- Location
- Painting, Peach's Castle
We're playing Crusader Kings while Rabiroo is playing Starcraft II.
She has a significant speed advantage, but also is under constant threat of her Hatcheries being slaughtered.
Usagi Quest (CK3/Princess Maker) (Sailor Moon)
We're playing Crusader Kings while Rabiroo is playing Starcraft II.
She has a significant speed advantage, but also is under constant threat of her Hatcheries being slaughtered.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Rabiroo: "Even now, in hindsight, I have absolutely no idea why relocating my base of operations to South Korea turned out so badly..."
Facing Your Fears Part 3
Lunaryon
Dual Aurora Wave
- Pronouns
- She/Her
"I... I don't have a daughter." The man says, haltingly, starting to close the door. Then his voice picks up speed. "I'm-sorry-please-leave."
"We both know better than that, Mr. Aino. Minako is staying with my family right now." Usagi says, not quite lying, but not telling the truth either. Artemis and Luna are all but family now, after all. "And she says that you wouldn't even speak to her," Usagi continues, locking the man down with a sharp glare. "And I can keep this up all evening. Knocking on the door over and over."
"I'll... I'll call the police..." The man says, but he has stopped, with little if any conviction left in his voice, and a worried look on his face.
"And what would the neighbors think of that, Mr. Aino? Just let me in, answer my questions, and then we can both go our separate ways soon enough." And that turns the tide. The man glances away, closes his eyes for a long moment, and sighs. Stepping back, he allows the door to swing the rest of the way open.
"Very well." the father of the Aino family says, bitterly, angrily. "Come on in."
"I'm sorry that it had to come to this." Usagi says truthfully, looking at the man with a quiet look of her own, "But you know Minako... She can be very stubborn." There was a part of Usagi that had hopped saying that would break some of the tension, and help clear the air between the two before the most complicated part of all of this started...
No dice.
It looks like this conversation is going to continue to be as... difficult as Usagi had feared.
The first thing that Usagi notices as she steps through the Aino family's front door and into the house itself is something utterly mundane. Just after the Genken, there's a flight of stairs heading up to the second floor on the left. Directly across from the stairs is the kitchen on the right. The floorplan is both familiar and foreign to Usagi.
Because if you were to step through the front door of the Tsukino home, you would find stairs on the right and the kitchen to the left. Minako's family home is all but identical to Usagi's own, simply mirrored.
As Usagi follows Minako's father further into the house, the girl's eyes trail over the walls. There are a few pictures, but only a handful, impeccably placed in a distinct pattern that Usagi swears that she's seen before. And this same wall is used for pictures in the Tsukino home, but unlike the careful four-frame arrangement here, the Picture Wall in the Tsukino home is a beautiful mess. Pictures of all shapes and sizes and sorts are stuffed onto a single wall organized just however they fit together into a collage of the Tsukino family and their life together.
These four lonely pictures are more like the kinds of things that Usagi might see in one of those mail order magazines selling fancy picture frames or those weird knickknacks that old people collect. Like those silly little signs that have haikus on them or... Actually...
Glancing over towards the kitchen, Usagi spots the exact sign that she had just been thinking of, in the exact place she'd expected.
That's what this is.
Everything about this house looks just like a page of a catalog, or something right out of a showroom floor. The Aino household looks nice and respectable, but at second glance something's missing. The decorations are shallow, as if they're only there because they're supposed to be, like someone checked them off on a checklist.
Usagi looks into the kitchen more closely as she passes. The layout's a mirror of home, but she almost doesn't recognize it. It's too... pure. Perfect. It couldn't look more different than home. It's all stainless steel and marble. There's not a single magnet on the refrigerator. Not a single dirty dish waiting to be loaded into the dishwasher. Not a single bottle or jar or shaker of anything anywhere that's out of place, not even by a fraction, to suggest that someone's actually used it. Everything looks so carefully lined up that it might have been glued in place for a showroom photograph. And everything is so clean that it sparkles and shines. There isn't a sense of character here, of life and all the tribulations that come with living. No stains on the cabinet doors where a little boy accidentally knocked over a pot of spaghetti and got so much pasta sauce everywhere that it never really came out all the way.
Usagi continues to follow Mr. Aino into the so-perfectly appointed living room. There's no crayon marks along the doorframe, that could have been washed away, but never were, marking children's heights year by year. There's no little divot where a little girl accidentally put a hole in the wallpaper with a bow and arrow she made out of craft supplies. None of that, no. There aren't even little hints of dust at the corners of the room where someone tried their best to sweep it all up, but didn't quite manage to get it all. Instead, the house is pristine and perfectly clean, like a child's dollhouse before the child gets ahold of it.
