2023-09-01: Another Way
- Log: Another Way
- Cast: Amaterasu, Yue Rohay
- Where: Under Traffic
- Date: September 01, 2023
- Summary: Amaterasu speaks to Yue about her mother -- and of the subject of cutting away rot.
<Pose Tracker> Amaterasu has posed.
"You've arrived, CR-S01."
The communication had been curt as usual: a salutation identifying the sender of the message to Yue as Amaterasu and indicating an order to follow, then joined by a string that had indicated that a meeting was warranted in turn followed by the coordinates where said meeting was to take place. Amaterasu had never been one for too many unnecessary things.
She's been in battle. Not too recently, by the look of her: the scarring and burns on her body armor aren't fresh. Yet, they are noticable: days ago, Amaterasu met with some foe sufficient to damage her armor and has yet to return to Veruni territory -- or the Locus Solus proper -- to repair or replace it.
Why she has not immediately done so remains a mystery, as does her reason for first checking in on Yue--
Which is, given the current terms of Yue's 'engagement' wholely unnecessary for Amaterasu to do. So long as Yue's mother holds that leash, many things are unnecessary insofar as their interactions with one another: Amaterasu has her assignments, and Yue her own separate orders.
Yet here she stands, alone and battledamaged in the depths of the Under Traffic, awaiting a rendezvous with the most notorious criminal of the Veruni people.
<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.
Ah, shoot...
Yue'd become very used to being sent after by her mom, but a communication from someone else is still a fresh and terrifying hell. Doubly so when that person is Amaterasu, who she definitely still wants to just get the heck out of dodge when she's in the vicinity, and try to not raise alarm bells. She can guess what it's all about too.
Yue's entrance is very subtle, a slight shifting on the sands of Under Traffic and then she's suddenly leaning against one of the crates beside the entry tunnels.
"You... called for me," Yue starts with just the basic facts. The battle damaged nature of her armour is not lost on her, though she wisely doesn't inquire further into the matter.
<Pose Tracker> Amaterasu has posed.
"That, I did," Amaterasu says, glancing down at the damaged portion of her armor along her inner left arm, as if studying it afresh. She turns then towards Yue, beetling her brow as she looks her fellow Veruni over -- as if Yue were the fresh recruit rather than prisoner, and Amaterasu herself the drill sergeant.
"Have you had further communication with Shijie Rohay?"
Not 'your mother'. No, the same way she never calls Yue by her name, she does not even acknowledge the relationship.
"I understand that she led an unsanctioned assault on Meria Boule several weeks prior."
<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.
Yue has a stalk of corn hanging from her mouth, a habit she's never been able to kick. It's better than cigarettes, perhaps; she gnaws on it softly as she listens, and then looks away -- she doesn't look Amaterasu straight in the eye, because it's too terrifying.
"No," she answers. "The day she marched on Meria Boule was the last I heard from her."
She plucks the stalk out from her mouth, closing her eyes. "There weren't any unit markings on the equipment or troops... and they were never used to assault anything, either. No, the only asset she set loose on the city was... well, me."
Yue gestures vaguely, towards her shoulder. "You know about the prototype device she installed on me, right?"
<Pose Tracker> Amaterasu has posed.
From somewhere on her person, Amaterasu withdraws a datapad, glancing through its contents as she looks between it and Yue. Her eyes narrow. "...I see."
So there were no communications since then. Or at least, none which Yue would admit to.
Tucking the device away, Amaterasu squares herself and faces Yue, her gaze fixed firmly upon her now. "So the only one she used was you, was it? I had heard that the city had gone untouched. You were stopped," she surmises, watching and waiting for Yue's response.
"But this was tolerable for her ends... in spite of the show of force, or the potential response such could have garnered."
A prototype device? Amaterasu quirks an eyebrow. "No. I do not believe I do. Show me," she orders, gesturing towards Yue.
<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.
