#A Hacker Strikes at any Time (Persona 5/Strikers)

[oraclememehacker]

Online Meeting IRL (Futaba/Sylvia)

Location: Akihibara Time: Afternoon

"Damn, the Featherman search was fruitless." Futaba let off a sigh as all she was finding was the usual common stuff in all the stores that she usually perused. It was either stuff she already had or stuff that she didn't have room for in her really small room or that she just wasn't interested in to begin with. Well, she decided to check out another shop that sold figures.

It was a nice little shop, and had figures from various pieces of media, including Pokemon/Pocket Monsters. She always found it amusing that the west basically shortened the name and it became the standard for everywhere. Well, it was a more fun name to say anyways. As she was perusing the place, some Pokemon music playing through her headphones, she saw something interesting.

They were rare minifigures from Tomy from 1998. And they were just standing there out in the open. Maybe the owner didn't quite understand their value. She went to pick up the Charizard one when she felt a hand grab hers. She jolted back in surprise as she saw who it was. She didn't know who they were but she was certainly taken by surprise.

"Oh um...s-sorry about that...h-heh, you um, took me by surprise...I'm glad I didn't knock those down."

@sylviareviar

[oraclememehacker]

"You gave me the information that you had. That's all that I really should have expected. But as I said, I expected too much. I expected it to be something that it wasn't and never was going to be. I just wanted my mom to be more important and to mean more than she apparently was. She really was just a step stone in the end." It was upsetting and it was clear in her face that she was disappointed, but there was nothing to do now.

Shaking that off, she pushed herself up and was getting ready to leave. She would just get something from big bang burger with the money that she had on her way home. But before she did, she looked at him. "Still, I appreciate everything that you told me. I'm sure the others will understand as well. Especially Akira. I think he took it the worst out of all us when you seemingly died."

There was just one more thing. "And as for earlier uh...I know I didn't exactly respond well to what your mom did. I have no problem with it I just...didn't have any good response to it. I'm still learning to socialize it seems. I apologize if I made you feel uncomfortable with some of the stuff I brought up. This was uh...a pretty heavy topic after all." With that, she turned around and was starting to head off. "I'll see you later, wehehehe."

...Mental note. Probably don't bring up his mother's occupation for the next time...especially watching Futaba's reaction to hearing that. Though, the others might be able to handle it better, but...

He never blamed her. He knew, even as a child, that she was doing everything she could. In the end, it had all been Shido's fault.

"Mm...Thank you," he took a moment to make sure his hair was still tucked under the hood, then got to his feet, pushing his chair in. At least he still had manners to some degree. "I know I didn't provide the sort of information you wanted, but I know you can tell the conversation is done. I'll probably message Akira next. I don't know how long that'll take, but..."

He was going to continue working on himself in the meantime.

"Guess I'll see you around."

[oraclememehacker]

Continued from here

[Text to: Inari] Futaba: This is ice soup

Futaba: It's just a meme don't worry about it :-P Futaba: Anyways, my idea was that I wanted to be painted wearing the Featherman Pink outfit. Futaba: I can give you references if you want :-3

@autonomousxselves

[oraclememehacker]

"Panther! Watch out!" They were in the middle of a battle in mementos when an enemy got an attack that was heading right towards Ann. With its strength, and the fact that they had been in there a while and were all starting to get tired, she realized that was going to knock her completely out. With just a few moments to spare, Futaba casted final guard, blocking the attack outright.

She let off a sigh of absolute relief, her heart racing in her chest from the adrenaline. "You'll be fine Panther, let's just wrap this battle up and get out of here. Two more enemies left. Let's do this!" Once they wrapped things up, it was time to lick their wounds and head back out for the day. "Are you alright still by the way Panther? Don't worry about me, I'm fine. Just felt like I barely managed to succeed in a QTE event, heh."

@pansmaki

[oraclememehacker]

"Shujin won't let me wear my custom featherman pin to school this is tyranny."

[oraclememehacker]

She was continuing to love this conversation. It was just an exercise for her to geek out and Ryuji was receptive enough to listen to her. She hadn't really spoke this much in a long time, at least not for this length of time anyways. Grabbing a drink, she took a long swig of it so she didn't wear her voice out as much. Once that was done, she let off a little unladylike burp. "I'm glad you asked that Ryuji."

