HereComesTheSnow

A Certain Parallel Cosmos

Ryuji Igarashi

"I moonwalked to get here, dude. That's sick enough for a tip."

Registration Fields

---

_Names

Igarashi, Ryuji,

_Nicknames

Ryu-kun
Short Ryu
Slip 'n' Slide
That Generic Looking Pizza Guy

_Gender

Male

_Nationality

Japanese

_Ability

"Wavedash"

Characterization

---

_Affiliation

Daiseki Academy Student, working part-time as a deliveryman for Luigi's Pizza

_Personality

Ryuji is a man that seems to have fully adapted to life in Academy City, taking the weirdness in stride with little more than the mild sarcasm that any teenager thinks themselves to have carefully cultivated over their whole lives. His sense of humor is consequently dry and deadpan, often delivering phrases you'd normally expect from a goofball with the same level of calm and even flatness, to the point where some of his peers have had heated debates with each other as to just how much of it is irony and how much of him is a true-blue space case. None of this, of course, is to imply he's a stoic— Far from it.

Ryuji loves the hype. He's a big fan of amazing displays of prowess with high stakes behind them, and as such is probably one of the most eager spectators you could find for anything suitably rad, be it an action film, a monster truck rally, EVO— he loves to watch cool things happen and loves even more to see people pull cool things off. He is a fan of spectacle, and will gladly live by that code— but not, thankfully, to the point of being completely dumb. Part of the fun of seeing stylish stuff is in recognizing when the opportunity to do so exists, having the knowledge and confidence to just go off when the time is right and not get wiped out two out of every three attempts.

This attitude and relative comfort with the spontaneity of Academy City life might make one assume that Ryuji is a "water under the bridge" type. In fact, he can be surprisingly petty, especially about a rough loss or something he perceives as not getting his fair shake. He's more than willing to tell someone "I told you so", and is just as willing to punish a mistake in competition while taking no prisoners. He'll lord over his victories and grumble about his defeats.

Beyond that, though, he's a fairly normal dude. Gets by on his part-time job, likes to hang out with his friends, tries to be a good person at the end of the day, and has met all sorts of people at least once.

_History

​As far as life within Academy City goes, Ryuji's was that of, again, one of their everymen. With a father and mother that both work stable jobs within the city, he's lived the majority of his life within the urban sprawl as one of the many children enrolled in the power curriculum program. Due to his rather personalized Esper Ability, there was only so much development that could logically be given resources to— as of his second year in high school, he only remains a Level 2, and theoretically caps out at 3. Nonetheless, this has done little to prevent the enterprising young Igarashi man to fully embrace the boons he was granted, and he constantly tries to find new ways he can practically apply it. Especially now that he does a whole lot of work moving around the city, a deliveryman for Luigi no Pizzeria, a local joint owned by a man confusingly named Ryuuji who acts as if he is a full-blooded Italian. There is an unspoken code amongst the staff that nobody brings it up to Long Ryuu that nobody buys it, lest he fires them. To avoid miscommunication, the "Short Ryu" moniker was birthed for Igarashi-kun. Currently, he lives his life day-by-day, taking it as it comes and doing his best to keep up with his job and his schooling.

Ability

---

_Wavedash

A type of personalized friction control, Ryuji can alter the the drag between his body and another surface up or down to a fairly great degree. He commonly uses this ability to move around town at high speed by quickly sequencing "pushes" off of the air in his personal space with a zone of slickness at the soles of his feet, gliding along the ground with that momentum in a manner not too dissimilar to ice skates or skiing. He does not seem to be able to extend the zone of his command over friction coefficients beyond his personal space, nor can he apply it to abstract surfaces—it merely effects him and something he's touching.

_Equipment
Standard high schooler fare. His phone, crucial to his livelihood, and its charging cord. His work uniform, a green and blue number that is maintained in professional quality (more or less). Any textbooks and notebooks that may be required for his studies as a guy who can fairly comfortably keep up with his grades. A Gamecube controller if invited to school his friends. Sunglasses. Deodorant. Often a box of Pizza, unfailingly being delivered the way of hungry customers and quite rarely home to himself. His Dorm Complex key. On colder days, an insulation bag for the aforementioned pizza.

