Scene #7525: Evehime vs Strawberry

Owner	Pose
Evehime Gevurah	The place chosen appears to be as far in the middle of nowhere as one can get; for good reason, it seems. God knows where in the middle of the Great Ocean's most vast and blank expanses, far between any of even the slightest points of interest to be found anywhere. Blue water from horizon to horizon, empty fathoms beneath. But that isn't to say there's nothing here. The ocean is merely the backdrop. The metaphorical ninja plain. The grid-lined white walls of the endless room this contest is meant to take place it. The features that dominate the arena occupy the pale blue cloudless sky instead, hovering without deviation above the ocean, miles in the air, without the slightest indication as to how. Especially considering the fact that they must weigh literally millions of tons. What occupies the sky is no less than a pair of flying islands; rather, one could call them flying fortresses, each the size of an island. Miniature, inverted mansions of dense igneous rock, shot through with miles of internal support, rising from the top as an equally tall, sprawling castle of solid metal upon each. Concentric walls and bulkholds as per medieval siege, the ravelins and counterscarps of gunfire age forts, the compound citadels of industrial battleships, magnified into tremendous area and tremendous height. Far more than even Strawberry could annihilate in a single blast, even ignoring the way they appear designed to ablate, diffuse, deflect, and absorb. Hard, silvery grey, incredibly dense metal appears to be the predominant construction, in solid pieces impossible to fashion by human hands. No wonder it'd taken something like two months to prepare. Evehime is of course present, at the very forefront of one island, directly across from the other. "Take your post." she says upon Strawberry's arrival, wasting no time in particular, though waiting for her to reload her wand if it's necessary to get here. Once she seems ready, Evehime finally elaborates. "The rules are to your specifications. And simple. The first who is able to destroy the other's fortress and cause it to fall from the sky is the victor. Attacks may be intercepted however wished. Attacks cannot be directed at the opposite contender intentionally. The contenders may not cross the middle line. Is this clear and agreeable?"
Strawberry Princess	00:53 The napkin math had just barely checked out. The distance from the nearest warpgate to the Great Ocean Coordinates, divided by seven hundred miles per hour, worked out to just about four minutes. Strawberry isn't a smart girl, but she'd triple-checked it. Running out of fuel and falling into the ocean would be the most embarrassing possible thing. A spare plutonium core, "borrowed" from the Project, weighs down her backpack. She isn't transformed yet: flying in a straight line, even really fast, is one of the least strenuous things there is. No need for compression. (And some nagging voice in the back of her head tells her that Evehime might humanize her a tiny bit more seeing her as an ordinary person, and not in full raid gear. But maybe that's exactly backwards.) She sets down on one of the flatter peaks of the opposing metal island, shucks off her backpack, sets down her wand, and pulls out the second core. Her fingers are shaking almost too badly to do it. Her mouth is dry. Evehime's keen eyes can pick out the tiniest details: the yellow-pink heart-pin on her jacket, the way her hands and arms are sunburning pinkish from the radiation, the awful scar that curves around her skull. Her body is slight; angular; neglected. She looks so young. Evehime's keen hearing, too, can pick out the subtle quail in Strawberry's voice. "I understand," she says as she bolts the new core into place and boots her wand up. A pink flash briefly envelops her, and she emerges transformed into the guise in which Evehime first saw her, the pretty pastel magical girl she shot out of the sky. "It's... generous. I appreciate it. I really do." The words come with a forced heroic demeanor, but even lifting her chin nobly, she can't make them not sound hoarse. Why am I doing this? It feels like no reason at all. It feels insane. I've talked myself into it, but I'd rather be anywhere else in the world. I want to break down and cry, but Strawberry Princess wouldn't. I want to call for Lilian, but that'd just get more people hurt. I'm going to be sick. I'm- "Ready," Strawberry says. 04:59
Evehime Gevurah	Evehime watches Strawberry arriving in her civilian clothes with immaculate impassivity. Evidently, she remembers what she'd promised before, because she says "It's exactly as I surmised. Such neglect for your body, despite a distinguished scar. Even the magically mighty have need to spend their years perfecting their fitness." Still, it's not a contemptuous expression, nor a disappointed one. Cool, objective assessment, delivered with that uncanny resonance that rings around inside the head and makes the brain feel fuzzy. "As we aren't at war, there is no need to be ruthless." she adds; another one. Hearing Strawberry's assent, the Gevurah lets her arms down from their folded posture, and, briefly, seems to emphasize that she ostensibly has no means to actually launch any kind of attack across the gulf, save tearing up her own win condition. That all changes in mere moments, when she extends her arm and raises a hand to the sky. A peal of thunder booms from the clear blue sky, and in backwards sequence, grey, then black, clouds form out of the invisible ocean mist, coalescing into a swirling vortex of an impenetrable stormhead, casting everything outside Strawberry's side of the line into deep, engulfing shadow. Craning her neck to the rumbling clouds, Evehime cries out "~RAIYAKAZE!