★ my genius, flawless idol for life

[liedol]

⭐ Who: Ai and you!
⭐ When: its fucking dember
⭐ Where: Mostly in Yumemigaoka, with some planned Hunts and stuff in the Dream Sphere
⭐ What: Wow, that was pretty decidedly awful!!! Unfortunately, there's no rest for the wicked OR the DU's idol so even though she's a little running on fumes, Ai's still got a busy December ahead of her...! With DU work and idol work and holiday obligations all on her plate, the real question is: how does she ever find time to sleep???

Comments

[hanamane]

[... oof. Never a good sign when even Ai doesn't know what's going on, but the situation as of late-- Crimson, the instability, the Disturbances-- really has become nothing but tangled threads. Hanako rubs his chin a little, trying to wrack his brain over the events the past few months.]

Mm... come to think of it, the Vale didn't reattach itself until after Mio-chan was rescued, either. Maybe it was just how it all timed out, but... you're right, that does seem a bit too convenient for it to be all a coincidence.

[A small detail pops into his head as he continues to think, however, and he glances up at the grey, frosty sky. Maybe it was too insignificant to even comment upon, but...]

Actually... call it a hunch, but... there were a lot of intense storms during the summer, weren't there? I mean, more than we'd usually expect in Yumemigaoka, anyway. Considering how the Vale usually is... it couldn't have bled into the real world, could it?

[Considering there were earthquakes when both Mio and Ango disappeared, it's not like these Disturbances hadn't influenced reality in one way or another. Though on the subject of Ango...]

It's weird, though... aside from the earthquakes, nothing out of the ordinary happened when that old guy went through all of his stuff. Heck, October was pretty normal after everything that was going on.

[liedol]

[ She hums to herself in thought. ]

It's... possible. But summer this far north can turn that bad just because the air's a little wrong — it could be connected but I don't want to start chasing shadows. Not when there's already so many things that're strange as it is.

[ Like the absence of strangeness when it came to Ango's Disturbance. Or maybe there had been something strange and they'd all failed to notice it. There's so many unknowns and too little information to establish a pattern.

With any luck, things will stay that way. ]

... You were there fighting the Night Terror with everyone else, right? And you remember how that Disturbance felt. Did you ever feel anything like that before the Disturbance opened up?

[hanamane]

[His shoulders slump when she pokes holes into his weather theory, but... well, she had a point there. It was definitely too easy to connect dots to things that probably were mere coincidences, after all.]

That's true. We probably don't want to start going all "Crimson faked the moon landing" about this if we can help it.

[But then Ai mentions the Night Terror, and his posture stiffens ever so slightly. He took great pains keeping certain things off of that report (and making sure the others did the same), although there was no telling what may or may not have slipped through the cracks. Thankfully, though, it seems that she was more interested in Ango's overall Disturbance in general, and after a heavy moment of silence, he finally responds, voice quiet and tentative.]

... yeah, I was. And yeah... I do.

[It had been something he had been meaning to discuss with her for a while, ever since the first Disturbance, although with everything going on, he couldn't find the right time-- until now, that is.]

You know about how I was on the one mission to find Crimson, right? Where she went and kicked us all out and told us not to come back? Well... I noticed something. In both Mio-chan's and the old guy's Disturbances. It felt a whole lot like how it did when we stumbled upon that weird gazebo place she was hiding out in. That weird... super-real but not-real feeling.

The old dude and I had wondered if maybe what we've been running into with her is her own Disturbance, possibly. It definitely feels the same, and if Crimson's as good at working with the Dream Sphere as they say, then it explains a whole lot about why no one's noticed it sooner.

[And Hanako and Ango were going to look into it further, but then SOMEONE had to have a midlife crisis and send their demonic sakura waifu against folks!!!]

[liedol]

[ Her stomach turns a bit. She was hoping he would've come out with a different theory — something she could go along with or poke holes in either way. But when he comes out with the exact line of thought she's been slowly making her way down, her heart sinks a bit.

It doesn't mean anything concrete, of course. Just that she and Hanako have been working with the same sorts of theories. It makes sense, of course — she's been in his life for so long even before she was ever his mentor. That kind of synchronicity in thinking happens between people all the time. It doesn't mean anything more than the fact that she and Hanako think alike.

But her stomach turns all the same. Because Hanako has a number of different puzzle pieces to work with in comparison to her and yet... they ended up with the same image.

So what does that mean?

Ai lets out a shaky, disquieted exhale. ]

... I think if anyone could do it, Eliza-chan could. [ it feels like she's been saying that a lot lately. ] That doesn't mean she is. But if she wanted to... I think she could manage it. ... we don't even know what happens when a Disturbance goes undetected, let alone just left to itself for as long as Eliza-chan's been gone.