Meeting a real person in a land of unreality - one's dreams - and making real plans with them to really meet at a real place struck Rune as weird... but once she finally understood that there was indeed a 'true Seishi' wandering into her nightmares and influencing them, the princess was able to exert some kind of active response within them and invited Seishi to get answers at the park.
And now Rune is approaching the same place they first met, where Runealy's plans to attack Akashimaru for energy were called off when Rune realized their might be particularly dire consequences for people throughout Tokyo.
This time, there is no air of forced melodrama trying to make herself look mysterious or impressive. Instead, she's not even transformed and looks somewhat nervous. It won't be hard to find her though, as her visage is the same as it was in the dream and even her dress is centuries out of date and clearly from a different culture.
It's early evening, and she walks up to the trees where Akashimaru was first seen training. That was a few months ago, but now Rune is taking deep breaths and steeling her mind to provide answers that are long overdue. All that's left is to actually meet up.
Seishi debated with herself over whether or not it would be better to go transformed. Transformed won out, not out of any futile notions about protecting her identity so much as that it seemed like the best way of making sure the two of them would recognize one another. That, and there's always the possibility of running into something else out in the park in the evening. You never know.
So it's Akashimaru, the scarlet of her kimono unmistakeable even in the fading light, who makes her way across the park to the spot where, some time ago, she had a tense meeting with a girl who would only give her name as "the Princess."
She is, she can see, not the first one here. Familiar though the other girl looks, it's a memory of a dream, and for just a moment uncertainty grips her before Seishi shakes it off. "...Princess?"
Incredibly, Rune actually failed to notice Akashimaru is already here; she was lost in thought enough to not see the very person she was here to meet, and being spoken to jars her back to reality. "Ah!? Y... yes, that's right."
She paces over toward a tree, but keeps her gaze on Akashimaru throughout. Notably, a purple and black bruise can be seen on the side of her neck. Roughly diamond shaped, with jagged edges... about half the size of any diamond-shaped crystals 'The Princess' has shown Akashimaru before. There is also a bit of a yellow glow to Rune's eyes, though it's a detail rather than the dominant trait to them.
She remains very quiet and reserved, but makes a tiny nod. "Sorry it took me this long to get to you. After we talked, a group called 'Virtue' met with us and things changed really fast. I'm here to tell you everything you wanted to know... and I'll start by answering the most important question first."
This much, she can presume and volunteer a response for: "We're done. We had good reasons for attacking Tokyo's defenders, but good reasons might not really excuse doing something horrible. Still... it's over. We're not doing it anymore, and it seems some of my friends are looking forward to meeting you because of what you do."
Some of the anxiety leaves Akashimaru at Rune's confirmation; she smiles, although the obvious bruising she can see on the princess puts a shadow of concern over her expression.
For now, she doesn't ask. Instead, that smile lingering on her face, she inclines her head toward Runealy in acknowledgement of what she's being told. "That's good to hear," she says. "That you've stopped, I mean. I have a little bit of an idea of your reasons... enough to know that it couldn't have been an easy decision."
A moment's pause, and she lets out a breath. "Here," she says; "I think at this point we're a little bit past masks, aren't we?" And saying it, she reaches up to tug loose the red cord that ties back her hair. As though it's the single thread that unravels the entire transformation, the samurai garb falls away in a whisper of fluttering fabric and what's left behind is the ordinary Japanese teenaged girl who Runealy saw picked up by the paramedics, dressed as before in a t-shirt and jeans. "It's nice to get to meet you properly," she says, smiling again.
"We were scared," Rune comments on the motives. "Still are. I did lots of really stupid things because of it, but we're working on them... because in a few months, if I'm not ready..." Her gaze lowers. "...We're not from 'Europe' like I've been telling everyone. If I'm not ready by then, our world is going to die. And yes... we're past masks."
She looks up to watch Seishi emerge, making a faint smile back in reply. "Where I'm from, if you have magic, everyone knows about it. It's one of the major things defining our government, so you get that information out there and people know. It wasn't until we came here that we realized there appear to be... 'secret identities.' I took that idea and ran with it."
A brief pause, then she adds as an aside: "Glad to be done with that. It's a lot better talking to the real, full 'you.'"
"I'm still me, either way," Seishi notes lightly. "But, well... my circumstances aren't really so important right now." Her shoulders lift, dismissing the point with a little shrug. "My everyday name is Seishi Tamashige," she says. "I'm a first-year at Verone high school."
Tucking her thumbs into her pockets, she regards Runealy with bright, thoughtful eyes. "You said that some of your friends wanted to meet me?"
