2156/Bedside Manners

Bedside Manners
Date of Scene:	03 May 2015
Location:	Asian Plains
Synopsis:	After the fight with Giga Gaia, a badly-wounded Xiaomu finally reveals her true form to a couple of people while Kyra helps to heal her injuries.
Cast of Characters:	626, Shigure, Reiji Arisu, 707

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Xiaomu (707) has posed:
Roppongi is mostly known for its reputation as the center of Tokyo's nightlife; however, there are a couple of other factors which set Roppongi apart in the version of Tokyo where Shinra operates. First off, of course, is Shinra HQ, tucked away behind (and possibly under) a regular office building facade.

Then there's a certain apartment which Reiji and Xiaomu call 'home,' at least most of the time. And at the moment, Xiaomu is curled up under several blankets in her futon, barely visible except for the stray end of a tail. Between that, and the complete absence of anime or games on the apartment's entertainment center ...

Well. Reiji figured out what it meant pretty quickly.

Reiji Arisu has posed:
It means that there is a fox who is in dire need of nursing, is what it needs.

Fortunately, Reiji has more than a little experience with this kind of thing.

    The exorcist is wearing a significantly more casual outfit. A simple black T-shirt decorated with the Eight Trigrams inlaid in white, a pair of jeans. No shoes, because he's at home- there's no need for shoes here. Also, he has an apron on. It's not a frilly apron, because that's for Xiaomu's use only. This one is dyed dark red, for when he needs to prepare beef.

And other things, too. He's not making beef today.

    Reiji busies himself in the kitchen, filling sweet, fried tofu skins with lumps of rice that have been gently washed in sugar-water. A pot boils nearby. A small lacquered pot of fragrant, green tea is off to one side of the counter, its lid slightly ajar. He's got a second dish with a small brush set out next to that, once the hot water is done boiling, he'll whisk up a batch.

That should be good, right?

    Water and sports drinks are also laid out, for after tea-time. Other miscellany are scattered here and there around the kitchen counter- painkillers, a washcloth and washbin, an... incense burner.

Why an incense burner?

Something something elemental balance, that's why an incense burner.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Xiaomu didn't sound so great! Come to think of it, she was in the group that was fighting McAffe directly the other day, right? Clearly Kyra needs to go back and re-read that part of the report. But later.

    She's easily able to follow the directions here, navigating the large city with ease having grown up in a large city herself. It isn't long before Kyra's knocking on the door to the apartment that Xiaomu and Reiji share, a little surprised to find that she's making another housecall this week. Part of her wonders if she'll get to submit travel reimbursments or something along those lines.

    Kyra doesn't seem armed right now because she remembers that this is a 'Japan' and apparently in Japan it is illegal to own guns except under special circmstances. Therefore, the CURE-ALL is not with her and her firearms are currently hidden under her moogle hoodie.

Shigure has posed:
    Shigure walks along the streets, hands clasped behind her back as she goes, blue eyes peering at all the structures. Humans really are an amazing species, she muses to herself, before coming upon the destination she was seeking. Heading closer, she spots Kyra, and lifts a hand with a soft smile, which reveals the little bag with a small box inside... what could it be?

Reiji Arisu has posed:
KNOCK KNOCK.

Ah. Visitors.

    Reiji sets his latest inari-zushi bundle aside and makes his way back around the counter, behind an armchair and out to the door. He takes a quick peek through a little glass peephole. It's Kyra and Shigure and not a spook in a black suit! This is a very good thing. There are a couple quick clicks as he undoes the deadbolt and pulls the door back.

    "Kyra, Shigure," Reiji says, inclining his head. "Please, make yourselves at home. You can leave your shoes on the rack," he gestures over to a small plastic shelf, presently home to a rather sizable pair of boots and a host of other, smaller footware. "I'm making some tea. Xiaomu's in her room."

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
At the sound of somebody knocking at the apartment's door, one gold-furred, brown-tipped ear pokes out from under the blankets. That's the only real sign of life from the sage fox's futon ...

And the ear is withdrawn again before anyone has the chance to enter Xiaomu's room. "Mrm ... that Kyra?" There's more movement under the blankets, although little further evidence of Xiaomu herself.

