The incessant chk-whirrr-eep of your alarm draws you out of a murky slumber and into an overcast...
Good Company [Raildex AU]
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User Total 75% Certain 11
Episode 1 Part 1
75% Certain
25% horse thief
The incessant chk-whirrr-eep of your alarm draws you out of a murky slumber and into an overcast morning. Shifting around in your sheets, it takes you a minute to clamber out of bed. You've stripped off your pajamas and have almost started putting on your Sakugawa uniform when you realize something important.
The date is Friday, August 5th, 1988, and it is not even remotely a school day.
With a sigh, you hang it back up in your closet and open the curtains a little to let at least some natural light in before crashing down on your bed.
It's a nice room, really; the kitchenette makes the living space somewhat cozy, but decent interior decorating on your part helps to give it some much-needed vivacity. Cool blue tones prevail, emphasizing spacious areas and pulling attention away from the most cramped sections. Your sole indulgence is a massive print of a bright yellow '85 Ford Taipan that you have pinned to the ceiling. Kazari gave you no small amount of grief over it, but you maintain to this moment that it's what really makes the room, and it's certainly better than staring at splotches of unappealing mildew.
Still, you can't wait to move out to the new dorms. This was supposed to be temporary lodging for no more than two months, but two has already stretched into four -- almost five -- and there's still probably a month more to go.
With some trepidation, you flip open your phone and feel a yawning disappointment, but what were you even expecting? Left to their own devices, your fingers tap their way into a message you know you'll never send, and then just as quickly delete it.
The day isn't gonna face itself, Ruiko.
You throw on the lowest-effort ensemble you have, a gray patterned skirt and white-over-black layered tops. It's a little disheartening to know that even your wardrobe at its most uninspired still blows the Sakugawa uniforms out of the water. This school is too busy aping the Garden to have even a reflexive twinge of creativity.
Idly, you wonder if you'd be as bothered by the uniforms if they weren't so emblematic of Sakugawa's endemic inferiority complex/class envy one-two punch. Probably not, although it's still much too rote and ordinary for you to ever enjoy.
Grabbing your bag and slipping out the door, you're amazed to find a good eight or so other girls already awake and chatting in what passes for a common room (two folding tables and an assortment of chairs in the elevator lobby), having just finished eating breakfast. It's a little surprising since you're usually one of the first girls up.
Akemi catches sight of you and waves you down, which is a little awkward because you've been avoiding her. "Hey, Ruiko! You just missed the food."
She's between you and the elevator. There's no escape. "Wait, what's going on?"
"Some of the girls have been curious about my job and mentioned that they're interested in having more spending money, so I'm gonna show them around a few places and let them see what they're in for, maybe help them decide," Akemi explains. "I know you've been wanting a good PDC membership, so I sent you a message about it a few days back."
It clicks. "Oh, wow, that was today? I'm sorry, I totally forgot." Not technically a lie, but you don't mention how you didn't bother to remember.
Akemi smiles warmly. "You can still join us if you'd like, but I understand if you don't want to." Her eyes slide for a moment over to a door down the hall. "I know that things have only gotten harder for you since that Level Upper incident; I just want to be there for you when I can."
She means it, she really does, but the emotional connection just falls totally flat on your end. Instead, you fake appreciation the best you can. "Thanks, Akemi. I'm the one who got you into that mess, so tell me if I can return the favor." Not likely that she will, but that's by design; it's just the sort of expression that's sincere enough to pass without question while not really provoking any consequences.
After a short exchange of goodbyes with Akemi and a couple other girls you're only loosely acquainted with, you escape into the elevator, alone with your thoughts. I shouldn't be so worried about this Kazari will come back to me eventually... she always does, she's not strong enough to be alone. And when she does, I'll forgive her on the spot, no questions asked.
You're interrupted by a phone chime.
...Not really sure what to make of that, really. Akemi was never the gift-giving type; that struck you as more of Mako's domain.
Another chime quickly follows. C'mon Akemi, just think before you hit 'send' instead of tacking on another with whatever you forgot!
To your surprise, it isn't her at all.
Nibbling at your lip, you reflect on how Kuroko has it even worse than you. How much of that is real Judgment work and how much is a desperate attempt to track down Mikoto, wherever she might have gone to?
What is it that Kuroko has that you don't? How did she get that spark in her spirit that lets her keep moving forward even when her heart has been ripped out of her chest so suddenly? Is it her ability?
You don't know, but... you have an entire day to yourself, so you decide that you're gonna find out.
OBJECTIVES UNLOCKED!
♦ Spread Your Wings
Goal: Find something worth living on for
"There's a tradition in Academy City -- or perhaps more of a cliche -- of a hopeless Level Zero throwing themselves off one of the city's many towers in a desperate attempt to bring their latent ability to the forefront. It's not the perfect comparison to your present state, but it is a serviceable one.
♦ Explore Academy City
Goal: Expand your horizons
"It's a big place out there. Find someone interesting. Go somewhere new. Why do you think you're so depressed when you're cooped up in that cage of yours?"
♦ Minor Objectives
Meet Kuroko
Pick up Akemi's gift(?)
Saten Ruiko
Current Mood: Despondent
[ ] Write-in
[ ] If I have this day to myself, I might as well go to the Riviera. It might be overcast, but that just chases the worst of the crowds away.
[ ] There's no such thing as a bad day to play basketball. Or baseball, but pickup games are impossible to find and people will judge me. So, basketball!
[ ] I've never actually been to Janissary Row before, but I kind of want to try it. Would I stand out too much? I'm not like their usual clientele...
[ ] Akemi was on-the-money about wanting to join a Power Development Center. Maybe I can find one with good rates?
[ ] What if I rode the Metro to a station I've never been to and just walked around there for a bit? I'm sure I'd run across something interesting.
[ ] There are still plenty of places around the school that I haven't explored -- mostly because I've been too scared to. Let's change that.
[ ] I should just hit an arcade for now and work out a plan later.
QM's Corner
Welcome to Good Company. I'm aiming for this to be a shorter quest, a prologue of sorts for something more substantial. The mood here will be laid-back and character-focused unless things go off the rails. Since this is Academy City, I wouldn't rule that possibility out.
This is heavily AU, as you've probably noticed. The narrative is picking up a few weeks after the Level Upper arc (which progressed in a broadly similar way to canon), but the Big Spider arc hasn't happened in this universe. Furthermore, Misaka Mikoto is missing while a rift has formed between Kazari and Ruiko.
If you have any questions about the setting, I'll answer within the framework of what Ruiko knows. (For instance, the lack of honorifics isn't a stylistic choice on my part; rather, Acadamese has essentially dropped them from its vernacular.)
On voting, I'm going to experiment with considering each vote for a write-in option as being worth two votes for a provided option as a way of encouraging write-ins. If you feel locked out, just ask and I'll give you any in-character context you seek. Later on, I'm hoping to find a way to tangibly reward good write-ins and even omakes.
Last edited:
75% Certain
25% horse thief
Reserved
75% Certain
25% horse thief
Last edited:
75% Certain
25% horse thief
Reserved
- Pronouns
- she/her
[X] What if I rode the Metro to a station I've never been to and just walked around there for a bit? I'm sure I'd run across something interesting.
-[X] Look for a new food place, you didn't eat breakfast.
-[X] Look for a new food place, you didn't eat breakfast.
notthepenguins
Neither Spherical Nor Frictionless
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
[x] I should just hit an arcade for now and work out a plan later.
Arcades are cheering!
Arcades are cheering!
Episode 1 Part 2
75% Certain
25% horse thief
It's still early and you haven't eaten, but you need to get some exercise in and you'd rather not do it on a full stomach. Fortunately, you don't have far to go. Red Cross PDC is only about a half-kilometer distant.
Their gym is unusual in that it's open to members and non-members alike. It's easy to guess why: they want to capitalize on the recent success in the Citywide Invitational to recruit fans into paying customers. You're a little skeptical on their prospects, given how few people support any of the marginal teams outside of The Eight.
It's quite a vicious cycle that they're trapped in. They can't recruit top talent because they don't have the money... because they lack good sponsorships... because they don't have many supporters... since they can't recruit top talent. The best they can hope for is to try to build momentum when they strike gold in the bargain bin, and then pray that they aren't pillaged for everything they're worth during the off-season.
Given how all but one of Red Cross' starting five from last year's team are playing elsewhere on massive contracts, they must have been praying to the wrong god.
There's no such thing as a quiet day in Academy City, and the avenue outside of your temporary dorm -- one of the main thoroughfares that cuts across South District 7 -- is already flush with people and even the occasional car. Sidestepping a cyclist, you glance up at one of the airships overhead and read that it's 23.5°C/74.3°F with a marginal chance of precipitation, so there's no need to rush. You plug in your headphones and page through songs on your phone until you find something enjoyable and upbeat, 'Glimmer of Hope' by The Medicine Man.
You've frequently been accused by your friends of liking synths more than is strictly healthy, and they might even have a point if they didn't have hilariously terrible taste themselves. Recently, you've been focusing on showing Kuroko how good music should sound. It's tough going, but you read three entire pages on Pavlov and that qualifies you for this shit. (You were kind of psyched to discover that she knows the members of Double Blind since they all work in Judgment.)
While you listen, you check in with a few of the intranet sites that you follow. The only big news is that a coming update for ACES has leaked, but you don't see any new names that stand out. ACES, or the Aggregated Comparative Esper Survey, is the an authoritative but unofficial listing of espers according to their capability. The methodology used to compose the index was highly secret, but was known to involve an algorithm drawing from other independent listings along with a hefty amount of human research and information-gathering.
In many ways, it'd be your dream job.
You're about to leave the page when you notice that one of the top names has been yellowed out with a note attached, and Gunha, "Captain Crash" himself, has rocketed up. Wait, what?
