665/Radiant Infirmary Episode 665

From Radiant Heart MUSH

Radiant Infirmary Episode 665
Date of Scene: 28 October 2023
Location: Administrative Office
Synopsis: Makoto gets sent to the Nurse's office to get her records updated. There she finds an ally and the patron facilitating her roomate's cooking adventure.
Cast of Characters: Makoto Kino, Setsuna Meiou


Makoto Kino has posed:
The rather obviously form-generated Official Note from the school came as a bit of a surprise, and surprises on official letterhead have a way of generating a certain amount of anxiety in Makoto... but then again, she did just get her official room assignment. The wheels of administration turn slowly.

So after classes, the first day she has the afternoon free, finds Makoto Kino looking carefully into the nurse's office. "Um... Hello? I got a note saying I need to have my records updated..."

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Generally, the infirmary's a fairly small office for the nurse and some equipment. At least, that's the general rule. Given the budget Radiant Heart boasts, the infirmary's a bit bigger and more well appointed than most. There are several beds (which are currently not in use) and to an eye familiar with the medical world, there's enough well-laid-out kit that it's quite likely that, in extremis, one could actually do surgery here.

Still, most of the room is broken up with little rolling-wall medical dividers, with the bulk of the area set up for the kind of service one would need for a typical average assortment of students. Reasonably nice chairs, little triage areas, that kind of thing. The walls have various posters one might see in a doctor's office, though most of them are a bit more aimed at student-level things like common adolescent illnesses and the like. One particular poster, however, probably catches the eye: It's a picture of a doctor next to a patient pointing at a diagram of a human heart with the caption, 'Here's an example of what you should never do with your heart; cut it in half and look inside.'

Perhaps a bit more eye-catching is the nurse. Most likely it's because Halloween is coming up...but along with a few little black cat, pumpkin, and skeleton decorations about the room in unobtrusive places...the Nurse herself has taken to the holiday.

In this case, she's dressed...well...she's wearing a leather breastplate with gold accents, a large gold torc around her neck, a black skirt with a long maroon sash wrapped around it and hanging to one side, thigh-high gold armored boots with three inch heels and black gloves that come up past the elbow with an armored gauntlet on her left hand as well as a gold tiara in her hair.

Fans of anime or western animation might recognize the costume as being that of Pyrrha Nikos from RWBY or RWBY:Ice Queendom.

As Makoto pokes her head in, she's absently leaning against a counter, reading a book while almost absently rolling a pen through the fingers of her left hand. Said book has a picture on the back cover of a tall, scruffy looking man wearing a trenchcoat and holding a staff in one hand and a rather huge revolver in the other...but almost immediately she looks up and smiles, "Ah, Miss Kino. Come in. Come in. Enter freely and of your own free will and all that."

Makoto Kino has posed:
The setup and decorations were more or less expected; Makoto has spent some time in the nurse's offices of other schools. None of them were this big or this nice, but in broad strokes it's all pretty familiar.

The first look she gets at Setsuna, costume and all - that's considerably less expected.

That particular greeting doesn't help either. Makoto stops in her tracks halfway in the door, green eyes going very wide as she takes in the details of Setsuna's attire. "Okay," she says slowly, and does not move any farther into the room. "This... is the nurse's office, right?" It is obviously the nurse's office. Abruptly it seems to occur to her that she's being very rude - with a flush rising bright pink in her face, she hurries the rest of the way in and executes a polite little bow. "Right. Never mind. Sorry. It's been a confusing couple of weeks, is all."

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
As Makoto fully enters the office, the pen in Nurse Meiou's free hand almost snaps to a halt...then she does an odd little twist of her wrist which makes the pen disappear...and then she reverses said twist and it's replaced by...

Well, if things were perhaps a bit beyond the ordinary before, one might feel right in assuming they just got rather stranger.

Because what appears in Nurse Meiou's hand looks, for all intents and purposes, like a piece of...void.

Pure nothing.

Blackness that swallows all light in bar form.

By the way she twists her hand, said bar SHOULD be rotating somehow in her hand...but it just looks like it's getting wider...and a golden, stylized capital P is hovering somehow in that inky black...thing.

Which Nurse Meiou then uses to mark her place in her book, which she snaps shut (revealing the title to read 'Turn Coat' in English), which she sets down on the counter beside her, "So what brings you here today, Miss Kino?"

