Sunday's Melancholy, 12:01
Amu hesitated. Fumi was quarreling with Hotsuin, right? The chief of JP's? She didn't want to disturb them. But they were arguing about her, about what she'd been doing… and about her passenger, which hit a little too close to home. Hotsuin kept calling her possessed, wouldn't that mean she wasn't really the one in control? She thought she was, of course, but did that mean much of anything? Was it really safe for her to do this?
The world is about to end. Safety cannot be guaranteed.
She knew that! That wasn't the question she'd meant to ask.
Asking me whether or not I am unduly influencing you is meaningless. I will of course say no, that it is only my function to assist and advise, but if it had been otherwise then I would most likely still have said that, in an attempt to instil a false sense of safety. It is for the best that it is not otherwise, as it appears I am unskilled at doing so. To limit Hotsuin's concern, however, I would recommend carefully distinguishing between your own insights and those you communicate on my behalf.
That made a lot of sense, while also being scary to think about. Its suggestion sounded like a good idea.
Her next question would have been whether or not she should interrupt them, and how. Wasn't she relying on its advice too much, though? But if she just ignored it, that wouldn't be very nice either.
That is your decision to make. Under normal circumstances we wouldn't be able to speak with each other at all. I do not have feelings to hurt; my only priority is to assist you in whatever way you deem best.
- Which sounded like it didn't care at all, meaning it was entirely up to her. Fine… Fine, she could do that.
Really, she already knew what the correct choice was, it was just that she'd been intimidated by the thought of getting in the middle of that quarrel. There wasn't any time to wait around, though; every minute counted.
It was
still intimidating.
———
As she was walking towards the in-progress and rather loud quarrel, her passenger decided to give her some free advise.
One thing, while you're talking to Hotsuin. I would recommend courtesy in order to avoid the appearance of undercutting his authority, unless you'd prefer to take control of the organisation personally. However, do not cede any of your own authority as an expert if you wish your opinions taken seriously.
…only the second half of which made any kind of sense. She'd only been an expert in this for a few hours, and wasn't
that a strange thought, so she didn't exactly have much confidence in her understanding yet; it hadn't really been tested. She could still pretend she did. Take over the organisation, though? What kind of…
She tried imagining herself leading JPs, perhaps wearing some kind of crown, but in fact she had very little idea what that would mean. Leading them into battle, maybe - somehow she knew exactly how to do that, and in her mind's eye she imagined ways to defend this room from… she wasn't quite sure what, though she was sure she could figure something out regardless - but
take over? The whole thing? That was crazy. There had to be a lot of, of - dealing with politicians, that kind of thing, and she was
still ten even if it felt like she'd had several lifetimes' worth of skills stuffed into her head.
Actually. She slowed down a bit; neither of them was looking in her direction anyway. Was that thought, that she'd had someone's skills stuffed in her head… was that literally true, by any chance? Skills had to come from somewhere, right?
In part. The distilled essence of experience. Skills condensed and generalised to their limit, allowing for the compression of entire segments of human knowledge into what would be a normal lifespan's understanding, which you can then learn in weeks - or, when it fits better, hours - and without colouring your personality.
That sounded… rather cool, actually.
What she'd learned already was apparently everything from thaumaturgy to mechanical engineering and programming. It wasn't at all like a database, the skills worked just like anything else she'd learned, insight and solutions coming to mind whenever she though of anything remotely related to… just about anything even slightly sciency, which apparently included magic. Oh, and that was because magic was just… right, that made sense.
She even had a good idea how she could cheat in Complete Annihilation, now. Not that she would, of course, but if she just got a chance to read through the source code first…
Amu fought a grin, thinking the implications through. An hour, maybe two, and she could give Tadase a serious surprise in their next game. Which…
Should have been today, except she was busy saving the world. She shook her head; this wasn't the time to get caught up in daydreams.
———
She stepped up behind Hotsuin, hoping for Fumi to acknowledge her.
"The Emperor. Google. Every datacenter company you could get your paws on." Hotsuin counted each one off on his fingers. "Do you realize how we're going to look if nothing happens?"
