2025-10-23: My Ninja Way Is A Fucking Greatsword, Asshole
- Log: My Ninja Way Is A Fucking Greatsword, Asshole
- Cast: Tsubasa Seki, Shiryuu Ryouhara
- Where: Mementos - Path of Qimranut
- OOC Date: 2025-10-23
- IC Date: Mon Jul 30 2012
- Summary: Phoenix has been visiting Mementos to practice late at night... but tonight, someone's looking for THEM. Shiryuu confirms that Phoenix is absolutely a person of interest for him; Phoenix is too busy trying to figure out how a real fight is even supposed to work.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Tsubasa has exams, of course. But there's one extra little thing they take care of every night --
Mementos.
When they first entered, they could barely take a step, though granted they had just gone through a terrible trial. Determined not to be beaten so easily -- and motivated by the avarice of looting chests -- they've returned here every night they can, to take on a few battles in the shallowest parts of Mementos.
They're not about to explore real deep into it alone -- they know the Boss would kill them. But Akechi said they'd get more used to being in places like this the more they practiced, and so...
"Hrrraaaahhh!!"
Phoenix swings a mighty blade larger than they are, one step thudding solidly forward as they drag, heft, and hoist; like a guillotine, it comes down on Mandrake, who shrieks as they perish.
Clad in a feathered cape and hood fashioned much like their namesake, with a dark grey hat like a witch's mask across their eyes, Phoenix otherwise bears the garb of a ninja -- dark grey robes, coupled with white bandages bracing their ankles, wrists, and belly. Their gloves are as orange as their hood, their tabi only slightly more muted.
The perfect mixture between unseen and screaming.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
Unlike their more salient efforts, he doesn't wear the familiar nin-shozoku at all. Ryouhara Shiryuu is a practice in urban fashion meeting traditionalism, a subdued disaster of wool, cotton and silk adding up to a voluminous outfit that the young man all but swims in as he traverses the tracks and veins of the neverending subway. Pants, a dense zip-up cotton turtleneck, his hands hidden by the drape of his grey haori's sleeves at his sides, the hike of a small bag hung at his right shoulder, suspending a red lengthy bag across its width.
His shoes are not as colorful -- dark black Converse sneakers. Though the calves of his pants are gathered and bound above the ankle with carefully buckled straps in the single concession to mobility, his footwears is hardly tabi. But his steps make no sound all the same, and he travels in silence.
A -thing- seeps out of his shadow to tear his mind from his body. Dark eyes lower to his side.
It never hears his knife coming.
The young man keeps moving -- it's not his intention to attract more attention than is needed, and his appearance could easily be lost amidst the approach of the devil things in the dark. Truthfully -- it doesn't actually seem like he moves once he's in view, right up until a single hand lifts, adorned with a few ornamental rings, to stick a pinky finger in his ear and grimace, wiggling it around in the aftermath of the Mandrake's shriek. He is only faintly annoyed when this finger comes away bloody.
"A remarkable beheading blade," Shiryuu observes mildly in the wake of that kill, "used at full commitment, with nothing held back. Hmm. I've been 'gathering names' for my list .. this isn't my favorite path. It accumulates too much kegare level for my tastes."
The contractor blinks once. His hands are still not visible.
"...even so."
"It's good to see my intel wasn't wrong. An exception of fighting talent... the people who can make it here alone are the people that need to be on my list the most."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Phoenix's ears are obscured by that hood. Are they bleeding? God, they feel like they SHOULD be.
"Loud fuckin' --" they start,
which is about when they turn,
and realise they're not alone in Mementos.
"FUCK SHIT WHERE YOU COME FROM," is what Phoenix yelps, hopping back, and the way that blade drags on the ground after them as if a grumpy dog who has decided he will not be going on walkies today is almost comical.
And then, clearly suspicious -- "What fuckin' list, man?!"
And then, more quietly -- "... huh. Wai' sec. That like, ain't how folks do it?"
As if it hadn't even occurred to Phoenix that they needed a party to brave Mementos.
