2026-02-10: Who You Are, Inside Your Very Self
- Log: Who You Are, Inside Your Very Self
- Cast: Tsubasa Seki, Shiryuu Ryouhara
- Where: Siren Alley, Yumezaki
- OOC Date: 2026-02-10
- IC Date: Sun, Sept 23 2012
- Summary: Tsubasa wakes, late at night, to find Shiryuu hard at work. Unable to fight back, they're forced to listen to his philosophy, as he works at chipping away their defences. He learns a great many things about them -- and finds at last that the way to wound them most is to take the thing he most fears and employ it against them. He gives them a ticking, melodic pendant, and an ultimatum: strike the NWO, or they and their loved ones will die.
- Content warning: Kidnapping
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
There are a lot of places one could theoretically get lost in Sumaru. Not in the same way as an ill-reputed man looking to escape his family for a few hours, or a kid looking for a place to run away. In Sumaru, there exists cracks and crevices where people fall through the cracks all the time. Places where one cannot just be robbed of their cash, or their pearls, or even worse. There are places where one can fall through the cracks and lose their lives or worse -- their very soul.
The winding, abominable alley is one such place, named for a lonely music shop whose purveyor is said to be a siren, whose lonely songs lure men astray. And blood, as it happens, begets more blood.
But there's unfortunate men, and then there's dangerous people.
The person, bound, drugged, and sealed into a silencing helmet is taken there as sundown comes, offloaded from an unmarked moving van and carried numbly into the alley by men whom might as well be shadows. They move quietly down the alley into what used to be a former mechanic's stockhouse, with a sealed-up rolling door and windows board and battened black, each marked with hostile-looking paper charms with equally hostile-looking kanji scrawled across them.
The demons are curious, as always. They ply their trade, singing sweet songs and peering out of upper windows. But the silver-haired ghost that steps out of the truck is enough to stay them. The boy walks down the alley into the door, wearing a bloodstained white haori, a sheathed sword hung plainly off of his hip.
He knows these places, the miserable little crevices in the neon labyrinth of Yumezaki where men do not go. And yet ... they do. Three leaves in the wind. That symbol, austere and proud at his back, is enough to buy them all peaceful passage.
Amongst the demons, the Ryouhara clan are most unfortunately known.
Tsubasa will wake up in a two story safehouse, the featureless two piece helmet unsealed and split down the middle to hang on either side of their perch. Locked to a grand chair made of folded iron and strap anchors, the Phoenix has been secured in place with a weighted collar and hands entirely encased in iron-banded jade shrouds.
They will find themselves at the foot of a huge mechanical statue locked in fearsome repose, a fierce kami whose slavering jaws drip an undetermined substance into a massive bowl in front of it. It has six arms, and in each of six hands is a weapon, and for each of six wrists, a massive chained tether, secured to the floor with sliding bolts as thick as a man's wrist.
The guards have left now. It's just them, and him, the grey haired boy, standing at the far end of that hall. He's working idly at a long row of cabinetry, along a workbench.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
The Siren who moved from the cliffs of the shore to find her passion in business likes Shiryuu; specifically, she likes the fact that he always seems to show up bloodstained. He's an interesting boy...
... and a boy like that provides excellent gossip for the locals.
Have you heard? Titter the harpies, who live here, too. Have you heard? The Ryouhara boy killed his own, just for looking at him wrong! Hee hee, tee hee! Now he's brought one of his victims here! Can we see? Can we see?
But they don't invade the safehouse... they've not been invited in.
And Tsubasa --
Tsubasa tried to scream for help, though their voice just echoed back to them. It became harder, with a prick of a needle; harder still, when their vision and their consciousness blurred. They felt the jostling of a vehicle, then...
It is some hours before they wake. Even with Momiji's healing sealing the cuts, they were carved many times, exhausted by the pain and the terror. The marks are angrily pink, advanced only to a middle stage of repair.
And it is Tsubasa who is held there, in that formidable throne; a youth with 'hair' of cyan and magenta and yellow, which Shiryuu may have previously ascertained to be a wig, massive old burn scars evident across one side of their body. They are dressed in a military-style tank top, and another thing like a tank top beneath it -- although this is green and black and tight to their skin, stretching down to a midsection which would otherwise be bared. Their cargo pants are a warm shade of grey; their high-top sneakers have several patches stitched to them.
Their breathing is shallowed, and it was even, until a few moments prior.
"Nn..."
Tsubasa's brow knits. (No eyebrows; there's cyan and white makeup over their brows, instead.) Their teeth clench together, lips pulling back, as they try to centre themself in reality... until they do.
Then -- "HELP!" Tsubasa belts out, only to cough, ragged, as their lungs protest the action. Still, again, as they yank their arms and legs to try and get free of whatever fucking torture device this is: "HEEEELP!"
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
The boy doesn't respond immediately as the student comes to. He is busy, strictly speaking, with the affairs of the workbench. A tiny jeweller's screwdriver put to a mechanism, a spring wound with a series of tiny clicks. A jade-edged locket, in the shape of a three-sided star, more scalloped into the blades of a shallow windmill than pointed. A drum is pressed down into place with a click. And then the entire affair is wound with a tiny key until a tiny *ting* sets the spring to maximum tension against the drum's drive gear. he threads a small chain through that, just at about when the phoenix begins to make noise.
And make noise they do, with a voice that reaches the overhead ventilation pipes, and almost certainly gets the attention of his -truly unfortunate- neighbors. Luckily, Shiryuu pays no attention to and has no interest in the gossip of demons, no matter how fascinating Shuuhei finds it. Consequently, the onmitsu lets out a long, low sigh as this goes on in the background, running a hand through his grey mop.
