#virtuveve

she  would  have  embers  be  candlelit,  free of all but few staff & security  [a minor personal detail that follows if oda is otherwise indisposed] .  small precautions,  calculated moves with every body counted as to not alert those of higher position that the kiji faction was making its move,  like shadows dancing across a moonlit window .  she would have her bodyguard at her side,  one more certainty in her arsenal but would he not have fallen in battle,  she would not entertain an alliance with this mercenary━  this V,  who had proven themselves quite an asset to hold,  an unknown variable that bared witness to her father’s final moments when she could not attend,  who made of the arasaka name a fool time & time again .  was it such a surprise what ghost haunted in their wake ?

all that desperation,  it was funny,  what it made of man .  what became of takemura after he had been disgraced from his post,  searching through the groves of night city for any path that could lead him back home .  she would not allow V these honours if not for his trust,  his assurance that V was a rarity among the thieves that litter the streets .  this locale,  drowned in soft light high above the smog of the aimless lives below,  the calming melancholia of a melody she learned to play in muted,  desperate patience back in her youth,  waiting for her father to come home .  in a way,  she is still awaiting his return,  now a woman on whom falls the duty to restore order to everything saburo arasaka had built .  every note a perfect,  crotchet beat that she need not think to perform,  golden fingers trained & decades long muscle memory shouldering the burden of a song she had played far too many times .

"Heyy, V. How's the high life?" He raises his chin, puts on that old, easy grin. It feels different, somehow. “Thought I’d check in,” he says. “See life on the other side.”

Feelings stew. Relief and worry. The spark that comes with seeing an old friend. The frustration that comes from having not.

It'll be good for you, Misty’s voice in his memory, the image of her rotating a lucky cat on her desk. The sage she was burning that day singed his nostrils. The chakra in you --- it’s bad, Viktor. You need to cleanse. Whatever that meant. So he'd waited an eternity and more expecting a familiar shadow to darken the doorway to his clinic… Listened to the phone ring at the impossible hours of the night... The sound of an answering machine.

Now he’s here at the Afterlife, past closing.

Vik doesn’t belong, and the black of his glasses hides his eyes. "Y’know --- Figured you’d lost your way ‘round town,” he says, then. 

the  legacy  he  speaks  of  is  one  of  death.  it follows her like an angry corvidae. the sins of militech crawl down her back, run alongside nanobots that keep her augments from rejecting. the very same augments she untethered from the wiry grip of the server she once commanded. what is the legacy? the scars that haunt her or the dreamy cyberspace reverie? watching the missions through server backlogs, the violence she helps facilitate. the nightmares she helps create. she’s no better, maybe not a corpo-rat anymore, but definitely not better.

@virtuveve​

Revenant was quite the feat of TECHNOLOGY - but he had never been very technologically savvy. He had only ever learned enough about computers to be able to use them, only ever learned enough about his own mechanical bodies to make minor repairs, or talk more experienced hands through where his more important bits and pieces were.

He had never been the hacking or engineering type.

But over the past few decades, he had come to be very familiar with Hammond’s buildings and databases and their SECURITY for both. He knew where they liked to put things. What they liked to name things. Including the parts of their past they swept under the rug. The many SKELETONS in their closet. And accessing all that information had gotten easier, over the years; torture enough little worker bees, and he got a good idea about the inner workings of the HIVE.

there is an undercurrent of pride that runs in kerry’s expression as he looks down at his tank top and sweeps his hands across its front. it bears embroidered flowers, ones kerry himself had designed and done himself, with a little help. the flowers mimic those of his tattoos, and they aren’t perfect but they don’t need to be. he’s proud either way.

v could tell it’s homemade, custom, and though kerry isn’t sure if that’s good or not, he supposes it doesn’t matter. 

her frame is redshifted, faint & glitched ; a halo of light cradling her head at the right ( coincidental ) angle.  in the wake of another presence, the FIGURE straightens.  they’ve waited the entire existences. he, she.  every cosmic being to have ever existed, for this pivotal moment.  & they also have not.  because they don’t exist.  organic things simply can’t thrive here.

❛ ——𝐕 always walks toward their d̶̡̛̯̥̯̤̣̟̎ȩ̴̡̟̱̞̗̝̙̤͖̤̣́̋̔͂̊̈́̉̚͝ͅa̸̡̛̝̹͙̻̼̟̼̖͈̬̯͙̿͂̀͗̈́̍̊̒́̌̕̕͝ẗ̷͍̊̐͒̔̉̍̑̈́̍͠h̷̦̹͕̭̞͇̞̫̙̳̳̫̩̖̲̒, ❜ a voice, overlapped with many different tones, from normal, feminine range, to a thrumming deep bass.  it echoes ACROSS their entire world.  if he blinks, she appears to be elsewhere, descending a staircase from the upper landing toward him. 

❛ you, i’ve yet to meet. ❜

@virtuveve

kerry’s mouth feels dry as he swallows the urge to posture defensively, all stiff shoulders and denials. it’s an assessment he hadn’t expected from v, and one that he doesn’t know how to respond to. 

in lieu of all else, he stares in frozen surprise, unsure what to say. 

where did that come from? he thinks, what do you mean? he wants to ask, i do. he wants to lie. he doesn’t say any of that, though. with seven simple words, v has him backed into a corner he hadn’t expected to find himself in.

“i don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.” kerry finally manages as he looks away. he clenches his jaw and bites his tongue to stop from saying anything else, though he can feel the beginnings of reflexive denial building behind his locked teeth.