2026-08-14: Cake or Death
- Log: Cake or Death
- Cast: Yua Ijuuin, Shiryuu Ryouhara
- Where: Aoba - Penthouse (Rooftop Pool)
- OOC Date: 2026-08-14 (roughly)
- IC Date: Dec 24 2012
- Summary: Yua invites Shiryuu over for birthday cake, after a long, arduous quest to learn his birthday. After some time of bafflement, he manages to get to territory he understands better: the campaign of secrecy and abuse that's plaguing her. She tells him about Natari attacking her again, and shares the places where she's tried to resist... though she still evidently feels quite powerless. Shiryuu learns the truth of Tyrrha, and Yua insists she's her daughter.
- Content warning: References to domestic violence, medical abuse, sexual assault.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
For some time now, Yua has been on a quest.
"Ne, Kiri-chan, do you know Shishi's birthday? ... you do?! Please tell me! ... eh? You want me to make it up to you? I... I cook yummy treats! Will that do?"
And yet, every time Yua cooked delicious cupcakes, made just for Kiria... she insisted they wouldn't cut it.
... even when she got back from the Blacksite... and went through the motions of making another batch... her answer was the same.
Yua was surprised, but at length she found herself grateful; she would feel worse, she decided, if she were being received with kid gloves. But again, she was out of luck, and again...
... until, finally, she huffed, "oh, then here! I baked cookies for the faculty, but apparently you have a bottomless stomach...!"
Then Kiria was satisfied, and so told her Shiryuu's birthday was already days past.
"WHY DIDN'T YOU WARN MEEEEE?!"
Never mind the crumbling foundations her architecture is built on; never mind the way she weeps at the drop of a hat, still, a week later. Never mind the ways in which she's fractured -- the fault lines where she's broken.
What matters to Yua is that she wanted to give Shiryuu a cake for his birthday.
Not to be dissuaded, she's sent out a request for his audience; she's already made sure he has access to the building, so he won't need to climb up the side again. (Unless--??) She's not there to greet him, tonight... but Tyrrha, her robotic daughter, is.
Whether she meets him at the door or on the balcony, her cheer -- with a hideous grin -- is the same. "Yo, Shihaisha! Yumama told me 'bout ya! Did you know we match?" She asks, dark hands folded behind her wild teal ponytail. "Yeah, before I got a real name, I was 'Shisix', too!"
But -- "... huh, mama? Mimama's in her study, goin' over some security footage for a guy... Yumama's up by the pool waitin' for ya! She wants to see you aloooone, ooooh!!"
Climbing the stairs and opening the fence, one comes to the pool, the pool deck beside it, a long koi pond running along the side...
... and Yua, in a festive red dress down to her ankles, long sleeved and empress-waisted to allow it to fall over her belly with all the proper elegance. (She's twenty-five weeks along, now; one presumes she will soon make use of the deck chairs arranged around.) The night air is crisp from Winter's chill, and Miho, surely, is the one who's ensured she added fingerless gloves and a jacket and a nice warm hat to her ensemble. She has strung a banner from fencepost to fencepost: 'Happy the week after your birthday, Shishi!!' ... except 'happy birthday Shishi' is written in beautiful calligraphy with large font, and 'the week after your' is added in superscript to annotate it. Just like explaining obscure kanji...
There is a basket, on the patio table, large and hand-woven, with bamboo folded out to form handles for easy loading and carrying. (She learned how to add them...!) "Open it, open it!" Yua urges him, gleefully. Inside is a beautiful chocolate-and-strawberries cake; the icing has been layered through it, and slices of strawberries decorate the top, with whole strawberries - sans stems - dotting the edges... plus one of those magnificently massive gift strawberries, painstakingly carefully sliced into pieces and arranged roughly in the shape of the whole at its centre -- albeit with each piece tilted outwards, as if it were an opening flower. It is expertly placed to allow a piece of its majesty to crown the pointy end of each slice.
There are also cute little plates, with cute little spoons laid atop them, and a nice cake-carving knife set out. (Ceramic and steel, not paper and wood, thank you very much.)
"I really wanted to do something for you," Yua explains, once he's had a minute to take the sheer presence of that cake in. "You've been so nice to us... you've really done your best, even when it's been hard. Right now... it's super double important I show my gratitude."
'Right now'...
Something happened, over the past week. His people have surely noticed, trained in the psyche as they are. On the twenty-third, she went to visit her husband, too...
But Yua just smiles, clasping her hands together. "Is it okay...?"
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
"You'd be surprised what I know~"
It was, in fact, only natural that Kiria knew Shiryuu's birthday. It was a recorded matter, but more importantly, Kiria and Shiryuu grew up together in Akita. Of course, it didn't mean she wouldn't kill him if the order came down from the shihaisha -- they weren't THAT close, but Kiria never turned down an opportunity to turn the sleepy city at least a little bit upside down. And everything worked out just fine, anyway -- Shiryuu decided to take over, and now Kiria gets to enjoy going to all kinds of exotic locations and eat all kinds of good food.
But don't mistake it for being a pushover, or lazy. What kind of gossip do they take her for? She's not going to be bribed so easily. "I want those ones," she'd said, outlining a picture of the last set of baked goods that crossed out of Pyramid Plaza, shaping the screen of her phone with a neon-painted nail. Oh, these ones weren't even Yua's. They were some on a passing bakery vendor offloading to a nearby konbini. Oh, those ones were the ones they had at the bake sale. Wait. Is that a picture of a literal pie cooling on a windowsill?
Each time but for that once, the reproduction was immaculate. Or so the story was. Each time, "mmm... not quite," the kunoichi of a hundred colors would judge.
"Delicious, but.. nope. Definitely missing something..."
"I couldn't be encouraged to betray our leader for only that much.."
"Sorry, Ijuuin-chan~ these are great, maybe next time it'll be perfect."
"Mou... are you okay? This isn't quite it. Lacking two things this time~"
And then, it turned out what Kiria actually wanted was to deny someone else cookies, as opposed to having perfect reproductions of baked decadence. "Bingo! These are perfect!" They're not even as fresh. But theft is a heady spice. In fact, Kiria is still absently munching, mouth half full when she's finally obliged to give up the secret. Shiryuu's birthday. Mnh, crunch crunch. "Oh, that was on the 17th." Crunch crunch.
'WHY DIDN'T YOU WARN MEEEE'
"Keh-eheh heh-mmnr," Kiria gloats cattily, mouth still full.
"A kunoichi's grace is like a ruthless maze~" Kiria's voice is musical, somewhere between serious and a lilt, spinning on her heel in a little dance before flouncing away, wielding her tray of cookies with just as much satisfaction as the large debatably-legal neon-splotched katana sheath slung across her back. Off back to her post~ crunch crunch crunch. Oh, right. "Thank you~!"
This of course, leads to today.
