“I had a suspicion, and it seems to be paying off,” you say, and you pat Luna on the shoulder. She looks back at you. “Can you go get her?” you ask the fairy, and she nods enthusiastically. Luna clambers towards the hole in space and kneels down to fit into the hole, then quickly disappears within. You wish you had a way to make some kind of connection to her point of view, but you hadn't exactly had the time to prepare. Each passing second feels like an eternity as you suspect Luna draws closer to the other girl within the space, who seems to be losing interest in the small cyberdoll. What you can do is open a window of Luna's incoming and outgoing connections she apparently uses to communicate with the other two girls. If they have a connection like you think, there should be one here soon enou- There. The view on Maggie's screen turns, and you can see a slight bit of Luna on screen. Just as you thought, a connection between the two of them begins to feed through the same incomprehensible data as before.

“What was that?” Chie asks, leaning over to see your screen.

“It's... a long story,” you say, dismissing the topic for now. “Maggie, can you open a voice link to your pet in there?”

“Uh, yeah, hold on,” she replies, having been trying to find a way to shake her pet free. She establishes a connection and materializes a small microphone, and you slide over.

“Luna, come back out here, bring the doll and the other fairy,” you say into the mic, having taken it from Maggie, despite the strange looks you're getting from everyone. The chatter picks up on your window again, and you can see Luna moving away in Maggie's view. The view does begin to follow after a short while and some more chatter, and they begin to head back towards the entrance. Not too much later, Luna crawls out of the hole in space and brushes off her dress as if it got dirty from crawling on the ground, followed by the blue dressed fairy girl.

“Cirno,” Luna says, motioning towards the new fairy. Mana and Chie look fairly lost at this development, but are no less surprised than everyone else. Madoka is the first to react, jumping forward and presenting her window to the blue-clad program.

“This is you, right?” she asks, pointing to the screen. 'Cirno' takes a step back, holding up the cyberdoll like some kind of weapon, and Maggie is the next in line.

“Let go of my pet!” she whines, getting another confused reaction from the girl. You notice that the chatter between 'Cirno' and Luna has increased again, with more coming in than going out, as if in a panic. Could it be that Cirno doesn't understand-

“Stop!” the blue clad fairy shouts, much to the amazement of everyone else. So much for your theory. Silence prevails for a few seconds as everyone just waits, seeming to be holding off for her to say something else. All she manages to do is continue to look nervous though, until Maggie steps forward again.

“My doll,” she says, holding out her hand. 'Cirno' looks at her, then down at her hand. She holds it out and opens it.

“Your doll?” Cirno asks, and Maggie nods as the doll floats free and lands in Maggie's hand.

“So many questions...” Chie mutters, looking between you, Luna and Cirno. Madoka seems ready to pounce, and Luna seems to be having steady communication with Cirno, and is looking at you expectantly, though you don't know what she could be wanting. What needs to be done?

[] Apologize for the hassle and let 'Cirno' go.
[] It seems she can speak, try asking her questions.
[] Leave the others to do what they want.
[] Try to check out whatever Cirno's abilities may be.
[] If you could incapacitate her, Nezumi would pay quite well...

---

OH YEAH, I WRITE SOMETHING LIKE THIS TOO DON'T I?

Not a lot of Dennou Coil + Touhou pictures out there, so turns out I end up having to make my own, hence the opening pic there. Yeah.

>OH YEAH, I WRITE SOMETHING LIKE THIS TOO DON'T I?
Damn right you do. Let's try not to forget about it any more now, shall we?

[X] It seems she can speak, try asking her questions.

>Luna seems to be having steady communication with Cirno, and is looking at you expectantly, though you don't know what she could be wanting. What needs to be done?

[x] Ask Maggie to take Madoka somewhere for a bit. You need to give her some room.
[x] It seems she can speak, try asking her questions.
-[x] Give her your names. She already gave you hers.
-[x] Let Chie do much of the talking, stopping her if Luna or Cirno become agitated.

[X] It seems she can speak, try asking her questions.
[x] Give her your names. She already gave you hers.

[z] It seems she can speak, try asking her questions.
[e] Give her your names. She already gave you hers.

Updating this tomorrow, since I pretty much blew my writing load today.

[x] It seems she can speak, try asking her questions.
[x] Give her your names. She already gave you hers.

First things first, if this new fairy can speak, you want to take advantage of that fact.

“Cirno, was it?” you say, catching the blue fairies attention. “You can speak, right?” Cirno looks a little worried, turning to Luna. Luna turns her expectant gaze to Cirno.

“I can, a little,” Cirno says, turning back and squirming a little. Opposed to the jittery way Luna speaks, Cirno's voice sounds a lot more natural. This definitely couldn't be the same kind of trick...

“Why is that?” you ask. Cirno smiles a bit.

“Because I'm the Strongest,” she replies, rather matter-of-factly.

“But you're just AI, right?” Chie jumps in excitedly. “I mean, rudimentary conversational skills are still a difficult thing to-” Cirno shrinks back a little at the sudden outburst, which causes Chie to stop as well. Seems Cirno is a little jumpy. You step forward.

“What's wrong? Are you afraid of us?” you ask, looking over the rest of the gathered people. Cirno seems hesitant to answer for a while, then she nods.

“I'm afraid you're going to hurt me, big sister says humans are dangeous,” she says. There's an answer you didn't expect. Nevertheless, you smile.

“It's okay, we're not going to hurt you,” you say, stepping forward a little more, Cirno doesn't seem worried about you, at least, since she doesn't cower away as you approach. “We're just very excited to see you.”

“Really?” Cirno replies, easing up a little and sounding surprised. You nod.

“Of course! You're something really rare,” you say, looking back at the others. It seems that they're catching on to what you're saying now too.

“That's right, you're like one in a million,” Chie says, backing up your point.

“You're really cute too,” Maggie pipes up.

“Definitely something special,” Mana agrees. The only one that hadn't spoken up yet is Madoka, and when you look at her she simply shrugs.

“I don't have anything else to add,” she sighs. Well, you didn't need her anyway. You turn back to Cirno.

“So you see?” you start. “We're just happy to meet you.” Cirno's definitely perked up from this activity, and looks a lot more eager now rather than scared stiff.

“That's cool,” she says, looking over at Luna, then back at you. “Say, you're the one that has the other two, right?” You're a bit hesitant to answer, since you're afraid it will spawn another registration window. You don't know how many of these fairy girls you can manage...

“Uh, yeah, they kind of forced themselves on me,” you say. Cirno smiles, then extends a finger towards you.

“Take good care of my little sisters then!” Cirno exclaims. That reminds you of something else she had said.

“Sisters, eh? You said something about a big sister, right? Where did all of you, er, sisters come from anyway?” you ask, likely getting to the point everyone's had on mind. Cirno frowns a little.

“I don't know. Big sister was here first, she woke us all up,” Cirno says, looking at Luna thoughtfully. “She wakes up a new sister every once in a while still.” 'Wakes up'?

“What do you mean by 'wakes you up'?” Mana asks, taking the initiative, but Cirno and now Luna don't look too agreeable.

“Don't know...” Cirno says, sounding sad. “Big sis just tells us we've been sleeping, but we don't remember anything more then that.” Curious. You'd like to meet this 'big sister' some time. You're about to ask more questions when Luna perks up, and Cirno in turn. “Ah! Look out!” You jump at the sudden shout and turn around to see a Kyuu-chan floating towards the group.

“Madoka, weren't you supposed to be on watch?” you shout. She grimaces a bit then turns to fire at the floating orb. She manages to score a hit, but her mega-be flickers out almost immediately.

“Shoot, out of juice,” she mutters as the orb speeds towards you lot. You prepare to take a shot when suddenly the orb stops, blinks and finally flickers out, replaced with an error message. You blink in confusion, turning back to see Cirno, hands outstretched.

“Did you do that?” you ask the girl, and she lowers her arms, looking a little embarrassed.

“Er, yeah...” she mumbles. “I'm sorry, big sis says I make humans angry when I do that...”

“I'm not mad, you saved us a lot of trouble actually,” you say. She seems a little less worried, but still a bit upset. Guess she's not going to get over her troubles as quickly as that. Still, you do still have some things you'd like to ask about, but you're sure that the others also have their questions as well. On top of it, it's starting to get pretty late.

[] Ask more questions...
-[] About Big Sister
-[] About other 'fairies'
-[] About Cirno's 'power'
[] Let the others have their questions
[] Call it a night

---

Was going to update, then I learned how to fix the crash issues with Fallout 3's 1.5 patch and got caught up in that instead. Flight updates to follow sometime in the next few hours.

After all, Fallout 3 works again.

>>88164
[x] Ask more questions...
-[x] About Big Sister

[x] Ask more questions...
-[x] About Big Sister

[z] Ask more questions...
-[e] About Big Sister

Daiyousei?

[X] Ask more questions
-[X] About big sister.

Rapture?

[x] Ask more questions...
-[x] About Big Sister

You're not quite content to leave things alone right now. The foremost thing on your mind is this 'Big Sister' she keeps mentioning. Someone that 'wakes up' the fairies? From the sounds of it, she must be some kind of, and you hate to apply this kind of label, 'boss character'. Like the kind of person that magical... girls... would... God damn it.

“This big sister of yours sounds really important,” you say. From a glimpse of Chie's face, you realize that you must have hit on the topic she wanted to know more about. “Can you tell me more about her?”

“Um...” Cirno pauses, then looks at Luna. You glance at your monitor window, they're chattering between themselves again. That reminds you, that'll be your next question. “She's like a really big fairy. She wakes us up from our sleep and is always making sure we're okay, and not to go around playing in front of humans. She also makes sure the Fairyland is safe. It's always sunny when she's around,” Cirno recounts, smiling as she does so. Luna looks happy as well, must be a shared feeling. “She even gives us our names and powers! And she's really smart! And pretty!”

“She does sound important after all,” you say, rubbing your chin. This is the first solid lead you've gotten on the explanation of these girls origins. If this 'Big Sister' is the one that made them, then that's where you should be directing your attention. “Do you think we could meet your big sister?” you ask, and Cirno deflates a little.

“Uh, I don't know. She never leaves the Fairyland, and humans can't go there...” she says, tugging at the edge of her dress. “Sorry, but I don't think you'll ever be able to meet her.”

“That's too bad,” you say, stepping back. “Though I guess there's nothing I can do about it.” It's a bit unfortunate, but even with an obvious lead in sight, there doesn't seem to be anything you can do about it. Unless you can find out more about this 'Fairyland', but even then you don't know what you could possibly do about it. This is actually pretty annoying. Whatever, time to continue on. “One more question as well, if you don't mind.”

“Oh?” You grab the edge of your monitor and turn it around to show Cirno. Her reaction is immediately one of annoyance. “Hey! You've been listening in!?” she shouts, and with a fluttering of her wings, your screen freezes up and winks out. She crashed the program with a lock-up, and soon afterwards you get warnings about malignant connections. Cirno doesn't look too apologetic this time.

“I didn't realize it was so touchy,” you say, trying to re-open your console. “But I've noticed that the fairies all seem to communicate with each other like that, and since I have a few in my care,” you say, gesturing towards Luna, “I'd like to be able to know that they can understand me, and I can understand anything they might have to tell me. Frankly, the fact that things like you fairies exist is something incredible, so I can't really be blamed for having an interest in something so fascinating.” Cirno seems a little softened by that explanation, which is good, because it's the truth. “I mean, Luna and the other two are already something cutting edge in terms of reactive AI, but you're beyond even that with the fact you can intelligently communicate with us.” Now Cirno looks a little bit flustered, and seems to be getting a little red in the face, though she plays it up by puffing out her chest.

“Of course I'm the best! I'm the Strongest fairy!” she proclaims.

“Which is why I need your help with this question,” you say, re-opening the communication log. It's already getting some more lines between the two. You've buttered her up, now you can only hope that it's enough that she agrees to help. “I really want to know how to read this,” you say, turning the screen back towards her. She gives you an annoyed look, but this time she simply sighs, then turns the screen away.

“I can't,” she says.

“Why not?” you ask, turning the screen back to face you.

“I can't explain it,” she says, scratching her cheek. “It's just something we know how to do, big sister just shows us how.” Big sister again. Seems she really is at the center of everything, and that makes your need to find her that much more important. That said though, there's nothing you can think of doing right now aside from smiling.

“Thanks anyway,” you say, pulling back and closing your console. You have so many more questions about everything you just heard, but you're at a dead end of this road. You need to start a new search into this information. You step away for now and everyone else rushes in to have their piece of mind out with Cirno, aside from Madoka, who seems to actually be taking her lookout job seriously now. Might as well join her.

“You're done?” she asks, looking over at you as you step up next to her.

“Yeah, I figure any more questions I have to ask will just increase the number of them I have until my brain explodes,” you sigh. Madoka chuckles a little.

“This is a crazy situation,” Madoka says, and your world bursts into flames. Madoka!" Thinks something like this is crazy!" Could it be that she's finally coming to her sens- “I mean, on the night I inaugurate my Magical Girl club we run into real life fairies in cyberspace? It's like some kind of sign that the world needs us! Pretty Warriors of Justice! Fighting to protect the beautiful Fairy Queen from the evil forces of the Illegals and save Fairyland from deletion!”

… Nope, she's still Madoka. You sigh in defeat and toss an arm over her shoulders.

“Madoka,” you say. “Please grow up well...”

“Wha- What's this all of a sudden!?” she cries into the night.

**

Just over an hour and a half later, you enter your house, having seen everyone off and walked from Madoka's house. Everyone had spent some time talking to Cirno, and towards the end had to run from some more Kyuu-chan that came thanks to the one that got fragged by the fairy girl. Luna runs off ahead to your room while you kick off your shoes. Yumiko doesn't seem to be home, and you can't even remember what it was she was off doing. Not that it really matters, you try not to get too involved in her business anyway. You're glad to be home though, even though the night turned out to be a little more interesting than you thought it would have been. All that's left for you is to decide how to spend the rest of the night.

[] Chill out and watch some TV.
[] Chill out and play some games.
[] Browse the Internet for...
-[] 'Cyberfairy' reports.
-[] 'Fairyland' reports.
-[] Strange sightings.
-[] Cyberspace news.
-[] Program updates and releases.
[] Just get a good nights sleep.

---

I actually managed to find a picture so incredibly perfect for a particular something in this story that I'm nearly bursting at the seams to get a chance to use it at the soonest possible point.

[X] Chill out and play some games.
[X] Browse the Internet for...
-[X] 'Cyberfairy' reports.
-[X] 'Fairyland' reports.

Games with the fairies~

[X] Chill out and play some games.
[X] Browse the internet for
-[X] 'Cyberfairy' reports.

And we find out one of the teachers is a fairy-obsessed crackpot...

[d] Chill out and play some games.
[a] Browse the Internet for...
-[z] 'Cyberfairy' reports.
-[e] 'Fairyland' reports.

[X] Chill out and play some games.
[X] Browse the Internet for...
-[X] 'Cyberfairy' reports.
-[X] 'Fairyland' reports.

First things first, you're going to see if you can dig up any additional information online. You take some time to get ready to kick back, grabbing an apple from a bowl in the kitchen, and laying back on the couch, opening your console as you do. With a couple quick taps, you're online and already on a local news site you've set as your homepage. A passing glance over the topics covered here doesn't give any leads, so you decide to go further into the site to look for any lesser stories that didn't make top page. Meanwhile, you start up a second window and load up a second site, one that's a little more renowned for being sensationalist and strange. Hopping back to the first site, you notice a few reports about strange activities, but in reading the supplied blurbs of the posts, only one catches your attention.

'Hospitalized child recounts visits from fairies'.

That sounds like what you're looking for. You decide to give it a read. What you get is a rather vague report of a young girl, hospitalized in serious condition after a house fire, and her reports that she often saw fairies visiting her room to spend time with her, and that she saw them in her dreams as well. It's not exactly much after all it seems, and you can't really be sure if there's any kind of connection or if it's just some kind of delusion from a traumatized kid. You frown a bit, taking a bite from your apple and scrolling down into the comments. Now, here we go, this is more like it. This borderline insane nonsensical rambling that only the internet can provide, chatter about invisible fairy girls in the walls and their mysterious nature. Something that sounds like it belongs on a poorly designed conspiracy theory web page. Precisely what you're looking for.

Seems there's quite a number of people with some story or another, having sparked up from the news story in question. While the majority of the comments are your standard fare inane drivel from people that wouldn't know their ass from their elbow and stories about mostly unrelated things people seem to think are connected to the whole 'mystery', there are a few actual good posts recounting tales of odd humanoids in cyberspace, though details are lacking and given the nature of the comments, rather short. Still, the number of comments made so far makes it rather clear that this isn't some kind of super rare occurrence, but you do think that you're probably the only person to have met several at once, and had their programs registered. You wonder what that'd make you, some kind of owner? You click over to the other site you had opened now, wondering if they might have any more details about the same story. While they do have a post for the same story, the extra details are trivial at best, and the rest is all just pumped up for the sensational nature of the site. Like the first site though, there seems to be a rather big discussion ongoing over this in the sites forums, so you decide to take a look.

Wow, it's like a sugar factory exploded in a children's asylum in here... people claiming that the fairies steal your soul, that they're really angels coming to herald the end of the world, that they're people that had managed to surpass the physical world through meditation, and all sorts of colours and flavours of crazy. Sounds like the kind of things Madoka would love, actually. There's also a lot more on topic posts, though most of them are dubious in nature. You also note that for as much as you do see mentions of fairies, you don't see any references to 'Fairyland'. You do some more extra searching for fairies and 'fairyland' online, but besides a few more sites with some more unverified stories of strange internet happenings, you don't get anything aside from a bunch of standard fare fantasy hits. Even though you did consider the fantastical nature of the subjects you're looking up, somehow it still annoys you to get fantasy-related returns for fantasy concepts like fairies on the internet. You head back to the first two sites. Despite the fact that neither was really that helpful as far as additional information goes so far, you might yet get some use out of them. You take some time to set up some accounts, and decide to leave a post about your experiences so far on the boards. At the least you'll get some responses and you might be able to get some more specific information out of people that post afterwards, or that's what you hope at least. You make the same post on both sites, detailing how you first found Luna, and how Sunny and Star came along afterwards, your discoveries in dealing with them, and detailing a little bit of your encounter with Cirno. If nothing else, it's surely crazy sounding enough to get some people wound up.

With business done, you decide to get around to your quality screwing around time. Taking another huge bite of your apple as you close down the browsers, you stand up, walking over to the TV stand and dragging out the game console you keep bundled up within and hooking it up. Nothing wastes time quite like a good game. Now then, where to begin...

**

“Takeo!” a familiar voice calls you. You look up, a little confused. You didn't know anyone else was home. You look back over the couch to see Cirno standing a few feet away. “Takeo, come on!” It seems she's waiting for you. Shouldn't keep her waiting. You set the controller aside and hop over the back of the couch.

“Where to?” you ask, anticipating her intent. She flutters over, floating along the ground and takes your hands. She's cold.

“Fairyland!” she exclaims. Behind her, you see the front door burst open, and a world of green flows in, replacing the walls and floor of your house with a wonderful blue sky and green grass, dotted with colourful patches of flowers and tall, shady trees. A wonderful paradise. Luna, Sunny and Star are here too. This is really-

A dream? You blink your eyes slightly, having suddenly woken up. You wearily check the time in your glasses. It's the middle of the night still. When did you even fall asleep? Your eyes focus on the TV screen, you'd been playing an RPG. You must have fallen asleep while saving the game, since you're standing right over a save point. Well, that's fine then, but what was with that dream you had? Okay, so maybe understandable given recent events, but still. Since you've already dozed off once, you should probably get to bed. You double check to make sure you really did save your game, just to be sure. Content with the results, you power off the system and leave it hooked up. You'll pack it away tomorrow if you don't get back to it. You trod off to your room, where you're surprised to find that the fairies are asleep as well. Strange, you didn't know they even slept. Still, it's a rather interesting looking situation, with Luna and Star sitting up back to back, heads forward, while Sunny lays her head on Star's lap. Doesn't exactly look like the comfiest way to sleep, but, well, do they even feel anything? Probably not, but they're sleeping, so they would have to feel tired. Why would- ah, forget it. You're tired yourself as it is, and trying to solve these mysterious questions is just making your head spin right now. You resolve to simply acknowledge them as some kind of alternate life form for now. It makes a bit more sense than highly advanced AI constructs inhabiting virtual bodies that can speak and need to sleep. You set your glasses aside on your desk, and not even bothering to change you clothes, drop yourself into your bed and get back to sleeping.

**

You don't have another dream, and when you wake up next, sunlight is coming in through your window. First thing you do is lean over from your bed and grab your glasses from your desk. The fairies seem to be up too, sitting in the far corner of your room, their wings fluttering. Star is the first to notice you're awake, and the others notice soon afterwards. The three of them stand up and approach your bed, with Sunny leading the other two. At the side of the bed, she leans over and points towards the window. You follow her finger, expecting to see something, but no, it's just the outside and the house next door.

“Okay?” you ask, looking back at Sunny. She looks back at Star in confusion, then looks back at you, then starts miming something, holding her hands in front of her palms up, and raising them- Oh! “You want the window open?” Sunny nods enthusiastically. You're kind of wishing that they could speak as well as Cirno could, you don't know if you want to go playing charades every time they want something. Why would they want the window open though? Whatever, you lean over and slide the window open, and as you do, Sunny is the first one across your bed, crawling through the opening. “Hey, wait!” you start, leaning forward. Sunny jolts a bit, looking back at you. “You're leaving?” you ask, wondering what's going on. A window flashes open in front of you. … They actually have a wiki page for 'playing'? While you're distracted, Sunny slips outside, and Star is next to follow. You move the window aside as Luna is crawling towards the window.

“Will, be back,” Luna says with a nod, then slides out of the window and drops outside. So they're going to go 'play'? You close down the page that had been opened, and notice a small icon at the edge of vision blinking. You've gotten a message? In checking, you find two, one from Hideo and one from Madoka. Hideo's is the standard 'Hey let's party!' invitation he sends out to everyone on his contact list every once in a while, and Madoka's is an announcement of a follow up to last night's little adventure. You don't exactly have a preference for one or the other, really. There's also the fact that those three fairies have head off to play, and you're kind of curious about that. … It dawns on you just now that the three most prevalent happenings in your life today will all involve chasing girls in one way or another. Wow.

