2026-07-03: Death for Two

• Log: Death For Two
• Cast: Shiryuu Ryouhara, Umie Akabane
• Where: Gengetsu Point, ???, Sumaru City(?)
• OOC Date: July 03, 2026
• IC Date: December 03, 2012
• Summary: After the events of When the Fairy Tale Ends, Umie wakes up in a Ryouhara safehouse, where she finds out some key points of information, as well as one of the Ryouhara clan's dark secrets. On top of that, she learns that Shiryuu is about to do something very dangerous: tell the Order 'no' on a deal.

---

<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.

 
     The man pulls his black gloves back on, the prayer beads tucked back around his wrists and adjusted such that their fusa hang from the root of his thumbs. This, he speaks a small prayer over her before moving back to the tables, a white stole of fur draping down his back like a luxurious mantle.

     The Ryouhara do not have the same sorts of medical spells on ready call that a lot of the other supralunar groups in Sumaru do, but the few medics they do have are very, very good with trauma and injury.

     She'll wake up in a place lit only by the flicker of electric lamplight, with the distant churn of machinery heard somewhere behind thick earthen walls. Timber and steel finish the walls in industrial repose -- and the air itself seems to swallow up words before they get very far. The style is bordering on ancient, as if a manorhouse from the 1800s had been simply driven into the ground, with old industrial accents hidden everywhere just behind silk screens blazoned with the Ryouhara kamon.

     It appears to be some sort of armory, a small labyrinthine twist of halls and spaces where weapons and armor and equipment of all sorts and types are hung off the wall, bizarre martial effects that are only sometimes cognizable as belonging to a particular art. The rest are all arcane artifacts, and more than one of them bears the familiar sent of black powder.

     She wakes just after having the fine bones of her nose reset. His name is Rikuto, and he is a member of the Ryouhara clan, though asking directly will get he 'tch'ed at. After some inquiry, she will likely be roundly informed by the taciturn Shintoist in shinobi shozoku that the shihaisha requested that she and Kurou be attended to as a top priority, and that he now has other matters to attend to. With a bit of an appraising eye, Rikuto informs her that she has the run of where she can access in the safehouse to pick out new attire. Some things have been laid out for her, but it is very clear that Rikuto's first interest is in bones and dressing people is a distant twentieth at best.

     "Mind the weapons," he will at least warn her, though he gives her little postamble before excusing himself to his next patient, who is apparently on the other side of the complex.

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    Umie half expected herself to wake up in the familiar surroundings of her apartment: a normal ceiling, a normal futon, a familiar displaced light coming through the frosted windows. White walls, her phone's alarm, perhaps the smell of tea, if Kurou was there and hadn't left for school yet.
     
     Sometimes, there's a small girl in the covers there, watching her like a doll, whispering promises and lies so cruelly persuasive.
     
     Instead, there's a man praying over her. Red brown eyes fix on him in alarm, her exhausted body too slow to react to that instinctual need to push or shove him away. A few seconds was all her mind needed to avoid an incident, as memory caught up with instinct, and the startled look turned to confusion, then wary study.
     
     Umie Akabane has only been awake a few seconds, and she's already come this close to causing trouble for Shiryuu.
     
     "... Where am I?" she murmurs, quietly, carefully sitting up. The Ryouhara kamon catches her eye, and she stills, piecing the clues together. "... I see." Her nose feels... better than it has been, actually, considering this has been the latest in a series of impacts delivered to her by the (bad) Joker. Her black gloved fingers delicately test her nose, then quickly draw back.
     
     "... Shi-... I mean, the shihaisha," she says, catching on. "Is he and... Kurou Ryouhara-kun okay? Was there anyone else that came with us?" Tabe is a loose consideration, but Ren and Akechi are more important in her mind.
     
     That may be a question more than RIkuto is willing to answer. "... Thank you," she says, before he leaves.
     
     The unfamiliar surroundings, as well as the questions still lurking at the top of her mind, have left the blonde more silent than sulky. Looking to the clothes laid out, she takes out her phone and quickly discovers the lack of signal. Probably for the best; she didn't want to deal with Toki's questions right now, as much as she hated leaving her friend in the dark in the worst way.
     
     Setting her phone aside, she carefully takes off her butler's cosplay, discovering each and every bruise that still exists. The clothing... it's managable. Maybe a little large, but easily worked around with the ties and bows.
     
     Probably better to stay where she is, if there's weapons about.
     
     ...... That's what she'd say, but she's already slipping out the door. She *does* have run of the place, after all, even if it's as a guest.

<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.

     "Grrngh." Rikuto is not a great person to question.
     "Don't waste your life. Mind your injuries," he tells her instead, without postamble.

     With some work, Umie might be able to wrangle from him that she is in a safehouse in Sumaru -- Gengetsu Point -- but that the shihaisha has retired to his suite and has refused to see anyone. From his tone of voice, Rikuto does not seem to be very surprised by this development, but will not elaborate any further. Kurou? "Mmm." Rikuto, for no particularly evident reason, says a prayer.

     He is not a great person to question at all.

     But there is a time limit on his patience with conscious patients, and soon he's gone, with Akabane more or less free to roam. There is a reason for it -- there doesn't seem to be a lot she can get into trouble doing here, with the passages eerily empty, and most of it banded in iron enough to withstand a bomb blast. Alcoves are cut into the halls sparsely, with wooden mannequins -- some empty, others wearing elements of old samurai-style armor of varying ages. There are very few 'complete' sets, but some look new, and others seem weathered by the ages. All of them bear some sort of leaf symbolism on them.

     Arguably, the armor and weapons seem better kept than the space itself. Far from the glamour and glitz of the ritzy hotels, the entire place has an abandoned, run-down feel, though efforts have certainly been made at upkeep. It may be a matter of staffing -- even Rikuto was on the older side, and there's really not a lot of people around, where one might expect guards or really anything of the like.

