"It's not Niko I'm worried about here," you snap, shaking Saki's grip off your shoulder. "I'll let them hash it ou-"
You cut yourself off, sudden disgust raking you. "No, you know what? This is not OK."
You'd almost just... stood aside and let it happen. You're not a cop. Nor is Niko exactly Hijiri's parent. But this might as well be the same. One slap was too much. You're not going to stand by and let a prisoner you'd taken be beaten, and you're not going to let Niko abuse Hijiri.
"Miss Niko!" Mami barks, but even her call's barely heard over the yelling.
You freeze the air around Saki, the Grief saturating it simply halting to lock her in an immovable cage. You don't hold it for long. You're furious, but all you need is to slip from her grasp - not to antagonise Saki.
And at the same time, you reach out by telepathy. Separate conversations for Sayaka and Mami - first.
"Mami, I'll handle Saki and Niko," you speak as quickly as you can, words practically tumbling over each other. "Can you back Kazumi off? She's angry, and you know her better."
And at the same time, your telepathy spills into Sayaka's mind. "Sayaka, I need you to keep an eye on the Pleiades too. They're losing control."
"I can do that," Mami responds, turning to face the oncoming Kazumi.
Sayaka just nods once, face going a shade paler. Her jaw sets in determination.
No, you can't enter the memory field without forgetting about Yuuri. Umika's protection evidently wasn't quite up to the task, or maybe the effect is stronger closer in or whatever, you don't care - but what you do care about right now is that Niko is not protected from you.
You need to make your presence felt right now. You take a deep breath, and you roar.
"NIKO!" You put your diaphragm into it, your shout cutting through the shouting match. A twitch of your fingers drags a river of Grief free of Niko's Soul Gem.
The girl jerks in surprise, her next verbal rejoinder dying on her lips.
"This is not OK, Niko," you say, and gesture at Hijiri. "Look at her! She's not doing anything."
"This wasn't supposed to happen. This wasn't supposed to happen," Niko snarls, rounding on you. "I- she doesn't have to do this she doesn't have to be me!"
"She was the one who attacked first!" Saki snaps from behind you.
"Not the point, Saki," you snap right back. You jab a finger at Niko. "Look at her. Actually look at her. One of you is on the ground, and it's not you. This is not OK."
"Fuck that. I don't need you to defend me," Hijiri says, and you almost yell again before realising that it's not Niko. They sound exactly the same, too. She finally gets to her feet, glaring at Niko. "And I don't need you tell me how to live my life."
You bite back a nasty rejoinder. A fine job she was doing defending herself.
"You don't have to live with my guilt!" Niko yells spinning back to her. "You were supposed to have the life I couldn't! I killed my friends!"
Kazumi's almost here now, you note in the back of your mind. Three of them, as expected: Kazumi herself, Kaoru, and Mirai, abandoned by Niko and picked up by Kazumi. They're coming in hard, and Mami's stepping towards that end of the roof to intercept them.
"So that gives you the right to dictate the rest of my life?" Hijiri says, fists balling defiantly.
"What dictating have I done?!" Niko demands. "I haven't done anything to you! I gave you my life, I gave you my family! I just wanted someone to be happy!"
"And the moment I go off the rails you come and hunt me down!" Hijiri snarls. "This- this is the first thing I've done for myself, isn't it?"
Kazumi lands, and Mami's there to meet them. You can make out fragments of conversation, but not clearly. They sound angry.
"That doesn't even make sense!" Niko yells right back. "What, just because you didn't know means that your entire life had no meaning?"
"Enough!" you roar. You want to step forward, to step between them and stop the argument, but you can't, not with the memory field still up. You can see what you're guessing is the device now, a rounded triangular disc, belted to Hijiri's waist, and you could remove it, perhaps, but not now. "Both of you!"
You manage to shut them up for a second, at least. "You're talking past each other. I don't think either of you wants different things - Niko, you're not expressing yourself that well, but you genuinely do want Hijiri to have her own life, happy and free, right?"
"Fine way of showing it," Hijiri sneers.
"And you becoming a magical girl hurt Niko," you say, jabbing a finger at her. "Am I wrong, Niko? Being a magical girl is an awful life. Hijiri, you threw her Wish back in her face, and Niko's hurt."
"I don't need you talking for me," Niko snarls. "You know nothing about who I am."
"No, but you need someone to mediate," you counter. "You hit her so hard she fell to the roof, Niko."
"I'm calm, I'm calm!" Kazumi's voice floats over your shoulder. "I promise I'll be fine!"
Moments later, Kazumi pushes past you, making a beeline straight for Niko. She's followed by Kaoru and Mirai. Mami trails behind them, catching your eye and nodding slightly.
