2025-08-16: The Light Fantastic
- Log: The Light Fantastic
- Cast: Hazuki Nakao, Roger, Yanagi Nagisa, Saika Kikuchi, Pernelle
- Where: Taro Nakata's Atelier
- OOC Date: August 16, 2025
- IC Date: June 26, 2012
- Summary: Hazuki Nakao arrives at a strange carnival and comes across a choice. She makes a decision she can't ever take back.
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
Operation Fix a Friendship was a-go. Hazuki Nakao, carrying her grandmother's silver metal baseball bat she lovingly stole on her advice, has made it to the high school of one Taro Nakata, an average high school.
She is hiding in a darkened corner near the school, hoping to pin down Taro as he leaves extracurriculars and actually apologize. This is shady as hell but she's a weirdo, it's fine.
Eventually, various clubs and sports start to roll out. Hazuki knows this is probably the path Taro takes, so she waits... and waits...
And eventually, she spots him. The dark-haired boy is walking past her, and with determination in her heart, she steps forth.
"Nakata-kun-"
Then, there's a spark in her eyes. And everything goes wrong.
Her vision swimming into darkness, all sound going out, for a moment, Hazuki wonders if she's dying, some sort of sudden on-set condition. But, no.
She's got to live.
"Wh..."
As she regains awareness, music plays around her. It's upbeat, very frenetic, like circus music. Indeed, that's the vibe her eyes give her, too, as she finds herself at the gates of the Nakata Carnival, rusty and falling apart as they are. She's frozen solid for a long moment, but her baseball bat is still in hand, so eventually she steps forward, holding it up to defend herself.
"Nakata-kun...? Are you here? What's going on? This isn't funny..."
It doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense. She was stalking a kid on a sidewalk and now she's in Hell, right?
Well, stalking usually sends you there, right? So it makes immediate sense to her. But even so...
"Nakata-kun!" Hazuki starts walking forward, turning her head to look around as large carnival tents, tattered and rickety, sit in front of her. There's a game boardwalk with faded, rotted wood nearby, as well as a massive tent in the background, looming over all with a sinister atmosphere.
She steps across the ground, it feeling very hard underfoot. She doesn't even look down to see what color it would be.
After all...
The sky's blood red right now.
<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.
The carnival before the gathered has such an air that it feels like it's missing outright carnage. In fact, it seems like there's another who may have narrowly avoided becoming part of this aforementioned expectation of carnage.
...An 'another' who does not look human.
"Aiiieee!" A pathetic, squealing shout echoes throughout this macabre carnival, a large rotund mascot pig-like figure seemingly dressed in yellow and black but of crimson-hued 'skin' runs on tiny stilt-like legs with outstretched arms, a cartoonish dust cloud, and trailing tears.
They skid into flopping right on their seat, sliding forward as they exhale while their eyes display spiraling symbols with the presence of more tears. "Why won't they listen... why do they all want to play with the Homonculus, not me...? It shouldn't happen like this..."
They look upon this new visitor with a few blinks, leaning back in their seated position to look up as if there were something... noticeable. Is it that they are an outsider that does not belong here? Is Hazuki in danger?!
And yet, their expression doesn't reflect anything resembling aggression.
"Did you come here to play?" Asks the bizarre mascot pig-like figure. Whoever it is, they're not Taro. They don't sound like him, they sure don't look like him - but he starts to wring his hands, and keeps going before he gets an answer, like there's an urgency.
"It's not very fun to be here right now...! The Humors are all out of whack with that Homonculus! I..." He looks about ready to burst into tears again.
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
Well, that's not normal. As Hazuki hears the squealing shout, she pauses, on edge. And then freezes as she sees the giant pig running forward, flopping onto his rear and complaining in an actual language she can understand.
For a very long moment, she's entirely silent. She's staring right at the pig. And then... "...are you not going to hurt me?" she finally asks, as he shows no hostility. She reaches out a hand like you would for a dog to sniff, though not as close, so it might just look like she's reaching out to see if he's okay.
In a moment of complete breakdown, shock and lack of awareness on what to do, Hazuki defaults to her most base state... being honest and speaking mostly in English.
"What the fuck are you?! Are you even real? I'm dead, aren't I? I'm dead! Sixteen years old, didn't even reach seventeen, and I'm dead!" She starts walking in circles, grabbing her head and panicking a little. Eventually, though, she calms down...
"What are you talking about?! This isn't a time to play, we can worry about that later! Humors, Homunculus... where's Nakata-kun?! Wait, if I'm dead, am I trapped here forever, alone with monsters?!"
Okay, she might be starting to panic again.
<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.
"Huh?!" The pig-like creature recoils at Hazuki's outburst, eyes wide as she works through the impossibility, improbability, and uncertainty of her situation.
The creature rights themselves up as Hazuki expresses genuine confusion. He crosses his arms over himself in a 'wrong!' pattern.
"No, no, no! You're not dead! And, and, and-- and I'm..."
He muses on that momentarily. 'I'm?' "I'm..." There's a full statement here that should be made. It's something easy for someone to take for granted. 'I'm name, it's nice to meet you.' "I'm..."
He levels up, nods firmly, and... "I'm not going to let the Homonculus hurt you! There are so many games to play... okay?" Insistent, on the idea of 'play,' something so frivolous and childish an idea! But somewhere in this, steel in this voice. He smiles, wider. It's already a wide face. Like there is a fundamental thing here, to believe in and acknowledge, in the moment.
"A 'Homonculus' is a bad thing! We're in an 'Atelier,' a space that us Humors watch over. And... I don't know when or how it happened, but this place became a mess! I should be rallying the Coleric Humors against the Homonculus, but they're not even listening to me... a Sanguin Humor." This may not mean very much to Hazuki in the moment, as he leans over with a sad look on his face.
"'Nakata-kun,' should I... know that name?" He muses. "Umm... anyway... when a Homonculus appears, it's dangerous! It eats the Shadow at the heart of the Atelier and tries to take over. It's already turned the Melanc Humors against all the Sanguin Humors like me... and they're not listening to me either..."
"But you!" He stands up again. "They don't play very nicely with others, so I won't let them do anything to you! ...Okay?"
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
As the pig explains, Hazuki starts on the backfoot, but eventually, he's able to calm her down. "So... I'm not dead. I'm in Hell but I'm not dead. Well, an Atelier. Helltelier." Even a little bit of amusement helps ground her.
"And you're... some sort of protector?" He said he'd protect her. "...okay. If you can get me out of here, that'd be very nice, mister pig."
