[Miyabigaoka] Construction Zone

Kabuto didn't expect to hear that he was the second person speaking of Chiyo and her generation's Sky King in this manner, but the information didn't quite surprise him. It was a fairly reasonable conclusion for one who could see and understand the purpose of the Sky Regalia fragment, so the first to note this was likely the one responsible for the young woman's most recent tuning. Moving right along, it seemed Chiyo intended to label him as some sort of prey animal; something he didn't quite agree with, but it was far too late to worry about such trivial matters. "Jellyfish? Yare yare daze," he said. Feeling Chiyo step into the Zone, he rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck. She was rather deep into the Zone from the moment of entry, and interestingly enough, he found this to be a level he could enjoy for a bit. With his next breath, the Thunder King seemed to absorb ambient electrical charges from the surrounding area through his horns. There was so much being collected in this moment, that it seemed as if he were being struck by many bolts of lightning in unison. "Ikuze."

"Hai!" the Ice Queen mentioned of the jellyfish thing. She'd fully explain herself at some point, but right at the moment, it seemed that the Thunder King was ready to play, though he'd not yet entered the Zone himself, she figured there was a reason for this and questioned it no further. She chose this moment to finally break from her circling pattern shifting out in front of the Thunder King, as Kabuto absorbed more electricity from where he stood. She was watching taking in all the information she needed in the second before her body shifted into a backflip as she tightened her left leg. Upon the release of this muscle she created a large horizontal fang which seemed to have wisps of hardened ice along its edges. This was a fast attack done simply to test the waters as she observed the reaction to it. All the while the clouds overhead had built and begun darkening.

In previous moments, the Storm Queen had been circling the man called Kabuto, but she abandoned this routine rather quickly when going on the offensive. The movement of the girl's leg implied the coming attack, but Kabuto didn't seem willing to react at all. Chiyo's fang was still, however, snuffed out by a blockade of iron sand which moved between Kabuto and the projectile, though this didn't seem to be of the Thunder King's conscious doing. In fact, it wasn't an effort of the young man at all. "Sugoi~" he said, seeming somewhat enthused by his own creation as if he'd never witnessed it before.

Chiyo was looking for a reaction which would give her some sort of idea of what to do about the Thunder King. She wasn't overly concerned with winning in this case, she was more interested in seeing how someone else fought. Her experiences against the previous generation up to this point were limited by apparent disadvantages and 'learning' but now she had the opportunity to see what someone else was capable of. And he did an interesting job of showing her something she'd never seen before. In fact the small girl was so stunned she came to a complete stop before the Thunder King as he expressed his shock, her own eyes were rather wide as she'd been staring in the first place. She'd gotten a magnified look at the sand and at the man's body. "Fuck, I thought I was mistaken, you didn't do that yourself. That's just fucking awesome!~" she said this was after all quite a stunning thing to see. It wasn't often she got to see something inanimate save someone from harm, still she couldn't help but take it as a challenge. "You've never properly tested this out before huh? I'm not usually the one who gets to see new things first..." she thought about it and found it to be an odd bit of role reversal. Still she then really wanted to see how much could be reacted to so she dashed off again, soon enough her body would spin launching a flurry of frozen disk bubbles at the young man which were all about the size of golf balls. This would then be followed by a swift kick of her right leg which would fire a laser of ice into those bubbles causing their explosion at various ranges close Thunder King's barrier. She was testing its size and reaction time and as such this attack was much more wide spread, and almost completely encircled him. Yet there was still no activation of her regalia and though she was still deep in the Zone she seemed to be more interested in finding out what the Thunder King had going on with his iron sand.

"No, I didn't," Kabuto said with a smile on his face. He had a theory of how the iron sand around him would function, but with Chiyo's most recent attack, he was able to form a proper conclusion. "The magnetic field was disturbed, so in its attempt to return to its normal state, the iron sand inside was pulled toward the point of disturbance. Then, because of the iron's constant movement during that moment, it grinds away at whatever caused the displacement. I've never used this form long enough to see if that worked or not." The Thunder King was quite elated to have seen this work out for the first time, but there was something that required his immediate attention. Chiyo was soon firing ice disks toward him, and, though they did not pass his barrier, it seemed that was not the original intention. A laser followed, both engulfing the man, and triggering the explosions of the earlier disks around his defensive zone. The beam and explosions engulfed the man and the iron sand around him, but as it was dissipating, spikes of the iron sand erupted from the Thunder King's location, stemming from what appeared to be a sphere of iron around him. These spikes continued to expand in all directions, threatening to impale the Storm Queen as well if she didn't manage to maneuver around them.

