Scene #2823: So Just What Were You Thinking Emi Hoshino!

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Emi Hoshino	And so Emi was delivered unto the tender mercies of Nurse Meiou. She was pretty banged up even with Mamoru having likely healed the worst of it -- and she definitely didn't wake up that night. It's not until later the following day, once everyone has had a chance to recover from The Longest Halloween that she begins to show signs of life. Some soft murmurings, some stirring. She's slowly coming back. It's just taking time. --in the Dreamscape-- EmiEmiEmistatic can memories bruise they're drinking from my spine phone buzzing you PROMISED you'd be home for dinner I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so doors slamming do doors in dreams slam louder Kyoto burned into the sky what is the skin of the nightmare faith is made of paper and burns just as easy dont look it int he eye mothers eyes are so tired you are a guardian of nothing, an open wound maybe you deserve to break NO!-- Back in the real world, Emi sat up straight in bed with a gasp that turns into something resembling a strangled sob. Immediately, she's trying to get out of bed, but her body just really doesn't want to cooperate and she's terribly disoriented. There's a look on her face that suggests she has the worst headache imaginable and she's either falling back or eased back onto her pillow. "Oooohh..."
Setsuna Meiou	As Emi gasps and starts up, it's a mere moment before she hears two clacks and then there's a firm hand on her shoulder at first keeping her from getting up, then easing her down once more...a hand that happens to be attatched to Nurse Meiou, who had been leaning up against the counter near the unconscious mahou's bed. After absently dismissing the book she'd been reading with her free hand to stuff space, the older woman finishes easing Emi back, "It's alright, Miss Hoshino. You're in the infirmary where it's safe." Once she's sure Emi will stay put for a moment, she adjusts the angle of the bed to a slightly more sitting one, then reaches over to retrieve what is statistically the most common request on waking for her charges, a glass of cold water. With a straw. An orange straw. An orange silly straw. Curved into a pumpkin. After giving the young woman a moment, Nurse Meiou then asks, "...now then, how are you feeling, Miss Hoshino?"
Usagi Tsukino	Usagi Tsukino hadn't stayed by Emi's side the whole time - how could she, when ''CORONA'' was determined to have a four am stand off - but the next day, after a good long sleep interrupted by only a couple of nightmares, she wanders back into the infirmary to wait for Emi to wake up. She's not the only one who's been by, but they've dwindled to just a few by the time Emi ''actually'' wakes up. "Heyyyy, Emi-chan, hey, don't worry, you're at the infirmary! We got you out of there, so - deep breaths, okay?"
Amy Faust	Amy awakens in the very late morning after ''THE WORST AND LONGEST HALLOWEEN.'' She slept through morning classes and isn't planning to go to Saturday's half-day. After everything that happened, she assumes that if there aren't ''so'' many people too tired for school that it can't even happen, excuses for participating Mahou will be provided by Setsuna or Inai-san or the Principal or someone else in the know if there is one. Wake up and check on her phone how the news (and any Tokyo-ites with mutual servers on Datcord) are talking about last night, and some webcomics, while having a leisurely breakfast. Have a long hot shower. See if Emi's awake yet. Amy walks into the infirmary in her school uniform -- so she stands out less walking around campus -- with hair still a bit damp. "Hey, Nurse Meiou, how is--" Amy calls as she walks in and then hears Usagi talking and hurries to the back. "Emi?! You're awake! This is real, we brought you back to the infirmary, are you--" Alright? She doesn't look alright. And how could she be after all that. "....uhh... fully awake?"
Mamoru Chiba	Mamoru definitely got more sleep last night than Usagi -- she left him curled up in her dorm bunk with Chibiusa, Luna, and Anko when she went to fight Corona. That means he actually ''went'' to morning classes, and he's in a very wrinkled uniform, and his fluffy hair is too fluffy, but at least his glasses are clean as he comes in with a six pack of ginger beer as a condolence gift for Emi. Sorry you went to Kyoto. He hangs back a little, by the door, watching for a second before coming in the rest of the way. "Yo," he says awkwardly, but he doesn't thereafter add to poor Emi's input buffer.
