2022-08-06 - A Partnership Forged in Moonlight

Title: A Partnership Forged in Moonlight
Summary: Kyouka processes the events of the day and gets to know Strike Wolf better.
Who: Kyouka Okazaki
Where: A forest near Kyouka's house
OOC - IC Date: 2022-08-06 - 2016-01-02

The light fall of snow crunched softly beneath Kyouka's boots as she slowly trekked through the woods. Wintertime meant that the sun had already set, but the moon was full and bright overhead, so she could see clearly. Her breath made little puffs of fog hang momentarily in the air, and despite being bundled up she could still feel the bite of the cold nipping lightly at her body.

It was a good feeling. It let her know that she was alive, that the world still existed, and that she was physically present within it.

She needed that right about now.

The events of the afternoon still played vividly in her mind, both impossibly, terrifyingly real, but also so strange and fantastical that she almost couldn't believe it. And she might still not, if it weren't for the new presence nestled snugly on her right wrist.

Strike Wolf, some sort of… being? Creature? She wasn't entirely sure. Currently he was in the form of a small, five-sided gem on a bracelet around her wrist. The bracelet fit so snugly around her wrist that she sometimes forgot it was even there. He hadn't said a single word since their meeting that afternoon, but yet there had been a sense of him, laying dormant in the back of her mind, ready to spring into life at a moment's notice.

She hadn't intended to ignore him, but the rest of the evening she had been so busy with rushing to the store, getting home, cooking dinner, doing homework, playing with her dog… well, it was easier then to be in the moment, to just relax and let the mundanity immerse her. To let all of the strange happenings just… sit quietly out of mind for a moment.

Not like before, though. Never again like before. Not the way that things had just tried to be swallowed up by inattentiveness, how the world itself had seemed to try and convince her that everything was fine, and to forget, to truly forget everything she had seen. That particular form of forgetfulness had forever been banished from her mind. She was sure of that, though she couldn't have given a reason as to how she knew. But she had crossed a bridge into a strange new world now, and there was no turning back.

No, this was just putting everything aside in a box. She could see the box, peer inside the box, and turn her vision away from the box without worrying that it would mysteriously vanish from her mind while she paid attention to other things. But the dishes were cleaned, her homework was completed and packed away in her backpack, and Wolfy was snoozing comfortably on the warm blankets of her bed. So now was the time to open the box back up.

She'd let her mother know she was taking a walk; all her mother had said was to take a scarf, and gave a gentle reminder that tonight was a school night. (Kyouka had thanked her for the reminder and meant it. This type of structure and routine was still taking some getting used to after a lifetime spent without it.)

Cresting over the top of a small hill, Kyouka plopped herself on the ground, her back to a tree for support. From up here she could see everything around her. It was, admittedly, a nice view, and would have been worth it just for that alone, but it also meant that she could safeguard her privacy, which was far more valuable to her at the moment.

She slipped the bracelet off of her wrist and held it in her lap, looking down at Strike Wolf. "Hey, Strike Wolf, are you there?"

<Affirmative.>

Kyouka let out a small sigh of relief. "Sorry for ignoring you. I just got busy with everything else, and…"

She wasn't sure how to explain the complicated mess of feelings in her thoughts. She had been busy, yes, but there was more than that. She didn't want to have a conversation where her mother could overhear, would wonder about how stressed out her daughter was, or to pry into things she wasn't ready to talk about.

Kyouka hadn't mentioned anything to her mother about the incident. Largely because she wasn't sure she'd believe it, not without some concrete evidence, and providing that evidence… What if showing her pulled the veil from her eyes the way it had for her? Deep down at the core of her being, where the core of the spark of the embers that burned in her chest lived, she detested lies. She considered them a form of cruelty, and to willingly blind someone from such a large part of the world seemed so dangerous, the rationale for such a thing was almost incomprehensible to her.

Almost.

Though she had put the events of the day away in a box, it hadn't been sealed up tight. The lid kept slipping loose, offering glimpses of its contents and flashes of what had occurred for her mind to think about. She had been too fired up at the time to ponder it, but in the quiet spaces between tasks she could remember the fear. Deep, world-ending dread that made ice cold venom run through her veins, turned her stomach into a vast ocean of cold, clammy lead, and made her heart shake with skittery palpitations even now.

She forced herself to slow her breathing down.

She wasn't ready to inflict any of that on her mom. So as much as it galled her, as much as 'it's for her own good' rang hollow in her ears even as she'd thought it over and over again that night, no matter how much it ran counter to every fiber of her own being… she'd hidden the truth of that afternoon from her mother. She'd lied. By omission, to be sure, but a lie nonetheless.

Kyouka realized she hadn't finished her apology, so caught up in her thoughts she'd been. She shook herself from those thoughts, and took a long, slow deep breath. The cold winter air filled her lungs, invigorated her, brought her into the here and now, and when she exhaled, she sent her tensions with it.

Feeling much more centered than a moment ago, she said, "So, I just wanted to apologize. I've been wanting to talk to you all night, it just didn't seem like the right time or place until now."

It seemed to take Strike Wolf a moment to formulate his reply. <No apology required.>

Kyouka smiled softly at that. "Thank you, I appreciate it. So… I know your name is Strike Wolf, but… I don't know that much about you. Is it okay if I ask what you are?"

<I am a fully-autonomous user-assist intelligent device.>

She contemplated that for a moment. "Intelligent device… so… like… a machine of some kind, or… maybe like a computer?"

<Affirmative.>

Kyouka lifted Strike Wolf up to examine it better. "But a computer that does magic… I know I'm not the most technically savvy person out there, but you're way more advanced than anything I've ever heard about… So… you said fully-autonomous, and intelligent, right? So… you can think?"

