2022-10-26 - Found and Lost
| Title: Found and Lost | ||||
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| Summary: Yumi arrives at Raiko's dorm to return something she found, and finds a lost girl. | ||||
| Who: | ||||
| Where: Infinity Institute | ||||
| OOC - IC Date: October 26, 2022 - Friday, January 22, 2016 | ||||
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*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+ Infinity Institute +*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
The inner wards of Tokyo boast most of its largest skyscrapers, but there is
an unusual exception. Located in Hachioji District, the Infinity Institute
is by far the largest building in Tama, and the second-largest skyscraper in
Tokyo. At 52 stories tall, its glass and stone the sort of primeval obsidian
that shimmers like oyster shell, Infinity is commonly supposed, by visitors,
to house some megacorporation, but there is only a scrap of truth to that.
Infinity is, in fact, a school, and what a school it is.
Offering a complete education from elementary to university, this daring new
charter school offers talented students a literal and figurative chance to
climb in the world: its vertical campus has students moving up a few floors
every year. Black metal monoliths with lighted white globes flank students
as they approach the entranceway, itself styled like an abstracted
grandfather clock, purplish glass panes forming an arch on the facade.
Within, a lushly austere atrium whispers water-sound from its great
fountain, beams of light slicing falling water elaborately. The atrium's
ceiling is five stories tall, and so many balconies and walkways are visible
as one stands on the violet carpeted black granite.
There is considerable variation between the fifty two floors, but the
unifying theme is one of sleek modernity. Heavy use of polished metal and
glass lend the building the feeling of an appliance freshly peeled of its
plastic coating. The walls are painted in cool tones of purple and deep
blue, and the accommodations are lavish, if stark. At times, the architects
even seem to have played artful little tricks, making a hallway appear too
long, or bend in a way that it does not. It is just a trick of the eye,
isn't it?
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Raiko's talk with Michiko was... well, 'nice' wasn't quite the right word for it, given everything they'd discussed. Raiko hasn't quite said everything that was on her mind (some of it, like magic, was off limits with a non-magical person, and others were just too hard for her to really put into words anyway), but... she'd said a few things that she hadn't been able to share with anyone else so far, and received a sympathetic and encouraging response which was...
Well, it' wasn't horrible, at least. That was enough, for the moment. Things didn't neccesarily feel any better but there was at least the potential that they could be better.
It was a start.
That tenuous grasp on hope lasted until she got back to her dorm, tried to pull out her latest project from it's subdimensional storage spot, and... nothing.
"Oh no oh no oh no..."
A quick retrace of her steps bore no fruit. The receptionist hadn't seen anything, it hadn't been turned in, and that meant her unfinished enchantment prototype was now wandering somewhere in Infinity (bad enough) or possibly somewhere out in Tokyo (much worse.)
Raiko forced herself to take a deep breath. "Okay, this is what all that practice was for." She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and set it in midair in front of it, letting magic keep it suspended in palce. She traced her hands around it, drawing cricles and runes into existence around it, mumbling to herself as she set up the spell.
She was looking for... well, she didn't have a duplicate of the case, so she was looking for something that had her magical signature, which was easy enough ot provide, but wasn't explicitly herself, her cell phone, any of the objects in her dorm that she could think of, that wasn't any of her magical items in the classroom... which was the hard part.
Finally, after she'd accounted for everything she could, tying it into the compass, GPS, and antennae of the cell phone to tap into its location-finding funtionality while boosting the signal range as far as she could safetly get it, she said the last words and tapped the screen. A bright red arrow sprung to life. A first glance, and a non-magical one, would make it appear to be on the screen itself. But a second glance, or one from the side would reveal that the arrow was hovering just off the top of the phone's creen.
And it was pointing right at her doormitory door as Raiko took the phone in hand, pivoting to stay pointed as she turned, with the phone in hand, to face it.
"Well that can't be right, can it?"
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
Yumi, for her part, went back to class! She missed part of the day as it was, but was able to slide in for the rest of it. She's caught up on her work, she's here again, and while she has to take it a little easy at first, it's good to be back!
...And to get a lot more homework again...
