Luka Luka ★ Night Fever! [Holly]

[Luka Kurokawa]

Luka had just gotten done classes and decided to head over to the mall to check for any games that she might want to buy. Despite the quarantine being up, the stores were still able to bring in shipments of new games thanks to the "military." Despite being shadows, they chose to keep order in the city by taking shipments of various imported goods from somewhere. It could only mean that they were stealing them from the outside. Luka could only assume that the shadows had a reason for keeping the residents happy. Would something unfavorable for them happen if they didn't? Luka couldn't be sure. It was yet another question to add though. Yet another section in the puzzle.

Having finished her trip at the game store, she passed by the arcade. Turning around a moment, she considered stopping by for a bit. She had nothing pressing to do at home currently. She could stay here for a while if she wanted. Turning around, the girl entered the arcade and began inserting a few large bills into the token machine. Just what was she planning to use all of those tokens on?

After obtaining a sizable amount of tokens, she moved towards the dance simulator game towards the front of the arcade. Nodding to herself, the girl quickly mounted the machine and began to furiously insert quite a few tokens. Truth be told, she was an expert at the game. Luka was in her element here. When she was satisfied by the amount of tokens inserted, she hit the start button and began to select options.

">SINGLE PLAYER"
">DIFFICULTY: EXPERT"
">SPEED:x2"

When she was satisfied, she began to shuffle through songs that she was interested in. There were quite a few to choose from, not that she would have much trouble picking. She would likely be playing quite a few judging by the number of coins she had inserted. Eventually she stopped on a song and hit "START." Immediately, she braced herself mentally for the incoming rhythm. Now, many people hold onto the bars in the back of the dance pads for support when executing ridiculous moves. However, Luka was a rare case. Luka did not need the bar at all, having mastered the flow of her inertia.

The music began to play, starting off quite energetically. It was a Eurobeat song; a genre that she was all too familiar with. The steps started off quickly, giving Luka little time to rest. She executed each once flawlessly, staying in the rhythm of the song. She was like a machine herself. Quick, rhythmical steps. This would last for another two minutes or so when she got her score. When the score screen showed up, the girl let out a dejected sigh. The letter grade she got was an "AA." Yet, she was a single mistake from receiving an "AAA." Why wouldn't she be disappointed? Regardless, she continued on, playing more songs to pass the time. She wouldn't be getting tired any time soon of course, having played these games for so long. That was probably why she inserted so many coins.

[Holly Mason]

Strictly speaking, Holly loved shopping, however she viewed it as more of a group activity.  People shopping alone always struck her as kind of lonely losers, but even she acknowledged that sometimes people have...reasons to shop alone.  Today was one of those days for Holly, though what she was shopping for was nothing particularly dirty or sinister.  She wanted to see exactly how smart those shadow things were.  Most of them were pretty dumb, but they didn't seem to intentionally attack their own at least.  Could they tell the difference between other shadows and humans like she could?  Did they have some form of communication?  While beating them up was entertaining for awhile, she wanted to understand how they actually worked.  She was particularly interested in seeing if there was a way to actually communicate with them.  They were definitely enemies, there was absolutely no doubt about that, however if she could figure out what they were planning it would be so much easier to defeat them.

So, she decided to see if she could get some materials for some kind of shadow disguise, and that's why she came alone.  Holly didn't want to have to explain why she wanted this stuff to anyone.  It'd just make her look crazy, even if the person knew what was beyond the blockade.  Even she thought that this idea was kind of stupid, but it was worth a shot right?  Getting the materials to emulate their weird...goo for lack of a better term would be difficult, but money was not a problem for the girl.  She wasn't able to find everything she wanted, but it wasn't a complete waste of time.  She found a few things that might help the disguise itself, a nice flashlight so she could see better and a decent camera with a flash.  She also found a few pieces of nice jewelry, but that was another thing entirely.

