“Are you sure about this, Iwasaki?”

It was hard not to be anxious. Sure, he was a thrill junky. All his favorite VR games were horror-based. Getting scared was his pastime.

But Kawahara Daisuke never wanted to go quite this far with it.

Sure, exploring ghost spots and abandoned places was part of being a horror junkie. He got that, he understood it. He’d done some exploring before, the both of them had.

But this place was on a different level.

“Somebody died here just last week,” he added, nervously, “It was on the news and everything. Aren’t you at least a bit worried?”

Iwasaki had always been something of a delinquent, pushing the envelope whenever he could. The cocky smirk his friend returned to him was a familiar sight, and one that always heralded the formation of terrible ideas.

“What, you think that’s going to happen to us?” he asked, “It was an accident, wasn’t it? An old run-down place like this is full of things that can kill you if you’re careless.”

He waved his hand dismissively.

“Don’t be a baby. You want to catch sight of a real ghost, right?”

He did, but…

Something about this place didn’t feel right. Maybe it really was because somebody had died in an accident recently, but Kawahara wasn’t so sure about that.

It wasn’t anything so special to look at, not really. That was mostly due to how hold it was. A very aged, broken-down mansion that had to date back at least a couple hundred years wasn’t going to be all that impressive anymore, not when it hadn’t been cared for in so long. Kawahara could see places the roof had caved in.

All this property had belonged to the person who built the mansion, he guessed. At this point, he wondered why it hadn’t been torn down yet.

Then again, there really were an awful lot of places like this, weren’t there? Maybe it just wasn’t a priority. It wasn’t as if this land were high value or anything.

Iwasaki had already pushed on ahead. He was already approaching the door.

“H-hey, wait up!” called Kawahara, picking up the pace to catch up to his friend.

Iwasaki’s cocky grin flashed in the night as he turned around.

“See? Nothing bad ha-“

It sounded like a gunshot. At least, that’s what Kawahara thought it was.

Something warm splashed against his face.

“Wha…?”

It was several moments before his mind caught up to what had just happened.

Iwasaki stood there ahead of him. He was still standing.

His lower jaw hung slack, his tongue lolling.

The upper half of Iwasaki’s head was gone. It looked as if it had been blown away, blood and brain matter splattered across the ground behind him as the body slowly fell backwards.

What he’d felt hit his face was---

Kawahara’s scream could be heard even at the nearby town, before being suddenly silenced.

---

It was just another morning.

There was no real need for urgency, not today. And so, her morning routine proceeded as normal. A shower, getting dressed, and breakfast.

Her profession required formal wear, and thus that was how she dressed herself. Her red hair tied up into pigtails, a red ribbon on her neck.

Ifrit collapsed in its case.

The ride to work was short. Rather than take a train, she was driven there.

From the outside, the building that housed Branch-092 was entirely unassuming, set away from any public spaces with good reason. Not only did it appear as if it was nothing special in and of itself, but it also wasn’t near enough to any residential areas that any random person could go wandering too close.

Of course, that didn’t mean its perimeter was unguarded, nor did it mean it was the only entrance. Just that sometimes subtlety was better then doing anything that would arouse too much suspicion, and this was the closest entrance for her.

Besides, she considered anyone who would go sticking their nose in here a little bit of an idiot. There wasn’t any reason for the average person to involve themselves with the Branch’s business.

They would just end up getting hurt.

Or worse.

“Welcome, Agent Murakami.”

The entrance was nothing special, either. A simple lobby with a desk run by a few receptionists, where all she had to do was show her identification and have it scanned before being let in. There was more to it then that, as she understood, but it was pretty obvious she was who she claimed to be.

Murakami Arisa proceeded down the smooth, clean, clinical hallway. She knew it was lined with all sorts of security measures that kicked in the moment someone set foot in it. You’d have to be a moron to think that it was just checking and confirming your identity.

There was no way that would be enough.

Naturally, Arisa had nothing to worry about.

At the end was the entrance to the real Branch-092. From outside, it just looked like a simple, albeit particularly large elevator.

The doors opened.

Arisa stepped inside.

“Geh, it’s her,” complained an orange-haired agent, clutching a clipboard to her chest, leaning towards her black-haired friend.

“Geh? Did you really expect me not to hear that?”

Arisa glanced over her shoulder towards them as the elevator began to move.

Neither of them spoke after that.

Rather then directly down, the spacious elevator was instead moving at an angle, steadily, soon enveloped in dark steel.

It was some time before it exited again, coming to a smooth halt.

This was the location of the True Branch-092, and where she performed her duty.

