2025-07-15: Classy Assassin
- Log: Classy Assassin
- Cast: Myunghon Yeo, Shiryuu Ryouhara
- Where: Yumezaki Ward, Sumrau City
- OOC Date: July 15th, 2025
- IC Date: June 09, 2012
- Summary: Myunghon allows themself to be stalked by the mysterious assassin that strangled Yua, seeking their attention. They battle, but a strange contract is formed, one surrounding the Shinigami...
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Myunghon Yeo does, surprisingly, leave the Cardboard Dragon now and again. They have to go gather information, and as useful as the Baengnyong network is, they do have to do the manual legwork once in a while. Today's visit is later at night, when Yumezaki is absolutely bustling with its glitz and glamour; yet, behind the extremely brightly lit main streets and commerce and karaoke towers and nightclubs...
Myunghon Yeo starts to wander. They're dressed in their usual attire -- a black suit, with a white dress suit, back tie, with a larger, longer jacket draped over their shoulders. Their pattern is a little erratic -- ducking down unusual little cramped hallways, into individual little shops only to twist around up into the shared arcade and out another exit, and then into a department store and over the raised bridgeways...
And then, after about thirty minutes of this, they stop at an absolutely dark alleyway, with an L-shaped bend. A natural blindspot. There's nothing here but the drone of air conditioner units roaring at full strength, lightly gassing the place with even more heat than June already bears. The windows are dark and obscured -- just the back rooms of various businesses that don't get a lot of attention.
They pause, in the middle of this alleyway.
"Okay, that's enough wandering. You can come out now," Myunghon calls aloud, tilting their head at such a sharp angle their neck could snap. There's a wild, sick grin on their face. "I can sense your Resonance from all the way here. We can have some fun here... Assassin-san."
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
"'Resonance.'"
The word is said derisively. The young man is standing at the mouth of the alleyway, hands stuffed into voluminous pockets. His street clothes do not vacillate wildly from what he usually wears -- baggy slacks gathered up at the ankles, designer sneakers, shirt, jewelry, a long draping haori that hangs past his hips. There is evidence of some bandages looped around his torso peeking from below the curiously low cut of his shirt, and the varying novelties he wears pouring over his collarbone, several necklaces that make a tiny jingle as he moves. Strange, that he can move at all without sounding like a hardware store, with the high-mounted bag mounted to his shoulder, and the sheathed katana slid into the bindings.
And yet the silver-haired, collared boy seems to regard the grinning demon with a dim, imperious outlook, his mouth a thin, pressed line. A seriously grim mien, no matter how relaxed he appears to be on the outset. "I'm going to give you a free piece of advice."
His lips part, betraying a small, subtly exasperated breath.
"You're going to get killed right off, if you rely on that bargain bin ESP with me."
The boy doesn't seem to be extremely aggressive at the outset, but merely conversational. After all. One could have expected him to have found his way -into- the alley with them. The rumor was that assassins were attacking rumormongers, right? Looking for a piece of information concerning Shinigami? Something like that. It was hard to link 'him' to that piece of intel, especially as he is now. Oh, but for that silver hair. And one blue eye.
They did say he had a blue eye right? Where is it?
"But then," the nameless onmitsu thinks aloud, unpocketing a gloved hand to slide loose that sheathed sword from his pack unceremoniously. "If you understand the situation that simply..." he continues, "then you might know what I need to find out. I'll only have to hurt you, then."
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Myunghon Yeo licks their lips. They fully turn, taking in the full sight of the 'assassin'. They're dressed largely as they were, on the beach, in Yumi's trap. It's not a bad getup at all -- combining traditional Japanese clothing with designer chic is a pretty swell move. Much like him, Myunghon also has bandages -- their entire upper torso is almost entirely wrapped in them, and their right eye is also covered up. And their left cheek, with a square of gauze.
"But I love bargains. Do you ever buy anything full price? Everything's so expensive these days. The great recession is only a few years behind us," Myunghon complains. "Not all of us can afford those nice shoes, or your finely-honed Fudou Masamune replication."
