Description: After being attacked in her dreams by an unknown psychic force, Shurui's seen better days. However, whatever attacked her might not stop at that, so Shurui's next concern is the YFCC. Calling up a person she's only met once or twice before, the girl is surprised by that said person's welcoming spirit, as well as what he has to give her.
Welcome back to Southtown! Sort of. Unlike some of the tournament participants, during the Strolheim Student-Teacher Invitational the YFCC instructor decided to stay in Strolheim itself; besides just being a nice vacation, staying in the locale where everything is going down helped him to keep focus. However, with the quarter and semifinals looming in the distance, the chi sage decided to come home to Southtown and make sure everything was kosher in the home front. So he packed his clothes, made a long stop at the Strolheim airport duty-free shop, and then flew home.
The redhead was a welcome sight when he stopped into the center to release his bounty of Strolheim souvenirs into the wild. Postcards, candy, keychains... all little, cheap things, but to the various teens at the center they are fun presents of a far-off country. A little more time is spent with the volunteer lady who took over his tai chi class to see how his students are doing; a little more still filling out various pieces of paperwork that needed doing. For a moment, Frei stops writing mid-form to reflect on just how much he's fallen into this routine of... an almost normal job, an everyday existence. Well, sort of, anyway.
He's interrupted by one of the administrative assistants handing him the phone.
Flash forward to now; the evening sky is a haze of dark purple and midnight blue, and the winter air is a little bit chilly. Certainly, it's enough for the redhead to add a dark brown bomber jacket and a dark green scarf to his normal outfit, exchanging sandals for sneakers. He looks, if nothing else, contemplative; at the same time, though, his arm swings at his side, holding a small, red and white-patterned gift bag by the loop-like handles, bag and arm alike making swishing arcs through the air like a schoolboy skipping home after classes.
Thoughts do poke into his mind as he walks; memories of attacks on the Center and its people, and now this... a warning and a message delivered by a name he only vaguely remembers, having spent precious little time with Shurui. Something he regrets, on reflection; after all, she is part of the center's extended family, a social structure he takes no small amount of pride in.
Eventually, his sneakered feet come to a stop near the gates to the Futaba estate, and he crosses his arms over his chest, gift bag dangling in front of his stomach as he waits. "Well... here I am," he says quietly, to the world in general.
"Alma's probably not gonna like me beating around the bush like this, but this ain't about him. That's why I went with you."
The voice comes from behind Frei, a croak that sounds enough like Shurui to be recongizable. "Hotaru's away on SNF business, but it's probably good to come to you anyway instead of making her be the messenger. She's had to bear with me since taking me on." If and when Frei turns around, he'll see hell in pint-sized for-
Well, Shurui used to look like that. Because of the aforementioned Hotaru's care, the dirty zombie now is a clean, saner zombie, still dark-eyed from lack of restful sleep. No mark exists on her skin, yet her body movements and expression narrate a long battle with an unseen enemy who is weak, slow, but insistant and neverending. If Frei, or indeed, Hotaru, were psychic in any capacity, they'd see a far more horrifying picture, something Shurui intends to hide, for now. "... It was important I told someone who wasn't psychic. 'Not that I have proof that it's contagious or any'thin...." She gives a weak shrug. "But I have my doubts that it's after anybody with chi-ish powers."
If it was after anybody, K' would have been a prime target, weakened as he was from his wounds. His mental psyche would prove no challenge to a psychic force that managed to defeat her on the turf of her own mind. "Wait, yeah. Better explain myself better, nnh?" She rubs her eyes. "I dunno if there's any psychics other than me that go to the YFCC, but... if there are, you guys gotta keep an eye on this. Someone weaker than me would have gone insane. From the dream... thing." She loosely waves some fingers, as if to indicate a point.
"...." She sighs. ".... Not making any sense, am I?"