_{Expertise Kit}
Fast reactions, a good understanding of spacing and distance, a natural at working with momentum, zero fear of icy surfaces, keeps a very clean space, is in good physical shape due to constantly pushing and pulling himself around (plus just the school physical education program), has an eye for aesthetics in motion, Up throw-Rest, a connoisseur of delivery style pizza, frugal with his money, good fighting game fundamentals, knows the city like the back of his hand, good judge of sneaker quality, always stays grinding. He is also fully confident in all of these traits.

Relationships

---

_Family

Both Parents, and an older sister currently attending a University roughly halfway across the city. They don't see each other too often day-to-day, but go out for lunch sometimes. Pizza is mutually agreed to never be on the menu as of Ryuji's second week on the job.

_{Organization and Alliances}

Dominoes Japan can suck it. Not really any personal enemies to speak of thus far. Is under instruction to not serve a certain Level 5. His school supposedly has a Rivalry with Noriaki North High. His friend group consists of, as one would expect, his classmates and coworkers. He's a pretty friendly guy! He'll give you the time of day as long as work isn't in the middle of crushing his soul. If it is, please just don't bother him. If you've worked service, you'll understand.

A Certain Parallel Cosmos

im here

A Certain Liberated City

Hiya.

So, do I need to have seen the show to get into this or will reading through a few wiki pages fill me in enough? I'm not against watching the series if I have to (though I know there's like 3 seasons and 3 different versions of the show).

@follycle

I think for the purposes of this game, the first arc or two of Index should give a decent foundation on the general world you'd be working with, if a little more focused on the magic as opposed to science side. It helps a lot with the setting rules. Of course, taking in as much as you can is preferable for familiarity, and you've still got some time.

A Certain Liberated City

Ryuji Igarashi

"I moonwalked to get here, dude. That's sick enough for a tip."

Registration Fields

---

_Names

Igarashi, Ryuji,

_Nicknames

Ryu-kun, Short Ryu

_Gender

Male

_Nationality

Japanese

_Ability

"Wavedash"

Characterization

---

_Affiliation

Daiseki Academy Student, working part-time as a deliveryman for Luigi's Pizza

_Personality

Ryuji is a man that seems to have fully adapted to life in Academy City, taking the weirdness in stride with little more than the mild sarcasm that any teenager thinks themselves to have carefully cultivated over their whole lives. His sense of humor is consequently dry and deadpan, often delivering phrases you'd normally expect from a goofball with the same level of calm and even flatness, to the point where some of his peers have had heated debates with each other as to just how much of it is irony and how much of him is a true-blue space case. None of this, of course, is to imply he's a stoic— Far from it.

Ryuji loves the hype. He's a big fan of amazing displays of prowess with high stakes behind them, and as such is probably one of the most eager spectators you could find for anything suitably rad, be it an action film, a monster truck rally, EVO— he loves to watch cool things happen and loves even more to see people pull cool things off. He is a fan of spectacle, and will gladly live by that code— but not, thankfully, to the point of being completely dumb. Part of the fun of seeing stylish stuff is in recognizing when the opportunity to do so exists, having the knowledge and confidence to just go off when the time is right and not get wiped out two out of every three attempts.

This attitude and relative comfort with the spontaneity of Academy City life might make one assume that Ryuji is a "water under the bridge" type. In fact, he can be surprisingly petty, especially about a rough loss or something he perceives as not getting his fair shake. He's more than willing to tell someone "I told you so", and is just as willing to punish a mistake in competition while taking no prisoners. He'll lord over his victories and grumble about his defeats.

Beyond that, though, he's a fairly normal dude. Gets by on his part-time job, likes to hang out with his friends, tries to be a good person at the end of the day, and has met all sorts of people at least once.

_History

​As far as life within Academy City goes, Ryuji's was that of, again, one of their everymen. With a father and mother that both work stable jobs within the city, he's lived the majority of his life within the urban sprawl as one of the many children enrolled in the power curriculum program. Due to his rather personalized Esper Ability, there was only so much development that could logically be given resources to— as of his second year in high school, he only remains a Level 2, and theoretically caps out at 3. Nonetheless, this has done little to prevent the enterprising young Igarashi man to fully embrace the boons he was granted, and he constantly tries to find new ways he can practically apply it. Especially now that he does a whole lot of work moving around the city, a deliveryman for Luigi no Pizzeria, a local joint owned by a man confusingly named Ryuuji who acts as if he is a full-blooded Italian. There is an unspoken code amongst the staff that nobody brings it up to Long Ryuu that nobody buys it, lest he fires them. To avoid miscommunication, the "Short Ryu" moniker was birthed for Igarashi-kun. Currently, he lives his life day-by-day, taking it as it comes and doing his best to keep up with his job and his schooling.

