Bleach: Online World is a fun and exciting way to exercise your creativity and escape into a world you help build! It is an expansive roleplay experience depicting the entire Bleach Universe, but this time we control what happens. This is a great place to meet new people, make friends, and come to have fun and relax for a few hours as you lose yourself in the mind of a character that you design!
Here, you decide your own destiny as you forge your way through Soul Society as a Shinigami, or through Hueco Mundo as a Hollow. Travel the world as a human, or corrupt it as a Bount. Hunt your prey and escape your enemies as a Quincy, or put on your mask and roar as a Vizard. Whichever path you choose, your role in this expansive, alternate Bleach universe is up to you! There are no canon characters to deter or impede you, and everyone can help each other build their story! So what are you waiting for? Hop on in, and get started!
Post by Kazura Uzaki on Feb 4, 2018 14:00:58 GMT -5
Training for TTP
Kazura was still getting used to the new relocation of his office as proposed by the security advice from Zeich. Rather than staying up in the penthouse, he had been relocated to a corner office in the middle of the building, though for now he was rarely in said office. He had been busy in his laboratories underneath the building, creating new spiritual technology to be used in the fight to help save humanity. He had already been visited by Luke and Asmoskon who had helped him in various ways to create new inventions, but he craved more. His mind couldn't rest, couldn't sit still with all of the ideas running through it. He needed an outlet for his creativity, and building things was what put him at ease. So, on a chilly Saturday, Kazura was still at the office in one of the basement labs.
It wasn't long before he desired assistance and a friendly target to bounce ideas off of. Asmos had been great for that, and had pushed him to create bigger and better things. Who else, in Kazura's company this time, could be such an inspiration and assistance for the fullbringer? He thought over his list of employees and settled on the one who was excited to show him new things that she had come up with and developed. A rising engineering student who would understand the mechanics of inventing and was strong enough to be able to test Kazura's new ideas or be a test subject against them. His mind settled on inviting Irina Davayte to his lab to see what she could offer him.
If you're looking for some extra work, meet me in the lower lab on basement floor D.
Last Edit: Jun 16, 2018 9:42:21 GMT -5 by Kazura Uzaki
Post by Irina Davayte on Feb 4, 2018 17:02:00 GMT -5
Training for CTP
Irina was startled by her kitten Beastie jumping on her chest, staring at her as it purred, jolting Irina awake from her nap. She nudged the cat aside, and picked her book back up from her lap, and resumed working math problems on her couch. Perhaps that cat was really helpful for something after all. Although it was Saturday and she had no specific plans, Irina had a lot of studying to do, and she hoped to squeeze in a workout later. She had a computer programming exam coming up, and a differential equations exam as well. This semester was particularly heavy on math, although she had a material sciences lab twice weekly. Irina loved math, and was enjoying the time to relax by focusing on these methodical subjects, rather than more subjective areas of study. She scratched away at her notebook with her pencil, with her textbook in her lap. Beastie purred next to her, and she decided that she had accepted her new roommate, who helped keep her home more lively, just a sliver of the chaos that she had grown up around, with two brothers.
Irina's phone buzzed with a text from Kazura. Although she had already planned out her day, she replied that she would be there in ten minutes. She figured that, while she could reschedule her studying, she wanted to be involved with whatever Kazura was planning. Her hourly work at UE mostly comprised of data analysis for Hollow attacks, which she enjoyed, but she had also been tasked with subduing the Hollows directly, and her phone sent her alerts when there were Hollows in her area. She was relieved to see that there was nothing of the sort in the area where Kazura had called her to. It wasn't that she shied away from a good fight, but she hated to see innocents hurt when she wasn't fast enough to arrive or strong enough to help them. She hoped that Kazura had some training in mind, but wasn't sure why this would take place in a lab. This was okay though; Irina loved to work in a lab almost as much as she loved math. She put on her tennis shoes and jogged over, arriving eight minutes after she responded.
Last Edit: Feb 17, 2018 23:12:00 GMT -5 by Irina Davayte
Post by Kazura Uzaki on Feb 4, 2018 17:31:05 GMT -5
Irina responded quickly, saying that she'd be there in ten minutes. This pleased the inventor, as not only was she going to join him, but she bothered to respond that she was coming and said she'd arrive in a timely fashion. He hurried to prepare his lab for the extra help. A bench was cleared of blueprints and random scrap materials to make enough space for Irina to work on, since Kazura mostly worked in the air using his Fullbring's telekinetic abilities. Today he wanted to focus on adapting the reiatsu core that Asmoskon had invented to work on the previous equipments that he had made. So he laid out one of his MKIV Gauntlets, MKIII suits, a MKII Laser Bow, and an Omni-Watch onto the table that he had cleared off.
When Irina arrived, two minutes early, Kazura would greet her at the elevator door. "Come in, come in. Let me show you what I've been working on lately." Like a kid in a candy store, Kazura moved over to the table that he had laid out equipment onto. "First, I'd like your opinion on our already existing equipment. Get armored up with these items that I've laid out and come over to the dojo in the other room. I'll show you the capabilities of the items if you're not already familiar with them and then we can move on from there." When Irina was suited up with the armored suit, the gauntlets, the laser bow, and the smart watch, Kazura would be in the other room (not watching her suit up).