[] Hanging out with Hideo sounds good.
[] A follow up with Madoka could be fruitful.
[] Following the fairies could be interesting.
[] Actually, you'd rather just relax at home.

[x] Design an avatar for the next time Madoka drags you out on one of her excursions.
-[x] Use Selected Image

Knight Blazer always was badass looking.

At least until he got that gaudy gold version.

[x] Design an avatar for the next time Madoka drags you out on one of her excursions.
-[x] Use Selected Image >>88316

I can get behind this.

[x] Design an avatar for the next time Madoka drags you out on one of her excursions.
-[x] Use Selected Image >>88316

Oh wow.

>>88326

Is there a problem with it?

>>88327

Yes. Why wasn't this done sooner?

>>88329

Who knows?

[X] Design an avatar for the next time Madoka drags you out on one of her excursions.
[X]Use selected image: >>88316

I can get behind this.

[x] Design an avatar for the next time Madoka drags you out on one of her excursions.
-[x] Use Selected Image: >>88316

Badass

Updating this today.

>>88512

Awesome.

[x] Design an avatar for the next time Madoka drags you out on one of her excursions.
-[x] Use Selected Image [Knight Blazer]

Madoka's message inspires something in you, a sudden click that brings a smile to your face. You had been against the whole avatar thing at first, but mostly because you didn't want to end up with something ridiculous looking. This is more what you had in mind, and you're starting to imagine what their faces would be like when they see you transform into Knight Blazer. Well, only Madoka would probably really understand, but that alone would be worth it. You decide to start work on it ASAP, since you want it ready for the next time Madoka tries to force you along, and since that may very well be today, you want to be ready. It's a rather helpful fact that the majority of the design is comprised of flat surfaces and angular edges, since you can create the basic appearance rather quickly and then build on top of it from there.

You slide to the edge of your bed, opening up the avatar management and creation utility. You scan through a few of the preset things, and as luck would have it there's a suit of armour already available, so the design process gets an even bigger boost. Excellent. Right now though, you have business to attend to. You head by your closet and grab up a change of clothes, then head to the bathroom.

**

You exit the bathroom fresh and clean, dropping the used towel on top of. You scoop up your glasses from a table next to the door and put them on, the interface for the avatar designer still up. You navigate to the couch and sit yourself down, getting to work. The preset design is a fairly bulky looking thing, standard fare for medieval Europe, but not good enough for your intentions. First thing's first, you run a scan of your body proportions to use as a model. Once the process is complete, a paperdoll of your body appears in the program, and the suit of armour superimposed over it. Your first change is to slim down the proportions, cutting down the extra room, and slimming down the midsection of the torso more than the chest. With the basic shape done already, you decide to get to the first complicated part of the design: The helmet.

An hour passes before you're finished. There were no good stock options available to use as a base, and modeling from scratch would have taken you so much longer, so you had to resort to going online to find new components for the designer to use. You'd managed to find some resources, an open faced helmet and an angular facemask, and combine them for the needed effect, then adding the extra details could be done much easier. What took the most time really was working on the eyes, but with that out of the way the rest of the helmet just falls into place.

A few more hours pass as you work on the extra parts of the design. You have the majority of the design finished when you hear the front door open, and someone enter. Looking over the back of the couch, you see Yumiko stepping into the room, carrying a bag. Seems like she went by some fast food place.

“Have you eaten yet?” she asks, waving the bag. “Got some breakfast sandwich things here.”

Sound like a plan. You follow Yumiko into the kitchen area, and she starts digging through the bag, pulling out a few paper wrapped sandwiches, setting them aside.

“Are they all the same thing?” you ask, and she grunts in response.

“Pretty much, really,” she says, pulling out a small box and opening it, revealing some hash brown cakes. She hand you one. “'ere y'go,” she mumbles over the food hanging from her mouth. You take it, snatch up a few of the sandwiches and make your way back to the couch.

“So what were you up to?” you ask, a little curious as to your sisters whereabouts. She just laughs.

“You worried about your older sister?” she asks.

“Not really, just curious,” you state, working a bit on the crest on the front of the armour suit.

“I was visiting Noriko,” she says. Ah, her. Noriko Watanabe, perfect example of a totally straight edge princess. The type of person that holds the fact they've never so much as commit a single misdemeanor in their life as the defining factor of their life and isn't afraid to share their 'perfect' knowledge of behaviour and legality with anyone that would bother to listen. As it would happen, she's a law student as well as the daughter of a rather prosperous Judge. Just hearing the name makes you bored, tired and gives you a headache simultaneously.

“Ugh, her,” you groan, and Yumiko chuckles, flopping down on the other end of the couch.

“She's not that bad once you get to know her and know how to have a good time with her, though when her housemate is around it gets a lot easier,” she says between bites of her sandwich. You've only heard tales of this housemate, Katsumi Funatabi, some kind of total polar opposite of Noriko, a lively party girl. It's like some kind of standard cliché you see in fiction, too good to be true. “They're coming over tonight as well.”

“Wait, what?” you snap to attention from the avatar. “Why?”

“Why not?” Yumiko replies, shrugging. Well, you don't exactly have a reason, you were just surprised, but the thought comes to you about the fairies that have been staying in your room lately. Sure, Yumiko doesn't use cyberglasses outside of her classes, but they're pretty common for everyone else. So long as you keep the door to your room closed it should be fine though, right?

“No reason, though I should probably get out for the night if they're coming by,” you say, saving the progress you've made on the avatar.

“Hmm, if you want to...” Yumiko mumbles, chewing on some more sandwich. “I think you'd like to meet Katsumi though,” she adds with a grin. Well, you are a little curious, since she's one of the few friends of your sister you haven't met. On the other hand though, as annoying as Noriko can be, if someone is the polar opposite of that, wouldn't they still be just as annoying in a different way? You never thought you'd find yourself wishing that Madoka would spring one of her random outings on you in your life. At least it's still early enough to make plans still. Any chance you had to catching up to the fairies is long gone, however.

[] Respond to Madoka, plan to accompany her.
[] Reply to Hideo, get in on the party idea.
[] You'll just stay home regardless. Couldn't be that bad.

[x] You'll just stay home regardless. Couldn't be that bad. Also gives you a bit of time to finish off your avatar.

[x] You'll just stay home regardless. Couldn't be that bad. Also gives you a bit of time to finish off your avatar.

[x] You'll just stay home regardless. Couldn't be that bad.

Hard to maintain an air of maturity over your peers if you can't interact with adults every now and then.

[x] You'll just stay home regardless. Couldn't be that bad. Also gives you a bit of time to finish off your avatar.

[Q] You'll just stay home regardless. Couldn't be that bad. Also gives you a bit of time to finish off your avatar.

>Noriko Watanabe

Kotohime?

[X] You'll just stay home regardless. Couldn't be that bad. Also gives you a bit of time to finish off your avatar.

>>88524

Don't tell me there's a meaning behind Watanabe that can coincide with the meaning to Noriko...

>>88527

No, I think Anon is just simple and hasn't yet realized who Yumiko is.

>>88529

I don't think I realize who she is either.

>>88530

Additionally, I wonder if I should make some kind of checklist of who you've met so far and who they represent, though that might be pretty pointless unless there's a lot of confusion.

>>88259

Didn't someone guess Yumeko before?

[X] You'll just stay home regardless, couldn't be that bad. Plus it'll give you a chance to finish off your avatar.

>>88537

Yumiko ("arrow child", med student, similar physical appearance to Kourin) = Eirin

Therefore:
Noriko ("straight edge princess") = Kags
Katsumi ("polar opposite of Noriko") = Mokou

>>88540

Well, shows how much I know/remember.

>>88540

I thought 'Noriko' was Shiki and 'Katsumi' was Komachi. You know, with the whole 'stickler for the rules' thing.

>>88617

That's what I thought of first too.
Meh, we'll just have to wait for the update to see who's right.

Nothing changed afterall, back to updating while my computer chugs.

This going on in a little bit once I write the update. Flight getting it's treatment by Monday at latest.

>>88785

hooray!

[X] You'll just stay home regardless. Couldn't be that bad. Also gives you a bit of time to finish off your avatar.

… Considering your options doesn't really do much for you. Hideo is a good guy, but he's kind of a pain to deal with at times, and you know that his 'parties' tend to revolve around him failing to impress girls, when they even attend, and Madoka, well, if she wants you to go badly enough she'll just come by anyway, so you might as well wait for that time. At this rate you should be able to finish up your avatar and be ready for then. Yumiko flips on the TV and zones out, and you get back to the work at hand. You make some progress, but little more than an hour passes when there's a knock at the door. You glance over at Yumiko, who looks a little annoyed.

“They're way too early,” she sighs, standing up and heading to the door. Yeah, you were under the impression you would have a few hours beforehand at least, so you could at least finish up your design and secure away the fairies. Speaking of which, you need to doublecheck your door first opportunity you get. You can already hear people coming into the house, and a familiar voice.

“Ah, hello Takeo,” Noriko says as she enters the front room alongside your sister, adjusting her glasses in the meanwhile. You look back to greet her, and instantly note the strange new choice of hair style. She's given up her normal dark brown, asymmetric style of fringed bangs for a lighter brown, asymmetric style in a side-tail. She notices the focus of your attention rather quickly, and smirks. “It's a new thing,” she says off-handedly, tilting her head slightly. Yeah. This is another thing about her, her strange attempts at making herself more 'visually friendly' to offset her otherwise rigid demeanor. Last time it was bright colours, and that just turned out to be a colour nightmare instead. This however just looks silly when compared to her otherwise conservative appearance, like someone really trying to hard to be cute.

“Uh, yeah, hi,” you say quickly, still kind of suppressing the urge to laugh. That urge quickly fades though, as a new face appears behind her, a girl with bright orange pigtails, easily head-and-shoulders over Noriko in height and also wearing glasses, though hers are clearly cyberglasses.

“You must be Takeo, Yumiko's younger brother, right?” the new face asks. That's about when you notice the rest of her. Tight shirt, short skirt, quite different from Noriko's normal appearance. This contrast must mean...

“You're Katsumi, right?” you ask, and her eyes widen slightly before a smile crosses her face.

“Oh, so you know me already then. No need to waste time with introductions I guess!” she cheers, walking over to the back of the couch. The closer she gets the more you realize just how tall she is. She must be over six feet at least. By the time she reaches the back of the couch, she's towering over you. You've never felt small compared to a woman before. She kneels down, resting her arms on the back and placing her head in her hands. “So, what have you heard about me?”

“Not a whole lot,” you say, covering for the fact that you've only heard mostly negative things about her, while also trying to keep your eyes off her cleavage. “Mostly that you're a friend of Noriko's and that you're her 'polar opposite'.”

“Hmm, I was expecting to hear 'flighty bimbo' or 'annoying tramp',” she says with a grin. “You're a good boy, aren't you?”

“He's a law abiding citizen,” Noriko interjects, approaching a chair near the couch. “Doesn't start trouble, stays out of bad business, though his attitude could use some improvements at time,” she continues. Ah good, you were wondering how long it would take before Judge Watanabe came out. Took just under five minutes this time, she must be holding back. Katsumi doesn't look too interested in any of that though, thankfully. Rather, her attention is focused on the screen in front of you.

“Knight Blazer avatar?” she asks, much to your surprise. You look back at the screen, then back to her. “The pauldrons are a little off, and that part on the chest here needs to be angled out more,” she directs, reaching past you to point out details on the screen. You don't see anything immediately wrong with it, but she seems to know what she's talking about. There's a thump on the couch next to you and a shout from Yumiko about jumping on furniture, and Katsumi leans over from her new spot next to you and pulls your screen away.

“Hey, wait!” you start, only to be turned away with a hand. Katsumi looks down at you and winks. Even sitting down she's taller than you.

“Let me take a shot at this, I've got a talent for this kind of thing,” she says, fully taking over control of the screen. She connects and sets to work, reshaping the pauldrons and crest. She then starts on the portion around the waist, working much faster that you had been. Guess she really does know what she's doing.

“You do this kind of thing normally?” you ask, watching her work.

“More or less, as a hobby,” she says. “Took a whole bunch of courses in whatever seemed interesting, but never really stuck around for any.”

“Katsumi doesn't have the attention span to attend a course for it's entire duration. She'd sleep through classes or simply not go, either too drunk, hung over or tired to bother,” Noriko explains.

“That didn't stop he from getting good marks when she did go though,” Yumiko adds. Katsumi doesn't seem to have any reaction to anything they're saying aside from a slight smile. Well, she's still busy with the avatar, and Noriko and your sister are wrapped up in their own conversation already, so you decide nows a good a time as any to check your room. You leave the couch and head towards the hallway to your room, just in time to see Sunny wander into view. You pick up speed and push her back out of the living room, hoping no one saw her. You wait for a few seconds to listen for anyone saying anything suspicious, then push on, guiding the fairy girl back to your room.

“Sorry Sunny, you've got to stay back here,” you say quietly, reaching your door. It's still quite awkward to be interesting with something that physically doesn't exist, as Sunny tries to shake you off to no avail while you feel absolutely nothing. The door to your room is open, as you had expected, and the others are still inside. Of course, these 'others' now includes Cirno. “What's going on here?”

“Hello!” Cirno says happily. You push Sunny into the room and close the door behind you when you enter.

“I take it the others brought you here?” you ask, and Cirno nods.

“I wanted to see where you live,” she says, looking down. “You're the first human I talked to, and you're taking care of my sisters, so...”

“Yeah, I get it,” you say, looking back at the door. “Could you do me a favour then, since you're here?” Cirno perks up a little. She seems eager to hear you out. “I don't want the others out there to see any of you, because it could create some strange misunderstandings. Can you all stay in here?” Cirno looks annoyed now.

“Why? I want to meet everyone else too,” she whines.

“Maybe some other time,” you say. “Not right now, please.”

“Why not!?” Cirno whines louder. At this rate, she might be overheard. You need to placate her somehow and convince her to do this.

[] Write in

---

Tried to come up with options but failed repeatedly.

>“Why not!?”

Why not indeed. Downstairs a college-age girl is making you an avatar from a kid's TV show. Yumiko already knows, and since this one actually talks, you can convince her you haven't been indulging in some kind of virtual perversion. And Noriko is sure to be interested in the AI from an ethics standpoint.

[x] "Okay, okay, you can come downstairs. Just remember that these are my sister's friends: They're trustworthy people, but they're also older, smarter, and stronger than I am, so I won't be able to protect you if it comes down to it."
[x] "Be assertive like you are now, and they're sure to be interested in you as a person, as opposed to as a 'thing'."

Fully expecting Cirno to point to Komachi and exclaim HOLY SHIT YOU'RE HUGE in a Yotsuba-and-Jumbo-like fashion.

>Downstairs a college-age girl is making you an avatar from a kid's TV show.

What.

[x] "Okay, okay, you can come downstairs. Just remember that these are my sister's friends: They're trustworthy people, but they're also older, smarter, and stronger than I am, so I won't be able to protect you if it comes down to it."
[x] "Be assertive like you are now, and they're sure to be interested in you as a person, as opposed to as a 'thing'."

>>88851

Or video game. Or whatever.

[x] "Okay, okay, you can come downstairs. Just remember that these are my sister's friends: They're trustworthy people, but they're also older, smarter, and stronger than I am, so I won't be able to protect you if it comes down to it."
[x] "Be assertive like you are now, and they're sure to be interested in you as a person, as opposed to as a 'thing'."

In during I was wrong about when I would update again.

Probably won't be updating anything until the weekend either.

[x] "Okay, okay, you can come downstairs. Just remember that these are my sister's friends: They're trustworthy people, but they're also older, smarter, and stronger than I am, so I won't be able to protect you if it comes down to it."
[x] "Be assertive like you are now, and they're sure to be interested in you as a person, as opposed to as a 'thing'."

You frown at the fairy girl. You were hoping you could just say no and she'd accept it. Guess you were wrong about that. With a sigh, you give in.

“Fine, you can come out, but listen carefully. The people down there are my sister's friends. They're good people, but they're older than I am. They're smarter and stronger too, so don't think I can protect you from them if things start to go wrong,” you explain, exaggerating a bit. As far as your sister and Noriko are concerned, you could probably easily over power the both of them. Katsumi on the other hand, she towers over you, and she does have some clear muscle to her as well, even if it's not obviously pronounced. On this track of thought though, you can't help but imagine her pinning you down easily, which you wouldn't really object to, but- Wait, no, you're getting distracted. “Just make sure to be assertive and you should be fine. You'll seem more like a person and less like a thing, which is really about all you can hope for.”

“Assertive?” Cirno repeats the word, sounding unsure. She doesn't know the word? Well, it makes sense, just because she can talk doesn't mean she knows every word. Guess she works like normal people in that way.

“It's how you're acting now, be confident in yourself,” you say. You've never really had to define the word before, but you think you've got it right. Never the less... “Just don't let them scare you.” Cirno gives you a smile and salutes.

“Got it! I'll do my best to be brave then!” she announces. You're still not really sure about this, but you doubt you'd be able to convince her otherwise, so you just let her go. You open the door and step aside, and she moves along on her own, heading downstairs. She announces her presence along the way, so if no one knew she was coming, they're well aware of her now. Now all you need to do is come up with some kind of explanation for her. At least you can take some time pretending you had to go to the bathroom. By the time you get downstairs, Katsumi and Noriko are both focusing on Cirno, while Yumiko's left behind without a pair of cyberglasses. You briefly wonder how strange it might all seem from her point of view to see people interacting with things that don't exist. Noriko is the first one to notice your return.

“How did you make something like this?” she asks, looking rather impressed. You wish you could claim it was your work.

“I didn't make her,” you say, walking up to the three. Cirno looks back at you with a confident grin, and you nod to her. “I guess you could say I found her.”

“Found? Where would you find such a thing?” Noriko continues, looking back at Cirno. Katsumi seems to be taken with Cirno as well, circling her and looking her over.

“Uh, would you understand if I said 'outside of space'?” you ask. Noriko doesn't seem too appeased with that answer, but doesn't question it.

“How much time have you spent looking into her origins?” she goes on to ask.

“He already knows,” Cirno says, getting a surprised reaction from Noriko. “Big Sister wakes us up in the Fairyland.” Noriko gives Cirno a strange look, then looks to you. You just shrug.

“It's like she says. I've checked into that as much as I can and I've found nothing. It's not something humans know about,” you say, a little surprised that you said humans rather than just people. Noriko looks a little amused at your choice of words too as she adjusts her glasses.

“I see,” she says, and looks at Katsumi. She seems to have finished her inspection, and looks a little confused. “Something wrong?” Noriko asks. Katsumi scratches her head, looking unsure.

“I don't know, I have a weird feeling,” she says. Cirno seems to take that as a compliment.

“That's because fairies are magical!” the fairy girl says. Katsumi grins at that, but still looks confused.

“I feel like I've seen you somewhere...” she says, rubbing her chin. She shrugs it off after a few seconds, heading back over to the couch. “Ah, I don't know, maybe I'm just imagining things.” She plops down on the couch. Noriko still looks intrigued.

“Do you mind if I borrow her for some time? I'd like to-”

“Hey!” Cirno shouts, cutting off Noriko and causing her to jerk back a little. “I'm not some toy, and I don't belong to anyone,” Cirno complains, flapping her wings. Well, she's sure making her point. Maybe a bit aggressive, but still. Noriko focuses on Cirno now.

“Fine then, I'll ask you directly. I'd like to do some research on how you were made. You could advance current understanding of AI considerably if I could get to the bottom of your programming,” Noriko says. Cirno crosses her arms over her chest and turns away, puffing out her cheeks.

“Hmph! As if! I already said I'm not a toy. If you want to know what makes a fairy, then why don't you try becoming one yourself?” Cirno turns to smirk at Noriko, then makes a face at her and steps away, stopping in front of you. “I'm happy for now!” she says, bowing to you. “Thanks for letting me in,” she says before rushing off back upstairs. You guess she's going back out your window now. You look back at Noriko, she seems a bit disappointed as she returns to the chair she was sitting in. She looks up at you after being seated.

“Well, you sure found something interesting,” she says, opening her console. “Of course, I'm not going to just leave it at that. Something like that is-”

“She's not a thing,” you say, cutting Noriko off. She gives you a disbelieving look.

“'She' is a program, Takeo, no matter how you look at it. An incredibly advanced program, yes, but that's all. Whoever created her has made a huge breakthrough, and for whatever reason it hasn't been made public. I intend to get to the bottom of it,” she says, looking back at her console. You just sigh. You knew Noriko was entirely grounded in reality, you should expect this from her, but it still bugs you. You can't help but think of Cirno as a person despite existing entirely in a virtual world, you just don't know how you can prove that point.

“Don't worry, Takkun,” Katsumi says, creating an annoying sounding nickname for you at the same time. “I think she's a real life fairy,” she says with a wink, then nods towards the game console still laying out. “By the way, what games do you have? Anything two player?”

“How's the avatar?” you ask, not having seen the window since you came back downstairs.

“Oh, well when that Cirno fairy came down, that was a bit more interesting, so I saved it and closed down the designer. It's mostly done though, you should be able to finish the job in a few minutes,” she says, getting off the couch and kneeling over by the TV stand to search through the games stacked within the cabinet. Well, seems she has her priorities set. You're considering your options when you receive a message. It's Madoka, and just as you expected, she's not content with simply waiting for a response to the message she sent earlier and is now directly asking if you're going to be joining her again tonight.

[] Katsumi seems like she could be a good gaming partner, stay home.
[] You should probably get ready to go join Madoka's 'expedition'.
[] You'd rather just relax in your room for the night and read or something.
[] There's probably something you could find to do outside on your own.

---

Updating both stories in one day? It's like suddenly I have work ethic again!

>>89743


[x] Katsumi seems like she could be a good gaming partner, stay home.

[X] Katsumi seems like she could be a good gaming partner, stay home.

Hot college chick who likes video games, and crafted an avatar based on one for us?

I have my target picked. My target aside from our three delicious faeries. Our inability to touch them makes me weep in despair.

