2026-05-17: Rain for Two

• Log: Rain For Two
• Cast: Umie Akabane, Shiryuu Ryouhara
• Where: Umie's Apartment, Shibuya
• OOC Date: May 17, 2026
• IC Date: November 10, 2012
• Summary: Despite everything that happened in Aoba Park the night before, ordinary life can and must go on. Thankfully, it comes its own benefits: mundane routines, old friends, and unexpected bonds, like the one she has with Shiryuu Ryouhara, who should be her enemy. Unfortunately, the two of them just can't be trusted to keep from descending into terrible, wonderful mischief.

---

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    Yesterday, Umie dealt with Tatsuzou Sudou's right hand man, someone that seemingly came back from the dead. A walking corpse, constructed like an fleshy, eyeless automaton, full of gaps and cracks where blood, far, and muscle would be. An avatar of a 'god'-- her 'god', for all intents and purposes.

    Kotodama, wild cards. Arcana. Mechanisms and games that go far beyond her head, a chess board too large to understand. All of them, pawns, and she, simply acting like she had any chance of overcoming the thing that possesses her soul. What should have felt like a victory over another one of those massive shadows is now spent refusing to look at anyone's faces, shame and despair infusing her every thought.

    ..... And then, she had to go work at her retail job the next morning. This morning, Umie dealt with an elderly woman who complained that she should be honoring her one day expired coupon because that was a policy about people over the age of 65 and older somethingsomething blah blah blah.

    ..... It's times like this she could really go for Ren being there, if just to shoot him a covert look of 'you heard that, right??' while reinforcing the policy of respecting your elders, blahblahblah because she's an adult, and they're on camera. However, Ren was not there today, which isn't unusual in the slightest, given the nature of their job. He is a normal teenager, after all, and is not, in fact, recovering from being stabbed many times by Black Mask.
    
    "So what did he do then?" Umie clicks open the door to her apartment, holding her phone in her other hand. "Toki, you seriously said that to him? Really. Uh-huh?" Shoes are taken off, aail goes on the counter, and a look is cast around. Kurou is not here, which means...!!

    b a t h t i m e

    Chatchatchatchat. "Uh oh. Really? Yeah." Jacket is taken off, uniform sloughed off, replaced by sweats as Umie shifts her phone from one ear to the other. "Uh huh. That much? Sure, but how is that going to work with... oh yeah? Right." The bathroom door is cast aside with all the drama of an opera's first act. "Really, yeah?" Door closed. "And then?"

    Sweats taken off. "Yeaaahhh. That sounds like a hassleee... Sheesh... your day's been way more stressful than mine." And it's the truth, technically. Running a business *is* stressful. How does Toki do it?

    "Listen, when you go home, draw yourself a hot bath, and just relax. Remember the bath oils I gave you for your birthday? Use some of that. Takes the stress right off." .... Which is what Umie is doing now, in fact, finding it in the tiered caddy by the sink. "That's what I'm going to do in fact. Yeaaaahhh, you caught me. Was it the echo? ... What, you think I was going to do *that* on the phone with you? I have *class*. Yeah."

    Water is turned on. "I'll let you go. Been a loonnnngggg couple of days," Umie says, with a performative yawn for her friend's benefit over the phone. "Catch you later."

    *click*

    And Umie submerges herself, letting the water get just below her nose. "brblbrblburblburbl," goes her mouth, under the water.

    Just normal, boring adult things.

<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.

 
     WHOP.

     The late autumnal chill cuts through the tiny apartment mercilessly, a brisk temperature belying the otherwise perfectly comfortable afternoon. The rolling breeze cuts in through the window, leaving the sash to rattle audibly in its sill against the wind, opened far further than it should be.

     That's when a set of sneakers can be seen, padding past the door and across the living room, for their owner to politely shut the window, pressing it closed with two hands, a small bag dangling from the crook of his arm.

     He'd been busy, organizing the tightening of supervision over the Ijuuin in the wake of recent events. Investigating things that shouldn't be investigated, if one were to listen to the bride -- not that Shiryuu ever made it a habit to listen to anyone trying to warn him from anything.

     Telling the shihaisha of the Ryouhara clan that something is dangerous is like telling the storm that the earth is dry. Shiryuu alone makes the decision of what to avoid and not to avoid -- it is, in fact, this ill world's luck he doesn't decide to annex this so-called Blacksite entirely.

     First, he has to find it.

     But then, his spies had informed him of some sort of situation occurring during the Dark Hour. Unfortunately, he has other uses for Shuuhei, Kouhei and Kurou, so the space between hours remains an infuriating blind spot. But several people were involved, it's said, and ..

     ...enter now.

     He hadn't seen Akabane in some time, and the way he moves though her kitchen it's very clear he's not taking a deep interest in her immediate affairs, the slight pause and tilt of the head. His hearing is sharp; aside from the conversation, the boy can easily hear the water running while her bath is drawn.

     Attacking her to test her reflexes while her guard is down is tempting, but no. That wouldn't turn out well.

     In the kitchen now, he checks the fridge. Severe, critical glance. A tiny sound made with his teeth, and the boy slides the cloth bag off of his arm, the sleeve of his haori dropping to its full drape as he takes a glass bottle of apple juice and a loaf of wrapped shokupan from the bag and sets it on the counter absently. "Mmm," he decides cryptically.

     Really, Ryouhara gives the kitchen his approval quietly, folding his arms grimly across his chest once he adds bread and milk to it. But then the shinobi pauses, as he hears something.

     "Hey...what are you bubbling about in there?"
     His hearing is very sharp.
     "Akabane, stop drowning. Don't make me come fetch you."

     Shiryuu, all business, has no concept of 'hello.' If she drowns, she just got back from work, right? It would be absolutely part-timer related.

