1723/Help me put all this together

Help me put all this together
Date of Scene:	04 July 2024
Location:	Function Hall
Synopsis:	Hinoiri and Coco work to get the magic testing equipment setup, though there's a bit of a... problem. Fortunately, Hanzo is able to swing in and offer some advice on how to operate the electronic part of the device and together they manage some success... and a small pack of otters.
Cast of Characters:	Hinoiri Kirara, Koji Silvia, Coco Kiumi

---

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara was sitting on the floor, taking apart some... electronic equipment. A microphone? And had a small stack of... crystals... by her. And a soddering iron.

Boxes filled the room, with multiple contents spilled out on the ground, as she was, more or less, DIYing magical detection tools. A microphone covered in far, far too many extra cables and sparklies was on the stage, which was connected by a number of wires directly to a large console. The console in question had five different monitors on it, and a lot of knobs. And while Hinoiri had been, well... working her best to try and get this to work... well...

She knew magical technology. She didn't know EARTH technology. That. That was incredibly difficult and much harder for her. As such, she'd been having limited success.

"This would be so much easier if I could just use some of my magic... Okay, Yellow Voice. Try doing your song... now," she mumbled, as she flipped a switch on the console and it began to audibly hum.

Koji Silvia has posed:
It started with him finding out someone from the computer club had loaned out some equipment and had forgotten to get the student's ID.

From there, Koji had to do a bit of detective work, winding his way through 4 different clubs and a 3 teachers before he finally found a clue. Someone was in the music room but there wasn't a club meeting going on tonight for any of the music clubs or bands...

Taking a bit more time to fulfill a couple favors owed for the information that lead him down this path, and a quick bite to eat later, he shows up just outside of the music room, and knowing for what reason most people would want to use this space, he doesn't knock or intrude immediately. Instead, he tilts his head to peek in to see who is up to what before he decides to make an entrance.

Coco Kiumi has posed:
It was time to get the show on the road! Coco had followed the list Hinoiri had given her with the utmost dedication, even if sometimes getting said pieces had been a bit of a trip. But hey, if lane A had been stacking its products in a weird way, what was the big deal with getting a little help from the Live Stages and sift through them by moving the products mid-air? There weren't many people around then and those who did would forget the event.

She was really careful with returning everything to where it was afterwards. After all of that was done, then came the part that was really hard: trying to figure out what Hinoiri was trying to do despite the complete oddity of their use case. At least, she had a partial success with her pointers. Just had to bear with, until it came time for the part she was best at, the singing!

Her passion shining through just as much as the Live Stage was actually doing, she pays no mind to when Koji peeks in, her focus only given to the song and nothing else. There might be a ton of explanations they are going to have to give, but that's for later!

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara was focused on the screens, fiddling with the knobs as it worked. The sounds were... good. But the screens were having very, very minor reactions. Even as she flipped through the different dials, it didn't have much of a reaction, only the occasional blip.

"Okay, that was... almost something that could, on a good day, be considered almost a success. I think I managed to get a.... detection, of sorts, going? Namely, it knows there's magic there. But not how much."

"It's a far cry from what I had access to at Obsidian, though. I'm going to work on the-- CRUD!" She had been in the midst of pulling something out of the device, a small... tile? But it had jewels all over it.

And they were charred black, singed. She tossed it on the ground, shaking her hand. "Dang it. Well, okay, going to go with 'failure' on that one after all. Doesn't do any good to detect the magic if the machine explodes into a great big fireball. I'm going to try on work on another mana-catcher, you uhhhh... see if you can find one of the amps and try prepping it for the next test. Maybe if I add a bit more pearl to the core, it can withstand a proper song blast."

Koji Silvia has posed:
After watching all of that, Koji takes a few steps back and away out of view of both of the girls... and then takes his phone out of his pocket.

    "Set up."

    << SET UP. >>

A brief cutscene later... and the door isn't opened by Koji Silvia, 10th year student of Radiant Heart Academy, but by the masked-faced mahou boy Hanzo!

From behind the pair he says with a voice enough to be heard, "If you don't mind my asking... what... exactly are you both doing in here?"

Stepping more fully inside of the room, he walks over and leans down to look at the circuitry that Hinoiri is working on, taking a sniff of the air as the scent of some burnt ozone hits him, and then comes back up to gives a pleasant wave to Yellow Pearl.

But after that he crosses his arms and exhales, "Don't worry, I'm not here to stop you, or fight you. I'm just here to keep an eye on things."

