2022-05-17: Nothing There

• Log: 2022-05-17: Nothing There
• Cast: Nidaime, Yuta Hibiki
• Where: Tsutsujidai
• OOC - IC Date: 0096-05-17
• Summary: Nidaime shows Yuta what lies outside Tsutsujidai -- and what lies inside it.

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<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

Nidaime has been searching for GRidman for a whiiiile and while she has, technically, met Gridman he seemed pretty weird for Gridman and she wasn't really sure where to go from there. Was this a plan of his? Was in he in trouble? She tried to find some common ground with Akane but it didn't end up going too well in her books, if anything she felt like she ended up pushing the poor girl CLOSER to Kerib if anything. And with a few other scares since--maybe she should try changing up her tactics.

Nidaime has been lurking near the Junk Shop hoping to catch Yuta Hibiki. Her patrol is relatively compact but she is also trying to catch the poor boy not too close to the Junk Shop itself because what she also wants is privacy--and that's the taller order. Finding Yuta with his friends is a lot easier, him having a moment alone--that has been tricky for her.

But perhaps this will be her lucky chance?

<Pose Tracker> Yuta Hibiki has posed.

They say there's a first time for everything - and at least in this instance, one in which Nidaime catches Yuta Hibiki all by his lonesome, that adage proves to have some merit. "Er.."

Although, it wasn't really a matter of chance. Vit had apparently noticed her stake outs and had shamelessly bullied him into doing something about it. "I just don't get it," Yuta had said, as Vit lazily reclines on a bar stool, tipping it precariously. "Yuta, there's really only one way you can take a girl your age - ... probably, close enough? - hanging around your usual haunts but refusing to approach you when your gang is in the way."

"I mean, can't you read the air a little?" Vit had wryly jabbed, to which Yuta had responded, "I don't want to hear that from you ... not at all. Actually, could you please say it in a way I can understand?"

In all actuality, Yuta did pick up what he was putting down, he just wanted him to say something else.

        "Don't worry about it. I'll teach you all about how to - " "No thank you."

With that, Yuta had given a small tap with his shoed foot to the leg Vit had been balancing his seat on, causing it to topple over to the floor. "Eh? Yuta, a bully! There's no way .. and after I was acting so generous .."

        ...at any rate.

That's why I'm here now, since I figured there must be something she wanted to talk to me about. Though, if this is a confession, I'm not going to tell Vit about it.

".. - hi." Yuta starts, tepidly, as he pushes the tips of his fingers together. "It's been a little while since we were able to talk, right? It's nice to see you again. Did you want to hang out?"

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

Nidaime looks like a middle schooler but she is lingering away. A crush from a (slightly?) younger girl?? Could it be!

Nidaime spins around on her foot upon hearing the 'hi'. In this reality, Yuta gets the drop on her! She looks around from side to side, and sees Yuta is alone, and then she breaks out into a big smile. "Yuta! Yuta!" She uses the name like she's playing around, bringing her arms up into the air like she just don't care.

"Do you remember me now?" She asks. Though, she does think for a moment--and seems to recognize that Yuta probably wouldn't have given that kind of response. She clasps her hands together and adds, "Mmm...guess not... That's okay, that's okay!" She beams. "It has been a while! I did, I did!"

She smiles bigly. "Let's go on a date!" runs up to Yuta, intent on taking his hand! "It'll be my treat...!"

<Pose Tracker> Yuta Hibiki has posed.

Ah. Huh? No way he was on the ball. Right? ... it's no good. I can't reject reality. ... also, thinking like that is kind of mean to her, huh..

        "Um?"

Yuta is incapable of saying no to her million watt smile, and as a result, he finds himself being womanlet-handled with ease. "Isn't this moving too fast? I mean, I'm ..f-flattered and all that, but..."

Cut me a little slack, please, I'm still trying to sort out how I feel about the other girls in my life, and now I'm being swept up in a date from an extra assertive underclassman...thinking of it this way, I think some of the others at school may kill me if that ever came out. he ponders, as a way to try and rebalance his brain from how quickly the situation had progressed from saying hello to - being dragged off to wherever it was Nidaime wanted to spend time with him at.

