Description: Both Howard Rust and Miu Kurosaki have plenty they'd like to get away from, but find themselves incapable due to their various life circumstances. A coincidental meeting at the old shrine begs the question how the two will relate after that rather explosive ending to their first meeting in Seattle.
Things have been ... strange, for Miu Kurosaki lately.
After her victory in the Neo League, she had shortly thereafter been attacked by strange cultists laden with bizarre powers. Though she had beaten them back, she's since had the strangest feeling. In her gut, she knows that she will not get answers as to why this is until she has the time to speak with Moe. But, for the first time in her life, Miu is not certain she truly wants to know why these things are happening.
Death. It's a disturbing concept, and if it wasn't for the strength she had earned in the Neo League, she very well may have met it that day ...
Perhaps it is for this reason that she has returned to her old haunt. The Shrine was a source of a great deal of concern for her. Worried that her enemies (that she even has enemies...) would damage it. She is glad to see that this is not the case. Now, as the sun is starting to dip down below the trees, she has returned to this place.
Settled down on the stairway, the girl has a book of poetry open on her lap, and a raven on her shoulder. She is reading, quietly, content. She even looks markedly more healthy than she had towards the end of the Neo League. Not progressing in the tournament has taken some of the stress from her shoulders...
... she just had to deal with all these other sources of stress instead ...
Mr. Rust isn't having an easy time of things these days. At this point, it's easier to list the things that /haven't/ gone wrong, in stark opposition to the many, many things about his life and some of his immediate friends that have.
Perhaps it is prudent to mention one of these things going wrong is how he's taking Antoine's piece of advice to open his eyes to these sorts of things, and the conclusions therein.
To this end, he's decided to go on and visit the shrine for whatever reason after the school day's come to an end, where he knows the principal isn't breathing over his shoulder to make sure he's actually doing his job a hundred percent to the letter, with no deviation, mistake, or absence. (Especially the last bit.)
His presence is announced by a pop of one of his shoulders a bit before he actually walks into the small forest clearing. Interesting things tend to happen here, and a part of him thinks... maybe, just maybe, he'll get an idea as to how to fix Antoine's problem with his, as he called it, 'corrupted chi.'
He has yet to even really notice Miu over by the steps as he comes into plain view, but it may just be a consequence of his mind wandering. Ol' Rusty, that rusted length of pipe, still rests through a ripped open toolbelt pocket on his left hip.
There are reasons that Miu Kurosaki is thought to be a bit ... creepy. Rust is about to discover one of them.
This is because, to all intents and purposes, Miu seems to just, appear about six feet in front of Rust. It's not teleportation. She is just very quiet when she wants to be. The book of poetry is held loosely at her side. The raven is regarding Rust from it's shoulder perch with the kind of casual avian disdain which ravens are very good at.
"... Mr. Rust."
And that seems to relax her. Because she had been expecting someone far worse. But Howard is about as unthreatening as it is possible for a man who carries a length of rusted iron pipe on his person to be. She's relatively certain that Mr. Rust doesn't want to kill her; she is, in fact, quietly thankful that the people who *do* didn't try when she was as tired as she was when they met.
"..."
For a moment, something hangs in the air, unsaid. Then, it becomes said.
"I am sorry for my behavior towards you. I was very rude."
It becomes all the creepier given the man's wiping some sweat off of his face from the fatigue of the day. Namely, helping with a shipment of benches right at the very end, benches that are noticeably cheaper and easier to break and yet somehow have the gall to be considerably heavier than the ones they're replacing.
Just as his right hand clears away from his face, he sees the visage of Miu - exactly six feet in front of him. He blinks a grand total of twice as he slowly lowers the hand down, as if to wonder, 'when the hell did you even get here.' He's quiet when she addresses him. Then, there's the way that bird /stares/ at him.
One of his hands goes over to the pocket where the cellphone is, protectively, a movement that may be mistaken for an act of potential aggression throughout that moment where things go unsaid, unsure as to how to really address her - their conversation shook him in regards to his understanding of Japanese language, given his difficulty in keeping up with her previous tirade and the offense she took at what he thought was a benign statement.
