compnetwork | [VIDEO]

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[VIDEO]

[He's been trying to avoid this, especially since the COMP link buried in his flesh freaks him out as much as any ghost. But now his closest friend, the only person he knows and trusts, is missing and he feels utterly helpless to do anything about it. Feeling helpless makes him rather cross.]

Hope I'm bloody doing this right.... Zael? If you can hear me, give me some sign. It's been three days, you can't be gone for good. I swear, if you've left me in this place alone....

[He takes a deep breath.] If anyone on the rescue team finds a man named Zael, have him contact me as soon as possible. [In the meantime, Yurick is going to go blow off some steam by burning something down.]

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Hah... remember, that was against a dumpster.

[Atsuro wipes his brow and backs away as the fire wreathing his hands and his feet die away.]

But you'd be surprised at the things you learn to do when demons are attacking you every half hour. Literally, like, :00 and :30 were the only times; I don't even know why. ...It's also not 100% me doing this.

[He, too, examines the dumpster now and laughs with slight embarrassment as he sees what he's done to the thing.]

Well. It's still standing, right?

Considering how foul it was, this might be an improvement. Fire is cleansing in its own way, after all.

[Yurick glances curiously at Atsuro.] And what do you mean it's not entirely you doing that?

[Had he somehow called upon his demons to help, even though Yurick hadn't seen or sensed them? The other boy's powers were certainly strange to Yurick, as much as Atsuro found his fire spells to be something worthy of awe.]

It's my COMP. ...What I was summoning the demons with.

[Atsuro fumbles around in his pockets for a moment after making sure it wasn't at all hot anymore before drawing it out.]

This is the tool of a demon summoner. When you show that you're, uh... worthy, I guess, this becomes yours and you gain demonic power. I don't mean you can summon them, although you can do that, too; I mean you get to use their powers. What I just did now was part of a move called Deathbound.

[Yurick reached out to touch the COMP, clearly confused.]

So this... machine? Not only does it allow you to summon your demons, it also gives you their powers? It's bonded to you?

[His hand moves away from the COMP, straying to the nanomachine piece buried in the flesh near his ear. He shudders as he always does when he has to think about the blasted thing.]

Sort of. If I lost it, you wouldn't be able to pick it up and use it on the spot, I don't think. There's a sort of test involved. But you could probably reprogram it to recognize you as the summoner. [Although most of the time when they took COMPs away from people, they just broke them.] It also recognizes a designated leader, so before I came here, I didn't have total control over its functions, either.

We have nothing like this at home. I admit, this "technology" is a bit disconcerting for me.

[He taps the unit in his skin.]

When this burrowed into me, I panicked so badly I tried to tear it out. It felt wrong. I don't know what would've happened if someone hadn't stopped me. But I imagine, for you, it's almost second nature.

[He takes a deep breath.]

Atsuro, would you mind teaching me about technology? If Zael and I are trapped here for any length of time, at least one of us needs to understand how this world works.

T-Trust me; summoning demons isn't technology I'd ever thought I would feel concerted with, either.

[Concerted wasn't even a real word at least not that way]

But I know what you mean. I can't imagine how it must feel seeing computers and that kind of thing... I'd be glad to teach you, though.

[Atsuro grins slightly.]

You're talking to the number two programmer in Tokyo here. I'd like to think technology and I get along pretty well.

Lucky for me I'm a fast learner, though you're going to be starting from the bottom rung, as it were. I don't even know what a "programmer" is.

[Yurick might just blow up a computer by accident while trying to boot it.]

We should probably keep moving before someone sees the damage we did here.

A programmer is... Basically the person who makes a machine do what it needs to do. A machine isn't intelligent enough to, say, be able to connect to a phone network on its own; you have to write it directions.

But don't worry. I'll see about teaching you the basics sometime.

[...A slight pause now.]

But uh. Yes.

We were going to... Scorpio?

I believe so. I trust your judgement, you know the best places to explore, right?