        Meanwhile..

Vit, having not moved from his position on the ground, stretches out. "Fuu~... - well, I'm sure whatever comes up, they'll have fun."

Borr narrows his eyes from the countertop, a coffee in hand, "Yeah. But did you have to be so pathetic about telling him to go talk to her?"

"Obviously. All work and no play makes Vit-kun a very dull boy; and it's not like I was lying. Maybe if he took me up on that offer, he'd be making some more progress with those other girls? And also, that mysterious blue-hair he talked to in Tokyo-3." Vit quips, flippantly.

"Hey, his life isn't a dating sim, you know. Have some tact - besides, whatever advice you'd have to give would be the kind that would kill his rep."

"Mhm, probably." he admits, propping his head up with his hand. "Either way... this is probably going to be the last chance he has to see things this way, so, I thought it was better than trying to explain a bunch of stuff he won't understand right now."

Borr snorts, "How gutless."

        "Duh, you took all the guts, stupid."

        Back with Yuta..

Stuffing his free hand in his pocket while walking alongside Nidaime, " .. I'm sorry that I can't remember you," Yuta says. "Also ... I think this is my first date ... or - if not, then I don't remember what it would have been."

Knowing my reputation from what I've gotten from talking with others, though, this is for sure my first date.

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

Nidaime has also met mysterious blue-hair (probably assuming we mean Rei here). Rei made her a pizza. Nidaime thinks Rei is great.

"Ehh? If anything I was moving too slowly...!" She has a PLAN this time, you see. But first... she giggles all the way while dragging Yuta to a park bench, letting go of him there (a chance to escape?!) to open up her backpack, withdraw some coins from inside (it ... all looks like loose change) and jogs on over to a vending machine after to purchase two vending machine sandwiches!

This worked wonders with Anti, Nidaime thinks, this is the perfect date food obviously. She collects one sandwich for herself and then jogs back to give Yuta one as well.

"Are you enjoying school life?" She asks. "It's fun right? I've never been to school except for when I snuck in to talk to Siggy, eheheheh~"

S..snuck in...

<Pose Tracker> Yuta Hibiki has posed.

Yuta is released from the terrible captivity of having his hand held by a cute girl; and while the thought of escape does pass through his mind, Yuta works up whatever sense of courage he could muster to stay put, and take a seat on the bench. He'd never live down being such a wimp that he ran away in this situation, not to mention - it'd probably be very hurtful to do so.

Being about as experienced in something like date food as your average kissless virgin, Yuta doesn't question the gifted sandwich as he gives her a small smile.

"Yes. ..well, sort of .. it's more like - I'm a student, so I should go to school. That part of it isn't something I enjoy or hate, but it's more like something in my nature, you know? But. I like all of my classmates, and .. being able to spend time with everyone, even if it's something as simple as asking for help on a math problem, or having lunch together..."

There's a profound sense of loneliness on the horizon, he feels. Perhaps it was the loneliness of being a grown-up?

"That kind of simple living is something only a student can enjoy," Yuta notes, " ... yeah, after all, once we graduate - even if we keep in touch - we'll all be going our own walk of life .. and those simple moments together will not happen anymore."

"So I want to enjoy it while we're all still students." he says.

I definitely didn't hear her say she snuck into school. Nope. It didn't happen. Yuta wisely rejects reality, in favor for instead questioning the second part of what she'd said. "S - .. 'Siggy'?"

He couldn't quite picture whoever that was supposed to be, though it did make a vague throb start assailing his temples.

"Do you like being in Tsutsujidai?" he redirects.
Chibodee Crocket has paged Nunnally Lamperouge and Nidaime with, 'No issue here'

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

"You should enjoy school while you can." Nidaime says like she's some kind of adult passing on advice to a younger generation. "It'll be over before you know it!"

She takes a moment to munch on her sandwich. She eats quickly but is trying to employ date manners so isn't just spraying it everywhere like a certain kitty. Sometimes it's fun to let out your inner monster of course. That goes for more than just kaiju. "Your answer was the same as Rikka's though." Another giggle. Maybe that's just how highschoolers are.

