2019-09-09: A Hug Even He Can't Get Out Of
- Log: A Hug Even He Can't Get Out Of
- Cast: Kamui, Zhang Xiumei
- Where: Mushroom Rock Road
- Date: 9th September 2019
- Summary: Xiumei visits Kamui after the events at Besaid, but an old friend wants a conversation...
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
Kamui didn't attend ARMS' journey to Besaid.
When asked, she got really reluctant and distant. Maybe it's seeing Guts-Dozer go again, across the ocean... maybe it's something else. Maybe she's at her limit right now.
That's why she's in the Highroad again... which isn't that much of an improvement given the war that's been occurring across it.
She's perched up on a high place. One of Mushroom Rock Road's mushroomcap spires, upon which she's kind of sitting fetal position.
It's a quiet kind of day for mui.
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
Xiumei was trying to keep her mind off things...
...but that failed, and she slid from trying to pretend everything is fine into a full-on numbness, denying that anything is wrong even when something is crushingly wrong. The feeling of not being able to breathe is metaphorical, though, and she is perfectly able to hike -- and climb -- and, with Model V, leap.
She lands a little behind Kamui. She looks up, when she does, head tilted -- and her green eyes see too clearly, without their glasses. Her eyes are on the Reploid for a moment, before she speaks up.
"Ah... Kamui?" she asks. She has the armor on; it makes her look almost, but never quite entirely, like Varius.
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
Kamui lifts her head up very gently from where she's stationed on the rock. She blinks a few times.
"Xiumei..." she intones quietly. She sits up a bit more straight, putting her legs out. The Fourth Foot Parts aren't equipped on her at the moment, leaving her looking...
Well, a bit more broken than usual. The Armour Parts have a way of concealing all the defects her base body has acquired over such a long period of time.
"You're back...? From Besaid."
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
"...Yeah," Xiumei says, softly. Her expression is slightly crestfallen -- but she's practiced at putting on a careful face, to not let too much show. It returns to a pleasant neutral, after a blink, and then she nods.
"Guts-Dozer did very well," she says. She steps closer, glancing down at her feet -- and the way she looks more broken than usual -- and then sits down next to Kamui. Xiumei hesitates a moment, before she sighs.
"Marivel's friend is safe," she adds. "And we stopped the Guard from... whatever they were trying to do."
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
Kamui doesn't quite look like she understands who Xiumei is talking about, of Marivel's friend. Was there someone they wanted to save? Or was it the summoner who went onboard Guts-Dozer, and her entourage? She doesn't know.
"... mmm," Kamui quietly nods, somewhat numbly. "Good job. ... I'm sorry I wasn't there."
A pause. "You're still wearing the Armour..." A pause. "Oh. It's because we're so high up. Do you want to... go down?"
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
"Ah... no, I was out... taking a walk. A climb, I suppose," Xiumei says, with a shake of her head. She looks to the side, then. "It's okay that you weren't there. Everyone needs a break, sometimes, right?"
She smiles, and tries to make it look reassuring. Her legs dangle over the side -- and they kick, a little, as she makes herself have the purchase she'd like.
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
Kamui looks towards Xiumei with that little smile of hers, and tries smiling back. She's not sure it's reassuring, but when you have half-Terminator face sometimes things don't look that reassuring and there's nothing you can do about it.
"Do you like climbing? With or without Model V, I mean. ... I think I have always liked it. Leaping, dashing, feeling like I can soar in the air even for a little bit."
She lifts her head up to the skies, to Filgaia.
"It makes me feel a bit more... free..."
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
"...mm-hm. I liked hiking when I was younger," Xiumei says. "Sometimes, I took Eleanor with me, though... even before I had Model V, it was harder for her." She smiles -- and it's a little sad. Now, she outpaces Eleanor completely if she uses Model V.
"But... it's a lot of fun. Climbing, jumping, dashing..." She nods. "...It's nice to get to go some place, look around, and feel like it's just you and your thoughts for a bit."
She looks sideways. "I think you're right. More free."
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
Kamui quietly nods... and gets up as she focuses -- and in a manner not unlike Xiumei's own summoning of the armour, there's a soft flash of blue light as the Fourth Armour's Foot Parts manifest around her.
"I want to stretch my legs a little. I'll feel a bit better..." she points up to the near distance, and her soles flare with a soft exhaust of bright blue flame. She leaps across several mushroom-cap tops, landing at a solid cliff on the other side.
She waits for Xiumei to approach -- unless she beats her there! And laughs very quietly.
"... I'm glad... I have someone to share this with."
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
Xiumei blinks -- and then sees the the Foot Parts appear. That's a surprise to her. She watches as she leaps, and then she steps up -- and jumps. There isn't a burst of light, as much as she just jumps, and then jumps again through the air.
She bounds off the mushroom tops, then comes down on the cliff. There is a little crunch when she hits, and she tilts her head to the side.
