2025-08-30: Otherside Picnic
- Log: Otherside Picnic
- Cast: Myunghon Yeo, Tsubasa Seki, Shinjiro Aragaki, Yukari Takeba, Shinobu Shimizu, So-young Park, Mio Kazama, Remi Ryuuja, Umie Akabane, Katsuya Suou
- Where:
- OOC Date: August 30, 2025
- IC Date: July 03, 2012
- Summary: Tonight was a tragedy, but you still have to go to school tomorrow. But what happens when tomorrow is really, really difficult to get to? Professionals would know that sometimes, the most difficult part of a mission isn't the mission itself -- but the exfiltration. And sometimes, sometimes, the mission itself didn't go great, and just when you think you're out of danger, that's when the hunter not unbeknownst to its prey lies in wait. Sometimes, your luck is just beyond rotten, and that's just how it is. That's fate, as adults would say. There is a content warning for police violence, racism and transphobia for this scene.
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
CW: Police violence, misgendering, racism
That was harrowing.
That last mission to Mementos started off innocuously enough... they'd been through the higher layers of Qimranut, not that that particularly means much with how amorphous the corridors of Everyone's Palace can be -- but they had a great idea of what kinds of Shadows linger. There might've been another blorbo of a Pixie who's still pining for her Beanie-san to come back someday. There was a protracted encounter with a Slime that wished it was as cute as THAT OTHER Slime, why doesn't anyone love it? But then--
IT appeared.
Only known colloquially as 'the Reaper', it twists and turns around Mementos' tunnels in its disheveled robes and gimbal of chains, carrying two enormous revolvers. Its identity or cognitive association to Mementos is unknown, and given its overwhelming power, there was only one thing to do -- beat a fighting retreat, and get the hell out of there.
Fortunately, the station tracks weren't very far from the site of the ambush. As the nauseating waves of the supernatural twist and oscillate around them, they're left in Hirasaka South Station, which is completely empty and shuttered at this point in time, so late at night.
11:51 PM
"Is everyone safe? Sound off, please," Myunghon gently but firmly calls through beleaguered breath -- they'd played it incredibly cautious and largely used Kudlak to protect the group until everyone was able to get to safety, but just as though it seems they were going to make it out all right-- bang.
It would've been fatal, but their Persona Kudlak interposed himself. (Kudlak subsequently shattered into pieces, a phenomenon known as Persona Break. It was a bad time.) As it is, their white dress shirt is seeping red instead. They'd just started recovering from Jin Shirato's bombs and the Joker Killer's cut, too. They're fatigued, out of spell reserves, and in need of some medical attention. Their attention, however, is on their phone for a moment.
"We only have nine minutes until the Dark Hour. We'll catch our breath, then we should go home in at least groups of twos in case any Shadows appear on the streets. Since this was all unexpected, if your home's too far away, I'll help make provisions."
A deep, deep, centred breath, then their singular eye casts across the rest of the group of Persona-Users.
"And not lastly... well done, everyone. A setback is frustrating, but all of us making back in one piece not a guarantee when the Reaper of Mementos is involved." There's a beleaguered sigh, then they pull up to their full height.
"I'll just check that it's clear upstairs," Myunghon says -- it's really more of a formality than anything; the streets are just about dead this time of night. Gang activity doesn't really happen near stations, they happen in less brightly-lit pockets of Hirasaka, that are even less well-off than how this station hasn't seen love in forty years, save for the love shared by those that've been discarded by love itself.
11:52 PM
The ashen-haired Rumourmonger briskly climbs up the stairs, looking about -- there's a faint smell in the air that signals it's about to rain. It looks clear enough; there's only one taxi off in the corner, and when they turn around--
"YOU!"
The roaring force of the voice jolts Myunghon. It is also plain to hear from the station stairs. There's an older man behind them -- even taller than Myunghon, around the worse side of fifty in age, with a scruffy detective's coat and a disheveled police uniform underneath. His breath smells of garlic and far too much shochu, evidenced by his alcohol-red cheeks and wild look in his eyes.
"O, Officer Ishiba--?" Myunghon reflexively stumbles back to get away, but the officer seizes Myunghon's arm with surprising, unrestrained, alcohol-fueled force.
"Zainichi bitch," Officer Ishiba grunts with barely-restrained venom, dragging them uncomfortably close. His breath palpable on them, Myunghon freezes in terror. "Blood again?! Ain't no pretty-face from Tokyo this time to save you. Finally got something to put you away forever."
"Stop-!!" Myunghon protests through flaring pain, terrified their shoulder could dislocate from the pulling.
"Don't resist, you Chon scum!" Ishiba punctuates anger with a shoving a police baton hard against Myunghon's gut.
"Let-- GO of me-- aahhh!!--" Extreme pain flares on Myunghon's bloodied gut, and Ishiba yanks at their arm with such force they feel muscles pulling and spraining, like their arm could dislocate from their shoulder.
Myunghon wheezes, disoriented, gasping, "Stop--"
"SHUT UP!"
They see the black blur of the police baton against the green gas-lit streets of Hirasaka.
CRACK
Sometimes, the most horrific things have... unsettlingly dull and understated sounds. Myunghon's head lulls against the hard blow, their vision tripling, and then darkens as they impact against the bonnet of the officer's police car. The rest of their body crumples against the sidewalk. By the time they fall, they aren't moving.
11:53 PM
Sometimes, the worst part of your night happens after you think the worst has already happened.
There's an enraged, drunken cop just up the stairs from you in mundane space.
It's seven minutes to the Dark Hour. He's probably gonna Coffin out then in seven minutes. Hopefully.
But seven minutes until the end is a really long time, isn't it?
What do you do?
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Tsubasa got out of Peacock Silk kind of late, and they had to route to Shibuya before coming home, because, of course, Ren was minding Lance. Strangely, they were actually excited about their meeting with Tsumugi -- or, as they now call them, Kujaku-hakase, -- so while they managed to communicate some details of how they were actually very affirming and they have measurements now and they're gonna get a binder...
... it's probably worth another conversation, later.
And of course, once they were in Shibuya for the evening, they had to keep hanging out there. Like, Shibuya's cool, y'know?
... all that to say that Tsubasa's getting into Hirasaka really late, tonight; it's like, a last-train-of-the-night kind of thing. (They say not to run for the train, but c'mon, there are circumstances.) It's pretty abandoned, this late at night, but...
Y'know, Tsubasa sees the cop lurching around, and tries not to make eye contact. Just... get home, man. They're not thinking about the Dark Hour -- they don't consciously know a thing about it -- but they're out after curfew, so that's trouble enough.
Unfortunately, Ishiba is distracted before he can zero in on them. Their head shoots up, when they hear a roared 'YOU', and -- really, it's only a trick of fate that has them glancing towards that sound before they start bolting. A trick of fate, or...
Recognition, in a deep and terrible place, that the address they've just heard comes from a place of familiarity rather than mere contempt.
Familiarity and contempt have a particular sound, paired together. Tsubasa knows it.
And they look to him, and they see --
"Lance," Tsubasa says, their voice thin, "tch-tch, go home." That little click-click tells Lance to listen for a command, and she whines, before she starts loping off out of the station... without Tsubasa.
Because Tsubasa turns around, and starts charging towards Officer Ishida.
"HEY, FUCKWIT!"
They're not all that heavy; they're seventeen, and they still have a girl's muscular structure, for all they wish they didn't. But when they grab onto his baton-wielding arm and yank him back, throwing all their weight behind it, they might be able to pull him around to face them instead... despite being inches shorter and way more gangly.
"Fuck are you doin', man!" Tsubasa yells, at the cop. At the cop they just manhandled, which is a crime. "Fuckin' -- cool it! You're drunk!"
If nothing else, this belligerent youth is making a great show of distracting Ishiba... so maybe everyone can get Myunghon away while his back is turned.
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
Shinjiro is not in good shape. After the Mementos run led to... Reaper, he's got a small but bloody wound on his shoulder, stinging in pain, something that can be patched up but he might as well get a new coat eventually. Not to mention the emotional damage from a Pixie and what it did to his mind more than his heart.
He IS wearing his new beanie, the one Myunghon got him. It's nearly identical to his old one, but in much better shape and durability. It avoided any dings, luckily.
"I'm fine," he says. It's not exactly true, but not exactly a lie. 'I'm headed back to Hirasaka tonight, so, people heading to the shop should probably stick together."
As Myunghon says they're going to head upstairs, Shinjiro nods once, leaning against a wall. As he waits for them, he hears the telltale roar of anger and starts moving, but it's not until he hears the words 'Officer Ishiba' that he starts rushing up the stairs as fast as he can, likely the first one up them.
He's not there fast enough. As Myunghon's being manhandled, tossed around, the baton finally strikes down in the split of a second.
It feels like time is suddenly frozen still, locked in his mind racing through the possibilities. Is Myunghon going to survive? They can't use Diarama or something to help them. It was head trauma, those are bad, right? But they've survived worse, they can make it, right? He has to believe.
Tension fills Shinjiro's body, jaw locking set. He starts walking forward once time 'resumes' for his mental state, clearing the staircase, and immediately moves to try and insert himself between Myunghon and Ishiba. If Ishiba uses force to intercede... Shinjiro's willing to get into a scrap, clearly, likely having a small height and strength advantage despite his age, but his real goal is to be a wall.
But, as he's moving, Tsubasa grabs Ishiba and intercedes. He notices them, but he's not speaking to them just yet... though, he certainly approves.
"What the fuck did you just do, you piece of shit cop? HUH?!"
He's angry. Probably more angry than anyone's ever seen him, perhaps even when he fought the Joker Killer, but he's keeping out of the berserk rage for just a moment.
It might not last.
<Pose Tracker> Yukari Takeba has posed.
Yukari knows about... the Reaper. "WHY IS IT HERE TOO!?" She had shouted in alarm, as she preemptively grabs her skill cards, fumbling with them, an Evoker to her head as she runs in retreat.
11:51 PM
"I'm here... just, beat."
She then looks at Merry a little more closely, "Hey you don't look so hot..." She might be able to do something to help a few minutes from now, but in this liminal time frame, there's not really much she can do.
"... Yeah don't worry about it. This kind of thing just happens." She's accepting this kind of failure and retreat pretty easily, Shinjiro might know why better than anyone else.
She thinks about stopping Merry but decides to just let it happen... a few more minutes, that's all she needs, until she hears the yelling.
11:52 PM
"What's going on up there!?" She says in alarm, as she begins to tear up the stairs only to see a cop- Yukari recoils like she's shocked by the brutality of this kind of human violence, "Wha-What happened?"
Which is when Tsubasa comes out of nowhere, and Yukari's eyes move back and forth in the chaos, and Shinjiro comes up to interpose, Yukari for her part just comes on up and kneels down beside Merry.
She's obviously scared about the cop - getting arrested, a criminal record, checking upon them. What she knows about first aid, she checks that they're still breathing, and puts two fingers to their neck.
There's visible relief as she thinks she feels a pulse.
Taking a deep breath, she surreptitiously starts to try and put an arm around them, not quite standing up, but it's like - she's getting ready to try and heft them up to try and move them, nervously looking at the cop and the new standoff all the while.
<Pose Tracker> Shinobu Shimizu has posed.
It wasn't Shinobu's first encounter with the Reaper. Prior experience, however, doesn't make escape any easier. The Reaper pursues them all, and doesn't take kindly to those who try to evade it. Shinobu fights back where she can, but her blows are little more than distractions to the foe before them - fortunately, distractions are all they need, with the exit so close. And so, wounded and nursing her left arm a little, Shinobu emerges from Mementos along with the others.
"Present, and hanging in there." Shinobu announces, as Myunghon calls for them all to sound off. "Gonna be feeling this tomorrow..."
But, they've done well... Shinobu nods. She knows from experience how difficult it is. Shinjiro suggests that anyone heading back to the shop should stick together.
"My place isn't too far from there, so I'll tag along, too." She replies with a nod. Her mind's still racing from the events, and it's partially because of that that she's willing to let Myunghon go ahead.
"Sure." She replies, leaning against a wall and stowing away her staff.
...And then, there's sound of conflict - and a body hitting the ground. Shinobu kicks off of the wall - and it feels like all of the exhaustion that had been weighing her down suddenly vanishes.
And, on the other side - Myunghon is on the ground, unmoving. There's a man and uniform - and Tsubasa is there too, somehow, telling the man to calm down.