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    Several people were involved, and, judging by Umie's behavior, she likely was involved as well. And even if she wasn't, well, she was likely involved in *something else*. That is the way of Umie Akabane, serial nosy person.

    But, as Shiryuu may agree, one person's 'nosy' is another person's 'preventative surveillance'.

    The fridge, likely thanks to Kurou's good influence, is in great condition. Healthy, nonexpired foods are packed into the tight space, just like how the apartment isn't a mess, but organized and clean.

    Shiryuu can be confident in making any assessment that he may make in how his and Kurou's influence have helped Umie be a proper adult, in an apartment that *doesn't* have clothing strung about, or paint water just out in the open, ready to be accidentally drunk instead of some much healthier fruit juice or tea.

    Sinking back into the tub, Umie completes the ritual of 'blowing bubbles in the bath water' and relaxes back, unaware of the danger that is stalking her apartment. ....Well, that, or she's not commenting.

    Hearing a voice, Umie perks up.

    Ah. Shiryuu is here. Umie should have known he'd visit, regardless of whether or not there was an altercation.

    "I'm taking a bath," Umie says, amusement somehow finding its terrible way into her voice in spite of how hard she tries to act annoyed.

    She debates. Stay in the nice warm tub and soak, or go out and be with her 'bond'?

    'Don't make me come fetch you.' She lifts up a foot out of the water, wiggling her toes. Hm. Hmhmhmmm.

    "You promise?"

    Shiryuu's sharp ears may detect the hint of a widening blackbird's smile in those two words.

    "Hey." And like that, it's like nothing had happened.

    "Do you happen to know what a Kimon Tonkou is?"

<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.

 
     It's literally only preventative surveillance when you have spies to assign. That's the benefit of being the person in charge. Or so Shiryuu would assert.

     He spends some time considering the kitchen before making his call. To be fair, the grey-haired boy doesn't claim any influence over the kitchen -- that would be exclusively Kurou's attention to detail straightening the devil's life out with the benefit of Ryouhara clan discipline and self-restraint.

     'Discipline and self-restraint' take on an entirely new meaning where it concerns Shiryuu.

     "IIy," the boy grouses wordlessly, immediately taking a severe outlook on the matter of Umie's reply. A formerly smooth and authoritative voice tightens down into a full protest. "You can't just ... freely invite someone in when the situation is ... like that," he complains!

     She can hear the little snap of silk outside the washroom, the sound of wind being beaten as the boy's haori gets very animated very quickly. The blackbird is almost assuredly getting censured by the boy's better nature. Quite a lot, by the sound of it. Odds of how involved the boy is?

     If he were still pointed towards the counter, Shiryuu could have cut the shokupan into slices with his bare hands.

     The sound of his haori dies down with a notable -flumph.- ".... it's not fair," Shiryuu settles on. "If you're dying, it's fine, but..."

     She's clearly not dying!!
     "...you're not allowed to drown, anyway." the boy remarks.

     Unfortunately, with Umie not dying and the place being fairly put away for once, there's nothing for Shiryuu to fixate on, a situation that leaves the lord of all shinobi under the steel moon standing awkwardly in a kitchen with nothing to be upset about. Wait, what was that sound? Was she getting out of the bath?? No, she just got in it, that would make no sense.

     Oh, she asked him a question. Thank heavens.

     "...ihh?" Kimon Tonkou? ".... It's an ancient technique, isn't it?" He's heard of it. Barely. The boy scratches his temple, folding the red bundle of his sword down under an arm so he can untie it from the back of his obi, as if the notion had just reminded him. "Something syncretized from Chinese history. I didn't grow up in the Akayaten, so I wouldn't know... there's a page in our manual that talks about a ninkou, Kimon. But the last person who saw one probably died in the 1800s."

     What is an Akayaten? Well, Shiryuu's not paying attention, so he wouldn't know to explain what they call the Ryouhara complex in Iizuna, or why growing up there would have been important for the purposes of more completely answering the question.

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    'You can't just ... freely invite someone in when the situation is ...'

    "I wouldn't know. I've never been able to get to this point," Umie coyly quips right back, then pauses, thinking on her wording.

    Never been allowed? No. She disallowed herself, because there was always something there, waiting to complicate things. Just the existence of that barrier was enough.

    And she wasn't the Umie Akabane she is now, taking on the mantle of someone who challenged and poked back when things pressed beyond that barrier. She was certainly easier to date, back then. Boys liked her, but for the same reasons they liked other schoolgirls: she was very pretty, acceptably guarded, did well at school, had ordinary hobbies. Liked holding hands and the rush of a relationship, maybe even kissed a few.

    Then, she'd drift off, or they'd drift off of their own thankful volition, saving Umie the trouble.

    Is that what someone like Minako is going through, right now? What about Yukari, or Hitomi, or any of the other number of SEES members? Mitsuru, even... would someone like her even date?

    Even if they didn't have a nagging, teasing manifestation of what infected their soul...

    .....

    She's not allowed to drown.

    "Shiryuu."

    If she says that question aloud, unchanged, it'll feel like one of those questions that happen randomly in romantic comedies.

    Instead she listens to him talk about Kimon Tonkou, letting herself smile as she tries to decipher his response. "... Ninkou... that's those things your family does, right? Special techniques."

    "And Akayaten... is that a temple? Could you tell me about it?"

    It's not the question she wanted to ask earlier, but she wants to hear him talk more.

<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.

 
     'I wouldn't know,' she says. "Iih?" Genuinely confused, it takes Shiryuu the space of an eyeblink to sort out his feelings on the matter: Vexed. The boy is officially out of space to think on it, his head wrapping around the ideas presented thereafter.