When she emerged, Kazura gave her the full tour of the equipment. "I'll start with the suit that you're wearing. It can withstand decent physical force before you even begin to feel the impact of it. An olympic boxer wouldn't be able to make you feel any impact. Here, like so." Without warning, Kazura disappeared with a flash of Bringer Light and reappeared in midair, sending a flying kick at Irina's protected chest. His foot would collide, if she let him, and may push her back a little, but she wouldn't feel any of the impact. Kazura wasn't strong enough to do so. "And take a look at the chest cavity where there is a small generator inside. If you imbue your spiritual energy into that generator, it will harden the suit even farther, resisting attack from a Hollow's bite or a Shinigami's blade."
Moving on in his explanation of items, he gestured to the gauntlets. "Those gauntlets are the fourth of their kind. See the metal tips on the fingers? Will them to activate and plasma claws will emerge that can cut through even metal, with enough time. And they can compress air inside them and deploy it from a cannon in the palm or the flaps in the side to boost your arm forwards." Kazura moved quickly through that item, since Irina could explore it at her own speed. Moving onto the bow, Kazura briefly touched on that one as well. "And that tube of chapstick is actually a compact laser bow. It unfolds nicely into the bow that when notched without an arrow can generate a plasma arrow to fire. It takes more strength than is humanly possible to get the full effect out of it though. An olympic archer would still not get the full force of the arrow to fly, but would still be able to get it going pretty fast."
And lastly, he gestured to the watch on her wrist. "I believe you're already acquainted with the Omni-watch, since my records state that you picked up your standard issue one."
Post by Irina Davayte on Feb 5, 2018 19:23:15 GMT -5
If Kazura was a kid in a candy store, Irina was like a puppy in an exciting new place, setting aside her backpack and exuberantly examining the equipment that she was not familiar with. Truly, it wasn't hard to fascinate Irina with technology. She loved to take things apart, from her mother's dishwasher to re-wiring her electrical drill. She wasn't unfamiliar with getting electrically shocked from these experiments, much to the chagrin of her grandfather the mechanic, who had taught her better than that. Her most recent do-it-yourself project was to re-purpose her electric drill to also function as a power scrubber for her bathroom walls, an idea she got from a video on the Internet. That wasn't difficult, but the technology Kazura showed her was much more new and exciting, and a totally different type of practical.
Irina positively lit up when Kazura asked for her opinion on the equipment that he showed her, and agreed (although, for Irina, this just meant a small smile and an impish look in her eyes). As a sophomore in college, it had actually been a while since someone was interested in what she thought. She put the armor over her clothes, and joined Kazura in the other room. He demonstrated the armor's protective capabilities by kicking her squarely in the chest in mid-air. Irina was knocked backward by the impact, but it felt more like being pushed back on a frozen pond than being kicked. She was reminded of Captain America's shield, which could bounce off of objects almost like a boomerang, yet absorbed the impact of projectiles when held. She wondered what would happen if she ran into the wall, but resisted. Instead, she asked how elastic the material acted. If she were to, say, be thrown into the wall, would she bounce backward when the momentum hit the wall, like a basketball, or would the suit absorb the impact, more like a fluffy pillow? She supposed the former since she was pushed back by Kazura's kick. She knew that the suit protected its user, but wondered how it would interact with its environment. She felt like a hamster rolling around in an invincible ball.
Next, Kazura showed her the Wolverine-like gauntlets. Irina looked around for something to test these out on, and selected a basketball, which she tossed in the air, then sliced with the plasma fingers. She happily laughed out loud when it sliced into four perfect segments. When she was a kid, she had begged her mother to let her see what was on the inside of a basketball, but her mother told her that she wasn’t allowed because she would ruin her ball. Now she finally got to see the layers of rubber, nylon, and leather. It was much more satisfying than looking at a diagram. She took Kazura’s word that it would cut through metal, not wanting to destroy too many objects in the dojo.
Then she examined the bow. Irina asked if she could safely try it in the dojo. She didn’t want to take out a wall or anything, at least without asking. As for the Omni-watch, she actually used her own quite frequently, primarily as a FitBit to track her exercise, of which she typically got plenty. She rarely used its function as a convertible tool, since she didn’t want her classmates to ask too many questions, but had used it as a screwdriver at home. ”What are we going to do now?” she asked with a glint in her eye.
Last Edit: Feb 5, 2018 19:23:45 GMT -5 by Irina Davayte
Post by Kazura Uzaki on Feb 14, 2018 14:00:52 GMT -5
Kazura was pleased to see that Irina was taking this seriously and looked positively excited to test things out with him. She asked him how elastic the material was, which he was more than happy to answer. "It's hard, like kevlar. So no, you wouldn't bounce off of anything, rather you'd just absorb the impact of running into the wall. More like a fluffy pillow, but more solid than that." He waited for her to test out the running into the wall to see what would happen, but she held back for some reason. Was it because she didn't want to look silly, or was it more that she didn't feel the need to test out Kazura's word and that she trusted him? It could be anything else too, but those were the top options that Kazura felt was the reason she didn't fling herself into the wall. He knew he wouldn't, that's for sure.
