Chapter Text
Tsukasa sat up on his bed, a yawn escaping his lips. His hand reached up to his face, finding that his bangs had gotten messed up in his sleep. He sighed, and stood up.
He went to the metal circle on the floor, pressing a few buttons on the touch screen that was mounted onto a nearby wall. A tube went up from the metal. In an instant, the machine dressed Tsukasa into the outfit he had prepared for his debut performance.
He had made the pieces of the outfit by hand. A white collared shirt to match the shorts coming to his knees, a yellow tie around his neck, purple gloves, and a vest. It was the same color as his gloves, but with a piano design on the side.
Tsukasa went into his bathroom. There was a machine in there capable of doing his hair for him, but he preferred to do that himself. He didn't want to get too lazy, after all.
Fifteen years ago, Tsukasa set his goals on becoming an idol. Now he would get to make that very dream a reality. He wanted to look his best.
He brushed his bangs to the side of his face, covering his right eye. He thought it would make him look cool and mysterious. Instead, it looked pretty adorable. Even so, he liked it, so he made no move to change it.
After brushing his teeth, he went back into his room. He put on a slightly baggy hoodie. It was a precautionary measure, in case the police questioned the piano pattern.
When he went downstairs, Tsukasa saw his younger sister, Saki, sitting at the table, finishing off a bowl of cereal. "Tsukasa! Good luck with your new job at that bar!" She said when she noticed he was there.
"Thank you, Saki! I'm sure I'll do an amazing job! I'm Tenma Tsukasa, after all!" He placed a hand on his chest, his other arm coming up in the air in what he believed to be a cool, confident pose. It actually looked stupid.
Saki looked like she was about to say something, but Tsukasa was out the door before she could get her words out. His body shook with a mix of anticipation and excitement.
Tokyo was as bright and neon lit as it had been when Tsukasa was a kid. Not much had changed, aside from the addition of some new buildings. Tsukasa had the route to the bar memoized. As a kid, after he first went there, he would sneak into the bar to hear the singers. Once he was actually old enough to enter legally, he went there even more often.
It wasn't too long of a walk. Tsukasa lost his driver's license a few months back. He never bothered to get a new one, and he didn't trust teleporters. Not many people did. The government was oddly secretive about how they worked. Most of the public assumed it deconstructed and reconstructed a person to move their location. The idea of your friends and family talking to someone who was only a mere recreation of you scared most people out of using them.
Tsukasa went to pull up his hood, but he decided against it. A hood might make him look suspicious. Instead, he kept his head high, a huge smile on his face, his hands in his pockets.
As he walked, he looked around at the people he was passing. Unlike himself, most didn't look happy at all. Even the children had devices in their faces. Some people walked alongside holograms. Whether they were of a real friend or an AI bot, it was impossible to tell. The usual sign of a robot, that being the lack of a soul in their eyes, was absent in a hologram.
Tsukasa finally arrived at the bar. He flashed his ID at the man in the front, and entered without any issues.
"Good luck," the bartender, Luka, said to him when he went by. She was the daughter of the couple who owned the bar.
Tsukasa sat down in one of the chairs, leaning forward, resting his elbows on the counter. "If I perform well enough tonight, will I get any free drinks?"
Luka chuckled, and shook her head. "You still need to pay. Maybe I'll give you a discount."
"Wonderful! You truly are the best, Luka." Tsukasa stood back up, going over to the area of the bar that had a phone.
After confirming no one was paying attention, Tsukasa lifted up the rug, going down through the hidden trapdoor beneath it.
The live band Tsukasa had hired for his performance was standing on the stage. Once he took off his hoodie, he walked over to them, grabbing the microphone and addressing the crowd.
"HELLO EVERYONE! My name is Tenma Tsukasa, the brand new star that will rule this stage!" He yelled as he pointed to his audience. "And I will show you the best song you've ever heard! Better than anything an AI can ever come up with!"
Tsukasa began to sing. He had practiced for months in secret for this. All that work had paid off, since Tsukasa sounded good. Really good.
The crowd enjoyed it. Tsukasa enjoyed it. He wished he had written a second song so he could sing for longer. A bead of sweat dripped from his forehead, a result of his energetic dance. Being on stage was almost as thrilling for him as hearing a human-made song for the first time was.
He was able to make people smile. And that mattered to him more than most things in the world.
When he finished, the crowd broke into applause. Tsukasa gave them a theatrical bow. "Thank you, dear audience! I will be performing here again!"
With a final wave, Tsukasa went off of the stage. Some people in the audience gave their compliments while they patted him on the back. Others offered to buy him a drink. Tsukasa politely declined the offers.
He stayed for a bit to watch some other people sing. Some of them were repeat performers. Others were doing it for the first time.
He remained for around an hour. Eventually, he finally decided to go home. He went over to the ladder, and saw there was a masked man standing by it.