     "....Why do you ask about those old things?" he shoots back, quickly, hands laid flat on the red bundle he's laid across the counter. Fingertips play at the edges, at the pretty purple braided cord keeping the bag secured snug around the sheathed blade. Carrying it in public would invite too much attention, but like this...

     "'Ninkougakujutsu,'" the boy clarifies. "A method of tying miracles to the world. An art created by the genius, Ikou Ryouhara. A ninkou is the material manifestation of the will of Ryouhara in the natural world, that's all. The Akayaten is one such ninkou. It's...beautiful. The clan's compound, where I was born. It is..."

     The word, the concept, is audibly hard to imagine for him.
     "...our home."

     He sounds uncomfortable with that idea, that last, instead busying himself with the tying and retying of that ornamental cordage, with the sage-o wrapping around the sword's sheath, exposed with a tug of the bag. "Anyway, the manual, the place, to say any more would be..."

     It would be dangerous, he thinks. He's already told her previously it's on Iizuna, in Nagano, already a questionable decision, he thinks. But the nature of ninkou, 'that manual,' and this... to know any more, she would have to be..

     Shiryuu pushes the thought out of his head with some effort, trying to find the words to follow the question earlier -- ostensibly the real reason why he's here. Instead, he finds himself fixated on other things entirely.

     "...What's that mean, anyway... 'you've never been able to get to this point?'" He cinches the sword bag shut again, snugging tight the cordage about the bag's fold over the hilt with determination. "...is our.." Another audible struggle. "... is it not going to your liking?"

     There are some things they are very far apart on, he's painfully aware. A little dark thought trickles through the back of his mind. Perhaps it was all him, in the end. Will it still have color, a year from now? Or will it be like everything else ...

     ..black and white.

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    "You're probably already aware that something happened the other night at Aoba Park, given how many people were there."

    There should be an explanation here, in the silence that follows. Too many seconds pass to make her next sentence feel natural, even if Shiryuu had audibly answered her back.

    "... The giant shadow was apparently making some kind of death cult, and everyone got to see what happens, when someone is exposed to the Dark Hour, without a Persona. One of the most terrible things to learn about, if you think about it too hard. And, well, when you got something like that making a giant stench in the middle of Sumaru City, the Order's going to come in and yell 'no, that's mine', and, by god, it was *terrible*."

    "Usually, any relationships I have of this kind can't ever go this far," she starts in, with a relaxed tone. The bath helps, feeling like a little cocoon she can safely be in, while still interacting with the outside world.

    Unfortunately, by that same token, she can't see Shiryuu's reactions or realize what effect her words are having, outside of his tone of voice, or the noises Shiryuu makes as he walks around her apartment.

    ".... It's too dangerous."

    'Is it not to your liking?' She should answer him directly, she thinks.

    She doesn't, because the two stark words don't hold the meanings she wants.

    Black and white.

    ".... I thought of you, last night. As something that night showed me, with not even a word just how insignificant I am, and how nothing I did, or ever will do, will ever be more important than the moment I was given over to 'Him'."

    Mai-chan was just a colorful drape thrown over an abyssal god. Each word was all Umie, translating what her psyche could never understand. Every word in that voice, the childish laughter, the spiteful, sometimes coaxing words were just that possession further driving in those stakes, like a growling, guttural noise cast through a computer filter to become words. To make the obscene seem friendly, and to twist her younger self to find things more appealing, and to drive her away from things that would draw her away.

    That darkness.... that was 'Him'. .... Or was it? Is that just another mask?

    ".... I figured, hey, if being forever possessed by a force domineering my very soul was inevitable, then it meant I could push it to a later date. <Pro-cras-i-nate>." Such a sinful word, in a Japanese society.

    She never married the two thoughts together, did she?

    "... What I'm saying is..." Reddish brown eyes stare at the ceiling.

    ".... It'd be a shame, to never kiss you again, Shiryuu. Or hear your heartbeat. Or fight with you."

<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.

     "You do have a way of finding all of the worst messes," the boy reflects, chagrined. There is a note of fondness in his voice -- but only just so, lest his bond think the Shirogarasu gone soft even in this, an unforgivable condition.

     He seems fond and familiar. Even if he takes a spot in the middle of the so-called kitchenette, sliding down the sparse cabinetry to set on the floor heavily, a long sigh trickling out just underneath his breath, a handful of grey hair to keep the strands out of his eyes as he leans back, the low sling of his torso letting his head rest just underneath the line of the counter. His sword still sits there, laid across the length of the counter. The length of the daito and its packing makes the space seem smaller than it is.

     'It's too dangerous.' The words he left unspoken are spake, the lilt of her voice coloring them instead of his own. The context -- of secrets, of their bond to one another -- varies, but the meaning remains entirely the same. The boy doesn't pursue the cursed notion in the back of his mind, letting it fall by the wayside like a ribbon as she invokes belonging to something without a name.

     Who, truly, can that thing be? Shiryuu has no mooring or real understanding to think of it in any terms other than that which he already knows -- the ghost of that ancient warlord...

     Shiryuu doesn't know why it bothers him.

     "...you don't belong to anyone," the young man says, a idle braid of heat cinching his voice restlessly. "It's like..."

     "'Gravity.'"

     The word is plucked out of the ether, without any context or preconception. "All around us... a great force conspires to remind us of our mortality. It holds us to earth, reminds us of the weight of armor, of silk, of the burden of living. We think that because of its omnipresence that it's some inescapable rule, or incontrovertible law..."

     "....but then, why is it so simple to blow a leaf into the air?"

     He worries at the ties securing his pants. "If things like 'gravity' are so insurmountable, then why can a bird do it trivially? What explains the lift of a sword into the air? The storm? The night sky, and everything that exists above the moon?"