"You bastard, what did you do!?" Shinobu hisses through her teeth at Ishiba - but she doesn't immediately move to harrass the cop as Shinjiro does, as much as he might deserve it. Instead, she moves to put her body as a wall between Myunghon and Yukari, who's checking on them, and Ishiba, so he can't do any further harm without getting through her.
"How are they? Can we move 'em? Lemme know if you need a hand." Shinobu asides quietly to Yukari as she checks for a pulse.
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
Whenever time allows, So-young has been trying to come along on these extracurricular trips. She's eager to learn about the underside of Sumaru; perhaps a little too eager at times, but at least she is mostly managing to work within the group given her forte. She's fond of simply directing a given battlefield, her baton flicking as if she were in front of her orchestra, as Icarus freely soars this way and that.
Plus, she seems to just take most things in a gleeful stride. Alright, she's never going to get used to slimes, but she did her best to take a selfie with the Pixie, somehow able to keep up with the tiny demon's nattering, and very nearly tried to smuggle a Pyro Jack out of Mementos entirely by hiding it under her coat after having promised it a job working in, well, pyrotechnics.
The other 'advantage' right now is that So-young hasn't quite built up the right sort of fear tolerance yet. She can be incredibly quick and impulsive when it comes to taking action, but she's also quick to bolt when something seems truly, truly wrong, and the sensation of the Reaper creeping closer has her jumping at shadows even before the creature actually appears. With Icarus being one of their faster options for movement, she's not badly hurt herself, but her face is ashen as she tumbles down to the ground, her legs out of strength.
"What the _hell_ was that thing?" she mutters to herself, half-astonished, half-vengeful, half-extremely tired as she lets her mind slowly catch up. She's not expecting an answer - she can catch that up later - but she has to get the nervous energy out of her somehow.
She's just about to settle down for a good long deep breath when the fierce yell sounds from upstairs, and you get to watch the bizarre sight of her simultaneously groaning in annoyance while hauling herself to her feet in the blink of an eye. The groan is automatic - she was just about to continue grousing, after all, and had already drawn in the breath for it - but something in that cry is deeply dangerous, and the hairs on the back of her head are immediately going up as she hauls herself up the stairs two at a time.
... So-young is aware that she's had a pretty privileged life. It's never been more clear, right now, watching her newfound sibling take a baton to the face and simply crumple in front of her. Her eyes are wide, and it takes her long enough to even process what is happening that Myunghon has already hit the floor by the time the words bubble up out of her throat. "<Get the _fuck_ away from Myunghon! You asshole, you just go clubbing people in the street?!>" she roars in angry Korean, the words spilling out of her at speed as she pushes forwards.
Her eyes are blazing, but So-young is... not... the sort of person who has ever had to even think about fighting a cop, and there's something about this being the real world that cows her out of immediately joining Shinjiro and Tsubasa on the attack. Maybe give her a few minutes to ramp up to it. Instead, she's immediately protectively hovering over Myunghon's fallen body, joining Shinbou in forcing space inbetween Ishiba and Myunghon's fallen form to give Yukari space to work. Her fist is clenching and unclenching, and part of her dearly wishes she could reach for Icarus' power here.
<Pose Tracker> Mio Kazama has posed.
Mio is lagging behind tonight, for two reasons. Firstly, she's in the best shape of everyone who has been on an expedition to Mementos, and has been bringing up the rearguard. This includes hanging back with her little first-aid kit, making sure nobody's cuts are anything worse. Second, she's almost forgotten about the Dark Hour. Her sense of time is still reeling from the trip through Mementos, harrying as it is, and has had to rush to get her bike to bring it back to The Cardboard Dragon before electronics cease their function.
[11:50 PM]
Mio's gaze flits to the cheap plastic wristwatch poking out from her sleeve, and her insides do a little jump of fear-anticipation-excitement that brings her back awake again as she rounds a street corner, the motorbike between her legs terribly loud and uncouth for such an hour. The RGV250 has dirtbag quality to the sound, a tinny and aggressive little metallic raptor screaming a challenge to the world as it speeds through the night. She's cutting it fine, but that just means there's less need to behave in traffic. She should be at the Cardboard Dragon in a minute or less, plenty of time to hide her bike and come back for it later.
Another shrill bleating of the engine rebounds off the buildings, clawing at the ears of those in Hirasaka trying to get to sleep. The knot in Mio's stomach doesn't unfold. . . why is that?
[11:54 PM]
At this time, a lone figure comes into view in the alleyway where Yukari is kneeling over a fallen body, and Shinjiro & Tsubasa are moving into position to lay into some guy who looks like he's been hitting the cheap side of the drinks list as the izakaya for the last 4-5 hours. They're wearing motorcycle leathers, all black, and wearing a close-visored motorcycle helmet. The bike they're standing atop turns its baleful, single-eyed gaze on the assembly with the stark and uncomfortable blue-white hues of a cold hospital waiting room.
The figure atop the bike processes what is happening, and then--
*BLAMNNNN--*
Revs the bike to maximum revs and drops the engine switch, causing it to backfire with a sound not unlike a gunshot. It echoes off the walls horrendously. The figure leaps from the back of the bike and stalks towards the fallen Myunghon, holding a large iron flashlight in one hand. They're visibly breathing so hard their shoulders are all but leaping up and down. They look down at Yukari and Myunghon, and then back up again.
<Pose Tracker> Remi Ryuuja has posed.
Remi might be familiar with the Grim Reaper--not that she'd admit it to anyone in the group traveling with Myunghon (save Myunghon themselves.) She... did not go on this trip into Mementos. Her presence can make things... complicated, sometimes.
Instead, she had stayed at the station, as 'Ariel', who presents herself as a seemingly whimsical woman, tonight wearing a long blue dress, with a long-sleeved light blue top underneath, and a trenchcoat. Added to that she is wearing a short black hair and thick glasses to help chnage the shape of her face.
She had seen the group off, and then found herself a place to settle in and wait. And when she heard the reemergence of the party... she'd gotten up and made her way downstairs to greet the group.
"Welcome back, weary travelers," she greets with cheer, hands in the pocket of her trenchcoat. "What tidings bring ye from your travails?" There is a look, a sweeping gaze cast over everyone to take in their condition. Mmm... well, certainly it could be worse... "We can get everyone patched up soon."
'YOU!'
Her attention snaps towards the stairs, and her body becomes tense, the cheer dropping from her face.
In the next instant she takes off running up the stairs, her coat streaming behind her. Come on come on come on.... they pause at the top of the stairs as they hear that terrible 'CRACK'--
Something boiling and mad flashes in her eyes. But then--Oh no, that teenager is distracting the cop. Remi is conscious of the time--and conscious of who that time won't affect, hopefully.
They don't so much as walk as stalk forward, fast enough her trenchcoat flutters behind her. "Officer," she greets. her voice friendly but with steel underneath. "I think that is quite enough."
She's trying to interpose herself the way Shinjiro is, though her gambit is to stall for time. "Perhaps we should discuss this like civilized folk?"
7 minutes. They just need to last 7 minutes.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
"Gh... Yeah... That... could've gone a lot better..." Umie *swears* that stupid Reaper seems to like following her around. (That's not the truth of things, but it can feel like it is, sometimes.) "Awright... whoo... heh..." Umie squats down; the mask allowed to stay, for now. Really, it's just a formality at this point, a way to get used to the act of wearing it so that there's one layer of obscurity between her, the Persona User, and her, a normal person that has to wrap her bandaids a little tighter, who would be defenseless. Bullets will work on either.
"... H-hey, are you sure, Yeo-san? Let me... if that one guy..." No, Myunghon's already handling it, and Umie, still panting and clutching her chest, can't do much but be grateful she didn't finish volunteering herself.
Umie barely is able to close her eyes for less than a minute before:
11:53 PM
As Umie rushes up, Officer Ishida is there, Myunghon is on the ground, and Tsubasa (Umie's brain reads them as 'Neon-san') is trying to wrestle Ishida back. Oh Umie, your paranoia and assumption of bad luck played at being the oracle again.
'He's taken me into the station more than once under flimsy charges, and being very-- handsy, and hurting me... then...' Umie remembers Myunghon huddled in her blanket, looking at her phone. 'He also whispered he knows where I live.'
"You're that..." But he's also a *cop*. And... this is the real world. But. In the real world...
... Good little girls don't lie about things they don't understand just to gain their parents' attention.
.... Respectable, normal adults settle with the prince or princess that's chosen them, and have mundane, satisfied lives.
... Nice, polite women have wrists that don't show the mark of something else, or have Personas like Badb.
laying claim to them
'Ara~ careful, you don't want something to go on your record, do you, Umie-chan?'
And that's why Umie, all 155cm of her, is already walking forward, joining Shinjiro, Tsubasa, and others trying to make space between them and Myunghon. "That's *enough*, _Officer Ishida_. If the owner of this store presses charges, even *you'll* have to face the music. We have *witnesses* here, and I *will* testify that I saw your ass lurking around here _yesterday_."
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
11:51 PM
It's going to rain, this late out. He really should have brought an umbrella, but it can't be helped now, can it...
It all came back to the Takagi Building murder case, apparently-- he'd closed up the case properly and there were no more questions pertaining to the victim or the accused. But the fact that the killer had walked in and out again, sight unseen by any other person in or outside the building, had agitated someone up the chain. And since Suou was the investigating detective and he's in the proverbial doghouse in homicide of late after the Sevens 'attack' report, it means that he gets to come out here to dig into it further. Alone. At night.
With midnight only minutes away. For anyone else, that would be meaningless, but...
It's a shame the station ahead's closed at this hour. It would have made getting out here easier.
And then he hears the yelling.
11:52 PM
The problem is, both of the voices are familiar. He stops, standing still on the sidewalk. Up ahead. Two figures. The police car. Aren't they--
He breaks into a run.
The baton is raised.
"Ishiba-san! Wait!"
The crack rings out too loud in the night.
11:53 PM
"This is excessive use of force!"
Does it matter what argument he gives now? He's already realizing it as he closes the distance between him and Ishiba that there's an additional problem. "--You've been drinking...?!"
Normally, he wouldn't be so direct with a senior. But shock, in the wake of the beating he's just given Myunghon, rips it from him before he can think.
11:54 PM
No, not just one problem. Two problems.
Myunghon wasn't alone. There's that student he'd met while working on the Takagi Building case. And there's the young delinquent that had been at the shop, and-- of course they're reacting the only way most could when an acquaintance of theirs has been attacked. There's just one problem with how some of them are trying to do this.
"Stop! Assaulting an officer is also a crime!"
Wait, what's the 'also' in this assessment?
And, can an officer on the outs with his department really do anything against a senior officer with potentially mysterious ties?
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
HEY, FUCKWIT!
Ishiba turns with that snarl and anger still evident on his face, when he feels someone grabbing at his arm. His instinct is to just whirl and shove Tsubasa away with that same alcohol-fueled lack of restraint, arm flinging them away with full force. "Fuck off, punk!" The yelling's clearly getting him more and more riled up, fight taking precedence over any kind of flight. He's big, he's strong, he's a cop, he's got the baton--
What the fuck did you just do, you piece of shit cop? HUH?!
Someone actually bigger than him turns up, since Shinjiro is tall, but it doesn't seem to deter him one bit. "Where the fuck did you all come from??" He stares towards the station for a moment.
Myunghon is collapsed against the car and kerb, bleeding from their head to their face -- it's probably an unexpected mercy that they already *have* bandages on their head. The sound of yelling and swearing is flying (literally) over their head, every single neuron and nerve-ending is screaming at them. "W-who is that? I can't see..." Myunghon timidly whispers. Raggedly, they manage in a small voice to Yukari as she moves by their side, joined by Mio just a bit later:
"I-is that Tsubasa-kun? Their coffin... don't move their coffin..."
Myunghon's voice is flagging. They feel like they're sinking into darkness. Is this what the end feels like?
You bastard, what did you do?!
"The fuck... I see." Between Shinobu and Shinjiro, he seems to come to his own conclusion. "Drug deal, huh? All of you Hirasaka street scum? I oughta clean the streets of all of you once and for all!"
Umie joins the protective wall, and the officer looks on edge at being identified by name -- before redoubling his scoff. "Yeah? You can try it, you freak masked blondie," he goads in a way that corrupt cops *usually* keep more silent. "You think you're the first one to think of that genius idea?"