Fumi glared at him. "You don't believe that's likely. You've also wandered away from the real issue, which is to say whether or not there were any better options. Stopping Hikawa was the only alternative, and we can't do that if we can't
find him."
"That is
not the main issue!" Hotsuin near-growled.
"So what is, then?" Fumi leaned inside his personal space. "That you've lost control over your main trump card? I thought you said I could do whatever was necessary for survival?"
"Um," Amu tried. She was sure they must have noticed her by now. Were they ignoring her?
"Not giving it away! It's belonged to my family for generations, it wasn't yours to give."
"Belonged?" Fumi sounded incredulous. "It's composed of the thoughts of all humanity, in what sense could you possibly claim it
belongs to you?"
"Fumi?" She was right behind Hotsuin, only slightly to the side, Fumi
had to be able to see her. "I finished the attunement, so…" She trailed off into a whisper, still not wanting to disturb them. Hotsuin was actually no older than Ikuto, which was surprising, but Ikuto was a lot cooler. Hotsuin seemed so angry.
"Irrelevant!" Hotsuin made a grand sweeping motion of his right hand. "We're the ones who know how to exploit it. We've spent generations fine-tuning the seals. Without us, Japan wouldn't even exist."
Maybe she wasn't speaking loudly enough? The way they were ignoring her was making
her angry, too.
"And without taking risks, it won't exist for much longer!"
"Well, that's -"
"Fumi!" She shouted. Hotsuin bit off a curse, whirling to face her - and completely missed her, looking well over her head. Amu frowned. At least they had momentarily stopped their argument, though Fumi looked like she still wanted to go on.
"I'm down here," she dryly told him. His head swivelled downwards until he was looking at the top of her head. She stepped back a little. "I just wanted to tell Fumi that I have, in fact, finished attuning to the seal. You know, the first stage of us not dying?"
Was that too sarcastic? She couldn't tell. She didn't really care.
Hotsuin stared at her for a moment.
"Your hair… has the most bizarre colour I've seen in my life. Wasn't it brown a minute ago?"
She sputtered, almost hissing, and only held herself back because of her passenger's request to be courteous. Her
hair was the most interesting thing about her?
Amu pulled some of it into view, then sighed. This time it had turned some kind of bizarre solid grayish-brownish-blueish color with pink ends, which she supposed was reason enough to raise an eyebrow. By staring at it for a few seconds she successfully made the tips turn orange in a small section, which hadn't been what she tried to do at all. Never mind. So she'd have a spot of orange in a disaster of a hairdo for a while, fine, whatever.
"Does that really matter right now? We don't have a lot of time," she pointed out.
Hotsuin blinked. "You're right, of course. So you're Amu." She nodded, and he smiled at her. It looked horribly fake, like he'd never learned how to smile, but it still gave her pause. "And you've already finished synchronizing with the dragon stream?"
Amu could feel him doing something, bending the flow of energy into the seal slightly. She shivered, looking back at the central focus; instinctively, she adjusted the flow back to normal.
His grin grew wider. "So you have. Not even just the stream, but also the seal itself. I'm impressed, though time will tell whether I should be impressed with you or your passenger. A persona user too, aren't you?"
She shrugged, honestly unsure. "You'd have to tell me what a persona is, first. I do have charas, if that's what you mean. As for my passenger… I'm not sure myself. It's given me a lot of new skills, but they're apparently my skills now, so I couldn't tell you what the best way to count them is."
"They actually seem to be something like the inverse of personas, but the underlying ability is probably the same," Fumi interjected.
Hotsuin nodded. "Hard to say whether or not you'd have been able to synchronize without its help, then. No matter. I may have had objections to the way this was done, Fumi, and we
will discuss that at length afterwards, but what's done is done. Explain how this will work."
"Through a great deal of luck," Fumi admitted. "The dragon seal enforces our version of physics, and the spells are mostly independent of that physics, but it's dependent on physical elements to keep its structure. The seals and machinery here, the towers, all the various seals we've embedded in temples across Japan, and of course continuous computerized adjustments. When the Demiurge attempts to destroy the world it will instantly deactivate the physics underlying those elements, causing the spells to denature in a matter of seconds. What I'm hoping for is…"
Fumi coughed a few times, then took a deep breath. Amu hoped she'd be all right; come to think of it, she looked rather pale.
