2025-12-10: No More Shoulds
- Log: No More Shoulds
- Cast: Umie Akabane, Kurou Ryouhara
- Where: Seven Sisters High School, Rengedai Ward, Sumaru City
- OOC Date: December 10, 2025
- IC Date: August 23, 2012
- Summary: While investigating Maria Sakurai, Umie senses someone following her around. Staging a confrontation in the clock tower, Umie is surprised by a shell-shocked Kurou, who comes bearing unfortunate news. As the two process what happened, they share a quiet moment and bond over a promise for the immediate future.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
First day Umie tried to investigate Maria Sakurai, it was a bust. The lead of 'a person who claims to have bad luck since a certain event happened, while also being in their time of Joka' shouldn't be a lead at all, it's a coincidence.
So is having repeating dreams about death. So is the details of a life of someone who just may have had a breakup with someone during a dark time in the life. So are subway accidents where you were the one who was the most injured. These are all things that can happen to someone, and, while any one of them would be terrible events in different ways, they are all, in comparison to everything else, normal things that happen to normal people.
There's things like Palaces, and Mementos, and the Dark Hour, and the Joker Killer out there. Why is Umie spending her time on this? Can she really go this far on intuition alone?
It doesn't help that she has a sensation of being followed; it doesn't feel like one of the faculty or a student, either. And speaking of that...
Adjusting her jacket's collar, Umie ducks out of sight from a suspicious teacher. The skirt and socks she wears would be mistakable for the uniform except at a second glance, after all, while the jacket did the job of masking her blouse and any insignia that Umie'd have more trouble trying to imitate.
Two years removed, and she's already a stranger in these hallways due to her dyed hair and clothing. However, the building's layout is much the same, as is the clocktower, which come open to her with some quick lockpicking. (A lock is simply a barrier with a cheat called a key.)
No student would follow her up here, and teachers wouldn't be scouting around here either.
Up the stairs Umie goes, her wristcuffs catching on the flaking paint of the stairwell. Her steps are quiet, owing to those nice sneakers a certain someone bought for her. The door to the clockhouse proper opens with equally as much care, Umie walking in to look over the large gears.
".... You can come out now."
<Pose Tracker> Kurou Ryouhara has posed.
Time continues to tick.
The gears continue to turn.
Their giant teeth rotate in perpetuity, empty of occupants, until one passes behind the shaft their gear spins on. Then he is there, as Umie calls him out: Kurou Ryouhara, arriving silently as the rays of light gleaming through the stained glass, carried to the walkway to step off and onto it.
In his hands, he clutches a burnt chunk of rubble. In its charcoal state, it's hard to tell precisely what material it once was. The soot smears against Kurou's fingers where his arm warmers don't cover his skin, and more yet streaks his cheek. Black gets into the cuticles of chipped blue. White roots are showing in the colored streaks of his hair.
In the event that I am not successful in killing that man...
Kurou is otherwise himself with the same stoic gaze as before... at least for a moment, until it is drawn back down to fixate on the detritus in his grasp.
"Akabane-san," he says, as if voice could connect where his eyes don't find the strength to lift. What does it mean to 'protect' someone, truly? There is no way to truly hide from danger in this world. Palaces. Mementos. The Dark Hour. Once one is Awakened, it cannot be escaped.
And even he was trapped before he ever woke up.
He finally did, though: the conviction to truly see. The conviction to not hide, or run away.
"... You're investigating something. I will assist you."
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
Time continues to move ever onward, an incessant stream forever chasing the future. Every year, her days of high school become less and less relevant, while her future becomes less and less uncertain. Even the Dark Hour may end one day, if Myunghon's proclamations come true. Who is Umie Akabane, without the Dark Hour to depend on as a means of escape? But even there... she'd still be trapped, in another way.
Someone does show up when Umie calls them out; that much, Umie was expecting. However, with her eyes focused on the door, she only thinks to look to the side a brief moment later.
Out of everyone Umie was expecting, Kurou wasn't one of them, but, on the other hand, it makes perfect sense.
Umie's body goes rigid, half expecting Kurou to attack on sight until she spots the object in his partially soot-stained hands. She looks from it to Kurou's face, then back for several more second, before finally taking in the whole of Kurou as she takes a step back, as if it would net her more information.
"...."
