2025-10-10: Chariot of Flames
- Log: Chariot of Flames
- Cast: Tatsuya Suou, Katsuya Suou, Umie Akabane
- Where:
- OOC Date: October 10, 2025
- IC Date: July 24, 2012
- Summary: Two brothers stand at odds, despite sharing the same objections, wants, and wishes to protect those important to them. Umie tries to change that, but like anything she sets out with good intentions, her follow-through suffers. Can the Suou brothers come to an agreement, or will they come to blows instead?
<Pose Tracker> Tatsuya Suou has posed.
Umie doesn't *really* need to ask Tatsuya to come to the Alaya Shrine -- more often than not, he's been there this entire time. It's become something of a haunt for him... perhaps literally. He's had a good couple of days ago with Shinjiro, and Tamaki, almost convincing himself that he can enjoy some of the fruits of regular life... but the more he thought about it, the more he was plagued by doubt. The more convinced that even as he sits still and laughs and eats katsudon, shadowy forces are still out there, trying to get Jun to remember, trying to aim for Eikichi's life, making sure Lisa can't have a normal life...
The boy in red is seated on the porch of the shrine as he often is -- not properly, more slumped in his despair. The caretaker of the shrine, a kindly old woman whose name will become important for a sidequest for Maya later, has decided that he's allowed; something about this shrine both grants him peace and yet, also, great discomfort.
This shrine should've burned down 10 years ago, after all. But it never did...
Other people suffered as a result of his innocent sin.
His senses won't let him be too adrift, though. He heard something clatter onto the ground, further down the shrine grounds. Someone's there, someone panicked. Tatsuya quietly gets up from the porch and starts walking down, hands in the pocket pants of his brown slacks.
"... Tutor-sensei," Tatsuya observes, stepping down and helping to pick the phone up.
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
Alas, that fateful text message never comes.
As it happens, Katsuya has been working the night shift of late at work. So, when Umie asks to meet some evening, he's of course suggested the one night he's not working (this one, of course). It's easier to stay on the night shift rather than try to muck around with it, and he gets the sense it's going to be like this for a while yet.
And even if it's his 'day' off, he's still dressed nicely. At the shrine, huh? Well, he's met people in recent months in stranger places than this...
Come to think of it, didn't he use to come here some summers when he was younger? But it's got a completely different character at night. Katsuya isn't a superstitious person, but this is the sort of night that can almost, almost, sort of make someone start to think that ghosts exist. ...Outside demons, that is.
...Some sorts of supernatural beings existing has really been a bucket of cold water on Katsuya's whole... view of the world. At least things like ninja or fortune-telling remain steadfastly 'not actually real'.
But there's Umie, stooping to pick something up (her phone?) and--
"Tatsuya? What are you doing here? It's almost midnight!" Katsuya declares in disbelief, before beelining right for the both of them.
Curfew exists, you know.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
Maybe, if Umie hadn't made it her mission to avoid shrines up until now, she would have realized that the Alaya Shrine would be one of the few places that has a higher chance of having a Tatsuya Suou already present.
"... Takkun," Umie notes, looking up with a shocked expression as Tatsuya stoops down to pick it up. "You were already here?"
Rattled anxiety has met its match in guilt, as red brown eyes peer at Tatsuya's face, Umie's lips pursed in a vaguely saddened expression. "... Thank you." She takes the phone, pressing the power button--
Yellow system text scrolls on a painfully bright black background.
A CHILD LIES ON THE EDGE
OF TWO BREATHS A CHILD L
IES ON THE EDGE OF TWO B
REATHS A CHILD LIES ON T
HE EDGE OF TWO BREATHS A
CHILD LIES ON THE EDGE O
F TWO BREATHS A CHILD LI
ES ON THE EDGE OF TWO BR
EATHS A CHILD LIES^#*^^&
WIth a sharp inhale, Umie throws the phone to the hillside next to the stone steps like it was fire hot, instead of simply just being cherry red.
