onepassingnight | (no subject)

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Sunlight. That was something he frankly, hadn't been expecting to see anytime soon. Actually, he hadn't expected to be breathing again either. Sitting up in the oddly comfortable and peculiarly designed bed. Though truth be told, he wasn't really used to sleeping in an actual bed either. So waking up in one with railings like this one was a little strange.

The room was quiet, frankly too quiet for his tastes either. His surroundings were strange, yet as he looked out the window and saw the familiar view of the surface he thought he'd left behind, he started putting things together in his head. That was right, Simon took control of that fortress Ganmen, so he must be aboard it. A quick glance down explained the tightness around his chest and mid-section; he'd been quite thoroughly bandaged up. It wasn't a bad job considering he was pretty sure that the last time he checked himself, there was a big, damn hole right below his ribs.

With a little struggling, he clamored out of the bed and wasted little time in donning his pants, cape and geta -all conveniently left near his bedside. Tucking his shades into the waistband of his pants, he grabbed his sheathed sword and wasted no time in flinging the door leading out to the hall open with dramatic fervor.

All at once, the eyes of the passersby were all on him. Expressions of shock and sheer amazement greeted him for a moment before erupting into a riotous cheer. Shouts and cries of "He's awake!" and "Lord Kamina's on his feet!" resounded as he returned the greeting with a cocky smirk of his.

"Hell yeah!" That was the initial reply he gave as he stepped out, giving his new surroundings a quick once over, "It'll take those bastards a lot more than that if they're lookin' to take me down!"

More cheers came as he found himself ushered through the hallways, past more cheering humans that had joined their resistance, the Dai Gurren Dan. And before he knew it, they'd led him to the bridge where as the doors parted, the crew member leading him along announced to the bridge crew, "Captain on deck!"

[OOC: Okay, so in Kamina's dream here, episode 8 ended on a far better note than it actually did. Feel free to show up aboard his new giant mech-battleship-thing.]

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The moon. To her, it's a less appealing target. She focuses on the land in front of them instead.

"What stops them from doing it now?" She doesn't immediately see any barriers or anything holding them back.

There was that almost stupified, blank stare of his again.

It was about at this moment, that he figured that at least originally, she must've been dragged along from some significantly less-involved village where they might actually like it underground or something.

"Ya taken a look around?" Kamina's voice reflects a hint of disbelief that she wouldn't know -if not just for the reason that he's assuming that she's just from another village on his world.

"Out there, the beastmen hunt and exterminate any human that comes to the surface -for any reason! And while none of the ones whose asses I've kicked have given us any reasons why, now that I'm up here, I'll be damned if I just let 'em stuff us all back under a rock!"

For all she knew, the conflict was more localized than that.

Despite that incredulous tone, she nods. She has mixed feelings about humans; the Dark Kingdom had taught her to look down on them, to attack them either at whim or during the times it would serve their purposes, it didn't matter what happened to mere humans.

Then humans had saved their own world. They'd broken the seal on the power they needed to save themselves; Mercury and her companions had only been the focus and catalyst. The power had come from the combined will of the people of Earth.

"Good luck in the future, then," she says, lightly as always, but perhaps, perhaps sincerely.

Despite whatever thoughts were brewing in the sailor-suited girl's head, he merely took her comment at face value. It was enough to put that usual arrogant smirk on Kamina's face as he glanced out the window, taking in a generous view of the wasteland outside.

"Heh, ya don't need luck!"

He gives a pause before speaking up again. "Ya just believe and you do it! No luck or anything like that's part of it at all in the end! It's how strong you believe in yourself and everyone around you -it's how your spirits all combine and make a stand everything else!"

Yeah all she hears from that is bunch of unfounded optimism. "You were cooler as the ship captain," Mercury remarks.

She doesn't need lectures about faith or love or believing in people.

"Is that the end of the cute speech?"

Edited 2011-04-18 06:44 (UTC)

He'd just effectively shared one of his driving philosophies with her and it was just dismissed like the fleeting dreams of a child. Yet they were all humans aboard the ship and he wasn't able to give into reflex and slug her. Especially not when he didn't know her name, though already the kind of person her actions described her as was getting on his nerves.

