933/Crisis Averted

Crisis Averted
Date of Scene:	28 December 2023
Location:	The Forgotten District
Synopsis:	Takinig the initiative for once Homura contacts Kyouka two weeks after the attack on the Soryuu Shrine to stop the Midnight Tokyo project to discuss what happened and exchange hints about what might be coming up next in the near future. Homura also learns an important fact: if she asks Kyouka to meet her somewhere, it should probably have coffee available.
Cast of Characters:	Homura Akemi, Kyouka Inai

---

Homura Akemi has posed:
    It had been a couple weeks since the events at the Soryuu Shrine and Homura was now reasonably certain that any potential apocalypses from the fallout would likely be far enough in the future that talking about it in the past tense wouldn't be 'jinxing' it. Not that she was especially superstitious, but sometimes it pays to be careful when you're dealing with literal ghosts and things she'd usually chock up to mythology.Where better than to talk about the resulting spooky action and all the other impacts of the showdown than the location itself?

    Okay, no, she's not that stupid. She's not at the shrine itself, but rather standing in one of the rather large trees that's grown through an abandoned building, standing atop it looking in the direction of the shrine. It's far enough away to not remotely be considered at the shrine itself, but close enough to be able to make out some details. After a quick look around to ensure there's no one obvious around she pulls out her phone.

    TXT from Homura Akemi: Kyouka-sensei, where are you? Do you have time to talk?

    One thing that seems to have changed. Whether it's respect, trust, or deciding a completed mission means giving the Counselor a break. Whatever the specific reason is, she's using her given name instead of her family name now.

    TXT from Kyouka Inai: at school. But yes

    TXT from Homura Akemi: School? Okay. That might take a bit so I'm going to try something.

    Really it'd probably been a mistake not to do this sooner, just so how she knew it worked. She pulls out the business card she'd been given several months ago and holds it up, "Kyouka-sensei! We need to talk."

    It's not a real emergency so maybe it won't work, but it's a good time to find out either way.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    It only takes a moment for Kyouka to appear. She's not there, and then she is, simple as that. The only sound is a slight popping from the displacement of air. She's wearing her school clothes, which is to say a button-down white woman's dress shirt and pressed black slacks, but she has her leather jacket over the shirt and her narrow-lensed rectangular sunglasses on- of course. "You could have just told me where you were." She says, with mild reproach, but doesn't otherwise complain about the use of her card for a non-emergency.

    She glances around, taking in their location. "Cheerful choice of scenery by the way. I suppose this isn't going to just be a 'congratulations on everything going great' kind of talk then, or we'd be somewhere nicer. Maybe with coffee."

    She smirks, but again the dry tone of her voice conveys more amusement than annoyance. "So, what's up? It's not that common for you to ask me to talk." She sticks her hands in the pockets of her jacket, as it's not exactly balmy out here in the open in late December, though it's not frigid either, so she'll live.

Homura Akemi has posed:
    Well that was fast. As fast as the false teleportation her timestop gives the impression of. Which means it's her turn to have to turn around in surprise as Kyouka appears. Looking at the card for a moment she puts it back into her pocket, not the shield since she seems to want it on hand without needing to be transformed, even though she currently is. "I didn't realize it was an ability you had outside of the emergency cards. I suppose I should have asked, but I thought a test would be useful. Handy, you're probably faster than me, with those."

    Then onto the topic of location she shrugs, "I didn't want to have to worry about mundane eavesdroppers and the location is topical. Everything seems to be calm here. Or at least, as calm as they ever are." She gives gives a slow look around their surroundings. If she hadn't spent so much time in Labyrinths it'd probably give her a creepy feeling, but this kind of morose imagery falls on long jaded eyes. She then reaches into her shield and retrieves an empty coffee cup, waggling it and showing that it's clean and dust free. Got to love that pocket dimension. "I can get you coffee if you want it, but it'll be the instant kind that comes in a glass jar."

