„Hito no sadame wa Kakumo hakana kimono…” came the whispered last words of my morning clocks wake up music program, before I finally managed to blindly smack my hand on the “off” button on top of it.

I usually enjoyed waking up to the sound of music, but today I awoke with a splitting headache, an expected after effect of the extensive nano reconstruction process I have had to go through after yesterday’s little disaster in The Pearl Turtle district, as I have been told by our Sophotect Akaseni.

I am still surprised by the extreme regenerative capabilities of this Motherforge that the Sophotect is using. No 12 hours before I was lying on the ground in some goddamn control room, my back pierced by several Teseum rounds by some bloody USAriadnan soldier, and now here I was waking up in my bed with nothing but a headache to show for it.

Still I was “ordered” to have a day off to rest by Akaseni, and since it was supposed to be my free day anyways, even though Agents of the Imperial Service never really truly have a day off, more like a few hours without bullets flying over their heads or endless paperwork to do, I decided to finally take the time and turn this new place I live in into a place I’d actually call home.

The delivery of my belongings had finally arrived, most likely hastily packaged and sent by some random servants of the state after I was so suddenly and forcefully transferred to this new position after my virtual audience with his Majesty, without any time to actually take care of stuff like that.

I was glad to find that most of my important belongings had made it to my new home. My Kitchen Utensils where already stacked in boxes in my new kitchen area, my clothing was in front of my cabinet, and even my more eccentric stuff was present. I placed my family shrine together with our old family Samurai Armour on the opposite side of the new synth leather couch I had ordered the other day for my living room, right next to the Holo projector and the soon to hold classical Japanese literature bookshelf that was there. Yes I know, bookshelf, what a waste of space, but sometimes I just prefer reading an actual book made of paper over watching holo philosophers reciting their most famous quotes right in the middle of my living room. Not to mention that it does help giving the room a bit of class that my random assortment of stuff normally wouldn’t.

Placing the Holo Group Picture of my JSA Squadmates and Subordinates we had taken after the campaign on Flamia on its place on the side of my family shrine and activating it, I clapped twice and lowered my head for a split second in thought of my comrades, wishing them good luck as I smirked and continued on with decorating my home.

Seeing the immense amount of boxes I decided it was time to activate my trump card!

Ripping the packaging material off and slowly opening the giant boxes front, I took my first look at what would become an integral part of my home life from now on.

In front of me stood a human looking Automaton inside of its transport box straight from the manufacturer. It was a female model designed to look like a strange mix between a schoolgirl and Geisha, a white slightly robotic looking face with red markings and a typical Geisha Wig on her head, but with the height and appearance that looked no older than 16, and a strange outfit that looked like a cross breed between schoolgirl uniform and geisha clothes, the material closer in looks to the geisha clothing, the skirt and hex pattern covered stockings clearly an homage to an old schoolgirl look though.

Supposedly the design was chosen to give of a non-threatening feeling, while still maintaining the automaton’s ability to fulfill her duties and look pleasing to the eye without crossing the uncanny valley.

This version of the Automaton was a Prototype Test run Design, with the final products intention to be given to high ranking or otherwise important Yu Jing personal as their home assistant. It was not only designed to be a house servant, but its frame was built around the current Karakuri Design, which meant that it actually was equipped for and capable of full on combat operations if need be.

This allowed for the Automaton to not only serve as a basic housekeeping robot, but also a secret protector of its master’s house and family in his absence. The need for such a creation has become obvious in recent times with blackmailing and assassination attempts on important Yu Jing Personal on an all-time high due to the recent Paradiso incidents, and since the development of this Automatons was obviously done by the Army, and more specifically the Japanese Karakuri Development Division of the Army, I had been given one to test run.

Pressing the activation button behind the Automaton’s ear I watched with interest and amusement as the 1,60 meter tall female looking creation started to spasm for a second, most likely to calibrate it’s servos, and then suddenly opened its artificial eye lids and scanned me with its currently black eyes.

With a mechanical click her mouth opened and a monotone female voice echoed without the mouth moving “New Master ID Confirmed, Yasashii Fuyu, please define Name, Hairstyle, Eye and Hair colour and voice/personality setting for this unit.”

Thinking for a second I finally responded “Yuki, Neck length open, Ice Blue, Ice Blue, Formal Friendly, Formal”.

The eyes of the Automaton started glowing for a second as it processed the request, and soon afterwards the eye colour suddenly changed to an icy slightly glowing blue, the hair turned to an icy almost white blue, the Geisha Wig suddenly popped open and allowed for the hair to fall down and retract itself to neck length with some longer hair on the front.

Bowing down gently the Automaton raised her head and once again opened her mouth, this time in sync with her words instead of just open. “Sorry O-san, No can follow your request for voice/personality setting. Apparently I come with a test preset for those parameters. My settings are “Teenager, Yakuza’s Daughter”.”

Now I had kind of expected something like this since this was supposed to be a test run and the different kinds of personality had to be tested as well, but “Yakuza’s Daughter”? What a stupidly specific and unpleasant setting was that supposed to be? No doubt the developer of this thing was some freakish weirdo, or maybe this was some cruel joke by the Tokusetsu Butai Member that had told me about this test run….if so I would make him pay!

“Hey! *snip* Helloooo? *snip snap* Yuki to creepy old maaaan. What’s your Order O-san? I haven’t got all day you know….well technically I do I guess but you know what I mean.” Snapping me out of my annoyed internal monologue by snipping with her fingers in front of my face while bending forward to look upwards at my face, Yuki looked at me with a slightly annoyed expression on her face, completely at odds with her appearance.

“Yeah yeah sorry, I was just thinking about dismantling you and sending you back to where you came from…..but I guess I’ll give you a chance first. Please start by unpacking all the boxes here and placing the content to their respective places.”

With a slightly pissed look on her face the Automaton bent backwards, pressed her hands into her artificial hips, and snapped at me “And what if I don’t know where to put your shit?”

Already knowing that this would turn out to be a very strange Master/Automaton Relationship I just sighed and pointed to the Japanese style table in front of my couch “Just place it on there then….I’ll figure it out later when I’m back….I gotta get myself some breakfast now…want something as well?”

Turning her head to the side while raising one eyebrow Yuki looked at me as if I was some sort of retard “I don’t eat O-san, unless you want me to, I recharge via wireless current from my loading dock or solar energy over my skin if available, not that I need to do that a lot with my reactor core…”

Shrugging my shoulders I just nodded “Fine, we’ll see, maybe I’ll bring you something to eat…might make you look slightly less creepy if you do….anyways, I’m off, cya later!”.

And with that I left my apartment to search the nearby streets for some proper breakfast. As I stretched my arms over my head while leaving my building, ignoring the strange cracking noises I heard back from my apartment, and taking in the slightly cleaner morning air I realized that it already felt a little bit more like home to me, this strange Area known as “The Neon Dragon”……