2025-09-07: Flickering Light
- Log: Flickering Light
- Cast: Shinjiro Aragaki, Shiryuu Ryouhara
- Where: Hirasaka streets, Sumaru
- OOC Date: September 07, 2025
- IC Date: July 07, 2012
- Summary: Shinjiro gets attacked by a street ninja during the night. The red coat does not survive.
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
It is late at night on a Saturday. Shinjiro Aragaki cannot sleep.
How could he? He's done some things. Ken Amada has the Potential, because of him. Shinjiro made the call to rejoin SEES, to protect the boy.
To right his wrong.
Because he cannot sleep, Shinjiro is on the way towards a twenty-four-hour izakaya in Hirasaka. He's stopping under a half-broken lamp post, flickering in and out. There's a PEDESTRIAN CROSSING sign nearby.
"Fuck..." Shinjiro says to himself, as he leans against the lamp post. He should be back in the safehouse, in bed. He's not even very hungry.
Maybe he just wanted some fresh air. Or maybe... he was hoping to run into trouble, as subconsciously as that would be.
Something to punish himself, once more.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
That's when a lonely whistle curls through the air.
Some people can't sleep during what some would consider normal hours. Others consider 'now' a perfect time to be up. A perfect time to do what needs to be done.
"Who would have thought," he muses, "a ne'er-do-well loitering out past hours. Gotta be some kind of curfew against that, right?"
The young man arrives, long and low, as the whistling stops in earshot. For all the world he looks like a homeless person, if 'homeless person' were the latest in high-priced Shinjuku fashion. All baggy clothes and voluminous silhouette, it's hard to tell where his endless assortments of baubles, jackets and belts ends and he begins, aside from the shock of silver-grey hair shding his face in a mop. Even his hands are stuffed into his pockets, with a full shoulder bag hiked high on his shoulder, and a bundled and tied length tied to it, laid almost horizontally across his shoulder. His shoes are spotless, sneakers with sharply tied laces, and his voice bounces a few more times off the nearby buildings than it should.
Even so, there's no mistake about who he's talking to.
"I guess I'm going to wonder if you're going to be any trouble to me.."
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
The whistle attracts Shinjiro's attention immediately, being a perceptive human being.
He looks over the man with the shoulder bag. Homeless, maybe... no, this isn't just homelessness. This is...
Danger.
Shinjiro wouldn't have cared about him being homeless. He was too for a while. But there's something about the way he dresses, the way he talks, and what he says that gets Shinjiro on edge. He's met enough people like this.
Sadly, he wanted danger. He wanted to punish himself... even if he won't do it without a problem.
"Tch. Do I know you?"
Shinjiro straightens up from his lean on the lightpole. His eyes dart... weapons, weapons. The sign would work, but that's going to get him stabbed by a knife if he tries, he assumes.
He has his fists. Those have always worked, at least.
"If you've got a problem with me, come out and say it."
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
One hand slides out of his pocket, revealing a hand richly ornamented with rings of every color and style. At least he's not immediately armed. An old style hem to the jacket he wears reveals it as some sort of period haori, as the young man scratches his temple thoughtfully. "Yeah," he admits, an inexorable tone threading his voice. "I suppose there's no way this ends in relaxing tea.."
Even so. "..but I'm also not the type to put up with too much backtalk from outsiders, so let's keep it civil, for now."
The little segue ends as quickly as it begins, a long-suffering sigh coming from the man as he settles for holding onto the strap of his bag with his now free hand. It doesn't really seem like he honestly prefers to be out here, but he's suffering by his own hand, as Kiria would say. "'Do you know me?'" the young man repeats. "Yeah... maybe. I don't know. I'm told word's out on that one. But... if it hasn't gotten this far, then.. well, more's the pity, I guess. Doesn't matter, anyway."
The well-dressed vagabond tilts his head, just so.
"I'm considering you my 'intermission.'"
He shakes his head once, as if not liking the taste of the word. He gets over it. "Mn. Heard you were the guy. The one we go to to sort some things out. Rumors have it, anyway. Toughest of the tough, right? Or one of the top. Don't know how you tough guys operate, if there's an official rank or something.."
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
The man doesn't draw a knife, and Shinjiro thinks that's good. But when outsiders is mentioned... he tchs again. He doesn't say what he's thinking, that he is the outsider here, though.