Kakine had been there for the Kiyama Harumi incident -- and according to Mikoto had "had his ass handed to him," but whatever is happening here seems too unprecedented for a garden-variety defeat. You message an online contact to see if they can clarify anything about this, or if they're just as confused as you are.
You're so engrossed in what you're doing that you almost forget to turn off onto another road when you're supposed to and you almost run into some guy when you do, so you stow your phone in your waistband and resolve to just enjoy the trip.
The powerful chords of Esther Brown's "Someone's Serenade" are soaring in your ears, and you can feel each step stretch a little bit longer because you just can't walk like a normal human being to this song. At least nobody's staring. Well, no more than usual, anyway, but you've gotten used to tuning that sort of thing out of your awareness. If they aren't going to give you the respect you deserve as a person, why should you care about them?
You do, however, take note of your surroundings before you take a final turn down a side street. It's not a dark alleyway or anything, but it's not heavily trafficked either; you can never be too careful. This is Academy City, after all. If you can't look after your own safety, what good are you?
Before long, you reach Red Cross' rear entrance and dig out your Approved Visitor card, swiping it through a reader to unlock the door that opens directly to the gymnasium. It's pretty well-populated; there are more than two dozen people on the courts alone. You're mildly amused to find that there are more BC Yoshiki jerseys (4) represented than Red Cross ones (3).
one pickup game is already in progress between some high school-looking guys.It's actually pretty competitive, and all ten of them are playing both sides of the ball with a respectable degree of skill. You'd love to join in with them just to play against people who know what they're doing, but you're so undersized that you'd be a liability no matter how well you shot, and neither team looks like they're in need of a handicap.
At least you're not short on options. A group of seven students your age -- two guys and five girls -- are having a shooting competition on another court, and you saunter over towards them. You don't recognize any of them, but you're pretty sure they're not a monolithic block either: when one of the girls bricks a laugher after hitting a pair of pretty great shots, only two of the other girls are willing to rib her for it while the others go out of their way not to give her a hard time.
You decide that the blonde girl wearing a small knit tan shawl over a pink tank top has it together the most and approach her. "Mind if I join you guys?"
"Not at all," she says with a smile.
"Hey Yuuna, that means we have enough for a game, so let's do it." You file this girl away as Sports Bra, because 'Missed shot girl' flows poorly and is ever so slightly cruel.
Yuuna gives her a Look. "Funny, you seemed pretty happy to keep playing when we had six people and you were winning."
You take stock of the others. The two guys you dub Linden (for his black-and-green Brad Kohut jersey) and Headband (for his headband). The other three girls you call Whisper, Shiny, and Dangerous.
Dangerous pretty much names herself in the moment you make eye contact. The last time you met someone with that air of cold, calculating superiority, Kuroko had to bring a building down on top of him.
Linden speaks up. "C'mon, Yuuna, let's do it! Unless you're afraid of letting people see how badly you play defense..." The Shinshiro girl inside of you took a dim view of the guy the moment you saw his Linden ABC jersery, but that annoying voice of his is presenting a far more compelling argument against him.
"Shirts against skins?" Sports Bra jokes. At least, you think it's a joke.
"New girl," Shiny asks, "you any good?"
"I like to think so," you answer honestly.
That's apparently enough for them, since teams are sorted almost immediately. Sports Bra, Headband, and Dangerous are on your team, with Yuuna, Linden, Whisper, and Shiny opposite.
Headband immediately falls into guarding Linden, and you match up against Yuuna. Dangerous takes Shiny, and that leaves Whisper to Sports Bra.
Which proves to be a mistake.
Whisper takes the ball up center court and to the three-point line where she fakes Sports Bra out so hard she stumbles backwards, leaving Whisper wide open to shoot and sink an uncontested 3.
You catch Dangerous as she steps back to take the outlet pass and surreptitiously flick your thumb down the court, hoping that she'll take your cue. Without prelude, you blow past Yuuna and go full-steam for the basket while Dangerous heaves the rock over six incredulous heads and on a pretty good trajectory, but you two aren't in sync enough to pull it off perfectly as you have to shift course and slow down a little to reel the pass in. That leaves you vulnerable for just long enough and Yuuna takes a swipe at it, but you back off and lob a pass to Headband just as he gets a great angle on Linden. Nobody's in position to contest as he makes an easy floater.
Yuuna wastes no time outletting to Whisper, but this time Dangerous and Headband corral her in a doubleteam. Just when you feel like you might have a stop, she passes through her skirt and threads the narrow gap between defenders to reach Linden. You're nowhere near close enough to adjust in time and he has an unmissable layup.
On the next possession, Yuuna's holding with you so tight you can practically feel her. It was kind of silly to hope that trick would work twice in a row anyway. Instead, Headband makes a conservative pass out to Sports Bra and almost instantly regrets it when Whisper gets a finger or two in and sends the ball flying away. You reach for it and almost have it when your legs get tangled up with Yuuna's, sending you both down. Dangerous runs after it, but Whisper and Linden have had more than enough time to set up on defense and Dangerous has to dribble back out. There's a bit of miss-communication between Shiny, Whisper, and Linden where each assumes that another is guarding Dangerous, who takes advantage of the lapse to throw up a wide-open three that clanks off the rim.
5-2.
Yuuna actually grabs the rebound from where she is, which is a testament to how wild 3-point rebounds can be, and you decide that you can probably get away with a steal and an open shot. However, you underestimate her ball-handling skills and she wrecks you with a crossover. However, she's so focused on finding Whisper that you catch her off-guard when you come up from behind and clog the passing lane, almost grabbing that steal you wanted after all. Instead, she moves forward toward the post and gets a nice screen from Linden, giving her a wide open lane. This time you can't chase her down in time.
The ball practically comes down on your head, so you handle outlet duty this time. To Headband, or to Dangerous? You feel a little bad for Sports Bra since Whisper has essentially erased her from the game (Dangerous has done much the same with Shiny), but both Whisper and Dangerous are happy enough with the mismatch on the offensive end that they're not even trying to switch off.
You decide on Headband, since Whisper is less likely to help against him if that means being out-of-position to help with Dangerous. He cuts in toward the basket only to pass back to where you are... or rather, where you were just a second ago. You have to twist to catch it and that puts you off-balance. You barely escape a solid attempt at a steal by Yuuna courtesy of a great screen provided by Dangerous. Well, it might have actually been a moving screen, but there are no refs here to call it. Shiny makes a pretty futile attempt to interfere but you literally dribble around her, leaving only Linden between you and the basket. You do the last thing he expects: you charge straight at him, catching him full in the chest with your shoulder and pushing him just far enough back for you to roll the ball off of your fingers and into the basket.
Linden crashes the the floor, but you keep your balance. He calls a timeout.
"Goddamn girl, you're lucky there aren't refs here to call that change!" he breathes as he picks himself up.
Headband jogs over to offer him a hand. "Wasn't a change, Tom. You didn't have your feet set in time."
"Eh," he grunts, "I stand by it. Still, I'm impressed. What's your name?"
"Ruiko," you say as you grab a paper cup and start filling it with water.
"Ruiko, huh? I'm Tom, Tom Wilkes. This guy's Shirahata Goro."
"I can introduce myself, you twit," Goro chimes in.
Tom rolls his eyes. "Yeah, whatever. Anyway, if more girls played with the heart you do, they might actually make it into the big leagues."
You look over at Whisper and Dangerous. "Compliments are nice, but I'm not even the best girl here," you say with a nervous chuckle.
He waves you concerns off. "I wouldn't say that."
Goro speaks up again. "What he really means to say is that he's already schmoozed up with the other girls and he wants to go for the complete set."
Tom gives him a look that's somewhere between Shut UP man and Worst. Wingman. Ever. "No, I'm not actually kidding. They look so great because they're up against scrubs who can't guard them at all. I might give Yuuna a hard time about her defense, but she's actually really good at it. Better than me, and I'll never admit that I said those words. See, their real problem is that they're too busy waiting for the perfect opening to take risks. If either of them went at it like you have without someone to guard them? Well, this'd be a two-girl game pretty quick."
"Hey," Yuuna calls out, "we have two more. Are you guys ready to jump back in?"
It's rougher going from there on out because the other team gets a new guy, Glasses, who's pretty good. Worse, he has Dangerous' number and does all sorts of nasty things to any potential rotation you'd like to make to deal with it. They take to forcing Dangerous into an iso whenever she has the ball, and it's killing you.
What you end up doing is taking Sports Bra and Polka Dot (the new girl) and having them just absolutely harangue whoever is defending the post, hoping that it'll be enough to allow you or Goro to heroball straight to the rim. Sometimes it works, sometimes it kills the possession, but at least it avoids the messy turnovers that kept happening -- three times in a row -- when you try to pass it around Glasses. Fuck that guy.
Things aren't any better of the defensive end; Glasses and Whisper put together a rudimentary pick and roll, while Yuuna works so hard to make herself a pick and pop target by getting open on the wings that it's all you can do to close her passing lane. Meanwhile, Shiny just parks herself in the corner, wide open and ready to take a three if the rest of the possession collapses. She's a great shot, but one goes in anyway.
The game is called after "about an hour" (according to Yuuna, anyway) when it becomes obvious that no comeback is in the works. You actually have a bit of an audience, including at least a couple of guys from the earlier game. You break away on the last possession for a gutsy three, but it actually rolls right out of the rim and through the hands of Dangerous as she jumps up for the rebound and rolls out-of-bounds.
34-20. Ouch.
A random guy from the sideline gives you an unprompted high-five as your teammates offer a round of perfunctory-but-heartfelt "good shot" comments. Camaraderie has set in strongly by this point, so it's become an every-possession routine, even when the shot is objectively awful.
You make a sound midway between a sigh and a gargle. "I was so sure that one was going in!"
"So did I," Yuuna admits. "I thought you had that the moment you shook me."
"It was hard enough getting that far," you say with a laugh. "I feel like I'm wearing one less layer of clothes without you guarding me."