     Shiryuu shakes his head slowly, discarding a hand from his hairline to lay across his knee. His mind strays along the intimacies of her admission. "I ... thought about you too." Then, when Yua said something along the lines of the same.

     Her kiss. The feel of her hands in his. The way she smiles so fearlessly.

     "...There are greater forces than venal gravities," the boy thinks.
     "No matter how deep it goes, you're not doomed, not without my consent."
     
     

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    'You do have a way of finding all of the worst messes.' "Speak for yourself," Umie purrs fondly into the humid air, checking out a crack in her nail. "I didn't make an enemy of the Phantom Thieves."

    She shouldn't sound so fond, when she says it, given how she regards the Phantom Thieves, and regards Joker and Mona as trustworthy friends-- if to a point.

    Her eyelids lower, her lips following in a frown in turn. Joker and Mona have figured out she hears voices, just like Sudou did. How can they even trust her anymore?

    Should she be trusted? Can she even trust herself, or what she sees or feels?

    ... Even if it's a feeling, that she feels for someone else on the other side of that wall?

    Even if it feels warm, when she holds onto it, listening to Shiryuu's words?

    LIke gravity, water droplets falling from the curl of a tendril of hair, into the waters below.

    "Adversity. For every sun, there must be a moon."

    But then, she thinks, continues on that thought, why is it so simple to fall in...?

    .... Goddamn it. Goddamn it. The boy is being unbearably smooth. Why can't he be like this when they're around others? Ren must think she's nuts, putting up with someone so grumpy.

    ....

    ..... Maybe he is then, too, but it's just never about subjects like this, that make her heart beat a little faster and make her wish to abandon her warm cocoon of a bathtub.

    "... Then you'll chase me across the sky as well?"

    The water shifts, as she gets up. It's not going to be drained yet; she can always go back to it, depending how long this takes.

    Sometimes the moon has to chase the sun. Or is it the other way around? Is she the sun, and he the moon?

    Is she the rabbit or the fox? A rabbit certainly doesn't dry herself off and go to the fox, dressed in sweats, which Umie, after putting on other garments, is slipping on.

    Her hair is toweled off, but still wet, as the door opens.

    She glances around, seeing Shiryuu on the floor, and sits down besides him, letting her head fall against his shoulder, if he allows it.

    "You can't just say things like that and get away with it, Shiryuu..." she murmurs, almost like a threat, if she wasn't sitting there besides him, her breath soft.
    
    

<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.

        A harsh, sharp scoff. The Phantom Thieves. "It's unfortunate," he allows. "But ..if they want to spit into the storm, they're welcome to do it," the grey-haired Ryouhara opines, cavalier. "They should be counting their blessings that I don't decide to make them my enemy in return..."

        The boy is, in a rather circumspect fashion, pointing out that he has no specific quarrel with the Thieves no matter what their bearing is towards him. Things would be proceeding very differently if Shiryuu took any particular umbrage -- luckily, the matter seems to shell him, the boy shifting body weight in slow, uneasy surrender.

        He honestly sounds more nettled about the insufferable Akabane's riposte than the idea of having to fight the Thieves.

        One is normal to him. The other...

        One arm joins the other, and the grey haired boy rests his chin between his crossed arms, breathing out a warm puff of air to soothe his nerves about other matters entirely, far heavier matters. Even his mind couldn't quite connect the affairs of Akabane and Ijuuin, and that interminable gloom that seems to follow them around like a funeral procession.

        Will he chase her? "If it's what's needed," Shiryuu replies without looking towards the washroom, his brow set, his eyes sharply forward. If he has to, he'll find out what that doom is, and he'll cut it, the same as any other obstacle.

        "If it's what you want."

        Shiryuu does seem to make an important distinction.
        "I don't... think you should put a free bird in a cage," he considers, as if searching for the right connection, as if mulling over what he would do.

        A flash of his first day, learning the estate in Akita as a child.
        "...Hopefully, you open the window," he decides.

        It's enough to distract him, ebough that he isn't paying attention with those sharp ears of his. So it does make a little more sense when the boy responds with alarm when Akabane comesc out of the washroom, light spilling out to alert im. "!"

        "H--hey, wait, what are you doing, I said a window, n-ot--"

        It might sound good when the young man says it, but no matter how determined he is, he's not really going to be ready for -- "Y-your hair's not even -- you're going to catch a cold in this weath --"

        Determination gives way to confusion and alarm in fast respect. He cycles through this and about six other dire protests in rapid fire as Akabane decides to come over ('hey you didn't have to, you were supposed to be enjoying--') and sit on the floor ('th-the floor isn't okay for you!!') next to him ('wh, what? what did I say?') in sweatpants ('...th, i guess that's fine though..')

        By the time she's settled in, Ryouhara's surrendered (lost all knowledge of) the point he was trying to make entirely. Having long since lifted his head from his arms, he only relaxes to breathe outward. Sword. Long. Sigh. She can feel the pensive tension drain out of the boy, quite possibly despite himself as she leans closer.

        Instead of fighting her off and putting her back in the bath to finish enjoying herself like he rightfully should, the boy uncrosses an arm, to let Akabane's hair drip over his haori behind him.

        The boy surrenders the tiniest welcome of a kiss at her hairline, turning just so, just slightly.

        "...you know that water's going to be cold after awhile, right?"
        

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

   'But ..if they want to spit into the storm, they're welcome to do it.' The corners of Umie's lip turn up in a smile. "That's why I like them." Like a heartbeat of a collective rebellious spirit, springing from nothing like cherry blossoms.

    But in the same way, they could disappear, if the Order properly focused on them.

    She's not sure of the extent of Shiryuu's mettlings, or really understand why, but it makes her wonder: is she even worse than Shiryuu, for just letting it continue?

