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10 yrs ago
Current Acquire child.
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Alright, the protagonist group has initiative so they get to act first. I'm controlling the NPC combatants since nobody can really steamroll them at this point.

@ChronoBovino Once you do your thing, I'll start our side.
Fon
It was a sound reminescent of a car going slowly down the lane. In a more urban setting, such a commonplace thing would've been easily written off. However, deep in the mountains with no neardy roadway, the sound was worryingly incongruous. Even more peculiarly, the sound appeared to be coming from... above? 'They arrived later than I had expected,' Fon noted, directing his attention to the origin of the sound. Admittedly, this was not exactly how they'd been expecting it to go, but a minor adjustment in schedule was nothing consequential as far as he could see. 'I trust they can deal with that many,' he thought, having already determined the number of approaching entities. The edges of the baby's lips perked up. He opened his mouth and, like the martial arts instructor he was, stated, "Follow my directions, I'll show you where you need to be."

Exposition
Meanwhile, above the mountain, a quartet of robots that somewhat resembled humanoids with fly heads began their descent at a rather fast pace. From afar, their rocket boosters looked something like meteorites falling to earth. Their detection system pinged a few figures in the area. As scouts, their priority was the two beings, both within each others' immediate vicinities, that were actively emitting flames at the moment. Likewise, they had also detected a camping location that didn't appear on the map of official camping spots. A short moment later, and two of the Scout Mosca broke formation.

They landed somewhere close to the camping site, but each taking their own approach. They were making their way by foot at a snail's pace. It seemed that, while reducing stealth capacity, those rocket boosters were good for something at least. Hisaki would be able to notice the sound of one of these lumbering things breaking branches left and right, and upon further inspection, would be greeted with the sight of the very unnatural thing that seemed to be making its way back towards the campsite.

As for the remaining two, they would continue on their path, and acknowledging that their flight trajectory would lead them face first into their target, opted for a pincer-style approach. Despite the change in tactic, their approach vectors combined with the clarity of the fairly treeless strip of stream and path granted the assassin a brief sight of them. Normally this wouldn't be enough, but as a member of the mafia, Sachiko had sufficient knowledge of the approaching scouts to determine their identity and react accordingly. She would be able to intercept them at landing, if she so chose.

Meanwhile at camp, Ayumu and Sanji were busy doing something else. Fortunately, the final, unimpeded Mosca was not close enough to do anything that was in any way relevant to their situation.
Morgan breathed a sigh of relief. A different answer would've been pretty damned inconvenient, that's for sure. That went for both questions, by the way; there was no way in hell she'd be willing to give up the spaciousness of her nice, comfortable bed that easily. She barely got enough sleep as it was. She scratched at an itch on the back of her head. Something in her fey mind told her that she'd be getting a lot less of it for an indeterminate amount of time.

'It could be worse,' Morgan reassured herself as she stepped around the lethargic young lady and pulled open the office door. With a quick hand gesture, she indicated that Kayla leave first so she could lock everything up.


Apart from impassive gestures, she'd been mostly silent as she led Kayla outside the office and then over to the side of the building where the door to the apartment itself was. The two bedroom apartment above the office looked like an anachronistic mess. The decor was a peculiar mix of utility furniture, colonial-style woodwork, and retro 50's aesthetic. One might suppose that such a design choice would be an eyesore. Perhaps it would've looked better if it was a bit more organized, but since it was effectively a melting pot with minimum effort put into furniture placement, that was not an incorrect assessment. It was clean and well-kept, though.

"Make yourself at home, I guess," Morgan said as she stripped herself of her coat and threw it on the rack next to the door, revealing the pajamas she'd thrown it over. She pointed to a short hallway with one door at the end, two the right, and one to the left. "Centermost is mine. Left is Greenie's," she explained, "He's the one who actually owns everything. Bathroom is the first on the right." She paused. "...Don't touch the computer. I'll start setting up stuff." And by that, she meant she would go into the closet, and flick her hand down to cause the wind to drop down a rolled up sleeping bag. It was late and she was tired; as magical as she was, she wasn't going to put in the extra effort to set up a futon when there was a perfectly good bag a few steps closer. With it under her hand, she walked to her room.