Shinjiro doesn't know who this is. "The hell are you talking about...?" he says as the man is vague about if he knows him or not.
And then Shinjiro's body tenses entirely at intermission. "...you're another street punk looking to beat me, huh?" is what Shinjiro settles on.
He should walk away. The safehouse is close enough to escape.
"... if that's true, then bring it on."
He can lay Shiryuu out in one punch, he assumes, if he can get a clean hit. How little he knows. But he's not going into a stance. He's waiting to see what happens first.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
"...yeah.."
It doesn't take much, for the knots of his obi to be undone, the quiet slide of the silk cordage being undone and loose with one tug. The bundled bag lays open as the man slides his hand inside, all the while with his other in his pocket. A black-hilt is produced, the slide of a dark saya from the dark blue bag, a sheathed sword, with an exotic rayskin hilt that immediately identifies him as anything but a thug. The sword is flipped end-over-end in his hand, twirled to walk the sword's tsuba over the back of his hand, until he's not holding the katana by the hilt but rather its sheath.
"...not exactly."
A thumb braces underneath the guard. "I just need you to go to the hospital for awhile, is all."
% The loosing click of the blade from the saya is like a gunshot, the onrushing sound of silence is like being plunged underwater in a tidal wave. With a blackening arc of feathers and a haunting, inhuman cackle fluttering through the air, a crawl and splash of inky black floods over the periphery of the street, blotting out the distant streetlights one-by-one, causing the current nonfunctional one to flicker in strange asymmetric patterns in the sudden, new dark. Sounds, resonance, everything -- is shut out from outside, what few details beyond the haze appearing as a haunting impersonation thereof. Suddenly the nonfunctioning streetlight Shinjiro is under is now quitev paradoxically the ONLY source of usable light for anywhere within earshot. Well, that, and the crackle of lightning at the young man, Shiryuu's side.
The flare of light that crosses between them is an instantaneous crossing of space, and it might not be detectable exactly what happens, the visible arcing of electricity first at his pocket, then in the air in front of Shinjiro. Needles, finer than the eye can see, that strike like lightning fangs.
AS: Shiryuu Ryouhara has readied for combat as Sarutahiko Okami! He is now fully healed! AS: Shinjiro Aragaki has readied for combat as Castor! He is now fully healed! <Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
As the homeless samurai(?) grabs his blade, Shinjiro realizes he's in much more danger than he expected. The hospital...!
"Oh, fuck y-!" And then, the blade clicks, and the world goes silent for a moment. As the needles come out, Shinjiro rolls to the side clumsily, lightning arcing behind him with enough force to burn his jacket and strike the lamp post. It takes a moment to realize a needle nearly impacted with his injured shoulder, and the shock would drop him had he not been a Persona User who wasn't hit directly.
"Shit!" Shinjiro calls out, as he palms something from his pocket. It looks like a gun on first sight. It is absolutely not a gun.
"Persona!"
The Evoker shakily moves to his temple, clicks, and fires, a spark of blue energy sending out Castor, the skeletal horseman with a spear in his chest. Castor rampages forward, ripping that spear out of his chest and moving to swing it straight at Shiryuu, trying to either clash his sword or strike him with the side hard enough to force him back.
Shinjiro doesn't usually start with an attack... but he doesn't feel he has a choice here.
AS: Persona! Shinjiro Aragaki has used the Strike skill Feral Bite on Shiryuu Ryouhara! AS: Pressure: Shinjiro Aragaki gains 1 Limit! AS: Shinjiro Aragaki regains 20 HP from Regenerate! AS: Avoid Neutral! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 70 Strike damage from Shinjiro Aragaki's Feral Bite. <Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
His stance widens with his throw, eyes narrow, going low to the ground like a stalking predator. There is a lithe premeditation in the way he moves, and dark eyes lift quickly as his needles embed, branching and flaring arcing electricity in the wake of the surging horseman. Shiryuu is nettled and nonplussed, eyebrows shooting up at the arrival of the stampede with a grim set line forming the press of his grimace.
Fast!
The wanderer responds in kind, flicking that blade end over end anew. Shinjiro will note that the young man seems to be good with using the blade one-handed, effortlessly rolling it overhand to pop it loose of its saya, and then now back to catch it by the hilt and deflect that titanic spear thrust. He catches the point of it on the wood lacquer of his saya, before he uses that as the point to unsheathe, steel raking loose in a black flash as he's pushed back on his sneakers through the titanic crossing.