Reiji Arisu has posed:
Behind Reiji, the apartment is... Well, it's an apartment. There're couches, a TV surrounded by consoles that range from the Latest Thing to decades old. Lamps and desk-fans and a computer off in one corner of the room. And then there's the kitchen. The kitchen, and the slowly advancing radius of Stuff Strewn Around that has already swallowed up most of their small dining table.

"Back there," he says, gesturing at one of the doors at the far end of the livingroom. "Be sure not to go into the door to the left. I've got a few things cooking." Presumably what's cooking is not food.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "Hi!" Kyra wiggles her fingers at Shigure before brushing the hood back from her own head. She assumes that's Shigure, being vaguely familiar with what the members of the Fleet look like. She seems ready to say something else when Reiji opens the door. "Heya Reiji."

    She steps inside and starts taking her own boots off which takes some time since she has to go about unlacing and unbuckling them. She sets them next to Reiji's-hilariously, they're nearly as big.

    "Alrighty." Kyra nods, slipping over to the door on the right, "Xiaomu? You..." she looks to the futon with the huge mass of blankets. "You're gonna need to come out."

Shigure has posed:
    Shigure eeps a little as the door opens. She bows formally to Reiji, steps inside and takes off her shoes to leave them in the rack. It's a bit haphazard, since she's got a rudder assembly attached to the back and heel of those shoes.

    She bows again, then silently pads over to the indicated door, following Kyra. The Destroyer girl muses to herself with a soft hum in the back of her throat, before slowly slinking into the room, kneeling near the head of the futon. She doesn't say anything, but provides an aura of calm, something the shipgirl has always had, but was largely disrupted by her constant self doubt.

Reiji Arisu has posed:
    "I'll be over in a bit," Reiji says as the girls make their way inside. He shuts the door, twisting the deadbolt and sliding the chain back into place. "Once I've got the food ready."

He goes right back to his kitchen, where an unwatched pot is now boiling. Tea appears to be imminent!!

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
On a side note, if Kyra or Shigure pay enough attention to video game consoles, they might piece together that no, Xiaomu and Reiji don't have *EVERY* game system ever made; there is no XBox One to be seen. And the XBox 360 is stuck underneath the console array, it doesn't look like it's even plugged into anything at the moment.

But at Kyra's reminder that she can't treat Xiaomu while the sage fox is under all those blankets, there's finally some movement, starting with that tip of a tail vanishing under the blankets. What emerges in its place isn't a hand or foot, though ...

It's a muzzle, followed by the rest of a blonde-furred vulpine head. The fur is somewhat the worse for wear, too - but the skin beneath it, where the fur thins out, is markedly worse. "Any veterinarian jokes," the fox mumbles, "and Reiji'd better be ready with a ward to stop me ..."

Xiaomu pulls herself the rest of the way out of her futon, some dried blood in her fur indicating wounds on her shoulder and flank and back; it looks like she's endured an additional combination of burns and corrosive-effect (acid, alkaline, who can tell) injuries over most of her body.

Shigure has posed:
    Shigure remains quiet, though, even with the wounds and injuries, she can't help but get an almost child-like glimmer in her eyes as Xiaomu shows her current form. Without getting in the way of Kyra's healing mojo, Shigure gently and carefully pulls Xiaomu into her lap, and begins soothingly petting the wounded sage fox.

    Closing her eyes, she begins to hum a soft tune. It's one of those that people recognize and use... but can never tell the name of, or remember the group that produced it.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    DON'T WORRY REIJI, SCHOOLGIRLS ARE ON THE CASE. Not that Shigure is a schoolgirl, technically, but she could easily be mistaken for one here if it weren't for the ship parts...right?

    Kyra gets in close to the pile o' blankets and squats down, frowning. She's met Xiaomu before so this is kind of unusual behavior for her. For one, she's not playing video games. For two...she's pretty sulky. She's never seen her this sulky, even when she wasn't able to get her gaming hint out of the Cave of Prophesy. One of Kyra's hands starts to reach for the blankets, ready to yank them off Xiaomu if she continues to hide.

