[2nd/3rd] Week 312: Initiative: Olive Branch

[Rob]

Initiative: Olive Branch
2670 Words

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Raph
Rob​

Days for Miyazaki Kaede had become dull. Drab, endless, repeated ad nauseam with nary a hint of divergence. She awoke in her glorified cell, she worked in her glorified cell, she ate in her glorified cell, and she slept in her glorified cell.

Except something was different, now. The man who had seen to her - abrasive and rude - did not come to her door with food. Instead, another man. A closely shaven crop of hazel hair sat on his round head, and his features were scrunched into the center of his face, wearing a cheerful grin.

Why, he looked to be even younger than Kaede!

"Miss Miyazaki?" He questioned cautiously. "There's someone who'd like to meet you. Would you mind coming with me?"

“Don’t you look positively beaming!” she responded in a heartbeat as she turned around and faced away from her workbench to see who was bothering her. “Why, sometimes I wonder if you good folk forgot about me and then... BAM! Someone wants to meet me.

“It’s almost like a movie,” she continued, excitement not really trying to hide its true nature, “except not actually a movie, but more like a really crappy screenplay. Like, the ones you see in fictional writing, or the like!

“I suppose I could spare a few moments. Here, catch.” Without warning she tossed a small cube, no larger than a pokémon card - which wasn’t at all like a cube - at the boy, in the hopes he’d catch it.

Eyes wide, he fumbled to catch it in time, before cradling it in his arms with a look of growing horror. Almost immediately, he dropped it down to the floor. Giving a strained smile to Kaede, he tried not to let his momentary panic show. "I-if we could get going, please... she's very eager."

He motioned for Kaede to leave the room first.

She would. Not before she retrieved her square-cube-thing, though. She wasn’t as disappointed in the man’s behaviour as she could’ve been - still pretty disappointed, mind you - but it was kind of sad that she couldn’t show him the cool trick it could do.

In a flash it returned to Kaede’s hand.

“Basically,” she said, completely off the track, “it has a cord in it that lets it return to your hand! Gosh, I’m so amazing sometimes. Anyway, what were you saying again...? Oh right, something something ladies first!”

With that, she strolled out of her perfectly fine and totally not dull workplace.

The Sougi was a particularly glamorous building, and the shine of daylight through the glass-window walls cast a gleam across every surface. The young man led Kaede through this hall and that, before finally coming to rest in an elevator. Punching in one of the lower floors, he tried to remain civil.

"Has there uhh... well I mean, is there anything you need for your work or..?" He trailed off brokenly.

“I used to have everything I really needed,” she responded as they waited on the elevator, “then your big-guy-big-boss-grumpy-mcgee came along and kind of took that away? I don’t know, most of the stuff I used came from scrapyards anyway. As long as I have resources at hand, I can make my fingers do the talking for me.”

She wanted to ask the boy, as the light from outside continuously blinded her eyes, if he had a speech impairment, but she figured that would probably rude. Even if it was true. Actually. It wasn’t a speech impairment. He could speak just fine. Was it stammering then?

Possibly.

“What about you?” she said, turning the question on the hazel-haired man-boy. “Do you need anything for your work?”

"Me?" He blinked, before giving a sort of half-chuckle, half-groan. "I mean, they treat me really nice here. I guess I could use a pair of boots that doesn't make my ankles chafe..?"

The boy shrugged helplessly, before he gave a cursory look about the elevator. Pursing his lips briefly like he was about to reveal some great secret, he rushed his words out. "I'm Shinjida, by the way. It's a pleasure to meet you Miyazaki-san."

He bowed lightly, before stiffening. Another grimace came across his face. The motion of respect was ingrained from his childhood, but it was improper for a man of a military organization to show deference to another.

“Like the pokémon, only different, eh?” It was out of her system before she could even slap herself for the missed opportunity. “I can dig that,” she continued, “Shinjida. Doesn’t really roll of the tongue that easily, though, does it? Shinjidaaaa. Eh, maybe it does.”

By now the elevator had made its customary ‘ping!’ and the doors opened in front of them. Like before, and was customary with the concept of ladies first, Kaede stepped over the threshold first and waited for Shinjida to follow suit.

Though her sandy-brown hair was about as messy as that of an out-of-bed look, she really didn’t feel like putting it up in a ponytail or anything. As such, in combination with her incredible lack of fashion sense, made her look... well, not at all like she could put together a nuclear warhead in her spare time.