Though, something he says... "...but the sign says Nakata on it. Is this not related to Taro Nakata? Oh, thank goodness, I thought he might be here too..."
But if they're eating at something... isn't that bad?
Hazuki nods when he says he'll protect her again. "Okay, mister pig. I... trust you enough. I'm Hazuki. Lead the way!"
<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.
But you! They don't play very nicely with others, so I won't let them do anything to you! ...Okay?
Is it okay?
A warble of laughter rings out, scratching at the primal fear centers of the brain like a skittering, sickening answer to the strange pig's question.
The space of this decrepit, ghastly carnival Hazuki finds herself in is quiet after that. Deathly quiet, and empty. Were they hearing things? Maybe it was a trick of the senses.
Hazuki's new friend would know, though... they aren't that lucky.
It appears from behind a tent. At first, just a long -- too long leg, slipping just into frame like something out of an old cartoon show. The leg ends in white, elf-like shoes, and the limb itself is oddly ribbed -- like an accordion's, is the thought that might immediately come to mind.
Long gloved fingers next, curling on the edge of the big tent's perimeter. Clenching, holding, pulling...
... to slowly reveal a face, bit by bit.
It wears a smile. Literally. Carved into a porcelain white mask along with small circular eyeholes, they're the only things that give the impression that 'this must be a face.' The mask is painted up like a clown's, the hair - if it can be called that - is a scarlet-if-stringy mess like a clown's might be.
But underneath that mask? There's nothing.
Nothing but seething, slithering darkness.
It releases the tent and just like that, it tumbles forward, making bizarre sounds as it flows forth in a flailing roll that simply in no way looks like anything a human should be able to do. It's like watching a jack-in-the-box without the box, or a slinky dressed in the garb of a jester.
It comes to a tumblling stop just in front of the pig and Hazuki.
And then another comes.
And another.
And another, and --
all of them, rolling with a discordant chorus of off-kilter clown noises, all of them stopping one on top of the other into a huge pile of masked, eyeless faces.
They stare at Hazuki, for four seconds of silence.
And then they start rolling towards the strange pig and his new friend.
Laughing their wobbling, discordant laugh all the while.
<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.
It feels strange, to have that pointed out that the sign says 'Nakata' on it. The pig-like creature muses over this in silence, then shakes his head.
"Hazuki-chan! It's nice to meet you!" He smiles. "Sure! I should know the way, but..." But? "Everything changed all of a sudden. It feels like... the Homonculus already emerged when I noticed everything was different, and that's..."
He can't speak over the building laughter. His words barely rose above that disturbing aural ambience, as the pig-like friend(?) blinks a few times and turns about-face.
"Oh no... Hazuki-chan, look out!"
The pig steps in front of them, fists clenched and snorting entire steam clouds out of their nostril and ears. "These are Coleric Humors! They'll attack anything that comes from outside the Atelier... but they've been attacking me too! Us Sanguin Humors are supposed to direct them, and yet...!"
They're rolling, and the pig tries to hurl themselves at them. "This is Hazuki-chan!! She Threaded through the Eye of a needle," the capitalized words seem important here, maybe, "for Nakata! Stop, stop, stop! Don't play with her like this...!"
He flails, by all appearances, ineffectually against the rolling pile of masked, eyeless faces while tears stream behind him in frustrated exertion - like a will, a desire, being suppressed out of natural balance.
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
Hazuki beams just a little bit through the fear when she's called -chan. Just a little bit. He's the first one to do it...
But then... building laughter. "Do you hear that...?"
Oh. Oh god, she thinks, recoiling as she sees those slinky jester like creatures, who the pig throws himself into. He... can't fight, can he? Oh no.
"Stop! Please!" she calls out. "I don't know what's this about threads and eyes and needles, but I just want to help Nakata-kun!"
She rushes forward, trying to swing her bat at one of them. She has a weapon! These are the ghosts Grandma was preparing her for, right?!
<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.
Stop, stop, stop!
Normally, this would work exactly like the pig-like figure claimed it would. He would instruct them. They would listen.
But now...
...
Now, every declaration of 'stop!' leads to louder laughter, as if the entire idea that he could tell them what to do now was some sort of sick, disturbing joke.
But the pig intercedes. And the so-called Colerics collide with him almost obligingly, a dog-pile of clowns and jesters and harlequins that even sees one literally leaping to the very top of the pile. They intend to catch him, to wrestle with him -- and then just toss the poor pig into the air, up and down, their sick teetering titters filling the air with increasing violence as if promising some even worse game soon enough--
Stop! Please!
CRACK
The bat swings, striking one of the clowns across the back of the head.
And it barely moves. In fact...
... all of them just suddenly -stop-.
Whatever their antics with the pig were going to be, it just ceases. They all stand stock still.
"na ka ta"
And then the one Hazuki struck turns its head.
'Turns its head' may be an attempt to simply normalize the sheer abnormality of it, as the Shadow's head tilts up, and then rotates back, a full 180 degrees with the bend of its elongating neck until it is staring at Hazuki from behind, upside-down.
"hee hee hee"
"hee hee hee"
"hee hee hee"
"hee hee hee"
"hee hee hee"
The Coleric clowns all turn on Hazuki. The one she struck? Literally bends backwards like a surreal gymnast, completely about-facing itself towards her, before with the wild flail of its tube-like arms, it looks to knock her aside.
The tittering increases in intensity. From the opposite end of the pile, one of the Colerics is literally climbing up the mass of its brethren, bouncing across all its brethren as they spill over each other, rushing towards the intruder--!
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
As the bat hits, Hazuki feels the weight just... not impact like it should. As the Coleric Humors turns towards her...
"Oh, fuck..."
*Now* she's gonna die. She should run. Leave the pig behind. Escape as fast as she can.
And yet, she takes another step to stand in front of him, slowly, shakily, and tries to guard him with her bat. "When I die, tell them I was a hero, okay?"
It's supposed to cheer the pig up. It probably won't.
But before her fate can wash over, something happens. A distortion in the air, as fabric like the type that makes up her gloves suddenly emerges, pulling her in and swallowing her whole.
Hazuki Nakao has chrysalized, a cocoon of pure fabric forming around her, encasing her tightly. The only question... what happens next?
<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.
There is a voice on the periphery.
"...just take a bit of time to find the Cocoon and then we can return with Tsumugi... They do have that order of Myunghon's to work on."
Yanagi Nagisa also has a commission to work on for Myunghon, but she is a Navigator; she's the one who found this particular Atelier, and while Pernelle could let them all in, they all still need to scope it out and pinpoint where the Homunculus in. But that's all besides the point.