If it were simply 'a chair,' if they were simply 'ties,' Tsubasa might have been able to at least tilt the whole affair over, maybe wriggle loose. But the Ryouhara are not cheap, and banal cable ties are almost an insult. No, it's heavy stone and iron that holds Tsubasa in place, proof enough to give even the supernatural pause at the ominous jade hand-seals, just shy of actual shackles. The seat they're tied into is indeed more appropriately called a throne, and it cares very little if a pauper or a king sits upon it.
In comparison, the heavy aluminum chair Ryouhara sits in is positively pedestrian in comparison.
The boy gets up as all the shouting goes on, taking his chair by the backrest, tapping it with hollow sound as he slides the locket into his haori.
And then _krrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnn...._
The sound across the concrete is awkwardly earsplitting in the most obnoxious way, drowning out Tsubasa's cries for help as Shiryuu simply drags his chair all the way across the safehouse. _Krrrrnnnn...._ he is unceremonious in the way he drags it, a patience to his gait as calm as it is completely uncaring of the noxious squall that fills the cavernous space to the point where it rattles the steel rollups. _Krrrrrrnnnnn...._ it goes, and that boy approaches Tsubasa unceremoniously.
_Krrrnnnnn....._ ... _chnk_.
The boy puts the chair down in front of Tsubasa, with some finality.
He sighs again, before sitting in front of them, tucking his sword to the side to do so, bracing his elbows on his knees. His fingertips show just barely from his sleeves as he touches them together in front of Tsubasa, contemplatively.
A click, and then a thought.
"That's not good for you," Ryouhara points out.
"Especially for your throat."
It doesn't take a genius to understand that his captive likely has long-standing smoke inhalation injuries, even if based off of the lung capacity alone.
"And... it won't help."
He's calm. Shiryuu is very matter of fact about the whole affair. "You're not in a place that's safe. So, if you don't quiet down, you'll probably just get eaten. And if you behave, I won't have to become difficult with you. That's the rule. It's easy. It's the only one. Do you understand it?"
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"I'M -- I'M IN HERE!" Gasp, "HEY!" Gasp, "HEEEELP!!"
It's fruitless; Tsubasa still struggles at their bonds, trying to take in the way their hands are captured. Shit, they think: if they were more free, they could probably finangle their way outta here. Picking a lock with one hand can't be easy, but necessity, invention, c'mon!
"HEEEEELP!"
There's got to be something they can do!
They flinch, hearing that noise scraping across the concrete. It wavers their effort, but just for a moment. "HEEEELP!" They try, again.
They don't know that no one who cares can hear them, even as loud as they're trying to be. (They avoid raising their voice, as a rule; the register gets way too feminine as it rises. But these aren't exactly normal circumstances.)
The boy drags that chair towards them, without a single care to hurry, and their struggles only increase in their violence as he steps closer. A few of those knit cuts split; a little red stains the armrests of their ignoble throne.
When they realise that, the pain pulling their blue gaze down, they can't stop the sick thought that it's probably not the first time that's happened here.
And then -- chunk.
Their breath is laboured, now, and just as shallow, teeth grit tightly as they glare him down. Of course, he tells them not to fight. Of course!
Their compressed heart's hammering in their chest, as their anger rises. They're surprised -- momentarily -- when those boiling feelings summon their feathered hood over their body, the clothes they wear in reality replaced with their Will of Rebellion. "This joint's--?" They realise, looking down to their ninja robes.
But if it's a Supernatural space, they can serve this guy his own ass--!
They just have to -- get free, and --
Phoenix's struggling redoubles, for a few moments, before they realise the terrible truth: supernatural safehouse or no, they're exhausted, their brain's fogged, and they've been beaten all to Hell.
Like this... they can't even summon their Persona.
Tears sting at the corners of their eyes, beneath that pointed witch's mask they're wearing. Their anger hasn't gone away, though; the anger that someone would subjugate them like this, expect them not to be able to fight back.
There's not much they can do right now; that doesn't mean they're out of options.
They answer Shiryuu's request for understanding with a gutteral noise -- as they spit at him. "Get FUCKED!"
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
"You're bleeding."
The shihaisha is dispassionate and passive, watching Tsubasa closely as they struggle. Two index fingers hinge, tapping fingertips together as the student struggles, as they fight, as the awesome weight of jade drags against every movement. It casts an eerie pallor over the Phoenix's cognitive robes, that heavy stone collar doing less to snug tightly over their neck and more to blunt the aggression of their struggling, to tire them out, to impose the only real bindings that matter in a supernatural world: Fatigue.
He is quiet for a time, waiting patiently, distantly, as the person in the shinobi shozoku sags in their traces.
Two differently colored shades of brown eyes half-lid, as the shihaisha stares while they try not to despair openly.
'I'm a person who has to enact a terrible will on the world.'
The words echo in the back of the boy's head as Tsubasa curses, spits at him, spraying his pants and sweater. The motion is violent, undirected, chaotic, enough so that the young man dusts his haori quietly, finally leaning back slowly to fold his hands in his lap, one resting on the other, to be draped over by his sleeves as he primly crosses his legs. Settling into his voluminous clothes, there is the finest tone of sound trickling from beneath him, the sound of a telltale beat, broken and jangled.
The same boy, in the same bloodstained haori of white from one moment to the next. The 'invincible' Shiryuu Ryouhara does not spawn a mask in the supralunar dark. What is left in the absence of one is the broken vestiges of sound, shattered like glass around him absent his fierce will to spur it whole.
Ryouhara understands being subjugated.
