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

Alright, what weapon should Akemi have?

  • Let her keep the gun!

    Votes: 9 33.3%

  • Give her a sword!

    Votes: 10 37.0%

  • More Magic!

    Votes: 6 22.2%

  • Hand to Hand!

    Votes: 2 7.4%
  • Total voters
    27
  • Poll closed .
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That does it, nice!

The rolls might get a bit harder during the next part tho. See you later for Pt. 3!
 
Hey, would you guys mind if I cut the update in half and put out this next part without a vote? I've hit a good place to stop, and it seems like a good place for a small cliffhanger as well. Aside from that, next vote will be a combat vote, so I might have to delay the next chapter just to make sure that the game's still balanced.
 
Kermie said:
Hey, would you guys mind if I cut the update in half and put out this next part without a vote? I've hit a good place to stop, and it seems like a good place for a small cliffhanger as well. Aside from that, next vote will be a combat vote, so I might have to delay the next chapter just to make sure that the game's still balanced.
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I have no problem with it.
 
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Pride 2.16, Pt 3: Just What Do You Think You’ll Find Here? New
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    • Akemi: [X] Keep walking and talking with Aiko.
    Rei: [X]     Teleport into the AccelTech HQ.

    Saturday, March 8th, 2080, 10:45 AM
    Eiganjo - Shopping District

    You are Kaneko Akemi. The skies of Japan are as clear as they can be up here. Purrson perches on your shoulder, calm as can be. On your other side, Aiko is walking poised and gracefully, keeping her eyes set on the street. Every tourist walks past you two without a single glance— you're both invisible in the streets. Just the way you like it.

    Crossing the hard light bridge over to the next District of Eiganjo isn't too hard. Rather, it's the crowds that surround you, Aiko, and Purrson that are really interesting. A mixture of important seeming people with suits strutting around and relaxed tourists in casual wear all color the skies and buildings of Eiganjo in their own shades. Following Aiko down the streets, all three of you walk into a modern looking mall. Some Glyphs with inspection spells attached scan you for security as you walk in, but you pay that no mind. The mall itself is pretty nice.

    "So, this is the "hidden gem" you wanted me and Rei to see? Seems nice." you quietly comment, while still looking around. The mall itself isn't too different than anything in Tokyo proper, warm yellow light illuminating the halls.

    There's a skip in Aiko's step now, and a soft smile on her face. "Yup! Welcome to Eiganjo South Plaza. It's not as big as The Block, the outdoor mall in the other end of this place, but the prices here are way better. And the shops here are also pretty nice as well."

    She walks past a few more shops, and you and Purrson follow. After passing by a dazzling array of the windows of dozens upon dozens of shops of all different kinds, she stops in her tracks. "Alright, here's what I wanted to show you! Behold my favorite place in Eiganjo— the Heartful Boutique!"

    The boutique that she dramatically points out isn't any bigger than any of the other shops. The walls and logo are painted a light violet, and aren't covered in any gaudy gold decorations like some of the mansions you were able to spot earlier in Residential.

    You turn your attention to the two outfits displayed in the window and are much more impressed. Both dresses, one red, one blue, look stunning. Both of them are made of smooth fabric, and display just the right amount of cleavage. There's also a good amount of room to move around in, and are those subtle pockets? You could put your wallet in there! Or your phone, since you really don't need physical cash much.

    "Oh, those are some really good-looking outfits, and really nice as well." you say, not really feeling like talking about your impression of this boutique.

    "I know, right?!" Aiko says, metaphorical sparkles (or are those literal? You wouldn't put it past an Eiganjo native to get contacts like that) in her eyes. "Heartful is a startup that I've been following for about a year. They do their best to use Magic in order to produce dresses and suits based on designs sent in by young men and women all over the world! They've got new designs coming in every month, and they've got tailors for if you need your dress to be extra skinny or more plus-size. I really want to send in a design to them one day."

    Heartful Boutique, huh? You've vaguely heard of them. Very clean business practices, with two or three shops in Japan. While it wouldn't be as durable and flexible as what you have, it wouldn't hurt to go with Aiko and look for a more casual dress. But at the same time, you don't need to do so. In fact, this is a great time to ditch her. But…

    [Social Check: DC 65]
    [64+20=84. Success!]

    Fuck it. You've been living in a house with two people (and Purrson, but he's a cat) whose fashion sensibilities boil down to "t-shirt, underwear, pants/shorts, done". You need to talk to someone with taste or you are going to shrivel up and die of cringe before the Void gets you.

