[fieldbox= , white, solid]
[November 9th, Afternoon / Library]
"E-excuse me. I was here last week, and I think I've lost something. Do you have a wallet in your lost-and-found?"
The man behind the library counter perks up when Ryuu approaches him, putting a finger on the page of the book he's been reading. He shakes his head at the student's question. He can't remember a wallet, but of course, there is a possibility someone found it without returning it.
"Sorry, but I don't think so," he says, as his reading glasses slides down his nose.
"You're free to check, but it seems likelier one of those girls who brought you here has it. I think Ishikawa-san spends time near the back of the school, where they dispose of the garbage. She's probably crying all by herself back there. Poor girl."
The man waits for Ryuu to ask another question, but he doesn't have the answers he seeks.
@Eruantien
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[November 9th, Afternoon / The TTC]
Raptor watches the camera feed of the TTC. There are at least ten Sharks outside, but they are simply standing there in plain sight. They want to be seen. They are waiting for something to happen, and it is unnerving.
Their leader is among them, checking her extravagant gold wristwatch every now and then. Raptor can't deny that the girl with piercings is gorgeous, yet she doesn't think she is a match for Nyoko. She doesn't have her personality for one.
The leader of the Sharks is known to a few as the Lady in Black, due to the fact that she almost always wears black and has a morbid sense of humour, yet a greater number of people know her as the Great White. She is rumoured to have disposed of members of other gangs permanently, eaten them like a great white shark might do if threatened. Raptor has a little information on her, but it's not as much as it should be. It's evident that the girl is a member of the upper class, so why does she choose to waste time in the dirty alley outside the TTC? She could have sent members of her clan without showing up herself.
Raptor swallows the lump in her throat, returning her attention to Nyoko and the incident at the student radio.
[/fieldbox]
[fieldbox= Morita Nyoko, magenta, solid]
[November 9th, Afternoon / Student Radio Corridor]
Nyoko doesn't believe in ghosts, so she assumes Chiyo is joking, but then she approaches the door as if she is addressing this ghost. Nyoko decides to not pay too much attention to it. This didn't feel like a game to her, and she is growing more and more worried that something serious might happen. Maybe she shouldn't have gotten Chiyo and Yuuki involved, but they'd been the closest people to ask for help. Who knew how long it would take for a couple of Red Pandas to arrive? Probably not too long, but events may escalate out of control if they did show up. They weren't always the most reliable. Besides, they are at school. Nobody had ever dared to attack another clan at school.
"Umm, how about I use both my hands on the door handle? Then, each one of you guys can grab onto one of my wrists, and we'll all pull together!"
"Sounds like an idea as good as any, but maybe I should…" Nyoko stops herself. No, she'd asked for help. It was better that they got the door open as soon as possible rather than argued about the details. "Sure, let's do it that way."
Nyoko lays her hands on Chiyo's wrists, waiting for Yuuki to do the same before she begins to pull. This would have been a lot easier if someone strong had been nearby, but Nyoko was more of a mage than a warrior. However, the door swings open easily, as if no one was holding onto it at all.
"KIRA OSHIRO! YOU ARE MINE! ... For now and ever."
Just when Nyoko thought she couldn't look more ridiculous herself, Kyouko shows up to prove her wrong. What is she even doing screaming stuff like that in the corridors? Were they playing tag…? No, knowing those two it had to be something perverted, especially if they were getting along well enough for Kyouko to scream Kira's name. Nyoko suppressed the mental image that thought gave her.
"She's not here, Kyouko-san," Nyoko says, rolling her shoulders. "She's probably returned home to practice her drumming by now, or any other of the numerous hobbies she's got. You didn't consider messaging her on her chip? I've got her number if you want it."
Admittedly, she still had Kira's number blocked after the most recent incident. It was calmer if Kira wasn't able to communicate with her through the chips. If Nyoko wanted to contact Kira, she'd do it quickly before blocking her again.
Nyoko turns her attention back to the student radio. At first, she hadn't noticed anything different when the door had swung open, but upon closer inspection there appears to be red letters written on the ceiling. She has to tilt her head a bit to be able to read what the graffiti even says.
NYOKO IS A MURDERER
It is an offensive message, meant to scare her, but what actually worries her is what the teachers might think if they see the graffiti. She might lose her status as leader of the student radio if they find out.
"Sharks?" Nyoko whispers to herself, not daring to enter the room. She should be able to detect her enemies, even if they were cloaked, yet despite her initial efforts nobody was revealed to her.
