ERode

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

_{@Raineh Daze}

"Far more desperate. Far more forward." Words echoed, their fight stalled for a brief moment. Serenity narrowed her eyes incrementally, hollow light within the cerulean gaze. There was nothing pleasant about such laughter, even if Damon wasn't a blood-thirsting zombie. "You would compare yourself favorably against the common people of Thaln, yet ignore that unlike them, you were born into House Cazt."

Born to privilege and education, to mannerisms and the noble's obligation. To be an exemplar that common folk aspire towards, to be the paragon that common folk shelter before. And that was not a duty one was freed from in death, for their life has been blessed many times more than the son of a peasant, a merchant, a craftsman, a servant. If they were a steward of the land, it was their duty to see it flourish. If they were gifted the swordhand of a war-spirit, it was their duty to restrain it, to lash out only against foes of the realm.

Your Ancestors rest in the Elysian Fields.
Die they may, but forever stand as humanity's shields.

She would not understand Damon. Damon could not understand her.

So onwards, the shadow-dance continued, wind whistling and sparks clashing as steel met steel, boots sliding against cold stone, dust kicked up into clouds of haze with the blasphemed crypt. She could see it in his face now, curiosity and thought behind the veneer of a vampire-noble. But so long as he remained within the realm of a duel, she could follow along. His manual of swordsmanship was centuries out-dated, and as for herself? The lion was ready to try.

Steel sang its deflectional parry, the longer blade's tip flicked aside by the forte of the shortsword. In the same motion, Serenity released her grip on the mace, momentum sending the flanged head towards Damon's face without any telegraph. It wasn't a maiming throw. Just a distraction for what happened next.

A step to the side. A spin of the wrist. Shortsword slicing towards the extended forearm, angled so that even if retracted, flesh would be drawn against the edge. Free hand now, grasping the blade. Pulling at it, pulling with the intent of disarming a vampire who would hopefully have just had the tendons of his arm severed.

And if not? Then that was fine too. The more weapons Serenity discarded, the lighter she got.

Sleepless Nights\\ Iron Cages

Where Mel was quick to cut questions off, Yasu was totally fine with answering in the older cleaner's place. After all, Honest never turned on the radio, so someone had to fill up the silence! Why not herself then?

Sitting in the back, with ol' Niid stuffed between the two of them, the odd-eyed cleaner was more than happy enough to chatter on about all the relic-demon-books that were absolutely awful to read. There were self-help books that turned out to literally be a possessive, controlling parent in text form that would brainwash you into becoming a perfectly boring adult. There were stereotypical books of evil that tempted you with the power to summon murder demons (rarely) or sex demons (commonly) at the cost of your soul (wallet). There were books that would consume all the time in the day once you made it past the first three pages, forcing you down deeper and deeper rabbit holes of fictional lore and conspiracy. And of course, there were books that had pictures in them that once seen, could never be unseen. Outis was no library, but that simply meant that forbidden books could proliferate to all corners of the cursed city, infecting even the mindspace of the illiterate.

By the time the car arrived, Yasu was about one-third of her way through her personal listing of cursed literature, and she was the third to enter as well. It was building barren, but not dilapidated. Accordion music flowed within, a novel instrumentation in a time of synthesized beats, while the poster that remained upon the wall...oh, fun! 90% of what she saw featured some form of the 'first hunter', but then there were outlier posters in the last 10%: fat green men traipsing in swamps, rock bands with wild hair and wilder makeup, a swordsman sitting on a lawn chairs, slasher films inspired by childhood cartoons. She was curious too though, about the consistency of music, and while Emm and Niid did as they wished, the Tiger Cub drew her sword as well.

Polished to a mirror sheen, enough to reflect her mouth. To reflect her mouth in the infinitely-branching presents and futures. To sate what she wished to learn, from the Yasus that found themselves in similar, yet alternate, situations. So she mouthed those words, and that odd eye of hers' read the reflection in the sword.

'Accordion music'.

'Violin.' 'Piano.' 'Grand piano!' 'Some sort of plinking thing?' 'Rock. Classical.' 'Just screams. Human.' 'A wolf howl.'

Damn. She sorta wanted to see a wolf...

"I'll take the right then," Yasu said, sheathing her sword again. "Or, wait, Emm, we could just get your friends to do all the searching, right? Flush 'em out with rats and all. Ah, but Niid's already off...Cam, could ya go with him?"
'

Expedition to Isekai

---

//Day 0 | Location: Kuroshio Community Bus

It had been an ordinary day, for as ordinary a day as a monsoon could have been.

The bus, more crowded than normal owing to the unpleasant weather, thrummed with conversation and action. The Ito twins went over English flash cards together, fumbling over any word that was longer than three syllables. Yuudai, buzzcut already dried, teased Tsubasa over the perm that her hair always became in weather like this. Ayano, as always, fussed over the bags beneath Fujita’s eyes, her chidings much too affectionate for Kumi on the seat behind the couple, who turned up the volume on her smartphone higher but failed to realize that her headphones were unplugged. Hana leaned against Maki as the two went over their mock exam scores together, muted whispers belying the gravity of their academic situation, while Daisuke and Yuki swayed with the bus, challenging each other in a duel of core strength. Perhaps it would have been a duel for the ages, if Mayumi hadn’t marched past to get to her usual seat in the rear, where she could watch the happenings and goings of her peers. Others kept to themselves, flipping through their smartphones or going over their study notes. The day had been ordinary, and the day would be busy.

No one thought much of it then, when the bus driver, the sixty-three year old Fuchizaki Takechi, let out a strange sound. Barely any of them even heard him, in truth, so wrapped up as they were with the future that was encroaching upon them.
But none of them could ignore the light that swallowed them up one second after.

…

Disorientation. Discombobulation.

As if their guts were being rearranged, as if they were plummeting down a spiral staircase. As if they were detritus in the ocean, scrambled by incomprehensible undertow. They were sublimated by the light, atomized and categorized, abstracted into concepts of egos and attributes, before stitched together in patchwork mosaics. In one instant, they felt themselves amongst individual grains of sand, and the next, they hurtled through eons and galaxies, grasping onto the substance of stars!