    ... Then again, it's not like she's particularly trustworthy, even to herself. It's clear from Kandori, at least, that her situation is specific to her and her alone.

    'If that's what's needed.'

    To be left alone, unseen, unpercieved. Wouldn't that be a part of what she...

    'If that's what you want.' Umie catches the second half of Shiryuu's sentence.

    .... No, being alone was never what she wanted. Coming home to a lonely apartment, crying in her pillow, the way she looked at her cell phone, knowing her parents would never call just to check on her. Not only that, they couldn't. It was all by design, in order to free herself.

    'I don't... think you should put a free bird in a cage.'

    Now she comes home to Kurou, and tea, and ask how he was doing. He still needs to be rewarded for those grades... she couldn't figure out what to do, but maybe it's as simple as a meal. Not from Big Bang Burger, but... done here. A homemade meal.

    Because this bond comes from people like Kurou and Shiryuu, it didn't feel like a cage. it was Umie, forcing her way into Shiryuu's.

    Just like she does now.

    The gremlin leans into Shiryuu with a cheeky, indulgent smirk, then presses her still damp face against his shoulder like a stray cat just let in from the rain. "Then you'll just have to keep me warm, won't you~" she murrs into him, letting herself settle against his scent (which is getting wet, she could have done a better job of toweling off), and the sound of his voice (his protests). The way his body relaxes, and the feel of that tiny kiss at her hairline.

    The water might get cold. "... And you might leave," she answers back. "It'd be too dangerous to leave that to chance, hmm?"

    The mundane trials of daily life, and a visit from Shiryuu. What more could she ever ask for, to cleanse the worries of that day?

    .... And what of Shiryuu?

    "So what's an Akayaten or a Kotodama, then?" Well he's just going to have to deal. "They just sound like the sorts of things you do."
    

<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.

  
        The dauntless wind of silk finds its way about her -- the boy is not as animated, hardly the gremlin hellbent on drying off using -his clothes- as opposed to the perfectly good towels he's fairly sure she owns. She's a girl, right? They all have a bunch of towels. Why, then, is he starting to get damp? It's an inexcusable situation...
 
        But these are questions Shiryuu might ask, ideas he might express if he were inclined to be more animated. Instead, the drape of his haori settles over the troublemaker's back, a hand finding its way to the narrow of her waist. She's on his shoulder, so he can't quite reach much further -- a practical affair that Ryouhara seems ill intent on fighting.
 
        "W-- well," Shiryuu shoots back oh-so-eloquently, lifting his eyes to the ceiling. "I guess I could do that ... warm .. you.. up??" He tries to focus. The vibration of her voice is nesting somewhere in the small of his back with every word. "I know some ways, I mean. -- Not like that. Ah... the ways I'm referring to, that is. Not that I don't know anything. -- listen, I'd guess I'm okay, but that's not what we're talking about."
 
        Authority. Shiryuu's fallback plan is foolproof.
 
        It's something of a benefit that she seems to have more questions. It's well after a bit of awkward silence that Ryouhara blinks. "Ehhh?"
 
        Beautiful. He'd described the Akayaten as beautiful before, as a ninkou. But what is it? "It's a building in Nagano, a location where the four crows meet. But ... it's not a safe place for outsiders."
 
        There is always the lingering question of 'his responsibility,' what gives the boy trepidation. A question is not just a question, though she may be full of them. Shiryuu is painfully aware that there are answers that could curse a person forever. As someone who is his 'rival,' who consorts with those whom have claimed him as enemy, is it really okay for her to have that information? Would it do more harm than good?
 
        Speaking of information...
 
        The boy's eyes narrow, eyelids shuttering once and twice in quick, concerned succession. "Kotodama? What did you get into out there?" he wonders openly, shifting his weight just so that he might draw her a touch closer -- the boy is serious, no matter how damp his sweater's getting. "The idea of Kotodama's something different entirely."
 
        That's a harder one to explain. In truth, the only reason he knows is...
 
        "...I'm looking into it. It's a mechanism involving the rumors of the city. I don't use it, but..."
 
        The rest, left deliberately unsaid. There are many levers that Shiryuu has only just now begun to pull after a life spent in the dark, but there is obviously something about the subject that gives the boy pause. He looks away, reminded of something better left to ghosts.
 
        ".... hey."
 
        The idea of ghosts reminds him of something she'd said. "... I wouldn't leave, you know."
        Shiryuu is still not looking directly at Umie.
 
        "...you're my responsibility now."

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.        

    It feels luxurious, being so selfish for once, letting herself enjoy the simple company of someone she's grown deeply attached to, despite every reason she has to do the opposite.

    The right answer would have been to never entertain the thought of forming a connection to someone who's an enemy. To consider all of the Order her enemy, and to enact revenge on them, as she said to Akechi. They've been the cause of everything, after all. The Kirijo Group may have been an outlier, but that could have still been the Order's fault. They've just hidden their tracks, like they always do.

    So why did a young man decide, against all reason, that she was worthy of anything other than derision? To deal with her anger, jeering, and paranoia, and all the poison she lobbed at him for simply being there, as the Enemy. She didn't even treat her newfound fellow 'veterans' that well; one fit of the massive shadow's delirium was enough to make her turn against them, despite how gracious they were to her. And to keep standing while everyone else fell that night... that couldn't have been by chance, either.

    'She could still be saved'. 'Full of sin.' Coward.

    Eventually, they'll come to know what she did that night, years ago, and they'll all hate her. Forbidden knowledge, gained by forbidden means... There is only one way someone would know what happens to a person when they're exposed to the Dark Hour.

    What was indulgence becomes something else, as she holds onto Shiryuu, lost in that centralized flow of thoughts, all around her. Like the haori, around her shoulders, and the hand, that finds the narrow of her waist.

