2026-04-14: Red Light District Run-In
- Log: Red Light District Run-In
- Cast: Kanae Fuyuki, Katsuko Yoshinaga
- Where: Red Light District - Main
- OOC Date: 2026-04-14
- IC Date: Thu Oct 25 2012
- Summary: Kanae ventures out into Shinjuku to thin the herd of Shadows lurking about the place. However, they aren't the only things lurking in the dark that night...
(|======================== Red Light District - Main =========================|)
-===================================================== Tokyo/Shinjuku Ward ====-
It's said if you go out the wrong side of Shinjuku Station, you lose a whole
day. Go out the correct side though, and you still might find yourself on the
wrong side of town. Even walking into Shinjuku's Red Light District subjects you
to endless barkers and touts, looking for opportunities to pull tourists and
young women alike into places where they might get scammed and exploited by the
predators of this place.
Neon signs glare offering disorienting guidance to businesses stacked upon one
another. All the vices of the city are available in smoky bars where one might
forget their dreams at the bottom of a glass, or take offers of companionship in
shady host or hostesses clubs.
Be careful. As smart as you are, wiser people than you have lost everything
here.
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
Shinjuku is not the best place for a girl to be at this hour--especially not this part of Shinjuku. Nevertheless, Kanae Fuyuki is out here in the Dark Hour, and she has her reasons. She's alone for the moment, but dressed in the dark gray garb of the Hunter, enshrouded by a dark gray duster and carrying a ruby-edged gunblade. Just at the moment, she's dealing with a group of Shadows--
"Persona!" Kanae calls, snapping up the weak point of one with an Agilao delivered by the demonic Persona Baphomet. But that's not the curious thing. As she presses her advenatage--
"Haah--!" Crack. The world tilts a little, and she calls a different Self, the Persona Succubus, dark-skinned and black-winged. "Right!" Gravitic force brings down the rest of them, until they're all down at once.
She switches a second time, and her own Leshy--a plant-woman with powerful arms--smashes down the rest with a physical attack, and all of the Shadows surrounding her are gone.
"...Shouldn't let them group up like that..."
Kanae's voice mutters as she grasps the shards of possibility--
And then the battle is over.
<Pose Tracker> Katsuko Yoshinaga has posed.
The sounds of battle were not an unusual thing to hear during the Dark Hour, in Katsuko's experience. Scattered and isolated, perhaps - it was not as though the entire city turned into a battlefield once the veil was lifted. But to see a Persona user duelling with demons or thinning the never-ending horde of Shadows was not an unusual sight either. What did strike her as unusual was the sight of someone wielding two. She thought she knew Kanae's Persona - she'd glimpsed it during the fight at Kazusa's Atelier. She thought she'd gotten some idea of her capabilities, even if her intel was not as in-depth as she would have liked.
But there were two Personas answering to her, and Katsuko could not help but find herself intrigued.
"Well fought." Katsuko said, stepping free from the shadows. It was her mask that caught the dim light first. That rictus grin, a half-skull cast in silver, did not seem to stifle her speech in the slightest, despite how it clung to the contours of her face. The upper half of it was obscured by a black hood, leaving everything between it and the mask little more than a featureless void. The hood tapered down to sweeping curves and a billowing cloak, while her limbs ended in sharp points reminiscent of talons, themselves gleaming silver in the light. She was the very image of a hunter - a bird of prey, swooping in to strike at its target.
"But two Personas... That's *highly* unusual." Her tone was not accusatory, nor suspicious. Whatever her true feelings on the matter were, Katsuko at least sounded intrigued by what she saw.
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
"...Thanks," Kanae answers. "Though if you were just watching, you'd have been welcome to join in." She regards the mask, thoughtfully. A half-skull... And a hood. Well, she dresses up, too.
"Three," she points out. "I used three this time. ...But yeah, it's unusual. It helps me hunt like this."
"...The Shadows prey harder on people in this area, for some reason, so it's a good place to practice."
Kanae doesn't stow her gunblade just yet.
"I'm Fuyuki. What do you call yourself?"
<Pose Tracker> Katsuko Yoshinaga has posed.
"Didn't get here quickly enough." Katsuko said, sounding a little regretful. Not hugely so, but enough to present the illusion of being genuine. "Else I would've. I try not to let others have all the fun." Or the loot, for that matter, but she decided that much could be kept silent for the sake of diplomacy. Not that she relied solely upon it, if the mace in her hand was any indication. She held it low and to her side, but in plain view of all gathered there - a warning that she was armed, even if she had no desire to fight.