Coco Kiumi has posed:
If Koji silently peeking in doesn't get Coco's focus back to Earth, Hinoiri suddenly shouting certainly does it instead, a small frown as she stares at the charred jewels. Procuring them wasn't really as easy as walking to a supermarket, even if just from the point of view of finding them, let alone buying them. Just because she is rich doesn't mean that she can just toss money out of the window.

Trying to ignore the burning smell that was starting to permeate the air, she makes for a window, opening it to let the pungent odour outside even if the summer heat would mess with the AC. "Right", Coco nods as she moves back towards the amps and follows Hinoiri's instructions. "Should I have reined myself in?" she asks the unicorn, considering that maybe it was still too soon for their tests to actually give it her all.

Right as she is fiddling with the values, Koji comes in, henshin complete and inquiring at what had been going on in here. The statement that he is not going to fight them draws a puzzled expression from Coco. Had he been considering it? "We are just studying magic", she explains anyway, pointing to her mic as proof. "Just figuring out if my magic style is compatible with another singing magic Hinoiri knows. Though, we still have problems calibrating the whole deal", she waves in general towards the equipment.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara blinked and then glanced at the boy... and sighed. She looked less than amused. "For Sora's sake, I swear. Who are YOU supposed to be? Listen, whatever Obsidian idiot told you to try and off me, trust me." She turned back to the thing she was soddering together. "Go home, sleep it off. We're at the school and there are so many sparkles here you'll just be asking to get blasted all the way to the bay. I swear, sending discount ninjas at me now. Is this my life now? Go buck yourself," she snapped at Koji.

"And no, your voice is fine. I'll try a seven-layer core this time. I probably should have to begin with, but I was hoping I could bypass the..." She trailed off and shook her head.

"Nevermind. You know, there were two tech people at Obsidian. Sure, dumb in their own way. But having someone who could do the go-between and understood the core concept of breaking earth technology into being useable with magic was a boon I would give so much to have now."

Koji Silvia has posed:
"Well, I see we forgot that time you tried to become the sun and I shot you with enough disruptive magic that the others were able to get their shot in. But I understand, you were busy having a moment... and I tend not to stand out in a crowd, especially when you're next to Sailor Moon."

There's a hint of a smile through the mask once more, and he says, "Hi, Yellow Pearl. Nice to see you when someone's not trying to kill Hannah, or make the world a worse place. So... music?"

Instead of giving Hino a chance to really complain, he goes over to where the toolkit is, and then takes out both a voltage tester and a flip-out jeweller's magnifying glass so he can look down and over the slightly toasted circuit board, "Earth tech is made for electricity, which translates into heat... which really isn't too good with magic trying to get into the mix. But I can make some suggestions on your build to help preserve your core tech as well as possibly boost your chances."

Turning on the voltage tester, he starts touching certain parts while he runs one eye up and down over the whole thing before he goes on, "First thing's first... I would suggest you install some fuses on the board to serve as breakers versus overload so you can keep any of the overheats from your power surges from permanently cooking your board. After that, you might want to check the voltage ratings on your overall setup. If your cabling and the main board aren't rated for the electricity you're trying to push through it... the school might have something back in Computer Club that might work."

Putting the magnifying glass down he looks to Hinoiri, "So... would you like my help? Besides... if someone decides to try and kill you, they'll have to deal with two of us instead of one."

Coco Kiumi has posed:
"Please, no potshots towards Hinoiri", Coco intervenes at Koji's comment. "I get it was a whole thing and everything, but she is trying to turn over a new leaf now. It's something she did very recently, but if every single one of us kept doing that every time we met her, we are numerous enough she would only hear those comments and nothing else", she tries to make a case for leaving her be.

Regardless of her request, Koji does actually comes over and explores the damage to their equipment while he idly chats. "Yeah, that really was a thing...", she sighs with worry. "It really is no better that when she is not killing herself, someone else is aiming to do it for her. Trying to prevent assassinations is really unnerving, no matter which H-named person it involves", the mermaid points out appropriately to the subject.

"I will be on it", Coco says at Hinoiri's half-complaint half-request, while also paying attention to Koji's specifications. "Please do, we could really use a hand", she asks him with a relieved smile.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara blinked a few times, before cringing. "O-oh. You are a sparkle. Right... sorry. You looked like some of my old co-workers. Sorry," she said, giving a light chuckle.

However, as Koji got to work, her eyes narrowed on him, then... she looked surprised. "Actually, yes. That would be quite useful. I know a lot about magic, but magic to electricity conversion is not exactly something we dealt with much at home. Electricity was a relatively new experience for most of us. I think they were just beginning to test like... some arcade boxes when I left."

