#eo open

A head of almost heavenly blonde hair smiling down at her exhausted form, with gentle hands caressing her, assuring her that everything was okay, and that she remembered everything that Minako had done for the world - and for her - before the world rejected her. 

And now she was here, with little more than a hockey stick at her disposal. She couldn’t even feel any Personas in her head - not even Eurydice, the Persona she’d stuck with through thick and thin. Although, she did feel a familiar warmth course through her body - the same warmth that she always felt when Eurydice cast one of her Agi spells. This was one hell of a long shot and she knew it, but...

Hand extended, she called out the spell’s name, hoping that it wasn’t a long shot.

“Agi!”

With that one simple word, a pillar of flames burst up from the ground before her, before dissipating just as quickly as they appeared. Okay, well that certainly cleared the reason why she had that feeling up, but why... 

It was then that her gaze directed upwards at what could only be described as a game HUD above her head, showing a timer ticking down from 10. Weird, but not entirely unpleasant - after all, Minako always did love herself a good video game. Seemed like this was some kind of MMO, though... Really, those were always more Junpei’s forte; Minako always liked fighting games and action games better. 

She pushes herself up to stand on her feet, brushing herself off slightly. Her attempts to start looking around are soon interrupted by a pop-up doing just as its name implies.

"MEEEOOOOOWWWWRRRR!”

She leaps back a couple of steps, defensive, although the box just follows her. An odd man who apparently started talking to her at some point about something she totally doesn’t understand isn’t really helping.

Armor shop? Quest board? “Is this some sorta...game?” She tilts her head a bit and her words come out timidly as she leaves her defensive stance. “But where is everyone?”

Not being totally unfamiliar with technology, she manages to get the box out of the way. In the meantime, they’ve ended up in some meadow and the weird guy says something about full-whatever and...”Huh!? What!?"

That weird guy got even weirder. That was totally confusing...She grumbles a little as she stands there, unsatisfied.

So it looks like she has some HP and MP bar...thingies...like, some controls of some sort. Looking down she also seems to have a pair of claws with her, and still seems able to use one of her Special Arts...

Sure, whatever though, he could deal with this. He didn't quite remember signing up for this game, but he was here, so he'd make the most of it and hell, this virtual immersion shit would probably be good for letting out excess anger, yeah?

Hell yeah, he's so pumped for this now!

....

Although it'd be a bit better if his weapon wasn't a baby chair of things "When I find the fucker with the stupid sense of humor I'm gonna-" grabbing the chair by the back of the seat he started to march forward, grumbling the rest under his breath.

Departure from Fuyuki had unfolded in the same golden sheen as ten years prior; her conclusion as a participant of two wars bathed in holy radiance which would soon fade into nothing.

The occurrence which took place, such a strange phenomenon it was, had her lost for words, as much as vital senses throughout the rocky transition. Tastes, sights and sounds all in great discomfort at one point or another, none of which she possessed the power to resolve by her own power.

No easier was the procedure afterwards; explanations of which were bewildering at first, however the natural ability of a Servant to adapt to their environment and era, that surely would suffice in grasping the information disclosed.

She could fight, so it seemed she must. And with the blade between her hands, not Excalibur she wielded, had it been pilfered by the mastermind who had brought her to the plane?

                                   A sound...                                              Someone approaching... an ally? Enemy? Or perhaps... ?

One heel turned, permitting her body to sway in order to confront the additional presence, stern and unyielding in both gaze and stance.

To utter but a single inquiry.

“I ask...

In one moment, he had drifted off into a dreamless slumber alongside Jack after a long day of training.

And in the next, he had awoken in a simulated environment, surrounded by numbers, with that canned voice echoing all around him.

And then after, an entirely different landscape, similar yet unlike the Dragon World, had spread out all around him. His eyes smarted at the abrupt brightness of it all--like someone had taken a candid photo of him the moment he turned and the camera flashed right into his eyes. (That had happened on several occasions, but that was a different story.)

"Jack?”

He called out to his Buddy, tried to find the mental link the two of them had,and found nothing. His heart pounded as the momentary panic shot through him like lightning. Tasuku was completely and utterly lost. And on top of the disorientation that this turn of events gave him, there was a rather distracting display hovering in front of his face, as if he were staring right at a screen.

Wait, that voice earlier...said something about a tutorial... And full-immersion tech? So this isn’t even real, is it?

Am I inside a game?

It honestly wasn’t the strangest thing that had happened to Tasuku.

So these are like menus... There must be some other functions somewhere--

Though as he began walking, he was so transfixed with the display that he lost sight of his surroundings. And before he knew it, he had walked right into a tree.

“Ow...!”

That had hurt. Completely caught off guard, Tasuku fell onto his rear, blinking and dazed. Right... Maybe it would be better to get indoors before trying to figure anything out.

“How do I turn this thing o--wh-whooaa...!”

...Apparently, Tasuku didn’t learn very well from his mistakes. Upon getting up, he had continued walking, his eyes fixed on the “screen”, and in his distraction, had missed a downward incline in the environment, losing his footing and tumbling down a small hill and right into a hedge.

...And now he was stuck, arms and legs flailing as he tried to free himself from the leaves and twigs.

“Ack...!”

They were words muttered quietly and under his breath as he studied the digital display in front of him, and his eyes narrowed when they settled upon the quest log. “[quest name]WELCOME, FRESH MEAT”... What were these people trying to pull? They’d dumped him in what looked like some unfinished virtual reality game...thing, without any explanation as to how or why he was there, and now they expected him to accept their stupid quests and play along? 

“......”

... Tch. He said that, but...then again, did he have any real choice in the matter? The thought of cooperating with the “masterminds” here was frustrating at best, but it wasn’t as if he had the first clue as to how to log out...and, well, in all honesty, it wasn’t as if he had anything better to do outside, or anyplace to go. 

And besides that...--

A javelin materialized in Rouga’s hand as he closed the HUD, and he turned, facing the source of the grunts and snorts head-on. An approaching mob, huh...? The quest overview had mentioned them appearing in the Streets...

“Hey, you.” Along with the mob, he could see a person--another player, by the look of it--appear in his peripheral vision, though he didn’t spare them so much as a glance; his eyes remained firmly on the monsters in front of him. “Don’t get in my way.”

Even with these boxes of script flooding his vision, asking questions that only made a minimum amount of sense and barely scraped the mark in terms of legibility, he'd managed to muddle through and he was fairly sure he was getting the most basic gist. A game, was it? Sure, he'd bite. Motochika did love a good gamble now and then.

It also presented him with a hearty challenge, he thought, to do what he'd always done best. Rebuild, improve and conquer. While being left with a starkly blank slate left him with mixed feelings, being bereft of both his men and his sea, it was a mountain that he would scale with relish. It would be a proud accomplishment once he'd reached those lofty heights.

But first things first-- this toy fishing hook he'd be given had to go.

"Hoy, you there! Take me to the nearest smithy, if you've a mind."