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RP [Riverside] Connections and Coffee

Kokuten

The Pixel Knight
Inactive Member
ON>
Planet Yamatai, Kyoto
Riverside
13:37


Kyoto's eastern edge had always been a bit of a peaceful place, the high rent and buy prices of the local residents had turned the district into a bit of an attraction. One could walk up and down the Ketsurui River for a few hours and see samplings of all kinds of architecture. The neatly placed homes gave one a sense of peace they couldn't find apart among places like downtown or the military district. Only the Imperial District had the tranquility to best such a place, but said tranquility was mired in the spirits of the fallen. Riverside had life, gave little pressure to the mind.

After the last several days, Rolf needed a break from the bustle. Even the Malifarian had his limits to what he could stand, especially with what brewed in his life now. Exams for the semester loomed, and reports were going to be due soon. Further, it wouldn't be long until he would need to begin his final project. Other students were already researching potential projects that would make them stand out for selection and orders. Rolf was barely keeping up in class as it was with all of the 'attention' that his instructors had seemed to lavish on him. From concern, to disgust, to frustration, they all seemed to have it out for him. The rabble-rouser in him wouldn't mind the ire if it weren't for the work that followed in its wake.

Tailing the lunch rush, Rolf sat in a riverside cafe, peering out at some boats coasting in lazy recreation down the waterway. He saw a pair of children leaning over the edge of one of the crafts peering into the water. One of the young ones leaned a bit too far, and would have fell in were it not for the quick hand of the child's father. The Malifarian's heart thumped in his chest, trying to remind himself that younglings were not so at risk.

Or were they?

The man had one on the way, and the idea of being a father further muddled his thoughts. He kept asking himself, What would Tom do?. Tom always seemed to have it together, he always seemed to have the family ahead in his mind. Despite his track record with young Miharu Neko, it couldn't be denied that if anyone was to be trusted with a young mind, the Raltean was the first pick of anyone he knew. For the first time, he felt it a shame that the two had such a troubled relationship.

He broke out into a cold sweat at that thought, why did he care? What was wrong with him?

Thankfully, he wasn't the Freeman that he was hoping to meet today. The Freeman he was waiting on was easier on the eyes, depending on who you spoke to. She was a friend, one of the few staying in touch through all of this, and once again he needed her guidance. There was a pile of dataslates he wanted her to look at, the most important of them being the initial scribblings of a capstone project. Until she arrived, though, he took to drinking his coffee and watching the boats.

The Freeman in question approached from the north, taking her time on the pathway that curved with the river's bends. She at one point looked toward the sky patched with clouds, but seemed content to bask in a sunbeam that filtered through her black Aviators and caught the auburn highlights of her hair. She pushed the loosely braided tail before her left shoulder to behind it, matching the other braid before she continued along her way. She wore an airbike jacket, the brown faded and worn in some places. Beneath was a plain grey T-shirt, neckline nearly to the collarbone, and complemented by simple, used blue jeans and surplus Star Army boots. She could have been one of the lunch goers late back to work, whom she made way for as best she could.

The Neko was too old to be the better half of one of the young couples at which she warmly smiled. Nor did she look as fresh as the mothers with their children.

Rolf saw the gait in her step. And the gun on her hip.

She shielded her eyes with one hand and waved with the other when she saw him. When she approached, she lifted her glasses up and gave him with a warm, emerald-encrusted wink.

"Rolf-san," she said, sliding into the seat across from him beneath the table's umbrella.

"You got a real talent for blending in, boss," greeted Rolf, who had needed to squint tightly to pick her out of the crowd. The man gave her a respectful nod, and raised his hand to catch the attention of the waitress who had been tending his table. The man was dressed casually, but in a modern Yamataian style of collared shirt.

Despite how approachable he felt, the waitress, like most, was unnerved by his wicked eyes and face. Still, a customer was a customer, and she took a bit of comfort at being on Yukari's side of the table. She wore a collared shirt as well, though perhaps a bit better than Rolf seeing how its low cut features seemed to trip into Yukari's space just a bit.

He smiled that saw-toothed grin, "What would you like? It's on me today."

"A cadet buy an officer lunch?" Yukari scoffed. "You will do no such thing, Rolf-san."

The waitress served Rolf first, then Yukari. The Chusa lifted her shades on her head. The waitress was rather stunning, and she took note.

"May I please have cream for my coffee?" she asked the waitress in Yamataian.

