Lunch after a Hard day

    After the... just terrible day he's had, Hifumi heads out after getting his reward from the merchant. He limps his way out to the fountain in the square and sits down on the rim. He reaches into his inventory and pulls out a bento box of his own, the same as the ones he made for everyone's 'payment'. He makes a few gestures, tracing runes in the air and calls "Snapdragon come." a flash of fire magic on his shoulder clears to a small dragon like creature made up of red and white flowers, with thorns for teeth and claws and with leaf wings.

    Miyako has carried the poor Spriggan girl from the rat-fest up to one of the bedrooms and set her there to rest and sleep off the drug Hifumi gave her. Quietly, she pads back down the steps to rejoin the rest, guitar still slung over her back. "Hey," she stage-whispers to Hifumi. "You still got her guitar?"

Hifumi smiles "Got a copy, turned the original over to Himawari-San and got one like it as my quest reward." He says, un wrapping his bento. It's rice and a grilled herring with a seaweed salad and a pickled fruit in the middle of the rice. Pretty classic if a bit low class, but then he did say he doesn't have a proper kitchen yet. He produces chopsticks and starts in on his rice.

    "Oh, hey you guys~," a familiar voice calls out towards the fountain then -- and lo and behold, there's a certain olive-skinned salamander with a golden scarf moving over towards them, with one of the bento boxes Hifumi had given out after the job. "Did the girl get settled okay?" Atif asks of both of them, before moving up a bit closer to Hifumi, looking him over curiously. "How are you feeling? I can still expend some healing spells if you need it."

    "I'll have to speak to Himawari-san and get it back, then," Miyako replies. "Make sure it hasn't been damaged." She gets up and steps away to do just that, making sure that it gets placed in the same room as the girl.

    Eventually, however, she returns, her own instrument still slung over her shoulder. She pulls the bento she was given earlier from her inventory and sits back down with the group.

    Hifumi nods his head "Yah she's gotten laid down and Himawari-san will take care of her till she wakes up. I use that potion when I can't sleep so she should wake up feeling at least somewhat better." he says and eats some of his salad with his chopsticks. "Eat your bento, relax, we're done with the hard work for now."

    "Just wanted to be sure!" Atif chimes out, still cheerful enough, and he promptly turns himself over around so he can plop himself down to sitting on the edge of the fountain with the bento settled on his lap, scaley red tail swishing from side to side idly behind him. "It's too bad such an innocent thing caused trouble like that..."

It's a rare thing for Jazz to get out of the Alne. She is, after all, a fairly low level character alongside everyone else, hampered by the fact thatq she is, in fact, an actual low level character with an actual newbie player behind the sc-... well, not behind a screen anymore, now is she?

The Undine is taking her time ambling through the city. She didn't really have a whole lot of time to sight see the last time she was here and now it's obvious that's *exactly* what she's doing, turning her wide, almost lambent amber eyes this way and that.

"Mmmn. Hmm..."

    Hifumi is sitting on the edge of the fountain with a bento lunch along with Atif and Miyako. "This, is just what I can do with Snapdragon helping." he says "Once I get the kitchen up and running, and have serving space it'll be grand. Tell me what you think don't leave me in susupense huh?" he takes a bite of rice as he looks between the ones he's sitting it.

    Miyako sets the matter of the guitar aside for now. She opens up her bento, readies her chopsticks, and tries a bite. "Hmm," she muses as she chews. "Interesting. Been too long... Weeks without good food was starting to wear on me." She smiles, though. "Quite passable. You used chicken broth instead of water, for the rice?"

    Chopstick produced up, the olive-skinned half-lizardman sets to bringing up some food to his mouth, too. Eyes closing for a moment while he chews through the chicken. "Mmmm." Swallowed up, he flashes a bright smile to Hifumi. "I like it!" He offers. "You'll do great, I think. Brighten up a lot of peoples' days with this food."

