bunnyfic 7.5, 08, 09, 10
I totally dropped the ball this round. xD; ♥ It is slow, and absolutely nothing happens. 8D 7.5 exists because I couldn't go on without ironing out certain details that were plotting to hole. *has given up even trying to keep the one-POV-per-chapter, and the 30 chapter thing itself* xD Oh well. Maybe it'll go faster now that the plan has been defenestrated. Or maybe I'll just have to fill in the rest of the wordcount with omake and prologue bits, ahaae. <-that wouldn't be too bad, on second thoughts. :D;
[edit 04 Jan'12] Hovering over Japanese text will give you a translation. :D
Errants 74-M, 21-K.
( 7.5: the distress )
"What do you mean you stole them?" Tamamori whined. That wasn't a fair deal at all.
He was walking down a massive pipe that slowly sloped downward. Only his personal dignity (or what was left of it at this stage) stopped him from crawling instead, or accepting Nikaido's offer to hold his hand like a baby. Down by his right, a second massive pipe ran side by side against the one he walked on. To his left, there was nothing but air and a very long fall to the centre of the earth. Or wherever the bottom of the underground was. Tamamori couldn't see it from where he was, and certainly didn't fancy his chances peering over the side to look.
Nikaido hovered easily above the other pipe, parallel, keeping pace with Tamamori's baby steps without a care in the world. Of course he wouldn't care if he fell, though. He had skates.
"Like I said~" Nikaido snickered, "I stole them. From a sleeping guy."
The answer dissatisfied Tamamori greatly. "So you've got nothing to do with... them."
"Who or what?" Nikaido raised a curious eyebrow, his tone more I-want-to-know than properly questioning.
"Mmn... those guys with skates," Tamamori sighed. "Never mind."
"Never heard of them," Nikaido shrugged.
There ensued a bit of silence, Tamamori with muted mixed feelings and trying not to misstep to his death; Nikaido with his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling as his skates hummed quietly along under his feet.
"Insulating layer," Nikaido said presently, with a jerk of his jaw up at the surface above them. "We went through it getting down here."
"Oh," Tamamori said, looking carefully upward, only half interested. "That's nice."
"It's so the base repulsors and electronic stuff down here that keeps everything going doesn't interfere with anything up there. And vice versa."
"Right," Tamamori said as if he cared, and gave a perfunctory greeting in the same tone: "Good afternoon, Mr. Insulation. Sorry for the intrusion~"
That earned him a funny look sidelong from Nikaido, but nothing more was said on the subject. Instead, Nikaido skipped back to the previous one: "So like, why do you care?"
"About...?"
With a gesture, Nikaido indicated his footwear. "These? I want to know."
Tamamori's tone turned vaguely sulky as he dropped his concentration back to where he placed his steps. "What would it matter to you? You just stole them."
Nikaido rolled his eyes. "Come on, don't be so lame and lawful. Illegals all nick stuff, don't they?" Stealing wasn't freeloading, it was survival. Pinching stuff from a system that would rather see him dead didn't bother Nikaido's conscience too much anyway.
"I barter," Tamamori said obtusely.
Nikaido, maturely, blew a raspberry. "Well sorr~ee you happen to be a master codesman."
Tamamori didn't deign that with a response.
"Hey, hey~" the other continued regardless, "where'd you learn code like that anyway? Because seriously, some of your stuff's pretty hardcore."
"I taught myself," Tamamori said, still sullen.
"From what?" Nikaido persisted. Coding wasn't like skating. While there was logic and commonsense in both, the rules that governed code were heaps more difficult to grasp well enough to mess with (unlike the laws of physics, which you could get over with a little intuition and devil-may-care).
"The skaters," Tamamori told him. Among others. He wasn't telling the whole truth, but... "My kraken was modelled on a phoenix one of them used." The kraken was still one step behind, too-it could regenerate severed tentacles to a certain extent, but when it was killed, it died. The phoenix automatically reformed its entire being. No matter what Tamamori did or tried, the phoenix model was one core of code he couldn't crack.
"Ohhh..." Nikaido said, starting to understand. Or so he thought. "You want to find these guys because they're kind of awesome?"
"..." Tamamori sighed inwardly. "Something like that." He wasn't annoyed, per se, so much as just bummed about ending up at another dead end.
"Am I annoying?" Nikaido snickered, skating a lazy circle around Tamamori as the other walked.
"I'm not annoyed," Tamamori said. And wanted to frown.
"Sure, sure," Nikaido laughed, but then swung the subject back a second time: "How'd you trace them anyway?"
"What?"
"The skaters, yeah?" Nikaido shrugged. "You said you saw one of them use a phoenix, so that had to be in a scenario. But how'd you know he was a skater then?"
Tamamori made a face. "I didn't. Initially. I've been picking at traces of them for years."
Nikaido laughed heartily, completely disregarding Tamamori's utter annoyance. (Lack of annoyance, Tamamori reminded himself.) "Wow, no wonder you got pissed when I didn't turn out to be one of them~ Wish I was though, if what you're saying's all true."
"Stop that," Tamamori said. "You're annoying, okay?"
Nikaido just laughed harder.
"What about you then?" Tamamori contrived, in a bid to shut the other up. "What did you do to that chaser?"
"Hm?" Nikaido shrugged. "Same thing I always do. Just knocked him out-" A small part of Tamamori breathed a sigh of relief at not being in the presence of a killer, until Nikaido snickered. "-of a third storey window. He probably survived~ ♥ Maybe."
"Nikaido-"
"Got a problem with it?" Nikaido countered. "He would've offed either of us no sweat. At least I gave him a chance."
Tamamori couldn't really say anything to that, even if the situation still didn't sit very right with him. "I would've escaped fine," he said, thin-lipped. "You didn't have to do that."
Nikaido shrugged. "I was in the area. Call it preemptive self-defence. Oh!"
"What?"
"Serious question now," Nikaido said, hovering back over to the second pipe as if to give Tamamori back his space. As if questions about what were done with a chaser's life weren't serious at all or anything.
"Okay?" Tamamori said anyway.
"You don't have skates or anything right," Nikaido said, "So you've got your perimeter alarm thing that goes off when a chaser's coming."
"Right," Tamamori said.
"I get your anti-infrared thing," Nikaido nodded, gesturing to the reflective silver that stuck out over Tamamori's regular clothes-a wrap-style top and pants in a thick fabric just on the fashionable side of very normal-Tamamori tugged a little self-consciously at the ugly hood that showed. "I get that," Nikaido continued, "but you can't go very far. Since you haven't got skates. Or a proper transport, I assume."
"I haven't," Tamamori agreed.
"So," Nikaido tugged at one plait on his beanie. "You're a codesman, and you're online a lot. I mean, you were on today at least twice even. So why don't the seekers just like, plot and predict your location from your last ones? I mean, there's programs that'll do that, right?"
"There's humans that'll do that," Tamamori told him with a casual derision. "Without the programs." Plotting wasn't rocket science. He pursed his lips. "I've got a scrambler. That sets a new contact sequence every time I log on." Which meant he'd show up as a new errant each time the seekers identified his unauthorised net access. And then they'd have to confirm his illegal status each time, before coming after him.
It was a handy override to have, necessitating that the government crack the pattern of sequences first, before they could plot the hits of his physical location. Neither of which was going to happen any time soon, Tamamori was pretty sure.
Nikaido had stopped skating and stared.
Tamamori kept walking, unperturbed.
"You have those kinds of system overrides?" Nikaido asked, incredulous. He jumped over to Tamamori's pipe, skating backwards in Tamamori's way. "I mean seriously, you know how to do that kind of thing?"
Changing a contact sequence was above the level of the kraken avatar, the same kind of way the kraken avatar was leagues above the teeth virus. Something like that wasn't just hacking a scenario anymore-it was hacking the entire system.
"No, I don't," Tamamori told him. "I bartered for it."
"What the hell did you sell?" Nikaido laughed. "Your soul? Hey, did you?"
"No..."
Tamamori almost wished he had, though. In hindsight, he was pretty sure the codesman he'd traded with-a totally nondescript guy calling himself I14 as if he could be legal with slicing skills like that-had been one of the skaters' lot. I14 had obviously not needed anything Tamamori could think to offer, but had accepted something mundane; the trade had gone ahead and Tamamori hadn't seen a single trace of him since...
"You're weird," Nikaido snickered.
"Thank you?" Tamamori said. "Why- wait, heyheyheyhey~! Put me down!"
"We're going too slow~" Nikaido laughed. "I want to get back surface-side somewhere else already, because you're not getting rid of me 'til you show me that kraken again. And the scrambler as well. Hold on tight!"
"No no no no no-!" Tamamori flailed, but then gave up on beating at Nikaido's shoulder in order to do as instructed: hold on very tight. And squeeze his eyes shut. And focus on trying not to panic too hard as Nikaido jumped from pipe to platform and swung around and made gravity go everywhere.
Tamamori hated scary rides. A lot.
(Despite the situation though, thinking of Nikaido as a ride somehow managed to disturbed him even more.)
53-N.
( 08: in and out )
Senga poked his head in through the door of Takizawa's private quarters, finding his boss reclined comfortably in his lounge chair, netgear on and activated. Tentatively, Senga entered the room. Fujigaya had been kind of pissy when he'd found Senga to tell him that Boss Tackey wanted to see him-but that wasn't anything too apocalyptic. Fujigaya always got annoyed over things like that, when it was somebody else Boss Tackey wanted to see. A lot of the time that somebody else happened to be Senga, was all. Senga'd gotten used to it already, mostly. He didn't necessarily like it. But he was used to it.
If Boss Tackey was already online, he was probably waiting in the usual room...
