It is not, in fact, raining right now. It's been raining much or most of the time for days, but it's not raining right now, and this is a delight and a glory to many people. That's probably one of the reasons that the Hikawa SHrine is even more popular than usual, at this precise moment.
Some things additional people can't hide, though. For instance, there's one particular person coming away from leaving an offering by a particular fox statue. Tall enough to make the straight white hair visible above most other heads.
Jiaying Maki isn't at the shrine quite yet. She's at the entrance, poking around the lion dog statues, quesitoning whether something is sealed away inside of it or not. She hasn't been able to tell yet. Then again, guessing by the waxed jacket she's wearing, she's probably a fan of the weather to the point she looks disappointed it's stopped raining.
Also, there's a crowd, that's the other reason she's lingering around the entrance. She's still not really good at her disguise and she's afraid people will stepp on things, or bump into it and question her. Or it will fail and she'll have to explain cosplay somehow.
There's no particular delay in Kazuo's exit. He moves with a casual certainty; groups coming the opposite way tend to make a little more room for him than they might otherwise. If she's watching, she can see him.
Certainly, he sees her, in his quiet scans of the crowd. And adjusts his course to bring him out of the flow of people near where she's poking around. "Contrary to her reputation," he notes, "the shrine maiden doesn't actually bite. Snap a little, maybe."
Jiaying Maki looks over at Kazuo and looks close, rubbing her chin. "I never figured she did, I have no idea who she is or who the shrine's priest is though."
She pokes at the statue and says, "This though, I was wondering if there was anything inside of here, sealed away. Either as a guardian or as a punishment. It's in myths right?"
A beat, then she asks, "Who are you again?"
"So far as I know, these particular ones are just statues," her uninvited companion replies. "But I haven't checked. It seemed impolite." He bows, slight and calm. "That's right, though. People were more worried about medical conditions than introductions. I'm Kazuo Takeba. We met at Mamoru Chiba's home, most recently."
Jiaying Maki crosses her arms and says, "One of the cape people then. Which one?" She taps her chin, trying to remember the names. There's a string of Chinese, then a shrug. "I'm Jiaying Maki- how is it impolite to ask if the statues are decorative or real?"
"Asking seems fine, though liable to get you some strange looks. Actually prodding into the statue to find out if there's something in there seems intrusive, at best. After all. If there is a guardian, it's unlikely to appreciate being poked awake." Kazuo's grey eyes glint in reflected sunlight as he studies Jiaying more closely for a moment. "As for which of Mamoru's people I am -- I'm the one who's concerned about Lacrima. Would you happen to have seen her in the last couple of days?"
Jiaying Maki shrugs and says dryly, "I already get weird looks, I go fuzzy around the edges, remember?" Wait, does he? She doesn't actually remember for sure. She's sure he's one of the cape people though. "I'm not going to poke it awake, I'm going to poke it. There is a distinct difference." The question about Lacrima kind of tells her though. "I have seen her, I'm not giving any details though. Why are you asking, I'm not going to let you hurt her."
"I'm willing to go into details, but we might want to talk somewhere a little less public." Kazuo glances aside at the intermittent stream of visitors daring the steps to the shrine. "This place has an interesting enough reputation as it is; there's no need to risk spooking anyone any further."
Jiaying Maki shrugs and says, "It's a quiet shrine with nothing supernatural that I've found, but if you would prefer to go elsewhere, sure- that works. Just lead the way?" She's still trying to place the cape guy's name though. This seems ot be handling most of her brain processing power.
Eventually though, she asks, "Where did you plan on going and what, exactly are you after?" No one at the apartment reacted to her Chinese, so she's sure that's out of hte question and there's enough people that know Mandarin it wouldn't work either.
Kazuo shrugs slightly. "We're not so far from the apartment, if you'd be comfortable there. Or anywhere else out of the way." He starts walking in any case, away from the shrine. It'll get them somewhere --
(It'll get them somewhere away from the shrine maiden, who he's not entirely sure can't overhear them from inside the shrine, for one thing. But that's less than obvious.)
"I'm worried about Lacrima," he says as he's moving, over his shoulder if necessary. "I'm not sure precisely what happened at the stadium, but I've heard enough to suspect she got hurt."
Jiaying Maki follows along quietly for some time, watching where they're going curious-like. "How about we just go for a walk, your apartment was busy last time." She runs her fingers through her hair. She has no idea why the guy just doesn't want to step to the side though.
