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| Journalist's Intuition; Intro Thread: Toru Motou [Concluded] | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 19 2012, 12:48 AM (575 Views) | |
| The One True Nobody | Aug 19 2012, 12:48 AM Post #1 |
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
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Taiyoutono High School, Nagashima... actually, now that Toru Motou thought about it, he'd never so much as set foot in a Japanese school before. He was Japanese by blood--you could tell as much by looking at his face--but he'd been born in the United States of America, where school worked quite differently than here. He knew the fundamental differences, of course; the overall school-year was structured differently, for instance... but still, he found himself curious. What might it have been like to have grown up here, rather than there? The paranormal journalist stood easily just outside the front gate, positioned as though he just happened to be walking by on his way to somewhere else. But in truth, this place was his destination. He'd questioned several people since arriving in Nagashima the day before, and the one tantalizing piece of information was a half-complete rumor he'd picked up from a high school student at the local ramen place. He'd turned on the charm as per usual, but all he'd managed to garner from that young freshman girl (who spent the whole time blushing like the schoolgirl she was, bless her) was that there was this young girl who went missing, supposedly whisked away to some secret laboratory somewhere. It sounded ridiculous, but his journalist's intuition was telling him there might be something more to it. So here he was, standing outside the school. His first impression of the place was that it was pretty ritzy for a public school. He'd seen Gekkoukan High once or twice on the occasions where he'd taken the train from his home in Iwatodai to Tatsumi Port Island, but this place didn't measure up too poorly... and that was a private school. School should be getting out just about now, he thought, with a quick glance at his pocketwatch. It was a classy watch for a classy guy, patterned with roses... like his gun, which was currently stashed in the glove compartment of his car. Toru liked roses; they were pretty, but the thorns! He liked his women sort of like that, fiery and able to take care of themselves, but things of beauty nonetheless. Toru returned the watch to his suit jacket pocket and looked up at the school. His hope was to accost a likely-looking student on their way out of school and hope they could tell him more about the rumor, or anything else connected to the strange eye-melting disease he'd come to Nagashima to investigate. He knew for certain that this couldn't be anything natural. A disease that melts people's eyes? It'd be one thing if the outbreak were an entirely new thing, but there had apparently been a rash of similar deaths in the past. He was getting the same feeling now as he had when he'd taken that trip to Inaba back in 2011 to investigate those bizarre murders... hopefully he would find something this time; he knew he'd missed out on something back then, although the arrest of Mitsuo Kubo had thrown him completely off the scent in that instance. All he'd gotten out of that was a brief article contemplating the mysterious Midnight Channel, which he never did learn anything of substance about, and later a speculative article about the supposedly-poisonous fog that would occasionally blanket the region. Nothing of any real substance. He wouldn't be so easily dissuaded this time... he'd get right down to the bottom of everything, penetrate the depths of this mystery, and then he'd have an article that was really worth its place in the newsletter. Soon enough, school was out. Toru Motou backed off from the gate a bit, and waited for the inevitable outflow of students on their way to daily freedom. There had to be something strange at work here. Hoculus was no normal illness, that much was clear. The only question was: how was it not normal? Toru swore he'd find out, even if it killed him. It was a promise he would look back at in later years with a silly grin on his face before laughing his arse off and taking another sip of sake. Edited by The One True Nobody, Aug 19 2012, 01:04 AM.
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| FirebreathFishslap | Aug 19 2012, 01:35 AM Post #2 |
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I'm the best! I'm the king of me! I'm gonna eat chips out of the garbage!