"'Rebellion' is something you can do when a person is stronger than you in one way, and weaker in another," the shihaisha points out. "You 'rebel' when they are physically stronger, but less righteous. When they have superior numbers, but have an inferior will. When they are more cunning, but less sure of themselves. Then, 'Rebellion' is the sacred recourse. And it is effective."
The shihaisha blinks slowly, once, calm.
There's something inexorably sad about him, in a fashion.
"...'Rebellion' will do nothing for you, here."
For a second, Shiryuu looks up slowly to the overhead lights, slow curving things that roll and pitch slowly, casting and twisting pale cerulean shapes and slate grey shadows as they go. He seems to be searching for something to pluck from the air itself.
His mouth opens, a tiny sound as his lips part.
"Tonight ... who ... do you wish to be known as?"
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Ryouhara points out they're bleeding...
"Like you give a shit!"
... but it doesn't do much to calm them down.
Phoenix pants, against the confines of that collar, stilling for a moment.
Until --
"Rraghhhhh--!!"
Phoenix pushes themself to a frenzy, again. The only thing they succeed at is feeling more pain.
What happens if they open their wounds properly? They wonder, in the middle of their rage. Would a guy like this just watch them bleed out? What happens when Ichika comes to find them, and brings home a body?
Just like she had to bring home Toshiaki...
In the end, it isn't Shiryuu's insistence that they can't win which makes that feather cloak fade from existence, replaced again with that bare, tanned skin, all covered with concealer.
... but perhaps the way their head hangs, arrested in its sag by the collar at their neck, might seem like a reply.
"You're really... full a yaself, huh?" They grumble, their voice even raspier than usual after all that shouting; apparently, it is possible for Tsubasa to sound more hoarse. "... fuck you."
Tsubasa resolves, swallowing, that they're not going to cry here. They're sure someone like this would be satisfied.
"... I'm not tellin' you nothin'," they insist, sullen. "How 'bout you tell me what you even fuckin' want?"
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
'You're really full a yaself, huh?'
"I've heard it before," Shiryuu remarks quietly in reply, looking off to one side. There's no bemusement in his voice, no riposte -- he's saying something that's true, something that doesn't matter.
He is hardly satisfied that Tsubasa calms down, that that shozoku fades back into their current situation of iron and jade. His brow lowers as they insist. "A moment ago, when you shouted, your voice..."
Shiryuu shakes his head slowly, his voice trailing off.
"... nevermind. Who we are really doesn't matter in the long run, does it..."
He's content to leave it at that.
"There's really no point in telling you much more, as you are, right now," Shiryuu decides, his eyes returning to Tsubasa. "The one who roars and comes at me so boldly, no matter what the danger."
He shifts slightly in that bloodstained haori, betraying just a little of his stillness to the moment. He's watching Tsubasa closely in that moment.
"Was I wrong to think that that person was 'strong...' ... that that person felt the same as I, in that moment?"
He doesn't explain what that feeling was. Instead he poses a more direct question:
"Was it just your intention to die when you put yourself against my Mugen Setsuna?"
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Try listenin'," Tsubasa snaps, when Shiryuu supposes he's heard it before -- though their voice is lower, now. He might not be riposting, but they're evidently not so beaten they won't still strike back with their words.
He mentions their voice, though, and they scowl -- an expression which only grows more intense as he talks about who they really are. "I ain't no fuckin' girl!" They insist, and finds the fire they'd lost a moment ago. "Fuck you, fuck YOU!"
But, of course, it becomes more obvious when they raise their voice.
Inside those jade shackles, their hands tighten.
They bare their teeth, when he talks about their boldness; their nostrils flare, their jaw set. ... their breathing is still a touch laboured, and they're tense, in their bonds. But their eyes aren't settled on Shiryuu; they're darting around to what they can see of the room, with their limited field of view, framed on both sides by that sick helm.
(There must be something...)
They really didn't intend on telling him anything. But anger sparks in them, again, when he asks if they just meant to die. "Fuck that," Tsubasa scowls, looking back to him with those light, steely blue eyes of theirs. (Was it foreign blood, or were they just born beneath a strange star?) "Swore I weren't gon' die for no one when th' Joker Killer tossed me into a fuckin' buildin' to cook again. You think you're as tough as that motherfucker? Don't make me laugh..." ... but their chuckling just has them coughing, again.
"Ugh," they grimace, eyes squinting shut for a moment. "Gh. Nah. I coulda pulled it off if I weren't distracted by that fuckin'..." They jerk their chin, in Shiryuu's direction. "There! Right fuckin' there, it's playin' now, right?!" They're not sure when they realised they could hear it, but now they have, they can't unhear it.
"... an' if you think I was gonna let you skewer me friend or me girl, you're even more delusional than I thought you were," they add, sullen again. "Woulda fucked you up first.. asshole."
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
There's something in the exact tone of Tsubasa's voice, that fresh spate of venom that tugs at the boy's attention, though his countenance doesn't at all waver in the face of that anger.
Though certainly they might think otherwise, Shiryuu's eyeline settles on the middle distance not because of their vitriol, but from another thought entirely.
"... then you're not," that shihaisha decides, once Tsubasa is done.
Do you have to be something you're not?
Shiryuu really doesn't know. He hopes not.
Even so, he doesn't ask again.
Instead, the shihaisha listens to Tsubasa quietly, and they might not even notice that they currently enjoy his full attention, their mention of the Joker Killer earning them a light, slow nod. He doesn't argue.
"Then you and I share more than one thing in common."
