Description: Jiro Kasagi. The man called Dante. A life or death duel - and Jiro lost. He would have died, could have died, had his friends not intervened. Acacia was among them. But now...now she wonders about the implications of that choice. And to find the answer, she turns to an unlikely source.
(Original Log dated Tuesday, May 08, 2007, 12:13 AM)
Asking anyone who knows the girl where Hotaru might be found is going to point Acacia this way. A modest looking, somewhat run down church building admist a quieter section of Southtown Village, secluded behind a somewhat high brick wall that encloses a fairly large parcel of landscape within it.
And as afternoon shifts to evening, with school out for the day, this happens to be exactly where Hotaru is. A cacophony of Yah! Hah! Kyah!'s can be heard even before entering the wrought iron gate. A tree branch off to the side has several wooden 2x4's dangling from it by ropes. In the midst of the now wildly swinging boards is Hotaru herself, weaving, dodging, kicking, pressing smoothly as she avoids being struck while hitting them back. The kata is almost dance-like, and it reflects the emphasis she always places on trying to strike effectively while not getting hit.
Yes, Acacia's been looking for Hotaru. Not the easiest of tasks, since she barely knows the other girl. They've fought a couple of times, but that's about the extent of their past history. Of course, the fighting community in Southtown isn't all /that/ large. She and Hotaru move in the same circles, more or less. And so, Acacia finds herself here, stepping through the gate into the old Church yard.
She looks around, in mild surprise. This wasn't what she was expecting. It's odd to find a Church building like this in Japan, of all places. And the fact that Hotaru apparently lives here...
...well, Acacia's not sure what to make of that.
Her footfalls are silent as she crosses the yard. Acacia's boots are heavy-soled, clunky-looking shapes of rubber and black leather. But they barely bend the grass as she walks, her stride careful and measured, unwilling to disturb the sanctity of this place.
She follows the sound of Hotaru's practice, until she rounds a corner and catches sight of the other girl. Acacia stands where she is, a few feet away, her hands tucked into her pockets. Watching.
It would be rude to interrupt.
Finding out why the building exists and why it's a likely place to find Hotaru would require asking the girl, or maybe one of the very few people that know the story. But digging up the youngest Futaba's past is probably not the purpose of this visit anyway.
When the Kenpo artist notices that a visitor is present, she ducks low to avoid the swinging blocks and rolls forward far enough that it is safe for her to return to standing without having to worry about getting hit. She recognizes Acacia immediately, her mouth forming a quiet smile as she pauses a moment to catch her breath. Seconds pass before she speaks up, "This is a surprise. Good evening," she offers in greeting, moving over to the side to pick up a white towel sitting folded in the grass and wrapping it over her shoulders.
Acacia smiles. It's a small and subtle thing, easy to miss if you aren't looking for it. The curve of her lips, doesn't change all that much. But her eyes, the whole set of her face, that shifts.
"Evening," she replies, inclining her head. Acacia's gaze flicks briefly to the suspended wooden planks, noting how they hang from the tree. There's a hint of approval in her look, though it vanishes as she turns back to Hotaru.
"Sorry for interrupting."
"Don't be," Hotaru replies with a shake of her head. It's easy to see the curiosity in her eyes as she studies Acacia, her head leaning to the side a little. That the tougher girl would come looking for her seems to have given her cause to wonder. She probably wouldn't be interested in a rematch, as the last fight they had was pretty one-sided and there wouldn't be much of a point in Acacia coming out of her way to come pommel the girl after Hotaru vanished from the fighting scene for over a year.
"I was ready for a break anyway," she continues after a moment with a smile, her breath back to normal now after having been dodging the blocks for over an hour or more straight. There's not much furniture out here, but there is a stone bench facing a perfectly manicured flower garden and it is toward it that Hotaru gestures without a word, inviting the Gedo student to take a seat if she would like. For her own part, she sits down on the low retaining wall that surrounds part of the flower garden.
Whether or not Acacia opts to sit, the girl continues without allowing silence to linger for long, "I wanted to thank you for your help Saturday... I'm sorry that I wasn't able to do so at the time." she states, slipping the towel from her shoulders to fold it in her lap.
"Uh, yeah," Acacia replies, in a rather less-than-coherent fashion. She lifts a hand to the back of her head, running fingers through her hair. An awkward gesture. She remains where she is, still standing.
"But you don't need to...I mean...couldn't just watch."
Acacia draws a breath, then exhales it in a hiss. She meets Hotaru's eyes. "-You- moved first."
Setting aside the folded towel, Hotaru rests her hands in her lap, now giving Acacia her undivided attention. "I guess neither of us had a choice then," she replies, her tone reserved, a little reluctant. What happened that day was unlike anything she had ever had to face before with her comperatively sheltered upbringing and exclusive education. Understanding that people like Kain, Grant, or even Dante exist is a lot different than standing before them defiantly or worse, getting struck by them.
Just reflecting on it causes her smile to fade, but it comes back after a moment as if she doesn't want to dwell on it too long. "I am only glad that everyone is okay now... No longer do I have to watch each sunset and know that meant their fight was one day nearer."
"That what you did?"
