Power Up Pt. 16
That's bait.
Not that that's any sort of surprise to you... well, maybe at how blatant she's been. But then, that might be part of the point, to provoke a reaction from you, or from Chiyoda. And there's maybe a further layer of consideration for you: that your mystery not-quite-antagonist feels confident making such an obvious power play.
Silence spreads, cloying and awkward and thick with a thousand unheard conversations. Telepathy, hah.
Maybe Toshimichi simply doesn't bother to engage with that sort of... schoolyard bickering, and allows it to slide. Certainly that's one way of dealing with issues, albeit one that's only sustainable if you're confident you can outlast the other party. Aloof and far above, unconcerned by such petty, clumsy attacks, but you know she's not so disconnected as she wants to be.
... you admit, you're kind of tempted to just introduce your friends again. Why yes, you do know who you're working with. It would be petty, but oh-so-satisfying. Honestly. You've known Toshimichi for all of about half an hour. You'd like to get to the bottom of whatever this antagonism is, but you'd also like to not be skewered on rhetorical barbs.
You can feel the magic curling around Toshimichi, the threads twining into tight knots. Not snarls, but purposeful, the flow of magic stymied and building up for the moment. And you feel the weight of her regard on the back of your head, obsidian black gaze heavy on you, expectant. A test of sorts, to see how you handle unruly supplicants, to let someone else push you in ways she can't or won't.
Or maybe you're just extrapolating things too far. She is looking at you, and you have the floor. Happily, that moment of awkward silence has left a glib answer on the tip of your tongue.
Mami, by your side, tilts her head just far enough to catch your eye. A quirk of an eyebrow, the curl of her lips... and a silent, unspoken question: You or me?
She sees the answer in your grin, you suppose, as she faces back forward, eyes dancing with concealed amusement.
You face forward again, looking right at Miss Slow Clap.
"Yeah, I do," you say, a smile on your face and a hand held out to her, palm up. "You. I'm working with you, and-" your hand cuts sideways, to indicate the whole chamber, and if that includes Toshimichi, well, "-all of you. I'm working with my friends. With everyone who's willing to sign on with the basic tenet of be kind to other people. That's why we're here, on our own initiative, to offer our resources and help to you directly, if you are willing to accept it."
"A pretty speech, but you're avoiding the question," Miss Slow says.
Maybe you're being a bit petty to shorten her name like that, but it's not like you're going to say that out loud. And you're allowed to be petty in the privacy of your own mind, and it's not like she's volunteered her actual name. And she's being rude to begin with anyway. So there.
"We are outsiders to Tokyo," Mami says, velvet-smooth and innocent. "We have the best of intentions, but we freely admit that we are largely ignorant of the specific concerns here. It is, after all, why we came here today - we want to understand what things are like here. We would be happy to hear your complaint, now or after this session?"
MissSlow Clap sits back, eyes narrowed. You've probably won no favour with her, addressing her argument like that, but you're not sure that was ever on the table, not short of a full denouncing of Chiyoda, for whatever crimes you don't even know about. Mami trades a quick look with you, expression questioning, and you shrug in turn.
"Um, excuse me?" a different girl says, from the back row. She sounds nervous, and looks it, too, fidgeting with her ponytail. She's alone up there. "Um... Miss Nakano? Are you, um, Nakano Mika of, um, Nakano Corporation?"
"I am," Mika says cheerfully. "Why do you ask?"
"Oh, u-um... can we talk later?" the girl asks. "Um, I'm Takada Saeko."
"Certainly," Mika says. You can hear the eager grin from her voice, and you don't need to turn or even use your Grief to sense the way she's bouncing eagerly on her toes.
"Ah, that's a good point. As I alluded to earlier, we will, with Miss Toshimichi's kind permission, be staying around to field questions after this session," Mami says smoothly. "If you have any issues you'd like to raise in private, that would be the time."
"A question, Miss Vee, one that I think we would all benefit from hearing the answer to," a silver-haired girl pipes up. Her voice carries clearly from her position in the center of the auditorium, commanding attention with ease. Silver brows arch beneath a complex, elegantly braided crown of hair as she stares down at you, measuring. "Sugahara Kaede, from Hikawa. If we choose not to accept your... help, what then?"
"... why-" you resist the urge to sigh or pinch the bridge your nose. Instead, you meet her gaze squarely. "I'm giving my help, with no strings attached. All I'm asking is that you be nice about it."
