damned_institute | Day 32: Sun Room (4th Shift)

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Day 32: Sun Room (4th Shift)

It was rare that Homura's nurse try to persuade him to a scheduled activity, but then, it was rare that Homura didn't go. But the demi-god had plans, and the poor woman had little other choice but to leave in a huff as he once again settled himself near the bulletin board in the Sun Room.

His conversation with Kenren the previous shift had left the demi-god with a lingering sense of anxiety. Perhaps it was something only those from his own world could do, but none the less, he was all the more ready for night to begin now. Goals and memories, the truth of his past and the possibility of the future: all thoughts lingering on the forefront of his mind, more than enough motivation to move forward.

Impatience was something of a rush for an immortal, he'd discovered. Homura liked the feeling, the excitement even before he had arrived in this prison. And now while he waited, he savored it again, a yearning that shone so much brighter than the boredom of Heaven.

[Waiting for History Club Q&A time.]

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Good. The fact that the man hadn't been watching Skuld was to his benefit. Beatrix's eyes relaxed just a little as she heard the truth in the man's words. So, he'd been interested in her because she could use a sword. Considering she'd pretty much admitted to it on the board to the alchemist, she wasn't surprised he knew that.

The Bride raised an eyebrow. "Your point?"

Which... wasn't much, apparently. It was a nice change, a woman who didn't try to talk his ear off or take all his money. She didn't look like Kuina either, which was a definite plus in his book.

"We don't have a lot of women swordsmen back home." He shrugged, it was truth enough. "I was curious."

Beatrix supposed she couldn't hold the man's curiosity against him... yet.

"I see." She paused a moment. "What exactly are you curious about? I've trained for over fifteen years and mastered both kenjutsu and iaijutsu as well as being skilled in nitoujutsu."

She wondered what arts the man knew, but decided not to ask.

Fifteen years, huh? Zoro couldn't remember how long ago he'd started training, just that his sword and his dream had come way before everything else. He wasn't even sure when that was, exactly.

"If you were any good," Was his blunt answer to her question. He was smirking, entirely willing to challenge, but found himself holding out on actually following through. "And if there were more of you. Women swordsmen."

As he said, he was curious. A challenge was his own favor, something he searched for or found or stumbled upon by accident. The latter part however had been said on more of a whim than anything. It shouldn't be surprising to come across a woman completely dedicated to her swordsmanship, especially not back home on the Grand Line where dolphins could grow to crush ships or where people turned their whole bodies into swords. But still, Zoro wanted to know. It was an idle curiosity.

Not feeling the need to reciprocate the information the woman gave but wanting to do so anyway, Zoro simply said: "I've mastered Santoryu." It was a combination of multiple disciplines, with one, two, or three swords utilized in different combinations. Zoro wasn't sure if she'd even heard of his technique but he was satisfied leaving his explanation at that.

"Che," Beatrix replied to his curiosity of her skill, as if he should know how good she was. Of course she was good, damn good. He looked like he wanted a challenge, but she felt no need to meet it. She didn't need to prove she was better than him - she knew her level of skill and felt no need in having it validated. Such validation was unnecessary to her.

Men and their fragile egos.

Santoryu was not a styler she'd heard of before bu the word translated to 'three sword style', so she could guess what the general principle behind it. Different places - different worlds even - so of course there were going to be different styles. The Bride was of the opinion that more blades was not necessarily better than one. Her style and skill was developed for killing, nothing more and nothing less. It was a beautiful art, yes, but still utilized for dealing death.

"Is there a reason women swordsmen are so rare where you come from?"

"Dunno." He shrugged, wondering about it himself but not caring to put a lot of thought into the question. It wasn't something that weighed heavily on his mind. If there were women that went around also challenging for the title of the World Greatest Swordsman then he would fight them fairly, stake his life on the fight and expect them to do him the same honor. As it was, he barely knew one woman who took her sword seriously. It gave him a bit to think about, just how rare Kuina had been in that respect. "I guess they just prefer other things."

With a quiet snort, Zoro rested his head on the back of the couch looking as if he was contemplating continuing his nap. His actual thoughts were a little different. This woman was confident in her abilities at least which said something about her, though Zoro didn't know any swordsmen who weren't confident in themselves; more often than not they were overconfident, which was almost equally annoying as having to fight weaklings who didn't know what was good for them. Different from Tashigi in that she didn't look like ~~Kuina~~ ~~a Marine~~ a bumbling idiot who tripped over her own sword in the middle of the street, Zoro took the woman's actions into consideration and wondered just a little bit what her world was like.