... he's spilling *way* more than he has to. Or should. Especially right in front of Katsuya Suou, who yells at him that this is excessive use of force. Oh baby, he's been drinking, Katsuya -- he can smell the cheap liquor all the way from here. It's not even bottom-drawer izakaya stuff, it's worse.
"I'm fucking bulletproof!"
11:54 PM
So-young shouts in Korean, which both washes off in understanding off Ishiba -- but he knows how Korean sounds, and that's got him turned towards the conductor. "You one of them? You with her, that bitch? You are, aren't you? You Chon criminals." With Shinobu and Shinjiro largely walling off Myunghon, he's slowly skulking towards So-young. The look in his face is incredibly dangerous, and he's self-escalating with each passing second.
That baton has some blood on it. Myunghon's blood.
Remi's steely voice has him pausing, but he doesn't look like he's abandoning the plan. Remi knows that bloodlust, even in more sober men -- and the alcohol's convincing him it's a really fucking good idea right now. "The fuck, another one? I'm at some kind of freak show right now. Fucking useless delinquents and Zainichi bitches and masked freaks now?" That's referring to Ariel and Umie, at this point.
BLAMNNNNN
The fierce REV and backfire of the motorcycle just about peaks his nerves out and he whips his head again. "I get it. I get it now!" he yells, half-blinded by the floodlights of the bike and the flashlight the motorcylist has. Whatever it is he's 'gotten', it's the threshold from him swinging his baton around to--
uh oh
--pulling his service revolver out. The calculus of violence just got a whole lot worse.
11:55 PM
"I should just plug the whole lot of you! You seein' this, Officer Suou?! Drug-addled teens, the lot of them! Come on, what do you say, huh? Oughta clean the streets and make 'em safe again!"
Katsuya especially can see given he is a cop issued the same service weapon:
The safety's still on. Dumbass didn't even remove it.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Ishiba shoves Tsubasa away, only for them to get back into his face, though they at least don't tackle him again. "You fuck off!" They yell back, hot and angry and pointing at him, which is the rudest thing possible. "You drunk pig!"
'Assaulting an officer is also a crime!'
"Fuck that!" Tsubasa yells back, at Katsuya, and they'll feel guilty for snapping at him later. "He was gonna kill them!"
There's a woman speaking a foreign language, though -- and Tsubasa only kind of recognises the sound of Korean, but what they do know is that the cop's zeroed in on someone else. "Hey!" Tsubasa yells, grabbing at him again, despite the fact that he's proven that getting this kid off of him is trivial even when he is drunk.
But -- but then he pulls out a fucking gun, and Tsubasa takes a good three steps back, holding their hands up. "H-hey, c--cool it, man, be cool! Fuck! What the fuck?!" Their gravelly voice turns high and whiny, as they demand to know what is the fuck.
Clearly, they don't know 'bout safeties.
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
Shinjiro is *angry*. As everyone comes in, and the cop accuses them of all being drug-dealing scum, his grimaces grows.
Only Katsuya cuts through to him, with that 'Stop! Assaulting an officer is also a crime!'
"Then I might become a criminal tonight, officer."
He says it right as the gun is drawn, and his fight or flight kicks in. His has always been fight.
Shinjiro has never seen a real firearm before, and definitely not one pointed at him. He's shaking, afraid, but that doesn't stop him from taking the only action he can. His life is less important than every other one here... it's already spent.
He rushes forward, trying to get as close to the officer as possible. He doesn't touch him - not yet, but if that gun gets fired?
It better get fired at him.
"You want to shoot anyone, shoot me, you sick fuck. But let them go!.."
Tsubasa gets the first look, a tip of the head basically saying 'run', before he gestures to the others. "Get Myunghon out of here...!"
<Pose Tracker> Yukari Takeba has posed.
"She's alive but... I don't know!" Yukari whispers, quietly towards Shinobu hoping the cop is too distracted to hear, "I just- I really don't know! I've never really had to treat anyone outside of..."
Outside of supernatural spaces she means, "We're just gonna have to move her and deal with it."
She's not even sure how much she can heal once it becomes the Dark Hour, but whatever it is, it's better than nothing.
Fortunately, she whispers, "You're awake!? Oh thank goodness- okay... we're going to figure this out."
And then, Katsuya shows up! "What a relief... Officer! She's really hurt!"
Yukari isn't misgendering Merry on purpose, certainly. She just doesn't know their gender at all, doesn't even know anything can exist beyond the two.
'don't move their coffin'
"Uhhh..." Yukari's brain locks up because why would anyone move anyone's coffin? That puts them in more danger. "Okay?"
But then he pulls the REVOLVER out, and Yukari almost falls over from sheer alarm, grasping Myunghon, and without warning just nervously starts yanking them up into a stumble and around the side of the vehicle, out of line of sight.
She doesn't realize the safety is on of course, and she's deathly scared of getting shot, but she doesn't want Merry to get shot either.
It's going to be okay, she tells herself. There's no way Officer Suou will let him shoot anyone, right?
... If he doesn't shoot Katsuya first. Which you know, he might. He is drunk.
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
So-young flinches at the buckshot sound of Mio's bike blowing out, but the sight of the delivery driver stalking in their direction is-- okay, it's terrifying, but it's also great, because this is someone with a vehicle who can go places fast, like say a hospital or a safehouse or a hospital or maybe a hospital or even, check this: a hospital. Myunghon probably has some safehouses somewhere, right? They kind of seem the sort to have a backup plan like that, even if they also seem like the sort of person who's lackadaisical enough with their own welfare not to as well--
So-young catches herself spiralling, grits her teeth, and routes the fear straight back through to her anger instead. The choice to yell in Korean hadn't been entirely instinctual, because it does at least do exactly as she'd hoped - the cop stalks towards her, which is at least an improvement over him continuing to beat Myunghon further. She straightens up from her somewhat hunkered posture, flicking out her hair as she does her best to stand her ground. She doesn't exactly feel the bravado she's displaying, but adrenaline is running through her veins.
"--I am a conductor with the Tokyo Philharmonic and a twenty-seven year-old woman!" she roars in return. "What part of me looks like a drug-addled teen doing a goddamn deal, you _stupid_ drunk idiot? Are you even making a formal arrest, or do you just want to beat foreigners?!" she says with verve, glancing towards the second cop running towards them to make sure he hears her. It's not really Katsuya's fault, because So-young probably would do the exact same thing at first, but the fact he's trying to defuse this by both-siding first does draw a look of disbelief out of her.
The feeling of ice sends a shiver through her at the sight of the gun. It's even more terrifying the degree to which he's waving it around; she's not smart enough to spot the safety being on, but she is smart enough to instictively know how much more likely it is someone gets shot when the person holding it is this drunk. Her legs quiver as she sits between fight or flight, but she grits her teeth as she tries her best to stare the situation down. "Try it, asshole. The Embassy'll have a field day with you."
God, she wishes she could just blast this idiot into a wall, her mind supplies for her. Part of her wants to pull out her phone - she's pretty sure that even if 110 won't listen to 'a Zainichi is being beaten by a cop', then 'a cop has pulled a gun on another cop' would certainly bring the patrol cars wailing in force - but the idea of reaching into her purse for an unidentified item is pretty clearly the absolute worst possible thing she could do in the moment.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
Freak masked bl--
Umie's eyes widen. Oh. Oh yeah. She still has her mask on.
... Okay, cool, cool. This can be a good thing, it'll still obscure her identity, she'll just have to deal with the embarrassment that someone thought she was seriously using a paper maiche mask to obscure her identity. (No, she'd use it *with her Persona* to obscure it.)
'Their coffin... don't move their coffin...'
Umie frowns. If the Dark Hour hits and the two of them are entangled, or heck, any of them are entangled, it could mean...
"Neon-san, step back, it'll be okay!" UGH, Umie, could you *try* to at least remember Tsubasa's proper name? "Just... give us... a few minutes, okay?" Umie tries to sidestep over towards Tsubasa's direction. "Just... keep a small distance from him."
Alas, there's nothing to awaken here but a cop's ire.
Umie freezes as the gun is taken out. Her eyes drift over to Katsuya arriving at that moment, lacking any sense of the bravado or sarcasm she displayed in other times they've been in the same fights.
She's scared, and she's trying to find some reassurance in the face of someone she knows from both worlds: the mundane, and the supernatural.
'Oh, Umie-chan, what do you think was going to happen next? Bad girls get punished, you know~'
But one person isn't: Shinjiro.
And that scares her even more, when he charges in.
"NO! DON'T!" Umie shrieks.
<Pose Tracker> Mio Kazama has posed.
In the darkness of the alleyway, the filmy glow from the old streetlights along the road reflect in Mio's motorcycle visor like a series of streaked spots. A reflective, alien, unknowable face. Unreadable, save for whatever the observer wishes to read in it. The bulk of the leathers make her look bigger than she really is, more solid. A shape like a human, yet clad in darkness, and not fully human. Again, its shoulders rise and fall steadily with its breath.
E S C A L A T E
Beneath the helmet, seen by none, Mio's eyes are open so wide that her brows arch towards the crown of her head, and her irises are tiny pinpricks despite the yawning dark that demands the eye drink deeper of the night to eke out any details. She's no longer here, at Hirasaka, at 11:55 at night in an alleyway outside of one of her new best friends' workplaces, she's somewhere else.
E S C A L A T E
She's standing in the middle of Kaneshiro's palace, sizing up how to explode the Shadow's head with one good swing of Samson's fists. She's in a van, in July 2006, as the windshield breaks and shatters from the impact of a black SUV propelling into it at the deep end of fifth gear, spiking directly into the driver's-side door. She's in an underground detention cell lit by a single fluorescent bulb with the barrel of a Nambu M60 jammed into the side of her head, and a black pen thrust into her face. Sign here, you little bitch.
E S C A L A T E
Mio, as a conscious being, is nowhere to be found on this Earth, deep inside a nexus of institutional trauma summoned by the sight of a brandished pistol briefly aimed at her. Shinjiro is the first to move, taking up a position to block the drunken officer Ishiba from being able to actually level a shot at anyone and pull the trigger. But that's not the answer that the alter-ego, the driver in the night and the wielder of Samson, Myo, would want. The motorcycle rider looks sidelong at Yukari and hisses in a young lady's voice, "Don't let Yeo-san die." and then stalks towards Shinjiro and Ishiba with the marching speed of one committed to the execution of violence. There's no sprint or run, but each step covers an astonishing amount of ground.
They pass right by Officer Suou as if he didn't exist. Katsuya could reach out to stop them if he is so inclined--his expertise would no doubt inform him that this isn't an angry dissident who wants to bump chests with a cop, this is someone who wants to put someone in the hospital or the grave, and the flashlight in their hand has enough heft at the head to be lethal.
...I'm striking first this time...
<Pose Tracker> Shinobu Shimizu has posed.
They're alive, but Yukari doesn't know anything beyond that. She takes note of her form of reference - but it isn't said with Ishiba's venom, so she'll let it slide.
"...Alright." Shinobu replies. "Yeah, I think you're right. Here, lemme give you a hand."
She moves to try and help Yukari - and as she does, Shinobu takes a moment to assess everyone's positions. Several of them are joining her in shielding Yukari and Myunghon, and others are confronting Ishiba. As far as situations go it isn't ideal - but ideal situations were never on the table. Officer Suou is here, at least... but she doubts Ishiba will listen to reason, even from another cop.
Myunghon mentions Tsubasa, who's currently grabbing at him - and Shinobu winces.
"Shit. I forgot about that." She mutters. She was never going to try that - but it's a reminder that even if the rest of them will be able to escape... they won't.
"Tsubasa -" Shinobu ventures. "...C'mon. It'll be alright, alright? Just... just let us handle this, alright?"
If she can just get them to back off and get to safety... But Ishiba, Ishiba shows no signs of slowing down. If anything, he seems to be working himself up further and further.
"God damn you're deluded. People hang out together and suddenly it's a crime?" Shinobu hisses. "What, you think you're some kind of hero? ...Nah. You're just as drunk on power as you are that ten-yen swill you've been choking yourself with."
She shakes her head.
But people are shouting and - Ishiba draws his gun. Shinobu's blood runs ice cold. It's dark - she can't see close enough to tell whether or not the safety's on or off, and sense tells her to treat it as if it's ready to fire, anyway.
