Hikari looked down at her PET, watching Divina reform inside of it. The goddess seemed a bit more upbeat than the others, mostly since she was neither overly upset at the mission's end results, nor did she have to deal with a particularly judgemental operator. "Welcome back, Lady Divina!"
"Hello, Hikari! I do believe I overall preferred the ending to this mission than the one from earlier." The lack of rape probably had something to do with that, though Kabuki was the only one around that would possibly know that. "Did you get the chips from the GNA?"
"Of course!" The priestess displayed three chips in her hand in front of her PET screen, each of which, while they had varying levels of viciousness in their pictures, all aided the cause of not harming a fly. "We can go over them once the others take their leave."
That didn't take long to start happening, though Mikhail offered to give her his e-mail, with Divina's earlier offer not being reciprocated. "Of course, I'd be happy to accept it! I'm sure Lady Divina would like it as well!"
"Well, since I'm here, I may as well come out and say that I would like it very much."
"Ahh, yes, you are back, aren't you, Lady Divina...eheh..." Wow. She totally blanked that her goddess had returned, and was perfectly capable of confirming things herself. Whoops. "I'm sorry about that..."
"Don't worry about it. You echoed my sentiments exactly, after all."
"That's true...thank you. And thank you, Mikhail!" She declined the handshake, but instead rose, placed her hands in her lap, and bowed. "You're welcome here any time, so if you're in Kotobuki, please don't hesitate! Until then, take care, and may the blessings of Divina be upon you!"
With the Sharoan gone, Kabuki started to talk to Hikari, who nodded at what she said. "I wouldn't worry about it too much. Lady Divina seems to have some sort of plan on that front, after all. And I, for one, have no reason to doubt her on it!" She the proceeded to bow, much as she had before. "Thank you for coming, and of course, you're always welcome in the temple! Blessings of Divina be upon you!"
When she looked up, she noticed the theater hand was already gone. "...Um...you know, I trust them both, but do you think I should've accompanied them to the door? I feel like that was a bad move as a host..."
"I wouldn't worry. Mikhail shouldn't have any problems, and Hideyoshitsune, or whatever he wanted to be called, had that 'I'm totally blowing my cash at the shop right now' look in his eye."
"Oh...in that case, I guess there's no need to worry, then." A moment passed before she spoke again. "Oh, right, the chips! I've already gotten them and looked up the effects of one that I didn't know offhand." She pulled out the chips again, presenting them one at a time. "Two of them are simply modified versions of things we already have. Here's an IronShield1, which offers less durable protection than the IronShield2 we have. Here's a Recover50, which is stronger than the Recover30 we already had...and here's something new: Candle2. It places, well, a candle nearby, and as long as it stands, it'll slowly heal not only yourself, but all allies, as well! It seems reasonably durable against attack, and also has an immunity to Fire elemental attacks. It seems tailor made for us!"
"That it does. I don't think we have anything to complain about!"
"Not at all!" Hikari started making her way to her room, but...the question nagging at her for a while couldn't wait. "Lady Divina? Now that we're by ourselves..."
"..." Divina knew the question about to be asked. She wasn't looking forward to it, though if anyone needed to know the answer, it was her high priestess. "...You want to know about the first mission from today, correct?"
"I would. You've been pretty evasive about it, and that's not you. Please...I want to know."
"...All right. But I have a couple of conditions."
"Of course." ...Conditions? That was new. "What are they?"
"First, head into your room."
The sound of a door closing immediately rendered that condition moot. "Just stepped inside!" It was a decently sized room, though a decent chunk of it was empty space. Hikari herself had a bit of a minimalist streak, having little more than a bed, a work desk with a computer on it, and a small table with a couple of chairs. The sole sign of any luxury was a large TV on the wall opposite the bed...and even that had a story. "What else?"
"I want you to sit down at your computer, and take some detailed notes. You're wanting to write a book about our exploits, no? This...is probably something you'll want in it, and I really have no plans on telling this more than once."
"...Okay." Fortunately, sleep mode made that a quick transition. "Word processor up, and I'm ready to type. Go ahead."
"...One more thing. This story...is probably going to freak you out. But I'm not stopping. Even if you're crying so uncontrollably that you can't even type, I'm going to keep going. Like I said, I'm only telling this once. From there, it's entirely your duty."
"A-All right..." ...Just what happened that'd make her cry? She had a really bad feeling about this..."...I'm ready. Start whenever you want."
The goddess took a deep breath. "Well, it starts when I and Kabuki entered some coordinates in Yoka Area..." She went on to tell the whole story. Of Uprising, of gathering support against Kozuke, the rally, the negotiations, the...part that happened after that...and how the purple house in the district now fell under their own jurisdiction. "...And I believe that's everything. ...Hikari? Are you all right? You look pale."