As for the design of the room itself, it didn't look as sporadic as the rest of the apartment. It was mostly wooden utility furniture, with slight flourishes from a time long past dotted about here and there, like the art deco clock and the old movie posters. The technology choice was equally peculiar; while there was a fairly recent laptop model on the desk, there was also a hybrid DVD and VCR player beneath a boxy television and an antennaed radio sitting on the shelf. Morgan unrolled the bag out on the floor. "Anyway, I expect you to stay for the time being," Morgan yawned, "We've got cable don't worry. If you need anything else, I can stop by the store tomorrow."

"Now if you'll excuse me," she said, picking the laptop off her desk and carrying it to her bed, "I've an essay to write." @Arista
Takumi Minamoto - Stranger in a Familiar Land
5th Ward, Ruins of the Hayasori Mansion


As he neared his destination, Takumi became increasingly aware of the sound of his own damp footfalls on the rain-soaked sidewalk. Every step forward made him grow more and more ambivalent, and every rumpling swing of the convenience store bag at his side was a tick of the clock counting down the seconds. As he advanced, his eyes traced the familiar-yet-unfamiliar sidewalk by the light of the streetlamps, the flash of passing cars, and the congregate glow of neon signs off in the distance. He was almost there. Whether that was good or bad, he didn't quite know just yet. "It can't be helped," the brown-haired youth sighed as he anxiously scratched at the back of his head.

At any rate, Takumi had been putting this off for far too long. Ever since he'd arrived in Tokyo, he'd been making a conscious effort of staying away from here. Unfortunately, there was a nagging voice at the back of his mind that kept urging him to continue homeward. Worse, the voice sounded like the old man's. Although Takumi Minamoto did not consider himself a sentimental person, it seemed that even he had to acknowledge that any visit to Tokyo would be incomplete without a pligrimage here. Despite his reluctance, he would be disappointed, but admittedly not surprised, if all this trouble was for naught, and the mansion had been torn down and replaced by some enterprising company. Although that did bring up the troubling question of what exactly he would find if it was still standing.

'Whatever's waiting for me, I'm here now,' he shrugged, turning the corner and coming face to face with the dilapidated form of his former home. It seems that though the years were many and the hand civilization moved ever closer, the old thing was still as indelible as ever. The smell was a bit different though, and by that, he meant that it smelled like shit. The dank stench of rot and decay overpowered the petrichor-scented air. 'Looks like someone's been here recently,' he noted, eyes falling on the faint vestiges of wet prints leading out of and in to the house. For a few more moments, he regarded the signs of life with his trained eyes. He noticed the vastly different print sizes. It appeared that there were more than one "someone"s that had been here.

Tucking that information into the back of his mind, he moved closer to the house and sat himself down on the front step. Now the butt of his pants were wet, but it was no skin off his back. He hadn't packed - or even owned - an umbrella anyway, so there really wasn't much of a difference from the rest of his clothes. He set the small plastic bag down beside himself, placed his hands on his knees, and just stared outwards like an old dog. While he was confident he could handle himself against a few ghouls, he wasn't much in the mood to fight right now, and if it was CCG... 'Best make this quick,' he decided, reaching into the bag and removing a can of coffee. Wordlessly and with a somewhat amused expression playing at his lips, he cracked open the can and raised it into the air, as if he were giving some kind of toast. "Here's to you, old man." And he poured it out on the walkway, like some kind of low-budget, ghoulish libation. He set the emptied can back into the bag, pulled out a new one, popped open the tab, and took a swig.

As he sat there drinking, Takumi watched the rain wash away his liquid offering. He took the can from his lips and swished it around in front of himself. "...Yeah, that's enough I'd say," he mumbled, despite the can still having quite a lot more than half of its contents left. Truthfully, he'd never been one for coffee, and even after being rendered unable to eat anything but that and flesh he could never stomach the taste. He sat up from his seat, did his best effort at wiping his pants off (to no avail, of course; at least he had extras in his backpack), and began heading away from the mansion. After making distance, he stopped and looked back at the house one last time. "..." He shook his head and continued on his way, deeper into the city.

To be frank, he had no particular plan in mind (which wasn't all that surprising if one knew who he was). Shelter was a good place start as any, given the time and the weather. Unfortunately Tokyo was a lot less spacious in that regard. It seemed that every abandoned building or warehouse already had tenants, and unless he wanted to stay overnight at a love hotel, the prices would bleed him dry long before he could do anything productive. Of course, he'd also heard rumors of places that harbored ghouls and handed out free food, just like the mansion had. Shame none of them were supposedly in this ward, though. That was no problem; as late as it was, there still should've been a train or two left doing their rounds. 'No harm in checking,' he thought as he stepped down into a nearby metro station.