Senga stared for a long moment, watching as Takizawa lay there with his eyes closed but moving behind his eyelids as if he were in that dreaming state of sleep, instead of wide awake online. The two states were theoretically kind of similar, but Senga had never been too good at theory so he didn't think about it too hard, mind trundling over to how Takizawa looked instead.
Takizawa watched Senga all the time, after all. Even if Boss Tackey was boss and Senga wasn't, Senga figured it couldn't hurt to take a little back sometimes.
Like now.
He liked to look at Boss Tackey, too.
Takizawa wasn't super tall, but Senga had always thought that was okay-he was a just right height. A not scary height, for a not scary person. It worked. (Kitayama was about the right height too, by that rule. And so was Yokoo. Fujigaya maybe should have been just a little bit taller, though...)
Takizawa took care of himself, too-and he made sure that everybody who lived with him or worked for him (or quite often both, like in Senga's case) did, too. A healthy body, Takizawa believed, helped to keep a healthy mind. He refused to run a vegetable farm where all that was produced were ill-disciplined humans who spent all their time online and 'knew not physical touch, affection, or pain'... or something like that.
In the sort of business they ran anyway, those who weren't physically able as well as mentally sharp were kind of dead meat. That was why the older ones were always out on errands and jobs, and Senga had to stay home and train (and dance). He wasn't quite there yet. But he'd get there eventually...
Someday...
And then, he'd be useful to Boss Tackey too, just like Fujigaya and Kitayama and Yokoo and Iida, and the Honor Guard... (Except he'd be taller than the Honor Guard, probably-he was already taller than the Goseki-and-Kawai half, so that was a start...)
Takizawa's eyes fluttered open. "Senga~"
Senga started in surprise. "Yes, Boss?"
"Don't keep me waiting too long," Takizawa smiled, just a little teasing.
The room suddenly felt too warm. "Sorry, Boss," Senga flushed. So. He'd be useful one day, but today was clearly not that day. Dejectedly, he shuffled over to the lounge where Takizawa reclined, and curled his legs up on the end of it.
"Are you still limping?" Takizawa sat up, slipping his netgear off.
Senga tried to disappear into his own knees. "It hurts..." he mumbled. "Because it hurts... just a bit, though. It's getting better..."
Actually, what hurt more was the memory of screwing up, that last time he'd danced for real. When you landed badly in a scenario it really hurt too, but then, when you logged off, you were always pleasantly surprised to feel that everything was good again.
In the real world, not so.
Takizawa gave him a fond smile. "Silly boy. You did have it seen to, correct?"
Senga nodded a little miserably. "Yokoo wrapped it for me..." He tried to wriggle his big toe but couldn't. (He couldn't wear shoes either, but Yokoo had refused to bandage it smaller, which was almost equally depressing. Yokoo was usually really nice, but he had a mean streak as bad as Fujigaya sometimes that showed up in really weird ways...)
Takizawa shook his head, accustomed to Senga's depressive tendencies. He patted the space beside him on the lounge. "Come here."
Senga blinked. And dutifully crawled up the couch. He was only half surprised (actually maybe only a quarter or an eighth surprised... or less, even) when Takizawa slipped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close, dropping an affectionate kiss to his temple.
Senga closed his eyes against Takizawa's chest and gave a little sigh. He'd like to feel like Boss Tackey one day, too, strong and muscled and confident and stuff...
Because at the moment, Senga was 'easily depressed' and 'full of awkward and puppy fat'-according to Fujigaya anyway. And he didn't like being like that very much.
"Thank you," he mumbled.
"Silly," Takizawa hummed. "Your netgear...?"
"Here," Senga said, rummaging around in a pocket for the lightweight wire set, before he found it and had to straighten its bands out. It'd gotten a little squashed.
"Take better care of that," Takizawa chided. "It'll be troublesome to get you another, since they're adjusted specifically to your brainwaves, you know. If you don't bother looking after it, I might not bother getting you another one if it breaks."
"I know," Senga said. "I'm sorry... I'm usually careful! It just got a bit squashed..."
Takizawa gave Senga a wry smile, and slipped his own netgear back on. "Don't sweat so much. I'll meet you in the regular room."
"Yes, Boss~" Senga said. And, "ow..." glad that Takizawa had already gone ahead, so he hadn't just seen Senga poke himself in the eye with his headset's band. Today just wasn't going well...
[ WELCOME TO GOVNET ], the initial screen proclaimed as Senga logged in. It was just a perfunctory thing, but the government liked to remind people where they were and who they belonged to.
"Thanks," Senga muttered at it, quickly thinking about where he wanted to go from there instead. Boss Tackey had said the regular room... but that was secured up to the teeth, or like back to the gag reflex even, so Senga would just have to start off outside of it. As usual.
Before his eyes materialised a pair of large, arched, hardwood doors, heavy and reinforced with iron...
And Yokoo, who leaned back against them, arms crossed.
"Hey," Yokoo gave a grin, the dimple in his right cheek showing. He was dressed in his usual online white, currently in the style of short pants, a long casual shirt, and loafers. Only his accessories lent colour, a leather cuff and a long string of colourful beads wrapped loose around one wrist.
"Hey~" Senga said, managing a smile. Well, you couldn't really not smile when Yokoo was smiling at you first. His teeth were too funny for that.
"Figured you wouldn't be too far behind," Yokoo said. "Tono was waiting, you know."
"I know, I know~" Senga said plaintively. "He came and got me..."
Yokoo tsk'd. "That's not very good, is it?"
"You're just holding Senga up longer, you know, Yokoo-san," Iida's voice floated through the pre-scenario, with the impression of amusement.
"Quiet, Kyon," Yokoo grinned, seemingly to himself. Iida wasn't physically present of course. He never was. "I take it you've validated everything already?"
"Before he even spoke," Iida chuckled.
"Alright, alright, clearly too efficient," Yokoo snerked. "Then let's let him through." Without turning, Yokoo pressed a palm back to each door. Something that looked like a laser scan flashed across the wood under his hands before both doors opened, surprisingly swift and silent for all their grandiose size. Yokoo stepped aside.
"Thanks, Ii-chan~" Senga beamed, walking through with a wave. "See you, Yokoo-kun!"
"Later, Senga."
And then the doors closed again.
And then they disappeared, leaving just bare wall behind Senga in the regular room.
Senga turned his attention forward, where Takizawa smiled, leaning back on the edge of his desk in the old, wooden-floored room. There were no mirrors in it this time, Senga noted, looking around curiously. Was he not there to dance? But if not dance, then...?
"Boss? What do you want?" he asked, a little uncertain.
"Well..." Takizawa took a scroll from his desk, holding it out. Senga shuffled forward, but before he could accept the message, Takizawa set it back down and frowned. "Are you still limping, you silly boy?"
"Boss~" Senga whined, pouting, "but it hurts~"
"Senga, you should know how to differentiate your selves by now. Your virtual avatar is far from injured; it's only your mind that makes it so."
"I know that," Senga frowned as well. "But it's hard to split them two..."
Takizawa sighed.
Legal status aside, that kind of nimbleness of the mind was one of the larger factors separating people who'd been connected to the net from the get go and those who'd started off illegal, or whose parents had registered them late.
If a child didn't know how to drop and chop and change avatars by the time they became self-aware, then it would be difficult for them to naturally see their virtual representations as another body-an alternate body-rather than their same selves, online.
"It may be hard at first," Takizawa allowed, "but it's certainly doable."
Because one could always learn. There were people, disabled and injured, permanently incapacitated or otherwise, who hadn't initially but now lived their days out virtually. Regenerative nerve therapy was a very costly procedure, after all, but even quadraplegics could walk around in scenarios just fine-if their minds could comprehend it.
The thing about Senga, though, was that he'd been online forever compared to the rest of the boys at Takizawa's place. He just had an unreasonable amount of trouble with these things.
Takizawa tapped his fingers against the scroll in thought for a moment, before picking it up again and handing it over. Senga took it from him with both hands just like he'd seen Yokoo and Fujigaya and Kitayama do a billion times before. Belatedly, he remembered the small bow and quickly ducked his head.
Takizawa chuckled, ruffling Senga's hair. "Good try."
Senga grinned. "Thanks, Boss~"
"Thank me after you know what you have to do with it," Takizawa smiled.
Senga's heart sank. "Is it going to be a hard challenge, then...?"
"It may be hard at first," Takizawa chuckled, repeating his own answer, "but it's certainly doable."
"Tell me already, Boss~" Senga pleaded, stomach sinking. He wanted to know if he really wanted to do this grown up thing yet. It probably wasn't really a proper mission like the older ones got, but Senga had never been given a letter to deliver before.
"Take it to Koichi-kun."
Senga stared. "...you mean the Prince?" he clarified, to make sure he wasn't mistaking Boss Tackey to mean just Goseki or something. Even if they never called Goseki by that name. "I mean, Prince Domoto?"
"Yes, Senga. I mean Prince Domoto Koichi," Takizawa chuckled. There were two Domoto 'princes' after all. While both were theoretically just governmental figureheads, they did each hold some real power and one had to be specific in one's address.
While Domoto Tsuyoshi would probably understand Takizawa's letter just as capably, he'd probably be less interested in its contents. Not that the message was of any particularly vital intelligence-it wasn't even sealed or encrypted.
Senga looked at the scroll in his hands. And then up at Takizawa. And then back down at the scroll. He was clearly curious. Takizawa smiled. Would the boy ask? Takizawa wouldn't mind answering. It was just a regular update about the holdings of Takizawa's public domain...
But Senga wasn't going to ask. "...okay," he said, and tucked the thin scroll into his belt.
Takizawa nodded. "Good." Then smiled. "Mind you, I want you to walk there. Through a cityscape or a forest, it doesn't really matter. But you must walk."
"Whaaat~?" Senga looked up again. The older ones never got conditional orders like that. "That's kind of lame."
