（ we are not soulforging your blood pills, d. that's like... extra cannibalism.
she's gonna be over here (doing things) i'm not going to describe bc what even is a science can i eat it. productivity!! ）
'Something'...? Ominous. You know, every new thing I learn about your world, I have to wonder...
（ he's painted a bleak picture, overall, even if mr 'embodying cowboycore dystopian rock music' carries it well. but his kindness keeps catching her off guard at every turn, even in moments like this where all he's doing is indulging her. ）
[STOP, HIS PILLS. It's okay, now he's forced to drink blood...]
It's a chemical lacquer which makes it waterproof, [he clarifies. It's a bunch of advanced science he isn't sure if she cares to understand or not.] Equivalent to covering bedding, or ships, or sails with pitch or wax to keep them from getting too wet.
[He glances at her for a moment in all his currently undone dystopian rock cowboycore glory, and then he's thoughtfully quiet.]
It isn't so different. The Frontier is a dangerous land full of deserts or forests swallowing the ruins of an advanced civilization. A place where humans cluster and try to survive.
（ it hits a note he couldn't possibly understand. that's the history of the village, isn't it? except, the thing that brought them together wasn't so much as the ruin of civilization but an attempt at creating one to begin with. everything moves in circles.
she still remembers the ruin of konoha, after pain's invasion. ）
What about things like animals? Plants? How much would you say is left...?
[For the outside casing to set, he has to wait, but this gives him time to continue talking to Sakura really. He leans against the desk at the waist, folding his arms over each other across his middle.]
Some are left. Most of the animals are mutated, the descendants of animals affected by radiation or genetic modification. There are plants in the forests, or maybe in the hidden oases only a few can find. The flora can be dangerous sometimes.
[If he looks like post-apocalyptic cyberpunk Old West cowboy it sounds like it's because he has to be, or he'd be dead.]
Finding land untouched is difficult, but not impossible. Seeing it is...
[He doesn't finish, but he sounds a little wistful.]
（ their experiences are almost opposite, diametrically opposed in a way. she doesn't live in a ruined world, but the memory of konoha in a shattered crater have never left her. nagato may have restored the dead to life, but it was still days digging people out of the rubble, terrified and trapped. civilians, who couldn't so much as use jutsu to free or to protect themselves. she remembers the way despair had raked her soul, and thinks... that must have been a little like the world d was born into.
a lot of things about him have set her heart to hurting, but this is the first time she's had to blink and look away, suddenly furiously interested in the machine beneath her hands. ）
Part of, um, my soul room... it's an area near my home. Konohagakure, 'The Village Hidden in the Leaves'. It really lives up to its name, sometimes it's so green it's hard to believe it's real. I could show you, if you'd like...?
[His eyes turn back to Sakura, and he peers at her for a long moment even though she isn't paying him any attention. The hidden, sometimes green village reminds him of the small slices of livelihood he has seen all across the Frontier. The places not many people can get to, the ones where nature is relentless in its effort to continue even when the world has ended.]
I would like that.
[Which is said just as honestly as he says all the other silly things he does from time to time.]
（ sir, you are impossibly rude. it's hard not to be cognizant of his attention. there's a certain stillness to the room, to the air. her fingers still on a dial regulating the temperature of the machine's convection, and she shakes her head faintly as she turns it off and removes the lyophilized plasma on its tray. ）
You'll get to see my office, too. My real one, in the children's clinic back home.
[Wow!! It's just better to look at her than it is anything less interesting in this whole room!
He actually very nearly smiles again in that enigmatic way of his, and to dodge it, he promptly turns around again to fiddle with the setting gel. He is fond of children, so he also enjoys it when other people are considerate of children too.]
（ she doesn't really want to touch on the anger that drove her, the way she looked at the system that had been in place almost since the village's founding and saw all the flaws and the cracks in its foundation, something she'd never had the capacity to recognize as a child.
but someone else should have seen it. someone else should have noticed, in all those years, that the way they helped children with their traumas... it just wasn't enough. so while the clinic is driven by her desire to help, her passion for it comes more than just a little from rage. ）
But there's still a lot of work left to be done...
[That quiet, but not awkward, silence comes to him again. He watches her, still feeling a little fond at the notion. He really does think the best way to heal a society is to start with the children in it.