    His neck cranes a bit to send a peek over to Miyako's side, too. "I'm sorry I grabbed at your guitar like that back there, by the way," he murmurs, with his smile taking on a bit more of an apologetic tone. Enough to show the sincerity behind his words, at least. "I liked your music. Just... thought the song wasn't the best choice for... you know." He sighs. "...Not that it mattered. Force was what came of it in the end anyway."

Gwen has just been slowly eating her meal and she looks to Miyako.

"You know I can cook too, going to be putting a small food stall in my place but not a full-on restaurant. I had people pay me for buttered /toast/." R
She notes as she keeps eating. "We're in a world with magic so who the heck knows anymore. Pizza, I need to try that later..."

    Hifumi shakes his head and grins "Nah, mushroom stock, need to make arangements for meats other than just small fish." he says "When the kitchen is up and I have proper suppliers." he seems super pleased with the food praise. "I hope so, Adventurers and Landers alike need something to look forward to." he says and eats a bit of the grilled fish. Small oily fishy with that charcoal grill flavor in the crisped skin. Just as it should be. Rice is nice. Salad is nutty and has a taste of the sea to it from the seaweed. The pickle in the rice is super sour.

    Miyako nods. "Ahhhh. It's been too long if I can't tell chicken stock from mushroom. Damn." She shakes her head, then tries another bite and smiles at the taste.

    Looking over to Atif, she nods. "Yeah. Just... it's a musician thing, okay? You never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, for any reason at all, touch somebody else's axe without asking first. It's pretty much one of the single most rude things you can ever do." She pauses for a minute, then adds, "But, yeah, thanks for getting me off of Sam the Skull. Great song... horrible timing."

And then she hears -- overhears really -- the voices of Gwen and Miyako. Her tentacles lift and point that away, reacting to their presence before she actually acknowledges it and recognizes them by turning that way.

"Oi. Shield boss," calls Jazz to Gwen, her light and airy anime-voicer-actress-omgsocute-voice sharply cutting across the street, followed by her actual physical presence as she more lazily moves her way over there, hands jammed into the pockets of her long coat.

"Fancy meeting you here," she adds.

    "I fully understand," Atif assures to Miyako, with a dip of his head. "I had to think fast back then, but still... I am sorry. It will not happen again, I promise this to you. I will try to make it up to you, too, however I can." Shoveling a bit of salad into his mouth too, he lifts up his brows. "Pizza?" At this, he scratches one scaly finger over his much more human jawline. "That's not exactly something common around these parts. I wonder how the landers will take that..."

    Miyako nods to Atif. "Yeah, be glad I was so focused on Sprite-girl upstairs there, I barely noticed you. I've known guys who'd let you badmouth their mother in public without a word, but you so much as lay a hand on their instrument and they'd rip your head off."

    She shrugs. "Wait, wait, pizza? Where? Do you know how long it's been since I had so much as one bite of one? I'd /kill/ for a good pizza."

Gwen says "Jazz, same to you. I was checking out the hour glass rumour and haven't headed back home just yet. IT's good to see you though. Enjoying things out this way? I just want pizza and to try to BBQ later. Look if there's one thing I want to keep from Earth it's the food. What they take to our food is up to them I just want Pizza..."

    Hifumi smiles and finishes another big bite of rice. "Well pizza isn't my specialty, but I'll be certainly making some baked goods." he sips some water from a flask and puts it away. He relaxes a bit. "I cannot wait to see people enjoying more of my food."

    A bit of color drains from Atif's face -- though with his naturally-darker skintone it might not be as easy to notice. "P-...please don't decapitate me," he murmurs, voice a bit meeker than his usual cheerful one. "But... If you feel like you should at least deck me for that, I would understand that much."

    Attention turning over to Hifumi and Gwen again, he lets out a low, thoughtful rumble in his throat. "... I would like some donuts again."

    Mizuki is walkiing through Dun Loireag when her ears hear A MAGIC WORD. (The word is 'pizza'.)

