(no subject)

[keep_your_dignity]

1 - Alhambra, out-of-the-way room

[During the attack on Alhambra, Kagura's concern was, primarily, with the Graveyard personnel. Mute as she is, she managed to get people to pack up and safeguard everything important and evacuate in time for the damages to the base and their labs to have minimal effect on Graveyard material.

The problem is that among the damaged areas was Kagura's room. Which means she no longer has a locked place to hole in.

So at one point, if you're wandering around the most remote areas of the base, you might hear a male voice shouting. Closer inspection reveals Kagura in front of a screen, being absolutely ripped a new one by one of her superiors. The words "against intent of orders" "risk" "insubordination" "liability" "we can have you scrapped" "never fly again" and so on are used a great many times, while the fairy simply stands there and takes it. Not like she can defend herself, she can't even talk. So she's standing at attention with a fixed frown - so fixed, in fact, it's kind of disquieting. In the end, the commander signs off, and Kagura relaxes, floating down to a table with a thoughtful expression.

She makes some tiny scratches on a piece of paper with a mechanical pencil's small lead bar. It looks like some kind of diagram - it's very, very little, since Kagura has small handwriting even for her size, but there seem to be initials, relation arrows, and X marks on some. And she's so absorbed that she hasn't even noticed you.]

2 - Gym, late at night

[Late at night, if you go near the gym, you might notice a light turned on. Going in makes it clear nobody is using it, though...

...until you decide to look on one of the tables. Kagura is on it there, using bottlecaps as weights, surrounded by open handbooks on muscular rehabilitation. The effort has opened a few of her old wounds, but the fairy is too focused on keeping going despite the pain to care about the little drops of blood dripping on the paper.

She does notice someone coming in, though, which makes her drop the weights with a startle and turn around to look at you accusingly. Is there no bloody privacy in this place, seriously.]

Comments

2

[star_of_sad]

Umm, sorry. I'm sorry Major, it's just that the lights were on and I cannot sleep, so...

[Setsuko raises her hands apologetically. But then she notices something - and takes a few steps forward, looking closer just to be sure.]

Is that blood? You are hurting yourself!

[keep_your_dignity]

[Kagura waves a trembling arm dismissively, frowning. She's visibly in a fair amount of pain, but she's stubborn. No pain, no gain. so instead, she floats near a paper tissue nearby, and with some effort she tears a little band and begins putting it around a couple of the bleeding wounds.


Then she looks at Setsuko with an interrogant look. Yeah, Kagura can about guess why you can't sleep.]

[star_of_sad]

With everything that happened recently... please wait!

[Setsuko sees what Kagura is doing and quickly uses the excuse to change the conversation and move away - only to return quickly with some contents of a nearby first aid kit.]

At least use medical gauze, Major.

[keep_your_dignity]

[Kagura just remains sitting there, with a very unimpressed raised eyebrow that just screams "really?". She raises two fingers. Two things?

First finger. She touches the gauze and makes a gesture as if she was going to try to tear it into small strips, without success. Oh, right. Kagura is not actually strong enough to break medical bandages. That's probably why she went for tissues.

Second finger. She makes a very clear "yeah, not buying that, settle down" gesture and points at Setsuko to keep what she was saying. Trying to sneak a topic change on someone like Kagura, no matter how exhausted, is not going to be that easy.]

[star_of_sad]

[Setsuko also has a pair of scissors, and she uses those to cut off a tiny strip of bandage. Which she proceeds to hand over to Kagura while already starting to work on a new one.]

Here.

Umm.

[Awkward silence seems to prevail, but finally Setsuko's need to get it off her chest wins over.]

Major, do you know Toby... lt Watson used to write online under the nick "Glory Star"? That's how I found him. After the... the thing with Paradigm City.

1

[jianai]

I'm sorry for intruding.

[Locked door or not, but Ren knocks anyway. And then immediately barges in.]

I just happened to overhear a little bit of your conversation.

You don't deserve this kind of treatment. No one does.

[keep_your_dignity]

[Yeah, that startles her alright. She turns around quickly, but the startled expression gives way to resigned annoyance when she sees it's just Ren.]

[When Ren talks about that, though, the little fairy simply shrugs (which she probably wouldn't do if she realized how silly and cute she looks when she does that. It's impossible to shrug dignifiedly when you look like Kagura). She then takes her little pencil lead and writes on a nearby piece of paper. She's brief, because writing big enough for Ren to see makes it slow. The words are:]

expected

learn interesting things

[jianai]

[Ren leans in closer, looming over Kagura like a horned giant.]

