It took Seishi longer than she'd have preferred to reach out to Runealy and Hinote after the incident at the mall. It's not been time wasted, though. She may be exhausted, severely underslept and twitchy both from the pressure of the looming Nightmare and from making up for sleep with caffeine - but when she arrives at the address she was given, after double-checking the address on her phone to make sure she's in the right place, she strides up to the front door with the confidence of a girl with A Plan.
After tucking her phone away in her pocket, she knocks briskly, then takes a step back and clasps her hands together behind her.
Hinote Kagari had been expecting Seishi- so has Runealy Waldia! Mainly, when the door knocks, it's not a surprise that causes Hinote to suddenly bolt up and peek out the side window since the last attack-- but there is caution as he still opens the door softly, peeks then opens it the rest of the way, as he smiles. "Hello, Tamashige-san, come on in. Runealy's waiting." he says softly as he looks around outside a moment past Seishi and then closes the door softly.
He's playing it safe since the last time.
He walks Seishi into the main living room area and bows, before motioning to the couch. "Please have a seat. I'm going to go get snacks ready." he says. He smiles to Runealy, in passing--if she's there-- before heading off into the kitchen for a moment.
Snacks will happen. THEY WILL.
Conversely, Rune has been trying to figure out her new phone. The idea of using it to figure out addresses has yet to occur to her, and she's still struggling with how to use it to contact other Virtue members. On the other hand, it /did/ automatically reconfigure itself to suit her visual tastes; red on the sides, white down the middle, and her nation's 'steel shield with a pink heart in the center' emblems sprinkled in at various points.
She's jarred from playing with this, upon one of the living room couches, when she hears knocking. "Ah?" A quick jolt of surprise, then she starts to rise. Rune will be a bit late on that one, but she is nonetheless curious to greet their guest... especially when Hinote gets there before she does, and reveals it is indeed a guest.
Rune's expression brightens immediately, delighted to see Seishi. "Hi! Ah... hey, come in," she steps aside to let Seishi take first-pick on seating spots, raising a brow at visible fatigue. It's an expression the princess knows, and has lived, not too terribly long ago. She doesn't outright ask, but her gaze is bringing up the unspoken question of 'are you okay?'
By sheer force of habit, Seishi pauses inside the front door to take her shoes off before she follows Hinote into the living room. "Thanks," she says, answering Rune's welcoming smile with a tired but genuine smile of her own; she looks around a little before picking a chair to head to. When she sits, she perches herself on the edge of the seat, tucking her feet back between the chair legs and sitting up very straight - she's taking care not to get too comfortable.
"I'm sorry it took me so long to get in touch with you guys after - well," she says apologetically to Runealy as Hino's heading off for snacks. "Some things happened that I wasn't expecting, but it's turned out for the good. Anyway, I'm sure you and Hino-san both have some questions."
Hinote Kagari returns, not too soon after, with a tray of neatly stacked cookies. Nothing fancy, you can hear the crinkling of the package they came from in the trash can settle if you pay attention. He's also brought a pitcher of water and three glasses. He has himself a seat afterwards as he offers. "Nothing fancy, my apologies. I'm good at cooking, but all my baking is horrible." he says with a smirk. "Unless it's pizza. But we're outta pizza dough supplies." he winks.
"Anyways, yeah. I do." he says. "But how are you, first of all?" he wonders.
"Mphh. Well. What was. That thing on me?" he asks. "I didn't even know it was left. That thing got into my head through it I think." he frowns.
"And the last time that happened I almost killed someone, so I'm kind of worried about it happening again. Do you know if it's gone for good?" he asks wonderingly.
Rune returns to her place on the couch once Seishi is seated, looking over as Hinote returns. His apology is immediately dismissed; "It's fine, it's fine! It's not like I do any better at it." She probably does worse, having almost zero domestic experience. Rune reaches out to take her water and a few cookies, working on a bit of snack...