His attention truthfully only wavers when Tsubasa brings the undercurrent of sound to his attention, the shinobi's fingers sliding out of his sleeves to settle his palms flat on his thighs, legs uncrossing and his head turning to the side as if it's the first he's actually heard it.
Tsubasa can feel when Shiryuu trains his attention on his own cognitive BPM -- the sound flanges suddenly, going from a song that is simply too faint to hear to a muffled warble, the harsh wobble of sound battering the air pressure in the entire stockhouse. It's an ugly sound, and the boy has to lever his entire will on it to tamp down that crush of air to a whisper.
The beat is still there, though with Ryouhara's attention on it, it is now audible only in the way one could readily attribute to their imagination.
"...sorry," the boy apologizes simply.
A low sigh precursors the onmitsu standing before Tsubasa, the grey-haired getting to his feet. The scarlet spattering all over his white haori almost seems like an intentional pattern as the silk billows, the young man approaching Tsubasa and the throne that binds them slowly, taking one step up onto the dais that raises the throne above his own position, until he and Tsubasa are at the same 'level.'
"Anyway," the boy continues, absently. "Mugen Setsuna is a refined killing method using the power of 'shinsoku' to guide a blade through the necks of multiple targets in an instant. You only step in front of it if you want to die, or if you don't want someone else to die. An admirable resolve."
It's hard to believe how far Shiryuu really was from Tsubasa until he actually approaches. A few steps can feel like a mile away.
He lifts a hand, unceremoniously pressing a palm under Tsubasa's chin and above the line of that weighted collar, taking advantage of their predicament to grip them by the throat. But he won't strangle them.
The shihaisha's touch is gentle.
"Breathe," he tells them.
He's sensing the modulations in their breathing, the strength of their pulse, and quite likely, the actual strength of their voice when they respond poorly. A bizarre means to do so, but Ryouhara doesn't explain why or how.
"Answer. Are your ribs broken?"
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Damn right I'm not," Tsubasa grumbles. They hope their irritated attempt to claim the last word covers the relief they're feeling, hearing him accept their identity so easily. It doesn't; not entirely; but it might be clearer, hearing that, how they're trying to cover things up. ... like all that concealer, which is getting a little battered after a day like this, smudged in places to reveal the burns beneath.
(Burns which are more stark, against that fake tan, the pale Japanese scars unwilling to take on the colour in nearly the same way.)
They don't notice that they're centre stage -- except, of course, to note that they're on this weird dais, which of course they liken immediately to some kind of sacrifical altar. "Tch," their tongue clicks to their teeth, when he insists they have things in common. "As if."
They wince, though, hearing that mistuned noise. "Get a fuckin' tuner, asshole," they mutter, and it's the kind of thoughtless comment that gives him yet more information.
A 'tuner' -- be it tuning fork or a modern electric tuner -- is an essential part of music which most laymen wouldn't think of for an instant, particularly for heavy music like rock or metal where amps -- guitar amplifiers -- wreck any hope of tuning by ear.
Tsubasa still feels like they can hear it... but it's quiet enough that they really can't be sure. Maybe they're just remembering how they heard it...
Their attention fixes on the boy himself, though, as he stands. "Fuck's a shinsoku, and why the fuck do I care?" They scowl, and again, they hope the ferocity in their thuggish expression covers their nervousness.
Again: it doesn't, really. Particularly not when he reaches out, and their breath shallows further. "H-hey, don't --" touch me, they might have said, except that they feel his fingertips around their throat, and they go -- dead -- silent.
He has to tell them to breathe again; the breath they take is ragged, their eyes wide, and though their teeth are grit the fear pulling their lips down is miles from a snarl. "W--why, so you can choke me out?" They lobby back to him; their heart is racing. The medically-inclined of his clan would call it tachycardia. "Sick bastard..."
And he can feel them swallow, when he demands his answer.
Rapidly, running through their head: can I get out of this? -- no, idiot, this crazy murderer's literally got you by the throat. Fuck! And that internal swearing lasts a good few moments; their heart doesn't stop pounding while they're grappling with it.
"N...no, man, hope not, prolly jus'... bruised up... what ya expect, tossin' me like a sack a potatoes an' whatever th' fuck else ya did while I was in me binder?" Suddenly, an idea strikes them. "Jus' -- lemme outta this a sec so I can take it off, yeah? Won't do nothin' stupid, jus' -- can't leave this thing on all night."
TECHNICALLY: they're not lying!
It's not stupid to use the opportunities they have to summon their Persona, knock this guy on his ass and bolt.
It's actually a brilliant idea and as soon as they get outta here they'll demand a fucking medal.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
He frowns very slightly, as they tell him he needs a tuner.
It confirms for the onmitsu him that nothing of the person in front of him is as hard or as foolish as they insist they are.
But there is a price for that, and the shinobi's mien isn't hostile, but as distant as the mountain is from the riverside as they approach.
And then Shiryuu has them by the throat, with the ability to do whatever he pleases to them in that moment. And he is silent in that -- and he is --
... listening.
Shiryuu doesn't need equipment to place their heartbeat. To count out rhythm, and to understand how close the phoenix may be to outright fainting from the stress of their situation. He can feel their heartbeat thunder, stop, canter, then stampede anew.
The slide of silk across the young phoenix's throat has never been so soft as when Shiryuu's hand falls away from them.
It would be easy for the paranoia to imagine in the young man derision in that moment. Dark brown eyes look to the colors of their false hair, their concealer as it runs, the slow notice that they wear more than one shirt, a mysterious underarmor tied so tight so as to cut off their breathing.
If the boy ever really considers Tsubasa's plan seriously, he certainly doesn't show it.