    She finds her way to the gathering... but it's pretty easy to pick up that they're talking about hoping to make pizza rather than actually having some available right now. Still, that's hopeful! "I'd kill monsters for some pizza. I guess to the landers it'd just be a type of exotic cuisine... like going out to an Italian restaurant to eat, right? Or... an American one? I miss cheeseburgers too... not so much fast food, but home-cooked ones are good... not that I'd complain about a McDonald's or a Burger King or a Wendy's right now... Also pasta... has pasta been invented yet here? How close is it to ramen, do they have ramen? I don't actually know the difference..."

    Mizuki rants excitedly about food and turns to Atif at the mention of donuts. "Donuts! Cake! Ice cream! For that matter, junk food!"

    She holds a hand to her chin. "Although... with the focus on fresh meat and lack of excessive fat and salt and sugar, is it possible that the past month is the healthiest I've ever eaten? Would we get fat if we ate like we did at home...?"

"There's so many good foods I miss from America *and* Japan," says Jazz with a heavy sigh. And then Mizuki is starting over and talking and she startles, turning towards her and saying, "Fancy meeting you here too... again," she adds, vaguely amused tone creeping into her voice. "I heard about the attack and the hourglass, obviously. I was curious myself, but most of dealing with that is ..." She waves her hand nebulously in the aiqr, "...way out of my league, I suppose."

Kureba Gyaru does the real-world(ish) version of sidling in from off-screen by way of breaking from the crowd enough to make it clear she's come over to bother the group, though she makes that extra clear by rather loudly asking in an over-the-top-cheerful voice, "Did someone say DOUGHNUTS?" She then holds up a basket covered with a white-and-blue gingham cloth and immediately disappoints, "I don't have any of those, but I have fish buns. Fish buns? Anybody? They're kind of like doughnuts, but with fish."

    Hifumi finishes up his bento and packs it away. The small flower dragon on his shoulder drooping and looking sad until he holds up the head of the grilled fish and feeds it to the small summon. It makes happy little wiggle motions and a 'roar' motion without any sound. Flower incense scented smoke drifting from it's nose.

    "Hello there." he says to the Cait Sith with her fish buns.

Gwen says "But would you model clothing for me for Pizza?"

She grins a bit at Mizuki but it's a very predatory smile.

"Yeah I miss real proper burgers. Now you are getting greedy you want to chain people with the maid job in the kitchen or something? How do you get donuts from /fish/?"

    "That was half of why I got into VR," Miyako assures Mizuki. "So I could eat UN-healthily without screwing myself over more than I already was." She shrugs. "Still. Yeah. Pizza, donuts, burgers... I miss it all. And one way or another I am going to get them back."

    She looks briefly over at fish-bun-person. "Meat buns with a fish filling, I take it?" She hmms. "May I?" She reaches out towards the basket, as if to take one.

    Mizuki's ears turn around, followed by the rest of her, to look at Kureba Gyaru.

    It... takes a moment to process what she's seeing. The outfit made of leaves and vines, combined with writing on her body and event badges is just... what.

    "...Like donuts but fish...?" She looks at the others. Then back at Kureba. "I'm... cautiously optimistic?"

    Then Gwen asks a question and she turns, "Of course I--" although she freezes, for a moment, at the look Gwen is making. "...What's that face supposed to mean?"

Kureba Gyaru gives a little wave to the summoner, then opens her mouth to explain to Gwen, then nods vigorously and points at Miyako, "Yes, that! Fish buns. And yeah, go for it. Free sample, I guess? if you like it, get your friends to buy some for real." She slides over closer to Miyako and holds up the basket to let her take her pick from the still-warm buns. Mizuki's positive maybe is enough to sound encouraging, so she gets the basket pushed at her as well before the cait sith takes a look around at each person gathered, in turn, "So...are you guys, like...a party? Like a proper all-the-time party? What's that like?"