At length, Phoenix looks Shiryuu over... and gets to the shoes. The glint of blue eyes lingers, there, for a moment.
"Sweet kicks."
Not a youth gangster in the world would fail to appreciate a good pair of Converse.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
He doesn't explain what the list is.
His dark-as-black eyes lift at the young Phoenix's explosive response, chin rising in a deeply metered response to the attack. Small details, like the weight of that sword and the very real way it drags along the ground are noted. It's got to be because of the space, right? No way that could be... real.
But that also means...
"....yeah," Shiryuu replies, just shy of comically subdued by the yanki's animated bombast. Yeah, you're supposed to have a group. Despite looking a little chagrined, he seems to at least had been expecting that much. A furred mino-wearing enigma in a crime of a shozoku. And intel was correct. It -is- a crime.
"...well, at least you've got the skill."
Their comment about his shoes earns them a small, luxuriant smile.
"The latest in collaboration drops," he says, as if it explained everything. "Don't scuff them." What? "...anyway..."
The young man doesn't even change tones of voice.
"....I'm going to hurt you, now," he explains. "Don't take it personally."
He takes one step.
And in the next, he is in midair, arms winging behind him. He crosses an unreal amount of space in a single jump, fast like the crack of a slung bullet, threatening to be inside of the demi-shinobi's guard in an instant. The drape of his sleeve cuts hard against his wrist as he snaps one arm forward. The light struggles to play off of the matte surface of -- something. A knife? Is it a knife?
It's a kunai, a spade-shaped throwing knife, with a matte-ground surface to make its shape less detectable. The point of it is going to get buried in the kid's collarline, unless they haul ass -- and fast.
He's not wasting any time with further pleasantries.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"What'd mean, at least? What's ya deal?" Phoenix continues their barrage of suspicion, eyes narrowing behind their mask.
And yeah, they're nice shoes. But --
"What the fuck?"
Man, you'd think someone dressed like this would get it.
"WHAT THE FUCK,"
Man, they don't get it!!
At least that second what the fuck underpins Shiryuu's skill: it comes as he comes, leaping like some kind of elegant bird through the air, and like, one of those fast birds, like a falcon or some shit. That's about the measure of Tsubasa's thoughts before they do, indeed, haul ass --
-- but not away from Shiryuu's soaring form.
"Get fucked!" Phoenix roars, as they leap into the blow, that kunai burying in their fathers as they plant first one foot and then another. Knees bend, and launch, and at the same time that sword's hefted UP. Their whole body swings in an arc as they meet their fellow(?) ninja(?!) in full force -- and fully aiming to do it blade first.
And what he might notice, in this bull-headed charge straight forward to their foe, is the way Phoenix is all force and no finesse. They're certainly strong -- almost certainly naturally strong -- but they don't even think to summon their Persona to absorb the blow.
They can't have been doing this longer than a week.
AS: Weapon! Tsubasa Seki has used the Slash skill Greatsword Assault on Shiryuu Ryouhara! 2 Hits!
AS: Aggression: Tsubasa Seki gains 1 Limit!
AS: Tsubasa Seki regains 5 HP from Regenerate!
AS: Tsubasa Seki's turn has ended.
AS: Avoid Neutral! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 45 Slash damage from Tsubasa Seki's Greatsword Assault. Critical Hit!
AS: Avoid Best! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 23 Slash damage from Tsubasa Seki's Greatsword Assault.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
"!"
The rain shroud isn't furred, on closer inspection, as his knife pierces through layers. Feathers ... His wrist shifts, twisting the knife, but finds no flesh, as his momentum is checked by the surge of the Phoenix's approach. That massive blade is something to be respected -- the young man releases the kunai, leaving it hopelessly bound in layers of dark feathers as his momentum bleeds off, checked first at the effort of his arm thrust, and then his aerial tumble.
