damned_institute | Night 43: F21-30 Hall

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Night 43: F21-30 Hall

[in F22]

Falis was sitting on Senna's bed, her back to the wall with the shinigami laying against her, when the weird intercom thingie went off. She looked up at the little box for a moment before frowning. What the fuck had that been? Damnit! Where was Dominikov when she needed him to figure shit like this out for her?

A sharp pain ran through the hunter's left arm accompanied by a searing heat she recognized from the night before. It seemed peoples' fears were going to be true this night. Taking a peak at the flesh underneath her bandage, Falis grimaced seeing the decay return and it work its way up to her shoulder. At least it stopped there, but she wasn't sure it'd stay stopped all night long.

Her eyes slid back to the sleeping shinigami. Falis licked her lips. Damn, she looked and smelled... No. She was not going to do this. She was stronger that whatever fucked up zombie sickness. Senna was important to the hunter. She may be Falis' prey, but not prey like this. Resisting the hunger that lay in her stomach, she idly combed her finger through Senna's hair as she rest her head back against the wall and waited for people to show up or for the shinigami to wake.

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"Really?" Meche asked before she thought to stop herself--not skepticism, just surprise. She knew people here came from a lot of different worlds, but Alita still looked like a teenager, no matter how adult or professional she seemed when she wanted to. She would have had to start when she was barely in her teens at most. Where did children that age train for hand-to-hand combat with spears? What were they fighting?

Then again, she reminded herself, kids these days took all sorts of martial arts lessons or fencing classes, so maybe it wasn't too unusual. There was just something about Alita that suggested that maybe it hadn't been just practice, even before she'd landed here.

"Yeah," Falis replied. "Kinda had to learn to stay alive. I happen to like being alive."

"You know, the alternative's really not as bad as people try to tell you, but point taken." She'd meant it to come off sounding light, but Meche wasn't sure if it actually landed that way. She twisted the spear back and forth in her left hand again, trying to get up a little speed. Maybe now wasn't the time for a philosophical discussion.

Falis snorted, catching the attempted humor as she saw it. "Can't go checking out the lands of the dead until the things that need done in the land of the living are done," Falis replied. "Certain people to kill, things to do, places to see..." She smirked. "You know - the normal."

"All in a day's work, right?" Meche replied with another grin, but privately she was wondering. Killing people? A teenager? She guessed the weapons training really wasn't just for fun.

Hearing that also made her wonder, not for the first time, exactly how the DOD computers sorted things out. Killing people was probably a pretty safe thing to put in the negative column. But how did that fit in with someone who protected other people, even kept their spirits up, who came pretty close to cheating at foot races but gave lessons for free? What would Alita's travel package look like? Or would there just be a cloak and scythe waiting for her on the other side?

What would Meche's own rap sheet look like now, for that matter--barely a week back in the Land of the Living and she was already shooting at small children and knocking over antique stores. The spear turned back and forth with her hand, never quite making a full circle. What they really needed right now was someone to jump in and lighten the mood before she got herself down.

"Once you're there, it's another adventure, right?" Hokuto said hopefully. She was just watching them from where she sat on a desk; she hadn't been following the entire conversation, since she had the usual amount on her mind, but she'd tuned back in when fighting for survival--and what happened when you lost that fight--came up.

Hopefully Falis wouldn't find the conversation too sad or morbid, but she wouldn't mind hearing a few things about the afterlife Meche knew.

"Something like that," Falis replied ambiguously.

With Hokuto piping up, the hunter's eyes turned to her girlfriend and she felt her mouth water. Even though she knew she shouldn't, she rest the spear on her shoulder and moved over to Hokuto. Her fingers racked through her girl's hair as she her eyes roamed over Hokuto's form.

"Something like that," Meche agreed, moving over to perch at the edge of the bed (away from that sword) and take a load off--for a minute or two, at least, until Alita ordered her up again. She'd been standing for a while, and that bite on her ankle was smarting a little. She tried to rub at it through the bandages, but it didn't do much to help.

