1000/An Office Meeting

An Office Meeting
Date of Scene:	12 January 2024
Location:	Obsidian Tower - Dark Laboratory
Synopsis:	With Sunbreaker in the office (again) before Takashi, questions are asked and favors are traded.
Cast of Characters:	Hinoiri Kirara, Takashi Agera

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Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker was working. Of course she was working. When wasn't she working? Because if the only way to avoid facing ones problems was to work, you could be darn certain that Sunbreaker was going to be working.

In this case, working involved going to Beryl Holding's department and sitting, her fingers laced together, while she went over the reports.

The remnants in the dusk zone were... good. Definitely good.

IF they were still useable. She hadn't yet managed to get things to remain PAST their 'decay' point in the dusk zone. Very useful if you wanted to leave no evidence of what you were actually doing. Terrible for anything more... long term. This magic could be useful to her. Help her to add to her already vast repetoire.

She gave a light yawn before rubbing her eyes. She'd been looking at this junk for *hours*. She wanted to do field work... but... there was only so long she could be in the office. Once school let out, Double Trouble might swing by the office and she... she didn't want to deal with that. She couldn't face them. Not right now.

What if they were right. What if she'd only ever been a pawn? An experiment? What if... what if nothing she'd ever done mattered?

... It scared her. Not just because of that notion... but...

Her first instinct upon thinking that was 'Burn. Them. All.' The fact she could be... that anyone could be so murderous... terrified her. And she was sure it was just the Dark Energy. It had to be. She... she was still, at her core, a good person. She'd been wronged and she had to play the role of villain in order to fix it. But...

... But she *was* still worthy. She had to be. Didn't she?

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi was supposed to be at school, too. But he wasn't. He wanted to come in early and put some finishing touches on his project, and really, what could they possibly teach him that would actually benefit him? He knew more than his teachers. In his mind, they should call him Sensei. And what were they going to do, call his non-existent parents? Still, he did want to avoid drawing too much attention that might lead to annoying conversations, so he'd only left as the time for Club Meetings had started. And here, already, again, was Sunbreaker - was Hinoiri. He'd been seeing so much of her lately.

    He walked up to her and sighed. "Alright, spill. What's going on with you? You've been practically living in this office lately, and you don't even really work for this divison. Plus you look like a sparkleskirt came up behind you and lasered you with an exhaustion beam or something." Nevermind the fact it was more likely for their team to be using any kind of exhaustion attacks... "You can either tell me what's going on or I can annoy you until you do. I can't have you snapping before you've shared all your magical theory info with me anyways."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker gave a soft sigh the moment she heard her. Of course. And now there was SORA. Just what she needed. She glanced towards her, eyes narrowed. "Listen, you, I--"

And then she stopped. She shook her head and lifted her hand to her head. What? No. Takashi. That was Takashi. Not another.... It was just Takashi. Though, he'd likely be offended to be called 'just Takashi'.

"Project Eclipse will be going up before the board soon. I need to make sure it's perfect. Actually, absolutely, perfect. There's a lot of work to be done, still."

There was a moment of quiet. And... "And... I was attacked... remember? It... tends to make someone a bit... jumpy. About being at their... place of residence."

It wasn't home, though. Certainly not home. "I went back there and got some clothes, anyway. And I'm staying with a sparkle skirt. So I just... need to focus on this project."

"... Speaking of, I spoke with your new boss. Apparently you're the one to talk with about this 'Midnight tokyo' stuff. I need to know what, exactly, resources I've acquired."

Then there was another sigh, and this was the thing she *really* didn't want to mention to him. "... I also need your help... specifically... I need to locate a witch. Well, a witch's labyrinth. Before you ask, no, I'm not involving my girlfriend in this. It's Obsidian work. I've already promised I wouldn't involve her in this stuff."

Ahhhh, trying to distract him with a flurry of work orders it seemed.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Sunbreaker - she was Sunbreaker, even now. "The attack on your home really affected you in a serious way, didn't it?" He asks, tilting his head a bit. "You know, I haven't ever seen you quite like this since you got here." he notes.

    "Did we ever figure out exactly what happened there?" He asks, pausing. "Doesn't make any sense to attack your dorm, Hinoiri isn't on any lists and neither is Dianora, plus we'd never greenlight an attack on the Academy. Not anytime soon." he says. "Staying with a certain blue-haired sparkleskirt?" he half-teases.