Ability

---

_Wavedash

A type of personalized friction control, Ryuji can alter the the drag between his body and another surface up or down to a fairly great degree. He commonly uses this ability to move around town at high speed by quickly sequencing "pushes" off of the air in his personal space with a zone of slickness at the soles of his feet, gliding along the ground with that momentum in a manner not too dissimilar to ice skates or skiing. He does not seem to be able to extend the zone of his command over friction coefficients beyond his personal space, nor can he apply it to abstract surfaces—it merely effects him and something he's touching.

_{Expertise Kit}
Fast reactions, a good understanding of spacing and distance, a natural at working with momentum, zero fear of icy surfaces, keeps a very clean space, is in good physical shape due to constantly pushing and pulling himself around (plus just the school physical education program), has an eye for aesthetics in motion, Up throw-Rest, a connoisseur of delivery style pizza, frugal with his money, good fighting game fundamentals, good judge of sneaker quality, always stays grinding. He is also fully confident in all of these traits.

Relationships

---

_Family

Both Parents, and an older sister currently attending a University roughly halfway across the city. They don't see each other too often day-to-day, but go out for lunch sometimes. Pizza is mutually agreed to never be on the menu as of Ryuji's second week on the job.

_{Peers and Foes}

Dominoes Japan can suck it. Not really any enemies to speak of thus far. His friend group consists of, as one would expect, his classmates and coworkers.

Workshop

---

_Plotting

Nothing as of yet

A Certain Liberated City

interested

Olympus Academy // A School for Demigods and Demigoddesses

Olympus Academy // A School for Demigods and Demigoddesses

Jonas Highwind

Lake Lunks
@Dirty Pretty Lies@Plank Sinatra

Approach. Twelve o'clock high. Somebody new entered the field, and judging from the refinedly sensual, honeydrip tone...

He glanced upwards. Truth be told, he'd long heard her coming— first as a new pair of unidentified footsteps and second as an identifiably familiar, but not quite fully recognized, disembodied voice— one he had a decent guess at, but didn't elect to verify. They normally had other priorities than each other in the times they'd crossed paths. In all honesty, he had guessed that they'd mutually deduced that there was nothing either really had to offer the other in the way of common ground beyond the girl currently surveying the landscape atop his Ford.

But evidently that had come to an end. Now in full view, his enhanced senses quickly took stock of the girl before him. She was, thankfully, dressed casually as opposed to something mind-bendingly out of place for (and we reiterate) a lakeside outing. Just jeans, a crop top (bralette? I don't know clothes), and a leather jacket to fight the bitter cold of Coloradan night. I oughta get one of those, actually.

"Ah. Ariana."

He rose to his full height.

Ariana "Ari-chan" Mossos. His younger sister's favorite shopping buddy. A girl of... eighteen, if he recalled correctly, years of age. A daughter of Aphrodite that shared Danaye's love of long shopping trips and very heavy, very full bags. Five and a half feet tall, she cut the striking figure you'd expect of her heritage, with the well-kept locks and immaculate skin to match, kissed by the sun just so. The outfit did a fair job of showing off her curves, and her makeup accentuated her face—

“I'm surprised you're not on security detail this time around, sweetie! Does this mean you finally have some time to hang out with me?”

The face that was blowing smoke into his and getting it up his nose and in his eyes and he thought he tasted it and

"Ahem." he gave a polite cough, adroitly following up with a small chuckle and a joke. "Better watch where you point that thing. I can't summon my own, but that might count as a weapon."

This is Dana's friend, he reminded himself, Be nice. She knows not what she does.

Waving the smoke away, he adopted an easier, more naturally friendly grin, and continued, allowing a warm ruefulness to creep into his baritone.

