2023-06-08 - Spilling the Hot Chocolate
| Title: Spilling the Hot Chocolate | |
|---|---|
| Summary: After the first day of finals, Raiko heads over to Yumi's dorm so they can talk, catch up a bit, and share various magical news with each other. | |
| Who: | |
| Where: Dormitories (Tama Outer City - Infinity Institute) | |
| OOC - IC Date: 6/8/2023 - Wednesday, March 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 resists the urge to yawn as she trudges to Yumi's dorm, but fails and yawns anyway. She's still in her school uniform, with her backpack, and is carrying a tray from Starbooks with two extra large drinks in it.
It's been... rather hectic, academically. Cramming constantly for a month to get ready for entrance exams, only to then turn around and dive right back into studying for finals. So, so much studying. And still trying, as best she can, to try and catch up with all the stuff she's missed over the past three years diving into her obsession.
And of course, there's still her new magical girl duties on top of that. Figuring out her enchantment was freeing, in a way, since she wasn't stuck on Shiori being around for every disaster. But on the other hand, Shiori's presence was often very comforting. She'd had to face several challenges on her own, which was... scary, certainly. Though Mami had said...
She blushed a little thinking of it.
But all the studying meant she'd missed seeing Yumi some, too--Yumi had gone to TAF, and she so desperately wanted to go, but she just couldn't justify the time investment, especially not with being so behind.
Maybe next year.
And now, the first day of finals was over. She should go back to studying but she needed a break. So she'd textd Yumi about hanging out, offered to bring drinks (she got hot chocolate for herself, as always), and was now at her door. She carefully shuffled the tray so she could hold it with one hand and knock on the door with the other. "Hiii, Yumi-chan," she calls out tiredly.
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
Yumi will also have hot chocolate this time!!
Because finals are rough. Yumi for her part is in the 'easy' year relative to next, but it's still a lot of work making sure she has all her work--especially including the occasional day or period out of class that she ends up at the nurse's office or just sleeping through. Which means makeup. And then there's also magical girl issues, and witch issues, and and and.
Yumi needs a break, too. SO she's happy to open the door for Raiko and say, "Hiii, Raiko-chan."
Then, "Ooh drinks. Nice. She reaches out to lighten Raiko's burden and then steps back, allowing her into the room, past the bar, into the wide-set living room, complete with nice couches, little pillows, and so on.
"How's it going?"
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Raiko smiles gratefully as Yumi takes the drinks, and then steps inside, closing the door behind her. She sets her backpack down by the couch... and then falls over face-first onto it, before rolling onto her side so she can look at Yumi as she talks.
"I'm tiiiiired. I feel like I've done nothing but studying for forever, now... First entrance exams, now finals, and I'm still trying to catch up on... everything." She yawns widely and thinks back to that day's exams.
"... I think things went okay with my exams today, though? I... well, better than they would've before..." Before she met Yumi and started trying, that is--before she started trying to be Responsible.
She makes a half-hearted attempt to cover her mouth as she yawns again. "How're you, Yumi-chan? How was the convention? Did you see anything cool, there?"
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"Awww," Yumi says, and then laughs a little. "I can tell." Studying for forever... It felt that way for Yumi back then, too. "I'm glad! I think you're gonna do well." For the same reason that Raiko is finding it--that she's trying more!
But that yawn prompts Yumi to set the hot chocolate down on the coffee table and walk around to the chair nearby and flop into it. She doesn't have to yawn herself; it's kind of fun to be the one with energy.
She siiiips her hot chocolate. "I'm pretty good. I've been studying a lot too, but I did get to do the convention, and that was fun. Watched a lot of new shows, tried a few panels. I did see some cool things, but.... Probably the most relevant to you is not next season's new show!"
Beat, "Met an Ogre. A friend of mine took care of it with me, but it was a weird one. Icy. Most of them we've seen so far like fire..."
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Raiko is trying, but it still takes a while to see any of that effort pay off, especially in the form of exam scores. Though her homework has had a little bit of an uptick... "I hope so," she says. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Yumi-chan."
She gestures vaguely to her backpack. "I got a couple of muffins, too. I couldn't remember what was okay for you, but they're Starbooks muffins, so... You can have one, if you want."
"Oh cool, what panels did you see? Most years I try to keep up with the new shows but I've been so busy lately... And... I dunno. Haven't really been able to get excited about magical girl shows and games recently, just given..." she gestures a bit. The whole 'being an actual magical girl' thing.
