We've been busy. There's never enough time.
It's Thursday. Sleet is forecast for tomorrow; it's cloudy and cold.
Are there truant officers about? We'd certainly better hope not, because that would lead to awkward questions for Machi Ono. She didn't attend this school, and explaining why she hasn't been at her intended one recently would be problematic. Nonetheless, she goes here, following up on something she should really have done two weeks ago.
Logically though you can't meet someone at a school if school's out, which has delayed her seeking out one of Virtue's members until the new year began. Everything else was just bad timing and failures to do other things, the specifics of which are beside the point.
The important thing is she's here now, not wearing a uniform but instead wearing a white dress, which doesn't help when you hide and sneak and duck behind lockers and into empty rooms and generally scurry like you're not supposed to be here.
It wasn't really a good day to be out and about, but when the job calls, especially when it's easy, you go.
Exactly why it was hard for Kukai Souma revolves around the giant bruise his right shoulder and hand and arm feel like - ointments and the like have drained off most of the pain, but stretching it or moving too fast or leaning against it still makes the young sportsman hiss. A nice light shirt and a padded jacket and a few bandages help protect it, but even Daichi has taken to riding on Kukai's left shoulder and left side right now.
As he enters the grounds of Seiyou Public, looking back at his phone for the time, he sees he's a little late. Fortunately there are never any truant officers or the like going around Seiyou Public - Tsukasa, the founder, generally ran a school that kids enjoyed going to. And in any case, the Guardians have extra-special dispensation, and that extends to anyone they're here to meet.
Walking through the paths towards the Royal Garden, the giant, world-glass greenhouse on the school grounds, Kukai sees a figure in a white dress approaching the Garden from one of the halls in a furtive, stealthy fashion, and arches an eyebrow. "Hey. Heeeeey. What're you doing?" He figures that's the girl that texted him, asking to meet him about Virtue things, but you never know. In any case, on he heads towards the large, thick glass door of the greenhouse on an intercept route with her.
Going to the Royal Garden is the objective for Machi, as well- through a little deduction and question-asking, the path's clear. This is where the Guardians generally meet, and those are the people whose job is the students' wellbeing; and peoples' wellbeing in general by way of being magical protectors.
When you think of Virtue as that sort of thing, it makes it much easier to seek them out, because you can start to think of yourself as the same.
And yes, even though Machi had contacted Kukai before this, it still seems as if she feels like she needs to stoop and sneak; why she seems to jump a mile with her hair stood on end when someone talks to her.
She turns. "Ah-"
And her eyes go immediately to Kukai's arm, eyes wide behind the glasses as she looks up at him. "Goodness, you're... ahhh... maybe now is a bad time..."
A tiny pause, and she closes her eyes and shakes her head. "Ahh! It took long enough to scurry in here. No turning back now."
"Are you one of the Guardians? You must if you're on the way to this garden, right? Right?"
Kukai watches the mint-green haired girl with the glasses leap into the air as he calls to her, obviously panicked and scared. He stops nearby, raising his left hand into the air and turning his right palm up in an approximation of the 'my hands are empty, don't be scared' gesture. "Whoa, hey, hey, it's ok. I'm friendly. You're.." He blinks, then looks down at his shoulder, the wrapping sticking out over his shirt behind the jacket. "Oh. Nah, I'm ok. This happened a couple days ago. I can at least get out and walk around and stuff. Just shaking hands might be hard." He grins, a cheerful, soothing, encouraging grin, the Jack's Grin.
He nods to her and smiles. "Yeah. My name's Kukai Souma, the Jack of Guardians. And you're the girl I'm here to meet about Virtue stuff, right?" He nods to the Royal Garden. "Let's go on inside - there's a table in the center where we can sit and talk." He moves over towards the door, pulling it open with his left hand.
"S-sorry," Machi stutters, looking off to the side. "After sneaking in here it's kind of hard to not be edgy. This isn't my school, a-and I haven't been to /my/ school in a long time, so..."
"Well, in any case," she says as she looks off to the side, crossing her arms and rubbing one elbow a little. It's a little thoughtless but she doesn't notice, much like someone who's noticed the other person has a mole on their nose and scratches theirs in sympathy. "That's right. Haruna Kurosawa told us to come and find you, only something about her seemed kind of weird-!"
"...but ah, maybe that's not something we should mention after all," she continues, looking behind her one last time before following Kukai inside.