"But you're right; it does seem rather active right now... And something seems particularly off. The Coleric Humors are gathering in that direction-- hm? This vision..."
Around the bend of one of the broken attractions approaches a woman with long, wavy, burnished pink hair and peacock green eyes. A dazzling dress adorns her form, the skirts short in the front and long in the back to better show off her reinforced thigh-high boots. Left hand resting on a polished cane, she takes in the Coleric Humors as they giggle and bend in unnatural ways around Hazuki's newly-formed Chrysalis.
"What a rare sight!" she declares, smiling at the cloth cocoon. "It's a treat to get to see someone awaken right before our eyes, isn't it?" She beams at her companions. "Though you two have already had that treat before me~!"
That bright smile turns back to the Coleric Shadows. They're disturbing, to be sure--but normal for an Atelier that's been parasitized by a Homunculus. What isn't normal is... Yanagi's eyebrows furrow as she focuses in on the large pig.
"Oh...? So you're the one I sensed..." she murmurs.
She doesn't move to either help or hurt. She simply hangs back and watches.
<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.
There is a jingling. A tinkling. The sound of metal.
"Busy, busy, busy," repeats Saika Kikuchi, walking a pace or two behind Yanagi. She has been making those sounds. She is carrying a bicycle chain. Yes: the intermingled links, clinking and clanking, subtly machined steel made to effortlessly convey your pedalling power into movement into your future, and Saika's twirling it around.
She lashes the chain over one hand, allowing it to whip-circle several times and then shaking it out from her other hand. The jingle-tingle continues as she walks around the corner:
Saika Kikuchi looks like a brightly-colored dead body, stitched back together by a festive reanimator. The impression is compromised when she reaches down to scratch at her right side, over the sarashi's blood stain. "Huh!" she says, lips pursing, pooching slightly, eyebrows lifting. Her unchained hand rests on her hip.
"Ahh," she tells Yanagi, "still, it's always a rough time, you know? I mean I was already, what do they say, three sheets to the wind? It was more like eight or nine, haha--" Before Yanagi sees something and Saika's easy-going posture freezes, her head turning to look directly at:
The pig.
Saika's eyes stare at him unblinking for several seconds, and then she smiles, an unlovely smile that peels her lips back to show her teeth. The chain is spun around, jingle-jingle-jingle, but it seems to be an idle motion.
Probably.
<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.
Pernelle hums along as he follows Yanagi, occasionally pausing to peck at some light spot or speck of interest along the way. You never know when there could be treasure! Or maybe you do know, but the point that Pernelle does not side beside is that while he is the key, Yanagi is the compass. He no longer has to pay attention to where they're going! Not his job. His job? Being delightful on their way to ignore the boundaries that reality should other dare to place upon them.
When he falls too many paces behind, he hops his way forward. Not quite a peacock gait, but Pernelle does what he wants, and that is never more true in cognitive spaces when he has on his fashionably tattered tricorne, round glasses with sunset colored lenses, and his little vest and little neck scarf. What a gentleman he is.
Pernelle ruffles up his feathers as he joins Yanagi and Saika's pace once more. "A little spicy tonight? Perhaps some manner of daring adventure is already well underway. Intriguing! I do so love a --"
He gasps as they approach the Chrystalis, his train feathers popping up and all of his eyes -- on his face and on his feathers -- widening before his train lowers down and practically wags in a rustling sway.
"What a fortunate spot of beauty upon our journey!" He looks up at Yanagi, gesturing with a wing. "A glorious opportunity to be sure! Watch closely now!"
He spins on a talon, ruffling his feathers again and smoothing them out as he lowers down to sit and watch with a giddily attentive gaze.
<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.
The Coleric leaping and bounding atop the heads of its companions leaps. Its mask - a Sad Clown, by the look of its downward crescent-slash of frown carved into its surface - is the last thing Hazuki sees --
-- before she is engulfed within the swaddling manifestation of a Chrysalis of fabric seconds before it can make hideous, giggling impact.
The Shadow collides with the surface of the fabric cocoon; the impact comes with a cartoonish chime rather than a meaty slam as it finds its violence halted. Its laughter is a more furious thing as it claws and scrapes at the Chrysalis, even mashing its masked head against its surface as if to try to see what is inside; its companions all soon join in, bounding and bouncing and swarming all over the strange thing now occupying their stranger space. The pig, perhaps fortunately, has been all but forgotten in their fervor to try to break open that Chrysalis like a tasty egg and snack on the contents within.
But to no avail. They bang. They pound. They laugh. They even try to shake the thing loose, to no avail. Eventually, they are all left swarming and waiting around it, puzzled and confused...
... until more voices join the chorus.
More unwelcome guests. Colorfully costumed, but clearly not their ilk, the Humors slowly turn one after the other like a procession to face the intruding trio appearing 'round the bend. One tumbles forward in a roll, stopping to peer at them with a curiously cant head.
But the trio's attention isn't on them. It's on that embrace of fabric just beyond them. The lesser Shadows look among each other, their infrequent tittering almost like some strange form of communication.
The others return to the Chrysalis; the one that rolled forward swings its long ropy arms outward, fingers flaring in a fan of claws as it starts the bounding, bubbly charge towards what seems like new prey--
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
The world has gone dark, even as new people arrive and the chrysalis shakes and rattles.
When Hazuki stalls inside the cocoon, she visualizes herself floating in a sea of void, trying to keep her head up. As she moves forward through the void, light suddenly shines around and ahead of her, radiantly brilliant as stars form in the darkness. At first, they're alone... but then they connect, one by one, into mighty constellations that inspire hope and confidence in whoever sees them. There's a feeling, like if she continues towards those constellations, her life will change forever, and she accepts the consequences of such.
Looking behind herself in that sea of void, she also feels a way out, back in the darkness. All she has to do is turn around, and her life will remain the same as it always has been, forevermore. It's comforting, the thought of returning to normalcy.
But that's not what Hazuki wants to do here. People need help. They're in danger. Even if she's endangering herself, she can be something more than she has been... more than the gloomy girl who can't do anything right for anyone.
She can change.
Hazuki reaches towards the stars, trying to reach that light. She accepts the responsibility. And when she does, something clicks, as her awareness returns slowly to that cocoon.
