Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Hmmm… hmmm.. wait wait I think- YES! Eureka!”

Shouted Kazuichi as he rose up from his chair dramatically to his colleagues. This led to Chihiro staring at him awkwardly as if they were deer in headlights and Miu staring at him like he just pissed himself. Then there was Kibo who didn’t even flinch, he was too busy waiting anxiously at the end of the table for an answer from Kazuichi.

“Well? Did you think of anything?”

“Yes I did but now that I look at it hmmm…”

Kazuichi scratched his cheek as he slowly sat back down, a bit embarrassed at what he thought was the answer to their problem.

“Augh! You got me all excited for nothing fuck face” said Miu who scoffed and looked way from Kazuichi.

“Hey look Ma’am, I was just thinking of doing well… hmm. He scratched a bit of his hair underneath his beanie til he finally said “A jet pack..”

“A jetpack!?”

They all responded in unison.

“Wait wait I can explain-“

“Come on! A jetpack is LAME! I have seen those around and they ain't something fucking new”

as she put her arms up in frustration, Chihiro spoke up in a timid tone

“And um we only have 5 weeks to work on this for the Talent fair, I-i don’t think that be a lot of time especially if we were going to put it on um Kibo”

“Why did I agree to this?” Kibo said while he rolled his eyes (quite literally!)

“I know, I know just aguhh! I got nothing- well I mean I do have something but, just not something that can be just done in 5 weeks soo-”

Miu cut Kazuichi off by stating out loud
“Well since this total moron over here has nothing *i* have a better idea” she said confidently.

“Oh? and what would that be?”
said Chihiro timidly.

“We DECK Kibo out in shiny new armor, with plates, wheels and shit!”

“Wheels?” Replied Kiibo “Hang on a second i-”

“No!” Shouted Kazuichi, knowing exactly where this train of thought was headed

“We are NOT turning Kibo into a transformer, end of story.”

“Awww but cmon, he could drive me to places and be a cool ass car besides just being…”

“Being what…”

Kibo looked dejected, as if being what he was now, wasn't enough. Miu sighed, and took back the comment replying to his concern with half assed witty comeback

“Being a sick ass robot! I mean… you understand me right!?
you're just kinda… a human robot?”

“Yeah but isn't that good enough? I don't have to be some war machine… much less a car!”

Kazuichi awkwardly inserted himself in between the 2 and blurted out

“What if we made him human?”

The room went silent, as they all went to their separate corners to think and plan out something better than Kazuichi's.
impossible task to make Kiibo human. He sat in one corner chewing on the end of a bitten out pencil trying to come up with something original. Chihiro typed away at their keyboard searching up things on the internet meanwhile, Miu and Kiibo talked stuff out on their own, but based on their expressions, no new ground was being made. This continued for weeks, as the random yet elaborate inventions of Kazuichi kept flowing in like pouring rain, all washed away eventually and swept away to be forgotten. A 24 cylinder engine for a car, a robotic potted plant, another jetpack, but it was all useless. The pencil became chewed out, and eventually he continued attempting to fidget with his hair throughout long think sessions that led nowhere. 5 weeks turned to 4, then 3 as the time quickly passed by for the group with no invention in sight, Kazuichi folded and reunited his group once more for a talk.

“There's 3 weeks left, and we've got nothing…”

He sat on the edge of his bed, the meeting being located in his own room this time. He looked around to see a distracted Kibo toying with the panels of his chestplate, Chihiro stuck on their laptop looking frustrated with himself. From what Kazuichi could see, they were on a website playing some sort of pizza making game, seemingly to try and calm their nerves. And then there was Miu, who was flailing her arms around wildly with a Wii mote in her hands, playing Wii-sports on Kazuichi's TV.

“When will it be my turn Miu? I'd love to try this game out for myself”

Kibo said non-enthusiastically, he was just bored, hoping to get some sort of entertainment. Miu replied quickly

“What!? no way!! we'd have to create a whole Wii avatar for you, and that took me like half an hour!”

“Well! only because you wanted to replicate yourself ‘perfectly!’ - ”

He tried arguing back, half of the time they were reunited in Kaz's room was just to mess around on his game console. But after a bit of silence, he blurted something out, something finally coming to mind.

