World Tree MUSH

    Another hot night has descended on Natsuto. Thankfully, the city is quiet; no driving rain with murderous magical girls, no frigid hellscapes with ravenous youma. Just warm wind and the ever-present din of the city. With the late-season monsoon long past, it's a good night to go for a walk. Or a rooftop-hopping journey, apparently.

    Y: Got time to talk?
    Y: I'm in the business district. Skyscraper opposite the big crater.
    Y: Nice and private. Also I brought kara-age.

    The text comes in late-ish in the evening, long enough after dinner that a snack might not go amiss. Especially for teenagers with magical powers. And true to her word, Yumi can indeed be found up on the roof of a tall building, directly opposite a large crater in the business district that may at some point have been a skyscraper. It's a little hard to say. It currently looks like a crater that they started cleaning up and doing construction on, only to stop when funds or interest ran out. It's hard to say more than that from this high up, but it's at least fenced off from the street.

    And, of course, true to her word, Yumi brought kara-age. One box for herself, that she's eaten a little bit out of, and a second untouched box. How hot and fresh it is depends on how long it takes Misaki to arrive.

When the text arrived, Misaki was doing homework. Or in current context, nothing important. So she quickly transforms and heads over.

M: y omw

It doesn't take her long to arrive, and she's easy to spot as she's glowing. "Tachibana-san." She approaches the other magical girl. "So. What were you trying to accomplish by hiding that someone might try to kill me from me?"

    Just jumping right into it, huh.

    Yumi's not transformed; her outfit is just regular street clothes. It probably looks a little incongruous up here. Just a regular girl, standing around on a skyscraper with boxes of fast-food fried chicken. And the question tops all that off with a look of chagrin.

    "Would you believe me if I said it was to keep pressure off you?" She folds her hands in front of herself, frowning a little. "I only found out about the Executioners myself the night before we came out to talk to you, and Vulpes gave me the impression there were so few of them it was a low risk. I didn't want that hanging over your head, I wanted you to take time and make the choice for yourself, on your own terms. Not sitting there thinking, 'oh, a crazy magical girl might come kill me at any moment, I better make my choice fast.'"

    She shakes her head. "So of course, the 'low risk' pans out, and you get put under even worse pressure. Whatever else might be true, the fact is I kept something from you, and it ended up putting you in danger and forcing your choice. I messed up. And all I can do for that is apologize." At that, Yumi drops into a deep, apologetic bow.

Misaki waits for Yumi's explanation, not interrupting. "I understand that." She answers, and relaxes, "But it does kind of send the wrong message when you're the one playing up the being open and transparent thing unlike the others, and then the next time we meet I realize you were hiding something important from me. Next time something that probably isn't going to come up, but which might come up, and which will be important if it comes up... please, just tell me?"

    "Absolutely, yes," Yumi agrees, her tone firm. "I'm not going to make that mistake again." She turns and glances over towards the edge of the skyscraper, then wanders over there to sit - not right on the edge, but close enough that they can get a look down, if they feel like it. "Come sit? The chicken should still be warm, more or less. I want to give you my story, or as much of it as I know."

Misaki sits down, "Then we're square. I probably overreacted, but I hope you'll forgive me, it was kind of a stressful situation." She takes a bite out of the chicken, "I'm listening."

    Yumi gives a little nod. "A really stressful situation. I don't blame you at all." She folds her hands in her lap, and nods her head downards, toward street level. "There's a reason I picked this spot. I come up here every now and then, when I need to sit and think. That crater down there, that's where my earliest memory is. I woke up there, about... two years ago, maybe? I don't remember who I was."

Misaki nods. "Are you going to wish to..." She falls quiet as her brain catches up to her words and she realizes something, "No wait. If you wish for your memories back, and then realize you had something important you wanted to wish for but had forgotten... it's going to feel terrible. And you probably did have a wish, right?"

    "I'm... not actually sure," Yumi replies, pausing a moment before adding, "...that applies to both those questions. I'm not sure what I'll wish for, and I'm not sure I had a wish to begin with." Somehow, she's managing to work her way through her kara-age while eating, pretty steadily. "I'm kinda... not normal, I guess. I don't think like a normal girl our age. I took a bullet for someone a long time before I ever found out I could transform, and 'protecting people' was what finally drew that out of me. Whoever I was... I think I became a magical girl for the powers themselves. The wish was just gravy."

"I'd have been tempted even if I didn't have anything to wish for." Misaki thinks for a bit, "I really want to help people. I just happen to have something I care about that this magic I can now use can't help me with. I think I might have backed out if I'd been attacked like that without my family situation, but if I hadn't been, I think I'd have been on board either way. So maybe we're not that different?" She thinks, "I met a... I think friend, of yours. Said her name was Emily, of the Nyx-class, or something like that. She helped me put some things in perspective."

    Yumi listens, nodding her head faintly as Misaki muses, only to look up at the sound of a familiar name. "Oh, Emily? Yeah, we've run into each other a fair bit, out on the Tree. She's decent folk, so far as I've seen." She takes another bite of chicken, then gives the younger girl a curious look. "What'd she tell you? Or help you tell yourself, I guess."

