2026-06-21: Five. Thirty-six. Thirty-one. Forty. Twenty-two. Twenty-four. Five.
- Log: Five. Thirty-six. Thirty-one. Forty. Twenty-two. Twenty-four. Five.
- Cast: Yua Ijuuin, Miho Ijuuin
- Where: Aoba - Penthouse
- OOC Date: Sun, Jun 21 2026
- IC Date: Wed, Nov 28 2012
- Summary: Yua doesn't want to look at what happened to Joker Ulala. It reminds her too much of horrors she's seen before. They are horrors which not even Miho has heard the depths of; there are things, done to humans, which are unspeakable, and fates worse than death... even in the NWO's satellite facilities. But it is through the horror of memory that Miho and Yua grasp hope: what if condemning the victims of the Joker Curse to an unspeakable fate could lead to knowledge which saves her? It is a hope which Miho cannot turn aside -- even as she feels doubt over her determination to bring forth the True World.
- Content warning: Implicit intimacy, human experimentation, depersonalisation, eye horror, mock execution
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"I don't want to look at what we're doing," Yua insisted, in the cleansing waters of their bath, when they got home from evaluating Ulala's fate. "I just want to look at you..."
... and even if she's avoiding the implications of sending not-so-innocent people off to a laboratory much like hers, Yua's still happy to have made enough progress that she can enjoy being touched. She missed Miho being able to exercise her power. That's the way it's supposed to be!
They keep a nightlight on, in their room, as they sleep. Yua's scared of the dark -- and Miho needs to get up, sometimes, anyway. The air conditioning has been able to take a bit of a break, over the past month, as Yua's voluntarily kept the blankets on; she doesn't like being too warm, she's always too hot, but these days she doesn't like being uncovered while she's sleeping either. It's not even just for the obvious reason. What if, one day... the Black Mask came back...?
That threat, at least, will not annihilate them today. Yua drapes over Miho, curve of her belly at her side, and if you were to ask her she'd say that the crook of Miho's shoulder is just as good as a pillow. (There are, of course, also plenty of pillows, all armoured in fine silk, just like their sheets.)
She's sleeping soundly, but...
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Yua didn't want to look at it. ...Miho felt it was hard to avoid, but Yua managed to persuade her otherwise for a while.
It was much more pleasant to focus on Yua than to focus on all that.
But the nightlight is still on, and Miho does need to get up now and then. ...She has been sleeping peacefully enough, apparently untroubled by the deeds of earlier.
Only apparently, though, as Yua sleeps soundly, but Miho's lips twitch, her hand curls into a fist. She is having a dream...
And her eyes snap open a moment later.
"Nn," Miho announces, and her hand curls about Yua.
"..."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Yua can be very persuasive.
But the soundness of her sleep is a thing inherently linked to Miho's agitation; she has long gotten used to the signals of her partner's sleep troubling her, and her own sleep trends light enough that she rouses as she feels her arm curling about her waist.
"Mmn," she hums, as she shifts back to the waking world, and reminds herself, as she does, that she's with Miho and she's safe. But... is Miho...?
"Mm... Mimiiii..." Yua murmurs, lifting her face a little so she can see her. (She prefers sleeping with her right side pressed against Miho, so that her eyepatch doesn't dig into her skin; it means that Yua's field of view, pressed in against the woman who should be her wife, is severely curtailed.) If Miho were just getting up to brood, Yua's used to being answered with reassurance, but...
When it's a nightmare...
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Very persuasive indeed.
Miho at first is quiet; she isn't sure she's woken Yua. But when Yua starts murmuring, she can see that Miho is troubled, or at least, has the sort of expression that suggests as much.
"Yua," Miho answers, and shakes her head. "I'm sorry to wake you. ...It's fine."
At least, that's her opening idea. But Yua often doesn't let it go so easily.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Miho's knit brow is something Yua recognises at once, even in the dim blueish half-light. Her hair -- surprisingly long, when it's out of that bun, and splayed across Miho's chest like a flowing teal river -- serves as a veil of modesty in those moments where Yua lifts her hand from the blankets, her fingers seeking the lines of Miho's severe face.