~" The clouds boom once more, yet this time so vehemently that the shock of thunder blows them apart into swirling shrapnel. A pillar of lightning so intense that it skips purple and blue and into golden white' crashes on top of her, not connecting a circuit so much as pouring down like a waterfall. The lightning breaks apart into a million glittering motes after crashing into the ground, like droplets of water sprayed from crashing against unyielding rock. Standing at the center of a halo-shaped radial burn, Evehime's look has completely changed. Most of her bulk is now concealed by flowing white cloth, in ankle length layered robe-skirts and voluminous eastern-style sleeves, fastened with a golden sash and a gilded silver assymetrical chestplate and skirt armour, patterned with baroque designs of sea and storm. Even her hairstyle has changed, bound from its uncontrolled state into an elaborate folded knot, fastened with a pearl comb and needles that crackle like bolts of electricity, with a great golden streak through her hair. In her hand is a top-heavy bow somehow even taller than she is, made of what looks like bleached coral polished down to mirror smoothness and shod in rings of gold and floating orbs of water. "Out of respect for your magic, I will challenge it with my strongest Way of the Bow." Evehime calls out. Her next words somehow crackle with a power of their own, sounding out with a distantly roaring undercurrent of storm-wracked waves and howling wind. "The Ten Thousand Shards Of Falling Heaven!" The air explodes all around her in a double mandala of flaring lights, which elongate and sharpen into dozens of coruscating spears of divine plasma. They align perfectly with her raised aim, and, as her arm releases the physical arrow, they streak through the air as an accompanying swarm, chasing it in a tight spiral that then splinters out in a wide scatter at last part of its arcing dive. The simple release of the string is bone-rattling. The forces involved in merely firing the bow are measurable with a seismograph. There isn't a conveniently massive laser to slice a fortress of that size in half, but the raw kinetic energy involves is like a considerably sized bomb.
Strawberry Princess	Strawberry sucks in a sharp, involuntary breath as the sound of thunder washes over her. Her visor saves her from being blinded; her earplugs save her from deafness- but it's still terrifying, the way it leaves afterimages on her retinas and resonates in the cavity of her chest. "Okay," she says, terse with pounding fear. "I'll do my best too. All the tricks." When the mandalas turn into bolts of plasma, her conscious mind is left behind. Her body, that trusted copilot, knows what to do. Strawberry Princess's capacity for destruction is as simplistic as it is unparalleled. The naive thing to do would be to simply ignore Evehime's attacks and focus entirely on annihilating the opposing island before her own is destroyed- but deep in her bones, she knows her opponent is too competent to let that stand. Evehime, the peerless warrior, would find some way to mitigate the Annihilator Beam just enough without slowing her own assault, and take it down to the wire. But Strawberry can attack and defend at once, too. She has ways to cheat. A dozen ghostly-pink magical girls materialize in the air in front of Strawberry's island. They fire thin lines of scorching-bright energy from their wands, conserving power but dispensing enough energy to act as point-defense. Their hands are perfectly steady; their reaction times mediated by spinal reflex only; their eyes compounded by a cloud of other invisible observers. Even against shriekingly fast and harrowingly numerous projectiles like those, their rapid-fire lasers thin the crowd; columns of superheated air intersect with plasma bolts, their conductivity disrupting the electromagnetic packages. When the wave of bolts breaks through, though, they break and evade instead of trying to shield the island with their bodies- a hint at their nature. Strawberry herself ascends alarmingly high, thousands of feet above the skirmish. She flicks off safeties, toggles buttons, and aims down the feathery wings of her wand like iron-sights. There is no "three-two-one" countdown this time; the part of her that'd form the words words is still reeling. The part of her that revs the reactor and yanks out the control rods, though, is lucid and present. The tip of the wand glows brighter than the Sun, an utterly unbearable pinprick of light. The reactor squeals in an endless crescendo at the edge of human hearing, grating and artificial, deeply wrong. The air fills with the taste of metal and the feeling of pins-and-needles so far out that even Evehime can sense it. And the column of Cherenkov-blue light that shines out from its tip paints the point of her aim: the dead center of Evehime's island. That can't be the most efficient, unless she's really enough of an idiot to imagine she can blast through in a single shot. The Annihilator Beam is fired, not for the last time today, and without pomp or circumstance. Its blinding flash boils the surface of the Great Sea far below, making steam rise up from the water. The noise of it, thunder drawn out into an unnatural howl, briefly drowns out even the noise of Evehime's assault. At the last moment, it bends upwards- a trick she hid until milliseconds before impact. But it's not quite aimed for Evehime. That'd be as illegal as it would be pointless. It's aimed around Evehime, as narrow a miss as possible, designed to stoke her halo into a raging nuclear inferno- to make it a weapon against her own island, shredding it apart over and over again rather than merely impacting it once. Strawberry is not a smart girl, but sometimes her body can be clever.
