2026-08-02: A Bond for Two
- Log: A Bond for Two
- Cast: Shiryuu Ryouhara, Umie Akabane
- Where: Electric Town, Akihabara, Tokyo
- OOC Date: August 02, 2026
- IC Date: December 19, 2012
- Summary: A recent rumor about an ancient ninja princess has unearthed the Ryouharas' existence. Shiryuu wants answers, and, with Umie being newly tied to his family's bloodline, he's determined to get them, even if it breaks his heart. Now, if only Umie would act like a proper hostage...
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
"Oh. Ah. I'm sorry," the tiny, mousy girl apologizes to Umie. "I don't usually do this kind of thing, and I could use your help...? I need to find ... ah, Cat Street? I'm supposed to be meeting a friend, there. And -- oh, I guess you should really look out for what's behind you, ne?"
'I guess there's no delaying it any longer,' he'd thought, shortly after Korozen had taken Kurou back to the apartment. Or rather, back to gridlock -- Korozen had carefully timed the trip to be caught in some small amount of evening traffic. Nothing so telling so as to let Kurou know anything, but there was a task to accomplish, right?
'After, bring her to me,' the shihaisha had said, and Korozen was obliged to comply, as a neutral party to the matter. Of course, the shihaisha is cruel.
'Korozen. If she's hurt, I'll scatter your bones across the moon.'
Ah, Shirogarasu is so dramatic, sometimes. But he bows in acquiescence anyway. It's nothing a distraction and a rag soaked in isoflurane can't solve. Or at the least, such is how Korozen's decided to phrase it to Shikon and Asagi. Shikon, of course, was very, very excited about the prospect of meeting this mysterious new ninja princess Akabane that's gotten the eye of the head of the clan. Unfortunately, she's not as good a decoy as Asagi. Oh well. On with the show! And probably a black bag!
Umie would be summarily decoyed, drugged and kidnapped wholesale, stuffed unceremoniouly into the back of a waiting K-truck loaded up with a crate labelled 'VOLATILE - KEEP WARM.' It's probably not necessary to smuggle her in on a laundry cart to the Hotel Indigo, but it'll make things an awful lot smoother. They can't afford her being awake enough to start fighting. If they have to fight her, it's definitely going to be a problem for the mission parameters.
So. The likelihood of Umie being tied up and being carried in with the unmentionables is high. Ideally, she'll end up in his room black bagged and tied snugly to a chair. "SHE'S SO PRETTY," Shikon just about yells at Shiryuu the moment the door is closed. "You _know_ what Ai-pyon is going to say if she sees her!!"
"...take off that bag and get out," Shiryuu says, looking out the window grimly. Absent a clear view of his mien pressed tight, his black outfit does a whole lot of the heavy lifting in portraying exactly how entirely, deeply unimpressed he is by the whole situation from the back to the front. It's a kidnapping, not a marriage proposal..
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
"Mm?" Umie, having come off her shift at Le Chat Marron, looks over at the tiny(ier than her, even!) mousy girl. "Yeah, just go down--"
The way to sneak up on someone who, in another set of circumstances, could be difficult to sneak up on, is simple: You just need to catch her outside of an area where she can use her Persona, and even if she was in such a space, all you need is to not have a resonance.
These are the perils of not being a full-fledged anti-navigator.
To be fair to Umie, the moment the mousy points out the need to look behind her, the blonde acted... completely normally, because she was technically in a public place, albiet briefly out of view of any people that would complicate Operation Kidnap Girlfriend.
Which is why...
----
... They were right to be careful; that label of 'VOLATILE' would be put to good use if Umie happened to wake up.
And indeed, there is a certain beauty to that seemingly peaceful look on Umie's face, as she's secured. (You'll just have to ignore the bit of drool.)
"... Mmmn.... mnh...." Umie stirs restlessly, as the effects of the isoflurane begin to wear off. Like a pet cat coming home from the vet, she'll begin moving in her chair, that heavy head wobbling around as she has trouble understanding exactly why she can't get up.
It'll only escalate from there; Umie has no special abilities to recover any faster than any normal person, but she makes up for it in pure obstinance.
And maybe a bit of sick from the isoflurane, which she seems to just not care about as she tries to figure out why the chair is not letting her get up.
Hm. Where was she again? Why'd she fall asleep? What was she doing?
What time is it? Where is she?
Why's her head heavy?
Screw this chair. This chair is annoying.
"The'snext train's leaving.... fonna mess it..."
She's not noticed Shiryuu there yet, but she's definitely getting riled up.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
He is at the very least patient.
The room is only dimly lit, the natural overhead lights dimmed as tiny neon beams crawl across the walls, ceiling and floor. The source being that sole lamp, propped up not too far from his laptop. It's been opened, and there's a little web graphic: A crude rendition of the three leaves symbol of the Ryouhara, shamefully replicated by what must have been a four year old with the wrong kind of shareware access to a paint app. Above it, in thick Impact font: SECRET WARLORD PRINCESS? HIDDEN FAMILY'S SCANDAL!
Shiryuu's pointedly ignoring it. Instead, the on-and-off drizzling of the rain outside is taking up the whole of his attention, being the only audible sound in the sprawling and sparse room. It's still stripped bare, but the little table is still present, just moved to an extreme end of the room, with the chairs conspicuously missing.
The one Umie's currently tied to was stolen from the lounge. It's only mildly comfortable, and only because Shikon insisted on picking out 'just the right one for Blonde-pyon's butt,' while Asagi fretted about the isoflurane wearing off too soon. Don't these supralunar people have super resistance power like that??
A tiny snif, as Shiryuu's head drops, low and to the side, as if inclined to look at Umie as she stirs, but never following through with it.
"You're drooling, Akabane..."
