Perhaps For Love, Or Maybe Justice (A Tokusatsu/Magical Girl Quest)

-Look Into Void Glyph With Kira

Thursday, February 13th, 2080
???

The loud buzzing of your phone is what wakes you up today. As you slowly blink the sleep out from your eyes, it takes you a while to get up from the couch. It doesn't even seem like Past You was good enough to get to the bed for once. As you start to sit up, a small book falls off your face, into your lap, and down to the ground. Looks like you fell asleep reading manga again.

You rub your eyes one more time, before grabbing your phone. After both a face and thumbprint ID scan, (you can't be too careful after all), you look at the message.

Mini-Mage (Kira)
>Hey there Maruki! I have free time in my schedule for once, so come on over to my place!

This prompts you to look at the clock. It's like… what, 8:00 at night? You've been napping for two hours now, and you'd like to continue sleeping for once. You type in one more message, before falling back into the couch cushions.

GiveMeABreak (You)
>…Why right now? I want to take a raincheck on this appointment.

Mini-Mage (Kira)
>Why?

GiveMeABreak (You)
>It's 8. I'm tired.

Mini-Mage (Kira)
>Are you actually— ok, just hear me out.

Mini-Mage (Kira)
>(sent a voice message)

Well, this ought to be interesting. You start the voice message, and tap a holographic button on the side of your phone, before a floating, glowing green Air Glyph shoots out. Yawning, you hold it up to your ear, so that you can hear from the glyph as a makeshift headphone.

And what you hear immediately wakes you back up.

"Maruki, I swear to God, Satan, and everybody else in between." Kira's enraged yet strangely adorable voice yells, "If you don't send me your location so I can get you over to Kyoto right now and study that Glyph you have, I'm NEVER going to be able to justify putting you down as a regular appointment!"

You distinctly hear the sounds of wind whooshing and water splashing in the background, before Kira continues.

"I've got at least ten things to do tomorrow as an Archmage! First I've got to go to France to meet with their Magic Committee, and then No. 2 wants me to craft this Double-Layered Fire Spell for some reason—"

There's an audible sound of Kira slapping something, probably a Glyph, before you hear the telltale humming sound of a powerful spell being cast. You'd compare it to the white noise of an air conditioner, but a bit deeper and louder.

"So for the love of god, get over here, Rei. Because otherwise, this is probably the last time you'll be able to see me for a year."

Well, you don't need to be told twice. You pack a quick bag with snacks, before punching in your location. But before you hit the "send" button, you feel your hand stop. A figment of your assassin training (and common sense) asks, should you really be sending people you've only known for a week your location?

Yeah, but that's an Archmage. Even if we didn't have that exact job in my home world, that's still an incredibly interesting sounding person to be around.

GiveMeABreak (You)
>(Location Sent)

The second you look up from your phone, a blue and green lit portal appears in front of you, whipping up wind, and displacing some of the papers in your living room. You slowly get up and walk through the portal. The second you do, you feel a quick smack on your head. You turn to find the offender— of course, it's just Kira, who just hit you on the head with her cane.

"Now never make me wait for an appointment again."

Even though she just said that in a clearly annoyed tone, the wide grin on her face tells you that she is also definitely a…

[SMUG] [MISCHIEVOUS] [GREMLIN]

What he said.

---

8:30 PM
Kyoto, "Kuro" Kira's Apartment

After a few minutes of Kira poking and prodding at you with her various glyphs and tools, she flops back onto her couch. "Ugh, how do I even do this…"

You blink a bit, before scooting over a bit from your couch on the couch towards Kira. "Kira? You good? I know that my case isn't normal, but you clearly need some rest.

Kira just rolls over, before plopping her chin onto a couch pillow. "No, I'm not good!" She starts to speak a bit faster, a bit more frantically.

Uh oh, she's gonna start infodumping isn't she—

"There is nothing about your case that's normal. Most "stuck" glyphs are residuals from overcasting, but no, not yours. It's its own dormant and unused Glyph, somehow. And most non Four Element Glyphs are just combinations of the four! But you've got some sort of— non element?! I know that there's something here that I can figure out, but I just can't do it…"

Kira finishes that last sentence, before she just slumped down into the couch cushions, defeated. For your part, you just keep nodding. It's probably best to let Kira vent for a bit. "Just asking, how much sleep did you get last night?"

"I got five hours, which is perfectly normal for somebody in my position. It's fine."

