[For a guy who'd dedicated his whole life to fighting on humanity's behalf against monsters, it's a tall order to ask him to flip his loyalties on a dime. Sure, this isn't his world, it isn't the small scattering of humanity he knows. But orders or not, the bottom line is that the burned and ruined parts of the city—the tales of fear and dragon attacks from the people there—strike a far stronger chord in him than the little orphaned lizard things they're supposed to be tracking down in the caves...and protecting.
(They're dragons, not titans. Some other apparent breed of enormous monster. But it's close enough for him to draw comparisons. He's been on the long-losing end of this sort of thing—being attacked or backed into a corner by something bigger than you—and he cannot find it in him to begrudge the people here their right to fight back and finish it. If humanity had a way to do that back home, they would have.)
Given he's used to operating in wide open spaces and heights, it's almost suffocatingly dark in here. And they haven't found hide nor hair of another dragon, full sized or not. The light of their makeshift torch reaches just far enough in front of them for them to keep an eye out for dead ends. Sudden drops. (Monsters.)
Restless, grinding his teeth over this all day, he finally puts voice to it as he climbs his way over a rocky outcropping.]
You really think we ought to be helping these things?
[If they can even find them. Shouldn't it be the other way around?]
[ Meanwhile, Kurogane's spared the existential crisis this go around. He's got a soft enough spot for dragons that he doesn't mind the idea of saving a handful of them. They're just animals, sure—if one attacked them now, he'd consider killing it—but murdering a bunch of infant lizards was like stabbing a baby in the cradle. Hardly anything to brag about.
There's the slight sound ahead of shifting stones as he clears a path (or maybe he's mulling the question, but it's doubtful). Thankfully, even if he's hardly fits the inconspicuous namesake, being a ninja helps when it comes to navigating around blindly. Between decent night vision and being light on his feet, he moves ahead of Eren, figure almost entirely obscured from the flickering torch.
They're not safe, after all. Better that one of them's ready to do a reverse ambush. Still, his voice echoes out in response, as gruff as it is steady. ]
What'd you rather do, let those guys bash their skulls in?
[A bunch of little lizards that'll grow into a bunch of bigger lizards with more ability and no scruples about carrying on their mother's work. Just because they're safe now doesn't mean they'll stay that way. Pretending otherwise is foolish.]
You saw what one of 'em could do.
[The burnt out and crumbling buildings they'd stumbled across. The people clutching bleeding wounds, scorched to the bone by fire-breath. Kurogane's voice is easier to follow in the dark than his silhouette, but Eren fixes him with as fierce a frown as he can manage.]
Wouldn't you?
[Bash their skulls in. If you were the people here.]
[ He can practically feel the frown fixed on his back, but it doesn't seem to faze him much. Two can play at the surly asshole game. His reply doesn't have the same heat to it, but there's an edge there, a nerve struck somewhere under his more grim disposition.
(It sounds a little like a threat, really. Not at Eren, but a promise to something out there.) ]
If that was my village, yeah.
[ In an instant. As many times as it took. Monsters, maniacs, dragons, demons, whatever—he didn't learn how to fight to make friends with them. Hence why he doesn't want to be too much of a bleeding heart about this, but his answer doesn't linger there for long. ]
[It's the kind of answer he's looking for. (They can agree on that, at least. Whether or not they agree on how much empathy to apply to either side here remains to be seen.) He's quiet long enough in the wake of it for Kurogane to hit even closer to home. It takes a few seconds for him to answer, the silence broken by the snap-crackle sound of his torch, the echoes of Eren's bootheels on the bedrock. (Ninjas don't echo, right?) The edge on his voice only gets sharper for it.]
Not dragons. [If they have dragons at all, they're so far removed from humanity that they may as well not exist. (But then, maybe it's a metaphorical sort of question. If only he was a metaphorical sort of guy.) He doesn't let his answer linger there for long, either.]
Titans.
[As if that should be explanation enough. But there are no titans here. People look at him strange for asking. It's still enormously disorienting.]
[ He's sort of a hulking figure and doesn't stick to the walls quite so much, light occasionally catching his shoulders before he picks up pace again. Maybe an odd sight for a ninja, but this kid was probably like his usual companions—didn't know a thing about Japan. Kind of the norm in dimension hopping.
And an added bonus to being used to the whole reality warp deal: culture shock is largely a thing of the past. He doesn't sound too puzzled. ]
Are those why you'd rather kill these things too?
