329/Like Confetti

Like Confetti
Date of Scene:	30 August 2023
Location:	Tsukino-Osaka Dorm
Synopsis:	Himeko-chan visits Usagi in the dorms, showing off her new form and revealing some of her past. Usagi reacts appropriately, of course - with much friendly affection and upset over the horrors such a little kid has had to endure. Also, there are bandaids.
Cast of Characters:	Pyrite, Usagi Tsukino

---

Pyrite has posed:
    A female figure makes her way through the girls' dorm building. She has a wine-red hoodie on, with the hood pulled up, and is wearing a pair of cut-off jean shorts. Her hands are in her pockets, and only a pair of black braids swaying back and forth while she walks with her head down are visible for what may be inside the hood. The upper half of her face is shadowed heavily. As sneaker-clad feet gradually close in on the door to Usagi and Naru's apartment, the pace slows. The girl looks up the hall and then back the way she came, warily, before pulling out her right hand and knocking lightly but firmly on the door. She leaves her hand out afterwards, allowing her arm to drop to her side.

    Her pale hand keeps opening and closing slowly, flexing muscles as though preparing to do something with it. Hmmmmm. Very suspicious.

    Maybe she's just planning on knocking again if there's no answer.

    The idea that the person she seeks might not even be here right now hasn't occurred to her.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
The person she seeks is there right now, of course. Perhaps it's luck, perhaps it's Destiny - perhaps it's plain old predictability, but Usagi Tsukino is most certainly in her room, stretched out over the length of her bed with a stack of manga volumes beside her. She's wearing knit shorts and an overlarge shirt with a bunny symbol on it - the symbol of Overwatch character D.VA, with NERF and THIS written in scrawling letters above and below the bunny, and she kicks her feet a little as she reads, giggling and sighing in turn over the teeth-rotting sweetness of the love affairs unraveling in the pages. It's just so wonderful, finally getting to the part of the series where everyone's dreams are coming true!

And then she hears the knock on her door; it's not all that loud, but it's firm, and in the quiet of the room, easy enough to hear. Usagi lowers her manga, listening for another knock - none come. And yet...

"Coming!"

It's careful work to climb down the ladder for the top bunk - Usagi's has slipped coming down twice this week, each time lucky enough to do no more than bang her elbow or stub her toe - but once she's on solid, reliable ground again, Usagi heads for the door, flinging it open with a cheerful, "Tsukino-Osaka residence, how can I help - oh?"

Pyrite has posed:
    The girl might be a bit small for her apparent age, but based on stature and body shape, she is probably a young teenager. Maybe around Usagi's age, even if only an inch taller than Naru and an inch shorter than Usagi.

    She is also looking away at the moment she hears the voice come from within, and flinches in surprise before taking a step back and returning her hand to her pocket. Her head is still down. When the door opens, she is solidly a few feet away across the hallway. The overhead lights start flickering. Oh, boy, here we go. This is the start of a horror movie.

    "Usagi-san." the girl says. A familiar, if deeper-than-remembered voice. "Please don't be alarmed. I wanted to talk to you while you are alone." The lights stabilize.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
The girl is familiar-but-not, like seeing someone she knew vaguely but no longer remembers. She's a little smaller than Usagi, which doesn't happen very often, but still just slightly taller than where Naru-chan's eyeline would be; it means she's probably not in Usagi and Naru's grade, because she's totally unfamiliar. (Sure, there are hundreds of kids per grade, but she feels confident she'd have noticed this girl in her classes.)

The lights flickering overhead, the girl standing a few feet away from the door, the familiar but not voice - honestly all of it's pretty scary! Usagi is a Known Coward. Her eyes are pretty wide.

But then the girl asks her not to be alarmed and says seh wants to talk, and the lights stop flickering, and Usagi has one of those flashes of insight always connected to people and friends and those she knows and she asks, bewildered, "Himeko-chan?"

Pyrite has posed:
    Being identified makes the lights wildly flicker chaotically up and down the hallway until they finally just go out completely, dousing the corridor in darkness -- aside any light that leaks in from other floors or windows. "...May we speak inside?" she answers finally, her head raising enough so that her bright-red eyes can be seen glowing in the dark. The lights flicker back on and stabilize, but Himeko lowers her head and looks away again. One hand does come out of her pocket to toy with one of her braids.

