2026-01-19: Promise Kept
- Log: Promise Kept
- Cast: Shiryuu Ryouhara, Hiroto Nakamura
- Where: Narumi Ward, Sumaru
- OOC Date: 2026-01-19
- IC Date: Sep 14 2012
- Summary: On a lonely train platform, Hiroto encounters the shihaisha of Ryouhara, whom apparently keeps a long memory and a deep grudge.
<Pose Tracker> Hiroto Nakamura has posed.
Hiroto Nakamura works late into the night frequently, especially on a Friday night. It's the quirk of his particular dual-role job, as both salaryman and Ferryman. At times like this, he often has to take the subway, the station still under construction.
Unfortunately, it's minutes from midnight. And he's not going to sit in a train car during the Dark Hour. It's unsettling for the soul.
So, instead, he's taking a walk through the station quietly, memorizing pathways, ambush trajectories, ingress and egress options...
Something he often does for the sake of training his mind to be healthy.
A manual watch is often checked at his wrist, the time you can set yourself. It's almost time. Tick, tick, tick.
Hiroto is dressed in his salaryman suit with striped tie and a pair of dark square spectacles. He looks like he could be anybody, the most generic salaryman in the world.
Maybe that's to his advantage.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
Really, there's nobody there. The stroll through the platform is lonely even outside of the Dark Hour, with the scarce few workers dedicated enough to be out this late -- but not have a nearby arrangement of their own to live at -- is scarce.
Too dedicated to leave. Too scared to stay. It's a strange situation to be in for most. But then there are some who walk amidst the platforms for a different reason today. People who are used to the exchange.
People used to being on two sides of things at once.
The sound tightens in the tunnels, gaining that telltale, ghostly echo, as slabs of obsidian slam over the slumbering, locking them in place during the twenty fifth hour. The sound of stone echoes down the halls, up the stairs, everywhere.
The sound of wind is almost a whisper in comparison. That man can check every path, every ingress and egress he likes. The boy came from nowhere.
"Eh..."
The sound is meandering, just shy of too quiet to hear. It's very clear, from the bandages wrapped around his head that the boy has seen a fight or two prior. But his silver hair dances about his head in a haphazard mop, and his hands are shoved in his pockets. He's facing away from Hiroto to start, on the opposite end of the platform. The pristine white long jacket he wears has a peculiar mark on it, three leaves in the wind.
The family symbol of the Order's clan of ghosts, the Ryouhara.
But the sound he makes is not at all decisive, the wondering thought of a lost boy. "It's a nice night, isn't it," he thinks aloud. That stirred wind is the only source of a breeze in the underground, now stuffy without its myriad ventilation systems.
There is a sheathed sword tucked into his sash, the hilt hovering just over his wrist.
<Pose Tracker> Hiroto Nakamura has posed.
The boy, the swordsman, is not heard or seen at first. When he's finally noticed, Hiroto turns to look at him, eyebrows raised but otherwise fairly neutral in expression. The Ryouhara... he's aware, of course, of their existence, as a cleaner for the Order. He doesn't know *much*, but he knows who the other bogeymen are.
He stops in his tracks. He doesn't move, doesn't take an apparent stance. But he does speak.
"It is. Quiet, serene. Who could have thought a subway station would evoke those feelings?"
There is no smile. No tight change of expression. He's controlling himself so well.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
Slowly, Shiryuu turns to face him. There is a tight, accomodating smile painted across his face; entirely prepared for the moment, and entirely polite.
Also, entirely false.
"I wouldn't call it 'serene,' exactly."
Yes. Bogeymen know dimly of one another. There are some that know much more of what goes on in the dark. But it's not really important, 'what all' is known, right..?
Only one or two little bits of information can turn the tide on everything.
"I have to admit, I've been meaning to talk to you for some time."
His smile is razor sharp.
"Unfortunately, this is not going to be an easy conversation."
His sword slowly rakes from its sheath, drawn with the wrong hand. THe click it makes as it exits the sheathe echoes in all the wrong spaces of the soul. A single black feather glitches between colors as it settles on the cement by his sneaker.
"I'd like to test your power."
<Pose Tracker> Hiroto Nakamura has posed.
"There is a certain kind of serenity in impending violence, is there not?"