A flash of grey silk and silver hair as the onmitsu rolls, dropping his shoulder and turning into what would be an axle spin-- and there is a -shuddering- impact as he catches the glancing weight of that blade on the edge of the long red bag slung across his pack. The impact is infuriatingly off-center, but the momentum itself is enough to flip the shinobi end-over-end as it impacts, leaving a red ribbon of cloth in the air. A harsh, hard twist as the massive horse-cutting blade swipes beneath him, and the onmitsu is, for one vertiginous moment, mid-air and upside down.
Hands move fast, a black lacquered length of wood in his hands, terminating in one set of blades, while a whole set of knives are gripped in his opposite hand. Legs pump quickly, widening and forcing him into a slow spin as he thrusts the sheathed sword towards the junior delinquent, closes his eyes -- and clicks the katana from its sheath.
The response is immediate, a massive blast of arcing wind and a harsh black halo of crawling blotches cackling and twisting around the onmitsu as he goes, checking what would have been a catastrophic landing with a vaccuum splitting the two. Knives are thrown in a piraling array into that vaccuum, as he shoots the saya from his sword straight up, righting himself so that he lands -- hard -- skidding against the ground on his sneakers.
The kunai fly at their target, a wave of four arcing blades, thrown in a linear packet. At least, until a massive, ghostly hand catches the onmitsu's saya. The vaccuum bloats and explodes with the pierce straight down of a massive, eight-foot long ghostly staff, as black as the wood of that sheath, only now over three times as long, and held by a massive priest made of wind and metal.
The wind twists around them, and sends -- knocks -- the knives end-over-end, the array spinning at hard right slicing angles towards Phoenix, as if thrown by four seperate men from four different directions.
AS: Tandem! Shiryuu Ryouhara has used the Slash skill Magatama Cipher on Tsubasa Seki!
AS: Aggression: Shiryuu Ryouhara gains 1 Limit!
AS: Shiryuu Ryouhara's turn has ended.
AS: Counter Neutral! Tsubasa Seki takes 61 Slash damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Magatama Cipher.
AS: COUNTER! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 41 Slash damage in return for his attack!
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Whafuck," is Phoenix's exclamation at seeing Shiryuu upside down and still going, moderately truncated from the original statement because they also have to land.
Like, look.
He's trying to kill them, probably, they get that.
But it's JUST SO COOL THOUGH --
Anyway, the ground. Hello, ground. Meet Phoenix, who somehow lands on their feet. Meet Phoenix's sword, which collides with the earth in a far more thunderous crash. Cool? We're all friends?
"Fuck," Phoenix exclaims, tugging at their sword, because it became too acquainted with the ground and is presently buried two inches in the concrete. Yank, YANK --
"Fuck!"
-- that's them noticing the knives.
And while they manage to abandon their sword long enough to duck behind it and avoid the linear toss -- thanks, sword which is about the size of a broad side of a barn! -- they think they're home free too quickly: that Persona they were just gawking at before they remembered the ground existed is, like, right there. And then the knives are right there -- and right there -- and over there;
and right in front of them.
Ducking to avoid that one puts them in the direct threat range of two more; the only thing which saves them is the way they duck down to grasp their sword, because swinging it around to free it at least makes them a moving target for the knives to graze instead of bury inside. And that would be all well and good -- except there were FOUR knives; and where is the last?
Why, the last kunai is presently lodged in Phoenix's thigh, having mercifully not hit the artery but still presenting a terribly painful experience when they slam their weight down on that foot to carve through the assault with another diagonal strike.
"Shit!" Phoenix swears, sagging down as their blade slams into the ground again. They straighten up, one hand lifting from their blade's hilt to grasp their mask. "Right, these things..."
"IZBUSHKA NA KUR'IH NOZHKAH!"
That's a very long name. It might even distract from the way they tear their mask from their face, blood spouting in an almost cartoonish spray which obscures their face for the moments of its summoning.
It belongs to a very large Persona, as from nowhere a chicken's leg kicks into existence and the rest of the hut soon follows; a veritable house, though it is at least smaller than the real thing, merely dwarfing Tsubasa instead of not fitting on the battlefield at all. It wears a skirt made of spines and skulls, with thatch-roof and wooden walls, standing on massive chicken's legs the size of a man; a shadowy figure hides within, seen through shuttered windows as those shutters flap at either side of it like itty-bitty chicken's wings.
