Why the hell was she so determined? Shocking and wrestling weren’t working, threatening wasn’t working; trying to drop her like he had the scaley mage was likely just going to end up with her even more stiffly locked around him. And to top it all off, she seemed like she was playing this as some kind of test. If she thought she could push him around like that, she had another thing coming.

“I’m not going to play your fucking game.” He grumbled. “Your place in all this ain’t telling me how to do my business, and you sure as hell aren’t helping me right now. Fuck off already, I’ve got everything under control.”

She could play all high and mighty if she wanted. If she was going to help rebuild the city, he wasn’t about to stop her, and if she wasn’t a threat to the city then he wasn’t going to attack her for that. But right now she was throwing her power around - specifically over him - and he wasn’t going to take it. Her grip was getting stronger and he felt more and more pushed into a place he didn’t want to be.

So, he drew back his leg and kicked her, hard, in the shin. A faint glow of static surrounded his leg as he strengthened it, making the kick hard enough to send a standard human to the hospital with a broken leg. It was dumb, going for a kick, but he was running out of ideas.

Vieri had never had a week quite like this one. He accidentally blew up a city; only with Diana’s help, but he was the one who provided the spark. Since then he’d been trying to get himself in on construction efforts, spending every hour he could keep himself up reading manuals on how this stuff was supposed to work and what he’d need to get labs put in, drafting up plans for what labs he needed to research magic and how he was going to implement this thing. No one else was researching magic; there weren’t any past examples for him to look up. He was flying by the seat of his pants.

The construction workers and scientists knew it too. Some offered help but too many of them wanted just to dismiss him, or worse, manipulate him to their ends. It had been a practice in seeing yet again the sleaziness of humanity first hand, as they promised him nice words to his face and insulted him behind the comfort of their skull.

He didn’t know how to manipulate them back, or give the kind words that made them kindly do what he wanted like Hikaru kept thinking. He wouldn’t know where to begin. Even with his current tactic, he hardly knew where to begin. It was only sort of working.

He was going back and forth between Shanghai and the academy, there and Florence and New York, between plans and experts who were flailing to get what he needed drafted up as quickly as he needed it to be. Every time he stepped foot in this city, he was struck with the sight of the rubble. He must’ve come here over a dozen times already and he still wasn’t used to it. Every time, he couldn’t shake the feeling that this, all of this, was his fault.

He could still hear the pain of people obliterated in the blast, and their last thoughts the final moments before. It wasn’t just one person he’d killed because they attacked him and he had no choice, or they risked stabbing him in the back at a later date. This was a hundred thousand, and he had no excuse besides he hadn’t known what was going to happen. That, he knew, was also his fault. It wasn’t something he could wrap his head around, and it wasn’t something his stomach or chest liked dealing with. He didn’t know how to deal with it. He couldn’t make it go away by shouting at it or fighting it. He couldn’t kill the feeling because it just kept coming back, stronger every time he tried to push it down. It hurt.

He was tired, he was stressed, his feet were starting to hurt from walking, and every time he came to the place he was trying to fix, his stomach found its way into his throat and he had to fight to keep memories he didn’t want anything to do with out of his head. He had been snapping like a firecracker already set alight all week. The last thing he needed was this mage with her condescending thoughts, nose she kept trying to stick into his business like he didn’t have enough to worry about right now, this- this hug she wouldn’t take the damn hint and let go of-

His balance was already off due to the kick and her tight hug. As her weight shifted onto him, there wasn’t much he could do but fall with her. His back hit the concrete, the stone sending a jolt of pain through his skull and stars into his vision. Even now she still had him pinned, and now her weight was heavy on top of him. He felt helpless. For all his power, he couldn’t get a single damn lady to stop hugging him. He could hardly get his cities to operate how he wanted as his time went slipping out through his fingers. He couldn’t control his electricity once it left his grasp, becoming pure energy and an explosion large enough to level a city and kill a hundred thousand. He couldn’t stop the deaths, and he couldn’t stop from hurting his best friend. Fucking helpless to stop any of the bad things he desperately wanted to stop. Now that it'd happened, he just wanted all of this to be over and go away, even if he knew that was impossible.