    "Onii-chan is okay." she offers quietly as reassurance, so the blonde-haired girl doesn't think this is bad news or anything.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
The lights go nuts and Usagi flinches back - but when she does, her hand flies out - not to strike or push Himeko away, but in a grasping motion, as if she instinctively meant to yank the other girl in with her, and only belated considered that maybe she shouldn't just grab at her. She's sheepish when she lowers her hand, and nods in abject confusion. "Come in?"

And yet, tension definitely fades out of her when she hears that Darien is okay. Her shoulders relax, her eyes get less wide. "I mean, definitely come in. I'm glad you're okay, Himeko-chan, I was worried about you too."

She is ushering her in now, and the second she sweeps through the door, it will be shut behind them.

The dorm room is obviously split between two girls of entirely different lifestyle - one side neat and organized, the other messy and chaotic; a first aid kit can be glimpsed, tucked away into the neat side of the room, while a cat bed lies surpriisngly close to a shut laptop on the messier side.

Pyrite has posed:
    Himeko lowers her hood after the jumpscare of Usagi reaching for her, and the invitation to come inside. She quickly crosses the few steps into the room, still refusing to make eye contact. Once she's in a more well-lit environment, the differences in her appearance are very, very clear. Still the same girl. But she either had a huge growth spurt or she has aged three or four years since the last time these two saw each other.

    She also has a scar on her left cheek. It's a fresh one, based off the redness of the skin, so it might not linger once it has healed. Himeko nods once in an abbreviated manner in acknowledgment, thanks, and also to signify she appreciates being thought of. "I just thought it would be a good idea to see one of us, instead of talking on the phone."

    Himeko shuffles her feet before taking in a breath and letting it out. Her eyes close briefly, then she raises her head fully. "So. Some weird stuff happened."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Usagi looks Himeko over with obvious curiosity the second her hood is down, comparing the girl in her memories to the one standing before her, and finding that yes, she has to agree, some weird stuff has definitely happened. This girl here is obviously older. She's hurt too, even if the mark on her cheek might go away soon, and she's - she seems a little more conscious of things, than the Himeko-chan she met before, the one who was so invested in ducks. Usagi feels a little pang at that, sorrow and regret and something like that, at the thought that she didn't get to take Himeko-chan to see the ducks before she grew up.

"I'm glad to see you, especially because things definitely seemed... weeird."

Another pause, and then she turns and walks to Naru's side of the room, digging out the first aid kit.

"Do you want a bandaid, Himeko-chan? Your cut could get all infected or something, just being open, and - you got really big. Either you grew up fast, like, um, magic wish on a star fast, or something happened, and either way, I'm really glad you came to talk to me."

Just to reassure her!

Pyrite has posed:
    Himeko blinks. A bandaid? She searches her memory for anything like that, and finds some of the ones she got from Mamoru. "...Ah. No. That's okay. I mean, you can put one on, but..." She shrugs. How to explain that she built this body out of something unknown and it doesn't actually heal? Or maybe it does. She hasn't had cause to try to regenerate it. "Magic..." she mutters. "That's probably accurate." She doesn't really know how else to explain the radical shift in her physical form just because she chose a different material for it.

    As a ghost, it's probably tied to her mental state and emotional development, but like heck if she knows about any of that. She's just a ghost! "Something happened either way. A friend of onii-chan's had something bad happen to them, and it looked like it might have been me who did it." She hastens to add in alarm, "It wasn't me! But onii-chan didn't know that at first. So... Some stuff happened at my--at the shrine, and I think we got mixed up a little bit. Like, mixed together. So I know more now, and I think he remembers things he couldn't before. But I don't know if that's really the case... This isn't exactly something that has happened to me before."

    Unsure what else to do with herself, she crouches down where she stands and finally takes both hands out of her pockets in favor of resting them on her knees. "...So how have you been doing, Usagi-san?" she asks awkwardly.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
No and that's okay are two very clear answers. But, to then say she could put one on anyway, it makes Usagi think that maybe Himeko's no is more of a 'I don't see the point', instead of a genuine no. An dthere's always a point in not hurting! So Usagi opens the first aid kit, finds a bandaid that looks long enough, and a wet-wipe for cleaning, and takes both over to Himeko-cham, gesturing at the two desk chairs in the room. "Come on, sit down. This might sting, so you might as well sit down, right?"

And then, once that's taken care of and the two of them are sitting together, bandaid and wet wipe still in her hand, Usagi listens to the story.

