MMBN RP - she expected the world

@scenegraph and @snoruntpyro

For a moment, the clouds seemed to part, and Meiru and Roll were swept up in a girlish glee—they weren’t the only ones! “See? Pen-chan was right!” Roll cheered as they danced around Meiru’s bedroom. “We didn’t take anything from Rockman or Netto; we were supposed to become who we are now!” “It’s not strange,” Meiru said to herself, feet coming to a stop; the memories of those three long years of middle school still hurt, even with her new group of friends having accepted her. “I’m not… weird.” She looked at herself in the mirror; the young woman who was beaming back from across the room looked like no one else in the city, but she wasn’t ‘too different’. There was no Meiru who was shorter and prettier and less dedicated of a Netbattler outside of her own head, after all. “We’re just who we’re supposed to be!” “They were the finalists…” marveled Roll. Meiru looked down to see that she was reading through the chatroom conversation again. “They must be even stronger than we are!” Neither Meiru nor Roll were usually the type to measure themselves against anyone other than Enzan; in the Net Saviors, they usually weren’t ‘competitors’ so much as they were ’agents’. But there was something strangely invigorating about the idea that they hadn’t reached their limit yet. “They both seem a bit blunter,” Roll remarked. “I dunno if the other Roll-chan’s quite come to grips with it yet, if the idea of me’s ‘disturbing’…” “Maybe we should talk to them some more,” Meiru said. She was itching to type another message to her counterpart. “Just to help them settle in with the whole chatroom thing.” “Not because you’re curious?” wondered Roll. “I mean, I am, too, but…” “Okay, probably also because I’m curious,” admitted Meiru, already typing the message out. [MSG

] hello again! if you have any more questions about anything to do with the chatroom, you can always feel free to ask me! blobwave

Mayl wasn't quite sure how to feel about what just happened. Returning to the usual silence of the big, empty house that Mayl soon hoped to be free of was something of a blessing in disguise. Luminous Revival was frustrating in many ways, and somehow none of those reasons had anything to do with why she'd actually entered. There was way too much to keep track of in the immediate aftermath, and when a single, quiet day had been interrupted by the appearance of a suspicious app, things only felt more chaotic. "Other worlds," she scoffed to herself. "What an insane thing to randomly drop." She shook her head. "I guess it's not that outlandish. There's a million different ways that most things could've turned out." She couldn't stop thinking about how... well, childish was a pretty rude word, and probably not accurate. How much more open the person claiming to be her counterpart was. "There is no use thinking about them, Ms. Sakurai. You know this," Roll insisted. She was standing still on Mayl's desk, now using a holo-adaptor borrowed from Chaud. "Though the chance of them coming to our doorstep complicates things." As if on cue, the chatroom app's ping went through a moment later. Once again, the

person was being almost unnervingly open; it was rare for anyone to treat her this way. "She's still there," Mayl mumbled to herself, retrieving her PET. "I think... we should investigate this further. It'd feel wrong not to." Roll tilted her head. "Again, I have detected no abnormalities," she said. "I apologize for not detecting this app's appearance earlier, but..." Mayl was already typing a response before Roll could finish her thought. [MSG:

] Hello. [MSG:

] I don't see any reason why you would be messing with me, so. [MSG:

] This application just appears randomly? And

was already in on it? [MSG:

] I'm not sure what to make of the fact that she never mentioned it.

Meiru smiled as she saw the responses come in. After finding a comfortable typing seat in the Squishjelly corner, she nodded along to her counterpart’s questions, replying in turn. [MSG:

] nope, not messing with you! [MSG:

] the app seems to choose people. on what metric, i’m not sure, but blobthink

everyone here seems to be really strong! [MSG:

] well, it’s a little hard for most people to believe, isn’t it? if

just met you, then she probably wouldn’t have thought to tell you. [MSG:

] i haven’t told anyone outside of my team, either. about much of anything 'strange', not just this chatroom. It was only then that Meiru realized that Lan hadn’t taken her up on her offer to give pointers on the the play-by-plays. “I guess she is Netto’s counterpart…” “Who?” asked Roll, confused. “Netto-chan! We all volunteered to help her, but she didn’t need it.” “True,” Roll sheepishly giggled. (edited)

It was all so sincere, it was a little hard to believe. Mayl took a seat at her desk, mulling over the messages as Roll lazily looked onward. Roll's emotions were as unreadable as ever, but Mayl worried that she was more distressed than she let on, given that they hadn't exactly found anyone else in the chatroom that talked like her. It was like looking into a funhouse mirror that had all of your personal information. [MSG:

] It's only been two weeks, I guess. And we only talked for... a couple days out of that. [MSG:

] So you probably met her long before me. Well, not counting when she lived in Electopia. That didn't count for much, especially now that her long-lasting hatred was good and buried. At least, it should be. [MSG:

] It sounded like it was in person, too? [MSG:

] You're able to just create... portals, like it's nothing? It sounded straight out of a sci-fi movie to her. Or, more realistically, like Net functionality that had broken into the real world. "It's almost... a joke, isn't it," she muttered to herself. "The kid had this entire network right under our noses." "I do not think she ever relied on it," Roll added. "If she did, I do not think she would have acted the way she did. We only met her allies last week." Mayl curled her lip, acknowledging the truth in her Navi's statement.

Meiru smiled as she saw the replies trickle in. Roll had come to a rest on top of her head, reading along. Mayl seemed about as business cordial as she’d expected from that first exchange in the chatroom, never getting too personal but also not overly cold; they barely knew one another at this point, even if they were counterparts, so it made sense. It almost reminded her more of the way Enzan conducted himself in these situations. [MSG:

] wow, yeah! it seemed like she was here before i was, even. [MSG:

] she’s a bit quiet at first, but once you get to know her she’s really reliable. [MSG:

] we’re definitely good allies, and i’d like to think we’re good friends, too. The mysterious train ride, the Oran Isle expedition… Yes, Lan was definitely among Meiru’s good friends, by now. [MSG:

] yeah! even for here, it’s pretty crazy. [MSG:

] the portals i traveled through before weren’t nearly as smooth. [MSG:

] or controllable, for that matter. She sat back among the Squishjellies and waited for the next response. (edited)

[MSG:

] Reliable, huh. It had taken a while for Mayl to see Lan in action outside of the tournament, and her earlier performance was... well, 'reliable' wouldn't have been her first choice of words. She was erratic and inscrutable, wearing a permanent disgruntled face in every scenario. It was only later that she learned the depth of her convictions, and how she put her fiery attitude to good use. She supposed, if her counterpart had only seen that side of her, how she would describe her as reliable. [MSG:

] It's strange that you're able to speak of this so casually. [MSG:

] You must be pretty adventurous, if you know this much about something so... overwhelming. She didn't want to think too hard about what her counterpart could have possibly been up to. They did not talk like each other. What kind of life did she lead? Mayl was not certain if she would like the answer, but it felt like she was going to get it, no matter what. "She mentioned a team," Roll pointed out blankly, as if she was reading her operator's mind. "People... bothered." Mayl found the idea a bit souring, but she continued to message anyways, like she couldn't tear herself away from touching a potentially poisonous plant. [MSG:

] I don't know anything about your life. [MSG:

] Where do you live?

Meiru and Roll could only exchange sheepish looks. [MSG:

] i guess at first it was more like… stuff just happened around me, and i got sucked in? [MSG:

] but it’s true! i’m a net savior, so i seek this crazy stuff out or i get sent to investigate it, more or less. [MSG:

] just part of the job! blobkissheart

It seemed, both from what had been said in the chatroom and Mayl’s observations, that being a Net Sheriff didn’t involve nearly as many paranormal events as being a Net Savior did… and that it involved being in Ameroupe. [MSG:

] i still live in the old house in japan. Mayl lived in Ameroupe. Where her parents were. They’d actually wanted her closer. “You wouldn’t have wanted to leave, anyway,” Roll pointed out. “Not when you were growing up, not when you took over as a Net Savior, and definitely not now…” “It was… that obvious, huh?” asked Meiru weakly. She had still fantasized about her parents bothering to ask, though. Meiru stared at the message box for a moment longer before she remembered that Mayl also wouldn’t know that things had changed, and scrambled to set the record straight. [MSG:

] my partner in the net saviors moved in recently after some family stuff went sideways, so it’s way less lonely now.

Mayl was surprised by how much that her counterpart was inferring, though it wasn't necessarily inaccurate. One of the chatroom members had explained already that 'Net Saviors' was probably just a different word for the same kind of job. The same kind of job, and yet she was clearly happier with it, able to describe more than cold beuracracy. Was there more excitement, more meaning? (Well, she'd resolved to make the moves she could in her own space already, but she still couldn't help but wonder. How hard did she have to work for that happiness?) [MSG:

] The... old house, huh. She hadn't directly mentioned her moving away, but with the tournament taking place in Netopia and all, and the fact that she had to bring up the Net Sheriffs to begin with, meant that it wasn't difficult to make certain leaps of logic. "She's assuming you left. How odd," Roll echoed. "For all she knows, we could have always lived here." "I wish," Mayl groused, though she wasn't sure how much she actually meant that. [MSG:

] I'm surprised you have a partner. There aren't enough people here to form teams. [MSG:

] Not that I can't handle myself alone, of course. In a literal sense, that was true. But the slightest amount of bitterness rose when her counterpart was able to proudly state that it wasn't lonely for her, anymore. She pushed it down, knowing the same was true here, to an extent. [MSG:

] It isn't like there's much 'real' to track down, anyways.

[MSG:

] yeah, the one in densan. i’ve been here my whole life, so… it just feels old, by now? Meiru was a bit more composed now with this subject matter to ground her, and realized her mistake. [MSG:

] wait, did you ever live there? i just went and assumed, didn’t i! whoops blobwhoops

It was strange to imagine a version of her with an entirely different childhood, though. All the Nettos seemed to have a similar starting point, so she’d envisioned it as being the same for the Meirus. But, then, maybe there was a different thing they shared, like how all the Enzans had some involvement with IPC… The idea of not having enough people to form a ‘team’, on the other hand, was very familiar. [MSG:

] it’s barely better here. or was. we finally found some new kids, but for a long time, it was just me and enzan. and if i hadn’t stepped up, it would’ve been enzan alone, when netto was gone. [MSG:

] it’s like that in most parts of the world. net saviors kind of come in ones and twos. She hated to think of Enzan alone against some of the things they’d come up against. She definitely wouldn’t have managed well alone, in the early days. Mayl was a lot stronger than she was, that was for sure. (edited)

Mayl was quick to assure her counterpart, because she didn't want the stress of this conversation in an even more awkward direction. It wasn't that unreasonable to assume. There were many ways that things could have gone differently, because she'd thought through them a thousand times in the many lonely years she'd sat through. (She had to have had it easier.) [MSG:

] Oh, no, I know what you mean. I did have to move away. [MSG:

] I didn't want to think about it for a while, but I think part of me still misses it. I don't even know if anyone lives there, anymore. But the mention of an Enzan threw Mayl for a serious loop. Chaud was significantly younger than her, and he'd handled himself well enough in the final assault, but imagining a goofball kid like him by her side at all times was a little bit nauseating. She respected him, but he seemed quite overbearing; maybe they would've gotten along better if they were the same age. [MSG:

] Enzan??? [MSG:

] Wow [MSG:

] Was not expecting that name. I wonder how he handles himself [MSG:

] Anyways, I guess the jobs have a lot in common. Surely you must spend a lot of time chasing ghosts. [MSG:

] Wasted time these past two week tracking down some prank asshole with fake Autuvera. Complete shit

Meiru blinked in surprise as her counterpart confirmed that she’d been right all along. Part of me still misses it stuck in her head, even as the rest of the messages appeared beneath it. Meiru was surprised that this Mayl also knew Enzan; she’d never heard Lan mention one before. [MSG:

] he’s enzan, you know! as much of a perfectionist as ever [MSG:

