Meat n' Greet

[cityship]

The rest of the crew assembled on the Observation Deck to meet the latest editions to their numbers. After the revelation that their worlds are gone, many of them are even more eager to see people they knew from home.

Several people are set up near the doors to provide the new people with omnicoms and comm rings. New crew-mates might see a tall

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[bio_boosted]

Sho took his omnicomm and comm ring and went to a quite little corner to be by himself for a while. He was utterly stunned at what he had just found out. Not by the reason he was there, but by the fact that everyone he knew and loved was gone now, and he may never see them again. It felt as though all the fighting and suffering had been for nothing. Sho too bitter comfort in the fact that at least now he'd no longer be hunted down the rest of his life.

"I tried so hard to protect you all..."

[haruno]

Sakura wasn't one to butt into another's personal space when they were looking for quiet, especially not when they weren't someone she knew. Still, moving along the outskirts of the people gathered in this room, a barely heard statement caught her attention. It sounded far too familiar to her on a personal level.

I tried so hard to protect you all...

She hesitated. How rude could she afford to be? Enough, she decided, To at least give this a try.

"I don't think any one person could defend against the Ohm, not if they're as horrible as everyone's been saying since we walked in here."

If he chose to ignore her, so be it, but the effort had been made.

[bio_boosted]

Sho had been so lost in thought that Sakura startled him. He looks up at her a blinks a moment before registering what she said.

"Yeah, I guess that's true..." He sighs and crosses his arm. "It's just that I promised I'd protect my friends no matter what, but now this has happened. I think I may have failed before I was taken here. It's like everything I did was for nothing." Sho shifts to one side and looks at Sakura.

"Sorry, I don't want to sound too depressing. My name's Sho Fukamachi."

[haruno]

"Don't worry about it, Sho-san." She let the honorific slip out, even if she'd mostly been imitating the speech patterns of people around her when it came to names. "I'm sure you're not the only one thinking about things like that. Especially after everything that's been told to us in the last few hours."

In her opinion, focusing on what might have not happened right now wouldn't be helpful. It was one of the only reasons (paired with shock, and the underlying denial) that kept her from crying as it was.

Shfting mental gears, she offered him a small smile as she held out her hand. "I'm Sakura Haruno."

[bio_boosted]

"It's nice to meet you." Sho says, smiling and feeling a little better. He can't help but notice how strange and diverse the people on the ship were, like they were all out of the sci-fi movies and anime he and Tetsuro used to watch.

"It looks like most of the people here are either very smart or strong fighters. Is it okay if I ask what sort of world did you come from?"

[haruno]

"It's fine," she said, even as she wondered how she was expected to summarize an entire world. She hadn't seen all of her world. No one she knew had! "Though I'm not sure how to describe it. A world is a big place to try and summarize for someone else."

Especially not knowing what she could say that would be understood. Beyond that, what she wanted to say, when she was still so uncertain about this situation at large.

[bio_boosted]

"That's alright. I guess that was a bit much to ask." Sho scratches his head nervously and smiles. "Maybe I should ask something else instead. What were you doing before you woke up here?"

[haruno]

If she'd been the sort to laugh, Sakura might have been inclined to do so right then. Instead she smiled back at Sho, opting for the simplified truth. "Field surgery. At least my patient was stable, last I remember. Not that it apparently matters now... if he's not somewhere in the pods where we came from."

Mentioning that she'd been healing on a battlefield, listening to the cries as some of the more formidable dead warriors of the past were being puppeteered against friends and comrades seemed out-of-place -- or too eerily on target. "How about you?"

[bio_boosted]

"I see. So you're like a medic? Sounds like a pretty useful skill." What he would have given to have had a doctor while he was battling Zoanoids. Sho takes a moment to think, trying his best to remember exactly what happened.

"I know I was fighting someone very powerful, and I was protecting my friends from him." He frowns as he thinks harder. "I remember using one final attack, but then something happened. There was a big flash of light and I blacked out. Then I found myself here." Sho begins to feel worried again, afraid his suspicions might be true. Had he lost the fight?

[haruno]

Sakura nodded. "Exactly like a medic." At least the terminology was proving consistent across more than one world.

Listening to him talk about home, she was struck by the similarities she could draw. More particularly with the flash of light. "The flash of light was probably when you were being saved." If that was the word they needed; Chosen, saved, pulled in to fight a war on a scale she had a hard time conceptualizing. "Or collected, or chosen... your pick as to what."

She paused, pursing her lips. "The best case scenario calls for hoping those people you were fighting to protect are in those pods, waiting to be triggered into release. Focusing on what might or might not have been happening back home..." she trailed off, shaking her head and then smiling at Sho. "That questioning can eat you alive."

[bio_boosted]

Sho nods to her, still deep in thought. That was likely the best explanation, but he still had a feeling it might have been something else.

"That's true. I'll just have to hope for the best." He takes a moment to look at all the people surrounding them, and he knows he's not the only one feeling this way. At least he wasn't alone.

"How do you feel about fighting against these aliens? I've had enough fighting in my life already."

[haruno]

"You're thinking of being support? Or bowing out entirely?" Sakura didn't know what she was supposed to think, let alone feel. In an effort to be honest, and partly having not expected anyone to ask, she found herself answering. "I don't know. What the Ohm are capable of... that's wrong. It's horrifying. It's not something I can know about and watch happen, no matter what fighting I've already done in my life. Doesn't this kind of make the rest seem insignificant

[bio_boosted]

"I have to agree with you." Sho didn't want to fight anymore, but he couldn't just do nothing if everyone else was, especially with the kind of power he possessed. "Even if you've got no one else to fight for, you still have to survive. So if we don't at least help out, we're just putting our own lives at even greater risk." As much as he fought to protect others, he was always trying to survive.

"And if the rest of the people here were willing to fight to protect us while we were asleep in the pods, then I think we owe it to them." Sho notices how the conversation seems to be affecting Sakura and decides it's time to change the subject. He didn't want to end up making anyone too upset.

"So, um, is this your first time in space? It is for me." He rubs his neck nervously, realizing the question was probably a stupid one.

[haruno]

She agreed with what he said, but was also thankful when he switched tracks of questioning. Space... "Hours ago, I would have told you it was impossible to be in space." The question wasn't stupid in her opinion; then again, on her world, space wasn't on the agenda for places to be. Madara might have intended to use the moon for his own purposes, and Sakura wasn't sure how exactly that was supposed to work out, but no one traveled through space.

"It's hard to believe that's where I am now."

[bio_boosted]

"I was actually on a spaceship before I woke up here. It was a lot like this one, but much smaller." Sho's relieved to have the subject change. Sakura's words do confuse him a little though.

"I guess there aren't any spaceships where you're from then?"

[haruno]

She shook her head. "No. The idea of space travel is absurd -- was absurd -- still feels absurd." Sakura was correcting her own statements as she went, though in all honesty this was but another part of the surreal circus she'd been in since waking up slimed.

"Are all spaceships designed to be this organic? Or... I guess the ones you know. They're something like Stacy?"