1761/Can't Catch a Break

Can't Catch a Break
Date of Scene:	09 July 2024
Location:	Juuban Ward
Synopsis:	Kyouka finds Usagi for a chat after Mamoru's capture.
Cast of Characters:	Kyouka Inai, Usagi Tsukino

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Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka's magic sense is well-developed, but that's especially true for people she knows very well or is close to. She can tell where Fuyuko is from half the city away. She's not quite so in-tune with Usagi, but she's close enough to the girl that knowing the general area she's likely to be found in, she can pinpoint a location.

    This is how she manages to teleport to the girl after her brief text conversation with Naru, materializing beside her at the bus stop as if walking out of thin air. She's in henshin, but there's no mistaking her for her younger self, still at large. This is the Stellar who is taller, more solid, and it must be said, a bit more haggard around those grey eyes of hers.

    "Usagi-chan." She greets the girl, her voice low. "I just heard what happened from Naru." Nothing further, yet. She's judging Usagi's state of mind before proceeding, because how the girl is handling things in the moment will matter in how she proceeds.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
To say that Usagi is doing poorly is an understatement. She sits at the bus stop, still in her school uniform, a plastic bag of sudden plushes clutched to her chest. She's texting remotely, going down the list of everyone 'she' knows, informing allies that Tuxedo Kamen has been taken by the Dark Kingdom, that they're hunting for information, that if anyone sees anyone at all associated with Obsidian, see if they know anything.

Some people turn their distress inward. Usagi is one of those people for whom everyone who knows her, knows that she's upset.

Which is why she's not too surprised to see Kyouka appear, though her tense shooulders relax a little bit.

"Riventon says he's not in Obsidian. Neither is Beryl," there's a hint of an apologetic tone in her voice, that she'd spoken to Riventon first, but she thinks Kyouka would understand.

"If you could reach him, you'd already be there so - you can't find him either?"

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka is not upset that Usagi would seek information from Riventon before informing her- after all, Riventon had at least a small chance of knowing something. Kyouka wouldn't, not right off the bat. "Naru told me what happened. A very brief summary anyway. She's still with Adrien."

    She seems remarkably in control of herself as well, considering she thinks of Mamoru as a brother. But Usagi has known her long enough to know that Kyouka is at her best in a crisis- sadly, crises occur often enough that this is valuable. One should not mistake her focus for lack of concern.

    "He's far enough away that I can't sense him, but that just means he's not in the neighborhood and he hasn't called for help. Which tells us he probably can't." She doesn't dwell too long on the implications of that. "I can ask Fuyuko if she knows anything, but if they're not at Obsidian I doubt she will. She's no fonder of Beryl than we are and is unlikely to be in on any secret info regarding her plots."

    She rests one hand on Usagi's shoulder and squeezes slightly. "This was always a possibility, since Beryl has never stopped hunting for him and he hasn't exactly been hiding. Not saying this is in any way his fault, just that it's been a risk and now we have to deal with it. We'll find him."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Naru had told Usagi what happened, because Usagi had been doing homework when Thetis kidnapped her fiance on behalf of the monstrous witch who'd killed him the first time. Usagi had not been entirely joking when she suggested she might never do homework again. It's going to be a long, long while before she's over the fact that she was doing something mundane and unimportant while Beryl was having Mamoru kidnapped.

"I can still feel him, so he's not - dead, or - magicless, again," her voice breaks a little, on the words, and Kyouka's hand squeezing her shoulder is almost enough to make her buckle. She blinks back tears, a totally normal occurence for one of Tokyo's biggest crybabies, and nods sharply, "We're going to find him. He's going to be okay. Even if he's not okay right now, he will be, and - we're going to find them, too. We've been working on it for a little while, and if they... if they do anything too dumb..."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "He survived being Darien Shields for like a decade, he'll survive this until we can find him. I promise you it won't take even a tiny fraction as long." There's a hardness to Kyouka's voice, a rigid determination. Beryl is not her enemy, in the sense that she is well aware that Usagi and Mamoru have 'dibs' on taking the self-proclaimed queen down, but the past six months have given her more than enough reasons to personally despise the Obsidian bigwig on her own account, and this is really just the final straw.

    "Mamoru has a lot of friends. A lot of people care about him. You and I among them, but we're not the only ones. Beryl is strong, but there's no way they get away with this, Usagi-chan. Don't worry."

