Not too long ago, Reiko Touyama fought a forest Shade with her friend, Hoshi and there was a sportsball guy there who's name was 'Sky Jack' and he was with 'Virtue' and that he knew Tadase. She had questions and---
She was still kind of awkward about Tadase. Not as much as say. Last month, but still pretty awkward.
Thusly she is now prowling around Seiyou carefully, looking around and trying to find this "Sky Jack"-- Kukai Souma. The 'Jack of the Guardians'.
She just threw the name around and eventually was pointed to the sports field out back. This did not particularly surprise Reiko, considering he used magical soccer balls during that Shade fight.
She stood by the field and looked around, hand spread out over her eyes. A koi appeared on either side of her, one was copying her motions- except with a fin over it's forehead, and the second had a pair of binoculars looking around.
She was obviously looking for something. Or someone.
The soccer field is actually recessed into the ground, with grassy ramps up one side and steps and seating along the other sides. At the moment, there's only a few figures on the soccer field, and only one of them has the spiky, messy hair that Sky Jack had. Kukai's down near one of the goals, the few other teammates doing defensive drills on the other half of the field.
At the moment he's in a soccer outfit, a white jersey with blue lettering, white soccer shorts, with white shoes. A blue haired figure, maybe a few inches high, in a similar outfit, is floating around his head and talking to him.
He sets the soccer ball in his hands down on the line, then frowns and rolls it back several long steps. With a smooth swing and a kick he punts the ball at the goal - and it flies just up and off to one side, impacting on a back board set up around the goal.
Kukai says something inaudible to Reiko at this distance that makes Daichi laugh and jogs over to get the ball. Once he's got it in his hands he looks up, seeing the girl in the Seishou uniform at the edge of the field. For a moment he looks around, seeing if there are any others, or if she's with someone, but then he leans in, seeing something - probably the koi - and sets the ball down, jogging over towards her.
Reiko Touyama is looking back and forth across the field, because woah this is a big field. This place is massive---it having been an old private school. The koi with the binoculars catches Kukai and smiles! And then thwaps Reiko across the head with it's tailfin, then both koi dissapear and Reiko goes 'eek!'. and looks around and-- oh!
There he is!
She stepped forward a bit and waved. "Hi...!" she says.
Wait. It occurs to her, that, she may have not given Kukai a name back. She does see Daichi though and blinks a bit before she looks back to Kukai. "I'm.. Reiko Touyama. Um. The orange girl. With the koi.". How many others can Kukai know with that description.
"Remember? With the giant tree?" she says, trying to make sure Kukai remembers, so she's not making too much of a butt outta herself.
Kukai Souma nods. He remembers pretty well, eyes immediately going to her leg. "Yeah, I knew who you were when I saw the orange koi. How's the leg?" He looks back up at her, concerned, Daichi landing on his shoulder and waving at her. "Has the tree sprouted again? I'm guessing not since you're not running and yelling for me or anything."
It occurs to him that he should respond in kind after a moment. He grins, his smile wide and warm and practically burrowing into her with good cheer, offering her his hand. "I'm Kukai, Reiko-san. Nice to make your public aquaintance."
Reiko Touyama smiles and bows. "I know! You told me your name that day, I remembered! But I dun't think I told you mine!" she says. She blinks. "No... once a Shade's gone, it's gone for good- unless a new one were to steal the color and reanimate the tree..." she thinks and taps her chin. "Shades tend to drain the color of an area then take on components of an area or something key. Like.. this one that attacked a star gazing party had laser telescopes for eyes--- and it kept yelling 'Looky'. They tend to yell something associted with that thing- like-- 'Bark'!" she smiles.
"Oh--um. I didn't. Come here. To give you a lesson about Shades..." she mutters, "How thoughtless of me... um! Do you have a moment to talk?" she asks.
"It's about um. The organization. Virtue?" she asks softly.
Kukai Souma listens to her describe the care and feeding and design habits of Shades, nodding and filing it away. "OK. I'll try to remember that. And never mind - I'm sure it'll come in handy later."
He aahs, then nods. "Well. I don't know a lot but I'll tell you what I can. C'mon, wanna take a walk? I think better when I'm walking." He nods back up the steps and towards a path leading through the school grounds. Once they're up and walking along, Kukai stretches and then nods. "Ok. Shoot. What do you need to know?"
Reiko Touyama walks along and places her hands behind her back. A tiny orange koi swims next to her now and tries to look like it's also being taken for a walk. This doesn't work too well because kois don't wear collars and leashes well- still- it's following.
Reiko head tilts a little, she keeps up easily at a liesurely pace. If it gets to 'jogging' she'll worry about it then.
"Well. I know it's some sort of organization. But not much more than that. Like. What's it about? What do you guys do? Tadase seemed intrested in grabbing me and Red-chan for it in the past..." she says softly.
