2026-03-11: States Of Being
- Log: States Of Being
- Cast: Reiya Aomori, Hitomi Mandai
- Where: Iwatodai Dorm
- OOC Date: March 11, 2026
- IC Date: October 08, 2012
- Summary: Reiya is working on something, and Hitomi comes by. They talk about some horrors, among other things.
<Pose Tracker> Reiya Aomori has posed.
The dormitory is quiet today. Mostly because it's early enough after school that most people are out doing Activities. Not so Reiya today, who came straight back after school in his speedy, mysterious way.
He's still in uniform on one of the couches, paying little attention to the NEW TV. (It is not that new.)
Instead, he's working on something. Writing in a little booklet. Maybe it's homework. It's probably homework. Either way, he's thoughtfully intent on it...
But that doesn't mean he won't notice someone coming around. He always does.
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Where did Hitomi come from?
Well, when a Mandai and a Womandai love each other very much --
Ha ha.
"Oh, hey," says Hitomi, who had, just now, walked down from the stairs very quietly - Reiya may have noticed in passing but probably parsed it as 'another resident' or even 'Hitomi, who is not a threat vector' - and had just now been standing next to the couch, one hand on its back, looking at...
What?
"Whatcha doing?" Hitomi says, kind of unfocused - though almost as soon as she says it, she is focusing, looking down at what he's been doing. READING OVER THE SHOULDER?
She does seem rather lifeless, though.
<Pose Tracker> Reiya Aomori has posed.
Ha ha!
Indeed, Reiya didn't parse Hitomi as a threat vector and didn't worry about it. And he's pretty focused. So, she gets to the couch without a GREETING and--
As she focuses, she will see a broad heading: 'NOTES ON THE EFFECT OF INTERPERSONAL CONNECTIONS ON SHADOW PREDATION'. There's a number of bullet points underneath, with questions like
* 'Effects on memory?'
* 'Likelihood of Shadow predation?'
* 'Variance?'
"I'm working on a problem," Reiya explains. It is presumably not homework. "I'm trying to figure out how to gather data from my position in SEES..."
He pauses. "It's not ready to share yet." Then Reiya continues, "Hello. It is good to see you."
Reiya has noticed the lifelessness. And the quiet.
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi gazes at the list of facts for several seconds. She blinks. Once. It's almost audible. "Oh," she says, "shit, this is..."
She shakes her head once.
"Sorry," Hitomi says, "I'm still out of it. Shit. Do you mind if I sit down?" If assent is given she walks over and flumphs down, otherwise she remains standing, but EITHER WAY WHAT COMES NEXT IS INEVITABLE -
"The thing is catching up to me, I guess," Hitomi says, still sounding somewhat lethargic and ambiguous. There are at least four 'things' it could be, and they're standing in one of them right now!
<Pose Tracker> Reiya Aomori has posed.
"I'm trying to understand things that might protect people from Shadows," he explains. "But I don't have access to the research..."
But Hitomi apologizes, and Reiya closes his notebook. "I do not object." Flumph!!
No creatures appear.
He considers her for a moment, and decides the best thing to say is...
"Would you like to talk about it?" He doesn't seem particularly tired. Laconic, maybe, but not lethargic.
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
"So... you mean during the Dark Hour? Or in the sort of weird, bleed-over..."
FLUMPH
"... heh," Hitomi says, crossing one leg over the other. (She's wearing the sweatpants again. Fall doesn't come easy in this part of Japan, but she's ready for it.)
Looking at her knee, Hitomi says, "I guess, if you want to hear, I just... Like it's a lot, you know, and it's not like I was the only one there? And if you're doing this Shadow stuff, it's like, I mean --"
Hitomi sort of runs out of sentence, looking over at Reiya afterwards. She doesn't smile about it; she has often done so, but not right now.
<Pose Tracker> Reiya Aomori has posed.
"Mostly in the Dark Hour," he says. "It has to do with who's called by the Shadows, and who remembers what happens after they are. That's what got me thinking."
Flumph!
But, Reiya looks over at Hitomi again. Or rather, is still looking at Hitomi. He listens to her, finds it meandering a little...
He already set aside the work! But he thinks about it a moment longer. "I would like to hear," Reiya settles on. "I don't mind if it's 'a lot.'"