"...are they cracker fish buns or /real/ fish buns?" asks Jazz of Kureba, warily. She doesn't want to take a bite into Edible Disappointment like she suspects she might have to. And besides, AMalthea would probably approve of 'edible disappointment', anyway.

She gives Gwen a dirty look aqt the suggestion of modeling in exchange for tasty food. "Low blow, Shield BOss," she tells her.

    "I said donuts!" Atif pipes out eagerly with gleaming green eyes. He looked at Kureba with excited eagerness, too, only for his lips to purse into a sad little frown briefly when the revelation comes that there are in fact, none. But his eyes widened up again quickly. "Can I try one of them?" He asks of the Cait Sith in regards to the fish buns, feet lifting up off the ground to tap their heels together briefly.

    Though at the notion of an 'all-time-party', he cocks his head lightly. "Mmmm... I actually met everyone here just an hour ago," he confesses. "So I wouldn't know." A big scaley tail thumps once, twice at the fountain anyway.

Gwen grins at Mizuki and Jaz for a moment and just grins. "I dunno Mizuki! What do you thinkand I do more than just pay gold for it and it's not like I'm opening a Maid cafe..."

Yet. She goes back to her food for the moment and she looks at Atif andgrins

"I would love one myself but well what can you do, right? Also I won't lie Jaz part of why I was out here was to get away from Morri and Uther for a bit."

    Mizuki takes a fish bun. "Some of us here have partied before. But this is an MMO, not a fantasy manga. There's thousands of players, we'll be in different parties on different days." She takes a bite of the fishbun and looks disappointed. She opens her mouth and lets the bite of food drop to the floor. "Soggy crackers... no offense, but I can't eat this food anymore..." still, she puts it in her inventory as an emergency ration.

    Hifumi smiles and shakes his head. He reaches into his inventory and produces a bento. "Here, you're only going to sell your buns to Landers." He says and holds the bento out to Kureba. "Have something that tastes like food." he says and smiles widely.

    Miyako was about to take one of the fish buns, too, but then she hears Mizuki's disappointed judgement and withdraws her hand. "Oh, darn," she sighs. "And yeah, never use the menu to craft something unless you're desperate."

Kureba Gyaru should definitely know these things, but clearly doesn't, despite having definitely been stuck in the game for a good month and change now. She looks genuinely surprised to learn this information and scratches her head, "Oh, yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Landers do always seem to like them way more. I just thought -I- thought they were gross." She hooks the basket over her shoulder and takes the bento, but doesn't actually dig in just now. Instead, she looks kind of crestfallen, brow furrowed. She stays that way for a long, potentially awkward moment, then pipes up again to try to argue with Mizuki, for some reason, "But you COULD have an all-the-time group, right? Like, if you really wanted to. If you found, say, a really good support that you got along with super well. And a tank, and a DPS, and all that? You could just always hang around with them? And be friends?"

    "That would be pretty cool," Atif notes in agreement to Kureba's words, giving his heels another light tap-together. "To end up such good friends with some people that you would go through everything together, thin and thick." He lets out a little forlorn sigh at that thought. Wishful thinking, perhaps.

    His brows jump up a bit when he looks at Gwen, though. "...Maid Cafe..." There's just a quiet little gulp in the back of his throat. And just like that, he elects he is best off not saying anything else about that notion.

Gwen says "Got to know your market Atif." She not she will politely refuse the menu foor at this point. "Some people do also that's called a guild really when you get down to it. Unless you want to pull a Tea Party?"

    Miyako politely ignores the comment about a 'maid cafe'. Never did understand the appeal. "Now, the Tea Party was a pretty special bunch. Worked well because they were all -damned good-, and they had -teamwork-. No pug is going to match that."

Jazuhanzu gives Gwen a dirty look. Maid Cafe. Hmph.