...And then quickly finding Hinote's situation far more interesting. "'Got into your head'... I don't quite follow all of it, what's going on there?" A glance to Hinote, then to Seishi, prompting both with her eyes to fill in the blanks.
A wince of regret and apology crosses Seishi's expression; in the next moment she's bowing where she sits, both hands resting in her lap. "I'm really sorry," she says again. "I didn't realize until after, myself, or I'd have taken steps before anything happened--"
Straightening again, she fixes her full attention on Hinote, dark eyes bright with intensity in her wan face. "I think that hunter marked you - you and Ariel. He meant to steal your dreams, but he prefers easy prey. You stood up to him, and you didn't let him make you the same as he is. So he went after someone else instead."
She pauses there for a moment to draw in a breath. "At least, that's what I think. I'm pretty sure. What have your dreams been like, since the mall?"
Hinote Kagari looks to Runealy. "When we were at the mall I could feel that thing we were fighting trying to turn me like..." he says. "Like it was talking in my head and making me scared and want to run?" he asks. "I think it did it through the mark it left on me in the inital encounter in the park earlier in the month." he says with a sigh.
He looks back to Seishi and raises his hand. "No, no sorries. I'm fine now I think." he says with a smile. "Um, since the Mall? Not really good or bad. I have dreams and nightmares but nothing specific?" he asks. "Before that.... things were kinda tense I guess. Kept dreaming of badder things than usual. So. Maybe it is gone?" he asks.
"Does it work like that?" he asks.
"I don't know!" he smiles.
He looks to Runealy. "That thing we fought at the Mall attacked me before. I don't think it likes us very much now." he says.
Rune goes tense as Seishi explains all this, and now she most certainly does have questions. "'Make you the same'...? I remember what you told me when we first met. About what happens to some victims... that they basically stop living in any real sense of the word." The prospect of leaving someone to that fate had been enough to convince Rune to shoot herself with her wand during the ensuing fight to 'end' it, rather than press her original plan to energy-drain Akashimaru, after all.
"But that doesn't sound like what you're talking about in Hinote's case, so what is it?" Hinote's own explanations only fill in a few gaps for her, and leave her still puzzled. "'In your head' like that? Is that what you were dealing with all this time? Are you going to be alri--" She cuts off as she realizes he has raised some of this question already. "And no, I bet it doesn't. It's just kind of hard to follow something like that, to know what to /do/ about it."
Right now, she doesn't look very interested in snacks.
"The thing is..." Seishi says, looking hesitantly between the two others. "This is the first time one of the enemy has shown themselves so openly. Up until the mall, and before then at the park, I'd mostly fought the Nightmares that they created." She looks down for a moment, breath hissing softly between her teeth in muted frustration. "If I were more experienced, I'd have known better what to expect, and you wouldn't have had to go through that."
When she looks up again, her expression is set and serious. "What you guys helped fight at the mall, and what Hino-san fought at the park, is definitely a dream-thief. He's one of the ones who creates Nightmares in order to steal people's dreams. And he likes to make it a hunt. He chases them in their dreams until they're exhausted enough for the Nightmare to spill over into the real world." Those dark eyes settle on Hinote again. "If your dreams have been okay since then, you shouldn't have anything to worry about. But I don't intend to leave it to chance. I have a plan now to stop him for good."
Hinote Kagari looks to Runealy. "Not really. I just felt odd and restless at bedtime mostly. I don't think it had much time to settle." he says. "So no worries." he smiles at the Princess. "Alright? I'm fine." he insists.
He at least seems to actually be fine. Not tired or hurt looking or trying to hide it.
He looks back to Seishi. "So it was your first time dealing with one of these so openly. No biggy. Now you know." he says.
"A plan?" he looks over to Runealy and back. "What's the plan? I'm here of course." he says. Runealy is right there so she can speak for herself on that- though Hinote already knows the answer is some form of resounding yes. Seishi helped save Waldia afterall, right? Right, thinks Hinote.