The Thunder King seemed to have a reasonable explanation for what was occuring with the barrier made of iron sand. Upon hearing it, Chiyo nodded her agreement, what she understood of the information scientifically meant that she could understand at least the simpler parts of said explanation and it all seemed okay with her. She couldn't imagine having such a self-sustaining barrier at her own disposal and felt inclined to try and make one of her own at some point. She remembered having a trick that would be a suitable base for such a thing. But that was not what was important right now. The chain reaction and explosion she'd set off while thinking had apparently caused an interesting and different reaction from the Thunder King's area of influence. Her eyes were darting around as the iron sand began to move, and she soon found herself moving on impulse out of the way of the wall of coming spikes. Surprisingly enough her reaction speed and body placement were so precise that she was missed by all of the spikes, simply by pushing her body away from the area at top speed, only to have the final spike stop right before her nose as she stopped again. "Holy fuck, that was close and fun." she said but such a statement was only followed by the laughter of the Storm Queen, she had to appreciate the abilities of the Thunder King and held a great deal of respect for him. Beyond that, it was fun playing with him in the manner they were currently doing so. "So, that is one hell of a defense ya' got there... luckily enough I don't think of you as a meal or this would be really hard work." she commented. But her movements in the moment that she'd escaped pushed her limits quite a bit, her own reaction times were far beyond the norm, and that reaction seemed to exceed even her own expectations. "How long can you keep that up?" she asked curiously enough. She wondered if the barrier itself or its maneuvering were hard for the Thunder King.

"I'm not entirely sure," the man said as the solid dome around him dissipated to reveal that it had taken the iron sand armor from around his body as well. As he continued speaking, the armor returned to him. "By my approximation, a few minutes without moving or consciously re-strengthening the magnetic field. Mind you, there's also the potential pulverization of the iron particles themselves. There are a lot of variables... but, thus far, this defense has been working solely on the existing field alone, which is sustained by this form." As if to emphasize his point of the iron sand's potential limitlessness, Kabuto went about absorbing the static from the surrounding area again, fueling the magnetic field around him. In doing this, he also began to produce arcs of electricity in the area where spikes of iron sand were previously, as if to hinder the Storm Queen's future movements by forcing evasions henceforth.

Chiyo heard out what the Thunder King had to say about his defense which was apparently sustained by its own magnetic field. Such a thing was amazing and made a fanged grin come to the girl's face as her head shifted slightly for her to take in the shifting lightning which denoted the full range of Kabuto's influence. "Sugoi!~" she said seemingly excited by this new development, though she didn't much like the idea of being trapped. Mentally being backed into a corner like this would allow her to do something she hadn't done in the entire month she'd been alone with the Flame King and even beyond that point as well. "That's amazing, Haku-nii. Since you showed me something new, how about I do the same huh?" she said as she hopped backwards and her regalia began to shift forms without needing to meet any specific conditions. This time the boots seemed to shift as all the mechanisms came together. Pieces began inching up her legs past even the cargo shorts she'd been wearing shredding them to pieces as the regalia itself came to brace around her legs all the way up leaving only a two inch gap of thigh at the top. Her wheels converged into spikes leaving her to hover some three or four inches off the ground and large bladed wing spikes seemed to be attached along her heel and ankle fanning out in a fashion that she'd only seen on one person prior to this. 'Nani!? He gave me his wings?' she thought seemingly stunned by this development. Aside from that her activated regalia felt lovely on her legs, there was no pain or strain. And beyond that it made her immediately test this new feeling. She began moving upward, using her enhanced vision and reflexes to move around lightning on her way up and out of the impending trap every movement causing denser clouds and chillier temperatures which had already begun to spread rapidly from her. It wouldn't be long before peak temperature was reached and the snow began to fall.

"I'd love to see~" was Kabuto's response. He rather enjoyed watching the development of his two friends in the second generation of Gravity Children, and Chiyo's progress now reminded him of the early days in which he knew the Thunder Queen, Mikasa. However, there was a slight problem. Chiyo had been in the Zone all along, and Kabuto was more than capable of handling himself with an active Regalia and his secondary Road, but with the Storm Queen also activating her Regalia, he became a bit more concerned for the immediate future of this play session. "Yare yare daze," he said. If he couldn't maintain against this, he'd be forced into the Zone himself, but that was something Kabuto did not want happening. So, he fought against the urge to do so, bringing his excess Iron Sand back into the armor and reforming the extremities he initially had upon activating his Regalia. "I didn't think this was what you meant. I hope you're not trying to bait me into the Zone with you. I can't do that."

Chiyo had moved through the lightning and was appreciating the feeling of her new regalia when the Thunder King had said he was fine with her showing him something else. Apparently what she'd chosen to show him wasn't at all what he'd had in mind though, as he assumed that she'd been trying to bait him into the Zone with her. A smirk came to the Storm Queen's face as she thought logically about this and she shrugged. "Fuck, I wasn't really thinking about it like that... well not consciously anyways. I had no reason to activate it before, Yoichi was melting all the ice anyways..." the young woman mentioned as she began circling the young man from her current placement several feet above him, occasionally touching down on the ground and hopping further up, each movement done around lightning arcs as she got a look at the Thunder King. Something about this felt so familiar and yet... it didn't. "This is going to sound strange, but... I feel like I know that you can't or don't want to. I even feel like I know why... but... I don't." she said looking at him from a momentary pause. "Or rather I shouldn't." a cheeky smile came to her face. "You can enter with me or not, it doesn't really matter, I was just thinking... I can make a shit ton of snow like this~ and I really did want to build that snowman last time you offered but it wasn't my turn." she pouted slightly referencing the last time she'd encountered the Thunder King before her broken leg, which had been when her generation's tower had opened. She paused just a second and held out a finger as the snow fall began in earnest from overhead so that she could catch a snowflake on the tip of her finger she had no idea how far out from this area the snow fall would get. But little did she know, it was going on to stretch over the city, and a certain previously unstable weather man was arriving several blocks over to get film footage of the strange weather event.

