RP: YSS Miharu Mission 5, Aftermath (3rd day)

Kyou sighed, contemplating that response. She really didn't want to get dressed in that silly, restricting uniform (she was fairly certain the only reason it was worn, ever, was that the old nekos hadn't been given a choice), but she really wanted food, now that she considered it. And though it was a rare occasion, she was pretty sure Asher was actually right about the potential reactions. At the same time though, she was remarkably comfortable, and would much rather just stay where she was. After a moment of contemplation, she sighed again. "Fine... I guess I'll just put it on. Not worth the effort to do something else." She crawled her way off of the bed, sorting out clothes and putting some on.

Nyton gave a nod. "Hm. A drink sounds good but I would rather avoid it for now. My demeanor is already strained enough as it is. I would rather not become a mess and embarrass myself again like I did in front of Nimura yesterday." he replied. The slow pace Tom walked was welcome given his limp.

"I wonder if I could get a pair of pants on Hoshi. This gown is fine and all but I get cold quickly walking around like this." he then added. It was a somewhat off hand remark but maybe it meant he was trying to change the subject.

Asher stretched out on the bed, having the room since Kyou left his side. The aching returned with the fresh movement, and he curled a little, tightening himself up to deal with it. Finding no comfort in lying in the bed, he sat up, swung his feet over the side of the bed, heels contacting the ground with a dull thud. He bounced once to get his pants off, sitting down, and then standing up to kick them off, discarding them to the side.

"This ship iss' pretty swanky, too, I'm sure there's plenty a'good stuff t'eat on this ship." said Asher, pulling up a different set of pants up, before digging around for his shirt. "I mean, look at tha' couch we messed up yesta'day, if they cn'waste one a'those, I'm pretty sure they got tha' supplies to provide some nice victory breakfast, that ain' served up in a hospital."

Kyou shook her head, still trying to find someway to get the silly uniforms to actually sit right instead of being so constricting, useless though she suspected it might be. "C'mon, man. It's a military service. Since when is military food worth mentioning? The couch was a nice change, but I don't know if I'd get my expectations too high just yet." Snapping the material back one last time with a distasteful look at the way it fit, Kyou stood up, swaying only slightly. "Regardless of quality though, we might as well get going."

Asher secured his uniform in place, and opened the door to the outside hall. He looked up and down the the way, staring at the relatively clean area, a brief thought back to the day of the battle slowly wisping through his mind. The yelling and the screaming seemed to echo in the corridors of the place every time he walked through it now. It was nothing overt, but it was there, a memory staining his senses in the presence Hoshi. When he listened hard enough, he was sure he could catch the distant voice of Miharu chiming in on the Main Deck. Mara was bobbing down a hall-way cheerily greeting those she passed by. It made him feel good, knowing he could remember their voices, their presence, their effect. All of those memories of what was lost to them forever. It was good to have them.

"So," started Asher, looking down the hall towards the exit, before making his way for it, "Do we know where tha' kitchen iss' on this big'ol ship?"

Kyou blinked, and joined Asher at the door, poking her head out as well. "Now that you mention it... I don't have the slightest clue. That's one of the things I didn't run across before I found you yesterday, oddly enough." She gave one last cursory glance in both directions before cocking her head in Asher's direction. "So. Do we just go back to wandering and see if we find it, or would you rather ask the KAMI and get things over with?"

"I'm hungry now, not later." said Asher holding up a hand. As he made the way out of the Hoshi and into the hanger bay of the Mokuren. "Let's ask tha' KAMI. Maybe iss' socia'ble." He looked up and around, "But uh, iss' it gunna' recognize us, or somethin' like that? We ain't part a'tha Mokuren, juss' guests n'shit. I mean, it looks like we get 'nuff looks from tha' Nekos round 'ere, n'shit. Sorta' makes y'wonda' why iss' curious. Are we juss' good lookin? Am I too sexy not t'see? Or are they juss' watchin' out for my hands?" He stroked his spike goatee. "Maybe they're juss' cautious a'somethin'."

He looked at Kyou for a moment, his thoughtful red eyes seemed to contemplate her. Then, he slapped her butt in a quick motion. "Y'look pretty sexy in 'dat uniform, by tha' way.'