3rd Ward, Sakura Clinic


After arriving at and exiting the station in Roppongi, it took a moment for Takumi's eyes to adjust to the contrast between the sudden neon radiance of Minato special ward and the dark of night. While he had come here pursuing a rumored ghoul sanctuary in the middle of the CCG territory, unfortunately this district was as precise as the rumors got. For good reason, he suspected: the 3rd Ward was a veritable suicide ground for ghouls, after all. If this place did exist, the person running this gig was either a mastermind or the biggest fool in Tokyo. He hoped for the latter, but acknowledged that he couldn't afford to be picky if he wanted a roof over his head.

'What was this place called again?' Takumi thought, walking along the streets and looking at neon signs as he passed, 'Lily Clinic? Garden Clinic? Sakura Clinic? Was it even a clinic, or was it a love hotel like that other guy said?' Speaking of which, he'd passed by a few of those earlier, but none with a name that rang any bells. 'I'll just keep a look out for flowers, then.' After a few more blocks, he arrived in front of a four storey building with a floral-themed name. "Oh. I get it now," he mumbled as realization dawned on him upon closer examination of the external appearance of the building. It looked like a love hotel (and may have been one), but it was definitely a clinic. Or maybe just an elaborate, nurse-themed love hotel. But whatever it was, this was as good a time as any to finally get out of the rain.

So that he did.

"...!" If he had to compare what he was currently experiencing to something, it would be mental static. Takumi's expression of disbelief slowly contorted into a wide, sincere grin. The sterile smell disconcerted him, but not enough to make him care. A fateful encounter such as this was far beyond what he'd been expecting from a jaunt to some random's safehouse. Inwardly, he was screaming. But in a good way. "Shit, I didn't expect to see you guys here!" he exclaimed, pulling down the wet hood of his jacket. Before saying anything else, he crinkled his nose and direct his eyes to the children. He took the opportunity to give a friendly wave to the kids as he thought, 'Definitely ghouls, but the resemblance isn't close enough to be biological... Does that mean adoption, kidnapping, or rescue?' This was supposedly a safehouse, so he figured it was the latter. Besides, he couldn't imagine anyone of the group having kids this old unless they'd been up to some very shady things under the old man's watch. Though speaking of the old man...

Takumi regarded the scent again. 'I see,' he thought, mentally connecting the dots. "So, uh, why'd you bring the kids from the house?" he asked worriedly, his grin faltering a bit, "Is everything alright?"

...Fortunately it was a clinic, or that might've seemed suspicious.

(Dark brown hair, green eyes)
"I can't give up. If I did, I'd never be able to look the people who got me this far in the eye."


Name: Minamoto, Takumi

Age: 22

Gender: Male

Height & Weight: 180cm, 76kg

Sexuality: Hetero until proven otherwise

CCG Rating: B~

CCG Title:
  • Tengu
  • Vigilante Ghoul

Mask: A bird mask paired with a matching eyepatch

Kagune: Takumi's kagune is rather simple in appearance. It takes the form of two elliptic tentacles about twice the length of his leg, maroon in color with the smooth, slightly-metallic texture characteristic of koukaku kagune. Though its end is tapered by default, he is capable of fashioning his kagune into armaments for attack and defense in close-quarters. Similarly, he is capable of condense his tendrils (either sections of the same or the tendrils themselves) for additional reinforcement and the ability to form more elaborate shapes. While very straightforward overall, it does possess a sole unique point in its detachability. Unfortunately, this detachment does not come with any wall or trap-spawning additions, and is literally just a piece of detached kagune that doesn't evaporate as quickly. This is not as useless as it sounds, and he occasionally jokes that a detached kagune is "the closest thing to a quinque he can get".

And in that respect, it can be considered a kagune of the utmost compatibility.

RC Type: Koukaku

Special Quirk: One-Eyed Ghoul
Born a human and raised as one until he volunteered for an experimental kakuhou transplantation. With an ample natural RC cell factor, he was deemed a suitable subject. However despite all precautions and the resounding success of the results, he was ultimately judged a failure and forced to flee for his life. Possesses a leftward kakugan.

