Maybe it was a little bit morbid to arrange to meet at the same place the Nightmare last struck openly, the place where a girl's dreams were stolen. But the food court at the MS department store has a few things to recommend it as a meeting place for talking about supernatural goings-on, all the same: it's convenient, open enough that finding the person you're meeting isn't hard, busy enough with people too occupied with their own business to tune into any one conversation going on around them, no matter how absurd the topic being discussed.
Seishi's already claimed one of the smaller tables, and she's not waiting idly. A clear plastic go-cup of iced coffee is collecting condensation a little off to one side; her phone is facedown on the table opposite the drink, and between them is spread a mess of open notebook and stray torn-out paper. One foot jogs rhythmically under the table as she scribbles notes in pencil. Her face is pinched, slightly pale, tired but focused.
There's also a benefit to meeting in this location that Seishi doesn't particularly need to be aware of, by Kunzite's evaluation. Home ground, after a fashion. Even if the discussion turns into a planning session that lasts for hours -- not likely, but not impossible -- no-one in the place is going to try to turn them out for loitering, or even glance disapprovingly at their cups of coffee. Hers iced, his hot, never mind the weather.
Kazuo sets his down opposite her, safely away from her phone, and folds himself down into the seat. It's a little cramped for him, but everything is. "You've been busy," he notes. He should probably have said that before manifesting at the table, but old habits die hard.
She jolts in her seat as Kunzite sits down, as he speaks; her head snaps up, dark eyes startled and wary, halfway out of her chair with her grip shifting automatically on her pencil before she recognizes him and the fight-or-flight reaction is abandoned. "--sorry," Seishi says, flashing a crooked grin as she settles back down. "I'm pretty caffeinated right now, it's making me kind of punchy."
The solution to this is clearly to put the pencil down and reach for her iced coffee. The pages in front of her are littered with disjointed notes - some standard English homework, but also fragmentary observations regarding persistence hunting, wolf behavior, bits here and there scrawled in the margins in a combination of Japanese and English:
'outrun / outlast'
'ambition is my folly, I'm a polymath a pain in the ass a massive pain'
'the code word is NOT Rochambeau, shut up Akashimaru'
Seishi takes a healthy drink through the straw of her iced coffee, breathes out as she sets it back down on the rather damp paper napkin she's using as a coaster. "Thanks for coming to meet me," she says, fixing her full direct attention on Kunzite across the table. "Are things all right on your end?"
The girl who fights nightmares is not the girl to lecture about sleep habits. "At least your reflexes clearly aren't suffering," Kunzite notes. Enough of the Kazuo-persona to look like a half-lazy teenager from a distance; but at closer range the chill sharpness of the eyes, the detached focus, show through.
The question wins her an apparently unconcerned shrug. "They're not getting any better," he says, "but I haven't seen them getting worse any faster. Which undoubtedly means there's something undermining us that we haven't seen yet, but we'll deal with that when the time comes. You? I don't see any of the Waldians here, so you're likely not putting out emergency calls quite yet."
A short, breathless little 'hah' sound hitches out of Seishi; her head dips in acknowledgement. "Getting there," she says, glancing reflexively toward her phone for a moment before she focuses on Kunzite again. "I need to talk to them, too. Get everything in order."
A moment's pause, and then Seishi grins, sharp and fierce. "I've got him," she says. "I've got him chasing me now. We can turn the tables on him."
Her expression isn't matched, precisely. But the sudden pull at one side of Kunzite's mouth mirrors half of it, as much anticipation as ice. "Well done."
That, before anything else. Making their enemy react to her, rather than the other way around. Stealing the initiative.
"You'll need things in order quickly, then." Half a dozen questions that he'd normally ask are considered and set aside, all in the time it takes him to absently follow her glance to her phone, then meet her eyes again. "What do you need from us?"
Her foot's jogging under the table again, heel bouncing lightly against the floor, wired caffeine energy seeking outlet. "We've got a few days," Seishi says, "maybe more. He has to wear me down first, and I won't make it easy. He won't beat me in my own dream. But it'd be bad to misjudge the timing--"
Fidgety, she picks up the pencil again, begins marking a cluster of curved lines in the corner of her notebook page. "I'll need somewhere to let the dream out. Like what you saw happen here - when it spills over, I don't want anybody who's not involved getting dragged in. Can you make any suggestions?"
"Most of what I concentrated on was where people congregate, not where they avoid." Teeth show white for a moment, before his eyes dart away from her, seeking. "And most of the isolated places I know would create more problems than they'd solve. Barriers might be an option, or might block the thing out; I'm not sure you have anyone on hand who can make one, and I can't do anything analogous myself anymore. Schools are empty at night, if the students don't live on-campus; that's a straightforward possibility. Urban exploration sites. We can check to make sure no-one's in residence. Can't rule out the possibility of people being there at the time, but it may at least lower it."
