Catching (up with a) Jellyfish

    "Excuse me, did you say you saw an Undine maid-witch?" The lander looks over to see an inquisitive feline were fang. "Wheeeere?" Mizuki adds, smiling toothily.

    And so it is that a ninja drops off a rooftop right in front of Jazuhanzu. "Jazz!" She smiles, eyes almost closed, but it's a little bit off. Maybe a little... yandere?

    "You ran away." An almost-cheerful observation, followed by a light-hearted tone but paired with leaning clooose to Jazz's face. "What the fuck."

                            Mizuki remembered that.                            

"GAWAH," is what Jazz says when Mizuki suddenly appears in front of her. She jumps back from her, throwing up the shrimp cakes dish she was snacking on. it's raining shrimps! And Mizukis!

"...THE HELL DID YOU COME FROM?" she squeaks.

It is adorable.

    Does she smell... Shrimp!? That can't be allowed to go to waste! Mizuki snatches the plate out of the air and catches the cakes with feline ninja agility so they don't fall on the ground and shatter into polygons. Then she tries to glare at Jazz again, but... the yandere act just sort of flows out of her as she thinks about what Jazz must be going through, looking that cute.

    "The roof. I'm a ninja. I've been doing the roofrunning thing since day one." She nibbles on a shrimp cake.

"Just don't start playing the soundtrack to the Crow in your head and you'll go far," remarks Jazz, dryly.

"I did beat a rather hasty retreat when your egg was cracking," she remarks. "I'm sorry. It was a bit too much for me to handle at the moment." She stares at her having cauight the cakes and then holds her hand out. She wants her cakes back, thanks. She's just out and saying it, anywa6y.

    Mizuki takes a moment to get that. "I never actually saw that movie." And to get the other thing. She sets the plate on a nearby barrel or crate and slumps. "Too much for *you* to handle..." she echoes, sarcastically.

    She sees Jazz reching out and takes a half-step back so Jazz can reclaim her plate. But she keeps the cake she's bitten down on. She bites off the piece of the cake and holds the rest of it in her hand while she chews, thoughtfully. Finally she swallows.

    "I guess I can see how that'd be a lot, and you're not someone who could have given me the hug I needed, but still... I was scared. What was I supposed to do with a realization like that?"

    Mizuki sighs. "I *still* don't know what to do. I'm still not sure, but it keeps coming back to me liking *this* body better and *that's* the one I'd loathe going back to. If that means I'm a girl, what am I supposed to do? I don't know how to be a girl..."

"Yes. Too much for me to handle. I know that might sound unfair and it probably is, but I've never promised anyone that I'm going to be able to be helpful, or right, at all times. Obviously, given the entire war situation is my fault, that's plainly obvious for anyone to see."

It's unfair of her to say thawt the war is her fault. It's demonstrably isn't, but still, one can hardly blame her for feeling responsible when she's the one who opened the door and helped chart the path to the Palace Lands in the first place.

She folds her arms axcross her chest, then ends that to take her plate back.

"I was the wrong person to help you then. I'm the wrong person to help you now. But I can tell you one thing: what you just said is a lie. You're still lying to yourself. You're going to need to unlearn that. There's no 'learning to be a girl' for you. You were /always/ a girl. That's what being trans is -- and you *are* transgender, Mizuki, and that meant you've been a girl your whole life. You're just dealing with the expectation that you should be a /boy/, now, and you don't need to worry about that. But let's not make that mistake: you're a girl. You were always a girl. You already know how to be a girl because that just means being you."

    The war is Jazz's fault?! "WHAT?!" Although, any thoughts about that are rapidly pushed out of her mind as she starts to look uncomfortable at Jazz's words, her fur standing on end. "I... wh... but..." She struggles to wrap her brain around it. "I mean, I haven't always... there's stuff I don't know... I haven't acted..." she struggles to put a fuzzy feeling in her head into words, then finally lets it go to say another, more concrete thought: "How can you be so sure, now, when you didn't say anything before...?"

"I wasn't sure until now," says Jazz, "I had no idea back when I talked to you about any of it. And then you were right there, right in front of me, realizing what was always there. I don't have 'transceiver' or 'gaydar', Mizuki. But now, given what you just said, now I know I'm right."

She shrugs her shoulders.

"You acted the way you thought you were supposed to. Now you can act the way you want to. Go do that." She gestures vaguely, "and live the life you want to live. And if I'm wrong, and you realize that I'm wrong, then you'll still be better off than you were because at least you'll have properly interrogated yourself on the matter."