"She's fine- for the time being at least, as fine as she is capable of being. I think I remember you now though." She scowls, watching him from the corner of her eyes, "Do you know how to do anything to fix her, help her, any of that?"
"All right." A walk is good enough. It gets them away from the shrine, away from where Rei Hino is liable to pop up at any moment, the only senshi who disturbs -- or disturbed -- him more out of uniform than in; away from where students might linger and chatter and hear more than a few words.
"As for helping her -- I don't know. It depends on something I don't know about her condition." He glances aside at Jiaying in turn. "If she still possesses a soul, and it's simply blocked off by her curse, unable to do what it normally should -- then it might be possible one day for her to be rescued, or rescue herself, in something of the way my brothers and I were. It would take a great deal of care to keep her from dying in the process. If she no longer has a soul at all -- then it seems likely to require a something extraordinary. Telling which is the case is beyond what I can do now. But in either case, soulless or soul-chained, that she's trying so hard to control herself says a great deal for her."
Jiaying Maki has no idea what spooks the guy about the shrine so much. Eventually though, she shrugs that nagging feeling in the back of her head. Maybe there's something she should go poke around for after all.
Looking over and listening quietly through the whole thing, she says, "So which do you think it is, since you seem to have an idea on the subject. I know ghosts and myths, she doesn't fit in the myth I know for undead consumers of the living, so I can only take wild guesses. Or find out she eats people's people-ness."
"I have no way of telling. I might have, once, but I'm more or less human these days." More or less. Well, at least he's not talking to a human, or that comment would've been a bit more disturbing. "The problem is that the approach one would have to take to the problem varies. If she has a soul, then figuring out ways to anchor it and to preserve her body are -- not simple, but straightforward, after a fashion; at least whoever tried would know what they were trying for. After that, understanding the curse, removing it, and purifying her while keeping her safe would do the job. If she doesn't have a soul, then trying to do that would destroy her. And there's no convenient lingering examples that might be studied and adapted, the way there are with the rest."
He exhales quietly. "Riventon experiments with soul-magic. But Riventon's close to the edge himself, though any attempt to convince him of that he meets with violence and denial and scorn. And the magic I've seen him do is orders of magnitude less than would be needed, and of the wrong nature; he'd make matters worse in trying to repair them."
Jiaying Maki looks at him from the corners of her eyes again as they walk. "So you used to be able to see souls, but can't now, or was it a sense or a feeling?" Arms crossed, she's not sure just how much of the story she believes at the moment. Still, he has better ideas than she has at the moment and that means he's actually getting her attention! "So how do we test for one? I can't try and yank on it, my powers don't work that way and I don't do that anyway-" she starts to continue, hearing Chinese from behind her, she replies in annoyance and says, "I didn't used to do that at all. I do it rarely now."
Tapping her foot, she asks, "What if she is that far gone, that she's been what, eaten by the necklace? Have you ever heard of anything like that? She says it's inert now, but she also wouldn't let anyone poke at it."
The comments about Riventon gets a wry shrug. "She's working for him because he treated her well. If I find an excuse, I'm lighting his corruption on fire because I think he's using her, is unstable himself both magically and mentally."
"I spent five years housed in a dark energy construct capable of consuming cities," Kazuo replies, matter-of-fact, voice as even and neutral saying that as he is saying anything else. "Given the amount of dark energy she's working with, I might well have been able to rip her open to take a look, then woven her back together again. It would not, of course, have been a pleasant or reasonable or sane method. But I was as little of those three as she or Riventon, at the time."
He shakes his head over the question. "I don't know, now. If I knew people who could test, I'd have introduced you to them already."
About Riventon -- he doesn't dispute.
Jiaying Maki shakes her head and says, "Right right." with the kind of tone that says she thinks he may be exaggerating at least a little. Not that he seems the sort, but there's that American actor that died to Skeletor right? Wiki would never lie.
Listening to the methods, she scowls, "Did you leave any ghosts behind that had the ability? Any hauntings that may know about it? If I had any reason to force my will, saving her would probably be worth it." Beat, "She wants to go to Spain after some research I did. She says it's not a need, but a desire from the necklace. Any ideas?"