Kukai nods, then shifts, holding the door open with his foot and leg so he can reach over, patting Machi on the shoulder. "It's ok, really. You're safe here. You're actually really safe in the Garden - it's one of the best places to be. C'mon in."
Kukai closes the door behind her, not really bothered by her elbow and arm rubbing. "Haruna sent you to us? Huh. I thought she was still sort of pissed off at Virtue." He looks over at his stomach, then grins weakly, in that 'oops, lol' sort of way. "She'll probably be really pissed off at me soon. But like you said, that's neither here nor there. Um..." He looks around, then grins again. "Usually Nadeshiko would have tea and cookies here for you, or at least we'd have snacks, but I guess we'll have to do without if that's ok."
He moves over to the table in the center of the Garden, up a small dais and covered by a large umbrella, and pulls out a seat for Machi, then seating himself before looking at her. "OK. So. You want to talk about Virtue stuff, right? What's on your mind?"
Machi would not be surprised if it was beaming with sunshine here. The environment of this place is one that makes you feel like you're stepping into another world, after all. And she gives Kukai a faint smile- maybe it is just the moribund January weather, but an assurance of safety goes quite a long way towards ridding Machi of the last of her worries.
She shrugs, hands out, at Kukai. She can't speculate as to Haruna's thoughts- the girl's not easy to read even though Machi's spent a couple of weeks at her nascent diner, although that be more of the greenette's fault than anything else.
Quickly, her hands go back, and she sits down. "T-that's fine, I wasn't expecting anything like that..."
Sitting opposite Kukai. "I just... wanted to find out about you, really. Who you were... whether you could help me. It's... I'm a big pinch I'm in..."
She looks down at her hands a little.
Kukai smiles back at Machi and sits back in his chair, listening to her talk. "Well it's generally polite. And I'm generally hungry all the time. So I like them." He hmms, rubbing his chin. "Well, first off, sure, we can help you. Part of Virtue's mandate is that if we can help, we will. But as to who we are, well." He sighs and rubs the back of his head as Daichi hops off his shoulder to go play on the other side of the table. "Virtue is a bunch of magical boys and girls who live in Tokyo and work together to defend the city and the world from magical threats. Most of us are friends and even if we're not friends we'll work together to help one another."
"Same!" Machi chirps, a bubble of laughter in her voice when Kukai notes 'always hungry', before almost cutting herself off, biting her lip a little. It's probably nothing.
She listens closely to what Kukai has to say, and almost seems wistful as she watches Daichi distract her. "I would like to make more friends," she says thoughtfully. Do right by people, and all that.
"Recently I... got away from an organization... their name is HUNTERS," Machi begins. "M-my friends were trying to collect totem spirits... they were called the Animal Lords. But the HUNTERS were ... s-stronger than us... s-so now they have them, and m-m-my... and my friends," Machi explains.
"If we'd known about you sooner, things would've been different."
Kukai looks at her for a moment, then smiles. It's probably nothing worth worrying about. "Yeah. Everybody wants more friends, I think, good friends. Virtue itself can't help you with that, but many of the people that are involved in Virtue are good people."
He sucks his breath in through his teeth. "...Your friends are captured by these... hunters? And they have these totem spirits as well? That's awful. I..." He nods at her last statement. "We would have helped. That's right up our line of attack. We'd want you to help us, too, but the system is basically 'help when you can, we'll help when we can, don't expect everyone to drop everything and run, but we understand if you can't show up all the time.' It's very informal. But since most of us are friends, we do help one another."
Machi Ono is doing her best to keep her cool and succeeding. In a way, it's perversely easier than it seems- three weeks of time since escaping and arriving back in Tokyo have not so much cooled the memories but, at least, they've distanced her from them enough.
She nods, and it makes an 'un' sound. "Now that I-i know about who you are, what should I do if I need to call for people if I, um, if I find out about something? Like if I find an Animal Lord, or a monster, or something bad like that?"
She smirks a little. "You got something like a silent alarm network? Bat signal? Call to action?"
Kukai leans on the table, then thinks. "Well. If you decide to join, and promise to take good care of it, we'll get you a smartphone that's had a little work done on it. It'll have a connection to a chat, texting, forum, and voice system where you can communicate anonymously with other members of Virtue. So if you need us, all you have to do is send a text. And you can use it for the normal things you use a smartphone for, too." He grins a little. "It's not quite as cool as a Bat-Signal, but it gets the job done."
Machi Ono closes her eyes for a second.
"...is this where things are going to go, then? Yes... I don't see any other choice."
