2022-10-14: An Oath Sworn Against Despair
- Log: 2022-10-14: An Oath Sworn Against Despair
- Cast: Sayla Mass, Guy Shishioh
- Where: Villa Mass, AEU Spain
- OOC - IC Date: October 14, 0096
- Summary: Sayla Mass is falling apart. The King of Braves tries to hold her together.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
Villa Mass is active lately. There's signs of movers and people coming in. and there is a sense that the house is a bit more occupied than usual.
There's also signs that the lifts and ramps are back in regular use, compared to the last time Guy was here. (They're never out of order, but...)
Sayla is in the bar area, her arm in a cast and a sling still. She's not drinking, which is good. But she's doing something arguably worse. There are photo albums arrayed on the bar, pulled from storage- they had to get Leina's chair out, and some extra furniture and it just kind of happened. (It did not just kind of happen.)
Right now, she's staring at the photo of the surviving crew at Belfast. Ryu didn't even make it that far. They were so young, so scared, but that was when they were committed. They were going to space, to stop Zeon. That had been Sayla's plan from the start, the second she knew it was Casval at Side 7. But the rest of them...
Every year, there were more of those people in the pictures than in the world. That wasn't supposed to happen this early in her life.
<Pose Tracker> Guy Shishioh has posed.
Guy Shishioh has been working through an emotional journey of his own - a deep and abiding worry for his friends, guilt for his failure to protect them, anxiety over their fate...much of this alleviated by an illuminating discussion with Akane Shinjo herself. It's inevitable he'd pursue those closest to him first - Alouette, the girl he trusted his safety to in a way more fundamental than anyone else still alive; Renais, his gruff but troubled cousin, even more adrift than he; and by their absence, the now-wounded twin GGGs, all occupying premier spaces in the King of Braves' thoughts.
But it did mean he'd left someone with their own new pain unattended a little too long.
Guy's GGG boots thunk against the hardwood, coming up on Sayla with a worried curl to his face. He struggles with how to begin, and decides that, as always with GGG, the solution is to attack the monster directly.
"It's true, huh?" he says. "Koji told me. He's back?"
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
Sayla's response is surprise- as though she hadn't sensed Guy coming. Because she hadn't. Her current forced openness is causing her difficulties. Which means that even Guy's minimal connection to the Limpid Network can tell Sayla is doing poorly. Not that he needs it for that.
Sayla nods, grimly. "...and I guess Sayaka or Tetsuya told Koji, because the federation are hiding everything." She turns to face the Evoluder. She's been crying, it's clear. "... I never thought I'd be so miserable to know he survived."
She starts to stand up, to be good hostess and offer Guy a drink, but ends up just leaning against the bar. Physically, she's tired. Emotionally? It's a wonder she's standing up at all.
<Pose Tracker> Guy Shishioh has posed.
The waves of intention and thought that composes the Limpid Channel isn't easily decoded, not with the way Guy's body and spirit are currently built, but...well, some things come through clear.
"Actually, he said he hadn't heard from them," Guy says. "I assume he's got his own sources." LiSA, probably. Handy girl. He tries to keep his face firm even at the sight of a face streaked with tears.
This is a pain he knows.
He holds up a hand - dismissing the need to stand silently. He thinks about offering support, but for now he settles for that support being firmness of presence. "...I know it tastes like ash," he says, with a slightly bitter smile. 'We'll get them out' has been a mantra, and as bold and confident as he can be in that, they both know how much it can feel like a platitude, too. "But if it's really him, and it's really Triple Zero...you know I'll fight like hell to get that stuff out of him, Sayla. We don't need to rely on Alexis Kerib anymore. It won't be like Renais."
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
That also surprises Sayla, but when Guy stops her standing, she slumps back into the bar seat. "It's really him. I felt him. It was like- It was almost like it felt before he die- before the Axis Shock." She looks down at the albums again. A photo taken when she officially earned her doctorate, just the two of them. She looked happy then, happy in a way she hasn't been in... All the time Guy has known her, probably.
"He... He wasn't saying anything. But I could feel... something. He was putting the words 'It all went wrong' in my head. He was trying to kill us but it felt like it was the kindest, gentlest thing he could think of doing. Like euthanising us..." She's trying, and failing to keep it together. "I know... if we can stop him, you and Mamoru can purify him... but you didn't see that fight. He put us down like we were nothing. Even Great Mazinger was like it was made of tissue paper... And between Banagher losing control and that Mobile Armor... we never stood a chance."
he slump gets worse. "...And he almost killed Leina. He would have if I hadn't gotten in the way. I think the only reason he retreated was... Because of what... who it reminded him of." Sayla's well aware of the moment. Had this been what was going through Lalah's head? It's here Sayla starts to shake. Trying not to cry- in front of the King of Braves of all people. She fails.
"...How, Guy? How do you stand it? How do you cope with it, when... How do you handle knowing- seeing- Mikoto like this?"
<Pose Tracker> Guy Shishioh has posed.
Guy steps closer. Be a rock. When things are difficult, work together to save everybody. That's also in the GGG charter. His eyes cast over the photos. Has he *ever* seen her that happy? Admittedly Sayla was a bit of a distant presence back in the Primeval War - more of a connection through Karaba, not the way he shared battlefields with Kamille or the Kakapo Squadron. They weren't tremendously close. The small miracles of courage, they can be there for each other now.