I AM THOU
THOU ART I
A GREAT CHANGE BECKONS... SEIZE IT AND MAKE YOUR MARK! FORGE YOURSELF IN THE FLAMES OF CONFLICT AND SHINE BRIGHTLY
I AM JANUS... THE BOUNDARIES AHEAD ARE YOURS TO BREAK
BGM Shift: Trails of Cold Steel IV - Burning Throb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pulPN_-3y1s
As those words pound in Hazuki's head, closing her eyes tightly, machinery whirs to life, loudly heard across the wide red environment she's within. From the edges of the cocoon, fabric flies forth, latching onto her and wrapping around her. It doesn't feel too tight or lethally constrictive, it feels...
Like it's time for something grand to happen.
Fabric detonates off of her, one by one. Her hat is blasted away, as her hair shifts in length and style into a long wolf cut, the back half completely orange and the front half an ashen gray.
Her jacket is ripped away as well, leaving a briefly bare body guarded only by the fabric before it starts to morph into a white cloth-like armor, leading from just above chest down to a short wavy skirt just above her legs, her thighs barely visible before they lead into long white stockings and black metal boots.
A heart-shaped choker clasps onto her neck, while white gauntlets form around her wrists, a winged pauldron that extends down to just past her elbow manifesting on her right shoulder.
As the outfit formulates fully into place, her left shoulder and upper torso exposed, Hazuki opens her eyes, shining a bright gold.
The cocoon bursts open, Hazuki landing on her feet delicately as that familiar manifestation of a Persona begins to occur to the supernatural senses. An androgynous Shadowy figure clad in a golden raiment with little doorframes on it is floating above Hazuki, two rotating faces on either side of their head. One is clearly melancholy, while the other is erupting in joy. A crown of thorns rests on the top of the head, while two clock hands of differing sizes are held, one in each hand as if they were blades. As they move, the head rotates around, shifting from expression to expression.
Hazuki's baseball bat has also transmuted from silver to gold, a work of true alchemy.
A wide smile is firmly planted on her face. It's confident in its charm. "I'm not going to let you hurt my friend here. But the opportunity to run... you lost that a while ago."
She swings her bat forward as she rushes forth, moving to decimate the first Coleric Humors to stand in her way with a sheer rush of pressure and strength, an impact like a meteor concentrated into the tip of a bat as a radiant light suffuses it due to Janus working a spell, light flowing from their clock-hand blades to Hazuki.
"Engrave my name, Shadows! Hazuki Nakao!"
Wait. Is that a video game quote?!
Either way, she's doing tremendous violence. Hopefully, it's enough.
<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.
There is a game being played with the pig-like would-be guardian of Hazuki. Based on the pained, angry squeals as he is battered, wrestled, and hurled about like a ball, this is not a game he is enjoying very much. He is left rolling onto his back, limbs splayed out, with a massive bump on his head (a crossing set of bandages have been lovingly applied at the apex of the bump by unknown hands or means). His eyes are spirals with a small stream of tears, one tiny spindly leg kicked up and twitching.
"Hazuki-chaaaaan~" He squeals meekly, found powerless in the face of events that shouldn't be happening in the least, as he tries to protest Hazuki's resolve to protect him but finding the capacity to speak words impotent. That's a game he doesn't want her to play.
...Then, a chrysalis, and in the great distance, splotches of color and shapes that are difficult to see through tears (as he is uniquely fixated on the fate of his present charge).
He's powerless to move to intercept the Coleric Humors that aggress upon the Chrysalis, but then...
....Fabric detonates from the cocoon, and in Hazuki's place... is Hazuki! The pig-like creature sits up suddenly with mouth agape revealing a whole empty void within his large mouth.
"Hazuki-chan! You're capable of...!" Of standing up to the Coleric Humors who by nature hunt down and destroy any and all intruders to an Atelier with extreme prejudice, barring the judgment and decision of a Sanguin Humor.
"...What kind of game is this? I like it!" He cheers, at the usdden change of circumstance even as strange things are beginning to happen at the periphery just as worthy of attention if not moreso.
<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.
"We certainly are!" Yanagi tells Saika brightly. She does turn a curious look at her when she says it was rough. "Oh? Always?" She tilts her head, considering how it must have been when it was her. "That does make sense..."
She smiles warmly at Pernelle. He could do what she's doing, but... she does it so much better! So it's only natural that he peck about for treasures like the dapper little man he is. "A lot spicy, I should think!"
The three of them look out at the Chrysalis. Pernelle barely needs to point. "I will," she promises, watching closely as he suggests--even if it is tempting to watch Pernelle twirl about instead. That, she can see just about anytime. This...
The Colerics turn their attention to the trio for a moment, then join their regard on the Chrysalis--save one, the Coleric that rolled forward. Yanagi does not spare it so much as a glance; thanks to Giselle, she can see it without looking at it even a little. And as it stretches its grotesque arm forward and bobbles into a charge--
"Saika," she says serenely. "Could you please?"
She's busy watching the Chrysalis, all the way until it burns open to reveal the young woman within, Transmuted into a bold new form. She declares her intent, and lays waste to the Shadows that had terrorized her but moments ago with a bat of light.
"Hazuki Nakao..." she murmurs, echoing her. She giggles, tilting her head to rest her cheek on her palm. Her attention doesn't seem to be on the pig-shaped Shadow at all, and yet-- "This is an interesting new game, isn't it?"
<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.
"I know, right?? What are the odds?!" Saika answers Pernelle, with enthusiasm. After this, Saika's eyes turn towards the Humors, and she stops twirling her chain. She lashes it over her shoulder. That strange smile is aimed at the Shadow, wordlessly. C'mon, big boy. But then...
Is something...?
Hazuki's Chrysalis is glowing, isn't it? Saika thinks so. Maybe she's just had her attention drawn by other attention-lookers and is now looking at the key object, the idee fixe, the center of the stage. "Huh..." And then, burst!!
"Woah!" Saika says. The chain is slung round her neck and she brings her hands up for a short but evidently sincere round of applause. The gesture itself may seem ambiguous or saucy, but the (sewn up) face of the (strange) woman doesn't seem to be snickering behind the back. "Good line, Hazuki-kun!"
But while this is going on, the Coleric was rolling closer to them in that pierrot-horror way. Fortunately, Yanagi prompted her - "Oh right," and Saika looks over, bringing back one leg slowly in what would look like a tremendous and telegraphed wind up for a kick that is sure to win the game EXCEPT she declaims, "Monster!" before pitching forwards--
Elbow leading, but even as she plummets, there is a vision behind her, another enemy rising? No: the grotesque shape appears, gray lips pulled back from black gums as he looks down upon the shadow. His expression is monstrous, if not his eyes. More can't really be gotten because the manifestation evaporates *just* as her elbow's about to make contact with the Coleric's head/neck area.
