𝙿𝙴𝚁𝙵𝙴𝙲𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽.

Madoka just watches Rin’s movments, looking more and more like they gor slapped as she brushed off the hug. Green eyes turn to the floor, not wishing to look at the girl they love so much anymore, because it hurt so much.

“Because I need a picture- I need my favorite thing in the world on my wall- and I barely have any survivng pictures of my family.” They look like a mess, they are aware, blonde, blue and light blue mixing at the top of a hair they didn’t care for ever since, and the fact there were days where they could feel the spear slicing them did not help.

“Do you really don’t remember anything? The simulation?” There is a question hanging in the air, but Mado doesn’t dare to ask it. Do you really not remember anything about me?

---- Now this was just getting... strange. This person, whom Rin had never met before, was now insinuating that she was... their favorite thing in the world. Or, at least, that’s what Rin could gather from the way Madoka was speaking. There was... almost a familiarity tugging at her, but... nothing. Not a damned thing. Not that Rin ever felt anything anyway... she was practically an empty husk, devoid of emotion and any feeling.

      “ Is there something I should be remembering? ” The Engineer asked, in as cold of a tone as ever. Again, there... _was_ something that Rin felt she was forgetting, but she wasn’t exactly one to dwell on things like that, so...

      Now, to address the question about the ‘picture’, or whatever.

—- (( Hey Tumblr! You like robots? You like antiheroes? You like adorable kids doing their best? Do you like MELODRAMA AND ANGST? (dont lie, you do) ))

      (( Then hoo boy have I got a guy for you. Doctor Light Number 000 here is all of those cranked up to 11, and he’s in need of some friends whether you know what the hell he’s from or not. I’m OC friendly, and pretty chill in general, though I will only RP with mutuals. And if you need anything explained about my muse i’m more than happy to nerd out (since i know Mega Man isnt as popular as it used to be) ))

Madoka’s hands pull away, as if they were burned. “I’m sorry. I thought- I don’t know what I thought.” They play with their necklace, under the bandana.

“You still don’t remember.” This was a fact, not a question. “I thought- since you came here- you might have had. But you don’t.”

They stop, and their mind is clearly racing in too many directions. “May I-May I take your picture?”

---- As Madoka’s hands pull away, she grimaces, quickly moving to brush off the area where she was hugged... before raising an eyebrow. Rin agreed that she didn’t know what the hell Madoka was thinking, but... then something the other said crossed her mind. ‘You still don’t remember’. What...?       “ What do you... ” She began to question, quietly, before being interrupted by another question entirely. A picture? ... What an odd person this was. Annoyingly odd... then again, Rin found plenty of things annoying. She didn’t consider herself... photogenic, not at all.

“I know, it’s gross. But the truth is disgusting. Like child birth. It’s… Fucking terrible but it exists. Let me ask you some questions, Rin. Do you like animals? Do you like communities working together? Do you like people being genuinely kind? Giving up everything they have to make things better for everyone including themselves?”

---- She pinches the bridge of her nose (again), giving a more than noticeable roll of the eyes in response to Satoshi. Truthfully, she now wished he’d just... shut it. Sure, this was preferable (admittedly) to the hatred and violence he’d shown her before, but... at the same time... she knew how to react to that better. Being raised in an... extremely sheltered environment, to say the least, Rin wasn’t sure how to act in casual, social situations. The girl knew how to respond to hatred, it’s all she’s ever really known... but casual conversation, and... kindness? She’s lost.

      “ You can’t group all animals together... ” She grumbles, hoping that answering his questions will bring some peace and quiet. There was definitely a headache coming on...

      “ ‘Like’ is a strong word, but I find cats tolerable. I wouldn’t be caught death with a drooling, sniveling... dog. Or a loud bird. Perhaps fish, there’s a certain serenity that comes with looking at an aquarium. ” With that out of the way, she rolls her eyes again, expression as flat as ever, though notably annoyed.

      “ I prefer to work on my own. Less annoyances, more time to myself. I don’t care about charity work or whatever have you. I’d gladly create armaments for a terrorist if the pay was reasonable. ” ... True Neutral? ... No, perhaps... Lawful Neutral? Chaotic Neutral.

      She crosses her arms, sitting up a bit straighter.

@biio-degradable liked your post “Starter call; Madoka”

Madoka was busy, sitting in front of their computer screen, a tounge  outside, and trying to get the stupid html code to do what it should have- which just didn’t work to them, no matte rhow much they tried.