There are about five or six of them - R4PT0R
Nyoko was about to slam the door shut again, lock it tight, as she doesn't doubt Raptor's information one bit. She doesn't get the chance to do it before a tall woman materializes several metres ahead of her. Stepping out of thin air, the cloaking her chip provides her with falls away in glittering pieces. The woman looks as if she'd been torn from a western movie, with her poncho and her hat. She is coming straight for Nyoko.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9chF9gYZqI
A new song begins to play, but it only plays in the student radio, not in the entire school. Acting fast, Nyoko launches an attack at the woman's chip, intending to blind her. It doesn't even slow her down, yet Nyoko must have blinded her.
"Motherfucker!" The woman shouts, cracking her knuckles, running towards her.
"Run!" Nyoko orders Chiyo and Yuuki, trying to push them away, as the woman raises her right foot and kicks Nyoko across the corridor. The Red Panda leader isn't as big as her virtua-ava implies, so she doesn't weigh a whole lot. Still, there was beastlike strength behind the kick which sent her flying. Her virtua-ava blinks as she slides down along the wall, fading, and Nyoko is shown in her true form. A short little girl.
@Raven Haruka @Skyswimsky @LowDefinition
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[November 9th, Afternoon / The TTC]
Raptor jumps to her feet in her room at the TTC as she watches Nyoko go flying. They had a secret connection, which no one knew about, which Raptor wasn't allowed to abuse. She could ride along with Nyoko, when she had permission, and she could see things through her eyes. Nyoko thought it was useful, and Raptor could technically be at school even if she wasn't at school.
This was not the kind of thing she wanted to see.
"Are you okay? Are you okay?" Raptor asks over and over, biting her lip so hard it bleeds.
"Talk to me, please."
There is no immediate response, and it frightens her. Nyoko is down, and there are sharks waiting outside… As she glances at the camera feed of the TTC once more, she notices that the sharks are no longer waiting. They are trying to break into the TTC. The Great White waves at the camera before they destroy it, and the feed becomes static.
Nyoko is down, and the TTC is under attack. They've planned this attack well. Raptor has no choice but to sound the alarm. Nyoko had given her orders for these kind of scenarios, and she'd incorporated a red alert in the Red Panda program at her behest. Raptor writes the password into her master account, activating the alarm.
Every single Red Panda would hear a loud screeching noise, and their chips would display a bright red interface. It effectively shuts down any other apps they might be using.
Soon, they would all turn to her for answers, as if she was remotely capable at answering them. At least they should know to head for the TTC if they wanted to remain a member of the VR clan. Nyoko wasn't fucking about when it came to situations like these.
"Come on, come on, come on," Raptor repeats over and over, sending the message directly to Nyoko and no one else. She wipes her eyes on the back of her hand, as it is becoming difficult to see when they tear up.
@Skyswimsky @Luma
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[November 9th, Afternoon / Student Radio Corridor]
The woman ignores Chiyo and Yuuki, even though they are practically standing next to her, as she looks at the people in the corridor. She refocuses her attention on the limp form of Nyoko, raising a hand to point at Kyouko.
"Capture her," she growls, before striding in Nyoko's direction.
Another five Sharks became visible inside the student radio, though they are more concerned with those right outside the door than their leader is. A couple of them carries steel baseball bats.
"Don't get in our way," one of them says, as they don their stealth cloaking once more. They had their orders, and all five of them would go after Kyouko without hesitation. Their leader wanted to handle Nyoko herself.
A sixth invisible Shark slaps a baseball sticker on Ayame's forehead, laughing to themselves. "I'm going to hit a homerun," they say, and the sound of a baseball bat being knocked against the wall can be heard.
@Skyswimsky @Raven Haruka @LowDefinition @RedArmyShogun
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[fieldbox= OSHIRO KIRA, #ffa938, solid]
[November 9th, Afternoon / 2nd Floor Corridor]
Rei's comment about how she keeps picking the wrong people as friends doesn't exactly convince Kira that she has any worthwhile to say. In fact, it makes it sound like she agrees with Kira that they shouldn't be friends at all, so if that wasn't where she was going with her argument she was certainly headed in the wrong direction. Kira doesn't particularly care about any of her other friends either. She wanted to be as special to Rei as Rei had been to her, but if she was just another friend… Surely, Rei could settle with those she managed to hold on to.