Seishi listens intently, eyes never leaving Kunzite as her pencil scratches softly against paper: 'barriers? school at night. urb exploration sites?'
"Okay," she says, with a short nod. "I'll check into some of those. The others might have some ideas, too."
She puts the pencil down, makes her foot still. "I told you before, how lucid dreaming is the best protection against this thing that I know of - he'll fight me for control of the dream, but I'm sure I can beat him. He's a coward, though. If he thinks he's losing, he'll run and find someone else to hunt. I can't let that happen. So I want to lead him into a trap. Let him chase me until we catch him."
Her hand reaches for her coffee, but Seishi doesn't drink yet, hasn't looked away from Kunzite. "When that time comes, can I ask for your help?"
The word 'lucid' is the one at which he's looking at her again, regarding her calmly as he parses her discussion of the nightmare-beast. His nod to her assessment of what needs to be done is matter-of-fact, straightforward. Not grim. This is a hunt, not a death sentence. Dangerous. But not necessarily lethal; they can be more careful with their bait than that.
"Yes." The answer is just as matter-of-fact. "I can't promise you'll have it. I can promise you'll have what I can give, so long as there's nothing with even higher stakes that demands it first. And I can arrange to make sure you have a backup way to reach us, one that'll be able to get in touch with me even if cellphones can't." Sleeping, waking, in this world or out of it. "Do you need an understanding of what I can do, to coordinate your assistance best? Or were the dreams enough to tell you that?"
The disclaimers about what Kunzite can and can't promise are accepted without so much as a flinch. Seishi just dips her head to sip from her iced coffee, sets it down again as she swallows. "I understand," she says, as though this were nothing more or less than she'd expected - they all have their own responsibilities. "Thank you."
Now, at last, she glances down to the pages in front of her. "I think I have some idea," she says, "but it'd be good to hear it straight from you. Dreams aren't always the best way to figure this stuff out; sometimes it's hard to tell if you're seeing something for what it is, or slantwise through layers of metaphor."
He taps one finger against the side of his own cup, the others folded in. "Quick transit within the city," he says. "Not fast enough to be useful in the dream, but fast enough that I'll be able to respond from a distance, and we might be able to prearrange transport for others, help surprise the thing. I haven't tried to take more than two at once."
Two fingers, now. "Shadows. Their basic function is absorbing energy. I will not use that directly on the thing; my turning into it would be counterproductive. But there's a degree to which that's useful as a shield, or as a trap. Kinetic energy is still energy, if harder to manipulate; space that's occupied is space that nothing else can manifest in."
Three. "Once I have energy, I can reuse it. The kind of attack I used on the hunter is inefficient, but I always have access to it. I may have others at the time, depending on whether I've fought anything interesting recently; but everything I've been up against lately has used darkness, draining, or claws, so I'm in something of a dry spell."
Four, and somehow his expression goes from bland to even more bland. "On the frequent occasions that the arcane is less than useful, I can hit things with sharp objects. Also, I've had experts tinkering with my mind for long enough that lesser attempts to interfere just annoy me. That's not a guarantee, of course; if that thing focuses its attention on me, it might be able to push through by brute force. If it does, the most efficient way to pin me down is ice; I can't drain anything from it without making it more effective, and once I run out of reserves --" He shrugs, apparently still unconcerned.
Seishi listens, carefully, absorbing the information piece by piece. In the beats between each point she jots down terse notes off to the side of the page of her open notebook, reminders to herself against the likelihood that caffeine and faitgue work against full retention. She doesn't interrupt.
"I think he prefers easy prey," she murmurs in the wake of Kunzite's shrug. "Like I said, a coward. There shouldn't be much risk... no, but he was trying something like that with Minase-san. It's a possibility to be on guard against, him trying to make you like himself somehow. We shouldn't overlook it."
The pencil tap-tap-taps restlessly against the paper. "Okay," she says. "I can work with this. I won't risk trying to reach you guys through dreams, not while he's chasing me, but you mentioned a backup..."
"Only works if you have someone who's got reception," Kunzite replies. "Let me borrow your pencil for a moment."
When she does -- presuming she does -- he notes yet a third number in her margins. Mamoru's, his, mystery. "I'll have one of us with that phone when I'm out of reach. They should all be minimally annoying for normal conversation. For an emergency call -- pick a code. Something short. Whoever gets it will notify me, along with anything else you send with it. Call it three minutes or so."
She duly offers over the pencil, slides the notebook a little more towards Kunzite across the table when he reaches to write in it. Watches the number as it's noted down, nodding a little in understanding of the arrangement.
And makes a hilariously put-upon face when Kunzite asks for a code. Not at the request itself - no, this is the equal parts affronted and chagrined expression of someone in the process of realizing that they are about to have to do something they had previously insisted with absolute certainty was not ever going to happen.
"...fine," she concedes, the word leaving her in a sigh of resignation. "We'll make it 'Rochambeau' after all." And maybe now her subconscious will shut up about it.