"Mimi," she murmurs, again, more insistently, as she cups her cheek. When it comes to Miho's feelings, Yua's will is as steely as hers--!! "Did you have a bad dream again...?"
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Miho's hair may be a little longer than it used to be, but only a little; it's still short, still up around her ears in cut. ...It's Yua's hair that she likes to touch. And as Miho finds Yua tracing her face...
"...yes," Miho answers after a moment, with a sigh. "I did."
"It was about... the Jokers."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Miho touching Yua's hair is, of course, Yua's favourite.
... what? Yua's favourite is being picked up by Miho? Or getting squished by Miho in a big tight embrace? Or letting Miho wash her in the bath? Or having Miho pop a delicious takoyaki into her mouth? Well, sure, yeah, those are also all Yua's favourite. Those ten other things are ALSO also Yua's favourite. No one ever said Yua's favourite had to be, like, one discrete thing. Oh, that's what it means when there isn't an 's' behind the favourite? Mooou, fine! Then Miho's her favourite!!!
And right now, her very most favourite Miho is sighing.
"Mm... was it just a bad dream?" Yua wonders, her head resting against Miho's shoulder again as she focuses on tracing those severe lines. Regal cheekbones, sharp jaw... everything about her, Yua marvels, is noble in character. "Or... something else...?"
Don't focus too hard on how much mysticism Yua has enabled just by suggesting that something has more meaning than a dream. Miho's special, after all. Sometimes her dreams aren't dreams at all!
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Yua is also Miho's favorite. ...There are a lot of reasons for this, and a lot of ways in which it's true. But one is that Yua doesn't give up on her feelings, even when she's inclined. ...And all those other things, too.
She is sighing.
"...No," Miho says. "It was, at first. More of those Joker transformations..."
"But the man, he spoke to me. He said that Kandori-san may be key. ...That what he can do with these individuals may be what opens up the path."
"...I don't know," she admits. "I'm less sure than I once was. Less willing to leave everything behind..."
"But I don't know another way to save you, even so."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Miho's feelings are precious! Sure, she keeps them under lock and key a lot... but that just means it's more important to take them out and water them!! SUNLIGHT FOR MIMI'S FEELINGS! SUNLIGHT AND JUSTICE--!!
(If Miho loves the arts, perhaps it's no wonder her soulmate ended up so theatrical.)
Yua frowns, though; she's reminded of those transformations, too. Still... 'that man'. He hasn't steered Miho wrong... has he?
She strokes at Miho's cheek, humming wordlessly as she listens to her. "Mmm," the sound repeats, at a greater insistence, when Miho despairs over Yua's fate. "Mooooou... you're not sure, Mimi?" Yua, herself, has had doubts, in those moments where Miho revealed the people in their life were their enemies in the last. Why, most recently, she even learned that one of the other housewives she chats with in their building, Fumina Rinshou, cruelly ejected her from the gardening circle the first time around--!!
... sometimes, the betrayals are even worse than that, but Yua's equally devastated by all of them.
(What? You thought Yua wasn't part of the Housewives' Gossip Network? You fool. Every housewife is connected through an intricate thread of tea ceremony, flower arrangement, music, literature, home bookkeeping, shopping, and cooking to the housewives around her in a secret network unknown to the breadwinners of the world, where they gossip in the hidden hour of noon. They know everything. Of course, since Yua tells Miho everything, she also tells her about the gossip...)
But whenever Yua's been unsure, Miho's reassured her it's necessary.
If Miho's worried, now...
"Mm... what made you not sure...? It must have been something big, if it made Mimi pause..."
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Sunlight!! Miho is OK with sunlight. ...Maybe not that much sunlight. Put some sunlight back.
(Miho love the arts and Yua.)
"I'm... not," Miho admits. She hasn't spoke on this yet. Though she has spoken on the housewives, of course; some of them were even their Allies, back then, wearers of the Masks.
...But not now.
Yua's connections seem to do her good, but Miho is no housewife, for all that certain people would prefer that. No...
"...Some things the Black Mask said," she says. "But..."