"...Be careful, alright?" Shinobu asides to the others. As Yukari starts to move Shinobu moves to help, giving Myunghon a bit more support to keep them from smacking into anything. She doesn't like leaving the others, especially with Shinjiro and Mio getting really into Ishiba's face while he has a gun in hand... but right now, she has to prioritize the one who's hurt right now.
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
In the near distance there roars the tell-tale sound of a motorbike. For a moment, Katsuya's mind swings towards his brother, but there is absolutely no time for that now. The clock inches forward, syrupy. Midnight is too close and too far, all at once.
'Fuck that!'
'Then I might become a criminal tonight, officer.'
"You cannot just-- if you do this, you'll also be held accountable!" he tries to argue with them, for all the good it may do. "Let me handle this!" Ishiba is his senior, after all.
He's not just drunk. Katsuya's been around enough other officers to know how drunk an off-duty cop can get. This is beyond that. This is some sort of... tsunami of intoxication, the likes that even an officer like Suou hasn't ever seen before.
Katsuya shakes his head as Ishiba rambles on, skulking towards a woman (a conductor? with the Tokyo Philharmonic??) Katsuya thinks he's seen before but doesn't know the name of. "Enough, Ishiba-san! We'll return to the station and sort it out there! There's no need for this kind of violence against a suspect!"
Is Myunghon even alive? He can't stop to check. If it's been a murder...
There's a lot of familiar faces and voices here, as Katsuya soon realizes. Umie, joining the others in mobbing Ishiba, along with again that young woman whose face he recognizes but doesn't think he knows the name of, and one more that he believes he's seen at the Cardboard Dragon.
[ENCYCLOPEDIA]: Raptors prey on passerine birds, among other things, but there are times when a group of the smaller birds will join up to chase off a hawk, for example.
[CONCEPTUALIZATION] [Easy: Failure]: There's something almost poetic about it. You reach for it, but the concept slips right through your metaphorical fingers. No, you're really not sure why that's come to mind just now.
"Takeba-san? Please, take care of her. I'll handle him," he says to Yukari; like Yukari, he has no idea about Myunghon's gender (or that someone can opt out of male/female). Takeba, as a glance back at both of them reveals, is indeed taking care of the injured Merry. Arriving with the gunshot sound of the engine, Mio is quickly at their side. There's nothing he can do without a first-aid kit there right now, anyway, so he instead focuses on--
11:55 PM
"Ishiba-san! These are civilians! You cannot--" He's started forward only to suddenly pause right where he is. He's noticed something important. The... safety isn't on. But is it better to bring that to everyone's attention and calm their fears--
"Young man, stop!"
--and 'suicidal' acts of bravery? Or, would he instead risk drawing Ishiba's attention to that fact? If he then released the safety, this could become a catastrophe.
Making up his mind, he does the only thing he thinks he can do right now. "Ishiba-san," he repeats, squaring up and walking towards the officer, "drop your weapon. This is an order!"
He's Ishiba's junior by twenty-five years. He's the son of a convicted felon. Ishiba's nearly dead-drunk. He knows he won't listen. But with five minutes to midnight, maybe he can buy them all some time.
And then Mio walks right on past him. No, she's not just angry like the others. That's killing intent. And that flashlight could easily become a lethal weapon.
"Stop! I won't let you commit a murder!" He reaches to try to grab her shoulder.
<Pose Tracker> Remi Ryuuja has posed.
Umie provides a name. Officer Ishida. She'll remember that. Her eyes flick over to Katsuya as he arrives. Another officer. That's what they need, to make this situation more complicated.
'Also' a crime... some inward part of her snorts. AFter what Ishiba's already done? Really?
'Tsubasa-kun.' Remi turns her head to hear the other name. Process of elimination... So this is someone Myunghon knows.
Merde.
Her mind is already adding Tsubasa to retreat scenarios. But the time...
There is a small amount of inward satisfaction as she sees Ishiba pause at the steel in her voice. 'Ariel' is far, far too calm in the midsts of this chaos. She wants to badly to try and out-intimidate this drunkard into submission, but she can see that this will only spur him on.
Ishiba is skulking towards So-young, and Remi feels the itching impulse in her compelling her in that direction with smooth, steady steps. She won't let that officer attack anyone else if she can help it. "Perhaps if we could talk this out we could clear up this confusion? There are no drug deals or criminal acts happening here this night. We are but weary travelers, our train unavoidably delayed. We want the same as you, I'm sure, to get home to our beds." She is trying to be calm, to not egg on the officer further... but neither does her voice loose that steely edge.
Her eyes narrow as she sees the pistol come out. "You don't want to do this," she cautions. Her head snaps to the side as Shinjiro rushes forward. "Don't--" Augh.
They look to Tsubasa. "I know you're upset," which is both an understatement and somehow absurdly calm. "... but you need to leave. This won't end well if you hang around. We'll look after Myunghon."
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
11:55 PM
The shove, as brutish as it is, clearly isn't enough to deter Tsubasa -- and anger and frustration that the teen is still on his tail is rapidly reaching a point of 'punch them' -- at least, before the gun does what the gun often does in social situations, and makes them back up because that's what guns DO. "Yeah? You changed your tone real quick! Take a good fuckin' look at my gun!"
You want to shoot anyone, shoot me, you sick fuck. But let them go!
"Oh? Real fuckin' brave one we got here. You look kinda familiar. You one of them homeless bums? Heh," Ishiba snorts, a half-recalled recollection of perhaps seeing Shinjiro on the streets some time ago. When he rushes forward, part of his bluff is called, since what he does instead is strike at his center-of-mass with that bloody baton instead of firing -- and then he attempts a pistol-whip to his face as a followup.
... is he just forgetting how to fire his gun? Or is the visceral physicality of hitting people more satisfying when he's drunk?
11:56 PM
"O-oh... good..." Myunghon can barely understand Yukari, and is possibly incomprehensible, but does at least register that it IS Yukari. Their voice is slurring as they try to something else, but the pain and damage is very clearly telling their body to shut down to preserve itself. They're terrified someone wouldn't know about the dangers of moving someone's coffin in the Dark Hour, but Yukari's an old hat at this, being in SEES.
Shinobu catches wind of their warning, at least, and Myunghon quivers and says, "T-thanks, Shino..." A pause, and then, in that confusion, perhaps remined by So-young's declaration of Conductorhood: "Oh no. Concert..." Concert?? Having their head swim is making random facts and reminders fight for each other for attention, like the brain is *really* scared that if it stops thinking, it'll truly die a brain death.
Shinobu taunts him further. "At night, in a closed station, huh?! You think you're all so clever, but I'm the *law* here!"
There's more yelling. People are sounding really tense and afraid right now. A gun...? Shinjiro-- they barely feel Yukari moving them -- there's so little energy left in their body. The ashpalt feels somewhat painful to be moved around on. They're so deathly cold, despite the start of July.
11:57 PM
So-young's sudden codeswitch to Japanese has him turning towards her again. Even with a gun and baton on his hand, it's the baton on his dominant hand that he's going for as she shouts about how she's a conductor and twenty seven and all of that just seems to wash off off him entirely.
Try it, asshole. The Embassy'll have a field day with you.
That's all the invitation he thinks he needs, as he raises his baton and--
CRACK
Ariel's moved to interpose herself between Ishiba and So-young, taking a baton blow meant for the conductor. To his surprise, Remi's made of much tougher stuff than he expects -- she knows the type. He wants to hit people, and they'll go down, and he can laugh and lord it over them. "The fuck..."
Perhaps further spurred on by Ishiba making active attempts at violence, Mio also decides to step in with Shinjiro to get in his face. Mio's helmeted appearance is clearly riling him on -- he's also whirling around to try to take a strike at her helmet, with his baton, a loud and guttural roar as frustration mounts at how less easy it is to get people to crumple than before--
But Katsuya intervenes only moments later, not willing to let Mio become a murderer, and he surprisingly stops, perhaps because he connects that baton + helmet = hard and thus it won't be as satisfying as baton + head = concussion.
11:58 PM
"You're just a paper man made of words, aren't you, Suou?!" he remembers Katsuya's slight from the other day. His addled brain has shot up to complaining about Katsuya over anything else. "A snot-nosed brat like you'll never understand how the world works! Japan's gone to pot because of people like you! No, what we need is some REAL action, get someone who's actually got some balls to steer this country back on the right track!"
There can only be a few minutes more. Just a little more. He's forgotten about his gun at this point. It's barely hanging off his left hand. It's a really, really good thing he's more focused on ranting about his fun than his gun now. And by fun I mean politics. Which isn't really fun, coming from him.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Whatever!" Tsubasa yells back at Katsuya, when he insists they'll be held accountable. So what? They get charged again? Get put on parole again? Better that than Myunghon getting their skull caved in.
Shinobu tries to reason with them, but Tsubasa just shakes their head. "I can't just leave Yeo-sama with this guy!", which says volumes, really.
That chick from the corner store remembers them, though. Tsubasa registers Umie's nickname, despite the fact that she kept catching them out nicking shit. "Steppin' to him is a fuckin' crime or whatever but good thing I don't GIVE A FUCK!" They yell, with all the abandon of someone who thinks they don't have much of a future to speak of.
But then, like -- there's a gun, THERE'S A FUCKING GUN, and everyone gets to see just what limits there are on Tsubasa's bravery. Ishiba doesn't need to tell Tsubasa to take a good look at his gun, frankly, because they can't keep their eyes off of it. "C-c'mon, man! Just be cool! You win, okay?! Just be cool!"
Shinjiro, Mio, and Remi move to intercept the cop, though -- they're at least willing to step to a guy with a gun, even if Tsubasa's terrified. Remi tells Tsubasa to leave, though, and Tsubasa's still locked up. "What the fuck, man, he's gonna kill them, what the fuck..." They're trapped in that space of wanting to protect the people around them -- and feeling entirely powerless.
It's a sick, sinking feeling, particularly as Ishiba assaults Shinjiro and Remi and -- and almost Mio, too. "What the fuck," Tsubasa says, again, their voice strangled. "What the fuck."
They couldn't run even if they wanted to. Their legs feel like jelly, like they'll collapse on the spot if they even manage to move... and even if they did, he'd just shoot them in the back, right? "What the fuck..."
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
"Then hold me goddamn accountable!" Shinjiro calls out to Katsuya, defiant in his rage.
As he charges forward, Ishiba responds with a baton to the center of mass. Shinjiro has only one chance to react. He could block, dodge, try and plead. He's scared enough.
But that's not what Shinjiro does. His friends are in danger the longer this guy is out here. They have maybe two minutes. If he can just get this guy down... he can deal with the consequences while they escape. No matter what they are.
The baton impacts and the pistol goes moving forward. Shinjiro's eyes widen as he feels his body bruise, his weakened physique taking a sure hit, before the pistol whip stuns him backwards, bloodying his lip with a nasty gash, though he's too angry to go down, roaring all the while.
Aki always said Shinjiro had a mean right hook... let's see how mean it is.
Shinjiro, perhaps surprising Ishiba with his defiance that he'll feel the consequences of later, proceeds to smash Ishiba in the face with his fist like he's a petty street delinquent in the middle of the alleys. This is not Shinjiro Aragaki, paint-watcher who sits in an alleyway and overthinks about his past.
This is Shinjiro Aragaki, delinquent crusher, who stands up for the people he cares about. No matter what it costs - and it'll certainly cost quite a bit.
<Pose Tracker> Yukari Takeba has posed.
"Thanks!" She'd said to Shinobu at least, as the two move Merry out of harm's way. It'll take the two of them probably.
Yukari is athletic but she's just an average teenager really, and not exactly known for her upper body strength, "Okay! Okay officer-!" She says anxiously, happy to let someone else handle this one.
Street thugs behind Port Island Station, she might act differently, but a drunken cop with a baton, and now a gun!? No, this is bad, and she knows how bad it is.
As things start to escalate though, she ducks her head down and keeps Merry's head down. Hearing the kerfluffle from behind cover, she does peek...
... then ducks back into cover. "Come on... come on..."
Has time in the history of EVER moved this slowly!? Yukari isn't sure, as she reaches into her bag for a packet of tissues, and then out comes a water bottle.
Dampening them, she presses them against Merry's head, dabbing at the blood and- looks at Shinobu in worry, "She's so cold...!"