    "So... whatever happened it certainly wasn't sanctioned and may have even been unintentional." he notes. "Or random act of youma." he notes. "Though you -have- pissed a lot of people off, that's mostly been as Sunbreaker, and that's not her dorm." he says.

    "I'm still working my way through the Midnight Tokyo data, such as it is. If Beryl wants to pass that off to you that's fine by me. I was thinking about reaching out to you anyways - there's a whole bunch of star magic related stuff and I haven't been able to make heads or tails out of it yet." he admits.

    "Well, if you won't involve your girlfriend, my girlfriend is amazing at finding Witches and is already part of Obsidian." Takashi offers. "But as I'm sure you know expertise isn't something you just give away. Unless you're trying to start working under me."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker was quiet for a few moments, putting the paper she was looking at down. "It... really did. A lot more than I want to admit. But I'm not blind. It's..." She sighed and gave a small nod. "It's... not just the attack. It's..." Her arms wrapped slightly around herself.

How to even put it?

"... It was probably just a mistake..." she mumbled. Like her. Was that what Sora said? 'She was one of Sora's greatest mistakes'? Memory was a... funny thing. How ones mental state could go as far as to overwrite the reality, in some cases. How a person could... forget... things. Remember things wrong. How the reality of things could shift to match a mindset. Now, more than ever, she was remembering things in the worst light. smaller things coming up, blowing up in her mind. All reinforcing that negative mindset.

And he could see it, the way her arms wrapped around herself. The flames turned darker. Light tufts of smoke.

Then, as quickly as it started, it ended. She let out a soft sigh and shook her head. She glanced back at him. "If you think you can give me a live view of it, a vaunt into the dusk zone to see it? I should be able to dis-entangle it enough to understand."

Slow, deep breaths, moving a finger over the paper. "Well... Your boss said you're currently at my disposal," Sunbreaker said, almost as if taunting him... until... "Except, frankly? I think you and I both have limits on what we'd trust your boss with. I'd, frankly, rather work with you as an ally, than something you were coerced into. So, the question is, is there anything else you need, or will my aid in the star magic be enough to procure your divisions expertise in locating a witch?"

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi listens to Sunbreaker. "Well, if you ever need to vent about it, you know where to find me. Emotions kept inside can grow rotten easily, and that's a danger to most those using Dark Energy - even me. Better out than in." he says. But he leaves it there. Sunbreaker's her own person, she can figure it out. He can't force her to see things his way, and she was... resistant to asking about help.

    "Well, I can walk you there. I think they anchored a section of the Dusk Zone to our ley lines... somehow... so it wasn't as morphic as the Dusk Zone usually is, direction-wise. That'd be interesting to know how to do." He admits.

    "So, I want to say yes, it would be enough, but... I actually could use a little help with something specific to your magic. I'm working with a team on a cross-Obsidan project; the DG Project. But the help I need should be pretty easy, I just need to observe you going all-out with your magic in a controlled environment. I'd like to be able to emulate a few fire-based attacks for the DG project. And helping on that will help you again, because as a big all-company project there's a ton of eyes on it." he says. "So... I figure we help each other in a few places, we both get more of what we want. Right?"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker gave a small nod. "I... I know. The dark energy hurts because... it's rough. On the body. If not done right, it can destroy you. But if done right, it gives you strength. It's all about tolerance, control and... endurance. I, fortunately, am working on all three..."

Oh, if only it really did work that well.

"... Just... My roommate... got annoyed with me. Because I was studying, I guess. Apparently wanting to get good grades and not just... breezing through life makes me 'weird' or something... I don't even know. She got... angry. And it basically came down to... her... saying... everything I'm working for, my ascension, dethroning Sora... all of it... is impossible and meaningless."

Not exactly in those words, but....

"... I think she was... just... angry. But... it still hurt. I guess. I shouldn't listen to what she says, though. She doesn't understand me. Not in the slightest."

However, whatever was said... was... apparently hurting her a lot more than she'd say. Considering what he just saw.

