Scene #8442: Hibiki we need to have a talk...

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Ishirou	Ishirou has come calling Hibiki, because right now they have... a lot to talk about on a lot of different topics. Some of them are mutual topics, others are... well more focused on the girl or himself. Probably some relating the Petra and Lilian. There are just a lot of things all over the place, and this is the first time they had a chance to chat. So with only a text message that says 'I'm coming over to talk.', Ishirou will find himself at the apartment, knocking on the door. Whoever opens up will reveal the now robotic form of Ishirou, with whites and blues to distinguish between his 'skin' and his 'chassis'. He's got an apprehensive expression on his face... because he's not even sure where to even start. On the other hand, he's brought some snacks with him. Some cookies, some fudge, some chocolate, and some fruit mixed in with all of that. He'll set it down where asked to, but before he even finishes sitting it down, he has a very important question to ask Hibiki. "Why in the heck did you give her my number without warning me? You /do remember/ she did kill me, right? I get why you might have thought it a good idea, but only after the fact, and... god I am not sure what might have happened if not for Candy."
Hibiki Tachibana	There's no doubt there /is/ a whole lot to talk about. Probably a whole lot to figure out, too. Nope, definitely a lot to figure out. Hibiki might have been relatively quiet since her run-in with Petra, but that doesn't mean she hasn't been staying up to date as best she could. And this'll be a good step in...well. Knowing how to approach all of it. Her own encounter with Petra helped stop her from being defeated by her own hesitation, so that's the only thing left to do. Miku is the one who gets the door. There's a surprised expression on her face, looking over his new body - this is the first time she's seen it, after all. A civilian like her wasn't anywhere near that meeting. But it makes way for a small smile, after a moment. Maybe in an attempt to lighten up that apprehension on his face. "I like the ears a lot! Good to see you, Ishirou! ...It really is. You've been through a whole lot, haven't you?" As ever, she doesn't actually pry, and welcomes him right on in. Excusing herself to the kitchen to get drinks to go with his snacks is an excellent excuse to let him and Hibiki have some time to themselves. Hibiki is already sitting on the living room couch, looking a fair bit less like the mess she has been, and seems to already figure what Ishirou is going to say before he asks it. "It never leaves my mind," she replies while sitting straight up, grimacing with her eyes shut. It's kind of strikingly serious for a friendly conversation, but most of the tenseness fades away with an exhale. "...I did it because--when she came to fight me, it felt like it was the first time I was actually able to get where she was coming from, even if I didn't have all the context. She was...a lot different. The first time around, I was just stupidly praying and trying to hope that nothing like that would happen instead of doing anything to stop it. When I should have known better. This time...she was doing it for someone else's sake." Hibiki pauses, then shakes her head and opens her eyes, glancing back at him while rubbing the back of her neck. "...And I figure if you got a heads-up instead of having to talk to her, you wouldn't have ever met with her or gave her the time of day period. But I know hearing about the junk that goes on in my stupid brain isn't any kinda justification. Especially since it probably comes out like more bias for her at your expense. So for what it's worth...I'm sorry, Ishirou."
Ishirou	Ishirou would blush if he could about the comment about the ears. "Haha... thanks," he says, with a slightly nervous tone to his voice. Well, not nervous, more embarrassed, but it's not quite the same. He places the snacks down and takes a seat across from Hibiki and listens to what she has to say. She is right on that, if he had gotten a heads-up, he wouldn't have accepted any number that didn't have an ID on it. He takes a long breath and then lets it out. "Alright, fair enough. I forgive you, but pleeeeease try not to make a habit of it. Candy, thankfully, was there..." he rubs his head. "I fucked up. A lot. About a lot of things. About Lilian... about Petra... about myself..." he says looking at himself. "All I know is that there is something wrong with me and I need to fix it... but I am also not sure how. I just..." he sighs. "How did I let a girl like her talk me into doing this to myself..?"