Kiria, to her merit, is not entirely insensate to the fact that the primaluna is crying -with much more frequency lately- after her visit to the site they haven't been able to penetrate yet. And despite the fact that Kiria also seemed only to care in the most casual way -- she did, in fact, offer Yua a tie-dyed handkerchief once -- she was in fact, quite dutifully taking notes.
It's why despite everything that's happened elsewhere, her summons was replied to with -an unnerving amount- of shinobi presence.
It's hard to tell, of course, the fact that Shiryuu is actually -driven- to the Plaza this time, and in addition to the flower seller, there's also someone on the adjacent building, watching with binoculars. It's probably for the best that Shiryuu's entry to the upper floors of the Plaza is not contested -- he is much more likely to order the concierges black-bagged and tied to chairs lately than anything more polite.
Being stopped by Tyrrha isn't actually a surprise -- she wouldn't know it, but they've met before, aside from the reports he's received. It does create a moment of almost-awkward silence. No singing for show this time -- the boy regards her in only curious shade of brown. His eye is wrapped up behind a sealed patch, with his mouth almost disappearing inside the standing knit of his sweater collar and the trim of a densely knit black wool jade-ornamented winter cap hiding most of his grey hair. Even so, the boy's remaining eye shines as sharp as the jade pendants hanging from his cap.
'Did you know we match?' His eye narrows. "....Aa?"
The sound is quiet, smooth, unperturbed. But there is an unexpected tilt to his words, as if the revelation wasn't one he was prepared to have. "Shi...six.." He finds himself paying attention to the fine details. Not many people can hear the fine synthesis, but Shiryuu is a trained engineer and audio specialist, listening to her voice filter. A single eyebrow arches, barely visible in the shadow of his cap.
Her teeth don't seem to bother him. The boy makes an observation, instead of answering. "You're a cool customer, aren't you...don't lose that quality.
"I'd like to test your strength someday."
He'll be on his way.
Unfortunately, Shiryuu is prepared for a lot of things. A banner, a cake, and a giant themed surprise is not one of them. "Iiieh??" You can hear him from inside the penthouse. "What even is -- this isn't --" If he had two eyes, they'd cross. It's as if the world turned upside down the moment he stepped outside, and now everything is _very_ festive, and Shiryuu is _far_ too well armed to comprehend it, carrying literally every type of weapon known to ninja hidden on his person, save suspiciously the sword he always carries. He may need a bit of prodding.
You have to understand, Shiryuu's actual birthday was spent looking out a window. "This... isn't fine, is it??" the boy asks, showing a level of mortification that might have registered on the Richter scale. He does, in time, reach out to unwrap the basket. He's tempted to just disappear into his coat entirely, but according to his intel, it's probably best he didn'--
Crinkle crinkle. Crinkle crinkle.
".... o-ichigo." Shiryuu's eye widens to the size of a dinner plate as his white haori takes in a pinkish hue from the reflected light inside the package.
"... it's so big," he whispers in muted awe, encountering envy.
"Wow," Kiria comments, from the other side of the business end of some binoculars, some ways away. She lowers them, squints, and then gasps loudly, going to get her cell phone with glee.
Shikon's going to want to hear about this.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"I-I'll show you a maze!!!" Yua stomps her foot, all puffed up in anger. "Yooooou--!!"
A moment later, though, and she sighs, smiling as she shakes her head. "... I'm glad you like them," and Kiria surely heard it even if she's sinking back into the shadows.
And when Kiria later offered her a handkerchief, from those shadows, Yua isn't even all that surprised to find the kunoichi revealing her private moment is less private than she thought. She makes sure to orient Miho around the way they're helping, pretty frequently... but she's not all that bothered by the protection detail, herself.
She's used to having eyes on her, and she's not the sort of person to notice binoculars in a far window.
(Her security consultant wife, on the other hand...)
Luckily, no black bags -- Yua gave Shiryuu a key. (Which is also something she discussed with Miho, naturally. Of course, it's a keycard, so if Miho disagreed with letting him swipe himself up she could simply change the code.) Just as lucky is Tyrrha... who doesn't see anything unusual with Shiryuu's wrapped eye, because of course Yua keeps one covered, too.
"Heh heh," Tyrrha grins, elbows wagging as she shrugs her shoulders with her hands still folded behind her head. Her merriment is such that her strange red eyes even squeeze shut. "I know about that! It's 'sparring', right? When I find Ryouhara-senpai again, Mimama said I could do that! So you want to too, huh? Cool!" A beat, and she adds: "But we can't fight here," and she advises it quite seriously. "Mimama said no fightin' in the house. Except for Tiger-senpai, he's allowed."
The cat... is her senpai...
Smash cut to Tiger, curled up on Miho's lap in the study, his massive body and magnificent spilling over the edges of the chair, as he raises his head and flicks an ear in response to that distant 'iiieh??'
"Mrah," Tiger says, leaning over to chomp on Miho's cufflink to demand her attention.
Clearly, she's too busy to come save Shiryuu from her house wife.
And Tyrrha's gone back to working on her holiday homework, so she can't help.
That just leaves Shiryuu with...
"The basket!" Yua explains, her happiness unpertubed by having to walk Shiryuu through the process. "Open, open! Open sesame!"
Her fingers veil her lips, as he gapes about how it isn't fine, though they can't quite hide her smile. "You get to decide that," she encourages him, warmly, "but I hope it's okay! I thought if I asked you, you'd definitely just tell me that a shadow has no need to mark the passing of years, or something like that... even though it seems like ninjas don't have birthdays, so you wouldn't even know! Sooo, normally I'd have asked you first... but that's why I asked Mimi and Tykko to stay inside, so it would just be us!"
Yua still doesn't see the binoculars, and when the night's this young, she has no hope of sensing that impish glee.
(How does she know ninjas don't have birthdays? Why, you see, she was taking her own notes, recruiting Kurou to help her make cupcakes. Her analysis: the boy has not received enough baked goods.)
But there -- the cake's great crown, and Yua's smile grows so bubbly it's even reflected in the sparkliness of her portrait. "Mmhm, mmhm! It's the 'cream of the crop'! That means that if you think of most crops as milk, this one is delicious cream! It's a little daring to cook with something like that... but I'm confident in my baking! So, so? Would you like to try it? You get to cut the cake, Shishi!"
Yua claps her hands together, bouncing on her heels --
-- and then realises something, about the outrageously armed boy she's thanking.
"Oh, but there's a cake knife! A knife for cake! It's nice and clean, so we won't get sick, okay? See, see? On the table? There," she points, helpfully.
Please use cutlery and not your murdersword to cut your cake, Shiryuu.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
Yes, luckily. There have been too many black bags needed lately. The recent revelation of a _Ryouhara ninja princess_ dating back to the feudal ages being plastered across the media has left Shiryuu extremely on edge. It's to be expected -- he is a firm proponent of the Ryouhara's 'gokuhi' absolute secrecy policy in ages prior, and most of his work thus far...
...well. It's really a subject for another day, isn't it?