Well, it's dark. And Frei is restless. So his being taken by surprise can hardly be called unexpected, can it? When Shurui first speaks, he jumps a little bit, starting, before half-turning to see who spoke, green eyes searching the darkness for the speaker briefly until his gaze alights on the girl herself. He seems about to comment and then his mouth snaps shut mid-syllable at the sight of her, never mind Shurui's cutting right to the chase. As she speaks his half-turn becomes a full turn, the redhead shifting to face Hotaru's troubled houseguest. Rather than crossed in front of his chest, his arms drop down in front of him in a rough V, the gift bag swaying back and forth slightly from the motion.
Shurui has a lot to say, and the young sage is content to let her say it, trying to piece together the important facts. Hotaru's not here, she didn't want to involve Alma... Rose is typically hard to find and really, that leaves Frei and Mizuki. That the grey-haired young woman is fatigued is obvious to anyone; but yet, there is still something different in her posture from the last time Frei saw her, many moons ago. The fatigue is threaded with nervous energy, born of her concern for others.
When Shurui finishes her explanation, Frei tilts his head to the side a little in a gesture of contemplation. "Hm. Well... no, I don't really get the whole story. But it's obvious something is weighing on you, so take all the time you need." He smiles a little to punctuate that statement, before putting a finger to his lips. "Actually... if by 'psychic' you mean people with powers like Alma's, then there IS Zach... but I haven't seen him in some time. If I do see him, I'll try to warn him. Oh, and here." He pushes forward the gift bag with one hand, and the smile here becomes a little sheepish. "Some caramel-filled truffles. I figured you might like that better than the genuine Wolfgang Krauser authentic wood nutcracker."
"Yeah, that," Shurui interjects, when Frei mentions Alma. ".... Something attacked me in my dreams, and I almost won, but... it got back. When I woke up, my powers... well, I don't *have* any powers, really. It's like the thing in my dreams took a part of me away, or somethin'... It's always there. It doesn't let me sleep. Got access to some medication that forces me to, but I still wake up like I hadn't slept at all..." She frowns. "... I think the fact that I forced myself to sleep is the only reason I'm still sane. There's others like me out there, I know it... That presence infected the entire city when I came here from my last SNF, and not too long after it got me, the fog's gone. But it's still there..."
A dark eye focuses on Frei. "... You know when you blow a dandelion head, all those seeds spread all over? But all you need is a few seeds. They can't move, but if the dandelion plants are there, you don't need to have those seeds eternally moving. It's no longer in the air.... it's actually planted itself. It's not moving." She looks confused, then sighs. ".... dumb analogy. Uh. It's no longer a haze, but it's now planted in. With roots. Something bad might happen. The kids who go to the YFCC.... I want them to not get hit by this. Some of them might be psychic. It's looking for psychics to attack. Claim their sanity."
A pause. ".... Or this all could be bullshit, I dunno... Just tell your idiot boss to be on the lookout and to not get infected by this thing himself. Even if it's just some stupid nightmare clown making psychics' lives a nightmare doesn't mean he should treat it lightly." Her shoulders slump. "I dunno what I'm sayin'.... if it's just us psychics, why should I worry so much....?"
She trails off, hearing Frei's words. "....?" She tilts her head slightly, confused. ".... That bag's... for me?" A hand reaches out, carefully, searching in the air for where she aproximates the bag's handle, then carefully closes pale fingers around it, moving it towards her. "You didn't have to, I mean..." A guilty look crosses her face, tempered by a rather childish look of temptation as she looks aside to the offered truffles. "... Thank you."
"I got something for everyone," Frei says with a smile that can only be called 'dorky'. "Well, except Hotaru because she was there and can get her own." Small talk, yes, but the grey-haired girl in front of him has given the young sage plenty of things to think over. Something attacked her in her dreams? And now it's taking root in Southtown, trying to consume people with that curious mental power... well, the lack of sleep is certainly showing on poor Shurui, assisting drugs or not. Yet despite the heavy weight of what Shurui has told him, Frei can't help but laugh helplessly and rub the back of his head. "I'd better not tell Alma anything, then. Telling him not to get involved would just make him go through fire and flood faster, really." It's a very unique kind of stupid, when it comes to people with problems. Frei should know; he's got the same kind of stupid in him.
