driftfleet | Chapter 1: Goodbye, High-School Life

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Chapter 1: Goodbye, High-School Life

Who: Nagito Komaeda and anybody else
Broadcast: Fleetwide video
Action: On the Marsiva
When: 1/30

[Komaeda shows the stars before himself, arranging his bad arm one last time to make certain nothing is showing. It's a wasted effort- his hand is already tightly bundled up under multiple layers of bandage and clothing. He switches the view so he's fully visible.]

Hello, hello! What an interesting setting we're in now. I don't suppose Monokuma has given us any announcements to explain why it looks like we're in space?

[He smiles, eyebrows quirking up. It's an expression that seems to beg forgiveness, though there's a shadow of another expression, a colder one, behind his eyes. The combination of those two layered expressions reads as contempt, but is it just that?] And, goodness my, but it's quiet here. Have I been locked up again? In punishment? I promise you all, I did what I did in order to further you-

... To further hope.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You look at their faces, of course!

Don't take this the wrong way, but when you're on one of the smaller ships, could I take a blood sample?

... But how do you pick them out to look at their faces?

[Uncomfortable laughter is a go. HE HAS TAKEN THIS THE WRONG WAY.] A blood sample? From me? I'm really not particularly worth study.

-- You're gonna have to learn, kid. I don't think we have that many diverse hair colors here.

Anyway. Just a small sample. Nothing invasive! I promise!

That's absurd. How could you- wait, how many other people are there here?!

No thank you, hahaha.... [Komaeda raises up his good hand as if to ward her off.] And besides, any time somebody says "nothing invasive," doesn't that usually mean it's actually very invasive?

Eh... about forty? Not that many! I would say not much more than forty. Anyway it's just a little needle stick! I promise I'll be very gentle with you.

Fourty... [The implication is dizzying. And Hange doesn't look like any high school student he knows, either. However, she does seem to have a certain, ah, energy to her.] You never did answer my question.

Do you think there's something... you might be the best at?

The best at?

[There is actually... a pause as she thinks about this.

And then it's time for a sad trombone.]

Oh, well, not really, to be honest! Maybe at researching, but who knows, there could be someone better out there!

I see... how interesting. [He was at first inclined to dismiss her as a normal bland everyday person, but there was no denying the ferocity she'd displayed in the attempt to further her "research." She certainly did seem to be exceptional, in some fashion or another.]

Have you met anybody better than you at it?

Oh not really I suppose! Not yet. It'd be interesting! You can learn a lot from people more skilled than you, you know? When I started out, I wasn't as good as I am now, but since then I've become much better and it's from the tutelage of people who were more advanced than me when I began. A scientist can't really do these things alone.

[An unusual attitude, and one that makes Komaeda tip his head in thought. Could that attitude be applied to other areas of Super High School Level skill? He had a hard time imagining how he could make use of that tactic to control his luck, though.]

I think... you have an unusual attitude about that. Aren't most people very prideful about that sort of thing? "I'm the best!" and so on. Do you think the people bragging are always wrong about being the best?

Oh, well, maybe not always! But someone who's the best wouldn't really need to brag, would they? And when they're bragging about a skill they aren't practicing it, are they? If it's a skill you want to refine, practice is better than talking it up.

I see... [She's definitely not just your ordinary run-of-the-mill person. Ability that shines through regardless of all else, talent that blossoms regardless of circumstances, an attitude bent on furthering that skill...] I think you're really somebody that people should admire.

Haha, that's sweet of you to say, kiddo, but you hardly know anything about me! What, do you have something you're the best at?

'Kiddo?' How old do you think I am? -- Regardless of what I know about you, I know that the hope that's growing inside of you is something that people respond to. Hope is really the ultimate good, don't you think?

You're younger than me unless you were lying about that aging disorder.

[A beat.]

Hope can be useful. I don't know if I can call anything the ultimate good! But it's useful and that's enough for me.

How old are you? [Admittedly, he's partially curious because he can't recall the last time he met anybody outside of his own age range, much less anybody outside of that range he found himself taking any real interest in.]

... If you don't think hope's an ultimate good, what do you think it is? [Pardon him if he sounds a little dubious. Nothing to see here except a HOPE-OBSESSED FREAK.]

I am thirty! [Miraculously. Most scouts don't make it this long. Most scouts, statistically speaking, don't make it past sixteen, but Hange can't be super high school level scout. That's Levi, or maybe Erwin.]

And... hard work, maybe? Haha, this is a heavy conversation for a first meeting, kiddo!

I don't think I've met anybody that old in a while.

[Komaeda makes a small face at the nickname.] Do you think so? Thinking about hope makes me feel light as air, personally. [And he hates, deep down inside, that he feels a trickle of something other than excitement and anticipation when he thinks of hope. That trickle is getting bigger, he thinks. Fears.]

What? Did they all die off? [And she laughs, because it's meant to be joking. Little does she know. And she is, for the moment, oblivious to his internal conflict, although the remark itself sounds so affected to her. What a goofy little guy.]

I'd say the greatest good depends on what you decide to use it for. It's hard to call anything good when intention makes a difference, you know?

[Despite himself, despite what he's survived, despite what he knows but doesn't remember about himself, Komaeda is still a teenager. His emotions aren't particularly controlled to start with, so at Hange's joke, panic, shame, horror, and loathing flicker across his face.]

That's-

With hope, people can recover from anything! [It's not really emotional control that snaps him from that dismal blend into a wild-eyed state of obsession, but rather, something more primal.] The greatest good about hope is that it can only be used for positive things, isn't that right?! With the light of hope burning in our breast, how can we do anything but put that fire to good use!?

[She quiets down as she watches that whole display and the silent seconds drag out a bit afterward. Hm. Hm. Clearly that remark was out of line... but that was a pretty interesting reaction to it.

Veeery interesting.]

Calm down, kid.

Hahaha, I suppose I did get a little excited there... [He huffs out a small breath, hoping he can convince himself that he sounds out of breath with excitement, not exhausted with uncertainty.]

Anyway, I believe that hope is a very important force. If we can't rely on hope to guide us forward, what could we rely on? [Komaeda laughs. It's a small and light sound.]

Well.

[That's veeery suspicious, in her humble opinion. But she'll forge onwards without digging deeper for now.]

I'll tell you one thing, life is certainly less pleasant when it's hopeless. Why'd you burn down a warehouse?

Chapter 1: Goodbye, High-School Life

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