Despite not looking, his senses are far above par, comparably. Or his memory? This isn't the sort of question one should be thinking about when one is tied to a chair. Especially not with a pretty double column knot of soft blue cotton rope around your wrists.
(Asagi tied it, and Shikon is never going to let her forget it.)
His black gloves are sitting on the windowsill now, as both his hands are shoved into his pockets. He's still wearing quite a few layers of clothing in those shades of black, but he's comparably dressed down -- his back is still blazoned with the same symbol that's on the news post on his laptop, though the clarity of imagery is the same as the noonday sun to a candle. It's a loose type of house jacket, and the boy is still wearing an eyepatch, though most of his linen bindings have left with the accursed hospital.
"Hnn. Get ahold of yourself," he tells her, as if giving orders will make her recovery any quicker. "You're too tough to be drugged for that long."
It has nothing to do with the fact he itches to go get her a handkerchief. His eyes narrow in cold annoyance at the compulsion. It's more important that he stay focused.
"Listen up," he says, after a beat.
"It's important, this time. Not that you were intending on telling me about this anytime soon, I'm guessing."
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
How could someone so small and petite be that affected by something like this?
Red brown irises make a serious attempt to focus on the thick Impact font and its words.
Secret warlord princess. Huh. That sounds... familiar...
Whatever else she would've thought is instead taken up by how heavy her head is feeling, right now.
'You're drooling, Akabane.'
"Some kind of weird idea of a date..." Umie mumbles, as she keeps moving.
She's rather persistant about it, too, jerking around and twisting her wrists around, refusing to quit from her chosen goal.
Or to ask for help, for that matter.
'You're too tough to be drugged for that long.'
"Get close enough n' I'll plant a foot straight up that nose of yers..." Umie, that doesn't even correlate to what Shiryuu was even talking about, what
She's frustrated, but she's not going to give Shiryuu the satisfaction of asking for help, or even acknowledge that the situation is out of the ordinary for him... well, in regards to her.
'It's important, this time.'
'Not that you were intending on telling me about this anytime soon, I'm guessing.'
Don't let him win, Umie. You're so close. Just twist your wrists like so and tense up, and then!! .... wait what--
"Hua-umph!" With a sudden rip, a flop, and a thud of a body, the chair becomes unoccupied.
However, the pretty knot of blue cotton fabric is holding firm, and this is not a supralunar zone. So what, exactly, is Umie doing?
She's inchworming her way towards Shiryuu now, with steely determination, and no question of what exactly she's going to do when she gets there.
Just that he needs to learn a lesson about casually kidnapping people he supposedly likes.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
Did she just threaten him?
"Alright, banchou Popeye..."
He surmises, perhaps correctly, that Umie is still drugged, and so ignores whatever she was saying she was going to do with her foot in such rowdy terms. The grey-haired shihaisha thinks, shaking his head at an idea that must have just occurred to him. Hands slide out of his pockets, as the shinobi folds his arms.
"It doesn't matter," Shiryuu thinks aloud.
A small clatter arises behind him, and the boy looks over his shoulder, arms still folded. A short, sharp chirp of alarm raises in the back of his throat as he sees the chair on the ground, Akabane getting (kind of) free in record time, which is infuriating enough that a silver sprig sticks straight up on Shiryuu's head as he flashes his teeth.
"_urrrhhhhh_" the shihaisha roars tinily at her, "Why are you bad at even being a good hostage!!"
It takes all of Shiryuu's will not to demand Umie get back in the chair at once. It would do no good.
She needs to learn a lesson about taking being kidnapped seriously.
Gathering his gloves, Ryouhara turns on a heel briskly, with a tiny sigh. "All of you are terrible at listening," he thinks, padding towards the offending blonde inchworm.
"It's like I said, I won't let you get away with any funny business this time," Shiryuu tells Umie in no uncertain terms. She might have the advantage right now if it came to Persona, but currently, the moon is a long ways away.
Shiryuu does peer at the suspiciously elaborate knotwork keeping his person's wrists tied together for a few seconds longer than is strictly necessary. She's very good at wiggling.
Focus, Shirogarasu.
"Anyway..."
Ryouhara is not going to put up with much more of this inchworming action -- he's going to stride alongside her nimbly, before leaning down and taking a seat. Right on the back of Akabane's thighs, to put a stop to the entire industry of whatever it is she thinks she's doing right now. The boy pulls his gloves back on slowly one at a time as he thinks on it.
"...you're going to aggravate your injuries," Shiryuu tells her, noncommittally and definitely not caring at all. It's just that.. "If I have to resort to enhanced interrogation to get at what I need to know, you need to be at your full strength or you'll perish."
"But..." Shiryuu points out, raising a finger where she can see exactly none of it. "If you give in easily, maybe I can just promise you safe passage to Shanghai, where you can start a new life and I won't have to destroy you utterly." He frowns about this.
"So question the first." Shiryuu rests his fist in his hand, elbows on his knees.
"What are your intentions towards the Ryouhara clan?" Stare. Flat, tight expression.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
It seems that all Shiryuu is doing is activating whatever instincts are in the blonde to fiercely rebel against his authority, shining like a beam of light through that drugged fog.
"You don't *deserve* a good hostage!!" Umie grunts, as she inchworms over towards Shiryuu. "Violating my trust... you deserve every second of this!!" Unfortunately, the only thing that is being highlighted is that stubborn lack of future planning, just someone forcing a path open through every means they have.
.... even if that path's end is not one they have defined in their mind, as she wiggles fiercely. Wiggle wiggle wiggle.
There may be a satisfying 'eep' as Shiryuu's weight on the back of her thighs. It's not really a painful 'eep', however, as Umie's craning her head downward to hide the flush of red on her cheeks.