Strike Wolf emitted a positive-sounding chime. <Affirmative.>

"Do… you have feelings? Emotions?"

The device was silent for a moment as it processed the request. <… Please restate query.>

"Oh, um…" Kyouka was stumped. She had been exposed to a number of philosophies over the years, but nothing had quite prepared her for discussing sentience with a talking magic computer. "How about this. Do you have agency? Can you choose things for yourself?"

<Affirmative.>

She smiled softly. "That's good to hear, but I guess I knew the answer to that one already. You chose me, but you didn't choose that guy earlier today, huh?"

<Affirmative.>

"So… why were you with that guy, anyway? Did you belong to him?" She doubted that was the case, and sincerely hoped that wasn't–while she was firmly convinced she had rescued Strike Wolf, she wasn't entirely certain that would hold up in whatever jurisdiction might cover these kinds of matters. Especially not when Strike Wolf described himself as a 'device' to begin with.

<Data not available.>

Kyouka frowned at that. "Is it possible he stole you?"

<Data not available.>

Kyouka's frown deepened. "Okay, but…" Maybe a different line of questioning. "What happened right before I found you?"

This time it took Strike Wolf several long moments of silence before he replied, <Data not available.>

A frustrated grunt escaped Kyouka's lips as she rested her head back against the tree trunk. "Okay, then… What's the first thing you remember happening today?"

<Device activation.>

Kyouka perked up, and looked down at the device sitting in her lap. "Activation? Do you mean like… being turned on?"

<Affirmative.>

"Okay, that's something. Can you tell me what that was like?"

Strike Wolf emitted a low tone that Kyouka took to mean it was processing the request. "Device activation completed with 6,354 errors, 39,453 warnings, and 17,259 informational messages. First error message–"

"Whoa whoa whoa, hold on, pause, uh, suspend output?"

The device's voice stopped, but part of an error message was still displayed on his surface.

Kyoua let out a sigh of relief. "Sorry, Strike Wolf, I didn't mean to interrupt, I just don't think either of us have that kind of time. Let's try… Okay, can you categorize all of these error messages and warnings and stuff?"

Strike Wolf answered right away. <Affirmative.>

"Good. Can you do that, and then… sort them with the largest categories first? And tell me the first few?"

<Processing.> A low pulsing sound played as Strike Wolf worked on the request, followed by a chime. <Processing complete. Device components not registered. Device programming incomplete. Informational databases not provided. Security threats detected.>

Kyouka drew in a sharp breath. "You… you weren't finished being built, were you?"

<Affirmative.>

Off in the distance, a bird let out a series of chirps. In a different direction were the hushed babblings of a tiny creek. Kyouka laid her head back against the tree again to listen to the sounds of the forest. She could feel herself already getting angry at the implications she knew were coming, but let the serenity of the moment sooth her nerves. This wasn't the time for brash, bold action. It was a time for thoughtfulness.

"Okay, you were definitely stolen, then. That guy didn't seem like he had the kind of patience to bother building anything. And if he was your creator, he should have understood you way better than he did." That thought made her pause. "Strike Wolf, do you know who created you?"

<Data not available.>

"Well, so much for that idea. Um… Oh! Where was your device activation?"

<Transmitting coordinates.>

And those were the coordinates of where she found him to begin with. Well, that didn't clarify matters any. Kyouka could just imagine that the mage had snagged his stolen prize and darted off to cause some havoc with it.

"Well, there can't be too many people with the skills to build something like you, right? Only… I have no idea where I'd even start asking those kinds of questions." She stared up at the clear night sky, thinking in silence. "Strike Wolf? Do you want to go back to whoever made you?"

<Affirmative.>

Kyouka nodded. "Alright then, that's what we'll do. Just one thing though…"

She held Strike Wolf up to look it in the… Well, it didn't have eyes. Display? Interface? "Earlier you said that my 'user parameters' were acceptable, and just now you called yourself a 'user assist' device. That doesn't sit right with me. You might be some kind of device, or machine, or computer, but… You can think. You can choose things. You asked for help earlier. And I didn't answer your call for help because I wanted to use you. I answered because I thought there was a person who needed to be helped."

Kyouka smiled softly, "And even knowing what you are, I still think of you as a person. One I still want to help. And you chose me, even if you had a set of parameters that helped you make that choice. And with your powers I was able to drive that guy off, so you helped me too, you know?"

"I guess what I'm getting at is… I can't think of you as just, some tool that I'm using, or a weapon. We're both helping each other out, so… that makes us partners. At least, that's how I see it. Would that be okay with you?"

There was a long pause. Strike Wolf's inner light dimmed, but was flickering softly as if it were extremely active somewhere deep inside. <Please elaborate.>

"How can I put this… If we're partners, then… we depend on each other. I'll be asking for your help, because there's things that I can't do without you, but I want you to ask me for help with all the things that you can't do by yourself. We'll make each other better. How's that?"

<Parametters acceptable.>

Kyouka grinned and slipped Strike Wolf back onto her wrist. "Good! I'm glad that's settled then." She stood back up and brushed the snow off her pants. "I'm not sure yet how we'll find your creator, but…. We can start working on that tomorrow, okay?"

Strike Wolf let out a pleasant chime. <Affirmative.>

"Oh! I almost forgot." Kyouka stopped midstep, and then brought the bracelet with Strike Wolf up in front of her, giving it a light bow. "Things were so hectic earlier I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Kyouka Okazai, and I'm looking forward to being your partner, Strike Wolf. Pleased to meet you."

<Likewise.>

Kyouka smiled and nodded, "Good!" The sound of her bootsteps faded into the stillness of the night as she made her way back home.