2026-03-26: Interstice of Flame
- Log: Interstice of Flame
- Cast: Yua Ijuuin, Miho Ijuuin
- Where: Ebisu Beach
- OOC Date: 2026-03-26
- IC Date: Tuesday, October 16, 2012
- Summary: Miyu and Yumi realise Sudou's final fate, and reflect on what could be their own.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
The Aerospace Museum is burning, and the call the Groom gets is undecorated.
"Stand by."
They call her, and not the woman with her.
The Bride, though, stands beside her, in her grey wedding dress and veils. Power and heat fan off of the Museum in waves; it even reaches the beach, behind it, where the tourists have all long since shrieked and fled. Smoke has replaced them, thick and roiling...
... but the bars of Gretchen's cage, closed around them both, abjures both smoke and heat.
Being held inside someone else's Persona is, by and large, a touch intimate; but Miyu must be here, today, to support Yumi standing. She is... weary.
Still, she has come. They hold the perimeter, though, mercifully, they have not been told to go inside.
No one has told them why that's unnecessary.
But Yumi -- no, beneath those veils, that's Yua -- is unsettled, as she leans into Miyu's side. (Miho's side.)
"Miyu," she murmurs, clutching at her armour, "there are children, in there... younger than the ones who meant to be here, at this very day."
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Stand by...
Miho doesn't particularly like it, but the Groom does as she is asked. Well, ordered more like. So she is here, with smoke away...
The perimeter is held. Miyu supports Yumi standing. And there...
"And there are many Persona-users," Miyu answers, resting a hand on the hilt of her sabre. "They will not see the children harmed."
Darkly, "Our objectives may not prioritize them, but you may be sure that the 'heroes' of our moment will."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"I guess it's not our fault... but that organisation made him. Someone willing to burn little children that way... they must have made him hence." He's the dear leader's son, if the information in the Sanitarium was correct.
"And I see them crying, and here I stand..." Yumi sounds close to weeping, though of course, it's impossible to see through those fascinators and veils.
"Oh... but you are right. They are searching... they are finding... and I cannot aid them, Miyu. They do not know... we are here." Yumi sighs, leaning a little more heavily on the armed woman beside her, and if not for Gretchen's aid it is a thing that would have sent her on a coughing fit.
"... to set the whole museum alight... he's growing desperate, Miyu, isn't he? Everyone can see... everyone's afraid."
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"They did." Miho nods. "I don't know how much of him is what they made him... But it is at least some of it."
A pause. "Not all, though. He was willing to burn children before they touched him. Ten years ago... I researched it. It was covered up."
But Yua sounds close to crying, yes. Miho tries to support her. No, Miyu tries to support Yumi.
"We cannot," she says.
"Desperate indeed. I think it is not much longer, now. That is why they have not called us in."
"We are here in case their plan fails. That must be it."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"Ten years ago..." Yumi quiets, looking down; she reflects, to herself, how her own life was uprooted around that time. "But... he was still 'that man's' son. He raised a man willing to burn children alive..." She hums, discordant. "... but if the air catches those rebukes, they will wind through to the lungs of of the loyal... I shouldn't speak so easily."
Yumi looks up to the burning building, the heat creating a haze around it -- around them -- like a mirage over the desert sand, lines waving up from the ground in its heat. It might be beach sand under their feet, but that's getting hot, too; luckily, they both have combat boots, right now. (Mooouuu... her feets hurt...)
"They never tell us anything," she sighs, leaning a little more heavily against Miyu; for a moment, beneath her veils, her eyes close. "Go here, be ready, strike them, get this... I grow sick with it!"
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"...True," Miyu allows, after Yumi mentioned it. A man raised in this way... "If he raised him at all," she answers. "I do not sense any familial affection between them..."
Pause. "No, I suppose we should not."
But Miho looks too to the burning building. She is sure Yua's feet hurt.
"As do I," Miyu answers. "...It is... chafing. Irritating."
"Perhaps that woman's influence will make a difference..." Pause. "Maybe. It is likely to be better than our dealings with him."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"I wonder if that's why..." Yumi muses, though, of course, she shouldn't wonder too loudly.
Neither of them should.
She will of course be a great terror when they get home, complaining mightily of her soreness and weariness, even just to call her Persona here at the edges of this Supernatural field. But for now, at least, she bears it without complaint... well, with no more complaint than is implied by the weight of her sinking against Miyu's side.
"To those men, we're just pawns," Yumi scowls, sinking into her resentment, too. "But... she's a woman. Getting to her position... she must know what it's like. Well, I guess you don't get a position like that by worrying too much about the children in that building, but... but it isn't like I've moved in to help them, either."
She's not one of those heroes; feeling bad isn't the same as helping.
She is quiet, for a time, as she watches the fire rage all the more fiercely; windows are blown out by the force of the flames, and she watches the glass scatter over the lot, though they're standing far enough back as to not need to worry. (Gretchen would protect them, anyway.) Eventually, she interrupts that melancholy, to say: "... I'll check on them again. It will tell me the truth..."