    As for her being the one to call a meeting she shrugs, "Yeah well you were at the main event and I wasn't and it's been a while since we talked alone. It's probably about time I started training with you some more too. That's actually part of what I wanted to talk about, even if it isn't the most important. It's been... well, I don't know if it's because people don't expect it from me or if I've haven't been with who focuses on head on combat, but it's been extremely useful. I was able to get the jump on one of the Shitennou and hold him still long enough for him to keep from getting away from one of Sailor Moon's attacks at the Crystal Tower, and just the other day this 'Sara' lady interrupted a concert and put up some kind of magic-deflecting barrier around herself, but the staff I was using at the time worked like a charm against the back of her head. It's clear I was neglecting a lot of important options in the past, and thanks to your help I was able to diffuse the situation before it got any worse."

    Her purple eyes flick off to the side and she adds in more of a playfully grousing tone, "Firearms are turning out to be something of a nuisance when people keep attacking buildings full of civilians, too. Anything with stopping power is going to make a real mess of things if they dodge."

    Not on a miss. If they dodge. Homura Akemi doesn't 'miss'.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "Well, it's not automatic." Kyouka shrugs, not seeming to mind divulging this information. "If I'm busy or something I'm not going to come right away. But the cards are meant to inform me someone urgently requires my help, so generally I'll come right away if somebody calls using one of them. That's my job, after all. It's just teleportation." No big deal. "There's also a maximum range, but luckily most of the areas around the school are easily inside of it, so as long as nobody takes a field trip to Osaka or something, it should be fine."

    She doesn't bother to protest that the Veil would make mundane eavesdroppers forget most of what they heard anyway. The truth is that this place is unlikely to contain any eavesdroppers at all, which suits her just fine. "I think things are quiet here now that Himeko-chan is no longer.. y'know, doing whatever." She doesn't pretend to really know the spooky ghost nonsense in and out, only the vague details. "So it should be safe enough for now."

    She chuckles. "Coffee not required, don't worry. Though I'll never pass up an excuse for some." She smiles at the news that her training is bearing fruit for the veteran Puella. "That's good to hear. I'm confident in my training and its usefulness, but it's always nice to get confirmation that it's appreciated. I'm sure we can work in some more sessions now that things have quieted down somewhat."

    She shrugs her shoulders. "Make friends with a Device user.. or Wako-chan. They both have ways of displacing space-time so civilians get ousted from the combat arena. Pretty useful for that sort of thing, really."

Homura Akemi has posed:
    "That makes sense," she agrees after hearing that the cards don't instantly summon Kyouka, "you wouldn't want to be forced into a trap because someone got ahold of one of your cards." She's definitely glad she texted before trying the card out, even if it wasn't strictly necessary. She mentally notes the range limit. That's useful information. It'd be awful to expect her to be able to show up in an instant, only to be extremely out of range.

    The lack of any possible listeners is a perk and the main reason why she's here, other than the view of the shrine where everything went down, but she isn't going to say as much because it's only a likely positive rather than a guaranteed one. Kyouka's smart enough to put that together herself anyway. "Yeah, it seems that way. The last thing I want is a Witch deciding to set up home here though, or anything else that senses..." she trails off briefly because she doesn't really understand the ghost stuff either. "Well. Whatever power resides here. There might be a power vacuum now. I wasn't here so I don't know if the shrine was properly purified of it's evil influence or if it's still hiding somewhere."

    Sailor Moon might be a miracle worker but when you've been around long enough you realize there's different levels of miracles."

    After a moment of consideration she puts the cup back in her shield. She might have made some anyway if it would have been good but hotplate heated water and instant coffee might just annoy the counselor more than it helps.

    "It is, and I'm grateful to have someone like you around to teach it. Both to myself and others." She pauses for a moment and changes tracks slightly, "Speaking of, I'd appreciate it if you could help Madoka Kaname in a similar fashion. She's growing into her new powers slowly, but now that she can fully transform with her Guardian Characters it might be good to teach her some more advanced techniques than she's been used to learning. I can help teach her to aim with her bow, but for up close and personal, well. I might be having some successes but I've got a long way to go."

