RP: YSS Kaiyō Mizu no Iro

[Ametheliana]

???
7日 7月 YE 47

For Hoshi, there had been stillness. At the depth she was lingering, her body weighted down by her own NH-33 gravimetric controls, there were no other stresses or pressures against her. Her forearms tucked around her knees as she was cradled by the all-encompassing blue darkness.

Then came something louder than sound. Louder than anything she had heard before. It flooded the submerged pink body. Her arms ebbed apart and she looked into the dark blue for the source. Her movement rushed her hair up and around her and the blue to white strands billowed in the oceanic waters as she looked into the depths with her enhanced eyes wide.

Forms pushed into the edge of her vision from the void. Stocky and ancient, they moved with a steady grace that brought them up against Hoshi. Her mouth spread, releasing a bubble that would take more than a minute to get to the ocean surface.

There was something unsettling about looking at a whale so close. There was a wrongness like she was looking at nature in the buff. A private spectacle not supposed to be imbibed in. And, yet, she drank in the moment. The icy pale ring around the black pupil drew the gaze while the rest of the deep, dark eye made her sink into the whole. Especially attentive even when she told herself she would avert her gaze, the little Neko felt mesmerized and, yet, worried she would never be able to look away.

The whole pod passed by her slowly, taking their time until all at once they were gone. There was not much to look at now, but she thought about the whales still.

So this is what we protect. Not just my people, not just planets, but all of the creatures–big and small—that the Kikyo Sector houses.

Recognition of her small place in the grand order of things made her back quiver and the chill made her decide to ascend. That and her oxygen in her lungs was running low. She had always pushed her body’s ability to store breathable air when she swum, but descending down as far as she could without gravity manipulation and then switching it on to stay there in the abyss for so long was pushing even her extended limits.

Though the remote place she and the whales had been was made of stillness, the ocean surface was choppy. After ascending, the captain opened her mouth wide to breathe when she got to the surface. A wave crashed into her face and she had to clamp it shut again to avoid a mouthful of water. She looked about, seeing no landmass in sight. Just the familiar tree in the distance.

Hoshi corrected her inner thoughts from the ocean depths aloud.

"What I used to protect." She said. The movement of the words on her chapped lips stung. "Not anymore. Not here."

 

[Ametheliana]

No longer navigating sunken depths, Hoshi’s hand went to the well-worn handhold she always used to pull herself up from the sea. Water fell off of her hair and skin. It dribbled out of a grey scrap of fabric tied around her waist that had been looped into a makeshift bag. It was the only adornment on her person save for the same greyed fabric tied around her skull like a headband.

Wasting not one step as her feet went pattering, she navigated along some of the young tree runners. They were gnarled and aged despite being some of the most juvenile parts of the huge world tree. She made her way methodically into the shadow of the vast tree where she kept her gate for minutes more. Again, the place her hand fell was smoothed by the hundreds of times she had clasped it when she had made it to the giant trunk. Her feet tucked around a protrusion from it, grasping around with her toes and heels like they were a second pair of hands. Her body gracefully pulled and pushed, falling into a rhythmic but mindless vertical loping motion that brought her hundreds of feet upwards in no more than a minute.

Dappled lighting cast golden rods into the treetop home. The light fell over her blue and white hair, then over her malnourished body. There were dried tree roots interwoven to form a netting between branches and a deep groove in one of them was covered in leaves—Hoshi’s makeshift bed. It looked as if it were a woodland creature’s nest but with a fraction of the food stores one would have. She untied her headband and set it on the leafy mattress as she made her way deeper into her treetop alcove.

Where the sun shone into a smaller indentation in a branch, she carefully laid out her underwater haul. She pulled from the grey sack meticulously, separating a thimbleful of krill from a handful of algae. She smeared them both with her thumbs, creating thin layers of both to dry in the sunlight with a methodical diligence.

Idly, she bit into the wet krill and sucked it off, staring at a branch that hung low into her living space. Several dozen carvings were on it; it was either the work of a fractured mind or a determined one. Etched into the wood, the same cordate shape repeated itself and the same three sets of searing eyes were harshly ground into each of the carved forms. It was a mask —apparently one that Hoshi wanted to remember. The former captain crossed her legs as she sat backwards, body rigid and wound tight as a coil.

“I’ll have enough energy to warn them tomorrow,” the captain mumbled absently through her finger.

With deep blue eyes on the pictures she had drawn, Hoshi bit into her thumb like it were jerky until her eyes stung. Blinking but without looking away, she mindlessly set her hand down on her leg. Hemosynth dripped from it down onto the raggedy headband she had discared as she spoke aloud. This time, she spoke like she would if she were on the Kaiyō's bridge and with a determined cadence.