And /now/ things start to fit together; the alien princess' eyes go wide as she finally begins to understand the hierarchy of threats involved. "So you have Nightmares as... the most basic threat? Still awful, but below the 'thief'... which brings..." Lots of stumbling, incomplete sentences; in part, Rune is just repeating terms as she's mulling on them.
"Well, I'm glad you're okay..." she sags with relief as Hinote confirms no further dream issues, as this seems to rule out the prospect he would either be 'not alive' or become a dream-thief himself. "Alright... a plan. Go ahead?" Her gaze drifts over to Seishi, and now stays firmly on her.
"Like I said, he's a hunter, right? He likes easy prey. Someone who'll run, so he can chase them."
Here, Seishi smiles, just for a moment - and it's a fierce, sharp-edged thing. "I've got him chasing me, now. That's how I know how he works. But he doesn't know me, or what I can do in dreams - I'm going to let him chase me until we catch him."
There's a break in her explanation while Seishi reaches up to rub briefly at her eyes, before she goes on. "I've got a little while longer before the Nightmare's strong enough to let loose. Not very long, but long enough. Minase-san - she was there both times, the priestess - is willing to help, and Kunzite-san will too, if he can. I'd like to ask for your help as well, both of you. I don't believe the hunter can beat me in my own dream, but in the end, he's a coward. I can't let him escape to hunt anyone else."
Hinote Kagari smiles. "You have my help, no doubt about that." he says softly. "I mean, barring that I have no clue how to enter someone's dream." he admits. "Mine are weird and I think you'd laugh yourself silly." he says with a wry smirk.
He looks towards the Princess as he purses his lips as he says. "I don't know the others very well there." he admits. "I don't know Minsase-san. I know Kunzite-san is a personal friend of Mamoru's. Ariel is that... Unicorn girl who was there, right?" he asks softly.
He shakes his head and sighs. "I need to get meeting new people soon." he says a little mock exasperatedly, as if apologizing for his ineptitude with knowledge of who's who.
"Not much of a 'hunter' if that's what he's after... sounds more like a dangerous bully." Rune is aware of the threat posed by this monster, but unimpressed by the methodology all the same. Though ultimately, what little she knows of hunting in the first place mostly comes from time in the Barrier Forest under those maintaining its secrets... Gaofele's family and associates.
Then Seishi's plan simply leaves Rune confused. It's plain to see on her face, eyes tilted oddly as she tries to figure it out. "I'll help, but I don't understand. How do /we/ catch the dream-thief? And how are we even helping? Do we wait until he's in the physical world again? Or are you..."
One odd possibility hits her; perhaps Seishi means reversing how this 'dream visitation' Akashimaru is capable of works. "Are you saying we'd be going in to..." Hinote seems to be of the same mind, and she leans forward from the couch to face him. A few moments of digging around, then she holds up her new Virtue-issued phone. "Well, we have a way to meet them now."
Seishi cracks a slightly self-deprecating smile, ducking her head for a moment in the face of Rune's confusion. "I'll be like what happened at the mall," she explains. "...sort of. That's how they work, creating Nightmares that spill over into the waking world and drag whoever is nearby in with them."
Her eyes flick from Runealy to Hinote and back. "The two times we've run into him, we couldn't really hurt him much. It's because the person who was dreaming the Nightmare didn't know they were dreaming. They were trapped, and he had power over the dream." Despite her admissions of inexperience with these things before, she sounds quite certain on this point.
"When I dream," Seishi states, "I know I'm dreaming. He won't be able to catch me in that trap. Which means that when the Nightmare emerges, he'll be vulnerable."
Hinote Kagari ohs. "Oh, I see. You're bringing him out to us, not vice versa." he says. "Alright, yeah then." he says. "I'm ready then." he says. "As long as we can end this thing. I mean. Sounds like bad news... this doesn't sound like someone being misled doing this. Sounds more like a demon." he mutters.
"Right?" he asks looking at Seishi.