"Sudou-san's demise. It is true, I think, that blood and death will not be what brings about the True World. ...But it makes me wonder more fully, then..."
"Can 'peace' be built on 'destruction'? Or is there some means I haven't seen...?"
"Perhaps the power we chase will allow me to do it. But on the other hand.."
"There are things in 'this' world that are not so bad. We have friends here we did not before. Experiences..."
"I want a future with you, not only our past. But at the same time, I do not know how to grasp it."
She pauses. "But..."
"That man has not misguided me before, it is true. And Black Mask does not understand. Perhaps... this Kandori is the key."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
It's always sunny, Miho!!! There was a show in America about that once... what was it, 'It's Always Sunny In California'...?
... huh? Those people weren't sunny at all? Then why would they say it was sunny?
Yua is given to asides, in that way; she is distractable, tangential, full of energy and excitement and elation. Miho, in many ways, is her elemental opposite: Yua knows her to be stalwart and unyielding, an unstoppable force of driven determination.
Yua being unsure is as natural as the moon's flowing tides; but if Miho is unsure, surely the sun itself would fall from the sky.
(Yua's connections, one notes, have at times even benefited Miho's schemes. After all, wives hear all about their husbands' days... and some of these women are married to their so-called allies now.)
Her fingers still, for a moment, as Miho invokes the Black Mask; a sharp little breath announces Yua's own fear, thinking back to his visit.
She moves her attention to Sudou, and quickly.
"'Let him who desires peace prepare for war'... that's what they said in the ancient West," Yua reflects, quietly. "I was sad, when I heard that... but I don't have a very strong constitution, so... I thought maybe it was normal."
Yua bites her lip. "Over there... we didn't have Hiroki, Mimi. I mean... bringing him to the True World would keep him safe, but... in that world... we never had him, right...?" Her cheek rubs, against Miho's shoulder, as she shakes her head. "So... that's why... I can't think it was all better in that place."
She grows quieter, as she thinks of the weight that has settled on her, heavy as prison bars.
"... I'll be strong," she promises, her voice a touch more delicate. "Just like Mimi... I'll be tough, too! Moms are tough! Just... it's just..."
Fragile things break easily; so, too, her voice. "Turning into a monster... it's, um..."
She turns her face, to bury her vision against Miho's pale skin.
"I'll hold on," she promises her.
But why?
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
'The One Where The Gang Tries To Bring About A Time Warp'.
Indeed; Miho is glad for Yua's connections. ...And it's a reminder that she's glad of her own gender; some things would be easier if she were a man, but it isn't the life she wants to lead.
But that breath...
Yes. "Mm. That is true," Miho says. "It is not a bad saying. But at the same time... Does it have no limits?"
But over there...
"That's right," Miho says. "I am sure we would be able to keep him safe, but... But I understand. There are things in 'this' world that are beautiful, too."
But she'll be strong. "You are strong," Miho says. "Far stronger than you know."
Turning into a monster, though...?
"What do you mean?" Miho wonders. "Hold on?"
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
For one thing, statistically speaking, Miho would be WAY more likely to deal with cheating if she were a man! Half of the efforts of the Housewife Gossip Network are dedicated to figuring out whose husband is being unfaithful this week and how she might restore order to her home.
Come to think of it, perhaps that explains some of Miho's team communication in the office...
"I don't know," Yua says, quietly. "Mimi's the limitless one... Yua-chan's just Yua-chan, so I can't really imagine being unbound, anyway."
She at least smiles, when Miho says their son is beautiful. "Mm, mm," she hums, warmly.
There are things she doesn't know.
There's things Miho still doesn't know, either.
... really, she's only told... Remi and Shiryuu, right...? One in French, during their training... and one in theatric trappings, to distract him from the plainer truth.
"It's, um..." Yua starts, her voice wobbling.
"... you know... back then... before..."
When she was in her laboratory, she means.
"There was... um..."
Without another language to buffer the revelation, it's harder to say it.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
It's true, and it's also true that the fact that Miho has taken the side of the women in that arrangement is part of why she doesn't get along with all of her colleagues at work. But...
