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Lilian Rook	The Dragon's Garden, which is now partially also the peak of a faraway mountain transplanted across the world, is as it is. The sameyness of it on each sporadic visit, in a way, feels like 'home'.     The kilometers-high mist into which it pieces a geographical pinhole of clear sky, which account for a third of Japan's post-Onslaught terraformed state, aren't going anywhere soon. The townspeople have nowhere to go but here, having once been sacrifices-in-all-but-name to Fuji before they were taken on by Tamamo, and their recent neighbours stranded in the Urals already have better than they could hope for here. The ocean is the same, nearly as much as it was before the end of the world, quietly teasing the crescent moon-shaped beach between the two overgrown grey cliffs to each side. The darkly thick bamboo forest that occludes the edge of the rise, where the sole path 'out', under the new torii gate, has permitted very little of the Russian scrub to grow outward. The weather is a light drizzle; the greyness of it is reassuring.     Here is one of the few places on Earth you can hear birds and insects and smell petrichor in the rain instead of iron. The rural late-19th century village, protected by the Muramasa of Distortions for so long, has been preserved as much as possible out of respect from the inhabitants; for its age and for the dead who rest in the large and carefully re-sanctified graveyard. The modern amenities imported into the area years ago, first little more than what might be afforded a temporary FOB, have been integrated and expanded-upon in ways one would struggle to notice; even the electric lights along the fences that demarcate the paths-- at night and in the rain-- have been ensconced in standing lamps carved by dedicated hands over the years. The ugly supply yard on the beach is gone, and the hydrogen stills are decorated as to enshrine the good and repel the bad, almost returning the town to how it was found, in a way.     The Ural people-- Nika's people-- have halfway erased any sign of the old prefab-reused huts that were theirs, redoing much of their construction to account for the vastly different weather. Both groups happily use their own language and don't notice a thing, thanks only to Unification. The wards are not only diligently maintained, but reinforced by now. The way to the eponymous 'garden' has been reinforced with a walkable dock for meaningful use, around the cliff edge. There are boats out in the shallows, now; only a few. The population over the last four years has risen by a whole entire thirty-two souls. Children who didn't exist when this was all started have learned to walk here.     The 'mansion', luxurious by the standards of the 1950s and quaint by the standards of obscene 21st century wealth, is the least changed of all on the outside, and the most on the inside, as it has been since 'Sakura' and the mysterious 'Himorogikage' group relocated here in part. Larger on the inside in a way you wouldn't notice for a while between so many sliding doors, lavishly decorated with antiques and artworks that don't follow any particular pattern, simply assembled to the best of aesthetic sensibility, and perfumed with the scent of spring indoors, being invited here by mysterious letter is equivalent to a text message at this point.     Which you are. With the strangely earnest request not to say anything to Lilian. Because your nameless-yet-obvious writer will 'tell her' in 'her own way', 'later'.
Lilian Rook	You're received by no guards nor house staff, though the remains of a recent, rushed cleaning are in evidence. It's Nika; the little blue-eyed blondie, now given to brushed hair and thigh-length sweatshirts that were recently washed; who finds you at the door and ushers you in with muted enthusiasm. The courtyard in the mansion that doesn't exist from the outside is your destination, where she has evidently been for a little while, as evidenced by the park bench strewn with plastic paraphernalia; it looks as if she's been modding a Playbrick on her own time, intending to enshrine it amongst her treasured Nintendo relics.     The cherry tree isn't worth calling 'unseasonable', since it's always been this strange ghostly thing of soft porcelain bark and translucent-pink petals. The overcast sky is visible from within, but the rain doesn't fall here, in this square of outdoors not much larger than a modest apartment. The step-stones are warm and dry. The gravel-sand is flat and unstyled, save where Nika has drawn in it. The single wisteria has nearly grown large enough to veil the only steps in and out. The smaller plum blossoms that line the path drown out the otherwise scentless camellia, and almost succeeds at concealing a sickly sweet, burnt-sugar reek around Sakura.     The girl herself, five nothing at best, half-vanishing into her layered formalwear, looks out of it; in ways that are difficult to describe. Her hair being left down is unusual, but not imminently distressing. The neatness of her clothes is a little bit lacking, but it's a complicated outfit. She looks tired, but that's common when she isn't spending time with Nika; and she is, currently, sat at a different bench; the one with the little outdoor table. It's the look in her eyes, maybe. That cloudy, hollow dissociation. And perhaps the way she's nervously fidgeting with a pair of deep brown contact lenses.     It surely can't be coincidence that not only Petra is here, but Mesmer Junior as well. They've both been for the better part of an hour. It makes the lack of guard even more striking, and the topic of what's going on perhaps more evident than it could be.     "I'm happy to see you all safe again." Sakura says, to even some people she hasn't met before. She smiles, out of habit, revealing the extent of her fatigue and nerves straight away. Her soft voice sounds as if it would vanish entirely if she weren't so tense. "Please, make yourselves as comfortable as you can. I'm sorry that I can't offer you anything. There is little that I could bring you myself, and the others . . . be away for a time, for us to speak." Her gaze wanders away as she talks. "I think that we have an hour at most. After that, I will have to answer many difficult questions for my uncalled-for misbehaviour. So, it's very important that you listen to me."     You have under a minute to get situated before she ploughs ahead. That's unlike her too. "The study of 'Voyager' must continue. I must see it for myself, as well. The things that are happening now have never happened before, and I can no longer predict them as I have. I know that many of you care nothing for this world, and know none of its people, so if you care even the least bit for Lilian, you should be willing to at least let me do anything it takes to even slightly raise our chances of preventing the inevitable, whether or not you like what you may hear." She flinches at her own words. "I'm sorry. That was needlessly rude. But I am serious."
Arthur Lowell	> Arthur: Quest time!     Heading back to this particular locale is always simple and easy for Arthur. He's been here, on and off, for the better part of multiple years, making visits practically a habit at this stage. He was here when it was discovered! So he's eager to take any invitation, albeit... soured on the idea of refusing to tell Lilian. > Arthur: DO WHAT YOU MUST     "Shut up." Arthur mutters under his breath to nobody in particular, between gritted teeth and a forced grin. In fact, it stays plastered over his face, and it sticks firmly even when he sees Mesmer Junior -- the subject of a tantrum meltdown some time ago. He scratches his cheek, tilts his head, and turns to focus more on Sakura. > Arthur: Skip to the important stuff     "DAMN," He says. "Did I just straight up NOT PAY ATTENTION SUPER HARD on some CRITICAL STUFF?" He gestures, propping an elbow on its opposite palm and bouncing the hand in the air with his words. "Don't that TIN CAN got a PERSON all SARDINE-MODE up in that motherfucker, who HATES YOUR GUTS? Wants you KILLED? NIKA TOO? Or did I HEADBUTT TOO MANY DUDES and now I'm EXTRA STUPID?"     He crosses his arms, trying to keep up the cool-kid swagger. He leans to one side and continues, "I know it's NO GOOD for your SEER stuff to go DARK, like BELIEVE ME. Where I come from that's SUPER BAD OMEN." A quick head-shake. "But going straight for the MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE OF HATERADE as ya SUBSTITUTE WISDOM seems like a BAD CALL, DAWG." > Arthur: Explain what you want to do to those involved if Voyager gets opened     Arthur can't say that in polite company.
Angela	Angela of course can't visit herself. Well she COULD but she's trying to ease off on pressuring Petra. This is for her sake, of course, but it's also because Angela wants to get a better feel for the progress of gathering Light and it's a bit tough to compare when outings are frequent. This means that she has to send people on behalf. And as has been commonly the case of late, she has sent two people along. One of these people is Moku, Who is Moku? Well actually she's also a former Lobotomy Corp agent--she just didn't attract any attention because she never spoke up, did her work without complaint, and didn't suffer any meltdowns. Moku is a woman with black hair--she used to hold it in a bun, but is letting it down lately. Her eyes are a faintly glowing yellow--some sort of augment perhaps?--and now that she's no longer stuck wearing Lobotomy Corp uniforms, she has swapped to wearing light grey robes with a yellow shash around her waist. Her exit interview with Petra was probably rough because she either had to answer through nods of her head or shakes of her head or writing down answers. She elected to stay behind as a Librarian but this is her first mission outside. "I guess our host doesn't have to worry about you talking to anyone about this meeting." "..." Moku bobs her head slightly. "...And I can keep my trap shut." "..." Moku bobs her head again, slower this time. "Don't like not telling Lilian about it though," Roland mutters. "But if they're planning on telling her themselves I guess it's not like I'm keeping a secret." Roland has been feeling rather antsy about his own secrets, in fact but he sighs uneasily all the same. Roland doesn't really know the Blooms personally, though Moku is holding an Angelapad in hand and Angela is petting Harriet's back absentmindedly. Upon seeing Nika, Moku bows deeply to her. "Um hey--we're here." ROland says, following the path designated towards him. He actually notices Petra and Mesmer first when they arrive, his expression growing worried as he sees the two of them there. Not really because of either one in particular, but the fact they are both here? That feels like bad news that is going to become his problem. But rather than sweating and mumbling immediately, he decides to let whatever terrible news or situation will get thrown at him hit him when it happens rather than dwell on what feels like an inevitability. Moku holds up hands and waves them from side to side at Sakura in a conciliatory gesture towards the lack of snacks. She doesn't need anything and Roland isn't crass enough to complain about a lack of snacks. At least he doesn't think she's going to shoot him in the back, some of his previous employers--he wasn't sure he could count on that! "Misbehavior? Rude?" Angela asks. "...If we only have an hour, I'd rather you be succinct and rude than worrying overmuch about etiquette. I appreciate the concern." Of course it's easy for her to say she's not even there. Moku nods. She doesn't seem to be bothered though she does look at Arhtur for a few seconds. "Arthur's got a point." Roland says. "From what I heard, the Voyager entity specifically considers you something to be eliminated. Am I getting that wrong?"
Trudy Grimm	It has been some time since Trudy had an opportunity to visit Dragon's Garden, and so in the light rain she still takes her time to appreciate how things have changed since those meetings about Ash in what feels like years ago, now. So much has happened in such a short time; not just for the Blooms who rely on this tiny sanctuary, but for Trudy personally. She reflects on this when she pauses to watch the boats out on the sea, letting the nostalgic charm of the Garden wash away her worries like ashes in the rain.     However, Sakura's letter had a sense of urgency about it, and so Trudy shouldn't tarry for too long taking in the scenery. She takes a sharp breath, letting it out in a determined little sigh before hurrying on her way. It feels a little wrong to be here without Lilian, but she has no reason to doubt Sakura. -- > "Or did I HEADBUTT TOO MANY DUDES and now I'm EXTRA STUPID?"     "You are a master at it," Trudy comments as she arrives in the manor's inner garden. Her tone is teasing but friendly, "So I would doubt it could meaningfully harm you. Hello, Arthur."     The witch opts to sit on the edge of the plank walkway near the table Sakura has already seated herself at; letting her legs hang off into the garden space proper. The new, unnamed grimoire hangs at her hip, completely devoid of the evil haunting presence Malice had previously exuded. Once seated, Trudy wiggles her fingers in a wave towards Nika where she works on her devices; then her attention shifts wholly to Sakura.     "Please, your company is more than enough to satisfy my humble needs," she comments when the tiny princess apologizes, "Don't worry about me."     The subject shifts to Voyager. Having missed out on the earlier parts of this due to her own business, Trudy shifts herself to listening intently. This is her opportunity to catch up. Resting an elbow on her knee, the witch leans forward and braces her chin on the heel of her hand. Sakura's state of... slightly disheveled and tired, doesn't escape her, but the importance Sakura puts on what she has to say takes priority.     That Petra is already here isn't notable; Petra's been here several times and is friend to all Blooms. But that Mesmer Jr... Trudy is entirely unaware what this other person is like or what she's doing here, and so in the periods where Trudy's attention slides off Sakura, it's to take Mesmer's measure.