Without glancing back at the other Agents in the elevator, Arisa exited herself, gripping the handle of Ifrit’s case somewhat more tightly as she walked. She heard the other Agents exiting behind her moments later.

The hallway was vaguely cylindrical, opening into another lobby with a final identity confirmation. But if someone got this far, it was likely that all of the other security measures had failed against them already.

She always felt a little bit impatient about it.

Beyond the lobby the hallway widened into a much larger, rectangular room with access to different wings of the facility up or downstairs, plus further doors lining the halls and suspended walkways linking the offices above.

At the center of the room, surrounded by a ring of greenery, was the Monument of Humanity’s Future. As Arisa understood it, this was a fixture of every Branch, in one place or another. A tiered sculpture, tall and smooth, bearing Sefirot’s motto:

‘Fight for Humanity. Reach the Future.’

Of course, the containment wing was also accessible this way, though going there without being cleared ahead of time required an additional layer of security checks. The grey floor and the pale, near-white blue walls were marked only by the colored lines that indicated which wing was being approached.

Green for Research, Blue for the Offices, Yellow for Training, and Red for Containment.

Today, Arisa was expected to be on-duty, but hadn’t yet been briefed on any missions.

She supposed she could take advantage of the training room if she felt so inclined, or perhaps help oversee the Agents on containment duty. With her Malakim-level clearance, she was permitted to do so with most of the Anomalies contained in Branch-092.

Needless to say, she wasn’t aware that her plans would soon be changing.

@Raineh Daze@OwO@Psyker Landshark@Izurich@Eisenhorn@PKMNB0Y@Rune_Alchemist

There was one employee that didn't come in through the entrance. This wasn't because of some exemption--at least, not originally--but because Sakura never seemed to really grasp the idea of using the door for some place she was meant to be more than the first time. It had long gotten to the point that the small girl had forgotten where she actually lived and whether that was technically part of some Sefirot base or not, as she'd both not used the front door in years and lost the key at some point. After several attempts to make her enter properly had come to nothing, they'd thrown their hands up and just gone for the easiest solution to tell whether the random intruder in their base was an employee or not and just put a tracker on her. Not that she minded.

All of which meant that it was an ordinary day for a portal to open into one of the office areas, already with a few agents waiting to find out if today was going to be a slow day or not, and reveal the interior of someone's living room for a few seconds before she came through. Ordinary for this branch, yet still quite an oddity in the general scheme of things.

More impressive was that the girl's phone didn't skip a beat, still talking away as she meandered towards the coffee machine.

"But they're different subgenres! One's a classic slasher film, one's a gothic--" she protested, waving her free arm aimlessly.

"Fiiiiine... just don't pick something in some long continuity this time! It's no good watching a movie that won't introduce any of the characters properly."

Face turning a shade to match her hair, Sakura had reached the coffee machine--and the nearby cupboards, her free arm digging around for a specific cup. It had to be here somewhere, she'd only used it yesterday. "I--you... that's not the point! There was nothing else for me to appreciate!"

"Muuuu..." Finally producing the desired mug--one slightly chipped on the edge, a white design stencilled on black, the girl stepped back to look at the coffee machine. How did this one work again...? Did she need to put something into it or was that already handled somehow? "Should I bring snacks?"

"I'll be over after work, then. It shouldn't take as long to set up, I've cleaned the cabling up since last time." Well, the cup went there, and... would it really be so bad if they labelled these buttons with words and not pictures? All she wanted was coffee, why was this machine so complicated!

"Really? If we just start the movies later, I could help!" Hm, this flap looked like it opened, and... was this where you put something in or took something out? It was empty, so maybe this was where you had to put coffee in. Which cupboard would have coffee... mugs, cleaning supplies...

"Oh, good point! I'll see you later, then."

"Misakiiiii, don't call me that," the pink-haired girl pouted, overall pink again. "Yes, yes, I love you too... take care, bye."

Maybe the coffee was in one of those overhead cabinets? A few exploratory tentacles started reaching out of the nearby air, opening them. If there was no coffee, she'd just have to push all the buttons until it worked.

Given that he had only "recently" been recruited to Sefirot, Tachibana Masaru still felt rather nominally out of place compared to everyone else who he seemed to be working with. He was by no means the youngest present, oddly enough, but in many ways he saw himself as the most normal—and, in a way, most fortunate of them all. Would he rather have lived the rest of his life as a streamer, maybe transitioning into variety content once he grew big enough? Quite possibly. But given how much money Sefirot had thrown at him and how insanely persistent they had been up until he had ceded to their offer, that might have never been a possibility after his miraculous victory over that Warped all those months ago.

