YSS Kaiyo
Bridge
Somewhere in Space
Two Hours After Return
She was now the Captain of a wreck, adrift in space. Life support was online and the majority of the ship was holding together, barely. Anything attached to the Aether Array was sundered from the ship, now either in the scrapyard that was surrounding the Plumeria or rendered to pure energy and spread around.
The bridge was deserted, Misaki had let everyone take stock of what they had and return to their friends and loved ones. They were without enough power to transmit distress signals for long periods of time, the majority of the generators' powers being used to keep everything running. Boss had sent as much as she could before going into standby.
The XO was alone, trembling, balled up in the Captain's Chair rubbing at her wedding ring. Her tears had long stained her cheeks, to the point where they were constantly being replaced. Misaki hadn't debriefed, she hadn't given a speech, she hadn't left the bridge since the Kaiyo returned 'home.'
Meissa felt like absolute crap.
Last mission was one of the worst performances she had. She got Eden killed on her own explosives. She was carrying the cargo, and yet she spent way too much time dawdling about trying to get some form of petty revenge.
Sure, the little inertia gimmick was good. Everything else was pretty bad.
Oh, and on top of that, there was this giant hole in the Kaiyo. Because while god's crazy plan worked, it seemed like he was also an absolute nutjob.
And Eden was still dead.
Meissa got up and marched into the bridge. She hoped mom was doing well, although the chances of that were slimmer than not being chewed out for two days straight by Star Army Command.
Kyoi jumped a little as Meissa practically slammed open the door. Even after two hours, the amount of negative emotion surrounded Meissa like a plague, gently vibrating into the space around her.
The pilot couldn't blame Meissa, though. She knew Eden was quite important to Meissa, and the fact that Meissa's tactical error -- even if it wasn't her hand that killed Eden -- was part of the reason why their standing CO was Misaki.
Misaki had jumped out of her skin, giving a shocked mewl from her ball. Her eyes leveled with Meissa's, and with a quivering lip suddenly got up from her chair. She walked over to Meissa and pulled her into a hug before giving out a cry that would pierce the heavens and hells.
The negative aura surrounding Meissa suddenly cut, as Meissa was hugged by her mother figure. Then, with a gentle touch, stroked her mother's hair.
Even if she was troubled herself, she still had to stand as strong as possible for Saki.
Misaki couldn't even formulate thought, just tears and cries. Her trembling increased and subsided as much as some Neko would change clothes, her grip on Meissa's coat tightening before loosening as the XO slowly began to fall to her knees.
She didn't make any attempts to stop herself from doing anything, she no longer had the strength to hold fast and stand against it.
Meissa held Saki up as the Neko slipped. It was rough for them both. But tears never brought anyone back to life.
She knew that firsthand.
So, instead, Meissa returned the favor of warmth Saki gave her a long time ago. Although there still was a dark tint, Meissa's field of telepathy changed to a warm one.
"We'll pull through together." Meissa said, to anyone who was listening to the telepathc communications. The nearby fox nodded, as she kept looking around the consoles, checking the readouts.
Despite Meissa's best wishes, it didn't seem to help. Misaki's tearful wails began to impact her voice, becoming slightly scratchy despite the wishes of the hemosynth. Her trembling began to steady out before Misaki just gave in on any attempts to stand.
She wanted Eden to hold her and tell her everything was going to be fine, and she knew she wasn't going to get either as much as she needed it.
Neither of them were probably getting what they wanted. Although they won against the IYS, their victory was at best hollow. At worst, it was a loss.
On their original mission, they failed to save the escape pod. Then they were captured. Their comms were cut for a month, and command probably hated them all with a passion.
To be honest, the report sounded like complete bullshit too.
"You need some rest, mom." Meissa gently pat her Neko mother. "Eden wouldn't have wanted to see us like this."
"Please do, Saki." Kyoi added. "I can monitor the bridge just fine on my own."