Not a completely perfect or singular method, but a decent one.]
That may be so, but what you've already done is commendable. I'm sure they appreciate you.
（ she just!! loves her work!! so much!! gosh. how lucky she is, to be able to make that difference. her driving force has always been the desire not to have children grow up the way naruto and sasuke did, alone and wounded so deeply by it that by the time they were grown the healing was harder. it's too early to know if she's really making that difference or not, but... she has hope. even if she can't get back to konoha, ino is still there.
but that's a dark path, and leads to darker thoughts, so she just shakes her head. with the plasma properly dehydrated, now it's down to whatever it is he's doing with his strange little hand-held computer. ）
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
she's gonna be over here (doing things) i'm not going to describe bc what even is a science can i eat it. productivity!! ）
'Something'...? Ominous. You know, every new thing I learn about your world, I have to wonder...
（ he's painted a bleak picture, overall, even if mr 'embodying cowboycore dystopian rock music' carries it well. but his kindness keeps catching her off guard at every turn, even in moments like this where all he's doing is indulging her. ）
How does it compare to here? Generally speaking.
no subject
It's a chemical lacquer which makes it waterproof, [he clarifies. It's a bunch of advanced science he isn't sure if she cares to understand or not.] Equivalent to covering bedding, or ships, or sails with pitch or wax to keep them from getting too wet.
[He glances at her for a moment in all his currently undone dystopian rock cowboycore glory, and then he's thoughtfully quiet.]
It isn't so different. The Frontier is a dangerous land full of deserts or forests swallowing the ruins of an advanced civilization. A place where humans cluster and try to survive.
no subject
she still remembers the ruin of konoha, after pain's invasion. ）
What about things like animals? Plants? How much would you say is left...?
（ flowers, she thinks instinctively. ）
no subject
Some are left. Most of the animals are mutated, the descendants of animals affected by radiation or genetic modification. There are plants in the forests, or maybe in the hidden oases only a few can find. The flora can be dangerous sometimes.
[If he looks like post-apocalyptic cyberpunk Old West cowboy it sounds like it's because he has to be, or he'd be dead.]
Finding land untouched is difficult, but not impossible. Seeing it is...
[He doesn't finish, but he sounds a little wistful.]
no subject
a lot of things about him have set her heart to hurting, but this is the first time she's had to blink and look away, suddenly furiously interested in the machine beneath her hands. ）
Part of, um, my soul room... it's an area near my home. Konohagakure, 'The Village Hidden in the Leaves'. It really lives up to its name, sometimes it's so green it's hard to believe it's real. I could show you, if you'd like...?
no subject
I would like that.
[Which is said just as honestly as he says all the other silly things he does from time to time.]
no subject
You'll get to see my office, too. My real one, in the children's clinic back home.
no subject
He actually very nearly smiles again in that enigmatic way of his, and to dodge it, he promptly turns around again to fiddle with the setting gel. He is fond of children, so he also enjoys it when other people are considerate of children too.]
Do you like working with them? Children.
no subject
（ she doesn't really want to touch on the anger that drove her, the way she looked at the system that had been in place almost since the village's founding and saw all the flaws and the cracks in its foundation, something she'd never had the capacity to recognize as a child.
but someone else should have seen it. someone else should have noticed, in all those years, that the way they helped children with their traumas... it just wasn't enough. so while the clinic is driven by her desire to help, her passion for it comes more than just a little from rage. ）
But there's still a lot of work left to be done...
no subject
Not a completely perfect or singular method, but a decent one.]
That may be so, but what you've already done is commendable. I'm sure they appreciate you.
[The kids.]
no subject
（ she just!! loves her work!! so much!! gosh. how lucky she is, to be able to make that difference. her driving force has always been the desire not to have children grow up the way naruto and sasuke did, alone and wounded so deeply by it that by the time they were grown the healing was harder. it's too early to know if she's really making that difference or not, but... she has hope. even if she can't get back to konoha, ino is still there.
but that's a dark path, and leads to darker thoughts, so she just shakes her head. with the plasma properly dehydrated, now it's down to whatever it is he's doing with his strange little hand-held computer. ）
Anyway! What next?