And it seems like Yuta understands that these moments are important even before Nidaime gave her old lady lecture. She does say, though, "Mmhmm," to the question of Siggy. "I needed to ask him about boys. You're a mature guy, Yuta!"

But he has his own question. This actually gives Nidaime pause. Does she like being in Tsutsujidai?

"...It was lonely for a long time." Nidaime admits. "But lately everything has gotten more lively. I enjoy it, it's really fun meeting all sorts of new people and most of them are really nice and sweet and make me really love humans."

She beams. "But as things are going..."

She trails off for a moment.

"....Say you've ridden the train before haven't you?"

<Pose Tracker> Yuta Hibiki has posed.

"Boy advice, huh." Yuta muses. Not being particularly hungry, but also not wanting to appear ungrateful, Yuta unpeels his meal and takes the occasional ginger bite out of it while attentively listening to both her lecture, as well as the other bits and bobs she had to say. "So Rikka feels this way too... that's - not really surprising, actually. For some reason, I get the impression that Rikka is more keenly aware of it than most." he chuckles.

I don't feel particularly mature. But, I keep getting told to just accept comments like that as they come, so .. I'll try and put my best foot forward and do just that.

"I still feel like I have plenty of room to grow," he compromises on instead.

"It's good that you aren't so lonely anymore. Being lonely is .. tough."

"It's very tough. I hope you can keep meeting new people, and finding new things to invigorate you, Nidaime." he says, sincerely.

A small silence falls over them as the comfortable air stills. He didn't know why, but he felt apprehensive all the sudden, as she asks him that question.

"..well, yeah, I have. It's the regular way out of the city and into the other world."

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

"That's probably true." Nidaime says. "Me too, actually. Hehe, though I can get pretty big still. I've met a lot of 'girlboss' ladies." She nods firmly. "They're really inspiring."

She finishes off her sandwich--she can always eat. Big eater. "Mmm...."

She wonders for a moment if maybe Gridman being Yuta--maybe it isn't some kind of accident. Maybe he wanted to...experience life like a human person?

She supposes she understands the feeling. It was fun to pretend...

...But if she keeps pretending, Nidaime thinks, then people could get hurt. Anti could get hurt. People in the human world could die. And Akane could fall deeper and deeper...

Unfortunately, Nidaime thinks, you can only pretend for so long.

"Eheh, I hope so too." Nidaime says, hiding the sadness in her eyes by closing them until it's put away somewere safe. "I was there when we rode it that one time... but let's ride the train again."

She beams. "I wanna see the view of the city from outside."

She'll start heading that way if Yuta doesn't stop her.

<Pose Tracker> Yuta Hibiki has posed.

 I wonder - why she looks so sad? Yuta thinks to himself, stilled on the bench for several seconds before he stands and moves to follow after her. "Now that I think of it, I've never actually seen that, myself." he realizes.

His remaining half-sandwich is offered to her on their way there, "Would you like it? I can't eat the rest."

Why do I feel like the ordinary every day life I've been fighting for all of us to have, is going to disappear soon? I mean .. the school year isn't even close to being over. But I have this tension building at the bottom of my neck, right between my shoulder blades.

"I wonder - what it'll look like.."

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

"Are you sure? Okay! Sounds good!" Nidaime is agreeable on this as she has no reason to distrust Yuta's word.

She leads Yuta to the train station. It feels...like the world around them is moving faster than it should. It should be a longer walk than it feels right? But like youth itself, perhaps even like highschool--it's over too soon. They're at the train station soon enough, Nidaime having quickly finished the other half sandwich well before their arrival.

"You fall asleep right? Don't worry, hehe, I'll keep you up."

She grips her ipod tightly, not too tightly so as to be crushing but tightly in the way one might if they fear it might be pulled from their hands.

"But you should see it." Nidaime says, guiding Yuta on the train. "Because there's nothing there."

She moves to sit down, taking a spot across from Yuta.

Hopefully Akane's eyes are elsewhere right now. That's why she needed Yuta alone. The train will move shortly.

<Pose Tracker> Yuta Hibiki has posed.