There's soot everywhere on him. It's like he's been clawing at something, judging by the state of his nail polish. (His hair is showing white roots. She'll have to file that information away for later.)
Soot.
From a fire?
Something in Umie's gut twists. No, no, don't jump to conclusions, she thinks. Keep calm.
Umie sighs, shaking her head as Kurou offers. At least she's beginning to relax (or is trying to force herself to). "No, it's fine. Honestly, if I stay around any longer people are going to start asking questions."
She takes a step forward. "I'm more curious as to why you followed me, and what you're holding." Flashing a half-grin, she folds her arms. "Frankly, you look like hell."
<Pose Tracker> Kurou Ryouhara has posed.
Kurou's gold eyes stay on the debris. He's been staring at it for too long. Even he knows that. What he doesn't know is why he took it, or what to do with it. But every time he thinks of setting it down, everything tangles up into a cold, nauseated knot. As long as he holds onto it, his hands will not tremble.
There is a task to do. There is a role to perform.
He should be looking at Umie, and taking her in and gathering information the same way she does him. Just another few seconds, he keeps telling himself. The clocktower gears keep turning.
He wishes they would stop so he could collect his thoughts.
"They do not have to see us," Kurou counter offers. "I only need to know what you are seeking, not what it is for." Context would help, but Kurou is no stranger to gathering information without it. That was how it was before Shiryuu.
Kurou remains still and fixated, barely moving, even as Umie enters his space. Like a scolded child, he finally pries his gaze up at her and gently shifts his fingers to the edges of his strange keepsake, letting he look at it. There is no detail hidden in the burnt edges or soot that might mark is as special or worth carrying around compared to any other piece of rubble.
"I am not there yet," he says of hell. Now he's finally looking at her, observing her, trying to read her in a way that is quite impossible for someone like him to actually pull off as he tries to think of an answer. Even lacking social grace, Kurou still grasps social subtlety. But right now, it slips through his soot stained fingers.
"The Joker Killer is a threat to you, isn't he?"
That's why...
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
"... I'm seeking information on someone here. Maria Sakurai." This could be a bad idea, giving a name to someone who is just as likely, for all Umie knows, to hurt that someone than help them. However, Kurou's skills could be useful. "They've had a bad time of things, since April." She makes an attempt at nonchalance, rolling her shoulders in a shrug. "I just want to make sure it's nothing supernatural, is all."
That isn't all of it, and the other reason becomes abundantly clear as Kurou's eyes refuse to turn away from that piece of debris in his hands. The way he stares at it, looking so lost, hits Umie in a spot she cannot defend herself from, as sure as any knife.
Umie *hates* seeing people like this. And so, like the day she forced Kurou to take a new umbrella so he wouldn't be standing in the rain, the cycle is beginning anew:
The more Umie looks at Kurou, the more it bothers her.
The more it bothers her, the more irritated she feels.
And the more irritated, the more willing Umie is to ignore the situation completely in favor of whatever the hell she wishes to do, at that moment.
Umie grimaces, taking out a small package of tissues from her purse. "Hold still." She crosses the rest of the distance, with a clean kleenex in hand. If Kurou doesn't move back, she'll start wiping the soot off his face as best she can with no water. She'll try to be gentle at least, not wanting the experience to feel like an awkward cat trying to bath Kurou's face, but her manner isn't full of warmth and tenderness either.
In fact, it would be better to *hand* the kleenex to someone whose face is covered in soot, but, Umie reasons (_as she is doing the action she is reasoning for_) Kurou's hands are full as it is.
And now, whether it's because he's finally turning his attention to her, or he's being forced to because of Umie trying to clean his face, Kurou has turned his attention to her.
"More like I'll be a threat to *him* after all the shit he's put me through with that video of his," she mumbles. "... You still haven't answered my questions, you know."
<Pose Tracker> Kurou Ryouhara has posed.
"... Maria Sakurai," Kurou repeats softly. There is always a subdued manner to the boy. He is soft spoken and acclimated to shadow, rarely wanting to come out of it, and revealing so little of an inner world, one could not be blamed for wondering if he even has one. But the gift of given a new focus must have landed in the way his attention holds on Umie as she offers more scraps of information. A breath Kurou was holding finally leaves enough for his shoulders to drop by a fraction.
