love & peace!

“Yeah, fair enough.  Guess I just want a simple explanation for this.  Can’t punch a faceless jerk that grabs people from space and time.”  He gripped the railing, letting out a frustrated sigh.  “Can punch Evolt though.”

Sento being genuine was fairly rare.  Banjou thinks he remembers a handful of times at best when the physicist didn’t deflect with a playful insult or a long-winded theory about something unrelated.  He debated making a joke out of it, as per their usual dynamic.  But it felt cheap, or even cruel.  “Thanks.  You too.  I miss the rest of the crew, but at least I know you’re safe.”

It was a good feeling, being around him.  With everything going on back in Touto, Banjou had never had time to notice it.  But it almost felt like when he’d met Kasumi.  That feeling of being safe, knowing the other person was genuinely glad to have you around.  Banjou also felt… weird, thinking about that.  Deflecting wasn’t normally his thing, but he jumped at the chance to do so.  He pulled the holophone out of his pocket and started messing with it until he found a map application.

“Wonder if there’s any good gyms around here.  Just cause Evolt’s not around it doesn’t mean I can afford to slack off.”

Sento hums, almost glad for the change of subject. Not that he isn’t pleased by Banjou’s declaration. Too pleased, even. But he’s not exactly ready to have a real conversation about real feelings, after the day he’s had, in some kind of alternate dimension. He’s not ready for that on a good day.

So he soaks in the dubiously real sun, comforting himself with the knowledge that there’s a Banjou that’s safe, here with him.

“Now that’s what I like to hear,” says Hilda, grinning widely. “Sounds like your situation was not wholly different from ours. And we came out on top from our ordeals, so I’m sure you can make your thing work, too. Can’t imagine how I’d have felt if whoever runs this place had plucked me out of Ishgard in the middle of something big, but if you ever need a sympathetic ear, you can try and find me. The Sea of… Tranquility, was it? That’s where I woke up, and I think that’s where I’m expected to stay.”

She gets up again. For a few moments she’s silent, with her back to Sento, slowly taking in the view of the Sea of Nectar.

“I don’t trust this Ark,” she says finally. “It’s giving us room and board, and seemingly doesn’t want anything from us, and that’s just not… right. Sooner or later, somebody’s going to come calling, and we’ve got to be ready. We may have been robbed of our weapons, but they can’t stop us from banding together and doing our best to defend ourselves, even if we don’t know what’s coming. That’s what we did where I’m from, and that’s what I want to do here.”

She turns to Sento again. Her eyes are bright. “You clearly understand the workings of this place better than I can. Me, I’ve got experience dealing with prisons what pretend they ain’t prisons. What do you say we join forces to try and loosen the collars this place has around our necks?”

Sento feels compelled to clap. He settles for smiling wide and sincere. Finally, someone who wanted to do something!

“Sento Kiryuu,” Merlin echoes, grinning at his companion. “Sorry, I don’t get out much, so I haven’t heard of you, I’m afraid… But a superhero, you say? Wow! I can’t believe I’m talking to a superhero face to face.” His excitement seems genuine. 

Merlin looks down at his feet, where flowers are even now blooming. He disentangles his left leg from an overly ambitious sweetbriar, then looks back at Sento. “Aha, yes, you could say that. I am certainly the cause of them.”

Sento blinks. That’s certainly not the response he usually gets. Clearly, he doesn’t get out much either.

Maybe Merlin is not trying to trick him into his death. Maybe. He clears his throat into his hand. “I’d offer a demonstration, but most of my gear has been taken.” His belt sits in his coat pocket, a comforting weight, but the time limit bothers him. Merlin doesn’t seem to have a limit, though, apparently.

Peter stares at Sento for a long moment, confusion in his own face. “Well… Yes. For a bit of business recently. Though… that all ended a bit messily, so I haven’t been back. It’s an interesting place. Why? Are you thinking of going sometime?” 

He shrugs, a smile tugging at his lips. “Not sure I could recommend it as a vacation destination, really.”

Sento isn’t the best at reading people, but he’s sure at this point that this man is being deliberately obtuse. Couldn’t he see that they’re in the same boat?

Peter blinks. “Well,” he says mildly, “yes, I’m sure. Earth is hardly the crown jewel of its system.” Is Sento saying that he’s from Earth? Peter’s lips twitch a little, expression bemused for a moment as he looks at Sento, then follows his gaze to look out the window.

