Happy Birthday, Dork | Backdated to August 31

[crouching_sin]

Sender: Naoya
To: Everyone
Subject: Birthday boy

My cousin, who recently arrived, has a birthday today. Wishing him a happy birthday is encouraged.

He's 18 now after all. In many places that makes you an adult, Kazuya.

Yes, I know you can see me writing this.

Comments

[crouching_sin]

Yes, yes.

[He folds his arms again and watches the other two intently.]

Are you quite finished?

[whatsamada]

I'm finished whenever Kazuya-san is.

[Because why was he here again? Who knows but, despite what he says, he knows not to leave his friend alone. Still, he looks at the both of him as he's unsure what to do.]

[belheir]

I'm done.

[ For now. There's always later, when conpany is gone. Maybe he'll make a paper airplane out of one of his loose notes later. ]

Oh, Amada-san, didn't you wanna ask him about the COMPs before?

[ He did promise an introduction... though it's a little late for a proper one. Oops.]

[crouching_sin]

Oh?

[A special interest has been unlocked. He sits up a bit straighter and nods.]

I can answer questions. Either the modified kind or the regular kind.

[whatsamada]

Well...

[He said with a mumble or two. There were a lot of things he wanted to ask but he'll have to take this one at a time.]

I'm curious, how were you able to get them? Since they're used to summon demons, you must have gotten them from someone special right?

[belheir]

He's the one who programmed the demon summoning app, actually.

[Pipes up the helpful peanut gallery.]

Though I wouldn't actually be surprised if he managed to rebuild a COMP and all it's functions from the ground up either.

[crouching_sin]

He's right. On both counts - I can put together a COMP from its component parts as well. But my main focus was the demon summoning application. That one I wrote from scratch.

[He didn't go to a fancy tech school for nothing. He had the magic part, it was the coding part he needed.]

[whatsamada]

Then how are you able to do it? Because back in my world, my leader had to trick himself into thinking he was in danger to summon a couple of demons back home.

[Which....he'll just keep silent on that as he wonders what the other two would say.]

[belheir]

[ This he also knows, though he's definitely less clear on it. Something common primal tongue, something a song.

And... that's about it, really. Though he does look at Ken with raised eyebrows. That explains the gun, then.]

[crouching_sin]

Ah. A complicated question. Essentially... I have to cast a spell in the pre-Babel language. Which is, as you might imagine, not exactly easy. I found a singer capable of doing it, but to explain the technical details is... probably more into the weeds than you'd want. Suffice it to say that I figured out how to weave a spell into code and power it with emotions from the internet. The coding itself forms a ritual circle that powers it.

fitting it all into the COMP's software was tricky, but with a few shortcuts I managed it.

[Like having the summoner fight their first demon on their own. Not in the original plan, but it worked.]

[whatsamada]

[And all Ken could do was stare for a moment. There were a lot of technical language that he doesn't understand nor could he really comprehend how one could use the internet to summon a demon but....]

...It makes me wonder what kind of world you are from if you're allowed to do that. It seems like a really powerful way to summon the unconscious onto the internet somehow.

[belheir]

I don't think it has anything to do with summoning the unconcious onto the internet. It's more emotions are pulled from the internet to summon the demons.

[ Since strong emotions summon demons, after all. ]

You need strong emotions to summon demons, so using all of the emotions already present on the internet to feed them makes that easier.

[crouching_sin]

Kazuya has the right of it. Demons feed on energy made from emotions, and you can use that to entice them to cross between worlds.

To summon one literally onto the internet is an interesting concept, but I knew that phones and internet would be cut off at the time so that idea went nowhere.

[Yes, he did think about that one.]

[whatsamada]

I suppose that is true and especially when one can hide behind the internet. You can say whatever you want with no real consequences either...

[And yet, it still blows his mind to know that such a thing was possible.]

To think that we need to trick ourselves into summoning Personas based on how we feel at that moment compared to how you can just so it so simply with a device.

[belheir]

Yeah, I can definitely see how that'd be easier, but... I don't think your persona is the same as a demon, at least? Demons have more agency. At least from what I saw.

[ He pauses and makes a face. ]

And some of them are real characters, besides.

[crouching_sin]

They definitely are. I don't quite known what your 'Persona' is -

[He'd require more study and he's relatively certain that an offer of such is not going to go over well.]

- but demons do have quite a lot of agency. They can't harm their pact partners, but they can do all sorts of things within the confines of a pact. The ones I designed are relatively strict, where the demon can't do anything physically or mentally to harm their summoners.

[Emotionally is free game though.]

[whatsamada]

My Persona is an extension of myself. I guess you can say it's a part of my soul and it allows me to protect myself in some way?

[Because how does one explain that Person was an experiment gone wrong based on a multimillionaire's time machine?]

...But it makes me wonder if Personas could have the ability to turn into demons too should they ever have some kind of agency.

[...Or maybe he was overthinking this?]

[belheir]

Well... That might be possible? [Kazuya gives a thoughtful hum. If it had been as easy ("easy") as giving up his humanity to become a demon...]

Though something would probably be pretty wrong if your soul turned on you...

[crouching_sin]

It would be. And I suppose it depends - demons are largely born of human belief. People believe in vampires, so there's vampiric demons. Zombies, so there's zombie-like demons. I don't think one person's belief is enough to make a demon, but who knows? Stranger things have happened.

[He looks at Kazuya at that. Stranger things indeed...]

[whatsamada]

[Which made Ken raise an eyebrow or two.]

...Then I suppose you better watch out. Let's hope that my Persona won't turn into a demon one day.

[Which he highly doubts but was he being serious or not? That was up to them to decide!]

[belheir]

[He gives A Look at Naoya. Don't look at him like that!! He already knows! He's the stranger thing that happened!!!]

If that happens I'll just have to beat it into submission.

[He shrugs.]

[crouching_sin]

I have no doubt that he could. He's quite strong. And he's managed to tame some pretty powerful demons.

[Or rather, all of them. Still!]

Though if it does, I'm sure there are plenty of people around here willing to capture it.

[whatsamada]

[And then there was a pause. And a longer pause. And an even longer pause....!]

Which makes me a little worried how you'll manage to fight me should the day arrive.

[belheir]

I think I'd manage just fine.

[He says, with a completely straight face.]

Naoya too, probably.

[crouching_sin]

Heh, probably. But let's try to avoid that happening. You seem fine, and I don't see any reason to fight you right now.

[What a fine young man Ken is. So far.]