Chapter 2 - Tutelage V2 6
[X] Talk with Tamiko's uncle.
-[X] Do you mean Ghost form, when you're talking about my special magic? Ghost Sword would be cool!
--[X] Actually, about Ghost Form. Do you think it's possible for me to use it and still be awake? Maybe some lucid dreaming technique?
-[X] Sorry for personal question, but... Do you know there is some magic in you? Could it be Cathy? Could it be love spell?


"When you say enchanting my weapon with my own special magic… Do you mean like when I dream?" you ask while nonchalantly materializing your greatsword next to you. It embeds itself to the ground, sticking out for you to grab at a moment's notice. You turn slightly to give it a quick, appraising look. "I think a ghost sword would be quite interesting."

"Unfortunately, that's not exactly what I had in mind,"
the man tells you, but doesn't get any further before you continue your musings.

"Oh, actually, I also meant to ask about that," you say, eyes travelling up towards the sky. "Last time miss Catherine suggested lucid dreaming, but I fear my progress is quite slow there, despite finding some guides already. Do you think there's something else I could do, mister Higekino? Or maybe even somehow do that while being awake?"

The man sighs and lets his shoulders sag a little before he answers you. "Spectral formes are not exactly my area of expertise, I'm afraid," he says, looking like he's going over something in his mind. "That said, I do believe it might be possible to do something like that even while awake. Your magic is fueled by your dreams, no? The best I can suggest to you is to try and bridge it with daydreaming, and continue from there if it works."

You nod in response. He doesn't have much to give for specifics, but you can understand what he means there.

"Now, did you have anything else you wished to ask?"

Ah, right. Perhaps this might be as good time as any… "Hmm, yes, I was also wondering about something else," you begin, dragging out your words a bit as you focus your gaze on the man before you. "I apologize if it's a personal question, mister Higekino, but I've noticed that you have magic around you."

His eyebrows rise up in response. He's actually surprised by your perceptiveness, and you decide to tell him as much.

"Do you know what it could be about? You certainly look surprised," you wonder coyly. "Perhaps it's a spell from miss Catherine? Perhaps even-"

"I'm going to cut you off right there, miss Verrier,"
the man cuts you off with an amused laugh. "It's true that I'm probably coated in some sort of magical aura, but it's all on me."

This time it's you who's taken aback as you blink in surprise. "Um, how come?"

There's a small flash of pink light. As if on cue, the sword next to you twists on the ground and shoots into the air towards the man. He catches it from the pommel with a smooth movement of his hand, and you stare as thin strands of pink light shooting from his fingertips vanish from the blade's surface. "Incidentally, it's a very elegant design you have on your weapon," he notes with a smile.

"...How did you do that?"

"Magic,"
he says, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Duh."

You walked right into that one, though you refuse to admit it out loud.

What do you do?

[] Ask more questions. You're not letting this one lie just yet.

[] Let it be, move on to training.
-[] Continue from group chatting.
-[] Continue from Kishi's turn

[] Write-in.

===


For the record, Auntcle is taking the rare chance to troll Ariane as much as she can there.
 
[x] Ask more questions. You're not letting this one lie just yet.
-[x] Magic has a method behind it. Really, how did you do that? Can you teach me?

Something to start with?
 
[X] Ask more questions. You're not letting this one lie just yet.
-[X] Magic has a method behind it. Really, how did you do that? Can you teach me?

It's not a bad idea, I'm down unless someone can think of something better.
 
[X] Ask more questions. You're not letting this one lie just yet.
-[X] But he's not magical girl, isn't he? No Soul Gem, no corruption, no need for Grief Seeds? So unfair!
--[X] Whine and pout until he submits and tell you all the secrets of his magic.
 
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Ah, there's Shas with the vote bomb.

[X] Ask more questions. You're not letting this one lie just yet.
-[X] But he's not magical girl, isn't he? No Soul Gem, no corruption, no need for Grief Seeds? So unfair!
--[X] Whine and pout until he submits and tell you all the secrets of his magic.

Close enough.
 