    But then the fox head pops out. "Oh..!" Kyra makes a surprised noise. "Uhh. Well. I'm just hoping that my magic can work on you in this form."

    Maybe she was going to dare to make a joke but once she actually gets to see all of Xiaomu, she seems to shift into the Serious Business Doctor mode. "How long have you been like this? I mean the wounds. Is this from McAffe?" she hones in on the spots with the dried blood first, checking those wounds. Electing to start with those first, Kyra lifts a hand to hover it over the one on her shoulder. Then something goes wrong.

    The magical humidity around Kyra shifts and the white magic doesn't appear. Kyra herself, on the other hand, suddenly looks ill. The hair on her head starts to fray outwards as if she had just touched a Van de Graaf generator. She claps both of her hands over her mouth and suddenly runs from the room, then out of the main room, and barrels through the door of the apartment into the hallway. The second she crosses the threshold, Kyra uncontrollably vomits a blast of lightning out in front of her in a cone-shaped spread, creating a wide charred pattern on the walls and floor.

Reiji Arisu has posed:
Reiji glances over his shoulder just in time to see Kyra rush out his door. His brow furrows ever so slightly a split second before that awful crack of lightning and flash of light. "...That wasn't good," he mutters, setting down his tea-brush to slip back toward the door.

    "Kyra," he says, stepping out from around his door. "Kyra, you alright? That sounded pretty bad--" Reiji frowns. Thoooose are burn marks all over the corridor. He makes a brief mental note to call in the cleanup crews. There are a couple other Shinra agents on this floor, but there'll be hell if Old Miss Tanaka two doors down comes outside and sees that the hallway's all charred up.

"Can you make it back inside?" Reiji asks, "I'll get someone out here to clean this up."

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
"Not from Mcafee, no," Xiaomu starts to answer - and then *her* fur starts standing on end along with Kyra's hair. "What the ..."

A moment later, Kyra is outside the apartment and spitting up lightning. Xiaomu bestirs herself to lay a paw over her eyes, but manages to call out, "Thank you for getting away from the electronics before that happened!"

She'll wait for Kyra to come back in before resuming her earlier answer, "I went to help Schala and some others rescue a wise man from a magical flying mountain the other night. The boss at the top dropped some AOEs on us - a corrosive mist, and some elemental fire barrage ... plus somebody hostile had an airship that strafed us before we took Giga Gaia out. And I would've stayed in human form, but .... well. Wasn't sure that'd help my healing ..."

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
It's possibly also a sign of how strung-out Xiaomu feels that she doesn't resist Shigure trying to tug her into her lap for pettings.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Reiji will find Kyra on her hands and knees outside of the door, breathing hard, her only semi-standing on end now. She coughs up one more little spark before wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve. "Y..yeah..." she says hoarsely as she stands up. "Sorry about that, didn't know it was gonna...okay." she takes a breath, trying to calm herself down, "I'm okay. Let's do this."

    She steps back inside, closing the apartment door behind her. When she returns to Xiaomu's room, she's murmuring something and this time her hand is glowing with actual white magic. "Alright, as we were saying...ahem, thank you for watching the patient during that brief interlude, Shigure."

    She gets to the white magic on Xiaomu, listening to her speak about the mission that Schala had for the Union, staring with a simple cure spell on the shoulder wounds. Unless Xiaomu is secretly an undead sage fox, it shouldn't hurt her, despite her technically being a youkai.

Reiji Arisu has posed:
    Nothing about this looks 'okay.' You don't vomit lightning all over another person's hallway and still say that you're 'okay.' Reiji makes /another/ mental note about this whole business, but it can be handled after tea is done and Shinra is informed about his charred corridor. "Right," he sighs, "We can talk about it later. Just try not to do that near Xiaomu's stuff, okay?"

He shakes his head and shuts the door once Kyra's back outside. He still has Stuff to Cook!

Kids these days, jeez...

Shigure has posed:
    Shigure remains largely silent, soothingly petting Xiaomu, while making sure not to get in the way of Kyra's healing. She smiles softly at Kyra when she's addressed, but otherwise stays quiet. That's just how she is, though.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
Being undead would royally screw with most of Xiaomu's magic, so no, she's clearly not undead, and a simple cure spell does start doing some good. Doesn't seem like the bullets got stopped inside her body, either.