Satisfied, Holly was getting ready to go home, but on the way out she noticed something strange.  There was a rather large crowd in the front of the arcade.  She wasn't that into video games herself, so normally she wouldn't care, but she couldn't just walk by when so many people were interested in something.  Not knowing what was going on was just irritating.  Holly casually strode up to the arcade and forced her way into the crowd.  It looked like there was some girl on one of those machines for wannabe dancers.  She was unimpressed until she saw exactly what that girl was doing.  Those arrows were moving really fast.  Not only was she able to keep up with the rhythm and beat of this...song if you could call it that, but she was able to match the complex steps almost perfectly.  Even if this thing wasn't exactly a dance simulator, there was something to be said for that kind of agility.  Holly actually found herself mildly impressed.

She decided to hang around until this girl was done.  She was not one to let interesting people pass her by.  Unfortunately, it seemed like she had put many more tokens in than Holly had anticipated.  Considering the crowd, she had probably been here for awhile already.  Holly looked down at her watch.  Nearly 45 minutes had passed since she got here.  This was getting ridiculous!  She decided she would wait a bit longer, but no person was worth wasting this much time for.  Just as she was about to leave, the machine stopped.  It looked like the girl had finally run out of runs.

"About time..." Holly mumbled under her breath.

There may have been other people around, but if Holly had one skill it was the ability to talk over people and make them look like they didn't even exist.  She stood up straight to make use of her height and strode towards the girl quickly, but elegantly.  Or at least as elegantly as one can when they're pushing people out of the way with their feet.  As she approached she began clapping.

"Impressive.  I can't think of many people that could keep up with something like that.  Would you like to go shopping with me?  I wouldn't mind talking to you more."

There was no sign of irritation in her voice.  She may have been irritated that she had to wait, but it's not like this girl could have known that she was going to show up.  She could forgive her.  For now.

[Luka Kurokawa]

Luka danced for what seemed to be a long time. For her though, the time passed by quickly. She was used to this much physical work having played the game for quite a while, yet something seemed different. She felt more agile then before. She felt stronger overall. It only became more evident after playing for a while, of course. But having run out of tokens, the girl decided now would be a good time to stop. She had certainly discovered something interesting today at least. Her physical capabilities had been enhanced by some degree after obtaining her persona. Just what else had changed about her?

Picking up her belongings, she noticed that there were a lot of people around for some reason. Shrugging it off, she got ready to leave until she heard someone clapping. Slowly she turned around to find a rather tall blonde girl looking at her. Could she have been applauding Luka, perhaps? It had seemed so. The girl wasted no time, inviting Luka to go shopping with her on top of that. Tilting her head confusedly and blinking, Luka gave a questioning answer. Yes? Luka hadn't been in such an odd situation. Why did this girl suddenly approach her? She wasn't really worth talking to. Or perhaps there was a reason for it? Luka decided that she would try and ask.

That's fine I suppose. Is there any particular reason though? Being ask to go shopping with by another girl, let alone another person wasn't something that she was used to. It was quite out of the blue, too. What could this girl want to talk with her about? Luka could only hope that she hadn't run into anything troublesome. Nevertheless, she would go along with this girl for now. She couldn't foresee anything awful happening.

[Holly Mason]

"One sec."

Holly continued moving forward, not caring that there were still some people in her way since the crowd hadn't completely scattered yet.  It was their own fault if they didn't get out of her way.  As long as the other girl kept close the two of them would be able to make it through the crowd easily by her standards.  No fights, and only minimal swearing needed!  She brushed herself off once she exited the arcade, and then began to speak to the girl once again without looking to see if she was still following.  Holly was Holly, of course she'd still be following.

"To answer your question, do I need a reason?  You were doing something interesting, I have nothing better to do, so I decided to approach you.  You should be happy."

She folded her arms and nodded a couple of times.  Now, what should they do?  Holly looked around for a moment.  She had taken care of all her personal shopping and there wasn't anywhere in particular she was in the mood to go  After a moment of thinking, she realized she was actually getting hungry.

