2019-09-07: Sisters Of Battle
- Log: Sisters Of Battle
- Cast: Kaguya Alathfar, Amaterasu
- Where: Luca - Port District
- Date: September 07, 2019
- Summary: Upon hearing Kaguya's complain about the battle at Djose, Amaterasu asks her sister out to the beach at dawn. It seems she has a lesson for her.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya Alathfar has posed.
The rising sun takes its time, brilliant, painting the Spira sky in colors unlike nearly any other place in their richness. There could be poets speaking of it...
...There could be. But if there are any they aren't here. Besides, the last human to decide to talk to one Kaguya on her way out of the city 'accidentally' fell off the dock into the water. How terrible!
But she's slept on the events at Djose, anyway. Now, here she is: on one side of a beautiful white sand beach, yards from the flowing ocean's waters. There are dunes further up, then greenery, then the path back to Luca proper, and the Highroad ahead. Under other circumstances, some might be preparing to fish here, or depart in their boats, but...
Instead, it's just her and one other.
The smaller of the two will have to repair her weapons, but doesn't really need them regardless. Rather than the bulky finery or wrecked armor she might have worn on other occasions, she's opted for simple and loose--a larger hanging garment, sleeveless but draped over her shoulders and arms nevertheless, over a light shirt and loose pants, belted. Soft shoes, better for sneaking or exercising than long travel. Browns and greens mostly make up her palette for the moment, contrasted to too-pale skin and strange eyes.
"Dawn, huh."
Her wrapped hands shift a little as she rolls her shoulders, flexing fingers.
"They're always so vague with dawn. It keeps shifting. You'd think people would want to use a more objective measure of time, but no. Gotta keep up with the sun."
<Pose Tracker> Amaterasu has posed.
"There you are."
Of course she's already here.
"Ka-ya."
Today, she's done up her hair; the whole thing has been braided and coiled about the back of her head, held in place by a metallic clip. It isn't typical for her to fight with her hair up unless she's presenting as she is now--
She wears no armor. She bears no weapons. Hand-to-hand combat requires none of those trappings of war. She is simply herself, in loose cloth clothing.
Her feet are bare, leading behind her footprints as she strides towards her sister across sand wetted by some night tide.
"It has been a long time since we last sparred."
Compared to her sister, she is by far the healthier. Muscular, her skin a deep olive -- deeper these days from Spira's sunshine -- her eyes lively, her manner focused.
Her gaze, in fact, takes in her sister for a moment or three longer than usual, as if to evaluate her.
Her condition.
"You had mentioned the other day that your compatriots had not 'pulled their weight'. Well then."
She assumes a ready stance, waiting for her sister to come at her. She will permit the first strike.
"Let us see... what your own 'weight' is, Ka-ya. I have been waiting a long time to determine how you have grown!"
BGM: https://christopherlarkin.bandcamp.com/track/sisters-of-battle
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya Alathfar has posed.
"Not surprised that you're early," Kaguya answers Amaterasu, looking her up and down and noting the loose attire, the braiding... Kaguya needs no such means to restrain her hair, of course. Not anymore. Once, though.
"That's an understatement," Kaguya points out about how long it's been since they sparred. "I bet we could make some of the older Guardsmen faint if we said just how long." There's an... energy to her--something a little too dark to be cheer, more sardonic than joyful. She's limber, and loose...
In point of fact, she doesn't look healthy at all. She's paler than usual, her eyes a bit bloodshot and sunken besides--though some of that may be not bothering to conceal much of it today. She hasn't tanned in the sun at all; she is not muscular. And yet...
And yet there is an energy there, a precision and a focus that belies her apparent physical state. She is alert, intent... strong?
"Ugh," Kaguya says, rolling her eyes in memory. "Cowards." A pause. She considers, for a moment--recognizing what her sister is doing...
"...Heh. Yeah..."