[x] Katsumi seems like she could be a good gaming partner, stay home.

[x] Katsumi seems like she could be a good gaming partner, stay home.

Fact: Komachi is dependably awesome in every CYOA she appears.

[x] Katsumi seems like she could be a good gaming partner, stay home.

Madoka will always be having some kind of crazy plan, missing one won't really change much. After all, it's not too often you have someone that's genuinely interested in playing a game or two. Sure, Yumiko plays on occasion when there's nothing on TV or she's really bored, but this is something else. Something tells you that Katsumi is the kind that is legitimately into it. Just how good she is remains to be seen, though. Perhaps a test is in order.

“I have a pretty good fighting game, if that's your kind of thing,” you say, walking over to the TV stand as well. Katsumi scoots over to let you get in there, and you pick it out. It's a fairly new release, a home port of a recent arcade fighter that's gotten a lot of attention. It's a pretty popular game, so it should serve well enough. “Here we go.” You remove the disc currently in the system with the new game, and take up the second controller, then proceed to the couch, where Katsumi has already claimed the first controller.

“Let's get to it then,” she says. The game starts, and you're brought to the character select screen. You take your usual character, a well rounded fighter with some decent mid range quick attacks and a good mix up game. In contrast, Katsumi picks a fast fighter with a strong aerial moves. You feel pretty confident in yourself as the round begins, but a quick chuckle from behind you dismiss as nothing, you realize retroactively to be the first warning. Your confidence was prematurely placed, and the match quickly turns into a game of keep away, with you on the defense. Katsumi is better than you expected, though despite that, the matches are extremely close, with you just barely pulling out a win in the final round.

“Not too bad,” Katsumi says, smiling at you. “I have to give you credit, you're pretty good with him.”

“Ah, thanks,” you say, accepting her compliment. Though something seems off in her smile.

“Maybe I'll show you how to really use him,” she continues, her grin widening as the character select comes up again. Sure enough, she takes the same character as you, and what follows can only be described as a lesson in humility. Her level of play is so beyond you that you barely manage to chip away a quarter of her health bar before she lays you out. The final round, she's entirely untouchable. You get in a single hit total, and that's the match, and you're returned to the character select screen. “So? Learn anything?” Katsumi asks with an amused tone. You manage a quick chuckle.

“Yeah, I should probably practice a lot before I ever challenge anyone again,” you say, leaning back. Katsumi laughs a bit, then pats you on the shoulder.

“You're a good sport about it at least. Honestly though, if this were an arcade machine, you'd be a lot worse off. I'm not as used to a small controller like this,” she says, sounding a little full of herself. She has the right to, as far as you're concerned.

“I can't even begin to tell you how much money Katsumi has dropped on this game,” Noriko says, having watched the game from her chair. “She played it almost obsessively for a few days when she first found it, and she still makes weekly trips to arcades to lure unsuspecting and foolhardy boys to waste their money.” Katsumi hums in response.

“Though it's not too bad to be able to play it for free,” Katsumi says. “After all, some of the most fun can be had for free at home, with the right people.” She punctuates this with a short wiggle of her eyebrows, and quickly receives a reprimand from Yumiko.

“Don't even go there, Katsumi,” your sister declares, walking up behind the couch. Katsumi rolls her head back, smiling up at Yumiko.

“It was just a joke,” she says, grinning. “Come on, even I'm more subtle then that.” Somehow, Yumiko doesn't look like she buys it, and glares down at the girl, but she simply brushes it off and returns to the game. “How about a few more rounds then? I'll use someone else so we can have an even match,” she says. Sounds like a plan, even if you're now somewhat distracted by the implications of Katsumi's remark. It doesn't hamper your game any though. 'A few more rounds' is an understatement, the two of you take turns exchanging victories and defeat for nearly two hours, with a few breaks. At the end of the long war, the final match victory falls to you, and Katsumi places the controller on the couch and stretches out her arms.

“I think I like it better when I have a chance of winning,” you say, setting your controller down on the floor.

“Losing is also pretty fun too though,” Katsumi replies. “If you keep winning, you get cocky and become too set in a routine, then you get rusty with everything else. All someone needs to do is attack your weakness and you're thrown out of your loop and it's all over.” You think on that for a moment. There seems to be a bit of truth in that, fairly insightful considering it's about video games, of all things. A ringing catches your attention, and you look back to see Noriko answering her phone. After a few quick words, she hangs up and stands.

“I have to go, some work came up for me,” she says, straightening out her shirt. Katsumi groans a bit, and moves to stand up as well.

“Guess that means I have to go too. I don't have a key for our apartment and I don't want to be locked out,” she says as she stands up. Her console winks open, and a few seconds later you get a window, she wants to trade contact information. “After all, if I got locked out, I'd have nowhere to go and I'd have to come sleep in Takkun's bed,” she muses, delivering both the silly nickname and a delightful mental image. Of course, this also gets her yelled at by Yumiko. None the less, you accept the trade request, and her info is automatically logged in your contacts list. “Give me a call whenever, I'm always good for a game!” she says, heading off to the door. Yumiko goes after them, wishing them off as the two girls get their shoes on and get moving. Once the door closes, Yumiko walks back into the living room and glares at you.

“Don't let her flirting go to your head. Either of them,” she says. She seems kind of annoyed.

“Is it that big of a problem? I kind of liked it,” you say with a smile. Honesty is the best policy. Yumiko just glares harder, and sighs.

“You're such a guy...” she whines, shaking her head. “Regardless, don't take her too seriously.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” you say. You intend to file that information right next to 'having fun at home' and 'sleeping in Takkun's bed', where it will surely be eventually overshadowed and ultimately willfully ignored. While you're at the mental organization of information, you recall Madoka's excursion she had planned. You weren't occupied as long as you had expected you would be, but they've likely set off by now. You could still join them if you wanted to, all it would take is a message. Then again, if you were going to leave the house, you'd rather do it with your own plans

[] Madoka probably wouldn't mind if you were a bit late.
[] You'd rather go out on your own schedule. [Write in destination]
[] You're staying in tonight, you're going to enjoy some time alone.

I wish I had a Katsumi of my own.

>I wish I had a Katsumi of my own.
You and me both, brother. ;_;

[X] Madoka probably wouldn't mind if you were a bit late.

[x] This is the perfect time to make your dramatic and mysterious entrance as Knight Blazer, just when things weren't looking too good for our heroines!

[X] Finish up your avatar and then head off for Madoka's latest excursion.

[X] Finish up your avatar and then head off for Madoka's latest excursion.

[X] Finish up your avatar and then head off for Madoka's latest excursion.

[X] Finish up your avatar and then head off for Madoka's latest excursion.

Well, if you're going to be joining Madoka, you're going to need to finish up your avatar first. You open up the avatar designer and load your file. You notice a few slight changes immediately. Beyond working on the parts yet to be finished, she'd also gone through and touched up various other parts of the design. When she said that what was left would take you only a few minutes, she wasn't kidding. Really all that's left to do is a few details on the greaves and it's done. Getting onto that now then. It's a ridiculously simple touch up that even you can do, and a few additional details, finishing up with applying the colours and texture, and it's finished. You save the final file and then close down the designer, opening the manager in it's place. Since this is your only avatar, the list is pretty short. You select Knight Blazer and activate it. At once, a flickering light fills your vision, and when you look down at yourself, your cyberbody has been replaced with a high quality replica. You smile to yourself.

“Got kind of a weird grin going on there,” Yumiko says, dropping onto the couch next to you.

“Yeah, this turned out better than I expected,” you say. You deactivate the avatar for now, you'll turn it on again when you're about to join up with Madoka. You stand from the couch, and head into the kitchen area. Before you head out, you're going to have yourself something to eat. There's still some sandwiches from earlier left over, so you take a few of those and a can of juice. While you eat, you send a message to Madoka informing her of your intent to join her. After a few minutes, you get a reply, mostly intended to berate you for ending up late, though she does update you on her location. You finish eating and head towards the door.

“Going out?” Yumiko asks from the couch, craning her head back.

“Yeah, going to go see Madoka,” you say, slipping on a shoe. Yumiko returns to the TV, and you leave the house.

**

The choice of location this time is a series of back alleys out near a school. Thankfully not yours, at least. The walk takes you about half an hour, and as you get close to the area, you open up your tracker program. You immediately get a response from Madoka, which shows up as a ping on the map. You round a corner and see her, together with Mana and Maggie. You're surprised Chie isn't here, you suspected everyone would be back. Of course, everyone else has already set their avatar. Both Maggie and Mana's look more complete than they did before. Mana's would be a fairly normal business woman look, if it weren't for the red and black bat wings adorning both her head and back. Maggie's isn't that much different compared to before, simply the addition of some extra ribbon and lace. You smile again, knowing full well what you have in store. Mana points out your approach, and Madoka turns to you.

“How nice of you to finally join us!” she says with a smile. “Now we won't be so shorthanded without Chie.”

“She couldn't make it?” you ask, slightly curious. Madoka sighs.

“Her mom got a commission for some flower arrangements for a wedding, so Chie got pulled in to help her,” Madoka says, shrugging her shoulders. “I figured I should leave her be and let her work.”

“Then why doesn't that apply when I'm watching the store?” you ask, a little annoyed. Madoka grins devilishly.

“Well I could hardly call what you do work, after all. You sit behind a counter and occasionally count money. Something like that is just an excuse to be lazy,” she explains. Obviously she doesn't understand just how taxing it can be tending a store. After all, breaking in a chair is an extremely involved process, and those magazines aren't going to read themselves. You decide to leave the secret workings of retail alone for now, someone like Madoka could never understand.

“Well, before we go on,” you say, grinning wider as you open the avatar manager. “I should probably get into costume.” Madoka's eyes snap wide at that, and you activate your avatar once more. The same flickering light, and the change is complete, getting quite a surprised cry from the girl.

“Knight Blazer!” she exclaims, stepping forward to get a closer look. “Wow! Where'd you even find something like this?” she asks. Mana and Maggie look impressed as well, but as you had expected, only Madoka really gets it.

“I made it,” you say, and Madoka recoils in surprise.

“No way! Seriously? But it looks so good!” she cries, circling around you.

“Well, I did have a bit of help,” you say. “A friend of my sister saw it and she couldn't help but take a look. She did some touching up, but I made most of it.” Madoka eventually circles back in front of you and shakes her head.

“I can't believe you made something like this. I thought you were against the whole avatar thing,” she says.

“I was only against having a silly avatar,” you proclaim. “Having a totally badass one is another thing entirely.” Madoka smiles at that, then visibly gets more excited.

“Oh, I'm so much more energized for tonight!” she cheers. “Let's get started right away then. This area is pretty old, and I've heard that the space is outdated around here. It should be easy enough to find a foggy area if that's the case, but since there's a bit of ground to cover, we'll split up into two teams. Since you've got the best avatar,” Madoka pauses with a grin, “You get to choose who goes with you, and the other two pair up.”

[] Madoka. She's an old friend after all, so it's a natural choice.
[] Maggie. You've enjoyed spending time with her so far.
[] Mana. She's pretty resourceful, and you'd like to talk to her more.

[X] Mana. She's pretty resourceful, and you'd like to talk to her more.

Haven't spent much time with her yet. Plus, I love Koakuma.

[X] Mana. She's pretty resourceful, and you'd like to talk to her more.

[X] Mana. She's pretty resourceful, and you'd like to talk to her more.

[Q] Mana. She's pretty, resourceful, and you'd like to talk to her more.

[X] Mana. She's pretty resourceful, and you'd like to talk to her more.

“I'll take Mana,” then you say, gesturing towards her. Mana nods to you, and Madoka looks a little surprised but hops over to Maggie's side regardless.

“Alright then, it's settled!” she declares. “Alice and I will take the south end-”

“Alice?” you ask, cutting Madoka off. Her expression reveals that there's something you must have missed.

“Codenames, right, I forgot,” Madoka says, scratching her head. “Maggie's adopted hers already, Alice, as in 'Alice in Wonderland'. Mana's is 'Little Devil', and I'm 'Ma☆Risa.” Wow, she actually pronounced the star.

“Koakuma?” you say, looking at Mana. She's smiling. You're not entirely sure a name like that would fit someone like her, she doesn't seem the devilish type. Then again, you don't really know that much about her, which is why you chose her.

“Anyway, we can just call you Knight Blazer or KB or something. Maybe even just call you Kourin,” Madoka continues. “Since your avatar is a reference rather than something entirely original.” Well, makes sense, though you think you'd opt for simply Kourin.

“All right! Once again it's settled!” Madoka shouts, taking a hopping step away. “Come on, let's get moving!” With that, her and Maggie take off in their direction, leaving you and Mana to search the opposite way. You don't really know where to start, but you figure you can just walk around and-

“I've already prepared a course for us to follow,” Mana says, pulling up a window and turning it towards you. It's a local map, and just as she's said, there's a red line drawn over the map, starting where you currently are and navigating around the area. “This should let us check a large area fairly quickly, as we'll be passing through areas with good view distance and face very few obstructions.” She's already prepared for this, it seems, though to already have a course plotted?

“Just out of curiosity, do you have a course for the way Madoka went?” you ask, and Mana nods. A second window opens and she turns it towards you. “You prepared both at once then.”

“Of course I did,” she says, closing the spare window. “Chie values efficiency, and even though she's not here that's no excuse for me to be sloppy,” she says, taking a step away in the direction you're to go. “Now let's get going ourselves.” You start walking, and Mana takes up pace next to you. It dawns on you how strange this might look to anyone with glasses, some kind of devil and a man in armour walking through an alley?

“You're pretty good friends with Chie, aren't you?” you ask, getting right to your thoughts. Mana hums a bit in thought.

“It's a little more than just friends,” she says casually. Your heart jumps at that statement. Does she mean- “She's actually family,” she continues. Oh.

“I didn't know that,” you say, slightly disappointed in the revelation.

“She's the daughter of a cousin,” Mana says. “It might be a little distant, but she's still part of the family.”

“Well the way you two work together, you'd think the two of you were sisters,” you say. Mana smiles at that comment.

“I get along well with her,” Mana says, and the two of you turn a corner, to find the alleyway blocked by a wall. “Oh, I guess the map must have been out of date.”

“Let's go back then,” you turn to the map, looking for another way around.

“No need,” Mana says, walking towards the wall. She takes a quick running step and jumps forward, clapping her hands onto the top of the wall and pushing herself up. With a swing of her legs, she sits on top of the wall, then drops over onto the other side. She makes it look so easy. It takes you a good deal longer to get over the wall, but at least you manage to do it without falling. Mana is waiting patiently on the other side.

“That's another thing I want to ask,” you say as you land. “You seem pretty adept at climbing fences and vaulting walls. You got into that construction site last night pretty easily despite the fence.” Mana smiles again, though this time a little different than before.

“I guess that's what I'm getting at with my codename. A little devil with skills that don't match her image,” she says, stepping aside as you walk towards her and joining pace once again.

“So you have a deeper meaning to that name then?” you ask, curious.

“I like to be a little mischievous from time to time,” she says. “Though more often than not my pranks are done to Chie, because she's used to them.”

“I feel like you're avoiding a point,” you say. “How does that really relate to being able to jump walls?”

“Hmm, I guess you're right,” she says, continuing her smile. That's all you get from her though. Huh, oh well. With the current silence, the two of you keep an eye out for suspicious areas, primarily any place with fog. After a few minutes, you check the map again. You've covered a bit of the route so far, with the line having shortened to your current location. There's still some way to go. You get a call from Madoka. Seems Mana got one as well, because she answers first. You just decline the call.

“Hello,” she says into her hand. “Nothing yet, I'm afraid. We'll keep you informed.” With that, she disconnects.

“I take it she hasn't found anything yet either?” you ask the obvious question.

“We should probably pick up the pace and get results,” Mana says, taking up the map again. You get a sudden flash of inspiration, however. Opening your console, you connect to your partition and open a link. A large beige portal opens once again, and the three fairies are summoned from your room, much to Mana's surprise. “You have more?”

“Uh, yeah, I'll explain in a bit,” you say to Mana, turning to the three girls, each of which is looking around slightly confused. “Can you three help me out? I'm looking for outdated space, and I want to find it quickly. I thought you three might be able to find it easier.” The three fairies look between each other, but eventually all eyes come to rest on Star. She seems a little nervous, but closing her eyes, her wings begin to flutter, and a window opens, another area map. This time however, random sections start flashing.

“Out, date,” Luna says mechanically. Guess this must be what you need. The closest area is along your course, but it's more towards the end.

“This flashing area, let's go there,” you say, looking at Mana. She erases her map and plans a new route there, nodding to you when it's finished. You turn to the fairies again. “You three, go on ahead to this spot,” you point to the area on the map. They nod, and then the three of them actually begin to fly. It never occurred to you that they might be able to, but they are virtual reality after all. You snap back to the moment. You and Mana set out in pursuit, moving quickly.

“So, these girls are...?” Mana asks.

“They claim they're fairies, even though they exist in a virtual world. I don't know a lot about them, really. I found one of them in my room one night breaking the space in my wall, and the other two showed up to save her, I guess. I ended up registering them somehow, and so now they stay in my room on a partition,” you explain. Mana doesn't seem particularly concerned.

“And they have a connection to that Cirno as well,” she says, making the connection. “Interesting.” The two of you continue along the new path, ending up skirting through yards and crossing streets, until you reach the area. Curiously enough, the three fairies are standing a few feet outside the edge of the area, and they each look nervous for some reason.

“What's wrong?” you ask as you approach, looking past them. An area ahead is covered in a light fog rising from the ground. It's an outdated space alright. Though what's with the fairies?

“Home,” Luna says, looking over her shoulder at the foggy ground. You look at the space as well. Home? What does she mean by that? Does this have some kind of connection with that Fairyland or whatever? While you're excited at the prospect, something is off. Wouldn't they be acting different if that was the case? The three fairies look pretty agitated, and keep glancing at the patch of ground.

[] Call Madoka, inform her of your discovery and wait for her to arrive.
[] Send Madoka a message, but investigate while you wait.
[] Maybe you should leave it alone, find a new area.
[] What could be the harm? Maybe the fairies are just paranoid.

---

I think my plan is starting to work. If I can have a reliable update schedule, then I can have reliable votes, and then I can time updates better to get more out of a day!

[X] Send Madoka a message, but investigate while you wait.
[X] Try to get some more information out of the fairies.

[X] Send Madoka a message, but investigate while you wait.
[X] Try to get some more information out of the fairies.

[X] Send Madoka a message, but investigate while you wait.
[X] Try to get some more information out of the fairies.
- [X] "You want to go home, is that it?"
-- [X] If they affirm this, let them go home.

I assume that when they say "Home," that's actually where they want to go. We ought to send them back, as this might be something dangerous to them.

[X] Send Madoka a message, but investigate while you wait.
[X] Try to get some more information out of the fairies.

[X] Send Madoka a message, but investigate while you wait.
[X] Try to get some more information out of the fairies.

You decide to send Madoka an alert first, telling her what you found. After composing a short message, you send it along with your position and step towards the foggy patch. Mana follows along as well, but looks a little concerned over something. You're about to ask her what's wrong when Luna runs in front of you, causing you to stop.

“Eh? What's up?” you ask, looking at the winged girl. You're a little unsettled by the fact she looks scared, of all things.

“Home, please,” she says with the same patched together voice work. You understand her words a little better this time, you think. You step look back at the other two. Sunny looks like she's trying to hide behind Star. No, something is wrong. You turn to Mana, and she looks just as concerned as you are now.

“My pet is acting weird as well, it seems,” she says. “I keep getting error messages, even though she's not active.” You step away from the fog, leading Luna away.

“What's wrong?” you ask her. She glances over your shoulder at the fog.

“Bad, ground,” she says. You're starting to wish she had more consistent emotion to her voice. For as worried as she looks, her vocal expression is limited only to whatever words she uses. You can't quite piece together what she might mean, either. Bad ground? Well, it's out dated, sure. Maybe for a virtual pet or something there's a risk of falling into nothingness if it winked out or something, but these girls can fly, as it would seem. Would they really be in that kind of danger. Whatever the problem is though, it seems to really have them upset, so you decide to at least get them out of here. You connect to the partition again and open a link once more, intent on sending the fairies back. As soon as the portal opens, Sunny and Star make a run for it, but Luna doesn't go along with them.

“Home,” she says, staring straight at you. “Come, home.” It seems she wants you to leave too. To be honest, you're kind of considering it, but you place a hand on her shoulder.

“I'll be okay,” you say. Luna frowns and grabs your arm, and for a second you feel a tingling sensation. It has to be nerves, this situation is incredibly unusual, and you're a little on edge. Wouldn't be strange to have weird feelings like this, right? You place your free hand over Luna's. “I'll be fine, please, go home.” Luna looks rather frustrated at your insistence, but eventually lets go and steps towards the portal, vanishing into it. You close the connection, looking back at Mana.

“Let's get this over with then,” she says, turning to the fog and stepping in. You follow a few steps behind, entering the area. The ground shimmers with each step, square patterns flickering around your feet. Yeah, this space is really outdated. You tap the ground with your foot and it gives way, vanishing into a black hole with a white spot in the center.

… Wait, white spot? You take a step back as more and more of the visual of the ground falls away, eventually leaving you standing over an empty black void. Error messages flicker randomly throughout the area, but what catches your attention are the now two spots of white, both of which are now rising towards you. This...

“Mana, get back,” you say, making a quick backpedal. She hesitates for a moment before following, and a large black form slowly rises from the ground, the two white spots raising into the air as a huge black shadowy shape emerges from the hole in space. Along with it, several smaller tendrils begin to pour out. “This is an illegal?” A strange sound echoes through the area that feels like it came from underground, the howl of bending steel on the verge of breaking.

“This is... impossible,” Mana stutters, not seeming to believe her eyes. The large illegals 'head' shifts towards the two of you and begins to move closer. Mana keeps stepping away. This, the fairies must have known this was here, this must be what made them so afraid. A movement catches your eye near the ground, and you notice one of the black tendrils wrapping around your foot, causing the graphics to glitch and fade. You yank your foot free and take a short hop back, then raise your hand towards the huge virus, blasting it with a sustained shot from your mega-be. It's hardly phased at all, and the sound echoes once again. Just then you get a call from Madoka. Not really the time to be answering calls. You look back at Mana.

