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trans_92011-10-28 05:25 pm
zouichi.livejournal.com) wrote in trans_92011-10-28 05:25 pm
Summertime [Open]
Zouichi sat by a the mirrored black water of a small pond. Nearby, a wisteria plant was coming into bloom, dangling its delicate, curved violet flowers toward the earth.
As promised, a tray of chilled watermelon slices was set to the side, near the wooden steps leading down to the garden and free for any passersby to take. For his part, however, Zouichi occupied himself with feeding a small group of googly-eyed baby goldfish, who darted back and forth through the water to gobble up stray flakes of fish food.
It was nice to take a break from exploding ghostwolves lions once in a while.
As promised, a tray of chilled watermelon slices was set to the side, near the wooden steps leading down to the garden and free for any passersby to take. For his part, however, Zouichi occupied himself with feeding a small group of googly-eyed baby goldfish, who darted back and forth through the water to gobble up stray flakes of fish food.
It was nice to take a break from exploding ghost
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"Well... it's a little more relaxing than explosions. But sorry, I can't really do your training for you. It'd kind of defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?"
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"Done anything else fun?"
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"That amusement park was surprisingly entertaining. It's where I got these guys," he said, tapping the water of the pond a little. The baby fish swam up to him in response, hoping for more food.
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"Oh, goldfish, neat." Hana dipped his fingers into the water. "We had fish back home."
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Besides, Hana had something else: a kind of infectious excitement that was hard to resist and probably even harder to duplicate. Zouichi didn't think he could ever be so openly happy about things the way Hana often was.
"Oh yeah? As pets?" A baby fish came up to nibble at one of Hana's fingers, attracted by the motion.
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"Well, yeh, sort of. They're just for the pond in the garden. Some medium sized Koi. At least, I think they're Koi. They could just be massive goldfish for all I know, right?"
Hana chuckled and kept his fingers still. "Tickles."
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"Well, koi have barbels on the front of their mouths. And they get bigger than goldfish. But I think they're both cute." Zouichi put a little of the goldfish's flake food into Hana's free hand. "Here, you can give them some of this."
"So you have a pond at your house?"
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"Thanks." He sprinkled the flakes across the water, watching carefully in anticipation. Taro trotted over to peer over the edge of the body of water.
"Yeh. I live in an inn so it was kinda there for the guests. Something nice to look at, you know? My parents used to rent it when it was an disused inn and it still had fish in the pond so when my moms took over and made it into an working inn again she kept the pond and made it a bit bigger and fancier."
Hana smiled. "It's nice sitting in the garden and watching them jump out. Like they're just so happy they have to leap out and show someone."
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"I didn't know you used to live at an inn. Was it a ryokan like this one?" Hana's mother sounded pretty industrious; it must have been hard work maintaining everything for the guests.
Zouichi leaned in a little closer to the pond. "They're sort of relaxing to watch, aren't they? It would be nice if they'd had more places like this where I came from." But alas, Zouichi's Earth was mostly concrete and buildings. He hadn't had much time to sightsee, anyway.
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"Yeh. It's called The Funbari Onsen." He tilted his head in thought. "I think Ryu told me that it used to be the En Inn before we took over."
He turned to Zouichi. "What's your world like exactly? I mean, I know you told me about everyone getting sick but what did it look like?"
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"Are you sure you want to know? I don't mind telling you, but... it's not very pleasant."
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Hana shrugged. "I know about Cassandras world. It's not nice either. But she's my friend, and I wanna know about her."
He kept his gaze on Zouichi, unwavering. "You're my friend too. I wanna know about you."
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He paused for a moment, trying to figure out where to start. "A couple hundred years ago, the humans of Earth were doing fairly well; in fact, they were pretty far along in colonizing Mars as well as Earth, and thinking about space travel to other planets. But things went sour pretty fast after the scientists on Mars discovered an extraterrestrial organism out there in space. It was small, similar to an Earth arthropod, and infected by an unknown pathogen. They tried to research that pathogen, to figure out potential applications for human use -- but what they really ended up creating was a highly mutable virus that went airborne and began infecting the human population. It wasn't long after that Earth lost contact with the Mars colony. And as far as we knew, there was no one left alive there. That virus that wiped out the Mars colony -- that was the N5S virus I was created to counteract."
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Hana didn't want to admit he wasn't too sure was a pathogen was but as he listened, his expression grew sympathetic.
"That's harsh. Losing a whole planet. Sounds too big to be real..." He bit his lip in thought. "But then, what about Earth? And the zombies you mentioned before?"
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"About a year before I was released, a megacorporation called the DRF sent out an expedition to Mars, supposedly to investigate what had happened there. But something went wrong and one of the infected astronauts ended up contaminating Earth's atmosphere with N5S. It didn't take long for the virus to spread. Most of the people who were still alive and uninfected had to retreat into underground shelters. The people who didn't make it ended up as drones."
Zouichi's smile was without much humor. "That was the official story, anyway. In truth, the DRF spread the virus as part of a plan. It wasn't long before they sent out their people all over the globe to purposefully infect the humans that were left. The only people not in danger of being infected were the Accommodators, since they were naturally immune. But the DRF took care of them, too -- they kidnapped most of the Accommodators to help along their research on N5S."
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"What?!" Hana shouted, eyes wide in shock. "They what?! Did it on purpose?! Why would you kill everyone on purpose?!"
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"As for why they forced it on everyone... there was disagreement in the ranks. I think a smaller branch of the DRF wanted to use it somehow to convert humanity into a species of immortals. But the Matriarch wanted to use it to recreate the Earth to suit her own vision."
"Anyway, I was created as a countermeasure to the DRF and N5S. I was supposed to track down the remaining Accommodators, bring them back to Headquarters. It didn't turn out quite that simple, though."
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He blinked. Wait... Zouichi was made by those people? "It didn't?"
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Zouichi frowned. "It's kind of a long story. I was created by a company called Toua Heavy Industries; it was one of the DRF's corporate rivals and probably the best-equipped to try and counteract the DRF, especially after the world governments went down. In the end, though, it just wasn't enough. Toua's Headquarters was destroyed, and most or all of its personnel along with it. Those that escaped the infection, anyway..."
He looked a little distant then, like he was remembering something that had happened a long time ago. Except it wasn't a long time ago, was it? He hadn't been on the ship that long. "Anyway, that was what my world was like. I told you it wasn't particularly cheerful."
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"Yeh, but I'm still glad you told me." He flashed a grin at Zouichi, the anger he had a moment ago quickly lost.
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"I'm glad it didn't scare you off or anything." He sighed. "Honestly, most people here sound like they come from worlds that were in much better shape. Do you miss your home a lot?"
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Hana shrugged and turns back to the fish. "I try not to really think about it much. I miss it but... I don't wanna dwell on it."
Taro has now taken to the air, hovering above the water.
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He watched as Taro hovered there for a moment, before continuing, "Well, if it ever does get on your mind, you can always stay over here. I'm sure it's not exactly like your parents' Inn, but it's still a ryokan."
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"Heh, thanks. It's kinda nice to sit and remember sometimes."
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A slight breeze came rustling though the branches of a nearby maple tree and Zouichi reached a hand out to catch a stray, fallen leaf. Maybe one day it would be days like this that he'd be remembering.