She breathes, setting her feet slightly apart, a brief almost meditative instant of readying for battle. "Remember how I used to get so tired of this stuff?"
Her knees bend--and she immediately sweeps forward, her arms up and loose, her stance even in motion light and prepared for redirection.
Naturally she starts to move into the much taller woman's guard space, ready to sweep a defensive movement and strike first for her midsection with a quick punch.
"Changed my mind."
<Pose Tracker> Amaterasu has posed.
Knowing Amaterasu, she has likely been waiting here since before the sun even rose. She has always been a distressingly early riser. Even on the Locus Solus.
"Hmm hmm... I suppose so," Amaterasu remarks, on just how 'long' it has been. "This time, you must contend with 'real' gravity." Even on the Locus Solus, an exact match with any known planet was impossible -- there were too many little variables. Still, they were able to get it close enough that for gross purposes it was the same.
But there were always the little things -- things that became clear once she had woken on Filgaia.
Amaterasu's gaze lingers longer on her sister.
Even on Lunar, only so much time can be traded for. Is that so...
But even six more months is better than nothing. Another year, two years, three years--
Just a little more, is her fervent prayer.
Her lips quirk upwards in amusement nonetheless, when Kaguya remarks on the fast.
"Indeed. And you had to be dragged into practice. But no matter your wishes, physical education was still a requirement." Lest the not-quite-accurate gravity lead to any bone degeneration. "And no sister of mine would get away with half-hearted training. Now. Kaguya!"
She stands her ground, waiting for her sister to close--
And only in the last seconds does she move to guard--
It's swept aside.
And Amaterasu guards with her other hand, shifting back a fraction against the sands. Stepping in towards her sister, invading her space, she snaps a hand out to grasp the wrist of that attacking hand.
"This," she says, gazing down into her sister's eyes, "is why I opted for the beach."
If her grip is not broken, she will next flip Kaguya down into the sand.
She is not, this time, here to teach -- at least, not the typical lesson.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya Alathfar has posed.
"Real gravity is /super/ overrated," Kaguya quips back, siiighing because--she sure remembers. Kaguya... was /not/ such an early riser, except when she had a reason. Some plants required care at specific parts of the day/night cycle, such as it was...
"Stupid requirement, I thought at the time. When was I going to need to fight anything? Joke's on me!"
...She has degeneration after all.
Once there past guard--Kaguya expects the first guard movement, shifts her forearm with efficiency, uses the least necessary movement. The more momentum allowed, after all, the more height and leverage turn against her. So here--
Space. The hand snaps out, and Kaguya's fist uncurls in an instant as she feels fingers clasp around her arm. She looks back up, gazing back with a smirk. "Yeah?" she asks.
Rather than pushing back, pulling away at all, Kaguya rolls with the movement--she doens't just move downward. Her whole body shifts on the way down, rotating mid-fall with strange speed to hook an ankle for the back of Amaterasu's knee.
Success or failure--when she hits the ground, she rolls, hops up. "I thought it was to avoid breaking important structures."
...The maneuver is hard on her arm--but pain doesn't seem to bother her much.
<Pose Tracker> Amaterasu has posed.
"I suppose we should be grateful we never had to take landing on a heavier planet," Amaterasu comments, a wry smile on her lips. "It would have been... difficult to readjust for some of us, I believe."
As she always did back then, Amaterasy shakes her head. "And what did I tell you? It wasn't simply for self-defense, but for a strong body and strong bones. A sound mind in a sound body." She pauses. "Though, self-defense is not always a poor reason alone."
Not in the life they live, which requires, constantly, war.
She grabs Kaguya's wrist, her own stance less than perfect from her sister's powerful earlier strike.
She tilts her head, as if to ask after Kaguya's question.
And then flips Kaguya towards the surf.
Her sister doesn't resist. Her sister seeks to pull her down. Amaterasu readjusts, loosening her grip, intending to let gravity do the rest.