“Let's get away from here,” you say, before turning back to the large... thing. Can you even call it a creature? The black mass moves forward, and the ground outside the black hole begins to give away as well, and the thing inches forward. Yeah, you're definitely leaving now. “Mana, throw up a wall, and we'll run.” It takes only a few seconds for her to toss up a BrickWall, and as soon as the tag begins to unfurl, the two of you make a hasty retreat. You make it to the nearest corner, when you nearly run into Madoka and Maggie.

“Whoa! Jeez what's wrong with the two of you?” she asks, sounding annoyed. “You're not answering my calls, and I find you two running away? You get in trouble with someone for snooping around their yard? What was that sound?” Your mind is a little blanked from the current experience, so you're at a loss to explain, but thankfully Maggie notices first.

“What is that!” she shouts, pointing at the looming black shape. Madoka looks over and gives a start as well. That's about when you find your words again.

“Some kind of illegal or something, I don't know. The fairies were terrified to get near the old patch,” you say hurriedly. Madoka looks back towards the illegal. From the looks of it, the wall didn't hold it back long. It's not fast enough to catch up to you quickly, but you should still run all the same. Something like that would crash your system entirely for sure, and you don't want to risk that under your circumstances. In hindsight, this must be why Luna wanted you to leave too. Of course, Madoka doesn't seem to be having any of that. In fact, from her smile...

“I'm going to get closer to that thing!” she announces, pushing past both you and Mana trying to stop her. You feel like she's marching to her death, even though it's all just data. How can she not be disturbed by something like that. Despite your better instincts, you chase after Madoka, who has started jogging back down the alley. The thing has gotten a bit closer now. Madoka stops and you catch up to her, grabbing her shoulder.

“Are you retarded? This thing could burn out your glasses entirely,” you say, pulling on her to get her to come with you. She shrugs you off, looking over her shoulder with a cocky smile.

“A Heroine of Justice doesn't run away! You have a lot to learn, Knight Blazer,” she says, flashing you a thumbs up. She turns back to the thing, and several tendrils reach out again, wrapping around Madoka's legs. She takes a step back quickly, breaking their hold, and the 'head' raises up. Part of Madoka's feet vanish briefly, flickering back after a second. “Whoa, this thing is bad,” she says. You step back as the things head parts, opening a mouth? You step forward to grab Madoka again, but stop short when a large tentacle wraps around her, causing her to jump slightly. She starts to reach for a pocket just as the head lunges forward and closes in around her.

You start to take off your glasses so you can see her, until a bright flash of light fills your view, and the dark form surrounding Madoka dissolves into the air as a huge beam of light blasts out from Madoka's outstretched hands, fading after a second. Again the sound of twisting steel resounds, and Madoka shudders. Her entire appearance is flickering, and parts of her arms and legs have glitched out entirely, but is seems she's still in operation. The entire alley as far as you can see has been damaged by the attack, with the walls and ground flickering in places and completely out in others.

“I'm surprised you're still running,” you say, looking at the mass of blackness writhing around the opening in the ground.

“Remind me to do a full system check later,” she says with a grin that's partially faded into static. She turns her attention back to the illegal, and raises her hands again, holding that box thing Chie gave her. She angles it towards the ground more, into the opening in the ground that it rises from, and another blast of light is fired downwards. Everything outside the hole evaporates quickly as it's cut off by the brilliant beam. After a few seconds, nothing more emerges from the large hole. Madoka takes off her glasses, and you lift yours as well.

“This laser thing is really bright, it hurts my eyes,” she complains, turning away from the otherwise completely normal looking alleyway. It's such a bizarre scene. You know that there is a gaping hole in the alleyway where, moments ago, there was a huge black shadow towering over everything, and it never existed. In this world, a redheaded teenage girl is absently rubbing her eyes. You'd never know she just 'defeated' some kind of 'monster' with a huge damn laser. Madoka is smiling to herself. “That was pretty cool though, I felt like a real hero, destroying a monster.” You feel a lump in your throat. You hate to admit it, you really do, but you have to agree. You just grin at her instead of voicing your thoughts, however.

“Well thank you for saving the day Madoka,” you say sarcastically, and she gives you a strange look.

“What was that?” she asks. You sigh.

“So you want me to chalk this up to 'Ma☆Risa'?” you ask. Madoka purses her lips for a moment.

“Maybe the star really is a bit much...” she says idly. That seems to be all she has on her mind at the moment. “You think there's more of those things around here?” she asks. You lower your glasses again, half expecting to see some kind shadow hydra looming behind her now, but all you see is an ominous pair of red shapes buzzing down the alleyway towards you, trailing several flying circles.

“Whoa, time to move,” you say, grabbing Madoka's arm and pulling her along. She catches her footing quickly, though she doesn't put her glasses back on.

“What are we running from? Is it back?” she asks. You reach Maggie and Mana, both of whom seem a little confused by events.

“Time to get out of here. Some Satchii have shown up,” you tell them, and that's all you need to get them moving, and now Madoka, who has picked up running on her own at the sound of that news. The lot of you make your escape from the scene.

**

“That was pretty crazy,” Madoka says with a sigh, lowering the can of juice from her mouth. After leaving the alley network, the group of you went by a convenience store and stopped to rest in a park. Madoka declared the day a success despite not finding anything beyond some kind of internet monster.

“How can something like that even exist?” Maggie asks, still bewildered by the whole thing. “I mean, wouldn't it have been wiped out quickly if it was that big?”

“Who knows,” you answer. You have no idea what could cause something like that. There have been scattered tales of large, unexplainable things in cyberspace over the years, starting with tales coming out of Daikoku, but you were never sure what to make of them or the lack of information or explanation behind them.

“Whatever it was, I feel like space is a little safer after I blasted it!” Madoka states, sitting forward. Back into the Hero mindset you see. Actually, that reminds you.

“I did shoot at that thing, but my beam didn't do anything,” you say, taking a drink from your bottled water. “Probably too weak to do much.”

“Are you scared of the illegals, Takeo?” Madoka asks with a bit of a mocking tone. You just give her an unamused glare.

“There are things on my system I don't want to risk losing,” you say, bringing the fairies to mind. You're not sure what would happen to them if your glasses burnt out. Would they be okay? “I don't even know if there'll ever be another illegal that size, but I think I'd prefer to be prepared for next time just in case.” You glance at Mana. She looks like she's sad about something.

“I can understand that,” Madoka says, drinking down the last of her juice. “I'd say that's it for the night.” As if there was any question about that. Tomorrow it's back to school, so you're not going to be spending all your time running around anyway. Everyone sets off once again to head home.

**

You reach your own house roughly 40 minutes later, after having seen Mana and Maggie off, then walked Madoka by her street. The door isn't locked, so you just enter. You take off your shoes, walk into the living room, and find Sunny sitting on the couch next to Yumiko. You're surprised to see Sunny out in the first place, your sister must have went into your room for something at some point and left the door open. You consider asking her what she was doing until you circle around the couch and realize she's fallen asleep. Sunny, of course, is more distracted by the TV. It's still too early for her to be out for the night, but you're not going to bother waking her up. She'll get up on her own later. As far as you're concerned, you still have a few hours left to kill before bed.

[] Get some gaming done.
[] Relax in your room.
[] Browse internet sites for:
-[] Strange sightings
-[] 'Fairy' news
-[] Program updates and releases
-[] … 'Katsumi Funatabi'.
-[] Cyberspace news

[] Apologize to Luna. You feel horrible for not having trusted her.
[] Get your mind off the incident and browse Internet sites for:
-[] Strange sightings
-[] ‘Fairy’ news
-[] Program / game updates and releases
[] Begin planing an avatar loosely based on the character Kai kiske.

[] Apologize to Luna. You feel horrible for not having trusted her.
[] Get your mind off the incident and browse Internet sites for:
-[] Strange sightings
-[] ‘Fairy’ news
-[] Program / game updates and releases

[x] Apologize to Luna. You feel horrible for not having trusted her.
[x] Get your mind off the incident and browse Internet sites for:
-[x] Strange sightings
-[x] ‘Fairy’ news
-[x] Program / game updates and releases

>>89927

It's all about new Ky now.

[x] Apologize to Luna. You feel horrible for not having trusted her.
[x] Get your mind off the incident and browse Internet sites for:
-[x] Strange sightings
-[x] ‘Fairy’ news
-[x] Program / game updates and releases

[x] Apologize to Luna. You feel horrible for not having trusted her.
[x] Get your mind off the incident and browse Internet sites for:
-[x] Strange sightings
-[x] ‘Fairy’ news
-[x] Program / game updates and releases

First thing on your mind is Luna. You realize now that she must have known that something like that was there, and had tried to warn you as best as she could. You feel a little bad that you sent her along without you, but you're thankful you're did at least. It makes you think just how difficult it must be to not be able to get your point across. Maybe you should teach Luna some new words if that's the case. She's limited to what she can use after all, if you expand her vocabulary, then she can be better prepared for anything that might happen. You leave Sunny behind and head upstairs to see if Luna is in your room. She is, as it turns out, though she's standing at your door. You get the feeling she was waiting to see you, because she looks both relieved and mad to see you.

“Hey Luna,” you say, taking a few steps towards your door. “I'm sorry for not listening to you.” Her expression softens a bit, but she bows her head a little. She seems frustrated again. “I know now that I should have listened to you, and I'll be sure to take your advice in the future if I ever need to again,” you continue, looking down the hall. In all honesty you feel kind of strange about this whole thing. She's not a real girl, but you're apologizing to her like she was. She looks like she has emotions, but...

“Ta-”

You turn your head back to Luna, did she just say something?

“Ta-keo...” Luna says, looking like she's in pain, clutching at her skirt. Well, if she doesn't have emotions, she does a very good job at imitating them. You notice that her image begins to flicker slightly.

“Are you okay?” you ask, a little concerned. Luna closes her eyes.

“I, want... to speak...” she continues. Strange, that last bit... “I want to speak...” She's losing the mechanical sound to her voice? “I want to speak normally to you, Takeo!” Both you and Luna jump a bit in surprise, with Luna's hands rising to her mouth. You see Star pop up behind Luna, looking surprised as well. You weren't just imaging it, Luna's voice. She looks up at you, her face slightly red tinted. “I can...” she murmurs.

“You can talk after all?” you ask, confused and surprised all at once. Luna shakes her head.

“I can n-now,” she says, stammering a bit in the mean time. “I-I...” You're at a bit of a loss yourself. You think maybe you should try to console her to calm her down a bit for no- “You idiot!”

“Whoa, wait, what!?” you shout, stepping back at the sudden insult. All of Luna's nervousness and apparent shyness gone just like that, replaced in full force by anger.

“Why wouldn't you listen to me if you knew there was danger!?” she yells, stomping her foot. Ah man.

“I figured there was something you were scared of, I didn't know it was something like that,” you say, waving your hands. It's true, really. You never expecting something like a huge illegal to pop out of the ground. Luna furrows her brows.

“You have no idea how frustrating it is to try to warn someone to have them completely ignore you like that!” she continues, stepping towards you. You feel like she's going to slap you, but then you remember that she can't physically effect you. Doesn't stop you from cringing a little. Wait...

“Actually, I do,” you say, remembering Madoka and her stubborn refusal to heed your own warnings. Okay, so she was able to get through it unharmed, mostly, but still. “Except, well, I guess I wasn't as limited as you were.” Luna still looks mad, though she retreats a little. Her wings are fluttering a bit now and then too. After a few seconds of angry glaring, she breaks into a whining sigh.

“I finally find my voice and I use it to yell at my caretaker,” she complains, shaking her head.

“That's an interesting way to start talking,” you quip, hoping to lighten her mood a bit. It doesn't seem to work.

“Maybe if you weren't such a foolhardy human you wouldn't be getting yelled at,” she responds, adding yet another sigh and dropping her head. Something tells you that you'll be hearing a lot of those. Though this new situation brings a lot of new things to mind.

“Like I'm said, I'm sorry. I didn't know what I was going up against there,” you say. “I was actually thinking on my way up here that I could teach you some new words you could use to warn me in the future but, well, guess you won't need the help now.” Luna looks up at you.

“You were going to do that?” she asks. You nod.

“So that you could help me out in the future if something like that were to ever happen again, you could tell me,” you continue. “You know, my main concern after that thing came out of the ground was getting away so I wouldn't take damage, because I was worried about what would happen to you three if my glasses were burnt out.” Once more, Luna's face turns red, but she catches herself and throws her head aside in defiance.

“I'm touched, but I'm more resilient then that. We'd have made our escape if we felt the system was in danger,” she says. You casually make a mental note to test Luna further for more tsundere qualities in the future.

“If you don't mind, though, since you can talk now I was wondering if I could ask you some more questions now,” you state, hoping you can get new information that could help you out. Luna turns away from you however.

“Maybe some other time,” she says. “I'm still annoyed, so unless you have some way of making it up to me, you'll just have to wait.” Well, you can't even begin to know what you could do to cheer her up. You resign yourself to defeat on this matter for now.

“Okay then, I'll ask some other time,” you say, stepping back. Luna looks back at you, visibly annoyed. Did she expect you to beg or something? She walks into your room and disappears from sight. Now it's your turn to sigh. While this is a good development, you get the feeling that Luna has a lot of repressed emotions she'll want to air out before she's ever on a stable level again. Your questions are still all at the forefront of your mind, though, especially more so now after this. What changed that allowed Luna to begin speaking normally? Is this something that all these 'fairies' possess, or is it something special? You can't help but wonder when Sunny or Star might start talking on their own, even though Luna had the lead by being able to replay recordings. Did Cirno have the same thing? So many more questions and not enough answers to sate them all. One thing is very clear to you now. You have got to learn more. You look back to your room. Luna's probably in there sulking in a corner and being mad. As much as you don't want to let that stop you from using your own room, you decide it's for the best to let her cool off for now. You turn to the stairs, and see Sunny peeking her head around the top, and she slinks back a bit when you see her. Well, guess that's a given that she'd be nearby. You can't help but imagine she probably overheard the commotion. You walk to the stairs, and Sunny hops past you and runs into your room, likely to go see Luna. You make your way back to the living room where Yumiko's taken up the entire couch.

Instead, you take the nearby chair, sitting with your legs draped over the arm. You open your console. Even if you can't have your questions answered right now, that's not going to stop you from trying to dig out the answers from various sources. It might help you take your mind off the events of the day as well, and if you find anything interesting, you could always inform Madoka of it. If anything, it's an excuse to get close to a couple of girls for a few hours and have a good time. While the purpose of the exercises are dubious at best, the company is admittedly pretty okay. Let's see then, look out for strange sighting news. You know a few good sites to check for that, so you just-

You immediately find yourself filled with regret at your decision. At your first stop, a popular rumour mongering web page for the city, you find the entire top page plastered with images of you and Mana facing the huge illegal beast, headlined with the title 'Demons of the Space!" A Masked Hero Emerges!!' The pictures look like they were taken from inside a home near the site judging from the angle, and not just pictures of you, but Madoka and a hastily snapped picture of Maggie at the far end of the alley. There's an article that follows it all, narrating the events and providing pictures of the major points.

'In the early evening, a strange anomaly formed in an obsolete alleyway that gave birth to an enormous monster illegal that threatened everything in it's path! Enter our mysterious masked hero and his group of lovely sidekicks. The Heroes initial attack proved ineffectual against this terrible beast (oh no!), and the two leaders decided a strategic retreat was in order, but then... one brave member steps forth, prepared to put her life (and glasses!) on the line to defend her team mates! (How brave!)

This black clad beauty made a defiant stand against the creature, but all hope seemed lost when she was swallowed whole! That's when she unleashed her amazing power, the terrible 'Master's Spark' and blew away the demon from the inside out! Injured, but now defeated, the brave girl fired a second shot into the black depths of space and vanquished the beast! Surely a courageous display worthy of the finest Heroes of Legend! After the battle, the area was beset by the dreaded Satchii, and the group made a quick break from the scene. Who are these mysterious warriors of Justice, and what drives them against the terrible Illegals of Cyberspace? Only time will tell! We will try to bring you more news on this vigilante bands of virus busters, so stay tuned!'

Oh. My. God. Madoka is going to blow her lid if she ever sees this article. You can only hope she never- Nope, she's calling you. You brace for her reaction as you connect the call.

“He-”

“Oh my God! Did you see this article on us!?” her voice rings through your hand. “Chie linked me to it just a few minutes ago and oh my God! Heroes of Justice! Like I've been saying!”

“Yeah, I saw it,” you reply, trying not to talk too loud. “I was just reading it actually.”

“Of course, the journalistic quality leaves something to be desired,” Madoka whines. “Like you and Mana being the leaders? As if! I should have made a bigger show about it for now. I do like that part about me though. Black clad beauty?” You let Madoka babble on for a bit more, raving about the article and the entire idea. Now that this has happened, you guess there's no going back. There's just one thing about it you want to make clear.

“Madoka, we should keep our, uh, identities secret,” you say, looking at the article.

“Absolutely!” comes the near instantaneous response. “Mysterious Heroes lose all their charm if everyone knows who they are. It's more dramatic when they appear from nowhere to save the day as well. We're going to need to be discreet, but...” Madoka pauses. You're getting a strange feeling you know what's coming next. “We should try to get a few more members.”

“Members?” you parrot.

“For our group! The party balance is a little off. So far only I have any real firepower, even though Chie made it for me. No one else has any real combat power, so you all need to get buffed up, and we need to get some more help. It's like...” Madoka stops to think for a moment. “If I'm the tank of the party, and Chie is the weapon and supply outfitter, we'll still need a melee damage, ranged damage, magical damage and a healer.” She's already slipped into her fantasy world again. Well, actually it seems that quite a few people have as well already, considering this article. You wonder though if anyone takes it seriously. A quick glance at the comments removes all doubt. Everyone is buying it. Great. “Hey, are you listening?”

“Oh, what? I kind of spaced out for a second,” you say. Madoka laughs at you over the line.

“Dreaming of fame already? I thought you said this was a silly idea?” she asks. “But anyway, I was asking you a question. We're going to need to figure out our party balance, so what role do you want?”

[] “Maybe I should take over as the tank.”
[] “I'd say I'm suited for melee.”
[] “I'd prefer to stay out of danger with ranged.”
[] “Magical damage, maybe? How would that work?”
[] “I should probably be the one to heal.”
[] “No way, this it way too far gone for me. I'm not doing this.”

---

In before this bites me in the ass.

Also, unexplored vote options from the current winning vote will be carried over into the next update. On the subject of updates, I'm working on the Flight update still. Should be ready tomorrow sometime, might not be writing much more today, since I'm going to be forcing myself to stay awake as long as possible to reverse my sleep schedule.

[Q] “I'd say I'm suited for melee.”

'cause we're Knight Blazer.

[x] “I'd say I'm suited for melee.”

Hot Fencer all the way.

[x] “I'd say I'm suited for melee.”

[x] “I'd say I'm suited for melee.”

[X] “I'd say I'm suited for melee.”

We're playing alongside the touhous. Someone's got to be pulling melee. Plus, we look like the leader evidently, and the leader should always be right up at the front of the action.

>a popular rumour mongering web page for the city... headlined with the title 'Demons of the Space!" A Masked Hero Emerges!!'
SHAMEIMARU/

[X] “I'd say I'm suited for melee.”

[x] “I'd say I'm suited for melee.”

“I guess I'd in for the melee position,” you say, even though you're not sure what that would really entail. You can only imagine.

“Great!” Madoka shouts. “I'll call everyone else too to see what they think. I'll see you tomorrow, bye!” With that, she hangs up. You hang up yourself with a sigh, looking back at the site. You look over the comments. Even in the last 5 minutes there's been well over 40 comments made. The latest run of them seem to be theorizing about the group and all your names. 'Black Knight' is one of the most prevalent for you, with Madoka being simply called 'The Witch'. You... you shouldn't feel like this... but you want to correct them.

“The armoured man calls himself 'Knight Blazer',” you write into the comment field. “The winged girl goes by Koakuma, and the witch calls herself Marisa. The last one is named Alice.” You post the comment, then open a second window. You still have some things you want to look up, namely the fairies. You search a few sites, turning up several hits, but all of them cover the same material, that being the sighting of Luna and the others flying around. The stories are all mostly the same as well, though they're mostly written from an unknowing perspective. After all, it's not like others could have the knowledge about these three that you do. That reminds you though, you made some posts the other day about the fairies. You should probably check those out. You bring up the two sites, and click through to find your posts. Seems there've been people on both sites that took what yous aid and ran with it, spouting crazy theories all the while. There are a few demands for pictures and other folks asking for more details. Not really anything new or worthwhile, really, though there seem to be a few people that have begun to consider some connection between your post and the recent news of the same three girls been seen in the air. You figure it's just best to let things stew for a bit longer. You don't feel like it right now. Another quick search only turns up more of the same old stories you've seen since last time. At this rate, you might end up making all the news you're going to be reading.

You give up on that endeavour, instead opting to check out something else, primarily program updates. It's been a while since you last did a check, so you expect there to be a few things. At the same time, you decide to keep your eyes open for games as well. The basic system upgrades are easily found and applied, and you continue on to look for anything else in your system that has a patch. You find that your cyberpouch got a version upgrade that improves sorting methods and makes it easier to locate the items you need, which is handy even if you don't have a very diverse selection to worry about. Yet, at least. A couple dozen Walls, various metatags for things like system scans, damage repair and manually opening a link between systems, along with several for more questionable purposes like changing traffic signals and forcing shutdowns on nearly anything with a connection to cyberspace. You keep things like that on hand for emergencies though, at least that's your justification. After that patch, there's not too much else, and as far as new programs go the well is dry, at least for things you don't already have, or have access to through others. Same thing for games as you soon find. Seems it's the dry season. Well, it is a few weeks away from Summer. Oh well, what you already have will hold you over for a while yet. You stifle a yawn as you close down the browser windows. You get back to the rumour site, and refresh one last time. There's been a lot of comments responding to your message, but it's still a chaotic mess. There are people who have adopted the names you've used, but there are still many that use other names still. Well, that's good enough for you. You close the window and slide off the chair, stretching your legs. You're kind of tired now yourself, so you decide to go to bed. After you hit the bathroom at least.