Emi Hoshino	Emi does not, in fact, look all right. She looks like hell. Paler than usual, dark circles under her eyes. The sleep she got, for once, was not restful at all, and that's to say nothing of the physical toll. Mamoru's healing surely helped a lot, but she's just going to need to time. The wince as she glances up at the overhead lights, dimmed as they likely are, indicates she's got one hell of a headache. "...I'm sorry," she croaks out, her typically huskier voice a bare raspy whisper at the moment. She reaches for the water that Setsuna so thoughtfully brought. Up goes the water round and round through the curly straw. Just a swallow. And then a single word is uttered. Let's just say it's not a word you say in front of Chibiusa.
Setsuna Meiou	Nurse Meiou glances over at the arriving visitors, and she gives Amy and Usagi a bit of a glare, "Girls, I understand you're glad to see your friend awake, but you're both at about a seven and right now miss Hoshino needs you at about a four." Mamoru gets a glance, but since he just uttered a single syllable, he apparently gets a pass on volume. She then sighs a little, turns back to Emi and hands her one of those little plastic pill holder cups with two silver sparkly pills, "Take these two if you will, Miss Hoshino. They'll help a bit with the pain and sensitivity." While she waits for Emi to take those, the nurse arches an eyebrow at the tactical swearbomb, "Is that a swear because of how you're feeling, or a swear because there's something other wrong?" She glances over at the visitors, "...because if it's the latter, at least we've got the beginnings of a posse to start dealing with the problem."
Amy Faust	Amy realizes she's made a mistake and responds somewhere between whisper and stage-whisper with, "Sorry." Her eyes widen a bit at Setsuna breaking out the sparkly pills. Keeping her voice soft but no longer whispering, she asks, "The nightmares fucked up her body that much?" As far as she knows, those are the serious emergency oh-god-the-pain-it-hurts pills. As for Setsuna's question... oh right. So much happened they haven't had time to talk about Kyoto yet. "Uhhh... There's serious trouble, but only Emi would know how soon it's getting here." She looks to the dream mahou with concern again.
Mamoru Chiba	"It would be helpful, as her healer, to know what pills you're having her take, Setsuna-san," murmurs Mamoru, moving over closer, putting the ginger beer on the side table. Then he backs off again and stands against the wall, crossing his arms loosely. "It's on its way, and I'll probably know before anyone else, given how it felt-- but that also doesn't indicate how fast it takes root, takes hold. And it's-- it's the forces we were messing with for Midnight Tokyo. It's the paths that magic flows in the world." A beat. His voice is still low, calm. "Please tell us ''everything'', Emi-san."
Usagi Tsukino	"I wasn't even that loud," Usagi sulks, but quietly, before shaking her head. "You don't have to apologize for anything except almost getting killed for going it alone." ''That'' part does need an apology, but she doubts Emi has already had the realization that she shouldn't have put herself in danger! Instead, she's probably apologizing for needing help, like every big dummy in Usagi's life does. She ''does'' sigh a little when the sparkly pills come out and she realizes that Amy (who she belatedly remembers believes in Santa Claus) doesn't even know the truth. Does Mamoru even know? "Amy-chan, they're not that deep, I promise." She would know! She'd resorted to them for cramping and they had fixed it ''only'' a little. She's pretty sure crazy good medicine would have worked almost as good as Mamoru's hands holding hers could. Everyone else has gotten in on the urging Emi to talk - she can hold back.
Emi Hoshino	Everyone who's spent a little time with Emi Hoshino knows that she's a pretty private person. There's just a lot of things she doesn't want to talk about, or retires from sharing altogether. She lets out a breath, cheeks puffing cutely as she does despite her gauntness int he moment. She takes the pills without question. She does trust Setsuna, at least. "... Yeah, serious trouble. I feel like I was hit by Truck-Kun, reincarnated, then got hit by a fantasy version of truck-kun -- wagon kun? -- again to be returned to my original self." This is what happens when you attempt to contain an eldritch horror in a mind prison which it then shatters, Emi. Have you learned your lesson, Emi? "I -almost- had him," she mutters. That would be at least a partial 'no'. "I'm sorry. I failed all of you. I couldn't stop him." She closes her eyes. "I didn't want to risk any of you," she say, eyes squeezed shut tightly. Probably fighting back tears, or not wanting to see the expression on Amy's face once she's invoked truck-kun. "I only caught snippers of what happened in the waking world before I was ... well. You saw. Everything got jumbled. Thank you for coming for me." Her thoughts are still pretty jumbled herself, but she does blurt out, "I couldn't risk you. I mean that. I had to keep you secret from him."