Unfortunately, Masaru was acutely aware that such what-ifs mattered little in the moment, and that his life now would be one of constant hunts and peacekeeping. In a way, that was too far off from what he had done up until now; killing or capturing virtual monsters could be close enough to that line of work if one squinted hard enough. It didn't help in the least that the desire for self-improvement had more or less led to him talking himself into taking up the job, or at the very least played a meaningful role in the matter.

There was probably some irony to be found in the situation, but regardless of what had led him to this point, he was here now. Thus far, the Agent had not actually found himself deployed onto the field for any incidents, which meant that he spent a majority of his time loitering around base. Though that passed well enough the first few days, it didn't take long for Masaru to familiarize himself with the layout, and soon wandering turned to boredom. He was banned from streaming now, after all—too much of a hazard in multiple ways to do so—and though the hefty compensation they provided made up for the loss in income revenue, the overwhelming ennui over the next week led to him turning back to old habits.

In this case, though, "old habits" didn't mean anything inherently harmful to him, like tobacco or alcohol. No, in this case, it meant a return to what he was comfortable with: virtual hunts in a physical space. The training room was no Monster Slayer DX—though part of him was tempted to ask the staff to set it up—but it did have a bunch of data on some more physically destructive Anomalies that could be turned into simulations to go up against. A good number of them were meant for teams, of course, but the challenge to running into them whether or not anyone else wanted to join him was a good way for him to burn the day away if nobody had any plans for him.

For the moment, that meant slowly sweeping through the list of Avon-class Anomalies and bringing each one down in turn. The challenge seemed feasible enough in his head when he had first considered it, but the size of the roster left Masaru wondering how much time that task would take—doubly so given the number of entries added in by the day.

Hopefully not too long; maybe he'd actually get sent out for something instead of being stuck in combat simulations for the whole day. At least nobody was pushing him to go train, given how much he was "technically" training already.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that a contained Anomaly could be found in the aptly-named Containment Wing, however, two anomalies in the same chamber? Unusual, bizarre, or even... anomalous if you would. Nevertheless, such was the case within the containment chamber assigned to host the Avon-Class Anomaly "A-187: Lonesome Princess", inside the low-security room was an oddly innocent sight, especially to laymen blissfully unaware of the truth.

Two young girls, each appearing no older than ten summers, could be seen playing house with various plushies and toy furniture. One had red-green heterochromatic eyes, long white hair, doll-like pale complexion, and wearing a frilly gothic lolita dress, while the other shared the former's multi-colored eyes except mirrored into green-red, she also had knee-length dark green hair and similarly pale skin tone, but wears a much more modest apparel in the form a simple white sundress. Judging by their smiles and giggles, they appeared to be having fun.

"What does Winnie like, sis~?" The green-haired girl asked, her right hand holding the stuffed doll of a yellow-furred anthropomorphic bear, a curious look on her youthful visage.

"Oh~ Winnie really loves honey, Tera." Answered the white-haired girl with a few gingerly nods, meanwhile, her left hand was clutching a beige-furred rabbit character, "Rabbit also really likes honey!"

"Oooh, I see~ so both of them love honey, un un~" Tera - the one with the green hair - nodded sagely in understanding, then tilted her head a bit in brief contemplation, "But Tera likes meat more than honey."

"Hehe~ of course, you really love meat after all." The Lonesome Princess giggled to her 'younger sister', "Oh, speaking of meat, I have something for you, Tera~" Her Anomalous Highness put down the rabbit plush then proceeded to rummage into a toy treasure chest, a brief moment later, she procured another plush, bearing the shape of a cartoon steak, "Tadaaa~ I made this for you, Tera!"

"Ooooh!" Tera's mismatched eyes figuratively shone as she laid her gaze upon the 'steak', then as casually as one would extend a limb, the lower-half of Tera's right arm morphed into a red, flesh-like tentacle, it wrapped around the gift before pulling back as it shifted back to a more... humanoid arm, "It looks really tasty, sis~ can I eat it?" The leaf-haired Anomaly inquired with palpable hunger.

Normally, right now, the Lonesome Princess' mysterious gift curse should start to take hold on the recipient, turning them into brainwashed devotees of the Avon-Class Anomaly, practically dooming them into a fate worse than death, yet... for one inexplicably eldritch reason or another, Teratoma wasn't affected at all. Her lovecraftian nature scoffed at such petty attempts, she came from a plane of existence where madness and chaos made incarnate, what would be considered an anomaly for mere mortals was nothing but child's play to her kin. On the flipside, this allowed the Lonesome Princess to not be so lonesome anymore as she could have a friend that she wouldn't - couldn't - innocently murder.