Hiroto doesn't move first. The Ryouhara wants to talk, but this isn't how one talks like a civilized person. This is how one prepares to talk like a beast.
"It never is," Hiroto says with a relaxed tone. For the first time, he moves, but it's neither quick nor hostile, a hand moving to slowly set his watch.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
"That should give us enough time before we get tired."
The sword is unsheathed. Hiroto starts walking forward, but he does not hurry his pace.
"Then I'll see the same. What will be the power of Ryouhara? And... what chains bind him?"
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
No, it really isn't how one talks, is it?
At least, not in the ways of men.
"Mm. Philosophy isn't my strong suit," the onmitsu admits, letting the ferryman set his watch. He is ostensibly civilized enough to give the older man warning, itself likely the reason he specified 'tired' instead of 'dead.' Shiryuu had said as much.
There would have been no such warning, otherwise.
The trickle of a heartbeat fills the ground beneath the soles. But it's not a heartbeat. It picks up speed, and goes far too fast.
210 bpm or more is the goal.
"...Chains," he finally remarks, derisively.
In the next instant, he's inches from Hiroto, airborne with a flying knee to the chest. He'll hit him at least twice more in that instant, rolling that knee into a rolling kick, an attempt to pin the ferryman immediately by the neck underneath the hard line of his shin.
There is no more warning.
170 BPM to start.
AS: Weapon! Shiryuu Ryouhara has used the Strike skill Ryouhara Ninjutsu on Hiroto Nakamura! 3 Hits!
AS: Aggression: Shiryuu Ryouhara gains 1 Limit!
AS: Shiryuu Ryouhara's turn has ended.
AS: Block Best! Hiroto Nakamura takes 11 Strike damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Ryouhara Ninjutsu.
AS: Counter Neutral! Hiroto Nakamura takes 34 Strike damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Ryouhara Ninjutsu. Counter Strike!
AS: COUNTER! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 17 Strike damage in return for his attack!
AS: Counter Best! Hiroto Nakamura takes 28 Strike damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Ryouhara Ninjutsu. Counter Strike!
AS: COUNTER! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 21 Strike damage in return for his attack!
<Pose Tracker> Hiroto Nakamura has posed.
Hiroto can tell the BPM of that heartbeat, listening carefully. He doesn't know what it is.
The flying knee comes for his chest. In an instant, Hiroto's in stance, both arms rising to block the flying knee, which pushes him back but does not break his stance or knock him off his feet.
This is followed by the next strike being countered with an elbow, and then a forearm blow for the final strike, staggering backwards from the blows but escaping a pin.
"Hm," Hiroto says, as he has no time to make space. Instead, as he pushes Shiryuu back to the ground, he's sweeping a leg up to hit Shiryuu with his own knee, trying to send him back and make distance.
"Certainly a Ryouhara," he remarks.
AS: Weapon! Hiroto Nakamura has used the Strike skill Leviathan Kick on Shiryuu Ryouhara!
AS: Aggression: Hiroto Nakamura gains 1 Limit!
AS: Hiroto Nakamura regains 3 SP from Invigorate!
AS: Hiroto Nakamura's turn has ended.
AS: Counter Worst! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 128 Strike damage from Hiroto Nakamura's Leviathan Kick. Counter Strike!
AS: COUNTER! Hiroto Nakamura takes 34 Strike damage in return for his attack!
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
On the other hand, Shiryuu is keeping count.
The movements of the Ferryman are extremely high class as Shiryuu unloads the entirety of his momentum into that crushing knee blow, his arms behind him spread like great wings. The attempt to have Hiroto on the ground instantly is thwarted by Hiroto's arm spear, the breach in tempo forcing the boy out of atari position, and the sweep of the forearm is absorbed in the boy's hip, knocking him to the ground almost immediately, the onmitsu landing hard on his sneakers.
It's just in time to catch the salaryman's response, a brutal knee to the middle that cuts his wind loose and almost disarms him. Almost.
The response is a whirl of the blade, a thrust of the sword he's pulled with his false hand, trying to spear the man in the side with the hilt of his blade before the knee breaks their deadlock, the proverbial grip of four hands.
