2022-12-14 - Counting on Each Other
| Title: Counting on Each Other | |
|---|---|
| Summary: After her successful fight against Wester's vending machine Nakewameke at the Awayuki Shopping Mall, Raiko goes to tell Yumi about it. They also discuss their preparations to find the source of Conflagria's magic. | |
| Who: | |
| Where: Dormitories (Tama Outer City - Infinity Institute) | |
| OOC - IC Date: 12/14/2022 - Tuesday, February 16, 2016 | |
.******************** Tama Outer City - Infinity Institute ********************.
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+* Dormitories +*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
The main dormitories of the Infinity Institute are, like most other school
services, within the monolithic tower itself. The accommodations are
slightly more homey than the class and club levels, though, with dorm levels
having warmer lighting and wood paneling. Built-in furnishings are fairly
ordinary: A desk and bed for each occupant, a Japanese-style table for
sitting around, and, most luxuriously, a small kitchenette. Each room houses
two or three students, with separate floors for boys and girls, with floors
arranged by grade level. Each floor also has a live-in teacher of the
appropriate gender to make sure nothing goes too terribly wrong.
The communal accommodations are fairly lavish. The baths on each level are
enormous, laid out in the fashion of large public Japanese baths and
arranged with artful stones and greenery like a resort. Exactly which kind
of resort depends on the school level. Similarly, the gymnasium has lifting
machines that can support loads of multiple dozen tons and treadmills that
at least claim to be capable of going up to sixty miles an hour.
Although accommodations can be made for talented younger children,
officially speaking the dorm only accepts students once they reach middle
school. Although attending Infinity is free due to its charter status, the
boarding costs are steep, so poorer students tend to live at home or seek
scholarships. Much to Infinitys fiscal delight, the dorms remain a popular
choice for those who can afford it; parents consider them a safe and healthy
environment, and students enjoy the relative lack of supervision.
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Raiko could have sent a text, but there was too much to gush about and she was headed back to Infinity anyway, so... she made do with containing her excitement. Though there had been that rather ominous-sounding note at the end, but she wasn't quite entirely certain what to make of it. Or of Westar's overall plan, either, which had seemed...
Okay, she wasn't going to complain about an bad actor not being as effective in their evil deeds as they could be, but still... it was weird. And made her wonder if there was something deeper at play.
There were other reasons to see Yumi, too. Their own preparations and plan hadn't progressed quite as smoothly as they'd hoped. She'd been spending as much spare time with those as she could, but with exams coming up, and still trying to master all of her other powers, and a dozen other things, well... She felt like she hadn't been quite this busy in a long time. It was exhausting. But the good kind of exhaustion that came from actually accomplishing things, not just... being tired.
At Infinity, Raiko knocked on Yumi's door, a barely-suppressed grin on her face s she bounced on teh balls of her feet. Shiori--who had refused to go back into her backpack--sat primly next to her, exuding a much more dignified air than her young charge.
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
Yumi has papers and tomes (both conventional and scattered across the visible tabs of her tablet) strewn about the coffee table, a picture of a painting and a number of objects both her own and others' there as she sets up a spell. There are many exams coming up! ...But Yumi has a different exam in mind, at the moment, planning to seek out the source of Conflagria's power afflicting her friend Takahiro.
But before she does that, she ahs someone at the dor! Yumi pauses at the knock, and practically feels the excitement as she opens up the door with a "Oh, hi!"
Tama is out and about at the moment, doing important familiar and cat things. But Yumi...
"Come on in, you two. Something good happen?" Pause. "...Something bad happen?" She's not sure which but it looks like something.
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Raiko beams up at Yumi as she answers the door, "Hi, Yumi-chan!"
"Greetings, dear," says Shiori, rather more sedately.
They both enter when invited, and Raiko nods excitedly at the question of 'something good', then pauses, considers, and wobbles her hand a bit, but waits until Yumi opens the door to elaborate. "There was a vending machine monster! At the mall! I mean, that's not good, we defeated it, and that is good! There were a bunch of other magical girls there, and they were so awesome."
Shiori, for her part, pads in, and finds a convenient high spot to perch and rest. "And more importantly, nobody was seriously injured."
"Yeah! That too!"
Raiko shrugs off her backpack, setting it down out of the way, "Oh! And one of them mentioned you! Well, kinda. She said, 'Is that a magic staff?' and I said 'Yeah, it was my staff, and that I was the Witch of Wise Levin' and she said 'Oh, like the Witch of Lost Ivy?' ... Didn't get her name, though. But she had a sword."
Raiko then glances over to... well, all of the stuff that's been laid out, and gets a little bit more somber and serious. "How is all the spell preparation coming along? Is there anything I can help you with?"
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
Yumi closes the door behind them, moves ovr towards the kitchen area where she can set out something for Raiko to drink--and at this point she takes the excuse to top off her own, too, while she listens. She thinks about it though. A vending machine monster...
"Oh, I see!" She smiles. "I'm glad you're getting to meet some of the others, even if the circumstances are kind of..." Well, dangerous! But everyone turned out fine, as it turns out. "Glad to hear everybody was fine."
