With Hearts of Gold

Mari breathed a silent sigh of relief. Mainly because she didn't think she'd have to go so far as to show him she's from Shadow Heart with her guild tattoo. Also, she had to say, showing people her foot wasn't her idea of fun (or remotely normal). On the surface she simply shrugged her shoulders. Perhaps only Fayte could help the boy in his mission and only Fayte could answer his questions. She didn't actually know his questions but she couldn't possibly imagine the type of questions he'd be asking her. Not really. She could. A wry smile slid onto her lips. "Before I go into my impossibly happy life, can I ask, are these questions about Fayte related to...personal stuff?" Yep, she couldn't resist. She adopted her eureka face. "Oh! Was she a former girlfriend or something? And because she's in a dark guild you want to know whether she's gone all cray cray." She faked being faint in the heart. "Maybe your worried that she's jealous because you've got this new crush on blondie number 3000 cause I'm sure there's tons of blondes around!" She couldn't keep a straight face and giggled, grinning. Sometimes never changed. Like her tendency to like annoying people. But back to serious business she decided she'd take a leap over a chasm and hope she didn't fall in and break her neck. She wondered how serious he'd take her.

"And back to me, you can say I have memory issues, possibly why I don't know any of my former loves if I had some," She winked at him and struggled to maintain composure. "My name is Marianne, but I much prefer Mari. Or Anna for strangers. You classify as a stranger and I guess you could say I practically disowned my families...cause I've had two in the past although it wasn't really disowning. I'll just call it that for now. That's my life in a nutshell due to my, aforementioned, memory issues." All the while about herself she was talking in an exaggerated, dramatised manner. Easier to handle she guessed. "I would ask about you but to be frank, I don't care. I don't know who you're trying to find but I don't think it's anyone good. I also think you should quit while you're ahead. Or maybe not. I'm lying. If it's someone in Shadow Heart then I'm game to help. Think whatever you like of me but I'm from Shadow Heart so I'd probably know whoever you're trying to find too." There it was, her giant leap over the chasm. She gave a sigh, hoping that he wouldn't see how genuinely scared she was of giving away her secret (although not her biggest one). "Lemme guess, is it Noburu? Is it the Shadow Lord?" The girl looked at him, studying his face to see a reaction. He probably thought she was insane. She thought she was insane so it'd be no surprise.

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He wasn't quite sure how to respond to her. Amnesia? Shadow Heart? Families? He was beyond floored, but he wasn't really angry at her. She might be just the person to help him get to the shadow lord unheard of, plus he didn't really need to let her know about any other accomplices he did or didn't have.
"If you're from shadow heart I don't need Fayte. She seems like she might be less inclined to answer me because of her personality. Thought since you're here and offering help I'll go ahead and trust you. Your credibility hasn't quite been dashed with me, so if you're really up to help, then I wouldn't mind your help tracking down the shadow lord. I honestly wasn't sure where I was going to start, but I'm capturing him, and taking him in to be judged by the guilds or the council. Care to help me with that chore?" He asked innocently. It was complicated, trusting her, especially after she admitted that she had no credibility. He was taking a pretty big leap of faith himself, and told her something that he wasn't even going to tell Vera until she saw it on TV.
"I'm really trusting you here so if you can help me pull this off you'll get some serious credibility with me. Your boss is causing serious problems in the world and I'm seeking to stop him." He finished.

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Sweeet! Not only did she score a random guy trying to destroy Shadow Heart (in a way), she scored a random guy tying to destroy Shadow Heart asking for her help although seconds ago didn't trust her one bit! Okay maybe she was exaggerating slightly. She did that a lot. He still didn't trust her which to be honest, wasn't a great way of making Mari respond with a giant 'YES! 100% OF COURSE' to his proposal. She liked keeping her insides, inside so she also wasn't trusting him that he wouldn't take what he said with a grain of salt. As Mari liked thinking ever since her traumatic events in life, no partnership ever went down well if no one trusted each other. That was like Shadow Heart in general. She couldn't name two people (off the top of her head) that trusted each other enough for a proper working together scheme.

Well...

To be fair he did just say he'd trust her. But then he ruined it by saying she still had credibility issues. Trust and credibility issues weren't two words one meshed together. At least in her opinion. Still this idea of his was probably going to get her out whether she liked it or not... but at what cost? She didn't know. She sighed.

"You know, the credibility usually comes with the partnership beforehand else it gets all messy. And seriously, you have a death wish. Capturing him? Let along getting to him? That's a bit hard. If I helped you I think I'd have carved out my own death wish. Unfortunately I have to say, I don't want a death wish. I need to be alive thanks. The only way I'd help you is if you trusted me completely and I trusted you completely cause then I wouldn't have any problem with your idea wouldn't I?" Mari wasn't flat out saying she'd refuse helping his cause; she just was a bit hesitant after finding out what his cause was.

