821/School Supplies

School Supplies
Date of Scene:	28 November 2023
Location:	The Shed
Synopsis:	In which Naru has a surprise for Kazuo (hint: it's the shed), and Chat Noir has a request for Naru (hint: it's not the shed)...
Cast of Characters:	Naru Osaka, Kazuo Saitou, Adrien Agreste

---

Naru Osaka has posed:
It's a cool late afternoon and even more chilly back here in the wooded area of the school. It doens't help that the days are getting shorter, and it's starting to get dark oh so very early. Which means Naru is on a poorly lit wooded path in the deserted bit of the school grounds.

Totally not creepy at all.

She's got a jacket zipped up, and the hood flipped over her head to keep her warm as she waits there for Kazuo to join her as was pre-arranged. Behind her, not too far away, is what looks like an abandoned maintenance shed.

Her directions to Kazuo included such phrases as 'take the path that looks liek you'll get in trouble. It's fine. I promise'

Not at all sketch.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Honestly, Kazuo is figuring there's at least a forty percent chance of someone being possessed by something at some point in today's adventure, and a good chunk of that forty percent is occupied by 'Naru, already, when she was writing those directions.'

Nonetheless, Kazuo manifests at the prearranged time. It is chilly, which means he's actually got a light jacket on; but he navigates the poorly lit and steadily dimming further path casually and easily. Possibly he turned up earlier to scope it out. In which case, the dubious look he gives the abandoned maintenance shed may possibly be a practiced clone of the one he did then, or maybe this really is the first time he's seeing it.

On the bright side, he has a sizable cup of moderately fancy coffee in each hand, and the left-hand one is held out toward the Hooded Naru by way of greeting.

Adrien Agreste has posed:
"Well well well, what's a little lady like yourself doing in such a dark wood all alone?" The voice that comes from the darkness is familiar enough to Naru and holds a certain edge of amusement. It's the eyes that are seen in the darkness first: Green, glowing slightly like those of a cat might.

Cat Noir hops down from the tree he'd been perched in having arrived just a few moments ago to find Naru here in the dark all alone. Chuckling he strides closer toward Naru just as Kazuo starts to approach. Not at all sketch, nope. One gloved, clawed hand reaches out toward her as he stoops to give a flourishing bow. "Need a seeing eye kitty out in these dark woods?"

His head tips suddenly toward the approaching Kazuo, those green eyes fixing on him with a sudden stiffenss. Oops. Goofing around went and got him spotted by someone he didn't know! OOPS.

Naru Osaka has posed:
The familiar voice coming from the darkness doesn't make Naru startle.. it makes her giggle. "Why hello there, Cheeky Kitty." She clearly is familiar with the henshined feline and his general attitude.

Naru brightens as she spots Kazuo, and well.. she doesn't /look/ possessed. At least no more than usual? "Oh good, you found it!" Naru gestures between the pair of them. "Kazuo, have you met Chat Noir?" She asks as if this is the most normal thing in the world. "Cheeky Kitty, this is Kazuo Saitou, a good friend."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Not trailing gouts of blackened ectoplasm or staring with orbs of haunted viridian fire? Definitely a good sign. On the other hand, there are glowing green eyes, but ...

... somehow, Kazuo manages to stop himself before he can ask if the Cheeky Kitty is from Koji's adopted feral colony.

"I don't think I have," he says with a small, amused smile. "Pity I didn't know about the extra company, I'd've brought more drinks." Can humanoid black cats tolerate coffee? Will Kazuo's face survive unlacerated if he starts asking? Maybe discretion really is the better part, et cetera.

Adrien Agreste has posed:
No miasma or evil that might ping off the radar. The green eyes on closer examination seem to be lenses over the mask he wears and nothing more. At least until he blinks: The slitted eyes *were* real enough... but there were also lenses on the mask. It's hard to tell what color his eyes may truly be though the green seems to fit. A wide grin comes as he stands again looking not at all perturbed by the greeting even if it's unexpected.

