Hibiki for being a Vessel of Light, 'cuz this turned out okay."
She scoots the notebook toward Nidaime a little. It's... honestly remarkably organized notes on Triple Zero. "Take a look if you want," she thinks to add, trying to get away from that topic. She doesn't like any of its implications.
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Nidaime says, "What's a Vessel of Light? Is that a thing?"
Maybe it's a term for Hyper Space Agent? Nidaime doesn't know what else it could mean.
Nidaime doesn't really know that YUta being Gridman is not common knowledge. All she knows is that for some reason Gridman has decided to be a high schooler and 4 dudes in suits. It's a bit unorthodox, Nidaime thinks, but not outside of the realm of possibility.
Nidaime hasn't said why she isn't going to just tell Team Gridman Akane's deal. In fact, it's probably an interesting question as to why she hasn't! The answer is that NIdaime doesn't think it'd actually help anything. She may be 'enemy adjacent' but she understands there's a delicate balance going on here. Gridman will upset that balance by his svery nature, but rushing to a conclusion...
"You are very smart," Nidaime agrees. "I'm not as smart as you."
She doesn't seem to consider that self deprecation from the way she smiles about it but, well, she also is 'a middle schooler', it's probably less of a matter of pride at that age...
She's also not sure Akane successfully ejected Renais yet, just judging from the feelings she was sensing in the battle, crude and wild... Nevertheless.
If she knew what it was 'nice' seeing the three of them do... But she doesn't, so instead her eyes widen at the idea of Akane killing Hibiki. "That does sound like it would suck." Nidaime agrees, completely honestly. "It happens a lot out there."
She collects the offered notebook. "You have neat handwriting. You must do really well in the school! What's it like, the school? Rikka seems a little ambivalent about it, but I can't go because Rikka says I stink."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Taking a moment, Akane tries to reconstruct the category for Nidaime. She's not as good at it as Alexis. "A Vessel of Light... is something that sees someone hurting, hears it, and moves to fix it. Something that isn't human, but cares about humanity's pain."
Nidaime tells Akane she's smart, and Akane smirks. "Yeah, I'm pretty great." No need to dress it up.
The mention that 'it' happens a lot out there -- killing people for getting embroiled in things, presumably -- gets a shrug. "That's why this world's so good at moving on," Akane answers... and speaking of which, she moves toward the topic of school because it's a lot easier.
"School's okay. I'm in second year now... I made sure the classes stayed the same, though." That's not super typical -- Akane's thumb on the scale, in this situation. She doesn't want to separate from the classroom full of her friends. "It's easier in here. Not the lessons or anything, just... going."
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
NIdaime quirks her head at the definition. It is an intriguing definition not because it is simply the description of someone, anyone who would help another just because they are hurting but because it specifies that someone is 'not human'. If so, then yes--she supposes Gridman is a Vessel of Light.
....Isn't Nidaime also a Vessel of Light, by that definition? She supposes so. But she's also a kaiju, so that makes things weird. It doesn't feel like an inner conflict, like two sides warring, it just seems like...
Like a square peg before a larger round hole. She can fit inside, but it isn't quite...right, right?
She's been thinking about this a lot lately, too shy to talk to her dad about it yet. These feelings.
"I hope you don't have to kill him too."
She carefully puts the notes back together and offers it back to Akane. Good question if she learned anything from that.
"Are the lessons kind of boring when you have to repeat the same ones...?"
It's easier. "Yeah. You're probably right about that. It's easier for me in here too."
She swings her legs back and forth.
"I hope you don't have to bring that stuff in here.
"It's a pretty kind world, usually, isn't it?
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Oh! Not the same *subjects* -- I mean, it's just school. But like the people inside!" Akane realizes she didn't spell that out, and when it comes to someone who's never heard of school before, 'classes' is ambiguous.
She leaves the topic of more murders aside, in favor of her world. "... Yeah. No one ever hassles you for who you are, or anything. It's... nice here. That's why I'm trying so hard to get all these people who keep coming in to just... stop. It'd be screwed up if I managed to close things up again and it locked someone from outside in here, right?"