It could be normal for all she knows for Merry, but she thinks cold is bad! She's seen it in enough movies! People are SUPPOSED TO BE WARM when they're healthy!
Yukari takes another, anxious, furtive glance at all the commotion, so chaotic she can barely make out what is what anymore.
CAN TIME PLEASE MOVE FASTER?
<Pose Tracker> Remi Ryuuja has posed.
Remi casts a worried glance back to Myunghon. They can get them some help but they just need to survive without anything more drastic happening--and the escalation won't help.
She respects Shinjiro's bravado, even as she wishes he wasn't being such an idiot. He and Tsubasa both, though at least the gun warded off the latter.
Remi couldn't protect Shinjiro. He moved too close, Tsubasa was already on the cop when she got up here. But she's been moving towards So-young--and in a sudden burst of speed she is just there in front of So-young, arm raised, that baton striking a dreadful *crack* right through the long sleeve of her trenchcoat.
She is taller than the average Japanese woman, at 5'6", but she is still much slighter in frame than Ishiba... but there is something fierce and glaring in her eyes as she stares up at Ishiba's own face.
She does know his type.
And she won't give that satisfaction. She doesn't make a sound of pain, nothing more than the barest grunt, straiing with the effort it takes to hold back that baton.
"What is it you hope to gain tonight, Officer?" she asks. It's still polite, but there is more menace creeping in with that steel. "I suggest you depart. You will get no further satisfaction this night."
And then, still trying to hold off Ishiba, she looks to Tsubasa. "We can protect them. But we cannot protect you, if you stay. I'm sorry. But you have two minutes."
<Pose Tracker> Mio Kazama has posed.
Officer Katsuya Suou of the Sumaru Police Force achieves a momentous and unsung victory this day in the waning minutes of July 3rd, 2012. He successfully executes the first use of state authority, in relation to Mio Kazama (née Mio Takahashi), which actually aims to preserve her wellbeing and prevent harm from befalling her with no ulterior motive. Despite the velocity with which the anonymized figure is moving towards Detective Ishiba, the element of mass is a crucial part of this equation and Mio is, unfortunately for her, not possessed of the kind of mass which would exceed Katsuya's grip strength when everyone's adrenaline is surging and there are no supernatural elements at play.
Thus, physics. Physics and good intentions save Ishiba from having the diamond-print pattern of the mechanic's flashlight pounded into his skull, from being thrust into the ground and beaten with repeated strikes until the concrete runs with rivers of red or the man is saved, so to speak, by the bell of the dark hour. A young rebel's childish wish to slake her thirst by angrily shoving her trauma onto men who have nothing to do with it is prevented, and her life is prevented from being ruined any further.
Outside of this deep, navel-gazing statement, the figure in black leathers stops as their shoulder is grabbed. They briefly strain against it by simply trying to walk forward, they don't even try to throw Katsuya's hand off or break free, it's just like they haven't caught up to the realization that they've been stopped, yet. A machine still running on the last-known good instruction. Ishiba's baton-swing half-falters and stops, and passes harmlessly in front of Mio's helmet visor as she stands completely still, suffering immensely from the contradiction of confused feelings inside of her. It is as if every fiber of her being wishes both to slam this man's head repeatedly in a car door, and also wishes to drop to the ground and cry in frustration and shame at the same time.
The visor turns to face Katsuya. The shoulder he's held onto is shaking, but they aren't moving. Mio is in control, barely, but Ishiba's conservative prattle reminds her of the man that she must kill at all costs. "You've got one chance." the wearer's voice is husky and strained, unsure whether to cry or scream, "Fix his shit right now." the grip on their flashlight is so strong that the casing's plastic parts creak under the strain. "Or I'm putting him to bed."
Whether Katsuya can piece together who owns the voice is up to his memory skills and his clearly he can navigate this chaotic situation. I mean, it's Mio with a kind of Batman-esque strain to it, and muffled, but she doesn't have a cool voice changer or anything on her helmet. Not yet.
And because all things happen in a beautiful rhyme, the sight of the troubled Shinjiro Aragaki clocking the drunken cop right in the face with good form is reflected in her visor in relative silence.
Yoko Hirano has arrived from Historia: The White Chronicle.
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
So-young is _very definitely_ not savvy enough to realize that Mio is doing to do someone a murder. The closest she's ever come to a situation like this was in Kaneshiro's head, and the dreamlike nature of the situation and the fact that she was positively soaring with the energy of her Awakening meant that she really wasn't paying attention to any of the context clues at the time, nor learning how to spot them in the real world. "--get her to--" is as far as she gets in terms of requesting Mio's help before it trickles through that something is very wrong.
She can feel some sympathy for the other policeman, because part of her still thinks: what can you actually do in this situation? She's already seen how people have to work around the rules to get things done, and not just the rule of law but also the rule of reality - if there's no-one else left to help, sometimes you just have to pop into someone's head and poke around. That kind of remedy says a lot about the kind of world they're rubbing up against, the world that So-young's only beginning to properly encounter first-hand. Reading it in books is a lot different to watching someone get clubbed on the street.
The baton descends towards her, and for all her fear and uncertainty there's a strangely welcome weight and physicality to it, like: oh, this is really happening. Okay. Her not-quite-a-bluff got called. Her eyes widen, but she finds herself breaking into a fierce grin and even raises her chin to face the strike head-on. She's going to really relish telling every newspaper she can about how a cop decided to beat her simply for being Korean--
Someone intercepts it, and it takes her a few moments to even register what has happened, blinking in sheer surprise as the rest of her body catches up to reality. She's panting for breath, her hands still clasping and unclasping. "... thanks," she mutters under her breath, even if that doesn't _immediately_ reach her eyes the way they're still burning with a petty sort of vindictiveness.
So-young isn't-- ungrateful for the protection. She's not, she's really not, and when the adrenaline dies down she's definitely going to be whispering a quiet 'thank fuck for that' under her breath as she tries to process everything that's happened. In the here and now, though, there's a spike of frustration that somehow, despite climbing into a mafia man's head and facing a member of Strega throwing grenades at her, she still counts as 'kind of civilian-ish' when it comes to people protecting her, like she can't take a hit or two for something important.
But she can't really deny she's kind of a normie either, huh? There are people here who will face down a gun for their principles, who will directly fight their battles and whose first instinct is not 'aw yeah this'll look so bad for you in the morning newspaper' or even that secret, hidden little spike of 'oh no I'll look so bad in the morning newspaper' that's also holding her back. That thought brings a vicious little lump to her throat.
<Pose Tracker> Shinobu Shimizu has posed.
Myunghon thanks her, but interrupts themself for - Concert. ...Shinobu's heart hurts a little, like that. They're wounded, possibly in danger of bleeding out, and they're worried about that...?
"Hey, don't worry about that right now. We'll figure something else out, alright? We've gotta focus on you right now." Shinobu tries to reassure them. And Tsubasa says they just can't leave Myunghon with that man, and she shakes her head. "We'll look after them, don't worry."
She can't help but feel sympathetic toward them. In any other situation, she'd be running to join in, too... but with Myunghon injured, she has to prioritize. They can't all run interference. She looks over at Ishiba, shaking her head.
"Yeah, you're doing a real good representing the law right now." Shinobu shoots back. There's a lot more she could say... but sarcasm is the most she can manage when he has a real-ass gun in his hand.
Her conversation with Ayame the other day floats back to her mind. ...She never expected she'd actually be put into that position.
She nods as Yukari thanks her, crouching down behind cover with her as she tries to tend to Myunghon the best she can. Shinobu meets Yukari's look.
"It's alright. That's normal for them, I think." Shinobu tries to assures her. She's pretty sure it is - and even if isn't, there's not much they can do until they get somewhere with actual supplies. "Just do what you can right now. You're doing good work."
She's keeping an idle eye on the situation too, as it looks to be escalating - and she can only hope midnight comes quickly.
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
11:55 PM
All he can do is shake his head at what he sees as Tsubasa and Shinjiro's persistent refusals to understand what he's trying to tell them. Ishiba will report this. Dark Hour or no, he'll remember their faces, and it won't take long to dig up information on them, especially on Tsubasa.
11:56 PM
But this quickly becomes of lesser concern.
Shinjiro reaches Ishiba long before Katsuya could ever. Katsuya audibly sucks in a breath as his fellow officer hits him with the baton, then follows it up with-- a pistol-whip. It's a good thing he didn't try to shoot, runs that fleeting thought. Ishiba might have realized that the safety was on then, and then what happens?
11:57 PM
Ishiba turns towards So-young and Katsuya can see the look and intent in his eyes. "Ishiba-san! Stop!"
It doesn't work any better the last few times he's pleaded with his senior officer to stop what he's doing. The baton cracks against... that young woman who has just interposed herself between the two of them. "--Miss! Are you alright?!" he asks of 'Ariel', before turning towards his fellow officer in actual anger. "Ishiba-san! I will report this myself!" he shouts, jabbing a finger at the man. The man's beyon reasoning, beyond the impact of what his present actions will have on his future. He's a construct animated by hate and alcohol. He won't stop. Yet, if Katsuya lays his own hands on him now...? --No, he still needs to stall.
And stop any of them from committing a murder, either.
11:58 PM
Ishiba hasn't forgotten the other day. Neither has Katsuya. "That's where you're mistaken!" he shouts back. "The people who call this country home are all its citizens, regardless of where they or their ancestors are born! In the eyes of the law, all men are equal!"
And he still moves in that moment to stop Mio. His hand closes over her shoulder, and Ishiba will never know how close he's come to getting his skull dented. Her shoulder trembles under his hand. The plastic creaks loudly under her grip. How strong is she?
She tells him something important as she faces him now. She says he has once chance to fix this, before she commits.
He's aware, only just, of the way that Shinjiro breaks towards Ishiba and makes to deck him. This time, there's no shout of dismay. This situation is way, way beyond simple assault on an officer at this point.
One chance.
Katsuya's gaze dips. The gun's hanging from his left hand. First, solve for that, he thinks. One chance... that about sums it up. This could end badly come the following day. But if it'll stop a murder now, he'll accept that.
He rushes at Ishiba, his focus entirely on the firearm in the officer's hand. If he can do this quickly enough, it should be possible to grab it right out of his grip before he has a chance to react.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
If Myunghon is scared that someone wouldn't know the consequences of moving a coffin... well, if SEES people didn't know already, there is one other person who'd know.
...
And if Umie wanted to, and if the minutes weren't close enough, she could fix this. It'd just be extremely messy, and likely cause more problems than it solves. Probably with a few of them dead in the chaos it creates.
But what if the thing they're putting their hopes on isn't going to provide the relief they think it will?
Shinjiro isn't going down. She wants to join in, almost, but she knows what will happen.
Just his clothing alone puts him at a better advantage than she would in a fight, right now.
.... Tsubasa's fear, though... Umie can understand that.
Shinjiro has the right of it; if he can survive for two minutes, they'll have enough time to heal and scatter. (Just ignore what Yukari said, please.)
".... Hey." Umie cautiously stands by Tsubasa. "I'm gonna stay here, okay? In two minutes, could you run?"
They can't heal Tsubasa if Tsubasa gets injured. "He knows he's cornered. Even if he gets away scot-free... he'll remember this night next time he pulls this shit..."
Ishida levels his ire now at Katsuya-- the one member of law enforcement that listened to Umie, that has tried to capture Joker Killer despite it putting him in more and more of an awkward position, among people who look at him with scorn for the things Ishida have done...
'What is a Persona, Katsuya-san?' The person who told her, a person who had been running through shadows for years, what the thing she innately knew was called.
He's an underdog. And Umie, by her nature--
"_How about you shut up_," Umie hisses at Ishida, forgetting her advantage in not being the one being paid attention to. "If he can't hold you accountable for tonight, it won't be for lack of *trying*."
And Katsuya moves.
"Keep your eyes on me, _Ishida-san_!"
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Tsubasa both holds firm their belief but also reveals, in a sense, that pervasive shroud that hangs over so many teenagers -- the feeling that they don't hold a future in themselves. "That's right. You be a good little girl and back the fuck off. You think you can do anything, you little bitch? You're gutter trash is what you are." There's real venom that creeps into his voice whenever he gets on about women. It doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to think of what he thinks about women.
His vehement shouting is cut short when Shinjiro gives him that mean right hook and SLAM!
