2073/Crystal Cooperation

Crystal Cooperation
Date of Scene:	16 November 2024
Location:	Mitakihara Ward
Synopsis:	Takashi introduces Glimmer to Light Hope's 'little sister' - Night Hope.
Cast of Characters:	Takashi Agera, Hinoiri Kirara
Tinyplot:	Crystal Nope

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Takashi Agera has posed:
    It's been a few weeks and at least one apocalypse since Takashi and Hinoiri really spent time together, but today he's asked her to meet at the hidden secondary lab in the Mitakihara office tower that isn't owned by Obsidian. He figured he could bring her here with something he bet she couldn't resist. A simple text message. "Hey. I think I may need your help with something. Something magic. Crystal. Want to give me a hand and work with some magical stuff?" the message sent.

    He figured it was a bit like waving sushi in front of Catra in that respect. And when Hinoiri walks through the doors into the labm she'll see Riventon, having cleaned off some of the tables and sitting with several large chunks of shattered crystals, deep blood red and purple.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara couldn't resist an opportunity to work with MAGIC things. She, of course, accepted his invite. Subtly. After a good ten minutes. Saying she'd be there soon, traffic wasn't bad.

Traffic was decently bad, she'd just been on the way before she'd sent the text. She was excited, okay?!

When she walked into the office, however, her eyes fell on the crystal. Slowly, her eyes narrowed and she took a slow, deep breath. Then, she finally asked.

"Takashi. Is that what I *think* it is?"

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi smiles, and that smile gradually grows from a regular smile to one of Takashi's trademark smirks. "Well, first of all, that depends on what you think it is, and I'm not psychic. Secondly, it's two things, really." he says.

    "I've been working on it, but while I've got the energy side pretty well sorted, when it converts over to a crystal matrix it's pretty damn complicated, and it's not the only project I've been working on. So I thought, hey, you know who already is an expert on the assembly of magic crystals? My friend, Hinoiri Kirara." he says. "So. Interested?"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara walked over and picked up one of the crystal shards. He could likely tell how, well... good she was with it already. Namely, she was incredibly careful to avoid touching a sharp edge, her eyes narrowed on it.

"I spent days trapped in a bucking crystal prison with that pretentious wind bag, Takashi. This is Beryl's, isn't it?"

She then dropped it with the others. "Sure, let's see what you've got, I'll try and figure out what I can cobble together. I think I saw a crystal tuner with that stuff you salvaged from Kirakirafantastica. Looks kind of like a can opener attached to a back scratcher? It'll help a lot."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    "These..." Takashi begins, correcting her on the singular again. "... were Beryl's, but she's not exactly going to be able to use them anymore." he says.

    "But they're extremely efficent Dark Energy storage and conduction tools, and possibly even other types of energy. And some of the energy memory in them still has traces of Beryl's magic, which though it was handled by a maniac, I still have to admit was powerful." he continues.

    He passes her a large stack of papers. "I'll go get the magic back scratching can opener, I brought a lot of your whacky world's stuff here so that nobody else touched it. Don't steal any of it back now." he says, walking into a different, locked section of the lab before returning and hanging her a wild-looking tool.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara gave a soft sigh, shaking her head. "Uh huh..." she mumbled, cocking an eye. "Yeah, she was powerful. Very powerful. Incompetent, though. Sold her people and soul to a demon for said power, but powerful none the less. Be careful with this stuff, you never know if traces of that monster are going to try to get their hooks into you."

Of course, once the tool was brought, she got to work... flipping through the papers sliding them around. Then slowly arranging the crystals. "Where's the magic you're attempting to overlay on the crystals? Are you intending to gather it, or do you have something you'd like the crystals to attach to? Once they're fused, it'll be far harder to adjust and make them incredibly delicate."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    "Demons, youma, Dark Energy, all of that only controls you when your will is weak. As long as you're focused on your goals, you can be the one in control of that power." he says, matter-of-factly. "In any case the crystals right now are inert. I'm mostly using them as a focus." he says, and then looks at his gauntlet. "Axion's core wasn't really designed for Dark Energy and it's always been a bit of a kludge. Obviously I'm not going to replace the core though. I kind of have designs on a secondary relay."