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Two students walked out of Taiyoutono together: a taller, silver haired student wearing glasses, and a short blonde haired student. They were in the midst of what seemed to be a conversation, and neither of them looked exactly happy about it. Well, that wasn't quite true. The blonde haired one seemed practically elated, while the silver haired one had a perpetual frown on his face. "You jumped into the Sakanabouji?" "I had my reasons. I would prefer if an underclassman wouldn't make fun of me for that," Yu said with a scowl. "And I'm not even interested in talking about my little swim. We're here to talk about your continued activities with that single person club of yours!" "I have a sponsor and a classroom. I fail to see the problem," Manabu replied. "Now tell me more about your adventures in the Sakanabouji. Tell me, is it really as engorged with fish semen as the rumors say? Did you meet any of the results of the fabled human and fish unions? Mermaids, perhaps?" "And you continue with the insults. I will be reporting you for that," Yu said. Manabu only smiled, but it quickly faded as his eyes scanned the crowd of students. There was someone who stood out in the crowd. An adult with long hair and a mustache. That was quite suspicious... Manabu lifted a hand to point toward Toru. "Wouldn't your student council efforts be better spent dealing with that suspicious individual?" Manabu asked. Yu's eyes narrowed. A mysterious stranger. With all of the business with the Russians lately, Yu wasn't exactly fond of strange suspicious adults hanging around the students. Even with the Russians gone, it didn't mean that he wasn't still suspicious. He pushed through the crowd toward Toru, Manabu lazily following behind, and jabbed a finger at him. "I don't know who you are, but you are currently standing on Taiyoutono School Grounds without any kind of visitor pass," Yu said professionally. "I will need a statement of your name and purpose upon these grounds. Or I might just decide to call the cops. You decide." |
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| The One True Nobody | Aug 19 2012, 02:04 AM Post #3 |
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
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Toru was taken aback by the sudden, aggressive response the student had greeted him with--though in truth, he'd pegged this boy as his "likely student" and had been contemplating the idea of approaching him, so all the better for Toru. Putting on a sheepish, apologetic smile (and Toru's sheepish, apologetic smiles were quite convincing! If "Expression" were perchance a roleplay stat, his would rank at "Enthralling!"). "Ah, I apologize," he said, dipping into a slight bow. "It didn't occur to me that the grounds might extend beyond the gates. As for who I am--" he straightened up and his smile became more open and personable. "My name is Toru Motou, and I am a journalist. I came to Nagashima to investigate the bizarre outbreak that's been troubling this city, and--this may seem like an odd thread to pursue, but a peculiar rumor caught my attention and I was hoping someone from this school might shed some light on it." He stopped there, looking from the first boy to the second, who looked a bit more amiable (...or terrifying...). It was a very brief glance, and then he was back to looking at the young man, hoping that either he would lighten up and give him some info... or that his friend would prove more forthcoming with information than the first one did. Edited by The One True Nobody, Aug 19 2012, 01:12 PM.
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| FirebreathFishslap | Aug 19 2012, 02:23 PM Post #4 |
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I'm the best! I'm the king of me! I'm gonna eat chips out of the garbage!
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Yu regarded the new arrival cautiously. A journalist? Despite the strange incidents in Nagashima, not much had reached the national news from what he'd seen. Almost like there was a media blackout. So whoever this man was, he was a freelance. He opened his mouth to speak, but Manabu began to chuckle darkly. "Toru Motou... haha, you call yourself a 'journalist', but I recognize that name," Manabu said. His grin grew wider as he continued speaking. "You're that paranormal journalist... just another occult maniac coming to my town. I can assure you that you're a little late on those points. After all, I've been studying them for months now." He continued to chuckle darkly. "You'd be best going to some other little town with a ghost story than coming to little old Nagashima." Yu frowned. That was odd. He'd only spoken with Manabu a few times before now (mostly to get him to stop screwing around with something stupid and occult related) and he was never this directly antagonistic. He turned toward Toru again. "Kaerunuma's correct in that you're late on following these things up. The Hoculus outbreak was months ago, and there haven't been any new cases for a while. But what do you mean by rumor?" "The only one anyone cares about, of course." Manabu said under his breath. |
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| The One True Nobody | Aug 19 2012, 02:34 PM Post #5 |
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
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"It took a while for the news to reach me, to be honest," Toru sighed with a small measure of actual lament. "It's almost like the whole thing was kept quiet. I suppose I can understand... fear of an eye-melting epidemic--or, gods forbid, pandemic--might cause some amount of panic, no?" Toru chuckled darkly, shaking his head. "That there have been no new cases doesn't necessarily mean the problem is at an end. If my information is correct, there were similar cases quite some time before, and then they just mysteriously stopped happening. So even if the outbreak has ended for the time being, that doesn't necessarily mean it's the end of it. Am I wrong?" He looked from one boy to the other (that second one was definitely more creepy than amiable, he decided). "The rumor I heard was incomplete. The young lady I spoke to yesterday didn't seem to be entirely on-the-ball about such things, despite the schoolgirl stereotype. It involves a young woman who vanished, and some kind of hidden laboratory. That is literally all I got out of her, but I can't help but feel there's something of value to be learned by following up on it." He looked at the second boy curiously. "So you know of me, do you? Curious. I haven't exactly worked up a strong reputation yet. Are you a subscriber of ours? In any event... I do have my reasons for choosing this profession. If you disagree, then I can only ask that you respect my worldview enough to... humor my naivete, at the least." And reasons he did have, of course. He couldn't remember exactly what had prompted him to start down this path, but since then he had at least seen the Midnight Channel with his own eyes; wasn't that proof enough that forces existed beyond the natural? He couldn't expect these boys to believe his account of that, though... "In any event," Toru said, becoming a little more serious. "If there is still anything to learn of Hoculus, I'd prefer to learn it now, before someone else has their eyes liquified. I think that's a reasonable reason to investigate, yes?" Edited by The One True Nobody, Aug 19 2012, 06:01 PM.
