<@Ardweden> [Morning of Wednesday, April 14th (Tokyo) / Evening of Tuesday, April 13th (Orono)] <@Ardweden> [It's been five whole days since Wataru's birthday. He's spent the time celebrating with Izumi, getting his act together, e-mailing Katie and scheduling a time to get together, getting an e-mail from Haruko... y'know, things. Normal things and Arcana things. They are totally things. At least finals are over? Yay?] <@Ardweden> [He got a text from Satoshi around noon on the 11th, saying: "We lost. 1-0." Then another. "Talk more later."] <@Ardweden> [Turns out the Black Bears didn't win the championship after all.] <@Ardweden> [Kaede, meanwhile, was actually THERE for that game. Satoshi tried to put on a brave face, saying it was great to get as far as they did, but losing when you're that close still really hurts and Kaede knew it.] @Ardweden> [And then there's the Bangor Reversed stuff that they did a couple of days later, and well...] <@Ardweden> [... Akemi REALLY wanted to go sightseeing today so that's what they did, all day. Now they're back at the hotel room, after dark, and Akemi's adorably exhausted but pretty happy, so that's good at least. Plus she got half a dozen goofy little Americana souveniers for next to free. How does she manage to charm people when she doesn't even speak their language? The world may never know.] <@Ardweden> [Anyway, Kaede has some business to take care of. What are you up to, Kaede?] * Kaede did make sure that people got footage of that game. Special channels, put feeds on the internet, requiring special passwords to get into and send it off to the crew so they can watch. Being there in person wasn't exactly the same thing. Left a lot more questions than answers... [Inbetween times, Kaede would have worked towards setting up the lunch with Yusuke. Because he promised. Checking work emails as casually as possible. And then a frown at some of the email threads that he's needed to. He's been a *little* distracted since the whole Bangor Reversed incident, but that was Satoshi's deal to inform people of. Though he wouldn't have been sheepish about saying information was forthcoming if people asked about it.] * Kaede works as translator for Akemi as he can. Little cheats help. He cheats so much. * Wataru would have replied to Satoshi's texts as soon as he saw them, with: "Oh Satoshi, I'm so sorry. It's incredible how far you guys made it though, the victories you had so far are something no one will ever be able to take from you." And then, "Let's talk soon. Hugs." * Kaede finally gets to the point, though, that he can set things down for the night and frowns at the email thread that's been gnawing at his mind. The ever growing one to help Reiji Ozora. With a breath, he looks at his phone for a solid minute before starting to dial Wataru's number. <@Ardweden> [Wataru's going about his morning when his phone rings! Who could that be?] * Wataru is making maitake mushroom risotto for brunch while drinking a glass of strawberry juice! He stirs and stirs the broth into the rice, and is almost lost in its hypnotic spiral when his cell phone suddenly rings on the counter beside him. Wataru puts down the spoon and picks up the phone, frowning at Kaede's name. After a moment's hesitation he turns down the gas, wipes his hands on a towel, and picks up the phone. "Hello?" * Kaede responds with an initial "" Then squints with a disgusted sound, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Ugh. Sorry. It's so difficult to shut that off..." * Wataru has half a crooked smile. "That's right, you're in America, huh? How's Satoshi doing? Is Akemi with you too?" He leans back against the counter lightly. * Kaede settles back. "Watanabe-san? He's doing fine..." As fine as he can be really. "She had to come with me, yes. It wouldn't really...well...that's neither here nor there." * Wataru muses that Kaede doesn't sound especially thrilled that his super hot and bubbly girlfriend is on vacation with him, but decides not to say anything. In fact, he's not really sure where to go from there with the small talk... so he just gets down to business, while still keeping his tone fairly light and conversational. "All right. Well, what can I help you with today, Takeuchi-san?" * Kaede snerks. He can't help it. "Sounds like a department store clerk." Except there was no irrashaimase. There's a sigh. "But figured there was no sense in delaying things for when I get back. I was thinking of this whole Ozora-san situation..." * Wataru sighs. "Right," he says. Ha, department store. He should have said irrashaimase. "Okay." He turns off the gas and heads to the dining room table to find a free bit of notebook and a pen. * Kaede settles back, closing his eyes as his voice regains a slightly tired tone. Not really chiding. Just direct. "...if this is gonna work, Yamada-san. We're gonna need to trust each other. And the first step to engineering a thing is knowing what we have at our disposal. So I have to ask you all you know and what you feel you can contribute." * Wataru takes a deep breath, then lets it out. "That sounds fair," he says, sitting down at the table. He flips through a notebook for am empty page. "I was actually - I had vague plans to get everybody together to explain it to all of you at the same time, actually, but I guess there's no time like the present. Assuming the rest of the group won't, I dunno, feel slighted or whatever, if I tell you first?" * Kaede has his notebook as he goes, but stops himself, fingers between the pages as there's a note of surprise to his voice. "...do we really look that coordinated from the outside?" "Yyyyes? You certainly seem to show a united front, with, uh, the possible exception of whatever the broader deal is with Taki. Is that inaccuate?" * Kaede snorts, then