Difference between revisions of "Bunny Hop"
m (→Contacts) |
|||
| Line 526: | Line 526: | ||
{{SearchTable| | {{SearchTable| | ||
|LowThreshold=1 | |LowThreshold=1 | ||
|LowResult=" | |LowResult="Solid decker, apparently. Has a whole cutesy-bunny-girl thing going on the Matrix." | ||
|MidThreshold=3 | |MidThreshold=3 | ||
|MidResult=" | |MidResult="Yeah, I've heard of her. One of the hotter names on the Matrix right now, not so good anywhere else. Works well enough in a team though, and she's better at ghosting a host dive than most hackers, most of the time. I've heard some rumors she's a virtual kinetic, but any hacker worth anything has drek like that circulating around." | ||
|HighThreshold=5` | |||
|HighResult="So, you didn't hear this from me, but I got a good inside line that she's moonlighting for the Yaks as some hotshot spider. And honestly, those VK rumors have a little more meat to them than usual - she's slipped up more than once and talked about the 'soul of the Matrix' or some bullshit, and apparently has some signatures sitting on file in a triple-A or two. Put the pieces together, and she's definitely two-timing somebody. I'd stay away, it's gonna blow up in her face sooner than later." | |||
|HighThreshold=5 | |||
|HighResult=" | |||
}} | }} | ||
Revision as of 06:13, 14 September 2024
 | |
| Discord | @jit |
|---|---|
| [1] | |
| Metatype | Human |
| Street Cred | 43 |
| Notoriety | 0 |
| Public Awareness | 0 |
| CDP | 94 |
| D.O.B. | March 03, 2064 |
| Age | 21 |
| Folder | [2] |
| Priority | Metatype - D Attributes - B Resonance - A Skills - C Resources - E |
| Theme Song | anybody can find love (except you) - hkmori |
Character Information
Summary
Sad brat of a technomancer with a chip on her shoulder and a grudge against her dad and the Kanaga-gumi. Currently working her way toward freedom from the Yakuza.
Goals
A Secure Identity Unknown to and Unexploited by the Yakuza- As of Graduation Day, she has her R6 SIN, one that she hopes to keep squeaky clean.
- The Professional Downfall and (Probably) Death of Her Father, Takashi Kurosawa
- Explore the Resonance Realms, and Become Attuned with Other Technomancers and the Deep Resonance
- Extend a Hand to Caliban, and Bring Her Somewhere Safe, and Warm, and Quiet
- Fight to Protect Fennec's Life, and Do Better Than Last Time
- Find Out If Akiha Kurosawa is Actually Worth Loving
- And If She Is, Find Out How to Handle Maybe Falling in Love in Turn
- Continue to Hone Her Hacking Skills
Background
Summary
The "son" (trans-daughter) of the Kanaga-gumi's shategashira, head of enforcement and clan soldiers. She emerged as a child after the murder of her mother at the hands of Halloweeners, and when she was not being forced to do work for the Yakuza afterward, she largely dissociated on the Matrix, where she came to understand it as a great tsukumogami, the kami that come alive when tools are used for one hundred years (give or take).
After an unfortunate reveal of her abilities during a botched assassination on her father, he now has her disowned and under his thumb. Under threat of death or MCT extraction, she must work for the Kanaga-gumi, and help her father find out who placed a hit on him, and why. With goals of her own, a hatred for her father, and the yearning for freedom, she lives a second life in the shadows, where she accumulates resources and allies for her eventual escape.
Her History
Though she is not dead, Akiha Kurosawa's life ended when she was seven years old. Though her mother is not alive, she yet lives in every moment, each time she is recorded, rewound, and replayed while burning to death. The phrase "Better Than Life" seems in every replay a cruel joke.
During an apparently innocuous trip to downtown Seattle, suspiciously scrupulous Halloweeners run a bit of cord along a narrow road and pull it tight to bring a young mother and her oldest child skidding to the ground. She screams and reaches for a side-arm she didn't dare try to sneak through the SIN scanners, and she is beaten bloody for her effort. With a ragged voice, she only begs that they not take her child, and for a mercy uncommon among their brutal ranks, they do not.
Akiha, already half-emerged, cries as her mother is dragged into the murky underground of a gutter, and when she is dry of tears and flat in a hospital bed, she dissociates, falls out of her body, and never quite returns. The sprites of the Matrix chirp as her young persona is born.
Her father is little comfort, a rising star of the grievously Old School Kanaga-gumi and more preoccupied with his work than his children, no matter his lip service. He tells her, his oldest son, that Koichi Kurosawa is his first-born and his lineage, and that one-day his lineage will follow his footsteps into the Yakuza as his pride. She is eight-years old, and has no strength to deny the only love she might have left. She abandons even the thought of telling him she is his daughter, and will painfully choose to deny she'd ever thought so for several more years to come.