“What if… we made something that could make your avatar for you?”

“Pfff, what? like some shitty video-game?”

“No no no… not quite”

He scratched at his beanie now even harder, attempting to come up with the words to explain what he wanted.

“L-Like some virtual reality?”

Chihiro poked their eyes from above their laptop to speak. Yes! That was exactly what he was thinking about,

but before he could continue, Miu again spoke her mind about his idea.

“You wanna Matrix people?”

She said in a half serious yet sarcastic tone, but she looked somewhat intrigued at the impossibility of his suggestion.

“No I don't wanna Matrix people! imagine entering a space with an avatar of yourself, and being able to play as yourself!”

Miu pointed at the screen, showing the “expertly” crafted avatar of herself inside Wii-Sports, yet still, he continued

“B-but imagine being there! like if you were inside the… uh game?”

He blurted out confusingly, everyone stared at him confused, but optimistically Miu smiled and gave him a grin.

“That's it you Mechanic rat! I like that enthusiasm! but with three weeks left I'm not sure if-”

“I'll start working on a game world base!”

Chihiro eagerly responded, being happy to start typing away at their keys and be in their comfort zone, programming.

“Shit that was quick, alright Kaz way to go! your shit for a brain actually thought of something!”

He continued talking, flowing out more ideas and planning out what else there was to be planned. He pointed at Kibo and exclaimed-

“We could connect him to the digital world, and have him be our tester!”

Kibo looked somewhat worried, but the more thought he gave it, it made perfect sense. They could plug him in without any foreseeable issues, and it'd save time and resources since they didn't need to build a headset to be inside this virtual world. Before long, they all started moving like well oiled cogs inside a machine, Kazuichi finding parts and helping Miu build a small server to contain this world. Meanwhile, Chihiro would program a base for this game world that they could use and not before long, they ran their first test. They hooked a cable into Kibo's back and connected it to the server. Before their eyes, inside Chihiro's tablet was the working running demo for this world. It was slow, choppy and mediocre at best, but it was a start, they started making suggestions and changes based on what they each saw was best for this world. Smaller simpler avatars for the users, a streamlined world and graphics to match. In such a short amount of time, they went from a choppy mediocre demo at best, to a genuine display of their talents and ingenuity, as well as their resourcefulness.

2 weeks had gone by, and they were on their final week of progress with their program. Just days away from finishing their group project they decided to run it one last time. Once again they hooked up Kibo by cable into the now grown server and from that, into Chihiro's laptop where they could see Kibo inside the virtual world, well, a cute chibi avatar of Kibo at least. He walked around, waved towards the screen and jumped around making silly happy expressions. Looking away from the screen, Miu could even see that Kibo was smiling in the real world, she squished Kazuichi's beanie into his head and for once genuinely complimented his smarts.

“Who would've thought that your somewhat half-assed idea would actually work, I knew that head of yours wasn't completely empty!”

“Well… when it comes to Sonia it is!”

Chihiro replied comedically, both them and Miu laughing somewhat at Kaz's expense, but he didn't care, even if deep down it was somewhat true.

He was truly happy that his idea came to fruition and was made with most of his friends by his side. Miu stopped rubbing on his beanie and said

“Hey! cheer up! we're only kidding!”

“I know!”

“Heh? then why do you look serious as all shit?”

“Because! I'm trying to think of a name for this project…”

He replied smiling back at the both of them, Miu laughed even louder continued

“HAH! Since I had my perfect inventor hands all over this, I think I should-”

“We all worked on it Miu”

Chihiro replied sternly yet jokingly to try and lighten her mood from the eventual complaints she'd bring up, but to their surprise she took a second to think, and then

“Yeah I guess you're right”

She said in a soft tone of voice, shocking Kaz and Chihiro. Then, again she spoke

“The main inspiration was the Matrix wasn't it Kaz? so we should name it something like that-”

“We're not calling it the matrix”

Said Chihiro, as they and Miu talked out name ideas for their project, attempting to satisfy both parties, Kazuichi came up with a name that'd satisfy both. Somewhat hilariously, Kibo wasn't clued in on the naming of this program since he was inside of it, and so, Kazuichi came up with a name for their project.

“The Neo World Program!”