[X] Ask more questions. You're not letting this one lie just yet.
-[X] But he's not magical girl, isn't he? No Soul Gem, no corruption, no need for Grief Seeds? So unfair!
--[X] Whine and pout until he submits and tell you all the secrets of his magic.
 
wheeee. Took me a few days but I read the thread! Been a pretty wild ride, as they go, but entertaining. This is a very fun quest with some fantastic character writing! Anyway, guess it's wagon time.

[X] Ask more questions. You're not letting this one lie just yet.
-[X] But he's not magical girl, isn't he? No Soul Gem, no corruption, no need for Grief Seeds? So unfair!
--[X] Whine and pout until he submits and tell you all the secrets of his magic.
 
Chapter 2 - Tutelage V2 7
[X] Ask more questions. You're not letting this one lie just yet.
-[X] But he's not magical girl, isn't he? No Soul Gem, no corruption, no need for Grief Seeds? So unfair!
--[X] Whine and pout until he submits and tell you all the secrets of his magic.


You take a moment to refocus yourself, before continuing your line of questioning. What else could you even do here? You are on the trail of something peculiar here, and you are not one to leave it in the cold like this. Strike the iron while it is hot, or nothing will come out of it. This is your best chance to pounce in to this mystery.

After all, puzzles are something you have always appreciated and enjoyed.

"Yes, I can see that much," you summarize with a drip of sarcasm of your own, drawing an appreciative snort from Tamiko's uncle. He seems to appreciate the lowkey pun. "But pardon me for saying this… I don't think you're a Magical Girl, are you? You certainly don't look the part."

"No, I'm not a Magical Girl like you, or everyone else back there with Cathy,"
he tells you without missing a beat, letting out a small laugh. He's perfectly honest about every word too, if you had to guess. Yet, that coy smile of his doesn't waver in the slightest as he speaks.

"So you don't have a Soul Gem or anything, nor do you have to deal with corruption and grief seeds?" You decide to keep going, and receive affirmative nods in response. If that's true, then how can the magic work? And above all, why? "That seems… quite unfair to be honest."

"That it is, I'd say,"
the man answers again without missing a beat. But this time he's more solemn about it than before, and his smile appears more sympathetic.

"What's the secret then?" you ask him. "What's your magic?"

"Well… It's a pretty long story, and perhaps a bit personal too in a manner of speaking,"
he explains turning more deliberative and slow as he goes on. "So I hope you'll understand why I will not go over it in any detail? I would also appreciate it if you didn't spread this sort of thing around without a good reason."

You nod firmly. That's all he needs.

"Heh… Well, to put it in simple terms, you can blame my big sister for that. I'm not a Magical Girl, but I do possess the ability to perform magic to some extent," he tells you. "Anything I can do, any of you can also learn to do with time and practice. I've simply had both, which is why I also arrange these training sessions."

"That's…"

"A lot of things, yes. But I believe we still have your training to go over right now. Here, catch!"
The man throws the sword back to you with those pink strings of magic in a wide arc. You catch the pommel of your weapon, staggering backwards a bit from the momentum before regaining your balance.

"Are you ready to go?"

What do you do?

[] Sneak in a final question before moving on.

[] Time to move on to the training.
-[] Continue from group chatting.
-[] Continue from Kishi's turn

[] Write-in.

===


Basically, it's a decision between talking with each other and just switching to Kishi's training.
 
I'm ready to just switch to Kishi, though if anybody can think of a good chat topic I'd be happy to move to that, too. Nothing just comes to mind.

[X] Time to move on to the training.
-[X] Continue from Kishi's turn
 
Though I do want to note two key things we need to do. Like... really soon, at the very least pre: Tokyo. (And two more minor things but of decent importance)

1. Figure out a way to keep Evelyn from feeling excluded. As she is now, she's contract bait, not helped by the fact that she was propositioned by Kyubey beforehand. That feeling of isolation will only incline her further toward a wish. We can assert that she's still a great friend, but words can be cheap and she's had these feelings bubbling for a long time- see: Witch's kiss. We need to show it.

2. Call Kimiko. We keep having to put this off but it needs to get done. It's a bit unclear to me whether or not our last convo was really a success in wearing her down, or the guilt-tripping (inadvertent as it may have been) just made things worse to an extent, but at the very least we need to keep trying. We keep meaning to do it and then never do it and it's a little worrying, given what's coming up.

