932/Almost Out of the Woods

Almost Out of the Woods
Date of Scene:	05 December 2023
Location:	Radiant Heart Rooftops
Synopsis:	Makoto has some questions for Mamor-- Darien Shields. And a muffin.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Makoto Kino

---

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
It's lunchtime, the first easy place to get hold of Ma-- Darien Shields, especially if Makoto zooms to get in between his classroom and the cafeteria.

And indeed, looking tired behind his glasses as he carries his books, he's on his way to the big plaza like it's any old day and he's any old student. Not like he's Hematite who rescued the boy who attacked Rei's shrine. Not like he's in trouble. Not like he's anything but another kid on his way to lunch.

Makoto Kino has posed:
Makoto has had a bit of time to think about how to approach this encounter, which is good. Under different circumstances she'd be quite proud of how strategic she's being, even. At the moment, though, she mostly just feels confused.

It doesn't necessarily show from the outside. Nor does the rush she made to get to a spot where she could see him on his way toward the cafeteria. What Darien Shields will see - if he's not too preoccupied to notice her up ahead of him - is one Makoto Kino, school bag tipped back over her shoulder, leaning on a pillar in wait along the walkway to the cafeteria.

When she spots him, she pushes off from her vantage and strides forth determinedly to intercept his path. And... holds out a muffin? Carefully wrapped up, the product of yesterday's emergency baking. Definitely a muffin.

"Hematite, huh?" Her tone is opaque. So is the look on her face, questioning but guarded.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Darien actually smiles when he sees Makoto! He's happy to see her-- but-- she's not smiling at him. Well. His smile only flags a little bit, and then she's coming up to him with delicious bribery and she asks her question and his smile turns into something rueful and apologetic. "If I say yes, do I still get a muffin?" he asks, reaching for it but pausing.

Makoto Kino has posed:
"Yes." The muffin is not withdrawn; if he continues to hesitate she might even push it at him a little. "The muffin's for you anyway. I made a bunch for the girls after everything that went down at the shrine yesterday. I just..." She frowns a little, hesitating over the words. "I'm having trouble understanding."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"It's a long story, and it's not really safe for me to tell out in the open," Darien says, taking the muffin and holding it for a moment. He can't unwrap it like this and he can't tell a story like this so he begins to see Makoto's cunning plan. "How do you feel about a rooftop lunch? And did you bring anything for yourself, or do you want to stop in the cafeteria to grab something?"

Makoto Kino has posed:
Cunning plan. Sure, he can think that if he wants to. Makoto's expression begins to relax a little. "Rooftop lunch sounds good. I made my own bento, but we should stop in the cafeteria anyway so you can get something. One muffin can't be your whole lunch."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I can get away with it for a day," Mamoru says with a laugh, but Makoto is correct: he shouldn't.

It's relatively cheerful conversation on the way to Cafeteria Plaza and while they're there, at least on the tall boy's part, asking after classes and self-defense class -- the mundane one she'll have seen him at sometimes -- and how she's settling in, and how glad he is that she's friends with Usagi and the others...

...and then they're outside and he leads the way towards a place that's covered from sight by multiple angles, and he murmurs, "Faster to teleport up, you game?"

Makoto Kino has posed:
"That is not the point--" Makoto begins, faintly exasperated, before they start off to the cafeteria. She remains somewhat reserved at first - still uncertain - but the friendly conversation does a lot to unbend her further. It's hard to stay too stiff when talking about Usagi, anyway.

Outside, his question gives her pause. "...Okay?" It's not really apprehension so much as bemusement, the kind of reaction you might get from a random normal person if you casually suggested getting up to the roof by flying there. But then, flying is also a valid option for some people they both know, too. "Sure. Why not."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
It's nearly impossible to be stiff or grumpy when talking about Usagi, especially if you're Mamoru, in whose eyes she can do no wrong. He's got it so bad, so bad.