(Don't try this at home, kids!)
<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.
"I've not done the math," Pernelle admits on the odds. "Hm... tell me, what is your human population again?"
Somehow, it seems unlikely this number would assist in any sort of accurate calculation. This is probably because Pernelle should not be trusted with statistics. But there is a Chrysalis to distract him. And the Coleric. But --
"Most appreciated, dearest Saika," Pernelle says to his companion as blunt force trauma is provided by one most adept at its deliverance.
Pernelle steadies his tinted glasses with a pinion, gazing directly into the resplendence of her transmutation as it reflects against his lenses. He waits in atypical stony silence until...
"Inspired," he assesses in a dramatic whisper, once all is complete. And though his next words seem pointed, they are not directed for her to hear. "Welcome, Hazuki Nakao, to the waking world."
But his gaze does turn upon Roger. Is he, perhaps, sensing a rival for adoration?! Pernelle cranes his head one way, then the next, turn turns it to its side to extend his neck and peer at the playful pig with one eye facing directly forward.
"And who is this playful little piggy?" he says with keen interest. "Looks like he's more bricks than sticks..."
<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.
The Humors don't stand a chance.
As they scrape and drag gloved, clawed limbs on the Chrysalis -- as they beat their fists (and one even manifests a giant hammer to crack over top of the thing to no avail) -- light begins to stream through the sliver-seams of the strange encasement that has enveloped Hazuki. The Shadows stop and look between each other, perhaps under some mistaken belief that their work is paying off.
It's a delusion they're soon disabused of as that cocoon BURSTS, sending the several still clinging onto it flying and the others scattering with its dramatic destruction. Shadows tumble and fall head-over-heels. As they come to a stop --
-- there Hazuki is. Changed. Her will worn proud and blazing on her sleeve, her two-faced manifestation of her mask to face the world brandishing clock-hand blades.
The Colerics hop up, one by one. Driven by mindless, maddened instinct, they lunge--
Engrave my name, Shadows! Hazuki Nakao!
-- and meet the blinding light of Hazuki's overwhelming determination.
The bat strikes. And the explosion rips through the carnival grounds loudly as the light burns through the advancing Shadows, rendering them into nothing but particles. The others are simply blown -away-, tumbling once more until they land scattered around the strange trio and the strange(r?) pig.
They glance around, just in time to see Saika's Monster-powered elbow drop popping one of their number like a shadowstuff pimple. A second passes.
And then the remaining Colerics start to tumble-rumble-roll away, fleeing from the gathered with fading giggles.
They know when they're outmatched.
And when they need to regroup.
Besides, with all that raucous...
Who knows what attention it's going to draw?
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
As the smiling supernova swings out, Hazuki is still grinning, eyes gleaming gold. The pig is cheering for her, and others have... arrived? Others capable of fighting these things. It makes no sense. None of this makes sense.
But it's better to take it in stride. She can freak out about it all later.
The bat moves up to rest behind her neck, holding it with a hand on either side as she slowly approaches the other Persona Users, beckoning the pig Shadow to follow.
"Whoever you are, you are right on time... are you Shadows, too? Like mister pig here?" They *look* human, but one of them is basically a stylish corpse and the other is a pretty older woman. And the third...
Is that a peacock?
"... yeah, I must be dreaming, then. Last time I met a peacock," that sounds SO weird to say, "they chased me out of a store. This is too damn coincidental to be real, right?" But, deep inside, she knows it's real, even so.
She knows she can't go back.
<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.
The Coleric hordes disperse not just from one great expression of power, but also another that cannot go unnoticed underneath the grotesque phantom that briefly manifests prior to the point of impact. (One has not been keeping count on what number impact it is, but it's probably not the second or third, those would have been magnitudes worse.)
"Eh?!" The pig-like fellow rights up, moving forward ahead of Hazuki as she looks to address those in the distance who have born witness (and in one stand-out case, actively participated in) the ensuing displays of newfound personal power. "No, I see them too! It's no dream..."
He tilts his head, which is to say the rest of him also does. "You don't know them?" He asks of Hazuki. "They're not Humors." He can say that definitively of all of them, grouping Pernelle with the rest without further separation on the axis of 'is or is not an Atelier Humor.' His expression brightens up, guileless. "Are you also friends of Hazuki-chan, come to play too?! I don't know what kind of game you're playing, but... I like it!"
<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.
What is the human population? Yanagi doesn't know. That's for Saika to answer, anyway.
Also for Saika: absolutely destroying that Coleric that decided to pick a fight with them. Yanagi and Pernelle don't need to do anything at all. Yanagi applauds her strength by tapping one hand against the other wrist--it's hard for her to clap the usual way with her walking stick. Saika and Pernelle would both be familiar with it by now.
"I was just wondering that myself, Pernelle!" she says instead of the piggy-man. "The two of them are together. Hazuki awoke just to protect it, after all." 'It,' one might note, rather than 'him.' Despite this, fully earnestly, she adds, "That's so sweet!"
She does take note of how the rest of the Colerics retreat, rolling away like some kind of clown tumbleweeds. Their giggles fade, but not the atmosphere of the Atelier around them--and not Yanagi's attention on any other Shadows that might approach the group(s).
Hazuki's question gets a laugh, though. The pig-man confirms it too, but even so, she reassures her, "Oh, no, not at all! And you aren't dreaming either. Though this would be a rather horrifying dream to have!" ...She doesn't sound horrified, but Yanagi has experienced a lot of horror in her life. She is, perhaps, a bit numb to it. She tilts her head at the mention of the last time this girl met a peacock. "Oh...? Oh!" She points a finger. "It's you! The cute one!" She clasps a hand to her cheek, smiling radiantly. "You belong now! How exciting!" She turns to Saika and Pernelle eagerly. "Our place is for her!"
Are they Hazuki's friends, though? Yanagi beams at the two of them. "We could be, now that she's awakened! And what about you?" She leans forward towards the pig-man. "Who are you? You aren't like the other Humors here!"
<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.
E L B O W D R O P
The Shadow she struck tenses... tightens... and bursts! "YEAH!" Saika shouts as she hits the floor of the Atelier, which seems to yield - at least for her. She bounces back up, not literally, but something near enough -- pivoting and pulling herself upright with a flex of her abdominal muscles, she wipes off her forehead with one of her jacket sleeves.