"Runealy, Crown Princess of Waldia... the world and the nation," apparently those entities share a name. Rune adds: "Glad to meet you... I'm sorry about everything that lead up to this. And yes,"
She pauses to think on how best to identify a friend. "One of my Knights, Guardian Hino, has heard about you from Virtue. At least, I /think/ they're referring to you. A 'magic battery' has been giving him nightmares ever since he started using it, and they're still there even though we got rid of that stupid thing. He says it's not hurting him all that much, but,"
A few headshakes follow. "I don't know, it seems wrong to just ignore it. I was hoping to hire you to see if you can help him. It sounded like he's thinking of it, too."
As she listens to Rune's explanation, Seishi's brows lift in visible surprise. "I'm not sure how Virtue would've heard of me," she admits. "If I've crossed paths with them, they didn't tell me anything about it. But I suppose it doesn't matter."
The immediate issue of someone having recurring nightmares is more important, and Seishi considers it with a serious expression. "I can talk to him, at least," she says, but her tone is cautious. "Messing around in people's dreams is risky. You experienced yourself what can happen when I try to meddle. It worked out okay eventually, but..."
"I don't know all the details myself, I'm putting this together from a lot of different sources," Rune admits. Seishi's caution is met with a raised eye, however. "'Meddling'? That's not what I'd call it. Maybe it made things look worse, but that's what my mind came up with because I was freaking out all the time. As far as I'm concerned?"
And it is perhaps ultimately Rune's concern, as this is a matter of Seishi exploring Rune's mind, "You can show up in my dreams if you like. It did work out, and you didn't do anything wrong. It's just that you haven't seen exactly what was really going on... I can't really 'control' my dreams. They feel totally real to me until I wake up! So because of that,"
She walks over to stand closer to Seishi, losing interest in the tree, "I'll answer anything you'd like to know."
An embarrassed little laugh escapes Seishi, and she ducks her head. "Thanks," she says. "I felt pretty bad when I blundered into your dreams *again,* after how badly the first time went."
A deep breath, and she shakes her head a little before going on. "Anyway, I can talk to your friend about the nightmares he's having, and we can go from there." Her hands clasp behind her as she looks toward Rune, thinking for a few moments. "...the thing is," she admits eventually, "I'm almost not sure what to ask. Except, maybe, 'is there anything that I can do to help you?'"
"Maybe /I/ needed to 'feel a little bad', have things go a little different, to jar me into making better decisions," Rune offers, taking that incident seriously.
Then she has... a tiny noise. Almost a laugh, almost a sigh. "You and everyone else keep asking that. This whole time I presumed you'd want revenge or at least to make absolutely sure we couldn't hurt anyone ever again. That's going to take a lot to repay, but... there could be. You've already seen the Barrier Shrine, the place with lots of pillars and an energy-wall behind them. One way or another, we have to go back in a few months to restore it or the demons... the ones you saw, will get out. Thousands of them will be unsealed, and they're going to destroy my world. Earth will probably be next."
That doesn't really answer Seishi's question. Those are just supporting details, and now Rune gets to an answer: "When we go back, we need to be at our best. I need to be up to a Queen's task in restoring our Barrier. Hino needs to be at his best. Virtue is helping me research other plans and Blue is treating me for the demon-energy I've been using when I attacked people... so how you can help... is be there. Help us be at a hundred percent, and when we go back?"
She makes a single, deep nod. "You can come with us. Your work in my nightmares is part of what helped me change my mind and stop making mistakes. So you come along, and you're going to see the faces, the lives you've contributed to giving one more chance at surviving this whole stupid mess!"
Without hesitation, Seishi nods back, and then she cracks a smile again. "It sounds like you're handling the 'not hurting people any more' well enough now without me having to take steps," she points out, gently teasing. "For the rest - you can call on me for sure."
As she says it, a thought seems to occur to her, and she tugs her thumbs out of her pockets to pull out her cell phone instead. "Actually, we should trade numbers. I mean, if you have one, I guess?" It's occurred to her somewhat belatedly that she doesn't know, although now that she thinks it over it did seem as though Rune tried to give her a phone number to call before settling on this meetup arrangement instead. "In any case, it's the best way to reach me when you need me. Better than waiting for me to show up in your dream again, for sure."
"...Yeah..." Rune isn't exactly proud of the steps leading up to the decision to stop attacking Tokyo, so she just lets the ribbing go with that simple answer. Talk of cell phones is met with more interest, though. "That's right. I do. Tokyo sure has a lot of cell phones, but I have one of the ones that if you use a number you can call people all the way across the city." That would be every cell phone.