Hibiki Tachibana	"...I don't plan to, don't worry." The awkward sounding scoff slash chuckle at Ishirou's forgiveness isn't really her writing it off at all - it's just the last chance she'll really get to even attempt to be a little more lighthearted before the conversation shifts back into fully serious. Afterwards, she doesn't touch the snacks right away, but closes her eyes for a moment, just to open them a couple seconds later and stare straight at Ishirou. "We all messed up a lot. We're probably gonna mess up a whole lot more in the future, too. Figuring out how to fix our issues...isn't easy. Even knowing them sure doesn't make it easier. But..." For a moment, Hibiki is looking somewhere that's not really at him. "...Back during the meeting here. Lilian--she told me... 'Nobody will blame you for screwing up because you aren't that good at it. But when you sit there and tell me with a straight face that there's nothing you can do, and you just wait and watch it happen, we can all tell which side you're really on.'" A moment passes. "Well, you were there too, so you already knew that. But...she was totally right. I was just too frustrated with myself to admit it out loud. If we're gonna screw up, we can at least do it trying our best to make things better. Even if we don't know how. I'm tired of being scared stopping my legs from moving when they need to." And that hangs briefly before Hibiki's shoulders slump and she sighs herself, and glances at him with a little less intensity. "...Have you talked with Lilian at all lately? I know that there was a...thing, on the radio, the other day."
Ishirou	Ishirou listens, nodding along because he doesn't disagree with what's being said, and in fact, agrees they all let Lilian down... a lot. He rubs his eyes a little and tries to put his thoughts in order, they are... really all over the place. Both on himself, and on Lilian... Never mind what's happening with Mal... "She was. Lilian can... come off sometimes abrasive, but... I think that's more that her insights can be very sharp, and she often doesn't let things slide..." Which isn't a bad thing. It's helped him improve. "...I'm no less culpable in this. I put... I put Lilian on a pedestal. I kept trying to be more like her and less like me..." "I made her an idea to reach, with everything someone might also fear from failing. It twisted some things up inside me, I think. Indus... its scars haven't left me. I thought I got enough of them out of me to be better, but I let it get me complacent." "I hate it... that place... what I couldn't do for it... what Eggman did to it..." he rubs at his eyes again, trying to hold himself back. "No, sorry, not what we're talking about. Lilian..." he pauses. "Yes, we talked a little the other day, she tried to apologize for what she said on the radio... but I told her she was right. I also tried to invite her out with me and Candy for drinks, but she.." he sighs, "She doesn't want to see anyone right now. She did..." he sighs. "She did want me to pass a message on to Petra." "...I'm not about to reveal it, but it was positive. They... have a great deal of care for each other. That's all I am going to say there, sorry." "I want to talk to her more... I want to really apologize... but it won't be easy. She's scarred because of us, and I think really shy to be hurt again. Between what we did and then what /he/ did..." Ishirou's voice literally drips with venom. "So to barrow a phrase from Candy... we just have to keep shoveling coal until the train hits the station."
Hibiki Tachibana	Ishirou has quite a bit to get off his chest, and Hibiki listens to every word. By the time he's putting himself back on track before almost getting into Indus, her face is a little scrunched up in contemplation. She'll have to do what she can for him, when it comes to getting rid of those particular demons. When things get quieter again, maybe. ...For someone else too, maybe. "...Complacent. Yeah. I understand completely. I got that way, too." For too long. When he's done, she finally moves to reach for one of the cookies that he's brought. "That's a Candy phrase alright," she agrees, taking the chunkiest of the lot. "...White Dwarf was saying something similar. After our first visit to New York. About the constant kindness that it takes to heal hearts..." A bite, and quiet chewing. Probably because it gives her more time to think before she swallows. "It's fine. I wouldn't want to invade their privacy by asking about the message anyway. I don't...really know what happened between them, all those months, to get them to be this close. But Petra told me that she messed up...badly. And now she's trying to do everything she can to desperately fix it. So if whatever it was, Lilian still has good things to say to her...I'm just glad for that much." Petra offered to tell her the details sometime - but knowing more won't really change the fact that they have to do what they can. So she's not in a rush to make her, while she's still getting everything in order. Although she didn't miss that venomous 'he', either. Hibiki pauses for a moment, takes another bite of cookie, then continues slowly. "'When does Lilian get the constant forgiveness, and allowance, and patience, and second chances, and protection...that we take for granted?'" Sounds like she's quoting someone. Not hard to imagine who. "...Not wanting to be hurt like you have been before...is normal. She's thought of us as liars who've been afraid of her, treating her like a bomb waiting to go off...because we never gave her enough of a reason to think otherwise. So yeah. We shovel coal until--until we can show her that we care as much as we say we do." Hibiki sideglances off towards the wall. "Seeing her, like that...back at the meeting...it really made it all click. I just hate that it took that long."
