like a dog, i wait ...

License to Live (1998, dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

She can only imagine what he’d do should he find out what she’s trying to read. Maybe it’d be the silent treatment this time, after his despondence during the lackluster interest in his trust exercise adventure. Or more dramatic monologuing that felt like an off brand scolding from a parent.

"what a responsible individual you are, ragatha. i will allow you to check out the item. however, i adhere strictly to the due date. if you do not return the item promptly, it will result in one strike on your library record. three strikes results in suspension. however--"

WHAT DOESN'T KILL YOU // accepting // @2econdlead sent (for Matt) — i ask, you answer. that's how this works.

Everything is where it should be. No alarms going off, no overturned chairs, no plaster broken by gunfire. Even the guards are still at their posts. They're just not alive.

Two at the entrance, two at the back, three on patrols, and one on the roof. There's been no hesitation in these attacks, no wasted motion, no anger behind the precise strikes. This place has been solved like a puzzle, and solved in just the same way Elektra would have done, had it been her task.

She walks each room expecting and meeting no one until she sees the body. A small part of her considered he might simply have been extracted for questioning, but no. Marco Derveni, the protected witness, the latest in a chain of killings that look exactly like this. Like her.

The air shifts behind her before the thought fully forms, enough to know that the safehouse is no longer empty.

She turns and dodges Matt’s strike before it lands, but in the breath of surprise at his presence, she doesn’t escape the tackling grapple that follows, nor the binding of his billyclub cable as it locks around her and anchors her to a metal support beam at the ceiling.

His breath is hot with familiar, heart-racing anger, and Elektra bares her teeth right back at him. "Matthew—"

"I ask, you answer. That's how this works."

Interrogation. She'd laugh if the lives of four people, including a journalist from a staged overdose, hadn't led her to this location to discover the fifth.

The cable bites into her skin as she tests its strength. "Then ask."

derveni isn't his witness, but it's a trial he's been following. a lawyer friend of his was to have him take the stand in a few days, and with this, her case would likely fall apart or give the opposing side enough time to scramble.

he's coming from the rooftop when he enters the safehouse. a near soundless jump from one of the open panels. then, he senses her; the steady thud of her heart, the rustle of her hair as it moves over her shoulder, over the fabric of her clothing. matthew hoped he wouldn't see her here.

his teeth grit, merciless in his restraint.

he has to bite back saying that he knew she would show up at some point, that every clue would, of course, lead back to her. logic and emotion war in his mind, and both could simultaneously be right. but, where elektra is concerned, one of them could win out over the other and cloud his judgment.

she can only stand there, awkwardly for once, as her fingers idly tap against the casserole and she turns over possible responses in her mind.

"right..." is what she starts with, before forcing her lips to curl up into her usual blinding smile. "well, that's why i came to see you. i can... come in if you want, and help out with-- whatever you need." it's rare for brooke to stammer, always in control of any social situation. but this? this is completely new for her. this matters. she can't risk saying the wrong thing and make max feel worse.

max should really stick around. clean up a little or do homework, something other than have a joyride with brooke. but, it's also true she'll do none of those things. maybe clean a couple dishes, then slink back to her room and stare up at the ceiling until she falls back asleep.

"if we drive around, are we gonna eat the casserole too? or, would you prefer we throw it in the bushes for the raccoons?" a glimmer of humor, even if it is buried in the same deadpan stare.

guilt already starts curling in her gut for even leaving in the first place, knowing that her mom will be back from work soon. she should be here. but, some days, she doesn't even know why she's here. she knows her mom is trying her best to deal with how life in indiana has turned out for them, but ... some days, max felt invisible. it was as though her being here wasn't enough. maybe it would be nice to forget that for once, just for a minute.

1. Shoko's deadly against curses but she's a bit of a glass cannon since she has no defenses against getting sniped by a curse either, and RCT as your only offensive ability requires a lot of intense combat training Shoko wasn't particularly interested in

2. It's kind of poor resource allocation to put your only healer at risk when technically anyone can fight curses but only one person can put the sorcerors back together afterwards, so the higher ups like her to be safely out of the way

3. Gojo and Geto are so competitive they don't really leave any cursed spirits for anyone else, except maybe one time they got distracted and one got through to her and she got to punch it to death which was pretty fun. But she'd have to do more cardio if she wanted to get to curses before they do which is a drag.

4. I personally interpret Shoko as actually really enjoying being a doctor and studying the human body and curses, even if she's pretty worn down from stress by the present day, so she's genuinely more interested in staying behind to study and do research, even though she does kind of hate waiting to hear if her friends died and sometimes feels isolated

(Speaking of fucked up shit Shoko can do with RCT, if she can create blood with cursed energy, presumably she can create the WRONG type of blood in someone's body and trigger an immune response. Shoko could leave a trail of bodies before anyone realized it was her if she felt doing fucked up science on the people who passed through her office).

first of all, hi, i'm sorry, i just got done with finals or maybe they got done with me, still not sure. but i 100% agree with all of this and i've been itching to sit down to write a response for like a week. i'm especially on board with the 4th thing you wrote here, it's my personal interpretation also that she is fairly content with being non-combatant and actually enjoys the research aspect of their entire field more. and i've always thought that she was left to her devices for such long periods of time in the morgue/infirmary, especially since there was no one to train her in her specific skill/field of study and no one knew anything about anything, that at some point, she started working towards finding answers to all of the unanswered questions everyone had regarding the anatomy of sorcerers, the damages curses can inflict or the ones sorcerers can inflict on them, the nature of cursed energy and how exactly it works etc. i don't think she would've been as successful as she is in canon if she weren't interested in and hella smart about the work she does. and i think this is reinforced by her being able to tell yuji that the transformed humans died from being transformed or the fact that she was able to get into med school straight out of jujutsu tech and most importantly, the fact that she was able to obtain a medical licence after only two years of med school, all thanks to her already knowing a lot of the stuff there is to know about the human body in the first place.