"Make sure to mind your parents," Shiryuu tells Tyrrha promptly on the very edge of what she says. It borders on abrupt, and only the tepid second or two that follows gives the conversation any chance at breathing. "And," he continues, his expression dimming as he steps away, "do well in your studies. Then..."
He never actually finishes his thought, preferring instead to walk away, as if it were all that were needed to be said. (We're sure that's what he thinks.)
Ah, unfortunately, that was a little before all the ruckus.
Unlike Yua, Shiryuu is intensely aware of the price of being caught underprepared for an event of this magnitude. He is also not naive enough to think that this information leak simply comes from nowhere, or that Miho cared enough to try and make a pull of his intel files in the Order.
Shiryuu was actually very good at sanitizing his information footprint, so a leak of this magnitude was inconceivable without a traitor in their midst. This leaves somewhat numb to the halo-like glow of strawberry pink that's settled over him, and furthermore to the stream of excited Okinawa that falls on the dazed boy like a gentle rain, the pupil of his one eye dilating.
"Eeh...." he manages. "Incredible.."
It's so big.
Even so. He's going to tie Kiria upside down off an edge of Iizuna.
But apparently not before Shikon hears all about how a strawberry you can see from space has rendered the shihaisha speechless.
Well, it only is acceptable if he allows it? Shiryuu doesn't comment on it jst yet, and instead the little charms from his knit cap jingle at his temples as he tears his eyes off the pinkish glow to Yua.
Her dress matches the cake... "...ano, Yua, I mean, is it really okay for you to be -- your body, you should be resting, not doing all of this, aa?"
The boy's eye then snaps up to the banner, as if the point being made therein. There is the sense his eyes are much faster than his mouth, and he's noticing too many things at once to render commentary on them all. "I mean, it's not a problem if a shinobi doesn't have... eh.."
Wait, where _did_ she hear about all this?
is hand raises to his waist as he regards the cake. Hopefully she didn't get ahold of any anime. Shiryuu doesn't know how to turn into a slime, or manifest goo, or poison someone with his...
Oh, there is one thing he does know. "H-hey," Shiryuu complains, not misssing the subtext. "I'm not so uncouth so as to just cut this up with my jutsu," he says, sheathing something at his waist imperceptibly. "What kind of bakemono have they been telling you I am."
He picks up the cake knife instead, making a tiny noise of exasperation before uttering a thanks to the kami before putting the knife into the cake, and breaking into that powerful strawberry. He's actually good with a cake knife too, and cuts Yua a piece first, balancing a wedge on the flat of the knife before transferring it to the plates, purposefully not paying attention to the cuteness. Focus, Shiryuu.
He does test out the balance of the ceramic blade once or twice before cutting a piece for Miho, and Tyrrha, and then himself. Hmm.
"...aa. I suppose... ah.. thanks..."
So, the thing to notice is that Shiryuu's slice is _razor thin_. If it were a tomato, the slice would be transparent.
It also unfairly prioritizes the big part of the strawberry, on an unrelated note.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Yua's had to gossip about that news, here and there. Her attitude has always been, "... really? Ninja? Um, isn't that... a little fanciful...? Not even we're that old fashioned..."
Technically, that's not even a lie: the Ijuuin aren't a ninja clan.
... unless Tyrrha counts. She grins, cheerfully, and agreeably chirps: "Yup, yup! No worries!" ... does she even realise that he's edging on abrupt? She doesn't seem bothered in the slightest... but she doesn't follow him, either.
After all, she's minding her parents, and Yua said this was a Shiryuu-only event!!
"Isn't it so pretty?" Yua bubbles, cheerfully. (She's so cheerful... she'd probably tell Shiryuu where she learned this if he just asked.) Her smile warms, as Shiryuu worries over her so personally, a hand coming to rest at her belly. "Don't worry," she assures him. "This isn't even close to the most taxing thing I'm doing. I have a chair in the kitchen, so I can sit down whenever I need to! Besides, I'm still second trimester for a few weeks... they say this is mama's most productive time!"
Yua sparkles, helpfully.
"And even if it's not a problem, it's nice sometimes, right?" Yua asks, tilting her head. "Don't worry, I'm sure you won't get used to it! You're super disciplined! Ummm, though I might have made it so Kiri-chan's going to expect sweets from now on..." Yua tilts her head up, tapping at her cheek, thoughtfully. God damnit, she told him where the information leak was even before he asked????
WHY IS HER INFOSEC ALMOST AS BAD AS HER DAUGHTER'S
She giggles again, merrily, as Shiryuu complains of being accused of bakemono behaviour. "Hee hee...! Okay, okay! Shishi's good at cutting cakes, too!"
And as it happens, he is. "Thankyu~!" Yua chirps, as she takes her slice, and pops it down on the side of the table as she lowers herself down onto one of the deck chairs around it. (One of the ones for sitting, not lounging, so she has a hope of getting up again.) "Mm, mm! I'll bring these down for Mimi and Tykko once we're done! Thankyu, thankyu~ you're generously sharing your cake~!"
She smiles, warmly, seeing Shiryuu's razor-thin cake slice -- plus a slice of big strawberry. "I'm really happy you like it," she says, with less energy but no less warmth. "Try it... I think I did really well!"
(Yua has, of course, taken her pills to make mealtime easier before Shiryuu came up.)
The flesh of the cake is lovely, light, and fluffy; the chocolate and strawberry flavours blend in a manner which doesn't so much border on delicate so much as live in its capital city. The chocolate is smooth, but there's a crisp, fresh hint of crunch to the strawberries which makes the topping an interesting variation.
And Yua watches attentively to see how Shiryuu takes it before she has a nibble of her own, and declares: ".... mm! Yummy!"
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
Shiryuu blinks, giving Yua a look. "Far from the most taxing," he repeats, though he doesn't seem to evince an opinion one way or another. His tone and glance carry that burden, instead.
He's aware of what she's getting into -- it doesn't mean he entirely prefers it in her condition. Not to mention the other concerns..
It's probably for the best he received the information about the leaks from Nahara, one of the more well connected shinobi in the clan. It obviated the need for him to capture one of his workmates whose chatter around the Harai site led to a few chuckles and a friendly elbow or two. Shiryuu might have the same last name, but the new guy on the crew and consummate music nerd couldn't -possibly- been the same family that the Ryouhara and the Akabane have, right? It's like having the last name Sanada, they'd mused -- there's a few descendants of the famous clan out there, but the relevance of having the same last name doesn't mean a lot anymore? One, two strokes, and the kanji is entirely different, right? Just like the Sanada.
Ironically.
Despite being able to keep his mouth shut during that entire discussion, Shiryuu's ability to avoid flying off the handle about the entire matter bordered on heroic. (Not that everyone escaped being the target of a kidnap order. Don't get things confused.) It does mean that right now, Shiryuu's dim-eyed look eats up the lion's share of his objections, especially as Yua concedes the point of him not being a wild beast who destroys cakes at will.