Evehime Gevurah	"I would expect nothing less from you." replies Evehime, just before firing. It's not clear what exactly is holding those luminous bolts together, given that the electromagnetic noise from intercepting so many should be teeth-scramblingly bad, but whatever it is, the diffused lances of nuclear-magical energy pierce through them and cause them to explode into a field of miniature suns. Those that land on solid ground do the same, but as the tip breaks first, they discharge their immense energy through a wide forward fan, like the reverse of a shaped charge, making narrow holes that glow with the heat of the slag-cavern behind them. A few within the same square half-mile are enough to cause a layer of ground to collapse in on itself into molten slurry. The core arrow itself flies so impossibly fast that the sound of its release and impact are a contiguous, compound boom. The tremendous volley of mirror shots are obviously the key to chewing away the immense mass that Evehime has named the winning condition, but the projectile that served as the central axis cannot help but be shocking. A solid spire of metallic fortification explodes into glittering dust, one behind it fragments like a grenade, the one behind that throws massive chunks of rubble high into the air, and even behind that one snaps completely in half, only one more of the many towers finally arresting it by warping into a crater that looks like punching soft plastic. The pressure wave sweeps away the scattered remains of everything in its way into the ocean. Lacking the raw 'volume of damage' of Strawberry's usual trump card might very well be why the Last Warrior conceived of these rules. If these things had critical power cores inside them, she'd really be in trouble. Trading that shot along the axis of Strawberry's aforementioned firepower however, Evehime --visible from afar even without the eidolons for her tremendous, heavenly glow-- makes no motions at getting out of the way. She stares past the oncoming beam head on, not letting her eyes waver from the target zone at all. Of course, she has absolute confidence Strawberry wouldn't just try to hit her directly right after she'd created these codes of conduct to benefit her opponent. And in the case that she's wrong, she'd really get to test that firepower for herself. In a heartbeat, Evehime models a number of reasons for firing just like that inside her head. Her judgement of Strawberry tells her that the most likely aim is to closely draw the beam around her standing position, in a solid attempt to drop her into the ocean. A reasonable tactic, but something she can easily escape. She is not fully aware of what the veteran mahou can do with it yet. It comes so close that all of her clothing roils against her frame in the force of the wind. The tips of her hair glow with heat, though somehow without catching light. Droplets of rain from that miniaturized storm are atomized straight off of her chest armour. The physical 'warrior spirit' that surrounds Evehime, overflowing from somewhere intangible and into the real world, grazes with it. A shot with the intent to miss cannot possibly have a strong enough Conviction behind it to overcome the Halo, and thus the radiant energy that bleeds over through contact is completely absorbed. Incidentally, exactly as Strawberry Princess is counting on.
Evehime Gevurah	The amount of energy is so immense that it highlights almost the exact contours of that mechanism; a sequence of ten stacked orbits that overlap in ripples, their variable intensity altogether creating a spherical haze of blinding nuclear energy all around her, but the fiery core of magical fission is most searingly concentrated into a roughly human profile. The amount of energy is also so immense that the leading edge of the floating island is turned incandescent. The radiant energy from the beam itself melts a wide ditch all along even the ground it doesn't touch, and eats straight through one of the miniature mountains it clips on its upwards curve, but the way that the forwardmost cliff melts and sloughs away in the blink of an eye, disintegrating into toxic fumes as it falls, is all due to the sustained concentration around Evehime. Strawberry can see the bright point that represents her plunge from the island and fall into the ocean, creating a tremendous, direct explosion of steam. The water vapourizes too quickly to meaningfully absorb it. For a short, relieving moment, it looks as if it's going to be a huge edge of extra time for Strawberry. There's certainly no way even the Great Ocean would get rid of Evehime, but that much heat will continue to bore a steam tunnel down for miles before she can touch water. It doesn't quite go that way. Lightning flashes through the tremendous veil of scalding white vapour rising from beneath the island. At first, it seems as if the steam itself has become charged by the radiation, but then it becomes apparent that it's surging upwards from below. The mile-wide sea level cloud is torn apart down the middle like giant hands pulling apart a sheet of paper, and that bright point ascends into the air; a shooting star in reverse. As far as Strawberry's Eidolons can tell, it seems Evehime is climbing into the sky with both feet planted on a small part of that steamy electrical storm itself, concentrated into a dark thunderhead, swirling around her archery greaves and flickering with its own thunder. Once it gains sufficient height, its trajectory curves out to a plateau, and it becomes clear that she's steering it as well, somewhat like those ancient depictions of storm gods peeking their torsos out of the clouds.