Xion	Getting a text message is as good as summoning Xion, who despite regularly answering vague texts to show up and help that led directly to an active fight still takes this one in the spirit of a bit of tourism. Well. Tourism, at a speed. She was expected! She just had enough time for the speed run. Having mass accepted all of the fetch quests in the area on all the popular platforms, Xion exits her first Corridor-portalswirl at a jog, bouncing on black checkertoe snow 'shoes' (really, light boots), black leggings into purple fuzz-fringed black jean shorts, and a white t-shirt with checkerboard scarf under a black hoodie with silver zippers under a red puffer jacket. The hoodie is half-zipped, the puffer is open, and a keychain trails like a watch chain looped around one of her beltloops. With a puff of breath at the base of the climb, she brings up her burgercharm dangling thick-cased smartphone and swipes to her navigator app. "First up is..." She delivers extra batteries, she caters a plate of Jersey Mikes sandwiches for someone craving classic Italians with some toast on them, a whole generator comes out of a portal no worse for wear ('They're meant to do that! I think? Mog always says that.'), she rescues lost pets on her way, and as she skids, jogs, and jumps through portal after portal to give a quick greeting and visit in motion. "Why don't I just go straight, if I was just invited?" Xion loudly explains to someone she startled while depocketing several individual portable heaters with rechargeable batteries with all sorts of 'don't light your house on fire' warnings required to be placed on them in most jurisdictions with competent consumer product protection laws that are themselves plastered over with Moogle head stickers. "Just awkwardly showing up right at the end of things in a black hood with a sword looking slowly around like you're squaring up against everyone just kept on starting fights!" Laughing conversationally, she brings out the last heater for Get Me Ten Heaters (Repeatable) and collects her ~~drop shipment~~ quest payment via app. "So I tried starting at the beginning instead and just working my way up. People expect someone different dressed like that at the beginning, don't you think? Hey, rate my fetch five swords please, I'm like two perfect reviews away from something, I think?" She asks, before grinning and backwards hopping into another Corridor with a trailing wave. The truth was that she was near several records across multiple questing app platforms, but being humble got you the good reviews. Bouncing on up the path, Xion catches up around the time Trudy inquires as to Arthur's headwound, slipping into the quiet room and unzipping her hoodie because she was immediately warm while looking around slightly confused. "Oh, hey Nika! It's good to see you again! I sort of expected Arthur to beat me here, but wow, Petra, you must've really rocketed to get here so fast." Xion begins, shifting from a smiling fingerwave at Nika to Petra nearby, before glancing over to Arthur, growing more concerned just on vibes alone. "Hey is everything okay? Someone's perfume smells pretty great, but did you hit your head? I've got ice? Magic and baggie blocks kind."
Tamamo	Being at the Dragon's Garden is normal for Tamamo. Being here without being summoned is normal, too. Being summoned with instructions 'not to tell Lilian' is abnormal, a little worrying, and more than a little concerning, but she still does. Lilian will find out 'later,' after all, and whatever's happening, it will surely be better for Tamamo to be there to judge it.     Nika she's talked to frequently enough -- maybe a little less frequently than she'd like, but seeing her in person is more rare. It's felt less 'necessary' with her games as a letter-exchanging substitute. "It has been some little while, Nika," is what she says, meaning 'by sight,' and not 'by word,' and offering a smile that hides all her worry and not quite all her concern.     "Sakura-chan, as am I--oh?" Petra being here before her would be only slightly surprising, given her ability to get to places quickly, demonstrated on occasion. Mesmer Jr. is an entirely other matter. The idea that they were both summoned earlier than the rest, even more so. "An explanation would be helpful, after all."     '...anything it takes to even slightly raise our chances of preventing the inevitable...'     Taking her seat in her own overly-layered formal wear, Tamamo keeps her back straight by habit of poise, before turning to ask, "'The inevitable,' you say, but that is... other than that of which you have spoken before, I would guess. Is it a secret to now be divulged, or something that must not be declared, even now? As well, I wonder, whether it is the same sort of inevitability as feared by our 'voyager.'"     'Don't that TIN CAN got a PERSON all SARDINE-MODE up in that motherfucker, who HATES YOUR GUTS?'     "'Fear' would be a more accurate term, though I know well how often these two feelings go hand-in-hand. I would feel differently toward them if I also feared them." She doesn't actually say what she is feeling.
Petra Soroka	"This isn't something I can do on my own . . ."     Petra's already here when everyone else starts arriving, and naturally she's glued to Nika to catch up with her. After very very obediently performing her role in a divine ritual for Sakura, and of course helping her with her actual goal with Mesmer, there was basically no time until the requested time for the rest came, so she's just at the beginning of her blabbering to Nika once they've both assembled their relevant objects. Her mechanical toys are floating around her, mirroring Nika's plastic console pieces.     Petra is sitting in the gravel next to Nika's bench, rather than being up on top of it. Norton, the little succulent planted in a techy pot, levitates weightlessly beside her. The monochrome rat tamagotchi on screen is currently hopping up and down in a joyous two-frame animation, to indicate its present wellbeing, presumably.     Petra has a journal out, pages colorful with yellow and green doodles and neat gridlines detailing boldly readable instructions on Norton's care as Lilian described it to her, as well as notes of its daily development and sketches of its leaves with carefully finger-blurred colored pencil to patch the shade. She's showing this off, and Norton himself, to Nika while the others filter in, demonstrating how lightly brushing a finger against a leaf causes the rat on screen to be petted on the head.     "Ciuokaze, tiu 'tas Norton! Lilian gave him to me to take care of a little bit ago, and I built that pot for him, and designed that screen to give him a face." As she tends to do with Nika, Petra's speech is stiltedly direct, unconsciously automatically slipping into the unambiguous grammatical structures of esperanto.     "He's sort of like a cousin to the ratbots now, which is why I wanted to introduce him to you and Ruble." Petra is eminently proud and enriched for everything to do with Norton, and expects that Nika of all people will understand why. The plant is, in an objective sense, extremely easy to be taken care of and could be forgotten about for weeks at a time without harm, but Petra's tracking of its health is obsessive like a meditative practice, to cherish it through observation and care.     Obviously, that all has absolutely nothing to do with why Sakura summoned everyone. It's just an important ritual for Petra to attend to every Bloom, and with the dread that this is going to be a heavy conversation from Sakura, it'd be easy to let Nika be left behind during that. And for now, at least, until she'd given a new task, making Nika happy accomplishes the simultaneous goal of making Sakura's emotions easier to bear as best as Petra can.
Petra Soroka	"I'm happy to see you all safe again."     There's probably time for a few back and forths between Petra and Nika, but whenever it's cut off by Sakura's unusual urgency, that's where it ends. Petra shifts in the gravel to swivel around on her knees to face her, and twitches a little when Sakura apologizes for not preparing anything for the group. Her eyes darting to the side ask if she's allowed to bring something in Sakura's place, but the fact that she doesn't immediately get up is because she expects that there won't be time. "That was needlessly rude. But I am serious."     Petra "externalized needless rudeness" Soroka could back Sakura up in one particular way, but opts for the gentler option instead. Her stare sweeping across the other Elites is still magnitudes more firm than even Sakura's briefly heated voice, but for once she's not actually picking any fights. Arthur and Roland are lingered on while she talks for their discomfort with immediately accepting some part or another of Sakura's presence, but she's insistent, rather than angry about it.     "Okay, like, I'm serious as hell about this too, guys. Including the bit about Voyager and even not telling Lilian ourselves. Just because we're still researching the Voyager probe doesn't mean we have to do anything it *says*, and we can literally do the *opposite* with more knowledge than we'd otherwise have. That thing *knows* about what happens when the Blooms end the world. Who gives a shit about what its opinion is on that? You know?"     Petra breathes out slowly, continually recalling and reinforcing her choice to trust fully in Sakura. "Whatever Sakura says we need to do, we're doing. Just, um, one thing, though." Petra raises up her hand like she needs Sakura to call on her to speak. "Why's the Voyager probe stopped you from predicting the future?"
Petra Soroka	"I sort of expected Arthur to beat me here, but wow, Petra, you must've really rocketed to get here so fast.""     Petra shuffles around in the gravel again, now having burrowed out a full circle around her by kneeling. Xion's given a wiggly-wave back, with Petra being generally in a good mood despite Sakura's grim atmosphere-- since she's currently in a position where she should be best able to help Lilian and Sakura, in what feels like a pre-mission briefing. As tense as it is and as secondhand stressed she is on Sakura's behalf, this is a circumstance to be alert rather than sullen.     "Oh, I had an important mission a bit earlier-- we're talking about everything that's come after the Golden Record now though. Oh! Oh, and Nika," Another swivel, "Have you and Ash been getting along? I absolutely thought you would ever since I started talking with them. You've been talking them through-- oh, well, I won't interrupt Sakura, but later."     She also pat-pats the ground near her-- or the bench if Xion doesn't want to be on the ground for some reason-- to indicate for Xion to sit at.
James Bond	There is a short list of people that James Bond will accept invitations from without question. He arrives with an umbrella in hand and deployed, no stranger to grey skies, drizzles or even downpours owing to his own, much less idyllic island nation of origin. On most of the occasions that Nika has ever seen him, Bond has been in disguise or deniable uniform. Today is quite different.     "Hello, Nika," he warmly offers, closing the umbrella as he steps in and placing it by the door. As if by instinct, he sheds his red-brown wool overcoat to find a rack for it. The wide lapels are still in style on his world. The collar of a blue dress shirt peeks neatly out from the neckline of a stylishly loose-fitting white ribbed knit sweater that ties together the rusty brown of his coat and his slacks. If he were a few years younger, he'd look right out of a New Wave band.     "I'm very glad to see you again. You look well." There's more that he'd like to say--but he does notice that little treasure of hers isn't in her hands, at the moment, and it can wait. In the mean time, as he's led further in, he can appreciate the drawings in the courtyard--moreover, the fact that Nika can draw here, at all. That there is a 'here' for her to be. I'm happy to see you all safe again.     "Likewise," says Bond. "It's been quite a while since the last time we saw each other." Please, make yourselves as comfortable as you can.     Bond feels a slight tightness in his chest. His mouth twitches downwards. ...so if you care even the least bit for Lilian, you should be willing to at least let me do anything it takes to even slightly raise our chances of preventing the inevitable, whether or not you like what you may hear.     Is that what this is about? Is it related to ... that, again? That conversation she had with Ash? His jaw tenses. He's certain that he won't like what he's going to hear, somehow. That this isn't a new feeling bothers him more than the preamble. There have been so many mornings like this meeting, sat at a conference table, told why he should go off and ruin the trajectory of lives to--allegedly--preserve those of others deemed more important. From what I heard, the Voyager entity specifically considers you something to be eliminated. Am I getting that wrong?     He still doesn't make himself comfortable--still stands, hands in his pockets. Bond grips his leg from the occluding safety of his pocket. So it is about that. In a sense.      "I appreciate your brevity," he says to Sakura. Just because we're still researching the Voyager probe doesn't mean we have to do anything it *says*, and we can literally do the *opposite* with more knowledge than we'd otherwise have.      "I'm not going to do anything it says."
