Rikako Kurokami

Beta Sketch

## Appearance:

A girl with straight, short strawberry-blonde hair and an imposing, tall stature. She commonly wears a burgundy fade jacket with black jeans and varying nerdy t-shirts.

## Story:

As a depressed 31 year old woman, Rikako Kurokami works as an office worker for a major pharmaceutical company. In the meanwhile, a strange phenomenon causing random people to turn into cybernetic drones rages. As clients enter Rose's Bakery with increasingly synthetic body parts, the team begins to investigate what's happening.

The protagonist, Taro Yamashiro and Justin Maine start questioning the cyborgs that everyone else seems to ignore, causing them to quite compliantly give the address of the 'Queen' , which happens to be the office building of the pharmaceutical company Rikako Kurokami works at.

Walking through the streets closer and closer to the building in question - the trio find more bizarre and synthetic life forms which meander around harmlessly. At this point the surrounding area is completely distorted and turned into a cyberpunk-esque alien hellscape with synthetic creatures wandering around that hardly resemble humans. Again, the creatures pay to mind to the trio. Once they open the door to the office building Rikako Kurokami is supposedly working at - a completely different landscape can be seen. A cave-like structure with sharp, square edges. Screens poke out of the walls and cables dangle from the ceiling. The space is buzzing with blue light and lakes of battery acid are sporadically found throughout the dungeon. Hostile technological demons roam the cave and are supposedly guarding 'The Queen'. Cables and metal rods plunge in and out of the walls and floor like spider-webs.

The demons in the cave are silent and formidable - with one looking like a giant humanoid with an elephant's snout formed of scrap and cables - which seems to hold up the cave's ceiling. Up ahead lies a long cave tunnel, and at the end lies the 'throne room'.

The throne room contains a slumping mass of metal scrap with long wiry appendages smashed into the ground. The mass of metal un-furls into a snake-like metal organism and raises its underbelly. A metallic face appears from the underbelly with lightbulbs for eyes which have been smashed. Strawberry Blonde hair is wrapped around the ears and forehead, as the identity of the snake is revealed to be Rikako Kurokami.

The protagonist confronts the metal snake - asking her to stop turning people into cyborgs - and threatening to attack if she doesn't. The Rikako Simulacrum starts crying tears of acid spontaneously, and then wraps the trio in place with cables.

> "*You wouldn't understand. Only I can communicate with them. If you try and take them away from me... I'll kill you.*"
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The protagonist responds by cutting the wires surrounding them - to which Kurokami responds by summoning more wires from the ground - which pulls the members of the Rose's Bakery back into the floor. They are spat out of an organometallic wall on the outskirts of the invaded city. The Rose's Bakery then resolves to defeat Kurokami and neutralize the cybernetic delusion leak.

After fighting through the city and reaching the throne room once again, the three members of the Rose's Bakery confront the Metal Snake Rikako. The snake is eventually killed and Rikako is left lying on the floor. The team manages to screw lightbulbs in her empty eye sockets. She sees what she has done and the scene crumbles beneath her into an ordinary office. The Rose's Bakery find themselves in the bakery once more, preparing for another order, yet Rikako is left at the office to perform her usual tasks - as the timeline had been corrected from a Delusional Rift.

As Rikako still retained her memories of the past Delusional Rift, right after work she immediately visits the Rose's bakery, and is greeted by the protagonist, Taro and Justin. She verifies that what happened was real with the trio, and then breaks down in tears. Taro listens to Rikako's suffering, and extends a hand to join the Rose's Bakery as a member of their new family.

Rikako then resigns from her office job and joins the Rose's Bakery as their cashier, alongside becoming a confidant and recruitable character with her own persona - Ada Lovelace.

## Personality:

Rikako Kurokami is stoic, quiet and sometimes bizarre. She has Autism Spectrum Disorder and has suffered with constant isolation and exclusion. She is afraid of speaking to others as she doesn't believe she is competent enough to do so due to her Autism. She is obsessed with computers and physics - and has a degree in Computer Science, along with a collection of vintage computers. When the opportunity arises, she will talk endlessley about her hobbies, and really appreciates those who listen to her. When combating Delusional Rifts, Rikako Kurokami is clear-headed and sometimes brutal towards enemies who threaten the Rose's Bakery. She is intensely protective of her friends and the people who accept her.

## Relationships:

**Taro** acts as a mentor to Rikako, as she had volunteered to take the cashier role at the company in order to gain experience with talking to others despite Rose's offering her a baking position. Oftentimes Rose's jokes with Rikako - with Rikako smiling awkwardly at some of the worse ones. Rikako considers Rose's a good friend and senior.

**Justin** is a friend of Rikako's, and Rikako often overwhelmes him with random information about vintage computers. They work well together in Delusional Rifts and Rikako generally trusts Justin.

**Daiya** is a good friend of Rikako's and they relate to each other on a personal level sometimes. They both tend to help each other up when either of them are down and Rikako would consider Daiya a good friend and sometimes she acts like a big sister figure to Daiya - trying to motivate him.

**The Protagonist** is generally a good friend to Rikako, but this depends on confidant level. At max confidant level, there is the option to date Rikako or remain as strong friends. The Protagonist often tries to boost Rikako's self esteem, but in the later game, Rikako tries to act like a responsible older sister, and sometimes even teases the protagonist.