1691/The Doctor Is Gaming tbh

The Doctor Is Gaming tbh
Date of Scene:	21 June 2024
Location:	Dorms #1
Synopsis:	Chiyo comes to Mamoru for heals after getting stabbed, and they talk about bad boys, aheh.
Cast of Characters:	Chiyo Sakai, Mamoru Chiba

---

Chiyo Sakai has posed:
<TEXT to Mamoru> Hey you awake? I just ran into Phantom and could use a fix-me-up.

While she does wait for an answer in case he's not in, being in the dorms now herself certainly made the trek to visit him far less onerous than when she was still living at Nounamu. Still, she's in the dorm hallway leaning against the wall with her good shoulder while the other arm had been arranged as carefully as she could. A purse is slung over her good shoulder and across her body so that she can use it like a make-shift sling to prop up her arm. The less weight she had pulling on her injured shoulder right now, the better.

At least it wasn't bleeding anymore. The oversized t-shirt she wore, borrowed from Wako's closet, named some idol group she didn't know about. One that had been declared 'so last season' so she wasn't going to feel too bad about ruining it in case it did start oozing again.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
    Mamoru TXT: yup

When Mamoru opens his door, his eyes zero in on the way Chiyo's got her purse and arm arranged, and his mouth compresses into a thin line. He gestures for her to come in, and it's not until the door's closed behind her that he asks, "This is from the guy you nursed back to health? Does he know your identity?"

It's a perfectly reasonable question! It's not leading or biased or anything!

Koji's out, but Mamoru's bed's only a little wrinkled and there's a laptop on it, which means he was probably just gaming in mild comfort. The window's open, letting in the warm breeze, and there's a fan on the desk to help circulate the air.

The fluffy-haired eleventh-grader pulls out his desk chair in such a way that Chiyo's hurt arm will face him if he sits on the edge of his bed. "Have a seat. Is it your arm, your shoulder, something else...?"

Chiyo Sakai has posed:
Chiyo Sakai breathes a little sigh of relief when the response comes. She shifts her weight away from the wall to continue down the hall by the time that he opens the door, flashing him a wan smile. Tired. Pained. But she was trying to hide it. It was just less an issue about hiding it now that she was around someone who knew she was in fact injured.

While stepping inside the question comes causing her to shake her head a single time before stilling with a sharper breath. "Shoulder," she informs as she moves to sit down in the offered chair. "Back of my shoulder. He tried to use a portal stab me from behind. I didn't even realize he had a sword until this fight to be honest."

With a sigh she adds, flashing him a thankful look for even asking the question, "And no, he doesn't know my identity. I think he suspects 'Chiyo' is magical somehow, but I never revealed who I was."

Her good hand shifts to start trying to work the 'sling' off with small winces but no further noise. "Though he may after this fight."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"No don't," Mamoru says hurriedly, reaching out and touching Chiyo's arm with his gloved right hand, then looking briefly frustrated with himself and yanking the glove off, which reveals the scars but Chiyo won't care.

"Don't move," he says, and when his fingertips touch her arm this time, there's a golden glow, anaesthetic, distracting with its sense of connection and continuity, its sense of something ancient and vast, of home and safe harbor.

"No point in rolling up your sleeve to see, then, I'll just look from the inside. I was going to ask if your own candy didn't work on you, but that's a silly question-- of course you'd save them," he says, all preoccupied, his eyes looking in the direction of Chiyo's covered shoulder but not actually seeing it right now.

"Oof," he sucks in a breath, "he got you pretty good. And backstabbing is so rude! I'm still mad at La Crima for doing that to Neph, and we were all in Obsidian at the time." A beat. "What do you mean he might know after this fight?"

Chiyo Sakai has posed:
Chiyo Sakai stops instantly at that 'no don't' with her hand still on the strap of the purse. Slowly her fingers unclench to let the strap settle back keeping her arm in the position it was before. She'd nod but already determined that was not a muscle she wanted to pull right now either. "Sorry. You're right."

The mention of her own candy though? That garners a little grin as she rolls her tongue around in her mouth to stick her tongue out with a konpeito on her tongue like some kind of confectionary tongue ring. Only not piercing. "It helps the pain, but I can't make anything more substantial with my arm this way," she explains as it's tucked back into her cheek where it was before. Otherwise... Yes she does keep most of the 'really good stuff' for others.

"Rashmi did a on-site heal to keep it from bleeding at least." Just enough to move, not enough to ruin it for the more thorough healing that Mamoru was doing.

A small ripple of guilt runs through her when he questions about Phantom possibly knowing now. Guilt, and uncertainty, and feeling foolish. Her eyes shut with a sigh as she feels that great, ancient solidity of the Earth that was Mamoru's powers.

"I said something to jab at him but realized it was something he'd said to me and not Daifuku. I tried to cover it by blaming Hosshiwa for when she attacked the shop. I'm not sure it worked." A rookie mistake and by now she wasn't a rookie.

Oh god and now she was thinking of Phantom who she'd seen show a softer side, who was cute, who was actually rather dashing when he fought and... Maybe, just maybe, a bit of schadenfreude. Her lips quirk into a grin. "He mirrored Hinoiri to get revenge for stealing his powers."

Okay maybe a lot of schadenfreude she hadn't forgiven Hinoiri yet.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Ha!" Mamoru's reaction to the konpeito is a thorough amusement, halfway distracted but still delighted that she'd use at least something on herself. He listens, keeping track of what she's saying more by how she feels about it than by the words out loud; he nods when appropriate, but shakes his head at the guilt and foolish-feeling.

