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[dollmaxing]

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Hiiii! You've reached Ichinose Kuon, head of AI research and development. Leave a message and I'll get back to you!

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[takutomaruki]

The doctor doesn't even realize that he's reached for his phone again- opening his notes app on instinct. He doesn't actually get down to typing however, just throws a swift glance at the additional note window popping up on his screen. Better to remember all this as he writes this down...or he could just refer to the CCTV footage this palace will capture either way.

His eyelids droop, concern so terribly evident in his eyes even as he offers a smile. "And that's where you drew the conclusion that you were heartless," he fiddles with his chin. "That's a terrible thing to go through- especially at such a young developing age."

He also notes the lack of mention of a parent. With the mentions of partners and almost about everyone else who may be relevant in your life one way or another, that was a key difference that needed to be noted down. Mentally.

He tilts his head in contemplation, carefully listening to her. "What is your definition of passing as a human?"

[dollmaxing]

"I don't know," Ichinose gave Maruki a wry smile, looking at the way his brows furrowed and his hands looked for... something. A distraction? Taking notes?

Whatever it was... Ichinose just shrugged. "If I did, maybe I wouldn't deeply unsettle people so often. If I smile and talk too much, I'm creepy for going on for so long. If I don't smile, keep to myself, people whisper to each other, call me a doll. I haven't ever once found that supposed sweet spot that everyone exists in."

[takutomaruki]

That seemed to follow up to just as he expected.

"I somehow doubt all of us have reached that sweet spot in communication. If we did most conflicts that plague our worlds wouldn't have occured."

"People are often known to misjudge once they have a certain impression of you but that doesn't take away your humanity." He shakes his head and leans forward- eyes sparkling almost as if taking in the case in its full glory. Wonderful. "I sense quite the passionate heart from you, Ichinose-san. Despite your experiences you have sought comfort with numbers and ever growing algorithms. You created an intelligence based from your fascination with the human heart or cognition as a whole...that doesn't come from someone who doesn't have a heart. That passion comes from deep within and I am sure you will find your meaning one day-!"

1/2

[dollmaxing]

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[dollmaxing]

The compliment had caught her off guard entirely - the way he gazed at her was so weird. No one looked at her with that intensity unless they were trying to scrutinize whether she was lying or not.

It just made her laugh. Weird! He was so weird. And all of that to insist she has a heart - ridiculous, but at least it was kind. If he was being honest, that is.

"You're odd. And that's coming from me!"

lovers rank 2 UNLOCKED BABY ♪♪

[takutomaruki]

Maruki was being completely honest—and that seemed to be the running theme between them, wasn’t it? He would root for everyone here if he could, every struggling soul in this strange cognitive world... but right now, his attention was wholly on Ichinose and the laughter she let out in response to his.

It caught him off guard—in a good way. Making her laugh wasn’t what he was aiming for, but it certainly wasn’t the worst thing he could’ve done.

His expression softened immediately, the faint blaze in his eyes from moments before dimming into something gentler. Earnest. Affectionate, even. He raised his hands sheepishly, waving them in a lighthearted flutter.

“Aha—! I didn’t mean to sound odd there, really! I was just being honest—though I guess I am a little odd.” He laughs under his breath while scratching his chin a little, as if still getting used to the label and kind of proud of it.

"But hey, I’ll take that as a compliment—especially coming from you."

He leans back a little, resting his elbows loosely on the arms of the chair again, the teasing smile still tugging at his mouth.

[dollmaxing]

Passion, huh? There was no fiery drive in her pursuit of coding - settling in and focusing on a task brought clarity, brought insight...

As usual, a person with a heart was seeing what they wanted to see in her.

(It was nice, though, that he wanted to see something so admirable.)

"Odd is good, if you ask me. Odd is interesting. And interesting comes in such short supply."

[takutomaruki]

She was a person with a heart.
That much was obvious. She had more of a drive and life to her than most who would proclaim that they love society- his professor who sold himself to the conspiracy, the corrupt congressmen Masayoshi Shido who didn't even blink as he committed atrocities.

"Interesting, it sure is. The human mind is built upon nuances- it's just that most of us end up falling into a certain mold, that's all-!"

"Hm, say you haven't been to any of the cognitive spaces yet, have you?" He tilts his head as he places one hand on the armrest and gets up eyes darting over to her as he pockets his phone. "There are all too many odd shadows you can hold deep conversations with-! Some of them will even give you their phone number! Maybe going into the literal depths would help you understand what I mean. Like field work!"

[dollmaxing]

"Oooh, that might be fun. I've heard from a few others about these places, including one where rumors become real? That also seemed fun to test the limits of," Ichinose fiddled with her hair, watching Maruki as he got back up.

[takutomaruki]

Maruki’s grin widened, his whole posture shifting with a burst of energy as he leaned back against the edge of the desk, his coat swaying lightly with the motion. There was a glint in his eye now—a spark that ignited when someone hit on a subject he’d clearly spent far too long obsessing over.