But something relevant to her that isn't a new show? She blinks and looks up at Yumi, still laying on her side on the couch. "What's that?"
Her heart seizes. "What?!" Adrenaline gets her to sit up. "Was anybody hurt?! Are you okay?" But she and a friend of hers took care of it, and she lets out a sigh of relief. "I'm glad you had someone there to back you up..." She frowns a little. "Huh... Icy ogre... wonder if they had to do something special to summon that, then, since we haven't seen it before..."
She grabs a pillow and flumps back over again, putting it under her head. "Well, I guess I have something to share with you, too, then. You know those tellun plants that were all the rage?" A beat. "Turns out they were evil. I think they were draining Jindai for sustenance. And also they tried to steal a bunch of peoples' Pure Hearts."
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"Anytime. I mean it!"
Muffins... "Oh, that's great. We should have those in a bit! As long as it's not grapefruit it should be OK." Hers beat, "Hmm. Yeah, that's fair. Oh, I saw one on cosplay, which was pretty good, and another on..." There's a few! More than one mighit expect! But she doesn't dwell too long on them because ofthe excitement issue.
And then, of course--
"It's OK, it's OK!" She smiles. "Yeah. It was fine." She decides not to mention the rude fox. It might muddy the issue. "Maybe; there's a lot we don't know. But Tama has mentioned there's ogres we haven't seen..."
Flump. "Oh, wow?" Yumi says. "Yikes. Thaaat's terrible!" She almost got one of those... But it clashed with the decor in her room.
"I guess you found out the hard way?"
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Raiko is too tired to get up and get them from her backpack at this moment, so later is good. "Nah, I didn't get grapefruit. Blueberry and chocolate chip." She pauses. "... Annnd a poppyseed for later."
"Doing some cosplay might be fun sometime," muses Raiko.
"Guess every ogre is a new ogre at some point..." she muses. "You guys took care of it really quickly, though. I didn't see anything on the news about the convention." Or rather, anything about whatever mass delusion everyone would have believed about it. "Glad you guys got through it okay, though..."
"Yeaaaaaah. There was an event, where you could decorate the pot for a tellun, and I went there because..." She blushes a little. "I was kiiiinda maaaaaybe getting you one as a gift? Then they started growing and stealing peoples' Pure Hearts. There were a bunch of amazing magical girls that showed up to put a stop to it, though."
"Annnnnd..." A long pause. "Teruno-san was in on it, I think."
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
Yumi's not particularly hungry at the moment anyway. "Sounds great," Yumi says of the muffins, and--"Ooh yes. Planning ahead!"
"New to us, anyway," Yumi says. "Tama says that they're all ancient. They don't so much make new ogres as summon different ones. That's how it apparently works. So they might have others we don't know about."
Nothing on the news... "Yeah, it was chasing an animal," Yumi explains, "And we managed to corner it in an area where nobody was. Pretty rough, but we came through!"
Then, an event... "Oh, that sounds nice," Yumi says, and beams back. "That's really thoughtful! Even if I'm glad you didn't, since, evil plant. But the thought counts."
Growing, and stealing Pure Hearts...
"That's--" Pause. "Wait, really? Lulu Teruno? That's..."
She pauses. "I always thought PE was a little evil, but... that's something else."
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
"That makes sense," she says of summoning ogres. "The Sulfuric Ogre seemed to remember us--or at least one of my ancestors, when we fought her... so maybe sometimes its just the same one getting summoned again and again?"
"An animal...?" Raiko blinks a little. "Okay, I know they're always hungry, but why was it chasing an animal and not like... anybody else at the convention? I mean, not that I want anybody to get hurt or anything, of course, but I'm just saying..."
"Yeaaah... you would've liked the pot I designed for you. Or, well, I hope you would've. I tried to do it up as a witch's blessing for plant growth. ... Which I guess was a little silly since they turned out to be evil vampire and heart-stealing plants, but I learned it recently and wanted to put it to use..."
"Yeeep. Called herself Tellu, of the Witches 5, and... eventually she merged with all of the plants? I, uh... I'm not sure she survived."
A long, somber pause. "She said she was trying for a promotion, and offered me her old spot. You know, because I'm a witch and all. I turned her down."
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"Yeah. I think that's exactly how it is," Yumi answers.