Sevens student, most likely. April. Possibly supernatural. Possibly not. Think on what is. What is around him. What is actionable. And... protect Umie Akabane. If she seeks danger, then he must follow her into it.
Though oblivious to Umie's own turmoil sparked by his own, Kurou's obedience comes too readily, even for him. He remains utterly in place as if her words physically pinned him there, without wince or blink as she rubs the soot from his face. Her instincts are right in how she's chosen to do it. Kurou wouldn't know what to do if prompted to let go of that burnt chunk. And now he's trapped looking at her.
"Oh," he says, dazed. He didn't answer. That's not weird for him... but it's weird when he didn't mean to.
"It is a piece of Harai." As he begins to explain it, his voice feels a thousand miles away from his body. But the dry tissue against his face reminds Kurou that he's right here. "It burnt down."
Does Umie know of its significance? Kurou's thoughts have not gone that far.
"... The Joker Killer... You should not face him alone. You should not face him at all. But if you do... I need to be there. So I followed you."
Run on sight... unless it's Umie Akabane.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
"If you want to investigate for me, I won't stop you, but she's a normal high schooler. No Persona, as far as I know." Umie's voice is hushed, keeping just below the rhythmic turning of the gears. "She doesn't know I'm investigating her, and I'd like to keep it that way. The supernatural has its way of injecting itself into things."
(... says the person who started talking about Personas in all but name because she mistook what Jun said to mean something else completely just yesterday.)
There's some irony in how Shiryuu did something similar in Umie's apartment, when Umie's clothing as not properly aligned to his qualifications. Here, Kurou's behavior keeps feeding into that growing pit at the bottom of Umie's stomach.
Umie's eyes keep on Kurou's face, her expression intense with concentration, seeing without seeing, as the gears tick by in the background. "... There," she huffs, eyes half-lidded, clutching the now blackened tissues in her right hand. "Now, tell me a little more about what's going on."
Harai. The name doesn't carry any recognition outside of the recent news, but Kurou's expression speaks further on the matter than his words. ".... So the news said."
Her fingers tighten around the sooty balled up tissues. "I'm not intending on facing him alone willingly. He nearly killed me when we first met."
She draws in air through her nose; there's something comforting in the old metal smell.
"Your boss went after him by himself, didn't he." The corner of her lip twitches; her eyes narrow. "You were trying to find him, weren't you."
".... And that's why you're standing in front of me right now, with a piece of rubble in your hands." She swallows. "Is that a fair statement to make?"
<Pose Tracker> Kurou Ryouhara has posed.
"I understand," Kurou tells Umie, matching her volume, and matching the rhythm of the clocktower. "It is a legitimate suspicion. I will submit any evidence of supernatural interference to you."
That may well be an understatement in these times. Kurou knows well how the supernatural can suddenly take over a life, and he suspects Umie knows it much the same.
He does not ask Umie's reasoning. He does not need to know it.
He does not have the energy to pry if he did.
But Umie's eyes are locked on his now, intense where his own intensity has dulled in a lost emptiness. It has been a while since he felt this way. Will it return? It must. That was the order. That is how his debt will be repaid. It could return easier, he thinks, if the gears would stop and let him have a moment.
"That is why I should be there," Kurou says, like that explains everything. Like it explains everything.
But Umie was someone who gathered information for Shiryuu, too. She knows how to put it together, even when continuity of thought sifts through Kurou's mind.
"He did," he admits, quieter still, barely audible above the constant, steady turning of the gears, and the flow of time with them. "I was." Kurou's gaze escapes them both, looking into a distance that's too far away for him to see into. There are some places even a shinobi cannot walk.
"It is... a fair statement, Akabane-san." His eyes dip back down to the rubble, and his grip squeezes enough that his nails print softened crescents into the weakened fragment. Wood then, maybe, if it mattered what it was.
"... I did not find him."
He did not need to confirm it, he realizes. He regrets how the words feel vibrating in his skull.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
And like that, Kurou just... decides to do it? No questions? Not even a 'this is secondary to my mission' or a similar statement?
Umie has to fight to keep the bewilderment off her face. "Yes, uh, please... do." She clears her throat. "You could, uh..." She shifts to one foot, attempting once again to get a sense of Kurou's age. It's definitely younger than her, or Shiryuu, but by how much? "You're... a high school student, right? Maybe you'll have an easier time." Did she just set something into motion that will lead to disaster? She did, didn't she? (Oh well.)