The two enlisted nodded to each other. At least they had the same thought, even though their own selves differed greatly.
The XO nodded and attempted to say something, but it ended up sounding like gibberish. She held herself up, taking one last look into her other daughter's eyes before turning and walking into the Captain's Suite.
Misaki sent to Meissa telepathically, "Go check on your sister, she... she went somewhere."
Meissa nodded gently as she guided Saki into the suite, and made sure she was resting on the bed. She got up.
If Meissa was Kikyo, where could she be...? In a small, enclosed space?
She decided to follow the sobbing, too.
Everyone seemed to be on damage control, or so shell shocked that they were back in their cabins. There were only a handful of places around, and some of the halls were being repaired with what little they could find to repair them. Meissa snorted at the sight. This state of disarray was just about the same as her own house was. Everything was too familiar. Every sight pressed down on her memory. She looked right subconsciously. A medal and a trophy? No. Just a bit of mangled scrap.
Meissa pushed the memory away. She was getting delusional. Too delusional.
She slumped against the wall, her eyes closed. Her breath and heart rate were way too high for the few steps she walked. She tried to push the memories out.
The storm on her sanity subsided. She got up, and continued walking down the hall.
She heard the whines of everyone, those who were here and were not here. The Wardroom was nearly deserted and about the same with the lounge. If Kikyo was anywhere, it was somewhere she knew.
The sight of the deserted lounge only served to cause another sharp spear of pain through her heart. Just to prove to her own subconscious, she walked over to the couches. No dying man, no notebook underneath.
Keep walking. Maybe the medbay? Maybe someone was there and could help? Or, at least, give her something that would stop the maddening whispers of the subconscious. She felt her wings drop, her muscles ache and weaken. There wasn't much time left before she fell to a living nightmare.
The Medbay looked deserted, the lights were dimmed due to the power loss and she couldn't see anyone at first glance. What she did her was a quiet sneeze from inside. Someone was in there, and someone who was small enough not to be seen in the dim light.
Meissa walked into the medbay. The sight of ST tubes normally didn't affect her much, but she could feel the sand in the hourglass fall through her fingers as her sanity was crumbling into dust.
She gasped, choking both for the breath of life echoing through her mind as she remembered the claws of death reaching to grasp her and pull her away from the sweet pain that was life during the lag between her old and new body. Her present mind also needed the breath of air from the sea of thought that was drowning her. She collapsed against a wall, sweating.
As she collapsed against the wall, she spotted a figures sitting in front of the center ST tube. A small Nekovalkyrja Youngling silently waiting for her mother. The youngling's raven hair had been taken down, now reaching almost to the floor around her. Her eyes were strained, visible in the low light. The slight glisten of her cheeks confirmed who it was.
Kikyo had run off to the Medbay to wait for Eden to ST back, she had been here the whole time.
"Kikyo..." Meissa gasped. "Sis...stab me with a tranquilizer. Please."
Meissa struggled to drag herself along the floor. Her sanity was almost gone, hanging by a thread a micron wide.
Kikyo stood up and hovered up to counter level, flying over to the medical cabinets. She found what her mind told her was a traquilizer and flew back over to Meissa. She opened up the needle, priming it like one would be taught in basic training and pressed it against Meissa's neck. After she made the injection, she hovered over to the needle disposing box and disposed of the entire thing.
"Thanks..." Meissa had one last chance to mumble, before she passed out into a dreamless sleep.
She woke up an hour later with a sharp headache. Still the medbay, but this time not warping to the subconscious whispers.
"I found Kikyo, mom. Sorry it took a while." she telepathically told Saki.
There was no response from Misaki, presumably due to her resting. In front of the owl was Kikyo, in the same spot she found her, albeit she looked a little distressed. She had spoken a word, just sat there staring at the ST tube like it had the power to due something.
"How long have I been out?" Meissa asked, walking over and sitting beside her little sister while running through her mind. No more insanity. Good. That was the worst experience she'd ever felt, and twice or three times in one life for one person was simply three times too many.