"But yeah, breakers might be a good idea. I know how to make sure the magic doesn't fry things. But electrical breakers isn't really my forte, as it were. Here, come and look at this," she said, motioning to the console and the absolute mess of jewels and wires she had.

And that was it, really. Magically, it was fine... but the electrical, the wiring? It was nowhere NEAR ready for the amount of power that was being run through it.

On the other hand, the magical breakers likely... made no sense. But then, her magic was focused on another world, so it likely wasn't a surprise if THAT made no sense.

Hinoiri couldn't help but give Coco an appreciative smile. She... really did always step up to defend her. It was nice. And, once Koji got the electrical mess sorted... she'd nod to Yellow Voice. "Okay, try again. Lowest output you can do, then try slowly bringing it up unless I tell you to stop."

Koji Silvia has posed:
There is a brief chuckle under the mask, "How about this. We call it a tie. You DID call me a discount Ninja. I'm at LEAST a coupon Ninja."

He then leaves the room, just WALKING out like that, and not letting the girls see him cloak himself for the sake of brevity, returning with some boxes marked 'Computer Club' on them as he says, "Well... sorry about that. So... Arcade boxes? I... well... when I'm not dressed up and fighting Obsidian, I rebuild electronics. I got my start on game systems. Let's get to work."

He attacks the electrical side with the same methodical way his magic picked at the threads of stolen power that day. It's almost zen-like as he begins to solder in fuse-ports, replace wiring, and even use the strange knife hooked on the underside of his arm to cut away chunks of the board and then fusing new things in place. He does not touch the part that's magic, but he takes extra care where the technologies start to bridge, trying to make it so that if the Earth-tech part gives... it doesn't go right to the strange jewels and other bits and bobs that are in place. Once finished, he steps back, and then tilts his head slightly, "I think I've given you as much power and safety as I can, anything more and I'd need to find whatever passes for a secret lab in this school. Which I firmly believe there is one."

Brushing his hands off, he looks down to make sure that there's no stray hairs or anything else in the mix before he looks towards the person at the center of all of this, "I'll make some scans here too... maybe you can use what I get as a means to translate what your rig finds. At least then you've got a method of comparison. Science loves redundancy."

Coco Kiumi has posed:
"I suppose you would have an easier time with that", Coco ponders as she stops fiddling with the amps to go over to her position. "Everything I know about electricity I had to learn it in the land crash course I had a while back. As obvious as it is, we really don't use any underwater", she comments with a small grin over that similarity. They really abuse magic as far as they possibly can, don't they? Not like that's going to change anytime soon for her kingdom or her sisters' unlike over at Kirakirafantasica.

And in fact, it is really evident why this is Koji's field as Coco watches with clear interest the fluid, practised movements that betray the many years of expertise in the matter. "You make it seem so simple", she observes as much as it is obvious. It is not really a field she is interested in exploring, but that was still impressive to look at.

"Ok, a slow crescendo, got it! I am resuming now", she warns Hinoiri, as she starts singing again, keeping a low tone and spacing her song, before she cautiously starts rising in speed and intensity.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara gave a light snort. "That's fine, I'll see if I can find a coupon book later."

Still, he was able to help, that was good. "Yeah. I never touched them and I only really know about them because the technology is more prevalent here. We didn't do a lot of electrical work, on account of magic."

"Wait, you have a device for scanning magic?" she asked, eying Koji. "Yes, that'd be very, very useful."

She then turned to focus on the screens, ears perked and... As the slow singing started, there was a low hum. However, things started to hold.

Then, as she started moving louder, faster, the screens reacted accordingly. Hinoiri held her breath, only to let it out as a small blip appeared on one of the screens. Her eyes lit up. "Keep at that level, Yellow Pearl!" she called. She then reached back down into the underside, pulling it open. Inside, the little jewel array she'd made over... well... many, many failures, was glimmering like an overpriced christmas display.

"Perfect, okay, add more juice, Voice!" Hinoiri called, the excitement filling her voice. She pushed a button on the display, one that Koji might realize... was definitely shaped like a hoof. Was there some KiraKiraFantastica tech in this unholy machination?!

Yes. Yes there was.

And as the voice rose, the screens moved with it, symbols and graphs moving wildly as it began to print out some readings...

"Okay, Voice! Give it all you got, go full idol mode!" she called.

And if she did... it'd vibrate, and the readings were gathering and--

Then there'd be an explosion. Not an electrical one. And nothing really... broke.

