Summary:Koa seeks help for a mishap from a translator at the university. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Kimiko Sato is a grey skinned, orange eyed mutant who has no particular powers of note and who teaches Japanese at the university. She is definitively NOT Kimiko Tatsu, who is not grey skinned OR orange eyed and has been missing ever since the Brooklyn Blitz. She is presumed dead, and anyone trying to find out otherwise would be just silly to do so.
It is a good thing, then, that Koa Turner is here looking for Kimiko Tatsu. He needs some translation of an odd and rather complicated clockwork mechanism that is presently partially merged into Keiko Kurita's hand. A colleague whose kid had taken one of her classes recommended her.
So here he is, at the University. During what he hopes are office hours.
Knock, knock.
Koa looks at Keiko, well specifically down at her right hand. "You REALLY need to be careful what you touch when you're doing remodels of old places."
Koa can't feel it, but the device, a boxy contraption about ten inches by twelve, is tossing off all KINDS of awkward temporal bits of chaos.
He CAN feel the magic on it though. That's how it's merged with Keiko's hand. Well. Phased into her hand is more accurate. Phased into and centered on her hand. Which renders her hand unusable, though it thankfully doesn't hurt.
Even if it did hurt, Keiko wouldn't let it be known. Her pain tolerance is incredibly high, after all. What is annoying, is the afternoon's work she's losing because of this.
"I suppose you're going to tell me, Age—- Koa, that I need to get a permit from WAND before starting any work near the disaster zone." There's a certain amount of mockery to the tattooed womans tone. How was she supposed to know that this … artifact … had been hidden under the floor of the building she'd been asked to do some work in?
"Who is this again?"
Kimiko Tatsu 's a professor. She's more of an assistant professor. Which is kinda like a glorified teacher's aid. It means she gets paid instead of getting free tuition. It also means her 'office' is a glorified closet. What's a bit more unusual though, is how very *neat* it is. Most academic's offices are cluttered with barely a place to sit. Maybe it's because she's only been here a few years, but she's got that Japanese idea of minimalism down pat.
A voice calls for Koa to come in, and Kimiko is already standing behind her desk with a trace of confusion on her face. She'll have to play it off as being surprised it's not students given it's the temporal fluxuations that have her attention. When the door opens though, the confusion is pretty damned real as she sees Koa and Keiko. Whom she's met before. Her chin lifts a bit. "Agent." She notes, perhaps a bit coolly. Obviously, he decided to track her down.
"Her name is Kimiko Sato and she's someone who can translate the crap on the outside of the box. Which is probably how we're going to get it off you. And no you don't need a permit from WAND but you might want to consider a pair of gloves at the least…"
Koa is so very AMERICAN in some ways which is to say he's not quiet. Kimiko can hear him at the door and probably knows who it is by voice alone before she opens it. Koa has no such luck. He blinks and starts.
"You." It's not an accusation but given her background, Kimiko might be forgiven if it makes her tense. Keiko's used to it. "You're the one from Staten Island the other night. With the… sort of creepy shinobi."
Shinobi. Not Ninja.
"Um, right well. You came recommended as a translator. We've got a problem…"
Koa steps aside and gestures to the out of phase, hand cranked, gear operated box currently surrounding Keiko's hand. There are several dials on it with old japanese markings that seem to correspond to phases of the moon, seasons and times of year. And then, on one side, there is What APPEARS to be an instruction manual.
Someone thought they were cute though. It's written entirely in successive haiku.
"I *have* gloves." Keiko mutters as she moves her hand trying to relieve the ache in her shoulder. She's had to hold her arm, just so with the cumbersome box for several hours now. "How long do you think this is going to ta—-"
Her eyes widen as the door opens. "You!" That's accusing. The woman who all but ignored Keiko in Staten Island the other night. "Are you sure there isn't someone else who can help me?" She sotte voces to Koa. Not all that quietly, really.
She guesses not. Koa's already invited himself in.
"I found it near the disaster zone." That's the lame explanation she offers the Professor.
"I will point out, you came to *my* office." Kimiko points out as they all start to point fingers of accusation. "I am hardly the one surprising either of *you*." The rebuke is plain in that Brittish-accented English that Kimiko has. She gave them her name, didn't she?
OK, it's the Japanese version of having a last name of 'Smith'…
"I do translation, yes. I believe I said as much on Staten Island." She might normally try to find a reason to get the Agent and his friend to leave, but there's also the mystery of the box that's… merged with Keiko's hand. Which definitely gets an arched brow above one orange-on-black eye. "My." Kimiko gestures them closer so Keiko can put her hand/clockwork down on the desk so the mutant woman can get a better look at it. She starts to point out the symbology to them, but when it comes to the haiku she pulls out a notepad so she can first copy the characters. "Poetry. Lovely." Her tone says that it decidedly not lovely, thank you.