Personality: The crux of Takumi's personality is based around the question of "How can I justify myself to myself?" It's equal parts his primary coping mechanism and his driving motivation, as well as the reason why there seems to be a hypocritical dichotomy between his actions and his personality. So long as he's capable of answering that question in a way he's satisfied with, he's willing to do pretty much anything he needs to. However, he does have standards of conduct that he upholds himself to, granted those standards have nothing to do with what's commonly values and everything to do with his personal interpretation of "right" at the time. That said, he only really cares what impact something has on the present. Even if something ends up having terrible consequences, that's just something he can deal with at a later point.

Now as far as outward appearances go, Takumi's a very open person. As useful as being cooly stoic and emotionally constipated is, he's very intense when it comes to expressing himself. Save for legitimate distress, he doesn't really make an effort of hiding any of his emotions, and even when his is distressed, you can usually tell by the weary, "oh not this shit again" look in his eyes. But he doesn't really get too upset a lot, and when he does he gets over it just as quickly. His way of life is built around aggressive acceptance and avoidance; as far as he's concerned, what happened in the past ought to stay there. Likewise, when he talks about his past, it's a lot like he's talking about someone else entirely. Takumi's nonchalant attitude is most easily seen when he actually gets around to talking to people. He's super informal and friendly with others, even to people who're supposed to be his enemies. Though that isn't to say Takumi treats his friends the same as he does everyone else. He worries and cares a lot about them, even if they don't seem obviously special to him. He's a proponent of the golden rule, and typically tries to help others find their own satisfaction. He's kind of a straightforward person like that.

As for battle, Takumi and fighting have a bit of an odd relationship going on. While he'd much rather play the part of a peace-loving weakling and resolve a conflict without having to break any kneecaps like the old man told him, he really does get a rise out of fighting. It's not the act specific that he cares about though, but rather the cathartic feeling of the opportunity to throw himself wholeheartedly into something. It's a lot like his relationship with taking orders. He doesn't mind being ordered around because it means that he knows exactly what he needs to do, and that the consequences are Not His Fault. That said, he dislikes being beholden to coercion and debts.

Backstory: Invariably, whenever Takumi talks about his past the first and foremost matter of contention is the fact that he was raised by the Commission of Counter Ghoul.

Ever since he was but a babe, he was living under the cold and utilitarian wing of the doves. What his life was like before that - or even if he had a life before that - is completely irrelevant. As for his parents, he knows for a fact that they're CCG affiliates of some variety. Maybe investigators, maybe scientists. Maybe dead, maybe alive. At any rate, it's not as if he has much of a connection to them, and he isn't willing to try and make a point of keeping up to date on their situation. Likewise, he can't say that he resents them for abandoning him to his fate, for a such a thing is simply the natural course of action. After all, education and safety are key to the proper development of a child. But while plenty children raised in the CCG Junior Academies opt to pursue jobs unrelated to ghouls and generally live a lifestyle of mundanity, becoming a normal person was never on the table for him.

After all, the Sunlit Garden has no place for normal people.

Publicly, the Garden is known for producing talented investigators. And although the precise details of the human side of his childhood are murky at best, if there's one thing Takumi can remember it's all the bloody training. Even as the passing days became months and years, blending into the same incomprehensible mass, the one constant throughout his growth the Garden was the endless deluge of training. Training and conditioning of the body and mind was the focus of the program. No general education, though; that was unnecessary for the intended role of a trainee.

While this was not the kind of lifestyle that offered him much in the way of freedom, Takumi's clearest memory is of a choice. From somewhere out in some CCG think tank, the idea of implanting kakuhou into humans in order to create superior investigators arose and eventually, that idea made it to the Garden. To choose the life of a half-ghoul for the sake of the people was the last true choice he'd ever made by himself. Even if he were to lose all rationality or purpose, that is the one memory he could never allow himself to forget.

