2026-04-18: The Black Mask's Birthday Gift
- Log: The Black Mask's Birthday Gift
- Cast: Yua Ijuuin, Miho Ijuuin, The Man in the Black Mask
- Where: Aoba - Penthouse
- OOC Date: 2026-04-18
- IC Date: Sat, Oct 27 2012
- Summary: The Black Mask invades Miho and Yua's home, during the Dark Hour. Pressing a gun to Yua's abdomen -- threatening both her and her unborn child -- he takes Yua hostage as he forces her to send Miho through a vision of horror, as she climbs up Pyramid Plaza, back to her wife, fighting all the Shadows he called to their tower in the process. He interrogates her on her True World, as he assesses their capabilities and usefulness to the Order. Even after he leaves them in peace, the stress sends Yua into such a tailspin, she ends up in hospital -- though her child's still safe.
- Content warning: Misogyny, homophobia, ableism kidnapping, endangering a pregnant woman
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUFOdRYhDEg Yuki Kajiura - It's Only The Fairy Tale
It's the Dark Hour, and by now, even Yua is asleep... after all, she wakes up at five am in the morning. Happily woven into Miho's arms, her back presses against Miho's midsection, her billowy nightgown spilling out over a blanket she's done her best to kick off of her.
(Miho may or may not have half-stirred to grab it and pull it back up already.)
Their maid has long since clocked out for the night, and Eiko Ikeda sleeps in the apartment they sequestered off for her, down the hall. Aside from her little apartment, the whole top floor of this building is Miho's castle; it might be smaller than the floors below it, owing to a pyramid style of construction at the highest floors (matching the lowest), but it is still easily the size of a detached home. A nice detached home, with a yard...
... though what passes for a yard for them is their balcony, a large area with a corner cut-out into the home itself to create a square of outdoors living, plus the ability to walk around the outside of the building. It's filled with plants, both bushes and a few large bonsai trees, which is to say, five foot trees -- some of them poisonous, locked away in a little greenhouse so their cat can't get in. There's even a beehive up here, because of course they're ten stories up here, and no bees can naturally fly this high.
Fun fact: maintaining the bees is Yua work. She's a beekeeper! Can a caterpillar do that?
There's a staircase up to the roof, where there's an entire god damn pool. Below it, entering in through the door decorated with a conch shell, one reaches the lounge, with all Miho's medals displayed prominently along a wall.
A massive orange cat watches proceedings, unperturbed by the Dark Hour. His green eyes gleam in the night.
A hallway leads one into the private areas of the house; a massive bathroom, two studies with two distinct levels of usage, a nursery which is in the middle of being painted, guest rooms... and the master bedroom, with a fine, carved Western door, opening to reveal a just as Western bed. Yua's nightstand is occupied with all her makeup and jewels, while Miho's full length mirror helps her to make sure that her fit is always impeccable; their walk-in closet is ajar, displaying all Miho's many suits.
And there's them, of course.
Yua, at least, is sound asleep... and smiling quite happily.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Miho restored the blanket. She does that without having to wake up properly.
She is likewise asleep, though she sleeps more lightly than Yua even considering Yua's pregnancy; she stirs now and then, strange dreams interrupting her sleep. She has a feeling...
Well, it doesn't matter for now. She is asleep for now, holding onto Yua.
She keeps her plants, and Yua's bees, and the cat...
But for now, sleep.
<Pose Tracker> The One in the Black Mask has posed.
The Butterfly Flutters - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGkRgvN7ITk
Just another night, in the hour between hours, in the space that's out of time.
There are more Shadows out and about tonight, but that's nothing unusual - it's been a gradual upswing ever since Wang Long Chizuru's announcement.
More and more. Time marches on, except during this time when it doesn't.
And in the sickly atmosphere under the pallid light... a youth tapes a length of terrycloth against the window with duct tape.
When it breaks to a muffled impact, not a single piece of glass falls- no sounds echo throughout the household. Peeling the glass off, he flicks the latch with clawed fingers.
And then he's inside, with none the wiser. Even if she wasn't sleeping people like Yua Ijuuin use their resonance far too much in situations of the supernatural to warn them that danger is coming.
Insensate in dreaming she hears nothing... feels nothing...
... not until the hammer of a pistol is cocked back, and the cold feel of gunmetal creases her abdomen.
He waits for her to react, "Oh I'm sorry..." There he stands. The Man in the Black Mask, his mail of grey and blue spiraling up his torso, extending into tattered cape.
Clawed gauntlets bearing the gun that's currently pressed against her, without even the courtesy of a silencer. "... did I come at a bad time?" After all, who would even need one, at this hour?
And under that beaked, masked helm, bears that most vicious of smiles. His eyes flick to Miho- the threat certainly, implicit, even without him saying anything.
And yet, there's still a look in his eyes which says 'Go for your blade. I dare you.'
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Ever since Chizuru's announcement...
Yua has been doing her own work to support it, of course, in her position as an 'Unawakened' teacher. Asking innocent questions -- which she already knows are lies. But her students know very well that a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth, in Sumaru... and if 'normal people' are saying it...
Well, she doesn't need to worry about her guilt, right now. She is sleeping too soundly to feel it; and when she does rise close to waking, she will be more concerned with Miho's dreams.