And she goes quiet, for a moment, as she focuses on Gretchen's scanning.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"I wonder, too."
But not loudly.
Yua's complaints will be something Miho treasures, because she is alive to make them. That is very key.
"Indeed," Miho says. "They do not mostly believe their own 'religion', of this Mark. They believe we are 'chosen' only when it is convenient to them to believe it, for the most part. And they do not know the truth of mine."
A pause. "...No, I do not think she cares for these children," she agrees. "But she may be of help to us. We will have to ensure that we take advantage of her aid, as she takes advantage of our abilities."
It's a useful arrangement, in theory. For both of them. But Miho is not so sure the 'feminine bond' is enough... On its own.
"But I think that we are all women does help."
But Yua is quiet... Yumi is quiet. The glass scatters...
"Yes," she says. "Please do."
"We will see what needs to be done. ...If they cannot get the children out..."
"Well, I don't know what precisely we can do for them. But if information is what we can give, perhaps we'll be obligated."
"There are many things I would sacrifice for our world..."
"I am not certain I have it in me to sacrifice the children."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7idyzgKqts4 The Warning - Consume
"Some of them say I'm sacrilege," Yumi scowls, her expression stormy, though it's something carried to the world only through the downward turn of her painted lips. "But they don't mind the sacrilege of... of the offering," and as she recalls Gozen, her tone drops, a mirror to her gut. "It's nothing but an excuse to treat me as lesser, despite the Marking of my Eye..."
She sighs, as she looks up to Miyu. "In this place... always are we using others... and being used. It's the best we can hope for, isn't it? A little understanding."
And it is 'we'; Yumi is guilty as anyone. She's even using her so-called husband, ring hidden beneath those elbow-length gloves on her hands.
Yumi goes still, though, as Gretchen's faceless mask turns up to the building, collapsing into itself with the weight of its sinful flames. It takes some concentration to take in the area; and there are details she cannot inhabit, this far away, which she could sense closer to the battle. Even so --
Even so, Yumi gasps.
"The -- the children are safe -- they gathered them in that zeppelin up there, and I sense Persona-Users with them, beside them, around them," Yumi starts, as her fingers curl, into Miyu's armour. "But -- now it draws near, I see -- they have laid Sudou low, but the Black Mask has come! For the young Sudou, he is come!"
The Black Mask: a foe feared not only by the Supernatural Community but by his very allies for his role as the ultimate enforcer in their ranks, a spectre who appears to those who have failed their duties without recourse.
It is no wonder, then, she gasps: "Oh...!"
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"They are good at excuses," Miyu says. "...it is something you learn, with them." She shakes her head. "Regardless..."
She nods, to Yumi. "Always. But not forever."
Miyu does not contest Yumi's guilt. Not this time, not in this. She respects her enough not to take all the blame.
Details...
"Good," Miyu says at first of the children. "I thought they would. ...But it is good to know for sure. But--"
Miyu goes very still. "...Then it is the end, now." She is done with 'good'.
"We will not be needed," Miyu thinks. "He will finish it.."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"Sometimes I think I am made of excuses," Yumi sighs, "all tied in a lovely little bow of lies."
And it weighs heavy on her, but still, she insists: "One day... we'll be free."
(Here, she thinks of Hiroto; of the freedom he hungers for. She wonders whether she stole that word from him. She assures herself, to herself, that of course she'll give it back.)
Some of the blame must still rest at her feet. What goes up in flames engraved the war; and there laid men made to learn the limitations of just following orders. Faust may have given Gretchen that sleeping poison, but it was she who slipped it to her mother, for an uninterrupted night with him.
And yet, a thousand of her sins could not match the weight of the Black Mask.
"Sake-san... I know he is fearsome, but to face him..." Yumi can't feel as if Sudou deserves it; her gut twists even to imagine the horrors those Persona-Users might be witnessing, up there. They are both supremely twisted men, in her mind -- but one, turned against the hand that feeds, must now answer to the other.
... and horrific as Sudou is, he offered them sake, after all.
"Even if they needed us... what could we do now?" Yumi wonders, as she looks up to that zeppelin as it angles out to sea. "I cannot possibly transport us that far away..."
Yumi swallows, as her focus moves from the practical to the potential. "Miyu... is this... what happens, when you stand out too harshly? To explode in a flare of passion, only to be extinguished? His defiance escalated... and his punishment, hence!"
It never ends...
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"I understand."
But one day... "Yes."
The Black Mask... Yes. There is nothing that they know of that can stand against that power. Why does he have such power? There is no way to know. But Miho has enough faith, yet.
Just enough.
"No, Sudou-san will fall," Miyu is sure. "...But..."
"I would rather he fall to these 'heroes', than to to that man," she admits. "Though it is cruel to wish such a 'sin' on any of them."
"Yumi," she says, and shakes her head. "...it is why the plans he has could never work."
"To simply wage war on the world itself to bring about the True World... This is where it ends."
"We will play a more careful path."