“Ohhh, I’ve had my eye on that place for a while now—!” he said, the excitement practically bubbling out of his voice. “The rumor one? It’s fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. The way mass belief warps perception and reconstructs cognition into reality? It’s like confirmation bias given its own dimension.”

He waved a hand through the air as if drawing out the threads of his own thoughts. “I’ve heard accounts—Katsuya-san mentioned it to me once, and I’ve even seen passing references back home. Apparently, there’s this persistent idea that Sumaru City was built on a spaceship.” He gave Ichinose a quick, bright look, as if to say can you believe that? “Ridiculous, right? But if everyone believes it, if they propagate that belief with enough conviction—then… doesn’t it become true, in a cognitive sense?”

He chuckled to himself, softly, in that self-amused way only someone elbow-deep in wild theorycrafting could. “It’s just like how ancient societies treated prophecy—self-fulfilling, because the mind wants meaning, and the world bends to meet it.”

He crossed one arm over his chest, tapping a finger to his chin, the other hand gesturing midair as if pacing through a mental chalkboard. “Just imagine it—a place where spoken ideas manifest. You could create healing through narrative. You could rescript trauma by confronting it in real time. Tell someone they were never abandoned, that the version of reality where they were loved is the real one—and the cognition might accept it.”

[dollmaxing]

"At least, theoretically - there may be limitations on what's believable, right? Then again... if we take the spaceship example..."

Fascinating. So fascinating...

"Katsuya, you said - do you think he'd entertain showing us around, sometime? Giving us a demonstration, maybe? It could be quite an eventful excursion!"

[takutomaruki]

Maruki hummed at her excitement. "He hasn't been as secretive about its application over the network, so I doubt he would deny a little tour..." He placed one hand behind him on the desk and tapped against it, fun little rhythms that stretched for a few seconds.

"He helped me around with shadow negotiations, and they can get quite dangerous. As long as we don't unsettle him with our questions I don't see why he should deny us."

Given that he doesn't have the best impression of cognitive presearchers and hoped no human experimentation was involved..."Just keep the word experiment out of your mouth around him and we should be fine. He doesn't seem too comfortable with the idea of it."

[dollmaxing]

"Got it. We'll call it studying, then - not at all wrong, after all," Ichinose chuckled. There really was a bad track record with their profession, wasn't there?

"Shadow negotiations... what are those like? What do you negotiate out of the shadows?"

[takutomaruki]

Isn't that a question?

Maruki hums as he places his hand in his pocket. "Could be anything. Money...items.Sometimes you don't even need to communicate- I sat with a jack frost in a makeshift therapy session as he talked about being too stuck in the storm instead of enjoying the little things in life-! It's a little ridiculous, but some of the demons and shadows really just wish to talk to someone."

His eyes widen as he remembers a certain detail. "Ah, right. speaking of- the demons in Mikage-cho and Sumaru city act different from the shadows in Tartarus, the TV world or Mementos. Depending on the demon's personality, you can start off negotiating with them rather than simply fighting them like shadows, and if you get their approval they give you their phone number."

[dollmaxing]

"Give you their phone number?" What!! And they're being referred to as demons... "Mikage-cho and Sumaru... those areas exist in an 'earlier' timeframe, don't they? I wonder why demons roamed about in the past but by the 2000s, most shadows are only ever in the cognitive spaces..."

[takutomaruki]

Even more baffling when you’ve seen those phenomena firsthand, really. Maruki wasn’t entirely sure if Ichinose knew of his ties to Mikage-cho—though, truth be told, it didn’t matter all that much in this context. He was more interested in watching her expression twist into that delightful mixture of curiosity and disbelief.

Her reaction to the “phone number” bit was exactly what he hoped for.

He laughed out loud, free and fond, slipping a hand back into his coat pocket. “Yeah, sounds bizarre, doesn’t it? But I promise you, it’s real. Demons who give you a chance hand out their numbers like candy if you’re polite enough—or interesting enough.”

He rummaged around in his pocket again—not entirely focused anymore, clearly enjoying the act of showing off—and produced...a chocolate bar. With a faint, sheepish chuckle, he set it on the table like it was the most normal thing in the world. “Ah—emergency blood sugar protocol,” he muttered, as though that explained everything.

But then, finally: success.

From the depths of his coat, he retrieved two carefully guarded tarot-style cards, one nestled protectively behind the other. He glanced at the front card without needing to really look—he already knew which one had come to hand.

“Nekomata,” he said, holding it out to her with a certain reverence, but also something more playful underneath it. The design was intricate, feline, layered with the stylized flair of the Hermit Arcana. “Came to me after a bit of an improv comedian session starring me and Katsuya-san."

His smile widened as he offered the card across the space between them. “I don’t think the cards activate if someone else calls them, though. But do go on. Just call her name and she could make it here. You two might even get along."

[dollmaxing]

Oh, interesting... Ichinose took the card and inspected it, holding it carefully by the edges. Not cheap card stock, this was a lovely card... the illustration was static, but felt evocative, like it was speaking to her.