As you all gather for some water, Glasses asks: "How many of you are members here?" It turns out that only Yuuna, Tom, and Sports Bra are. "Let's eat at the cafeteria here. I'll pay."
Yuuna looks a little confused. "You can get them in?"
He snorts. "You bet I can."
"Well, I'm in for sure. Absolutely starving here."
Everyone else agrees in short order, and within a minute you're inside the lobby of the Power Development Center proper for the first time. In keeping with the name, shades of red are everywhere. White, on the other hand, is entirely absent; you suppose they want to avoid the hospital look. The cafeteria is impressive. You were anticipating something more restrained, but it's actually a fairly opulent-looking restaurant with the sole caveat of being self-service. Unsure of whether to take full advantage of his generosity or not, you settle on some spheres of shrimp-and-marmalade with an extra-large drink.
PDCs function as social clubs, so it's not hard to find a table large enough to seat all ten of you. Yuuna sits next to you, with Glasses across. Your very own Outer Layer has definitely taken advantage of his generosity, with two different plates piled high with a variety of exotics. "Just so you know," she explains, "I'm assuming you're rich."
Glasses smirks. "You don't know who I am?"
She leans forward and shakes her head. "Not a clue."
"Still nothing?" he asks as he takes of his glasses.
"Nope."
He sighs and points to a picture on the wall. It's the '88 Red Cross PDC basketball club.
"Oh," Yuuna says simply. "Well, I'm not actually a Red Cross supporter."
He looks at you with pleading eyes, but you can't help him. "Shinshiro."
Whisper steps up to the plate. "This guy is totally Masura Shunichi."
"I knew someone at this table would support my team!" he says, positively giddy.
"Not really," Whisper admits. "I just remember you because you missed a game-winner against Yoshiki last week, which is the main reason we're in the playoffs as a sixth-seed instead of an eighth-seed."
The dagger strikes deep and true. He buries his head in his hands. "Don't remind me."
"You don't need to feel that bad, it's not like you had a shot at making the playoffs this year anyway."
You let out an involuntary whistle. Whisper is without mercy.
"Stone. Fucking. Cold," Yuuna mutters breathlessly.
Shunichi pulls a face. "Harsh, but true. We lost so many key players that I'm happy we qualified for the CIS in the first place."
"The good news is that you haven't done well enough to be whisked away to Linden yet, so there's always next year." Then you remember that you're talking to a player, here. "Or maybe that's the bad news."
He smiles wryly. "Why, are you gunning for my spot? I haven't forgotten how you were the only one to score on me."
You blink. "Wait, I was?"
"You don't remember that?" Yuuna asks incredulously.
"No, I do, I just thought that I couldn't have been the only one."
Shunichi shrugs. "Take it from me, you were."
"I don't feel like it should count; you didn't even move to stop me," you insist sheepishly.
But he feels strongly otherwise. "No, you caught me so flat-footed that I didn't even have time to react. There's a big difference there, and I totally underestimated you. I didn't think some random amateur chick could be that fast, and I paid for it. It's the kind of mistake that would have the coach on my ass for the rest of the game and the next three film sessions."
You catch yourself blushing a little. He's... actually something to look at, you have to admit. His black hair is just long enough to be messy, but the look works really well on him since it highlights his clear-shaven jawline. You can tell that he's been hitting the weight room so high that it must be sobbing in the corner somewhere, and it's little wonder that he was able to totally reshape the game without trying. And that's one thing you're positive of: he wasn't.
Of course, there's another thing about him that puts him on your radar. As a professional athlete in Academy City, you're absolutely positive that he's a Level Zero. Just like you.
Frighteningly, his mind is on a very similar track. "So, are any of you espers?"
Whisper raises her hand, followed shortly by Shiny and Goro. "Just a Level One," she says to clarify. Shiny's the same, but Goro admits to being a Level Two.
Shunichi winces. "You guys have it the worst, I think. Weak stipend, higher expectations, no leverage to get into the best schools any easier... I'm actually glad I'm a Level Zero, but I can see why people would get attached to having an ability. Any ability, even."
That one hits pretty close to home, and takes you back to that vanishingly brief time you had one to call your own. You open and close your hand wistfully.
The conversation crawls on how another half-hour at least before Dangerous becomes the first to leave, accidentally making Tom eat a mouthful of blonde hair in the process. You only realize afterwards that you forgot to get her name. Before too long, the last four of you are getting ready to leave. This time, you remember to ask about a name that you wanted to know: Whisper is in fact Jade Altamura.
Shunichi actually lingers a little and saddles up next to you. "Do you know what's really bad about the way I underestimated you? Watching you play was what made me want to join that game in the first place." You don't really know how to respond to that. "I'm absolutely serious here, and everything else I saw was just as impressive. I didn't miss the way you took charge of that offense and found the one play that we couldn't reliably defend. Every basket we had to concede to that gambit was agonizing, because I couldn't rotate to stop you without opening the door to something even worse. It's not just your body that's well-conditioned; your mind is, too. Anyway, the first playoff game is tonight, between Santiago and Yoshiki. I was going to meet up with a few friends to watch... is that something you'd be interested in?"
"Of course," you reply instantly. It's not Shinshiro, but you're pretty sure that he'll be feeling the absence of his favorite team even stronger.
He lifts up his phone. "Would it be alright to exchange numbers? I haven't heard where we're meeting yet, so I'll need to be able to message you about it."
You raise yours up to meet his, and the sharing is done wirelessly. Technology never ceases to amaze you. "Just let me know where, and I'll be there."
You walk out of Red Cross feeling much better than you did earlier. 9:56, amazing what good an hour and a half can do. You missed a message from Kuroko, though:
What do you do now?
OBJECTIVES UNLOCKED!
♦ The Big Game
Goal: Meet Shunichi and his friends for dinner
"He seems like a nice guy, and heaven knows you need more of them in your life. Plus he's clearly not wanting for cash, so it probably means that you're getting two free meals in one day. The spendthrift inside of your is leaping for joy."
Saten Ruiko
Current Mood: Hopeful
[ ] Write-in
[ ] If I have this day to myself, I might as well go to the Riviera. It might be overcast, but that just chases the worst of the crowds away.
[ ] I've never actually been to Janissary Row before, but I kind of want to try it. Would I stand out too much? I'm not like their usual clientele...
[ ] Akemi was on-the-money about wanting to join a Power Development Center. Maybe I can find one with good rates?
[ ] What if I rode the Metro to a station I've never been to and just walked around there for a bit? I'm sure I'd run across something interesting.
[ ] There are still plenty of places around the school that I haven't explored -- mostly because I've been too scared to. Let's change that.
[ ] I could always stop by Kuroko's Branch Office and see if she's there. It's pretty close.
[ ] I should just hit an arcade for now and work out a plan later.
Current Objectives:
♦ Spread Your Wings
Goal: Find something worth living on for
"There's a tradition in Academy City -- or perhaps more of a cliche -- of a hopeless Level Zero throwing themselves off one of the city's many towers in a desperate attempt to bring their latent ability to the forefront. It's not the perfect comparison to your present state, but it is a serviceable one.
♦ The Big Game
Goal: Meet Shunichi and his friends for dinner
"He seems like a nice guy, and heaven knows you need more of them in your life. Plus he's clearly not wanting for cash, so it probably means that you're getting two free meals in one day. The spendthrift inside of your is leaping for joy."
♦ Explore Academy City
Goal: Expand your horizons
"It's a big place out there. Find someone interesting. Go somewhere new. Why do you think you're so depressed when you're cooped up in that cage of yours?"
♦ Minor Objectives
Meet Kuroko
Pick up Akemi's gift(?)
Their gym is unusual in that it's open to members and non-members alike. It's easy to guess why: they want to capitalize on the recent success in the Citywide Invitational to recruit fans into paying customers. You're a little skeptical on their prospects, given how few people support any of the marginal teams outside of The Eight.
It's quite a vicious cycle that they're trapped in. They can't recruit top talent because they don't have the money... because they lack good sponsorships... because they don't have many supporters... since they can't recruit top talent. The best they can hope for is to try to build momentum when they strike gold in the bargain bin, and then pray that they aren't pillaged for everything they're worth during the off-season.
Given how all but one of Red Cross' starting five from last year's team are playing elsewhere on massive contracts, they must have been praying to the wrong god.
There's no such thing as a quiet day in Academy City, and the avenue outside of your temporary dorm -- one of the main thoroughfares that cuts across South District 7 -- is already flush with people and even the occasional car. Sidestepping a cyclist, you glance up at one of the airships overhead and read that it's 23.5°C/74.3°F with a marginal chance of precipitation, so there's no need to rush. You plug in your headphones and page through songs on your phone until you find something enjoyable and upbeat, 'Glimmer of Hope' by The Medicine Man.
You've frequently been accused by your friends of liking synths more than is strictly healthy, and they might even have a point if they didn't have hilariously terrible taste themselves. Recently, you've been focusing on showing Kuroko how good music should sound. It's tough going, but you read three entire pages on Pavlov and that qualifies you for this shit. (You were kind of psyched to discover that she knows the members of Double Blind since they all work in Judgment.)
While you listen, you check in with a few of the intranet sites that you follow. The only big news is that a coming update for ACES has leaked, but you don't see any new names that stand out. ACES, or the Aggregated Comparative Esper Survey, is the an authoritative but unofficial listing of espers according to their capability. The methodology used to compose the index was highly secret, but was known to involve an algorithm drawing from other independent listings along with a hefty amount of human research and information-gathering.
In many ways, it'd be your dream job.
You're about to leave the page when you notice that one of the top names has been yellowed out with a note attached, and Gunha, "Captain Crash" himself, has rocketed up. Wait, what?
There's no appended note.
Kakine had been there for the Kiyama Harumi incident -- and according to Mikoto had "had his ass handed to him," but whatever is happening here seems too unprecedented for a garden-variety defeat. You message an online contact to see if they can clarify anything about this, or if they're just as confused as you are.