When Rin entered, they stopped, because glaring at the thing won’t work, and went to hug her. “You came back!” There was always this suprise, like they were fully excpecting her to just… not, one day.

---- There was a moment of... confusion as Madoka ran up to her and wrapped her arms around her torso. ... Well, less of a ‘moment’ and more-so an eternity of confusion. Ever since waking up, she’d been... disoriented, unsure of what was going on. Occasionally, she’d have some memory of... something, some sort of... city, but... whenever she thought too hard into it, she drew a blank and gave herself a massive headache.

      A headache quite similar to the ones she got when she was annoyed... speaking of which...

Naomi heard the sigh, even if she chose to ignore it and pretend she did not. It was easier to just go with it, really. Far far easier, and less likely to cause arguments.

Besides, there was nothing to gain from being mean, or rude to the other. Why would there be? Since when there was?

“Why don’t you intend to be nice?” She asked, because she can do complicated math in her head but if there’s something she can’t do is to learn when the fuck she  should shut up, really. “What is there to lose from being nice?”

“And I guest pleasent is good enough. Not the adjective I would choose personally, but not a bad one.”

---- “ My dignity, ” Rin begins, glancing back at Naomi with an annoyed-looking scowl. Really, she could go on and on about what all she could lose by playing nice, but... actually, no, she WAS going to do that.

      “ Any sense of peace and quiet I might be enjoying, my patience. Too many things. What do I lose by not ‘playing nice?’ Friendship? If that’s all, then I could do without that in the first place. Tch. ”

      Rin turns back toward the sunset, and crosses her arms. After a few more seconds of staring at it, she lets out some sort of annoyed mix between a sigh and growl, clenching her forearm tightly.

“The past is the past. Like I said, we don’t stay naive forever. We all change. You haven’t attacked me once. When we first met, you would’ve tried to destroy me. Hurt me. From this interaction alone, I think you’ve already changed. You’re ready to see the good in the world despite it being clouded in bullshit. Look past the media, look past the slums, look past the greedy and deceitful. I wanna help you. I just came back from Canada, my home. Before I left, I was drinking and breaking down. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I don’t want you to feel the same way. I wouldn’t wish that feeling on my greatest enemy. I want to offer a change of thinking.”

---- “ That outlook is annoyingly positive. ” She begins, crossing her arms and staring at Satoshi like he’d just said the most idiotic thing he could possibly spit out. Rin didn’t know what world he was living in, where he could just look past all of the bad things and focus on those fleeting moments of good... but hell, if it exists, could she go there?

      “ I know exactly who, what, I am. Perhaps you think i’m something i’m not. ” Of course, she saw herself as... somewhat of a walking nightmare, but, she digressed. Satoshi made lots of assumptions, it seemed...

“Calling other pepole pigs is not very nice, you know.” Naomi said, not even looking on Rin’s face. The book in her one hand and the plate in the other were far more intresting, anyways.

“And you were whining about my sounds before I actually spoke, so I can’t say I understand what you were complaing about, miss.”

This is when she finally raises her eyes, for a moment, looking at the sky.  “I like this color.” She declared to no one in praticular. “Maybe should find a bow in this shade, I think it ould look nice.”

---- Rin pinches the bridge of her nose, letting out a deep, exasperated sigh. Of course it wasn’t nice! If she was trying to be nice, she’d be skipping around all over the place, tossing rose petals from a basket and wearing a big red dress. Ha ha. The mere thought of that made her sick.

      Besides, she had no reason to be nice. What had this girl ever done for her? Nothing. She’s not in debt, she doesn’t want anything... no reason for her to get all sappy and mushy, or whatever have you.

      “ Don’t be childish. It wasn’t intended to be ‘nice’. ” The Engineer growls, crossing her arms and glancing back toward the sunset. ... If there was anything she could agree with this new-found annoyance on, it was how pleasant the color of the setting sun was.

“What about the pyramid scheme of things? Or the unfairness you’re given at a young age?”

He walked towards her, his eyes- though vibrant- held a sad weight to them.

“As a kid, you see everything in either a happy light. You think what everyone is doing is the right thing. You grow up, perhaps beaten by a relative- just for example- and you let them because you think it’s your fault. They’re doing the right thing. You get older and older before you finally learn. Had you learned before hand, you’d be better off. Now you’re scarred. Now you feel alone. You try to make ends meet and you try to stitch things together to fill the void in your soul but you’ll never not feel lonely, no matter HOW many people or things you have. Everyone above us gets it better, but the only ones who live perfectly are the ones at the top who have always had it all. Yet they suffer too. There are pyramids for wealth, morale, social status, health, popularity, EVERYTHING in between. But we all suffer. We all have our ups and downs and you can NEVER get it out of your head. It’s a pyramid of pyramids. When you’re young you don’t know any better and the people above you LOVE to remind you of that. But now we’re grown. And what do some people do? The same thing to the kids that we hated. They’re too naive for us.”

