View source for 815/Ship Happens

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2016/01/07
|Location=Uminari City - Central Harbor
|Synopsis=After his nearly fatal fight with Dark Endymion, Ami drags Takashi out to the ''Heart and Soul of Tokyo''; a cruise liner sitting in Tokyo's harbor for maintenance before its next cruise. She helps him to a room, and the pair talk a little further before finally Ami she leaves him to rest and goes to do the same herself.
|Cast of Characters=54,47
|pretty=yes
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{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:54|Ami Mizuno| (54)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Tokyo Bay is as foggy as the rest of the city, this night. Out in the middle of the bay, a large oceanliner sits in sedate elegance. This ship normally cruises the high seas with thousands of passengers, treating them to the very best of seaward food and fun. Her name is the Heart and Soul of Tokyo, and for the past week she has been in the harbor undergoing standard maintenance. By day, she is covered in dock workers and crews working hard to put the expensive multi-million dollar cruise liner back in operation. By night, the ship's decks are devoid of life save the gulls who roost on her gunwales.<br /><br />It's the perfect place to hide, when you need an immediate, untraceable location. A brief flicker of light appears in the ship's Grand Ballroom, reflecting off the windows and walls of the closed off room. In here, the Fog cannot reach, yet some of it emerges along with Ami Mizuno and Takashi Agera as the slight blue-haired girl drags him through the portal. She hauls him through into her lap, and then lets the portal close behind her, gasping for breath and fighting dizziness from his weight. Why, even now, was she so scared of revealing that she's Sailor Mercury to the boy? Why couldn't she use that power to save him?<br /><br />Ami lies there, one arm around Takashi's chest, gasping for breath and saying nothing in the echoing silence of the massive room. She dwells on the mistakes of the past twenty minutes, repeating the fight over and over and over again in her mind.

:'''{{#var:47|Takashi Agera| (47)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Takashi has been... in varying states of consciousness that were not quite full since he ate an attack the likes of which he'd not experienced before. Even now, even in THIS state, he's making mental notes to check the data on the attack. This means he's in some strange half mode of consciousness as Ami jumps him through the subspace portal.<br /><br />This means that the first conherient word out of his mouth (as opposed to angry or injured rambling) is "Amazing." reflecting his previous opinions on her abilities. Thanks to a combination of his henshin detonating ablatively, and his innate resistance/absorbsion of dark energy, a lot of the damage is superifcial - but the ENERGY he burned off making it so is a very real loss.

:'''{{#var:54|Ami Mizuno| (54)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Ami reaches up to touch Takashi's forehead, checking for signs of fever. There are some, but low-grade. Mild. Non-threatening.<br /><br />"Okay," she murmurs to herself, then rubs her face. "I need to get you to the hospital. But not ... Mitakihara. Selby. I should call Doctor Selby. Takashi-kun, are you okay?" she asks him, gently putting the back of her hand on his cheek, as if testing for fever a second time.<br /><br />"It's going to be okay," she says to him. Or maybe to herslef. "I'm going to take you to see Doctor Selby, okay? She treats magical girls and boys. Is it safe to move you? Did he break anything?"

:'''{{#var:47|Takashi Agera| (47)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Takashi looks up at her. He's going to ignore her very boring line of comments about concern for him in favor of chidiling her. "I'll be fine." he asserts. "But you. I told you to leave. You should've." he says, a frown creasing in his brow. It'd probably be a much angrier look if he was better off.<br /><br />"I'll be okay. My henshin took most of it." Takashi's looking up at her, and he looks like hell - but his green eyes might still manage to convey some of that fierce determination. "I just need to rest."