It doesn't make a lot of sense, and her expressions shows it, but she tries, bless her. "So... you two got mixed up because you're psychic?" Darien had said that - that there was pyshic stuff happening, and she was suspecting it had something to do with her bad dream, but, what Himeko-chan could have done... "You twow had a fight then, right? You yelled at each other, and stuff? That must have been hard, even without the um, mixing up, stuff?"

Yeah, thhat part is totally out of her wheelhouse - but this part? The fight with a sibling part? Been there! Done that! At least Shingo can't outlap her.

And then she just asks about her day? "I've been okay. Worried about Darien, but you say he's okay, and he says he's okay, so... just reading some manga."

Pyrite has posed:
    Unsure how much she's allowed to say, Himeko's face shows the struggle of deciding for herself what she can disclose, while standing up and allowing herself to be maneuvered into a chair for a bandaid and some sort of moist towelette or something. She sounds at least half as uncertain as Usagi, as she says, "There was a brief discussion, but there was no fight. It was resolved quickly. Some of Onii-chan was... Displaced." She makes a gesture with her hands as though she is holding an invisible box, and then is setting that box aside. "Memories. Feelings. Pain. Part of my is also displaced, and that part of me was looking after Onii-chan's pain for him so he wouldn't have to. He wanted it back."

    A helpless shrug signifies the end of her comprehension of the matter. "I was the medium by which that pain was returned, so some of his memories and flowed into me, and parts of my mind broke off and flowed into him. Now I'm like this. So I guess magic is the best answer I can give. What else can split a soul between two spaces?"

    She puts her hands in her lap and waits patiently for the bandaging procedure. This is new to her. She was warned it might 'sting'. Is that something she has experienced before? Himeko doesn't remember. She thinks she will know if she experiences physical pain, but maybe she won't realize it. She will have to consult Mamoru-onii-chan about what to expect.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Usagi honestly doesn't know what to say to that explanation, because she doesn't fully understand it. She's not even sure how to explain that when she said fight, she didn't necessarily mean a fight - it's something she would have thought a little kid would get... but Himeko is clearly not quite a little kid, either. Instead, she carefully wipes Himeko's cut clean with the antiseptic towlette; it has a faint, medicinal sting, but the whole process is quickly over and done with, and then, Usagi offers an array of bandages, holding them up for Himeko to see.

"Would you like Hello Kitty, Looney Tunes, Pokemon, or plain?" It's an almost inane question, compared to what's just been revealed, but Usagi can handle the inane. She's not totally sure she knows how to handle the rest. But she tries - she's always going to try.

"You gave Mamoru back to Darien?" That's the easiest way for her to understand it, and to put it together with what Darien had told her, in their so brief conversation. She doesn't know how Himeko could have held onto Darien, but... "How do you feel? Are you okay?"

Pyrite has posed:
    Still waiting for the promises sting, Himeko is distracted focusing on the wiping of her cheek, until the bandaid selection is offered to her, at which point she forgets about the former and latches onto the latter. With a look of serious consideration, she rests the knuckle of her left index finger against her chin, and crosses her other arm across her torso tensely. This is serious business, you know?

    Eventually, she starts to point with her left hand and open her mouth but then Usagi summarizes what Himeko was trying to say. Her bright-red eyes widen and she points excitedly at Usagi. "Soo, soo! I gave Mamoru-onii-chan back to Darien-onii-chan!" She seems pleased with that explanation. And then points out the Looney Tunes bandaids, because they have Daffy Duck on them.

    She still hasn't experienced any pain from all this. Maybe she didn't configure her body right. She'll have to test it another time. For now, she answers the question posed. "Undecided." is the conclusion she comes to after a while in her 'thinking position'. It might just be the imagination, but Himeko is starting to look more and more like Darien/Mamoru. Except, you know, if he were a girl. And also much younger. With red eyes. And a scar. Ahem.

    Well, it makes sense, doesn't it? They're related and all. It's just the way she does things, the little mannerisms she has learned from watching him, and the way her facial structure is developing. She isn't the round-cheeked cherub she was when these two first met. In many ways, it is only logical that she is still sorting out how she feels. She has just been hurled a few years into the future of her life cycle all at once.

    And that's without all the psychic stuff and ghosts.