He stumbles to one side, and very, very nearly loses his balance, because he is still imminently also a man on the wrong side of fifty, regardless of whether or not he's fit (he is), and Shinjiro is a powerfully built young man in his prime with a physique to match. Blood drips from his mouth, and Shinjiro felt one of his teeth crack. Feels good, in the moment.
"You-- punk--" Ishiba seems at a loss for words, but the rage is slingshotting all the way back. He raises his gun. This is it. This is the end. Death is not a hunter unbeknownst to its prey--
click
click click
"The fuck... crazy gun's not working..." Ishiba growls, like he's an ice cream salesman in a jagged union someplace. The clicks of that gun has Myunghon shivering, because they instinctively know what a piece sounds like and they're trained to know guns are the most devastating thing, that you can be a thing of twenty years old with a bright future ahead of you and one lead mushroom in the wrong place and it's all gone, Persona or no Persona.
"I'm... cold...?" Myunghon is just repeating what Yukari's saying at the moment, as they alight on the tides of wakefulness and unwakefulness. Their face is definitely turning a colour, pale as they usually are, and they're sweating all over. They're not having that stereotypical 'life flashing before their eyes' story that people say you do -- but they've already had it once before, when Miho happened. Do you not get two, in your life?
Shinobu tells them to not worry. Are they a laughing stock, worrying about something like that? For a moment, it was the most intense thing in their entire life. It's forgotten, now. Shinobu's comment just seems to wash off Ishiba at present, in the confusion of his gun not working.
11:59 PM
Ishiba's attack leaves Remi surprisingly intact, when she raises her arm to block his baton. Some of Myunghon's blood is smeared on her trenchcoat. "Weird... fuck..." he's at a loss for words here too. It's probably a victory for Remi, that she's managed to get him spooked.
Fortunately, Remi's distracted him long enough that when So-young doesn't voice more of herself, she's momentarily forgotten at present, which might be its own measure of frustrating for someone who's banking it all on going to the papers with a bloody face and making a whole story out of it. What will they print in the morning newspaper about this? Anything? Is this just (literally) Tuesday for Sumaru? In a depressing way, it is.
The motorcyclist -- Mio -- speaks with a husky voice, and at this moment, Ishiba's definitely conflating her and Umie as -- why the fuck all these people wearing masks, or surprisingly stoic? This is going beyond some kind of drug-addled ritual -- no, maybe this is part of the drugs? Undesireables, all of them, is the mental pipeline in his head.
Umie tells him to shut up, and that gets him riled up again. "Yeah? You can try all you want. Try, try, try, it ain't matter one bit--"
Mio's talking as if she has power over Katsuya. That's not the case, but now he's just convinced, as Katsuya tells him he'll report him.
Katsuya speaks of how all men are equal, under the law -- and how all people who call this country home are all its citizens. "You don't know shit, do you? Where do you get your ideals from, Saturday morning cartoons?" There was a brief internet slapfight about how the localisatio
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Katsuya speaks of how all men are equal, under the law -- and how all people who call this country home are all its citizens. "You don't know shit, do you? Where do you get your ideals from, Saturday morning cartoons?" There was a brief internet slapfight about how the localisation used 'cartoons' instead of 'anime' when this was screenshotted. "That kind of watered-down piss water thinking, like everyone can just hold hands and sing songs, that's the kind of shit that's turned Japan weak! That's what our conquerors brainwashed us with, far back as World War Fuckin Two! But..."
"Hah... ha ha," Ishiba suddenly laughs. "I see. I see. You really didn't fall far from the apple tree, did you, Suou? You working with these punks, I see, I see. Your father's a washed-up piece of shit who took bribes, and it looks like you're no better yourself, huh? How much'd they pay you off for? You going to send me into Tokyo Bay, huh?! Well, I've got news for you--"
click
Oh shit, he found the safety, just as Katsuya rushes him.
"I'm on the side of BIGGER things, Suou!"
The last sound everyone hears is the deafening POP of a gun going off--
12:00 AM
thunk
Again, the most devastating things sometimes have the most unsatisfying noises. That was the sound of the bullet colliding harmlessly against... against...
Officer Katsuya Suou's cat-like persona, Helios.
A second sooner, and that might've just pierced his silver suit. What does that mean now, Katsuya Suou, now that you were one second from taking live fire from one of the coworkers you worked with, that you had to believe were good people?
The sky is green. That sickly shade of green covers everything. Everything's gone to a deathly quiet. The electronic city's dead, in the Dark Hour. And the angry, drunk cop that's threatening to shoot and kill and wound and harm everyone is now--
A Coffin. In the Dark Hour.
...
...
It would be tempting to just rip it open, wouldn't it. But in the distance, Cryin' Maya's having a bad time as usual as the inky-black blob surfaces on out of the pores of Hirasaka's concrete, hoping that they don't run into and get bullied by their peer, Let's Positive Thinking Maya.
It's the supernatural again. Your Personae are here.
What does it say, that it might feel more comfortable and powerful than basic, physical reality, at this moment?
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"F--fuck you!" Tsubasa yells, despite their terror. "I ain't a girl!" They'd protest Yukari's pronouns in much the same way, surely, if they were focused on the Myunghon side of things instead of the Ishiba side. Unfortunately, they're wholly focused on Ishiba, and that means Ishiba's misogyny and transphobia hits dead centre.
Luckily, they don't have to worry too hard about the consequences of biting back, because Shinjiro punches Ishiba in the face. Unluckily --
Click, click --
"What the fuck," Tsubasa all but whispered, strangled, as they wonder whether yelling at him helped him cross the line to pulling the trigger. Every impotent 'click' is another dead weight in their gut.
"Two minutes to what?!" Tsubasa demands, when Remi says they have two. (They didn't hear Myunghon talking about their coffin, earlier; or, rather, they assumed they couldn't possibly be talking about them.) "What the fuck?!" Because, of course, they don't know 'bout the Dark Hour, either. Shinobu tries to reassure them that they'll take care of Myunghon, but --
"Holy shit, dude," is all Tsubasa can manage to choke out. "What the fuck." That cop's gonna tackle him, and --
"I'm freakin' out, man," Tsubasa finally manages to put the thoughts together to admit, to Umie.
"Fuck--!"
That's the last noise they make, as Ishiba figures out his gun.
Look back over, and there's a coffin where they were standing.
Not everyone is powerful, huh.
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
As he feels the tooth, as the gun rises, Shinjiro's just roaring in defiance. But the safety was on. Shinjiro's stunned, the tension not loosening even a bit. But as the struggle with Katsuya happens, trying to wrestle the gun out of his hands...
BANG!
Shinjiro shakes as the Dark Hour manifests, and Katsuya's Persona takes the bullet. He doesn't exhale for a long time, until he finally lets his body shudder, clearly freaked out.
Ishiba and Tsubasa are coffins now, and everyone can escape-
Why is Shinjiro approaching Ishiba? He's not going to break the coffin, is he...?
No, quite the opposite, as he moves to body block it, unwilling to let anyone kill him.
"Get Myunghon out of here," he *barks*, planting down on the ground and tossing his Evoker over to Umie with a swift motion, since them finding that on him would be Bad. Even if he still has his pills, and is unwilling to dump those, the Evoker has to go.
"I'll make sure they don't have to bear my consequences alone, not like this," he says with a gaze to Tsubasa's coffin.
Shinjiro Aragaki is many things. But he's not a coward.
<Pose Tracker> Yukari Takeba has posed.
"It is?" She looks to Shinobu for confirmation, before looking back to Merry, "A-Alright..." IS SHE THOUGH? She's not sure if Shinobu is just saying that.
But it's all she feels she can do. She's not someone who can stand up to an armed cop on a drunken rampage.
She's not even sure any of THEM are! After all, the situation isn't YET resolved despite Katsuya being here! Even HE can't talk the cop down!
And then, there's more sounds of a scuffle!
click
click click
"He- he really almost-!" Yukari has beads of cold sweat on her forehead, as Merry repeats after her... "Don't listen, alright." She tells them, as the cop starts spouting off more talk. More talk.
'I'm on the side of BIGGER things, Suou!'
The clock strikes twelve, and they entre the twenty fifth hour of the night in that moment, as Yukari watches the world turn green, and the sound of a gun fire and-!
"I can't believe-! He really tried to shoot him! He's another cop-!" But regathering her wits about her, she puts the evoker to her head, "Help me, Io!"
And the bull Persona emerges, as two hands of the fey girl atop of it frame roughly where Myunghon's head would be from a distance...
... and then life-giving energy flows, at the very least, giving their Persona a leg to stand on, as Recarm is cast upon her.
"I'm TRYING!" She yells back at Shinjiro, nerves frazzled, "What is wrong with this PLACE!?" Yukari blurts out, as Io stays out, and more healing energy tries to flow forth into Myunghon through the Naiad's Diarama.
"Come on... come on..." If she's too hurt to get up even now, then an hour is a very long time indeed.
AS: Persona! Yukari Takeba has used the Recovery skill Recarm on Myunghon Yeo! ARCANA: Support: Yukari Takeba gains 1 Limit!
AS: Persona! Yukari Takeba has used the Recovery skill Naiad Diarama on Myunghon Yeo! ARCANA: Support: Yukari Takeba gains 1 Limit!
AS: Take! Myunghon Yeo takes 0 Recovery healing from Yukari Takeba's Recarm. AS: Recovery_Break added! AS: Take! Myunghon Yeo takes 162 Recovery healing from Yukari Takeba's Naiad Diarama. Weak!
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
So-young simply doesn't know what to do with the frustration bubbling inside of herself. It just sits there, unpleasant and ugly, filling her mind up as everything continues to go to hell. There's some faint, faint comfort that this isn't the norm for a police officer, not with Katsuya there to be Mr. Upstanding, but it's incredibly cold comfort right in this moment, especially when it doesn't actually do anything to defuse the situation.
Time stands horribly still for her when the soft little 'click' of the trigger catching drowns out the rest of the sound around them, that lump in her throat leaping upwards. Even without the report of the gun going off, she still heaves a dry retch of surprise and fear, her eyes wide, daring to hope that the gun's broken or something. First once, then twice more. Holy shit, are they saved--
--then the gun really does go off, and So-young can't help the way she dives downwards to a squatting position, her hands going up to shield her head. She doesn't want to shiver, damn it, she's supposed to be viciously angry--
Every noise has stopped, the sudden hush falling over them like a blanket. She risks a look upwards, and the sickly green sky has never been more of a relief. She will never get used to the Dark Hour, she thinks, but she can't help but feel a blossom of relief run through her. It's a blossom of relief that makes her sick all at the same time, sick that this is the way they manage to escape, by just letting it happen and running away in their own little reality.
She realizes she's gritting her teeth hard enough to run a stab of pain through her, and in almost a reflexive motion she blares into a sudden burst of blue, as the form of Icarus manifests above her with a piercing cry. She's not even channeling it to actually _do_ something, she's not trying to run a perimeter or present a means to move Myunghon, she's just letting her Persona fly as hard and fast as it can around them as if it will help settle her emotions.
Speaking of which... ... has anyone told So-young not to move the coffins? Because (now that she's safe from recrimination, her self-awareness whispers to her) she's now the one to stalk forwards, pulling her hand back ready to impotently punch the hell out of some hardwood.
<Pose Tracker> Remi Ryuuja has posed.
Sorry, So-young. You'll have to find a different story to tell a newspaper. She does hear that thanks, and there is a very slight nod. "Thank me later." It's not that she doesn't think you're not willing to take a hit, but, well... she can't help herself, sometimes.
Literally.
She told Shinobu her Persona wasn't suited for fighting. But then... how is she so willing to just take this kind of blow??
Katsuya shows concern for her, and Remi--'Ariel'--looks over his way. She recognizes that cop, even if she hadn't faced off against him directly at Ebisu. "Yes," she says simply, in a voice that is rapidly becoming flatter, but still too calm.
Something inside her seethes with the way Ishiba calls Tsubasa 'girl'. They don't know Tsubasa, of course, but even hearing that tone of voice reveals something ugly. But she clamps down on that anger as best she can. Going off the handle isn't the plan. But Tsubasa protests that they're not a girl, and Remi files that fact away for later.
They just have to hold out.
Her arm drops, as she stares at Ishiba. Anybody who bothers to look might see it just... dangle there, without moving. She won't be trying that trick twice, with the same arm.