    Mizuki looks confused at the admission Jazz wasn't sure, then nervous again at the 'what you just said, now I know I'm right'. "Wh... how???" She holds her hand to the side of her head. "And it could still be wrong??? How am I supposed to be sure then?? I'm... I'm scared, Jazz, part of... if part of my life has been a lie, how do I know what else is... or isn't??"

"Gender normative people don't generally feel the urges or needs or desires you do. You do because you *aren't*. That you're happier this way and worried about what hgappens when you have to go back to your old one says everything to me. But that's to me. The only answer that really matters is your own, and you feel happy, so ... be happy about it. You're a girl. And a cat. A cat-girl. You'd be one heck of an idol back home to a lot of transwomen."

Her voice is wry here. "Identity can be complicated, is all I'm saying, but it more often is very simple. If you think you're a girl, you're a girl. If you want to be that, you're that." She tips her hat.

"I don't think you need to worry."

    Mizuki's ears blush brightly at the thought of being an idol to anyone. She... never viewed herself as particularly successful, outside. Just... getting by.

    She leans against a nearby building. "I... hnn. I'm new to thinking like this, you know? Like... if it's all... I can just be a thing, if I want to, then... what does it even mean to be the thing? Guy or girl..."

    She takes a breath, then lets it out. "I was talking about it... even less eloquently, with someone, and she said I should just do what's fun. I guess now that's two giving me the same advice... I figured... I just figured... that's the clumsy way to do it, right? I'm used to, like... Okay, I guess you find the solution to problems by experimenting... but you figure out a direction to go based on background knowledge, and you get all that from books and the internet... back when we had that internet, anyway. Man, think how weird it'd be to decade-ago us that we'd be talking about the internet in the past tense now..."

    She shakes her head. "Anyway. I feel like... there's that knowledge I should be getting? To understand this? Or... is that exactly what boils down to 'do what you want instead of thinking there's a realer answer?"

    She scratches the side of her head confusedly. "I work with computers. They do what they're programmed to, it's all very... thing-oriented... stereotypical guy thing, right? But it's not like there aren't girls into computers, I guess maybe I'm proof of that... just, the ones who know they're girls and who everyone else sees as girls are driven off by creeps... like most of the girls into tabletop games..." She sighs. And then laughs. "I guess I just retroactively made the gender balance of a bunch of gaming groups way less unbalanced! Haha."

    "...Sorry, um, as I was saying... what was I saying? Right, like, it's all concrete stuff. I can't fix a broken computer by working out how I feel about it. So this is... weird? New?"

"...Mizuki," says Jaz, after a moment of putting her hand to her face.

"The name Dani Bunten mean anything to you? She was a video game developer, back when computers were just really getting rolling in the 80s. Invented games like 'MULE' and 'Seven Cities of Gold'. Very famous. Trans people have been involved in computer work for *ever*." She rubs her eye, squinting at her with one almost lambently amber eye .

"I can't put myself in your shoes but the answer is, as always, unlearn the bullsdhit and go with what your heart tells you. You've made it abundantly clear you're happier this way, so ... be that you."

    Mizuki blank stares, until "I've heard of MULE, though I never played it. ...I guess now I never will..." She purses her lips thoughtfully and stares down at the road. "Never going to play a lot of games... even if I were back outside, not like I can go to Home of the Underdogs anymore..."

    Another breath. "My heart is bad at communicating, though... but..." She looks at Jazz. "Is that what everyone's doing? Just figuring it out? There's no certain plan? ...I guess that kind of explains why I was never able to think of a future beyond gaming, huh..."

    "And what about you, though?" Mizuki's eyes widen and her ears perk up as she remembers something. "Oh! Another player mentioned the concept of an aesthetician. An appearance-change NPC. Even if it doesn't exist in this game, that means it doesn't exist in the world NOW, such a discipline might have existed in the past! Maybe--" And then she deflates a bit. "Aaaaand you've already thought of this and would already be looking into it because of *course* you would for the exact reverse reason *I* haven't cared one whit about finding a way to turn back into a guy. Right. Sorry..."

"...yeah," says Jazz, "Of course I've thought of that. Of course." She ottally hadn't, and that's obvious. "But, no. I won't be availing myself of their services for now. This avatar was made by a friend of mine for a reason. I don't know wdhat it was, but I'm going to keep it just in case. Until I do. Or until I'm here long enough I can't stand it anymore." She shrugs her shoulders.