But there's something else on her mind besides just class; she's had a chance to glance at the phone case a little more by now, and notice the intricacy of the spellwork on it. Few would even try to do this much with a cellphone case, let alone do it like this. And it gives her some ideas.
Mostly social ideas. Her phone already has a magic 'case' that came from imbuing it with the Staff, it's not the same thing at all. No, it makes her think to...
Knock, knock.
Yumi's at the door, waiting for Raiko to notice that she's here. She's still in uniform, has a fairly brigh expression, and... is holding a cellphone case!
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Raiko jumps as Yumi knocks at the door. She fumbles with her cell phone but solidly catches it with her telekinesis and puts it into her pocket before anything else can befall it... though she forgets to dismiss the spell. "Um, coming!" she calls out after a moment, realizing she hasn't responded.
She'd gone back to class, as well, though she had skipped out on club for the day. However, her panic in trying to track down her prototype meant she wasn't changed out of her uniform yet, either.
Though she wasn't doing anything else, so she answers the door almost right away. "Um, hi?" she says uncertainly as she opens the door, and then looks up (and up some more) at the older girl. "Oh, Ohzora-san."
She looks genuinely confused to see the older schoolgirl, since, well, they're in different grades. "Uhm..." She's aware, now, that Yumi is aware, probably, of the rumors, which makes this interaction extra awkward for her. "Is... there... something I can do for you?"
It's then that she notices that Yumi is, in fact, holding the cell phone case, and her expression truly lights up for the first time that day. "Oh my gosh! You found it! How did you--" she reaches out quickly to grab it, but then remembers herself, hesitating, and then simply holding her hand out. "Um... can I please have that back?"
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
Jump! Yumi is just standing at the door waiting when Raiko answers the door, and smiles when he younger girl seems a little awkward about it for the moment. It's OK. Awkward is something she's veyr good at. ...And she can guess why it'd feel awkward...
"Totally," Yumi answers the request, and extends the cell phone case towards Raiko. "That's why I came! I was going to give it to the receptionist... but I figured you'd rather have this returned directly to you."
"You use a really interesting runic combination," she says, quietly so that people don't hear, but animatedly enough. "Part of the function is to charge the phone, right? That's some really delicate work!"
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
"I was looking everywhere for this..." Literally. She emptied out her entire extra dimensional storage twice, just to make sure she hadn't missed it. The younger girl looks very relieved as she accepts the case from Yumi, letting out a huge sigh of relief as she clutches it to her chest. She's so relieved she's not even about to think through why Yumi chose to bring it directly back instead of giving it to the receptionist, which would have been faster... Until Yumi starts to talk directly about her enchantment.
Which instantly puts the girl on edge again, for a number of reasons. And instantly she gets a bit defensive, a bit suspicious, but that quickly turns to astonishment as Yumi deduces the purpose of the enchantment, even with it unfinished.
She's so surprised, in fact, it takes her a moment to formulate a proper response instead of just blinking. "Um... uh... yes! Um... how did you..." She leans her head out the door to glance up and down the hallway, and then steps back. "Um, would you like to come in?" she asks, with the sort of nervousness of one who's never had occasion to invite someone into their dorm before.
The inside is... well, tidy enough, at least. It's mostly stock decorations, which is to say, not much. It certainly doesn't have that lived-in feel, though that might make sense if Yumi's heard the other rumors about her recently moving into the dorms. There are some signs of life, though. Namely the textbooks and notebooks piled up on the desk, and... something in pieces on the table in front of the couch. It looks like it might be a small motor of some kind, with tools strewn around it.
With Yumi inside and the door safely closed, she picks up the conversation thread again. "Um, yeah. It's meant to charge a cell phone. It's, um... taking lightning energy and remodulating it into an EM field to induce wireless charging in the phone, but... How did you know? It's not even done, and..." Whatever 'and' was she leaves unstated.
'And most people don't believe in what I'm doing.'
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"Ahah... sorry about that," Yumi says. "You dropped it when you rushed back to see Nakahara-sensei," she explains. She doesn't need to explain the other part--it's pretty clear already. She notices the way she gets a little suspicious, but--
How? Well, she can answer that in a minute. First, she smiles back. "Sure."
