2025-12-24: Safety For Two
- Log: Safety For Two
- Cast: Umie Akabane, Shiryuu Ryouhara
- Where: Shibuya, Tokyo
- OOC Date: 2025-12-24
- IC Date: Aug 30 2012
- Summary: "I had to," he would later write.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
The streets are still slick from a late night rain as the Dark Hour fell, turning the pavement dark red, offset by the reflective mercury vapor green of the sky.
One can say 'red suits Umie', but here, it just adds to the noise, outright by the supernaturally saturated colors of anything liquid, some of which currently stain the light grey of the rain jacket that draps over the young woman's form as she moves, complete with the 'kintsugi' themed mask.
Hunched low from a recent leap onto a shadow's 'head' (or a facsimile of one), Umie straightens and swings the kyoketsu-shoge around overhead, building momentum before extending the weapon's reach, until she's able to swing the metal hoop against the neck of a more humanoid type previously to her back. The black rope *slaps* against the thick neck and quickly wraps around, letting Umie to jerk it back, slamming her shoe down on the rope to further increase the tension until the shadow is toppled downwards.
The more blob-like shadow crawls in at this moment and is answered by a blast of confusion and dark, cast by the hooded feminine viciously grinning deity that answers her similarly hooded 'host'. It gives Umie enough time to leap on the humanoid shadow, the bladed end of her weapon clutched between two hands as she jabs it down into the head, landing the necessary blow to complete her first kill of the night.
The second will need to wait; the length of the kyoketsu shoge needs to be gathered up, which Umie's quick footwork, strafing back and to the side as she gathers the length of rope up, throwing the shortened length back and then around to slam it against the second blob.
..... It's less effective than she'd like it to be, disappearing into its mass like floss through gelatin. The blade will work instead, Umie's sneakers giving enough traction to keep from slipping outright as she jumps in, blade flashing through the shadow's body. It's enough; the shadow disintegrates into nothingness, leaving the smiling Umie panting.
She straightens and wipes her cheek, leaving a stain of red.
One could say that the streets of Shibuya have been free of shadows, but they'd be lying. Shibuya's a big place, and, as anyone who's tried to hunt for a needle in a haystack knows, the lower the percentage of anything, the harder it is to find.
So yes, Shibuya is not, and never has been Shadow-free, but damn if one person isn't happy to lower the percentage for the sake of a thankless, meaningless, neverending task.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
It's important to mention that he is not frequently in Shibuya. It's simply not part of the Ryouhara's ranges of influence -- other clans and financial groups hold sway in Tokyo, and the recent incursion of onmitsu in the region has inevitably been noticed.
However, very few of those organizations possess supralunar power.
Whisperings following the mysterious attack (?) at Haruyama Memorial indicated that powerful clans were beginning to make moves in the region, a salacious rumor that is... ugh... simply not dignified with words.
"Everyone has something to say," he grouses.
So, it necessitates that Shiryuu needs to work during the darkest hour of the night to keep out of the 'prying eye.' It's unfortunately taxing. But it was really the only chance he had. He had, to...
Well. She wasn't at her apartment. He'd spent some time napping on a bus before finding his way out to the streets the moment everything turned harsh and cold and still. This will be the third day, but ...
Propriety has its cost. Luckily, being one with the sky has its benefits.
-boom-
It's not a ... traditional explosion. Fingery threads of vibration jostle the waters in quaking curvature, the waves of red shivering with the deep bassy thump. One, at first, then another. The beat redoubles, folds, sheathes into a red and black rhythm, a beat with fangs. At first, it has the muffled discord of an American neighbor who didn't understand the concept of the word. But then, percussion. And sharp little lines of neon light begin to reflect in the edges of windows. in the translucent core of that gelid creature, right before it fades to nothing.
Then something screams, and is caught in folds of old, ancient wooden plank.
The helical twist of bridges spin vertically out of a curve straight down in the street, boards laying shut to be tied with hemp like slamming teeth together, and on the other side -- a third slovenly mass of cream, utterly confused as every step it takes seems to lead back to the same 4 x 4 space. The twist of bridges hangs there in the air for a time, rolling like an old pennant in the breeze as it curves slowly and out of sight in the sky.
"Nitou-ryuu is not simple," he observes plainly, "when the second is a chain instead of a sword. But..."
He arrives as if he'd been there the whole time, wind-blown dust given form as he simply appears on a plank. He's wearing the white haori 'Byakuren Hagoromo' over his street clothes, 3/4 dark and strappy cargos, his new shoes, leading into a customary turtleneck. His sword is tucked into his waistband on the wrong side, as his off-hand is still in a sling, with a hand draped over the pommel.
