View source for 2744/Donuts and Greetings

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2017/06/14
|Location=Pikarigaoka - Kaoru's Donuts
|Synopsis=Ikiko and Takara happen to meet while getting donuts to refuel themselves. Introductions are made and pasts are discussed.
|Cast of Characters=75,205
|pretty=yes
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{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:75|Ikiko Hisakata| (75)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>It's been a couple of relaxing days since the defeat of the Nightmare Prince's plot, and Ikiko Hisakata has mostly recovered from the scuffs and bruising she took as Cute Wolf Tsukiko. Of course, healing -- even werewolf-assisted healing -- takes a fair amount of energy, which means being hungry. Having seconds on her meals helps, but sometimes you just need a simple snack, especially a sweet one that gives you a quick boost of energy.<br /><br />Sounds like the perfect reason for donuts!<br /><br />Ikiko waits in line -- there's not much of a line at this time of day, but Kaoru's cooking up a fresh batch of donuts, which means waiting a bit.

:'''{{#var:205|Takara Himura| (205)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Late night snacks are the best kinds of snacks, especially when they're donuts that has heart-shaped holes in them. Takara is something of a high-energy girl, which means that she's one of those annoying people who can eat a ton of food that's bad for you and not gain any weight.<br /><br />Her cane goes *tak*tak*tak* across the sidewalk, always making sure that she doesn't run into things or people as she queues up for the small line that's formed for the donut truck. Takara does make aa recognizable presens, too, with her blonde hair, and those blue, blind eyes that are almost white. Anybody who had been at the nightmare Prince's demise could easly recognize her as the blind samurai girl, who arrived at the last minute to help.

:'''{{#var:75|Ikiko Hisakata| (75)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>The sound of a cane is pretty distinctive, and Ikiko is generally one to look towards distinctive sounds. The fact that the distinctive sound is coming from someone she met recently causes her eyes to widen with pleasant surprise.<br /><br />"Oh, hey! Nice to meet you in a calmer situation," Ikiko says to the older girl as Takara draws closer. As the younger girl's voice doesn't really change in henshin, it's undoubtedly recognizable. "How have you been doing since last time?"

:'''{{#var:205|Takara Himura| (205)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Takara's face runs through a gamut of expressions; confusion, recognition, surprise, and finally, worry. "I... um..." she stammers caught completely off guard at the familiarity. "I've been doing fine? Is it...." she starts. "I mean do we.... is it okay...?"

:'''{{#var:75|Ikiko Hisakata| (75)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Ikiko Hisakata glances towards the other people in line, who are paying more attention to the donut-making process than they are to the two girls at the end of the line. "Might not want to talk about specifics at this immediate moment, but we can at least get through the introduction process," she notes. "At least part of it, anyway. I'm Ikiko Hisakata, first-year middle-schooler at Seishou. Pleased to meet you!"

:'''{{#var:205|Takara Himura| (205)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>"Takara Himura," the blind girl responds in kind. "First year high schooler at Verone." As a couple takes their order of donuts and leaves, she steps up in her place in line. "There's a process?" She looks totally lost and cofused. "Sorry. I'm new to.... here."

:'''{{#var:75|Ikiko Hisakata| (75)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>"It'd be more of a process if we were being highly formal about it," Ikiko admits as the person ahead of her ponders flavors. "Buuut since we've met before, we can get away with being less formal than that."<br /><br />When the person at the counter walks away (with a dozen donuts each of two flavors thanks to indecision), Ikiko steps forward. "An assorted half-dozen," she smiles to Kaoru, sliding some money forward. While he makes the selection, Ikiko turns slightly towards Takara again. "I'll go get us a seat so we can talk by ourselves," the younger girls notes as Kaoru slides the small box of donuts forward.<br /><br />Taking the donuts, Ikiko starts humming as she walks towards a not-too-far bench away from the main flow of traffic.

:'''{{#var:205|Takara Himura| (205)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>"O-ohkay..." Takara says, still looking a little overwhelmed. She waits patiently for Ikiko to get her order in, before stepping up and ordering a couple for herself. When Kaoru asks her what kind she just grins at him and says, "Surprise me." She's handed a couple of glazed donuts with heart shaped sprinkles on them, wrapped loosely in parchment paper to keep fingers from getting all sticky, and Takara pays Kaoru what he's due.<br /><br />When done, the blind girl's head swivels, almost like a snake, zeroing in on Ikiko's humming, and follows the ytounger girl to the bench. "Sooooooo...." she begins. "I take it there's a bunch of us running around."

:'''{{#var:75|Ikiko Hisakata| (75)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>"Lots," Ikiko agrees, taking a quick bite of donut. "And I'm pretty sure I haven't met all of them."<br /><br />She pats the section of bench next to her. "There's space enough for you to sit down, to... your left of me," she adds, pausing to make sure the directional reference is correct. "And to finish introductions, I'm known on the rooftops as Cute Wolf Tsukiko."

:'''{{#var:205|Takara Himura| (205)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Takara perks at the name as she sits next to Ikiko. "Cute wolf? OMG! Can I pet you? I bet you're all fuzzy and cuddly and stuff!" She somehow manages to calm herself down enough to make her own formal introduction. "I guess I'm Ichi. At least that's who I was. Or am. Or...." a heavy sigh. "It's complicated."

:'''{{#var:75|Ikiko Hisakata| (75)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Ikiko Hisakata giggles a bit. "I'm much fuzzier as Tsukiko than I am as Ikiko," she notes. "Although my wolf-ears and -tail ''sort of'' leak through. If you know that they're there -- and '''if''' you're magical -- they kinda feel like thick air. They're 'there' enough to be touchable, but not enough to be solid."<br /><br />She decides against trying to explain the limited visibility of her lupine features, for obvious reasons. "Complicated past-or-present?" the sometimes-wolfgirl asks, tilting her head slightly. "Trying to explain how I'm a diluted werewolf can also be tricky, so I might be able to keep up with your explanation... well, if it's something you'd like to talk about, anyway."