She gets an ankle to the back of her knee for the trouble. "--Ah," the soldier vocalizes, tumbling with her sister--
twisting her body
landing on her back
and flipping up heels over head to return to a standing, ready posture.
"There is that, too," she answers mildly. "It wouldn't do to damage a building."
She breaks off towards her sister, drawing up short, abruptly, snapping out a sweeping kick to lay Kaguya back down on the beach again.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya Alathfar has posed.
"Bluhhh," Kaguya answers, obviously the picture of adulthood and maturity. "I adjusted fine. I once hit a guy wtih a wall, you know. Not threw him into the wall--hit him with the wall." It's not quite bragging. It would have to sound like she thought it was impressive instead of a 'see?? normal' kind of thing for that.
...But for an instant, it's almost like then in a better way. "...Yeah," Kaguya says. "You had a point. I was just grouchy 'cause I had more fun things I wanted to do... that I was better at."
She wasn't planning for war, back then. She was planning countless adaptations, ways to grow beloved plants on soil that might have changed significantly--plots and plans to mesh things they'd come to depend on with an ecosystem that surely continued without them, with the only danger being whatever wildlife the remainder on Filgaia hadn't kept under control.
...But that was then. Now, gravity does a bit of the work, but Kaguya has adjusted to it. She tumbles, she tumbles--and there, she's facing Amaterasu in a stance that bounces on the balls of her feet. "Brings questions."
This--this one Kaguya thinks is key. Amaterasu is powerful, capable of brushing aside lesser opponents with ease, and traditionally that includes her. To dodge and draw it out favors stamina...
...But it doesn't show change, either.
So in a snap decision, Kaguya instead of dodging shifts her stance, steps into the kick by planting her foot at an angle to let the blow diffuse a tiny amount against moer surface. Rightly it should still break something like a tree on impact, and it makes a great sound as it hits--
And this time she doesn't ignore a painful strike, doesn't just dismiss aches and issues, like from somethign that ought to knock hr from her feet. She lets the force travel up, feels the alarm--she shouts back with it, a vocalization fit for any proper martial arts demonstration--
And while she's not dodging, swings forward, her punch's range extended by a mass of green light that transfers the impact up at center mass. "HAA--!"
<Pose Tracker> Amaterasu has posed.
"And he was a human?" Amaterasu remarks, her expression as even as ever. "I remind you that a victory against a human is not worth boasting about." It might not be a boast but like that ever stopped Amaterasu. "With our enhanced strength and vitality, it is trivial for one of us to best even one of theirs accustomed to making war. I myself have felled more of their soldiers than I care to count."
Only a few select groups on Filgaia had ever given her -- or the bulk of the Veruni forces -- cause for concern.
Which is a mild way of stating that they had to withdraw to their zones of control, but details, details.
"As do we all," she remarks, simply, on the fact that Kaguya had her own preferences as a younger girl.
Come to think of it, Amaterasu usually deflects the thinking and planning to others...
"Indeed. I would like to avoid too many questions about our capabilities. For now they think us human. Or perhaps elves," she adds, after a moment of thought. "I never am able to tell, and I suppose it would be an awkward question to ask." 'Do you think we're elves or humans', that is.
But-- in this thinking Kaguya is correct. Amaterasus is not only powerful, but she is unyielding -- an attempt to whittle her down would take considerable time, something that the frailer sister might not be able to endure. Meeting her directly, though, has its own challenges...
One that Kaguya takes.
It shows in Amaterasu's face -- she had expected Kaguya to evade that. And yet, she had permitted it to land, leans into it. Holds her ground.
It's a moment more when she realizes what her sister has done.
After the strike takes her full-on, leaving her staggering a step back. "Clever--" she starts, readjusting her stance, planting her feet firmly on the sand.
"But inappropriate for the terms of this fight. Using your magic?"
As ever, legalistic, by-the-books Mat.
It says something that she doesn't return tit for tat. She's always been one for 'proper', even if it is tactically unsound.