Sometimes, for what he does, it's hard to not be misunderstood -- but the glower Shiryuu gives off to the far distance suggests that he is in fact a wild beast in certain circumstances.
"Aw come on-- she didn't just--" Kiria sets down her binoculars, as Shiryuu looks at her hard enough to melt them. "He doesn't even have both eyes to give me that dirty of a look," the kunoichi groans to herself quietly.
The grey haired boy is wiping the blade off with a napkin by the time Yua spies his plate, settling into one of the loungers. Shiryuu takes great care to cover the other slices, ostensibly to keep the texture fresh for when he takes them inside. Setting the knife politely down on the plate set out for it, she'll note that most of what Shiryuu does is almost entirely nonverbal -- the way he looks up briskly when she spurs him to try it, the somewhat dazed affect of the boy when she bubbles at him. "...aa..."
Despite being fast as lightning, It takes Shiryuu a -long time- to get ready to eat, holding the cake as if it were literally the first time he'd ever held a plate in all his life. To his merit he does sit, taking a seat on one of the loungers as opposed to standing around awkwardly.
It's the wrong lounger, though -- and his absolute refusal to lounge leaves him to perch precariously on the distal edge. It's fine.
On the other hand, there is a soft chime as he slips off his wool cap, the tiny charms hanging from it belling gently before being muffled against the dense fabric and leaving his hair to tumble out haphazardly. Shiryuu also makes a point to fold down the collar of his sweater as well -- it'd be hard to eat without ruining it. It's all very premeditated.
Shiryuu does give her a suspicious look about halfway through, a fast, awkward, watchful look, to make sure she's not watching him about to eat. It'd be too -- !!
Shiryuu manages to dither for a few more minutes, looking around dangerously and scanning his surroundings. It's only when he's satisfied that the shihaisha quietly lifts the plate to his chin with both hands and takes a tiny sniff, then a deeper inhale of the strawberry scent.
"...mmm."
It may simply be his preference for sharp food, as he carefully clips a piece of cake off of the very tip with the edge of a spoon, as precise a cut as he can take with the rounded edge of a spoon. That spoonful disappears into his mouth as the boy quietly samples the cake -- finally, after a whole forever. His eye closes, as his mouth moves around the flavor subtly.
A tiny swallow.
His mouth opens.
".... approved," Shiryuu decides quietly.
It's like a jiggle cake sando with a bright crunch. Magnificent.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Kind of like the last name 'Aragaki', huh? Yua might have thought the boy who refused to come back to school for so long was an islander like her, if she didn't know how he wrote it...
Yua, of course, doesn't know anything about why the Ryouhara's princesses are being publicised right now; but she can presume it's enemy action, with how secretive they are. Thusly has she strived to insist, whenever the conversation turns that way, that ninjas aren't real.
... and she has, as ever, tried not to look directly at Umie, for Shiryuu's sake.
Even if other people in their organisation may well have already noticed the kunoichi-hime.
Where one is looking has power, after all. Like the way she glances aside, to smile, and reassure him: "Don't worry about all that." She knows why he'd repeat her reassurance back to her in disbelief... but it's not good cake conversation.
(A thing she may well need to educate Kurou in, one day.)
She catches Shiryuu looking off into the distance, though, and tilts her head as she looks off in the direction of the building. "Huh? What's wrong?" She asks; she still hasn't seen Kiria. "... oh! You're worried that she told me, right? Don't be too hard on her, Shishi," Yua urges him, her hands clasping in front of her. "I was very stubborn, and... I kind of needed something to distract myself."
But there, the cake -- and his silence about it! Yua watches as he evaluates the cake, only to hurriedly look down at her own slice and hum a "hm hm hm~ o`" as his gaze shoots over to her to make sure she's not looking. She wasn't looking! (She was totally looking.)
She's still listening, though. And she hears him remark positively, once and once again, and it's when he speaks it that she turns her bright smile to him again. "I'm so happy!" She chirps, and nibble, nibble, nom... "Missinom... success!"
did she really just smash the word 'nom' into the ass end of 'mission'
"I tried to use ingredients which wouldn't spoil too quickly," she says, "so it should be okay in the fridge for, mm, five days or so...? But if you want to keep it longer, cut it into slices and freeze them! Did you know that trick?" Yua asks, with all the bubbliness of her special interest. "If you freeze cake, it lasts for ages! I'd still eat it in a few months, though... because if something is frozen a long time, it can get burned by the ice, so it doesn't taste as good."
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
"Ihh," Shiryuu objects wordlessly at first, casting a gossamer look over Yua like a fine blanket at being told not to worry about it. The important thing to remember is that Shiryuu is not at all built for cake conversation, at any level.
He is also carrying enough weapons right now to feel comfortable starting a fight with Izuna. There is that. It sort of adds weight to the matter, psychologically.
"It's my purview..." at least, it is for the time of their involvement, though Shiryuu stops just shy of pressing the matter, though only out of momentum and not from any sense of preservation -- it is one thing Shiryuu seems to feel strongly about consistently, the intersection of children and responsibilities. Having a hand taken off the wheel simply isn't in his DNA, it seems.
Speaking of.
Shiryuu's eye shutters once, as he turns away from the skyline at Yua's guess. "Shinobi are supposed to be better at withstanding interrogation," he reasons, ominously not mentioning Kiria's fate. "We can't just give up whatever information whenever it's convenient. What happens when some villain starts going around asking questions..."
Or spreading around information that doesn't belong to them. Hmph.
Shiryuu is looking back down into his plate in due time, sizing up the absolutely out of control platter of strawberry he's selected for himself curiously, carefully cutting his cake into pieces once he's satisfied he's not under any unsanctioned surveillance. It does give him some time to listen quietly, sectioning out the cake and -- perhaps -- enjoying another bite.
"Mm. .... missinom..?" he wonders at no one in particular. "Like... a missile? ... ohh.." He supposes not. Mission does seem to fit better. At least, when it's her saying it.
He doesn't think Yua has access to any missiles.
The last bit prompts a sharp look from Shiryuu. In the freezer? Like ... to be reheated? "That's..." Shiryuu starts tersely, not knowing what to make of it.
Is that a thing people do with cake? It seems very much like an Umie thing.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Luckily, Yua has gotten really good at coaxing people who aren't built for cake conversation into cake conversation.
"Mm... cake first, okay?" Is how she demurs his purview, though it is not, strictly speaking, a closed door.
... she feels strongly about it, too.
She does tilt her head, though, as she says: "But I was the villain asking questions, so isn't it fine?" Which says an awful lot about how Yua identifies herself.
Speaking of unsanctioned surveillance --
Cake first!
"Mission... nom! Nom mission!" Yua illustrates, cheerfully, and has another bite. "They're very serious," she relates, gravely, though it is of course the kind of seriousness which is deeply unserious. "Sometimes nom is very hard. So it's very important each nom be the nommiest!"