Some part of your mind busily catalogues the new name and location - Hikawa would be Hikawa Shrine, you think, but there are multiple Hikawa Shrines, you're pretty sure. Could be Hikawa Shrine in Minato, which would make it part of Tokyo proper, or it could be Hikawa Shrine in Saitama City. Which isn't technically part of Tokyo City but is part of the Greater Tokyo Area. You'd complain about the geography being weird, but really, Mitakihara isn't any better, what with Kasamino right there.
... Huh. Another shrine.
"How long until you ask for something else?" Kaede asks. "I quite understand the point of your demonstration, Miss Vee - the Clear Seed will last us all for a good while. Leaving one here in Tokyo will serve us well, and indebt us to you, if only by gratitude. What if we choose not to take that debt?"
"Then..." You sigh. "Then we walk away. But the offer would remain open - and I wouldn't count it as a debt, Miss Sugahara. I truly mean to give you the Clear Seed."
"I believe you," she says with bland sincerity. "Even then, gratitude may not be a chain we want to tie ourselves down with, depending on the circumstances. I'm sure you understand."
You do understand, you suppose. Historically speaking, gifting people with food has been one of the ways institutions of various stripes get others under their control - legitimate or corrupt. Heck, soup kitchens - which you've been considering as an analogy- are a way for the government to exert control, in some ways, and... well, come to that, the etymological root of the word "lord" basically translates to bread guardian. You have no intention of doing that, but it's not an unreasonable concern to total strangers.
"Didn't you want to accept the offer, Sugahara?" a voice calls from the back of the room - Kurenai, the brilliant red of her hair and what must be her costume practically glowing under the lighting.
"I said I was inclined to," Kaede says calmly, half-twisting in her seat to look back at Kurenai. "Don't get your panties in a bunch, Nakahara."
"If it helps, I have no intentions of levying any control over any continued Witch hunting you would do," you say, and shake your head. "What would be the point? You would continue to have your own supply of cleansing in addition to the Clear Seed."
"But you would withdraw it if we violated your rule of being nice, correct?" Kaede says.
"I-" You bite back your instinctive denial. "It depends. I don't believe in starving people as any kind of enforcement measure, but... if someone started trying to conquer or attack others with the free cleansing, then yes, we would have to limit access. Limit, not remove."
"Are there limits on who you'll work with?" MissSlow Clap drawls.
A slam of fists on table almost makes you jump as a girl to the left of the auditorium explodes to her feet.
"Imai, for once in your life will you stop with your fucking weasel words?" she snarls. "You've been doing this every damn meeting for months, and all you're doing is holding things up for people who actually want to get something done. You've got a problem with Toshimichi, you've got a problem with us, you've got a problem with who the fuck else. And now, in front of visitors?"
Ah. That's a name, and that's, uh. Quite a bit of pent up anger.
"Maybe I should," Imai says silkily, turning forward once more. Her voice turns mockingly formal, stiff and dripping with the sarcasm that rolls off her smirk. "Miss Vee, since you control Grief, I'm sure you can tell what exactly a S-"
Adrenaline slows the world to a crawl.
You can complete the sentence in a dozen ways, none of them good. And you're slow for a magical girl, but even the slowest magical girl is faster than the agonizing crawl of human speech, your mind kicking into overdrive. Madoka. Hitomi.
You snatch for your phone. Grief moves faster than your hands. End call. Your friends-
Grief, of course, answering you as naturally as any of your physical limbs. Nanofog boils around you, a shimmer cutting through the air because all you need is to distort the sound. It's been an ever-present fear at the back of your mind, words and knowledge that can break people, and you've gamed out a thousand ways to respond-
Mami, already stiffening beside you, flawless reflexes responding to you shifting to battle mode. She's not the only one, either, you can feel Mika's winds stirring to life and the deepening of shadow around you as Moe's power draws inward. Following your lead, responding to danger, but this isn't a battle, but it is hostility-
The strings around Toshimichi pull taut in the same instant, flaring bright in your mind's eye with a surge of magic that's nearly incandescent. Her hand moves to the hilt of her sword.
"Stop," Toshimichi says. The word shivers through the air like the silence between lightning and thunder. Something that resonates through you, raising the hair on the back of your neck as the world...
slows
down.
Movement drags out, the delegates before you freezing in their motions, voices silenced in their throats.
Your phone buzzes with an incoming call, and you cancel it immediately.
"Trouble," you snap at Madoka and Hitomi, telepathy speeding ahead as fast as your thoughts. "Update you when I can. Not fighting."
... wait.
