vFear

The Lines Between Us

Alright. I'm about to consume copious amounts of alcohol then go to to training (what can go wrong!?) but I'll endeavour to have a post up tonight, tomorrow night at the latest!

Jigokuraku Academy

---

^{"Mediocre grades and a mediocre attitude, to boot. Nothing seems horribly out of order, but... what business does he have becoming a hero?"}

— An uncited faculty member at Jigokuraku Academy.

---

Hider

Name:
Inoue Taro.

Age:
Fifteen (15).

Height:
5 feet and 11 inches.

Weight:
177 pounds.

Build:
Sturdy, horned.

Quirk:
Taro's quirk, Horn Cascade, is a transformation-type quirk that allows Taro to create shapes made from the horn-like protrusions spread across his body. The horns are spread across his body with the exception of his head, half-merged with his skin, which grow rapidly on demand.

Description:
At first glance, Taro doesn't look like an aspiring hero at all; hell, he doesn't even act like it. His face is almost permanently set into a glare and scowl, as if someone took a heat gun and shaped it that way. The set of horns on his forehead eluding to a certain biblical figure certainly doesn't help either, particularly with foreigners and the elderly. His disinterested, "let's get this over with" style demeanour certainly doesn't do him any favours either, need not mention his stark lack of charisma. So then begs the question: why would someone who doesn't fit the job description or even seem to care, want to become a hero?

Well, it'd be no fun if we gave it away so early, but let's talk about what led to the decision anyway!

Taro grew up living between a pair of orphanages. His parents supposedly passed before he was old enough to know any better and he never got the details about the situation with the rest of his family. It wasn't at all tragic or the likes - he enjoyed living with all the other kids and the staff always treated him well enough. For him, life at the orphanages was just his life, just as a life in a household is the life of most children. But that's not what you came here to hear - you want to know why he's enrolling into Jigokuraku, don't you?

Taro was almost adopted a couple of times. He was never so hot on the idea: someone coming along playing the "saviour card", pulling him away from the way of life he knew and was happy with. The staff at the orphanage were so happy when he went away for the trial, though, so he just... went along with it. In the end, he ended up back at the orphanages both times. The first time he went away, pressure from other family members in the would-be adoptive family who were opposed to adoption succeeded in making the family give up, but the second time, Taro intentionally sabotaged it. You see, when Taro came back from his first time with a potential adoptive family, he was confused at all the sympathy he got. He was happy to be back at the orphanage, back home, but everybody else only felt sorry for him.

Somewhere along the line, before he went to the second family, something fell into place in his mind: he was being defined by his lack of parents. When he realised it, it was the first time he was ever truly mad, but that gave way to something else: resolve. So began his obsession with heroes. So began his journey to Jigokuraku, included as part of a scattergun approach to finding his place in a hero course. So began his journey to becoming a hero.

So that leads to our big question: why does he want to become a hero? I thought I told you earlier - it'd be no fun if we gave it away so early!

NEON GODS [Japanese Country Cyberpunk]

Hider

Name:
Kyo Kazuko (敬 かずこ.) Known by friends as "K-Kyo" and operates online under "akkd0g_".

Age:
28 (Twenty-eight.)

Sex:
♀ Female.

Nationality:
Japanese citizen by birth.

Languages spoken:
◦ Japanese: fluent and a native speaker.
◦ Chinese: advanced.
◦ English: conversational.

---

Cybernetic Enhancements

---

YuutaCorp® CIT Y-750 (modified)
The YuutaCorp® Cranial Integration Unit Y-series, model 750, is an overt yet powerful unit designed to allow the exchange of data between the brain and most devices. It occupies most of the space along the back of the neck and runs intrusively into the cranial nerves. While an older bit of hardware as far as CIT units go, it's still popular today among technology enthusiasts. It features four standard input/output ports alongside slots for common small memory units. This particular unit has been modified with a few retrofits, bringing it up to speed with recent advances in technology to allow for near-universal integration with modern and aged devices alike.