It looks like we'll have to continue this next week…

[43+17=60. Near Success. This action's DC is now halved! (DC 32)]

-Find Akemi
Saturday, February 15th, 2080
Tokyo, An Undisclosable Location

You've been spending an awful lot of time inside your house recently. But thankfully, Jun's lead has helped you to narrow down a place where Akemi could be. After a decently long ride, you get out of the cab, and stand in front of a dull gray building.

You've gone completely incognito for this trip: you've got a heavy coat on, and a nice pair of sunglasses. Jun sits on a bench behind you, typing on his holographic keyboard. He's been on his computer for the past two hours, but he's still willing to drag you out if anything happens.

"Be back in thirty." He says, while writing a message to one of his clients.

"I will."

You walk into the building. The lobby, the decorations, the lighting… they're all bog standard. It seems like a classic overcrowded apartment complex, but you know better. From what Jun's told you, apparently it's secretly an apartment complex for jouhatsu— all the people in the country who have secretly given up on their established lives and gone permanently incognito. Exactly the type of place where Akemi would hide. From across the room, a receptionist lady sits in a small cotton lined chair.

"Excuse me, Miss, but the apartment is resident only, so I would like to see you move out or else…"

She almost definitely has a gun or something similar on her. It's best to get to the point. You slide her a piece of paper.

"Jun Akimitsu sent me," you slowly say, trying to not aggravate her into thinking you're lying. "Where is Kaneko Akemi?"

The woman takes the quickly scribbled letter with Jun's signature on it, before nodding, and passing you her own piece of paper. It says "go to room 227".

You rush through the cramped, yellowed halls, going up the stairs and through a few doors, before knocking on the fated door.

And the person who meets you is… an elderly woman. She has white hair, but as for the rest? No relation to Akemi whatsoever.

"Excuse me, who are you?" she asks.

"…wrong address!" You reply.

You quickly run out of the building, snatching Jun's special letter from the receptionist's desk. As you rush out of the apartment, you tap Jun on the shoulder. He immediately snaps back to attention, and slams his laptop shut, before getting up and following you.

"Let me guess, Akemi wasn't there?" He asks, in a tone suggesting that he was prepared for this.

"Of course she wasn't! That girl probably got an A in her stealth class due to never being there."

Jun groans. "Alright, don't worry. I should be able to follow up on this in a few business days…"

[Thanks to everyone's votes for me in Summerfest and all the bonuses to the roll, next week's usage of this action will be a guaranteed success.]

-Make sure your internet security is good. (DC 22)

You eventually make it back to your house, where you immediately ignore your need for dinner, and walk into your room to go and check on your friends.

While you were out, you realized that realistically, you didn't always need to bring your new spirit companions with you, especially in situations where you'd be going incognito in disguises like your coat. So you left both Atry and Gargoyle at home, watching every video they could on YouTube on internet security.

On 1.5x speed, because Atry said that any slower would be an insult to her learning pace.

When you walk into your small personal space, it seems exactly as you left it. The room itself isn't the biggest. At best, you could fit three people in there before it would start getting uncomfortable.

Inside, there's a small shelf of manga, procured via so many discount sales from Animate, and a tiny desk, which you were just barely able to fit in the room. Your whole computer set up is extremely bare bones for the current time, with the aforementioned Fire Glyph powered PC battery being your only real investment.

The 4K monitor and the decent quality headphones are basic implements for practically anybody right now, though you have been considering upgrading your keyboard to holographic…

Shaking those thoughts out of your mind, you look at the two people (entities?) sitting where you would normally sit. Gargoyle and Atry are sitting on your office chair, with the mysterious deck being set squarely on the desktop. Both of the spirits seem laser focused on the videos they've been watching.

"Hey, Atry, could you move? I'm back, and I think it's about time that we fix my…"

You trail off, as you look at Atry. The dragon-girl has changed into a casual outfit, just a white tee and some blue shorts, but her eyes…

There's no good way to say it. Even though she's a spirit, her eyes are still somehow reddened and bloodshot. Atry looks back at you.

"I think I'm ready for a job at Hiden Enterprises. My brain hurts now. Can we just get this done?"

You look over at the internet security tutorial playlist you had found and put on before leaving for the apartments. You never expected it to go past 25 videos, but Atry's clearly watched at least 50, and has probably taken notes on most of them… Yikes.

"Of course. We'd better get this done fast. You need some rest."

