All resistance wearing thin...

[megatechbody]

WHO: Mariko Aramaki and YOU
WHERE: All Around Recolle
WHEN: October
WHAT: Mariko is one of the Source Hosts. Hilarity ensues
WARNINGS: Mild body-horror and creepiness after the first two prompts.

I-A - Creepy Karaoke

Usually Halloween is something reserved for very special people. As a kid, she always felt like it cut in on her birthday and as she got older she tended towards more solitary behavior. However, she has always liked music and when one of the stalls is running a little karaoke game, she can’t help but be interested.

There are prizes for creepiest song and best singing and crowd favorite, the performances will be put online for people to vote on blah, blah, blah. None of that is important to Mariko.

Instead, she’s entranced by how MANY songs this place has. They have just about every song that she can think of and a few that she stumbles upon looking for some of the more obscure tracks that she knows. Finally, after listening to a few other participants - it’s her turn.

Mariko's voice is strong, though no one who's ever heard her sing has hear her sing like this. Now she seems to be a proper performer, serenading walkers by and just far too engrossed in the song for her usual temperament. Her voice seems almost magnetic and more perceptive members of the audience will notice that, she’s a little paler than the last time they’ve seen her. She sells the song well, the emotion is strong… but since when was she this much of a singer?


I-B - Pumpkin shenanigans

'Tis the season. A few month's early for the expression, but the creepy vibe in the air feels good this year. At least Recolle's broken bullshit goes with the month. A permanent full moon for autumn is...actually pretty cool in Mariko's book. The pumpkin patch is just too enticing and it doesn't take long for her to start working on her own design.

Borrowing tools from a nearby pumpkin carver, Mariko works on her own design: a toothy, mischievious looking thing. She’s almost satified with the looks of the face, before remembering that she needs to place a candle to make sure it glows correctly. It’s not her first time doing this, and for a moment, her brows furrow at such a rookie mistake. Whatever, easily fixed as she cuts into the top of the pumpkin.

She’s in the middle of preparing for the the feeling of pumpkin guts on her fingers- gross - when suddenly the thing erupts with a shriek that would put most banshees to shame. Dazed for a moment, she glares at the offending pumpkin sculpture and honest to god, hisses at the thing before remembering herself.

Nothing to see here, folks. Unless you count the fact that her Honey-Brown locks have bleached up to a ghastly white.


II - A Ningyo (Mermaid)
The daytime hours are easier to deal with, even if things have gotten complicated. She woke up with an overbearing thirst and when she looked in the mirror, she was greeted with eyes far more black and with far more pupil than she remembered. So sunglasses it was until nighttime came. It made sense that the Retrospec bullshit wasn’t done firing - the moon being out all the time was too easy after the last two bullshit months. She had to focus on the case.

At night, she holds no such compunction. Everyone is too unobservant, too concerned with whatever meaningless thoughts to notice her hiding in one of the tanks, or the space where she’s stashed her clothing. She texts them one by one: Matt, Derek, Lucille, Togusa and waits.


She bides her time by singing - her voice even stronger and ringing off of the glass and water eerily.


A fish swims by in Mari’s peripheral and interrupts her song as she subconsciously she grinds her teeth. Her eyes track to the little thing as it swims away ignorant of how much she wants to devour it. She wants to bite down and feel it thrash in panic, feel the blood slick over her tongue and swallow it’s flesh.

God, she’s so hungry.

She sings again, notes that she could never reach before coming as easily as breathing.

II - B Hunting in Enprise (Mermaid/Harpy)
Some would say the infection is getting worse, but Mariko knows the truth. This virus seems to be changing her into something more fitting to her nature. It’s not like she wasn’t a maneater before this - it’s almost poetic that it’s become literal.

She almost looks like she’s been body painted, her skin smooth and shiny to the eye - white and mottled with darker grey patches. Her fingers webbed slightly and the tips of her fingers end in short, dark talons. Her feet are more fin than the last time she was seen and as her toes end in those same awful talons, shoes have long since been abandoned. Not longer having hair, Mariko seems to be crested with a ridge of fins that give way to short dark feathers that follow the curve of her skull.