Makoto Kino has posed:
Makoto doesn't answer right away. She's too busy staring again, this time at the book that Setsuna just set down, visibly trying to process what she just saw. It takes her a moment or two to realize that the nurse even spoke, and then she snaps back to herself with a little jolt and makes a thoroughly useless attempt at schooling her expression into something normal.

The girl just has no poker face whatsoever, it's clear.

"That's--" she begins, stops herself, and starts over. "I got a note," she explains again. A little fishing into her pocket produces it, now folded into quarters and a little crumpled from being carried around in this fashion. "Something about updating my records? I just moved rooms, so I think someone finally remembered that I transferred in last summer."

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou ahhhs and glances over at the note, then indiates for Makoto to follow her as she walks over to a corner of the office, "Right this way, then, dear."

She indicates a slightly raised plate up against one wall, and she absently clips a small piece of plastic over Makoto's index finger, "If you'll step up here, please?"

As she waits, she asks, "So how are you liking the new school, Miss Kino?"

Makoto Kino has posed:
There may have been a semi-covert double take as Nurse Meiou stood up, in that moment of realization that Makoto actually has to look up to meet her eyes when she's standing. But really, one can only be so surprised by so many things in quick succession. She follows as directed, and steps carefully onto the raised plate when instructed to do so.

"It's pretty nice," she replies, still a bit distracted by... everything. "It kind of took a while to settle in, I guess, but I've made some good friends, and it's fun to have a roommate. I'm mostly trying to keep out of trouble."

Mentioning her new roommate brings something else to mind, and she looks toward Setsuna with a question in her eyes. "Are you Nurse Meiou?"

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
A button is pressed...and an armature swings out from the wall...around Makoto while shining a bright light on her...and then it rotates over to the opposite wall, "And that's that. Height, weight, mass, volume, density, blood pressure, pulse, blood oxygen."

She takes the small clip off Makoto's finger, "That would indeed be me, Miss Kino."

She then indicates one of the nearby exam beds, "Once more, this way."

Makoto Kino has posed:
Makoto holds herself very still as the armature swings into place and the light from it passes over her. When Setsuna declares the process done, she blinks. "...All of that, just from whatever that was just now?" As she steps down from the raised space, she half-turns to give the setup a baffled look. "Isn't that really super high tech? Especially for a school infirmary, wow." A little shake of her head, as she orients back toward Nurse Meiou again.

"Adora - my new roommate - mentioned you. She said you fixed her up with a bunch of stuff to make applesauce, after she got injured. It was a really nice thing to do." She trails after Setsuna as she speaks, but when the nurse indicates the exam bed, she stops and gives it a dubious look. "What's this part for, if you just got all my numbers back there?"

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou smiles, "Ahh, Miss Rainbowfist. She's your roommate? Yes, she's had a rather rough time of things and is really keen to rescue a friend of hers from Obsidian...so I felt helping her by making up for some of her missed birthdays was in order."

She shrugs, "I have the money and it was the right thing to do." A wave is then given to the little sensor, "Eh, it's a bit higher tech than one usually sees...but when they make us do the National required physicals later in the year, this will save me a TON of time."

At the question about the bed, "That was your physical numbers, dear. Next is reflexes and whatnot. Now have a seat."

She then steps over and gets one of those little rubber 'tomahawk' mallets.

Makoto Kino has posed:
"Yeah, she mentioned that part too - about her girlfriend. It sounded like she's had it pretty rough." Makoto nods her understanding, seeming thoroughly comfortable with the whole concept of anyone needing to be 'rescued' from Obsidian. "It kind of put my problems in perspective."

She listens to the explanation, head tilting a little to the side, and then nods slowly. "All right..." Moving gingerly, she seats herself on the edge of the exam bed, propping her hands to either side of her legs.

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
The nurse then gives the little 'reflex' taps to the knees...though she pointedly keeps herself slightly to the side so she's not in line for any overly reactive swings. Makoto's comment about her problems, however, gets the nurse to pause, "Oh? And what problems might those be?"

Absently, she steps over, swaps tools and gets one of those little things for looking in ears, which she shines in the appropriate places.

Makoto Kino has posed:
An awkward half-smile quirks at Makoto's mouth to the side at the subject of her own problems. The discussion at least distracts her from paying too close attention to the exam, which is probably for the better.

"Nothing that serious," is her demurring reply, though she glances away across the infirmary as she says it. "New school, new ward. Being taller than most of my class and a lot of the ones ahead of me. Trying to stay out of fights when people keep turning up who just really seem like they need a kick in the head. The usual transfer student stuff. No girlfriends getting recruited and having their heads messed with by evil corporations or... anything like that."