"An iso generally refers to stuff that are on disk, since we're talking about games here. You know, like the playstation 1, or any disc based system. So when you download them or rip them from a disk, you'll find them in an iso format. Now roms are usually found on cartridge based systems like the famicom, super famicom, etc."

It wasn't too complicated anyways, at least she didn't see it anyways. "Now, it's harder for someone to rip from a cartridge to be more legal but there are ways." She went on to give a small explanation of the stuff that was needed in order to rip from a cartridge. It was more involved than a CD burner but it worked anyways. "So there you go, that's the difference and how you more legally get them, though most people will just find a pirate site."

"I didn't know they changed that for the handheld version," He hadn't really paid attention to that sort of stuff - as what he had mostly noticed in terms of handheld versions was a small downgrade in graphics, but then again, he never really remembered playing his handheld all that much - had he even brought it with him when he moved to Tokyo? Or was it sitting in some dusty corner of his closet...? Maybe he'd go looking for it later.

"I guess companies don't like the idea of people being to able to play their older games...?" That was what made the most sense to him anyway as he'd sometimes heard about fan games being shut down. Of course shutting down any emulation or fan games was obviously pretty shitty in his opinion but if older companies got wind of people playing their games, he could see some of them being spiteful enough to try and shut things down. "I don't know all that much about the legal stuff of it," She seemed to have that all covered. "But it's good that emulation seems to be protected."

"Is there a difference between roms and isos...?" He bemusedly asks as there's two more terms he doesn't quite recognize. "I think it's definitely awesome that you do your best to support official creators and I'm definitely with you on never pirating any indie games - they were probably made with a lot less money and smaller teams so they deserve our official support," This much he was in full agreement on. "Plus, a lot of indie games out there are just really creative and cool!"

[oraclememehacker]

@webbedphantom

"Do you have any idea what could've caused this? Anything out of place you can recall before you got set to half opacity?"

Yeah, she could definitely recall what happened before she suddenly became transparent and flickery like this, but she didn't understand how the two things correlated. At least not yet. He was right though, it probably was something metaverse related. Maybe her cognition got changed and now she was seemingly seeing herself as a ghost. That would be very weird though.

She went on to explain what had happened to her that morning. She was just working on her usual coding stuff when she felt a sudden pain in her stomach. Of course, she thought it was just because she hadn't ate or drank much. But the pain got so intense that she had to get up and try to calm herself down. That's when she suddenly became transparent.

At the very least the pain went away afterwards which was a little bit concerning. There was one major issue that she was really worried about. "If I'm like this for too long...won't I end up dying because of starvation since I can't eat or drink?" That would be a very bad way to go, along with the other possible issues that she had been thinking of. "I did notice something when I got close to my computer though. I went through it but my body reacted a bit strange...like I was seemingly connected to it."

[oraclememehacker]

Escaping the Computer (Futaba/Makoto)

@nijimx​

“Ah, I see. How interesting. I think Makoto would love to see this.” Futaba had heard through the grapevine that Makoto was a big fan of the Like a Dragon games. Like a massive, huge fan. So when she found out about some new games that were coming out in the future, this was the perfect time for her to show this. Normally it’d just be through a text but she didn’t want to give her hand away that easily. So, she decided to ask Makoto to come over so she could show her directly. But first, she would text.

[Text to: Makoto] Futaba: Hey, are you busy? Futaba: Makoto: No Futaba, I’m done studying for today. Futaba: Good :-) Futaba: Anyways, please come over to my place if you can. I promise I won’t scare you like the first time, when you all broke into my place. Putting her phone aside, she noticed something weird with one of her screens. It was flashing and acting all weird for a moment before it would disappear. Huh, that was an incredibly weird thing, but well, probably nothing to be overly concerned about. Computers were weird and didn’t make sense sometimes. She grabbed one of her energy drinks from her mini fridge and opened it up, taking a drink. She did get a response, and Makoto was going to be over soon.