Their head pops the other way. "Ah? So you do want some information. Unfortunately, I don't know what exactly you're looking for. Someone with a nickname, 'Shinigami', like a sequence killer? Someone with a mythological Persona in the style of a ferryman to the great Beyond? Or even..."
Their smirk grows bigger. "I've encountered them myself, you know. The Reaper in 'that' place. The one that wields revolvers... but I had a question in turn for you."
There's a singular step forward, as their expression grows cold. "I heard you hurt 'Yumi'. Strangled her, even. Is that true?"
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
"Ohh." If the young man could be pleased, he would be for at least a moment. It isn't every day you find someone who appreciates style. "I've been fortunate," is the onmitsu's only response. "I could tell you about a few places. I have a coupon."
The tonal shift is strange -- almost as if he'd been taught very good manners at some point in his life and simply chose to disregard them. There is a strangely detached manner in which he speaks -- humble and lethal do not spur a different stage of interest at either rate from him. Even now, his sword hangs loose at his side, the matte black saya resting against his leg, his hand just below the hilt and guard. Relaxed, as he listens to them speak.
There is the ghost of a smile. It almost reaches his lips.
"It's nothing. But ... it would be a problem, to call it a Masamune knife. Apologies. It would be a disservice to treat second stage ninkou 'Bankasoujin' so inaccurately."
The boy stretches slightly, turning his head until he hears his neck pop. His eyes never actually leave the vicious agent, though, dark brown eyes focused entirely on them. "Let me explain. There is a hill in the city. When you bring a 'certain artifact' to this miserable hill, when those of old blood complete the right rites, you can summon Shinigami. I want to find the person who originally found out about this information. With him, her, they, them... no one else needs to be involved in the unfortunate business. You should find out, and tell me, it will save people a lot of trouble, in the long run."
Trouble like...
The moment Yeo takes a step forward, there is an audible sound of that pristine, clean red and white sneaker as the boy lifts a leg from the street, drumming the toe of his shoe gingerly on the concrete. It lifts his weight onto his ankles, and his clothes shift with the motion, silk haori bouncing lightly. It is actually the first time he's visibly betrayed that much movement. "Ah. Yumi." He says the name with the same derision that he does the word 'resonance.' 'Masamune.' There are certain words he doesn't seem to hold much empathy for. He speaks about them with the same derisive breath. He speaks about them as if they were lies.
"Ah... I can see this is going to be a problem."
The boy slowly lifts the sword. The pearl handle is perfectly pointed upward in its sheathe, as he points a gloved index finger right down the line of that smirk. "You have a troublesome look on your face. And, there's really only one way a troublesome person will understand the actual meaning of the word 'hurt.'"
He shakes his head.
"The coupon will have to wait." His thumb presses against the guard of the sword.
"It turns out, there -is- some cutting I need to do in this direction, first."
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
"My apologies. I clearly am no expert on blades," Myunghon remarks with a slight flourish of a bow, as if they were acting the role of a butler embarrassed at how shallow their knowledge is. They listen, however, as they continue to speak. Hmmm. Dark brown eyes.
A blue eye... could it be not unlike Yua? A 'false' eye, or perhaps, the blue of the...
"Hmmm. Well, that certainly could be an exciting rumour. People enjoy that kind of gossip. It has the right elements for a rural murder mystery, wreathed in the legend of the Shinigami and ancient rituals..." Myunghon muses. There is a quiet chuckle as Shiryuu insists that they should find out, though. The noise of those sneakers... his weight shifts, and they positively can feel energy building in their ankles. He's like a coiled spring, ready to burst into action. So much so they could make a commercial out of those designer sneakers.
See just how fast that swordsman can cross the distance and rip your heart out...? That kind of commercial. The preteens would love it.
"I *do* appreciate a fine cut here and there. Everyone I know seems to want to pierce my body intimately: with rapiers, sabers, katana..." Myunghon lets out a pleased little sigh, as if recalling a fond, sentimental memory.
"You know. I'll take your case. I don't reject jobs even from people who try to kill me. I'm intrigued by what you've said, so I'll find your Shinigami-summoner. But I do have a high price. However..."