"Yeah, getting the kegs here with Dal's run us both ragged, so he's letting me have the night off. I dunno if I've the temperament to safely handle a belligerent drunk after dodging the barriers and guardians in and out of campus anyway."

Wait.

"Hang out with me"...

Huh?

He was fairly sure they'd never spoken at length before, let alone shared any interests aside from the common thread of his sister. Surely this was only being courteous. He wasn't Dallas, people mostly let him paradoxically both be physically huge and slip under their radar if they existed outside of his friend circle... And yet here she was. Making that voice, giving him that look, and asking him to hang out. With her. Him.

Alright. There could be any number of things driving this.

Well, first, this was a Daughter of Aphrodite. Aphrodite, aphrodisiac. He knew that one of his abilities granted him total presence of mind under any outside influence, but perhaps the unfamiliarity of the situation was throwing him off-kilter. Best to verify a few things. Namely, intent and motive. Remove all possibility of misreading the situation.

He helpfully threw a thumb over his rounded shoulder to his sister, and spoke.

"I appreciate the offer, but if you're worried that you'd be taking the other Ares kid from her post, don't. Dana'd be free to hang out with you so long as she keeps an eye on everyone else, so you don't have to make do with me or anything like that."

In truth, this was a stretch. It was a hell of a stretch, given how quickly he'd come to the first conclusion. His suspicions told him, in no uncertain terms, that this one was the peak of playing dumb— she was very openly eyeing all six feet and three inches of him up. She was busting out pet names when he wasn't sure he'd ever done anything more than greet her when picking up his sister from the mall. She tried to Jessica Rabbit him with weed, what an inspired move that was.

He knew better. And he knew he knew better, too. This was an act he'd seen more than experienced by leagues, but he knew how it played all the same.

Internally, he sighed, not letting it show on his face. He didn't want to be rude and act like his kid sister's friend was being a bother, but...

Don't make me do this.

Beneath his friendly smile, Jonas Highwind searched for a way out that didn't rock the boat.

Olympus Academy // A School for Demigods and Demigoddesses

Jonas Highwind

Lake Lunks

"Well, if we put it in those terms— we've had all break to relax, haven't we?" he offered with an airy flippantness, contrasting well with Bekah's sterner tone. But just like his strongest foil within the domain of War, he too bent at the knees into a picture-perfect squat to offer his hand and a _{"what's your name, buddy?"} to the remarkably friendly Cerberus puppy for an introductory sniff. He was good boy. A good scratch under the chin was only fair for a good boy like him. Thaaaaat's a good boy.

Looking up from his extended greeting with a quite literal hellhound, a flash of bemusement crossed his strong features before he replaced it with an easy grin, one Rhea was well familiar with after a year's worth of training.

"I'll be fine, don't worry."

He cast his eyes back down to the puppy, and fought his damnedest to keep his brows from knitting together.

What was with the dress.

What was with the dress?

They were outside! In Colorado! Those two would get so cold! What on earth possessed them to change into dresses for a distinctly off-record party, where the organizing team had to watch their backs the very second they exited the assembly? This wasn't a dinner at a Gala surrounded by plutocracy, this was a bunch of college students at a lake in the evening looking to get inebriated without attracting undue attention. Not the place for flashiness!

He exhaled through his nose, an act that the centermost head quirked curiously at and decided to mimic. Absently moving his hand over to behind that one's ears, his neutral expression didn't waver otherwise.

While Marcella was one thing, she always did off-the-wall stuff like this— but how did she manage to convince Rhea into doing it? He knew that she knew that she was likely to either hang out or be stationed close to the waterfront. He could safely shelve hypothermia concerns thanks to her heritage, but another danger remained— that thing did not look like it did a good job of being wet.

He thought she knew better...

Is this having fun? some part of his subconscious asked as he held his hand low, about where the canine's chest level sat at.

"Shaaaake..."

No, being bugged was not having fun. _{"Good boy!"} But he couldn't help it, the dissonance between their dress and the locale did leave one with many questions. Filing through a few of them passed the time, plus it'd continue to bug him all night. He couldn't even place when they had the time— if he'd glossed over the fact while loading up kegs and the like, that would speak volumes about how much he had let himself slip over the break. Something he intended to correct immediately.