"No, silly, that's for hugging, like a pillow! Ehehe~" Her Highness giggled in mirth, amused by Tera's antics, always thinking about food, what a handful girl~

"Oooh... un un, then Tera will not eat it, Tera will hug it!" The Fleshweaver grinned, slightly bit disappointed that it wasn't edible, but overall still delighted at receiving a gift from her 'older sister', however, this presented an issue, a grave issue, "Since Tera can't eat this meat, I'll get some eatable meat then!" The young girl stood up, leaving the bear doll in exchange for the steak plush, "Tera will see you later, sis~"

"Hehe~ okaaaay~ see you later, Tera~" The Lonesome Princess waved to the other Anomaly, then as Tera left, she put the dolls and toy furniture away, exchanging them for a coloring book and a pack of crayons, "Hmhmhm~"

As for Teratoma, she made her way back to her own room (containment chamber), in which the assigned personnel unlocked to allow the benign, cooperative Anomaly to enter. Once inside, she put her newest gift onto-... Hmmm... since sis said this is for hugging... ...-her bed instead of the shelf. That done, the Anomaly walked over to the large fridge set upon a wall, opening it to reveal rows upon rows of fresh, raw meat. "Uweee~" She licked her lips hungrily as she grabbed one of the meat slabs, closed the fridge back, then went over to an empty floor space within the rather spacious chamber, meat slab in tow.

There, Tera's humanoid body rapidly morphed with sickening noises of wet slime and crunching bones as she - it - returned to its true, unaltered form, a pulsating mass of living red flesh. "NyUm NyUm~" Its garbled voice reverberated through the air like a forbidden litany of madness as its mass swallowed the slab whole, and just like that, it vanished into the creature's gaping maw. Though one could imagine said piece of meat being replaced by a living, breathing person, fortunately, the eldritch entity was content with its current meal... for now.

Yūma was speeding across the side roads, vaguely approaching Branch-092, as he usually did during his morning routine. He woke up earlier than necessary every morning so he could go out and enjoy himself on the road a bit, suit jacket whipping in the wind as he weaved and leaned into each turn, the roads he was tearing along almost as familiar to him as HQ was. It was why he had to drive as fast as he was, it was the only way to wring any enjoyment out of such a well tread route. He was expected to be in the office today, so he couldn't range out to further away roads he was less familiar with. Still, it was always a pleasant wake up call to feel the wind in his hair as he raced along, turning onto a more main road, reluctantly slowing down to a reasonable speed as he began travelling roads that actually saw some police presence. Last thing he needed was explaining to his superiors why he was late because he got pulled over doing triple digits on any of the surrounding roads.

Moving towards the front building, there was a nearby spot he parked that let him walk the rest of the way, and was one of several discreet parking locations for agents who had their own transport they took to and from the Branch. Securing his bike in the underground parking garage, he took a casual stroll towards the Branch front, stepping in just ahead of when he was supposed to be there, and right on schedule...

"Welcome, Agent Amano."

Grinning to himself, Yūma made his way to the elevator, happening to catch it as soon as it returned from the depths of the Branch proper. The angle of its descent always threw off new recruits and the like, most folks not used to elevators moving at an angle like that. You got used to it though, and the former officer hummed to himself, leaning on the wall of the elevator while he straightened his suit out, brushing out the mild untidiness from having ridden his bike in to the office. The elevator wasn't too terribly long, must be running smoothly today, and the agent stepped out of the elevator, continuing to hum to himself as he went through the final identity checkpoint, mostly a formality that. But an important one all the same, and he before he could consider what he would do to keep himself busy today, he spotted one Agent Murakami, and decided he could stall by at least being polite.

"Agent Murakami, good morning! Another wonderful day in the life, isn't it?"

Yūma had a casual, pleasant tone as he approached the agent, greeting her with the same generally pleasant demeanor he addressed everyone with when not on the job proper, as it were. He heard some of the scuttlebutt about the woman, not a lot of it pleasant, which he saw as kind of pathetic really, on the part of the detractors. Especially the ones who were glorified desk jockeys who sat around pushing papers all day, but that was consideration for another time.

The alarm on his phone rang, but he was already up. It was a habit he'd held since the temple: wake up earlier than designated so the monks in charge wouldn't have a reason to get on your case. He'd never quite kicked that feeling. Instead, Zhao Jinhai sat cross-legged in the middle of the fancily-padded cell they called a dormitory, and meditated. Find one's center. Attain utmost emptiness. Maintain utter stillness. Focus. And...

Form fists.

Qi flared around his frame, and Jinhai smiled to himself briefly. Enough training of the spirit. He may as well move on to training the body.