Expected? Maybe, but it doesn't make it right.

What interesting things do you mean?

[keep_your_dignity]

[Kagura looks askance at the looming Ren making a shadow over her, but she doesn't do anything more than frown. Then she takes her lead again and begins writing laboriously, stopping between lines to catch her breath]

1+ commands compromised

Cardinal mission = success => traitor = failed

who plots with who?

who is angry/worried/scared? [Kagura underlines "worried" twice] suspicious?

[jianai]

Ah, sorry! Sorry, my apologies.

[Looking sheepish, Ren backs off a little.]

It's hard to find someone around Unity Group who wasn't worried or scared, or angry during the last few weeks. These are natural human reactions, so unless someone keeps acting like that all the time...

Aha.

Are you saying Loni Gavin and his friends were actually a part of some kind of plot?

[And now Ren gives Kagura an expectant look, like someone who tries to guess an answer to a puzzle and waits to see if it's the correct one.]

2

[actuallyselfish]

"I wonder..." Dido says, stroking her chin in thought. "Can Mistletoes manipulate Ki? Maybe you could supplement your physical recover with QiGong or some other internal technique!"

Re: 2

[keep_your_dignity]

[Kagura looks at Dido with the flattest "what" look imaginable. And when you look like a chibi your B| face is definitely impressive.

After a sigh, she finds something to scratch with, so she can at least try to explain why that can't work. Once she finds it, she begins doing some schematic pictures]

(Drawing of a woman glowing, probably Peola) = (Drawing of a battery)

(Drawing of a mistletoe) [Here, Kagura points at herself. She means herself, here] = (picture of the sun)

(Drawing of a mistletoe broken in half) [Here Kagura points at herself again] + ENERGY USE = (drawing of an explosion)

Re: 2

[actuallyselfish]

Dido sucks in breath between her teeth. "Oooh...so Mistletoes are incredible powerful reactors...but all your connections are shot? Rough."

She takes a closer look at Kagura. "Uh...you're kinda bleeding. Want me to get some bandaids?"

Re: 2

[keep_your_dignity]

[Kagura shakes her head and gesticulates at her very, very tiny body. A bandaid would take most of it and have the sticky part over many other wounds.

Instead, she approaches a nearby tissue and begins tearing tiny strips of it to use as bandages]

Re: 2

[actuallyselfish]

Dido twists her face in distaste. "That can't be sanitary..."

She snaps her fingers. "Ooh, I know! We could make you some custom bandaids! Like, bandaids were first invented by this doctor for her wife, because she kept cutting herself while chopping food. They're just a patch of gauze stuck to a sliver of tape, place on wax paper for quick use."

She pauses. "Admittedly, they'd have to be very tiny. But I could I've got cutting tools for etching microcircuits. Want me to make you a batch?"

1

[whats_a_good_end]

[Ana only caught the tail end of that, but it was enough to get the gist. Kagura's unnoticed writing went unnoticed though, for better or for worse.]

... How do you ever put up with people like that?

Re: 1

[keep_your_dignity]

[Kagura shrugs (which there is no dignified way of doing when you look like a moe doll). She floats a bit aside from her diagram and writes a bit bigger for the woman to see:]

soldier

comes with job

[whats_a_good_end]

[She squints and manages to read that after a little bit of trouble.]

I get that, but... it's worse than anything I had to deal with. Worse than anything I could've imagined.

[keep_your_dignity]

[Kagura raises an eyebrow with a "really?" expression that says very clearly that Ana evidently needs to meet more real life and/or get a better imagination]

[whats_a_good_end]

I know, I know. But like...

I get that the upper brass can be total jerks. My family lost their shit when I decided to be a test pilot. But you did a lot of good out there, and what do they expect you to do when there aren't any PRAYERs any more?

2

[cloningblues]

...Major, you're bleeding.

[keep_your_dignity]

[Kagura's face at that is a living expression of "gee, thank you Captain Obvious". It's not like she's the one in excruciating pain or anything.]

[cloningblues]

With all due respect, usually that's a sign it's time to stop exercising. What if you overstrain yourself and your state gets worse?

[keep_your_dignity]

[Kagura opens her arms with a sardonic expression to bring the state of her body to the fore. Yeah, because there's much worse to go from here.]

[cloningblues]

Major, I don't want to see you die. Or not be able to pilot that robot suit anymore.