    "Really? That's cool! I'm also really into fashion, though I'm more of a connoisseur than a designer. What type of materials do they use in those dresses? They look so comfy."

    Aiko smiles, and before you know it you're both walking into the store, talking about all the designs and her thoughts about the most recent trends. As both you and her sit on one of the benches, you hear Purrson whispering into your ear, just quiet enough for Aiko not to hear. "Agh, fashion talk? That's nice. Wake me up when anything interesting happens."

    And with that, he retreats back into your purse. Ok then, be boring like that. You've got opinions to share.

    "Do you really think that boring dress is what people up here wear to our galas? You must be joking, it's too gaudy!"

    "Oh, I'm only half joking, rich girl, I didn't even know that the average person up here knew what casual style is!"

    "Oi, don't take that tone with me! Now granted, some of my less-well adjusted acquaintances might not know what style is if it smacked them over the head. Now, the kind of thing I'd wear to a gala instead of on the street is over here in the back."

    10:55 AM
    Eiganjo - Commerce District - In Front Of AccelTech HQ

    Meanwhile, on the other side of the floating islands, the business men and women are already beginning to slowly filter out, grabbing lunch from one of the other islands. Maybe from one of the malls, maybe from one of the street food stands set out for the tourists. But as the current of people slowly becomes a steady flow, one person walks down the street and against that current.

    When Rei Maruki walks down the street, it isn't with a clear conviction. Despite her suit being a noticeable blue, she's still fairly quiet, seemingly invisible. When she walks, she's pushed around a bit, and crouches her head down. But eventually, she sits down at a certain bench, and begins to scroll on her phone. As she does, nobody but the most observational workers notice how she keeps looking up from her phone once in a while, looking into the windows of a certain building. One with a logo with a tornado and multiple speed lines.

    As she keeps on scrolling, some extra voices provide some running commentary. This time for once, it's somewhat helpful.

    "There's some dust up there. Might want to keep yourself in Striker form in order to not get poisoned by paint fumes. We should have a stealth form toggle here on our side…"

    ">Check those rooms that are being constructed. Those might be new offices for some underpaid people that haven't moved in yet, you'll get a quick climb to the top."

    "Wait a few more minutes, then go into the alley and wall climb. If you do it fast enough, the cameras might not pick it up as anything interesting."

    5 minutes later…

    A few more minutes pass, and as the business people keep on moving out for lunch, Rei gets up, silently walks through the crowds again, and looks up as she gets to the end of that crowd's tail. And as she looks up, she reaches into her pocket, and pulls out a small card.

    [Magical Check DC 75/90/120]
    [62+28+40(Secret Six Samurai)=130. Critical Success!]

    In a single second, as the entire world is looking away, she flicks that card into a suddenly-appearing belt, and pops out of existence and teleports back into her destination. With a quick clap of her hands, Rei Maruki looks around and smiles underneath her mask.

    "Alright, we're in, guys!" She whispers to herself and the friends in her head. "Now c'mon, let's make this quick— I wanna spend some time actually walking and talking with Akemi."

    11:05 AM
    Eiganjo Shopping District - Heartful Boutique

    You are Kaneko Akemi, and hey! Aiko's… pretty cool. You're sort of entertained just by how she's just blazing through a bunch of outfits that you'd normally give up on just off of a glance of how many digits there are on their price tags. She's giving some genuinely good commentary as well.

    "Hm, what do you think about that sweater? It seemed perfectly fine, no need to throw it on the ground."

    Aiko hangs up the sweater that just fell down. "Eh, sorry about that. I'm a bit clumsy, you see. Slipped out of my hands. But it's fine. Besides, that sweater's made out of wool— really doesn't go that well with the jeans that you'd normally want to pair with that color."

    After some deliberation, you've decided to essentially just window shop while Aiko actually considers paying those frankly absurd prices. Even though neither of you bother to look at each other, the conversation still flows fairly smoothly.

    "So, are you interested in being a fashion designer? While I don't know that much about the design process itself, you seem like you'd be a good fit for it."

    Aiko grunts in disagreement. "No, but I'm interested in being some sort of creative. I like graphic design, but me and my friends are also experimenting with digital art. I also know some writers, but I'm not doing that. All of them seem to basically torment themselves for a measly two or three thousand words per week at worst."

