rookandhound | IC Inbox for VRDR

There must be a way to go around this very intricate process of growing tentacles and making large complex structures for his safety. Maybe a part of him could absorb it maybe? Or use these little appendages as supports for his trajectory- though that would be difficult to pull off in practise.

Well, with his arm like this he's already draining his energy with getting it nature healed- he needs to fix up that mess as soon as he can.
While his mind is already busy with the thought of living with such an ailment on a daily basis, he's suddenly spooked by a voice speaking to him.

A voice he was quite familiar with.

"Akechi-kun?" He turns to look at the source of the voice before his eyes widen at the manifestation of the large bird hovering before him. Oh great. He seems a lot younger though and perhaps even less polished- an interesting imagery of the supposed prince.

~~Akira’s wish.~~

"Erm- thanks!" he sheepishly answers about the cool trick. "I was just testing somethings...am I in your way?" He gestures his hand down a little as one of the tentacles slowly unwrap from the pole, now lowering down and retracting to the area behind him- clearing the path in the way.

Goro blinked, when addressed by name. "Uh... yeah. That's me. I'm guessing you know one of the others, then, because I have... no idea who you are."

"You weren't in the way, sir, but you must admit it was quite a shock to see someone jumping from so great a height! Are you certain you're alright?"

"I see...well, I have already ran into a few of you here," he carefully observes him. His messy hair or the small freckles on his nose, what a stark difference to the polished Akechi on the headlines. "My name is Maruki...Doctor Maruki."

He's not sure if its nice to meet him just yet but he's eager enough to answer just the same. "We all have our rough days but its not the most surprising thing I have dealt with, believe me-"

He raises his head to carefully look at the bird who just spoke to him.

"The...the bird. Are you seriously talking to me? Am I losing it right now...?"

Maruki. That name had come up a lot in conversation, and while he'd done some digging on his end...

programmer working for one of Shido's shell companies, tokyo university graduate, double major in psychology and machine intelligence, dead fiance named rumi haradam, user id likely to be a match for him buried in EMMA's code as one of the lead devs-

There was the issue of timelines. He knew nothing about this man, other than that he was human, and therefore to be met with the baseline level of distrust saved for pretty much everyone else.

"He's not a bird. He's a Digimon."

"Though I suppose you could be forgiven for making the mistake. Apparently we aren't quite common around these parts. I haven't, in fact, actually encountered signs of any others since our arrival, which is a tremendous shame. I am called Rookmon, and while I don't believe you've met Goro, you appear to already know his name."

"What?" He's still confused and shocked as his gaze falls on the young man. "A...Digimon?"

Forgive the man for not being able to keep up with the recent events so while he can see the fact that he's completely sane and hearing a perfectly capable Digimon keeping conversation with him- its a bit strange for him to take the existence of the world he's in too seriously. "Ah, hello Rookmon...? Seems like neither of you recognize me, I suppose that's a good thing." his eyebrows raise as he carefully observes the creature before him. Its large blue eyes to the accents of red across its black feathers...

"Wait...did you say Digimon?!" He suddenly turns to look at Akechi again. His lips part in shock before it curls into a ghost of a smile. "I...I can't believe it." He chuckles with a gasp- "I- I used to play the game Digimon World when I was- so young-! I can't believe it!" He shakes his head as he still tries to grasp the concept of one of such beings coming to life, now sitting up and pushing himself off the net of tentacles manifested by his persona. He was about 11 to 12 years old when he got a PlayStation and even bought booster packs to expand his collection. "That and Pokemon...god those were my literal childhood..!"

That was... a lot. That was a lot to drop on his plate. "Yeah, well, nobody here's a video game character. Maybe someone from your timeline met a Digimon and made a game based off of it."

Rookmon, at least, seemed to like the admiring attention, inflating ever so slightly.

Goro, however, crossed his arms. "I've heard the name 'Maruki' once or twice. Should I recognize you?"

"I would love to see if the Digimon cards I have collected in my universe are real in yours." His brows lower down, now relaxing back to his usually surprised demeanour. Its still a little strange to witness a being like this and while he's still considering his next words- the young detective prince cuts him right through it.