3. How close of friends do we want to be with Hana? If we just want to be acquiatances, then this current setup is fine. But if we want to be friends, Tamiko is going to need to take initiative on that. What are her interests beyond the newspaper club? Is there anything we can tap into and connect with her on? What is her life like? We really need to push the Hana angle a bit harder if we want to go farther, in my opinion.

4. The trip. Who are we going to bring and why? We're going with Auntcle, Mariko, and ourselves for sure. I think that if we're going to go to that hellhole though, we might want some backup. Cathy is a possibility, if she can come, but there is a decent chance that she can't. And we already set up a sleepover while we're gone, and we certainly don't want to walk that back again. Which leaves Yuujin and Matsuko. So how would we convince them to come exactly?

I'm just trying to plan ahead and be proactive because I think a key problem encountered in this quest is a tendency to be overly reactive, which causes us to stumble into various problems and not be able to focus on what should be important priorities. There's various other things (Figuring out Ariane's issues and how to deal with them, pretty much everything involving Kishi, etc.) that I think we can't solve right now and definitely need time, and honestly outside 2 and 4 I doubt there will be a pat answer to these conundrums. But I think they are delimmas that we need to deal with.

And of course I could be totally misguided in which case I'd love it if users could chime in and correct me.

(EDIT: Attempted to colesce and cut some points since it ended up being super WOTy. Still long tho.)
 
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1. Figure out a way to keep Evelyn from feeling excluded.
This is something I pondered for a long time without much success.
The best solution I found so far is to include her in dodge trainings by asking her to throw snowballs at us.

Yup, something we tried for a several days and failed constantly because of other heavy stuff, thrown at us.
At least we have confirmation that Kimiko knows about our visit.

3. How close of friends do we want to be with Hana? If we just want to be acquiatances, then this current setup is fine.
Wait, are you telling me we don't need to befriend everyone we met? :o :confused: o_O
:V

4. The trip. Who are we going to bring and why? We're going with Auntcle, Mariko, and ourselves for sure. I think that if we're going to go to that hellhole though, we might want some backup.
I have the opposite opinion. We need to have as few people as possible. If a Tokyo meguca encountered one unknown meguca on her territory, she may let it slide, but if she encountered a group of unknown megucas, she may decide it's an invasion.
Rephrasing well-known saying: "One meguca is an accident. Two is a coincidence. Three megucas is an enemy action."

Also, world-crushing revelations await both Tamiko and Kimiko, and while friends can help to withstand the impact, they also can inadvertently doom them.
On the other hand, Yuujin and Matsuko were friends of Kimiko too, if I remember correctly.
...And Matsuko is the only one who has a chance in fight with Kimiko.

[X] Time to move on to the training.
-[X] Continue from Kishi's turn
 
2. Call Kimiko. We keep having to put this off but it needs to get done. It's a bit unclear to me whether or not our last convo was really a success in wearing her down, or the guilt-tripping (inadvertent as it may have been) just made things worse to an extent, but at the very least we need to keep trying. We keep meaning to do it and then never do it and it's a little worrying, given what's coming up.
Yup, something we tried for a several days and failed constantly because of other heavy stuff, thrown at us.
At least we have confirmation that Kimiko knows about our visit.
Right, I'm not entirely sure what we would do with a call myself, mind you I'm not against it but since Kimiko is aware we're visiting I'm not sure how much it'll help.
4. The trip. Who are we going to bring and why? We're going with Auntcle, Mariko, and ourselves for sure. I think that if we're going to go to that hellhole though, we might want some backup. Cathy is a possibility, if she can come, but there is a decent chance that she can't. And we already set up a sleepover while we're gone, and we certainly don't want to walk that back again. Which leaves Yuujin and Matsuko. So how would we convince them to come exactly?
I don't see a reason to bring anyone else. We're going to visit our sister and try and reconnect with her, we don't need any of the other girls for this and bringing them feels like unnecessarily crowding the situation.

