[Private Level 2 to basically everyone Tachibana knows well]

[triggerhappytraitor]

Sayoko--

This world's Sayoko is here. Alive.

[[There might be a bit of a note of panic in his mental voice]]

She saw me. Recognized me...!

....and she's a Pillar.



[[Anyone who comes looking will find him in the garage, sitting on the couch with his head in his hands, Garren hovering worriedly at his side.]]

Comments

[summerorange]

[A small, brief sigh beneath her breath...but more out of sympathy than frustration. She reaches out to gently put a comforting hand on his shoulder.]

Tachibana-san...I don't think she's that upset with you for doing so. Maybe worried and confused, but not...well, angry.

[And then she pauses as she remembers another thing:]

You said before that she's a...Pillar?

[triggerhappytraitor]

[[a nod]]

...someone who's lost hope.

[summerorange]

And for her to be like that...

[She lets the implications hang in the air for several moments, feeling her own heart sink. It's Kivaara who eventually breaks the silence.]

No living counterpart~, then?

[triggerhappytraitor]

[[He's unhappily silent a long moment.]]

I've always had an overlay in the worlds she's been alive....

[summerorange]

And you're still yourself in this world...

[A heavy pause, before she slowly sits next to her fellow Rider.]

Even if...if you two are from different worlds... wouldn't you both want to speak to each other? Just once?

[triggerhappytraitor]

[[He looks horribly torn, lips pressed together as he tries not to fidget]]

...Wouldn't that just be more cruel...? To give her the illusion of something that isn't even the person she expects, only to just leave again...?

[summerorange]

[Natsumi shakes her head after a moment's thought.]

It would only be more cruel if she never saw you again, after disappearing like that. At the least...at least you both could try and get some kind of closure.

[triggerhappytraitor]

[[He was quiet a long moment, awkwardly fidgeting with his hands.]]

...do you think it's possible? Something like that...

[summerorange]

I do...I believe that it's possible. At least try...for her sake, if not your own.