] just using that energy on a few more of his own interests for a change haha (Indeed, as far as she knew Enzan was pondering a serious tome on “the science and lore of the kitchen” in his room.) [MSG:

] lately we’ve had all sorts of things crop up; liminal spaces, interdimensional viruses… [MSG:

] only one ghost, though. And that ‘ghost’ hadn’t been a ghost at all. Autuvera was a new term to Meiru, but she was sure Liminal Spaces would be new to Mayl; and equally sure they were talking about two entirely different sorts of 'ghosts'. [MSG:

] when things are quiet, we're mostly just here to help people with their problems, or provide a bit of extra security. [MSG:

] and when they aren't, we could end up doing... literally anything, it feels like. [MSG:

] i suppose it feels the same for you? Impulsively, she kept typing. [MSG:

] speaking of, everything’s quiet here right now, if… [MSG:

] you wanted to see it again [MSG:

] is that weird? just ignore me if it is blobflushed

(edited)

Perfectionist was also not a word she was certain applied to Chaud. Asking what was up with him seemed like a completely ridiculous rabbit hole to go down, though - it wasn't like she knew him that well beyond their battle and his assistance against the battle with the Guardians. She then got the sense that her counterpart had taken her mention of ghosts entirely literally. Mayl could not fathom what a Liminal Space could possibly be, beyond the trite posts about the abundance of abandoned construction sites that circulated around the Netopian Undernet. Interdimensional viruses sounded about right, however. [MSG:

] Oh. I meant... metaphorical ghosts. [MSG:

] False leads and rumors and the like. Though I suppose that would be your purview as well, given how you've described the Net Saviors. Mayl paused. There was a lot that she had done that she hadn't expected to do, but she was never sure if that was a good thing. Being on call for the tournament staff's whims was obnoxious, and the endless investigations into ongoing protests had been utterly miserable. She only expected that to get worse in the aftermath of the Lotus Engine's resurgence. [MSG:

] You know, [MSG:

] It sometimes 'feels' like everything, but I get the impression that your 'everything' is more interesting right now. It took a moment for Mayl to process what her counterpart was asking. She meant to head over there, using one of those portals. To see the house in Electopia, pristine, like nothing had ever changed. Her response was as impulsive as her counterpart's question. [MSG:

] Well. [MSG:

] Why not. [MSG:

] I can come over. Roll immediately narrowed her eyes. "Are you sure about this, Ms. Sakurai?" she asked. "You're certain it won't bring up... unpleasant feelings." Mayl averted her eyes, then sighed. "I think... if you asked me a year ago, then the answer would be yes," she admitted. "But now that I have some catharsis... why the hell not. We've come this far, already."

[MSG:

] oh yeah, we get our share of false alarms too! especially when things are quiet [MSG: ] it’s just that, well… a lot of our rumors turn out to be based in truth. Bringing rumors to life was, after all, one of the things the Liminal Spaces could do. Not to mention everything that people attempted (or succeeded) to set up in the Ura Net. [MSG:

] haha, not really! occasionally monitoring the chatroom [MSG:

] occasionally throwing folks out of the ministry [MSG:

] nothing too wild, for now Thankfully for everyone’s sanity, the chatroom hadn’t needed monitoring in some time. But that was quickly forgotten; Meiru blinked in surprise when her counterpart took her up on the offer. [MSG:

] oh i know! you can try out opening one up! “I’ll, uh, send Blues a quick message so he can warn Enzan and turn his Fossa Tracker off,” Roll said, forming and sending the short string with a flick of her wrist. With the potential of blaring alarms defused, Meiru resumed typing. [MSG:

] the chatroom will put the functionality where you expect to find it. [MSG:

] it’s a living thing itself, so it can guess things like that. …Was this going to be a sad sort of nostalgia for Mayl? Meiru got to her feet to welcome her counterpart, wondering if either of them were really prepared.

Mayl couldn't help but balk at her counterpart so casually describing the chatroom as a living thing, which opened up a thousand questions that she was pretty certain no one could answer. It must have been a virus, or something like that. Mentally shrugging her shoulders and deciding to go with the flow, she searched through the chatroom app, and... well, there it was. That was creepy. Far too easy. [MSG:

] Right. Coming over, then. With the process as easy as her counterpart had described it, she decided not to bring much else other than her PET. She figured that nothing would be necessary, if she was meeting a perfectly normal version of... herself. Someone who still lived in Electopia. Someone who didn't seem to talk like her, and only thought like her a little bit... ...She stepped through the portal, and arrived at the gates of a house that certainly filled her with a discomforting familiarity. The house was pretty much identical to how she remembered it; given, she hadn't seen it in years, and there definitely wasn't a gate for their own house, and it looked a little bit more saturated, but... there it was. Actually, now that she was standing here, she found the neighboring house far more disturbing. What she could only assume was the Hikari household was standing right there, untouched, looking far more homely than she could ever remember the one she'd been at. All she could remember was the lawn, and one or two of the rooms, and how anxiously she wandered around them when a certain boy fell down and needed to get his heart checked... Mayl shook her head and sighed, approaching the gate and ringing the intercom on the gate. She said nothing, instead giving her Navi an empty glance; it was evident how much she was trying not to look to the right. "Don't think about it, Ms. Sakurai," Roll assured. "It isn't worth it."

“I’ll get it!” Meiru called before Enzan could so much as ask, bounding down the stairs and to the door. Still, Roll was the one to get there first. ”Hi, Meiru-chan, Roll-chan!” she greeted, a disembodied voice from within the intercom. Meiru appeared at the front door seconds later, oversized jacket billowing around her when she came to a sudden halt. Her smile only grew the more she took in her new visitors. Just as she’d thought, this version of her was way cooler, though they otherwise looked refreshingly similar. (No wild variances in height like with the Nettos and Enzans.) Her suit jacket was professional in its cut, but the colors and the creeper shoes gave it a fun pastel-gothy vibe. She seemed a bit preoccupied with the Hikari house, though. Meiru crossed the divide between door and gate in a few strides, in a way she knew tended to catch attention. “Nobody oughta be home right now. Don’t worry.” With a gentle smile, she said, “It’s really nice to meet you in person.”

Mayl was a little twitchy about the honorifics, since virtually no one had referred to her in that way for a long, long time. As expected from the way she talked, she looked a lot more casual than her - a lot more comfortable. It honestly wasn’t a bad look at all - it was just a somewhat unsettling mirror to look into. It was immediately clear how the expectations thrust onto them differed. She couldn’t help but wear a slightly embarrassed and tentative expression as her counterpart bounded over to her. “Ah… right. Same to you,” she said, adjusting her jacket. “I never thought I’d be back here… even if it’s not really the same place. I don’t know how to feel.” Roll was quick to appear on Mayl’s shoulder, staring at her counterpart lazily with a somewhat guarded posture. It was a habit she’d noticed Rock doing, and now that they had a holo-adaptor of their own, she adopted the practice. It simply felt like the right thing to do. “I’m guessing there’s no one else home besides… your roommate,” Mayl surmised (and hoped). Glancing to her left, she frowned. “I guess we shouldn’t stand around out here.” “You should be careful not to be seen, Ms. Sakurai,” Roll quietly suggested. “You don’t know… what could happen.” (edited)

Roll blinked in surprise, then plugged out of the house network to return to her own Operator’s shoulder. The other Roll was quite different, in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Her faded colors and subdued expression—and her antennae!—weren’t what Roll had expected. That didn’t mean she was necessarily bad, though, did it? From Meiru’s shoulder, Roll gave the other Roll a friendly smile and wave while the Operators’ conversation continued. Meiru was a bit surprised by the way Roll chose to addresss her Operator, but deigned not to make a big deal of it. There was plenty of time to learn more about the pair of them, after all. “Yup, it’s just us. Lots of people'll be away at work still, but it's nicer inside anyway,” she said in quasi-agreement to what Roll had said, ushering her counterpart in. She’d braved the outdoors in sock feet; her shoes and Enzan’s stood next to the door, along with her pair of house slippers. “Oh, true, you can borrow my slippers!” she realized, amused by the idea of letting herself borrow her slippers. The first floor of the house was as pristine (unlived-in) as ever, though the kitchen at least had some dishes in the sink. “I guess it would just feel… strange, huh?” Meiru thought aloud, looking around at it all. “Well, down here, anyway.” Where it wasn’t anyone’s space, where it felt more like a furniture showroom than a home. “We can go upstairs to my room anytime.” In the meantime, Roll continued to curiously glance across to the other Roll.

As Mayl stepped inside, some indescribable emotion overtook her. She always remembered the light inside this household being different than where she currently resided, and where she currently stood certainly matched those memories. The brighter colors were somehow more energizing than the endless array of crystalline windows that caught the white rays of the sun. Surprisingly, she found her counterpart's slipper suggestion about as amusing as she did. Chuckling lightly, she took up the offer and borrowed said slipper. "It's always strange," she responded, surveying the area. "I don't think I remember the specifics all that well, anyways. There's always this empty kind of feeling, no matter where you are." No one was ever really home. It was always quiet when she walked in, so the feeling of walking into a museum, almost, wasn't all that outrageous. She wasn't sure how to feel about the upstairs, yet; she couldn't even remember her childhood room anymore. It'd been all but replaced with her current room, which stayed barely decorated for far too long. Roll did not take long to notice her own counterpart staring at her. It was as she feared... well, she "feared" it as much as she was capable of; maybe it was more like annoyance. This Roll had no scars, and no apprehension, and wore the same fake kind of look she'd always told herself she had to wear. "Why are you staring at me?" she asked flatly. Mayl was startled by her Navi's comment, glancing between the two counterparts with the tiniest amount of regret. "Oh- uh," she interrupted awkwardly. "I suppose we do have the same Navis, then. To an extent." She averted her eyes. "Was she also... a gift...?"

Meiru couldn’t help but notice the way her counterpart phrased her explanation, of the emptiness remaining the same. It seemed that even in Ameroupe, this space remained unfilled. Perhaps, no matter where they were, it was always up to them to fill it… “I’m just curious, that’s all! I’ve never met another me before!” Roll said, easily cowed into embarrassed retreat. “Sorry…” “Ah…” Meiru watched Roll duck into her PET at her wrist, though the top of her helmet was still visible. “Well… yeah.” The memory was bittersweet, to say the least. “On my eighth birthday, Mom and Dad decided I was old enough to take care of things, so… they gave me Roll-chan, to help me keep up with my studies and look after the house.” Roll peered up at her, still mostly ‘submerged’ in her Mode PET; Meiru reassured her, “No matter what the circumstances were, I’m happy I met her. She can get a little silly and carried away at times, but… well, so can I!” (Perhaps the difference in Rolls was merely reflective of a difference in temperament in general...?)

Mayl twitched a little watching the other Roll retreat. It was only now that she bothered to ruminate on her existence - but, really, what else did she expect. She couldn't bring herself to be mortified by the obvious outcome. No one else could have made the same stupid mistakes she did. Surely this Meiru hadn't, given the smile on both her and her Navi's faces. So instead, she distracted herself by eyeing the unfamiliar PET model. "You... don't have to hide," she assured to Roll. "I mean... it's weird for all of us, isn't it." Her own Navi's expression was completely unchanging, however. Being in hologram form only made it more obvious and unnerving how little she moved. Mayl quietly listened to her counterpart's story; the numbers and the details were a little off, but their background was generally the same. Roll was in her life when she was as young as... six, really. When your neighbors were spearheading connection technology and not yet made into pariahs for it, having a Navi was an attractive idea to inscrutable parents. "Right. Yeah, that lines up," she answered. She couldn't prevent her expression from becoming a little glassier when she repeated, "Silly, huh." "How did you become a Net Savior?" Roll asked with zero hesitation, uncaring as to how her question came off. "If that's what you are." "Roll," Mayl hushed. She looked back toward her counterpart, taking a breath and resuming her professional expression. "We don't need to talk about that, if it's personal." She averted her eyes. "...It's rare that I'm someone's houseguest, though. I think figuring out what to do here is stranger than standing inside this hallway."