Evehime Gevurah	Even more, the sound of thrumming wind and flywheel screech doesn't end when her beam does; it only changes timbre and volume. The scientifically immeasurable amount of energy she'd discharged into the Gevurah's halo is being shaped by some equally unimaginable force of will, the diffuse light dragged in from the spherical bounds, and compressed into rings --no, sucked into the tremendous speed of revolution already inherent in them-- which then merge into one. A single ring of tenfold bright fire, surrounding her horizontally, emitting the steady, distant scream of an overheating particle accelerator. The rocket trajectory of her stolen stormcloud curves rapidly down, and then bends into a shallow, vertical S, taking her around the border of the island facing Strawberry that is still intact. The ground flashes into a thin coating of molten lava even where she merely glides above it, but no longer explodes into nothingness. Her aim in swooping low is revealed in just a second, where she passes over one of the spots where numerous gigantic arrows stand embedded in the stone and metal, and she snatches the entire cluster up as she passes, simply yanking the chunk of terrain out with them. A ring-shaped mandala forms around her vertically as she re-strings Raiyakaze, set with three circles of calligraphic script that measure its rotation. The size is considerably less than the first. She appears to be focused on the arrows themselves this time. Evehime releases the chunk of rubble, which flies parallel to her for a few moments against the wind under its inertia, and in that time, she tears out, nocks, pulls, aims, and fires every single arrow in a flurry of motion that sounds like a line of artillery going off across the sea. The triple points on the mandala follow her aim, automatically spraying a constant barrage of explosive orbs on scattered, ballistic trajectories. Just after she runs out of arrows, she weaves around the fortifications to reach a second drop, and then sharply cuts across a mountain to grab a third. The decreased amount of energy fire may mark a kind of maximum output per second, like the reactor, or it may just be wishful thinking, as the prime purpose of the bolts this time is to completely suppress Strawberry's flying escort, forcing them to waste their time and focus on trying to avoid being hit, shoot them all down, and be out of the tenfold wide blast radius when they do. The material arrows are laid out in horizontal fans carefully aimed with perfect spacing to physically sever entire pieces off her opponent's fortress.
Evehime Gevurah	. . . . . . . . . . Five minutes later, Evehime descends to the only thing that could be termed 'earth' here; a split of crumbling grey rock the size of a suburban lot, with a quarter of a cliff face attached, turned to ugly fulgurite around all its edges, still hovering in the air, is the last remaining vestige of the contest, its twin finally blown away and sunk deep beneath the dark and cloudy waves beneath. The heat gradually dials down from sweltering as a westerly breeze gradually disperses the steam, and the currents of the unfathomably vast Great Ocean disperse and normalize the residue furious battle until it is but an infinitesimal decimal fluctuation to the whole. The regalia of Raiyakaze flakes away from her in countless white-gold sparking petals, leaving 'just' the woman to crunch down on the scorched rock and dust, incidentally burnt from the intensity of maneuver and counter-maneuver, but as promised, essentially unharmed, relative to her endurance. The part where she strides over to Strawberry here should be the most intimidating part. The moment where her wand is necessarily spent, and where the nine foot tall physicality of war incarnate could pick her up and crush her if she felt so dishonourably and wrathfully inclined, but somehow, the charged air between them is mostly filled with something like 'relief'. Evehime, even if scorched and windblown to varying degrees, steps with shocking lightness for her size, the deep and dark, abyssal numbness, detachment, 'loss', that usually surrounds her, instead feeling what some call 'refreshed'. Fresh air blown into a dusty room from a window opened for the first time in ten years. A splash of cold water on a groggy and sunburnt, heat-stroked face and throat. All she does is seat herself with her legs folded at the edge, managing such with surprisingly smooth gentility. Running her fingers once through her excessively thick and wind-mussed hair, she claps the spot next to her with her hand. "Sit down. Rest." It's an order, but a soft one. "You've earned it. And the right to ask what you please, if I made trade answer for answer. What say you?"