Afterwards, feeling better, dressed for bed and having a lingering taste of mint in your mouth, you head to your room. The three fairies are grouped up in the corner again, sleeping. You actually kind of feel bad for them in that situation, but what exactly can you do? Prepare beds? Well, maybe just one would work for all three of them... Now is not the time for that though, you'll think about that some other time, like when you wake up. You remove the glasses, and the fairies vanish. That's another weird feeling as well, that for as much as you can interact with something like Luna, in the end she's not real. It starts to gnaw at you just how many unanswered questions you have about the whole thing, though you manage to chase the thoughts away. Last thing you want to do is start losing sleep. You're sure that you'll get to the bottom of all of this some time. You slip into your bed and roll onto your side. Sleep comes easily.

**

Morning comes easily as well. You can hear some movement from within the house already before you open your eyes, Yumiko must be up then. You roll over, blinking against the morning sunlight as you pick up your glasses from the edge of your desk. Your first priority is to check the time, finding that it's still an hour until you have to get ready to leave. The events of yesterday start to come back to you as well, now feeling like they were a dream all along. You kind of wish they were, in a way, because then you would know that Madoka wouldn't have anything to be spastic over. You grin at yourself in your head. Yeah right, Madoka would always have a reason to get worked up over something. You slip your glasses on, and first thing you see is Luna sitting in your still open window.

“Good morning,” you say to her, pushing yourself up into a sitting position. Luna looks back at you, a slight trace of annoyance still present in her face, but not as much as it was yesterday.

“Morning,” she says, looking back outside. You consider trying to talk to her right now, but you figure you should probably hold off until after you get home, if only because you don't know how long it will take to get good information, and you don't want to have to leave in the middle of an important part and have it bug you for the rest of the day. You slip out of your bed and take up your clothes. You'd change in your room, but given the circumstances you think that would be very awkward, so instead you make your way to the bathroom. In a short time, you're changed and ready for breakfast. Yumiko is indeed already up and milling around the kitchen preparing coffee, and looks a little grumpy over something. “Good morning sis.”

“Yeah, morning,” she grumbles. “My neck is sore from sleeping on the couch like I did.”

“You slept all night out here?” you pose a rhetorical question.

“I'm still tired. Thankfully I don't have anything to do today that you can't do for me,” she says. You can guess what's coming.

“My night on shift at the store, I take it?” you ask, once again as a rhetoric.

“You got it,” she replies, taking up her coffee. You go about preparing your breakfast, eggs and toast. You actually find the idea of tending the store to be welcome, considering the excitement of last night, having a day or three of normality would be nice. You doubt your luck is that good, but you can still dream. Post meal, you check the time again. Still got about half an hour to go before you have to leave.

[] Leave early.
[] Leave early, and look to meet up with Madoka.
[] You'd rather wait until the absolute last minute to still make it.
[] You don't particularly mind if you're late.

[] Leave early, and look to meet up with Madoka.

[x] Leave early, and look to meet up with Madoka.

[x] Leave early, and look to meet up with Madoka.

[x] Leave early, and look to meet up with Madoka.

[ze] Leave early, and look to meet up with Madoka.

If I don't update this by tonight, it will be by tomorrow morning.

[x] Leave early, and look to meet up with Madoka.

You should get moving, get going a bit early. On top of that, you think you should try to intercept Madoka. You get to gathering together what you'll need, realizing only now that you hadn't had the time or thought to prepare a lunch beforehand. You still have some money, though, so you could always buy lunch. Packing your wallet and school bag, you make your way out of the house and off towards Madoka's house. Thankfully, it doesn't take you the entire trip, as you cross paths with her at an intersection along the way.

“Oh, hey!” she calls out to you as she sees you, entering some kind of half-jog to catch up to you. “What are you doing coming this way?”

“I thought I'd meet up with you,” you say, turning back around to head in the right direction. Madoka follows along beside you. “See what you had in mind after last night.” Madoka smiles a typical crazy smile.

“And here you were not more than a few days ago saying you'd have none of this 'magical girl' nonsense,” she muses. You give her a serious look.

“It's not magical girls, it's a badass in armour and his helpers,” you say, totally straight faced, though that doesn't last very long. “I still don't know what to make of the entire situation, really. That illegal or whatever it was yesterday...”

“I hope we find more like it!” Madoka says excitedly. Yeah, typical. “Our first showing was just misunderstood. Once we get a few more stories, people will realize I'm the leader.”

“What about the others?” you ask.

“Well, Mana didn't have a preference, and I think Chie was trying to dodge the question when I asked her. Maggie said she'd be fine being the ranged attacker,” Madoka says. “It's not the best, but we could try to make the other two take a role. We might still need to fill in a gap or two though.” You smirk.

“And how would you do that? How can you even advertise something like that even? 'Wanted: Skilled individual looking to work with talented group of superheroes. Please bring own costume.'?” you joke. Madoka takes it seriously, of course.

“That's awesome!” she blurts. “I should put up posters around the school.” You don't even have a response other than to just shake your head.

“Isn't there a problem with the 'team' idea though?” you ask. “I mean, it seems like we're operating under the assumption that there will be a point where we'll all need to fight something. Do we really need a full 'party'?” Madoka wastes no time in thought.

“Of course! Being prepared is important!” she declares. “It's better to be ready for the possibility than be caught off guard at all.” Well, that does make some kind of sense. Doesn't stop it from sounding like it might be a bit excessive.

The rest of the walk to school is uneventful, with the conversation slipping into small talk and general chatter.

**

A typical school day passes, though you do hear a bit of chatter during and between classes regarding the mysterious band of heroes that appeared lately, as well as rumours that it was all staged or photomanipulation. Cyberglasses or no, the internet is still the internet after all. You wouldn't have believed it yourself if you weren't there to see if first hand. You get a message from Madoka a few minutes before lunch, indicating a meeting with her and Chie, though your stomach is already does not seem to wholly agree with that plan.

[] You should probably make the meeting a priority.
[] They can wait a few minutes, you're going to eat first.
[] No reason you can't bring them to the cafeteria as well.

---
I apparently have a very strange definition of 'morning'. Turns out that it actually means 'after sun-rise, before noon' and not 'mid-afternoon, shortly before evening'.

[x] You should probably make the meeting a priority.

[X] They can wait a few minutes, you're going to eat first.

I HUNGER.

>>90632

RUN, COWARD!

[x] You should probably make the meeting a priority.

[x] You should probably make the meeting a priority.

[x] You should probably make the meeting a priority.

[x] You should probably make the meeting a priority.

You're sure to have time enough to eat as well. There's no way that this could take the entire lunch break to get through. The meeting place this time seem to be at the bottom of the stairs closest to your current class, so you make your way out of the room and head along. Madoka is there already, and when you hit the ground floor, you already see Chie approaching from down the hall.

“Looks like everyone's here quickly, good!” Madoka says. “I still want to eat, so we're going to make this quick.” Oh, good, it will be over fairly quickly after all. Madoka turns her head to Chie. “So, Takeo's agreed to take the frontlines, but he's too weak to be of any use, think you have anything for him?” Chie sighs.

“Is this what this is going to be about?” she whines. “You can't expect me to just be able to pull something out of thin air like that.” Madoka grins, then pats Chie on the shoulder.

“It's okay, it's okay! It's all just planning right now,” Madoka says, stepping up next to Chie and resting her arm on her shoulder. “Though we do all have our codenames now, you're going to need one too.” Chie's expression sours, and she gives you a 'help me' kind of look.

“That's not important right now,” you say. “In fact, if this is all it is, I agree that this is pointless. We can always figure this out along the way. I'm hungry, and I'm going to go get lunch.” With that, Chie slides out from under Madoka's arm and adjusts her glasses.

“We should all just enjoy our lunch break now. I don't have anything on hand right now, but I could always get something done,” Chie says. Madoka shrugs.

“Well, I guess it's settled then,” she says, stepping back. “I'm going to go get my lunch. We'll talk more after school then.”

“I'm on store shift tonight,” you state, and Madoka pauses for a second, grinning. “It's just as much a job as anything else.”

“Sure sure!” she replies quickly. “Maybe I'll stop by and bug you!”

“Please don't,” you say, knowing full well that she actually meant her words. With that, everyone parts ways again. Definitely a short meeting, and if you're quick you can still get your hands on some good stuff before it all sells. Question is how you will otherwise spend your lunchtime.

[] Eat alone, and prepare for your next class.
[] Find someone to eat with. [Write In for specific]
[] Get something easy to carry and eat, just wander.

---

Need to get back into my roll of updating.

[X] Find someone to eat with.
-[X] Go look for Maggie. She seemed interested in Luna last time, and she ought to be just as interested in the other two, as well as Luna's newfound ability to speak.

Wake up, Maggie, I think I got something to say to you...

[x] Eat alone, and prepare for your next class.

[X] Find someone to eat with.
-[X] Go look for Maggie. She seemed interested in Luna last time, and she ought to be just as interested in the other two, as well as Luna's newfound ability to speak.

Ah, the lonely foreign girl.

[X] Find someone to eat with.
-[X] Go look for Maggie. She seemed interested in Luna last time, and she ought to be just as interested in the other two, as well as Luna's newfound ability to spea

[X] Find someone to eat with.
-[X] Go look for Maggie. She seemed interested in Luna last time, and she ought to be just as interested in the other two, as well as Luna's newfound ability to speak.

Eating alone would be a bit of a waste of good time, you might as well spend time chatting with someone, and the first person to come to mind is Margaret. She's pretty easy to get along with, and not to bad looking either. Beside that though, she's the one that knows the most about the 'fairies' you're keeping, so that kind of makes her a confidant of sorts. She'd probably like to hear about recent developments as well. Your time in the cafeteria is brief, simply swinging past the Cooking club's lunchtime stand to pick up a few sandwiches. A lot of the better, more expensive stuff was picked over already, but you're not that choosy. It might just be your imagination, but as you pick up a few of the sandwich, the girl behind the counter looks a little sad, but she rings up your purchase without a hassle. From there, you're off.

Finding Maggie is easy, she's always at her class, picking at her food and playing with some program or pet. Today is the same thing, though you're slightly surprised to see that someone else is sitting with her, looks like a girl from behind with short, messy brown hair. Maggie spots you at the door to the room and waves to you. The other person turns around to look at you as well. You recognize her as someone you've seen around a few times before, but you don't know her. She's also not wearing glasses, which is actually fairly out of the ordinary considering how widespread the technology is in the first place.

“Hey Maggie,” you say as you walk towards the two. The new girl slides her chair out of the way slightly as you approach the desk. You give her a quick nod, then turn back to Maggie. “Thought I'd come by for lunch.”

“The more the merrier,” Maggie says with a smile. You grab a chair from a neighbouring desk and pull it over, taking a seat a bit away from the desk. It'd be crowded with two people already, you don't want to add onto that. Maggie takes the initiative in introductions by gesturing towards the girl. “This is Kayo Tsu...”

“Tsuyoimushi,” the girl replies, extending a hand. You return the action, expecting a rather simple handshake, but instead you're treated to a rather firm grip. “Nice to meet you.”

“My name is Takeo Kourin,” you state with a nod. Kayo's grin widens.

“Oh, that Takeo? You're friends with, uh, Madoka was it?” she asks. You'd like to think you're imagining that slightly aggressive tone. You disregard it for now.

“That's right, why?” you ask, wondering where she's going with this. She chuckles a bit, resting her head on an open palm.

“Before I get to that,” she continues. “You know Rin Hikari too, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” you answer. You can see where this is going now. “Are you a friend of hers?” Kayo sits back, waving her hand.

“Ah, nothing like that. Well, maybe a little,” she says. “I'm a friend of a friend to her, but still.” You wait a bit, expecting her to say something. You look at Maggie, as if you expect her to have the answers, but she shrugs.

“So... was there a point to asking all that?” you wonder. Kayo perks up.

“Oh, yeah! Rin's pretty mad at Madoka about something,” she says. You and Maggie exchange glances, which doesn't go unnoticed. “So you two know what I'm talking about.”

“I have an idea,” Maggie says. “Though why are we talking about this right now? What about our project?” Just like that, she changes the subject. Seems they're classmates and they're working together on something for class. As they talk between themselves as well, Kayo leans back in her chair, hooking her arms around the back. You can't help but notice how... flat she is. After a few seconds of silent consideration of Kayo's unfortunate chest, you come back to the current situation and a realization. You don't exactly want to introduce the concept of fairies to random people until you can be sure they won't just dismiss you as some loon, so you're going to have to be careful in your speech. This time has given you a break to eat at least, and you do so while you wait for a break in the two girls conversation. You get your opportunity when Kayo takes a drink from a bottle of soda in front of her.

“Say Maggie, you remember that one pet I showed you?” you ask, hoping that she catches on. She doesn't at first, but something visibly clicks in her head, because you can see the exact moment the memory returns.

“Oh, yes. What about it?” she asks, sounding a little excited.

“Well, I have some more, if you'd like to see them some time. There's also been an interesting upgrade to the program,” you say, trying as best you can to get the point across without saying anything specific. Seems that's all it takes to get Maggie brimming, enough so that Kayo gets interested too.

“Can I see these pets too? They sound like they might be interesting,” she says. You're about to mention they're cyberpets and she doesn't have glasses, but she seems to predict that by producing a pair of said glasses from a bag under her chair.

“I don't bring them around with me, actually. They're kind of big and, well, strange,” you say. Well, it's true after all. An old saying comes to mind, 'Truth is stranger than fiction'. You're not sure what you should be feeling when you consider how true that statement actually is, maybe irony? Confusion?

“Huh, shame,” she says, putting her glasses on anyway and opening her console. “I can show you some of mine though,” she continues, gaining a weird smile at the same time. You notice a bit of movement on the ground, and looking down you see a large centipede vanish beneath your chair. You jump a bit in your chair, moving backwards in surprise a the sight, catching Maggie's attention, who in turn jumps back in her chair and squeals a little as the thing scurries away. You spot another, shortly afterwards, and on your leg of all places. You bat it away in shock, only to make a very important realization. It's not real. Kayo starts laughing now, and when you look back at her, she is almost literally swarming with various insects. The sight is all kinds of wrong, and you actually lift up your glasses as a defense mechanism. You don't particularly have a problem with bugs, but that's just wrong. The entire time Kayo is just grinning like an idiot.

“Those were...” you trail off. Maggie's taken off her glasses as well, looking a little traumatized and a little sickly.

“My pets are a little odd too, huh?” Kayo asks, removing her glasses.

“I think I might understand a little something more about your name,” you say. Kayo's grin turns into a beaming smile. You try to shake the mental image of beetles crawling around on her face at the same time. The rest of lunch is uneventful, thankfully. You even manage to finish lunch despite the sudden loss of appetite. You spend some time idly chatting with Kayo and Maggie before you have to make your way off to your next class.

**

The bell rings at the end of the day, and you gladly pack up your stuff and prepare to leave. You have that shift at the store tonight.

[] Head straight home and get ready. The sooner you can get in, the earlier you can close.
[] Take your time. The store isn't going to go anywhere, you'll just stay a little later.

>Tsuyoimushi
Come on.

[X] Head straight home and get ready. The sooner you can get in, the earlier you can close.

[X] Head straight home and get ready. The sooner you can get in, the earlier you can close.

Wriggle~

>>91184

It's hard to be creative when making meaningful names in a language you don't speak.

>>91209

Look up "Kyoiku kanji" on Wikipedia for a handy reference.

>>91220

That could be handy. I've been using http://www.saiga-jp.com/kanji_dictionary.html and http://www.eudict.com/index.php?lang=engjpk&word= for various translations so far.

[X] Head straight home and get ready. The sooner you can get in, the earlier you can close.

[X] Head straight home and get ready. The sooner you can get in, the earlier you can close.

>>91231

The WWWJDIC (specifically the names dictionary, ENAMDICT)is a very handy reference for names, with all recorded uses of different kanji (and meanings) when used for the same spoken name. It can take kana, romaji, or kanji. It also tells you the gender used (sometimes the gender of a name by the same kanji varies with pronunciation, sometimes it varies by different kanji used for the same pronunciation), or if it's rather a place name or a surname. It's also important because of the number of homonyms in the language, that you don't name someone after a conversational word with kanji that has no business being used in a name.

Any name you think up I suggest crosschecking there. If it'd invalid, I'd take a synonymous kanji (by the normal dictionary search) and trying a name search for that.

>>91294

That should be pretty useful as well. Thanks for that.

[X] Head straight home and get ready. The sooner you can get in, the earlier you can close.

No use wasting time, really. The longer you take to get to the store, the longer you'll have to stay to get any meaningful profit out of it. You take your stuff and head out, to the ground floor and out the doors and straight to the gate. Madoka is nowhere in sight, no one else that you know is either. That's a bit of a welcome change of pace. You leave the school grounds without issue.

**

Once you get home, it's out of your uniform and into some casual clothes. You take a moment to check in on Luna and the others, but find that they're not in your room. Your window is still open, after all. While the idea of them leaving doesn't really concern you, you are slightly more troubled by the idea of someone seeing them and following them back. You resolve to think of something to do about that later, right now you can't really do anything without the fairies at... well, saying at home feels kind of weird to you, but that's what it would be, wouldn't it? You head back to the kitchen, and settle on making yourself a cup of instant noodles.

Once the noodles are ready, you fish out a disposable plastic fork from the bag of them you keep on hand for such occasions and leave. You finish the noodles along the way, and when you reach the store you find it empty. It seems Yumiko decided to leave before you even got in, and naturally left the entire store completely unsecured. Not that there'd be anything really valuable to steal, but it's still the thought that counts. Well, whatever, no one burglarized the store. You toss the empty cup and fork into a trashcan just inside the door and head over to the counter. No magazine this time, it seems, and you're not going to be the one to take one from the rack. You do have your glasses though. Time to sit back and rel-

“Hello?” Oh what? You've barely taken up position behind the counter when you hear someone entering the store. You look over to the door to see a girl with short black hair, about your age, wearing a school uniform and glasses. Not from your school, at least you know that much. She's carrying a school bag, though a large black pouch is hanging from it.

“Hello, can I help you?” you ask, going about business as usual.

“I'm here to pick up that camera I wanted,” she says, walking towards the counter. Well, that's news to you.

“A camera, you said?” you ask, showing your confusion, hoping that she'll enlighten you. Instead she seems to catch your confusion.

“Huh?” comes the reply she offers. “I- is this even the right store?”

“Well, I sure don't know you, so unless you came in when my sister was in here-” you start.

“Oh, your sister? Long hair in a pony tail, brown hair? No glasses?” the girl butts in. That sounds like Yumiko, and you nod. “Okay, then it should be here somewhere then.” Well, that's that then. Now if only you knew where it was. It's definitely not behind the counter, so Yumiko must have expected to be in when this girl came around. You mutter a curse on your sister's head before you head off to the back room.

“I'll be right back,” you say, stepping into the back of the store, into a small hallway, leading to a room where excess junk is kept that you don't have out in the storefront yet, and the bathroom. The only place you could imagine the camera to be would be in the storage, so you check there first. Rather, you would, but thanks to the lack of windows that don't face neighbouring buildings and the fact that the only lightbulb in the room seems to be burnt out, you're left in the dark. At least you can adjust the brightness of the space through your glasses to compensate for the dark. Once you do that though, you notice something slightly off, part of the storage room doesn't adjust properly, instead staying just as dark, which creates a very confusing visual where the room just suddenly breaks away into darkness. Maybe there's something wrong with the space in this room. You think to check it out, but you quickly notice a large camera sitting on a shelf that isn't quite as dusty as everything else, one of the old instant types that produces your picture right after you take it. You were expecting a digital camera. Taking it with you, you leave the room, resetting the brightness and returning to the storefront, where the girl waits, idly thumbing through a magazine. She looks up at you as you return, then looks down at the camera and brightens up.

“That's it!” she says, dropping the magazine on the counter. She seems pretty happy about this. You place the camera on the counter. The girl opens her school bag, and starts looking for something.

“I'm surprised we had something like this, actually,” you say, looking the camera over. “Not a lot of cameras around anymore, not even digital ones, since nearly everyone has glasses now. This thing is practically an antique.” The girl looks up at you and smiles a bit.

“I know, that's why I want it,” she says, standing up, holding a wallet. “There's something nice about holding a fresh picture in your hand. At least, that's what I think,” she opens the wallet as she speaks, fishing out several bills.

“You have film for it?” you ask, a little surprised. Well, you guess that it would probably still have to exist somewhere, and maybe there was someone still making film. Cameras aren't exactly something you follow closely. The girl nods in response to your question.

“Of course, or at least I will. After I found this here, I went to as many other places as I could think that might have carried the film I needed, so I have quite a few other places to stop, big day!” she starts to ramble a bit. “Though, this camera is more for fun than anything else. It's not exactly up to technological standards, so I can't take pictures of space with it, but that's okay.”

“So I take it you're into photography?” you ask, even though you can probably predict the answer. She beams proudly.

“I'm the president of my schools news club, a hobbyist investigator, and I even have a job with the local news agency!” she states proudly, though she deflates a little. “Ah ha ha, though I'm just an intern at my job. Still, I'm going to be a proper reporter one day!” At this moment she produces a business card, an actual real papercut-inducing card at that, from her wallet. 'Aya Izumi', huh? It takes a few seconds for your mind to register the website present on the card. This girl, she's the one behind that site that ran the story on you and the others!

“I see,” you say, managing to keep your composure. There's so much you want to say to her now that you know she's the one behind that site, mostly related to her coverage of your little outing, even if you can't really fault her for that. “So, you're the one that runs that rumour site.” Her face lights up again.

“Oh ho? You know it? So are you a faithful reader?” she asks, seeming really proud all over again. Well then...

[] Admit you check the site often, but no more.
[] Confess you only know of it, you don't read it.
[] Tell her who you are, but only if she swears secrecy.
[] Express disdain over her 'shady rumour mill'.
[] Dodge the question.

[X] Admit you check the site often.
- [X] Suggest that you might be able to procure some interesting stories for her, assuming the price is right...

I love Aya, no matter how obnoxious she can be.