His stomach rumbled.

Right, after breakfast, then. Maintaining his spiritual energy did tend to take a toll on the body. He rose from his meditative pose without protest, moving to get dressed and get on with the day. Good thing that his minders at least let him keep his suits. Likely because it meant he'd comply with the dress code. Wasn't hard to when the Italians made him look so damn good.

___

Breakfast was quick and easy: rice, miso, and fish in the on-site chow hall. What he wouldn't give for some fucking youtiao or jianbing, but that was the price of getting his ass caught in Japan and not back home. Still, now that he had just enough food in him to not keel over during a workout, time to get to training.

Jinhai quickly found that someone had already beaten him to the training facility, though. Right, the new kid with the bow. Well, newer. It'd been a minute or two by now. The one with...some crap about being an entertainment personality? Jinhai grew up in a temple, it took him a year just to get used to phones and shit. Wasn't like he was all that attuned to that sort of nonsense. Last time he'd tried watching TV, he'd regretfully come to the conclusion that the monks had been on to something about the material world. And wasn't that just a crying fucking shame to prove them right?

"Yo," He raised a hand casually, the other clutching a sheathed blade from the armory. "Room for one more, kid? Didn't think I'd see someone else here this early. Crusty old bastards where I grew up would've liked you."

@PKMNB0Y

Mae Ah-ryeon

"How's the skin tissue?" A man wearing a labcoat and gloves said.

"Still no signs of any change." A woman in similar attire replied.

"Hm. Well, ke-"

"Yea. I'll come running down to see you if anything happens." Ah-ryeon dismissed the man's request before it was stated. It was always like this. Every week, she'd have to hole up in the research wing so they could poke and prod at her patches of colourless flesh.

It was a necessary safety precaution for someone who was anomaly-touched. Of course, the fact that her colourless scars had remained unchanging all this time had reassured the researchers. Initially, they kept her in quarantine, wore hazmat suits, and poked at her with ten foot poles. Now they wore gloves and face masks--items that Ah-ryeon had disallowed them to go without.

Their research was always inconclusive. It wasn't skin, yet it was skin. It wasn't muscle, yet it was muscle. Whatever sample they took remained unchanged as if locked in time. They weren't living cells, but they behaved exactly like them. The research team often argued about how it should be treated. Should it be a child of another anomaly? Should it be its own? Was it just a byproduct from an anomaly?

Well, Ah-ryeon never really cared for their epistemology. If she got closer to her goals, then she'd deal with being observed.

At the audible sound of footsteps behind her, Arisa glanced over her shoulder. The Agent approaching was Amano, an older man who had a past in law enforcement. She wasn't unfamiliar with him, but that was hardly a surprise when they worked in the same branch. Active duty Agents had a duty to at least know the names of their fellow Agents.

"Agent Amano," she responded, bowing her head slightly in greeting.

Another wonderful day in the life? Frankly, as long as she had an opportunity to perform her duties, then that was all she particularly cared for. 'Wonderful' was ensuring that innocent people didn't have to deal with dangerous Anomalies, carrying out her duty to its fullest extent.

If she could take pride in that, then she could consider it 'wonderful'.

"As long as I'm able to fulfill my duty and ensure no-one is hurt, I think that counts as wonderful enough for me," she added, inclining her head slightly as she walked.

After a moment's pause, the redhead glanced over her shoulder again.

"Do you have an assignment, or are you just on-duty?"

If he was wasting time on smalltalk when he was supposed to be on assignment, Arisa wouldn't let him hear the end of it.

@Eisenhorn

Numako Yamamizu
Branch-092 - Offices
@Raineh Daze

---

Most people in the offices were normal agents. Well, as normal as agents of Sefirot got, anyways. They were going about their business, seeing if they were to be sent on an assignment somewhere or if it was just going to be a slow day of report finding, anomaly research and otherwise a relatively mundane day for them. Numako, was among these people already in the offices, having just finished her weekly checkup for the suppression device.

A startled yelp from the women's toilets would bring a small interruption to this peace.

As black liquid started filling one of the sinks, overflowing slightly, a pale, lithe hand followed by an arm soon would too pull itself from the sink. It grabbed the edge, and it was soon followed by another arm...and this, was soon followed by a head. A messy head of black hair, wet with water.

"...Damn it Miss Yamamizu!" The same voice that screamed would promptly shout. Not something that was too unheard of being shouted every now and then.

"Oh heeeey, didn't see you there. What's with the screaming?" The head, now quickly pulling itself from the blackened sink water addressed the other woman as it was apparent this was in fact, an entire person just materializing from the sink. The voice that accompanied the objectively bizzare sight was low in tone, and somewhat airy. "Just got done with the weekly checkup. Anyone from the research wing here?"