"You didn't answer earlier." He pointed out, aware that he hadn't phrased it as a question but still able to be strangely obtuse about it. "Are there other women swordsmen where you come from?"

Beatrix remained leaning against the couch as she watched the man. He wasn't the talkative type, which suited her fine.

"Yes, there are, though the women that do take up the sword where I'm from tend to not be of my nationality," she replied. "My best friend had been one."

"Huh." Well, what to say to that?

He wanted to ask what they used their swords for now that he'd been repeatedly reminded that most other worlds didn't even have pirates (still a somewhat difficult concept, but Zoro wasn't sure if he cared enough to make it that big of an issue), though he didn't. It wasn't that important anyway.

Without anything else on his mind, he figured he may as well introduce himself. It came out as a bit of an after-thought. "Name's Roronoa Zoro, by the way." He still wasn't used to the whole name-giving deal but he was slowly getting the hang of it.

Good - he didn't ask what had become of O-Ren. It wasn't that she was ashamed she'd killed her best friend - former best friend - it was just that she never really liked talking about the only other person aside from Bill she cried over after killing.

"You can call me Arlene," she replied. "Which is your given name and which do you prefer to be addressed by?" She couldn't tell what nationality this man was, so it was better to ask. Besides, neither sounded like a first name to her.

"Uh, Zoro." What did he prefer to be addressed by? People usually called him whatever the hell they wanted to call him and as long as it wasn't 'Marimo' or 'hey dumbass' or anything else out of Sanji's mouth, it wasn't something he normally took issue with. Zoro had to take a moment to think about her question. "And whichever one, I guess. Doesn't matter to me."

"Zoro then," Beatrix replied. "There are other women here that are skilled with a blade. Have you gone around watching them as well?"

"Nah. It's not really a hobby of mine." With the way Zoro was scratching the back of his head and yawning, it was clear which daytime activity took that place of honor. "They more friends of yours?"

"Ah, so I'm just special," the Bride replied deadpan. She could care less, but didn't have anything else to do right now.

"No, they aren't my friends. There is no one I am familiar with prior to being captured also here."

"If you wanna put it that way." Zoro shrugged, a cheeky grin on his face. He was observing the others in the room now, content with the little he'd learned and how easily the conversation was going. The woman didn't seem interested in fighting though, nor did she seem particularly bothered by his watching her. At least, she didn't look like she was going to attack him right then and there.

She could have just been bidding her time but Zoro didn't let his guard down easily anyway. He wasn't worried about surprise attacks.

Oh, look. Zoro spotted Sanji and Nami a few chairs away, most probably discussing recent events. The chef looked like an idiot. As always. He looked away; they could discuss things later on tonight.

If 'Arlene' was telling the truth then that would mean other worlds and other women swordsmen. Not that it surprised Zoro-- women could be swordsmen no matter of the when, where, or why-- but it did seem to satisfy a part of him that spent years wondering...

He sighed, forceful and slightly irritated-sounding like their captain had just done something stupid again.

Beatrix shook her head a little, slightly amused by Zoro. She caught the couple his gaze had drifted toward and the accompanying sigh drew her attention.

"Friends of yours?"

"Nakama," He acknowledged with a slight nod. Zoro wasn't sure if exposing them was a good thing (especially if this Arlene was a bounty hunter of some sort) but he knew his crew mates could take care of themselves and that, if anything, they would have inevitably drawn attention to themselves anyway.

Luffy already pretty much declared their pirate crew on the bulletin board, after all.

"The stupid looking one's our chef. The woman's our navigator."

Beatrix took a moment to look the two indicated over, finding the interaction between the two slightly amusing as well. Apparently the chef had an interest in the navigator. Half of the woman's reactions to him seemed put on, but the Bride didn't care enough to bother watching any longer.

Wait a minute - navigator? Either Zoro and his friends were air fairing or sea fairing. Hmm...

"By air or by sea?"

Eh? "Sea..." Zoro quirked an eyebrow at her looking inquisitive. "There any reason we'd need one for the air?"

Sailors... interesting.

"Yes, airplanes and jets large enough for a crew of more than two usually have a navigator as one of their crew to help them stay on course and use the onboard computer systems to make sure they are in the correct airspace and don't accidentally cross the path of another aircraft," she replied.

"What kind of ship do you sail in?"