You're so engrossed in what you're doing that you almost forget to turn off onto another road when you're supposed to and you almost run into some guy when you do, so you stow your phone in your waistband and resolve to just enjoy the trip.
The powerful chords of Esther Brown's "Someone's Serenade" are soaring in your ears, and you can feel each step stretch a little bit longer because you just can't walk like a normal human being to this song. At least nobody's staring. Well, no more than usual, anyway, but you've gotten used to tuning that sort of thing out of your awareness. If they aren't going to give you the respect you deserve as a person, why should you care about them?
You do, however, take note of your surroundings before you take a final turn down a side street. It's not a dark alleyway or anything, but it's not heavily trafficked either; you can never be too careful. This is Academy City, after all. If you can't look after your own safety, what good are you?
Before long, you reach Red Cross' rear entrance and dig out your Approved Visitor card, swiping it through a reader to unlock the door that opens directly to the gymnasium. It's pretty well-populated; there are more than two dozen people on the courts alone. You're mildly amused to find that there are more BC Yoshiki jerseys (4) represented than Red Cross ones (3).
one pickup game is already in progress between some high school-looking guys.It's actually pretty competitive, and all ten of them are playing both sides of the ball with a respectable degree of skill. You'd love to join in with them just to play against people who know what they're doing, but you're so undersized that you'd be a liability no matter how well you shot, and neither team looks like they're in need of a handicap.
At least you're not short on options. A group of seven students your age -- two guys and five girls -- are having a shooting competition on another court, and you saunter over towards them. You don't recognize any of them, but you're pretty sure they're not a monolithic block either: when one of the girls bricks a laugher after hitting a pair of pretty great shots, only two of the other girls are willing to rib her for it while the others go out of their way not to give her a hard time.
You decide that the blonde girl wearing a small knit tan shawl over a pink tank top has it together the most and approach her. "Mind if I join you guys?"
"Not at all," she says with a smile.
"Hey Yuuna, that means we have enough for a game, so let's do it." You file this girl away as Sports Bra, because 'Missed shot girl' flows poorly and is ever so slightly cruel.
Yuuna gives her a Look. "Funny, you seemed pretty happy to keep playing when we had six people and you were winning."
You take stock of the others. The two guys you dub Linden (for his black-and-green Brad Kohut jersey) and Headband (for his headband). The other three girls you call Whisper, Shiny, and Dangerous.
Dangerous pretty much names herself in the moment you make eye contact. The last time you met someone with that air of cold, calculating superiority, Kuroko had to bring a building down on top of him.
Linden speaks up. "C'mon, Yuuna, let's do it! Unless you're afraid of letting people see how badly you play defense..." The Shinshiro girl inside of you took a dim view of the guy the moment you saw his Linden ABC jersery, but that annoying voice of his is presenting a far more compelling argument against him.
"Shirts against skins?" Sports Bra jokes. At least, you think it's a joke.
"New girl," Shiny asks, "you any good?"
"I like to think so," you answer honestly.
That's apparently enough for them, since teams are sorted almost immediately. Sports Bra, Headband, and Dangerous are on your team, with Yuuna, Linden, Whisper, and Shiny opposite.
Headband immediately falls into guarding Linden, and you match up against Yuuna. Dangerous takes Shiny, and that leaves Whisper to Sports Bra.
Which proves to be a mistake.
Whisper takes the ball up center court and to the three-point line where she fakes Sports Bra out so hard she stumbles backwards, leaving Whisper wide open to shoot and sink an uncontested 3.
You catch Dangerous as she steps back to take the outlet pass and surreptitiously flick your thumb down the court, hoping that she'll take your cue. Without prelude, you blow past Yuuna and go full-steam for the basket while Dangerous heaves the rock over six incredulous heads and on a pretty good trajectory, but you two aren't in sync enough to pull it off perfectly as you have to shift course and slow down a little to reel the pass in. That leaves you vulnerable for just long enough and Yuuna takes a swipe at it, but you back off and lob a pass to Headband just as he gets a great angle on Linden. Nobody's in position to contest as he makes an easy floater.
Yuuna wastes no time outletting to Whisper, but this time Dangerous and Headband corral her in a doubleteam. Just when you feel like you might have a stop, she passes through her skirt and threads the narrow gap between defenders to reach Linden. You're nowhere near close enough to adjust in time and he has an unmissable layup.
On the next possession, Yuuna's holding with you so tight you can practically feel her. It was kind of silly to hope that trick would work twice in a row anyway. Instead, Headband makes a conservative pass out to Sports Bra and almost instantly regrets it when Whisper gets a finger or two in and sends the ball flying away. You reach for it and almost have it when your legs get tangled up with Yuuna's, sending you both down. Dangerous runs after it, but Whisper and Linden have had more than enough time to set up on defense and Dangerous has to dribble back out. There's a bit of miss-communication between Shiny, Whisper, and Linden where each assumes that another is guarding Dangerous, who takes advantage of the lapse to throw up a wide-open three that clanks off the rim.
5-2.
Yuuna actually grabs the rebound from where she is, which is a testament to how wild 3-point rebounds can be, and you decide that you can probably get away with a steal and an open shot. However, you underestimate her ball-handling skills and she wrecks you with a crossover. However, she's so focused on finding Whisper that you catch her off-guard when you come up from behind and clog the passing lane, almost grabbing that steal you wanted after all. Instead, she moves forward toward the post and gets a nice screen from Linden, giving her a wide open lane. This time you can't chase her down in time.
The ball practically comes down on your head, so you handle outlet duty this time. To Headband, or to Dangerous? You feel a little bad for Sports Bra since Whisper has essentially erased her from the game (Dangerous has done much the same with Shiny), but both Whisper and Dangerous are happy enough with the mismatch on the offensive end that they're not even trying to switch off.
You decide on Headband, since Whisper is less likely to help against him if that means being out-of-position to help with Dangerous. He cuts in toward the basket only to pass back to where you are... or rather, where you were just a second ago. You have to twist to catch it and that puts you off-balance. You barely escape a solid attempt at a steal by Yuuna courtesy of a great screen provided by Dangerous. Well, it might have actually been a moving screen, but there are no refs here to call it. Shiny makes a pretty futile attempt to interfere but you literally dribble around her, leaving only Linden between you and the basket. You do the last thing he expects: you charge straight at him, catching him full in the chest with your shoulder and pushing him just far enough back for you to roll the ball off of your fingers and into the basket.
Linden crashes the the floor, but you keep your balance. He calls a timeout.
"Goddamn girl, you're lucky there aren't refs here to call that change!" he breathes as he picks himself up.
Headband jogs over to offer him a hand. "Wasn't a change, Tom. You didn't have your feet set in time."
"Eh," he grunts, "I stand by it. Still, I'm impressed. What's your name?"
"Ruiko," you say as you grab a paper cup and start filling it with water.
"Ruiko, huh? I'm Tom, Tom Wilkes. This guy's Shirahata Goro."
"I can introduce myself, you twit," Goro chimes in.
Tom rolls his eyes. "Yeah, whatever. Anyway, if more girls played with the heart you do, they might actually make it into the big leagues."
You look over at Whisper and Dangerous. "Compliments are nice, but I'm not even the best girl here," you say with a nervous chuckle.
He waves you concerns off. "I wouldn't say that."
Goro speaks up again. "What he really means to say is that he's already schmoozed up with the other girls and he wants to go for the complete set."
Tom gives him a look that's somewhere between Shut UP man and Worst. Wingman. Ever. "No, I'm not actually kidding. They look so great because they're up against scrubs who can't guard them at all. I might give Yuuna a hard time about her defense, but she's actually really good at it. Better than me, and I'll never admit that I said those words. See, their real problem is that they're too busy waiting for the perfect opening to take risks. If either of them went at it like you have without someone to guard them? Well, this'd be a two-girl game pretty quick."
"Hey," Yuuna calls out, "we have two more. Are you guys ready to jump back in?"
It's rougher going from there on out because the other team gets a new guy, Glasses, who's pretty good. Worse, he has Dangerous' number and does all sorts of nasty things to any potential rotation you'd like to make to deal with it. They take to forcing Dangerous into an iso whenever she has the ball, and it's killing you.
What you end up doing is taking Sports Bra and Polka Dot (the new girl) and having them just absolutely harangue whoever is defending the post, hoping that it'll be enough to allow you or Goro to heroball straight to the rim. Sometimes it works, sometimes it kills the possession, but at least it avoids the messy turnovers that kept happening -- three times in a row -- when you try to pass it around Glasses. Fuck that guy.
Things aren't any better of the defensive end; Glasses and Whisper put together a rudimentary pick and roll, while Yuuna works so hard to make herself a pick and pop target by getting open on the wings that it's all you can do to close her passing lane. Meanwhile, Shiny just parks herself in the corner, wide open and ready to take a three if the rest of the possession collapses. She's a great shot, but one goes in anyway.
The game is called after "about an hour" (according to Yuuna, anyway) when it becomes obvious that no comeback is in the works. You actually have a bit of an audience, including at least a couple of guys from the earlier game. You break away on the last possession for a gutsy three, but it actually rolls right out of the rim and through the hands of Dangerous as she jumps up for the rebound and rolls out-of-bounds.
34-20. Ouch.
A random guy from the sideline gives you an unprompted high-five as your teammates offer a round of perfunctory-but-heartfelt "good shot" comments. Camaraderie has set in strongly by this point, so it's become an every-possession routine, even when the shot is objectively awful.
You make a sound midway between a sigh and a gargle. "I was so sure that one was going in!"
"So did I," Yuuna admits. "I thought you had that the moment you shook me."
"It was hard enough getting that far," you say with a laugh. "I feel like I'm wearing one less layer of clothes without you guarding me."