Yuta finds himself sitting across from Nidaime as he waits for the train to depart. The walk all the way over here felt like it was over and done with in a flash - but in a way, that could be a perfect allegory for the springtime of youth, too. When you're a freshman and you think to yourself that you still have all that time ahead of you, the looming reality - the finality of a conclusion - feels so deeply far off that it doesn't even register as being real.

And then, you blink, and it's already there. The end of the line.

For someone who was not even in his senior year, Yuta imagined that this must be what that felt like. That, or I'm just nervous. ... Yeah.

"So, you can keep people awake when they pass through..." he says, quietly, hands folded over his lap.

"But what did you mean, there's nothing there?"

He'll see it for himself, he knows. But there's a layer of anxiety that voicing his concern alleviates.

In a way, he supposed he was just steeling himself for what he was about to witness.

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

Try to be gentle, Nidaime thinks. But how do you be gentle about this? "Outside of the city, there's nothing there." This doesn't make sense, of course, there was a whole complex world right?

It's okay, she tells herself, shattering someone's world is what a kaiju is supposed to do. Nidaime's mother sings softly to her to give her courage. Her grip pulls away slightly from the ipod.

"Music," She tells Yuta. "In music, there's sound spirits like mama are hiding inside. You can't see them with the naked eye but they're always looking inside the musician's heart. Like the Galactic Fairy." She beams. "They can help you stay awake."

But despite saying this...

He does start to feel sleepy as the train moves.

Sleepier.

Sleepier--

........................................................

NIDAIME'S MOM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTIBFFDI9Ys&ab_channel=D180223

Yuta hears the music first, a pair of earbuds having been inserted firmly into his ears.

And Nidaime staring at him. That mischevious expression, that cheerful demeanor has all but vanished. Her eyes are full of anxiety, sorrow unhidden--almost apologetically so-- as she watches him.

Like she had done him a grave harm.

<Pose Tracker> Yuta Hibiki has posed.

- that's right. When someone leaves the city, they get tired. Without fail, they would fall asleep. Yuta was no different, and his eyes begin drooping easily once the train gets far enough out, on its way.

His bright blue eyes open fully, what feels like seconds later - in reality, closer to a minute - to Nidaime's sorrowful face. "Huh? This is.."

Music, she had said; though, she said several incredible things that he had to take at face value, such as the nature of her mother, there was a tacit difference in accepting something because you did not have time or power to contest it, and experiencing it as reality. Part of him realizes then, as the music seeps into his ear canal and stimulates him into alertness, that must be why she treasures her music player so well - as it connected her to her mother.

"Music .. spirits .." Yuta murmurs, seeing his owlish reflection in her umber colored eyes, before his own gaze rolls to the left to see out the window behind her.

        At the waves of nothing.

It could be somewhat closely compared to fog, maybe - or partiuclarly unsettling clouds, with the way it shifts into different shapes the longer you stared into it. Or maybe, it was just the human brain's propensity for pattern recognition screeching in disbelief and searching for what wasn't there.

        "Hey..."

"I've been wondering. No, rather, I've asked this question before, but .."

At that time he'd been spitballing questions that couldn't have an answer. Now, though -

"This city, it's the only place those kaiju attack. Why is that? I already suspected that.."

Yuta recalls the conversation that Kaworu, Asuka, Shinji, Sho, Rikka and himself had had over Valentine's earlier in the year. "..the 'god of this world' was using them like a kind of immune system response, to outsiders. But that's not entirely true, is it."

Rather than continuing, Yuta forces himself to maintain eye contact and waits.

I wonder why, being exposed to this truth now brought this back to the forefront of my mind. No, I can't beat around the bush. I know why. I don't have all the answers, but some part of me already understands that this whole time, I've just been willfully looking away from something. But what .. is it that I can't bear to see?

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

True to Nidaime's word, what can be seen through the window but a white void of smog with the occassional distorted silhouette? There is a distinct Studio Trigger shift in the animation style for sure.

Even though nothing is there doesn't mean there is nothing there. This space is strange to those who think they've been living as humans this whole time. It's Nidaime's job to explain this isn't the case.

But she's still a bit relieved that Yuta has already been thinking about this stuff. Maybe this will be more like a fog lifting from the mind than an oppressive weight put on his shoulders.