And at the apex of that impossible high, they crashed. Dragged down by gravity, their substance funneled into the thread of a meteor’s tail as they twisted and twisted and dropped and struck! Bound into flesh once more, trapped in entropic decay, their stomachs churning, their brains aching, every blood cell rushing through their veins possessed with a frigid cold or a searing heat, their senses stirred to frenzy by mismatched stimuli for an eternity and an instant!

Then, they felt the ground beneath them stop, and felt themselves launched forth by inertia, the first real force that had been applied to their body since the light.

Some caught themselves on poles or seats, whether with their heads, hands, or chest. Others found themselves sprawled to the ground or upon each other. A lucky few had braced themselves and only ended up crushed a hard surface. A terrific crash sounded in that same instant, the bus’s windshield fracturing like a spider’s web, and then…silence.

The engine rumbled still, but now that old junker’s rattling was accompanied by the blaring of the bus’s horns, over and over and over again, each screech driving another nail in their addled minds. Groans sounded aplenty, none of the students willing to get up yet. A nausea overcame their thoughts, breakfast bubbling with bile to crawl up their esophagus.

But you. You could smell it.

The heady, intoxicating stench of gasoline, leaking out from ruptured fuel lines.

That was how accidents went, right? A terrible crash, followed by a slow-motion explosion.

Persona ~ Alone at Sea (PERSONA WITH A BOAT 𓊝)

That was a big frog. A sharpened stick probably wouldn't help here, and it wouldn't even feel a rock slung by a sling, hm? And it came from the sea too. Sea-frogs weren't a thing, so that meant...

"Yup. This isn't Earth."

Sofia fell over. First to fall, first to die, but her sacrifice will buy others time. Victor was giving out orders he wasn't following. Frankie looked to be hydrated at last, and disappeared into the brush. Imogen followed soon after. Prodigious size alone made it out to be the sort of monster that could swallow them all whole. Were those webbed arms meant to help it swim, or could it achieve true flight too? Did it come here, chasing after castaways, or was it a migratory predator that leapfrogged (heh) from one island to the next? If she had an oxygen tank and some sort of hooking implement, could she ride on its back to the next island?

Mhmm, yeah, Verity could understand what was happening. In the face of the truly incomprehensible, she kept her emotions in check through pointless musings. And as its six eyes looked into the treeline, she sank further down into the brush, comfortable enough with following in the example of the birds and bugs. Her breaths measured. Her heart pounding. A smile on her face, and a flicker of regret in her mind.

Oh, if she had brought a gun to her swim, imagine how great their food situation would be!

Decibitus

---

~1440 | PARIS | FASHION SHOW VENUE

---

There were plenty of words that Vera would say, of course. Plenty of sensical words, spoken of my a woman with more common sense than Lucian and Edward combined. But by the time her words reached the point where she was speaking about ‘a dragon, a fucking dragon’, that dragon indeed, did appear. It had, after all, followed after Celeste. And now, though it seemed willing to let Lucian in, Vera was a different question.

Vera wasn’t being dragged by the pink-haired ghost-seer-model. Vera wasn’t affecting the mannerisms of a cheese-chomping buffoon. Vera, instead, was being stared down by a beast with no eyes, and unless she was going throw that first punch, she could not get close to those two models at all. Ethereal flame flickered out, perhaps a warning for the uninvited.

But Celeste too, would have noticed Vera.

“Of course, I can see you!” she snapped back. “And unless you had actually faked your death and then somehow gained the powers of a prodigious wallflower, you’re definitely dead. But wait, so that woman over there is like, working with you then?” Gears were turning visibly now. Thoughts parsed together, spun into thread, thread that wove a story. The excitement bloomed further and both of her hands now grasped Lucian’s, as if afraid the connection would disappear if she let go.

There was something brighter in Celeste’s smile. Something zealous.

“You’ve died, and become servants of the Holy Maiden?”

…

The two stepped upon the stage. A well-groomed man with the eyes of a muddy lake. A petite woman possessed with an aura of professionality and pragmatism. Edward would note the hush in the crowds, the dimming of the lights, but it was none of his business. His was work that pertained to ghosts and dragons, after all, necromancy and the naturally-dead-but-still-floating-around-not-due-to-magical-means. The ghosts continued to float about, their advance towards that pink-haired model paused by the presence of the reapers, and yet not noticing Edward amongst their kind yet. Vera was facing off against the dragon herself, yet neither of them had broken the equilibrium of caution and warning.

It all laid in balance. A quiet balance.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have an announcement to make.” A soothing, confident voice. Practiced and planned, from a man who was born with a silver spoon. “Jeunes Fleures and L’ile aux fees will be merging.”

That balance was broken.

Even as a reaper, the necromancer could feel the surge of excitement rippling through the ground, followed by undertones of anxiety and fear. Two influential companies had joined forces permanently! A competitor had suddenly become just that much stronger! Goddamn, imagine the pieces they could create together!

In ordinary circumstances, this was nothing. But when there were ghosts present? That influx of emotion triggered something.

A twitch. A gleeful laugh.

The young child, clutching a flower-shaped bag to her chest, could finally remove it, exposing her bones. Bones studded with flower seeds, which sprouted and expanded, shooting upwards towards the ceiling. They snaked around the lights, but the rumble of discussion of the guests made them deaf to the rattling of the ceiling, and from those sky-lusting roots, carnations bloomed. The two remaining ghosts, shook from their deathly trance, tried to float off, but their incorporeal limbs were snagged by thorn whips, dragged into the back-bending embrace of the child.

Embraced, until petals closed over all three, sealing them in bulb of motley purples and oranges.

Cannibalism. The nature of wisps was to consume those who had yet to turn and to use that energy to further fertilize their phantom-being.

And though two were already being digested…there was another. One that had yet to draw his weapon.

Tendrils, laced with the ceiling itself, reached out for Edward. He could rip through one or two, perhaps. Three even. Four if he tried. He could handle a dozen at once with good positioning. But how many branches did a rosebush have?

