2127/Talking to death

Talking to death
Date of Scene:	15 November 2016
Location:	the Gym
Synopsis:	From powers to apocolypses and dreams to sparring, Naru and Kyouko cover a bit of everything at the gym.
Cast of Characters:	Naru Osaka, Kyouko Sakura

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Naru Osaka has posed:
It seems an unlikely location for Naru, to those who don't know the artist terribly well, but offering to meet friends at the gym is not /actually/ all that weird. Even less unusual considering which friends she's offering to meet there. It's after school for those who attend school regularly, on a clear but cool day, the bite of autumn starting to make itself known, even on an island that gets to enjoy fairly temperate weather.

Naru is already in that side room that Kyouko often manages to reserve, dressed far more athlete than artist at the moment as she waits for the other two to arrive.

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    Kyouko comes here to work out enough that she's essentially a regular- she has a yearly membership (thanks, Mamo-salary!) and reserves a private workout room often enough that the staff probably just thinks she doesn't like being watched while she does her routine. She's been here to work out with people ranging from Naru to Kunzite to Momo to Makoto. It's a place that's nearly as familiar to her as home.

    So she's grinning rather casually as she strolls on in, dressed in a sports-top and a pair of shorts, her usual workout attire. Her newly-short hair does not require nearly as much tying back as it used to. Another unforseen advantage. "Hiya, Naru-chan." She greets as she tosses her bag down in one corner of the mat-lined room.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Hey Kyouko." Naru turns from where she's stretching with a smile for the regular at the gym. "I used your name in vain for snagging the room." The grin says that it probably wasn't so much 'in vain' per se. "I'd hoped Alex could come along, but he's busy." She explains briefly. "Later maybe."

"How're things with you?" Naru asks as she pads closer on the mats. "Hey, curiosity.. had any weird dreams lately?"

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    Kyouko shrugs her shoulders in a carefree fashion. "Eh, I mean, I am actually here to use the room, so it's not like you tricked anybody." She says with a laugh. Another shrug is given at mention of Alex's business. "S'cool, if he comes he comes, if not some other time."

    "I'm okay. Keepin' movin', you know how it is." She quirks a brow at the question about dreams. "Like what? I mean.. I don't remember my dreams very often, but when I do they're pretty weird. I seen a lotta weird stuff, y'know, it tends to stick with ya."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Valid point about dreams, cause honestly all my dreams fall into 'weird' by many standards." Naru mmms softly and then adds. "But when Kunzite and I /both/ dream about an artist named Hana and Kyubey, it's a different flavour of weird. I'm trying to work out if its just us two, or more than that."

Naru grins about the room. "I'm honestly trying to decide where I want to shift my training, which I realize probably is part of some sort of master plan that's in Kunzite's head, but I'm being a rebel."

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    Kyouko quirks a brow at the mention of Kunzite and Naru apparently having similar dreams. She purses her lips. "It's.. possible. I kinda vaugely remember something like that.. sitting by a street, or something? I dunno.. I'm probably not the best one to ask. An unfortunate number of my nightmares involve Kyubey, so I may have just dismissed it as a weird dream and so it didn't stick in my mind.."

    She tilts her head slightly at Naru's latter comment. "Where you want to shift it? Meaning what?"

Naru Osaka has posed:
"A significant number of my nightmares involve plants, so I get why Kyubey turning up wouldnt give you pause. It's unusual for me, but my dreams are messed up in a whole variety of ways, so it was doubly curious." Naru doesn't seem all /that/ concerned, more curious.

Naru crosses her arms as she shifts on her feet. "Much of my training to this point has been fairly general stamina and strength training. Just to get past the reality of being a not super athletic artist type. Now I'm starting to examine exactly how I contribute to fights, and trying to work out what would be most useful to focus on." Naru flickers a smile. "Which is a whole lot of 'I am still not much of a combatant, even with powers.'"

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    Kyouko shakes her head slightly. "Yeah.. sorry, I heard about some of that Nightmare stuff you had going on. I wish I coulda been there to lend a hand in takin' care of it."

    She quirks her lips to the side as she listens to Naru's concerns about her training. "I guess. I dunno, I feel like I'm kinda a bad role model for that too. I don't really think about stuff like that, I just kinda do it." She laughs softly. "You know, when it's 'fight or die' you learn to fight real quick, and then thinkin' about how you went about it kinda seems like a waste of time." She pauses, then adds, "For me, I mean. No offense if that's what works for you."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"It's okay." Naru shakes her head a little. "I spent most of my time being anywhere from vaguely to utterly weirded out by having other people in my dreams, so no matter how much I like you, I'm pretty alright with fewer people in my head. Although the likelyhood that we'll have to kick stuff in there again is pretty high, so possibly next time? Or possibly I might just hide in my closet and never sleep again. Also seems perfectly legit."

