The Last Vocaloid

I’ve been debating this for a while now, and I’ve decided. “Sky” worked for my old life, but as I get further along in my transition, I don’t feel it suits me any more. I’m going to go by Éire online from now on.

Don’t worry about the accent, I don’t really care about that. It’s technically pronounced “AY-ra”, but I’ll also accept “AYR”.

When the teal haired magical girl heard her name called out, she quickly close the palm of her hand that was holding her soul gem. She knew who’s voice that was. Rin-chan. That’s a voice she hasn’t heard in a long while. Rin was a friend and a co-worker of hers. They would sing or even dance together sometimes for Master’s video recordings. She raise her head up and smile at her dear friend. She couldn’t made the green soul gem vanish from her hand. She’d fear that Rin could see the glowing light and she would question Miku about it. 

So she cross her arms behind her back and hid it from the blonde vocaloid’s view. The diva couldn’t let the other see it. Since she made that wish to be human, she couldn’t tell the other how it happen. To this day, no one knows how Miku just woke up one morning and she was human. Just like that. She afraid it would hurt everyone’s feelings if they knew the truth.

“Oh? I’m fine! I’m just a little tired is all. I’ve been busy since I’ve been on the road here and there. So I didn’t have time to take breaks. But It’s really good to see you again, Rin-chan.”

“... yeah. Same here.”

Rin felt a strong burst of nostalgia at seeing Miku’s cheerful demeanor again. It was as though she’d been thrown back into her own past, chatting with her senpai, learning the tricks of the trade...

Something that Miku had said troubled her, though. ‘Tired’? Programs didn’t GET tired. Thoughtfully, she switched scanning modes, not even thinking about whether she was violating Miku’s privacy or not - after all, they’d fought together for decades, hadn’t they? They were closer than friends. Closer than sisters.

And when she saw what was wrong with Miku, she was shocked.

     [🎼] “Eh? Don’t remember?” Rin furrowed her eyebrows. “Well, you woulda gotten here jus’ like the rest of us, right? Y’get made down in development, then y’ get sent up to the livin’ quarters. Maybe it’s different for you guys…”

     Without even a full minute passing, the elevator came to a steady halt and opened its doors again, revealing a small lounge area complete with walls painted in bright stripes representing the color of each main module - red, blue, yellow, teal and pink stretched across the wall in an almost infinite loop. In the middle of the floor were two modern-style couches complete with a set of bean bags between them, and an expensive tv mounted onto the wall with several consoles hooked up beneath it. 

      Rin pointed to the hallway that connected at the end of the room, with five doors in total. Small nameplates were nailed to each, but each one was still decorated in the same fashion that a normal human might decorate their bedroom’s door; her own was split in half, with several drawings plastered alongside an array of stickers, while Len’s only held a simple whiteboard where he wrote reminders for himself, alongside a few of her own decorations that had leaked over the side. 

     [🎼] “That’s our room. I don’t think anyone else is around, so we got the games all to ourselves, heh.”

As the future Rin followed her younger self down the hallway, she felt a pang of nostalgic loneliness. Each of those doors had little things about them which reminded her of her own singing partners, so many years ago, so many centuries from now.

Miku’s door, decorated with cute little drawings of herself, drawings of leeks and distorted Miku heads, and a ton of little pink hearts, all with Luka’s name written inside them.

Luka’s door, with the nameplate redrawn in lovely cursive script. It would have remained as simple and elegant as that if not for Miku’s handiwork - there was a large reflective sticker of a tuna fish in one corner of the door, and a large heart with (ML+HM) scrawled in Miku’s handwriting in red Sharpie.

Kaito’s door had a few sparkling snowflake stickers, and a picture of himself and Meiko triply-taped up. There had been obvious attempts by someone to remove the picture before whoever it was gave up.

Meiko’s door was perhaps the most vivid. Painted an angry red in colour, someone had also painted several warning messages in yellow. “DO NOT ENTER”, “THIS MEANS YOU”, “LEARN TO READ KAITO”...