"Ah ...?" the woman nervously eyed Yukari, speaking in an unpracticed accent when it came to Yamataian. It was clear that Yamatai-go was not her first language, and she leaned a bit closer to Yukari, as if it would help her. Her sense of personal space was essentially Nepleslian, and it showed as the Chusa got a face full of the woman. "You want milk?"

Yukari blushed as she could even catch the woman's scent. She wanted to lower her shades to hide herself, but she knew it would just make things more awkward.

She tried to focus on the woman's eyes as she spoke accentless Nepleslian. "Yes, please. Heavy cream, if it is available?"

"Oh! Yeah! Ha ha, I'll grab you a jug," nodded the waitress, bouncing back off the Neko to bounce back into the cafe, skirt swinging as she went. As she fled the scene, Rolf gave Yukari a smug little look. The Malifarian had worked on his expressions, and somehow made a face that was almost dangerously malign to his own safety.

Snrk! snorted Rolf, a bit loudly. There was a bit of teasing whipping off his tongue, "You gunna' be okay there, boss?"

Yukari slanted her eyes at Rolf, lips curling toward perturbment. "What do you mean?" she asked. She was missing something, she knew.

"You looked like you were about to fall over," snickered Rolf, that easy-to-despise mischieveousness bleeding through. Yukari hadn't shot him yet for any of his impertinence, which she still could. Even so, the Malifarian had a bad habit of flirting with danger, and his accent showed when he was, "What wit' havin' to swerve outta' tha' way of those wreckin' balls."

"W-wh -- I -- " She glared at him, right as their waitress hurried back to their table. In her hand was a jug, styrling silver in make, its contents very full. She had managed to spill a bit on her chest as she went, as Yukari could now see in close proximity again.

"Sorry for the wait," said the hasty waittress, still a little red in the face from her faux pas earlier it seemed. She set the jug onto the table, wiping herself down a little bit with a rag tugged from her skirt's waistband. Somehow it made her skin shine a bit, offering at least a mild look of professionalism in the social trip-up. "Would you like me to fill you up?"

"Just a dollup," Yukari said, quickly swiping her shades down over her eyes anyway, no matter how awkward it seemed. The shine of the woman's skin caught a stray patch of sun, adding to the gleam of what Yukari was sure was too much cleavage for a poor waitress constantly ducking serving plates and customers.

"Thank you so much," she added closely afterward, looking at the waitress with a warm smile. One that would have matched her eyes, had they been visible. The cafe worker smiled politely in return, bending over the table to provide a splash of cream into the Neko's cup. Her skirt hugged her thigh a little tightly at that, but she seemed to be mindful of that.

"Will you need anything else?" asked the waitress, still smiling, and resting the jug on her hip.

"Not at the moment," Yukari said, catching a bit of the woman's thigh too, nevermind the eyefuls of cleavage. She swallowed through her smile. Watching the woman rest the jug on her hip somehow did not help her. "Thank you. What is your name?"

"Me? Oh, heh," she bounced, as did most of her, she shifted her stance a bit that made easier for her to stand about with her jug. She hadn't expected the question, but it didn't seem unwelcome, in fact her mood seemed to shift. "The name is Moxie."

She tugged a bit of blonde hair behind her ear, very carefully, biting her lip with a bit of embarassment playing on her eyes, "Sorry about the misunderstanding earlier, I'm from Nepleslia, and I never picked up on Yamataian too well." At that, she leaned in a bit towards Yukari, which revealed a strange quality to her ears; they seemed to move like a Neko's in the wind when she looked closely enough, "But, you sounded pretty good when you spoke it, what's your name, cutie?"

A small, cornered part of Yukari believed a more satisfying course of action was to reach across the table and strangle Rolf. She felt his pointy smirk, with its pointy teeth, sinking into her embarrassment and savoring it like a finely roasted steak.

This was a bad time to wear my loveband around my ankle, Yukari thought.

"Yukari," the Chusa said. She slipped her glasses back on her head, resigned to her fate and the allure of Moxie's blond hair and lovely eyes. And strange ears ... and curved figure ...

The Neko blinked to refresh her mind. "It is a pleasure, Moxie-san."

"Oh the pleasure's all mine," answered Moxie, winking at Yukari with a certain knowing stare. The table buster was about to give another swing about, until Rolf leaned over from his end. "Hey, maybe it's weird to ask bu -- Augh!"