Testing out the plasma claws on a nearby basketball elicited a squeal of joy as Irina was able to see the insides of the ball and the layers of rubber, nylon, and leather. Kazura quickly scanned over the materials with his eyes, calculating the exact dimensions of the layers and understanding how each one added to the bounciness of the sphere. It was habit for him to look at everything analytically and understand just how something worked from seeing it once. It was a blessing of his highly trained instincts and a curse as he often quickly grew bored of the lack of challenge in games and recreation. But for now, he needed to focus on the task at hand, which was figuring out how to make new items for the spiritual community that would help them in their fight against the Hollows.
Irina asked if she could safely test the laser bow here in the dojo. It was a good point that Kazura hadn't thought of. True, he did want her to test its capabilities, but he also didn't want too much undue damage to the facilities. Fiddling with his belt, which to Irina's eyes would look like a scarred and broken piece of equipment with charred pockets for holding items and tools, Kazura debated showing her his fullbring in such as social capacity. He settled on yes and willed the soul of his belt to release. A red bat appeared on his chest with a glowing reactor center. A visor appeared on his head, covering his left eye and wrapping around the back of his head. Up and down his left arm and leg were glowing yellow circuits that grew brighter as Kazura skipped past the incomplete version of his fullbring to expand to the complete version.
A full armored suit appeared over his body, gauntlets and boots appeared over his hands and feet, and a helmet grew over his head. The eyes glowed blue as his computer kicked on inside his mask. Still was that glowing reactor over his heart and the deep crimson bat symbol taking up the rest of the chest. As he talked, his voice was muffled slightly by the mask absorbing some of the sound. "Here, target this." With a wave of his hand, a disk of pure reiatsu formed in midair, ready for her to aim at and let loose an arrow or two of pure plasma. The arrows, if they hit their target, would dissipate as they wouldn't have the strength to carry through the strong disk. Even with Irina's small sixth sense of Energy Sensory, she'd be able to tell that Kazura was now giving off much more energy than he was before.
"When you're done testing everything, tell me what you would want to see as equipment? What would you buy if you had all the money in the world? And what would you buy if you had a month's wages saved up? A week's wages? Simply, what would you like to see in this world that doesn't exist yet?"
Post by Irina Davayte on Feb 18, 2018 0:57:50 GMT -5
Irina didn't test out the bounciness of the suit by running into it, but admitted that she would have, if the result would have sounded more fun. "Okay, I see how this is more practical, but if you would've said that I would bounce off of the wall, I would have gladly done so," the young woman confessed, and as she did so, she was glad to note that she had grown comfortable enough with Kazura to drop the formality she usually stuck to, and said what was on her mind. (She already trusted Kazura, especially since he had saved her life after she got into a bad scrape with Beast on the worst date ever at the zoo, but actually speaking freely with someone was still a new level for her.) She also thought that she could definitely make a really fun game with the items here. It would be based in the mechanics of kickball, she decided, before refocusing to the tasks at hand. But she missed having her two brothers constantly around to invent new games with. Demyan, in particular, would enjoy a game with an element of destroying the ball.
Kazura responded to her inquiry about the safety of testing the laser bow by converting his tool belt, probably the only shabby-looking item the CEO owned, into an extension of his suit with glowing circuits all over his arm and leg. The suit had a bat-shaped reactor, which brought to mind Irina's adventures with her brothers and best friend, as they tromped through the woods, pretending to be super heroes and terrorizing the neighborhood wildlife, who unwillingly played the city's super-villains.
Had Kazura been part of their childhood group, Demir definitely would have fought him over who got to play Batman. Irina, though, always insisted on playing the pure-hearted Superman. At age eight, she proved it by jumping from a tree to show that she could fly, and dislocated her shoulder in the process. Always stubborn, she didn't even cry when her best friend Altan's mother put the shoulder back in place after giving her one Tylenol. After that incident, to Irina's delight, nobody questioned her Superman-ness again. Truly though, Kazura's suit turned him into a superhero that Irina had always dreamed of being. She was delighted, not jealous.
With a wave of his, Kazura created a floating disc of energy, and instructed her to use it as a target. She was happy to oblige, since she was pretty sure Kazura could protect himself if she missed. She had only used a bow and arrow once at summer camp, but she was physically strong, so she hoped she would be able to control the plasma arrows better than her skinny ten-year-old self had handled the wooden ones at camp. She steadied her shoulder to avoid kickback. (Incidentally, kickback from an improperly held shotgun used at a shooting range had caused her second shoulder dislocation. Irina was sure to have bad arthritis when she got older.) Sure enough, the plasma arrows were shattered to pieces by the disc of energy. Hmm. What else could they shatter?
What would she like to see in her world? About 50 thoughts flashed through Irina's mind at once. Very sticky tape. (Like, really sticky.) Food, but with more calories, for starving people. Food, but with fewer calories, for fat people. Noise-cancelling walls to make her neighbor less annoying. A pill to make her sleep more productive in less time. Wings to support human weight to fly. Super glue that wouldn't bond with skin. A way to keep from losing her reading glasses. A monocle that has the display of a smartphone. A way to better protect herself from the Hollows. Yes, that was it. She needed a better way to protect herself. She sometimes felt like a video game character that could do decent damage to the boss, but always ended up dying, so it didn't really matter. She wasn't a kid anymore, and she needed to better limit her near death experiences.