"Uh," he clears his throat once with a cough with her apology, patting his chest and leaving the cellphone pocket unguarded for a critical second or two! "'scuse me, sorry 'bout that, it's, uh... well, it's, it's okay," he says tiredly, as though the shock of the sudden appearance hasn't left him.
"I, ah, I hope the picture of the shrine was, er, good."
Miu doesn't seem to react at all to Rust's shock; though this is, probably, not all that surprising.
The bird cocks it's head to the side, and then goes back to regarding the sky and ground. Apparently it has lost all interest in Rust. Which, may very well be for the best. Ravens are not kind birds. Their judgment is a harsh and cruel thing.
"Thank you."
The words are spoken in the same neutral tone, but in truth, Miu isn't quite certain how to express how much the shrine had meant to her. Knowing that it was safe had taken a weight off at a time when it felt like the entire world was trying to crush her. It can't last forever. Sooner or later, she would have to deal with Chris. The knowledge of this, however, is tempered by the fact that Chris does not seem to be going out of his way to cause her pain; if he was, the shrine would have been so much matchwood by now.
"It was."
There, that's good enough, right?
She hesitates for a moment, and then she adds, "You do not look like you are getting enough sleep. What is wrong?"
It's, a rather more direct question than most would go for. She's not just asking whether he is alright, or if there is anything he would like her help with. Howard Rust had done something good for her, even after she had been horrible to him. She owes this man. There is a debt to be paid.
Really, the less interest birds have in potentially stealing Howard's cellphone, the better. He is so not climbing up another tree to get it back again after what happened the last time. The man is silently thankful that the bird does not appear to have any further interest about his person or what sorts of things he might have that they could take away.
The thank you, though neutral and not at all threatening, is a bit disarming when considering the Miu he met back in Seattle when his flight back to Southtown was delayed thanks to bad weather. For a peaceful conversation, there is a certain tension to be had - as if there's an air of 'my day is about to somehow get a lot worse' from the man with the very bad combover himself. That is typically how things go for him, these days.
Then she asks the question just about any concerned individual would: not getting enough sleep? His shoulders slump at the mention, as if trading away wariness for weariness in its entirety with a quiet sigh.
"Ahh, I, I wouldn't... know where to start," he says as he brings his left hand up to the side of his face, "best way that, that I could sum it up," he says as he turns his head off to the side, as if suspecting one of those raven's buddies might be looking for an easy mark into one of his pockets, "it's... it's hard bein' a, a grown-up."
There is a certain Atmosphere of late. You don't need to by psychic to pick it up. There is tension in the air, and the fact that it is more tense here than in most places... is not very surprising. Miu does not believe in dancing around matters, though.
"In the current climate." She says, "It is not easy being a human being."
She turns back to face the shrine, and sighs softly. The way the light plays through the trees in the area casts dark shadows on the religious icon. There is, darkness here. There is darkness everywhere. Perhaps even inside herself, though she has no idea yet how to deal with it. She knows that before these events are through, and her life can return to some semblance of normality...
But what is normality? Life hasn't been normal for years. If it has ever been normal at all. The tension in the girl's body ratchets up a couple of levels. Yes, this is a very tense meeting indeed.
The raven, sensing this, flies away.
"If you wish to talk about it." She says, slowly. "I will listen. I will not judge. I was going to offer you the opportunity to fight me. But in your current state... I think I will show you the same courtesy you showed me."
A gust of wind blows through the area, ruffling her clothing, and sending her ponytail momentarily upwards, before she looks over her shoulder, her expression is neutral, as though she couldn't care less whether Rust takes her up on the offer or not... she is, after all, a child. Her concerns should not be the concerns of the adult population. But her eyes. They say the eyes are the window to the soul, and for the moment, Miu Kurosaki practically radiates compassion and understanding. Wisdom far in excess of her years.
Maybe Miu's got a point about how hard it is to be a human being, considering the number of maladies and problems affecting just about anyone and everyone he knows and interacts with on a regular basis.. The older man stretches out one of his legs to try and fight off the onset of the stiffness that likes to come with his fatigue. After a good, long hard day's of work, he kind of has to keep moving or he'll just shut down entirely.
Your body feeling older than you actually are is never a pleasant feeling.