Fire sparks from the eyes of those skulls, lighting Phoenix's greatsword aflame -- and Shiryuu may note an instinctual flinch, before they whirl, once, twice, three times, and swing their sword horizontally into this boy with the world's sickest moves.
Izbushka na Kur'ih Nozhkah fades before Tsubasa's stopped spinning -- and when they do, they swear, with horribly honest pain: "Ahhh, fuck, my leg!"
It's just one little kunai, dude. It could be so much worse.
AS: Tandem! Tsubasa Seki has used the Fire skill Firebrand on Shiryuu Ryouhara! 2 Hits!
AS: Tsubasa Seki regains 5 HP from Regenerate!
AS: Tsubasa Seki's turn has ended.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
It gives him a second to take stock and stretch his shoulder from that earlier smash. Even an incidental strike from the sword is going to make sure he's sore for the next week. Standing in the shadow of his own Persona, the young man's clothes are buffetted by the wind, the drape of his silks rippling and snapping in the airstream. His sword is lowered at his hip for now, a katana with a midnight black blade. He stares forward evenly as his target dodges behind their sword. Though it wasn't in time to reflect every one of his kunai, the blade is more than broad enough to take the fight out of the wind cutting.
"Mmm," Shiryuu vocalizes quietly, brushing windblown hair out of his face with his free hand while he reflects on the matter. "The zanbatou is starting to be a problem..."
Ah. His muted expression widens just a bit as the Phoenix proves that -everything- they do is loud. It's at that point that the tough explodes into a rocketing fountain of facial blood and what he can only determine to be the world's longest foreign curse word as the rogue's psyche rips threads loose with an entire brick shithouse of a Persona as the entire station is filled with equal parts chicken and architecture. Even Sarutahiko Okami, who is partially mechanical and wearing a lower facemask, seems grimly against the chain of arguably poor decisions that have produced this exact scenario. Shiryuu makes a face as a whole entire tower of fire is built onto that sword from skirt-mounted skull optic torches. He makes such a face. It's not a pleased expression.
"... that's ... awfully metal. But not at all ideal.."
He only has a second to notice the little flinch, as he currently has a lot of other problems to attend to. The onmitsu is forced to give a -head shake- to one side as the Phoenix whirls into a giant swing of a blade. Luckily, the opposing Persona has vanished into thin air -- Sarutahiko still lingers momentarily, and the gesture allows the priest to throw the staff straight up, going from holding the massive octagonal length of metal by the neck to by the end, the rings about the flutes rattling in the wind as he swings, to -smash- into and parry that sword swing, 'an eight foot length of slender steel' being one of the only things conceptually capable of doing so. The kanushi's robes char against the flare of flame, forcing him to change his grip on the staff to a two-handed grip, sending a whirlwind of air through and around the onmitsu. The heat bales off of the onmitsu's mantle, threatening to char him all the same, a truck of heat cut in twain by a sheer wall of wind.
"...alright. That's enough of that."
It takes just one overhand swing of that black bladed katana. Like a huge brush, the blade spreads a -vast- flow of fluttering, chaotic ink from its edge, somewhere between liquid and the black of feathers, carried by a wave of chattering resonance away from the onmitsu. It blots out and throws a blanket over supralunary senses, and spreads like nothing else. The malevolent glow and distant laughter of demons is eclipsed immediately by rolling waves of crawling black, sound muffled and stabbed to death in the night by a hundred hands and blue eyes. It doesn't -- exactly -- interfere with seeing, doesn't exactly interfere with the five senses as one would strictly understand them. But everything is subject to that eerie silencing effect, and click by click, the volume on everything
.... slowly..
... turns ...
... down.
The wind itself shifts, feathers turning to black petals falling as a shroud. It obscures the onmitsu's grey outline for just an instant. Just a moment.
A moment is enough for Shiryuu to slip through and cut the Phoenix from hip to shoulder.
AS: Mind Up! Tsubasa Seki's SP +8!