---

Property

---

NTS Weiland 5 (modified)
The "Weiland 5" omni-reality™ headset is a Full-Dive® integrated virtual reality headset developed and produced by Nishimura Technology Solutions Incorporated. While not competitive as far as base specifications go its sturdy construction, simple construction, and extensive modding community, make it appealing to the VR otaku market. Kazuko has modified hers almost beyond recognition, bringing it up to the leading edge. The headset is integrated with her CIU, creating a direct wire link between her brain and cyberspace. The headset is primarily used for browsing cyberspace, both innocently and maliciously, but also includes augmented reality support, a user health monitoring suite, a realspace environmental monitoring suite, and integrated BrightBulb™ lights in the frame. Several failsafes are also included in the headset, designed to prevent any cyberspace attacks or counterattacks against her from reaching her CIU with potentially life threatening results.

---

Appearance

---

There isn't much to see of Kazuko, being a frail woman who stands at an impressive 5 foot flat. While the health monitoring suite in her headset encourages her to manage her health, the success of the suite is limited at best, leaving her with the stereotypical hikikomori BTL-junkie build: borderline anorexic. Her neck length hair - currently dyed pastel purple, check in next week to see if she's changed it yet - is often scrunched up underneath her headset, keeping it out of the way while she browses, works, and full dives into cyberspace. While her eyes were once a pretty shade of blue, they've since been paled and bloodshot after spending months at a time within the headset for years.

---

Personality traits:

---

◦ Reclusive.
◦ Skeptical.
◦ Adaptive.
◦ Apprehensive.
◦ Astute.
◦ Cunning.

---

Background:

---

Kazuko was born in Osaka, Japan, as the first and only child of two Japanese-born nationalists. Her parents had issues with fertility between exposure to hazardous substances in their lifetime and their growing age, making even conceiving Kazuko the result of eight years of doctors appointments and countless attempts. The two gave up some four years later, instead turning to their only child with all of their hopes and aspirations: university education, a high-paying job, fighting the good intellectual fight in the name of what Japan once was. Tragically, as Kazuko grew up, her parents high standards only made her want to spite them.

As Kazuko grew into her high school years and began to form as a person, she dabbled into delinquency. What started as a phase became a trend; what began as spiting her parents and a taste of rebellion became a lifestyle. Over the years, skipping a couple of classes turned into skipping days as ignoring her parents turned into arguing with them. This came to a boil when, one night, she assaulted her mother in a fit of frustration. She had never been hit by her parents before, but her father smacked the life of her when he put her on the ground. "Enough was enough," her parents had decided. That night, she was handed a backpack and told to find her own life. She took to the streets, thinking it was all just one big scare tactic, but after a week of camping out front of her old home turned into the police taking her away for loitering, the reality of her situation slammed into her like a truck.

She regretted it. She regretted everything. It wasn't worth it, not in the slightest. After some weeks wandering the streets of Osaka, Kazuko decided to make things right. She started attending school regularly, she found a part time job, she even found a makeshift home in a small alcove somewhere near the city. But the showers at the gym weren't enough to keep her clean and a homeless employee was bad for business. She lost one job after another, becoming more and more desperate for money all the while, until she came across what she thought was a saving grace:

Enjo-kōsai. Compensated dating.

It went about as well as you expected it to. Within a month, Kazukos demeanor of renewed determination had fallen flat on its ass after she had already gotten in too deep, and she was simply gone from school the next. Pornographic videos, prostitution, the likes: the local foreign crime syndicate owned her, and they had their way making as much money as they could off her young body. For her, life had lost its purpose; it just wasn't fair. Months past - not that she could perceive any of them in the end - before she found her escape: better-than-life chips, or DreamChips. Virtual reality experiences that took the pain away, that whisked her off to a life and feeling sa thousand times better.

One thing led to another. As she delved deeper into the mysteries of cyberspace, her skills began to develop. It took her almost three years: three years of being shuffled around the city, only a cheap headset and a chop-job computer to her name, before she made her great escape. Through cyberspace, she made a deal with a local yakuza family: if she could make one of her captives warehouses vulnerable, the yakuza cell would free her after conducting a raid. So she did - but not before proving herself to the yakuza with a test run, of course. The foreign mafia tracked it back to her and shoved her into the back of a van without her gear, but while they were transferring her, a truck rammed the van onto its side and whisked the girl away midst fire and smoke.