The boy is almost standing straight up as his sneakers skid him to a stop with a tiny squeal against the concrete when he gains traction. A small chuff, a spit of air.
"As expected," the boy remarks, forcing breath back into his solar plexus while looking at Hiroto through one annoyed eye.
He drops his heel, sending a sharp, hard scratch into the jumping beat, raising the volume and speed of that heartbeat openly into the air. The rickety sound is sickening, sounding a lot like the distended rhythm of being in a speeding car on the freeway with only one door open. It's something that takes root in the inner ear, disrupting equilibrium for just a moment. Just a second.
And then the onmitsu is there, with the long blade of his sword, splitting the second entirely with a viciously fast black bladed cut. There is no room to see him coming, as if distance meant absolutely nothing to him. There is only the space for a single thought.
AS: Shiryuu Ryouhara spends Limit on Shock Noise! Spd_Dn applied to Hiroto Nakamura!
AS: Weapon! Shiryuu Ryouhara has used the Slash skill Setsuna on Hiroto Nakamura!
AS: Aggression: Shiryuu Ryouhara gains 1 Limit!
AS: Shiryuu Ryouhara's turn has ended.
<Pose Tracker> Hiroto Nakamura has posed.
The whirling blade hint comes in, smashing Hiroto in the side and breaking them apart simultaneously with his knee. As he falls to his feet, winded, taking a breath...
The clock keeps ticking. The sword comes in, in the blink of a second, as that heartbeat hits him. He doesn't outwardly react, but it is sickening, forced to keep his balance manually instead of automatically.
The cut comes forth, and Hiroto can only have one thought.
'Kill.'
The blade gashes straight into Hiroto, cutting his suit and spilling blood on his arm where it has been blocked. It's a bad wound - he'll probably need medical attention of some stripe. His other hand gashes against Shiryuu's skin, trying to claw him with sharp nails.
Hiroto then kicks himself backwards through the air like a wuxia guy would, using his Persona-enhanced strength for just a second. There's an icky, sickly feeling as a flash of red soon surges over him...
"Charon."
And a giant bronze obol appears, a wolf on one side, a ferryman on the other.
"Have you ever drowned under the weight of your chains? Your burdens?" A pause.
Then, he's rushing forward, as the coin empowers him with a black-and-blue aura.
"Do you want to?"
Suddenly, he's behind Shiryuu in an inky blur, as if he literally flowed like water. The first strike is a kick to the back of his leg, trying to hobble it.
Then, he's to Shiryuu's side, a Bajiquan elbow blow to the ribs whether the kick works or not.
"Drown under the weight of life, Ryouhara."
His hand moves up, a single strike straight to Shiryuu's lungs, trying to make him feel like he's drowning under the sheer liquid force of the blow.
AS: Hiroto Nakamura spends Limit on Psych!
AS: Tandem! Hiroto Nakamura has used the Water skill Flow Like Water on Shiryuu Ryouhara! 3 Hits!
AS: Aggression: Hiroto Nakamura gains 1 Limit!
AS: Hiroto Nakamura: Psych removed!
AS: Hiroto Nakamura regains 3 SP from Invigorate!
AS: Hiroto Nakamura's turn has ended.
AS: Avoid Neutral! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 67 Water damage from Hiroto Nakamura's Flow Like Water. Critical Hit!
AS: Avoid Worst! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 87 Water damage from Hiroto Nakamura's Flow Like Water.
AS: Avoid Neutral! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 67 Water damage from Hiroto Nakamura's Flow Like Water. Critical Hit!
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
It's actually impressive, to even find a spot to cut Shiryuu with one's bare hands, as swathed as the boy is in silk and wool. But when Hiroto kicks away and the boy's false hand drops to his side, there it is -- blood, trickling down his hand.
The young man pays no attention to it until he lifts his hand, to taste the copper from his knuckles with a touch of the tongue before it can sully the wrappings of his sword hilt, before it can soak into the wool of his sleeve under his white coat.