An animal! "Well, a magic animal," Yumi admits. "And kind of a jerk. But we saved her, anyway. I think it's just that they found that animal first, and... fixated."
"Aw. That does sound pretty nice! I'd like a plant potted like that. ...But like you say, not that one. Maybe some nice flowers or something."
The Witches 5... Yumi frowns. "I see..." She shakes her head. "Sometimes that's how it is. It sucks, but we can't always hold back when other lives are on the line. So I thnik you did the right thing."
Pause. "Heh. ...Good for you," Yumi says. "Turning her down. That's not our kind of Witch, right?"
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
"Oh, a magical animal... I guess that makes a little more sense..." She ponders for a moment. "Do you think she was there to see the convention, too?"
Raiko smiles up to Yumi and nods. "Okay! Maybe after finals are over I can try and find something nice. Er... Promise you'll pretend to be a little surprised? Since it was supposed to be a gift, originally?"
She sighs a little and nods as Yumi says she did the right thing. "Thanks. There wawsn't really a choice once she merged with all of the Telluns and became a giant... plant tentacle monster thing, so... And we couldn't just let her get away with all those Pure Hearts, so..."
She does smile a little when YUumi agrees with her rejecting the job. "That's right!" she says, and even though she's tired there's a bit of determination in her voice as she says that. "I told her she gave witches a bad name. I tried to be all cool and dramatic about it but it's really hard to think of cool lines when you're in the middle of a fight."
"They make it look so easy in anime..."
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"I--" Yumi opens her mouth, and closes it. "I doubt it, but maybe? I can't imagine that one doing much for fun..."
She smiles back--and then laughs. "Okay, okay. I'll try." But gifts are nice either way!
Yumi nods, though. "Yeah... Transformations like that..." Yumi shakes her head. "That's awful. But you're right! People need those. And whatever they can do with them I don't want to see, for sure."
Determination... Yumi sees it, and she's proud to see it. "It is, isn't it?" Yumi says. "I don't manage it all the time myself..."
A laugh. "They do, huh?" Yumi sips her hot chocolate. "I guess it's not practical to just come up with them first," she muses.
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
"Well, you stopped that animal from being eaten so I guess either way it works out..."
Raiko does smile a bit when Yumi promises to try and act surprised. She really did want to do something nice for Yumi after everything she's done for her.
"Yeah, me neither... They all went back to their owners, though, once we... defeated Tellu." Careful word choice, there. "There might be more of those Witches 5 out there, though..."
Raiko finally pushes herself up, reaching over to grab her own hot chocolate and sip at it. "Mmmm... Yeahhh... you gotta tailor the lines to the situation, you know? Unless you have a catchphrase or a motto or something. Those can be prewritten, but it's nice if you can modify them to fit the situation."
She says that with all the conviction of a studied academic.
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"Yeah."
She is happy enough to do her best there. As for the Hearts, "That's good. That's how it usually works, I think. I've... dealt with things that take Pure Hearts before." Then she pauses. 'Defeated'. That's very careful indeed. "Yeah. Should be four more." She sounds like she's not just saying that because 'Witches 5' though, but perhaps from experience.
Mmmm hot chocolate. "Oh, yeah..." Yumi gets a little mischief in her eyes. "is that so?" she wonders. "Well, maybe we should work on that. When you're done with finals."
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
"Kind of scary to think that someone can just... take something so precious from people... And not only can, but would." She shakes her head. "Sounds like it... Unless they've already defeated some of the others, I guess? I didn't get a chance to stick around and ask the other magical girls about it."
She lights up and gives a very eager nod at that suggestion. "Yeah! We should! I've been thinking about that! We could have like... a speech that we each give part of, maybe even trade off lines back and forth, or we could have some quick catchphrase to introduce ourselves when we arrive at a battle. Maybe some sort of a theme? Witches would be obvious but but we could also do something else--like justice, or harmony, the power of nature, something like that."
She might have thought about that already.
"... Oh, right. Yumi-chan, I've been meaning to ask. You're in the Magic Association, right...? Do they... know about you and Lost Ivy?"
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"It is." Yumi agrees seriously. But, "Not that I know of, anyway. If there's four more and that one was that dangeorus, though... Well. We'd better be ready."
A good suggestion. "Hm!" Yumi considers. "That could be good. I might lose track of a whole speech trading back and forth, but having some stuff ready about ourselves would be good. Especially the nature angle. I think my Staff would like that one."
Just a smidge.