sighs. "That is by necessity. Boundaries aren't nearly so clear as that. I've several more contacts outside the group that are probably a lot closer than those who are inside of it. And there is absolutely plenty that has been kept from me. And vice versa." He snorts. "Even things Katie Andrews doesn't know, but don't tell her that..." * Wataru snerks at that, in spite of himself. "My lips are sealed. You know, for some reason it never occurred to me that all of you could have deeper connections with people outside the group and weren't like, Avengers Assemble. Which, when I think about it, is pretty simplistic of me. Anyway." He clicks a pen and tries it out on the notebook, doodling spirals. * Kaede rolls his shoulders as he settles in. "You would not be the first ones. A lot of the troubles we faced were guilt by association. But honestly? It was all because we were in the same school. I only really got involved because I was in the same classroom as Katie when it happened. If it weren't for that...." * Wataru doodle doodles. "That... makes sense," he muses... "I guess I would probably have ended up more involved, too, if I'd have been in your class. Or Kyon's or whatever." He sighs. "Friendship is weird." Oops, did he just say that out loud? * Kaede snorts. "Kyon didn't want anyone." Except Katie, I guess? Kyon didn't want Katie either. He didn't want anyone. Hard to say. I got most of it second hand. * Kaede is probably leaning back in his chair now. "He'd come in already having had a group. He didn't want a new one. But felt obligation. Came in acting like a know-it-all. Still overestimates his own influence. Idiot. * Wataru tries so hard not to laugh. "He's... not entirely dissimilar to that in class, except that he tries to keep a bit of a low profile because famous star athlete etc. So I can see it." * Kaede blows out a breath. "Of *course* he is. He's Sorata-san. Famous family. Leader of the People. I'm sure he feels he orchestrated this whole ordeal like some grand chess-master." You think that way of thinking might be more common in like, Arcana people in general? I get the sense that Sorata-san's not the only one who feels that way. * Kaede responds, nonchalantly, "Fate can't be changed, no it can't." "Hnh. Even I don't think that, and I'm usually Team Fate. Still, people's lives are their own. I just feel Fate's something you should remember to listen to." He draws little X marks, scratching at them to make them darker and darker. "You listen, and decide for yourself, and accept the consequences. I know not everybody would agree with me, though." * Kaede pulls out of his dry spot, responding calmly. "Sorry. An irony from back in the day..." He then gets his business face back on, looking at his pad. "...if you don't feel comfortable with this, that's fine. But it's going to set us back quite a ways in thinking before we get together..." "No, like I said. It's no problem." He lets out a breath, puts down his pen. "There's a few things I can do. Would you be okay with letting me know what you already know or suspect? It might make it easier for me to, like, structure my explanation." * Kaede takes in a small breath, then speaks calmly. "Andrews had mentioned something about connections, especially with Masaru. And then there was that whole...incident with Ozora-san..." * Wataru exhales a small chuckle. "Yeah. Okay. So that, with Ozora-san... What I was doing was a... I mean this is going to sound ridiculous, but hey we all have superpowers or whatever, but. I think of it like a, a magic spell basically. I don't know how I know what to do. I don't really know what I say when I do it, but I can feel it working. That one was an attempt to basically keep her from physically hurting anyone. There are a few other things I can do, a few other spells or whatever." He exhales. "I can do it if I'm looking someone in the eyes, or I can do it at a distance, if I have... if I have something of theirs. That's why I took the paintbrush from Masaru. Katie and Kyon were treating him like a direct threat, so I snuck it out of his pocket as like, leverage for later. In case we needed it." Wataru rubs his hand across his forehead, wiping off a sheen of sweat. Talking about this openly is more stressful than he imagined. * Kaede doesn't seem to be reacting much to it, just mmhmming and nodding at the appropriate times. "Clever. What else?" Well, one of the major things I can do with that long-distance thing is find people. That's how I knew where Katie was, that one time. I had a sketch she had drawn, and I used it to form a link with her that gave me a sense for where she was. * Kaede pauses ever so briefly as he processes that, voice neutral. "Continue..." "I've done it before with Reiji Ozora. Back in high school." He clenches his jaw, works through a breath or two. "When he disappeared... he left something on his desk and I used it to form a link. What I saw was confusing, he was in Osaka, he was looking for something or someone, using cards. He didn't seem in immediate danger, and I... I didn't really know how to help him, and I was scared like I was scared of everything, and so I didn't follow up on it." Wataru exhales heavily. "Recently, I feel I probably should have gone and told his sister. But, you know? Back then I barely knew she existed, I had certainly never talked to her, and I mean, I was so far in the closet of being Arcana that I couldn't imagine anything worse than telling someone what I was. So." He sighs. "I've beat myself up about it for a while, but honestly, there's no way I could have done anything differently given who I was and the circumstances at the time. I've accepted that. That's why I want to try to help Reiji so much now, though. Now that I'm maybe not quite entirely as scared." * Kaede