Scene #8829: Better Together

Owner	Pose
Petra Soroka	Petra seems more and more uncomfortable the more clear it is that the Titanomachia is aiming for something within the Maw, for reasons she won't explain. There's no clear indication what they're going for, but it hardly matters; it's never really mattered what their intentions have been, and they've never been inclined to share them with you. Some distance away, traveling across a ruined gravel-mountain covered in snow turned grey by the constant ash falling across the mountain range, Petra comes to a stop and looks out at the machine-city smudge through the haze, then mutters a string of expletives under her breath. "Going to go... inside that fucking thing and beat the shit out of whatever's controlling the-- S2. While you're fighting it. So you don't die. Tachibana, come with." Blue screens with scrolling white diagnostic text light up the bare metal command room, along with the red emergency light in the ceiling that came on when Hibiki and Petra smashed the others. The one door is barricaded by a cabinet of servers shoved in front of it, and at least for the time being, the staff of the Titanomachia have given up on trying to force their way inside. Control panels arrayed in front of the screens have been (tactically) shattered through repeated application of Kamen Rider and magical girl fists, as well as fried internally by electric impulses from Sting Silver's morphmetal. Neither Hibiki nor Petra got here unscathed. Petra studied the floorplans, inputted her own approximate familiarity with the layout, used the methods to infiltrate past the atmospheric seals that she knows, but in the end, there's still close to a mile of interior hallways and stairs they had to fight their way through to make it here. Gunfire, smaller patrol robots, and a scare with them fleeing from a larger mech when passing through the hangar, all left the pair battered-- but that's, of course, why Petra took Hibiki with her. When Petra pulls the Silver bottle from her gun and detransforms, her hair is tangled with sweat, and cuts and scrapes from the fight are red and smeared on her cheeks. She runs a hand through her hair and sits down heavily on the edge of a desk (rather than taking any of the many chairs) and turns her eyes to the one screen, the largest, that isn't providing a stream of warnings about the state of the Ekanamsha S2's condition: the live camera view of the S2's final moments as it shuts down. The detonation of Berislav's landmines, and Dysnomia's blinding stream of plasma, light up the darkened command centre with their flashes on the screen. Without ambiant light, the scene is clearly visible in a reflected rectangle playing out on Petra's eyes as she watches the S2 get beaten around, broken hardlight shrapnel spraying into the exhaust-tinged snow, without blinking. The jets cut out, and when the S2 splashes into the thick toxic mud pool beneath it, Petra closes her eyes and props her foot up on the edge of the desk, leaning her arms and chin on her knee. She's quiet for a few seconds, and so is the camera stream, room silent except for whirring machinery and far-distant alarms. Her shoulders sink, then tremble, and when she breaks the silence her voice is rough and hoarse, muffled by her face being buried in her arms. "This fucking sucks shit, dude. I hate it so fucking much. People died to get that fucking thing made, for me. And it's-- I-I--" She swallows down an uncomfortable groaning noise in her chest, sounding strained. "It's all my fault it ended up here. Like this. And-- and it sucks, because even though-- it's like I killed it. And now it's here, instead of home."