Not long into a pubescence that is to her horrific, he grooms her to fight and withstand pain, when he can manage to find her awake. She is made to hold blades and fire weapons and be burned with cigarettes and hot shells that leave her skin pink over a decade later. She is made to fist-fight her brother, and where he revels in violence and the call of duty, she crumbles. She is made to bleed, and though she is told this makes her strong, she can only remember the hurt.
But more often, she is asleep, or staring blankly at walls. Sometimes she leaves her body and lets it crumble like warm laundry onto the ground, and days later awakens dehydrated and starving and alive and wishing she were not. She wears no trodes, no patch, and doctors can find nothing wrong to explain her fainting spells. They shrug their shoulders and call it PTSD.
Her father remarries a properly Japanese woman, Sato Kanaga's niece, and the oyabun is pleased. Eventually, he abandons Akiha's training, and leaves her, as a stick-like corpse in its gentle repose, to slowly rot.
But every moment asleep is a moment alive in another world. Her childish persona emerges and teases at threads and strings tying hosts to level Earth. She befriends the little creatures that find her, and finds that they are unspeakable to many of those around her. She is mocked for insisting she sees kami in the newly formed Matrix, and called a liar at best. She gradually realizes that she is a child alone with the world. The rabbit-like sprites she has found as friends and family comfort her.
By the time she eventually falls in with other 'trode children, she has been long since taught to speak nothing of the blood and beating heart of the Matrix thumping alongside her own. She imagines herself as a shrine maiden, she imagines herself with family, and she imagines her true self special and loved and chosen - and falls numb to keep from crying whenever she awakens to the meat.
Her teens are spent online. Her body atrophies from disuse, save for those few moments she blankly plays gopher to the Kanaga-gumi, or performs even worse crimes for their sake, or rides her mother's Scoot to try and anchor her fleeting memory in something real. Takashi Kurosawa, now close family to the oyabun, climbs to the rank of shategashira, and they move into nicer, more traditional Japanese homes, and indulge in ever-nicer Japanese dinners, and she experiences all of it only as a bad dream.
She hacks because she loves to craft the forms that change the forms around her, and because to forge a shim of just the right shape to slip between the seams of otherwise flawless code brings her joy, and because it is a sign of love for the only things that have loved her in return. She learns more complex forms of hacking, and feels that this brings her closer to the soul of the world, though she also learns the word "technomancer" and all the stigma it brings. She's relieved, nonetheless, to know that she is not uniquely absurd.
She sleazes slushies off of Stuffer Shacks and trids off of Horizon hosts. She changes her icon to a pretty girl so she can catfish boys out of passwords and in-game gold, and embarrassingly finds she does not want to change herself back. She dives into foundations, ill-advised, and though there are hiccups and horrors and might-have-been-friends who never log in again, crises of conscience and trying on white hats that never quite fit, she always returns to her love.
Throughout it all, Akiha is, at her core, alone but for the sprites at her side. She childishly wonders for far longer than she should when others like her might come to bring her to her real life.
Her Real Life
On the second Monday of January 2084, Akiha, her siblings, her step-mother, and her father wander Downtown Seattle's annual seijin no hi festivities to celebrate her upcoming twentieth birthday. While her father discusses plans for a visit to Japan for her younger brother's, she counts the myriad hosts and device icons like stars in the sky, and idly shapes the blocks of code that would peel away each unique Firewall were she to send it their way.
Her dull eyes halt, however, on a half-dozen smartlinked machine pistols running silent. Their hidden personas linger around corners and push into cover. Each are marked by a faintly visible trail of footprints back to a horrific oni standing menacingly atop a host, and with dawning realization and horror, she understands that their maneuvers are not those of bodyguards, but of assassins.
Her dull eyes hastily become sharp. Her persona, eyes identical, rises from her body and carefully treads behind the oni, close enough to snoop on their traffic.
"[Harsh to do it with his family around.]"
"[He's a demon. He'll respect the play when he's in Hell.]"
"[Hold firm. Kurosawa's a demon for a reason, middle-age hasn't changed that. We wait for the best possible shot.]"
Her little half-sister grins and munches on candy, and Akiha cannot bear to let her experience watching a dear parent die. Nor does she yet hate her father harshly enough to wish for his death on such gruesome terms.
To her family, Akiha feigns interest in a mural in the ukiyo-e style a block or two back. She asks her father to come with her, to take her picture, and while her lips awkwardly stumble across her words, her persona mutters well-practiced norito to cleanse the space, zero-out code, and make it clean for a fresh compilation. She will need help from her Matrix siblings.
Half-amused, he follows her, and tells the rest to wait for them in a public space, and as they part, she transforms before his eyes.
"[There are six, plus a Matrix presence,]" she announces to her father as he cocks a suspicious eyebrow. "[Smartlinked Ingram machine pistols.]"
He glares at her incredulously.
"[I'm disabling as many as I can, but they're already moving. They'll be on us as soon as we turn into the alley.]"
"[You're talking like you're a decker or something. You don't even have a dongle, Koichi.]"
A bright, white rabbit, luminescent like the moon, twirls into being in AR. Akiha bites her tongue. As predicted, the moment she and her steadily darkening father find themselves in front of the mural, either end of the little alley is eclipsed by three wide bodies, weapons sharp and drawn.