"Aww, already moving on from me to another handsome guy, Naru-chan? Pity," he teases once more showing just why she might be calling him Cheeky.

He does turn toward Kazuo to give a friendly wave of greeting though. "Any friend of Naru's is one of mine. Pleased to meet you." The coffee though gets a more amused look. Reaching behind him he flips out a thermos that was apparently tucked into the belt at his back.

"Not a problem! I carry my own with me. I wasn't planning to be here, but saw Naru headed this way and thought I'd say 'hi.'"

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Have no fear, you are still my favourite Cheeky Kitty." Naru assures Chat Noir with a wink and a blown kiss, playing right along with the silly teasing. In any other context, there would be blushing and stammering on at least one side of this or another (or both), but somehow, this combination just rolls with it.

Naru reaches for the coffee that Kazuo brought and grins. "Thank you. I do appreciate something warm.. how about we get inside out of the cold, hmm?" She gestures towards the abandoned shed. Again. not at all sus.

"You already know where we're going, Chat.. wanna show the way?"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Kazuo glances at the shed again, following Naru's gesture. "I don't know about you," he says to Chat Noir, "but it looks to me like she's moving on from both of us to a couple of rusting lawnmowers. We might need to work on being more interesting." There is no corner of this conversation where the seriousness level is high, apparently.

Adrien Agreste has posed:
Cat Noir lashes his hand out to 'catch' the blown kiss which he clutches to his heart with a melodramatic sigh. "I can live with that!" Clearly there was no seriousness here no matter how incredibly sappy this entire interaction was. The entire while he's grinning away enjoying the playfulness between the two.

When Kazuo joins in mentioning the lawn mowers, he just winks toward him with a chuckle. "In this case it is a bit of a mystery shed. Girls love mystery, right?" Of course he does know what's going on. He was recently shown himself. Far be it from him to not show off a bit.

The door is approached as he reaches out for the knob. "It holds a little magic all of it's own. Open this way," he declares twisting the knob in the 'normal' manner to reveal a terrible mess of a shed, boards falling off, dusty and with cobwebs when the door is swung open. "You get preeetty much what you'd expect from first look. But turn it *this* way--" The door is shut again and he twists it oddly in the opposite direction. The one no one uses a knob for. When it's swung open this time the inside is different.

A clean, well lit classroom. Tables set up with chairs for people to sit and chat. The roll away chalkboards covered with various writings or symbols from people working on problems of magically related nature. There's a comfy couch, and some chairs that look equally soft. It's not 'here' at all.

"Ta da!"

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru watches as Chat Noir performs the 'trick' to let them into The Shed, rather than the shed and she beams. "Ta da!" She echos after him and then heads inside.

It's most assuredly larger than it looks from the outside, and somehow there are windows, even though the shed had none. Naru moves to go close the blinds, the windows aren't much good after dark after all. She sets her coffee down on a desk, one that has neatly stacked papers and a selection of books on it and appears to be used. Often.

"Inai-sensai got us this space for the light side folks to have somewhere reasonable secure to gather and share information and the like." She turns back to both of them. "At the moment, the security is just not telling the dark side folks, which is not ideal." She looks to Kazuo and then adds, "Which includes Hematite for the time being, just FYI."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Who doesn't love mystery? ... on the other hand ... "That seems to be a little less mystery and a little more spiders," Kazuo agrees to Chat Noir as he displays the open door the first time.

Then there is a ta-da, and Kazuo's general air of amusement dissolves to open and unabashed delight. He trails after Naru into the space; somehow what he winds up studying first is the windows. Possibly checking whether they're openable. Possibly trying to figure out where they might open to.

"This," he says fervently, "is a vast improvement over using people's dorm rooms and hoping none of the ostensibly responsible adults decide to check in." Presumably Inai is not included as an ostensibly responsible adult. It's probably best not to wonder which of the three words he doesn't think she qualifies under.

The mention of Hematite's name prompts him to sober a little, and he glances back toward Chat Noir. Not accusation; just checking expression. "Yes," he agrees to Naru. "That seems like a good idea."