…

It was chaos invisible to all but those who were dead and those who could see.

And the dragon, certainly, must have been dead.

Ephemeral flame, once nothing more than an illusion of that element, sparked with true power now, broiling within its exposed chest.
There was a strange woman, and a stranger wisp, and its bestial rage was enough to encompass them both. With a snapping that sounded like a lighter’s spark wheel, the dragon’s jaws opened up and delivered a jet of flame to burn the two of them alive!

…or dead, one would suppose.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

_{@Raineh Daze}

“A true relic of the past, to be so blasé about intimacy with a stranger.”

And it was indeed, a vampire’s nature to justify their own existence. A rescue opportunity, at the cost of a Princess’s life? For the sister of a conspirator? There were oaths to be fulfilled, indeed, but Serenity understood too: the blood of a royal was worth more than the life of a peasant. Thaln could not function upon principles of equality, no matter the ideals of the church, the virtues of the crown. If the vampire had thought himself to be ‘good’, then it would have ended at the end of his own sword. Such was the might of an immortal nightcrawler, possessing strength both physical and magical that belittled the efforts of the mortal.

If Damon had considered it, and decided that he was incapable of it, then Fanilly was doomed to fall, alongside two archers of remarkable skill and a warrior who had yet to realize his goals. If he had considered it, and decided that he didn’t want to do it?

Then he was just a vampire.

But words transmitted through tongue and breath had no meaning now. Now, it was but the death-dance, one that demanded the entirety of her attention, no matter how carefree, how flippant, her foe was. And so, the world blurred away, elaborate statues rendered into grayscale shadows, brilliant walls made to vague boundaries. In that world, only Damon appeared in full-detail, raising his arbalest upwards.

The trigger was pulled. A heavy bolt whizzed past her, Serenity sliding one foot back to shrink her profile. The wall cracked from the force of the shot, her legs coiled up. He was fast, but she could read the starting movements still. The bending of knees into a lunge, a thrust. She had already become the smallest target she could, and with that, the trajectory of his sword’s point could be read as well.

So she advanced too. One step before he’d expect his sword to reach. The heft of the mace warded off his thrust, diverting it offcenter. Her shortsword swung under her leading arm and she caught the crimson flicker in his offhand. Visual guides to strike for. Vampires could heal. Weapons couldn’t.

The shortsword swung for the tautening string of the crossbow.

And whether or not it truly found its mark, Serenity finished her step regardless, pivoting on her feet to face Damon once more.

Expedition to Isekai

Sato Tsubasa

Sato Tsubasa

Vice-President of the Art Club

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A crush un-confessed. They met when Masato was fetching an opinion box from the hall outside of the art club. She was decorating the box and only laughed when Masato snapped at her not to tamper with them. She said they would get more participation if the boxes were more colorful, and truth be told it did look better after her work. A few weeks and some botched art attempts later, he dragged himself to the art club to enlist her help. Though she probably doesn't know it, Masato has been smitten from afar ever since. Sato Tsubasa comes from a rice farmer's family and often helps out with the business on weekends. She's a stocky girl with a healthy appetite and a positive disposition, something that's tempered somewhat by the self-discipline that she has developed from her pursuit of art. Though her fundamentals are fairly solid, as is her rapport with the younger club members, she doesn't see herself doing anything with her passion once she gets into high school. After all, her greatest interest is in abstract art, but commercial art is a couple magnitudes too grounded for such vivid appreciations of shape and color, shade and tint. Her TikTok account has followers in the low tens of thousands, garnered largely by her mimicking popular dance moves to memetic music.

Kondo Mayumi

Kondo Mayumi

Treasurer and Academic Prodigy

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The student council's treasurer. A third year student and math and science prodigy that teases the president and only gets away with because she performs her role well and is the only other real officer of the council besides Masato, given the school's small size. She doubles as the secretary while Masato doubles as general affairs officer. They both served on the council since their first year, but their fundamental differences in lifestyle and personality keep them from becoming real friends. That, and "The first time we hung out, all my plans turned out disastrously." A smarmy, high-functioning individual, Mayumi lives with her grandparents, who run a traditional candy shop in Kuroshio. As a child, that made her pretty popular, but after a while, she started getting toothaches and stomachaches from all that sugar. Now, she's more or less stopped dealing with that, and enjoys healthier, if blander snacks. There's no doubt that such a lifestyle would pay dividends in her physique, if it wasn't for the fact that now she's leaning more heavily towards her identity as a responsible intellect, a prodigy of maths and sciences who regularly places at the top. The pressure builds up, of course, especially when her competitor is the 'brains' of the Gold Bros, and her only safe form of stress relief is striking sarcastic jabs at Masato or hitting up the batting cages the next town over. Bombed her middle school debut self-introduction so hard that it's become a joke amongst the whole class, much to her chagrin.

Ichibangase Juro

Ichibangase Juro

Super Duper Junior High Wallflower

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A ghost that haunts the halls of the junior high. Metaphorically of course. Masato doesn't actually recall ever seeing them in school, but he can feel their eyes on him there. When he meets them by chance in town long after school hours, they wear the same uniform so they must be a fellow student. Keep each other company with few words or just companionable silence on the way back from cram school, or at night sulking in lonely areas of Kuroshio. Some may say its a strange relationship, because after all "We met in a graveyard." A truant, yet academically competent enough that the teachers don't mind so long as he's not causing trouble, Juro rarely shows up to class and even more rarely shows up to class-bonding events that the more universally-liked members of the class occasionally bring up. He's not in any group chats on Line and he hardly has a presence when he does show up, enough so that the homeroom teacher stopped calling for his name in the mornings. Indeed, this is a youth who's practically a ghost in his own classroom. Sometimes, he's been called out due to sightings of him being out late at night, but his parents, who look relatively normal, don't seem to be too concerned by that behavior, so what can the teachers really do? It's not like he's causing trouble for anyone. Though a member of the Go Home Club, Juro doesn't go home, but rather spends his time in the school library, flipping through fragile pages or commiserating with the Literature club members. God knows why he doesn't just join the club though.