"For starters, for myself, I need a better way to protect myself. Can we build some sort of reiatsu shield? Can we make that compact enough to keep without carrying around a big shield all of the time like Wonder Woman?" (That was actually her second-favorite super hero.) She liked the idea of using reiatsu to power the shield, because it would allow her shield to protect her even better as she grew stronger. She hoped that both of these might be possible based on what she had seen with the bow contained in a tube of Chapstick, and Kazura's energy disc, although she knew she didn't have the same level of spiritual energy that he did.
Last Edit: Feb 18, 2018 1:00:12 GMT -5 by Irina Davayte
Post by Kazura Uzaki on Feb 23, 2018 10:09:50 GMT -5
Kazura watched as Irina used the bow with surprising efficiency, sending the arrow out of the bow with equal force that Kazura himself knew he was capable of. That meant that their physical strength was comparable if not equivalent. The arrow flew true and hit the target which overwhelmed the plasma and caused it to disperse. Eventually, Kazura would need to make a version of that bow that could be a bit stronger against spiritual targets, or maybe be able to fire more often, but for now it was fine as is. There hadn't really been a need for archery lately. But there had been plenty of need to protect people, such as when Kazura showed up at the zoo to chase of that... whatever he was.
When Irina mentioned making a spiritual shield, Kazura's brain started processing all of his memories and running a few different theoretical tests at the same time. He thought back to Katrina and the shield she had asked him to design, but this shield that Irina thought of would be much different. This one would be made of pure energy, supported by the wielder instead of the item. This would make it an item that, admittedly, Kazura would not get much use out of as his spiritual energy reserves were vast but his strength was weaker than that of even the young fullbringer standing in front of him. But a compact, energy based shield was something he was sure his company could take advantage of.
Kazura beckoned to Irina for her to follow him and then moved back into the laboratory room. He had made the space available for her so she could work on her own prototypes of anything she could imagine, but he was going to focus on the task at hand. And when he focused, he got really quiet as he was too busy thinking faster than his lips would ever be able to keep up. His body couldn't keep up with the information processing that the supernatural training had granted to the CEO. So quietly he worked, very differently than when he worked with his good friend Asmoskon who was a great backboard for ideas to be thrown at.
Irina may be up to the challenge of being a backboard like Asmos, but Kazura wanted to get an initial prototype out of the way first so he could then explain it and get feedback rather than getting feedback through the whole process. He didn't know Irina's creativity level, he didn't know her skill at engineering, or at fabricating, or at inventing. Sure, she had mentioned a few things, but he hadn't truly experienced what Irina was good at. What she was proud of. This would give him the opportunity to see a side of her that he treasured in himself. If she was of same mind, that is. If not? He always has Asmos to help him create new and surprising things.
Kazura started the prototype process by working on a reiatsu projector. That was the core component to the success of this endeavor. Sure, he could just make a solid plasma shield like the arrows of the laser bow or the claws of the gauntlets, but that could be dangerous to the wielder and prevent them from fully utilizing the defensive properties of the shield that Irina had in mind. He also could easily make a compact metal shield that could deploy at a moment's notice, but such a device would weigh a lot and would be unwieldy. So, he needed to find a way to project solid reiatsu.
He started by taking apart one of his gauntlets that made the solid plasma projected. The technology was based on the plasma sword that he had found in one of the shadier parts of Karakura in a small shop no one ever seemed to notice unless you were lost or looking for it. He wanted to take the properties of that plasma and apply it to the source of spiritual energy in the air. He had created many a generator by now that could build up reiatsu, but he had never tried making it solid without the help of his fullbring. This was going to be quite a challenge for him. First he'd start with the plasma shield and making it safe and then move onto the solid reiatsu plan.
He started by building a large gauntlet capable of holding the machinery he needed to conceptualize this. He put a reiatsu core in its forearm, but modified it slightly. The spiritual magnet that was usually used to draw in reiatsu from the air would instead be used to draw reiatsu from the wielder of the gauntlet. As he worked on it, he made the gauntlet less and less bulky until the proper ratio of magnet to metal resulted in an inch wide bracelet. Inside the bracelet was a ring of plasma projectors designed to look like gems and a decent amount of omni-fluid. It made the bracelet fairly thick as well as the inch wide, so it wasn't very fashionable, but it should work how Kazura wanted it to.
Making sure that the bracelet had just enough slack that he could slide it off with ease, Kazura snapped out of his silence to address Irina. "So this is going to be the first prototype of the reiatsu shield you asked for. I'm not sure how I'm going to solidify reiatsu without the use of my Fullbring, but I have easily changed the plasma claws into a plasma shield. Let me demonstrate." Sliding the bracelet off his wrist, he tossed it in the air and swung his arm across his chest. When his forearm lined up with the ring, he activated the omni-fluid mentally which moved to its programmed state. Wrapping around his arm, it formed a brace on his forearm that allowed the ring to face away from his body stably instead of being pointed at him.
The plasma generators kicked on, projecting their blades towards the center of the ring as well as away from the ring, forming a red shield of pure destructive energy. There was a weakness to the shield in that if the ring itself was targeted and could be struct instead of the plasma around it then the whole thing would be deactivated and broken. But it formed a good sized shield measuring two feet across in diameter. Plenty of space to deflect and destroy a projectile aimed at the wielder or deter a physical attack due to the burning, cutting, disintegrating nature of the solid plasma. "This could be used to defend as well as attack if the need arose."