Instead she closes the already shortened distance between them, and snaps out a kick low, for the side of Kaguya's torso.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya Alathfar has posed.
"The victory isn't the important part," Kaguya says back, and though she doesn't sigh it's the kind of statement that implies a heavy one. "The important part is that I hit him with a wall. That's like, inherent points right there, style."
Kaguya faced off against someone from one of those groups just the other day, in fact. Just like she's sat down with the Demon of Elru in the past. She's seen a lot of things in her time...
...And one of clicks into place at Amaterasu's comment about preferences. "Ha," she says. "Nice, Mat."
"Some of them assume beastpeople," Kaguya offers mildly, "Since I've got the teeth going and all, and they're used to that. It'd be hilarious, though. We'd have to stab whoever it was, but, funny until then."
But here, in the fight--here Kaguya means to press a point. The surprise she seees makes her grin back. That, if anything, is more important than the next moment.
"I was having that conversation with someone else," she quips. "That you're stronger in terms of raw force..."
This one is not so telegraphed that Kaguya can prepare for it as easily; instead of planting herself, she whirls and ducks down, to present harder bone and thicker flesh against the kick instead of soft, pliable bits that could knock the wind out of her. The blow as it stands is still strong enough to knock her from the ground, where she lands a few feet away, sand grinding beneath her shoes as she turns to face Amaterasu again. "But I'm willing to cheat. I like to think I understand the human condition a little--what it's like to be smaller, weaker than those around you--" She doesn't stop to talk though--the next few moments are a series of blows that are likely blocked, testing out fields of attack, judging reactions from a new angle. "Though I can't relate on the brains front."
"But the magic's kind of part of the point--" Here she shifts to the side, and arcs up into a series of punches from either hand that work upward, individually small and uncommitted before suddenly one is.
"Because my real problem before is I thought I was limited to what my body can actually do. That it didn't matter because I could never be good at it the way you were."
She expects a hit coming back if she stays this close--
<Pose Tracker> Amaterasu has posed.
"Do they? Hm," Amaterasu muses, as if to consider her own anatomy. "I suppose, though it would be milder than the features common in others..." Her brow creases, if she is thinking this one over. "I am curious, but not curious enough to risk our cover... or waste our limited resources. I know you mean it in jest, but I should remind you we have no easy way to gain more soldiers, unless we begin to take from the local population."
Which Amaterasu does not recommend, at this time. They need to first break and remold the young and strong before they can think of using them to fight.
This is how they handled humans in Elru, too.
Once it became clear that simply being a 'noble' and guiding the humans from afar was insufficient. Once it became clear that they needed the territory.
Once the factional strife over both these things began.
That world was the one that Amaterasu was woken into. And then...
"Were you?" her sister replies. "Hm, I suppose that is true. I prefer to deal with my problems--"
She strikes, slamming her foot into Kaguya; there is no armor adding to the blow but it is solid enough on its own; Amaterasu might be able to break a brick wall with a well-placed kick.
"--Directly!"
Kaguya breaks under the strike, sliding away from her.
"There is no need to 'cheat' if you have superior force. ...I know some of the others think differently, and I do not judge," now that's a lie, "them for their decisions. However. If I am so directed, then I cannot protest," she affirms, bringing up her arms to ward off the incoming strikes from her sister. Only by inches does she become forced back, the sand grinding under her heels. Her stance widens, to compensate.
"So you are saying it is because you are 'weaker' that you take any advantage available to you? Practical, I suppose. Though I would disagree." She gestures, down at the sand and the tracks so made.
"Few could move me even on sand if I did not wish it." Her face is stern. "I am not going easy on you, Kaguya. This is no training!"
She thought she was limited?
"Don't be ridiculous. You are not limited. You are a Veruni, and you are my sister--"
There is indeed a hit coming for her at this distance, a quick snapping jab.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya Alathfar has posed.