"The mages who use Devices might have some idea," Kunzite says. He doesn't seem to take any offense at her tone, at least. "Riventon I know experiments on his own soul, for instance, which implies that he has some way to perceive it. Obviously he's not the best choice; he might be able to get the information but he'd only use or share it in ways he believed would benefit him. I don't know who many of the others are. Miss White works for the same group that Riventon does. Storm Knight works -- direct magic, rather than subtle. But there are others. They might be able to help. The wolfgirl who calls herself Tsukiko might have some idea where to begin from another direction, or who to talk to. But I haven't seen sign of her in some time now."
He's quiet for several steps, and then says, "Tell me about the necklace. What you're willing to tell, at least."
Jiaying Maki crosses her arms and leans against anything convenient while watching her feet, toeing at a puddle occasionally to watch the ripples. "So I shouldn't feel bad stopping him next time when she's not around is what I'm hearing." Beat, "Not that I felt bad about /him/ last time even if it was mostly someone else and they barely noticed my involvement."
Tapping her foot in the puddle a few times, enjoying the distraction, "I don't know any of those people, so that rules it out on my side at the least." She steps forward and stretches her arms out above her head before leaning back again. "What was the other method you mentioned?"
Finally, the question about the necklace gets a flat shrug. "It was red, it was cursed."
"Riventon is honestly trying to save the world," Kunzite replies to Jiaying. "He is, unfortunately, completely deluded about how to save it, and about what effect his actions actually have. Occasionally he manages to do the right thing temporarily. You can usually tell because there will be Senshi fighting next to him instead of fighting him."
Kunzite tilts his head toward Jiaying, as the conversation shifts. "You don't know any of them yet," he corrects. "You may know people who know them. This isn't likely to be a short hunt. But those are the people i know of most likely to be able to be helpful in telling whether Lacrima still has a soul that might be salvaged, or whether it'll take some kind of miracle to help her."
Her answer about the necklace wins another glance, this one longer and unreadable as they pause at a corner, waiting for traffic. "I take it," he says, "that it also has something to do with Lacrima, and with Lacrima's curse. She mentioned to me that there had been a previous holder of the power. Any external desire to go somewhere might have something to do with that individual, or with the origin of the power, or with whatever the power she holds was designed to do."
Jiaying Maki shakes her head and says, "I don't know what a senshi is, but what is the saying, a stopped clock is right once?" She shakes her head, "I hate English, it sounds funny."
She drops the talk about Riventon pretty quick, it's clear that cloning a friend has left a sour taste in her mouth about it, nevermind that she thinks Norie's being used. "I'll do what I can there. Sky Jack or S-... I'll see what I can find."
Looking over, she says, "I know it was owned prior and weird dressed guys lit the first one's house on fire. Whatever else it does, I don't know." There's a beat, "She says she's comfortable in the dusk zone. Having seen it, I think there's something to look from there."
She doesn't know what a senshi is. Kazuo makes a brief gesture, as if to swipe any concern away. "Planet-named girls in sailor fukus and tiaras," he replies. "Though Riventon's made a dark-energy clone of at least one, so that's not quite a guarantee. And the saying is 'twice a day.'"
She's right, though. English does sound funny.
There's a brief inclination of Kunzite's head toward Jiaying. "Saying that something originates from the Dusk Zone is a little less narrowed down than saying that something originates from Earth, unfortunately. There's a great deal of space. A great deal of variety. And there are other places, and not-quite-places, accessible through it. It's the consumption of -- what did you call it? People-ness -- that's interesting." ... he should find another word for that. People tend to twitch and look at him funny. "Is it simply camouflage for her, like a hermit crab's borrowed shells? Or does it go to feed something else? I know the line of speculation I'd seize on -- but it's easy to tell a story about something and presume it's the truth; harder to find the truth when one's blinded by a story."
Jiaying Maki shakes her head and asks, "Why planets? That works." She holds a finger up at the mention of the dark clone thing though. "So that explains the clone of a friend the other night. She bled black, I figured it was like Lacrima."
Tapping her foot against the ground to adjust her shoe, "So there's a lot out there. Neat. Well, there are voices so it may be feeding something else? Maybe waking it up?"
Scowling she shakes her head, "Parchment and a chicken and I could find out if the jiangshi control tags work on her, not that she'd enjoy that, but it may narrow a lot of things down there." She says that flippantly, like she's sure it's a non-idea.