There is a wide, eerie smile. They appear to just be completely wide open -- unlike Shiryuu, they're just standing on their feet, not lowering their centre of gravity, not preparing themselves to burst into action at the drop of a single bead of sweat. Then they declare:
"I'm running a bargain bin discount on investigations tonight! Tonight, you can pay the price in the way you just know how........."
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
Well. "That's fine." Shiryuu grudgingly accepts Myunghon's noble apologia, with a light puff of air and a nod. It's actually very clear the apology does quite a bit to mollify his more obvious rancors -- for unknown reasons, the young man seems to be quite comfortable with the contrition and the elegance with which it's offered.
None of this to say that any other part of this situation flies, and the tenor of the young man's candor shifts from quietly pleased to a pale arc of a raised eyebrow as Myunghon continues, and things go downhill. Hmm. The boy tilts an upper lip, the grim line of his mouth unbalancing and finally capsizing with barely repressed dismay as Myunghon daydreams. He's really not sure what to make of them for a second. That shoe taps again, minding not to scuff the clean toecap. Slowly, the onmitsu rests the weight of that sneaker onto the street, alighting ever so gently with the next breath out.
"...Sumaru people," he decides, under his breath. As if it explained everything.
Maybe all the ghosts and mummies got into the water.
By the time Shiryuu's attention refocuses, that eerie smile has found its way from one ear to the other of his conversation partner, in comparison to the heated expression in his own. "You're an original, aren't you," he observes passively, his lips splitting as he smooths over the wrinkles in everything in his mind, restoring the blasted order. By any means necessary. By the time he fixes the gang leader in his mind's eye, his expression flattens, sharpens to a razor edge. Every notion of 'peacefulness' is gone, and replaced with something... far more violent.
By any means necessary. "Sarutahiko .... Bonds of Black."
He clicks his sword from its sheath.
The black-blood artifacting arcs through the alley. It's a whipline emanating out, rippling in a vast wave of bidimensional artifacting from that sword's draw. The effect is an explosive arc of ugly square wave black, ripples rolling in a wobbling halo around him as he less draws and more flicks his sword out of its sheath. It seems black -- if only for a moment, one can see the black steel. Until Shiryuu muffles the chilling sense of danger in the air. Haunting, cackling birds chatter like an ill omen in the air. It's immediately apparent what he meant about resonance -- it's like he steps on the entire idea of it, as the sky outside the alley turns black. As windows turn black. As lights turn paler. Sound muffles from the outside until it's nothing but a deep thrumming bass. The rattle of old wood and birds fills the air as old rope bridges crack and sway, stabbing out in every direction throughout the winding alleyway. Up, down, across, diagonally. With one stroke of the blade, Shiryuu blots out the entire area as if it were nothing more than parchment to be scribbled over with black ink. And it happens -stunningly- fast.
"The price," Shiryuu agrees, lowering.
"One dance with the end."
There is another split-second glimpse of his sword. Then he moves.
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Hmmm. How curious. The ways in which this young man's mood can be mollified is intriguing indeed. There's a kind of... Noble upbringing here -- the kind that, in their estimation, has had manners and decorum drilled into them as admirable, laudable. Those are always the most *fun* kinds of assassins. Just what is the drive behind their request, behind this 'shinigami'? Ah, if only they weren't exchanging words right before exchanging blows...
Yua has to be answered for.
Sumaru people, he murmurs. Again, a signalling that there is such a thing as distasteful groups. Outgroups and ingroups. An original? They wonder by what measure they could mean. There's a meaning there, beyond the textbook definitions in the dictionary, that must mean something to Shiryuu. But before they are allowed to rotate this any further--
Sarutahiko .... Bonds of Black.
There's a click.
It's the firing of the starting gun. The waving of the flag. The word 'go'.
Immediately, their entire reality is swallowed in black, rippling out from the draw of that sword. It ripples out, seemingly reverberating, until Shiryuu himself muffles all sensation of danger, for black muffles all. Cackling, haunting birds chatter as an ill omen...
That's right.
"Sarutahiko Okami is often associated with the Tengu. The Karasu Tengu... might that be what I am hearing right now?"