Yumi steps inside, with her usual stride, closing the distance quickly but not particularly gracefully. And she glances around, because--of course she does! It's very interesting to see the stuff laying around, and she has heard the part about her being new to the dorms...
"Oh, cool," the older girl says, and then inclines her head. "Well," Yumi answers about how, "With the lightning runes and the transformative runs, either you were charging to charge your cellphoine or turn it into a taser. I figured probably not the second one because that'd definitely wreck your phone," and who would tun their phone into a taser???, "So..."
She nods, after that, as she comes a little further in, "I think it's really cool! I mean, I dabble a little in tech--I've got a few practice grimoires uploaded onto my phone--but that's way beyond anything I've tried. Even thinking about how to get the amperage right just makes my head hurt."
She pauses. "I do light and sound tech for AoAka, so... I know a little about that stuff these days. But I've never tried to enchant any of it like that. "
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Raiko seems to have the dorm to herself, for the moment, though perhaps that's understandable, given that she moved in mid-school year. Or maybe because none of the magic students were free to take a roommate.
She listens eagerly as Yumi explains her reasoning, her expression turning from cautiously interested to downright excited as she explains and lays out the first deduction. "Yes! Exactly!" Though she does get a far off look as Yumi mentions the taser, seemingly contemplating the idea... "Well you could turn it into a one-shot discharge, and keep it from harming the phone by making sure the discharge goes through the outside of the case, but that would expose more of the runework, and you'd be better off insulating the phone with a..." She blinks, stops, and blushes as she brings her focus back. "Uh, sorry, yeah, um... that would probably be impractical."
She didn't make it sound very impractical for a moment, there.
And then she lights up all over again when Yumi declares it 'really cool.' "You... really think so?" She seems both astonished... but incredibly hopeful for it to be true, too. And then she nods eagerly as the older witch continues. "Oh! Me too!" she exclaims in response to Yumi storing grimoires on her phone. "It's soooo useful, like, who wants to carry those big heavy books around all the time, right?"
There's a bit of a blush and a really shy smile as Yumi declares it far beyond what she's tried. "Yeah, um... That part took the longest to figure out. Like, even once you figure out all of the equations to get the amperage right and to properly channel the magic you still have to make sure you don't disrupt the functionality of the phone, and the detailed runework is kind of tricky to inscribe right. That's why I haven't finished it all yet, I've been taking mytime."
She blinks. "You work for AoAka? Cool! I haven't been to one of their shows in... a while." She deflates a little thinking of something, but quickly changes topic. "Um, yeah, it's... something I've been working on for a while..."
Most of the rumors mention she hasn't been applying herself, and a few may even call her a crackpot, but clearly some aspect of those aren't true.
Raiko looks down at the floor, as if suddenly overwhelmed by even this amount of attention. "I'm, uh... not used to people thinking my ideas are really cool. So, uh... thanks." An awkward pause, and then she seems to remember something.
"Um... do you want something to drink? Or some snacks? I don't have a lot but I'm sure I can find something..."
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
Excitement is nice! Yumi, who doesn't comment on the lack of roommate, notices that enthusiasm and smiles a little wider at it. ...Though the taser, well... "Hmmm." A grin. "It's fine."
But she does think so! And indeed, "Yep. I do. And I have a pretty good sense of what's cool!" Yumi declares. But then she nods along, "Right? I definitely don't."
"Hmmmm, yeah. Usually direct mana channeling doesn't mix so well with machines that run on electricity instead. But you've gotten around that?" She hmms again. "Yeah, taking your time would make sense with that. You don't want to break your phone trying it out!"
She notices the deflation, and is OK with topic change. "So I see! And it looks like that's not all, if you don't mind me noticing." She gestures to the... motor? Motor.
But she spots that shyness when she sees it. "You're welcome! I really do, you know?" She says, and then, "Oh! I appreciate it, but I'm good on snacks for the moment." And she wouldn't want to take away Raiko's! "...In fact, I mostly just came to tell you I thought your work was cool and give you back the case. If you're busy or something..." She offers her an out, since she noticed her being kind of overwhelmed.
"Of course, no clubs today for me, so it's not like I'm in a rush anywhere, either."
