Bleach Hereafter RPG

Niji could not deliver a letter from an alternate future to an alternate Morgan. The only thing she was going to retain from their meeting was her memories - anything else would be completely reverted. Presumably, if Morgan did pickup a paper and wrote something on it, all the ink written would simply be erased and any message there would be worthless.

"I see..."

That really limited any options Niji had to turn the other Morgan away from the Red Lotus, safely. Her own handwriting was not going to be helpful, not in anywhere near the same way as a letter from himself in an alternate timeline would, at least.

"...In that case, there isn't much point in having me dictate you a letter. Trying to appeal to my own senses won't work if it's written by you, and you're not going to remember any specific facts I order you to write, anyway." In theory, he could really weird out the other Morgan, to the point of questioning what was going on, by having Niji list his address, parents' names, credit card number, library card number... but without a note to remember, he doubted Niji could return and write everything down without a single mistake.

Morgan sighed.

"I spend most of my time here, but I "live" in San Francisco - or, at least, my family does. They are vaguely aware that I am working in Japan, but not much beyond that. If they receive a letter addressed to me, they usually ring me up to inform me - and since that correspondence is generally related to my "mundane" life, it's outside of the purview of the Red Lotus. If you do decide to try to reach out to the other me with some sort of message, that'd probably be the only way to reach me without Virgil getting involved."

He pushed his hands into his pockets. "It'd be the Hikari family, they live in Tenderloin Heights in a two story house on Hyde street. Say you're sending it to an Ikazuya."

For a moment, Niji just stared at Ikazuya; not really believing what she had just heard. She looked at the man differently, and began to see the resemblance. Certain things, particularly the the nose; maybe the chin… It wasn’t a close relation, by any means; long before her birth, her father’s granduncle had decided he did not want to pursue the family business and emigrated to the States. Being the only child of the main family, one of her lesser tasks was making sure the family tree was updated.

That was mostly done through e-mail, so despite her globe-hopping ways, she had never actually met the Hikari branch living in San Francisco. But the spiritual world always shocked her with how small it was, and it seemed unlikely that third cousin Ikazuya, whom she hadn't met, was not the man talking to her right now.

She laughed, despite herself and the situation, it was all too much, ”I usually hate how many coincidences the spiritual world throws at me, but I suppose it works out sometimes.” The woman shook her head, ”It will be trivial to contact you without raising suspicion. Look at me again, and think of Christmas cards.”

Niji put on her best welcoming smile, the one she always wore for the family photos that were sent out every year along with a few cuts of the less expensive wagyu.

Hibano

Something in Niji's mind clicked at the last two sentences - her demeanor seemingly changed completely, and right after Morgan finished explaining, she let out a laugh.

"What?" he muttered, surprised. The situation was serious, quite literally a matter of life and death, for him and possibly her, so a laugh was the last thing he expected from her. Niji followed her laugh by explaining that contacting him would be trivial for her, that this was a sort of "coincidence", and that Morgan should think of Christmas cards. Christmas cards? He'd always just put those away, without even bothering to look, until they would eventually be thrown away to the kindling. That was his parents' generation's tradition, not his.

"...I don't understand," Morgan answered after a brief pause, staring at the smiling Niji. That she suddenly put it on, moments after crying and deep contemplation about the nature of time reversal, was even a little off-putting. "You sound like you're trying to tell me that we know each other from before. But... we've never met. I haven't seen your face anywhere."

Even if it was for a cursory glance, Niji's Reiatsu was powerful and distinctive enough that he would have recognized her as familiar once she stepped foot near the Akai Hasu temple - and yet, this clearly was not the case.

"...you're starting to sound like that teenager you brought here with you."

Niji sighed; letting the fake smile fade, putting on expressions was easy for her, though it was hard to be particularly upset when a solution to her regret had just been handed to her on a silver platter. ”Well, we already went over the whole alternate reality memories; but no, we do not know each other here; not in person, at least. I have already put enough on you without discussing the issues Hibano is facing. Maybe I will drop that madness on you once we meet in a more permanent capacity.  That being said, I am surprised Tanjiro never had you learn your family tree.  I suppose some traditions fade fast in America.”