Ito Kunio

Ito Kunio

Badminton Team's Ace

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"We were neighbours and often visited each other." > Rin knew Kunio since they were babies. This was quite unfortunate for Kunio since he grew up testing all of Rin's devices. Wiry and swift, Kunio's like a cat in both his reflexes and his instincts. Perhaps it was something developed from his early childhood with Rin, but the youth got himself quite a good sense for danger as a result and is very capable of going ghost whenever he senses something troublesome heading his way. Of course, sometimes he can't just dodge his responsibilities, such as having to wake up before daybreak to haul in nets of fish with his old man, and then attend morning badminton practice afterwards. For some, that sort of life must be unbearably fatiguing, but for Kunio, he just adjusted over time. And in the boonies, well...it's not like his club members are all that good either. He could beat them with one eye closed while only using drop shots, and he certainly doesn't go out of his way to hide that he thinks that way. Badminton's not a team sport, after all. Considers himself the older of the Ito twins, because he's the Ace of the Badminton Team, where his fans (all four of them) call him the Lynx of Kuroshio Ogata, for his supple movements and his ability to swap into a drop at the drop of a hat.

Ito Sohei

Ito Sohei

Multi-Sport Substitute Specialist

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"I have obvious feelings for you that you ignore." > It was a simple tale. Boy meets girl. Girl creates a pitching machine that domes the boy in the helmet. Now, Sohei is head over heels in multiple ways. Reliable but a bit near-sighted in more ways than one, Sohei helps with the early morning fishing chores in much the same way that his twin brother does, but does so with the belief that it's for the better, rather than anything else. He is a dutiful son, a dutiful student, and above all, a dutiful civilian, one that got it into his adolescent head that the depopulation of Kuroshio was a really bad thing. So, as someone who's pretty fit and pretty good at sports (through hard work, of course), Sohei's made it his deal to be a substitute member for all the sports clubs in his school. And while the first year was disastrous in terms of getting used to everything, now in his third year, he truly is the reliable senior that he dreamed himself of being. None of those clubs that need him would be winning any tournaments, of course, but they'd certainly get at least a handful of wins off of his skill. Considers himself the older of the Ito twins, because he carries a good dozen of the sports clubs in Kuroshio Ogata, and where his fans (more than 30 underclassmen) call him the Trump Card Prince.

Murakami Kumi

Murakami Kumi

Hyper-Metabolic Gourmand

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"I once left you on read and we haven't talked since." > Kumi had a problem with her love life. When Rin heard about this, she decided that the best action would be to make her a new boyfriend. Apparently, sending someone an image of a dressed up mannequin on wheels can be considered a personal attack. The daughter of a ramen shop owner, Kumi's childhood is filled with high calorie meals and heady steam, where she'd always drop by for a bowl of ramen after school as she chatted with her father about her day before she headed upstairs into her room. Food was great, after all, and much to the chagrin of her female classmates, no matter how greasy and plentiful her meals were, she never seemed to put on all that much weight. And that? Well that made Kumi feel invincible! ...until she reached middle school, started reading the fashion magazines that her older classmates read, and then became super concerned over whether or not the upperclassman she crushed on would be turned off by the smell of pork bones and chicken broth that stuck to every pore of her body. In her third year though, she'd mostly have gotten over it, but still thinks that there's something really off about Rin. When the class decided to run a Maid Cafe for the relatively humble school festival in Spring, Kumi ended up handling most of the cooking and her popularity exploded overnight.

Higasa Yuudai

Higasa Yuudai

Future Nobel Prize Poet (Self-Proclaimed)

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"I don't recognize you but you recognize me very well." Yuudai helped her out on a cold, rainy night. Kanamori crashed her bike and scrapped her knees. Yuudai so happened to be there and helped her get back home. Ever since then, she's been glancing at his direction every so often. It was more akin to curiosity and she refuses it to call a crush. The third son of a rice farmer and childhood friends with Tsubasa, Yuudai has a sunny disposition and naturally leans into the role of being the class clown. Some students find it annoying, and others find it endearing, but it serves him well enough in being friendly with everyone he comes across. There's a certain earnestness to his behavior though, that puts him beyond just being a funny little guy, and he's always willing to give others a hand as a result. After all, in Yuudai's opinion, while animals chose survival, humans chose civilization, and that was how humanity rose to become apex predators or something like that. Often, he runs back home to help out at the farm, but when he has spare time, Yuudai often pops his face in the teachers' lounge and chats it up with the literature teacher. Though it's a self-proclaimed title, he seems to be pursuing the path of Nobel Prize Poetry with the same earnestness that he treats everything else. As his uniform was two sizes too big for him (hand-me-downs from his older brother), Yuudai looks gawkier than he actually is. Indeed, it was quite a surprise to some (but not to Tsubasa), when he showed up to the class's beach party and revealed that he was absolutely jacked. Died. Crushed underfoot by a Hulk-Phant.

Endo Yuki

Endo Yuki

Unshakeable Mental Fortitude

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"You once punched me in the face." Yuki touched her moped one time. In return, she punched him. After all, Satoshi-Chan was her son. Nobody was allowed to touch her moped without consent. Though, Kanamori seems to have forgotten this happened, much to Yuki's frustration. Yuki likes girls. He likes them a lot. Some may psychoanalyze it as owing to him having grown up without a mother, and thus always searching for a source of feminine comfort in his life, but honestly, does one need that deep a reason to like girls? Of course not! So, of course, as the hormones continued to build up, he became increasingly reckless in his attempts to grab attention. He joined the basketball team specifically to grab attention...except the Double Ds were there. He regularly uploads daredevil antics on Youtube...and gets a grand total of 100 views per vid, with half of them being bots and the other half being elementary school kids. He even preens and grooms himself based off of the advice of popular fashion influencers...but no one notices the glossiness of his hair or the smoothness of his skin. Through all that, however, he's unshaken. Confidence, after all, is the sexiest thing for a man to have. And Yuki's got confidence in spades. To fund all the beauty products he totally, definitely needs, Yuki works part-time at the convenience store, where his charms certainly hit the mark with the grannies that shuffle in during the evenings. Died. Comatose for two days.