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
"No, it doesn't, but... yeah! I've... well, I've figured a few things out for working around that problem. Some of it is just providing some insulation, which works sometimes if you've don't need the spell to interface with the object itself, just... around the object. Some of it is just directing really fine mana flows, but that runs the risk of spellform collapse, so it's a really tight tightrope walk. And sometimes, like with this..." she holds the phone case out to show you. "If you just sort of... set up the mana to interfere with itself most of the excess disappates and leaves you with just enough of the elemental energy youwant to cause an effect." She points out a few tracings in the intricate rune work. "... A lot of it is kind of bespoke, though, I've got plans to generalize it, but most of the time I have to fit everything to the specific device, which can take a while..."
Raiko glances when Yumi gestures to the motor. "Oh! Yeah. That's the motor for a neighbor's blender. She was having issues with it and I offered to take a look. Um, my neighbor back home, that is." Outside of Infinity.
She nods again as Yumi confirms that she thinks her work is cool. "I appreciate it." She's glad she remembered to offer the hospitality, but when Yumi offers her the out, she looks a bit torn.
This is probably the most positive interaction she's had with a classmate in a while, but on the other hand, it is a bit overwhelming.
But ultimately lonliness wins out. "N-no! That's okay! Um... the only thing I did since getting back was look for my phone case, which..." She holds it up. "Now I have, so... I'm not really doing anything, either?"
Mentioning the search seems to remind her of something. "Oh, excuse me a second." She pulls her cell phone out of her pocket, and hovering just over the screen is a bright red magically hovering arrow that is pointed... directly at Raiko's other hand. There's a bit of a blush as she lets go of the case--which hovers in midair--and with her free hand makes a few gestures over the phone. The finding spell disappates, with the arrow vanishing and being replaced with a normal phone home screen. Then Raiko grabs the case again, and it suddenly vanishes before she slides the phone back into her pocket.
She seems to have not paid any attention to the fact that her phone was the subject of an active spell the entire time they were talking. But she does mention, "Sorry, I, um... cast a spell to find the case, but... you were already at my door, so... Um..." She grasps for a subject. "... wanna see the diagram for the finished phone case?"
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"I see!" Yumi knows magic well enough to keep up. ...If they had to discuss the phone's working in depth, she wouldn't be following so easily, but the magic part she's good with! "Yeah, I see. When you're working that finely that's always a risk." She tilts her had. "So, you let it buzz out its own excess energy that way. That's clever!"
"Mmm, yeah. And there's enough different models out there to make it tricky, and they get replaced fast..."
A blender! "Oh, cool," she says of the blender. "That's nice of you."
It's fine that Raiko is torn--Yumi is OK with either outcome, really! ...But getting to hang out for a little longer is nice. Especially once she notices the magically hovering arrow. "Oooh, yes." Tracking spell! And a storage spell too?
"You're a lot better than most witches in your year," Yumi reflects. "...No offense to your classmates--but some of this is tricky stuff you're working on, I have people in my class who couldn't do it right."
She hasn't tracked Raiko's grades, just the rumors. But it surprises her a bit to see the difference all the same.
"Ahahah," Yumi says, at the case finding spell. "Funny how it works, right?" A beat, "Totally! Show me!" She pauses. "But do you mind if I sit down somewhere?"
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Raiko will probably have enough to dazzle Yumi with about phones if she starts asking about the tracking spell, since that part does rely on the phone's components. But still, at least with the magic they have some common ground. She nods at Yumi's assessment of the mana buzzing out. "Thanks! I took the idea from the way some coaxial cable is kind of... self-insulating, in a way. The execution is different, of course, but..."
She nods in agreement at there constantly being new phone models. "You're telling me. I kind of want to upgrade my phone, but I'd have to redo all of the work I've done on it..."
"Thanks," she says of the compliment for the blender. "I've been... working with this stuff for a long time, um... It's... kind of what gave me the idea to try some of this stuff, when I started taking magic classes, too. If... you ever need something fixed, let me know! I can fix up phones, too. And laptops."
Raiko blushes a little as Yumi declares her better than the other witches in her year, looking down at her feet. "Yeah, it's... um. I've spent a lot of time on it." The way she says it, she doesn't seem particularly proud of that fact. She glances to the side, away from Yumi. "... Most of them don't even think it's possible, either..." She was so happy to be discussing it a moment ago, but the moment her classmates came up, she's clearly embarassed, even if you were complimenting her.