"It varies--but then, when i set up my cover identity, I didn't know what an elf even was, so I just rolled with what seemed to work. There's degrees, is the point." A beat, and Kaguya nods--she doesn't grin, like she might with a hard topic usually, because she's lost too many of those soldiers to joke for the moment. "Yeah. And that's not going to work out."
Kaguya wasn't there, for those struggles. She didn't see it, the time necessary to establish the Veruni presence. But she's seen some things--
"Hah--" The strike hits her, all right, and the vocalization puts power in her muscles, reinforces where she could otherwise be broken like that same wall, Veruni endurance or not. But still, to finish the idea--
"It's simple physics. Even if we have the exact same ability to exert force, your size offers leverage I lack. Being Veruni compensates for this to a large degree... but not totally."
Really, damage isn't the point of this assault. Movement, impact--these are more vital. Even now, with what she knows, she still thinks of her sister as her teacher, after all--remembers lessons of sore muscles in just how strong she was even then. "So that's part of it--"
She actually does grin, finally--when Amaterasu gives her that acknowledgement. There's obvious pride, even as she's working on making a point. ...She is hardly immune to the approval she wanted so recently from her own perspective.
"...I actually believe you when you say that," she answers, sincere like a sea breeze. "But--"
Slam. Kaguya expected something, but could not predict precisely what; thus, she can only partly evade it, shifting to place stronger plank instead of weak flesh against the strike, pressing her lips together to mute the reflexive noise as she takes another hit that would casually fell many humans.
"That's just it--" Instead of repeating the same maneuver, Kaguya lets the momentum of the strike push her to the side, anchoring one foot to make it a spin instead of a free shove, and uses that force to deliver a spinning back kick that leaves--for a moment--a little more space.
"I was. I was limited by my own thinking, by my assumptions about what I could do. ...I've been weak--on my worst days, I couldn't move, couldn't fight off a child. ...But humans are like that even when they're healthy. That's why I say I get it. But more importantly--"
She forces herself to use the arm on her already more bruised side to swing outward--but it's a feint, as instead she drops down, and springs backward, flipping through the air to land in a ready stance a few yards away.
"Sure--my limits, as a Veruni, were higher than those of humans... But they existed. Until I realized--"
She drops down, suddenly, and slams her fist into the sand, hitting with a shockwave of force sufficient to spray sand around them--to make a deep groove that becomes like a track fencers might use, with the top layer of the sand shifted away to make it visible.
"...I was thinking primitively. Alone, as if I weren't part of anything around me. As if I weren't in constant push and pull with the environment--As if all actions..."
"...Aren't subject to equal, opposite reactions. As if I couldn't make use of the force arrayed against me just as well as the force I can bring to bear. It's like I never really thought about all the throws you taught me, sister. But I know better, now."
She waits, this time--perhaps it's obvious. But this time she invites the counterattack. "...Because you're right. I am not limited. It was only my own thinking that made it that way. Focusing on what I couldn't do, and not what I can."
<Pose Tracker> Amaterasu has posed.
"Ha."
A half-smile graces Amaterasu's face; she glances over at her sister. "A fortunate thing, however you may slice it. I admit I had given little thought to 'my story' at all. But with their assumptions, it seems it wasn't needed."
Until recently, though, she hadn't had reason to leave Elru -- for the large part the Control Zone at all. Her work was 'internal' these days, and ultimately even her departure from Elru had been an accident, thanks to Odessa and assorted human meddling.
The Spirans had thought her just another strange Otherworlder, most likely. And the contingent from the rest of Lunar, well, that had already been prepared for her courtesy of her sister.
All in all, it was very convenient -- she otherwise would have applied her typical approach.
She has always done fairly well by being direct.
It's likely only helped by her size, her strength.
Her own personal leverage, as her sister puts it now.