    You can't help but roll your eyes at that. She's not wrong but that's a bit much. "Well, what else do you do with your friends? I doubt that you normally walk around these streets alone." you casually say.

    She tilts her head, returning a shirt back to the racks. "Well, first you should still tell me about Rei a bit more. For someone who was supposed to be with you on a big reunion, she's awfully absent."

    You bite your lip. Right, right, she's totally willing to call you out on your bullshit. But since you can't just say that you're here to investigate the generic shadiest company in the area, you come up with the fastest lie that's also closest to the truth. "Well, me and Rei have this tradition of going to some less well-known part of a new place and taking a picture. It's this thing we had going, where one of us takes a picture each time and we swap each vacation."

    [Social Check: DC 40/75/100]
    [62+20+18 (EP)=100. Critical Success!]

    Which, technically true if you leave out the fact that those pictures were usually of places that you'd have someone else blow up/carry out a hit in. Aiko seems to accept what you said pretty easily. "Ok, that's pretty cool. It's nice to have traditions and other things to share with your friends. My current group of friends… we don't really have anything like that, not yet."

    You raise an eyebrow at that. "Met them recently? Or was there some sort of break from your old friend group?"

    "No, nothing like that! I just met them more recently on the mainland. They're really honest and closer to me than others. I actually think you'd like to meet Tsurugi in particular."

    You're a bit curious about that person that Aiko just mentioned, but you ignore to focus on what she said earlier. "Well, what do you all do together? You can't just be high schoolers that just sit there together awkwardly."

    "Ah, we're all magical gir—"

    Aiko audibly puts a hand over her mouth. Purrson pops his head out of your purse, and if your eyebrows could fly straight off of your head they would. You're not deaf, but you have a feeling that Aiko really wishes you were right now.

    "…magical gardeners." Aiko murmurs. "We're uh, part of a club experimenting on how Fire, Water, and Wood Glyph-aligned spells can affect plant growth."

    There's some awkward silence in the air, and Aiko slowly turns her head to look at you. Something shines in her nervous eyes, but you can't tell what it is. Purrson lowers his head back into your purse, and you just sigh. Thankfully, no one else around seems to have heard that slip.

    You stand up to meet her, and try to keep yourself as nonchalant as possible. "Listen, I'm not gonna ask. If you've got something in your life that's too private or important, keep it to yourself. You've got your things, I've got mine. I'm not your big sister or anything. And besides..."

    You take your hand out of your pocket, and summon Voidcutter to your hand. In what takes a split second, you flick it partially unsheathed with your thumb, before making it disappear again. "We've all got our little adventures and tiny secrets. Let's not worry too much about all those for now. This is supposed to be a fun trip after all."

    Aiko's mouth drops open, but she regains her composure admirably quickly before turning back to the clothes. "Ok, didn't know she had that kind of aura. Alright, point taken. Now, do you have any opinions on this piece?"

    "Well, it would probably go well as the top half to some sort of lighter suit…"

    11:06 AM
    AccelTech HQ - Unbuilt Offices

    Rei wastes no time in immediately beginning to search through the dusty offices, which are ones that are still being renovated. The neon lights of her ninja-esque Rider suit dim down into nothing, leaving her as a dark shadow clinging to the walls. The few construction workers eating their sandwiches and scrolling on their palm-sized phones don't even notice her as she jumps from cubicle to cubicle, barely making a sound.

    Of course, in contrast to the silent poise of her body, her internal monologue underneath her suit's speakers is… a bit more ungraceful.

    The voice called Fuma speaks first. "This place is awfully dusty. Do you really think that you'll find anything of use here?"

    Rei just rolls her eyes. "Of course I will. I've been on one or two missions to environments like this, and corporate people doing any new construction always prioritize…"

    Her eyes scan the area for a bit, before focusing in on a door at the end of the room. "Fixing up the executives offices first. And thankfully for this operation, that's where we might be able to find something."

    With a deft leap, she goes from one end of the room to the other in an instant, before walking up to and entering a freshly furnished office. They didn't install any locks yet, after all. Closing the door behind her, she sits down and quickly jams a flash drive into the computer. As the drive does its work, she whips out her phone from her powers' inventory (how does that work? She needs to experiment with it someday) and taps a contact. Thankfully, the ringer's on silent and the brightness is low, so nobody notices anything as she quickly types in a message.

    After a few dozen seconds, someone picks up and sends her a text.

    Jun
    >Ok, I've gotten a copy of the data. Himari's here on my end, she should be able to decode some of the documents kept in the local system. Sending a copy back to you, give it a second.