Foundation Scions	It's not as if Mesmer Jr. ever looks at ease, but whatever took up the prior hour she's been here has clearly set her into a truly sour state; not one where she's overly liable to snip and bicker, nor one where she's lashing out, but wary and worn-through. All that's to come is a chore at best and far worse at worst.     So, a touch more vigilant than usual, and a measure more reactive, Arthur's 'Shut up', be it her way or not, makes her flinch, with eyes locked his way, followed up by a thoughtless back-step towards the outer border of the courtyard. Despite the lack of rain, she's lingering around the overhanging eaves, not trusting the dryness and not dressed at all to properly handle precipitation. Mouthing something silent, she crosses her arms, still staring back Arthur's way, without the room for any other sort of response. It's a surprise, to see more people than present at the Artificial Somnambulism investigation of the Voyager's tapes, rubbing in again that, damn, she really did stumble into involvement with something annoyingly large, annoyingly cryptic, and, most annoying of all, absurdly high-stakes, if only given the tone people continue to take, whether she understands any of it herself or not. But that's fine. By the end of this, there'll be an idea of what she's to do to get through everything, and that's that, she can carry on with the study, or she can carry on with her life. If the outcome is neither of those, she's not eager to think about it now. 'An explanation would be helpful, after all.'     Mesmer is not who was asked this! She answers anyway, defensive without specifically having been asked to omit anything- "I was asked-for ahead of time. That's it. It isn't a conspiracy, it isn't a mystery. There were matters to discuss, and I'd hardly call that something to worry over." She's not particularly eager to admit she's basically here at gunpoint! That doesn't mean she's happy about it. 'But going straight for the MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE OF HATERADE as ya SUBSTITUTE WISDOM seems like a BAD CALL, DAWG.'     "It's information. That's nearly never something worthwhile to avoid. Whatever's to be done with it," Mesmer sighs, half annoyed, half defensive, "That isn't my problem, so I've hardly a reason to state an opinion on it. Follow it, study it, do the opposite, that isn't here or there, I can't imagine any of that is made easier by pretending it doesn't exist."     A frustrated sigh, trailing off right at the end like it's less of the intentional gesture it seems- "I'm personally interested in the continuance of its study, for what it's worth." Negative, probably.     "With or without the involvement of Laplace Scientific Computing Center, which I imagine," Because she was told, "Is a contentious topic. One that I don't share worry over, it's perfectly feasible to provide falsified data and still maintain support, or, simple enough to falsify where equipment is loaned to. So, please, don't bring it up, it's able to be handled." She's actually the one bringing it up! Why? Standing far enough away from everyone, it's not quite as easy to see, but her hands are clinging in that crossed-arm posture, far too tight into the material of her sleeves, even before having been asked, trying to justify herself with any of this.
Angela	Roland says, "Yeah..." to Petra. "I mean I'm not worried it's going to say something mean to her, I'm mostly worried it might do something violent. Even if it just kicked Lilian out last time, doesn't mean it's safe." He pauses and then adds, "But for that matter, even if it is safe--what's Sakura going to do if the Probe will just nope out of any engagement with her?" He slides over to Xion and lowers his voice to aside to her, "Hey, unrelated to that. You cool to work together? We did get pretty serious in that fight." He even got killed, technically speaking!! He is surprised that Mesmer's willing to falsify data to Laplacer in the first place but gives her a nod. He can, if nothing else, appreciate someone flexible to deal with the situation at hand rather than be stuck up on rules that will cause a lot of problems for everyone. "Alright. Sounds good." He says. His unease about Mesmer and Petra being here together fades considerably as a result. It occurs to Angela that she probably hasn't really checked in on Xion enough herself but she doesn't like the idea of just immediately following up Roland with her own comments. It feels like badgering. Moku sits herself down. She somehow seems comfortable even on a bench, which she's sitting on crosslegged. She dips her hat down slightly over her yellow eyes and then closes them like she's meditating. Or falling asleep. She is smiling, however. She seems comfortable here.
Tamamo	"Hello, Xion. Did you keep busy on the way?" Tamamo's not on all the questing apps, but she's semi-recently taken an interest for certain reasons, one of which involves ensuring that quests are available when people would like to take them. It just makes things better for everyone to not have questing energy wasted.     If she hadn't been curious about Mesmer being here first, and hadn't had any other reason to be paying closer attention, Tamamo might have missed that flinch. As it is, she was already keeping Laplace's surgeon in her field of view, and only turns further as a matter of visible politeness to hear her (actually unbidden) explanation.     'It isn't a conspiracy, it isn't a mystery.'     'I had yet to say anything,' she doesn't say.     'Is a contentious topic. One that I don't share worry over, it's perfectly feasible to provide falsified data...'     The way Tamamo tilts her head is only magnified by her headdress, to say nothing of the fluffier aspects. "'Falsified'... would that be necessary?"     'Just because we're still researching the Voyager probe doesn't mean we have to do anything it *says*, and we can literally do the *opposite* with more knowledge than we'd otherwise have.'     'I'm not going to do anything it says.'     "There is a particular matter in which we might learn much by doing as it requests, and cannot reasonably hope to learn otherwise. At the very least, it would be let us avoid the unpleasantness of desecrating the dead." Swapping right back into the topic, tone shifted accordingly. "I mean, of course, the matter of reviving the voyager," she doesn't mean the probe, "so that we may question other than a record. This would not be without risks, and they have not gone unconsidered."     Tamamo turns again to Sakura. "As you have seen it necessary to involve yourself at this point, I wonder if you hold an opinion on the matter." She still hasn't said what she personally wants done.
Arthur Lowell	> Arthur: Am I getting that wrong?     "That's what I HEARD it sayin' LOUD AND PROUD when we RUNG IT UP." Arthur rambles a bit, nodding to Roland. > Arthur: Hello, Arthur.     "S'UP. Good see'n' ya." Arthur gives a quick nod to Trudy. "Yeah, hopin' ya boy's got all his NEURONS, but," He does a broad, easygoing gesture. "NEVER TOO SURE." > Arthur: Hey is everything okay?     Arthur's grin grinds just a little. "NO BIGGIE, I'm CHILL AS ICE already." He says, eyes practically lulling shut from the easygoing, above-it-all relaxation that he's performing with an intensity so taut and strained that it threatens to break at the slightest adjustment in room temperature. > Arthur: 'Fear' would be a more accurate term     "Look," He waggles a finger a little. "Whatever SPEAKS-AND-SPELLS got up in their HEART ain't CRITICAL as long as PRIORITY ONE for that dude is SLITTING LILIAN. They could be full of PURE LOVE and I'd still say NOT TO UNROLL THEIR LIL' MATTRESS-BOX." > Arthur: Just because we're still researching the Voyager probe doesn't mean we have to do anything it *says*     "DOES mean the thing gotta not be JUNKED or BOXED though." Arthur's arms re-cross. "And the ONE-EIGHT-HUNDRED-KILL-GIRLS PHONE MENU in that GOLDEN RECORD can still try TRICKY SHIT. I don't like it." He shakes his head sourly. > Arthur: It's information. That's nearly never something worthwhile to avoid.     "Sure. But there's MORE THAN INFO in that thing. You wanna hear what'd EASE ya boy's HEART? Make me get," Arthur does a sour little head-wiggle. "ONBOARD with gettin' some SPACE MAGE MAGIC up on this DECODE, and then I'd be GASSED UP FOR DIGGING THE ARCHIVE? Wanna know what'd FIX ITS LITTLE RED WAGON?" He starts, still force-grinning, still keeping his own distance from Mesmer and his own arms crossed. "I'll tell you. You got BRAIN TECH, right? You got the PATIENCE to be THOROUGH and SEE A JOB ALL THE WAY? Before you dig that ARCHIVE, you find the ZIP-FILE ALIEN CRANIUM in there FIRST."     "You find that brain, and you--" > Arthur: DO NOT INTRODUCE THE IDEA > Arthur: THE WORLD IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ONE GIRL > Arthur: THE POSSIBILITIES ARE MORE VAST THAN A NARROW VINDICTIVE VIEW > Arthur: THE STARS ALIGN TO BRING SERENDIPITOUS VICTORY > Arthur: TURN THE GEARS OF HEAVEN AS THEY ARE LAIN > Arthur: DO NOT SUGGEST TO CHANGE THEM     Arthur winces and his grin breaks, like recoiling from an amplifier's feedback -- one that was turned off instantly after. > Arthur: Suggest it.     "Kill the Passenger before it can ever be alive."
Lilian Rook	'Oh, hey Nika! It's good to see you again!'     'It has been some little while, Nika,'     'Hello, Nika. I'm very glad to see you again. You look well.'     Moku bows, Trudy waves, and Nika responds to each in an order different than the one she received them, distracted-seeming but happy all the same. The way she bounces up on her toes and walks circuits around everyone coming in is sort of like a friendly dog, recently returned from the vet but brushing off fatigue via enthusiasm for visitors.     "Hi! Hello! 'Konbanwa'! It's really been ¶tempus fugit¶ wow! Aren't I taller now? Arman said I was too old to keep growing, but Saeko said I was so I started marking it every month and I'm ¶four-point-one centimeters/childhood's end¶ taller now! Finally! She also said my hair got really long but I don't remember how long it was before so it's fine too. Oh gosh before I forget you're all invited to my birthday too! Oh but I'm not gonna talk about it right now. Sakura had a ¶really bad day/family emergency/drop in the ocean¶ so you actually have to all be super respectful and also you should use inside voice okay? I gotta get back to ¶messaging a friend/Journey to the East¶ so be good!"     Indeed, she has definitely been engrossed with Petra's shenanigans for a while now, by the look of it. The courtyard isn't a common place for her to appear, so perhaps the rainy day helps. Several of the designs in the gravel drawn by her are of Norton, one of which is a cartoon chibi of Petra with Norton hovering over her head and the text 'LV: 1' left over from explaining what a 'newbie sprout' is and how Norton looks like one. Ruble, with his little hand-made Rat House (not two-storeys) is parked on one end of the bench, and Nika hurries right back to putting the little ratbot in her lap, confidently stating that Ruble thinks Norton is his 'most majestic cousin' and a serious question as to whether Lilian could be convinced to garden here instead of home.     'Or did I HEADBUTT TOO MANY DUDES and now I'm EXTRA STUPID?'     Despite Sakura's current state, best described as 'ethereally haggard', Arthur still gets one genuine smile from her; not a patient one, or a grateful one, or a guilty one, but one that comes with a subvocal giggle. "No, no Arthur. You're right. I was watching when you spoke to 'Voyager', after all." she says. "It's very sweet of you, to show your support like this. But . . ." She glances over to Nika, a little ways away, who is rapidly entering something into a pictochat screen to someone on the other end. "It's nothing that the four of us haven't heard before, one thousand times."     'From what I heard, the Voyager entity specifically considers you something to be eliminated. Am I getting that wrong?'     "The Voyager," Sakura spontaneously decides on nomenclature. It's distinct from 'Voyager 1' at least. "Has left us a message. Though I wouldn't strain myself to speak kindly on their behalf," She is already, though. "The Voyager doesn't know that I, 'myself', exist. With the knowledge available to them . . ." The residual warmth from Arthur fades. Sakura's smile dims down to embers. "It's a reasonable thing to think that I am, Roland."
Lilian Rook	'Hey is everything okay? Someone's perfume smells pretty great,'     "I appreciate you saying so, Xion, but you really needn't be so kind." Sakura says. Her smile returns because it's the only thing she can wear. The look in her eyes, distinctly far more 'amber' than Xion remembers, is unmistakably shame.     'wow, Petra, you must've really rocketed to get here so fast.'     'An explanation would be helpful, after all.'     It's Tamamo, most of all, that Sakura looks up guiltily to. Perhaps it's a side effect of being raised by a fox. "I invited Miss Mesmer Junior here myself, to inform her of some details, and allow her to advocate on her own behalf." Sakura says. "It is now unavoidable that she knows too many things to be let go uncritically. The nature of her profession is such that any tampering with her memory would fail to go unnoticed, her continuing to study 'Voyager' would disseminate information capable of causing disaster, and her sudden stopping would be suspicious. It is my hope that I can convince her to cooperate with us all." She stares into her hands. "I wouldn't like to resort to drastic measures, if it's at all possible."     It's unmistakable that she just started looking relived, as Mesmer comes out swinging with her offer. Even though she barely knows her, it's like she's already walking on eggshells on her behalf; skittishness that stems from a neurotic, parasocial fear of risk; like Mesmer is the one holding a gun to her head instead.     'Why's the Voyager probe stopped you from predicting the future?''     Sakura tenses. It's a little bit familiar. When Lilian does it this way, it's like seeing a centimeter of naked blade drawn from the scabbard. With Sakura, it's like a plant closing up leaves to protect itself from the sun. This is exactly what she was afraid of, and what she was braced for.     ''The inevitable,' you say, but that is... other than that of which you have spoken before, I would guess. Is it a secret to now be divulged, or something that must not be declared, even now?'     "Now is the time." Sakura says. Despite squaring herself as strongly as she can, her voice cracks and rasps. Her fingers slip into an inner pocket, and by nervous habit, begin toying with something inside. "And . . . Thank you." she says, a little less rough, and stops to take a deeper breath. "There were many times it would have been within your rights to press me. I haven't failed to notice how magnanimously you all have allowed me to keep my secrets. Thanks to that, I was able to enjoy years unlike those I've ever had before. I already can't repay you for the gift you've given me."     Releasing whatever is in her pocket with some active psychological effort, Sakura reaches under the table to the seat next to her, and gently places a cloth bundle on the surface, slowly unwrapping it to reveal the mangled wreckage of . . . a ratbot? One of Petra's.     "First, I will show you a miracle, and you, of all people, will understand how ordinary it truly is. Then, I will tell you something impossible, and I will beg you with all of my heart to believe me."