Still and all, he adopts a more serious mien once he's given that little piece of advice. For a moment, the redhead replays in his mind the last time he and Alma met: not that long ago, in their own Strolheim battle, with NESTS overlord Igniz as Alma's teammate. The fighting model has always been a confident sort, Frei surmises, so perhaps he's safe for the time being anyway. "Thank you for thinking of the kids at the Center," he finally says, looking up. "It sounds like you've had a really hard time, and I know it's not easy to think about others in that sort of situation." He pauses, then shakes his head, bringing a hand up and chewing on the tip of his thumbnail a bit in consternation. "And the truth is... I don't know what I can do."
A sudden short laugh, then Frei shakes his head and turns his head back to Shurui, though his eyes are closed. "I have two younger brothers, and one of them actually has that same kind of power. I've never felt it, though... I'm guessing it runs on our mother's side, and I'm not very much like her." With a shrug, he opens his eyes. "But there's enough people I consider friends and family that if it's something... malicious, or someone trying to hurt them, I just can't sit by doing *nothing*, you know?" A beat, then he tilts his head again, looking at Shurui. "I bet you feel the same, so it's no surprise you're worried."
"You better have," Shurui says with an almost silly pout. "I like free candy, but not at the expense of someone else's sugar fix." In spite of saying this, she digs into the bag, procuring the bag of truffles and opening them in order to pop one in her mouth. "..... That's good..." A slight chocolate-y smile spreads on her face. "That tournament's in Germany, right? Don't they have great chocolate there? Or is it Sweden? One of those European countries..."
Securing the bag, she presses it back into the gift bag. "... Gotta save those. Can't eat them all now. I'll eat them.... when I'm better. Something to look forward to." She clasps the fingers of her right hand around the handle. "... It's not about knowing a solution. It's about knowing in the first place." The short girl's gaze attempts to settle on Frei's own, as if to further prove her point. "... I'll find my own answers. I'm going to find the others like me... See what they know. Try to find some meaning behind this. ... The fact that you know and will be able to tell people at the YFCC if this problem spreads'll at least allow you to know what's going on. Can't do anything if you don't know the problem existed in the first place, right...?"
Her gaze turns sharp. "You and Alma have to protect them from It. It may not stop with us psychics..."
Another shrug. "As for Alma... he'll find out about it, probably. The main thing is I wanted to give him was the power of a choice in this. Sure, I'm guessing he'll come running as soon as he knows, or at least after he gets free, but maybe, by then.... things'll get better. Maybe it's just some dude messing with certain people. Maybe I'm the only one and the other people I'm percieving is just wishful thinking. I dunno about this psychic stuff." Shurui sighs, slumping against a wall. "But yeah. This I wonder if it is inherited that way, or if it's just random. What's your brother like...?"
The comment about candy gives Frei a moment to inject some much-needed levity into the situation... or at least, much-needed from his point of view. He holds up both hands in a what-can-you-do? sort of gesture. "Strolheim. Their chocolate IS really good, but I think it's because it's a nation of perfectionists, myself." He scratches the side of his head with one figner, looking slightly off into the distance. "It's a little too clean and quiet and perfect. Of course, that's probably better than it being a war-torn republic filled with gun-toting revolutionary maniacs." Like Krauser would ever let THAT happen.
The redhead settles a bit as Shurui lays out her master plan. It's sensible enough; if something's only affecting psychics, then a non-psychic knowing about it is indeed valuable information. It might let Frei -- and, of course, anyone he tells about it -- pick up on trouble before it even starts. "Okay," he says. Trying to talk her out of it... well. It's obvious from the look on the young sage's face that he really, really wants to tell Shurui to do things differently, but is making the effort not to do that. Still, it's hard not to keep some of it from seeping through. "There's so much I wouldn't be able to understand, so I won't argue pointlessly. But..." He pauses, and for a second his thoughts stray to another person he knows who's taken on burdens to protect the people of the Center from perceived danger. Although he is blissfully ignorant of why, there is a fair share of irony in Frei, however briefly, mentally comparing Shurui to K'. In the end, he shakes his head. "Just take care of yourself. You don't have to do *everything* alone."