"Like seven billion ish," Saika answers Pernelle after this. "I have to say ish because obviously people are getting born and getting dead like literally every second? Like in the time I said this ten people died. Probably from something dumb, like water shortages in West Dakota or a sharknado in Beirut." Her attention returns to Hazuki.
Her voice is less congratulatory, more thuglike. "Oi!" she calls to her. "Don't put us in with those creatures, you hear me? We didn't get here by joining the circus, we've had to --" What Hazuki continues to say makes her blink and looks to Pernelle, then to Yanagi, before sweeping back a lock of her hair.
"Ahhh," she says, with a nod as Yanagi recognizes it. "I guess she can drop by, sure."
Back to Roger. "Listen up, hog! We're here for our own reasons. You're pretty freaked out, so I'm going to let it slide, but it takes two to play!"
what the hell does that mean
Saika seems happy with it, or at least, satisfied. She purses her lips when Yanagi points out the obvious - he's some kind of Humor, or Shadow, or other creature. She leans slightly forwards, looking at Roger with new eyes, reaching up to hold her chin between finger and thumb. "Hmmm... good question. You got a name?"
<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.
"Seven-billion?!" Pernelle echoes in shock. "I thought your kind was typically capable of only one offspring about once a year! And you are dying ten times a Saika Sentence?! How did you ever manage eight billion?"
But there are more important matters at hands.
"A fascinating catalyst," he comments to Yanagi, but allows her to be the one to point out any sweetness about it all.
"Good show! Good show!" he cheers, suddenly back on his feet and hopping from one leg to the other as he fans out his wings in place of pom poms. His train fans out repeatedly, the eyes upon it closing with upward curves into a mimicry of the joyful ^ ^ face.
Are they Shadows? Pernelle steps back, aghast.
"Perish the thought, honorable heroine! I am..." Pernelle pauses. He squints. He taps at his beak with his wing like a man tapping his lip. "Mm. Wait. Am I? Maybe. Possibly. Ah! It is not for us to know. A precious peafowl puzzle box! That is I. Enigma is good for the soul!"
But as Roger can tell: he's certainly no Humor.
"You think this is a game?!" he says to Roger, to the tone of being offended, while his chest puffs up. "To even suggest such an idea is --! ... Utterly enchanting! A game! I should love to play it, my handsome fellow. As for the rules, well, learning them shall be but one of our many challenges."
Yanagi points out who Hazuki is, and Pernelle's glasses pop off of his face in surprise, caught by his chain for him to use his wing to slide back onto his beak. "Why, so she is! The one with the lovely hat and the oh so enticing offer I was distraught not to be able to put into our coveted auction." He gestures at her with his wing, looking to Yanagi and Saika. "She shall not combust now, should she don our adornments!"
Wait, that's not why. Is it? It couldn't possibly be. Right?
Oh right, names. Names are powerful things. Pernelle blinks at the pig curiously.
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
"I don't know them! Well, now I do," Hazuki tells the pig. A pause, as she looks over him closer. "...you like games, huh? Me too! We can play sometime if I ever come back here!" She has no idea if she can or want to do so, but... it's the thought that counts.
Peacock Silk's employees are talking about the human population rates. This is weird. Yanagi calls the pig an it... is that because he's a Shadow or she's racist against pigs or both? No idea. "So this isn't Hell, or a dream... an Atelier. That's... huh!" Still taking it in stride for now. She'll scream in her pillow later.
AND THEN YANAGI CALLS HER CUTE
Hazuki blushes, awkwardly smiling. "O-oh, thanks." Compliments... well, she *does* probably look better like this, but she's always cute. Pernelle mentions her hat, even, so they do recognize her! "Then... your place is for people with these powers?"
The mention of 'could be friends' gets a nod, as Hazuki turns back to the pig. "Do you have a name, mister pig?"
Saika gets a stare, though. "...sharknadoes are real, aren't they. Oh god. What else? Aliens? Ghosts? Tyler was right..." Though the thuglike behavior gets a sheepish smile. "Sorry, sorry! I didn't know!"
Pernelle liked her enticing offer... and her hat... AND SHE WOULD HAVE BURNED TO DEATH?! "What are you putting in them?! That's dangerous! ...I can still offer you at least one fighting game lesson, in exchange for an explanation when we're not standing in a creepy carnival." A pause. "Also anything else, really. You helped thin the crowd, after all."
She seems in a good mood... for now.
<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.
"Please do! I like to play games!" For a spell, despite the foreboding situation with the Coleric Humors and the discussion about the Homonculus running the show at the Atelier, there is cheerfulness, like Hazuki and this strange... thing... is on the same wavelength.
"...'Our place?'" The pig-like individual asks, head tilting at Yanagi's assertion, and then asking 'who are you?' (as in, him)
"Y-You're not wrong! I am a Sanguin Humor!" He puffs out his chest. "...But if I'm not, it's because I feel like I'm the only one really trying to fight the Homonculus here... but that's not strange at all for the likes of me!" For a given value of 'fight,' given how the Coleric Humors here had him tossed around like a volleyball.
He stands at attentionw hen Saika demands attention and comprehension. "Eh?! Your own reasons... um." He can't seem to think about what that could possibly be? Does he have a brain? The times he's opened his mouth, aside from a tongue, there was nothing else inside his head. Does he have a brain? There is, once again, the query of a name.
"Hehe! Certainly! Once the Homonculus goes away we can go over how many there are to play, though... what I've seen doesn't feel... like what was there," he starts becoming crestfallen at the thought of how so much has gone wrong. (Putting it that way, perhaps he should be far more urgently insistent about what they should be doing, and yet...)
Once more, a question about his name, asked by Hazuki. He has to stop and think about this.
"I'm a Sanguin Humor, but... there's... more than one, isn't there... here. Oh!" He presses his fingers together. "I never really thought about it before! I must have been having a lot of fun with all the games to play with others, or..." Or? Is he guessing, or does he know? He trails off as he rubs a hand under one ear, playing with it and flipping it. "Um. Ummmm. Do I even know any other names? Names. Names."
Wasn't Nakata's own name a novelty to him?
"Okay! You need a name, I got it, roger!" He salutes, playfully. He thinks about what kind of game to play while coming up with one he has ultimately now already given in the moment.
<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.
The "it" is because he's a Shadow. Humor Shadows aren't usually... people-ish! They are, at best, partly people-ish. (At worst, they are evil killer clowns.) As for Pernelle and whether he is a Shadow... does that matter? Pernelle is Pernelle, and definitely not a Humor.