"N-No...?"

"Well, If you see one, you didn't see me." Pulling herself from the sink and drying herself off as the black liquid vanished near instantly. Numako left, quietly walking out of the restroom and into the offices properly. Messing with the researchers was always fun. Really, they should be used to it by now! It was always funny watching them try and figure out if she was just fucking with them or not and whether or not she was going to do some silly prank. Though, sometimes they didn't quite go to plan, like that time she tried to escape and ended up getting stuck between two of her puddles...

"...Sakura." She was pulled out of her thoughts by the sight of the short, pink haired tentacle lover looking for something. She'd quietly approach the pink haired girl from behind. "...looking for something?"

"It's this coffee machine!" the girl in question answered, neither reacting to the silent approach or turning around. Whether it was spending her whole lifetime around things like this, or just her constant horror movie watching, it seemed to have paid off in making her nearly unspookable. Instead, she just slid her phone into one pocket and gestured at the offending appliance. "Why is it always so complicated to use?"

... not that it actually was. Sure, it was a bit on the elaborate side--likely so that people at least slightly more adept than Sakura wouldn't have any reason to open it up and put anything in--but it wasn't like the touch screen to select things was actually a challenge to navigate. Aside from that, the big 'go' button was fairly obvious, and the worst that could happen was getting the wrong drink.

Except that this girl seemed to be a hazard to nearly everything kitchen related. The tentacles hovering ominously near the machine spoke to that.

@Rune_Alchemist

As he was about to resume his training from wherever he had left off on the list, Masaru heard a voice calling out from behind him. Opting not to immediately set everything up, the young man turned around to face the person who had done so, only to find himself face-to-face with Zhao, who, as far as he knew, wasn't exactly on the straight and narrow.

Didn't make him any worse of a training partner, though. While first impressions hadn't done much for his image, having someone else to hunt in the training room with at least spiced things up a little. Never mind that it meant that he could try his hand against some of the bigger game, of course; that was just a bonus.

"Morning," Masaru responded, raising one hand in a casual gesture of acknowledgement. "And, uh... Yeah. Doesn't really feel like training to me, if I'm being honest. If you want to tag along, though, then by all means. Hope you don't mind Anomaly simulations; it's more or less the only thing I do."

With a partner at the ready, though, the young man began to look around for something more fitting for a pair of Agents to take on rather than the ones being suggested for solo training before ultimately deciding to leave it to chance. Hopefully the "Random" option wouldn't throw something too far out of their depth at them; on the off-chance that they [i]did/[i] actually need to get pulled for a mission, leaving one of them too banged up from training wouldn't be a great look.

"Should be everything set up. I'll head on in first," he said as he left the older man to enter the training area proper. Unsheathing his bow and readying an arrow for whenever the green light to start was given, Masaru took a deep breath and assumed a simple combat stance. A small smirk could be seen on his face as the room around him began to shift to fit the new landscape, but without the enemy coming into the picture yet, well...

There was really nothing left to do but wait and see.

@Psyker Landshark

While everyone else was busy socializing, training, spooking, or struggling with mundane everyday technology, the Esh-Class Anomaly registered as "A-188: Teratoma" was content to enjoy its meal as the person-sized slab of meat was being dissolved inside its amorphous body; muscle, ligaments, and even bone, by the time the Fleshweaver was done, absolutely nothing would be left of the meal. The entity might be many things, but let no one ever say that it's a waster, parents all over the world could only dream of having a child as thorough as it.

As expected, soon enough, the wholeass chunk was gone, so utterly that law enforcement would have no way of recovering any traces if it was a murder victim instead of raw beef. In a matter of minutes, Tera had finished something that would take the average person multiple full meals to chow down. "HaAaAaA~" Satisfied, the blob of eldritch flesh morphed back to the seemingly innocent green-haired young girl without much ceremony, just like that transforming from a breeches-soiling creature to an adorable “child”. Hmmm... Raising a hand to her chin, she pondered about what she'd like to do next. Since there were no "bad monsters'' to punish right now, she could play with sis again, or frolic around the base, or... she could take a comfy nap using her new steak-shaped pillow! Yes, yes, that'd be most pleasurable indeed.

Making her decision, Tera skipped over to her king-size bed, belly-flopped on it, practically glomping the steak pillow, then she rolled around on the bed with it for a couple times before settling into a position. "Nyem, nyem...~" With her belly full, she closed her eyes and began drifting off into a blissful slumber, probably dreaming of... something, best not to pry into the abyss, lest the abyss pries back.