    Then as a segue she reaches into her shield and retrieves a somewhat bland looking silver colored metal staff with some technobobble on one end. Kyouka might recognize it as a bog standard Storage Device TSAB hands out to it's grunts. Or not, since most of them are rotting in an Obsidian storage room in this timeline. "Device user, yeah. I need to talk with one of them to see if I can hack one of their barrier spells into these things. Right now about the only thing I can do with them is a crude magic blast." The staff briefly glows purple in her hand, then dims again. "Nonlethal though, and having an option is better than not having it." She turns it over in her hand and briefly studies the simple end, which is very slightly dented. No, it was definitely not meant to be used as a crude melee club, but it worked.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka shrugs. "I mean, there's still an element of risk. I don't know who's summoning me, or why. Just where and when. I can make some decision based on where they're asking me to go, but if someone got ahold of one and wanted to lure me somewhere, they could. A hazard of the job, I guess."

    She nods her head in agreement about the Forbidden District. "It's definitely worth keeping an eye on. Even if the place is quiet now, there's always the chance something else will try to move in. It's a place of power, and those types of places tend to attract bad actors. I'm hopeful we'll at least have a bit of a break though.. famous last words, I guess."

    At the note about Madoka, she shrugs her shoulders and nods her head. "I'm pretty sure she's already coming to Self Defense Class, I invited her early on before she even had any powers, because I knew Kyubey was interested in her which indicated she had potential at the very least. I don't mind training her, if she's willing, of course. Like I said.. that's my job. And she certainly seems to have the desire to improve in those ways."

    She eyes the produced Device. "I have a portable barrier device that the Headmistress gave me. What I use for self-defense class. Its limited range and duration, so it's not as good as something an actual Device user might produce for combat, but it leads me to believe you could probably have one installed on something like that. I admit I'm not an expert, though."

Homura Akemi has posed:
    "I haven't noticed anything so far so I think we're safe for now, but like you say we can't be certain." She's not sure if the fact the shrines are on leylines mean anything. For all she knows the reason the leylines pass through the locations is because of the shrines. If she knew more about that she might have been able to help more when she'd first seen the pattern laid out for the Midnight Tokyo project.

    Homura just offers a small nod in regards to the response about Madoka. Kyouka seems to be somewhat up to date, and just letting her hopes be known is probably enough in that regard.

    She thinks of the device used for training and nods, "I remember it. I expect deploying it in combat might be difficult as it'd be an obvious target for anyone who wanted access to civilians, but having it mounted to a weapon might make that less likely. I'll look into it."

    That resolves most of her smaller issues, which means it's time to ask the harder hitting questions. Her eyes turn back to the Soryuu shrine up on the hill and she motions towards it. "So. What can you tell me about what happened there? I don't need to know the details of the fight unless you think they're important, but what can you tell me about what happened with Sailor Moon and..." she mentally sighs a bit. Juggling nicknames is such a pain, especially nicknames from multiple timeloops. Who knows what, now? "...Tuxedo Mask." Lets go with that.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka just nods and adds nothing further to the first few statements Homura makes. She is in agreement, and it seems like they are on the same page with most of these issues. Which is reassuring.

    When the question comes up about exactly what went down at Soryuu Shrine, she gives a little bit of a dry chuckle. "It was a time, lemme tell you. Hematite was here trying to get Himeko out of the shrine, and he fought desperately to stop it being purified, as that would apparently have destroyed her. Even though that wasn't our intent, he didn't know that. The Shitennou arrived to support him, and started to get taken out- they're powerful, but they were wildly outnumbered."

    "In the end, Hematite ended up taking a hit aimed at Zoisite, which seemed to kill him. The trauma apparently sparked something in Sailor Moon, which caused her to ...awaken. Apparently she's some kind of reincarnated princess, and that Silver Crystal everyone was looking for was inside her the whole time. It healed Hematite.. Tuxedo Mask, as you say, and revived him, while simultaneously purifying him of Dark Energy. At that point, the Shitennou fled. I don't know what happened after that, though I have it on good authority that Moon and Tuxedo Mask are recovering somewhere safe."

Homura Akemi has posed:
    After pointing Homura crosses her arms and watches the Shrine as Kyouka speaks, looking back every now and again to show she's paying attention. For all the the explanations she doesn't react much, though her shoulders relax a bit when she hears how things turned out for Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask. Notably missing is any shock at the reincarnated princess and Silver Crystal comments.