She won't get the chance to ask about them, tonight.
Because there's something cold against her hot skin, and --
"Aa--aahhhhh!" Yua presses herself back, against Miho, as she realises all at once that the feeling is a gun. Her own Evoker is on the bedside table; it may as well be a thousand miles away. "D-don't shoot! Please!" Someone's come, someone's --
-- as her eye puts together just who's holding that gun, it widens further, pupil to pinprick as her mouth gapes. "The Man in the Black Mask--!"
Her terror builds and redoubles on herself, and her hyperventilation races quicker than any reasonable thought; a home invader would be terrifying enough, but this...? "Please!" She cries, frozen in place; she dare not move, but for the trembling she can't assuage.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
A bad time.
Miho's eyes first turn to pinpricks--then boil in anger. She does not go for her blade, though assuredly she keeps it close even in the night. There is no time; even if this weren't the Man in the Black Mask...
He has Yua at a position impossible to deal with.
"You are aware of the time at which you came," she says tightly instead, without moving.
She doesn't say anything else for now, though, her eyes drawn to where that gun is.
<Pose Tracker> The One in the Black Mask has posed.
Yua screams, and he just chuckles darkly, "Haha... really? Aren't you supposed to be one of the Order's top Enforcers? And here you are... begging for your life."
A beat.
"Or is it your life that you're begging for?"
He knows exactly where he's pointing, of course, "It was so bold of you to try to bring a child into a world where you're little more than some upjumped labrat to the people in charge that I didn't expect you to start bawling so quickly."
Miho's words cause some laughter, "Ahahaha- so literal! Is this the outcome of the 'better living through chemistry' lifestyle?" He grins at her, before his smile flattens out to something similar to apathy.
"Perhaps you've already guessed, but I've been sent to perform a review of the Order's investments. How much money did they spend getting this adorable little 'mommy-to-be' through their labs... and the two of you together can't even off the boss's loser son?"
He clucks his tongue twice, "Tsk, tsk." Before his opposite hand produces Yua's Evoker. And lays it on the bed. "So let's have ourselves a little assessment, to see if you're still worth investing in. Drag this entire estate and its grounds to hell if you please... and send your lady love all the way to the edge of the grounds."
As he waggles a finger side to side, "Don't even think of sending me a single millimeter away from you. You really don't want to test me here."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Yua can hear the tension in Miho's voice; she can feel it in her body, too. But she, beside herself, can only plead: "Please! I-I'm with child!"
... no, it's not her life she's begging for at all.
She feels the criticism deep to her bones; that she never really left the lab, for all it seems she's escaped. She's supposed to be an elite enforcer, but the reason she is, it's... "I-I'm sorry," Yua sniffs, her breath hitching in her chest. "Please, j-just tell us what you want..."
Her lips press against her teeth, hearing him mock Miho's straightforward question. To invoke the pills she's taking, when she goes to such efforts not to be seen taking them...
She flinches, as she hears herself pared down to an investment. It's the other side of the coin -- the meaning behind a precious jewel; what is precious is worth something. "That..." She starts, but perhaps Miho can stop her, before she admits to the failure being her fault.
(It was her madness, grief-stricken as her Evoker clicked with the futility of another Summoning, which caused them to withdraw.)
Still, Yua knows why the Black Mask would lay her Evoker down, on their silken sheets, in front of her. Her failure... he's assessing it, now. "Mimi..." Yua murmurs, and in her name is carried all her worry and her grief and her regret, as she pushes herself sitting, on their bed, her teal hair waterfalling across her face and shoulders as she rises. As she reaches for her Evoker, fingers trembling, feeling a stab of something darker to realise that he laid his hands on it.
"I understand," Yua says, as she looks back to Miho, and drops her gaze as she turns back forward to that horrible man with his gun. Her free hand lifts, to open the eyepatch on her left side; there are three pupils, there, her eyesocket stained with a tattoo which seems to spill from the inside of her skull.
But her Mark is not active, presently; those three pupils are black, not gold.
"Gretchen!"
The woman(?) who appears in their room clips through their ceiling, so large is she; and yet, ghostlike, it affects her not at all, as she wraps Miho up in her iron-bar embrace. A moment later, she disappears; Miho disappears, too.
When Gretchen manifests again, clipped into their beautiful queen bed, she is alone...
... and the familiar first floor of Pyramid Plaza sinks into a greater darkness than the moon of the Dark Hour would grant Miho. Storefronts become murky, stained with red and black, the contents difficult to make out; what was once a familiar path to the elevators becomes one she has never made before, and one which seems impossibly complex for the building she remembers. There are no familiar turns, here... and when she finally finds the fire escape stairs, leading up to the next floor, she will find her path confused such that she cannot simply turn and find her way up the next flight.
No -- that way seems impossible to go. She will have to explore the floor before she is able to find her way up, and the floor is no longer sympathetic, though these lower floors do remain vaguely commercial.
All this is reflected in Gretchen's gems -- more for the Black Mask's benefit, perhaps, than her own, as Yua looks into the middle distance at something only she can see.