You log on to Tor, and Atry (and sometimes Gargoyle, with small comments) begins to give you some ideas as to where you should go.

"No, you should get a VPN— no, not that one, Glyph powered ones aren't too good with your current setup."

Though, since Atry can't physically interact with anything, it feels more like she's backseating you, and trying to fix up your internet for you.

[88+17=105. Great Success!]

Eventually, after an hour of hard work, you can see the sun starting to go down. You finish running the last antivirus, and you lean back in your chair as Atry's body disappears into smoke once again.

"Alright, that's done. Why don't we get some Sukiya for dinner?"

No. Sit still for a second. Pretend you're just relaxing on a call with a friend.

You stiffen up, and put your phone up to your ear. What is it? What did Atry just notice?

…yeah. From what I can observe, someone's hijacked your webcam without it being noticeable. See how it moves for a second, even though the light isn't on? That only happens with some advanced programming.

Atry's ghostly body manifests once more, now in her more familiar Magical Girl form, and she walks towards the computer, while putting a finger over her lips.

If I'm correct, I'm still an incorporeal spirit right now. Rei, would you mind trying to lend me some of your Prana?

You subtly nod, before grabbing the mysterious deck with your non Void Glyph arm, and swinging it down where your webcams don't reach. You take a deep breath, before trying to focus your inner energy into your arm, and then the deck. Against all odds, it's starting to work.

Atry steps forward, before winding up her arm, swinging backwards, and then throwing a powerful punch. While the rest of your monitor stays safe, the top and your webcam go flying. Atry skids back on the floor, launched by the recoil of the punch. You also feel significantly more exhausted, like there's a pit in your stomach from overexertion. Maybe you'll try that trick later, when you've gotten more practice.

In the corner of your eye, you see a message notification pop up. You click on it. Suddenly, on the left side of your screen, a window with the logo of a heart being pierced by a knife appears.

You grip the armbars of your chair. That's the logo of the International Assassin's Guild, the organization that you escaped from so long ago.

Just how did they find you?!

The logo disappears, before revealing a more traditional texting display, laid out in blue and gray.

???
> I'm pretty impressed. You shouldn't have been able to notice the webcam hacks I put in. And that trick you pulled where you instantly blew away the cam— very interesting.

You
> Who tf are you? I don't want to be associated with the Guild anymore.

???
> I suppose that you might think that, but we've had surveillance on you for two weeks by now.

Two weeks… they must have been able to track you after the fight with the Skull Faces.

???
> You want answers about the V Glyph. We have them. You want the keys to a peaceful life. We have them.

> (Location sent)

> You'll just have to get them from us first.

> But don't worry, I'll be waiting for your decision, Rei Maruki.

You
> Stay on this channel for a bit. I need to contact some people.

???
> Take your time. We can just move back to trying to find Akemi if you take too long.

You
> If you touch her, you die.

You lean back in your chair. You'll have to decide quickly what you want to do, and fast. If the Guild gets their hands on Akemi before you find her, it's almost definitely over for your peaceful life…

---

Alright, what now?

[ ] No, meet me personally. We'll talk one on one.

-Unlocked thanks to your great roll on internet security.
-??? respects you enough to uphold whatever deal you make with them… assuming you win.
-Fight your first Dark ??? enemy. It's about time you throw some hands, after all.

[ ] Fuck you, I'm out!

-Make a Tech roll. (DC 50)
-On success, this subplot will not bother you until Arc 3. (For reference, we are currently on Arc 1.)
-On Failure, ???

[ ] Call in a favor.
-Pay TWO capital to call Jun, and have him get some intel on your new opponent before the fight. This will allow for a much better starting position, even better than meeting them one on one.
-Does not require a roll, but you will be flat broke. -The Black Market will be unavailable next week.

[ ] Fine then, I'll meet you at the location.
-You are almost totally walking into a trap.
-You will also have to fight a good few of Guild members on your own. Without Akemi.
-They're not as weak as Skull Faces. Not even close.
-You'll get a bit more EXP though.

[ ] ??? (Write-In)
-Please @ the QM.

---

Author's Note:

Yeah, this chapter came out faster than expected. Again. I think from now on, I'm just gonna never talk about my expected writing delivery dates ever again.

Anyways, happy voting heroes. And remember to leave a Sun reaction on my Summerfest entry down below if you haven't already. That way, we can get this Quest out to more people, and you can get more bonuses so that the dice don't screw you over…

(Seriously, we're losing badly. See this for details.)