"Differentiation is a useful skill," Takizawa told him, "and one that I want you to learn today. Don't come back until your avatar is no longer limping. And if that happens to be after dinnertime then so be it."
"...yes, Boss," Senga said, dejected mood returning all over again. He probably wasn't going to be getting any dinner tonight then...
"I'm glad we understand each other," Takizawa smiled. With that, he clapped his hands twice. "Iida. Take us our separate ways, please."
"Understood, sir," Iida's voice floated across-
And the next second, Senga found himself standing barefoot in a clearing in the middle of a forest.
He blinked.
The scroll was still in his tunic; he could feel it, so that was fine.
But looking down further, the pressure wrap also still bandaged his toe and the entire front part of his foot. He tried to will it away, and make the sprain's dull pain go away too. But the more he thought about it, the more the stupid injury hurt.
Senga's stomach sank in despair, preemptively hungry for later that night. He should probably deliver the letter first, then worry about getting his stupid real life injury off of his stupid virtual foot. But on the other hand, walking all the way to the castle in the middle of the woods was going to take a lot longer with a limp. And he didn't want to be caught in the forest when night fell.
But if he sat in the clearing and tried to get rid of the injury first... what if it never happened? Then he'd be still stuck in the middle of the forest when night fell, and with the letter too, and then Boss Tackey would be disappointed.
...scroll first then, Senga decided. And maybe he could try get rid of the injury along the way.
He looked up at all the giant trees that mottled up the afternoon light and sighed deeply. It was warm. He was sweating already. This was going to be a long first mission.
M15; 53-N.
( 09: something specific )
Miyata trudged home from work with a spring in his step. He could do things like that because he was the special type of limited edition, extra rare collectors' item guy who put a hundred percent of his energy into everything he did. Even trudging.
And so he trudged, happily.
He could've taken mass public transport, or gotten a private transport of his own... but, no. His pay wasn't good enough to afford the latter, and his nature was too happy for the former. Mass public transport was an utterly depressing concept involving magnetic shuttles on anti-mag strips and repulsors so they floated without wasting energy, coupled with a few other things the physics behind which Miyata didn't particularly understand...
All he knew was that they were silent as graves. Huge coffins that carried a lot of people-people who were, more often than not, also silent. Whether it was because they spent the journey with their netgear on and activated, or whether it was because they were sleeping or dead or whatever, it was all very quiet...
Very zombie.
Miyata didn't like it.
If he was going to be some mythical thing of old imagine, then it wouldn't be a zombie. He'd pick something amazing and awe-inspiring like a giant, building-crushing ape. Or, if he had to be human, then he'd be a pirate. Pirates were sexy, according to the books. And Miyata thought they looked pretty cool, too.
A different kind of cool to zombies.
Regardless, his home wasn't too far from where he worked. He worked at the government's central building. And lived in the government's residential block. He didn't get a lot of bonuses because he didn't catch a lot of errants, so he couldn't afford private housing. (And he wasn't lucky enough to have been able to find a private sector job either... Well, unlucky or unskilled. Sometimes these things had the same meaning.)
He could, quite easily, actually work from home. But that idea didn't suit him either. It was largely beyond him why anybody would turn down the opportunity to leave their little box houses, especially if they lived alone like Miyata did. It wasn't that he was a terribly social creature, but... there was nothing particularly happy about what basically amounted to self-imposed house arrest.
Perhaps more than most, Miyata valued the freedom of being able to come and go from his house as he pleased.
He also liked to leave his tug boat program with its weapons and nets-his job-at work. His avatar was different there too, with a uniform and dress cap and one of the totally generic 'licensed for government use' faces pasted on underneath. Miyata used his real face only when he accessed the net during his private time. The distinction pleased him.
"ただいま~" he called out as he approached his front door. Identifying Miyata's voice and code, the lock bleeped and the door slid open invitingly. Miyata liked to think it was with that sentiment anyway, though there was nothing particularly inviting inside his unlit little box. The sunlamp in the ceiling was almost always already dark by the time he got back, and turning it back on... well. In Miyata's opinion, that defied the purpose of having a sunlamp installed in the first place.
Ridiculous reasoning perhaps, but he stuck by it, preferring to light candles instead. Candles were cute~ they had the ability to bring even shadows to life.
It was silly how that worked, Miyata thought. How humans were zombies, and how zombies looked for comfort in things like candles that moved more nimbly than they. If he ever won the lottery, he'd fill his entire box apartment with candles. Even if they set off the smoke sensors by accident again, and his supervisor cracked it at him again. Fire wasn't something that was really used around the Capital anymore. It was dangerous to have, and a bit taboo...
But it would be worth it. The thought made Miyata smile.
Standing in the entrance booth-げんかん his mind called it, even if the little space was fully enclosed-just inside the front door, he waited a moment for the scan to take his readings. Vital statistics. Blood sugar. Cholesterol. Everything. "My energy levels are kind of low..." he confessed aloud. Which was a lie, but he liked it when there was a little taurine added to his nutricubes. They were more amusing that way.
The scanner beeped its acknowledgement and presently opened the door leading into Miyata's apartment proper. It was a one-and-a-half room box of a home, very automated and rather sterile. Government housing was like that. But on the upside, you couldn't really screw up the interior decorating~
"一つ目は晩ごはんだよ," he called out. Dinner first, net socialising second. Another beep of acknowledgement sounded in response-this time from the compact little station that passed for a kitchen along one side of the main room. Miyata subscribed to the basic food plan: two meals a day at home, ready when you wanted them. It was cost effective and handy, even if there were no meal choices offered.
His food was ready by the time he'd taken his shoes off by the door and walked over. Today was...
A mystery kind of... wrap thing. And three nutricubes. How... appetizing.
Oh well~
Miyata shrugged to himself and tucked in. The purpose of real world meals was mostly just to keep your body from revolting anyway. The food was infallibly some re-hydrated thing from the labs, and didn't usually taste bad, per se, so much as just... not particularly special. And the nutricubes provided essential vitamins and minerals (and taurine) based on your current physical statistics, as scanned...
Apparently his levels were currently lower than usual, if he needed three of the tasteless, gelatinous squares... ah, well. Work had been a little stressful...
:::
Senga was a hundred and eighty percent lost.
He couldn't even see the top of the castle anymore, like he'd been able to from the clearing. And he couldn't find his way back to the clearing. And he still had that stupid bandage on his foot, meaning he couldn't leave and pick another scenario because then Yokoo or Iida would notice since everybody's net access in the Takizawa residence went through them two, and Yokoo would tell Boss Tackey and Senga would get in trouble for deliberately doing the wrong thing. (Deliberately, because he got in trouble for doing the wrong thing by accident all the time already...)
It was almost totally dark and the forest was getting kind of really creepy.
Senga hadn't really meant to pick a forest scenario. He'd subconsciously come to it because Takizawa had mentioned the place, and coupled with the confusion Senga'd felt at the time... (confusion, in Senga's experience, lead to a lot of trees...) well, he'd ended up in the forest.
He leaned back against a random trunk, hoping it didn't have any spiders or ants or anything all over it, and sighed trying to think through his options... But he was tired and sweaty and had been walking for ages and was totally lost and his stupid foot still hurt. His brain had left the building.
...which actually meant that it was kind of Zen just leaning there with just his breathing. There wasn't any wind or rain. Not many animals or other potential avatars around...
The more details you consciously added during the scenario forming stage, the lower the chances that others would be there by virtue of having thought up the same place. Details were tricky to generate quick enough. Most people just imagined a general scenario like 'the beach' or 'the shops' or 'grassy fields'. Usually the more general the scenario, the more people would share it.
Only a certain kind of person chose 'the forest at dusk,' and Senga didn't think so many of those would be around so that he could ask them for help...
Until his ears picked up a weird sound.
Senga stared at nothing in particular, listening intently. It wasn't so much a sound as a melody, really. Or maybe not so much a melody as a sequence of sounds. He had no idea what kind of instrument would make that type of... wheezy sort of noise.
Closing his eyes, he followed the upbeat, off-beat chords through the trees...
To a guy sitting in one of the forest's lower branches.
Senga stared up in fascination. For all intents and purposes, the guy seemed to be blowing air through his hands to make music, but if you squinted really closely you could see the glint of a little something flash between his palms every now and again...
Senga's eyes were naturally good, but his powers of deduction... not so much. "What on earth is it?" he asked aloud, a little awed.
The wheezy music stopped. The guy up in the tree blinked down at Senga, and Senga blinked back up at him.
"This?" the guy asked, and held up what looked like half a little metal sandwich with holes.
Senga nodded. Well, it was probably that?
The guys eyes crinkled up at the edges in a smile. "It's a harmonica~" he said, and dropped it down to Senga's waiting hands.
Senga received the 'harmonica' file, and looked through its instructions with curiosity as the harmonica player climbed awkwardly down from the tree. To make it play, you breathed in or breathed out, and moved your mouth up and down the-
"Eiwww~" Senga said, presently realising the little metal sandwich was damp with excess drool.
The harmonica guy laughed. "Sorry~" he said, taking the small instrument back and pocketing it. "I guess you could call that a security measure I forgot to disable..."
Senga wiped his palms dry on his slacks. "That's really gross," he said. But then had another thought: "Can you play that for real?"
The harmonica player tilted his head a little. "...'for real'? Out in the real world?"
Senga nodded. "Yeah."
"I think so," the harmonica player said, still smiling. "I had one when I was little, that belonged to my father. But I don't have it anymore."
"Oh," Senga said, feeling the need to apologise. "I'm sorry..."
The harmonica guy grinned. "It's okay~ I can probably still play. Why?"
Senga blinked. "Just wondering. Because I can dance!"
The harmonica guy blinked, an eyebrow raised. "...'for real'?" he clarified.