Their home is dark and forboding now, just the same; bloody handprints, on the insides of those mirrors, like ovens set to burn.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Miho knows full well it's not Yua's life Yua is begging for, and the fact that she can't assure that protection scares her--and makes her angrier, in turn. They say, after all, that anger is a second-tier emotion, the emotion of another feeling denied.
In this case, perhaps that's true.
As he taunts Yua, Miho's expression remains drawn, taut. And when he mocks her? She looks at him stonily. Of course he knows about the medications; he would. But she doesn't have anything to say that can cut through the wall of rage she feels over her fear.
If she knew more about how Black Mask had done it, she might have more to say. Instead...
"Fine. An 'assessment', then. I will pass your tests."
She turns her gaze to Yua, as she says her name. "Do it," Miho agrees.
Gretchen appears...
Miho looks around. No familiar turns, no familiar looks. But she looks around at the place, and looks to the fire escape. But no... .
The path is turned. She frowns. Wearing silk pajamas, Miho is barefoot as she pads along, hops up the ladder, and then looks to the door before her. Is it locked?
It doesn't matter.
"...Persona," Miho intones, and Faust's hand overlaps her own, ripping a bar from the fire escape to use as a weapon with the force of her summoning.
...It has been some time, since she had to operate like this, without support.
She has not forgotten.
"Black Mask," she says, "If you can hear me."
"...You will see I am willing to fight for what is mine."
"Yua..."
"Do as you must."
She smashes the lock, and heads inside.
Her adrenaline is pumping already. Is there a part of her that enjoys being on the back foot?
if so, it would be unwise for most to bring it up.
<Pose Tracker> The One in the Black Mask has posed.
Behind red lenses, there's something cold and pitiless as he looks upon Yua.
Of course it's true
No matter how detrimental to their survival
They always beg for the life of their child over their own
Something gets betrayed in the way his jaw clenches and sets. He is such a contradictory person. He'd perhaps be more upset if it were the other way around.
The love by which she look at Miho. The sadness. He'd perhaps feel guilt right now if he allowed himself to when he's in the moment. But he doesn't allow that, for the sake of his Justice.
"My my so eager." He tells Miho in a goading tone, "I suppose an Olympic athlete would be. Let's hope you trained hard enough... because she is quite literally counting on you."
He watches the way her eyes change- as Gretchen emerges, and he eyes the sight in Gretchen's gemstones, even as his gun is pointed at her. "Just so you're aware, I wouldn't even have to summon my Persona to carve through every layer of protection she is granting you."
There is a vicious casualness to the threat.
He can hear Miho, though only through the link of the gemstones. And there's a chuckle, "Well then, show me- and F Y I~" He intones that out, "I lured nearly every Shadow in Sumaru City near these grounds. I do hope that won't be a problem?"
Near Yua, he grasps a seat in the hazy unreality, scraping it along the floor, before setting himself down, and swiveling his feet to plant them on the effigy of a bed, "Don't mind me. Just putting my feet up."
"Now then 'Mimi'... just a teensy weensy little caveat to your assessment that I'm tacking on." He grins, just in case she's getting a visual, "The higher ups are starting to think you're holding out on them... and perhaps that's the reason that he escaped. So as you slay-girl..."
God does he have to pun with slang!? "...you're going to tell me everything you know about 'The Other Side'. Starting with - I don't know - let's go with 'Paradox Boy'."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Miho agrees, and Yua lets out a sigh; she knew that she would fight, but she's still relieved to not be sending her off against her will.
... she might be in pyjamas, but she's just as noble, to Yua's eyes.
"Mimi will save me!" Yua insists, though the terror is still perfectly audible in her voice; despite that fear, both for herself and for Hiroki, she clearly believes in Miho. It's one thing, at least, she can send her off knowing --
-- though she's less sure of herself, when the Black Mask casually mentions how easily he could kill her, after Miho's gone. "S--sans this yearning abience am I in abidance where you dwell," she insists, and there, now, is some of that madness she's known for. (A side effect of the procedures? Or...) "Pray, have mercy on our souls!"
And this, too, is transmitted, through Gretchen's power; that terrible evidence that he hasn't let up.
"And you will say... I cannot lay confusion to those shades..." Yua realises, as the Black Mask reveals just why there are so many Shadows nearby. "... I'll grant them passage."
Because the confusion Yua wreaks on the world around her is not an objective thing; nothing about Pyramid Plaza, objectively, has changed much at all. (Though a bar still is missing from the fire escape.) It is a maze built in the psyches of those who move through it -- and when she does not afflict the Shadows with her noise, they move unerringly through the space.
If it were safe to do so, perhaps she would have done fine, being able to summon demons... but of course, there's not much use to an experiment powerful enough to resist experimentation.
The third floor of the plaza is the final commercial floor, before it's replaced by residential flats -- Remi's is in here, somewhere, though surely the Black Mask has struck on a night where she busy with some mission or another. It would not do to give them help. Held behind a barred screen are rows of discs, in what might have, once upon a time, been a record store; now, one glints with importance, as if some ancient medallion of lore.
Getting into that store is just one challenge, though -- because a great, bestial wheel spins into the floor, hurtling right for Miho--!!
"T-that's not why!" Yua insists, as to why he escaped, and Miho isn't here to stop her from the truth now. "I was too weak! I shattered, and shattered, and could break no more! For my sake did we retreat, leave him bleeding! No fault is with her--!"