At first it was fine. Everything seemed to be going to according plan. Unsurprisingly, that was simply a short respite before everything went wrong real fast. RC suppressants weren't sufficiently effective, the limiters they'd designed weren't limiting anything, and he was getting hungrier and less restrained as the days passed. As far as anyone could see, the worth of keeping someone like Takumi around was becoming lower and lower despite his improvements to his body surpassing the projected data. So they quietly axed the Quinx Project and scheduled Takumi for disposal. Understandably, he was unwilling to accept such an ignonimious death when he overheard people talking about it. So he ran fast and fought hard, and fell somewhere around the edge of the Fifth Ward, completely exhausted, heavily wounded, and still being pursued by a particularly puissant flock of doves. When the streetlights were eclipsed by the shadow of a man, he was ready to accept the limits of his newfound power. But instead of the cold touch of quinque steel, there was only five words: "Do you want to live?"

Cut to the Maison de Hayasori. Despite having been there for quite a while at that point, Takumi still hadn't really adjusted well. And although his time with humanity was ultimately shorter than expected, the mentality of the Garden still had buried its seeds in his mind. It was not surprising that having to live with five true blue ghouls was not exactly very compatible with his anthropocentricism, which manifested itself as avoidance and rejection rather than lashing out. He would grow out of his loner habits fortunately, and would truly integrate himself into the family unit upon managing to center himself and accept everything as it was.

For Takumi, most of the old man's mentorship was learning to live on the other side. As a more-or-less well-adjusted "human" being, a tutorial on how to live like a human would be rather redundant. So he learned the rules of the ghoulish social contract, the correct application of kagune, and other such related topics. To say he adjusted rather quickly would be an understatement considering his anthropocentric upbringing. However, his personality of passive acceptance was well-equipped to handle such a vast change, even if he was a bit more volatile and callous than he is now, and more inclined to hide away in a study reading books. It took a while, but the old man's etiquette training began bearing fruit, and he started spending more and more time with the others. Since his age was dead in the middle of the group, he mostly just did what older kids told him to and what the littler kids asked. He wasn't displeased with this arrangement; all this following of orders kind of reminded him of his home-before-home, and all the busy work was a welcome distraction.

But, like all good things, his time there came to an end. Old Man Hayasori kicked the bucket and there was nothing Takumi really could have done to save him. It was just a fact that he had to accept. While he stuck with the group for as long as he could, they inevitably began to grow apart. This too was something he simply accepted. Now that he was alone in the world, he had no idea what to do. He wasn't used to having power to decide for himself or the responsibility that came along with it, and he still at that age where he didn't quite understand the unfairness of the world. Simply put, he was hardly ready for independence.

So Takumi began wandering around Japan in order to get away from Tokyo and find himself. He wanted to try living like a human as best he could in order to respect the old man's wishes. He was actually quite successful for a time, taking up oddjobs here and there, and even making a few buddies. Early on, he lived off of scavenging as some kind of desperate cling to the human ideal, but soon took to live prey. He isn't 100% sure why he kept up a criminal-only diet, but he just dismissed it as a remnant of his CCG "protect and serve" programming. Besides, it's not like he was ever good at anything else. Of course he was never the most subtle of guys, so the CCG got wise to his habits rather quickly. Fortunately they never connected him to the escapee from way back when, or he might have really been in trouble. Instead, all he got was a B~ for his indeterminate strength in relation to his nonhostility towards investigators and innocents, combined his infrequent hunting schedule and choice of prey. Takumi is okay with this, even if he isn't as highly regarded as his peers.

He returned to Tokyo a few days ago.

Other:
I was kind of waiting to see if anyone else was gonna post lmao but I can try to post tonight or tomorrow.


Do you want me to wait on you?
Sumanai.
This is something I submitted today because I told Savato I would.



tl;dr: gardening is not as fun as you think it is
Aight, I'll assume a lack of posting just means everyone who hasn't responded in sone way is fine with default. I've a few essays and shit to write today, but I'll move things along tomorrow.
Hm... Yeah, I think I'll app something for this. I've got a workable character concept in mind. Plus the lack of Koukaku Kagune upsets me greatly. Right now I'm thinking maybe a One Eyed Ghoul since I don't quite have a snowflake factor 100% made up as of yet and it's the closest thing I can get to playing human.

But before I get to work:
You are an orphan who met with other kids and then a kind old ghoul who taught you the ways of being a ghoul, or at least proper manners if you were a human before. After his murder and downfall, you four went your separate ways.
OP

Is this still applicable in general or do I have to write an outsider because the RP's already started?

Also how much, if any, of the canon plot events apply in the RP?
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