Hibiki Tachibana	Tachibana, come with. At the time, face to face with the massive silhouette of the Titanomachia looming through the haze, rending apart the earth in its wake, Hibiki's own mixed-up emotions over everything nearly got the better of her again. Her level of loathing and hatred for it, for the machines they've built and the screwed-up acts they've committed, those are nothing new. Going off prior experience, it wouldn't be surprising for her to try and brush off Petra's ask, or at least ask why she wants her over anyone else they have here. But now when she thinks about the S2, what comes to her thoughts unbidden isn't the path of destruction back on her world-- but the crippled and abused thing seen within the depths of Petra's mind. And... If you overlook her again, try to take it on yourself like a hero-- "...Okay. Beating the crap out of things, I can do." She doesn't argue or complain. She squares up her shoulders and breaks off alongside Petra, giving a nod back in Touta's direction before they all go their separate ways. ... Petra had the entry plan, and that means Hibiki had to expend enough effort to make up for only being (admittedly very necessary) muscle on the long, long trip to their destination. No matter how tough she is, the gauntlet they have to go through to keep moving and not get bogged beneath sheer numbers has left her panting and exhausted by the time they're safely barricaded in the command room; the cloth portions of her Symphogear tattered and shredded, gashes bleeding freely and injuries from Walplurgisnacht and before flaring up, and hair only kept close to together thanks to her everpresent hairclips. She doesn't detransform, but she does haul down her scarf to get in some heavy heaves of air, slumping down onto the floor and pressing back against a leg of the table to sit against. Even when her breathing stabilizes and quiets, Hibiki doesn't say anything. Because her half-shut eyes have been up on the same screen. Watching reinforcements continue to pour out at the worn out exterior team, watching the Isaiah's battered frame move, watching Dysnomia's desperate and stomach-turning struggle to pull her distorted form back together... watching the now entirely still S2, after it's unceremonious plummet into the muck. "...Yeah. This sucks," she croaks out in tired agreement to maybe all of it, after several moments of silence. She thought there'd be at least some sense of closure or something, knowing neither of the Ekanamsha's will be able to hurt anyone ever again... ...but sitting in this closed-off chamber with Petra burying her face away, it's not close. Her throat sounds dry, and voice a little hollow. "The way everything went, there wasn't any other way. But having to do it doesn't make it suck any less." Her head tilts down. "...Just like you, it never could have gone 'home'. Could it? ...But knowing that doesn't make it any easier, either. Letting go of a wish."
Petra Soroka	Petra doesn't respond at first, turning her head to the side, away from Hibiki, to press her cheek into her knee. Her fingernails curl into her leg, tensing up, until abruptly, without sounding like she even takes a breath in preparation-- "I hate that too. I hate that more than anything." A fizzling wire from a smashed computer sparks and pops, briefly illuminating the room in electric blue and causing the screen to flicker to static for a moment. Petra flinches and tenses up, sitting up suddenly, and then slouching again when it comes back. Curled up seated on the table, Petra twists a finger in her hair, fidgeting by tugging on the strands and digging her nails into her palms, stewing in unhappy silence. "I don't... know what you know. How much you learned, during that... thing." Her gaze slides from where it was fixated on the floor over to side eye Hibiki, echoing her with a slight-- but half-hearted-- note of accusation. "But you sure seem confident with using that word. 'Wish'." The discomfort she feels at having that scrap of information, clutched jealously to her chest for so long, shared to Hibiki and others without even her explicit knowledge, is kind of hollow. After so long hiding it, denying her relationship to space, shamefully concealing the damage her fucked up heart has already done to people even before becoming an Elite, she just feels exhausted by the reveal that it's known now. There's no sense of relief in clearing the air, and she's not able to muster up any anger-- not when she invited them all into her mind, and not when it was leading to this moment right now; the best of all possible outcomes for her, somehow. And trapped in this room with just the two of them, Petra can't really stop herself from continuing to talk. "... I don't know if that's the right phrase, even. It's not one of those... cheap fucking genie wishes that Geats was talking about, with that Kamen Rider thing. It's-- it's a part of me. You saw. It's not, something I can, 'let go' of. H-how could I? Even when I-- looking at it, e-even when it's like that, even though it's something everyone hates, even though I fucking pried it out and threw it away, it's-- it still hurts. It hurts a lot. A-and...." Petra ducks her head away, sniffling and shivering. She wipes her arm across her face and her jacket sleeve comes away damp and mucousy. She stares at her sleeve for a second, then rips her bomber off all at once, throwing it onto the floor, and clenches her fists hard enough that her knuckles turn white. At least, inside the temperature regulated Titanomachia, it's not cold. "... And it could go home; it should be able to. It's not like the Beauty of Ash did anything wrong. It's not like-- it was never, mine to take from Applied Ontology. I'm not the one who fought for it. I never fought to keep it. I only ever-- I did all this fighting just to fucking destroy it, the most fucking-- fucking, precious thing I was ever given, the idea of home that Dianna and Elara and Jay and all the fucking others went to fucking war for, and just because it was me--!" Petra's voice cracks, and she kicks her heel back against the desk hard enough to dent the metal drawers. She shudders, tense and twitching with the outpouring of emotion while tears roll down her cheeks. "That's always it. It's because it's stuck with me that it can't go home, and is just going to-- disappear out here, in the fucking wastes. It's because of me that it's ruined. Everything I do, everyone I care about, they're-- they're always worse off for knowing me. Everyone would always be better off if it was anyone but 'me'. The Beauty of Ash deserved better."