Air... planes? Computers? Everything else sounded about right, but the things she was mentioning didn't register. It was nothing he'd ever heard of and so was, admittedly, a bit of a curious thing.

"Uhh... a Sloop," That was all Zoro really remembered from Franky's frequent ramblings about the Thousand Sunny. But even then he couldn't be sure if the cyborg had been talking about the Sunny or some other ship. "I think. But, er, what's an aircraft? Does it look like a turkey?"

Beatrix was able to contain her reaction of what the hell drug is this guy on to just a mere blinking of her eyes. Did it look like a turkey? Zoro obviously was a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

"An aircraft is a transport conveyance, usually for passengers these days, that flies in the air." She thought about Zoro's questions and his familiarity with seacrafts. "It doesn't look like a turkey, but an airplane does have wings. But they don't flap," she added on.

How to explain... "Hmm... Think of your sloop and make it metal. Then instead of there being sails, there were two rigid, very large metal wings on it, one sticking out of each side perpendicular to the body of the sloop. Instead of sails to move the ship through the air, it has large engines that generate enough energy and wind to raise the ship up into the air and moving forward as it rides the air currents like a bird does."

The Bride hoped she'd dumbed the explanation down enough that Zoro might start to understand.

Okay, maybe asking that latter question hadn't been the best idea. Zoro caught the blink, knew that maybe he'd phrased it wrong. He didn't think he could be blamed for thinking about turkeys, though. The only time they'd ever been on anything that sounded even remotely like an aircraft (something that sailed through the air, right?) had been on the Going Merry with her silly chicken head patch up job and make-shift wings, right before they were sent hurtling up into the sky islands. She'd looked like a turkey back then...

Merry. Zoro had to stop and think about that for a bit. It came to him that maybe the others didn't know what had happened to her, aside from the obvious ones. Brook had mentioned a "Lion-chan" and Sanji seemed to know the Thousand Sunny well enough... but if Luffy and the others didn't know about Franky then what more their newest ship? Of what had happened to their first one?

That was some food for thought. Zoro decided to set it all aside for now to pay attention to the current conversation.

Not that he understood it even with the dumbed down explanation buzzing in his head. What the heck was an engine? It sounded like the aircraft moved like those waver things from Skypiea but Zoro wasn't really sure about those either. It was a ship that didn't need sails, according to Nami...

Zoro's face was screwed in concentration as he went over all the information given to him. Mechanics had never really been his thing. Maybe their shipwright (or even Usopp, really) would have understood everything better.

Slowly, Zoro's jaw tightened as he came to a conclusion...

"So it's a big hunk of metal that flies? It doesn't need a..." Zoro wondered if he should ask it, not really wanting to sound any crazier. "... column of water to shoot it into the air or anything?"

Apparently she didn't dumb it down enough. Beatrix resisted the urge to look at Zoro cross-eyed as if that would make him seem less... stupid. Maybe he's just from a third world nation or something that doesn't have modern technology. In fact, it looked like he was going to pop a blood vessel in his brain if his face stayed that way much longer and then... suddenly he got the very, very, very bare basics of the concept.

And then he opened his mouth some more. Where the hell was this guy from and did he honestly think like this?

"No, it doesn't use a column of water to shoot it into the air," she stated, barely concealing her sudden sense of having lost a few IQ points for even answering the man. "Some small planes can take off from the water but they just float on it like a boat does until they get up to the right speed and then just soar into the air sans column of water. The majority of planes drive really fast. like a car, on a runway to get up to the right speed before lifting into the air."

There really was only one thing he could say to that: "... what's a car?"

Oh Jesus, I just had to go talk to the seafairing village idiot with a sword, didn't I?

Beatrix raised a hand to rub her temple because there was suddenly just too much stupid around her and it was hurting her brain. This man was a tribal reclusive moron; even people from third world nations knew what the hell cars were even if they couldn't afford one. She was half tempted to ask Zoro if he even knew what a wheel was.

"A car is a compact metal carriage on rubber wheels that runs without horses, or other beasts of burden, pulling it. It is a ground transport that will seat two to six people depending on its size and instead of the horses pulling it, it has an engine inside that simulates the strength of anywhere from one hundred to four hundred horses."

She raised an eyebrow at Zoro. "If you don't know what an engine is, I can't explain that well enough for you to understand so you'll have to go look it up in the library. I'm sure there's an encyclopedia somewhere in there."

Day 32: Sun Room (4th Shift)

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