He cut off the train of thought that took him into the reverie about clothes, of all things (Thanks Dana, nii-chan's been trying). Fully extending his senses outward and paying attention to them, he picked up several new stimuli. Most notably, he could clearly differentiate the sounds of the many subconversations happening beneath the pulses of musical bass.

"No thanks, Bek. Good for now."

Next came the distinctly pungent aroma wafting through the air— smoke. A common battlefield odor, but that breed was more oil, wood, or flesh burning. This was distinctly plant-based; without beating around the bush, it was marijuana. A...zura, that was the name she just gave, seemed to have her own approach to BYOB. Doubtlessly one that'd win her some goodwill tonight from the assembled crowd.

Taste was still mostly an afterthought, just the remnants of the drink he'd treated himself to on the way over, mixed with a hint of lake. Thank the local naiads that it was clean, as far as lakes went.

Touch was nothing special, just finer detail upon the pup's coat. For a distinctly Hadean creature, he certainly had a pleasant pelt— perhaps Marcy's preference for luxury ran in the family. In turn, that probably also explained the dresses that had given him so much grief...

Sight refined itself in an interesting way. Jonas's eyes were quite good on their own even when he was being lazy and zoning out, but not only did this fullness of awareness magnify their clarity (enough to pick out individual hair follicles if he so desired), but special attention was made towards recognizing and identifying micromovements, extremely subtle preparatory motions made before an action. The uses in battle were obvious to anyone who had ever felt a spike of adrenaline in their lives, but here—

The furthest head from him twitched his ears not more than half a millimeter.

"I didn't forget you, pal."

And the big lug in front of the canine answered its unexpressed wishes, digging a few fingers under the collar and scratching well.

"You don't plan on having any either, I take it?" he asked the Athenian, fairly openly trying to ascertain whether or not she'd be able to split the load of "cleanup crew" once the bash was said and done. He knew the answer already, since he knew Rebekah, but it didn't hurt to have her verbally confirm that she was already expecting the same.

Olympus Academy // A School for Demigods and Demigoddesses

Jonas Highwind

Lake Lunks

Jonas obliged, simply relieved that he wasn't security detail for this one. Reclining as much as he could in the driver's seat, the bruiser indulged himself in a sip of his meager pregame— just the beer he'd cracked open on the way once they'd set everything up. He wouldn't be surprised if it ended up being the only one of the night. There was nothing wrong with the stuff, of course. But him not being the biggest drinker in the world was probably an old habit of the days when he was the bouncer-in-chief.

Couldn't have the guy keeping the peace removed from his inhibitions.

Speaking of.

He rapped his knuckles on the roof of the cabin, well aware of the exact force necessary for it to clearly carry over the vibrations of the subs that pounded against his whole frame from the bed. Danaye probably felt the distinctly off-beat vibration through the soles of her feet, in which case...

He rolled down the window and leaned his head outside, grabbing her attention.

"Stay frosty, okay?"

Given that the speakers were behind them and pointed away, he didn't need to be quite as loud as he normally did. Not for a bit of unnecessary brotherly advice. Satisfied with his message, he returned to his previous lounging and took another sip of the mostly-empty bottle. Dana would be fine. She had a better control of her temper than most of their kin, anyway. He could just sit down again for a few minutes and let her and Rhea handle things tonight...

Sheesh, I feel like a fucking boomer. Leave it all to the kids and recline in my makeshift lawnchair.

One step from bombing every lib that had gathered here and taking their oil, no doubt.

Here's to you, Captain.

He downed what was left and smirked, fondly remembering his summer job, and took another second to take stock of the situation. The most aggression present right now was between Dallas and Damien, general polar opposites, but he new his friend could keep a handle on the situation unless he wanted otherwise. Once the nerves that had been thoroughly frayed by their thread-the-eye-of-the-needle setup, with every evasion of authority that necessitated, had calmed?

He wasn't worried about 'em. As for the rest:

Dana could handle physical altercation every bit as well as he could. The girl had a very take-no-prisoners attitude, but even she could scarcely call what happened at a party like this much of a "fight" once she'd gotten involved. Someone bred for combat could quickly put any number of inebriated belligerents back in their place in no time. She'd be meaner than him, and probably less lenient on certain offenses, but he could name a lot worse replacements than his sister.

