2026-09-03: A Kingdom Risen in the Dark
- Log: A Kingdom Risen in the Dark
- Cast: Yua Ijuuin, Hana Fukami, Jerri, Tyrrha Ijuuin
- Where: Tokyo TV, Shinjuku
- OOC Date: 2026-09-03
- IC Date: Fri, Jan 04 2013
- Summary: The Bride and Scion are on a retrieval mission which drives the former to use her Mark, in order to create a Supernatural Space which she can thus entrap. But Hana was in the womens' room she was hiding in... and she knows what she's doing is wrong, and not something Yua wants to do, either. Before she can decide to do something about it, Jerri appears to whisk her away -- and Yua tries to follow, only to find herself unable to stand against the Sovereign's forces and Jerri's dire threats alone. She flees... but the Sovereign's forces follow her.
- Content warning: Misgendering/transphobia, threats/violence against pregnant women
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6IxMKZAq0g The Birthday Massacre - Faces
Sometimes, you need a scalpel.
That's why they've sent Yua, today, to retrieve a person of interest.
Or, rather...
The Bride who steps into a bathroom stall might have been dressed up for any number of stage sets, running here at Tokyo TV. In many ways, it's a track repeating: she's attacked Sumaru TV in just this way, before.
All the horrors pour in, with a clatter and a cry, but the injection stops them from sweeping her away.
It can't stop her from coughing red-flecks, splattering onto the stall door, as she forces herself standing.
As the cheerful morning light fades to something dark and mired, the familiar halls becoming strange, foreign, and frightening in their rust and disuse.
"Seven by two third degrees," the Bride croaks, as she stumbles to the line of sinks. "Down the hall, he lies sinister..."
A light pause.
"Yes," she says, as if to herself. "The left, what is left, the Devil's sign is come."
She opens the faucet; what pours out is black as sin, and she washes her mouth with it, anyway.
"Make haste," she hisses, her voice strained.
But here, in the women's...
<Pose Tracker> Hana Fukami has posed.
A scalpel, for a delicate operation. But there is always the potential for complications; always, there is the chance for something unexpected to happen during the operation, be it a surgical one or one like this.
In this case, the problem is someone who was already here in the women's; she doesn't notice at first that anything is wrong, because why would the sounds of someone in costume grab Hana Fukami's attention today?
It is a frightening place all of a sudden, but Hana emerges from what is now a hiding-place, turning to look around. "What...?"
There, a Bride, speaking of the Devil's sign. So many things in Hana shout that she should leave immediately--but where would she go?
So many things should that she should do something. ...Do something about the obvious source of the problem. If she holds the power to act, is horror truly horror?
and yet...
The black water.
And--
"Yuarin," Hana says, firmly.
She is standing across, in the mirror now, her jaw set.
...No. The Bride is not the source.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"Black -- blackened -- dark to dreaming --" The Bride at the sink says, without looking up. "Black -- blackout. Just... a blackout."
If it's just a blackout, why does it feel like it took her real effort to say something as normal as that? Why does her breath rasp past her lips, chin red with her own blood as black water runs trails through te flecks?
Then -- she hears her name -- looks up, into the mirror.
Her eyes are hidden by a half-dozen veils and fascinators, equal parts wedding and mourning; her ruby-red lips, though, can be seen behind but one, as she shakes her head. "Why?" She wonders, then.
At length, she turns. Her hands tremble, beneath her gloves; her body armour has been adapted to fit her belly.
"Go back to sleep," she urges her, desperately.
<Pose Tracker> Hana Fukami has posed.
It is not just a blackout. Yua's chin is red with blood. ...There is black water. And there--
Hana stands resolute. "I don't know," she says. "...And I don't know what it is that you're doing."
'Go back to sleep'.
"...Are you after someone in the studio?" she wonders. "One of my co-workers?"
"A guest who happens to be here today?"
"...I told you before... That I'm not the type... to do something."
Hana steps forward, her heels clicking on the strange-made floor, until she reaches Yua, turns towards her and not just her reflection.
"And maybe there's nothing I can do, but..."
She stiffens. "They're making you do this, aren't they!? Whatever it is you're doing--"
"They're making you! And that's wrong!"
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"You can't know that," the Bride -- Yua -- hisses, as she grasps the sink. "Don't ask that. The poison seeps in on the reading, and for the ignorant, bliss! Just step aside. You will forget, all well..."
She wears boots, in this costume, all the better to walk over...
"You must do nothing," she insists, again. "Or I -- I --" her voice cracks, with the weight of it.
They're making her...
The Bride slips a hand beneath her veils, eyes closing, as she lifts them up to rest on her crown. As it becomes clear that her eyepatch is opened --
-- as the fingers of an awful black hand can be seen, as if crawling out from inside her skull --
-- as her eyes open;
(·) (:·)
Her right side is garnet-sighted, as it ever was. On the left, three pitch-black pupils are drowned by sick golden light, the pulsing signifier of Yua's active Mark.