She sees his sharp look, and giggles. "When you want to eat a slice, you put it back in the fridge to defrost overnight," she explains, kindly, and does not at least laugh during her explanation. "Have you ever bought a cheesecake from the supermarket? Did you see how it's frozen? It's still a cake, even though it goes in the freezer and you defrost it when you want to eat it... it's the same idea with this!"
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
Shiryuu peers at Yua closely, but doesn't otherwise object, instead looking back down to his cake. It's definitely something he does in lieu of satying things -- cake or no cake, the boy acts as if he's decided what to say and what not to say at the beginning of each encounter, as if words were something that could be packed up in a bag and brought with you wherever you go.
In the absence, there is at least cake.
"Noms..." Shiryuu thinks aloud, studying a slice of strawberry intensely. He's familiar with it, but it isn't the sort of word he's used to encountering a lot. It's very saccharine, and it shows in the way Shiryuu is attempting to stay on target, between spoonfuls of cake.
It really is fluffy...
But none of this holds a candle to the absolute blank look Shiryuu has on his face when Yua attempts to explain to him what cakes are like from the store, and she can see where he is genuinely attempting to make the connection. "But that's a whole cycle ... doesn't that cause it to go rancid? Or deflate? Or something? I'm sure I've read something about it somewhere." Maybe it's that it causes cancer? "I'm suspicious of that..."
Shiryuu does not eat a lot of cake, apparently. Nor buy it from anywhere where it's not given as a single serving.
"Is there some sort of special fridge or wrapping?"
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"Noms!"
The reports of Yua are quite dire, but right now, at least, she seems quite cheerful...
... deliberately so.
She smiles, seeing him worry about the fridge. "The big thing that spoils cakes is air," she says, "because it dries them out! So you want to wrap them in beeswax wrap, or plastic wrap, or put them in airtight containers... that way they stay nice and moist! I cut some beeswax paper and put it on the sides of my basket," she adds, "so you won't have to go looking... remember to put the wrapping on the part of the cake that's been cut out, too! Mm, the strawberries will be a little sadder if you freeze them," NOT THE STRAWBERRIES, "but since strawberries really want to be refrigerated, anyway, I made this with oil instead of butter so it wouldn't go hard. It's important to think ahead like that if you're making cake! Like, glazes can sit out at room temperature for ages, but if you use eggs when you're making a glaze cake, you'll still need to refrigerate it to avoid salmon... salmon... salmon ether!"
(Salmonella.)
"But you can leave it in the fridge for a few days," she assures him, too. "Just any normal fridge will do! It will be freshest for the first two or three days, but it's still okay for a day or two after that. If you just keep it in the fridge, it won't change too much! Just maybe a little damp, as the fillings soak into the sponge..."
Yua smiles, gesturing towards Shiryuu with her spoon. "But of course, cakes are for eating! So eat it fearlessly, Shishi! If you're sad when it's gone... I can bake you another! That's my true power!" She smiles so brightly, she just about sparkles.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
Shiryuu blinks once. He really didn't know much about cooking in general -- or rather, what he did know was vanishingly rare and not put into practice very often. And most of how he was raised didn't involve any of this; the concept of wrapped beeswax does ring slightly true in his ear from his own particular single-serving life.
But to ruin the strawberry still does not sit right with him.
Inconsolable, Shiryuu doesn't even seem to consider the idea that 'eating all the cake' is even an option. The boy slowly rotates the plate in his hands, some sixty degrees at a time, pushed in opposing directions by his thumbs until the plate's made one full turn. Two.
"... I guess I've just not had people .. make cakes that often."
He looks down at the razor thin slice thoughtfully -- or more appropriately, what's left of it. Is it a normal thing for people to do on their birthday? It doesn't .. 'feel' .. normal. His hair drops over his eye. "'tte..."
"... salmon ether sounds powerful. but I wouldn't want it in a cake."
This much he knows -- as someone who's had a certain someone's fridge fumigated multiple times despite her best interests in poisoning herself, Shiryuu is intimately familiar with the dangers of salmonella. But he is also cursed with a sidetracked mind, and the idea of fish ether is too much to avoid commenting on. He's still looking down at his cake, though.
It's her true power?? "...Fearsome," the boy thinks, a bit awed before he picks himself up. "But... it'd be too much, even for you, to do something like this for me."
The shihaisha's eye rises, cutting a sharp glance below his eyebrow. A second, two.
"Yua. It's supposed to be 'me' who goes out of their way. That was the agreement... right? I can't bake a pretty cake but... that's not my power, either." He has other talents. ... far less adorable ones.
Shiryuu does glance at the ground, as if expecting one of the sparkles to have landed there as the beginning of a glittering mess.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"There's a first time for everything!" Yua chirps, brightly. "Making room for cake doesn't mean you're not still handling a lot of really important stuff, you know? It just means you also get tasty cake! Why not share some with Ryouhara-kun?" Kurou, contextually. Shiryuu is too old to be a -kun, now. Definitively!
"It makes you very sick," Yua educates Shiryuu on the topic of salmon ether. "Especially when you're nurturing a baby... it's very important my eggs are cooked right! But I don't have to worry about that," she adds, smiling to him. "The places we go to eat are all very nice, very skilled... and Eiko-san is very good! Hee hee, I am, too!"
Yua can brag a little. She's very proud of her culinary skill.
There, though, his gaze cuts, and he finds her smiling, her cheer dimming to something kinder. "I know," she says, gently. "You're terribly worried about me... I really do appreciate it. But I'm so powerless in so many ways, right now... at least if it's making someone who's working so hard to protect me a delicious treat, that's something I can do."
She is quiet, here, for a moment, as she gently reaches over to place her emptied plate back on the table.
She is conflicted.
In another life, could she have given him birthday cake without such a grim spectre overshadowing it...?
"... it happened again," she relates, quietly, with only one life in this wretched world to live. "I, um... I did a rape kit, this time, but... Kimi-san was angry, when he heard I had proof, too, so he said he'd make it disappear. Um, since I tried to tell him that was the last time, but... she'd taken photos, and... he had a copy, so... he said he'd spread them if I told, so we'd be ruined in everyone else's eyes, not just... internally."
She tries to smile, again, but it's thin.
"... I've been recording it, too, but... well, I was lucky I could tell him something else, when I almost said it... I think he might have really hurt me if I really had something."
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
"Ryouhara...-kun.."
The idea of a gift for the person who is ironically his closest subordinate was a confusing one for the boy. 'What kind of leader do you want to be,' was the question posed. It wasn't a question, at least in this axis, that Shiryuu had a good answer for.
"I think... he'd like it too," he says, implicitly agreeing with her talent, but in that directionless, awkward little way of his, the way he gets whenever something that reminds him of 'kizuna' comes up.
Even now, a box is sitting on the desk in his room at the hotel across the street from Harai, ungiven as of yet.