    "Yeah. Sailor Moon was wise to bring so many people with her, and her plan to attack the Soryuu shrine which she knew would be considered important while purifying another was a stroke of tactical genius." A slight frown shows on her face, "The Shitennou are very powerful, but as important as it was the shrine isn't their home territory. Even if things got nasty it'd have been a lot worse to attack them in the locus of their power, or to wait until they're on the attack themselves. Forcing the issue when they weren't expecting it... this might have been the best chance we had."

    She then uncrosses her arms and turns slightly, just enough so she can turn her head to look directly at Kyouka. "Princess Serenity," she states plainly. "I'm glad she'd come enough into her own to harness the Silver Crystal. It would have been tragic if Tuxedo Mask," a short pause, "if Prince Endymion hadn't been revived. But it would have been even worse for what the Shitennou might have done without his stabilizing influence. If the others have retreated they might have gone Scorched Earth Policy on us and started blasting everything they could out of rage. I don't expect their lives are going to be very happy unless and until Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon figure out a way to purify the others but it's going to be a lot better than if she hadn't yet had the power to revive him." She finally looks away and finishes with a sigh, "For a whole lot of reasons."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka nods her head. "I'm fairly certain," She says cautiously, having been reprimanded about being too free with information in the past, "That Serenity and Endymion intended to at least attempt to purify the Shitennou. He didn't want to leave them behind. However, I haven't spoken to them since they retreated to the previously mentioned safe haven, so I'm not sure if they've succeeded yet or not. Catching up with them is on my to-do list but you have to realize it's a bit difficult to contact them currently.. by design." Better safe than sorry.

    She nods her head. "I think, relatively speaking, it went as well as we could have hoped. And for the moment, at least, we've got some breathing room." She pauses, then goes on, "Speaking of, there's something else I'd like to talk to you about. Something of a more personal nature." She quirks her lips to the side, tapping one with her index finger.

    "There's a project that I'm starting to work on that might be suited to your talents. Something not related to the school, or any of this other stuff. Involving my... situation as an Arbiter. I'd like to get together with you and a couple others who I think have some investment in the idea and have a talk about it. If you're willing."

Homura Akemi has posed:
    Kyouka seems as unflappable as ever. She thought this might be the time the woman finally up and asked how the hell she knew some of that information when she wasn't present and hadn't even known how things had gone until just now. But then she could have talked to someone else previously and only wanted Kyouka's take. The time traveler certainly isn't going to have a lesser opinion of her by how casually she takes her own pronouncements in stride.

    Especially when she gets to save the whole speech about why the hell she wouldn't have given out that kind of information before if she'd known about it. Maybe that day will come some time, or maybe Kyouka is already experienced enough with feeding out little bits of information when people are actually capable of handling it.

    Or maybe she learned the same way Homura had and had it blow up in her face. Multiple times.

    "More personal?" she asks, finally turning fully away from the shrine to look at Kyouka. Like a normal person having an actual conversation, "I'm listening." Then comes a quick nod because really, is she going to turn down something as simple as a conversation about something important from someone who's proven themselves trustworthy? Of course not. "Sure, I'm willing. I can't say I know much about Arbiters but I think I can safely say we'd all have been much worse off without your help and involvement. If it helps you help others more effectively or just helps ease your mind I can't see any reason not to at least talk about it."

    She seems to consider for a moment, the slightest frown touching her lips, "I should also tell you something, but I'm... not sure what to even say about it. I've noticed certain... oddities when using my powers recently. It might be nothing but I can't say for sure. It's nothing that's ever happened before. That worries me, since I've used them extensively in the past, but right now it's not much more than a slight inconvenience. If it gets to be more than that, I'll let you know."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka seems satisfied with Homura's agreement. "I didn't expect you to know much. But it's more your knowledge of time and time magic that I'm interested in. Don't worry.. I won't reveal your secret to anyone else, at least without your say-so. But I suspect once you hear what I have to say you might have some perspective which would be valuable."

    She listens intently to the talk of oddities when using Homura's powers. "Huh. Well.. like you said. If it becomes more of a concern, let me know. I'll help if I can."

    She glances up at the sky, then back around. "If there's nothing else for now, I should get back to school. I have an appointment soon. But I'll be in touch."