Focus, Umie. You can't let some simple bit of pressure make you cave in to... whatever this is about.
---ah, right, cave into 'being a proper hostage', thank you, Shiryuu.
'...you're going to aggravate your injuries.' "Oh, you care *now*?!"
'If I have to resort to enhanced interrogation to get at what I need to know, you need to be at your full strength or you'll perish.' "And I'll die of embarrassment, as everyone who told me 'this is really not smart' or 'he's dangerous' gets to shake their finger at me for following my heart instead of my mind!"
'If you give in easily, maybe I can just promise you safe passage to Shanghai, where you can start a new life and I won't have to destroy you utterly.' "If I was ever going to do that, I'm definitely not doing it now." Hooray, Shiryuu doesn't have to ship her to Shanghai!
She's just getting angrier. Shiryuu can feel it, underneath him.
'So question the first. What are your intentions towards the Ryouhara clan?'
Her attempts at wiggling stop.
".... You ask me that..."
It's like a tensing spring; Shiryuu can see the peek of that black Mark on the inside of her right wrist, where the sleeve was pulled back from her earlier struggles.
".... after I starred down a barrel trying to make sure you weren't assassinated..." She's trying to cock an eyebrow at Shiryuu, but while she can be flexible, she is hardly the sort of contortionist needed to perform this particular stunt. "Or did you really think I was trying to come on to _Ruin_, of all people?"
She sees a pair of tabi socks peek from under the hem of those red robes of little Maihime, the small girl bending down until her black hair pools around her own head.
Mocking, but also reminding her with little whispers of what she could do to reverse this.
Just use that Mark, and...
"My intention was to be the bond of a stubborn idiot," Umie says, instead. "Because that's the thing we have in common. How else could you explain it? We were trying to kill each other the first time we met."
"If it was all a lie, in the end," she murmurs, trying to remain conscious of Shiryuu's presence (rather than the sensation of little fingers tracing down her back), "it was a pleasant one."
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
"_I_ told you I was dangerous."
Shiryuu's weight is warm and sure -- he has no trouble pinning her down with just enough and not too much. It's in the gentle pitch of his weight against his thighs to move his center of gravity just so; making sure he doesn't quite cut off the circulation in her legs, but just enough to keep her in one place.
The boy if nothing else has exquisite balance. He won't fall, no matter how hard she tries. He just has to let her wiggle herself out, not look, and not think about what Shikon or Asagi would say, and hopefully they're not -spying.-
Mm. Shiryuu would contemplate the wisdom of letting Korozen arrange for the one whose ninkou can hear through half the floor before interrogating his girlfriend. But the thought is dismissed as quickly as it appears.
It's not like that.. right?
Remember Shiryuu. You're just a mark...
His fingers roll -- one fist unravelling to nimbly interlace his gloved fingers together, the bridge resting just under his chin. It's strange -- the boy is customarily overdressed for the warmth of the room, with his outer jacket buttoned all the way up to the height of his neck. All those layers, and still his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, baring the length of his arms before the cuffs of his gloves.
Being under repairs, Juurishojin is absent. He is well aware of her ability, and the boy acidly watches her struggle with it. Unlike her, he has no mark. His supralunar power wasn't awakened by trauma, or disaster, or force, or conspiracy.
The only thing he has on his arms is a little tied bit of braiding about one wrist.
'Or did you really think I was trying to come on to _Ruin,_ of all people?' -- Shiryuu's expression tightens immediately, his eyes narrowing. The strike of his response, and the sudden spike of heat in his voice is telling. He wasn't thinking about it until she brought it up, just now. "Were you?"
Ugh... don't let her get to you. "...I guess it doesn't matter either."
He sets his jaw, and take a sharp breath. She said something about how everyone told her not to trust him, that she'll never give in. "You're just going to make it harder on yourself," Shiryuu shakes his head. "The loss of any of our family wounds me, but..."
He's about to say something else, when she says it was a lie.
"...no, it wasn't a lie," Shiryuu thinks, quietly.
The boy's touch chases new sensation along the small of her back, the walk of his fingertips along the line of Akabane's spine a precursor to the onmitsu telling himself he was taking the measure of her willingness to attack still -- whether he'd have to fight her, even now. His gloved hand raises from her, darkly.
"...but since that night ... maybe there's not enough of me left for anything like that," he thinks quietly, but is unwilling to explain any further.
... hrnm.
Shiryuu breathes, leaving her to her ruminating. It's up to him to put this on the right track. "Even weakened, it'd be foolish of me to take you at your word, when our bonds are by blood and not by our l..." .. he frowns.
"...second question."
He changes the subject.
"If you, like me, are descended from the main house, who's your handler? You'll have had a co-conspirator to be able to expose us to this degree."
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
Damn it, Umie. Why do you feel comfort in his presence still? His warmth?
"So's a speeding train," Umie murmurs. "So's a bullet. Yet I still..." Yet she still fell in love with him, and he with her. The danger could have helped, but what especially helped was the fact that there was nothing she had to hide from him about herself.
It was already known and labeled. The rest, she admitted, because of the grace he gave her.
.... And the warmth he held, when she let herself fall asleep against him.
Focus, Umie, don't let him win.
"Of course n--" '... i guess it doesn't matter either.' "..." The energy of Umie's body twists at that; those words hurt, in some way, even if Shiryuu can't see her face.
'You're just going to make it harder on yourself.' "Don't lie; you like that."
'The loss of any of our family wounds me, but...' "... eh?"
He... believes those rumors?
'No, it wasn't a lie,' he says.
Even if her brain tries to read Shiryuu's fingers as more of the same that plagued her, her body remembers them well, shivering at his touch.
'... maybe there's not enough of me left for anything like that.' "Is that what you tell yourself?" she says, quietly.