Rhea was in many ways a distinct counterpart. She was much smaller in stature and far gentler by nature, but a year's worth of teaching had shown him well enough that she could take care of herself in a scrap. Rhea knew enough fighting technique to have a leg up on a good eighty-five percent of the planet, and considering that they were on the waterfront, that threshold effectively increased to the ninety-ninth percentile. Girl could be a monster if she really wanted to, but with luck she'd need to do no more than retrieve people from ill-advised excursions into the drink. In any case, a daughter of Poseidon by the waterfront was nothing to trifle with.

Even through the harrowing buildup, Dal had made a smart move.

He could sit here a while longer...

lazy fuckface

Oooor he could stretch his legs again. He'd done a lot of sitting down and driving today. It'd be nice to take a walk. Not a dash, just a walk.

Highwind soon exited his truck.

He hoped nobody was hungry. Normally he whipped up at least a nice, loaded nacho platter or dip for a bash, but the teachers getting on their asses meant that they had their hands full just ensuring they had the essentials ready to go. No time for groceries.

No bouncing, no cooking, what was a large man to do besides meander and make polite conversation?

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

@Plank Sinatra@Write@FlitterFaux

MISSION START

After our cultural exchange period, it had turned out that the redhead was surprisingly easy to chat about nothing much with.

Well, "nothing much" here is in regards to more practical conversation, such as mission planning or tactical brainstorming, but even then—

"Yeah... What I don't get is that you only ever hear the orchestral swell of Old Snake in the Main Menu. Every other time it shows up in-game, it keeps itself to the guitar in the beginning for that 'old soldier' vibe."

At least, as far as I could remember. It had been a good while since I'd played the game. Guns of the Patriots came out...

Wow.

More than ten years ago.

I could feel my hair going gray, and my skin wrinkling, merely at the notion. The FOXDIE was gonna take me so much sooner than I'd thought!

"It's strange. Listening to it, it feels like there was supposed to be a scene where that tonal transition plays out, but it's pretty much as if the menu's going 'oh, don't worry, this is still Metal Gear'. We know, Kojima."

"If only Konami had the same concern." she mused through her hoodie-wrapped legs, pulled up to her chin and serving as a headrest.

"Eugh." I actually felt a bit of a chill from something that wasn't the altitude. "Please, let's not talk about Survive. The happiest time of my life was that year between the reveal and release where I'd forgotten its existence."

—We still had a good argument for the merits of establishing a rapport within the joint operation. So effectively, not conversing would be much more pointless than pointlessly conversing. It's much more comforting to be able to understand the person you're entrusting your well-being to. Our common ground here, even if it was something wholly unrelated like hoodies, or game music, was actually a worthwhile avenue to explore.

If nothing else, it's a lot easier to cooperate with someone you can vibe with. If you have a good vibe with them, things smooth out.

Ha, like Nujabes!

As I was preening myself for managing to tie everything back to the original topic, the airlock doors opened again, blasting my face with wind, cold, and most of all, sound. The cabin roared for the second time this morning, as the speed of the aircraft all but punched us in our faces. Even if I hadn't been a longtime pro at staying awake, and even if I hadn't had someone to talk to through the trip, the howling, scraping air would have tossed the haze of sleep aside with ease the moment it touched my skin.

And cutting above all that, loud and clear, was the Vivacious leader's voice.

"Pressman team! We're up! Look alive!"

Heedless of the elements' fury, Vivianne Laurent looked for all the world to belong within them, showing no sign of discomfort in the gaze she cast upon us.

Cool, indomitable pressure, with just a touch of her earlier indignation.

Expectation, no, demand that everyone else fall in line.

Like a warlord addressing his men before battle.

It'd be a little intimidating if she wasn't flanked by Bianca, who was very clearly much more mischievous— Which had to have something to do with what our newfound leader, currently descending upon the gate, had been whispering in her ear since before we'd even taken a seat to begin with.

I kind of worried that it involved the opposite effect to my own airship experience. Every now and again, I caught glimpses of the stabbing glares that she had sent Jer's way. If looks could kill...

"Well, I guess I'd be long dead."