Part of Usagi is so nervous about being here. Everything seems so fake and so thin. Is it even real? Would it crumble at a touch? But Mr. Aino motions, stiffly, and Usagi takes it as a sign to sit down. She picks the chair that seems obviously right, or at least the least wrong. And Mr. Aino, settling down onto the couch, suddenly looks at Usagi as though he has no idea how she got there. Or, no... he's looking through her with haunted, hollow eyes, as if he's seeing someone else entirely, someone impossibly far away that just happens to be in exactly the same direction as her. He winces and shakes his head.
"...You had questions for me?" He asks, and it is so very clear to Usagi that this man doesn't want to answer anything.
"It's been ten days now since Minako tried to contact you. You... You turned her away at the door, refusing to even speak to her." Usagi says, turning her gaze towards the man.
Mr. Aino flinches back, glancing down and away, refusing to meet Usagi's eyes. "That... I have done no such thing." He says simply, but there is no heat to his words, no strength or confidence. "I was at work at the time that happened."
Which isn't much of an explanation. "So then why would your wife have refused to see her daughter?"
"I don't think that I can say much about what Ayaki was thinking." Mr. Aino's words are flat, stripped-down, like a reluctant student reading them off a page without understanding why they were being said.
Usagi finds herself stymied, for the first time, by someone who is just utterly refusing to actually try and connect with her. He's sitting there, barely answering her questions, exhibiting all the strength and life of a dead fish. She truly struggles for words for a moment. "So... what? You don't know what your wife is thinking?"
Mr. Aino's eyes close. He takes a deep breath. Then he opens them again, and for the first time his words show a faint hint of life. Not a happy life, though. "I know that it might seem unlikely to someone as young as you. But many relationships are built by people who don't always understand one another. Perhaps even most..."
That... That is something. Usagi can't say for certain that she knows what it is, but it still isn't an answer. Not an actual one. Usagi pauses again, trying to find a different approach. Something that might make Mr. Aino actually say something that helps her try and understand what's happened here.
"You were working at the time?"
"I was."
Usagi has heard all sorts of fiery affirmations, enthusiastic 'yesses'. This... This wasn't anything like that. If anything, the man's answer is so barely there, lacking any life to it that Usagi struggles to try and find a way forwards.
"When I last spoke with Minako, she mentioned that you work for the Sustainable Happiness Organization, but not what you do for the company." Usagi starts, watching the way that the man flinches just a little at another poking reminder of the daughter that the Aino family seems to be dedicated to forgetting. "I can't say that I recognize the name of the company. There's something familiar about it though..."
There is a flicker of light in the man's eyes, the slightest hint of positive life seeming to rise up in him. "Even after she abandoned us, she still tells people about my work?" He mutters those words more to himself than to Usagi, but that's fine. It's a step forwards, a step closer to the bottom of this mystery.
Usagi waits a moment, and a faint sad smile begins to tug at Mr. Aino's lips. "I'm not surprised that you don't recognize the name of the company. It's become something of an inside joke. You're a girl, but if you're like-" his teeth click shut- "ah, perhaps you know about the series Kamen Rider anyway?"
The odd question leaves Usagi tilting her head in surprise. Mr. Aino flinches again and looks away for some reason, then goes on with what he was saying. "The villains of the series are, as I understand it, a secret evil society with a name that spells out the acronym 'SHOCKER.' Short for, oh, what was it... 'Sacred Hegemony Of... something something Evolutionary Realm,' I believe."
"Cycle Kindred." Usagi supplies the words automatically.
Mr. Aino flinches again, closing his eyes and taking another deep breath. "That's right... that's exactly right. Yes. That would have been twenty years ago, give or take a little. Somehow, there was a mixup with the trademark office paperwork, it seems. Because Mr. Tsukamoto, the founder of the firm I work for, had already named his business the Sustainable Happiness Organization for Computational Knowledge, Embedment, and Remodeling three years earlier. This was just before I joined the firm. But as I understand it, there was a meeting of the lawyers after which Mr. Tsukamoto decided..." Mr. Aino's face locks down a bit. "Decided that he did not wish to cause any disruption with a court dispute. All things considered, it's worked out rather well. We don't use the acronym except when some of the staff or the customers want to tell jokes. Toei Company gets to go on making what is, I gather, a very successful franchise. And our firm carries on its business of installing, servicing, repairing, and upgrading cybernetic control, enterprise management, and business operations computer systems in the greater Tokyo area." He shrugs.
Usagi blinks, trying to process that last sentence. The jargon's sometimes thicker with Yotsuba Group lawyers, but that was... something.