Tamamo	'Oh gosh before I forget you're all invited to my birthday too!'     "I shall be glad to attend." For Nika, as well as for Sakura, Tamamo maintains a similar, unseasonable warmth through any subject matter -- similar, even, though not the same, as what she consistently holds for Lilian. It's a little different for her than it is for Petra, but the results are parallel in these cases.     Little more time is spent away because, just as Nika said...     'The nature of her profession is such that any tampering with her memory would fail to go unnoticed...'     An interesting fact, and just so interesting that Sakura would know this. Tamamo glances toward Mesmer, once, while Sakura speaks.     'I wouldn't like to resort to drastic measures, if it's at all possible.'     "Ensuring agreeable cooperation is well within the capacity of certain techniques of which I hold knowledge." Tamamo doesn't glance toward Petra while saying this. That only happens after the ratbot is revealed.     'I haven't failed to notice how magnanimously you all have allowed me to keep my secrets.'     "It is only polite," Tamamo says, just a little too quietly.     'Then, I will tell you something impossible, and I will beg you with all of my heart to believe me.'     Pieces turn into place. "--oh." And click. "I have known, after all... that there is an impossible truth that is yours to tell. How could there not be?"
Arthur Lowell	> Arthur: Examine RATBOT     Arthur's tensions and sour, uncharacteristically semi-murderous suggestions aside, he perks up a bit when the conversation swings to, well, subjects besides the Voyager, awaiting in its sinister container. He's often wondered what was going on with Sakura, what she had inherited from Sengo Muramasa beyond cursed swords and a cursed duty to them -- or, maybe more relevantly for a Bloom, what she hadn't inherited but was due.     He observes the Ratbot quietly, visually comparing it to the un-smashed version(s) Petra has. With startlingly unusual quiet, he waits to see the miracle.
Petra Soroka	>a serious question as to whether Lilian could be convinced to garden here instead of home.     "Actually... maybe." Petra puts a finger to her lips, thinking about that comment in particular, and imagining Lilian puttering around the courtyard in her gardening clothes. She looks over to Tamamo like she's checking for her reaction. "She likes to garden as a way to relax and see the physical results of caring for something that can visibly benefit from being cared for well. And this is a place that's relaxing and that's better off for care she's put into it too. So I think she'd be happy to, even if it's a little far away compared to home so she would be able to come by less often, and I think that'd be really really sweet." "I'm not going to do anything it says."     Petra's efforts to be gentle, such as they are, splinter when Bond responds like that. She rolls her eyes and huffs irritatedly at him, twirling a chunk of gravel in her fingers to burn off nervous energy.     "Yeah, dog, obviously we're not going to start *executing* the *Blooms* like it wants us to. Do you think literally anyone wants that? That thing's super evil. Who do you think you're talking to? Just, you know, play a record backwards and messages from the Devil appear." "But for that matter, even if it is safe--what's Sakura going to do if the Probe will just nope out of any engagement with her?"     Petra narrows her eyes at Roland. "I mean, we'll be the ones researching it. And now that we've got the anti-Bloom ritual thing, we can develop countermeasures, probably." "'Falsified'... would that be necessary?"     When it comes to Tamamo though, Petra's immediately back to being demure but insistent, raising her hand to politely interject. "Um... it'd probably be a bad thing for Laplace to learn about the Blooms? And Lilian? I think keeping a bunch of scientists and nurses from learning about Lilian's private information is, uh, reason in of itself, right?"
Petra Soroka	"DOES mean the thing gotta not be JUNKED or BOXED though."     "You--" Petra starts to retort to Arthur, before his grin vanishes in a sudden grimace. She pauses, grinding her own momentum to a halt in order to force herself to rebuild inertia in the emotional context of Arthur's suggestion. "... Not that I totally disagree with that, but... that's sort of where the most information is. I'm not going to advocate for it staying alive, but if that's what Sakura thinks is necessary, then that's what we're doing, and we'll just take precautions about it. Like, regardless of everything else, this is about losing Lilian and the end of the world." "With the knowledge available to them . . . It's a reasonable thing to think that I am, Roland."     This isn't something Petra can let slide, no matter how self-effacingly noble Sakura is. Being kind to people who don't deserve it is a trait of three out of four Blooms, and one that Petra is specially designed to mitigate. "With the knowledge they had available to them, they can get fucked and die, and if their world didn't end I'd do it for them. With the knowledge they had available to them, there were *more* Blooms, and each of them are an 'I', too. You shouldn't *have* to hear that for a one thousandth and first time." "I wouldn't like to resort to drastic measures, if it's at all possible."     On the topic of being kind to people who don't deserve it, though, Petra has to break her own rules on Sakura's earlier request and begrudgingly speak positively on Mesmer's behalf. "... She did agree without any trouble, though. Which is good." > Sakura tenses.     Today's earlier dread returns, slowly clenching around Petra's chest. Asking the question was meant to be prompting, gently, to explain the thing that Sakura's here volunteering to explain, but it still guiltily implicates Petra in 'forcing' her somehow. She swallows, hand sinking down from being raised to grip her thigh. "First, I will show you a miracle, and you, of all people, will understand how ordinary it truly is."     Petra winces when the ratbot's revealed. Sakura had asked, and she'd turned it over without hesitation or complaint, but now that it's clear what she needs it for... it's another mark of Petra's guilt in indirectly hurting Sakura. The smashed ratbot was busted by Matilda's orbaculum, but in handing it over to Sakura, it feels a little bit like Petra's hurling the crystal ball towards Sakura's head herself.     The best she can do now is grimace and promise, quietly, "I'll believe whatever you have to say."
Trudy Grimm	Nika's exuberance temporarily draws Trudy's attention away from Sakura and Mesmer Jr. Ever pleased, she nods along a few times. When Nika mentions her height, Trudy speaks up, "Oh, surely you'll be taller than I am soon." And at the mention of a birthday, the witch offers a broad if sharp-toothed smile, "Oh, I'd be delighted to be at your celebration, Nika, absolutely."     Nika also expresses just how serious this meeting is for Sakura; Trudy nods once in understanding an turns her attention back once Nika's returned to her Nintendo gizmo.     Instead, as Sakura explains Mesmer's presence, the witch eyes her up and down again in a more critical fashion. Surely she's thinking of more permanent ways to ensure silence; but she doesn't put voice to them. The thought is banished from her head almost as soon as it appears. That would upset *everyone*, nevermind that Mesmer is with the Paladins. Instead, Trudy's face becomes one of acceptance or resignation; a little nod of agreement, accepting Sakura's position on the matter. > "Now is the time."     Trudy's eyes briefly follow when Sakura reaches for something. It's a gesture she recognizes, a search for comfort in something tactile and familiar. It's when the ratbot is presented that the witch's posture changes; she leans forward to get a closer look at the wrecked device.     "One of Petra's servants?" Trudy pauses, considering her lack of familiarity with machines-- then nods once, "Please, continue."
Angela	''Also you should use inside voice okay?'' Moku nodded to Nika. She's confident she can handle that. But then she paused and held her index finger to her lips with a soft smile. ''It's a reasonable thing to think that I am, Roland.'' Moku quirks her head to the side and then punchs her fist into her palm questioningly. "Doesn't seem like that's the plan." He tells her softly. "You seem pretty invested despite it being a first meeting." Moku points towards the tree, then to her eye, then towards Sakura's forehead, then places her hands back into her lap. Roland has no idea what this means. ''It's reasonable to think that I am, Roland.'' Roland looks to Xion, then exhales out a sigh, then back over to Sakura. Angela says, simply enough. "I will tell them to believe you and they will." She completely believes it too. Still, Sakura's continued pressure on how nice everybody is, how shameful she's been, how this secret would be somehow inherently strange enough for even Elites to disbelieve, and the general suggestion that this knowledge will kind of maybe ruin the friendships that exist here are still unsettling, and this is Roland's first time meeting Sakura too. She seems nice! Angela seems weirdly invested, sure, but... "It would be hypocritical of me to pry too deeply into secrets that aren't mine to demand." Angela says. Moku nods. She must have a similar philosophy on the mnatter of privacy as her boss. Frankly, though, the way that Sakura is talking about Angela reminds Angela of the many times she acknowledged a horrible option at her disposal and her desire to rely on less horrible options if possible instead. Also she is appropriately deferential to Tamamo, apparently. As a result, Angela is settling that she has more reasons to support Sakura than just her connection to Lilian. Which is nice, actually, she didn't really get a chance to know them before. ''I haven't failed to notice how magnanimously you all have allowed me to keep my secrets.'' Some part of Roland feels the same. He feels like his secrets are big and obvious to anyone who cares to look but everybody instead has been really generous about the story he gave and didn't interrogate him too closely. Fuck, Angela most of all. She just seemed fine that he showed up suspiciously with a half baked story and isn't really interrogating the fact he's definitely not typical Grade 9 Strength for a Fixer and she clearly knows SOMETHING is up--but she doesn't seem to even care anymore. "If Petra will believe anything you say, then it will be easy for me to believe. Roland, please keep gasps of shock and disbelief to a minimum." Roland frowns. "Hey, I might not get everything going on but I'm not that crass..." Maybe him just casually nodding along to 'they can get fucked and die' will help Petra ease off, but he does nod appreciably to the notice of countermeasures. Maybe he's just being overly cautious, he thinks. But just because someone can kick his ass or has powers he doesn't comprehend doesn't mean they are safe, Roland thinks miserably. Moku doesn't comment on whether or not she'll believe Sakura. It's a little strange considering how agreeable she's been so far. She didn't fall asleep. Periodically she moves the Angelapad around so Angela can get a look at this and that--and, particularly, the Ratbot.
Lilian Rook	Even after revealing her choice of subject, no doubt asked-for from Petra before you got here, Sakura hesitates. Without any kind of clear intent, she sits and stares, hands hovering over the battered remains, as if the fragments were each a different sleeping viper. With Nika chattering away in the background as a sole source of audible life, faint between the quiet rustling of leaves and the far louder silence, Sakura works through shades and phases of feeling so intense that they'd only stick in her throat if she tried to speak them out loud.     At first, she holds her breath. Then, realizing she's doing it, she attempts slow and deep ones instead. Flexing her fingers, she reaches out to touch the wreckage, and hesitates at the last inch, as if feeling the heat from a stove. She presses her lips together, curls her fingers back, then forces them level again, and her mouth back into a stressed and unhappy smile. Her breathing turns shallow, then speeds up; shallower, then faster, alternating and building, until her fingertips, a hairsbreadth from metal, shiver as if she were freezing. Her mouth moves; she counts down, visibly but not audibly, whispering from five, screwing her eyes shut on zero, and making contact as she does.     The wreckage shimmers red-shifted ultraviolet; submersed in light-rippled haze like water. Sakura shrieks, then clamps down, biting her lip so that it turns white. Her hands jerk away, and her fingers grab thick fistfuls of her outerwear, clutched to her chest as if she were holding something together that might otherwise be pulled to pieces. The little-dog-sized ratbot totters around on the tabletop, then settles down and goes into standby, squeaky clean and smelling strange of gunpowder and hot asphalt. Sakura allows herself to breathe out again, and her eyes flutter open shortly after, limned with nascent tears as her lower lip beads up with blood where she'd bit.     "A-an explosion? F-from within? Oh but-- she saw to it first?" Sakura stammers, gasping to catch back her breath. She stares in numb shock at the little robot, every single screw back in its place as if it'd never been anything but. "Petra, you . . . This Matilda Bouanich girl, you put her in q-quite a bit of danger, for this. D-didn't you? Oh gods that startled me. To think this little . . . Th-that was right out of one of Miss Nika's v-videogames, haha . . ." She nervously brushes back her hair from her face, leaving just one hand pressed over her sternum. "The . . . United States. 'Unsanctioned geographic ritualwork', is it? Ah. Well. Ha. Th-that wasn't so bad. Very startling, but too quick to feel. I-I think." Sakura glances around at the table, obviously for something to drink, and smiles as if she might cry about it when she remembers that she didn't have anything ready.     Taking a few moments to catch her breath, Sakura smooths down her outer kimono layer, closes her eyes, and counts again with her lips. Her shivering fingers reach back into her sleeve, and habitually begin fidgeting with the antique she pulls out; an elegant silver-and-nacre smoking implement, at a glance.     Nika looks up from chatting with Petra, and watches Sakura with a perfectly evident frown. She stands up, walks halfway over, hesitates, and sighs instead, twirling up a lock of blonde hair around her finger an rubbing the end between it and her thumb in anxious habit. She's not nearly scared enough for this to be a surprise to her. She just looks distraught about the lack of anything to do. "I'm gonna go get ¶the stuff¶." she says. "And then I'm gonna look for a place where there's room for little Nortons." Stressed as she is, Nika is far from bad enough at conveying her feelings for her indoor-jogging away to be understood as anything but rushing for Sakura's benefit.