[ Just a guess. He doesn't know that much about other worlds, but Kurogane's usually pretty good at reading people: kid's tone makes it sound like he's got a chip on his shoulder about something. ]
[If nothing else, Eren can be culture shocked for the both of them. He's heard a few rumors about an "Orient," but not a thing about Japan. For slightly different reasons than Kurogane's usual companions, or largely similar ones. Both.
There's a sheer dropoff approaching in front of them, a few meters down of darkness. Eren stops at the edge of it to hold out the light. His posture is loud enough to answer Kurogane's question for him. Tense jaw, stiff neck. A chip on his set shoulders. He answers out loud, anyway.]
They'd do the same to us if they had a chance. [He knows what it looks like when you're losing this kind of battle instead of winning it, and humanity is far too close to his heart for him not to hold biases. The best way of making sure something will never threaten anyone again is to wipe it off the face of the earth.] I'll wipe out every last titan there is myself if I have to.
[ That does get a brief look over his shoulder. Felt like more and more children these days were built of tougher, more intense stuff—but even Syaoran's moxie was different from this.
If anything, this was more familiar. Kurogane doesn't have that same, lock-jawed fervor to him (not these days) but he looks Eren down for a moment longer than before. As he surveys the cliff, feet skimming the edge to seek out a any sort of outcrop they can reach, he speaks back up. ]
Dragons where I'm from are good luck. Couple legends had 'em as evil, but they're usually just and strong.
[ So much so that his father's name was Ryuu-ou—dragon lord. And names were sacred enough that he's not about to drop his dad's on any old guy, but it could be just enough to soothe out any agitation in his voice. ]
Maybe they're like your world, or maybe they're like mine.
[ Maybe they've seen everything they need to, and traipsing into a new world meant they didn't have the full story. Not his business whether or not Eren considers that, but. Food for thought. ]
[He thinks about arguing. Even opens his mouth to do it. To ask if a creature like that really has the capacity for justice—he'd only seen the one corpse, after all—to ask about the long history of attacks the people here were defending themselves from. (Attacks? Or counterattacks? It's not like they've got the full story.)
Eren's nothing if not painfully aware of how narrow the scope of his experiences are. He'd felt it back home, where he was penned in within walls, kept ignorant of the world they lived in out of necessity for survival. Here, worlds away from everything he'd known, surrounded by people from a hundred other dimensions, he's realizing that the world is exponentially wider than he'd ever imagined.
He's not exactly convinced. But they've got time to try and figure this out, and he'll turn it over in his head while they do. Food for thought.
Something else catches at his immediate attention, anyway. As he holds the torch out over the abyss to search for handholds, there's a shuffle of sound and a spark of light at the bottom of the cavern. Too bright to be a reflection from his torch.]
[ All sentimentality and morals aside, they do have a job to do. And whether or not Eren is up to the task or wants to stomp on some wyrmlings' skulls is something he'll deal with when they get there.
(Not as though he wanted to argue, anyway. People will do as they do and believe as their lives have shaped them to—what's it matter to him if some kid takes the most destructive course possible? If he's ready to draw his blades against all their enemies?
...Nothing. Focus.)
Immediately, his eyes snap down towards the tiny, distant plumes of flame, small but too bright to miss amidst the darkness. Kurogane looks like he's ready to jump, legs bent at the knees, but he pauses. Right. Stick together. ]
[It's a little too far down and a little too dark for him to trust the jump or to try and climb down there with the torch in hand. (He's not quite as suicidal as people think—just because he'd heal the broken ankle faster than he should doesn't mean he's in the hurry to get one in the first place.) Instead, he reaches up with his free hand to pick up something from a holster, hands the torch over to Kurogane, if he'll take it.]
I got it.
[Once his hands are free, he steps backward over the side. Before he can drop, a pair of grappling hooks fires off from the mechanism at his hips to embed in the stone, and stops him. Feet braced against the stone wall so he can rappel down the side. He holds an expectant hand out to take the torch back.]
[ The odd spelunking gear has him inching up a brow. Not everyone could scale skyscrapers in a single bound or whatever, but he's never seen something to compensate quite like this. Not really the time or place to ask about it, but. Point is: people come up with the weirdest shit. ]
Yeah.