"About an hour, a little over actually." She spoke without looking over, "Mei-san? Where is Mommy?"
"Mom..." Meissa's voice faltered a bit as she tried to keep herself from the once-more encroaching thoughts. How vile they were.
"I don't know, Kikyo." Meissa pat her sister on the head. "I think she's probably back in Yamatai."
Kikyo seemed to whine, the glisten of her cheeks beginning to match her eyes, "W-Why didn't Mommy Soul Transfer here?"
Why? Yes, a really good question. Why? An answer was that Boss went rogue. But that couldn't be the case, because if Boss did they'd have all their comms cut and all the ship turrets would have intercepted them as they flew into Kaiyo.
"Some questions have no answers." Meissa told Kikyo. "Or maybe, the answer is too big for either of our minds to understand."
Kikyo looked over, her violet eyes gaining the piercing effect that her mother's had, "Don't bullshit me, where is Mommy!?"
"If I could, I'd ask Boss where she's regenerating." Meissa told her little sister. "But the ship's lost its main aether generator."
"As for what happened to her..." Meissa only leaned forward and transmitted the memory of her placing down the plastic explosives, Eden obtaining the TTD, then the IYS Saki and Eden's ambush.
"I'm sorry, sister." Meissa whispered. "I made a terrible, terrible mistake."
Kikyo sniffled, before crawling over to Meissa and curling up in her lap. "In combat, things tend to never go with what you plan. No plan survives opening contact." She clutched at Meissa's jacket and began quietly crying and quivering.
It was the girl's first time feeling truly brokenhearted and she was terrified of it.
"And it cost us mother." Meissa replied, embracing her sister in a hug.
Even in this world they lived in, where death was never the end, the time without a person there was absolute hell until the person came back.
Kikyo cried for almost an hour, before slowly crying herself to sleep locked against Meissa's coat with a Neko's grip. Her hair had knotted up across her head from holding it against Meissa's stomach, and the tears acted like an adhesive to further mess with it. She was asleep, but seemed to be fighting a nightmare by as much as she kept whining and mewling in her sleep.
Meissa hugged her sister as tightly as she could, climbing on the infirmary bed with her. She tried as hard as she could to comfort her sister, with images of Yamatai and all the sights Meissa had seen in her lifetime.
Kikyo seemed to ease of slightly, but the poor girl was still embedded in her terrors. She subconsciously put one thumb in her mouth and tried to curl up against Meissa. She was crying somewhat still, but seemed a little more calm.
Meissa once again embraced her little sister, wrapping her wings around that life which was so precious to them all. She gave her an image of beauty, the sakura blossoms that rained at the site of Eden and Saki's wedding.
Did she dare give Kikyo one of the most precious memories she had? It was worth a chance.
She recalled one of the memories she shared with her father in Elysia, before he passed onwards.
A memory of flight.
It hurt to recall those memories. But, for her sister she did so.
Kikyo slowly calmed down, giving a few whines every once in a while but began to rest peacefully. Her dreams of hearing her mother's screams and cries slowly fading from her mind and only leaving a distant echo.
Instead, her dreams began to mimic Meissa's memories. Each character was replaced with her own family: her mothers, her sister, and the rest of the Kaiyo crew. Her creative mind envisioned a cabin on the Ketsurui River, surrounded in Sakura and Kikyo blossoms, and a happy family living inside.
It was all terribly ironic, wasn't it? A dream just like the one Meissa had, when she felt her own self crumble away.
She felt her own consciousness slip.
"Some day, maybe we might be able to. Keep dreaming, and maybe you'll make that come true, Kikyo." Meissa telepathically whispered to her sister, before she fell asleep beside her.
In the bridge, Kyoi watched the cameras throughout the ship. She nodded in approval.
Ever so slightly, it seemed like the Kaiyo's lights became brighter.
