#0000E6

[pursestrings]

(cha boi okuya$u)

hey big news
first of all if any of u guys are trying to find mr. F we should do it together
makes more sense & maybe no one'll fucking die cuz this asshole has nothing better to do but tell people to do stuff that'll get em killed

second thing
something's real screwed up about the well
nothing new so nobody panic
but if u try messing with it it's gonna mess right back
so i guess everyone who told me digging under the well was a dumb idea: u were right but not cuz u knew what u were talking about
lucky guess

["don't @ me" - okuyasu nijimura, 2018]

third thing
how do u set up a bonfire??

oh and this is okuyasu if u never saw me on here before
sup

[Hmm, yes, all very illuminating Hot Takes.]

Comments

[good_ideas]

[Shiho kneels down at the spot, making a big show of poking around in the dirt and letting it sift back through her hand.

And there’s nothing. No trace whatsoever that anyone had come by to fill it back up. It’s just blank. She frowns down at it then turns to him.]

You’re sure this is the place?

[pursestrings]

Yeah? Look around the rest if you want, it's not a big well, but I'm sure it's right there!

[He may have literally lost the hole earlier... but he can't lose a hole!!! Please!]

Why, what's the problem?

[good_ideas]

It...

[....how does she tell him this without actually telling him anything...]

...It’s been cleared. There’s nothing here. It’s like... it was filled in without them touching anything.

[pursestrings]

What, like magic? You saying Mr. F just made dirt show up?

[Sounds fake, besides how he's looking straight at it.]

[good_ideas]

I’m saying I don’t know if he did that or not. [And that in itself is weird. How did all this earth get moved without a single bit of it carrying the information?]

[pursestrings]

Oh. ...I don't get it.

[Stunning performance by Okuyasu. He frowns and kicks at some dirt, since apparently it's not helping them any.]

You can't tell with your... whatever you're doing? Is it broken?

[good_ideas]

[She gives his foot a frown, because why is he kicking while she’s still crouched here?!]

It’s called being a detective. [Shiho gets up, dusting her skirt off and still seeing information from that so obviously her psychometry isn’t broken.]

And there are no clues here.

[pursestrings]

[He's mad at the dirt. And how does she know by just staring??? He's dumb but he's not that dumb, surely there is more than "being a detective" at work here.]

Is "no clues" a clue? That's what they always say in movies.

[good_ideas]

[But she was also touching the ground as well as staring?

If anyone asks, she apprenticed with a dirt expert.]

That sounds like something from a cheesy detective movie. [But despite that, she does think it makes sense. And having no information about it... isn’t that kind of like the things without colour that she’s touched before? What was the connection here....?]

[pursestrings]

It is from a detective movie. C'mon, this is getting dumb.

[He says, as he squats down to stare at the dirt with her. It's not doing anything... it's dirt.]

That all you got?

[good_ideas]

This whole place is dumb.

That’s all. There’s nothing more I can say about nothing, you know? Someone is hiding something, or trying to hide themselves. I don’t know which it is but now I’m pissed off. [And whoever is blocking her from reading stuff better be prepared to be sorry.]

[pursestrings]

[Cool... so they came all the way out here just to get fucked with again.]

Maybe it's the same as what made me forget what I was doing when I was digging. Y'know, your detective brain's screwed up 'cause of Mr. F being real protective of his dirt.

[good_ideas]

No one gets that protective of dirt. [Unless Mr. F has a dirt fetish that none of them knew about until right this moment.]

....But if something made you forget, it should have a trace too. [That or he’d be wiped clean just like this dirt was. But still, it’s... worth a try, isn’t it?]

[pursestrings]

I guess so... Wait, me? You gonna detective my head?

[Sure, why not, but for real??]

[good_ideas]

I’m going to try. [All she has to do now is think of a good lie over what she’s about to do.]

It’s fine, it’s... not an invasive process or anything.

[pursestrings]

Uh, okay... So what do I do? Just hold still and don't blink?

[Why would blinking not be a thing?? Who can say. What does he do, detective boss lady.]

[good_ideas]

If you want.

[Though that’s more for show than anything. All she has to do is reach out and pretend to pick a piece of fluff of his shoulder or something.]

Try to think back to digging the hole. [Because that makes her job easier since she won’t have to dig through too many memories to get to the right one. Hopefully anyway.]

[pursestrings]

Gotcha.

[He will indeed stand still and think about digging the hole. It's a very basic memory: he decided to dig, picked a spot and went to town; what stands out is the emotional focus, as he goes from angry about basically everything to suddenly and abruptly very confused, having apparently forgotten what he was doing there in the first place. The memory has him just as abruptly turn away from the well and wander away, and true to his testimony, he makes it all the way to Flavo before he blinks himself back into regular focus, like someone flipping a switch.

Very strange. The end of the memory, when memory Okuyasu remembers what he was doing before Flavo, will just take them back to the now-filled hole, but she's already stared at that.]

[good_ideas]

[She waits for him to start thinking before she reaches out to brush a hand over his shoulder. One pat, two pats...

...Shiho follows along with his train of thought, with his feelings about the situation then... a sudden burst of very, very strong magic or something along the lines of it, and he’s confused.

Taking her hand away she stares first at him then at the ground then back at him.]

......Something happened. It must have. [But she can’t see anything other than that feeling of magic.]

There’s... traces of magic on you. [She was also a magic expert’s apprentice.] Really strong magic.

[pursestrings]

What, for real? Ew.

[EW... surely this must be Gross Magic, if it messed with his mind enough to do what it did. And also fill in a hole with mystery dirt. Okuyasu frowns, lifting a hand to kind of nudge the side of his head with his palm, like he's trying to get water out of his ears.

It's dumber than that.] How do I get it off?

[good_ideas]

[It probably is gross magic but unluckily for him she has no idea how to deal with magic of any kind.

Though she has a guess it’s probably not how he’s choosing to do it?]

I don’t know. All I can see is that there was magic, I don’t know anything else about it. But I’m not sure that’s how you get it off. [Or that it’s something that can come off in the first place.]

[pursestrings]

[How could his great plan not work? He thought very hard to come up with this. Or, he stops doing that, frowning.]

You know anybody that's a... witch or something? I'll even take a magician.

[good_ideas]

...what about Maribelle?

[She isn't a witch (as far as Shiho knows) but she does seem to know a lot about magic.]

[pursestrings]

For real, her? [enh....] She already thinks I'm a dumbass who's not worth her time. You got a better witch?

[good_ideas]

I don’t.

[... is this the same Maribelle they’re talking about??]

But... why does she think that?