She had done it. She was free and her debts were paid. But that left her back at square one: she didn't have any money, nor a place to live. This time though, she had a portfolio, even if it was small. She was a bone fide hacker now, the real deal, and she had a couple of contacts in the yakuza to kick her operation off. With a loan from the yakuza to get some gear to her name, she was off and away. Before long, her debts were paid and she was making some income, even if the start was a bit rocky here and there.

Yet despite being free, Osaka still felt suffocating. It had memories of her parents, need not mention her time as a captive to sex trafficking. She wanted to go somewhere different, somewhere where she could breathe. She tried Tokyo first but that didn't feel much better, so off she went to the countryside. There was a promising job going in Suribachi with the opportunity for further work, plus she could keep working freelance in cyberspace doing jobs for people across the planet. As far as her situation went, it was a good deal.

So as she sat on the bus at the young age of 23 with her headset over her head, it occurred to her: in the end, in her own way, did she end up living up to her parents dreams for her? She screwed over a foreign mafia for the yakuza in the end, and she might even end up doing it again if the war in Suribachi calls for hackers. If nothing else, the action made it a hotspot for jobs, whether it was working for criminals or not. She decided not to think about it too much in the end - it was too inconvenient to think about. Instead, she decided that once she had made enough or once the jobs stopped coming, she would try and enroll to university somewhere. She could reach out to her parents again then. Maybe they will be proud of her.

---

Skills:

---

Cyberspace whizz
Kazuko is intimate with the ins and outs of cyberspace, both jacked in and jacked out alike. Not only is it a good way to make money for a shut in like her, it also helps her keep alert and aware of information she otherwise wouldn't have. Cyberspace is a great way to learn things and that goes double for all of the devices connected to it.

Elusive
There have been attempts to capture or kill "akkd0g_" before: whether it be revenge, tying off loose ends, or eliminating the competition. Sometimes the chair has even been still warm when they get in there but they haven't once got a hold of them. They discover another sneaky trick of theirs every time they try. Whoever "akkd0g_" is, they really don't want to be found.

---

Flaws:

---

Fragile
In true hikikomori fashion, there isn't much to Kazuko's body, and what there is isn't very sturdy. What would bruise your average man could very well break something of hers and she certainly doesn't have the strength to stand up to half of the men she torments in cyberspace forums in the real world.

Min-maxed
To get that critical extra speed over the competition, Kazuko has set up a direct wire between her brain and cyberspace. While the benefits are obvious, there's also the obvious risk that comes with it. There's dump shock, sure, but there's also the chance of direct attacks against her own brain. While she has several failsafes between her headset and her CIU, she might have yet to meet her match.

Escapist addict
Kazukos journey into cyberspace began with BTLs: better-than-life chips, or DreamChips. The ultimate yet very illegal form of escapism: a full dive simulation that's a thousand times better and feels a thousand times better. Without her daily fix, well... what could happen to her?

NEON GODS [Japanese Country Cyberpunk]

Pending a proper proofread, especially since I ended up doing more than I intended to ever write and in one sitting to boot, but here's my pitch.

Also, I like discord. I enjoy being able to chat idly with the others, spitball ideas around, just get to know everybody and get comfortable with the lads. Like Bork said though, up to you, I'm pretty chill either way.

---

Hider

Name:
Kyo Kazuko (敬 かずこ.) Known by friends as "K-Kyo" and operates online under "akkd0g_".

Age:
28 (Twenty-eight.)

Sex:
♀ Female.

Nationality:
Japanese citizen by birth.

Languages spoken:
◦ Japanese: fluent and a native speaker.
◦ Chinese: advanced.
◦ English: conversational.