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| FirebreathFishslap | Aug 20 2012, 11:41 PM Post #6 |
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I'm the best! I'm the king of me! I'm gonna eat chips out of the garbage!
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Yu wasn't entirely sure he trusted this man. His information was good. And, judging by Manabu's reactions and the man's lack of objection, he was most certainly some kind of paranormal writer. Which meant he'd be more likely to accept what would seem unlikely to normal people. When Toru brought up the possibility of Manabu being a subscriber, the frog-like boy only chuckled. "While I personally don't believe in the supernatural, Kaerunuma-san is the founder and only member of our school's Occult Club," Yu explained. "Most likely he's an avid reader of yours." "I neither confirm nor deny," Manabu said curtly. "In any case. There's nothing left to learn. The rumors you heard are outdated, as are your Hoculus predictions. I can assure you that no more cases will occur. There's very little evidence that the cases are cyclical, after all." Yu frowned. Now Manabu was straight up lying... while they'd never heard of that young woman, there were certainly a lot of people who were led into the ruins by the butterfly. And Yu's own brother had suffered from Hoculus not very long ago, and they never did discover the cause. Was this just jealousy, or was he trying to drive off this author for other reasons? Whatever he was doing, he wasn't doing a very good job of it. "It does seem like a reasonable reason to investigate," Yu said. "You'll have a hard time unearthing any information on it, though. Even when some of our students were infected, I couldn't find any information on the virus. There was no noticeable method of transfer. It didn't spread from patient to patient. The cases were completely random. And everyone infected should have died. The ones who didn't pushed through it through pure force of will." He shrugged. "We're all in the same boat you are here, except most of us don't really think about it much these days. Too many other things on our minds." "Like exams," Manabu added. |
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| The One True Nobody | Aug 21 2012, 12:30 AM Post #7 |
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
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The only sign that Toru had picked up on the second boy's lie was a momentary twitch of one eyebrow: the first boy's frown spoke volumes. Indecipherable volumes, but a lot was a lot. The second boy knew something; the first one knew it, too. But the second was withholding that information for some reason... Deciding not to call the second boy out on the inherent contradiction between not knowing anything about the illness and yet being certain that there would be no more cases, Toru merely listened and then nodded. "I don't expect the Student Health Association to have developed a vaccine, or anything like that," he said frankly. "But sometimes even idle rumors can have more truth buried beneath the waffle than one might expect--" (He thought briefly of the unsolved mystery he'd left behind in Inaba as he said this) "--and even the smallest piece of information can help. If either of you know the 'unabridged' version of the rumor I mentioned, I would appreciate the clarification. Any other odd stories or rumors you know of may be helpful as... as well..." Toru was briefly distracted at this point by a fluttering glint of gold out of the corner of his eye, somewhere over the first boy's shoulder. He found himself blinking several times, skimming the background for whatever it was. His first thought was light reflected off a wristwatch, but no sooner had the thought occurred than he realized it simply did not compute... a wristwatch does not flutter. He couldn't see whatever had caught his eye anymore, though. After several seconds, he wrenched his eyes away from the place where it had appeared (this took an unusual effort of will...) and turned his attention back to the two boys in front of him. It was probably just a trick of the light, he decided. Edited by The One True Nobody, Aug 21 2012, 03:39 PM.