Hokuto had seemed curious, maybe even a little worried, so Meche kept talking even though she wasn't sure the girl was actually listening. Getting things sorted out for herself was still useful, anyway. "It's a lot like the Land of the Living," she mused out loud. "The idea is to travel across the afterlife, the Eighth Underworld, to get to eternal rest at the end of the road, but plenty of people make that place their last stop. They run businesses--" some of them crime syndicates, "hold festivals--" during which everybody hightailed it back to the Land of the Living, "even fall in love."

She kept coming back to that whenever she talked about the Land of the Dead, Meche realized. When her point was that things weren't so bad in the Great Beyond, that always seemed like the best evidence she had--and the most personal. Meeting someone, having a family--they weren't just for the living. She frowned and leaned back, locking her hands around one knee so she wouldn't fall over. Where was he; what was he doing? And the children?

"You have to take the good with the bad there, just like life," she said after a moment.

Hokuto smiled at Falis, even if she hadn't been expecting a reaction like that in front of anyone besides maybe Senna. She leaned into the touch, figuring they could do that much without appearing rude. "Need me to help demonstrate any moves?" she murmured.

At least, if it wouldn't drive her girl up the wall to see her in action right now... Hokuto grinned slightly even as her face turned a little pink.

"None that I think Meche's interested in," Falis replied in a low voice.

Meche's explanation caught her attention, pulling it somewhat away from Hokuto. "Another life, eh? I wonder if Dominikov, Pete and the girls got something like that." She tilted her head. "That stuff apply to cyborgs?"

"Cyborgs?" Meche couldn't keep the surprise out of her voice. Weren't those supposed to be very human robots, or something like that? She'd never spent a lot of time watching sci-fi movies. They weren't "living," she didn't think, not in the same way a human was. Still, she didn't want to say no, especially since it sounded like Alita was talking about some of her friends.

"I never met any, but maybe I just never went to the right parties," she replied. "There weren't any in the Land of the Living I came from, so that could have been it. I don't see why not, though." After all, the place had demons and birds and demon birds and she didn't even know what else. Considering all the weird people and creatures Meche had seen there, she didn't think cyborgs would be much of a stretch.

"Of course cyborgs have souls," Hokuto said, glad for the distraction. "What does it matter if some of a person's parts are artificial?" Okay, they might have different definitions of "cyborg", but to her, it didn't matter much. Even if they were talking about outright robots... if something had been around long enough to learn to care about others, to make friends, then it had a soul.

"That's good. I was kinda worried that maybe they just... stopped being. Completely and shit," Falis replied. As she talked, her fingers found their way to the back of Hokuto's neck where she drew her nails across it.

Damn, she needed to stop and get away again. It'd be so easy to snap her neck and feast at her leisure...

Jerking her hand away, Falis walked back to the middle of the room and hefted the spear. "Enough talk," she said, a little gruffly. "I ain't gonna be satisfied with tonight's training until you can fucking block one of my thrusts."

Oh, dear. Meche shot Alita a grin that held a lot more confidence than she felt, and pushed herself to her feet. "It seems a little silly to get up for just another thirty seconds of training," she answered with a tiny wink at Hokuto. They might be here all night.

Well, she knew the basics if nothing else, so sooner or later she'd probably block a hit just by blind luck. Not that her luck was all that good at the best of times. Meche headed back to her place in front of Alita and got into the first defensive stance her teacher had demonstrated, with the spear held in both hands across her body. She was pretty sure that one-handed spinning position had just been for practice, but if push came to shove, she could do it all right with her right hand. But well enough to block someone with years of training?

Hokuto frowned a little, worried; there was something definitely off about how abruptly Falis had moved away from her, and she didn't think it was because of their company.

She's trying to wear herself out, it looks like... why is that? She really hoped what had happened last night was over... and if it wasn't, she wasn't sure what to do.

Falis shook her head when she say Meche's stance. "Remember, everything starts from the core stance," she told the woman, adopting the position herself.

"It's from here you have the most flexibility. You can move your spear in any direction, be it rotating the back up like I had done to block," she said with a demonstration, "or you angle the shaft, covering your body as much as you can, to alter the incoming strike just enough to it misses you." This she showed by taking her spear, moving it a bit to the side and down, as if guiding an incoming attack to her left and thus missing her body.

Back to the ready position. "Got it?"

