trans_9 | Extreme makeover [Open, bendytimed to... whenever makes sense]

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Extreme makeover [Open, bendytimed to... whenever makes sense]

Somehow, he'd gotten himself into a bet. He didn't even really remember how it had happened or how they had gotten on the subject. But then suddenly the bet had been accepted and it was too late to back down, and now he was sitting at the very same Mess Hall table Sakura and the others had been sitting at the other day while they'd been discussing the source of the ship's mystery meat food supply.

To be fair to Sakura, he'd picked a shade of pink to match her own, natural hair color. But the results were... jarring. Also, hopefully no one would recognize either of them.

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Well, that was depressing. Zouichi was glad he was alive, even if he'd only been created for one specific purpose. Though that original purpose had expanded somewhat, hadn't it? As had the reasons he had for remaining alive and breathing.

"The only guarantee in life is death, and it happens to everyone, whether you're human or a livestock animal. And there's no such thing as killing someone kindly, either. That's just justifying it to yourself to ease your conscience. There are perfectly good reasons for killing someone -- to protect someone else, to make sure they can never kill again, to survive -- but you're still taking a life."

"Fine, maybe not killing them kindly. But killing them less painfully. I mean, there are a lot of ways that are worse to die than while you're unconscious. Have you seen how they kill cows on Earth? They get to die terrified and confused and in pain in a big assemblyline."

Howard doesn't especially care where his food comes from, but it truly perplexes him that Zouichi seems to find that a better alternative than never giving the cows life to start with.

Not to mention he finds it pretty ironic talking to someone who mows through mooks like it's going out of style about the sanctity of life.

He shook his head. "No, I haven't. But that also sounds wrong." Free rein to guess about the food industry practices of 3005 A.D.

Zouichi could take someone's life without batting an eye, but conversely, saw referring to it as anything other than what it was -- killing -- as some sort of slight to them. As if he were shirking his duty to his victims, even if they weren't too likely to complain about it afterwards.

Maybe it wasn't quite the sanctity of life Zouichi was concerned with, but a sort of feeling that he would be disrespecting it should he look away at the moment it was extinguished.

And it was true that people had to eat.

"It's all wrong. Everything is." Howard bites at his thumbnail. "It's like all of life is just choosing between the lesser of two evils until you either die or stop caring."

Clearly, there's cynicide in the tap water here.

Zouichi frowned. "I don't think that's true. Yes, sometimes terrible things happen, but that doesn't mean everything about life is like that. There's good and bad."

"No, I'm not saying it's all bad, but the big stuff usually is. And the good stuff's like, there to float you when the bad stuff comes down. It gets you from rough patch to rough patch."

Zouichi shook his head. "I'm sure I won't be able to change your mind either way, but I don't believe that. And even it were true, it would be worth fighting to change the way things are."

"No, you probably won't." Howard claims his Pessimism Crown okay thanks. "I'm not saying it's not worth fighting for, just that as a general rule, suck outweighs win."

Zouichi shrugged. "It depends on how you look at it. I think the good outweighs the bad."

In fact, even if they ended up being brief, the moments of contentment and friendship he'd experienced here meant more to him than any length of time he might spend fighting if he ever returned to Earth. It didn't matter how brief they might be or even if he'd ever see the people he'd met here again. They were more real to him than almost anything else.

"Anyway, if you hate being alive so much, why bother telling me not to die?"

"Because I'd miss you. And because I hear dying's even worse and I don't want that for you." That's the honest truth, even, and it shows on his face. "And because you do think life's better than death, so it'd be sad if you had to miss more life."

Which makes it unexpected that of the two of them, Howard's the one keen on self-preservation. But as much as he's generally unhappy, the idea of dying terrifies him more than the prospect of staying alive.

He looked at Howard a moment before offering, "Honestly, I don't think dying will be very painful for me. And after I'm dead, I guess I won't really care about anything."

That wasn't quite true, though. Not any more. He'd regret dying now, beyond the sort of mild, cerebral acknowledgement with which he regarded the prospect before. Zouichi had guarded himself rather carefully against forming attachments or getting used to the people around him. But he hadn't been wholly successful in staving them off, had he?

"But I'll care." You have no idea how much of a shitfit he'll throw if you die, Zou. It'll be epic. There will be pyres and dirges. Don't inflict that on your fellow crew.

"Why don't you think it'll be painful? I figure dying's probably life's last chance to smack you around, so it'll hurt a lot."

Besides, Rory told him it hurt a thousand times worse than anything in life, and while that did a good job of tamping down Howard's more depressed urges, it also did a good job of giving an already very-paranoid kid even more to stress about.

Zouichi gave him a dry smile. "I guess I'll have to try not to die off, then. And it probably won't hurt because I don't feel pain very well in general. Much less when I'm damaged enough that I'm unable to recover."

See? He thought about these things.

"That's just presuming all pain is like...nerve endings and stuff. Which it probably isn't, I don't think." Howard tries to smile back, but this conversation has soured his mood some so it's half-hearted. "And you're so full of it. You never try not to die when there's a good explosion going off"

"You mean that dying is full of existential angst or something? I don't know; it seems like that would be over pretty quickly." Zouichi could understand perfectly why dying would be terrifying for a human. He was just having a hard time connecting that with his own condition.

"And that's not entirely true, you know. It's not like I'm not trying to get killed. And even if I was, getting caught in a few explosions isn't going to kill me."

"What's existential angst?" Well, he knows what the latter part means, but not the first.

"What if they're really big explosions?"

"Oh, you know. Wondering if anything I did mattered, what will happen after I die, things like that." This conversation was awfully morbid.

"What's the difference between a big explosion and a normal explosion?"

"Oh. That. Yeah, maybe, that sounds like something death would dump on you right before all your lights go out."

Seriously, how'd they get from pink hair to the Kafkaesque nature of life and death?

Have an eyeroll. "I don't know, what's the difference between a car backfiring and an atom bomb?"

Zouichi shrugged. "It seems like kind of a morbid thing to spend your last moments thinking about. I think I'd at least try to make my last actions mean something."

"If we're talking about cars backfiring and atomic explosions, does that mean you think I should run away from backfiring cars? I don't think I'd even really count that as an explosion."

"I kind of think this'll happen after the last actions bit."

Howard shakes his head. "That's not what I mean, but yes, I would run away from backfiring cars. But that's me. I'm just saying there are explosions out there that could probably kill you."

"After? How long do you think I'm going to be dying? I hope it doesn't take that long."

Zouichi shrugged. "Of course there are. But that's no reason to run from all of them. Part of being in a fight is being able to gauge the danger to yourself."

"I don't know, maybe it's like that thing where if something sucks it feels like it lasts forever. Like time dilation or whatever." Now Howard's just making stuff up.

"Yeah, and thank god you're good at that. Ratchets my incessant worrying down from alert level red to alert level orangey-red."

"...Time dilation?" Have a now you're just making things up look, Howard.

"Anyway, I think you should at least change it to yellow. In fact, I don't think I've been in genuine danger of dying since I got here. I'm getting rusty."

Hey, he got this far in the conversation before that look! He's doing okay!

"There's also less zombies here to try and kill you. More just evil overlords who look down their nose at you. Did I tell you that it's my job now to report on everything the Daligig do?"

Zouichi raised an eyebrow at him. "No. When did that happen? I didn't think people could even get into the restricted areas."

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