"That's… fair. Be nice Keiko, she's helping." What's Keiko's version of be nice?
Also… Keiko has a Japanese name. And she LOOKS japanese as well. But does she sound it? Oh no. Not even close. That accent is more latin america than anything, and it's a real mixed bag at that.
"It looks a lot like the Antikythera mechanism, which was an old astronomical clock." Which is what this one seems to be not that Koa knows that.
Whatever this thing is, it is WARPING time around it. Not much. Not enough to hurt anyone otherwise Keiko wouldn't have been able to get anywhere near it, but it is somehow storing time. The reason it's all phased and strange might be because it's got too much. It's full and the excess is doing weird things.
The instruction manual, after the usual invokations of Amaterasu, Tsuku-Yomi and Bishamon actually mentions 'storing' good days and explains a mechanism for 'releasing' them in order to ward off bad ones.
That's an odd use for a clock. Unfortuntely the crank handle is A) Slightly broken and B) phased out. But there might be other ways to bleed off the excess time…
Keiko is also tattooed - the ink covering her arms and at least some of her torso. Kimiko might do a double take at that. Or she might not. "I am being nice." the woman grumbles, letting Kimiko see the device - moving her hand as Kimiko directs.
If there's one thing to be said, Keiko can be extremely obedient. Sullen but obedient.
"Poetry? Someone made this as a love letter?" Not that she knows what the translation says but that might be close to the case. Maybe.
"A … what?" That's to Koa. "Do you ever just speak normally?"
Many of the faces that Kimiko sees that are Japanese aren't *really* Japanese. Just ethnically. She'd also recognize Yakuza ink, which this Keiko's is decidedly not, something that the grey-skinned woman can confirm now that she's able to get a good look at it. At least since the weirdness is temporal, Kimiko should be immune to it.
"A love letter?" Kimiko looks up at Keiko, a bit baffled how she got to that conclusion. "It invokes the the gods and is a sort of… ward? against bad days. By storing good ones. I assume weather-related? This would have been built when agriculture was much more important. I would wager it is 'overloaded'." The grey skinned woman reaches out for the broken crank to see if it can be jiggered back into place if it were to be brought back into phase.
"I… was speaking normally?" Koa tells Keiko which might make the woman despair a little. Koa's confused though. Antikythera is a perfectly good word. It's a place. People used it for hundreds of years. And it rolls off the tongue so well. Antikythera.
"Overloaded with what though? It can't be magic. It's got magic in it but not all that much. I'd wager it's old or slightly broken or both. Is it… overloaded with extra days?"
Kimiko's hypothesis is a pretty good one all things considered though.
"Are you feeling sunny, or rainy, Keiko?" He can't resist.
"So… how do we get it off her?"
"Mmmhmm. Poetry. A love letter." Keiko nods almost in a self satisfied way. That's what poetry is used for, right? Koa might despair himself at that. "You know. How many ways do I love thee, let me compare the ways. God I love effin' Keats …"
It's highly likely neither of the two with her, get that reference. But it's definitely a movie she's quoting.
"Feeling wet, Agent Turner?" beat "No … I'm not." Maybe she can't resist either and that's payback for him teasing her about words.
"And is it something that we can do now? I've got work to finish."
Kimiko Tatsu's hands go very still when Keiko starts talking to Koa about 'feeling wet' and she clears her throat. "Do you two need a room…?"
Shaking her head, Kimiko taps lightly at the Antikythera and then reaches out to the stream of Time around it, trying to calm the turbulence there and bleed off some of those stored days back into the normal flow around them. As she does so, the orange in her eyes kindles to brightness. But then the two of them already knew that her mutation didn't end with the funky features. "It seems to be, yes. It got stuck in the 'on' position, collecting 'good days'. Hopefully, if we can relieve the pressure, then it will start to act more normally."
Koa just facepalms. And doesn't say anything. For a good minute or so. He's muttering something. The word 'kine' is in there though the context is unclear.
"I assume the crank had something to do with that then. Trouble is the crank is out of phase." Koa is musing. He doesn't want to talk to Keiko at the moment. Oh no. Though he knows he'll have to right soon here.
"If we can drain it… it might… Well. Let me try something."
Koa pulls his pendulum out of his pocket and starts to draw. In the air. In front of Kimiko. Keiko's seen it already. Several arcane symbols that latch on to unusual sources of time and start to pull. This is a somewhat novel application of a ward designed to go off in a certain period of time. Instead of pushing energy out as time elapses, it pulls it in. But this is kind of seat of his pants warding and he's not sure what it will do quite.
And it hasn't even occurred to him that it might affect another PERSON in the room.
At least Keiko doesn't say anymore though there's a very self satisfied look on her face as Koa facepalms. Maybe in the future he'll not tease her quite so hard.