“You coming?” she finally asked, her emerald eyes levelled with Shinjida’s.

He gave a sort of chuckle, and stepped out after her. He led her down a short hallways, which branched into two doors. Shinjida knocked lightly on the one to his left.

"Come on in!" Came the answer, cheerful and warm.

The young boy opened the door to reveal a stunning office... that looked nothing like an office. A single desk was shoved against the far wall, and papers were strewn messily about it. In the center, a massive workbench spanned around it. Various tools, mechanical pieces, and other assorted objects stuck out of the open cubbies that dotted its sides.

A counter lined the near wall of the office, a coffee machine seemingly brewing a fresh batch with its droning, nasally squelch. Above it, closed cupboards. A wall of windows was to the side, and a figure sat hunched over the workbench. A rifle was splayed across the top of the bench, dismantled and organized just-so.

Looking up, Nenshou Mouko gave a warm smile to both new occupants. "Ah! So that was you, Shinjida! Thank you very much for fetching her!"

Shinjida's cheeks flushed. "It was no problem, ma'am."

"Well, why don't you go catch a meal down in the mess for now. Be back here in... well I'll just call for you. Go take a break." She nodded at him.

His shoulders relaxed, and the hazel-haired boy smiled brightly at her. "Yes ma'am!"

Exiting, Mouko waited until the door had clicked shut to turn to Kaede. "Miyazaki Kaede, yes? Your reputation precedes you. I'm Nenshou Mouko, feel free to call me Mouko."

Stepping away from the bench, Mouko scratched at a loose strand of onyx-hair. The majority was pulled into a loose ponytail, but a few escaped here and there. All in all, she looked rather frazzled. Grease smudged at her left cheek, and dirtied the front of a gray apron. Underneath, what appeared to be civilian clothing was worn.

"I'd like to apologize on behalf of Initiative: Orpheus." She spoke sincerely. "Masato is overly aggressive in his tactics, and unfortunately holds to them in my absence."

“It’s not so bad when you get used to not being allowed to live in your own apartment anymore,” Kaede responded somewhat absentmindedly as she scanned the room. She wondered how many kneecaps Mouko had broken over the course of her career in Orpheus to earn such a granduous office that looked nothing like an office.

“Can’t say it’s been the smoothest of sailing out there,” she continued, “or, rather, in here, but at least he lets me out from time to time. To go fetch the stuff I sold on the black market, because he seemed really butthurt over that.

“Anyway,” she finally decided to finish off, clapping her hands together in god-knows what kind of fashion, “a pleasure to meet you, Mouko!”

"Likewise." She spoke, smile tight-lipped. A frown quirked briefly at the corner of her mouth, but it passed quickly.

She motioned back towards the bench, and took up her seat - a simple, backed stool - and motioned for Kaede to take another. Grabbing at one of the pieces of her dismantled Draugr, she absent-mindedly went through the motions of cleaning it. "So, how'd you like to move back to your apartment?

"You'll continue to report your work with us, and we'll be asking for contracts, but you'll remain freelance at large as long as you stay off the illegal transactions." She offered casually.

See, this was how you struck a deal. Or a bargain, or whatever. You didn’t threaten people with all of the clichés, but you gave them a compromise. Apparently Masato had never gotten that memo, though. Or maybe when he was born, he’d been programmed to always act super grumpy.

Either way, Kaede liked this idea.

“I mean,” she said, not really sure what she actually meant, “whatever gets me money. I didn’t choose the illegal transactions life, the illegal transactions life chose me. I had to make a living somehow.”

Only just now noticing the gun Mouko was working on, a couple of gears quickly started to turn in her head.

“Do I get to make one of those for myself too then?”

Mouko's smile turned coy. "Yourself... others... depends on the requested materials. The Draugr's a bit one of a kind, but I'm certain you'll find a way to make something as impressive."

She placed down the piece, the lever action that the carbine used, she reached for the butt of the rifle. Reaching below into the bench, she retrieved an oiled rag and began to wipe down the spring stabilizers at the front of the piece.

"As for money, I think you'll find military contracts are more than accommodating." She continued. "Now then, perhaps for a good start... you can help me with this guy right here in the first place."

Placing the segmented rear of the rifle back and reaching for a cloth to wipe her hands with, she nodded at a particular piece. It stood out amongst the traditional mechanics of the rifle: a small cylindrical piece that looked almost like a small flashlight. A glass lens was at one end, and a small coil seemed to be held within. At the other, a small pin not unlike a firing pin.