Setsuna Meiou	Nurse Meiou gives Emi a bit of a flat glare as she admits to having gone alone against a major foe, she sighs and takes the little pill cup away and tosses it out. Before adressing THAT problem further, she glances over at Amy and smiles a little, "I hate to break it to you, Miss Faust, but as much as I wish I really had magical healing pills, unfortunately at the moment, those aren't yet a thing." A little pill bottle full of the sparkly pills is produced and she rattles it once, "Sadly, I must get by with conventional analgesics coated in some food-grade glitter to help the patient think of them as magic." A wry glare is given at the pills before the nurse sighs and makes them go away again as she turns to look back at Emi. She'd say something to the young woman in the bed about not having to apologize, but she suspects the others will do it for her to much more accepted effect.
Mamoru Chiba	There is a moment of faintly pursed lips from the high school senior in Nurse Meiou's direction. He looks like he wants to say something, but opts not to at this point in time. Then he looks at Emi. "If you can't," says Mamoru wryly, quietly, affectionately, "actually believe that you getting hurt hurts us on a personal emotional gut level, then think about it in fully practical terms. We ''cannot'' guard against nightmares the way you can, Emi-san. You're the Oneiropope." Mamoru reaches up to take his glasses off, then rubs at his eyes with the back of his wrist, still talking. "Part of this nonsense is that we rescue each other. We help each other. Each of us is vital, so each of us should be looking out for all of us." He looks up at Emi again, tilting his head a little, expression gentle. "Thanks for looking out for us, but 'all of us' includes you, too." He shifts his weight, still leaning against the wall, his body language closed and self-protective (probably as much as Emi feels), still licking his own wounds from Kyoto. "We don't want to risk you either, and it's always a bigger risk to do things alone."
Usagi Tsukino	"We want to protect you just as much as you want to protect us," Usagi affirms. "And we were really scared to realize you'd just - left on your own to take care of something. You didn't fail because you couldn't handle some big bad on your own - it's not like any of us could have defeated ''our'' demons on our own." She - wishes Emi had been around for more of that. Maybe she'd have seen it, then, and gotten it - that fighting together against the greater threats is what makes them ''win''. "Hinoiri-chan might kill you a little, for going off on your own, but there's no world where we weren't coming after you. Especially since that guy ended up having ''all of those horrors with him''." Which is unfair! It's cheating! They got rid of them once, come ''on'' - "He knows about us now, so we can all make a different plan, this time. Maybe you can tell us about him?"
Amy Faust	Amy has no particular reaction, only comprehension, for Emi colorfully saying she feels like she got hit by a truck so hard she got knocked into another world ''twice''. It honestly sounds within expectations considering what she's been through? She's trying to find the right words to convey... "Risking ourselves to protect others is what mahou ''do.'' But by working together, we reduce the risk that any of us will end up... having to sacrifice ourselves." Amy cocks her head, a bit confused at what it could be Setsuna has to 'break to' her. Her mouth hangs open when Setsuna admits the deception. "Are you ''KIDDING'' m-- sorry." She repeats in a hissing whisper: "Are you ''kidding'' me!?" "I asked you if you had anything stronger because ''sometimes we get cut open. Sometimes we lose limbs. Sometimes we break bones." She keeps starting to raise her voice and drop back to the hiss. "Did you think I was gonna take any ''real'' pain pills to get high or something?! Did you think I would use them casually because somebody had a headache, got a bruise, sprained their ankle, got a crick in their neck?" "I asked for that because I was trying to ''seriously'' prepare for ''serious'' injuries in the field! Have you noticed the thing that I keep having to ask you to order ''more'' of for me the most is the same clotting materials they use for ''gunshot wounds?!''" "They're not for ''me''." Amy points at her ring. "''I'' can turn off pain! I could've given a... a... a ''placebo'' to somebody who was in ''terrible agony'' and thought it was going to ''do'' something!" Going through her head ''is'' picturing all manner of terrible injuries, and if she'd not known... she doesn't want to think about it!
