TWC: 2304/2000
The Summer Festival. A nice big public event. While the crops were growing tall and the weaker crops were baking in the heat, those with the time and means were spending a few days on the beach with an assortment of fun and adventures, sponsored by the local city in an effort to get everyone to forget about the looming war. Kotomi reflected on that idea for a moment, jutting her hip outward and placing her right hand on it. There was a cut out of a half-circle along the edge of the suit which gave it the appearance of a bite. White teeth along the edges mimicked a shark's, and the center of that, right on the flesh, is where she put her hand. Drawing attention to the hints of skin. The war… The frown that flashed on her face came out as a devilish pout. She flipped her bright red ponytail slightly, exposing a little extra shoulder that the one piece suit didn't cover. Her movements were trained, practiced, and naturalized, so that her mind could be elsewhere. It seemed like the war had been looming forever, but the countdown on the Doomsday Clock moved in seconds, not hours. And when the tick tocked down to the final ticked…
But that was looking at the ominous, irrepressible rumbling in the distance instead of the trees shaking in the immediate foreground. She rolled her head slightly, exposing her neck to the shining sun, the glitter in her sunblock causing a glistening effect that made her shine. She turned slightly and repeated the process. She was only given about thirty seconds for this to work. A red… something… with two yellow stars on it. Not a lot to go on, since a lot of things had red and stars on them. A kid's sand pail. Slippers. At least three of the ten umbrellas along that side of the beach. She turned the other way, leaning forward for the big finish. Her build was mostly athletic, but she had a naturally lithe body type, built for natural speed. She would be the first to frankly admit that there wasn't a lot of byoin to byoin-byoin but perspective and framing could do a lot. She put her hands on her thighs, and by bringing her knees together, feet apart, and leaning forward, she pressed her upper arms towards her chest, creating the illusion of something to gawk at. And gawk they did. She found the right judge to look at, the one who looked like his heart would give out if he popped another little blue pill, and he wouldn't consider it a bad way to go out. Probably some sponsor. She locked her emerald green eyes on him and gave him a wink and a smile, then tilted her head just at the right angle so that the sunglasses framing her forehead fell down to cover her eyes. A goddamn photo finish if she did say so herself. There was nothing saying she couldn't win this stupid thing if such a thing happened to occur.
There. The sunglasses perfectly hid her hawk eyed vision laying claim to her target. Another woman, not much older than Kotomi herself, who seemed to be sitting in the audience. The only one who didn't at least give some polite applause. Geez lady, act less evil. She had a pair of sunglasses which were red and had, on each arm of the frame, a single golden star. Anyone would have missed them if they weren't looking for them specifically. They weren't even particularly in fashion this season. Hell, she thought as she turned around to head back down the runway. Even people looking for them may not have seen them. Not a bad marker in a place like this. She was always one to give credit where it was due. Regardless, she'd spotted it herself and could keep an eye on it now. Well… not her. Capacete, She thought, Put a tail on her. Communicating with bugs was super convenient for detective work.
As she reached the backstage, one of the other contestants smiled at her and said, "Hey that last pose thing was super cute!"
Kotomi smiled in return. When she spoke, her voice had more of a lilting accent than normal. "Thank you! I'd been like, practicing it all week. I hope I didn't overdo it?"
"Honey no, it was perfect." The other contestant responded. "What was your name again?"
"Jessie," Kotomi said, "Jessie Baines." She grabbed her small backpack and checked the insides. "I'm actually gonna be trying out for the Sorcerer Mag's Summer Issue so this is kinda… me seeing if I have what it takes." She said, adding a bit of a buzzed energy to her voice. She seemed to be searching inside the bag for something, but she'd actually installed a small button into her bag which would place an empty call through to her iLac for situations just like this.
"Oh my god you'd kill!" The contestant said. As 'Jessie's' iLac buzzed, this nameless contestant gave a farewell wave, "I hope I see you there!"