Instead, the silver-haired boy straightens, solemn as his silhouette slips together into a continuous shape, as his once-pure white mantle eclipses his hands anew. It's only for a few moments, as his weary mien tightens, sharpens into the imperious authority of the shihaisha.
And yet, there is a single notion that wanders just beyond it, as he raises a hand to press an exposed thumb into the dense wool covering his chest.
" ... who we are in our heart is not in the things we wear."
The boy in the bloodstained haori tells them this, a hallowed voice hardly above the weight of a whisper. He doesn't look at Tsubasa, not exactly, not directly as he says so, on the contrary, the saccade of his eyeline skating away from them infuriatingly inexact.
"Our soul ... cannot be what and where people see and think it is. It is a necessary defense measure for our 'sense of self.' Every day, people tell us what they want us to be, who we are. They praise us, and curse us, and think good or ill of us, all the while unaware that they're interacting with a shadow cast on the wall. It has to be this way, or else our gossamer hearts would be destroyed by the weight of 'expectation.'"
A small, wan expression marks his face, his lips set in a light, neutral line. The shihaisha blinks slowly, half-lidded eyes shuttering.
"But that discrepancy between where a person looks and where you are... is also where 'loneliness' begins."
Instead of lowering his hand from his chest, Shiryuu shows Tsubasa the knife, a short, double-edged blade seemingly produced out of thin air, as if that slavering kami behind them dropped the gleaming sharp into his hand.
His voice is both warm and cold at once.
"That is the basis of what it is to be 'shinobi.'"
Kneeling before them so that his knee rests against the edge of the abominable throne, Ryouhara takes Tsubasa with only the more precursory of roughness -- he doesn't remove their tank top, and truthfully couldn't, with them bound as they are. Instead, that sharp knife slides along the edge of that undershirt until it settles just in a line with their right shoulder. The knife's tip, turned flat for an instant, will hook under that undergarment, the make of it braced under the weight of his thumb. The way he searches out the thinnest part of that region of the paneling through feel would almost be like working a seam ripper blind, were he actually looking to take apart the (mis?)worn thing at any sewn seams. He pinches the lower hem of their tank top, to keep it in place when he goes beneath it.
Shiryuu is good with a knife -- no matter how much they might fight or struggle against it, he won't even so much as nick Tsubasa in the next instant. And his knife is sharp -- a single thrust underneath clothing, and Shiryuu will have cut the binder open right out from under their tank top.
The young phoenix will feel the first kiss of his knife, and that's it.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Tsubasa swallows, again, as Shiryuu's hand slips away. They hate every part of this, but they feel deeply and uncomfortably aware of just where they're sitting, right now. They can't even lift their hands...
Fuck, man, this is about survival.
(And that grim realisation is evident in their eyes, and their edge of desperation.)
It's not an unfamiliar place to them; they're just on the back foot. But all their attention's on him, as he goes through that distance to examining them, solemn to stern.
They need to get a read on him. They can do this. They were always so good... at knowing what their father was feeling.
"Yeah, man. Th' West calls it Plato's cave. We all heard that shit." Many Japanese teenagers have assuredly not heard about ancient Greek philosophy. "Why you tellin' me this...?"
Shiryuu's hand turns, to show the knife to them, and those blue eyes of theirs widen as Tsubasa presses themself against the back of their throne. "H--hey, w-wait a minute!" They yelp, having evidently misunderstood the message. "W-we can talk about this, man!!"
And why wouldn't they think they were about to get stabbed? That's been his whole thesis on shinobi so far.
"H--hey!" They say, again, and they can't squirm far in a trap like this, but they certainly try. "What --" -- the knife turns flat, goes under their binder's strap, and Tsubasa realises just what he's about to do.
What Shiryuu will find, under there, is that he'll need to slice the side of the garment as much as its shoulder-strap; it is tight enough that when that strap falls away, the rest of the garment doesn't fall as much as simply demonstrate it's held up by tension. Mercifully, this compression shirt was evidently hand-made -- the seams aren't that hard to find or to cut through. Stitched together with a machine, clearly, but still amateur work.
A talented amateur, though.
And what that outer tank-top is far too light and breezy to obscure, when the binder's been cut away, is the entire reason why Tsubasa would be so touchy about being not a girl.
Chest thus freed, Tsubasa takes a series of deep breaths, turning their face away to cough heavily a few times.
"... ain't tryin' to be rude," they mutter, in explanation. "Gotta... clear ya airway out after wearin' one a those a while. Or ya get pneumonia or some shit."
They at least seem to be breathing easier, now it's gone.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
He is, of note, remarkably more gentle with the garment when he realizes it's handmade.
It would have taken one cut. Clean, surgical, precise, to find the edges between the panels, to make one cut and destroy it. But there's something ... about when the young man finds a particular vagary in the thread direction.
He is no tailor. He cannot by eye tell the difference between an overlock stitch and a zigzag stitch. But his thumb runs the hem of that fabric as he's had a hundred times before for a hundred different garments, and he can feel the difference between a slip stitch and an overlock, a professional serger and a home sewing machine. Of soulless corporate precision and the care of hands.
Fine, then. It takes more than one cut, another moment, another second of the interminable intimacy of the shihaisha and the phoenix, another moment of panic, of muted terror.
So be it.
The boy straightens, watching them closely as their struggle subsides, as their breathing returns to normal, the weight of his quiet mien settling on them like a hammer.
'...ain't tryin' to be rude.' "Mm."
Placing his actual mood is hard, as every moment in that safehouse does not match the grandiose posture of the young man whose sword bares itself in battle without hesitation, with full resolve and all of the authority above the moon.