The only one I'd believe to be a reasonable addition would be Cathy, if only because she's an adult and could pair off with Mariko while us and Auntcle meet with Kimiko. Bringing more people feels like it'll draw more attention to us anyhow and I'd rather the girls of Tokyo didn't think we were there to stake a claim instead of just visiting the city for a few days.
I'm just trying to plan ahead and be proactive because I think a key problem encountered in this quest is a tendency to be overly reactive, which causes us to stumble into various problems and not be able to focus on what should be important priorities. There's various other things (Figuring out Ariane's issues and how to deal with them, pretty much everything involving Kishi, etc.) that I think we can't solve right now and definitely need time, and honestly outside 2 and 4 I doubt there will be a pat answer to these conundrums. But I think they are delimmas that we need to deal with.
That's not a bad thing, I think part of the issue is that we haven't really had to deal with incredibly complex issues until comparatively recently. Up until Mariko the biggest thing we had to deal with was Evelyn after she got witch kissed. Most of the time we're trying to strengthen our friendships and better ourselves as a team, which goes a long way towards our primary quest goal. Which, unless it changes or expands, is to survive until March 25th. Which is when canon begins and things get funky. Any goal we make other than that are ones of our own choosing.

As to the others:

Kishi is honestly the most stable of our friends, somehow, she's only a big risk when Tamiko gets seriously hurt. She has issues no doubt, such as the fact that she feels that she's an inhuman monster because she's part machine and can hear the ticking of gears in her head (And isn't that a joy?) but Tamiko coming to accept her when they first met definitely headed off some of the bigger issues that could have arisen from that. And while she doesn't like Mariko necessarily Tamiko stepping in to mediate between the two of them definitely greases the wheels as it were.

Mariko is also pretty stable but I think we've done enough on that front for the moment.

Evelyn... is definitely more concerning though, I'm not entirely sure about what we can do about it at this juncture before Tokyo.

Ariane is in a similar boat, we don't really know enough about her underlying damage to really think up anything effective.

In order of priortiy:
1.) Evelyn - She's at major risk for contracting, and while Tamiko wouldn't know why that's bad Tamiko would at the very least be concerned for the well being of a friend, and while we haven't been too good at this recently, we need to avoid making her feel useless and we need to avoid pushing her away, she also seems to have fears about messing up friendships. Why? No idea, but it's something to consider.

2.) Ariane - We don't know enough, and that's concerning by itself. It could be nothing, it could be everything. But I'm not entirely sure how to approach it.

3.) Mariko - She has issues that we're already actively dealing with, at the very least we don't need to push all that hard for the moment.

4.) Kishi - She's stable, for the most part at least. Enough that we don't have to be immediately concerned about her.

Others:

I'm not entirely sure what to do about Tamiko's old friends, they definitely have their own share of issues but I'm not sure we should immediately get involved with them quite yet.

PMMM DOOM REDUX - We've had a hook or two for getting involved with the series protagonists (Mami at least), and we haven't taken them. That's fine mind you, I'm not entirely keen on getting involved right now at this point myself. But it's possible with us being away for a bit that encounters might happen with those staying behind, if that's the case we should keep an eye out.
 
(this is going to be slightly spaghetti-y, so apologies for that. And I would like to clarify that I meant no offense by the last part of my previous post, though I could see interpreting it in an offensive way. I try to explain my motivation in the post, hopefully it's sufficient.

Yup, something we tried for a several days and failed constantly because of other heavy stuff, thrown at us.
At least we have confirmation that Kimiko knows about our visit.

It avoids a worst-case scenario, to be sure, but the status quo is still definitely a bit problematic. Also I definitely think that while the last couple nights have been "overloaded with drama, can't process", partially courtesy of poor Mariko, there were a few nights where I couldn't help but go "Wait, we're not calling Kimiko? Why?" Which I don't necessarily mean as some cutting criticism, but was my reaction and the kind of thing that prompted the list.

On the other hand, Yuujin and Matsuko were friends of Kimiko too, if I remember correctly.
...And Matsuko is the only one who has a chance in fight with Kimiko.