Cleaning Kurou's face, like any task Umie sets her mind to, clears her own mind as well. There is a task in front of her, and Umie must see to it. It's that simple.
There is someone in front of her that looks lost. She has to see to it that they're helped.
'That is why I should be there,' says Kurou. "At Harai?" Umie asks.
Did Kurou come all this way just to tell her?
.... That Shiryuu is dead, or, at best, missing.
She doesn't even know this person's name. He *invaded* her apartment two times in a row, and *kidnapped* her to... go get new shoes. And then, to eat. Who does that, for someone else, when she was being a pain to him all the way there and back?
"I told him," Umie hisses, her head dipping low. "It took several Persona Users to get that asshole off me when he came after me." And not just any random do-gooders, but the Phantom Thieves, who Umie now knows hold an advantage due to how tightly woven their team is.
She swallows again, and opens her mouth to speak, only to close her lips tight and swallow again. Tears are nasty things, really. She can try to hold them back, and they show up anyway like unwanted guests, burning away her calm.
"Why the hell did he do it? He *knows* that I'm... It's not like...." Like Kurou, the gears seem to steadily increase in volume, until there's no room left. "I told him I was going to fight him. That's what he wanted, right? So why do any of this? How could he have been so stupid?" It's like he was still a teenager, and she his senpai, if by only one year. "Stupid... Stupid stupid stupid--" She sinks to a crouch, chipped apricot colored nails threading through her hair, running against her scalp.
And now, there's two people in this room that look dazed and lost. "Stupid.... Stupid..."
"This isn't funny at all..."
<Pose Tracker> Kurou Ryouhara has posed.
Just like that. No secondary questions. No warnings of secondary priorities. Just the agreement. This is what he is doing now. Because all he was doing before was clawing through burnt rubble in a futile search. He notes the way Umie is searching him and looks back blankly, waiting for her verdict.
Oh. High school. "Second year," he affirms. "Kasugayama." Not only is he asking questions, but he's readily giving information. Would he have, before? It isn't precisely secretive, but to call it obedient when Umie is not the one Kurou should be swearing his loyalty to is not incorrect, either.
The implications are slower to sink in. "... Ah. Yes. I can... try to speak with her."
This could only ever go well. Don't even worry about it.
But for now, where he should be...
"With you," Kurou corrects. Because the Joker Killer is dangerous. Because he almost killed her. Because Umie Akabane shouldn't die. That was... what Shiryuu wanted, not as shirogarasu, but as a child of Ryouhara.
Anger hisses through Umie's voice, and Kurou curls his limbs in closer instinctively.
"I should have told him," he echoes of her sentiments. "I should have..."
...been loyal, instead of obedient, is the way that thought finishes. It fails to find his mouth. The terms are precarious and half-formed. Stupid, stupid... the word finds a rhythm in Kurou's pulse with the gears turning around them, and time's refusal to stop.
As Umie sinks down, Kurou lets himself sink down with her.
"... I do not know his reasoning. All I can do is respect his decision."
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
Kasugayama High. "Huh." Umie's eyelids lower a touch. "Seems everything keeps coming back to that school. Lots of strong-willed people there." This is definitely a normal thing to say about a school! Completely normal.
Kurou mentions the possibility of meeting Maria. Umie holds up her hands. "Oh, ah, you don't need to do that, unless you, uh, need to?" She frowns. "I'll let you use your best judgment.
She is displaying a valiant effort at being leader-ish right now.
"... With me?!" Umie's voice cracks, almost audible past the gears. She freezes, a finger to her lips, as she looks towards the door out. "..." When she's satisfied that no one is coming up to investigate, she looks back towards Kurou as he curls his limbs in.
Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.
He's spiralling, and she's spiralling, over a guy who broke into her apartment twice, and made her scared to walk the Underground Mall.
She had begun her exploration of Mementos *just so she'd have a means to evade him*. This guy, who threatened Katsuya Suou because he's a cop with a Persona. This makes no sense at all. Why did he decide to do what he did?
Kurou's words hang in her ears. 'I should have.' 'I should have.'