Lilian Rook	Perhaps in more than one way. Sakura lets on another little guilty smile when Nika leaves, and hurries to speak while she has the space. "As Lilian, as Nika, as Ash, I once wished for the way things are to be so very different than what those long before any of us desired. So strong was that wanting, so precise was the sight of the unborn world that I saw, and so unfortunate as I was to be close to the 'Tree of Serenity' at the time, that I was answered by the very same wish that yearned to be real." She takes a deep breath. "This is that. 'That this is all wrong, and that it should never have been so that it came to be'."     Nika leaving to get something for her was a fleeting shot of guilt and courage both. The weight of the pause that Sakura leaves, when time is so precious, is so immense that it presses on her chest and squeezes the air from her lungs. All that she can call back after is only fit for words so short, so swiftly delivered, and so imprecise, that they suggest a thousand more for each one spoken.     "Before people spoke of me as 'the Divine Child', I was 'the Orphan of Fuji'. Before anyone could tell me why this world makes any sense at all, I knew the faces of those sent here to die, those sent here to kill them, and knew that not one person in the millions that made it happen ever wanted it to begin. And because I was too young to be familiar with the tragic insanity that afflicts the human race, I felt that this all must have gone wrong, and I thought only that I wish that it didn't happen this way. And so . . ."     This is a cipher that everyone here but Mesmer can solve. And even she might make a guess.     "And such is my purpose here. My power, my 'gift', is all that the wayward souls lost to Fuji could ever hope for." Sakura says, thin and strained, her own words strangled as they come up, and unable to budge the immiserated smile from her lips. "Should they ask, a miracle might be performed. I took back the land that was lost to the enemy long ago. I remake the old seals, reconsecrate the old shrines, rebuild the broken and lost places; the ancient Grave Blades can be restored to their original condition only by me, the lost works of Sengo Muramasa and Tamamo-no-Mae may yet be read by my hands, and those who shed their blood in my name; even those who lay down their lives for me, might still be given the grace of the heavens."     "And it costs me nothing. There is no price to pay at all. The only thing it asks of me is that I wear their skin and see through their eyes and burn into my memory what I have banished from the world forever. And memory is such a very small thing . . ."     Sakura rubs her face, and breathes tearily through her nose. She drops both hands immediately, reflexively appalled with herself by the casualness of the gesture. "I've never claimed to see into the future. My talent for seeing the present is only magic; very, very well-practiced. Out of all the spells I learned from Saeko of Ten Tails, when she first rescued me, catatonic and wandering, I practiced it most, because it would allow me to see anything 'as it is now'."
Xion	> eyes practically lulling shut from the easygoing, above-it-all relaxation that he's performing with an intensity so taut and strained that it threatens to break at the slightest adjustment in room temperature. Xion looks at Arthur with a long, flat held expression as the Mage of Space while he smiles as wide as he can, held in perfect thermal suspension that even one cube of ice to the temple threatened to shatter in shock. Wincing, Xion closes her eyes in a slow exhale and nods, mouthing words. 'One of those' flits across her lips, left hand dropping to hook thumb into shorts pocket and right dropping as if to rest against something on a shelf. When she does, the faint sludge-slosh of appearance out of her inventory marks the return of her metal-bodied chocolate drinking flask. It's warm enough to have the chocolate semi-liquid and uncloggy, offered body-warm to Arthur after she steps over to him. "Try something warm then." She suggests, and spots Petra patting the ground next to her. Despite how awkward this may be for Mesmer Junior, who seems avidly to wish nothing other than the sweet release of Not Being Right Here Right Now, especially with her general agitation... Sitting down next to Petra, after immediately starting up a gossipy whispered catch-up session in rapid speed in aside, Xion leans out from their quick conversation to look up, and then get out her phone and mutter into her phone an out-loud question quickly - naming 'Lilian' and then a 'call me back!' - before putting away the device. "I think I'm caught up but at the same time I think I have no idea at all what's going on. Because, I think, it challenges everything I've learned? It's... The *human shape* has to be important, the human origin, I think. Not 'human' like you think when you hear the word but a purer concept, something elemental. It's *tangible* here, a real force that's studied, the motion towards the shape improving power in some way. Harnessing that force? Anyway, hasn't this been beamed towards this Earth for a super long time? And the Antegent, they attack native 'humans' while emulating these not-'human' shapes, and what is the *probe* repelling? Is it -- I'd like to see if the ritual you learned affects other, different people. Who went? Did miss White? How about," Xion swallows. "Rita?" Xion turns to look at Roland, who is looking at her, curious. Did Roland go? He's looking at her, strangely, and she's just... Xion tries to smile, because that's neutral-okay, but doesn't try to read the issue off of Roland before she turns back to Sakura. Confused, she barely gets out a 'so kind?' without any air behind it. Things move on quickly enough that she can't try to get in on her own answer to the concern, worried in her stomach suddenly. "It's nice," She begins, but trying to explain herself is a little beyond her words. Sometimes people got it, and sometimes people didn't, but how did anyone explain 'sorry I'm from the candy dimension and so you actually smell campfire nice?' without knowing to have to explain the candy dimension part first? She barely knew to explain her small fairy merchant friend when his stickers came up! "And there's another thing. Are we... sure that the Voyager isn't actually the second thing, coming? Are we sure it's not lying? Can't it be... programmed to deceive? Even what I received from the probe was a retaliation. Salvation, but also, retaliation. Does that make sense? Couldn't the probe be a counterattack? A return volley? I--" Xion hangs her head. It was one of those days, sudden summons often were. "I don't know. I wasn't there. I was hoping to be told more."
Trudy Grimm	Trudy keys in on Sakura's hesitation immediately when she's reaching oh so slowly for the ruined ratbot. Concern crawls onto the witch's face which immediately shifts to alarm when Sakura cries out. In a flash, Trudy is on her feet, gravel clattering under the metal soles of her boots. Without thinking, she shouts on her own accord; "Sakura--!?"     It's over before she can take a step, which leaves her rather dumbfounded. The restored ratbot's motions tug at her attention, though it quickly returns to the kimono-clad girl. The concern on her face has interwoven with relief, soothed when Sakura speaks again. Glancing down, Trudy reaches into her sleeve and pulls out a little handkerchief; clean, black, with little white cartoon skeletons all over it. Pinching the cloth between both hands, Trudy leans forward to offer it.     "That is quite a shock, are you sure you're alright?" Nika's dashed off to fetch what she reasons to be medicine of some sort, after all.     Sakura explains her history and her gift. Things Trudy had never felt a need to pry into; her own past is something she isn't keen on talking about, she certainly doesn't feel entitled to anyone else's background. > "And it costs me nothing. There is no price to pay at all."     With her kerchief proffered, Trudy settles down again, closing her eyes, "Suffering the pain of whatever caused what you are undoing... seems like a cost to me," she admits quietly, "I trust your judgement, but knowing this, I can't help but worry."     "You have shown us quite a miracle, though. I can't deny that."     When matters shift back to the Voyager probe, Trudy goes silent again, listening, gathering context. Surely these are related things, and she will connect the dots soon enough if she truly listens to the people around her.
Lilian Rook	Sakura's unsteady breathing hitches again. At first, she glances around for Nika. Gratefulness that she hasn't returned inside of just one minute flashes across her face, chased closely by a violent sense of guilt, and then of fumbling loneliness that causes her hands to shake again. She clenches one around the pipe, and the other rummages inside her sleeve again. Her eyes drift to somewhere in the general vicinity of the tree, past Tamamo's head. She begins to speak, finds the words stuck, and swallows, then tries again.     "Saeko has rescued me twenty eight times. For a year, I am barely aware of my own surroundings, unsure of my own identity. For two more afterwards, I am mute, and hardly dare to interact with others. The quickest I have ever overcome the ordeal is two years, eight months, and sixteen days."     Her hands shake worse than before. She tries to screw a little glass cartridge into the pipe, fumbles, and drops it. Stifling a hiccup, she tries a second time, trying to lessen how much she thinks about her rambling in any way possible.     "Saeko, and everyone here; Ash, Nika, Lilian; everyone in the world; we've all done this so many times, suffered so, so much, only because I'm so afraid to die." Her trembling fingers finally move on to a wood match. The saccharine reek of burnt sugar issues from the tip of the long pipe. Sakura stubs out the match on her own wrist, vindictively. Taking a long drag of something that expels some of her jitters on the breath out, Sakura hazily looks in your direction again, and says the words she needed the drug to say.     "The 'Existential Threat' is real. It has claimed Earth and everyone on it twenty-seven times before. And because of me-- all because of my vanity and my loneliness, not one of those people who lived rest in peace, and neither 'Ash' nor 'Nika' nor 'Lilian' are ever allowed to move on."     "Everything is reversed, as if they never lived, and new people, sometimes the same, sometimes with different names and faces, and thrown into this Hell once again. Back to that night in the spring of twenty-sixty-two."
Tamamo	Tamamo looks between Sakura and the ratbot as the apprehension grows, the two coming into not-quite contact with a level of caution entirely and obviously out of keeping with visible circumstances. She keeps her silence, but can't help the unasked questions crowding her thoughts. In the moments just before contact, she focuses on the robotic wreck, expecting-- something.     'Something' happens. Sakura shrieks. Tamamo's eyes dart up, head snapping, one hand suddenly stuffed down her opposite sleeve to grab something hidden there-- and she stops, not quite relaxing as Sakura comes down off the experience. Tamamo settles back into posture by degrees, despite having never really left it.     Blood.     "Please take this, for the moment." She withdraws the healing charm from her sleeve, placing it onto the table and sliding it forward beneath two fingertips. It's likely more than needed, yet less intrusive than anything that would come from a kit. It only needs to be held somewhere near one's body.     All of that takes away from the attention she should be paying to the miracle, itself. She can't let herself focus on it until afterward. When she does, her gaze is still unfocused, not quite seeing it properly while her mind is elsewhere. It is definitely a ratbot, and Sakura is... listing off? Speaking of? ...events outside her own knowledge. What about Ms. Bouanich?     '...only because I'm so afraid to die.'     Her breath catches, full understanding hitting at once. "Oh, Sakura..." More than a whisper, but less than a call to answer. She doesn't need to hear the rest, but she does.     'And because of me-- all because of my vanity and my loneliness... and neither 'Ash' nor 'Nika' nor 'Lilian' are ever allowed to move on.'     It takes a while for Tamamo to respond to this.     "I cannot blame you for this." A subtle emphasis on 'cannot.' A spoken impossibility. "We know the feeling of being left behind."     It's a monumental task to move on to any other topic, even to one already broached. "The Existential Threat... is..."     Xion hangs her head. 'I don't know. I wasn't there.'     "The voyager... might be lying. You may be right, though the motive to do so... is unclear. It seems more likely to me, that what drove that voyage was 'desperate survival.' The record spoke of the threat that the world would be destroyed, if not by the Antegent, then by a... connected factor. Those who can make a wish stronger than the world are also a threat to it. There is no denying this. One can still blame another who acts in desperation, but it is not always because they are 'wrong.'"     Clearly, she's trying to explain, but that doesn't make the topic clear. It's a struggle for several reasons, one being the conflict inherent in agreeing with Sakura that the Blooms are a world-ending threat, at least in technicality. She doesn't quite fully hide a sigh. "There are wishes I cannot accept, because they cannot exist together with my own. So it is for all."