"I know she needs to use people-ness for healing, when she's hurt it burns her reserves away, so maybe there's more to it?"
Kazuo shrugs back at Jiaying. "Why foxes? It's not like they picked planets."
... bled black. Kunzite shakes his head. "Riventon makes dark-energy constructs based on other magical people," he says. "Frequently they share a measure of memories or powers. It's likely to have been one of those." Which is ... indeed, very like Lacrima. But there's no need to stress that.
A for the rest? "We could get you a chicken," Kazuo agrees, his bland tone almost echoing her flippancy somehow, "but it might be more useful to have her still willing to be in the same room with you, in the long run."
And then he draws a breath, and comes to a stop; they've walked far enough by now to be in a residential area, and it's late enough that there's no-one else on the sidewalk for a ways. "If she doesn't have a soul," he says, "then her being a person instead of like anything else out of the Dusk Zone is entirely dependent on the pieces of other people's identity that she takes. If she does have one, but it's blocked from doing what it should do, then she's still using those pieces to reconstruct herself -- just with a more immediate template. In either case, they're not part of her. Normal people can be worn down over time easily enough, by stress or exhaustion or pain or grief. Someone who doesn't have a natural connection to what she's using to define her self -- can be worn down much more quickly. So it's hard to tell, what the normal rate of loss would be, whether it's higher for her than it should be. And trying to make a control for that experiment would be hideous."
Jiaying Maki looks at Kazuo in complete confusion, "What do you mean why foxes? Because it's a family heritage?"
"Riventon has their memories somehow? Or is it through magic and- how is he making dark clones?" That's creepy and weird and she wants to kick him in the shins for that no matter what.
Crossing her arms, she continues, "So is she a patchwork blanket or is she a person patching herself up? Is it possible she's just buried? Or what?" She seems really confused about all of this. What, she's used to dead things and myths, not this stuff! "Well, what kind of ideas do you have then?"
Family heritage. Well, yes. "And therefore it makes as much sense as 'why planets.' Not all legacies are chosen by their bearers."
Kazuo shakes his head a little at the next questions. "I don't try to examine Riventon's methods more often than I have to," he says. "I already have a full-time job, and it's not that one."
Jiaying's later questions prompt Kazuo to look aside at her, eyebrows rising. His tone doesn't change, all the same. "Have you missed the entire rest of this conversation?" he inquires, and it sounds polite, at least. "I don't know whether she is still, in essence, a person under a curse, or whether she's become a curse masquerading as a person. I don't have any ability useful to tell any longer. The people I know of who are most likely to have some lead on how to tell are the mages who use Devices, and the wolfgirl who calls herself Tsukiko; they may not themselves have a method, but they may be able to guess at where to begin."
Jiaying Maki shakes her head at Kazuo and says, "I didn't say anything, it just seems weird to point at a planet. Then again I know a crab."
Shrugging the oddity off, "I'm going to kick him in the shins. That's creepy and weird and he probably deserves it no matter how he's getting those memories."
Finally, she sticks her tongue out at Kazuo and says, "I have been listening, but we've run around in circles and I've long stopped chasing my own tail- with the conversation where it is I wanted to see if anything had clicked." Shrug, "Whatever, I'll continue doing the homework."
"I understand there's a line for shin-kicking, where he's concerned. But I also hear one can feel free to cut to the front of it at any and every opportunity." Kazuo pauses for a moment. "Try not to fracture anything, though I suspect both of the healers I know would be pleased enough to help it recover."
He inclines his head slightly at the end. If it's a disguised version of her own gesture, it's very well disguised. "What they don't tell you in school is that the homework never stops. Good luck with it."
Jiaying Maki just shakes her head and says in annoyance, "We'll see how that line goes. I don't think my foot can fracture anything." Her and her ghost's claws though, well she doesn't mention that really though.
"I've been doing research for her and the condition for a while now. I've got a notebook with notes and almost none of it points to anything that actually helps her out or explains anything at this point."
"Try not to fracture anything in your foot, that is." There's a slight shake of Kazuo's head in turn, and he adds, "You're trying to research a problem that, most likely, no-one has ever tackled before. These things don't necessarily happen quickly."
Five years, he said.
Jiaying Maki holds her foot up and turns it side to side as though examining it while replying, "I don't intend to break anything in my foot either. I know I'm trying to research a hard problem. I've been doing it with half-clues, wild theories and experimentation. Which is where I picked up a second ghost. I did it on a whim, funny that."
