Togusa starts getting his head right, getting his game face on and Mariko smiles, just a little. Even distraught, he’s always been reliable and she hopes that whatever it is that Retrospec is trying to make him remember - that it’s worth it in he end.

“You do, sometimes. The forest is appropriate.” It almost kills her to agree with Misaki’s shade but she can’t help but tease him a little, even now. Give him something familiar for his brain to hold to as he gets ready to put in work, an anchoring point.

“We start with the familiar.”

With a sigh, Mariko approaches her shade and tries not to think about it.

“What do you make of all this?”