Judging by the way Xiaomu winces while the white magic is doing its healing thing, though, she may be reflecting that getting shot in one form and then changing to another is kind of *really dumb*. She's holding still apart from the cringing, though - and Kyra should be able to feel that between Xiaomu's own natural supernatural recuperation and the infusion of white magic, yeah, it's working. "Yes," she murmurs, "please don't fry any of my game consoles, or the TV they're networked to, and so forth."

She briefly debates whether a joke might be in order, but either she can't be arsed to try or she just admits internally that nothing good is coming to mind. As a bonus, though, the chemical and thermal burns around the bullet wound that Kyra's treating seem to be healing as well.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "Don't worry, Reiji, it's probably not going to happen again." Or if Kyra's Wild Magic does happen again in the near future, it's going to be something completely different but there's no need to voice that. The whole 'random element' does tend to...bother people.

    Kyra watches the area of healing very carefully, hovering her hand extremely close. She knows when her magic is working and knows when it is not and in this case, it is definitely the former which is encouraging. "I don't always barf lightning." Kyra says in a 'clearly mocking some kind of commercial from her world' tone, "But when I do, I do it outdoors." She works a little more faster now as she moves on to the other wounded areas along Xiaomu's back plus the various burns. Knowing that the white magic was effective removed the barrier of caution she had come in with initially.

    "Sounds like a pretty rough fight. You guys were trying to save some man, right? Melchoir or something?"

Reiji Arisu has posed:
    "If you say so," Reiji replies with a shrug. It's not like he can really do much about guests spontaneously vomiting lightning or fire or the plagues of Israel all over his apartment. Not right now, anyway.

They really need to get someone down here to fireproof the carpets.

    For a short while, Reiji disappears behind his kitchen counter. NOT FOREVER, THOUGH! In a few minutes, he emerges from the shadows underneath Xiaomu's doorframe. There's a black-and-red lacquerware tray in his hands. On top is a still-steaming pot and four clay cups full of thick, rich green tea. Looks like Reiji broke out some matcha powder. There's a small tray of a dozen filled inarizushi pouches in the middle of the tray, all arranged in a tight circle.

    "Tea's ready," he says, setting the tray down next to Xiaomu's futon. Nevermind that foxes are ostensibly carnivores, and that she doesn't have the hands to drink tea right now. It'll be fine! Probably. "There's plenty to go around, and I've still got a package of tofu in the fridge, so go nuts."

He looks to Xiaomu-the-fox on Shigure's lap and frowns a bit, "You feeling any better?"

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
"Yeah, Melchior, I think," Xiaomu replies. "Friend of Schala's, he ticked off the Queen or she thought he was some kind of threat and exiled him to this floating mountain .... figured the monster on top would keep him locked away. Bunch of us went up there, we eventually won ... except some ninja type kidnapped Schala. Dunno if Nakamura got her back safe or not, yet."

She sighs, an ear perking up as Reiji brings food and tea in. As a side note, it's not so much that Xiaomu has 'several' burns across her body. It's more like she has one burn (or technically two) ... over her ENTIRE body. Kyra's healing is working on those, though - both the regular burns from the AOE heat attacks and the corrosive wound(s) from the miasma that preceded the high heat are fading with time and magic. "Getting there," the fox answers Reiji. "Wanna grab my chopsticks, or are we doing the finger-food approach?"

Also, foxes are omnivores ... and there's some decent protein in tofu, anyway.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Don't these two have a co-worker with a fire god? Why isn't everything already fireproofed from that guy?

    With her free hand, Kyra takes up an inarizushi, taking bites of it between muttering the various vocalizations her magic needs. She doesn't talk with her mouth full at any time, perhaps needing clarity of her speech to use her magic.

    "Why Schala, though? To take her back to her mom?" Kyra asks, frowning a little, "Jeeze these burns are bad. Makes me wish I was there to support you all during this. So is this your true form, Xiaomu?"

Reiji Arisu has posed:
Because it's expensive and Shinra doesn't have /infinite/ funding.