Ishirou	Hibiki mentions 'Whatever happened', and Ishirou stares at her for a moment. He leans forward, trying to figure out if she really did not get it, or is lying. He doesn't see that she is lying, so he sighs, and rubs his forehead. He speaks, slowly, but with the most gentleness despite his words. "Hibiki, I know you've had some rough times, but you really are blessed to not understand what happened especially after I mentioned /him/. You were at her home, you saw more than I have ever seen. I have only gotten bits and pieces over a long time with her... and even then I could only put it together once Petra mentioned that." "The bruises, her behavior now... please don't make me spell it out for you..." he says, actually looking a little sick if he had to. He rubs his face, drying his eyes, and takes one of his own cookies to eat. "Yeah... I don't know if I can ever shovel enough coal. Maybe I can't. Maybe I fucked up so badly I won't even be seen as family to her again but.." "She's done too much for me to let it go at that, and even if I can't be happy next to her, I'll make sure she gets those things Petra wants for her," it's easy to tell it hurts his heart to say this. He pauses, then, contemplatively... "So we start by fixing ourselves..." he says, looking at Hibiki. There are questions on his mind, and he needs to figure out how to approach things. How to address everything he's learned. He realizes there is no easy way to put things... "As you know I was given access to SONG's database. I..." he pauses. "Tell me what happened," he says, again. He stares at her, trying to take as much care as he could, "With Kanade Amou."
Hibiki Tachibana	"What I know is that that any words I could use to talk about things with her family would be an understatement," Hibiki answers back just a little bit too quickly to not sound snappy, fingers pressing in on the snack she's holding and causing portions to crumble away onto her lap. "All of the worst stuff in there, I didn't see with my own eyes - because it was her room I went to. Her space, with all the things she-- ...But with everything that came after, I sort of got the idea. And I was there for that 'intergenerational hazard' thing, you know." She apparently realizes her own snappiness a moment later and eases up, letting out a slightly frustrated exhale as she brushes cookie debris off her lap. "...Sorry. It's not you I'm upset at. It's me. Again. And...the fact /that/ happened at all. I don't like thinking about that stuff." Come to think of it, Hibiki doesn't live with her own family - in fact, she's barely ever even mentioned them. "Even when I should - I didn't want to just...assume things, that she didn't want to say out loud then." Maybe she should have. There's a shake of her head after as she goes silent - ruminating on old things, maybe. "I want her to see that we're real. And...that we're going to do our best to make it easier for her. Not even harder than it already is." Exactly like she did during their first New York trip. "And the more time we take doing that, the more she's going to hurt..." The thing that gets her to snap out of it and focus back on Ishirou entirely is his last question--it's probably not hard to guess that she thought he only came to talk about Lilian and Petra. Not about herself. It catches her off-guard more than anything, and she's left looking at Ishirou with slightly wider eyes for several silent seconds. Miku, faintly visible in the kitchen entryway holding a tray of drinks, quietly remains out of the way so as to not disturb. Yet, anyway. "...Kanade..." It has the air of a name she doesn't say out loud very often. After another second, she adds on slowly, "...What does...what happened back then have to do with things now, to make you ask that out of nowhere?"
Ishirou	Ishirou listens, patiently. "It shouldn't happen..." he agrees. "The fact that it is makes me..." he sighs, "I thought families were supposed to be better than this..." he shakes his head. He takes a carefully measured breath. "I know you're not upset with me. Don't worry about that, and.." "I know you were, but we can't allow ourselves to be blind. The pieces are coming together in my head... the weight he has over her is too much, and the fact she's like this now because of him..." he looks strained. "Petra has a plan, and I plan on helping with it. But... again, I need to fix my own head.." He watches Hibiki, carefully measuring each action and reaction to the name. He sucks in a breath, carefully measuring his breaths, and keeping his expression calm but welcoming. "She was the first user of your gear, wasn't she? I know what happened to her, and why it happened. To a degree. Somethings were not explained, technical things... but they're not important." "It's important to know because of what you told me when we were talking about Petra. About how Miku helped you through something..." he says, carefully. "If we can't face our own demons, how are we going to stand up to hers?" he asks. "Hibiki... be honest with me. Have you ever made peace with what happened? Don't answer right away, I want a genuine answer after you've thought about it. It'll let Miku come in with the drinks."