What that something is, Usagi isn't sure because it still doesn't really answer anything.
"That sounds pretty complicated. Minako was right to be proud of you." Usagi says. She isn't even sure if she's trying to twist the knife or if she just wants to make sure that Mr. Aino truly understands what he has thrown away. Maybe, in the end, those are the same things.
Mr. Aino pauses for a moment, about to say something. Then he shivers ever so slightly, blinks, and shakes his head. "Is that all that you wanted to know?"
Usagi can't help but frown. "So far you've avoided really answering any of my questions." Usagi points out. "You've just been running away from it all."
Apart from the tiniest hint of an expression here and there, Mr. Aino's face has been an iron mask. Now the iron folds into a scowl. "And who are you to say what I'm doing, under my own roof?"
That might have been pushing just a little too far, asking for a little too much.
Though not more than he deserves, Usagi thinks to herself.
Usagi takes a deep breath. "I'm someone who noticed that there isn't a single picture of your daughter on the walls. I'm someone you threatened to call the police on just because I'm asking questions that you don't want to answer and don't want to face."
There is definitely something wrong here. The problem is that the girl can't say for certain if it has anything to do with the supernatural. This all might not be magical at all... Which, if anything just makes all of this harder for Usagi to understand. Because this being something normal, something that can happen naturally... That just boggles Usagi's mind. She can't imagine any parent willingly acting like this. It wouldn't matter what happened, Usagi knows that her family would always be there for her, always wanting and willing to accept her with open arms and kind hearts.
"I'm just trying to figure out what the hell is going on here." Usagi finally hisses, "Trying to understand why you are so willing to throw away what other people would die for. What other people would kill for."
Endymion certainly wouldn't kill anyone to try and get his new family back... But Jadeite has long since proved that he's not only willing, but able to kill in order to try and fix what he thinks he broke.
Maybe there is something in the girl's voice right then, but Mr. Aino's face simply collapses in on itself. "If that is the way that you feel, then you can just leave. I've... said enough. I do not want you in my home. I do not..."
And now there's an expression on Mr. Aino's face for more than a split second. And it's pain. Pain and bafflement.
And something clicks in Usagi's mind. As though Mr. Aino was a book she'd been trying to hold right-side up, only to realize all the text inside is upside down. Everything starts to make a little more sense. Not a lot, but a little.
Usagi's newest dear friend seems to know no other way out of her problems but forward. Minako keeps going when she really, really ought to stop. She hides her wounds as best she can and charges in again and again. She took a spar against Makoto so seriously that she didn't even stop for a broken rib. She fought the Dark Kingdom alone for over a year and halfway around the world, even as her home life fell apart around her ears and faded away into a painful memory.
Even when the stakes aren't life and death and magical combat... Master Fives seems, if anything, even worse at figuring out when to stop or how to back down. Come to think of it, he always did, even as a little technically-not-a-boy.
And there's more. Minako takes loyalty to places Usagi can hardly imagine. All Usagi's Senshi have that yours-till-death-and-then-some look in their eyes from time to time, and she still doesn't entirely know how she feels about it. But Minako's the one who can make that feeling look truly desperate from time to time.
Minako doesn't admit mistakes quickly or easily, and doesn't seem likely or ready to reverse course. Except, perhaps, for a direct order from her princess.
Is that tendency, and all the details that come with it, an inheritance from the long-dead ancientShukra of Venus? Or is this something that Minako learned a least a little of in this life? And if she did, then who did she learn it from?
Usagi, now that she's come to know Minako, can easily imagine the girl feeling locked in, honor-bound to keep making painful decisions again and again. Especially if she felt like she'd be betraying something by admitting how impossible the situation was, how bad the choices were.
That is something that Usagi can imagine with an almost worrying ease. Not exactly like this, of course - Minako would never, not in a thousand thousand years, do something like this to a daughter of hers. But somehow, in some other way, the girl could easily end up trapped against her own feelings and stubbornness. End up starting to crack and lose herself between those cruel hard places and the rocks they press her against. Trying, uselessly, to muddle through by working her way out of a problem with the same methods that worked her way into it.
Something like that could happen to Minako.
Could it have happened to Minako's father?
Mr. Aino has been silent, his reserve broken enough to allow a deep stain of dark bitterness to cross his face, for long moments. At last, he looks up to the wall beside Usagi, who turns her head to follow his gaze. He's looking at a clock. Shivering a little, and closing his eyes, as if in pain. When he finally begins to speak at all, he speaks slowly, mechanically.
"Miss Tsukino. I understand that you want answers for what happened, but my wife is going to be home from the store soon. Any minute now. You've... You've said enough. Several times over already. I... Just... Please go. Leave us in peace."