Emi Hoshino	Emi Hoshino immediately launches her pillow at Amy. Emi rubs her face. "The less you knew, the better for all of you. Once he's in your head, it's a lot easier for him to find a way into your dreams, and if he can do that, he can figure out who you are, with enough time and effort." She lets out a breath and then rubs her face with her hands, clearly not wanting to talk about any of this even though she knows there's no choice. "You heard that one shout my name. My real name. They all know it. And the why is Him." A sigh. "He calls himself All-Subsuming, and I've not met a nightmare more fiendish or clever than he is. That's why I had to protect you, all of you, from him. He could ruin your lives. The way he helped ruin mine." "He knows who I am. Knows my parents. My sister."
Setsuna Meiou	Nurse Meiou blinks and leans back slightly from Amy as the younger woman says her peace, then sighs and shakes her head, "I'm sorry, Amy-chan. I forgot how much these look like the little healing candies that Chiyo used to make back when she could. Those actually COULD do some actual healing." She glances over at Emi for a moment, then turns back to Amy, "And no, I don't think you'd abuse drugs...prescription-dose ibuprofin are literally the strongest things I have that are pill form. I've got a VERY limited supply of stronger stuff, and it's all inject-use only. EMT kit stuff they'll practically throw at me, since TECHNICALLY it's all I'm SUPPOSED to need in a school." As Emi goes on to explain why she went it alone, Nurse Meiou looks back, "...Emi-chan, if you get yourself killed in a reckless attack, I imagine the rest of us will be easy pickings. Ultimately, even just a little information about what's happening would help us all...if only so that we can better take care of you."
Mamoru Chiba	Mamoru nods along with Usagi, watching her as she speaks to Emi, and then blinking as Amy goes off on Setsuna in front of other people. He kind of winces in secondhand embarrassment for a half-second, then decides the only polite thing for him to do is pretend to be invisible and also deaf and blind, so he takes his phone out and pokes at the screen as he leans against the wall. FWOOMP. He keeps poking at his phone, then starts thumbing out a text. It's to Usagi and Emi. Mamoru TXT: i want to die u.u When Setsuna's finished explaining, Mamoru nods to her question, pockets his phone again and looks back at Emi, listening with his arms crossed once more. He's silent for a moment, thinking, frowning. "Sorry, just thinking him knowing about family. We ''cannot'' let Riventon find out about this, he'll try to eat the All-Substandard. And he might succeed." Then he closes his eyes for a second before laughing a little, unhappily. "I'm so sorry, Emi-san. We'll beat him together, all right? He has to die, so we'll figure out how to do it. 'Die' might be metaphorical, he might be a corrupted good thing that just needs help being freed of this mortal coil to... oh that's not very metaphorical, is it. Hm."
Amy Faust	Amy is FWOOMPED with a pillow, but she's busy chewing out the doctor. "...That you don't ''have'' anything stronger makes sense. ''That's'' not your fault. What I'm upset about is that you ''didn't tell me what those were'' and led me to believe they were something ''other'' than ibuprofen and glitter!" She sighs. "I guess we should probably like... evaluate what we can put in a mahou-use medical kit later, maybe there's nothing more to do for pain, but maybe there's other things we ''could'' prepare for I didn't think of." "But right now... we have another urgent matter. Amy looks to Emi. "So he's a memetic hazard you wanted to protect us from... but he's also too much for one person to handle, and now he's got all those other nightmares with him and I don't know ''how'' we'll fight them all at once." "...I mean... the lives some of us could have had otherwise... Ruining kind of already ''happened'', but I get what you mean about not wanting it to happen even more to anyone else. Their families..." She takes a breath and steps forward to put a hand on Emi's shoulder and look into her eyes for a moment. "So we'll just have to eliminate him. So he can't hurt you or anyone else ever again." She steps back. "All of us working together... we've fought... so many things... we can't just... ''leave'' this in the world..." she furrows her brows as she's fumbling a bit for just what she wants to say.
