WEEK 2

[akudamods]

Saturday passes uneventfully save a little rain. It's on Sunday that you get a little notification of probation for new areas: Neo-Nipponbashi and Chuo. It'd be possible to investigate, to check out some anime, or to worship the defunct Shinkansen. But maybe it's hard to get excited about any of that when Friday’s events suggest that you have simply been provided some additional photogenic places to commit murder. Are you going to bother either overseer after their participation in some mockery of justice? Troll the internet? Get a bat out of Hyper Zone and just take out your frustration on everything?

Those of you who entered the pods will experience fewer “painful bursts of color” as your body is unaffected below the knees, though the same amount of “slight teleportation” glitches. Those of you who abstained from the pods will continue to experience all of the above as well as electric shock sensations occasionally when touching metal objects.

INTERNET | SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY

((Internet investigations of any kind go here, and for all IRL areas, please use "investigate" in the subject line of your top-level comment, or link the thread to a moderator!))

Comments

[hunterandhunted]

[Just as easily as Kimimaro dodges any of the stray balls that might fly towards him, Zenos easily smacks them with enough force to have set dents in the metal of his bat.]

Surely a man should not allow his skills to weaken, and I will not play into our captor's hands by unleashing my sword on my fellow Akudama!

[Which may be surprising given he's one of the few that seem pretty ok with just killing whenever!]

[osssuary]

I see. To you... this is a type of kenjutsu. Perhaps.

[He does not see. His tone says that he does not see. He is mostly repeating whatever the hell Zenos just talked about, turning it over like a particularly bizarre leaf or scroll. Even a ninja such as himself has to be familiar with with the various types of leisure sports.

This is not a type of kenjutsu where he comes from.

Then again, they also did not have people who were like eight feet tall and wildly wielding gun-katanas. Thusly: he is forced to consider. There's a moment more of thought; the meanings behind the meanings.]

... Anyone who would take our captors' so-called offer is not worth even the flat of a blade. Not even the merest child from our villages would be deceived by such a poor attempt at temptation.

[He almost spits that. Really, it's only one of the things that he finds truly insulting about their situation. Perhaps it is, in a way, a testament to his opinion of present company: Zenos may be loud and he may be ridiculous, but he's at least cannier and more useful a fighter than many.]

[hunterandhunted]

[Just as Kimimaro is unused to leisure sports, the word kenjutsu simply passes through one ear and out the other. The name itself sounds Hingan (but to be fair, so does all Japanese, so!), so he merely brushes it off as one of the constant inconsistencies between their fractured realities.

Instead, he tosses the dented bat aside—for it clatter among the several other dented bats he's ruined—and devotes all of his attention to the young boy before him.]

So then tell me, Kimimaro... what is it you fight for?

[osssuary]

[Japan-adjacent culture strikes again....... later in the week they will finally find some common ground, but just now they can't even talk about bladework without getting tripped up. Then again, for people like them, perhaps it is not talk that is the most important part.

He spares a glance for the tiny bat graveyard (no mammals or Robins were harmed in the making of this, probably) to one side, but dismisses it almost immediately.

There's a faint raise of an eyebrow but then, this particular member of their cyberpunk dystopia-bound cabal of criminals tends to bounce between philosophical and weapons ramblings. He's not exactly opposed, even if it is a strange venue for it.]

I fight for my lord and his vision of the world. [...] Why is it you are so interested in the fight? For the sake of fighting itself?

[hunterandhunted]

There is not greater way to know a man than through the heat of battle.

[Zenos takes a few striding steps out from the designated batting area, seemingly apathetic to the sensors that warn him against it.]

Beasts will fight for territory, food, or simply the chance to mate — but only man has the judgement to fight for glory, for his own pleasure.

[A pause, considering.]

You say you fight for your lord, and there is value in such a life. Does it bring you joy, then, to serve?