frowns. Enough that it's in his voice, but it's pretty determined now. "This link...what is it like? How far does it go?" "Geographically? I don't know. Satoshi and I talked about testing our powers long-distance, but with everything that's been going on we haven't really gotten around to much of that. I mean, Tokyo-Osaka didn't feel especially difficult at the time. Got something specific in mind?" * Kaede draws in a breath through his teeth. "...maybe. It's something that would probably be good to run by Kinsha-san as well..." He pinches the bridge of his nose. "It's risky. And unknown. She may not like it. But it's a tool we didn't have before. So it's probably our best chance of moving forward..." * Wataru nods. "Okay. I guess you're going to give me the details later?" * Kaede rubs his nose for a moment. "Well, problem is we don't know exactly how far down you can go, but I suppose I can tell you..." He breathes out a sigh. "...if your link works as well as you think it can, we may be able to see things from Reiji's perspective..." * Wataru frowns. "But.... I mean, don't we know where he is? He's in Tokyo with his sister, right?" ...we know where he is *physically* yes... * Wataru freezes for a moment, then lets out a slow breath. "*Oh*." * Kaede taps the phone for a moment. "...as I said, dangerous. Have you ever tried going that far before?" It's never even crossed my mind. Wow, yeah, I have no idea if that would work. Like going into someone's mind or whatever? As far as I've ever thought about what I can do, it's pretty straightforward, pretty physical. But who knows... Maybe there's a way to make it work. I'd have to know a hell of a lot more about what I was getting into though. And there's a good chance that like, we'd just end up with the super useful information that Reiji was in his room sitting in a chair or whatever..... Or you get lost in seeing things through his eyes. I know how things feel from touching the Pentacle. And that's even with it being appropriate to my suit and through *cloth*. I can't imagine... * Kaede pauses, blankly for a moment, then responds, a little more distantly. "...anyway. It's just a brainstorm. I am supposed to be the engineer after all. Or whatever I was pinned as. So part of it is destined to be on the right path, right?" "My take on it is that Fate says we have a shot at this, so, yeah, I mean. Wow. It could be a way forward, sure." Wow. "...Is .. you said that the problem is that the Pentacle wasn't appropriate to his suit, right? Not that this might make a difference for what we're trying to do, but do you know how Majors interact with the artefacts? Are they all bad? All fine? Any data on this?" * Kaede thinks on that one. "...hard to say. The ones who handled them did not seem to have any ill effects. Though, to be honest, they were somewhat of questionable sanity to begin with..." He pauses. "...which is slightly the definition of Arcana as it is, so I'm not sure how helpful that is..." Using them is another story. We don't know. Likely not something we would want to find out the hard way. * Wataru has a slight chuckle, some tension defusing. "Right. Well it's not like they're around anymore anyway, right? But, that's good to know. Might offer me some slight protection from going to Reiji's mindspace." * Kaede nods. "Still a risk. Still your choice. But it's what I see as the best tool we have that we did not have before..." * Wataru nods too. "Something to think about for sure. Still want a run-down of the other stuff I can do?" * Kaede nods, even realizing Wataru can't see it. "Anything that would help. The more we can pool resources, the better..." He breathes out, adding, "...then I need to check in with Ozora-san when I get back." * Wataru huffs. "I guess there's no way around that, either, although I didn't think about it before. Man, I'm still really uncomfortable with people knowing stuff about me. But if she's going to trust us to help her brother, she deserves our trust too." He closes his eyes, leaning back. "Can I just ask that maybe you be selective in what you tell her? I mean, use your discretion. Share what you think she needs to know, but keep the rest close to your chest. Is that fair?" * Kaede snorts, but relents. "This isn't about me sharing our secrets. This is about me looking after someone that we totally ignored after the whole "war" happened, which we should have done with more care in the first place but were too caught up in our own part in it..." * Kaede breathes, then settles, responding finally with a "...but yes. I can agree to that." * Wataru listens, since this is maybe the first time one of the Sakuragaoka Assholes has quite so openly admitted that they too were too caught up in their own stuff during high school. When Kaede agrees to his terms, then, he nods. "Thank you, Takeuchi-san. I appreciate it." He exhales. "Okay. So one thing that's still like a magic spell, but that I've only discovered recently, is that I think I can kind of know stuff about like, objects, by handling them. I don't have a lot of experience with this skill but it's something I'm going to look into more. Like know who touched it last, or where it's been." * Kaede considers that one. "Could be useful. But also could be dangerous there, depending on what we seek." Mm. And I guess the last thing, it's actually a whole separate thing, unrelated to the magic. So uh, I'm also telekinetic. I guess I've been less secretive about that, I mean Haruko's tried to help me hone it a bit. * Kaede sketches a bit in the notepad. "I think that's enough for me to go on. The rest, I can probably piece together on the flight back. Thank you." "No problem," Wataru nods. "Thanks for calling. Say hi to Akemi and Satoshi for me, huh?" We'll have pictures. <@Ardweden> [End!]