"Hmph, I guess I was here longer than I thought I'd be," she said turning to her new shopping partner.  "I'm hungry, let's get something to eat.  I don't normally come here for food, pick somewhere for me.  I'm not a picky eater."  She started moving towards the food court assuming the other girl would too.  "You're quite agile.  How'd you learn to move like that?"

[Luka Kurokawa]

The girls responded by telling Luka to wait for a moment, then began to push through the oddly placed crowd of people. Blinking, then realizing that this girl might be wanting Luka to follow her, she quickly hopped off her little "stage" and followed the taller girl closely. She looked sort of like a child flocking to her mother for protection. What made her do that anyway? This girl was a complete stranger to her. And even when this girl answered her question as to why she was to be brought along to go shopping with, she gave an extremely vague answer. Well, perhaps not vague; but stating that there was no reason behind it. Despite all that, Luka chose to follow her. The tall girl had a certain enviable energy about her. One that Luka could tell wasn't malicious in the least bit. She had no reason to stray away from her.

Luka watched as the girl began to ponder. It seems that she was put in charge of finding a place for them to go eat. Honestly, it was kind of convenient that they were eating. Luka would have gone home to eat either way, had this girl not invited her to do whatever she had in mind. Noticing the local sushi shop in the food court, Luka made her way over. She could only assume that the girl would undoubtedly follow her.

As she walked, Luka thought about how to answer her question. She had probably been watching Luka play that game for a bit. Honestly, it was kind of embarrassing now that she thought about it. Well, I've been playing those kind of games for a while now. I suppose I just got better with time? That was likely the truth. Though there was clearly a slight increase in her capabilities since becoming a persona user. The severity of that increase remained to be seen. Done answering that question, she realized that she didn't even know the girl's name. Oh, my name is Luka. My full name is Rukako Kurokawa, but you can simply call me Luka. She gave her name to the girl, but she refrained from asking for the other girl's name. Perhaps she was a bit intimidated?

[Holly Mason]

It was a boring answer, but likely a true one.

"You go in there frequently then?  Do you do any actual dancing?  The kind that doesn't involve machines."  When she introduced herself Holly gave her a small nod.  "Holly.  No nicknames though.  If you try to call me anything else I'll just ignore you."

It didn't take long to reach the food court.  The food court was just as crowded as the rest of the mall, but it was a more orderly crowded.  There were more people standing in lines and less people trying to get from place to place.  To most people, the place probably smelled pretty good, but Holly didn't care much for it.  Unlike most people, especially of her background, she didn't actually care that much for food.  Half the time she didn't even taste it because she would rarely just sit and eat, preferring to have something else to do while eating.  It wasn't even that unusual for her to forget to eat because she was so absorbed in something else.  When she said she wasn't a picky eater that was an understatement.  She'd shove about anything edible into her mouth as long as it made her stomach stop growling. 

"I'll go find a place to sit."

There were numerous tables, but most of them were full.  She did notice a few empty ones, but they were all next to families with very young children or babies and Holly did not want to deal with either of those things.  Babies were just kind of gross, and young children were possibly the most obnoxious thing on the planet.  Even more irritating than rules in her eyes and that was really saying something.  Holly eventually found a place in the middle of the food court next to a support beam.  She might be a little hard to see there, but she was pretty sure that she stood out in a crowd.  After all, she was very tall and her hair was very bright.  Shrugging, she set her bags on the back of the chair, sliding the handles of the bags onto a one of the metal poles that created the back of the chair.  All she had to do now was wait.

[Luka Kurokawa]

While the tall blonde girl went to go find them a table, Luka was busy waiting in line at the sushi place. She had plenty of time to daydream and let her mind wander while she waited. The girl said that she would eat anything edible that she got for her. Now, it really shouldn't have entertained her as much as it did, but that thought gave way to an absurd idea. She would give the girl a bunch of interesting looking foods so that Luka could watch her eat them! It was an odd way to entertain herself, but its not like she was harming the girl. In fact, she would probably like the foods she gave her.

