Written by Revna Ulfhild
Location: Tokyo, Japan
“Hello everyone and welcome back to the stream, I’m Kononoha Towa[1] and today I have a real treat for you all.” She said standing in front of a large screen that had her logo on it, she was wearing a school uniform, it was the same thing she always wore to stream or perform her duties as a commentator for Esports, her blonde hair done up into a ponytail, with her hairclips resembling and D-pad on her right side of her head and a musical note on the left aide with the letters A and B on it, systematically she also had a strand of hair dyed pink and blue on her right and left sides, but the colors inverted on her bowtie. As she spoke messages from those watching the stream began to appear on the screen that she looked at.
“What are we doing today?” she read aloud, “Oh so today we are going to talk about Virtuals[2], this Is part of a miniseries that is sponsored by Jörmungandr, to celebrate ten years since the Kizuna Incident.” As she spoke the screen changed showing a timeline of the last ten years. “With that being said we should discuss the Kizuna[3] incident.” The screen shifted showing a picture of a brown-haired girl in white and pink clothing.
“So how would you all react if something you made came to life?” Towa paused allowing the chat to comment and respond picking a few and reading them aloud. “You would make her your waifu? You would be happy with him. Why am I covering Virtuals?” Towa paused and looked a bit dumbfounded and then pointed at herself. “I am a Virtual, so that’s likely one of the reasons I was selected to do this miniseries.” The screen changed again and showed three images the first was two stick figures side by side showing a unity, the second was two figures with arrows showing a swap, and the third was a book and a figure with an arrow pointing from the book to the figure.
“A Kizuna Event, also known as Virtual Birth, and other names has three different forms that have been seen. Our first one is actually what happened to Kizuna and her creator.” The scream moved shifting into what was a slide labeled Kizuna Incident under the words a montage of news reels from the time began to play showing the brown-haired girl and a boy that looked similar in many ways but not a twin by any means, with headlines ranging from ‘AI has come to life’ to ‘A new species discovered’ and even one claiming ‘the end of humanity is here’. “As you all can see,” Towa said speaking once more ready to continue the discussion “Kizuna and her creator had a hard time, she was originally character design in the MikuMikuDance software more commonly known as MMD. However, the creator of Kizuna was surprised to wakeup and find her on the floor in his studio.” The screen changed showing a few images in a slideshow the first was of a studio with monitors and other hardware that had fallen on the floor some broken, then it showed pictures of Kizuna and her creator in the hospital, and next DNA results showing that the two shared DNA and that Kizuna was indeed human. “as you all can see the incident was widely covered and the two were met with harsh criticism but also with acceptance, the Japanese government actually became involved making sure that Kizuna was protected and this protection also extended to others that came to the country via Artificial Birth, and many governments across the world soon adopted similar policies and others enforced more or less regulations.” Towa paused again taking a drink of water but also taking time to read the chat comments to make sure people were following along with the story she was telling. “This time of Virtual Birth is referred to as Unity, which keeps both the creator and the Virtual in the same world but let’s look at what is called Proxy.”
The screen changed again and showed news reports of couples crying or people looking angry. The texts in the news casts all read the same thing. Person suddenly missing, locals search for lost person. Some even showed Virtuals having mug shots, or in hospitals. “Proxy is when a Virtual replaces the creator, as you can imagine this doesn’t set well with a lot of people especially the loved ones of the individual, its not a case of looking different, a Proxy Virtual is an entirely new being, even though they share DNA with their creator. Because of this type of Virtual Birth, Virtuals face discrimination especially in the west where death rates for Virtuals are higher.” Towa’s face and changed showing this was a harder topic to cover, the screen behind her changed to more grim news casts with headlines such as ‘Virtual killed by creators’ father’ or ‘Virtuals body found in park.’ “Sometimes a Virtual Birth end with the death of the Virtual it should be noted that a Virtuals’ death will not revert the Proxy Birth.”
Towa watched as the mood of the chat changed to match the tone of the coverage, death was never easy to talk about less so when you are a streamer on YouTube. “Let’s brighten up the conversation and discuss the third type of Virtual Birth” The screen now showed several of these Virtuals, some had gills and fins, others had horns, tails, wings, or other animal like features. “Legend, it’s such a cool name a lot of Virtuals are often jealous of these ones, though they aren’t so different from the rest of us. Legend Virtuals get their name because they are the literal personification of a legend or myth. Though there as sometimes variances in the interpretations of the legends, these Virtuals tend to be dragons, phoenixes, Atlanteans, moon rabbits and other races, though on a side note Gods don’t seem to be among these types of Virtuals.” Towa said softly trying to make a joke, but it was not received well. “Given all the above the main difference between a Legend Virtual and Unity and Proxy Virtuals is that Legends appear outside of populated areas such as in the ocean mountains, or as it is in Japan in shrines, or holy sites.”
Towa’s screen changed back to the timeline and a new category popped up showing a time span of three years. “That covers The Kizuna Events, the series will continue next week with the civil rights and protections movements, and you can all join me back on the next stream on Wednesday for an interview with a player from the Jörmungandr U.S. Singles Minors Tournament, as some of you know the tournament had some surprising events happen in it, so you all will be excited to see my special guest.” The screen behind Towa changed to a pink and blue background with white words reading thank you for coming. “I’ll see you at the next stream or on the battlefield remember to battle hard and I may end up covering you one day.” Towa waved and smiled as the screen turned black and the and countdown for the next video started signifying the stream was over for the viewers.
Towa would sigh showing relief for the stream to be over as she went over and sat at a computer and began to answer questions and respond to comments on the video, or remove the improper ones, as she thought to herself. ‘I wonder if this series will make things easier?’ before switching to Twitter and responding to mail with her guest.
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