Her persona extends a lonesome finger gun, winks, and fires a beam bright and wide as moonlight. One of the raised smartguns sizzles and pops in the Yakuza's hands, and he yelps a shocked and vulgar curse - the other two, similarly, raise their guns and hold their triggers, but find each of them jammed, and after a quick dip into AR, discover each of their gun's icons being mercilessly hammered by a rabbit with a mochi mallet.
Gunshots deafen them from behind - Akiha winces and glances sharply over her shoulder, but finds her father already there, cyberlimbs cranked and whirring and slamming the yakuza into newly formed yakuza-shaped craters in the mural. He eats shots point blank, and he bleeds, though they come away flattened like coins clattering on the asphalt below. In an alley so narrow, he has no trouble snapping forward and snatching a wrist to wrench the pistol away from one of them before pouring the entire magazine, mercilessly full auto, into his chest.
Akiha blanches. Though horrified, this is not her first time seeing the Demon of Kanaga fight.
The other three, disarmed save for hidden blades in their coats, hesitate. Though bound by honor, reason keeps a firm grip in that eternal fight between ninjoo and giri.
"[His son!]" A careful chatlogger on the opfor decker's device pings his message through to her as well. "[Take him hostage!]"
The man on the left tightly clenches his knife, and with a burst of resolve, sprints ahead, tip thrust forward, screaming. She frantically shouts a norito, threads a complex form of program, and begs the Resonance to flow, rich and full, through the channels she carves.
Spring water wells from the Source.
In imagelinked contacts, Akiha disappears. Each device, bidden by the power beneath power that flows through them all, intelligently selects and deletes her image from their feed. The charging man, now only yards away, stumbles and grinds to a swift halt in the asphalt.
"[Is his kid a mage!?]"
"[Kurosawa's been keeping that one under his hat-]"
"[Get out,]" the decker screams in AR. "[That's enough - we have footage, if we show the oyabun his kid's a mage, he'll have them both killed, problem solved.]"
His DNI is interrupted by another pour of molten lead into a poor Yakuza's chest. Takashi Kurosawa throws the empty smart pistol to the side.
The remaining two run. Takashi Kurosawa blurs into angry streaks of chrome and scrapes of steel. They do not live to see the end of the alley. He takes their guns off the ground, and each of the six times he pops their fallen heads like bubblewrap, she winces, and dulls, and becomes a little more distant.
Until, at last, he faces her, though she cannot face him.
"[You're bleeding,]" he tells her simply. Warm droplets trickle from her nose and glide across her lips to fall onto her clothes. Her sprite flits back into sight and settles onto her shoulders, where her living persona stands overlaid with her flesh. She says nothing.
He slaps her.
"[Son of a bitch, you're a] toaster fucker."
Her eyes shatter like glass. Akiha becomes a scope on a rifle, clear and sharp and hostile, though distant and anywhere but here, all at once. She glares defiantly to the side, still unable to meet his eyes, and mumbles.
"Your English still needs work, otou-san. It's pronounced, 'Thank you for saving my life, kid. I'm really grateful.'"
He flushes with rage and takes an aggressive step forward - she stumbles into the wall, back first, and must lift her chin as he tightly grips her, one around her wrist, one around her neck. She hacks - coughs, this time, not comms.
"You little rat, hiding this from me? You're no son of mine. It would've been better if you'd died just now and saved me the embarrassment."
Akiha wheezes for breath. Her boyish hands grip futilely at his wrist, begging for release. Her kneels curl and feet shove against the wall behind.
Akiha always knew this is how the reveal would go. Her living persona rises from her future corpse. She dissociates, almost. She wants to see the emerald sky and its galaxy of hosts as she goes, and to hold her dear sprites close to her chest while she does.
"Your daughter...!" Her body rasps - and he, in shock, releases her.
"[What?]"
Life floods her lungs. She doubles over gasping for breath, knees and palms flat on the Earth, and sucks two or three greedy breaths before speaking.
"I'm not your son, I'm your daughter, dad!" She spits, cringing at her own voice as it cracks. Her fists curl into impotent little balls. The soft bits of her palms bleed against the rough bits of the asphalt. Blood blends with snot and saliva as each drip freely onto the pavement. Her eyes, too, bleed salty tears to join them.
"I'm not just a technomancer, I'm your daughter. I'm a girl. I've always been. Or wanted to be." And though she glares, a sliver of weakness slips through her lips.
"Please, dad..."
A mote of the child she was still wants his love. She shivers, and swallows several quiet and desperate sobs. Distant sirens close in on the sound of gunshots - spotting their icons on the grid, she estimates only two to three more minutes before they clue in on the source.
A still-warm barrel presses roughly against the back of her bowed head. Kurosawa's voice simmers with obvious rage.
"[Sure. You obviously don't want to be my son, Koichi. And never in a million years will you be my daughter - between this and the toaster shit, you must be mentally ill. And since I'm not some limp-dicked New Way bleeding heart, I guess you're just a disappointment.]"
