1545/What's The Worst That Could Happen

What's The Worst That Could Happen
Date of Scene:	16 May 2024
Location:	Plot Room 2
Synopsis:	Kyouka calls Fuyuko over to her apartment to talk about some stuff. Mamoru is also there.
Cast of Characters:	Kyouka Inai, Mamoru Chiba, Fuyuko Yuuhi

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Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Let's get one thing straight about Kyouka's apartment- it isn't that bad. It's just small, and kind of cluttered. The stereotypical young-single-Japanese-adult single-room flat. Hot plate, sink, bed, kotatsu and TV- what else could you really need? There's even a bathtub that you can almost-but-not-quite actually stretch out in. For a twenty-three-year-old single woman working her first 'real job', it's honestly not that bad.

    It is, however, a total hovel compared to Fuyuko's apartment, because the salary of a rookie guidance counselor at a school (even a posh private school) cannot compete with the salary of a VP at Obsidian Corp, young or otherwise. This is why Kyouka seldom invites Fuyuko over- its part embarrassment to underscore her relatively modest living conditions and part assumption that Fuyuko wouldn't want to be in her apartment. Who would, given the alternative? That said, she's never made an actual secret of where her apartment is located, and Fuyuko has no doubt seen it before, even if not often.

    Which is why it may be somewhat surprising when Kyouka texts Fuyuko and asks her to come over. She doesn't really explain why in the text itself, but the circumstances and the invite itself should indicate to Fuyuko that Kyouka, at least, believes she has a good reason for having such a chat.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The teeth-kicking imported Jamaican ginger beer four-pack that Mamoru brought over is, of course, ginger beer and thus non-alcoholic, but it's also the good stuff. The teenager's sitting at Kyouka's kotatsu already, sipping and trying to explain Tamaki to Kyouka.

"He's really earnest and super loyal. He's like... he's like a golden retriever puppy. He's really different after he blew up his head and we had to put it back together, you know?"

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
The thing about Kyouka's apartment is that it genuinely isn't that bad. It's just normal, while Fuyuko lives in the kind of luxury that only working for a megacorporation that's slowly, purposefully ruining the world can buy. She's been here before, but rarely, and usually when she is, the matter is serious, or Kyouka's forgotten how much Fuyuko's willing to make fun of her for her almost-big enough tub that could only be kind-of-comfortable to someone as short (read: average height) as her, or the general messiness.

But today she's willing to over look all of that, unless it turns out she's here for something pointless.

She knocks, then tests the door to see if it's unlocked (or just cheap enough that she can jimmy it open). "Kyouka! I know you can hear me, you barely have enough room to turn over. Let me in, I brought beer."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka is half-listening to Mamoru talk about Tamaki while she's doing some last minute stress-cleaning. An hour ago, she was like, 'eh, its fine, Fuyuko knows me she won't care if its messy'. Ten minutes ago she suddenly decided 'fuck, I need to clean or she's going to think I'm a loser' and started frantically stuffing laundry into drawers and sorting recyclables. "Are you sure that you put it back together right?" She asks, over her shoulder, before the knock comes on the door.

    Looking around and deciding 'good enough', as if there was any option at this point, she walks over to the door, just as Fuyuko opens it anyway and nearly bashes her in the face (it wasn't locked). Skipping a step back, she makes a face. "Of course you did. You know the entry tithe." She steps back to let Fuyuko enter, then shuts the door and returns to the main space, adding, "Mamoru's here too." as if that wasn't obvious because there's no way to miss him sitting in the middle of the room.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I am absolutely not sure I put his brain back together right," Mamoru answers honestly, and then instead of unfolding himself to bow, he just raises his ginger beer in salute. (It would take a lot of unfolding.)

He's dressed like a reprobate, jeans and a local punk band's silkscreened black t-shirt, argyle socks, wire rim glasses, messy hair... his dress shoes and leather jacket are next to the door. "Feel free to kick me out," he tells Fuyuko, "but if you do I'm taking a beer. Like, a real one."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"Yeah," Fuyuko says dryly, looking at the kid critically (eh, seems fine, not worse for wear, probably didn't end up in that portal jazz), "I noticed."

She sets the six pack of regular beer on the table, considers Mamoru another moment, then shrugs as she grabs a beer, opening it with a handy bottle opener. If he wants to grab one, she won't stop him. (That was what the look was about. Deciding how much she cared about things like legal drinking laws). "I mean, you could just have one. What am I, a cop?"