Myunghon is very familiar with that association. Many people associating themselves with crows as of late... or Chick-tan, as they decide for their outwards persona. Myunghon understands why he can say Resonance is a parlour trick -- it's as if their senses have been stuffed with black wool, over their ears, their eyes. But...
They aren't helpless, here.
Because the Black isn't just Shiryuu's.
The blade moves stunningly fast, but there's one tacit agreement to the weakness of a blade:
There's only so many places an assassin *wants* to move a blade. The most efficient ones want to move it over your throat, your heart, some other weak, fleshy part of you. The ones that want to savour their food will choose something excruciatingly painful but nonetheless less lethal, take an organ or two along the way, let you bleed out and really draw it all out...
The blade, for a moment, seemingly finds its mark in the Black.
But then the flesh it cuts is...
That's... not quite flesh. It's flesh-*like*; it's an intricate webbing of... ribbons, a mesh upon which the blade's been caught, mere inches away from Myunghon's flesh -- in the instance in which he moves, Myunghon has manifested their Persona, which, cloth-like, drapes over their shoulder, intermingling in with the black suit jacket draped over before, forming their Cognitive Coat.
The Cognitive Coat seems Alive, the Blackness of the space within unknowable in how it stretches out -- right now, it's as if they have dozens of limbs to grapple away at his offense, to stymie it at the last moment.
A faint trickle of viscious, matte blood slithers down the ribbons, and it's clear that their Persona has manifested in turn behind them -- similarly, an inky-black Shadow, a humanoid only distinguished by their head of wavy silver hair, and solid red eyes, and the suggestion of rennaissance nobility from their cravat.
"We are both dwellers within the Black," Myunghon remarks, evenly gently, even as they strain under the effort. "How unfortunate we are at odds. Despite everything, I feel a certain kinship..."
They decide to attempt to break the weapon-lock by manifesting two extra ribbon-tendrils to try to impale at Shiryuu's limbs -- they're slow enough that it's clear they're not meant to *hit*, but rather force him away from this position and decide on another approach.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
"Getting there," Shiryuu commends. "Looks like you've got a sharp mind."
They weren't intending to press him, he realized, giving him that moment to reflect. The silklike grip of that Cognitive Coat wraps snugly around the black blade of his sword, catching the boy with crossed wrists, one over the other, to hold the sword strangely on a cut that pushes through with one hand and pulls back on the next. His body weight is only just a bit committed into the motion, just enough to hold the deadlock against the crawling snap of vicious leather. The onmitsu is grimly aware of the red-eyed Persona manifesting behind his opponent.
His own Persona is not so close. The alleyway crumples in on itself in the black distance, the benefit of 'sight' stolen beyond its reach, from within and without. The reorganization of paths -- ways -- continues like puzzle pieces of rope and wood being slid into place. His Persona is a priest, a blue-robed machine thing drifting in the air amidst the bridges, trailing the zigzag white of shide paper strips in his wake. Those bridges are a maze in themselves, rope stabbing in through windows that were never there to support driftwood boards that go off in directions that don't exist. The rattle of wood ripples up the brick wall, as a bridge is laid across it.
"And an admirable defense," he is forced to admit.
The boy is driven off by the stab of tendrils. It forces him to take a hand off of the hilt, slipping his katana loose by the very end of the kashira. It's too close, and with that silkblasted leather spearing into him, even someone with a better perceptive ability than his own wouldn't have been able to reasonably evade.
He doesn't have the same advantages of protection as the rumormonger, the same Cognitive Coat. And so, the gamble pays off -- the spears of black weigh sharply on a leg, on an arm as he launches into a full backflip, softening the stab and flick of tendrils by catching himself on his free hand, the red cord of his wrist wrappings shorn through and left on the ground as he retreats. And when he retreats, he does so right up the wall, taking one of those bridges up and away from the assailant.
"Ugh.. feels like shackles," the boy notes, testing the flex of an arm against the dark.
"...but black bonds like these," he reflects absently, as his Persona raises its gohei, a massive, eight shaku high hexagonal staff suspending those shide. The onmitsu lifts his own blade to his hip, as his hand flexes rhythmically, testing against the weight of the darkness imposed on him.
"They aren't meant to be kind."