Even now, in this situation, there remains an open question for the boy in grey, a central one that keeps that plate rotating slowly in his hands.
But... focus. Nerves are soothed with determination and purpose. Life isn't really about silly things like that, is it... not when there are other things like...
Maybe a life three lives away would be far enough. Far enough that cake could just mean something sweet.
To contrast, while Shiryuu's finished most of his cake, the plate still sits in his lap as idle busiwork for his hands, and they only still when she says this thing. 'It happened again.'
It's a very kind way of describing it.
"...I know."
The boy says it quietly, with the tenor of someone with a lot of spies and the ability to add variables together. Everything prior...
Just a distraction. "...I'd hoped differently."
There is an awkward pause that follows. "...sorry."
His thumbs rest on the plate now, holding it in place with its little crescent slivers of cake and berry remaining atop, the curved shapes necessitated by the clean cuts of a spoon. He's studying it, that exact shape.
Even subconsciously..
"It's lucky, I suppose... we've not been able to get someone inside Blacksite, yet." Of course Shiryuu's been looking into the matter, ever since Yua first mentioned it. But with the man called 'Para-Mind' off limits, their ability to penetrate an entire black boxed facility without arousing suspicion was not feasible. At least, not in a fashion that would have maintained the carefully cultivated neutrality that is at Yua's pleasure for the time being.
Shiryuu did say that mentioning 'that woman's' name would be enough.
The boy shifts finally, almost having forgotten his discomfort, to set the plate at the table. He glances at her once -- twice as she says she's been recording, but the thought is quickly replaced with the idea that she could have been badly hurt. "...ch," Shiryuu remarks, darkly. "Even a loser has the ability to choose the way they die, I suppose."
The implication is that Kimitake would probably not be long for this world if he actually carried through on most of the despicable things he's threatened. Even disregarding the inevitable (Miho) Ijuuin and Ryouhara response, it can be boiled down simply to its most dispassionate: There is a consequence to breaking Order assets.
"..but, Yua-san. Is it really okay to keep going on like this," Ryouhara thinks finally, pulling some of his haphazard hair out of his eye with a hand. He's beginning to think about it in a different fashion. She did tell him it was going to be the last time, he didn't make a mistake of not noticing. His eye rests on that plate still, between glances to her.
"...any sliver of moonlight is only a day or two away, even from the blackest sky, right?"
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Yua hums, encouragingly, when Shiryuu realises that Kurou also likes cake.
But then --
Pray, don't call it a distraction.
The thing about birthday cake is -- it's survival.
And the thing she's surviving keeps leaking out the edges; at least if she tells Shiryuu, she hasn't damned a pure soul. "Me, too," she says, softly, to his hopes.
"Me, too."
(A phrase with two applications.)
And she may be queen of the night, but she is yet bound; her swipe card might grant her access to the Blacksite, but even then, she doesn't get far before it bars her entry and insists on an escort. 'You can always go home' -- perhaps that's the message?
Back home... to be processed for parts.
With a moment's hesitation, she lifts her hand up, to pull a comb from her everpresent hair bun. "Ah --?" she says, as she holds it out and finds she won't be able to hand it to him without getting up, the sentence ending a touch unexpectedly on the rising tone of enquiry.
When he takes it, he will find a beautiful comb, with understated, elegant ceramic flowers at the handle of the comb. It doesn't look out of place at all... though what she's said, at least, may prompt him to scrutinise it with a finer-toothed comb than its traditional shape, to find that the centre of one bloom has the lattice of a microphone hidden in plain sight. Turn it around, and beneath a discreet rubber stopper to protect it from her hair's oils, a cable port has been hidden on the inside of the comb, where it buries in her teal display.
"... Kimi-san doesn't like women," Yua says, softly, glancing down. "So he'd never think to look twice at my decorations... security at the lab didn't think much of it, either, since the woman who's hurting me," who she evidently still can't bring herself to refer to beyond gesturing at the space she occupies, "already said I'd show up looking nice. My seishitsu got it for me," she adds, her smile returning for a ghost's breath as she thinks of Miho, "though... she doesn't know I'm recording him, too."
And of course it would be Miho who furnished something this advanced for Yua; she definitely doesn't have the kind of head for this business. ... or at least, she did not.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
She grasps at her heart, as she reclines back again. "... he showed me those photos... and asked me who I thought they'd believe. That... that actually hurt more than... than him shoving me into the door. How he called me... awful things, and... and he said Mimi would pay for it. He said she'd be really hurt by not seeing it... I'd ruin the marriage, and... and if I ran home, I'd get in the way, since they were having a date back home, so... so I stayed over like we planned, um... so I wouldn't get in the way..."
Is it strange that the thing which makes her cry is how he responded to what he'd engineered?
Well, we're leaving out all the nights Miho's had to spend soothing Yua's tears over sleeping.
... if some manner of tissue or handkerchief happens to appear by her hands, she can at least use that to manage the issue.
"... I did something bad," she sniffles, at length. "It was... all very heavy, so... so when Kotoba," Hana Fukami, one of Yua's newer friends, "asked what was going on, I really just told her everything... I feel terrible, she's not even like us, I just -- just doomed her for no reason, just -- selfishly -- I thought I could bear it, but Tykko asked me if I resented her, like, like I wished I'd never brought her from that place and -- and it's not her fault, my sweet baby, oh, but how can I explain -- oh," and here, again, more tears. "My baby girl...!"
Monster or not, Yua's stepped up as her mother.
She at least -- give her this much credit -- chokes down her tears so the people below won't catch on so easily. And, at length, she recovers again, and wipes her tears. "Ah, so... it's difficult to bear it," she admits, her smile thin-lipped but trying. "But I must carry on. I... I know I can't do anything, but I just... I think, if I can do something, maybe it's easier. It's... it's easier when I go to that woman thinking, I must learn the truth from her so I can help my daughter... and I even did, you know? Even if it's 'top secret'... not many people think about that when... their clothes are off." She shakes her head, slightly. "Maybe it means Kimi-san is right about me... but at least I'm... doing something. When I can't do anything... there's so much in life I can't do anything about..."
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
It is true in a fashion, as Shiryuu navigates the moment in reft silence. There is no real 'harm' in telling a murderer like the Shirogarasu the ill truth about the world -- it's a thing already known and for good or ill the boy's expression is flat, showing no ounce of anger. The way he speaks is cooling, though it would be inaccurate to paint the boy as _indifferent._
There are other people whose 'bond' instinct would be whole, who would rail harder against the injustice. The derision Shiryuu feels is plain writ in the firm press of his mien, and in many ways his awkwardness is some kind or form of compassion, as one would expect.
But the notion does haunt him; were he already not a killer, would he still think about killing these people so simply? Is exceeding that limit in response to high crime the 'nature of a bond?'
The tiny click of a hammer resounds somewhere in his memory, and the boy visibly flinches before coming to regard the now.