A black, furred ear was pulled from the woman's regular ear, pinched tightly between tan fingers. 'Moxie' spat out Yamataian curses as her tormentor proceeded to pull her ear like a string on her mask. Each tug seemed to pull away something else, her other ear, a head of black hair, a tan skin tone giving away to a typical Yamataian fairness. Their waitress had turned out to be a rather ordinary looking Neko.

She stared at Yukari, speechless, caught in her act. Rolf fell back into his chair, apparently pleased with himself, and cackling that troubling laugh.

Yukari blinked.

A disguise? Volumetrics? But why?

Her mind stayed itself from diving into conclusions. There wasn't any danger. The Neko looked quite sheepish, and she didn't sense any ill intent.

And Rolf, smug as she ever had seen him before. Yukari believed he knew the waitress, and had known from the beginning. No wonder he is so puffed up.

"Rolf-san," she said slowly, not taking her eyes off the Neko. "Please let go of her so she might explain herself?"

"Right, kid, why don't you explain yourself?" answered Rolf, snickering through his teeth. Moxie, now just a plain old Neko, stiffened at the man's words. She shot daggers at him as her reddening spread. The waitress opened her mouth to speak, but that disguised confidence didn't make it through. Instead she warbled, and then, protecting what dignity she had, made a quick escape back into the cafe. The Malifarian chortled in her wake, enjoying her discomfort.

Rolf rolled his eyes back in Yukari's direction, "I know her face, ah well. Faces. She was a bartender at my old job, liked to pick up girls like you." More mirth threatened to spill through his impish grin, "Moxie. Heh heh, I think her real name is Shuko, or somethin' like that. The bombshell Nepleslian is her thing, can't talk otherwise. She'd waggle her bits around and see if anyone would bite."

White choppers spread out from under his lips, more than before, "Still up to old tricks it looksit."

Why a Neko Yukari did not know, and who did not know her, wanted to pick up someone like her ... she brought her gaze to Rolf, frowned when she found only his usually demonic joy, then looked back at the space that the Neko had occupied.

She was flattered, but Yukari didn't know if she should be. Had she let her guard down too far? Exposed herself in a way she should not have? Her operative status wasn't that of a full-time SINner; she lived in a zone less grey than when she was SPP, but still not the dyed-in-the-wool blackness of SAINT's elite.

"Was she a killer?" Yukari asked, still looking off toward the cafe, then picked up her coffee. The cream had a hint of alcohol and sugar in it — Nepleslian cream. She wasn't used to it, but a sip convinced her.

"A lady killer," clarified Rolf, waggling his finger at Yukari with a bit of affirmation. A little bit of warning as well, the man settled back into his chair. Talking about the past was a bit of a wistful experience for him. "She's harmless as far as I know, more so when ya tug her ears out. I'm guessin' she's moved on to a quieter gig if she's bustin' tables here."

The man shrugged at Yukari with a milder smile, "Bigger and brighter things, yeah?"

Yukari imagined she was a soldier at some point; her camouflage was good. For someone like "Moxie" to end up as a waitress, though. ...

[i[And I was in her crosshairs. A chance to relive her old life?[/i]

"I hope she will be well then," Yukari said, sipping her coffee again and appreciating the heat of the coffee — and the alcohol. She shed her jacket and draped it over the chair. "If we see her, I will try to speak to her to let her know I was not offended." The very opposite, she mused. "But you are why I am here, Rolf-san. How are you? What are you doing now?"

"Oh, y'know, bigger, brighter things," cackled the Imp, clearly amused by the wanton trouble he caused. The man she saw was a little more cocksure than the man she had known on the battlefield. "I'm ah, I'm making bigger plans now."

He paused, thinking if he should talk to her about what had happened. The man knew he had been disrespectful, he was still being disrespectful, but that had come to be as he began to see Yukari as more of a friend. Yet there still hung a measure of reverence in his mind. She was easy to embarass and fluster, sure, but one couldn't disregard the beast in her that even Rolf had been wary of.

Giving it some thought, he decided to be professional, "But, here, I got some work here that I'd like you to green-light. Let me know if I'm going in the right direction. My tutor has been helping me compose these things, but I'd like you to look at them as well. I'd also like to run my capstone project by you."

"Oh," Yukari said, her smile turning wide as she leaned in. "A capstone already. It has been so long; I wonder if any of the requirements are the same. Please, tell me about it. I am at your disposal."

The thought of food she decided to put off.