Kyou gave Asher a dirty look, trying to stretch out the material a little bit more again. "Looking good or not, this thing is uncomfortable as all hell. I don't know how these people can put up with it regularly. Regardless, go right ahead and ask the KAMI. I want to see if your 'charm' will have any effect on it. Especially if it doesn't recognize you. Then things might get interesting." She glanced around, figuring she might as well not give him a choice. "KAMI? I think my friend here has a question for you."

"If you don't mind wearing a uniform, you can probably pull an extra one out of a locker," he said. "Actually, we could probably ask the KAMI for clothing."

On queue, the KAMI silently notified them of a nearby laundry center on the way to the Hoshi.

"Looks like we won't be that trendy," he said with a chuckle. "But it beats having your ass exposed to the air!"

Gallant said:

“We’ll see what comes next when they recover, so I don’t worry about it, anymore. Would you like to help with the armors? We don’t have enough parts onboard to fix all of them, but I want to get as close to finished as possible.”

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Cho sniffed as she looked into Yuzuki's eyes. " ... OK," she said, jaw still tight with the temptation to cry longer, harder. She fought it off with Yuzuki's help.

Tori was head-deep inside the armor she was working on when Cho stood next to her. Thankfully for Tori, Cho's words were directed at Yuzuki.

"What should I do to help, Yuzuki-san?" Cho bravely said, swallowing any further sobs.

Tori had a few ideas, all of which involved Cho going elsewhere. Maybe to go fuck Haya, maybe to go babble at Hisa and Kinu, maybe to go jump out of the airlock. Tori didn't mean the last one, but the urge to use space tape to keep Cho quiet bubbled inside her mind as she scanned a portion of the titanium skeleton with her handheld engineering scanner.

No cracks, Tori thought, satisfied. No bends, either. Tough flower.

Nyton gave a brief genuine laugh. "Pants are pants I guess. My ass gets cold easily enough as it is. Lets hit it up then." he replied. The KAMI steered them in the direction of the laundry center and they were able to requisition whatever clothing they needed via the helpful sprite working the laundry detail.

It was an older styled pair of pants and boxers but they fit and Nyton was not going to reject it for the lack of style. He refrained from wearing the uniform top to avoid being mistaken for any of the Mokuren crew. As he dressed he continued to speak to Tom.

"So how is Yukari doing seeing as she has been the acting commander of the fleet? I have been avoiding duty recently but I should start getting back to work."

Tom, for his part, slipped on a plain black shirt and slacks. He then balled up his gown and threw it into a nearby pile of dirty laundry.

"Yukari's doing fine, excellent even," he said. "She can handle just about anything, I think."

Glancing at a nearby mirror, the Yamataian ran his right hand through his yellow hair, trying to spike it a bit.

"But, it's difficult for Yukari in other areas," he added. "She's processing a lot of ideas she's never had to consider before. With me, that is. And I want to be a stabilizing force in her life now. I think she needs that from me."

He pulled himself away from the mirror, despite his hair not being nearly as well-groomed as he would have liked it. It would probably have been boring for Nyton to watch Tom pick at his yellow strands for much longer.

"What about you? You've got... a lot to consider too. About her. Have you given it much thought?"

It was obvious the 'her' Tom was referring to wasn't Yukari.

Asher looked up at the ceiling, before raising hand to give a show of attention, but at that, the KAMI already began directing them on their path. The Malifarian looked back at Kyou, and shrugged, not exactly aware if it had been waiting to be addressed directly or not, but he was planning to make use of it's intervention. With a quickened paced, Asher scooted down the hall, turning to back-step as he spoke to Kyou.

"Y'know, maybe y'juss need a size bigga?" asked Asher, before realizing what he had just said. He threw up his hands, "Not sayin' y'fat or nothin'. I mean... Y'got fat, but iss' in all tha' right spots, but I ain't saying y'really fat." He stopped speaking right there and put his hands on his chest. "Tha' fat right 'ere iss' what mattas."

Kyou followed, her eyebrows shooting up and somehow managing to keep going up as Asher kept talking, managing to dig himself into a deeper and deeper hole somehow, though she wasn't quite sure how he kept managing to say the wrong thing. She hoped they'd reach the kitchens before too much longer, just so she could have an excuse to not bounce Asher off the walls too much. "Is that so? I'm fat in the right places, was that the right conclusion to that convoluted mental process?"