On Tatsuya's end, of course, the phone would have just looked like it was just booting up from its fall. Thankfully, while Umie's phone is regretfully out-dated, it's also a lot hardier.
'Tatsuya? What are you doing here?'
Oh no. Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no take control, Umie, this is *your* problem, you need to *fix* it
"... I invited him here," Umie firmly says, as she rubs her face.
"... You can be mad at me, if you want," she then adds, with false bravado, despite refusing to look up, "but you two need to talk to each other. This is getting serious. Please."
<Pose Tracker> Tatsuya Suou has posed.
"I stay here a lot," is Tatsuya's admission, as if that wasn't the oddest thing ever. There's a faint frown, then he looks to where the phone's yeeting off to as Umie throws it away.
"... you can't let 'them' get to you like that. Your phone's important for helping others."
But it isn't long before Katsuya walks up the steps to the shrine, and he frowns deeper as Katsuya starts to get on his case. So Umie set him up? He's kind of frustrated at that... but she insists that the two of them have to talk to each other. He's shoved his hands into his pockets tighter, turning away and walking back up towards the shrine. "You should listen to your own advice sometime."
He's not going to stop until he's back on his porch, sitting back into it like belongs there the entire time. Illuminated against the faint amber glow of the shrine stone lanterns, his haunted, quiet expression is even more distinctive than before.
Well. Tatsuya hasn't just stopped time to run off. So that's a positive, isn't it?
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
He's just in time to see Umie receive her phone back, power it on, and then immediately hurl it into the bushes as if it stung her.
In a way, it has.
"Akabane-kun? Are you alright?" He glances once at the direction in which her phone went: finding it again could be hard in this light. But there are more immediate things to attend to than Umie's missing (?) phone:
Namely, his brother.
"What are you talking about?" Katsuya says, frowning as he keeps on his brother instead. Umie says it's her fault for inviting them both here (or, well, inviting him here to meet while his brother was here, as it happens), but at this revelation, he just shakes his head.
"Thank you for letting me know where he was," he says to her, even if that wasn't the intent or the way she'd phrased it over the text.
"Tomorrow is the last day of finals. Are you aware of that?" he instead asks his brother, following him to where he's seated himself at the shrine.
Umie might have to intervene here.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
'You can't let 'them' get to you like that.' How many times has it been that Tatsuya's advice has helped her out, since all of this has happened? How is it that he seems to know more than she does, when she's been dealing with this for so much longer?
A bit of that tiredness leaks into Umie's face as she gazes at him. "... Is it more than one, now?" she says, in a quiet voice. Her eyelids lower, masking her eyes beneath black eyelashes as she looks down. "... Guess there may as well be."
Katsuya is also concerned. Umie raises her voice now, as he comes up. "I'm fine. Just got spooked." She shrugs, forcing a cool, calm demeanor despite the way blood pounds in her ears. "Really not sure what I expected; I guess I'm a glutton for punishment."
'Thank you for letting me know where he was.' And, like that, the mask is broken. "Wh... I didn't... do it like that!!" Umie sputters, eyes widening at how Katsuya chooses his words. "I invited him here too! C'mon, be mad at me, not each other!! I'm the asshole who did it..." She trails off, as Katsuya goes to look for her phone.
This is your situation, Umie, she tells herself, just as Katsuya's helpful gesture is sidelined by Tatsuya's withdrawing.
She draws in a breath, and lets it out.
"Finals aren't going to matter if he dies, Katsuya-san. Everything Tatsuya's done has been a matter of survival." She raises to her feet, letting her phone be for the moment. Besides, soon enough, the Dark Hour will be here, and she won't be able to use it.
She has to choose her words carefully; Tatsuya's secrets are his own, and even if she reveals hers as a means to bypass it, it would still be a betrayal of his trust, moreso than she's already done.
"Katsuya-san, you're going to need his help if you're going to make a visit to the Old Maid."
... So she'll just expose another secret instead. Thank you, Maya Amano! "His Persona's not normal, even if we factor in the Joker Killer rumors. The way he's reacted to me, it's like it's separate from him. I've asked Amano-san to let me join in when you go, but I doubt I'll be much help beyond whatever navigation Badb allows for."