She folds her arms across her chest, her expression scrunching up with distaste. How /dare/ she. "Mori?" she queries, "Uther?" Of course, her scrunched up face only makes her look even *more* adorable. It simply can not be helped. This is the Tao of Being Jazz or something.

There's an absent nod towrds Kureba before she agrees, "I've heard some of the stories since I've been in game," she admits. "... of course, it doesn't hurt that I've actually met Shiroe now and feel like his reputation is probably at least a little deserved." Another dirty look at Gwen.

Gwen says "Worked with Shiroe on the rescue efforts, what can I say he lived up to things on that. As for Mori and Uther? Err..." She looks embrassed "My Parents. Yes I'm the child of two nerds they got me into online games in the first place."

    "I suppose you could, but I don't see the point in limiting yourself... plus, some events require bigger groups than a single small party." She glances to gwen. "I'm with the Odysseia Knights but I don't party exclusively with them... And even the Tea Party eventually fell apart." Even she's heard about them, from others in the Scale Alliance camp.

    She looks back to Gwen. "You're lucky. My parents would never choose to play games with me..."

    She looks back to Kureba. "But, you know... you can still hang out with friends even if you're not around the same ones 24/7."

    Then she rezzes a chunk of raw monster meat and tears off a bite. Anything to cleanse the palate of soggy crackers!

    Pets his flower dragon and sips his water. He just listens. He's spent a lot of time in games but would never really consider himself a gamer so some of this is new to him.

    "... I.. guess..." Is all Atif says to Gwen before Jazu exchanges some words with her. Perhaps realizing that there is some kind of metaphorical box of flies been opened just now, he elects to stay silent and occupy his mouth with eating more of the food from Hifumi's provided bento while watching the two.

Kureba Gyaru glances back and forth between the lot, from one to the next, round and round, everybody in turn, then seems to rather suddenly make a decision, "Okay, time for me to go! Thanks for the bento, and uh, I'll try to make real fish buns next time. I'm gonna go make the landers buy these off me!" That said, and with no further aplomb, fanfare, or courtesies whatsoever, the cait sith runs (literally) back off into the crowd and disappears into the city as quickly as she'd appeared.

"...your parents," says Jazz, staring at Gwen.

Just /staring/ at her.

"...your paaaaaaaarents," she begins, fingers steepling together in front of her. She smiles at Gwen. "Is that right. I had no idea. Your parents are trapped in game. How fortunate you are to have family to lean on in this time of deep crisis and peril." The way she says it, of course, can not hide that the wheels are already in motion in her mind. SWeet, swet vengeance is that gleam in her eye.

    Mizuki watches Kureba run off. What an odd girl...

    Now the local conversation is getting weird. She looks at Gwen. "You know, come to think of it, you've been kind of vague about the whole operation. You want models for clothes, but what kind of clothes, exactly?"

Gwen looks to Jazz for a moment if she catches on to what Jaz is thinking shedoens't show any sign of it. "Look i know i'tjm lucky in that respect and i feel a but guilty about it..."

    Miyako sighs softly after spending several minutes deep in thought, then stands. "Sorry, guys, I've got to go check something. Catch you around later." She waits a minute or two for replies, then departs, heading out into the city.

    Mizuki sends Miyako off with a nod and a wave. Then back to Gwen. "...You shouldn't have to... feel guilty."

    "Take care out there," Atif calls after Miyako with a cheerful wave. "May I get to hear your music under better circumstances."

    As for the conversation that has taken over here, drifting into both 1) clothes and 2) family in the game, Atif decides to return to silence. For various reasons. Especially because of numer 1), he tries to make himself as small and unnoticable as possible. Like a six-foot man with a golden scarf could ever be unnoticable.

    Hifumi digs in his bag and pulls out a pair of onigiri he holds one out to Atif and bites into his own. Clothes aren't really his thing either.

Giving GWen a sympathetic look, Jazz merely nods at her. "I understand," she says, quietly, with a muted mumbled, "It must be difficult in its own way. Especially knowing this could last for so long, and who knows if we even age?" Stick the knife in deeper.