Now, it's different, and the silver-haired young man with the distant eyes is the one who picks up the pieces in the wake of all of that blood.
"...so you know what it is."
Shiryuu does not dwell overlong on the obvious. His eyes only trace the injuries, the parts where that tension banding cut into flesh, the scarring that is evident with the looseness of the tank top, the tiny shift and press of their shoulders as their breathing relaxes even under the domineering weight of jade. Instead, Shiryuu clears the next moment with the revelation that Tsubasa did, in fact, pay attention in school.
"... and why it's important, not least of all to those of us with supralunar power."
He lifts his right hand -- and Tsubasa will see the haori drop away from his wrist, the long stretch of his sweater falling, and a pretty, almost iridescent white silk cord lay slack and light around his wrist as the boy slides a tiny saya from his sleeve with a thumb, tucking the small knife away before tucking the sheathed weapon into a pocket.
"So. I can expect you to have an answer when I ask."
His hands again disappear into his sleeves, and Tsubasa will realize that the grey-headed boy's attention is like the moonrise. Gentle, such that you might not even notice you have it until it is omnipresent. His eyes fix on them, quietly.
"What is a man, to you?"
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
When Tsubasa realises why he's taking so long -- well, their first thought, of course.
It's 'what rib is he going to slip that in between?'
(They know, vaguely, that there's a difference between them; remember their brother practicing counting down them to rap at their heart. Well, the heart will be at the top, but it wouldn't be to the right, would it? Isn't that, like... left-leaning? No, down there... that's the liver. Right. The liver's on the right side, at the bottom of the ribs. And the lungs, of course. There was something about the lungs... like, one was bigger than the other one?)
But once they get through all that terror, feeling that knife working, though they don't dare look -- at some point in their rambling thoughts they realise that he's taking care with the binder they've made, and their teeth come to cradle their bottom lip, worrying it gently.
Don't think he gives a shit, they remind themself. He doesn't even know you made it yourself.
And the lines of their binder are familiar to their flesh: there's a depression, there, where the skin has grown used to its addendum.
Their scars are far more evident on their belly, where they haven't applied concealer at all. There, the dark orange-brown of their tan is sharply delineated by the scar tissue -- though not always evenly; there are places, particularly at the middle of their belly, where the scarring is faint enough that the skin is able to darken in the places undamaged.
The cuts which Shiryuu carved into their limbs, too, fight for space with that scar tissue. Where they laid over the scars, the cuts are shallower, owing to the tougher nature of the lighter tissue; where the skin is less damaged, the cuts bore deeper, and it is these which more easily broke open in their struggling. The blood drips, at least, rather than pouring; skin remodelling is not a set of seams to be torn, but a complex healing process which can be compromised and set back on track.
Which means, practically speaking, there's more blood leaking out and blotching on the left than the right.
Tsubasa can feel themself being traced, assessed; they glance away, for a moment, and he may note a strange addition to the press of their lips and the crease of their brow. Shame! They are ashamed to be seen this way, without the armour that makes them more of themself.
They don't take their attention from him for long, though. His hand lifts -- and Tsubasa's attention snaps back to him, again. (And there is fear, there, in their intent stare and the flare of their nostrils.) But his haori dops away, and there was a sheathe in his pocket, and he's putting the knife away...
Not that they're all that safe, even so.
"Uh... a man, huh?" They ask, and they're scanning him, just as intently. "Uh... look, I ain't a boy neither, so this ain't a dog I'm racin'," they explain, a touch awkwardly, though their initial fears that they were going to get stabbed for the crime of gender have at least so far proven to be unsubstantiated. "I ain't neither. Where ya put down 'M' or 'F', I'm 'X'. Jus', like... if I gotta run with one or the other, prefer to hang with th' dudes. I ain't no fuckin' girl. But a man, that's..."
Tsubasa pauses, here; they could lie, or invent some half-truth, but the way this boy's looking at them they're not entirely sure he couldn't tell. It's just a matter of survival, right? So... "... it's somethin' I'm definin' by what it's not," they admit, their gaze dropping again, their tone growing quiet and dismally thoughtful. "Dunno if me father put you up to this, but he's a piece a shit to his family... pre' sure he beats his wife, but I couldn't fuckin' tell you, we weren't never allowed in their room. Beats on me, can tell you that. An' that fuckin' Hajime... always got in his head 'bout me lookin' at other guys, even when we were jus' watchin' a movie. Made me bow down in front a his whole school... piece a shit. So when I'm with me girl, one thing I'm thinkin' is... doin' the opposite a what they did. Got bad blood," because of course the idea that immorality in the father is expressed in the child is quite central to society, "but... she likes that I'm tryin' to do better. Well, that ain't really 'bout bein' a man, but... a real man can't be doin' that shit."
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
It's true. Tsubasa enjoying the sum of the onmitsu contractor's attention, that silk-lined razor thing, is itself a dubious boon. There is nothing hostile in him, but the boy's attention doesn't know restraint in the slightest. Shiryuu shows them no mercy; his eyes are searchlights. He watches them as they flash him their intent to defy; the flare of their nostrils, the broken will and shards of shame that lay between them.
It's easy for them to think of it, he thinks. The barriers between people, as so many shards of glass surrounding that dais. Shiryuu can almost see it, if he took his eyes off Tsubasa.
Turned one way, those shards of shame reflect one thing.
Turned another, it's a thing entirely new.
Tsubasa is studying him just as closely as he them, but the onmitsu's feelings are much less openly pervasive. There is a worn down quality to that boy, of the sort that one would be hard pressed to see when he is moving, when all of him is wired by that lotus beat, but every part of that grey-headed boy is lost in subtlety, as much as he is in his intensities.