"The second you go in, things are going to start to move--" She's sure of it. For some... reason.
"... You only get one chance to have the element of surprise." There.
<Pose Tracker> Tatsuya Suou has posed.
The dim lights allow Tatsuya to hide his irritation with his brother better. No, it's not fair for him to be irritated at him. This isn't his brother. The Tatsuya Suou of this side might have similar feelings, but it's not his place to be angry at him and possibly make things worse. "... yeah. It's taken a lot longer than I'd like... I was hoping to have been done by now, so I can return him."
...?? He's speaking in riddles. He's so drained of energy, the way he's just slumped against the porch, as if he's a lifeless doll whose strings have been cut. No, that's not true, fresh new ones have been looped around him. Umie sees that he carelessly has left his glove off. The Mark is showing. It is dim, however, and it barely flickers against the stone lantern light.
Umie's trepidation over how it is Katsuya got summoned here seems forgotten in the deluge of something bigger. But Umie's words put him on alarm too, as she starts talking about the supernatural. He feels more irritated now, but at his own brother, for continuing to chase Sudou, for acting like it's his duty, not Tatsuya's own... they're going to start sidelining each other like this.
Umie's even certain that once you go for Sudou, several cutscenes will play in sequence. Please set some time aside for this. Now whyever would that be, Umie??
"I should've ended him at the art gallery. I was careless, and then Tsubasa-kun suffered for it."
The gloom on his face is contrasted against the sharp glint in his eyes, as he confesses to outright having an intention of murder of a sequence killer in front of his policeman brother.
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
"If you're sure," he says, and if he sounds a little doubtful, well, he is.
He doesn't go for the phone right away, and even when he does go and check, it takes him a bit longer than he'd like. But luck is with them today: there's something that catches a stray bit of light in the way nothing else here should, and he's soon able to return her phone to its rightful place once more.
But that just means he has all the more attention to spend on his brother.
Umie sputters, saying that he should blame her for this-- or rather that they both ought to be. Again, Katsuya shakes his head. "Regardless, I had been hoping to speak with him again soon. I've been trying to call him, but for some reason the calls don't seem to go through," he says, in a masterful display of passive-aggression. Their parents must have been trying to call, too-- is he blocking their numbers, as well? Or does he just not pick up when they call?
And, for that matter, how has Tatsuya been able to evade the authorities for so long? He knows that their father filed a missing persons report over a month ago.
In the shadows, at his current angle, it looks just like there's a dark spot across Tatsuya's hand. In the moment, it's easy for Katsuya to file it away as just 'shadow', but that might change if Tatsuya or he move.
Umie has something to say about finals. "...And what is so important and dangerous about what he's doing that he can't even turn up for school? I know that there are other people his age with a Persona. Some of them are doing very dangerous things. Yet, they turn up for school and their exams! At this rate, you'll be expelled, Tatsuya."
It's frankly a surprise it hasn't happened yet. Surely his parents haven't called to plead extenuating circumstances (such as being a missing person...?), have they?
...But at least his brother seems contrite.
...Tatsuya, contrite? Is this actually his brother talking? Maybe it is serious.
Katsuya, regarding Tatsuya more seriously than before, folds his arms over his chest. "...What are you talking about? What do you mean by 'him'?" It's not making sense. Did something happen to his brother?
But Umie come out and says it plain. They'll need Tatsuya if they're going to make a visit to the Old Maid.
"What...?" Katsuya looks no less than surprised, looking at her, and over at his wayward brother. "What are you talking about? 'His' Persona? You mean, the Joker Killer's?" So Maya's the one who told her about this. That at least answers some questions, but...
"How does Tatsuya factor into this?"
You know, other than wanting to murder the suspect (killer) in question. As if taken aback, Katsuya widens his eyes. "--What are you saying? He needs to be apprehended, not..." Katsuya unfolds his arms to gesture, vaguely. "You're only eighteen years old. Why are you talking about 'killing' anyone? ...I think it's time you told me what's going on, Tatsuya."
