Day 44: Lunch

[mizuhomaiden.livejournal.com]

That had been a very frustrating shower. For many reasons. At least Raine was going to at least look at Forte. Hopefully, she'll actually heal him. The showers had also succeeded in making the ninja feel like a pervert. A mild one, but still... It was as if Yukari had picked that spot in the showers because she knew the ninja could easily see her.

Ugh! Damn youkai.

Squirreling herself away in a corner of the cafeteria, Sheena finger combed her wet hair before pulling it back with the bright red ribbon. She so needed her own hair ribbon back. She was attempting to formulate her plan of acquisition - she was ninja after all - as people started trickling into the room. The plan was put on pause, though, when her stomach rumbled.

Food now - plan later.

[Closed to Haseo and Endrance]

Comments

[feartehreaper.livejournal.com]

Months before, Haseo didn't really care what people thought, or their reasons for doing what they did. Recently, he'd learned that regardless of the extra work, sometimes it was worth it... and yet here, where he'd been beaten down over and over, it was harder to care than it had been getting, even if he wanted to, and even harder to go through with trying to work out those intricacies in social interaction when he had so many other things on his mind. Fortunately, it was blindingly clear that for some reason or another the 'summon' was a sensitive subject with this woman, even if 'why' was a mystery going off only her limited reactions. To be fair though, if someone had confronted him about Skeith out of the blue, he'd probably be pretty damn defensive.

-- Though he really should have asked Endrance more about what had happened from his point of view before they had jumped into this.

"Hey. It's like he said." The Rogue stepped forward a bit more, assertive but carefully non-aggressive. "Back where we're from, the two of us are... well." The same as you? Who knows... "If you don't want us to tell anyone about this, we won't. No blackmail involved." He half-fell into a chair cautiously and paused. I guess it's probably safer just to ask about where she's from and go from there, instead of something like Avatars right off. Put the focus on us. He threw a glance up at Endrance, hoping the hint would be taken.

"Don't you have a name? Where are you from?"

[oftemptation.livejournal.com]

"Ah, I...I'm sorry. I'm terrible about starting up conversations without even properly introducing myself,...you'll have to forgive me," Endrance said, bowing his head before sitting down. "I'm Endrance. This is Haseo. He's a close ally of mine from back home..." That was really the best way to phrase it, though the words didn't quite sound strong enough.

There was that one bit of complication...how to bring up 'The World' without sounding like, well...what he was, which was an internet addict who spent far more time online than offline. That was a harder subject than it sounded like it would be.

"...I'd understand completely if you didn't care to talk about it. The power is something I had a hard time handling at first. In my case...the power and what happened to everyone last night are tied together. You might say it's a dear friend's last gift, though I wonder sometimes...I'm sorry. I'm digressing again."

[mizuhomaiden.livejournal.com]

'Don't you have a name?' What kind of question was that? Of course, she had a name. Sheena just suddenly didn't feel like giving it out. She was feeling a little more cornered than she generally cared to be without an easy out. A part of her was curious about this power the boys had, since she was the only summoner born in the last four thousand years, but these guys couldn't have pacts. Whatever they had, it couldn't be like her pacts.

Then there was the fact that she'd summoned Shadow on Endrance that night and... the embodiment of darkness is never a pleasant thing to have smack you down. What did these two really want with her?

"Sheena," she finally said. "That's my name." Her eyes flickered to Endrance. "And I have complete control over what I am. I've always had this ability." She just hadn't had the pacts to go with it. "I shouldn't have called him on you in the first place. He's not... nice."

[feartehreaper.livejournal.com]

Haseo made an effort to resist flinching or otherwise show discomfort at Endrance's response, tapping his fingers vaguely on the table as he processed and Sheena offered at least some information, which... wasn't quite enough. After a moment, he clenched his teeth and huffed through his nose in a way that was barely audible- she'd given her name, but not anything about where she was from. Maybe understandable. Maybe. After all, it wasn't like he was running around telling people about 'The World' himself.

There was a slight pause as he straightened, looking back at the woman, "I take it you don't ever play any online games, do you? Does 'Cernunnos' ring a bell?" He laughed under his breath a bit- not only because that name was one of only about three things he knew regarding the official backstory of 'The World', but a summon of some sort being 'not nice?' That was something he could more or less relate to, even if the entire scope in relation to his past was unknown to him.

As for why he didn't outright ask about Avatars, well... that was a learned term. If Yata and the rest of G.U. hadn't picked him up and he'd still managed to Awaken on his own, then it was likely the only thing he'd know was Skeith's name, if that. He'd also probably be somewhat crazy by now, but that was another line of thought entirely.

[oftemptation.livejournal.com]

Well, an Avatar with the epitaph of 'The Terror of Death' doesn't sound terribly nice either.