Casually he draws his shades from his waistband and slips them on, his expression shifting as his eyes narrowed slightly behind the crimson plastic. Kamina doesn't look at her, his gaze still out on the horizon before he speaks up again.

"Call it what you will. But it's that power that forces the Ganmen we've stolen to work for us -it's how we run 'em!" He pauses to gesture toward the ship around, "I'm pretty sure it's even how this damn ship works too! Guts and spirit's what makes shit work in this world!"

"I just don't believe in things like that." She says it more seriously, almost distantly this time, the mocking gone. "I've never seen them work out in the end." Quite the opposite, in fact.

And yet that insistence on them is... familiar. Well, Mercury knew how that ended, too: a dead girl before it could be a dead world.

"Do you really believe what you said?"

Edited 2011-04-19 07:42 (UTC)

She was really testing his patience now. It was absolutely mind-boggling for her to make a statement like that. Did she just think that they waltzed in and the Beastmen surrendered the battleship they stood on so easily? And then even if they had gotten help from other humans in other villages, other caves... certainly there must have been some reason for this girl to come along. And he told himself that with an attitude like that, whatever she was brought along to do, she better be damn good at it.

He was angry, but he kept telling himself that she didn't deserve a hit -not yet. No, his victory would be proving his point to her -to take someone even more dull than that dumb kid Rossiu and show them just what belief could do would make him feel a hell of a lot better than just kicking her ass.

Without another word wasted on her, he reaches to grab her by the shoulder. If he's lucky and she's at least curious to see what he's planning, he'll start leading her somewhat forcibly off the bridge. But not before he stops and points at the person on helm, "You! Get us goin' to wherever the damn capital that beastman mentioned! I'm going down to the hanger!"

And then once more, if she'll accept being his guest for the demonstration he has in mind, he'll lead her down to the hanger where the Gurren stood, cockpit open and ready for its pilot.

Though she seemed calmer, it was as disturbing for her as it was for him. That sort of burning faith was something she'd never had even at her best. Now, she lives by force and waits for allies and so-called friendships to end. Even her lover: Some day, their relationship would disappear, wouldn't it? Perhaps it even already had without her knowing; she hadn't seen him in a very long time.

It was Kamina's forcefulness that made Mercury at least go along, at least see what he had to say; she could respect that firmness of will. His answer was her own: Why don't you decide on [whether I'm of use] after I kill the sailor senshi? She knew what it was to prove herself by action. She had no more faith in words anyway.

Mercury stayed silent as they approached the hanger. Her mind was already working to explain away the belief and hope before she'd even seen it.

Edited 2011-04-19 08:05 (UTC)

Given time, Kamina would show her just how potent something like belief and faith could be. Faith that a brother would arrive to aid had once given him the strength to rise time and time again when confronted by foes far out-stripping him in any other ability. Belief in himself had allowed his will to, without any training what so ever, force the Ganmen before them to bend to his will. And trust in a new friend had allowed him to stand as a wall before their foes, knowing that she would cover his vulnerabilities.

Tugging the bothersome girl with him by her arm, he advances up the stairs and leads her through the varied check points until he pushes her into the Gurren's cockpit, specifically the pilot's seat and then wastes no time in following along after her.

"Alright, this is the first thing! A Ganmen runs on a human's spirit! Ya will the thing to move! So if it's something else that does it, I want you to show me right here!"

She is the foe who far outpowers the heroines but has none of their faith and hope. And yet, she still works by the same means under another name: what they call heart, she calls will. A strong will can accomplish great things. And as much as she'd deny it, she relies on the shitennou to be there when their hardest battles come.

Touching her makes her stiffen; she pulls her arm away, and yet follows. She stares at the cockpit even she can't make sense of without familiarity.

"Human spirit?" Isn't it mechanical? Doesn't it run on... whatever fuel they may be using in this world? And yet if it's nothing but willpower, surely she can do it. She nods firmly, and focuses her mind on the task.

Admittedly, there was more to it than that. The things he called 'belief', 'guts' or 'spirit' were all honestly byproducts of the power inherent in all evolving lifeforms; that thing called Spiral Energy. Though the understanding and research into this power would be something that human kind would not happen for almost half a decade. So while his comprehension was crude, it was doubtlessly effective, if not for the sheer level of this power he unknowingly put out.