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
He goads her, but Miho shakes her head. She doesn't want to reveal that a challenge is something she can engage with, as opposed to just hoping he doesn't hurt her. This way, she succeeds or fails on her strength. This way, it's in her control.
...But she is aware that he could change his mind, and that agitates her.
"Shadows, then. They shall fall as they pass into my way." Bravado, in part, but only in part. Miho is at least confident in her combat abilities. She considers and then discards the idea of summoning demons for assistance; they would exact further cost from her still, and she has nothing with which to pay them now. ...To say nothing of how Black Mask might react...
An ancient medallion...
"I see," Miho says. "So this is vital to my mission. I shall claim it."
She summons forth her Persona and batters through the barred screen, stepping inside into the store. Until--
A great wheel.
"Hup--"
Miho jumps to avoid the initial hurtling charge, deftly dodging aside--but she will not be able to dodge all of its attacks. "Faust!" she calls, and first assaults it with a Skill Card, a spell of Happiness that will paralyze it into inaction--or damage it for every choice it makes. Some of those choices are to strike at her, and Miho can only dodge some.
Then, she takes her 'sabre', and lunges, slashing and battering with precise movements to stop its movement--
Only to leap back and send out a trio of Freis, nuclear fire blasting towards it to cause an explosion between paralysis and kinetic energy.
When she is finished, she will use a Dia to top herself back up.
...but she does not have infinite spiritual reserves, though she is hoarding them miserily.
"I know little of this 'Boy of Paradoxes'," Miho says simply. "He is a terribly powerful Persona-user, with some connection to the fallen Tatsuya Sudou and others. ...But very well. I will tell you of the 'True World'." Her words are tight--this is not to her advantage--but as long as he holds Yua hostage, he gets what he wants in general.
"But I will instead tell you something else. We wore masks, on the Other Side, and fought alongside robed figures named for the Zodiac."
"...You were not there; there was no man in a Black Mask, though we saw a Lion."
"We bore the sigils of Aquarius when we fought, and we fought together."
"We were open in our relationship, on the Other Side. None would gainsay it there but those we crushed underfoot."
<Pose Tracker> The One in the Black Mask has posed.
He'd certainly heard that Yua could get 'strange' when in the midst of summoning her Persona, but it's definitely another thing entirely to witness it first hand.
"... Hahaha-HaaHahahahahaha-" He goes into a fit of snide chuckling at her words, "-are you going to start speaking in German next? It would be very 'Goethe' of you."
Man he can really not shut up about making himself seem the most superior person in the room. "They don't pay me for mercy. They pay me for results." The one in the Black Mask snaps back at Yua when she begs for mercy.
"Be thankful that I literally couldn't care less that the two of you are together... because if the old men paid me to enforce 'family values', you'd both already be in the ground."
Before he then confirms what Yua asked of him of the Shadows, "Well, I would say it - but you're oh so good at reading the room. Such a useful skill when you're living in a man's world! Your husband probably hasn't even started beating you..."
A beat.
"...yet."
What a thing to say, as Miho starts slaying Shadows, with a determination that they shall fall. That she will claim that Medallion. Isn't her husband her cousin?
Perhaps he's trying to throw Miho off her game - or Yua.
Black Mask is literally limp wristed waving the gun around back and forth with every single excuse Yua is making on why Sudou escaped with a roll of his eyes.
But he really is paying attention to Miho, and her path, as she jumps over the Shadow- before, "Hahaha- attacking a Shadow with Hapirma as Faust- the irony is thick! 'Linger a while! Thou art so fair!' Careful that you don't keel over."
However, the grin and laughter fades away into a more serious expression as she begins to speak on the other side. "'The True World'... You're saying I wasn't even present? Are you telling me that a world where I exist is the 'False One'?"
There's a certain menace in his tone, and suddenly Miho might feel like she's tap dancing around egg shells.
He demanded the truth, but the truth seems as if it's been upsetting.
"... Masks." He echoes the words, and under his mask, his eyes subtly contract in consternation, like he's trying to make some connection, but is missing the elements of it.
"... How interesting." He says of their relationship together, "A better world for the two of you certainly, without the supervision of the Order."
He doesn't sound upset about that one at least. "... And the 'Exalted One' that led you?" He prompts, "Tell me about Jun Kurosu."
Which might surprise Miho enough that he realizes that Kashihara wasn't his name, in the 'True World'.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"Of German I know little," Yua tries to reason with him, "though French I could speak, English, Okinawan... will they suffice?" Her reasoning is desperate.
And she flinches, when the Black Mask points out he's after results. "Forgive me!"
What a weak woman she must be... reduced to appeasing this man in terror, even as she holds her weapon in her hands. It's a feeling which threatens to overwhelm her, as the Black Mask makes his next jab -- one which, luckily, she's made sure to muffle, so Miho can't hear. (She's at least that good at reading the room.) "H--he's an honourable man," Yua insists, to the Black Mask alone, though her voice still quavers, as she insists on it. "He wouldn't..."
In giving significance to these items scattered around, Yua is able to give Miho a fighting chance; the ability to do something about her environment, if she's able to solve the puzzles she's laid out.