Adrien Agreste has posed:
Cat Noir sweeps a hand forward to usher Naru and Kazuo inside before he steps in as well. The door is shut behind them all of course. Since he'd opened it he was taking it seriously that he also make sure it be closed behind them safely.

As the pair head in toward their various destinations his is obvious: The couch. Sprawling across it with legs stretched out to rest on the far arm, he pillows his hands behind his neck to literally LOUNGE like a cat. Taking up more space than he really needs.

The mention of Hematite, and the look from Kazuo, only earns a knowing smile. One hand lifts to flap away the topic of concern as if it didn't matter. "I know him. He knows me. Not *too* much but he knows me. Nice guy, caught up in a bad situation I'm sure. I've seen the lengths he goes to for his girlfriend." A pause and he adds, "And boyfriend." SOMEONE might have been at that ball it seems.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Right!?" Naru agrees wholeheartily with Kazuo at his assessment that it's better than their dorm room. "And we dont have to keep hiding the whiteboard and trying not to accidentally wipe things off."

The windows do not open, but when its daylight, they do look out into the same woods that they were just in. Magic.

Naru retrieves her coffee from the desk that isn't technically hers.. she just uses it every time she's in here and heads for the couch with a snort at Chat Noir. She gives his legs a poke to get him to at least lift them enough for her to sit down, leaving the chair for Kazuo.

"You're both welcome to work in here, or have meetings in here.. or whatever." She wrinkles her nose. "Bad situation is very much it." She agrees and then looks over to Kazuo. "Did you catch that there was another shrine attack last night?"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Kazuo quirks eyebrows at Chat Noir's pause and addition, and inclines his head just a little toward him with a casual sweep of unfairly well-behaved white hair. (Fortunately, unfairly well-behaved hair is not entirely uncommon at Radiant Heart.) "His girlfriend, at least, is an inspiration," he agrees, eyes laughing. "If she puts up with him, who are the rest of us to complain?"

The chair is taken before Naru can change her mind. (Though given the person occupying the couch, she's probably got the better of the deal.) "I hadn't heard about the new shrine attack yet. His boss is demanding more and more of his time, so I'm honestly more likely to hear from you than from him. Same pattern, or did they shake things up?"

Adrien Agreste has posed:
The tap to his feet earns a little pout from Chat Noir--But he does swing them away to sit properly so that she can have a spot. One leg drapes over the other, and he stretches his arms over the back of the couch instead. The one nearest Naru stays there, but he doesn't do the lame 'arm around shoulder' thing at least. The other? Well he did have that thermos of his own coffee to twist open which he does only to take a sip straight off of it. No cup here for now.

"Mm. I hadn't heard of any shrine attack, but then, I'm mostly solo. This place should help a bit for passing along information at least."

He tips his head a bit as the talk turns to Hematite's boss. "I heard she was also looking for a Prince? Apparently someone was thrown under the bus on that one." Him. It was him. Thankfully nothing had come of it yet. "I assume someone is still trying to find that person too. Any leads we know of?"

Naru Osaka has posed:
"You can stretch out again." Naru gives the pouting Chat a nudge. "Just let me sit down first." And she has, and if he wants to sprawl his legs across her lap, she isn't about to argue.

"Last night was an attack on Meiji Shrine." Naru explains briefly. "I dont know if Nephrite left anything behind, like the others have at other srhines. He looked like he was there pretty much waiting for people, so my vote is probably?" She wrinkles up her nose. "We probably need to go look to be sure, although what's going to be left after Sailor Moon did a pretty good purification all over the place to catch La Crima in that.. who knows." She considers a moment. "And we have finally gotten the code broken on the Midnight Tokyo map, but of course I wasnt' thinking and I left that envelope in my dorm room, and I haven't had time to look at it yet."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"-- Meiji Shrine." Kazuo leans carefully, puts his (apparently untouched) coffee down on the floor, and uses his freed hand as one half of a double facepalm headrest. "I wonder if the entire attack is a red herring. Designed to keep us busy trying to search the whole damned forest for evidence in the middle of thriving hordes of tourists, and so leave us failing to notice whatever they're actually doing."