"I'm not pretending. And I think it's time to retire the pity party act, both of us. I'm still going to hold on to this friendship. You want to know why I kissed that Raptor girl? Because I've been dealing with a stalker who has been putting stickers on my bag for weeks. I thought a tech expert was necessary, but I was an absolute idiot and she hacked me and blinded me. She promised not to to anything worse if I kissed her, so I did."
No, Kira doesn't want to know why she'd done it. She wants to know why Rei had wanted to keep it a secret from everyone, including her, and why she'd had to find out through Nyoko. Besides, she already knew about the stalker. Rei's version of the truth doesn't exactly match up to what Nyoko had told Kira earlier, so she isn't certain who she should listen to. Rei is the obvious choice, but Nyoko seemed genuine when she came to visit her at the hospital.
"But... I don't care that this friendship seems pointless to you, because I miss eating ramen with you. I miss trying to understand the references to music you make, and I miss hanging out and playing shogi. Because I knew that I could lean on you without worrying about you trying to leverage me for something."
Even if Rei's argument isn't the best, at least it ends on a note which makes her smile for a second before she hides it. Kira laughs, rolling her eyes.
"So, if you're still mad you can hit me as hard as you can. I hear it's cathartic, and god knows that I can take being hit."
"Should have kissed me instead if you wanted to try what it was like," Kira giggles, laying one arm over Rei's shoulder, as she leans her head against hers.
Staring at her own feet, Kira smiles to herself. She punches the fist of her other arm straight into Rei's stomach, not holding back for a second. It's like being hit by a steel pipe, since Kira is an athletic girl in general, and she spends 90% of her time training her arms by drumming.
She hugs Rei tightly after she's punched her, mainly to keep her on her feet, keep her from collapsing in the middle of the hallway. If she is lucky, no teacher has seen what she's done. Even if Rei had told her to do it, they won't accept that as an excuse.
"I guess you'll never think of me as I thought of you," Kira whispers, with a somber tone. "That's fine. I didn't exactly have a lot of female friends, so I guess I valued you higher than I valued my male friends because of that alone. Maybe it was wrong to do so."
"I'm not sure it's a great idea for us to remain friends anyway. You're still a future english teacher, and I'm a rockstar," Kira whispers, using their codeword for the yakuza.
"I don't want to end up dead because someone thought it was a good idea to attack me to get to you. I think—"
Before she has the chance to say what she was going to say, a screeching noise invades her mind, and her chip's interface pops up.
Kira visibly cringes when it happens. It's the damn Red Panda program which Nyoko forced her to install. If she knew she was going to install malware on her chip, Kira would never have joined their silly club. It seems to be some kind of emergency protocol - an alarm, of sorts.
"The Red Pandas wants me to go to the TTC, apparently," Kira says, reading the text in the red interface.
"Better be important, or I'm going to punch Nyoko as well. Maybe I should suggest your solution to relationship problems to her, so we can punch each other."
Kira lets go off Rei, spinning a drumstick around, uncertain what she wants to do now.
@Karyra
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[fieldbox= , white, solid]
[November 9th, Afternoon / The TTC]
"Please, Nyoko… I really don't want you to die," Raptor mutters, locking the door to her room, barricading it with whatever she's got. If the Sharks at the TTC breach her sanctum, they've more or less won. She can still organize the Red Pandas retaliation efforts as long as she's got access to her computers.
[/fieldbox]
[fieldbox= Morita Nyoko, magenta, solid]
[November 9th, Afternoon / Student Radio Corridor]
"I'm… I'm not so fucking weak," Nyoko mutters, blinking against the pain in her body. She couldn't have been knocked out for more than a few seconds. The cowgirl hasn't killed her yet after all. She's striding slowly towards her.
Nyoko staggers to her feet, spitting blood at the other girl. She doesn't a functioning body to fight her. Her first attack may have been ineffective, but blinding someone is a cheap parlor trick compared to the illusions she can create. She's considered the greatest for a reason.
"I'll fry your goddamn chip if you hurt anyone other than me," Nyoko says, falling back on the language she was more prone to using when she was younger, doubting she can do it if this girl has a real security app installed on her chip.
"Oh, I'm not interested in anyone else than you. They're all small fry," the girl says, baring her teeth in a menacing grin. "Insignificant."
"Great." Nyoko sighs, baring her teeth as well in a smile. They look much too alike in that instant, like wolves trying to appear imposing so they won't have to fight each other. Nyoko chooses the only logical course of action available to her. She runs, and The Angel follows.
@Raven Haruka @Skyswimsky @LowDefinition @RedArmyShogun
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