"...?" When she removes the comb from her hair, Shiryuu's attention is drug to the fore and away from Kimitake, the boy looking up briefly before it occurs to him she is offering it for his inspection. Naturally, he takes the opportunity to stand -- though there is no part of him inclined to demand that she stand, no longer having to balance on a lounger specifically not made for sitting upright is also a bonus.
"A meticulous craftsmanship," Shiryuu remarks, turning the kushi end over end. "Our ninkou, Kikushinkyokushuki, is similar," he mulls, though he does not at all explain what that mouthful of a term actually is. Instead, his mind latches on the word 'seishitsu,' a tiny look and a smile halfway between bewilderment and bemusement crossing his face.
For some reason, he seems more familiar with the term than he is with cake. Because of course he is.
"..Yua."
The word comes slowly, on the far side of her despair. Shiryuu doesn't sit again, instead crouching down so that he can rest his elbows on his knees, and even in a crouch his height is not at all tamed. He produces a light sea green kerchief from the inside of his haori, untying it from its knot. He actually eschews a napkin at all, though there are plenty nearby. The little bit of silk he gives to Yua is actually purpose brought for her, with an absorbent inner lining to offset the delicate, soft feel.
"It's easy to command a facade for the people that don't matter, we do it every day, faking a pleasantry when we really mean the worst ill unto them," Shiryuu mulls. "They deserve little more of our time or thought, and buy every fate that befalls them with their lying teeth."
"...but, it's harder to remain that type of soldier when our 'bonds' are involved, I think."
Shiryuu laughs, just a little, humorlessly turning the comb over once more in an idle hand, subconsciously. "It's cruel, I think. The people who most deserve our 'smile' are the ones least able to get hold of it..."
"At any rate. We're braver for it, I think..."
At this point, Shiryuu reaches up to tuck the ornament snugly back into Yua's hair delicately, an attempt to soothe the woman. "... but 'that man' isn't at all worth an ear," he thinks. "It's a miserable affair, but one with no rules. We would have done the same in your position."
Noticeably, Shiryuu isn't asking her what she found out yet.
He knows her well enough to know that she is a fountain of information that doesn't require an ingracious interrogation.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Yua would sooner believe that a pig could fly than that Shiryuu is indifferent.
(She sees the flinch; cannot fathom its precise origin, but knows that her pound of feathers is no lighter than his pound of steel.)
She smiles, though, seeing his bemusement. "Mimi," she explains, gently. "She wanted to be official, too. She knows a lot about stuff like this... she showed me how to look like I was adjusting it when I pushed the little button." There is, indeed, a little button. "Since she knows so much, though, I need to hide the stuff with Kimi-san outside the house... so I'm taping the data stick to the inside of the cash register."
So she --
Does she --
does yua think she's outsmarted all the monsters around her with a trick like that
(Give her some credit: Yua's plan is foolproof, sans her loose tongue, for one solitary reason.
None of the monsters around her would actually suspect her of subterfuge.)
There, though: there, again, her name, and so gently. There are plenty of napkins -- nice napkins, too, cute and fancy, none of this four hundred yen for a stack of fifty at the bargain store -- but Shiryuu has something much fancier: a kerchief made for her tears. "Nice feel," she sniffles, with a little smile, as she dabs at her eye; and, indeed, he'll catch her fingers rubbing at the soft texture when her tears are taken care of.
"Mm... I felt selfish, since I was making friends..." Yua sniffles, still, but she's able to say that much without bawling. "Mimi says I gotta make them, like, um, like she's got Ogawa-san, from her team...? And Iwabuchi-san -- I actually see her in flower arranging sometimes, too," which must mean that's a housewife, "... oh, and Mitani-san and Yamagumi-san? The movie people? Like that...? But... when people don't know, it's... it's hard." She smiles, a little self-effacing, ad she adds: "Actually, I think I might not be very good at it... since the only reason I got closer to Kotoba was that she knew Kimi-san enough to be worried about me... and, mm, I've tried to make some other friends, but, like, like Nobumizu works for us, she's the woman we rely on for getting packages we really need... I'm sure my elder sister would tell me I should make friends with people I'm not paying."
(Ritsuko isn't even just being a rich snob saying that, either; rather, she's far more aware than Yua of the unequal power dynamics and potential to get people hurt. Part of an honourable samurai tradition is of course being aware of one's strength; when people of the merchant class was raised up to join a samurai's house, their families needed to be properly compensated.)
Her head tilts forward, to let Shiryuu seat the comb back in its rightful place; he can observe, as he does, the way it looks so unlike surveillance. Even examined close up, the disc floret of the her sunflower simply appears to be richly textured.
"It's hard not to listen to him, sometimes," Yua says, quietly. "But... but I managed to tell Mimi, um... well, not that he was saying it, but... I told her how I felt like... you know, like those women from the red light district." She's referring to sex work. The term which is bothering her so much is probably not nearly as neutral in form. "Mm... and those recordings... I could show her the one from the Blacksite, so... I think I probably forgot some important stuff, but this way it's not for nothing. I do feel really bad... making her listen to something like that, but... I-I tried," she insists, her tone wobbling a touch, "but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Even when Kimi-san showed me just that little recording... hearing my voice, and the other one, I... I really felt sick."
... which means Miho has the information she learned from Natari, too.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
"Mimi-- ieh.. Miho," Shiryuu recognizes. "I wouldn't have thought her ability included techniques of this level. Our sponsors should do better to mind their excesses."
The idea that she's hiding the data in the register leaves the boy tepid. Of course, could he really had been bold enough to think that even Kiria would think to check the register after her looking for subterfuge, themselves? The thought is somewhat sobering, and Shiryuu's dim-eyed expression betrays a hint of that plain bewilderment.
Shiryuu's hands drop away after only a moment's hesitation, the young man's fingertips disappearing beneath the sleeves of his falling haori. He'd let her have the handkerchief -- it was sewn and selected for the visit specifically, so by the time Yua's recovered enough to comment on it, Shiryuu's crisp nod is enough to discharge it entirely to her.
Not quite a gift, not like the cake... but a symbol of the clan's foresight and favor alike.
"...I don't know much about 'bonds,' you know," he reminds her lightly, after she muses on the nature of friends. His eye, still so half-lidded, trades a glance towards her, her own 'eye' wrapped the same as his. But..
"...I start to think sometimes that perhaps friends aren't for the peerless. I start to think on that poor boy, forever and long ago, who strove so hard only to end up alone. I sometimes wonder how his story would have ended if he'd had just a little more time."
"...mm."
Fingertips rise from the edge of one sleeve, rolling the air on and along. "No.. you should make bonds with who you like. Even if they're an 'incontrovertible enemy of your masters,' it's permissible. Even if all-out battle is necessary. A strong bond ... will be tested. Even if it's someone who is paid by you. Shouldn't your goodwill result in a windfall for those around you? The idea that a 'bond' has to be a certain class of person..."
He shakes his head slowly.