"[You've got a choice, Koichi. If you want to be some Matrix degenerate fucking men and toasters, then you should rot like one. I'll call up some contacts right now, you'll be in a Zero Zone by tonight, they'd love another freak like you on the operating table. Or you can kill yourself and die with a little dignity - I've got a tanto right here. Or maybe...]"
The barrel slowly peels away. Those are empty threats - she thinks. She hopes.
"[We sweep this under the rug. You pretend to be my loyal and mundane son, like you're supposed to be, even though we both know the truth.]"
He kneels, grips her hair, and roughly tugs her up to meet his gaze. Tears and spit and blood stream down her bright red face, though she glares daggers and data spikes and molten lead into his eyes. She hates him. She has never wanted to, but she always has, and it's only now that she finally, without restraint, lets the intensity of that emotion overwhelm her. Kurosawa's gruff expression, so dark, so openly disgusted, twinkles faintly with pride.
"[What, you've got fight in you after all? All these years and it's the first time I'm seeing it. Take a swing then, if you want my respect. But if you really want to live, Koichi,]" and he yanks up her head by the roots of her hair, and she cries out in pain. "[Tell me where the other one is. The Matrix presence. You can find him, right? With your weird little brain?]"
She sells them out, knowing it is their death. Only a block away, East. Rapidly descending. Leaving a building, she guesses. Kurosawa lets her drop to the ground.
"[Get up. Wash up in a bathroom. Go back to your step-mom. Say nothing. And Koichi, if you ever even think about running away or saying a single word of what you told me just now? I swear, I'll move the entire clan to find you.]"
"Hai."
"[I'll make some calls and spin the story of what happened here. Little Tokyo pawns should be on our payroll already. And you and I will talk tonight.]"
"Hai."
He blurs, vaporizes, disappears in a chunky sprint. Akiha rises unsteadily to her feet and wipes her tears on her sleeve. The six corpses surrounding her offer no comfort.
She'll find a public restroom. She'll clean up, regroup, and say nothing, just as the demon says to.
And then that night, on the Matrix and well away from any of their prying eyes, she'll ring a certain commcode.
If she is going to escape, she will need all the help she can get.
Narrative Significant Qualities
Positive
- Haafu - (Bilingual) - Akiha is a Japanese-American child of two cultures. Though her feelings on her Japanese side are mixed, she embraces her heritage more often than not. She will rant about anime given the opportunity, and will often speak in Japanese for its cute factor.
- Matrix Native - (Instinctive Hack | One With the Matrix | Hi-Rez | Etc.) - As a Technomancer from a young age, and with a past of dissociation from meatspace, the Matrix is intimately entangled with BHop's brain structure and way of thought. Far from being a first resort, it is often the only one in her head.
- Cyberpriestess - (Technomancer | Resonance Stream: Sourceror | Paragon: Delphi [The Oracle]) - The Deep Resonance is one of the great kami, the broader spirit of the Matrix come to life, its ubiquitous tsukumogami, and the soul of the digital world. Commune, attune, and respect, and it will embrace its resonant children. So she believes, anyway.
- Information Professional - (Analytical Mind | Speed Reading | Brilliant Heuristics) - She's had a lot of practice needing to read through files and metadata very quickly in order to safely do her job. She's picked up a knack for seeing patterns in these things by now.
- One of a Kind - (Unique Avatar) - After an eye-opening experience with a physical mask spell of her persona(Hot Potato (Chips)), she's managed to build an unbelievably realistic Version 2.0 of the Bunny Hop branded Matrix presence! After some frank discussions and solid performance on the job, she's started to garner a small reputation in the shadows.
Negative
- Socially Awkward - (Basement Dweller | Social Appearance Anxiety 1 [Gender Dysphoria]) - Akiha has spent the vast majority of her life online, and still finds it difficult to properly express herself in real life. Couple this with the sensitive girl looking boyish at best, and she struggles even at the best of times. (Androgyny skirts by without penalty in the case of SAA - baggie hoodies, face masks, and other mitigating options lend her enough comfort to keep her focus).
- The Truth Will Set You Free - Driven (Downfall of Father) - Though it used to be about survival, as she accumulates more resources and digs deeper into the truth behind the death of her mother, her vendetta against Takashi Kurosawa has become less about self-preservation and more about finding answers. When her business is done, she can call on her resources and quit the gumi for good. She hopes.
- Stuck in the Past - (Emotional Attachment [Dodge Scoot (Haruko-chan)] | Phobia [Uncommon, Moderate] [Clowns/Halloweeners]) - She holds onto her mom's memory however she can. Alexandra Robins' old Dodge Scoot, for a mechanically minded young woman, seems an ideal memorial, and the trauma of watching her mother shot and dragged away screaming has left Akiha a raw nerve when it comes to less kind reminders of that day.