"Yes," Amaterasu replies evenly. "There are generally more times when being larger is advantageous. However, there are times when being smaller is of use. For instance, someone Sentinel Elvis' size would be of little use as a spy... unless the goal was to divert attention from another spy, of course," she says, unable to entirely keep a straight face.
Everyone has their place. Their talents.
She is not on par with her immediate superior when it comes to martial success -- Fereydoon is perhaps even more of a straight arrow, and without question even stronger. Nobles receive their roles in Veruni society for a reason. She is no match for the all-out brutality of Kartikeya and nor does she wish to attain that level of wanton violence, regardless of how much she enjoys to fight. She would not presume to even tread on Persephone's role of spy and informant. Like her, Elvis combines fearsome strength and experience, but adds to that the scholar's touch -- another realm in which she cannot enter. Ambrosius may not boast raw strength but brings a fierce understanding of tactics to a battle -- to say nothing of the intelligence and understanding of a scholar.
And while he may be young -- many of them are young -- Volsung... ...she has never seen a man command fear as readily as he.
Never seen a man combine every single battle-ready trait and use them effectively.
He's young, and he had still risen to the top of the Radical faction by force, by propaganda, by tactics.
Everyone has their place and talents. But that doesn't mean ignoring the basics even if they aren't your tools, and that is the lesson she has always strived to teach her younger, weaker, smaller sister. Damage, as Kaguya observes, was never the point. It was--
In that moment, she strikes. Her sister shifts to better absorb the blow, and just barely, a little bit, Amaterasu's lips curve in a smile.
Even when her sister is pushed away, she moves with the impact rather than against it, turning its energy into her own. When the kick comes, Amaterasu similarly leans into it, a grimace flitting across her face; she reaches in an attempt to grapple, but here Kaguya's size is an advantage; she misses. Kaguya uses her momentum to force that gap. For a moment there is space between sisters.
Before Kaguya lunges inwards. It's a feint, as Amaterasu realizes, late this time, but by the time she has this realization, her sister has slipped even her prodigious reach entirely, has landed on the sands a distance away. Already, Amaterasu advances, giving no sign she is listening to her sister speak in the slightest--
Before the shockwave rolls out. Before a trench is etched into the sand about them. Amaterasu lifts a hand to ward off the plume of dust and grit, shifts her stance to better weather the shockwave's impact.
And this time, when her sister speaks, she stands there, her head cocked slightly to her right. A few long strands of hair have slipped their bindings, they tumble down across her shoulder.
"I had wondered when you might understand that lesson, Kaguya," she says, a slight smile on her face. "The tools are merely tools. How you use them to the best and most appropriate," there is a look there, she hasn't forgotten that use of ether, "effect is for you to decide."
Some things are cheating to the upright Veruni, no matter how she may understand the concept of personal style.
She places her hands on her hips. "And now, perhaps, you will understand why I have asked you out here. You had blamed your underlings for that failure at Djose." The smile has vanished. "The ones under your command are also your tools. If they fail, it is not their fault but your own -- they are not the best tools for the work you intend. In that case, replace them or put them for a more suitable task. But only a novice blames their tools."
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya Alathfar has posed.
"It takes time to get used to the thinking of an infiltrator. When i started out, I mostly just went for things nobody would want to ask about--Like dropping the name 'Slayheim' and leaving it there. But people will convince themselves a lot faster than anyone else can convince them, if you give them the chance."
She doesn't specify humans, here--maybe it's an oversight. ...Maybe not. She has met a lot of other non-Veruni...
"Haa," Kaguya answers back. "That's true. The Professor stands out for people, in a big way. Like you. But I didn't..." Beat, "Until I started breaking shit, that is. Now I stand out for something else, and people don't stop to think about the underlayers."
Really, martial success is something of an accident for Kaguya, to a degree--being Veruni goes a long way, but not forever. She's avoided most of the Sentinels entirely, but no longer does she feel as intimidated as she once did, as small in comparison to the other operatives. She knows, now--they've discussed her findings, her work.