Post by Irina Davayte on Feb 25, 2018 20:29:18 GMT -5
Irina followed Kazura back to the lab, slightly bummed because she loved the gym, and having someone to spar with. The twenty year old sophomore had more energy than she knew what to do with. Generally, she managed this by spending a lot of time at the gym at school, and the gym at UE. She had formerly used the school's gym exclusively, but the hours she spent working out there made people who also frequented the gym ask too many questions about how she got such endurance. Thus, these days, she split her time between the locations to be less conspicuous. Every Tuesday, though, she used earbuds to listen to online lectures for class while taking a distance jog on the treadmill, lasting 90 minutes. She would do this outside, but it was just too noisy out there to study while running.
She made a mental note to sign up for a 10K race the next weekend. She tried to stick with shorter distances, as it just took too much time to do the half marathons that she had grown to love. "Do you ever feel like you just have too much energy?" the young woman sighed, wondering if this was a normal phenomenon, considering how much she had grown in strength and speed in the past year. When she was younger, she could wear herself out with sports and running around the neighborhood pretty effectively. But lately, when she tried to sit idle for too long, she felt an insatiable desire to move. Run really fast, kick something, anything. It was a bit unsettling. An early morning workout satisfied her needs for now, but she hoped that if she became as fast as Kazura, she wouldn't lose her mind or anything. Anyway, he didn't look like someone who had lost his mind.
Well, maybe a little. While she was pondering her restless state, Kazura had cleared a space on the work bench for her. He got to work constructing at a pace that she had to admit, seemed a bit insane. Well, if she was going to be strange, at least she had company. She was still lonely since moving away from her family. She wouldn't bug Kazura like a brother though; the CEO was definitely too busy to entertain her. Irina picked up a small motor from the table. It reminded her of that of the vacuum her grandfather had allowed her to take apart when it quit working. An idea entirely different from the defensive shield she hoped was possible sprung into her mind.
Irina also worked quietly, selecting her materials. A series of suction cups lined the outer edges of her device, situated on two small belts on a track that went around the device on either side. When it satisfactorily rolled on the table, she tested its ability to cling to the walls. It wasn't easy to get it to cling to the wall on the front end, and also let go of the suction on the back side. She settled on mechanically adding suction to each cup that rolled down on the front side, and mechanically releasing those on the back end in the same way. It rolled like a small, squareish tank. She added tubes, spinning brushes, a holding tank, and another motor, which worked in conjunction with the tubes instead of with the belts that were for locomotion. It was beautiful: a vacuum for the ceiling. The only thing it needed was to be programmed to turn itself like a Roomba.
"You know when there's dust on the ceiling, and you just can't get to it? I hate that," she explained sheepishly, a bit embarrassed at having made a device that was neither life-saving, nor really practical for anything important at all. But she wasn't exaggerating: she hated dust. Irina was the type to prefer everything in its place. Since acquiring a small orange kitten, she vacuumed her carpets and furniture every other day, and the cat was never allowed in her bedroom. "I figured you had the other project under control," she said, gesturing to the device he had crafted. She would have given input if asked, but as the youngest child in her family, she had learned to sometimes be content with playing by herself.
Kazura showed her the prototype shield that he had created. A foot in radius around the ring, it would do nicely for stopping small and mid-sized projectiles. "I love it! Can I test that out?" If permitted, she would chuck a wrench at the shield. Situated on the palmar side of his forearm, Irina noticed a potential hazard. "If your arm were to be hit on the radial side, your wrist would turn inward," and she demonstrated with her own right arm, fingers spread, and using the left hand to simulate a projectile. "I don't know about you, but I don't necessarily have the strength to keep from burning my head off with the shield," she said, demonstrating the path that the shield would take with her thumb. "Can we add some magnets to keep the shield oriented outward, instead of in a static position on the user?" As for the conversion of reiatsu to a solid form, she hadn't thought about that yet. Her mechanical training had her more focused on how the prototype would interact with its environment and user.
Last Edit: Feb 25, 2018 21:16:01 GMT -5 by Irina Davayte
Post by Kazura Uzaki on Mar 11, 2018 14:15:06 GMT -5
Ever focused on his inventing, Kazura heard Irina talking to him, thought about it for a split second, then replied half heartedly while still being focused on creating the plasma shield. "No, not really." Too much energy? While it was true that he had trained his body to do superhuman feats of speed, he never really thought about his stamina reserves being trained as well. At least, it didn't make him hyper like it seemed to make Irina. She was reaching the peak of human potential and was close to surpassing it like Kazura had. She just needed a little more training. Something the man was happy to provide if asked.
From time to time he glanced over at what Irina was spending her time on, and found her idea to be... strange, but practical. A vacuum robot for the ceiling was definitely unconventional, and something that was niche enough to be a good fit for Uzaki Enterprises' commercial department. He made a mental note to include the young lady in the emails between the "normal" members of staff to see if she could come up with some ideas for their product lines. Or had ideas for how to overcome obstacles in their inventing process. She obviously had a creative mind, and her perspective would be appreciated. Now finished with the plasma shield, Kazura looked for Irina's input on the device.