Usagi is quiet for a long moment, before she opens her mouth.
[ ][Aino] Leave, for now
- "Okay, I'll go. For today." Usagi says, making sure to catch his eyes with her own. "But I want you to know two things. The first is that I am going to come back, again and again until I get to the bottom of all of this." Usagi says, rising to her feet and walking towards the door, pausing only for a moment to glance back to Mr. Aino. "The second is that Minako still loves you. She's just too scared to try and reach out again."
-- Completes Action [CONFRONT THE AINO FAMILY]
-- Unlocks Personal Action [Meet Ayaki Aino]
[ ][Aino] Get out of here
- There are a lot of things that Usagi has learned today, and it is clear that there isn't going to be anything more that she can learn here. Not while Mr. Aino is here. "Very well, sir." Usagi says with a sigh, shaking her head. "I just hope that you realize how badly this is hurting her, and how it is clearly hurting you too."
-- Completes Action [CONFRONT THE AINO FAMILY]
-- Unlocks Minako Personal Action [Meet with your Princess
[ ][Aino] Muddle on Through
- "I'm Sorry... I just... I can't do that. Not yet." Usagi says. For all that it seems that the way that Minako acts can be the wrong thing, there are times when trying to muddle through and refusing to give up in the face of pain and suffering is actually the right move. Right here and now, Usagi thinks that this might be one of those time. Mr. Aino might think that a salaryman's dogged inflexibility might be enough to drive away the princess of the Moon. But it isn't, especially not with the shattered hears of one of her knights, her friends, at stake. There is nothing that will stop Usagi from reaching the truth.
"We both know better than that, Mr. Aino. Minako is staying with my family right now." Usagi says, not quite lying, but not telling the truth either. Artemis and Luna are all but family now, after all. "And she says that you wouldn't even speak to her," Usagi continues, locking the man down with a sharp glare. "And I can keep this up all evening. Knocking on the door over and over."
"I'll... I'll call the police..." The man says, but he has stopped, with little if any conviction left in his voice, and a worried look on his face.
"And what would the neighbors think of that, Mr. Aino? Just let me in, answer my questions, and then we can both go our separate ways soon enough." And that turns the tide. The man glances away, closes his eyes for a long moment, and sighs. Stepping back, he allows the door to swing the rest of the way open.
"Very well." the father of the Aino family says, bitterly, angrily. "Come on in."
"I'm sorry that it had to come to this." Usagi says truthfully, looking at the man with a quiet look of her own, "But you know Minako... She can be very stubborn." There was a part of Usagi that had hopped saying that would break some of the tension, and help clear the air between the two before the most complicated part of all of this started...
No dice.
It looks like this conversation is going to continue to be as... difficult as Usagi had feared.
USAGI == 1d10 + DIP - Looks like Minako - Don't Know You - Mentions She Who is Gone - Conflicted Shame - Double Down on Decisions = 4 + 23 - 2 - 2 - 2 - 2 - 4 = 15
[BARE FAILURE]
CONVERSATION REDIRECT = DC 21 = 1d10 + Dip - Conflicted Shame - Double Down on Decisions = 3 + 23 - 6 = 20
[BARE FAILURE]
[BARE FAILURE]
CONVERSATION REDIRECT = DC 21 = 1d10 + Dip - Conflicted Shame - Double Down on Decisions = 3 + 23 - 6 = 20
[BARE FAILURE]
Because if you were to step through the front door of the Tsukino home, you would find stairs on the right and the kitchen to the left. Minako's family home is all but identical to Usagi's own, simply mirrored.
As Usagi follows Minako's father further into the house, the girl's eyes trail over the walls. There are a few pictures, but only a handful, impeccably placed in a distinct pattern that Usagi swears that she's seen before. And this same wall is used for pictures in the Tsukino home, but unlike the careful four-frame arrangement here, the Picture Wall in the Tsukino home is a beautiful mess. Pictures of all shapes and sizes and sorts are stuffed onto a single wall organized just however they fit together into a collage of the Tsukino family and their life together.
These four lonely pictures are more like the kinds of things that Usagi might see in one of those mail order magazines selling fancy picture frames or those weird knickknacks that old people collect. Like those silly little signs that have haikus on them or... Actually...
Glancing over towards the kitchen, Usagi spots the exact sign that she had just been thinking of, in the exact place she'd expected.
That's what this is.
Everything about this house looks just like a page of a catalog, or something right out of a showroom floor. The Aino household looks nice and respectable, but at second glance something's missing. The decorations are shallow, as if they're only there because they're supposed to be, like someone checked them off on a checklist.