Iekami Ayano

Iekami Ayano

Her Boyfriend is Always the Hottest Guy

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"Once, I invited you to my party, but you had to go home early because you hit your head." Ayano was a party girl who usually invited everyone. One of these people were Kanamori. Kanamori, who was having the time of the life, accidentally tripped and hit her head. She had to be escorted back home and never was invited since. If you'd believe her, Ayano's aunt is a popular actress, and because of that, Ayano deserves the best too...even though her parents work at the fish-processing plant by the docks. She has grand dreams of being a stylist or a beautician in Tokyo or Kyoto, and if anyone shows even the slightest bit of interest in it, she'd gladly talk their heads off about the magic of contours and cucumbers. Her bangs are always perfect, her makeup does heavy lifting for minimal layering, and she puts the work in to make sure her body matches her face. And, perhaps because she's so hyper-aware of how physical beauty functions, Ayano is also a girl who falls in love with people who others would just handwave as uglies. They're like uncut gems to her. Just some polishing, some life advice, some care and attention, and voila, they're perfect! Of course, what Ayano may consider 'caring' would be considered 'overbearing' for others, and she usually ends up broken-hearted a few months later, but...well, what can you do? Ayano's currently in a relationship with Fujita, after she witnessed how patient he was with that absolute insufferable moron Kogen. Post-glow up, Fujita's now the hottest guy in school, something that Ayano herself is very pleased with.

Ebizu Fujita

Ebizu Fujita

Impossibly Photogenic

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"E-eh?! Pizza-kun was the same grade as us?!" Ebizu Fujita was that one unfortunately short and pimple-faced kid that everyone picked on for a deficiency in genetics. Kogen met him around the beginning of his second, and elected to make him his disciple in the dark arts. Cut to a year of aging and Pizza-kun had his glow-up just before his high school debut, both with a clear face and a few centimeters above his former "master" in height. Fujita still tries to be the best disciple he can be, despite being rejected by Kogen after "suddenly becoming a normie." The Ebisu family never intended on staying long in Kuroshio, but something about the landscape struck the father's fancy, and they settled down then and there, becoming known by the neighbors as 'the rich family that doesn't need to work'. Of course, they did need to work. It was just that Fujita's father was a novelist and his mother a designer. That didn't stop the bullying that ensued, of course, for being both a rich boy in the boonies and for having a face that was a mass of acne. Fujita put up with it though, and was even happy to make friends with someone who loved fiction as much as his father. He stayed out of trouble where he could, helped his friend out where he could, and even found himself a place in the Gardening Club. Gradually, the bullies had to focus on their own graduation, and gradually, Fujita's school life became something he could be content with. Then, during winter break of his second year, Ayano asked him out for Christmas, and he learned to stand a little taller. Post-glow up, Fujita became so stylish that he could have been mistaken for an idol if he was anywhere except Kuroshio and that certainly made him a fair bit more popular, but despite that, he's curiously stubborn about keeping his regular routine intact.

Ryuugasaki Hana

Ryuugasaki Hana

A Player of the Greatest Game

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"Oh, speaking of normies..." Hana was, in many ways, Kogen's polar opposite. Not only was she painfully average in all respects, she was very much just your stereotypical teenaged Japanese girl, from her interests to even her manner of speaking. Kogen wasn't really sure what to make of Hana at first after finding out he had to share the stage with her, from when they began learning and rehearsing their lines to after their first few dates. He was even befuddled with how indifferent Hana was about his... antics. In the end, Kogen couldn't stand how very "middle of the road" she was with her opinions and decisions, and basically stopped associating with her entirely come third year. He wonders if she even realized he broke up with her. Hana's father is a hunter. And though the Ryuugasakis were not blessed with a son, he wasn't so old-fashioned as to refuse to pass his art onto his daughter. Hana too, then, became a hunter. She didn't use a gun, of course, but she learned how to stalk and trap, how to finish a kill and clean it. And with that perspective, she learned to grow up rather quickly. As her father liked to say, a wise hawk hides its talons. In elementary school, sticking out caused you to receive too much unnecessary attention, so she learned to stick in. She kept up with trends, mimicked the language of her peers, and, in middle school, even got herself a boyfriend. Not that her friends were particularly jealous of that, but it was an experience, certainly. It kept things ordinary. Kept her normal, to have had one relationship. And, perhaps, it was around that time too that Hana developed a sense of what injustice was. A ghost member of the Literature Club, Hana has a habit of showing up to the library but not participating in activities with the others. Instead, she shares a table with Juro, which sparked some rumors about the nature of their relationship. Rumors that died out quickly.

Morikawa Akito

Morikawa Akito

In it for the Long Con

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... Ah, I was wondering why my eye was aching." A shitstain, not worth talking to, a piece of trash vile enough for even Kogen to hold active malice for. If asked, Kogen wouldn't remember his name, so let's just call him Akechi. Who was once his fellow shuttle runner, Akechi snitched on Kogen's plans to stick up to their bullies and ended up getting a "level-up" for it. He's now a big-mouthed delinquent who goes to school only to brag about his misdeeds. In other words, a level one Thug in comparison to the ones actually responsible Hitotsumi-kun's scars. No one particularly likes Akito in Kuroshio Ogata now, and he, in turn, loudly proclaims that he doesn't give a shit about the rest of them pansy ass bootlickers either. He's about as performatively villainous as you could imagine a middle school delinquent could be, the sort of person who seems to have co-opted all his ideas of being a delinquent from old dramas. But without the existence of his senpai, and with the presence of the Dunk, Akito can't really do much other than bark and storm off with statements of "You'll regret this!" when no one bothers to acknowledge his big mouth. Perhaps he'll snap one day, but honestly? The rest of the class still remembers that time in elementary school where the class's pet rabbit died, and how Akito bawled the most over it. Dude's 100% still a softie. Just brings up the question why he's trying to pretend to be what he's not. Akito's grandfather used to collect trash around the neighbourhood until an incident a couple years ago left him infirm. He's still inform.