There are a great many things that Shiryuu could put Tsubasa to the blade over -- but answering his questions is not one of them.
There is a slow, subtle rise of the brow that they will not miss, as Tsubasa reveals their truest gender. It's clear that it would be the first the boy has seen of it in practice, though a small thought occurs to him as his eyes lower from theirs for a moment. A memory.
Then it's gone, the young man raising his eyes to Tsubasa once more. It's one silver-strung moment before he replies.
"'A man' can be many things, I think."
The shihaisha is subtle in the way he replies; there is nothing of the overbearing order he is capable of wielding like a bludgeon in his voice. Instead, the silver-haired man slides his hand to his side, his fingertips visible for only a second as it disappears into a pocket.
"I'm told that I carry the purest blood of my family. Hallowed, ancient, cursed. Blood can be many things. It can predestine you to glory, or it can consign you to the pit. The difference in it is in the honor and will of a man." He pauses, reflecting. "... of a person."
There could be so many things that appear from Ryouhara. He is a boy with a hundred weapons, a thousand ways to break bones. To think then, that the most dangerous things he could draw would be a small clockwork pendant from his haori.
"A person can be gentle. A person can be harsh. According to their nature and their ability, a person can be many things. But in this world and the next, it's an incontrovertible law that a person who can allow their loved ones to come to harm is reprehensible. For a shinobi, thrice so," he explains.
"Unfortunately, for shinobi protecting one's loved ones in the light is not enough. There are costs to be paid for power."
The boy is quiet as the lake, as dark and deep as the ocean. He lifts his hand, the jewelrychain threading through his fingers as he drops the jade-lined pendant into the weight of its own chain, suspended. It emits a light ticking, just barely audible. He holds it there.
"Young X, whom has suffered so much misery at this world's hand. I'll give you only this one chance to recant. Those people you stand for. The ones you laid your life down so bravely for... that woman that is so close to you ... do you mean what you say when you say you mean to do them better than the generation before...?"
Brown eyes are sharp.
"Do not speak the words thoughtlessly."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Tsubasa's Will, at least, is not broken so easily... but the unfortunate truth of their situation is that they cannot escape through sheer force of will alone.
They have to survive... so that Ichika can fulfill her promise.
And that's why they have to watch him so closely.
Tsubasa is someone who covers things up, habitually: scars, biological sex, deformity, level of giving a shit. But they are not someone who does it with subtlety. They get loud.
They notice his hand going to his pocket; keep an eye on it, in their periphery, as their attention goes back to his face. "You, uh... you under a lot a pressure, huh?" They ask, their lips twitching back in what they were meaning to be a smile but which really just tastes desperate. "W-with all that blood or whatever... look, if this is all some weird cry for help you can jus' let me go, man, I won't tell th' cops or nothin'..."
What his hand is doing is pulling out a pendant, and at first, Tsubasa doesn't think much of it.
Their attempt to reason with Shiryuu, though, is shattered when he starts talking about protecting their loved ones. "H--hold on a sec! Jus' what're you threatenin'?!" Tsubasa demands, anger gripping their expression again. "Keep ya hands off Ogre, you piece a shit!"
There's a soft clink as that pendant drops down, to dangle.
And at that point, Tsubasa cuts all his gravitas off at the knees, as they hear the ticking and squark:
"IS THAT A FUCKIN' BOMB?!"
Their teeth grit; the pace of their breathing quickens. "Wha' th' fuck, man! If you're askin' if you can go blow her up the answer is obviously fuckin' not you goddamn creep! Are you insane?! Fuck you! If you so much as touch her I'll make sure you don't GOT no problems with havin' blood no more!"
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
"Good. You understand the situation, then..."
The boy's dispassion overpowers his sadness with the young phoenix's lot in life, his expression flattening, erasing any vestige of softness, replaced only by the grim acceptance of 'reality.'
"I am not someone who cries for help," Shiryuu tells them, in no uncertain terms. "The burden I carry is not so winsome, or deserving of pity."
No matter how loudly Tsubasa yells, the grey-haired boy is slow to roll that ominous pendant into a hand. He knows that Tsubasa would say anything to be released from captivity, to act exactly how and where they need to to see tomorrow. Words, accepted plainly as hollow and desperate. Fear. No matter which smile it hides behind, Shiryuu is used to the expression.
With a plain, bitter tongue, he continues.
"I'm the person who has to enact a terrible will upon the world..."
For a moment, it seems as if he's content with letting Tsubasa think it's a bomb, and Shiryuu certainly seems intent on letting them rave as they finally turn, and step down the dais, walking away. It is really only in the middle of threatening him that he responds, sharp, interrupting.
"...-- this pendant will sing, five times."
His voice is like a sword. The jade edged locket is set back down on the workbench, gently, delicately, as Shiryuu gathers the seemingly delicate jewelrychain in a tiny pile on the bamboo worktable surface.
"A shinobi is someone who will do anything for the world they want their precious people to live in. Even if it stains their hands with blood. Even if it's a miserable task. Even if it tarnishes their soul. That is what it means to be a shinobi. To take on the burden that your people cannot. I need you to bear that burden, to undertake an impossible task. To run against ill-reputed men who poison the shadows themselves, and bring back for me their darkest treasures."
Eyes look up, cold and hard-hearted.
"While it sings, you and yours are safe by my absolute word. But, when the locket is out of songs to sing, if I do not have what I need, I will come before the person most precious in your life when you are gone."
"... and you'll never have the chance to say goodbye."