Usagi looks into the kitchen more closely as she passes. The layout's a mirror of home, but she almost doesn't recognize it. It's too... pure. Perfect. It couldn't look more different than home. It's all stainless steel and marble. There's not a single magnet on the refrigerator. Not a single dirty dish waiting to be loaded into the dishwasher. Not a single bottle or jar or shaker of anything anywhere that's out of place, not even by a fraction, to suggest that someone's actually used it. Everything looks so carefully lined up that it might have been glued in place for a showroom photograph. And everything is so clean that it sparkles and shines. There isn't a sense of character here, of life and all the tribulations that come with living. No stains on the cabinet doors where a little boy accidentally knocked over a pot of spaghetti and got so much pasta sauce everywhere that it never really came out all the way.
Usagi continues to follow Mr. Aino into the so-perfectly appointed living room. There's no crayon marks along the doorframe, that could have been washed away, but never were, marking children's heights year by year. There's no little divot where a little girl accidentally put a hole in the wallpaper with a bow and arrow she made out of craft supplies. None of that, no. There aren't even little hints of dust at the corners of the room where someone tried their best to sweep it all up, but didn't quite manage to get it all. Instead, the house is pristine and perfectly clean, like a child's dollhouse before the child gets ahold of it.
Part of Usagi is so nervous about being here. Everything seems so fake and so thin. Is it even real? Would it crumble at a touch? But Mr. Aino motions, stiffly, and Usagi takes it as a sign to sit down. She picks the chair that seems obviously right, or at least the least wrong. And Mr. Aino, settling down onto the couch, suddenly looks at Usagi as though he has no idea how she got there. Or, no... he's looking through her with haunted, hollow eyes, as if he's seeing someone else entirely, someone impossibly far away that just happens to be in exactly the same direction as her. He winces and shakes his head.
"...You had questions for me?" He asks, and it is so very clear to Usagi that this man doesn't want to answer anything.
"It's been ten days now since Minako tried to contact you. You... You turned her away at the door, refusing to even speak to her." Usagi says, turning her gaze towards the man.
Mr. Aino flinches back, glancing down and away, refusing to meet Usagi's eyes. "That... I have done no such thing." He says simply, but there is no heat to his words, no strength or confidence. "I was at work at the time that happened."
Which isn't much of an explanation. "So then why would your wife have refused to see her daughter?"
"I don't think that I can say much about what Ayaki was thinking." Mr. Aino's words are flat, stripped-down, like a reluctant student reading them off a page without understanding why they were being said.
Usagi finds herself stymied, for the first time, by someone who is just utterly refusing to actually try and connect with her. He's sitting there, barely answering her questions, exhibiting all the strength and life of a dead fish. She truly struggles for words for a moment. "So... what? You don't know what your wife is thinking?"
Mr. Aino's eyes close. He takes a deep breath. Then he opens them again, and for the first time his words show a faint hint of life. Not a happy life, though. "I know that it might seem unlikely to someone as young as you. But many relationships are built by people who don't always understand one another. Perhaps even most..."
That... That is something. Usagi can't say for certain that she knows what it is, but it still isn't an answer. Not an actual one. Usagi pauses again, trying to find a different approach. Something that might make Mr. Aino actually say something that helps her try and understand what's happened here.
"You were working at the time?"
"I was."
Usagi has heard all sorts of fiery affirmations, enthusiastic 'yesses'. This... This wasn't anything like that. If anything, the man's answer is so barely there, lacking any life to it that Usagi struggles to try and find a way forwards.
"When I last spoke with Minako, she mentioned that you work for the Sustainable Happiness Organization, but not what you do for the company." Usagi starts, watching the way that the man flinches just a little at another poking reminder of the daughter that the Aino family seems to be dedicated to forgetting. "I can't say that I recognize the name of the company. There's something familiar about it though..."
There is a flicker of light in the man's eyes, the slightest hint of positive life seeming to rise up in him. "Even after she abandoned us, she still tells people about my work?" He mutters those words more to himself than to Usagi, but that's fine. It's a step forwards, a step closer to the bottom of this mystery.
Usagi waits a moment, and a faint sad smile begins to tug at Mr. Aino's lips. "I'm not surprised that you don't recognize the name of the company. It's become something of an inside joke. You're a girl, but if you're like-" his teeth click shut- "ah, perhaps you know about the series Kamen Rider anyway?"
The odd question leaves Usagi tilting her head in surprise. Mr. Aino flinches again and looks away for some reason, then goes on with what he was saying. "The villains of the series are, as I understand it, a secret evil society with a name that spells out the acronym 'SHOCKER.' Short for, oh, what was it... 'Sacred Hegemony Of... something something Evolutionary Realm,' I believe."