    And in turn, her thoughts go pleasantly blank, just enjoying the simple feeling of being touched, and touching someone else. 'I know some ways--' "Mmn. I bet there's ninkou for that." 'Not that I don't know anything. --Listen, I'd guess I'm okay--' "Usually you say you're perfect, not 'okay'." Umie says, having lost the thread of his words.

    Wait. ...UH "What were we talking about, again?" Drip, drip. Umie's hair, blonde creeping into the barest hint of dark brown roots along the natural part along the center of her head, drips mercilessly against Shiryuu's haori, smelling faintly of yuzu fruit, from the bath oil.

    It's honestly sort of fun to hear a little bit about Shiryuu. "... Sounds like a dreary place, if it's not safe for people to visit." Perhaps it's always been Umie's curse to seek out and ask about cursed things, and then be dragged down by the things she finds, no matter how innocent they seem.

    Last night has not one of those nights, however. Too many questions are left behind, and Umie's mind is still unable to settle on answers, finding every theory a hot stovetop ready to burn her fingers.

    "I didn't get into anything," Umie lies. "It's just a word." Like 'Arcana'. That she knows, if in the abstract. Archaic? Mystery? "... Wait, rumors? Like... something caused by rumors?" But what is that something, then?

    The blackbird seeks her curse again, and again, though Shiryuu manages to strike an end to it with his silence.

    And, with that, offering a crumb of something even more valuable than something forbidden, even if it may be the most cursed thing of all: something to treasure. "...." Umie is struck dumb by the way her heart beats just a little faster, regardless of the last part of Shiryuu's statement.

    She could... let herself think that this is something that's safe for her to have, that it won't be torn away from her.

    ".... You'll chase me, if I want it," she echoes in a soft murmur, attaching his earlier words to that statement.

    No, she can't just be passive in this.

    ".... I'll chase you too. If I need to," she quietly affirms.
    

<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.

   
        Shiryuu has never been explicitly uncomfortable with touch.
 
        It's not a frequent sensation for him, truthfully -- touching Shirogarasu is a punishable offense in the clan, and most people are not fast enough beside, nor enjoy his 'acceptance' to the respect where he even would take up that kind of bond with them. But, that's not to say that no one ever has.
 
        The days in Sendai were short, and the nights were mercilessly long.
 
        He has to wonder if those ruthless nights were the same as this, the way 'that boy' holds her close, even as she soaks him almost all the way through with her haste, the way she causes him -so- many yuzu-scented problems.

        Speaking of.
 
         "A--ah???" the shihaisha starts when Umie suggests ninkou. "Y-- even if there was, that's not what miracles are for...! You'd get trapped! Or -- I can't kiss it better if it gets burned off!"
 
        The boy's grip is -buried- in Akabane's sweatshirt at this point as he gives her an alarmed shake. Back and forth. Wobble wobble. "Akabane! Don't burn anything I can't reattach off...!"
 
        It's literally the quietest, mildest protest one person has ever levelled against anyone else. But it's so firm. Such is the importance of ninkou safety.
 
        The boy settles. Eventually. Enough to puff strands of silver hair out of the way. He's very quiet, for a minute.
 
        'What were we talking about again?' The boy frowns in consternation, reminded that they were, indeed, talking about something.
 
        "...Ieeehh... it's not like I'm ... that kind of person..." Shiryuu finally manages, sometime after Umie interrogates his suspicious lack of ... broadcast proficiency. His lips are pressed in a tight, thin line.
 
        *bonk* "Hrmph." His head rests against hers, in surrender. Ostensibly, he's not shaken her very far from his haori, though he still claims fistfuls of Umie-adjacent situation, as if the boy forgot to have an off switch.
 
        Eyes slide down to the floorboards, his glance dropping. He'd said the Akayaten was beautiful, but her opinion weighs on him. Part of him riles to protest, but...
 
        ...wouldn't that be cruel?
 
        "I suppose you're right," the grey-haired boy concedes quietly. "Just a word, is all. But it's said that words have power, if enough people believe in them. Most of all in Sumaru. Or so it's said. Isn't it like the human heart, having power over ideas?"
 
        The boy lifts a hand, pressing it gently into the fabric over Akabane's heart. He can feel it when her heartbeat goes. Like a plover just before the dive. "If it matters enough, an idea can have power too," the boy thinks.
 
        She's into something, he's not so naive to be unaware. But...
        "... I wonder what happens when the chase ends."
 
        Did that boy in Sendai wonder the same?
        

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    There's more than one way that one becomes acquainted more with long, sleepless nights than brutally short days.
 
    One could place those days in Sendai alongside days spent in a town that no longer exists, or a transitory city that never mattered, due to what happened afterward.
 
    One could compare and contrast, and find the logic and clues that lead until now, where two crows sit on the vinyl flooring of the kitchenette, one dripping hastily untoweled moisture against the other, gripping each other close.
 
    There's passing voices in the hallway, a college student making their way to their form with a friend, their words drifting off outside the edge of the two birds' hearing. The whirr of the small fridge, turning on. The quiet thump of something above. Sounds of normalcy, of mundane life.
 
    Then, a silence, but one that is equally as mundane.
 
    It would take nothing to shatter it; a siren coming close and stopping, a sharp noise of fire or a bullet. It is persistant in its insistence that it is resilient, but fails to truly do so.
 
    Just one of life's many hilarities, just like the one that causes Shiryuu to shake Umie over things they don't name...
 
    .... or how it inspires that little blackbird smile on Umie's lips. "Oh? Are you suggesting I'd be better at it, mm?"
 
    Ninkou safety is important, Umie Akabane!!
 
    What were they talking about, again?
 