"huh. I won't need to be anchoring things, but if I can reverse engineer how they did it, it could prove useful for this project. And... DG project? Seems fair. I'd like to know more about this 'DG project', though. I only *just* found out about apparently someone making a CITY in the dusk zone. So I'm curious what exactly I'm signing up for. But... that seems fair enough. Do you think you could call in Mami, make sure she's good for it? I need to get some more examinations of witch's barriers."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi shakes his head. "There's always gonna be those who want to use their gifts to minimize their work rather than achieve their full potential. Whether their gifts are magic, intelligence, physical strength - some people just aren't cut out for greatness, when it comes down to it. You and I, of course, are different, and we see our gifts and talents as an impetus, as a drive to achieve greatness." he says. "They won't understand us, and it's a waste of energy to attempt to understand them."

    He walks over and pats the flaming girl on her shoulder. "Don't let peoplee who want to drag you down, do that. Surround yourself with the people who want to see you succeed, and make sure they benefit from it too, and you'll be a lot happier and better off." he adds. "But you can always come talk to me if you need to be heard out by someone who gets it." he offers.

    "Anyways. Yeah, I'd like to know how they managed to use that star magic to create anything 'fixed' to a location in the Dusk Zone. At the very least maybe we could build reference pylons or something to orient ourselves back towards anywhere other than the Towers." he suggests.

    "I'll call in Mami. But the DG project is... broadly, it's a project to artificially create magical girls. Magical girls Obsidian controls. Instead of being reliant entirely on finding the few motivated individuals who also have magic, the idea is to be able to bring the magic to the motivated. It's a little more complicated than that in some of the specifics, but that's the broad stroke of it. Yeah, I'll ring Mami."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker gave a small nod. "Exactly. I've been dealing with that my whole life. People who'd rather shove me over or to the ground the moment I get closer and closer to rising. I just..." She sighed and closed her eyes. "I thought they were different. I don't know why. But... I don't know. I'd never really... had a colleague like them before. And I thought... they'd not be like everybody else."

In the end, that was just it. She was alone. The sparkle skirts may try and say she didn't have to do what she did... but... when push came to shove, they'd likely always turn on her too. Tell her it was a waste. How she'd just... wasted her life. That she was a waste...

"Yeah. I'm going to... I'll do the dusk zone stuff later. I'm having a bit of trouble managing my dark energy levels. A witch might be ideal for... burning some of it off. That or this... DG project. Expelling some magic might do me good. Heh. Artificial magical girls. I guess in a lot of ways I'd be the ideal example of that, huh? After all, nothing gave me my power. Just dark energy."

"... I wasn't chosen for anything, or selected here. Just... me..." Sunbreaker said, sounding a little mournful, before taking a slow, deep breath. "Yeah. Dusk zone might be a bad idea right now until I can get this back under control. Witch first."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi pulls out his cell phone and texts Mami. Then he looks up to Sunbreaker. "Remember, getting you down on yourself is their goal. Don't let them win. It's a dirty playbook and it's their playbook, making you doubt yourself." Takashi says.

    "And no, you took information you already had and slightly altered it to get magic access that normal people can't fathom. Even if we gave them the information you have there's no telling they could understand it, and on top of that, there's a mysterious factor I'm still trying to figure out that plays in, too. Just being smart isn't enough." he says.

    "But I think at the very least I've developed a way to layer magic onto subjects that are right for it. Instead of changing their whole core, I just make them able to accept a sort of... overlay. I think it'll potentially apply to much more people, and there's some other factors too. I'll walk you through what I've done in totality once we're at the facility. For now, let's see about Mami." he adds, looking down at his phone for a response.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker nodded. "R-right. I... I won't. I won't let... I won't let them win. They want to break me. But I will never let *anybody* break me again. I am Hinoiri Kirara, she who will break the sun. She who will rule all of Kirakirafantastica. I will not be... I will not be broken. I will not allow *anyone* to toss me aside."

The flames enveloping her rose, though she got to her feet. He was right. She was special. Unique. Even if they had what she had... even if they could do what she could... none of them could harness the power like her. None. Sure, she'd had the advantage of more... grounding than most of them.

But that grounding meant nothing if you didn't know how to apply it. And none knew better than her.

"You know what? Let Mami know it'll be a little bit. Lets go work on these DG girls first. Expelling a bit of dark energy before I go witch hunting sounds like a much better idea." She rose to her feet and stretched out a bit. Much easier.