Her movement is surprisingly quiet as she prowls the streets. Enprise is her territory now and it’s so easy to say out of sight of those she does not want to see. Mariko tilts her head, scenting the air. Prey? Or challenger?


II-C Nesting (Later in the Month)
Her office, now closed to anyone who wasn’t part of Tatsuo’s pack, had become her home away from her apartment. Enprise was good grounds, after all and she was loathe to leave it to some other creature. So she stayed within her grounds and made sure that those who she’d become responsible for were taken care of.

Still Mariko was by her very nature, solitary and all the monstrous viruses in the would could not change that. So her office became a sanctuary - a place for herself and Tatsuo alone, away from his pack and away from how loud everything seemed to be lately.

Here she napped in a pile of blankets and cushions and pillows, hungry for warmth now that Tatsuo had not been here to give it. She hoped his hunting was going well and that he would leave her good enough game when it was her turn to hunt.

Are you hunting her? Or is this a simple interruption of her private time?

Wildcard

Mariko has the zombie/mermaid/harpy virus and is manifesting traits of the latter two. I’d love for her to catch two of the other strains! If you’re looking for anything specific or want to do something cool. Inbox me here or hit me on wingedbeastie

Comments

October 2: Talking to Tatsuo

[megatechbody]

Mariko waited at the door, trying not to laugh at Yujiro’s excited barking. More than that, she was trying to keep her nerves to a bare minimum. No coffee, no drinks - just a conversation that was probably a few years overdue - at the end of the workday, because that was the only time either of them could get away from their respective investigations.

She was dressed in nothing fancy and tried not to fidget too badly.

October 4: Meeting the Tachikoma

[megatechbody]

Togusa had called her, something about a promise , so Mariko heads to the police department in a bit of a hurry. Of all the things this could be, she likes the idea of exactly none of them and with the Zee case putting gruesome ideas in her head, she's all to happy to be wrong. Decked out in sweatpants a long sleeved t-shirt and a hoodie, she waits for her friend.

Re: October 2: Talking to Tatsuo

[thisloveisjustice]

Tatsuo looks up from the photocopies spread across his desk when his goofball of a dog suddenly leaps from the couch to start barking at the door. One would think that from the frantic wagging of his tail and the excited circle he spins in that the person on the other side is one he knows.

Except Yujirou does that for every person who approaches Tatsuo's door, so all it really indicates is that there's someone on the other side.

"You'd be a terrible guard dog, you know that right?" Tatsuo tells the golden retriever as he gets up to open the door. A glance through the peephole shows him Mariko is on the other side. "Though I think you'll like her."

He nudges Yujirou back slightly with one leg as he pulls the door open.

"Hey Mari, come in quick before Yuji decides to tackle you in the middle of the hall."

No guarantee she won't get tackled the moment she sets foot inside though.

[megatechbody]

Mariko can hear the excited barking and what has to be Tatsuo chastising his terrible guard dog before the door opens.

"Hey Tsu," She slips in as instructed, taking an extra hop back to keep Yujirou from getting both paws on her."Hey old man."

She pets the silly golden, scritching behind both ears before shooing him back to the sofa.

"He's excitable today..."

[thisloveisjustice]

Tatsuo chuckles as he closes the door, while Yujirou gives Mariko's hands a quick washing before padding back to the couch. The canine flops down right in the middle, taking up most of the couch.

"He's always a bit excitable, when he has the energy for it," Tatsuo says, his voice fond. "So, what's up?"

[megatechbody]

Mariko grimaces faintly; as a cat person, she frequently forgets how gross dogs can be. Sticky hand, blech. As Yujirou settles on the couch, she goes to wash her hands off properly and takes the moment to ponder Tatsuo's question.

"One sec." This was it. Either she really did crack after the last two months, or there was lost time to make up for.

"So," Mariko begins, brushing her hands over her jeans despite having just washed them. "I think we have a couple of things to talk about. I just don't really know where to start."