And yet, in those diversions, they reveal something about Miho, too... like the way she simply BATTERS through the screen which separates the record store from the walkway.
Tomorrow, it will be reported as a robbery, though little was taken.
That Bestial Wheel finds itself happy, for once in its life -- and as a Shadow, it really doesn't know what to do with the emotion. It tries to follow its nature, and careen into her; it cannot fathom, without a mind to comprehend, why that hurts.
What it does know is that pain is something it ought to avoid, and so it hesitates, for a critical moment -- just enough for Miho to bash it onto its side, with a few swordlike strikes of that length of metal, leaving it Downed and vulnerable to those Freis.
She's back to public broadcasting, of course, once that Shadow is defeated. She has to, so that she can tell her: "Magnificent," as she beholds her, without seeing the room around her, without seeing the man who's put his boots on her bed.
Gretchen's faceless mask turns to the Black Mask, though, as he quotes Goethe -- and one might miss, for a moment, the way Yua focuses on him too. She fears his menace; it distracts her, but only for a moment, before she turns her attention to her maze again.
Above the commercial plaza, the next levels are residential; and these lower floors are more affordable, than the ones higher up. Miho will find herself moving through these upper-middle-class homes, coffins positioned in bed or in front of useless televisions; each door is locked, but not so much so that she cannot force them, with her power.
All except for one, without door handle, without any way through... except for a glowing circular space. Pressing the medallion to it will dim the light, though the medallion falls away, if it's let go; falling down to a long bar, revealed as the way to open this space, to get up into the next floor's fire escape.
Above it, there are no puzzles... but there are Stoic Snakes, a masculine and feminine locked together in some mockery of heteronormativity as they slither in to hound her with Zionga, Mabufula, and worse of all -- Spirit Drain.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"So we would," Miho agrees about 'family values'. "Curious, that you don't."
But Miho misses the line about wife-beating, and so she does dodge the spikes of the wheel next. "There is no need to press her on language," Miho says tightly. She didn't hear the matter of an honorable man.
Hapirma. "I concern myself not with irony but with iron," Miho says, growing more formal in her language. "The Shadow falls; that is what matters most."
And it is defeated. But up here, they are residential...
Miho senses she must answer cleverly in this moment--and she seizes on something. "Perhaps you simply didn't need to wear a mask," Miho points out to Black Mask of not existing. "...Or wore a different one, like us. You could have been there in a different guise. I don't know your identity, after all."
But masks. Yes, masks. He says it's interesting. "Yes. The Order surely didn't exist--but we were a part of a different organizaation, the Masked Cicle."
The 'Exalted One'...
"Few of us called him either," Miho says. She does take interest at that name--how does he know it? "...We called him Master Joker, and to call the Joker in the True World was not a curse, but a Charm. To call one's own cellphone, one would be granted their ideals; a dream, a wish, to be made true."
"Intoxicating, isn't it?" Miho says. "Not death, but life. You see? You see the difference, now?"
"Master Joker and our Queen Aquarius were the only authority we needed mind, and they did not ask such things of us as the Order does. They did not seek a world without sin, but a world of ideals."
...But there are pieces Miho is missing too, of course--not that either she or Black Mask would know that.
Miho does not batter down doors this time, as she goes through. She instead forces locks; they will break, but they will be easier to replace than the entire door. She is dimly aware that she is in peoples' homes, after all. As she goes, she sees a refreshing drink out, untouched; she grabs it, and stows it in a pocket, for energy when she needs it. But soon, she reaches the one with the hole...
The fire escape is here. Above--
"Tch--"
Blasted by the Zionga, she is able to better defend against the rest of the assault by calling forth Faust again. "Spell Guard!" she intones, and waits through its attack pattern until it leaves an opening--
But with her spiritual energy depleting, she relies on physicality instead, Blighting them with poisonous slashes befor she issues them a Black Card and breaches whatever defenses they might have on hand.
She takes the drink, downing it in a few gulps, to restore her energies.
"I... am not finished," she says. "What else would you know, Black Mask? Would you know the battles we fought? The people who have proven traitorous on the Other Side but have not shown their colors here?"
"Or the Oracle of Maiya? The Flames of Expiation that Tatsuya Sudou attempted to let loose, to save himself?"
<Pose Tracker> The One in the Black Mask has posed.
There's another roll of his eyes, "I'll take French, Si vous pla- It was a joke!" He snarls, in interruption of his own request.
It's so unpredictable what will set him off or not. He wants them to obey, but obey too much and he gets upset! What is with this asshole?
'I concern myself not with irony but with iron,'
He whistles as if impressed by the line, "Well if she's trying to seduce you-" He grins at her, "-it's definitely working. Hahahaha-! With a line like that I'm in danger of falling for her myself!"
Yua protests, on her husband's honor. "Is he-?" The Black Mask puts his feet down and swivels the back of his chair around to face Yua, leaning forward upon the back of it, staring her right in the eyes, behind those crimson lenses... he echoes the question again. "Is he?"
And his grin just goes wide, as if he were daring her to challenge him on this one. "How much would you wager, on your husband's honor? The love of your life? Your child?"
There is nothing concrete in his words... nothing at all. Merely, a dare. His arm is lax, he doesn't even have the firearm pointed at her right now.