She looks at her shadow where a pair of glowing eyes are briefly visible. "It doesn't help that I seem to get nowhere and I can't get notes from Riventon." Just a flat no there, "It's further hindered that she's afraid I'll get hurt either physically, mentally or socially."
Kazuo inclines his head to her shadow, then, as well -- and to the eyes. It's not true that it costs nothing to be polite. But the costs average out less than the alternative's costs do, even with the occasional ... incidents.
"Less hindered than you would be if you tried to help her learn something and had any reaction she didn't expect," Kazuo replies. "Effects like the one she's under protect themselves. When she and I managed to isolate what she fed off of, the understanding triggered further defensiveness; I was careful enough that it's not as bad as her reaction to Sky Jack was, but it's not good, either. Still. The curse doesn't want to be understood, so to speak. It doesn't want her to understand it, either. And it will influence her to avoid that where it can."
Jiaying Maki watches the semi-kinda bow to the shadow. It blinks twice, then fades away, though her shadow moves strangely for a moment. "I've been having them hide there because it's funny sometimes, but mostly it's the easiest way to have them at hand. Tired of getting hurt."
She once more unceremoniously changes topics. "What happened with that incident? She won't talk about it except that she shouldn't try to eat angry and dangerous ghosts because it doesn't work. Not without more work at least." Beat, "So the curse actually is sentient and... it travels clearly. I wonder if it's the first guy trying to become reborn? Maybe when they lit his house on fire, he hid in the only way he could?"
"I don't know whether the curse is sentient. 'Want' is a figure of speech in this case. But that's a possibility. That it might be suppressing her identity to try to inflict another, and her hunger might be a method of protecting herself. Or that her hunger might be an attempt by something to collect enough proper pieces to define itself properly. That's past my knowledge; I deal in energy directly, less so in that kind of sorcery."
Kazuo exhales, then, and pushes a hand through his hair, an unnecessary clearing of the blade-straight strands from his face. "What happened with that incident," he says, "was that -- we already had established, you understand, that she did not feed primarily on energy; it was useful to her, but not something she could use alone. There was something that required a living soul in residence. Since I had one, one that was protected and isolated to a certain degree, I let her feed on me; but -- I had warned her in advance, understand, and she agreed -- I manipulated my own power and emotions to try to determine what part of what she took was most necessary to her, and whether that part could be separated from the pain of her feeding."
Hair is pushed back on the other side. The first sign he's given of anything that might possibly be parsed as a nervous habit. "That's how we confirmed that ... people-ness, as you put it. The problem wasn't something either of us could have predicted. There is something in my particular flavor of people-ness that she -- particularly desires. I can't be certain what, and it would be a very bad idea to ask her. But consuming a concentrated dose of it ... was temporarily not good for her sanity."
Jiaying Maki scowls when she hears that it was a figure of speech, that had seemed like a good angle. "I think it is sentient of sorts, it gives her orders I think. Not... anymore, but it used to, the way she described it. Maybe it just sets the victim on the course and then waits to trample them?"
Watching him squirm gets a funny smile form her before she hides it again. She really is getting better at keeping a straight face and lying, albeit too slow. "So that's how you found all of that out. What happens if we manipulate what she eats in a way that tries to- ...that would probably go very poorly. Nevermind, nothing said there. Nothing at all."
"I can't possibly imagine what it would be." she says flatly, "Maybe it's that hint of dark energy or some kind of hint of magic? Which... would be something a guy trying to come back would want right?"
There's an uncomfortable look on her features as she struggles with something before finally asking, "What do you know about S-Shiniko? You've commented on her as well and she's someone Lacrima is worried about." With a beat she adds, "I'm worried about her too."
"It's not dark energy," Kazuo replies, matter-of-fact. "That construct body was destroyed by a dozen people working together, including a Prism Keeper, at least one exorcist, and Sailor Moon -- so far as I know, they were only missing one of Sky Jack's friends to have all of the most effective known forms of purification represented. Kyouko Sakura and a girl with a magical axe ripped the body open to maximize its vulnerability to the attack. There wasn't anything left of the construct, and the object my soul was contained in was cleared. Also, I live in the same household with Mamoru Chiba, who is sensitive to dark energy on contact, and allergic to it. If there were anything left, it would be gone. As for magic -- magic is incidental to what I do. A useful and necessary toolset, but not a core element of my identity."