"Okay!" he says, brightening, and then slips in between two tall shrubs to a place that's hidden by other shrubs and part of a wall and a full-on actual building, mulch underneath. And he offers his elbow because one hand is full of bookbag and the other is full of lunch tray. "Here, hang on."

Once Makoto's got hold of his elbow, he casually henshins into Hematite-- a line of sparkling crackling light that swiftly travels over him like he's a piece of self-lighting charcoal and leaves his Shitennou uniform in its wake-- and then they're suddenly on the breezy roof in the sunlight. His cape and hair flutter out of control for a second before he drops his henshin again.

He sits down. "I'm almost," he says up to her, adjusting his glasses, "me again, all the way. You can also doublecheck anything I say with Usako, or with Kazuo."

Makoto Kino has posed:
That first teleport is an Experience. Makoto is left blinking for a moment as she lets go of his elbow. She collects herself reasonably quickly, though, and finds a spot to sit down herself and begin unpacking her bento from its cute rose-accented green cloth wrapping.

"Okay," she says slowly, with the kind of look that mostly suggests she means 'I do not know what to do with that.' "When you say almost you again... Do you mean Mamoru Chiba, or...?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Yeah. Well, sort of. I almost get to use my own name again, that's part of it. But I really mean-- without all the dark energy. I'm almost out of the woods, Kino-san, and I need you to only talk to those two people about that, because it's still a very big secret." Mamoru's opening the wrapping on Makoto's muffin as he talks, and he doesn't take a bite yet; the wind's blowing his hair around less, but it's so shaggy and uneven that what used to be his bangs have a tendency to want to blow into his mouth.

"When you say you don't understand and want to, and I say it's a long story, do you want me to give you a summary and you can ask questions? Because it starts when I went missing from my orphanage."

Makoto Kino has posed:
She doesn't answer right away. She unpacks her chopsticks and picks up a carrot slice that's been cut into a flower shape and she thinks while she noms it down.

"Maybe you should just... tell me as much as you want me to know, I guess," she says after a bit, once her mouth's not full. "I've got time. Right now, I don't even know what to ask."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Okay," says Mamoru, and then he fully crams half of Makoto's muffin in his mouth at once, carefully re-wraps the other half, and opens up his can of coffee while he does his best to chew.

He's using this time to think of how to start, and he's eating half the muffin at once in order to both horrify Mako because it's funny and also because he's unsure he'll have time to eat with all the explaining he might need to do.

Chew chew. Add coffee. Chew chew.

Finally he says, "The sorceress who is currently my boss basically stole me. She said she could help me find who I was looking for, and that she'd give me a job in the interim, and then I woke up thinking my real name was Hematite and that I'd been in stasis for a very long time. We worked out a false identity for me to use to attend school and search for the other guys -- Jadeite, Nephrite, and Zoisite, but also one other she didn't remember because she thought I was him, somehow. Past life memories are really sketchy and she fed a lot of lies into them as well. Any questions so far?"

Makoto Kino has posed:
She's not quite horrified - she's seen Usagi eat, after all - but Makoto's nonplussed expression as she watches him unhinge his jaw and annihilate fully half of the muffin in one go is probably still worth the price of admission. She picks at her bento in a much more normal fashion as she listens to him explain.

Any questions? "You could at least eat it slowly enough to taste it," she tells him dryly, nipping up a slice of rolled egg. "Was that - is this when you went missing from school? I remember that, a little, even though we were in different grades and all... Or, is it something that happened a lot longer ago?"

She eats the tamago, chews thoughtfully. "The other one, who she thought you were... That's actually Saitou-kun, isn't it. He mentioned, how your side wanted to recruit him."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Ugh, 'my side'..." exhales Mamoru, picking at some teriyaki. "Yeah, that's when I went missing from school." He glances up at Makoto again. "And yes, Saitou-kun is the other one. He makes five out of four Shitennou. I'm the extra one."