"Yup~" Senga beamed proudly, but then suddenly remembered the weight of the scroll tucked into his tunic. Maybe this guy- "Hey, hey... do you know where the castle is?"
"There's a castle in this scenario?" The harmonica guy's other brow raised to meet his first. "I had no idea."
Senga's face fell. "Oh. I need to deliver a letter there..."
"Hmm..." The harmonica guy seemed to think about that for a bit. Eventually he said, "Well, I don't know where it is, but I do know a guy who'd be able to find it for you..." His eyes crinkled up at the edges again. "Want me to call him?"
Senga's eyes lit up in relief. "Please! If it's not too much trouble, please..."
Errants 74-M, 21-K.
( 10: point of intercept )
"What's in it for me though?" Tamamori asked mildly. They were walking now, side by side offline. Nikaido had pestered and threatened and pleaded Tamamori halfway to a deal. It had taken some doing, except now that Nikaido was at that half way mark, he realised he wasn't sure what he was dealing with.
He was silent for a bit, giving Tamamori's question due thought, determined not to back out...
What to barter for, though? Realistically, he didn't really have much to offer-anything he didn't immediately need, he usually just left behind somewhere...
Nikaido presently found his eyes looking at his own feet, and felt a stroke of genius. Isn't that perfect? He grinned confidently. "For every code thing you teach me, I'll teach you a trick on skates."
Tamamori gave a small frown. "Just because I want to find the skaters doesn't mean I want to learn how to skate, you know."
Nikaido felt like he'd been smacked in the face. "What! Then how the hell are you going to catch them? Skates are faster than you're ever going to be in your anti-stupid suit, you know."
"Anti-infrared," Tamamori said stuffily, thinking that if the suit were anti-stupid, it would probably have repelled a lot more people from his person. People like Nikaido.
"Whatever," Nikaido said. "The point is you wouldn't be able to catch them if they showed up."
"I never said I wanted to catch them," Tamamori countered obtusely. "Just that I wanted to know more about them."
"Right," Nikaido said without bothering to rein in his sarcasm, "because interrogating a live specimen wouldn't be the easiest way to get that done."
"I can track them online instead."
"How many years have you been doing that for already...?" Nikaido stuck a pinky in his ear and gave it an insolent wriggle.
Tamamori said nothing to that, slightly annoyed. "I don't want your skate lessons."
In truth, he wouldn't have minded skate lessons. But his phrasing was accurate: he didn't want them from Nikaido.
Nikaido seemed like he would be the sort of teacher who was liable to kick his students out of their nest like eaglets. And watch them fall, and think about maybe saving them. (And then, upon remembering that the eaglets were the ones wearing the skates, he'd probably end up deciding that the eaglets could just save themselves.)
Tamamori didn't really want to die like that. (Or look stupid in front of Nikaido, who also seemed like he'd be the sort of teacher who would laugh at his students-if he didn't get them killed first...). He'd already learned to skate a bit anyway, if only virtually. From the skates' live specifications, he'd coded up a theoretical model of the footwear online. (Though he would admit that his practise sessions never lasted too long; it was frustratingly difficult to do cool things...)
Nikaido frowned. "Then what do you want?"
Tamamori shrugged. "I'll think about it."
"Tightarse."
Tamamori ignored that comment too, in favour of a glooping sort of sound coming from his netgear. "Oh... a call." And there was only one person filed under that ringtone.
Nikaido gave Tamamori's gear a funny look. "You have external speakers on that thing?"
"They're only active when I'm connected but not in-scenario," Tamamori said, hooking his netgear back into place over his temples from where it'd been hanging around his neck in the meantime. "Excuse me~"
Nikaido waved a dismissive whatever and kept walking.
Fifty percent opacity please, Tamamori instructed in his blueroom, so he could still follow Nikaido's silhouette and wouldn't walk into any walls while doing so. Answer incoming~
A familiar face from long acquaintance swam into view, grinning. "Tama-chan... ♥"
"Miyacchi~ What's up?"
"We need your help~" Miyata smiled, "if you're not busy at the moment."
Tamamori gave the impression of narrowing his eyes, but didn't actually bother. "Who's 'we'...?"
Miyata's animated mugshot blinked, seemingly surprised by the question. "...uh. Well. A guy I met in the forest..."
"You don't know his name?"
"Not yet." Miyata almost looked sheepish. Almost.
Tamamori shook his head. "You help too many people..." Not that he was complaining about it, but...
The other grinned. "Thank you~"
"Hang on a bit, I'll ask."
"Sure," Miyata said, before his image froze on the grin, paused in transmission from his end. Unlike Tamamori, Miyata didn't inquire about who or what Tamamori would be asking.
Years back, Miyata had declared it a rule of thumb not to question Tamamori's business. Really, if it wasn't about Tamamori himself, the less Miyata knew the better. And sometimes, Miyata stopped himself from asking even when it was about just Tamamori. He knew the tip of the iceberg of what Tamamori could do, and what he was. And the less he knew of the rest, the better it could only be for both of them.
Tamamori for his part did a very good job of pretending he didn't care what Miyata did for a living. He'd tracked the other once a while back, and had been kind of disappointed with the result, but... in the end it wasn't either of their faults they'd ended up on opposite sides of a legal fence.
"Nikaido..." Tamamori said, aloud in the real world. He lifted his netgear a little as Nikaido turned around.
"What?"
"Somebody needs something..."
"Wow, that's specific," Nikaido said, unfazed. Meeting new people was always good, though. He didn't wait for Tamamori to finish that sentence: "Can I come along?"
"...sure," Tamamori said, unable to say no point blank after being put on the spot. Nikaido coming along probably wouldn't hurt anyway. Probably. "Wait in the field from last time. I'll pull you into the blueroom, and we can get to where they are from there."
He was mildly surprised when Nikaido needed no further convincing to leave, and just jumped and kicked his heels and was suddenly spinning two storeys up in the air, the whirr of his skates' reactors humming again. "Best if we split then, since you've got your suit and scrambler," he grinned. "I'll find somewhere else to set down. Don't try to run from me~"
"I don't run," Tamamori frowned. ...from guys like you. ...when I can help it, he didn't add. That Tamamori didn't run at all was a lie, obviously, but the thought that he had to was still irritating.
Nikaido gave him a knowing look, grin acquiring a superior edge. "Pity you don't fly either, huh?"
And then he was gone.
"..." Tamamori said, kind of tempted to leave Nikaido out of the loop and just head over to Miyata's scenario by himself. Miyata could be retarded and KY sometimes, but at least he wasn't annoying about it. And whoever he had with him couldn't be too bad, either. Probably.
He might have done it too, except for a niggling feeling in the back of his mind that Nikaido would hunt him down and bite him in the bum in revenge for being abandoned, and then still stick around like some kind of tenacious canine...
Tamamori sighed, and went to find himself a laundry to bunk in instead.
He was starting to think, though, some ten or so standard minutes later when they were both back in Tamamori's blueroom, that not leaving Nikaido behind might have been the bigger bother in the end.
"So, this friend of yours~" Nikaido chatted, probing. "Girlfriend, boyfriend, special person...?"
"What makes you think that?" Tamamori was starting to get irritable again. He wasn't good at dealing with most people-especially not for extended periods of time. And Nikaido was definitely not an exception. "Maybe it's just a guy I'm doing business with."
"But then you would've just said so and left me behind, right?" Nikaido grinned. "Confidentiality and stuff. But you were totally vague about who they were. So it must've been someone special~"
That got Tamamori even more annoyed. "You thought that and still asked to come along?"
"I had to see for myself," Nikaido laughed. "Because you know it's totally rare for 'lite slicers to have friends and stuff."
"..." Tamamori chose not to deign that with a response, instead pinging Miyata's contact sequence to get the other to resume communications.
In a few short seconds, Miyata's image jarred slightly as it floated back into view, unfreezing with a grin. "-his name's Senga Kento~ I found it out."
"Congratulations," Tamamori said dryly, though couldn't help half his mouth quirking up in a smile. "You should be proud."
Off to the side, Nikaido clapped in delight. "Look~! You're smiling. And that was a joke. I'm amazed~"
"Shut up," Tamamori said shortly.
"Talking to...?" Miyata asked.
Tamamori gave a half-hearted sigh, tugging absently on his left ear-the one with all the piercings. "I don't know..."
Miyata laughed. "And you got on my case for not knowing Senga's name?"
"Hey, I know this guy's name!" Tamamori protested. "It's Nikaido, but..." Just how he'd met the other was starting to get foggy already, even if it hadn't technically been so long ago. A lot had happened though, what with being chased around so much and going underground and everything...
"But what?" Nikaido asked, aside. "Hey, but what?"
Oh, right. It had started with the hawk avatar and Nikaido's stupid little white rabbit.
Now, would that be more or less embarrassing to say or omit...?
Thankfully, Miyata soon saved him from making that decision: "Here," he grinned, eyes crinkling up at the corners. A scenario join invitation appeared in Tamamori's inbox. "Come over and we'll get introductions done properly~"
Tamamori pursed his lips, scanning the invite. It was to a totally generic forest... but at dusk. Not many people went into forests approaching night, but Miyata naturally had to be one of the few that did. He was the type to like a little bit of mystery, a little bit of suspense. A little bit of weird and unpredictable... because he was all that, himself. Heavy on the weird.
Tamamori would be bringing a high-beam flashlight.
"...right," he said, and picked up the invite. "See you in a bit."
Miyata terminated the connection first. Turning aside, Tamamori held out a hand to Nikaido. It was just easier to extend the invitation to cover both of them if they were linked with an interaction like that. "If you're ready..."
Nikaido grinned and gripped tight. "Then let's go."
1- one or two more chapters in storage. xD; already written, but they need to be proofed because they're ridiculous and plotholes are noosing me again. 8D OH WELL. DECEMBER EDITS, O-TANOSHIMI NI SHITERUUU.