The onmitsu regards the ferryman grimly as he summons that massive spinning coin behind him, recognizing it instinctively for a Persona, as anyone might.. Wordlessly, soundlessly, the wind stirs, and his own Persona alights behind him on a single foot, a mechanical kami, dressed in the garbs of a kannushi Shinto priest, with an old wood staff whose length easily spans the height of that boy's entire body and then some, a long trail of lightning paper shide trickling from its shaped and capped end. The light tinny -cloc- sound of its landing is in time to the rhythm, causing the beat to vibrate beneath his shoes, crazing the BPM even as the volume sways and dips, seeming to force the ground to pitch and roll with it like waves that simply aren't.
"...I thought it was two coins the boatman was owed," the boy thinks aloud. Whose coin would it be, then?
He doesn't get much of a chance to answer any further. He is grimly impressed with the way the salaryman moves, eating up the seconds in a red and black blur that seems to defy all moors of gravity and tension. It is almost unreasonable to evade, and it takes all of Shiryuu's formidable speed to even try, his eyes widening as the man slips into fluid water itself to appear behind him. The boy's movements are blurred, stepping to the side quickly to absorb the kick to his hip instead of having his knee kicked in. But the flow of that man spills around him, and the elbow to his ribs goes off like cannonfire, leaving him stunned for just long enough that he can't turn -- not fully -- to prevent being struck through the lungs with the broad side of a fist.
The force rockets him back, leaving the boy silent, back arched. A rivulet of water trickles down his jawline, until it soaks into the linen of his bandages. A shaking hand raises to his chest before suddenly the boy pitches forward, water ejecting violently from his throat and lungs, splashing on the ground for far longer than it should. Far more unreasonably long. He moves, jumping back, to one side, then the next, not presenting an easy target even while his head grows faint from the exertion.
By the time he stops convulsing, the boy is breathing hard, a puddle of water at his feet. In the Dark Hour, the pool is indistinguishable from his blood.
A tinge of red is wiped off his lips, and the boy smiles. The point of his sword touches the ground briefly.
"'Umie Akabane.'" He starts.
"This pain .. is owed to her. It belongs to me ... and is my gift..."
The boy stands slowly, putting his feet underneath him. Slowly, he swaps his blade's hilt from one hand to the other. The right hand. "There's nothing of 'life' in the Crows over Shinano, boatman," he reminds him coldly. "Only ghosts of a bygone past."
"As the Shirogarasu of Ryouhara, I've staked my claim. ....she's mine to tear to pieces, and I'll share with you this ache, that you remember it well."
His free hand opens, as black sakura petals begin to fall around him. There is the sound of chain. It's the salaryman's only warning of Juurishojin.
The blade -- or blades -- linked by the whip of a viciously thin chain cross the space between them in a heartbeat, unfurling from the boy's wrist and guided with eerie precision through the sudden cut of wind spawned by his Persona. It stirs those petals into a storm, reducing the boy to just a silhouette, the racked blades to merely 'some' of many.
He'll pierce through the man, if he's not fast. He'll have his breath to think, his skills to thank, if he can escape that piercing point. Whether or not he does matters very little to the shinobi.
The black sakura he spawns surge through the platform, obscuring everything. Either Shiryuu will drag him bodily into the heart of them...
...or he'll hunt them down inside them.
What happens next is between that man and Shiryuu's sword.
AS: Shiryuu Ryouhara spends Limit on Exploit! Shiryuu Ryouhara can use another Weak skill this round!
AS: Tandem! Shiryuu Ryouhara has used the Slash skill Magatama Cipher on Hiroto Nakamura!
AS: Aggression: Shiryuu Ryouhara gains 1 Limit!
AS: Tandem! Shiryuu Ryouhara has used the Slash skill Yozakura Revival on Hiroto Nakamura!
AS: Shiryuu Ryouhara's turn has ended.
AS: Counter Worst! Hiroto Nakamura takes 163 Slash damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Magatama Cipher. Critical Hit!
AS: COUNTER! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 39 Slash damage in return for his attack!
AS: Block Neutral! Hiroto Nakamura takes 46 Slash damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Yozakura Revival.
<Pose Tracker> Hiroto Nakamura has posed.
"Six mon, locally," Hiroto educates Shiryuu. "One obol in the mouth, for the Greeks."
As Shiryuu smiles, having survived the attack, Hiroto hears the name he says. "Ah."
"She's yours, is that so?"
The black sakura petals fall, but the chain is heard. As the whip chain comes forth, there's the feeling of a hit. It all happens so fast, as Hiroto, too, disappears in those petals...