Kazumi heads straight for Niko and pulls her into a tight hug, one which Niko returns with equal ferocity. They're joined seconds later by the lavender floof that is Mirai, the girl all but tackling them into a gigantic hug. You can't help but notice the envy that washes across Hijiri's face, there and gone in an instant before Kazumi releases Niko and turns to Hijiri.
"I- who-" Kazumi says, blinking. Mirai makes no move to let go of either of them, arms wound tight like an octopus.
"Oh, for-" Niko scowls, reaching for the device hanging on Hijiri's hip. The girl yelps and skips a step back out of reach.
Far enough to bring Kazumi out of the memory field, judging by the way the confusion washes away and is replaced by measured anger.
"What do you want?" Kazumi says.
"I want..." Hijiri's shoulders slump. "I want a life to call my own. I don't want to be some fake."
Your own shoulders slump. Now that the adrenaline rush of disgust and fury are gone, you just feel... tired. Weary, and you're not even done yet. Mami takes your hand, peering anxiously at you.
"You had that," Niko says. "I gave you that, and you threw it away."
You smile at Mami. Her hand is soft and warm, her presence at your side comforting. Sayaka nudges your other side, giving you a faint grin and raising her fist in a gesture of support.
Kazumi sighs, shaking her head. "We'll have to sort this out later," she says. "If you're telling the truth, then the real culprit is still out there."
"Yuuri was the one who showed me the truth," Hijiri says. "I've already told Miss Sabrina she's running."
"Then we'll go after her and then sort this out," Kazumi says, expression setting. "What are we going to do with you..."
"Let me go," Hijiri says instantly. You force yourself to straighten, keeping an eye on her just in case she does something stupid.
You don't think she will, not when surrounded by eight magical girls.
"I'm afraid not," Kazumi says, giving her a narrow glare.
Voting opens
[] Insist on that telepathy call
- [] What do you ask?
[] What to do with Hijiri?
- [] Bring her along as a prisoner
- [] Suggest leaving her somewhere under guard
[] Any other suggestions for hunting down Yuuri?
[] Write-in (word count limit: 150 words)
=====
As a note, if you suggest leaving Hijiri under guard, the Pleiades will have a solution for that.
I say we grab her soul gem and decide how were going to handle this after we find out how many people Yuuri has killed.
It shocks me how she thinks she's just gets to steal all this stuff. Both of which are dangerous weapons. Then walk away? Without anyone coming after her?
I also don't think she's seen how much Yuuri used her.
Goddammit, that got us... not nowhere, but only just. Hijiri is rapidly approaching Ono levels of Little Shit-ness and she still has the stupid memory thing. Should have used the antimagic when we had the chance.
OK, this is... OK. Nothing unexpected, but we didn't manage to social this as well as hoped, I think. At least Hijiri did get to state her case, even if Niko's too far into lalalacan'thearyouland.
What could we point out...
- Hijiri's partly caused all this trouble. And we still can't trust her.
She either helps solve this, or at least should be kept under guard to make sure she doesn't cause more trouble.
If she wants a peaceful life far away from Niko, she's entitled to that, but again, we can't trust her that much. Us or someone else will help make sure things end up well. If she wants, we can fly her to Hawaii, get her a fake ID, and a lot of money and she can go live the tropical life. On the other side of the world from Niko!
But no, we can't trust her enough to let her go. That'd be dumb.
Also, she still needs to put us through to Yuuri, give back the Memory Device, and once we're ready to let her go (not now), she's gonna need a Clear Seed. All meguca should have access to Clear Seeds.
- Yuuri.
Mmm... Maybe we can Grief up a sensor device? Kazumi, Umika and Sayaka can copy it, and that'd make searching for Yuuri a tad easier, specially if she's gone to ground.
Yeah...letting her leave is a really stupid idea and just make things worse. The Pleiades will reject it whole-heartily and arguing with them to let her go is a waste of time and effort, especially after everything we've done to make friends with them. Second, letting her go will just make things more complicated. She might be lying, Firn has certainly had people lie to Sabrina before, and if that's the case, there's a lot of egg on our face. But mostly I'm thinking, if we let her go now, Niko will have this hanging over her head the rest of her life. If we could just get the two to talk about things, I'm confident they can work things out, with a cool head as a mediator. And not only is that the right thing to do, it could potentially save us from... a lot of bad case scenarios in the future.
I'd say...put her under guard, I think that means either the sentient teddy bears or animals, or rendering her unconscious by removing her Soul Gem, though that might be a bit of a nuclear option.
There have been worse ideas suggested seriously. Madoka would probably be pretty useful in this situation - she's got that sad puppy look so down I'm not sure some people are capable of disliking her.
