Come Clean, All Around Me [Open]

[ghost_bait]

Miku was a fairly religious young woman; you didn't go through life seeing the dead on a constant basis without needing, no, wanting, to put your faith in something. Unfortunately, Miku knew she'd been a little remiss in her duties to her family members. She sat in a small, created room in the sensoriums, a 10-mat tatami room with wood-barred

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[demon_alessa]

The recent conversation with Nanoha had made Alessa a little more unnerved than usual, but she felt, at least, that she'd overcome a milestone. Now she knew that there was an Alessa, a different one, that may have had a hand in the creation of this King, she felt confident that he could be beaten. After all, she knew that even she, at full strength, could be beaten, that meant the King could as well. All it would take, it seemed, would be the galvanization of the crew. After all, while her fears could not be played on her by a thing like the Nightmare King, he could certainly play on the fears of the crew and eventually harm them

[ghost_bait]

"Ah!" Miku looked up in surprise. "I... It's Buddhist." That was the nice thing about family altars, and her fluid religion in general. Buddhist funerals and Shinto everything else. Even if some of the rites were extraordinarily and terribly bloody not to mention out of character for the whole of the Shinto beliefs.

In the back of her mind, something crackled with static, sending a warning little thrum deep into her heart. She'd take care. "My tablets and altar are all gone now, but, even an illusion works well."

[demon_alessa]

Alessa watched her carefully. This was definitely a curious girl, and there was something about her that was definitely a little different from the humans that she'd met. She gazed at the altar a moment, then back at the girl.

"I've always preferred a more open, flowing belief than that concentrated on human improvement rather than an all knowing being," Alessa remarked. "Spirits are certainly real, and should be acknowledged as such, but giving power to a solitary being is a bit much."

She paused, "What is the purpose of what you are doing anyway?"

[ghost_bait]

"The purpose? Hm... Well, it's to tell them that I'm doing well, and not to worry. " Miku looked back at the portraits of her family members and smiled. "So I can them rest easier, I suppose. No earthly attachment means no ghosts, after all."

"And..." she trailed off, as though she were about to say something else, and brushed her bangs from her eyes. "Besides, funerary rites are more for the peace of the living, too.

[demon_alessa]

"Wouldn't that be the case for the ghosts?" Alessa asked, looking interested. "Its really the ghosts that decide if they want to BE earthly attached, I thought. So I suppose you might be doing this for yourself too. That is understandable. There are some people who still hang on to those that they care about, no matter what the circumstances are."

It gave new meaning to the phrase "Give up the ghost" anyway.

"Peace," Alessa repeated. "Well, that's no mean feat when you're feeling displaced on the ship to begin with. Are you finding peace, Ms...?"

[ghost_bait]

"Hinasaki," Miku bowed from her seated position politely, "Miku Hinasaki." She straightened and smoothed an imagined wrinkle from her skirt. "No, not all ghosts are attached because they want to be here. If that were the case..." Miku shrugged, "Then I would have a lot more to worry about."

"And I am finding peace." After all, Miku could simply accept her lot now on the ship. She didn't like fighting, but if it would stop more people from fighting, she would find a way to do it. Somehow. A shame she was only a psychic, and not a superhero. Though, she wouldn't wish superheroism on anyone else, either.

"They say that funerals are for the living, and not the dead, but I've never believed that. The dead need closure, too." It was, after all, all those desires and grudges and petty jealousies that kept the dead bound to the living. Though she knew her brother's spirit to be alleviated of it, it was important to Miku that her mother also know.

[demon_alessa]

"Is that right?" Alessa stared at the girl, very thoroughly interested now. "Oh, I see now. You are Gifted. I don't know why I didn't see it before. It is my pleasure to meet you, Miku Hinasaki."

She walked around the girl, interested. There seemed to be a quite wisdom from this girl, but there was also a sense of hesitation in her personality somehow too, as if she was still waiting for something. It was always an interesting time when a psychic was around.

"That is true enough. I have also seen someone of the living fight tooth and nail to escape death. You'd be surprised how certain human feelings can keep them alive. But you are right enough abut the dead too. With those feelings that you amass when you're alive, you can definitely have a startling effect still on the living."