She even pulls one out, though it's a basic black model with no frills; the sort of thing that is useful when you're cycling through disposable ones to avoid being traced... a possibility someone tipped her off to before she began her attacks.
A string of numbers follows, and she stands ready to enter Seishi's. "And next time, we can meet somewhere better. It's weird... Virtue's being super nice to us, they even met us at the abandoned store we were living in, and brought us to an apartment instead. Feels a lot better... sleeping better, sometimes, because of it."
Dutifully, Seishi takes down the number that Runealy rattles off, programming it into her phone's contacts. Though her eyes stay on the phone's display while she's fiddling with the touchscreen, her brows lift as Rune remarks on the recent upgrade to her living situation. "I bet," Sei says with feeling. "Are you eating okay, too? I don't know about you, but it's harder for me to make good decisions about anything if I haven't been sleeping or eating well."
Once the number is plugged into her phone, she simply sends a text message to Rune's number containing her own, before she finally looks up. "I just sent you a message," she says. "Did it come through?"
"Eating better, now. Sometimes I'd 'forget' to do that, you know. Just wouldn't bother, some days. Had too much to think about, too much to do. It's funny," Rune starts to say something, but is cut off by her phone beeping; it's a generic text notification noise. "Sure did. It's right here, so I'll be in touch. Still, now it's 'eat right and sleep right' instead of rushing to attack people..."
Satisfied that Rune has her number, Seishi tucks her phone back into her pocket. "Well," she says, "like you said, you're going to need to be a hundred percent when the time comes. Taking care of yourself is important." Then she laughs ruefully. "Not that I'm in so much of a position to lecture anybody on that kind of thing myself."
Tucking a stray wisp of her hair behind her ear, she smiles brightly. "Anyway, I really am glad that you have people helping you out now. We should arrange for me to talk to your friend about his nightmares sometime soon, too. I have kendo club in the afternoons, after school, but that's usually all."
"No, it's fine hearing that from pretty much anyone, 'no position' or not," Rune comments in a bit more louder, calmer yet outspoken attitude. "Kendo Club... I want to say he does the same thing at Seishou. You know, maybe instead of just 'do, do, do', I should see what he enjoys, what you enjoy too? It sounds dumb with what I'm facing, but..."
A few headshakes follow. "In some ways I just need to rest, so maybe that would be part of it too? What sort of things do you like doing around Tokyo?"
"Ah?" Seishi tilts her head, interest piqued. "I don't think it sounds dumb at all. If you stay wound up all the time, sooner or later you'll just snap."
The breath that goes out of her hitches in a laugh. "To tell the truth, I've kind of gotten out of the habit of going out and doing things just for fun, myself," she admits, looking down. "Usually when I need to unwind lately I just read or listen to music. But it'd be nice to go out somewhere sometime, if you want to. Sing some karaoke or something like that."
"You might be right." Rune concedes that point, then raises an eye at Seishi's hobbies. "Reading or music... that's not too different from back home. What's... 'kara... oke', though?"
She clearly struggled with that word. Despite speaking basically the same language, the /concept/ of karaoke is foreign to her since there's nothing quite like it back on her world.
Seishi can't help flashing a quick grin at the question. "Music for singing along to," she explains. "The karaoke parlor has special booths you can go into with your friends, and a machine that plays the music and shows the lyrics on a screen so you can sing along with it. It's fun, you should give it a try sometime if you like music."
"Ohhh... a cell phone for singing with music?" Rune gets it half-right, at least. "Okay, that sounds pretty neat. Maybe we should try that sometime, if you're really up for that? Or anything else around Tokyo? It'll be on me," She pulls out a few silver coins, "I can cover it. ...Just with your local money, I mean. I've got that too."
"Sure!" Seishi seems quite cheerful about the prospect, never mind that Rune does not have *quite* the right notion of what to expect out of it. It'll make more sense when she actually sees the karaoke booth in operation, no doubt. "I haven't been in a while, it'd be fun. If you'd like to go, I'll go with you - you don't have to pay my way or anything."
A beat, then Sei looks up at the darkening sky. "...for now, it's getting late," she adds, more reluctantly. "I have to get home, or at this rate my father might call out the dogs. We'll talk soon about karaoke and meeting your friend Hino-san - until then, take care, okay?"
A few last parting words and a wave of farewell, and soon Seishi is on her way home, breaking into a light jog as she heads out of the park. If she wants to be able to go out for karaoke, she definitely can't be late getting home.