Nakagawa Daisuke

Nakagawa Daisuke

Thoroughbred Manager

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Nakagawa Daisuke, an athletic 3rd year ikemen, has talent, spunk and an impressive 0-78 score against Duncan in any physical competition they've ever tried. It's all in good fun though, Daisuke really doesn't mind. Really. He. Doesn't. Mind. Honestly, the losses would probably be easier to handle if Duncan wasn't such a dick about them. If the Dunk was the ace, then Daisuke is assuredly the Captain, a position that he rose to in the second year, once it became clear that he fundamentally invalidated the need for an advisor and a manager. As the second tallest member of the middle school basketball team, he sticks outs both in his incessant hotheadedness as well as the volume of his voice, one that crashes against your brain no matter how in the zone you are. After all, basketball's a team sport, even if only one person can handle the ball at once. So, naturally, it was the team that had to get good, not just the individual. With the charisma of a jock and the forcefulness of a leader, it was Daisuke who first set the goal of winning the Inter High Basketball Tournament and this year? This final year, where the Double Ds finally got their shit together (despite Daisuke still not having gotten a W against Duncan solo)? Summer was heating up, and hopes were riding high. He even dyed his hair gold for this...though it's more of a light brown. Daisuke's family is well-reputed in Kuroshio for making some ridiculously good plum wine, and on particularly noteworthy days, he's not afraid of risking the belt in order to get a jar for his brothers.

Suzuki Maki

Suzuki Maki

Headbutt, Pulverize!

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It was a Friday night and that's about everything Duncan remembers. That and the offensively orange shirt with a "Get a happy!!" emblazoned on the front. Duncan had bought it ironically. So had Suzuki Maki. Neither believed the other. To this day, whenever they sneak out to drink, they wear the same shirt. Everyone knows that Maki's father practiced martial arts and was a police officer. That was what she stated during her presentation in fifth grade, after all. What people learned in the first year of middle school, though, was that Maki leaned much harder towards the martial artist part of her father's identity, rather than the police officer part. That distinction became clear, when a cadre of upperclassmen sauntered up to the first-year girls with dubious intentions, and she responded by headbutting their ringleader with her big forehead and pulverizing him with her palm. Of course, she was the one that got in trouble for it, but someone had recorded that fight, specifically the part where she looked as if she was slapping him over and over again, and that? That tanked the delinquent's reputation to absolute shit, and none of the others were willing to mess with the girls after that. Indeed, what Maki inherited was a disposition for brutal violence and a flagrant disrespect for the rules...but it's ok, because she's just a small girl! Once upon a time, Yuki and Akito were thick as thieves, but their friendship now has been totally decimated by the people he's chosen to associate himself with. She still doesn't understand, but perhaps she simply can't understand.

Maeda Hiroshi

Maeda Hiroshi

The Apex of Academics

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No one should be at the library all the fucking time, but here we are, and there that nerd Maeda Hiroshi was, always turning the corner just when Duncan pulled the latest volume of "Love Love Doki Doki Kyuuto na Kanojo" out of the shelf. For my girlfriend, he said, and bought Hiroshi lunch the next day to make sure he understood. Sometimes, Duncan is convinced Hiroshi stalks the library just for the free negotiation lunches. No one fucks with Hiroshi. For one, he's best buddies with Daisuke, and the two had cemented their brotherhood by dying their hair blond together and calling themselves the Gold Bros. For two, he's got the creepiest smile ever, one that makes you want to watch your back whenever he's nearby, out of fear that he may, at any moment turn out to be a serial killer or a vampire or something. But, beyond that, Hiroshi's wicked smart, the sort of person who learns and studies for fun. The person who hangs out at the community library, and not just because the new librarian there is a sexy university graduate from Kyoto. And knowledge was a terrible thing to possess, when one considered too that for all the crazy schemes that Rin hatched in her insane tinkering skull...it was Hiroshi who was happy to supply the theory and logic to enable that insanity, all while flashing his shark-toothed grin. Some call him the Devil, others the Tutor. But when you need to know something (and can't be assed to Google it), Hiroshi's your man. Hiroshi is Mayumi's main source of stress, because whenever she heads off to the library to study for the next physics test, she sees his ass there, reading up on biochemistry or group psychology, Kantian philosophy or Forex trading. He doesn't even study for tests, and she still can only regularly place at the top!

Okumura Tsubaki

Okumura Tsubaki

The Single Mom Experience

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"You only ever see me on the bus and I'm always asleep." Assuming Tsubaki was always tired because she was busy working hard all the time. Ayana never even thought of trying to disturb her slumber. Though the only times she remembered ever seeing her, she was always fast asleep. Though she often wondered what made her so tired but kept it too herself and never actually asked. In the end maybe Tsubaki could just be lazy and never worked much at all. The oldest child in a family of seven, Tsubaki naturally inserted herself into the role of the family mom once her mom divorced her dad. In a small town like Kuroshio, it wasn't as if it was a secret, or even all that scandalous. Just a young couple that loved each other very much, until passions faded and nothing remained but the depressing reality of being wed to someone who was anchored in a town in the middle of nowhere. It was an amicable parting, even! But it nevertheless did two things for Tsubaki: forced her to grow up, and made her ridiculously cynical about love. While her father worked as the supervisor of the fish processing plant, Tsubaki was the manager of all her younger siblings, keeping their large house in shape. First as someone who single-handedly covered all the chores around the house, and then as the foreman who made all those old enough to do the work for her. She helped them with homework, patched them up after their roughhousing, and generally spent her own life coasting through middle school as a result. Most students recognize that if Tsubaki had time, and if the position even existed, she'd have been a Disciplinary Committee member. Busy as she is, however, she's just a member of the Go Home club that actually goes home.