AS: Block Worst! Tsubasa Seki takes 64 Slash damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Bankasoujin.
AS: Haze and Paralyze added!
AS: You have 1 more attack in queue!
AS: Block Best! Tsubasa Seki takes 91 Slash damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Yozakura Revival.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"HELL YEAH I'M A PROBLEM!" Phoenix yells, half enthusiastically and half enraged. But when they slam up against that staff, it's, like --
"Whoa."
Tsubasa has never, like, attacked someone only to hit their PERSONA. "I can do that?" They ask the priest, looking from sword to staff to Persona and back again. "Wait. Can I do that???"
DUDE! Talk about metal!!!
But then, like -- that boy decides he's had enough, and swings his blade, and, "Holy shit did that sword just cut the light out of the room what the fuck that's so cool," Phoenix, please, for the love of god, focus, he's going to kill you.
Unfortunately, focusing is kind of hard when that sword apparently not only cut the light out of the room but ALSO THE SOUND?! "Don't laugh at me, you fuckin' creep!" Phoenix yells, into the black, as their head whips about in an attempt to figure out what they're suddenly not seeing.
Like, they're not hearing the laughter any more? That's -- probably not actually good is it.
"Uhhhhh -- hey, Persona!!" Phoenix calls their chicken hut back in a hurry, eyes still burning with that blood, as Izbushka na Kur'ih Nozhkah manifests into the silence. Whether through instinct or sheer see-one-do-one pattern recognition, it's just in time for that blade to cut into the hut's leg, instead -- digging deep into that spectral flesh.
Tragically, like person, like Persona: Izbushka na Kur'ih Nozhkah offers no defence but a mighty kick with its terrible legs, before its little shutter-wings flutter with offense and it starts to stomp.
Luckily, once it's done stomping -- once, twice, three times -- it exits this world again.
"Uh," Phoenix says, a touch dumbfounded now the feeling of Shiryuu's assault has caught up to their desire to attack, attack, attack.
"Is it, like, normal that I felt that even though it didn't stab me?"
Phoenix don't know 'bout how Persona-blocking still drains your exhaustion.
AS: Tsubasa Seki spends Limit on Exploit! Tsubasa Seki can use another Weak skill this round!
AS: Persona! Tsubasa Seki has used the Strike skill Kill Rush on Shiryuu Ryouhara! 3 Hits!
AS: You still have 0 regular actions and 1 bonus Weak actions!
AS: Persona! Tsubasa Seki has used the Strike skill Feral Kick on Shiryuu Ryouhara!
AS: Tsubasa Seki regains 5 HP from Regenerate!
AS: Tsubasa Seki's turn has ended.
AS: Avoid Worst! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 53 Strike damage from Tsubasa Seki's Kill Rush.
AS: Avoid Best! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 37 Strike damage from Tsubasa Seki's Kill Rush. Critical Hit!
AS: Avoid Worst! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 53 Strike damage from Tsubasa Seki's Kill Rush.
AS: Counter Worst! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 62 Strike damage from Tsubasa Seki's Feral Kick.
AS: COUNTER! Tsubasa Seki takes 16 Strike damage in return for their attack! Resist!
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
The onmitsu stares at the Phoenix, for a long time.
He points, a fingertip appearing from the sleeve at his hip.
"You... don't do this much, do you?"
The raw edges of the air seethe black at the periphery. The artifacting -- chains of geometric blotches of Stygian black -- bubbles incessantly at the unmoored air, like the edges of a book page curl when first put to the fire. That sword's wave is awfully good at muffling out the idea of perception without actually directly blinding anyone -- the crows that snicker at the Phoenix are not at all intimidated by raging, and so the edges of nothing chatter curiously in the margins, unseeable corvids taking up an annoying amount of mental bandwidth where noticed, and where not, the 'world of black' takes precidence in every direction.
But his.