Emi Hoshino	"He's done -something. You can feel it there," whispers Emi. "It was bad when I left the first time, and its worse now. He had his fingers in so many pies and even people who are in his thrall." Her hand goes up to her throat and she rubs it thoughtfully for a moment, absent, eyes distant. "I don't know what we're going to do about it -- and I can't get to the Dreamscape right now. Apparently, trying to contain an eldritch horror in my head wasn't great for my mental hygene. Who knew?" EMI DON'T TRY TO CONTAIN A ELDRITCH HORROR IN YOUR HEAD, IT'S BAD FOR YOUR HYGENE. "...but ... thank you for coming for me. I mean that. I just need to put myself back together and then we can figure out how to fight him, I guess, since my plan didn't work. I had him. I really did. But he was able to sever my dream from the dreamscape somehow, and crack it open with whatever he's done to Kyoto. The same thing that let him bring back Bliss-Chan and the rest. I still don't know how."
Setsuna Meiou	Nurse Meiou looks back to Emi, then absently retrieves the pillow from Amy and puts it back behind Emi, gently nudging her to lie back down again, "Killing ideas is ANNOYINGLY difficult but not impossible, and I concur that this idea is one that needs to be thoroughly eradicated." The nurse then steps away to check on and grab a few things for the young woman in bed...and a good pair of ears can catch her muttering, "...first we can try throwing a ball of concentrated Death at him...if that doesn't work, Amy-chan can try absurd amounts of kinetic energy...if those don't work, maybe there's a ritual somewhere that can be used against him."
Mamoru Chiba	"He did something to the ley lines," Mamoru adds, a little more heavily. He pushes off the wall and drops his arms, sticking his hands in his pockets, shoulders showing how tired he still is. "The ley lines in Tokyo are already messed up because of various Obsidian nonsenses, some of which I was unfortunately involved in on the wrong side. I don't know what the results of what's going to come flooding in mixing with the mess that's already here is going to be, but whatever takes advantage of the lines is stronger. And the magic is strongest in Tokyo. It's going to be amplified." He takes his hand from his pocket and flips it over, producing his silk top hat. He takes a rose from it, and offers it to Emi. "If you want to get into the Dreamscape here, we can probably sneak out from mine--" Mamoru turns to Amy, adding, "'We' being a rather large party, because that's not just dark energy, it's ''nightmare'' energy, which can't just be purified away, as Serenity and I found out in the library right off the..." He lowers his glasses. "...bat."
Amy Faust	Amy isn't sure she can really chastise anyone else for keeping an eldritch horror inside them when she has a Witch inside her. Or is the larval form of a Witch. Whatever. Amy nods at the thanks. "He... severed your dream and cracked it? Uhhh... that sounds really bad?" She looks to Setsuna and takes a breath and lets it out. "Just ''one'' of those things took multiple mahou shooting it constantly for a minute straight. Others... there were other ways to beat them." She looks back to Emi. "Maybe there's a trick to beating 'him' too? Hey, if we call him something else, like Captain Fluffy Bunnies, does that reduce the effect?"
Mamoru Chiba	"Subby," Mamoru says judiciously in response to Amy's suggestion, tossing his hair out of his eyes. "Short for All-Substandard."
Emi Hoshino	"Yeah, he's not a big fan of the shit talk," remarks Emi. Mamoru's comments about the bat just get him glared at before she sighs. "...Hinoiri is going to murder me in my sleep. I don't think it'd be a good idea for me to visit you in your dreamscape right now. I'd bring my mess with me. Everything is ... shattered. I have to reassemble it. My dreams are incoherent right now." She screws up her face. "I was making progress but I woke up and I don't have the head space to go back there right now. In the meantime, we need to be preparing for whatever he's going to do to Tokyo, because he's coming here. He is." She looks up at Setsuna, now.
Setsuna Meiou	Nurse Meiou's voice comes from the supply closet, "...I can give you a mild stimulant if you need to stay awake for a bit, Emi-chan, but I'd rather not if possible." One can hear a sigh from her as she walks back out and shuts the door, "Normally I'd prescribe lots of rest for you, but in this case, the primary FORM of rest is something that's part of the problem...and there's not much I can get on my side of things to do much about dreams. Frankly, you'd probably be best with a big pot of chamomile tea." Nurse Meiou then looks at the others, "...on the more DIRECT front...right now all I can see is that we need to shore up our defenses, prepare a-" She then gets a contemplative look before turning to look at Emi, "...Emi-chan...would you have an easier time of getting yourself in fighting form if you were out of the area for a little while?"
