A/N – I finally saw the very first episode of Nadesico today, so to celebrate I'm putting up two chapters. Hope you like them.
Eight
A week had passed since she'd arrived at Seven Oaks and Ruri already knew that this wasn't working out too well. Over the past few days, her initial uneasiness had descended into something of a depression.
She'd worked out the major cause of her unrest. It was simply the fact that she had so little to occupy her mind. As computer operator on the Nadesico, she'd always had something to do, whether it was scanning the local area, operating the ship's weaponry or attending to a computer error. Back then she'd had the opposite problem – she'd barely enough time for eating, sleeping and leisure. But those days were over now and the situation reversed. Her mind yearned for stimulus and that wasn't being provided by the role of a schoolgirl.
She'd borrowed a couple of books from the school library, one on mathematics and the other on psychology, to satisfy her thirst for knowledge. They were complex, but very dated – the kind of books which fill libraries and no-one ever reads. She'd devoured the first within a couple of days, but the second proved to be more taxing. That was always the case with these psychology books – her mind operated very different to that of a normal human and so she'd found some of the concepts difficult to grasp. But that was good, she welcomed the challenge.
Her books gave her temporary respite from the real world, but there was no avoiding it completely. The truth was she was finding life hard, and the attitude of her housemates hadn't made it any easier. Thankfully, they weren't bullying her quite so much anymore. Instead most of the time, they just ignored her, probably because she hadn't really reacted to their pranks. The two exceptions had been the two ring-leaders. Her obnoxious roommate, Mikoto, constantly went out of her way to make her life that little bit more unpleasant while Leon was never shy with the snide comments. Ruri always let their antics pass with little or no words, but their constant abuse had struck a dent in her self-esteem and left her soul a little sore.
Over the past week, she'd tried hard not to think about her crew-mates, but that had been difficult with little else to divert her mind. In truth, she was missing them desperately, a lot more then she'd first thought she would.
Against her better judgement, she'd decided to look through her small photo collection of her time aboard the Nadesico. Before now she'd forbidden herself to look at them, for fear that longing for the past would overwhelm her. Nostalgia could be both a curse and a blessing. But memories were all she had now. That was what she'd said to everyone to close a chapter of warfare on the Nadesico. Besides, by now she couldn't resist taking a peek.
She put the tiny box of photos on her lap and gingerly took them out, one by one. She'd not taken any of them herself, but other people had and given her copies, which meant that she featured in most of them. The first one she saw was that one of the whole crew, with Ruri sitting down at the front holding the Nadesico crest. Her other photos included one of Akito and Yurika hugging, one of her at her post, one of Seiya, Jun and her from the mechanic's unsuccessful Christmas party, one of everyone on the bridge, a couple of her singing at that beauty contest, one from that idiotic Gekiganger festival, another one of her at her post…
Curiously, Ruri found herself smiling. So many memories.
"Those unforgettable days. For them I live."
Her reminiscence was interrupted when Mikoto strode into the room, saw her and exhaled an exasperated sigh with her hands dramatically on her hips.
"I don't believe this! You're always up here! I feel like I can't come in this room anymore!"
"I'm sorry," said Ruri, putting her photos back into their box. "I enjoy the peace up here. But you shouldn't think that you can't come in just because I'm here."
As usual, her roommate didn't listen to her reasoning. "I wish you'd just go away!" she snapped. "We were all fine here until you came along."
"Look," stated Ruri, tired of repeating the same old facts again and again. "I'm really sorry if you don't like me, but there's nothing I can do about it. I was put here, so here is where I will stay, at least for now. Why can't you accept that?"
"Damn it, if you're going to speak at least speak properly!"
"I am speaking normally. Perhaps I speak a little differently to you, but that's just the way I do it,"
"Just shut up!" She gestured angrily at the door. "Why don't you go somewhere else?"
Ruri looked neutrally over towards the door, then back to Mikoto. "I don't really see why I should. This is my room too you know,"
"Hmph. Freak." As had become usual, Mikoto ended the exchange by wrinkling her petite nose and turning her back on her with a toss of her purple plaits. She looked a little like Megumi when she did that, Ruri thought.
She put her little box of memories back into her bedside drawer and replaced it with her trusty laptop. As common computers went, it was relatively powerful but comparing it to Omoikane was like comparing a pea whistle to a clarinet. Ruri could deal with that, but what frustrated her was how she was unable to access the internet with it. Well, technically she could and had done so a few days ago by connecting it to the orphanage phone line. However, she'd barely loaded the Nadesico homepage before Mikoto had come in, seen what she was doing and immediately ratted her out to Miss Nishida. The manageress of the orphanage had told Ruri in gentle tones that using the phone line cost the orphanage money at a time when they were trying to cut back on spending. Pleading guilty, Ruri had assured her that it wouldn't happen again. That didn't stop her feeling miffed at how Mikoto had taken the chance to spite her.
After that little experiment hadn't worked, she'd resorted to reading lowly newspapers to learn about the world beyond this isolated village she now lived in. They'd been easily enough to obtain since Miss Nishida bought one every day. However, Ruri still found it a major nuisance – she much preferred to have her information on a screen. She found the actual paper too large and unwieldy to read properly. What's more, her news was always a day old, which Ruri found intolerable.
In any case though, a week after the actual incident, the biggest news was still the end of the war. However, the story published by the papers was a mixture of fact and fiction. It stated that the Martian Computer had been removed, meaning that boson jumping of battleships couldn't occur, meaning that the war had automatically been brought to an end. Noticeably the commandeering of the Nadesico and its efforts in halting the war weren't mentioned. Neither was the destruction of the Kakistubata, for fairly obvious reasons.