Of the three things, she knows that the dream is easiest to parse and easiest to play off. The memories are a little harder, but both of them could salvage their pride if necessary. Telling Tsu the truth, after all this - with such awful timing. Mariko tries to keep from trying to read his body language and lead the conversation.

"Okay, please tell me you had that dream too. I just-" Have a little faith, she tells herself. "I have to know that it wasn't just me."

Re: October 4: Meeting the Tachikoma

[standalonehuman]

When he gets her text, Togusa actually comes outside the Department to meet her. Her fears might get put at ease because the look on his face is one of mischievous child rather than concerned officer. He gestures with a hand for her to follow him.

"Hey. We're going around back to the parking lot. Promise is a promise, after all." He smirks again, and leads the way.

As soon as he rounds the corner, a high-pitched voice calls out. "Oh! Mister Togusa! Isn't it too early for you to be finished with work?"

"Not yet," Togusa laughs. "Just bringing you a friend."

It weaves between the cars, and then rolls up towards them, and there it is. Giant and blue, and spider-shaped, and talking, the Tachikoma waves a claw hand as it approaches. "Hello! I am a Tachikoma!"

"...Ta-da?" Togusa grins again.

[thisloveisjustice]

"I think we have a couple of things to talk about. I just don't really know where to start."

Ah. It's finally time to have that conversation. To say he wasn't feeling a little nervous would be a lie. It shows in the way one corner of his mouth pinches slightly and how he weaves the fingers of his hands together as he leans one elbow on the raised counter. But he's been wanting to have this conversation as well. So it's time to bite the bullet.

Thankfully, she starts with the dream. In a way, it's the easiest thing to start with and will naturally lead into everything else.

"It wasn't just you," he replies. "I had that dream too. That we were living together, married." He pauses for a moment, and then the corner of his mouth that had been pinched... curls up slightly. "It was... nice. That was... what I meant to ask you about, which I accidentally talked with your body snatcher. Whether you'd had that dream, too."

[megatechbody]

For a moment, Mariko looks relieved - until Tatsuo mentions that he'd spoken of this with whoever had been riding in her body those few days. With a sigh, she half-commits to talking to Barnes. Maybe it wasn't so bad - it wasn't like she and Tsu were good at talking about this stuff so hopefully he didn't know much of their business.

"I thought it was nice, too." She offers quietly, casting him a slightly shy look.

"Honestly it got me thinking and that's I guess where I'm getting a little turned around."

[megatechbody]

Togusa wears mischief surprisingly well, but Mariko can't quite shake her worry entirely. Instead she just quietly grumbles as she follows him.

She's still frowning when the Tachikoma rolls up and all she manages to do is a slow blink. She blinks again, before bursting out laughing - doubling over, tears in her eyes and everything.

"Did you seriously? Togusa--" His name breaks on a laugh, before finally she goes to address the tank before. "Hello, there."

She straightens up, smiling wide.

"I can't believe you remembered that."

[thisloveisjustice]

That conversation is still a little odd when Tatsuo thinks back on it. Not because it hadn't been Mariko he'd been talking to (though he is NOT going to let something like that happen again), but because of how he'd felt at the time. Things had been... a lot more complicated between him and Mariko in that version of his life. Though he couldn't quite recall the detail of their history, he did remember some of the things Derek had said to him. And if he wasn't mistaken, him and Mariko dated a lot longer in that version of his life than this one. So it's no wonder that dream had resonated with him so hard.

"Turned around? In what way?"

[standalonehuman]

The Tachikoma's head swivels a little to the side, as much of a questioning look as it can give. But it waits until Mariko is done laughing. Togusa, on the other hand, is grinning like the cat that ate the canary. "Isn't it amazing?"

"This is Mariko Aramaki," Togusa gestures to Mariko. "She is a very good friend of mine."

"Oh! She's an important user?"

"If..that's how you understand it?" Togusa shrugs. "I'm keeping it here for now because it can recharge on the same ports as the electric cruisers," he explains to Mariko.

[megatechbody]

She closes the distance, leaning on the counter as well. Quietly, she looks over him and meets his eye before sighing.

“I feel like...”