Settling down by the table, she contemplates the apartment for a moment, then smirks.

"Aw, Kyou-chan, you cleaned up for me."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka makes another face at Fuyuko. "I just didn't want to hear you bitching about my dirty ramen bowels for an hour, okay? We can't all afford a maid service."

    She grabs a beer as well, then gives Mamoru a Look herself. It says 'if you drink beer, and I don't report you, you owe me one.' Which is dumb because he literally healed her back from the brink of death not that long ago, but maybe she still feels that her position as a 'teacher' means she at least has to pretend to care if he's drinking beers at sixteen.

    Cracking it open, she sits down on the edge of her bed. "He can stay anyway, because I think he has some insight into this. What I wanted to talk to you about. And I think it might help to have an opinion that isn't.. y'know, us. Because we're close to this, and I know enough to know sometimes that makes things hard to see."

    She pauses a moment, toying with her beer. "I think we're being played, Fuyuko. Like, big time. Possibly long-time. But I'm not sure. And I want to find out."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru smirks as Fuyuko calls Kyouka Kyou-chan -- how close he's come to trying that one himself -- and then he surveys the beer, and the open ginger beer in his hand, and then the beers, and then he says lightly, "I might later, thanks."

He settles back against the wall and puts just his feet under the kotatsu, drinking some more of the liquid face-kick as he listens to Kyouka. Then she gets right to the point as dramatically as she can without actually resorting to theatrics, and he hides a grin with his ginger beer.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"A maid service would be wasted on you, anyway. You hate throwing out junk."

Knickknacks, tiny things, odd sentimental items and cheap bits that just live here now. A maid service wouldn't know what was junk and what was real, is her bet. But the shit-talking comes to an end soon, because there's an eyebrow going up and a frown on Fuyuko's voice, as Kyouka begins to speak. The kid has insight? And it's too close to them?

"You're talking about Corona," she deduces, frowning. "I could have told you we were being played. How, are we being played?"

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "Excuse me, I love throwing out junk. You just don't understand the difference between junk and personal items with sentimental value." Kyouka says huffily. This may be all very fascinating to Mamoru, or it may be very annoying.

    Fuyuko is at the very least with the program enough to identify Corona as the inciting agent of this concern. "It was when I was talking to Bow, that kid who tried to 'arrest' you, after that whole thing went down that I first started having... uncomfortable suspicions." She says, shifting her beer in her hands, looking down at it. "He was telling me what Corona was telling him.. all about how her people believe in universal harmony, and the equilibrium between Light and Dark, the Great Work. You know the spiel, we heard something similar from Aurora hundreds of times." And barely paid attention, its true, but that's besides the point.

    "And then I was talking to Kyouko-chan about Balance and his whole thing.. the Eternal Struggle, the way light and dark" (the absence of capitals is notable in her tone) "need to be kept equally balanced to avoid stagnation.."

    "And I started thinking... doesn't that sound... kind of similar? Like, they're using different terms, and never directly referring to each other but doesn't it sound like they're talking about the same thing? I never really connected the two before because..." Because there's not supposed to be a connection. Because Aurora and Balance were separated in time by years, not directly compared to each other. But now Corona is here at the same time as Balance, and the parallel nature of the philosophical terminology seems obvious.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Or it might be-- it is-- really funny, because when is it not funny to watch ostensible adults trash talk and bicker when you yourself are sixteen? But Mamoru's good at maintaining a poker face when he wants to be, and he finishes his bottle of ginger beer and pays attention.

Balance, equilibrium, harmony, light, dark, Light, Dark, RHA, Obsidian... Mamoru frowns. "Would Balance have a reason for you to be at each other's throats?" he asks, squinting. "Because that's what Corona's been going for."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
Fuyuko could push the argument about sentimental value - she's pretty sure that novelty cups from old fast-food chain promotions are junk, no matter how many rounds of beer pong they were used in -

But there's something more important to discuss, and Fuyuko frowns as she listens, taking in... a story. A position, that she doesn't - it's not that she doubts it, it's just, what's the odds that Balance has something to do with Corona and Aurora? What are the odds that an alien race believed in the Great Work, the universal harmony, the balance between Light and Dark......... in an Eternal Struggle.

"It could be a coincidence," she says, but it's clearly just being raised as an option, and not even one she believes in. There's the edge of a scowl on her lips, a tightness to her eyes. "But its a hell of a coincidence. Dark and light, you and me, and that fucker."