He looks back at Runealy and sighs a bit as he crosses his arms. "Right. Now that we have this, I should use it to try to track down this "Sachiko Hawykawa"." he says. "Maybe someone knows her or she's approached others by thier 'other name', too." he says softly.
He digs out his own orange phone and begins to press the screen some a moment- before setting it on his lap so he won't forget to do that before things are done for the day.
"Ohh... is that why you were so firm on that when you were in mine, trying to convince me it wasn't real?" Rune apparently has an issue where she can't discern that a dream isn't reality until she wakes up, which persisted even when Seishi outright told her it was such.
Still, now that Hinote has filled in what Runealy wasn't quite grasping - he gets a quick nod in acknowledgement of what he had to say - she insists: "I'm in. We'll get this done!"
The mention of their other situation draws a curiously raised eye, though. "How do you do that, using the phone to check for her? Do you just... ask everyone? Or can phones find specific people?"
"Kind of," Seishi acknowledges with a nod toward Rune. "Your dreams weren't being caused by anything like this dream-stalker, but still, knowing that you're dreaming can let you break out of a nightmare. That's what I was trying to do, and why the best way to break a capital-N Nightmare is to find the dreamer and get them to realize that they're dreaming."
She draws in a breath, then looks to Hino and nods again. "Demon's not a bad way to describe it," she confirms. "From what O-Yasu has told me, these guys aren't something that was ever human. This one doesn't seem to care about anything except chasing down people who can't fight back." In her lap, her hands curl closed. "I've scouted out a place where there shouldn't be any risk of anyone getting pulled into the dream who isn't there on purpose. It should be at least a few more days... I'll call you guys when the time comes, if that's okay."
A breath; she makes herself relax her hands and sit back just a little. Tracking the rest of the conversation from Hino to Runealy, Seishi raises her eyebrows a little. "--Asking around is the only way I know of," she comments, "but..." The designs of their phones are unfamiliar to her; the way her words trail off implies that she's willing to suppose there are other methods she doesn't know.
Hinote Kagari nods. "Alright, that's good." he says softly to Seishi. He says. "Sounds like a plan. Okay that's good then--" he says. "Means no going easy for me." he says smarmily. "Nothing to 'fix' besides stopping it for good." he says.
Hinote operates best when he doesn't need to worry about pulling his punches, usually. Fire isn't conducive to 'lighly hurting someone', someone is either 'on fire' or 'they're not on fire', really.
He blinks at Seishi. "Oh! Um. These are. Virtue phones. Virtue was an organziation that helped us heavily-- we joined it in turn recently. At least properly. These let us contact people on a message board and call them and all that. It also 'keeps your identity' if you want it too. It's neat." he smiles.
"Do you find something like that useful? We know who to point you to if you do." he says.
"That's right." Rune is able to immediately confirm her own nightmares were creations of her own mind. When you spend your waking moments terrified of an imminent apocalypse and constantly reminding yourself of recent trauma... of course one's nightmares will be of the same stuff, and no external influence is needed to make those.
She is nonetheless dubious of the plan. "Tokyo is huge. 'Call us'... will that really give us enough time to arrive when the moment is right, even with our private driver?"
Now that things are calming down, she finally takes a moment to ponder all this while enjoying some of the water and cookies provided earlier. Hinote's sentiments net a sharp nod as well, then: "You said it. If there's really nothing 'to' it other than being a straight-up monster... then that's how it is. We'll deal with it."
"There should be plenty of time," Seishi promises Runealy gravely. "I'll give you the address before I go, so you can test out how long it will take your driver to get you there, but in any case the Nightmare can't come out until I fall asleep." Which certainly explains her worn-out appearance. "I don't plan to push it until I collapse. We'll have time to get everything set up."
She sounds confident, at least. Hinote's explanation about Virtue has her eyebrows lifting again; clearly, this is not something she was familiar with. "Virtue... so it's like a communication network for, um, people like us? That does sound really useful..."
Hinote Kagari nods. "It is. I'll give Tadase your name and a number if you'd like. He'd be the guy to call." he says softly.