She would probably be a valuable ally in this setting, actually. Disseminating certain rumors could really play to our advantage, and likewise I expect she could do some expert sleuthing for us if we asked. I'm tempted to reveal our little secret to her, but we should probably hold off on that; she's usually pretty excitable, so it might be best to wait until we've worked with her for some time before letting her in on our secret.

[X] Admit you check the site often, but no more.

Still a little early to reveal our secret identity, or even hint at it.

Due to the implications of what to be done between the two different votes, I'm going to need one of them to win clearly before I write.

[X] Admit you check the site often, but no more.

[ ] Admit you check the site often, but no more.

When it comes to go to Chie we need to get customs weapons.

Got it then. Getting to writing in a little bit.

>>91573

hooray!

A little bit kind of turned into a long while. Guess that's what I get for getting sidetracked into games.

[X] Admit you check the site often, but no more.

“I'm a returning reader, at least,” you say. Aya nods thoughtfully.

“So, what do you think? You see the latest story?” she asks. You feel your heart jump in your chest, but you quickly recover, you're not going to lose your composure over something like that, it's an innocent question, she has no reason to suspect you.

“Yeah, I saw it,” you say, brandishing a forced smile. “Pretty unbelievable stuff, really. I'm not sure I go for it.”

“Aw, why's that?” Aya asks, crossing her arms. She looks a little disappointed, probably suspects you're accusing her of making it up.

“Costumed people running around fighting evil? Sounds like the premise of a kids show,” you admit, though you feel a slight tinge of annoyance at the fact that while your explanation is the truth, you're still one of the ones knee deep in the matter. “I'm not really sure what to think. I'd have to see it for myself before I could believe it.” Aya's face returns to it's broad smile.

“Well you're in luck!” she declares. “I have it on good authority that this mysterious group is on the prowl again soon, and since they were already spotted once near my studio, they're sure to return to the area for another spectacular display.” Well, that's interesting.

“Is that so?” you reply, pulling out your best curious act. “Where'd you hear this from?”

“Why, from the leader of the group himself, Knight Blazer!” she states. Oh wow. It takes all your willpower to not even crack a smile, not even a tiny smirk. You want to crush her lie so badly, but you mustn't. You're far too curious to see how this plays out. While you try to repress the desire to start laughing, you simply nod.

“I see, pretty impressive,” you say.

“I know, right? It was my expert investigation skills that I managed to track him down and pledge my assistance to his cause,” she boasts. “A defacto part of the team, the noble reporter of their heroic deeds!”

“Good for you, then,” you say, looking at the cash register. You've been chatting with her for a bit now, you haven't even rung up her sale yet. “So, you getting that magazine there too?”

“Oh, yes please,” she says, coming back down to the moment. You ring up the sale and take the payment. You hand her back the change, and she quickly pockets it and scoops up the camera, placing it into the pouch hanging from her bag. So that's what that was. She grabs the magazine, then tosses the bag over an arm. “Alright, thank you so much!” she says, skipping back towards the door. “My mail address is on the back of my card, if you ever want to reach me!” You nod and wave her off as she leaves, and a few seconds later pass in front of the shop on a bicycle. Well, back to being a quiet day you suppose. She's probably the most interesting thing that's going to happen today.

With that thought in mind though, you start to wonder about the oddity in the space in the storeroom. It looked fine, not glitched or anything, but it didn't adjust correctly. You're a little curious as to what could be the cause.

[] Go investigate the area, at least knowing what's wrong would be good.
[] Put it off. It's just an error in space, it'll fix itself eventually. Maybe.
[] Send Madoka a message about it. You doubt it's due to illegals, but just in case.
[] Submit a request to the city for a special format process, for after hours.

[] Go investigate the area, at least knowing what's wrong would be good.

[X] Go investigate the area, at least knowing what's wrong would be good.

>[ ] Submit a request to the city for a special format process, for after hours.
We've already met Shiki; who else might work for the city, I wonder?

[X] Go investigate the area, at least knowing what's wrong would be good.

[x] Go investigate the area, at least knowing what's wrong would be good.

>>91720

Kotohime comes to mind, as well as Reimu and Sanae. Maybe Keine as well?

[X]Go investigate the area, at least knowing what's wrong would be good.

[X]Go investigate the area, at least knowing what's wrong would be good.

That strange area in the storeroom is getting to you. The least you could do is go check it out. You shouldn't be too long at least, so no use putting up a sign or anything either. If someone comes in, you should be able to hear the electronic chime on the door, or they'll make themselves known. You head back into the hallway and make your way to the back room. You adjust the brightness at the door this time, and just like before, part of the room fails to adjust. You enter the room, walking towards the edge of the dark area. You feel a bit of nervousness as you approach, and the closer you get the more uncomfortable you feel, like you're walking close to the edge of a large cliff or something. You chase away those notions briefly, it's just a glitch in space! Why are you so nervous? As if to prove it to yourself, you carefully reach out with one foot and step into the space within the dark area. Normal floor, as if you could expect anything more. Your delusions crushed, you fully enter the dark area and... well now it's corrected itself? Seems that all of a sudden it's lit up on it's own. Maybe whatever the problem corrected itself.

Of course, it's not that simple. As you turn to leave, you notice now that the other half of the room is darkened out, though you can still see what normal light there is. Guess you got ahead of yourself there. You cross the 'line', and once again the brightness of your surroundings kicks up to full, and the area you just left goes dark. You're not too sure what to make of the situation, definitely some kind of space glitch, though you don't exactly have anything you could use to determine if it's caused by outdated versions or what beyond the old fashioned way. You raise your foot and stomp hard within the dark area, seeing if the floor gives out from the impact. Nothing happens, besides a brief flicker that you had expected, it corrects itself instantly. It's not an outdated space then? Well if it was it would be foggy too, right? This is starting to go beyond the basics of what you know, you've never really put much time into researching the finer details of cyberspace systems and the like, so you're already out of ideas. At least you have some piece of mind knowing you looked into it, you'll probably have to put in a special request for a space format after all. With matters settled, you head back into the hall and back to the storefront, to an empty store. No one came while you were in the back, which is understandable. You'd only been back there about 5 minutes or so anyway, and this store is hardly a life changing shopping experience. Slow days are good at least, you get paid even if no one comes, though where the money comes from in the first place is another question.

It really is a slow day. You get a handful of kids stopping by for the candy, and a couple of people browsing the shop for various odds and ends, but not much more. You're a bit relieved that Madoka didn't come by after all. Once 9pm hits, you start the closing routine. By 9:10 you're already on your way home. A few minutes later and you reach your door, finding it unlocked. As you enter, you realize that Yumiko must have gotten home not too long before you did, because you can hear her moving around, and soon enough you smell rice. Just in time for dinner too, lucky break, you don't even have to cook anything yourself. Sunny is sitting in the living room again, watching TV, some movie. You're actually kind of glad you're the only one that uses glasses around the house, otherwise it'd be kind of awkward to-

“So do you mind explaining what that girl is on the couch?” Yumiko asks, causing a chill to run up your spine. You look at her, standing in the entrance to the kitchen, wearing a pair of visor-style glasses. God damn it.

“Uh...” you can't even begin to think of how to explain it without sounding weird. You couldn't exactly tell her they're fairies, could you? She knew about Luna already, but Sunny and Star now? At the very least you're reassured by the fact she simply looks confused by her presence. First thing on your mind though. “What's with the glasses all of a sudden?” Yumiko furrows her brows at you.

“I do use them too, you know, I just don't own my own pair, so I'm left using ones on stock at the university,” she explains, adjusting the visor slightly. “I have a deadline approaching though, so I can't exactly spare my time just sitting around doing nothing, so I had to borrow a loaner pair from my professor, and I ended up finding out that my little brother is building some kind of cybergirl harem in our house.” You frown at that last bit.

“They're programs, Yumiko,” you complain, looking over at Sunny. She seems to be taking more interest in the two of you now. “It's kind of hard to explain...” you stall. You really can't think of a way to explain this without sounding weird. What do you say? 'They're living here temporarily'? Fairies or programs or whatever they are really, it's an odd situation.

[] Tell her the truth, about 'fairies' and the circumstances. You can trust your sister at least.
[] Come up with some excuse that could explain them without having to say 'fairies'. [+Write In for better effect]

[] Come up with some excuse that could explain them without having to say 'fairies'.

[X] Tell her the truth, about 'fairies' and the circumstances. You can trust your sister at least.

Hell, if Yumiko is Eirin, then she ought to be fascinated by the prospect of completely electronic life.

[X] Tell her the truth, about 'fairies' and the circumstances. You can trust your sister at least.

>>91757 here.

Can't delete vote. Changing vote to:

[X] Tell her the truth, about 'fairies' and the circumstances. You can trust your sister at least.

[X] Tell her the truth, about 'fairies' and the circumstances. You can trust your sister at least.

[X] Tell her the truth, about 'fairies' and the circumstances. You can trust your sister at least.

Updates?

Been busy-ish lately. Multiple visits from my brother as well as dealing with various things in preparation of my attendance of university.

[X] Tell her the truth, about 'fairies' and the circumstances. You can trust your sister at least.

You might as well come clean about the fairies. Yumiko is a fairly reasonable type, even though it might not make sense to her, you can at least trust her not to blow up over it.

“They're fairies,” you say. Yumiko's face tells you that she's already not following you. “Or so they say, at least. I don't really know what to make of it, but they've become... attuned to me perhaps?” You open up your console and bring up a window displaying the processes running on the partition you created. As expected, the fairies are all running on it. You show your sister the screen, and she looks it over.

“And this is?” she asks, looking through the screen at you.

“It's their processes,” you state. “I had to make a partition for them, or else they'd end up following me everywhere eventually. This way they can stay here and not cause a scene.”

“Yeah, and live comfortably for free in our home,” Yumiko says, looking back over to Sunny. “Where did they even come from?”

“I don't know. The first one I found was in my room, digging at a glitch in the wall. The others showed up to save her, I guess, but they ended up registering their program data on my system,” you explain, taking your window back and closing it. “From what I understand, there's someone responsible for making them that they call Big Sister, but they say she only exists in cyberspace.” Yumiko frowns at that a bit.

“AI making AI? That sounds like a disaster waiting to happen,” Yumiko says.

“Maybe, I don't know if it's all based out of AI though. I won't know the truth until I get to the bottom of it,” you say, and Yumiko smirks at you.

“So you're a detective now?” Yumiko jokes. “I still don't know what to make of all this.”

“It's temporary,” you say, though you can't really be sure of that. You don't know if you can ever get to the bottom of this whole thing, or even if you do if the fairies will leave you. Yumiko shrugs.

“Well, it doesn't bother me that much, really,” she says. “I mean, they might be strange girls loafing around the house that my younger brother is doing unspeakable things with alone in his room, but they don't need to eat, and they don't bother me if I don't have glasses. Now it's your turn to frown.

“Yumiko...” you groan, and she just laughs.

“I have to say, that's a pretty interesting story though,” she says, turning back to the kitchen. You're not entirely sure if she believes you or not, she seems kind of underwhelmed by the truth, but, well, what could you really expect of a reaction? At least she didn't freak out or anything. Sunny's turned back to the TV as well. All's well again it seems. Dinner's going to be ready soon too.

[] Kill some time with games.
[] Watch some TV for now.
[] Screw around online.
[] Go rest in your room.

---

Back to writing again. Kind of a short update after being off for as long as I was. Next Flight update is getting started tonight, and will probably be ready some time tomorrow.

[X] Go rest in your room.

Do want to find Luna napping our room.

[X] Go rest in your room.

[X] Go rest in your room.

Hopefully I'll get over my slump and get back to writing later. Bump for hope.

>Hopefully I'll get over my slump and get back to writing later. Bump for hope.

Speaking of wishful thinking, how's the Flight update coming? I hope not as abortive as Anon's own attempts at updating have been.

>>93123

Sorry about that, I know I'm taking far too long to write anything. I've been in a pretty poor state lately. I don't want to say that I think I'm suffering from depression, but I think that might be the case.

[X] Go rest in your room.

You'd rather wait for dinner in your room. Not much on TV around this time, and you don't exactly want to change the channel on Sunny either. She seems pretty engrossed in what she's watching, which seems kind of odd, but considering how much is already odd about these fairies in the first place, it hardly comes as a shock. You just want to relax right now. You head up the stairs, and into your room. First thing you see is Star, lying on her back across your bed, head poking out the window. Luna's lying next to her, resting her head on her arms it seems. You're about to call out to the two of them when you realize that they're asleep. Not too much you can do about that, though you do manage a sigh. You're going to have to wake them up eventually, before you go to sleep yourself at least, though you suppose you can let them sleep a bit longer.

You decide to kick back at your desk, sitting back in your chair. The first thing on your mind is the fairies. There's still so much you don't know about them. Their origins are a mystery, their operation is unclear, and they seem to be far more advanced technology than is publicly available. The idea of them being government property still lingers in your mind, but would the government really make something like this? What about their origins as they explain them? You don't get it at all. Still, Luna at least seems to have some concern for you, even despite her outburst before. You look over at her as you think. Her wings twitch slightly. No matter how you look at it, she looks like a real person, but as soon as you lift your glasses she's gone. It's kind of frustrating to be in this situation, if only you had some answers, but all that information is hidden somewhere in cyberspace, and you have no way of getting there. It's going to be a lot of work, but if you do get to the bottom of this, discover the secret of these fairies, it could be an incredible breakthrough for technology. That goal alone is what inspires you the most.

You continue on your train of thought to other things involving the space, with your mind jumping back to that odd glitch at the shop. That's right, Yumiko wouldn't have known something like that was there since she doesn't use glasses often. While you're mulling over sharing that particular information, you hear the call to dinner. You leave your room quickly, heading downstairs to take your final meal of the day. Yumiko's already taken her usual position on the couch, having apparently kicked Sunny out of the spot she had been sitting. Doesn't even make concessions for fairies, does she? You take a fair portion, leaving left overs for tomorrow, and head to the table alone. You continue to think to yourself about the back room of the shop, but in the end you decide to keep quiet about it. It's not a big deal anyway, and she wouldn't even be interested in the first place. She probably wouldn't even bother getting a format either. From one topic to another, your mind jumps back to the store, and from there to that one girl Aya. You almost forgot you had her card in your pocket. You're not too sure what to make of her, energetic but devious, lying to you like she did. Of course, she had no way of knowing the truth, but if she's someone that can lie so easily, then you can't help but start to expect just how much of the stuff she posts on her site is faked. She was pretty cute though... such a typically male thought. You consider that it might be nice to meet her again, but also recall how troublesome it would be. Thanks to her, your 'alter ego' has become an urban legend, and now you have the concern of being outed by anyone with the bright idea to carry a physical camera to take a picture of 'the man inside the armour'. Maybe you could wear a mask underneath your... are you seriously thinking this?

You finish your meal without disturbing it by thinking too much, and put your dishes in the sink. Yumiko is already done as well, and you collect her dishes as well.

“Your doll fell asleep,” she says as you pass, nodding to Sunny.

“Well, not much I can do about it,” you reply, walking back towards the kitchen.

“Why does she even need to sleep? Isn't she a program?” Yumiko asks. She's got you there.

“I honestly don't know. There's still a lot to them I don't understand, I want to know just as much as you do,” you say. You don't get a reply, so you suppose that Yumiko's just accepting that as it is. You wash up the collected dishes and set them aside, heading back towards the stairs, intent on getting ready for bed.

“I think I might need to do a little bit of digging,” Yumiko says from behind you. You look over your shoulder at her on the couch. She's grinning at you. “I suppose as the eldest I should try to help my little brother.” You grin back and continue up the stairs. Luna and Star are still asleep at the window, though you've got to get them out of there. You approach Luna and reach out to her, but hesitate. Do they even feel it when they're touched? Cyberpets react to it, but that could just be part of the programming as far as you know, it's not exactly your specialty. You also can't shake the notion that you're about to touch someone as opposed to something. Still, they're someone that's on your bed. You lean over your bed and place a hand on the back of Luna's shoulder, gently shaking her to try to wake her. No response. You call her name a few times as well, but still get no reaction. You continue trying to wake her for a good minute before finally giving up. How does a fairies sleep even work? Do all their... 'sensors' go offline? Agh, questions! Nevermind, you'll just move her the old fashioned way. You crawl up onto your bed partially and slide a hand under Luna's shoulder, rolling her over onto her side. You shuffle forward and move her arms down so they won't dangle over her head, and then with care, lift her off your bed, one arm under her back and another under her knees. You might never get used to this lack of sensation, carrying a body without the weight. You carry her over to where she usually sleeps, and gently set her down sitting against the wall. You repeat the process for Star, who is a lot easier to pick up thanks to her laying on her back. With your bed cleared, you get ready to hit the sack yourself. Change of clothes, brush your teeth, take off your glasses, hit the lights, bedtime. No troublesome thoughts this time, no lingering ideas, clear your mind. You will answer all your questions in time. Sleep comes easily.

**

Morning comes, and you wake up on your own. You check the time on your glasses, you've still got an hour and a half before you have to leave. You have a creeping feeling, something in the back of your mind wants to stay home today.

[] It's nothing to be concerned about, just have a normal day.
[] Baser instincts are never wrong! Sleep will save you!

---

Why do I always feel like writing the most when I'm tired? This can't be good for quality.

[x] Baser instincts are never wrong! Sleep will save you!

[X] Baser instincts are never wrong! Sleep will save you!

I wish more than ever that we could touch Luna. Nothing better than spending a day at home, holding your own personal Luna as the two of you nap the day away.

[x] Baser instincts are never wrong! Sleep will save you!

[x] Baser instincts are never wrong! Sleep will save you!

[X] Baser instincts are never wrong! Sleep will save you!

You're feeling particularly lazy today, lazy enough to blow off a school day even. Typically you would have a bit more concern over such a thing, but it's closing in on the end of the school year. To be quite honest it's not like there's anything you need to attend class for either. You're caught up on your work, you have no uncompleted assignments, and you've done pretty well in your classes so far, so you think you deserve a little break. You lay back in your bed and close your eyes. Another hour or two of sleep would be fine...

**

The next time you open your eyes, the sun is higher in the sky. You still have the lingering feeling, but it's such a minor nuisance that you can shake it off. You reach for your glasses, and as you slide them on you catch a glimpse of a flicker of light out of the edge of the lens. You look back to your bed, Luna is laying on your bed again, looking up into the sky, sunlight occasionally reflecting off the surface of her wings as she moves around. She's definitely noticed you waking up, since she's practically laying across your legs.

“You humans sure sleep a lot,” she says, sitting up onto her knees as you slide from under your sheets.

“You fairies sleep as well, why I don't know,” you reply. Luna doesn't seem to think anything of that.

“Well, we are living things too, after all. We just don't live in the same world,” she states, her wings twitching slightly.

“So you say, from my perspective, and well, everyone else's, you're a program. It's completely baffling and intriguing at the same time,” you say. Luna smiles.

“Don't you think things are better that way?” she asks. “To find an incredible mystery?” She does make a pretty good point, actually. Something like this doesn't exactly happen, so for it to happen at all to you, even the bare facts of the situation would become legend in time. If you got to the bottom of it all though... You have a sudden realization, interrupting your fantasizing. You haven't seen Star or Sunny yet.

“Where are the other two?” you ask, looking towards the window.

“They went out to play,” Luna says, looking out the window as well.

“And you didn't go with them?” you ask. Luna tilts her head slightly, looking thoughtful.

“I didn't really feel like it. I feel like being lazy today,” she claims. You're reminded of the lingering feeling of unease you woke up with. You shake off the feeling once more. Actually, right now Luna seems to be in a fairly good mood, and she'd probably be open to questioning. You could probably ask her some questions about herself and the other fairies right now, but another feeling arises in you; hunger. You suppose you could always put it off. Having taken your eyes off Luna, you're more aware of the faintly visible blinking icon alerting you that you have messages waiting. A quick check reveals that you've got several: one from Madoka, one from Chie, and another from Margaret.

[] Now's a good a time as any to question Luna.
[] Curiosity can wait, your stomach cannot.
[] Check your messages:
-[] Madoka
-[] Chie
-[] Maggie

[P] "You're feeling lazy today too, are you? Well, it's nice to find a girl who's on the same wavelength as me for once."
[P] "I'm going to go have some breakfast; anything you want me to do for you while I'm up?"
-[P] If so, then try to help her out.
[P] Look over your messages while you eat. Might as well make sure that nothing incredibly urgent is going on.

I'll aim for a Luna route with all my heart, even if it can only end in tragedy.

[x] "You're feeling lazy today too, are you? Well, it's nice to find a girl who's on the same wavelength as me for once."
[x] "I'm going to go have some breakfast; anything you want me to do for you while I'm up?"
-[x] If so, then try to help her out.
[x] Look over your messages while you eat. Might as well make sure that nothing incredibly urgent is going on.

[x] "You're feeling lazy today too, are you? Well, it's nice to find a girl who's on the same wavelength as me for once."
[x] "I'm going to go have some breakfast; anything you want me to do for you while I'm up?"
-[x] If so, then try to help her out.
[x] Look over your messages while you eat. Might as well make sure that nothing incredibly urgent is going on.

Sure would be nice if I could update shit without the site dying for a day.

Writing inbound.

>>93197

hooray!

>>93293

Man it's been a long time. I'm going to be updating everything tomorrow and getting myself a schedule. Hopefully university doesn't kill me.

Did you die again?

[x] "You're feeling lazy today too, are you? Well, it's nice to find a girl who's on the same wavelength as me for once."
[x] "I'm going to go have some breakfast; anything you want me to do for you while I'm up?"
-[x] If so, then try to help her out.
[x] Look over your messages while you eat. Might as well make sure that nothing incredibly urgent is going on.

“I can sympathize with the lazy feeling,” you say with a smile. “Nice to find a girl on the same wavelength.” Luna looks at you for a bit, she seems to be blushing. She looks back outside.

“Yeah, I suppose it's okay,” she says. You slide your legs over the edge of your bed.

“I'm off for breakfast. Anything you want before I go?” you ask. Luna rolls over on her side, looking down at you with a bit of a concerned expression.

“You're being awfully friendly,” she says, still a bit red in the face. “I don't think there's a whole lot you could do for me though, I don't exactly have the same needs as humans.” Seems typical enough, there really isn't a whole lot you could do, but doesn't hurt to offer.