She looks down and thinks. "But he never told me much." she shrugs softly.
"..and since... more Prism Keepers are awakening... maybe it's time to figure out if we should join a group..." she says.
Kukai Souma hmms, walking along. He watches Reiko's koi, gathering his thoughts and listening to her speak. "Well. Yeah, the Guardians are part of Virtue. It's pretty informal, for what it is. Instead of having a hierarchy or something, most members of Virtue tend to work on their own, but if they need help they can always call on the others. It's why I keep getting yoinked off to go do so much stuff I'm not used to."
The path leads along through the school grounds, with trees and bushes and nature intermingled with buildings and such. "Most people in Virtue try to help everyone. Some of us, like me, are even dumb enough to ask how we can help the people fighting us." He grins, obviously remembering something. "We get yelled at a lot for it, but hey. I at least have a good reason to help everyone. I promised I would. But for the most part it's like having a big backup team, but also being willing to be part of someone else's backup if they need it, which can mean sometimes you get to fight things you may not expect. Or be ready for. The big storm was one of those."
Kukai stops near a nearby bench and rubs his arms, remembering something. "I might've fought a giant monster bigger than Bark that shot energy balls once. One of them almost grazed my fingers on my board and it was still hot enough to singe them without even touching it. Sometimes it can be scary fighting above your grade, but there are a lot of people doing it. And we don't let each other down."
Reiko Touyama ughs. "There's lots of things bigger than Shades I find." she says. "I do know the uh 'night of the storm' like a mass of them collected somewhere but I don't know what for. Roy was pretty sure The Grey Kingdom was up to something but--- nothing was drained where they were when we checked when it'd blown over!" she says.
"Roy is um. A cardinal. He's one of our mentors. There's three! Roy. Gigi Biv. Do you get it..?" she giggles. "Red thought that was pretty funny when she wrote that down in the story." she says. "I did too... back when it /was/ just a game and a story..." she mutters.
She listens a bit. "Okay so, it's like, a big heroic co-op..." she says as she taps her chin. "I wonder if Hunter is a member..." a blush traces her face a moment, before she clears her throat.
"Um.." she says. "Oh right I didn't answer you earlier! My leg is fine. I heal quick!" she insists.
She thinks. "So. It's just extra help? Isn't there anything else? Resource sharing? Information sharing..? Anything like that?" she asks, tilting her head.
"Don't get me wrong! Just on the helping out part, it's pretty presuasive, but I also gotta sell my friends on it too. It'd be lame if it was just me..." she says.
Kukai Souma just blinks at her, then grins weakly. "No, I don't get it. Sorry... I'm sure it's funny, though!" He lets out a sigh and sits down on the bench, more on the eye level with her. "Sit down if you want to. So this was a story or something?" He rests his chin on his hand. "Wonder if the writer had some kinda magic when it was being put together."
He nods. "And yeah, a heroic co-op sounds about right. Sure, people will tell you whatever they know if they know something. And if they have something they can spare you need, you can have it. But there's no hard and fast rules about it or anything else. Just 'when the leader asks you to do something, do it, and don't be a butthead to the other members.' Which is pretty easy, seeing how well everyone gets along."
Kukai grins again. "To be honest I have a couple things I should probably ask them, but I've been trying to find time to ask Tadase or Amu first." He sighs. "They've been really busy lately. Actually everybody has. Nadeshiko's got her own thing going on, Tadase is doing his thing, Amu's... around. I see her all of five seconds most days. That's the way it goes. But that would be the perfect time to contact Virtue. I'm just slow, I guess."
Reiko Touyama ohs! "Roy... Gigi... Biv. Or-- 'ROYGBIV'-- it's an acronymn to remember all the colors of the rainbow in order! 'Red', 'Orange', 'Yellow', 'Green', 'Blue', 'Indigo' and 'Violet'." she smiles. She sits down and thinks a bit and crosses her arms. "Yeah. My story-- well Mei's and Mine. We wrote it for a .. pretend game we were playing. Prism Keepers, about girls who protect color from The Grey Kingdom, for Like roleplaying...." she says-- a little too awkward to use the term 'to play pretend' at her age.
"And we played with friends but--- they kind of all left the game, except for me and Mei- who kind of decided to turn it into a manga." she nods.
"Then one day it just... was all real. We dunno what happened. Or why. Just that we're actually the characters we were in the story... and the Grey Kingdom's real now- along with Grisedla-- it's Princess, and the Monochrome Duo- her henchmen-- Miss White and Mister Black." she says looking down." she looks up.
"I'm the leader of the Prism Keepers... for now. Mei... Red... is off trying to find her mom. She went missing when this all became real."