She squealed with delight and picked up a wrench to test it. Not sure how well it would hold up, Kazura nearly flinched when she threw the metal at his arm. The plasma shield held up well, turning the metal wrench into ash and then burning that ash too into nothingness. The impact of the wrench did push the shield back, though, getting dangerously close to Kazura's arm and face. Irina demonstrated a solution to the problem that just arose, which was brilliant. "Yes, magnets instead of Omni-fluid. Sounds like a great idea. Let me just fix that up real quick." Now, Kazura had heard of magnetic levitation, or mag-lev, in theories for trains and other transportation, but he had never seen it in practice himself.
Glancing at google on his phone, he quickly read through the top result: a grade school description of magnetic attraction and repulsion. It seemed that there were two ways of accomplishing magnetic levitation, the most appropriate for this mission would be the theory of magnetic repulsion. He'd set up the plasma shield bracelet with a weak negative permanent magnet. Yeah, it might stick to metal if you put it up to things, but it was weak enough that it wouldn't cause too much resistance. The problem that he ran into was that you'd need a glove of some sort to properly hold the negative electromagnet that would support the shield.
Now was the time to show Irina his spiritual crafting skill. Gathering up thin metal wires, he imbued them with spiritual energy born from his Energy Generation abilities to make them conduits for reiatsu. They wouldn't be very durable like normal Spiritual Steel fibers, but they would conduct reiatsu as well as electricity quite well. Attaching another bracelet to the glove itself, this would hold the generator necessary to create the low voltage that would power the electromagnetic wires in the outside of the glove. Now he had two bracelets and a glove. One bracelet for each arm would be fashionable, he hoped. And one could always wear a second glove instead of just wearing the one.
Now he had a magnet that would repulse the shield. But that wasn't enough. That would just cause the shield to be pushed away from the glove, not hover near it. A ring that Kazura crafted would hold a powerful positively charged magnet. This would pull the shield towards the ring and have the glove pull the ring, and by proxy the shield, back towards itself. The amount of jewelry one had to wear to make this plasma shield blend in was egregious, but hopefully Irina didn't mind. Kazura had now created a version of the shield that could react to the changes in pressure. The glove's magnet would push more strongly if the shield grew too close to the glove, and the ring would pull the shield back if it got too far away.
"That should work better now. Sorry about brushing your question off earlier. I was a bit focused. You said that you have too much energy? Is there something that you want to do about that?"
Post by Irina Davayte on May 17, 2018 23:36:47 GMT -5
Irina found it interesting that Kazura's design for using magnets to protect the shield's user was so different from the design in her head. For this reason, she loved to collaborate with others: the more ideas, the better. While he worked, she made her own model, using a dummy wrist band only, that lacked the actual shield component. She fixed three positively charged, smaller magnets to each shoulder, and one to her belt loop. She made a double-layered ring for the wrist cuff, and affixed another magnet to the side opposite of the shield generator. The inner layer of the cuff would remain in a static position, while the outer would turn to repel the body marker magnets, even as the wrist of the user turned. It was an elegant design. She found that when possible, she preferred the simplest solutions. Kazura's magnetic levitation design, though, seemed more stable.
"That should work better now. Sorry about brushing your question off earlier. I was a bit focused. You said that you have too much energy? Is there something that you want to do about that?" In general, to solve her problem of energy boiling over like an overactive child, she intended to maintain her active lifestyle. Road races, working out at multiple gyms, and even body-weight workouts at home. Something must be wrong with her metabolism, or her her brain, if Kazura didn't have the same hyperactive issues that she did, she figured. No matter. It was somewhat under control. "I guess I'm just going to keep on with road races and living in the gym whenever I'm not studying. I'm signed up for a half marathon this weekend, if you want to come."
She meant this in a genuine way. Irina almost never turned down company, and to her chagrin, it seemed that she had scared off her friends from school with her odd habits...Namely, the event when, on a date that was going surprisingly well, she fought (and was nearly killed by) a gorilla-like creature who had been invisible to the young man in question. She was sure that he hadn't shared the details of the little he saw before running away (as any sensible human should've) since her other classmates didn't look at her with the same kind of fear that he did. He was a nice guy, but clearly, she had reached a level of crazy in her lifestyle that she couldn't expect anyone to keep up with. She snapped back to the issues of today, and an idea perked her back up. "For today, can we test these two designs out? If we add a shield to mine, I think we can make a game of tennis out of this. Or dodge ball." She added the last one with a crooked, mischievous smile. "Maybe while we're trying that, we can work out some way to channel reitsu into the shields. I think it's easier to work under pressure for that kind of experiment."
"By the way, do you know a good way to read a textbook on a treadmill?" she added, not wasting the opportunity to pick the inventor's brain. Reading on the treadmill would be an excellent way to maximize her time studying while still prioritizing physical fitness, but the bouncing motion created by running just made it too hard to focus on the text. If only she could accomplish both of these things while sleeping. That would be the ultimate way to maximize her time. At some point, she would probably need to cut down on her commitments, but she wasn't nearly ready yet.