The question about his brother actually throws Frei off-guard for a moment, and briefly his green-eyed gaze is hooded, eyes dimmed. The answer to Shurui's perfectly innocent question is so complicated. What IS he like? He's the type of person who'd nearly brainwash Hotaru, tried to kill Frei's friends to get at him, controlled and manipulated people to get what he wanted, and what he wanted was revenge. In the end, Frei exhales slowly. "He... he was troubled," is what the sage eventually says. "Not a nice person, by any stretch of the imagination. But I think he got to be the way he was because the people around him were hurting him without knowing it, and by the time any of us saw it, it was too late." He turns back to look at Shurui, pausing a second before he continues. "Right now he's out there, somewhere... re-evaluating, I think. Trying to change."
"... One guy's utopia's gotta be another guy's hell..." Shurui shrugs again. "If things turned out differently, maybe I would have tried to get into that tournament. ... Made a promise to someone that I'd do more fight tournaments, after this gets cleared up..." She shakes her head. "Don't think I'd be Strolheim material, but I'm good enough for the SN-" Shurui blanches, then continues. "The SNF." Geese. Even if she had made that association already, it still makes her white with varied emotions, even as she continues. "... I'm not the best there is, but I have to get stronger for that person. I can't always assume that someone will be there if I fall. But I can assume someone will want to see me stand back up."
She seems resolved, then, in that statement. "I'll find my own answers, but I didn't say I'd depend only on myself." The girl's head turns, giving Frei a wry smile. "I'm telling you this in front of Hotaru's place, right? Hotaru's been making sure my health's good and... well, even if you don't know me well, the ball's in your court. If things get too hot, you'll probably decide on what to do. I tried doing this alone and... well, a very good friend of mine had to see me in a bad state." She closes her eyes. "But that friend left me in good hands, so. It worked out, in the end."
Despite the haze over her thoughts, the talk of Frei's brother seems to pique her interest. "Don't try to pin all the blame on people around him- we all make choices in life that we have to take responsbility for." She pauses. "But don't hate him either. He'd have no one to return to, then, when he changes." She lowers her gaze. "Nn. I don't know what he did- probably shouldn't be telling you want to do based on what I want."
"We... had it out," Frei says simply, in regards to his brother. It is a simplistic way of phrasing what *actually* happened, but in this instance he feels as if it's enough. He has faith that somewhere out there, Kataki's wounds are healing and perhaps, the next time they encounter each other, it will be on different terms. Still, Shurui's read of the situation runs very parallel to how Frei himself has come to see it, so he regards the grey-haired girl with surprise for a moment, before shaking his head and chuckling helplessly. "You're pretty wise for your age," the redhead says simply. It *sounds* 'old', which is surprising... since Frei himself does not look his 27 years by a long mile. "And you
"We... had it out," Frei says simply, in regards to his brother. It is a simplistic way of phrasing what *actually* happened, but in this instance he feels as if it's enough. He has faith that somewhere out there, Kataki's wounds are healing and perhaps, the next time they encounter each other, it will be on different terms. Still, Shurui's read of the situation runs very parallel to how Frei himself has come to see it, so he regards the grey-haired girl with surprise for a moment, before shaking his head and chuckling helplessly. "You're pretty wise for your age," the redhead says simply. It *sounds* 'old', which is surprising... since Frei himself does not look his 27 years by a long mile. "And you're right. He did what he did, not his upbringing. I just didn't... it's easy to see people in black and white terms of 'good' and 'bad' without thinking about why things happen the way they do. I didn't want to do that to him."
