Daisuke
Tokyo, Aoyama ~ Brick Lane (Smokey Island Bakery)
11/16/2026
Monday - Morning
Ah, he forgot to ask about Aislynn.
With that thought, Daisuke's world warps. The smiling Sakurako vanishes, and he once more travels, or rather, is thrust through digital space at maximum velocity, so quickly that even to his enhanced senses it can be nothing other than 'teleportation'-!
"Ah."
Daisuke blinks. His glasses are askew. His body is parallel to the ground, knees curled in such a way as to indicate that he must've fallen over at some point. He must have lost even basic maintenance functions, then, meaning...
How long? How long had he been out of it?
The small COMP pushes off the ground. Straightens. Casts his gaze over the interior of the bakery, and finds...
Broken windows. Scattered tables, dragged across the floor. Heavy rain. Heavy fog, too, slowly creeping in through the now open window. A malicious breeze.
A blast of lightning and spiritual energy above. The muffled, distorted sound of thuds and breaking ground outside.
"---Analysis complete."
It doesn't take a detective COMP to put this these clues together. Even a fresh face on his first day could figure it out. What matters isn't that things have gone wrong; it's that he's not too late to make them right.
Except... what is he going to do?
"..."
The panic begins to set in again. The same panic that had drawn him into a foolish decision earlier. Daisuke is alone. More alone than before. And he knows it. He has been alone on patrols, sure, and Chris had put him through simulator scenarios where he had to fight without her nearby, but he has not once been put in a serious situation like this one without someone there to tell him what to do. All the tactics and engagement rules and arts of war stored in his databanks are just that, data. Charts and books and words and numbers that have nothing to do with the reality before him. None of that will help him now.
So what is he to do? How is he to help his friends? Both at once?
Think. Categorize. Assign priorities. And remember, when in doubt.
---A familiar magical energy fills him. A bond that feels at once different and familiar.
"...ending power-saving protocol. Disengaging limiter one. Limiter two."Quote:
Originally Posted by Mokujima Chris
Something unbuckles within his body. Machinery whirs to life, metal and other materials clicking and clacking as they rapidly shift form, shape, and location. Layers of compressing technology unravel, retrieving mass and material from seemingly nowhere. The particles making up his outer form vibrate at a new frequency. The form of the boy standing in the middle of the bakery begins to blur, glowing softly with blue light along with a low hum.
"Limiter three disengaged. Consumption cap set to 110%."
Glasses and a childish bow tie clatter to the floor.
Now, there stands there a man.
Spells prepared. Slots filled. Auto-Skill chosen. Ready to fight.
As his form changes, so too does something in Daisuke's mind. A faulty gear clicks into place, and suddenly he knows what to do. There is absolutely no hesitation. The person outside needs help. Shuichi can be left alone... is what a normal Tamer might think. But he's just as vulnerable as any of them, so he will have to be protected as well. In order to do that...
Click, click, click. Daisuke grabs his left arm with his right. It continues to click, shuddering as something happens to it.
"---set."
A spell is cast, and gears shift as he puts one leg on the windowsill. One of the bakery's bright yellow raincoats is all the protection he can spare for himself.
The fog is dangerous. It will absorb magical effects. In all likelihood, attack spells will be diminished the farther they travel as well. Daisuke's own attacks are primarily ranged and he has little to no capacity for straightforward physical combat, so if there is an opponent, he will likely be unable to do much damage. In the worst case scenario, expending reiki will strengthen the fog. There may be other effects as well, and even navigating it will be difficult. He may not be able to reach the two combatants outside. And if he does, he might not be able to find his way back to the bakery. It's a dangerous journey with no guarantee of reaching either the destination or home alive.
Daisuke flies through the window without hesitation.
He has accounted for all those variables already, of course-!
First, the glow of the Harmonizer around him hardens. Daisuke goes into his own settings, overrides the safety protocols, and sets it not to just exclude attacks and damaging particles, but even rain and the very air itself. Nothing is to be allowed through, not even a single atom. A human might be at risk of suffocation, but as a COMP, he doesn't need to breathe. He just needs to keep the cursed fog and rain away from his body for as long as possible, before it starts eating into his magical energy. If he can keep it from noticing him by minimizing expenditure, all the better.
Second, he lands not on the ground, but on the utility pole above. The fog is distorting sound and likely space as well. Traveling the road is inviting misdirection and ambush, even with his strongest senses. In which case a better road is needed. One where the 'opportunities to get lost' are limited by necessity. If he travels along the power lines, the chance of being ambushed also falls, and he can use the insulated cables to trace a way back to the bakery.
Finally... before he loses sight of the bakery completely, Daisuke turns back.
He can see it from up here. The second story window to Chris' room. The one that looks out onto the street. The one through which she stared every day, seeing the outside world. Now her COMP looks in from that world...
"Hey, Saya. You were curious what a body was like, weren't you?"
Daisuke blasts the message on all COMP frequencies. The enemy's reiki up there doesn't feel like a person's, so in all likelihood they won't have a COMP of their own to monitor it. Which means...
"In that case, I'll let you try it out!"
An unexpected projectile flies through the air at high speed towards the window, thrown with all the strength he can muster.
A projectile? A grenade? A spell?
No, what crashes through the window that had separated his buddy from the world is---!
Daisuke's own detached left hand, connected to his body by a series of trailing, insulated wires. But that is all he needs to retain a connection. His body was designed to come apart for maintenance, so something as simple as this is a cakewalk. He leaves behind a glowing 'breadcrumb' to create a trail back home. And a helping hand to Namasaki Shuichi, to remind him he's not fighting this battle alone.
"Take it!"
Leaving behind half of his firepower to his ally upstairs, the COMP vanishes into the accursed fog, running across power lines into the unknown.
He may not know where he's going, but he knows what his battle is. He is here to make sure his friends don't fight alone.
That's what it means to be Bright Justice.
Wise Up!