Hibiki Tachibana	The look on Hibiki's face is...well, it's a mixture of several different things. A little bit of shock and confusion, a little bit of apprehension, a little bit of something deeper. When he says not to answer right away, she exhales audibly through her nose and reclines back against the back of the sofa. At that moment, Miku takes her cue to enter instead of respectfully staying out, setting the tray down center-table. Three cups of what looks to be freshly made tea. As the black-haired girl sits down next to her, Hibiki takes a steaming cup with both hands and takes a longer drink that she should. When she stops and lets out a heavy sigh with shut eyes, seemingly not inconvenienced by the heat, the first thing out of her mouth is - "...You really know how to ask rough questions, don't you? 'Have you ever made peace with the whole reason your life is the way it is now?' I know I said I didn't mind talking about old things before, but anyone would need more than a minute for that one." It sounds deriding - maybe it is, a little bit. But she also just puts it out there because if she doesn't say /something/, she won't say anything. And she knows all about his natural curiosity, even if she's the last person she wants to try and evoke pity for right now. She's not actually upset with him, again. So after a shake of her head, she starts quietly before she loses her nerve to do it. "...No. I dunno if it's something I can ever completely get over." "If you already know what happened...then you probably already know she--...gave up her life so that I wouldn't give up on mine. I didn't understand that for a long time. Because everything only got worse after. People who didn't understand anything wouldn't stop harassing me, the 'only survivor'. You'd be next, the Noise kill everyone around her! ...I had to drop out of normal school. My family started breaking apart. And I started hating everyone, because I figured they hated me just for existing." "...Saving my life. Passing on Gungnir to me. Those were curses she put on me. Making me live longer than I ever should have, with a power that didn't belong with other people. Normal people." Inhale. "...The last time it was just the three of us--I told you a decent bit about the things that came after that. Miku--...that day, of the attack, we were supposed to go together. But she never showed up. And I never saw her again after that. Not until all that time after, when I was already getting used to being alone." She pauses, halfway through this story she's carefully recounting one word after the other, glancing down into her teacup, to address him directly. Miku has been uncharacteristically quiet. "...You know, Ishirou? I'm always afraid of things going back to being like that. Always. I don't know if I ever won't be - if coming to peace with it like that is even possible. The closest I ever came is that entire year where we were all...complacent. And...it really makes me a giant hypocrite for not ever treating Lilian right."
Ishirou	Ishirou is quiet, listening to Hibiki and her story. He doesn't stop her from saying anything, because he felt she has taken enough time to consider her feelings. He takes his own tea from Miku, sipping it as she talks. He's glad for it because it's easier to hide his shaking. Asking this... he knows it's a bad question, he's afraid he's falling into a bad habit, but he knows better. If he didn't ask her, then it'd never get out. He'd never know, and... she'd never heal. As she describes things, he listens, holding the tea in his hands and staring into it. He's not avoiding eye contact, but rather he's seeing some things from his own past here. "...So that's why you were there with Go. Because what I was doing wasn't very different. The difference is that I destroyed my body in the end," he says, taking a breath. No, it's not about you, dummy. After a moment, he speaks. "Never say that again," he says firmly in his tone. "Saving your life, and passing on the power to you... they are not curses. You aren't living on borrowed time, you aren't cursed. You should /never/ think that you are living longer than you should have..." he says, setting the tea down. "...But I know how that feels. I tried to come back like nothing happened, and... that hurt people. I tried to course correct, but I let the worst of me escape..." he says, looking into that tea again. "I threw myself at problems again and again, risking my life again and again... until Rita had to show me something that hurt her a lot too." He continues. "I yelled at Petra, calling myself I4.." he winces, even saying the name now causes him pain, "Because she hit me with it... Everything I had built over that time has crashed down. I wanted to quit, I wanted to give up... When Lilian said those words to me... I almost accepted them and was about to ram myself into the Leviathans." "I didn't because..." he takes a breath... "Because of what you and Go said to me. You saved my life, from my darkest moments, because /you/ lived. If that doesn't count for anything, then let it at least count for me.." he says, wiping tears out of his eyes. He takes a moment to calm himself down. He takes a cookie in shaky hands and takes slow bites out of it. "...I am afraid too, of a lot of things. Things going back to how they were in Indus. Losing the people around me..." he says, looking up at Hibiki again. "Maybe it did make you a hypocrite. We shouldn't have put anyone ahead of Lilian, but we did. So we have a lot of coal to shovel." "...But... things won't go back to how they were for either of us, Hibiki. We have... we have people around us that will refuse to let it go back. People who love us no matter what, and even in our darkest moments and thoughts... are still here for us," he looks meaningfully at Miku. "We... we can't let our fears and shortcomings hurt those around us." "You shouldn't have to justify your existence, neither do I, and neither should /she/."
