Description: Igniz was chased away from Pacific High, leaving only Rolento Schugerg standing to its (unlikely) defense. He was not pleased. A man who runs tight numbers, weighing the odds while detached from the emotion and intensity that so many choose to use as their means of strength. Is this truly unacceptable in war? From within a safehouse, Rolento makes his case to Pacific schoolteacher Howard Rust and Guardian King Hakuya Suigetsu, two whom chose to stay and fight against his orders - and suffered grievous injury. They're doing things his way from here on out... or else.
A victory, or a loss? To Rolento, that is irrelevant.
The pair had been taken to a small building, the windows mere tinted slivers that barely give any sign of whether it is light or dark. There was no visit to a hospital. They might remember a sharp, painful haze where his calloused hands tended to the wounds. Cleansing, suturing, setting, binding. What might be surprising is just how talented this long time killer is at the arts of medicine. He could save a man who lost both legs and an arm within the stagnant heat of the Mekong Delta, and prop a weapon in their good arm to boot. These wounds, when the soul and body remains strong, are trivial. ...to him. It is liable that the pair will scar badly if they don't recieve more /compassionate/ treatment elsewhere, but losing their lives are no longer in question.
A basement, with a water heater and boiler humming loudly in the corner. Exposed pipes litter the ceiling, like steel snakes coiling together in carnal delight. A large steel door with a shutter is upon one wall; six green cots are settled evenly, each of the pair upon them with simple grey blankets and a stiff pillow. Two other people are with them, but are long still. They would not rouse or move if talked to, and skin is too clammy, too pale, for life to remain within them.
It might be some time before they wake, however. They had been heavily drugged, and given only water and soup. For whatever length they remain within the solemn tomb, at length the door rattles -- it had been locked from the outside. And then the powerful silhouette of Rolento Schugerg strides past, elbowing it shut behind. He walks to one of the others, pressing his thumb to the neck. Then moves to the other, repeating this. And finally stands between the two cots of his allies... prisoners...? and gazes at them in tandem.
"..." Nothing is said, regardless of their state of being.
One minute, you're fighting a god-being. The next, you're getting picked up and transported off to who-knows-where, stuffed in a basement after being given rough medical treatment, and made to live with two dead bodies. Really, it's pretty perplexing. Why were they here? How'd they /get/ here? This really wasn't what Hakuya had thought would happen, you know, post-saving a school from invasion (this time, he was pretty sure... successfully? He didn't even know.) In fact there was a lot of not knowing going on around here.
These were the questions Hakuya Suigetsu had floating through his mind as he hazily awakes. He's never been drugged before, so he doesn't realize the sheer -grogginess- is anything but just that, like he'd slept for a long time. Which was disturbing, given the situation, but not as disturbing as, say, knowing you were in the basement of a crazy mercenary who may or may not have bad thoughts on his mind. And not /those/ kinds - the worse kind. Whether he's restrained to the cot or not, the young Gedo student can't even tell, because while he can open his eyes a sliver, it takes an awful lot of willpower to do just -that-. Lifting an arm will take a bit.
Sounds are heard; someone coming. Hakuya blearily gazes at the door as it opens, offering a brief glimpse of bright(er) light, which causes the Japanese teen to squint so hard he might as well just be closing his eyes again - but that would've likely meant going back to sleep. Instead, he keeps his eyes open, and kind of looks up at Rolento. The mercenary says nothing. And Hakuya says nothing, though not for lack of trying.
Between the two who would (attempt to) stand and fight alongside Rolento against the nearly incomparable might of Igniz and his ally Ojike no Oni, there is no question as to who of the two was far worse off in terms of injuries. In fact, it is a small wonder that Pacific teacher Howard Rust still draws breath.
It is less providence and more annoying that he can draw enough such breath that he snores. Though he manages this, it is not a restful sleep. No dreams, no feeling, hardly much of anything at all. He was pretty certain he was dead when he looked up into the sky before blacking out into the featureless void of unconsciousness. No subconscious colors arranging memories and thoughts into amusing scenes destined to be forgotten if he were to ever open his eyes again. Nothing but blackness.
Followed by pressure to the neck, then the numbing sting of his right palm... followed very closely by a line of pain down his stomach that feels rather open. Vulnerable. Painful. The teacher's left eye flutters open, twitching. The darkness makes it difficult to discern much in the way of color, but it makes out vague shapes of piping. He feels more like he's looking down at something rather than looking above it. Something is very appealing about that mess of piping. He can't quite put a finger on it. Literally speaking. He tries to raise his right hand upwards, as if to grasp at it. His arm, numb and weak, falls limp before long.