Strawberry Princess	It's rare for Strawberry to hit her wand's hard operational limits. The feeling of hitting 00:00 is unfamiliar, or unpleasantly familiar: the process of 'burning out' condensed into seconds rather than minutes. She swoops down towards the ground as her wings flicker and fail, and inelegantly fumbles the landing, stumbling and nearly tripping as she bleeds off the forward momentum. Her costume flickers, then disappears, leaving behind a gangly-awkward young woman in jeans, a white button-up shirt, and a green surplus jacket. She looks up at Evehime with instinctive fear and uncertainty, clutching her useless wand with what would be white knuckles if her hands weren't sunburned pink. If she really wanted to hurt me, there were a lot of times she could've done it before now. I know that. There's no good reason to be scared. But knowing that doesn't make the feelings any easier to push down. 'Rest' earns a sharp exhalation of relief from her, too, for more reasons than one. She staggers over to sit down next to Evehime, gives her a shakily brave smile, and sets down her sizzling wand. "Thanks," she finally manages to say, between her jumbled emotional state and her heavy breathing. "That was..." Of course she can't find a way to finish that sentence. Strawberry tilts her head back to look up at the sky and shudders as residual tension bleeds off of her. "Trading... answer for answer. Okay. Um. I don't really- keep secrets. So that's okay with me." She takes a little pause to think of an adequate question. The stinging of her hands reminds her of a small bottle of lotion in her pocket; she takes it out and starts rubbing it into her sunburns, wincing as she does. After a few moments: "Why do this? I mean... you seem happier now. That's good. But I thought you'd lose interest in me when I said I didn't want to fight to the death." "I mean, somewhere out there, I'm sure there's a spaceship or a superweapon with a bigger laser. Right? So it can't just be about that. But..." She still can't quite look at Evehime directly, instead staring out at the sea's horizon. "But you wanted this, with me. Even though I'm not a warrior like you are. Why?"
Evehime Gevurah	"I've never lied. So it suits me as well." says the Gevurah, eyes unfocused on the far horizon. "Hmmhmm. Something like that might be amusing to see." she replies to Strawberry, after a moment's contemplation. Even a pair of errant mirth-noises feel excessively powerful, like being close to a forge hammer, save that, this time, smelting heat feels more like welcoming warmth. "But no more than that. A weapon fired without any conviction behind it is an entertainment at best. Theatre. Children playing pretend with wooden swords, dreaming of adulthood." It's so damn strange. What she's saying isn't verbally any different from usual, but the words this time are infused with a warm, nostalgic softness, like a giant comforter one could drown in. "A weapon like that has no purpose, only 'use'. Not like you have yours." Strangely companionable, if deeply uneven, silence follows for a little while later. She is especially unhurried in gathering her thoughts, feeling not the slightest rush to fill lulls in conversation, or indicate she is still listening. "Perhaps it was because you woke me from that haze, even a little. It's as if, on the final day, I awoke, and all of it was just a dream. And then, for a hundred years, I never did cross that bleary and liminal place, and only stared at the reality before me with sleep-addled eyes." "But fighting to the death, nor even death itself, is not the essence of a warrior. What I want is for someone to 'fight with all they have'. And for young and simple people, all they have is their lives. That is why I created new rules, when it became clear you were wiser than they. That you have things more important than simply the state of life or death. That is good." No doubt this is the most verbose the Gevurah has been since first appearing. It's strange how it doesn't feel unnatural. It's like watching the rolling flood of a spring river splashing downhill from the mountains, knowing that it will eventually end come summer, but that there is all the time in the world to simply sit and absorb it until then. "A world with people like that is a world more real than a dream. And I am tired of my long dreaming. I could tell from the moment you first spoke to me. The power you pursue, that you won't relinquish for any reason, isn't the power 'to defeat in battle', but the power to 'decide fate'. That power is how you define your shape. It is where you mark its edges. You fight because you are unsatisfied with a world that is 'normal' or 'fair', but because your heart burns for 'a world with Strawberry Princess'. Am I not right?" "The essence of combat lies far beyond mere weapons and death. Most simply never see past that middling door. Its essence is the human acknowledgement of the physical laws that govern them. That a blade is more convincing to the rest of their lives than the most fervent wish. And beyond accepting it, mastering it for themselves. To wrest the essential, impartial judgement of the universe from God's hands, and to make it an extension of human will. Someone who couldn't grasp that would never earn my interest. Not even as a conscript." "But enough, for now. I will ask you next." Evehime now looks over to Strawberry's hands. The piercing blue feels as if it could numb the nerves. Actually, just the tiny animal thrill releases enough of a trickle of chemicals to dull the pain somewhat. "That power was stolen from you once before, wasn't it? I don't know . . . I can't begin to understand the shape of it, but I know its . . . scent? Someone who would grasp the sun with their bare hands for rejection of the cold and dark is rare, and an honourable type of person in their own right. But that can't be all for you, can it? Will you really be content to shine almost as brightly as you once did?"