Mariko closes her eyes, brows furrowing with the thoughts running through her mind. She remembered him, remembered loving him. However every time she tried to remember why, the details seemed to slip away from her. The dream, it felt so real - they’d been so happy.

“I think sometimes that things were different. And I can’t explain why. And I should be able to, with something like this.”

On another sigh, she opens her eyes and can feel the tears sticking in her lashes. It feels right but knows it can’t be. They only saw each other for a little while, years ago. Distance and longing and faith and trust; two lifetimes of feelings mingle before they coalesce. Mariko remembers knowing glances and a flash of mischievous humor. And things they don’t talk about anymore.

“I feel like I’m losing it a little, Tsu.”

[thisloveisjustice]

His fingers untangle and he takes a step closer to her, hands closing the distance between them to cup around her elbows, promising support if she needs it, and simply a physical connection if she doesn't.

"No, you're not. Something happened this summer, and I don't know exactly what or why. But I got a chance to see what my life would have been life if... certain things had been different. Many of us did."

If his mother had still been alive. If he'd grown up in Japan. If he'd taken a different career path. So many things different... any yet so many things the same. People he'd still been friends with. People who had still been important to him. People he'd still gravitated toward, even though their lives hadn't intersected in the same ways. It had even helped him view Ryuuzaki a bit differently, accept that they were connected.

"That life I was living, I'm... a little sorry it's gone. I feel like I had a bit more... zest for life. And amidst all the changes in my life, somehow we still happened. A little differently than I remember, but it was there. And I realized I envy that version of me, how much time he got to have with you."

Not that the years they'd been close friends since hadn't been great. They had. They'd had a nice, comfortable friendship. But now he saw that maybe they could have had more. Maybe... still could have more?

[megatechbody]

All she can do is nod, grateful that he knows exactly what she means. The step forward is comforting, as well as the feeling of his touch on her arms.

"It's selfish, but I'm glad it wasn't just me. I don't think I could take it if it was just me."

It seemed the more things were different, the more they stayed the same. Tatsuo followed her lead, even when she'd been hard to deal with and somehow found her worth it. As friends, as lovers - he'd never demanded more than she was willing to give and she knew that he deserved more than what he got from her. It was cold comfort that they managed to be closer as friends than whatever they'd been over the summer.

"I pushed you away, Tatsuo. And before you start," Her tone steels, no room for argument. "I know I did. On purpose."

She'd lived it twice over, mourning the shattering of a family and spent most of her life calcifying her heart. Be smarter, be wilder, be angrier - there was always another wall, another goal post to reach before she could think of letting someone in.

Something in her tells her to move, to reciprocate his comfort and all she can do is fidget. She wrings her hands, eyes flicking to anything that isn't him or his face and she hopes that he can't feel her shaking. It's childish. It's so damned childish.

"Retrospec has been stirring our brains up and it's not fair. I can't ask you to be what they were, it's not right. That's not who you are, even if I want--"

She makes the mistake of looking at him, of trying to meet his eyes. It's like seeing him for real - his eyes are the same, dreaming and awake - God, has he always looked at her like that?

Mariko swallows, mouth dry and her heart beating in her throat. It's too much.

"I want," she whispers, mind racing.

[thisloveisjustice]

Tatsuo holds back the urge to smile when she tells him not to argue with her. Because he had been about to do just that. So he closes his mouth, and he listens, and he waits. Part of him wants to tell her that it's okay, that she doesn't have to say it if she's struggling with it this much. But he also knows that would be a complete disservice to her. Sometimes you have to say something, even if it's uncomfortable or scary to say.

"What do you want, Mari?" he asks, his voice gentle. "Tell me, please?"

Because just as much as she needs to say it, he needs to hear it.

[megatechbody]

He's patient and gentle as ever and for a moment, she can't help but consider him a miracle. Mariko takes a breath and tries to settle her nerves. Organize her thoughts. It's Tatsuo, right? She has nothing to fear from him.

"I want to try, Tsu."

But then the fear was never about him in the first place.

"I can't help but feel like, all of us wrapped up in this Retrospec thing... we are going to be different at the end of it. I don't know what I would do if one day came and suddenly we were both different."