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou nods, checking the other ear, then switching heads before shining it at Makoto's mouth, "Say 'Antidisestablishmentarianism'."

In the moment of likely confusion, she gets the look at tongue and tonsils she needs, then she picks up a penlight and watches Makoto's eyes for pupil response as she flicks the light across them.

Then, while the younger woman is distracted by the whole process, the Nurse adds, "...I imagine the whole 'Magic' thing doesn't help with the confusion and awkwardness, either.

Because she KNOWS Adora is constitutionally incapable of keeping that kind of secret...so there's no way she can possibly imagine them putting someone who's NOT magical as well in with her as a roommate. They'd have to deal with a psychotic break within the week.

Makoto Kino has posed:
"An--wuh?" Yeah that worked about as expected. Makoto nearly goes cross-eyed for a moment before she realizes what the nurse is actually doing and just gives up entirely.

She's just begun to relax a little, as much as anyone can with a light being directed right into their eyes - and then Setsuna casually drops that comment, and she freezes again. "Um."

The breath goes out of her in a rush, seeming to nearly deflate her by a few centimeters. "Well, yeah, that too." There doesn't seem any point in trying to deny it now. "A confusing few weeks, like I said. And people who really need to be kicked in the head. Did you go to the masquerade ball at the D embassy, Meiou-sensei?"

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou picks up a tablet and starts jotting down some notes, "No, sadly I was unable to attend for various reasons. I heard there was a bit of excitement there...and given what I know about at least a few of the attendees, I imagine said excitement was probably FAR FAR more 'exciting' than the offical reports mention."

She looks over at Makoto and arches an eyebrow a bit, "I take it you WERE there, then? What happened?"

Makoto Kino has posed:
"I'd by lying if I said I knew," Makoto replies, immediate and bluntly honest. "There was someone pretending to be Sailor V for some reason, and I think Princess Dia got possessed for a little bit? Mostly, though, I still have no idea what any of it was really about."

She looks down, frowning at her own knees. "The, um, freak thunderstorm that came up out of nowhere, and then went away just as fast." The frown turns into a little grimace, half uncertain and a little guilty. "That part was me."

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
There's a snort as Nurse Meiou shakes her head a little, "Are you certain it wasn't ACTUALLY 'Sailor V'? Or was someone pretending to be her instead?" She smirks a bit and shakes her head, murmuring, "...why that girl keeps up that charade is beyond me..."

She then chuckles, "Oh? A possession? THAT must have gone over well. I take it someone was able to exorcise her, then?"

And then Makoto confesses to manipulating the weather, and the nurse arches an eyebrow, "Oh really? Impressive. I take it weather control is in your magical wheelhouse, or is it something else?"

Makoto Kino has posed:
"Well," says Mako, "I hit her in the face and knocked her on her butt, so I really hope it wasn't actually Sailor V. Sailor Moon said she wasn't, though, and I'm pretty sure I can take her word for it."

She straightens back up a bit, lifting her head. "Like I said, I didn't really understand most of what happened. It seemed like the Princess was okay at the end of it, though. Maybe a little shaken up. Anyway... this is all pretty new for me, still," she admits. "I didn't really do most of it on purpose. Storms and lightning, the wind... and flowers, maybe? That could just be because I like flowers, though."

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou nods, "Oh, yes. It wasn't her, then. Sailor Moon's a sweetheart and she would know if it was actually Sailor V. If she gave her blessing, it was a righteous hit, no worries."

She snorts, "...that girl is sometimes too nice for this world, I swear."

Then Makoto mentions storms, lightning...and flowers...which makes her blink a few times and then give the other young woman a somewhat intense look, "...and if you don't mind me asking...WHO are you when you're magical...?"

Because that combination is causing all kinds of alarm bells to go off in the back of her head.

Makoto Kino has posed:
And there it is: the sixty million yen question. Makoto's eyes widen and she hesitates, looking very much like a deer in the headlights... or perhaps someone sitting in the hot seat.

"Um," she says, and then bites her lip. "I'm not sure if I should really say. It's fine you know I have magic, or whatever, but from what I found out that night, this whole thing kind of... comes with a team, so it's not just my secret to keep."

A beat. "Actually--"

She holds up a hand, a silent request for patience, and digs into her pocket for her cell phone. Despite the blatant rudeness of it, she thumbs out a quick text message and sends it.

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou smiles and leans back a bit in her chair, wavewaving a hand towards Makoto, "I understand, dear."