That was good. As she was waiting for her to arrive, she had a few things on her mind. How cute her Buchimaru obsession was, and how easy she was to get messed with in that regard. There was also the fact that she was pretty damn scary and cool, and a bit kinky in her phantom thieves outfit. That part she would never take away. It was so funny her response to that. She was so caught up in her thoughts that she lost track of time for a bit, until she heard the door to her place be knocked on.

Rushing down the steps, she opened them and had her usual smile. “There you are. I have something really cool to show you.”

[oraclememehacker]

Futaba couldn't remember how it happened, but she found herself falling towards the water. Was it an accident? Was it on purpose? She wasn't sure. All she knew was that she was looking up at the sky as she felt the air to her back. There was only one problem with this situation. She couldn't swim. It wasn't something that she ever had any reason to learn really, and her mom didn't exactly push her to learn it either.

She hit the water and it overtook her vision immediately. She tried in a desperate attempt to get herself to go back up, but she found couldn't and was slowly sinking downwards. Air bubbles escaped her and she was getting increasingly more desperate. It was a futile struggle as she found herself getting light headed now from a lack of oxygen. This was it, she was going to die, wasn't she?

Drowning like some fool...

It was then that she started to feel a bit euphoric as her vision was getting dimmer. Maybe this wouldn't be too bad. Maybe everything would be alright in the end. After all, this meant going to see mom, right? She missed Wakaba so much still that she was dreaming about her. Maybe, maybe this was just how things were meant to be.

She closed her eyes, ready to go.

[oraclememehacker]

"Well then it was probably Inari's fault. Or Akiren's fault. I've done absolutely nothing today. Well, I did troll a featherman hater on a forum but I doubt that's what you're talking about anyways."

"Ryuji thinks a computer chip is something you can eat, Futaba. He didn't do it."

[oraclememehacker]

"This isn't something that you see every day..." Futaba was outside of her house, examining a thing that had appeared out of nowhere. It appeared to be some sort of green pipe that was sticking out of the ground. It wasn't sticking out too far, but it was big enough that she would be able to fall into it and be in it. "Reminds me of something from a video game." She told to herself. It seemed like nobody else cared though as they passed by the alleyway.

"Is there a reason why it's here?" She was wondering since things didn't exactly appear out of the ground for no reason. Was this metaverse related? It could be, but she doubted it. There wasn't exactly any metaverse activity around here since her palace was dealt with. So that idea was crossed off her list quickly. "Welp, might as well be curious like a cat."

Regardless of whether it was a good idea or not, she investigated the pipe and saw nothing but black and darkness. When she said something, it echoed and echoed until her voice faded. She grabbed a rock and threw it in there and she never heard it land. "Okay then..." Suddenly, she would feel a suctioning sensation and she was being drawn into the pipe! Try as she might, she couldn't escape, and she ended up falling down the pipe, yelling as she did so.

She didn't know how long she had been in the pipe, but it felt like an eternity. The next thing she knew however, was that she ended up getting spat out in the middle of nowhere. But the atmosphere of the place wasn't exactly inviting. The air felt thick, everything was dead, and she could see smoke in the air.

"Where...where am I...?" She asked herself, managing to push herself up. Thankfully her headphones were fine, laying on the ground. So, she put them back on and looked around. She saw a castle off in the distance, and it looked about as inviting as everything else. On top of that, there was suddenly these weird creatures walking up towards her. Some weird turtle looking things that pointed their spears at her!

Well, this certainly wasn't going to end well...

[oraclememehacker]

Voices from Beyond

There was an individual who found themselves stuck in the realm of the living despite having died, their spirit refusing for whatever reason to go to the afterlife, whatever that would be anyways. This person wandered around and was trying to figure out what was preventing them from moving on. In this case, it was none other than former esteemed researcher and cognitive psientist Isshiki Wakaba. She had been killed in order for her research to be stolen and used for nefarious purposes, and now was stuck as a cognitive ghost.