Also because Kenji doesn't live here, and they've already fireproofed his dorm.

    "Finger-food will have to do," Reiji replies, plucking a tofu-pouch from the plate, "I still need to finish doing the rest of the dishes." He may or may not have been procrastinating. Without chopsticks, Reiji's fingers are in not-so-grave danger of fox-teeth when holds the inarizushi just in front of Xiaomu's muzzle, "Alright. Open up."

He glances toward Kyra, then shrugs. "Kinda strange thinking about it that way, considering I basically never see her like this. Shapeshifting is kind of a thing foxes do, though."

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
"I don't know the 'why' of it yet," Xiaomu replies, then parts her jaws to chow down on the first offered piece of inarizushi. Not to bite into it - just to scarf it into her mouth and start chewing. She's not going to bite Reiji's fingers off, though; she's patient enough to let him feed it to her properly.

"And this is the first time I've had to revert to fox form in most of a century," she adds. "Last time was ... hmm ... oh yeah, an oni got stirred up by one of the big wars."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "...never? Really?" Kyra looks shocked. "You're her partner and you've never seen her in full fox form?" Suddenly Xiaomu's reluctance to show herself was making even more sense. It also kind of answered the question as to why Xiaomu didn't just go to Njorun's medical facility to begin with.

    Her green eyes fall back onto the sage fox.

    Further explanation follows on the amount of time it's been since she's been in this form. Now she's pretty sure Reiji hasn't been around her THAT long. "Huh. Oh, I'm just about done, by the way." Kyra says before she snags another one of Reiji's inarizushi. "These are great, by the way."

Reiji Arisu has posed:
    "She can't exactly play too many video games when she's like this," Reiji explains with a shrug. With fingers still very much intact, he fetches another piece of tofu for the Xiaomu-Fox. "And most places won't retail to a fox, especially one that doesn't match her photo-ID. So there's never really been much reason for her to turn back unless something like this happens." He frowns, rubbing at his partner's ears, "You've really got to be more careful, you know? We're lucky you made it home before transforming."

    "Yeah, thanks," he nods to Kyra. "I don't make the skins, though. You can buy 'em at the grocery store. The rest is just rice, sugar, water, and a little bit of vinegar." There's a sense that Reiji does a lot of the kitchen-work.

...Xiaomu presumably handles the cleaning, though.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
"I was keeping to human form long before that, Reiji," Xiaomu notes. "Kinda hard to even pass for human if you're padding around on all fours ... I learned how to take human form and keep it for extended periods *centuries* ago, back before I even came to Japan."

She munches on the next pouch of inarizushi, and further conversation is forestalled. Even talking in fox form is a bit of a trick; talking *with her mouth full* in fox form would be somewhere beyond 'tricky'. Plus, bits of rice and tofu would probably fall out, and apart from cluttering up Shigure's lap, she doesn't want to waste good inarizushi.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "Ooh, good point. Except for certain, like, dancing games I guess. But even those dancing games have a two-legged bias." Now there's a phrase Kyra didn't expect to say today. Two legged bias. Then the more mundane reasons to stay in human form come. "The world has a two-legged, opposable thumb bias." Kyra reflects without malice.

    Though how does Xiaomu talk in fox form? Fox magic? Foxes typically don't have vocal chords that allow for that sort of thing. "How long have you and Reiji been partnered?"

Reiji Arisu has posed:
    He shrugs at Xiaomu "Yeah, I know. I was just trying to make a joke, is all," clearly Reiji needs to stick to being a straightman. Humor is clearly not his forte. "Don't worry, I remember the history lessons."

    "A little over ten years now," Reiji replies to Kyra, then. He's still feeding Xiaomu, of course. Foxes- even Sage Foxes need protein one way or another. "But I knew her even before then. I've been dealing with spirits since I was just a kid," which might explain why zombie apocalypses and negative mongoose-gods don't do much to shake him.

Not much can get weirder than certain Youkai, after all.