Todokawa Ayane

Todokawa Ayane

Subculture Fashionista

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"I am your annoying little step-sibling you don't like to talk about." It took a lot to not make Ayana want to talk about someone, especially her step sibling Ayane. But they never saw eye to eye as Ayana wasn’t as interested in the sort of stuff Ayane liked. They where like two polar opposites, Ayane was far more graceful and always seemed to have luck shine upon her. Though Ayana hated to admit it, she wished some of that luck would rub off on her as well. What’s worse, a lot of people that met them always got their names switched around often calling Ayana, Ayane and Ayane, Ayana. It's a tired joke that Ayane and Ayano are sisters from another mother, and Ayane and Ayana are sisters from another father. Of course, the biggest joke is that the three flat-out look nothing alike, and Ayane especially stands out from the crowds. While Ayana is a disaster with a cute face and Ayano is pretty set on her schoolgirl idol aesthetic, Ayane? She lives it up in a whole different dimension compared to the two, going for a look that was simultaneously punk and mature. She's dyed her hair, got her extensions, pierced her ears, and hits the dead streets of Kuroshio in clothes she got off of the flea markets that pop up in the big city, which she had then tailored and customized to her own desires. And knowing what she had? Knowing how she looked? It gave her confidence and self-esteem in abundance, made her someone who truly stood out as the most popular girl in class. After all, there were third years in high school that didn't look as model-esque as her! A member of the Art Club, Ayane habitually bugs Tsubasa for opinions and advice, seeing the Vice-President as 'the only person in school with any taste'.

Ohta Yukiko

Ohta Yukiko

Forever Overshadowed

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"We were partners for a project we both failed." *Ayana and Yukiko once got paired together as partners for a science project. It started out well at first and they got along swimmingly. Until the project they were working on caught on fire and set off the fire alarm and drenched them with the sprinklers. To this day Yukiko has no idea how Ayana managed to cause such destruction. After all they were working with seeing if music helped make plants grow better then if there was no music. How Ayana managed to set both the radio and the plants on fire at the same time, not even she seems to know. The poor grade that received for their smoldering efforts didn’t help Yukiko feel too confident about working with Ayana again in the future. When people hear Ohta, people think Kaneko, Yukiko's older, hotter, and all around better sibling. After all, he was the one who graduated from high school just two years back, moved off into the big city, and then returned home during the New Years in a Ferrari and a tailored suit. It didn't even come as a surprise that he was the landlord of the high-rise apartment he had a penthouse suite in, that he was the CEO of one of the hottest new tech firms in Japan, that he could already retire, all at the age of 20. He had always been the special sort, the multi-talented ikemen. And after New Zealand? He had become even more special, to the point where anyone who was of age wanted to be in his good graces, wanted their share of his brilliance. So, naturally, as his younger sister, Yukiko was both someone who was friends with everyone, as well as someone who was friends with no one. In the corona of Kaneko's brilliant bling, not even her parents even really knew anything about her. Yukiko is the manager of the boy's Badminton team, and spends most of her free time watching Kunio play. It's not a crush though, of course.

Bansen Sasuke

Bansen Sasuke

Inheritor of the Dojo

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"We took martial arts classes together." As a kid, Asahi's dad wanted him to engage in a physical activity. When making him join his dad and grandpa to catch fishes didn't work, he enlisted the lad to take martial classes instead. For Asahi, it was at least better than being under the sun and smelling like the sea. It was there that he met his childhood crush, Sasuke. Asahi admired Sasuke for his bravery, diligence, and determination to be the best. Of course, Asahi would never admit this openly to the boy. He was content to be crushing on him secretly and get jealous whenever a girl confessed their love to him. Bansen Sasuke practices aikido. In a small town like Kuroshio, if you had parents that made you take martial arts, you would have practiced with him before. The eldest son in a family that was deeply rooted in that art, it's something that's been ingrained into his psyche, to the point that it's insane to hear about his daily routine even in a classroom full of kids who came from farming and fishing families. Indeed, there's something particular about the way he carries himself, from his strictly middling grades to how he expresses no particular interest in anything outside of his martial art. For some, it makes Sasuke someone who's aloof and mysterious, a mature youth who's definitely not like the other boys. For others, it makes Sasuke an incredible bore who must have been trained to be emotionless by his parents, turned into a puppet that exists only to continue down this path. But for Sasuke himself? He sees his life as one in which softness must subdue hardness, where tranquility must smother ferocity. Otherwise, things could go off the rails much too easily. Otherwise, he could too quickly do something that can't be undone. There's a running bet in the class about who'd come out on top in a fight between Sasuke and Maki. Unfortunately, Maki doesn't fight fake martial artists, and Sasuke doesn't throw hands outside of the dojo.

Takehara Masami

Takehara Masami

On the Run, On the Move

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"We keep pretending to like each other even though we hate each other." Masami and Asahi were childhood friends that hated each other ever since. Their families thought it was very charming of them and kept doting on them to be a couple someday when they grew older. Problem was: Asahi liked boys and Masami liked girls. So even if they were complete opposites, Asahi disliking Masami's tomboyishness and Masami hating Asahi's flamboyancy, they agreed to be each other's beards to stop their families' constant nagging. Meanwhile, their all-knowing moms have an ongoing bet on whether whose kid will come out first. The daughter of a shrine priest, Masami spent most of her childhood running up and down the long stairs up to their mountainside shrine, building up her form and instilling upon herself a great disdain for authority. It was pretty miserable that she had to sweep the shrine grounds rather than her father or mother, after all, and filial piety wasn't even part of Shintoism to begin with! Still took a while for her to really become a wilful child, of course, but after the first time she shirked her duties, she found out...that her parents didn't really mind. Maybe to them, it was just a phase. Maybe to them, it was fine to dote on Masami instead of their deity. Regardless, she was free to do whatever she wanted, and for Masami? That meant going wherever she wanted. She explored the mountains that bordered Kuroshio with Hana, hit up the big city with Ayane and Ayano. She went off to the beach with Tsubasa, off to eat with Kumi, and off to a six-hour ride to see the hottest new pro wrestling promotion with Maki. She was happy to butt heads with the boys during sports events, happier to spend her weekends off wherever she wanted, and happiest to enjoy every scrap of freedom she could. It was the springtime of youth, after all, and Masami's spring was a storm. Masami's the captain of the Track-and-Field team, but there are rumors that she's really just in it for the embezzlement of club funds...though it's not like the Kuroshio team has enough members to get results in competitions anyhow.