He remembers Renais, making herself cackle at a wonderfully terrible joke. He decides he wants to see Sayla smile that way someday, freed again from all these ghosts. A tremendous challenge, but Guy is never one to shy away from setting incredible goals.
'It all went wrong' makes his weight shift, uneasy, feet twisting against the hardwood. The discomfort that passes through her at the thought of Amuro on a quest of euthanasia...
"A Conqueror King," Guy murmurs. "It's what Shigeru dubbed the leaders of the Ruin Apostles, full of Triple Zero's full power. King J-Der, and now Amuro, too." And Genesic Galeon, Guy doesn't voice. "Alright."
He'll need that intel, he thinks, his mind spinning on a tactical level. He *must* know what that machine could do. If the Federation's covering it up...he'll talk to Gendo. He's at the root of NERV. If anyone can get past a coverup operation it'll be him. GGG Blue's intel team isn't bad, but he doubts they could penetrate a concerted coverup.
Leina...Guy doesn't quite know what Sayla's remembering, only that it brings her incredible pain. He finally reaches out, "Sayla," he says, lightly, aiming to put his hand on her shoulder.
It stops short. That question runs through him like a spear, thorns of it running through his every nerve and vein.
He remembers the last time he saw Mikoto, that sad, adoring smile on her face as she promised him they'd meet again. On the battlefield.
His head tips down.
"I remember who she really is," he says, a sad, distant smile on his face. "I remember that she's still the woman I love, even like this. She doesn't want to let a single soul hurt more than they have to. She'd never stand for it. Hyuuma, Goldy, they're probably off saying stuff that'd turn your blood cold. They're all about getting the job done. But Mikoto'd never let them. I know it."
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
'Conquerer King', is it.... She... simply can't take in the tactics right now. She knows she should. She knows it. His voice trying to comfort her, trying to help her, cuts through, only to look up to see how hard her question stung. She feels bad but...
Guy Shishioh is maybe one of two people on the Earth Sphere who can understand what she's going through. Remember who she really is, huh. "...That's the problem. The Amuro I was going to propose to wasn't the Amuro I left. Wasn't the Amuro I fought with. I'm sure it wasn't the Amuro who stopped Axis." A slump. "Isn't the Amuro in these."
She is running out of slumping to do. "Maybe if my heart was as strong as yours, I could see a way. I know what I felt from Renais compared to who she is now. But..." Tears start to flow. "If we can't save him, I have to lose him again. I don't know if I can manage it. I wish he hadn't come back... I didn't need this possibility of hope dangled in front of me. I was... I'd..." For some reason, she can't lie to Guy's face right now. She can't say she'd moved on.
She can't say she was happy.
<Pose Tracker> Guy Shishioh has posed.
It's some small mercy that Guy has had to limp along with this hole in his heart long enough that he knows how to work with it. There's nights it feels like --
No. Not now. His foot twists against the hardwood, banishing that agony into the earth. When his gaze lifts up, his sad but firm smile is back in place. "But he was still someone you cared about. Someone you trusted. I know it's...complicated," Guy says, because complicated relationships mostly happen around him rather than to him, "but that's what's worth believing in."
'If my heart was as strong as yours,' she says, and Guy wants to reject the thought that it isn't. But the words don't quite come out in time. He settles for fully inserting himself next to her.
He hears the waver in her voice, and this time he does get his hand the whole way to firmly gripping her shoulder.
"If you feel weak, that's fine," Guy says, gently. "That's human. When it hurts, what matters is remembering to rely on one another. I..."
For just a moment he falls short, pensive, his own gaze drifting.
"I can't hurt for you, Sayla," he says. "I would if I could."
His eyes turn, his face turns, and he brings that thoughtful, firm smile of his to bear on her, gaze piercing. "I can't tell you how to greet him when it comes. But don't think for a second I won't bring him back to you. I'll crack that Gundam open with the Borot if I have to. Everyone together won't fail. That faith is our oath sworn in courage. I won't ever betray it."
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
With Guy's hand on her shoulder, right next to her, Sayla slowly leans into him. It's a mix of exhaustion and despair that lets herself be supported. Guy's words hit hard- so many of the things he asks her to do are things she has by necessity not done.
The last time she had to rely on someone else, it was because she had no other choice, and it caused a serious backslide. But...
"...Thank you." She's so tired. She's had to hold so much together. But she can collapse for a little while, right now. While Judau and Roux are with Leina, while Banagher is in Sweetwater. "Just... don't you dare die, Guy. If you pull this off... I couldn't live with myself if you didn't bring Mikoto back to." She's still no brave.
It's 'if' and not 'when'.
<Pose Tracker> Guy Shishioh has posed.
Guy won't tell a soul. His arm slips further, across her back to gently rest on the other shoulder - encouraging her to lean on and use him for support.
Guy doesn't know all her pain - he can't. He missed so much of it. It's gotten so bad. It all went wrong, is it? Guy can understand the thought, honestly. But...
He doesn't look at her, so she can cry without eyes on her.
"Believe in me, Sayla," he says. "You're the one who reminded me we're all just getting started, remember?"
His lips split into a confident grin, and his eyes turn up, to stars he can't see.
"We still have lots of miracles left in us."