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi exhales. "Alright," she says, folding her hands in her lap and leaning back.
"So," Hitomi says, "we went to the asylum, right." From her tone, Hitomi is glossing over that. Maybe she isn't sure why she herself went.
"The walk up, spooky, but kind of exciting," Hitomi continues, looking at the ceiling, "like, nothing BAD happened. I found some berries I recognized, we had those, we ran into what I guess were a couple of Shadows, or Demons, or whatever... nothing big. A deer following us, some little guy who stole half of my money..."
"When we got into the asylum we found out that there were dead Taiwanese gangsters who I think were sent there by the prime minister," Hitomi continues, gaze turning from its heavenswards direction to instead look towards her knees.
"So, I mean, you remember what I said about dead bodies, I sort of looked at them and closed their eyes since they weren't theoretically dead, they were actually dead, and I mean, I talked all that shit so I had better live it, right, and I could tell they hadn't been dead for long because they still felt warm and it was kind of chilly in there."
"So there," Hitomi says, gesturing outwards, and then something seems to pop into her mind: "Hold on, shit, I forgot about this, I have to like - send these so they're backed up, hold on. What's your number?"
If given, Hitomi forwards photographs that look like a film exhibit about a crazy man's conspiracy walls.
That is because they are a crazy man's conspiracy walls. They were authored, we may presume, by Tatsuya Sudou in Room 303 of 'that place.'
This occupies Hitomi for a minute. She isn't done yet.
<Pose Tracker> Reiya Aomori has posed.
The asylum. Reiya remembers the call; he was occupied on a mission for Ikutsuki at the time. He does those sometimes.
"I see." Shadows or Demons--more likely demons. A deer... that's nice.
Hitomi's blunt talk of the dead Taiwanese gangsters doesn't make Reiya blink. It does make him frown slightly. He does have expressions! The prime minister...
He listens to waht she did about the bodies, and nods. He listens in silence at first; he wants to let her finish before he makes any comments. Until--
"here," he says, and pulls his phone. "Use the direct connection," he suggests, and either way, they will get the files over a moment later.
He looks at them thoughtfully. He frowns at the crazy man's conspiracy pictures.
"I see. I will ensure they're backed up."
"Please go on."
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi passes the files over. Now Reiya has them. Which means now Kirijo has them, maybe, but Hitomi seems to have made her peace with that one.
"... so after that it kind of, just, got worse. Other... people showed up, I think Takeba had her shit together better... she can probably tell you what happened more than I could. I just kind of..."
Hitomi stares at her phone, not seeing it.
"I told you about how I'm messed up, right? Like the kind of... risk chasing thing in my head? I sort of... I did the same thing I kinda did when they attacked here, I sort of just stopped holding onto the... I want to say leash, but I don't know if that's right... I sort of just let myself be that."
Now she looks over at Reiya. "And the weird thing is it was really comfortable?"
"Like, it just sort of fit in and while I felt... better...? It wasn't like I was immediately running in front of people or jumping on their knives to feel things or something like that. It's..."
Hitomi looks away now, at the new TV.
"... It's just weird. I sort of crashed afterwards... hah, now I'm remembering... the people we were fighting were like, married, or like spiritually married because I think they were talking about how you can't have two women get married in Japan? I guess they were ladies. One of them looked pretty pregnant, though I kind of was looking on her straight on so it was like, I don't see it Takeba, what do you mean."
A second or two passes.
"Now I kind of want to do it again," Hitomi continues, "but I feel like if I keep doing that I'm going to stop existing."
<Pose Tracker> Reiya Aomori has posed.
Kirijo will probably get them; where else is Reiya going to back them up?
"I see..." He is listening, even if he doesn't say anything much at first. He can tell she's in trouble here. Emotionally. He's not always good with emotions. Nevertheless...
"Comfortable..."
"Hm."
The 'pregnant' part disturbs him a bit. That's visible.
"...I don't think that's unacceptably strange," Reiya says first. "Even ordinary people--without the problems you mentioned--can come to crave the excitement of danger, the rush of the edge. ...I'm sure it's not exactly the same for you, but it seems like more a matter of 'how' than 'what'. And it seems that it serves you in good stead in battle." He pauses. "I can tell you more about what I think of that, if you want."