He grunts as his head slowly turns towards a figure that, in the big scheme of things, should probably never be described as 'bright' or 'colorful' but, in these circumstances, manages just that. Yellow... ish... huh. Both eyes travel up to meet the gaze already cast down upon him.
Rolento. His mouth hangs open, wordless as his right arm dangles off the side of the cot. Yeah, I'm not dead yet, the teacher pieces together in his head over these awkwardly quiet moments.
"Victory and defeat. These terms are intangible. Why do you think the common soldiers do not lead wars? Is it because they are not wise, not smart, not dependeable? Negative. It is because within the rush of adrenaline, many people are incapable of making rational decisions."
He strides over towards Hakuya, looking down into his face. Two fingers press into his eye, pulling the lids apart. Then his pulse is checked, and his chin wrenched to one side then the other.
"The reason commanders stay far away is so they can understand how war works. Human lives cannot be considered with sentiment and emotion. This will taint one's decisions and actions. They are a resource. A certain number of live shells is worth a human life. Do you know how many? Could you ever make this decision? Could you let a man die so five may live? NEGATIVE."
He walks then towards Rust, but does not check on him like he did for the younger man. He glares down at him, those white eyes bearing none of the emotion visible in the clench of his jaw. "Am I a monster for what I did? Am I less then human, because I chose to kill innocents to saven other lives? Because I tortured people to death, to extract vital intel? Every living, breathing thing around me is a resource. Every living thing around me has a worth, a value!!"
Suddenly there is the whisper of steel, and a knife presses into Rust's neck. Biting deep enough the warm wash of blood would be distinctly felt. "Your refusal to withdrawal from Pacific is unacceptable. Nobody stands to defend it. Can you? What use are you now in this war? Can you even pull this blade from your throat?!"
He digs it in deeper.
"Grasp my wrist, and pull. If you cannot manage even this base show, I shall kill you now. Your worth will become nil."
Okay, Hakuya's a little out of it, this is true. And he's slowly beginning to understand that maybe, just maybe, this 'grogginess' is not just him being tired after a long, restful nap (he certainly doesn't feel too refreshed). It seems... unnatural to him. Like his brain has a fog over it. He can very barely open his eyes, and can move his body not at all - wait, no. He can sort of wiggle, now, in a way that is very much not helpful to him at the moment. But that means it's getting better. That's good.
Because while Hakuya may not be able to move much, he can certainly hear. And he can certainly see that knife moving for Rust's neck. Can't quite see the blood, but the ultimatum is certainly plain language enough. That wasn't good. A sound like a very distant, quiet grunt is heard from the younger Gedo student, and if anyone notices, Hakuya's hand starts to tremble, as if trying to clutch the cot he's on. What Rolento was doing was fairly alarming, and if Hakuya's body weren't so heavy-feeling at the moment, you could be sure he'd be attempting to interfere with what was going on.
But as it is, he isn't any help to Rust. For the moment.
One Mr. Rust is not the picture of usefulness or utility. Saliva starts to pool down the side of his mouth as the lecturing - no, the /drilling/ starts. Unlike the rest of his senses - ones he'd like to have intact - the words, at least the sensation of understanding words are being said as opposed to the words themselves, are clear. Numb. Yeah, you're still alive, the familiar aches... all here. And these new ones! He doesn't want to look at his right hand. He can just feel what it looks like. He fixates on those familiar aches that, for some reason, seem to express their gratitude of their host's (current) survival by telling him about what they were up to while he was out cold, such as, say... aching, a lot. What else could they do?
His head turns a little as Rolento turns away from him to check on someone else... who was that guy there, again? Young, but kind of familiar. The events of last he was awake are a blur. Something that might be relief reaches him, if he can actually cognize such as relief. Not a bad thing in itself, seeing him... there. A lot of the words Rolento goes on about go over his head in the half-awake stupor. He'd regret letting it do so if a pop quiz is ever called for in the next couple of--
Next couple of now.
"Hun." One mustn't confuse the seemingly underwhelming grunt for apathy towards whether he lives or dies as a knife comes to his neck with a louder - if not wholly clearer - narration as to the fallacies of his choice of actions back over in Pacific as warmth trickles down his neck.
"Gnh..." His face is not tense. It is slack-jawed, tired, and maybe a far more appropriate face for someone already dead as saliva seeps out the side of his mouth and drips onto the floor. His right arm is numb. Weak. He tries to bring his left arm up to the wrist - his left shoulder crackling in protest of such movement in the wake of powerlessness - and rests it upon the mercenary's arm. He doesn't know how much he can put onto it. Other than having a base, if understated, desire to live...
He turns his head some more and tries to move his neck away from the knife, with what tiny little movement range he has available for such, as if it were able to buy him precious fractions of a second if Rolento were to really go through and actually do it.
