2026-05-01: Ahead the Demon's Gate
- Cutscene: Ahead the Demon's Gate
- Cast: Shiryuu Ryouhara, O-Shinkun Ryouhara, Nahara Ryouhara
- Where: Industrial District, Konan Ward, Sumaru
- OOC Date: 2026-05-01
- IC Date: Sometime between Oct 10th and Oct 19th 2012...
- Summary: In the grey morning mist, the new leaders of the Ryouhara clan met to unpack the ambitions of the new youth.
The abandoned railyards on the outskirts of Sumaru were a circuitous tangle of empty tracks, empty cars, and empty containers, all politely rotting under the autumn sun in a barely populated tangle of post-industry disinterest. It was rainy of late, which had kept most of the urban explorers of Sumaru's adventurously-minded out of the area. Even the day laborers and less fortunate homeless had been encouraged to go by the recent gang activity.
And yet, a certain contingent of men had remained, just out of sight in the grey morning and its on-and-off drizzle. Without notice, some of the rail infrastructure thought decommissioned had been repaired with a careful hand.
In the shadow of an overpass, beneath the awning of a railway stop, a boy in a storm grey haori sits atop an overturned vending machine, long since emptied of product. Arm draped over a knee and across his face, he's waiting, passing the time by watching one of the railway trains in the distance, its cars being separated by laborers in blue raincoats.
"Ahh, the illustrious shijou," a deeply contoured shape of a voice greeted him from not too far behind. "Ever immaculate as always... ever gloomy. As always."
"O-Shinkun." Shiryuu's voice was flat and unperturbed by the implied slight. He'd become used to the slightly older man, tall, dark and lean in the elaborate outfit he wore. The outside of the outfit was subtle -- dominated by a Restoration-era hikeshi's fireproof coat hung off his shoulders, long and black with a subtle grey silhouette of crows and leaves printed over the mantle of the outer layer. However, the inner lining of the coat was a dyed explosion of color, depicting a war between a red oni and a blue oni in the mountains. Both the coat's color and the shine of studded gloves and silver dragon lapels were but a muted flash in the dim light.
Even so, even in the shade, O-Shinkun's jade eyes flashed conspiratorially. "You'd think," he chides, "having supralunar power _and_ a cooperative Yongarasu would have made you more cheerful." A heavy leather glove raised, for the shinobi to wag a finger at his superior.
"After all, you went through all that trouble..." O-Shinkun's voice dropped an octave, his labret piercing lifting with his thin, tight smile. The notion bought Shiryuu's attention. "It could possibly the first time in our family's history that most of us agreed on anything. A nip from Sukunabikona himself."
"Aa." Aside from the vague agreement, the silver-haired boy remained quiet, prickly but mostly unfazed by the ongoing chatter.
"Ugh, fine. Where's your handler?" O-Shinkun mused forlornly. "If you gave her this kind of boon, Kiria-chan would never mope."
"Iih.. that's enough." Apparently reaching the end of his patience, the boy finally broke his stare with the middle distance, looking back at the man with the kohl-rimmed eyes. "Did you bring the Mizugarasu?"
"Raigarasu," a spritely voice reminded him, belonging to the shorter woman elegantly landing on the concrete. Ever the practical girl, she was the only one of them who apparently thought it prudent to bring an umbrella, shaking the rainwater off of the nylon by cycling the action a few times before closing it with a click. A cute creamy white neko charm chain hung off the handle -- it was mostly covered by her hands when she leaned on the umbrella, themselves sheathed in thin, short and lace-trimmed cocktail-cut leather handling gloves. Though not overly short, her lacking height in comparison to the other two was bolstered by a one-inch rise in the reinforced heels she wore, and the wild, vagabond grin painted across her round face told the rest of the tale.
"Nahara," O-Shinkun greeted, with the thinnest veneer of professionalism. "Creative, as always, though your interest in bucking four hundred years of tradition is always refreshing," he needled sarcastically. "Ancestor Motomaro would be spinning in his grave if he heard."
Preening, the girl with the short, sea green hair and glasses raised a hand to dust an imagined speck off the shoulder of a short, devil red sleeveless jinbaori, worn over a shorter muddy crimson coat whose sleeves were buckled snug halfway up her arms. It was the same as her slacks, tied before they reached her calves. "Don't nitpick, Shinkun-kun~" she shot back, refusing to use his full name. "Just because you have all the fun field work doesn't mean the rest of us can't show off even a little. Setsuya might have been happy with his title, but we all know what happens to old, bitter men hiding in the dark, right?"
She winked at the silver-haired boy, perhaps a little more candidly than Shiryuu would have liked, being the one caught in the middle of this whole exchange. "Besides," she continued, unperturbed. "What's good for the white crow is good for the lightning crow, ne?"
With a long-suffering sigh, Shiryuu finally moved. The boy slung a leg over the edge of the vending machine on which he had been content to perch, and finally stood up to his full height. Though not as tall as the Americans and younger than O-Shinkun by a handful of years and Nahara by far less, the shihaisha was much taller than he looked at first glance, and was just shy of being O-Shinkun's equal in that regard. A cold, pale brown eye made up the infinitesimal differences in both.