Her other hand forms a fist as she sees Ishiba find and release the safety. Can she make it in time? She's not invulnerable--she's just pretending to be. But she can'f figure out a way to protect everyone--
thunk
There is a tense sigh. But she does not summon a Persona herself. (The Evoker is in her purse, she could, but it wouldn't help anything at this point.) But they're not in a coffin, either, as they glare at Ishiba's coffin with noticeably more hostile intent. "What a disgusting person," she mutters.
She looks to Tsubasa's coffin, now more somber. "... My apologies, but we must depart. I wish you luck."
But she looks to Shinjiro with a small measure of surprise. "You are reckless," she says tersely. But a moment later she nods. "... but someone needs to make sure Tsubasa-kun does not bear his wrath alone. I will tell Merry what you have done. Thank you."
With that she turns to walk swiftly over to where Yukari and Shinobu were tending to Myunghon. "How are they?" she asks. She's kneeling down, her uninjured arm on a knee to brace herself... but her other arm is still hanging limply by her side.
<Pose Tracker> Mio Kazama has posed.
The minute-hand of the clock looms, mere fractions of an inch from striking midnight. Mio's teeth are chattering beneath her helmet, and she can feel the bile surging in her throat. An anticipatory anxiety claws its way through her body and psyche like a yawning, pale web that drowns out every other sense with the need to act. She's so close, clinging to the last shreds of wanting to believe in the good will in the hearts of some--if not all. Inside of her there is a grapple as real and as dangerous as any street-fight, as instinct and reason savagely claw and gnaw at one another, howling for supremacy over the flesh.
"Help. Me." Mio hisses one last time at Katsuya with a desperate urgency, a plea from somewhere deep in her guts. Her gloved hands yearn to feel the wet yield of bone and flesh that will herald the arrival of, after so long, a true justice for her, and her alone. The only good cop in the world, so far as the young lady is concerned, relinquishes his grip on her and charges the drunken gunman to disarm the situation.
So imperiled is she that she cannot summon the will to action in time to act when Ishida's gun clumsily clicks, the safety preventing the action from firing. Oh, she starts, but as any professional violence-doer will tell you, tempo and initiative are what win fights. She startles and begins to lift a hand, preparing to throw the heavy flashlight at the distant police officer. If she can aim true before he can arm his weapon--just maybe--
She cannot. The start-stop-start of riling one's instincts, then quelling them, then riling them again is too much for the shaken young woman who is, let us remember, an angry and traumatized rebel and not a professional wielder of violence. By the time her muscles have tightened and moved in the right pattern, there's a dull *BANG* as the policeman's firearm discharges. The situation is a fraction of a moment away from becoming a murder scene when--
The clock strikes midnight
The hour comes
--a bullet squashes into a metal mushroom against Helios's form, then falls to the concrete with no more fanfare than a flicked coin.
The flashlight in Mio's hand has since flickered and died, and an anguished howl of frustration boils out of the motorcycle helmet. That flashlight tumbles to the ground heavily, taking no more than a few scratches. There's a billowing, boiling, roiling blackness that burns out of the young lady's form as the rules governing the world twist with an unnatural lurch. The black-blue tendrils of shimmering force recede from her body, her helmet and clothing shifting shape with the queasy, dreamlike blur of a mirage until there stands a familiar looking figure in resplendent black robes with a wickedly beaked, white domino mask of iron. The cognitive form supplants the real one.
The young lady so fancily dressed rubs at her cheek with the back of a gloved hand, sniffing loudly as the overload of it all threatens to lay her flat. "It's so stupid." she chokes, angry and sad beyond reason. "You did everything right," her gaze and her words are directed towards Katsuya. "And he tried to kill you for it."
Heart in her throat, Mio crosses to Myunghon's side in a ghostly ripple of long, black and silver robes and white tassels. Yukari is there, and faster than she, but it's too much for her to bear right now to not be trying to help in some way.
She's kneeling down next to them and clasping her gauntleted hands together, looking between Myunghon's form and Tsubasa's coffin as--is that actually a real prayer...? Really?
<Pose Tracker> Shinobu Shimizu has posed.
There's a click - the sound of a gun that wants to fire but can't. Shinobu grits her teeth. Now that he's noticed that, it's only a matter of time before he corrects his mistake.
Shehinobu draws in a breath and tries to reassure herself that things are probably fine. So for now, she just nods to Yukari, and looks to Myunghon as they comment on being cold with surprise.
Seconds tick on - he's on the side of 'bigger things'? Shinobu's brow furrows, but then - he fires.
The clock strikes twelve, and the world is drowned in sickly green - and instead of a body, the bullet impacts a Persona. Shinobu whirls toward Katsuya, and exhales a sigh.
"Shit, are you alright?" She asks. Mio says it right. He did everything right - and Ishiba tried to kill him for it. Shinobu shakes her head in distaste.
Ishiba is in a coffin, now. ...But so is Tsubasa, too - stuck here with him. Shinobu grimaces.
"...Yeah. It's crazy." She replies, shaking her head at Yukari's surprise that a cop tried to shoot another cop. Thankfully, she possesses healing spells - spells that might buy Myunghon some valuable time. Shinobu looks over toward Ariel, then. She notices the way she took that hit and kept moving. She's certainly questioning it... but right now, they have bigger worries.
"Alive, but... we really need to get them somewhere safe. Somewhere they can get proper treatment. Let's just focus on getting away from here for now. ...No clinic's gonna be active in the Dark Hour, anyway." She says.
She screws up her face for a moment, then, as she wrestles with a thought... and then, looks back to Katsuya.
"Hey, Suou... We don't know each other very well, so I probably don't have much right to ask you this, but..." She hesitates for a moment. ... It's hard, asking a favor of someone - especially something on this scale. "...Could you do what you can for Tsubasa? They're a good kid, really. I'll try to get ahold of my sister, she's in charge of their case, but... it's late."
She looks toward Mio as she joins them, and then everything else.
"...Alright, we should get them out of here. Everyone ready?" She asks.
Shinjiro volunteers to stay with Tsubasa's coffin, so they don't have to bear the consequences alone. She studies him for a moment.
"...Takes guts, Aragaki. Thanks, and... good luck." She says, offering him a nod.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
Night falls, a shot is fired.
No one falls; all is still.
"Katsuya-san?!! What was I going to tell him if you got shot?!" Umie yells at _the other member of law enforcement_ in this scene.
... As if he wasn't doing what she was pleading for him to do earlier.
"... We can't move Tsubasa-san's coffin." Umie frowns. "It's too risky. So--"
Shinjiro volunteers.
"... .... Aragaki-kun..."
At some point, Umie's no longer looking at him, but at Ishida's coffin. She could tip it over, when no one is looking, and--
'You can claim it's an accident. Why not do it, to protect Shinjiro-kun? People like him and Neon-san... you know what'll happen. What's a little more blood on your hands--'
".... stop it...." Umie hisses under her breath, as her right hand curls.
"..." Umie sees movement out of the corner of her widened, alarmed eyes; her head snaps up. "DON'T!" she shrieks now, louder, as she--
... darts to stand in front of Ishida's coffin, attempting to intercept So-young's fist.
'hahahahahaHaHaHaHaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHahahahahahHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA good job, GOOD JOB, Umie-chan, defend that piece of shit with your body, instead of the people who actually *need* it.'
"You can't undo what happens, Park-san!!"
'How about you tell them what happens? Oh, that's right. You can't. Because then they'll know just what kind of person you are, and always have been, _even before you met the Suous_.'
"Please be quiet... for just a moment. I need... To think." There's no one's talking to her, and her eyes aren't on So-young.
For some reason, she's grasping onto So-young's fist tightly with a shaking hands, and, like Mio, she bows her head.
It's not a prayer, but a plea for an answer, or solace.
'Coward. Coward. Coward. Coward. Coward. Coward. Coward. Coward.'
"... I'm sorry."
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
11:58 PM
Ishiba tries to retaliate in kind-- no, not in kind. He raises his gun at Shinjiro and, click.
Shit, Katsuya's thoughts run approximately. How long until Ishiba figures out what's wrong with his gun? Will he figure it out before the clock strikes twelve?
At least 'Ariel' appears to be fine. "Good. We can take a statement later!" he tells her.
He doesn't miss that exchange between Ichiba and Tsubasa. Not... a girl? So, was his thought about them correct? But it's not the time for that, either.
11:59 PM
Ishiba as much calls Katsuya's thoughts on justice and ideals childish, and in so doing breaks the emotional 'mask' that he's worn up to this point. Upset, yes, concerned, yes, worried, yes-- but now Katsuya looks actually angry.
"Enough! One person by themselves-- there's no one in this world who can survive on their own! Aren't we better if we can work alongside one another instead of against each other?!" This is unlikely to gain him any more traction than his prior argument is: it's cut from the same cloth afterall. Ishiba, though, isn't done.
Ishiba brings up his father.
Only a few people mention his father to his face. No, it's not because of any fear of retaliation: rather, it's because it's just not done. People don't talk about past disgraces and failures to someone they're supposed to work alongside pleasantly. But they do talk about his father when they think he can't hear them, and the thing about that is, there's nothing Katsuya can do about it.
"...What did you say?" Katsuya asks. He's not just 'mad' anymore, by the look on his face.
Ishiba, however, isn't just aiming for the low-blow. He's going somewhere with this. He thinks, in fact, that Katsuya's taken bribes to--
More than one thing propels his rush for Ishiba's gun. But that click, just then?
That was the safety. Katsuya's spine turns to a solid column of ice, but there's no longer any time or space to do anything about as he closes, because Ishiba's pointed the sidearm right at him, and the roar of the firearm going off at him this close is almost deafening.
12:00 AM
But there's no bloom of pain. There's no lights out, darkness forever moment. Instead, there's the softly shining feline form of Helios before him, as the the sickly green light of the Dark Hour seems to just about crawl down the sides of the buildings. There's the quiet ring of what's left of the bullet rattling on the pavement. The hour that shouldn't exist has never been quite so welcome as this.
Katsuya looks, for a lack of a better word, shell-shocked as he stares at the casket Ishiba has become. Quietly, his protection that is Helios begins to fade, returning to himself.
Ishiba tried to shoot him. His colleague, his co-worker had tried to shoot him. If it had been just a few seconds sooner... Slowly, Katsuya exhales a long breath and closes his eyes for a moment, then shakes his head.
No. He can't think about this now. Right now, Myunghon seems to be hanging on by a thread.
"I'm fine," he says to Shinobu's question, turning to the rest of them. Mio, in particular, appears to have undergone quite a transformation. The costume puts him in mind of the Phantom Thieves he'd seen in the Palace (the news, he'd seen Kaneshiro in the news of course; there's no time to think about all that and what it means about Palaces now). But indeed, he doesn't have even a scratch on his body. "Is anyone else hurt? Takeba-san, is she--"
'He really tried to shoot him! He's another cop!'
'What was I going to tell him if you got shot?!'
"... I am sorry for worrying you," he tells Umie in particular, as if that was actually the problem here.
There's another coffin here, Katsuya notices, instead of lingering on the thought he doesn't want to process right now, and the absence of one Tsubasa Seki. "..."
Shinjiro says he'll stay there with them, which evokes a further stretch of pensive silence from Katsuya.
"I see," he says at last to Shinjiro. "I... must stay as well," Katsuya says, slowly, glancing sidelong at Ishiba's coffin. "Settling this is my responsibility as an officer. I am very sorry for my colleague's actions. I will see this incident reported to the best of my ability."
'Ariel' says she must depart in the rattling aftermath that stretches on. "Please come to the Konan Station later if you wish to give a statement. I will do what I can to handle things from here."
Can he, though? Can he really? Considering his positioning within his own department, can he do that at all?
He did everything right, Mio tells him, and Ishiba tried to kill him for it. Grim-faced, Katsuya doesn't respond to that: he can't respond to that. Not yet. All he can do right now is go through the familiar rote of making sure everyone else here is alright and considering what story he'll have to tell once the Dark Hour ends. Instead, as if it were grounding, he reaches a hand up to fidget with his sunglasses.
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Ishiba, of course, doesn't have any rebuttal because he's a Coffin right now.
Two minutes to what, indeed? Regular people aren't in the privy about the Dark Hour. How would they even prove that to themselves, without being one of those who accidentally are let out or left out and then suffer the consequences? No, the Coffin is safe, and protective, no matter how grave the consequences of being trapped in their Coffin next to the Racist Cop Coffin when the Hour's up.