So much as, out from one of the displays... water suddenly erupted, knocking Hinoiri off her feet and sending her sprawling back against the ground a little...

With a small pack of *very* confused otters on her. She'd lay there a moment, spitting out the water like a fountain.

"... Well... it worked, at least," she'd mumble. "Ninja-boy, did you get readings too?"

Koji Silvia has posed:
Watching the whole thing, the Ninja-themed hero hand one hand out and there's a slowly-spinning circle with symbols from another world, letting his Device take readings as Pearl's voice reaches it's crescendo... and then comes the flood.

"Readings? Yes, Sun-girl. Pearl, are you alright? I have some water or some aloe drink if you need."

As Koji quips back just a little bit, only giving as he's gotten as he looks around at the water around the place, along with the small family of small-clawed mustelids, to which he holds his hand out and what appears is a small package with some salmon nigiri on rice. Squatting down, he opens it and leaves it there for some nyam-snacks for the little ones, and then reaches out his hand towards Hinoiri, "C'mon. Let's get you up and get you a towel. And then figure out what to with our cute new friends here."

Coco Kiumi has posed:
Coco she keeps going slow at first, the tone rising every time Hinoiri tells her so, but when she is asked to go full idol mode? She takes that actually seriously and she raises her arm up high and the bracelet on its wrist releases a gentle white light as a halo of yellow light descends, unlocking the surge of power resting deep within her, Aqua Regina's gift of hope, the current of protection that is her blessing.

And then it unleashes an actual current, with some otters along for the ride, causing Coco to blink and stop as she moves closer to the unexpected guests, immediately leaving everything else behind, speaking to them, caressing them and reassuring them.

"They are really quite confused", she tells Hinoiri and Koji, "but they aren't feeling any pain or anything alarming, so we can just bring them back to the sea and they will be fine. These aren't river otters."

Picking two up, she looks over at the other two. "Everything ok over there? Are both of you ok?"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara took the hand, letting him pull her to her feet. Still, despite it all, and the fact she was soaking wet? Well... she was experimenting with magic. Her phone and wallet had been a bit away in a safe bin anyway. She wasn't too concerned. Instead, she eyed the readings, tearing off the paper. "Hmmm... I'm fine. I think... this is going to work. I think this is going to work juuuuust fine. I'll need to run some more tests, of course."

"I'll need you to test a number of songs. Both your own, some that were sung by the Black Beauty sisters, a few done by easter and some of my own... and I want to see if I can get your magic to be purification from it. It... might be a bit uncomfortable at times, but... I think, with this information? We may be able to make some real headway."

"More importantly, I think we'll be able to find out just where the differences and the connections lie. Ninja boy? Can I see your readings?"

She then paused. And looked down at the confused, but slowly being fed otters.

"On the other hand... maybe we should, err, take care of these little guys before we go too deep down this crag eel hole."

Still, there was certainly a light to her. A glow in her eyes.

An excitement. She was touching magic, experimenting.

She was learning. And that? More than anything? Made her feel alive.

Koji Silvia has posed:
Rubbing at his chin a moment, Hanzo replies, "You know... Ninja Boy and Sun Girl really sounds like an american comic or cartoon. They like that kind of silly."

But then he just waves it off and says to Coco, "I'll go get a box we can hide them in, and then I can arrange for a taxi to take you to where you need them to go to get them safe again, Yellow Pearl."

And with that, he turns to head for the door once more, "We can meet up and you can look at what I got then. Your next step, and one I'll be happy to help you with, is a version 2. Another thing that you do with science... you build and improve, until things become smaller, better to use, easier to use... until one day a thing that fills a room is sitting on your wrist."

As he leaves, he puts his hand on the wall and a card is stuck there with a cellphone number, along with the word 'Hanzo.'

Coco Kiumi has posed:
Coco tenses up when it is suggested she sings the songs of the Black Beauty Sisters, that being enough to change her smile to a mildly alarmed expression. The prospect feels like she just got asked to walk on a series of knives. "Is that really necessary?" she shifts her eyes to the side, avoiding watching Hinoiri in the face.

"I don't mind singing some Easter songs or yours. I don't want to say no, but I don't know if I am ready to take their songs. Those songs... They stand as our literal opposites, spreading misery just as much as we spread peace, with a reflection of our own songs", she says, petting the otters as they walk outside.

Taking a look at his phone number, Coco starts reciting it a few times until she is sure she is at least going to remember it for today. "Let's go bring these otters home then. We can make more progress another time. What we got today is fantastic already. Thanks, Hanzo, Hinoiri."