"If you do know why, it would make a bit of sense. It wasn't very long before you were overwritten, that I first entered the Zone. I can do it easily... but then he'd find me." The very first time Kabuto had entered the Zone, it had been in the presence of the first tower's survivors in the battle against Aomine Isamu. At the time, it got him nowhere, but the Sun King had seen his potential, and sought him since. As such, he avoided the Zone as if it were a plague, as to not give away his strength and location. Either way, it didn't seem like Chiyo was as into the combat aspect of this run as he'd originally thought, as she now spoke of a snowman being created. With this in mind, Kabuto reverted from his armored form to that of his Regalia alone, and used the wires from it to create an effect that would hasten and amplify the falling of snow from above. "... Sou ka. I had almost forgotten about that day."

In the meantime, there was a certain green-haired young man in the vicinity. As the snow fell upon the city of Miyabi, he sat upon a high-rise building in the works, very near to Chiyo and Kabuto's location in the construction zone.

"Sou ka, I did know that. It's strange, knowing things I shouldn't from a perspective that isn't really my own." said the girl who still had lightning in her eyes as she moved about. The memory of that event becoming clearer in her head by being reminded of it, which would cause a momentary shift in her eyes before they went back to their multi-pupil state. "Oh and I forgot, thank you... for you know, making it possible for me to be me again." she said a smile on her face. The change in the regalia of the Thunder King allowed for more and faster snowfall and as she moved the snow itself seemed to change in its quality as well. It was as if she was presently taking the opportunity to figure out how it worked, all while causing a massive summer snow storm in the city. "Hai, I had... forgotten you a bit at the time, but it still sounded like fun~" she said apparently more than a little amused. "Oh, oh, make a big one, I got an awesome idea~" said the girl who was apparently thinking of something amazing to do in combination with the Thunder King. Of course, she didn't know she was being watched by a certain green haired male, and was instead having a bit of fun with the one in front of her.

Meanwhile, the news man had taken to broadcasting. He was speaking of 'Lake Effect Snow'. Which was the only explanation of the current snowfall in the middle of the summer that he could come up with while looking at the charts. "We should be able to expect some lightning strikes soon! The THUNDER SNOW!! Lake effect snow is caused by high moisture systems meeting warm air and cooling closer to ground level. These can creep up from large bodies of water." he stated as the cameraman kept his lens trained on him. This was surprisingly enough a live broadcast, even though the last time this man had appeared during a random weather event, he'd tried to kill himself on camera. Now he seemed to be quite mellow, excited even, about this random weather which shouldn't be possible. And in the coming seconds because of the actions of the Storm Queen and the Thunder King together, a static charge would build with the ice in the clouds and cause a strike of lightning accompanied by the sound of thunder not too far over head, while a practical blizzard took place at ground level and had already accumulated several centimeters in height. "HOLY SMOKES! IT TOTALLY LIT UP THE SKY! DID YOU SEE THAT!?" questioned the excited newscaster to the audience at home and the camera man.

"I imagine. Yours is an exceptional case, as well. I thought I would come to regret tapping your original brain functions, but it seems like doing so has sent you on your way to something... greater than what Trophaeum was attempting with Brain Chargers." This was all Kabuto chose to say on the matter, figuring that if Chiyo wanted or needed further explanation, she would ask for it. Since she apparently had an idea for a larger snowman, the Thunder King nodded and amplified the Peltier effect being emitted from his Regalia, all to increase the efforts of the storm further, which would also work to increase the thunder snow effect by association.

"That sounds weird.. am I missing something?" asked Chiyo she seemed to have no idea why anyone would regret letting a person be themselves. She then thought about it more and clarified further as she moved around the area at rapid pace. "I mean, if you want to explain. Not like I need to know something I haven't known for ages..." she said with a nod. Though she had no distinct dislike for the woman known as Jinx she didn't feel it was necessary to be her, besides that from what she could tell, given their limited interactions, she'd turned out quite a bit different from the blue haired woman. Though their similarities were still startling by her own account. She danced in the ice making it stick together building a snow man with base static charge determining its size and shape with the snow both created by her storm and by the Thunder King's regalia. She also rode all around it, having a good time cutting the snow man to the shape she desired it to be. Still multiple shots of lightning happened in the skies around this pairing as they played not that Chiyo minded this at all, she was fond of the awesome things that could happen in the sky.