     But then, part of this has to do with the fact that it's underground -- the earth swallows sound like a hungry snake, and really, one wouldn't be able to hear what's happening in one room until one were right on the other side.

     Speaking of.

     Gengetsu Point, despite being confusingly laid out, is not particularly large. It's organized into four distinct wings -- a meeting area, the ancillaries, a pair of suites, and the the lower stages. The ancillaries and suites are set over the other two wings. One of the suites is open, and has a spartan bed, a worktable, and a washroom. Here there is a clock, and one can find out it's quite late at night. The other is locked through some not-immediately-apparent means, though examination shows that there is a swinging lever lock on the inside of the other suite's door. The locked door is silent.

     A small balcony overlooks the meeting hall, on the far side of which there is a hushed conversation going on between a man in a colorful overcoat and someone who is clearly dressed as a shinobi. The balcony is just far enough away that one can see them without alerting them to your presence. The door down to the meeting hall is not locked, but at that same junction, the door at the top of a set of stairs is visibly barred with a six inch thick batten of heavy lumber with scrawled seals on it. Another severe-looking door is at the bottom of the landing area, which has visible spears and swords hung from the walls. The door has been unbattened and left open, and several more battened doors lay on opposite ends of a section of hall. These ones are not very anonymous, however -- there are grates on each door, and each looks into a small room.

     They are unmistakably cells. There is another wing just beyond, but it's been shut behind a locking cross-laced gate, recently enough that the latch is still warm. The cells are mostly empty.

     But for one.

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    'Don't waste your life.' "You sound like you have to say that often," is the twin-bunned blonde's automatic response. Especially when there is a shihaisha that is currently refusing the insult of anyone's company in his state, whatever it might be. The resigned wear to Rikuto's voice tells on itself; this is a common occurance.
     
     How many times has she done similar, even when she had someone like Toki try to offer assistance, no questions asked?
     
     .... Toki. Ren. The multitude of people affected by her decisions, and not only that, Kurou and Akechi, who had to show some of their secret selves to Ren. ... She could have resolved it all by using her Mark, she's sure of it. Ren wouldn't have felt a thing; it could have been excused as some cosplayer, or whatever. Her decisions don't affect just her anymore, by becoming involved; Kurou may feel the need to sever what was a budding friendship. Sure, Ren was very resilient, but some people are just like that. Toki, too, if it came down to it.
     
     People like that become Persona Users, often without having a choice in the matter.
     
     ... It's no use wallowing in self pity, however. What happened has happened, and she has to take it on herself to understand the consequences, and resolve them herself. That's how a person survives.
     
     The nature Umie displays with others may be at odds with how she is now, eying the environment around her, taking note of the stories left behind by object placement and state of the hallways and rooms. The grime, the empty hallways, the iron bands reinforcing the walls... she takes it all in and tries to inscribe it to memory for later. The layout is one she's quick to understand, a skill honed through many nights of wandering with only herself to ensure survival. A Dark Hour can turn a space into something uniquely unrecognizable; it's better to build using a mental map of a place than go by visual cues in a wan attempt at seeking safety. It translates into spaces like these neatly, even if the Dark Hour hasn't come yet (which, speaking of that clock, it'll be coming soon).
     
     .... it also helps that the damn place isn't particularly confusing.
     
     The empty suite is noted for later, in case she needs a place to hole up in; looking at the locking mechanism, Umie makes the assumption that this is where Shiryuu is.
     
     She waits, for a few moments, then moves on; that lock clearly shows he wants to be alone.
     
     She'll give him a little while longer before she starts trying to interrupt his peace.
     
     Easing her weight on each step over to the balcony, she spies the two below, and dips low, trying to nab a few snippets of information, before slipping away to ensure she's not discovered.
     
     More wanderings note each door, and, with the limited time she feels she may have left, she goes for the one that isn't locked, or could signal her lurking by being opened.
     
     ..... Which is how she finds herself in a dungeon of sorts. "....."
     
     She has no means to keep Hodai from troubling others; she doesn't know how to get him to the Velvet Room, or whether they could help him, like Ren insinuated. (Maybe that's just another example of a rumor in action.)
     
     Her fingers touch the latch of the one to the next wing; someone's been through here recently.
     
     Her blonde hair feels like a mistake here, she might as well be carrying a flashlight for how well it makes her stand out in the dark. Still, she goes to the one unempty cell, wondering if it's Hodai.

<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.

 
     Aside from its furnishings, the small underground manor is an awfully dreary place all truth told, all iron and old timber and a pervasive sense of dampness that becomes all the more apparent and steadfast the closer one gets to the earth-backed walls, the floors. The dampness can't quite be extinguished by whatever machinery is churning in the background, but the environment is otherwise kept serviceable. It's the raw unfinished edge of the sleek veneer of the clan, the grim, utilitarian spaces where work gets done.

     On the plus side, the machine whirr and churn in the background gives some breathing room for someone to spy on conversations, if their hearing is good enough. In the meeting room, the shinobi facing the man in the colorful overcoat was laughing about something, an unmistakable sound made more complex by the mask she wears. She -- it can be detected once one is close enough, judging by the voice, if the way her hair is tied and the violently pink streak dyed through her hair was not itself enough hint. She is also wearing a sheathed sword that is -transparently- too long for her.

     "... he brought her as well?" she asks, her voice surprised.

     "Iha, iha..." The man sounds less surprised, sliding eel-like out of his coat to reverse it. The colorful pattern is not just a pattern, but a lining that depicts a war between a red and a blue oni across its entire run. Folded just right, it all but disappears. He wears smart slacks, and dress shoes with visibly silver buckles -- it would be hard to place him as a shinobi at all, save for the coiled line at his hip, attached to a case of some kind, and a long, strangely shaped knife. It all but disappears into his coat as he slides it back on, and the color pattern on the opposite side is much darker and more subdued.

