"I think that might be good," Sabrina decides finally. She grins at you, and you blush a little bit. "I'll release the channeling for now, and we'll set down and try that, yeah? Help me let Kazumi and the others know?"
You nod as Sabrina lets out her breath and begins to slow the griefplane. The jellyfish-tendrils of your ribbon net hang loosely over a far building, but that's fine for now. You sigh and nestle into Sabrina's side, the washing sensation of your soulhug with her threatening to completely overwhelm you; not that you find yourself really minding. Sabrina says something to Hijiri, but you're not paying much attention.
Then...
Sabrina squeezes your hand. "Act natural," she says. There's a slight chill down your back, and through your incredibly familiar link you can feel her slight edge of anticipation and the barest hints of worry. You cast your net wider, trying to pull yourself out of the drug-like haze the soulhug has you in.
"I think Anri might be nearby," Sabrina says, linking you into a group chat with Mikuni, Kazumi, and the Pleiades. "I think. It's more a guess than anything else."
That wakes you up. If Anri is nearby, she's trying to interrupt you and Sabrina being heroes... And the soulhug. Neither of which are what you want.
"-Are they even my family?" Hijiri is asking bitterly, scrubbing at her eyes with the heel of her hand. Was she crying?
"Sure they are," Sabrina says, and you nod along as Sabrina starts to drop her... What was it? Mobile Opression Fortress. "Family is blood, yes, and I don't doubt you share that, and hey. Family is also what you choose. I don't know 'em, but you tell me. You want to stay with them, right?"
"What?" Kazumi yells, all but right in your virtual ear. "Where?"
"It's just a guess,"Sabrina says urgently, not letting any of the internal conversation show on her face as you watch Hijiri grimace. "Just based on how Hijiri's acting. Don't spook her, if she's here."
"We have forewarning," You say cooly. "If she attacks us, we'll be fine - at least for a minute or two until you arrive." Which is true, if by 'we' you mean Anri and by fine you mean 'not deceased'. She's interrupting hug time. Nobody interrupts Mami Tomoes hug time.
"We'll get closer?" Miki asks. "So we can back you up if need be." You start to reply in the affirmative - Miki has been good to have around before - but then Mirai cuts you off.
"I'm moving in!" Mirai barks, ferocity lighting her normally demure voice.
"Mirai, no, hold off!" Kazumi snaps, her tone obviously lifted directly from your old scolding back when she was your Kohai. "Remember what Miss Oriko said!"
Since Kazumi and Sabrina have control, you decide to continue expanding your ribbon network. You trust the both of them. "I mean... look, I'm just guessing here," Sabrina says slowly as you finally set down. "But I'm pretty sure you don't want to play along with Niko. Your family is your family, but staying with them feels like it's exactly what she wants, right?"
You take a moment to squeeze her hand. "I'll start now, while you talk. We want to distract her, right?"
"We do," She agrees. The sound of her voice reminds you somehow of silk covering steel, which is fine by you. Admittedly, Sabrina has probably even more silk than you do; you have no idea how she manages to get along with Kyouko, who was all steel even back in your glory days.
You push out with your magic, weaving together the threads of your soul into a expanding web of tiny, nearly invisible golden vines. Between those go "decoys", which are large and visible, the most generic sort of ribbon you could think of and designed especially for fooling new girls into thinking that's the only kind of ribbon you can make.
Then come even thinner threads, tiny and so fragile that anything stronger than a slight breeze would break them. These are designed to notify you of someone passing through them while being thin and small enough to be invisible and effectively intangible.
The network continues to grow, out and out and out. You've never really pushed this far since Sabrina got here, or even quite before, since you were always worried about grief seeds. Your magic notifies you when you reach your limit, over a kilometer away.
"I'm ready," You say, and Sabrina looks at you like you're the only girl in the world.
"Alright," She tells Hijiri, nodding. "Hijiri, I might be a bit distracted, but I'm still listening, alright?"
Sabrina's magic courses through your ribbons in full force. The sheer Sabrina being pressed into your mind makes you gasp slightly, the world seeming to fade out in favor of something more expressionist. Every color in the world seems like her, and like it represents her feelings for you. The deep purple of the grief around you is the color of affection, the yellows in Hijiri's hair looks like the gleam in Sabrina's eye when she looks at you. The blue of the sky through the windshield even aches in a romantic way.
The wind against your ribbons sings like pride as Sabrina's magic passes through them, and you have to fight from going under completely and falling asleep on her lap. That would be undignified, and dangerous, and also probably very comfortable. Your skin feels hypersensitive, but every brush feels like a slightly tenser-than-expected idea of friendship. You even imagine for a moment you can feel something approaching love in the swirls Sabrina's breath traces on the top of your head.
There.
Sabrina mumbles something to Hijiri as you tense slightly. Anri is snapping through the very edges of your ribbon network now, and judging from her movement patterns she's not yet noticed you know she's there.
Well that's fine for now. Let her get closer. You can play a damn good honeytrap, and you lack sympathy for anyone who attacks your Kohai's teammates.
"Cut it out," Hijiri says suddenly, voice quiet as her hands clench into white-knuckled fists. Her eyes crinkle slightly, and your connection magic whispers 'anger' into your ear. "You found her, didn't you?"
"Sabrina," You warn, preparing to...
Preparing to what?
[ ] Let Sabrina take lead again
-[ ] Make Sabrina official leader of Mitakihara
-[ ] Make Sabrina official concubine for the leader of Mitakihara
[ ] Hijiri
-[ ] Wreck house
-[ ] Ribbon Mummy the girl
-[ ] Let Sabrina handle this
[ ] Anri
-[ ] Let Sabrina handle this
-[ ] Tempt her in closer, and then Ribbon Mummy
-[ ] Ribbon Mummy now
-[ ] Ribbons are sharp. Invisible ribbons are sharper.
[ ] Write-in
SAN: -4 (Shaky)
This turn you gained +5 SAN