It was Len’s half of the door that broke the illusion for her. The Len she remembered was stoic, but also friendly and helpful. This one seemed... stark. Disinterested. Was this Rin’s Len really that stolid?

futurestylerin:

“O-oh. I… I see. I’m terribly sorry…”

Rin looked crestfallen, and slumped even more deeply into the bench. Not insane… just a bad case of mistaken identity.

“He was my twin… I lost him years ago,” she said forlornly. “You don’t know… how hard it is to lose a piece of yourself like that. I always feared I would follow him.”

She pauses again, grimacing.

“I almost wish I had. Perhaps then I wouldn’t be here, contemplating my failure of a doomed mission.”

      ‘ You don’t know… how hard it is to lose a piece of yourself like that. ‘

      Allen closed his eyes, inhaling deeply as he attempted to recall the piece he himself had lost so long ago. It felt oddly nostalgic – a bittersweet feeling filled his chest at the memories, for how short they had been. He couldn’t allow himself to be distracted from the main goal, however. The demon offered a small smile, staring down at his lap.

      [★] “…Perhaps. But from what it sounds like, there is reason for you being here now.”

      He set the cane of ivory against the bench so that he didn’t have to awkwardly hold it in his sitting position, then turned his gaze upwards – towards the tiny dots of stars that had begun to twinkle and shine. 

      [★] “It would be a shame to see someone as stunning as you are give in over something as simple as fear. I imagine it would look like something akin to a fallen star losing all its glow…” Allen held out one of his hands, eyes beginning to gain an odd glow to them…. “But words are meaningless, no? Perhaps I should persuade you through a gift, instead.”

“A gift?”

Rin recognized the doppelganger’s words as comforting - and perhaps a touch inappropriate - but she was in no mood to be soothed. The offer of a gift puzzled her, though. The shimmer in the young man’s eyes didn’t escape her notice, but there was nothing about him to bring her alarm, at least not yet. She was certain she could handle anything that was thrown at her... and so far, he hadn’t seemed hostile or threatening in any way.

“... alright. What did you have in mind?”

     [🎼] “ ‘Course not. I ain’t a nerd, and you’re sorta me, so by default we’re not nerds! …That’s how I figure, anyways.”

     Rin lead her future self through a few bland hospital-white corridors, humming with a small skip in her step until she came across the correct elevator that would lead them up to the dorm level. She gave the ‘up’ button a few eager punches with her hand before it finally slid open, a calming a voice echoing within. “Going up!”

Stepping inside, she shook her head quietly.

      [🎼] “I’m the one that invited ya, ‘member?” She had zero clue as to what “impose” was in the first place, but whatever it was, it wouldn’t be any issue. “If I didn’t wanna hang out then wouldn’t have asked ya in the first place.”

“What, and we’re not nerds? ... but alright, if you insist. I won’t resist any more.” ♥

     [🎼] “…If y’mean t’pair with, yeah. ‘Course. I mean, we’re the originals, right? It’d be weird if I didn’t have a Len t’match.” 

     Referring in terms of models felt a bit odd in such an undefined context. Most of the extra models had someone to along with them – it was just the nature of their unique product. There were the few that didn’t, like Trickster and Scissors, but they all tended to hang out with one another or didn’t have the coding that made them feel drawn to a partner. For herself, though, imagining a world where she wasn’t with Len…

     …Huh. She actually looked… cute. Not to say that the most illustrious Rin-sama wasn’t always at the max levels of cool and adorable, but the change in style was unexpectedly nice. Maybe she would have to wear her hair like that more often. 

     [🎼] “Mmm, it looks good, Future-san!” She grinned, tilting her head to either side to get a better look at the bow’s placement. “I knew ya could handle the job! Thanks!” 

Future Rin’s expression fell slightly at the mention of her 'other self’... she had to remind herself that it was only in her time that he was dead and gone, and back in this time, he was still around - probably in multiple places at once, like the other Rins.

Day 1626 - 12 June 2015

CHEEPCHEEP

for a twitter meme thing 

    ”Ah okay okay !  “

“... by the way - the first race is starting in three seconds.”