The "ish" does indeed do a lot of heavy lifting. That aside, Yanagi nods twice to Saika. "Mhm! Oh!" She turns back to Hazuki. "Do you still have your card? I'll mark it so Tsumugi knows to talk to you when you come by!"
Yanagi giggles, fingers splayed along her face, when Hazuki blushes. "Oh! Are you embarrassed? How adorable!" From someone else, it might sound condescending or even sarcastic, but Yanagi is (possibly painfully) sincere. She at least nods seriously enough at the question. "Yes, that's right. You were still asleep on that day, and that's why we turned you away. Our services aren't useful for a normal human being."
Well, they could (and do) still make normal-ish clothes and accessories for normal persons, but really only if they're willing to pay out the nose for haute couture. (This might well be how they make most of their revenue. Yanagi doesn't pay attention to that, so she doesn't know for sure.) Hazuki is not that, and that wasn't why they were open that day anyway.
She also giggles at Saika's aggression towards the pig-man, though she doesn't interrupt it either. She does tilt her head at the pig-man. He confirms he's a Sanguin Humor, but... he's the only one who wants to fight back? How unusual. "Hmmm, is that so? Maybe that's why..." As if an afterthought, she adds, "And yes, we have our own place! If you can leave this Atelier, why don't you stop by? It would be interesting!"
Names, names, names. It--no, he really is an unusual Shadow, Yanagi muses. He even says he's got a name: Roger. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Roger! I look forward to us all playing together!" To Pernelle, she chirps, "As for the rules, we can make them up as we go along! We--"
Yanagi's words and her cheer cut off abruptly. Her chin rises as she looks in a certain direction of the hellish carnival. Her pink eyelashes dip down her brilliantly green eyes as her smile fades. "The Homunculus is approaching," she announces with a sudden, perhaps alarming emotionless. (Well, alarming to Hazuki and/or Roger. Pernelle and Saika would be used to how she can switch this state on and off by now.) "It's very far off--and it's approaching extremely rapidly. If we don't care to fight it, we need to leave. /Now./ Otherwise, we must prepare for battle."
Normally she wouldn't suggest a retreat like that--she has faith in their strength--but they only came here to run reconnaissance, and Tsumugi, a significant part of their strength, isn't here. Hazuki is awakened, but only freshly so; she couldn't take Tsumugi's place. More's the pity for Taro Nakata.
Homunculus humor! (Not that she says it aloud.)
<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.
"Oh, that's easy, it's because a lot of people like to--" Saika answers Pernelle -- but then there are pressing topics! She does not interrupt Pernelle's peacocking, because
a. you can't
b. it's doomed
c. seriously
d. also it's funny
She grins at Hazuki. It's somewhat less morbid. "You're getting the hang of it - and yup!" She twirls the chain off from where she'd wrapped it around her shoulder, twirling it to her side like some kind of ornament on a fob. Over the dull whirr of metal through cognitive air, she says in pragmatic followup to Yanagi's enthusiasm: "Sure. Come by any time."
Her eyes turn back towards the fine swine, then. "Yeah," she says to him. "Our own reasons. You don't have a problem with that, do you? Because if you do, then we have a problem." She doesn't put too much edge into her voice, but there's some of them. Her expression sobers, perhaps softens, and says - "Roger," with a thumbs-up from her free hand to him.
That's two votes. And then-- Yanagi's speaking. Sensing something. Saika turns around suddenly, her chain-spinning ending as the length wraps itself around her forearm. Her expression has no smile whatever in it right now. "Mm," she says. She looks towards Hazuki and Roger, then.
"Since you two are fresh to this, I'm gonna give you one piece of advice free, to get you started," Saika says, her non-chained arm coming down to rest a loosely-curled fist's knuckles on her hip.
"You don't care to fight it," she says. "Bounce. Bail out. Scoot your boots. Get lost. Go eat dinner." And with that said... Saika turns herself more fully, her back showing to the girl and the pig as she says to Yanagi, "You doing alright? We ought to move now so we don't have to run. Path ought to be basically the same, yeah?"
This does give the two of them the chance to read the stuff on her back (if Roger can read kanji, anyway... do pigs have to go to school?)
'All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things!'
'Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination?'
'Remember that I have power; you believe yourself miserable, but I can make you so wretched the light of day will be
hateful to you.'
'Man, you shall repent of the injuries you inflict.'"
<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.
"Most of you do not even adhere to the required configuration for reproduction!" Pernelle continues on in utter bafflement.
He has... a very skewed bias on that data, surely. Again, statistics and the bird do not properly mix.
What are they putting in the accessories at Peacock Silk? "Passion! Power! Perfection!" Pernelle raises his wings with his declaration, wriggling his train as he slowly, dramatically raises it up to another full display. None of those words link back to pyrotechnics. "Fashion is a dangerous game." He lowers his wings and train to peer back at Hazuki. "And you have woken to one with only nearly half the perils! Ha, HA!"
He laughs with delight, like this is a joke.
"Lessons! Yes, a new exchange would be a prudent offer. We already sold the ensemble to the highest bidder." He reaches into his vest and pulls out a charm, fallen from its bracelet. "Ten of these priceless specimens! Can you believe it?"
Pernelle pops the charm into his mouth and swallows.
"A Humor!" Pernelle hops a few paces toward this pig-like presence. "Unprecedented... I like it." He gives a sharp nod. "Roger, dodger!" Pernelle decides in agreement, if not inadvertently greet with.
He goes nodding along with Yanagi's explanation and wisdom. "Normalcy has burned away in the fires of your own passion! This is no dream, for only now are you finally, truly, awake."
While he is posing sagaciously, Yanagi notices something worrying. Pernelle's eyes pop open, and his glasses threaten to slide off of his beak before he pushes them back up.
"Yesssss I seeeeeee," he muses aloud, letting his words slur with his half-distracted considerations of their number. Tsumugi is not here, and that means Pernelle is not terribly fond of their odds. At least, not without something of a mess. He clears that long necked throat of his and gestures out toward the exit with a wing.
"Well, I think this has been a productive enough evening. As she says, misplace yourselves from this position and go on to consume a hearty meal. We abscond!"
He turns and scurries off after Saika.
<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.
Something is coming.
Yanagi feels it first. The swell of something powerful, something unnatural.
Something predatory.
Distant, but growing, as, within the cast of a long shadow, Yanagi suggests they leave. Now.
...
Wait.
Where did that shadow come from?
Yanagi can feel it. It's -here-. -Now-.