    "...'Present'?" she finally decides in a questioning tone as she tilts her head to the side.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Usagi had had a feeling the Looney Tunes bandaid, with it's Daffy Duck print, would be the winner, but she's glad she offered the choice. She carefully places it on Himeko's cheek, making sure to cover the full length of the wound with protective bandaid, then leans back.

"Good job, Himeko-chan! You were very brave!"

It's the kind of thing her mom would say, when she was little and did something very scary. And getting a bandaid can be very scary!

"I think so. I don't really understand all this complicated stuff, but Darien said he didn't really remember before, and now he does, so I think that sounds right."

But what parts of him had he given to Himeko? Probably something only Mamoru - Darien - Mamoru? - could decide. "Well, I'm glad you feel present, then. It's a good thing, I think! You should feel present, because you're here with us."

Usagi taps her chin with a finger, thinking... "Do you still like the ducks?"

Pyrite has posed:
    Himeko nods solemnly and says, "Thank you, Usagi-san." Whether it's about the bandaid or the compliment or both is unclear. She is still getting used to having a sense of touch at all, so maybe she'll get the hang of physical pain at a later date. "Yes. Present. Many times, I am somewhere else. Or think I am. Or other people are with me somewhere else but they don't see what I do. I feel more like I am in this time, rather than shifting between moments." Pause. "Before, I was like confetti."

    Just drifting down in pieces wherever she might fall, scattered across space-time, and never sure if she was seeing the past, the future, the present, or if it was none of those things and she had never even left her shrine. It's like how Usagi noted earlier: Himeko is more aware now. The sleeper has awakened from her long, long dream.

    "Ducks and I have unfinished business." she says, her left hang going to toy with one of her braids. "They are owed an apology."

    Ahhh... There's that weird little girl Usagi knows! She's still in there. Also, being psychic might explain a lot of said weirdness, if she's sensing or seeing stuff that most people aren't and don't.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"So it's like... you're watching a bunch of different TV channels, but never just tuned into one?" She cocks her head, trying to imagine that - "It must have been lonely, Himeko-chan."

To always be in many places but never in just one... Usagi would feel lonely, anyway. Blowing in the wind, confetti drifting everywhere but never really anywhere -

"If the ducks owe you unfinished business, then I still need to take you to see them. You and Hotaru-chan, because I promised, and I haven't followed through. We can feed them, and you can make your apologies, and -" ah yes, this weird little girl, this absolutely bizarre sister of her friend, her generous, kind, in over his head friend -

"And Himeko-chan? I'm glad you're not hanging out in a haunted shrine anymore. That place didn't sound very happy. You should be in happy places."

Pyrite has posed:
    Himeko hesitates and then nods. "Very lonely. More so, because I feel like people came and went from my life before then, and kept abandoning me in the same place when they were done with me. Compared to that, the ghosts were nothing. I was haunting my own shrine by not being able to move on. I am... Very, very glad, that Onii-chan found out he had a sister, and that he came looking for me." How much detail should she give here? Detail that is all mixed up in her head, between the delusions of a dead girl and the fiction she has invented as she becomes more human... "I... Hadn't eaten in so long, when he found me, that my stomach was... Rotting. It was being eaten by..." She scrunches up her nose in displeasure, and decides she doesn't need to finish that. Things that eat rotten stomachs aren't worth describing or naming.

    "Darien-onii-chan helped fix me. So now I have a body like this." She wiggles her arms around like a rolling wave from one hand up into her shoulder and then across to the other arm. Like an octopus or something. Except, you know, she just has the two arms. "I can eat now too. That was hard before, without a stomach..."

    She shakes off those dreary memories, and says, "Hotaru-senpai. I want to see her too. She will be so surprised when she sees me." A small smile appears on Himeko's face. The first since showing up here. She used to always have a constant, mysterious-little barely-there smile, the same way Darien has sometimes. Now, it's more obvious when she's smiling... And also much clearer when she's not.

    "I hurt some ducks before while trying to pet them, a long time ago. When I tried to help them after realizing I hurt them, I just made it worse and--" Himeko swallows hard, unable to continue. Tears build up in her red eyes. "Ghosts are... Are memories. They're worth remembering. Even if it's sad, or scary, they just want someone to know they existed. I'm not bothered by ghosts. It's the people who would tell a child that she is a savior, and then--" She swallows again and can't speak anymore. Even her tears seem slightly red as they run down her cheeks.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Himeko shares some of her life story, and Usagi - Usagi is trying her hardest, okay, but she's always been a crybaby, a soft-hearted crybaby who wept over skinned knees and sad movies and sometimes even pictures of sad kittens and - and Himeko is so little. She was so little, at least, now she's - not so little, now she's practically Usagi's size and age, but she had been so little, she had been so little and young and people left her in a haunted shrine?! With ghosts? With ghosts who were scary and wet and scary?!