Many of the papers questioned the validity of the peace and how long it would be before war broke out again. Some of the more dismal articles suggested that what had begun now was a cold war and fighting would resume when sufficient technological advances had been implemented. Like Akatsuki's incredible battleship, Ruri thought with bitterness.
After a bit of searching, she'd had managed to find a few articles about the Nadesico itself, though none of them were very informative. They simply stated that the Nadesico had returned to the Earth following the battle on Mars and that the crew had been detained, for publicly unknown reasons. She hadn't really expected to find out anything new, but it was still interesting to read about her old ship.
But although the newspapers gave her a view of the world, she still wanted a proper information source. The papers only told her what the powers that be wanted the public to know. To obtain the information she wanted she would have to dig deeper, and that meant a little hacking was in order. In particular she wanted to snoop around Nergal's network – she'd had a certain sneaking suspicion of late and needed certain information to confirm it. Obviously, that wouldn't be possible without an internet link-up. And that was impossible without a phone-line.
Unless…
Ruri nearly threw her computer to one side in her eagerness to get up. How could she have been such an idiot!? She'd completely forgotten about her Nadesico communicator. She couldn't use it directly now that Omoikane was offline, but with a few alterations she could use it's transmitter to link up to a communications satellite. Yes, it would take a bit of effort, but she was sure she could do it!
There was no time to lose. She'd need some wiring, some kind of power source, probably some duct tape as well. Then she'd just need a bit of time to make a few technical alterations to link up her communicator with her laptop. It could be done and Ruri couldn't wait to get started.
* * *
She spent the rest of the day acquiring the components she needed for her little project. Fortunately, she was able to acquire most of them from a dusty, disused computer which she'd discovered in the cellar of the orphanage. She'd also found a toolbox in one of the store cupboards. Some of the more complex parts had been harder to find and it had taken her a good couple of hours to track down a hardware store in the village. Again she'd been lucky, since it provided her with everything else that she needed, despite being a relatively small shop. The old, balding man behind the counter had chuckled lightly as this strange little girl left his shop, carrying several pieces of complicated equipment normally only used by expert electricians.
The next day was a Sunday, which gave Ruri the time she needed to knuckle down and construct her new device. She spent the whole morning sitting on her bed surrounded by a moat of wiring, screws and other electrical components. She worked ceaselessly, tampering with one thing then discarding it and taking up another. Her eyes never blinked or looked away from her task, so great was her concentration.
Her roommates didn't disturb her much, for a mercy. This morning Mikoto had made some half-hearted comment about how she was making a mess of the room by bringing in all this junk, but since then she'd disappeared. Tina, who never seemed to be around, didn't break her trend today. In fact, the greatest disturbance had been Miss Nishida. She'd called in firstly at mid-morning, to see what she was doing. Ruri hadn't wanted to divulge the full details and so had just said she was repairing her computer. The chief carer had suggested that she go outside with the others to get some fresh air and be sociable, rather then hiding up her alone with her gadgets. Ruri had replied that she intended to go outside later, just hoping to get the annoying woman to go away. Seeing it was the best she was going to get out of her, Miss Nishida had smiled at her and left. She did return a few hours later to call her for lunch. Ruri had been so engrossed in her work that she'd completely lost track of time.
By mid-afternoon, her efforts were yielding results. She'd attached her communicator to the windowsill in order to improve the reception. From it streamed a whole stream of colourful wires, which in turn were plugged into the computer via the makeshift adapter which she'd built. After another half-hour of tuning and testing, Ruri had eventually established a decent link-up to the internet. Despite herself, the pale girl had to smile in satisfaction at the fruits of her labour.
Not even pausing for a break, she delved in to her research. She didn't dare hack into Nergal just yet - since her connection was quite slow and fragile, there was a great risk of her being detected and traced. It wouldn't take a genius to figure out the identity of the intruder. However, she viewed some other information from legal sources. After an evening of investigation, she figured she'd found sufficient evidence to prove her conjecture.
There was no doubt about it now. Akatsuki was manipulating her. Sending her to this orphanage was part of his sinister plan.
"He wants me to run back to him,"
It made perfect sense. Akatsuki had created this situation she was in, hoping that this orphan's life would grind her down and she'd come back to Nergal, simply because it was the lesser of two evils. Ruri admired his cunning at forming this plan, but at the same time felt insulted that he'd assumed she wouldn't catch on to him sooner or later.
"Then again, in his eyes it doesn't matter whether I find him out or not. I can't go anywhere else now. My only way out is to take his offer."
Well, he could forget that idea. She'd been defiant before, but this new information had given her an even stronger resolve to resist him. In that moment, sitting on her bed with her computer on her lap, she vowed never to join him, no matter how hard this life became. That was her duty, to herself, to her former crewmates and to the people of Jupiter. For all their sakes, she would be strong.
A/N – I've deliberately not included the actual details of Ruri's findings. They'll be revealed in a later chapter. For now, just accept that Ruri has found enough evidence to prove that Akatsuki is trying to manipulate her.
I know that not that much has happened so far in this story, apart from Ruri becoming depressed and doing a lot of brooding. But don't worry, I know exactly where this fic's going. At the moment the scene's still being set, but there's a big twist coming up in a couple of chapter's time which will make things a bit more interesting. For now, enjoy chapter nine, in which Ruri makes an unexpected friend…