    .... Maybe it was how cute it is, when Shiryuu puffs his hair out, just like that. Little things like that, forming the druze crystals on a geode, imperfect and beautiful.
 
    Like the way their heads meet, natural silvery grey against hair that had no business being any other color than dark brown, as nature intended. Or how he has handfuls of Umie's sweatshirt, the grey material soft and worn in his hands.
 
    How cruel would it be? To give Umie that knowledge. Whether it's to correct her on how beautiful a place is that she could never safely visit, or...
 
    Other things.
 
    "... Rumors can make a thing become real, even if it's just a word. Sumaru City has always been like that, as long as I could remember." Maybe, whatever it is that fuels the Mark? Maybe it's just a rumor too, one of many.
 
    Such ponderings can only be dangerous, if allowed to sit too long. Umie is into something, as she always is.
 
    It's only natural to have to press that reset button, whether by intention or through Shiryuu's own meanderings, like he does now.
 
    With his fingers pressed onto the fabric, Shiryuu can hear Umie's heartbeat easily enough, as well as how it begins to pick up in tempo.
 
    '... I wonder what happens when the chase ends.' Umie's eyelids lower, her mouth opening slightly.
 
    ".... What do you want to happen?" she asks, just above a whisper.

<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.

 
     "!!! You reprobate..."

     Shiryuu's lips purse -- he's absolutely not feeding into bunned depravity right now. "If you think I'll just let you get away with causing trouble as you like, you'd better think again," the shihaisha warns her.

     "....it's like you're aching to be in trouble with me," he thinks.

     It's easy for the boy to forget where he's put his hands, the feel of the napped blend of ostensibly warm fabric balled in his grip, so lost is he in the sensation of her quickening heartbeat under his palm, the spread of fingertips along her collarline.

     Those fingertips curl. Now, head-to-head, the boy can share a single breath with her, the citrus scent of yuzu and the bathwater weaving inextricably along the scents of the street and the rain. Layers are shed, and the boy's words are smaller, to fit neatly into that space.

     "It was used a long time ago in our clan," he admits, and the subject does not appear to be a kind one to him -- like so many others. "It's dangerous," he tells her, as if warning her. "Would ... something real even matter, in the end?"

     The question hangs open like a wound in the sky. What even is the dividing line between 'real' and 'unreal'? Would they even know? If something simply is, how would you tell? Was it always real, and would that power give someone the ability to simply uncover it? Is the entire world a lie?

     Perhaps he was never meant to survive the knife.

     It's hard for a mind to turn away from that kind of thinking, what is and isn't, when no reasonable mooring exists to determine the contours of such a liquid concept. There had been many Rumormongers he'd put to task for the exact reason of finding out, but...

     ... to date, none had returned to him.

     A small blink is the only betrayal of exactly how far the boy had spun, and how far his mind has to return, with the meeting of their eyes. It would be easy to think more -- to let his rational mind break up the rational world. But it's something very irrational that holds his attention now. Tactile, and the keyed warmth that they share, the scent of her and the sound of her whisper in her ear.

     Though he might stray far from the moment, there is something about the little vex that keeps tugging him back. It's all too easy to lose his sense of self in the conspiracy of gazes. Is it what that 'bond' means?

     A smile appears, unsure, watery, broken only for a moment as if itself a guilty confession. Damn her. "I..."

     The boy sighs low, dark and distant. Truthfully, the only thing that isn't at question is a matter of his talent. It doesn't take an awful lot to lift her knee under his, to politely hook her leg around his own and tug her in close, even as the boy leans back. He cedes her just enough space that she might could worm free if she tried -- but his claim is undeniable, and snug, tucking her thigh into a leg lock as he reluctantly removes his hands.

     "....I guess you do want to be chased," the boy thinks aloud, as he slides out of his haori.

     Fine, he surrenders.

     Seeing more than the shihaisha's wrists is an uncommon occurrence. And yet -- the grey pile of silk settles in a dampened halo around their hips as the boy unceremoniously reaches to his waistline, and strips off his thick wool sweater. Somewhat bizarrely, it doesn't mean much -- the boy still has yet another layer on underneath it, a snug-fitting tank buttoned at the neckline and what looks to be a light ballistics vest snugged around his midsection revealed.

     It's hard to tell in any other circumstance -- Shiryuu is actually rather lithe, core built in long, sleek, hawkish lines as he strips off the heavy wool layer, spinning it over his head around a wrist. If she's paying attention, she'll see the bangle around his left wrist before it disappears into his sweater, and a familiar cord tied around the right. If she hasn't escaped yet, the onmitsu will lay his arms across her shoulders, bracketing the troublemaker -very- close to him.

     The boy wears a jade magatama necklace, fitted very close to his neck.

     "It's an unfair question to ask..." Shiryuu thinks, dutifully. He'll pull his sweater off the rest of the way, somewhere behind her. "What I want, that is.."

     His lips are inches from her own. He's very distracted with her.

     ...and then she'll feel her hair being tugged, bundled up into his sweater as he ties the dense wool into a makeshift towel around her head. His sleeves will end up as her rabbit ears -- he's alarmingly good with knots.

     But the onmitsu never actually means to concede her any more space. He is very content to sit inside of the makeshift pretzel with the little vex, claiming the crow's share of all of her, arms around and relaxed.

     "I think," the boy mulls in grim satisfaction, "this is a good start."

     He doesn't specify exactly what he means by that.
     Not much time left for any of it, not when the boy closes the last few inches between their lips, and the light between them is occluded entirely by a kiss.

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    
     The scent between them arrives somewhere in water: translating places and experiences, the distant secrecy of streets and the sacred, smaller space of a bath.
     
     It's the perfect space, for a warning, albeit one that arrives too late. Umie, as usual, has messed with something she shouldn't have.
     