She shrugged, continuing forward. She felt time was growing short, and she wanted to hammer out as many details as she could in the last few minutes, ”Nonetheless, I have a way to contact you that will not raise any alarms.  Do you think I should imply in the letter I know you are a Fullbringer and or Red Lotus, or just ask to meet you on unrelated terms?  Assuming your relationship with your family is good enough, I can lean on familial obligations to force the meeting, if you think you would respond negatively to a request.”

Hibano

Niji refused to explain the situation to him him straight - which was ironic, given that she had just chastised him for not answering her questions straight - but, from context clues and the pieces of information which slipped from her, Morgan was eventually able to put together a theory for what was going on. Somehow, Niji made a guess that they were related, and that she will be able to put their relationship to use in order to gain easy access to him - immediately, she began crafting plans with this idea in mind, asking questions how to introduce herself to Morgan in her letter by making use of her familial ties, and...

"Hold on. Pause for a moment," Morgan suddenly answered her, staring straight into her eyes. "...What's your name? The real one, not the alias you've given me."

If she was so confident of her relationship with Morgan, she should not hesitate to mention who she is - perhaps that will refresh his memory of her, too.

No matter the answer, Morgan would then concede:

"...Even as a relative, you requesting contact after years of never seeing one another by mentioning things I hold secret even from my family wouldn't work. Since I wouldn't have known before that you are a Fullbringer like me, it'd just cause a lot of suspicion that someone must be writing in your name and using you as a hostage to reach me."

”Hikari Niji.” It didn’t really matter if he recognized the name or not, the plan was already forming in her head.

”That is the beauty of it though.  I have an excuse to reach out.  The ranches have been particularly successful in recent years, and we have decided to use some of the extra proceeds to start a foundation.” Niji started talking a bit more rapidly, it was clear she was excited about this prospect, ”Kibō no Hikari, we are a charity focused on overcoming the chall–nevermind, that’s not important to explain right now.  Anyway, it would make a lot of sense for us to reach out to family members, even relatively distant ones like Tanjiro’s family, to try and staff it up. Since your faith in the Red Lotus is shaken and you want to find other ways to make the the world a brighter place, I imagine you would at least come to meet with me.”

The redhead smiled, and plowed onward with her explanation, ”That would also give me more time to actually act appropriately, and more reasonably develop a friendship between us. You will determine I am a fullbringer fairly early, but I will keep my true strength hidden for a time.  I assume you would not try to recruit me to the Red Lotus, given what happened with Val.  Eventually, I will begin to share information with you, not that I know about the Red Lotus, but at some point I will let it slip that I was there to fight the results of Tendo’s experiment on Val.   From there, I imagine the conversation turns out somewhat like this one, albeit ideally with less stabbing.”

Hibano

Hikari Niji. He did recognize the name, faintly. Morgan knew that they had relatives in Japan, fairly successful ones, who had received some notoriety and were fairly well-off, and very rarely communicated with their household over continents. Morgan's family did not end up with the same fate - his parents had already moved from Japan to the United States, working as day laborers, and ended up in one of the worst neighbourhoods of San Francisco. That's where Morgan's story began.

It made sense that Niji would be so humored by the coincidence. It really was quite unlikely for two people a few generations apart to both be born as incredibly powerful Fullbringers - as a coincidence, at least. You could have entire families of Fullbringers if they were all harassed by the same spiritual creature, for one reason or another. It didn't really matter at this point, but perhaps something like that was to blame for both of them having powers.

Niji followed by detailing a long-winded, somewhat convoluted plan for getting close to an alternate Morgan without drawing the ire of the Red Lotus. Taking advantage of what she knew of Morgan to convince him to meet for the first time, then start to spoon-feed him information about her Fullbringer nature, about what she knows about Val and the Red Lotus, and, thus, hopefully turn Morgan to her side in a less violent way than today. It was a sound plan with Niji's level of knowledge - and... perhaps it could work? It really wasn't up to Morgan anymore - not this Morgan, at least.

"...alright. Sounds like a plan to me." He did not have much else to add - Niji had addressed as much as she could in one speech, after all.

Niji nodded sharply, "Alright, Cousin Ikazuya.  We will see each other for the first time again shortly."

