2025-11-03: Proven Treatment
- Log: Proven Treatment
- Cast: Rin Sasaki, Hazuki Nakao
- Where: Benny's Chain Diner, Shibuya Ward, Tokyo
- OOC Date: November 03, 2025
- IC Date: Sunday, August 05, 2012
- Summary: Hazuki brings Rin news of a confirmed successful intervention for a person possessed by a Homunculus. Rin, in turn, has questions.
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
Hazuki Nakao has saved Taro Nakata. As part of this, after sleeping for a whole day inbetween, she has things to take care of.
One of them is reassuring Rin Sasaki it can be done. She fires off a text.
>it's done
>>my friend has been saved
>let's meet somewhere. i'll tell you everything
Once Rin confirms and asks where and offers to pay, Hazuki has only one choice she wouldn't feel guilty about...
SMASH CUT TO: BENNY'S CHAIN DINER
Hazuki has reached a booth first, an isolated one in the corner, not with many people around. She's clad in her usual black jacket and hat combo, fiddling with the choker around her neck absently. She's looking at the menu, but is a bit nervous to immediately order...
Last time was tense. Maybe she can encourage Rin it's possible now...? But what if she doesn't believe her story?! She'll have to be careful what she leaves out, maybe.
<Pose Tracker> Rin Sasaki has posed.
Rin is a full ten minutes late. This is probably not typical.
Rin looks a little harried -- but more 'I am running behind on everything today' harried, rather than the deep distress that Hazuki saw previously -- as she enters the diner, peers around, and then heads to the corner booth that Hazuki is currently occupying. Breezy blue-and-white sundress that reaches almost to her ankles; open, low-healed sandals; natural-looking makeup; an assortment of rings and bracelets; and a custom-made black leather handbag over one arm, large enough for a laptop and some other items.
She slides into the booth across from Hazuki with an apology already on her lips. "Very sorry to keep you waiting, Nakao-san," she begins. Upon closer inspection, Rin has either made a little peace with her current situation, or has become better at hiding it (or both). The deep exhaustion and tension from their last meeting appears to be absent.
Rin settles the bag next to her as she continues. Her voice is light and Hazuki will notice immediately that she speaks with her hands a lot, making this or that gesture for emphasis. "I promised a client I would step in right before this, and they managed to turn what should have been a brisk twenty minutes into easily four times that."
Rin waves a hand as if to dismiss the subject as quickly as she broached it, and then her attention focuses a little more closely on Hazuki. She taps the table a few times as she considers something. "How did you fare on your exams?"
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
Hazuki is patient. Rin might be busy! Though she does order a drink, a soda.
Rin looks harried, and Hazuki, in all her gloominess, frowns, though she shakes away the apology. "It's fine... being an adult must be hard," she partially jokes and partially shows kindness.
She's asked about her exams, though, instead of jumping straight to business! "Oh, uh..." That is a bad question, apparently, as she rubs the back of her head. "I... passed...?" Oh, so badly. "Language barrier's made it harder than it was back home." Rin may have detected her English accent at one point, marking her as a foreigner despite her distinctly Japanese appearance.
She's quick to push that away, looking over her order. "Benny's reminds me a lot of back then... if still very different. I think I'll get something simple." She looks up.
"I can confirm once more that it's possible. We've saved my friend."
<Pose Tracker> Rin Sasaki has posed.
"Mm," Rin begins in response to the idea that begin an adult is hard. "Sometimes, yes -- especially when other people insist upon the absolutely most stupid and wasteful way of doing things." Beat. "But under no circumstances would I ever trade it for another repeat of highschool, I promise you." She shudders a little for effect.
Rin frowns a little at Hazuki's admission, and looks for all the world like she has something very particular to say on the subject before Hazuki continues to speak on the language barrier. Her frown deepens a little further. "Did your parents not keep you immersed in the language at home?" she asks. <"We can speak in whichever language is your preference,"> she continues right after, switching to English. There is an accent, and she speaks more stiffly and less expressively. Certain words are clearly more of a challenge to pronounce correctly than others. But she can be clearly understood.
She cants her head slightly and purses her lips as Hazuki confirms the saving of her friend. A little of the previous skepticism and concern creeps back into her eyes. <"I would presume that to be very positive news, but -- forgive me for saying so -- you do not quite carry the look of someone delivering positive news. Is something still amiss?">
Which is probably to say that Rin is waiting for the catch.
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
Hazuki blinks about adulthood, and high school... "Oh..." so she's in her worst years! Yay?!