Naru smiles at Kyouko's admission. "Right, but if we're in a fight together, having /some/ clue on your usual tactics will make supporting you easier. Which mostly means just being in fights with you and learning the hard way, but I'd vaguely hoped to get some clues out of sparring."

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    Kyouko shakes her head slightly. "Well, I hope you can sleep easy, Naru-chan. I know what it's like not to, and it ain't fun. If there's any way I can help in the future, lemme know and I will gladly."

    She pauses as she considers Naru's words about her usual tactics. Kunzite might have some insight to offer on this, if only in the direction of 'Kyouko's tactics generally involve doing what you don't expect'. This makes it somewhat hard to attempt to compartmentalize her style into 'usual'. "I guess my big thing," She says, sounding thoughtful. "Is to try and take people by surprise. To act quicker than they can, or in ways they don't expect me to."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"This whole 'sleeping' thing is pretty cool. I'm aiming to keep it for a while yet." Naru agrees with a firm nod.

Naru listens to Kyouko's considerations, slowly starting to go back to stretching. "So for you, something to keep them distracted while you surprise the hell out of them would be a valid thought. Hrm. That's good to know." There might be some degree of curiosity on what Kyouko might say as compared to what Kunzite might say on her behalf. That difference is likely to be fascinating.

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    The problem with getting Kyouko to talk about her fighting style is that so much of what she does is purely instinct, half the time she doesn't know what she's going to do before she does it. Thinking through problems is definitely not her strong suit- which is why it's good she has people like Mamoru and Kunzite in her life now. Her gut reactions tend to do well by her in a fight- less so in longer-term situations.

    She laughs. "Well, you do know that my magic is all based around illusions, right?" She grins, and then henshins into her Puella outfit in a bright flash of red light. Then she snaps her fingers, and a pretty yellow flower appears between her fingers. She offers it to Naru- it feels real to the touch. But when Kyouko drops her henshin a moment later, it simply fizzles out of existence.

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru pauses a moment and then laughs, shaking her head as she reaches for the flower. "I didn't, actually." She watches the flower vanish between her fingers and then grins. "Mine too, I suppose. Sort of. They last longer, but few generally last forever. I'm not sure it's tied to me being in henshin either." She considers a moment and then shakes her head. "No, it stays longer than that."

Naru grins a little. "And you call yourself not a creator, when you make illusions? Hmmm?"

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    Kyouko shrugs. "My illusions only last for as long as I'm concentrating on making them last. I have to picture what I want to appear, and as soon as I stop doing that they just vanish. Plus they're not 'real'- they don't hold up to scrutiny for very long." She shrugs. "I think what you do is a lot more sophisticated. I guess if I had concentrated on improving that aspect of my powers, I might have gotten better at it, but it's always taken second-place to fighting for me. Makes you wonder why I got those sorta powers in the first place, but.. I dunno the answer to that."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"I have to concentrate a lot to get them to come to life at all, but once I've pulled them into existance, I don't pay them any real mind anymore. It's possible that if I have enough things on the go, I'll feel the pull, but I havent yet had enough magical stamina to get more than a couple before I'm ready to crawl under the covers and sleep for a week." Naru quirks a rueful smile. "Clearly I haven't got /that/ stamina yet. Running's easy now."

Naru considers and then nods. "Probably. And you might yet, depending on how life goes. Seems unlikely though." She pauses a moment and then asks, in a change of topic. "So.. when you didn't have powers for a while, you trained to still be able to fight, right?"

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    "Well, it's not like I was an expert a week after I got my powers either, y'know." Kyouko says, with a little laugh. "I been doin' this like a third of my life. And sometimes I still feel like I'm in over my head."

    At the question of not having powers, a little frown forms on her face, her forehead wrinkling. This is clearly not a topic of conversation she finds particularly comforting, although she also doesn't try to steer away from it. "Yeah, sorta. I mean, I wanted to keep in shape.. and I wanted to be as ready as I could be if anything happened. Y'know, me bein' me, I had a lotta people who might have taken advantage of the situation for some payback."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Even with my powers doing the wobbly training wheels messed up version for a while first, I'm pretty solidly still entirely not an expert. More questions than answers, really." Naru nods a little. "Granted, I think I'm up to /two/ weeks, possibly all of three."