James Bond	Who do you think you're talking to?     "I'm glad to hear you say that, but I also never doubted you'd feel that way." Mesmer, on the other hand, is an unknown. He doesn't know her, barely knows anything about her, and what he does know doesn't recommend her to him. Rather than point that out, he continues his answer to Petra. "Just trust that I said it for a reason that's important to me, please."     The smell is faintly familiar and then overpoweringly so. It distracts him from a subject he'd rather not think of, and, like a deceptive foothold on a treacherous mountain, he pursues it at his own peril.     The figure of a businessman sits at the center of Bond's world, the sole living being in all of creation. Around him, there is nothing--only a black void, shot through at four points by slim but distinct lines. The fabric of Bond's gloves insulates him from the uncaring cold of the metal and the grain of the wood alike. He pulls the trigger and the small diorama of an office suite in the RCA Building is awash in red. Bond lowers the rifle and forces the bile in his throat down.     The suitcase--the important part--is unharmed. This is a small point of celebration in the briefing later that day. The contents--and many more packages like them--are the target of a coordinated campaign, being swept up from pushers in the West, confiscated, repackaged into inconspicuous first aid kits and smuggled into Afghanistan to fund the Mujahideen. This stuff, this poison that kills so many, on its own or by the movement to control or stop it--however many it kills there is fine, so long as it protects 'our way of life,' 'our values,' in the end.     He's back in the country after a rendezvous in Kabul. Allman and that beady-eyed analyst--what was his name? MacGregor or something. They've squirreled away a parcel. It isn't their first. No one cares enough to stop them as long as it doesn't interfere with their work. The smell of it was the same then as it is now. Sweet and soft, at first. Almost invitingly floral, like a perfume. Maybe that's what makes people try it--that first fragrant hint. That, and the centuries of history dictated by it. Maybe, hundreds of years ago, those first few seconds dictated the course of an empires.     It's after the first few seconds that the invitation is more bold. Almost flirtatious in how daring it is. Spices--like cinnamon and clove--wait beneath those first few floral notes. As it lingers, it takes on almost incense-like shades and a sweetness that reminds Bond, in particular, of sweet baked goods and vanilla. Virtually anywhere in the world one is from, the scent is at once familiar and inviting yet intriguingly exotic. And virtually no one in the world wouldn't know at least a bit about its history, how it shaped the world, and arguably still does, if they know the name of it.     The look isn't even directed at him, but he knows it. He's seen it in the shadows of smiles, like and unlike hers, hidden but not completely. He's seen it in the eyes of those two, when they knew that he knew. Bond doesn't ask Sakura out loud, but his eyes ask, piercing blue. How long?
James Bond	First, I will show you a miracle, and you, of all people, will understand how ordinary it truly is. Then, I will tell you something impossible, and I will beg you with all of my heart to believe me.     "I'm listening." And he does. Everything is reversed, as if they never lived, and new people, sometimes the same, sometimes with different names and faces, and thrown into this Hell once again. Back to that night in the spring of twenty-sixty-two.     Bond hadn't been sitting. He'd been standing. Now he feels as if he has to. Not because this is impossible to accept--but because it's impossible for him to accept *her perception* of it. What's the smell of opium, compared to that? He'd asked Petra to trust that he said what he said for a reason that makes sense to him, but now, he'll have to clarify. How can he look at those tears and stay silent?     Bond takes a seat, millions of dollars of physiological conditioning swept aside like driftwood on the ocean, tossed by the wave of a massive revelation and an emotion that can't go unaddressed. He composes himself, first, leaned forward, hand clutching his face as if to stop the spinning of the world. He sighs.     "That isn't vanity," he says. "The forces that created me, *that's* vanity. You understand the difference, don't you? It's the difference between..." His breath catches. "Between fighting to cure someone and putting them in a god-damned nursing home. I can't let you say that it's vain to do what you've done, whether loneliness was involved or not. Not when there are people who think the insanity afflicting the human race is worth protecting out of pure, *stupid* fear of whatever else we could be, if only we didn't have our Fuji. I believe your part in it. But I don't accept that what you did was vain. If it wasn't for you, I'd still be one of those people."      A sigh, a shaky breath, a tremble in his voice. "And I didn't even know that there was someone else I had to thank for it, until now."
Arthur Lowell	> ==>     Arthur watches, sipping gently at Xion's drink. He doesn't react, except for when Sakura shrieks. Then his eyebrows shoot up and his posture jolts into a "almost running to her side" sort of posture, from the sheer viscerality of it. And then... > Arthur: Remember     "*Doomed timelines.* That's why the probe's so old." He mutters. "You're a Seer of Time, you've always-- fuck. *Fuck*. You're seein' what you wish hadn't happened. You *see* it an *undo* it." He taps a foot urgently, standing up and starting to pace. "No, no no, no, wait, I think I'm seeing where this goes." He bobs an index finger at Sakura, back and forth. "You see it 'cause when you undo it, all that 'happened like this' has gotta go somewhere. If you hadn't seen it, maybe nobody would even know it hadn't happened now. The 'I wish' part has to still work, you still have to be able to wish it didn't happen, gotta be *able* to wish. So you... you've seen all this, now you're an oracle."     "And *you've* got the same thing I've got." He whispers, briefly. > Arthur: YOU ARE COUSINS > Arthur: YET SHE IS GREATER IN CHARACTER > Arthur: SHE WILL INHERIT THE HEAVENS, IN TIME > Arthur: AND THERE'S STILL HOPE FOR YOU     "Don't wanna hear it." He hisses in a whisper at nobody. > Arthur: Speculate on the plan     "But the probe," He mutters. "The probe throws the prediction off. The 'prediction'. Because ya already seen the loop, you know how it goes. But now, now it's thrown off, there's some fuckin' thing from the Royal Game on the chessboard this time and nobody knows what it is. So you want to dig in. Figure where you can use it to win, or flip the board."     He remains silent, freezing in his pacing.     "No. No? No. Not dig in. That record's a tomb. It's a broken thing from a killed-off civilization." He mutters softly. "You... you don't wanna let that thing out. Do you?" He turns to look at her. "You wanna wish it went different for 'em. You want to wish it didn't go like this. You've seen the Existential Threat win. But if you reverse that horrible little tomb-disk, you might, mm, you might get to see a little bit of what happens if the Existential Threat gets beaten. You get it to not happen like this, *and* you might get to *know*. Even if it's," He exhales hard. "*Miserable*."     He taps a foot in agitation, clutching one of his sleeves in a balled fist. "Is that it? That how this is gonna go? Because that's a lot to take in, even if you've taken it in, even if you've taken something like it twenty eight times. It'll be a lot more time. A lot more horrible to go through. And I don't know much about how to help a Time-aspect, especially a Seer." He presses his hand against his face. "Hell if you haven't heard plenty of 'I don't know how to help you', huh?" He mutters. "Is that even the plan?" He realizes, at least, that he got a little ahead of where the conversation ought to be.
Trudy Grimm	> "Saeko, and everyone here; Ash, Nika, Lilian; everyone in the world; we've all done this so many times, suffered so, so much, only because I'm so afraid to die."     Twenty-eight times? It beggers belief. The confusion is plain on Trudy's face; she's never encountered something like *this* before. A self-created hell, doomed to repeat itself out of its creator's fear. A prison of her own making. It's mind-boggling, but the proof is just as obvious as the intact ratbot now waiting for orders on the little table, there. Trudy's eyes wander from Sakura to the servile machine, taking in its idle electronic hum and the charming little screen-face that looks like it's asleep.     > "The 'Existential Threat' is real. It has claimed Earth and everyone on it twenty-seven times before. And because of me-- all because of my vanity and my loneliness, not one of those people who lived rest in peace, and neither 'Ash' nor 'Nika' nor 'Lilian' are ever allowed to move on."     The witch closes her eyes, letting out a soft exhale. So that's the shape of it. Each time the world is destroyed, Sakura undoes its destruction, subjects herself to the unimaginable suffering of an entire civilization's end, and... Her eyes open, focused downward in thought. Then what? What was her endgame? Was there even a plan in the first place? Or is this all just... desperation? > "That record's a tomb. It's a broken thing from a killed-off civilization."     "Pitch it into the fires of Muspellheim and be done with it," Trudy mutters, "If it has only ever brought suffering and death, let it take that suffering and that death with it in its destruction."     Her hand touches on the spine of her new, unnamed tome, though she doesn't draw it, "If that artifact brings so much pain to you, I'll destroy it myself. Even metal rots with enough time."     But Arthur is talking about using Sakura's gift to *restore* it. She pauses, glancing towards the Mage of Space. It seems the two of them have reached different conclusions of what to do, here. Letting out a breath, she already commits to hers being the less viable of the two. Arthur has always had a nose for this sort of thing, she's learned to trust his instincts by now.     "His idea... is probably better," she admits after a pause.
Angela	''Xion turns to look at Roland...'' Roland is perplexed at this response and also Xion in general. "Uh..." That...isn't an answer to his question is it? Is he supposed to read into that smile? Maybe it's because it's a tough topic and there's a Sakura here. Maybe he should ask again when there isn't a Sakura? That smile was a little unnerving when coming from someone who can go anywhere and can fight as well as she does. COULD it just be lying? Roland is unfortunately suspecting that it's not. That isn't the same as him agreeing with the conclusion, of course, but Lilian defeated the Red Mist. To think that she could, with three others of some sort of powered set, destroy the world or something, seems distressingly plausible. The only problem, of course, is that it doesn't really feel like something she'd do. Angelica trusted her so readily and fell in love with her goals for the City... Of course, it is clear that there's some contradictions. Lilian is covering for Angela in some strange ways--he is damn sure she knows full well she's an AI--tell The Head about it and ... well, they probably wouldn't believe Lulu. But they'd believe Lilian. Still, he supposes, from his experiences talking to Hod it's probably a bad idea for plenty of other reasons to tell The Head about the AI living in the City. They don't seem to be kind to the informants either. A cherry blossom falls from the tree as Sakura tells her story. It lands on Moku's nose. Her nose doesn't so much as twitch. Slowly, she opens her eyes as understanding dawns on her. She opens her mouth, as if to speak-- --but then remembers herself and doesn't. Balancing the flower petal on her nose, Moku reaches into her robes and draws out a bit of parchment, and ink bottle, and a brush. This is a bit against the spirit of her vows, but this seems important enough to communicate. ''I wish that it didn't happen this way.'' Angela's hands dig into her desk. She remembers herself before she damages it, and pulls her hands under the view of the Angelapad. ''Back to that night in the spring of twenty-sixty-two.'' ''You can reset time, but you cannot reset a tale.'' "That story is easy to believe. I have ... been in such a situation." Angela says, just BARELY refraining from talking of the number of loops she's been through. After all, in all truth, the first twenty eight were worse than the last ten thousand though she'd never say it quite so directly. "Are you suggesting that they were not afraid to die? Or that they allowed themselves to die anyway?" Angela asks. Are you going to try to convince her to keep on trying to live anyway? Even though you know ''your'' life has only made everyone around you more miserable? You really are broken from the start. Even if she moves into the future, the price is surely misery. She didn't do anything wrong. The desire to live is the most human thing of all and the most beautiful. And what, is she going to offer help to someone else so they can live? When you're still locked up? When blood is the demand for your life? Who cares if it's cruel? That's how the world works. This is this, that is that, the people who die should blame themselves for needing her death to live. THEY DESERVE IT. THEY'RE THE BROKEN ONES, NOT HER, NOT ME. Burn the world enough and it'll change. It's happened before, she knows it, that's how The City was even born. Something OR SOMETHINGS decided a rotten world needed to burn and they built the City off its bones but that too is rotten and so it too must... Angela closes her eyes. She takes a breath. She lets it out slowly.