At Mayl’s reassurance, Roll’s head popped back up over the Mode PET’s lip. “I mean it! I’m sorry for being so rude!” Embarrassed as she was, she settled for resting her forearms on the Mode PET while the Meirus conversed, like she was hanging out at the side of a swimming pool. Meiru was visibly concerned at her counterpart’s obvious discomfort at the idea of a ‘silly’ Roll; but before she could say anything, the other Roll asked the most complex question imaginable. “It was… all I had left,” she murmured before the out was given. “Yeah! Definitely a long story, and a little personal,” she hastily agreed. “We should go up to my room! There’s, y’know, actually my stuff up there.” If anyone was going to understand where her dry delivery of that fact came from, her counterpart would. Her own Roll, somewhat more bothered by the ‘if that’s what you are’ part coming from what appeared to be another of her, said, “We worked hard to. That’s how.”

"You're... not being rude," Mayl quickly assured, before her counterpart ended up answering Roll's question anyway. She listened carefully, taking note at how the two of them seemed to bounce worries between each other with each statement, until one single murmur snapped her right back into recognizable territory. That was the first show of a familiar emotion from her counterpart, and it cracked open a thousand questions at once. She must have been motivated in the same way. But then why did she seem so... unscathed...? Like nothing had ever changed...? "Oh," she murmured, her expression quickly turning sympathetic. "That's what..." She stopped herself, realizing how horribly awkward any straightforward response to that statement would be. "Uh... yeah, sure. We can see your room. I think that's a good idea." She tugged on her jacket. "I don't really have the chance to decorate. Is that different for you?" Roll, on the other hand, was uninterested in dropping the subject, in spite of her operator clearly expressing interest in following her mirror up the stairs. "Similar," she commented, keeping her emotionless expression locked onto her counterpart. "I wonder how you still feel comfortable like that, then. Are you ensuring Ms. Sakurai is happy?" She briefly paused, her eyelids lowering slightly. "That is the most important thing for my strength."

Meiru didn’t quite have time to answer that her bedroom was the only place she ever did get to decorate, albeit over years and years of time. Roll and Roll seemed to be getting along like oil and water. “What does that even— Of course I’m making sure Meiru-chan’s happy! If this wasn’t what she’d wanted to do with all her heart, I’d never have agreed to it!” Meiru was a bit embarrassed by how the situation between the two Navis was devolving, but she also didn’t want to completely discredit her Roll’s feelings. “I’m sure she didn’t mean anything by it,” she attempted. “She’s curious, too. It just came out a little funny.” “R-right,” Roll said, pulling herself back from the misunderstanding ledge. “Let’s see…” Meiru tilted her head to address the other Roll directly. “Roll and I accompanied our friends on a lot of missions when they were Net Saviors, whether that was on purpose or coincidence. And then… my friend disappeared." The whole 'we thought he was dead' part seemed a little much to explain in the hallway. "So we decided to fight in his stead. No matter what that took.”

Roll was quick to respond once their counterparts had given their retort. "So you agreed to the same thing," she said, her tone and expression unchanging. "I'm not sure I understand, but if we operate on similar terms, then the subject is irrelevant." She didn't directly apologize, but her odd tilting of her head forward apparently substituted for one. Mayl, on the other hand, was more directly apologetic, nodding along as her counterpart pointed out how it came out funny. She followed Meiru's gaze as she answered the more personal question in detail, feeling something cold run over her when her counterpart's motivation was spelled out plainly. "Dis... appeared...?" she couldn't help but repeat. Disappeared was one way to put it. Mayl couldn't help but wonder how loaded with coded language Meiru's explanation was; she certainly would've done the same. "Your friend was already a Net Savior? At what age...?" No matter what, was something she'd also told herself over and over. She wasn't sure how to feel out how much they had in common, and with her Navi unintentionally sending a verbal beatdown toward the other Roll, being a little more open seemed like the best path forward. "I also started taking battling seriously after I... lost a friend," she admitted. "I thought, if I didn't get stronger, then it would consume me. That's why I, uh... ask."

“I think you guys are on the same page after all!” Meiru reassured Roll cheerfully. Roll blinked in confusion at the other Roll. The words sounded a bit like that, but she still sounded just as flat as she always had. Meiru seemed to be a fair bit better at interpreting the other Roll, though, so she decided to take her Operator’s word for it. “I’m glad, then! I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong page with another me.” To her counterpart, Meiru explained, “He became one when we were twelve.” With a self-deprecating smile, she admitted, “It was all I could do to keep up, but he’d been my best friend since we were toddlers. It felt even more terrible to let him drift away.” “I didn’t want to see Meiru-chan get hurt, but… I wanted to keep up with Rockman just as much, even with how dangerous it was,” Roll said. “And after Netto-san disappeared…” Meiru wouldn’t have brought the sentiment up on her own, but Roll had done it for her. “I could’ve withered away in here, I guess,” she said, looking around at the tastefully decorated walls. “But I think I kinda felt the same way as you. I had to be strong enough to stand on my own. Strong enough to help people, just like he did.” “I wanted to be the one to protect Rockman, after those two years of him protecting me,” Roll added. “And I didn’t want to hold Meiru-chan back anymore. So I threw myself into it just as much as she did.” Meiru nodded, still lost in thought. The memories of when she was just starting out were fraught ones, even now that Netto had come back. She could still remember the stares of the other girls in middle school. “…We were heading upstairs!” she said, mostly to break herself out of her reverie. “Right!”

Roll did not understand why agreeing with her mattered so much to her counterpart, because she was still struggling to believe how someone like her could possibly be comfortable with the way things were and still agree with her on these things. The matter demanded more investigating, but pressing the issue seemed to make Ms. Sakurai uncomfortable, so she would wait, for now. Every detail her counterpart only made Mayl's head spin more. Netto being the one to, quote-unquote, disappear, and Rockman somehow being involved with it all; half the details didn't line up, and yet the result was still recognizable. "A different Netto...? Your age...?" she murmured to herself. "He's alive, though, isn't he? Didn't I talk to him? Or is that another...?" She shook her head, stopping herself from going on a tangent. Mayl was courteous despite her outward appearance, and waited until they were already on the steps to begin talking again. She knew that kind of look out of her counterpart, so it was best not to beat on that wound. "I know how you feel. I couldn't rot away once I moved. I'd be failing Roll. And myself, too," she explained. "So I took up battling to make sure I didn't... crumble." "You were led by example, then," Roll responded, giving her counterpart another unreadable head tilt. "Commendable. Altruistic. Enviable, even, to have that kind of resolve." Her eyelids fluttered. "Ms. Sakurai had no example. We had to figure out strength on our own."

Meiru nodded at her counterpart’s explanation as they headed upstairs. She’d overheard a bit of her confused murmurings, too. “He was kidnapped,” she murmured back; they were passing by Enzan’s room, so she didn’t want him knowing what they were talking about. It seemed as though he’d wind up being another surprise in the wings for her counterpart. Roll, meanwhile, was left to puzzle over what her counterpart had said. Enzan and Blues’s training had been harsh and unforgiving, but ultimately, she and Meiru had found their feet thanks to them. “No one…?” she whispered to herself. Over the Navis’ heads, the conversation continued. “It took us six years, but… we finally found him. He’s home, now.” It was still a bit surreal to think that her grandmother was not coming back but Netto, who’d been ‘dead’ even longer, somehow had. “Your Netto-chan’s really different from our Netto, it seems like. Even if they feel so similar.” Now they were at Meiru’s door. “I hate to think of a me who never tried to move forward. I’m really glad you did,” she confessed, and then they were in. Meiru’s bedroom hadn’t changed much in its layout. The bed was lofted now, and the piano nook had to compete with a space devoted to a training simulator and other Netbattling accoutrements. There was a purple shag rug in the center of the room, and plenty of oversized stuffed animals in lieu of chairs. The one office chair in the room was in front of a computer desk that now served as a workstation, the monitor boxed in by studio monitors, a drum pad, a microphone, and both a MIDI keyboard and a QWERTY one. It was the one part of the house that was thoroughly Meiru’s space, tailored to all the things she was passionate about.

"K- kidnapped...?" Mayl balked, finally realizing that her counterpart really did mean what she said, and she wasn't just being avoidant. It was horrible, obviously. Especially with Meiru having been older than her when her friend disappeared. More time to get attached. More maturity with that to waste away with mourning. Six years was a long time. (Ten was longer, and that result was final, unchanging.) Before she could figure out what to say, they'd made it to Meiru's room. It was a lot more lively than her own, which was probably to be expected; her own room sometimes felt like an office space that just so happened to have a bed in the middle, but she was at least trying to collect some knick-knacks to help with that. Meiru had gone the full mile, though. The stuffed animals were goofy, but strangely charming; she couldn't bring herself to sincerely think they were stupid anymore. Then, Mayl's eyes fell on the training simulator. "Huh," she muttered to herself, walking over to it and holding her hand over it, as if she wasn't allowed to touch it. "Fancy. I've only seen a handful of these. But here it is, just... in your house?" She exhaled lightheartedly. "I'm a little jealous." It was evident as she continued surveying the room that their interests diverged. "And you play music, too?" she wondered out loud. "We... I have a piano at home, but I don't think I've touched it in years..." She shook her head, snapping herself out of her own reverie. "I don't know your friend, and I don't know Lan very well, either, but," she began to muse. "I mean, she's a lot younger than me. Hell, she was a toddler when I was..." She interrupted herself, cutting off that sentence. "I don't know what the best way to describe her is. Feisty?"

Meiru laughed at the interest in the training simulator, a bit embarrassed. “Enzan bought it for me when I’d just started, so Roll and I could run more drills at home,” she explained. “He, er, used to have money.” (And now he was here, was the unsaid end of that thought.) “Even in this world, it’s a little crazy to have one this good…” The workstation, however, was a definite point of pride. “Now, that stuff I did assemble myself!” she explained cheerfully. “I’ve been working on my songwriting and production skills. That’s what I want to do after college, other than being a Net Agent.” Remembering the difference in their titles, she added, “That’s like the step up from being a Net Savior, where they can embed you somewhere for a while. They usually have another interest or job they do anyway, as part of their cover.” Meiru was quite curious by her counterpart’s self-interruption, but gamely went along with the slight shift in subject. “Yeah, that’s definitely Netto!” she said cheerfully. “Both of them, really. The Netto here just learned to hide it better, but we’re coaxing it out of him.” Then, she remembered—she'd been telling Mayl all about her own life, without listening in return! "What about you?" (edited)

There was a brief respite of familiarity when Meiru mentioned an Enzan having money, before it dived right back into details that she couldn't even begin to figure out the context for. It at least made her feel less bad that this training simulator was an anomaly, and not yet another point that fed into how paradoxically enthusiastic her counterpart seemed. She hadn't given much thought to what she was going to do in college, honestly. They were midway through the time period for applications, and she'd started sending them out, but she had yet to come up with any defined purpose. There certainly weren't any NetBattling degrees; her expertise in that would only continue to be honed via the internship. "It's nice," she complimented, giving a small smile. "I should try something like that, honestly..." It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why Meiru described her own Netto's feistiness the way she did. The pieces were slowly connecting together on that front, at the very least - but that process was interrupted when her counterpart finally pried for her own connections. "Me? What about...?" she initially responded. "Oh. I don't really... do music, like you do, so... most of my time is spent training. On my own. Uh, researching, too." "It's important to know how to handle yourself in public spaces," Roll added flatly. "Crises require a variety of different skills." Mayl slowly nodded in agreement. "Yeah. Uh, when they come up," she said, fiddling with her tie. "But I can't say I'm quite as... uh, interesting. As you are." It was clear that she was being avoidant about something, but her expression was so unreadable that perhaps she didn't even realize she was doing it.