...And she's come to appreciate a certain level of wanton violence. Next, the challenge--Volsung. Here...
The next few moments would be difficult to follow, for an observer--push, and counter push, pull and momentum. Kaguya is a small target indeed, has grown accustomed to knowing that weight. She watches Amaterasu advance, but above all--
Above all the path, the arena is the idea right here, and she grins back, faintly. "...I had kind of a complex about it," she admits. "But I learned."
She cheated. That much is true, too.
But then she pauses--and frowns. The matter of blame immediately gets a deeper frown as she prepares a retort--and then she pauses. She tilts her head, and... "Heh."
"You know--my first thought was to argue about it. That they weren't my underlings, they were Lunn's, not my responsibility... But no. Even if I'm not officially commanding, these are still the tools I'm using. That I don't have overt control of them doesn't mean I don't have influence, can't act. I chose to focus on combat and to let them pin their hopes on the Blue Master, instead of in me."
"...Of course, a lot of them are proving unreliable," she admits with a shake of her head. "I'm not willing to discard the project yet, even if I'm down two of my best combatants. There's someone promising in Vane, someone... ambitious. She might be the type--it might be that I need to narrow my criteria..."
She thinks back; to Leo; to Lunn, to Hilde...
Conflicting possibilities war in her mind; there are other tools she could use. But with what time, to set it all up? How long does it remain valuable?
"But yeah, I get it. No, it's... It's good. It's a reminder to center. No matter what useful resources the planets in a system have, they can't be exploited if the central star's gravity can't keep them in its orbit. They just drift. Maybe I'm being too hands-off. No leader as strong as Ghaleon has emerged out of the Heroes--Lunn is focused on his city, Borgan on his research, Leo on his honor and on the insults... But maybe Mauri has the right temperament."
Kaguya rolls her shoulders then, spreads her arms. "But, regardless... I wanted to show you some of it anyway. I shouldn't be able to move like this anymore, frankly. A lot of the medicines have stopped working very well at all. Alternate formulations aren't improving. But still--here I am."
"...If it comes to it," she says, serious, distant--older somehow, "I have a weapon against the Guardians themselves. Maybe my thinking has been too limited, too..." She looks up to the Blue Star, above. "...If you try to have everything," she repeats thoughtfully, as if part of a saying. Back to Amaterasu. "But you know, as I think about it. There's another alternative, if a tool is the problem. If the materials are valuable enough..."
"...You can just reshape them to be better tools, too. Right?"
<Pose Tracker> Amaterasu has posed.
"See? You do understand," Amaterasu says, approaching her sister slowly. "Even if a tool is not 'yours', as long as you make use of it you bear responsibility for it. If I were to lend you Valkyrja and you could not make good use of it, then that would make it a poor tool for you, and you the poorer of the two for attempting to use it in spite of understanding that fact."
She extends a hand to her sister.
"In war, anything is a potential tool. It is your responsibility to use it appropriately and well. If you cannot do either..."
Something lights in her eyes as Kaguya lists her assessments of the failings of the Heroes.
"Yes. Without the proper leader..."
It is the same with the humans -- and others -- in Elru. On Filgaia.
And the Veruni themselves. Without someone to lead them, without their Johnny Appleseed, showing them the way...
"You did well. You have grown. Lunar, too, has been good for you..." Amaterasu trails off. Her expression hardens when Kaguya continues.
Even her medicines aren't working well.
'Even on Lunar, I,' runs the thought, in an odd parody and yet mirror of the original saying.
'Even in an idyll, there is death.'
"Yes," she says, her gaze a touch distant.
"Here you are."
Time is running out.
Her gaze, too, lifts to the Blue Star.
"Against the Guardians, do you..." And for some reason, the look in her eyes now now is a strange one.
A strange one, especially when paired with a smile that can only be called cryptic.
"Yes. That's exactly right. If the materials are poor, you reforge the tool."
Even if that tool happens to be a planet.