You turn, agonizingly slowly, to look at Mami. She's frozen mid-step, her mouth opening as of to say something. Kazumi too, standing to Mami's right, and if either of them are moving at all, you can't tell, but you yourself-
You hear Megu gasp -you think it's Megu, anyway, there's something wrong and you're turning so slowly- and it's a quiet, agonized thing. A clatter, like something falling to the floor.
"Megu? Megu, talk to me-" That's Aoi, you think, her voice panicked. "What's wrong? Akane?"
"Vee. It's Vee, look at her-" That's Akari, her voice panicked. "Akane! Akane, if you can hear me, release Vee! She's resisting somehow, Megu can't-"
You feel something snap around you, and you all but tumble to the ground, stumbling drunkenly as you spin around. Your friends are frozen, but it's not the lifeless greys of Homura's timestop, they're just stopped in their tracks. And-
Megu's collapsed to the ground, her Soul Gem-
"Shit-" you hiss under your breath.
Megu's Soul Gem boils with Grief, her back arching in agony. Aoi already has a Grief Seed out, but it's too much, she's too slow, her hand seeming to move like it's snared in whatever it is that's frozen your friends, but.
This is your domain. All it takes is a thought. Even mid-stumble, all it takes is a thought to take hold of the Grief and make it yours. Rip it away from where it doesn't belong, to leave glimmering gold crystal pristine once more.
Megu sags back onto the mat, Akari and Aoi hovering at her side. Gone are the tiny silvery puffs drifting perennially around her, now coalesced into a single, intricate structure of delicate filaments and simmering power, a thin web stretching between her... and Toshimichi. And Toshimichi herself...
Her face has gone grey, her forehead beading with sweat as stress contorts her face, her body almost inhumanly still but for the trembling of the hand locked tight around the worn hilt of her sword. Obsidian eyes stare sightlessly forward into the frozen auditorium.
"Sabrina, be careful," Oriko's voice cracks like a whip. "Whatever that was- she's not- that wasn't magic."
"What?" you blurt back at her. "What do you mean, not magic?"
"Not magic as we use it, I- I misspoke," Oriko says. You've never heard that tone of voice from her before. "It didn't catch you, but be careful."
"I will."
... Of course, you're not quite sure what you are going to do.
[] What did the Chiyoda group do?
[] What do you do?
- [] Demand your friends be released
- [] Let them set the pace
[] Write-in (word count limit: 150 words)
So! Bit of an unusual vote this time. See that first option? Gimme your best conclusion. That is highly relevant and will affect the next vote.
Not that that's any sort of surprise to you... well, maybe at how blatant she's been. But then, that might be part of the point, to provoke a reaction from you, or from Chiyoda. And there's maybe a further layer of consideration for you: that your mystery not-quite-antagonist feels confident making such an obvious power play.
Silence spreads, cloying and awkward and thick with a thousand unheard conversations. Telepathy, hah.
Maybe Toshimichi simply doesn't bother to engage with that sort of... schoolyard bickering, and allows it to slide. Certainly that's one way of dealing with issues, albeit one that's only sustainable if you're confident you can outlast the other party. Aloof and far above, unconcerned by such petty, clumsy attacks, but you know she's not so disconnected as she wants to be.
... you admit, you're kind of tempted to just introduce your friends again. Why yes, you do know who you're working with. It would be petty, but oh-so-satisfying. Honestly. You've known Toshimichi for all of about half an hour. You'd like to get to the bottom of whatever this antagonism is, but you'd also like to not be skewered on rhetorical barbs.
You can feel the magic curling around Toshimichi, the threads twining into tight knots. Not snarls, but purposeful, the flow of magic stymied and building up for the moment. And you feel the weight of her regard on the back of your head, obsidian black gaze heavy on you, expectant. A test of sorts, to see how you handle unruly supplicants, to let someone else push you in ways she can't or won't.
Or maybe you're just extrapolating things too far. She is looking at you, and you have the floor. Happily, that moment of awkward silence has left a glib answer on the tip of your tongue.
Mami, by your side, tilts her head just far enough to catch your eye. A quirk of an eyebrow, the curl of her lips... and a silent, unspoken question: You or me?
She sees the answer in your grin, you suppose, as she faces back forward, eyes dancing with concealed amusement.
You face forward again, looking right at Miss Slow Clap.
"Yeah, I do," you say, a smile on your face and a hand held out to her, palm up. "You. I'm working with you, and-" your hand cuts sideways, to indicate the whole chamber, and if that includes Toshimichi, well, "-all of you. I'm working with my friends. With everyone who's willing to sign on with the basic tenet of be kind to other people. That's why we're here, on our own initiative, to offer our resources and help to you directly, if you are willing to accept it."