“I’ll leave tomorrow.”

 

[Ametheliana]

Hoshi looked out at the pinks and blues of the horizon, taking in the dawn’s early light as it crept over the slate ocean surface.

Perched at the upper boughs of the world’s sole tree, she held onto a branch and the wind whipped from behind her, pulling her overgrown hair around her thinned, bare hips. Her knuckles were wrapped in the same torn up grey garment matted with blood as the headcarf that she wore from the day before. And somewhere far below in her living space, she had marked in blood on her bark wall that she was trying for this fifth attempt.

She mustered from herself the final dredges of strength from within herself, readying to dismount. Rarely did she fly; it took too much strength from the castaway. But for this, she had to. Her dark blue eyes raised skyward as her intent became obvious.

From her periphery, something caught her eye, though, and she brought her chin down to follow her vision. Spray plumed up and Hoshi admired the visage. Another whale then another met the ocean’s surface until finally the whole pod had risen for air. The first to rise had gone further, though. Its shadow on the water rippled against the silvery strands of waves. Cocking her head to the side, the waifish pink woman watched perplexed as the leviathans crested above the water, one after another. For the minute they kept above the surface, her gaze was unbroken. Once they plummeted for a deep dive back into the ocean world’s depths, Hoshi gripped her head with a bloodied hand.

“It’s getting bad again,” her voice whined on the penultimate word she spoke to herself. But her chin righted itself and she looked back to the sky. Rods of early morning light were pushing through the dark cloud cover, splaying bubblegum colored light onto the undersides of the fluffy nimbus forms.

“I’m fine. I have to tell Kaiyō I’m here.” Hoshi said to herself and without a moment’s hesitation, she had floated in the air. Gulping air, she pushed into the sky.

 

[Ametheliana]

There was a tug at Hoshi’s bare ankles. The water planet was pulling her back in, unable to unshackle the former captain from the months’ long grip it had on her. She flew higher, eyes far above the warmth of the rising sun or pleasant, pillowy clouds it cast its pink and golden rods to. Her concentration was higher, where dusk had not yet shone so bright that she couldn’t make out a few stars. She kicked the weight of her gravity manipulation behind her, propelling her forward and up.

She could tell she was losing energy fast to atmospheric drag, but she couldn’t stop—not for anything, not even fatigue. She had to get out of the exosphere and send a signal to Yamatai. Her PANTHEON access was disrupted on the planet and if she wanted rescue, getting off of it and alerting them was the only way, even if she had failed at doing so time and again.

Thinking of where she wanted to go, moments with those from Kaiyō came to her. Lonely with them as they won the war against Kuvexia was juxtaposed by Kaiko Park; being surrounded by Yamatai in their victory.

Her breath caught in her throat as she left the stratosphere. But Hoshi enjoyed the practice of breath work. She took the last pull in to her oxygen reserves and let the thinned air hit her face, pulling back at her hair as she flew higher.

She thought of leaning her head on Aiko’s shoulder on Iðunn as Hoshi was vexed with keeping her crew small or expanding. That memory was countered by the long-lasting satisfaction of watching the crew she had taken on as they settled in, connected, and grew.

Hoshi winced as if in pain, though. There were mistakes she had made. Presently, she had pushed too fast when transitioning from the mesosphere to the thermosphere. The hemosynth she had collected onto the bandana on her forehead sizzled, bubbling and burning. But she remembered Molli as she recalled her crew growing and it was as if the thermosphere’s heat were burning past the layer of hemo protection. As she ascended, Hoshi could see the enlisted’s sour face in Hoshi’s ready room when she asked Molli to pursue a white panel. Whether it was Molli or her own failure, it hurt to recall.

There were other failures too, that sprung to mind. Even on Rabaal, her most recent mission, she remembered mixing up the new Rikugun girl’s positions and amongst the NMX Nekovalkyrja she had tried to sway to her side with Sif, there was a Mishhu that had struck her during her diatribe. If she had waited for Aiko to monologue at them, would that have gone better, she wondered. Would she be stuck here now?

Crowding around her, the thermosphere and mistakes in her memories vied for space. Even then, she actively pushed past them- but it seemed only more came.

She thought of where her crew were now, without her. Something vicious in her mind came alive and she thought, “They’re either bred or dead by Mishhuvurthyar.”

What’s worse, that vicious thing went on to think, “As they should be.”

She was wrong to have even tried to influence the NMX Nekovalkyrja on Rabaal or Nebel or the Kikyo planet. For every time she and her crew had colored NMX Nekovalkyrja, a pain of regret burned through her.

