205/Discharged!

Discharged!
Date of Scene:	21 July 2015
Location:	Mitakihara - Mitakihara General
Synopsis:	Reiko gets out of the hospital. Talks to Ikiko to get things of each other's chest.
Cast of Characters:	Reiko Touyama, Ikiko Hisakata

---

Reiko Touyama has posed:
Fresh Air! Reiko Touyama steps out of the hospital with a spin on the step!...then she clutches her side for a moment. Like what she just did was the most horrible idea. She's going to still be hurting for another day, but at least she's able to go home now! Though, she's waiting for her grandfather to come pick her up. It'll be an hour or so because travel by bus isn't super fast.

She sits on the steps outside, near the edge as she waits. She leans her head against the side of the rails. Ikiko most likely, got out the same time she did. Or earlier, or maybe a little late. But regardless, she turns to her lupine friend and says. "Um... I dunno. If I said it. But thank you for coming with me the other night. I--- I'd be dead. Or worse..." she looks down a moment. "and then..it'd just be Red standing against Griselda." she says a litle softly.

She blushes a bit. "How did.. you take out the Shade, anyways?..." she asks.

Ikiko Hisakata has posed:
Ikiko Hisakata had gotten out a while earlier, but had been told to come back for a follow-up checkup today; her recovery had gone surprisingly well, and the doctors just wanted to make sure that it wasn't a fluke.

She gives Reiko a gentle hug. "After it zapped me, I was able to sense the... I'd guess you could call it the 'core' of the Shade," she explains. "It seemed lost and confused, like a little wild animal. And sometimes a gentle song is good for calming animals, so... that's what I tried, and it apparently worked!"

She sighs, looking thoughtful. "It's about all I had energy left for," she admits, wincing in recollection.

Reiko Touyama has posed:
Reiko Touyama thinks. "That makes sense..." she says as she closes her eyes, and looks down. "... Shades are real... Prism Keepers are real... Griselda is real. I... wonder if that means.. the Monochrome Duo is too...." she says as she shivers. "Those would be.. Griselda's two Lieutenants. Just... if you see a sharply dressed man in black... and a sharply dressed woman in white who.. uh. Drain Color. That's probably them. Mrs. White and Mr. Black." she says.

She looks down as she's hugged. She manages to hug back though.

"I'm really scared now Ikiko...." she finally admits.

"Griselda will get me eventually at this rate. I.. we got /lucky/ the other night. ...the Chroma Pallete Cleanser... isn't even an attack. It's just meant to free all the stored color. I just, freed it at her because she so distracted for a moment. She isn't going to make that same mistake again." she says

"If I was better at flying... I'd had an edge. But. She had flight down perfectly-- and I'm still... a drunk orange butterfly." she says with a grumble.

Ikiko Hisakata has posed:
Ikiko Hisakata listens to Reiko's description of Mrs. White and Mr. Black. Knowing what probable enemies look like is a good first step towards not being surprised by them, and not being surprised will likely be vital in surviving encounters with them.

"I think we both have things we need to work on," she admits. "I hit Arc with practically everything I had, but I was doing good to make a dent. It was only the magical stuff that was having any major effect, and most of the time I don't have magic to attack with."

She looks Reiko over, trying to figure out a way to help her orange-wielding friend with flight. How to train without wings...?

Reiko Touyama has posed:
Reiko Touyama nrg and just sort of rests her head against Ikiko's shoulder as she leans against the other magical girl. "Well. I guess that makes sense. Prism Keepers, use. Well. Magic. We don't really--- kick. or punch." she says a little softly as she just closes her eyes a bit. She sighs a bit.

"Ikiko. What is your family like?" she asks the odd question as she opens her eyes again. She leans back up a bit. "Um.. you don't need. To answer. If you don't want to." she says.

Ikiko Hisakata has posed:
Ikiko Hisakata leans slightly into Reiko's lean, just enough to balance the support. Even after the better half of a month, being a magical girl still brings plenty of surprises to her.

"I have a pretty large extended family," she says after a moment. "We have an old traditional mansion that we've converted to apartments, so while each household is about normal-sized, it's mostly aunts and uncles and cousins and such. I have a couple of older brothers, plus my parents; we're a pretty close family, although they do tend to be busy."

She looks off towards where her home is, even though she can't see it from here. "There's also various grandparents and a few great-aunts and -uncles, plus my great-grandfather Yuuki. He's the one who first used the locket I now wear, back before it even had a name."

Reiko Touyama has posed:
Reiko Touyama nods a bit as she listens. "Woah. That's pretty nice." she says softly. "I live with my parents... technically. and my Grandpa. Mom and Dad are.... really never around."

"...at all." she says with just a twinge of frustration in her voice. "So...Grandpa takes care of me. But that's okay! Grandpa is really nice. He's going to help me build a small koi pond in the backyard---so I'll have my own little place to go-- and my own fish to take care of!" she beams. "I've read lots about it online and took out books from the library! So I know I'm ready." she beams.

"Also...I sometimes help the groundskeeper at the Bontanical Guardians upkeep the big koi pond, and he taught me some neat stuff that isn't in the books. Like---if you use activated charcoal in the filter, it'll keep the water clean much longer!" she pauses. "Which is important!" she insists.

"Uhmm.. sorry. I went off. On a koi tangent again." she blushes.

"Oh.. the locket always wasn't like that?..." she asks.