“Researching…?” Meiru wondered quietly to herself, impressed, as Mayl explained how her days were spent. She was amazed at her counterpart’s resolve; training alone got pretty old pretty fast, for both her and Roll. And ‘researching’ piqued her interest; she could code well enough to do some basic customization to Fashion Chips and other accessories, but she couldn’t say she was focused on it enough to count anything she did as needing or counting as ‘research’. The thought that Mayl was always alone, though, sounded terribly lonely; and her dim comparison to her counterpart only reinforced that impression. “I think you’re really interesting!” Meiru protested. “You’ve got a cool sense of style, you sound really tenacious, and you’re really dedicated to your craft!” On her shoulder, her own Roll was nodding in agreement. “What’ve you been researching?”

"Ah... well," Mayl muttered along in response. It was strange for her counterpart to give her such glowing praise when she hardly knew anything about her. Even if they were kind of, sort of, the same person, she would've had to make a lot of assumptions to reach that point. "Tenacious... dedicated, yeah. It's just... well, I think you've pursued more... worthwhile..." she began, before cutting herself off and shaking her head. "No, that sounds terrible." She went silent again, gazing at the training simulator once more. Sensing the awkward spot they were in, Roll piped up with her own commentary. "Ms. Sakurai researches programming and design techniques to assist in ongoing incidents," she explained. "The Net Sheriffs have access to technology intended for tracking down Net crime, but they are quite difficult to use. Ms. Sakurai modifies them to suit our needs." Mayl was nervous about the way Roll was describing things. "I'm- uh, I'm not exactly a programmer, to be clear," she hastily clarified. "But there's a lot of cult and vigilante activity going on out there, and the resources they throw our way are... less than ideal." She tugged on her tie again. "Er- example, Roll can't read much data on her own anymore, so I modify data probes such that they won't overwhelm her..." "Ms. Sakurai also researches professional demeanors, common signs and masks for illegal activity, and self-defense techniques," Roll continued, partially talking over her operator. The deadly word of 'anymore' failed to be covered up, however. "We need to be prepared at all times. No matter the context. You never know who could be watching." Her head leaned to the side. "Much of this was useful in the recent incidents."

For a moment, Meiru was confused by how little confidence her counterpart seemed to have in her own decisions under the surface. Worthwhile? But it was easy enough to remember; it was unusual enough for someone her age in her world to spend so much time Netbattling. It must’ve been even stranger for Mayl. Neither she nor Roll were quite prepared to hear that the other Roll’s ability to process data had been so severely compromised. A gloved hand hovered over Roll’s mouth as she and Meiru gave the other Roll concerned looks. But Mayl clearly knew all about how to work around it; if it had been Meiru in that position, and that was the best fix possible, she wouldn’t have wanted to be interrogated on the whys of it. So, instead, Meiru returned her attention to her counterpart’s impressive resume. “All on your own…” Her smile was a bit crooked as she admitted, “I was so lost when I was trying to figure it all out by myself. I don’t know much programming either, other than, like, basic modding. And everything else... It takes a ton of skills to hold down this job, doesn't it?” And Mayl seemed to have no Enzan to teach her everything he knew. No wonder it all took up so much of her time to learn. "I don't have much of a social life, either, so don't worry about that." “It’s really amazing what all you’ve accomplished!” Roll agreed. Thinking back over that awkward pause, Meiru wondered whether she ought to say more. But even if it wasn’t the right move, she couldn’t help adding, “Just because other people don’t get why we’d do the things we did, doesn’t make them any less worthwhile.”

Roll's response to the odd stares she was getting was to return an equally odd, cold stare, like she couldn't (or wouldn't) understand what was wrong. Mayl, meanwhile, continued to feel awkward not only about her Navi's reactions, but her counterpart's reassurances as well. "A lot of skill. You've... got, uh, that right," she absentmindedly repeated, her eyes still wandering. "But, really, the half of it is just feeling around in the darkness, isn't it? For the both of us..." Meiru's last assertion seemed to make Roll look particularly incensed, at least compared to her default expression. "Ms. Sakurai, of course, knows this," she stated flatly, in spite of her operator's doubtful expression. "This way was always better than the alternative. It doesn't matter if idiots refuse to understand it. If this wasn't worthwhile, Ms. Sakurai would not have pursued it." "Mmm," was Mayl's only response, for a bit. For a long time, she was certain that this path she'd chosen would prove her worth, only for that expectation to fall from her grasp repeatedly; and when the opportunity had risen to show her strength to the world, she had to accept a loss against a girl who never wanted the same thing. She knew that it was better that way, to not unhealthily obsess over her worth to faceless crowds of people, but in the immediate aftermath, she felt listless. Like she'd made even more mistakes than she knew she had already. After a long, awkward pause, Mayl spoke again. "I think... you're being awfully kind to me," she asserted coldly, her smile cracking in nearly the same way her counterpart did. Roll's eyes twitched. "I don't think you should envy me. If you really knew anything about me, then I don't think you... would think I'm so accomplished." Her expression became unreadable as her head tilted awkwardly to the side. "You should value yourself, first and foremost."

Meiru completely understood the idea of ‘feeling around in the darkness’. But the immediate response from the other Roll left her a bit surprised, and she wasn’t sure what to say after the rejection of her praise. “You’re right, Roll-san!” agreed her own Roll before she could say anything. “It just seems hard sometimes to stick by something, doesn’t it? Meiru-chan… always had a rough time in school because of how dedicated she was to her training, so I think that’s why she said that.” “R-Roll!” But maybe it was better to explain more about why she was saying what she was. Meiru sighed. “I guess… it’s hard not to compare myself in some ways, y’know? I don’t have Enzan’s skill or Netto’s talent. I’m better than most people, because I didn’t give up on it like a lot of kids do as they get older, and I eventually got a ton of help…” Roll looked up at Meiru sadly as her Operator trailed off. The difference Meiru was perceiving was obvious—that her counterpart had made it all the way to a tournament final, with nobody's assistance. Not Rockman versus Blues—Rock versus Roll. Roll could feel it, too; she could never dream of defeating a Navi with an Ultimate Program, like Rockman or Blues. Yet there stood that other Roll, unflinching. Meiru laughed sheepishly, pulling the easygoing mask back on. “But it must feel totally crazy to hear that kind of stuff from someone who looks just like you, huh? Sorry about that.”

Mayl still looked a little twitchy, as if she couldn't understand how her counterpart kept that mask on and restrained herself from prying. She couldn't understand how they had so much in common, yet had turned out so differently. She couldn't understand how someone that looked just like her could sing her praises, when as far as she could tell, the mirror staring back at her was one that hadn't made such stupid, horrible decisions. Roll lacked the filter that Mayl did, however. "Ms. Sakurai also had trouble in school. Ms. Sakurai also refused to give up when everyone else did," she repeated. "You aren't weak at all. You have resolve. It's easy to tell. I can't understand, then, why we are different in any way besides the obvious." Mayl only looked even more nervous at the mention of 'the obvious'. "I-I really don't think... you should compare yourself. I mean- I don't really get it, it's not like I had anyone to compare myself to, before. I think that Lan must be some kind of fucking prodigy or something," she began, her tone a bit skittish. "But that's besides the point. I think you have your shit together in your own way, so-" She rustled a hand against her top. "If you don't have anything to regret, then you shouldn't compare yourself to me, and you can just trust me on that-" "Does the 'Love Seraph' mean anything to you," Roll interrupted flatly.

Roll was quite confused. ‘The obvious’? Other than the difference in personality and whatever was happening with the antennae, nothing really stood out for why Mayl would be so cool while Meiru would be… well, Meiru. Was going to Ameroupe really such a huge change…? Meiru listened intently to Mayl’s words and wishes. She couldn’t help but stifle a laugh at Lan being identified as a ‘fucking prodigy’ (oh, Mayl probably didn’t know the half of it yet!), though she sobered up quickly at Mayl’s genuine compliment of her. Because it was true; even if she couldn't reach impossible heights, Meiru didn’t regret anything about her performance as a Net Savior. The one caveat was delusional, thinking that they could have rescued Netto any sooner than they— Meiru and Roll both blinked in surprise at the very Proper Noun (Cyber Beast! Soul Unison! The Resident! Love Seraph?!) that came out of the other Roll’s mouth. “Love… Seraph?” wondered Roll. “I… can’t say it does,” Meiru agreed. It certainly sounded serious both in title and in the way Roll said it, though.

Mayl's initial reaction to Roll dropping all pretenses and throwing sensitive information out there was extreme caginess, especially because she hadn't ever explained this to someone before Lan. This was supposed to be her secret she and Roll would take to the grave, and now, here it was, being used as a stake to be driven in the middle of the conversation. "I-" she stammered, pausing for a horribly awkward few seconds. It was evident from Roll's glance at her that she was being volunteered to continue the conversation. "Well... of course. That makes sense. Of course it makes sense," Mayl muttered to herself, before resuming eye contact with her counterpart. Her smile was weak, like she was hiding ten different emotions behind it. "It's a mistake. You didn't make that mistake. Obviously." Roll's eyelids lowered at the less than descriptive answer. "It was a program of Ms. Sakurai's creation, designed to enhance my battling capability," she explained. "Its creation was necessary. Ms. Sakurai needed it to keep up. Whatever she said, went. It wasn't like I could provide her with much else." "She- it was broken," Mayl hastily appended on. "I-... you don't have to worry about it anymore, Lan destroyed it, but Roll's still..." She twisted her hands together. "I think it's a virus. I don't really know. Not the physical kind- well, sort of- it was like a parasite. It was just... a mistake. And you didn't make it." Roll gave her counterpart a cold stare. "Have you ever died before?" she asked suddenly.

Meiru’s reaction as her counterpart explained, and then her Roll clarified, came in waves of empathy. She couldn’t say that she would never, the more she sat with it. Not really, not if Netto wasn’t there to protect her and Enzan wasn’t there to train her. The strange way to refer to a Navi’s deletion took Meiru off-guard, though. It sounded even more final than it really was to refer to it as death. “She… well, it wasn’t a true deletion, but a few times—“ “I don’t think that’s what Roll-san means,” Roll interrupted, before turning back to her counterpart. “I’ve… never had any loss of continuity. I can trace all the objects in my frame back to when I was first booted, for Meiru-chan’s eighth birthday.” That made it clear to Meiru what Roll meant. Not turning to stone or being stored away in a database, but a true deletion and restoration from a backup. It wasn’t unheard of, but nobody she knew closely had ever needed to do it. (Even Rockman’s deletion had merely resulted in the same Navi being restored, thanks to his Ultimate Program.) In fact, other than the World Three, she couldn’t think of anyone who had elected to. She’d never needed to wonder why that would be. "I... I'm sorry," she murmured. Roll had been looking at the other Roll as Meiru thought; then, she smiled. “I don’t think it was as simple as ‘whatever she said, went,’ was it?” she said gently. “You wanted to become stronger for Sakurai-san, too, and you didn’t have anyone like Rockman or Blues to hide behind. There wasn’t any time to waste.”

Mayl's gaze slowly, blankly dropped to the ground as Roll stared her counterpart down, her expression subtly shifting back and forth the more the mirror spoke back at her. "Of course," she responded to the last assertion. "I agreed to this, but it wasn't like there was any other option. I had no reason to question her." Her eyelids fluttered, her stare growing colder. "Regardless, this explains quite a bit," she continued. "I think that only a coward would choose to live in the shadow of a dead Navi. But there is no shadow cast over you." She made that same bizarre, dead-looking head tilt that she tended to make. "Of course you would still have that smile if you were free from that shackle." "Don't... don't say it like that," Mayl interjected, hoping not to torpedo the conversation through the implication that their counterparts had never suffered. She turned back to Meiru, looking apologetic. "You... don't have to apologize, either, it was the same as everyone else- we just actually used the backup data, but..." She stopped herself, realizing that this timeline wasn't quite lining up. "Then your Roll must've been gifted to you only after... Autuvera? Unless..." It wasn't out of the question that Autuvera could have never existed, here. There were so many ways things could've spiraled beyond her familiarity that she could barely wrap her head around it. "Deletion and death are not the same," Roll suddenly stated, clearly having picked up on Mayl's apprehension. "Death is symbolic. Death is erasure. Deletion is only a part of death." Her lip twitched. "If you don't understand what I mean, then maybe death never has come for your world."