    "I've got a setting for the two crystals, and if you can get it operationally installed in the setting I can handle making the setting link into the Device."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara blinks a few times. Then her eyes narrow. "You know, I'm curious. Was that intentional, or just instinctive? Or do you just really think my will is weak?" she asked, the annoyance clear in her voice. And maybe just a hint of hurt.

She then sat at the desk and pulled over the device, the setting, some tweezers and got to work. Slowly, painstakingly, adjusting the crystals in a kind of... pattern.

A sliver of red, then two pieces of purple, then three red, one purple, four red, six purple, seven red, on purple, three red... there didn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to it, and even less when he saw her taking notes and adjusting things on the weird Kirakirafantastica device. Grumbling under her breath as she worked, occasionally. But, eventually... "I'm going to need a magical surge, at .3 sprites, it..." Then stopped. Paused. Sighed. "Okay, make a flame on the tip of your finger and hold it under the setting. A SMALL flame. No pressure, don't move the crystals at all until they've properly set. Got it?"

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Riventon sighs and shakes his head. "I think you're too hard on yourself, Kirara-san. You can accomplish more than you allow yourself to believe." he says. "I think you keep yourself down and it's kind of a shame. Call it whatever you want."

    He does, however, watch Hinoiri work closely. Incredibly so. There's a lot of respect for her ability in the way he's willing to learn from her, for sure. "Small flame, got iot." he says, and then pauses. "Unless a Dark Energy flame is going to work, I'm going to need to get a lighter. I can't just make unaltered pure-energy elements on the tip of my finger."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara shook his head. "No. It needs to be magical flame. I don't see why a dark energy magical flame wouldn't work. It needs to be light enough that it won't jostle the crystals at all, but the magic is what's going to seal it into a single, solid mass. It's not done until it has fully sealed into one, solid mass. The edges will melt down a bit, but in the end it'll be one solid, glass crystal." She then paused. "It'll likely take a few hours, though. But seriously. It needs to be *magic* flame. Not *real* flame. Real flame will add impurities to the crystal, causing damage to the final focus, reducing the output by anywhere from ten to twenty-five percent."

Say what you will about the girl... she was an utter nerd who really, truly, took this stuff seriously. Luckily, she was also... a nerd who took this stuff seriously. While it would take a while, it owuld be a quality attachment. That she would certainly NOT regret helping him make.

"Make sure it's your magic, too. This should help attune it to your capabilities as well, ensuring that whatever... after effects... Beryl left in it won't latch on."

Very, very slowly, so as to not disturb the gemstone pieces, she got to her feet and stretched out. "Ugh, I haven't done that in years. Reminds me of my third year crystal assignment. I broke so many windows..."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi shrugs and does what she asks, focusing on creating a small magical flame at the tip of his finger. It's not a Device Spell, so he's doing it directly with Dark Energy, so the flame is a sickly green-orange instead of bright, but it produces heat and energy.

    "So... are you holding up alright?" He asks. "The huge disruption of energy that came up on Halloween - I wanted to reach out, but I was busy dealing with some of the effects myself. Some sort of big super-witch. I caught sight of you at school after, so I didn't worry much... but now that you're here I feel like I should ask."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara gave a small nod. "Oh, you know how it is. Another apocalypse happens, I wait at home for everyone else to solve it. Oddly... not as bad this time. Better than Beryl, at least. They handled it really well. Weather was awful. It felt... wrong, though. I didn't know that it could feel like that, but... well... there it was."

"... I'd meant to ask you about it, actually. Walpurgesnight. But... well... there was just so much going on, I thought I had more time. Looks like my help wasn't really needed, though. Everyone workd together and they solved it, just like they always do. I guess I can't really be surprised by that, huh? This world really is something else."

"... So, what happened here? Anything wild I should know about, or just normal infighting accelerated by big witch?"

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Riventon shakes his head, even as he focuses on the crystal and the flame. "Nah, it was the Reactor. Something about Big Despair coming closer sent some of the calculations it was using off the charts." he says.