More coffee instead of protein. Unwise. "But I'm her favorite. I have to get out. I have a commit date. It'll be fine. I just have to not do anything really wildly regrettable in the next couple of weeks, which I think I can manage."

Makoto Kino has posed:
Makoto mulls this over, setting down her chopsticks in order to slowly nibble on a rice ball. Her expression turns more sympathetic as she regards Mamoru over the food.

"...and in the meantime," she says at length, "your guys keep picking fights at shrines?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"..." Mamoru squints at Makoto. "Okay, don't tell me you're a magical girl. As long as I don't know that for sure, I can tell you to ask Naru and Inai-sensei about the fight-picking. There should be a lot of information in their hands about it, now."

He exhales slowly, then thinks about how he's going to put this. He holds up a finger, drinks some more of his canned coffee, and frowns a little bit. "I may be the strongest of them, and technically their leader, but I don't give them orders. We all get our orders from the same place, and then-- they get extra orders that jerk them around like they're marionettes. I really can't stop them from doing that stuff, and that's the worst stuff, because it's a literal demon controlling them."

Makoto Kino has posed:
Makoto blinks at him. The look on her face is, momentarily, a hilariously awkward discomfort and chagrin that pretty much screams that she thought he knew more than he does and is not entirely sure how to backpedal now.

The answer she arrives at appears to be, mostly, inhaling a big bite of her rice ball and pretending the last several seconds simply didn't happen. "You know," she says eventually, after she's chewed and swallowed and gotten over at least some of the awkward. "My roommate has a girlfriend who's stuck working for bad guys too. It's a whole condition. So - how can I help?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
It's a tradition at this point -- Senshi assuming Hematite knows their identities. He is studiously bad at learning them! But also, secrets are better kept than frequently imagined; it may be heartening to know nobody ratted Makoto out to the enemy.

Mamoru takes the awkward as an opportunity for some protein, and shovels chicken teriyaki in his mouth, and rice, and he'll go for a crabcake in a minute--

--and then Mako's talking again, and he attends. "It is a whole condition. And... thanks. I think actually that the best way you can help -- aside from asking Usa who else I probably am and figuring out with her and Kazuo what to do after I quit -- is helping me prove to the authorities that I am who I say I am. Since you knew me before, and my only other friend who did might not help. He works for the enemy and doesn't want me to leave and have to oppose him."

Makoto Kino has posed:
At around 'who else I probably am,' Makoto's eyebrows shoot up. "How many identities do you have?" she blurts, before flushing a little and hurriedly shaking her head. "No, you obviously can't answer that, forget I asked." She stuffs onigiri into her face before she can keep embarrassing herself.

Om, nom, nom. "I can do that," she says shortly after. "I mean - I can't promise anyone will listen to me much, but I can at least back you up." She pauses for thought. "I wonder if I can still dig up any old class pictures from back then. I didn't exactly keep much, but maybe..."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Four, I think," Mamoru says cheerfully. "But the 'probably' one is from, you know, back then. So I'm not sure it counts. If it doesn't count, then just three: my real name, my fake name, and my Shitennou name." He's grinning by now, apparently unoffended by any of what Mako considers embarrassing.

"Anyway yeah, maybe! I mean, there are pictures of me in news stories from then, but I was thirteen. You know how much you squinted at me when you first saw me, imagine social workers who don't know me at all just looking at pictures and then at me. I'm practically a foot taller."

Makoto Kino has posed:
"...good point," Makoto concedes. "Comparing pictures from three years or so ago doesn't count for a lot. Fair enough. If you need someone to swear up and down to the cops or whoever that you're definitely who you say you are, I'm in. And in the meantime, I guess, I avoid telling you things until you're out of whatever you're into."

She considers this whole conversation, makes a face, and then sighs and digs into her bento. "Eat the rest of your lunch," she tells him. "No way I'm letting you manage this nonsense on canned coffee and half a muffin."