She perks. "Amu!" she beams. "She's really nice..." she looks down. "I can kinda see why Tadase...." she doesn't finish that thought she just shakes her head and sighs.
"...nevermind. So." she says. "So there's no structure, just don't be a butt, but you may be asked to do something sometimes anyways?..." she asks.
"Alright..." she taps her chin.
"What kinda things do you need to ask?.." she wonders.
Kukai Souma whistles as she describes the story, listening. His arms go down across his legs as he leans in, taking it in. Daichi leans in too, enthralled by the origin story of the Prism Keepers. "Wow. That's pretty cool. I mean, the story and the game. Maybe the coming to life. Maybe not so much the Grey Kingdom."
Kukai grins. "Maybe somebody was telling you the story beforehand so you sort of knew what was going on when it really happened. Who knows?"
Kukai laughs when she mentions Amu. "Yeah she is. She's up to something right now, but the last time we talked was about some guy she liked, so I dunno what relevance it has to anything. Also, her and Tadase... Well, they'll figure it out. I have faith in both of them."
Kukai shakes his head. "I'm not sure I can tell you who the current leader of Virtue is, but he's cool, and technically he's no higher ranked than anybody else. He just helps direct the flow, sort of. And me?" He looks at her for a minute, then shrugs. "I found some X-Eggs and I gotta get them changed back into Heart Eggs. Not that the guys they came out of are real prizes, but it's still somebody's dreams in there. I hadda hide them in my room in a big box because I don't know how to purify them, but the..." He stops for a second, then continues. "I think the person who made them knows I have them and could come looking for them anytime. I have to do something with them before then."
Reiko Touyama ohs! "I can purify things! I know I've healed an X-egg before by myself because Ikuto is kind of a jerk cat. My color energy acts like... whatever Amu does, and Sailor Moon and all those others can do." she nods. "But you need to talk to Amu anyways it sounds like! But... if you ever need help in the future!" she smiles.
"I mean-- Shades are like that. Like X-eggs. Corruptive and Dark." she says. "If you can't heal a Shade, the colors won't return..." she says a little softly. "The color will just release as a big swirling ball."
She head tilts. "Well... aren't all dreams important? Even if they come from lame people..?" she asks softly.
Kukai Souma looks at her like she just punched him between the eyes. "You did -what-? You can..." He suddenly stands up, all bouncy, excited energy. "C'mon! You gotta help me! I mean, can you come to my house and help me? Or meet me somewhere with them? If Utau catches me with them she'll probably beat the crap outta me and take them again because I promised she could try to get them back from me but if they're changed back I don't have them and she can't take them back, plus they'll go back to their owners!"
Kukai is talking very rapidly at this point. He realizes how hard it must be to follow him, so he slows down just enough to avoid dipping into the Serious Genki Zone. "I mean... If nothing else I can go zip over to my place, grab them, and come back here or something! And yeah, every dream is important, even from the lame ones! I gotta defend all of them if I can!"
Reiko Touyama ahs!? and sort of sweatdrops a bit. ^_^;;
"Wo--woah slow down you sound like me when the trading card game I liked released a koi expansion!" she beams. "Um... If--if you think I can help okay, but-- like. I don't wanna step on Amu-chan's toes n' all but it sounds like you really need help!" she says.
"Sure..we can go to your place or you can bring them here. We're going to need to be out in the open anyways." she says.
"Maybe here might be best. It's not super busy here- so no one'll notice right?" she says softly.
Kukai Souma nods and then grins at her. "Ok, yeah. I'll go get them and bring them here. Uh. I forget. Do I have your phone number?" He pulls out his phone and begins scanning his contact list, moving back and forth in place, drawn by the urge to sprint off and get the X-Eggs nownownow and the need to make sure he does this right. "I can call you when I get them and I'm on my way back here. And I..." He stops for a moment, then a look of resolution comes across his face, and he clenches a fist. "Amu-chan would help me if she were here, but she's not, so she won't mind if you do. So... you can be Amu-chan Junior! Or something like that."
Reiko Touyama nods. "Okay..." she says. She thinks and grabs her phone and rattles off her number, just in case Kukai does not in fact have it. She smiles. "Well I'm happy to help..." then she blinks and blushes!? A..Amu-chan Junior!? She tries to imagine herself in that Amulet outfit...
Then she just kind of reverts to blushing deeper and then she has to clear her head of this now, clearing her throat. "Go ahead!" she says. "I'll wait right here unless you call and lemme know otherwise!" she says softly. "Okay?" she says.
Kukai Souma pops the number and her name into his phone, completely missing all the blushing, and waves. "OK! I'll be back as soon as possible! Thank you! Daichi! Get ready!" With amazing speed he turns and begins sprinting towards the nearby brush. A few moments later Reiko can see a bluish-green streak rocket up out of the obscuring brush and head towards the commercial residences...