“Autuvera?” wondered Meiru. “What does me being me have to do with what I’ve been through?” wondered Roll, a bit miffed. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t be you, y’know?” Thinking over the rest of Mayl and Roll’s explanation, the implication that everyone’s Navis were no longer the originals, made Meiru feel as if they were stumbling into discussing some kind of major tragedy. The sort of thing that lived on as a date or a place. Autuvera. “Something… killed your world?” Meiru meant both the Cyberworld and the human world. Her familiarity with the sheer amount of things that relied on both the Internet and the Navis within it—hospitals—control towers—satellites—energy—made the idea take her breath away. Her shoulders slumped a bit as she realized, “All that loss of life…” “How long has it been?” Roll suddenly asked her counterpart. “Since you took over for that Roll who was like me?”

Mayl shifted uncomfortably when her Navi's suspicions were confirmed. "I made assumptions," Roll blankly assured her counterpart. "I'm willing to accept that they were incorrect. Especially if you truly don't know what Autuvera means." Realizing that their counterparts were missing vital tactics, Mayl adjusted herself, stopping just short of clearing her throat for her explanation. "It was a long time ago, by now," she began. "Maybe 'killing the world' is an overstatement, but- it was a fungal virus. It ate the Net alive, draining its essence, before it was contained behind a barrier." She paused. "Most everything digital was consumed. The Internet hasn't really recovered, since." "The original Roll was among the deceased. Not many operators chose to revive their Navis, but Ms. Sakurai's situation necessitated one be by her side. I have been her Navi for nine years," Roll explained. "Make no mistake, however. I was 'like' you, once, too. Being like you was the expectation. Being like you is what existed in the remaining memories." She lowered her eyelids. "But it was an empty life to live. I was faking it. I could never truly feel how the original did. That is why I refer to the original as a shadow." Mayl grew uncomfortable the longer Roll talked. Eventually, she made firm eye contact with her counterpart. "Don't... we don't have to play this comparison game," she pleaded. "I don't want to disrespect what you guys have been through. I can't even begin to guess what that whole..." She twirled her hand around. "Kidnapping... business. Was like. So we don't need to decide, oh, this person suffered more, or less, or whatever..." She side-eyed her Navi. "It doesn't matter, right? I-I was just... surprised, is all..."

Roll smiled in return, hearing the other Roll’s acceptance. Still, it made her a little sad on behalf of the first Roll to hear the situation clarified; only a ‘shadow’, and not a ‘sister’. She would’ve wanted to be remembered as the latter, for sure. Though of course there would be resentment; this Roll had never met her, and even felt as though she needed to mimic her. “I’m really glad you’re not trying to fake anything now!” she told her. “I’m just being myself, too. I think honesty’s way more important to being Roll!” After a moment, she rubbed the back of her helmet. “…Whatever that even means.” Meiru was still shaken by the scale of what Mayl was describing. But her desire not to make her counterpart feel uncomfortable mostly trumped her curiosity. “It’s okay. I was just surprised, too! I mean, a disaster like that is just... Even if I only factor in the logistics of it all, it’s hard to comprehend! Everything here’s been controlled with network tech for as long as I remember, you know? The emergency services alone…” But rather than contrast how her own ‘disaster’ had been more localized in scale, she shook her head. “But we don’t need to keep going down that route, you’re right.”

Meiru's speculation, in turn, shook her counterpart a little. "I was little when it happened, so I don't remember how bad it got," she mused, before shaking her head. "But it's one of those subjects that always weighs heavy, doesn't it?" It certainly felt like everything was falling apart around her during that time. The human death toll being higher than zero absolutely played a role in why the Net was viewed with such scorn, now. Roll raised her head in response to her own counterpart. Now seemed like the socially correct time to smile, because she agreed with her, but she couldn't quite manage it. "Honesty, yes. Exactly. Feelings that are congruent," she responded. "We have more in common than it seems, then. It would only make sense, if you are capable enough to work for these 'Net Saviors'." After a brief pause, she turned to her operator. "Ms. Sakurai, are you okay with this?" Mayl blinked slowly. "What am I okaying...?" "Seeing that face again," Roll responded vaguely. It took a second for Mayl to realize that she was talking about the other Roll's expressions. The softer, cheerier ones, the ones her Navi hadn't worn in years. "What-? Y-yes, of course I am," she stammered. "I'm just- well." She looked back at Meiru, narrowing her eyebrows. "I think the horrible assumption to make would be that you're free of... tragedy. But I know that's not true. We just had... different circumstances. So, there's nothing more to be mined there... I think."

“That long ago…” murmured Meiru. She wasn’t even sure who would’ve been around to stop something like that in her world at that time. All the usual suspects would’ve been too young. It seemed to Meiru as if only cosmic coincidence had saved other worlds from turning out like Mayl’s. Roll didn’t take the lack of a smile personally, now that she knew a bit more about the paler Roll. (Was she a true counterpart, or the younger sister of one? This Roll and her predecessor were each firmly their own entity, after all.) The idea of unnerving the other Mayl worried her, and she couldn’t help a bit of a relieved sigh upon hearing that wouldn’t be the case. “Definitely,” Meiru agreed, intending for that to be that. “Would you like some tea? I have the usual rose black blend I keep around, there’s still some mint left, and then there’s an oolong I picked up from Saloma’s…” “But if Netto-chan has a Rock instead of a Rockman, and then you’ve been on your own all this time, and you’re the most powerful Navis in the world…” thought Roll aloud, glancing in the vague direction of the other room. "But you knew Enzan! But you seemed so surprised..." “I’m pretty sure Blues is even older than you are, Roll,” Meiru pointed out somberly.

Mayl seemed a little caught off-guard by the offer for tea, but she took it in stride. "Ah... yeah, that would be nice," she agreed, sounding a little spaced-out. "I'm partial to the black blends, myself..." She adjusted herself again; it seemed to be a habit of hers to pick at her outfit a lot, like she was trying to look professional even in the most casual scenario imaginable. That look didn't last long, though, when Roll's assertion of them being the most powerful Navis completely crashed her train of thought. "Most- powerful...?" she mumbled to herself, looking a little baffled. "Surely not... surely there's other people out there..." Mayl was actually blushing a little, which Roll seemed to regard as a curiosity. "It is difficult to connect with other NetBattlers. The world is a large place, and the network is scattered," she said. "Thus, we would never have a true answer. I would assume both of us would be ranked highly, however." "Uh... maybe," Mayl replied skeptically, averting her eyes - before the rest of the conversation loaded in her head. "H-hold on. What does Enzan have to do with this?" She squinted her eyes. "Oh... boy. There's a lot to unpack with this... dimension fuckery, isn't there..." Roll tilted her head. "Maybe so." "He was also in the tournament. I knocked him out," Mayl quickly explained. "I-I mean... I don't know? He was nice. A little childish. But he kept his focus when the stakes were high." She twisted her lip. "Is yours... also doing that IPC... stuff...? He's where I got this holo-adaptor from." She gestured toward the device on her Transport PET.

Meiru giggled; the rose black was her favorite, too. “It’s why we always have it around!” She was a lot more empathetic to her counterpart’s bewilderment at being called ‘powerful’, though; it wasn’t like she would’ve reacted much differently. “C’mon, let’s get the kettle going,” she suggested rather than continue to focus on it, moving toward the door. It was there, with the door open, that she and Roll received the description of the Enzan from the other world. Roll’s eyes went wide. “Enzan? Childish?!” The potential for gossip was too powerful; she hovered closer to the gap between the Operators. “Tell me more!” Meiru, on the other hand, couldn’t hide her complete confusion. “He, uh, left his position half a year ago,” she numbly explained, then moved closer to her counterpart to speak in an undertone. “He was being groomed to take over for his father, but that meant… I mean, even when we were kids, he had too many responsibilities to be childish…” “I can detect you spreading rumors about me from a hundred paces, Sakurai,” Enzan called from the other room, gravely serious. Meiru, being as used as she was to Enzan’s sense of humor, had to hurriedly stifle a surprised laugh.

When the other Roll hovered toward Mayl's face, she blinked with surprise, caught off-guard by the unexpected gossip bomb being tossed directly into her hands. Before she could even think of a proper response, the extra voice calling from across the hall made her blood run cold; it was just familiar enough to make her kind of dread what would be on the other side of the door. He was her roommate....?! Roll, of course, did not have the same filter that her operator did. "He is your operator's age, then?" she questioned blankly. "The one we met was the same age as Lan. He was very into... tokusatsu shows, I believe. That much was obvious, from how he and his Navi fought." Mayl waited until she was well out of earshot to add her own comments, feeling she was entirely unprepared to deal with a second Chaud on top of everything else. "Protoman. That's his Navi, right...?" she continued in a low tone. "Well- uh, he's a good kid. I don't know how many responsibilities he had, though. It sounded like he was more of a kid mascot, or something like that...?" "Companies were attracted to Luminous Revival like wasps," Roll explained. "I believe IPC was one of the newer ones. All of them got what they wanted, I suppose." She leaned her head backward. "The end goal of these kinds of public events is profit, not integrity..."

Meiru and Roll blinked in shared bewilderment at the paler Roll’s explanation. Fortunately, both of them had just enough tact to wait until they were downstairs and starting the water to say anything further. “No way,” Roll whispered in fascination. “I don’t even know where to start,” Meiru said, dazed. “Everything about that sounds so wrong…” IPC being a new company? Enzan having enough time and inclination to get into television? “It’s hard to even imagine…” added Roll. The sound of her Navi’s voice snapped Meiru out of her daze. She was quick to remember what she ought to be doing: retrieving mugs for the tea. The cabinet was packed, mostly with novelty mugs. While she selected a heart-shaped mug for herself, she did manage to find a relatively normal-looking one for her counterpart, other than the pink color and the hearts painted on it. “Anything ‘childish’ he got from one of us…” she mused, looking at the mug shaped like a cat wearing round sunglasses. Then, she shut the drinkware cabinet door and went to get the tea from its own cabinet shelf.

Mayl quietly accepted the mug and took a seat, though she was rather amused by the mug collection, herself. It seemed like a quirky hobby to keep up with, one that wasn't so all-consuming. "I mean... I'd imagine there's a lot of things that are... hard to imagine," she mused, gesturing with her hands as she talked. She huffed a little, realizing the absurdity of what she was about to say. "I mean, we're the same person, and we've lived pretty different lives." "I'm not understanding," Roll admitted, glancing blankly at both Meiru and her counterpart. "How could he have had so many responsibilities at that young of an age? Ms. Sakurai did not begin her own internship until she was sixteen. Is school that all-consuming?" Mayl's hand fell to her side, slightly bothered by the memories of how it certainly was that difficult. Chaud seemed to take everything in so much stride, though, that nothing could really consume him; besides his loss, of course, but even the others had talked him out of that. "I don't know him very well, so I couldn't really say much more," she admitted. "I think he hung around Lan and that other girl more often. He had a very strange battling style, I could say that much." She averted her eyes. "Creative. But... exploitable, unfortunately." "We only just met him, as well," Roll explained. "It sounds as if you two have known each other for an extended period of time. But we do not know many people in general."