A pause, as Mamoru asks if there'd be any reason for Balance to want Corona needling them apart, and she sucks air through her teeth, suddenly looking a little pissy.

"Oh, nothing special, just a little planning to ditch out of our contract, if we can break the Fade. Plotting to punch the boss in the face. Little things like that."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka nods her head quickly. "It could just be a coincidence. Like, legit, it could be. But it seems like an awful big thing to just go 'eh, its a coincidence' and shrug it off."

    When Mamoru asks if Balance has any reason to want them to be antagonistic to each other, she makes a face and agrees with Fuyuko. "He hates that we're... y'know. Friends. We're supposed to be colleagues but neither of us is as dedicated to our supposed positions as he wants us to be, and I think he blames our relationship with each other for that. We also.. yeah, we talked about trying to break the Fade, and escaping our contract with him. It was just talk, because we don't have any clue how to do that or if it's even possible at this point, but we talked about it. He yelled at me about it. Maybe he thinks that if we weren't talking to each other, we wouldn't be plotting with each other either."

    She pauses, chewing her lip. "But that's not.. like, that's not the part that really bothers me. It does bother me, but more than that.." She looks at Fuyuko, her expression serious.

    "Really think about it. We were recruited by Aurora to be the Lux Tenebrae, Light and Dark, slayers of monsters. Then that... ended." Best not to mention how, exactly, but. "Years later, Balance shows up to recruit us to this Arbiter gig. I always assumed that part was just coincidence. He chose us because we were aligned with the proper moralities, about to age out of our magic, and desperate to find a way not to. We were good candidates."

    "But if Balance has a connection to the Statera... was it just a coincidence? How far back does this go? Were we.." She hesitates, searching for the right word, "Groomed for this job? And if so to what extent? How much of the shit that happened to us that made us who we are now might have been.. I dunno. Planned? Influenced? Nudged?"

    She seems genuinely disturbed by the idea, shaking her head and appearing vaguely queasy. "I don't want to go too far down that rabbithole when we're just speculating. I'll start seeing connections everywhere even where there aren't any. But I do want to know."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
This time, oh, this time, Mamoru does in fact grab a beer. As soon as the word 'groomed' comes out of Kyouka's mouth, he goes for the alcohol-- and puts a ginger beer in its place. There, now he doesn't owe her.

Popping it open, he pulls his argyle feet out from under the kotatsu and leans his head against the wall, drinking down a mouthful. He closes his eyes for a moment, judging the beer, then deems it acceptable and adjusts his glasses, sitting up slightly more respectably.

"I don't think the way things went was part of the plan, and if Balance was grooming you the whole time, you can at least be happy he didn't get what he wanted," he points out. "But sure, go with the idea that the Statera go around planting Lux Tenebrae with the idea that Balance is going to harvest them when the Fade's about to hit. If Corona has more gems, maybe Balance is banking on being done with you. You know who you really need in this conversation? Kazuo. He's so good at coming up with every last worst case scenario so you can sort through them and come out with the most likely ones..."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"It's was just shooting the shit - but if he came to yell at you over it, maybe it's more possible than we thought," and Fuyuko's frown is an interested one, because that, to her, is a good sign. Maybe they don't know how, but no one ever got upset at about a threat that couldn't come to pass.

Kyouka's already elaborated on the problem - they're friends, maybe not as much as they were as teenagers, thick as thieves and on top of the world, but far more now than they were at eighteen, the Fade starting to take effect and the both of them desperate for a way to stall the effects of time, to keep power and memories alike.

But then Kyoouka's on another train of thought, and Fuyuko -

Fuyuko isn't dealing with that, right now.

"If we were groomed," she says, grimacing at the word - draining half her beer, just for saying the word. "Then they didn't do a good fucking job of it, did they? Needing to find a hack like Corona to try and push us apart, needing to yell at you because we want out - if all your fears are true, it just means we're still such massive pains in the ass that even a thing that plotted our lives can't count on pushing us around."

Big talk, but her fist is tight around the beer bottle, her eyes dark.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "I don't know if he was really concerned we might do it," Kyouka says to Fuyuko, "Or if he was just mad that we even considered it. Lack of loyalty, dedication to the mission, you know how he is. It's possible he was just angry that we're daring to even question the 'company line'." But it's also possible that Fuyuko is right, and Balance got mad because they were on to something.