The man had purple hair, and he was holding Tsukasa's hoodie from earlier. He looked to be about the same age as Tsukasa, maybe a year older, but a black mask covered the lower half of his face, making it was hard to tell. The man's eyes were similar to a robot's, yet not entirely soulless. Tsukasa approached the man, and reached for his hoodie. "Sir! May I have tha-"
Tsukasa didn't have time to finish before the man started to climb up the ladder. Confused, he decided to follow the man up.
In the main bar area, the man was walking towards the back whilst Tsukasa tried to keep up. "Hey! That's mine!"
He was ignored.
Tsukasa went with the man all the way to the very back of the bar. No one else could see them from here. "Excuse me, but-"
This time, he felt a needle enter his neck. He fell to his knees, the effects of the injection instant. The final thing he saw before his vision went fully blank was the man looming above him.
"Ah..."
When Tsukasa regained his consciousness, he was sitting in a legless chair that hovered slightly above the ground. He looked down, and saw that he was bound to it with some kind of metal. "The hell...?"
He had a look around the room he was in. It was completely empty, aside from him, a few boxes, and another chair. He sat in silence for around five minutes. Then, the door opened.
The person who entered was the same masked man as before.
"Hey! Where the hell am I?! Who are you?!" Tsukasa yelled. "And where's my hoodie? You stole it!"
The masked man walked forward until he was only a few feet away from Tsukasa. "You'll get your hoodie soon. You can call me R for now."
The other chair floated over to R, and he sat down. "You're in one of the bases for The Intruders. I'm sure you've heard of us at some point."
Tsukasa's eyes widened. He had heard of them before. A rebellion group that would appear on the news a lot. Not for any good reasons. "Aren't you the guys who beat up a robot on stage? What do you want with ME of all people?!"
R shrugged. "For one, you're cute," he said with a wink. "And a singer. That's who we tend to hire, as they usually share our beliefs. I assume you do as well.." He leaned forward slightly. "Do you want to join us?"
"What's in it for me?" Tsukasa asked, his head tilting slightly to the left. "I'd be a wanted criminal if I joined."
"Money. The ability to perform at bigger venues. Better music equipment. Protection," R listed out. "And the opportunity to mess with the government. Heists, hacking, stuff along those lines. Sounds fun, yes?"
Tsukasa nodded. His head returned to a normal position. "That does sound fun...but why should I trust you? You kidnapped me!"
"Well," R began, "We can't exactly ask in the open for people to join. There's always the chance a member of the DRC was in the bar, and then I'd be arrested."
"Huh. Good point." Tsukasa took a moment to think about the offer.
To his knowledge, very few members of The Intruders had ever been arrested. Strength in numbers, he supposed. He'd heard many other rumors about the group, ranging from how the leaders once adopted an orphan, to how one of the members had killed someone before. He sure hoped that last one wasn't true.
R spoke up again. "We take great care in making sure our members aren't caught. Considering the punishment for the crime of music is being turned into a robot, we need everyone to be protected." His hands clenched into fists in his lap as his expression hardened. "The less people who have to suffer that fate, the better."
Tsukasa sighed. "Yeah, yeah. That's pretty common knowledge. I'm not stupid."
"You never know. Lots of people are idiots these days. Some grown adults are still on a fourth grade reading level." R stood up, moving to the back of Tsukasa's chair. "Have you made up your mind yet?"
"...I'll join under one condition," Tsukasa turned his head as best he could to look at R. "I have a little sister. She's a few years younger than me, and she means the world to me. If you promise her safety, I'll join."
"You're a very trusting person, Tsukasa." R pulled a remote from his pocket. In the press of a button, the metal keeping Tsukasa to the chair disappeared. R put away the remote while Tsukasa stood up. "She'll be safe. We'll have someone keep an eye on her."
Tsukasa followed the masked man out of the room. The rest of the base seemed very large, and he could see an elevator near the door they came out of. The many other doors in this level of the base were labeled. The ones he could easily read were 'Weapon Supply', 'Food Storage', and 'Dorms'. Based on the giant table and holographic board in the center of the room, Tsukasa assumed this main hub was for meetings. Some of The Intruders were walking around. No one paid attention to Tsukasa.
"Do you have any questions before I introduce you to some people?" R asked.
"A few. Why are you trusting me so easily?" Tsukasa's right eyebrow raised. "I could be a spy."
"Luka put in a good word for you."
"Luka? You know her?"
"Some of the groups here like to perform at that bar," R explained. "I usually perform there after midnight."
"Why do you wear a mask? Are you self conscious about your face or something?" Tsukasa smiled up at R. "I'm sure you look good."
R stopped walking for a moment. When he continued, his footsteps were a bit quicker. "...I just like how the mask looks."
Finally, the two of them reached a room labeled 'Engineering'. R pulled out a key card, placed it on the scanner to the right of the door, and the door slid open.
He turned back to Tsukasa. "Your codename is T. You will refer to everyone in The Intruders with their codenames when outside of a base. If you're in one of the bases, you can call them their real name. And Tsukasa?"
"Yeah?"
"Welcome to the team. My name is Kamishiro Rui."