A soft chime of metal rings. There is no nimbus of blue light, no grandiose flare of energy. The mechanical kannushi in blue drifts from those motes of blackfeather as if striding in from somewhere just beyond that black veil, unrooting a massively long prayer staff erupting from the ground. One grandiose swipe, and rope and wood catch Shiryuu's fall on a rickety wooden bridge, another step forward catching his sneaker on a board from a second bridge that erupts under his step. The second burst surges the man high into the air, cutting into a low arcing pounce as he replaces the distance between them with 'nothing.'
One sword slash will chop down violently, aiming to batter the little steel contrivance in Shinjiro's hands to pummel his nerves and knock off his arm as Shiryuu lands. A roll of the blade, and the boy will drop an elbow low, targetting the Boss' thigh. Then he will launch into a full on flying knee, all in an instant. If Shinjiro is not watching himself, he's going to get hit three times in the space of a single breath.
AS: Weapon! Shiryuu Ryouhara has used the Strike skill Ryouhara Ninjutsu on Shinjiro Aragaki! 3 Hits! AS: Counter Worst! Shinjiro Aragaki takes 52 Strike damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Ryouhara Ninjutsu. Critical Hit! AS: COUNTER! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 16 Strike damage in return for his attack! AS: You have 2 more attacks in queue! AS: Block Worst! Shinjiro Aragaki takes 30 Strike damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Ryouhara Ninjutsu. AS: You have 1 more attack in queue! AS: Block Worst! Shinjiro Aragaki takes 43 Strike damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Ryouhara Ninjutsu. Critical Hit! <Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
The wanderer is moving, that blade deflecting Castor. He grimaces as he does so, Castor stabbing his spear back into his chest.
As the metal rings, and Shiryuu's Persona comes forth, Shinjiro's still moving, even as *bridges* manifest. He's trying to get an opening, and in the moment the bridges manifest, Shinjiro fires again.
A bloody surge of energy swallows him, as Castor circles around, empowering his wielder but also leaving him wide open. Shiryuu impacts Shinjiro not once, not twice, but three times in the process, the third time being countered with a mean right hook that can easily be guarded given how slow it is right now. The blade knocks Shinjiro off-kilter, and the elbow and flying knee has sent him skidding backwards, nearly off his feet.
Castor then charges forward, leaping into the air and trying to *trample* downwards onto Shiryuu, an attack that'll certainly hurt should he try to block it head-on at all.
For his part, Shinjiro doesn't speak. He's focusing now on winning this, and not getting sent to the hospital.
AS: Shinjiro Aragaki spends Limit on Exploit! Shinjiro Aragaki can use another Weak skill this round! AS: Persona! Shinjiro Aragaki has used the Almighty skill Bloody Charge on Shinjiro Aragaki! AS: Take! Shinjiro Aragaki takes 0 Almighty damage from Shinjiro Aragaki's Bloody Charge. AS: Atk_Up, Crt_Up, and Def_Up added! AS: Persona! Shinjiro Aragaki has used the Strike skill Bash on Shiryuu Ryouhara! AS: Pressure: Shinjiro Aragaki gains 1 Limit! AS: Shinjiro Aragaki regains 20 HP from Regenerate! AS: Avoid Best! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 67 Strike damage from Shinjiro Aragaki's Bash. <Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
The wanderer lands nimbly on his haunches, settling into a crouch to absorb the shock of his momentum, his sneakers skidding in the street as his center of gravity rocks into the street. Fighting a target with 'that' power is a matter of being aware of multiple angles at once, and the man's dark eyes flick quickly in the exchange, the shot from his elbow moving smoothly from his guard to catch the boy's right hook, the shock of the pugilist's blow being enough to cut space between them, enough that he has to throw all of himself into the flying knee.
"..nice punch," Shiryuu is forced to comment, waving off the pain in his arm.
The exchange is short-lived, as the boy is walked on by Shinjiro's mental proxy, the destrier chesspiece slamming into him will full weight and authority. The flat of his blade comes up to absorb the shock and braced by the flat of his other hand, but it's only a surge of wind thrown from the gohei of his own Persona that saves him from a trampling, the agent blasted backwards towards Shinjiro with the aid of a short hop into the air. "Looks like you're the real deal --" the boy counters, breathing hard as he rolls in the air, catching the curl of a bridge erupting to cut the space between them in twain. His own Persona surges high into the black night, the indelicately long staff of its gohei slipped to his side like a sword. It matches Shiryuu, who is now flying upside down in a corkscrew jump after Shinjiro, his sword tucked into his side.