The newscaster on the other hand was more and more excited by the coming lightning strikes. "OH! THAT'S A TWO-FER!" he exclaimed. If one had seen his reaction to the extra thunderstorms a few months prior to this, one might think this man was completely different. But he practically frolicked in the snow, which by his approximation was surprisingly sticky to his parka as he counted the strikes of the Lake Effect Snow Storm happening in Miyabi in July. "OH! THAT'S A THREE-FER!! THIS IS CHICAGO ALL OVER AGAIN!" the man exclaimed apparently he'd been a newscaster in the US before returning to his homeland. He was very emotive for the normally subdued area.

"Looks like you're missing quite a bit," he said, choosing to clarify per Chiyo's request while she went about crafting the snowman. "The original Brain Charger experiment was a test to fuse personalities, but that didn't quite work out as planned. In your case, the second experiment, there was an attempt to overwrite a missing personality with a stronger one... but your own consciousness persisted instead of fading away, which let me pull it back out. Now, it looks like you're tapping into the Kasumi-san's memories bit by bit, and your brain is starting to realize that these memories weren't lived by your actual body. If I had to predict the future, I'd say something interesting is going to happen, but... I'm not sure what. That'd take a much smarter guy than me," he ended with a hand rubbing against the back of his head.

Chiyo worked on the snow man, making it perfectly the way she liked. All the three balls that made it up seemed to be descending in size by a ratio of exactly 10 percent as they were stacked atop each other, and one might wonder how the Storm Queen accomplished this, but it was simply part of her nature at this point. This snowman was about as large as she was, if not a bit bigger, and its head was greatly detailed though it seemed plain. It had a large slightly sinister grin, with several rows of fanged teeth she'd cleared out of her own accord and two long drop like eyes. She grinned when it was finished, and around that time, the statements that the Thunder King made about the Brain Charger project came to a close. "Sou ka. Thank you for the info, luckily enough, I've got a really brilliant friend... I'll ask him the next time we chat. He should be able to come up with something good.~" she said of figuring out what would happen. She could also potentially just wait for the outcome, she was that sort of person anyway, and it wasn't making her much of a difference. She looked at her completed work of the apparently vicious snowman and smiled. "It's almost perfect but I got one more thing~" she said hopping up a bit further into the sky she began doing the thing she'd done before, breaking the bonds of the falling snow crystals and slamming them together with her movements creating a mighty charge of lightning which would strike the snowman below. Such a thing would change the composition of this particular snow, crystallizing it by using the electricity to force the molecules to rearrange themselves. It would harden and become like a diamond prism. It would be refracting light internally particularly through all those rows of exceedingly sharp teeth. It was quite bright and looked amazing to the young Storm Queen who giggled intensely. "Fuck, that's so cool!~ Whatcha think?" she asked the Thunder King of their combination as she blinked away the Zone and rotated her shoulders.

The newsman continued his broadcast of the excitable lightning strikes, while weather advisories and school closings flashed across the television screens at the bottom. Such a thing was standard practice, though no one expected a snowstorm in the middle of the summer.

Kabuto continued to watch as the snowman's building came to its dramatic end. He clapped upon witnessing the final moments in which the structure was solidified, and stepped forward to give it a closer look. "I think i-" "It's a beautiful snowman, Chi-Chi," interjected the other male within the construction zone, namely Ichimaru Jun'Ichi, who approached Chiyo directly after she finished her work. Aside from his usual attire and ATs, the green-haired male now sported a pair of gauntlets that seemed to be crafted with AT technology, covering his forearms and featuring vents of some sort at the elbow. "Chi-Chi's grown quite a bit since last time. Was this one not the only person training recently?"

Chiyo expected a critique of her crystal snowman from the Thunder King, but her ears were instead assaulted by an assessment and a nickname from a voice most familiar. In fact, the the green haired young man was to date one of very few people allowed to call the small girl by something not just her given name. She turned from where she stood and began circling the Rumble King, it'd been a couple of months since she'd last seen him. "Ichi-kun! Thank you~" she mentioned as she looked the young man over, such a behavior was the Storm Queen sizing up this young man, but it was quite normal to who she was. To his question, she had nothing to hide from him so she was honest. "It's been a while since I last saw you." she stated seeming to wonder where this young man had been. "No, you weren't the only one, a few of us have been doing some training, not sure on how hard it went for everyone else though~" she chimed. She knew that Roze had mentioned wanting to 'chat' with Akiza, and she knew Shoichi had spent the last month with Jinx, and she'd spent the last month with Kurama. It could only mean that if Jun'Ichi had received training it had been from the Storm Queen of the previous generation. Surprisingly enough she hadn't forgotten the Thunder King nor their most recent fun but she only had one question for him. "Haku-nii?~" she asked his name as a question, wondering if he had any knowledge of their Rumble King, which she thought he should, given his knowledge of the Thunder Queen.