Strawberry Princess	Am I not right? Strawberry is re-capping her little lotion bottle, but she nods slowly. Drooping with fatigue is now being replaced by drooping with relaxation, which is only subtly different. "You're right. 'Strawberry Princess' is... well, I don't have any other name to go by. But it's the name of an ideal, too. Something I'm always working towards, trying to be. Once I saw that path, I guess I knew that- that nothing else made sense? Nothing but going down it, trying to reach the end." She looks up, finally, at the mention of blades and wishes. Evehime's softening aura has made looking at her more tolerable. She moves as if to brush some hair behind her ear, but doesn't; instead her fingers subconsciously graze that ugly scar. "It is awful. I've tried, but I could never make it... human, like you. Make it pretty, make it mine. It always comes out ugly for me. Thank you, for making it something else." Strawberry glances back down at her hands a moment after Evehime does the same; flexing her fingers gingerly, turning them over. Sparse pinpricks of scarlet are visible underneath the lighter pink, burst capillaries from the g-forces of the competition. She adjusts her posture, and maybe without noticing it, scoots a couple of inches closer to Evehime in the process. "No," she answers simply, and then elaborates. "I can see 'Strawberry Princess', or the way she's supposed to be. I know... all the ways I'm not there yet, all the ways I'm falling short. When I lost those powers, I felt like I'd never be her again, like it was hopeless, and that sucked all the purpose out of me. She picks the wand back up now that it's cooled a bit, running her fingers over its contours just to have something to fidget with; the elegant cherrywood-like haft, the jarring bolted-on reactor, the fanciful wings and the dimmed crystal at the tip. "Now, I'm back on that path. And it's... it's true, that in a lot of ways, I've fallen behind. That hurts. I feel it all the time, that loss, like- it's like the hole where a tooth's fallen out." "It's the sense that I'm getting better every day that keeps me going. That I'm getting warmer, kinder, less scared; that it's getting easer, feeling less fake. Someday I'll catch up to where I was, before it went 'dark'. And the day after that, I'll be past it. As long as I can believe that's true, I'll keep pushing." She turns back to Evehime, now smiling a real, happy- if slightly bittersweet- smile. One hand holds the wand in her lap; she leans back on the other. "Next one. You were so disappointed when you first showed up. Disappointment is when... something falls short of what you were expecting. Right? So what were you expecting?"
Evehime Gevurah	"Then it isn't so much unlike 'Gevurah'." Evehime contemplates out loud, seeming satisfied. The deep release of unconsciously held reserves of breath that follows feels as if it should do something like 'rumble', but right now, that feels as if it'd be far too coarse for this woman. Because it is much easier now, to envision her as one, rather than a disaster. The 'perfect humanity' that conveys its primal micro-language as divine commands, when finally relaxed, cannot help but be just as infectiously relaxing. "Hmm. Of course, I kept my name next to it. So perhaps your dedication is the greater in some tangential ways." At Strawberry's capital-A Answer though, Evehime actually smiles. Not much, but even that small softening of her eyes and upward turn of her lips is like a sliver of sunrise at an unexpected hour. The way she brushes back some hair out of her face is so natural. So normal. With Evehime staring at the horizon, Strawberry can see the faintest, skin-only silhouettes of what were probably once scars on her own face. Off center from the chin, from nose to eye, above the opposite under thick bangs, even one around one side of her throat. Long-long-ago wounds from scarcely averted blows thrown with pure intent to take life. Miraculously survived as Strawberry's own, though far less unfair. Even then, though, it feels like a very late shoe to drop, that someone so overwhelmingly dedicated to combat should have bothered to also be really, really pretty. "I'm glad. No, I like that. I know already, that you deserve every piece of it. As Gevurah, as severity, as the hand that withholds, I judge that you cannot be rightfully denied 'Strawberry Princess'. It is yours to take, and only the fallibility of 'God' that you not have received it tenfold already. I would gladly support you, then. Not to recapture a lost glory. But that you may stand upon my shoulders to reach the day that is the next day of Strawberry Princess' tale." It's her turn again. Even the way she taps the side of her jaw with a finger, partially rolling her eyes in memory-access contemplation, now feels undeniably human. "You know how to choose difficult ones. I could say that being told of 'infinite worlds, infinite possibilities', raises 'infinite expectations', but that feels as if it is not genuine enough to satisfy. I had thought little of it myself at the time. What I expected. What I wished for. 'A battle' was perhaps a simple wish to 'wake up', in a most familiar way. But perhaps . . ." "Perhaps I hoped to see the people that I miss. In some way or form." Evehime concludes. There can be no doubt that the only reason she would ever possibly have given that answer was what she started with-- that she has never lied. She even seems to be guessing at it herself, but seems to feel that answer is the most likely, because it makes her face just the tiniest bit more red. "It seems ridiculous now, with the benefit of clearer eyes."
