Description: A small vignette, occurring after Sakura's and Honoka's fight with Mukai. Both girls in the hospital, both taking away very different experiences from the encounter.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Ad infinitum. The rhythm of the sound has been steady for the past few minutes, but all of a sudden it begins to accelerate.
Honoka's eyes snap open. She starts to sit up, but the hospital medics have naturally seen fit to impede this by inserting as many IVs and oxygen tubes into Honoka as they felt necessary -- which is to say, ALL OF THEM. Amateur hour at Southtown Hospital: par for the course.
Stymied by her attempt to sit up, Honoka gingerly extracts her breathing tube, glancing slowly around the room. Naturally they don't ever have mirrors visible to the patients -- that would just increase the heart pressure monitor.
But two members of her circus troupe are present in the room, and they had snapped to the side of Honoka's bed as soon as she stirs. It's a two-person room, though, and only a thin, gauzy curtain separates Honoka's bed from that of her neighbor.
Sakura's been beaten up before. She's a fighter, it comes with the territory. But rarely has she been beaten this badly. When she wakes up, she's harnessed into traction, and she feels, well... she feels rough. To say the least.
Unlike Honoka, however, Sakura is alone--Kei and Hinata and the rest don't yet know that Sakura's been hospitalized. They'll be by in the morning, for sure, but right now... Sakura coughs, roughly, and utters just a little groan as she adjusts to being awake, pain dulled by painkillers.
Honoka closes her eyes at the sound of the cough. Quietly she tries to recollect the circumstances that brought her here. ... Then it hit her, like a big pillar of stone.
That would explain the odd tingles in her leg. She's wearing a leg cast -- the kiss of death for a trapeze performer. And that would explain the sour look she remembered on one of her companion's faces. But Honoka's moved on from the trapeze life, and for that she breathes a quiet prayer.
Honoka's eyes open partway, and she mouths the name 'Sa - ku - ra?' To which her companions nod. A moment passes, and the curtain is drawn back.
Turning her head to the side to address her roommate, the Ainu practitioner tries to speak. The words come a bit more slowly, and a bit more hoarsely than she desired, but nonetheless: "Sakura. It... was not fun... turning into a statue."
A laugh. It's a pained laugh, to be sure, but Sakura does laugh, which ends in another cough. She lifts her left hand, weakly, noting that it's bandaged, then breathes out a little sigh, a careful one.
"I... bet. Didn't... look like fun." Her next breath comes easier.
"Nothin' 'bout that guy... was fun..." And Sakura -loves- fighting. She gets a thrill out of combat, almost always. But getting outmatched like that is... unique in her experience. Even when she fought against a giant like Ryu, she felt like she had more of a chance than that.
"At least... we lived..."
The circus star will find out which particular ailments she is suffering from later. She knows she hurts all over, but with enough painkillers, it gets really hard to localize 'all over' into discrete sections of pain. Sure, she could ask, but why bother?
She does know that the Ansatsuken prodigy enjoys a good fight, and for her to readily admit that the seemingly insurmountable challenge wasn't fun... well. "That... is saying something," she admits, a faint self-deprecating nod to her own attempt at instigating small talk. She will get better at this, some day.
"Yes. He... was true to his word. I... had my doubts." Honoka finds it necessary to cough, at this juncture -- and reaches for a glass of water. Her companions are freaking psychics or something, or else really good at reading body language, and one brings her the cup of ice water to ease her dry throat.
"Still. If this monstrosity is... responsible, as he claims... I feel it was not impossible to beat him."
Honoka closes her eyes again. She may be a bit overconfident in her martial arts ability, but she really feels like she could have made a difference, if only one factor were altered. "If... we'd had backup, perhaps."
Another laugh. "An army, maybe," counters Sakura, then reconsiders her remarks.
"Maybe not -the- army," she concedes. An army of schoolchildren. Such a thing -has- happened before, after all.
"I think.. the act of defiance... was the important thing." Rustling as she tries to sit up a little, an almost-vocalized wince as she tweaks something she shouldn't.
"--ah!--at least... to him. But... next time.. we'll bring backup..." Sakura sighs, and, having got a little more comfortable, says, quietly, "I... was really worried when he turned you into stone..."
An army. The thought -had- occurred to Honoka; she looses a small chuckle, at that. "Defiance is good, yes. I'm hoping someone was recording. It would make for... interesting viewing..." She winces, a sudden spike of pain compelling her to shift onto one shoulder, propping her head up with her hand, like some kind of slumber party for badly injured people. "... presuming the visions weren't solely in our own heads," she continues, completing her earlier thought. "If I may, Sakura -- and please feel free to tell me 'no' of course -- what do you think of, in battle? What... psyches you up?" Two seemingly unrelated topics, but in Honoka's mind, they are fundamentally bound to one another.
"No. I saw it, too..." Sakura's voice trails off. It -was- an interesting experience, if only for the exposing of innermost feelings and how it affected the world around them.
"What I think about? It... I guess it depends on... who I'm fighting. Why I'm fighting. If it's just.. a match? I think about... how I'm expressing my self. How to use the act of fighting to be... more me."
A pause, a creak as Sakura adjusts her position a little, herself. "A night like tonight? I... think about my desire to protect others. About using what strength I've attained in the service of that goal."
Honoka seems fairly pleased at her friend's response. It fits the clues she was able to pick up during the middle of battle -- the things she saw, the things she heard, and just elected to process later. Or, rather: now.
"Interesting. I... suppose I don't really -have- any thoughts when I fight." Pain ripples through her creased brow, and she figures that sitting up would alleviate the pain. Adjusting her pillow, she continues: "I think about the end goal... what happens if and when I lose. But I really... have to admit an admiration for your method." A faint smile, tempered by the knowledge that if she didn't have painkillers she would likely be screaming. "At times my method leaves me a bit... inconsistent, and I'm sorry for that."
Honoka may be thinking way too much -- a side effect of the cocktail of medicines they gave her, perhaps. But she's awake enough to realize that neither girl would really benefit from being awake much longer. Stifling a yawn, she adds, "In any case, Sakura.... I am glad to have fought by your side. Rest well for now... I suspect we will need it."
Log created on 20:56:52 08/31/2014 by Honoka, and last modified on 23:33:18 09/15/2014.