2- oh god, currently writing Senga so dumb. i know this, and yet. my brain is like, "awesome :D i don't have to pretend to be smart now" and just like. gets direct downloads. *fail*
3- NIKAIDO IS KY. ♥
[edit 04 Jan'12] Hovering over Japanese text will give you a translation. :D
Errants 74-M, 21-K.
( 7.5: the distress )
"What do you mean you stole them?" Tamamori whined. That wasn't a fair deal at all.
He was walking down a massive pipe that slowly sloped downward. Only his personal dignity (or what was left of it at this stage) stopped him from crawling instead, or accepting Nikaido's offer to hold his hand like a baby. Down by his right, a second massive pipe ran side by side against the one he walked on. To his left, there was nothing but air and a very long fall to the centre of the earth. Or wherever the bottom of the underground was. Tamamori couldn't see it from where he was, and certainly didn't fancy his chances peering over the side to look.
Nikaido hovered easily above the other pipe, parallel, keeping pace with Tamamori's baby steps without a care in the world. Of course he wouldn't care if he fell, though. He had skates.
"Like I said~" Nikaido snickered, "I stole them. From a sleeping guy."
The answer dissatisfied Tamamori greatly. "So you've got nothing to do with... them."
"Who or what?" Nikaido raised a curious eyebrow, his tone more I-want-to-know than properly questioning.
"Mmn... those guys with skates," Tamamori sighed. "Never mind."
"Never heard of them," Nikaido shrugged.
There ensued a bit of silence, Tamamori with muted mixed feelings and trying not to misstep to his death; Nikaido with his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling as his skates hummed quietly along under his feet.
"Insulating layer," Nikaido said presently, with a jerk of his jaw up at the surface above them. "We went through it getting down here."
"Oh," Tamamori said, looking carefully upward, only half interested. "That's nice."
"It's so the base repulsors and electronic stuff down here that keeps everything going doesn't interfere with anything up there. And vice versa."
"Right," Tamamori said as if he cared, and gave a perfunctory greeting in the same tone: "Good afternoon, Mr. Insulation. Sorry for the intrusion~"
That earned him a funny look sidelong from Nikaido, but nothing more was said on the subject. Instead, Nikaido skipped back to the previous one: "So like, why do you care?"
"About...?"
With a gesture, Nikaido indicated his footwear. "These? I want to know."
Tamamori's tone turned vaguely sulky as he dropped his concentration back to where he placed his steps. "What would it matter to you? You just stole them."
Nikaido rolled his eyes. "Come on, don't be so lame and lawful. Illegals all nick stuff, don't they?" Stealing wasn't freeloading, it was survival. Pinching stuff from a system that would rather see him dead didn't bother Nikaido's conscience too much anyway.
"I barter," Tamamori said obtusely.
Nikaido, maturely, blew a raspberry. "Well sorr~ee you happen to be a master codesman."
Tamamori didn't deign that with a response.
"Hey, hey~" the other continued regardless, "where'd you learn code like that anyway? Because seriously, some of your stuff's pretty hardcore."
"I taught myself," Tamamori said, still sullen.
"From what?" Nikaido persisted. Coding wasn't like skating. While there was logic and commonsense in both, the rules that governed code were heaps more difficult to grasp well enough to mess with (unlike the laws of physics, which you could get over with a little intuition and devil-may-care).
"The skaters," Tamamori told him. Among others. He wasn't telling the whole truth, but... "My kraken was modelled on a phoenix one of them used." The kraken was still one step behind, too-it could regenerate severed tentacles to a certain extent, but when it was killed, it died. The phoenix automatically reformed its entire being. No matter what Tamamori did or tried, the phoenix model was one core of code he couldn't crack.
"Ohhh..." Nikaido said, starting to understand. Or so he thought. "You want to find these guys because they're kind of awesome?"
"..." Tamamori sighed inwardly. "Something like that." He wasn't annoyed, per se, so much as just bummed about ending up at another dead end.
"Am I annoying?" Nikaido snickered, skating a lazy circle around Tamamori as the other walked.
"I'm not annoyed," Tamamori said. And wanted to frown.
"Sure, sure," Nikaido laughed, but then swung the subject back a second time: "How'd you trace them anyway?"
"What?"
"The skaters, yeah?" Nikaido shrugged. "You said you saw one of them use a phoenix, so that had to be in a scenario. But how'd you know he was a skater then?"
Tamamori made a face. "I didn't. Initially. I've been picking at traces of them for years."
Nikaido laughed heartily, completely disregarding Tamamori's utter annoyance. (Lack of annoyance, Tamamori reminded himself.) "Wow, no wonder you got pissed when I didn't turn out to be one of them~ Wish I was though, if what you're saying's all true."
"Stop that," Tamamori said. "You're annoying, okay?"
Nikaido just laughed harder.
"What about you then?" Tamamori contrived, in a bid to shut the other up. "What did you do to that chaser?"
"Hm?" Nikaido shrugged. "Same thing I always do. Just knocked him out-" A small part of Tamamori breathed a sigh of relief at not being in the presence of a killer, until Nikaido snickered. "-of a third storey window. He probably survived~ ♥ Maybe."
"Nikaido-"
"Got a problem with it?" Nikaido countered. "He would've offed either of us no sweat. At least I gave him a chance."
Tamamori couldn't really say anything to that, even if the situation still didn't sit very right with him. "I would've escaped fine," he said, thin-lipped. "You didn't have to do that."
Nikaido shrugged. "I was in the area. Call it preemptive self-defence. Oh!"
"What?"
"Serious question now," Nikaido said, hovering back over to the second pipe as if to give Tamamori back his space. As if questions about what were done with a chaser's life weren't serious at all or anything.
"Okay?" Tamamori said anyway.
"You don't have skates or anything right," Nikaido said, "So you've got your perimeter alarm thing that goes off when a chaser's coming."
"Right," Tamamori said.
"I get your anti-infrared thing," Nikaido nodded, gesturing to the reflective silver that stuck out over Tamamori's regular clothes-a wrap-style top and pants in a thick fabric just on the fashionable side of very normal-Tamamori tugged a little self-consciously at the ugly hood that showed. "I get that," Nikaido continued, "but you can't go very far. Since you haven't got skates. Or a proper transport, I assume."
"I haven't," Tamamori agreed.
"So," Nikaido tugged at one plait on his beanie. "You're a codesman, and you're online a lot. I mean, you were on today at least twice even. So why don't the seekers just like, plot and predict your location from your last ones? I mean, there's programs that'll do that, right?"
"There's humans that'll do that," Tamamori told him with a casual derision. "Without the programs." Plotting wasn't rocket science. He pursed his lips. "I've got a scrambler. That sets a new contact sequence every time I log on." Which meant he'd show up as a new errant each time the seekers identified his unauthorised net access. And then they'd have to confirm his illegal status each time, before coming after him.
It was a handy override to have, necessitating that the government crack the pattern of sequences first, before they could plot the hits of his physical location. Neither of which was going to happen any time soon, Tamamori was pretty sure.
Nikaido had stopped skating and stared.
Tamamori kept walking, unperturbed.
"You have those kinds of system overrides?" Nikaido asked, incredulous. He jumped over to Tamamori's pipe, skating backwards in Tamamori's way. "I mean seriously, you know how to do that kind of thing?"
Changing a contact sequence was above the level of the kraken avatar, the same kind of way the kraken avatar was leagues above the teeth virus. Something like that wasn't just hacking a scenario anymore-it was hacking the entire system.
"No, I don't," Tamamori told him. "I bartered for it."
"What the hell did you sell?" Nikaido laughed. "Your soul? Hey, did you?"
"No..."
Tamamori almost wished he had, though. In hindsight, he was pretty sure the codesman he'd traded with-a totally nondescript guy calling himself I14 as if he could be legal with slicing skills like that-had been one of the skaters' lot. I14 had obviously not needed anything Tamamori could think to offer, but had accepted something mundane; the trade had gone ahead and Tamamori hadn't seen a single trace of him since...
"You're weird," Nikaido snickered.
"Thank you?" Tamamori said. "Why- wait, heyheyheyhey~! Put me down!"
"We're going too slow~" Nikaido laughed. "I want to get back surface-side somewhere else already, because you're not getting rid of me 'til you show me that kraken again. And the scrambler as well. Hold on tight!"
"No no no no no-!" Tamamori flailed, but then gave up on beating at Nikaido's shoulder in order to do as instructed: hold on very tight. And squeeze his eyes shut. And focus on trying not to panic too hard as Nikaido jumped from pipe to platform and swung around and made gravity go everywhere.
Tamamori hated scary rides. A lot.
(Despite the situation though, thinking of Nikaido as a ride somehow managed to disturbed him even more.)
53-N.
( 08: in and out )
Senga poked his head in through the door of Takizawa's private quarters, finding his boss reclined comfortably in his lounge chair, netgear on and activated. Tentatively, Senga entered the room. Fujigaya had been kind of pissy when he'd found Senga to tell him that Boss Tackey wanted to see him-but that wasn't anything too apocalyptic. Fujigaya always got annoyed over things like that, when it was somebody else Boss Tackey wanted to see. A lot of the time that somebody else happened to be Senga, was all. Senga'd gotten used to it already, mostly. He didn't necessarily like it. But he was used to it.
If Boss Tackey was already online, he was probably waiting in the usual room...
Senga stared for a long moment, watching as Takizawa lay there with his eyes closed but moving behind his eyelids as if he were in that dreaming state of sleep, instead of wide awake online. The two states were theoretically kind of similar, but Senga had never been too good at theory so he didn't think about it too hard, mind trundling over to how Takizawa looked instead.
Takizawa watched Senga all the time, after all. Even if Boss Tackey was boss and Senga wasn't, Senga figured it couldn't hurt to take a little back sometimes.