Where Miu offers to be a shrink, the man with the bad hair is quiet about wanting to 'talk about it.' Then again, the more he thinks about it, perhaps there is a sort of similarity between the two - she was willing to put her studies on hold for the sake of getting stronger for... someone or another, he wasn't too clear what she was talking about then and his memory of that conversation's a little fuzzier now.
Those eyes, though. /Those eyes/, disturbing in their softness, their apparent kindness.
He concedes with a grunt as he stretches his arms back to try and at least keep them from falling asleep on him, where he is at the emotional point he just wants to go home, curl up on his bed, and just call it a day.
"My school's, my school's a hair's length away from firing me," he says, defeatedly, as the wind dances through again and threatens to blow off his neatly organized (but still horrible) combover, "I... I'll be honest, back in the day, I, y'know, I always wanted to, to be a big name fighter."
It's kind of hard to talk about defeated and destroyed hopes to someone who is so young and is, in fact, succeeding - she is a Neo League champion, after all.
"Well... I did some things, and... well, that's, that's how I got to compete in King of Fighters." It's a bitter memory to think about now, so much hopes and anticipation of finally making it big, just to be eliminated handily within the very first round. He shakes his head. "You, you probably know how it turned out. That ain't th-the whole of it, all the people who went with me to, to Africa? Well... things, things went pretty bad for all of 'em too."
At this point, he figures there's no more point standing up, as he decides to just take a seat somewhere in the grass. Anywhere, anywhere at all really, he just needs to take a seat, as the hand further away from Miu's sight comes up to the side of his head while the other shrugs, the other hand held outward. "I just, I just don't know what to do... anymore."
Miu might be stronger than she has any right to be at her age... but she's still weak in the only way that matters to her. Her brother's condition is still steadily deteriorating. She still has no answers as to the mysteries of chi, of why this is happening. She can also relate to the feeling of being cast out of the tournament in the first round. Though, admittedly, that had nothing to do with her performance. And she was trying to see it in a positive light. There's just so many other worries on her mind right now, dealing with the tournament at the same time would be, difficult.
The girl sits down, not far from Rust, but not close enough to encroach on his personal space. Her poetry book is laid across her lap. The world of work is still, honestly, a mystery to her. However, she can relate to bad things happening to those involved in the tournament.
"Shortly after my team's exit." She says, slowly, "I was attacked on school property, by people who were supposed to be teachers. They meant to kill me. They used ... dark energy."
What does this have to do with anything? Well, she'll explain!
"You have probably noticed. The schools of Southtown ... we do not tend to work together." This might just be the biggest understatement in the history of understatements. "However. I would be surprised if Seijyun High is the only school which has been infiltrated in this manner."
She lets that hang for a moment; a potential explanation for why Rust's superiors are coming down on him so hard? She doesn't know. But it would make sense in her mind. If there's a conspiracy in the schools to get rid of the sort of people who would genuinely want to do good by the kids and not, say, gut them with a knife, Rust would certainly be one of the people she would want to get rid of.
And now for the mysterious wisdom, dispensed in the style of her mentor.
"The path one walks is not always dictated by the self."
She takes a small breath, and then she continues.
"Our pasts weigh heavily on our souls. Whether we drag them into the future, though. That's our choice." There's ... a certain sternness in her tone, now. A quality which had not been there before, where her voice had been as subdued as ever.
And now her voice is softening, as she seems to try and relax. "I... wish I could offer you some kinder words, but I don't think these are kind times. I can't help you with your job, and I can't tell you what you should do. I feel ... fear, in my heart. And I do not know why."
The man's head turns at mention of being attacked on school property by (supposedly) /teachers/. What?! He hasn't even heard of that incident, something like that would've spread through the schools like wildfire after the Southtown invasion of 2009! And yet...
He's ready to speak up when she mentions about how the schools of Southtown tend not to work so well together. Seijyun itself had a few mysteries around the time of the invasion - a time where he chose not to delve any deeper after barely surviving a particularly bad encounter.
Is it possible that Pacific has been infiltrated the same way? It is a worrying thought, and it shows on his face as his mouth hangs a bit open at the thought... well, sure, the principal and some of the guys above him are extremely scary people, but...