At first, she was unable to recall much aside from her name and the fact that she was apparently dead. But overtime she was able to remember a bunch more, and was looking over Futaba as her poor daughter was hating herself. She had watched her daughter cry and accuse herself of what had happened, and while she still didn’t know for sure what had caused her death, she knew for a fact that it wasn’t Futaba’s fault, and wanted nothing more than to assure her that wasn’t the case.

However, over time it seemed that Futaba received the help that she so desperately needed and now was surrounded by friends. Something that she remembered wasn’t really the case when she was a kid. It would bring a tear to her eyes if she was still capable of crying. She thought that maybe this was the reason why she was still around; to see her daughter get better. However, despite that, the afterlife didn’t call for her. And now she was hanging around the cafe, as Futaba was waiting for someone.

“Yamagishi-san said she’d be around soon. Hopefully she brought her laptop with her.” Futaba felt a little chill in the air, the chill coming from Wakaba’s spirit cooling the air around her unintentionally. She just took that as feeling a sudden bit of cold air from the door or just a random cold chill. The familiar ringing from the door would be heard and Futaba’s attention was immediately fixated on that. There she was. She just waved and motioned for the older woman to sit down at the booth with her, pointing at her laptop and other stuff she brought. It was gaming time.

@tacitusauxilium

[oraclememehacker]

@silver-strings-of-fate

"Kill them"

"W-What? I'm not going to kill them! I'm not in a joking mood today, please don't suggest that..."

[oraclememehacker]

"English has so many rules and such that contradict itself or doesn't even follow it's own rules. It's kind of crazy. I don't know any french though aside from some meme phrases." Japanese and English were the languages she knew, and her English was definitely not all that great. Just good enough for the online forums and such that she frequented and such.

The sounds of people talking about the subway heading to Yongen filled the area as they were getting close. "And yeah, it's called Didactic memory. Whenever I close my eyes, I can visualize something perfectly. It doesn't last too long, just long enough for me to really be able to see it. And that's how I was able to remember books from memory. Along with me just loving books in general. I'll have to try out some international books then."

Soon the subway stopped at their destination and they got off, Futaba stretching and moving her arms around. And then they were heading towards her neighborhood. "It's pretty narrow around here, as expected of these sorts of areas. The cafe is just up the road from here, and then my house is in the area. Not a big house, but it works enough for me and my dad."

"That's really cool!" Kotone stood closer to the aisle, letting Futaba have the window spot more away from the people. Seemed right since Futaba was shorter and less good with people. "That's called uh... Edi...? No... Gie...? No... Didactic Memory! That's the one! Where you can recall images vividly from memory! That is super cool to have!"

Kotone smirked. "I've been reading a couple light novels, but a friend of mine has suggested more international books actually. I use a translation app to put the books in Japanese when I take a pic of the pages. It's super cool! Though I know a little English and I'm learning French." Was she learning French to impress Mitsuru? Yes. She liked showing off to her for... reasons.

[oraclememehacker]

Game and Date Night

“Come on, come on…!” Futaba and Ren were during an exciting co-op playthrough of Pocky and Rocky on the super famicom. This game had been the bane of their existence ever since she had found it for relatively cheap. She had heard good things about it, and every time they played, they would get far it before the game really started to kick their ass. This time, however, they were on the top of their game. Enemies were going down like they were nothing, and soon they were at the 5th stage, the forbidden castle.

There were lots of cages strewn about, lots of enemies and barrels to destroy. At this point they were both down to their last lives but had full health and such. Neither of them was really saying much to each other, other than watching out for enemies and to avoid obstacles. Their full attention was on the game that was in front of them. And they were determined to beat it. Unfortunately, right before the boss, they died, and it was game over. What a frustrating way to end things, since Futaba had looked up that the next thing was the final boss.

A frustrated groan escaped Futaba as she laid down the controller and turned to Ren, who shared her frustrations by letting out a sigh, and was clearly gripping the controller a little more tightly than he perhaps should have been. “Don’t worry Ren, we’ll get it next time. At this rate I think we’ve seen most of the game. We would’ve won too if we hadn’t gotten sloppy during the 4th stage boss.” There wasn’t much that could be done now, and they were too deflated to want to retry.