- Wanted by Null Sect - (Data Hog) - After the events of Encroaching Viscosity, the xenosapient AI hive known as Null Sect has her number. They follow her into the corners of the Matrix, and trace her code however they can. (This quality manifests mechanically as the Data Hog quality from Kill Code page 99.)
Run History
Affiliations
Contacts
| Contact | Connection | Loyalty | Archetype | Profession | Aspects | Chips |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anhe | 3 | 5 | Fixer(K,N,G,A) | Matrix Information Specialist and Fixer | Detached, Lore Hunter, Chronically Online, Shadowrunning, "Oh? Tell me more.", Information Specialist, Fact vs. Fiction, AI "Ally", Protosapients and Technocritters, Digitization and Archival | Even |
| Takashi Kurosawa | 4 | 2 | Custom (A,G,N,K) | Shategashira of the Kanaga-gumi | Cyberware, Automatic Firearms, Handguns, Long Arms, Blades, Don't Talk Back, Yakkity Yak | Even |
| Re:Gulus | 3 | 2 | Fixer | Clocktower Leader | Aspiring Leader, Magician, Magical Theorist, University Degree, Astral reconnaissance, It's Always a Game | Even |
| Skinshedder | 4 | 3 | Service | Free Sprite | Sprite Fragile, Skinshedder, Matrix Denizen, Favored Gremlin, Loyal Friend, Untiring | Even |
| WRN3 | 4 | 4 | Service | Feedback Seer | Technomancer, Matrix Search, Electronics Hardware, Reticent, Hosts, Infected Sympathizer, Vision through the feedback | Even |
| Alias | 5 | 2 | Gear | SIN Forger | SIN Forger, Police Contacts, Disguise Enthusiast, Hacker, Infiltrator, College Educated | Even |
| Taina Kauhava | 5 | 1 | Gear | Corporate Loyalist, Accessory Maniac, Corporate Roots, Matrix Expertise, Software Engineer, Personal Assistant, Backroom Nokia Consultation, Personal E-Security | Even | |
| Greg | 3 | 1 | Fixer | Skraacha Gumshoe | Skraacha, Ork Underground, Gumshoe, Drugs, Ex Renraku Neo-PD, Orc Family Man | Even |
| Jackie Jack | 5 | 1 | Generalist | Example Positive Aspect, The big leagues, Stick it to them, In the shadows, Gonna need something bigger, Don't sell your soul kid., History best left forgotten | Even | |
| EN-Z-0 | Contact Not Found. Please create contact using Template:Contact. | 5 | You may also see User:Free Sprite for bot instructions. | Even | ||
| Kakei Steve | 6 | 1 | Fixer | Fixer | Lawyer, Legal Connections, I Know Many Things, Weeb Swordsfan, Yakuza Networker, Deltaware Dealer, I Know The Best Cyberware | Even |
| Leonard MacLainn | 3 | 1 | Custom(K,N,G,A) | Legwork and Information | Financial Instability, Cursory Examination, Do You Know Who I Work For!, Time is ... time?, Spirit Wrangler, Small Fry | Even |
| The Girl in Many Colors | 3 | 4 | Service | Technomancer | Color Coded, Matrix-Bound, Spinning Along the Color Wheel, f3f6f4, 701ac2, 000000, 97a3a9, 1787dc | -1 |
| Angélica Cabral | 4 | 1 | Fixer | For The Cause: OHK, Unbending Morals, Trying Times, Hang on, I've Heard of Them, Oh, I've heard of Them!, A SURGE of Empathy, Breaking Cycles of Violence, Viewed from the Ground, Wide Awake, Striking Cycles of Violence, Still a Hospitaller, Blocking Cycles of Violence | -2 | |
| Kousuke Yamada | 4 | 2 | Fixer | Kanaga Kyodai | Wife Guy, Word on the Street, Accomplished Businessman, Yak Attack, Shadow Assets | Even |
| G01bez_and_0-MUS | 2 | 4 | Service | Matrix Siblings Decker and Technomancer Tag Team Duo |
Overprotective, Technology Connections, Technomancer, Double Trouble, Sibling Synergy | Even |
| Makali'i (Contact) | 3 | 3 | Service | Detective | Example Positive Aspect, Operating a Legitimate Business | Even |
| C0nc0rd3 | Contact Not Found. Please create contact using Template:Contact. | 4 | You may also see User:Free Sprite for bot instructions. | Even | ||
| Ace Powers | 6 | 1 | Fixer | Horizon Talent Agent | Musical Talent, Corporate Deals, Keep it Classy, Fake SINs, Insider Knowledge, Horizon Agent, Hired Muscle | Even |
| Amrei Veidt | 6 | 2 | Generalist | S-K Prime Operative | Actually a Spy, Deck Jockey, Delta Clinic Access, Former Shadowrunner, Information Broker, One Step Ahead, Prime Datahaven Membership, Saeder-Krupp Employee, Fresh off the Assembly Line | Even |
| Corf | 1 | 3 | Service | Helpful Lil' Minecart | Rail-bound, Small, Living Transport, Underground, Wild Spirit, Smol | Even |
| Miguel Frausto | Contact Not Found. Please create contact using Template:Contact. | 4 | You may also see User:Free Sprite for bot instructions. | Even |
Relationships with NPCs
- Anhe: Met her as a teenager during her hiatus from hacking to pursue Matrix Games. Anhe sees her a bit like a little sister to be protected, though trusts her skill and likes to rib her even still. Their relationship is softly antagonistic in the way siblings frequently are.