I muttered the words beneath the cacophony, rising to my feet. Now, the overall picture of Vivianne holding in some irritation and being all but prodded by Bianca made things less intimidating, true, but as standing to attention revealed—

That didn't the woman herself powerless to me.

The motion must have caught her eye, but one look at me seemingly reaffirmed her appraisal that I was an afterthought.
A cog in the machine she was driving.
Not worth much more than a glance.
It was a familiar, arctic coldness.
I hated it.

Even if she wasn't trying to bore a hole through my skull, Laurent could still kill me with a look, whether she knew it or not, whether she cared to or not. Actually, given the whole premise being that I had failed the interest check, I was completely sure she didn't care or know to. There was no doubt that my death had only come from reading too much into it. I'm no Emiya, I should stop projecting.

...I tightened my grip on Crow's Beak, just a little.

In any case, I had better get serious. Casting away the defensiveness and driving the twisting thoughts back to the airtight corner of the mind I liked to keep them, I stepped up to the plate and looked down over the edge. Jericho had made a day out of jumping from however far up we were, even going so far as to pull Evangeline into a waltz as gravity took them. Remembering the overview that had been laid out by the team leader still present, he even had further to jump. Not by much, but still, it was bigger, this couldn't be all bad—

The void below asked me if I believed that.

I balked a bit. Sure, I knew I had everything going for me intellectually— I had my Aura, I could recover from horrible injury, our final approach would be onto a rooftop and at a safe distance for people with either of those factors. There were even two failsafes present: Bianca Nuit, my teammate whose wings I'd personally brought from the brink of uselessness and were constantly returning to their full strength, and Veronique Pressman, drawing up behind me, whose methods involved Dust constructs and the semblance necessary to shape and guide their catalysis and task. Wind Dust alone would have done it so long as you had the correct amount and mastery to create a well-timed and well-powered updraft, but I was assured that this would work just as well and be significantly simpler. The automatons would handle the specifics just as long as she told them what they were doing.

I knew all that, but vertigo still struck me. I've never been too good with heights unless I was strapped into something, unfortunately, and it took me a second to recapture my hold on myself as I accepted that we were still indeed a ways up. Beside me, equally teetering off the edge, Vivianne Laurent barked out a countdown. Still unflappable. It made sense. Not only had she been properly trained in a Combat Academy, she was also the leader of her team. A position that demanded decisive action and complete confidence in your judgement.

Five.

I guess she judged me ready enough.

Four.

Even though it felt like my knees were shaking.

Three.

She didn't seem to believe I would be a liability.

Two.

Okay.

One.

You've done stupider things plenty of times, Lucas.

...

The space between words in that rhythm felt like it encapsulated eternity. I was waiting. I was waiting. I was waiting, so very hard. Hanging onto the call, hanging onto my footing, and hanging onto the last second of doubt that always torments the psyche when you took the position of humpty-dumpty.

I could crack the old joke about breaking eggs to make an omelette, but I won't. I understood him when the reality laid itself before me. I'm sure he wanted to hang on too.

"DROP!"

Vivianne was out. Bianca would follow. Maybe she already was.

It was as simple as that to her. As simple as that to Jericho, as simple as that to Evangeline. It'd even be as simple as that to Iris and Skye, the final ones to pull this stunt.

Remember, Luke. Go with the flow for this one. Holding on is being tense, and too much tension makes you snap. You just came to this conclusion little more than two hours ago. Time to put the words into practice.

It shouldn't be any less simple for you. Trust what you can do, and trust others to expect that of you. Even Vivianne Laurent, who rightfully saw me as worthless wholly unremarkable, figured I'd not run into any trouble.

So I could relax, and simply act.

A tap on my shoulder came from behind, not even a half-second after VIVE's leader cast herself into the void. I glanced back over my shoulder to find the redhead, Pressman (weirdly familiar name), with her notebook and Dust-filled pen in hand. That's right, it was this simple for her too. The nudge could have meant any number of things; reassuring me, snapping me back to the moment and out of my head, impatiently pushing me forward, I couldn't really tell in that split second I took.

But all the same, I read it as my cue to let go.

Eyes front once more, I felt the passing urge to do this in style, as if to make up for my inability to keep my promises about my demeanor until now,

"Geronimooooo!"

And leapt out into the open air below.

As the stalwart serpent would say, It's Showtime.