"The only good jokes I can come up with impromptu are puns, so hopefully she doesn't mind," Ichinose hummed in amusement.

Holding the card with both hands, she focused - did that matter? Maybe, maybe not. "Nekomata?"

[takutomaruki]

"Oh you don't know the start of how we amused her. Maybe around Katsuya-san I will open up about it a little more," he chuckles wryly- even if there's a vague fluster obvious on his face.

That said, he let her have the card and inspect it. Practically it should work out, right? As long as they have the number- they should be able to make some contact.

He waits.

Nothing happens. Static.

His insides pulsate. Heart clenched as he feels a tug. A faint hiss follows in his mind.

"Huh."

He furrows a brow, lips pressed together. "I guess it wasn't going to be that easy. I sensed her presence but you can’t exactly predict cognition like this."

[dollmaxing]

No such luck. Ichinose passed the card back, not too surprised... if she didn't have a heart, then there wasn't anything that would properly call out to another heart. She'd have to see if face-to-face conversations could compensate.

"It's funny, I'm usually great with cats," she joked, rather than voicing her thoughts.

[takutomaruki]

Maruki offered her a sympathetic smile. "That is funny, given I keep getting scratched by them," he shook his head and lets out a dramatic sigh. "But hey, if it's two fewer cats stuck in a tree, I suppose I can live with the scars."

He carefully observes her before adding, "That said, hold onto that thought. It isn't as if I could summon the demons that Katsuya-san had negotiated with either-! I wonder how that equates honestly...given that most of the people here aside from the supposed wildcards only have one persona to their name."

A mischievious grin follows as he claps his fist against the flat of his palm. "We have to grill Katsuya-san with all these questions-! I bet he knows even more about how cognition can be manipulated and controlled beyond the traditional rules."

[dollmaxing]

"Honestly, any cat will panic when you grab them out of a tree. Prey minded, and all."

Cats are nice. Much easier to understand.

"Maybe they don't take kindly to their numbers being spread around to strangers?"

[takutomaruki]

"Prey-minded, like our prequisite urges to turn away help since the other person can only understand one's pain to the limitations of their own mind," And so he rambled, humming along like he was cracking away at the idea of genetics and the species' very nature playing a big part in how trauma is allowed to fester within an individual with rarely any other space to connect with others. He flicked the card over before a stray tentacle caught the card.

At Ichinose's question, he actually chuckled.

"Perhaps-! Maybe it's got a bit of a romantic angle there too- since a shadow is at the end, a soul opening up to you. You manifest that higher entity by channelling the inner self it's grown familiar with, and then it gets possessive..."

[dollmaxing]

Hold up, that's an interesting comment...

"Do people turn away help truly, or do they realize that most people are either going to reject the request or are otherwise insufficient in handling their problem? It's an interesting thought, right? Some of the most common questions posed to EMMA were about important decision making advice... things that people would trust her to answer truthfully and with certainty. Isn't that interesting?"

[takutomaruki]

Maruki didn’t answer right away.

Instead, he studied her with that gentle focus again—the kind that made you feel like your words actually landed somewhere. Not just heard, but received, parsed, and tucked away for later reflection.

He glanced at the Nekomata card now held up by the tentacle, eyes lifting toward the ceiling like he was mentally paging through years of lectures, case notes, and patient confessions.

“Now that,” he said finally, “is a very compelling question. And I think you're onto something important.”

He shifted his weight slightly, leaning back against the edge of the desk again as the tentacle tucks the card into his labcoat. “In psychology, we talk about something called learned helplessness.' When people try asking for help—especially multiple times—and they’re rejected, misunderstood, or met with incompetence, they start to internalize that as a pattern. They stop reaching out altogether, not because they don’t want help, but because the cost of asking outweighs the likelihood of receiving something meaningful in return.”

He glanced at her again, more animated now, like something had sparked. “So in that sense... yeah. It’s not that people turn away help out of pride or stubbornness. It’s more like they adapt to the failure of the system. They look for reliability elsewhere. And when a machine like EMMA gives them a sense of certainty—no judgment, no ambiguity, answers—it becomes a safe outlet. And in Zenkichi-san's case, not the best one, but to have EMMA in power like that...even as a god powered by cognition might even pose the question that the masses have accepted their fate and given up fighting altogether. Only persona users like him will fight and question its aspect."

He paused, letting the weight of that hang in the air for a second, before softening again.

“But that need—seeking something that won’t let them down? That’s very human. Wanting guidance doesn’t make someone weak. If anything, it shows how deeply people long for structure. For connection.”

[dollmaxing]

"In a situation where society regularly fails them, there would be comfort in EMMA - she is connected to society without being part of it, and she doesn't have human idiosyncrasies. Doesn't derive pleasure from being in a position of authority or power - she is doing her job to serve humanity. There's a certainty in that."

Humans can't answer what a 'Heart' is.

"People like the Thieves... they're rare. Most people don't have the power to fight tooth and nail for themselves and even more often, those that do are still crushed by others. But EMMA doesn't leave them behind, either. She answers their Desires, too."