"Same! See ya!" Kotomi said, before walking away while answering her empty call. "Hey! Did you see me? No way!!" As she slipped into the bathroom, pulled off the small sphere that hung off her bag and tapped the centerpiece against herself. Within its netherrealm, she plucked the disposable contacts out of her eyes and whipped the wig off, setting them aside along with her other disguise items. She peeled the skin covering which hid her tattoos and changed into a different outfit. Her natural hair was fine for this, but perhaps a distracting beauty mark on the left side of her cheek… she looked at the rows of glasses she had lined up. "Hmm…"
She showed up just in time for the sand castle competition, this time in a sundress and sandals, with blue eyes and wireframe glasses. It was amazing how little one could change while looking like a completely different person. Doing so several times in the same day was dangerous, as if someone caught on to her they would have some very valid questions to ask, but in a complex, busy place like this festival, the chances of someone tailing her while she was tailing someone else were quite low. Besides, she had a few friends waiting in the wings in case someone caught on to her. Well. Waiting on their wings. They were flying. Bugs.
As she put together a rather mediocre replica of Fiore's Capital, she would occasionally tap her glasses at the edge of the frame before going back to her creation. This, unlike the swimsuit contest, wasn't something she thought she had a chance in, so the purpose was more to be there and hide among the sand while she waited for the woman with the red glasses to meet up with her source. The hour passed slowly, and she figured she'd built as good of a parapet as she was going to make before the timer ran out. The judges wandered by and looked at the different creations, offering various terms of praise while writing things down. When the judge, a completely different person than the lecher at the swimsuit contest, stopped and looked at her sand castle, she smiled kindly and said, "Maybe next year."
Kotomi smiled back, "Yeah, maybe." When things got settled, she got up and retreated back into her hiding place to change appearances one more time. All of this was to throw off the scent, of course, as if the woman with red sunglasses knew that she was being chased by the Bareknuckle Detective, she would split, and Kotomi would be back to square one.
When the limbo contest took place, a woman with bright purple hair and bronzer as well as a modest red bikini showed up for the competition. This was Kotomi's least comfortable outfit, but if she was going to be seen and noticed, it would be as something that looked far different from her normal height. This version was even wearing lifts which would throw off her height. It would also make it pretty impossible for her to win the limbo contest, but again, that wasn't important. Not important she reminded herself.
As her turn came up, she passed the first bar, which was really just at 'lean back slightly' level. The second, third, and fourth level weren't much harder, but things started to get tricky. She'd heard there were some discussions about men trying to get disqualified at later levels due to… something? She wasn't sure she understood it, but it also wasn't something she was particularly interested in for a few reasons. When her fifth round came up, she was having some serious ankle troubles due to the weight of the lifts she had and how she was bending backwards. There was also the fact that this was when the little bug that had been sitting in her hair all day started to chirp with energy. She stumbled out of the rotation and fell, waving an apology to everyone as she picked herself up. There was some mild applause but she walked it off and started to head up the hill where the chirping was leading her. Towards the docks where the parasailing boats were— the boats. She tried to walk like she wasn't hurrying, as calling any attention to herself could cause the woman with red sunglasses to rabbit.
"Hey! Jessie?" An uncomfortably familiar voice said to her, "Is that— Are you Jessie? From the swimsuit contest?" Kotomi turned around to see the young contestant from this morning smiling up at her. There were now a few inches height difference between them.
"Oh I'm sorry you're… oh my god you know you have like… the exact same aura as this girl I met this morning at the swimsuit contest but she like… looked different. Anyway, I thought you were here, sorry." The young girl said. In all her time professionally going on stakeouts, Kotomi had never been 'caught' like this, at least not based on whatever the hell her 'aura' was, and thus she was at a legitimate loss for words.
"Oh you're close!" Kotomi stammered, "Jessie is my cousin. We've got the same… family. Because of being cousins. So there must be some… aura… genetics." She was staring off past the young girl where the woman with red sunglasses had been… stopped? By local beach security.
"Oh no doubt? That's so weird! Because like—" The young girl kept talking, but Kotomi wasn't listening.
"Fuck," She murmured. "Fuck." She said again, in a completely different tone, lilt, and meaning.
"Wow like— language."
"Oh!" Kotomi said, "I'm so sorry, I have to go. Um. You should study magic, kid. You've got some weird kind of gift." She kneeled down and unlatched the lifts she was wearing then took off running barefoot towards the docks, as the woman she was chasing had just shoved a security guard in the water and was commandeering one of the boats that had just come in. Her movements turned superhuman as she reached out towards the boat. Procedure here seemed a little different, as the boat had returned with the passengers still strapped in, and although one of the adults managed to unstrap themselves, a child was still strapped into the boat when it was starting to take off.