The Branch-092 Training Room was equipped for a variety of different training exercises. Indeed, this included having an area for the purposes of training against recorded data from assignments. It was, indeed, about as close as one could get to live-fire training against actual Anomalies.

While the entire system was managed by one of AMATERASU's subroutines, exactly how it worked was somewhat mysterious to most Agents. It was similar in nature to some altered reality VR games, but didn't require any specific gear on part of the ones utilizing it. The room itself was instead outfitted with whatever technological and magical innovations were required for the purpose of digital reconstruction of a given Anomaly.

By default, it was black white. But as new data loaded in, that changed. A stone path formed beneath their feet. Grass sprouting along the ground, followed by a few trees. As the recreation of the recorded mission data continued, a clear night sky formed above them, finishing with the light of a number of stars and a crescent moon.

Before them stood a statue.

It was large, depicting a rather imposing man in armor identifiable as dating from around the Sengoku era, one hand near the sheathed blade on his hip. While no clear name was depicted, it had to be in honor of one famous figure or another.

A cool, pleasant female voice soon announced just what they were up against.

"Termination Mission Data 2231B: U-101 "Infested Stonework" Instance 82. Commencing training exercise."

There was a sound of grinding stone.

The statue's head turned towards the Agents.

Almost immediately after, it lurched forward with surprising speed, arms now raised and hands balled into fists, bringing them slamming down with enough force to pulverize concrete. Needless to say, a direct blow wouldn't be pleasant even if real injury was unlikely in the Training Room.

@PKMNB0Y@Psyker Landshark

Yūma inclined his head in return to Amano, observing as she briefly pondered the question on a wonderful life. It was a fun curveball to throw, most people at least had to consider that or just give an empty answer. The eventual answer on taking her job seriously was text book, in a manner of speaking, and he kept a light, pleasant smile on his face as she spoke.

"Well said. With an outlook like that, I am sure everything will work out just fine."

When questioned on whether or not he had a specific assignment, or was simply on duty. Fortunately, he knew better than to stand around and run his mouth while on assignment, he would have gotten several ears worth of being told off if he was standing around while he was supposed to be doing something. Letting his hands rest in his jacket pockets, he shook his head now that he was actually being looked at.

"Oh no, just a duty day. I wouldn't be standing around if I was suppose to be actually doing something right now. I was considering where I could be useful today. Need a hand with anything?"

@VitaVitaAR

Numako Yamamizu
Branch-092 - Offices
@Raineh Daze

---

“Coffee Machine…?” Numako was unfamiliar with a lot of things, thanks to being just fourteen when she was put into a memory loss inducing coma, sixteen when she came out of it, and effectively had been living mostly in the branch since turning eighteen. Normally too, she typically just had her spirits bring her anything she wanted without much trouble. Usually.

As such, Numako had never paid much attention to the coffee machine or how it worked. Only that if she ever wanted some, a spirit soon just came back and gave it to her.

“...I see.” She’d nod, as if understanding. “So this…is where they get the coffee from…ok.” The solution to this was simple then. She didn’t know how, but she knew things that at least could do it with a reasonable success rate. Making a circular motion with her hand, a feminine spectral entity that looked like it had its flesh ripped off would pull itself up from the ground.

“Coffee.” Numako would say, nodding towards the machine in her usual manner. The specter, floating over to the machine would phase through the machines exterior, sticking an arm inside of it. A few clanks and whirrs could be heard as the machine turned on.

Perhaps on a little too much.

The machine rumbled, clinking and clanging…before hot coffee was blasted out of it forcefully, getting all over Numako and Sakura both.

“...snrk.” Numako badly tried to stifle her laughter.

Good. At least he wasn't an idiot.

"At the moment, I was considering clocking in for the containment wing," Arisa responded. Of course, anyone on containment duty would be assigned ahead of time, but Agents could also volunteer as containment support. It was always important to ensure that every contained Anomaly remained so. A single breach could be devastating, and in certain cases containment units could degrade or weren't sufficient on their own to keep an Anomaly sealed away.

"That, or training," she continued, "I don't particularly need help, but I suppose if you want to follow, I won't stop you."

It wasn't as if Arisa needed any help, even if she went on containment duty. There would already be Agents there anyway, she'd just be there as further reinforcement.

@Eisenhorn

He shrugged at...what was the kid's name, again? Ah, fuck it. Didn't matter. Wasn't like there was anyone else to get in the way of just continuing to call him that right now.

"Simulation's fine. Beats going through forms again. Your pick, then? I don't really give a shit what head we're busting in."