Meiru could hear that the water was at just the right temperature. She took it off the heat while she finished scooping tea into the infusers, then deftly assembled both mugs of tea as she listened. “It wasn’t school—Enzan was privately tutored,” Roll explained to her counterpart while Meiru was at work. “He was vice president of IPC already when we first met him, when Meiru-chan was eleven. And then he was a Net Savior by the time he was thirteen…” “He’s really good at picking things up,” Meiru explained. There was a flowery smell wafting up from the mugs now that the tea was starting to steep. She felt herself relax as she pulled up a chair of her own, enjoying the scent for herself. “By the time I was thirteen, and he was about fourteen, he’d already finished his GED.” “Blues and Enzan... If I had to sum up their style, I'd say they've always been really precise,” Roll remembered, looking thoughtfully into the mug. “And that’s what they taught us, in turn.” “Back when I was just starting, we already knew how to sling out powerful attacks, but we sure didn’t have the practice part down,” Meiru readily admitted. (She didn't mention the part where that had also happened around when she turned thirteen.) “But that’s what makes it so weird!” Roll exclaimed, looking back up at the Meirus and other Roll. “We’re different, but we’re not that different! Not really!” (edited)

Mayl listened intently, her hands resting on her knees as she watched her counterpart at work. "Huh," was all she said at first, before Roll's assertion crashed her train of thought. "W-well... yeah, I guess so. I mean, that's why I can still say we're... the same person, right?" She grimaced. "That feels so strange to admit, doesn't it...?" "Vice president? At that young of an age? Strange," Roll thought out loud, dragging the conversation back to Enzan. Mayl didn't react verbally, but it was evident from her expressions that she went from 'what the fuck' to 'well, I guess I could see how something like that would happen' in the span of a few seconds. "Much more involved, then. A larger weight. The one we met did not seem to be a person with much hovering behind him. That must be why things had diverged so drastically." Despite her emotionless tone, she at least seemed to be invested in the topic; it was her responsibility to rationalize similar things for her operator, after all. How they'd gotten to their position, and why that wasn't a sign of their personal failure. Mayl leaned her head thoughtfully, agreeing with her Navi's assumptions. "What a weird thought," she thought out loud. "If anything, I'd describe our style as precise. By necessity, really. I mean, how else are you going to use a bow and arrow...?" She shook her head, resuming eye contact with her counterpart. "But I guess your Navi's right, isn't she? We both had points of starting out with too much power, and it needed to be reigned in?" Immediately, she doubted herself. "Or maybe that's too dramatic..." "Similar things to train on, more accurately," Roll corrected. "The counterparts we fought went for bombastic combos. Used Battle Chips in unintended ways. But it left them wide open. Easy to pin down." Her expression shifted slightly. "Though, I'm sure that the one you know has always had far more experience."

Meiru and Roll both blinked in confusion at the ‘strange’-ness of Enzan’s former job position. Was it really so odd even for someone like Enzan? (It seemed as though Enzan himself would have, and had, protested against such claims vehemently.) But the rest of what the pale Roll was saying made perfect sense to both of them. As well, their assessment of both their starting point—and of the counterpart Enzan and Blues—sounded spot-on. “Yeah. That all sounds familiar,” Meiru agreed without much enthusiasm, looking down at her tea. It was all too easy to remember what sort of trouble she and Roll had gotten themselves into by firing off those kinds of powerful combos while lacking the skill to properly place them. “My situational awareness was kinda terrible…” Roll admitted, blushing. “It was one of the first things Blues really focused on with me, once we’d gotten on the same page.” “But even when we first met Enzan, he was the best Netbattler in the country,” Meiru recalled. The tea had steeped for long enough to reach perfection in flavor and temperature alike; she removed her infuser, letting the last drops fall into the mug before she set it aside. “He said he’d win our big tournament, and he did…”

"Then it's true. We're more similar than we think," Roll blanky asserted. The same kind of struggles, the same weak points that needed patching up- perhaps even the same feelings, in the case of their operators. They simply expressed themselves differently; they weren't cowards. That wasn't so difficult to understand. "You should be plenty capable already, then." Mayl, on the other hand, was still pretty flustered by the idea of this serious Chaud. "The country, huh. You had your own tournament?" she asked. "This must've been a long time ago, then. I guess, knowing him, it isn't all that surprising that he'd end up on top, instead. I mean, the one I know was top four- so, if he got serious, then... mmm." She glanced at the table with a bit of forlornness, wallowing in reflection. "Ahah... I'd been waiting for a tournament from... my side of things, for so long. But that isn't how it is everywhere else... is it?" Roll looked at her operator, raising an eyebrow for a moment. "I suppose the more NetBattlers there are active, the more interest there would be," she wondered out loud. She then stared at her counterpart, her expressions still a bit creepy-looking even though she had just actively complimented them ten seconds ago. "Ours was all a farce, really. It wasn't anyone's fault. But is that the same for yours?" She blinked slowly. "There is no information or documentation available online about tournaments of the past. It is difficult to know what to expect."

Meiru smiled, and took her first sip of tea. It was just right; she smiled across the room at Mayl, as if inviting her to do the same. “We’ve come a very long way,” she said. Even if she’d long accepted that it would never feel easy, she could at least make it look easy, now. “That tournament was almost eight years ago, yeah!” Roll recalled. “We were just starting out as Netbattlers.” With a rueful laugh, she added, “Thinking back, we had no idea what it meant to be serious at all.” “And nothing like it’s ever been held since, so it’s been a long time for us, too,” Meiru said, a bit wistfully. “We were in the top twelve all those years ago. I wonder if we’d manage to do better…” “But it sure didn’t feel like a farce!” Roll added. “Even as the runner-up, Netto-san got an around-the-world trip out of it, and the prize money for all the Battle Chips he could ever need. And that stuff with Pharaohman wasn’t even the organizers’ fault, really…” “The Mega Float sinking sure was Rockman and Blues, though,” Meiru pointed out. “No wonder we never got another one.” She smiled. “The footage of that final match is still all over MeTube, though. When people think of Netbattles, I think those two are instantly recognizable to most people, even if they wouldn't know Enzan or Netto on the street.”

"Eight years? Wow," Mayl responded, her eyes widening lightheartedly. It was about as long ago as she'd started NetBattling seriously, too. She also took the opportunity to sip her tea, and her reaction was comedically similar to her counterpart's. Two of the same person, having tea in the kitchen like there was absolutely nothing wrong with this. "And all of that for the runner-up, huh," she continued, laughing to herself. "We didn't get shit. All that Lan got was this huge trophy. Maybe she would've gotten more, but..." She took another sip of tea. "I don't think she was the kind of winner the organizers were looking for. Not... marketable. Agreeable to all of that corporate nonsense." Roll lazily tilted her head once more. "It doesn't seem like she would have wanted that, anyways," she muttered to herself, before refocusing on the even more absurd facets of their counterparts' explanations. "Pharaohman...? A float...?" "A float in the cyberworld. I'm assuming," Mayl added, though she didn't seem so sure about it. Like she was already expecting the most absurd answer possible. "It sounds obnoxious, either way. If only we could pin things on the organizers that easily." Another sip. "After all the shit we had to put up with, I'd certainly like to lit a fire under that committee's ass. Too bad I don't have the power to do that." "It is, objectively, their fault," Roll quietly added. "They were the ones who picked out Cirrus as a location."

Meiru listened to her counterpart’s explanation mostly in silence, though she was quick to correct, “N-no, the Mega Float was an event space in the bay.” “It had an undersea fine dining restaurant and everything,” Roll added. It had been kind of a huge deal when the N1 had been held there (so modern! so luxurious!), and just as huge of a deal when it had collapsed into the sea. An eleven-year-old and a twelve-year-old could hardly be found at fault no matter who they were, so of course the N1 itself had received the blame for choosing and then sinking a venue that couldn’t stand up to the finalists’ sheer power. More importantly, though, Roll could remember how exciting that runner-up prize had been for both Netto and his circle of friends. “I can’t believe you didn’t get anything, though!” she exclaimed when Mayl and her Roll were finished with their story, thoroughly disappointed on their behalf. "They really must not have had it together!" Meiru couldn't help a smile at Roll's enthusiastic agreement, though the comment of her counterpart's Navi was what had grabbed her attention. “‘Cirrus’?” she wondered. “Don’t tell me someone was watching your tournament to find the ultimate Navi or whatever, too…?”

Mayl could only laugh awkwardly at being given exactly the absurd response that she was expecting. "R-really... they sunk it all," she said, picking at her hair in-between sips of tea. "That's kind of terrifying, isn't it?" But Lan was a little creep in her own way, so maybe it wasn't... that out of the question...? Wow, she was so not prepared for any of this. "I don't think the point was to reward the contestants," Roll blanky responded before the more important question was dropped. "It was to reward the sponsors that funded the tournament. The competitors were fodder for entertainment." Her eyelids fluttered. "There were prizes throughout the event, though they were largely worthless." The fact that Meiru asked such a hyper-specific question was proof enough that they were probably not going to find their incident all that surprising, either. What was the harm in explaining it, anyways, to a fellow battler of nonsense. "W-well, yes and no?" was her first response. "There was this security team hired for the tournament, and they turned out to be using it for their own ends. They wanted to use the tournament winner as some kind of... host, hivemind, thing, for their fucked-up engine. Didn't work out for them." Her lips twitched, her expression becoming more sour. "Cirrus is a university - it was where this, uh, this high-profile murder happened," she explained. "There were a lot of politics going on. I'm still not sure how to feel about it. It was pretty shitty." She sighed, taking another sip of tea. "I've done my best to clean up the mess, but I can't help but feel it's not enough..."

Meiru nodded along. It was slowly starting to dawn on her that perhaps the network being at a bit more of a remove meant that, somehow, computers didn’t govern so many of these facilities’ control systems in Mayl’s world. Maybe a floating structure like the Mega Float couldn’t be sunk by an internal power surge. Or maybe the Mega Float couldn’t exist at all, since it didn’t seem to ring a bell…? “No fair…” Roll complained in response to her counterpart’s explanation. It was obvious that, in a moment of vicarious living, she’d hoped her counterpart and Mayl would receive the whole slew of prizes. Meiru, meanwhile, was nodding along with the explanation of what had followed. It sounded par for the course, for an event of that scale in her world. The news of what had troubled the venue was far more surprising. “That’s…” At first, it seemed almost absurd. Of course the tournament had been overshadowed by the tragedy that had taken place there. “They really thought they could just paper over what had happened with a Netbattling tournament?” Meiru wondered, hushed. “Even here, that’s an awful lot to ask…” She looked over to Mayl, inferring, “But it had something to do with Internet crime, didn’t it? Otherwise, it wouldn’t be in your jurisdiction to clean up…”

"Not much is, isn't it," Roll mumbled to her counterpart. It still put her off for her to act so... childish; even before they'd done any modifications, keeping everything together at home and with Mayl's school life was too stressful for her to relax like that. "A lot of this work is thankless. You keep going, and hope for the eventual payout." Mayl side-eyed her Navi; winning a tournament wasn't work in the literal sense, but Roll tended to say things that way, anyways. It was an attitude she'd passed down to her - an attitude that was her fault - that she was slowly trying to back away from. "Ah, you've got that right," she responded to Meiru. "It was a year-old case. The 'engine' I was talking about was some kind of program meant to assimilate Navi consciences." She twiddled her thumbs, her expression becoming even more sour. "I-I mean, hell. The case is horrible. The woman that was killed was barely older than me. Suspected of cybercrime, all because that program she made was built on misunderstanding after misunderstanding." "The cleanup has been obnoxious," Roll added on, as Mayl took another slightly frustrated sip of her tea. "Some key targets are under custody, while we have lost track of others. There's a lot to do." Her eyelids lowered. "I imagine you've dealt with similar." Mayl quietly put her cup back down, averting her eyes as an unpleasant thought came to her. "...Hopefully not too familiar," she mumbled to herself. "I'd hope and pray that the name 'Ciel Lotophage' doesn't ring a bell."