She tries to wipe her eyes subtly, but it's probably pretty obvious that she's tearing up in sympathy, trying and failing to blink it away, and - "Himeko-chaaaaaaaaan!"

Himeko, you're getting hugged now. There's no chance to dodge. You're just - you're being hugged.

Usagi hugs Himeko close and tight, still trying not to outright weep about the whole thing, but also kind of failing. "Himeko-chan, I'm sorry, that's all so mean. No one should have ever left you! No one should have ever left you like that!"

She's upset with every single person who had. Shame on them!

"It's going to be great though, we'll take you and Hotaru-chan and Niji-chan and we'll all see the ducks and you'll have a great time. Nothing bad will happen."

She will make it so. As Himeko cries, Usagi hugs her close and tight, held to her warm body. "You're okay, Himeko-chan. The ducks will be too. We'll be really careful, and you'll have a good time, and any ghost duckies will see that and be happy."

Pyrite has posed:
    There is no hesitation between being hugged and returning it. She clings onto Usagi, not as tightly as she is being held because she doesn't want to hurt her friend. She's still crying tears muddied with a red tint as she just holds on like she's going to be torn off and thrown away again if she lets go for even a second. "I could kill things," she whispers, still explaining, like she needs to justify why she was miserable, why she should be allowed to be sad as though emotions are something she has to be given permission to have. "With my powers... Fire... Bad dreams... Sickness... I could kill them. And people prayed to me for killing things. But then I became... Very... Very good at killing. And they became scared. And so they put me back, and left me there, and all I knew how to do was kill things, so I didn't even know how to ask for help...!"

    The memories are as muddied as her tears, the context excised, just the feelings and general overview of events still intact, and until recently she didn't even have that. She only had visions of things she didn't even know the authenticity of, memories that might not even be her own.

    "Why..." she starts to ask but chokes it off and just puts her face in Usagi's shoulder and muffledly repeats, "...Okay. Okay. Yes." Why would people turn a girl into a savior, a Kami of Murder, and then become scared of what they had made? If they were going to fear her, why did they worship her to begin with? They could have asked her to heal, but they wanted her to kill. Who...

    She can't help asking the question. "What hypocrite... Teachers a child how to kill, and then locks her away for doing so when she has grown?" It's not a question she expects an answer for. Scared people, probably. Desperate people. Short-sighted, foolish people. All kinds of people. A savior became a weapon they couldn't control anymore, and they didn't realize until it was too late to take their prayers back.

    No wonder she had wanted to kill the person who saved her from that Hell of loneliness.

    Killing was the only way she knew how to express love.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Usagi hugs Himeko even tighter for the hug. She is herself a kid; she doesn't know how to deal with trauma, let alone the kind of deep-seated trauma Himeko obviously has. She doesn't know where Darien's parents were, that they let this happen to Himeko - she doesn't know where Darien was, that he couldn't help.

(One of these days, she'll understand more, have answers to some of those questions.)

All she can really do is hug Himeko - she is a child of love, the beloved and often spoiled child of parents whose love she has never doubted. She can't properly comprehend how someone could let so much happen to such a loveable little girl.

And yet -

She can kill. She's kill monsters. If she wasn't careful, if she was reckless or selfish or cruel, she could probably kill people. She wouldn't - doesn't want to - can't imagine doing it -

But it's possible. And Himeko was so young when they first met, and even if she looks older now, she's still just as young, just as much a kid.

"They shouldn't have done that," she says firmly, and she does something else her mother would do - she kisses Himeko on the forehead. "Himeko-chan, I'm so sorry. No one should have treated you like that! No one should have ever done that to you!"

What hypocrites would do that? What people would allow that?

"I don't know. But they shouldn't have treated you like that! They should have - someone should have brought you home, like Darien did. Someone should have brought you to school and took you to see ducks and treated you like a little girl, and not something scary."