"It's nice," she agrees. A little voice inside her wonders, really, if it could stay nice. "There's a lot I've not gotten used to, still, but... this is really fun, Kamui."
She smiles, then glances down.
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
Kamui quietly nods by the time they arrive on the other side. She's also quietly glad the Spiran landscape can support their, she knows, at time immense robotic weight. Or at least hers. She doesn't know how Biometals behave.
"There was a time I could just play like this forever, but..." That isn't a time that exists anymore, now, is the unspoken end of that sentence. Something she knows Xiumei nows.
"... has Varius... been a jerk to you since the mines?" Kamui quietly asks. "I'll tell him off for you if he has."
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
Xiumei nods her head, a little saddened as she hears the statement. Times have changed; they don't have the ability to play around. Except... she never really had such opportunities, did she? Her fun moments in her youth all felt stolen; times where she went to play with Nora, before she moved away; times when she didn't do the duties her family expected.
She lets out a little sigh, and the small smile on her face is almost sad. She looks up at the question, and then shakes her head.
"No," she says. "He's... grumpy, I guess you could say. But... he tries to help me out as much as he can. If he is... I'll let you know, okay?"
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
Kamui trembles for a moment longer, but keeps it together as XIumei says that he's been grumpy, but... has been helping too.
She lowers her head further.
"... I feel I remember he was almost like a bully. He made me cry... he made me frustrated and angry."
A pause.
"But I think he had a good heart. And I know I said it before, but... I'm still sorry... I was wrong."
She huffs very quietly as she shakes her head, looking a bit more distressed.
"But I still can't... I can't remember... I think I hurt him. Is that why he was a Bio-metal?" She's starting to stutter a bit. "The possibility bothers me so much...
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
"I... I didn't... really know him, back then," Xiumei says. She glances downward. "He... seems like he's a good person. You, um--I know you did, but--"
Her face scrunches up, for a moment. There is a brief pause from Xiumei -- she looks distracted, because in her mind, a conversation plays out. A one-sided one -- she can't think thoughts back to Varius -- but he makes a request.
She looks up. "Hey, Kamui, uh..." She swallows. "...He says he'd like to talk to you."
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
Kamui's eye -- the good one -- widens slightly. "W-what? I can't do that to you, Xiumei..." She hesitates. "Is that... really okay? I promised you, you know..."
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
"I know you did," Xiumei says. She puts her hand to her neck. The truth -- that it almost sounds easier, that it feels like it should be something Varius handles -- seems wrong to say. She feels a little twinge of shame at saying that. She smiles, a little more assured than before.
"But... I think it's okay." She tilts her helmet-clad head to the side. "Varius... there's some things Varius should get to say for himself, instead of having me say them for him."
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
"... ... okay," Kamui nods in turn, feeling a little bit of shame at Xiumei's resolve at the end there. Because she is right. Just because Varius is a Bio-metal doesn't mean... he stops being his own person.
She quietly starts getting scared about whether she'll become a Bio-metal if she ever died--
No, that's a thought for another time, the Suffering Circuit thinks.
"I'm ready..."
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
The only real sign that Xiumei has ceded control is a little flash of her eyes. Her eyes even stay the same color -- but Varius and Xiumei, despite other differences, had the same color eyes. (His were visibly mechanicaly, if one leaned in very close.)
The change is marked, though. Xiumei usually has a subtly tense, pleasant, and slightly resigned bearing. Now, she stands straighter, and her expression is more severe.
Not angrier, but with less of the gentleness that tends to be in Xiumei.
"...Long time, Kamui," Varius says in Xiumei's voice.
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
Maybe it's something in the way Kamui's visuals are designed to process changes.
Maybe it's an intense familiarity that she can't truly forget, no matter how bunk her memory becomes.
Maybe...
Kamui holds her head for a moment with a twinge, but as Varius speaks-- in that same inflection, she says...
"... it's really you. Speaking again like this... I didn't think it would be possible..."
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
"...Yeah. I assumed that was it, but Dr. MEMORY CORRUPTED really outdid himself with Biometals." When Varius says that doctor's name, it -- somehow -- doesn't come across right.
He glances to the side, and then he folds his arms. He looks imperious -- stubborn, maybe. Except, of course, Kamui knows that look.
He isn't trying to be scary. He is being awkward.
"...I don't hate you for what you did. I know it seemed like it, back then," he says. "But... time changes things, I guess."
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
Kamui's head kind of jolts again, as she struggles to keep listening. It's sometimes like this. She's already having enough trouble remembering the names of people who are /alive/ and /here/ right now, let alone figures from the past...
"Someone saved you," she whispers. "Gave... gave us a second chance."
She shivers and wraps her arms tighter around herself. She spots that look of Varius'.
"... you have every right to. It must be frustrating knowing I don't... even remember."
A longer pause...
"But... you're right that time... changes things." A pause. "Time let me heal... if not my body, then at least my heart." Zhang Xiumei has partially disconnected.
