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[ To his credit, he catches himself before launching into an explanation of how a human-sized thing can have its parts rearranged to fit into a box-shaped thing. ]

It's best to disregard commonly understood wisdom about the conservation of mass when dealing with stands. He's not really made up of atoms, so many of the rules as we understand them don't apply to him. He'll reduce his total mass if he needs to fit inside someone smaller than he is.

[ Something. He probably meant something. Probably. ]

The smallest he's managed to become was around the size of a red blood cell.

Did you use him to fight off a cold?

[That would be a white blood cell, Kirigiri. Or I suppose in Hierophant's case a green-and-white blood cell. BUT YOU KNOW.]

I had no idea "Stands" were so versatile. I was under the impression that they were useful in one particular way, not in a variety of them.

Mm, that was the gist of it.

[ Not even gonna give Steely Dan the dignity of calling Lovers a stand attack. But that next thing she says is suspicious. His voice doesn't turn cool, the last few minutes have been too emotional for that. But it goes softer. More careful. ]

I don't believe I gave you that impression. [ He hasn't, he's fairly certain. She wouldn't err on the side of assuming something to be less dangerous than it seemed. She's met another stand user, then. Probably not Jotaro, unless she's keeping the significance of the card Hierophant chose to herself. ] It depends. Hierophant and I have been together since birth. This hasn't been the case for all people who have stands. It takes a long time to learn everything that they're capable of, and if the stand has an immediately obvious ability, it's difficult to think past that.

[ Avdol always said it was unusual, how many of Dio's minions seemed to have newly developed stands. ]

I'm not going to ask questions, but if you encounter a stand named for the tarot cards or the Egyptian gods, you should tell me before engaging them. Some of them are the kind of people that you call monsters.

[Ah. He caught her, then. That was probably a little more careless than she should've been, tipping her hand a little too far, revealing that she knows a little too much. But he hasn't closed off from her altogether, only grown more serious. And he offers up an explanation that comes with more valuable information, which is why it only seems right to respond a little further in kind.

Stands, she notes, are secrets. People don't show them openly or tout them brazenly. Noriaki Kakyoin died hoping to deliver a message about the tarot — which, by his own admission, must have been about a Stand. So. She'll have to pay much more careful attention to what she says, and how she frames it.]

I told you I'd seen someone with a wound nearly identical to yours, who told me how it was done. You're alike in more ways than just that.

[She considers, gradually.]

I haven't met anyone here with a Stand named that way. But...it would be fine to engage with "The Star", wouldn't it? That one's not a monster.

He gives people chances to stop being monsters. He's safe. You can trust him. And you can trust stands named for the Magician, Chariot and Hermit. Any other name, and you should let me know. Or your friend, I suppose. Someone who can see and stop them.

[ ...also Fool but. You know. Dog. Iggy's not going to be communicating his stand's name anytime soon.

Someone with a stand and an injury matching his, though. That's unfamiliar. A previous victim of Dio's, perhaps? Or perhaps someone entirely unrelated. Just because stopping Dio became the only thing that mattered to them doesn't mean he was the only thing that was happening in the world. ]

Hey. Hold out your hand.

...My hand.

[It's her turn, now, to turn a little serious from being caught off-guard. Is this what she gets in exchange for inadvertently implicating one of his secrets, an exploration of one of her own?

Well. It's not as though she hasn't already laid out the worst of it for him already. Her hands are more personal a secret, but they're still nowhere near so dramatic as the events of Hope's Peak, so.

Gingerly, she does as he instructs, instinctively turning her gloved hand palm-up while she wants to see what he wants her to do.]

Like this?

[ If he notices the resistance to the idea of extending her hand, he doesn't say.

Hierophant's hand rests on top of hers. It starts to droops slightly in the centre, like a candle melting, until a weight falls from it and into her hand. it hardens after a few seconds into something round and glassy-smooth and invisible. ]

This is how I'm testing people for stands. It brings up false positives from people with the ability to see other supernatural phenomena, but it shouldn't produce a false negative unless someone realises what they're being tested for. If someone can see stands, it'll look to them like one of the gems we have embedded inside us. If you're not sure about someone, show it to them to see how they react.

...You're right. I can't see this. I...know something is there, but I can't see it.

[She pauses for a minute, brow furrowing as she tries to wrap her head around it, before eventually settling on a decision — and a course of action.]

Hierophant-kun, would it be all right if you helped us with a test? Hide some of these around the room, and then step away yourself. I want to see if I can find them...on my own. Does that make sense?

[ The hat nods, then lowers itself into Kirigiri's hand along with the invisible glass.

He pointedly doesn't look as Hierophant webs across the room, flowing underneath couch cushions and into cupboards and between bags of coffee. It wouldn't give much away if he did, but she could go miles with even the smallest clue. Eventually, the hat lifts itself again. Tilts forward again. ]

There are five. Six, if you count the one he gave to you. [ He pauses, then- ] It might be best if I left the room if you want to be certain that you have no outside information interfering with your search.