Oh boy. Is that a story that you can tell anyone and not have them (even family) think you've lost your mind?
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
Katsuya, thankfully, finds Umie's phone. "... O-oh, thanks." Umie accepts it, unable to summon her usual snarky self. This close to the shrine, and the seriousness of the situation demanded she take things seriously, and, really, she didn't want to lose her phone for real either. For now, she puts it away, not bothering to turn it on to see if that 'message' was still there.
'I was hoping to have been done by now, so I can return him.' Return him to where? Umie just brushes aside the last fragment, going for the meat of Tatsuya's statement instead. "Believe me, you're not the only one thinking that. At least, the 'have been done' part. He's hurt a lot of people."
As for Tatsuya's Mark, maybe it was the fact that Umie knew that Tatsuya had one that she never thought to look. As alarming as it looks to people who see it for the first time, to her eyes, it feels like it's always been there, to the point that revealing her upper arms felt like some form of nudity. Standing behind Katsuya, Umie's panic is clear on her face. However, to draw attention to it would be just as bad; Katsuya clearly doesn't see it just yet. ... And Tatsuya's despondency may mean he doesn't even realize, or think to cover it. How long did it take for Umie to always cover her own instinctively?
"Those teenagers have support networks." One of those teenagers is one Umie tutored not too long ago, even if she is unaware of it. "I bet part of SEES' founding was to make sure students balanced their lives." Umie's voice is to Katsuya's back; much like with Sudou, she's on the other side of the 'opponent', even if she doesn't feel like Katsuya truly is one. "And people like me just screwed around during the Dark Hour, while the world went on. Hiding from everyone." Like a coward.
By the time she had met the Suous, Umie had already killed someone in the worst way possible. She had already summoned a demon, because she was lonely. She had already lied, which likely helped begin all this mess.
If Umie was ever one to examine things and never let a piece of data go unexamined, Katsuya shows where a true detective shines, looking at things Umie had turned away from, unable to look closer. "The Old Maid," she finds herself answering, despite not being too sure herself. "The one with the Persona that's more powerful than any of ours. Tatsuya's been trying to chase him down; the Old Maid's trying to cause something, as far as I can tell." She draws the weight of that half-explained truth onto herself; it's her making the statement, rather than Tatsuya, now.
Tsubasa-kun. Umie remembers the way her Persona reacted to her own sorrow and despair, shrieking out the death of something passing. "Katsuya-san, you saw me try to choke the hell out of the Old Maid with my weapon. Both of us had killing intent here." She grimaces in the aftermath of her words. "It's one of the reasons I decided to do this. Not the only one, but certainly a big one."
And the other...
Maybe it'll take the heat (no pun intended) off of Tatsuya, for a bit.
"Scarlet fire cleanses the lion's throat, a dance of death cast in shadow."
Something spasms deep in her soul as she says the words. Delusion.
Whatever explanation she had, correct or not, fails to escape her mouth because of it.
<Pose Tracker> Tatsuya Suou has posed.
It's all the same.
They've sacrificed everything to live better, truer lives, so that Maya-nee can live again, and here he is, in a poorly lit shrine near the strike of midnight and his brother is berating him in the exact same way about him running off from school because he's busy fighting Napoleon's stupid robots and even when he points that out Katsuya still insisted he can't reject a proper life. On one occasion he kind of hoped he went down with the police station and then instantly regretted it...
"I know I can finish this soon," Tatsuya insists with a haunted voice, as Katsuya hangs the sword of damocles of his counterpart being punished for his inaction.
What does he mean, though? What 'him'? Tatsuya refuses to clarify, but something that incenses him is how his brother is still insisting that he only has to be apprehended. Maybe that's his best part, but it's also his worst part. How can he still insist on that after all he's seen?