Yep! I wasn't entirely positive but the hospital side-story does establish Ami and the others as "Their" friends, not new ones Tamiko picked up afterwards. So honestly talking the two of them into coming to see her sister shouldn't be too difficult, if we decide that we want to do that. Honestly the whole point of a group being an invading force is something that I had in the post but cut down to try and make it less WOTy and get to the bare essentials, but it is a valid point that needs to be kept in mind. It's all dependent on exactly how aggressive the Tokyo girls are; are they so aggressive that they'll make a move on anybody that seems to triy to get in on their turf, or only so aggressive if they seem like a legitimate threat to stick around and leech grief seeds? And I'm not sure we can really go either way on that without, say, getting Kimiko to tell us, and the idea of the prerequisite knowledge going over well is really laughable. Of course, given the likelihood that Kimiko is going to witch out at some point, unless we become MASTERS at social (either before or during the visit), we need to be prepared for that.

Right, I'm not entirely sure what we would do with a call myself, mind you I'm not against it but since Kimiko is aware we're visiting I'm not sure how much it'll help.

I don't see a reason to bring anyone else. We're going to visit our sister and try and reconnect with her, we don't need any of the other girls for this and bringing them feels like unnecessarily crowding the situation.

I'm not sure I agree with either of these. I think more attempts to get Kimiko more acclimated toward actually communicating with her sister are, while a risk, a good risk. We need to prep her before we meet because everything is going to go massively downhill at that point, and we need to make some gains. It feels like this just kicks the can down the road until we get to actually seeing her in person, and i don't like that concept. I'm open to not bringing anybody besides Cathy- my alternate suggestion is due to the fact that we can't be sure she'll be able to go, and if she can't I definitely am not sure I feel like rolling the dice and seeing if Tokyo MG girls are paranoid enough to go after somebody on the chance that they could want some grief seeds, rather than just it being likely. I think it's possible that more MGs could be the worse-care scenario too; but I don't feel sure with the limited information we have.

That's not a bad thing, I think part of the issue is that we haven't really had to deal with incredibly complex issues until comparatively recently. Up until Mariko the biggest thing we had to deal with was Evelyn after she got witch kissed. Most of the time we're trying to strengthen our friendships and better ourselves as a team, which goes a long way towards our primary quest goal.

I won't deny you have a point there, and I might be being slightly unfair. In which case I apologize for that to everyone involved. I think at heart the issue is that I'm always paranoid that these issues are going to end up biting us in the end because we didn't prepare for them adequately, or act fast enough. And there's so much going on it's easy to start neglecting certain things and then that just ending disastrously because it becomes key down the line.

I agree with your overall summation- I would only say that Kishi isn't... stable per se, she's just unstable in a way that we can't deal with right now. Kishi's issues are ones that need to be handled delicately and slowly, and that means that we certainly can't worry about it before we deal with Tokyo. Ariane I worry about because I'm not sure exactly what her issues are- some snippets indicate she might have problems with her father? But it's not totally clear to me.
 
I'm not sure I agree with either of these. I think more attempts to get Kimiko more acclimated toward actually communicating with her sister are, while a risk, a good risk. We need to prep her before we meet because everything is going to go massively downhill at that point, and we need to make some gains. It feels like this just kicks the can down the road until we get to actually seeing her in person, and i don't like that concept. I'm open to not bringing anybody besides Cathy- my alternate suggestion is due to the fact that we can't be sure she'll be able to go, and if she can't I definitely am not sure I feel like rolling the dice and seeing if Tokyo MG girls are paranoid enough to go after somebody on the chance that they could want some grief seeds, rather than just it being likely. I think it's possible that more MGs could be the worse-care scenario too; but I don't feel sure with the limited information we have.
When I say I have no idea how a call will help, it's because I honestly have no idea, so I won't comment on it.

What we do know is that Tokyo is an absolute hellhole for Magical Girls, and I'd really like to avoid getting involved as much as possible so drawing attention to ourselves is not something I'm terribly inclined towards.
I agree with your overall summation- I would only say that Kishi isn't... stable per se, she's just unstable in a way that we can't deal with right now. Kishi's issues are ones that need to be handled delicately and slowly, and that means that we certainly can't worry about it before we deal with Tokyo. Ariane I worry about because I'm not sure exactly what her issues are- some snippets indicate she might have problems with her father? But it's not totally clear to me.
Kishi is stable in that she's unlikely to explode or witch out for the moment, for now her major conflicts are self acceptance and confidence issues arising from what happened to her that brought her to her current state. Well, that and the mounting crush on Tamiko that we get to deal with. But it's not so terribly urgent, again Tamiko being Tamiko works in our favor. A desire for honest friendship and accepting her for what she is likely helped a lot, could you imagine if she didn't reveal that her MG form was part machine to us in the beginning? She'd be consistently worried about revealing what she is to the person she's falling for and we should be thankful that's not an issue that we have to deal with.