"Cycle Kindred." Usagi supplies the words automatically.
Mr. Aino flinches again, closing his eyes and taking another deep breath. "That's right... that's exactly right. Yes. That would have been twenty years ago, give or take a little. Somehow, there was a mixup with the trademark office paperwork, it seems. Because Mr. Tsukamoto, the founder of the firm I work for, had already named his business the Sustainable Happiness Organization for Computational Knowledge, Embedment, and Remodeling three years earlier. This was just before I joined the firm. But as I understand it, there was a meeting of the lawyers after which Mr. Tsukamoto decided..." Mr. Aino's face locks down a bit. "Decided that he did not wish to cause any disruption with a court dispute. All things considered, it's worked out rather well. We don't use the acronym except when some of the staff or the customers want to tell jokes. Toei Company gets to go on making what is, I gather, a very successful franchise. And our firm carries on its business of installing, servicing, repairing, and upgrading cybernetic control, enterprise management, and business operations computer systems in the greater Tokyo area." He shrugs.
Usagi blinks, trying to process that last sentence. The jargon's sometimes thicker with Yotsuba Group lawyers, but that was... something.
What that something is, Usagi isn't sure because it still doesn't really answer anything.
"That sounds pretty complicated. Minako was right to be proud of you." Usagi says. She isn't even sure if she's trying to twist the knife or if she just wants to make sure that Mr. Aino truly understands what he has thrown away. Maybe, in the end, those are the same things.
Mr. Aino pauses for a moment, about to say something. Then he shivers ever so slightly, blinks, and shakes his head. "Is that all that you wanted to know?"
Usagi can't help but frown. "So far you've avoided really answering any of my questions." Usagi points out. "You've just been running away from it all."
Apart from the tiniest hint of an expression here and there, Mr. Aino's face has been an iron mask. Now the iron folds into a scowl. "And who are you to say what I'm doing, under my own roof?"
That might have been pushing just a little too far, asking for a little too much.
Though not more than he deserves, Usagi thinks to herself.
Usagi takes a deep breath. "I'm someone who noticed that there isn't a single picture of your daughter on the walls. I'm someone you threatened to call the police on just because I'm asking questions that you don't want to answer and don't want to face."
There is definitely something wrong here. The problem is that the girl can't say for certain if it has anything to do with the supernatural. This all might not be magical at all... Which, if anything just makes all of this harder for Usagi to understand. Because this being something normal, something that can happen naturally... That just boggles Usagi's mind. She can't imagine any parent willingly acting like this. It wouldn't matter what happened, Usagi knows that her family would always be there for her, always wanting and willing to accept her with open arms and kind hearts.
"I'm just trying to figure out what the hell is going on here." Usagi finally hisses, "Trying to understand why you are so willing to throw away what other people would die for. What other people would kill for."
Endymion certainly wouldn't kill anyone to try and get his new family back... But Jadeite has long since proved that he's not only willing, but able to kill in order to try and fix what he thinks he broke.
Maybe there is something in the girl's voice right then, but Mr. Aino's face simply collapses in on itself. "If that is the way that you feel, then you can just leave. I've... said enough. I do not want you in my home. I do not..."
And now there's an expression on Mr. Aino's face for more than a split second. And it's pain. Pain and bafflement.
And something clicks in Usagi's mind. As though Mr. Aino was a book she'd been trying to hold right-side up, only to realize all the text inside is upside down. Everything starts to make a little more sense. Not a lot, but a little.
Usagi's newest dear friend seems to know no other way out of her problems but forward. Minako keeps going when she really, really ought to stop. She hides her wounds as best she can and charges in again and again. She took a spar against Makoto so seriously that she didn't even stop for a broken rib. She fought the Dark Kingdom alone for over a year and halfway around the world, even as her home life fell apart around her ears and faded away into a painful memory.
Even when the stakes aren't life and death and magical combat... Master Fives seems, if anything, even worse at figuring out when to stop or how to back down. Come to think of it, he always did, even as a little technically-not-a-boy.
And there's more. Minako takes loyalty to places Usagi can hardly imagine. All Usagi's Senshi have that yours-till-death-and-then-some look in their eyes from time to time, and she still doesn't entirely know how she feels about it. But Minako's the one who can make that feeling look truly desperate from time to time.
Minako doesn't admit mistakes quickly or easily, and doesn't seem likely or ready to reverse course. Except, perhaps, for a direct order from her princess.
Is that tendency, and all the details that come with it, an inheritance from the long-dead ancient
Usagi, now that she's come to know Minako, can easily imagine the girl feeling locked in, honor-bound to keep making painful decisions again and again. Especially if she felt like she'd be betraying something by admitting how impossible the situation was, how bad the choices were.
