<@Ciara> [Sunday, February 8, 2004] <@Ciara> [It's a cold but clear morning in Tokyo. Taki has done some advance scouting and found a building where she and Haruko might be able to get some practice on the roof. It's pretty high up and nobody's really going to just go up there.] <@Ciara> [The problem is getting up there, but Taki and Haruko figure Taki can port them up the first time and they'll work it out.] <@Ciara> [Meanwhile, Haruko has been Having a Week. She's gotten the Motor Club to agree to help her out on some R&D work, but man those parts were expensive. (Also the snacks. So many snacks.)] <@Ciara> [And it didn't help that Ken showed up a few times and was not too subtle regarding discussion of Saturday night plans. That got her some dirty looks from Takumi.] <@Ciara> [So Haruko's rather stressed and not super-happy about how her social life is going. That can't possibly hurt her now, right?] <@Ciara> [Taki and Haruko have agreed to meet up in front of the building and will figure out the best place to port up from there.] <@Ciara> [Session Start!] * Haruko drove up and parked her bike. She's got her duster on and a scarf but apparently didn't quite have the time to get herself properly together this morning and nothing quite matches up. Her bag is overloaded with supplies, but aside form the pins in her hair, it looks like she frantically grabbed a few water bottles, note paper, and the lie and stuffed everything in there. * @Haruko got there a bit early and is flipping through one of her textbooks as she waits. * Taki arrives via walking and probably public transportation since the goal is to be able to get here without relying on her powers. She's wearing a coat and a warm hat, and for once is the less frazzled looking of the two. She waves as she aproaches. * Haruko notices Taki a little late but does smile and put her book away. "Thank goodness I have the right building. Everything else this week has been crossed signals of the electronic or social sort." * Taki nods. "My week's been kinda surreal, but other than one of my friends stressing about her relatonship, and me kinda still recovering from dinner with The Hierophant, but I think I'm doing okay." * Haruko looks sympathetic. "Oh, is the long distance relationship tough for Shizaru-san? And where should we stand?" * Taki shakes her head. "As far as I know Shizaru and Paul-san are doing well, It's Mikage and Kenji. She tried to one-up Arai-san and... it didn't end well for anybody." She points to the side of the building. "There's a fire escape over here, the lobby's kinda no good because there's a security guard, but I don't know how much attention he pays." * Haruko walks over to the side of the building. "Oh, man. Yeah, Arai-san is the sort that beat you without even trying in some regards. I hope she didn't come to you with some new prophecy or the like." * Taki walks with her. "She says her powers don't work well on romantic things... and she wants monthly reports instead. I have no idea what I'm even supposed to say to her." It's like the legendary overprotective dad, only she's the big sister and a Major Arcana. * Haruko looks actively confused for a moment until she puts it together from context. "Hm... I've never really had to deal with a big sister. Arai-san seems laid back about some things, particularly given the way she dresses, but yeah. So she wants reports about what you do with..." Haruko tries to recall if she's been given the sister's name and fails. "...her sister?" As Haruko asks she * Haruko reaches out to take Taki's hand for the coming port up the fire escape. * Taki takes it. "How far up do you want to go? And... I think I have the older sisters aproval, but not quite the younger ones yet, if that makes any sense. But, Nicola-chan really likes my cooking, so that's a start at least." * Haruko smiles at the -chan. "Well, ultimately it's the younger Arai- san's approval that matters the most of course. But cooking is never a bad start. And, I'd say take it easy. Maybe ten stories at time. Whatever you feel comfortable with. We can push it more once we're on the roof." * Taki and Haruko are abruptly on the buildings large, flat, and mostly empty roof. There's ducting and AC units scatterd about, but mostly it's vast streaches of tar paper. Taki checks her watch to make sure she hasn't accidentally put her field up. "Looks like we're good." * Haruko blinks, a little startled by the swiftness and shivers slightly. She lets go of Taki's hand and looks around. She lays her bag and some materials under the awning of the small enclosed structure where the presumably the staircase lets out. "So, have you confirmed that she's... well... into girls?" * Taki looks down. "Uhm...Only in that she hasn't rejected me yet." * Haruko has brought a couple water bottles. A measuring tape. Some string, and some loose papers. "That's not nothing. So was the dinner like a date-date or a thing with friends? Sounds like the Heirophant got wind, but hard to say what that means exactly."" * Taki puts her hands into her pockets. "With friends. ...What are you going to do with all of that?" * Haruko's turn to look down as she picks up the measuring tape. "I'm not entirely sure. I was in a bit of a rush this morning and just grabbed everything that seemed useful. I figure we can start with just