The Tale of a Jerk and a Scientist

[denigrator]

Characters: Hojo and YOU
Setting: Throughout the tower. Pick a floor, any floor.
Format: Action to start, but I'll match prose, too
Summary: After some time spent wandering his ruined world like a ghost, Hojo has returned to the Tower. His first priority? Research.
Warnings: A complete lack of scientific ethics, which may come up.


[A great deal has gone on in Hojo's absence--he's been gone months!--and this has had the unfortunate effect of upsetting so much of his research. He has absolutely no idea what's happened while he's been gone.

So what's a scientist to do? Make his way through all the floors he had been so carefully studying, trying to salvage what he can. Sometimes he talks to himself. Sometimes he hums. Off-key or tunelessly. Sometimes he scowls and stops to take notes. Sometimes he smiles. And stops to take notes again. He grits his teeth, doing his best to ignore the cold. He's worked in cold (very cold) climates before. Fortunately, he has a Fire Materia, which provides some warmth.

One might find him in the cafeteria, taking samples of the oatmeal.

In the observatory, he spends a long time looking out, studying the strange creatures visible through the glass.

He takes soil samples in the graveyard, and biological samples on floor Forty-One, collecting insects. He plucks a few blossoms in the meadow (Twenty-Five) and in the garden (Twenty-Nine).

He stops in the clinic to deal with a few of the wounds he's sustained along the way.

He pauses to enjoy the morgue (Twenty-Six) and the laboratory (Twenty-Seven), looking for traces of his old research with Fuhito. He doesn't find much, though what he finds, he gathers up. What a shame. So much work lost. All the more reason to work more, and harder.]

So much to do, so much...

Comments

Floor 25

[lightofhumanity]

And yet, there's quite a bit of time.

[If Hojo were to turn around, he would see a boy with white hair that didn't seem to be shivering or affected by the cold much, if at all. In fact, the boy was smiling.]

If you don't mind my asking, what are you going to use those blossoms for? And are you freezing?

[denigrator]

[Hojo turned. Well, a strange, white-haired child. That was nothing new to him.] What good is time to me when my work is all undone by it?

I have Fire. [Hojo said this absently, not elaborating. Being a normal man in his 50s, Hojo was cold, certainly, and he wasn't lingering, but he had much more pressing concerns.] And a coat. Cold isn't relevant.

I'm gathering samples. [He had no reason to hide his intentions, after all. Not all his intentions.]

[lightofhumanity]

If you have enough time, then you can rebuild your work. If you don't mind my asking, what is your work?

[chaos nodded.] Those things may help, but the cold is still pretty relevant. If you want, I can warm you up for a while, if you'll let me.

[denigrator]

If I have enough time, I can rebuild, yet it may be disrupted again.

I am a scientist. [He said this as if it should be obvious.] A biologist, to be precise. I study life, its origins, its development. At times, its future.

I won't allow myself to be deterred. [Well, now that was an interesting offer. Hojo was curious enough to ask more.] Warm me up? And how do you propose to do that?

workshop

[kosmic_angel]

As Hojo travels through each floor, studying anything and everything that had caught his interest, he'll find a blue haired young woman. She's studying the tools and such here and determining if anything can be used to rebuild her maintenance bed. Unfortunately, no such luck for all the advancements this tower possesses.

As she turns and spots him, unblinking crimson eyes look over him and scan his lifesigns. Nope, nothing of interest to her. But she remembers him for the future.

[denigrator]

[Hojo pauses. Well, unblinking crimson eyes are something. He's interested in any potential subjects here, anyone potentially different enough to earn his interest. This one looks promising. So he comes closer, studying her with his own quite ordinary human eyes.]

You. Your name?

[kosmic_angel]

[She remains unblinking as he studies her. This is definitely not strange to her, used to Vector employees hovering around her or staring or checking her over. Shion had insisted on checking all her systems for abnormalities the day before.]

KOS-MOS. Developmental name KP-X.

floor 26

[terreifying]

Hee~ey. What'cha doin'?

[A strange being is peeping over Hojo's shoulder. It seems to be a human girl, but its body is tightly wrapped allover with bandage, except for the head, which is covered with a paper bag.]

[denigrator]

[What. What is this.

Hojo turns with a frown. He's not particularly fond of whimsy, unless he's responsible for it, and then it's generally awful.

But his answer is honest and straightforward enough.]

Research.

[terreifying]

Oooh.

[Rei tries to peer at the samples in his hands.]

Are you some sort of scientist then?

I'll choose the graveyard!

[pengeen]

[Kidou had walked into the Graveyard with a huge armful of flowers. He placed small bouquets on a few graves. One for his little sister, another for his mentor, one for his former teammate and for his rival... as he places down the flowers, he utters a small thank you, which is different for each person.

After he says his last thanks, he starts walking towards the stairs. Though, something gets him to stop in his tracks.

Or someone, really.

He stood only a few feet from the professor, his eyes wide behind his goggles and his mouth hanging open like he was going to say something, though the only thing that manages to escape his throat are slow, quiet breaths. He really couldn't believe he was seeing this man again...]

[denigrator]

[After a moment of sample gathering, Hojo straightened. He wasn't particularly interested in this specific sample, but he did mean to study all the floors. Better to make a complete job of it. When he straightened, he saw Kidou. He remembered him. The young man's behavior had been unusual--but not unwanted, even if it was the kind of treatment Hojo was unused to receiving from young people who were not working under him.

Ah.

[Hojo's not good with names, and it's been some time for him, as he's wandered Gaia as a ghost (which only fueled his own delusions about being responsible for his world's destruction).]

It's you again.