Pyrite has posed:
    A shudder passes through Himeko at the kiss on the forehead. Something about that is familiar. It's a shard of familiarity, not a full memory, something so broken and detached from any semblance of who she is now that there's no way it can be restored. Not as far as she knows anyway. Not that she knows that what she's feeling isn't a complete emotion to begin with. So much information that she doesn't have access to, even though she knows it, because it hasn't happened yet, or it has happened but it isn't the point in time where she is designated to learn of it. Like she's trying to pick individual pieces of confetti out of a storm of them blowing in the wind, and each one is a piece of her, and she doesn't know how to put them back together or even if she can, and so many of them are going to be lost forever while she chases the ones within her reach.

    Who was the first one to kiss her on the forehead?

    If her memories are a confetti storm in the wind, then the answer to that question is behind a solid wall. She has neither the time nor the resources to get past or around the wall. All she can do for now is leave it unaddressed.

    "Yes." she answers in a small voice. She starts to become agitated again as she says, "There's probably many children who do not receive--" but she forces herself to stop. She fights against the compulsion to repeat the same thing over and over and over. "Okay." she says.

    Just think about the family she has now, the people in her life who care about her, the options and freedom now available--

    "--and Onii-chan too! Who abandoned him? Why would our parents just die? Don't they know that they can't become ghosts by that method!? There was no way they were going to stay to guide us--" Don't repeat. Break the cycle. "--and we were in an orphanage, and nobody came for us, and then--" The memories are all jumbled. Whose are these? "--and it was all burning and nobody but me could see it and--" Buildings collapsing. The ground shaking. Holes opening up in the ground, and a fire whirl forming to suck people up, melting their shoes to the ground so they couldn't escape, and then everyone turned on the minority, the people who were different, and they blamed them and killed them, and if they'd known about her at the time, they would have prayed to her to kill, and kill, and kill, and then when the innocent people blamed were all dead, and Himeko had gotten used to killing, before they could figure out how to put her back in the box, she'd just keep killing, and killing, and killing until there was nobody left to kill, and then she'd start killing fire, and air, and light, and dark, and the world, and reality, until it was just her, alone in a shrine, forever and ever and ever and ever and ever--

    "--ever and ever and ever and ever!" she finds herself saying. Any electric lights flickered madly before the lightbulbs exploded, any radios started playing the sounds of screams and chaos mixed with static, and any televisions or phones started displaying distorted black and white static that sometimes flexed and moved like a living thing trying to escape the confines of their screens, and--

    She stops. She stops all of it. Gravity reasserts itself over small levitating objects. Radios and televisions and phones shut themselves off. Broken lights stop sparking. It all just ends, as Himeko slumps against Usagi. Her pain and anger and fear aren't going to heal. They're a scar she'll never be rid of. But she can learn to suppress them, and there's no reason to endanger other people, or to endanger her friend.

    "I'm sorry." she whimpers as her arms dangle limply at her sides.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
There's no way to know what she was about to unleash, but oh, she's unleashed it alright. It starts - not easily, none of this is easy, because Usagi doesn't know what to say. But it starts small - with the unfairness of many children, who probably suffered like she had.

But then.

Then her voice is spilling out, agitated, and there's more, revelations coming faster than Usagi can keep up with - Darien was abandoned? Ghosts? Was he an - okay yes, he was an orphan, there was an orphanage, Himeko-chan and Darien had lived through all that - and - Himeko is repeating herself, over and over, and the lights are flickering, flickering, flickering and then they burst and Usagi cries out a little in panic, initial, pushing herself and Himeko away from the broken falling glass and the sparks, but she never pushes the little girl away, worried about both of them - her phone is oozing static sounds, shaking and quaking like the vibration is too fast, too strong, and Usagi doesn't know what's going on.

Is this? Is this Himeko's psychic power?

What she does know is that Himeko apologizes, and the sparking stops. It's darker in the room now, but the window blinds can't keep out all of the light, so they aren't alone in the dark. Usagi breathes out, hadn't realized she'd held her breath, and cradles Himeko-chan close, as she slumps over. Exhausted, maybe?

"It's okay, Himeko-chan. I can get new lights."

Pyrite has posed:
    "...Did you get hurt, Usagi-san?" she asks after a long silence, raising her head finally. Broken glass. Electricity. Who knows what else. If she hurts Usagi too, then...!

    "...Do you wish for a bandaid?" she asks earnestly and oh-so-is-serious, with the same sort of confident misunderstanding from when they first met. The camera flash that baffled her due to not knowing what a camera was, and using the term incorrectly. She has learned of something new, so she is eager to return the favor. "I will obtain bandaids. And lights."