---

Cybernetic Enhancements

---

YuutaCorp® CIT Y-750 (modified)
The YuutaCorp® Cranial Integration Unit Y-series, model 750, is an overt yet powerful unit designed to allow the exchange of data between the brain and most devices. It occupies most of the space along the back of the neck and runs intrusively into the cranial nerves. While an older bit of hardware as far as CIT units go, it's still popular today among technology enthusiasts. It features four standard input/output ports alongside slots for common small memory units. This particular unit has been modified with a few retrofits, bringing it up to speed with recent advances in technology to allow for near-universal integration with modern and aged devices alike.

---

Property

---

NTS Weiland 5 (modified)
The "Weiland 5" omni-reality™ headset is a Full-Dive® integrated virtual reality headset developed and produced by Nishimura Technology Solutions Incorporated. While not competitive as far as base specifications go its sturdy construction, simple construction, and extensive modding community, make it appealing to the VR otaku market. Kazuko has modified hers almost beyond recognition, bringing it up to the leading edge. The headset is integrated with her CIU, creating a direct wire link between her brain and cyberspace. The headset is primarily used for browsing cyberspace, both innocently and maliciously, but also includes augmented reality support, a user health monitoring suite, a realspace environmental monitoring suite, and integrated BrightBulb™ lights in the frame. Several failsafes are also included in the headset, designed to prevent any cyberspace attacks or counterattacks against her from reaching her CIU with potentially life threatening results.

---

Appearance

---

There isn't much to see of Kazuko, being a frail woman who stands at an impressive 5 foot flat. While the health monitoring suite in her headset encourages her to manage her health, the success of the suite is limited at best, leaving her with the stereotypical hikikomori BTL-junkie build: borderline anorexic. Her neck length hair - currently dyed pastel purple, check in next week to see if she's changed it yet - is often scrunched up underneath her headset, keeping it out of the way while she browses, works, and full dives into cyberspace. While her eyes were once a pretty shade of blue, they've since been paled and bloodshot after spending months at a time within the headset for years.

---

Personality traits:

---

◦ Reclusive.
◦ Skeptical.
◦ Adaptive.
◦ Apprehensive.
◦ Astute.
◦ Cunning.

---

Background:

---

Kazuko was born in Osaka, Japan, as the first and only child of two Japanese-born nationalists. Her parents had issues with fertility between exposure to hazardous substances in their lifetime and their growing age, making even conceiving Kazuko the result of eight years of doctors appointments and countless attempts. The two gave up some four years later, instead turning to their only child with all of their hopes and aspirations: university education, a high-paying job, fighting the good intellectual fight in the name of what Japan once was. Tragically, as Kazuko grew up, her parents high standards only made her want to spite them.

As Kazuko grew into her high school years and began to form as a person, she dabbled into delinquency. What started as a phase became a trend; what began as spiting her parents and a taste of rebellion became a lifestyle. Over the years, skipping a couple of classes turned into skipping days as ignoring her parents turned into arguing with them. This came to a boil when, one night, she assaulted her mother in a fit of frustration. She had never been hit by her parents before, but her father smacked the life of her when he put her on the ground. "Enough was enough," her parents had decided. That night, she was handed a backpack and told to find her own life. She took to the streets, thinking it was all just one big scare tactic, but after a week of camping out front of her old home turned into the police taking her away for loitering, the reality of her situation slammed into her like a truck.

She regretted it. She regretted everything. It wasn't worth it, not in the slightest. After some weeks wandering the streets of Osaka, Kazuko decided to make things right. She started attending school regularly, she found a part time job, she even found a makeshift home in a small alcove somewhere near the city. But the showers at the gym weren't enough to keep her clean and a homeless employee was bad for business. She lost one job after another, becoming more and more desperate for money all the while, until she came across what she thought was a saving grace:

Enjo-kōsai. Compensated dating.

It went about as well as you expected it to. Within a month, Kazukos demeanor of renewed determination had fallen flat on its ass after she had already gotten in too deep, and she was simply gone from school the next. Pornographic videos, prostitution, the likes: the local foreign crime syndicate owned her, and they had their way making as much money as they could off her young body. For her, life had lost its purpose; it just wasn't fair. Months past - not that she could perceive any of them in the end - before she found her escape: better-than-life chips, or DreamChips. Virtual reality experiences that took the pain away, that whisked her off to a life and feeling sa thousand times better.