'Even if our bonds are by blood and not by our l...'
Much like she did in battle, that smallest opening is what Umie immediately sets on.
"I don't fall in love with ghosts, Shiryuu." It's easier to admit it, when it's not direct.
"... But I expected more out of you, than to fall to rumors. Is that all the Order needs to do, to get you back in line?"
Umie stills. "It's the only explanation. Even if you look, there'll be sudden records of it, even if there weren't any before. It's no different than rumors of fast running grannies or stores suddenly selling weaponry."
The price of anything becoming involved with her is ruin. Kurou could be in another room being accused of the same things, right now, and she'd have no way of knowing.
But, as she said to Akechi, isn't it better to resist, and at least give whatever is watching a good show?
Her fingers tighten. "I have no 'retainer', and there is no 'house'. I know who I am, and _I'm Umie Akabane_."
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
'You like that.' What does that even mean? Shiryuu almost lets his immediate thought slip, mouthing the words to himself incredulously, a white hot surge of -- something adjacent to annoyance -- flaring up in the back of his neck.
It's starting to get warm, he thinks, slighting his weight slightly on her. It's in rough comparison and contrast to her own energy, coiled like a viper.
"... I thought that it'd be fine."
Part of him is loathe to lift his hand, abandoning the soothing sensation of her warmth and scent, and it takes a long time for Shiryuu to decide if it's really what he wants to do. It's not -- but he lifts his hand anyway.
"No matter what happened to my spirit, or how much 'color' I lost. It would be fine, if you were safe," the boy admits coldly, each word successively more divorced of weakness and methodical, as if reason were his beacon. "If everyone were safe. Someone who protects everyone who stands behind him. That's what a 'shihaisha' is."
"But...it didn't change anything," he thinks, almost too quiet to hear, just before he's --
"Tch," his response is immediate when she suggests that the Order is at the root of it. "The unheld legacy of Megumi Ryouhara is not a -- fast granny --" he objects at once, speaking fast before managing to rein himself in, mid-sentence. His voice drops an octave.
"....I'm not someone you should lie to."
The seams of his gloves make the softest creak as his weight shifts across her thighs, as his palms meet. "I am the cold wind that rolls down Iizuna," he tells her, in no uncertain terms. "The purest blood of the noblest house, whose truth and right are legitimized both above and below the moon. I am the judgment that scatters the mists, and the cherished blade promised to the lost. I am the slayer of tyrants, the sword of Akita, the grey law of light, and the epitaph of our lost children. Lie to me, and see all deception punctured instantly."
"If anyone tries to bring my family to 'ruin...' even the shadow of Orihime's loom won't fall far enough for that person to escape my justice."
There is a harsh, unyielding energy in the grey-haired boy, stalking and restless and angry and wild. No matter how little he moves, she can feel it in the way she shifts alongside her, the way he responds slow and measured to her words, the wound-tight tension in every fiber of him. Motionless and heated, his restlessness is tied tight by a thread of relentless logic.
"The Ryouhara clan has used 'Kotodama' before," he tells her. "It is not a simple happenstance. It is not an 'oops.' It has a source. An actor, and an author. That is for reason and cause, neither of which 'they' have, knowing what is known -- they _don't_ want me to kill you. A kotodama that exposes us doesn't help that."
The idea dismissed out of hand, Shiryuu shakes his head.
"So, 'Umie Akabane.' Question the third, now that you know that your bones are the price for lying."
Slowly, he tilts his head back, and lets a smooth, unsteady breath roll out of his chest. His eye lids, his other hidden eye burning harshly will ill distrust. She said she doesn't fall in love with ghosts..
But if that's all he is...
"....was there ever even one time that you actually loved me?"
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
She hates the conflicting reactions of her body; Mai-chan is clearly taunting her by making it seem like Shiryuu is touching her.
'It would be fine, if you were safe.' "Did you ever ask yourself what would happen, if you died?"
The anger that coils up underneath Shiryuu seems to be just as feverish at Shiryuu's manner of talking about himself, as it was when it was talking about her. "You think the other members of the clan would let Kurou Ryouhara-kun stay with me? Or hell, you think they'd be happy to let me walk around?"
'... But...it didn't change anything.'
A bit of her heart breaks for him, knowing some of where those words can come from. But her mind knows where constantly assuaging those feelings can go.
"It didn't change you into that person, like you thought it would." She lets a long, weary sigh spill from her. "Am I getting close?"
'The unheld legacy of Megumi Ryouhara is not a...' "A 'legacy' that popped out of nowhere!!" Umie hisses back. "Just like Junnosuke Kuroda and the others!"
'....I'm not someone you should lie to.' "And I'm not someone who takes kindly to _threats_."
How is she still wiggling? It's like she's only been tightening her resolve.
'Lie to me, and see all deception punctured instantly.'
There is a silence, after Shiryuu's speech. Heat collects in Umie's cheeks. To be lectured like this, because of a stupid rumor...
Don't let him win, Umie.
"... Are you done yet?" she asks, quietly.
'If anyone tries to bring my family to 'ruin...
"Why would I make a rumor that leads back to me." Anger answers anger. "If I were to target a rumor towards a secret clan of shinobi, why would I highlight something that changes *my* history, when I couldn't even modify a rumor to protect my co-workers?!"
'Was there ever even one time that you actually loved me?'
The answer is easy, if she answered with her heart. Her mind, however... where would it stop?
"If you have to ask, like that..." Umie says, "you'll probably keep asking, no matter what I tell you. Especially if I told you the truth."
'Maybe he'll let you live, if you tell him what he wants to hear~ Or will you grovel and beg him for his love?' Mai-chan giggles, wooden sandles clipping against the carpet as she moves with an ease and grace not normal for a girl around the hotel room. 'A beautiful, tragic end to a beautiful, tragic love story...'