:'''{{#var:54|Ami Mizuno| (54)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>"Mmm, funny," Ami says, "I don't recall giving you license to rule my life or make decisions for me." She sighs and crawls out from under him, carefully lays his head to the deck, then begins gently inspecting his body for injuries.<br /><br />"Look, just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I can't fight," Ami points out to him. But she didn't fight, so it rings hollow to even her own ears. "That kind of noble courtliness has no place in Japan, and especially not in ''this'' world, and you know it."<br /><br />She reaches up to wipe at her face, then looks to Takashi uncertainty. "I got a lot of readings on his power output which will help a lot of people--most especially a girl who was madly in love with that boy before he was corrupted by the enemy. So you can shove your 'you should haves' right back wherever they came from."<br /><br />Ami rubs her face, then says, "I can get us access to one of the state rooms on the upper floor. No one's going to come here until morning, and they've already finished the upper decks anyways. I can teleport us out when you're recovered."<br /><br />Ami reaches down to try and lift Takashi, but the truth is, he's nearly a foot taller than her, and weighs so much more than even her strong arms can dead-carry. "I can be a crutch," she says after a moment, "But I can't just lift you. Can you walk, or do I need to go find a stretcher?"

:'''{{#var:47|Takashi Agera| (47)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Takashi grimaces at some of the things she's saying. Now he has to defend himself from some of her assumptions, too? "I didn't tell you not to fight because you're a girl." he says, sternly. "I told you not to fight because I didn't want you to get hurt. Bad enough I'm injured." he says.<br /><br />"You know I told that guy to stay out of the way for a fight too. Against..." Takashi can't find her name. He is in a lot of pain and just toughing through it out of indignancy. "The girl with the red hair and spear. I harbor no illusions about how dangerous girls can be." Just illusions about the sort of thing he can get away with or fights he can solo.<br /><br />"Oh, I think I've seen the girl." he says as he tries to get up on one foot. There's some groaning and light cursing as he does. He just hurts everywhere, and feels like he hasn't slept in weeks. "When I told him to go away they sat up top and smooched during the fight. At least I hope that was his girlfriend." he says, trying to rise up unstably and having to catch himself with one hand. "Maybe not. He's kind of a jerk."<br /><br />"I should be okay by morning." he hopes. He's trying to get up stable, stand on his own despite her offer of support. This goes disastrously, and he ends up tipping over towards her - less off balance and more like his legs are refusing to support his weight on their own.

:'''{{#var:54|Ami Mizuno| (54)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Ami doesn't really give Takashi the choice of ''accepting'' her support. She just puts her shoulders beneath his arm and leans against him as he starts to fall. Despite her short height, and slender build, Ami Mizuno is ''strong''. Swimmers build muscles in every part of their body, and it's the heart of swim season.<br /><br />Supporting Takashi is a matter of course for the wiry girl.<br /><br />"I hope you are," Ami says as she carefully guides him towards the back of the grand ballroom, one step at a time. "Look, Takashi-kun," Ami says gently, "can you just stop with the machismo 'I can take care of myself' for just ... a few minutes? At least until I get you into a bed? Please? I'm super stressed right now and I'm really actually worried about you, so just ... shut up and let me make sure you're okay. You can tell me how I should have done things differently later. Okay?"

:'''{{#var:47|Takashi Agera| (47)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Takashi grumbles a bit but starts walking with her. It's obvious he's not used to accepting help on any level, but he just acquisces. Deep down he's not an idiot and he knows that he's not in any shape, and if she just dropped him he'd be napping on the floor of this room for a few hours before he went anywhere.<br /><br />He doesn't say anything for a while, as they walk towards the state room. Then, finally, quietly, almost grumpily, it comes. "Thank you, Ami-chan." There's nothing else there, because he's conserving his strength - and because what he really wants to do is argue with her, and she asked him to stop. But then, he does break with one other thing. "You did fine." He doesn't elaborate.