     "...it's fine," the man replies evenly. "Rikuto seemed to be of the opinion that our illustrious leader said she took ... a vending machine to the face?" He doesn't sound very confident in that part. "Well, she looked the part, I guess... tough kid. But she should be out like a light for awhile. I'm heading out in a bit. The Hour's almost here, and they'll all be the boys' problems from there."

     "Hot date?" the shinobi wonders, the grin on her face audible in her voice.

     "Tch. I wish. Life was easier when Tenzen was the Hogarasu. I could go as I pleased, enjoy who I pleased... now it's all 'watch this person,' 'go start this fight club,' With a bossy mouth like that, that dreary boy better learn about the word 'please'..."

     A scandalous titter. "Don't let him hear you say that."

     "Ugh, don't I know it. You'd better go, too. Don't expect me to save you if Rikuto decides you need to pray..."

     "In a bit..~"

     On the other side of the complex, the holding cells are at least twice as damp and half as clean. Situated beneath the main manor floors, the winding corridor has an audible drip somewhere in it that is both incessant and somehow louder than the machines, which are now audibly laboring somewhere overhead.

     The first sound heard is a tepid moan, almost low enough to not be heard at all. Inside the cell of the only occupant of the first section is a lean living condition, spartan and kept passably neat. Evidently, there is no attempt to keep the man in a terrible state -- there are visible writing materials stacked away neatly on a desk, and it is, at the very least, comfortably lit in a soft yellow tone.

     The problem is, there are tatami mats mounted through unseen measures on every wall, and most of the furniture has been similarly pared down to reduce harsh, hard angles. Though it is not -visibly- a sanitarium cell, there are very obvious signs that it is beginning to get there.

     "Sons....daughters....sisters....brothers...."

     The sound of scraping can be heard, hard and harsh as the watery voice trickles away, replaced by that low subvocal moan, at its deepest registers a rattling buzz that seems only tangentially related to the human voice.

     The sound is haunting -- at the raw edge of agony, it is the sort of thing that can be heard subconsciously, long after the noise has stopped -- if it does.

     The man sitting on the bed is dressed in a torn, shredded gi, with thick bangles on either side of his arm, bound over with hide and again at the wrists with hemp. Thick rope, almost the width of his own wrists, with folded white paper running off of the rope in lightning shapes. The thickness of the rope complicates his movements, but he barely seems to mind it, sitting cross-legged with bare feet in his bed. He seems to be trying to scrape at a bit of wood, his single eye focused sharply on the task. The wood is a paintbrush, thick with dried ink. He's long since scratched his nails bloody on it.

     "....mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts...I have to find a way..."

     The entire room is scrawled with complex ink shapes, an arcane formula with eight pokes running across the walls and floor, all coalescing on one single point -- the knife buried in the corner, a single bloodied kunai, jammed into the earth.

     The inked formula runs over swirling impressions of a hundred grasping hands with watchful eyes, as if censoring them and at full war. There are more anywhere the tatami haven't been nailed, and very clearly had been scrawled on the walls behind them at one point.

     It's the same design on the hide binding his arms.

     "They're everywhere, everywhere," the man murmurs obsessively.

     He notices her, the person peering into his cell. Haggard, with a three day's growth of stubble on his face, one eye widens from behind a wiry mop of black hair. "Another one??" he recognizes. "...no..."

     His single eye narrows suspiciously.

     "Are you ... now? ... or? Oh god... you're not Eiri are you? Her brother said she always liked the sunshine.."

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    Tough kid, huh. Umie's expression and lips draw flat, resisting the urge to touch her nose yet again with her (still) gloved hands.
     
     Shirogarasu, Hogarasu... there's definitely a theme here, and an ironic one at that, considering her own name and the Badb.
     
     It also illustrates a changing political structure, as this isn't some loyal army that Shiryuu can command at will. That's both a comfort and a point of dread, considering how something like that could go either way.
     
     As tempted as she is to stay and listen in further, she abstains for now, as it'd only invite conflict when she is eventually discovered. After all, she is no trained shinobi, just someone trained by the Dark Hour, which as she's discovered is a very limited teacher when it comes to all the hours outside of it.
     
     Down in the lower levels is another story. The low, quiet moan contrasts with what Umie assumes was suitable accomodations at one time, but now in disarray, from the tatami mats and pared down furniture.
     
    The instigator of this seems to be the man in the cell, it seems, which Umie focuses on, keeping her breathing and mind calm.

     And, as she sits here and focuses in on the man inn the dingy orange gi, without anything to distract her, she can feel it. It's not as rancid and overwhelming like the Joker Killers, but it's there: kegare, woven into the way his voice seems tortured, and perhaps, a symptom of whatever is ailing him. The rope and folded paper is likely attempts to keep it controlled, much like the many rituals and methods practiced in shrines Umie felt were not welcome to her.
     
     Months earlier, when she was paranoid about looking at sleeves and covered wrists, she would have been more suspicious about those wrappings on the man's arms, but right now, she makes the mistake of not thinking much of them at all.
     
     But the many hands and many eyes...
     
     It's like a grave's whisper in her ears: chilling and unwelcome, but familiar in a way she wishes it wasn't. She is reminded of Sudou's cell, but where his obsession was marked by his serial killings and victims, this is a single man's meditative war with something unseen.
     
     He notices her. Is she now, or...
     
     Umie shakes her head. "... I'm not an Eiri, no. I'm..." To say her name in any capacity aloud would be foolish. "... a guest, of the shihaisha," she says, instead.
     
     "What is your name?" she starts, even if she doubts the name will be something she'd recognize. "And what is the purpose of you being here, in the dark?"
     