“It’s hardly sandy enough to be Mars,” he remarks. (And thank goodness it isn’t.) “Hmm… Ganymede, perhaps, or Europa? It’s hard to say. We’d have to see the rest of the planet first to make a good guess of it.”

Sento listens, shocked, as Duke rattles off the names of places that definitely couldn’t... Support life? Not now, anyway.

“A library, in this little thing?” Hilda squints at her phone suspiciously, but then her face brightens with understanding. “Oh, it must be like a tomestone, then! In that case, I’ll have to look into it later. Maybe it’ll have some information on what this thrice-damned place is and why we’re here. And where they’re keeping my gun.” She means it: she had just assumed the device was flashy but useless, but if there’s knowledge to be gained from it, then it’s worth taking an interest in. She has no idea how to access the information contained in tomestones, but Sento makes it sound easy enough.

She reaches out to shake Sento’s hand. “Hilda. I’m from Ishgard, in Eorzea, in a world called Hydaelyn. Ever hear of it? I imagine not; I ain’t heard of your Earth after all. Is it a nice place? Ishgard’s got its share of problems, but it’s moving in the right direction, and I’ll admit I’m anxious to get back and keep helping however I can.”

Sento shakes her hand, relieved. It would be ridiculous to not use a phone, and put yourself at a disadvantage. Though, he can’t imagine the phone will actually answer any of her questions. The AI certainly didn’t answer his.

He nods, slowly, at the barrage of information. “I can’t say I’ve heard of... Any of those places. That’s par for the course here, though.”

Banjou had been trying to lighten the mood, but he felt bad in retrospect.  Not about making light of his scandal.  So much had happened since then and so much was happening now that he had to pretend he could laugh at something.  The other alternative was getting angry, and that hadn’t served him as well here as it did in Touto.

Sento’s brain seemed like it was still going at full speed.  It was reassuring to know that one of them had all the thinking covered.  Banjou’s strong suit wasn’t logic or planning in the best of times.  This was nice though.  He felt his muscles start to unwind now that he was around Sento, a day’s worth of tension easing out.  For now, at least.

“Huh… an ark.” Banjou said that as if he had really any idea what that meant. Upon seeing Sento hold up a very expensive-looking phone, he realized there was a weight in his pocket he’d been ignoring.  Grabbing for it revealed that he had an identical one and hadn’t noticed this entire time.  He left it there so Sento didn’t catch on.  “Doesn’t seem likely, but I also didn’t expect Evolt to raise a tower out of the earth.  Or… you know.  Everything else.”  His voice got a little quiet towards the end there as his mind drifted back to the last time he saw Sento, but he tried to pick it back up.

“It’s good to see you though.”

“You know Evolt,” Sento says, frowning, “He wouldn’t go back into the shadows now that he’s taken center stage.”

Sento makes a face. Of course Banjou would say that. Sento considers deflecting, again. Because that would be easier. But, after everything he’d just left behind, he’s feeling... Sentimental. He looks at the sky, mostly just to not look at Banjou when he says this.

“Foan?” The word sounded entirely foreign to Hilda. “Is that what it’s called? If you can use it to talk to somebody what’s far away, then I guess it must be like a linkpearl, but it looks completely different from one of those. Not that I’ve ever used linkpearls much, mind. In the Brume, usually you can just yell somebody’s name, and they’ll yell right back at you,” she says, chuckling at her own joke.

She experimentally pokes the foan a few times until the screen lights up, then once more, accidentally making it suddenly turn loud and colourful as the words CONFECTIONERY ANNIHILATION appear on the screen. “Oh, Fury,” she sighs, quickly pressing the button that she’s previously worked out turns the device off. “I reckon this kind of thing is wasted on one like me.”

Never one to act shy, Hilda sits down next to the man. His shirt, she notices, looks several sizes too large for him, but it does look comfortable, and probably better suited to the local climate than her leathers. “Anyroad, you said ‘where I come from’. I take it you’re not from around here, neither, then?”

Sento nods, most of what she’s saying going right over his head. He frowns as she turns her phone off. The technology may be complicated, but it’s useful!

Merlin beams in apparent delight at Sento’s mimicking of his own words. “Hahaha, of course, of course!!” He hops down from the rubble he’s been perched on to clap Sento on the shoulder, all friendly-like. 