“Why did I?” she asked aloud before her better judgement realized what a waste of oxygen it was to speak.

Persistent were the thoughts that now plagued her mind, even as she flew. Tasting the thinned atmosphere around her, she could tell she was close. And, yet, the negging thoughts pulled at her ankles worse than the waning gravitational pull of the planet.

“I should have left the NMX alone to survive and thrive without Yamatai. They deserve it, they deserve their liberty.” Hoshi said aloud. “Why did I stop them? I was so stupid for thinking I knew better than Mishhuvurthyar. Stupid for–“

Gagging, Hoshi realized she had tried to gulp the non-existent air during her tirade. A small part of her mind asked her why she had spoken again, but that part was overwhelmed. The world was far below her. She could barely make out the tree. She could still see water. Slate blue peeked out between the clouds.

She smiled in a tired, contented way then looked back up.

The stars had never been brighter above the white and blue rim that she seemed to be floating on. She had reached her destination. Her digital mind set the last of her body’s energy into sending a signal to NUCLEON, the Mishhuvurthyar’s sensor and electronic systems. She wondered with giddy temptation if the Umbral themselves would respond. No doubt the Elder Yaggorahurl would be amongst them.

For a moment, her fanaticism ruled her. Gone were concerns about the mistakes she had made or the state of the Kaiyō crew. But, in remembering the absence of such worries, Hoshi resisted and an inkling of those fears surfaced.

Anxious and hurried, she sent one extra signal to Aiko and the Kaiyo. It was a glimmer of hope that she shed into space to be fully freed. Not just from the planet, but the curse of her mind.

Her body drooped and her eyes closed around cold, icy tears.

She was plummeting.

Heat licked her form when she re-entered the thermosphere. Her once bubblegum pink flesh broiled with burns. Her unconscious body was finding its way back down to the watery planet —her watery grave— much more quickly than it had come up.

 

[Ametheliana]

Kenichi's Star
Kokoro

Hoshi had died. The Nekovalkryja OS startup sequence, lungs made and filled by hemosynth, consciousness beginning again while looking into a medical bay from a transparent tube—none of it would have been new to her. She had been expecting the relief those familiarities would bring. The solace of such was not to be met by the Neko, though.

Her body had broken in more places than she could reliably count and felt like the inextricable tangle of crushed stain glass. She stared up at the world tree's branches, the boughs of which had slowed her perilous fall and broken her like circus netting that had held momentarily only to comically break, at a cloudless sky. Morning had come quickly and the planet's harsh sun was biting through the omnipresent tree, claiming its stake on the water below in golden dappled puddles within the sea.

Floating on the surface like some detritus, Hoshi felt and saw two things at once. At first, a bizarre shimmering light above her like a blazing new star twinkling in the morning light. Curiously, she stared at it, enamored. Underneath her, though, she felt ridges and rock-like crags. Above her, a silhouette blotted out the sun and strode through the air with as much ease as it did the water. Seeing it, she understood what was below her. Or, at least, what she believed her hallucinations thought was below her. Hoshi closed her dark blue eyes as she felt lifted out of the water. Surrendering, or perhaps relenting, she listened to the planet's heartbeat coupled with the sonorous lullaby of water falling off the whale's back that she was now on.

—
XSS Mordrakka

That twinkle in the sky Hoshi had seen, the NMX ship the XSS Mordrakka that Hoshi's old crew had taken control of, had been alone in its search for the better half of an hour. But its sensors indicating life as it dipped below the atmosphere of the outer planet of Kenichi's Star, Kokoro, had not gone unnoticed by the NMX ships also searching for the lost Yamataian captain.

"Report on findings on planet designated Kokoro," came a gravelly Mishhuvurthyar's voice through comms to Ketsurui Aiko's place in command and the SAINT operative's at helm. "At once!"

"Gunships XSS Yggfristall and XSS Braxxrrsil are en route to intercede," came another voice in response. Whatever reputation the little patrol ship Aiko and her crew had taken, it did not seem good as the rest of the NMX fleet seemed to give little thought to the the Mordrakka's autonomy. Close by, the two gunships sent to assist were entering the planet within the minute.

The life signs that scans had picked up on the Mordrakka, though, were that of a dozen biological life forms—not just that of their captain. And they were moving out of the planet quickly as a group. Visuals showed

Elsewhere on the ship, Asuka and Charbon and any of those that would help were refitting the torpedoes once again. They had not needed to be used in commandeering the ship but now that the NMX vessel was in their hands, it was easy guesswork to figure they may be useful in a fight for Hoshi, if it were to come to that. The cargo bay doors had been opened, too, in preparation for Aiko's orders to easily and succinctly collect their lost captain.