He doesn't seem to be in any hurry to kill the caught thing. The subject changes slightly. ".. It seems like your actions are gaining attention."
He's about ten feet up in the air, and he leans over, subconsciously annoyed that the colorways of his sneakers are completely useless in the oversaturated hour, but not at all aware of it. He is, admittedly, more than a little distracted. Fragments of thought scatter, to and fro.
A tiny, restrained sigh, hopefully out of earshot.
"......it's been awhile."
Shiryuu seems to have no trouble recognizing her.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
Everyone has something to say when you steal private health info from a hospital.
Umie, for better or worse, is not there in her apartment. It has been picked up since he's been there last (at least from the mess he made over Umie's smoke bomb incident), the fridge stocked with some fruits and veggies, courtesy of Kurou. A pair of sneakers and a rain coat are gone, signalling that Umie had gone out for the evening.
Which is exactly what Shiryuu was waiting for.
Part of the reason for Umie's preference for the Dark Hour, at least in comparison to Mementos, is that there's little that can surprise her, anymore! (... At least outside of Port City.)
"_What the hell_?!" Nevermind it being an explosion, this sort of bass-thumping should *not* be a thing right now because of a lack of electricity!
Umie nearly falls over, jerking her hood back in order to try to increase her field of vision. (Unfortunately, a mask complicates things there.)
The bridges are unmistakable. Brown eyes widen as Umie stares, completely and utterly dumbfounded, as Shiryuu seemingly comes back from the dead.
Indeed, Shiryuu'd have no trouble recognizing her. Umie's cloaking abilities are much more transparent than those of someone who has better technology, op-sec, or, has a mask of a different sort. Once someone knows Umie's Persona, or if someone says her name aloud, anyone with a previous knowledge of her will know who she is.
It's that easy.
'It seems like your actions are gaining attention.' "You're the one gaining attention!!" Umie sputters indelicately, pointing an accusatory finger up at the dramatically leaning shinobi. "You!! You!! You.. goddamn bastard, what the hell were you *thinking*?! Get your ass down from that damn pole or I'm going to get up there and clock you across the face for--" For *what*, exactly?
Being alive?
"... Shiryuu Ryouhara-kun!!" Ah, Umie's finally figured out Shiryuu's name.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
To be fair, he's actually almost sitting, one of his sneakers dangling off the edge of the jutting plank at the shoulder of the double helical winding bridges. There's probably a convoluted name for the technique, but it's not really an important detail, as Ryouhara is relatively sure the shadow he's caught is not going anywhere, at least as long as his sword is clicked from its sheath. Somewhere in the sky, his Persona toils, a mechanical kami with a cloak of windchimes and a long drape of shide suspended from an eight-shaku gohei.
It was much easier to spot the disruption from the air, and having access to bridgework all over the city meant that he had a fairly good chance of tracking her once she left her apartment.
Of course, op-sec and training are not .. entirely .. the reasons he recognizes the girl at a glance.
There is a space in which she is shocked, on the back foot, in which case Ryouhara is quite happy to tilt his chin up, breaking eye contact with her for a moment -- one of his eyes -is- sharply blue, and he doesn't seem to want to say anything that might be mistaken for approval while looking her directly in the Kintsugi. "Eh... you've been training. Your retraction technique is getting top-notch. It's going to be a good battle when we meet earnestly," he remarks idly.
Then, his conversation partner gets loud.
'You're the one gaining attention!!' That gets his _whole_ attention. "--ahh? It's just my cognitive BPM, there's no dan.."
'You!! You!!' "--iih.." He makes a face. She's pointing. This is bad.
'You goddamn bastard!' "Hey, that's not--" he makes another face.
'what the hell were you thinking?!' "There was a shadow that was going to..hey, wai-"
'Get your ass down from that damn pole or--' "--but, it's not a pole, it's my jut--"
'I'm going to get up there and clock you across the face for--' "th, hold on, that's not safe! You'll fall!" Shiryuu is, in a word, alarmed.
'Shiryuu Ryouhara-kun!!' "A--akabane-san?!" At this point, the shinobi is now leaned all the way back onto the curling twist of his bridge, finally looking to the shadow he's trapped. Clearly he's just making sure it's still contained, and is not silently asking it for its opinion, or to chime in in his defense.
The squalling captive is absolutely of no help at all.
Very unsanctioned activity.
"...."