"You weren't chosen to replace bickering old men to take their roles in squabbling over ancient history," Shiryuu told them both, his voice severe. "At this point, we have an 'unmitigated supremacy' to realize our goals ... and the moment of action is now."
"Marvelous," O-Shinkun replied, pressing his hands flat together. "Well then, it seems that the trials here are coming close to being arranged... it took time. Rail diversions and repair materials for aging lines are not easy to come by. We also bribed a few children. A few high profile fights in the schools will get the word out. Even so, Shirogarasu... it would have been easier if you let us coerce one of these rumormongers of yours."
"Aaah~" Nahara interjected musically, "and watch you get thrown on your colorful ass by one? Shinkun-kun, you're so adorable~"
"Get literal, lemonade fairy... the day I ask you for anything ..."
"... have Shuuhei and Kouhei returned with the fragment?" Shiryuu asked tersely, his head tilting to interrupt the two. Despite the others around him, the boy hadn't moved more than a step from his spot since he stood, his hands shrouded by the draping sleeves of his storm-grey haori.
Nahara's large silver-rimmed glasses flashed with the incline of her head, framing her ambitiously wide medallion-yellow eyes. "Ohhh," she teased, playing at being someone who had just thought of a long forgotten fact. "The 'fragment.' The boys returned with it a few days ago..."
"....and?" Shiryuu's patience, or lack thereof, had grown legendary in the clan.
"Well~" Nahara continued, unkowed. "We tried having the brothers butcher a few demons with it, but it turns out that it's very resistant to being alloyed, so we had to have special ninkou commissioned. You'd be am-a-zed at all the wicked things it does to those 'other' monsters...not to mention us."
O-Shinkun shook his head. "All of the money we end up kicking to gendai-ryu ... 'wicked' surely isn't all you came up with?" He made a censuring gesture, flicking two fingers dismissively at Nahara as if sprinkling dishwater on a misbehaving cat by the sink. She did not take it kindly.
"Don't~! Shinkun-kun!" she whined, absent an objection from Shiryuu. "You'll hurt my feelings! They're delicate," she insisted, a sentiment that earned her an immediate snort from the taller shinobi. She stuck her tongue out at him until he backed off.
"Anyway," Nahara recovered airily, "Shirogarasu may as well have had adorable Kurou-kun bring us Kagura metal itself." Having emphasized the grey-haired boy's official title as if proving an ancillary point, the ninkougakusha folded her arms in satisfaction, pushing the frames of her glasses up the bridge of her nose with a thumb. As she did, tiny cerulean text flickered along the bottom of her lenses. The Shinshingankyou she wore were a type of high-tech analytical ninkou, and she passively referenced the information it displayed.
"So far it's mesmerized two demons," she interpreted of the encoded data. "And caused at least five anomalies to go mad. There was a sixth, but Kouhei was too fast in dispatching it." She seemed vexed at the idea, and O-Shinkun snorted audibly. Nahara ignored him. "It seems to have similar properties to our oldest 'ko-ryu' ninkou... we're calling it an 'Original Material' for now. It's on a different level... maybe something that exists at the very edge of human fear. It's already terrorized three of our shokunin ninkougakusha."
The idea made the kunoichi sigh, wistfully. "And you guys say you want to weaponize it. We're all going to die... Isn't it lovely?"
O-Shinkun was noticeably less enthusiastic, though his bitter smile was no less sanguine as he looked to Shiryuu, who was deep in thought. "How grim. ...you said this was one of our host's assets that had this sort of power..? That it killed 'the Joker Killer?' ... you know, they say even you couldn't..."
"--Aa," Shiryuu cut him short in icy reply. "That man is dead." The statement landed like a lead weight, and the boy with the shock of grey hair turned away, showing only the three leaves symbol of the clan at his back -- the same Nahara wore at her hip, and O-Shinkun across the the hem of his coat.
"He represents 'the past.'"
"It's the future that remains. A barrier as foreboding as a demon's gate. We have to address it all. An S-class danger surpassing Tatsuya Sudou ... the tendrils of a dark conspiracy ... the inheritance of vengeance ... and wanton apathy and unrest alike, all in the worlds above and below the moon. It's the results of Setsuya Ryouhara's failure to act. It's the rotting roots of our own hesitation... and the ultimate challenge remaining to real 'synthesis.'"
"That's why we're here. We're not going to be the ones who stand idly by and scheme, waiting for an opportunity... that's not who we are. Not anymore."
The grey-haired boy never looked back.
"...so..." O-Shinkun ventured, trying to elicit a response after the moment had grown long enough to be uncomfortable. Nahara tittered, noticeably less fettered. "I notice you're not talking about your own priorities. The new-gen from Siren's Alley? The cute blonde? Don't tell me all by yourself, you're going to--"
"--I hate repeating myself," Shiryuu replied.
It was the end of the conversation.