"Most of the adults don't, either..." she says after a moment.
"Oh! Of course! Sorry, I got so distracted with talking, um..." She looks to the table in front of the couch, with all of the parts on it. "Um, here, have a seat on the couch, I'll just clean this up really quick..." She quickly puts a couple of the pieces back together, then carefully, gently, telekinetically lifts the remaining mess up, along with the towel she was using to keep the table clean, over to the kitchen counter.
Then she takes a moment to consult a mental inventory... and bounds over to her desk to retrieve a notebook, bringing it back and opening it up on the table. "Okay, and it's... here!" She flips through, and then spreads out the notebook. It shows the completed diagram and a healthy dose of the calculations, along with some notes about the specs for the wireless charging.
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
For sure. "Oh! Yeah, that's a good thought." Yumi's used a lot of cables in her work for the Fashion Club, but hat's a little diferent from taking direct inspiration from them in her magic! She's going to have to have a closer look at the soundboard next time she goes in and plugs it in.
"Oooh, yeah. I can see why you'd avoid it!" Since that's obviously a whole lot of work. But for fixing--Hmm. "I'll keep that in mind," Yumi says. "You really seem to know your stuff!"
Her phone, of course, pretty much never needs fixing, thanks to the power of the Staff inhabiting it. But her laptop might one of these days...
"Of course. You don't get work like this just overnight," Yumi says, nodding along about the time she's spent on it. But Raiko isn't proud of it? ...Yumi starts to make some guesses. "Well, lots of people don't think new stuff is possible," Yumi says, andshe means it to be encouraging, but she isn't sure it will be.
"Thanks," Yumi says, and doesn't make a big deal out of it but does take a seat. Displays of telekinesis like this are fairly normal to her, though she's already said Raiko is better at it than most. Seems true of this, to...
"Cool! So..." Yumi looks over the diagram. Those parts of the calculations she understands she reads, but that's not all of them, since some relies heaily on the phone itself. "Extensive," Yumi compliments. "You've gotta be pretty up on your enchantments to do something like this..."
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
It's not the only inspiration she's taken from tech, but perhaps she'll have more to say on that once she gets to talking about her phone specifically.
'Lots of people don't think new sutff is possible.' Raiko nods glumly at that. "Yeah, um..." She bites her lip a little, her head still turned away but glancing back to look at Yumi. "You're, um... the first person I've really gotten to show any of this stuff to, so... I'm glad you like it."
But she does perk up as she's showing off the calculations and the diagram--the calculations go on for a few pages in fact, as she flips through them. "Yeah, it's... well, it's a bit tricky, since the way the wireless charging works depends on a lot of specific factors. Timing, the intensity of the field, the changes in field orientation and polarity... Um... If I was just making a dumb electromagnet that would be a lot simpler. Here..." she flips backwards through the notebook (the phone case is towards the end) until she gets somewhere near the beginning, with a far simpler diagram. "I mean, you could just use a spell for this directly, of course, but that wasn't the point..." A diagram, and some calculations, but it seems like something of a proof of concept. (And in between might be some glimpses of finding and storage spells, in fact.)
"Y-yeah... um... enchantments are... probably the thing I'm best at. Magic-wise." And there's that hesitation again.
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"...Yeah?" Yumi asks of being the first person. "Well, go me. I'm honored." She smiles back.
Yumi flips through, and she listens. "Right," she says, "It's gotta be smart, it has to account for all this stuff." She looks at the simpler diagram then, as she considers. A 'dumb electromagnet'. That's definitely a term!!
"Right, the idea is to make it an object, yeah?" Enchantments....
"You want to know a secret?" Yumi says, when Raiko hesitates. "So. I do great in my magic classes and all... in the theory. But in practice? All I'm good at is curses!"
"So everybody's got talents, right?"
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Raiko smiles a little bit more, when Yumi offers that smile back and says that she's honored.