Post by Kazura Uzaki on May 31, 2018 17:44:32 GMT -5
As Kazura worked on his magnetic levitation shield, Irina developed a simpler design that involved a series of magnets on her body and a design that was more like the original shield design of Kazura's with the wrist mounted shield. Elegant and simple, and something that Kazura hadn't thought of. He could tell that Irina was intelligent, and was going to be a good asset to his R&D team once she graduated and had more time to devote to the company. As it was, she was very busy nearly always and had little time to devote to research and development. Especially if her free time was devoted to these road races. Still...
"I think that'd be fun." Kazura wanted to say more. To flirt a little, having seen the potential that Irina had to be a smart and capable inventor. Brains in a woman were definitely attractive to the man who had often been seen as a playboy in past years, but lately... Lately he'd fallen out of that status, become more of a recluse into his work and his preparations against the Hollows. Sure, he'd still enjoy the company of women from time to time, but with his employees it was very different. The media loved to portray any woman he got close to as being promiscuous with him and it had driven employees away from the company for a time before. Sure, Yoko was back now... but still.
So he held his tongue and left his comment at that. That it'd be fun to run a half marathon with her. After all, he had been wanting to work on his stamina lately. He could start right now, too, with this tennis match that she suggested. Swinging around this shield would definitely take some energy if they kept at it long enough. But as for making it fun as well as safe to the building and themselves... That would take some work. If they kept it as is, with a "tennis ball" of plasma as well that could be repelled by the shield, then it would just destroy the building around them.
Thus, Kazura had to come up with how to make solid light or solid reiatsu. Solid light was a sci fi lover's dream technology, and solid reiatsu was a much more reasonable venture. Either way, Kazura was going to have to rack his brains and come up with an answer if they were to play tennis with their shields... Just then, he had a brilliant idea. Why not simply place a spiritual steel disk into the beam emitter instead of plasma generators? That way, when it was excited with reiatsu, solid reiatsu would be emitted instead of plasma? It was perfect. That way, he didn't even have to get all fancy with the mag lev bands. He just needed a circular emitter that could magnetically attach to a glove.
"Sorry to make all that time useless, but I think I can make it solid energy without making it lethal to whatever it touches... Thus, we should be able to play tennis just fine with an emitted shield and an actual tennis ball." Whipping up the energy emitter really quickly, Kazura made a pair of them since Irina wouldn't be able to make the Spiritual steel disk required for the solid energy emitter. And there it was. After a few failed prototypes, Kazura had made an energy shield that could hide itself as a magnetic glove and bracelet.
Beckoning Irina to follow him into the elevator, they'd go down a floor to the gym where they could practice their stamina and talk some more. "Now, did you want to play tennis with the shields or racquetball? Either one works in my mind. And as for the reading a textbook on the treadmill, I hadn't forgotten. Have you simply tried audio books or google text to speech on a digital copy of your book? That sounds much easier to me than trying to read while running." Kazura was going to give Irina the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she was a visual learner and needed to see something to understand it. However, he thought listening to the textbooks would be far easier than trying to read on a treadmill.
Post by Irina Davayte on Jun 3, 2018 18:52:34 GMT -5
Kazura wasn't flirting, and it was a good thing, because if he had been, Irina probably wouldn't have even interpreted it as such. Having grown up with so many brothers and male friends, she was accustomed to close, non-romantic relationships. Men are friends, not food, she figured. Anyway, Kazura was a few years older than her eldest brother. Of course, all nineteen-year-olds think they are mature for their age, and Irina was no exception. But still, pursuing a romantic relationship with her boss never even crossed her mind. She would text him later with the details of the road race. The company would be wonderful on the 90-minute run.
It was perfect: a way to play tennis without destroying the building. She hadn't really considered how they would accomplish the "without destroying the building" part. Or without destroying the ball. Solid energy radiating from a shield: that would work nicely. Back to the gym it was. Irina had played tennis not too many years ago in high school gym class. Her partner was her childhood best friend, and they worked together quite effortlessly since they were so used to working together that they naturally anticipated the other's moves. She was pretty sure she wouldn't again be fortunate enough to form a friendship with that level of understanding, where working together required no more communication than working alone.
She had never played racquetball. All she had heard about it was that you have to wear goggles, because the ball is the same size as an eyeball, and if it hits the eyeball, it can push your eyeball back into your brain... or something like that. She wasn't 100% sure if this was anatomically possible, but wasn't feeling like risking it. Tennis? That was safe. At least, it was one of the only sports in which she had never really injured herself playing...although she was known to dive on the ground after the ball if she needed to in order to win. She hoped she wasn't losing her competitive streak as she grew older. She was about to find out. "I like tennis, but either is fine," she responded to the question. She was a team player, not to mention a youngest child. She was learning to go with the flow.
"I haven't tried Text to Speech, but I'll do that, maybe in conjunction with propping up the book on the treadmill for the science books. There are just so many diagrams in the books, it's hard to do without them. I guess that's why they don't make audio books for them." Probably, the real She selected a racket. "What was it you studied in school?" she asked, hitting a ball against the wall for practice before setting the racket back and returning to the shield. Tennis ball in hand, she went to one side of the net, and gently bumped it across.