Evehime Gevurah	"So now you will allow me to ask this. You've tread this patchwork of worlds longer than I. What is it that you see in it? What is it that 'Strawberry Princess' would do? I am not so arrogant to claim that I know of all of it already from a mere handful of encounters, but what I see is little but worlds with no interest in one another. Peoples who would wish only that their lives not change. The same ills that master almost all of them. Fear of death, fear of age, fear of poverty, fear of chaos. Small lives who are happy and thankful to slave hard for unfitting masters, cling to what they know, narrowly evade starvation and war, and go out uneventfully. 'Strawberry Princess' is too bright a thing for an infinite existence as dull and bleak and animal as that." "Of course there is nothing wrong with pursuing the path for its own sake, but if that were so, you would never have met me, and never shielded those others from me. What brightness do you see at the end of all this? Where does 'Strawberry Princess' usurp God's fingers, and tell these worlds how they should be? Who is it that has so earned your faith, and why are they different?"
Strawberry Princess	Strawberry's gaze lingers on the scars of Evehime's face, tracing the path of each one individiually and reconstructing their causes in her imagination. No, maybe that isn't the only reason why. Sometime around when she hears "you cannot rightfully be denied 'Strawberry Princess'", she averts her face and looks down, her cheeks mirroring the tone of her hands. "You know, I- I didn't really like my old one, so..." It's hard to attribute the exact cause. It's 'the people that I miss' that startles her out of that, making her appraise Evehime's expression with a renewed wonderment. I knew she missed her civilization in general. But 'the people I miss' seems... intimate? Specific. In a way I didn't expect, but should have. Her expression is one of knowing, quiet sympathy, but she doesn't force Evehime to linger on the topic. Evehime's question makes her shut her eyes, rest her hands on her knees, and take a deep deep breath. The extended pauses Gevurah has taken for contemplation allow Strawberry to feel that she has permission to take the same, and she does so, internally articulating her thoughts into sentences like a paleontologist carefully assembling bones. "The goal of 'being Strawberry Princess' isn't for everyone. But the method of getting there is. I look at the Multiverse, and I see people hurting, just like you do. People who could do things to make it hurt less, to make themselves better, and not taking the chance because they're just too scared and beaten down. I was like that, too, when I'd lost my purpose." "When you put your hand in the fire, it hurts. You pull it out, and your brain tells you not to do it again. Right? But... so many things here will hurt people just for trusting, or being kind, for trying their best, for hoping for better. And if that happens, just like the fire, your brain tells you not to do that again. It feels so scary. It feels so hard. Being vulnerable and warm and hopeful again after you've been hurt, instead of going cold and scarred, is..." She pauses for a moment to laugh sheepishly, and wipe the glittering moisture from her eyes with the back of her sleeve. "Um. Sorry. One- just a second." "... It's the hardest thing I know. But it's also so important. When you're surrounded by hurt, of course you'll learn to be helpless. I want to help people unlearn it and be brave. Innocence isn't just something you lose, you know. I think you can gain it, too."
Evehime Gevurah	Evehime seems to, of all things, find Strawberry's look-down blushing mumbling deeply amusing; not in the sense of smirking at something that someone else finds terribly embarrassing, but in a way that is almost strangely knowing. Staring back up a the sky, she replies "We cannot know everything that lies ahead of us, so how could those who must have started from the unenviable position of preparing for our existence? Changing our names, changing our shapes, changing our fates, to suit what we feel is most right for us, is the most human prerogative there is. It is the one power we were first given and bid to use however we wished; one before even fire. In this, I am surprised, and perhaps warmed, to see another. I hope that the mother who came before you wished only well." The only thing that she says to interrupt the silence after is, after the tail of a mysteriously entertained noise. "The others were so hasty to have something, anything to say. Condemning their wit for want of it appearing quick. You understand this too. Better be known as slow and one who says things of worth, than to hurry along a fool's mien." Indeed it is not just permission, but outright approval, that Strawberry should take a couple of extra minutes to Get It Right, instead of say something snappy that is Good Enough. She goes back to agreeable silence again after. "Mmmm? Is that how you see it? That some . . . artifact of 'many' punishes them for reaching? Indeed, it has often been said that one hundred friends will lift you up, but ten thousand friends will crush you down. I suppose that if even infinite worlds bring with them infinite people, one who isn't already well above the tide may end up fighting for air." After thinking that part out loud for a little, Evehime lets the rest settle in her head, turning it over mentally like a puzzle cube in her fingers, examining all its sides and thinking a few dozen moves in. When she resumes speaking, it's with the deeply settled and reminiscent air of a storyteller around a fire, beginning the night's tale for eager children. "In the very beginning, people were afraid of the dark. They were afraid of the cold. They were afraid of the ocean. They were afraid of the beasts. They were afraid of the unknown. And so they mastered none of them. They taught their children how to evade each of them, to never go near the darkened corners of the map; they taught them tales of gods to beg and laws to bow to, meaning well, but hoping only that their children may be taken not by these things. If they crossed these things, they seldom had the power to survive, and if they did, they seldom lived long to try twice." "Groping around in the darkness of potential, reaching in ten thousand other directions, growing in ten thousand seemingly irrelevant little ways, little by little, humans shed their ignorance, and grew larger than their fears. But always, in every age, for every 'foe' of humanity, it took at least one person to say 'Why? Why should it be this way? I reject it. I'll defeat it.' Defeating those foes is always the work of many people, but first naming them is the work of one. We never set out on our ten thousand year path with the intent of defeating dark winters and old monsters, but we found ourselves doing so."