     Her tone is soft, but neutral; she's not about to let the man out. Not only would it take some time to figure out a way, if any to get the doors open, there is also the fact that, for all she knows, he may be afflicted with the Joker Curse as well, or something else.

<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.

        "... nikume, nikume..."

        The sound of nails scraping against wood is a wretched and organic sound, a miserably wet noise that takes pervasive precedence even over the steady, omnipresent machine thrum. For awhile, the bound man seems intent on his carving, as if deliberately attempting to shut out that soft voice, the creaking sound his own makes escaping his notice while he works.

        His suspicion is abandoned for his work in one moment, then picked back up in the next, as if continuity were an entirely subjective thing.

        "Not Eiri.... maybe her sister? No.. she wouldn't come here. Unless... oh, unless..." The implication rots on the vine, and for seconds the man shifts in place, pensive and indecisive, as if he shouldn't really be talking to unfamiliar voices beyond the door anyway.

        "No," he says, as if she could hear his thoughts. "That's only going to lead to..."

        No, that isn't important. Don't breathe life into it.

        Furtively, the man continues to his work, and examination of the detailing shows that he's whittled the handle of his brush down with his bare, bleeding hands, a groove cut into the wood, the rough shape of a knife beginning to form.

        It seems redundant, when there is already a knife in his cell.

        It's not simply an eyepatch he wears, upon inspection. Near half of his face has been wrapped in linen, concealing almost as much as his arms. He looks up again sharply, dark eye sunken deep into his face, as if sleep were an ill favored dream. It's not in the same 'time' as her words, the snap movement cutting in his attention midsentence.

        "No, no no no no. No..."

        A finger stabs out, wagging sharply at her. "You're not 'him.' You're not 'us.' You're not doing it to me again -- you're one hundred years too early to make me fall for it this time."

        A hand rams through his stringy black, self-soothing as he lifts both arms to perform the motion.

        "Ugh... center, center... nikume..."

        Who is he? "Ehh... ha, ha.."

        The sound warbles, deeply corrupted.

        "Shihaisha don't have guests. They have loyal soldiers. I never forgot. I'm what's left. The dredges, the dregs of that man's iron will, the ruthless lotus shihaisha Setsuya... I just need to know what price to pay..."

        His hands open, the light filtering between his fingers as part of the dark silhouette his face has become. That deathly rattle drags through his voice.

        "They're all going to be here for me soon....maybe even today is the day. ...you shouldn't be 'now'! -- no, no, you're not... the boy doesn't have guests.. Setsuya would have killed you already... maybe ... no, maybe it was me ... oh god.."
  

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed. 

     'You're one hundred years too early--' The familiar turn of phrase draws a softened smile from Umie, her eyes glinting in the faint light. "... I am," she agrees, as she settles down into a proper sitting position. "Please, forgive my tresspass here. ... I wish to understand more... about someone I care about."
 
     She draws on the boy butler's softness, weaving it in with the language of what period dramas she's seen, even sitting in that specific posture, though her skill at it isn't as great as it could be.
 
     Still, it all may not filter through the noise that torments the man; if Umie's gut instinct holds true, this man may be beyond hearing or percieving anything that will thwart him off that jagged path.
 
    It's not a pleasant sight, the man's struggle like that of a stone rolling through one's throat, pulled through automatic forces that lie within the very soul...
 
     "I'm not her sister, either, no. I'm honored you think I don't look all that out of place here."

     .... She should really leave the man alone; her presence here is amplifying the merciless trial he is put under.

     However, the many reaching hands and eyes present a familiar mystery Umie cannot ignore, so her body stays there, diverting her eyes away as the man attempts to continue his ritual.

     The indistinct, inobtrusive jingle of a lucky bell charm echoes in her memory, even if the red bell bracelet isn't on her right now.

     "... That man you mentioned... I take it he is the previous shihaisha." It would make sense, with how Shiryuu is Umie's age. "What was his title? I keep hearing titls referring to crows... DId he have one?"

    .... she should really leave the man alone, but the Badb just can't stop pecking at the sight of blood.

    "I'm not a ghost, either, if that's what you're implying. I'm a flesh and blood human."

    One with a Persona that occupies the space of death, prophecy, and war, but a human nonetheless.
 
     A curious one, which makes it worse.

<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.

 
     "Aah..." Barely mollified by her deference, the bound shinobi's voice fries at the raw end of what would have at one point been a familiar sound of recognition. The more it's heard, the more it's clear he's been screaming for too long.

     "So that's how it's to be, tonight...."

     The man reaches over, setting the carved brush with a harsh clack onto the desk with both hands. His knuckles tighten over the blade until the veins bulge at his wrists, as if he were trying to exert control over something that was just beyond his view. Hands bunch into fists around the carving, and intense frustration knits his face into a grizzled knot, his linens wrappings straining at his temples. A single double-handed blow shakes the whole of the desk as he pounds his fists and the carving into it, causing previously neatly oriented stacks of papers to float across the room lazily in the throes.

     He breathes harsh and hard, more into his shoulders and chest than his belly. "Damn it to hell. God... it ..."

     He breathes, again. The words are not as fierce the second time around. "Damn it... it's only natural for it to be like this... on and on without end... the more it changes..."

     "... the endless cycle stays the same, no matter how far down the path you shine the light. It all leads to the same place."

     He is tall. When the man in the orange gi stands, his wiry hair falls across his shoulders and chest, almost shrouding the wrapping over his face. His silhouette blocks the light as he approaches the door, in a sidewinding motion, his single eye narrowed in deep, desolate suspicion.

     He walks forward as if fully expecting the serpent itself to be just behind her.

     "If I killed him, killed her I can only tell you what they were like at the end. How they faced her... it's ..." he swallows.

