Tadase has been... somewhat impatiently texting Haruna (as Cure Gull, via the Virtue Phone) since the events with Sachiko, trying to get her to come to the Royal Garden to talk about something Very Important.
School may not be in session, but the Royal Garden itself is kept as immaculately as ever, and it's unlocked and open. But sitting at the table at the end of the long walk is more than just Tadase Hotori, or even Platinum Royale.
While Tadase is there (in his Guardian's Cape no less), so also is a far more rare visitor - Blue.
Haruna Kurosawa has been busy with Aki... she's been trying, very hard, to explain what happened at D-point to her-- but the more she thinks on telling her the truth, the more she figures that Aki will think Hannah is at fault. She has been up front about the possesive sword however. Aki could /understand/ that. She's seen it. Heck, Haruna's been there.
-- but netherless, texts from Tadase has saved the day. Ho hah! Offical Virtue bussiness!
Haruna Kurosawa arrives in the Garden and looks around with a smile. She strides over to the table and beams! "Tadase-kun!~ Blue-Sama!~ Hello!"...
Then she pauses. Because Blue doesn't really look... 'happy'? Well. Not mad or upset. But Haruna knows when the god isn't here on a tea visit. She looks over to Tadase.
"Okay. What's up? Did I do something wrong?" she asks, pointing to herself.
Blue says. "Not you, specfically, Haurna." he said, just a slight smile. Meant to take the edge off." he says. "But we need to have a talk about one of your close friends."
Shelooks between Tadase and Blue again and blinks rather suddenly. "Huh? Okay..." she says. "...Suzu-chan isn't in trouble... is she?" she asks about the Storm Knight.
Tadase is the second of the two bishonen who doesn't look... pleased... to be here. "It's not about Suzu-chan." he says, a bit less than calmly. "It's about Hannah Sharpe. Or Miss White. Same person, really." he says, and he looks to Blue.
Blue might be a god (of mirrors or something, Tadase surmises) but that certainly doesn't mean he can't be wrong. Or at least, he isn't speaking for Virtue when he says that. "Well, that's not entirely accurate, the way I see it. You're a member of Virtue, and we dedicate ourselves to helping everyone and trying to fight evil, but I've heard you've taken up some other things. Employment, in fact." he says, looking at her.
"And I think you know why that would bother me." he says, sounding Very Adult Very Suddenly. It might be a strange juxtaposition with his looks.
Haruna Kurosawa blinks. Hannah? Her face sort of falls flat a moment, and wonders, perhaps- 'What she's done this time'. She's done a lot of stuff. But--- she's never been questioned about it. She blinks. "You mean with Witchunter Professional Services. Okay. I've been upfront about that since day one." she says. She blinks a little. "We also punch a lot of stuff. I don't really.... help with other things. Conscience Clause in my contract." she smiles.
"What'd she do. Knock over a bank again?" she sighs a bit and deflates sitting back. She frowns.
Blue is obviously playing good cop here. (at least for the moment.). "Yes, this." he says softly. "May I please, ask, Haruna, why you at least turn a blind eye to the other things?" he asks. Haruna blinks and purses her lips. "I don't. I've had my share fair of smacking Hannah around when she starts having to do the stupid stuff. But I know she only does those things because she has to..." she says.
She looks to Tadase and blinks. "So---okay." she says, taken aback by the tone. "What exactly went down? Why is this suddenly an issue?" she asks.
Tadase frowns - actively, actually frowns - at the way Haruna's taking all of this. And she might've been upfront with Blue, but less so with Tadase (or at least, less direct.) "You know, Gull-chan, when your friend 'knocks over a bank again' that money has to come from somewhere?" he asks, looking at her.
"Even small acts like that hurt someone somewhere. And it's not okay to hurt other people just for your own ends." he says, and then there's a pause. And Tadase puts his hands on the table, rather loudly. "So that's an issue. Just like it's an issue that I watched her knock an x-egg out of a KID with some weird gun and take her heart's egg - her DREAMS - like it was a prize out of a gumball machine." he says. He might be embellishing a bit. But he's only gotten more mad as time as passed, not less.
"Can you explain why she had to corrupt and steal the dreams of a seven year old?"
Haruna Kurosawa listens. She thinks, yeah, but on the magical scale of evildoing... knocking over a bank ain't exactly energy stealing or corrupting people or stealing dreams or---
Her expression goes to answer when it shifts readily. She has to mouth those words... she looks around, and then looks incredibly guilty. Guilty about a lot of stuff.
"Her arm..." she says. "They're making her do stuff for her arm." she says, she sort of crosses her arms against herself guarded now. "...it's only been some really minor stuff. Cleaning out a youma infestation... um, retriving an artifact stuff like that. But..." she looks down. "...it's still my fault... she lost her arm defending me. If I hadn't...." she shakes her head and looks up. "L--look, what is it you want me to do, then?" she asks.
"I owe Hannah-chan a lot." she says softly. "More than I could possibly conceptulize in any meaningful way. But..."
"I owe you guys a lot too. But..I owe a lot of shady people a lot too." she says.
"So what is it you're wanting me to do to make things right?" she says as she looks between Tadase and Blue.
Blue looks down to Tadase and leans down. "Well?" he asks softly. "It's something." he says quietly at him. He leans back up. "Friends are important Haruna." he says with that muted smile. "As is happiness. But the things you're friends are doing, and not contributing to that happiness." he says. "Would you agree with that?" he asks softly.