    She looks at Mamoru, frowing. "I don't know if he didn't ge what he wanted. I mean, we still do the job even if we're not happy with it. And as much as we might talk about it, right now we have no way out. Which is why, I want to reiterate, this is all just speculation. It's enough that I wanted to talk about it. But I don't have any actual proof, just a lot of conjecture and 'hmm, isn't that weird'."

    She looks back at Fuyuko, and her eyes soften. Because the next train of thought is a difficult one of her. "Yeah but Fuyuko, think about it.. if Aurora was working for Balance, this goes all the way back. All the way back to when we were twelve. Hell, maybe even further, I dunno." She doesn't say more, but she's thinking it. Thinking about how Fuyuko wasn't always on the side of 'dark', despite being the Dark part of their pair. And what it was that drove her there, and if that was really somehow intentional.. but she's not going to say that out loud. Not in front of Mamoru. Not when her apartment could get trashed.

    "This isn't about what Corona is doing now. I mean, it is, a little. But as far as I'm concerned that's the smallest part of thing. Because if my whole life- our whole lives- have been getting jerked and pushed around by these scumbags for over a decade, it makes me question... well. A lot. How many of my decisions were my own, how many of the things I thought were just chance really weren't. I don't like feeling manipulated, Fuyuko. I don't like when I feel like I'm falling for a damn advertising campaign or something, let alone making major life decisions because some intangible asshole set me up to make them and think it was my own idea."

    "But before we like.. do anything about it we need to be sure there's actually something here. Something more than just suspicions. I don't want to wage war on a god for no reason because I thought I was smarter than I am." Heaven knows, it wouldn't be the first time she's had that problem.

    She takes a long drink of her beer. "Dammit, I wish I had paid better attention to Aurora's lecturing back in the day. I keep trying to remember exactly what he told us, so I can compare it to what Corona or Balance say, but it was a long time ago. And I hardly listened in the first place."

    She adds as an aside to Mamoru, "Kazuo-kun has a good head on his shoulders, but I'm a bit loathe to involve more people in this when its all so.. uncertain. And Fuyuko doesn't know him. But.. I guess I wouldn't mind if you talked to him about it in general terms. And if it gets more 'real', then I'm not going to turn down any reasonable help."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
More beer, sipped at steadily as he listens -- and Mamoru sits back against the wall again. He doesn't say anything to Fuyuko's angry line of thought, but his expression indicates agreement. He still thinks Balance didn't get what he wanted out of messing with them from an early age, if indeed he was, even though Kyouka goes round to the point that maybe Balance thinks anything worth doing is worth doing half-assed.

"This is just speculation," he half-agrees with Kyouka, "but I am so invested in getting rid of the Fade? I am so invested, even if I didn't want to help you get out of this, which I do." Kyouka doesn't have to go further than 'maybe even further', she didn't even have to go that far, given what she's been dancing around, for Mamoru to also know what not to bring up. Not with Fuyuko's fist tight around the neck of her bottle.

Mamoru also doesn't say anything about the two of them not listening to Aurora. He said his piece on that after Corona first showed up. Instead, he nods to Kyouka, acquiescing. "He's good at not butting in if I ask him not to," he says, "but he's one of my advisors for a number of reasons. I'll try and stick to hypotheticals."

Like Kyouka not promising to do anything stupid, he doesn't quite promise not to tell Kazuo a certain level of detail.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
Kyouka has clearly been thinking about this for at least a few days, percolating in silence over an issue she hadn't yet been willing to broach. That fact alone would have been enough to impress upon Fuyuko the depths of her counterpart's concerns - anything that encouraged Kyouka's impulsive ass to exercise thought and caution was serious.

And yet.

"Sure, it matters," Fuyuko says carefully, controlled, "But it also doesn't. You're worrying he jerked us around like dolls, manipulated our choices, but let's be real - we haven't ended up on any path we wouldn't have marched our way too anyway. There are too many ways to get power, and we were stubborn little shits. Whether he put Aurora in our path so he'd get us to be his Arbiters or not - these were our choices."

Bad circumstances or not. Limited options or not. She refuses to accept a world where her actions were not her own.

Leaning back, she takes a swig of her beer. "We were going to end up waging war on a god one way or another. But I don't remember all the things Aurora told us - only the things that came in handy, in the end. And since we're not going back in time, anything he said is a useless endeavor. We'd be better off goading our boss into spilling more of his useless philosophies and getting more of hers out of Corona."