     "It's not a minute you want to know about."
     The sound of dread in his voice is like a thousand cicadas sitting on a thousand needles.

     "But everyone thinks they want to know. Everyone knows everything... god..." He sniffs and breathes, an angry sound stifled in his chest and left to die in the dark. "They don't want to know this. They can't...!"

     The entire cell door jumps as the man rams a fist into it in frustration. "How would you KNOW you're flesh and blood?? Don't you think that'd be the first lie you got told?? That's what he told us!"

     He laughs, his fingernails turning white at the cell door's viewport. His other arm rests across the top of the view, the marked hide on his arms just barely visible. It looks harsh and handmade, the hide stretched thin. By the time the man speaks again, his head is against the door, his eye half-lidded.

     "And..." the man laughs bitterly, stifling a sob, "...you're right. He said it was all for the name, but... the Ryouhara name, not Mizugarasu himself.. ... I guess all those crows are dead now... hahaa, some honor..."

     The information is halting, the relation between her questions and his answers piecemeal at best. It's something he turns around in his head as his eye closes.

     "...it's only natural to want to know that the people you care about are doing okay, I can't begrudge you that," he admits, morosely. "But ... you should remember them as they want to be remembered. Not as the way 'she' saw them."

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    The slam of the man against the cell door breaks the illusion of the deferential visitor, this 'guest' of the shihaisha.
    
    That sitting position is similarly broken, Umie falling back with a gasp, scooting back on hands and knees a further distance away.
    
    She feels her heart reverberating in her chest like one of Shiryuu's tracks: a pulsing, frantic beat that slows the more time passes between that initial scare to now.
 
    One could be forgiven if they made the mistake of thinking that it took a lot to scare Umie. It's very easy, in fact, if someone finds the right things.
    
    Or presents the right sequence.
    
    She can barely see it, through the display of arms over the cell door's viewport. Stretched and harsh, like it was handscribed. Was it forced on him, perhaps?
    
    Is this what happens? Or one outcome of many?
     
     She doesn't know the full shape of even what marks them both, feeling out the shape of something anomalous that betrays whatever words she tries to describe it with. What is the girl in her mind that has been there since that fateful day, and what is Kandori? What is the history that calls on facts and contexts in the modern day? Why does the Joker persona have the face of a young man, specifically the one she briefly tutored in her senior year? How can someone have a Mark and see and act with knowledge beyond what they've had previously, like Tatsuya Suou? Who or what is the thing called Nyarlathotep?
     
     What the blonde does know, and what she can control, is her own experience: the loneliness, the nights both wanting the comfort of that eternal friend, but also wanting to push that friend away as she got older. The thrill of shadows, the incessant part of her soul that is the Badb, forever wanting to know, forever picking further and further at the next lock over what mystery exists.
     
     Understanding. Empathy. Feeling alive and in the moment. Need. Connection. Bonds.
     
     She had kept the black gloves from her costume, not seeing any other way to cover up her wrist if her sleeves dipped back. Taking off that glove off her right hand, Umie exposes her own Mark to the open air without preamble, letting Kouzou see it, if he hasn't already turned his eyes away.
     
     Reaching out further may be a risk; the man's not in his right mind. If he mistook her gesture and snatched her arm straight away for some purpose, it may be hard to extract herself without the help of her Persona.
     
     "I have it too," she says, simply.
     
     The words he says are hard to tell if they come from nonsense, a distorted view of his own memories, or actual events. The man may be guilty of crimes of his own, but that is a matter she can figure out later.

<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.

 
     'He can hear your heartbeat.'

     She can tell it in the way he breathes, in something others would have called the 'synchronicity' of the moment. The bound man's breath, a ratcheting, hollow thing, fills his lungs slow. It's always along the same time to her heartbeat -- for every ten, one slow draw in and out.

     It's like a hand, gently pressing on the moment to keep it contained.

     In him, there is none of that thrill, that sensation of excitement with the world. Grim, he breathes as if he were a man with a sword already in his chest. If there is empathy, it is a mewling, dark thing, guiding gently away from the answer.

     "nikume, nikume," he repeats to himself, as she falls away from him, as he turns away, his attention wandering to his own plights. It's only with her admission that he looks over a shoulder, his eye focusing in the dark through that window, beneficiary of his own height in catching a glimpse of the proof on her hand.

     "...hrnh. Then you get to see what's next," the man thinks aloud, turning his attention back to the light. It's something he strides back to, the warm, comforting light -- and yet, he only strays towards it when it flickers, when the power of the facility vacillates slightly, the entire complex shuddering.

     "The way free of the wheel," the man thinks, a grim, hoarse laugh in his sudden lucid spike. "...or so they said. It's seeing every ghost you've ever made, ready to pull you under."

     Lifting both his hands, the paper trails down along his belly as he pulls at his linens self-consciously. Indescribable, grievous harm can be seen along his jawline before he pulls the wrapping over it, a thin, rheumy line of moisture breaking the bandaging.

     Simple logic dictates that the hide at his wrists is a recreation of the Mark. But with it comes another grim thought: is it in fact, his own skin, tanned and relocated?

     "It's right, I should suffer like this. It's better I know them now, more than I did before... but it's not all there is. Shihaisha is wrong to keep me here. Better to let them come to me. Better to let them get their mouthful, if they please. It's the lies they were told. The lies I told. Why deny children their due..."

     He quells the light as it flickers, drawing the shutters across the panels before they can wink out, one by one, as time becomes meaningless.

     The machinery churns to a standstill, the deep thrum coming to a terminal end as all over the manorhouse, lights wink out, plunging the corridors into darkness.

     "I don't know what you did," Kouzou thinks aloud, settling into seiza by the sealed steel knife. The wooden one is all but forgotten. "But you should go," he tells her. "It won't be long before they come looking for me again..."