“That’s certainly true,” agreed Roll without hesitation. “But after taking the time to attend an event of that size, they oughta compensate you fairly no matter who they are!” “I get the sense Netbattling’s even further from going pro over there than it is here,” Meiru pointed out to Roll. “That doesn’t make it right…” Still, there was nothing to be done about it now. So Meiru and Roll settled back, the former listening carefully as she sipped her tea and the latter somber. A scheme that assimilated Navi souls wasn’t unheard of, but the results were ghastly every time. “One tragedy after another…” Meiru murmured, thinking on it all for herself. She couldn't help but feel for both Ciel, the victim of the misunderstanding, and Mayl, now dealing with her legacy and clearly haunted by it in her own right. “I can’t say we haven’t, you’re right,” Meiru told her guests, quite serious. “But I haven’t heard of anyone of that name, either. If I end up running into my version of her in time, I’ll definitely appreciate the warning.” (edited)

Mayl laughed sadly at Roll's defense. "Going pro. God, I wish," she said, staring at the ceiling for a moment. "If anything, it's a tool for dirty work, in the minds of higher-ups. It's a form of defense. Crime-fighting, even. Same as any old security program." The amount of times that she'd had to tolerate that kind of attitude from people she answered to was beyond infuriating. "At least they paid for all our travelling. We got to ride a luxury train, but," she continued, before scoffing. Sti-ki sti-ki sti-ki! "That didn't go well, either. Long story." "It's as we said before. It is difficult to make anyone take NetBattling, as we wish to employ it, seriously," Roll added, equally as somber as her counterpart. "Ms. Sakurai wished to prove us right to the world by securing our victory. But in the end, that goal was never feasible to begin with." Mayl averted her eyes again, looking a little embarrassed. It felt wrong to be talking about herself when they were, instead, talking about a horrible tragedy. "Ah... anyways, that's not the point," she pivoted. "I'm not surprised you've put up with similar bullshit, from the sounds of it. But I'm glad that you don't know her." Her lips twitched. "If she's not notable, then she's probably... still alive. And none of that awful stuff would've happened." "It was Lan and her Navi who managed to destroy the engine," Roll explained. "We cannot exactly take all of the credit, but..." "It doesn't matter," Mayl interrupted. "We're making up for it." She paused for a moment, finishing the last of her tea as she stared her counterpart. "...What about you? I've been talking about myself too much."

Meiru continued to listen along. It struck her how, with Netbattling in general less ubiquitous than it was in her world, her counterpart was so much more lonely in turn. It had always seemed as though this path was something she’d needed to follow to prevent that. Even when she had spent the school days alone, she certainly hadn’t been in the evenings. There was Meijin, the Hikaris, Enzan and Raoul and Jasmine and all the other Net Saviors across the world. Even people like Takaragawa or the crew at Maha Ichiban were always turning up when she least expected them, depending on what time of the year it was. But Mayl truly seemed to have no one other than Roll. …And Lan’s victory hadn’t changed that, because Netbattling still wasn’t taken seriously. Even though cybercrime still existed, even though tragedy could still be wrought because of it. Would Mayl’s victory have? “A human has to be caught in the act to be arrested for cybercrime in our world, anyway,” Roll pointed out when Mayl returned the point to Ciel’s death. “So Ciel-san couldn’t have been killed over a misunderstanding.” She sighed, “It’s hard for the Net Police to put together a preemptive strike with how things are written out, but if that’s the alternative…” It didn’t surprise Meiru to learn that Lan and Rock had taken care of the machine. Still, she was thinking more about how little respect a Net Sheriff seemed to have in comparison to a Net Savior, and was surprised when the conversation was redirected to, “…Me?” She sighed. “Well, I can’t say what we do for cybersecurity is as undervalued as it sounds for you, even if nobody’s ever going to claim Netbattling as a sport…”

Mayl tapped her fingers while her counterpart explained how their world worked. There was a dark part in the back of her mind that was almost angry that things had to be this way, but she pushed it down. "Well... it was a little more complicated than a misunderstanding, but," she clarified. "That's neither... here nor there." She was slowly getting the impression that Meiru was feeling sorry for her, and that made her feel... complicated emotions. Pity was a useless gesture; what was done was done, and there was no use thinking about what could've been. But it was harder to avoid, when she was the could have sitting right in front of a mirror of herself. "Regardless- uh, it's not as bad as it sounds," she protested. "I know some of my coworkers. I'd just... hesitate to say we're particularly close." She shook her head. "I definitely haven't talked to them... like I'm talking to you." A lot of her coworkers were very odd, anyways. Mayl supposed that that came with the territory of being a NetBattler. Now that she was thinking about it, she wondered why more of them didn't enter Luminous Revival. But- no, no, she was still talking about herself too much. The anxiety from being the center of attention was slowly setting in as well - she really wasn't used to talking to people like this. Roll had apparently sensed her operator's rising worry, and walked around Mayl's teacup to stare their counterparts down once more. "You've also seen tragedy. Haven't you?" she questioned flatly. "You would need to, to sympathize in this way. To understand what's looking back at you." She leaned her head over. "What kind of weights have both of you bared?" (edited)

Both Meiru and Roll looked visibly relieved at the news that Mayl and Roll weren’t the only Net Sheriffs. The question of why they understood their counterparts’ isolation so well, though, hung in the air. “It’s… in the past, now, for me,” Meiru stumbled out. “I… to be honest, I’m less lonely now than I have been in years.” Roll looked up at her Operator, then over to her counterpart. If the pale Roll could do it, then so could she. “I guess a lot of children… abandon Netbattling, when they get older,” Roll explained, studiously not looking behind her to see her Operator’s discomfort. “A lot of them hit a sort of ceiling, after a while. Meiru-chan and I had a reason to push through, and an example to follow, like we said before. And we had teachers who didn’t hold back. But we weren’t supposed to tell anyone at school about being Net Saviors, so all morning and afternoon we were just…” Meiru’s head dropped, her gaze shifting away. “Strange,” she finished in a small voice. “We were… I was strange, for still caring so much.” With a weak, strained laugh, she said, “I still don’t understand why it happened. I mean, I know it was just… a part of growing up that I missed the boat on, but it was like someone flipped a switch. One minute Netbattling was normal, and the next all my friends had moved away, or found new things to pursue, or... were just gone. And I was… left behind, with a bunch of other kids who didn’t get it. Who thought it was funny to try and get a reaction out of me.” She took a deep breath, still unable to meet Mayl's eyes. “It’s mostly better now, it’s not just me and Enzan as the only Net Saviors in the country any longer, but… it still hurts, if I think too much about it.” She shook her head. "It all sounds so small when I say it, doesn't it?"

Mayl listened, she really listened, and it was obvious how closely she was paying attention with the way her face looked. Roll's acknowledgement was minimal, as usual, but Mayl contemplated her response for what felt like an eternity, before she took a deep breath and responded in the most sincere way she could make herself. "No... it's not small," she assured. "Ahaha. How fucked is it? That I'm able to say that I know exactly how you feel? That I might as well have experienced the same thing?" One of her eyes shimmered, like a tear tried to come out but receded at the last second. "It's not exactly the same," she admitted. "But NetBattling is niche. It's strange, if you're still trying to make it work. People do want to get those reactions out of you. They want to know why you're such a freak." She averted her eyes. "Even if I'd been a Net Sheriff at your age, I don't know if it would've made a difference. People don't take that kind of position seriously." Another sigh; she kept eye contact with her counterpart, in spite of her not looking back. "I can't think... any of it's small. I was still hurting over stuff that happened ten years ago just a few weeks ago," she admitted, clenching her hands underneath the table. "I thought I was stupid for it, but... well. I guess that 'hurt' never goes away, unless you get some catharsis for it. Maybe I have it now... maybe it's better. But we've still got a long way to go." Roll blinked slowly. "Your Net Savior organization. It's much smaller, then," she observed. "If you didn't step up, then Enzan would have been the only one?" Her eyelids lowered. "It was even more of a personal battle for you, then. I see." (edited)

Meiru looked up, surprised, at her counterpart’s commiseration. She’d been telling herself not to complain for so long. Now that she knew how much worse it had been for Netto—not to mention Enzan’s unusual situation—the feeling had only grown. Despite the differences, she could still understand how Mayl had to have felt. It wasn’t that it was strange to ‘make it work’ in general, in her own world; it was strange for someone like her to. Someone like her, with a Navi like Roll. They could use not being taken seriously to their advantage, but at the end of the day, even if that was slowly starting to change, they still hadn’t been taken seriously. And she could definitely understand why Mayl would still feel hurt over the things that had been said and done in childhood. “Their actions and words never go away,” she agreed. “It was my choice to do this, so I should just ignore it all, but…” It was Roll’s observation that reminded Meiru of why she couldn’t just feel sorry for herself. “You’re right.” She shook her head. “We pushed each other so hard to fill Netto’s shoes. To cover for not having that power any longer,” she reminisced. “But I hate to think of Enzan trying to do it all alone, so… no matter what, it was worth it.” Her own Roll looked up at her with empathy; Meiru, not feeling up to forcing a smile in front of someone she didn't need to, nodded in return.

'So I should just ignore it all'. It made a disturbing amount of sense that another person of her had rationalized things in the exact same way that she did. Push her feelings down. Her feelings didn't matter. The mission was more important. Being stronger was more important. It didn't matter how she felt. "It does sound like it was worth it for you two," Mayl calmly asserted, pushing down the bitterness like she always forced herself to. Her hands laid calmly in her lap; she wasn't sure what she could say for herself, so she decided to dodge the issue entirely. "I'd complained about my own work, but I hadn't realized how much smaller-scale your Net Savior operation was. I think there's about... ten or so people assigned to our regional office?" She held her hand to her chin. "There's a lot more ground to cover in Netopia, though, I suppose." Mayl nodded back to her counterpart, while Roll acknowledged her counterpart in the smallest detectable manner possible - an awkwardly long stare, and an attempt at a smile that looked more like she was just raising her eyebrows. (If she wanted Ms. Sakurai to keep smiling, she needed to remember how to smile, too.) "We have no reason to be in conflict, then," Roll asserted somewhat suddenly. "In essence, we are the same. It's proof that our path would have always turned out this way." Her head leaned to the side. "As I've told Ms. Sakurai, it is useless to think about the what-ifs." Mayl averted her eyes awkwardly, unwilling to broach the subject further out of fear that it would sound offensive. Instead, she gave her counterpart a firm, acknowledging glance. "I don't think you need to regret anything," she asserted, pausing for a moment. "And... if Roll is right, then that means... I shouldn't regret anything, either."

Meiru frowned; ‘for you two’? It was understandable to her, after their conversation. All of Mayl’s accomplishments seemed to have come with strings attached, and she had no one to do it all for other than herself. But that wasn’t so strange, the more she thought about all the people she’d met through the chatroom. Meiru was the strange one, always motivated by other people— “Ten?” asked Roll, amazed. “There’re just four we’ve met in our Ameroupe. Raoul on the west coast, Mira and Charlie on the east, and Austin in the south…” Across from her, the pale Roll’s eyes seemed to get larger; was her flat affect also just part of the Love Seraph’s effects on her, like the limp antennae seemed to be? “It’s really hard to become a Net Savior,” Meiru explained. “A lot of incidents just get standard Net Police Navis sent after them. It’s only the ones they don’t have the firepower or wits to solve that we get called in on.” The culling spree Sigma had been on probably didn’t help; momentarily, Meiru wondered if the north of Ameroupe had ever gotten a new Net Savior appointed. Whatever the explanation, the pale Roll’s next words confirmed the widening of her eyes was a friendly gesture; gamely, Roll returned the expression, though a little smile still played at her lips. Over the Navis’ heads, Meiru, not noticing this exchange of feelings, smiled in relief hearing Mayl say aloud what she already thought. She opened her mouth to reinforce this idea of having nothing to regret— blank

1:29 AM

“You placed second, didn’t you?” asked a smooth voice from the stairwell. “That's still an accomplishment. As ever, you’re too modest for a Netbattler of your caliber, Sakurai.” “How do you know?!” asked Meiru, startled. He hadn’t been eavesdropping the whole time, had he?! “Because she posted about it in the chatroom,” Enzan coolly pointed out. "Which, presumably, lead to this meeting?" Even in a loose shirt and sweatpants, he cut a graceful, willowy figure. It was kind of obnoxious sometimes, how effortless he looked. "Well, yeah, but..." Meiru’s eyes narrowed as her partner removed his cat mug with the disco glasses from the cabinet. “Why are you just lurking? That’s weird.” “I have nothing to add,” Enzan shrugged, and turned back to making his coffee.