But first, "I'm sorry about the dead men. It was kind of you to think of them, even though they were likely our enemies. I'm... familiar, with some of the criminal organizations associated with what Ikutsuki-san said to be the New World Order. I am not entirely surprised that they are one."
"The first time I saw death in that way I was fourteen," he offers. "It's hard, getting used to it."
"...But it's a careful balance," he says, going back to what she said of doing it again. "You may be right. It sounds like a dangerous way of being..."
"But so long as you don't do it alone, you'll have us to try to pull you back from the brink, should it come to that." He pauses. "I'm... sympathetic to it. I find myself lost in the battle rush sometimes, too. It's something i've had to train myself out of."
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
There's quiet for a long while.
"... well that's the thing," Hitomi says, "I did have to do that -- that, watch me and pull me back Coach, kind of thing -- last time but I'm not sure I'd needed it this time. Um."
Her lips purse. She crosses one leg over the other.
"... So, uh, tell me what you think? And... I kinda want to know what was up with the dead body, first." Hitomi adds, more quietly, "I was twelve, but, it wasn't like. I mean it was a funeral thing."
<Pose Tracker> Reiya Aomori has posed.
Reiya is fine with quiet. He waits for Hitomi to be ready to speak. Once she does...
"Hm," he says. "I see."
But then, what he thinks? And--"Ah, that."
"A rival clan attempted to assassinate me when I was fourteen," Reiya answers calmly. "Mother had been able to keep the other attempts from getting close... but this time, the operative was in the room with me. I watched him die, though I didn't do it myself."
"...It was upsetting," he says, just as calmly.
He looks back to Hitomi again. "I think that the state you describe is similar to the battle-state I've heard described--calm, unafraid of danger, prepared to do what is necessary and take great risks that are required without actively seeking harm. There are people who train for some time to be able to do that..."
"And yet you can do it by 'releasing' a part of yourself." He shakes his head. "I don't mean to imply that you don't have the problems you do. I believe that you seek risks unduly, and that you enter an unusual state in the doing--and that it may be distressing to experience."
"...But in a fight, avoiding risk can ironically make you less safe. So..."
"I'm not sure. I don't have a conclusion. You just made me think of such states, by describing it, down to the 'crash.'"
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
'A rival clan attempted to assassinate me'
"... You're not shitting me with this, are you?" Hitomi asks, after a long pause. "I... I mean I don't doubt you that's just... I mean, like, it's not like it's LESS ABSURD but... I mean, you know what I mean? I just -" Hitomi exhales afterwards. "Sorry..."
"... what?" Hitomi then says.
She pushes her glasses up her nose.
"You mean," Hitomi says, pausing, faltering. She takes the glasses up, she starts wiping them on her shirt tail. She is close enough to Reiya that she can see him pretty clearly, and she leans slightly forwards. "Like."
"You have that happen to you? Did you like... like, how did you learn to do that?"
<Pose Tracker> Reiya Aomori has posed.
"It's fine," Reiya says. "One of the reasons I don't talk about that aspect of my life much is that people find it unbelievable. ...Which is good. 'There is no such thing as a ninja'..."
"It's important that people remember that."
But Hitomi asks, and Reiya nods. "The last time was... here. During the attack on the dorm. I fought the girl Niko... She wants me to call her Niko-chan, but I'm not sure that's true anymore."
"I was so intent upon the battle that all other concerns faded away. There was only defeating my opponent and preventing her harming my allies."
"...But I used to get into it when training, too. Now and then."
"For me, it's something that can happen because I've drilled the mechanisms of battle into my body such that they are second nature. I don't have to 'think' about how to climb a wall, or strike an enemy. I just do it. When you don't ahve to 'think'..."
"Sometimes, you just 'are.'"
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
"... Are there a lot of them? Ninja. I mean," Hitomi begins, and she perhaps wisely cuts her losses on that particular train of thought. She keeps wiping her glasses.
"... And that's..."
Hitomi takes a deep breath and then lets it out.
"... I felt that way," she says, in a miserable sort of tone, "when I was playing pachinko. Hah. I did pretty well at it, too."
She keeps cleaning her glasses. Her shoulders are slumped again.
<Pose Tracker> Reiya Aomori has posed.