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| FirebreathFishslap | Aug 22 2012, 09:40 PM Post #8 |
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I'm the best! I'm the king of me! I'm gonna eat chips out of the garbage!
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Yu continued to frown as Toru continued on. Well, there were certainly a lot of rumors in town. Some were quite certainly true, just from his own experiences, though others were quite absurd. Like the ninjas. That was one rumor he was sure was completely untrue and mostly embellished. He noticed how Toru tripped over his words toward the end. That was odd... he'd seemed to be on the ball with his pronunciation until that point. "Is everything alright?" Yu asked. "As far as rumors go... You'd be better off asking my brother about these. He's generally more on ball with whatever topics are popular among the students. Whereas the butterfly rumor goes..." He motioned to Manabu. "As I said, Kaerunuma-san is our 'occult' expert." "A golden butterfly lures young women into a labyrinth that they cannot escape from. It's not an uncommon tale. Butterflies, as symbols of fate, are often used in such ways," Manabu said vaguely. "The Hoculus rumors have a little more basis in fact. Rumor has it that during World War II, the government had a laboratory in Nagashima, where they developed biological weapons. Some say the results of their human experiments still lurk the sewers below the city. And the lab itself..." He chuckled and turned his head toward the school. "I'm looking at it. If a disease that could melt eyes truly was developed in this town, and it hibernated for periods of ten years, that would explain why it comes in waves like it does." Of course, everything he said was false. The ruins, while definitely a laboratory, had likely not been there since wartime. Hoculus existed before those labs, at the very least. And the ruins were most certainly not in their school. It was a shame that this rumor had turned out to be as false as it was. But it was a good red herring. "I do wish I could tell you more about the rumors in this town, but they're a bit of a hot topic," Yu said. "After that gas explosion in Ruwashi Park, any discussion of 'unnatural' things only causes people to clam up and become antagonistic toward each other. You'd be best waiting for a few months while things calm down." |
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| The One True Nobody | Aug 23 2012, 06:21 AM Post #9 |
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
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Toru would normally have soaked in everything these boys said, turned it over in his mind several times, and then filed it away for later analysis. Experience had taught him that even the most spot-on useful rumors were rarely delivered in usable form: what this boy said about the laboratory might well be the right track to travel, but viewed from entirely the wrong direction. But it wasn't this that grabbed the journalist's attention. His eyes widened a fraction in realization as the second boy spoke of the butterfly that lured young women away to an inescapable labyrinth, and he found himself once more skimming the background over both boys' shoulders--it felt like a peg he'd been struggling with a moment before had suddenly slipped into the correct slot. He barely heard the first boy's suggestion that he wait a few months and come back, but after returning to Inaba to find that Midnight Channel no longer in service, he knew that just wouldn't do. He opened his mouth to express his intention to follow the case regardless, but what came out of his mouth instead was: "This butterfly rumor you speak of--could you tell me more?" He blurted the question out quite suddenly, and his eyes were still searching for the offending creature. He seemed quite a lot less composed than he had a minute before. Edited by The One True Nobody, Aug 23 2012, 06:22 AM.
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| FirebreathFishslap | Aug 23 2012, 10:08 PM Post #10 |
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I'm the best! I'm the king of me! I'm gonna eat chips out of the garbage!
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The two teenagers exchanged glances. This guy was really freaking out over the butterfly, and he kept looking over their shoulders looking for something. Yu was starting to wonder if there was something wrong with him. Manabu, on the other hand, had some suspicions. It was possible this man, whoever he was, had the potential. "The recent rumors state that those who follow the butterfly are granted a specific ability," Manabu said. He had to follow up on the possibility that this man had the potential. Perhaps he could watch him be compelled into the ruins. "But they risk death by doing so. Despite the risks, that ability has become rather common in this area, or so the rumors say. Which is why there is so much antagonism in our town lately." "Kaerunuma, that's enough," Yu said. He wasn't entirely sure why Manabu had shifted gears all of the sudden, but it wasn't good. Manabu continued. "The local rumors say that the people who followed the butterfly are responsible for a variety of crimes, the worst of which being the gas explosion at the park recently." "Personally, I think it's more likely that was garden-grade terrorism," Yu said. "Or a failed demon summoning attempt," Manabu suggested. "The trees in that park are arranged in a perfect pentagram if you look at them from the air." "Maybe if you squint." |
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