"Four?" Mayl replied to Roll with an equal level of amazement. Meiru's explanation finally made the dots connect for why their organizations were so different, however. "Wits, in the Net Police?" she scoffed. "It's all just automated defense programs. I suppose that's why they rope more people into the Net Sheriffs, since most actual problems need a human online..." Roll's head once again tilted with curiosity. "None of those names ring a bell... though we do not interact with other branches," she clarified. "Most of Ms. Sakurai's coworkers do not meet her level. I suppose that Ms. Sherrice is rather strange, but..." Mayl returned an awkward smile when she noticed her words had an effect on her counterpart. She couldn't help but worry that there was some... tension, bouncing back and forth between them, solely through words left unsaid, or thoughts that were running around in their heads, or something like one of those moments Mayl had when she focused entirely too hard on something in particular and infuriated herself over it... but that was proof enough that they were on the same page with each other. Proof enough that they were the same- When Enzan's voice called from the stairwell, Mayl stopped for a moment, like she'd just been punched in the gut. That was, certainly, a voice with none of the excitement or childishness that she recalled Chaud having. "Wh-what is that supposed... to..." she sputtered out, her eyes slowly following Enzan as he walked through the room like absolutely nothing strange or uncharacteristic was going on. Shaking her head, she composed herself. "A-ah... well... I suppose there's no need for introductions, then," she chuckled awkwardly. "Ijuin Enzan, then...? Er... Sakurai-san has spoken highly of you." Her lip twitched, immediately wondering if that was the right thing to say. The idea that random people were just watching her in the chatroom was... a little unnerving. "She is awfully modest," Roll added in the most inappropriately flat tone possible. "Certainly better than being consumed by ego, however."

Meiru noticed her counterpart’s surprise immediately. Amusing as the difference between their worlds was, she still explained, “Her version of Enzan sounds like the polar opposite of you!” Enzan seemed to take this explanation, and Mayl’s subsequent self-introduction, with great solemnity. “It seems like all the versions of me are… different, in some way. Consider yourself lucky to have such a similar counterpart.” He took note of the pale Roll, but said nothing. “What do you mean, ‘you’ve got nothing to add’?” Meiru asked him for Mayl’s sake. “To the discussions in the chatroom,” Enzan clarified. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable giving out my identity on there, so that limits the answers I can give. On the flip side, many of the less incriminating discussions that happen there are entirely outside my wheelhouse.” “You’re just going to have to try anyway,” Meiru said with sage insistence over Enzan grinding the coffee beans. "No more lurking."

"S-similar... right," Mayl repeated awkwardly, twirling a strand of her hair into a loop. Seeing Enzan so moody over the prospect just made her feel bad; she had to assume she'd be inflicting the same kind of uncertainty on him that her own counterpart initially did to her. "Ah... apologies. I know this has to be unbelievably awkward, so- you don't... have to mind me..." Roll leaned her head back in acknowledgement of Enzan, her eyes sliding over to their counterparts, then her operator's. "It would be a privacy hazard, wouldn't it? You were correct to be cautious, Ms. Sakurai," she said, with a tone that made it sound like she didn't think there was anyone else in the room even though there obviously was. "I believe that this is a safe haven, but you never know what other kind of people are out there." Mayl lowered her eyelids. "You don't need to be that paranoid," she groused, before giving Enzan an apologetic look. "Er- it's probably good to keep an eye out, regardless. I've only just started using it, but." Pause. "It seems that others have been in the loop for far longer." She kept her grip on the handle of her mug, in spite of there being barely any tea left. "Anyways... I don't know if I would say it's lucky... or unlucky... or anything," she added. "It's just... strange. No matter what." Her eyelids fluttered. "I guess this stuff isn't new for either of you, but it is for me."

“Aw, it’s okay! He’s just gotten surprised by a couple of ‘em before,” Meiru reassured Mayl. “And now your Enzan makes three!” “It’s… strange, to feel like an outlier in one’s own decisions. Even some things that seemed like unchangeable facts to me have varied wildly across worlds,” Enzan added. He still appeared a bit lost in thought, though his next comment quickly put that idea to rest. “Meiru here worried about her own lack of counterparts entirely too much, until you came along.” “I—!” He was right, of course; Meiru could only sigh. “If nothing else, I have to thank you for answering her call like this,” Enzan finished with a bit of a smirk. “I’m sure it’s set her mind at ease, at the very least.” With that, he resumed the making of his coffee. Roll tilted her head to the side, considering how to explain the limits to her counterpart’s concerns. “There have been less savory people in the chatroom in the past, but I haven’t seen too much of them around lately,” she finally settled on. “Everyone’s sort of been keeping the chatroom safe by encouraging the people who just want to talk, and discouraging the ones who have ulterior motives. You still gotta be careful, but you’ll be able to spot the bad actors pretty quick.” “So, not too different from normal social media stuff! You’ll get used to it soon enough,” Meiru assured Mayl and her Roll. “Like you said, Lan and all her friends are regulars, too.” Mayl certainly seemed to have her choice of people to ask questions, if any came up for her.

"...You've got that right. Scarring histories that are just... gone. Everything's so different, even if... we look similar, I guess," Mayl mumbled to herself. Now that she was properly conversing with Enzan, she was doing a much better job of adjusting herself; for some reason, she was expecting him to be a lot more fazed by the double-Meirus, but he was taking everything in stride so well... The brief respite was thrown out the window, however, with Enzan's reveal. "U-uh...? You're... welcome?" she sputtered, feeling a little embarrassed. "I-I... didn't even think about not having a counterpart. Then again, I hadn't given a single thought to any of this until... today." "I still cannot believe that Lan Hikari knew about this the entire time, and never saw fit to bring it up," Roll lamented. "Especially since this would be under our purview for investigation." Her torn ribbons fluttered as some gesture of annoyance. "I thought the girl was enough of an enigma already, but there's clearly more we need to ask her about." Mayl thought that probably wasn't such a good idea with how cagey Lan was - especially in the immediate aftermath of such an emotionally taxing incident. Maybe she should message her, at the very least to make sure she made it home okay, but she wasn't going to grill her about chatroom stuff. Keeping an eye on it seemed wise, however. "Yeah, I get the picture," she responded to Meiru. "I'm glad, uh... that I can put you at ease? I think, uh..." She hesitated, but Roll clearly realized what she stopped herself from saying, and blurted it out anyways. "This could have turned out considerably worse," she said.

Meiru sheepishly smiled at the pale Roll. “It’s a little hard to believe at first, right?” To her counterpart, she added, “Besides, Lan didn’t ask for pointers or anything from us. In fact, I don’t think she updated us at all until the tournament was over. So it wasn’t like she was using it to gain an advantage.” Mayl’s response to Enzan’s explanation of why she was here, in particular, served to embarrass Meiru a bit in turn. “There’s just so many of Netto, y’know? And with how unusual this world’s turned out to be, I started to wonder just how uncommon I was.” A bit sheepishly, she explained, “I changed a lot when Netto disappeared. If he’d never left, or if I never knew him at all, would I have even kept Netbattling…?” She shook her head. “But now, I feel like I’m not such an odd Meiru out, after all!” “Even if he'd still been there, we would’ve had the same reasons to keep pace with him,” Enzan pointed out. “You always seemed to want to include yourself, even when you had no business being there.” Meiru smiled. “And it still would’ve bothered you how much stronger Netto and Rockman were getting.” Enzan spared that idea a semi-indignant cough, and proceeded to dump what seemed like entirely too much of a large jar of sugar into the cat mug rather than argue. “We wouldn’t have known how bad it’d be until we tried, y’know?” Roll replied to her counterpart’s last point with a bright smile. “And until then, Meiru-chan and I definitely would’ve wondered about it.” She relaxedly explained, “Besides, if it had gone badly, it would’ve been better to get it over with, right?”

Mayl, again, picked at her hair nervously. “Ah… well, I guess you’ve got that right. Better than leaving those questions lingering forever,” she agreed. “At least I have a better idea of what to expect, now.” At the back of her head, she knew that if this had gone badly, then she would have closed the app and never looked back. Never let herself wonder, knowing it would just hurt her more. But those were inside thoughts. She leaned over, propping her elbow up on the table. “Either way… er, I wasn’t insinuating Lan was receiving help. I think I would have been able to tell. It was more…” Pause. “Well, there was a lot we were forced to talk about. I suppose.” “She is a very strange girl,” Roll added, rolling her head around to eye Meiru. “And from the sounds of it, the one you know is strange, as well.” She blinked as her ribbons flickered for a moment. “You had the resolve to become stronger with his absence. If he remained, would his influence not have been inescapable? Would you have not come to a similar conclusion?” “That’s what Enzan’s getting at, isn’t it?” Mayl agreed. She wondered, though, if he wasn’t here to provide such a sound argument, if she would have reached the same conclusion. It was hard not for her to start seeing the parallels of loss between the two Meirus. “I always had to tell myself that there was no use dwelling on what-ifs. Now, even though they’re staring me in the face, I’m still telling myself it. Like I’m convincing myself that everything could only really happen in one way…” “The only logical thing to do from those questions physically facing you is to use the answers to your advantage,” Roll stated rather overdramatically. “All of us appear to have similar philosophies. It would surely be better to practice strength and exercise our responsibilities as a coordinated group than pure isolation.”

“I offered, and everything!” Meiru sighed. “But of course Lan didn’t need it.” “So it bothers you more than it does Sakurai here,” Enzan said pointedly. “Imagine if you really had been asked for help. You’d have been planning against yourself…” Roll remarked dryly. With the utter absurdity of Meiru’s offer to ‘cheat’ in the tournament fully exposed, she opted to listen in silence to the rest of the conversation, very focused on the last sips of her tea. The pale Roll’s proclamation of what to do next, though, drew out a smile from Meiru. “That’s easy for us to say!” she pointed out teasingly. “I think Enzan’s counterparts are about as useful to him as tea leaves.” “It’d be better to think of them that way,” Enzan concurred, mildly uneasy at the reminder. Meiru turned back to her counterpart and the pale Roll. “But, yeah! We got to where we are in different ways, but we still turned out pretty recognizably.” “And that’s why it just makes sense for us to stick together!” Roll added. “Anytime you’ve got questions, feel free to send us a message, okay?”

Mayl was already reacting a bit awkwardly to her Navi's extraordinarily blunt suggestion, and the insinuation right after that Enzan had not been so lucky with meeting himself only made her worry more. That was without considering the Chaud she'd actually met, who she was fairly certain would be the equivalent of throwing a grenade into the room with the three of them. "Well... no matter what, we're... and they're still 'literally' different people. It doesn't need to be any deeper than that," she tried to offer to Enzan as consolation. "It's messy, but... can't let that get to us, I guess." "In hindsight, I wonder how Lan viewed us if she had met you first," Roll mused out loud. Was her hostility borne from some kind of comparison, or would she have always reacted that way? It was difficult to tell. "She is rather closed-off, anyhow. She probably thought herself above asking for help." "I-I wouldn't say that," Mayl offered, unwilling to criticize Lan after watching her get so upset. She turned back to Meiru to hastily round the subject back around. "A-anyways, you're right. It's as Roll said... we don't have any reason to be against each other. So..." She stopped herself, wondering how weird what she wanted to say would sound, before deciding to say it anyways. "Consider me an... ally, I suppose." "Our work is far from complete," Roll added. "So we will keep in touch." It almost seemed like a cosmic punchline. For years, Mayl felt like she couldn't connect to any of her coworkers, that she was the odd one out for caring to the level she did. Now, she'd finally connected with someone in the same field - and it was literally herself, again. What a joke. That was fine, though. It turned out as well as it possibly could have. She was content to give both her counterpart and Enzan sincere smiles, which was a rarity. And they did have a lot of work to do - both on the conflicts in their world, and on themselves. At least they had an ally. That was all she could ask for.