Mentioned her? "Sword... Hmm. What kind of sword? Was it big and huge and angry? If so, that's Mikoto-chan! She's a good friend of mine."
The stuff... "It's almost ready, I think! Your suggestions earlier helped me a lot. But I think we're about there."
"But I need a break anyway, I think. Meet anybody else exciting?"
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Raiko follows Yumi over to the kitchen area, willing to accept whatever Yumi has to offer in the way of drinks. "Yeah! It was cool getting to fight with them and... I'm just glad I was able to help out. Um... it was good that Shiori was there, too. Thanks for coming along. Sorry about the backpack, but with the dog park there..."
"Think nothing of it, dear," says Shiori, very slightly in a way that says she wishes the backpack thing had not been brought up again. "I had a feeling the Staff might be needed, and so I accompanied you."
"Still, thanks, Shiori!"
She looks thoughtful for a moment. "Um... it had a lot of black and some red in it? I don't know if I'd call it angry, but... there was kind of a lot going on, so..."
"Oh, that's good," she says of the preparations almost being complete. She perks up even more as Yumi says her suggestions were helpful, then looks down, a bit bashfully, but with a smile on her face. "I'm glad they helped," she says simply.
"Oh! Let's see. There was this girl who summoned this huge mechanical wolf that looked super cool! Oh, and these other two girls were amazing, they kept doing all of these combo attacks together, and even did a big one together to finish off the vending machine!"
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
Yumi offers a can of something sweet and that's good enough for the moment. She smiles a little. "Backpack cat, huh?" she says. Then she grins at Shiori. "...Right right, didn't hear a thing~!" SHe will let it go for now. But the staff was needed, and--
"That sounds right," Yumi says of the sword. "The sword's name is Miroku. He's very important to Mikoto-chan. And they're a great team." There is... Well. There's some complication there but it's fine.
"Yeah!"
But the mechanical wolf--not familiar to Yumi, though she knows girls who do things like that. But two girls with combo attacks... "Actually," Yumi says, "If you remember the Stadium... I think we could probably develop or discover some cool combos ourselves, like we did there!"
"Just, you know. When we have the time to look for them!"
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Shiori just looks away, pretending she didn't hear that... though a moment later she does surreptitiously look around for Tama, hoping the elder familiar hasn't heard that particular bit.
"Mikoto and Miroku..." Raiko says to herself, to commit the names to memory. "They definitely seemed like really good fighters together."
Raiko looks up again, enthusiasm surging back. "That's be really cool! I mean--" she glances over at Shiori. "Well, it would also be really good if we were really effective fighting together, just... for the sake of protecting people." Another glance, and she drops her voice to a whisper, "But we can be both, right?"
There's an earflick from Shiori. She probably heard that, though Raiko doesn't seem to have noticed.
Raiko nods excitedly as she takes a seat and then takes the can, opening it. "No kidding. With everything going on I've been exhausted... And I kiiiind of want to start researching summoning spells now, too, but that's gonna have to wait for everything else..."
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"Oh, they are," Yumi says of Miroku and Mikoto. Sometimes that's the problem... but that's a matter for another day.
Raiko's enthusiasm brings a smile to Yumi's face, despite all the danger and difficulty and urgency of her quest for the moment. But, as she looks between Raiko and Shiori talking together, she grins back. "I think we can do both," she says. "We've barely scratched the surface of what the Staves can do in harmony! So why not?"
"And we might need that kind of extra firepower," she says.
But Yumi takes a seat too, walkinga round and itting at the bar. "Yeah," Yumi says, "There's a lot going on already. But I'm glad you had a good experience. We can do a lot more together than apart--us in particular, but us and the others, too."
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Raiko doesn't get excited a lot. Yumi's had plenty of chances to see her more usual self, but despite the danger... Well, she helped, and she didn't have to deal with the fear of Yumi almost dying for once, so all in all... pretty good day.
She grins as Yumi agrees with her on both being effective and looking cool. And then nods at needing that extra firepower. "Yeah, I'm... trying to get a better control over the staff's magic. I feel like I understand electricity, but the air part is... still taking some getting used to." She looks down at her lap, her voice quiet but firm. "But I'm gonna keep practicing it. You're counting on me, and... and the people in the mall today were counting on me, and..."
And her grandfather is, too, wherever he is.
She looks up to Yumi again and nods. "Right! I... wouldn't be able to do any of this at all if it hadn't been for you, so... I wanna do whatever I can to help."
After a moment she adds, "Well, and Shiori, too, I didn't mean--"
"It's fine, dear. I understand," replies the familiar.
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
A very good day indeed it would seem!!
"You're doing really well," Yumi says. "Your strog bond with the Staff is really clear." She's going to keep practicing, and...
"That's right," Yumi answers, the gray-haired girl smiling as she reaches up to adjust her glasses. "I'm counting on you. And I know you won't let me down, too."
She smles at the both of them, at Shiori's understanding, but, "And I think that means we're about ready. Soon, we can head out. I have a place to start; once the enchantment is ready, we'll be good to go."