Like now.
He liked to look at Boss Tackey, too.
Takizawa wasn't super tall, but Senga had always thought that was okay-he was a just right height. A not scary height, for a not scary person. It worked. (Kitayama was about the right height too, by that rule. And so was Yokoo. Fujigaya maybe should have been just a little bit taller, though...)
Takizawa took care of himself, too-and he made sure that everybody who lived with him or worked for him (or quite often both, like in Senga's case) did, too. A healthy body, Takizawa believed, helped to keep a healthy mind. He refused to run a vegetable farm where all that was produced were ill-disciplined humans who spent all their time online and 'knew not physical touch, affection, or pain'... or something like that.
In the sort of business they ran anyway, those who weren't physically able as well as mentally sharp were kind of dead meat. That was why the older ones were always out on errands and jobs, and Senga had to stay home and train (and dance). He wasn't quite there yet. But he'd get there eventually...
Someday...
And then, he'd be useful to Boss Tackey too, just like Fujigaya and Kitayama and Yokoo and Iida, and the Honor Guard... (Except he'd be taller than the Honor Guard, probably-he was already taller than the Goseki-and-Kawai half, so that was a start...)
Takizawa's eyes fluttered open. "Senga~"
Senga started in surprise. "Yes, Boss?"
"Don't keep me waiting too long," Takizawa smiled, just a little teasing.
The room suddenly felt too warm. "Sorry, Boss," Senga flushed. So. He'd be useful one day, but today was clearly not that day. Dejectedly, he shuffled over to the lounge where Takizawa reclined, and curled his legs up on the end of it.
"Are you still limping?" Takizawa sat up, slipping his netgear off.
Senga tried to disappear into his own knees. "It hurts..." he mumbled. "Because it hurts... just a bit, though. It's getting better..."
Actually, what hurt more was the memory of screwing up, that last time he'd danced for real. When you landed badly in a scenario it really hurt too, but then, when you logged off, you were always pleasantly surprised to feel that everything was good again.
In the real world, not so.
Takizawa gave him a fond smile. "Silly boy. You did have it seen to, correct?"
Senga nodded a little miserably. "Yokoo wrapped it for me..." He tried to wriggle his big toe but couldn't. (He couldn't wear shoes either, but Yokoo had refused to bandage it smaller, which was almost equally depressing. Yokoo was usually really nice, but he had a mean streak as bad as Fujigaya sometimes that showed up in really weird ways...)
Takizawa shook his head, accustomed to Senga's depressive tendencies. He patted the space beside him on the lounge. "Come here."
Senga blinked. And dutifully crawled up the couch. He was only half surprised (actually maybe only a quarter or an eighth surprised... or less, even) when Takizawa slipped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close, dropping an affectionate kiss to his temple.
Senga closed his eyes against Takizawa's chest and gave a little sigh. He'd like to feel like Boss Tackey one day, too, strong and muscled and confident and stuff...
Because at the moment, Senga was 'easily depressed' and 'full of awkward and puppy fat'-according to Fujigaya anyway. And he didn't like being like that very much.
"Thank you," he mumbled.
"Silly," Takizawa hummed. "Your netgear...?"
"Here," Senga said, rummaging around in a pocket for the lightweight wire set, before he found it and had to straighten its bands out. It'd gotten a little squashed.
"Take better care of that," Takizawa chided. "It'll be troublesome to get you another, since they're adjusted specifically to your brainwaves, you know. If you don't bother looking after it, I might not bother getting you another one if it breaks."
"I know," Senga said. "I'm sorry... I'm usually careful! It just got a bit squashed..."
Takizawa gave Senga a wry smile, and slipped his own netgear back on. "Don't sweat so much. I'll meet you in the regular room."
"Yes, Boss~" Senga said. And, "ow..." glad that Takizawa had already gone ahead, so he hadn't just seen Senga poke himself in the eye with his headset's band. Today just wasn't going well...
[ WELCOME TO GOVNET ], the initial screen proclaimed as Senga logged in. It was just a perfunctory thing, but the government liked to remind people where they were and who they belonged to.
"Thanks," Senga muttered at it, quickly thinking about where he wanted to go from there instead. Boss Tackey had said the regular room... but that was secured up to the teeth, or like back to the gag reflex even, so Senga would just have to start off outside of it. As usual.
Before his eyes materialised a pair of large, arched, hardwood doors, heavy and reinforced with iron...
And Yokoo, who leaned back against them, arms crossed.
"Hey," Yokoo gave a grin, the dimple in his right cheek showing. He was dressed in his usual online white, currently in the style of short pants, a long casual shirt, and loafers. Only his accessories lent colour, a leather cuff and a long string of colourful beads wrapped loose around one wrist.
"Hey~" Senga said, managing a smile. Well, you couldn't really not smile when Yokoo was smiling at you first. His teeth were too funny for that.
"Figured you wouldn't be too far behind," Yokoo said. "Tono was waiting, you know."
"I know, I know~" Senga said plaintively. "He came and got me..."
Yokoo tsk'd. "That's not very good, is it?"
"You're just holding Senga up longer, you know, Yokoo-san," Iida's voice floated through the pre-scenario, with the impression of amusement.
"Quiet, Kyon," Yokoo grinned, seemingly to himself. Iida wasn't physically present of course. He never was. "I take it you've validated everything already?"
"Before he even spoke," Iida chuckled.
"Alright, alright, clearly too efficient," Yokoo snerked. "Then let's let him through." Without turning, Yokoo pressed a palm back to each door. Something that looked like a laser scan flashed across the wood under his hands before both doors opened, surprisingly swift and silent for all their grandiose size. Yokoo stepped aside.
"Thanks, Ii-chan~" Senga beamed, walking through with a wave. "See you, Yokoo-kun!"
"Later, Senga."
And then the doors closed again.
And then they disappeared, leaving just bare wall behind Senga in the regular room.
Senga turned his attention forward, where Takizawa smiled, leaning back on the edge of his desk in the old, wooden-floored room. There were no mirrors in it this time, Senga noted, looking around curiously. Was he not there to dance? But if not dance, then...?
"Boss? What do you want?" he asked, a little uncertain.
"Well..." Takizawa took a scroll from his desk, holding it out. Senga shuffled forward, but before he could accept the message, Takizawa set it back down and frowned. "Are you still limping, you silly boy?"
"Boss~" Senga whined, pouting, "but it hurts~"
"Senga, you should know how to differentiate your selves by now. Your virtual avatar is far from injured; it's only your mind that makes it so."
"I know that," Senga frowned as well. "But it's hard to split them two..."
Takizawa sighed.
Legal status aside, that kind of nimbleness of the mind was one of the larger factors separating people who'd been connected to the net from the get go and those who'd started off illegal, or whose parents had registered them late.
If a child didn't know how to drop and chop and change avatars by the time they became self-aware, then it would be difficult for them to naturally see their virtual representations as another body-an alternate body-rather than their same selves, online.
"It may be hard at first," Takizawa allowed, "but it's certainly doable."
Because one could always learn. There were people, disabled and injured, permanently incapacitated or otherwise, who hadn't initially but now lived their days out virtually. Regenerative nerve therapy was a very costly procedure, after all, but even quadraplegics could walk around in scenarios just fine-if their minds could comprehend it.
The thing about Senga, though, was that he'd been online forever compared to the rest of the boys at Takizawa's place. He just had an unreasonable amount of trouble with these things.
Takizawa tapped his fingers against the scroll in thought for a moment, before picking it up again and handing it over. Senga took it from him with both hands just like he'd seen Yokoo and Fujigaya and Kitayama do a billion times before. Belatedly, he remembered the small bow and quickly ducked his head.
Takizawa chuckled, ruffling Senga's hair. "Good try."
Senga grinned. "Thanks, Boss~"
"Thank me after you know what you have to do with it," Takizawa smiled.
Senga's heart sank. "Is it going to be a hard challenge, then...?"
"It may be hard at first," Takizawa chuckled, repeating his own answer, "but it's certainly doable."
"Tell me already, Boss~" Senga pleaded, stomach sinking. He wanted to know if he really wanted to do this grown up thing yet. It probably wasn't really a proper mission like the older ones got, but Senga had never been given a letter to deliver before.
"Take it to Koichi-kun."
Senga stared. "...you mean the Prince?" he clarified, to make sure he wasn't mistaking Boss Tackey to mean just Goseki or something. Even if they never called Goseki by that name. "I mean, Prince Domoto?"
"Yes, Senga. I mean Prince Domoto Koichi," Takizawa chuckled. There were two Domoto 'princes' after all. While both were theoretically just governmental figureheads, they did each hold some real power and one had to be specific in one's address.
While Domoto Tsuyoshi would probably understand Takizawa's letter just as capably, he'd probably be less interested in its contents. Not that the message was of any particularly vital intelligence-it wasn't even sealed or encrypted.
Senga looked at the scroll in his hands. And then up at Takizawa. And then back down at the scroll. He was clearly curious. Takizawa smiled. Would the boy ask? Takizawa wouldn't mind answering. It was just a regular update about the holdings of Takizawa's public domain...
But Senga wasn't going to ask. "...okay," he said, and tucked the thin scroll into his belt.
Takizawa nodded. "Good." Then smiled. "Mind you, I want you to walk there. Through a cityscape or a forest, it doesn't really matter. But you must walk."
"Whaaat~?" Senga looked up again. The older ones never got conditional orders like that. "That's kind of lame."
"Differentiation is a useful skill," Takizawa told him, "and one that I want you to learn today. Don't come back until your avatar is no longer limping. And if that happens to be after dinnertime then so be it."
"...yes, Boss," Senga said, dejected mood returning all over again. He probably wasn't going to be getting any dinner tonight then...