“I'll be downstairs then,” you say, eating out of your room. Luna returns to gazing out the window. You head downstairs, with your first stop being in the kitchen for breakfast. In a few minutes, you have yourself some eggs and toast, and sit down to start going over the waiting messages.

You start with Madoka's, and it's basically just a message to see if you're okay since she hadn't seen you at school. You reply that you're fine, just skipping. You proceed onto Chie's message. You find there's a file attachment to hers, and she's written about having prepared a program for you and that it's included. A patch-like file that you can apply to give an object anti-virus effects in cyberspace, instructing you on it's use. So, you'll be able to choose your own weapon, though you could also use it to patch any normal 'weapon' available to do the same thing. You type out a response to her as well, thanking her for the help. Finally, you get to Maggie's message. She was also concerned since she hadn't seen you, but mainly because she wanted to ask if it was okay for her to come over to your house to visit, since you had offered to let her see the fairies. Your heart jumps a little, you haven't really interacted much with Maggie outside of school, or alone for that matter. The idea of being alone with her is kind of exciting, even if she's just going to spend most of that time fawning over other girls. You start to compose your reply.

[] Invite her over right after school.
[] Suggest she wait a bit until after school to visit.
[] Arrange to meet somewhere else, like a park.

---

>>93549

No, I'm just a bad planner. I needed to get my sleep schedule turned around so that I could actually be awake the hours I need to be for university, since it starts in 2-3 days and I have to start being awake before 10 am.

The course of action I settled on was pretty much me sleeping in blocks of 4-5 hours so that I'd wake up still tired, but able to stay awake for several hours so I could sleep a bit more to rotate my hours, and naturally I was tired as shit all the time because of it. For some reason I feel less compelled to write if I wake up in the afternoon. I managed to get myself up by 10am today though, so I'm all good.

Also, thanks for the concern. I feel so much more motivated when readers actually show interest beyond just voting to proceed. ;_;

>>93589

[x] Invite her over right after school.
-[x] Get work on designing your weapons.

[x] >>93590

[x] >>93590

Argetlahm technically works because it was held in a cutscene, and Hot Fencer is just your standard energy blade.

[X]>>93590

Looks good.

Updates?

>>93901

Was working on Flight right now, trying to find a picture to start a new thread with, but seems there's not a whole lot of easy to find pictures of Komachi teleporting. Perhaps I'll take a break from that and update this then.

[x] Invite her over right after school.
-[x] Get work on designing your weapons.

You write your reply to inform her she should come over right after school, then wish her a good day. With that business out of the way, you clean up your dishes and take a short trip over to the couch, where you drop yourself and start to browse for your avatar maker. You figure you might as well get started getting your weapons ready now that Chie sent you that patch file. You've already got a pair in mind, naturally given the theme of your avatar already. Thankfully as well, they're a little easier for you to handle, even with your mediocre creation skills. First up is the easiest one, starting with a long tube with a tapered end. You attach another short tube to the opposite end, and with a little deforming, you're pretty much finished. Apply a dark texture to the handle, and set a glow property to the blade, finished! You save the file and then close the design program. Calling up your avatar menu next, you select the weapon, and it materializes for you.

Next step, you go back to the message Chie sent and get to the patch. You make a copy in a folder of miscellaneous odds and ends, and then copy another one, which you then move to your cyberpouch management system. From there, you simply reach into the pouch and retrieve the program's 'physical' representation. Looks a lot like your typical metatag, though Chie's crescent moon symbol is present in the corner as a signature of sorts. You press the tag into the blade of the sword, and it fades away, leaving the weapon to flicker a little before returning to normal. You assume it worked, but without anything to really test it on you're just going to have to assume that it works for now. Unloading the beam sword, you start up a new file for the larger one of the two, which would require a bit more work.

As it turns out, Argetlahm was harder than you first assumed, after realizing you only had a faint memory of what it looked like, it took you longer than you expected to find a reference picture for it online. Much longer, in fact. Guess that's about what you can expect trying to look up an individual weapon from a game more than 40 years old by now. With reference in hand though, you set to work on the weapon. Thanks to the rather simple design, it's a fairly easy task in making the weapons base model, with the most time consuming part being the circular divot taken out of the forward edge. You're partially done with the texture when you think to check the time. As soon as you do though, there's a knock at your door. You put down the half finished weapon on the couch and head over to the door, spotting the top of a blonde head through the high window set into the door itself. You pull the door open, and are greeted by a rather excited looking Maggie.

“Hello!” she starts, moving her head a little to try to see past you. Must be looking for the fairies already.

“Hey,” you give your greeting and step back to let her in. Maggie steps through the door and starts to slip off her shoes.

“So, are they around?” she asks, making it quite obvious what she's here for. Somewhere along the way between school and your door she's taken off her uniform top, giving a rather good mix of a casual tank top and school skirt.

“Luna's probably up in my room, maybe the others are back,” you say, gesturing towards the stairs. “You want me to go up and get them?”

“Could you?” Maggie asks eagerly. With a nod, you get right to business, heading off up to your room to round up any fairies. Luna is still there, though she's drifted away from the window and instead is seated against the wall at the foot of your bed, staring off into space. She reacts when you enter the room.

“Oh, you're still home?” Luna asks.

“The others not back yet?” you ask. Luna shakes her head.

“I was just talking to them. They went outside of normal space to visit Fairyland again,” she replies. That's unusual, you'd think if that was the case, then Luna would have gone along too. You figure you should remember to ask her about that later and add it to the growing list of questions.

“I have a friend that'd like to meet you waiting downstairs,” you say, pointing at the door over your shoulder. Luna leans to the side and looks past you.

“Is that her?” she asks. Confused, you look back over your shoulder to see Maggie peeking around the door frame, looking utterly spellbound.

“I thought you were going to wait downstairs?” you ask, a little embarrassed that Maggie is poking her head into your room all of a sudden. It's not exactly a mess, there's nothing questionable lying around, at least not in plain view, but still. Maggie's attention shifts to you.

“Sorry! I was looking at that sword you were making, but I heard you talking to someone up here and...” Maggie pauses, looking back at Luna. “She can talk? Is this that upgrade you were talking about?”

“Yeah, that'd be it,” you say, stepping aside so the two girls can see each other without needing to peek around you. “You know, since you're up here already you can come in.” Maggie takes that invitation up rather quickly, slipping around the door and walking up to Luna, leaning down a little bit once she reaches the edge of the bed to get a closer look. Luna just gives her a strange look, then gives you one as well. Talk about awkward silences.

“Uh... Hello,” Luna says, directing her attention to Maggie, whom practically squirms with excitement.

“I've got so much I want to talk to you about!” Maggie practically gushes, edging closer to the bed. “Do you mind?”

“Uh...” Luna hesitates, looking at you with a bit of confusion. Well, you did say that Maggie could come over to see the fairies, you don't really want to impose a limitation. They're just questions though, not like she's going to, or really could, do anything too weird.

[] They'll be fine, go back and finish your sword in the meantime.
[] It's harmless, but you should be in the room, for Luna's sake.
[] Try to rein in Maggie's enthusiasm a little bit.

[x] It's harmless, but you should be in the room, for Luna's sake.
-[x] Try to rein in Maggie's enthusiasm a little bit.

[x] It's harmless, but you should be in the room, for Luna's sake.
-[x] Try to rein in Maggie's enthusiasm a little bit.

Ease up a bit there Maggie or you'll freak out Luna even more.

[X] It's harmless, but you should be in the room, for Luna's sake.
-[X] Try to rein in Maggie's enthusiasm a little bit.

Gotta make sure the girls are both comfortable, particularly Luna given that she's the more vulnerable of the two. And my target.

[0] It's harmless, but you should be in the room, for Luna's sake.
-[1] Try to rein in Maggie's enthusiasm a little bit.

[x] It's harmless, but you should be in the room, for Luna's sake.
-[x] Try to rein in Maggie's enthusiasm a little bit.

[x] It's harmless, but you should be in the room, for Luna's sake.
-[x] Try to rein in Maggie's enthusiasm a little bit.

Perhaps you should stick around. Luna looks a bit put off by Maggie's attention. You wonder if Luna's ever spent much time around humans before.

“Calm down a bit Maggie,” you say, patting the girl on the shoulder. “Luna's not a doll, remember. She probably couldn't answer questions that are too complex either.” Maggie looks back at you, standing up with a smile.

“Oh that's okay, I don't think she'll have any problems talking to me,” she says, looking back to Luna. Luna in turn looks to you.

“I'll be fine, I think,” Luna says.

“See! She agrees!” Maggie cheers, then steps forward and sits on the foot of your bed, facing Luna. Right away she launches into questions about her clothes and hair, how they were designed, if she could make a copy of her image data, questions that no doubt are going to go straight into her doll making and cyberpets. Naturally Luna has a hard time answering most of the questions anyway, but she does try to keep up. After about 30 minutes of question and answers, Luna suddenly perks up, ignoring Maggie. After a few seconds of Luna being unresponsive, Maggie looks back at you nervously. You approach Luna and reach for her shoulder. Just as suddenly as she went into her daze she snaps back with a different attitude.

“Takeo, I need some kuro-spray,” Luna practically shouts. You reach down to your pouch after a few seconds hesitation and fish out the can. Luna snatches it from you and dashes towards the far wall, quickly spraying a black patch on the wall and working to enlarge it through more spraying and striking at the edges.

“What's wrong?” Maggie asks before you.

“Sunny and Star are in trouble. Illegals are after them,” she says, tearing at the hole in the wall. Through the gap in your wall peppered with error messages, you can see faint figures. “They're almost here.” The two remaining fairies are still a ways off, buzzing towards you over flat ground directly beyond your wall, a slightly surreal illusion considering you're on the second floor. You don't exactly have time to be concerned with things like that though when you see several white spots following after the two of them. They're definitely being chased, but so long as they're all within the space outside your wall you can't do anything about it, though you prepare your Hot Fencer regardless. Maggie's initial confusion over the situation wears off as well, and she calls up a few of her doll pets. If anything spills over into your room, you're ready to take it on now. Sunny and Star land in a run the closer they get to the hole, with the illegals right on their tail.

“Can you close the hole?” you ask Luna, but she doesn't seem to hear you, she's leaning through the gap now, reaching her hands out to the other two. No, that's not quite right, her hands are outstretched for another reason, but-

A shower of multicoloured lights fire from Luna's hands into the darkness. Star and Sunny run off to the sides as bolts of light shoot past them, erupting into bright flashes on contact with anything. The two returners slip through the hole around Luna as she fires, and once through Star joins in the assault, reaching into the gap and unleashing her own torrent of light. After about a minute, the two girls relent, and you can't see any signs of any illegals. The two of them step away from the hole and slump to the ground, leaving the broken space to slowly reconstruct itself. You stow your weapon after a few seconds.

“What was that?” you ask, breaking the silence.

“Self defense?” Luna replies, sounding a little confused by the question.

“Yeah, but, what was that?” you repeat, not entirely sure what else you could ask.

“Even though Fairyland is safe, the rest of space isn't. Lots of bugs and glitches lurking around, illegals, viruses,” Luna says, looking over at Sunny, who has splayed herself out on the floor. “We need to have some way to protect ourselves.” That's something you could understand, but it doesn't really clarify how they could do that. You haven't seen anything like that before as far as various 'attack' programs go, though you suppose that there's quite a bit of things you haven't seen in cyberspace. You can't exactly discredit the idea either, given the number of files they each have you can't identify.

“Why were they chasing those two anyway?” you ask. Luna doesn't reply, she just watches the hole in the wall as it closes. After another two minutes, the final patch of the wall restores and a 'Restoration Complete!' message flashes over your wall. Luna stands up and turns to you and Maggie.

“I'm sorry, I don't feel like talking anymore,” she says, walking over to the corner she typically sleeps in and sitting down again. “I'm going to take a nap.” The other two fairies crawl their way over as well and group together. Seems they're all going to nap, so you gesture to Maggie to come with you and leave the room. Once outside, you shut the door behind you.

“Does that happen often?” she asks, you shake your head.

“No, this is the only time something like this happened before, I don't even know what to say,” you explain, scratching your head. Maggie looks a bit disappointed, though she manages a smile.

“At least I did get some good bits,” she says, opening up a screen. Seems she's taken more pictures of Luna, alongside some other files.

“Well anyway, good to know you at least did enjoy yourself a bit,” you say with a smile of your own. You imagine that now would be a good a time as any to see Maggie off for the day, though you could just as well spend some more time with her on your own. Nothing exactly comes to mind for a topic to talk about though, beyond what just happened.

[] Talk with Maggie. [+Write in topic]
[] See if she'd like to go somewhere.
[] Take Maggie back to her home.

[] See if she'd like to go somewhere.

[x] See if she'd like to go somewhere.

[0] See if she'd like to go somewhere.

[x] See if she'd like to go somewhere.

[x] See if she'd like to go somewhere.

Might as well get out of the house. With the current situation, you're hard pressed to think of something you could do to entertain around the house, so heading off somewhere would be a good excuse to push the current situation aside.

“I think we should head out for a while, go for a walk around and let the fairies rest,” you say. Maggie seems to be up for that.

“Sure, I need to pick up some more material actually. There's a good place I go to a lot downtown, actually,” she says, heading downstairs. “You want to come with me, or did you have somewhere else in mind?”

“Ah no, that's fine,” you reply, following her down. “Just anywhere would be good. Is it a textiles shop?” Maggie shakes her head.

“Not quite, more like a kindred spirit,” she answers. That sounds a little unusual, but you figure it couldn't really be all that bad. Downstairs, the two of you get your shoes, and you your key, and set out for a destination unknown to you.

**

What you end up finding is a tailor. You could have expected something like this, it wasn't too unusual to make the connection.

“Here it is,” Maggie says, looking back at you. You'd been trailing behind her a little bit. Not by much, but enough to at least not make it look like you were walking side by side. You look at the storefront, looks like any other place, custom fitting suits with a side of clothing repairs. Maggie heads in first, and you enter in behind her as she walks towards the counter where a woman stands. Another blonde foreigner, though the closer you get you can notice the dark-haired roots growing out. You can't quite place her age, she's not old, but she's not close to your age either. She's sporting visor style glasses and seems to be working on something. She looks up when Maggie reaches the counter and smiles.

“Hello Margaret,” the woman says, with a noticeable accent. “Come for business?” she asks, looking past Maggie to you, then back. Maggie produces some pictures she took of Luna, and hands them over. The womans face lights up when she sees them. “Oh, what a marvelous doll!”

“She's not a doll,” Maggie says, looking back at you. “It's one of his 'pets'.” With the newfound attention, you divert your own to the wall to avoid eye contact. You don't really want to be pressured into answering more questions about her. Maggie continues talking regardless, going on about the style and ideas for material. You tune out the discussion since it doesn't really interest you and pass the time looking around the store. You stop to look at one of the display stands, apparently showcasing something about a suit it's wearing, when you notice something unusual just below the lens of your glasses. There's nothing there, the bottom of the stand doesn't exist. A cyberspace display piece?

“She does this kind of work too,” Maggie says from beside you, looking over your shoulder. “Making clothes in both cyberspace and realspace, I guess you could say she makes avatars professionally.”

“Who is she?” you ask, looking back towards the counter. The woman isn't in sight.

“Her name's Anne Gekizai, though the surname is her husbands,” Maggie says. “She moved here about 20 years or so ago, back when the cyberglasses technology was just kicking off. She has a few children, a daughter a grade below us at another school.”

“You sound pretty familiar with this family,” you say, a little interested in why she knows this much.

“Well, I've met most of her family just by coming in here from time to time. They drop in every once in a while, I don't really know them all that well,” she says, looking towards the counter herself now. Anne exits from a back room area carrying a bag. Maggie heads over to the counter and fishes out her wallet, retrieving a card. With a quick transaction, Maggie picks up the bag, gives her thanks and heads back over to you. “Alright, I got what I needed,” she sighs happily, then nods towards the door. “Let's go.”

The two of you depart from the store, but with no other goal in mind besides the one that had just been completed, you're at a bit of a loss.

[] Part ways, this was enough.
-[] But don't go home, wander around on your own.
[] Do a bit of window shopping.
[] Go to a fast food restaurant.
[] This calls for a cafe.

---

I am bad at coming up with names, no matter the language.

[x] This calls for a cafe.

[X] Do a bit of window shopping.
[X] This calls for a cafe.

Window shopping is fun enough, and a cafe is a good place to cool down afterward.

[X] Do a bit of window shopping.
[X] This calls for a cafe.

[x] Do a bit of window shopping.
[x] This calls for a cafe.

[x] Do a bit of window shopping.
[x] This calls for a cafe.

Updates?

Yes, I suppose I have those due, don't I?

[x] Do a bit of window shopping.
[x] This calls for a cafe.

“So what next?” Maggie asks, looking to you expectantly. Well, suppose you've got to call the shots, and you intend to get some good use from the time.

“Maybe we could walk around a bit, look at what some shops around here have,” you say, adjusting your glasses slightly. There were quite a number of stores around here with a variety of purposes. Around here was mostly fashion oriented, but the tech stores and various miscellaneous businesses aren't too far away. Maggie seems a bit lost in thought.

“There are a few places around here I wanted to check out, actually,” she says with a smile before starting off ahead of you. “Come on!” Well, since she's taking the lead it saves you the trouble of having to suggest a place to go. She waits for you to catch up to her before she starts walking again. As expected, she makes a tour of a few other clothing stores, snapping pictures of things she likes and filing them away. A few times she actually calls up one of her pets and then holds up a picture she just took over it, as if to help envision it as an outfit. She seems to be getting a kick out of it though, and you do find it kind of interesting to actually see her at work, how she probably spends her free time anyway. Of course, you're currently palling around with a cute girl downtown, so you don't really have much to disagree with. You slowly drift into the tech shop area, and while Maggie's picture snapping frenzy slows down, that doesn't really stop her. Now though, you're on equal grounds in terms of interest. The two of you eventually come to a cyberglasses retailer, and actually enter the store. Inside, you spend some time browsing new model frames while Maggie looks over new software and service offers. After wasting some time kicking around the store and making mental wishlists, you and Maggie leave, and find yourselves standing aimlessly on the sidewalk again.

“I'm kind of thirsty,” Maggie says, looking around, you assume for a vending machine or a convenience store. You get an idea.

“How about we go hit a cafe?” you say, looking over a map of the area. There's a place about a block away from you, across the street, seems like a good enough place. Pulling up information on it reveals that it's a fairly popular place. “Sounds like a solution to me.” Maggie giggles slightly.

“Sounds like you're planning a date,” she says, and you blank out for a bit. Well shit, looks like she's onto you, but she doesn't seem to oppose the idea either. Your face feels a little hot all of a sudden, though.

“I suppose it would, huh?” you say with a grin. “Doesn't mean we can't just go to relax.”

“Well then let's go!” she cheers, and you lead the way this time.

**

It takes a few minutes to reach the place, and it turns out the place is nearly packed. There's a patio area out front that's nearly to capacity, and a glance inside shows that it's definitely full in there. This place really is popular, isn't it? You have to approach a podium in order to get a seat, though there's currently no line. You guess that's a good thing. Once seated, you're left with one last problem, even before you order: What do you talk about?

[] Small talk
[] School
[] The, uh... 'Team'
[] Flirt
[] Write In

---

I fought with this update a bit, to the point where I regretted the choices offered. Then I remembered how to write and the problem went away.

[x] Small talk
[x] The, uh... 'Team'
[x] Cyber Pets. Ask her how you would go around making your own.

[x] Small talk
[x] The, uh... 'Team'
[x] Cyber Pets. Ask her how you would go around making your own.

[0] Small talk
[1] The, uh... 'Team'
[2] Cyber Pets. Ask her how you would go around making your own.

[~] Small talk
[ℤ] The, uh... "Team."
[ℯ] Cyber Pets. Ask her how you would go around making your own.

[x] Small talk
[x] The, uh... 'Team'
[x] Cyber Pets. Ask her how you would go around making your own.

[x] Small talk
[x] The, uh... 'Team'
[x] Cyber Pets. Ask her how you would go around making your own.

“So, anything interesting happen at school today?” you ask, the first question you could naturally ask. Maggie shrugs and gives her head a shake.

“Nothing really. Madoka was a bit annoyed, but she got over it with the help of half of my lunch,” she says with a smile. “She wanted to see what you'd say about the patch program that Chie made as well.” Right, that. You realize just how much Madoka might freak out when you show her what you've been doing as far as weapons go. That might keep her from pestering you for the day as well, which is a good thing. Speaking of Madoka though.

“How's everyone else doing? The... team, I guess,” you proceed to ask, feeling a little embarrassed about the idea still.

“Chie's working on something for Mana, but otherwise we're all pretty much ready, I guess,” Maggie replies. She interrupts herself before she continues. “Oh, a waitress' coming.” You turn your head around to look in the direction Maggie is, and find yourself face-to-boob with a rack that quickly becomes familiar.

“Oh, if it isn't Takeo,” Katsumi says, looking down at you. She works here? More to the point, is this uniform supposed to accentuate the bust so much? I mean, christ. “You here on a date or something like that?” she continues, looking over at Maggie, who is apparently avoiding eye contact from the both of you. Ah, you were kind of hoping she'd take the lead here, but it looks like it's on your shoulders. You do want to believe that's what the situation is, but are you the only one that thinks of it like that, or at least wishes it was? Maggie did say something to that effect before, right? Wasn't she joking though..."Damn it.

“Uh...” you choke, trying to find the words to explain the situation without committing an answer, but Katsumi just pats you on the shoulder.

“It's fine, it's fine! It's not really my business anyway,” she says, producing a pad of paper. “What'll you have?” You hadn't even though about that really yet, but apparently Maggie has, jumping right at the chance and ordering herself some form of parfait. You might as well just go with something simple.

“I guess I'll take coffee,” you say. Katsumi gives you an amused/disappointed smirk and jots down your orders. “I didn't know you worked at a place like this, though it kind of makes sense,” you add. Katsumi chuckles in response.

“Yeah, this kind of thing suits me a little more, but this is just part time, and my second job,” she says, drawing out a pencil. “Have you been practicing lately?” she asks while writing. It takes a few seconds to remember she's talking about games.