"A pretty speech, but you're avoiding the question," Miss Slow says.
Maybe you're being a bit petty to shorten her name like that, but it's not like you're going to say that out loud. And you're allowed to be petty in the privacy of your own mind, and it's not like she's volunteered her actual name. And she's being rude to begin with anyway. So there.
"We are outsiders to Tokyo," Mami says, velvet-smooth and innocent. "We have the best of intentions, but we freely admit that we are largely ignorant of the specific concerns here. It is, after all, why we came here today - we want to understand what things are like here. We would be happy to hear your complaint, now or after this session?"
Miss
"Um, excuse me?" a different girl says, from the back row. She sounds nervous, and looks it, too, fidgeting with her ponytail. She's alone up there. "Um... Miss Nakano? Are you, um, Nakano Mika of, um, Nakano Corporation?"
"I am," Mika says cheerfully. "Why do you ask?"
"Oh, u-um... can we talk later?" the girl asks. "Um, I'm Takada Saeko."
"Certainly," Mika says. You can hear the eager grin from her voice, and you don't need to turn or even use your Grief to sense the way she's bouncing eagerly on her toes.
"Ah, that's a good point. As I alluded to earlier, we will, with Miss Toshimichi's kind permission, be staying around to field questions after this session," Mami says smoothly. "If you have any issues you'd like to raise in private, that would be the time."
"A question, Miss Vee, one that I think we would all benefit from hearing the answer to," a silver-haired girl pipes up. Her voice carries clearly from her position in the center of the auditorium, commanding attention with ease. Silver brows arch beneath a complex, elegantly braided crown of hair as she stares down at you, measuring. "Sugahara Kaede, from Hikawa. If we choose not to accept your... help, what then?"
"... why-" you resist the urge to sigh or pinch the bridge your nose. Instead, you meet her gaze squarely. "I'm giving my help, with no strings attached. All I'm asking is that you be nice about it."
Some part of your mind busily catalogues the new name and location - Hikawa would be Hikawa Shrine, you think, but there are multiple Hikawa Shrines, you're pretty sure. Could be Hikawa Shrine in Minato, which would make it part of Tokyo proper, or it could be Hikawa Shrine in Saitama City. Which isn't technically part of Tokyo City but is part of the Greater Tokyo Area. You'd complain about the geography being weird, but really, Mitakihara isn't any better, what with Kasamino right there.
... Huh. Another shrine.
"How long until you ask for something else?" Kaede asks. "I quite understand the point of your demonstration, Miss Vee - the Clear Seed will last us all for a good while. Leaving one here in Tokyo will serve us well, and indebt us to you, if only by gratitude. What if we choose not to take that debt?"
"Then..." You sigh. "Then we walk away. But the offer would remain open - and I wouldn't count it as a debt, Miss Sugahara. I truly mean to give you the Clear Seed."
"I believe you," she says with bland sincerity. "Even then, gratitude may not be a chain we want to tie ourselves down with, depending on the circumstances. I'm sure you understand."
You do understand, you suppose. Historically speaking, gifting people with food has been one of the ways institutions of various stripes get others under their control - legitimate or corrupt. Heck, soup kitchens - which you've been considering as an analogy- are a way for the government to exert control, in some ways, and... well, come to that, the etymological root of the word "lord" basically translates to bread guardian. You have no intention of doing that, but it's not an unreasonable concern to total strangers.
"Didn't you want to accept the offer, Sugahara?" a voice calls from the back of the room - Kurenai, the brilliant red of her hair and what must be her costume practically glowing under the lighting.
"I said I was inclined to," Kaede says calmly, half-twisting in her seat to look back at Kurenai. "Don't get your panties in a bunch, Nakahara."
"If it helps, I have no intentions of levying any control over any continued Witch hunting you would do," you say, and shake your head. "What would be the point? You would continue to have your own supply of cleansing in addition to the Clear Seed."
"But you would withdraw it if we violated your rule of being nice, correct?" Kaede says.
"I-" You bite back your instinctive denial. "It depends. I don't believe in starving people as any kind of enforcement measure, but... if someone started trying to conquer or attack others with the free cleansing, then yes, we would have to limit access. Limit, not remove."
"Are there limits on who you'll work with?" Miss
A slam of fists on table almost makes you jump as a girl to the left of the auditorium explodes to her feet.