"Whoop, almost took my eyes off the show!" As his eyes flick back up to Gretchen's gemstones. "Hahaha- I think Mimi is setting records."
This is the worst form of evil. The form that thinks his jokey puns are funny.
'Magnificent.'
"Yes, she is doing rather well, isn't she?" There's something flat in his tone, like he's not certain whether he's happy about that or not. "Let's see how she performs against her nemesis."
Heteronormative snakes, duh.
She does continue, navigating the verbal minefield he set out. And he knew that he was setting it. A test, which she actually passes with flying colors.
Because he can't ask the follow up question he actually desires to.
"Haha- Good thinking, but I certainly doubt I was just another fly in the swarm."
What is going on with the differences between these worlds? If this 'Nyarlathotep' governs this, then why is he changing his tactics so much? He certainly hasn't discarded all his people- and Sudou was dead set on Jun becoming the Joker again.
He can't figure out the answer. Why discard the Joker - only to try and get him back? Why need the Masked Circle if you have the New World Order? A world of Ideals AND Sin isn't great theming!
"Not a curse, but a Charm? Hahaha-AHAHAHAHAHahahaha, do you seriously expect me to believe that? A world where everyone was granted their IDEALS over the phone?"
He grins, and flits a finger back and forth as if chiding, "No no no- don't take me for a fool. We both know that 'he' would never grant anything that isn't poisoned. What's the catch?"
He actually lets himself wince at that Zionga, "Ooooo I almost felt that one from here. Nice - nice - but I think she's running on empty now..." He doesn't seem to dislike her at least. Perhaps this truly is him here on professional terms.
If he wanted them dead, he had ample opportunity to do so.
"... Good - good. I was beginning to worry that as a sprinter, you couldn't handle the marathon." He muses, as some stupid reference to her being an Olympian.
Tap tap tap goes the gun against the back of the chair at Miho's question, "No I think I have a rather good grasp of that one. There was no rumor of a Zeppelin flying on 'This Side'- I'm very certain of that. Which can only mean one thing."
Pause.
"Tell me something else instead. Why are you so 'loyal' to this vision of this so-called 'True World'? The Oracle of Maia- 'In La'kech' is a Doomsday Prophecy. Are you truly so quick to prefer a dead world for your precious Yua-chan?"
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"I'm sorry!" Yua yelps, when the Black Mask grows short with her.
But to Miho, she salutes her: "Your steel is strong!" It's really demonstrative of the Black Mask's point; her tawny skin flushes, when he points out the obvious. "Mimi is a powerful woman... I-I won't apologise for loving that."
So there's one thing she won't apologise for... unlike all the others.
When the Black Mask presses on Kimitake's honour, though, Yua thinks of their argument; she looks down, with all four points of her gaze, cleaving to his own force. "I cannot wager such things," she says, though she cringes. "I could not bear to lose them..."
She doesn't think his jokes are very funny... perhaps she's too terrified to laugh.
Miho forces the locks, but does not force the door-posts; she is kinder than someone set on raising the dead. (... though she does grab a Bub Light.) There's blood in the bath tub, tracked up the shower curtain; it would be there, either way, but the desperate handprints are assuredly a new invention.
Yua cannot aid her, though. She cannot give her an easy route through that twisting maze of doors, which seem to lead to different dark rooms each time she enters them; Miho must strive through, with her own power, to find the way through. Even when she reaches the waypoint to the next floor, there are those snakes -- snakes which Miho is able to defend herself from, despite her growing weariness. "Mimi!" She cries out, in encouragement: "You're unassailable!"
She knows little of the True World which Miho has not told her; the Black Mask's demands are a thing she is by and large quiet, witnessing. But when the Black Mask insists it's a dead world, she shakes her head, softly. "It's our ideal world... a world where we can be together. It's the only way we can be together...!"
As Miho rises up through the residential blocks of the tower, the homes grow nicer and finer, 3LDK blocks fit to start a family within. One door is warded with a strange, unblinking eye, warning Miho away from breaking into Remi's home whilst she's asleep or away. Other doors have viewfinders on them, as if the cells of a sanitarium -- though to look inside reveals only visions of flayed subjects, sick art pieces which cannot aid her.
Here, the eyeballs are not only decorative; the five eyes of the Death Seeker fall upon Miho, and her weariness will be put to the test with the instant annihilation of Mudo, let alone the fiery vengeance of Margion. It is difficult to strike them, but there's one weakness she can exploit: if she catches them, she will kill them, too.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
A good line? Miho didn't notice; she tends to be dramatic, but doesn't have to exert effort to do it. Instead she frowns at seduction, and at the entire thing, without answering openly.
She does not hear the matter of honor and husbands. Instead, she hears she is setting records, and a part of her rebels at the idea of doing this for his amusement.
...Another part is glad to show off, no matter the stage; her skills are meant to be seen. But her nemesis is up. And that trap--
"It is true in any case; I do not know you."
But a Charm. "Those who could not present worthy ideals would instead have their ideals taken from them--their energy drained. ...And of course, there was loyalty expected in return for a wish granted."
"Beauty; power. Love; life. All of these things were granted to many."
But the Zionga does hurt. Without any armor, more than most. At least she has her weapon...