"I'm glad we understand each other," Takizawa smiled. With that, he clapped his hands twice. "Iida. Take us our separate ways, please."
"Understood, sir," Iida's voice floated across-
And the next second, Senga found himself standing barefoot in a clearing in the middle of a forest.
He blinked.
The scroll was still in his tunic; he could feel it, so that was fine.
But looking down further, the pressure wrap also still bandaged his toe and the entire front part of his foot. He tried to will it away, and make the sprain's dull pain go away too. But the more he thought about it, the more the stupid injury hurt.
Senga's stomach sank in despair, preemptively hungry for later that night. He should probably deliver the letter first, then worry about getting his stupid real life injury off of his stupid virtual foot. But on the other hand, walking all the way to the castle in the middle of the woods was going to take a lot longer with a limp. And he didn't want to be caught in the forest when night fell.
But if he sat in the clearing and tried to get rid of the injury first... what if it never happened? Then he'd be still stuck in the middle of the forest when night fell, and with the letter too, and then Boss Tackey would be disappointed.
...scroll first then, Senga decided. And maybe he could try get rid of the injury along the way.
He looked up at all the giant trees that mottled up the afternoon light and sighed deeply. It was warm. He was sweating already. This was going to be a long first mission.
M15; 53-N.
( 09: something specific )
Miyata trudged home from work with a spring in his step. He could do things like that because he was the special type of limited edition, extra rare collectors' item guy who put a hundred percent of his energy into everything he did. Even trudging.
And so he trudged, happily.
He could've taken mass public transport, or gotten a private transport of his own... but, no. His pay wasn't good enough to afford the latter, and his nature was too happy for the former. Mass public transport was an utterly depressing concept involving magnetic shuttles on anti-mag strips and repulsors so they floated without wasting energy, coupled with a few other things the physics behind which Miyata didn't particularly understand...
All he knew was that they were silent as graves. Huge coffins that carried a lot of people-people who were, more often than not, also silent. Whether it was because they spent the journey with their netgear on and activated, or whether it was because they were sleeping or dead or whatever, it was all very quiet...
Very zombie.
Miyata didn't like it.
If he was going to be some mythical thing of old imagine, then it wouldn't be a zombie. He'd pick something amazing and awe-inspiring like a giant, building-crushing ape. Or, if he had to be human, then he'd be a pirate. Pirates were sexy, according to the books. And Miyata thought they looked pretty cool, too.
A different kind of cool to zombies.
Regardless, his home wasn't too far from where he worked. He worked at the government's central building. And lived in the government's residential block. He didn't get a lot of bonuses because he didn't catch a lot of errants, so he couldn't afford private housing. (And he wasn't lucky enough to have been able to find a private sector job either... Well, unlucky or unskilled. Sometimes these things had the same meaning.)
He could, quite easily, actually work from home. But that idea didn't suit him either. It was largely beyond him why anybody would turn down the opportunity to leave their little box houses, especially if they lived alone like Miyata did. It wasn't that he was a terribly social creature, but... there was nothing particularly happy about what basically amounted to self-imposed house arrest.
Perhaps more than most, Miyata valued the freedom of being able to come and go from his house as he pleased.
He also liked to leave his tug boat program with its weapons and nets-his job-at work. His avatar was different there too, with a uniform and dress cap and one of the totally generic 'licensed for government use' faces pasted on underneath. Miyata used his real face only when he accessed the net during his private time. The distinction pleased him.
"ただいま~" he called out as he approached his front door. Identifying Miyata's voice and code, the lock bleeped and the door slid open invitingly. Miyata liked to think it was with that sentiment anyway, though there was nothing particularly inviting inside his unlit little box. The sunlamp in the ceiling was almost always already dark by the time he got back, and turning it back on... well. In Miyata's opinion, that defied the purpose of having a sunlamp installed in the first place.
Ridiculous reasoning perhaps, but he stuck by it, preferring to light candles instead. Candles were cute~ they had the ability to bring even shadows to life.
It was silly how that worked, Miyata thought. How humans were zombies, and how zombies looked for comfort in things like candles that moved more nimbly than they. If he ever won the lottery, he'd fill his entire box apartment with candles. Even if they set off the smoke sensors by accident again, and his supervisor cracked it at him again. Fire wasn't something that was really used around the Capital anymore. It was dangerous to have, and a bit taboo...
But it would be worth it. The thought made Miyata smile.
Standing in the entrance booth-げんかん his mind called it, even if the little space was fully enclosed-just inside the front door, he waited a moment for the scan to take his readings. Vital statistics. Blood sugar. Cholesterol. Everything. "My energy levels are kind of low..." he confessed aloud. Which was a lie, but he liked it when there was a little taurine added to his nutricubes. They were more amusing that way.
The scanner beeped its acknowledgement and presently opened the door leading into Miyata's apartment proper. It was a one-and-a-half room box of a home, very automated and rather sterile. Government housing was like that. But on the upside, you couldn't really screw up the interior decorating~
"一つ目は晩ごはんだよ," he called out. Dinner first, net socialising second. Another beep of acknowledgement sounded in response-this time from the compact little station that passed for a kitchen along one side of the main room. Miyata subscribed to the basic food plan: two meals a day at home, ready when you wanted them. It was cost effective and handy, even if there were no meal choices offered.
His food was ready by the time he'd taken his shoes off by the door and walked over. Today was...
A mystery kind of... wrap thing. And three nutricubes. How... appetizing.
Oh well~
Miyata shrugged to himself and tucked in. The purpose of real world meals was mostly just to keep your body from revolting anyway. The food was infallibly some re-hydrated thing from the labs, and didn't usually taste bad, per se, so much as just... not particularly special. And the nutricubes provided essential vitamins and minerals (and taurine) based on your current physical statistics, as scanned...
Apparently his levels were currently lower than usual, if he needed three of the tasteless, gelatinous squares... ah, well. Work had been a little stressful...
:::
Senga was a hundred and eighty percent lost.
He couldn't even see the top of the castle anymore, like he'd been able to from the clearing. And he couldn't find his way back to the clearing. And he still had that stupid bandage on his foot, meaning he couldn't leave and pick another scenario because then Yokoo or Iida would notice since everybody's net access in the Takizawa residence went through them two, and Yokoo would tell Boss Tackey and Senga would get in trouble for deliberately doing the wrong thing. (Deliberately, because he got in trouble for doing the wrong thing by accident all the time already...)
It was almost totally dark and the forest was getting kind of really creepy.
Senga hadn't really meant to pick a forest scenario. He'd subconsciously come to it because Takizawa had mentioned the place, and coupled with the confusion Senga'd felt at the time... (confusion, in Senga's experience, lead to a lot of trees...) well, he'd ended up in the forest.
He leaned back against a random trunk, hoping it didn't have any spiders or ants or anything all over it, and sighed trying to think through his options... But he was tired and sweaty and had been walking for ages and was totally lost and his stupid foot still hurt. His brain had left the building.
...which actually meant that it was kind of Zen just leaning there with just his breathing. There wasn't any wind or rain. Not many animals or other potential avatars around...
The more details you consciously added during the scenario forming stage, the lower the chances that others would be there by virtue of having thought up the same place. Details were tricky to generate quick enough. Most people just imagined a general scenario like 'the beach' or 'the shops' or 'grassy fields'. Usually the more general the scenario, the more people would share it.
Only a certain kind of person chose 'the forest at dusk,' and Senga didn't think so many of those would be around so that he could ask them for help...
Until his ears picked up a weird sound.
Senga stared at nothing in particular, listening intently. It wasn't so much a sound as a melody, really. Or maybe not so much a melody as a sequence of sounds. He had no idea what kind of instrument would make that type of... wheezy sort of noise.
Closing his eyes, he followed the upbeat, off-beat chords through the trees...
To a guy sitting in one of the forest's lower branches.
Senga stared up in fascination. For all intents and purposes, the guy seemed to be blowing air through his hands to make music, but if you squinted really closely you could see the glint of a little something flash between his palms every now and again...
Senga's eyes were naturally good, but his powers of deduction... not so much. "What on earth is it?" he asked aloud, a little awed.
The wheezy music stopped. The guy up in the tree blinked down at Senga, and Senga blinked back up at him.
"This?" the guy asked, and held up what looked like half a little metal sandwich with holes.
Senga nodded. Well, it was probably that?
The guys eyes crinkled up at the edges in a smile. "It's a harmonica~" he said, and dropped it down to Senga's waiting hands.
Senga received the 'harmonica' file, and looked through its instructions with curiosity as the harmonica player climbed awkwardly down from the tree. To make it play, you breathed in or breathed out, and moved your mouth up and down the-
"Eiwww~" Senga said, presently realising the little metal sandwich was damp with excess drool.
The harmonica guy laughed. "Sorry~" he said, taking the small instrument back and pocketing it. "I guess you could call that a security measure I forgot to disable..."
Senga wiped his palms dry on his slacks. "That's really gross," he said. But then had another thought: "Can you play that for real?"
The harmonica player tilted his head a little. "...'for real'? Out in the real world?"
Senga nodded. "Yeah."
"I think so," the harmonica player said, still smiling. "I had one when I was little, that belonged to my father. But I don't have it anymore."
"Oh," Senga said, feeling the need to apologise. "I'm sorry..."
The harmonica guy grinned. "It's okay~ I can probably still play. Why?"
Senga blinked. "Just wondering. Because I can dance!"
The harmonica guy blinked, an eyebrow raised. "...'for real'?" he clarified.
"Yup~" Senga beamed proudly, but then suddenly remembered the weight of the scroll tucked into his tunic. Maybe this guy- "Hey, hey... do you know where the castle is?"
"There's a castle in this scenario?" The harmonica guy's other brow raised to meet his first. "I had no idea."
Senga's face fell. "Oh. I need to deliver a letter there..."