"Hai," he said calmly in agreement with the time frame since their last meeting. Unlike the others, who began their crash course training about a month prior to this day, Jun'Ichi had approached the original Storm Queen as soon as possible, following the battle within the Trophaeum Tower of Miyabigaoka. "Chi-Chi's many times stronger. What's the incentive?" he asked while stepping toward the Thunder King, and simultaneously being approached by the man. The two stared at each other, each being personally unfamiliar with the other while knowing of their existence. The Thunder King seemed to find something interesting within this individual as well, and it was very obvious to him where he'd received training. "... Sou ka. You're the Rumble King, then," Kabuto stated with an upward inflection as he looked at this boy, seeming almost curious about his existence. "Hai. Yoroshiku," Jun'Ichi replied. The green-haired boy then turned his attention towards Chiyo once more. "This one came in search of Chi-Chi's companionship."

Chiyo circled Jun'Ichi even as he and the Thunder King stepped towards each other. Her movements only required slight alterations to encompass them both and take in the entirety of the space they were in while she moved. About her incentive to get stronger she shrugged gently. "Fuck, well... it's kind of complicated. I kind of needed to... I didn't know how to fix my own run, I'd broken my leg again, then after I was better I lost in a cube and a scary guy seemed to express some interest in me and nearly killed me. It's been a busy few months." she explained how she'd come to need training. Everyone else likely had their own reasons for doing so. "I'm not completely sure why anyone else did, though." she said still staring at the boy before her, taking in his frame and the changes to his body. "Eh, but you've been busier for longer than we have, huh?" she said it in question form, but she already knew the answer to said question. An apparent introduction between the two unfamiliar males made the girl nod her understanding of this situation, and beyond that when Jun'Ichi explained why he'd come Chiyo stopped her movements completely seeming to stare at the green haired lad for about three seconds before she covered her own face and sighed. "If you wanna hang out that's fine with me, I'll always make time for you. But don't say it like that." she said pouting just a little before revealing that same fanged grin. She'd never turn down a chance to play with any of her friends, so she'd acquiesce turning to the Thunder King. "Arigatou Gozaimasu, Haku-nii... I'll do something really cool with what you gave me and show ya' later! Then we can play again, promise?~" she said a devilish smile coming to her face as she thanked the Thunder King for all his help and extending her left pinkie to the older man in the fashion that they normally sealed their deals.

Upon being offered the gratitude and farewell of the Storm Queen, Kabuto extended his left hand to greet her pinkie finger with his own. "I look forward to it. Be safe," he said just before their fingers separated. With that, his business here was done, and he rolled away to give these two members of the second generation their privacy.

Jun'Ichi only smiled when Chiyo addressed the amount of time he'd been training for. There were many things that had been uncovered by the Rumble King, and many things yet to come. But, that was not a matter that was up for discussion at the moment. What he did mean to discuss, was the slight misinterpretation of his words by the black-haired lass. "Iie. That wasn't the meaning." As he spoke, Jun'Ichi reached out to grab the young woman's right hand and hold it betwixt his own hands, simultaneously taking a knee before her. "This one believes Chi-Chi should come with him."

A nod came from the Storm Queen as she heard the parting words from the Thunder King. She couldn't always promise she'd behave or do anything safe, but she understood what he was getting at just the same, and she always felt pretty good about life after hanging out with him and as such she had nothing but good feelings in the moment. Even as the snow continued to fall around them. Soon enough she was left alone with the Rumble King and much to her surprise, said she'd misunderstood. "Oh?" she questioned as he clarified. His statement that she should come with him, sounded a lot more permanent than one would expect from her childhood friend. Beyond that he'd taken to one knee clasping her right hand within his in a way which was much more intimate than her general meetings with friends went. "Ichi-kun..." Chiyo was running through how to address this as it was completely out of the blue and she had no idea what the Rumble King could have been getting at. She opened her mouth several times, closing it because she had a bad habit of just letting things fall out of her mouth in ways which were most disrespectful and right now she wasn't sure she wanted to be that so she tried multiple times before finding the right way to question this situation. "What are you even talking about right now?" she asked very cautiously.

"Everything," was Jun'Ichi's immediate retort. With it, he rose slightly while aiming to pull Chiyo closer to himself; an act that would allow him to speak directly into her face. "The coming parts war. Life. Every possible meaning. The wind is always carrying this one toward Chi-Chi. She can only be the feathers that let his wings be carried. Doesn't she see? It has always been coming to this. This one accepts the wind's guidance toward happiness, but there is a cage that needs to be unlocked, and Chi-Chi is the key." The more Jun'Ichi spoke, the more excitable he seemed to become. In fact, by the end of his tirade, he reached out with one hand to grab Chiyo by the back of the head, aiming to pull her even closer, that he may meet her with a kiss to drive home his purpose in these words.