"We will walk differently."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"They wouldn't do it," Yumi insists, quietly. "Those people... they value human life too highly to end one, even for this great a crime. That's why they're different to us... that's why they must never dwell in our garden of sin." She thinks, here, of Katsuya, the officer who rights so tirelessly for justice despite the tide he's swimming against.
He devoted his career to catching a man he gave a number... but Yumi is sure that he would not see him captured dead.
But the plans Sudou devoted himself to...
"It was romantic, wasn't it?" Yumi sighs, as she looks away from the fire to hide her face against Miyu's armour, instead. "'All the world's my enemy...!' A desperate statement like that, wouldn't it make anything possible? But something like that is just a fantasy, at the end of it all... everyone can see the museum burning, and all it's done is bring his end to him."
The world is hot, but it's not so bad, behind Gretchen's bars. If they were normal people... standing behind the Museum would have been far too much.
"... we must be formless as Shadows, I suppose," Yumi says, still not quite able to look at the scene. "Friends with skulk and subterfuge. We have to be careful..."
Or they'll end up like him.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"True enough," Miyu agrees with Yumi. "They must not. ...We at least can do that much. To not welcome them here."
Romantic... "Yes," Miyu agrees in turn. "It was. Such statements are grand and beautiful... But a fire is beautiful. Death can be beautiful. I would be ugly, if it would mean I could stay with you, and enjoy the beauty of our life instead."
"We must," Miyu agrees. "...We will be careful."
"And we will do otherwise than him."
"...Come," she says. "Be with me, instead of there. ...I am sure we will not have to intervene."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"They mustn't bloom in that place," Yumi agrees. "Let them escape such a sorrowful fate..."
But... a fire can be beautiful. It is a thing framed in stark relief, as that flame's mirage rises around them, oppressive heat mitigated to discomfort as the sweat pricks at her skin and wears too deep the grooves left in her by her heavy flak jacket. It consumes; it is consuming.
"You could never be ugly to my eyes," Yumi insists, and the plural is even proper, here. "Even so, I wish to stay with you... forever."
So they will be careful. "Yes," Yumi echoes, softly, as she reaches for Miyu's hand.
"They've... not given us the order to stand down," she says, and the softness here is reluctance, as she looks up to her Groom. "But... surely I do not need to see with both eyes, any more. That wretched fate..."
Her lips part, as they pull down. "Death still scares me," she admits, quietly.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"Yes."
But Miyu meant it; to destroy can be a stark, beautiful thing itself. The storm coming; the flames already here. The place burns, and there is simplicity in that, in the new that may follow as a result.
"These things, chained to the ground, may once again fly if only in the smoke..."
But Yumi insists, and Miyu looks back to her again. "And I with you."
But they haven't given the order...
"No, they haven't," Miho agrees, and gently reaches out to close Yumi's eyepatch.
"But if they remember us at all, they will give it."
A softer tone, "...And I know. Yours... yours scares me, too."
"But I will not run from fear, and so guarantee it. We will fight on."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"If only for a short time... they soared."
Yumi smiles, though, when Miyu affirms their wish. And when she reaches beneath her veils to slide that eyepatch shut -- blinding her Sight, in the process, and freeing her brain to focus on her instead of the way those flames eat through the foundation-wood -- Yumi's hand lifts, to trap it beneath those veils, holding her palm to her cheek.
"They've probably forgotten us," Yumi sighs, as the eye which sees what is real closes, too. "If only they'd forget forever..."
Yumi's death scares her most of all, and not just because she's dying for two, now. But to hear that Miyu shares her fears softens her breath; she presses her lips to her wrist, before her own hand drops down, away from her veils.
"It's okay," she assures her, softly. "At this distance, it's not so hard on me... I won't go today, Miyu. Oh, but you're so brave... and you're right. We must face it... we must keep fighting."
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Miyu's hand is not soft in these sturdy gloves, but is steady, and Yumi can at least imagine the warmth there.
"Yes," Miho agrees to both.
At this distance...
"We must," Miyu answers. "...But you're brave, as well. I see the danger to you, and face it; you see the danger to yourself, and continue walking with me."
"Remember that."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Yumi's opera gloves are softer; they do not presume the need to stop a blade, nor hold one. Still, she is glad for Miyu's sturdy gloves; they protect her, just as Gretchen protects Yumi, in this place.
And she can imagine the warmth. She will confirm it, for herself, when they're free of this place, when they're safely home again.
Her smile, too, is warm, visible beneath those shrouding veils. Her heart warms to hear Miyu's kindness, entirely separate to the heat of the flames.
"I will," she promises, her hand seeking Miyu's, to hold it in both of hers.
"And I'll sight those dangers to you, too, Miyu. You've always been a natural at that... but when I'm like this, I can help out, too!"
Something about it feels nostalgic...
... no, it must just be the warmth of her affection.
In the end, by the time the heroes escape their zeppelin, going the way of history, Miyu and Yumi will have left the beach.
They were stood down before they had to answer any uncomfortable questions.