If there's a catch in that train of logic, Akane's too disengaged to process it.
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Nidaime wonders how to explain that part of why it's possible to move between worlds is because of what Akane has done to Tsutsujidai. It normally shouldn't be so malleable, so easy to move from one world to the other.
"It shouldn't be going like this," Nidaime agrees. "If too many people move between worlds too often, it could cause a lot of problems." It's an uncomfortable admission since if AKane did indeed find a way to seal herself in here with the rest of the repli-compoids, that WOULD in a sense solve the problem...
But it wouldn't be right for Akane, and that's why it's not an option. "Even if it's been nice seeing my friends again."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Oooh, so it's not just a problem for me," Akane says, catching *that* immediately. "Why don't you help me, then? If we beat Gridman, I bet things will go riiiiiiiight back to normal, just like we both want~." She thinks about that a little more seriously, though, and murmurs, "Then again, at that point I kinda wonder why you haven't been working with Alexis from the start, here..."
She remembers her juice box at this point, slurping at it. It's almost totally drained, now; she lets it dangle, essentially empty, from her lips. "Waiiiiit... you? Friends? What, like -- from outside? I picked up on the part where you showed up the other day, but I wasn't really expecting *that*."
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
"Mmhmm, we're not really at odds on that point. Dad and I wouldn't be doing much if it wasn't for people moving in and out so much. Dad's been trying to keep things stable," Nidaime says. "I don't fight, though, I'm still in middle school." She blinks once. "Well I'm not in middle school. Which is a shame, it's where you make friends."
Even if this is an artifice, it is not as if Nidaime can't see the appeal.
"I don't like Alexis," Nidaime says, smiling, which is also a completely honest statement. "He reminds me of a guy who hurt my dad. That's why I can't help get rid of Gridman, because he helped save my dad. I dodn't know why Gridman's being so weird and I haven't been able to find him."
Well that's both true and untrue but NIdaime doesn't know how to put it more accurately than that. In any event, Gridman doesn't seem to entirely remember her--
"Mmhmm." Nidaime says, holding up two fingers in a Peace-Sign. "I am the Second! Papa is the First."
This doesn't really answer Akane's question but Nidaime seems to THINK that it does. "This isn't Gridman's first..." First what? She can't say it's not his first job because she doesn't know it IS a job exactly, he might have just gotten lost. She knows hwat Gridman SHOULD be doing here but something seems wrong with him. But it's not his first whatever this is, that's for sure.
"He saved papa and papa and mama made me." Nidaime says. "My mom became music, though, so they looked after me since I'm still in middle school. But then I came back because kaiju from in here shouldn't be out there." Same principle for why everybody shouldn't be jumping in here really. "But since everybody is coming in and out, I can see them again. And when they resolve it, I will go back to not seeing them again until the next ... Gridman situation?"
She sounds a little uncertain on when she'd be allowed to leave again.
But by the same token she seems to understand that closing things up is the right thing to do. Regardless of her personal desires, it seems.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Akane listens, at first. She starts to lose interest around 'I don't like Alexis,' and gradually slides into irritation as things progress. Something may have touched a raw nerve, a bit. "Uh huh," Akane says, around the straw. She finally remembers to remove the straw and juice box from her general face zone, around now.
"So, what -- because of something that happened before you were even born, you feel like you owe Gridman something? He's not even your dad," Akane answers, coolly. "And -- you... rrrgh. You're kind of an idiot. You're trying to get this place fixed. I'm trying to get this place fixed. Alexis is trying to get this place fixed. Anti's trying to get this place fixed. It would be *so much easier* if you just -- did what you knew was supposed to happen."
She can feel a headache building behind her eyes. "Alexis even helped fix Renais because it'd make it easier on me to close things up -- and safer, too. He works so hard for me... you ought to show him a little more respect. Just because he *reminds* you of that guy doesn't mean he *is* that guy."