'Everything?' it was such a broad response to the question she'd asked. Chiyo soon found the Rumble King speaking directly into her face about what 'everything' entailed. And that would have caused a weaker willed person to take a step back. But Chiyo had always thought of Jun'Ichi as a nice guy, she didn't fear him. And while she didn't fully understand his excitement in this moment she was willing to hear him out. His words were full of references to her, and how she was somehow the key to his happiness and the future. But she really didn't get it, nor did she actually agree with anything being said. Soon enough though there was another problem, because she was trying to formulate a question to clarify the missing pieces of his statements but soon enough this young man was pushing their faces together forcing a lip lock. It was quite unusual, Chiyo was normally the one to do such a thing, but without it being something she truly desired doing, it did nothing for her in this moment. Her eyes widened and a second after the shock wore off she raised her left hand and pushed it towards the Rumble King's chest while pushing back against her ATs and clearing a reasonable amount of space between them. "Fuck! Ichi-kun. I think you've got the wrong idea about me, I'm not anybody's feathers, or their happiness, and I definitely make cages... I don't unlock them. I don't get it... I really don't." she said. Having no idea what could have prompted such an outburst from the Rumble King nor having any idea of what to actually do about it considering they were friends. His proposition seemed so abstract to her, and from what she understood of it, he wanted her to come with him, but hadn't given any reason beyond his flowery thoughts which apparently all circled around her and to the best of her approximation were all ideologically opposed to who she was right at the moment.

In spite of his little speech, it seemed Jun'Ichi had failed to pull Chiyo on board with his ideals. Of course, this would not deter him, however. When the Storm Queen moved away, he stood, clenching his fist over his chest while offering further explanation; perhaps one that would reveal why this had come about so suddenly. "This one has been thinking since the tower reopened. This parts war... will be entered. This one plans on putting an end to future parts wars, and the suffering of people as a result, through this. ATs should not be weaponized in such a way. But... doing that will be dangerous, so help was needed... and with or without it, if this war should be the end of him, this one thought there was no better time to express himself."

It seemed that the push away from the Rumble King and her words wouldn't discourage him from speaking on his intentions. It seemed he'd been thinking about this for quite a while, and had decided to participate in the next parts war, as he hadn't in the one their generation had specifically been part of. She remembered he hadn't joined the previous parts war citing his pacifism on how ATs were used as a reason. She'd respected this at the time, even while having no memory of who he was then. "Sou... ka." she said thinking about it more, it took several more minutes of quiet contemplation for her to sort through the indirectness of the Rumble King's speech. 'If this was just about his participation in the parts war, there'd be no reason for him to come looking for me. It's strange that he thought to come to me just to tell me that, if he wanted to recruit me, it seems he does... But he kissed me so it's something more than that... he said he wanted my companionship and not in the way I assumed which is...' a look of great astonishment and shock came over the young woman's face as she finally came to a conclusion and it feel out of her face with an extreme amount of shock attached to it. She stopped moving completely as if she'd run into an invisible wall."Wait a fucking minute. Are you saying you like me?!" she seemed to be completely stunned by this. But in her mind the only way his participation in the parts war could have any negative effect on his ability to express himself would be if he intended her as his love interest. Such a thing was completely foreign to the Storm Queen and she really didn't understand the sorts of feelings people had for her, in particular the romantic sort that Jun'Ichi seemed to be expressing right at the moment.

After several moments, Chiyo finally caught up to the meaning behind the odd speech pattern of Jun'Ichi, and the fact that she did so brought a smile to the young man's face. However, the amount of surprise she she showed in this moment was among the stranger things he'd ever experienced. "Iie. Things were only that simple and innocent when all of us were in the tower. This one things we've gone far beyond that point now. But..." The Rumble King was soon placing his hands in his pockets and rolling forward. In spite of the smile he still wore, his eyes were devoid of their typical optimism when he continued. "It's not the same, right?"

The shock of the Storm Queen was obvious in her face, and with her still active eyes she could see this information processing in the face of the Rumble King. She couldn't help but think this expression was something she'd just not expected, even knowing that he'd liked her as a child, she also knew herself to be quite different now than she was then and only recently had she considered that she wasn't that different after all. Beyond this, as she watched she couldn't help but notice the sullenness of this young man. It was as if he'd had so much hope in this and she'd crushed it with her lack of feeling. It was sort of hard to look at given how much of it she could see, but she figured she owed it to him not to be a coward in this moment and to acknowledge fully that which she was doing. She couldn't help this, she simply didn't feel the same way about Jun'ichi that he felt about her. "Sumimasen." she said, looking directly at the young man. She simply felt inclined to apologize which was quite rare for the sort of person she was, but she knew it wasn't possible to return the feelings he had, and she'd feel bad if she strung him along, when she knew she simply didn't have it in her. It was a cold thing to her, but she felt empty and at peace with this decision.

Jun'Ichi received neither a yes, nor a no, as the answer to his query. Instead, he was given a single apology from the raven-haired lass. This was likely something better than one of the two responses he'd been looking for, as it provided some unspoken level of both certainty and sincerity. Of course, this did nothing to stunt the sharp sting of rejection, but the Rumble King now knew where he stood. "Sou ka. Arigatou gozaimasu," he said with an averted gaze. Afterwards, there was little to no hesitation prior to the Rumble King's departure. It was quick, and obviously rushed. The voice of another male toward Chiyo's hind left, next to a vendor stall prepared for the construction workers, had a single thing to say about this interaction. "That went about as well as telling a child there's no Santa. Please, just don't tell me you need a minute to cry. There's obviously about to be enough of that for the both of you."