The next moment, he's rushing on Shiryuu, jabbing his hand - with the blades embedded in it - straight into Shiryuu to dislodge them and cut him with them. His arm moves to counter the sword, diffusing force even as he continues to bleed, as he feels himself nearly lose the arm if he had guarded at the wrong position.
Hiroto eventually breaks off in the petals. Shiryuu might see it then. A grin - not a human's grin, one of cheer or joy or excitement.
The feral grin of a beast. One who could have been run down, and is not thanks both to his skill and his sheer willingness to get hurt.
"You claim her. You test me because of, what, a childish attachment to a target? You may be a Ryouhara..."
The wolf bears its teeth.
"But know your place. We are chained under another's grasp. As long as you think yourself a player and not a pawn..."
Hiroto raises a hand. "You'll never be free."
And with a snap of his fingers, Charon reappears, a crackling white ray of almighty energy falling straight on Shiryuu, possibly obliterating the petals in its path.
AS: Persona! Hiroto Nakamura has used the Almighty skill Megido on Shiryuu Ryouhara!
AS: Hiroto Nakamura regains 3 SP from Invigorate!
AS: Hiroto Nakamura's turn has ended.
AS: Shiryuu Ryouhara spends Limit on Brace!
AS: Avoid Worst! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 157 Almighty damage from Hiroto Nakamura's Megido.
AS: Shiryuu Ryouhara is unable to continue fighting!
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
"Oh... my apologies," Shiryuu replies politely to being corrected. Like he said. It's really not his strong suit.
This is: The next whirling, spinning moment passes in eyeblinks.
Vertigo sets in, as he holds onto the chain, as Hiroto chases him while pinned on it. They run, the chain of the ninkou Juurishojin kept tight as it spins over all points of the clock, the twin suicide grip held fast as the white crow runs with the black wolf, stampeding around the same five by five circle of space.
The whirlwind breaks as Hiroto falls on the onmitsu, and the onmitsu tries to pull him apart for the effort, flipping his sword false to account for the close quarters, to cut through the man's arm and take it as recompense for his transgressions.
But no limb ever flies, and the night sakura swirl as Hiroto bursts out of the cloud, leaving only Shiryuu to take a chasing step forward. He's not paying attention to the blood soaking through the wool in his middle, only the flip of his sword in his hand and the twisting steps he takes to djust his stance towards him.
Shiryuu's eyes narrow. "Childish?" Ryouhara's mouth pulls into a disdainful expression, a light twitch sticking in his eye.
The rest, Shiryuu has no response for, his empyrean mien not budging an inch in the face of the savage animal the ferryman presents them.
The blast is catastrophic, snuffing out the night around them, and Ryouhara has comparably few defenses against it as he's bleached to all one color in the nigh blinding light.
A black petal flows past Hiroto's dress shoe, glitching as it flickers against his heel, turning to dust as it blows past.
... but the wind is punctuated by the placement of Ryouhara's sword point against the concrete.
He doesn't fall, and when the light fades, he's still there. The boy's arm is limp against his side, the fabric of his coat draping across him like a broken wing. His hand tightens on his sword's hilt, and the staff of Sarutahiko Okami is planted firmly in the ground at his side, like a signpost in the dark.
"Speak my family name with due wonder, wolf. I am the ruler of the steel dark, and the thousand blades of ninkougakujutsu exist under and above the moon at my pleasure."
Blood spatters the ground at his feet, and he takes a step forward, the black blade of Bankasoujin clattering as he moves.
"Even in the endless black, the word of the shihaisha is bound in blood and bone, iron and steel. You can consider yourself chained if you like. But my only bond is 'the word of Shirogarasu.'"
One mad eye lifts. It seems that Hiroto struck a nerve.
"I've tested you, as is my right. I've not found you wanting."
That eye narrows dangerously.
"...But don't misunderstand. Every heartbeat before me beats on only at my suffering. ... My will is consecrate, and I've given it to you. Defy it in any way ... and I'll come before you with my right hand, to better guide the moon through the back of your skull."
He lifts a hand, and cuts through the air. The sudden stir of wind heralds his exit, and the boy leaves no trace of his movement at all.