She's got an idea who that text might be going to, after all.

While she waits, she absently fills out the rest of Makoto's paperwork.

Makoto Kino has posed:
A couple more texts are sent and received in a quick flurry, before Makoto stands bolt upright from the exam bed and blurts out, "I'm Sailor Jupiter."

Turns out that was pretty simple after all.

She glances down at her phone one last time before she puts it away, and looks up with a fresh question on her face. "And you're Sailor Pluto? How many more of us are there? Sailor Moon and Luna explained a lot to me, after the whole thing at the embassy, but it feels like it hasn't really sunk in all the way yet."

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
At Makoto's admission, Nurse Meiou's smile brightens noticably, "A pleasure to meet you again, Jupiter. And yes, I'm also Sailor Pluto."

At the second question, she sighs a bit, "...well, once I would have just answered you with a flat 'nine'...but apparently some of the lesser bodies have started to manifest Senshi."

The green haired woman gives a slight shake of her head, "I can't say as I remember anyone else...but it's been a LONG time and my memory for details from back then isn't as good as it should be...but I was talking with Neptune and Uranus the other night, and they mentioned running into a Sailor Eris...so apparently the answer at the momemt is 'at least ten'.

Makoto Kino has posed:
Makoto laughs a little and inclines her head. "It's nice to meet you, too."

A hand comes up to rub absently at the back of her neck as she takes in Setsuna's explanation, and the news of a Sailor Eris. "...It's still really weird to think of having this whole other life, so far back in the past. Like I said before, this is all new to me. It's a relief to know that it's not just me, though. I can't imagine trying to figure this all out alone."

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou sighs, "...trust me, it was no fun."

She then shakes her head, "...still, you've got some good teammates. Venus, Moon, Mercury, Mars...they're all awake and about..."

She frowns, "Well, apparently Mercury's got something happening according to Moon. It might have been a family thing...I forgot to ask. She'll be back sooner or later, I imagine."

The nurse stands up and stretches a little, then says, "Let me know if you ever want or need some backup. I'm easy enough to contact...and I figured you should probably know you don't have to try to hide any wounds you might pick up, as I'll gladly help treat them and cover you when you need some...like with Miss Rainbowfist."

She snaps her fingers, "Oh! You'd mentioned that mixer, has she figured out how to use it yet? I'd offer, but truth told, my kitchen skills basically begin and end at 'heat per the box' and being able to make breakfast.

Makoto Kino has posed:
"That is good to know," Makoto says, inclining her head slightly in acknowledgement and gratitude. "Thank you, Meiou-sensei. I haven't told Adora who I am exactly... for the same reason I wasn't sure if I should tell you... but she knows she doesn't have to hide any of the magic stuff from me. So the two of us can look out for each other, as well.

The mention of the mixer brings a sparkle of enthusiasm into Makoto's green eyes. "I don't think she'd tried it out yet, but I promised her I'd help her learn how it works since she was nice enough to say I could use it, too. It's so much nicer than anything I've gotten to work with before!"

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou walks over to one corner of the office, retreives something, then heads back, "Ah. So I take it you like to cook, then? Well, if you ever want or need to do some large scale cooking, I'll be more than happy to donate my kitchen for your use."

She sighs, "Heaven knows none of us who live there are really all that good, so a lot of the kit I have is probably going to waste."

She then hrms, "And keep an eye out for another young Mahou who goes by 'Guardian Daifuku'. Her entire thing is LITERALLY cooking magical food."

She smiles, "You'll probably get along well with her. As it is, you're in good health. Your records have been updated, so that's taken care of. Let me know if you or Miss Rainbowfist need any more supplies."

She then hands Makoto a fullsized Snickers bar. The packaging is all in English, for some reason.

Makoto Kino has posed:
The offer of kitchen space has Mako perking up with visible interest. "I've been making do pretty well with what the dorms have, but I'll keep that in mind. I do like to cook... not that the cafeteria here isn't good, or anything, but there's no substitute for a home-cooked meal--"

It's a subject she clearly has Opinions on, and she might have continued along those lines, except that the reference to Guardian Daifuku derails her. "Magical food? That's a thing? Oh, I can't wait to meet her.

She accepts the candy bar with mild surprise, looking the English-language wrapper over curiously for a moment or two before she smiles up at Setsuna. "I will," she promises. "For now, though, I should get out of your way. Thank you again, Meiou-sensei!"

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou waves Makoto off, "Take care. dear!" With that, she turns and goes back to tidying up before closing down for the day.