And just like that, the Rumble King thanked Chiyo for her honesty and ran off. She knew he was going to cry, but there was nothing she could do about this. She'd probably crushed a little part of him, so she didn't want to chase him down and make him deal with it. Sometimes people needed to heal themselves and she didn't really blame him if he never wanted to talk to her again. Moving right along, it seemed there was an observer of this particular interaction. And one she recognized, even before she turned to her hind left to find him. He had a rather blunt and slightly mean disposition about his observations of this situation. The Storm Queen turned to the Tar King and approached him her regalia reverting to its original state. She couldn't really argue with what he had to say, and given this her hands met her hips and her head tilted to the left as she seemed to be quite herself. "What the fuck? Do I look like fucking Mikasa to you? Fuck no I don't need to cry... and obviously I know that didn't go well, but it isn't like I could lie about it." she stated in a minor rant. The words she spoke tasted a bit spiteful and angry and thus normal for the young woman and it set her at ease, even if it meant being mean to the Tar King, if only just a little. That tiny bit of spite was lovely and it tickled something deep within the young woman. "So, you just on a stroll today? Enjoying the weather?" she asked sarcastically as she inspected the damage her released regalia had done to her shorts and sighed knowing she'd be up for an outfit change at some point in the near future.

"Hmph," was the Tar King's initial reaction to the rather snarky words spoken to him. Being the type of individual that he was, though, he absolutely had to retort. "I'm quite sure Mikasa wishes you did look like her. If that were the case, then perhaps Jun'Ichi would have something to fall back on after you so brazenly obliterated his testicles." The young man had been leaning against the vendor stall since Chiyo's duel against the Thunder King, but he now chose to push away from it and roll toward Chiyo. "I do rather enjoy a bit of snow. You've come a long way to have created this so quickly. I thought I would have been here before it became a full-blown blizzard. And you? It seems you've been on a roll lately... and, by that, I mean I obviously ran into Shoichi already. That one was too obvious to figure out."

If there was one thing she could count on in the world, it was the Tar King's ability to flawlessly analyze every situation in the most snarky way possible. It must be nice, being so smart that one isn't at all attached to these situations that they might see it more clearly. "Fuck! I didn't emasculate him, why do people say such things to me if they don't want me to be honest, this is way too much to have to interpret." she said pouting. It really couldn't be helped that she didn't have the same feelings for the Rumble King that he obviously had for her, besides that she figured it was kinder to be honest with him about it, ripping the band aid in one stroke to speak. Beyond this it seemed that the Tar King enjoyed the snow but still felt the need to comment further upon the personal life of the Storm Queen by mentioning that he'd run into Shoichi and obviously Chiyo had been on a roll today. "The snow is fucking awesome, probably one of my favorite things... as for this roll you speak of, I got no idea. I swear I didn't do anything to him." she said rubbing a point in the middle of her forehead. "Fuck! I swear I'm being punished and I don't even know why." she said as she tried to relax and rotated her shoulders. Still when she opened her eyes she had a smile on her face fully appreciating this blizzard she'd created today with the help of the Thunder King. "I take it you were watching for a while then, were you bored?" she asked which wasn't really as much of a question as it appeared to be. She also rolled towards the always flawlessly dressed Tar King and once she was in range she began circling him as per her usual way of conversing with her friends.

"Mendokusai yo," Mukuro said with the fore and middle fingers of his left hand pressed against his temple, and his eyes closed. It took him a matter of microseconds to figure out what had occurred between the Sky and Storm of the second generation, but Chiyo didn't seem to understand the situation at all. "You're both really that stupid, aren't you? You two have been so obvious for so long, but both of you keep mucking it up at every possible turn. At the very least, I hope your pleasure-seeking was worth it in this instance." While Chiyo circled him, Mukuro stood virtually motionless with crossed arms and a gaze which shifted based on Chiyo's relative location. "I was in the area when the snow started, so I figured I'd find out where you were. I'd have been here much sooner than I actually was, but... snow is so difficult to maneuver."

The reaction of the Tar King to her statements was about what Chiyo expected. Given his own ability to see and understand everyone and everything she figured he had a more than reasonable understanding of whatever it was she was missing. Beyond this his words gave her a bit of clarity that she didn't understand before and she had a moment to be stunned that he knew so much then chalk it up to him being him. "I'm not stupid, I just don't get it... I can't do or know everything. Fuck! I know, I try all the time and then I snap." she mentioned absently giving away the thing that had led to her interaction with the Flame King and in general the thing that always led to such situations. "Fuck! Do I have a sign painted on my forehead that says that shit or something?" she said though she wasn't actually looking for an answer, her hand simply ran over her face, she obviously had no problem with what she'd done, but she still didn't really see what the problem was, such a thing seemed so normal in her head for anyone to be upset with her over it made absolutely no sense. She also wasn't sure what anyone was getting at when it was stated that she and the Sky King were obvious there was nothing going on between them aside from the normal so what was everyone else seeing that she wasn't.