    Now it's Mizuki's turn to look concerned for Jazz. "But... isn't it unpleasant? And it's been over a year and a half..." She starts to reach out towards Jazz's shoulder, then stays her hand and drops it to her side again. Then looks down at it. "I've been a lot more touchy-feely in here, huh." She mimics an enthusiastic tone with a grin, "'It would be a waste *not* to give hugs when you're a big fuzzy kitty!'" and then back to serious, "But... it's not that I didn't want to, but that it'd have been weird... and it'd be either creepy or gay... and I don't wanna creep people out, and I'm not g-- well... I guess I am but not *that* way!"

    Mizuki sighs. She glances at Jazz, then back down at the road. "...An image that's occupied my mind... before... any realizations, was... every time I think about us getting out of here... I imagine going to see Wisteria... and, I could believe she really will still see me as this, but a friendly hug like we do in here... in THAT body, and her a teenage girl? I know what people are gonna think... and..." she clenches her fist.

    "I guess how creepy and wrong that seems in my head, is just more proof, huh?" She looks at Jazz. "What could possibly be the point of forcing you to go through this? *I* did it to myself because I *wanted* to be a cute catgirl, I thought it'd be fun, but that's because" she stumbles over the next unfamiliar phrase with deliberation, "I-I'm a girl... But you're not, so it wouldn't make sense to think it'd be fun for you, right? Unless..."

    Her eyes widen. "Does your friend think *you're* trans? Err, an egg? And they thought you'd like it? Or... maybe they're like me, so they thought, well, 'wouldn't anyone like it?'...?"

Jazuhanzu just stares at Mizuki for a long time as she talks. And talks. And talks.

She waits for her turn, though it's a struggle for her to get through it. And then she drops the last bit and she just kind of shakes her head and lets out a breath.

"No, no. That wouldn't be it. Benji and I go way back, and if he thought that, he'd have told me years ago. That's not his style, and he'd have been wronmg beside... and if there's one thing about Benjiro that I know, it's that he's almost nevert wrong. He's also an immense troll. But there's *another* reason. There's always another reason. And until I know what that reason is, this stays. Besides, everyone knows me this way. Changing it would be a pain in the ass at this point, and I'd still be a weird mer-person besides."

    A weird mer-person... Mizuki brushes her fingers over her own neck, where Jazz's gills are. "It's really that weird, huh? I mean, it's really that bad? I'd have thought getting to try another shape with new abilities would be cool... well." She makes sort of a shrugging gesture to indicate herself.

    "You looked like you had something to say about the other thing? Hugs and all that?"

"...I don't like hugs?" says Jazz carefully, "But most people do, so," she shrugs her shoulders, the tips of her tentacles turning into little question marks.

    Mizuki stares at the tentacles. "That's so cool you've figured out how to control them!" She is not at all thinking about how cats often shape their tail into a question mark and it's obviously not meant as punctuation.

"...what?" says Jazz.

She has no idea. She totally doesn't. She looks down at them. They wiggle.

"... I don't think I control them so much as they just do their thing independently of me and sometimes that's due to something sublimated."

    Mizuki ohs. "Kinda like my tail and ears when I'm not thinking about them? Or, y'know, breathing." She takes another bite of shrimp cake and looks down at her hand, extending and retracting claws. "Would you have rather been a catperson instead of a merperson?"

"No, I don't know. I have no idea," says Jazz. "I never gave it much thought because I'm here. I'd probably have just picked human." She sshakes her head, adjusting her hat again. A bite of shrimp cake.

    As Jazz adjusts the hat, Mizuki comments, "I like your outfit. The witch look is very cool and I'd totally do that if I were playing a more wizard-y class. I've always loved the witch style." Beat. She blinks and stares into space at a thought. "Huh."

    Then she looks more thoughtful. "I wonder if there's a way to pull off a ninja witch look? Maybe Gwen would know..."

    "...What do you mean you started the war? That can't be true, right?"

"Sure. Put on a hat."

Jazz takes her hat off and aims to slap it on Mizuki's head.

"I lowered the quarantine. I lead the way to the Palace Lands. Well, one of the people who lead the way. So that they're even here? My doing. I helped make contact there and left the gate open for them to come this way. So, yes. It's my fault. If I hadn't done that then they wouldn't be here."
% She shakes her head. It's not really her fault, of course, but one can imagine why she feels responsible all the same.

    Mizuki is hatted. She looks around for a reflective surface to consider Ninja Witch.

    "What?! That's ridiculous! That'd be like... the person who invented the personal computer blaming themselves for us getting isekai'd! You couldn' have known this would happen, and exploration, like the personal computer, is important!"