"No."
That's it! But Hitomi mentions that she felt it while playing pachinko. He looks back at her, tilting his head just so.
"Pachinko..."
"You must be very good at it," he says. Somehow that's his first takeaway.
"...Is it so different?" he wonders. "I find myself craving the next jump across the roof, to see how far I can go. 'Risk' is not limited to battle, and battle is not inherently a noble risk."
"...But I suppose, if it's a 'problem', you must have lost. Suffered some great consequence."
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
"I had a knack," Hitomi says sourly.
She looks at her glasses again.
Her lip quirks up... but brief.
"I won so much I got invited to the high rollers room." Hitomi puts her glasses back on then and turns her head to look at Reiya.
"A demon tried to eat me."
<Pose Tracker> Reiya Aomori has posed.
Hitomi's delivery is uninterrupted. She turns to look at Reiya, and actually sees him go slightly blank at her statement. He is surprised!
"...That is a consequence," he reflects. "i'm glad that you sit here uneaten," he says first. ...Presumably uneaten. "What happened then?"
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
"... Per, so, na," Hitomi says, after several seconds. "I guess it was obvious I was able to do that, right? Anyway... After that my parents found out about the money I'd been, stealing, and I came here a couple of weeks later." She looks back at the ground.
"Instead of prison or reform school or just, no high school for you, kid, good luck! Find someone rich. Heh. I didn't really have friends, anyway."
<Pose Tracker> Reiya Aomori has posed.
Persona. That would make sense. "So you saved yourself, that way. Lucky that you don't require an Evoker." Which of course they all know. But her parents found out, and...
Reiya frowns more sharply at this one. "I see," he says, and this time seeing is disapproving. "I'm sorry," he says. "Am I to understand that they want you to solve their money problems by marrying advantageously?"
He very disapproves.
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
"Hah! No," Hitomi says, "they didn't really want to talk with me that much at that point." Her head tilts downwards then. Crestfallen, maybe.
"That just flew into my head," Hitomi says, to her knees. "Just kinda... well, okay, no high school and no college, how are you going to not be totally ground down? And... I guess that's the answer, you'd be ground down. Or something." Something sits there, allusive but un-evoked.
"I haven't really spoken to them much since I came out here," Hitomi says, looking towards the stairs now. "My brother reached out though. So I guess I'm not like. Forgotten. (He's gonna inherit the temple so I guess him being a good guy isn't a big surprise.)"
<Pose Tracker> Reiya Aomori has posed.
"Oh," he says. "I see..."
He is sad for her. It is no good, to be abandoned by one's family. And that... shows a little, on his face. Just a little.
""Yes," he agrees. "I suppose that is the point."
"...I'm glad that your brother reached out to you. To be totally bereft of family... it's not something I'd wish even on someone I dislike."
"But if your family presides over a temple and they still can't or won't forgive you, that's shameful."
"...So is that when it started, then? That 'leashed' way of being?"
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
"I mean," Hitomi says, "I don't really *know*..."
It's a bit of a whiny tone but she has, perhaps, cause. "Like I was just... me all along, I liked games but just -- normally, you know? Like they were fun, interesting, that kinda thing. I didn't really mean to just... ugh."
"I mean it's been less than a year," Hitomi adds, which doesn't seem to even convince her as she says it.
"I don't know since they both feel normal, but I guess I'm a lot more self conscious? than I was? Like I don't feel like I turned into a different person, but maybe you're right."
<Pose Tracker> Reiya Aomori has posed.
"That makes it more difficult, doesn't it? If you don't know when it started, and it doesn't feel unusual..."
He wonders about that. "Who told you it was wrong?" he wonders. If her parents won't talk to her, and if she's sure there's something wrong with her...
She does have cause. "Less than a year. I see." He does not sound convinced either.
"Hmmm. Well, i don't know much about it; it doesn't mean you're a different person. But it seems like that must be the difference. In your 'ordinary' life, shame and worry hold you back."
"...I hope that doesn't sound too blunt; i'm just extrapolating on what you've said. You can tell me if I'm wrong."
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
> Who told you it was wrong?
"What do you mean?" Hitomi says, with mild disbelief. "I stole money from an offering box. Even if you don't believe in anything I still DID that. I didn't use it to buy like, food or medicine or something, I blew it on gambling."