“So you’ve been brought here too, hmm?” Merlin asks. “Pitiful place, isn’t it?” he asks, waving his hands to indicate the whole of the Sea of Crisis. “I’m Merlin, by the way. Some call me the Magus of Flowers. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?” He gives Sento a conspiratory wink.

Sento looks from the hand on his shoulder to the man. Merlin, huh? Sento’s heard the name, but myth is one thing and fact is quite another.

Peter laughs as he straightens and moves around the counter. “You think we’ll have to fight?” He asks. “I was hoping that this would be an easily cleared up misunderstanding, really. But that’s not likely I suppose.” As he opens the cabinet, retrieves the plates and sets them on the counter by Sento, he considers that. “I don’t have any idea why I’m here either, though. I have my theories but… who’s to say?”

He tips his head, tapping his fingers against the counter. “What do you think? Do you have any theories of your own yet as to why you’re here?”

Sento pauses in setting out the food. Why was his first instinct to fight? He clears his throat, uncomfortable. “I’m... Used to fighting, at this point. I think your idea sounds better, really.”

Sento was doing that thing where he muttered to himself and didn’t think Banjou could hear him.  Which, to be fair, Banjou couldn’t make out the words he was saying exactly.  But that wasn’t the point. 

“Secret?!”  Any dramatic tension hanging in the air dissipated.   Banjou felt a brief flash of worry as to why Sento was being evasive.  He was hiding something and it probably wasn’t good.  But he was back and it felt good to engage in their banter.  It was the first comforting thing he’d experienced all day. “Cheating isn’t that bad! It went bad one time, sure, doesn’t mean it will this time.”

Banjou smiled, and leaned up against a nearby railing.  “What is this place?  Because the place I woke up in definitely wasn’t Touto.  And while Smash are one thing, I definitely don’t recall bird people.”  He jammed one thumb over his shoulder towards one of the locals for emphasis.

Sento feels a brief pang of guilt at bringing up cheating - he was really blowing it today. Recovering, he scoffs at Ryuuga’s response. “The laws of time and space are a bit harsher than Touto’s, you know."

At least Banjou seemed calmer, now. It was good to see him, even if he wasn’t exactly the Banjou he wanted to see. Not that he would say that, ever. He sighs, leaning on the railing next Banjou. He really thought they would be done with this sort of thing.

“Weeks? Sento, that just happened.”  Ryuga backed off some, defensiveness turning to outright confusion. “Last time I saw you was when Evolt was in your body.  The last thing I even remember was fighting him.”  Confusion gave way to guilt over very nearly attacking Sento.  Ryuga just got him back, and he’d been ready to use the Build Driver on him based on a hunch.  Ryuga was nearly about to move on when something struck him.  Why had Sento been so sure Ryuga wasn’t real?

“Wait, why did you say it was a trick?  If the last thing I remember was weeks ago, then what’s the last thing you remember?” 

Sento brings a hand to his mouth, thinking (stalling), “Of course... If whoever is in charge here can grab people from different universes, who’s to say they can’t take people from different places in time as well?”

He looks to Banjou. Who asked him a question that he definitely absolutely can’t answer. He’s starting to feel guilty for letting him nearly take a dive off the railing. But, as Sento has already established, time is meaningless here, so any Banjou from along his personal timeline would have deserved it for his ridiculous heroic stunt. Obviously.

Ryuga very nearly went skidding straight off the pier.  He veered left at just the last second and hit a railing.  When he recovered from having hitting a hard railing gut-first, he heard Sento.

“This is a pretty sick joke, you know.” 

It almost sounded like an accusation. No, not almost. It was an accusation.  Ryuga gave Sento an uncomfortable stare as his brain processed just what he could be implying.  “Sento… what are you talking about?” Ryuga took a step closer, and it the realization forced Ryuga’s defenses to go up.  “You are Sento, right? You had white hair last time I saw you, but I wouldn’t put it past him to change it back to screw with me.”

Ryuga started to reach for the Build Driver in his pocket, just in case. “It is you, right?  You’re back, right? Please say you’re back.” He didn’t plead typically, but the possibility that this was just one more trick of Evolt’s was enough to make him desperate.

“I’m back? You’re the one who -” Sento pauses. White hair...