"I...I don't know? I just came here," he looks down at his clothes as if unsure how to proceed. "I am hoping you aren't here to hurt me in any way. Or oh- are you here for therapy? I am a psychologist from this office."

"I don't need therapy," he growled. "I'm not crazy."

"Of course you aren't, Goro. Although... that's quite strange. I was under the impression you worked with computers?"

"Different timeline shit, probably. We don't have Personas, who knows what the fuck else changed."

Maruki couldn't help but let out a nervous chuckle, unoffended by Wolf's words as he shakes his head. "That's a terrible misconception I am afraid and while the fields of mental health are neglected- therapy is nothing like how you perceive it to be. It's simply rediscovering and learning more about yourself so one can erase invisible burdens and frustrations," he offers him a small smile and looks over at the elegant dark bird-like creature. "If nothing, you can walk away knowing more about yourself."

"Computers..?" he frowns as he carefully listens to the exchange between the young Akechi and Rookmon. "I believe you may have got the wrong guy here. I am pretty average with them."

Admittedly... Shido's dossier had mentioned that the man had studied psychology in university, before abruptly changing his mind. There'd been a dead fiancé in there as well, but for some reason... he felt like it would be a bad idea to bring it up.

"Weird. Not at all the weirdest shit that's happened here, though. Doesn't even rank in the top three quarters. Sorry, it's just that your name's listed on the dev team for an AI assistant that's fairly popular. Hence the confusion. That said... I don't think I'm interested. I know who I am."

"That's..."

Certainly not something he had expected.

He could completely understand being a top researcher in cognitive pscience but developing an AI? He's only slightly dabbled into technology and programming, most of which came with handling expensive equipment in the lab or doing some research on technological advancements in biomedical science.
Then again he shouldn't be so surprised, judging from the power and variety a universe can have. "I would assume this AI assistant has something related to cognition then? It wouldn't be a surprising tale if I were a part of that team in your world. I am also a cognitive researcher- albeit my own thesis still needs some decent traction to hold."

He pauses as he hears Akechi's denial. "I...understand. Being secure with yourself is vital- countless others may spend a lifetime trying to reach that point. Especially considering how young you are- most teenagers are still learning to adjust to themselves."

He turns to look back at the mesh of tentacles and snaps his fingers once more, letting them retract and dissolve into each other.

"No. EMMA's just an AI assistant, I can't imagine it'd have anything to do with cognition since I'd never even heard of Personas or anything related to them until I came here."

His eyes followed the tentacles as they moved... and frowned. "That's from your Persona, though, I'm guessing."

"Oh," Maruki's gaze falls down on the ground at his incorrect deduction. That's quite strange in itself- how human thinking works and develops in different cycles of life. "That does make sense, huh?" he weakly chuckles as he shakes his head.

He blinks at the change of question and follows the line of sight to his retracting tentacles. "Yes, you would be correct. Azathoth is..my persona?" he doesn't sound too convinced himself. "Feels like an enigma, doesn't it?"

"So... what, do you have one of those Evokers? I didn't see you use one. How can you use a Persona out here, without one?"

Maruki stalls off as his brows scrunch up together- attempting to understand where he's coming from. Evoker? "What's an evoker?" He tilts his head and blinks at him- ignorant of the fact that Personas even need some sort of trigger to be used in the first place.

He raises his arm as a tentacle follows his movements- bringing its clawed appendages together as it hovers over them and more specifically- keeps its attention on Rookmon. "Azathoth practically acts as my second body- I don't think I have found any difficulty attempting to summon it."

"Near as I can tell, a magic gun that lets you summon a Persona." His brow furrowed, as he watched Azathoth's movements. "Doesn't sound like a Persona, in that case, but... I'm not exactly an expert."

"A magic gun...?" His brows knit together as the realisation settles into him. His memory flashes with the image of that specific Ren, pulling the trigger of his gun aimed at his own head and somehow connecting those dots- which brings little relief to him.

"Do you shoot yourself in the head with it?" He mutely continues before waving himself off- "Well, I am assuming there is a way to use a gun in order to summon a persona. However, in my case its safe to say I seem to have a set of abnormalities linked to me."

"Are Digimons your personas? Or are they mutually exclusive?"

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