Ariane's family issues are rather easy to dissect, her father is incredibly uncomfortable with the idea that his daughter is only capable of living a normal life because she made a wish, a wish that leads her to fight and might lead to her death in other ways. He loves her but combined with the nature of her disease and the current situation he finds himself in being controlling is... well... it's expected. He's gone to incredible lengths to protect her until recently, but now he has to deal with the new revelations about his daughter and frankly there isn't anything he himself can really do to protect her at this point, which is something I empathize with.

I feel there are other issues revolving around her but again I'm not entirely sure what those are at the moment.
I won't deny you have a point there, and I might be being slightly unfair. In which case I apologize for that to everyone involved. I think at heart the issue is that I'm always paranoid that these issues are going to end up biting us in the end because we didn't prepare for them adequately, or act fast enough. And there's so much going on it's easy to start neglecting certain things and then that just ending disastrously because it becomes key down the line.
It's honestly fine you feel that way, just remember to bring up ideas from time to time and we can discuss what to do about them when possible. Honestly having someone who wants to think ahead will help in that regard.

Anyways! VOTE!

[X] Time to move on to the training.
-[X] Continue from Kishi's turn
 
I'm actually going to note it here that Cathy won't be coming to Tokyo with you. This is something I had decided well beforehand, and she was intended to bring it up once everyone was done with their turns. She has other business to attend to, and it's actually pretty important and personal.

But since you seem to have something of a plan forming up here, even if only in the nascent stages, I thought it might be fair to note this. It's not pleasant to have a well-thought plan fall apart on simple mistaken assumptions.
 
What we do know is that Tokyo is an absolute hellhole for Magical Girls, and I'd really like to avoid getting involved as much as possible so drawing attention to ourselves is not something I'm terribly inclined towards.

That's fair, on the other hand we could get involved anyway. Underestimating the paranoia of TG Magical Girls could be a mistake, I feel, and it could be a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" type situation. It's the only reason I considered extending the group to that large; safety in numbers over safety in lack of a threat. That said, with Cathy off the table 5 might definitely be just too big a group of magical individuals (I also didn't consider that Auntcle was a pseudo-magical girl when doing the mental calc), therefore I'm willing to just assume we aren't going to be bombarded crazily when we hit Tokyo and hope for the best.

Though another thing to keep in mind is that we're definitely going to need a grief seed or two before we go to Tokyo, so we'll have to remember to go hunting in the next couple days.

I think we're aggressively agreeing with each other when it comes to Kishi; I just really don't want to call her table because she's a bundle of complexes and mental issues, but none of them are things that we're going to resolve within the next two days, so it's best to focus elsewhere. And you're probably right about Ariane's issues.
 
[x] Sneak in a final question before moving on.
-[x] "Oooooh! are we going to learn sword super moves!? Like- like in that videogame. Ougi! Something something!"
 
Chapter 2 - Tutelage V2 8
[X] Time to move on to the training.
-[X] Continue from Kishi's turn


You remain where you are for a moment, wondering about what you've just learned. The man before you omitted a great deal from his story, and you know it will continue to bother you in the future. You would like to know more, and you would like to ask some more questions to make more sense of everything, and to get to the very bottom of it. There's nothing quite solving a mystery.

But this time it's better to let the trail lay for now. You have time, and you're not one to force things through that bluntly. That's what you have Tamiko and Evelyn for.

You take up your sword, giving it a careful brandish. The heavy weapon weighs you down you more than you'd guess at a glance. You're not a fighter. You're not used to holding it, despite instinctively grasping its usage without any problems whatsoever. And perhaps ultimately, you'd prefer to never have to do it either.

Some choices are not quite as real as they seem, though. And you do find magic ever-so enjoyable and delightful, even when the world outside is terrifying.

"I'm ready to go," you say. "Please, lead on."