"What I'm hoping is that Amu will be able to keep the primary spells running for those few seconds, then keep it from tearing itself apart when the normal rules come back. She's got an ability that will let her ignore the Conception entirely, apparently she can enforce normal physics in her own body, and by attuning to the seal she should be able to control it. Isn't that right?"
Amu nodded. "I can't say I fully understand all the details, but I'm pretty sure I can stop it from falling apart at least."
"Right. Then, once the initial wave recedes, the dragon seal will start working again and bootstrap itself into existence from Tokyo outwards. The contents of the world, what atoms are where and such, is just data; ideally, the Demiurge is just going to turn it off rather than immediately trying to erase it, but I admit that's guesswork. I'd like to think that's needed for Hikawa's survival afterwards, though. At that point I'll take over most of the work, along with a very large number of computers and -" Her eyes narrowed a bit "- some other people I conscripted. The great thing is, if this actually works we'll get to keep all of Japan. Plus a bit of China."
" You've conscripted the people working for all the companies you've taken over, you mean." Hotsuin sighed. "That's fine, if it works, though I trust I don't need to explain what this does to our operational security. This is probably the most hare-brained plan I've ever heard, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but let's do it. It's definitely ambituous enough. What's your current status, and is there anything you need from me?"
"Busy." Fumi frowned. "I'm not done with the programming yet. Niellsen and David are doing most of the work right now, but they're actually in California, which needless to say is out of range of the seals. They're not the only people helping, but they're the best ones. Is there any way we could fetch them?"
"In one hour?" Hotsuin raised an eyebrow. "Even a Concorde would take four."
Fumi looked pleadingly at him, but he shook his head. She slumped a little, and responded in a resigned tone. "Then let me get back to programming. I'll need to be fully on top of my game when the Conception hits, if I'm going to do both of their jobs. The new seal-adjusting code isn't done yet, but I'm pretty sure everything else is. Just leave me alone for a while, will you? Go see to Amu's friends or something." Hotsuin fell silent, though he didn't immediately leave.
Amu perked up a little. "My friends are here? Even Utau-chan?"
"Holding an impromptu concert in the mess hall, last I checked on them." Fumi smiled weakly. "Cute girl. I'm not so sure about her brother, apparently he almost made their car crash when he jumped on top of it. Thought we were kidnapping her. That's all cleared up now, though. That goes for you too, though - unless you have something to contribute, I suggest you spend the next hour up there."
"Um…"
Utau had a brother?
She couldn't really think of any way to help. She was worried about Fumi, but what was she supposed to do? Just by looking at her… she was obviously tired, but…
Something in the back of her head triggered, a tiny bit of essence flowed, and Amu almost squeaked. Fumi wasn't just tired, she was suffering from severe sleep deprivation masked by drugs. She wasn't sure what kind. Coffee, maybe? She didn't think there was much she could do about that, Fumi just needed sleep.
Maybe her passenger had some ideas?
Nothing immediately springs to mind. I don't believe I can improve on Fumi's plan, but there are three possible ways it could fail that I may be able to limit given an hour's work. Installing a new charm is something I'd be able to do while you are socializing; however, some of them have potential drawbacks you should be aware of in advance. You would be reaching beyond your capacity in ways that require me to override safety logic. Though, that is likely to be the case regardless.
For you:
[ ] Kagutsuchi may attempt to directly influence her mind. Install a charm to block that.
[ ] Kagutsuchi may attempt to directly attack the master seal. Hack together a single-use charm to extend Integrity-Protecting Prana to the seal.
[ ] Holding the spells in place without help may be too much, even at Essence 3. Use the time to make arbitrary activation of Glory to the Most High slightly less catastrophically dangerous.
For Amu:
[ ] Just go have fun.
[ ] Write-in
XP Update:
4 XP (Storyline: Attunement)
+50% (Audience participation bonus)
+35% (Relationship bonus)
= 7 XP
=> 27 banked / 46 total
A/N: It's not coffee. Also the previous update's XP update should have been in the one before, but eh. For charms: There's time to learn
two charms, if they're similar, or hack together one. You can't do both.