When she finally got in line, she ordered one of each of the most expensive things on the menu. As someone who ate sushi regularly, even a few of the things she ordered seemed new to her. Finally done ordering, she waited a moment as the food was prepared. There was quite a bit, considering she had ordered for two. It smelled as good as it looked; and that was from a person who enjoyed sushi quite a bit. Getting a grip on the large tray presented to her, the girl began to look around for the table that the blonde girl was seated at. Hopefully she wouldn't get lost looking for her. The tray was quite heavy for her and she wasn't physically inclined at all. So there she was. A young girl carrying a large tray of expensive food that she cold barely handle as she wades through an impressive sea of people. Hopefully she would find the girl soon enough.

[Holly Mason]

It took Holly a moment to realize that she was basically waiting on this girl again.  It wasn't really Luka's fault this time, but she still found herself sighing and staring in her direction with an irritated expression.  She could kind of make out the girl in the line, but she was a little hard to see in the crowd.  It looked like she was almost at the front now at least.  Probably?  Holly stopped resting her head on her hand and peered forward a little bit, looking very intently in that sushi place's direction.  That was when she felt a little bump against her chair snapping her out of her current thoughts.  She looked over her shoulder only to realize that her bags weren't hanging over the side of her chair anymore.

"Son of a bitch," she swore under her breath.

The thief was still nearby, so she at least got a good look at the back of his head.  He looked male, short black hair, ripped jeans, a basic T-shirt, his style screamed trying too hard to look tough.  She reached out to grab the collar of his shirt, but he was just a little bit too far away.  Dammit!  She stood up, practically kicking off the chair thus knocking it over and away from the table.  The crowd was thick, but it wasn't like a crowd ever stopped her from moving where she wanted before.  If these people didn't get out of her way it was their own damn fault.

"Get back here!" she yelled at the thief.  She didn't hold back on that yell either, it was quite loud and made several people turn their heads.

He turned his head for a moment just to see what was behind him and looked surprised when he realized how close Holly was.  He made a sharp turn to head further into the crowd and towards a part of the crowd with more children.  That was troublesome.  Strictly speaking, Holly didn't mind pushing little kids around, but doing it both in front of their parents when she wasn't planning on leaving yet might cause problems.  She slowed down a bit to avoid causing too much damage, but did her best to stay on his path.  She was still a little faster, but it was getting harder and harder to keep track of him in this crowd.  She was pretty sure he was heading in the direction of that sushi place, so she'd just keep her eye out in that direction.  He couldn't hide from her forever.

[Luka Kurokawa]

Luka continued walking, still very much lost as to where she was going. In fact, she must have changed directions at least four times now. This wasn't looking too good for her. Luckily, she heard the girl's voice from over in the direction to her side. Turning, she saw the girl, noticing her to be quite angry. But more importantly, she noticed some strange man running away from her. And by that, was heading straight into Luka. That really didn't give Luka much time to react, but she made due with what she could.

Funnily enough, her priority was on keeping the food as safe as possible. With a quick turn, she moved the tray around by spinning 180 degrees. The man wouldn't run into the tray now. The food was safe. However, the timing on the spin was so perfect, that something else interesting happened. To coincide with Luka's moving of the tray away, the girl's "backside" moved inward at just the right moment. The result was the man being hit in the side by her, causing him to drop the bags as he lost balance. From there, he tumbled into a chair or two and began struggling to get up.

Looking around confusedly, Luka didn't exactly know where the crash she just heard came from despite her technically being the cause of it. A lot of people were staring. Some at her, some at the tall blonde girl, and even some at that man. Ah, that man. He fell. She finally realized that, at least. Turning to her new companion that she had finally found, she began to walk the tray over to her. I-I got the food. Where are we sitting? The girl was clearly struggling to hold the tray after walking around with it so long. That was probably why she didn't even notice the other half of the situation that was going on just now.

[Holly Mason]

Holly peered through the crowd looking for any sign of that asshole.  She didn't see him at first, but she did see that girl walking around looking lost with the food.  No wonder she was taking so long, she must have gotten lost.  Just as she was starting to shake her head slightly, she saw a flash of movement nearby and the face of the thief that took her stuff.  Luka handled the situation perfectly.  She moved in a way that required near perfect precision and managed to take down the thief AND save the food.  Now that was impressive.

