ellipsanet | Exploration Knowledge Exchange

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Exploration Knowledge Exchange

[After his and Mukuro's recent hair-raising exploration of one of the newly accessible areas, Hijikata wants to warn his fellow adventurers and exchange other findings besides. He doesn't make open video posts very often (in fact, the last one may just have been when he got eaten whole by an anglerfish will'o'wisp), but now's the time again!]

Hello everyone. Hijikata here. This is a PSA of sorts, I guess... but feel free to add your own. My main message is: Don't go to the 'Heart Will Go On' glacier. There's a door in the ice, but it'll shut and lock behind you, and the place is a nasty, haunted prison with a gateway to hell inside. I'm not joking. Mukuro and I only managed to escape from the demons by teleporting out.

[He's not exactly keen on retelling all the creepy details (though he will if pressed for them), so don't mind him moving on swiftly!]

In other news, I don't know how many people besides the ones we told about it are aware, but there's another magic circle with a ghost guardian in the Winter Segment, in a cave at Wolf's Blood Mountain, like the one near Lake Hange in the Autumn Segment. The ghost told me and my expedition crew about the Knight - yeah, another one of those people. Apparently, he'd been going around burying weird magical items near the old Darkness barrier, and since it reeked of trouble, we went and dug them up to hand in at the Research Centre.

[Let him just casually drop this bomb (for those who hadn't heard of the Knight yet)! It's not like Jean and Mukuro just recently shared information about the Pierrot; what's one more enemy!]

Lastly, if you ever see a big cocoon made of vines in the jungles in the Summer Segment, just avoid it. - Now, what's the most interesting thing you've found out there?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Really? Really really? Okay! I'll see who all can come! A bunch of my friends just got through something really rough... But there's gotta be someone.

[He's glad to see Rinku's usual excitement back in place, but damn, are her friends ever not going through it? Those people just attract misery! (Assuming it's the same ones as before, because who in Nightwake isn't Rinku's friend?)]

Don't tell me someone bought a cursed video game or book again.

No, it... There's this guy. He was an otherworlder too. But he was actually some kinda evil scientist who kidnaps people and breaks their souls, and he was like "I know, brainwashing someone into a supersoldier who doesn't have feelings or a sense of right and wrong and then making him fight all his friends who came to save him is gonna prove that I have the best ideas of how to beat the Darkness!" Which is the worst idea ever, but he wasn't gonna listen!

Wait, is this about the incident last week? I was assigned underground at the time, but I saw the broadcast.

[And he didn't take immediate action, because--]

I kind of thought that was authorised.

[He soon enough gathered that pretty much no one was happy or impressed with the experiment, but there'd been such a lack of disruptive elements among the otherworlders that he didn't anticipate an open act of villainy or, at best, misguided mad science.]

How'd it get sorted out?

[The police asking this really speaks volumes...]

Everyone who could fought. I... couldn't.

[She wanted to!! But even she knows she wasn't a match for something so many people so many times stronger than she was were struggling against, and she'd just gotten out of a mind control incident herself anyway. Still, she bites back a line of self-blame.]

No one told me what happened to Clover-san. ["Killed so bad his soul couldn't reform" is not generally on a list of Things You Disclose To Aimoto Rinku.] But they broke through to MK-san, and he was... kinda weird? Until they put him through this thing for the others to try and fix him. I haven't seen him yet.

[Hijikata switches their call to private mode.]

Rinku-chan, it's okay. I probably wouldn't have been able to do much, either.

[He puts a lot of stock in his abilities, but they are in a world without power-nerfing. He and Rinku will do their best with their weapons and seasonal magic, but how much of a match could they possibly be for an already superhuman person who was further augmented into a living weapon? Much as it stings his pride, he needs to uplift his young friend first and foremost.]

I hope everyone comes out of this intact, but there's really only so much we can contribute at times. Right now, you can just be there for MK and the others as you are - once he's ready to see visitors, that is.

[She may have as little of an idea as he does of how to fix someone who's gone through that kind of ordeal, but he knows that if it were him, he'd feel cheered just by having her around.]

You think so?

[Rinku still looks pretty upset, but she looks up. Leon wanders over on the desk, and she gently pets him.]

...I still wanna keep trying to get stronger. To be good enough to help everybody else, if something that serious happens again. Neechan's a really hard teacher, but I'm getting better, right? I gotta be.

[Seeing Leon reminds Hijikata that he plans on training with his pokémon later (it's not like he has any regular pets); he looks forward to that. But right now, Rinku's single-mindedness reminds him of himself when he was still a kid.]