One thing led to another. As she delved deeper into the mysteries of cyberspace, her skills began to develop. It took her almost three years: three years of being shuffled around the city, only a cheap headset and a chop-job computer to her name, before she made her great escape. Through cyberspace, she made a deal with a local yakuza family: if she could make one of her captives warehouses vulnerable, the yakuza cell would free her after conducting a raid. So she did - but not before proving herself to the yakuza with a test run, of course. The foreign mafia tracked it back to her and shoved her into the back of a van without her gear, but while they were transferring her, a truck rammed the van onto its side and whisked the girl away midst fire and smoke.

She had done it. She was free and her debts were paid. But that left her back at square one: she didn't have any money, nor a place to live. This time though, she had a portfolio, even if it was small. She was a bone fide hacker now, the real deal, and she had a couple of contacts in the yakuza to kick her operation off. With a loan from the yakuza to get some gear to her name, she was off and away. Before long, her debts were paid and she was making some income, even if the start was a bit rocky here and there.

Yet despite being free, Osaka still felt suffocating. It had memories of her parents, need not mention her time as a captive to sex trafficking. She wanted to go somewhere different, somewhere where she could breathe. She tried Tokyo first but that didn't feel much better, so off she went to the countryside. There was a promising job going in Suribachi with the opportunity for further work, plus she could keep working freelance in cyberspace doing jobs for people across the planet. As far as her situation went, it was a good deal.

So as she sat on the bus at the young age of 23 with her headset over her head, it occurred to her: in the end, in her own way, did she end up living up to her parents dreams for her? She screwed over a foreign mafia for the yakuza in the end, and she might even end up doing it again if the war in Suribachi calls for hackers. If nothing else, the action made it a hotspot for jobs, whether it was working for criminals or not. She decided not to think about it too much in the end - it was too inconvenient to think about. Instead, she decided that once she had made enough or once the jobs stopped coming, she would try and enroll to university somewhere. She could reach out to her parents again then. Maybe they will be proud of her.

---

Skills:

---

Cyberspace whizz
Kazuko is intimate with the ins and outs of cyberspace, both jacked in and jacked out alike. Not only is it a good way to make money for a shut in like her, it also helps her keep alert and aware of information she otherwise wouldn't have. Cyberspace is a great way to learn things and that goes double for all of the devices connected to it.

Elusive
There have been attempts to capture or kill "akkd0g_" before: whether it be revenge, tying off loose ends, or eliminating the competition. Sometimes the chair has even been still warm when they get in there but they haven't once got a hold of them. They discover another sneaky trick of theirs every time they try. Whoever "akkd0g_" is, they really don't want to be found.

---

Flaws:

---

Fragile
In true hikikomori fashion, there isn't much to Kazuko's body, and what there is isn't very sturdy. What would bruise your average man could very well break something of hers and she certainly doesn't have the strength to stand up to half of the men she torments in cyberspace forums in the real world.

Min-maxed
To get that critical extra speed of the competition, Kazuko has set up a direct wire between her brain and cyberspace. While the benefits are obvious, there's also the obvious risk that comes with it. There's dump shock, sure, but there's also the chance of direct attacks against her own brain. While she has several failsafes between her headset and her CIU, she might have yet to meet her match.

Escapist addict
Kazukos journey into cyberspace began with BTLs: better-than-life chips, or DreamChips. The ultimate yet very illegal form of escapism: a full dive simulation that's a thousand times better and feels a thousand times better. Without her daily fix, well... what could happen to her?

The Lines Between Us

@Virgil
That works great for me. I didn't have anything established behind the organs except ">sell body parts >??? >profit", so that sets me up for more than I already had as is and is relevant to the cast. That would suggest that the buyer that didn't show up is government but got sidetracked with something, maybe even the attack?