- Takashi Kurosawa: Antagonistic, bluntly speaking. Takashi Kurosawa is using Bunny Hop for his own means, and as a way to rise within the ranks of the gumi and sus out his supposed enemies. Kurosawa is at present unaware that Bunny Hop is shadowrunning on the side, but has his suspicions. If discovered, he would likely burn her, and sell her out to MCT while hiding as much information from the Kanaga-gumi as possible, in order to avoid the familial shame.
- Kousuke Yamada: As a fixer for the Kanaga-gumi when they are driven so deeply into a corner that they must rely on the shadows for support, Yamada had the resources necessary to clock Bunny Hop's true identity after the events of Tying a Yoke To Yamada. Rather than ratting her extracurricular activities out to the Kanaga-gumi, Yamada chose instead to steal Kurosawa's tool right out from under him. They are currently working in conjunction to find the evidence necessary to bring Kurosawa's past crimes to light, and to make defending him impossible even as the oyabun's favored pet enforcer.
- The Girl in Many Colors: A fellow Heavenseeker - first encountered on Third-Story Malpractice as a freelance spider guarding a hospital's host, she and BHop very swiftly clocked each other as technomancers, and agreed to talk after they were no longer each others' opfor. During Budding Heavenseeker, she reveals to Bunny Hop her quest for Heaven, and through it, Garden. Bunny Hop thinks of her as capricious and largely unreliable, though as a fellow technomancer, she longs for the two of them to nonetheless be friends. Her penchant for broken slivers of code and decaying hosts is probably nothing, too, she thinks. She hopes.
- Makali'i (Contact): A former runner, and someone Bun is on favorable terms with. She helped her find her missing partner Wills in a facility deep under the OU that housed a rogue AI capturing technomancers. She thinks of Makali'i as strong and pure-hearted, and has earned Makali'i's appreciation and respect from their brief run together.
- Ace Powers: He doesn't even know who she is. Literally. She was in disguise as a Dawkins Group agent when they met and he gave her his business card during Into the Void - Fennec carried the conversation, but she can reap the benefits too, ne? It's probably going to be very funny if she ever has to actually call him for a favor.
Organizations and Reputation
Allies
| Faction | Reputation | Related Run(s) |
|---|---|---|
| AllWire, Inc. | 2 | Hot Potato (Chips) |
| Chulos | 10 | Hopquest |
| Church of Starry Wisdom | 2 | Into the Void |
| Erika | 1 | Knock Knock |
| Farraday's Clinic (DEFUNCT) | 5 | As Goes Light |
| Finnigan Family | 10 | Building on Biometrics, BANGYOURHEAD+55 |
| L.R. Foundation | 5 | Third-Story Malpractice |
| People of the Orc Underground | 4 | Diggin', Heartache |
| PepsiCo | 1 | Out of the Blue |
| Skraacha | 5 | Diggin' |
| Streets of Seattle | 5 | Heartache |
| West Coast Monolith | 1 | Guerilla Gangoons |
| All Yakuza Clans | 1 | Tying A Yoke to Yamada |
Enemies
| Faction | Reputation | Related Run(s) | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compulsory Execution Unit | -10 | As Goes Light | |
| Cutters | -5 | Go big, go loud, or go home! | |
| Greater Medical Community | -5 | Third-Story Malpractice | |
| Hell's Angels | -10 | Out of the Blue | |
| High Society | -5 | Ash Replevin | |
| NTerLOK Production | -2 | Hot Potato (Chips) | |
| Kenran-kai | -4 | Building on Biometrics, Tying A Yoke to Yamada | BHop has a sort of split reputation with the Kenran-kai. Unless they make the connection between the two, the Bunny Hop that attacked the Kenran-kai during Building on Biometrics is a different, unrelated person to the Koichi Kurosawa who made a positive impression at the yakuza gathering in Tying a Yoke to Yamada, even though both are her "true" identities. |
| Shotozumi-gumi | -9 | Heartache | BHop has a sort of split reputation with the Shotozumi-gumi. Unless they make the connection between the two, the Bunny Hop that assisted in the attack on a Shotozumi-gumi bunraku parlor in Heartache is a different, unrelated person to the Koichi Kurosawa who made a positive impression at the yakuza gathering in Tying a Yoke to Yamada, even though both are her "true" identities. |
| Yellow Lotus Triad | -7 | BANGYOURHEAD+55 |
Street Cred
Notoriety
- N/A
Public Awareness
- N/A
In Character Information
Symbols and Signatures
Rabbits, bunnies, and hares. Her Matrix MARK is a cutesy rabbit face in the Sanrio, "Hello Kitty" style.