If you keep training, you'll keep getting stronger, but don't push yourself past your breaking point. That'll only take you out of commission and benefit no one. I'm sure Evangeline tells you that too. Also remember to do some fun things as well. You can't let "getting stronger" become your whole life.

[Again, he's been there and it wasn't a good place to be in!]

[Rinku nods, idly petting her blissfully ignorant pet lizard.]

Yeah... I know you're right. I don't wanna lose happiness and fun things either. It's really important to me. Just... I'm scared we all will, if something else happens, and I don't know what I'm gonna do.

You've seemed really worried lately. Is it because so many stressful things happened to your friends?

[It's not unreasonable that those incidents would leave her worried, but from his perspective, they've been making great progress over the last couple of months! Then again, he also has his share of rattling experiences he simply compartmentalises away.]

...Yeah. And stuff happened to me. But it's way worse what happened to other people. And I've also been worrying a lot about what else could happen. I wanna be happy again. I don't wanna be stuck feeling like this, it scares me.

[Is this what people go to therapy for? Should he advise her to do that? He'd like to tell her that she's still a kid and shouldn't take so many burdens onto her shoulders, but how can he say that in good faith when she's the same age as Okita who leads the Shinsengumi's 1st Division? Granted, unlike Okita Rinku is a good person, but that's neither here nor there.]

Don't lose sight of the good things. I know we can't just rest on our laurels now that we've won more land back, but that and the dragons' return is still a big improvement compared to how things looked even just a couple of months ago.

...

What, specifically, is your biggest worry?

[Maybe they can narrow it down somewhat.]

[She does smile at that, and nods at the reminder of all the good things they've managed. The sunny optimism is still there. It's just struggling more after a string of helpless incidents.]

Uh... hm... that I can't help anyone. That I'm gonna keep having to turn back or back out of important stuff because I can't do it. Or I guess people giving up their dreams and feelings and stuff for good.

Have any of your friends given up on their dreams?

[Who knows what sort of things they went through? Hijikata considers Ellipsa a welcoming world that's kinder than many others, but people arrive here with their own baggage, and there are so many pitfalls that can lead to them being confronted with whatever they left unsorted in their homeworld.]

You can only be there for others and give them your thoughts on whatever they're dealing with. What they make of it is ultimately their own decision. And as for backing out of things, you only do that if there's no way for you to push forward, right? As long as you can apply yourself, you always do, I know that.

Umm... it's kind of a long story.

[Rinku scratches her head. She hums and thinks it over.]

Yeah. You're right, Hijikata-san. I do wanna keep trying. So we can all be safe and happy. Even if I can't help with everything, or people think I can't... but I wanna, because I love them.

[Are you sure you're not a magical girl, Rinku-chan? With how high her power-of-love-and-friendship meter is, she might as well be!]

That's right - just keep trying. That's enough. Mukuro and I had to retreat from hell because it was just too much for us, but we'll still keep going out there, too! Just because something doesn't go well, that doesn't mean the next venture won't be successful.

[Granted, inter- or even intra-personal problems are more difficult to deal with than outside threats, but his area of expertise of extends so far!]

Thanks, Hijikata-san! I'm gonna try my best!

...Uh, this is a dumb question maybe, but were there convenience stores in hell?

I didn't see any, but everything was on fire, so we may have missed them... though there didn't seem to be any buildings at all, just a burning abyss. Why?

[Does she sense a business venture, or..??]

I just kinda wondered if it was the same hell everyone talks about. Maybe it's not.

Hell's probably a big place - it has to fit millions of sinners, after all. Maybe this was just a different corner of it.

[The demons may not want intruders to walk right into their idol shows!]

Then again, who's to say there aren't as many hells are there are Earths? It's a big multiverse.

I guess so, huh... It still sounds pretty scary, whether it is or not, so I guess it doesn't matter, but it feels like it matters because it's scary.

It really was scary, that's why I wanted everyone to be aware. With no teleport locations out there, it'd take me a week to get back with police tape and warning signs.

[And honestly, he doesn't feel all that motivated to return!]

Why would there be a portal like that in a glacier anyway? Did they summon demons to prison?

We wondered about that, too. But the only potential hint is that the demons called their leader "the captain". Isn't that strange? Since we teleported out, we didn't make it to the Survival Fortress, but right now, my best guess is that the demons are in cahoots with the pirates somehow.

[He and Mukuro didn't get to see "the captain", but they heard frighteningly loud, earth-shaking footsteps coming for them right before they fled!]

I assume the prison was for those who fell into the pirates' hands. The demons said they'd turn us into their kin, so chances are that's what happened to those unfortunate souls. But right now, that's all speculation.

Eh? So maybe the ghosts are dead people who escaped! Because all the pirates are ghosts, right?

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