"Some bindings are good," Miho says. "What binds you and I together... I would not forsake it, even for 'freedom'." She smiles back. "Yes."
And...
"Back then," Miho understands, but...
"Can you tell me?" Miho asks. "If you can't, it's all right... But I can't help, I don't think, if I don't know what I'm to help with."
She reaches up a hand, into Yua's hair. "It's all right, either way."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"I want to be yours," Yua says, and if it's the first time tonight it's just by technical virtue of the Dark Hour having already passed. "There's no Memimi without Youa... mmhm!"
The pun doesn't work unless you're good at English, but luckily, Miho's good at a lot of things.
But that is now; that is here.
There was a time --
OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45XUjO0Gkyc CHVRCHES - Science/Visions
It's only when Miho asks her next question that Yua's able to claw herself back from then to now, pulling her focus onto her lack of understanding. She tilts her head, so that she can see for herself the strong curve of Miho's shoulders; strong enough, she knows, to carry great weight.
And Miho may note the way Yua's breath hitches, as she feels her fingertips; the way she starts timing her breaths to the strokes.
"Five," she says, at length.
"No, not five... mm... thirty-six? Thirty-six, they took first. They said... 'you're all booked in'... that's why he didn't eat breakfast. He never came back... twenty-four, he heard them talking. He said he 'died on the table'... maybe they ate him for dinner?"
"Next week, thirty-one... they didn't give her breakfast, so... but she wasn't dinner, because twenty-three heard a tumble when they were taking her for her shots and looked in the window before they could stop her and... number thirty-one had fallen out of bed, there was a lot of blood... she didn't come back, either."
"I told forty her number was lucky, since it sounded like 'fort' in English, but... when they didn't give her breakfast... they said the table killed her too."
"Well... then they said I wasn't allowed to have breakfast..."
"Mm, but it's not like they hadn't expected that before. They didn't give me a gun this time, so it wasn't like... they made me wash with this soap which smelled bad, instead. And put a different gown on me, and... it wasn't a table, it was a bed, I don't know why they kept calling it a table. When I went to sleep, I could see... when I woke up, I could only half see. Um, but when they took the patch off, I realised... I could still see. I could see very much. The vitality of their breath as it left them... the weight on their bones. Their strength... and where they were weak. The patterns of, um... where there's something else, something people can't see. It's kind of laid over, crossing, meeting..."
Yua trails off, for a moment, lost in the words or the woods or all of it, all at once.
But there was a number she said, before.
'Five'...
She's only described the fates of four people.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Miho is good at many things. This is one of them. She smiles at the pun.
But...
She notices, all right. She notices the timing; she notices the way Yua attunes herself to her. And, of course, she notices... 'Five'.
Five.
The table.. for dinner.
Death, death, and more death. All in the place there.
The 'table' killed them.
"So that is when you could 'see', your eye..."
Something else. Laid over, crossing, meeting...
"I'm sure it is," Miho says, but gently prods, "You said five."
"...The fifth? What does it mean?"
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"Five...? No, there was no one that low left, I don't think... number five would have been one of the very very first... unless they used a number again? Maybe they'd use the number again... it's just a number..."
Yua's gaze grows vague, as she's tangled in her memories. One way or another, though, she realises: "... oh. Oh, it's like that? Five's not a number, it's a sum... I'm no good at maths, so..."
"So... thirty-six, thirty-one, forty, twenty-two... then...."
"Twenty-two was... successful, that's what they said. They said a lot of big words... like 'the adjunct trabeculectomy's allowed the eye to operate at increased pressure', and 'thanks to the dacryocystorhinostomy, it can't defer processing any longer', and 'even during surgery, it spoke truths'... well, it knew what surgery was, but it doesn't remember anything like that. There was room with a bed, for a long time... no, that must have been a week, too. Because... back to the common area... yes, it were there."
"Number twenty-four... didn't eat breakfast this time. So they took it, and... it came back... and..."
"... they took its eyes..."
"... it couldn't look at us any more, because they were just white." White, she says; those three distinct pupils of hers must have come later. "It couldn't see anything... they held its hand as they took it back. If nothing made sense any more, it wasn't as bad as it must have felt. Speaking nonsense... seeing us, seizing up..."