"When I realized I was never going to see you, again," Umie admits, through clenched teeth. "That I could miss you."
She hears a child's mocking laughter spiral out into an endless echo. "That you could die, and it'd hurt me!! Even when you came back!"
She lets her head hang, her nose pressed against the carpet. "What use is a clan to me? I just wanted you and Kurou in my life."
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
She holds him to account.
"...yeah," the boy replies, his hair flowing down and dropping awkwardly over his eyes again, twisted in strange ways to make room for the strap holding his eyepatch to his face. Kyotosaigan was still a hole in his face, a gaping, angry, unattended curtain of black obscuring half of his vision. And despite everything it was easy like this, to look into the past, and see how much was truly missing. He doesn't even feel the ache anymore.
"I did, and it didn't."
An image of Zakuro flashes through his mind, just before his lifeless body hit the deckboards.
Shiryuu never explains. Part of him tries to find fault in what she's saying, in anything she's said thus far. She can feel the weight of the onmitsu's attention, that pacing energy studying her intensely, each and every movement, every breath, every sound.
It would be easy to say that he's watching her like a hawk for any sign of dishonesty, for betrayal. It would be.
'Are you done yet?' "Mmm."
Non-committal, and as neutral as the gleam of the light across the winter ice, Shiryuu falls silent for a time, filling the space between them with piercing silence for her to fill at her leisure. Instead of his breath, she can only hear the sound of rustled fabric as the boy leans back, unbuttoning his overjacket down the collar from the neck, and working to undo each tie with muted snaps of tiny steel latchbuttons with one hand. Underneath is his undershirt, a cross-cross of wire combat netting. Once the split gets to the top of his solar plexus, he slides a slender hand into the dark within.
The sound of a knife against fabric is unmistakable in the quiet. A pretty, dark-hilted thing, polished mirror smooth with the woodgrain showing as wispy grey and black, with muted pewter fittings. A straight kataha-style blade, not a disposable kunai.
It takes him what feels like forever to consider her first words. She tells him that he'll never stop asking, as a pretense for evading the question. A white hot offense burns in his stomach. wants to argue with her, to counter that there are plenty of reasons why she would betray him, why things would have fallen exactly the way they have now.
He wants to fight her. But it doesn't matter.
'I just wanted you and Kurou in my life.'
He blinks once, twice. Angrily, he presses a thumb into his remaining eye, wiping aggressively with the knife flipped down in his hand. Damn it. This girl. He takes a sharp breath, gathering his wits. "...I.."
"...despite everything ... even knowing everything it cost ... I don't have any regrets about us."
The knife slams into the carpet, and sticks there, as Shiryuu buries it firmly there instead of in Umie's back, instead of under her jawline.
In comparison, his gloved touch is gentle, sliding between her palms and into the thick cotton ropes holding her wrists together. One loop around another as he finds the working ends, pulling out the tension and unspooling the lines around her wrists with both hands. She'll feel that soft bite slither out from between her fingers as he gathers up the soft length between his hands, gathering the excess in great loops to hang in his grip.
And just like that, she's free.
Shiryuu stands slowly. He was careful, so there wasn't much circulation disruption in her legs, though he could have pressed down on any one of a number of nerves to make sure she doesn't walk for an hour. Even so, there is stil that idle rancor in him, the energy coiled tight as he stands. Every part of him wants to ...
"...but if my fate is going to hurt you..."
He doesn't know what to believe. But it's not really fair to go on like this, is it? It's not fair to her. Every time he tries to think about what he would say, if he were still 'that person...'
All there is is grey. "...it's important to me that you protect your heart."
He wants to ...
... instead, Shiryuu walks back slowly to the window, to watch the rain.
"...you're free to go."
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
"..." 'I did, and it didn't.'
It took a moment for it to hit Umie, but when it did... Shiryuu may very well notice it in how her body begins to relax into a dull, tense acknowledgment.
Joker was hurt because he wasn't able to intervene, in order to keep up his vows to not killing, or letting others kill in the Phantom Thieves' presence.
And Shiryuu...
He and Joker can really be alike, in some ways, in much she sees a similarity in that cockiness, when the night is at their back and an ace is up their sleeves. Responsibility, and freedom.
She doubts either of them would feel particularly honored by her comparison.
The sound of a knife being drawn cuts the silence.
She refuses to give Shiryuu the satisfaction of fear. Even if she were going to die in the next few moments...
Her heart just needs to obey and follow along with her resolve.
'... I don't have any regrets about us.'
"...!" There's a soft inhale; Umie's body wanting to roll over and look towards Shiryuu's face...
But his hands are untying hers now, his touch unmistakable in how it gently and carefully undoes the length of cotton tying her wrists together.
And like that, she's free; she's even able to stand, much to her surprise.
Instead of him lingering by her side, he leaves, his silhouette outlined by the grey of rain as she stands up, rubbing her wrists.
'...it's important to me that you protect your heart.'
'It's easy to get in that mindset-- that something, or someone you like, is better separated from you than with you.'
Damn it, again... The words she says to Ren come to mind.
'...you're free to go.'
'I'm where I want to be.'
She takes forward a step, then another.
Part of it is selfish; she loves him. This she knows.
Another part realizes its a symptom of pain, much like how she would fling insults and accusations at Shiryuu when he was doing nothing but trying to help her.
"Tell me his name, Shiryuu." If he doesn't shrink back, she lets her shoulder brush against his and stay there, her eyes looking out into the rain.
Her fingers search for Shiryuu's, hoping to intertwine hers around his. "... Joker wanted to know his name, too. He takes his oaths seriously... a person died, and he was powerless to stop it."