Angela	Arthur says something though. ''I don't know much about how to help a Time-aspect, especially a Seer.'' "...Didn't you call me a Time Aspect once, Arthur?" She isn't looking at him while she says it. She's staring at Sakura. She wasn't entirely sure she understood why Petra was willing to listen to her over informing Lilian, even, but she understands now. "Well," She says. This time to everyone, really. "My insight as a Time-aspect is this. Petra once told me--really, she told me many times--a very simple phrase. 'No more time loops This is the final loop'. I considered letting myself die many times, even in that last loop, but I too was afraid to die. I was afraid of never living." She leans back. "To be honest, I hadn't entirely considered just how many people would suffer as a result of my actions of deciding to live. Either from the war, or from the natural reprecussions from the incomplete ritual. Since then I've experienced some small portion of the joys my mission denied me and now, knowing everything that I know now--if I ask myself.... 'Would I allow it all to go so badly just for the sake of getting to live, for real?' I would...very easily...say 'Yes. I refuse to accept a future where blood sacrifice is neccessary.'" She pauses. "So if you wish to die this time, I am afraid I cannot help you. If you wish to live, I will do what I can, no matter the burning. I would feel ... untrue to myself if I acted otherwise." Roland is staring at Angela, something dark behind his eyes.
Petra Soroka	"If Petra will believe anything you say, then it will be easy for me to believe."     Petra reflects on the chain of 'us' necessary for Angela to say that. Through Lilian, Petra's web of 'us' extends to Sakura, and then through Petra, Angela can trust in the same path of transference for herself. The details in particular, and Petra's feelings on them, will have to wait until later, but for now Petra looks down at her pocket where her phone is, and Angela gets a puppyHug sticker and a text saying 'thanks'. "Petra, you . . . This Matilda Bouanich girl, you put her in q-quite a bit of danger, for this."     Petra was braced for it, but the scale of information that Sakura receives is so much more than she possibly expected. Not just the moment of injury, but the image surrounding it, and not just that, but the *reasoning* behind why it happened and how it led there-- Petra understands why she said so much of it out loud, to explain how it works, but she still flinches and lurches to her feet.     "I'm-- s-sorry, do you need me to-- ah, oh," Nika stands up beside her, less urgently, and similarly stresed for inability to help. Nika taking the actual route that Petra was offering in order to alleviate that inability to help is... probably better than Petra doing it herself, other than for the purpose of massaging Petra's own feelings. "Thanks, Nika."     She feels compelled to babble a little bit to provide positive context retroactively to the memory that Sakura just absorbed. "Er, not that it really matters, but I did have some safeties in place to make sure no one got seriously hurt. Matilda's a huge sweetheart, and we actually-- there was a whole road trip leading up to that fight, where we actually had a really fun time, and she made these *adorable* crystal bracelets and handed them out. The fight was more like a... game, even though it was a real fight. I didn't want anyone to get hurt, for once."     Petra holds out her hands to take the ratbot back from Sakura, looking down at it and murmuring loud enough to halfway be a question for her, "... What's a good currency, actually...? Is Yen a good name?" "There is no price to pay at all. The only thing it asks of me is that I wear their skin and see through their eyes and burn into my memory what I have banished from the world forever."     The weapons, the ground, the impact of the Onslaught itself; the experiences rack up more and more beyond just 'sympathetically remembered pain'. Petra presses her lips together, internal sense of balance swaying. Weakly, she points a finger at the little spot of blood where Sakura bit her lip. "That's a price, though."     There's no sense of relief after the truth of Sakura's wish is out, though. Petra had been braced for that, but her intuition doesn't let any part of her psyche unclench, like she's looking at the first rock that came to a halt while the shadow of a landslide falls over her. Before she's totally pieced together what she's saying out loud, her lips move. "... So... the Voyager...? Are you going to...."
Petra Soroka	But, "The 'Existential Threat' is real. It has claimed Earth and everyone on it twenty-seven times before."     The multiplication of years is the second most familiar kind of math to Petra and Angela. It's done before Petra's even hit the ground, sinking slowly into being seated right by Sakura's legs, ratbot on her lap. "So... the eight hundred years...."     The first most familiar kind of math is the number of bodies. Petra puts a hand to her mouth and dry swallows, dizzy and sick. 'The world', twenty-seven times over, is....     "Oh god. Sakura...." The worst thing she's ever heard, possibly. Petra takes a moment to collect herself, breath whistling through her fingers, and then falls back on the mantra that always works. "Well. Same promise again. I'll make sure this is the last loop, no matter what."     It's dizzying still, for longer, that if not for Sakura, this world would be nearly to the next milennium, and Petra would've missed crossing Lilian's path by centuries. With that in mind, she can't feel even a little bit bad about none of the rest of the world not being able to 'move on'-- there's only one person who keeps the memories and relives the Hell over and over and over, while the rest live out their stories that are incidentally tragic, just like in the facility.     Which means...     "... So what does it take? What do you need that's been missing? Are you still lonely even with the Blooms together? What actually does the happy ending look like?" "You wanna wish it went different for 'em. You want to wish it didn't go like this."     Petra looks down at her lap rather than up at Sakura. She fiddles with the ratbot's head, twirling an ear around between two pinched fingers to screw it out and then back in, not making eye contact with anyone. "So, I'll help."
Lilian Rook	'With the knowledge they had available to them, they can get fucked and die, and if their world didn't end I'd do it for them. With the knowledge they had available to them, there were *more* Blooms, and each of them are an 'I', too. You shouldn't *have* to hear that for a one thousandth and first time.'     Sakura had powered through the reassurance to build momentum for the most miserable thing she could ever confess to anyone. Having vomited it up, emotionally filled with blood from her lungs, she pauses for a second drag, and then says to Petra, "If they'd killed me back then, and hadn't ignored me, hoping that the wilderness would finish it for them, then three Blooms would have finally escaped the branch and gone on to live their lives amongst the stars. What else could the Voyager say to hurt me after having confirmed the unimaginable severity of my sin?"     'You seem pretty invested despite it being a first meeting.'     Whatever Sakura is smoking surely isn't ordinarily legal. A few minutes take her from the edge of throwing up crying and to a kind of hazy middle distance that comes afterwards; gutted and empty and dizzy-calm with adrenaline. Cried-out before shedding a tear. "Of course I am. Voyager has never happened before." she says, and inadvertently repeats the same language she used in front of Mesmer. "Learning that there are others out there, whose lives my sin has not touched . . . I can't begin to tell you how it made me feel. But if there is a sign that anything might be different this time . . ." She pauses, then smiles just for herself, sadly. "No. That sign was when she was 'Lilian' this time. And the second sign was 'Unification'; all of you. So I think the Voyager must be another omen. A sign that I'm still on the path to change this. Or, a second chance to correct how I've strayed, by staying quiet and uninvolved."     'I think I'm caught up but at the same time I think I have no idea at all what's going on. Because, I think, it challenges everything I've learned?'     "'Voyager 1' left Earth long before I was ever born, much less that one pivotal moment. It has nothing to do with anything on Earth. It, and its twin, are blessed for that. Should there be a twenty-ninth time, then I imagine it will be returned to space, never to be found again." Of course it's about causal relation. Of course it is. "If the 'human shape' is woven into the fabric our Fire-Thief ancestors chose to cut from, so much that even foxes take human form when blessed by 'the beyond', then it's only inevitable that something you could call 'humanity' would emerge everywhere; if the stars are at all distant places and not lights painted on the roof of the sky."     "We're never prepared." Sakura sighs, laced with smoke. "When it happens here. Perhaps Earth is special for being so sloppy? Or for pretending away our problems; of continuing forward for no reason than it being the direction we already chose, and ignoring what we know to be true. That's what my 'sense' is telling me." She smiles, wry and humourless, in Mesmer's direction. "Should I say 'my afflatus'?"
Lilian Rook	'Are we... sure that the Voyager isn't actually the second thing, coming? Are we sure it's not lying? Can't it be... programmed to deceive?'     "No." Sakura says it without hesitation. "But if it is, you will be there to destroy it again, won't you? Whatever it is, it can't lie to me. Not when I 'reverse' it; when I wish that it didn't need to become such a sad and lonely and scared and hateful thing. I'll know everything for myself."     'That is quite a shock, are you sure you're alright? Suffering the pain of whatever caused what you are undoing... seems like a cost to me,'     "Pain isn't real." The words come easily, because Sakura told them to Mesmer half an hour ago. "The bruises on Lilian's throat are real. The scars on Ash's ribs are real. The burns on Nika's back are real. When they fight the world with their gifts, they bleed. This much is nothing." Sakura says, and returns the pipe to her lips. "I'm as perfect as a porcelain doll. Mint condition."     'Oh, Sakura...'     And those are still the magic words that make her take the charm, out of guilt. The insides of her sleeves are wrinkled from recently being rolled up. Dry blood starts at a sharp line, where she was previously wearing gloves. It isn't hers. She smiles for Tamamo's benefit. She never makes any other expression anyways.     'We know the feeling of being left behind.'     "Please don't say that, Lady Tamamo." she says, then laughs, then stops as it turns harsh in her throat, to choke down a hoarse and bitter taste, and wipe an angry tear from her eye. "I know. I know that you do. But that this very last time, where the future might finally be in my grasp, you got to her first. So don't say that to me . . . Hah . . ."     'There is no denying this. One can still blame another who acts in desperation, but it is not always because they are 'wrong.''     Sakura sniffles, takes a deep breath, and nods, more exhausted than before. "Part of me would like to know what the Voyager will make of this. Ash already lives with one foot in the other world, and has for a very long time. As for Lilian, you have already worked a miracle for her; I've never once seen anything hold her back from that final threshold when it approaches. Nika speaks to the Tree of Completion; often, though she knows not who her 'pen pal' is. And I am the miserable reason there is anyone to reach out to at all. Seeing this, I wonder if the Voyager may think for itself, and reconsider what it must believe is the only way to survive."     She meets Bond's eyes at last, and says "It's nothing compared to what they fill those 'ritual chambers' with. So much that I can't remember my own name. It's the only way they know how to spare me the pain. As if it matters to me."
Lilian Rook	'That isn't vanity. The forces that created me, *that's* vanity. You understand the difference, don't you? It's the difference between...'     Sakura hiccups, then laughs despite herself. It's only a few syllables long; more of a spasm of guilty-grateful energy, but for some reason, seeing that outburst from Bond of all people makes her lose her composure. "Don't thank me for that. In a sensible world, the Winter Bloom would be someone other than Lilian, and they wouldn't care about you at all."     "It's only that, in the irrational world we live in, Lilian is always herself; every last time, like Polaris in the night sky. She reached out to you in spite of me."     'You're a Seer of Time, you've always-- fuck.'     "Guilty as charged." A hazy kind of humour has come back to her, at least. She giggles to herself for reciting such a cheesy line. "The 'Blooms of Swords' and 'Blooms of Staves' always mirror those kinds of things, you know. 'Endings' and 'Beginnings'; those are the second and third last swords that old Muramasa made. I think a lot about why those two changed what he saw of the future so much that he finally understood what needed to be the forty-fifth."     'And *you've* got the same thing I've got.'     "So how could I give up before you have?" Sakura says. Her smile is confessional.     '*Miserable*.'     "It's a miracle." she says, and looks apologetically at Trudy. "If the Voyager misbehaves, we can try it your way next." she says; and not merely as a consolation either. Anyone can tell from her stare, clouded as it is, that this girl means that necromantic slavery is option B.     'Are you suggesting that they were not afraid to die? Or that they allowed themselves to die anyway?'     "Ash, Nika, and Lilian . . ." Sakura sighs. Blinking at the lack of smoke, she notices that she's forgotten her pipe, still in her fingers. "They can't die. They can only become something else, and never come back. They've crossed the river before; sometimes afraid, sometimes willingly, always bravely; it's only me; I'm the only one who lacks the same resolve."     'Oh god. Sakura....'     She sounds ridiculous, going from that, to replying to Petra like this. "I'm fortunate. The human mind can't even begin to imagine, much less comprehend or process, all of it. By the time those three years pass, most of it fades to . . . intuition. Sudden flashes of memory and inspiration. I can't remember it all at once." she says, about the aggregate agony of the death of everyone on Earth. "Three years is a small price. Lilian lost almost twenty, this time." The words are deeply unproud.