[He had expected to eventually see some of the people he'd met before, although this is his first such encounter.]

[pengeen]

[It takes Kidou another few moments, before closing his mouth and slowly nodding.]

I.. I wasn't expecting to see you again after you left.

Floor Twenty five

[savedbyasong]

[The meadow was still Shion's favorite place, especially now since it was a haven from the rest of the towers icy winter. So he was walking, just walking and thinking when he saw someone he had not thought to see again.

His eyes widened.] Hojo? [Someone he had worked with once, before he had realised who he was... Who Reno had asked him to continue working with but then had disappeared. Shion paused though, was this him or another Hojo from a different world, one that wouldn't know him?]

[denigrator]

Yes, that's correct.

[Hojo straightened and studied Shion.

He recognized him, but he wasn't good with names, because he didn't bother to remember them, and after months, he had forgotten Shion's.]

My temporary assistant. I see you're still here.

[savedbyasong]

[He had remembered... He was the same Hojo, Shion felt a stab of fear but covered it with a smile.] I am. I'm glad you're back.

floor 25

[blackwitch]

[ In the middle of the meadow, there's a girl sitting among the flowers. Pretty normal, right? Well, it'd be normal if said girl wasn't giggling to herself as she's tearing wings off butterflies. Then again, the butterflies don't seem to be real as they're golden, but something about the way she happily giggles (bordering on a cackle) is still somewhat disturbing. Apparently the cold doesn't even bother her, or maybe she's using magic to help protect herself from it...

She glances up as she suddenly notices there's another person though, frowning a little as if she thinks he's ruining her fun just by being there. Unless he proves to be amusing, of course. ]

[denigrator]

[Hojo is investigating, and this girl with her odd butterflies is something else to examine. The scene reminds him of himself as a child, the way he'd pulled the wings off insects to see what would happen.

He's not so cold himself now that he's been warmed by chaos, but he does notice that the girl seems resistant to the effects of the low temperature, as he approaches.]

You should vary your technique to attain different results.

[blackwitch]

...

[ For a moment she blinks. She figured an adult would just tell her to cut it out or that it's cruel - they always do, the boring old farts - but this guy isn't telling her that? In fact, he's practically encouraging her, isn't he..? ]

So what kind of technique are you thinking of then?

Passing through Floor 1

[neverbeamemory]

[The only time Sephiroth ever graces the 1st floor with his presence is when he's on the way somewhere else via the elevators. He'll usually be on his way to or from the Library on Floor 3; either to silently click through all the other residents' tedious gripings on the network in case there was anything that might be of use to know, or simply to read something. He would not allow his mind or body to idle in this place.

This appearance on the 1st floor has become even more of a rarity of late. Currently he has a problem in boxing away the memory that the space by the elevator conjures every time he stands there waiting for the lift. The memory that still causes his now-recovered left hand to tingle with the ghost of the pain that was (not helped by the uncomfortable cold climate of the Tower this week), that rips open like a fresh wound the insult that it represents.

But today, as soon as he set foot onto the last step of the stairwell down onto the 1st Floor, it was as if he'd walked into a room thick with mist. Except there wasn't any mist. It was that strong sense of familiarity that he only felt around Cloud, except he knew it wasn't Cloud. His cells told him so. He'd felt this particular vine of connection only once before, very briefly, seemingly an age ago; though it had more of a gravity about it than his connection to Cloud. Sephiroth found himself scowling slightly as he tried to figure it out as he walked towards the area where he would await the elevator. Upon passing the large doors that led into the Cafeteria area, green eyes were drawn up idly, simply to see how many people were-

Hojo. He knew it that instant before he'd even registered the thinning cap of black hair, before he'd remembered the way the light reflected off his spectacles.

Silver hair fell back into it's place neatly as the Chosen one paused long enough for the Professor to feel compelled to meet his gaze; before promptly heading for the elevator.]

[denigrator]

[Sephiroth. He had been in the Tower before, and they'd spoken, if not often or warmly. He had wanted to speak more, because Sephiroth interested him.

Hojo met and held his gaze.

And then, there he went--walking away, of course. He'd always scorned Hojo, always thinking himself superior. He was superior, in many ways, but not to Hojo, as far as Hojo was concerned. Hojo had made him. Sephiroth was a part of him.

Once Sephiroth turned away, Hojo felt drawn, for some reason, to follow. There was something like a pull, however vague and undefined, and so he did follow, making his way to the elevator at Sephiroth's heels.]

[neverbeamemory]

[Sephiroth knew he'd follow. He wasn't sure how he knew, missing so many specific memories of Hojo from before, but he knew all the same.

That was why it was so important for the lift to be on this floor already when he pressed the call button. However, this was the Tower and how could he expect that it would be that easy to avoid this confrontation.

Stood in that same place with that bugging memory. Sephiroth clenched his left fist tightly as he waited with his back to Hojo and loud cracking sounds accompanied his stretching out of the fingers. He hadn't summoned Masamune at all since the latest outrage but he'd been intelligent enough in the Gymnasium to know that even though his hand still wasn't 100% he could still handle the great swords weight if needed.]

Cafeteria

[calculatedfire]

[Ryuho was eating lunch in the cafeteria when he noticed the older man taking samples of the oatmeal. He paused to watch, confused as to why someone might do that, but perhaps he was a doctor of scientist of some sort. The oatmeal must have some kind of strange property, considering.]

Are you researching that?

[denigrator]

That's correct. To my knowledge, no one has yet been able to determine why we must eat this oatmeal first upon arriving in the tower, yet there must be a reason.

[calculatedfire]

Have you tested it before? It might possibly be something to do with out bodies and not the food itself.