Indeed, the priestess's face was white as a sheet, and contorted to fight off those tears she'd been warned about. Still, it was only after finishing her typing, and leaning back, that she let them flow. "Sniff...th-that's awful...you went through all that...and I d-didn't even know..."
"Yeah, I think you can understand why I'd rather not go around telling that one to everybody. But...I think it needs to be told anyway."
"Maybe, but...why didn't you contact me? Surely I could've done something...if-"
"All right, I am NOT going to stand here and listen you play the what if game. Things happened. They were...unpleasant. But in the end, everything worked out. A man of foul intent was removed of power, and now we have our own virtual hot springs."
"I know, b-but...sniff! Just knowing you went through all that..."
"It's fine, really. The path to happiness for all has some rather foul muck on it. We knew that going in. I, for one, refuse to be discouraged after one incident."
"...I suppose you're right." She'd known Divina long enough to know that there was a little bravado behind all that...but for the most part, she genuinely wasn't concerned with recent past events. "If you're okay with how things turned out, I suppose I have no reason not to be."
"Right! Now, dry those eyes!"
Fortunately, a nearby tissue box fixed that problem. "Okay!...Say, I don't think you ever mentioned something. Whatever happened to that...Kozuke, his name was? I know you kept him from killing himself, but you went a bit mum on the subject afterward."
"Oh, sorry. Well, you know I'm big on second chances, so I made him an advisor of local customs to SteamMan. That way, we won't step on everyone else's toes more than necessary. Though, if we play our cards right, we can bring lasting change to a place in dire need of it."
"I see...I suppose based on what you said, he'd feel honor bound to stay in line."
"And if not, SteamMan knows who to call."
"Right!"
"...This probably isn't a big surprise, but I'm feeling a bit peaked. What do you say we call it a day?"
"All right. It's a bit early for me, though...I suppose I can go over a couple of things by myself."
"I have faith in you, Hikari. Just, don't work yourself too hard, and you find yourself curled up like a cat on one of those chairs downstairs, hmm?"
"Th-that was just the one time! And I fully plan on it staying that way!"
"Good!" Divina could hear a clicking noise, signifying that Hikari had set her PET into its charger. "It might be early for a human, but for a goddess in Navi form that's been through all sorts of things, I think it's just peachy. Good night, Hikari! See you tomorrow!"
"I think so, too...good night, Lady Divina!"
-------------------------------
Somehow, the events had managed to take even more of a toll on Divina than she'd thought; she'd managed to sleep away a good 16 hours. She let out a huge yawn as she came out of sleep mode, and looked around the room. "Huh, no Hikari. What time is it...that late?! Yeesh. So much for not setting the alarm..."
It took a few minutes for her high priestess to actually enter her room; she did so with a half-eaten piece of toast in one hand. "I wonder if Lady Divina's up yet? It's not like her to be asleep this long..."
"Good morning, Hikari!"
"Whoa!" Despite her shock, she managed to not lose her uneaten breakfast. "Oh, good morning, Lady Divina! Feeling better?"
"I do. Though, I wish you'd waken me up a little sooner...I probably could've lost an hour or two and still been fine."
"Well, you know the saying, 'let sleeping goddesses lie'!"
"...I'm pretty sure that's NOT a saying. But, point taken."
"Oh...say, did you by any chance get another vision?"
"Nope. Today, we're doing it the old-fashioned way."
"I see. Considering what happened yesterday, maybe that's for the best..."
"...Anyway, hmm. Nothing's scheduled for today. And yet, I feel like doing something..."
"Oh, I know! You know how the Virus Zoo is accepting peaceful viruses? You can always head on the Net, and see if you can find any!"
"That's true, but it feels like it'd be rather dangerous on my own. I'm not really one for deleting, after all, even if it's something capable of tearing me part. But I guess there's no law saying I have to fight them off. And if I get a scratch or two, well, that healing power meant for others just gets used on myself this time, I suppose."
"Yes, it's not without danger..."
"Well, it's not exactly stopped you, so it sure shouldn't stop me, right? All right, send me in!"
"All right, but...I don't think my computer's hooked up to anywhere beyond the local network. So, if you're against that..."
"Not at all! Let's check out the virtual neighborhood! We don't do that enough, anyway."
"As you command!" PET removed, and pointed at the computer tower's jack-in port. "Jack in! Lady Divina, Execute!" Pew, infrared beam!
(TO KOTOBUKI AREA)