Don't mind, Machi's just talking to herself for a moment there. "Alright, count me in. Yeah, count me in."
Dang kids today, 12 years old and they're already using these things.
Kukai looks at her, then leans over, patting her hand. "Look, if you don't think it's right for you, nobody's gonna make you join, and we'll still help you. It's just faster and easier if you're a member. Noone will throw you out alone to face the hunters if you need our help." He looks at her, then grins. "Are you sure? This is what you want to do?"
Machi blinks. She's suddenly a little confused; didn't she say-
Then, suddenly a little bit of realization dawns on her. "Ohhhh."
There's a little bit of a pause, as her hand goes down to her pocket a second. "Mr. Kukai... well, I guess it's not a matter of trusting you enough, but I guess I should explain."
With surprising swiftness, Machi flicks something into the air between them; it's a glossy playing card with a blue back side. The playing card drops down- and Machi catches it out of the air, so that the side facing Kukai reveals a picture of a stylized spider with a purple symbol of Clubs on its back. The writing on it reads 'Suit'.
"On the one side," she says, in the tone of voice that has been louder and faster. "You've got a Spider."
And then she turns the card around. "A-and on the other side, there's just... you know."
"But both of them are the same card. Spider, and Machi."
"We were just both making sure we agreed!"
Kukai blinks back, watching her, and then listens as she explains things. The playing card is interesting. Obviously magical, but what it did? Who knows. Still, she's talking.
Kukai lets out a small hmmm as she finishes and grins. "Ah, so you've got a sort of magical partner and you had to talk things over with them? OK, that's fair. I do the same thing with Daichi from time to time. So I know what you mean."
He leans back and then scoots back from the table, pulling out his phone. "OK. Let me do this real fast and see if we're lucky tonight..." He begins tapping at the phone, hoping Tadase is still awake and not distracted. After a few minutes he hmms, then stands up, pocketing the phone. "Huh." He looks around the Garden, curious, then nods, motioning to Machi. "Yeah, over here."
Kukai walks over to one of the small potted trees around the Royal Garden, a thin, growing thing that is beginning to put out green leaves and the like. He reaches down under it, to the bottom of the pot, and pulls one side of the base to the side, revealing a hidden compartment with a grey smartphone with a hardshell case, safe inside in a ziploc bag. He holds up the phone, closing the compartment, and waves it at Machi. "We are in luck. OK, when you take this phone it'll attune to you - anybody not magical reading over your shoulder or something will just see a normal text, or garbage, or something. Just keep track of it."
He waves the phone at her. "Having this phone marks you as a member of Virtue, and it means you're agreeing to the compact all Virtue members agree to - that we'll help one another and back one another up as much as possible, and share information and sightings and details and things. You're free to bring it back and turn it in, anytime, too - we don't hold people who don't want to be part of the group, and we'll still help you, no matter what. But... here." He holds out the phone. "Welcome to Virtue."
Machi Ono nods enthusiastically. "It's so wonderful to find out that there are people we can relate to."
"And that we don't have to be really careful choosing our words any more!"
"...just so long as everyone else accepts it, I guess everything will turn out well."
She's put that all-important playing card back in her bag now, along with the buckle-shaped phone peeking barely out from inside. Keeping the chargers for two of those is going to be an exercise in wire-untangling from now on. Kukai might be able to see the backside of another stack of blue playing cards, as well.
Now it's Machi's time to watch. She wiggles both feet as she sits in the chair and listens to Kukai speak on the phone, then watches in surprise as the impressive and almost seamless environment of the garden gives way provided you know exactly where to look.
And with that, an open line to Virtue.
She holds her hands out, letting the phone settle in her palms once she takes it gingerly from Kukai.
"I understand. Ah, I'd better be careful to put one of those fingerprint guards on it... thank you, Mr. Kukai. I hope that now I've found all of you, I'll be able to overcome my fears, a-and together with the friends I'm going to make... we'll be prepared for anything that comes for us."
Kukai grins and then nods. "That's good. We'll do what we can to help support you." He peeks at her bag for a moment, more out of curiousity than anything else, and has an idle thought of hoping that each of those cards don't have a separate personality that rides shotgun on Machi. That might be a thing.
"It should already have all that on it, so you shouldn't have any trouble working with it. And geez. Don't call me Mr.. I'm just Kukai, ok?" He pats her shoulder and nods. "C'mon. Let's get outta here - and if you want, you can come back and visit anytime." He grins, heading towards the door with Machi.