She probably should have said a 'simple electromagnet', but, well, the diagram speaks for itself. Channeling lighting energy to make an electrical current that then induces an electromagnetic field. There's... some links to the more complicated version, though 'wireless charging' obviously requires a lot more precision and control. The 'dumb' version is about as complicated as wrapping a wire around a nail and hooking it up to a battery. Just, with magic instead.
She looks up, blinking a bit when Yumi offers to share a secret. She just nods, curious to see what her older classmate might share. "Just curses? Really?"
Somehow she has a hard time seeing someone so nice casting a lot of curses, but still... It's not like she's got room to criticize for having an eclectic specialty.
She nods. "Yeah, I suppose so..." She looks down at her lap, like she's thinking of something. Or perhaps there's something she wants to say.
Instead she flips back to the more complicated diagram and presses her fingertips to the page facing it. Her phone case appears underneath her fingertips, seemingly from nowhere, and she pulls her hand back so they can look at the two side by side. "It's getting close, I just... wanna make sure I get it right on the first try. I've got an older phone I'm gonna try it on first, though."
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
Yumi can imagine it would require much more control--wireless charging is something she's a little familiar with because she gets the fancy kind of phones that have features like that, as a rule.
"Mm-hm. Just curses. I learned most of my witchraft from Mother, and our family has a lot of old traditions like that, so it's just what I'm best at." She smiles. She obviously isn't too troubled by this herself. But...
She notices the case appear; she notices Raiko get more... something. Like she wants to say something. "Yeah?" Yumi asks. "...It's a nice idea, getting it right on the first go. But I think it's most important that you get it right at all, right? Trying it on the older phone first sounds like a good idea."
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Raiko nods a little bit as Yumi explains about how she learned curses from her mother, and that her family has a lot of old traditions. "Oh, okay," is all she says. She was looking up at Yumi to show that she was paying attention, but after saying that looks down at her lap. "Um... my grandfather taught me. Him and his familiar, Shiori. M-most of it was just... basics and foundation. So I guess... I guess I didn't get a specialty."
Her voice has become a bit fragile as she's been saying all of that.
"All this stuff..." she gestures to the notebook, "that came from my classes. Well, and from me. ... M-mostly me. G-gramps was always..." Her voice grows shakier still. "H-he was supportive, even if he didn't always understand it, but he also kept trying to tell me to apply myself, but now he's--"
She bites her lip to cut off that thought. Her arms come in to wrap tightly around her stomach, tensing as she tries to regain her compsure.
She's clearly trying to distract herself with a change of topics back to the case. It's not working. "Yeah, I... w-well, I don't have a lot of ways to test it, s-so... Trying really hard to limit the number of retries..."
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
For Yumi, magic is inextricable from family; she learned from her mother, who presumably learned from her mother... But for Raiko, it's her grandfather. And a familiar! But it's... obviously difficult. Yumi could kick herself a little for this one, but she didn't know.
"So you came up with your own cool stuff," Yumi says, encouragingly. He was supportive, but... Mm.
Once, Yumi would've just gone with the subject change, awkwardly, and let things go from there. But not anymore.
"Hey," Yumi says. "If you wanna talk about what's going on, you can, and if you don't, we don't have to. It's entirely up to you. I know I'm still practically a stranger, so it's OK either way."
She reaches out a hand, just offering it, without pushing.
"Just let me know which, OK? No pressure."
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
That's not to say she didn't learn any practical spells, but... basic ones, at least to start, with education filling in the gap. Shiori especially was big on mastering the fundamentals. Maybe it was just that they didn't want to bias her towards any one particular thing.
She nods a little, silently, when Yumi mentions that she came up with her own cool stuff.
She blinks a little when Yumi tells her she can talk about what's bothering her if she wants, looking up. Her eyes are already wet, and as she processes what Yumi's said, takes one more blink... there's a tear rolling down her cheek. She looks down at her lap again.
"You've been really nice to me," she says, in a quiet and weak voice. "Y-you didn't have to be, and I don't know if I deserve it, but talking with you's the best thing that's happened to me since..." She cuts herself off again.
She falls silent for a moment. It's unclear if she's trying to actively make a choice of how to proceed... or simply trying to keep her composure. But after a moment, she reaches out to take Yumi's hand, holding it tight, while her other hand is still hugging herself.