The boy leaps from one wall to the other with the flash of his blade, hopping from one bizarre bridge to the next. The alleyway is too constricting for a normal Persona battle, but when the battlefield extends into every dimension, it becomes much, much wider. The kannushi automaton moves through the great swing of his gohei in exact tune with the muted flash of that blade blade. It greatly extends each rolling stroke of that blade into unreal proportions, filling the space with twin bisecting flares of smoky silver, wind barreling through the bridges to drag off of the edge of Bankasoujin's blade.
With this 'Persona,' the goal is not to protect the user, but to act as as a bridle for the wind and the path itself. To guide shearing force right through that drifting ghost and their protective coat, and anything else that gets in the way.
AS: Avoid Worst! Myunghon Yeo takes 72 Wind damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Chaotic Wrath. AS: Avoid Neutral! Myunghon Yeo takes 62 Wind damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Chaotic Wrath. Critical Hit! <Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Close, but not quite at the mark? How interesting. They have some more reading to do, perhaps. At this distance, even within the Black, Myunghon can lay plain eyes on the Persona in turn -- clearly one that evokes the image of the kannushi... and an automaton, at that, upon a maze of bridges. Myunghon had expected something closer to a yamabushi, perhaps -- but it all makes sense; his mannerisms, his fervour... it's entirely precise to call faith and worship machine-like, especially amongst its most devout. A labyrinthine doctrine to pursue, in the betterment of one's spiritual self, in constant contradiction with earthly desires and heavenly auspices -- such is to be Sarutahiko, one who stands between Heaven and Earth. Is that where a measure of his drive comes from?
These are just guesses, threads cast in the wind -- exciting little intellectual epithets for them to play and connect and discard. Shiryuu lauds their defence, but it doesn't put them at ease one bit: it's clear there's much more power that this assassin has -- and even as he acrobatically demonstrates his prowess, and their ribbon scores a hit, it's much softer and less impeding than they'd really like their first and most important attack to be.
The shape of their attack and defence are known now. For someone like Myunghon, who entirely can't say they could stand toe to toe with an assassin alone, deception and trickery and ambush were their greatest asset, and they've lost that.
"You are correct. To be one with the Black... is a cruel fate indeed."
Myunghon's spine chills a little as Shiryuu's Persona readies an enormous gohei, far larger than the ones they'd observed at various blessings and rituals. That staff on its own could pulverise them into dust. And then, they're on the move again -- and Shiryuu has a power of his own, able to manipulate the battlefield into a cobweb of bridges, old and seemingly dilapidated, criss-crossing in every which way.
There's no doubt he's used to this. They have never laid eyes on it before.
"This is not unlike Yumi's own manipulation of space. This is an ability very suited for an assassin," Myunghon observes. "I had hoped to set the terms for our battle, but you reversed it upon me so readily."
He far outstrips their ability to be on the move, and as much as they have the advantage of their limbs -- which they demonstrate as they grapple from one rope-bridge to another, straining with some effort, they're left having to guess which of that gohei or Bankasoujin is going to come at them. And the answer is--
Both!
There is a grimace from the rumourmonger as they whip themself upon the underside of the bridge, and manages to at least trap the attack underneath its pull -- but sheer force, cutting blade, and wind all conspire against them, and they're blasted clear of the bridge they'd hoped would dull the attack, throwing them against another bridge, which forms a <-like shape as their net, not unlike that of a hammock.
They have to look for the way out. This was only meant to be a scouting encounter, but now they've been played with the challenge of seeking a way out. As they grapple against the rope, though...
Their smile is at its widest yet, knowing the peril they're in. This is good. It could happen tonight. Would this be a grand enough death?
"It truly is unfortunate..."
... no. It's not time yet. There's still unanswered mysteries. Miho and Yua's Perfect, True World. The path to unravel the shackles that bind them and Remi. If only they weren't under such obligations. But isn't that what living is, to be obliged to another?
Myunghon climbs, and as they do, they snap their fingers -- and the shadow of their Coat draws ever longer. It slithers, not unlike that of a wily and cunning snake, squirming underneath the individual ropes of the bridges, blending into old wood, until, at cross-ends from Shiryuu's line of sight, they masquerade as part of the flock of birds --
Before they swerve on the angle of their flight, turning into wrathful spheres of Black, seemingly swallowing rope, wood and even air in its path in a singleminded desire to turn it all back into the dark.