Hibiki Tachibana	"Yeah," Hibiki replies quietly to the mention of Go, before taking a brief sip to wet her throat. It's feeling a lot drier than normal. She doesn't seem to mind Ishirou bringing the subject back to him, even if he pulls himself back. "...That's a part of the story I...didn't get to, actually. I wasn't really any better off. Back then, Gungnir wasn't this pendant I wear. It was...killing me from the inside." "And I was almost okay letting it do that, lashing out until my life burnt away. Even when deep down...I wanted anything but. So...well. When I see people hurting on the inside like that, I want to...try to do something." Her eyes drift off to the far wall. She doesn't need to voice that it's another source of guilt when it comes to a certain someone. She remains that way, as Ishirou goes on about things that clearly hurt to recount. Her expression is a little hard to read, until he loses his cool for a moment. "Ishirou..." She looks back to him in full, jaw slightly slack, just to purse her lips after and go silent. There's another deep breath taken, eyes lightly closed until he gets out everything he wants to say. "...I meant it when I said that fear's never gonna go away. Even if you say that. The things that make you 'you', the things that you love...what if you still lose them? What if you're not able to protect them? No one can just brush that off. Especially not me, with how much I screw up. But..." After a pause, she opens her eyes back to focus on him directly, with more energy in her voice. "Don't worry about me. Just because I'm not totally 'fixed' doesn't mean I'm not gonna do everything I can, for better or for worse. It took some knocking around to make me see it, but I want to help Lilian first and foremost. So no worrying about the past or my fears right now. That's the decision I came to. All the stuff that hurt back then, still hurts--those are just reasons to stop there from being more, not an excuse to sit in place. It's not complicated at all when you think about it like that." It kind of is, but she has to keep the forward momentum going. "We all know what we want, when it comes to Lilian...so if Petra has a plan, let's start there, and do whatever we can to make it happen. All of us, as soon as possible. Everything else can come after." Even Petra herself, as much as she hates to think so. Although...doing anything for her like she is now might not even be possible, until she feels like the mistake she made has been made up for. All the more reason. "...Like the rest of the story. Miku is the whole reason I stopped looking at what I got from Kanade like...that awful way, but I guess that's not really a surprise by this point." Miku, from the side, finally speaks up with a small smile while nursing her own cup of tea. Seems she was resolved to let the two of them chat it out. "We owe her the fact we're both here right now. And I won't let that go to waste, either." That sure is...her talking about herself in the third person?
Ishirou	"Haha... sorry, look at me. I'm here trying to help you and I'm barely together myself," Ishirou says, perhaps a bit self-deprecating. He takes a breath and another sip of his tea. "Sorry, it is the way I am.." he says when she mentions worrying and fixing. "I know I need to stop seeing things like that. Problems to solve, or things to fix. I didn't mean to do it with you. I'm sorry," He says, genuinely. "I..." he pauses hearing about the pendant... and what it used to be. "I'm glad... that it didn't turn out like that for you. You know..." he pauses, recollecting something, "When I first came with Go to the concert? You know, with that Roidmude who tried to take your friend's appearance? I had just lost Indus. Go took me in, gave me a home..." he sighs. "I guess I never really recovered from that. It just sat there, and... when Eggman took Indus to spite me..." he says, struggling. "I didn't know what to do. I tried to come at it like a problem that could be fixed. Every time I tried to get at it, I was failing some part of it. It just kept frustrating me more and more. Honestly, at the end of the day it was... Petra became a scapegoat. Because I couldn't accept that I had lost so completely." He takes a breath, and then some more tea to try and calm his hands. "Sorry, a little off topic but... you're right. SOMETIMES doing nothing is the right choice, but sometimes...most of the time it's the coal," he says, bringing it back around. "Thanks, again. And... sorry for getting a little heated there," he laughs a bit awkwardly, "Heh... maybe I shouldn't apologize. Maybe feeling like that isn't wrong... instead of treating it like problems and things." Though when the topic moves forward, Ishirou notices that Miku says 'her'. As in another person... and the Black Noise incident connected this world with another world. "...So which one of you is from the other world?" he asks, "Because... I figured something was up with the 'Black Noise' incident. The connection with another universe..." he pauses, "Because this is relevant. That group... seem to be interested in parties from other worlds. I connected a lot of dots together, about the noise movement and their influence."