Gwen spauses for a moment "It be worse without them honestly and ...." Gwen seems down but then when Jaz brings up they might not age. "... Immortal and not aging that ... would be amazing!"

    Hifumi smiles at the thought. "That's a dream beyond a dream." he says flexing and squeezing his right hand while staring at it oddly. He eats the Onigiri with his left hand. "A world where we don't age, where even death is temporary, and where all wounds heal with time or magic." he takes another bite and sounds whistful.

    The knife in who, exactly? Mizuki hadn't thought about that possibility since after the weird wall at Ezzo. "But that'd mean I'd be a catgirl and" she looks at Jazz, "you'd be an undine forever!"

    She looks down at the ground, ears and tail drooping. After Hifumi's words, she comments "More like a dream we can't wake up from..."

    "Not everyone likes that thought," murmurs Atif now in breaking his silence (and after a grateful nibble given to an onigiri provided by Hifumi).

    "...And they're allowed not to. Just like... people are allowed to want to be here as much as they like." A heavy sigh flows past his lips.

    "Everyone should be allowed a choice, right?"

    Hifumi finishes his onigiri and pats Atif on the back. "And some of us live for that dream brother." he says with a smile. "I won't ask which you are, but come by the resturant. Those who want to stay, those who want to go... everyone's welcome, and everyone will need good food regardless."

"Mmmn. Not as amazing as you probably think," muses Jazz as Gwen departs. Then she looks between Hifumi and Mizuki and then she lifts her shoulderws, palms up and out in a helpless shrug. "Maybe. Maybe not. One can hope it's not the case. I don't want to be. But some people think we'll be stuck here forever, that this will be reality going forward. I don't know. I /hope/ not, and think that's putting the cart before the horse, but at least it's something to chew on in the back of your braing alongside *everything else*. A nightmare," she adds to Mizuki, more quietly.

    Mizuki stares off into the distance. "...Eternal life, huh. I can't imagine being stuck in here ten years, let alone a hundred. But I'd certainly rather live than die... But I haven't really thought about..." she shivers, "that."

    Beat.

    "...I had my appendix out earlier this year. Well, last year I guess. I knew there was a small chance of complication but... it's not like there was any other option. After all, if I didn't wake up, well, it wasn't my problem anymore, was it? Either I stop existing or I go to heaven, either way..."

    She continues staring out into the distance. "...And then, there was when I thought I might die in here. Although I guess that's a bit like saying you 'might die' in real life. Things are pretty safe if you play it safe but you could always get hit by a car or caught in an earthquake or something... when Haggar almost killed me all I could do was panic..." She shivers.

    Then the catgirl stands up and begins to pace. "It's not like we can DO anything to become more or less immortal though, is it? Either we are now, or we're not, and not by our own hands."

    "Maybe... Maybe we could re-establish contact with the real world, but stay in here? We could see our friends and family again, do jobs, help people... An' we could get the admins to fix certain things..."

    She scratches her head and turns to Jazz. "Ah, but I guess having it both ways like that'd be pretty selfish, huh...? And when I put it that way it sounds weird... live in the fantasy world, work and socialize in the real one? No job is gonna be as fun as adventuring..."

"Eternal life without eternal youth, if we age, could be ... painful," muses Jazz, thoughtfully, as Mizuki speaks.

"Eh, I guess it's a problem for ... much later, isn't it? No point in dwelling on the things we can't do anything about. Whatever our lot is, we'll get some kind of grasp on it in due time." She gives Mizuki a curious loook, then shrugs her shoulderws.

"It's how things *were*. I never wanted this to be full time. I still don't." She waves a hand, airily.

"Contact is probably going to happen sooner than later. I can't imagine it *not* happening. These servers aren't black boxes, after all."

    Atif, meanwhile, watches the catgirl pacing around. Brows furrowed slightly, and his usual smile receded a well bit. He listens in silence and stillness while she speaks out through her own experiences and thoughts.