AS: Avoid Best! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 53 Dark damage from Myunghon Yeo's Dark Metamorphosis. <Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
The slither of that dreadlined coat is hard to keep track of, the onmitsu notices as it spills with liquid grace from end to end to protect the information dealer. The swift crack of motion makes the bridges sway with the weight and force of their agility, but the exact location of his assailant is getting harder and harder to pin down witeh the distance.
The onmitsu's countenance is grim and flat, as he flicks his blade into a short, appreviated circle in his hands. His swordwork is fast and deadly accurate, shearing and cajoling through the saying bridges scattered throughout the alley, even as Myunghon manages to steal away through them.
That was his Persona's greatest strength and weakness. A weakness, in that the power of Sarutahiko's myriad bridges could be made of use by both friend and foe -- escalating a battle that could normally be resolved with a terrain advantage. However...
The cracking, cackling ink at the periphery of the battlefield surges into a winged flock of staccato black, spreading and expanding the 'supraluminary space' over which the onmitsu's keen mind has a stranglehold. Unfortunately, that black is also something so easily lost in.
"Hmm. It seems like the shadows like you better than they like me," the silver-haired agent admits, thighs tightening as he launches off of the wall. Gravity doesn't hold court on the bridges, and he lands on a stretched course that runs the length of the alley, the slow sway of the rickety bridge showing even the featherlight impact of his landing, contrasting Myunghon's own.
"It's because no matter what, steel is silver, not black."
It's a move too subtle to be referred to as 'looking up.' It is a natural extension of awareness, more accurately, lifting his attention skywards with only the slightest incline of his head. Like an evil rain, thick black hail chews his bridges to frayed hemp and kindling with a series of ominous, sharp, omnipresent cracks, falling on him.
And then the boy moves, as if he didn't even need to look.
"The strength of silver is that it's neither."
The kannushi dutifully rams his gohei's lower end into an imaginary earth as he stirs the wind, rolling shards of wood and rope together to skitter across the dark sky, ripping down the shattered bridges and stretching them into a new one that goes all the way from the sky to the ground, about near the beginning of the battle. He pulls the ropes tight. While it's true that giving an opponent an unintended advantage is a weakness, there is also a hidden 'strength.' The strength of those bridges is that they act as 'nerves' for the shinobi, and the crushing dark spheres that shred through them on their way to the shinobi may as well had been sending up a signal flare.
"But add enough ink..."
There is still a 'cost' to being attacked through pure concept. The psychic toll of reintegrating his will, and the shackles dragging thread-thin lines from his body are heavy on him, and the boy lands much heavier than he did only a moment prior. He moves fast, as the 'source' of the attack is still known. A hand is thrown straight up.
Following the line of the onmitsu's motion, Sarutahiko pins his gohei to the sky. It punctures the black, sending cascades of dark sakura petals churning through the cackling dark. It only takes an instant. A second, for the onmitsu to close the distance.
He slips out of the cloud of petals like a bird himself.
"....and even the night is blinded."
He moves to strike right through the skylocked dealer, and knock them o the bridges below. He has a better sense of the protections of that Cognitive Coat now -- the black blade of his sword will be much more challenging to handle than before, moving this fast.
AS: Counter Best! Myunghon Yeo takes 76 Slash damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Yozakura Revival. AS: COUNTER! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 55 Slash damage in return for his attack! <Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
It's thrilling. It's entirely thrilling! To be coerced into this space that can only politely be called non-Euclidean, but much more fluid and fun than the rigid, stair-like depictions European artists tend to enjoy playing at with optical illusions, while Bankasoujin threatens to kiss and steal away their blood... it's much more excitement than they thought to bargain for tonight.
Every 'supranatural' space has its edges, however. It's a matter of teasing away where the edges are, where the seams hold... and within a supranatural space, that can often and very frequently run contradictory to 'Common Sense'. For instance, Myunghon is already developing a theory that to actually physically seek a way out is to fall into the very trap of this infinite maze -- the answer can't be found with hapless grasping, but understanding an inner truth...