Hibiki Tachibana	"...Don't worry about it, Ishirou," Hibiki says with a nod, apparently having de-tensed enough from all of that to enjoy her tea like a regular person. "I mean, you want to get yourself more together before you try helping, because you don't want to mess up. I get it." She knows he's had a rough time of it. But ultimately, he really does have Lilian's best interests at heart. She knows that. And she knows he really has gone through it, since Indus. Lilian really is the foremost thing in her mind, and she's going to do her best to focus on that. Even sitting here right now feels kind of off. But when things quiet down...well. She can only hope people will come out of this for the better, more than just Lilian alone. "For what it's worth, I don't think it's a bad thing. To feel like that, that is." And, on the newest topic to address, both girls pause briefly to look at each other. Then Ishirou adds on 'relevant', and they glance back to him. "Well..." "...Neither of us. Hibiki sits up a little straighter at his putting things together, nursing her cup with both hands. "There was--another world that came to help us, back then, yeah. When those black Noise started showing up. Or, I guess...they also came to help /me/. I didn't recognize any of their Symphogear users, other than..." She trails off, glancing towards Miku. "...A 'me' that was able to use one, too. The Hibiki of their world was suffering, because of the pain ours was holding...so she wanted to help alleviate it however she could. I wasn't here to do it back then...so I owe her a lot." "I think I mentioned before...I tried to reject her helping me. Because--...I didn't like the idea of her doing it and thinking I was the same as...hers." A shift of her head off to the side. "...But she cared about me, for me. A lot. Miku is Miku, no matter what world it is, I guess...and she's the reason I'm here now. And got to reunite with mine." She stops to take another sip. "...I wonder how they're all doing now. I don't like the idea of these alchemist guys having gotten any ideas 'cause of them. I bet these jerks must have had a field day when we actually unified..."
Ishirou	Ishirou nods, taking a breath. Okay, it's fine, he's gotten it off his chest. It's not gone, but it feels good to have some relief from that pressure crushing down. When they say neither of them is from the other world, he listens to the story of the other Miku. Slowly he nods, it makes sense that the situation would get other world's Symphogear users, though surprised that Miku was one of them. Though by the end he's smiling. "Aww... I guess that's true. Miku /is/ Miku," he says and chuckles. However, with the shifting topic, he speaks again. "So... I looked up the reports of Noise attacks and sightings. They were rarer the farther back you go. However, I can basically sum up Noise behavior into two camps. Wild Noise and Tamed Noise. Wild Noise are attacks that seemingly are random, and they rampage horribly." "But... well I am sure you've heard rumors or reports of Noise just being in certain areas, scaring people away. Seemingly staying in one location? Those, I am sure, are the ones being controlled by the Alchemists. So... there's that.." he says with another drink of his tea. "Worse, this news is causing some issues in the Government." "Also, I had a very unpleasant conversation with Genjuro's father. He's... a real piece of work, sorry for my statement. Nationalistic and isolationist... using the Lobocorp's abnormality as a scapegoat," he says, frustrated. "Oh the other hand, I locked him out of your HQ. I got bugs tracking to make sure nobody is leaking or creating back doors through my security updates," he says, looking a little smug and satisfied with himself. He takes some fudge. "Mmm. This actually turned out good."
Hibiki Tachibana	"...Wild Noise and Tamed Noise...? Talk about on the nose names..." Hibiki murmurs, although it sounds like she's not actually jabbing at him seriously. And she's still sitting up straight and listening close. With a definite frown on her face. "...The former's what we're used to dealing with. And the latter are these guys using them for their own stuff. Yeah. Tsubasa and I have had to go clear out ones like that a few times - normally, Noise spread out from where they start and go hunting people down. Sticking to one area isn't normal. But we can't take any chances with them, so..." Trailing off, Ishirou can get the impression from Hibiki's expression that the news of the government issues aren't a huge surprise to her - but knowing Hibiki, she probably isn't super in the know on all the details. Or if she was, she'd...well. You know. Still, there's a frown on her face. "The commander's father...and Tsubasa's grandpa, I guess. I haven't really heard anything about him other than he was the one who used to run the division. Even they don't really talk about him. So I'm not gonna take any offense. Still, what is it with everyone's dads...?" She makes a sound and lets out a quiet exhale, the last sentence coming lower than the last couple. Especially when a certain Abnormality is mentioned. And with Ishirou confirming that he indeed baked everything here, she reaches forward to grab a second cookie. "...Well, let's hope he doesn't stir up trouble about that later, I guess. All this stuff is way over my head. It shouldn't be this hard to just work with each other to solve problems. I wanna solve all the ones we have before even more show up..."