Ikiko Hisakata has posed:
Ikiko Hisakata smiles slightly at her friend's enthusiasm for her koi project. "Nothing wrong with being energetic about something you like!" she says encouragingly. "Besides, that /does/ sound neat!"

She idly rubs her locket when Reiko asks about it. "Yes and no...?" she shrugs. "It's always been something you could use to multiply the strength of your soul; that part of it hasn't changed. It's just... there's more soul there than great-grandfather Yuuki originally expected."

Another slight pause. "Normally, it takes great spiritual strength and purity to reject the lycanthropy of a werewolf's bite. A spirit like diamond, you might say. Great if you have it, but when there's a werewolf in your town and no-one has that strength needed to resist the bite..." She shrugs. "You have to figure out another option. If you don't have one strong thing, what about several weaker things working together?"

Another touch of the locket. "Like gathering several sticks into a hard-to-break bundle, the locket increases the wearer's spirit to that of ten to twenty people. That's enough to keep the invading spirit of the wolf weakened, but it *doesn't* block it out entirely."

She gives a wry grin. "With the locket inactive, the wolf spirit is shrunken down to the point of not being noticeable, but it's still there, and using the locket makes it visible again. /That's/ the new part."

Reiko Touyama has posed:
Reiko Touyama blinks.. "Are... Werewolves a common problem... you have?" she asks softly. Then she talks about the locket. And her great-grandfather. "Woah... has your family been doing stuff like that for a long time?" she asks. "Just...how much stuff is going on in Tokyo anyways!?" she asks with shock! Since apparently there's an entire family dedicated to this stuff?

She leans back and ughhhh. "It seems all weird that I didn't even start noticing this kind of thing--- until I got my chroma crystal. Now stuff. Happens kind of regularly." she says meekly.

Ikiko Hisakata has posed:
"Not common, no," Ikiko smiles. "It's just something my great-grandfather earned a reputation for dealing with, and that knowledge was helpful in fighting other curses."

She frowns slightly. "There's nothing in the family's lore about magic being like... /this/," she says, gesturing towards Tokyo as a whole. "In comparison to what we've gone up against, most curses are minor things -- something beyond what science can explain, yes, but more of an inconvenience or an annoyance than an actual threat."

A thought goes through her head, and her eyes widen with realization. "Um. If magic is getting strong enough to turns stories into reality..."

She gulps and looks at Reiko. "...what about things that already had magic within them, even when things were uneventful?"

Reiko Touyama has posed:
Reiko Touyama bites her lip. "I'm not really sure." she says. "I think that. You'll be alright. Right?" she asks, seemingly to get the gist of what Ikiko is trying to reach for. "I mean, that would mean your locket gets more powerful too, right?" she asks. "So I don't think that you'd need to worry about...wolfing out?" she says.

She kind of sighs. "I guess we're both worried. I mean. If... everything works. Like it's supposed to-- with the Prism Keepers...." she looks down. "No... I know it does. Griselda... was aiming for my chroma crystal, not me. She was going to break it." she says. She doesn't really explain the badness about it.

She goes back to leaning against Ikiko. "Ikiko...if you ever need help... you'll call me. Right?" she asks. "I'll come. I promise."

Ikiko Hisakata has posed:
Ikiko Hisakata hugs Reiko. "And if /you/ ever need help, you'll call me, right? Because that's what friends do," she smiles.

"I'm /pretty/ sure the amount of wolf isn't increasing -- well, it might be, but the amount of human would also be increasing, so it's still the same relative amount," she notes reassuringly. "No, I'm worried about other curses -- those might be getting bigger. I haven't heard anything suggesting that they /have/ started getting bigger... but they might."

She sighs and shakes her head. "Bah. We'll just have to take things as they come. Whether it's marauding Shades or errant curses or weirdly-colored guys with odd monsters, we'll just have to do our best, right?"

Reiko Touyama has posed:
Reiko Touyama nods. "I will. I.. should really introduce you to Red soon. She's very nice. My best friend!" she says with a smile. "I'm sure she'll be done with her break soon. I mean. Her sister's up and about now from her coma." she giggles. "and probably annoying her head off by now." she chuckles just a little.

She does manage to smile a bit.

A voice. A little gruff, but kind calls from the bottom of the stairs they're sitting on. "Hey there, little fish." says Toki Touyama. She beams. "Grandpa!" she says excitedly. She turns to Ikiko. "Ikiko... I gotta go now. I'm sorry~" she says. She gives Ikiko a final hug and then begins down the stairs. She smiles and sticks near Grandpa. They seem to talk for a moment. "Who's your friend?" asks Toki. She beams. "That's Ikiko. I know her from school...." she says. "She's a friend!" she smiles. "Oh. Is that so. Why don't you ask her over for dinner?" he asks. She pauses.

"Ikiko... do you want to come over to my place for dinner?" she asks from down at the bottom of the steps.

Ikiko Hisakata has posed:
"I look forward to meeting her," Ikiko smiles enigmatically. She has a faint suspicion as to who Red might be, but it'll be more polite to wait until the two of them are properly introduced.

Her smile widens as Reiko's grandfather arrives, and it brightens to beaming when the invitation is extended. "Sure! Just let me inform my family," she replies. A text message is quickly sent home, then she hurries down the stairs to the waiting pair. "My name is Ikiko Hisakata; pleased to meet you!" she says to Toki Touyama with a slight bow.