The way Shiryuu moves is art -- he's such a natural at the suggestion that is gravity within his space, contrasting the way they land heavy and beleaguered, no matter how much they have the Coat, with featherlight grace.
It's because no matter what, steel is silver, not black.
"Hmmmm~" Myunghon finds delight in that statement, but doesn't interrupt. Shiryuu has more to say, even as he proceeds past their trap, moulding new passages and destroying old ones with a seeming ease -- Myunghon is not the master of this space, but Shiryuu is. He's capable of redefining the pathways and rules, and all they can do is follow suit. And even though they were quite careful about the angles they chose, there is a peripheral awareness that can't be attributed to just a sharp intuition.
"So if my Resonance is a 'bargain bin' like you'd find at the Taiso 100-yen store... is this the 'premiere deluxe' Dakeshimaya department store version?"
Then, Shiryuu is across the distance. Distance is just a suggestion here, just like gravity. Where they were far away, he suddenly is right by their side, emerging from a cloud of sakura--
And where before, the Cognitive Coat chose to go 'inwards', to grasp at his blade, they choose 'outwards', this time -- leaving their body... wilfully exposed, as Bankasoujin finally finds purchase, turning a portion of that white dress shirt of theirs red. They're not willing to be fully struck, however, already moving as the blade turns aside, its fine nature too refined to even consider cutting into the cheap, sad cotton-polyster blend of Myunghon's bargain bin existence.
It's clean, at least. Like, bleach-stench clean.
And that 'outwards'?
"On that account, you are correct."
The Coat is converging from the outside, attempting to gobble the assassin and Sarutahiko-Okami both, both Kudlak and the Coat effectively having turned into a venus flytrap-like guise.
AS: Avoid Worst! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 58 Dark damage from Myunghon Yeo's All According to Plan. Critical Hit! AS: Avoid Worst! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 24 Dark damage from Myunghon Yeo's All According to Plan. <Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
Did he hit? Did his blade strike home? It's hard to tell.
There was a moment he felt it, the familiar bite of flesh under steel, the strike of his blade letting him find purchase on the wood beneath his sneakers, the battering flutter of crows and sakura flooding past them like a leviathan breaching the waves. But it's not right, his blade is only so deep, and -- there was no attempt to intervene from that Cognitive Coat, flowing around his blade, rather than against it. It only takes an instant for Shiryuu to notice, pupils imperceptibly dialating with revelation.
He'd been formerly happy to only superficially engage with the knowledge-agent's patter and mounting excitement, a victim of his own appreciation of an aesthetic -- so sue him, symbolism interests artists. But knowledge of Myung's plan hits like a shock of cold water. An information dealer willing to sacrice their life for intelligence. Well...
The next moments are rolling, twisting, completely upended for the shinobi. The blood that is there one moment, and bleached clean the next should be his first clue, the coat that simply lays the path open. Shiryuu cannot tell if the acrid scent of sodium hypochlorite is fastidiousness or illusion, but the black that spills around him like an undertowing current certainly is -not-. The onmitsu finds his feet stolen underneath him in a space with no doors, rolling end over end helplessly as the entirety of that Information Dealer's persona swallows him whole.
"... I wouldn't go so far so as to say that much," Shiryuu remarks, grim and wry as he's stunningly aware of the fact that his sneakers are drifting somewhere over his head and his center of gravity is all the way to the left for some reason, as he tumbles into the sensation of open space.
"Call me classy," the shinobi mutters, drifting in the black.
It takes a moment to even begin to figure out which end is up, which end is here, which is there. The little drain of color from his limbs noted as some sort of psychosomatic response to being inside of a more tightly confined conceptual space. It might be some sort of quelling Resonance, he thinks. There were a hundred men who could get caught in here, and of them only one could figure out even that much.
Getting out was a different story.
"Anyway, I've refined my thinking," Shiryuu admits, while metaphorically tumbling past the moon. "It turns out, you've got some flashy moves, hacker."