"That's right. The god of this world would like nothing more than to keep the outsiders of this world out. And yes, that is not entirely true."

"I'm not like the kaiju who attack the city. I was here before Tsutsujidai was here and I was not born from that god's heart... so I've seen the god at work for a much longer time. She created Tsutsujidai because the Physical Layer is a hard place to live but even a god can't control this realm perfectly because it's a Cognitive Layer. It reacts to the god's mind and opens psychic rips to the outside world. That's why the ways into Tsutsujidai come from particular locations."

"But the god is being used by Alexis Kerib, a being from another realm who came here because he could exploit her." Nidaime says.

She takes in a breath because this is the point of no return. Maybe they've already passed it but what she says next cannot be taken back or set aside.

"And that god is someone you know. Her name is Akane Shinjo."

As if reacting to the words, Akane Shinji's visage flickers in the fog, reacting as thoughts naturally move towards her. It isn't the real Akane just a symbolic visage.

<Pose Tracker> Yuta Hibiki has posed.

"You're a kaiju?" he wonders. Though it wasn't particularly hard to believe, Yuta realizes.

"A cognitive layer.." he repeats, mulling over what she was saying, and trying to parse it. When talking about high-concept things like that, obviously, the natural response is to rebuke it. However, that kind of reaction is in reality, just a sign of being unable to cope with having your view of the world changed. As Yuta had already been through this several times, he feels almost accustomed to earth shattering revelations like this.

That didn't make it any easier to digest, especially when words like cognitive layers were being thrown around.

"So then, Tsutsujidai is like - a mirror. The world of the heart, it's like a mirror .. and by understanding that, it is possible to enact changes on the image reflected by it.."

Yuta, who lived his entire life here, was also part of that world. Maybe it was because he couldn't remember anything from before the start of the year, but even he found how easily he was accepting that to be a little ludicrous.

Then myself, as well as everyone else and everything else that exists naturally inside of Tsutsujidai was created by the thoughts and feelings of its 'god'..

The mention of a certain name makes his stomach hurt - the impression that came to mind was as if he was punched so hard it tore him in half. That's not right, though. That kind of pain would be the kind that would kill someone from the sheer shock of it. My stomach did hurt for a second, though, for sure.

Yuta gently massages his abdomen, right around where the lower-left abdominal muscle was. What a morbid thing to imagine.

" .... Akane is?"

Yuta thinks back to all the conversations they'd had since the start of the year. It was his only frame of reference.

When she'd feed him. When she'd - touch on him. When she'd talk to him. When she would hang out with him, or Rikka, or any of their other friends.

 ... that explanation Akane gave us before about how she could see things .. it was bogus. Of course. But, I didn't want to scrutinize it that deeply beyond what I had at the time. And it wasn't just that, either. And I can't say that it's out of character for her, either. After all, she's the kind of person that will reach out to others to feel them, but can't stand them reaching out to her in turn.

Yuta's eyes had stared blankly at the invoked image of Akane Shinjo for, he had not realized, several minutes straight. Eventually, he dryly sighs, "That makes her a twisted god, doesn't it? Even if she's being used.."

His mind was already drawing the unfortunate conclusions. What she's saying .. is it that Akane is reshaping the world by using kaiju?

The volleyball team weren't just faceless citizens. .. Akane..

The voice at the back of his skull, no matter how much he wanted to disagree with it, whispers traitorously to him that it makes sense. If viewed from the correct perspective, then Akane was excising the elements of this world that she did not like. And it would be reconstructed in a way that better suited her tastes by the next day.

"Is that true?" he asks, as if Nidaime could possibly tell what he was thinking. Actually, maybe she could - and she might not even need psychic powers for that to be the case, he supposed.

"Is it really for a reason like that.." Yuta muses, dourly.

"I ... don't know what I should do." he admits, before clenching his fingers around his knees, bunching up the fabric of his slacks. "But, I do know what I want to do." he affirms, a bit more confidently. " .. about Akane, that is. Thanks for telling me."

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

"Mmhmm...!"