Acacia looks away as she says this, averting her eyes. She examines the plants in the garden, apparently engrossed in the flowers, leaves, and trees. Her footing shifts, just a little, one boot sliding over the ground.
It's not a rhethorical question. She really is asking. And there's something in Acacia's tone that suggests...whatever /she/ did in the time leading up to Jiro's confrontation, it wasn't that.
Asking the question then breaking eye contact causes Hotaru to gaze elsewhere, herself, eyes straying to the upper portion of the church building at the oddly large bellfry. Something about whatever she's thinking about causes her cheeks to blush slightly, barely noticeable in the diming evening light.
"Yes, I did. Well... at first, I thought it could all be avoided," she continues. "And Jiro eventually turned down the fight after we talked about it a lot. But I don't think either of us knew that Dante would attack everyone Jiro knew until he promised to show up for the fight... That was about two weeks ago. That's when I knew it was going to happen no matter what." She sighs a little, hands fidgeting a little as she folds her fingers together repeatedly. "But now it's all over," she finishes, her tone brightening at that last part.
Her attention returns to Acacia. She isn't sure how differently Acacia was about it all. That she showed up at all wasn't a surprise to Hotaru, as when she last saw the other girl, she understood she and Jiro to be friends at least.
"Is it?"
Acacia walks over to the bench, the one Hotaru gestured to. She takes the seat, as bidden. Her gloved hands grip the edge of the bench, leather against stone. She leans forward slightly, her head bowed, face towards the ground.
She exhales.
"This...Dante's still around. Kain. Heinlein. Grant. If they really wanted Jiro dead...he'd be. Maybe us too."
Her mouth lifts in a faint smile, but there's no humour in her expression.
"Came close to it."
She shakes her head. "Always danger. Always someone stronger. Less moral. Whatever."
Well, that's not a very happy thought. Hotaru watches Acacia take a seat, listening to her words thoughtfully. As she speaks up again, she has a somewhat torn smile, like she wishes what was said wasn't true but can't really disbelieve it either. "At least, I don't think Jiro matters to them anymore. Or any of us. They let us go. I don't think we mean anything to any of them..." Hotaru isn't going to be looking over her shoulder wondering when the next Grant-Paintrain is going to plow her over again, at least. If the masked titan had death in mind for her, she wouldn't be sitting here now.
The scuffle of cloth against brick is heard as she begins to swing her legs a little, kicking her heels on the small wall upon which she sits. She hesitates before adding, "Maybe there are more like them to worry about... you probably know more about it than I do." The comment could be taken as a slight against Acacia's Gedo High, as surely it is teeming with people that would qualify as being 'less moral', at least to Hotaru's way of thinking. Or maybe the Kenpo artist is merely admitting to her naivete on such matters and no offense was intended.
Acacia makes a small sound, her natural sarcasm rising to the fore. "What, you want a list?"
She lifts her head, snorting, nostrils flaring. Then she looks back down, between her knees, hunching forward again. "You're right," she admits, after a moment or two, "-this- crisis...looks over. I guess."
She bites her lower lip, lightly, teeth running over the flesh - before flicking her tongue out, moistening it. It's clear that something's bothering her, but finding the words to frame it...that's difficult.
"But..."
Acacia trails off, the thought unfinished.
She doesn't mind Acacia's half-sentences or incomplete thoughts. It seems the passage of a year hasn't made the darker skinned girl any less laconic. And if it wasn't for the troubled expression Hotaru detects in her expressions, she wouldn't even feel it necessary to pry further. But if Acacia came here with something on her mind, young Futaba can't help but begin to fret about what it might be.
"Is there something else you know about?" she asks bluntly. The question hangs in the air, begging for an answer, as Hotaru says nothing else to break the silence afterward. That burden rests on Acacia.
"Actually yeah," Acacia replies, with equal directness. Hotaru's query seems to give her something to latch onto. A focus for her scattered thoughts. She finally does make eye contact, once again, her face hardening.
"But," she says, "not your problem. Mine, maybe. Don't know."
She lifts a hand, closing her fingers into a fist. A gesture of emphasis.
"The fight... you jumped in. No hesitation."
Acacia takes a deep breath. "Don't think," she admits, "-I- could have done that. Stuck my neck out like that."
She looks at Hotaru, her expression serious. "You said I helped. Yeah. But...don't know what I'd have done. If you hadn't..."
'That was brave, brave thing you did my friend.'
'I was scared.'
The conversation she had with Elena about her actions that day echo in Hotaru's mind as Acacia works the conversation back around to the girl's desperate defiance in the face of Kain's terrifying presence. The young martial artist lowers her face now, her eyes gazing at the grass at the base of the wall. "I... I don't remember what I was thinking at the time. All I can remember is how bad my hand trembled." She looks back up, her smile present but saddened slightly, "Like I said before. I didn't have a choice. If you care about someone enough, you will do anything to save them." Her cheeks blush slightly. Covering the nature of Jiro and her relationship at this time wasn't really something she had intended to discuss. "My mother once told me that caring enough to endure anything for someone will get rid of our fear, but standing there, I was terrified."
"Still you acted."