In either case, aside from a single nod, he just stands there as he watches the screens in the Gurren's cockpit for some sign of response. Under Beastman control, they ran off of solar power -but his initial take-over of the control systems had reset the entire machine to operate on Spiral Energy.

Arms crossed, he waited to see what would happen. Though willpower was a component, that wasn't the only part of it. And even with sufficient willpower, the machine would respond and operate -though at a much more sluggish pace. If there was some part of her that wanted to believe, that wanted to really put her all -every seemingly inconsequential feeling that she'd cast aside, surely the red machine would respond better to her.

Her will is very strong; that much is seen quickly as the machine responds. She could not have come this far, this long, otherwise, without that strong mind. But it does not respond well; she has forgotten those key other components. Her determination and grit are formidable, but they are not faith, hope, or love. Sluggish, as though it'd rather stay dormant, it responds to her listlessly. She may never admit it, even to herself, but she has always been weak emotionally.

Mercury frowns, and looks almost accusingly at Kamina. "What is this?" she asks. "Why isn't it quicker?"

Though it doesn't show, at least a small part of him is surprised that it's even responded this well to her. If nothing, it disappoints him a little on the inside. It's not a matter that he was watching his personal machine respond to someone else, it was that it was responding so sluggishly. That she was able to make it move at all told tomes of her will power, but to see her lacking the rest of what it took to power the whole thing... it might have even made him a little sad too; it was a waste of a person.

For a split second he paused to wonder just what kind of world could forge a will like this, but leave it so painfully lacking in the rest of what made it truly strong.

Finally, Kamina speaks up as he puts his hand on the back of the seat his still nameless cohort is operating from, "Cause yer forcing yer will through it -that makes it respond to ya. But yer missing some feelings to drive it -to drive you!"

He turns and gestures off and behind them to his right, clearly implying the crew operating the battleship they stood on, "Ya gotta accept that they're believing in ya to fight cause they can't!" Another gesture, this time out the open cockpit front to the technicians and mechanics in the hanger, "That they believe in you to fight; cause the work they put into this machine is how they show their spirit!"

Kamina lets go of the backrest entirely to gesture out of the open cockpit door and toward the nearly endless horizon off in the distance, "And all the other humans in their holes are believing in you to fight cause they can't get outta their holes! You take that belief! Then believe in yourself! Cause then it's not just you goin' out there and fighting, it's everyone!"

It would be up to her to really notice or pay attention, but as he spoke and gestured -becoming more and more fired up himself, the Gurren responded faster and more precisely to how she guided the machine.

Once, just once, she had seen it: the will of everyone on Earth, come together, through trust that the shitennou and Mercury would defeat the enemy, to give them the power to do so. It's why she no longer calls humans weak; they have power at times. She's seen it.

It shocks her to realize it's the same thing Kamina means now.

There's a calm silence that might end in anything. If she says that's right, and enters a world where it's true, won't she be fooled again? Won't she lose the strength of determination? Is it really possible to embrace both at once?

Perhaps, she reflects with appreciation of the irony, it's as possible as embracing battle and a doctor's profession at once.

Just as she starts to think these things, the ship begins to respond better under Kamina's efforts. It makes a powerful backdrop to her quiet musing. Her eyes widen.

"That was...?" She hardly dares name it. "That was this belief?" The mistaken thought that she could have done it is... unsettling to the cold soldier, and reassuring to the girl, at once. If she can still do such things...

If there was proof that the strength of determination could embrace the ideals of belief and faith, then surely he was standing right behind her, trying to remind her that those concepts could all be closely interlinked. He was starting to put together an image in his head of an oppressive village where a strict status quo like Adai met a power-mad elder like in Jiiha. In such a village, a younger version of the girl he stood with had her hopes, dreams and ideals crushed before her; again and again until only her will to keep pushing onward was all that remained.

At least that was the mental image he was coming up with to explain why she'd been so adamant in refusing to even consider his ideals. And from where he stood, they aren't just his ideals, they're ideals that he believed were the right of every human being that sought to carve their own path in life.