He crosses his arms a bit and nods. "We'll figure out how long it takes." he says. "No worry." he says. "I'll be on time if I gotta camp." he smiles.
He looks over to Runealy and smiles a bit. "Right." he says. He pauses a bit, and runs a hand through his hair a moment.
He peeks at the cookies, not a lot eaten, but that's alright. He leans forward and finally takes one. "Peckish." he insists.
"I need to figure out what we're doing for dinner tonight anyways." he smirks.
"Alright. In that case, we'll try it out and make absolutely sure we know what we can do to help you." Rune relents on this point, calmed by Seishi's offer. "And Virtue's more than just a 'communication network.' They /do/ things. Once I got sick enough that we quit attacking people, they showed up and brought us to somewhere better to recover. Somewhere better than a trash-heap of an abandoned store. Some of those who came with us to restore the Barrier, well, you saw them." Seishi was, after all, among those who helped strike down a higher-end demon who would have otherwise made completing the Restoration Ritual impossible, "They were part of 'Virtue' too." She had opted not to name names right off, though Hinote volunteers them...
...And she realizes immediately that it's probably not a problem, not in this case. "They'd probably have a lot to say for someone like you, really. They were pretty interested in us, I can only imagine how much more for someone who can literally go into dreams. Might be worth a try!"
As an aside to Hinote, "Figure it out, huh... any ideas for it?"
It's at this point that Seishi realizes she hasn't even tried the cookies, and she leans to reach for one with a guilty smile. "--sorry," she murmurs. "I've been a little distracted. Honestly, if I could handle this by myself, I wouldn't get anyone else involved... but I can't miss this chance to stop that thing before it steals any more dreams." Once again, she bows low in her seat, momentarily clasping the cookie between both hands. "Thank you. Both of you."
When she straightens up again, it's with a sense of purpose, and she listens to Rune's explanation of Virtue with a thoughtful expression. "...I see," Seishi says after a moment, and dips her head to Hinote in a little nod. "It definitely seems like it wouldn't hurt to talk to them," she agrees.
And then she cracks a lopsided smile and looks down at the cookie in her hand. "For now, I should probably leave you guys to it. My dad will be expecting me home soon." Saying this, she gets to her feet, before dipping low in a formal bow. "Thank you both, again. For everything."
Hinote Kagari has faith that Seishi isn't a secret agent of darkness. He looks over to Runealy. "Well. I can run out and get Pizza supplies because suddenly I have a hankering for a home cooked pizza." he insists. "I thhhhhink I have the supplies for a noodle dish. I know there's some meat in the freezer. Or we can all just fend for oursevles tonight or someone else can cook-- but.. well." he shrugs.
He looks back at Seishi.
"Right then." he gets up and after Runealy's said her piece, will help Seishi back to the door and make sure she gets out alright.
Hinote's kind of paranoid since that weird dead demon girl attacked really.
"Even if you could handle it alone, sometimes there's something to be said for being extra sure." Rune is taking their upcoming involvement pretty well, all told. Snacks are set aside to return the bow gesture at about the same height - this might not be 'rank appropriate', but being one of those who helped save her world demands some exceptions - and follow the pair toward the door. "We can get you a ride home if you'd like. They can even let you out a little short of there, if you need to be careful about that sort of thing? Either way, don't worry about it... we're glad to help."
And on a lighter note, she quickly agrees to Hinote's plans. "We'll do that in a bit, it sounds good!"
Seishi smiles at the offer, but shakes her head. "It's fine," she assures. "The walk will help me keep my head clear. Thanks, though."
She pauses at the door to step back into her shoes, and looks toward Runely for a moment. "--You're right, of course," she says. "It's good to have people you can ask for help, whether you need it or not. Take care, okay? I'll talk to you soon."
Cookie still in hand, she waves to the duo and starts off.
It's only halfway home that she realizes she'd neglected to give them the address she'd promised - fortunately, an apologetic text message is enough to solve that oversight.
She can't be losing focus now.