[X] Plan Polite And Not So Polite Conversation
Breakfast isn't so much silent as it is awkward. The sight of Hijiri Kanna, struggling to eat her breakfast with only one arm, hangs over the table. You had hoped breakfast would pass smoothly, but her presence is just making things awkward for the rest of you, something which she seems to pick up on. "I'll be out of your hair soon," she says, standing and bowing, as if to excuse herself. "So don't feel like you shouldn't eat on my account."
"Nonsense, Hijiri-san," Oriko says, trying to lighten the mood at breakfast with a smile. "Don't feel like you have to run. Nobody is going to judge you if you need help eating." Hijiri Kanna says nothing, but silently sits back down. "Dearest, would you please help Hijiri-san with her breakfast?"
Kirika grumbles, but she leaves Oriko's side and scoots over next to Hijiri Kanna to help her.
"Um… So…" You want to say something, anything, to draw attention away from the sixth girl at the table, but you don't know what to say. "Mom, what are you planning on doing today?"
You deserve that frown your mother is giving you.
"Well, if the whole world weren't crashing down around our heads, I would have liked to be able to go out with my girls and watch over them while they harassed the local business owners for candy," Minako says, none too pleased about the change in plans. "I know today's usually Kirika's favourite holiday, so it really sucks that we won't get to do anything today. Instead, you girls have to make… War preparations, and I've got to pack to head over to my parents' while this all blows over."
"It really sucks, too," Kirika says. "I'd been looking forward to today all year, and thanks to stupid Sidonia, it's totally ruined."
You can't say that you're particularly a fan of Halloween; sure, free candy is nice, but the real draw for you is that it's an opportunity to spend an afternoon out with your family and friends. But that doesn't have to be Halloween-specific, not to you. "Maybe there's something else we could do together as a family, when this is all over," you say.
"It would have to be at least during the Christmas season," Archer says. "Don't forget, young lady, but starting as soon as we've beaten Sidonia, you're grounded."
"How could I forget." It isn't a question. It isn't even a fair punishment. You know Archer has plans to, when this is over, take you and Kirika to meet up with your mother, and spend a few days with her parents. You feel like that's going to be awkward, and nothing but an intrusion on your end. After all, you aren't their granddaughter. Heck, you've only met your mother's parents a handful of times.
But they always seem like such nice people whenever you do meet them. Maybe it won't be all bad.
"Anyway, yes, let's assume I was talking about after the holidays," you say. "Or during them, at the very least. Is there anything any of you would like us all to do together?"
"I mentioned this before, but I've always wanted to take you girls to see Fuyuki sometime," Archer says. "You know, show you the city where I grew up, introduce you to the people I used to know…" Archer looks around the table, expectantly, before adding "If you were interested, that is."
"I wouldn't mind," Minako says. "That sounds like it could be a lot of fun." Archer smiles at Minako's praise, and she turns to you and Kirika, asking "What do you two think about that?"
You don't mind – you'd like to at least give it some thought before jumping to conclusions, though – but before you have a chance to respond, Kirika asks "Can Oriko come with us, mom? Can she? Please?"
Minako's eyes dart from her daughter, to Oriko, and back. "I already feel like I'm imposing just by Kirika inviting me to visit with your parents after this,' Oriko says. "I'm sure it would be lovely to go to Fuyuki with all of you, Minako-san, but I'd just feel like I was intruding. Besides, if I went, then I'm sure Kirika would be paying more attention to me than to the sights; and if it's the holidays, I'll probably be visiting family in Italy with Caren-san anyway."
When she realises she's been caught rambling, Oriko stops herself, and offers a sheepish "I'm sorry, Minako-san. It does sound like it would be a lovely trip, but I don't think I could accept an invitation to join you."
Kirika pouts, but her pouting does nothing to change Oriko's mind. "Thank you anyway, Oriko," Minako says. "I'm sure it would have been lovely having you come with us, but if you don't think you'd be able to, then I understand." Leaning over in her seat, Minako offers Kirika a hug; Kirika accepts, but it does little to get her to stop pouting. "We'll do something with Oriko next time, Pumpkin," she says, "I promise."
Next time implies that there will be a next time.
Next time implies that you won't just fail the first time.
You cannot fail. You have to survive and make it past tomorrow. You have to.
"… I see, thank you. You're being a big help."
As soon as breakfast ended, you made your way to the guest bedroom of the Mikuni mansion in order to change. Even though you aren't planning on going to school today, your school uniform is the only thing you can bring yourself to wear; everything else in your wardrobe just reminds you of Madoka. You return your phone to your pocket, and fall backwards onto the living room couch. It's barely morning, and you're already feeling exhausted just thinking about how much you need to get done today.
"Who was that?"
Hijiri Kanna had remained relatively quiet during breakfast, as she focused more on eating, and on the simple act of how to eat with only one arm; that was fine with you. You and your family were occupied talking about other things. But now that you're finished eating, and you're finished with your phone call, you can address Hijiri Kanna.