    Himari's technopathic powers must work wonders, because Rei gets a document sent to her phones (yes, including the burners) in what seems like an instant. Rei takes the drive, walks out of the office, and goes back to crouching in the shadows, practically invisible to all but the most observant. Who the construction workers… aren't. The document is heavily encoded, but it seems like Himari got all of the relevant pages. She's gotta thank her later.

    [Mental Check; DC 50/75/120]
    [79+30+10(Secret Six Samurai)+1(EP)=120. Incredible Success!]

    Rei taps her helmeted head, silently asking for some help. All at once, the three samurai-ninjas begin to offer their advice:

    "It's some sort of code thing where they add a few extra kanji in some sentences, skip the last sentence of each paragraph…" -Hatsume

    "Try reading it upside down? No, zoom in…" -Kizaru

    "Turn down that screen thing's brightness." -Fuma

    Underneath her helmet, Rei's eyes slowly widen as she takes in the information.

    "Shit, that's bad…" she whispers to herself. "Project V-D 0.1, cybernetic augments? Don't those make people crazy? Something something… new type of Glyphs. That must be the Void, weirdly not too surprising."

    Along with the Void is some mention of Umbra, but it's detached. Exceedingly so, the only thing that identifies them is a generic-looking skull logo. Otherwise, they're referred to as "Partner B", which is a frustratingly vague corporate jargon. It's just research sharing on the basics of the Void (powered better by specifically negative memories/Runes?) in exchange for one or two money infusions per month.

    Rei keeps on scrolling down, before she sees something that makes her stop. As she checks that specific page, she stops, screenshots it, sends it to Jun and Himari two times each, and immediately jumps behind another wall for another hiding spot. Shit. Rei puts a hand to her head, and takes a deep breath to calm herself down. Of course it's more complicated than it seems. There's a meeting between AccelTech executives and Umbra in a week or two, nothing too surprising. What's really surprising is the third party that will also be present there. One detailed on the contract on the next page, complete with some familiar images/logos.

    CONTRACT WITH PARTNER C, THE INTERNATIONAL ASSASSIN'S GUILD
    1. A floor-wide base to store computers storing up to 100 TB of info and station hackers will be given to Partner C, along with a to be determined sum of yen monthly.
    2. In exchange, the patriarch of the Rensoku Corporation/Family, Azami Rensoku, will be silently killed at the annual Eiganjo gala by the end of this month by EXCHANGED MEMBER. If any members of his family such as Aiko Rensoku witness the event they are also acceptable collateral.
    3. EXCHANGED MEMBER will also participate in the "Corporate Raider" program as a test subject for Project V.D.
    4. The exchanged member will be a up and coming employee from their side named Hanzo Suzuki.
    SIGNED, (illegible, Rei couldn't translate this part), CEO of AccelTech Corporation.

    Rei takes a deep breath, and prepares to get out of the office as quickly as possible. No, no, no! If the Guild is here in Eiganjo, there's not a single building on the islands that's safe. She has to warn Akemi, right now—

    But as she turns the corner, she immediately gets behind the wall again. A man is coming down the hall, with slicked back, spiky hair. It's the man who was talking to Akemi earlier in the teleporter. Her eyes widen, as she remembers one of the pictures attached to the document.

    Suzuki Hanzo walks down the hall, talking on his phone, thankfully oblivious to Rei's presence. But what he says chills Rei to the bone even more than she thought she could be.

    "Yeah? Yeah boss, I've got my room up here. I'm busy planning that accidental death. I'm willing to get them to haggle for slow-acting poison, but listen boss, I need to tell you something."

    He leans in, and Rei's heart seems to stop for a second. "I found the loose end that's been bugging you all these years. Kaneko Akemi, right? If what you told me is correct, she's probably around the girl that got rid of my little s— Himari, right?"

    The person on the other end of the line says something, and Hanzo grits his teeth. "I don't want any of your vagueness! Do you think that she's partnered with that little bitch or not?"

    Something else gets said, and then Hanzo exhales. "Fine, fine, I'll argue for something more and then I'll hear the info. But you better promise that I'll be able to get more info on those two, alright?"

    With that, Hanzo hangs up, and chucks the phone across the room. It clocks a poor part-time construction worker who was walking out of his shift directly in the head, and Hanzo doesn't even bother to look at the bleeding guy as he walks into a room. Specifically, one of the offices next to the one Rei was in. As he does, Rei immediately pulls out her phone, this time not caring for stealth.