[He won't admit that Atsuro's explanation makes some sense but he simply can't picture it. It's too unfamiliar to someone from a purely magical world.]

You said there was a school there? And the library?

Oh! Right. Aquarius.

[Atsuro quickly proceeds to exit the area back towards the alleyway they traveled down to get there.]

I'll drop you off at the library and then I'll head to the community college. I have a few things I should pick up from work.

Then we'll meet up again in front of the library? Unless you've grown weary of me.

[Yurick chuckles dryly, though he does worry about becoming an inconvenience to his new friend. Friend... is that what Atsuro is now, already? When did he start to think of someone he only just met as a friend when his trust had been so hard to win before?

He's changing, isn't he? Deep in his heart, he's becoming a different person thanks to Zael breaking down his walls. Now he knows what it is to let others in.

He's not even aware of the wistful look that's taking over his face now.]

Not at all! I couldn't expect you to find your way back after one outing. We'll probably make it the library within the next 10 minutes; I'll do some work and come back before dinner. How does that sound?

[Atsuro glances back at Yurick as they emerge onto the main street again. He will, of course, make no comment about the expression on Yurick's face, though he certainly takes note of it.]

That should give me time to explore the library. Whatever we don't get to see tonight, I wouldn't mind touring at a later time as long as you're open to the idea.

[Keeping himself busy is the key. The more he's occupied, the less he'll worry about Zael.]

As thanks, I'll pay for dinner.

...Do you have a job?

[Atsuro arches an eyebrow as he smiles at Yurick's offer.]

If not, don't worry about it. I have more fake money than I know what to do with, anyway.

Ah... no, not as of yet. I'm a mercenary, I do what I'm paid to do, though at the moment no one's in need of me.

[He looks a bit embarrassed.]

I do need to make it up to you somehow. You've been far too kind.

...We really should get paid for this. I mean, room and board is fine, but demon hunting is practically a job in and of itself.

It's OK, though. All I ever spend my salary on is video games and computer parts, anyway.

Video games...? Computer parts?

[Yeah, definitely a confused expression at that, though a light does seem to go on in his head after a second.]

Those odd things with the long tails in your room, right? You'll have to show me how they work sometime, if that's alright.

Magical mystery things, right. We can go over that a little later.

[Priority one: introduce Yurick to video games and computer games. Atsuro banks a sharp right and glances around at the street signs.]

I think we just made it into Aquarius - right. There's the library, off in the distance. See it?

[It was still six or seven blocks away, but the building was fairly visible from their location.]

That large building over there? [Yurick points, trying not to look too excited and failing somewhat.] It's quite enormous. Even the library in Lazulis Castle was smaller than that!

[Atsuro might have to drag him out at closing time or Yurick will seriously consider just moving in and living amongst the stacks.]

Ahaha, it's pretty darn big! I... had to go through all the stacks a few months back. Took me a while.

On that note, if you want to know anything about the city's history, feel free to ask me if you'd rather not do it yourself. It's not that well organized.

[Although Yurick seems like the type to delight in that sort of thing.]

I might just have to work on fixing that, then.

[That's a definite gleam in his eye. Someone apparently enjoys an academic challenge.]

But yes, I might have to... what's the expression I've heard people use here? "Pick your brain?"

...Ah, yes, that's right.

[Although he rarely heard anyone use it in casual conversation.]

Feel free to use whatever expressions you're more familiar with and we can translate it later.

Well, one learns best by doing, I thought I might as well try. But yes, I would appreciate hearing whatever information you'd care to share with me. Perhaps between the two of us, we can puzzle out a few new details about this place.

[Keeping busy. Always about keeping busy, because if he thinks too much about Zael or home he's going to scream. Atsuro is a godsend for his sanity.]

[Atsuro had been here a year and he still wasn't sure he could puzzle out much of anything about Hinoto-Ri apart from things like 'it's named after a phoenix because it's the last city following the apocalypse'.]

Sure! We can go do the history lesson after you've gotten a chance to look through the library yourself; how does that sound?

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