"Yeah this ain't gonna be good," Kotomi said, leaping for the extended line of the boat. She held out her hand as it formed a blade of pure mystical energy, which she used to expertly slice the weak spots of the kid's harness, cutting him loose just as the boat took off, with Kotomi hanging onto the parasail.
She'd always wanted to go parasailing, which was the good part. The bad part, was that she was hanging uncontrolled from a parachute which was hanging wildly off a speeding boat being driven by an escaping criminal. The woman with red sunglasses looked back to see what was causing the drag and saw Kotomi, who waved nonchalantly, only to have the criminal woman cut the line.
"Oh rude!" Kotomi shouted as she took uncontrolled flight. As she soared into the sky, she reached into her hair and plucked the little bug that had been hidden in there, letting fly out before her. She dropped down onto the minuscule thing just as it grew to a massive twelve feet in length, large enough for her to ride. A gigantic beetle which she landed on as easily as riding a horse, "Capacete!" She commanded, "Catch up!"
Her massive beetle ally sped up, catching up with the boat in no time. The woman with red sunglasses started to wave her arm wildly at Kotomi and Capacete, trying to shoo them away.
With a deft leap, Kotomi landed on the boat, Capacete fluttering right next to the transport. "Lady," Kotomi called, "Look at the size of my bug. You think it got this big eating leaves?! Let's go back to the docks."
The woman looked between Kotomi and Capacete. The boat started to slow down as beach security boats rode towards it.
———
Palming the lacrima that the woman had intended on selling before turning her over to the cops wasn't the most ethical thing that Kotomi had done, but she'd been hired to retrieve an item. And now she'd retrieved it. Slipping past the beach security with shrugs of 'right place right time' and 'yeah that was bonkers', she quickly escaped into the crowds where she safely looked at what she'd acquired. Something she'd been hired to acquire, but also something she personally needed. Information that might lead to the location of the previous holder of the Liber Perditorum.
The Summer Festival. A nice big public event. While the crops were growing tall and the weaker crops were baking in the heat, those with the time and means were spending a few days on the beach with an assortment of fun and adventures, sponsored by the local city in an effort to get everyone to forget about the looming war. Kotomi reflected on that idea for a moment, jutting her hip outward and placing her right hand on it. There was a cut out of a half-circle along the edge of the suit which gave it the appearance of a bite. White teeth along the edges mimicked a shark's, and the center of that, right on the flesh, is where she put her hand. Drawing attention to the hints of skin. The war… The frown that flashed on her face came out as a devilish pout. She flipped her bright red ponytail slightly, exposing a little extra shoulder that the one piece suit didn't cover. Her movements were trained, practiced, and naturalized, so that her mind could be elsewhere. It seemed like the war had been looming forever, but the countdown on the Doomsday Clock moved in seconds, not hours. And when the tick tocked down to the final ticked…
But that was looking at the ominous, irrepressible rumbling in the distance instead of the trees shaking in the immediate foreground. She rolled her head slightly, exposing her neck to the shining sun, the glitter in her sunblock causing a glistening effect that made her shine. She turned slightly and repeated the process. She was only given about thirty seconds for this to work. A red… something… with two yellow stars on it. Not a lot to go on, since a lot of things had red and stars on them. A kid's sand pail. Slippers. At least three of the ten umbrellas along that side of the beach. She turned the other way, leaning forward for the big finish. Her build was mostly athletic, but she had a naturally lithe body type, built for natural speed. She would be the first to frankly admit that there wasn't a lot of byoin to byoin-byoin but perspective and framing could do a lot. She put her hands on her thighs, and by bringing her knees together, feet apart, and leaning forward, she pressed her upper arms towards her chest, creating the illusion of something to gawk at. And gawk they did. She found the right judge to look at, the one who looked like his heart would give out if he popped another little blue pill, and he wouldn't consider it a bad way to go out. Probably some sponsor. She locked her emerald green eyes on him and gave him a wink and a smile, then tilted her head just at the right angle so that the sunglasses framing her forehead fell down to cover her eyes. A goddamn photo finish if she did say so herself. There was nothing saying she couldn't win this stupid thing if such a thing happened to occur.