And everyone just needs to turn to see a massive tent suddenly before them all, still a fair distance off but full of sounds of revelry and excitement and frustration and agony and pleading and helplessness. A regular spectacle of sound and lights ignite the interior, over and over! What a show must be happening in there! One from which there is no escape!
Yet how did this wonderful place just suddenly -appear-? An excellent question!
But the answer to that is a simple one. After all...
"Well, what do we have here? New fodder for my Sideshows?"
... the Big Top goes wherever the Ringmaster says it goes.
BGM: https://youtu.be/givM_jaQNv8?si=WW9wpJkOPMcWSCVZ
He's there, sitting at the very edge of the massive tent's top: chubby, of average height, he would be plain-looking were it not for the literal, antiquated Ringmaster uniform he wears, the flamboyant reds and yellows of his tailcoat and vest make a garish ensemble when combined with that red bowtie and - of all things - white and red, pinstriped pants.
Those plain features of his are obscured, for a moment, by the brim of an ostentatious black tophat, adorned by a bright yellow sash; across the sash, the English words 'AIM FOR THE TOP!' are written out in black.
But when he tilts his head up, they can see him:
Taro Nakata.
Or at least...
The Thing Wearing His Face.
There's something off about how he looks, even though it is an exact replica of the young man. The only true difference is perhaps the fact that those eyes of his, once brown, are now a bright, glowing yellow as they look down on the others behind round glasses with blithe dismissal.
Decorating his face, of all things, is clown make up that seems to smear and run across his features, as if it were in some process of gradually melting off his features. To look at him, it seems like that process is half-finished, dark blacks around his eyes running into happy whites and yellows, the cherub-cherry red circles at the dimples of his mouth slathered into sickly scarlet splotches that bleed down into his smeared, running mouth.
"I guarantee you'll make for a fun game for the Carnival -- for as long as you last, anyway--wait."
He's smiling. It's a smile too broad to be human, the kind of cartoonish ones where the corners reach the eyes, baring teeth far too big to be normal.
But the smile doesn't last as those yellow eyes fall on--
"... You."
Hazuki Nakao.
His red-smeared mouth curdles in open disdain.
Things begin to feel palpably tense within the Carnival. Colerics once more begin to peak out from behind tents. Crawl over top the Big Top. And not just clowns. There are other, stranger silhouettes on the horizon.
Larger ones.
All of them starting to rapidly converge on their small, destined encounter.
"What are -you- doing here?"
As if all of the Carnival was reacting to its Ringmaster's growing ire.
"You don't belong in my Carnival."
Now might be a fine time to make that escape Yanagi mentioned.
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
"Roger..." The pig says, and Hazuki nods once, smiling. "That's a great name, Roger! It's nice to meet you."
Regarding the card... Hazuki fumbles in her outfit. "No, but... I have a notebook? Is that good enough? I, uh, left it at home." She still has it.
Hazuki is still blushing at adorable, but then, Yanagi says the homunculus is coming, and it distracts her from responding much to the others, even if she acknowledges the trade and the confirmation she can come visit from Saika. Instead...
"You're... you're not Nakata-kun." She really understands, now, all the worries. That Taro she has known recently...
"Roger, hide somewhere if you can't leave!" Hazuki seems, briefly, like she might fight, but she'd be fighting alone, so instead she tries to find the way out and book it.
But as she does so... "I won't let you hurt him! Mark my words, Homunculus!"
Hopefully, she's far enough to not get immediately stabbed for her cockiness.
<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.
"Problem? Should I?" He seems confused at the aggression by Saika, but he is also unaware of what the reason is. Is it information that an entity like this could even retain after everyone leaves line of sight? This is yet to be seen. "...Okay!"
"...Leave?" The now self-proclaimed roger - pardon, capital letter, 'Roger,' blinks at the idea. "Me? Why would any Humor leave their Atelier..."
'The Homonculus is approaching.' Roger snorts and stands at attention, turning about-face dramatically in the sense he's not just listening to Yanagi's words - he can tell that's so, too.
"But you fought against the Coleric Humors so well...!" He seems to protest at Saika's well-spoken advice, as Pernelle announces the need to hurry and abscond, and if 'fashion' is a dangerous game... maybe it's okay if everyone really enjoys it but still!
There is the Homonculus, and Roger angrily snorts aggressively in a fashion far, far more appropriate for the dangerous Shadows that Persona-users deal with effectively on the daily.
"You!! You won't win!" Roger leaps up and down, pumping fists angrily - and that look between him and Hazuki isn't lost. "She's here to stop you!! I--"
The entire Carnival starts to bear down, and even Roger cannot deny the influence of those stranger silhouettes.
"...Mmmmmmrrrrrgh! They're not wrong! When a Homonculus takes over an Atelier, they empower and hijack the Melanc Humors, transfrom the unlucky Flegmat Humors, and the Coleric Humors don't acknowledge the problem...!" Roger informs, in the throes of crisis, as he sweeps an arm out to them. "...Come back and play again soon! If you have other friends with power like yours... bring them through that same Thread through the Eye of a needle like you just did!"
What does he mean by that? Does he even know the reason behind those words, or is that just the only way he knows how to communicate their arrival?
He smiles. "I've been playing a long game with this Homonculus already... I'm not gonna lose or give up!" He waves, as he starts to run with a funny smoke trail. "I'll hold out as long as I caaaaaaan...!"
...However long they can hold out, the state the Homonculus is already in puts a fine time limit on how much longer Taro Nakata's Shadow can last in this monstrous faker's clutches.
<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.
Why would any Humor leave their Atelier? "I don't know," Yanagi admits. "But you're already not like the others, are you? So why not?"
However, there won't be time for lessons or marks in notebooks instead of cards or discussions of why not. The Homunculus is coming at speed. Saika and Pernelle have agreed to leave, and so Yanagi moves to leave with them. But...
"It's already here," she states.
The Homunculus is here, now, atop the Big Top, face still smeared with make-up even if the rest of it is in top form. And it--for a Homunculus is most certainly an it, whatever face it wears--has brought the other Shadows with it. It could be a very treacherous situation...
...were it not for the fact that it's zeroing in on Hazuki right now.
Yanagi will leave promptly with Saika and Pernelle. What Hazuki and Roger do is up to them.
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
As Roger insists Hazuki leave, she's already starting to move, rushing back to the mundane world. "I'll be back for you! Don't worry! I'll... I'll bring some friends!" Are there friends? Is there even anyone she can ask?
She can't turn back, either way. The only direction she can go... is forward. If she's going to save Taro Nakata... it'll take everything she's got.