Her mind goes to the port and the prosthesis she knows is coming. She wonders, suddenly, what Tatsuo has remembered and why a theme park seemed to rattle him so bad.

"It feels like we're running out of time, and I feel like this is the worst possible timing - but more than anything...I don't want to keep going without..."

Mariko huffs, shaking her head a little because she's babbling and she knows it. He asked and suddenly it's a fight not to tell him everything. Subconsciously, she keeps her eyes low - it makes her look like she's considering his heart literally.

"That dream made me want to try, Tatsuo. To try and be 'us' - to be together - for however long we have left."

[thisloveisjustice]

It's amazing to him, how she puts voice to the things he's been worried about for so long, way better than he's ever been able to. What will they be like when this is all over, when they've finally remembered everything from their past selves? Will they still be the same people? Or will they be someone else entirely? Will the same things, the same people, still matter to them?

Tatsuo hopes so. He wants to still do the job that gives him such fulfillment, and teach the students who give him such satisfaction, and love the people who matter most to him.

Love Mariko.

But even though maybe it is the worst possible timing, when he thinks about all the unknown in their future, the fact of the matter is, there is no better time.

"If you knew, without a doubt, that the world was going to end tomorrow, would you crawl into a hole and wait for destruction to come, or would you go out and live what little life you have left to its fullest? I'd rather do the later, and I know you would too. We may not know for sure, what's going to happen to us, but I'm ready to stop playing safe. So yes, let's do this together, for as long as we've got."

[megatechbody]

"It is."

Mariko's lips thin slightly as she considers the Tachikoma's question. It makes sense that the thing...that the tachikoma would regard her that way and suddenly she finds herself unsettled. She makes a noise of understanding at Togusa's explanation of the charge.

"Was there a name anywhere? Are we just going with Tachikoma?"

[megatechbody]

Mariko has little experience with nervousness; she's been suspicious and distrustful but simple nerves feels rather out of her depth. There's a beat as she processes everything he's said, until finally she blinks and meets his eye.

He feels the same.

"I'm glad."

More than that, but this is always where her words seemed to end and his began. She closes the distance between them, reaching up to embrace him and lacing her fingers. behind his head.

"So what now?"

[thisloveisjustice]

As she steps closer, his hands slide around to the small of her back, settling there comfortably, the way they have before. And as her fingers lace behind his head, he leads his forehead against hers. A smile curls at the corners of his mouth.

"Now? Shall we have a date?"

[megatechbody]

"A date?"

Of course he's thought about it. It's nice to feel him close, it's soothing in it's familiarity. Foreheads together, she smiles back happily...just...happy.

"So what are we going to do for this date?"

[thisloveisjustice]

"Hmmmmm, maybe order in some tacos and see if Yujirou will budge over enough for us to curl up on the couch and watch a Halloween movie?"

Nothing too crazy.

[standalonehuman]

The Tachikoma seems to tilt a little to the side, the best way to approximate tilting its head. "Why would I need a name? Names are useful to differentiate one from others. Necessary to tell the difference between users and what levels of access they should have! But I am the only one of my kind here. So I suppose the point of a name is lost on me!"

Togusa scratches the back of his head, that little nervous gesture. "I hadn't thought about it?" But that's oddly a lot of thought put into the idea of a name. He hadn't realized they were so philosophical.

i-a

[hauntedsavior]

Anna has never heard Mariko sing. Before the dream a couple months ago, she hadn't even heard Mariko speak. But the song she's singing is... certainly not karaoke standard, is it? Not that Anna does much of that anyway anymore; maybe back when she was younger, but too much has changed since college. The lyrics are much more poignant than she was expecting for spooky Halloween music, and it's hearing some of them that actually gets her to stop in the first place.

She applauds with the crowd, though she's a little more subdued than the others, then approaches Mariko once she's not under the metaphorical spotlight.

"You sounded like this the whole time?" she asks. Though she doesn't look identical to A2 (the leather jacket is a dead giveaway), the resemblance should be pretty striking.