Nidaime helpfully grows her size to encompass like half the train car. She doesn't dare push it greater in case it derails the train but rest assured--Yuta gets a nice lungful of kaiju breath before she reverts back to her normal size. In the Cognitive Layer it's not really disruptive for her to just do that however she feels like, really. Especially outside of the city where God's rules aren't in effect.

"When people move in and out of the Cognitive Layer," Nidaime explains. "It weakens the barrier between realms. Newtypes like Auntie Sayla get their power from the Cognitive Realm and Sound Spirits are from here too. So am I. ... So are your friends."

Your friends, she says but she refuses to clarify outside of that.

"Well you're not wrong," She says of Akane being a twisted god. "The outside world makes people twisted but--I want you to know that she isn't the enemy."

A strange thing to say about a god who kills people on a whim but she tries to explain further. "She uses kaiju to destroy and fix the city because the city is her own heart. Her own heart has become like a kaiju."

"But there's no helping it. AFter all, to all of you--she's a god to Tsutsujidai. But because she is twisted that's why her heart is being used by Alexis Kerib."

Adorable images of kaiju stroying the city and setting fire to people flicker on the screen. It kind of looks like a...

game... Even though they're real people...

"It can be difficult to maintain the balance between the Cognitive Layer and the Physical Realm kindly." Nidaime admits. "But it's still important to do so because if you don't, disasters can happen in the outside world. If that barrier between the Cognitive Realm were to thin away to nothing, it would mean the end of the world as we know it. That's why Mama has to be music and I don't get to see her outside of this realm."

"...Of course, since so many powers already come from there, some amount of bending is impossible to stop in a manner that is compassionate. All the same, that barrier cannot break or the world would be composed of Tsutsujidais. Mama called it the Chaos Bringer effect."

"Absolute freedom from any kind of bonds." She explains. "Isolation. A lot of people would be like Akane if they could. You've seen the outside world, the physical realm. The whole weight of that has been on her shoulders. I am not saying it justifies her actions..."

"...And I know I am putting a lot on your shoulders...but I felt if I didn't do anything, people would get hurt ... people have already gotten hurt. I tried to handle it myself but it didn't work and... I wanted to help you, because my family owes you a great debt. Even if you don't remember. My famly owes you big time and... I'm sorry."

She truly does sound apologetic. "I didn't want to...you were having fun, weren't you? At school? I didn't want to disrupt that. Really. I promise."

<Pose Tracker> Yuta Hibiki has posed.

It takes everything Yuta has to sit with his back straight and his eyes forward, rather than slouching over and putting his head in his hands. Absolute Freedom - the cognitive layer, Chaos Bringer..

Alexis Kerib, and Akane Shinjo's Heart. The truth of Tsutsujidai.

"It's okay, I believe you." Yuta says. Some selfish part of him wishes sincerely that he'd been left to his ignorance, so that he could continue not drawing conclusions he'd never wanted to make to make.

But everyone has selfish little voices in them like that. Yuta's did not typically have a great sway over his actions, no matter how much say that voice had in his personal feelings.

" .. it can't be helped. Right now, the only one who can do something about this .. "

He wanted to say that it was Gridman. But, ultimately, Gridman could do nothing without Yuta being willing. It was shocking to see her change her size so easily. ... the way she said that though, that 'I, and your other friends, are from here' .. it bothers me a little. But I can stew on that later.

"I know what I want to do," Yuta restates, " ... so even if it's not what I should do, that's the course of action I intend to take. I don't want anyone else to die."

Yuta breathes out, " .. but I don't want to be Akane's enemy, either. You said that Akane's heart is being used by Alexis Kerib. To put it a second way, the current state of affairs are desirable for him for some reason, yes?"

"If I can get through to Akane, then this world will no longer be going down the path that he wishes it to. If he still won't give up, then .. then Gridman will defeat him, for sure."

I feel that it's easier said than done. But it has to be done, no matter what. The only other path is to abandon Akane.

Nevermind that he couldn't do that even if he wanted to - Rikka .. Sho, and everyone else ..

The look he could imagine on their faces if he did such a thing - "And If my hand alone can't do that, then I'll get as many other hands as it takes for us to change the future."

        The train pulls into its stop.