"We all make mistakes," he says firmly, "and it may still only be a suspicion. How egregious were the coincidences that piled up before you got our identities?" By 'our' it's clear he means himself and Usagi.

He politely Doesn't Notice the thinking about Phantom; he'd be the world's biggest hypocrite if he said too much about it. And besides, then there's the schadenfreude and Mamoru positively rolls around in it. "That's hilarious honestly? Did anyone get pics?"

And then he pulls his hand away, and the feelings and the healings and the connection all go away, but it doesn't hurt anymore. That might be because of-- "If you don't want to keep using up konpeito, you can probably just take some ibuprofen if it's still stiff by the time you go to bed, and you'll be fine in the morning."

Chiyo Sakai has posed:
One little chuckle of her own comes as she recalls the mirroring, or rather, the Terribad that appeared from it. "I'll have to ask Page Mage if she did maybe. The Terribad was a giant pompadour wearing pegasus. It sang at us about 'being a star'," she explains only for her expression to shift again to a vaguely confused one. "Though Phantom seemed to be getting more into the singing than it was."

The thought is for now brushed aside as she testingly lifts her shoulder, and slides her arm out of the purse strap gently. It was *much* better which was to be expected. She'd have to make sure she ate a lot of protein later to make up for it.

"Thanks, Mamoru. This helps a ton." More than a ton really. Her fingers flex a time or two testingly as she carefully starts to rejudge her motions. It was weird going from injured-to-not and took a moment or two for her brain to catch up to it.

"I still don't have any info on how to get that girl out of the mirror. If there was a monster to defeat that seems to be the way to do it, but I think it's different for the Precures since he pops their henshin objects out with them."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru sits back a little more, hands curled around the edge of his bed, elbows locked; he nods with a crooked little smile at the thanks-- it would come with a 'be careful' but there's nothing to be done about backstabbing teleporting villains. "Anytime," he says instead.

"Maybe shoving her henshin device back into the mirror would do something," he suggests, but there's a sigh attached, because that's a pretty useless idea. "If we could. If trying to destroy the mirror to get her out is on the table, then just have Usa do a Moon Coffin Mirror Action and throw it."

Chiyo Sakai has posed:
Chiyo Sakai considers it for a few moments as she looks down to a spot on the floor. "The only information I got out of him about the mirrored girl is that 'the one who began it can finish it.' Which sounds like that means him, or perhaps his Queen. Still..." Here she pauses to chew on her lower lip in a way that was probably not good for the continued not-cracking-ness of her lip.

"To free the others we have to defeat their desires turned into a youma. Or terribad or whatever. Maybe if Usagi-chan tried purifying their henshin device, since it's what's outside? Though it may not be something that *can* be purified either," she admits with a sigh. ... Only to pause as her head tilts to the side with a thought.

"The bracer he wears. He uses that to put them in the mirror. Maybe it's *that* we need to purify."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Or steal it and use it, but then what about all the other ones?" A beat, and Mamoru frowns a little. "Who is he loyal to, anyway? Who would make him want to actually stab opponents? That's a really visceral, personal way of doing battle -- I only did it once, I stabbed Hinoiri's hand. I wasn't trying to kill her, it was revenge for what she did to Naru. But he tried stabbing you in the back in a regular fight?"

Mamoru shakes his head and slouches, crossing his arms. "I'm not quite getting distracted. It's just hard to figure his motivations. Brainwashing and dark energy can make someone with the traits you saw in him do a lot, and unpersoning the people hurt by one's actions does a lot more... but if we can get who he's loyal to and what they want, you might be able to re-person the girls he's trapped and get him to let them go, too."

Chiyo Sakai has posed:
Chiyo Sakai shakes her head a little bit at that only to puff a breath of air sending her bangs flopping. "Queen Mirage. He says it's duty he's bound to, and apparently she wants to bring misery to the world because 'love is a trap' or something." Which makes her think of another story she heard recently but... She had no proof yet the two were connected.

"Even when I pointed out that his Queen was 'taking' everything but not giving him anything in return, like he accused Hinoiri of, he went back to talking of being duty-bound."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Sounds like me at my worst," Mamoru says, hunching his shoulders in a little bit for a second. "Beryl had me convinced I'd sworn loyalty to her even if I didn't remember doing so, and she put fake memories in, too. And she took so many memories, I had no idea my real name wasn't Hematite..."

He glances at the gathering dark outside the window, then shakes his head. "It's going to take a lot of wearing him down. And I feel like you really want to. Just... don't let him stab you again?"

Chiyo Sakai has posed:
Chiyo Sakai opens her mouth to protest that 'wants to' part. There's nothing that can really come out in protest though as she closes her mouth looking a bit torn. "He does remind me of you in a way, back toward the beginning. Except he hasn't really come far at all. He was so concerned about making sure I didn't get hurt when I was looking after him. He also thought I was just some girl though," she admits with a sigh.

Her hands plant on her knees to brace as she pushes back to her feet with a little backward tilt to stretch her back out. No slouching allowed. "Plus I've got another guy I might like too. One who actually seems to like me for once and not any girl that crosses his path." A rueful grin comes, and she nods toward Mamo a single time.

"I'll be careful though. At the very least I know to expect sneak attacks now."