Bridge
Somewhere in Space
Two Hours After Return
She was now the Captain of a wreck, adrift in space. Life support was online and the majority of the ship was holding together, barely. Anything attached to the Aether Array was sundered from the ship, now either in the scrapyard that was surrounding the Plumeria or rendered to pure energy and spread around.
The bridge was deserted, Misaki had let everyone take stock of what they had and return to their friends and loved ones. They were without enough power to transmit distress signals for long periods of time, the majority of the generators' powers being used to keep everything running. Boss had sent as much as she could before going into standby.
The XO was alone, trembling, balled up in the Captain's Chair rubbing at her wedding ring. Her tears had long stained her cheeks, to the point where they were constantly being replaced. Misaki hadn't debriefed, she hadn't given a speech, she hadn't left the bridge since the Kaiyo returned 'home.'
Meissa felt like absolute crap.
Last mission was one of the worst performances she had. She got Eden killed on her own explosives. She was carrying the cargo, and yet she spent way too much time dawdling about trying to get some form of petty revenge.
Sure, the little inertia gimmick was good. Everything else was pretty bad.
Oh, and on top of that, there was this giant hole in the Kaiyo. Because while god's crazy plan worked, it seemed like he was also an absolute nutjob.
And Eden was still dead.
Meissa got up and marched into the bridge. She hoped mom was doing well, although the chances of that were slimmer than not being chewed out for two days straight by Star Army Command.
Kyoi jumped a little as Meissa practically slammed open the door. Even after two hours, the amount of negative emotion surrounded Meissa like a plague, gently vibrating into the space around her.
The pilot couldn't blame Meissa, though. She knew Eden was quite important to Meissa, and the fact that Meissa's tactical error -- even if it wasn't her hand that killed Eden -- was part of the reason why their standing CO was Misaki.
Misaki had jumped out of her skin, giving a shocked mewl from her ball. Her eyes leveled with Meissa's, and with a quivering lip suddenly got up from her chair. She walked over to Meissa and pulled her into a hug before giving out a cry that would pierce the heavens and hells.
The negative aura surrounding Meissa suddenly cut, as Meissa was hugged by her mother figure. Then, with a gentle touch, stroked her mother's hair.
Even if she was troubled herself, she still had to stand as strong as possible for Saki.
Misaki couldn't even formulate thought, just tears and cries. Her trembling increased and subsided as much as some Neko would change clothes, her grip on Meissa's coat tightening before loosening as the XO slowly began to fall to her knees.
She didn't make any attempts to stop herself from doing anything, she no longer had the strength to hold fast and stand against it.
Meissa held Saki up as the Neko slipped. It was rough for them both. But tears never brought anyone back to life.
She knew that firsthand.
So, instead, Meissa returned the favor of warmth Saki gave her a long time ago. Although there still was a dark tint, Meissa's field of telepathy changed to a warm one.
"We'll pull through together." Meissa said, to anyone who was listening to the telepathc communications. The nearby fox nodded, as she kept looking around the consoles, checking the readouts.
Despite Meissa's best wishes, it didn't seem to help. Misaki's tearful wails began to impact her voice, becoming slightly scratchy despite the wishes of the hemosynth. Her trembling began to steady out before Misaki just gave in on any attempts to stand.
She wanted Eden to hold her and tell her everything was going to be fine, and she knew she wasn't going to get either as much as she needed it.
Neither of them were probably getting what they wanted. Although they won against the IYS, their victory was at best hollow. At worst, it was a loss.
On their original mission, they failed to save the escape pod. Then they were captured. Their comms were cut for a month, and command probably hated them all with a passion.
To be honest, the report sounded like complete bullshit too.
"You need some rest, mom." Meissa gently pat her Neko mother. "Eden wouldn't have wanted to see us like this."
"Please do, Saki." Kyoi added. "I can monitor the bridge just fine on my own."