And she...
"If I hadn't hesitated... Joker told me that I did the correct thing in playing it safe, but I still wonder..."
She takes in a breath and lets it flow from her mouth, low and slow. "I told Joker that the pain'll never fully go away. Not completely."
Just like she's telling Shiryuu now, by proxy, a man who has likely killed or seen the deaths of many people.
"... Sometimes... you can give everthing, and it won't be enough, to save everyone." She closes her eyes. "... That place... it was likely borne from the two of us. Our pain and wishes. What you felt there... it's probably there too, just like the feelings I felt when I recieved my Mark."
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
Blades of pale neon cross over him, casting, contrasting and shaping his silhouette in a reflection that wouldn't otherwise show against the city lights and grey evening skies of Shibuya. For awhile, he manages to be at peace with the decision, waiting to hear the brush of sneakers across the carpet, the curse of his name, the door shut.
He hears none of these things; his lip purses tightly in frustration.
Hands ball tight at his hips, the rack of his knuckles running from his first finger to his last, assuaging the coil of energy wound tight in him. He cuts an ambivalent stance, neither looking nor speaking up when she doesn't leave, that thread of icy silence drawing tighter by the second.
She approaches; and his shoulders stiffen, resting a hand on the windowsill under the pretense of moving. But he gets no farther -- by the time she finds his warmth, he is a ball of tension.
By the time her fingers slip between his, the hand that laces tightly with her own is holding on as if he were all but drowning.
"...Joker."
There is an edge in his voice, beyond that which he intended, beyond the authoritative declaration so oft the hammer behind his words. The recognition quickly passes.
"... the betrayal was expected," Shiryuu admits, forcing it past the lump in his throat. "There was enough in our tribute to sink the ship and then some. I should have given in to my first instinct. But ..."
He could still feel the gunmetal against the back of his neck. The fear that he felt was familiar then, a cold creep of mortal anxiety that he'd long since grown accustomed to. Dread, however, that was new.
He only felt it when he'd understood she came.
"...His name was Zakuro," Shiryuu says quietly, his voice small and terse. "An ill-fated shinobi from Nagano with a dead father and a mad mother, loyal and willing to die for a dead man. I offered him a path out..but it didn't matter."
He's distracted; his voice trails off darkly. It's hard for him to concentrate, the hold he has on her hand still snug and tight, to calm the restlessness they see. As if he could do something. As if he could really do anything at all.
"...the worst part of it is... that bullet was meant for me."
It's hard to admit without replaying the moment in his head, against the backdrop of her saying something that he's now no longer listening to, lost in her scent, and remembering what it felt like to think about losing it.
"That bullet was mine. But I was too busy..."
He was too distracted. Maybe even too distracted to care. Did he even care at all? ... was it even a capacity he had anymore? He tries to remember, and all he can feel is grey. Focus. Think about something other than the warmth of her arm against yours. Don't let the world pass you by.
"...it hurt more when I thought you'd been killed."
That place...
Ryouhara says nothing of what that hell-blasted space meant, infested with the ghosts of his past. Instead, the boy turns away from the bay, resting his weight against the sill so that he can take her hand between both of his, folding it between both of his gloved hands, that layer of protection now suddenly an anathema to him. It's a fitting focus for his attention.
"...You're afraid of being seen," Shiryuu thinks, finally.
Once she puts it like that, it's very easy to look at that mad space, and cut away every misery that was his, leaving only...
As if suddenly, painfully cognizant of it, Shiryuu focuses not on her, but solely on the shift of his gloves, the soft play of his thumbs across her skin, the space between her thumb and forefinger. It's an ironic way to not kill or interrogate her.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
It'd make sense for her to leave, Umie thinks. It would be a way to politely end the potential for a relationship that may only escalate as more problems arise. Staying out of pity would be worthless, and staying out of a wish for everything to be rosy again would be even worse.
She's not here to change a man, or to soothe herself by thinking he's the 'best she can do'. She likes him because he's Shiryuu.
They're both damaged people. There's going to be some growing pains, as they, despite being 'adults', have plenty of growing up to do.
"Yes, the guy who helped me." Umie hears that edge, and chuckles in that moment, her fingers squeezing against his, eager for their touch. "I considered the possibility of me just being... overprotective. Neither of us wanted to tangle with Order matters." Her lips dip in a sour expression. "However, he knew things were going south the moment Ruin showed up. They have... history."
His first instinct. "Ruin may have been counting on that to begin with. He seized the moment when he noticed the three of us, but I don't think he planned for it."
Her eyes narrow. "It wouldn't surprise me if his Persona is of something chaotic, like mine is. But I can't even guarantee it's something as straightforward as that. Hiding your Persona like that... I didn't even know it was possible."
'His name was Zakuro.' She becomes quiet, listening to Shiryuu talk about a man she never got to fully meet, and never will.
She thinks of many things she could say, logical tidbits derived from a mind used to having to debate with herself under a dark green sky. However, while her own struggles with her past sins came in handy with helping Joker, here, it's not so much.
"Ruin is an assassin. From the sound of it, Zakuro probably knew even better than any of us what was going to happen next."
It's little comfort, to say that, as she holds onto Shiryuu's hand, listening to the rain.
"If there's anything of him in that place... I can help you bring them back." Her body tenses at the thought of encountering his remains; she takes a steady breath. "You'd think... with my persona being what it is, I'd be all about it. But seeing demons die and seeing people die... it hits different."
'...it hurt more when I thought you'd been killed.' "That's why Ruin went for me. He wanted to establish a narrative, so... I switched the battlefield and went for him emotionally. It nearly worked... but it worked too well."
She blinks when Shiryuu shifts his position, turning around so that both his hands encase hers.
'You're afraid of being seen.'