But, as Rin frowns, Hazuki's scratching her cheek. "Ah... they were always busy. Dad works for the Motojima Corporation's sales management in London, and mom..." Mom was usually doing her own thing, she think. "Mom didn't have the time. "I picked up some, but... I mostly spoke English. I only got transferred here this school year."
But then, Rin offers English! "Oh, no, no, it's okay! I need to learn, anyways..." She laughs nervously.
And it's this nervousness that worries Rin that there's something amiss. There actually isn't! But Hazuki is just gloomy, and...
"Oh, no, there's nothing. It went well! We had a lot of help, and he's safe and sound. Don't worry about it." She weakly smiles, and Rin might gather the game.
This girl is *depressed* and anxious, even if she also is being utmost genuine.
"I guess I can start at the beginning. Are you familiar with Carl Jung?" She nails the pronunciation. "I don't exactly know what he has to do with it, but it might help."
Either way, she'll begin with... "I have a power... called Persona. I use it to fight monsters called Shadows. A Homunculus is a type of Shadow, but we don't know much about them... or any of this in general. But it seems if you head into the Atelier, free the victim from their prison, and slay the Homunculus, the victim will be saved... it was very scary. We almost died."
It might seem too hard to believe. But Hazuki has a surety towards it, and if Rin looks closely, she's still definitely tinged with exhaustion and the telltale sign that she might be covering some injuries.
<Pose Tracker> Rin Sasaki has posed.
Rin is an expressive person, and as Hazuki explains her reasons for not being immersed in Japanese back home, it's not terribly hard to guess that Rin carries some markedly negative opinions on the subject -- especially when Hazuki notes that her mother 'didn't have the time.' But she does not pry or press the point any further.
There is a little bit of tension in her body language that existed when she switched briefly to English that evaporates as Hazuki continues in Japanese. She doesn't hate English (although she found it terribly difficult to learn), but she did learn it and employ it almost entirely in formal settings. It's hard to shake those learned connotations when speaking it.
"Only very passingly," Rin admits to the question about Carl Jung. "Will it be helpful going forward if I knew more?"
Otherwise, Rin listens without interruption as Hazuki gives her the extremely truncated version. After, she remains silent, tapping the table again. Her expression is more thoughtful than openly skeptical, and she doesn't look directly at Hazuki. "Describe that," she says finally. "'Fighting monsters' -- what does that look like? Is this a -- literal, physical confrontation?"
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
"Maybe? I only know it passingly myself," Hazuki says about Carl Jung.
But then Rin listens, and asks questions. Is it a literal, physical confrontation...?
"Yes," she says, firmly and with a hitched breath. "We... fight monsters no one else knows about. They threaten us, threaten others. We've gained this power in different ways... I gained mine when I was pulled into a friend's Atelier. I basically... summon a magical, uh.... <phantasm> for combat? That's the Persona. And it uses what's basically magic to fight them, as well as regular physical violence. I know, it sounds so silly... I didn't want to believe it at first."
A sigh. "But it's real. A bunch of us have one. And there's bad people out there, too, or those who are more neutral. Those people I mentioned last time, the more experienced neutral ones? They work at a store called Peacock Silk, though they only take us 'Awakened' as clientele. They helped us out the other night. Without them, we may have lost, because they had information we didn't."
She scratches her cheek again. "They kicked me out the first time I went, actually. Before I gained my Persona. Now we're cool, though."
<Pose Tracker> Rin Sasaki has posed.
By now, Rin is willing to -- if not believe, then at least hear out, quite a lot. As Hazuki begins a new explanation, Rin reaches into her bag, pulls out a pen and notebook, flips to an empty page, and begins taking notes in quick, neat handwriting.
"And one of these monsters, the 'Homunculus,' can infect the psyche and supplant the host," she murmurs, as if verifying that she's tying together a couple of things that she's been told now correctly. "And this 'Atelier' is some sort of -- mindscape?" she questions further. "Yeo-san only spoke little on the matter and did not provide any names, but did mention 'entering other peoples' minds.'"
Rin pauses. The thoughtful look intensifies, creasing her features. She already feels like every answer is going to lead to five more questions. She makes an attempt to focus her inquiry, even if her head is spinning with all the other things she might want to ask. "The 'Homunculus,' the parasite -- is it possessed of its own intelligence? Is it an entirely separate entity from the host? Or is it more -- how brain damage or certain illnesses can cause severe personality changes? That night," and here her expression darkens. "It really felt like there was Something Else there." Beat. "And what does it mean to 'free the victim from their prison?"
Peacock Silk is a bit of a distraction from the weight of her questions and worries. "Oh, interesting," she murmurs. "I've never been, but I remember their marketing campaign -- last year, I think it was? Brilliant work."