His thoughts and - let's be honest here - darkest fantasies of being able to beat the shit out of fellow teacher Mr. Marshall without penalty or consequence are interrupted with Miu's wisdom in the style of her mentor, how the path one walks is not always dictated by the self.
Something that's almost always been true.
He raises his head a bit, lowering the hand resting against it as he faces straight ahead, a slow nod. He did try dragging a past hope into the present, and in teh end, it just... didn't take.
"I don't think, I don't think... ah, anyone can really... come up with an easy answer." There really isn't, at his age and expected level of responsibility towards his job. "I dunno, maybe... fear, yeah, I could, I could... get that." He's got a whole lot of it, for a man so stout in build and capable of weathering intense physical punishment before going down. "There's been a, a whole l-lot of it, lately."
Miu is quiet for a few, long moments. Because sometimes, silence is exactly what you need. And Miu happens to like the quiet. It's enough time to digest what Rust says. It's undeniably true; there's a lot of fear. A lot of worry. Nobody really has any answers, and she, for one, is not looking forward to finding out the answers when they are dragged into the light of day. There's something dark and evil rising in the world. Every instinct she has is screaming at her about it. But there's nothing she can do. It's incredibly frustrating.
"Fear is a weapon." She says, at last. "I use it." Well, no surprises there. She works *hard* to cultivate her aura of creepy weirdness, and keep the other girls at bay. Why does she use it? Well. "It is used to hide fear yourself. You wish for others to be afraid, only if you have some weakness to hide."
Of course, she isn't about to go into detail about what her weakness is, exactly.
"Therefore. Logically. We must simply carry on. Do our best, in spite of our fear, and hope that when we meet the cause of it, we may destroy the power it has over us."
That said, Miu stands up, and the raven from before (or one very much like it) flutters down to perch on her shoulder again. She looks down at Rust with a wan little smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
"I hope you sleep better." Because, obviously, what she just said was /so/ reassuring. "Let me know when you are feeling well, and I will be happy to show you what I have learned in the Neo League ... Rust-sensei."
She bows, then. Not because she truly thinks of Howard as her sensei or mentor, or anything like that ... but as a way of reminding him that, for now at least, he IS a teacher. He has the respect of his students. And of other students in Southtown. She hopes that in some way, this may help to put a smile back on his lips. ... It may also completely baffle him, but she's never been great at judging which way such displays will go.
For a man stuck in the mundane, the dark, the creepy, and the weird is rising underneath him. It's consuming his friends, it's leaving weird things in weird places with no readily apparent explanation, and a whole bunch of other subtle maladies the man has yet to truly pick up on the depths of in the wake of his current, distressing problem of being nearly ready to get the boot from his job.
Fear /is/ a weapon. He turns his head when she mentions she uses it, although for the moment he's not even entirely sure why - well, maybe the way she dresses? There is a certain sort of air to her, but he can't really comprehend what that means on a more metaphysical level than just appearances.
"Probably, uh, probably all I can do," the man concedes with something of a shrug and a really nasty shoulder pop before Miu stands up, but he's not quick to rise after her. He's getting older and his body is just ready to call it quits for the day, and it shows with the low grunt he makes when he tries to at least get up to something of a kneel when Miu wishes him better sleep - and the offer to show him what she's learned in the Neo League when he is feeling better.
It's not unthinkable. It's very possible, if the span of time he'd have for a NEo League match would be no greater than once a week. But a part of him knows, deep down, to focus on such things right now would be complete suicide to his teaching career, already teetering at the brink of oblivion. The terms of his continued employment were made incredibly clear to him.
"I'll, I'll be sure to take you up on that," the words just kind of fly off his lips despite the reason because, deep down, he just likes a good fight - and Miu is a legitimate League champion. When he can finally get up to a stand - not without its own little labors - he returns the bow a bit belatedly.
"I, uh, thanks for the chat," although he admits he's a bit lost on some things, it has planted an interesting seed of doubt in him - is someone in Pacific 'in' on some bad dealings? As far as he knows, he's the only teacher on campus, at all, with any sort of fighting experience.
Of course, with his job on the line, there's probably not much he could do to someone among the staff even if they /were/ up to no good.
Log created on 15:00:03 03/17/2011 by Rust, and last modified on 17:32:10 03/17/2011.