"Hmm..." The harmonica guy seemed to think about that for a bit. Eventually he said, "Well, I don't know where it is, but I do know a guy who'd be able to find it for you..." His eyes crinkled up at the edges again. "Want me to call him?"
Senga's eyes lit up in relief. "Please! If it's not too much trouble, please..."
Errants 74-M, 21-K.
( 10: point of intercept )
"What's in it for me though?" Tamamori asked mildly. They were walking now, side by side offline. Nikaido had pestered and threatened and pleaded Tamamori halfway to a deal. It had taken some doing, except now that Nikaido was at that half way mark, he realised he wasn't sure what he was dealing with.
He was silent for a bit, giving Tamamori's question due thought, determined not to back out...
What to barter for, though? Realistically, he didn't really have much to offer-anything he didn't immediately need, he usually just left behind somewhere...
Nikaido presently found his eyes looking at his own feet, and felt a stroke of genius. Isn't that perfect? He grinned confidently. "For every code thing you teach me, I'll teach you a trick on skates."
Tamamori gave a small frown. "Just because I want to find the skaters doesn't mean I want to learn how to skate, you know."
Nikaido felt like he'd been smacked in the face. "What! Then how the hell are you going to catch them? Skates are faster than you're ever going to be in your anti-stupid suit, you know."
"Anti-infrared," Tamamori said stuffily, thinking that if the suit were anti-stupid, it would probably have repelled a lot more people from his person. People like Nikaido.
"Whatever," Nikaido said. "The point is you wouldn't be able to catch them if they showed up."
"I never said I wanted to catch them," Tamamori countered obtusely. "Just that I wanted to know more about them."
"Right," Nikaido said without bothering to rein in his sarcasm, "because interrogating a live specimen wouldn't be the easiest way to get that done."
"I can track them online instead."
"How many years have you been doing that for already...?" Nikaido stuck a pinky in his ear and gave it an insolent wriggle.
Tamamori said nothing to that, slightly annoyed. "I don't want your skate lessons."
In truth, he wouldn't have minded skate lessons. But his phrasing was accurate: he didn't want them from Nikaido.
Nikaido seemed like he would be the sort of teacher who was liable to kick his students out of their nest like eaglets. And watch them fall, and think about maybe saving them. (And then, upon remembering that the eaglets were the ones wearing the skates, he'd probably end up deciding that the eaglets could just save themselves.)
Tamamori didn't really want to die like that. (Or look stupid in front of Nikaido, who also seemed like he'd be the sort of teacher who would laugh at his students-if he didn't get them killed first...). He'd already learned to skate a bit anyway, if only virtually. From the skates' live specifications, he'd coded up a theoretical model of the footwear online. (Though he would admit that his practise sessions never lasted too long; it was frustratingly difficult to do cool things...)
Nikaido frowned. "Then what do you want?"
Tamamori shrugged. "I'll think about it."
"Tightarse."
Tamamori ignored that comment too, in favour of a glooping sort of sound coming from his netgear. "Oh... a call." And there was only one person filed under that ringtone.
Nikaido gave Tamamori's gear a funny look. "You have external speakers on that thing?"
"They're only active when I'm connected but not in-scenario," Tamamori said, hooking his netgear back into place over his temples from where it'd been hanging around his neck in the meantime. "Excuse me~"
Nikaido waved a dismissive whatever and kept walking.
Fifty percent opacity please, Tamamori instructed in his blueroom, so he could still follow Nikaido's silhouette and wouldn't walk into any walls while doing so. Answer incoming~
A familiar face from long acquaintance swam into view, grinning. "Tama-chan... ♥"
"Miyacchi~ What's up?"
"We need your help~" Miyata smiled, "if you're not busy at the moment."
Tamamori gave the impression of narrowing his eyes, but didn't actually bother. "Who's 'we'...?"
Miyata's animated mugshot blinked, seemingly surprised by the question. "...uh. Well. A guy I met in the forest..."
"You don't know his name?"
"Not yet." Miyata almost looked sheepish. Almost.
Tamamori shook his head. "You help too many people..." Not that he was complaining about it, but...
The other grinned. "Thank you~"
"Hang on a bit, I'll ask."
"Sure," Miyata said, before his image froze on the grin, paused in transmission from his end. Unlike Tamamori, Miyata didn't inquire about who or what Tamamori would be asking.
Years back, Miyata had declared it a rule of thumb not to question Tamamori's business. Really, if it wasn't about Tamamori himself, the less Miyata knew the better. And sometimes, Miyata stopped himself from asking even when it was about just Tamamori. He knew the tip of the iceberg of what Tamamori could do, and what he was. And the less he knew of the rest, the better it could only be for both of them.
Tamamori for his part did a very good job of pretending he didn't care what Miyata did for a living. He'd tracked the other once a while back, and had been kind of disappointed with the result, but... in the end it wasn't either of their faults they'd ended up on opposite sides of a legal fence.
"Nikaido..." Tamamori said, aloud in the real world. He lifted his netgear a little as Nikaido turned around.
"What?"
"Somebody needs something..."
"Wow, that's specific," Nikaido said, unfazed. Meeting new people was always good, though. He didn't wait for Tamamori to finish that sentence: "Can I come along?"
"...sure," Tamamori said, unable to say no point blank after being put on the spot. Nikaido coming along probably wouldn't hurt anyway. Probably. "Wait in the field from last time. I'll pull you into the blueroom, and we can get to where they are from there."
He was mildly surprised when Nikaido needed no further convincing to leave, and just jumped and kicked his heels and was suddenly spinning two storeys up in the air, the whirr of his skates' reactors humming again. "Best if we split then, since you've got your suit and scrambler," he grinned. "I'll find somewhere else to set down. Don't try to run from me~"
"I don't run," Tamamori frowned. ...from guys like you. ...when I can help it, he didn't add. That Tamamori didn't run at all was a lie, obviously, but the thought that he had to was still irritating.
Nikaido gave him a knowing look, grin acquiring a superior edge. "Pity you don't fly either, huh?"
And then he was gone.
"..." Tamamori said, kind of tempted to leave Nikaido out of the loop and just head over to Miyata's scenario by himself. Miyata could be retarded and KY sometimes, but at least he wasn't annoying about it. And whoever he had with him couldn't be too bad, either. Probably.
He might have done it too, except for a niggling feeling in the back of his mind that Nikaido would hunt him down and bite him in the bum in revenge for being abandoned, and then still stick around like some kind of tenacious canine...
Tamamori sighed, and went to find himself a laundry to bunk in instead.
He was starting to think, though, some ten or so standard minutes later when they were both back in Tamamori's blueroom, that not leaving Nikaido behind might have been the bigger bother in the end.
"So, this friend of yours~" Nikaido chatted, probing. "Girlfriend, boyfriend, special person...?"
"What makes you think that?" Tamamori was starting to get irritable again. He wasn't good at dealing with most people-especially not for extended periods of time. And Nikaido was definitely not an exception. "Maybe it's just a guy I'm doing business with."
"But then you would've just said so and left me behind, right?" Nikaido grinned. "Confidentiality and stuff. But you were totally vague about who they were. So it must've been someone special~"
That got Tamamori even more annoyed. "You thought that and still asked to come along?"
"I had to see for myself," Nikaido laughed. "Because you know it's totally rare for 'lite slicers to have friends and stuff."
"..." Tamamori chose not to deign that with a response, instead pinging Miyata's contact sequence to get the other to resume communications.
In a few short seconds, Miyata's image jarred slightly as it floated back into view, unfreezing with a grin. "-his name's Senga Kento~ I found it out."
"Congratulations," Tamamori said dryly, though couldn't help half his mouth quirking up in a smile. "You should be proud."
Off to the side, Nikaido clapped in delight. "Look~! You're smiling. And that was a joke. I'm amazed~"
"Shut up," Tamamori said shortly.
"Talking to...?" Miyata asked.
Tamamori gave a half-hearted sigh, tugging absently on his left ear-the one with all the piercings. "I don't know..."
Miyata laughed. "And you got on my case for not knowing Senga's name?"
"Hey, I know this guy's name!" Tamamori protested. "It's Nikaido, but..." Just how he'd met the other was starting to get foggy already, even if it hadn't technically been so long ago. A lot had happened though, what with being chased around so much and going underground and everything...
"But what?" Nikaido asked, aside. "Hey, but what?"
Oh, right. It had started with the hawk avatar and Nikaido's stupid little white rabbit.
Now, would that be more or less embarrassing to say or omit...?
Thankfully, Miyata soon saved him from making that decision: "Here," he grinned, eyes crinkling up at the corners. A scenario join invitation appeared in Tamamori's inbox. "Come over and we'll get introductions done properly~"
Tamamori pursed his lips, scanning the invite. It was to a totally generic forest... but at dusk. Not many people went into forests approaching night, but Miyata naturally had to be one of the few that did. He was the type to like a little bit of mystery, a little bit of suspense. A little bit of weird and unpredictable... because he was all that, himself. Heavy on the weird.
Tamamori would be bringing a high-beam flashlight.
"...right," he said, and picked up the invite. "See you in a bit."
Miyata terminated the connection first. Turning aside, Tamamori held out a hand to Nikaido. It was just easier to extend the invitation to cover both of them if they were linked with an interaction like that. "If you're ready..."
Nikaido grinned and gripped tight. "Then let's go."
1- one or two more chapters in storage. xD; already written, but they need to be proofed because they're ridiculous and plotholes are noosing me again. 8D OH WELL. DECEMBER EDITS, O-TANOSHIMI NI SHITERUUU.
2- oh god, currently writing Senga so dumb. i know this, and yet. my brain is like, "awesome :D i don't have to pretend to be smart now" and just like. gets direct downloads. *fail*
3- NIKAIDO IS KY. ♥