    "We figure out where he is, then we gather everybody up. Then it's ride or die time. And I ain't planning on dying- or letting anybody else beat me to the punch."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"I know," she whispers, then scrunches her eyes, "It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay, because we're going to get him back, and we're going to make sure she can't ever threaten anyone, ever again, but I hate it, I hate her, I hate this -"

She's squeezing that poor bag as hard as she can.

"Mamochan and I have, we have so many friends and - and even if we didn't, this school got attacked, and I don't think anyone will like the idea of someone just attacking us in our own rooms," for the second time, because this is the second time that he's been threatened in his own home -

"I just wish that life gave us like, one, one easy break, you know? Can't we have some time to celebrate being engaged?!"

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "Let me clue you in on something, Usagi-chan," Kyouka says, and her voice is both firm, carrying conviction, and sorrowful, slightly apologetic. "All the days when we're not having a crisis- the days when you go to class, do homework, eat snacks with your friends, when you hang out with Mamoru. Even when you fight easy, routine youma and save some people- those are the easy breaks. Those days, when nothing much happens- that's the reward. That's life being good to you."

    "These days- the ones where everything goes wrong, where we have to sack up and defend what we care about- these are the days when we earn those easy ones. It's the price we pay for being... significant." She casts her gaze to the side.

    "You'll never be a nobody, Usagi. That's good, but it also comes with a price. You need to earn your peaceful days. All you can do is keep believing it'll be okay. Believe in yourself, and in your friends, and when the tests come, you'll crush them to dust."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
It's always Kyouka giving the bad news, giving the hard truths, giving the words that suck but that she knows are true down to her core. She's right, that the easy days were the ones where they got their dates interrupted and their engagement stream not interrupted and their quick breakfasts and everything but -

But boy, does she hate it.

"The price we pay for being significant," she echoes with a quiet sigh. Once, she would have resented that - had looked forward to the Fade so much, but she's grown and she's learned and she's not the person she was, and the person she is now, the awareness she has now, she wouldn't trade it away, but is it so much to ask for the good things to last longer, for the bad to run faster?

"It is going to be okay. It's going to be okay, because we're going to win, and we're going to handle her, and I'm going to blast her in the face for every single interrupted date and every bruise and every tear and I hate her."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka nods her head firmly. "It's going to be okay." She says, with just as much conviction as when she delivers hard truths. "Here's a fact for you, Usagi-chan. Bad guys been trying to win for all of history. The fact that we're still here and they're still trying means they haven't succeeded yet."

    "Granted, a kidnapped boyfriend may not be a world-ending crisis.. on the other hand, he is the Prince of the Earth, so maybe it qualifies. My point is just that it'll be okay because it's been okay before and it'll be okay again. They don't win because we don't let them. Nothing's gonna be different this time."

    She can't know that. Of course she can't. But she believes it with every fiber of her being, because Kyouka Inai doesn't know how to give up. Even when she really should.

    "I'm here for you, Usagi-chan, and for Mamoru. I'll keep looking for information, clues... anything. If you need anything from me though, don't hesitate to ask. I mean it. Anything, anytime- if it's within my ability, it's done."

    She lets a little of the stress how, a hand raising to pinch the bridge of her nose above her sunglasses. "God I miss being able to stab people."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
The bad guys did win before. These bad guys won before. But they hadn't gotten to enjoy their win, Beryl hadn't gotten to enjoy her win, she'd been killed before she could relish in the victory, and this time, this time they'd stop her before she could even get that far.

But Usagi clenches her fist around plastic bag, material crinkling. This time, they're going to take her down, and they're going to make it, and it's going to be worth it and they'll get to breathe again and everything will be fine.

"Naru-chan's got a big sword now," she says, almost on autopilot. "You should see if she'll let you borrow it. Because I think you should be able to stab people too."

Not that she's ever gotten to stab anyone herself and not that she really wants to stab people, but maybe she does. Maybe she does.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka would argue that the fact that we're here, that Usagi is Serenity reborn and Beryl still doesn't rule the world means that she didn't win before, either. It's just the cost of defeating her was... pyrrhic. A win is a win, but it sure would be great to win without quite so many dead this time.

    "Big swords are cool, but not really my style." Kyouka says, in a lighter tone. "Good for her though. Don't worry- I may not be able to stab people anymore, but so far it hasn't stopped me being a thorn in plenty of sides."

    "I'll go and keep looking. Keep your chin up, kid." And then she's gone.