[ He doesn't make to move yet. Instead, he holds the torch out without handing it off, squatting by the cliffside and speaking low. Voices carry just like light does. ]
Whatever's down there is gonna see you if you hold onto this.
[ It leaves them with a couple options, all of which are a bit dangerous. Whether flying blind or catching unwanted attention is worse, he's not sure—until they really get their hands dirty, Eren knows his own capabilities better than he does. ]
[Don't ask him to defend the honor of the Survey Corps and their dumbshit equipment, Kurogane, because he will.
Anyway. If it hasn't been made readily apparent by now—Eren doesn't really do stealth. He can try, but as far as first approaches go, it's not exactly his go-to. He cants his head back at Kurogane, then down into the blackness at the bottom of the cavern.]
We can't see anything without it.
[But he gets what Kurogane's getting at—the light would make a real good target if whatever they find down there decides to attack them, first. Without the torch, their only source of light would be the sporadic sparks being cast out by whatever is down there.
So which is worse? Putting a target on your back? Or groping around in the dark and hoping things don't go south?]
You think it's any better to go in blind? At least we'd know what we're even dealing with.
[Even if it decides to attack them, after the fact. At least they'd know it was coming. He's not afraid of getting his hands dirty. Even if his primary weapon is stripped of most of its usefulness, down here. Even if his ace in the hole would just get them killed, this far underground. ]
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ok here is an actual tag
[For a guy who'd dedicated his whole life to fighting on humanity's behalf against monsters, it's a tall order to ask him to flip his loyalties on a dime. Sure, this isn't his world, it isn't the small scattering of humanity he knows. But orders or not, the bottom line is that the burned and ruined parts of the city—the tales of fear and dragon attacks from the people there—strike a far stronger chord in him than the little orphaned lizard things they're supposed to be tracking down in the caves...and protecting.
(They're dragons, not titans. Some other apparent breed of enormous monster. But it's close enough for him to draw comparisons. He's been on the long-losing end of this sort of thing—being attacked or backed into a corner by something bigger than you—and he cannot find it in him to begrudge the people here their right to fight back and finish it. If humanity had a way to do that back home, they would have.)
Given he's used to operating in wide open spaces and heights, it's almost suffocatingly dark in here. And they haven't found hide nor hair of another dragon, full sized or not. The light of their makeshift torch reaches just far enough in front of them for them to keep an eye out for dead ends. Sudden drops. (Monsters.)
Restless, grinding his teeth over this all day, he finally puts voice to it as he climbs his way over a rocky outcropping.]
You really think we ought to be helping these things?
[If they can even find them. Shouldn't it be the other way around?]
i don't remember how to do actual tags
There's the slight sound ahead of shifting stones as he clears a path (or maybe he's mulling the question, but it's doubtful). Thankfully, even if he's hardly fits the inconspicuous namesake, being a ninja helps when it comes to navigating around blindly. Between decent night vision and being light on his feet, he moves ahead of Eren, figure almost entirely obscured from the flickering torch.
They're not safe, after all. Better that one of them's ready to do a reverse ambush. Still, his voice echoes out in response, as gruff as it is steady. ]
What'd you rather do, let those guys bash their skulls in?
fake it til u make it
You saw what one of 'em could do.
[The burnt out and crumbling buildings they'd stumbled across. The people clutching bleeding wounds, scorched to the bone by fire-breath. Kurogane's voice is easier to follow in the dark than his silhouette, but Eren fixes him with as fierce a frown as he can manage.]
Wouldn't you?
[Bash their skulls in. If you were the people here.]
no subject
(It sounds a little like a threat, really. Not at Eren, but a promise to something out there.) ]
If that was my village, yeah.
[ In an instant. As many times as it took. Monsters, maniacs, dragons, demons, whatever—he didn't learn how to fight to make friends with them. Hence why he doesn't want to be too much of a bleeding heart about this, but his answer doesn't linger there for long. ]
What kinda dragons do you have back home?
no subject
Not dragons. [If they have dragons at all, they're so far removed from humanity that they may as well not exist. (But then, maybe it's a metaphorical sort of question. If only he was a metaphorical sort of guy.) He doesn't let his answer linger there for long, either.]
Titans.
[As if that should be explanation enough. But there are no titans here. People look at him strange for asking. It's still enormously disorienting.]
no subject
And an added bonus to being used to the whole reality warp deal: culture shock is largely a thing of the past. He doesn't sound too puzzled. ]
Are those why you'd rather kill these things too?