:'''{{#var:205|Takara Himura| (205)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Takara Himura bites her lower lip in thought, contimplating the ramifications of opening up to a complete stranger. Well, she concludes. They ''did'' fight together against the Nightmare Prince so it can't be all that bad. "Complicated both," she says. "I'm basically the reincarnation of a blind sword-wielding Goze who faught an ancient evil in the past." <br /><br />Takara pauses to make sure that she hasn't scared away Ikiko yet. "Which, apparently, has returned. I was always good at hearing things... sensing things around me, and when Ichi showed up in a dream and explained some of who she was, it kind of made a lot of sense." She takes the first bite of one of her donuts and chews thoughtfully. "So now I have a past life of mine knocking around in my head teaching me how to do awesome things in the dream realm, where I'm totally badass." She waves a hand out towards the city, "I mean, I can do some badass things here too. I don't know if that's because of how close the Dream Realm is to reality here, or because Tokyo is stuffed full of magic or what."

:'''{{#var:75|Ikiko Hisakata| (75)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>It's not a loud noise, but the consistent cadence of Ikiko eating one of her donuts is a modest indication that she's not phased by the revelation. "Possibly both," she notes. "I mean, I'm no expert on dreams, but they do seem to have a certain amount of magic to them, and Tokyo ''does'' seem to draw in lots of magic."<br /><br />There's a brief, slightly rueful laugh. "At least you have a mentor of sorts to guide you!" the sometimes-wolfgirl points out. "All I have to go on is the occasional instinct. I can't ask my family, partially because nobody's used the Lycan Locket for as long as I have, and partially because it wasn't ''supposed'' to be used again in the first place!"

:'''{{#var:205|Takara Himura| (205)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>"Lycan Locket?" Takara asks with a raised eyebrow. "You'll have to tell me about that." She finishes off one of her own donuts. "Ichi isn't... really that helpful," she explains. "There's a lot about her past that's just fuzzy, and a lot of her instructions are a kind of 'Look at what you can do now!' kind of thing." She flashes a grin at where she supposes the girl is, "You know that ribbon snake thing I was doing? I had ''no'' idea I could do that until about ten seconds I was doing it."

:'''{{#var:75|Ikiko Hisakata| (75)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>"The history of the Lycan Locket is somewhat straightforward," Ikiko smiles. "When my great-grandfather Yuuki was a young man, a werewolf was terrorizing the village. Having a silver weapon to take down the werewolf wasn't too hard, but how do you avoid contracting lycanthropy during the fight? It stems from having two incompatible souls -- a human soul and a wolf's soul -- crammed into a body too small to contain them both; a bite results in the wolf-soul splitting like an amoeba and infecting the bitten person. It's ''possible'' to resist the bite, but you need a soul like diamond, and most humans don't have souls that strong."<br /><br />She idly fiddles with the locket. "But Yuuki had a thought: instead of a single point of strength, what if the human's soul relied on the strength of numbers? Like how one stick is easily broken, but a bundle is harder to break. So, he crafted a locket, making it so that it would make the wearer's soul as strong as ten to twenty men, and he wore it into the fight. And it worked!... mostly."<br /><br />A quick bite of donut, and Ikiko resumes the tale. "He was bitten during the fight and picked up some wolf traits, but he retained his humanity and killed the werewolf. And when he took off the locket, the ears and tail went away... but when he put it back on, they returned. Just as the locket scaled ''up'' the quantity of human soul when worn, it scaled '''down''' the quantity of wolf-soul when removed -- ''but didn't actually remove it.'' So, ever since then, my family has apparently had a smidge of wolf-soul in addition to our normal human souls -- not enough to cause trouble, but there's minor traits we've suspected were caused by it."<br /><br />Sighing, the younger girl looks up towards the sky. "As for the locket, gread-grandpa Yuuki sealed it in a box, and tales warning us about it were passed along through the family -- although the ''description'' of it wasn't. Then two years ago, I happened to find an old locket in the family's storehouse, and inadvertently activated it as I was falling asleep... and wound up in my first magical girl misadventure, thinking I was in the middle of a dream!"

:'''{{#var:205|Takara Himura| (205)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Takara Himura says, "Mmm!" Takara nods. "Better than finding out an ancient evil infected your mother's dreams after your father left her, causing her to spiral into a suicidal depression." She takes a bite of donut. "And then having to go one on one with it to save your mom and... well... drive it back to Tokyo.""

:'''{{#var:75|Ikiko Hisakata| (75)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Ikiko Hisakata nods. "From what I've heard, there's actually a fairly wide spread on what types of evils different magical girls have had to deal with at their beginning," she agrees. "Ranging from minor youma harassing a classmate, to monsters trying to absorb all of the color in the city, to major evils making themselves known."

:'''{{#var:205|Takara Himura| (205)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>"Hunh," muses Takara. "And to think that my mom wanted to move back here because Tokyo feels safer."

:'''{{#var:75|Ikiko Hisakata| (75)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>"More magical dangers, but also more magical girls," Ikiko shrugs. "Anyway, it was nice meeting you, Himura-san. I need to head home now, but I look forward to meeting you again! Either street-level or on the rooftops, although I probably won't be doing any patrols for the next day or two while I recover from recovering."<br /><br />She pauses for a moment, then gives Takara a quick hug before heading off. The older girl might even feel a small sensation of a localized breeze for a moment, like a phantom tail was wagging nearby.
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