"That," Mouko explained, "is a capacitor. It works something like an emitter crossed with a battery. It gathers energy from me and the bleed-off from firing the weapon, compresses it, and then imbues the fired round with energy to... certain effects.

"Problem is the thing is so damn hard to make that there's only that one right now." She said, leaning back in her stool. "The aperture is cracked, and the energy is unstable as a result. The coil for the emitter is worn and the materials are difficult to replicate en masse. If you feel up to it, I'd consider it a personal favor if you could find a way to make these things reliably."

“Energy?” Kaede asked, kind of perplexed, but not really. “Like, heat? So this thing takes your bodily temperature or something?”

Looking over the capaciheatsucktor, or whatever the hell it was actually supposed to be, Kaede got this odd feeling she should be less impressed with it than she was. Like this was suppose to be common knowledge or something, which made less sense than she thought it did.

“That doesn’t sound at all healthy,” she concluded with a nod, as if that made things final.

"Heat..? Oh dear, he really didn't tell you anything, did he?" She asked, exasperated. "When Masato found you, had strange things been happening? When you got hurt, did you seem to heal rather quickly? When you tried to move or lift something, did it seem rather easy?"

She made no attempt to explain the questions.

Did all of that ever happen in the way Mouko asked her if it did, or had? She wasn’t really sure, actually. Or, maybe she was, but just didn’t much care for it. Life was how it happened, and what you made of it. No point, or sense for that matter, in questioning things.

“I guess it might have? If it did, though, I wasn’t paying attention. My life’s been pretty business as usual for me everyday, without much crazy going on. Except for the Masato thing. Those cuffs were interesting, though.

“Why, was something supposed to happen? Like, maybe, a dragon scooping me up and some prince on a white horse coming to rescue me? Not sure if I would’ve liked that iteration.”

A dull look came across her face, and Mouko sighed lightly. "Shock value, then."

All at once, the air seemed to thicken. It was soup in Kaede's lungs, thick and difficult. Then, impossibility. A vermilion flame that peeled from Mouko's form as though it were truly ablaze. With the crackle of a campfire, two great orange somethings furled away, their forms tumbling into existence.

Before Kaede's eyes, Mouko had conjured two great tigers into existence.

"Not exactly a dragon, are they?"

“Like I said,” she said, eyes widened more because ‘why not’ than of perplexity, “dragons, not my thing. Tigers. I once saw a movie about a hangover, I think. I guess they make for nice companions.

“Wait, tigers?” Tigers? Really? Had she really seen two tigers flicker in front of her eyes just now, or was that just a side effect of her body’s inner turmoil just now? “I mean, the excruciating pain I can understand. The turmoil in my stomach? The vaporized water within my system? Sure, just like a fairytale.

“Tigers, though? That doesn’t sound too healthy either.”

"They're not, for the people I don't like." She replied casually. "Do you believe in ghosts, Kaede-san?"

“Not sure I’d phrase it as such, but sure.” Again, though, she wondered if this was part of the ‘do you question the things that happen around you’ routine Mouko’d tried on her before. Or maybe it wasn’t, and she was just overthinking things again as per usual.

“I’m not averse to believing in things I can’t see.”

Mouko nodded. "It's a good start, then. I can't explain everything in one go, I'm not even sure I can explain it at all... but I'd like you to participate in some of our training. If you're going to be working with our contractors, the more familiar you get with our operations the better."

Ryou came up to her side, and she absently scratched at the top of its head. Ishi paced back towards Kaede, and stared at her with questioning eyes. "There's a lot of things we don't know about this world, Kaede-san. There's a lot to be discovered. I'd like to give you the opportunity to see some of that."

That was kind of assuming she couldn’t do that on her own. Part of her wanted to agree that, indeed, she could not do that on her own. Another part of her kind of nudged to the background yelling things like, “but you already know all there is to know,” without actually knowing anything at all. Which was kind of a nice change of pace, really.

Despite how ‘new’ and ‘shiny’ everything looked to her, she didn’t particularly feel like this was something she hadn’t been through before. Like, in some time before time or something vague as shit like that.

In the end, thou, she decided to settle for the, “sounds fun!” type of response, with the, “at least, as long as you’ll come with me on this adventure whenever possible,” kind of childlike wonder added to the mix.

That, and the prospect of busting some proverbial kind of kneecaps really did sound like a whole lot of fun.