There is the lightest modulation in his voice as he says it; the slightest note out of tune. The trickle of the beat beneath his sneakers can be felt in the way the boy shifts, in the way he sighs.
"I'm sorry, young one. It's the best choice I can give you. The moment you wore that shozoku, your life was marked, and you were forced to be 'strong.' With that, we could never be..." he trails off, shaking his head.
"Inhuman people like me are not meant to be 'merciful.'"
Shiryuu is careful to clean up after himself, the tools, and locking the drawers. All that can be seen is the symbol at his back, at that bloodstained haori. "When you leave this place, this pendant will be in Kasugayama High during the next Dark Hour. It will appear there only once, and then it will disappear forever." He doesn't look back, as he raises a hand.
"... but it will not stop singing, irrespective of whether you can hear it or not."
"It represents my promise to you. Take it, and it will represent your promise to me. That's all."
The boy heads towards the back room, to leave.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Internally, Tsubasa thinks: YEAH it doesn't deserve pity, man, you fucking kidnapped me! What the fuck!
"W--what'dya mean, sing?" They ask, and there is desperation, to their voice. ... the explanation offers them no succour; not a bomb, but a countdown.
Reiko Shimizu showed them video games, while they were staying with her, in crisis. They remember one of the status effects; a simple number running to zero, atop the RPG heroes' heads. Five, four, three, two, one, zero... and then...
Encased in jade, their own hands are trembling. Why... why does he want them to be so awful? Is he really working with their father? Or... is he really the Black Mask, continuing his experiments? Whatever that burden is... it doesn't matter, they think, their eyes stinging. He'll kill them first, then Ichika... Ryuji might not be safe, either, now he's seen their face. They won't be able to say goodbye...? He says 'a' terrible will; Tsubasa thinks bitterly that it is his, despite his desire not to associate with it.
"You're sick," they say, but their own voice is small.
They listen, their horror muted, as he apologises; as he blames the robes they saw as such a sign of strength. Saying it will keep singing... he's fastidious. Does he clean up his corpses so carefully?
"H--hey, wait!" Tsubasa cries, as he turns to leave. "You're sayin' it'll count down to our deaths if I take it or not, right?! L--look, you gotta give me more information than that! I don't fuckin' know who those shadow-poisoners are or nothin'! Or -- or -- what do you want from them, man?!" Their voice cracks with their grief, tears welling in their eyes, despite themself. "Just tell me what you want!"
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
Breaking someone is a regrettable talent Shiryuu has. Whether by body or by mind, Shiryuu knows which bones to break, which points to drive the needle. And it is a familiar sound, that particular kind of quiet. He can hear the way their voice drops off, the sound of silence, and a complete lack of that fierce reply.
'You're sick.' The words sound so small.
Shiryuu does not turn, looking down.
Ah, is this what made 'senpai'...
But, in the end, he muses, was it any real surprise that this much would be the thing that terrifies Tsubasa the most? Shiryuu's already watched them, known what it is they feel. The boy in the bloodstained haori doesn't think it's any surprise at all that this much would be the confirmation that Tsubasa is everything he thought they were.
After all, it only took Shiryuu thinking of the very worst thing that would break even him, and use it himself.
To lose your precious person without even being able to say goodbye.
"... I want you to aggress against the New World Order for me."
In reply to that blind panic, he responds. The worlds are calm, measured, exact. Their name is not one he speaks lightly, itself thought to be a neologism of the time, describing forces much, much older and much, much worse. It's almost pointless even to say, a child's fever dream or nightmare. But when he says it, he wants it to be without any doubt at all. To give something, anything.
Shiryuu looks back at Tsubasa, into that grief-streaked, miserable face, into those desperate, terrified eyes. And the silver haired man's calming smile is _absolutely radiant._ The boy has the kind of smile that shines brighter than the full moon.
A complete tonal shift from only seconds ago.
"You don't need to worry at all. I'll take care of things, to make sure you have everything you need to fulfill your promise... to be proud as a real, whole person, right?"
The door clicks as he unlocks it, as he opens it.
His smile is haunting, only for a few moments more.
Then, he is gone, to arrange the watch schedule.
He leaves them there with their thoughts awhile, with only the faintest song of a siren in the distance to lull.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Tsubasa doesn't realise how close they are, in that moment. Shiryuu is the monster who kidnapped them and forced them to work on pain of their partners' deaths; he cannot possibly be any measure of relatable.
Except -- at least -- at least he paused.
He asks them to attack the New World Order, and a sickening lurch would have set them stumbling, if they had the latitude to move that much. "But-- don't you work for th' Order!?" Tsubasa asks, as they stare. It doesn't make any sense. Is there just -- this group of ninja who are also evil and have nothing to do with them?! No way, man!
It doesn't make any sense... until they recall something that assassin told them, when they were terrified.
'The organization has many levers of control, some more subtle than others. They control their own members as surely as they try to control others--I am not overfond of them, myself.'
"... you people... you're twisted," they curse him, realising in that same breath the vast gulf between people like that fencer, this ninja, and their own soul.
They really weren't like them.
But now... now, he wants them to...
He's smiling, Tsubasa realises. After something as horrific as that... he's smiling.
They hear his 'reassurance,' and their teeth grit, as they look away.
"I don't want it," they mumble, into the darkness, after they hear the door click. "Jus'... leave me alone..."
At some point, they realise what that yearning song is, out there, that thing which calls them to break free and leave this place. They think of the man who lashed himself to his ship to hear the song, as they look down at their bindings.
Those people in the New World Order... if they catch them, they will kill them.
But first, Tsubasa supposes, they must catch them.