There. The sunglasses perfectly hid her hawk eyed vision laying claim to her target. Another woman, not much older than Kotomi herself, who seemed to be sitting in the audience. The only one who didn't at least give some polite applause. Geez lady, act less evil. She had a pair of sunglasses which were red and had, on each arm of the frame, a single golden star. Anyone would have missed them if they weren't looking for them specifically. They weren't even particularly in fashion this season. Hell, she thought as she turned around to head back down the runway. Even people looking for them may not have seen them. Not a bad marker in a place like this. She was always one to give credit where it was due. Regardless, she'd spotted it herself and could keep an eye on it now. Well… not her. Capacete, She thought, Put a tail on her. Communicating with bugs was super convenient for detective work.
As she reached the backstage, one of the other contestants smiled at her and said, "Hey that last pose thing was super cute!"
Kotomi smiled in return. When she spoke, her voice had more of a lilting accent than normal. "Thank you! I'd been like, practicing it all week. I hope I didn't overdo it?"
"Honey no, it was perfect." The other contestant responded. "What was your name again?"
"Jessie," Kotomi said, "Jessie Baines." She grabbed her small backpack and checked the insides. "I'm actually gonna be trying out for the Sorcerer Mag's Summer Issue so this is kinda… me seeing if I have what it takes." She said, adding a bit of a buzzed energy to her voice. She seemed to be searching inside the bag for something, but she'd actually installed a small button into her bag which would place an empty call through to her iLac for situations just like this.
"Oh my god you'd kill!" The contestant said. As 'Jessie's' iLac buzzed, this nameless contestant gave a farewell wave, "I hope I see you there!"
"Same! See ya!" Kotomi said, before walking away while answering her empty call. "Hey! Did you see me? No way!!" As she slipped into the bathroom, pulled off the small sphere that hung off her bag and tapped the centerpiece against herself. Within its netherrealm, she plucked the disposable contacts out of her eyes and whipped the wig off, setting them aside along with her other disguise items. She peeled the skin covering which hid her tattoos and changed into a different outfit. Her natural hair was fine for this, but perhaps a distracting beauty mark on the left side of her cheek… she looked at the rows of glasses she had lined up. "Hmm…"
She showed up just in time for the sand castle competition, this time in a sundress and sandals, with blue eyes and wireframe glasses. It was amazing how little one could change while looking like a completely different person. Doing so several times in the same day was dangerous, as if someone caught on to her they would have some very valid questions to ask, but in a complex, busy place like this festival, the chances of someone tailing her while she was tailing someone else were quite low. Besides, she had a few friends waiting in the wings in case someone caught on to her. Well. Waiting on their wings. They were flying. Bugs.
As she put together a rather mediocre replica of Fiore's Capital, she would occasionally tap her glasses at the edge of the frame before going back to her creation. This, unlike the swimsuit contest, wasn't something she thought she had a chance in, so the purpose was more to be there and hide among the sand while she waited for the woman with the red glasses to meet up with her source. The hour passed slowly, and she figured she'd built as good of a parapet as she was going to make before the timer ran out. The judges wandered by and looked at the different creations, offering various terms of praise while writing things down. When the judge, a completely different person than the lecher at the swimsuit contest, stopped and looked at her sand castle, she smiled kindly and said, "Maybe next year."
Kotomi smiled back, "Yeah, maybe." When things got settled, she got up and retreated back into her hiding place to change appearances one more time. All of this was to throw off the scent, of course, as if the woman with red sunglasses knew that she was being chased by the Bareknuckle Detective, she would split, and Kotomi would be back to square one.
When the limbo contest took place, a woman with bright purple hair and bronzer as well as a modest red bikini showed up for the competition. This was Kotomi's least comfortable outfit, but if she was going to be seen and noticed, it would be as something that looked far different from her normal height. This version was even wearing lifts which would throw off her height. It would also make it pretty impossible for her to win the limbo contest, but again, that wasn't important. Not important she reminded herself.
