warintheextreme | [For Takatora]

This is turning out to be much more interesting than I ever anticipated.

As I have made quite clear to everyone involved in the project- I am an intellectual. A scientist. Non-violent by nature. And anyway, the main reason I signed on to head the technology sector of this project was to provide a measure of protection to the citizens of the city.

I mean it when I say I don't want to see any innocents hurt, never mind killed.

Takatora has asked me, more than once now, to increase the pace on the secondary Driver project, the follow-up to the prototype Sengoku Driver.

I smirk to myself, as ever feeling maybe just a tad bit egocentric and flush with potentially unwarrantaed self-importance...

Then again, I did design the device entirely on my own, and build all seven of them, from scratch, by hand.

There is a technology department at Yggdrasill. I'm a part of it, a ranking member even. But this project is sensitive enough that I jumped at the position, knowing full well that I wouldn't have to work with any of my scientific peers.

It's my project. My work.

This new Driver will be no different.

Though I am still unsure, as the blueprints are finished and I've begun building the first model, if I trust it enough to let Takatora be the first to use one.

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I know he's stronger than me.

I don't care.

He's important to me.

And not just for the project. Not just the data he provides. And certainly not his rank, or his stupid damn fucking name, I could honestly not care less about that.

I care about him.

So I shove him, with the strength born not from training but from here, now, focus, reality. Me, and him.

I shove him on his good shoulder, so that's what hits the tank with a sharp crack.

"I'm not your fucking babysitter, Takatora. I never said I would be, and I never will be. I have enough on my hands babysitting all the other test subjects. You, I should not have to worry about, because you should respect this situation enough to let me know when you are risking yourself."

I shove him again.

"As if I would not go in there after you, if something went wrong."

Gazing at Ryouma, at his earnest face, at the worry there, hearing the sincerity of his words.

I swallow, lick my lips, clear my throat.

My words are soft, stern, but even.

"I would not wish you to follow me, no matter what the situation."

I give him one more shove, then turn sharply away from him, sit right back down in my chair, and scoot closer to my worktable, picking up the prototype of the new Driver and setting most of my focus to it once more.

"I don't need you babysitting me, Takatora." I throw back at him with a scoff. "If you don't want me in the forest, don't give me reason to worry about you."

"I don't want anyone in the forest." Not anyone but me. And I don't even want me going in there. No one should have to go in there.

I don't even want the workers we have going in there collecting lock seeds.

It's all too risky.

But it would be more risky to ignore the threat that Helheim poses to Zawame City.

"I was trying to do exactly that." I say, softly, oh so softly, as I push myself up and away from the lock seed tank. "Trying to not give you a reason to worry."

I grumble under my breath, but I don't respond. I keep my attention on the Driver prototype.

We don't have a choice. If we're going to figure out the Forest, people will have to go in... and come out again.

He continues, and I turn my head and look up at him. "I will always worry, until we're done with this stupid project."

I rest my hand on Ryouma's shoulder, similar to how I rest my hand on Mitsuzane's shoulder, but not quite the same.

My grip is less familial, more intimate.

I do not hesitate, nor draw my hand back, when he looks up at me.

"It's not stupid."

I take a moment, just a moment, an extended moment, to luxuriate in the familiar way in which he grips my shoulder. I file the sensation away to really focus on later, and then sharply turn, knocking his hand off my shoulder and looking up at him with a frown, my eyebrows furrowed.

"No more or less stupid than your damn body, Takatora. I mean it. Never go in there without my express attention. Not because I want to babysit you. Because it's dangerous."

"I was aware of the risks." I tell him calmly, drawing my hand back, to my pocket, after he knocks it away.

"My shoulder will heal, and by not contacting you, I didn't needlessly delay your progress on the new driver."

He sticks his hand back in his pocket. He's always standing like that.

I roll my eyes at him and shake my head and continue to scowl.

"I will decide whether a delay is needless, Takatora. Fifteen minutes is nothing in the larger scheme of things. It worked out this time, but that doesn't mean it always will."

"I am more than capable."

He won't even delay the project to take of himself, but he will delay it to monitor me while I am doing a routine cleanup of Inves within Yggdrasil, doing exactly what my driver was designed to help me do.

Does he have so little faith in his creation? Or is his worry and lack of faith...

I turn away from him, gazing at some meaningless spot on the wall. "Do you expect so little of me?"

"I don't care!" I'm raising my voice. I have no concern that anyone will hear us. I need him to understand why the idea of him being in there without me knowing bothers me so much.

"It's not you, Takatora. When anyone else goes in there, I'm alerted, immediately. Any of the other test subjects.. Any.. Any anyone."

I grab his arm and grip it, hard. "Takatora. It's not you, or the Driver, or anything. It's that place, and how little we know about it."

He grabs at my arm, and I gaze, almost glare, down at his grip, but I do not shake my arm away. I merely sigh, heavily, and then glance up toward his face, trying to catch his gaze with my own.

"And when you went into Helheim unassisted, without informing anyone, even me, that was acceptable?" My voice is low, cold, deadly serious.

It raises, keeping its knife edge, and getting louder, while remaining just as cold. "When I had to be notified by a rookie night shift nobody that you went in there, alone, with nothing but an archaic weapon?"

I turn to face him properly, leaning forward a bit, almost looming over him, where he sits in his damn chair at his damn computer.

"When I barely got to you in time. When you could have died." My voice actually breaks, the first time it has in years, longer than I can remember.

I shake his hand off my arm, and grab at his arm in turn, my grip hard enough to bruise. "I could have lost you."

I, not the project. Me.

I seriously cannot believe he's bringing that up now, in this context, like he has any right to it.

I roll my eyes sharply and pull my hand away from his arm, turning my attention back to my work. If he's going to be so obtuse as to not realize what is wrong with his statement just now, well, it's not my responsibility to explain it to him.

Only I can't just leave it at that, so while I work, I sigh.

"The difference, Takatora, is that you got incredibly angry at me over that mistake, and I have not yet repeated it and indeed would not dare to do so. So it's fine for you to go in there by yourself, but not me? Archaic," I scoff at that, he has no idea, "Weapon or not."

"Yes." I state, simply, almost... no, yes, quietly, as I move away.

Hand back in my pockets.

Face turned to the wall.

"It's not okay for you to do so."

You are too important.

I look up when he moves away from me. I can just feel it, as he's increasing the distance between us, and it's enough to catch my attention and make me look up.

"Takatora... You're not making any sense."

[For Takatora]

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