some normal teleporting and work our way up to water dodging and various emotional situations and see where the trouble comes in." * Haruko then measures the roof features, getting a feel for the size of the small structure, a few vents of various sorts, and related architectural features of unclear purpose. * Haruko takes notes as she goes. Uhm... you can unsoak me if I don't dodge fast enough, right? It's a little cold. * Haruko nods and adjusts her scarf. "Yup. That I can do." Ah, good, good. * Haruko then starts running Taki through the basic paces, going reasonable distances, blind teleporting from one side of the small enclosed to the other. She's careful with her chatter, not wanting to introduce emotional complications yet. * Taki's blind teleports are less accurate and more tiring than the line of sight ones, but her powers seem to be well behaved this morning. * Haruko actually measure's Taki's error rates on the blinds and notes them down for the record. "Well, that's all reassuring. Okay, physical or emotional challenges first?" * Haruko has propped up her phone on a central duct, one that should have holes too small for it to fall through. She's set it to have a large time display for ease of checking for fields but also noting how long things take. Let's go physical first, I've got the feeling that the emotional ones are gonna be harder on me. * Haruko obliges, first demanding Taki keep a pace set by her snapping her fingers and then starting to incorporate splashes of water in small balls. By the end of the exercise, Haruko is trying for water bullet hell, with a dozen seperate globs flying around. * Haruko has apparently been working on her snapping. She keeps a good beat and Taki can actually hear her even when she's out of sight. * Taki manages to duck and weave through the hail of proto-hail mostly on instinct without resorting to teleporting out of the way. She laughs. "You're going to have to go faster if you want to catch me!" * Haruko is rather focused by the end and harrumphs in resposne to Taki's taunt. "Well then. Time for more water. Okay... Haruko, you've let yourself get out of practice, that endangers the group, too much focus on boys..." She paces, adjusting her scarf, the skies stay notably clear. * Haruko continues in a quieter voice, "Your efforts with Katie and Satoshi don't change what you did in the past. You haven't proven that you're good enough for people to rely on you instead of violence." * Taki stops moving. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch any of that?" * Haruko shakes her head. "You, uh, you didn't need to. I'm trying to get it to rain." * Haruko continues in a whisper. "I'm no better than the rest of them. I know that right? You're just as culpable for Yushiro's death as Katie but by pretending you could play at violence while keeping pure you put all the blood on her hands." Haruko finishes and gazes at the sky. Nothing there. * Taki looks up. "Uhm, Okay, I think it's pretty much impossible for me to doge a rainstorm if you get one going." And I didn't bring an umbrella. So you win? * Haruko shakes her head. "It'll just be to get me more to work with. The rain isn't the threat. And... I can't really do this anymore. I think I burned it out last summer on stupid experiments." She looks at Taki. "We need to have enough to actually challenge you, so I need you to." She bites her lip. "I guess make me feel bad, or just sad or down." * Haruko looks at Taki expectently. Uhm... how about I just to the market and grab a couple gallons of water? They're not that expensive. And if I try to make you feel bad, I'll feel aweful about it and nothing good ever happens when I'm feeling awful... well, except Akemi but she's not here, and if she was Kaede would be here too and then you wouldn't need me to do anything. * Haruko chuckles softly. "Taki, you are dear to me. But you're a huge softy. I've been playing with Katie some this past month and half the automotive club thinks I'm a slut and either my hearing is better than they think or they just don't always care to disguise it. I just need a jump start, you aren't going to hurt me." * Haruko glances skyward for a moment. "I mean, I'm not Katie's equal or anything. But we've had a few pretty honest conversations." * Taki stares at Haruko. "I, what does....? Oh, we've moved to the emotional testing part of this haven't we. Ugh. Okay. Uhm. You're a gaint flake, and this isn't one of your good ideas?" * Haruko laughs as it drizzles. True to her word, she gathers the water above the roof, forming a thin circle. "And I've gotten compliments from Takeuchi-san that were tougher than that, softy. You've got to take this seriously if it's going to work. You've got to conquer your fear of bad emotions." * Haruko begins to send blasts inward from the ring, always with a larger wave coming directly from the direction Taki is facing masking smaller balls from the sides. * Taki watches the water from the sky until it starts coming from the sides too. "I really don't want to find out I've got another random power that goes off when I'm upset with my friends!" * Haruko calls out in a larger voice as the pace escalates. "That's why we train. Stop holding back. And give me your all, nothing else will do." The ring of water gets thicker over time and the pace accelerates. "Soak