"TAKA TAKA TAKA!" comes a noise outside of the shared suite that is Takashi's. It's Ayana, he can sense her clearly, but something has the kitsune even more excited than usual. She comes barrelling through the door, nearly tumbling over it, as she seeks out her master. "Taka taka taka!"
Takashi turns around, putting some of his stuff on the table just in time to see Ayana come across the threshold of the door, all in a tumble, though she holds her balance. He looks up to her and can't even keep his stern workface on, and is quickly smiling. "What's got you so excited, Ayana?"
Spotting her quarry, Ayana skids into a quick turn, then pounces on Takashi, hugging him as tight as she ever has. "It worked it worked! I can fly, and my foxfire actually defeated /four Youma in one hit/, and I made a foxfire cage, and I didn't use any of your mana to do it! Just me and the device and the magic around me. We even made a barrier!"
Takashi grins again. "I knew you'd do well." he adds. The he reaches up and ruffles her hair while he extracts himself from her grip. "After all, you've got my spark so you're going to be brilliant at whatever you attempt."
"And with school picking up again soon..." he grins.
"One of the reasons I'm having you do this blending in bit is because... there are a lot of things I don't understand about our enemies, the Magical Girls and Boys. And then there are also those youma - the ones we don't create here - that have powers I don't understand. So while I do the magical research here, you can talk to people, take artifacts as a trusted member of the magical girl community, without drawing suspicion. You are my sneaky hands in that world I don't yet understand."
"I know, I know," Ayana says excitedly, "And guess what," she says, grinning at him beneath the ruffle of her hair. Without waiting for Takashi to 'guess', she supplies, "I know the real identity of a magical girl, now. She's going to be going to the same school as me, Seishou Public. /And/ she's younger than me, so she'll look up to me as her senpai! And we also figured out how her powers and mine can best work in combat so that we support one another. And I think she may know other magical girls, so I'm getting there! I'm doing exactly what you wanted."
Takashi grabs Ayana. This news has genuinely excited him, and he sweeps her up in his arms and swings her around for a full circle before setting her back down. "That's awesome news. All that time you spent pushing yourself has been worth it!" he adds. "Fox-chan-sempai." he grins as he says it.
"I'm glad to hear the Still Night and you have become such good partners. I've gotten a lot of data from your adventures, too. It's been very win/win all around!"
Ayana squeals in excitement as Takashi spins her around, tail curling faintly and ears perked up wide. She hugs Takashi again when he finally sets her down, then looks up at his face, staring with an almost worshipful sense of wonder. "So I made you proud?" she asks him hopefully. "I have tried my very best, even when it was boring or when I felt like I was failing and /even/ when I was hungry," the worst condition of all, "to always be a perfect magical girl so that you could gather lots of information. Do you want to know about the magical girl? I know her real name, and have her phone number, and her grade, and I even know a little bit about how she gets her powers."
Takashi smiles a bit. "I'm most curious about how she got her powers. That's the question I want to understand. They're all just regular humans otherwise, I think. But the powers are what make them able to compete with me, to stop me... it's how they get in my way." he adds. He's off rather quickly, grabbing his laptop and looking up at her rather intently. "So anything you can give me about that is very helpful."
"I don't know if they are all human," Ayana replies with a shake of her head. "Cute Wolf Tsukiko says that her locket only amplifies the latent magic of her family. I think there might be more to this world than you think, Takakun. Her real name is Ikiko, and she has the ability to transform from a grade five student into an adorable werewolf, a little like me, except backwards."
Takashi taps down on his keyboard as Ayana talks about Tsukiko. "There's a lot we don't understand, really. The number of things I know is more than Eclipse knows as a whole, I think - and I know only a fraction of what's going on. A lot of this is all new, though. Like there's been some sort of major shift change very recently that's caused a whole magical world - a world normal people won't or can't experience - to just spring up. And even though I've been a part of it my whole life, it's... different now. There are things now that I don't think were even around earlier."
"She's got a locket though, that's a start. It's something physical, something I can touch, or investigate, or research."
Barely able to contain herself, Ayana forces herself to drop to her knees on the ground, seating herself before Takashi with hands between her legs, palm to the floor. She stares up at him as he inputs data, waiting for him to finish postulating. At his postulation, she observes, "Maybe, but I don't think she'd give it up easily, and unlike most magical girls, Tsukiko doesn't seem like she'd get in your way unless you tried to take the device from her. In fact, she seems more interested in just beating up little youma now and then and having fun."
"I don't know that I need it... just to understand it on some level. Every little piece of the puzzle, you know?" he asks with a smile. "You never know when beating up little youma might get in my way though - after all, I might want to have some of my own! But we'll worry about that if it happens."
"Are you feeling better now that you have Still Night, though? Is it making things a bit more fun for you? You seem ready to bounce of the walls still - but you're also smiling, which makes me very happy."
Ayana wrinkles her nose at Takashi. "Youma are dumb and couldn't possibly help you as well as I do," she says, sullenly. "You don't need them." She sniffs, then says, "If you want, I will try and analyze her locket for you when I can get my hands on it. I should be able to transfer what I learn telepathically so that no information is lost. But yes!" back on a more happy topic, she says, "Still Night is wonderful and it's been super helfpul. It's really nice to be able to /help/ instead of just pretending. I think other magical girls will trust me more this way."
He laughs, and ruffles her hair again. "I wasn't saying they would be more useful than you. Just sometimes I might like to attack a problem from multiple directions. You're not in a race you know. You've been super-helpful and you're doing great, trust me."
"That would be very nice, too - and you're right, certainly not something I could trust a Youma or Retriver to do." A moment while he listens. "Well, that's the other reason I gave you Still Night - so you could really be a magical girl. You're just a magical girl who's working for the right side - my side - even if the others don't know it." And he grins.
A happy smile crosses the Familiar's face, and then she hesitates a moment and reaches up with one hand to her stomach. "Do you need anything else? Cause if not I'm gonna go find some food. I'm /starivng/. I haven't eaten in three whole hours."
Takashi gets up too. "Why don't I go with you? You've done some good work, lets go out and grab some food. I've been working all day too and I'm crazy hungry now, myself." a pause. "...and there's no food in the fridge again anyways."