He stood up, arms at his sides.

“And what a crisis that was, huh? These are thoughts that run through peoples minds 24/7 Rin. If you agree to any of this, you’ve thought about it too. But what do you really experience. Anger or sadness? Or maybe both… There are places I can take you to push those thoughts aside just for a moment. Just to take in what’s around you. Places that are very sad… We think they are, at least. The people living there… They’re happy. Wanna take a flight?”

---- That was... surprisingly logical, and she found that... she could relate to it in an odd way. Not... beaten by a relative, but... something all too similar nonetheless. She wished she could say her current scenario was all to be blamed on that, but... unfortunately, her grotesque, ugly visage was a fault all her own, something she had to bear whether she liked it or not. After all, there’s no way to regrow an eye, or an arm, or... teeth.

      Rin furrows her brow, lightly brushing a hand over the heavily scarred part of her face. Yeah... scarred... in more ways than the obvious, huh? Satoshi... had a point, even if she’d never admit it. And now he was offering to... take her places, after so much arguing and hatred between them. Rin... simply didn’t understand it. What reason did he have to offer things like that? Surely none...

---- Standing in the cafeteria, off to the side, perhaps wasn’t the most ‘normal’ of places to be, but... hey, this Engineer didn’t pride herself on being ‘normal’. Especially since the world’s standards for ‘normal’ seemed to mean ‘horrible person’, at least to her. Things were cruel like that... but, there were still fleeting moments of good to be had on this damn planet.

      Such as now, as Rin watches the sun setting from one of the cafeteria’s large windows. A moment that never lasted long, but happened every day. She wasn’t one to smile, but, at the very least, watching beautiful sights like this made her a bit less bitter. If only for a moment.

      That is, until the sound of footsteps rings in her ears. Groaning, she turns toward the approaching individual, revealing her grotesque facial features in full.

“Tell me, Rin… What do you hate most about the world? The fighting? The pathetic people abandoning their children or solving all their problems with a line or a puff? What is it that makes your blood boil about everything?”

---- That was... a loaded question. Now that it was presented to her, she couldn’t really pick one singular thing that made her loathe the world. More-so a combination. It was full of greedy pigs, judgmental jerks, and any good moments were fleeting, and few and far between. It made her sick.

      “ I loathe all of it equally. ” She grumbles, as grumpy as ever. Admittedly, there was a tinge of sadness in her tone... it was like playing cards. There wasn’t much you could do about being dealt a bad hand in one of those childish games... or in life.

      She supposed... the one thing that made her ‘blood boil’ was the fact that... she couldn’t change the events leading up to this moment. That she couldn’t change history and... perhaps, go down a different path. Not that it would help... humanity was still as awful as ever, no matter how she could feasibly ‘change’ things.

“You ask for a lot. Sadly, I’m a simple man. I don’t have a lot to offer. How weird that you don’t see a future with this, building up success will lead to far better rewards and things in your favor. Not everyone is the business type though. You don’t need to compliment me. At least let me show you the better things in life. People suck, Rin. Sometimes it feels like you’re the only one out there. I’ll help you find things. You can insult me all you want, just let me show you what there is to see. Things that might change your perspective. Or not… You could hate everything that I show you. But the point is, you would make an effort to see them.”

---- The way she saw things, it wasn’t that... she didn’t see a future, it was more-so that she preferred being alone. He did have a point - people sucked. Liars, cheats, and everything in-between populated the world, and Rin had been dealt a bad hand at every single turn in this funny game called life, it felt like. She didn’t see what Satoshi could POSSIBLY show her to change her outlook on the world, on people... but...

      It seemed like he was going to pester her about this for a while, so... against her better judgement, she decides to humor him. How bad could it possibly be? At most, he might take her somewhere and show her something, then she could just be done with things. Simple enough.

      With a sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose, she finally speaks up.

      “ Fine, humor me. I’ll give you a chance to ‘change my perspective’, monkey. ” It was a feat many have tried, but none have succeeded at. She couldn’t help but be a bit... curious, as to how Satoshi thought he could do any better.