That is something that Usagi can imagine with an almost worrying ease. Not exactly like this, of course - Minako would never, not in a thousand thousand years, do something like this to a daughter of hers. But somehow, in some other way, the girl could easily end up trapped against her own feelings and stubbornness. End up starting to crack and lose herself between those cruel hard places and the rocks they press her against. Trying, uselessly, to muddle through by working her way out of a problem with the same methods that worked her way into it.
Something like that could happen to Minako.
Could it have happened to Minako's father?
Mr. Aino has been silent, his reserve broken enough to allow a deep stain of dark bitterness to cross his face, for long moments. At last, he looks up to the wall beside Usagi, who turns her head to follow his gaze. He's looking at a clock. Shivering a little, and closing his eyes, as if in pain. When he finally begins to speak at all, he speaks slowly, mechanically.
"Miss Tsukino. I understand that you want answers for what happened, but my wife is going to be home from the store soon. Any minute now. You've... You've said enough. Several times over already. I... Just... Please go. Leave us in peace."
Usagi is quiet for a long moment, before she opens her mouth.
[ ][Aino] Leave, for now
- "Okay, I'll go. For today." Usagi says, making sure to catch his eyes with her own. "But I want you to know two things. The first is that I am going to come back, again and again until I get to the bottom of all of this." Usagi says, rising to her feet and walking towards the door, pausing only for a moment to glance back to Mr. Aino. "The second is that Minako still loves you. She's just too scared to try and reach out again."
-- Completes Action [CONFRONT THE AINO FAMILY]
-- Unlocks Personal Action [Meet Ayaki Aino]
[ ][Aino] Get out of here
- There are a lot of things that Usagi has learned today, and it is clear that there isn't going to be anything more that she can learn here. Not while Mr. Aino is here. "Very well, sir." Usagi says with a sigh, shaking her head. "I just hope that you realize how badly this is hurting her, and how it is clearly hurting you too."
-- Completes Action [CONFRONT THE AINO FAMILY]
-- Unlocks Minako Personal Action [Meet with your Princess
[ ][Aino] Muddle on Through
- "I'm Sorry... I just... I can't do that. Not yet." Usagi says. For all that it seems that the way that Minako acts can be the wrong thing, there are times when trying to muddle through and refusing to give up in the face of pain and suffering is actually the right move. Right here and now, Usagi thinks that this might be one of those time. Mr. Aino might think that a salaryman's dogged inflexibility might be enough to drive away the princess of the Moon. But it isn't, especially not with the shattered hears of one of her knights, her friends, at stake. There is nothing that will stop Usagi from reaching the truth.
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bdun140
I have ideas. Sometimes they're even good.
So the important thing here, or one of them anyway, is that we don't have to worry about SHOCKER producing monsters of the week without a Kamen Rider to oppose them. Not yet, at least. Everything else, I leave to people who's brains are currently braining.
FictionPack
Monochromatic Ursine
- Location
- Tennessee
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X][Ain] Muddle on Through
Not getting rid of us that easy, we can even just wait for her to get home outside while not on their property if we must.
Not getting rid of us that easy, we can even just wait for her to get home outside while not on their property if we must.
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- Location
- Pittsburgh PA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh boy, that was a scene. Well, I'm torn, part of me wants to see this... thing of a "family" to its conclusion... the rest just wants to have someone draw up adoption papers for Minako.
Also had to double-check it but cybernetics in a technical use of the word rather than the common use means a circular regulatory system.
Bah, having thought for a bit really should see things through.
[X][Aino] Muddle on Through
Also had to double-check it but cybernetics in a technical use of the word rather than the common use means a circular regulatory system.
Bah, having thought for a bit really should see things through.
[X][Aino] Muddle on Through
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[X][Aino] Muddle on Through
- Location
- Peterborough, NH, USA
[X][Aino] Muddle on Through
I say we meet with the wife. If she turns out to be as garbage as I'm assuming from Minako and her father's comments, we wash our hands of this as clearly everyone involved lacks the emotional maturity for it to be salvageable, but we can't say we've talked to her parents when we only talked to the singular parent.
I say we meet with the wife. If she turns out to be as garbage as I'm assuming from Minako and her father's comments, we wash our hands of this as clearly everyone involved lacks the emotional maturity for it to be salvageable, but we can't say we've talked to her parents when we only talked to the singular parent.
- Pronouns
- He/They
[X][Aino] Muddle on Through
[X][Aino] Leave, for now
I don't find "get out of here" an acceptable option at all, although I do prefer staying.