"Personal computers aren't killing people right here on their own," says Jazz, carefully, to Mizuki, "and I'd appreciate you not telling me how to feel about something." She looks tense a moment. But just a moment.

She combs her fingers through her entirely, ridicuolously long hair. It wafts in ethereally in the wind.

    Mizuki can tell she's struck a nerve, and she tries to verbally juke and move on. "I'm sorry." Her arms start to lift but only get a few degrees before dropping. THE INSTINCT TO HUG IS STRONG IN THIS ONE. She fails to smoothly transition it into popping the rest of the shrimp cake in her mouth.

    Unthinkingly, she mirrors Jazz's gesture and her fingers get stuck in the tangles.

    "...So... What were you working on before I dropped out of the sky?"

"No," is what Jazz says, "I was eating shrimp cakes."

She looks at her now diminished plate of shrimp cakes.

"Did it help?" she asks.

    "Shrimp are one of my favorite foods... I've never seen them made into cakes before."

    Beat.

    She only took the one cake! "Maybe a little. But more helpful was..." She rubs the side of her head once she's managed to extricate her hand from her hair, "Talkin' about this stuff. I've been feeling all mixed up and confused for months! All 'what am I supposed to do??', 'am I a girl or a guy?'! At least now I kinda have a direction... and more evidence for 'girl'..."

"...just use the force, Mizuki. the Gendered-force. Look into your heart, you know it to be true, etcetera."

She reaches back to take her hat back and place it back upon her own head. The tips of her ears wiggle.

    Mizuki laughs! A good long one! "Aha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaa...!" She mimes holding a two-handed sword and makes lightsaber noises with her mouth. "Is it like a pink lightsaber?" She pretends to slash it with mouth sound effects. "Wait, is that sexist? ...Against myself?"

"...no. There is nothing wrong with liking pink," says Jazz with a sigh. "Stop worrying so much about these things. You were never allowed to experience the pinku-crazes of youth and what not, so go ahead and enjoy your girlhood now. Got that?"

She pinches the bridge of her nose.

    The catgirl almost-giggles. "I didn't mean it *completely* seriously. I dunno if I *do* like pink though." She holds her finger to her chin thoughtfully. "I like strawberries, and strawberry-flavored stuff is often pink... shrimp are pink too! Huh. I guess I'll just keep it in mind as an option!"

    "So, what are you working on lately? Besides eating shrimp cakes. Or is it like, secret stuff? This whole..." She makes a vague gesture at the world, "situation, the way people are dividing up, really messes stuff up, huh? There's secret Scale stuff I'm not supposed to tell anyone, so I understand if it's stuff you can't tell me, too."

    "Oh hey, speaking of scale stuff, have you been to the hot baths in Tolbana? They're really nice! ...Oh. Oh that'd be hella awkward huh, nevermind, I'm sorry I brought it up... wait, they have like little private baths too, you can enjoy the warm water by yourself if you prefer!"

"While a hot bath sounds lovely, I'm not going a long distance for one. I just use the sanitation function when I get around to bothering."

Jazz tips her hat again to straighten it before staring at Mizuki for a long moment.

"I'm trying to figure out how to help. I'm not really a fighter, and there's something else I need to figure out anyway."

She squints at Mizuki warily a moment.

    Beat. "You don't have to go a long distance, the inns here have baths too. Haven't you been to Dun Loireag before?"

    Mizuki stops leaning on the wall and turns to face Jazz, then takes a half-step back. "Uhh, what's wrong? Have I got something on my face?"

"Well, you were talking about Tolbana," points out Jazz, "So I thought about *that*. I don't really use the baths in the inn rooms either. Like I said, the sanitation function is enough. What's so weird about that? No, nothing is wrong. You just seem happier. It's good."

    *That*. ...Mizuki has no idea. She blinks. "Why wouldn't I be happier? I've got some confusion cleared up... and the last time you saw me, I was... I was so scared this 'dysphoria' was some condition that was gonna happen to me, like a psychological disease that affected every other crossplayer in like a month, and I'd gone so long? It could hit me any day!"

    She clasps her hands together low in front of her and looks away a bit awkwardly. "I like being Mizuki. The idea that it might become something that would hurt me... you can see why I was scared, right?"

    "Well, a-anyway..." Mizuki looks back to Jazz, "Thanks. For talking to me about stuff. Like I said, today you helped me feel better... I guess I'll see ya around, alright? With this war stuff going on... we'll both end up drawn to where the action is sooner or later, right?"