    "I tried using it, once," she relates. "After Sudou attacked. I wanted to protect the people that worked there, and it just backfired." Her eyelids lower. "... Like Amamiya-kun." Even if she didn't know him as well back then, he seemed like he at least *wanted*, in some way, to offer some help. She managed to throw him off the trail before he could suspect that much, but it remained a small point in his favor.
    
    To protect the normalcy of people like him and others there she's grown fond of... it felt like a good idea at the time.
    
    ... She should have realized good intentions were rarely good enough, especially for someone like her.
    
    She could have lost herself there in those thoughts, but when Shiryuu's fingers curl inwards, those thoughts scattered like petals in the wind, intentionally flowing alongside Shiryuu in his musings.
    
    'Would ... something real even matter, in the end?' "Are you afraid we'll disappear if we ever tried to figure it out?" Umie asks plainly-- too plainly, like it's a question she's had to pursue.
    
    Is that what kotodama is? A question of what is real.
    What belongs to the rational, and what belongs to the irrational.
    
    To find an answer... may be the sort of forbidden knowledge that could hurt a person, just by knowing, if it's enough to do this to Shiryuu.
    
    ...
    
    Is this what a bond means? Like seeing that watery, unsure smile and feel such affection for it, because it was from him.
    
    Or how their positions change with a simple positioning of his leg, barely using any unneeded force. If there was ever any question that Shiryuu was going too far, or that Umie was uncomfortable, the ever widening coy smile and the way that it reaches into those impish eyes should help answer that question, or her single cackle.
    
    "I do," Umie murmurs in reply. "When I want to be." Her lower eyelids raise, overshadowed by lowering eyelashes, as she sees those two familiar bracelets on each of Shiryuu's wrists. "And sometimes, I like to be the one who's chasing, too~"
    
    She doesn't escape. No way does she ever want to, right now, as he sheds that sweater--
    
    "....... don't you ever overheat yourself, wearing things like that?" Umie balks at the ballistics vest. "Can't manage things like that outside a supernatural-type zone very easil--"
    
    If Shiryuu ever wondered what sound Umie would make if he ever manipulated those hair buns... he'd be out of luck, because Umie's hair is down, right now. However, he gets to hear the sound Umie makes when that down hair is held back up in what is likely the most expensive method of toweling up wet hair, ever.
    
    One of the rabbit ears flop over one eye, causing Umie to blow it aside, much like Shiryuu did earlier. "... Did the wet hair really bug you that much?" she says, flatly, but not without its fair share of amusement over Shiryuu's problem-solving prowess.
    
    They're... very close. They have been, this entire exchange.
    
    This... is a good start. But to what?
    
    Before Umie has a chance to act on that, Shiryuu beats her to it.
    
    His kiss is answered by Umie's fingers, curling gently through his hair, as she leans in and loses sense of herself inside that first kiss.

<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.

 
     Would they still exist? The question lands like a brick in a pond, and it openly gives the boy pause and cause to consider. Eyes turn harder and less willing to admit to any sort of weakness. The Shirogarasu would never openly admit that kind of fear -- it would be unseemly.

     It would just be like her, he reflects, to protect the part timer. She was always doing things like that, endangering herself to look after the children. A hundred questions and frayed anxieties occur to Ryouhara, and part of him is fast urged to warn her away from being foolhardy, from putting everything on the line.

     "...not surprising."

     She was always doing things like that, he reflects, frustrated.
     To look after the children.
     That heat burns warm, and Shiryuu doesn't exactly know when vexation turns to endearment.

     "...mmnh," he manages, tangled up somewhere in his own determinations. He doesn't have it in him to say, but neither is he so driven so as to insist he has an answer to it as an invincible agent of the night, as he is wont to do. No, she is not tangled up with that person -- it would make things easier, simpler. Instead, his stormy mood rolls over.

     What he's afraid of losing is the same thing he struggles to avoid losing his own focus in. With a curl of the leg, they're pulled together tightly -- what would be a firm leglock is something a little less simple, faced eye to eye with Umie as Shiryuu drapes sleeveless arms over her.

     "Does a sword?" he replies easily, or attempts to. "I don't recall that ever being a rule..." Who said that simple armor requires supralunar power? Only training, and though the layered soft vest is not -hardened- with plate against ballistic attack like Nahara has insisted more than once it should be, training with the added layers is something he's done since he was small.

     Rightfully, he should explain that it's simply another of his ninkou, that his training is excellent, that it's lighter than it looks. But truthfully, the boy is lost when he pulls her closer and she _smiles._ It's like a lotus in full bloom, and it'd be an extraordinarily dense boy to miss the sentiment. Rightfully, he should say a lot. Rightfully.

     "ah... it's only a little warm sometimes," he admits instead.

     The young man shifts nigh-imperceptibly as he rallies into something involving comfort, and both tones of his brown eyes look down between them to avoid the intimacy. A sharp, bemused smile is almost entirely hidden with the electric awareness he has of her breathing, her voice in that moment. Hands slide from around her shoulderline to resting on her shoulders, the warm press of metal at one wrist a contrast against the silken cord at the other.

     'Did the wet hair really bug you that much?' she asks, and Shiryuu remains solidly elusive on that point. "I liked it," he remarks noncommittally, even avoiding cracking a smile at the crowbunny. "But you were getting me all wet," he points out instead. "It feels better like this, doesn't it...?"

     And then they kiss and the moment warms up, chasing a heat unfettered in the soft, dark, sweet sounds that follow. She takes a fistful of his hair as if in revenge. Instinctively, the onmitsu's touch shapes her, taking sharp, firm hold of the crow's hips, dangerously low on her waist. He follows the rhythm of her breath, and the ambition of his warmth.

     It's a good start. To everything that happens after that.

     And that.

     And that...