Norifuku Haruko

Norifuku Haruko

News on Wheels

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"I helped you hook up with something your parents don't approve of." Haruko loved bad boys. Due to her obsession with cheesy hopeless romantic novels and movies, she really believed she can make a boy turn over a new leaf because of her sincerity and love. When her parents didn't approve of her relationship with her beau from another class, she turned to Asahi, one of her friends and someone her parents know, to help her with her problem. Needless to say, Haruko was living out her romantic novella fantasy thanks to Asahi. Haruko's dad is an old curmudgeon of a cop who transferred over from a position in Shibuya to the sticks of Kuroshio. Punishment for misdemeanors? Indications of corruption? No matter where the rumors go, her father's lips are tightly sealed...except when he's yelling at punks or complaining about blatant violations of the law, such as jaywalking or illegal parking or delinquents out way too late at night. It of course made Haruko herself a judicious follower of rules and regulations, but as a result also made the taboo of breaking those laws and regulations all that much sweeter. It began with shoujo manga, which always featured a hot bad boy, extended out towards general media that featured jerks with a heart of gold, before finally expanding into feel-good stories about people turning their lives around. And that last bit? That's what Haruko decided to make her life out of. Positive journalism, sappy real-life stories, saccharine moments captured in photos and texts! For every bit that others bemoan the shittiness of the world for, she'll be there to make sure that happier stories make it to public consciousness too! And for that reason, Haruko wakes up early every Saturday, hoists up her box of zines onto her bike, and starts delivering. Haruko's current boyfriend is Duncan, a massive mismatch considering their backgrounds and physiques and interests, but she seems adamant on making it work out and also seems to be perfectly at ease with him being off late at night with Maki, when Kumi's 100% set on the theory that the Dunk's been cheating on her.

Expedition to Isekai [Short-Term Dungeon Delving]

@Yankee@OwO@Cu Chulainn@Vertigo@AThousandCurses@SilverPaw@Duthguy
OOC is up. If you have a CS already, toss it into the OOC, not the CS tab. Discord invite is in the first hider.

Expedition to Isekai

It's not about the destination, nor the journey. It's about the return.

Monday, July 5, 2027.

Summer struck Japan with the weight of a hammer: not with heat, but with storm. Rumbling clouds burst with sheets of rain, drowning the coast of the Kochi prefecture. Late summer blooms bent beneath the weight of water, sewer drains flooded and overflowed. Coastal winds whipped against windows and umbrellas, and even seagulls took shelter beneath eaves. It was a day that begged for truancy.

But the bus still arrived at the stop you’ve always waited at, and so, you entered.

It was July 5 and the bus was as crowded as it could be in a town so small as this, filled with scattered cliques of faces you recognized. All a part of Saga Junior High School. In a week, final exams for the third-year students would begin. A week after that, the only reason for caring about grades at all in junior high would manifest.

From a graduating class of 50 students, 12 of them would be selected to homestay abroad to New Zealand.

In a town like Kuroshio, this would be your only way to get out. To see the world beyond the setting sun, and then, perhaps from there, to use it as part of your applications to study at a high school that wasn’t in the middle of nowhere. Tokyo called for your soul. Bustling metropolises with enough people to intoxicate on atmosphere alone. International schools with international repute, enough to catapult you to the world further beyond! That's the only reason why you, and so many others, were crammed together in this old-ass bus, after all. There were teachers to get into the good graces of. Materials to study. Quizzes to do. Effort to be shown! Indeed, in the week before exams, every second mattered.

So you flipped through your damp notes. Plugged in your earbuds. Checked docs on your smartphone. Traded trivia with friends and rivals alike. Leaned against a window to catch a quick nap. The bus's engine rumbled on, through winding mountain paths, and you swayed to-

...

..

.

The headache hit you like a hammer, but the heat hit harder.

It was the heat of mid-August, a dry heat that you had never experienced on the coasts of your hometown. You try to pick yourself up, only to find that your body was entangled with another's. No, looking around you now, you see that everyone had toppled over, one way or the other. The front of the bus had smashed against the trunk of a tree, window turned opaque by the myriad of fractures. It was an accident. But it was more than an accident.

Because beyond the bus, the wilderness you witnessed was not what you could ever recognize as the prefecture you had spent your entire life in.

Because within your mind, in an instance of clarity, you understood exactly what had happened.

This was another world.

This was a Dungeon.

---

Extra Tidbits

Your character is a third-year junior high student from Kuroshio Ogata Junior High School, in the Shikoku prefecture of Japan. Ideally, they should have something that makes them exceptional as an individual, but this doesn't necessarily have to be anything that makes them super useful in an isekai survival situation. They could just be really good at yo yo tricks.

Earth is plagued as a whole with Portals that pop up in reality, and the monsters that spill out as a result. Usually, specialized military forces are sent inside the Portals to clear the Dungeons and ultimately close the Portals...but as junior high students, most of what you'd really know about it is from all the media that pops up surrounding these real-life anime shenanigans. You can think of the isekai genre as something that now also gets 'based on a real life story' movies.

There will be no fantasy civilization that they come across in this Dungeon. Though there is a form of 'magic', there won't be any cheat abilities popping up. Outside of the bus driver, no one else has died, so you'll have a hefty group of fellow students to help with survival tasks n all. Or to sacrifice to monsters as bait. Depends on how you want your character be psychologically at the end of this.

Discord Invite. Will expire in 7 days.

Character Sheet

Character Image Iz anime RP. So anime pic.
Name Last Name, First Name
Identity Who are they as a human being? A mixture of personality, background, and appearance. Consider this as something that most people in their town would know them as.
Peculiarity What makes them stand out amongst their peers? Additional trivia can be slotted here as well.

Sleepless Nights\\ Iron Cages

Just a quick post n all. Keeping the tempo up.