As you all gather for some water, Glasses asks: "How many of you are members here?" It turns out that only Yuuna, Tom, and Sports Bra are. "Let's eat at the cafeteria here. I'll pay."
Yuuna looks a little confused. "You can get them in?"
He snorts. "You bet I can."
"Well, I'm in for sure. Absolutely starving here."
Everyone else agrees in short order, and within a minute you're inside the lobby of the Power Development Center proper for the first time. In keeping with the name, shades of red are everywhere. White, on the other hand, is entirely absent; you suppose they want to avoid the hospital look. The cafeteria is impressive. You were anticipating something more restrained, but it's actually a fairly opulent-looking restaurant with the sole caveat of being self-service. Unsure of whether to take full advantage of his generosity or not, you settle on some spheres of shrimp-and-marmalade with an extra-large drink.
PDCs function as social clubs, so it's not hard to find a table large enough to seat all ten of you. Yuuna sits next to you, with Glasses across. Your very own Outer Layer has definitely taken advantage of his generosity, with two different plates piled high with a variety of exotics. "Just so you know," she explains, "I'm assuming you're rich."
Glasses smirks. "You don't know who I am?"
She leans forward and shakes her head. "Not a clue."
"Still nothing?" he asks as he takes of his glasses.
"Nope."
He sighs and points to a picture on the wall. It's the '88 Red Cross PDC basketball club.
"Oh," Yuuna says simply. "Well, I'm not actually a Red Cross supporter."
He looks at you with pleading eyes, but you can't help him. "Shinshiro."
Whisper steps up to the plate. "This guy is totally Masura Shunichi."
"I knew someone at this table would support my team!" he says, positively giddy.
"Not really," Whisper admits. "I just remember you because you missed a game-winner against Yoshiki last week, which is the main reason we're in the playoffs as a sixth-seed instead of an eighth-seed."
The dagger strikes deep and true. He buries his head in his hands. "Don't remind me."
"You don't need to feel that bad, it's not like you had a shot at making the playoffs this year anyway."
You let out an involuntary whistle. Whisper is without mercy.
"Stone. Fucking. Cold," Yuuna mutters breathlessly.
Shunichi pulls a face. "Harsh, but true. We lost so many key players that I'm happy we qualified for the CIS in the first place."
"The good news is that you haven't done well enough to be whisked away to Linden yet, so there's always next year." Then you remember that you're talking to a player, here. "Or maybe that's the bad news."
He smiles wryly. "Why, are you gunning for my spot? I haven't forgotten how you were the only one to score on me."
You blink. "Wait, I was?"
"You don't remember that?" Yuuna asks incredulously.
"No, I do, I just thought that I couldn't have been the only one."
Shunichi shrugs. "Take it from me, you were."
"I don't feel like it should count; you didn't even move to stop me," you insist sheepishly.
But he feels strongly otherwise. "No, you caught me so flat-footed that I didn't even have time to react. There's a big difference there, and I totally underestimated you. I didn't think some random amateur chick could be that fast, and I paid for it. It's the kind of mistake that would have the coach on my ass for the rest of the game and the next three film sessions."
You catch yourself blushing a little. He's... actually something to look at, you have to admit. His black hair is just long enough to be messy, but the look works really well on him since it highlights his clear-shaven jawline. You can tell that he's been hitting the weight room so high that it must be sobbing in the corner somewhere, and it's little wonder that he was able to totally reshape the game without trying. And that's one thing you're positive of: he wasn't.
Of course, there's another thing about him that puts him on your radar. As a professional athlete in Academy City, you're absolutely positive that he's a Level Zero. Just like you.
Frighteningly, his mind is on a very similar track. "So, are any of you espers?"
Whisper raises her hand, followed shortly by Shiny and Goro. "Just a Level One," she says to clarify. Shiny's the same, but Goro admits to being a Level Two.
Shunichi winces. "You guys have it the worst, I think. Weak stipend, higher expectations, no leverage to get into the best schools any easier... I'm actually glad I'm a Level Zero, but I can see why people would get attached to having an ability. Any ability, even."
That one hits pretty close to home, and takes you back to that vanishingly brief time you had one to call your own. You open and close your hand wistfully.
The conversation crawls on how another half-hour at least before Dangerous becomes the first to leave, accidentally making Tom eat a mouthful of blonde hair in the process. You only realize afterwards that you forgot to get her name. Before too long, the last four of you are getting ready to leave. This time, you remember to ask about a name that you wanted to know: Whisper is in fact Jade Altamura.
Shunichi actually lingers a little and saddles up next to you. "Do you know what's really bad about the way I underestimated you? Watching you play was what made me want to join that game in the first place." You don't really know how to respond to that. "I'm absolutely serious here, and everything else I saw was just as impressive. I didn't miss the way you took charge of that offense and found the one play that we couldn't reliably defend. Every basket we had to concede to that gambit was agonizing, because I couldn't rotate to stop you without opening the door to something even worse. It's not just your body that's well-conditioned; your mind is, too. Anyway, the first playoff game is tonight, between Santiago and Yoshiki. I was going to meet up with a few friends to watch... is that something you'd be interested in?"
"Of course," you reply instantly. It's not Shinshiro, but you're pretty sure that he'll be feeling the absence of his favorite team even stronger.
He lifts up his phone. "Would it be alright to exchange numbers? I haven't heard where we're meeting yet, so I'll need to be able to message you about it."
You raise yours up to meet his, and the sharing is done wirelessly. Technology never ceases to amaze you. "Just let me know where, and I'll be there."
You walk out of Red Cross feeling much better than you did earlier. 9:56, amazing what good an hour and a half can do. You missed a message from Kuroko, though:
It's a shame, but probably just a temporary inconvenience.
What do you do now?
OBJECTIVES UNLOCKED!
♦ The Big Game
Goal: Meet Shunichi and his friends for dinner
"He seems like a nice guy, and heaven knows you need more of them in your life. Plus he's clearly not wanting for cash, so it probably means that you're getting two free meals in one day. The spendthrift inside of your is leaping for joy."
Saten Ruiko
Current Mood: Hopeful
[ ] Write-in
[ ] If I have this day to myself, I might as well go to the Riviera. It might be overcast, but that just chases the worst of the crowds away.
[ ] I've never actually been to Janissary Row before, but I kind of want to try it. Would I stand out too much? I'm not like their usual clientele...
[ ] Akemi was on-the-money about wanting to join a Power Development Center. Maybe I can find one with good rates?
[ ] What if I rode the Metro to a station I've never been to and just walked around there for a bit? I'm sure I'd run across something interesting.
[ ] There are still plenty of places around the school that I haven't explored -- mostly because I've been too scared to. Let's change that.
[ ] I could always stop by Kuroko's Branch Office and see if she's there. It's pretty close.
[ ] I should just hit an arcade for now and work out a plan later.
Current Objectives:
♦ Spread Your Wings
Goal: Find something worth living on for
"There's a tradition in Academy City -- or perhaps more of a cliche -- of a hopeless Level Zero throwing themselves off one of the city's many towers in a desperate attempt to bring their latent ability to the forefront. It's not the perfect comparison to your present state, but it is a serviceable one.
♦ The Big Game
Goal: Meet Shunichi and his friends for dinner
"He seems like a nice guy, and heaven knows you need more of them in your life. Plus he's clearly not wanting for cash, so it probably means that you're getting two free meals in one day. The spendthrift inside of your is leaping for joy."
♦ Explore Academy City
Goal: Expand your horizons
"It's a big place out there. Find someone interesting. Go somewhere new. Why do you think you're so depressed when you're cooped up in that cage of yours?"
♦ Minor Objectives
Meet Kuroko
Pick up Akemi's gift(?)
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notthepenguins
Neither Spherical Nor Frictionless
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
[x] I could always stop by Kuroko's Branch Office and see if she's there. It's pretty close.
You will talk to Kuroko and you will like it, Saten. No missing the meeting because of random happenstance.
...hopefully that hasn't happened already.
You will talk to Kuroko and you will like it, Saten. No missing the meeting because of random happenstance.
...hopefully that hasn't happened already.
PhDEevee
Mathematician and Questgiver
- Location
- Sydney
Bother Kuroko while she's doing Judgment work? That sounds like a recipe for sadness. Let's go on an adventure?
[x] There are still plenty of places around the school that I haven't explored -- mostly because I've been too scared to. Let's change that.
[x] There are still plenty of places around the school that I haven't explored -- mostly because I've been too scared to. Let's change that.
- Pronouns
- she/her
[X] There are still plenty of places around the school that I haven't explored -- mostly because I've been too scared to. Let's change that.
75% Certain
25% horse thief
Looks like we have ourselves a 3-3 tie. I can either wait for a tiebreaking vote or press ahead anyway. What say you?
Episode 1 Part 3
75% Certain
25% horse thief
Embarrassingly, you realize that you forgot to take a shower and ask Shunichi to escort you back inside. (You're not a fan of walking all the way around to the back again.) He's magnanimous about it, and it doesn't take you long to get down to business. The gym showers are spartan, but there's no arguing with convenience.
You always keep a change of clothes with you for just this kind of situation, a shirt and shorts that you've found to be effectively wrinkle-proof. If this brand wasn't on the pricey end of the spectrum, you'd have bought even more of them.
Then again, if you had more of a budget... your mind is drawn back to what Akemi was saying earlier. It's undeniably appealing; as a Level Zero, the stipend you receive is barely enough to get by on. Sakugawa's own stipend helps, but it's not even remotely similar to the veritable king's ransom that a top school like Tokiwadai provides. Worse, you only ever see half of it, with the remainder deducted to pay for your dorm room.
It's something to think about, you decide, but it'd be such a monumental change that you're not willing to commit. You get by, and you've been telling yourself that's enough, even if you're not sure you believe it.
Bottom line: you're not sure that you're not sure, and -- thinking about it -- you're not even sure of that. It's not the kind of thing you're prone to dwelling on, either.
So you don't.