    "... I don't really have much waiting for me in the Real," he admits, inevitably, with a heavy sigh. "I guess a lot of us don't. That's... kind of why we came here in the first place, right? Maybe that's cowardly. To admit we're useless when we're there and not try to do anything about it. But then, maybe this place has given a lot of people a reason to go on, too. To have something better. It might be selfish to want it both ways like that. But... maybe it's even more selfish to want it only the one way for everyone. To not let people have that choice to go back.

    The mostly-emptied bento box is bought up from his lap and set onto the empty space next to him on the rim of the fountain, and this allows him to stand up and step up to the catgirl. If she doesn't stop him, he'll reach over, and give a light squeeze to her shoulder.

    "I'm sure it'll all be alright in the end, for everyone," he suggests, with a small smile and a soft voice. "Whatever comes, whatever time we have... what's important is how we go about it, right? The sun eventually comes up again, day after day."

    Hifumi sighs softly "I wouldn't want you girls trapped... just because I'm a selfish old ass." he says and makes a fist and relaxes it with his right hand again. "I'll just have to enjoy cooking for all of you while I can." he says with a soft huff. "And... I need to find out if landers have cigarettes... or I duno maybe I'd have to smoke a pipe or something."

'You girls' simply gets a pained grimace across Jazz's face. She looks at Mizuki. She raises a finger. She taps it to her temple as if to say 'told you so' about something. With that, she turns on her heel and begins to depart, giving a waveo hf her hand.

"Best of luck," she tells Hifumi on the matter of finding cigarettes.

    Eternal life without eternal youth? "Why do you have to think of how to make it worse all the time?!" She nods at the comment of 'we'll find out eventually.'

    She gives Jazz a curious look. "Finally, you say something positive! Yeah, even if we've been Tronned out of our bodies, we're in a computer SOMEWHERE, and some people have got to know about it!"

    She looks at Atif a bit sadly when he says he doesn't have much waiting for him Outside. And hangs her head a little when he reminds her that this life might be giving others something to look forward to the next day. And blinks when he says people should have a choice and gently squeezes her shoulder. She nods. "Once contact is established... hopefully everyone can choose what they want. I..."

    She looks away. "...I'd honestly need to do some soul-searching before I can enthusiastically say, 100%, that if it came down to it I'd rather stay in here for the good of others..." Then looks back at him. "But I couldn't say with certainty that I'd be willing to force them all out just for my own benefit, either."

    She rubs the back of her head. "...Perhaps what matters is the memories we make along the way... and what kind of people those memories make us."

    'You girls' gets the exact same grimace from Mizuki. She looks at Jazz departing. "I didn't want to be this full time either, but it pains me to see you so sad all the time! It's not like you stop being the person you were if you embrace breathing underwater, is it? It's like we're the same people we were before, but now we have superpowers!"

    -.-; "Okay that wasn't a very good simile, actually..."

    "...Honestly, as much as a part of me would prefer to stay here forever..." Atif rolls his broad shoulders around, sending the golden scarf sliding lightly over one. "If it came down to a choice between having everyone stay here and having everyone get booted back to reality... the latter would be the one more grounded in reality. And more selfless... Since a lot of people do have people waiting for them Outside."

    His eyes close briefly, and for a moment... the smile is gone. For just a split few seconds, he looks genuinely sad. But in spite of that, after those few seconds? The warm smile that replaces it still looks sincere in it's brightness.

    "In an ideal world, we'd find that happy medium, where everyone can still choose to come back if they want to. Won't know either way if we don't keep going forward. And that's the best we can really do; keep going one day at a time, make progress little by little... and shine as bright as we can every step of the way. No matter what the outcome is... try our best to be happy and successful until then."

    His eyes open again, then. That smile remains, and his head cocks slightly to one side.

    "Right?"