"We're not doing that," she says, her voice edging on a command, as scoots over towards Kurou now. "No more shoulds. If he wasn't going to listen to me, he wouldn't listen to you. He's never been that kind of person--"
A person whose name she doesn't even know. "His name." She doesn't want to decide whether it's better to say 'what *is* his name' or 'what *was* his name', so she turns to this instead. "Could you tell me? Just so I don't feel like a complete jackass."
Wait. Waaait. "His decision to... go fight that asshole on his own?" She breathes, and closes her eyes, settling her body back into a proper sitting position as she looks up at the light coming in through the window. ".... I don't need people dying for me."
"This is my fault, not yours. If I hadn't complained to him..." She sighs, rubbing her eyes against her wristcuff, then straightening it back out. "Was he the one that told you to come to me?"
<Pose Tracker> Kurou Ryouhara has posed.
"It has its own mysteries to investigate," Kurou admits with disinterest. Gathering information for its own sake, in case it might prove useful in the future, loses its luster when he can no longer see what the future is.
"Right." His best judgment... "If it becomes necessary." There are other options, first. And Umie seems frazzled by the idea.
But they're both spiraling. When Umie's voice cracks, Kurou's head only moves as much as it has to in order to watch the door, listening. The rhythm does not change to suggestion an incoming threat. He is still as the dead even as Umie moves closer. Well practiced shinobi stillness, or a lack of vivacity? Both, perhaps.
He swallows. "No more shoulds," he agrees, almost automatic, hoping saying it makes it real. That if he reaches and grasps, the cold void might start to fill and feel normal. But he knows, too, that it can't. It never does. It never has before.
"... Shiryuu Ryouhara."
It's strange to say it. Kurou never called him by name.
"No," Kurou says suddenly as Umie blames herself. "No more 'should'." She did not use the word, but the sentiment is the same to him... the thought that they could have made Shiryuu decide differently, if only they had acted differently. Shiryuu's heart was his own. He takes a deep breath -- the first audible one he's had in her presence, and very slowly lets it escape out of him.
"Our choices were stolen from us a long time ago. If he reclaimed any of it with this act, then... a part of me understands."
There are hearts his own blade seeks that would taste like freedom... a promise of blood and battle that kept him putting one foot in front of the other. He'd have thrown his life away for that, but he already gave it to someone else... someone who promised a future instead.
But Umie has a more pressing question, one Kurou is not supposed to answer. It is a secret of the highest order, and Kurou interprets this to mean from Umie herself. His gaze goes distant and he is quiet for perhaps just a little too long.
"... You are clearly important to him," is what Kurou decides to say, because 'were' is still too much.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
Finally, Umie sees Kurou show *some* kind of opinion on something: disinterest. Does this mean he was showing interest before, or just holding himself to his duty?
No more shoulds.
"Shiryuu Ryouhara." Umie repeats the name, slowly. "I'll remember it." If he has disappeared from the world for good, she'll keep it engraved in her memory regardless.
'No more 'should'.' Umie's words are reflected at her from Kurou's own mouth; her eyes regard him in astounded silence. Her lips, once a line, now curl as she leans in, a spark in her eyes. "Eeeh? Good, good. I'm beginning to see a little bit of that fire in you, too."
She doesn't move in closer, though, letting Kurou speak his own words, rather than have them be an echo, straight answer, or confirmation of Umie's own questions.
'Our choices were stolen from us a long time ago.' "Mm." She reaches out and, gently, if he doesn't move back, rubs a thumb to remove a remaining smudge of soot on Kurou's forehead. "Maybe I'm beginning to understand." Her exhale is long; her hand drops to her side as she resumes her crouch, adjusting her skirt as needed. "Mine were too. But I've fought to keep what ones I still have."
Maybe Kurou was including Umie in that 'our', but this way, she'll convey how she feels about it. "I don't get what him dying does to any of this, but there's a lot about this Ryouhara stuff I don't understand."
'You are clearly important to him.'
Her head dips; she groans. "We've only met, maybe, four times, and the first time, I was fighting him. I don't understand this at all... What the hell could he need me for, enough to do something stupid like this..."
And yet, she feels sad, and there's a taste of salt on her cheeks.
"His taste in shoes may be... decent, but his taste in... whatever all of this is... it sucks."
She stoops there, next to Kurou, with a casual bit of distance between them, letting the silence of the clocktower contribute to its own end of the conversation.
....