:'''{{#var:54|Ami Mizuno| (54)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Ami takes Takashi to the first state room she can find, then pulls her computer out of subspace. Yes, subspace, Takashi; she had an entire ''computer'' there. Well, a tablet anyways, but there's no way it fit in that tiny little clutch. <br /><br />Pressing the Mercury computer to the magnetic lock, she taps a few instructions, and the door clicks once and lights up green.<br /><br />Ami pushes the door open and helps Takashi inside, then guides him through the living area and into the master bedroom.<br /><br />There, finally, she helps him sit down on the bed, and then collapses to her knees beside it. "Heels are so not made for this," Ami mumbles, reaching back to start tugging them off of her sore feet.<br /><br />"I'm sorry I didn't help you," Ami says to him quietly, once the shoes are off. "I was torn between getting the information, and helping you, and I just ... made the wrong choice." She stands again with a grimace, then asks, "Can I get you anything? Food, water ... anything? This is an exterior stateroom so we can't turn the lights on without risking a risk of being seen, but I can see even in this dim light, so ... if you need any thing, I'll get it. Okay?"

:'''{{#var:47|Takashi Agera| (47)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Takashi marvels a little bit as she casually pulls her computer out of subspace, but he doesn't make any verbal commentary on it. "I'm gonna have to buy another suit." he says, in response to her bit about the heels. There's blood (his own and endymion's) on it, and it's cut and ripped. It's in a pretty sorry state.<br /><br />"I don't think you made the wrong choice." He states this pretty affirmatively, and boldly. "You did the best you could with the information you had available to you." he asserts - and there's a deep breath that's cut off by another curse word. "It looked like I was going to be alright. There were moments I was matching him blow-for-blow. And you still got me out when it turned upside down. You can use the information you got, right?" he says, sitting up a bit. His left hand drifts to squeeze the injury on his right.<br /><br />"...do you think they have a can or bottle of coca-cola stowed somewhere here you can find?" he asks, cracking a half smile.

:'''{{#var:54|Ami Mizuno| (54)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Ami doesn't bother to correct Takashi on how the fight was going. Instead, she checks his temperature one last time, then sighs. "Yeah, there's vending machines," she says as she rises back to her feet. "I'll be right back."<br /><br />Ami turns to go, leaving Takashi alone in the massive state room for several minutes. Whens he returns, she has two bottles of coca cola laced within the fingers of one hand, and a fresh set of bedsheets in the other. Ami sets the coke down on the desk, then drops the bedsheets beside Takashi. "Let me get you into the chair, then I'll make up the bed for you so you can get some rest."

:'''{{#var:47|Takashi Agera| (47)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Takashi doesn't make a big deal about being helped into the chair. He manages to find the dexterity to open his can of soda. "I really wanted to experience your hyperspace trick, you know. I just didn't think it'd be quite like that. Hopefully at the end of this little adventure there can be a juncture I can experience it... upright."<br /><br />The attention is a little wierd, when she starts to make up the bed. "I admit, I really was just planning to share notes with you." he says, softly. "Nowhere did 'get in a fight with Chiba' factor into this evening's plans." He pauses and looks down. "Did you know him? Do you, I mean. Despite the fact that he... feels like he has been taking regular soak baths in dark energy, I mean."

:'''{{#var:54|Ami Mizuno| (54)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>The bed is massive, and Ami has to literally crawl around on it to properly get the sheets fitted and into place. Any other day, this would be incredibly embarassing for her. As is, she's just determined to get it ''done''.<br /><br />It gives her time to figure out how to reply to that question.<br /><br />Finally, though, the bedsheets are fully laid out, and all she can do is drop back off the side of the bed and back away to sit on the floor, clutching her shins, feet pressed together up against her bum as she stares up at him.<br /><br />"I knew him," Ami says quietly. "That death in the family I mentioned wasn't a death in the family. It was him. I spent a week trying to figure out how to reverse time or raise him from the dead or ..." she trails off. "But then I figured out he wasn't dead, just taken. And by then I knew I'd figured it out too late. He confirmed it on Christmas when he attacked a Fried Chicken place. Seriously, who attacks Fried Chicken on Christmas? I don't know the man you fought tonight. He's not Mamoru Chiba." Even if her energy readings say the exact opposite. "But I wish he would be, again. It's clear you don't like him, and I'm not going to ask why. We can't all get along all the time. But my best friend loves him, and I'd do anything to see her smiling again."