The two enlisted nodded to each other. At least they had the same thought, even though their own selves differed greatly.
The XO nodded and attempted to say something, but it ended up sounding like gibberish. She held herself up, taking one last look into her other daughter's eyes before turning and walking into the Captain's Suite.
Misaki sent to Meissa telepathically, "Go check on your sister, she... she went somewhere."
Meissa nodded gently as she guided Saki into the suite, and made sure she was resting on the bed. She got up.
If Meissa was Kikyo, where could she be...? In a small, enclosed space?
She decided to follow the sobbing, too.
Everyone seemed to be on damage control, or so shell shocked that they were back in their cabins. There were only a handful of places around, and some of the halls were being repaired with what little they could find to repair them. Meissa snorted at the sight. This state of disarray was just about the same as her own house was. Everything was too familiar. Every sight pressed down on her memory. She looked right subconsciously. A medal and a trophy? No. Just a bit of mangled scrap.
Meissa pushed the memory away. She was getting delusional. Too delusional.
She slumped against the wall, her eyes closed. Her breath and heart rate were way too high for the few steps she walked. She tried to push the memories out.
The storm on her sanity subsided. She got up, and continued walking down the hall.
She heard the whines of everyone, those who were here and were not here. The Wardroom was nearly deserted and about the same with the lounge. If Kikyo was anywhere, it was somewhere she knew.
The sight of the deserted lounge only served to cause another sharp spear of pain through her heart. Just to prove to her own subconscious, she walked over to the couches. No dying man, no notebook underneath.
Keep walking. Maybe the medbay? Maybe someone was there and could help? Or, at least, give her something that would stop the maddening whispers of the subconscious. She felt her wings drop, her muscles ache and weaken. There wasn't much time left before she fell to a living nightmare.
The Medbay looked deserted, the lights were dimmed due to the power loss and she couldn't see anyone at first glance. What she did her was a quiet sneeze from inside. Someone was in there, and someone who was small enough not to be seen in the dim light.
Meissa walked into the medbay. The sight of ST tubes normally didn't affect her much, but she could feel the sand in the hourglass fall through her fingers as her sanity was crumbling into dust.
She gasped, choking both for the breath of life echoing through her mind as she remembered the claws of death reaching to grasp her and pull her away from the sweet pain that was life during the lag between her old and new body. Her present mind also needed the breath of air from the sea of thought that was drowning her. She collapsed against a wall, sweating.
As she collapsed against the wall, she spotted a figures sitting in front of the center ST tube. A small Nekovalkyrja Youngling silently waiting for her mother. The youngling's raven hair had been taken down, now reaching almost to the floor around her. Her eyes were strained, visible in the low light. The slight glisten of her cheeks confirmed who it was.
Kikyo had run off to the Medbay to wait for Eden to ST back, she had been here the whole time.
"Kikyo..." Meissa gasped. "Sis...stab me with a tranquilizer. Please."
Meissa struggled to drag herself along the floor. Her sanity was almost gone, hanging by a thread a micron wide.
Kikyo stood up and hovered up to counter level, flying over to the medical cabinets. She found what her mind told her was a traquilizer and flew back over to Meissa. She opened up the needle, priming it like one would be taught in basic training and pressed it against Meissa's neck. After she made the injection, she hovered over to the needle disposing box and disposed of the entire thing.
"Thanks..." Meissa had one last chance to mumble, before she passed out into a dreamless sleep.
She woke up an hour later with a sharp headache. Still the medbay, but this time not warping to the subconscious whispers.
"I found Kikyo, mom. Sorry it took a while." she telepathically told Saki.
There was no response from Misaki, presumably due to her resting. In front of the owl was Kikyo, in the same spot she found her, albeit she looked a little distressed. She had spoken a word, just sat there staring at the ST tube like it had the power to due something.
"How long have I been out?" Meissa asked, walking over and sitting beside her little sister while running through her mind. No more insanity. Good. That was the worst experience she'd ever felt, and twice or three times in one life for one person was simply three times too many.