"My grandpa's missing," she finally admits in a hoarse whisper. "He works for the Magic Association. Um... he left for a work trip, and hasn't come back, and Shiori's gone now too and I had to move into the dorms because I couldn't stay at home and I'm all by myself and it's all my fault and I just don't know what to do anymore and I just want him back." Once she made that first admission, the damn breaks, and everything else comes spilling out of her in a flood. Her voice speeds up as she tries to get all of it out before the sobbing starts.
She's clutching to Yumi's hand like a lifeline.
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
It could've been that. A solid education starts with fundamentals, right?
Yumi is willing to wait. She offered Raiko the choice for a reason; she can't know what's better for her, and it's not her place to insist... but neither is she willing to walk away and do nothing when she sees someone in pain. So, whether she's keeping her composure or trying to decide--
"It's not about 'deserve'," Yumi says of being nice, gently. The best thing? It must've been hard, if that's the case. But Yumi knows the difference one person can make.
Yumi's hand is a little chilly; she has bad circulation. But that'll change quickly enough with Raiko holding onto it. And Raiko explains...
Both missing. That makes sense, doesn't it? That a familiar would stay with him. "It's okay," Yumi says softly. "It's hard," she says. "..Even when there's not everything going on, moving into the dorms is pretty hard," she says, remembering her own early time there. What's her fault? "...I know the Magic Association pretty well, I do..." She considers how to say it, "A lot of extracurriculars with them. If he's working for them, I know they'll have someone looking out for him."
Yumi will be one of them, now. She has to do some research...
"It's hard to be by yourself. But now you've got a new friend, right?" She reaches over to place her other hand on Raiko's, curling her fingers around hers.
"It'll be OK. You don't have to have it all figured out right now. But you know? I live in the dorms here, too. I used to live on this floor, even! How about I show you a few things around when you're feeling better?"
"It's OK," she says again. "You're not alone, all right?"
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Raiko has less made a choice and just... reached the point where she's unable to hold anything back anymore. She discussed some of it with Michiko but... obviously she couldn't tell the nurse everything, even if you only excluded the magic stuff. But being here, being able to share her passion--her obession, really--with a fellow student who gets it...
"But I don't," she insists, about deserving, between hiccups and sobs. "I've made a mess of everything. My grades are terrible, I made my friends mad, nobody likes me, and now I have to be here in the middle of everything..." An explanation, of sorts, but yet not.
She doesn't much mind the cold hand. She's a fair bit distracted right now.
She just nods glumly to it being hard to move into the dorms. "Ayase-kun h-helped me move in, he's nice, but..." She nods, to the Magic Association having someone looking. "He k-keeps telling me they're looking, b-but my grandpa is super secretive, s-so they're not sure..." A wet sniffle.
And at Yumi's insistence that she has a new friend, she looks up to the older girl in wonder. Eyes wide, each blink spilling fresh tears down her cheeks.
And she crumbles, leaning heavily against the older girl and just letting everything out. She's not even talking anymore, just a sort of vague nodding in agreement to being shown around, though it's hard to separate from the way her shoulders heave with each sob. It's the sort of ugliest crying you desperately only try to do in private, but if you have to do it front of others, you hope for someone as supportive as Yumi's being.
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
It's an explanation that says enough, for now; Raiko is in a rough spot. The things Yumi guessed at are true, and more than that. Yumi doesn't argue with her further about it; she listens, instead. That, she thinks, is more important right now anyway.
Akinori Ayase... Yumi knows the name. She files that away for now, for someone to talk to. "I understand," Yumi says. Secretive... that does make it trickier.
So when Raiko crumbles, Yumi wraps arms around her and gives her a gentle hug. "It's okay," she says again, quietly. "...I know it's hard."
The gray-haired Yumi will just stay there for a while. Because that's the kind of witch she wants to be.
So it's Ayase she needs to ask about her grandpa. Yumi will remember that, too.
For now, though, she just stays as she is, and tries to provide what support she can.
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Raiko leans into Yumi as she gets hugged, and just spends a long time crying until she finally settles down once more. She's quiet for a while after the crying stops, except for some sniffles, though she doesn't try to move away from the hug.