Shiryuu has no choice, here. He complies, leaping down to make a weirdly featherlight landing at the foot of the curving pillar of bridges. One hip nocks sharply as he leans uncomfortably. A fingertip hooks into his turtleneck, and pulls at it furtively while he swallows. "...ih.."
"...this doesn't seem tactically sound for me," Ryouhara objects quietly, finally. Gee, that nail salon sign all the way off to his right is crooked, he notices. Maybe he should just go over there and fix it...
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
Shiryuu's praise, done while he fails to look her in the eyes (as Umie notes), further catches Umie off-guard. She glances to the side, taking that moment to slowly loop the rope of her weapon around her elbow and palm, hanging the length of it over her blade, now nestled in the pocket of her jacket.
Such praise would be enough to cause Umie to fluff up with smug pride, were it from anyone else. ".... I'm used to situations like this. The shadows further out are easily to corral and manipulate. Demons, though... more unpredictable, and persona users, even more so." She pauses, feeling the awkward tension rise in her chest.
This idiot. This goddamn idiot. Does he even *know* what he's put Kurou through, at the very least??
And she lets it rip out of her, refusing to compromise any small bit of her anger, and only then realizing how he *hates* being pointed at. But what was she supposed to do, gesture at him?
_And why is he concerned about her falling, when he was wanting to fight her_?!
God help her, she's getting angry again.
Shiryuu complies, and stands there, squalling shadow to his back, looking anywhere but at her. "..." Umie looks from Shiryuu's gaze towards the nail salon sign, pausing to regard it for a moment before looking back.
Quietly, she walks forward, the only sound of her coming being the steady, casual footfalls of her shoes against the wet pavement.
"I thought you were *dead*," Umie mumbles, like the last tremor of an earthquake that has since passed. "What were you *thinking*, taking on the Old Maid like that..."
She walks, angling towards the side of Shiryuu, and, if allowed, past him, only then tipping down her bifurcated blade to collect the rope in one hand, allowing her to draw it out and attempt to put the shadow out of its misery.
"Did you think of Kurou Ryouhara-kun's feelings? He looks up to you, you know. You think he'd want to spend the rest of his life watching me putter around?"
It's not about that, of course. Her anger... is so much more personal. To make her cry, even a little bit, and then have the misfortune of coming back?
She pays, for those little weaknesses.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
"...There were some, in the past, who could control demons," the young man replies. "To bend their power entirely to supralunar will." Though his face has healed the moment she stops pointing, there is still an awkward cadence in his voice, an off-rhythm. She might notice that his balance tends to resonates very exactly with the beats per minute of whatever that sound is that boils seething from the ground. Not so, now. The rolling percussion is free of the powerful slam of the bass, with sliding strings and a trickle of chords tumbling the sound into a straight freefall, and Shiryuu's words do not, in the slightest, seem to align to it.
There is a faraway kind of discomfort in the way he looks away, and he doesn't at all seem to notice the discordance.
Aside. The nail salon sign is actually noticeably crooked, but only by a very small amount, and judging by the rest of the signage, may actually be intentional.
It's only when she approaches that he actually turns to look, his eyes immediately locking onto her footwork. At first, the young man is still as she stalks closer. There is a tiny surge of bravery that allows the onmitsu to stand his ground, only for the lightest brush of proximity to raise the spectre of alarm. His right hand twitches on the side of his sword, raising from the hilt in the moment she passes, the moment she recognizes she's heading towards the caged shadow.
In that moment, he looks along his shoulder. He does, to his merit, reach out. He almost stops her right there, barring her from going further. But...
'I thought you were *dead*.'
... he never quite manages to take her by the arm.
"...." Shiryuu listens quietly, his bleached eye warming as he looks down, his pensive aura swelling. She'll notice he's not wearing his shoulder bag right now, likely a factor of one of his arms being in a sling instead of its sleeve. There's something in the tone of her voice that scalds, and he can't.. quite.. understand it.
"...A person has to have a purpose," Ryouhara says of Kurou, as if it explained too many things at once. "Being without one.. is maddening. The boy is strong. And, for our name... it.."
'a shinobi is someone who protects his people and his ideals alone, putting his life on the line.'
The words die in his throat, right alongside the squealing, milky thing behind him, the victim of a blade through what would pass for an eye. And like that, the squealing stops. Pensive, the grey-haired boy's interest in the ground turns to the side without ever really looking over his shoulder. His back is exposed, and the Ryouhara kamon is clear on the back of his jacket. His hand rests back at his hilt, tightening on it. It makes an audible click, and planks slide from between dissintegrating hemp. The freefall beat remains only for a few moments more, and then it is quiet. He replaces the dead words.