"I was stopped," Yue answers very matter-of-factly. "Her diversion lasted long enough for Drifters to gather, so any element of surprise was well and truly lost by then." She reaches for the stalk to chew on, again; it's something of a pacing mechanic for her, though she's not really betraying whether she's being truthful or lying in her body language. Spy habits don't die easy.
"Her objective was to retrieve Xue Rohay, who is her favourite. She's likely to become her heir, and inherit the whole house of espionage she's built, and she's grooming her to that end," Yue explains. Though it seems that Xue is incredibly willful and hasn't really been following her script.
"But as you and I both know, a show of force like that is hardly the way to extract an individual," she advises quietly.
So Amaterasu doesn't know of the device. Yue sighs quietly, and then turns around and slacks her jacket gently, and the black fabric falls around her elbows; then, she undoes the first few buttons of her white shirt, and that too starts to fall, enough to reveal the somewhat large metallic shell fused into her spine, from about her neck to her shoulderblade.
"You are familiar with the 'DT'. This is an early design to create a mobile version thereof. It's permanently fused to my spine, and can't be removed without a fatal outcome."
<Pose Tracker> Amaterasu has posed.
"Foolish," Amaterasu remarks, narrowing her eyes again. "It only ensured her actions were noticed. A more subtle approach," as she had noted to Shijie herself, "would have been more appropriate. Instead, now, their number will be on alert. Perhaps there may even be retaliatory action." Probably not, as these things go -- probably not. Even if it would be possible -- easy, even -- for Guild Galad to mobilize and say, take Honeysday from Veruni control, they would not do so even in response to what had happened in Meria Boule. To do so risked an escalation from the Veruni end.
Still. Still, these people had toppled Odessa, an organization against which the Radicals had opted for a policy of 'avoidance'. Who is to say what their next action would be? And that's assuming the likes of Solaris -- or Shevat -- don't also get mixed up in this.
"Yes. It was to retrieve her heir, I understand." Minder No. 7, not that even Amaterasu had known her real name before now.
But there's something of more interest in the moment than Shijie Rohay's attempts at destabilizing a fragile state of affairs, and that's the device that Yue mentions. She grants this greatest of criminals no peace or privacy, not even when Yue slides her shirt free even that much to expose as much of the device as she can without disrobing. Her focus is far from prurient: she means only to ensure that there is nothing that Yue is hiding up her metaphorical sleeve. That this is no tricky or deception, that everything is as she says it has been.
"...I am," she says. Here, the unflinching Amaterasu has begun to frown. "And she had clearance for... this?"
She takes but a step closer to Yue. "Tell me. If she gave you the order, would you fight on her side of your own free will?" A strange question, perhaps, to ask of a prisoner.
<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.
It's a peculiar response, Yue thinks. She thought Amaterasu to be a bit more straightforward with proceedings, but the difference is whether or not such actions were lawful and sanctioned. She doesn't offer her opinion on whether the move was a good one or not, however...
"... it is a fact that mother believes we have been too passive," Yue admits. "She thinks that our plans on Spira was a mistake, that we have not obtained more Control Zones as of late."
That's a readily given-up truth, one that'll inconvenience her.
She senses the frown even before she sees it, looking over her shoulder.
"Overseeing the choice of suitable field tests for research and development projects is something within her purview," Yue has to admit as well. But the question is a peculiar one, isn't it?
"If it was an order, is it truly of my free will?" Yue plainly asks in turn. "But..."
A quiet hum.
"I suppose I could not say anything that would further indict me as I already am, from a prisoner to a Sentinel. She has ordered me to fight on many occasions, but I would barely say they are borne out of my free will, but rather our shared past and guilt. Perhaps, in that sense, I have enabled her quite a bit as well."
<Pose Tracker> Amaterasu has posed.
Mother believes we have been too passive.
Spira was a mistake. That much more, Amaterasu draws herself up. It is not the first she has heard such things -- in spite of their work there.
In spite of Kaguya's work.