"Right." Breath in, and slowly, breathe out. Her hands, drapped over her knees, flex once and then clench into fists. "Then. You're under my protection now, until we know what happened to Ryouhara-kun." It feels wrong to use his first name, when he's never done the same for her. "I won't abide by this self-sacrifical crap. I'm going to assume he's alive, and that he's smarter than to die for someone who's Marked." She doesn't bother to explain, of course, letting the connotations of her earlier words do it for her. "You'll help me with this mystery; we'll both be using this to keep our minds off other things."
She looks at Kurou's nails then. ".... Let's get you cleaned up--"
Ah, they'll have to... go down. "Damn... we'll have to dodge the teachers..." She looks towards the door. "How'd you get in? Maybe we could go that route instead."
<Pose Tracker> Kurou Ryouhara has posed.
The scars are deep and Kurou's manner is flat. But as Umie sees, there was an intensity behind his eyes that can now be identified in its absence. Unfortunately, that means its origin remains mired.
Her lips change in a surprising upward, and Kurou looks back at her. Even now, she manages it. He wonders what that means. He wonders if he ever could. But as long as Umie can see his fire, perhaps Kurou can trust her that it is still there, despite everything.
It needs to be.
His eyes flick upward in a futile effort to follow her finger -- a little crossed -- as another smudge gets removed. Slowly, they return to Umie herself. "Fighting to keep them. ...He showed me new choices... a future, not to die in, but to live in." The words leave Kurou's mouth before he can think to ask why they do. Umie does not need to know this. No one does.
But she's sitting next to him in a clocktower, cleaning his face of soot, understanding what it means to be backed into a corner. Yet his brow twitches, nearly furrowed. A future to live in, not to die in. But Shiryuu...
Kurou shakes his head. The thought cannot help him now. Maybe he just fights for what's left. If not for the kind of person Shiryuu chose to be, and the future he chose to forge for Ryouhara, then Kurou would be dead.
"It does not have to take much time, if that time is meaningful," Kurou says, in another small display of one of his own opinions on something. His gaze drops to her shoes. His head tilts, just a little.
When Umie professes she will be the one doing the protecting, Kurou chooses not to argue the point. It will make it easier not to argue with her, and if it means she will permit him to stay close enough to act on his orders, then it is best not to test her patience. She can believe that's what the situation is, if it suits her.
Kurou looks back down at his rubble chunk. To assume Shiryuu is still alive... "... Perhaps. He survived my attempt at assassination, so... maybe once more..."
wait what
But Kurou moves on from that easily. Umie's already said it all. They have a mystery to solve, and, evidently, clean up to do. Kurou notes his own hands. He does not frown, but there is a weight in the air like he should have. He looks down the shaft of gears, then back.
"How do you feel about heights, Akabane-san?"
It'll take some timing, and it'll take some finesse, but Kurou is willing to carry her down, if it comes to that.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
How does Umie manage it?
.... Shamelessness, perhaps. The Badb in her cannot resist those moments where she can push back, especially if it's to encourage a fight in someone else.
And the distorted tinge in the back of that glint in Umie's eyes will infer she'll do it all the way to that person's grave, if properly and indulgently enabled.
And yet, when she's cleaning that smudge off his forehead, Umie listens to Kurou speak. She doesn't realize how bewildering those words may feel to Kurou as he says them, but she gives them their proper due, knowing enough from Kurou's past behavior to intuit the rest.
Or, at least, assume past the gaps in her knowlege.
Is that all it takes, Umie thinks, to feel like she's responsible for someone? For them to trust her with a small part of their thoughts?
'It does not have to take much time, if that time is meaningful.'
Umie tilts her head, letting a small smile fill her lips. "Look at you, with the words of wisdom..." The tone is still somber enough; she's appreciative of Kurou saying it, while at the same time, she can't help but tease, slightly.
The next are uttered in the shadow of her downturned head, as she gets up. "Thank you."
'so... maybe once more...'
"--eh--?" Umie's response is short and comedically flat. She squints at Kurou.
She remembers how she held a blade next to Shiryuu's throat moments after he invaded her apartment.
Umie's shoulders slump. "I think Ryouhara-kun has a pattern..."
As for heights? Umie smirks.
"I'd prefer it if I can use my Persona to soften the blow of any mistakes, but screw it, I'm feeling adventurous." She stretches, then dusts off her skirt-- ah. "I'll trust you'll be a gentleman, of course."