A faint smile crossed Endrance's lips, though it didn't stay long. "Cernunnos, the God of Death. It was said that he was killed by his brother, Sol, the God of Creation, but didn't accept his fate...and so eventually, he raised an army of the undead in order to force his brother to revive him. That army was stopped by the power sealed in the White Tree at Indieglut Lugh."

That was all in the manual, though - the backstory of 'R:2'. Anyone who had read through it should know that, but perhaps it was easier to remember for him simply because he spent so much time there.

"My own power...Macha. I can still feel her presence, but there's a block. I can't complete the summon..."

[mizuhomaiden.livejournal.com]

What the hell was an online game? Games she got, but this online thing? It brought to mind the ninja training exercises on the wires that connected the tall posts in Mizuho's training ground where the objective was to knock everyone else off the wire without falling yourself. She'd... been pretty bad at that exercise whenever her masters were watching.

The Cernunnos and Sol crap didn't mean anything to Sheena either, but it reminded her of Yggdrasil and the Great Kharlan War with the tree and all.

"The world get split into two or something?"

[feartehreaper.livejournal.com]

Geez, you're as bad as Atoli, Haseo thought, looking at Endrance from the corner of his eye. Here he was already on the verge of giving up the semi-patient act, considering his questions were mostly being ignored. It just kind of figured that the name he chose to mention would go and be something highly related to Endrance's favored Lost Ground. All of that sounded familiar, but if he'd been asked to produce it from scratch, it would have been no good. He'd been meaning to read it again for some time, and yet now it looked like it was too late. He wasn't really counting on the patient library having a hard-copy manual or something.

"Uhh," Haseo put a hand at the back of his head, looking everywhere but Sheena. She could either be talking about something in the backstory, the split between the first version of 'The World' and its sequel, or... something else entirely. He wasn't sure what to do about it.

[oftemptation.livejournal.com]

He caught that look, returning it with one that clearly asked don't you remember this from the manual, Haseo?. It was more amused than it was anything else, though.

"In a manner of speaking," Endrance said, "But I don't think it's in quite the same way as what it sounds like you're speaking of...what happened, if it's not too personal a topic to ask about?" It sounded far too real to just be a version upgrade in a MMORPG. What did that even mean?

[mizuhomaiden.livejournal.com]

What happened? Well, the Great Kharlan War wasn't anything special, so Sheena figured she might as well tell these guys about it.

"it was way before my time, but the world was one and, like in any war, there were two sides and they started fighting. The war was putting such a strain on the world, bringing it close to destruction, so a group of heroes rose up to end the war. To keep it from happening again, Mithos split the world into two, linking them through their mana, so that each side of the Great Kharlan War had their own world to continue living in," Sheena explained. She wasn't about to get into Derrish Kharlan just because that was really messed up and she didn't know much about it.

Sheena sighed and rubbed her temple. "Okay, guys, I'm a summoner. What I called that night was one of eight. I've never met anyone else who can do it, because as far as I know, there isn't anyone else who can. I'm just... special, or something." She hunched her shoulders forward. "But I don't like talking about it."

[feartehreaper.livejournal.com]

Great, more stuff that he was clueless about. A group of heroes "rising up," mana and someone named "Mithos"... it sounded like a video game for sure, but not really familiar enough to be 'The World'. Disinterested, Haseo picked up his cup and glanced around the room, ignoring any unspoken sleights against his ability to read like five thousand pages of information just to play a freaking game. In his experience, mythology as described like now tended to be irreversibly bland- mentioned at length as an aside and expected to be regarded as important even when there was far more interesting plot happening in the present time frame (and where others would make sure you did the right thing and had the necessary information regardless of whether or not you paid attention). Even despite the amount of time he'd put into his own game of choice, his reasons for sticking around tended to be far removed from anything to do with the backstory... unless it was actually important to whatever quest he'd been dragged into doing with someone.

Then again-- wait, what? Haseo's wandering interest was reeled in again quite efficiently near the tail end of Sheena's remarks. "One of eight?" he asked sharply, his posture straightening. Despite the other dead end topics, he just couldn't ignore a comment like that, and his frown deepened considerably as he stared at the young woman.

[oftemptation.livejournal.com]

"It's a bit of a personal topic for me, too..." Endrance's words were quiet, a bit strained. "But let me try and explain. In our world, there are entities called Avatars, and those that can use them are called Epitaph Users. There are eight in all...and from the time frame Haseo is from, seven are known. After the other night, and after hearing Haseo say what he did, well...I thought you might have been the eighth. Not many people can summon beings like that, and its similarity to Haseo's Avatar is striking."

[mizuhomaiden.livejournal.com]

The tone Haseo used, caused Sheena's hackled to rise and her expression hardened. "Yeah, one of eight. What's it to you?" she snapped back.

Her eyes flickered over to Endrance as he spoke, at least giving her a bit more information. Avatars, huh? That made them sound like they were just extensions of the person's mana and not separate beings like her summon spirits were.

"I doubt either of your Avatars are anything like any of my summons," Sheena replied. "How did you get yours, anyways?"