Beyond this the Tar King mentioned he'd simply been in the area and come to find her, so she shrugged and looked him over when he said he had a problem maneuvering the snow. A chuckle ensued which led to full blown laughter from the small fanged girl. "Is it really hard to maneuver in, doesn't feel like it." she said having a mental image of the Tar King falling in the snow which made this moment even funnier to her as he stood still following her with his eyes.

"Obviously no person can know everything. However, you could put the effort toward finding out. If everyone else can see something, and you can't, then I'm beginning to rethink your observational skills. It's no wonder Kanda was a better Shogi player than you," he said. In spite of Chiyo being one of the more intelligent people in Mukuro's book, he felt she was either a bit too simple, or perhaps a bit too complicated, for her own good. But, that was of little importance. Now, he was simply using this as a bit of small talk. "As a matter of fact, it is painted on your forehead; or, more accurately, growing out of it. Your eyebrows make it so much more obvious that you've had yourself a very long session in the past... week? Maybe less; it was too vigorous for me to pinpoint the exact time... even with your legs giving me more to work with."

Chiyo was still circling the Tar King when he remarked about her not finding out the information which was apparently so clear to everyone else, but that she'd been missing. The thing was she always felt strange around Shoichi and she had no real way of quantifying it. The time she had spent alone with the Flame King had allowed her to understand lust... but the rest still felt too different. And the fanged girl really didn't like explaining such things because it made her feel soft and weird inside. She was processing these things in her head and she couldn't help the conclusion which came to her mind and was thus completely visible in her face. She felt the immediate need to supress it, or even replace it with something that didn't trigger her anxiety. "There is nothing wrong with my observational skills. I just don't use them on myself. Fuck! This shit is annoying me." she mentioned her apparent understanding with no details. But always one to deflect the words given by Mukuro about her phyiscal state including her eyebrows and legs and what they apparently gave away about her recent activities had her curious for a most devious reason. "Say, Muu-nii~ how's Aki-nee?"

"And that is precisely why you get yourself into these predicaments." Since Chiyo continued to fuel him with her retorts, Mukuro became more relaxed over the course of the conversation. Eventually, he stood with arms akimbo, and his back ever so slightly arched. A sly grin passed his face when the Storm Queen questioned one Izayoi Akiza's well-being, and his eyes closed in a very presumptuous manner when he replied. "Well, as always. Since you've asked, how is the first generation's Pledge Queen?"

"Fuck all of this, I'm going back to being a hermit. My life was like ninety three percent less complicated when I was sure everyone hated me or was afraid of me." she said. This was mostly a joke, but she seriously considered choosing her room and not emerging for a couple of days, perhaps she could pick up some food and simply camp out while all of this stuff kind of blew over. That seemed like a plan enough. Still she egged on the Tar King whose ability to come back even cockier than he had before seemed to shine brightly. She stopped before him this time when he spoke because she'd been utterly shocked by his retort though she'd expected one. Before she addressed what he'd actually said she grinned up at the taller man, a giggle escaping her. "Pause. This shit right here, is why you don't have normal friends Muu-nii. That level of smug is flammable." she said gesturing to the arrogance he had going on in his countenance presently. "Though it's also why we're friends, though I'd appreciate occasionally being able to divert conversations with you, I swear you're almost belligerent and that is a lot coming from me." she said rolling her eyes. "The Angels are magical beings, but why ask me that? What do you think I've been doing?" she said in mock disbelief. Though she was mostly curious as to how he'd come to the conclusion that anything had happened between herself and the first generation's Pledge Queen.

Little did Chiyo know, her appreciation of the ability to divert a conversation, was exactly why Mukuro refused to allow such a thing. "You're not the type that needs to be given the freedom of running away from things," he said, making and leaving his point there. As for the matter of the Angel(s), he rolled a few paces closer to Chiyo, stopping just within striking distance. From there, he reached out to swipe his right thumb across her bottom lip, after which he inspected the lip balm taken from it. "Well, I don't think you've been doing much of anything... but I didn't see you being the type to layer gloss over twilight purple balm. For future reference, though, it does make a bigger and better statement."

She wanted to pout and argue that occasionally even she needed to escape situations which she found taxing for her mentally. But she was a strong individual so she could accept that sometimes she needed to buck up and be the bigger person. Even if that wasn't physically possible. When he moved on to rolling closer and eventually reaching out to swipe her bottom lip she looked a bit confused. As he went on to explain that she had gloss layered over her normal lip balm and spoke on the kind of statements such a thing made there was a voice which was loud in her head about the ramifications of saying such a thing. It took the girl a second to close her eyes and exhale ever so slowly as she tried to suppress the desire to mention the thing that had crossed her mind which was obviously a thought connected to a different situation not the one she was presently in. "If I ever change my mind about make up and clothes you'll be at the top of the consulting list. Well not really 'cause you are way too into uncomfortable complicated things like buttons and layers... but fuck, you get what I mean." she said of her choice in lip gloss. In truth the twilight purple was her third favorite color and since she couldn't decide between her favorites she had settled on her third choice. "Also you see way too much, your head is probably a fucking minefield and I want no part of it."