The next part, though, makes Hitomi frown. But she doesn't say anything; she leans back, she hunches a little, she wraps her hands around her knee. She looks at Reiya for a while, then off, at nowhere-in-particular.
<Pose Tracker> Reiya Aomori has posed.
"Not that part," Reiya says. "That part was obviously wrong, and you deserved to be punished for that, to atone."
5r"...The part about who you are. About 'how you live'. Your mind. Who told you your mind is wrong?"
"That's all I meant. I apologize; I've overstepped."
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
"... No, like," Hitomi says,
"I don't know," Hitomi concludes.
"I mean -- I'm not stupid, it's not like I'm... forgetting when an alien came down in a flying saucer or something and told me I was a piece of shit, but I seriously don't remember anyone SAYING it. Like I had cops staring at me like I was trash but, I mean, of course I did..."
"You're fine," Hitomi says after a couple of seconds. "I just - Haha, I didn't really like, think about this a lot..."
<Pose Tracker> Reiya Aomori has posed.
She doesn't know. "I see." Reiya nods. "That's understandable then," he says. "It would be easy to feel that way..."
"All right," he says when Hitomi says its fine. "I won't press any further, though. Thank you for sharing with me."
He feels a little awkward on that one. he considers for a moment.
But no, he said he wouldn't pry further for now.
"I hope that the experience you had is one you can recover from."
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi's eyes dart towards Reiya. Her face is partly occluded but for that one moment, despite her usual genial and friendly attitude, there is rage and disquiet. No screaming, or flushing, or carrying on. Just a short, sharp, 'how dare you.'
But then her eyes cut away.
Her expression softens. Becomes something more like it usually is, that sort of slightly apologetic harried quality. It crosses through that. Her brow furrows. Reasoning something out.
She doesn't speak immediately. Perhaps this is an opening of portent.
<Pose Tracker> Reiya Aomori has posed.
Reiya looks apologetic himself. He's logicing a lot out, himself. That one moment...
But when she goes to where she usually is, expressionwise. He is sure he has offended her...
But, well. 'Maybe there's not something wrong with you' is perhaps a bitter pill. Or maybe he didn't get that one across at all.
He turns from watching her to look into space. "..."
Reiya can keep up silence all day. It's kind of his thing.
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi leans back gradually. Her expression seems to be brightening.
"... I meant it, by the way," Hitomi says, not looking back at Reiya right away. "You're fine. I'm not..."
She actually laughs. It's pretty quiet, more of a 'heh!' than anything. She tilts her head back and lets her eyes lean sidewise to look at Reiya, now.
"Your penance is to escort me to the kitchen and clear it for hostiles before I get a drink. What do you say?"
<Pose Tracker> Reiya Aomori has posed.
If you squint, you can see the relief in Reiya's expression when he turns back to Hitomi at her words. That quiet laugh precedes her looking his way...
And he nods. "I accept this mission," Reiya says simply. Setting aside the notebook that was in his lap, he rises to his feet, and turns back to Hitomi.
"That is, yes."
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi heaves herself up. "Lead the way, I'm going to walk slow," Hitomi says, hands in her sweatpants pockets.
"... Still, though, that's really funny if I just kinda... drop into that. I was thinking what it was like... sorry to be gross but it's like how you don't have to think about your muscles to pee, you just kind of do it, right?"
"I probably shouldn't have said that," Hitomi admits a moment later. "I got really messed up by that for a couple of days when I was a kid."
<Pose Tracker> Reiya Aomori has posed.
"All right."
True to his word, Reiya scans the area ahead of them with his eyes, though he doesn't crouch down or look around corners. His steps are silent, though. As usual.
"Hmm."
He nods, glancing back. "It was a little gross," he admits. "But effective as an analogy. It is like that."
Then he actually laughs softly. "Oh no."
The coast will be clear as he walks along. Probably.
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi gets an oolong tea, and 'treats' Reiya to whatever cold drink he wants.
"Pretty soon I guess we'll be wanting hot drinks, huh?"
<Pose Tracker> Reiya Aomori has posed.
Reiya will accept also an oolong tea! Delicious. Traditional.
"I suppose so..." Hot drinks.
The rest of the day is probably less fraught.