     The area is almost pitch black.

     "I'm so tired," he thinks aloud, as if done speaking.

     He can hear her heartbeat, in the silence.
     He's not the only one.

     The hole-deep blackness throughout the facility has a grim engineer about it, as if entirely intentional, with the subterranian halls being swallowed by long stretches of black. They seem more jagged and less engineered than before, though it may only be from the way the light is only broken by the hang of lanterns at the very distal ends of each hall, if that.

     There is much more light in the baring of a steel blade, a slow, resonant hiss splitting the nigh-impenetrable black with moonlight reflected from nowhere at all.

     "You're not supposed to be here," the boy says. His voice is too healthy to be Kouzou's, too young to be Rikuto, younger yet than Shiryuu. It is not Kurou's voice, but even in the hour past midnight, he seems not to tire in the slightest.

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    It is the grimmest example of that synchronicity that Shiryuu somehow managed to paint in far more idealistic tones: the breath of a tortured man, timed to the rhythm of the younger visitor's startled heart. For a moment, Umie feels compelled to hold her breath, just to sever the connection, whether imagined or real.
     
     (A small, selfish part of her wishes she was listening to Shiryuu's own, and that everything had been a dream. Yet another wishes she could feel the bell chime at her left wrist.)
     
     There is already a difference. The man in front of her feels like a fruit whose pith had been scooped out, leaving a rapidly decaying shell. He talks, moves, bleeds, and battles infection like a human, but a part of his fire has been siphoned out, the rest left for a later harvest like a deer carcass.
     
     'The way free of the wheel'... did he mean free of the Mark, or that the Mark was his way free?
     
     It makes sense, that this is the result. If Kandori was one example of what could happen, it is likely the least likely of results, him being a man who is supposed to be dead, but now calls himself a god. To gain a Mark with the intent of 'becoming like a god' would be a grossly distorted sort of foolhardy wish.
     
     There is no godhood to be found here, nor in Kandori, even.
     
     She is silent, her face assuming that mask she's trained herself to hold, when facing something too large to contain at once.
     
    And what is the significance of the mark at his wrist? Maybe, he tried to rip it out, or that was part of the punishment, a meditation on the methods of how he must suffer. For the children...
    
    Perhaps this is another symptom of what created Kurou.
    
    'I don't know what you did.'
    
    "I invited something in," she murmurs. "Me and another man. Now, I am the only one left from that time, that I know of." A madman and a child. It'd be poetic, if that was the start of all this, though Tamaki would likely disagree due to the lack of evidence.
    
    It may be untrue, but that seems like the biggest sin she has to confess to, in this context.
    
    At the man's bidding, she nods, lingering just a moment further in hopes she could say something to lend some warmth to the candle flame he cycles around, but no inspiration comes.
    
    She bows her head instead, stands up, and leaves.
    
    The safehouse isn't safe from the Dark Hour, which plunges it into further darkness, once again rendering what was only passingly familar completely foreign once again.
    
    With few resonances or demons nearby to make the outlines of a map, Umie is forced to feel with her exposed left hand, taking careful steps until the lanterns' light allows her to move with more confidence.
    
    The steel blade being bared is far more helpful! And dangerous.
    
    Umie assumes a mask of indifference once more as she tries to get a better idea of who the wielder is.
     
     "I get restless if I'm in a room I don't know for too long," she offers with a slow turn of her head, strands of hair standing against the faint light of the lantern lamps. "... Especially at this hour."

<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.

 
     The young boy is nothing like the man in the cell.

     There is an intrepid energy about him, a nimbleness of mind and a viper's composure, forward and simple. He wears a version of the same outfit that the kunoichi in the meeting hall wore -- a dark shinobi shozoku, though it is impossible to tell whether it's blue, black or hunter green in this light. Unlike her, the sleeves on his gi jacket are longer, ending at his thumbs, with a metal plate riveted to the end of each, the matte finish just barely noticeable in the weakened light. Also unlike that kunoichi, he wears his blade on his hip. Or so he did.

     He is barely sixteen. His long hair is tied back between his shoulderblades, and he has dark, sharp eyes -- he looks her over once for evidence of a weapon, twice to confirm her face -- that narrow dangerously in the dark.

     His voice is tight, confined, but vibrant. He recognizes her voice, though his sword does not lower, the tip hovering over his outstretched hand the flat resting against the guard plate at his wrist, steadying it on what is unmistakably a direct line through her chest.

     "...so you're not trying to steal secrets," he says, and can find no evidence to the contrary. He sounds mildly disappointed, lowering his short sword. What could easily be mistaken for a second sword is instead a short iron rod tucked into his belt, moving past as his sword drops to his side.

     "I am Kouhei of Kazegarasu Kazuhira, the celebrated hero of Ryouhara," the boy introduces himself without any further delay. "You should be more careful. Wandering around restless will get you killed here."

     The boy watches her suspiciously, unimpressed with her nonchalance. There is the impression he knows her already -- and is merely waiting for her to say something out of place.

     The boy's chin tilts. He's not smiling, as his face passes the reflected(?) light from his lowered sword. He is wary, but no part of him seems to be afraid of her.

     The fever marking his soul is not kegare.

     "So... this is what you look like up close. You're that blonde girl that Utahiko-sama warned about. He said you were from the Order."

     Now, Kouhei smiles, as he laughs a bit.
     It's absolutely not a kind or gentle laugh.

     He gestures in a roundabout way with his blade. "...as if, right?"

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    Kurou and Shiryuu have spoiled her, in many ways, if this is what the other Ryouharas are like. Kazegarasu... The Wind Crow, just like there was the Mizugarasu, and the Shirogarasu.
     
     She doesn't miss that the sword's pointed at her heart. "My apologies..."
     