The story of Shurui's travails to date, however, is something different, and Frei watches her with a surprising amount of intensity. After all, as he arrived he was chiding himself for not keeping up with this unusual girl, someone who's put great trust in Frei for hardly knowing him. And although her experiences doesn't sound *pleasant*, they do seem *necessary*... or at the very least, have come to positive ends. That she's in Hotaru's care does not seem strange at all to Frei, either; after all, the kenpoist and the chi sage have both experienced for themselves how the suffering of one day can become the strength of the next.
"I'm glad you have someone you feel you need to be stronger for," Frei says quietly at last, and there's a fraction of a second where he looks surprised at his own reaction to that statement; in truth, inside, he can't help but feel a bittersweet pang of jealousy deep down. Of course, with that jealousy comes a pang of guilt as well... a desire in some way to be more useful to the people he knows. But like the pass of a cloud across the sun, it's all gone in an instant, and the smile he gives afterward is genuine. "To be honest I entered Strolheim to prove to myself I could do it. I didn't expect to get very far, and... I've actually done pretty well. Don't sell yourself short." He puts a finger to the tip of his nose, as if he were sharing some great secret with Shurui. "You never know how strong you are until you need to be."
"Um, uh." Shurui looks down, embarrassed. ".... just thinking about how I would've been like, in his shoes. If I did things, I was the one who decided to do them, right...? But... if I wanted to get over that fact, I'd want someone over there to tell me that they'll accept me. It's no good if you get over yourself and find that there's no one there that cares, right? ... You'd just be by yourself. And that's lonely..." Carefully, supporting herself by the wall, she gets up. "I don't mean the whole world's supposed to drop what it's doing and come cheer you on... Just... someone. Who will awknowledge that you're different now. But, that's what I'd want. He might be different."
She shakes her head. "I'm a selfish person, deep inside. Those kids at the YFCC... they're not that much different from me. So... seeing them get hurt's like me getting hurt. Can't feel anything unless I can put myself in their shoes." She shrugs it off. "It's not bad, being selfish. Makes you go after things you shouldn't... and sometimes that's the one thing that needed to happen. If everybody were like me, it'd be a bad place. But everybody's not like me. So I can be selfish when I feel like it." She shrugs. "Nothing's black or white, when it comes down to it. It's all just shades of grey."
Hearing Frei's comment, Shurui moves in close, red-rimmed eyes peering around him, unable to focus exactly on his face. "I want to be strong for that friend, yeah. But it's also a neccessity, for myself. My survival. My freedom's something I can't take for granted. Not anymore. I'm just continuing what I've done all along." She steps back.
Hearing the advice, Shurui nods, seeming to take it in carefully. "... I guess you're right with that..." She rubs her eyes. ".... Better get going. Need to get some sleep. It was nice talking to you, though... wasn't expecting this at all." She gives a small, cautious smile. ".... It's a good surprise."
Again, Shurui surprises Frei with her unexpected but cogent analysis of situations. For a few moments, the grey-haired young woman seems amazingly vulnerable but simultaneously very, very strong. She has the earmarks of a survivor, but the kind of survivor who has come to appreciate the world for what it is, rather than hate it for what it's not... something that's easy to do, too. His eyes shut again as Frei smiles at that response, though, and he adds, "It's important to like yourself but I don't think it's something anyone can do on their own. Everybody needs to have someone they trust reaffirm it, I think."
Shurui's goodbye, interestingly, combines with her physical proximity to drive home just how *haggard* she looks, and as she steps past him Frei turns on one heel to watch her go and simply nods. "I'm sorry we haven't had a chance to talk before now," he responds in earnest. There's a moment of instability, as if one could SEE the urge to hug rising in his body but some part of his brain keeping that in check, at least until he knows that it's the sort of thing that's Done around here. Instead, he brings his hand up to his forehead, palm down; it's a jaunty and ragged salute, but a salute it is. "I'll do my best to warn people that I can. Get some rest." He waves, and turns to go, wrapping his scarf around his neck again.
A few yards away, however, he turns back and says, possibly toward Shurui's back: "...pleasant dreams."
Log created on 23:55:06 01/21/2009 by Shurui, and last modified on 00:41:37 01/24/2009.