Hibiki Tachibana	Hibiki doesn't flinch at the sudden spark and scorching sound breaking the otherwise silent atmosphere around them, but she does glance up - and when it passes, she lets out a tense exhale before drawing one leg up towards her chest, a grounded mirror of the same pose Petra had before. "We saw... ...a lot. I don't wanna say all of it was bad." Most of it was bad. Terrible to have to see, firsthand and visualized. But it's hard to say that given some of the 'Petra's' they met - even if the contact with the Beauty of Ash made it clear how deep that consuming void really went. Hibiki simply gives a wordless, lethargic nod to it still hurts a lot, only turning her focus directly onto Petra when her jacket gets tossed away, and the outburst that follows leaves her voice echoing off the walls even after the sound of dented metal passes by. What follows from the magical girl is a strained breath through her nose. "Looking at the state it was in... I thought it deserved better, too. Yeah. You kind of do always end up doing that, huh?" Putting a hand on her knee, she pushes herself to a slightly stumbling stand while lowly voicing the exact opposite of disagreeing. "...When you think about it, it's only after I met you that everything started falling apart. I lost everything I had with Lilian. And she went through all sorts of hurt I should have tried to protect her from." This part of the Watch is still completely screwed up. Every bit of confidence I had went out the window, I stopped being able to believe in my own decisions, I got people killed and my heart always feels like it's being torn in a dozen different directions--" Words picking up in volume and growing shakier the longer she goes on, Hibiki isn't looking at Petra. With only the two of them, separated from the others by what as well be an entire world for how deep they are in the Titanomachia, even she can't help but crack a little; as much as she loves talking about her problems with everyone but the people causing them, there's no one else here right now. "Hey, it's all kinda messed up, don't you think?" Quieter but no less unsteady-sounding, she asks an obviously rhetoric question, stepping over to one of the caved-in control panels. Her hand grips at the edge of where it's been punched in, before tensing enough to make some of the undamaged portions relent under her fingers. "You thought well enough of me to take in the good parts, even if you're the biggest reason they're barely there anymore." "...But." Having not looked at her for a while now, Hibiki half-turns to look back to Petra - brow furrowed, eyes wet, and frustration as much as exhaustion on her cut-laden face. "Are you going to say to my face that /everyone/ has ended up the same as me? Because as much as I fucking /hate/ saying it out loud, and for how much awful crap so many people have to go through because of you, I can think of more than one person that hasn't been true for the last year."
Petra Soroka	"...When you think about it, it's only after I met you that everything started falling apart." Petra's eyes bore a hole in a shadowed corner beneath a ruined desk, unmoving as Hibiki addresses her. Her quiet, nearly breathed "Yeah," is both agreement to the statement of fact, and to 'when you think about it'. It's not like Petra hasn't already; ever since the psychohazard fever induced by the Long Quiet, it's been on her mind near-constantly, and even then it was far from new. As Hibiki goes on and on about all the ways Petra ruined her relationships, her self-esteem, her job, her very identity, even at the last portion, Petra stays still and quiet. Her foot swings lifelessly back and forth beneath the desk, and the now-still scene of the broken S2 glows off the screen to reflect tear-tracks and drying blood on her cheeks, still damp even though her crying subsided. Where she might have gotten riled up at Hibiki's raised voice and accusations, and she even tenses and takes in a breath as if she will, she instead just shrivels up and sinks into herself, slouched against her knee. Once Hibiki's done talking, there's another stretch of quiet, before Petra mumbles something unexpected, sounding nasally. "... I'm sorry, Hibiki. I don't think I've said that before. I don't forgive you for abandoning Lilian, but... it really is my fault for being here. And it was my fault, what you abandoned her to. And all those months before..." Petra swallows, gripping the edge of the desk she's sitting on with one hand and squeezing her knee close to her chest with the other. "I bet you've thought about how much better life would be if you never met me. For you, and everyone else here, too. How things could've gone, if I didn't exist. How much happier everyone would be. I have. I know I have." "And it's like that everywhere. It's