She pauses a thinks... she looks down a thinks of some of her friends. Well. Hannah's 'not exactly a dimaond'... but she's been there for her.. and her friends when they've needed her most. Sometimes making some people she worked with upset. Mikoto--- who seems to be working on some weirder end and seeming to wanting to undermine WPS in some manner-- 'make her own group' that doesn't seem any particularly better-- Riventon- well. He's... Riventon-- she could probably write a small novel on bad things there-- But these people are still all her friends...
But ... so is Tadase.. and Amu and Suzu-chan and Katsu-chan and---
Ugh.
"I-i guess..." is all she can really say quietly.
"Just what is it you want me to do...?" she asks.
Tadase sighs. "Gull-chan... even if you're not participating in the bad things she does, by working with her, you're still enabling her to do those things. You're still responsible, in a way, though a smaller one."
"If you care about her you need to stop standing up for the bad things she's doing and start telling her they're unacceptable. The way she's going, the path she's walking... it's not a good one... we can't allow her to keep doing these sorts of things. Hurting people." That sounds suspiciously like a recent conversation he's had, so he clarifies.
"I want to help your friend, too. I want to help everyone I can. But I can't do that and pretend whaT she's been doing - what her company is doing - is okay."
Haruna Kurosawa frowns. "WPS fights things. Bad things." she says. "I'm not standing up for them. I don't condone them! Everytime I hear about it--I! I-- slap her right in the face! and I tell her how upset I am... and she apologizes and she tells me that she's sorry, but there's nothing she can do about it." she says.
"B--but I can't just leave WPS either. I can't. She needs me there, Tadase." she says. "--and honestly, I need her." she says.
"I love her so much, Tadase. I know you're probably wondering how but... when I was- in that dark period? Hannah was about the only one really there for me during most of that-- and---"
Blue raises a hand a moment- Tadase can see the gods face get more authoritive itself. It goes from 'delightfully muted smile' to 'neutral straight' quickly.
"Love...?" he asks.
She looks between Tadase and Blue. "Y-yeah...?" she asks. "We've been dating for a while now... um. I thought it was obvious? I mean.. kinda... spoke to me in the mirror in her bathroom one time, god, don't you remember?"
Blue blinks once and looks to Tadase, he furrows his brow. "Haruna, Precures aren't allowed to fall in love."
Haruna opens her mouth. She closes it. She seems to be needing to process this fact in her brain--- her expression looks surprised , caught off guard and deadpan all at once.
Tadase can't speak much to the rules of being a precure - that's very much Blue's territory and not his. He doesn't know if Haruna agreed to anything upon attaining her power, or if there are such important rules. He's got no real choice but to defer to Blue here and ask questions later.
"Gull-chan... you can't help her by working with her, not if she's going to continue doing things like this." he tries. "You said so yourself - she keeps doing things like this - so whatever you're doing isn't working." he says, plainly.
"You can't keep being a member of her little group and ours. They're working at cross-purposes. I don't know what it is she's after or what she thinks she needs, but the way she's going about it... it goes against everything we stand for. And you're a part of it. You can't just pretend you're not!"
Haruna Kurosawa looks at Tadase like a deer in headlights because she very much feels like one. She doesn't say anything yet. "T--that's absurb!" she finally says. "I didn't agree to-- to anything before you gave me my love seed! You said that---If I could find hope.. I could help myself! and others!" she says with wide eyes. "I gave my life to protect Hannah... she nearly gave her life to protect me loosing an arm in the process. H--Hannah-chan is what makes /me/ happy and-- and she gives me /strength/ wether you belive it or not!" she says through her teeth.
Blue merely frowns now. This is a rarity-- at least in public. Blue mopes a lot in the Cross Mirror Rooom. "Haruna.. I can't explain to you, why this rule is important-- but it's there."
Haruan throws herself up. "AND!? What are you going to do about it!?" she says. "You let Fortune have the run of the place-- so I know you can't take it back!" she almost hisses. "Guess what, I didn't agree to that, so that's BULLSHIT." she says outright.
Before Blue can say anything else she looks to Tadase. Yeah. Now she's pissed.
"Tadase, I'm really sorry." she says through her teeth. "But if you're asking me to choose, I need to follow my heart. I'm really sorry. M--maybe if I can get Hannah out of that... we can come back together... but-- but right now..." she says. "Right now Hannah needs me most of all."
Then she turns back to Blue. "---and! If I need anything, I will send Corvus. Don't worry your pretty little blue head off. I did agree to fight the Phantom Empire so I'll still be doing that and I will still fight-- but now I see why the hell why Cure Fortune hates you so much!" she seethes.
Blue goes to say something-- but before he even can Haruna is slamming her Virtue phone down against the table.
"If you need to call me, ask Suzu-chan for my cellphone number." she seethes.
Then she begins to storm out. She stops and turns around. "When Love is wrong... I don't want to be right!" she finally snaps back before she stroms down the steps of the Garden unless someone makes an overture to stop her.
Tadase visibly winces when she slams the phone down on the table... but all the same, he can't say it wasn't an ending to the conversation he expected. Still, it wasn't the one he WANTED. But being a King means sometimes you have to deal with messier moments, as well as good ones.
There's a lot of things he wants to say as Haruna leaves, but he can't find the right words - nothing that would either not sound hollow, or would sound like he was going to let her keep playing both sides.
He sits down, and does swear a bit under his breath.
"You know, you should probably tell them more about that rule up-front." he says, turning to Blue. "Her reaction to it isn't entirely unwarranted..."