"'It's in your shadow!'" And her dull voice grows fierce, as she recalls that interjection, marking it as word's she's heard. "That's what number twenty-four told number twenty-two, before its hands found its face, and it told it there was something behind it. Beside it... a haruspex... its claws to its belly, its teeth to its neck. Haruspicy. To see the truth through the entrails. Consume, enlighten... and there was no one like twenty-four left, because only the one like twenty-four was left."
"Gretchen," 'is like me,' Yua's often said, though the sentence ends differently this time: "helped destroy it. That was our power... our responsibility. The gun wasn't a gun... it was an Evoker."
"With it, Gretchen comes."
"But when the fuel's all burned up, maybe Gretchen doesn't go away..."
"Gretchen won't be Gretchen, if that happens."
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Sums. Yua is tangled, but Miho tries to unwrap her. Twenty-two. Miho rememebrs that number well. Yua told her about it. And there..."
Miho is quiet when Yua explains. 'It', Yua i saying now. And that fierce interjection.
"..."
Twenty-four's Persona killed them, when subjected to twice the horrors that Yua was. It could have been Yua, had had been put in tht position. And Gretchen...
"I see," Miho answers, and shifts, turning to wrap her arms around Yua.
"I'm sorry," she says. "That's a difficult memory."
"But you are Yua," she says, "And we will prevent that happening. Gretchen will remain Gretchen."
Though Miho doesn't know how, of course, she can't just say she'd fight Yua's Persona...
But still.
"Yua," she says. "Come back to me."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Yua's tried to tell Miho what happened, back then, before.
And yet, there are still wide gaps in Miho's understanding -- things too unspeakable to mention.
Buried inside the dungeon of Yua, lost and left for dead, until...
Ulala's transformation can't possibly be the same thing she's describing, but perhaps it's no wonder the memories would surface, seeing a monster where her face ought to be.
Memories toxic to the body -- toxic to the soul.
'It', she says.
'Number twenty-two,' she says.
Miho meets no resistance as she slips her arms fully around her; long moments pass before she even realises she can press herself into Miho's chest.
Yua... that was an important word, wasn't it?
On the screen... on the television screen... when she said she'd find her, and couldn't hear that she was right here...
No, that woman isn't so indirect, she's right here, she's --
"Mimi," Yua says, finally, her voice hitching. "Mimi... Mimi..."
Miho.
Even when she forgot herself, they couldn't make her forget Miho.
"I'm... I'm Yua... my name was Yua! Nn, it -- it is Yua! Oh, Mimi...!"
Now, Yua weeps -- and weeps lopsidedly, and when Miho looks up those very complicated words, later, she'll realise that one of those successful additions to her surgery was redirecting the path of her tear ducts. That's why her left eye never tears up... why her face always ends up so damp.
"Mimi, Mimi... I'm scared, Mimi..." And for long moments, Yua sniffles, as she tries to remember the source of her fear. "I, I'm scared, because... because what if I can't hold on, and... and I turn into a monster... just like the Jokers? There was nothing of him left, Mimi... we couldn't get him back... there was no helping him, but we tried anyway, we really tried, we couldn't put him back together, not even with Recarm... I don't want to hurt anyone, but I don't wanna die, Mimi...!"
'Like the Jokers'... it raises a question, though Yua's too devastated to speak it.
The other Numbers put down Twenty-Four's Persona, perhaps to save those scientists -- but could Kandori's experiments on the Jokers lead to some innovation which could save Yua from becoming a monster?
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Even now, Miho has gaps in her understanding--but some of those gaps close today. She will look up more of these words later, with her strong memory--particularly for things relating to Yua. And no, Ulala's transformation can't be the same, but...
Miho is here. "Yua," Miho says gently. "That's right. You are Yua." She holds her close. And Yua is scared, but it takes her time to remember why...
"We don't have any evidence to suggest it's the same," Miho says gently. "The Joker is a specific phenomenon--different. But..."
But, she thinks...