"... if I was twenty five and chasing after dad's shadow it would be fine? If I had a badge and a police-issued gun? Where has being obedient up until now taken you, Katsuya-niisan? You had a dream, but you threw it away in the name of the law," Tatsuya does challenge, feeling his rebellious streak going. What Tatsuya says is a little eerie, perhaps -- it's a bit too insightful than even the Tatsuya on this side has ever shared. Has he been thinking about it all this time?
... perhaps in a way, Tatsuya just opened up to him.
Tatsuya knows he's stirring shit up, but he was already in a terrible mood. This Alaya Shrine is good at making him depressed. It's what he deserves. Being fooled into thinking he could partake in life on this side is... a mistake. Umie's panic does make him confused, however, then he realises, then slowly reaches for his glove to hide the Mark.
Katsuya, your little brother is also only wearing one leather glove now. He can't even wear gloves properly!
"... I learnt something in that last battle," Tatsuya shares as Umie speaks of the Old Maid's persona, seemingly working on his own pace, rather than responding directly. "He's been eluding us by teleporting away like it's science-fiction, but... I think I know the secret now. But only I can deal with it. It's wrong to think that it's 'teleportation', though. At least, that's how I'm thinking about it."
Which might be a big enough clue for Umie, give how he disappeared from her sight in that burger joint and was already downstairs. An act of teleportation!
See, Suou-kun, Magic River Teleportation is real.
Umie speaks ominous words, however, and he tautly frowns and turns his head away.
"... that didn't come to pass," is the only thing he shares with Umie, before grabbing the shinai bag which definitely clanks metallically underneath -- KATSUYA IS YOUR BROTHER ALSO CARRYING A WEAPON THAT'S AGAINST THE SWORDS AND FIREARMS LAW -- and slips it onto his shoulder.
"The Dark Hour's going to be soon. You don't want to be out here when it happens. The Shadows here at this shrine are powerful."
... and how does he know that? Has he just been hanging around here a whole lot??
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
He can finish this soon, Tatsuya says.
He's just going to throw everything away. "...At least call father and mother. If you're going to risk everything," and he can't hide the way his mouth pulls, somewhere between annoyance and displeasure, "then you at least owe them a call."
They have support networks, Umie says, and that gives Katsuya some pause. "...Even so, there's all the more reason for you not to do this by yourself," he tells Tatsuya. "At this rate, you'll only get into trouble."
The Old Maid. That Persona, that seemed like it was stronger than any of theirs. It had almost seemed a doppelganger of the killer himself, more than the way that a Persona seemed to-- or, no. No, that's not right at all. It's more as if it were meant to seem that way, but that something else was lurking within it. Is it just another aspect of that man's nature, on display? "So you think he's trying to cause something to happen?"
With Umie behind him, he doesn't see the look on her face, though he does notice when his brother puts on one glove. He's lucky it's summer: who goes around with only one glove on? Tatsuya will just have to live with his brother's judging look, assuming he looks this way, that is.
He had seen that, then. It had been one thing amidst so many, and in that moment, can he say that he himself wasn't using lethal force? There were innocents in the way; if he has to kill, for the first time, then let it be in the line of defense for someone who couldn't defend themselve. So he shakes his head, and professes, "That was different."
It's different because one of them is a child and one of them is an adult. Or, perhaps more to the point, because one of them is his little brother and one of them is not.
But he, for his part, is still insisting on arresting the Joker Killer, if he can.
This is when said little brother stabs him, metaphorically, right in the heart.
"...What? What are you-- how...?" Katsuya manages to eke out, to stunned to string the words together properly. He stares at his brother as if he were a ghost, a demon.
It's not as if he's ever talked to his brother about it, his dream. How could he? But when had he-- how had he--? Has he been thinking about that all this time?
But really, perhaps if he weren't so caught in the moment, he might well figure out the reason why. He'd talked about his dream once with his brother, when they were both much younger, and then, one day, he'd thrown that dream away to follow in their father's footsteps.
Or, more accurately, 'chase after his shadow'...