    Radical mood shifts are par for the course with Himeko, it seems. Even if her face is still smeared with twin streaks of red from her eyes down her cheeks, looking textured the way dried blood does.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"I don't think so?" Usagi says, but she's not totally sure - had been so distracted with Himeko-chan that she isn't sure - but oh, she does have a little scratch, on her arm, where a piece of glass fell. It stings, a bit, but it's not too bad, only a thin line of blood.

"I guess I do need a bandaid. Do you want to pick one out for me?"

She doesn't want to treat Himeko like a bomb that could go off, so she doesn't - she's not so much nervous as realizing this is just - what Himeko is like. Rei-chan was a Miko, Ami-chan was a genius, Niji-chan was great at sports, Hinoiri-chan learned quickly, Naru-chan was the most mature person she knew - and Himeko-chan could make things break, when she was upset, but she was sorry when it was over.

"I'll clean up the glass, and you can get me a bandaid, okay?" It's probably the first time she's ever volunteered to clean, but the glass has to come up, and she doesn't want to ask Himeko-chan -

"And I can help you wipe your face, too. Sound good?"

Pyrite has posed:
    Himeko wipes her face clean with the back of her hoodie sleeve. Her bright red eyes aren't glowing anymore at least. She may actually just be tired from the release of emotion. Emotions are used by Magical Girls and Villains alike. If psychic abilities are a manifestation of magic, a sort of human magic, then... Yes. There's probably a connection there.

    She holds her hands together with her palms open. "Um... You can choose..." There's a bandaid with Bugs Bunny or one with Lopunny. She isn't familiar with Hello Kitty, but has seen Lopunny on television and also The Internet now that she has her own phone. Parental locks are most definitely turned on for said phone, so it's only wholesome pokemon pix in there.

    More importantly, considering she doesn't have the bandaids boxes anywhere near her, it's interesting that she suddenly has the bandaids on-hand to offer.

    Compared to everything else, it's a trivial detail. But the bandaids were made by Himeko, with her mind, and her powers, out of the same plasmic substance her body is.

    And she spares Usagi the need for medical stinging from anti-septic wipes by directing her crimson gaze on the scratch. Her eyes glow and then subside again.

    She gives a small, shy smile. "I killed them."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
There were definitely no bandaids with Lopunny in the box in Usagi's room - she would know; it's ironically one of her favorite Pokemon, on account of how cute it and Buneary were, even if everyone had made fun of her a little for it.

Still - what's the harm in bandaids? Himeko-chan had either had them or found them, and Usagi is quick to wipe at her eyes and point to the one with Lopunny. "This one. Thank you, Himeko-chan!"

She has to resist the urge to pat her head, like how her Papa would her when she was small, because at a certain point she had proudly gotten too big for that, and Himeko-chan might feel the same way -

Oh!

For a moment, as those red eyes stare at her cut, glowing, Usagi is - baffled. She's not entirely sure what's going on.

Then -

"Um... you mean the germs? That's awesome, Himeko-chan!"

Maybe Usagi has it wrong, but if she really got rid of the germs with her power, that was amazing! No stinging antiseptic at all! Usagi would jump up and down, but there's still glass everywhere, so instead, she applies the Lopunny bandage to her cut and poses a little, so Himeko-chan can see how the bandaid perfectly covers up her injury.

Pyrite has posed:
    Himeko was slightly nervous that she didn't do a good enough job, or that using her powers would make things worse. "Yes... Germs..." That's a term from Darien's memories. There are others, but her head is a bit frazzled right now. "The ones that make sick." When Usagi praises her, Himeko has an astonished look on her face. She was prayed to, thanked for her blessings, but... This is different. She is being treated like a person, and praised for what she did for someone else. Not prayers. Gratitude expressed like it's no big thing to thank someone or say they are amazing. Like it's normal to be nice to people like that.

    She gets that tiny smile again and gives a small, childish noise of happiness one might expect more from a baby or toddler than someone in her teens. "Geheheheh...!" Then the smile spreads wide across her face. Her speech is distorted, as she says, "I'm so happy, I can't stop smiling~!"

    Then she claps her hands together for Usagi's pose.

    In a hotel room a few days ago, she looked herself in the mirror and asked who she was going to be from now on.

    She still isn't sure. But she thinks she's getting closer to figuring that out.