"Alrighty then. First of all, I want you to focus on the sword, and…"


===

You're Kishi Koufuku, a student of the Northern Mitakihara International Middle school on the 3rd grade. But in addition to that, you're also a Magical Girl in a world of other Magical Girls, many of whom are psychopathic and pitiless in their personality. Fortunately, not all of them are bad as you've learned, and you've come to appreciate the bonds you have share with Tamiko and Ariane more than you would have ever thought possible… Well, and Mariko too, you guess.
Tick, tock
Of your companions Ariane has an uncanny ability to brighten the day wherever you are, and before you know it you've started liking her. Mariko gets a pass, if only because Tamiko is vouching for her, she has a good taste in media, and she's making an honest effort to not be an utter prick. You're still watching her back, though.
Tick, tock
As for Tamiko, well, she's…
Tick, tock
Don't blush in front of Tamiko's uncle, don't blush in front of Tamiko's uncle, don't blush in front of Tamiko's uncle!
Tick, tock
...She's like no other is what you're getting at.
Tick, tock
On the flip side, there's a Magical Girl in your life that you'd rather not have there. And that's miss Catherine, the even more quirky companion of Tamiko's already quirky uncle. The others don't really get it, but there's something seriously wrong with the woman. That's not just because you think the idea of an adult Magical Girl is personally horrifying on every level - though it is - but because she is simply so… off, for the lack of better word.
Tick, tock
Even if she has yet to attempt to murder you and everyone you care for, and you don't think she's going to try that anymore, she keeps rubbing you the wrong way. You've started to wonder if you're just being irrational about it all by now. Regardless, you're not exactly comfortable with leaving her anywhere with your friends, but you're about to receive magical training from Tamiko's magical creature of an uncle.
Tick, tock
Apparently those exist too.
Tick, tock
You already know that it's going to be useful. Last time you learned telekinesis from him, and you've been practicing it by yourself as well. You're not as confident in those as you're in your well-practiced floating guns, but you're making progress. Whether you're going to pick off from there, you don't know. Ariane came back with the ability to coat her large blade in her magical light, as well as shoot all of it out in a small beam of magic.
Tick, tock
You crack a smile underneath your untransformed hoodie. You literally had to pry Tamiko off her after she glomped the other girl and demanded to be taught "How to become Saber!" like Ariane was. You think she might be a bit too enthusiastic about anime at times, but you can't fault her for that. She's awesome like that.
Tick, tock
"A penny for your daydreams there?" an amused voice snaps you out of you musings, and brings you back to the reality. The man's stroking his chin, smiling at you as if he knew exactly what you were just thinking about.
Tick, tock
"Uh… N-nothing!" you try to tell him, quickly trying to think of another topic to distract from your probably reddening face. "A-anyways, what did you want to do with me?"
Tick, tock
"Whatever you say," he shoots back brightly, raising his eyebrows questioningly. "But anyways, with you we're actually going to pick up from where we left off last time… in a sense."
Tick, tock
"I-in a sense?" you repeat after him. Does this mean you won't practice more telekinesis?
Tick, tock
"In a sense," he confirms. "We're going to be working with your general enchantment abilities, as I think you'll be able to get the most mileage out of that with me. You've figured out things to use your personal powers on your own pretty well, I'd say. The end goal here requires a lot of basic stuff being mastered, though, so the things we'll go over might be a bit boring to you."
Tick, tock
Why would that-
Tick, tock
"The end result is very much worth it, though," the man's amused voice appears behind you, followed by a short bout of laughter. You hastily turn around to see the man standing there, cigarette in his mouth, while he gazes over your shoulders at his… clone?
Tick, tock
"Maa~, you certainly look surprised," he notes as the original one in front of you begins to fuzz out like the static in an old TV, before it vanishes entirely alongside the footprints in the snow leading to it. When you look at the more thoroughly, something actually did seem to be a bit off about them... "You won't be getting to that level of finesse any time soon, I fear, but I think we can get you down to making a minor figment within a meter or two in a couple of sessions? Provided you're willing to put in the work, of course."
Tick, tock
What do you do?

[] Question time! Talk with Tamiko's uncle.

[] Just let's get it over with here, and move on to Tamiko.

[] Write-in.

===


Okay, unlike the last few other updates, this one took longer because of RL stuff such as trips and health, rather people deciding not to vote. Still, have at thee.
 
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