Something in him snapped. But rather than turning anger or violence, the catch grew in his throat and his eyes squeezed shut. Large tears began to roll down his face, only increasing as he tried to fight them and his chest began to shake.

“J-just let go. Let go a-already.” He mumbled. The electricity was gone and he hung limp in her arms, no longer bothering any kind of struggle.

Vieri was vocally unresponsive to Hikaru’s struggling to get free, just failing to suppress flinches the couple of times she slapped his back. He couldn’t believe himself, breaking down in front of this lady because she hugged him too hard. His face clenched into an angry glare he couldn’t work up the energy to act on. And her, she could fuck right off with this sugar and flowers about him not being as bad as he seemed. This jumping between sugar and sunshine and these internal insults was making his head spin and he hated it. He hated all of this. He just wanted to go home and talk with Diana. Then sleep.

As soon as she’s off of him he began pulling himself up, because like hell he was going to stay laying on the ground like a heap of useless styrofoam. It was time for him to get up, go home, and start actually getting shit done. The energy he mustered got him seated and cross-legged.

She’d gone and gotten his attention fully locked on her. What else was he supposed to concentrate on when she came at him with her loud ass thoughts and weird manipulative hug tactics? Each movement she made that upset her leg or her sore muscles felt like a bright light shone into his face. It was annoying and making him uncomfortable; he could feel the hair on the back of his neck raising. His eyes kept flicking to that broken bone he’d given her. Worse, she was doing this moving around for him. Settling down uncomfortably for his sake.

“Get off your leg, I know it’s hurting you. Don’t do that shit for me.” He grumbled, wiping the tears from his face by wiping the whole side of it with his palm. Her question was similarly annoying. “It’s not like rebuilding the city is actually going to fix any of this.” He snipped quietly, speaking up with, “Fine, if you want to see my plans, come by the main building tomorrow or something. I’ll be there most of tomorrow- Look, here, just- let me set your bone.” He sighed in exasperation, already leaning in to just start dealing with this broken leg problem. It was making him seriously restless.

“It’ll make it hurt you less while you’re waiting for the nurse.” He mumbled.

It was distracting having her stare at him all intensely like that. His eyes kept uncomfortably flicking from her leg back up to her eyes; he was just going to try to do this quickly. His hands were gentle as he located the bone, both the broken and the bit still properly connected to her knee. It softened further if he felt any pain from her. Then, with a single push, he popped the bone back into its correct place.

He didn’t like talking to this woman. Every couple of sentences felt like she was proding something he didn’t want her to with a sharp pointed stick. Heading off his rebuttal about not worrying about her made him uncomfortable and was just giving credence to that dumb feeling in his stomach.

Not focusing on something he couldn’t change… he didn’t know how to feel about that. He shouldn’t be focusing on the past at all, really. It wasn’t a problem, it was an opportunity. Getting all hung up on these memories that wouldn’t just die already was wasting his time. The expression on his face after she had given the suggestion was a glare like he was trying very hard to kill it, but it kept dodging out of the way and refusing to die. He decided he didn’t like being told what he already knew.

He nodded to the meeting tomorrow, he’d get things ready. “Needs a splint.” Was his explanation for pulling himself up to his feet and pacing quickly over to the nearest pile of destroyed building.

He was grumbling to himself as he got around to the rubble, dug in the rubble by pushing it or kicking at it with his foot, and then lost his footing a little on the rubble. Finally, he found a pipe of moderately short length sticking infuriatingly close to close to completely out of the pile of concrete and steel. With a yank, a small explosion originating from his foot, and a shouted expletive as the force made him lose his footing again, he got it free. It in hand, two strips from the bottom of his shirt ripped off, he made his way back to her.

If she let him, he’d crouch down tie the straight pipe in place to help keep her leg straight as well. Apology given. He offered a hand out.

“I’ll take you. Give me your arm, I’ll help you onto my back.”