@Blackfridayrule @Virgil
Vilĉjo is on the move right now, trying to do some networking to find another buyer. That could very well lead to him going to a bar because, well, where else do you go to do shady stuff?

As I was writing this, I was also struck with an idea. What if the three were to just happen to bump into one another in the street after the bombing, then right at that moment, a news chopper or something swoops in and paints a light on them, accusing them to be the attackers. It'd be convenient for the powers-that-be: you have the target foreigner, the person who has the super-crazy-medicine organs, and someone that knows about the super-crazy-medicine. They could - given we don't host a daring, high-stakes escape sequence - arrest us, take the organs, then use Ridahne to lay the blame. All of a sudden, we're all fugitives and in it together with something the government really wants.

Jigokuraku Academy Int Chek (Hero Academia AU)

---

^{"Mediocre grades and a mediocre attitude, to boot. Nothing seems horribly out of order, but... what business does he have becoming a hero?"}

— An uncited faculty member at Jigokuraku Academy.

---

Hider

Name:
Inoue Taro.

Age:
Fifteen (15).

Height:
5 feet and 11 inches.

Weight:
177 pounds.

Build:
Sturdy, horned.

Quirk:
Taro's quirk, Horn Cascade, is a transformation-type quirk that allows Taro to create shapes made from the horn-like protrusions spread across his body. The horns are spread across his body with the exception of his head, half-merged with his skin, which grow rapidly on demand.

Description:
At first glance, Taro doesn't look like an aspiring hero at all; hell, he doesn't even act like it. His face is almost permanently set into a glare and scowl, as if someone took a heat gun and shaped it that way. The set of horns on his forehead eluding to a certain biblical figure certainly doesn't help either, particularly with foreigners and the elderly. His disinterested, "let's get this over with" style demeanour certainly doesn't do him any favours either, need not mention his stark lack of charisma. So then begs the question: why would someone who doesn't fit the job description or even seem to care, want to become a hero?

Well, it'd be no fun if we gave it away so early, but let's talk about what led to the decision anyway!

Taro grew up living between a pair of orphanages. His parents supposedly passed before he was old enough to know any better and he never got the details about the situation with the rest of his family. It wasn't at all tragic or the likes - he enjoyed living with all the other kids and the staff always treated him well enough. For him, life at the orphanages was just his life, just as a life in a household is the life of most children. But that's not what you came here to hear - you want to know why he's enrolling into Jigokuraku, don't you?

Taro was almost adopted a couple of times. He was never so hot on the idea: someone coming along playing the "saviour card", pulling him away from the way of life he knew and was happy with. The staff at the orphanage were so happy when he went away for the trial, though, so he just... went along with it. In the end, he ended up back at the orphanages both times. The first time he went away, pressure from other family members in the would-be adoptive family who were opposed to adoption succeeded in making the family give up, but the second time, Taro intentionally sabotaged it. You see, when Taro came back from his first time with a potential adoptive family, he was confused at all the sympathy he got. He was happy to be back at the orphanage, back home, but everybody else only felt sorry for him.

Somewhere along the line, before he went to the second family, something fell into place in his mind: he was being defined by his lack of parents. When he realised it, it was the first time he was ever truly mad, but that gave way to something else: resolve. So began his obsession with heroes. So began his journey to Jigokuraku, included as part of a scattergun approach to finding his place in a hero course. So began his journey to becoming a hero.

So that leads to our big question: why does he want to become a hero? I thought I told you earlier - it'd be no fun if we gave it away so early!

Jigokuraku Academy Int Chek (Hero Academia AU)

y'all know for sure i'm still down w u fam

NEON GODS [Japanese Cyberpunk]

500% my aesthetic. Very interested.

The Lines Between Us

@Virgil
Not at all. At risk of spoiling the surprise (it's in the discord anyway), he's an organlegger. There's a bunch of questionably sourced organs hidden under false panels in the van. He has thirty hours before he has to either boost a few new car batteries for the refrigeration or get rid of them.

The Lines Between Us

Stay safe my dude. Let us know if it starts heading your way.