"-- but it'll take more than that!!"
A second blast of air fills his haori, letting him complete the motion in a flash of black and an invisible cut that takes him all the way through Shinjiro's position, and cuts through an entire public mailbox with a rippling blade of equal parts steel and wind.
AS: Tandem! Shiryuu Ryouhara has used the Wind skill Blastbrand on Shinjiro Aragaki! 2 Hits! AS: Block Worst! Shinjiro Aragaki takes 31 Wind damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Blastbrand. AS: You have 1 more attack in queue! AS: Block Neutral! Shinjiro Aragaki takes 36 Wind damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Blastbrand. Critical Hit! <Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
"Sure am..." Shinjiro says, not to the nice punch but to the real deal. "So why the hell do you want me in the hospital?!"
Shiryuu's still moving, indeed, with that rapid corkscrew jump and the blast of wind coming with it. Castor tanks the rival Persona head-on, forced backwards by the weight of it and almost shattering from the damage, while...
Well, while Shiryuu's own blade blow slashes into him, finally getting true purchase. The blade slices into Shinjiro's side, and returns red. It's not going to be lethal, but it sure is going to need medical attention of some stripe.
Shinjiro roars in pain, and Castor roars with him. Castor rears back, and then charges forward, attempting to put the *entirety* of his strength beyond an otherwise non-lethal ramming blow that's better served dodged than deflected, leaving shockwaves in his wake.
AS: Persona! Shinjiro Aragaki has used the Strike skill Black Spot on Shiryuu Ryouhara! AS: Pressure: Shinjiro Aragaki gains 1 Limit! AS: Shinjiro Aragaki regains 20 HP from Regenerate! AS: Avoid Worst! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 193 Strike damage from Shinjiro Aragaki's Black Spot. Critical Hit! <Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
The reply is almost immediate, enraged.
Shiryuu doesn't have time to land, not enough to whirl, to get his guard against him, to even launch away. The whole of that armored destrier checkmates him, sending the agent into a different type of spin, pinwheeling end-over-end as he is thrown -far- and bodily away from Shinjiro in his unleashed rage, sending the boy -slamming- into a car and bouncing hard into the side of a building, where he dislodges a neon sign, an advertisement for Nissin Ramen blinking hard red as the inactivated neon tubes flare brightly when they break on the ground.
"Urgh...yeah..."
He's gonna feel that in the morning. The only protection his Persona is able to provide this time is the gentle sway of the rope bridge the agent finds himself hung on, one of several that are still creaking in the wind and cutting through the supralunary space at strange, physically impossible angles. Slung roughly over the rope as if it were a turnbuckle, the rickety bridge sways under his weight as he gathers himself, as he kicks up onto his feet, now standing at a near ninety degree angle to the ground. From his perspective, the boy looks 'up' at Shinjiro, looking for all the world like a boy who's lost the vibe. A hand reaches up, wiping at his mouth, frowning when it his palm comes away bloody.
"Let's just say I need you out of the picture for a minute..."
His blade rolls slowly, as he flips his sword false in his hands. A close range attack, a defensive stance? From this far away, it would seem unlikely. A slow smile creeps across his lips. He closes one eye. "That really, really was a good one, you know..."
"...musou-ninkou 'Ninigi.' Kyotosaigan..."
When his eye next opens, it is bright, shining blue.
There is no opportunity to see him move. From an arrow's shot away, the entire world freezes in negative, as if a shapshot was taken in the interstitial space, encompassing the second in which Shiryuu was no longer here nor there nor anywhere between. He takes one step, and is inside Shinjiro's guard, with that shining eye, stepping smoothly into his 'critical space.'
"...Setsuna."
There is a heartbeat. A split second to react as Shiryuu hunts him down. One breath, before Shiryuu cuts him through. A breath and a blink, before Shiryuu is behind him, and stabs him in the back. Even stopping to gasp will take too much time. His Persona doesn't move at all. Nothing else seems to be given the opportunity. Only him. He shows Shinjiro 'that eye,' and then he's behind him.
That's all.