Something else. Her loyalty? "The dreams have guided me since I was young," Miho says with a shrug that is audible. "They have led me to greater outcomes, and never yet been incorrect. ...They led me to Yua."
"Most of the world dies," Miho agrees. "And that is tragic. But it is 'real'. To think we can have what is 'good' without sacrifice--that is delusion."
"I know what I have Seen, and it is more real than what is before me now."
The only way they can be together, Yua says. It is true, isn't it?
Miho hears Yua's encouragement, all the same; steel strong, unassailable. But it is not entirely so; were it completely true, the Black Mask would be on their floor now, bloody and broken.
"...Not this room," she says of the unblinking eye, and looks through other viewfinder, frowning at sick art pieces though she is not burdened by disgust.
The Death Seeker comes, but Miho is unafraid of the darkness; that said, it still is a near thing, and she has to force herself to stay up against the curse. "Gh--" It tries. But she stands, and when the Maragion comes, this is her strength, and she goes through the flames towards it.
"Hup--"
She moves to catch the eyes. Darting around further curses, running through flame that licks at her heels, Miho thrusts her weapon into the space between the eyes--and the bar makes it scream.
...But it is only after failed strikes that she can do so, and she is growing weary. Another few Dias, and her spiritual energy is more depleted than it is not.
But still she has her 'sword'.
"These shades... are not enough yet, to stop me."
Still, she does not draw on her own Mark. Still.
"Does this satisfy your curiosity as to my loyalty? As I said. It is more 'real' to me than this. The dreams came when I was young, yet. The Man in them who looks so like me..."
"He has never steered me away from what I seek."
<Pose Tracker> The One in the Black Mask has posed.
'I won't apologise for loving that.'
"Oh that's good. If you did I'd probably gut you like a fish."
Wait- what!? There's just no pleasing this guy!
A joke isn't very funny though, when they're only funny to the person telling them. It's a lesson that Akechi would learn well.
But as the One in the Black Mask, he's never once said 'Just Kidding'. Instead he's just watching Miho go through obstacle after obstacle, to the Waypoint to the next floor, narrowing his eyes at something.
It's like he's trying to pick out details about why this place is. It doesn't make sense to him. Though he's not going to share why.
Another detail. She doesn't know him - Tatsuya Suou did not know him either. He grunts, accepting that he'll just have to remain ignorant of the more important part of that mystery a while longer.
"Hahaha... AHAHAHAHAHA-!" He laughs at her description of most of the world dying being sacrifice needed for what is 'good'. "And yet- there you were, trying to kill the person trying to bring about your 'better world' because the consequences of disobedience were far too terrible. It's all too funny!"
He grins at Gretchen's gems, at that view of her through it, "'Never yet incorrect'? Don't you get it? You're being CONNED! 'He' gave me the bullet that ended his life. 'He' betrayed him. 'He' forced him to be a 'dead man walking' towards the site of his own execution! 'He' is working towards this 'True World' - and this 'World Without Sin' at the same time!"
At least here, the NWO won't hear him say this.
He rolls his eyes at Yua defending the True World, "Are you seriously romanticizing dying together when the 'stars align'?" He then snaps at her, "Your precious CHILD doesn't even exist in that world you stupid cow!"
What can even make this guy happy!? What can satisfy him! No matter how she responds, it's the wrong answer! Or it just narrowly evaded death!
"Are you really okay with them DYING as yet another sacrifice to this 'True World'?"
He watches the duel with the Death Seeker with frustration written on his features, before it smooths away to impassivity
"You really don't want to know what satisfies my curiosity, 'Mimi'." He says, quietly, voice pregnant with menace. He apparently did not like that answer, as to the nature of her loyalty to 'Him'.
It's all just foolish mindless sentiment!
ALWAYS this with women!
ALWAYS deciding against their own interests!
"But- good news!" In a wild shift of tone, from that back to cruelly playful, "You at least met the bare minimum standard wherein I don't have to kill either of you tonight."
H-Hooray?
As he slowly peels himself up from his seat and stretches out, "You can end this and bring her back, whatever, I know you both have a tremendous amount of cuddling to do to prevent you from going into withdrawals."
A beat.
"Don't make me come back here."
He's not gone yet, but at least he seems like he's about to leave.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"I'm not a fish! And I love Mimi!" Yua huffs, and in her offence, she almost manages to be brave for a moment.
Just one.
"Without sacrifice, all achievements are empty," Yua insists, on the heels of Miho illustrating those catches. But the Man in the Black Mask just laughs, and she flinches away from him, on the bed. When he calls her a stupid cow, she flinches again, though her free hand flies down to guard her belly. "I'll take Hiroki into the True World! So-- so we can all be happy together! We never died! I protected Mimi, in that world! I protected her from everything--!" She shakes her head, tears flecking from her right eye alone. "We won't sacrifice Hiroki! We won't!"
But will she end up sacrificing Miho...? Despite all her belief in her, Yua is afraid, as she watches her force herself upright through that crushing Mamudoon. She can't go easy on her, but those Shadows...
No -- they move to flame, and Yua brightens, seeing Miho force her way through them, acrobatically weaving her way around those curses to find the secret target between Death Seeker's eyes. "Mimi!" She cheers, as they scream their deaths.