"Don't you hurt my spirits…" she warns the Agent as his draws that pendulum out. She is ever so protective of them. "If it's collecting good days, does that mean that it only leaves bad ones behind when it does? There has to be a balance, doesn't there?"
"Spirits? Kami?" Kimiko is distracted, and very confused. She looks between the pair of them. "You are very unusual people." As if they didn't know that. "And the 'good days' have already been taken. The balance paid."
It's as Koa starts to to sketch out his modified Ward that Kimiko is able to trip the containment on the device. To Kimiko's senses, Time starts to spill out of the device. All those good days stored to avert flood or hurricane or tornado, to circumvent harmful happenings, comes spilling out in a flood.
"We are, yes, highly unusual peopl- uh, I don't think it's supposed to do that."
Not the device. The device solidifies and 'relocates' itself so it's no longer surrounding Keiko's hand. It's on top of her hand now. But the ward that Koa drew starts to glow brightly. And then more brightly. And then more.
'PFAF!'
The blast knocks Koa down. Probably knocks Keiko down too.
"Ow. Okay. That was not pl-what the actual fuck?"
That's not Koa's voice. And it's not Koa who gets up. Well it is, kind of. It's Koa just after his freshman year of college, trying out for the sports teams, making sure he's in peak shape. He's still in the clothes he came in but none of them… fit right.
He was a lot sleeker then. Not necessarily in better shape but less muscular, for sure. More 'athletic'.
"Um…….."
"Yes Kami… sort of." Why on earth Keiko knows that and not other things, is probably something that Koa will wonder at another point. "What's going o-" Keiko is blown back, ending on her back. "n. That doesn't look —-" her voice sounds like she's … six. On the ground is a six year old girl, with no ink on her arms and hair in pigtails on the side of her head.
This thing stored the good days, right? When were the good days of Keiko's life?
Kimiko Tatsu is actually not knocked back by the explosion of temporal energies because well, that's kind of her gift. She does close her eyes as things go by in a rush and then she's leaning over the desk to see what the… heck… happened. She looks at Keiko. Then at Koa. Then at Keiko. Then at Koa. She points at the pair of them. "This is not my fault." She points out.
"Um….." Koa says again. "Well… your hand isn't in the box…" Koa picks up Kieko and puts her on Kimiko's desk.
"It's proooobably mine? I tried to make something that would siphon off the energy but that's kind of out of my field and it blew up in our faces."
The Agent's eyes narrow slightly. "Though it doesn't seem to have affected you any."
Which is interesting. Because it has affected him and it REALLY affected Keiko.
"Still, uh, thanks? That is basically what we came for. The unboxing that is. Not the… spontaneous de-aging."
There's an indignity the adult Keiko wouldn't accept. Being picked up and set on a desk. "I I guess not." Her legs kick back and forth, her heels hitting Kimiko's desk with that rythmic thump thump sound. "But now I'm like this …"
It certainly affected the peruvian mage heaps and as they talk, the effects start to wear off. Slowly at first and then faster.
Soon, it's the adult Keiko sitting there, still kicking her heels and looking curiously at Kimiko. She'd seen the effects when the woman fought the other night. She can put two and two together.
She might come up with six as the answer though.
"What do we owe you?" No thank you. Keiko doesn't do that.
"Well, I'd say that the Kami in the box like me better than you, then." Kimiko says dryly in response to Koa's observations. It's her way of saying 'I'm not saying anything more here, move along.'
The grey skinned woman nods to the box when Keiko asks what they owe her. "Why don't you leave that here. I'll see if I can fix it so that this doesn't happen again." Because at least Kimiko doesn't need to worry about being affected by Time.
Kimiko looks at Keiko who is still sitting on her desk rather pointedly with those bright orange eyes set against black sclera and arches a brow. Get. Orf.
"Done." Koa says, shifting the box onto Kimiko's desk. He waits for a moment but no change seems to come over him. Well… that's annoying. Koa doesn't especially remember liking being 19.
And he's really, really hungry right now for some reason.
"Well, thank you again for your help Miss Sato."
He's curious. She can tell he is. But she hadn't volunteered and he's too polite to press the mater after she did them a solid.
At the moment. Perhaps it will come up later.
"We won't take up any more of your… time. Come along Keiko."
Says College-Koa to very much Adult Keiko.
Koa probably had to remember something good about being nineteen - that box stored all the good days up to protect against the bad. Or something.
"If you need any work done, you can call me." Keiko slides off the table, slightly woozy. Maybe that's her way of saying 'thanks'. "Let me guess, Koa. You're hungry…" She might be teasing him about this for a while.
Kimiko Tatsu waits until the two leave, and close the door, before she sits down with a sigh. Then she looks over to the box somewhat balefully. "You're going to be trouble. I just know it."
With a shake of her head, she sets it aside for now, and returns to grading papers.