Acacia's voice is soft, quiet, hushed. Barely audible, little more than a whisper. In the silence of the Churchyard, though, Hotaru should have little trouble catching her words.
"Because...you believe that."
She regards Hotaru, her eyes searching. Then Acacia breathes a sigh, her shoulders slumping.
"Don't think," she says, in a louder voice, "I was clear. Wasn't -afraid-... just...don't know if I really -could- sacrifice myself. For someone else."
Pause.
"Don't know if I could do that."
If there's one thing Hotaru's picked up on it's that it's best to let seconds pass when Acacia is talking before speaking, as her sentences sometimes come out haltingly. But that isn't why she sits silently for several seconds even when it's clear the darker skinned girl has nothing else to say at the moment.
She had nodded her head slightly at the mention of what she believes. But otherwise she sits perfectly still. Eventually she breaks eye contact, lowering her face to gaze at the grass once more as she thinks about Acacia's own confession. "I believe that it is never impossible to change something about ourselves if we really want to." Hotaru says after thinking about it long and hard. "I'm not sure wanting to be willing to die for someone else is the best thing to strive for... but sometimes we can be ready to make the hardest decisions by the way we make the small decisions every day."
"/Do/ I want to?"
There's a fair amount of force in the question. Acacia almost spits it. "I'm a fighter. Not a superhero. Don't know if I've ever been altruistic."
"Helped my friends before," she says, bringing a hand to her head. She brushes stray strands of silver hair from her face, shoving her bangs back. The corner of her lips twitches, curving into a frown. "But did I just do that 'cause they're /my/ friends? That still a selfish reason? Don't know," she continues, with an increasing sense of ire, "if I could sacrifice /me/."
Acacia jerks a thumb at herself, stabbing the finger into her collarbone. Her movements, her entire mein, has a distinct air of self-recrimination. "If it were just me there, I might have let him die."
At the thought of letting Jiro die if no one else had intervened, Hotaru's mouth tightens a little. She obviously doesn't know either way how Acacia would have acted were she the only one who could have put forth her hand to try and save the young man that was perhaps well past due on his debt to death. Maybe she would have acted or maybe she is correct that she wouldn't have. Hotaru hopes that she would have...
"If you didn't want to, I don't think it would be bothering you so much," the pig-tailed girl replies, leaving the words to speak for themselves. Those who revel in their callousness don't fret details like 'Would I ever sacrifice myself to save someone else?'
Acacia laughs, somewhat ruefully, acknowledging the point. She bows her head in a slow nod. "Yeah," she answers, "I guess."
She's still got her thumb jabbed into her collarbone, just below the hollow of her throat. Her gloves are cut off at the fingers, in the style of a motorcyclist's. She draws that thumb up over her neck, to her chin, over her mouth, until her fingertip rests dead centre beneath her nose... her knuckles above, against her forehead. A thoughtful posture, as she mulls over what Hotaru said.
"Mmn. But you don't need to hear me bitch, either. Sorry. Just...had to tell someone. And...you, what /you/ did. I admire that, you know?"
She still has Hotaru's full attention, and the girl exhibits nothing but patience for the pacing Acacia's speach entails. Silently she waits as the the fellow fighter appears to think on what they've discussed. But when she offers words of unmistakeable praise, a look of mild discomfort passes over Hotaru's features.
She had once spoken to Acacia about wanting to become tougher. Not just to be able to take hits better - something she hasn't really improved significantly since then - But tougher with surviving what life throws her way. The laconic Gedo Student had seemed like a good example to look to in order to pursue such a goal. The idea that she, herself, had exhibited something that was noteworthy in return hadn't sunk in until now.
If Hotaru looks uncomfortable, it's because she isn't sure what to say, so in the end her response is a simple, demure acknowledgement. "Thank you." The words carry weight with how she speaks them, Acacia's comment means a lot to her.
Acacia nods, again. She just a little older than Hotaru. And, as past experience has proved... probably stronger, too. But the nod she gives, the look accompanying it, is one of respect.
"It needed to be said."
Acacia gets to her feet, rising from the bench. She stands, rolling her arms back at the shoulders, stretching a little. She gives another of her tiny little smiles. "I think," she murmurs, "you're a better friend than me. To Jiro, at least. Or, Megumi tells me, more than a friend."
There's a teasing air to her statement, but she means it all the same. Especially when she adds:
"I...could never do that."
There's that blush again. It's harder to see it now that daylight has grown quite scarce and the church yard doesn't appear to have any lights that come on automatically. But accompanying the sheepish expression is a certain delighted sparkle in Hotaru's eyes. Tease all you want, but the girl is clearly happy with the change in her own life.
"Nn," she replies with a nod, holding back a light laugh. "Thank you again, Acacia. For the words. For the help." Even if it wasn't what she had set out to do when coming to watch the fateful fight, it helped make all the difference.
"Nah," Acacia replies, as she turns. She begins to walk away, heading out of the yard, leaving the church compound. She holds a hand up, without turning, swaying her arm at the elbow and wrist. A casual wave.
"Thank -you-."
Log created on 18:28:07 05/30/2007 by Acacia, and last modified on 07:31:39 07/06/2007.