"Imai, for once in your life will you stop with your fucking weasel words?" she snarls. "You've been doing this every damn meeting for months, and all you're doing is holding things up for people who actually want to get something done. You've got a problem with Toshimichi, you've got a problem with us, you've got a problem with who the fuck else. And now, in front of visitors?"
Ah. That's a name, and that's, uh. Quite a bit of pent up anger.
"Maybe I should," Imai says silkily, turning forward once more. Her voice turns mockingly formal, stiff and dripping with the sarcasm that rolls off her smirk. "Miss Vee, since you control Grief, I'm sure you can tell what exactly a S-"
Adrenaline slows the world to a crawl.
You can complete the sentence in a dozen ways, none of them good. And you're slow for a magical girl, but even the slowest magical girl is faster than the agonizing crawl of human speech, your mind kicking into overdrive. Madoka. Hitomi.
You snatch for your phone. Grief moves faster than your hands. End call. Your friends-
Grief, of course, answering you as naturally as any of your physical limbs. Nanofog boils around you, a shimmer cutting through the air because all you need is to distort the sound. It's been an ever-present fear at the back of your mind, words and knowledge that can break people, and you've gamed out a thousand ways to respond-
Mami, already stiffening beside you, flawless reflexes responding to you shifting to battle mode. She's not the only one, either, you can feel Mika's winds stirring to life and the deepening of shadow around you as Moe's power draws inward. Following your lead, responding to danger, but this isn't a battle, but it is hostility-
The strings around Toshimichi pull taut in the same instant, flaring bright in your mind's eye with a surge of magic that's nearly incandescent. Her hand moves to the hilt of her sword.
"Stop," Toshimichi says. The word shivers through the air like the silence between lightning and thunder. Something that resonates through you, raising the hair on the back of your neck as the world...
slows
down.
Movement drags out, the delegates before you freezing in their motions, voices silenced in their throats.
Your phone buzzes with an incoming call, and you cancel it immediately.
"Trouble," you snap at Madoka and Hitomi, telepathy speeding ahead as fast as your thoughts. "Update you when I can. Not fighting."
... wait.
You turn, agonizingly slowly, to look at Mami. She's frozen mid-step, her mouth opening as of to say something. Kazumi too, standing to Mami's right, and if either of them are moving at all, you can't tell, but you yourself-
You hear Megu gasp -you think it's Megu, anyway, there's something wrong and you're turning so slowly- and it's a quiet, agonized thing. A clatter, like something falling to the floor.
"Megu? Megu, talk to me-" That's Aoi, you think, her voice panicked. "What's wrong? Akane?"
"Vee. It's Vee, look at her-" That's Akari, her voice panicked. "Akane! Akane, if you can hear me, release Vee! She's resisting somehow, Megu can't-"
You feel something snap around you, and you all but tumble to the ground, stumbling drunkenly as you spin around. Your friends are frozen, but it's not the lifeless greys of Homura's timestop, they're just stopped in their tracks. And-
Megu's collapsed to the ground, her Soul Gem-
"Shit-" you hiss under your breath.
Megu's Soul Gem boils with Grief, her back arching in agony. Aoi already has a Grief Seed out, but it's too much, she's too slow, her hand seeming to move like it's snared in whatever it is that's frozen your friends, but.
This is your domain. All it takes is a thought. Even mid-stumble, all it takes is a thought to take hold of the Grief and make it yours. Rip it away from where it doesn't belong, to leave glimmering gold crystal pristine once more.
Megu sags back onto the mat, Akari and Aoi hovering at her side. Gone are the tiny silvery puffs drifting perennially around her, now coalesced into a single, intricate structure of delicate filaments and simmering power, a thin web stretching between her... and Toshimichi. And Toshimichi herself...
Her face has gone grey, her forehead beading with sweat as stress contorts her face, her body almost inhumanly still but for the trembling of the hand locked tight around the worn hilt of her sword. Obsidian eyes stare sightlessly forward into the frozen auditorium.
"Sabrina, be careful," Oriko's voice cracks like a whip. "Whatever that was- she's not- that wasn't magic."
"What?" you blurt back at her. "What do you mean, not magic?"
"Not magic as we use it, I- I misspoke," Oriko says. You've never heard that tone of voice from her before. "It didn't catch you, but be careful."
"I will."
... Of course, you're not quite sure what you are going to do.
[] What did the Chiyoda group do?
[] What do you do?
- [] Demand your friends be released
- [] Let them set the pace
[] Write-in (word count limit: 150 words)
=====
So! Bit of an unusual vote this time. See that first option? Gimme your best conclusion. That is highly relevant and will affect the next vote.
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