Jinhai kept his sheathed sword at the ready, cheerfully whistling a nonsense tune to himself as the training room started to load up a simulation. Technology sure was something. In comparison, he'd spent most of his youth sparring with other trainees and senior monks, plus a few hunts against low-rank Anomalies while being babysat by the seniors. If he'd had access to this sort of thing back in the day? Shit, this kind of practical training would've made him unstoppable by now.

The stone statue finished materializing, and he had just enough time to look between it and his sword dubiously. In real life, the blade would be useless against a rock of all things. But as he understood it, even though it'd feel like hitting stone, it wouldn't actually be. Meant he could keep the advantage of a longer reach.

The former Triad unsheathed his blade, tossing the scabbard to the side as he took up a miaodao stance from his piguaquan training, holding the katana with both hands. The sword was similar enough to the ones he'd trained with that any difference wasn't much of an issue, though he'd bitch about it all the same later. Fucking Japan.

Qi blazed around Jinhai's form for a moment before he burst into action, whirling around the falling fists with a sidestep and transitioning the momentum into a spinning slash.

"Keep up, kid! I'll get it occupied!" He yelled, the blade slamming down to practically try to split the samurai statue's helm in twain.

@PKMNB0Y

Sakura's response to being blasted with coffee was a surprised squeak... and then immediately stepping back out of the office, once again demonstrating a consistent and wilful disregard for the notion of doors, or proper entrances and exits. Where she had gone to wasn't entirely clear, as first one minute passed--presumably while Numako was cleaning up her own coffee-related mess--and then another, before a new portal opened and the pink-haired girl made her return.

On the plus side, her clothes were no longer saturated in coffee. On the downside, it looked like she needed to do laundry, or at the least didn't have a spare jacket and wanted to match, as her clothing was now about as unprofessional as it was possible to get. While the cartoon rabbit on the t-shirt was cute, and the long, star-spotted skirt definitely seemed appropriate for someone with a habit of opening portals like she did, the result with the slightly-too-large hoodie could be described as "someone's little sister had wandered into the office".

The large cup of coffee in her hand at least explained part of why she'd taken so long, it appeared Sakura had given up and just found a nearby shop to visit.

"Be more careful! What if that burnt someone?"

@Rune_Alchemist

Once the virtual space around him had settled into something more natural and the simulation materialized into something more tangible, Masaru swiftly nocked an arrow and glanced toward the Agent at his side. Zhao, it seemed, was more than raring to go, and given how he was the first to make a move in the simulation...

Well, the streamer-turned-Agent had little reason not to oblige.

"Don't worry, I'll be just fine!" Masaru responded in tandem as he kept his eyes trained upon the massive statue barreling towards them. The Anomaly's name seemed to simply that the statue itself wasn't the target, but rather whatever was residing inside it; given how steel was more likely to simply bounce off the rock that composed it's apparent outer shell, that was probably more reasonable to handle.

Not a terrible matchup, in short, but one that would help him hone his accuracy to some extent.

As the statue catapulted forward, Masaru chose to dash forward and underneath the Anomaly's swing—an action that would be unintuitively suicidal for any standard archer—before firing an arrow towards where the joints in the statue pivoted around. Once the arrow was loosed, though, the Agent would waste no time in running behind the monster and trying to do the same with the cracks between its legs.

Hopefully the arrows would impede the thing's movement enough for his partner to finish the fight with a decisive blow sooner rather than not—assuming his first big swing didn't do that, of course, but it seemed unlikely that a monster copying human form would copy all of its weaknesses in turn.

@Psyker Landshark

Indeed, there was no risk of damage to the blade even striking the stone helm of the samurai statue full-force. It didn't truly exist, after all, and so there was nothing actually there to damage the steel.

With that being said, that didn't mean it would be rendered any more effective then it otherwise would have been.

With a metallic twang, the blade bounced off the stone samurai.

However, the attack was enough to get its attention, and it swiftly lurched forward again, one fist raised to try and strike another blow towards Agent Jinbei.

At least, until it suddenly faltered.

The first of Masaru's arrows had found its place, slipping between the gaps in the stone armor the statue had become and finding something red-orange and fleshy.

With an unpleasant hiss, and a spurt of foul-smelling pale fluid(just how did a simulator get that part right?), the statue suddenly ceased to move, a stony crunch indicating it had suddenly locked all its joints.

The creature infesting it wasn't unaware of its weakness, the other two arrows failing to find their target and instead being sent skittering off of the rock.

The moment the creature sensed it could attack again, suddenly it had outstretched both of its arms, stone grinding as it whirled in place, entire torso twisting backwards to try and catch Agent Tachibana in its spin.

@PKMNB0Y@Psyker Landshark