He shuts his eyes as he exerts whatever's left of him - whatever of him is actually even there - to pull it away.
"Driving Igniz away... it could not even be considered defeating him... was an absolute waste for the investment. As many people fell as would have if he won. How can you consider this a victory? Did you think of such? Did you believe that self stylized God would take pity at your human heart? Negative. NEGATIVE. You are unfit to make decisions. That means you are only fit to follow them. And if you don't..."
Then Rolento threatens to kill you. This part really shouldn't be surprising to either party. Although threat is a hypothetical thing. It's only a threat if you survive it, after all.
All the titanic effort however works. A feeble hand, overpowered by a child, takes hold of his wrist, and he feels it pull. Instantly the blade vanishes, slipped back into his sheath. "So you still desire to live. Acceptable. Whether desire is sufficient will be determined."
A hypodermic needle filled with an unhappy substance is procured. He then slams it into Rust's leg, injecting it. Hakuya would enjoy a somewhat more careful process, as his own is injected more properly. Not to say it doesn't hurt like a bitch. Within seconds, movement would return, warmth come throbbing back into numbed extremities. The medicinal drugging is counteracted, although they would feel like they had one hell of a trainwreck hangover to say the least.
"I am contracted to help win this war. And a war it is. But I am a commander, and you are mere troops. Your petty assaults, running like headless chickens, are ending today. I am taking you under my wing, and you will operate at my command, and by my command. Failure to do such will result in termination."
Hakuya relaxes, /slightly/, once Rust manages to summon up enough willpower to move despite the fact that, undoubtedly, he feels like there's a weight attached to every part of his body and he's trying to move through a particularly thick sludge as well. That's how Hakuya feels anyway. The young Gedo student can only really watch, trying to move his body, trying to help the other man, but failing at both. But fortunately Rust survives the encounter by showing a mere desire to live rather than the ability to actually force Rolento's hand away.
Then the syringe comes, and though undoubtedly the drug would've worn off - in time, likely hours - the chemical injected in him flushes through his body, and with a near violent jolt, Hakuya starts mvoing all at once, legs curling up, arms flailing - he's not trying to attack or anything, simply /move/. It felt very unnatural, very, well, uncool to be so helpless. Particularly with the man with the callous disregard for life right there with them. Eventually, Hakuya settles. He's still a bit numb, and his head suddenly feels like there's an 800 pound gorilla trying to dance in there, but otherwise, he's okay.
That is, until he opens his fool mouth. "If we drive him back... we establish he can be beaten. People will stop panicking. Will fight back," the Suigetsu heir says, somewhat sluggishly. He then attempts to sit up, swinging his legs over the side of the cot's edge. And then is made immediately woozy. "Ughph..." he cries out, clasping a hand to his mouth as if he were moments from emptying the meager soup and water he's been fed the past little while.
The overhead spectre of death by steel - something Rust wouldn't let through him were he in any better a shape than this - leaves only but a blank, airy space where there was a knife with a promise of oblivion were he any less willing. A bittersweet accompaniment to mention of everything that went wrong. He was too preoccupied with the concept of living to pick up the thing about driving Igniz away.
He sighs for lack of anything else in which to express much of anything, moments before his leg gets injected full of unhappy substance. He groans again moments after the fact. Those lingering, familiar aches of his youth from all those years of tireless work at various construction sites? Under the influence of those numbing drugs, it's about the same as it's always been through his thirties. Without them, right now?
Sweet mother of all that is holy it hurts!! He manages a proper grimace and a loud yelp as his stabbed leg curls and he rises up from his lying position, cradling his le--- argh, his right hand!! He finally takes a good look at how it looks even after some Rolento TLC (minus TL), and it is not a pretty sight. The scarring and discoloration's pretty much there for keeps even /if/ he sees a proper hospital. There are some things no man was ever meant to hold with their bare hand for any length of time. He turns his head away from it as he foolishly flexes his fingers to assert that that is his hand. Yes it is, it hurts like a goddamn...
He exhales and falls back onto the cot as it all gets to his head, just in time for it all to come in with perfect clarity - they're stuck with him. They're stuck with Rolento. This, alone, hits him harder than any hangover can. Where Hakuya is able to bring in his two cents, Howard once again internally weighs in what it is that brought him to this.
...he stood and fought, for a given value of fighting, that's what. We're in this together, aren't we, he thinks as he brings his left hand to his hip. Something he has come to expect being there isn't. Now he remembers - Ol' Rusty is slag somewhere in the wreckage of the front of Pacific High.
He grunts again.