"Heh heh, right to the point, I gotcha," Rolf tugged the pad that consisted of his notes for the capstone project. For a brief second, his normal temerity was replaced by an apprehensive glare. His notes weren't exactly thorough, "So, you might be familiar with the subject, and it's something that's never really covered in small-squad tactics, nor large-scale deployment. Something that they never prepare you for until it's on top of you."

The pad spun over to where Yukari could see it, on it was a black armor with a terrible aetheric blade. "Remember this? Remember fightin' everything after it?"

"Yes," Yukari said, feeling the memories haunting her past. She squinted at the Black Mindy, a symbol more of Mani and Meni than of SAINT to her.

The aetheric blade glimmered on the pad, pulsing at her threateningly. "What about it?" she asked as she picked up the pad to face the evil armor. As if recognizing her, the pad began to cycle through images, the more they went, they more she realized she was witnessing a visual recount of the Shlarvasseroth's bestiary through his eyes. The gouts of flame and fiery lances were evidence enough. To the uninitiated, or unknowing, the pictures with their mild noted descriptions would have looked more like a horror movie pitch.

"We train our boys an'girls how to fight enemies who use conventional tactics on even footing," Rolf nodded in the direction of the pad she held, "None of those worked against anything we faced there. There ain't any typed works or manuals, I've looked. I know we weren't the only ones to fight something like that, but I imagine the most that did are kickin' it with Chiharu because they never saw the dark comin'."

Yukari nodded at Rolf's point. She agreed with his assessment, remembering briefly facing off a Ghost Mishhu -- an encounter she was lucky to survive. Her training gave her physical and some mental preparation, but experience was what gave her a chance in hell.

Cannot give experience like that to everyone, she thought as her green eyes watched a Ripper mecha rage at the screen. Even transfer of experience via a data link does not give a soul the visceral sensory feelings they need to survive.

"We are a unique group," Yukari demurred, but as she closed her eyes, she thought about how even a detailed capabilities overview could have helped with some of the foes they faced. "What is your plan?"

"Tactics, close quarters combat," clarified Rolf, pointing one direction, and the other as if gesturing to slides. "We aren't trained to cope wit enemies that engage in close-in combat. Things like Meni and Mani. We don't have any battle plans to cope with enemies that slice through armor in close quaters." He began to arrange some of the table assets into a form of battlefield, with salt shakers and coffee cups representing enemies.

He put the salt shaker forward, "We aren't trained for situations that involve intense melee, psionics, or phasing threats." The container began to find itself surrounded. "There's nothing out there that sets out counter-tactics against these things. You just sit there and hope for the best. We had an excuse, we were a tight group in the first place, but fresh units tossed into these sorts of threats don't have a practiced understanding of these things."

A tanned hand slapped on the table, causing the shaker to wobble helplessly before falling over dead. The unfortunate thing spilled its salty innards onto the table, as dead as one of their old comrades. "I'm gunna write the book on it. How you can take a regular kit and fight tha' worst things in the galaxy. Not the ones that shoot back, but the ones that make you shoot eachother."

Yukari was still at the slapping hand, eyes locked on the now dead, salty soldier on the table. She breathed through her nose a couple times before she looked up at Rolf, eyes flickering with green.

"Some of what you propose could still be classified," she said. "You would need to tailor your manual toward unusual threats and vagaries until you get clearance. Which might not come."

Her lips slowly oozed into a smirk of her own.

"It is fortunate for you to know a SAINT, is it not? One who can oil those bureaucratic wheels."

Rolf's eyes lit up like firecrackers, his face brightening at the prospect. He gripped the table, almost as if he were about to come over it at her. That wide, childish grin spoke of many things in the past, pranks, violence, and pleasure.

"Really!? You would? Just for me?" yelped the Imp, excited in a way that Yukari could rarely see. "That was tha' biggest problem was tha' clearance, I don't have enough material without the really good stuff."

"I believe I can help you enough to make your manual substantive," Yukari said with casual certainty, leaning back in her seat and hugging her elbows. She knew she needed to read more of Rolf's manual when it was ready to go, but first he had to be ready to start. "But how much of it is written so far? A manual is an ambitious project for a Kohosei."

"Ah, just the notes, y'know? You're seein' most of it right 'dere," offered Rolf, rearranging the table back into place. Their waitress had come out, and taken notice of the mess, her masque donned again, but did not have the apparent bravery to stick around outside or address it. The Malifarian took a sip of coffee as order had been relatively restored to the table-battlefield, all standing in reverance of the fallen salt-shaker.