Asher stopped at the entrance to the dining area, and gave Kyou a curious eye. It seemed he wasn't exactly sure what that meant on a whole. Of course, Asher was a little off in the head anyway, so it was like being unsure for all the wrong reasons. The Malifarian put his hands together, and looked up at the ceiling to think for a moment. It seemed he was going to finally come up with something reasonable to say. Finally, a pathway out of this deep, dark cavern of trouble.

He raised both his hands, and then promptly responded by grabbing both of Kyou's breasts, and groping them.

"Honk honk." said Asher, before zipping into the dining room.

Yuzuki scanned the cargo bay. The armors were near-totaled, but most of them would come around eventually, given enough work and the right plates. The inserts would heal, and the plates could be replaced; it was the skeletons that would have to see fabrication, but that could wait for another day just like the stealth coating. The work could be done by anybody with half of a brain - which was all of the sprites. It was only the infantry who were bothersome enough to think they could modify their own equipment; only the infantry Yuzuki ever had to clean up after.

Still focused on Cho, Yuzuki dusted off the parts crate, and then sat on the lid, crossing one leg over the other as she wiped off the rest of the hemosynthetic fluid from her gloves and sleeves.

"Just pick up what I was doing. Strip the plates from the armor. The armlets are fused to the skeleton on that armor, so you'll have to use the blade, but that's the only thing different about that armor." For the first time, Yuzuki looked at the armor in comparison to the others, as opposed to individually. "Well..."

It wasn't the truth. The Shosa's armor was missing the shield, and the helmet. Briefly, she scanned the room again, craning her neck around as she looked for them.

"What happened to the helmet? I don't remember it being destroyed."

"No not really." was the short answer Nyton gave before shifting himself to look at Tom.

"I suppose the clearer answer is that there is not much to think about there. Kotori-dono has done all she could for us and I trust her in that regard. I feel more assured now in where we stand with each other and I am relieved at no longer seeing Yukari as some sort of rival for her attention." he explained before scratching his chin where the three day old stubble had begun to itch. "It is my own baggage that is currently weighing me down which I am trying to unload. During the battle it was easy to focus on the conflict and even be at peace whenever I was about to die. Now that the fighting is over I can not help but feel my head fill with the thoughts of the things we saw and felt. Sometimes the hardest battle is the one you fight when you return home."

Another itch compelled Nyton to scratch his face. "I think right now though I would kill for a chance to shave." he said with a grim smile.

Yuzuki said:

"What happened to the helmet? I don't remember it being destroyed."

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Tori kept her head plugged into Tom's armor as she spoke.

"Shosa's orders," she said, then swore as a bit of hemosynth squirted on her cheek. She wished she was working on Kai's armor, but Yuzuki already had fixed it, the bitch. "She said to keep the helmet and the shield, so I put them in the armory."

With clearance from the medical staff to finally walk around and an old Type 22 Bodysuit to make her decent, Masako was finally out of her hospital room and walking about. True to Miyoko's word, Masako had gotten some reading material to make her resting period less boring. It didn't stop the Warrant Officer from being a bit lonely. The nursing staff was very kind, but all the mentioning of the Taisa being some form of Goddess was quite...disturbing to say the least. Then again, Masako had never been the spiritual type.

Finally free of her prison, the raven-haired neko headed directly to the Mess Hall. Her decision to go there was mostly out of hunger, but there was an ulterior motive of trying to find someone, anyone, she could talk to without that disturbing 'Goddess' non-sense.

Apparently, Masako would arrive in front of said Mess Hall just in time to see Asher dash in, but oblivious to what had happened. "Hello Gunshin-hei." she greeted with a smile. "I assume you're feeling better now."

Tom began to walk with Nyton as he listened to the Taii's story.

"The weight of our personal baggage is very heavy, isn't it? Whenever it gets too heavy to bear, remember that you have friends here that will help you. We won't be able to hold it for long, but maybe those two or three steps of rest we provide will give you enough strength to unload the burden."

A thoughtful silence passed as they continued, stepping into a elevator.

"Yukari and I are getting married," he said. "I'd like you to attend the wedding."