"About an hour, a little over actually." She spoke without looking over, "Mei-san? Where is Mommy?"
"Mom..." Meissa's voice faltered a bit as she tried to keep herself from the once-more encroaching thoughts. How vile they were.
"I don't know, Kikyo." Meissa pat her sister on the head. "I think she's probably back in Yamatai."
Kikyo seemed to whine, the glisten of her cheeks beginning to match her eyes, "W-Why didn't Mommy Soul Transfer here?"
Why? Yes, a really good question. Why? An answer was that Boss went rogue. But that couldn't be the case, because if Boss did they'd have all their comms cut and all the ship turrets would have intercepted them as they flew into Kaiyo.
"Some questions have no answers." Meissa told Kikyo. "Or maybe, the answer is too big for either of our minds to understand."
Kikyo looked over, her violet eyes gaining the piercing effect that her mother's had, "Don't bullshit me, where is Mommy!?"
"If I could, I'd ask Boss where she's regenerating." Meissa told her little sister. "But the ship's lost its main aether generator."
"As for what happened to her..." Meissa only leaned forward and transmitted the memory of her placing down the plastic explosives, Eden obtaining the TTD, then the IYS Saki and Eden's ambush.
"I'm sorry, sister." Meissa whispered. "I made a terrible, terrible mistake."
Kikyo sniffled, before crawling over to Meissa and curling up in her lap. "In combat, things tend to never go with what you plan. No plan survives opening contact." She clutched at Meissa's jacket and began quietly crying and quivering.
It was the girl's first time feeling truly brokenhearted and she was terrified of it.
"And it cost us mother." Meissa replied, embracing her sister in a hug.
Even in this world they lived in, where death was never the end, the time without a person there was absolute hell until the person came back.
Kikyo cried for almost an hour, before slowly crying herself to sleep locked against Meissa's coat with a Neko's grip. Her hair had knotted up across her head from holding it against Meissa's stomach, and the tears acted like an adhesive to further mess with it. She was asleep, but seemed to be fighting a nightmare by as much as she kept whining and mewling in her sleep.
Meissa hugged her sister as tightly as she could, climbing on the infirmary bed with her. She tried as hard as she could to comfort her sister, with images of Yamatai and all the sights Meissa had seen in her lifetime.
Kikyo seemed to ease of slightly, but the poor girl was still embedded in her terrors. She subconsciously put one thumb in her mouth and tried to curl up against Meissa. She was crying somewhat still, but seemed a little more calm.
Meissa once again embraced her little sister, wrapping her wings around that life which was so precious to them all. She gave her an image of beauty, the sakura blossoms that rained at the site of Eden and Saki's wedding.
Did she dare give Kikyo one of the most precious memories she had? It was worth a chance.
She recalled one of the memories she shared with her father in Elysia, before he passed onwards.
A memory of flight.
It hurt to recall those memories. But, for her sister she did so.
Kikyo slowly calmed down, giving a few whines every once in a while but began to rest peacefully. Her dreams of hearing her mother's screams and cries slowly fading from her mind and only leaving a distant echo.
Instead, her dreams began to mimic Meissa's memories. Each character was replaced with her own family: her mothers, her sister, and the rest of the Kaiyo crew. Her creative mind envisioned a cabin on the Ketsurui River, surrounded in Sakura and Kikyo blossoms, and a happy family living inside.
It was all terribly ironic, wasn't it? A dream just like the one Meissa had, when she felt her own self crumble away.
She felt her own consciousness slip.
"Some day, maybe we might be able to. Keep dreaming, and maybe you'll make that come true, Kikyo." Meissa telepathically whispered to her sister, before she fell asleep beside her.
In the bridge, Kyoi watched the cameras throughout the ship. She nodded in approval.
Ever so slightly, it seemed like the Kaiyo's lights became brighter.