I should probably try and hunt down Kuroko. Considering that there's no guarantee that she'll be off-duty before you're otherwise occupied, it's up to you to stop any scheduling conflicts before they happen. The good news is that you have a trick up your sleeve, one that Kuroko herself accidentally taught you when she was trying to find Kazari last month.
You charge down the street and batter down the door of the nearest Judgment Zone Office, an inviting little storefront-looking place. Inside is a smallish well-lit room with chairs on either wall and a round reception desk in the center, manned by a single girl clad in a school uniform and a green armband.
She's not exactly Judgment's Best and Brightest, and in fact she pretty much lives down to every insulting thing Kuroko's ever said about Zone Offices and the "judgebunnies" inside of them, but she's accommodating enough after you finally manage to convince her that you're not looking for a missing friend and don't in fact need a search party. All she has to do is radio the Sector Office and have the local dispatch inquire as to where Shirai Kuroko is. Lucky for you, she's currently holed up in the 177th.
Again, the distance is close enough to where you're willing to just walk it. Your short jaunt takes you into a forest of tall buildings (even by Academy City standards, where 10 stories counts as "short"), surrounded by advertisements for shops, corporations, and even schools. The building the 177th Branch Office is in stands out amount the walls of glass and steel, an old brick highrise that predates the modern construction and was probably erected just after the Pacific War.
From what you remember, half of the place is residential while offices of various stripes occupy the rest. That's a pretty typical breakdown in Academy City, where pretty much everything is in a tower. Taking the elevator up to the eighth floor, it's only a short walk down a hallway to the correct suite. A small placard is the only clue as to what's behind the door; the 177th doesn't even pretend that they want walk-ins.
You walk in.
Kuroko sits alone among a desolate expanse of paperwork and charts, chained to a laptop and armed with a can of tea. "Ruiko," she gives you a halfhearted wave.
"You look like you really were looking forward to a day off," you observe, because it's nicer than saying 'You look like shit.'
"Nothing much I can do about it," she sighs. "We're understaffed, and someone has to be here on station. Regulations are regulations."
You frown. "But what happened? Someone else was supposed to be here; where did they go?"
Nervously pulls at a twintail. "It's... ahh, there's no harm in telling you. Konori's had to attend an emergency meeting. She worked out a truce between the local gangs. As long as they don't fight with each other or hurt innocents, we turn a blind eye. Things still come up, though, so she has to straighten them out every now and again."
"Wait, 'turn a blind eye'? Isn't that the opposite of what Judgment is supposed to do?!" You can't quite keep the accusation out of your voice.
Kuroko takes it in stride. "The alternative is letting them fall under the influence of Skill Out. If that happens, we lose. Judgment does not have the personnel or the resources to fight against that damned alliance of theirs. We learned that lesson painfully, and they've gone to great lengths to ensure that we never forget it."
You're having trouble buying it. "Yotsuba could handle Skill Out on her own, and she wouldn't have to because you have Captain Crash."
"There are various reasons why that can never happen," Kuroko says, seemingly unsure of how to explain.
"Like what?"
Kuroko nibbles at her lip. "Judgment was never meant to succeed. When we do, there's retribution. Have you even wondered why the 177th is so understaffed?"
"Because Judgment doesn't have enough people to go around, right?"
She shakes her head. "Branch offices like ours get first pick of the best prospects. However, every transfer to the 177th gets vetoed by certain parties in Anti-Skill. That truce of Konori's didn't earn us many friends."
That only makes you more confused. "Why would Anti-Skill side with Skill Out over Judgment?"
"I'm sure they're not enamored with the group itself, but the function it serves is essential. Skill Out promotes conflict, and conflict fosters ability growth. Academy City doesn't want peace, and they don't particularly care for justice."
Sobering. "I didn't know..."
"Hmph, I suppose you didn't. This isn't a just a job for me, Ruiko. It's not an excuse to practice my ability. When I put on this armband, it's a declaration of what I fight for. If people like you can live in peaceful, blissful ignorance because of sacrifices that I've made, that means that it was worth it. I know that Konori feels the same way; she puts herself at tremendous risk every time she deals with those gangs, but she's made of steel."
Not much to say to that. Kuroko's a Level Four, one of the top 500 espers in the city. You're just a Level Zero, one of the masses. It's a minor miracle that your worlds intersect as much as they do. "Have you had any luck tracking Mikoto down?"
"Sure did." She points to the window. "Have a look."
You pull open the blinds. "Oh, my. That's... not very subtle." It really isn't. A girl with short brown hair and a uniform that bears an uncanny resemblance to that of Tokiwadai's middle school is standing enshrouded in shadow, her face obscured, stretched over a good fifteen stories of the tower across the avenue. Underneath her reads the word 'SEVEN' in imposing text, over '19/09'. "Is the trailer for that online yet?"
Kuroko looks askance. "How have you missed it, of all people? Ohhh, wait, that was while you were in a coma."
"What can you tell about the plot?" It's not that you're against making a sequel to The Five, but those films didn't exactly have an ending where one flows naturally from.
"It's not going to star any of the original cast--"
"--Which is good--" you cut in. Dead characters should stay dead.
"--and it looks like it's set in a future where the procedure to create Level Fives was adopted, and now there are seven of them (hence the name)... is this reminding you of anything?"
You act the part of someone thinking hard. "I just can't place it," you belt out in your most sarcastic voice.
"The Five," Kuroko continues, "established that Level Fives are inherently crazy. They're running with this in The Seven, where the seven Level Fives decide to combine forces to take over Academy City. They're the villains," she says, stating the obvious.
"Who's stopping them?"
"No idea. I guess they want it to be a surprise. Maybe it's a daring young man with the power to nullify abilities with his hand?" Your eyes meet, sharing the inside joke.
You chuckle at that. "I know they're under a lot of pressure to live up to expectations, but they've got the whole 'preying on the city's subconscious fears' thing down pretty well. Guess that's a good sign."
Kuroko turns her laptop around so the screen is facing you. "Look at who they have doing the soundtrack. I think I remember you talking about most of them."
There aren't that many musicians and bands in the city, so she's probably right. Sure enough you recognize a pair of your favorite acts along with several other good ones. That gets you talking about music, and before long you're chatting about art class and animals and which television character would be the worst roommate (you come to a mutual agreement that it would be Prince Eugene) and suddenly you realize that it's almost 1:00.
You ask if Kuroko wants to eat lunch with you, but she insists that there's actual paperwork to do that isn't going to fill itself out no matter how much she wills to the contrary.
It's lunchtime, but you aren't hungry yet. (That miiiiight have something to do with how you basically had lunch for breakfast, but their lunch options looked so much tastier...) You decide to take the bus back and arrive just in time for the scheduled service at the nearest station.
Buses are actually a great choice for commuting between relatively close points in Academy City, since there are precious few automobiles to get in their way. On a particularly low-traffic time or route, you can even request a custom destination for a small fee. This one is relatively empty -- probably since it's going away from most of the local restaurants -- which you certainly don't mind; crowds were always a little unsettling.
You let your mind wander for a moment, and it happens to settle on something Kazari mentioned a few weeks back about a rumor concerning foreign espers and how they're supposedly able to manifest or strengthen their abilities through some sort of totem or talisman, maybe like how Academy City's own Level Five psychic supposedly relies on a remote control to pull off her tricks.
This actually brings to mind a different bit of hearsay involving an esper who appeared to have a different power depending on the object he held, and even claimed to be able to teach others how to do the same. News about him popped up on the intranet and exploded, but you don't recall ever hearing anything more about the guy.
Could they be related?
An investigation seems to be in order. You mash together a few relevant terms like 'magic', 'how to do magic', 'unusual', 'multi-skill', and the guy's name... Luthor... something... ah, Luthor Viktorin -- that was it! -- and see what pops up on some of your usual resources for this sort of thing.
You come up mostly dry; the only hit that's even tangentially related is a discussion about an esper by the name of Alison Viktorin, a member of Judgment apparently, who jumped up the ACES list two months ago when her ability developed a new aspect that was so different from her previously-employed aspects that some people going off of incomplete information jumped the gun declared that she was the first real case of multi-skill... only to get laughed out of the conversation.
For there to be two Viktorins was certainly odd, but c'mon, how many people actually have biological relatives in Academy City? Far more likely that Luthor Viktorin's name was cribbed off of Alison's at some point and that he never existed.
On a lark, you decide to shuffle the terms around a little and take his name out of the equation. The result you get isn't precisely what you were aiming for (what were you aiming for?), but it's the sort of thing you might describe as 'some serious shit.' Specifically, claims that actual magicians -- the flash-zoom-'I will smite thee' sort, not performers -- infiltrated the city and got in a fight with a Gemstone.
You missed this one because it's a source you don't follow based on what you see as a fundamental lack of credibility, but every now and then, they've been known to break something legitimately true and exciting... and you can't help but recall that Sogiita Gunha's rating went through the roof recently. Not many people seem to know about Gemstones, but one of the universally-agreed-upon things among the cognoscenti is that Captain Crash is one of them.
Glancing over the claim itself, you find that it isn't exactly a fountain of unquestionable veracity. The person making the claim admits that he only heard about the fight second-hand and isn't even sure if there were two or three magicians. A few others pop in to say that they've been hearing the same things, but another offers a few clarifying details. You take in everything he says with a truckload of salt, but he mentions that one of the magicians was also an esper.
By all that may-or-may-not be holy, you want to believe.
This is definitely something to return to later. Now, though, you're at your dorm and you have things to do. Well, thing: you drop off your dirty laundry before your bag reeks any more of sweat than it already does. You're momentarily tempted to knock on Kazari's door as you walk past, but you stop yourself. The moment Kazari matures enough to face up to the fact that she screwed up, you'll talk. Not before. You're not gonna rob her of her chance to grow as a person and deal with her own faults.