Akane shoves her notebook -- and the things she pulled out of her bag while unearthing it -- into her bag again, frustratedly. "You could always just leave and stay gone, if you wanna see your friends again," she adds, dully. "That's just one trip through the wall out of... jeez, *hundreds* now, apparently. Try being selfish for once. It's pretty great."
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Woop! She went too far. Akane had been so friendly and helpful that she overreached! Well, Nidaime thinks, she sort of expected things to go bad when she revealed herself. She could just be honest, that she thinks Akane needs help too--but that honestly feels like something Gridman would be better at handling.
Still, why doesn't she just leave once and stay gone? Perhaps Gridman can close the rift, or Akane. It'd just be the sacrifice of one life. Maybe two if you count Gridman. And she certainly can't bring up her interest in Anti. It's too soon!!
"I guess that's fair." Nidaime says. "The first time I saw him, he was stabbing someone so maybe I jumped to some conclusions. I guess I should see what exactly that stab did before making any decisions." Even if generally speaking if it walks like a duck talks like a duck and wears a duck's uniform...
"Will you stop killing people, Akane-sama, if i stay on the other side?"
She stands herself up. Even if Akane agrees to it, can she really just stay away and let Akane leave it all behind in here?
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
... Will *she* stop, if Nidaime leaves...? That's -- a hard question. "I mean, I can't seal the place up unless I kill a Vessel of Light or two, right? So I can't promise that." But she knows Nidaime knows about the others, too -- the reason there are kaiju...
"... Sorry, no deal. It's my world and I get to treat it however I want," Akane answers, with a shake of her head. "Hope you don't regret not taking the deal on this one later!" She shoulders her bag, standing up; she's not immediately sprinting away -- monsters usually don't get that treatment -- but she *does* seem like she's pretty sure this isn't going anywhere productive.
"Hope that helped you get what was going on," she says. "And... say hi to Rikka for me. Don't think I've forgotten about our deal to float Gridman the words 'psychic rupture' and see how he takes it, either, even if you've had a hard time catching up with him!"
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Nidaime stares. For most, it can be easy to forget Nidaime isn't human. Perhaps Akane is the opposite and Nidaime is hard to differentiate from kaiju. Nevertheless, Akane is right to imagine Nidaime knows of the others. The people she killed well before Gridman entered the picture. Perhaps it si because of those murders that Gridman had to come? It is those killings Nidaime is referring to. Even Gridman might be someone who can die for Akane should it come to it. But the proble mis, of course, is that what is good for Akane is not Tsutsujidai. Not in the long run. Akane may be the god of this world, but it is not actually hers. Even before Gridman it would find ways to conspire against her.
"That's too bad," Nidaime says. "If I regret it, will I be more like a person?"
It is not going anywhere productive. Maybe she should just let it be. Think of another angle another time but, unfortunately, allowing murders to happen... wlel, sure, Nidaime lets murders happen all the time. There's many murders out there happening as we speak.
But these are murders happening in her home, to her people. Not just the dying kaiju, but the dying repli-compoids. Her mother's people.
She bobs her head. "Thank you for the help, Akane-Sama. Thank you for creating this world."
Yes, she thinks, even if she can't see her outside friends again... there can still be the friends of this world. It is her home.
So she should still find ways to protect it. Even from God. Even for God. Whether God wants it or not.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Hmrm... that's kinda up to you, isn't it?" Akane reflects. "Kinda depends on why you regret it... but 'regret's' a pretty human emotion either way." One more thing to carve off of herself, Akane finds herself thinking in turn, mostly-unbidden.
"See you around, yeah?" Akane doesn't think anything else she has to say would be particularly constructive, here. "We'll see how things go from here..." It does gnaw at her, though -- everything the Second has said, coupled with the knowledge that 3G was able to keep the wall sealed temporarily...
... could she really win by *cooperating* with Gridman?
Something to chew on, at least. Akane fishes a second juice box out of her hoodie pockets, as she starts to retreat.