Angela	Moku finishes her writing and then rolls up the parchment. She stands up slowly and approaches Sakura, also slowly. She keeps the cherry blossom dangling on the tip of her nose as she approaches like she's too frightened about what would happen if the flower petal fell to the ground, but is also unwilling to simply pluck it free with a hand and provide a more solid perch on her palm. She extends the parchment out towards Sakura though, if she does not take it, she'll just set it down next to her before just as carefully sitting back down on the bench, just as before. If read, the parchment reads: 'When stars have fallen - streaming across pale night skies - a river runs and cries. Those in remembrance - the bed now dry and barren - still lie river stones. Smooth stones etched memory - ladden for those left behind - no boat can paddle. Child of the river - may their shores exceedeth a - greater path to the sea.'
Tamamo	'If you wish to live, I will do what I can, no matter the burning.'     'Are you still lonely even with the Blooms together? What actually does the happy ending look like?'     'I've never once seen anything hold her back from that final threshold when it approaches.'     "It is not enough to live," says the bunrei, in indirect response to several. "It is not enough for wishes to be granted. If they are not granted 'together,' what meaning was there?" This is her own opinion, but it's one held core to her very being. "The final 'threat' is an escape, but also a separation -- a severing. All know my stance on this."
Xion	'And because of me-- all because of my vanity and my loneliness,' Xion's left hand finds her right wrist, rubbing around the base to soothe nerves. She remembers something there, but not the context immediately - a phantom pain in the skull, a pressure that grips without touch about wrist - and doesn't want to reach at the knot of sickness that she knew feelings were about it. Something different, a choice she understood coming to but wasn't herself currently capable of. In place of full feeling, an echo was what she held in sympathy, looking to Sakura. "I can't blame you or hate you for that. I wouldn't call it vanity, and loneliness doesn't seem right somehow, Sakura. You want better, don't you? You're fighting extremely hard for better, each time, and you're even counting the progress. It's not... free to know." Xion speaks, and utters those words about many things. "Even if it helps, knowing changes us completely." And, something else strikes the noirette. "Plus, you said we're leaving the part you know, right? That means we're getting a lot of progress. New can be good. But, also," Concern fills her. "Sakura, if for all this time, you've held on, as yourself," Her head tilts. "It's because the majority of you's still been you, right? What happens when you put all of that probe's history in you? It's not just the knowing, but the length of it. You'll be thousands of times more a lonely space probe filled a certain way than anything else! You'll--" 'Sakura' might die. Erased under the shadow of 'knowing'. "... be so, so lonely. Is there some way we could all go together so you don't have to bear that alone? Like the," She looks, a little desperate at him. She can't read Sakura, can't read Arthur, can't want to, it's already a little much. Like Lilian and the Land of Shadows, wasn't this a suicidal pruning, to lathe away self for useful point? Experiencing an ultra-long lonely tale, though,     ...leads Xion to look towards Angela's voice, then a flick to Petra, then back and seeing Roland-- > 'Uh...' Xion's eyes lock onto Roland. A problem? She pans back in memory. He asked her something, didn't he? What was it? It was... It was... Oh! "No, sorry, we're cool. You work for someone I had to attack, that was business. Dang you're good though! Thanks for going easy on me." She flashes a smile, brightened in a moment, then dims in her expression after. The clinging feeling of sickness, of this-is-wrong extends. "Um, but, maybe Petra or Angela can help? There has to be something, right?"
Lilian Rook	'... So what does it take? What do you need that's been missing? Are you still lonely even with the Blooms together? What actually does the happy ending look like?'     "I've tried before." Sakura says, defensive all of a sudden. "I dedicated one lifetime to finding the Tree of Serenity. Three more, I spent trying to reach it. But as you can see . . ." She lifts one arm, frail and draped in formal layers of decoration. "I couldn't keep what I worked for. I could never become the warrior that Lilian has." She leaves the quiet implication that she has walked off into No Man's Land and died trying to evert no less than three times just sitting there as she walks past it. "You might grant me that wish, if you like, though I will selfishly take her away from you if you do. Otherwise, we . . ."     Sakura's mercurial smile finally slips. Her expression falls into void; neutral in a way that lacks the slightest effort. "I don't know. You've made a miracle happen yourselves. All four of us, together, resolved to stop what happens next, before it even begins. I think all I can ask of you is to do exactly as you've done?" The realization startles her. It reminds her of who else is dragged into this too.     "I cannot stop you from disposing of Miss Mesmer Junior. Saeko will want to, once she finds out. But it would make me happy if you were able to just . . . watch her instead. To be sure that she doesn't say anything needless. For all her faults, she's nothing more than another person who was forced into this by my selfish whims. Otherwise . . ." Finally, Sakura returns the pipe to her lips. The next drag is much slower than the last one was. "I've never read the words on the very last Grave Blade. With your help, we've reached twenty seven of them in total, these past five years. I hope I can continue to rely on you."     Woozy, half-awake, taken up in the moment, Sakura places a hand on her lap and bows her head on reflex. "Please let me do this. We have to take every advantage we can get. Ash will arrive here soon; when they do, please give them a chance to surprise you. When the time comes to show Nika her 'pen pal', I hope I can count on you to be there. And . . . I have no right to ask anything of you regarding Lilian. That you've given her back to me from the brink is more than enough."
Lilian Rook	'You want better, don't you? You're fighting extremely hard for better, each time, and you're even counting the progress.'     'Plus, you said we're leaving the part you know, right? That means we're getting a lot of progress.'     'Sakura, if for all this time, you've held on, as yourself, it's because the majority of you's still been you, right?'     Under her bowed head, a drop of water hits the tabletop. Sakura keeps her eyes down, though she blots them with her sleeve.     "When we met, I said that you could call me 'Sakura'. At the time, it was just an impulse, but as I've grown used to it, I think that it feels right." she says, like it's an answer of some kind. "None of those girls were allowed to keep their very first name. So why should I? If they've become the people they are now, then what's 'me' is just my private delusion."     "Whatever becomes of me is still the person I've named 'Sakura'."     'So, I'll help.'     It's pure reflex. Sakura glances up from the table, and blinks watery eyes in Petra's direction. Stupefied and miserable, she can only think to say "How?"     "Hi! Sorry! I'm back! I wasn't listening by the way! I got ¶the stuff¶! If you're saying ¶secrets/blood rites/white lies¶ then I'm warning you to stop because I can hear it now!"     Nika hustles back in with a cooler, clumsily hefted by the handle, and an old-fashioned stereo boombox, carried like a football under the other arm. She stops, sniffs the air, and frowns unhappily. "Sakura . . ." The older girl rubs her eyes, and her smile returns by magic. "I'm sorry, Nika. It's not quite breaking my promise, but it's close, isn't it? I shouldn't have done that." Deciding to double back, Sakura looks at the ratbot, looks at Petra, and says "'Mon' is a bit simple, isn't it? What about 'Koban'?"
Arthur Lowell	> Arthur: How can you help?     Arthur stops feeling helpless, stops feeling like he doesn't know how to help. Not for any one reason, but just to force the mentality. To focus on something. To be trying to do something, instead of asking the crying girl what to do.     "This is a Space Aspect problem. There's gonna be a Space Aspect solution." Hands clenched, brow furrowed, he says, "Before you wish, I'll trace it. All the way back. To where they used to be, even if it's just *dead rock*. There's one way to make it easier. Take the probe there, expand your field. Pump you up with power off my engine. And that way, we'll be there while it's reverting, while you're wishing. There to help you. There to see it, understand it, learn about it with you."     "That'll make it all clear."     When Nika's back, he has to press his hands against his cheeks for several moments, as if resetting a setting. "YO," He calls out in his beaming, swaggering tone. "WHAT UP? You got THE STUFF? What's good?"     Like a faucet. On and off, forcibly.
Petra Soroka	"What else could the Voyager say to hurt me after having confirmed the unimaginable severity of my sin?"     When Lilian vents frustration, the return sign most helpful to show support for her isn't always to address what's causing it, but instead to show her that you're frustrated with something yourself. With Sakura, instead of frustration, it seems to be 'guilt'. The way Petra smiles isn't entirely dissimilar to how Sakura does.     "I think I'm too selfish to blame you for being selfish, since there's one thing I think's even more important than all of that. Sorry. But I'm grateful to you." "I'm as perfect as a porcelain doll. Mint condition."     There's a moment, while Petra's heart continues to be squeezed in a vice tighter by every word Sakura says, where something 'breaks' inside of her. Unable to sustain the mindset elicited by Sakura's words forever, Petra feels suddenly adrift from her own body and its nauseous stress reactions, ethereally untouched and unemotional, and drifting around the courtyard. The thought comes to her distantly, that this might be the first time in her life that she's felt 'empathy' sustained this strongly for this long, unfamiliar in its rarity and almost amusing for how simple it actually is.     Petra slowly sinks back into herself, once a name is put to the phenomenon. She says, quietly, still looking down at her lap, "Being alone is the worst thing that can happen to anybody." "The human mind can't even begin to imagine, much less comprehend or process, all of it."     It's begun to crystallize into a headache pounding at the base of Petra's brainstem, unfurling with the uncountable razors' edges of ten thousand years of borrowed memories. Petra really only knows one way of helping anyone at all, and in Angela's case, it only helped the minimum amount necessary to get her to 'tomorrow'. She laughs, weakly. "Yeah." "You might grant me that wish, if you like, though I will selfishly take her away from you if you do."     Staggeredly monosyllabic, for a minute Petra's best response to Sakura is, "Well." She adds, eventually, "I think there's a few people even besides me who'd be unhappy with that. But, there's still something I wanted to see for myself before that, so...." "But it would make me happy if you were able to just . . . watch her instead."     Petra sighs, not even really 'reluctant' to spare Mesmer, so much as she is absorbing the magnitude of Sakura's sense of responsibility for people. "Yeah. That's all the reasoning I need, anyways." "... be so, so lonely. Is there some way we could all go together so you don't have to bear that alone?""How?"     Petra looks over her shoulder at Xion, bleak smile on her face. She takes a breath, then finally tilts her chin back up to look at Sakura from where she's seated at her feet. "Sakura, I... can I talk to you sometime soon?"
Angela	''No, sorry, we're cool.'' It's Roland's time to be startled. "Huh?" He asks like he just forgot he had asked a question of Xion. The way he'd been staring at Angela suggested some sort of deep--or at least focused--thought. He blinks twice. He rewinds his brain. You can practically hear the tape whirring faintly. And then he remembers, "Oh--oh yeah, shit, yeah." He laughs. "Sorry, all sorts of heavy stuff... No wonder all those prefaces huh..?" He manages a smile that doesn't really reach his eyes--not because it's dishonest, but because he's sort of worn out by proximity. Though he looks a little pale when he's accused of going easy on her! Thankfully, everybody has way more important things to worry about! "Pretty sure I should be saying that about you." He pauses and then lowers his voice, "Um, it's just 'cause...it's hard when it's a young couple like that, especially when the lady's that fierce?" This isn't really a lie even if it's only like 80 percent of the truth. Fact is, Roland fought Xion harder than he really should've. He thanks once again the universe for making him very easy to look over and past without really being seen. Though it's a little worrying this one here has seen as much as she has. He's starting to worry that when he makes his move someone is going to ask him what took him so long. 'We knew you were going to do something for like a year'. If only he could've used the damn mask but he was a fucking idiot and every fucking elite saw him with it on. Olivier always warned him but he's never going to change is he? He'd be more comfortable people weren't getting in his head too but ... what was he going to do? Stay chill? Impossible. He isn't that cool. ''Maybe Petra or Angela can help?'' Maybe Petra can, Angela thinks bitterly. I haven't helped anyone in a year. And not even in the Angela-time sense. ''The human mind can't even begin to imagine, much less comprehend or process, all of it.'' It takes a herculean effort for her to not say 'How fortunate you have a human mind'. Sure, Sakura literally just said that, but Angela wouldn't say it like the way Sakura said it. But she can't just let that stand without comment either. She isn't that cool. "We must appreciate the small blessings where we can." She says like walking a tightrope. "Otherwise the only option is to go mad." She doesn't say anything about murdering Mesmer so that's probably a good sign.