"...." Her chin bends down, suddenly aware of the bay out there, and the Nichirinmaru, somewhere further beyond.
It takes everything inside her to admit a single answer, now that Shiryuu has seen that fear manifested, written in broad enough strokes to allow Kurou to feel it as well.
"... Yes."
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
Shiryuu's abjectly not interested in Ruin, and it shows in the way his lips tighten, even though his response dangerously sits on the hazy, blurred line between both Ruin and Joker. "A lot of things can be hidden," the boy riles bitterly. "Don't mythologize him."
A lot can change with one phone call.
"It's going to feel dated when he's dead."
Everything feels like it hits a nerve, something raw and deep. He probably knew even better than any of us what was going to happen next, Akabane thinks. The response is immediate, as Shiryuu realizes what she's getting at. No, that's .. "Th... that's it, though," he tries to explain. "It wasn't just..." He was...
Every time he tries to say it, there is nothing but a grey wall. Shiryuu doesn't get to the rest.
"...damn it."
She's talking about it, reasoning with him, discussing it like it were a chess match. It's just like Umie Akabane, so determined to sound confident about it, reasonable. Like it didn't matter at all. She can feel the way his hands move; the rhythm of his touch grows a more anxious tempo, the urge to squeeze barely tempered by his unwillingness to hurt her. His thumb shapes the fine bones of her knuckles; the nicks and cuts of the day's shifts registered only as light vagaries under the smoothed touch of capeskin.
Even so, his reluctance is plain, the unwillingness he has to let go -- even when he gently unthreads his fingers from hers, hand on her wrist to temper the motion until they're separated, until his hands are only a suggestion against her forearms.
The boy's breathing forcibly slows, as she quiets, as the truth dreadfully apparent only to the two of them is admitted to the open air. It's not just a matter of math; he remembers her backing away, wanting to run. He remembers everything it took for them to escape the attention of 'that thing' that even he could recognize.
'Yes,' she says.
Here is when he moves: The grey-headed boy takes a slow step into her, his hands holding onto her arms to keep space between them. He isn't forceful, but firm -- he walks into her, leading her back until he can feel the edge of the bay window's frame press between her shoulderblades with a soft bump. He is gentle, but the wall is less warm than he, despite the thrum of the heater in the bones of the building.
The soft jingle of the tiny, unlatched buckles at the wrists of his gloves carry just barely over the sound of the rain with the minuscule impact.
"...then, stop."
He tells her to stop, and for a little while, the tinny buzz of the lamp that sends blades of muted neon to shape over his figure and hers is the loudest sound in the room. It is plain that Shiryuu prefers to hold her than not; his grasp idly shapes her arms beneath the sleeves of her jacket, down, then up. This close, she doesn't have to meet his eyes, only the split of his own jacket, the tough netting just underneath.
"It's not even just what we saw, in there... it's what we didn't see."
It's so like everything else Shiryuu does; a story told in what isn't.
At first, he's not talking -- his touch tells it purer. His hands are that of a trained killer's, the same as Zakuro, and perhaps worse. He can't feel her the way he'd like with his gloves on, and that small, vagabond ache drives him. It leads his touch to bury into her mantle, laying hands on her shoulders, until his thumbs slide beneath the space between her coat and her skin, as if that alone would mean he could feel her.
It doesn't help -- and madly, he never takes off his gloves.
It shouldn't matter at all. Frustrations stacked atop frustrations spur the boy's grip. If she doesn't get loose of him -- an easy affair -- he'll take her by the shoulders and bump her against the wall again. -bomp.- It's a tiny, final gesture, as if limply, vainly trying to shake any kind of sense at all into that brave, confident, powerful, infuriatingly soft woman.
He absolutely won't take off his gloves. Don't give in. "Irg," Shiryuu complains darkly, the sound coming from deep in his chest. "Why can't I stop loving you. ... dumb ... stupid ... cool ..."
His grip tightening into her jacket, the boy's hair interleaves with hers when he rests his forehead on her, pale grey and ash blonde mixing up into a tangle. All the knowledge in the world, and not a single word would help anything. It'd make sense for her to leave, he thinks. She can still go. She should. He tries to let her; it is a Sisyphean effort, but his grip loosens on her.
"Why would I ever put you in that position again..."
He won't.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
'It's going to feel dated when he's dead.'
Threats of impending death aside, Shiryuu is correct. Despite how much power he exhibits, Ruin was someone who still allowed himself to walk alongside Joker in order to escape the supernatural space they were in. Somehow, they even were able to escape without him killing Joker. Maybe, they were working together the entire time, or more likely, they came to a temporary truce.
Ruin can be mad. Ruin can be affected. Ruin is lonely.
....
No need to go that far in humanizing the man.
Umie tries to walk over the facts and exert logic where her feelings can't reach; it's a natural process, to her, having to do the same with demons and dealing with Shadows, both creatures of emotion.
Emotion can mean weakness, but she is still a creature of emotion, just like the Dark Hour has shaped her life, but she is still a creature that belongs to the day.
Her confidence is as much a mask against the unknowable as her attempts at deriving logic from things that hold none. It was a senseless act of violence that took a life, and she, Shiryuu, Kurou, and Joker were all witnesses to what Ruin is capable of. If melting into the stuff of shadows is a violence of the self, this was a violence of the body, just as graphic, if moreso due to how direct it is.
The squeeze of his hands reward her with the indication to stop, to stop 'fixing' things.
There is no logic, for the things that wound them.
With a step, he has her directed against the window and its frame, the cool of it contrasting with the warmth of his clothing and body.
'...then, stop.'
"What do you think I've been trying--" The hitched, whispered objection is quieted as his hands wander over her shoulders, her arms, while reinforcing that maddening space between them.