Myunghon would have so much to protest and be defiant about from Shinjiro, but they're falling further, further... there's no warm light or anything. There's just chaos and fire in their head, which feels like--
Like every time they made an accident and popped one of the Koala Marches. I'm so, so sorry, Koala March, I was reckless and selfish and every time one of your shells crackeed open and chocolate came out -- this is what it's like to feel like your brain is spilling out.
There IS a warm light a moment later, though, because Yukari scrambles to summon Io and life-giving energy flows through their Persona, and to a much lesser extent, themself. First Recarm, then Diarama -- life-saving techniques that while they won't just instantly heal them an get them back on their feet...
... it's warm.
The last time this happened, it wasn't so warm. It was a cold and miserable day, when the snow turned to rain. Miho was present. When they were at death's precipice the last time, a place that people should probably not claim so much familiarity, they chose life -- and they believed that they possibly made the wrong choice.
What about now? They're not sure, but the indication to their brain that 'help is here' makes whatever adrenaline-process let go of how desperate they were to keep themself awake, because to let slip would have been to just plunge into the abyss of death.
And so, Yukari Takeba saves Myunghon's life. They're still very weak and in need of urgent treatment, however.
Shinjiro stands in front of the coffin and makes clear what his plans are. Tsubasa isn't going to be able to escape for the entirety of the Dark Hour, and if they tried to move the coffin, it would cause significant, devastating, irreparable damage. So he stays.
So-young manifests Icarus just to let her stifled, angry emotions out. It's a lot, to take on at once -- the escalation from violence happening to someone close to you to violence happening to you and the innate frustration of needing protection despite everything and also how unfreeing having the freedom of Icarus' wings must feel, restricted as they are.
But there's a lot to say about Remi's grit -- it's clear that she didn't just simply *escape* damage, the way that arm dangles... which only speaks much moreso to her willpower and ironclad tenacity. Just what might have she endured, in order to be able to harness that kind of pain tolerance?
There is a release, for Mio, when the midnight hour comes. The flashlight clatters, and cognition takes over as motorcycle leathers are replaced by black robes and, yes, another Mask. How would Ishiba react to this domino mask? It is so stupid. Katsuya did nothing wrong. And he would've died for it or been gravely wounded, if he was a second unluckier. Where is the justice when the guilty all go free? When some high-priced mouthpiece starts to talk, their client gets to walk.
To Shinobu, too, it's much the same, expressing the same surprise at Yukari that they've just witnessed inter-cop violence. Corruption doesn't usually take such naked form, out in the open like that. Or was this out in the open? This is just another altercation in Hirasaka, to everyone else, when it was profoundly personal in one way or another or them.
Umie has a more immediate, pressing concern for Katsuya -- what would she have said to the others if he got shot?! Being in that position is a truly unpleasant situation, even for someone who isn't family. Possibly also because she isn't family. Of course, no one has any idea of the voice that's cleaving away with her insinuations and taunting underneath the surface, as Umie tells So-young of what could happen.
And Katsuya himself...? At first, it feels like mere provocation -- bringing his father up is a fine way get under his skin. It isn't just that, now is it? What is it that gets you dashing on your feet, Officer Suou? Is it your father's honour? Truth? Justice? What is right about the wrongs that society allow? It's just law, not law and order, not much good and seldom fair, isn't it?
In the end, he makes the resolve to stay, with Shinjiro. It's his duty -- if nothing else, as a public servant. The weight of service must feel heavier right now than ever before.
Myunghon has completely gone unconscious at this point, but they're unsurprisingly very light and not terribly hard to move -- if only they'd balled up into one of those egg-like shapes before they passed out, however. And to safety they will go, past the Maya Shadows and perhaps a rare Ulala Shadow (!? no), because...
Because tonight was a tragedy, but you still gotta fight through the Dark Hour.
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
So-young's angry stalk is pulled up short by Umie interposing herself between her and the coffin she's stomping towards. Her hand is already pulled back, but-- well, she's not the sort of person to wildly punch something even when she's deeply frustrated like this, so Umie doesn't get a fist flying towards her at full force so much as they connect with each other with the soft little 'paf' of released emotions and uncertainty.
Despite the silly mask - because of it? - she recognizes this as someone who's fought by their side, and by extension someone that Myunghon trusts, and that's what stops her and pulls her into a juddering breath as she rakes a hand through her hair. It's that thought that stops her first, and then the shakiness afterwards as well, as So-young realizes she's not the only one deeply conflicted and frustrated here.
"That was kind of the plan," So-young rumbles back in a purely contrarian pout. This statement is, in fact, pure bravado and assumption and nonsense on her part, and it kind of shows. As much as she'd like to think she's involved now she still has no idea what happens if you mess with the coffins and has no particular desire to experiment except in this one case. The energy goes out of her; she doesn't apologize, but she does nod as she draws in another deeply shaky breath.
She leans back, straightens up, brushes herself down as if she's a ruffled cat. Icarus has yet to demanifest, but it isn't racing in a pure show of pent-up emotion anymore, and hovers unnaturally down towards where Myunghon is being treated and looked after. So-young, meanwhile, folds her arms as if to protect herself, her brow furrowed in an uncertain frown as she finally looks properly towards Katsuya. "... I don't think this is the sort of thing you can just report," she only says, her voice quiet in disbelief at-- not Katsuya, but just the whole situation. "He's got five bullets left."
(So-young does not know that police guns have five bullets in the chamber because the only reference she has are movies. But her point does kind of stand.)
She can't find it within herself to argue any more, or even stand around here. Turning on her heel, she hurries over towards where Myunghon is being cared for, and makes a desperate effort to push the rest of her thoughts out of her mind for the time being.
<Pose Tracker> Yukari Takeba has posed.
Shinobu at least thinks it's crazy too. At least she isn't the ONLY one here who thinks this is all crazy. Sumaru City, where Rumors are real, and weird Evoker users try to kill cops! And cops try to kill OTHER cops! What is WRONG with this place?! "Geez..."
All the ongoing problems with the coffins, Yukari isn't paying attention to right now, she's focusing in on trying to keep Merry at least, here.
Katsuya asks - and so too does Remi. Yukari feels Merry's neck again, and- there's visible relief in her, "She's going to be okay, I think... just... we should start moving her to a hospital." Yukari pinches her eyes shut, "I can't... fix this. Not all of this. She's going to need help to recover."
Taking a deep breath, she stands up, "Can anyone help me carry her?"
Shinjiro decides to stay behind, and so too does, Katsuya, "Is that really such a good idea? He could just... start shooting again, the moment the Dark Hour ends?" The idea makes her nervous, certainly that anyone is staying behind... even because someone else might get in trouble if they don't.
"I don't suppose there's another cop with a Persona who... might back you up too, once this is over?"
She asks Katsuya, expectantly before she realizes, "Not that you could... call them."
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
"Sure," Shinjiro replies to Remi, not even looking at her. He is reckless. But he did what he felt was right.
The other thanks aren't answered. It's Katsuya and Yukari who finally get answers. "...this is what I have to do. The alternative is that Seki gets his full ire, and no one is there to protect them." He exhales once.
And then he looks out to Myunghon again. "Keep them safe, alright?" He turns to the others as he says it.
That's all that matters now.
<Pose Tracker> Remi Ryuuja has posed.
Ariel glances at Katsuya. No, she will not be giving a statement. Even she can see this won't be a matter solved by 'procedure'.
She looks to Katsuya again, considering him for a long moment. "If only it were so easy. But I wish you luck. You'll need it." She might not be wearing a literal mask, but... can her disguise withstand the scrutiny of w sustained visit to a police station? How is she supposed to give a name that has no backing of legal documents to support it?
It's not like 'Ariel' has an ID, after all.
What, indeed, did Remi endure? Those aren't likely secrets she will share this night, however.
She looks to Yukari as she says she can't fix all of this. Where before, at the Benny's, she needled the younger girl, here instead she says, "Just do your best, Takeba-san. Heal what you can, we will find a doctor for the rest." But as for Shinjiro and Katsuya staying... "Aragaki-san has the right of it."
She still hasn't brought up her arm. She won't object to having a little Dia thrown her way, but... she may also be counting on the services of a medical professional, as well.
<Pose Tracker> Shinobu Shimizu has posed.
"...Thanks." Shinobu replies with a grateful nod toward Katsuya. He's putting a lot on the line for this - she hopes he'll be alright. He has her respect, though. Yukari raises a good point, after all. They might have an hour to cool down and relax, but to Ishiba, no time will have passed at all. He'll be just as angry as before before - at least they'll have an hour to get ready for him.
"Leave it to me." Shinobu replies to Yukari. "Up you go, boss..."
And - along with anyone else who's willing to help carry them - she starts to carefully lift Myunghon. They still have to fight through the Dark Hour to safety... but at least they're all together.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
It takes a moment, to navigate the maze, but it's a journey she's had to make many, many times, each step a breath.
Because eventually, it *does* stop.
"... It's okay, Katsuya-san." Her voice is normal now, even if her eyes are still closed. "... Sorry, just... it was kind of intense. You were doing what you felt you needed to do."
Another breath, and Umie opens her eyes. "... And yeah. I'll see what I can do in a minute, Takeba-san. Badb's not the greatest healer, but I can stabilize other people here." With Shroud. They'll be so well-hidden, on top of being a little healed.
But there's one more thing she needs to do, if for her own piece of mind. "... Aragaki-kun." Inspiration, like many things, is a fickle being, destined to arrive when it's ready.
At least this time it came on time.
An arm disappears into her coat, rummaging around the various pockets inside, for all the items Umie brings around, if just for trade.
She'll make another sort of trade today, her fingertips feeling the shapes so she knows what they are, when she brings them through her sleeve, and out.
Her fingers don't uncurl until she's by Shinjiro, revealing two small origami cranes.
"Give one of these to Ne-... Tsubasa-san. The other's... for you. Please, be careful. I trust Katsuya-san, but I don't know how much he'll have control over..."
If she stops, she'll get stuck in the mire with those voices. Keep moving forward. "Thank you. When you get out, I'll treat you to a meal." Reddened eyes threaten to overflow with tears. "I'm paying, because *I'm the senpai*."
With that, she turns around, and hurries off, ready to help with those who are wounded.
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
He shakes his head at Umie. "It's alright. Your response was only to be expected. Please, do what you can for Yeo-san."
Thanks, says Shinobu in the aftermath. Katsuya shakes his head. "This is my duty as a public servant." He... really does believe in that, doesn't he.
"...I see," is what he says to 'Ariel', aka Remi. It's not as if he has room to pry right now, even if his sense that something isn't quite right here is pinging. Considering the rest of current company, perhaps he can make a rough guess.
They're going to be okay. Katsuya exhales, slowly, releasing the breath he didn't quite know he was holding. "That's good... thank you, Takeba-san." He nods. "Yes. I understand... with that sort of wound, she must see a doctor." He hadn't gotten a good look at the injury after it had been dealt, but he knows that a wound to the head can be serious. Bleeding, swelling... it's possible for them to survive the next few hours to even days and then die from the injury.
Someday, possibly even soon, someone will update Myunghon's pronouns for him, and also explain 'X-gender'. It will be very informative.
Yukari brings up a good point, but Katsuya shakes his head regardless. "That... could happen," he admits, readjusting his sunglasses. "However, if that's the sort of mood he is in," like it's nothing, like he didn't almost possibly get seriously wounded and/or killed, "it's better that I am here. We cannot move Seki-san." ...So he knows who Tsubasa is? "I'll leave Yeo-san to you. I cannot leave someone in Ishiba-san's state of mind unattended. He's a danger to public safety..."
Once everyone else who hasn't said they're staying departs, he glances up at the sky of the Dark Hour in silence.
Justice. Law. Truth. They seem like they should be in harmony with one another, but the fact is that they may not be. As he'd reflected before, what is Just is not necessarily what is Lawful. What is is Lawful is not necessarily what is True. And yet, society carries on as if these things were all synonymous, that they weren't things that might need to be sacrificed for each other. What was 'Lawful' or 'True' about tonight? And what was Just...?
He knows what he'd tried to do. And yet, the stakes were higher than he would have anticipated waking up this morning. One second sooner, and he could have died. He can't forget that. If it happens again, in another situation, is he prepared for the consequences?
Folding his arms over his chest, he continues to mull over this carefully as he watches an otherworldly sky.