Naru nods slowly. "I suspect Alex feels sort of something akin to that. Where he doesn't have a lot of options in the fights we get into. I wasn't sure if you had any suggestions."

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    Kyouko smiles. "I think you'll figure it out, Naru-chan. You're smart, a lot smarter'n me, at least than I was when I started. Nothin's easy but if you put the effort in, I think it'll work out."

    She shrugs, looking vaugely uncomfortable, at mention of Alex and his possibly feeling the same way. "Well.. honestly, if I had any advice to give, it'd be 'don't get involved'. I was already too deep by that point for that to be an option, but.. he might not be. Failing that, call for help. He has people who'd help him, which is also somethin' I didn't have."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"That's honestly what I figured your answer was going to be." Naru mmms softly. "Which I expect will go over even less well with him than it did for me. He doesn't even generally admit to getting into fights, I never was quite /that/ bad." There's a little nod to Kyouko and a touch of a shrug. "Thanks for the confirmation, at the very least."

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    Kyouko glances away, shrugging her shoulders. "I wish I had something more reassuring to say, but.. it was bad enough for me, and I hated feelin' helpless enough that I made a really bad decision to try and escape the situation. In the end, I'm kinda glad I did cause I might not be where I am now if things had gone differently, but.. I wouldn't wish that on anybody else, cause I carry the consequences, both good and bad, with me still. I'd hate to see your boyfriend make a similar mistake because he feels like he can't defend himself, but I really don't know of any good alternatives."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"IT's made you who you are. Good and bad. I can appreciate not wanting to have others follow in your footsteps, I know a lot of people who can say that." Naru comments quietly and then takes a slow breath in, held a moment before sighing it out. "I'm hoping not to watch him do the same, in the whole poor choices scheme. There's some .. hmmm.. comfort isn't quite the right word, but acknowledgement that there's /not/ good choices that I just haven't thought of."

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    "I don't know everythin', Naru-chan." Kyouko says, sounding mildly disappointed, perhaps just that she couldn't give her friend a more positive response. "Maybe there is, an' I just don't know what it is. All I can do is tell you what I learned."

    She pauses for a moment, then says, "Maybe each of us gotta go through somethin' in order to figure out the way that's best for us, y'know. It's not possible for anyone else to follow in my footsteps- that route is closed now. But there's probably other ways that end in similar places."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"And I dont expect you to know everything, but I can accept and acknowledge what you do know." Naru points out and then grins. "I've even had to come to terms with the reality that Kunzite doesn't know everything, and that was a helluva shock, lemme tell ya." She laughs, clearly joking.

Naru's expression gets more serious again and she nods. "I don't think any of us can truly follow anyone else's path exactly. There's so much about me being me that makes even us both experiencing the same event seem different."

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    Kyouko grins at the mention of Kunzite not knowing everything. "I value nii-chan's insight, 'cuz we often have the same ideas but approach them in totally different ways. That said, I never thought he knew everything.. if he did, I wouldn't have been able to sneak up on him and stab him.. twice." She winks, clearly proud of herself, which might be odd considering the situation until you remember who you are talking to.

    "Well, that's true." She nods to the latter point. "And we're probably all better off that way. But I can appreciate you wantin' to find a solution for him."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"He was doing pretty well on being able to answer every single one of my questions when I first became aware, it was honestly a surprise when I asked him something he knew nothing about." Naru grins. "Not a bad surprise, if anything after the shock wore off, it was rather nice to think I could actually tell him something, but still."

"Well. On some level, I want to help." Naru comments on the point about Alex. "On another level, I wonder if I'm being too pushy or in his face about it, and I should let him sort it out as works for him. I don't know."

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    "That's just because when you first become aware, you ask all the easy questions." Kyouko says, with a lopsided grin. Well, it's likely true- for everybody, not just Naru.

    "Well, I think sometimes you needa be pushy. Then again, maybe it's no surprise I think that," Kyouko says, with a rueful chuckle. "I am often accused of bein' too pushy. But look, I know there were lotsa times I wished I had somebody to talk to about stuff, and I didn't."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"If I'd of had to figure it all out on my own? I'd of been a basket case. Kudos and more to you, and everyone else, who managed it. I don't know how you did it." Naru shakes her head a little, admiration come easily. "And I had the frustrating advantage of easing into things, both awareness wise.. okay not so much awareness wise in that I got it /all at once/, but not with powers at the same time. So, I suppose I want him to skip that bit too. I just would prefer he not get hurt, and that seems super unlikely, all things considered."