always been everywhere. On Earth, with my parents. Applied Ontology. Everyone I ever met in space. The whole-- the lab itself. I go there, I fucking steal 'the good parts', and then I blow up into shrapnel and poison and it's all gone a-and everyone hates me. A-and what do I even do about that?" Petra swings her hand at the screen, the pinprick holes in the snow where the fragments of the Beauty of Ash landed, being filled in by ash and snowfall, while starting to work herself up to tears again. "That's-- that's what happens to the things I care about. That's the way I care about them. I-- I have to find a new way, but it doesn't even feel fair that I get the chance and the Beauty of Ash doesn't. And everyone I hurt i-is just... still hurt. So-- so yeah. Sorry for ruining your life. Fuck you for failing Lilian. I'm sorry you had to meet me." The energy drains away, and Petra pulls her other foot up onto the desk, hugging both her knees together. Circling back around to the accusation Hibiki made at the end of her speech, Petra's expression twitches, bitterly self-loathing. "... Except Angela. She's the only person who's happy to know me. And... sooner or later... it scares me, th-thinking that I won't be able to keep this up, and it's only a matter of time until..." She shakes her head, lily ornament hanging from the collar around her neck jingling softly. "... I'm not supposed to. 'Fixate on how awful it was to be weak'. But I feel like a curse. A disease. When you talk about people it's not true for, all I can think is 'for now'." Petra babbles almost uncontrollably, muffled by her face pressed into her knees, a pleading edge to her voice like she's barely heading off a panic attack. Her volume drops, an inch above a whisper. "... I just really hate the idea of losing anyone else. I'm sorry, Hibiki."
Hibiki Tachibana	.. I'm sorry, Hibiki. I don't think I've said that before. Although her expression remains scrunched in something halfway between anger and discontent, those unexpected words spoken in full sincerity instead of any argument obviously catch Hibiki by surprise; the way her eyes widen too much to avoid noticing, her mouth falling open slightly to let out a breath, her posture locking up. It's true. She doesn't think she's heard that before. As the other girl goes on, about how things would be better without her, about what's happened time and time again, about more and more, all in that tone of raw self-hatred, Hibiki's arms come up first crossed, and then steadily tighten up into something closer to hugging herself. When she begins speaking about Angela. Hibiki stays silent, blearily looking somewhere off to the side of the half-trashed command room, all until the second apology comes. And despite the look she's wearing, her voice is shaky and shuddery, any aggression behind it blunted. "...You think I don't hate it too? I never... never wanted to lose anybody. So many people I cared about... so many things are never ever going to go back to the way they were. The way I wanted them. With Lilian-- ...or anybody else. Including you." The silence that follows makes it sound as if she's leaving it at that, for several terse moments. But her shoulders slump, and she murmurs out as the built-up liquid at the corner of her eyes finally turns into streaks down her cheeks. "Screw you for everything you put me through. ...And I'm sorry for not being any good to Lilian. That's not your fault. It's mine. It's still mine. I'll blame you for screwing me up, but something that simple doesn't have an excuse." "Maybe it's not fair at all," she strains out, echoing what Petra said about the Beauty of Ash. "Maybe you're just fucking cursed to keep getting chances other things and people deserve more. ...But you have it anyway. And you didn't ask for my opinion, but I don't think you're wasting this one. With Angela." Her focus drifts up to the flashing emergency light, recalling months and months ago. When Angela questioned her on why she has so much trouble with Petra. "...She really, really does love you. And it's not because she wants to see something that's not there, like I was. It's because you're not the same person that I met back then. You came out of all that awful crap changed for it, just like me and Lilian." The purse to her lips is to stop her from potentially devolving into stammering over her words, too. So is the uneven exhale and shuffling in place, and the occasional sniffling. "Not every bit of it was for the worse. So don't fucking waste it by worrying about what might happen. That's what I do. Look back at everything you did to get here, even the things you stomped over. And use that to be a Petra who won't screw this one up." "...Losing things... h-hurts. And I don't hate you enough to want to see you lose even more."