AS: Weapon! Shiryuu Ryouhara has used the Slash skill Setsuna on Shinjiro Aragaki! 2 Hits! AS: Block Best! Shinjiro Aragaki takes 33 Slash damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Setsuna. AS: You have 1 more attack in queue! AS: Block Neutral! Shinjiro Aragaki takes 41 Slash damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Setsuna. <Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
"Fuck..." Shinjiro says, exhausted, as he's told he's needed out of the picture. He watches Shiryuu bounce and *still* be able to fight.
And then, that shining blue eye. Shinjiro moves to guard, and the world just stops. Shiryuu is there in the next moment, coming in with that 'Setsuna'.
In that split breath, his arms go up. That's all.
Shinjiro wobbles forward the next moment, looking like he's defeated. He coughs, blood coming up, as his coat is torn asunders, his greyish-black t-shirt stained red. Shiryuu's not trying to kill him, but Shinjiro will *definitely* need medical time.
It's a good thing he needed to schedule a physical anyways.
In the split moment after he stands, Shinjiro twists his body towards Shiryuu, throws that mean right hook straight at him, and tries to clobber him. It probably won't be the finale...
Because Castor is suddenly surging behind Shiryuu, trying to stomp his horse's center of gravity down on his back and force him into the punch with his own terrifying strength.
AS: Tandem! Shinjiro Aragaki has used the Strike skill Dual Smash on Shiryuu Ryouhara! 2 Hits! AS: Pressure: Shinjiro Aragaki gains 1 Limit! AS: Shinjiro Aragaki: Atk_Up, Crt_Up, and Def_Up removed! AS: Shinjiro Aragaki regains 20 HP from Regenerate! AS: Avoid Best! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 50 Strike damage from Shinjiro Aragaki's Dual Smash. AS: Avoid Neutral! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 64 Strike damage from Shinjiro Aragaki's Dual Smash. AS: Shiryuu Ryouhara is unable to continue fighting! <Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
Sometimes, the direct approach is best.
Ah, but the hooves of that fuckin' thing hurt. In the moments thereafter, Shiryuu is content to shake Shinjiro's blood off of his blade. He is surgical -- he makes sure that Shinjiro won't die -- that's messy, and would just cause problems with the local police -- but he's no longer concerned with Shinjiro's ongoing wellbeing. That guy's tough, after all, and -- what's that noise?
The agent has exactly a breath to look back before --
...- right in the jaw! -
"UMF!" Ryouhara is almost knocked clear off of his feet with that hook, staggered and then -punched- into -- through -- the street with all the weight of an armored horse treating him like a pawn, pincered. Ugh. _that_ would be checkmate, the assassin notes dimly. He would later reflect with a snicker, that at that particular moment, his appetite for fighting was at an all-time low. As for right now, the matter of 'staying standing' has more relevance, as the boy is staidly aware of his back being knocked out of -- or into -- alignment as he stumbles to one side, listing dangerously, before managing to roll into a tiny flip away from the brawler, to nurse his jaw.
"Mnnhofoker..." Shiryuu eloquently states, -popping- his jaw back into place, before fixing Shinjiro with a glare.
"...that hurt."
His Persona is rotting at his back, little bits of black artifacting consuming the artificial kannushi's spectral silhouette. A tear of blood crawls down his cheek, from his glowing eye. Another one or two like that, and he's going to be lined up in the hospital right alongside Aragaki. A flick of a card between his fingers, energy flaring off of it before Shiryuu invokes the magic within. It increases the field of gravity by some sum as little motes of purple grow in a little containment beam. A trivial Gry spell, invoked off of a skill card. It's -just- enough to be annoying, just enough to make pursuing Shiryuu a problem.
"...won't say it's been fun." It'll probably buy the second he needs to cut the ink-black world in half and get the hell out of there. Possibly to count his teeth.
Shinjiro's definitely making it into one of his unreleased demo tracks later.
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
As Shiryuu is punched, Shinjiro's breathing raggedly, even as they make distance. But when he pops his jaw back into play, Shinjiro's staring dead back at his glare.
It's when that Gry spell comes at him, that Shinjiro drops to the ground. Shiryuu's already escaping, so the dodge gives him time to get back up, avoid the blow that might knock him out, and wobble back to normal reality so he can call someone to get him medical attention.
Though...honestly, he might have to go to the hospital, so Shiryuu wins in the end.
"This is probably the worst day of my life," Shinjiro bloodily spits as he sits against a light pole and waits for help.