You Find Yourselves Stirred By A Voice....

[strangerpeople]

[You feel as you are on a fluffy cloud of warmth and the urge to not want to move is great. However, the voice speaks again as if it is urgent...and maybe angry?]

Damn brats! Get off the merchandise before I call security on you!

[Oh. Well.

When you come to, the familiar scenes of your bedrooms fill your sight. However, the barriers are gone and strangest of all, there are people around. They can SEE you and for sure, they are gawking at the weirdos that are somehow sleeping in department store beds. But on the hands of Croix and Chariot, there's something on their hands...a phone number and a message saying 'Call me! :D' from some weird girl with an A name. But when you finally move and get away from any nosy customers, you have to wonder 'What just happened?' 'Is everyone ok?'

And why do you have the urge to go visit Cafe MYJL?]

Comments

[notgentle]

[Wow! His teeth show in a reflexive grin. Dio has rarely gotten anyone who acknowledges sentiments to feel positive ones towards him, let alone the same ones! It's such a warm sensation. He can feel the pulse in Helena's palms. Which means losing that warmth will be sad... while his mouth forms the typical devil-may-care smile, his eyes do crinkle with more actual bittersweet sadness.]

You really are a regular old Katherine Johnson. [Dio inflects it naturally, like "an Albert Einstein"; she's so damn smart, especially in the field of projection, he means.

He runs his thumb in a circle over her hand.] Yeah. [A subtle nod, tilted like his other expressions; the long lupine face really suits him the best in the end.] I know technically I can tool around honeymooning for a while longer, but it's the principle of the thing. They're waiting for me. [Even though they already heard the good news from the transmitter...] It's the same reason I can't go reaper just yet. Stop aging? All my brothers notice before long.

[The facts are about the same as before. The "I just can't wait to be king" mood has completely disappeared, however.]

I take it you're not exactly looking for a propaganda writing job, either...

[totalbullshit]

[ Helena has thought about it. Quite genuinely. At the start of the game, she figured that if a multiverse exists out there, it wouldn't be so bad to disappear from the world that contains Neo Yokio forever. Land the ultimate coup and then disappear forever, never to be caught - free.

And if Dio's world was different, maybe she'd ask him here to let her follow him home. It's just... that the idea of Free the Soul continues to send chills down her spine in a bad way. A world where mankind has almost perished... What's there for Helena to do in that? She wants to help mankind as is. Before it can come to something like that. So she shakes her head. ]

I didn't originally want to go back to Neo Yokio... I hate that hollow-hearted metropolis and escaping it... that was the happiest moment of my life for a bit. The first time I felt I can breathe easy.

But now I am thinking that my work isn't done yet. If I become its composer, then I have the power to actually bring about real change. It's a suffocating place, but it's a place where people live. And in the case of long island walled city, it's a place where people die for no fault of their own.

Before all this happened I was really keen on escaping society forever. But if I've learned anything, it's that I can't let one act of greatness be the end of it. I can't remain passive. Maybe if I give up the need to breathe in the first place in order to jump to action, that'll help me in the long run?

[ She grins lopsidedly at that. ]

[notgentle]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm... I guess you don't have to love a city to make sure people can live there.

[He seems to be jokingly playing up the extent that this topic required serious thought before coming to a generous conclusion. Separation from the material world is a beautiful thing, and humans are mostly corrupt beings who need to be purified, but protecting another person is the noble course of action to take as long as it's not motivated by "love" or a similar biased feeling. It's not hard to do this. Dio has been doing intense mental acrobatics. He's strengthened those muscles his whole life. He might as well use them for the sake of the woman he... earned approval from. Speaking of strengths, he fires off another one-liner:]

And, no offense, you are a lot stronger in the Underground.

[Helena can always keep his attention with asphyxiation metaphors. Her thin neck is another one of the areas that the hospital gown has always exposed.]

If you ask me, [and the lilt does reveal Dio is self-aware that he is very biased for several different reasons] I think your rat races are going to be a lot more fair than any of theirs. And, you know, if you ever do have to recruit reapers, it might... [Be nice to get approved by you again as your Conductor. Actually, that could be taken as a declaration of the intent to be with her forever, which he still knows isn't going to be possible when he returns to leading the Myrmidons. He lets go of her hands.] Never mind. Just know that your judgment is gonna be great.

[totalbullshit]

[ Helena should wonder more deeply about what Dio was going to say and then didn't, but for once her own thoughts are too occupied with simple issues to be able to see through Dio accurately. Namely, her hands are free now and that... that makes this a now or never situation.

And Helena would rather go back to Neo Yokio without amassing any regrets after all. ]

I'll miss you, you know?

[ She smiles a little as she says that, but more nervously than usual. The cause for that reveals itself a split second after when she goes for a short hesitant hug. ]

[notgentle]

[For a second Dio thinks "actually, yeah, I guess I should have known that after you were all surprised I didn't know that one thing before, about your opinion of me". Then Helena actually goes for it. And Dio has not been hugged a lot. If Helena had not already suspected that fact from his professed life history and touch-starved approach to pact-sealing handshakes, she will see it in the instant when his pupils constrict as she approaches. And yet, she is at least the third person to hug him today; so Dio has some practice schooling the tension out of his expression.] Helena...

[His heart still pounds when her torso presses against his chest - but Helena is the first person Dio actually wants to hug. He curls his arm around to push his hand between her shoulder blades; and his other hand pats her head, her long hair - though this disturbs the bandage a little bit, and he awkwardly pats it some more to get the position back in place. What Dio warmly whispers right before they separate is:]

You're seriously... something else...

[totalbullshit]

[ The moment he hugs her back, relief flows through Helena like a floodwave. It would be almost tempting to think that Dio never lets her down, but such a thought is utterly preposterous when a premediated murder overshadows every one of their interactions a little bit. Of course, that also happened before the two of them started going on suicide missions with the intent of hurting people together.
It is high time to get out of the mall, being here may really distort her perceptive too much. ]

You, too. Really.

[ Ah, this is awkward... They've spent so much of the last week together that it's odd to think they won't be seeing each other anymore for what may well be forever. It's the only thing that makes this a bittersweet departure. ]