Petra Soroka	When Hibiki first falls silent, Petra breaks the pause with a sniffle, choked up and breathless until letting out a low, miserable sigh. "... 'Back to the way they were'. Lilian used to talk about it. How there was a year where things were mostly alright, and she was able to start hoping that it all might be okay. And then I came along. Same as for you." "And now... I don't know if she'd ever think of a year 'since me' like that again. Even th-though I'm going to spend the rest of my life fighting for her, she's never going to feel... safe, like she did then." Petra readjusts the position of her cheek laid into her arms, managing to rest her eyes on Hibiki for a short time, with weighty focus (dropping her gaze the moment Hibiki looks back at her). "... I think it was mostly you. And... Candelario, and Ishirou, but mostly you, that made her feel that way. Safe, I mean. Back then." The implication, the unspoken negative, is that Hibiki is a primary reason that Lilian feels unsafe now, and all the hostility that follows from that. "Look back at everything you did to get here, even the things you stomped over. And use that to be a Petra who won't screw this one up." "... You kind of sound like Lilian." Petra snorts despite herself, then hiccups. One by one, the blue diagnostic screens start switching off, slowly redshifting the room to be lit proportionately more by the emergency light and silent stream of the S2. "She said sort of the same. That I have a duty to look forwards and think about how I can-- stop obsessing about how awful it was to be one of 'them' and start thinking about what I can do as one of 'us'. Because all that wallowing is what you do-- is also something she said, I mean, but we... all know she's right." "A lot of people keep saying that, to me. 'Don't be like this, because that's what Hibiki would do'. Lilian, Xion, some others. Even... I mean, even you say it." Petra herself has repeated that mantra to avert some of her worse behaviors, but she doesn't sound proud or condescending about it. She just sounds hollow, idly twirling her transteam gun around on the desk with her finger through the trigger guard. "It's like... everyone sees what you want to be. It's not just me who does." Petra's voice drops to barely above a whisper. "Everyone misses you." That quiet phrase hangs in the air like a weighted blanket, in the following silence, smothering, as if it makes continuing on to the next topic a physical effort. When Petra eventually breaks it with soft, lurching words, it's as though all the other sounds in the background of the Titanomachia fade back into existence too. "And... I... maybe I can do better, now. Maybe Angela's lucky to meet me the way I am now, and maybe I've learned enough that if I try really hard every day forever, then I can be good for her. But isn't that just..." She takes a bit to find the words, only managing after laboriously lifting her head to stare at the wreckage of the S2 again. "... Sickening? I don't want to take so much from people just to... chew it up and shit it out, and move on like it's not my problem anymore. This... th-his...."
Petra Soroka	Petra sniffles, then sits up on the desk, looking directly at Hibiki with her fists clenched in her lap. "There's a boy I knew-- of, never met, who d-died nearby here. Jay. A-and-- at his mech, he had a message, ghost, meant for... not me. Saying how h-he hoped that, fighting, would mean that none of the kids of space would ever need to experience anything like this again. And then here I a-am, stealing it and throwing it away, because I'm just sick in the head." "I think..." Petra swallows and looks down at her clenched hands. "If fate is real, then this-- this had to h-have happened here, so close to where he... was, to remind me that I can't just take it as a lesson and move on. That I-- I-I've fucked up badly enough that everyone I hurt is still being hurt. And..." Growing fainter, daunted and shamed by her own declaration, her voice wobbles. "And I've got to be better for the past, not just the future. For Eidolon Squadron. Applied Ontology. Lilian, of course, always." There's a beat of silence and expectation, where a less-than-spoken 'you' would complete the phrase.
Hibiki Tachibana	... I think it was mostly you. And... Candelario, and Ishirou, but mostly you, that made her feel that way. Safe, I mean. Back then. The talk of that now distant-feeling year makes Hibiki visibly uncomfortable, in the way she shuffles around and fails to meet Petra's eyes in favor of a steel wall. The shift in subject from Petra's failings to this, to her, causes an unignorable shift right down to the cracking in her voice. "...Make her feel safe...? Me? ...Don't be stupid. Th- there wasn't any reason me of all people would be able to do that. I never..." A flash of memories goes through her head. A fight in the quarry. A certain battle with the King of Heroes. A pair of gloves, given as a late New Years' gift. A ritual in a misty valley. A quiet talk at a bar. Quieter, tone shaky enough to tell even she doesn't entirely believe what she's saying, "...c-could have done anything like that. It w-was all... just a year of pretending we were friends now, because the worst was over. I ne- never spent all the time with her I should've, or told her what she meant to me... and when-- when it really came down to it, I hurt her instead of protecting her..." Everyone misses you. Hibiki pauses, eyes widening-- because after all those hollow-sounding statements, after having it reinforced that everyone rightfully knows she's an example of what to avoid, those words hurt too much. She shudders, breath hitching up, arms wrapping around herself as she slumps back against the control panels. "...Y-You, and Lilian... everyone else... you'd be better off and h-happier not thinking about me at all anymore. Just moving on. I'm not worth... worth worrying about. Getting angry or sad over. What I want to be, what everyone else wants me to be-- ...it just makes d-disappointment and hurt whenever I can't do it. The most useful thing I can do is stay out of the way so people have to care about me as little as possible." She slowly slides down to sit on the ground, head falling forward against her knees as the screens overhead darken. "If I ever got it together again, then I could try to go back. And if I couldn't... i-it wouldn't affect anyone else..." She trails off, with a muffled sniffle. After several otherwise quiet seconds, "...That's how I thought about it, at least..." It carries the unspoken implication she doesn't quite think so anymore, which gets confirmed when she murmurs out after, "...I m-miss everyone too...how /couldn't/ I...?" She holds that, until Petra's words once again break the encompassing silence. It's enough to get her to ease up on the shivering caused by all the unwanted emotional leakage, only lifting her face enough to barely meet the other girl's eyes past her messy bangs.