    "Almost went up actually. And we had a lot of energy in it at the time." he notes. "Was able to help them get it stablized though. Which is good. No big giant explosion is better than the other way things could go for sure."

    "I don't like leaning on all of those groups of people though." Riventon admits. "If not for the Reactor I would have been out there too. I've seen what happens when the sparkles fail. It still lives in my nightmares." he admits. "Don't really trust them."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara stared at him. "The reactor almost went UP? That thing is in the middle of the city, shouldn't it be better maintained? How much damage would that do to the rest of the city? Where was Precia?" she asked, unable to keep the horror out of her voice.

"Of all the... is that what happens? I leave and then this tower ends up exploding? And yeah, in the past they failed. But there were just four of them back then. When I was Sunbreaker I had four of them just pop in to interrupt my missions, regularly. There are at least forty of them. And it took armies to wipe out just those four. Beryl tried a second time and well... now you're using the pieces of her toys for your gadgets. Like it or not... you may not trust them, but they don't need you... or me... for that matter."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi looks at Hinoiri. "Well, Precia isn't from a world where witches are a thing so she didn't have to account for them. Other than the coming ashore of some sort of Super Sad Storm Witch the reactor's been very stable considering what it does." he says, almost defensively. "And now it could handle that, too."

    "Also, I'm much smarter than Beryl. For one thing, not consorting with sun demons is a good start. Not being crazily obsessed with another person to the point it challenges my ability to make good decisions, for another." he continues.

    "I've not seen anything to give me evidence that they're as strong as for me to let them be in charge of this world's destiny." he says, bluntly. "There's scarier stuff out there than Beryl, and I don't know if you saw it fully, but... let's just say it was closer than they want you to believe. I saw the moment where Paris was destroyed."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara was silent for a long moment, staring at the flames. she then held up her hands for a moment, considering things. Namely, her power... and lack of it.

"... I guess. It's not my world, anyway. So not like I have any room to talk. I'm neither an attacker or defender of this world. But..."

"For all Beryl's power, I've seen these people do some incredible things. If Beryl took out all the stops and these girls barely slid by? They're only going to get stronger. They didn't lose anybody to that witch. they didn't lose anybody to me. I thought they were just lucky in the former, now I'm not so sure."

"... I think... the next apocalypse is going to be interesting. Also, can I just say? Your world has *so many of them*. Is this normal? Has it been going on like this forever? Because I've been here a little over a year now and the world has almost ended twice since I got here. How many more times is this going to happen?"

Takashi Agera has posed:
    "With all due respect, Kirara-san... while you were powerful, even in that moment, you weren't yourself. So your whole spirit wasn't in it." he says. "Maybe that's all that saved them."

    Takashi pauses and consdiers. "I don't think it's normal. I don't remember anything like that before Sunset of Sora or Beryl. But I don't think it's going to be the last of them. I mean, look at the rest of Obsidian." he says. "And then there's the stuff in the Dusk Zone that's just looking for a way through... if it does get better, it'll get worse before it does." he says plainly. "There's not really room for error, and we're going to be tested a lot." he continues.

    "It's foolish for us to deny a source of protection and power and evben more than that, it would be disgraceful for me to not do my all. I've been given gifts too."

    "...So given your world is basically steeped in magic, you didn't run into giant monster apocalypses like we have?"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara was silent for a long, long moment. Then... "You... don't think... this is, somehow, my fault, do you? Me... snuffing out the sun like that, maybe triggered... no. That.... that'd be ridiculous. I mean... there was... Beryl was long, long before I was even born, I couldn't be the reason. Nope... right?" Hinoiri asked, a little doubt and worry in her mind now.

"... And... yeah. I think you're right. There's too much at stake for you to just assume that it'll be okay. So long as you're willing to work with the sparkle skirts when it's necessary." She walked over to one of the windows, looking out through the tinted windows.

"No. Our world... well. We had things, by default, that could have been 'apocalyse' level threats. But they helped protect us. Sora, for one. But there were a few others who were almost as powerful. Lots of old mythos aobut threats, like the windigos. But there hadn't been any threats like that for over, say, a thousand years. If not longer."