Taking a deep breath, the Fullbringer began gathering energy.  She focused on a specific moment in time, sitting in the Hofgarten, slowly drinking her coffee.  The moment she became aware of Hibano's reiatsu approaching her.  It would be easy enough to tell him that she determined the Red Lotus was going to be a dead end, and she could try to reach out to the Vice Captain; he was apparently in touch with Maria.  If Niji couldn't get ahold of Yael, perhaps their Val's sister would inspire additional memories.  Convince the man of who and what was actually lurking inside of him.

She began to glow with the golden light of her reiatsu, while she attempted to focus it inward, it still overflowed.  Trees around them sprung up and exhibited years of growth in seconds, flickers of ghostly flame played around her temples as the wind began to pick up.  Her hand began to glow with the power of the hōgyoku, and within a minute, the blue glow had taken on a golden tinge as Niji forced her will into it.  She held the glowing hand up in front of her and tapped into the power of the shard.

Then, everything faded to white.

Hibano

(Intermission Thread 1)
(Intermission Thread 2)

The simulacrum ceased, returning everything to pure blackness. Val seemed to have been stubborn until the very end of the duel, but the power which had summoned her and was controlling her was thinking differently. The rip of her heart was not merely a symbolic finisher to their final confrontation - through "merging" Niji's heart into herself, Val would transfer the power necessary for Niji's time reversal spell. Soon after "losing consciousness", time turned into the other direction, swiftly, resetting the two hours that had passed ever since Hibano first approached the Hofgarten.

The rest of the universe acceded. Not in its entirety - however, the handful of exceptions who would be able to tell that something amiss had just taken place weren't important enough to dwell on.



Hibano suddenly collapsed on the floor of the metro car that was making its way towards the Hofgarten in the city centre. People around him, startled by the sudden collapse, immediately turned towards him, one older man offered his hand, others began talking amongst themselves.

"What..?" he muttered, clutching his head, as he slowly rose back to his feet. Of all the times he has been confused, shocked, baffled this entire journey, this one had to be at the top. Simone, the bedroom, all vanished in the blink of an eye. He was back in his clothes, with not a single injury on him. And he was back in Munich. On the same metro.

The teen briefly glanced out the window. The sun hadn't moved an inch from what he remembered seeing as he approached Niji earlier today. How?! They spent hours in Japan...

"I-I'm sorry, my stop is here..." Hibano muttered, shaking his head to any offers to call an ambulance for him - after all, from an outsider's view, this teenager just collapsed to his knees out of nowhere, as if he had just gotten a stroke. He walked out of the car as soon as the doors opened, two stops before he would have exited normally.

The display on the phone which Leon gave him... showed early morning. Niji... Niji was in the Hofgarten. He could sense her Reiatsu, even from this distance - and that pretty much sealed it. He had somehow been thrust back in time.

But how, and why? There really weren't any credible theories on his mind, he certainly could not rewind an entire Universe, and he assumed Simone could not, either... Besides, nobody else appeared to know about the time reversal, except for him. The only real guess he had was that something within the Universe itself had decided that he'd done something wrong, and so "rewound back" to try to set history back on the right track. But, again, why?

Hibano sat down on a nearby bench. This... time reversal, whatever it was, sent me back exactly to where I was as I approached Niji for our journey to the Red Lotus in Japan... so, if its intent was to rewind before some sort of bad decision, it would have probably thrust me to right before said decision happened, and make me reconsider it.

God, it's probably the fact that we even went on this journey, isn't it?

Which means that the only right decision would be to not approach Niji. From what he remembered, she grew personally invested with the encounter with the two Zodiacs, but before they first came across Morgan and Simone, Niji only travelled there for him. Without him, she would have no reason to go to Japan alone - and so, she wouldn't. From her point of view, it'd seem like Hibano did not fulfill his promise and failed to show up, maybe she would then start hunting after him, but, at least, it would prevent that bad future from happening...

Right, this plan makes sense. It is a shame that his meeting with Simone would thus never happen... at least, not in the form it happened in the timeline he knew. But, perhaps he can find a way to confront her separately, without causing a second rewind.

Taking an easier breath, Hibano rose up from the bench, and departed in the other direction from the park.