"Told me you probably thought you were protecting me in some way, and showed a clip of you risking yourself in a fight over something that was apparently supposed to be a negotiation." Misaki answers, "And helped me realize that I don't know you, and I probably shouldn't fill in the blanks of some awesome senpai who knows everything and then get disappointed when you don't live up to the image I've constructed in my head."

    That draws a soft laugh. "Yeah, I'm... I'm pretty much winging it, I gotta be honest." She sets aside her box of kara-age for the moment, and looks out over the city. "I woke up with nothing in my head but two names, one of them my own. I didn't learn I could sense a certain kind of magic until it happened, and my first time seeing a youma I still didn't know I was a magical girl. Rydia and a couple other friends of mine killed it. I had apparently already made the deal with Vulpes before I lost my memory, so since I already had powers, he didn't feel a need to tell me, uh. Anything. Including the fact he existed." Yumi snorts softly.

"Vulpes sounds like I should trust him no further than I can throw him. Anyway..." Misaki puts aside her box, gazing into the distance. "Are all Youma like that? Been returning to that place in my dreams. Except in my dreams I'm alone, and not strong enough."

    This time, Yumi laughs softly. "I sure don't." The close-lipped little clockwork is something they agree on, it seems. She picks up her food again, munching on the last of her chicken, then nods softly at Misaki's question. "Yeah, pretty much. All of them have kinda been... loosely based on where they are, except they mess with reality inside, and all of them have had some kind of... emotion in the air? Like how that place was full of despair. I had one that just felt totally angry and hostile, and one that was sort of..." She stops, fishing for the words. "'Protective but sad'. Like whoever it was distanced themselves from their loved ones in order to protect them from something. They're... they're not fun."

    Yumi frowns a little, then adds, "I'm a little worried about Serrah. I don't think she was handling it well."

"She definitely wasn't." Misaki makes a point to look away from Yumi. "Apparently I can kind of, take on other people's emotions to some degree. Not sure how it works, but I saw she was uncomfortable and felt like I could help, so I tried." Misaki takes a bite from the chicken, "That was... I don't think it's my place to talk about what that told me, but it wasn't good."

    Yumi turns at the odd tone in Misaki's voice, listening. "...I see. Pretty interesting trick." She shifts to look back out over the city again. "I don't know the details, but I know Serrah's had it pretty rough. Kinda feel like I should go check on her, but I'd have to find her first."

    She reaches into her box, pulling out what proves to be her last piece of kara-age. "-oh, right, before I forget. Vulpes gets grumpy if you go off-world and get yourself hurt. I was able to talk him into healing me anyway, but only for payment. Sweets or fast food." Nomf. Down goes the last bite.

"Is that why you offered me kara-age? You can't bribe me with snacks, you know." Misaki is cheered up again, and finishes her own. "I might go exploring a bit while we're waiting for summer to end. My new school's given me some homework to get up to speed, but it's fairly easy, so I've got time."

    Yumi laughs at that. "Something like that. I know I have kind of a ridiculous appetite, so I figured food would be a good peace offering. Or at least, half of one. I do have something else for you." She starts fishing around in her pocket, then adds, "The Tree is a pretty crazy place. It can be dangerous, learning to navigate can be rough, and sometimes even the same Vine won't take you to the same place. But there's a lot of cool stuff out there too. And good people, for that matter."

"It's good stuff." Misaki giggles, "But what mattered was the words, not the food. Food's just nice." She listens, "Well, if the past week has taught me anything, it's that our world is dangerous, and learning to navigate it can be rough."

    "Fair point," Yumi agrees. She finally finds the pocket in which she stashed her other gift, and draws it out. There's a few layers of tissue wrapped around it, but once she's peeled those back, it's revealed to be an Oblivion Crystal, almost identical to the one Misaki picked up at the convention. "Here. One step closer," she says, holding it out.

Misaki is speechless for a moment. "If you think of something you want to wish for, and I haven't used it yet. Just tell me and I'll give it back." She promises, "Yhank you." She carefully puts the crystal away. "If you need help with something, you have my number."

    "Well, I do have two more," Yumi admits. "I'm not ready to give all of them up, just in case I do come up with a desperate wish. But it's not like I'm in any rush to the end right now." She shoves the remaining tissue in her empty food box, then crumples the box up and shoves it in a pocket. "That goes both ways. Something happens, shoot me a text, I'll be there as fast as I can."

"I know. It was good to have this talk, and I hope I get some more opportunities to learn about Yumi-senpai, the girl who's been fumbling through this for a bit longer than I have instead of Tachibana-san, the amazing expert who knows everything and exists only in my mind." Misaki gets the remnants of her own meal packed away, too.

    Carefully, Yumi moves to stand up, brushing herself off. "Well, I'm sure there'll be plenty of chances for that. Now that there's two of us in the city, Elizabeth's probably going to be elsewhere most of the time, so it'll just be us." There's a soft flare of light and warmth, leaving Yumi in full armor. "Take care. If you need to talk, I'm up pretty late most nights." Probably not healthy for a teenager, but also probably not uncommon.