"...again. Who decided that to be the case?"
It makes perfect sense that Shiryuu's sense of honor is not at all based in orthodox bushido. It's hard enough to live in this world as a terrible force.
"Iie."
"Even if it was a matter of being 'yujo,'" he says finally and at once to address her feelings neutrally, using an old word for an older profession. "It doesn't matter... one should always strive to live on in ambition, to surmount one's enemies via any means. These illusory notions are things decided by men of 'weak stomachs, poor brows.' It is reasonable to think the stigma of a woman's world was invented by powerless tyrants to share in their misery..."
His fingertips raise to his mouth, curled lightly,
"...But. We are at your hand still, if it's your wish that Miho receives that information that gives you distaste."
He's a lot to speak with the Ijuuin heiress about, even absent that. In all truth, Shiryuu doesn't expect Yua to need that third party, but the offer remains made, even so.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Oh, it may well be that Kiria knows Yua was the one to hide it there; Yua doesn't have Miho's abilities, after all, even if she's been given a very nice comb.
But if it's the queen's will...
"Mimi's the best!" Yua chirps, happily ignorant of any of that, her cheer returning to her as she remembers her favourite person. "She'd do anything to keep me safe!"
That cheer does dim, a little, as she says it and reflects in that moment how Kimitake has weaponised it... but it's still remarkable, really, how happy Yua can be speaking of Miho even in the darkest of conversations.
Still... with a little more time...
Yua reaches out, to rest her fingers against that sleeve of his, gently. "I think you know more than you think," she says, quietly.
"Mm... and... by the end..."
Her dark fingers curl, into the fabric of his haori; for him to have rested his great height upon his haunches on her sighted side means that the hand nearest him will have that black fabric decoration stretched over the back of it, not quite a glove.
"... they made this hood for me," she relates, her voice growing a touch distant. "Over my head... well, half my head... and I can't see anything, or hear anything, or smell anything. Not like my eyepatch, like... different. They thought if they cut me off from this world, I'd see... what they wanted me to see. And for a long time... well, I don't know what they would have done if they thought it was working. Luckily, Mimi rescued me, so... well, that's why Mimi has to tell me it's good to have friends, right...?"
It's not quite ending up alone... but in another sense, it very much is.
'Yujo', though; Yua knows what it means, and her eye is shadowed, as she looks down. She nods, a touch jerkily, as he suggests victory through any means.
"It's okay," she assures him, softly. "I told Mimi... about it. How, um... how Tykko's..." Here, she tugs at that haori of his, as if her earlier contact were forethought, to pull him in closer so she can whisper. "... Tykko's not really a robot," she relates to him, softly. "The robot's her prison... they stole her memories, and trapped her in there. But since she's really a demon... a Shiisaa, I think... if she learns the truth, she could die, you know? That's why we have to be really gentle with her... even thinking wrong could make her die."
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
Names themselves can be weapons. It's why Shiryuu is loathe to keep company; and even moreso loathe to speak of the few he does. A flash, sharp and bright, pangs somewhere in Ryouhara when she says that Miho would do anything to keep her safe.
A distant part of him, faraway from the conversation, mulled if Akabane had once felt the same. And how swiftly she may have been disabused of the notion when Ruin still shot her through. Her, and not only that, one of his own. A man who was supposed to be under his protection, while he....
"...." Shiryuu doesn't say anything to Yua for a long time, his glance turning away from her by a handful of degrees, that lovely notion of 'keeping someone safe' left to die on the vine.
'You know more than you think,' she'd said only a few moments ago.
.....mm.
Shiryuu only stirs when he feels the gentle pressure of his voluminous sleeve bunching, the resting position he'd taken on his knees betrayed only by the smallest twitch of a finger, visible as a single fingernail in the drape between his knees.
"A world of darkness..." he thinks of the reprehensible methods. It explains a lot of things in the periphery of the clan before the reign of Akita, and the things done by the prior crows. The colors, no matter the shapes, are the same.
And yet, she pulls him closer. The effort would alarm him -- but Yua is too light-handed for it to be anything more than a _request_, and this much Shiryuu can acquiesce. The boy leans in, the distance closed imperceptibly small, but meaningful.
He blinks, twice. "....ehh?"
He had assumed that 'a plume' had been used on the machines currently assigned to Pyramid Plaza. After all, it's the basis of their own gendai-ryu supralunar ninkougakujutsu. But demons and those austere, gossamer boons did not at all mix. And with demons...
Shiryuu looks up to the open air, a tiny snif separating one thought from another.
".... it's been a long time since I've heard about something like that," the shihaisha thinks aloud.
"But ... can such a being..?" Love? He'd always thought not, according to the doctrine of the Ryouhara, a bloodline destined to be hated by the demons old enough to remember them. But then, isn't a shisaa a protector spirit..?
Shiryuu's eye lids. Perhaps it was that Tyrrha had all but said as much to him, though he hadn't at all had the context to make such a torturous connection at that moment. Based on what Yua says, it would be foolish to think that she knew what she was talking about, even if his thinking was correct. Shisix...
"...how do you think it will affect Hiroki," Shiryuu wonders. "..if something happens outside of your control, you should definitely bring her to us."
The two thoughts are both related, and unrelated.
His gaze slowly peels from the sky.
".... though, it's something to think about, as well. Aren't you getting cold out here, Yua-san..."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Shiryuu goes silent, and Yua notices, in her way. Perhaps, in sharing her own unspeakable ills, she can help him find the words for his...?
... she doesn't know just what they are, though.
That's what happens when something is unspeakable.
"Mm," she hums, nodding to him. "But Mimi rescued me... even when I felt so alone. That's why... I think birthday cake is really important."
(Give Yua some credit: she's not as bad at social grace as she feels, sometimes. Being able to say that she cares for him without saying it so bluntly does take some art.)
"I'd never heard of it at all," Yua admits. But -- "mouuu," Yua pouts, hearing him go on to wonder. "Don't talk about her like she's just a creature!" She takes a moment, here, to lower her voice again. "Even if it's some sick experiment, Tykko really does worry about us... she almost self-destructed when she gave her all to help us with the Dragon Line. We promised to keep her safe... we're her mamas now, okay? We're protecting her. It's not just a cover story."
She shakes her head, smiling. "It means Hiroki will have a big sister," she says, gently. "Maybe his family will be a little strange... but we already knew that would be true. We'll need to tell Tykko about more things which are obvious to a lot of people, but she's a good girl. She listens to us. And she'll protect him, too."
She looks out, over the chill sky. "... ah, you know... I don't really feel the cold?" Yua wonders, a touch distantly. "For a long time now, I've always felt like I'm too hot... but if you say it's cold, I believe you," she says, looking back to him, and reaching out her hand. "Help me up...? We can pack your tasty cake up proper inside!"
And, of course, distribute the slices for her family in the process.
Tyrrha may be a secret demon, but her love for tasty food is no secret at all.