    "Crapcrapcrap, gotta call her, we've gotta move. Akemi. Akemi? Shit, Akemi, pick up already…"

    The phone hangs up, and Rei receives a notification. It's Akemi's location and three letters. SOS.

    It takes Rei roughly four seconds to turn around, teleport back out of the offices, detransform, and start running.

    Author's Note:
    Writer's block hit hard with this one. I kinda gave up on researching fashion for this chapter. You could prob tell. The rewrite for the prologue is also progressing really slowly. I want to die inside when I read my summer writing.

    That laser security system I hinted at earlier in one of my snippet of the outline posts was avoided when you hit that high threshold to go into the in-progress joint Guild/AccelTech offices. As for the rest, if you had failed one or two rolls on Rei's end, there would have been a chance of alerting Hanzo, which… would have been bad.

    Anyways, feel free to speculate about everything else in this chapter. Happy reading, heroes.
     
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    • Well that was a nice chapter. Akemi is making a friend (and both basically said, yeah we are MaGi, lets continue shopping) aaand one of the persons she talked to is a fucking leutenant of the Guild, what the actual hell.
    Ok I guess I was spot on with that "He seems responsible and if hes alone doing a business deal, thta means the bosses trust them." It was just that said deal is a fucking assasination!!!
    What the heck Akemi... what kind of luck do these 2 have (saying this when we rolled extremely well).

    I can see what you meant by the rolls being interesting/ the next set being VERY interesting.

    Well done Kermie, well done.
    Now how to survive a very powerful Assasin Kamen Rider, who is a pseudo Older Brother to one of our teammates...
    Himari is going to Love (sarcastic) the After mission Report.
     
    Well the shounen tropes don't lie, Suzuki "salaryman" Hanzo was involved in the plot. The personality really had me second guess it there. Probably the lightspeed dark rider then.
     
    I need to put more filler Riders/MGs into the mission descriptions because there's not really too many options for who (X) is, huh? Either that or I need to intro more NPCs earlier (will happen next chapter btw)
     
    Also just want to let everyone know that getting Akemi detected by the Guild for Conflict Escalation (TM) would have happened no matter what combo of missions you did, or even if you didn't take any missions (which, bad idea, would make Awakening Day exponentially harder). Remember, Himari+Hanzo+Hina were supposed to be recurring minibosses, they would have found their way into the plot one way or another.

    Um, one thing that did change is that both Hanzo and Hina have gotten a decent bit stronger to compensate for the fact that 1/3rd of their unit is missing. Just wanted to give you a heads up on that.
     
    Kermie said:
    Um, one thing that did change is that both Hanzo and Hina have gotten a decent bit stronger to compensate for the fact that 1/3rd of their unit is missing. Just wanted to give you a heads up on that.
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    That's fair. I was expecting that after you exclaimed about the dice being so lucky to snag and convert Himari when she was supposed to be a miniBoss. Then you had to do some other stuff to compensate for the critical success over there to make sure we wouldn't be riding too high lmao.
     
    I don't see this ending well between the group and hanzo and Hina either considering the uh. Killing his family thing we did there when we first got our powers oof.

    This is gonna be so awkward when Himari meets them oof.
     
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    WayWard_Animal said:
    I don't see this ending well between the group and hanzo and Hina either considering the uh. Killing his family thing we did there when we first got our powers oof.
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    Wasnt that Dokuro? From Umbra?
    Im pretty sure Hanzo and Hina are from the Guild Rei and Akemi were from. And we havent interacted with them till now.
     
    Kermie said:
    No, that's Dokuro. You just, uh (checks notes) converted Hanzo's sister(?) to the side of good by kicking her into the side of a cliff face.
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    Yeah basically this. Only thing we know of them is what Himari told us. That being that they are Leutenants in the Guilds and a KR and MaGi pair.
    So pretty powerful all and all.
     
    SolarGemX said:
    Wasnt that Dokuro? From Umbra?
    Im pretty sure Hanzo and Hina are from the Guild Rei and Akemi were from. And we havent interacted with them till now.
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    Kermie said:
    No, that's Dokuro. You just, uh (checks notes) converted Hanzo's sister(?) to the side of good by kicking her into the side of a cliff face.
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    Whoopsies My bad. Keeping straight whose names are whose is hard. Especilly when you're in a lot of fandoms that may or may not repeat names lol.
     
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