Oh, that was right; the power-coming-up-from-the-ground position. It was pretty frustrating to have gotten that wrong--but, Meche reminded herself, this was only lesson one. Since she obviously wasn't a latent spear prodigy, she'd just have to work as hard as it took to get good.

She moved back into what Alita had called the "core stance" and took a deep breath, trying to prepare herself for the first attack. "I'm ready when you are," she said.

Hokuto just sat back to watch; grilling Falis probably wouldn't get her anywhere, but detached observation just might. If something really was wrong, she'd find out.

"Aa. We'll see," Falis replied. She gave Meche a brief moment to focus her mind before striking at the woman's shoulder. She had more than enough control to stop the point once it got past Meche's guard to keep it from injuring her, even as distracted as she was.

Something in the air over by Senna and Soma had changed and the hunter had picked up on it. The hairs along the back of her neck were standing up and she ground her teeth together. She finally realized what her issue with Soma's presence was.

You want to rip her throat out. Admit it to yourself. She's another predator in your territory and you're having fucking issues with it. She doesn't mean it; it's not her fault. Do not go rip her throat out.

Meche was as ready as she could get when the strike came at her, but it turned out not to be ready enough. She spun her spear toward Alita's, trying to knock the girl's weapon away before it could hit. She'd moved much too late. The shaft of her spear clattered into Alita's from the side the way she'd meant it to, but only after Alita's weapon would have hit her. If this had been a real fight, Meche knew, she would've had a spear point wedged halfway through her shoulder by now.

She took a step back and went back into the core position. Well, she'd just call that one a warm-up. Now that she knew the kind of thing she should expect, maybe it'd be easier to block.

There was definitely an odd tension in the air... Hokuto frowned slightly, not sure what to make of it. Falis was deadly serious when she fought, but during a sparring match? Against someone she was just beginning to train? Something wasn't right here.

She couldn't help but listen in on Soma and Senna's conversation, though... and what she heard made her blood turn to ice. What--what happened last night isn't over...?

She couldn't even begin to think of what to do.

"Almost," Falis said to Meche, stopping the spear before it did any damage, but barely. "You've got the motion down, but now you need speed."

Bringing herself back to the core stance, Falis again gave Meche a couple moments to set herself. It also gave her time to glance over at the two by the door, Falis' eyes narrowing a bit on Soma.

When she turned back, she gave a slight raising of her chin as a warning before she struck down at Meche's thigh. For the moment, she maintained her control.

The warning helped, but Meche still wasn't quite fast enough, especially since she had to bring the spear down a little to cover her thigh. This time she flinched slightly too, almost putting Alita's spear point into her leg by herself. It was hard to get her body to stand its ground with a weapon coming right at it. Even when she knew it was just practice, her first instinct was still to try to get out of there.

She recovered and brought her spear back up again. "Sorry. They say third time's the charm, though."

[skipping Hokuto for now]

Fight or flight was instinctual and all living things had it. The choice between those two helped define whether someone was predator or prey. As a hunter, Falis understood the need for prey and what drove someone to be such. Prey deserved respect, even more at times than predators did, for without prey, what would the predator hunt.

Another predator, her mind conjured up, crimson gaze flickering over toward Soma once again. She ground her teeth a little more, forcing herself to smooth her hackles. She'd been a monster the night before and she could still feel it waiting under the surface. She always did. She still had control and control was what separated her from it.

"They do? I don't know that phrase," Falis replied, making herself use her other senses to keep track of everyone in the room so she could focus her eyes on Meche.

"Again," she said, striking at Meche's stomach.

"They do," Meche confirmed, waiting for the strike.

If she was honest with herself, it was really just pure blind luck. When she saw Alita's spear coming at the center of her body, she jerked her own weapon down toward herself without thinking. She felt the crash of wood on wood again, but when she looked down a couple of heart-stopping seconds later, she realized the tip of the girl's spear wasn't aimed at her stomach. It was pointing harmlessly into the air to one side of her. Meche realized her own spear shaft was angled across her body, covering a lot of her torso. Just like Alita had said.

"Did you move it?" she asked, not quite willing to believe that she might have actually blocked a hit.

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