"What do you mean by all that, Tatsuya--" Katsuya has recovered, just in time to get undercut as his brother moves the conversation along: he talks about the way that the killer has been escaping them all. Katsuya is, for the moment, silent. He thinks he knows how it works? "...How?" he asks at last, staring right at Tatsuya. "It's something to do with the rumor, isn't it? He's able to escape because the rumor defines what he can do. But I don't see how that connects to you." No, he really doesn't, because he hasn't seen that little trick of his, has he?
And then, Umie speaks. He's not one for potents and signs. So-called prophecy is never in time to be of actual use, and only ever becomes 'seen' as a prediction after the event has already passed. Yet, there's something about what she's said that feels like something other is plucking at the strings of his soul. Like he's heard it before, but not...
"What does that mean?" he asks at last, his glance moving from her back to his brother. "'Didn't come to pass'? Is that... related to the fortune-telling trend?" It's the one thing he can think about in the moment, after all, but--
The clank only reminds him that he's running around with that sword, still. But even so, as worried as he is about Tatsuya getting arrested, he can't precisely begrudge him.
As Tatsuya says, the Dark Hour is drawing nigh.
And the Shadows that haunt the night are particularly strong here. "Is that so..." he says, and despite the look on his face, he doesn't actually think that Tatsuya is lying. "And you've been fighting them?" Please, let the answer be 'no'.
Katsuya already knows it won't be.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
"... Takkun." The haunted tone in Tatsuya's voice tugs on Umie; it's hard to look away from when she's become familiar enough with the cocky version of himself he was before. "... That's why I'm saying we can't--" We can't pretend this is something you can do by yourself, even if your tutor-senpai is right there trying to help you.
Hints of this had been mentioned by Officer Ishiba, but to hear it from Tatsuya's own mouth... even Umie flinches. "Hey, Takkun, could you make my life at least a little easier? I know I was the one who summoned the two of you here and all--" No, no, maybe this is *good*. The Badb in her delights in it, at least, sensing the tides of change.
.... Even if it feels like it have applied to her, as well. Where has being obedient gotten her? Parents willing to silently wait for a man determined to make her his wife to move on, while he quietly destroyed her future? Even if he hadn't, what future would it have been, anyways...?
.... When she's been more alive now than she has been.
'I learnt something in that last battle.' "There we go." Umie's eyes light up, a sly grin on her face. "I was wondering about that... if that's the case, then maybe, I can do something too." Tapping a fingernail on her chin, she supposes, "Perhaps if you could figure out a way to observe him, you might be able to figure out his movements better. Even if only you can do it, there are things I can do to support you." She folds her arms. "As well as your brother." No, she's not stepping away from that.
She's about to say something to Katsuya, when Tatsuya sidesteps again, delivering a line that cuts Umie's spring of confidence.
"But it..." Did it actually happen? Umie's lips thin, confusion darkening her eyes.
The way 'prophecies' work is by being so vague, they could apply to just about anything. Any fire, at any point, could apply. Why did she assume the fire that Shinjiro told her about would be the one this applied to? It would make more sense for a prophecy to actually tell the future, not the past. Was it because Sudou was the one who caused it? Why did she assume Sudou was the one it applied to it? Was it because she said it during the arson at Aoba Park?
There was something Tatsuya said during that battle that triggered it, and made it feel... right. But what is something in her memory that's refusing to budge.
'Is that... related to the fortune-telling trend?' "... I mean, there's..." Umie frowns, then waves her hand. "It's nothing." Just because it sounds the same, and just because you *sense* something that keeps being mistaken as something to do with it, doesn't mean...
Katsuya asks something else, though, and it's immediately diverted Umie's train of thought.
"... Katsuya-san." Umie's tone is flat, as is her expression, lips forming a straight line. "... You realize I was hunting shadows around the same time I was tutoring Takkun, right? Not the ones around this area, though... I wasn't really that great, when it was just me." She shrugs. "I'm better with sneak attacks than doing what you two do."
She sighs, shaking her head. "Honestly, I wouldn't mind fighting a few right about now. It'd be great practice."