He lifts his head and breathes after Naru makes her addition. "Oh. Good. Good. Maybe the map will give us a hint, especially if we can reference in the results we already got. That last one was weird." Says the reincarnated knight-traitor to the alien's roommate and the boy in the cat outfit, in the middle of a half-TARDIS classroom pretending to be a maintenance shed.

Speaking of which, he shakes his head ruefully to Chat Noir. "There are probably thirty thousand leads locked up in my head alone, but until the memories get cued somehow, nothing." Technically true is the best kind of true. And he's not sure. And he's very carefully not thinking about it, because blanching and screaming in front of someone one's just met is usually only acceptable in the middle of a medical emergency, building collapse, or really impressive monster attack. "In the mean time ... well, the more things she's ordering people to do, and the longer they take, the better chance we've got."

Adrien Agreste has posed:
"Awww, you're so sweet Naru!" Cat Noir intones while leeaaning in against her side to bat his eyes up at her as if he were just adoring her in general. It's a little tease though and he chuckles sitting up straight again. There were serious topics at hand to take his mind off such tomfoolery. At least a bit. He also opts to not swing his legs up again with a lift of his thermos to explain why silently. Better to not spill it.

"It's possible. That or maybe their targets all line up for some future thing. Like triangulating their next target?" He looks between the two. "If they're not sure where to find what they're looking for, setting up a few spots and using them as base points isn't a completely impossible idea. I mean," he pauses to take a sip off his thermos. "Provided they're working as a team."

"My ah, 'civilian' self can get a lot of places others can't. If you need some eyes somewhere I can do that. Right now my usual 'work partner' is out of the country, and Hawkmoth hasn't shown up since Sailor Eclipse was an issue."

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru takes a lingering drink of her coffee as she considers. "Soo.. the shrines.. to this point, the dark generals have been leaving chunks of dark energy at them." She explains to Chat. "Generally embedded into structures itself.. no I don't know how. Magic." Because that explains everything. "So it's been taking someone who can detect that energy pretty reliably to be able to know if the shrine is coughing up dark energy all of a sudden." She mmms softly. "I wouldn't expect your civilian self to be any more help there than I am."

Naru nods a little. "So far the shrines that they've been targeting have all being on pretty significant ley lines through the city. it's the /why/ that we're really struggling with."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Kazuo nods to Cat Noir's suggestion about the targets lining up, and then nods again at Naru's description of what the generals have been doing. It's the why that he picks up with. "Presumably they're doing something with or to the ley lines. Tapping their power, or trying to shift them to do something different than they usually do, or trying to use them to amplify another effect, or ... something. There are a lot of possibilities. And any of our guesses may be wrong; the whole thing may be designed just to keep us running around. But we're working with what we've got. I've got pretty decent detection and analysis abilities, but I have to be in fancy dress to be able to use them - so we've been doing an initial check as our normal selves," normal being a dubious choice of word there, Kazuo, "and then having me do a second one with all the ..." the oh-shoot-me-now outfit? No, that's a fantasy writer, and those outfits are more practical. He gestures vaguely. "Everything. If you're better at me than spotting in your civilian self, or better at analyzing in any circumstance, then by all means, go to it." -- oh, right, he had coffee. He picks it back up. Annnnd doesn't drink. Still.

Adrien Agreste has posed:
Cat Noir lets out a little sigh. "Not as good as my partner. She's the plan maker, usually," he admits with a glance up toward the ceiling. For just a moment he has to think on that topic and get it properly out of his head. Mooning over Ladybug right now wasn't going to do anyone any good.

His head drops forward again looking more serious now. "Poisoning the river, so to speak, would be my guess. If they can leave behind some of their power at various points and they intersect then... That's a wide range of area they could suddenly use to pull power from."