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
"Yes, and yes," Hazuki starts about the Homunculus and the Atelier being a mindscape.
Watching the notes taken, Hazuki considers what to say next. "It's... complicated. We're not entirely sure, but we believe that the Homunculus isn't a person until it's close to taking over the body. It's intelligent and can communicate, surely. And it's definitely a different entity... something inhuman, something unnatural. We don't know where it comes from, though."
The prison, though? "It's a cocoon they're trapped in. My friend, he was being guarded by the Homunculus. Once we freed him, the Homunculus went berserk and... I guess took a different form? This one, it took the form of..." She pauses. "This is going to sound insane, but, an arcade machine palanquin. My friend's a gamer, so... I guess it took a form based off what it took from him, like a mimic."
Hazuki takes a sip of her drink. "Should I flag someone to get you something?" she asks, before...
"Peacock Silk is cool. I don't know what their motives are... but they've helped me several times now. I don't know if they'd help you, though. They seem really in tune with the Awakened community most of all."
<Pose Tracker> Rin Sasaki has posed.
More quick, neat notes. It's hard to see exactly what Rin is writing, but the volume suggests that the page is quickly being populated not just with the direct information she's being given, but also her list of questions that's growing faster than they can be answered. There is a distinctly noticeable, perhaps unavoidable pause when the 'arcade machine palanquin' is mentioned, and she glances up at Hazuki with a quizzical expression as if to verify that she's serious. She is, and so Rin writes that down, too.
"I did expect someone would be by sooner than this," Rin replies off-hand with a slight frown at the lack of service. "And please, don't limit yourself because I'm paying," she adds right after, just in case that's a concern.
"'Awakened'," she says slowly, as if considering the word. She references her notes and apparently decides she'd rather ask outright. "What does that mean?" Pause. "Perhaps I will visit, regardless. I assume the worst that will happen is they turn me away at the door...?" There's a very slight questioning tone in her voice at the end, as if giving Hazuki the opportunity to note that actually, no, she will be vaporized by a magical phantasm for daring to cross the threshhold while uninitiated.
And then another, more sober question. "This...cocoon. How is the person freed from it?" And although Rin phrases the question impersonally, there's a slight tremble in her voice and in her hands if Hazuki is paying attention. "And does -- destroying the Homunculus and freeing the person restore them as they were?" A hitch in her voice. "Is there any -- permanent damage?"
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
"Oh, I asked them to wait, I guess they didn't realize they could come now..." Hazuki sheepishly rubs the back of her head, and then flags down the nearest waiter, who will take orders. She gets some of their 'Western' breakfast.
Awakened is what's asked about next. "It's... what we call those who have a Persona. We're Awakened to what everyone else... can't see." She fidgets a little, like she worries Rin will take being called a 'sleeper' poorly.
But about Peacock Silk, she shakes her head. "No, I think it's fine to try. Worst case, their peacock runs you off. He did that to me..."
But, about the cocoon. "We had to cut two cables, holding it up, and then he reached out, and I pulled him out of it," Hazuki explains, before noticing her tremble. Sympathetically, she winces, and then...
"I don't believe there's permanent damage. It's too soon to *really* say, but... it felt like we made him better, not worse? Some things happen I don't entirely understand, but I know they were for the better, instinctively..."
<Pose Tracker> Rin Sasaki has posed.
Rin closes her notebook before the waiter arrives at the table, then orders a large salad with water. And also a black coffee, because caffeine is something of a lifeblood in these last few weeks (if not the rest of the time).
"Is there an opposing term, then, for people who fall outside of that group? Simply 'unawakened' or -- something else?" She at least does not appear to be offended at the implications of the word. She originally sought out 'Merry' because she was violently made aware one day that there was Something(s) in the world of which she was deeply ignorant. And that ignorance was not a protection against being harmed by it.
"I'm -- very glad to hear that," she responds to the explanation of better rather than worse, and breathes a little easier. But there's a glimpse, perhaps, that the mask she's wearing now is a little more brittle than she'd like the world to believe. "The way you describe all of this...I assume there's little more I can do beyond the memento and the location that you and Yeo-san referred to?"
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
"Unawakened, I believe," Hazuki nods. She's trying to sound so mature even though she's been... doing this... for less than a month.
There's a sympathetic smile, before she moves to answer the question thoughtfully, swirling her straw as a fidget. "For now... but if there's ever meant to be more... I think you'll find out. Strange things can happen. Anyways, we'll unlock the Atelier as soon as we have the Thread and you're ready for us to go, Sasaki-san." She assumes Rin is *beyond* ready, but... still.
For now... she's going to wait for her food! She's hungry.