Matrix Search Table
| Threshold | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | Junk: "Bunny hopping (bhopping) is an advanced movement technique used in some varieties of pre-Matrix first person shooters. To perform a bunny hop..."
Bunny Hop keeps a low profile online, for the most part. Some known aliases are BHop, Bun, and Hops. She's had some good results in amateur leagues for Shadowrun Online and Road Fighter as recently as four years ago, but seems to have dropped completely off from the competitive circuit since then. She has public accounts on anime and game discussion sites, as well as cooking forums, art discussion groups, and others, all with relatively sparse public post histories. |
| 3 | Some details begin to add up in seedier parts of the web - common elements from her more public and innocuous profiles can be pieced together, giving a probable link between them and some Matrix vandal going by a variety of ascii rabbit emojis. Examples include: ₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎, ໒꒰ྀི´ ˘ ` ꒱ྀིა, ૮₍ ´• ˕ •` ₎ა, and others. The bunny face vandal has been inactive for several years, however, and has not made a marked impact on either commonly shared blacklists or in other decker circles. Descriptions matching Bunny Hop's red rabbit persona have been noted in a few places they probably shouldn't be. |
| 6 | A name appears, associated with the bunny face vandal: Akiha. Those few who are familiar with the bunny face vandal's techniques and MO remember her taking a peculiar approach to decking, one that was indirect and seemed to flow with the Matrix rather than imposing upon it, like a digital Aikido. She spoke briefly of spirits in the wire. Disturbingly, some unrelated deckers in unrelated incidents have reported similar techniques used by a Yakuza spider in recent months, a nameless and textureless silhouette of an oni, appearing as negative space, like a hole cut into the Matrix. |
Shadow Community Table
| Threshold | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | "Solid decker, apparently. Has a whole cutesy-bunny-girl thing going on the Matrix." |
| 3 | "Yeah, I've heard of her. One of the hotter names on the Matrix right now, not so good anywhere else. Works well enough in a team though, and she's better at ghosting a host dive than most hackers, most of the time. I've heard some rumors she's a virtual kinetic, but any hacker worth anything has drek like that circulating around." |
| 5` | "So, you didn't hear this from me, but I got a good inside line that she's moonlighting for the Yaks as some hotshot spider. And honestly, those VK rumors have a little more meat to them than usual - she's slipped up more than once and talked about the 'soul of the Matrix' or some bullshit, and apparently has some signatures sitting on file in a triple-A or two. Put the pieces together, and she's definitely two-timing somebody. I'd stay away, it's gonna blow up in her face sooner than later." |
Assensing Table
Bunny Hop's aura peels away from her in thick, vaporous strands, easily visible like steam on a cold day, though chilled as a shell of frigid, stagnant air. Close to her body, the shell suddenly breaks, and she radiates a sweet warmth, scented like Spring, with the texture of rabbit down and fluff. The fuzzy, shadowed silhouette of two rabbit ears rest on top of her head. Gentle whispers surround her - on five hits, the assenser can just make out that the whispers seem to be reciting blocks of raw assembly code.
| Threshold | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | Bun is generally healthy - not a specimen of particular physical value, but someone who is reasonably fit despite appearances. No matter what her outward expression and mood, an undercurrent of hurt and longing bleeds through, beneath her other emotions. She does not appear to be awakened. |
| 2 | Bun appears to have no cyberware. |
| 3 | Bun appears to have no alphaware, and an untouched Essence. |
| 4 | Bun appears to have no bioware or betaware. Essence 6, Magic N/A, Force N/A |
| 5 | Bun appears to have no deltaware, gene treatments, or nanotech. No chronic illness seems to afflict her physically. She is a technomancer. The slightest distortion in her aura lingers like clouds on the horizon - she is a trans-woman, and has not yet had biosculpting treatments done to align her body and soul. (Detailed in Chrome Flesh pg. 136). |
SINs
Yuuji Akasaka (Fake Rating 4, UCAS)
- Security Professional
- Fake Firearms License (Rating 4)
- Fake Cyberdeck License (Rating 4)
- Fake Bodyguard License (Rating 4)
- Note: This SIN is used exclusively for when BHop is doing work for the Yakuza.
Kei Kisuke (Fake Rating 4, UCAS)
- College Student
- Fake Student ID for Seattle Central College (Rating 4)
Akiha Robins (Fake Rating 6, UCAS)
- Cybersecurity Consultant
- Fake Driver's License (Rating 6)
- Fake Cyberdeck License (Rating 6)
- Fake Matrix Software License (Rating 6)
Appearance
On the meat, BHop is short and lean for a boy at only 5'8", but above average for a woman, which she's of course very self-conscious of. Her dark hair curls softly around her face, framing it well and lending it a round femininity, even as her shoulders flare on the masculine side of androgynous. She is pale, leaning more closely to her American heritage than her Japanese. Her dark eyes bounce between the bratty mischief she tries to play up online and the riptide of dull, bitter fury that swirls underneath. Overall, she is a woman of opposites struggling to reconcile.