Mamoru is suggesting reading one of his little kiddie friends in, and Fuyuko's not sure what use another kid would be - but then, this kid has been pretty handy, so, "You could always try and get this advisor of yours to talk to Corona. See if she spouts off another recruitment pitch about her mission."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka shrugs to Mamoru, not a dismissal but rather just an indication that his point is heard and taken, but has little bearing on the current situation. "Getting rid of the Fade is a necessary first step to us freeing ourselves, but to me it's almost a separate issue. I don't think Balance is the cause of the Fade, I just think it makes a convenient Sword of Damocles for him to hang over our heads."

    "That said, I have nothing against you getting opinions from Kazuo or anything. I just don't want to put more people in danger over something I'm not sure is worth it yet. Once we know more, know for sure what we're doing.. I'll take all the help I can get. But talk to him if you like. Just make sure he's aware of what he may be stepping into if he chooses to help."

    She then glances sharply at Fuyuko, annoyance flashing across her expression. "Yeah, I get it, Fuyuko. We are who we are, and even some interdimensional creep pulling strings was never going to send us down a path we didn't want to walk. I get that, and I agree with you."

    "But it's not about what could have been. It's about punishing his fucking temerity if he really has been fucking with us for a decade. Because it makes me mad. And I will be damned if I am going to let anybody get away with thinking they can take away my agency and make me dance to their tune, even if they can't. It's enough that he thought it. It's enough that he tried. And if any of the shit we went through could have been avoided... then somebody needs to be held responsible."

    Her grey eyes flash like daggers in the night. "I don't regret who we are, Fuyuko. But that doesn't mean he just gets to get away with it."

    She looks down after a moment, chewing her lip. "Back in time... hey. You know, the Kiseru Lady had some stupid door thing she once showed me, in her shop. It let you relive memories.. kind of like a holo-deck that took memories out of your mind and let you walk around in them and obsrve details and stuff even if you don't consciously remember them. Maybe we could use that to.. I dunno, look for some concrete clues we heard but didn't process at the time. It's worth a shot anyway. I bet she'd let us use it if we asked.. that creepy cougar seems more than happy to help with anything that could lead to misfortune for those involved."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"If he doesn't decide to see if Corona comes back like Kyubey," Mamoru says half under his breath, trying (and failing) to suppress a smirk. "Sure, I'll get him to. That'd be a riot."

He finishes his drink as he turns his attention to Kyouka, and swaps out the empty actual beer for a fresh ginger beer, unscrewing it as he listens. "Will do," he says of Kazuo, then sits back, head against the wall again.

Until Kyouka brings up the Kiseru Lady and her shop, and a door, and his eyes widen behind his glasses. "Ohhhh no," he says, "'could' lead to misfortune? She's like, practically made of dark energy, and you know what kind of prices she asks for favors. She is such a bad idea-- obviously your lives are yours to do with as you please, but like-- if she says ANYTHING about a price, seriously consider breaking in when she's not there."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"If Balance could cause the Fade, he'd probably pick and choose who it impacted," Fuyuko agrees, grimacing, "You don't have to worry as much about keeping the balance if you can pick and choose the ones who keep and lose power."

Why bother with Arbiters if you could ensure the light and the dark were evenly stocked, and shuffle out the peace-makers and war-breakers who might settle things one way or another?

At Kyouka's snapping, she just rolls her eyes. "As long as you're not about to go into some angsty spiral about our choices not being our own and our lives being toys for him to jerk around." A beat, and she glances at Mamoru with amusement. "If your advisor kills her, I get a front-row seat to whoever tries to arrest him for murder."

Most people would be upset someone had tried to arrest them for a murder that they fully committed. Not Fuyuko. She thinks it's the funniest thing that's happened to her in years.

And then Kyouka is actually considering her stupid idea, and she pauses at the mention of the Kiseru Lady. "I'm in favor of breaking in, if only to avoid the inevitable haggling when she asks for the life of a student or something in exchange for this little trip down memory lane."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "Look, I'm not insisting on anything." Kyouka says, insistently. "The Kiseru Lady and I have a ... " overlong pause, "...understanding. I think." She is probably vastly overselling the relationship.

    "Anyway all I'm proposing is we go and check it out and see if maybe we can learn anything. If the price is too high we walk. Alright?"

    "I mean, what's the worst that could happen?"