    Hifumi lightly reaches out and punches Atif in the arm. "You said it brother." he says softly but with a gruff affection to it. "Well spoken." he smiles "And if you're looking for a place in this world like I am, well I'll be hiring Adventurers same as Landers." he offers. The little flower dragon on his shoulder giving a 'puff' of fire and flower scented smoke.

"... you have a strange definition of positive, Mizuki. Careful your grip doesn't slip on all thatg weaponized optimism, you might put someone's eye out with it. It's just an inevitability in my view, something that's bound to occur *eventually*, but eventually could be," she turns back around, puting her hands up in front of her expanisvely, "an infinite span depending on how relative time. I *believe* that won't be the case, but no one really knows, least of all us." She gives them a tilt of her head as she keeps backing away, slowly. Her steps are short on account of her being a shortarse. "Stop sounding like an anime theme song!" She tells Atif turning around again to leave after Atif finishes speaking. "This isn't Pretty Cure!" She adds, giving a look to Mizuki more directly as she says it, hoping to stop it before it's too late, "There's no 'Friends Forever' and whatever ending comes isn't going to thread the needle in a way that makes everyone happy. Chances are, no one will be." And with that, she's gone.

    Mizuki looks at Jazz then Hifumi as the Undine starts to walk off. "Would you be as concerned for us if we weren't cute girls? We could be guys for all you know. Wait, you could be girls." She throws her hands up. "Anyone could be anything!"

    She turns back to Atif. "Is that really the selfless choice? Some of us may have people and lives waiting for us on the outside, but in here /everyone/ is not only able-bodied but has a rare combination of useful skills! Devil's advocate. Of course, on the other hand, it may be that the computer system doing all this is draining a ton of resources to support us while we don't generate any value for the rest of humanity..." She scratches her head. "Argh. We just don't know until we somehow talk to someone outside..."

    Hiring both adventurers and landers? Mizuki tries to imagine working with an NPC coworker. How weird would that be?

    Mizuki looks at Jazz. "Ah, there's the grumpiness."

    She blinks. "You watched Pretty Cure? ...Eh, I'm in no position to talk. Was it any good? A-anyway..."

    She points at Jazz. "You said yourself we just don't know! Maybe we can't get the perfect ending, but as long as we have any power at all we can work towards a /better/ ending!" She makes a 'get on with it' gesture, "Of course, we might be powerless, but then it doesn't matter what we do." She clenches her fists at her sides. "If we're truly powerless, I'd rather be happy!"

    "Maybe I don't want to be worried and stressed all the time! Those anime exist for a reason! Because we dream of a better world! And those dreams can inspire people to be better!"

    She deflates a bit. "The world can't really be a dark and hopeless place where nothing matters and nothing will get better and noone can be happy! That would just... be too sad!"

"...I SAID STOP SOUNDING LIKE AN ANIME THEME SONG!" comes shooting back from Jazz. Hey, those big ears can really hear!

    Hifumi "Yes I would, it is selfish of me to want to keep this world." he says "I will not trade my heaven for someone else's hell." he says "But I will selfishly indulge in this heaven until I am forced out of it." He gives Atif's arm a light squeeze and returns to his sitting place. His right hand sliding it's fingers over the texture of the fountain in an odd but seemingly idle way.

    Mizuki's initial Devil's Advocating earns another brief glint of sadness in Atif's eyes as he whispers out, "I know." This one he manages to bring to pass even quicker than the last, thankfully.

    "Both extremes are going to leave behind a number of unhappy people... but that's what makes extremes bad, you know? ...But there's gotta be a midway point. Something that can compromise for everyone. I want to go on with that hope, at least."

    Incidentally, when Hifumi briefly called him 'brother', the more observant might have noticed a subtle wince in Atif, too. Something he tries his best to hide and move on away from.

    And the next saddened look is one that's directed at Jazu. But it's less grim, less inward-directed -- and more worried for the Undine, there.

    "We can never know if we don't try."