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

Nidaime has a selfish little voice like that too. Akane certainly tempted her but in the end, Nidaime can't let repli-compoids die (such as they can) just because she'd like to live in the outside world. It's sad for herself too, at least, but her vacation is over. She should say goodbye to Sayla too while she can. Unfortunately--but hopefully--it might be a long time before she gets to see them again.

And she might not. Never again. Even if she goes back to the physical layer tommorow they might have been killed in the meanwhile. That's the nature of the Physical Layer. And because it is the nature of the Physical Layer, even Nidaime is not without her sympathies for the god of this realm. If these rules were not grilled into her since her creation--if she had been born in the Physical Layer herself--she might very well be tempted by the same illusion.

"Chibi told me I should believe in myself and believe in my friends. You're one of my friends, so I believe in you, Yuta." SHe smiles. "IF you know what you want to do...then I'm glad I could help ehehh... Don't forget to trust your own precious friends." He already knows that they're real.

Whatever happens because of what she forced out into the open, she doesn't want Yuta to have regrets with Rikka and Utsumi.

And if my hand alone can't do that, then I'll get as many other hands as it takes for us to change the future.

Nidaime retrieves her earbuds. She didn't need to say that at all, she knows, so maybe she said it for herself. All the same, it's seeing this conviction in Yuta-- It is perhaps the first time she believes--rather than merely intuitively understands--Yuta to be the one she was looking for. "Mmhmm." She says of Alexis Kerib. "Otherwise he wouldn't have come here." Like he's an outsider...

"Papa and I will help too." She adds. "We'll be here. Chibi, Sayla--they'll help too. They might be outsiders but you can trust them too."

But she isn't a precious classmate of Akane's and so that means there is only so much she can do. And so it goes for Chibodee and Sayla. This isn't just a battle about punching after all.

The train comes to a stop. Nidaime will follow Yuta off.

"The date was fun." She tells him like she knows he was humoring her.

<Pose Tracker> Yuta Hibiki has posed.

Yuta steps off the train, a beat of silence following her statement. "I'm glad." he says - while he had humored her, indeed, he also felt that he had grown closer to her over the course of it. They really were friends now, from both sides. " - even though I can't remember you, or anything from before .. the me that exists now is your friend, also."

"I'm sure whoever you asked 'Siggy' for boy advice about will have fun with you too. Or maybe, did have fun." he adds, coyly, as he recalled a much earlier conversation at the bench.

Yuta considers what to say to the others, or when he should say it. ... Before that. I think .. I should talk to Akane.

Everything had to start there. If he just went and blabbed it immediately to Rikka and Sho - he had the impression that it would be hurtful to Akane.

He couldn't help but feel frustrated, too. Maybe they didn't understand the details, exacty, but those four .. I think they knew this entire time. Gridman .. knew for sure. And none of them said anything to me.

Yuta forces a smile on his face. That stings. But whatever their reason, I'm sure it wasn't out of trying to use me or anything like that..

"...usually, this is where I'd walk you home, I think .. I don't actually know. But, you're way more capable of taking care of yourself than I am, so it'd really just be the thought that counts. Unless you'd rather walk me home instead," he jokes with a small laugh.

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

"He's come a long way," Nidaime says of 'Siggy'. Or maybe she's speaking of the boy she asked about. "He's the only guy like me I've ever met." She shouldn't burden Yuta any more than that. After all, it's not like Anti is going to show up and go after HIM.

Believe in him, Nidaime thinks to herself, believe in them. Don't try to control them or this world any more than you already are just because you know a little more.

Besides, he's going to talk to Akane.Is that a good idea? Well, it's what he wants to do. Maybe that makes it a good idea.

She sees that forced smile. It's a familiar one Nidaime has seen in mirrors. Her own smile remains apologetic but friendly.

He makes a request. Kind of.

She hesitates. Akane could see. That'd be dangerous to the mission--

--But this last gesture of emulated normality. They're all doing what they want to do, in the end, nobody is truly forcing them to do anything. Even if she did something only because she felt it was the right thing to do, well, that's still wanting it in its own way.

"Sure! I'll walk you home." She smiles.

Yuta might have to tell her where to go though. Still it should suffice as that touch of emulated normal--just like Nidaime herself.