"Good work!" she shouted as she jogged over to where the man fell.

The man dropped her bags, so at the very least she was going to get her stuff back, but since Luka was kind enough to knock him down for her she might as well take him down too.  Holly continued after him as he scrambled to his feet, but this time he wasn't quite fast enough.  She grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him towards her, pushing him down into the ground once he was off the chairs and sufficiently close.  Before he could try to get back up, she put her foot on the middle of his back.  She didn't slam her foot down too hard, hard enough to be noticed, but not hard enough to do any damage or make any unpleasant sounds.  

"That he did.  Good job saving the food too.  I found a table--I said stop squirming!" the thief struggled for a moment, but once Holly leaned into him more and put more pressure on his back he stopped, "--over by the support beam over there," she pointed in its direction with her thumb.  "I'll meet you there in a sec."

Holly grabbed a piece of...whatever Luka had bought and started nibbling on it.  She didn't even bother looking at what it was before shoving it in her mouth, and she didn't really think about the taste once she ate it either.  It at least helped settle her stomach.  While she was chewing she looked at the gawking crowd and frowned.  God people were so useless.  There was a thief, or even if they didn't know that, some psycho that just took down a random person, and all they could do was stand there and stare?  This is why the world needed people like her; people needed direction.

"Don't just stand there gawking.  You!" she pointed at a random person in the crowd.  They appeared to be alone, so they would do.  "Go call security.  This guy just tried to swipe my bags."

The person nodded and ran off.  With any luck, security would get here soon and she'd be able to get back to her shopping adventure.

[Luka Kurokawa]

Still confused about the situation at hand, Luka could only blink as the other girl jogged up to her and praised her. Ah, thanks? Now she was really confused. She watched as the girl went over to the man that had fallen and began to deal with him as she saw fit. Luka simply watched out of curiosity as he was man-handled profusely in the middle of the food court. She was then directed to the table that they would be eating at; but not before the girl picked up a peice of the sushi and shoved it in her mouth. Ah. She ate it. Luka really did find that too entertaining. I'll meet you there then. . . Partially staring at the man being senselessly held down like a rat by its tail, partially watching where she was going, Luka headed over to the table indicated.

She let out a sigh of relief as she was able to let go of the tray. Her arm muscles ached slightly, but would hopefully regain their strength after resting a bit. Taking a seat, she waited for the girl to return to the table by arranging the food a bit. There was more than plenty for the both of them. Just as she seemed to finish setting up and even begin to eat a bit, the girl had finally returned. It seemed like that man had done something to make her mad. But luckily, she managed to catch him somehow. Luka only hoped that she wouldn't make this girl that mad.

On one hand, Luka was a bit afraid of this girl. Yet on the other hand, there was a blossoming admiration for her. Something about her made her seem naturally likable to Luka. When the girl was finally nearby, she decided to open up a bit by talking. Did that guy do something to you? It was a simple question. One of the reasons for asking was pure curiosity, but the other was out of preparedness so that she wouldn't incur the wrath of that girl. Though, she didn't really believe she had anything to fear, it was still good to prepare.

[Holly Mason]

Holly simply nodded at the girl when she said she'd meet her at the table.  This situation was under control.  It didn't take too long for security to show up.  She nodded towards the security guards and the person that got them, approving of how quickly they handled it.  The guards apprehended the thief, so Holly went to pick up her stuff.  Unfortunately, one of them felt the need to lecture her on how dangerous that was--as though a person could be more dangerous than her, as if a normal could be more dangerous than her when she had spent so much time fighting demonic things--and how she should have just let them take care of it.  Sure, and then her bags and her purse would be lost forever in all likelihood.  She wasn't about to wait on someone else when she could do it herself, not for something like this at least.  At least she didn't get a lecture on how assaulting people was bad.