She reached over to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek to cheer him up. “Wehehehe, I think we did pretty well tonight don’t you say?” She grabbed one of her half full energy drinks and downed the rest of it. “Yeah, we did Futaba. Still just upset that we didn’t beat it tonight. Damn, I thought for sure we had it.” As he looked around, he realized they should probably clean up a bit. There were energy drink cans, soda cans and various bags of chips and stuff assorted around them. “…We should probably clean up a bit.”

That was when she realized just how messy they were. “Oh. Yeah, we probably should.” Futaba admitted with a sheepish chuckle as she watched Ren make his way downstairs to grab a trash bag. Then the two would get to work cleaning things up, putting everything in the bag to take out to the garbage later. As they were, Futaba couldn’t help but notice a slight upset look on Ren’s face. It was just a momentary thing that she would’ve missed normally, but Ren meant a lot to her. She loved him, so she was paying attention more to how he was feeling.

“Hey um, Ren? Is everything alright?” Futaba asked, putting the last of the trash into bags. He meant a lot to her after all and seeing him upset didn’t make her feel good at all. Maybe she was overthinking it but still. “Huh? U-Uh, of course I’m fine Futaba. Why do you ask.” He seemed confused, as everything was fine, at least, he thought so anyways. “I just saw that look on your face. It was like you turned from a smiley face emoticon to a frowny face one. Wanted to make sure you’re alright, is all!”

Oh. Normally he didn’t allow that to be seen, but Futaba was asking about it now, and he knew she wasn’t just going to Alet it be. “Just some thoughts, is all. It’s not a big deal really.” Hopefully that would be good enough for her. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. “You don’t have to lie to me Ren. We’re in a relationship. Just because I have trouble picking up on social cues doesn’t mean you can lie to my face like that! Please, you can tell me if something’s upsetting you.”

He sweat dropped hard at that. But she was right, he didn’t have any good reason to lie to her. It was just a reflexive thing from the days of his parents always bugging him, and then when he would tell them what was going on, just telling him to suck it up, or that he was overreacting, or that he was being a drama queen. Plus, with him being seen as a delinquent and a troublemaker, he really learned to keep his head low and to lie to avoid any issues.

“Okay okay, sorry Futaba. I’m not intentionally trying to hide things I swear. I just didn’t think it was a big deal, that was all.” There was an intense aura coming off Futaba still that just made him close his eyes. “It’s just, and it’s not really something I’ve told anyone but, I’m still dealing with the aftereffects of that interrogation.” Hearing that made the intensity fade away quickly, having a more concerned look. “What sort of effects are we talking about? Like a permanent status effect?”

That elicited a small chuckle from Ren. “Something like that. I’ve been dealing with migraines since then. I’m thankful to not deal with any today but they’ve been prevalent. Plus, there’s this spot in my chest that’s always been hurting. I think it’s from where they kicked me. There’s a large chunk of my memory that’s lost from then as well. Just a lot to deal with is all.” Immediately he was hugged softly, avoiding the spot the best she could.

“I’m so sorry Ren…we all knew that it was going to be risky. We just never expected them to drug you.” Hearing what he was dealing with deeply upset her, making her feel responsible for what he had gone through she was instrumental in saving him with the app activator. He returned the hug, giving her a few head pats of appreciation. “I didn’t expect it either, to be fair, heh. But don’t blame yourself. You saved me after all. If you hadn’t made that app activator, I’d be…I don’t want to think about it.”

Plus, there was a few visions that he was having where he saw himself laying on the table in a pool of blood. It must have been from his cognitive self. That was terrifying to say the least, but he wasn’t ready to confront that sort of thing just yet. So, for the time being he would keep that in his back pocket and just continue to give Futaba some head pats as she was sniffling into him, clearly still upset, and blaming herself for him being so hurt constantly.

“Just remember Futaba, I went along with the plan. We all did. We knew the risk.” He lifted her head up by moving his hand down to her chin, making her look at him. He then would lean down and softly kiss her lips, enjoying the softness of them as he held the kiss for a bit. He loved this adorkable nerd so much. She made his life worth living despite everything that he went through, and he wanted to make sure she knew of that.