Rin chuckled softly, getting the timing for the race-start speed boost. Off Rosalina flew, like a shooting star.

The elder Rin flexed her fingers and teased her younger’s hair with the tips for a moment.

“... mm-hm, mm-hm. That would work. So first... take the ribbon from here, and move it back... gather up all of this hair, make it... hmm... maybe 50% longer? ... switch around the hairpins in the front and... there!”

Ran smiled and picked up a nearby mirror, holding it in front of her younger self. “How does it look, Rin-chan?”

      It was true that Allen could take on many various forms to his liking, even though he had specific ones that he used more than others, including his current one. He even tended to have a recognizable aura about him, in some cases; then again, it was usually intentional to draw humans out of their comfort zone just to make his search easier. Currently, though, Allen wasn’t even pushing forth any sort of alluring properties, so her confusion wasn’t his own doing. 

      What a troublesome situation indeed.

     [★] “I fear you have me confused for another, young miss. We haven’t met as far as I am aware.” The demon frowned as he sat beside the young woman, gazing at her with concern filling his features. “Perhaps this brother of yours and I look alike?”

Rin looked crestfallen, and slumped even more deeply into the bench. Not insane... just a bad case of mistaken identity.

“He was my twin... I lost him years ago,” she said forlornly. “You don’t know... how hard it is to lose a piece of yourself like that. I always feared I would follow him.”

She pauses again, grimacing.

     [🎼] “Oi, Future-san…,” She’s not entirely sure if this model will find it offensive or not to refer to her as her image rather than the name they shared – Rin – but calling her and the others all the same thing just confused Rin to no end. Pleasantries were an afterthought, though; this was a matter of extreme urgency that only someone with such flowing, golden locks could tackle!

Not so this doppleganger of hers, who seemed to insist on defining her by her module. She didn’t mind, really; it was a lot better than being called ‘saviour’.

     There were the occasional nights where, when left with nothing better to do, the dream demon felt himself fall into a foul mood. He had yet to find the cause of his onsets of melancholy, but on this particular night, a small glance at the chest at the foot of his bed locked tight with a golden lock and chains made him feel a since of hunger and emptiness unlike any other. Allen tried to reason with himself that taking a single dream from his stores wouldn’t bring too much harm to his overall progress – at this rate, he would be at the required level of dreams within a few months, and one more would only take an extra. She wasn’t going anywhere, certainly…

     No… no, it wouldn’t do. If he desired something to fill his stomach, he’d have to find another way. 

     With a snap of his fingers he entered a haze of violet smoke and reappeared in the middle of a park, the moon casting a shadow over his figure to suit his mood. It had been a long time since he’d done something akin to a “hit and run” with a contract, but he figured it wouldn’t hurt to get back into the practice. It wouldn’t be reasonable to starve entirely and end up losing all of his strength before the finale. 

     He walked some ways into the park before coming upon a bench occupied by one lone individual – a young woman with flowing blond hair that draped over his shoulders and nearly took up the entirety of her seat. Allen decided to skip stalking his prey for now; he had so little patience that delaying the inevitable would just be a hassle. 

Ever since coming to the past, she had felt a growing sense of urgency. She had to do something to prevent the coming storm... but what? And how? Her memories of the future, and her mission, were so jumbled up that she couldn’t bear to think about it for too long.

Now here she was, sitting alone on a park bench, with the temperature dropping, and she felt for all the world like she’d already missed something important. Like a crucial date had just passed without the required action on her part... yet she couldn’t recall any details. It was maddening. A part of her rebelled against every task she’d been given, and screamed out, I AM DONE. I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS ANY MORE. TAKE THIS DESTINY AWAY FROM ME.

A soft, young voice, most likely masculine, spoke to her from her shoulder; she turned to face the speaker...

“Sure, I don’t see why n-”

Her voice froze in her throat as she stared at the speaker; her lips moved several times with no sound emerging, before her voice finally squeaked out, two octaves too high in abject shock. Rin feared she had gone insane at last.