“Oh, no, not really. Been busy with some other things,” you say.

“Hmm, maybe I should come by again and make sure you're not rusting,” she says with a grin, turning away from the table. “I'll see you later!” she says quickly, heading off into the crowd and entering the building. You turn back to Maggie, who is giving you quite an amused look.

“I didn't know you were so popular with older girls,” she says with a quiet laugh.

“She's a friend of my sister, though I guess she's sort of my friend as well,” you state. “Though I still don't really know much about her. When we met we were spending most of our time trashtalking and beating each other at a fighter, so...” you trail off. Maggie still looks amused.

“But you didn't tell her you were on a date,” she says, and you just freeze up. Damn it! Is that what this really is after all? Now you're kicking yourself for not just going with it.

“Well, uh...” you start, once again trying to futilely explain yourself, but Maggie just responds with laughter.

“Geez Takeo, I didn't think you get flustered so easily. I thought you were a bit more cool-headed,” Maggie muses, sitting forward. “I guess you just get wound up easily over girls, huh? That's kind of surprising.” … You give up. You're being screwed around with it seems, and you just sigh. Time to press on at the very least, try to think up another topic to discuss. In the meantime, your orders come, and you take a sip of your coffee. It's provided black, with packets of sugar and cream offered alongside. You actually prefer it straight, though. As you drink, you come up with the next topic.

“So, how do you make your cyber pets anyway? I've been kind of curious about how that works, thought it would be interesting to make my own,” you say. You can almost see a switch flip inside Maggie as she takes a scoop from her parfait, you're definitely entering her territory now. After a few bites, she goes into explanations of her techniques, how she goes about planning her designs and creations. It figures she'd give a bit more of a personal opinion on the matter given how much she enjoys the subject, so it takes her a while to get around to the actual nuts and bolts part. You welcome the fact that you only need minimal input in this, as Maggie is all too glad to go on with the technical details; scripting, coding, graphic design, mesh making. She goes on to open several programs as well, showing you various windows of information, each used in the process of making her dolls.

You do present a few questions eventually, and they're answered in turn. In the end, with the two of you sitting behind empty cups, Maggie types on her console and a window pops up in front of you requesting a data transfer.

“I'll give you some stuff to start with, and you can play around with it,” she says. “I find it's better to learn from experimentation and deconstruction, so I'm including a few basic 'sprites' as well.”

“Alright then, thanks,” you say, tapping the accept button. A progress bar pops up, and after a few seconds, it fills up and the window vanishes. You look up the new files and give them a look over. The basic programs needed to create simple pets, as well as a few sample files, yep, all there. Granted, if you wanted to make anything as complex and detailed as Maggie's doll pets, you'd need a lot of practice, but at the very least you can get your feet wet with this. As you close down the folders, you check the time. It's been about 30 minutes, and the two of you have been done with your respective orders for a while now.

“Think we should get going?” Maggie asks. You don't really imagine you've got much more business around here, you did just stop to relax a bit, and you can always walk Maggie home to keep talking to her if you wanted. The biggest issue at hand though is the bill.

[] Offer to cover it, it's not a lot of money.
[] Pay for your own order, it was cheaper.
[] Suggest half-and-half payment.

And

[] Walk with Maggie
[] Part ways and go home

---

An update!

[x] Suggest half-and-half payment.
[x] Part ways and go home

[x] Suggest half-and-half payment.
[x] Part ways and go home

[X] Offer to cover it, it's not a lot of money.
[X] Walk with Maggie.

It's the gentlemanly thing to do.

[0] Suggest half-and-half payment.
[1] Part ways and go home

[x] Suggest half-and-half payment.
[x] Part ways and go home

[x] Suggest half-and-half payment.
[x] Part ways and go home

You don't feel like paying the whole thing, but just paying for your coffee seems a little too cheap. It seems the best option is to pay for half. You start to fish out your wallet.

“Let's split the bill half and half,” you say. Maggie looks a bit surprised, but fetches a small coin purse from the pocket of her skirt.

“Well, I would have been fine paying for my parfait, but I'm not going to complain about paying half,” she says, placing a few coins on the table while you lay down a bill. Looking at it afterwards, it seems Maggie put down a bit more than half. You look up at her, and she shrugs. “A tip, for the laughs.” Yeah... You put your wallet away and slide your chair back. Maggie collects her bag and stands along with you, and the two of you make your way out of the patio, taking a few steps away before stopping.

“Well, that was pretty fun,” you say, reflecting on the day so far.

“I agree, I haven't really spent any time hanging out with anyone recently,” Maggie replies. “Usually I'm down here alone, it's pretty nice to have some company for once.” She punctuates with a smile.

“Any time,” you say nonchalantly. You really didn't mind, you have no objections to how you spent the time. You learned some pretty interesting things as well, so it's all good. “I'm ready to head home though.”

“Oh,” Maggie blinks. “Well, there was one place I wanted to go stop by at on the way back. At least walk with me there,” she says. Sounds good, you nod, and then let her lead, following a step behind. Along the way, you start to chat a little about school again, the approaching exams and summer vacation. After two blocks, you reach the final destination, and Maggie steps away. “See you at school!” she says as she turns away, heading into the building, and you continue along on your own. It's not a long walk back on your own, by the main streets at least. You could cut some time and traffic by taking the back alleys though, or you could also just call a cab. There's nothing stopping you from heading somewhere else, however. You still have a decent amount of money, you could hit an arcade or something, maybe you could get some practice against other players.

[] Head home along the main streets.
[] Cut through the alleys, save some time.
[] Call a cab, walking is for the poor.
[] Hit an arcade, practice your game.

---

Oh shit, another update!

[0] Cut through the alleys, save some time.

Random Encounter ho!

[x] Cut through the alleys, save some time.

[x] Cut through the alleys, save some time.

[X] Hit an arcade, practice your game.

[x] Cut through the alleys, save some time.

[x] Cut through the alleys, save some time.

The alleys are much more direct, and you don't have to navigate your way through as much foot traffic or deal with the noise. You'll still have to worry about the streets when you come to them, but those are problems you can deal with then. You head further up the block, then step into an alley. No distractions, and very few people compared to the main streets. It's only really a difference of ten minutes in the long run, but that's still better than nothing.

You jog across streets along the way, taking the alleys further out of downtown and into the pseudo-business residential areas. Crossing one more street, you enter an alley and find yourself looking at quite a mess. A young looking girl with dark brown hair is crouched in the middle of the alley, gathering together a bunch of objects you come to realize are fruits and other grocery items. Nearby a torn plastic bag sits alongside several other bags. You slow down a bit as you approach, and the girl finally notices your presence, looking back at you over her shoulder. She gets a bit red in the face, then turns back to the mess of groceries, trying to gather them up faster. Looks like she has the situation mostly under control, but...

[] Offer to lend a hand
[] Don't ask, just help
[] Don't do anything, she's got this

---

What's this? Multiple updates in a row? Holy shit it's like I'm actually a writefag!

[x] Offer to lend a hand

[X] Offer to lend a hand
- [X] Be persistent if she refuses.

Not potential-rapist persistent, but let's ask more than once just in case.

[X] Don't ask, just help.

A little gesture goes a long way.

[X] Don't ask, just help.

[0] Don't ask, just help.

[x] Don't ask, just help.

[X] Don't ask, just help.

You can't just leave her like this, even if she does get it all together, that bag is still ruined, and she's got what, five others to carry as well? Yeah, that's not happening. You circle around to the torn bag and pick it up, wadding the torn part up in your hand as best as possible to keep it closed.

“Here, start putting them in, I'll hold it for you,” you say. The girl's blush deepens, obviously embarrassed so much more, but she doesn't say anything as she fills the bag with it's spilled contents. They don't all fit back in, but what's left she splits between the remaining bags. You close up the bag in your hand and hold it while she picks up the rest, then finally looks up at you. You're about half a foot taller than she is, but she doesn't look as young as you initially thought, she's just short, it seems. You can't help but notice the nice light blue colour of her eyes, as it was the first thing to occur to you when you realize she's actually not wearing glasses.

“Um... thank you,” the girl says, bowing to you slightly. You just smile in return.

“So, you got everything together?” you ask, looking around in case something small got away. The girl takes a glance around but shakes her head.

“I didn't lose anything it seems, so uh...” she pauses, making brief eye contact and then looking away. “Can I have my bag back?” You look her over, she's already practically overloaded with bags as it is, you need to use both hands to make sure you don't spill the bag yourself, there's no way she could carry this on her own.

“I'll carry it for you, it's pretty torn up,” you say, and the girl seems even more bothered than before. “Or if you still live far away, I could call a cab for you, that could save you the trip.”

“W-well, you see...” the girl says nervously. “I kind of don't have any more money, so I couldn't take a cab back. I... don't live too far, really,” she says quietly, stammering slightly. You're not sure if she's just entirely embarrassed, or shy. Maybe both?

“If it's close, I'll carry this there for you. I actually don't live too far away myself, so I'm going this way anyway,” you say. She starts to fret a little. You can tell she knows she can't carry the bag alone, but doesn't want to admit it. After a few seconds of aimless panic, she just steps back and half turns, shifting her grip on the bags she's already carrying. She starts to walk off without saying anything, so you just follow her. Whatever she's got going on she's having problems voicing it, though that's not really your business. You're just helping her out of a troublesome situation, doing your good deed for the day.

She really does live close. Just out the other end of the alley, and half a block to the left, which means she lives about two blocks away from your house. At this distance, she could have just carried the rest of the bags home and come back for the rest, you suppose. As you approach the house, another girl with short brown hair opens the door and steps out.

“Hey, what's this? You go to get groceries and come back with a guy?” the other girl asks. She's a spitting image of the one you're helping. Twins? Identical no less. The only difference between them at a glance is this second one has her hair pinned back with barettes.

“The bag ripped...” the alley-girl says. The door-girl looks towards the bag you're holding and sighs, then looks back at her sister.

“Why didn't you call? How far were you? Couldn't you take a cab?” the sister in the door starts hailing questions, and the bag carrier seems to shrink with each one. Before she can reply though, yet another girl makes an appearance, this one thankfully not another identical twin. Taller than the other two, but with the same shade of brown hair. Doesn't look much older than you either. You're going to venture a guess at her relation to the other two here...

“What's all the noise about?” the new one asks, peering out around the girl in the door.

“Mio dropped one of the bags while walking home, and some stranger showed up with her,” the girl says, reporting the situation.

“It ripped...” 'Mio' says quietly, though no one seems to hear her.

“Then why are you bothering her, Yuki? Help her get the bags into the house, then start complaining,” the taller of the two says, looking over to you with an apologetic smile. “Sorry about all this,” she apologizes as 'Yuki' exits the door and approaches you. You hand her over the torn bag and she nearly spills the entire thing all over again in the process, then heads inside with her twin in tow. With your business done, you offer a small bow.

“I'll be on my way then,” you say, taking a step back. “You've got groceries to deal with.”

“Hey, hold on a sec,” the last girl says, stopping you. “You don't have to just go right away, you can come in and wait a bit if you want. I'm sure Mio wants to thank you for helping her out.”

[] “That's okay, I've got to get going. Give her my regards.”
[] “I guess it wouldn't hurt to wait for a bit.”

[X] “I guess it wouldn't hurt to wait for a bit.”

It's impolite to refuse an invitation. Besides, it could be a nice way to close out the night.

[x] “I guess it wouldn't hurt to wait for a bit.”

[x] “I guess it wouldn't hurt to wait for a bit.”

[X] “I guess it wouldn't hurt to wait for a bit.”

Holy crap, Mode. I'm loving this, but don't blow out your writefag gland or anything.

Man, I've missed the feeling of sitting at my computer and just writing as the votes come in, updating multiple times in a row. Feels good man, I want to try to get in the habit of this.

Of course, it's so much easier for me to do now, since I can screw around playing games on my laptop and check for votes on my desktop.

[X] “I guess it wouldn't hurt to wait for a bit.”

“I can wait around, I guess,” you say, stepping back towards the door. You're not really pressed for time. However, so long as you're going to be waiting... “I actually live not to far from here anyway, I came across Mio, I think it was said, on my way home. I didn't want to just ignore someone like that in the alley, trying to pick up a ripped back of groceries.” The girl smiles, nodding.

“Good to know there are still nice guys around,” she says with a smile. She steps out of the door, back into the house, and gestures for you to enter. You're a little hesitant to follow through, but you accept the gesture and approach the door. “My name's Yuko Shirotou, you already met Yuki and Mio. There's one more you haven't met, Kana, she's in the kitchen at the moment.”

“I'm Takeo Kourin,” you say as you step inside, and Yuko shuts the door behind you, than lingers around nearby.

“Kourin, you said?” Yuko asks. “You wouldn't happen to be the same Kourin that owns that one junk shop nearby?” Oh, well, seems that your name is a bit more well known than you figured.

“Well, I don't own it, but yeah, that's my sister's shop,” you claim. Yuko smiles a bit.

“Strange coincidence, I've been in there a few times. Your sister seems like a nice person,” she says. “I traded in an old camera not too long ago for an electric kettle.” You grin this time.

“I actually sold that camera to someone else just recently,” you say, a little astounded at the coincidence. “They were really happy to find a camera like that apparently.”

“No way!” Yuko exclaims. “That's awesome! If I'd have known I could have gotten money for it, I could have sold it myself,” she adds, winking a bit. “You a student at one of the nearby schools?”

“Yeah, high school,” you say, giving the name of the school as well.

“Ah, Yuki and Mio go to another school, they're first year,” Yuko replies.

“What about you?” you ask, since you're exchanging information anyway. A proud grin comes to Yuko's face.

“I'm a graduate!” she states. “I skipped a grade, so I'm already out of high school, graduated last year before I even turned 18.” Seems like she's about a year older than you.

“That's pretty impressive,” you say, but Yuko just laughs.

“Ah, even though I'm out of school though, I haven't really figured out what I'm going to do with myself yet, so I've just been kind of laying around while my sisters take care of me,” she says. As if on cue, one of the twins comes into view of the front door. No barrettes, must be Mio. She seems in higher spirits now, actually smiling and not looking jittery. “Oh, speak of the devil.”

“Thank you, you really helped me out of a jam,” Mio says, bowing to you again. You return the gesture yourself a little.

“No problem, really. I couldn't very well just leave you there in the alley, there's no way you could have carried that bag back on your own,” you say, and Mio nods after a few seconds.

“Yeah...” she says quietly, looking at the floor for a moment. “I just wanted to do something nice on my own.”

“The bag was an accident, it didn't ruin your efforts,” Yuko says, walking over and patting Mio on the head. She seems a bit consoled with that. A new face emerges not too long after, probably the Kana that had been mentioned. The first thing you notice is that she's definitely older, maybe mid-late twenties. The second is that she looks nothing like the other girls so far.

“Girls, dinner is ready,” she says, then looks past the two to you. “Who's your friend?”

“This is Takeo, he lives nearby,” Yuko says. “He's the one that helped out Mio.”

“Oh, so you're still here?” she says, sounding a little surprised. “Well, Takeo, do you want to join us for dinner? It's the least I could do as thanks.” This situation seems to be going in an unpredicted direction.

[] Decline, you're thankful for the offer though.
[] Accept, you are hungry, and she didn't have to offer.

[X] Accept, you are hungry, and she didn't have to offer.

Why not?

Still can't figure out which Touhous these girls correspond to. Mio and Yuki could be Lilies White and Black, but I don't know who would might be related to them.

>>98543

Hint: Mion

[X] Accept, you are hungry, and she didn't have to offer.

[x] Accept, you are hungry, and she didn't have to offer.

[x] Accept, you are hungry, and she didn't have to offer.

[X]Accept, you are hungry, and she didn't have to offer.

I guessed Mio is Youmu when you described the bright blue eyes, but the introduction of three other people, including Kana, made me think that maybe we stumbled onto the Prismriver sisters instead.

But Yuko is Yuyuko, Kana must be Kana Anaberal, but I'm still clueless about Yuki.

Mio + n = Myon
Myon -> almost identical twin -> Youmu's human side
I think.

Judging from http://www.babyhold.com/list/Japanese_Baby_Names/Kana/details/ or http://www.babynamesocean.com/japanese_names/meaning_of_Kana.html , I'd guess that Kana is Yukari.

Wait, I forgot about PC-98. Hm.

>>98579

Does this Kana have purple or gold eyes with a very nice figure? if so chances are it's Yukarin, otherwise it's Kana.

I'd think Yukari would use something like Kari or karin.

[X] Accept, you are hungry, and she didn't have to offer.

“I suppose I could stay for that,” you say, looking at Yuko. She gives you a nod then walks off with Mio. You slip your shoes off and proceed after them. First time meeting these people and you're already having dinner at their house, not too bad. From the smell of the house, it seems curry is the meal in question. You pass through the living room on your way, and you notice a large glass cabinet with a large collection of trophies and plaques. You can't tell what some of them are for, but with the number of pictures of people in Kendo gear, you'd imagine someone here is a competitive swordplayer, and a fairly good one from the looks of it in passing.

Reaching the table, you're offered a seat by Yuko. Yuki has already taken a seat, and Mio is taking hers as Kana serves out the food. You take your seat, and you're served your plate last, and given a small bowl of almonds as a side. You at least wait until everyone else starts eating before you start your own plate, not to seem too eager to get to the food.

“So you live around here?” Kana asks, looking at you over the table. In comparison to the other girls, Kana has black hair and green eyes. Despite that, she still has a passing resemblance to the others. Maybe not a direct relative?

“Just about two blocks away, I was on my way home from downtown when I saw Mio in an alley,” you say, repeating the story again just so everyone can get onto the same page finally. “I helped her out, and she said she didn't live too far, so I just thought I'd help her carry the torn bag back.”

“How kind of you,” she says, pausing to eat more curry. Mio and Yuki start their own conversation on their side of the table, or rather, Yuki does and Mio just sits and listens to her sister talk. After a few more spoonfuls from your plate, you bring up the one thing on your mind.

“It wouldn't be too intrusive to ask about that trophy case, would it?” you ask. Kana's eyes shift, she has a bit of a sad expression, you hope you didn't jump into a bad subject without knowing.

“That case is for these girls, it's my brother- their fathers -trophies, as well as their own,” she says. Some kind of family legacy of Kendo? From what Kana said, would that mean she's their aunt?

“I see, I was impressed by the number of them, so I was curious,” you say.

“I have a few trophies in there,” Yuki says, making sure to get her due recognition. “Mio has some too, but not nearly as many.”

“I placed higher,” Mio says in turn, earning her an annoyed look from her twin. They're both into it? You look over at Yuko, but she just shakes her head.

“I'm not into Kendo,” she says over a mouthful of curry. For the most part you were right, a practice that runs in the family. Maybe you'll press more on the matter later, not over dinner. You finish up your plate, right around the time everyone else finishes as well, and take the almonds to munch in the meantime.

“Thanks for having me for dinner, it was very good,” you say. Kana smiles.

“It's no trouble, I made plenty of curry in the first place,” she says, sliding her chair back and collecting her plate as she goes about clearing the table. You pitch in to help as well, gathering your own plate and offering to take Yuko's. “Oh, you're not done being a helper today it seems.”

“It's the least I could do,” you say with a smile, handing the plates over to Kana as she reaches your side of the table. Stacking them all together, she carries them into the kitchen. You don't sit back down afterwards, instead opting to get ready to leave. Yuki and Mio seem wrapped up in their own conversation again, so you look to Yuko. “I'm going to be going now.”

“Alright then, I'll see you off,” she says, sliding from her seat. “But first...” she walks past you into the living room, and you head in that direction to go to the door. On the way, you come across Yuko picking up a pair of glasses from a table and putting them on, an actual pair of frames compared to visor style. “Mind if we trade contact information? It's always good to make new friends, especially during summer,” she says with a smile, tapping away at a small console. A message window pops up, informing you of a new contact trying to address you. You accept, and then add the contact details to your address book. “Right! All done!”

“It was nice to meet you lot,” you say, continuing towards the door as Yuko keeps pace with you. “I didn't expect to get a dinner out of a small act of kindness, but I'm not complaining.”

“Since I know who you are now, I suppose I can drop by your store from time to time,” Yuko says. “Of course, if you wanted, you could always just come by again. We're pretty open to visitors here, today is actually a rare day when no one else is over.” Sounds like a pretty good offer, but also a little unusual. While you don't find the idea of visiting a group of girls to just hang out particularly bad, you'd rather have a legitimate reason to visit. You're sure you can fool yourself into believing anything would be a legitimate reason, though, so you're not too concerned. At the door, you slip your shoes on and stand back as Yuko opens the door for you.

“I'll see you around,” you say with a nod, stepping towards the door. Yuko returns the nod with a smile.

“I'll keep in touch,” she says, and you head outside, the door closing behind you a few seconds later. That wasn't bad at all, today's been a pretty good day, spending the majority of it in the company of girls, you're feeling kind of high and mighty right now. You make your way home to find that Yumiko still isn't home. You suspect she might not be until tomorrow. The fairies, however, are quite active. Sunny in particular is milling around downstairs, inspecting the house it seems. You do her a favour and turn on the TV, and within minutes her attention's been absorbed again and she finds her way to the couch. Star is sitting on the stairs, seemingly staring at nothing and looking spaced out. You figure Luna is still upstairs. With nothing better to do with your time, you join Sunny on the couch and lounge about watching TV. The rest of the night passes lazily, and you eventually leave Sunny to late night programming and make your way to bed. Luna is sitting on the floor next to your bed, apparently browsing the internet. She gives a short greeting, and you kick her out of your room momentarily while you change. You let her back in, and despite complaints, she still sits back by your bed. You climb under the sheets and drift off to sleep.

EPISODE 2 END
---

I don't know where autosage kicks in anymore, so this is the last post for this thread. I'll kick up a new thread and the start of a new episode once I can find/shittily make a picture I could use for the opening post.

>>98628

It kicks in at 250 but this is as a good a time as any to start a new episode.

>>98628
Could we see Kana's avatar when she put on her glasses? If she is Kana Anberal, as a poltergeist it wouldn't be surprising for her to be associated with Yuyuko, Youmu and Myon.

>You climb under the sheets and drift off to sleep.
[x] 4