There was bit of delay on Futaba’s end as she had been taken by surprise by this, but she returned the kiss in kind and the two were in a nice little embrace as they kissed for a bit, before he pulled his lips away. “So don’t blame yourself anymore, alright?” Futaba was incapable of saying anything and merely just nodded. He then wiped the tears that were in the corners of her eyes and gave her a few more headpats.

Then he realized: they had never taken the trash out. “Oh yeah, before we cuddle, I’ll take the trash out.” Pulling himself away from her, he took the trash down and quickly disposed of it in the dumpster in the alley way before heading back to his room. Futaba was in a much better mood now that she had been persuaded not to take his problems as her fault. He merely motioned for her to follow him to the bed and she would happily do so, after taking her glasses and headphones off.

The two would lay down on his milk carton bed and wrap their arms around each other, Futaba situated where she could nuzzle into his chest. Ren could feel his heartbeat just a little bit faster, because whenever they cuddled and enjoyed time with each other in this manner, it made a swelling of emotions come up to the back of his throat. He could only imagine how she must have felt in this situation, since she was a massive cuddler.

Futaba just found herself being comfortable and love stricken. To her, Ren was the most important person in her life. He was her key item, and she wasn’t going to lose him no matter what. That’s how she felt, and she nuzzled into his chest some more, thoroughly enjoying herself. “Mmm…you’re soft tonight, Ren. And smell good as well, surprisingly. Oh right, you went to the hot springs before this, you told me that.”

He thought maybe the intense gaming session would make him stink a little bit, but that didn’t seem to be the case. She patted her head some more, whilst rubbing her back, fingers swirling around in a soft circle to make her feel more relaxed. His chest softly rose and fell with each breath, and there was a healthy silence, the only sounds being from the two of them talking to each other, and the outdoor noises making their way in through the small opening in the window.

She would move her hands up and down the curvature of his spine, making sure he was nice and relaxed as well. The two were happy and in love, and there wasn’t much more that needed to be said. “Um…Ren? Thanks for everything…I-I love you…more than anything. You’re my key item. I never want to lose you.” As corny as it was, he really appreciated hearing that. “I love you too Futaba. Don’t worry, I’m not planning on going anywhere…well, until my probation is over.”

Oh right, that was the fly in the ointment. She didn’t want him to go, but his parents were probably going to want him back once that was over with, which was coming closer and closer every day. “Don’t worry though Futaba. I’ll be back as soon as I can. I’m going to see if I can’t strike a deal with my parents to stay here, because frankly I don’t really have anything to go home to. My parents don’t really care about me, and cared even less when I was charged with a crime.”

Hopefully that was the case, because him not being here was going to devastate her. “I hope so…I don’t want you gone. Not yet.” Futaba kept rubbing his back, sounding a little upset and frustrated at that. “I’ll fight with all my might. Just like fighting a major boss in an rpg.” Now he was talking her language. For now, the two would just continue to cuddle up against each other, but he would find that Futaba ended up falling asleep. Woops. Well, she wasn’t going anywhere tonight.

And neither was he. It was a great Game and Date night, and he managed to get some stuff off his chest that had been bothering him since the Interrogation room incident. Though, he still had more stuff to deal with. That was going to be a whole can of worms, something that he was probably going to need a therapist for. He gave her a few more headpats before just falling asleep alongside her. Sojiro was going to have a lot of questions in the morning, and same with Morgana. Oh well…

[oraclememehacker]

Continued from here

“I wasn’t feeling all that great yesterday but I thought it was just my exhaustion getting to me. I had a dry throat and it went away for the most part. Now I’m exhausted in a different way.” Her whole head felt like it was in a cloud, and one of her nostrils was clogged. Plus, occasionally she felt light headed and was definitely sick with something. She didn’t get sick too often thankfully but when she did, it usually got pretty bad before it would get any better.

“Ugh, I’m sick, aren’t I?” She found herself stumbling a bit as she hit a sudden light headed spell, nearly falling over. However, she grabbed at Ren and was able to keep herself steady. “Dammit...I’ve been hit with some sort of status ailment and I don’t have the proper stuff in my inventory to deal with it.”

@silver-strings-of-fate​