He does not volunteer speculation, this time, on what else it might have been.
Shiniko's name gathers a shake of his head. "I've encountered her twice," he says. "When she attacked Naru, and at the prison. Not enough to make any kind of deep study. I know she's degenerating quickly. But you knew that already."
Jiaying Maki points to Kazuo and says, "The echo, that kind of thing." She reaches back and knocks on her shadow, "Think the kind of haunting that isn't a ghost, but just a video on repeat. Though, you'd know better there wouldn't you."
The lack of any response at all gets a scowl from her and she mutters, "What should I avoid testing with her, you still know more than I do. I just know she's afraid of purifying energy as a note. Which is why I don't use my blue fire for light anymore."
Shiniko though, that's a subject she wants more information on. "I don't think she bleeds like N-Lacrima. It kind of felt like she was posessed, like there's two versions of her. Lacrima's not sure what it would be though. I just hope it hasn't splintered her personality..."
"If Lacrima fed primarily on shame and regret," Kazuo replies blandly to Jiaying, "she wouldn't be targeting criminals and Good Samaritans."
They've been standing in the middle of the sidewalk for some time; he steps back now to lean against the side of a building, shoulders against the wall, arms folded. "I'd advise against either trying to starve her of what you call person-ness, or feeding her concentrated doses. Purifying energy is anathema to her, as it is to things from the Dusk Zone; using it on her is like bathing her in acid, using it near her is like making her breathe the acid's fumes. It may be necessary to use it at some point. But at the very end."
One way or another.
Shiniko is another subject indeed. "The question is what happened at the beginning," Kazuo says. "Where the infection began. Whether she was infected by a person, a thing, a place, her own actions, her own thoughts. She doesn't stay still long enough to let herself be examined now. So -- what was happening when she first became the Shadow Witch? Did anything change near then? Those might be the easiest questions to sift through for clues."
Jiaying Maki drums her fingers against her arms and eventually just shrugs it off. "I don't know then."
"I've never tried to starve her since she tries to avoid permanently hurting anyone and she's been very careful around us. I know about the purifying thing too, personal experience there with her hiding place."
Switching to Shiniko, she says, "So it is like an infection then? Like being exposed to too much would do it? Or the dusk zone?" she does an involuntary check of her arms at that. Whether it be the dusk zone or the burns from the other night though...
"I don't know. I know h-.." she scowls. "I know she was a very lonely girl and should have had friends and family there for her."
"Exposure itself is not usually enough, though it can be; it can seed infections in receptive individuals, or if wielded strongly enough, can suppress or invert or obliterate a mind." Kazuo says that in the same tone as everything else, matter-of-fact, even, conversational. "But these things generally take root most easily if the target agrees, somehow. It can be a very small beginning. Shiniko began by wanting what she saw as justice, did she not? It's reasonable to accept a power to accomplish what you believe to be a good end. Easy to get someone to accept it. And all that's necessary then is to corrupt their concept of what that good end comprises. Small steps. Each reasonable at the moment."
Jiaying Maki scowls and leans forward from her own perch. Looking down the road like she's upset she says, "So it's possible, but not likely. She accepted whatever was offered." Her hands tighten into fists for a moment, though she tries to hide that. "Is she going to be the same as Lacrima, or is there a way to save Shiniko without- Is there a way to save her? Purification burns her almost as much as it does Lacrima now." She hasn't turned back to face Kazuo yet at this point. "I need to go, it's getting late- if you find anything else, I can give you my email, number or just have you contact Lacrima with contact details of your own."
"As long as Shiniko, or the person inside Shiniko, still cares about something -- still has some human connection that she genuinely feels -- then there may be a way to save her. What that way might be, I don't know. You know more about her -- her friends, her family, what she does, where she might hide things, what she might whisper her secrets to. That gives you more of a chance to help her. And you care about her; that gives you the most chance of all. Sky Jack is trying to help her, too, I understand; he's asked for others with information to contact him."
Still has some human connection that she genuinely feels. Whether that holds for Lacrima too -- whether he thinks it even applies to Lacrima, or what it might mean for her -- he doesn't say.
"Lacrima knows how to reach me already. I can go through Naru. Or you can tell her to pass your contact information onto me. Good luck."
Those last two words don't vary from the way he's said anything else.