So for the moment, he'll not look at her, but smile with that same confident lean as his hand finds the back of the chair she was seated in, "Ain't just me... it's everyone around us -includin' a part of you that you were trying to ignore."

Kamina gives that a moment to sink in before speaking up, "They'll be times when it seems hopeless; when all of it seems like nothin' but shit. But you keep hangin' in there, get up as many times as yer knocked down and believe in yerself and what yer standing for."

His fingers will reach up his face and correct the way his glasses sit on his face, "And you'll always win."

It was a world where a girl who never had a friend finally found some - only to find out it was all for nothing; they abandoned her when she needed help most. It was a world where the light of hope and the waited-for savior, turned out to be the destroyer.

It was a world where a man of iron-hard will could decide to take a young girl and call her his, and do with her what he wished; it was a world driven by his vengeance. It was a world where her compassion was ridiculed and her coldness was praised. It was a world that tried its hardest to make her less than a soldier, nothing but a sword.

"Even me, huh?" she says, quietly still for now. A more characteristic expression takes over next. "But I'll always keep going forward. I'll never stop." The moment she stops, it'll all come down.

Edited 2011-04-24 10:31 (UTC)

He nods, accepting that moment where she considered that he has a point about his beliefs as enough of a victory for now. People were different from wars and while you could push a battle as long as everyone fighting was in decent enough shape to do so, in a battle of ideals, new ones needed time to settle -especially if the ground they were settling in was so hostile.

Though lacking much in the way of patience, Kamina wanted this to be a complete victory. So he'd wait and work with this girl... which actually brought another reminder that he had no idea just who the hell she was.

"That's how it works." He comments dryly in response to her remark, an appreciable grin creasing his face, "Don't give up, that's all. That's the only time it's over."

He takes a moment to stretch about as well as he can in the confines of the Gurren's cockpit, "Anyway, I made my point. I didn't get yer name though."

She doesn't believe words anymore; but Kamina's shown her what he means; she's seen it. That's different. Harder to shrug off.

The oh-so-simple question snaps her back to the situation at hand, calling her back from more nebulous lines of thought.

"The soldier of Water and Knowledge," she introduces herself. "Mercury."

He cocks an eyebrow at her self-introduction. Granted, he had a fairly long and ridiculous title that he'd given himself, there was something that was particularly unusual about hers. Aside from the fact that it was rather short, yet quite quick to get to its point. Still it at least stuck out in memory as he decided that he'd just probably cut it down to a single word.

"Mercury, huh?" Kamina says it as if to test how it sounds coming out of him, nodding his head about the way a chef would as they decided that the dish the just sampled proved to be up to par.

And then that almost arrogant grin of his came right back, "Glad to have ya aboard then!"

Mercury is fine.

"It doesn't mean I think of myself as your subordinate," she warns Kamina, as if this is the important thing. Ship's captain is well and good; but she doesn't plan to be anyone's lackey.

That grin doesn't go away as he chuckles, "We're all equals here, far as I'm concerned. Just most of everyone thinks I've got the right idea most of the time."

Especially after a show of will like that, he wouldn't dream of making her subordinate to him. No, if he was going to teach her about belief, guts and outright spirit, he'd need to ensure she knew he thought of her as a partner instead of an underling.

"Otherwise, if ya have a better one, just make sure I hear it."

Mercury actually smiles. It's... a pleasant change from the man in her own world who, despite Mercury's brave words, expects her full obedience and doesn't hesitate to force it if it isn't given willingly.

"I'll make sure of that," she promises. Yes, she seems like she could be perfectly loud if she felt the need to be.

He seems contented with how that went, propping himself up against the side of the cockpit and glancing out at the distant horizon. The momentary silence gives him some time to consider that for a while, he was certain he wouldn't have seen any of this again.

And that started him doing something that he was still getting used to: thinking.

"Oi, so which village around here are you from?"

The fact that he was still alive after the injuries he knew he'd sustained were odd -about as odd as Mercury herself when trying to figure out where a girl like her would fit into a world like his. If nothing, it'd make some worthwhile conversation while he waited for her to return his Ganmen from the deck of the Dai Gurren, to the hanger.

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Sorry this one took awhile

No worries! I'm for sleep in a few, but will be around tomorrow

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