"That was Matou Sakura," you say to Hijiri Kanna. "She's going to meet us when we head down to the Saints' base to take a look at Nightingale and see what she can do to prevent Sidonia from using Command Seals on her." Which is a problem you wouldn't have if Hijiri Kanna hadn't decided to tear her maker's arm off and deliver it right to Sidonia's front door.
Hijiri Kanna looks anywhere but in your direction, but you don't need to see her face to see the way her left hand paws at the phantom of her right arm. Her hand meets the empty sleeve of her hoodie, and you see the corners of her mouth turn, just so.
Hijiri Kanna would still have both her arms if she hadn't delivered Kanna Niko's arm to Sidonia.
"Anyway, her grandfather is an accomplished mage, who knows more about Command Seals and the servant system than the rest of us combined," you say, returning the conversation to the topic at hand. "So she's got a lot of information available to help us come up with a solution. Nightingale may not have any direct use in combat, but she's not an asset we want to fall into Sidonia's hands. So we need to figure out a way to block her off from Sidonia using Command Seals on her."
Hijiri Kanna nods her head, but several seconds pass in silence before she can bring herself to say "I'm sorry."
You aren't sure if she's actually sorry, or whether she only feels bad because her actions have cost her her arm and her home, but you won't press her on it. Instead, you say "Now that you've been cleared up from any lingering Grief, I need you to tell me if there's anything of Sidonia's you knew about that you might have forgotten to tell me about last night." Hijiri Kanna looks at you, and you continue, asking her "Were there any other familiars, or other assets of hers, that it might have slipped your mind to mention to us?"
"Maybe?" Hijiri Kanna sounds unsure of herself. "I'd occasionally see schematic drawings of… Various creatures, that she might have been working on turning into familiars, but all her notes were written in Polish, and I don't know how many of them she actually made, or if they were abandoned before she got around to making them." That's less than you'd hoped to hear, but it's understandable given the circumstances. "She'd often write her notes in Polish, or speak in Polish to her familiars; maybe she was coming up with other plans that I wasn't aware of, that I just never caught on to because I couldn't understand her."
"If I showed you pictures of the familiars we've encountered so far, would you be able to tell us if any of them looked familiar?"
"Maybe."
So that's what you do. You sit there, and for the next several minutes you draw, making rough sketches of the familiars you've seen Sidonia employ against you. This is a job better suited for Madoka; she was always the better artist than you were. "The big one," Hijiri Kanna says, once you've shown her your work. "That one's not familiar to me. Maybe it's a different version of something else she was working on?"
"That one was made when several smaller familiars merged together," you say. "Did you ever see something similar to it? Even slightly?"
Hijiri Kanna takes your drawing of the giant dwarf, and squints at it. "The arm turned into a hammer, right?" You nod your head. "I'm not familiar with this one, but it's… Similar, enough, to another one I saw her working on, once. The shape is similar; it was definitely shaped like a person, but it was… Meant to be taller, I think, and the proportions were off; more upper body mass and a wider head, but longer, skinnier legs, and it had a spear instead of a hammer." Hijiri Kanna looks through your drawings again, saying "I don't see that one anywhere in here. Maybe she abandoned it in favour of that other one you showed me."
"No, that's not one we've encountered before," you say. "We've ransacked her workshop several times, but the one you're talking about doesn't sound like anything I've ever seen in her notes before. Maybe we just never came across it, or maybe she threw it out and recycled the concept to be that one." You collect your drawings and place them in a single stack. Maybe you'll leave them with Hijiri Kanna, in case she thinks of something else after you've returned her to the Saints. "What about the Evil Nuts Sidonia tasked you with planting? Do you remember where any might be hiding that might not have hatched yet?"
"No, I don't," Hijiri Kanna says, shaking her head. "She'd include small maps with the locations she'd want me to plant them in, but after I was done I always destroyed them, to make sure nobody could find out what I was doing. It's been over a week since the last time she asked me to plant any for her, and in that time…" Hijiri Kanna's hand once again finds its way to the phantom of her missing limb, and she says "I've had other things on my mind."
"I understand," you say. You imagine it would be hard for anyone to survive a week, homeless and living out of a cardboard box; and that's before you add crippling pain, a useless arm, and the constant mental burden of creeping Grief corruption slowly killing you. How Kyouko managed to survive three years living on the streets is no small miracle, and she had magic and a clean bill of health on her side. "If there's nothing else you can tell me, then we should probably get going soon."
"There might be some in the sewers that haven't hatched," Hijiri Kanna says, as if talking will convince you to forestall her judgement. "But the sewers were infested with her shrieking spider familiars by the time she kicked me out, and being around them to drop Evil Nuts off in the sewers was never something I enjoyed doing. Maybe there's some in the park, or across the river in the industrial area by the power station. I haven't heard about too many incidents happening in those areas, so it might be worth it to check them out, but I'm just guessing; the ones I planted there could have already hatched for all I know."
The sewers, the park, and the industrial area across the river. "I'll keep those in mind," you say, as you debate whether or not it's worth it to check on what is only a possibility, against everything else you have to do today. "We should be heading out now," you say. "I need to speak with Matou Sakura, and you need to speak with your creator and the rest of the Saints."
[ ] Wat do?