Trying to pick out the resonance of the user is almost impossible, but a vague echo from somewhere beyond -- amplified only by his own Persona, still outside the Stygian black -- catches his eye. That eye closes, as he turns, using a sword stance to right himself in sublunary space. "As a reward, I'll show you one last technique."
When next he opens his eye, it's no longer brown, but shining sky blue.
"Ninkou ... Kyotosaigan."
It feels like someone took a snapshot of reality, like everything was shot through photonegative for one bleeding instant. The shinobi is naturally fast, but taking the concept of 'left and right, up and down' from him would be a sealed fate in and of itself. Save that what he does is not 'movement.'
The world just gets simpler, for one eyeblink.
It gets simpler, and then Shiryuu is behind Myunghon.
".....It's only going to play into your hands to keep fighting, I think," Shiryuu remarks shortly after he lands only a short distance away. His voice does betray him -- impressed but also more than nettled with the .. lurid, annoyingly well-dressed soul. An attack from behind never comes, even if it seems like it very well should, and the boy's katana hisses as it slides back into its sheath, the painfully bright crystal blue in his eye fading. The click seals it.
His Persona restores reality in a strange fashion -- all the paths seem to lead to the ground, bridges formerly creeping along walls and through the air swaying in a wind that twists the world around them, until driftwood is no different from paved street. 'Sky' becomes 'ground' in a real hurry, as the black above breaks, seams of light shimmering through it until it's little more than the flutter of blackbirds.
"...And I can't kill you to keep my secrets, because I still need you. Hey, don't you read into it. So..."
He raises a hand, sheathed sword in his other. He turns slowly.
"... well, it's been fun. I think? I don't know. You're an original. I don't know what to make of you, yet. Iih. Start a fight with me again, and you're derfinitely going on a month-long trip to the hospital, though..."
He's already turning to leave. He could very easily disappear, apparently? Walking works just fine, though. Kind of. Ugh. Hackers.
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Myunghon's tempestuous tryst with various household and industrial strengths of sodium hypochlorite is no illusion, sir. It's the interplay, the contrast behind how their getup is ordinary -- but how fastidiously clean it all is. Their clothes, their shoes, their jacket aren't class in the same way Shiryuu's meticulously maintained sneakers and haori all are, but a suit's a suit, and they wear it well. Maybe something within that contrast is symbolism, art of its own, like meticulously polishing a golden vase that's just covered in gold sharpie.
A statement.
And they float, there, in the dark, for a moment. It won't be long before he figures it out -- he will, there's no doubt in their mind about that. They weren't willing to trap them forever in there even if they could, though -- tonight is an information gathering run, and...
Actually, that cut from Bankasoujin is actually going to be problematic if they don't address it sooner than later.
As a reward, I'll show you one last technique.
Ah... there it is.
There's the closing of the loop on that discrepancy -- between why accounts said his eye was 'sky blue', when it was brown before. Shiryuu speaks his technique, and then Myunghon's reality is suddenly shattered as they observe through the negative for one moment, and then--
Their coat naturally shrinks back into itself, and they do not turn around.
"Hmmmm. I was about to say you had me dead to rights," Myunghon offers in turn, that unseen smile positively radating from them. "After all, you well could have had me out of tricks."
In an instant, the bridges and walls all seem to converge upon a wind that creates singularity, Heaven and Earth All As One. It's disorienting and nauseating, but they keep their game face on well enough even as the alleyway is restored in an ephemeral flutter of blackbirds.
"Yes, I think that was a lot of fun. I've decided. I like you," Myunghon declares, a high-manic look on their face as they spread their arms. "Rumourmonger Merry shall take on your case of the 'shinigami'!"
They lick their lips, as they watch Shiryuu turn to leave -- by just walking. In deference of that, they turn to walk towards one of the back doors of the alleyway and opens the door -- apparently just one of their many planned getaway routes -- and instantly the aerosolised scents of fried rice and japchae escape from the kitchen.
Some lady shouts in Korean: "<Ahhh? You're done with your fight already, Yeo-gongju? I was expecting-- hey, hey, careful where you're-->"
"bleuuuurghghhh"
"<You're throwing up all over our sink!!!>"
It's hard to navigate the Sky and Ground in a real hurry, it seems.