No, stay. Outside information isn't necessarily a bad thing; in an uncontrolled environment, it's likely that there would be other distracting stimuli. It would be better if you stood somewhere that I can't see you, but you're not the one I'm worried about. You don't "sound" different; it's Hierophant-kun that's likely to bias the results.

[She pauses, momentarily.]

And if you stepped outside the room, you'd just use him to observe what I do anyway, wouldn't you? So that'd be more disruptive to me than the alternative.

I'm capable of just not observing you, you know. I don't watch you all the time. I have hobbies.

[ That's what he objects to, not the implication that he's a creep. But he huffs and nods. ]

I'll just look out of the window, then. So I'm focused on something else and out of the way and so you can't see my face if I do react to you looking around.

I'm running an experiment, and you're nosy. It's a given that you would try to find a way to watch somehow.

[She lets him go, however, trusting him to keep from biasing her test while she turns her attention to the rest of the room. Five hidden things, or six if you count the one she'd been given before. More likely than not he's lying, by giving her a concrete number to try to ferret out. She'll just have to be thorough, and focus on going through the room with a fine-toothed comb, rather than just trying to find the number he'd told her before concluding her work was done.

Carefully, she sets her own stone down near Kakyoin's feet — someplace where she can keep track of where it is, without risking overlap with another hidden one — and starts moving slowly through the room, looking for any sense of the same unsettling feeling she gets when Hierophant manifests and moves around.

Near a stack of books on one of the end tables, she slows. Something doesn't feel quite right...but is it psychosomatic, or the real thing? She moves a few steps away and back again — no, there's something, she decides. It feels that way.]

Near the stacked books on the table.

Yeah. It's in that area. You seem to be able to touch him, so you'll probably be able to feel it if you reach for it.

[ The window isn't particularly interesting, but it's good to have an idea of the places she can see from here. If he wants to leave something where he knows she'll have to take note of it, there's a bench he can use to measure the exact centre of the visible area.

...so maybe he's kind of a creep. And nosy. It's not like she has any space to complain. ]

[She nods even though she knows he won't see it, reaching for the tabletop and feeling around until she finds an odd invisible mass that doesn't quite belong. It's about the same size as the other one, she notes, and clasps it in her gloved palm before bringing it back over to sit next to the other one near Kakyoin's feet.

Then she's off again, back to moving through the room at that slow pace once more. Trying not to think about where Hierophant might have hid them, or where it would be likely to hide them, but —

...A distraction. That's it. She needs a distraction.]

Make me answer questions for you. I'm thinking too much.

[ He considers trivia questions, but she'd almost certainly be able to answer them faster than he could come up with them. ]

Mm. Your friend. The other guy who decided to try out a career as a bangle. Do you know what his gem is, and if it's the same as yours?

I won't ask anything else about him, but I had a hypothesis I wanted to test

No. He's a ruby — I saw him breathe fire once.

[Yes; that helps a little. She's doing less calculating with her attention split, which means she notices it more when that uneasy feeling twinges near the sofa cushions, and she's able to go digging around until she retrieves another of the hidden emeralds.]

I'm an amethyst. It came in handy in the crater where we met.

Ah. That's no use, then. I don't know any amethyst stand users, not off the top of my head.

[ Hierophant has at least been careful to hide the gems in distinct parts of the room. There's no two overlapping enough to cause confusion. ]

After people's reposts about certain gems being more sensitive to the different ghosts, I was wondering if someone who couldn't use a stand would be sensitive to the stands of those who share a gem. I suppose that's still up in the air until I find a different test subject.

I'm sorry to have disappointed you.

[She says, not sounding sorry at all. She keeps moving on through the room, pointedly avoiding the table with the chocolate boxes as she progresses on toward the entrance to the kitchen.]

I have an acquaintance who is probably trustworthy enough to act as your subject. She's related to one of my classmates, and an emerald.

[...]

One of the dead ones.

I'll be honest, I'm more relieved that you don't breathe fire than I am disappointed about anything.

[ There's a rock in the sink. Another in the cupboards, between two bags of coffee beans. There isn't a rock in the fridge, but it has been rearranged to put the foods that are vaguely approaching being not-junk at the front. ]

That would be useful. I'd rather not go around telling everyone about him, but if you're willing to call someone trustworthy I'd believe you. You're probably more stringent about it than I am.

Why would it be such a bad thing if I could breathe fire? I can do plenty of other things with the abilities I currently have.

[Hierophant-kun, your dedication to promoting her future good health is admirable.]

I did say "probably trustworthy". I think she's obligated to do what I tell her to, on some level — I'm fairly certain she's from my future, and that I'm her superior in some capacity.

IC Inbox | noctiumrp

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