Hibiki Tachibana	"That none of them... would need to..." Hibiki echoes the words softly, like she's trying to process them too, after Petra's difficult effort of forcing these words out into the open. It's the kind of shaky but earnest conviction she wonders if Petra borrowed, or managed to dredge up herself. And then that one beat passes, leaving the room silent again for moments. But there's no doubt she understands the unsaid word. There's a teary blink, and Hibiki's eyes drop to the floor halfway between the both of them. "You really are kind of an i-idiot," she mutters out, an unintentional echo of Petra's words once upon a time. "...For including me next to all of those." She shakes her head slowly. "...And I guess I-I'm still one too, becoming even more of a mess just from hearing it..." There's a breathy exhale, and her eyes drifting back up to Petra. "...You know. You said I sounded like Lilian there... but I think... this is the closest you ever reminded me of her."
Petra Soroka	"...Y-You, and Lilian... everyone else... you'd be better off and h-happier not thinking about me at all anymore." Petra, staring down at her lap, shakes her head before she realizes what she's doing. The words slip out of her mouth, quiet, driven out by automatic emotion and becoming more certain as that emotion goes through the laborious conversion into thought and language. "No. ...No. That isn't right." Petra lifts her eyes from her lap, and is briefly surprised to see that Hibiki's slumped against the wall on the ground. She stares down at her, from the height difference of the desk, watching her sniffle and hold back tears, and is suddenly gripped by an impulse that feels like it'll squeeze her lungs flat if she doesn't say it out loud. "Do you really think you're that different from me? That... even though you know you fucked up, and you regret it, that... this is the one time you'd be right to wallow and walk away and insist everyone should move on?" Petra slides off the desk, the burst of energy giving her the drive to hook her boot through her jacket on the floor and kick it up into her hands, where she slings it over her shoulder. She isn't so bold as to stalk over to Hibiki and directly loom over her, but when she shifts her weight around between her feet, her words have urgent intensity to them, as if she's leaning over with her hand outstretched. "No. You were born more good than me, but not that good. You have sins to make up for too." She opens her mouth like she's going to say more, then hesitates and turns partway to the screen. "... I could walk away from this. I-- I've tried, I mean, a bunch, to say that it's not my problem anymore, that it's better off without me involved, that I've done enough damage and can't-- can't make it better. But that's... sick. I can't just convince myself to turn away when it's still a bleeding wound." "You said I sounded like Lilian there... but I think... this is the closest you ever reminded me of her." Petra lets out a shaky exhale, wrapping her arms around herself. When Hibiki looks up at her, Petra's eyes slide over to meet hers and stay there for a few seconds before smiling uncertainly, teartracks sticky on her cheeks. "... Well. I try to, you know. I've been working hard." Her eyes drop to the ground in front of where Hibiki's sitting. She takes in a short breath, the kind you make before saying something risky, for the momentum to barrel forwards through it. "... But there's a really big way I'm not like her. And can't be. I can't... do it alone. I-I know I never could've done anything without her as a guiding light, the way she had to. Not from the start, and not from how I've been getting better now, finally. I couldn't do it without her."