:'''{{#var:47|Takashi Agera| (47)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Takashi can feel his eyes wander a bit as she's putting the bedspread on, but he wisely chooses to stay quiet and drink his soda. When she talks, he nods a bit. He smiles a bit even. "No, no, we don't get along. He cut in on a dance..." Takashi doesn't go any further. "Very rude. He thinks I'm rude too. Probably why he punched me." Takashi adds with a shrug. He also chooses not to mention punching him back felt really good.<br /><br />"The blonde girl with the two long pigtails - that's the girl you mean, right?" he asks, trying to remember that day. Then there's a long silence. "You care about him too, don't you, Ami-chan?" Takashi is a lot of things, but he's actually reasonably good at people.<br /><br />"He's... not the first person I've felt that energy from. People filled with Dark energy, they don't think the same way, act the same way. It changes your whole mindset." Takashi knows this from his experiments, both on himself and others. "Enough of it and you can lose yourself entirely. That seems like part of what's happened to him."

:'''{{#var:54|Ami Mizuno| (54)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>"He understood my research," Ami says to Takashi quietly. She looks up at him directly, blue-eyes meeting green. "He was my peer review," she explains quietly. "Or he would have been. We never quite got that close. There were some ... misunderstandings, for a little while."<br /><br />Ami sighs and puts her face on her knees. "Do you need help getting back to the bed," she asks him, voice muffled by the position. She doesn't confirm Usagi as 'the girl she means'. Even now, she protects her princess' identity.<br /><br />Then she rolls back to her feet, grimaces tiredly, and moves to help him back to the bed anyways. Even if he might not need it. "He's my friend," Ami says. "But so are you. So ... let's just drop it, okay? I don't want to be between you two."

:'''{{#var:47|Takashi Agera| (47)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Takashi really wants to tell Ami she upgraded, but he knows that'd be in poor taste. So instead, he says... something similar, from another direction. "Ah, so I'm only of use to you until the overdressed one gets all that gunk out of his system?" he asks with a grin that hopefully will prevent the comment from stinging.<br /><br />To be fair, when Ami asks him to drop it, Takashi considers he already has - he got his long-awaited dance, and while he didn't enact deadly vengence, he stole a magical artifact and caused trouble. Takashi's list of people to kill is more like a 'if I feel like it' list lately. He's been so focused on making progress.<br /><br />Finally, he does break and say /something/ as much to get it out of his system as to divert the conversation away from Chiba. As she's helping him into the bed. "You know, though. I knew my chess sparring partner was pretty, but you looked absolutly gorgeous tonight. Still do, even with all that happened. I'm never gonna invite you to another pizza place again at this rate, we can play chess at Verde 45 just as well." Once all that's out he sort of mentally stops for a moment. Did we really need to say ALL that, brain?

:'''{{#var:54|Ami Mizuno| (54)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>It takes a concentrated act of will for Ami not to slap Takashi for his smug comment on why she needs him. The set of her jaw is the only evidence of this mental battle she is waging with herself. Once he's in the bed, she pulls the coverlet up, then sits on the edge of it to regain her own strength for a moment.<br /><br />It becomes a little easier not to slap him when he starts complimenting her, though. If she weren't so exhausted, she would probably dwell on his words way too hard, and strat scratching the hives that would break out incessantly. As it is, she merely sighs and offers him a half-hearted smile. "Hey Takashi-kun?" she mumbles to him quietly, then waits to make absolutely sure she has his attention.<br /><br />                                  "Shut up."                                  <br /><br />Ami pushes up off the bed and pads towards the door, leaving her strappy shoes behind on the floor, but taking her coke with her. She doesn't close the door all the way. Just in case he needs her.
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