Amy Faust	Amy just sort of blinks at Mamoru. Not sure how to comment on that. She looks to Emi. "Not a fan as in it hurts him, or as in we'd better not?" Hearing that Emi's dreams are shattered, she leans in to hug her, although she'll stop and back off if Emi makes any motion to stop or push her away or leans away from her. "So... how do we prepare for nightmares loose in reality, so many at once?"
Mamoru Chiba	"...mmm," says Mamoru, neither agreeing nor disagreeing as he puts the rose back in his hat. "I'm going to look. Don't worry, I won't actually leave my dreamscape. I'm just gonna look out a door--" And Setsuna asks a question that makes Mamoru's eyebrows go up, but he doesn't comment-- he looks to Amy instead. "Barriers, for one thing. Make sure you've got Devicers, Usako, Hope Concept, and Ginga Otome on speed dial." He frowns and takes his phone out of his pocket, checking the buzzing message, then looks up and says, "I gotta go. But we should have a briefing in the Shed. Just--" he's starting to back out, "--my cat ate a small dog." He is GRIMACING. "''Allegedly.'' Later!" Out the door.
Emi Hoshino	"I don't know. I'd be willing to try anything. If its less ... noisy it might help," muses Emi. The dreamscape is a noisy thing -- millions of dreamers in close proximity in Tokyo alone, let alone whatever's going to start happening next. She peers at Amy a moment, then says, "Not a fan as in .. not a fan. I don't think it hurts him, but he's self important. I mean, he literally calls himself 'the All Subsuming One', so needling him is helpful. I wouldn't reccomend getting too much of his attention just yet. And I don't know. At least I know how Bliss-Chan came back the first time. Somehow, he's found a way to bring nightmares back from the dead as they were ... something I thought wasn't possible. You could have ANOTHER nightmare of a toxic joy, but it wouldn't be Bliss-Chan, specifically. And yet, there we are." She pinches the bridge of her nose, "And they don't work together! At least, not like that. That's really bad. It means, he's grown powerful enough to like ... -compel- them or something, somehow." As for the hug, she just sort of cringes when it landed, as is tradition. She stares after Mamoru. "...yeah. I guess we should have a meeting or something." Now her eyes are back on Setsuna. Curious.
Setsuna Meiou	As Nurse Meiou listens to Emi's comments to Amy, she blinks, then smiles a bit, "So physical proximity has an impact? Well, then...I can guarantee you a place far enough removed that that won't be much of an issue at all." She pauses and blinks, "...come to think of it, I even still have tents and actual bedding there for you to use. When you're ready to try to fix yourself again, we'll see if stepping outside normal space/time for the night will give you enough separation to make things easier."
Emi Hoshino	"Stepping outside of what now," says Emi, staring at Setsuna with wide, mismatched eyes.
Amy Faust	Barriers are so useful, and Amy can't do that ''or'' purify. "I wonder if it's possible to learn how to use my Labyrinth... but I have no idea where to even ''begin'' with that..." His cat-- "What?" Amy blinks at him, but he's gone. And Setsuna offers Emi somewhere safe. "Oh. ''you'' haven't seen that yet, have you." She smiles, and looks at Setsuna. "Can I come with to see what she says when she sees it?"
Setsuna Meiou	Nurse Meiou looks over at Amy before giving a shrug, "I'm not AGAINST it...but it's gonna be fairly boring since we're literally just going there to sleep." She then looks back over at Emi, but before she says anything to the woman wearing an incredulous look on her face, she absently adds, "...besides, I misplaced my fez." The nurse gives a little smirk before asking Emi, "Which word didn't you understand? I can take you to a place that's just outside conventional spacetime, if still synchronized with it. We can go there, which should give you all the physical distance you need. I've got a bunch of tents still up there with air mattresses and bedding still. We go there tonight, you sleep for eight or so hours, and we'll see if that helps you." She shrugs, "...I can't imagine it'd be any WORSE."