"In 7th grade," she starts, in a somewhat hoarse voice, now. It hurts to admit this but... she feels like she ows Yumi an explanation now, at the very least. "I tried to show off a prototype I'd made for a group project. It... it didn't work. My best friend got mad at me, and... eventually we had a fight and broke up." There's a certain amount of numbness as she admits all of this. Or just utter exhaustion.
"Eventually we had a fight, stopped being friends... I... I got obsessed with making that work..." she doesn't gesture to it, doesn't move or look towards it, but it's not hard to imagine what she's referring to. "Without my friends to help me study I just... stopped trying." There's a hiccup as she sits and contemplates that statement for a moment. "Well, I try a little, but not enough."
"The other students in the Magic program think I'm a laughing stock, the kids in the regular classes can tell I've stopped trying... Grandpa and Shiori and the teachers kept telling me to apply myself, but I didn't... And then Grandpa went missing, then Shiori, and then I had to move in here, and..."
She's silent for a long few moments. Her voice drops to a whisper. "Now I'm alone, and I can't even ask Grandpa for advice anymore. I like fixing things but..." She closes her eyes. "I don't know how to fix this."
"I'm so pathetic."
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
Yumi can handle that. She waits, as Raiko cries it out, and stays with her for the moment. But eventually Raiko starts to explain. And so, the gray-haired girl hears her out. Exhaustion may well be right. But she doesn't interrupt. She listens about seventh grade, and then the fight, ad then the other students, and of course, Granpda and Shiori...
Yumi holds Raiko closer at that. "I don't know either," she admits. "That's a lot. A whole lot."
"I can see where it got that way, from what you're saying..."
"But you're not. You're just under a lot of pressure right now, OK? And you don't have to fix it all at once. You wouldn't take an engine and expect to just blink your eyes and have it fixed, right? You have to address every part individually."
"And you do that one at a time. So it's not OK, but it can be OK, right?"
"...I'm just one girl, but I'm with you, at least. We're friends now, right?"
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Raiko is dealing with a lot. Admittedly, a large part of her own making, though recent events have certainly tipped over what was already a precarious situation to begin with. Really, these are things she should have fixed a long time ago, but just kept ignoring.
She likes fixing things. She should have known better, but... it's not like there's a manual for human emotions, is there?
'A whole lot.' Raiko nods silently and just lets herself lean into the hug some more. "Yeah," is the only intelligble thing she has to say in response to that.
She's silent as Yumi tries to say she's not pathetic, just sniffling as she listens, all out of words for the moment. Her face is a mess, and her expression is a tossup between bone-deep tiredness or just a complete lack of capacity to feel. But when Yumi asks her that hypothetical about fixing an engine, there's just a little bit of a nod as she answers that question nonverbally, and then an oh-so-quiet, barely audible "... yeah..."
At the repeated insistence that they're friends, she finally opens her eyes again to look up at the older girl. She sniffles, and her voice is still scratchy and hoarse as she asks, in just as quiet a voice as before, "... you mean that...?"
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
But it's not too late, Yumi would say. ...Is saying, really. There's no manual, but it helps to bring someone else in.
Yumi doesn't have to guess at how overwhelming it all is on Raiko. But she seems to be getting through to her, she thinks--which is something of a relief.
Yumi smiles at Raiko when she looks up at her, though. "I mean it," she says. "I don't make a habit of listening to stuff like this from people who aren't my friends, right?" It's a little lame, but she tries it anyway. "Friends help each other out. So if you feel too lonely, you can drop by my dorm, too."
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
It is all entirely so overwhelming, such a large pile of problems to deal with where each one alone feels like some monumental task. And even just thinking about how to tackle them them as so hard when she felt like she'd been cast adrift, alone, into the world to fend for herself.
And despite all of that, miraculously, there is something to latch onto now. Both emotionally, and...
Raiko doesn't quite manage to smile as she nods her understanding, though there is the faintest sense that maybe some of her burden has lessened an infintessimal amount. She looks down again, staring into her lap as she tries to consider just what to do, and really... there's only one thing that comes to mind.
The younger girl shifts a little, and latches onto Yumi tight, like she never wants to let her go.
"Thank you," comes the eventual reply.
