WELCOME TO KANSAI

[akudamods]

Where are you? When are you? According to the smoggy sky above you, "noon" is a reasonable guess. You are in Dotonbori, though it may seem unwise to get closer to the bridge over the river or any iconic signs. Wandering past this single city block will be met by police robots, stopping your way with a hologram that claims you are on "probation" and will soon be given a "briefing", that the next robot scans and copies. There are human citizens in this area, at first simply stunned by your arrival and appearance. Over the minutes, though, they notice the information circulating on all sorts of holographic surfaces, and they begin chattering suspiciously about you.

The holographic surfaces aren't the only bright light in the city. You also find yourself experiencing glitches multiple times over these first few hours - parts of your body temporarily turning into bursts of color along with a burst of intense pain, or briefly losing awareness of yourself and coming back into focus a good few centimeters to the left, making an agonizing adjustment to sensory non-deprivation all over again. The other "Akudama" seem to be undergoing the same phenomenon of inexplicable sudden little changes in location. Akudama - that's what the citizens are calling you under their breath from the other side of the narrow alley street.

Want to bum a cigarette regardless? Hide in a karaoke booth and scream? Hey, you do you, buddy. Looks like nobody is coming to give you trouble just yet, unless you make it yourself. Maybe those "Gifts" some of you have will make sparks fly.

Comments

[osssuary]

I doubt I would call it the same kind of trouble.

[The boy he's accosted doesn't look at him at first -- he looks considerably out of place in this neon-bedecked and science-fiction spattered Japan, clad in a what looks like a strange modified kimono-and-giant-rope-obi combo; it's finished up with... pants and sandals? Who's his fashion consultant.

His sleeves are fairly long; so while he's staring at his hand it's by raising it almost above his head, looking a little absently at what looks like a mini-fireworks glitch show going on between his fingers with a general lack of surprise. It's time to play the murderer-not-murderer gacha, or perhaps you've already seen his picture flash over the screens and promptly lost that bet. Whoops.

He flexes his fingers a few times and then finally looks over, blinking slowly once, twice.]

You are one of the ones with devices. Do they connect to the machines here?

[Look, he might not exactly know what a cell phone is but there's analogous enough shit in Naruto world (somehow) that he can take a wild guess or two. This is what happens when you wander around with your nose in your phone, eventual ninjas take heed and start hounding you.]

[controltype]

I think I'd call it a similar enough kind of trouble to deal with.

[From what he could see on the board almost everyone here is a mass murderer so there's not much to choose from anyway. And hey, maybe it's better to help out a competent criminal rather than make them all your enemy. If he could that is.]

I happen to have a device... So far it seems to not be of much help though. Or did you have a specific machine in mind?
[So far he'd only tried gathering information but maybe there's other things they could try. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Like maybe considering the ideas of someone who doesn't know what a phone is.]

[osssuary]

... If you're speaking of this city and all its loudness, then yes. You could say that.

[There's a faint raise of his eyebrows; it's not as though he's being insincere, but there's also an evaluating lookover of the boy (roughed up?) and his motorcycle. Whatever else is going on here, this boy over here doesn't look like anyone has been beating him up in the recent past, somehow.

Even if he moves and holds himself with a certain wariness, even in the midst of his distraction.

Maybe it's all the mass murdering? Maybe it's Maybelline.]

You are... Shooter, I believe. [did he probably spend way too much time staring at and memorizing the billboards?? some ninja habits die hard] And your specialty appears to be working with technology. Do you work only with data, or do you take apart machines as well?

[I mean. Maybe hitting dismantling it will fix it?? Who knows.]

[controltype]

I am "Shooter", yes. And you are... Dancer? [Don't worry, you're not the only one overly concerned with memorizing everyone. Did he even make a little spreadsheet? Maybe so.]

That is indeed my specialty. I prefer handling data but I would say I'm also quite decent at dealing with machines as well... constructing more so than taking them apart but the processes don't differ so much, I suppose.

[osssuary]

The titles -- are not inaccurate, if odd.

[A faint pause, as though leaving a little room for Shooter to contradict things; this just now is an information desert, everything around him unfamiliar and everyone a potential enemy, even if none of them seem to be shinobi. He can tread lightly if he needs to. Even if he doesn't know where he's stepping.

Either way, "Shooter" is just about as oblique as "Dancer", when it comes to their known backgrounds and skillsets.]

There seem to be almost as many machines as people here. The autonomous ones. They may hold more information. [he probably means the patrolling ones? or perhaps the robots in general, though in the next moment his eye falls back on the motorcycle] That one is yours as well?

[controltype]

I agree with that assessment.

[It's definitely a more convenient name than others he could've gotten... Nothing wrong with being ambiguous sometimes.]

It's true, this city looks highly advanced.
Those police robots do seem to be the easiest way to more information...
I do wonder if they are connected and how they would react to being infiltrated. If you feel prepared for consequences I could try accessing one of them with my ressources.

[Naoya also glances at the motorcycle himself.]
It arrived here with me, yes.