"But we'll make sure you don't," she says. "We'll make sure you live--as yourself."
Like the Jokers...
"...Even if we have to go along with this, to do it." Pause. "Because Kandori-san's research might point the way to how to save you and Gretchen. ...It is not only that we have to go along, for you... but that, perhaps, our 'allies' can help."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"Mm... it's different..."
Reconnecting Yua to reality is a laborous process -- but it's one Miho has done many times. Her gentle voice is familiar, in this way; just as Yua helps Miho to connect with her emotions, Miho helps Yua back to safe haven.
Miho is strong enough to face possibility head-on, though -- even as that possibility shifts, in that imperceptible way it always does for them. (What caused Yua to think of her fellow victim, when she first described Ulala through Gretchen...? Perhaps she heard some comment which reminded her... but of course, she was too distracted to look back and ask about it. Not that she'd need to ask them what they'd said; people don't say things which they didn't say.)
"Kandori-san... he scares me, too," Yua admits, softly. "But... he's not someone who's easily swayed by the tides of the Powers, I think. So... maybe he'd help us...?" It's not just Yua, she thinks, facing annihilation; surely Miho would be destroyed in a different way, left without her soulmate and still living.
"Maybe taking those people to his lab means I'm a bad person... but since I ran away from prison, I won't be saved," she says, again, that idea which echoes Gretchen's growing discontent inside her. Perhaps she ought to take her Suppressants again, soon; one or the other, or both. "That was already true... at least if I try to save myself, I can live a little longer for Hiroki and Tykko and you." That list goes in order of most to least in need of her protection, by the by. "I really want to give you time, Mimi... time to make it better. I'm trying very hard... I can try a little harder."
She sighs, her fingers curling, at Miho's chest, as she curls into Miho a little more. "Besides... it's not the first time, right? This isn't the first time I helped them hurt people more..."
Miho does know, at least, some of Yua's experience as the Blacksite's jailor.
It's precisely why she's sent to confound and trap Persona-Users, in the present day.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Miho does it slowly, carefully, but she does it. And that possibility...
"I think that's reasonable," Miho says. "A man of such power should not be taken lightly. We do not know his ultimate goals. ...But with Ishigami-san on our side, perhaps he will be willing to aid us. It could suit his own ends, too. ...And if not, I will make a reason."
It's 'them', for sure.
But, "...Good, bad. People are complex. Perhaps we both have the weight of 'sin'... But it is a weight we will bear together. We will save you. We will save each other."
"...I want to see you live a long life. And if not, then as long as you can. Do your best. And so will I."
Miho holds Yua there. The first time? No...
"Nor I," she says.
"...You are my responsibility, first. Hiroki and Tyrrha are ours. These are those we must think of before all others."
"That is what we will do."
"...And we will continue."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Yua's always been impressed with Miho's duality -- possessing overwhelming strength of steel and will alike, yet never failing to handle Yua with the greatest care, gentleness, and steadiness. Then again, she's always been most impressed with Miho's mastery -- of which raw force is only one aspect.
"I know... you'll convince him, Mimi. You're amazing..."
Her gaze veils, as Miho speaks of their sin. "Yu and mi," she says, using those English loanwords in the shape of their own mora. "Mi and yu..."
Both of them have helped that vast, hidden political machine crush innocent lives.
She smiles, at last, when she hears Miho claim responsibility. That's right. They'll save each other, and they each have a role to play, in that... her hand presses against Miho's collar, as she lifts her head to nose her face into her neck. "Mm... Mimi will protect me... and Mimi-mama will protect us... so Yua-mama can just worry about keeping the babies safe!" FIRST YUA-CHAN, NOW THIS??? -- well, perhaps Yua's cuteness creeping back in is a good sign... "It's a big responsibility... that's why it takes us both!"
If Yua is safe, she can keep them safe, too.
"We'll continue," she echoes Miho, warmth returning to her voice as she breathes her in. "We will. I promise! There's red string around our little fingers, so we'll definitely save each other, Mimi!"
(That red string normally ties a woman's little finger to a man's thumb -- but, well, they're both women, so Yua's been going with this version since they were in high school.)