He has a second to look up, as the house fills the air again, this time almost on top of him. Sarutahiko is out of position for such a swift reprisal, and the exchange is far too fast to really consider any of the other options. Sword lifts -- as the man drops to a knee, rolling to one side as his blade's spine lays across his shoulder. He twists, shifting out of alignment of one kick, the wind carting him in one direction, the bubbling black in the next. It's exhausting, the little birdhouse in Phoenix's soul is -clearly- on a mission to establish dominance as the only avian based concept in the room. A veriable circus of chicken dancing stampedes proper before Shiryuu is caught up in it, catching a stray and getting spiked into the ground not once, but twice, before trying to check the Persona's stance with a hilt blow from his sword.
Yeah.. it doesn't really help.
His blue eye opens, shining.
And then Shiryuu simply disappears from the spot in a muted whirl of wind, as if simply stomped into a vapor.
It takes a second, but the sound ripples through, watery and muffled as if from the bottom of a lake. A series of rattling pops and plonks accompany the sound of hemp tightening as his Persona surges into view again, laying down a line of planks in mid-air, suspended between a network of truly ancient ropes, a long bridge being drawn across the station nearer the ceiling and stretched taut as the ropes -- and Persona -- disappears into the black. The only trick is, the bridge is almost exactly upside down.
That.. doesn't seem to affect Shiryuu, though.
A long, slow sigh, as ancient aches long since thought to have been banished to previous exertions past rouse and awaken, causing every bone in his body to creak with age. "Ugh..." The shinobi is now standing at just around 160 degrees in orientation to the floor, on the bridge canted at an odd angle. There is no indication of how he got up there so fast, nor how he doesn't fall, despite being almost entirely upside down. One shining blue eye looks up across the station, and at the Phoenix. His eyes definitely were the same color before. They're regarded with a long-suffering look, the young man simply not feeling any need to cross the space again to kill Phoenix.
"Like I said... kegare," Shiryuu replies, as if it explained everything.
He thumbs a bit of blood off his cheek. It's not clear where it came from, but the young man has the black length of lacquered wood again in his hand. The muffled sound at the edges doesn't seem to affect his voice in the slightest, nor the sound of steel on wood. Shiryuu slowly brings the katana together with the mouth of the saya, easing the steel into the sheath with a slow deliberate motion.
"Yeah... you're a pretty aggressive kid," he thinks. "And there's no point in being covered with blood from both of us tonight."
As the blade clicks back into the sheath, the angry edges of space begin to soften, the sounds of distant trains again beginning to trickle into being, the sound of crows fading. It's worth noting that despite being almost upside down, the onmitsu's clothing does not seem to have gotten the memo, his haori sleeves still hanging down at his hips, as with his sheathed sword. There's no point in trying to put the bag back on -- it's been cleaved open, so he's going to need to replace that. Another minor annoyance.
"Listen," the young man says. "My name is Ryouhara. I'll come after you later... I'm gonna have some things I need you to do. When I ask, I'm not going to expect a whole lot of backtalk. If you do them, we're good. If you don't, that weird, cool heavy metal album cover of a Persona's not gonna save you. ...yeah."
The young man looks off to the side. He's probably going to leave.
"...just don't make me slap you, alright?"
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Hey, I only got these digs a couple weeks back!" Phoenix shoots back, defensively. "Lay off, man, I bet you ain't thrown knives four ways to Sunday this quick neither!"
Phoenix, by and large, is a fan of birds; what offends them is that these birds think they're a joke. They're not a joke! Look how big their Persona is, man!!!
But then they like -- stomp the guy into nothing and they're like -- "Oh shit, dude, you cool? You cool, dude?!" -- with a note of actual distress, like they hadn't actually considered that their chicken hut might actually kick someone to death.
It's like, magic, right?! People don't die to magic?! Right?!
The sound sinks through water, and Phoenix turns, trying to figure out just what they're even hearing. They don't know what rope sounds like -- Ichika's never managed to actually drag them out camping -- so it takes them a good handful of minutes, their confusion palpable. "A fuckin' bridge, but... wai' sec --"
They look down, and then back up at the bridge, and -- nope, they're standing on the ground and he's standing on the ground and, "What the fuck?!" When they look back up again, there Shiryuu is, distinctly not dead but also super upside down. "Look, respect an' all, but quit violatin' the rules of gravity, that's weird as shit!"