"The fact there were so many creatures with magic, and they were united, even if they did sometimes fight, might have been why world ending threats never showed up. For all her power, Beryl would have found it a lot harder when there were literally thousands, if not millions, of creatures who wanted to tear her apart. That's before you even account for Sora. Not to mention creatures like the dragons who are innately powerful and dangerous."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi shook his head. "Nah, stuff was happening before you got here. Beryl was here before you were." Takashi clarifies. "I doubt you being here accelerated anything. Hell, Sunset of Sora might have been a test run for them working together against Beryl." he adds.

    "I've still got a long way to go myself, but I know that with the information I have access to and things like this..." he gestures to the crystals with his free hand "...eventually I'll be strong enough that the world won't need to be afraid of apocalypses or anything silly." he says. "And we won't have to rely on a crayon box of sparkles to work together either."

    "I'm a creature that's innately powerful and dangerous, after all. Just listen to what they say about me!" he says with a laugh. "Which is why I'm glad you're helping me today. One step closer to being able to protect my world, you know?"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara gave a light snort, shaking her head. "Uh huh. I'm sure you will, Takashi." Oh, she didn't believe it. If she couldn't do it, there was no way HE could get that strong. But well... if he got stronger, it'd only end up better in the long run. He wasn't one of the nut jobs trying to blow everything up, after all. "I don't know if you're innately 'dangerous'. Powerful, maybe. But I've seen you do plenty of good, too. You're different from the youma, Takashi. If you weren't, I wouldn't be here to help you."

She then stretched out, lifting her hands over her head. "Nnnnng... though... I guess I should probably head out. You've got a lot of work still to do, and I don't think there's any more projects for me. But it was nice to help out again. So... your welcome. And thanks for thinking of me."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    "Well, I'll just have to put being able to say 'I told you so' to the fire unicorn as another motivator." he says, looking intently at her as he does so. "As for the 'do plenty of good' stuff, pass that up to the Sparkles so that next time someone's carting dangerous magic stuff through Tokyo, they let me have a look." he suggests.

    "You know, it's a shame though... I was hoping I'd be able to have a good rapport with the ruler of your world, and now I can't be as sure of that, since you decided it wouldn't be you..." he says, almost a bit forlorn. "Well, like I said, good words to the Sparkles, and thanks for giving me some help here."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara stuck her tongue out at him in a playful manner, giving a light smirk. "Oh, I look forward to it. If there is anyone from this world who can, it'll be you." That, at least, she believed. Then again, she believed he was the smartest person, in terms of magic, in this world. "... Wait, what? Who's carting dangerous magical stuff through Tokyo? Isn't... that Obsidian's department?" she asked, a frown on her lips.

And that last comment... made the smile fall. She sighed and glanced away. "Yeah. I... thought it would be me. But I guess I was doing it for all the wrong reasons. If... you ever do talk to Sora? Don't mention me. It'll... well... it'll likely... not... win you any points. She probably doesn't even remember me now..."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi shrugs. "I'm not sure, it's been getting transported to the school in seperate containers. Sparkles keep stopping me from being able to analyze it. I hope it doesn't put the school at risk. I live there, kinda." he says. As though his version of 'analyze it' wasn't 'steal it'.

    "I mean maybe I'll make her apologize to you, you never know..." he says in a singsong voice. "Anyways, thanks again. I think I can take it from here."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara gave a small nod. "I... see. I wasn't aware there was something like that. I'll... see what I can find out. Maybe it's nothing... or maybe it's something they don't want someone like me to find out about. So I can't... guarantee anything. But I'll try." She started towards the door.

"I don't think... there's really anything for Sora to apologize for. I was the one who went too far. I... thought she cared. Apparently, I was wrong. In retrospect... so much more makes sense now. No wonder she kicked me out. It was... nice working with you again, Takashi. Take care. Let me know how the crystal works, okay?" she said with a smile, before walking out, her mind already a mess again.

... Something being transported to the school? Incognito? Why didn't anyone tell her?

... Did they still not trust her?