".... I'm sorry."
Shiryuu is still not looking. "I was unable to ... I'll assume responsibility. At the last moment, I couldn't ..."
A slow, smooth, hard sigh, easing him, replacing at least some steel in his regrettably weak voice. It should be easy for him to understand, if he puts it in context around the things she doesn't know. Yes.
"I won't falter again. I won't endanger you a second time."
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
"If you mean people like me... it's not what it seems to be." Umie commits the sin of assuming, too emotionally invested to play the role of a proper detective. "I'm not sure what you mean by supralunar, though." Supra... super? Lunar... moon? Supermoon?
In the past, though... that's... "But you probably don't mean 'a decade ago'." Umie tries to place herself in the moment, and keep her surroundings in mind. The thrum of those beats, the discordance between it and Shiryuu, as if something was off with his being.
And in one beat, the shadow is stilled, without a bit of wasted movement. (She knows what shadows can possibly spring from, after all.)
"Did you know his place sometimes loses electricity?" Umie murmurs, looking down at where the poor shadow was. "That he came to me with an umbrella that barely covered him from the rain?"
.....
"I guess it's just so alien to me. To do everything for a name... I'd rather it be for someone than for a concept that'll mean nothing, without something to back it up."
'I'm sorry.'
Umie's mouth opens in a relaxed O, letting out an exhale of breath.
The surest way to summon Umie's empathy is a show of weakness, on someone else's part-- especially, the sorts that come unwillingly, from people who normally stomach them all deep inside.
For Joker, it was the way his body seemed to react, when exposed to her Mark, and here, it was hearing Shiryuu's apology.
"Mm..." She reaches out, and places a red-nailed hand on Shiryuu's shoulder. (She had painted her nails since the last time she saw him, it seems.) "I do a fine job of endangering myself."
Umie smirks, her lower eyelids rising to accent a glint of mischief in her eyes. ".... He told me you intended to kill me, and that, if I saw you..."
The hand, if still there, will clench on Shiryuu's shoulder slightly, as she nears, the smirk widening on her lips in a sickle smile. "... That I should finish the job."
Fingers release, and she doesn't move closer. In fact, none of her movements suggest she had the intention to attack at all.
"I, of all people, know better than to listen to someone who is driven entirely by the Mark's whims. Lying, scheming, killing... follow those roads down to their eventual conclusion, and you'll find yourself in a mire of your own making. Which... is probably why the NWO likely just eventually kills people like me."
But Shiryuu, instead...
She's no longer smiling, the shark-like grin replaced with a solemn, almost melancholy, expression. "So why did you decide to do the exact opposite? This goes beyond just buying me shoes, or food."
Her lips quirk, in a slight half-grin. "You can say you refuse to answer, if you like."
Why not pay a Joker's reprieve forward?
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
He doesn't begrudge her a bit of misunderstanding. The Ryouhara words for things beyond mundane understanding are different from the Order's. The explanation he gives for it is simple. The young man raises his good hand, his arm bent at an angle to indicate the crazed and yellow moon in the sky, pointing at it from the side. It's worth noting he has a ..fairly good impression of where she is, to get the perspective just right despite taking all available pains to not look at her.
He points, finger lowering to the black, sick space below the moon. "Everything a person without Persona can achieve, and all of the mundane wonders of the world. Sublunar."
His gesture rises slowly, pointing to the sky above the moon. Up. And up. And up. "Everything beyond that same person's ability to achieve. Supralunar."
Explaining things keeps him distracted. Focused, he would have said, long enough to draw his attention to his subordinate. The young man's chin lifts, and she almost sees his jawline, the mop of grey hair wagging with the swift inclination. A slow blink sharpens his expression, as the line of his mouth sets, his brow crinkling.
His hand almost goes to his phone before he remembers. Mm.
"...I'll take care of it," Shiryuu notes, his voice softer.
Not soft. But softer.
"...." She lays a hand on him, and his glance tilts to the red tint of her nails, fixing an asymmetrically colored stare at it. She'll notice that her touch sinks deep into layers of wool, silk, and god knows what else before getting anywhere near the feel of the sling looped around his neck, before she cna feel the tense energy in his frame.
Understand: In any other situation, a Ryouhara would have warned her about exactly how bad an idea it is to touch the shihaisha, especially while flanking him.
In this scenario though..
Does that energy, for even the slightest moment, fade when he relaxes?