     But in the dark of the night...~
        ... Well, she could say 'she has the Badb, so she's a little more cocky', but Shiryuu has made it very clear that the Ryouharas are a family not tied strictly to Personas as a means of power, and furthermore, Umie never needed Badb as an excuse, thank you very much.
    
    A well-placed bullet can be enough, besides. "... I'm not stealing secrets, no."
    
    So she deploys the tricks of the masquerade, of hiding what's inside and replacing it with something else. With Shiryuu, it was the nagging feeling of attachment that slowly grew like a weed, until she found herself so close to his face that she realized just how each eye was different...
    
    ... and how her thumb felt against his cheek, or how she had to keep from brushing his silver hair aside, colored nails touching briefly against the skin of his forehead.
    
    Her heart is beating fast for more than one reason now, and it's a terrible thing, to be distracted by memories of Shiryuu when facing a family member!!
    
    Anyway. You place those annoying vulnerable feelings, like love and fear, deep inside yourself like a vault, and say something nonchalant, like:
     "... The only secret I've found is that there's no housekeeping crew here, and with the armor and sharp edges around, I don't blame them." Add to that a half, lopsided smile and a shrug, as if your life wasn't in danger.
    
    ... Or that your body might disappear with the Dark Hour, and Shiryuu, trapped in his bathroom with his thoughts, would be none-the-wiser to the heights of how stupid his girlfriend is.
    
    "If you think this was all a clever ruse to somehow lure the shihaisha into some trap, there's a lot better ways of doing that than sending some short blonde that argues with him. Sending someone with a nicer rack, perhaps?" She attempts to place her hands in her pockets, only to awkwardly find... ah yes, no familiar jacket pockets to obscure her movements, or how her cold her hands feel.
    
    "But maybe the Order, in all its wisdom, wanted to see if he was a thigh man instead," she concludes, as her recovery. "So is that what Utahiko-sama... thought I was doing?"
    
    ".... as if, right," she agrees, though she doesn't join in the laughter, as subtly unkind as it is. "... Somehow I feel that hasn't made you feel any better about the situation." She tilts her head, shifting her weight onto one foot. She taps her chin. "Please, let me know what I could do to avoid getting my heart speared through in the next minute or two."

<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.

 
     It is a dangerous game they all play, isn't it?

     There is nothing ambiguous about the threat the boy, Kouhei, is transparently posing to what is clearly an interloper traipsing around the safehouse like she owned it. He makes no secret of it, his open derision, or the gravity of the title he holds.

     Standing here as he does before her, in the middle of this Dark Hour, the shreds of fear in them are not of the tortured halls, or the dark spaces. As always, it is a fear of what dwells within the hearts of humans. The way they stand, the way it is -- here, there is an 'understanding' that if it came to that, Badb wouldn't be the deciding factor in the differences in their power.

     There is no real wavering of his even stare as she tells it to him plainly -- that she's not stealing secrets. That much doesn't seem to surprise him, but the fact that she is not at present an enemy of the clan doesn't seem to change things for him.

     'The only secret I've found is that there's no housekeeping crew here.' "There's less dangerous ways to apply for a job," Kouhei bridles, mouth tightening despite his attempt to carry the same levity through the conversation. "Though you might get on Rikuto's nerves," he observes.

     He doesn't understand what it is he's getting off of her, what emotion it might be, or even if he is getting anything at all. The boy's focus wavers with her conversation, his suspicion mounting one point after the other. She seems too at ease, too calm, and something in him bridles at the notion.

     But the boy is disciplined, even when she apparently deliberately directs his attention to pockets that aren't there.

     His free hand tightens into a fist at his side.

     "....The third type shozoku," Kouhei realizes, tilting his head in a moment of clarity. "Nice touch."

     It's the closest she'll get to a tacit admission that he's paying attention to what she says. What little youthful appreciation the boy might have of her burns like a message held over a candleflame.

     "Hmf." The boy lifts his blade, resting the spine in his hands to better cast the light off the edge and illuminate his expression: Flattened, sharp, cold. She asks him what Utahiko thought. "I'm not Yongarasu," he replies. "How would I know? You would've had to ask my father..."

     Something is left unsaid -- the boy doesn't seem eager to dwell on the topic for very long. "Anyway. It's not like it could really be a secret here, right? The indomitable shihaisha's only soft spot. There's a reason you're put with Kurou-inusan. I guess the only alternative would be ... ohh ... right. Maybe the feelings are mutual?"

     The shinobi thinks on it idly, a faint smile drifting across his face as he does. A hand lifts from his blade, to wag a finger at her.
     "Maybe, maybe not. You don't sound very interested in whether he lives or dies. It's not really important in the long run, is it? Shinobi are all very expendable, in the world as it is. Costs gladly paid, right...?"

     Another light, almost musical laugh. Kouhei seems almost pleased when she asks how to avoid getting stabbed. "I'd never do that," the boy replies, looking down long enough to sheathe his sword, the weapon hissing as the short steel rakes the sheath between his fingers. It casts his face again in muted darkness. "Our shihaisha is notoriously ill tempered about being disobeyed. And what would be a greater offense than...?"

     He lets the notion go unsaid.

     "So. For the time being, you're in perfect safety in our care, blonde-san. By the living shihaisha's grace. Well, for the short period of time left for him, anyway..."

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    It's a dance around blunt questions, wherein the two of them refuse to directly ask or state their intentions, as it would point to their vulnerability.
     
     'Though you might get on Rikuto's nerves.' "... I think I did that just by waking up, to be honest." Her chin dips. "I appreciate his handiwork, all the same."
     
     That statement, at least, is not meant to be secretly sarcastic.
     
     Confused contempt may be the last thing Umie needs.
     