There is a fine difference in shading. Bland expressions. Nonexpressions. And blank expressions. This is definitely one of the latter three.
Apparently the person sitting across from Seishi is one of the five remaining English-speaking people between the ages of sixteen and twenty not to get the reference.
This just makes Seishi look more chagrined. "Sorry," she says, waving the whole thing away as nonsense not to be given too much thought. "Subconscious past-life me is a jerk, is all." Once she takes back her pencil, she takes a moment to scratch out one of the crankier margin notes.
"And it's never going to stop being weird to find myself saying things like that out loud. Anyway, it's not important. The important thing is, system in place to call in the cavalry if I have to."
Margin notes: occasionally outdated. "It's not a problem I'm completely unfamiliar with," Kunzite notes aloud. Whether he means the weirdness, or the subconscious past-life, isn't clear until he adds, "I don't usually have the chance to have arguments with mine, granted."
Weird things: always slightly weirder when you're not the only one.
He's still frowning faintly, though, as he traces back through the conversation. Picks up a thread left loose a moment before, not that Seishi knew it was loose. "You said: 'it's a possibility to be on guard against.' More than a possibility. He tried it, the last time. When he set the three hunters loose, and the two of them turned to smoke -- I don't know about the other, but something tried to call me to hunt with him." There's that unconcerned shrug again. "The parts it tried to call, I have nailed down. Not a problem for me." At least not without its full attention; but he already gave Seishi what a lucid-dreamer can use against that. "But someone more vulnerable might have trouble."
It's not quite a surprise, not after Seishi's multiple sojourns into Mamoru's dreams. It catches her attention, though, enough to have her eyebrows lifting a little. Not really the sort of problem one expects to be able to commiserate over. "In my experience," she puts in with a lopsided smile, "you're not missing much."
But then he's turning the subject to something more pressingly relevant, and Seishi's crooked smile fades into a more serious expression as she listens. Another note is jotted, very brief - confirmation of something she hadn't quite understood in such concrete terms until just now. "That must've been what drew him to go after Minase-san, too," she murmurs, a little more subdued. "She also drove him off. I'll make sure everyone else is warned."
It calls a question to Kunzite's mind. Where the Nightmare came from. Whether it might also have been a dreamer, once.
He doesn't voice it. Because this fight will be narrow enough at best; because they lost the essence of the last. Because if Seishi doubts, her hold on her dreams will loosen.
They save who they can. They can't save everyone. And those who haven't given themselves over to savagery are a higher priority by far.
"Good," he says instead. "It'll make them more careful. That might be enough in itself."
"It might not even be something they're vulnerable to in the first place," Seishi muses, gaze drifting down over her notebook. "Not everybody has that in them." She's thinking particularly of Ariel, and the pencil absently sketches a suggestion of a unicorn horn in some of the white space between notes. "That's not something to count on, though. Forewarned is better."
If the direction of Kunzite's thoughts is anything that's occurred to her to wonder about, she's not showing it now.
It's the sketch, not the words, that prompts the brief flash of amusement across Kunzite's expression. "Better not bring anyone who might be irked at you. Just in case."
A chuff of surprised laughter leaves Seishi as she looks up again, meeting amusement with amusement. "I'll keep that in mind."
She seems to think for a moment, before finally she puts the pencil down. "I might be missing something, but I can't think of anything else right now. Thank you, again, for being willing to help. I know you and Chiba-san have your own problems to deal with." Her forehead creases faintly with an anxious sort of sincerity. "If there's any way I can be of help with any of that, I hope you'll call on me."
Kunzite reaches out and taps one of the pieces of paper with one hand. it's facedown and probably English homework, but the message is reasonably clear despite the details. "Once this is over," he says. "You don't need to risk both our problems coming down on you at the same time."
If she's missing anything, she has plenty of ways to reach him by now. He rises, apparently unconcerned with other pleasantries. Mostly. "And if you start slowing down earlier than you expected -- call." There's that same glitter as a few moments ago, what passes more or less for humor. Maybe sometimes a little less than more.
"I will," Seishi promises. This time it's less of a nod and more of a small bow, for all that she doesn't get up out of her chair herself. "It'll be within the week, probably - I can only miss so much sleep."
She smiles briefly, pleasantly self-deprecating, reaching for her increasingly watery iced coffee. "Take care," she says.
"Sounds like what I should be telling you." He answers the bow neatly, perhaps a fraction deeper -- or perhaps that's his height, or the difference between seated and standing; it's difficult to tell. That's the only hint of formality in his departure.
Her smile turns wry at that comment - he's not wrong. At least for the moment, though, there's nothing else to be said. Seishi watches for a little while as Kunzite leaves, until he's lost to view amidst the human traffic of the mall and food court.
Then she turns her attention back down to the notebook and papers in front of her, and her expression sets into one of stubborn determination despite the lingering fatigue and the twitchy energy of the fading caffeine boost.
She's got work yet to do.