Her relief is lanced through, though, by the Black Mask's malice, as her attention zeroes back in on him and his gun. His tone shift makes her feel as if her footing is unsteady, though she's still seated, on her bed; her free hand presses against the sheets, to steady herself. "It's... it's over...?"
Trembling, Yua draws a ragged breath. "Thank goodness... oh... Gretchen, aid us," she beseeches her, as she fires her Evoker into her eye again to gain the power to undo the illusion she's placed over Pyramid Plaza. Gretchen disappears, for a moment -- to wrap her arms and jail cell around Miho, shrouding her in healing darkness as she does -- and bringing her back, to the bedroom, as if she'd never left.
"Mimi..." Yua whimpers, as Gretchen fades, and she's able to face the woman who should have been her wife again.
But the Man in the Black Mask hasn't left, yet, so she looks to him again, though she turns her gaze downwards in demure supplication. "... I understand," she says, softly.
She dares not say too much -- and anger a man who's clearly volatile.
Miho will know what to say, right...?
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Like a fish. But Yua is not a fish.
But his laughter? "Sudou failed," Miho says simply. "His way was not to work, and yet he would not abandon it. It was inevitable that you'd be sent for him."
But he's still laughing--still claims she's being conned. Miho narrows her eyes at the Shadow before her. She does not reveal one thing: that she never met with Gozen. That of course 'he' is fooling the others. and yet...
Could it be?
But she doesn't want to know, he says, even as she is victorious over the Shadow. "Very well."
Good news?
"...I see."
It is over, it seems, and Miho is back in short order. She feels only slightly claustrophobic as the bars wind down around her.
"Very well," Miho says. "So you have found what you came for."
"...Who can say what they will do? But I do not aim to provoke it."
<Pose Tracker> The One in the Black Mask has posed.
The One in the Black Mask looks at Yua, and underneath his beaked helm, through the crimson lens, Yua can see the contraction of the muscle that raises his eyebrow.
"That is... certainly a way to profess love."
It's as if she knocked him out of this back to everyday Akechi for just a few seconds, just from the absurdity.
Miho insists that Sudou failed - his way was not to work, and yet he would not abandon it. "So you say- but then why did 'he' not favor you in the battle against him - if he was such a failure?"
A beat.
"Hahaha... Oh it's fine- keep your delusions. I literally don't care myself... my only purpose here is to satisfy the concerns of the men in charge."
Well that's a goddamn lie. Obviously he cared enough to ask. And if that were true, why tell her that she's being played?
And then - Yua insists - indeed, even speaks of her actions should they reach the Two World. And this time, instead of responding with anger, he instead leans back loosely looking at her like she were a child who just told him she believes in Santa Claus.
"Then why are you here?" He asks, before waving his arm in dismissive reply.
Is it over? It seems to be, unless he were to be so cruel as to give hope, before snatching it away.
"Well then, if you're both going to play your part- far be it from me to punish you further for it unless they pay my fee-"
And as they do so, he walks up to the bed, and creases a claw across the footboard. Carving in one gouge. Then another.
"-but let me leave something for you to remember me by, all the same."
It's an intentional gesture, to make them both break their gaze from him to see what he just did- leaving a jagged X carved into their footboard, a constant reminder that no place is truly safe from him.
And then he's just - gone. And it's difficult to tell if it's some feat of incredible speed - an Anti-Navigator ability... or both.
What a prick.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Did Yua say something weird...?
She doesn't quite understand 'His' logic... and so she tells herself not to wonder why Miho wasn't granted victory, back then.
(Perhaps it's because she was too weak.)
"W--we're working on it!" She says, instead, when the Black Mask asks that dismissive question.
She freezes up, as the Black Mask invades the bed she's sitting on to claw the footboard, as if staying very still might somehow hide herself from him. Her focus is broken from him, too occupied with the sob that wracks her chest; he leaves, and she knows not how.
"M-Mimi-- Mimiiiii!" Yua wails, reaching for her; and she does not even have the space to feel embarrassed that she's fulfilled the Black Mask's prophecy, as she sobs into her arms. Her breath comes jagged, too fast and too erratic, just as her heart pounds too quickly in her chest.
Miho will have to remember to close her eyepatch; she will not. Particularly in light of what she finally manages to gasp out, clutching desperately to her wife: "I don't feel right... Mimi, the baby...! Will the baby be all right?! Oh, God...!"
They're left with long minutes of tension -- and Yua's panic, surely not helping her case at all -- before the Dark Hour passes, and Miho is able to ring an ambulance.
Rushed off to the hospital, they're at least able to report that Yua hasn't suffered a miscarriage from her mishaps...
... but all that stress isn't good, for a mother.
She'll spend her birthday in hospital.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Why not? It never occured to Miho before, after all. It's not as if she thought of the man in her dreams as a god. But if he has the power to fool so many, why not empower her further against a failed champion?
...Why not?
Hmm.
An intentional gesture... Miho looks at it--but then it doesn't matter, because Yua is wailing. Miho closes her eyepatch immediately, and then--suddenly--
The panic, Miho can deal with; she has ice in her veins by now, is distant from all the world in her own.
But after the Dark Hour ends...
Miho broods as she waits in waiting areas.
Yua is all that matters, now.