Shigure has posed:
    Shigure has remained largely silent throughout, acting as a nice seat for the wounded sage fox. As the conversation turns from wounds to other mundane things, the Destroyer-girl reaches for the little bag she brought with her. The box within, contains a replica of her own hair ornament, but with a prismatic gem instead of pure red. "... It... is a tradition in the Nishimura fleet, to trade items of sentiment between fleet members." she offers by way of explanation. "It is meant to promote solidarity."

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
"Reiji's family has been exorcists for a long time, back to the Heian era if I remember right," Xiaomu says. She shakes herself out a bit as Kyra's healing work nears completion. "So yeah, I actually helped with Reiji's training, since I'd met them and found that they were friendly. Got a lot of fond memories of their ancestral home, too ..."

And some memories that were not nearly so fond, of course.

"That's a nice tradition," she answers Shigure, looking at the box's contents. "Haven't really got much to trade back, though ... unless ..."

She trails off thoughtfully.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    The white glow around her hand disappears, the finishing touches of the healing finally settling. Any burned fur is going to need some time to regrow though. "Oh, so in a way, you two are kind of childhood friends. Well. Reiji's childhood at least. That..." She trails off, thinking of the time passing between Xiaomu and Reiji, her watching Reiji grow up.

    Awkward?

    "Aww, that's kind of sweet." she says, looking to Shigure's hairclip. "Hey, maybe you should trade that for it." Kyra points to the Xbox 360 that clearly isn't being used. Kyra can tell because it's not even plugged in.

Reiji Arisu has posed:
    As long as burned fur doesn't translate to baldspots, it should be fine, right? Right. "A while before then," Reiji replies. "Officially, The Arisu Clan's been hunting Youkai since the Asuka period, but dad used to claim that we'd been around since before the Kofun." Had they been present to witness the descent of Amaterasu? Maybe. That's the stuff of legends, though.

It's not like that sort of thing matters these days, anyway.

    "Kind of," Reiji says to Kyra. "I guess it's more like master-teacher than a childhood friend thing, but we've been close ever since I started on with Shinra." Though perhaps not as close as they are today. Powerful events tend to shape the bonds between people.

    He looks to Shigure then... And smiles. "Heh, that's real nice of you. I'm sure we've got something around here--" Kyra suggests a thing. Xiaomu seems to have something in mind, too. "You want me to go grab it?"

Shigure has posed:
    Shigure smiles softly. "It is a tradition that died with the fleet... I am all that remains of the Nishimura fleet." she replies without melancholy. "Maybe the rest will return one day... but for now please, accept it as a gift."

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
With the healing concluded, Xiaomu pulls away from Shigure's lap, padding away a couple of paces - well, relative to her stride when she's in human form.

And speaking of 'human form,' this is when she finally shapeshifts back out of her natural fox shape, her five tails fanning out behind her before a mystical glow enshrouds her form; she shifts from quadrupedal to bipedal, her 'tails' shifting from her rump up to the back of her head, and her clothes floof into existence about her before she turns to face the three of you, good as new.

"Thanks Kyra!" she says cheerfully; she may not be *fully* recovered but the lion's share of her usual pep has returned. "And Shigure - would you like one of my cosplay accessories or something? There's a few old costumes I don't wear as much, and I can handle most of them by shapeshifting ..."

Shigure has posed:
    Shigure just smiles softly still. "If you feel like you must return something... I will leave it to you to decide." she replies, lightly scritching the Sage fox's ears. "And for the record... I think you look cute like this.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
Is Xiaomu actually blushing a little? "Yeah, well, I'm kinda used to staying in human form after all this time ..."

She trails off at that, ducking into her room and rummaging through her closet; a few moments later, she returns with what looks an awful lot like a police badge. Of course it's just a cosplay prop - there's no badge number, not even a city or state or country affiliation, just the word 'Police' printed in English on a little shield-shaped badge. It *might* be enough to pass for real at a quick glance, but it's clearly not MEANT to be used for an actual police badge.

"Retired the police outfit a while back," she explains, offering the badge to Shigure as a return present. "And if you'd like, you can count me and Reiji as honorary members of the Nishimura Fleet until the real ones show up."

Shigure has posed:
    Shigure smiles, and nows a little. "I would like that. Everyone has been so kind to me since we arrived here..."