Once she had all her stuff and the guards let her go, she made her way back to the table and put her bags right back onto the back of the chair were they were before.  To some people, it might look like she was just making the same mistake again.  They were wrong, Holly knew exactly what she was doing.  She dared anyone to try to touch her bags again after that display.  It'd be hilarious.

She reached for another piece of the...food before she sat down.  This was sushi right?  She had never actually had it before, not that she particularly cared.  She looked towards Luka as she chewed and took a seat.  She looked concerned about something, but Holly couldn't imagine what.  That was a perfectly justified act of aggression.

"Oh, he tried to steal my stuff.  I had to get it back," she shrugged.  "I was surprised you managed to knock him over like that.  You didn't strike me as the type," she grinned.

[Luka Kurokawa]

Ah, that would explain things. That man had tried to steal Holly's bags and such. Well, thankfully he tripped, allowing for himself to be caught rather than getting away. Ah, I see. Good thing he didn't get away then. Well, that certainly took a lot off of her mind. That wasn't just some random guy. Nodding, she agreed about the man deserving what he had been dealt. Though, Holly's last statement confused her a bit. Eh? Upon finishing off a piece of sushi, the girl made a confused remark regarding what she had done. She had pushed him over? A-Ah. . . Well, I wasn't really trying to do that. I was only making sure the food didn't get ruined. Sushi was expensive. And on top of that, she waited a considerable amount of time for it to finish being made.

But if she understood correctly, she must have knocked over that man by accident as she turned around. It was a bit embarrassing to consider that, but it turned out for the best, right? Well, at least we got your stuff back right? She decided to set things on a positive note. By the way. . . how do you like the sushi? She continually watched her eat as she ate from her own share. She had ordered a number of oddities for the girl across from her. I wanted to try something I hadn't before so I got the most interesting stuff on the menu. The girl did say that she didn't mind what she got, but perhaps she would have found Luka's choices of food at least interesting enough to comment on.

[Holly Mason]

Holly absent-mindedly chewed on another piece of...something, probably some kind of fish, but this was really chewy, as Luka spoke.  Too bad it was just an accident.  Holly was a bit less impressed, but it didn't show.  She didn't really get why Luka was so embarrassed about it though.  Was she worried about hurting the guy?  How silly, sometimes true justice required breaking a few heads.  It was nothing to be ashamed of as long as you weren't completely cruel about it...and even then sometimes...

"Well, regardless of the circumstances, it's good that you managed to save the food.  I'm quite hungry," she said after swallowing the piece she was chewing.  Well, more like swallowed near whole since she was having trouble chewing it.  

She poked at the next one.  It looked like this one was wrapped in some kind of green vegetable.  It was too dark and malleable to some kind of lettuce or spinach.  How strange.  Holly shrugged and ate it too, still not really noticing any particular flavor.  She wasn't sure how to answer Luka's question.  Food was food, there was nothing particularly special about it.  She shrugged.

"It's filling me up nicely.  I can't say I've ever had something like this before," she prodded another chewy piece of what she assumed was meat anyway.  "What's this stuff made of anyway?"

[Luka Kurokawa]

Holly seemed happy that the food was safe at least. Luka was too, of course having gone to great lengths to protect it apparently. Luka watched with great interest as the girl put each piece of food in her mouth. Anything really was fine for her. Listening intently to the girl, Luka began eating her own share of the exotic foods that she bought. Honestly, they were pretty good. Though, she didn't expect them to taste bad in the first place.

Holly seemed curious as to just what the food was made of. It was a good question. It was a question Luka didn't even have the answer to. That's a good question. I don't even know. She wasn't sure what this stuff was made out of, let alone what normal sushi was made from. On that note, she popped another one into her mouth without a second thought while dabbing it in a bit of wasabi. So, do you normally find people in the mall and just decide to hang out with them? It was an honest question with no real thought behind it. After all, Luka didn't hang out with anyone at the mall aside from the one time with Akira. Luka was either that far out of common sense or this girl was just very confident.