Their eyes are blue, too.
But when Shiryuu sheathes his blade, at least, the train station starts making more sense. Phoenix takes a step back, unnerved behind their mask. They like for reality to be like reality is supposed to be and not whatever the fuck that was, thank you.
"... call me Phoenix," they introduce themself, cautiously. "But what the fuck, man?! You can't just barge in here, try an' fillet me, then demand I do shit for you! Not how it works, dude! Why shouldn't I jus' grab my friends an' fuck you up real good?"
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
There is a low level of amusement with the way the Phoenix is talking to the ground, but Shiryuu doesn't have a lot of space to appreciate it -- the onmitsu contractor rubs at his shoulder absently while the X stares about, searching for a handle on the moment. A kink is worked out of his neck. Yeah. That shit hurts, so Shiryuu is quite happy to let them have the space to get their shit together. Of course, the time for that passes, and his hand slowly drops back to his hip. Fingertips spread slowly as his heel raises. He looks up -- down, from that rogue's perspective -- but his expression is flat as he gets yelled at. Slowly, the light dims in the silver haired man's 'eye,' the shining blue fading to a brown as dark as black.
'You can't just ... demand I do shit for you!' "Yeah... I can."
Ryouhara's look is sharp as his sword, his lips set in a thin, subdued and wan line. "Look ... as loud as it is, you're wearing shinobi shozoku," he finally points out. "A shinobi is someone who takes on the ignoble burdens of others to protect them, and their way of life. That means having the strength of willpower to stand on your own, even if the task is dangerous, or unseemly."
Absently, his index finger traces an unseen line in the air. Space, and pressure bucks hard at the mild caress. A powerful beat fills the earth, before a conceptual rhythm fills the station. Powerful, fast, sharp-ended with a bassline that would be shaking the rafters if the volume were just a little higher. Is it music? It's really hard to put a finger on exactly what's happening, but listening to it for too long will inflame even an artist's blood, and set their pulse to pounding. It takes only a few moments, but the man seems to relax coolly into that supernatural rhythm. Powerful, intense, it's a relentless beat, with sharp, long plateaus that _insist._
_I said..._
"so...if you invite your friends to fight me, you're just gonna find out what it's like to get your friends hurt."
That's all, really. Matter of factly, Shiryuu doesn't seem to find a point in saying anything else. Instead, he's turning away from the Phoenix and walking away with no particular haste along the rungs of that bridge. Where does it even go?
AS: Persona! Shiryuu Ryouhara has used the Recovery skill Track 3: Lock TF In on Tsubasa Seki!
AS: Shiryuu Ryouhara's turn has ended.
AS: Mind Up! Tsubasa Seki's SP +8!
AS: Take! Tsubasa Seki takes 0 Recovery healing from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Track 3: Lock TF In.
AS: Atk_Up, Rage, and Regen added!
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Phoenix looks down at their sweet digs, when Ryouhara points them out. "W--why should I believe you're tryin' to protect anyone I care about?!" They snap, because of course they can't argue with the rest of it.
Even if they've only ever seen it in cartoons, there's a reason they like them.
But there's something neighbour to a beat, running through their bones and their blood. Their finger taps an unknown rhythm, against the hilt of their blade.
"I... but, you..." Phoenix starts, pulled one way by the sway of the music and another by their own suspicion.
But by the time they collect their feelings, he's already far away.
"Rrrrrrraaaaaaaagh--!!"
All wound up with nowhere to go, Phoenix lays into a curious Pixie who snuck up to see what all the fuss was about, laying her low in a single weighty strike.
By the time they're able to get a grip on themself through the flow of the music, they've already gone to the point of exhaustion... and poor Auntie Taeyun has to help them inside when she sees them limping back home from the closest bus stop.
Luckily, they thought ahead enough to set multiple alarms, so they won't sleep through tomorrow's exams... but they sure will have to rush through the morning.