.... Maybe, even for two brothers...?
A smile blooms on Umie's lips, spreading like the inky veins of some forbidden flower. ".... Heh."
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
It would have been bad enough on its own.
It's even worse, though, because Umie hears every part of that between the two of them. Indeed, she may well have some idea of what's happened among the family by now (and old newspaper articles might fill in the blanks the rest of the way, if she can find them): it would certainly explain a few things even about the Suou family home.
"I am sorry. I did not mean for you to get mixed up in this," Katsuya tells her at a remove, because what else can he say? She shouldn't be getting caught up in their family business and old wounds, and yet, that's exactly what's ended up happening.
Tatsuya, though, has figured out something about how the Joker Killer operates. "I won't refuse help, but..." he tells Umie, as she speaks on it more directly.
But hadn't he -- she -- admitted they would as soon kill the murderer as bring him in?
And Tatsuya is still his little brother (obviously. that's not just something you 'stop' being because you've run away from home.).
All the same, though, it's not as if he can afford to pick and choose who they get help from.
Those words that Umie speaks, they sound a little like the sort of thing that he's familiar from seeing in fortunes -- vague, flowery terms, that ultimately say and mean nothing -- but... modern-day minor 'prophesies' rarely sound so grim. There's something that nags at the back of his mind, a butterfly-memory that he can chase after all he likes but not actually catch.
Umie says it's nothing. "I see... then..." is the only thing he can say in response to that. If she doesn't want to talk about that, there's nothing he can do about that.
Even if Tatsuya's response to it gives him pause.
But it's when he remarks on 'fighting Shadows' that he's on the receiving end of it again from Umie. Taken aback once again, all he can say to her is, "Is that... true? But you were only..." And some of the kids in SEES and the like are even younger than that. "I, I see... so that's how long it's been for you..."
She's even up to fighting a few now. "You... you are?" She seems so kind and reliable sometimes that he forgets, until it's too late, that Umie really has a frightening streak to her. "...If what Tatsuya's saying is correct, though, surely it shouldn't be here." Even with all three of them together, somehow, maybe it might not be 'enough'.
He lingers there for a moment, as if uncertain whether he should actually leave. But there's one thing more that he does want to say to his brother, here before meeting again is left up to chance. "That... reminds me, speaking of his age..." he starts, lifting a hand to fidget with his sunglasses. "...Happy belated birthday, Tatsuya."
He doesn't have a cake. He would have brought one if he'd known.
<Pose Tracker> Tatsuya Suou has posed.
Tatsuya gets very quiet after he's said his piece, like he's still regretting letting all that in the open. Like there's still a part of him that is regretful at both saying horrible words like that -- but also opening up at all. Katsuya wonders how he knew, but it isn't a secret. Both from the volumes of pastries and cakes that Katsuya baked them as they grew up, to the point where he's sick of sweets... to him having shared it once -- was it more memorable to him than his brother? Sometimes, an outside perspective sticks harder than it does in your own internality. A blind spot.
"... part of it," Tatsuya answers Katsuya, on the topic of the rumour. Umie's still trying to play peacemaker between them, though, and she protests and asks if he could at least make things a little easier for her... but... it seems like the words stirred something inside of her as well.
"There're no guarantees," Tatsuya does warn Umie. "But... things are making a bit more sense now. What I've lost... what he's gained..."
He can't do more than refute it for Umie. He doesn't know what kind of Oracle she's receiving -- Sudou is clearly trying to recreate pieces of it himself, and perhaps she's also wrapped up in his dark work in the same way, but... sometimes, it only just takes one tug to start a chain reaction that will eventually unravel it all. For the better or worse? Even Tatsuya can't say.
But... then even Katsuya surprises him, for once. As he fidgets with his sunglasses.
Happy birthday, Tatsuya.
...
...
...
"... c'mon," Tatsuya answers, seemingly indifferently as if he hadn't heard it at all, but...
"I can't just walk off and leave you two to find safety at this hour. We'll go together."