    "... eh?" Umie says, betraying that cool mask with a moment of confusion. Perhaps he thinks of her as having an ability she doesn't, or... ah. Right, the shozoku here must be referring to the uniform shinobi wear, and what she is wearing as well, which is... ah.
    
    Well, the mention of Utahiko certainly changed things in a frosty direction, though in turn, it signals what Umie is unaware of: who Utahiko is, and what his fate was.
    
    The past tense, while hinting at the fate, still leaves things vague.
    
    'The indomitable shihaisha's only soft spot.' The way he wags his finger at her, tempting her to declare her love.
    
    "... That is between me and him," she says, quietly. And to speak of Kurou aloud would tempt more, given her protectiveness over someone who could easily best her in combat. "And what about you? You seem oddly happy."
    
    "... As for the rest," she begins, quietly.
    
    She watches him sheathe his sword, as the young man says she'll be safe, and furthermore...
    
    ....
    
    "That implies the world is filled with extraordinary people, for a Ryouhara to be expendable."
    
    It is a rare compliment, over a credo that paid homage to what shinobi where meant to be in history. You wouldn't send someone who would be messed to be an assassin or secret agent, after all.
    
    ".... So I'd like some clarification on that last statement you just made," she says quietly, attempting to add some steel of her own, if only in her voice.
    
    "Please."

<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.

 
     "Mm," the boy acknowledges her without laughing at her humor. "You're cute, at least," is Kouhei's thought on her, sharply on the end of her bringing up Rikuto's annoyances. Though it beggars any sort of attention at all, the medician's taciturn way has oft caused Kouhei to think him more comfortable in the company of cadavers than people. Even so, there's no point in being stubborn about admitting something kind about the blonde, now that he has a bird's eye view of the matter. "It seems the shihaisha is always right, in everything he does," Kouhei says in much worse faith.

     After all, he could take exception to her wearing what is tantamount to a Ryouhara uniform. But an attempt not to be strictly petty is well within Kouhei's patience, and the boy opens a free hand across her, as if it explained everything.

     'That is between me and him,' she says, and Kouhei nods, eager to follow her lead. 'What about you?' she asks, and the boy takes a deep breath, to mimick something that sounds like an easy sigh. "Oh... who wouldn't be glad? Poor pretty Tokyo girl, all lost in her thoughts," Kouhei says easily, his glance turning away from her. "Nagano's still a long way off for you... Akita, further still."

     "...I'm just glad to meet someone I don't have to kill. Otou-san said justice is like water, right? That's why there will always be a 'balance.' You can be as angry as you like, as long as you realize that when the kami hand you a gift, you smile and say 'thank you.'"

     It's perhaps a little too on the nose when Kouhei's smile wanes as she suggests that the Ryouhara may not be so expendable at all. His smile turns lemon against his lips, the boy giving her the most accomodating of expressions. And then he says:

     "'Thank you.'"

     With that, he bows and turns, leaving the Ryouhara blazon at his back to be shown with pride as he steps away, closer to the farther lanternlight, the flicker of flames licking warm orange colour off of the walls, off of his jacket. The boy seems to be about to leave when she stops him with the conjured steel and benediction in her voice.

     "...ohh." His voice is sad, for a moment. "Didn't you hear? The shihaisha has called a meeting. He's delivering his revocation decree to the Order not too long from now, turning his back on the deal the Yongarasu made for the Mark we now have in our control.."

     A tiny, small laugh, faithless, bitter and rueful.

     "Can you imagine it? The so-called pureblood from Akita, turning his back on centuries of loyalty to our bonds and oaths, who would have imagined our new leader to be so reckless? Well... we'll perform as ordered, but it probably won't go well for him, as thinly as the clan is stretched now. Hopefully, he's as strong as they say he is. Mm."

     Kouhei breathes out, as if to calm his nerves.

     "...A shame, if you're not into him. It'd be a good thing to know. You'd get to say 'goodbye,' right? Who knows what'll happen? But... at least it is exciting. Either way, tonight is a gift from the kami."

     The boy opens his hand illustratively without looking back, his other resting between his weapons. 'Tonight is a gift from the kami.'

     "Now, what do you say?" he cues.

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    'You're cute, at least.' "I imaginem that's probably how it started for him, as well," she softly responds. "A warning sign of attachment."
     
     After all, the shihaisha is always right, in everything he does. Umie can't help but raise an eyebrow at that.
     
     It helps that she's certain Kouhei will not be exactly offended that she's not showing total deference, but that's where the problem lies as well.
     
     "Don't pretend you know me because you know my address," she says, arms crossed, a hand positioned close her mouth, red brown eyes sharp in the faint light. "I'll speak to you with the respect you ask, but you're going to have to meet me somewhere along that line."
     
     Which, in a way, he does, landing a blow far more bewildering than if he had continued making light of her.
     
     'Thank you.' To the kami, that gave him this gift, against the young man who put his father to death.
     
     She is truly in the dark as to what drives the bitterness in Kouhei's expression at that moment, but she's definitely wise to what Kouhei is saying, as well as implying.
 
     The implication, as Umie sees it, is that *she* is the reason. For the Mark they have in their control...
    
    Shiryuu likely couldn't stand it, after he developed a 'bond' with someone who also had a Mark.

     The Order will likely send an agent to make it clear why Shiryuu can't break his clan's oaths so neatly; he may be the 'prince' (ironic as that may be after what happened with Hodai), but the respect his role brings stops at the borders of his clan.
    
     She'll need help. But who? She purses her lips.
    
     What does she say? "You'll have to give me a little more information on where this is happening..."
     
    She delivers one of those little bows she did as the boy butler, in lieu of confirming exactly to the youth's cue. ".... so my gratitude isn't wasted."
    
    She straightens, and gestures towards Kouhei.
    
    "... You'd hate it if I missed my chance, wouldn't you?"
    
    To go to her death.