yourself in water and repent!" * Taki evedently isn't watching enough of the sides because her attempt to jump over the wave gets her clipped by a ball of water and then falls into a wave. "Ow! Aoghp! COLDCOLDCOLDCOLD REPENTING!" * Taki pulls herself to her feet and huddles. "I regret ever challenging you, my queen, please dry me off!" * Haruko shakes her head and glares. She holds up a hand and pulls the water off Taki, taking care not to overly muss the outfit as Haruko has no interest in Taki fan service. * Haruko gives a cruel smile. "Ah, I've missed your snarky acknowledgement. I will give you a minute to prepare yourself." * Taki rubs her legs, trying to get some feeling back into them. "I have a brilliant plan, let's continue this in summer where I'll only freeze myself if I get angry at you instead of the other way around?" * Haruko paces around the roof in a broad circle. She removes her scarf and jacket and holds them out to the knight. "Once more? You came to my dorm room scared Taki, I want us to find mastery of your powers together, and I am not afraid to take some risk to do so." * Haruko shivers a little and no longer hides a hickey on her neck, but she seems willing to accept this. * Taki takes off her coat and starts to hold it out to Haruko as an exchange, but then realizes it's a couple sizes too small. * Taki puts on the trenchcoat and fumbles at buttoning it up "I'll give this back as soon as I'm warm again, sorry." Don't apologize Knight, this is teleportal training, not cold weather endurance. Thirty seconds. * Haruko resumes pacing, ignoring the cold for the moment, glancing at her phone with a "5, 4, 3, 2, 1." before the water resumes. Again she focuses on frontal attacks with smaller balls from the side, playing on Taki's fear. * Taki hops backwords and then teleports to the far side of the wave. "Hey! I'm not going to get warm enough to give this back if you soak me again!" * Haruko stops and frowns. She tilts her head. "So is this beyond you for now? You were using your powers fully and I still got you?" I.. What are we even testing? Because I don't think I was using any of my powers when you got me. We got to the point where I needed to. * Haruko nods and blushes slightly. "I'm sorry, this wasn't just meant to be reflexes. So we've now shown that you can face danger and not put up a field accidentally. Is it useful to test whether you can teleport in a situation where you do face some danger without putting a field up?" Aaah. Okay. But it's hardly ever worked when I wanted it to. But if you want me to keep teleporting around your waves until it happens, I guess I can do that. * Haruko frowns. "I might be getting to caught up in trying to be the demanding Queen. Okay, let's try a bit of porting then deal with a few emotional things." Okay. * Haruko runs Taki through the paces on teleporting, she doesn't start in full fervor mode and is careful to dry off any splashes. She does that for several minutes until she's satisfied and before Taki starts to tire too much. * Haruko pants and shivers by the end. She's not been moving as much as Taki and the cold is starting to get to her. She walks over to the Knight, catching her breath. "So, before the rain and in the snippets of conversation since, the cold bothers and your fears are real, but Katie's name still seems to have a deeper effect than anything I do." * Haruko wraps her arms around herself and begins letting the water drain away, aside from a small amount to the bottles. * Taki takes off Haruko's coat and holds it out to her. "Ugh. Tell me something I don't know. I bet she'd be happier if we did figure this out though." * Haruko puts on her coat. "Oh, it's warm! Thank you." She then sighs. "Yeah, sure. I mean a little. The thing is, *you* would be a lot happier." * Haruko looks off in the distance for a moment and then looks back. "So, have you tried flirting with Nicola-san and seeing how she replies?" * Taki nods and goes to put on her own coat. "Just a teeny bit. I've got this feeling like if I try do anything concrete it'll turn out to just be an illusion, and my card's all about chasing dreams anyway. Well, daydreams." * Haruko nods. "That feeling isn't necessarily wrong. But dispelling illusions isn't bad. If you let them linger then you won't find the relationship that will work. Give this one a real try and if it turns out Nicola prefers guys then we'll find you more prospects that are definitely into girls together." * Taki blushes. "Uhm, thanks? I think?" Don't thank me yet. So, how's your actual flirting technique? Have you mastered the glance, look away, and tell if they're looking back? I mean there's less demure starting points but I figure I have to start with where you are. * Taki edges away. "Errrr." * Haruko giggles. "Fine, fine, I've tormented you enough today. Talk to one of your girlfriends for help." She then looks to Taki, "Just know that you were pretty dang impressive today. And whomever you are match for will be lucky to have someone so devoted. You need to learn to figure out what people actually want from you, but once you do I think you'll find that you have more to attract people than just your amazing cooking." * Taki comes back. "Thanks. I'd rather have to not rely on the fighting thing, but you're probably right. Thanks." <@Ciara> [Session End!]