Evehime Gevurah	"And so you name your foe, 'false wisdom'. Or is it 'false maturity'? The idea that these people have deluded themselves into thinking all their foes defeated, that humanity is in its adulthood, that this is the best of possible ages for them, because they do not recognize the new enemies they have encountered after defeating the old . . . Perhaps I might see it, if I look. That they cannot recognize the shape of that enemy which steals their warmth, drowns their wisdom, empties their hearts as it does their homes, because they have declared too-soon that 'this is the world in which humans are supreme', because there are so many, many humans, and the weight of their collective 'wisdom', their collective 'decisions', is so overwhelming." Evehime slowly nods to herself. "So what you fight is an 'evil of humanity'. You would be a vanguard. A spearhead aimed towards the new foes; the ones that have learned to disguise themselves in the clothes of things to be worshiped, rather than exposed as things to be rejected. To be amongst the first to charge against it, only able to hope that others will join you, is to be the bravest of all kinds of people. But 'the enemy that extinguishes the heart, that kills hopes, devours dreams' . . . That's certainly a worthy nemesis you've chosen to slay. Mmm. But one I would love nothing more than to see perish by your hand." After a little while longer, Evehime finally stands on her feet again, briefly drowning Strawberry in her shadow as she stretches her arms out over her head, even balancing herself on her toes with the severe arch of her back. Settling back down, the woman makes a gesture that is like 'grasping a ball of air', and squeezing it, turning it just so, her fingers, then her hand up to the wrist, sinks into something like a polychromatic orb of light and mist that appears in her palm, like pressure sparks. A second later, she draws out what is unmistakably 'a scroll', rolled up and encased in thick glass and capped with bolts of gold, the light even on the translucent surface catching on a thousand finely etched letters. It's the size of an entire keyboard, and probably weighs five pounds on its own when she holds it out for Strawberry to take. "I did promise, that one way or another, I would show you how to overcome those limits you mourn. I will help slay those foes that bar your path back to the home of 'Strawberry Princess', but it will take your own effort to acknowledge them. Then, perhaps we will play for five hours next time." An odd, difficult to read half-smile crosses her face. "I will do no such thing as guarantee that we will never cross swords again. We are the same in many ways, but I cannot change to be you, and you cannot change to be me. There will be times we don't agree. There will be times that I will endanger those you strive to protect. Of this, I am still sure. But rather than despair for worthless humans, I should think I will seek this enemy you have named as well. I will promise you at least that." "Now shall I see you back home?"
Strawberry Princess	As Evehime turns that concept over in her head, Strawberry watches with an obvious glimmer of hope in her eyes. Her fingers unsubtly dig into her knees with tension. Is she holding her breath? That breath slowly escapes her as Evehime's fireside story unfolds. She gets it. I think she gets it. But she doesn't dare interrupt until Evehime mentions 'false wisdom' and 'false maturity', where she suddenly looks embarrassed again. "I'm not sure it's anything that big! You're making it sound really... grand. It never felt that way to me." But she's clearly happy that she thinks so, and it must've struck some kind of chord. Only once Evehime comes to another lull does she speak up again. "I'm not- I don't have a way with words. I used to, but I don't anymore. Things don't... come out right. I was scared, more than anything else, that I wouldn't be able to find the right things to say. That I wouldn't be able to explain why I don't... see them as broken, for not living up to you. Why I think they're just held down, instead." "Thanks for being smart, and understanding anyway. Haha, even though I'm- like this." She looks up from her seat with open-mouthed quiet awe as Evehime withdraws the scroll from thin air. Standing up, she accepts it reverently with both hands, making a quiet grunt of effort to support it when Evehime lets go. "What is this? A lesson? A prize? A... some way to stay in touch?" After marveling at its design for a moment, she tucks it carefully under one arm and bends down to pick up her spent wand. "It's okay," she says after a little pause. "I understand if we'll have to fight sometimes. That's- I expect it, you know? Even though you're really scary, it's... easier, in other ways. Since I don't have to worry about hurting you. And as long as that enemy of mine is your enemy, too... then my heart will be okay. You don't have to worry." She stows her wand in that slim carrying case, slings it over her back, and then holds out her hand with a slightly less shaky smile than before. There's a real, honest warmth behind it. "I'd like that, Ms. Gevurah. Unless you can make plutonium, I don't have another way back. ... I guess I really was counting on us ending p friends."