As her turn came up, she passed the first bar, which was really just at 'lean back slightly' level. The second, third, and fourth level weren't much harder, but things started to get tricky. She'd heard there were some discussions about men trying to get disqualified at later levels due to… something? She wasn't sure she understood it, but it also wasn't something she was particularly interested in for a few reasons. When her fifth round came up, she was having some serious ankle troubles due to the weight of the lifts she had and how she was bending backwards. There was also the fact that this was when the little bug that had been sitting in her hair all day started to chirp with energy. She stumbled out of the rotation and fell, waving an apology to everyone as she picked herself up. There was some mild applause but she walked it off and started to head up the hill where the chirping was leading her. Towards the docks where the parasailing boats were— the boats. She tried to walk like she wasn't hurrying, as calling any attention to herself could cause the woman with red sunglasses to rabbit.
"Hey! Jessie?" An uncomfortably familiar voice said to her, "Is that— Are you Jessie? From the swimsuit contest?" Kotomi turned around to see the young contestant from this morning smiling up at her. There were now a few inches height difference between them.
"Oh I'm sorry you're… oh my god you know you have like… the exact same aura as this girl I met this morning at the swimsuit contest but she like… looked different. Anyway, I thought you were here, sorry." The young girl said. In all her time professionally going on stakeouts, Kotomi had never been 'caught' like this, at least not based on whatever the hell her 'aura' was, and thus she was at a legitimate loss for words.
"Oh you're close!" Kotomi stammered, "Jessie is my cousin. We've got the same… family. Because of being cousins. So there must be some… aura… genetics." She was staring off past the young girl where the woman with red sunglasses had been… stopped? By local beach security.
"Oh no doubt? That's so weird! Because like—" The young girl kept talking, but Kotomi wasn't listening.
"Fuck," She murmured. "Fuck." She said again, in a completely different tone, lilt, and meaning.
"Wow like— language."
"Oh!" Kotomi said, "I'm so sorry, I have to go. Um. You should study magic, kid. You've got some weird kind of gift." She kneeled down and unlatched the lifts she was wearing then took off running barefoot towards the docks, as the woman she was chasing had just shoved a security guard in the water and was commandeering one of the boats that had just come in. Her movements turned superhuman as she reached out towards the boat. Procedure here seemed a little different, as the boat had returned with the passengers still strapped in, and although one of the adults managed to unstrap themselves, a child was still strapped into the boat when it was starting to take off.
"Yeah this ain't gonna be good," Kotomi said, leaping for the extended line of the boat. She held out her hand as it formed a blade of pure mystical energy, which she used to expertly slice the weak spots of the kid's harness, cutting him loose just as the boat took off, with Kotomi hanging onto the parasail.
She'd always wanted to go parasailing, which was the good part. The bad part, was that she was hanging uncontrolled from a parachute which was hanging wildly off a speeding boat being driven by an escaping criminal. The woman with red sunglasses looked back to see what was causing the drag and saw Kotomi, who waved nonchalantly, only to have the criminal woman cut the line.
"Oh rude!" Kotomi shouted as she took uncontrolled flight. As she soared into the sky, she reached into her hair and plucked the little bug that had been hidden in there, letting fly out before her. She dropped down onto the minuscule thing just as it grew to a massive twelve feet in length, large enough for her to ride. A gigantic beetle which she landed on as easily as riding a horse, "Capacete!" She commanded, "Catch up!"
Her massive beetle ally sped up, catching up with the boat in no time. The woman with red sunglasses started to wave her arm wildly at Kotomi and Capacete, trying to shoo them away.
With a deft leap, Kotomi landed on the boat, Capacete fluttering right next to the transport. "Lady," Kotomi called, "Look at the size of my bug. You think it got this big eating leaves?! Let's go back to the docks."
The woman looked between Kotomi and Capacete. The boat started to slow down as beach security boats rode towards it.
———
Palming the lacrima that the woman had intended on selling before turning her over to the cops wasn't the most ethical thing that Kotomi had done, but she'd been hired to retrieve an item. And now she'd retrieved it. Slipping past the beach security with shrugs of 'right place right time' and 'yeah that was bonkers', she quickly escaped into the crowds where she safely looked at what she'd acquired. Something she'd been hired to acquire, but also something she personally needed. Information that might lead to the location of the previous holder of the Liber Perditorum.