[X][Aino] Leave, for now
I don't find "get out of here" an acceptable option at all, although I do prefer staying.
- Location
- Louisville, KY
[X][Aino] Muddle on Through
[X][Ain] Muddle on Through
as ALL MIGHT says, thats the essence of a hero!
though id rather just keep Minako to our selves. this is shitty.
as ALL MIGHT says, thats the essence of a hero!
though id rather just keep Minako to our selves. this is shitty.
- Location
- USA
It really feels like something bad happened here. Everything is fake.
Feels like mind control or something.
Feels like mind control or something.
- Location
- England, unfortunately.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Nah, Im thinking unless we see someone, this was just meant as a reference. Kamen Rider isn't a part of this setting.
Minakos parents are just bad parents.
Edit: Like, I suspect Kamen Rider in this universe is based off of something that happened in the past, but I don't think it's going to be relevant to this in any way at all. It was just meant to be a refernce to throw us off the fact that Minako's parents just need to burn.
Really I think we should probably just not read into references at this point.
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- Pronouns
- He/They
Something does feel bad but it could be just mundane family problems instead of anything supernatural.
[X][Aino] Muddle on Through
Never try to out stubborn someone who refused to learn her kanji for over 1000 years.
Never try to out stubborn someone who refused to learn her kanji for over 1000 years.
Spart117MC
Amateur human
- Location
- Cali
You should listen to some of the childhood stories my aunts and uncles have about my grandma. This here reads to me like perfectly mundane human dysfunction.
[X][Ain] Muddle on Through
[X][Aino] Muddle on Through
-[] Drop some keywords to eliminate some possibilities right off the bat, do it in an upfront manner, (MCAT, Precure, Onogoro, [insert list of other keywords])
We are obviously hunting, and this may be mundane, but there are several names that could be said that won't give away the senshi game, but could clue one side or the other into things. A basic investigation could easily discover that we are involved in magic already. MCAT, Onogoro, Precure. He's pretty much an open book with his reactions, and just saying the names could get a visible reaction if we are on point. Or the fact he does not react strongly (other than puzzlement) could eliminate them.
There are likely a few other keywords we could include using IC knowledge.
Basically... this is the diplomatic equivalent of trying to cut the Gordian knot. As long as we are upfront, it can stop a lot of dancing around on the subject with little chance of backlash. And what backlash could happen would already be likely to happen in the end if we don't take the route. Or nothing could happen and none of the keywords are tied to the Aino family reasons.
-[] Drop some keywords to eliminate some possibilities right off the bat, do it in an upfront manner, (MCAT, Precure, Onogoro, [insert list of other keywords])
We are obviously hunting, and this may be mundane, but there are several names that could be said that won't give away the senshi game, but could clue one side or the other into things. A basic investigation could easily discover that we are involved in magic already. MCAT, Onogoro, Precure. He's pretty much an open book with his reactions, and just saying the names could get a visible reaction if we are on point. Or the fact he does not react strongly (other than puzzlement) could eliminate them.
There are likely a few other keywords we could include using IC knowledge.
Basically... this is the diplomatic equivalent of trying to cut the Gordian knot. As long as we are upfront, it can stop a lot of dancing around on the subject with little chance of backlash. And what backlash could happen would already be likely to happen in the end if we don't take the route. Or nothing could happen and none of the keywords are tied to the Aino family reasons.
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- Location
- USA
[x][Aino] Leave, for now
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
That's not enough time to learn them all, though?
[X][Ain] Muddle on Through
Pain is unavoidable at this point. We can only choose why it will hurt.
diesel366
To infect the stars with devastation
- Location
- Australia
[X][Aino] Get out of here
- There are a lot of things that Usagi has learned today, and it is clear that there isn't going to be anything more that she can learn here. Not while Mr. Aino is here. "Very well, sir." Usagi says with a sigh, shaking her head. "I just hope that you realize how badly this is hurting her, and how it is clearly hurting you too."
-- Completes Action [CONFRONT THE AINO FAMILY]
-- Unlocks Minako Personal Action [Meet with your Princess
- There are a lot of things that Usagi has learned today, and it is clear that there isn't going to be anything more that she can learn here. Not while Mr. Aino is here. "Very well, sir." Usagi says with a sigh, shaking her head. "I just hope that you realize how badly this is hurting her, and how it is clearly hurting you too."
-- Completes Action [CONFRONT THE AINO FAMILY]
-- Unlocks Minako Personal Action [Meet with your Princess
Ace of Scarabs
Mechanoid Pilot
- Location
- Singapore
[X][Aino] Muddle on Through
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
He obviously has a pretty good guess, despite the human limitation he spoke of.