When he set the cup down, he clarified further, "I want to... ah... expound further on tha' idea, but it's still in the design stages. Everyone else is comin' up with all kinds a neat ideas, technology, engineerin', and science, the whole shebang. My wife thought it'd be smart t'use my experience as a basis, so here it is."

Full stop.

Yukari blanched. She blinked, blinked again and reprocessed the words a few dozen times more. Her eyes looked like worn beach glass; she bit her upper lip and tilted her head. The world twisted much farther than that.

"Your who?" she asked, the words floating away like clouds trying to escape the sunny rays of a betrothed Rolf Eastwood. Considerations about the waitress scurried beneath the rocks of her mind. She could see that the man across from her had caught his word, and it was until she spoke that his curiosity had faded. The air around them got a little louder, filling with the sounds of the river and those in patronage of it.

A couple near-by them were talking about how the area was becoming over-developed.

The group behind Rolf had seemed to be blithely rating and discussing the people around them, they were currently tearing up the waitress.

Someone off in the distance was howling at their dog.

"My tutor," answered Rolf, not missing a beat, speaking as if Yukari had misheard him.

A human could be fooled. But a Neko?

"Your wife," Yukari corrected, peering at him. "Who perhaps also is your tutor. Which means she is an officer ... or a student."

Yukari's auburn hair seemed to glow like the battlecrown of a fabled warrior. The corners of her mouth sunk toward the curve of her chin. Rolf sank into his chair a bit, realizing that he may have set his mentor on a warpath.

"Who," she intoned, "are you 'doing.' "

He looked like a school-boy who'd been caught scribbling graffiti on the wall. The Malifarian was always the thug, the delinquent, the bitter taste in society's mouth. So, it wasn't much unexpected that he tried to dodge her question.

"Eh, boss, doin'?" a cautious chuckle split his lips, "C'mon, I got more class than that."

"You have not before," Yukari chewed, "and you do not now. The class I am able to derive comes from the allegation you have married her.

"A fact I have no compunction about checking. Unless you want to tell me."

The Chusa's eyes were open about as wide as a sword, edgewise. Pointed at him. Right about at his neck. He had done enough sword-fighting within the last several months to know when a blade had found him. In the hot-seat now, he began to sweat, under severe scrutiny.

She noticed. She sighed, a hand to her cheek. "Just do not lie, Rolf-san. Anything else can be forgiven or understood."

"It's my tutor." Came an encrypted message. On the old Miharu channel, no less. Yukari nodded.

"Do you want to not tell me who she is?"

The Malifarian let out an infernal little chuckle, letting his mouth run through his head.

"C'mon boss, you'd never believe me. No one would."

"If anyone could believe you, Rolf-san, it is me. You are not a charmless man. If you do not want me to know, say so." She paused and saw Shuko, or Moxie, or whatever her name was. She looked miserable.

Yukari looked straight at her; the Neko shriveled. The Chusa tossed her head. The waitress came to the table, empty serving plate held in front of her lap, head bowed. A kitten thoroughly shamed.

"Miss," Yukari said. Moxie made eye contact again, if lidded. "May we talk after your shift?" Rolf felt telepathic static. "That is my information. Please?"

Shuko reappeared, more deathly than ever. She looked at Rolf, wondering if it would be the last time. Her head creaked to Yukari again. She nodded with such deliberation and sloth, Yukari worried she had stalled the Neko's mind.

She touched Shuko's covered arm. "Thank you," she mouthed, then reacquired Rolf. As the waitress floated away on dreams about a life soon lost, Yukari ... wryly smiled. "Knowing you, she is a fire to your iron, a matching sword, a branch of the same tree. She must be wonderful. Will we meet, someday?"

"Heh, heh, heh. I'm guessin' if you hang around Koto-boss long enough, you'll see her eventually," playfully hinted Rolf, taking note of the idle exchange he just witnessed. "I nevah talked t'ya about my tutor, yeah? S'pose that's for tha' best."

A Samurai? Yukari thought. Maybe a trainee? It did not make sense if she was a student. So a tutor on loan, or a part-time instructor? The guessing added a little thrill, but Yukari did not want to pry. Not once he was not lying to her.

"May I at least deliver a wedding gift in the future?"

"Sure! When tha' real weddin' happens." Rolf wasn't lying, he was being coy, it was evident in his eyes as he seemed to find himself back in control.

Yukari left him that. "I hope it is uneventful."

"Tell me more about your manual."
 
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