But more seriously, heck no we're not just going to let her go. For one, she still has stolen merchandise on her. For two, she's still assaulted one Pleiades and two Mitakihara girls. Even lied to, those crimes need to be rectified in some way. And for three, we still don't know if she's telling the truth. We choose to believe her, but until we've got Airi locked up or at least on the line monologuing about her evil plans, we don't have any proof that Hijiri's not using Kazumi's wish-born Epic Poker Face.
I think the skeleton of the vote should be similar to this:
[ ] Hijiri can't be let go yet.
-[ ] Kazumi should probably have a say in it regardless. Maybe Niko? Mami too if she wants to come to Mitakihara and not worry about Seeds. Her parents if Mitakihara?
-[ ] The guard should be a Mitakiharan. Less personal.
[ ] DROP THE DAMN MEMORY DEVICE
-[ ] Seriously that does nothing but force us all to scream at each other from opposite ends of the rooftop. If she doesn't drop that shit smack her with antimagic until it breaks because fuck that thing with a 10ft stick
Yup, definitely wasn't forced. Then again, I don't think she actually stated that. And if she wanted a peaceful life, why the heck did she make a wish in the first place? Stealing, trying to hurt people, helping someone who wants to hurt people; That's really not something to take pride in. Especially considering she claims that's the first thing she's done for herself. And I doubt even that, from the sound of things Yuuri pretty much sacrificed Hijiri to distract Sabrina.
Also, she needs a reality check. She's a prisoner because she attacked Sabrina and helped Airi steal from and attack the Pleiades. She pretty much stated that was her willing choice. So, there are going to be consequences, and she can't just shift them all to someone else if she really meant what she said.
Why not let Oriko take care of Hijiri when we are done here. Moving to Mitakihara could help the girl and Oriko can help her }she made her own share of mistakes and I think making Hijiri see there is more about her than being clone of Niko. And it will make Oriko feel involved, useful again (Oriko WANTS to have purpose, so give her one).
I think we actually made some progress there. They're still super angry and taking potshots at each other, but they've backed off from assumptions of malice and are saying things that are very easy to work with. For example, all Niko is missing right now are the words "gilded cage", and we still haven't promised that we'll help Hijiri find a peaceful life. So we fucked up royally - we entered the argument by engaging with it, we let them respond, and we let their responses set the direction instead of driving the conversation toward our own arguments - but reality didn't decide to actively punish us for it, we just lost time. It went a hell of a lot better than I'd expected given that vote.
The "human experimentation" thread seems to have gone away entirely. I'm not sure if that's Hijiri freaking out or being duplicitous. If Hijiri-H's goal is to just be a manipulative shit, "deal with it later" is an excellent place for her to be in and she's at exactly the right level for it. I can easily see her picking up on threads that develop actual fights and then moderating her responses to keep the argument at the proper level. This makes me want to keep her with us - Hijiri-H could almost certainly cause serious trouble for a smallish guard, but if we keep her with us she's pretty much hosed. In fact, her only chance at that point would be to get us into a fight with Yuuri where she can try to backstab us. And I'm reaaaaaaally not sure that she and Yuuri are hardcore enough to make that work. Sabrina and Mami could probably take them even after suffering a surprise round.
So I'm thinking we take her with us. Assign Sayaka as a guard, tell her that we're still not sure who she's going to be defending. Sayaka seems to be able to handle that line of thought quite well, and it looks like she's finding it properly satisfying. Just need to keep training her and being a good example. I'm very happy with what we showed her in this update. We don't hit people, we work to resolve disputes, and we stay in control instead of letting ourselves fall to anger.
And yes, we need to get rid of that memory device. Promise Hijiri our protection, back it with our "this is what I wished for" speech to reinforce it and refocus both of them on working this out going forward rather than fighting about the past. Promise that, in the absolute worst case, we can still offer her sanctuary. Then tell her that we can start working on that as soon as Yuuri is taken care of and ask her to get rid of the memory device so we can open a telepathic channel.
We should spend a few updates calmly discussing with Hijiri and Niko one-on-one by telepathy. Calmly explain our own positions, work on those promises.
Also also, Hijiri needs a hug. Not sure how to get her one. Might want to show Kazumi that look she gave the Pleiades hug-pile.
edit: Hijiri needs a team. Are there any we know of that'd be able to take her? Ideally we'd resolve enough issues to get her into the Pleiades, but backups are always good.
A reminder that Sayaka is currently part of the search party with Saki and has her own flight platform. If we take Sayaka with us, that hurts are ability to find Yuuri.
A reminder that Sayaka is currently part of the search party with Saki and has her own flight platform. If we take Sayaka with us, that hurts are ability to find Yuuri.
I believe that our best plan right now is to talk to Yuuri and goad her into making a mistake. We can reorganize search parties around new requirements if that fails to pan out.