Why though? That he doesn't know, and what he was assuming is just speculation to begin with. His shoulders slump with a little sigh. "I'll keep an eye out regardless but the most I can usually do is fight or destroy things." A clawed hand lifts to make a little swiping gesture pointedly. It's followed by a sip of coffee.

His gaze skims over to Naru momentarily. "Speaking of what I can do, I wanted to talk to you later about something."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Right.. yes." Naru points at Chat Noir as he mentions poisoning the river. "When I was talking with Jadeite at Asakusa.. I had thought they were talking power out.. but I'm pretty sure that's where he said they were putting power in.. effectively poisoning the ley lines with dark energy, but it wasn't active yet. I expect they need all of them, or possibly all of them and then do a /thing/.. to actually make it happen." She hunhs softly. "So many options. That's our current biggest challenge, we've no means of narrowing things down, other than 'hey look, they did something, now we know they are going to do that thing, cause they just did.'"

Naru nods to Chat. "Prod me anytime. I can come over, you can come over. We can text."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"Asakusa has a focus," Kazuo says slowly. "Nezu has -- something strange, underground. The power station didn't have anything..." He exhales. "Maybe they're writing a sigil, for all I know. Stamping something's name on the entire city."

The one who smiles all the time is obviously the optimist. Of course!

A pause, and he glances between the two of them. "I could go back to your room and get the map, if the two of you want to have that talk now?"

Adrien Agreste has posed:
Cat Noir glances over to the various white boards here thoughtfully. "We should invest in a city map. I can get us one. I probably already have one in my own room," he admits. "Since I'm new to the city. Had to learn the layout somehow." He just hadn't used it in awhile. Unless his roommate swiped it, it should still be there.

Mention of leaving them alone earns just a little shake of his head. "It's okay. It's... nothing super serious." It really was, really, but leave it to him to play it off a bit.

Uncrossing his legs he slides off the edge of the couch onto his knees turning to face Naru. The thermos is planted on the floor so his hands are freed up and he reaches out to catch hold of Naru's hand between his own.

"Oh wonderful Naru," he croons melodramatically. "If anything happens to me, please take my ring until I return!" A little wiggle of his hand is given along with a grin. "It's kind of important to me, I'd rather that it not get damaged in a fight."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"I mean, perhaps the Dark Generals are redecorating." Naru replies to Kazuo's speculation. "It could be anything."

"A map would be handy, if you've one going spare." She isn't asking about red string and push pins.. at least not yet.

At the slide off the couch of Chat, Naru automatically reaches her hand out for his when it offered and then she starts to laugh at the melodrama of it all. "Of course, Cheeky Kitty." Her expression is fond, and amused. "Although honestly, it's easier all around if you just keep yourself all in one piece, hmm?"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"Well, yes," says Kazuo to Naru, straightfaced. "I'm pretty sure Zoisite at least is usually redecorating."

A breath out. "Maps. Laminated maps. Markers. Overlays. Now, if only we had a budget." He grins at the couch wholesale. The grin only widens when Chat slides into a kneel before Naru; Kazuo finally falls into drinking his coffee, probably to keep him from saying anything. Annnnything. This one is all Noir's. He is merely the delighted audience.

Adrien Agreste has posed:
Cat Noir hops back up to his feet rather smoothly. Silliness aside he was rather athletic, and had no problem showing off a bit when he felt like it. "Perfect! True, I'd rather not get in that state to begin with. Just in case though." A wink is given, and he stoops to sweep up the thermos he'd left behind.

"Ah, a budget! Now *that* I can hep with. Luckily most of those things could easily fall under 'school supplies.'"

"I'll get started on that, and make sure we're a bit more stocked up on such things soon. It was nice meeting you, Kazuo. And lovely as always my fair Naru."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"A delight, Cheeky Kitty. Always. Be well and take care." Naru comments to Chat Noir as he gets up with that smooth gesture.

Naru turns to Kazuo and flashes an amused smile. "I don't know Zoisite very well. Perhaps someday."