When Kanae gave her name, Katsuko blinked, and remained quiet for a moment or two. Whatever lingering doubts - few as they were - she'd managed to cling onto were done away with in that moment. The girl before her was most certainly Kanae Fuyuki. Someone that went to her school, and had no doubt passed her in the halls. There was an opportunity there, she thought, but Katsuko kept her cool. There was no need to jump the gun, as inviting as the prospect of forming an alliance was.
"Grim." She replied curtly. "I remember you now... You were at the Atelier, weren't you? You do fine work."
She'd not seen much of it, having been focussed on her own welfare, but it never hurt to at least appear amiable and interested.
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
"Ah, well."
Kanae isn't too broken up about it--it's mostly just the idea of someone watching her fight secretly that trips her suspicions. Still... Katsuko is quiet a moment--until--
"Hmm. You are pretty Grim," she allows. With that outfit and all. "I've seen a few types like you, with disguises on. ...Obviously, my garb doesn't come with a disguise."
She looks over Grim again, and nods. "Yes. Motojima-san's Atelier, right? I do what I can."
"You stand out, too."
<Pose Tracker> Katsuko Yoshinaga has posed.
A quick huff escaped Katsuko at the thought of standing out, causing the fabrics hanging from her body to shift a little in response. It was about the closest thing anyone could expect to a laugh from her. Anyone that knew Katsuko might have even been shocked to see her being so expressive.
"I'll have to do something about that." She said dryly. "A rifle's hard to use when everyone's looking at you." Another hint that she was armed and capable. Partly an assurance that she herself was a valuable ally, partly a veiled warning that she didn't need to be close to fight.
I haven't seen any of your kind around before, though." Katsuko continued, speaking in response to the subject of Persona users and their disguises. "Those three you use - is that a skill you learn?" Flat and inexpressive as Katsuko's voice always was, she did her best to at least hint at the concept of seeming curious, hoping to make it sound like an innocent question rather than an interrogation.
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
Kanae grins. "I guess so, huh? Mine is designed to work fine if I keep attention. I guess it depends on how you plan to use it."
She shrugs off the warning for the moment. If Grim wanted to fight, she'd have struck fromt the shadows she was in.
"It's a skill in that I can get better at it," Kanae says, walking to the nearby wall and leaning on it, "But it's not something I know how to teach. If you've ever met the long-nosed man in the blue room," she says, "He could tell you more, maybe."
<Pose Tracker> Katsuko Yoshinaga has posed.
"Him?" Katsuko asked, searching her memory for a moment to make sure she recalled the correct person. "...Ah. I know him. If you mean the one that speaks in riddles half the time, and gives half-answers the rest, I'd probably get better answers from a stone." Her tone was flat, and the closest thing to emotion she displayed was an idle nudging of a nearby pebble to emphasise her point. "But it might be worth paying him a visit. Being able to use three of those things and change them at will seems a useful skill to have."
And made her a powerful ally. A potent weapon too, if she could be controlled and directed.
"Maybe one of his attendants can shed light on things too, and speak plainly while they're at it." Given how she held about as much expression as a glacier, it was difficult to tell whether her remark was a joke, a hope, or both.
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
Kanae shrugs. "He's helpful to me," she says, "But maybe I like riddles more than you do." A beat, "But it can be useful. If nothing else, he can work with skill cards, right?" she asks.
"The attendants... Well, I don't meet most of the others people talk about, so I couldn't say."
"Anyway," Kanae says, "You want to team up for the night? There's some more Shadows to deal with, and we can talk more while we do. No pressure, though; I came out on my own and I can keep going on my own."
<Pose Tracker> Katsuko Yoshinaga has posed.
"Like I said, I try not to let others have all the fun."
With one fluid motion, Katsuko replaced her bludgeon at her hip, and drew her rifle from what seemed to be thin air. Matte black from stock to barrel, the weapon seemed to swallow whatever light hit it, and confine it to a fathomless void, with even the uncovered scope glinting only a little. "But let's save the talking for between fights. I don't want them to see me coming."
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
"Cool," Kanae answers, and looks to the rifle. It's very nice. ...And dark.
"Works for me," she says. "It's better not to be distracted in a fight, anyway."
True to Kanae's word--there are a number more SHadows around. She'll split the loot... and Katsuko will get a chance to watch her switch Personas many more times.
It's fine, right?