"Mm-hm," Yumi answers. "They do. It comes in pretty handy--they can help with things sometimes."
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
"Guess I'd better keep up my training, then... I hope they don't try anything until after finals, though."
Nature might be the winning topic, which is fine, because they all have elemental powers. "Okay! Let's talk about it after finals, then. It'll be... um... fun? I mean, not that fighting evil is fun or anything, don't get my wrong, but if we're doing it anyway, and you know having mottos could be inspirational too and like set people at ease or maybe strike fear into the hearts of our enemies so they could be useful maybe?"
She's rambling.
"O-oh, okay." She sounds a little surprised, but not that surprised. "I met another magical girl who... well, there were these monsters, and... well, long story short, it turns out she's in the Magic Association too. She mentioned there was some information about the monsters we were fighting that the Association has, but that they probably wouldn't give me access to stuff like that unless they knew I was a magical girl, so..."
She blushes a little. "She was really nice."
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"Hopefully! That'd be good, anyway." Yumi isn't eager to try to balance both at once, either...
"Sure. It'll be fun," Yumi agrees. And a team-building exercise, maybe! But maybe it dosn't work if you say that's what you're doing, so Yumi doesn't. "We're going to be doing it anyway, after all."
"Oh, yeah?" Yumi asks. "Hmmm. Yeah, we do have a lot of info on things like that. But it's kept out of the hands of your average apprentice--too dangerous, they say. And they're probably right. But girls like us... Well, we need to know."
She smiles. "Glad you had a good experience. It's nice when they're nice, isn't it?"
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Raiko is just excited to be doing something with Yumi, secret team-building exercise or no. "Yeah! And... maybe we could go do something fun sometime, after finals and just hang out? As long as there's no big emergencies, at least."
She nods, "Yeah... so... do you think it's a good idea, then? How did you go about telling them about your secret identity?"
"Yeah, she was... really nice..." She blushes a little harder but takes a sip of her hot chocolate to try and keep herself from saying anything anything else. "Oh, and... we saw each other transform, so I guess she knows my secret identity, too... It... still feels weird having other people know..."
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"That'd be nice," Yumi answers, and smiles about it to boot. "We'll figure something out when we have more space to breathe."
But... "I do, but..." Hm. "What worked for me might not work as well for you; a lot of times they know more than you think, though. I could introduce you to some of the right people, maybe."
Really nice... Hmmm! "Oh yeah? Well, that's good." She seems to be amused at something, but it's good-natured at least. "It's not so weird to me; I got used to it a long time ago. We can do more together when we can contact each other more easily."
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
"Okay! I'm looking forward to that."
Sometimes they know more than you think. "Hmm... I guess that's possible. Grandpa's a member of the magic association, after all. I'd... Well, normally I'd ask him, but..."
But she can't.
But Yumi offers to introduce her. "That'd be helpful. I don't really know what the... I mean, is there a procedure for this kind of thing, anyway? Though... Maybe I could ask Ayase-san..."
"I guess I could ask Shiori, too. Maybe she knows something."
She's lost in thought for a moment, but she catches Yumi's amused attitude and blinks, blushing a little harder. "Wh-what's so funny? Nothing happened!" But she nods, "Yeah, that's true... though there are still some magical girls who try really hard to protect their identities... I can understand why they might feel that way, too."
<Pose Tracker> Yumi Ohzora [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"Right." Yumi is sympathetic, but not going to drag that out, either. They can move on.
"I mean, there might be? But there's a lot more magical girls running around than there used to be. It's a whole... thing, in our history. The Association can tell you more." She pauses. "That might be a good idea."
Shiori might know something, too; Yumi nods along. And then--
"Ahah. Nothing, it's just cute. You seem to think pretty highly of her."
"That does make sense," Yumi says. "But I think it's more important to do that when you don't have allies. In that case... Yeah, for sure."
<Pose Tracker> Raiko Takashima [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
"What if the procedure involves asking what the procedure is, because the only reason someone would be interested is if they were a magical girl...? Well, I guess they could be a friend or an ally of a magical girl, but still..."
"But I'll talk to them and see what they think."
Raiko glances away. "O-of course! She was brave and cool and was really supportive and kind a-a-and th-that's all it is!"
But she does look back to Yumi and nods, after that. "I'm glad I have you to help me through learning how to be a magical girl, Yumi-chan. And, well, through everything, really. And I wanna make sure I can help you, too!"
