Such hug. All of the hug. "I think they just didn't understand why it was a crazy thing to ask for."

"...Did they, or did they not, fancy themselves responsible for the existence of the local humaniform sorts of life?  Because if they did..."

She shakes her head.

"They should have known better."

"They did. They should've. They're useless jerks that made my world worse."

"That they are, and all I have to offer as of yet is my condolences.  And a commitment to telling them off if ever we encounter them."

Ruby sighs and smiles at Momo, hugging her tightly. "Thanks. That helps."

"...I'm glad it did."  Even as she hates that it needed to.  It's just not right that Ruby is sad.

She smiles and leans against Momo again. "So what were we talking about before all this?"

"...Missing people, I believe."

"Oh." More hug. "We can't get ours back, I don't think, but... would you want Kyoka here with us? Take a mission or three, but we could."

"...Maybe?  It's...  If they already have her, bringing her here can hardly harm her worse.  But I don't want to incentivize them to clone-nap her."

She sighs and stares off at the tree. "They already hit your world. They probably have half the boys and all the girls from both classes, plus some of the teachers."

"...Then having at least one Kyoka not subject to the Company's favorite assets' depredations can only be good, I think."

"Then let's check."

She pulls out the Company Smart Device, taps open the shopping app, then the Companions tab. Filters by MHA, searches for Kyoka, and then holds the phone out.

Kyoka Jiro, T4, 10 Credits. There's a Match Worlds dropdown on the infocard, currently set to "none."

Ruby taps it.

Momo appears as an option.

"Yeah. I've got mixed feelings about this. I'm not surprised, and I'm glad you get to have each other, but there was a tiny shred of hope that we were wrong and they wouldn't have anyone else from your world."

"...Someday they won't have anybody anymore."

Ruby blows out a slow, tight breath, then nods sharply and smiles intently up at Momo — for a moment, this isn't the little cinnamon roll who can be distracted by the mere mention of cookies, but rather the girl who stared down two ancient immortals.

"Yeah. They won't."

...If finding that attractive is wrong, she doesn't want to be right.

"Well, I guess I know what our first ten credits are going to. Better do a bunch of training tomorrow."

"Yes, we definitely should."

"Oh! Unrelated question! Do you know any sign languages?"

"I know JSL - you have to learn that for heroics - and I've been working on learning more ASL than 'I'm sorry, I don't know ASL'."

"We've always wanted to learn a sign language or two for Neo. Atlesian Sign Language didn't come through with the exomemories, so we don't have any, and it's so hard to learn one properly without a conversational partner. Speaking of, we really wanna learn Japanese too at some point. There are a few sets of exomemories where we spoke it and not knowing it feels weird."

"Then I'd be quite happy to help!  Something else to do while we're not otherwise occupied."