No point in pretending she wasn't a demon with this girl. It was possiblke she knew already what she was.

[ghost_bait]

Miku followed Alessa with her eyes, carefully. It wasn't that she knew very much about demons, her family had been into archaeology and folklore, after all, but she did know a bad feeling when she felt it.

And right now? Alessa made Miku's mind and heart quiver in fear. Her pulse picked up, but her breathing didn't quicken. "Everyone wants to, and deserves the chance to live if they can." Miku said carefully. "But the dead have their place, too."

[demon_alessa]

Alessa stared back at the girl. She could already sense the apprehension, and that made perfect sense: she was, after all, Gifted, and she was merely very good at covering what she was. Humans, after all, did not tend to suspect a little girl of being a demon.

"I agree with both sentiments," Alessa said, "But I very recently handled a little girl that had to fight just to live. Some would say that she should have died, to be released from the bad things she was subjected to in her world. But it was because of how they tried to kill her that made her do the exact opposite."

[ghost_bait]

You'd be surprised how often that came up in folklore, Alessa. And the result, Miku's limited, but extremely rich, experience, had been telling enough of what happened when 'someone lived despite needing to die'. A grudge. A powerful one.

The sort that hurt people that hadn't ever even been involved. Reflexively, Miku glanced at Mafuyu's portrait.

"I don't know if that's necessarily better, though. In the end, was she happy?"

[demon_alessa]

"I'm sure she was happy when they died," Alessa said. "They had evaded her for a very long time. But what they did to her deserved that. You might not think it is, and you might think that morally wrong. Had they been allowed to live, they would have just killed other children for their differences."

Alessa didn't need to go into detail. Let people think the worse anyway: she was EVIL. There was little point in explaining all about it.

[ghost_bait]

"You're right; I do think it's wrong. The concept of revenge over forgiveness is abhorrent to me." Miku replied honestly. She felt her spine steel as she spoke, and the phantom touch of someone's hand on her shoulder. "With all due respect, I'd like you to leave, please."

[demon_alessa]

Alessa stared back at the girl. She didn't likes someone who barely knew the circumstance judging Alessa. Judging her was fine, that was bound to happen, and it was usually what made her alone. She could deal with that.

"That's fine for someone to say who hasn't lived what she did," Alessa said coldly. "But I'm not going to waste my story on someone who has already figured out all by herself the difference between right and wrong and what's abhorrent. Stay here with your precious pictures. I'm sure they'll be a comfort when danger arrives."

Her voice is even, but its fairly obvious that demon Alessa, not known for feeling human emotion, was thoroughly annoyed. She'd not met anyone on the ship who blamed Alessa for striking back at the pain caused to her, least of all a human with a Gift who would have known better.

[ghost_bait]

"No?" Miku raised her eyebrows, her tone still gentle and even. She didn't need to live through her mother's experiences to know that revenging against them was wrong. She didn't need to relive her own school life to know that hating the people that picked on her for being strange was wrong. It was just the way humanity was as a whole, and that wasn't for her to deal with. To lash out in revenge was a child's act. And so, a child stood before her

[demon_alessa]

Alessa rolled her eyes. "Don't make assumptions based on your experiences. Being Gifted doesn't mean that you know everything, and you have no idea what that girl went through. I had thought I might see someone with experience here, but it turns out you're nothing but an insufferable idealist like these people. So no, you don't dismiss me. I'll leave on my own. This was a waste."

This had to be the last nail in the coffin, to be talked to about DANGER by this child. What SHE wouldn't be able to face! It was disgusting. She didn't know if she'd be able to forgive herself now, for trying to learn about these people. Maybe Kadaj was right in wanting to destroy the ship after all.

[ghost_bait]

The air around Miku chilled, and smelled faintly of some sort of flower and a cologne.

Alessa was wrong if she thought idealism fueled Miku's actions. Fact and hope did, pushed along by a hardy stream of her own experiences as a medium, and looking through people's memories through her sixth sense. As she felt Alessa leave, her posture did not falter, her prayers did not cease.

Perhaps, finally, she'd talk to Nanoha-san about a few things.