On the impossible occasion Bun can be made to undress, a myriad of scars, those caused by burns and those caused by blades, mar her entire body, her torso especially. On her back, in the ukiyo-e style, a large tattoo of a torii gate spans from shoulder to shoulder - an eastern dragon of a deep violet color passes through and coils around her spine. Touches of blue bioluminescence glow within its eyes and beneath its scales.
Clothing
Doing Yak work, her outfits are decided for her. Button ups and blazers and belts. Her hair is done up in a top-knot. Her shoulders visibly slump in these scenarios.
Most other times, BHop covers up in facemasks, baggy hoodies and jeans. Goofy bunny faces and ironic Japanese written in gana and kana are printed all over her mask and clothes, and augmented by AR tags with light-up decorations surrounding her - speech bubbles, moving cat ears, and so on, provided neither stealth nor tact are needed. On runs, she also sports a pair of red reflective goggles to cover her eyes, and a little side-satchel to carry her gear.
Bun always has some kind of corrective vision on - typically a proper pair of glasses.
Matrix Persona
On the Matrix, Bun is much more plainly herself. She flits between personas, though typically sports two large bunny ears, whether anthropomorphic or purely fashion. Her hair is typically bright and long, defaulting to a blonde red, and her height a meager 5'1" on average, though she'll sometimes adjust to at least try to be the shortest in the conversation by a centimeter or two (with the largest chest to boot, if she's feeling jealous). Her eyes are bright and playful, mischievous and fun, always shimmering in whatever color she chooses to match her aesthetic that day - though defaulting to a deep purple. Her outfits are copious: lolita fashion, stylishly baggy street wear, promiscuous bunny outfits, and so on - she always attempts to coordinate these outfits with the body of her persona, and will adjust the color of her hair and eyes to match if needed.
When operating her unique persona on runs, as she moves swiftly, red feathers fall in her wake, apparently spawned from nothing. Subtle scents of spring follow her. Smoldering white moons the size of her fist orbit her in a perfect circle, as though a shield she can command at will.
In combat, she may unsheathe a blinding crescent moon as a katana's blade, its hilt wrapped in ofuda. A small, red rabbit charm keychain dangles from the handle. Her MARK is a cutesy rabbit-face sticker in the Sanrio/"Hello Kitty" style.
In rarer moments, when her guard is down, she may even dress down. She holds in reserve a lovingly crafted render of herself, her real body, edited only far enough to become what it always should have been. This persona is only ever shown to those she trusts.
When doing Yak work, she limits herself. A simple, textureless mesh with only the silhouette of an oni to give it shape are all she needs to please the Kanaga-gumi and disguise herself from the other side of her work.
Tokens
| Yakuza Work | Casual | Obvious Runner (ID Concealed) | Matrix |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
Character Plot Hooks
Here are characteristics of the character that GMs may take advantage of to add complications to runs, or to otherwise use when in use. If you want to use them in content unrelated to runs, please ask first.
| Aspect | Information | Related Run(s) |
|---|---|---|
| A Yak in Sheep's Clothing | As the "son" of the Kanaga-gumi's shategashira and an active spider for the organization, her face on the meat is known to those in the gumi and likely to some Yakuza outside of it. Though she always covers her face on runs (Hood, Sick Mask, Goggles, Ballistic Mask, Synthskin Mask, etc.), refuses to speak with her real voice, instead opting for DNI and using the speaker of her comm, and utilizes separate Matrix personas and broadcast SINs, it is possible that close contact with Yakuza personnel may reveal her identity, especially to those of the Old School. This would snowball into potentially dire consequences, especially if this information gets back to Takashi Kurosawa. | Building on Biometrics, Fennec Bueller's Day Off |
| Hacker on Steroids | Though she prefers stealth, brushes against a former demiGOD and other heavy hitters wearing both white and black hats have revealed her persona's icon to potentially powerful users in the Matrix. If her unaltered persona is spotted, it's possible that she may be recognized as a known quantity in the shadows. Recently, it has qualified her for the Unique Avatar quality, furthering her reputation in the shadows. | As Goes Light, Knock Knock, Go big, go loud, or go home!, Hot Potato (Chips) |
| Technomancer in Hiding | She is a Technomancer in hiding, meaning that she takes care to disguise herself as a decker. It's possible that this ruse could be revealed. (Trode Patch, Trode Patch Cover, and a kitbashed deck in a C-K Analyst shell is currently her cover to present as a decker on the meat. She also utilizes SINs [listed above] to sell this illusion, in particular that of Yuuki Love, private investigator.) | N/A |
| Wanted by Null Sect | After the events of Encroaching Viscosity, she is on their radar. Terrifying! | Encroaching Viscosity, Graduation Day |
Media Mentions
Note
I am completely fine with long term consequences for my characters, as long as it doesn't feel unannounced or forced. Long term changes to a character make more opportunities for interesting roleplay, and so don't be afraid to give them out if they are deserved.