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    "Yeeeah.. well. There are varying degrees of 'managed it'. Remember you're seeing me on the successful end of a very long time of not managing it." Kyouko says, with a mild shake of her head. She's not shy about mentioning that, at least. "I dunno if it's possible to not get hurt, Naru-chan. We all wish that for the people we care about, but it seems like oftentimes gettin' hurt, and then figurin' out what you did wrong and how to do it better next time, is the only real way to make yourself better, y'know?"

Naru Osaka has posed:
"I'm not particularly concerned about him getting the snot beaten out of him. Again, I'd prefer not, but not so concerned, but the niggly weird stuff." Naru shrugs. "I /know/ generally what to be aware of, and ended up with long term Nightmares that were probably draining me for a while. Is he going to end up cursed or something and no one will notice because he doesn't overshare like woah like I do? That's where I worry, but probably I worry too much and like I coped, he'll cope too."

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    "Well, if it's any consolation," Kyouko says, with a dry tone that says she knows how cynically amusing she is being, "Alex-san is not anybody important, and to my knowledge hasn't angered anybody really dangerous. Yet, anyway. He might run afoul of some random youma, but we as a group are well-prepared to cope with that. So long as you keep an eye on him and let him know if he starts doin' anything weird." She eyes Naru, then grins. "You're his girlfriend, oversharing or not you should be able to pry a little bit."

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru laughs. "Kyouko..I'm not anyone important /either/ and I got chewed on for half a year until I swear my body just said enough was enough and gained magic to fight back. Poorly, cause I'm a non-combatant at heart, but still." She quirks a little smile. "Alright, it's true. I'm likely to notice. And I'm likely to pry at least a little. I also get to take point on the worrying, cause girlfriend."

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    "Maybe you're the hero of prophecy and you just don't know it yet." Kyouko says, grinning and lightly punching Naru on the shoulder. "Anyway," She waves a hand in absent dismissal, "I don't mean to sell short any of the stuff you went through, 'cause I know it was hard and I won't claim it wasn't, but you got through it, and while it was bad it was never.. apocalyptic." She gestures absently towards magnetic north. "So all I'm sayin' is.. at least he probably won't have to deal with anything like that. Hopefully less, with you lookin' out for him."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"I live on a differnet scale from all you folks who tried to bring about or tried to stop various apcolypses." Naru smiles easily, comfortable with this fact, clearly. "No, it doesn't compare, but it's what I have to work from and will be closer to Alex's reality than yours, ideally." She rocks only a little from the punch to the shoulder and then laughs and tries to punch back. "I'll stop talking you to death, I promise."

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    "For now. We'll see what happens the next time an apocalypse comes around." Kyouko says, grinning. "Like it or not, you're part of a group now.. and maybe you don't have the talents to stand on the front lines, but you an' I are both smart enough to know that isn't the only talent that matters." She shrugs. "Hopefully his experience is closer to yours than mine, yeah. I'd hope that for anybody." As Naru tries to punch her back, Kyouko laughs, grabbing the other girl's wrist and tugging her around, but not quite throwing her, deflecting the attempt. "Aw, you know I like to chat, Naru-chan."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"If you define group as 'magical', then yes. If you define it as how most do, with seishi or shitennou, then no." Naru comments as she almost, but doesn't quite go flying. She clearly is alright with getting a bit of sparring in while they chat.

Clearly her offer to stop talking Kyouko to death wasn't starting immediately.

The grab of her wrist makes Naru aim a kick out, trying to get Kyouko to let go of her wrist, or at least slacken her grip just enough. "You figure we're in for another apcalypse? I would have thought Tokyo would be at quota for a while."

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    Kyouko nimbly dances aside from the kick, although doing so does force her to release Naru's wrist, and she backs off a step, shrugging her shoulders slightly. "You may not have a title like 'Senshi' or 'Shitennou', Naru, but you're as much a part of that group as I am. You're our friend- me, an' Kunzite and Mamoru and especially Usagi, and that means that you'll be with us and we'll be with you, if anything does decide to happen."

    She shrugs at the question of Apocalypses. "There's always somethin' else, Naru. We'll see. If you're right, we can all be happier for it."