For lunch, you have a pretty good idea of what you want. You've heard about a great ramen place around here, but you haven't tried it yet. There are two reasons. First, it's to the southwest and in a more shady neighborhood. They don't talk about it, but you have it on good authority that some girls from your school have had a very bad time with some of the locals when they let their guard down. But that's kind of an excuse because your real reason for avoiding it is because ramen is the most Japanese thing pretty much ever.
You don't mind Japanese things at all; in fact, you tend to like them a lot. Aaaaand that's where the problem is, because you have a very stereotypical Japanese look that literally nothing you've tried has succeeded at dispelling. If a single word gets out about you indulging in anything similarly viewed as Japanese, you're suddenly the target of every single Japan joke Academy City can muster, and there is a multitude. Many of them are quite mean-spirited in that oddly personal way that jokes can capture so well. You're able to hide or disguise many of your Japanese proclivities, but when you eat it's typically with Kazari, and she never seemed to grasp that it's something you'd prefer she kept to herself.
Stomach sinking, you're suddenly much less tempted to knock on her door.
You actually want to take a train for this, even though it'd be slightly inconvenient, but the directions in your head are from the dorm, not a metro station. If you take the metro, you risk possibly getting lost and that'd be a worst-case scenario to such a degree that you might actually call Kuroko to pull you out.
Honestly, why are tazers so ridiculously hard to find in Academy City, where a not-insignificant amount of people are in fact living tazers?
As you work your way through narrowing streets, your heightened situational awareness catches something that you might have otherwise missed: Misaka Mikoto.
You do a double-take. Sure enough, the girl walking on a cross-street looks frighteningly similar to Mikoto, maybe even a dead ringer. Much closer to not-Mikoto from that movie, you're sure. Only a couple factors keep you from being sure that this is her. Her hair, for one, is just too long. Unless there's an obscure-as-hell esper power or scalp treatment that hypercharges hair growth... Actually, I wonder if healers can do that?
Her clothes also throw you off. Denim shorts and a mildly abbreviated halterneck (white with a pink palm tree design on the front) aren't exactly out of the ordinary for Academy City summers, and for that matter you can't say that you've seen Mikoto outside of her uniform often, but it really doesn't strike you as something that'd be in her wardrobe. Kuroko's, maybe, but you'll go out on a limb and say that Mikoto isn't the kind of roommate who steals your stuff and wears it while you're not around.
Another thing that catches your attention is that she's carrying a guitar case, and you've seen enough television to know that the one thing that's never in a guitar case is an actual guitar. It's almost enough for you to call Kuroko here and now, but... that can't be Mikoto, can it? You were just thinking about how biological siblings were almost unheard of in Academy City (not many parents want to send multiple kids here), but maybe Mikoto has a sister that she never mentioned? The more you look, the more you're convinced that the resemblance is just downright uncanny.
Lunch has just slipped down your priority list. What now?
Saten Ruiko
Current Mood: Curious
[ ] Follow that Mikoto! You smell something suspicious here.
[ ] Approach her and ask who she is.
[ ] Ignore her and-- AHAHAHAHA WHO AM I KIDDING
[ ] Write-in
[ ] Say that she's a clone NOOOO FUCKIN' WAY JOSE, this might be Academy City (City of light, city of science!) but you have no in-character justifications or even straws to grasp at to pursue this line. As far as you're concerned, identical clones belong solely to the realm of fiction. also it really could be Mikoto lol
Current Objectives:
♦ Spread Your Wings
Goal: Find something worth living on for
"There's a tradition in Academy City -- or perhaps more of a cliche -- of a hopeless Level Zero throwing themselves off one of the city's many towers in a desperate attempt to bring their latent ability to the forefront. It's not the perfect comparison to your present state, but it is a serviceable one.
♦ The Big Game
Goal: Meet Shunichi and his friends for dinner
"He seems like a nice guy, and heaven knows you need more of them in your life. Plus he's clearly not wanting for cash, so it probably means that you're getting two free meals in one day. The spendthrift inside of your is leaping for joy."
♦ Explore Academy City
Goal: Expand your horizons
"It's a big place out there. Find someone interesting. Go somewhere new. Why do you think you're so depressed when you're cooped up in that cage of yours?"
♦ Minor Objectives
Meet Kuroko Accomplished! +1 OP
Akemi's gift(?)
You always keep a change of clothes with you for just this kind of situation, a shirt and shorts that you've found to be effectively wrinkle-proof. If this brand wasn't on the pricey end of the spectrum, you'd have bought even more of them.
Then again, if you had more of a budget... your mind is drawn back to what Akemi was saying earlier. It's undeniably appealing; as a Level Zero, the stipend you receive is barely enough to get by on. Sakugawa's own stipend helps, but it's not even remotely similar to the veritable king's ransom that a top school like Tokiwadai provides. Worse, you only ever see half of it, with the remainder deducted to pay for your dorm room.
It's something to think about, you decide, but it'd be such a monumental change that you're not willing to commit. You get by, and you've been telling yourself that's enough, even if you're not sure you believe it.
Bottom line: you're not sure that you're not sure, and -- thinking about it -- you're not even sure of that. It's not the kind of thing you're prone to dwelling on, either.
So you don't.
I should probably try and hunt down Kuroko. Considering that there's no guarantee that she'll be off-duty before you're otherwise occupied, it's up to you to stop any scheduling conflicts before they happen. The good news is that you have a trick up your sleeve, one that Kuroko herself accidentally taught you when she was trying to find Kazari last month.
You charge down the street and batter down the door of the nearest Judgment Zone Office, an inviting little storefront-looking place. Inside is a smallish well-lit room with chairs on either wall and a round reception desk in the center, manned by a single girl clad in a school uniform and a green armband.
She's not exactly Judgment's Best and Brightest, and in fact she pretty much lives down to every insulting thing Kuroko's ever said about Zone Offices and the "judgebunnies" inside of them, but she's accommodating enough after you finally manage to convince her that you're not looking for a missing friend and don't in fact need a search party. All she has to do is radio the Sector Office and have the local dispatch inquire as to where Shirai Kuroko is. Lucky for you, she's currently holed up in the 177th.
Again, the distance is close enough to where you're willing to just walk it. Your short jaunt takes you into a forest of tall buildings (even by Academy City standards, where 10 stories counts as "short"), surrounded by advertisements for shops, corporations, and even schools. The building the 177th Branch Office is in stands out amount the walls of glass and steel, an old brick highrise that predates the modern construction and was probably erected just after the Pacific War.
From what you remember, half of the place is residential while offices of various stripes occupy the rest. That's a pretty typical breakdown in Academy City, where pretty much everything is in a tower. Taking the elevator up to the eighth floor, it's only a short walk down a hallway to the correct suite. A small placard is the only clue as to what's behind the door; the 177th doesn't even pretend that they want walk-ins.
You walk in.
Kuroko sits alone among a desolate expanse of paperwork and charts, chained to a laptop and armed with a can of tea. "Ruiko," she gives you a halfhearted wave.
"You look like you really were looking forward to a day off," you observe, because it's nicer than saying 'You look like shit.'
"Nothing much I can do about it," she sighs. "We're understaffed, and someone has to be here on station. Regulations are regulations."
You frown. "But what happened? Someone else was supposed to be here; where did they go?"
Nervously pulls at a twintail. "It's... ahh, there's no harm in telling you. Konori's had to attend an emergency meeting. She worked out a truce between the local gangs. As long as they don't fight with each other or hurt innocents, we turn a blind eye. Things still come up, though, so she has to straighten them out every now and again."
"Wait, 'turn a blind eye'? Isn't that the opposite of what Judgment is supposed to do?!" You can't quite keep the accusation out of your voice.
Kuroko takes it in stride. "The alternative is letting them fall under the influence of Skill Out. If that happens, we lose. Judgment does not have the personnel or the resources to fight against that damned alliance of theirs. We learned that lesson painfully, and they've gone to great lengths to ensure that we never forget it."
You're having trouble buying it. "Yotsuba could handle Skill Out on her own, and she wouldn't have to because you have Captain Crash."
"There are various reasons why that can never happen," Kuroko says, seemingly unsure of how to explain.
"Like what?"
Kuroko nibbles at her lip. "Judgment was never meant to succeed. When we do, there's retribution. Have you even wondered why the 177th is so understaffed?"
"Because Judgment doesn't have enough people to go around, right?"
She shakes her head. "Branch offices like ours get first pick of the best prospects. However, every transfer to the 177th gets vetoed by certain parties in Anti-Skill. That truce of Konori's didn't earn us many friends."
That only makes you more confused. "Why would Anti-Skill side with Skill Out over Judgment?"
"I'm sure they're not enamored with the group itself, but the function it serves is essential. Skill Out promotes conflict, and conflict fosters ability growth. Academy City doesn't want peace, and they don't particularly care for justice."
Sobering. "I didn't know..."
"Hmph, I suppose you didn't. This isn't a just a job for me, Ruiko. It's not an excuse to practice my ability. When I put on this armband, it's a declaration of what I fight for. If people like you can live in peaceful, blissful ignorance because of sacrifices that I've made, that means that it was worth it. I know that Konori feels the same way; she puts herself at tremendous risk every time she deals with those gangs, but she's made of steel."
Not much to say to that. Kuroko's a Level Four, one of the top 500 espers in the city. You're just a Level Zero, one of the masses. It's a minor miracle that your worlds intersect as much as they do. "Have you had any luck tracking Mikoto down?"
"Sure did." She points to the window. "Have a look."
You pull open the blinds. "Oh, my. That's... not very subtle." It really isn't. A girl with short brown hair and a uniform that bears an uncanny resemblance to that of Tokiwadai's middle school is standing enshrouded in shadow, her face obscured, stretched over a good fifteen stories of the tower across the avenue. Underneath her reads the word 'SEVEN' in imposing text, over '19/09'. "Is the trailer for that online yet?"
Kuroko looks askance. "How have you missed it, of all people? Ohhh, wait, that was while you were in a coma."