Petra Soroka	"And--" Petra stiffens and tenses her shoulders for the last stretch. What follows next, what followed last time, after 'You really are kind of an i-idiot,' is-- "You can't do it yourself either. So I'm not going to let you anymore." "I'm done with all the wallowing. For-- for Lilian's sake, and y-your sake, and..." 'Mine', obviously. "I'm done with all the stupid fucking bickering, and distance, and apathy and everything. So I'm just going to decide to make it better." Petra starts to crouch down in front of Hibiki, and instead of settling in seated across from her, she abruptly reaches forwards and twists her fist into Hibiki's scarf, pulling both of them up standing and then shoving Hibiki back against the wall. There's no intention-- or at least, no movement towards-- going in for a kiss, though Hibiki's encounter with Qetra might still come to mind. Her voice is raised above what would be comfortable at this distance, but she's not trying to be comfortable. "I'm sick of losing people, Hibiki!" "So here's the deal. You can't manage to be 'Hibiki Tachibana' on your own, right? You just sit around and waste away while the people you want to protect get hurt. I get it. I can't be 'Petra Soroka' on my own either. So you don't have to. We can do it together." "I'm sick of being your enemy. So whenever you're sitting around instead of being 'Hibiki', I'm just going to show up and kick the crap out of you until you do something, so everyone's not so lonely about you all the time. We can't make things go back to the way they were, but we can still make up for the things we broke."
Hibiki Tachibana	Do you really think you're that different from me? The energy, the suddenness and straightforward way that Petra says that is what grabs Hibiki's attention, at first only with tear-filled eyes blinking after they'd dropped back down-- but then up at her, in an almost dumbfounded sort of way. "Eh...? Sins...like you... I-- I /know/ I do, but I... I can't..." She trails off, head turning slowly to put the screens in her peripheral vision. She looks like she's not even sure what to say, or what she wants to say. Not until the declaration that catches her the most by surprise to hear said out loud, so solidly- along with the abrupt grip that brings her to her feet. The slam into the wall doesn't hurt at all, of course. But her eyes still shoot wide and a faint red flush comes to her cheeks, that can be written off as coming from shock than an unwanted memory coming back up. But the reason it stays, even after the fact, is something a lot more innocent. Together. "P-Petra..." One second. Two seconds. Three seconds pass of nothing but the two of them staring at each other, to the backdrop of the noiseless feed and distant booms. Her mouth falls open, wordless at first... before what leaks out is the same brand of can't-help-it snort that Petra had made herself, tinged with her eyes shutting and fresh tears flowing. Several seconds of quiet, utterly exhausted cry-laughing come right after. Her voice sounds rough, but also... a little less heavy? "...I can't take you threatening me like that seriously. Is that-- is that really what it sounds like...?" More of those teary not-really-laughs come after, devolving further into something approaching genuine choked-up sobbing until she forces her breathing to slow down and stops herself. Her head tilts down, bangs falling over her eyes as a dry and painful swallow comes. "...I'm no good by myself," she repeats softly, lower than a whisper. "If someone else's heart isn't propping mine up, it's not strong enough to do anything. Miku... Shirou... Kanade... It's always-- always been like this. ...Not that different from you..." Hibiki pulls in an uneven breath--before her head pulls up, so she can glare fully and wholly back at Petra. Straight-on, without any averting her focus, the tide of liquid streaming from them slowing down as her voice huskily levels out. "You know you're talking to someone who's betrayed your trust a dozen times before? And she's enough of a dumbass she'll definitely do it again, even when she doesn't want to?"
Hibiki Tachibana	"... ...But you only say things you mean, so I know you'll floor me when I deserve it. So fine. Fine. I'll hold you to it." A bloodied arm comes up to wipe away at her face, and her words go shaky again. "...Please. I'm tired of all of this." By the time her arm falls away, her tone's toughened back up. Sort of. "A-And for the record, making me less of a useless piece of crap means I might try to beat your ass when I think you have it coming, too. You're a supervillain, so you can't complain. But n-not as enemies... I mean, not like the kind we have been anyway, more like... er--" Her eyes anxiously shift off to the side. "...It's too early for..." Friends. "But I want to put in effort for 'Petra', too." That's probably it. It could easily be done there. Her two hands come up to Petra's one, keeping her held against the wall, and it's not hard to imagine it's probably to get her to let go already. She doesn't try. Her grip just eases around hers from both sides, and stays there. "...And everyone else. I want to start piecing everything back together. Even if it's not the same shape as before."