"You lost fourteen percent function in your hand. You can alleviate this with regular exercises. If you sucumb to the pain and laziness, it could scar internally and make it as low as fifty eight percent." A simple foam stress ball is dropped upon Rust. And then a much more significant weight; Ol' Rusty. A little scuffed, but otherwise in working order. "This is also the weapon you utilized. Through your poise and stance, you are used to the weight and length. As such I deduced it was not merely an available piece of heavy weight."
He then turns his attention towards Hakuya, as Rust was likely too uncomfortable to realize that objecting is a very, very bad idea. The tan clothed man looms before the other man, back towards the sole light source. Shadow deepens like spilled ink, hiding all but the glint in his white eyes. "You will refrain from offering your opinions on psychological value until you are an accredited source of information. If you are insinuating I do not incorporate the more transient benefits in certain things, then you are sorely mistaken. In the first war with England, every single major battle was lost by America. But they continued to fight, because they believed in their cause. Artificial belief in one's capabilities leads to such acts that the balding individual chose, which resulted in your near deaths. Thinking you can win does not make it truthful."
Rolento then attempts to slug Hakuya in the solar plexus. Hard. Hard enough to make him wonder if something broke, and certainly enough to make his lungs go empty and burning for long minutes.
"I am revoking your right to speech."
With that, he glances over the pair one more time. "Finish recouperating. Then gather any colleagues you believe might care more about winning then about pointless fighting. You have three days. At that point, I will show you how a war is won." With that, Rolento strides back to the door, yanking it open and slamming it shut. ...a lock follows. Apparently, they finish when he says they finish. He will feed them, right?
Whereas Rust doesn't comment, nor even try to fight back, once Rolento starts to calmly slap down the Gedo student's commentary, Hakuya doesn't look at /all/ convinced. Or pleased. Mostly because, Hakuya was being drafted to fight for someone he didn't really care for, frankly. He had gotten much of a chance to see Rolento's... actions during the first part of the fight, given that he was tied up (in a literal sense) with the second demon he'd ever faced. He had just been sent here by Daigo to help. And that's what he'd done. And they'd /won/ hadn't they...? No matter what Rolento said.
So it's a good thing Rolento slugs him, because he's about to start sassing again. Not that Hakuya really made it a point to talk back or to disagree with people openly. After all, normally, the Suigetsu heir was passive and didn't feel much like rocking the boat. He was a listener, and a person who mostly spoke through words. But on issues of protecting people, that's when he got vocal. ...That is, when he had air in his lungs and a reasonable certainy that all of his ribs weren't at least bruised. A loud 'unh!" follows the slug, and Hakuya is literally floored. Or, well, cotted. He flops back against the cot with a whud, and then just kind of stares up at the ceiling for a bit while every passing moment restores some of his vision, and lets him breathe a tiny bit deeper.
Ow.
Rather exact percentage. The Pacific teacher, hardly in any state to protest or comment about that, largely lays prone on his cot as the foam stress ball rolls down his left side and off the cot. His left hand scoops down to catch it, at which point it pops up out of his hand and finds itself somewhere around his armpit. This small victory is disrupted as Ol' Rusty hits his (aching, scarred) gut. A familiar weight. He lifts his head up to confirm whether this familiar weight is true.
'A little scuffed' is a very strange way to describe it. It does not bear the appearance of something that should be considered anything more /than/ just 'an available piece of heavy weight.' But he could've sworn that... oh, never mind, he thinks as his right hand grasps it. The weight feels most true to be anything else. Most, if not all doctors would wholly agree that you shouldn't be touching rusted surfaces with your exposed, highly injured hand. They aren't Howard Rust. Tetanus exists in fear of him. For a moment, a childish sort of reassurance that comes with a young child scared of the dark receiving a nightlight comes over him as he brings it ever closer under his right arm. Like the crossbreed of a baguette and a teddy bear coated in rusted metal. The foam ball gets dug out of the opposite shoulder for a closer evaluation, though even the soft touch of foam is a short sort of agony for his poor hand.
Succumb to pain and laziness and it's as good as useless. His contemplation over all this breaks as Hakuya suffers that slug to the solar plexus enough that the ball rolls out of his grasp, down his chest, and into the same armpit it was housed for moments before. It is as though the poor little foam ball finds the armpit ample shelter against the frightening aura the infamous terrorist casts - a term not to be considered in idle thought lightly if you are American.
The teacher at least manages a wince on Hakuya's behalf, just in time to receive the orders proper - finish recovering, gather anyone who might care about winning... three days? He sits up uncomfortably again as the door is slammed shut. He grunts yet again, tension in his throat if not in his (lack of) choice of words.
Log created on 20:27:30 03/26/2009 by Rust, and last modified on 23:11:46 03/26/2009.