"What can you tell about the plot?" It's not that you're against making a sequel to The Five, but those films didn't exactly have an ending where one flows naturally from.
"It's not going to star any of the original cast--"
"--Which is good--" you cut in. Dead characters should stay dead.
"--and it looks like it's set in a future where the procedure to create Level Fives was adopted, and now there are seven of them (hence the name)... is this reminding you of anything?"
You act the part of someone thinking hard. "I just can't place it," you belt out in your most sarcastic voice.
"The Five," Kuroko continues, "established that Level Fives are inherently crazy. They're running with this in The Seven, where the seven Level Fives decide to combine forces to take over Academy City. They're the villains," she says, stating the obvious.
"Who's stopping them?"
"No idea. I guess they want it to be a surprise. Maybe it's a daring young man with the power to nullify abilities with his hand?" Your eyes meet, sharing the inside joke.
You chuckle at that. "I know they're under a lot of pressure to live up to expectations, but they've got the whole 'preying on the city's subconscious fears' thing down pretty well. Guess that's a good sign."
Kuroko turns her laptop around so the screen is facing you. "Look at who they have doing the soundtrack. I think I remember you talking about most of them."
There aren't that many musicians and bands in the city, so she's probably right. Sure enough you recognize a pair of your favorite acts along with several other good ones. That gets you talking about music, and before long you're chatting about art class and animals and which television character would be the worst roommate (you come to a mutual agreement that it would be Prince Eugene) and suddenly you realize that it's almost 1:00.
You ask if Kuroko wants to eat lunch with you, but she insists that there's actual paperwork to do that isn't going to fill itself out no matter how much she wills to the contrary.
It's lunchtime, but you aren't hungry yet. (That miiiiight have something to do with how you basically had lunch for breakfast, but their lunch options looked so much tastier...) You decide to take the bus back and arrive just in time for the scheduled service at the nearest station.
Buses are actually a great choice for commuting between relatively close points in Academy City, since there are precious few automobiles to get in their way. On a particularly low-traffic time or route, you can even request a custom destination for a small fee. This one is relatively empty -- probably since it's going away from most of the local restaurants -- which you certainly don't mind; crowds were always a little unsettling.
You let your mind wander for a moment, and it happens to settle on something Kazari mentioned a few weeks back about a rumor concerning foreign espers and how they're supposedly able to manifest or strengthen their abilities through some sort of totem or talisman, maybe like how Academy City's own Level Five psychic supposedly relies on a remote control to pull off her tricks.
This actually brings to mind a different bit of hearsay involving an esper who appeared to have a different power depending on the object he held, and even claimed to be able to teach others how to do the same. News about him popped up on the intranet and exploded, but you don't recall ever hearing anything more about the guy.
Could they be related?
An investigation seems to be in order. You mash together a few relevant terms like 'magic', 'how to do magic', 'unusual', 'multi-skill', and the guy's name... Luthor... something... ah, Luthor Viktorin -- that was it! -- and see what pops up on some of your usual resources for this sort of thing.
You come up mostly dry; the only hit that's even tangentially related is a discussion about an esper by the name of Alison Viktorin, a member of Judgment apparently, who jumped up the ACES list two months ago when her ability developed a new aspect that was so different from her previously-employed aspects that some people going off of incomplete information jumped the gun declared that she was the first real case of multi-skill... only to get laughed out of the conversation.
For there to be two Viktorins was certainly odd, but c'mon, how many people actually have biological relatives in Academy City? Far more likely that Luthor Viktorin's name was cribbed off of Alison's at some point and that he never existed.
On a lark, you decide to shuffle the terms around a little and take his name out of the equation. The result you get isn't precisely what you were aiming for (what were you aiming for?), but it's the sort of thing you might describe as 'some serious shit.' Specifically, claims that actual magicians -- the flash-zoom-'I will smite thee' sort, not performers -- infiltrated the city and got in a fight with a Gemstone.
You missed this one because it's a source you don't follow based on what you see as a fundamental lack of credibility, but every now and then, they've been known to break something legitimately true and exciting... and you can't help but recall that Sogiita Gunha's rating went through the roof recently. Not many people seem to know about Gemstones, but one of the universally-agreed-upon things among the cognoscenti is that Captain Crash is one of them.
Glancing over the claim itself, you find that it isn't exactly a fountain of unquestionable veracity. The person making the claim admits that he only heard about the fight second-hand and isn't even sure if there were two or three magicians. A few others pop in to say that they've been hearing the same things, but another offers a few clarifying details. You take in everything he says with a truckload of salt, but he mentions that one of the magicians was also an esper.
By all that may-or-may-not be holy, you want to believe.
This is definitely something to return to later. Now, though, you're at your dorm and you have things to do. Well, thing: you drop off your dirty laundry before your bag reeks any more of sweat than it already does. You're momentarily tempted to knock on Kazari's door as you walk past, but you stop yourself. The moment Kazari matures enough to face up to the fact that she screwed up, you'll talk. Not before. You're not gonna rob her of her chance to grow as a person and deal with her own faults.
For lunch, you have a pretty good idea of what you want. You've heard about a great ramen place around here, but you haven't tried it yet. There are two reasons. First, it's to the southwest and in a more shady neighborhood. They don't talk about it, but you have it on good authority that some girls from your school have had a very bad time with some of the locals when they let their guard down. But that's kind of an excuse because your real reason for avoiding it is because ramen is the most Japanese thing pretty much ever.
You don't mind Japanese things at all; in fact, you tend to like them a lot. Aaaaand that's where the problem is, because you have a very stereotypical Japanese look that literally nothing you've tried has succeeded at dispelling. If a single word gets out about you indulging in anything similarly viewed as Japanese, you're suddenly the target of every single Japan joke Academy City can muster, and there is a multitude. Many of them are quite mean-spirited in that oddly personal way that jokes can capture so well. You're able to hide or disguise many of your Japanese proclivities, but when you eat it's typically with Kazari, and she never seemed to grasp that it's something you'd prefer she kept to herself.
Stomach sinking, you're suddenly much less tempted to knock on her door.
You actually want to take a train for this, even though it'd be slightly inconvenient, but the directions in your head are from the dorm, not a metro station. If you take the metro, you risk possibly getting lost and that'd be a worst-case scenario to such a degree that you might actually call Kuroko to pull you out.
Honestly, why are tazers so ridiculously hard to find in Academy City, where a not-insignificant amount of people are in fact living tazers?
As you work your way through narrowing streets, your heightened situational awareness catches something that you might have otherwise missed: Misaka Mikoto.
You do a double-take. Sure enough, the girl walking on a cross-street looks frighteningly similar to Mikoto, maybe even a dead ringer. Much closer to not-Mikoto from that movie, you're sure. Only a couple factors keep you from being sure that this is her. Her hair, for one, is just too long. Unless there's an obscure-as-hell esper power or scalp treatment that hypercharges hair growth... Actually, I wonder if healers can do that?
Her clothes also throw you off. Denim shorts and a mildly abbreviated halterneck (white with a pink palm tree design on the front) aren't exactly out of the ordinary for Academy City summers, and for that matter you can't say that you've seen Mikoto outside of her uniform often, but it really doesn't strike you as something that'd be in her wardrobe. Kuroko's, maybe, but you'll go out on a limb and say that Mikoto isn't the kind of roommate who steals your stuff and wears it while you're not around.
Another thing that catches your attention is that she's carrying a guitar case, and you've seen enough television to know that the one thing that's never in a guitar case is an actual guitar. It's almost enough for you to call Kuroko here and now, but... that can't be Mikoto, can it? You were just thinking about how biological siblings were almost unheard of in Academy City (not many parents want to send multiple kids here), but maybe Mikoto has a sister that she never mentioned? The more you look, the more you're convinced that the resemblance is just downright uncanny.
Lunch has just slipped down your priority list. What now?
Saten Ruiko
Current Mood: Curious
[ ] Follow that Mikoto! You smell something suspicious here.
[ ] Approach her and ask who she is.
[ ] Ignore her and-- AHAHAHAHA WHO AM I KIDDING
[ ] Write-in
Current Objectives:
♦ Spread Your Wings
Goal: Find something worth living on for
"There's a tradition in Academy City -- or perhaps more of a cliche -- of a hopeless Level Zero throwing themselves off one of the city's many towers in a desperate attempt to bring their latent ability to the forefront. It's not the perfect comparison to your present state, but it is a serviceable one.
♦ The Big Game
Goal: Meet Shunichi and his friends for dinner
"He seems like a nice guy, and heaven knows you need more of them in your life. Plus he's clearly not wanting for cash, so it probably means that you're getting two free meals in one day. The spendthrift inside of your is leaping for joy."
♦ Explore Academy City
Goal: Expand your horizons
"It's a big place out there. Find someone interesting. Go somewhere new. Why do you think you're so depressed when you're cooped up in that cage of yours?"
♦ Minor Objectives
Akemi's gift(?)
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- she/her
[X] Follow that Mikoto! You smell something suspicious here.
notthepenguins
Neither Spherical Nor Frictionless
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
[x] Follow that Mikoto! You smell something suspicious here.
Go go go! Probably unwise decisions!
Go go go! Probably unwise decisions!
75% Certain
25% horse thief
Hey now, you should note that "bad decisions" is not one of the tags for this quest! Yet, anyway.
A whole bunch of other maybe-spoilery ones are, but, uh, ignore those!
Anyway, it occurs to me that I neglected to put in any QM notes, so here goes. This update feels rather uneven to me, which makes sense as I wrote it over 15 hours, but hopefully that's not as pronounced on your end of things. If you notice any errors (minor or major), point them out and I'll correct them. I've already nixed a good dozen. Similarly, if anything in-text doesn't make sense, tell me and I'll see about clarifying the wording. I worked both winning options in, as you can see, and also stuck in the third-place one because what the hell.