It's like chasing a dragonfly. Invoking the idea of the Joker Killer is enough to set the onmitsu on wary edge, burning away the idea of 'relaxation' like a moth in flame. Shaded by the cascade of grey strands curtaining his glance, she might catch the way he responds, less to her touch but more to what she says, the blades of his shoulders rising almost imperceptibly as she recounts what, exactly, Old Maid said.
He only settles down when she suggests that she might kill him. "... it's fine."
At the very least, what he said to the killer worked. She might realize that he seems to be much more anxious about her talking to 'that man' at all than stabbing him in the back right this second.
"...I won't allow you to be killed," he says, after a moment. "No matter how much trouble you are." He looks away, strictly -- and he isn't looking at her again. He's not really able to move, not like this...
..which complicates the next question.
"Heh." It starts off easy. "Don't be mistaken, I just want to make sure you're ..."
.. and then he trails off.
"...when he was unconscious," Shiryuu points out, after a moment. "... he summoned his Persona. Or ... something like a Persona. I should have been stronger. I should have used my power, and pierced his heart there and then, to settle the matter. My will is lightning, and there's no one that can defy it," he says, with some heat. It fades. "But ..."
He looks up, now this time inspecting the way the roofing of the buildings line up next to one another, one by one. He can't really think of why it's important, and he's going to forget what he decided about the matter the moment he looks away.
".... I thought that if I died, there and then, I wouldn't get to see you again."
It's almost impossible to recount, and the young man is clearly mystified by the idea. He doesn't know why it's important to him. But it's important to say.
"...go home, Akabane-san." The grey-haired boy smothers the notion at once. "Become strong. Take care of yourself."
"Then... come try and kill me, if you like."
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
"....." Umie openly stares at Shiryuu, as he explains, the eyes behind that blue-green and gold mask following his hand's movements. She squints, tilting her head. ".... But why the...." She stops herself, raising a hand. "Forget about it."
She is similarly quiet as she reads the movement of Shiryuu's hand towards his phone, understanding what his impulse was. (How many times does she still do the same?)
Perhaps it's this ignorance that makes this contact different: Umie doesn't really understand, nor care to know what a shihaisha is, or how she should regard one. She's more taken by the fact that her hand sinks *into* his shoulder, rather than sit on top of it, as if to mask the energy that lies underneath. She masks it by tilting her head away when she's able, not wanting to lose control of the image she tries to project at that moment, which is further complicated by him swearing to not allow her to be killed...
... Especially since she wants to laugh at the comment he adds to it. And then, yet another; at least, a comment he *tries* to add.
Instead, he admits a little more of his moment of weakness, or what he feels is.
'My will is lightning, and there's no one that can defy it.' In another situation Umie would have huffed a laugh at that, but she can't, now. It's no different than how she stepped towards Shiryuu with the implication that she was told to 'finish the job', despite having no intention of doing so.
"I tried killing him myself. No matter what you tried, that Persona of his wouldn't let you. It's not like other Persona. I'm not sure why his is different, but. It is. But--"
As the dragon rises from its slumber,
the feast will begin anew.
Umie's fingers dig into that shoulder again, eyes momentarily going blank behind the holes of that mask.
'.... I thought that if I died, there and then, I wouldn't get to see you again.' The shock of hearing those words brings Umie back; she glances back at Shiryuu, her cheeks betraying a terrible shade of something a shade rosier--
And she turns away, trying to recover, as he turns, as a Ryouhara does, to the topic of killing. (But also going home.)
She takes a breath. Okay. Time to sell this.
"Sorry to disappoint, but..." Umie raises an index finger, eyelids crinkling from a slight smirk that lays underneath. "Someone I respect has a firm opinion on that sort of thing. I'm thinking there may be some wisdom in that, maybe just in trying to hold myself to a higher standard than what--" Umie closes her eyes. "--In what _I_ am compelled to think."
Consign responsibility to something else, and she'll lose to that voice inside her.
"There's nothing wrong, after all," Umie says, raising the hood to cover her head before adjusting her mask, "with choosing not to kill, Ryouhara-kun." The name is shortened here; her decision to not do so earlier born from necessity to distinguish the two Ryouharas. "Don't worry. We'll probably come to blows sooner or later. I wonder if you'll be able to look me in the eye then, mm?"
Umie gathers her hands behind her and begins to walk away, unbothered by the green and red around her--
Until she feels the brush of a child's cold finger against the nape of her neck, as if to say:
'Look at the terrible mess you've made, Umie-chan.'