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He considered Anna's words for a moment before responding. She had just said she had no credibility, but she wanted him to trust her completely?
"That's a fair assessment, but I feel like i'm taking most of the risk. You already know that I'm out to take out shadow heart, but I don't know why you want to destroy your own guild. Still, I'll trust you until you give me a reason not to. That being said, if you're going to help me I know a way you can without taking much risk to yourself." He explained, though as he said it he didn't exactly enjoy the idea of telling her about Vidrio's role in everything either. It was so much set up that he had to go through and so many parts were needed in order to fulfill all of the requirements necessary to make this successful. If she wanted to avoid risk though, she didn't need to know about that in the first place.
"I'll need you to simply find out where the Shadow Lord will be, or tell me where he goes in case of an emergency. Once you have that you simply tell me, and I go after him. The rest of the guild will be busy, but there is a small resistance movement. If you want to help without being in danger then information will more than suffice. After that, I'm sure Fairy Tail  will take you in if you want to join them, just tell them I sent you." He said with a smile. He rather loved the idea of recruiting someone from shadow heart to join them.

Mari decided he was trustworthy enough since he seemed like an honest enough guy. There was still a factor about him that she didn't know anything about him. She guessed that was a gamble enough. She had to increase her odds though. Telling him why she wanted Shadow Heart gone would be a great start she guessed. After he finished talking she immediately cut in. "If telling you why I want Shadow Heart gone will make you trust me more, than I will. I wasn't lying when I said my only love was for my family. Pieter and Sabby are my adopted siblings and they mean more to me than anyone else in the world. I didn't join Shadow Heart by choice without influence. Some guy... he threatened them so I agreed. Destroying Shadow Heart is selfish in that I'm putting them at risk. But I need to think about myself too and Shadow Heart is turning me into a worse person than I was before. I also want them gone I absolutely hate that Fiore is looking up to a bunch of traitors and bloodthirsty idiots." She told him in a matter of fact way before continuing to listen to him.

She laughed when he suggested she join Fairy Tail after saying she'd only need to be an information collector. "Fairy Tail? No way that's happening. Not that bunch of hero thugs, no offence meant. Guilds are too family for my taste. I'm a bit selfish in that way. No. After I'm done with you, I'm going to hide. Hide and protect Sabby and Pieter. I'm done with fighting. Have I ever told you I am a pacifist? At least trying to be one. It makes me a very conflicted person and I think I'd like the chance to not be one." She paused, letting her grin fade a bit into a weak smile. "I'll do more than information collection if it comes to it but if you need help fighting the Shadow Lord... well I'm not going to help you with that. I'm going to take that opportunity to hide in safety."

Tatsuma listened to her speak since she seemed to want to get it out. He hadn't really thought too much about why she might want to, but she seemed fairly honest about it in this case. If she was lying she was really, really good at it.
"Good enough for me. I don't want anyone fighting the shadow lord with me. There isn't time for me to try to teach someone to harmonize with my movements or for me to learn to harmonize with theirs and if we aren't perfect it won't work right anyway. That aside I'm not entirely sure exactly how it's going to go and if it heads south I don't want anyone else to be facing that particular barrel. If I face him alone then live or die hopefully I can make a difference." He explained calmly. It wasn't that he was resolved to die, but he knew that it was dangerous and death was a fairly good probability, thus he had been training. Still it wasn't like he didn't think the odds were somewhere about 50/50.
"I mean realistically the odds are not exactly out of the question for the fight to go either way, but I'm thinking adding someone else to that mix is going to tip the scales the wrong way. So really, If you can gather information, maybe draw the other members away from the guild without it looking like you're involved that will be enough." He added, hoping that between her and Vidrio trying to accomplish the same goal they could clear out the guild hall.

Even if Marianne had been lying (which she most certainly had not), she probably still would have been able to deceive him; she was just that good. The girl scoffed at his reasons for not wanting to fight with the Shadow Lord with anybody besides him. "If those are your reasons for not wanting anyone you might you are horribly wrong if you ever fight with me. I'm pretty perceptive. Psychic you know?" She winked at him. It wasn't that fair from the truth. She was psychic. Perhaps not in the way that she could read people's minds but when she entered that mode she might as well be. Everything became instinctive and she was thinking she could give a few people a run for their money even if they were much better than her. Of course it wouldn't really matter that much if she couldn't dodge but hey, she could probably stay out of his way. Telekinesis was also incredibly helpful on the support side anyway.

Whether he died or not didn't concern Mari in the slightest and she simply shrugged. It was his choices and while she did question the accuracy, she wasn't sure she really wanted the answers. She could already guess why. "That I can do," She responded nonchalantly before looking at the flickering lamp lights. By her judgement it wouldn't be too long before random people of the public started coming out. When that happened she didn't want to be anywhere nearby. She let her gaze trail off to the side before returning back to his. "As pleasant as this meeting has been I'd prefer it if I left before people woke up. If you need to contact me... well I dunno... you'll figure out a way. I'm not the type of person to leave call cards around," She turned around not waiting for him to respond and walked down the street, hand raised in farewell. She hoped this decision of hers wouldn't absolutely wreck her but she didn't think it would. In fact she thought quite the opposite... she was even hopeful... which was something completely new.

-Exit-