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
"...Yeah."
Varius seems to hesitate for a moment -- considering, perhaps, if he is frustrated that she doesn't remember. "I'll let you remember on your own. I'm a ghost. I can't stick around for too long -- maybe an hour, and I'm not gonna do this again for awhile if I do it that way."
He glances to the ground, then, and his eyes narrow. "I wanted to blame you. For protecting humans--I wanted to blame the humans. But in the end, it was my fault."
His jaw sets. "Avile died because I wasn't there. Because I left," he says. "And I realized... I'm incomplete without her."
He opens his hand -- looks at his fingers, and then flexes them -- and then closes it again, into a fist. "...Time can't heal that. It can't bring her back."
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
Kamui frowns very quietly as Varius tells her that he's a ghost. So he doesn't regard himself as being alive... how could she blame him? Existing only for an hour, at most...
What does that even feel like? To blink in and out of existence.
"... but it wasn't just humans that needed protecting," Kamui confesses. "You had a point too..."
What point, exactly, she doesn't quite remember. She was on the side of the humans. That much she can be sure of. She was always on the side of protecting humanity...
... right?
But then...
"Avile... kgh!" she nearly drops to her knees as Varius' own HUD, through the manifest Model V, spikes. Something internal is spiking up inside Kamui.
"... there was another. Someone really important." A pause. "And she's gone... the person to you... who Gami is like to me."
She sucks in a breath.
"... Gami is gone too. I was the only one who woke up. She's still waiting for me... back up there..." she looks up towards Filgaia.
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
Varius doesn't move to help Kamui, when she doubles over. It seems disrespectful, somehow. He crosses his arms -- and looks awkward, before he grips his arms.
"I wondered where Gami got off to," he admits. "But... yeah." He looks up, at Filgaia, and grits his teeth. He exhales through them -- and then thinks how strange it feels, to breathe.
The truth is, he doesn't like to be the one controlling Xiumei's body. Being human feels wrong.
"...Avile is dead," he says. "There's only one way that might work. When we get back, I'll tell Xiumei. I'll see if she can do it. So... I need you to keep an eye on her. She's a good kid. Stubborn, and too hard on herself."
He glances back at Kamui. "See what you can do, all right?"
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
"We went back to the laboratory... you remember the one? Tishrei," she explains. "We were both so damaged. I think... I remember. We promised we would rest for all time together."
She furrows her brow. "I went back on that promise. So I can't die here... she's still waiting for me."
She turns her head towards Varius again. "There is a way...?" she sounds surprised. "I--" A pause. Xiumei could do it?
"... okay. I don't know if you heard, but I made a promise to her..." She furrows her brow. "I was being unfair to you in turn. ... Varius is Varius, and Xiumei is Xiumei. You're both..."
She holds her hand to her Suffering Circuit, glowing softly.
"... you're both really important to me."
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
"Tch... yeah," Varius says, with a shake of his head.
Then, he nods, slowly. He doesn't elaborate -- it isn't a matter of stubborness or a desire to be mysterious. Rather, if he says his thought aloud -- before it is complete, before he knows it will work -- he might give himself hope that proves false.
"I heard," he says. "And... it's fine. You're... all right, Kamui." Varius glances to the side, a little awkwardly. He folds his arms, then smiles, and looks back at her.
It's a cocky smile, and familiar. "I'll hold you to it. Especially because, one day... we're gonna see who's strongest, and I won't lose."
Maybe... maybe some things don't change with time.
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
Kamui blinks a few times, as she hears-- hears those really familiar words. The way Varius would awkwardly say -- often on Avile's insistence and prompting -- that she's all right. The way he'd awkwardly fold his arms and look away.
...then, that cocksure smile.
"... I'm -- /we're/ both old now enough I'm comfortable saying I'd let you be the strongest, but that'll just rile you up. So I'll not lose either."
She walks forward and gives him a hug.
Because that probably happened a whole lot too, Kamui just throwing her arms around Varius and awkward interactions ensuing!
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
At first, Varius smiles when Kamui says that. The smile falters, though, when he realizes that Avile isn't there to nudge him and laugh. Sometimes, literally, to push him into the hug. He knows why she isn't there.
He looks up, to see her walking forward, and knows the hug is coming. Once upon a time, he would have awkwardly frozen up and squirmed. Now, he has a more potent weapon.
Kamui's arms wrap around, and Xiumei squeaks as she suddenly is in control of her body, and Varius has receded back into her consciousness with a chuckle.
"U-Um..." she stammers. Then, she hugs her back. "...i-it sounds like it went okay?"
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
Kamui blinks and-- puffs as she says, "... new promise. We're going to trap Varius into a hug he can't get out of, okay, Xiumei?" she responds embarrassedly.
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
Xiumei blinks a couple of times, before her face reddens. "...o-okay," she says. "That seems like it might be hard, but we can try."