[ Just a guess. He doesn't know that much about other worlds, but Kurogane's usually pretty good at reading people: kid's tone makes it sound like he's got a chip on his shoulder about something. ]
no subject
There's a sheer dropoff approaching in front of them, a few meters down of darkness. Eren stops at the edge of it to hold out the light. His posture is loud enough to answer Kurogane's question for him. Tense jaw, stiff neck. A chip on his set shoulders. He answers out loud, anyway.]
They'd do the same to us if they had a chance. [He knows what it looks like when you're losing this kind of battle instead of winning it, and humanity is far too close to his heart for him not to hold biases. The best way of making sure something will never threaten anyone again is to wipe it off the face of the earth.] I'll wipe out every last titan there is myself if I have to.
no subject
If anything, this was more familiar. Kurogane doesn't have that same, lock-jawed fervor to him (not these days) but he looks Eren down for a moment longer than before. As he surveys the cliff, feet skimming the edge to seek out a any sort of outcrop they can reach, he speaks back up. ]
Dragons where I'm from are good luck. Couple legends had 'em as evil, but they're usually just and strong.
[ So much so that his father's name was Ryuu-ou—dragon lord. And names were sacred enough that he's not about to drop his dad's on any old guy, but it could be just enough to soothe out any agitation in his voice. ]
Maybe they're like your world, or maybe they're like mine.
[ Maybe they've seen everything they need to, and traipsing into a new world meant they didn't have the full story. Not his business whether or not Eren considers that, but. Food for thought. ]
no subject
Eren's nothing if not painfully aware of how narrow the scope of his experiences are. He'd felt it back home, where he was penned in within walls, kept ignorant of the world they lived in out of necessity for survival. Here, worlds away from everything he'd known, surrounded by people from a hundred other dimensions, he's realizing that the world is exponentially wider than he'd ever imagined.
He's not exactly convinced. But they've got time to try and figure this out, and he'll turn it over in his head while they do. Food for thought.
Something else catches at his immediate attention, anyway. As he holds the torch out over the abyss to search for handholds, there's a shuffle of sound and a spark of light at the bottom of the cavern. Too bright to be a reflection from his torch.]
You see that?
no subject
(Not as though he wanted to argue, anyway. People will do as they do and believe as their lives have shaped them to—what's it matter to him if some kid takes the most destructive course possible? If he's ready to draw his blades against all their enemies?
...Nothing. Focus.)
Immediately, his eyes snap down towards the tiny, distant plumes of flame, small but too bright to miss amidst the darkness. Kurogane looks like he's ready to jump, legs bent at the knees, but he pauses. Right. Stick together. ]
Can you make it down on your own?
no subject
I got it.
[Once his hands are free, he steps backward over the side. Before he can drop, a pair of grappling hooks fires off from the mechanism at his hips to embed in the stone, and stops him. Feet braced against the stone wall so he can rappel down the side. He holds an expectant hand out to take the torch back.]
Can you?
i'm tired and dying don't judge me
Yeah.
[ He doesn't make to move yet. Instead, he holds the torch out without handing it off, squatting by the cliffside and speaking low. Voices carry just like light does. ]
Whatever's down there is gonna see you if you hold onto this.
[ It leaves them with a couple options, all of which are a bit dangerous. Whether flying blind or catching unwanted attention is worse, he's not sure—until they really get their hands dirty, Eren knows his own capabilities better than he does. ]
you better be sleeping rn
Anyway. If it hasn't been made readily apparent by now—Eren doesn't really do stealth. He can try, but as far as first approaches go, it's not exactly his go-to. He cants his head back at Kurogane, then down into the blackness at the bottom of the cavern.]
We can't see anything without it.
[But he gets what Kurogane's getting at—the light would make a real good target if whatever they find down there decides to attack them, first. Without the torch, their only source of light would be the sporadic sparks being cast out by whatever is down there.
So which is worse? Putting a target on your back? Or groping around in the dark and hoping things don't go south?]
You think it's any better to go in blind? At least we'd know what we're even dealing with.
[Even if it decides to attack them, after the fact. At least they'd know it was coming. He's not afraid of getting his hands dirty. Even if his primary weapon is stripped of most of its usefulness, down here. Even if his ace in the hole would just get them killed, this far underground. ]