There were more things, unseen. Rooms that haven't been visited yet. Secrets and family ghosts. But even in that room itself...
SHe's aware that there's a space left where she can leave. She could even attack him, if she wanted, her hands and arms only limited by the pressure of his hands, wandering as if attempting to smooth out those grains of frustration and emotion.
-bomp-.
She hasn't moved at all; he distance he's reinforced feels like it'd only strengthen with her attempts to close it.
'Why can't I stop loving you.' "I ask myself that too," she says, managing a sharp-edged smile, encouraged to try to close the distance--
Dumb... stupid... cool... "...?!"
Umie's eyes widen, red brown irises on full display.
"... You think I'm... cool?" That momentary shock fragments into a squinty eyed sort of incredulity. "You saw me screw up, and you're *literally* the leader of a clan of ninjas. You're always dressed nice, you smell nice, you're always able to..."
How did she manage that?!
"I ask myself that a lot, too... but it just comes easy, with you," she repeats. "You... really know how to--" Her breath races a hitch as his grip tightens and their foreheads touch, the pale grey contrasting with the tangle of false ash blonde.
SHe just lets herself get lost in that moment of closeness, up until his hands leave her.
Loosening.
She seizes her chance, her hands coming up to curl against his back, drawing him back in.
"Sorry," she whispers, her lips aiming to press against his chest. "I can steal hearts too, you know..."
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
It's really the only time where the tension drains from Shiryuu.
It's maddening. The boy's black jacket rustles with the anxious hold he has on her, all wandering hands and frustrated sighs. He tries to shake it out of her, that brave little impulse of hers to not listen, to run damage control, to manage the unmanageable.
He tries to keep her back, to keep even that breath's space of distance between them, to keep the heightened tension in his bones and blood, to use it to get the point across, to warn her away. Time and time again, that's failed. Even now, as she tries to fight him, as she smiles that half-moon little smile of hers and tries to take advantage of him.
No...
She can go anywhere but closer. Anywhere but there. The leather of his gloves sound lightly against the fabric of her jacket, bound up in her sleeves. 'You think I'm cool,' she asks, incredulous.
She goes on. About his clothes, his heritage, his scent.
"-- you don't get to say things like that, ask those things," Shiryuu insists stiffly, holding her in place for as long as she's inclined.
It takes him a long time to recover, to say really anything at all.
"...you always get back up, no matter how dark it gets," the boy admits, darkly. "You remind me of the moonrise."
Even in the twist of an apple-sweet thought, his voice carries a hidden edge to it. A sharp, broken thought to be stepped on, though its exact shape and detail will be his mystery to her. His expression doesn't match hers, a thin, tight, wan little thing, as if a smile were a shape he didn't quite know how to recall. He tries to avoid falling, though his hands no longer have the inclination. She's trying to say something, but it sounds distant and faraway.
He tried, but...
This close, the scent of the rain is wild in Ryouhara, the same as his heart is a fist in his chest, by the time her kiss finds it. Soft lips encounter no resistance from the heat of his skin, even despite the diamond-link of ballistic mesh meant to protect it from far less dangerous assailants.
She can sense the lightning sensation that creeps up his spine, the young, sharp sound suppressed somewhere in his throat.
An echo of Akabane's voice rolls somewhere along the edge of his attention, fighting for dominance with the feel of her inside his jacket. An apology, he dimly recognizes.
'I can steal hearts too, you know..'
Ryouhara makes a face, halfway hidden against her hair. "That's--" he starts, vexed. "agh...you're such a mess..."
That boy takes her by the shoulders, gently rolling back her jacket, to bunch the hoodie up at her back. The shadow of him lowers into her as he leans in, to press a kiss against her temple, first; then her jawline. Down further, along every inch she cedes as he quietly plucks her jacket down her figure. There is an awkwardness to it -- as close as she is, she'll end up tied up in her sleeves before he plucks it all the way off.
But then, the press of him, all citrus and warmth, is entirely too comfortable with holding her still for long enough to shade a succession of ardent, intimate attentions down the length of her bicep, one kiss for every little tension discharged. "Just, let me..."
His whisper is lost somewhere against her.
He honestly forgets what he was going to say.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
'-- you don't get to say things like that, ask those things.' "I'll say what I want," she says, almost complusively.
With that spark of affection, in her eyes, as she comfortably pushes back, again and again.
And is only stopped when Shiryuu gives voice to those thoughts about her, and only the one that was positive, in a way she could never see in herself.
There are so many people she'd see as being cool, people she even developed crushes on, like Joker. They were also people she could never, ever approach in that light, for whatever reason.
It was only when she could begin to see them as trusted friends that she could begin to find herself as an equal, rather than simply act like one.
'...you always get back up, no matter how dark it gets.' "That's..." That rational, logical part of her wants to object, and offer the many times she nearly gave up, even just earlier. "I..."
She's speechless, in a way she wasn't when he held ending her life as a possibility.
She glances down. "... That's... just because I...."
'You remind me of the moonrise.'
"The... moonrise..."
After so many tries, Shiryuu's weapon hits its mark. Red fills Umie's cheeks, her eyes glancing to the aside.
He's driven her speechless, finally, even if his expression doesn't seem particularly triumphant.
How can he say something like this, Umie thinks. He'll win!
She'll grab victory back... by...
Something like a strategy was there, when she kissed his chest, feeling the beat of his heart. It may be the Badb in Umie who speaks the deadly little words, as his heart beats fast underneath her lips.
Shiryuu can feel the blackbird's grin against his chest, as Umie hides a cheeky smile there, before he begins to roll back her jacket.
By the fifth kiss, she decides to ignore the tally on who is winning, delivering a rain of kisses against Shiryuu's silver hair.