Post by Kazura Uzaki on Jun 3, 2018 20:14:35 GMT -5
"Tennis it is, then"
Moving into the underground tennis court, Kazura prepared for the match by taking off his shirt. Irina would be able to see that he was well built, if a little on the lean side of muscular. He wasn't yet sweating, but if they really got into things he would probably be glistening soon. So with just wearing pants, shoes, and a glove with a shield generator on it, Kazura was ready to start working on his spiritual and physical stamina. He started by removing the glove and using Soul Dominance on it to hold it aloft in the air.
He'd be able to swing it with more force than an average human could muster using his spiritual powers, so he wasn't afraid of not being able to hit the ball to the other side of the court. He would have to reign it in and make sure he didn't hit the ball too far. He also had to make sure that he could mentally move the shield fast enough to catch the flying tennis ball without using his Fullbring which was so much more useful for this sort of thing. As it was, he was manually manipulating the soul of the shield every time it needed to move another direction while maintaining a hold on it aloft. Despite his vast and near unending reserves of reiatsu, he was going to push himself to the limits.
Kazura didn't expect Irina to be playing this way, especially if she hadn't learned the advanced Soul Dominance technique yet, so he was putting himself at a disadvantage. Normally his instincts and speed would allow him to play effortlessly despite little tennis proficiency. Now things were pretty much even. He served by tossing the ball in the air and then swinging the shield with his mind to hit the ball to the other side. The first serve was a fault as he hit the net. He had just one more shot before Irina gained points immediately if he couldn't serve appropriately. Up in the air the ball went, followed by a strike that was aimed for the left corner. It went over the net, and was headed to be inbounds... How effectively would Irina return it?
"I studied Business and Mechanical Engineering dual Masters. I'm also thinking of going back and finishing a nursing degree what with my proficiency in medicine already. Don't think I have the skills to be a Doctor just yet, and I'm reaching my peak of what I'll ever be able to handle, but nursing isn't beyond me. And you? How do your studies go? Mechanical engineering, right?"
Post by Irina Davayte on Jun 3, 2018 23:14:15 GMT -5
A lot of women would consider it workplace harassment for their boss to be removing any of his clothing in front of them, but Irina was unfazed. She trusted Kazura, so she didn't consider his removing his shirt to be strange, and that was that. He seemed to be concentrating on his own shield more than was required, so she assumed he was manipulating it differently. That would handicap him...putting him on more even footing with her. Irina didn't like to be treated like a baby, but figured Kazura was doing this to stretch his own abilities, not to let her win. She might attempt to try his technique later, after she became comfortable with the regular energy emitter.
Irina nodded in response to Kazura's first statement. The second puzzled her. She understood why he would want to gain proficiency in healing in emergency situations, but she couldn't imagine he planned to go work in a hospital, turning patients to prevent ulcers, removing stitches, or talking them into taking their pills. "Have you thought about going for a paramedic certification instead? If you don't plan on making a career jump to nursing, it might be more suited for what you will really run into. I'm guessing you don't really want to pass pills; you probably want to become proficient at keeping people stable until they can make it to the hospital, patching people up with stitches, and that kind of thing." She alluded to the emergencies she knew Kazura got into, without spelling it out.
"I like nurses. I respect nurses. They do important work! My best friend's mom was a nurse." she added quickly, not wanting to insult the profession. "I could just never do patient care, myself. I like people, I really do. But I like to work in relative peace. At least, to work with people who want to work together. I've heard too many battle stories about patients." She shuddered. Mrs. Zolotov, her friend Altan's mother, loved her job, but everything Irina heard about it made her want to stay far away. She never wanted to get peed on at work. In engineering, this was far less likely to happen. Not impossible, she supposed. But far less likely.
"Yeah, I'm wrapping up my second year with the Mechanical Engineering. I almost picked the architecture specialty, but I thought it was kind of boring. Too artsy. I don't want my career to be about making things look good," she explained, brushing back some blonde hair that had fallen from her ponytail. "I'm happy with my same spreadsheets with a blocky font, and designing safe, sturdy, functional, ugly machinery." She dove to meet the ball at the corner of the court, hitting it back. It would barely go over the net, but for the moment, her side was protected. She tried to regain her balance, but if the return hit came too quickly, she might not have recovered in time.
Post by Kazura Uzaki on Jun 4, 2018 20:01:48 GMT -5
That... actually sounded like exactly what Kazura wanted. A paramedic license instead of a nursing degree. He nodded towards the woman. "Exactly. Stiches, tourniquets, things like that. I could easily finish a paramedic license in a couple of months online... Yeah, that's exactly what I'll do. That's a good idea, Irina." Being a paramedic could be really good for him. Boost his philanthropist image as well. Also, he'd be better equipped to help people when necessary. But for now, he had to focus on the tennis match.
He watched her get to the tennis ball and bat it towards his side. It went over the net, so it was his turn to volley it back. "Nice volley. Try this on for size, though." Moving towards the shield and grabbing it out of the air (moving at the speed of a racing car) he grabbed the glove, got right up next to the tennis ball, and smashed it down with all of his considerable might towards the gym floor. At that angle, it should still be in bounds, but it would be traveling fast. He then retreated back towards the back of the gym at the same rapid speed to be prepared to mentally launch the shield forwards for the next volley.
"I might have asked you this already, but I forget. If you could do anything in the world, what would you do?"