"There are many who share her feelings. Yet, those sort are not in command at the moment," Amaterasu states simply. The focus of the Radicals has been different under Volsung and his inner circle, but not terribly far from their goal from the start--
To control Filgaia and bring it to heel. To rule over the humans as their power dictates. To bring an end to VR factor.
Of these, the past had shown conclusively that the Radicals had not the numbers to attempt full-scale conquest. Of these, the last alone is possible under Volsung's leadership: Amaterasu's last, great hope.
Shijie Rohay threatens to unmake it before it is even realized. Should the world turn on the Veruni, on the Radicals... there is the chance that last hope will be extinguished, and it is Kaguya's life that will be the sacrifice.
"..."
Either Shijie's activities have gone unnoticed, or they are things that have been witnessed but not minded. Regardless, though. Regardless...
"Whether or not one obeys an order is of their own free will. Though there may be consequences, in either direction," Amaterasu states plainly, herself. "Whether you are compelled to obey or whether you choose to obey, however... these are important distinctions."
But Yue gives her answer. Not by free will, but of guilt. Of a shared past, of...
A sort of enablement.
"Forgiveness is beyond your reach, CR-S01. Your past crimes are beyond such easy atonement. Yet, it is possible for you to attain a sort of absolution, I believe. ...Rot comes in many forms within our society."
Her gaze at least retreats from Yue, travels up the walls of this stretch of the Under Traffic.
"To promote healing, a surgeon may cut out decay. In this sense... my blade is a surgeon's knife. Even should they be fellow Veruni," Amaterasu finishes, "I shall not hesitate."
Her gaze fixes on Yue once more. "...And you? What will you choose? To remain mired in your indignity? Or, shall you choose another way?"
<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.
The internal politics of the Veruni are far from the unified front they desperately wish it to be. There are lots of people who believe they're not doing enough. There are lots of people placing their bets under various individuals -- Volsung, chief amongst them. Yue...
"I see. I'll keep that in mind," Yue quietly says.
She bobs her head to one side, those tired eyes of hers cast over the distance, deeper down the tunnel. "If I thought I could attain forgiveness, I wouldn't be in the place I am now. No, atonement should never be easy. But..."
She spends a good five seconds in internal debate, and then reaches out with a slip of paper. "One week's time. There's a plan to lure Shijie out." And... here's the piece du resistance. "It's half Kaguya's plan, but don't interrupt her right now."
She fixes her clothing, and motions to start heading down one of the tunnels. "I haven't lived for absolution or redemption, ever since I awoke in the present. I thought I was satisfied with carrying out my sentence."
The Veruni glances over her shoulder, to her superior.
"But I don't believe the young deserve to be dragged into past sins."
<Pose Tracker> Amaterasu has posed.
Even among their own faction, there are dissidents. There are those who yearn for the days in which conquest was their path to a brighter future. There are those who seek instead a more conclusive end to their dilemma. It's a matter of means, not goals, but even in this, there is division.
Amaterasu's task for years now has also been to eliminate Moderates that threaten the Radical cause. It is a simple matter to turn her attentions more intimately than that.
As she had said, there are consequences for not obeying an order. Her orders are of late simply to serve the Radical cause. She can see one way in which to do that.
There are also consequences for reinterpreting an order, yes. But the way before her is clear.
Atonement, after all, is never so easy.
"...One week's time," Amaterasu echoes, furrowing her brow. Time enough to collect what she needs. To prepare herself. But, that's only the half of it.
Amaterasu starts, as if quelling in that moment a move to grab and take hold of Yue. "--Kaguya's plan? Where is she? She fell off communications months ago and--"
But there will be no answers forthcoming, most likely. The reunion will be delayed yet.
Amaterasu instead only watches as Yue turns, as she makes to head down the tunnels. As she heads away from here. "...So I see."
"Absolution is not your goal, is it, CR-S01? ...Not for yourself."
"Ha. In that, we are of like spirit."