"I am broken," she says, again.
"I cannot be fixed."
She reaches behind herself, to that bench -- to grasp a gun, a heavy revolver, which she lifts to press against that horrific eye she's kept hidden all this time.
"Do not follow me, Koto...dama...ba."
<Pose Tracker> Hana Fukami has posed.
Don't ask. "...That's not what's important to me right now anyway," Hana admits. Kindness, protection... They aren't what call to her in this moment. They aren't the embers that threaten to burst into flames.
She must... do nothing. Or else--Yua will be forced to deal with 'her', too.
Until that eye--
Hana's eyes widen. It is horrific; it is disturbing; it is--"What did they do to you?" she whispers.
Yua says she is broken, and Hana can certainly feel it. It's only a certain protection that allows her to resist, a certain flame starting to burn.
"Don't follow," Hana says. "...Don't care. Don't change. Don't do anything but what you're supposed to do. Just accept that this is how the world is, and don't try to rock the boat."
"...For what? For another safe day!?"
She's starting to say something else--to say what she'll do. But--
<Pose Tracker> Jerri Bar has posed.
The Bride's words are stolen from her mouth. To wit:
"Follow you? Oh, no, no, no." A woman's voice cuts in, between the two of them. Look up -- and there's a pink cockatoo, perched on the stall door. "The situation is very much reversed, pretty doll! You won't be following her."
"What--?!" The Bride barks, her gaze jerking up, that -- gun? -- lowering from her eye.
"Don't expect me to hand it to you," Jerri sniffs, haughtily, through her beak, which somehow she manages to talk down at Yua from regardless. "You've made a horrible mess of the place. But as for you, my dear!" Her feathers fluff, as she hops on the stall, turning to Hana. "Hold that pose -- right there! That very notion! It's perfect!"
Her wings flap, as she declares: "Come, now! We'll be going...!"
As Jerri takes to wing, it's Hana she's overshadowing --
-- and the depths of Hana's entrapment are a thing Yua can sense only the edges of, even close as she is.
<Pose Tracker> Hana Fukami has posed.
A... pink cockatoo? The fury Hana was beginning to feel is interrupted by plain confusion. "What?" she asks, in tune with the Bride.
But the bird turns to her, and Hana blinks. "You're--"
It's gone. It's gone, and Hana finds herself in a locked office. It's a corner office, at least. With brown and off-white for walls, it's the office of one of the studio facilities outside the main building, with a door that leads Out guarded by people within.
Hana is back at a desk, dressed as she was before, with accounting work in front of her. There's a closet and a mirror, of all things, right here.
She finds herself there, and forgets the injustices that led up to this final injustice; the way she didn't press charges against her attacker. The way she was fired for being attacked. ...The way pregnant Yua is forced into terrible things that make her cry. More than that, a thousand small things that all added up--
instead, she looks dully at the paper before her. "...?"
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"Kotoba?! Kotoba--!"
The Bride is a force unto herself, when it comes to Navigation; not for nothing is she the New World Order's precious jewel. She fires on herself, but rather than a bullet, it's red glass which shatters behind her. "Gretchen!"
Within Hana's office, a page comes through on the phone: "Everything's just fine, dear," and Jerri's voice is familiar, and more than that... it's so normal. "Can you get those reports to your boss by the end of the day? Thanks, sweetie!"
Everything's fine in the office, but...
Out here, in the dark and gloom the Bride has brought to the real world...
<Pose Tracker> Hana Fukami has posed.
Of course, it's really Teruo's office. Someone will be along to tell her what's wht soon enough. But for now, it's best to get her working quickly, not thinking about all of this. It's a prison, but there are no obvious bars.
"Oh, of course," Hana answers. "I won't let you down." She sounds... depressed, if anything.
However... outside that...
Out in the gloom--
"Help!" a feminine voice comes. It's Hana's. "Help me!"
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
The Bride sifts through three dozen beating hearts, gripped with fear and uncertainty, searching --
'Help me!'
-- and it is not until she hears the call that she finds the way. She hesitates, for a moment, looking to the 'mess'... and closes her left eye. When it blinks open again, her white sclera between those three pupils is restored; the unsettling feeling she's brought to Tokyo TV begins to fade, though it lingers, clinging to the studio's bones in a manner aberrant to Power.
"Work quickly," she says, to someone far from her side. "I must go."
She steps forward, across, between, and she is so intent she does not even remember to close her eyepatch -- but luckily, her exposed Eye is not assaulted by the horrors of words she can't say. (Equally lucky, perhaps, is her forethought in dismissing her Mark before she gave chase.)
"Kotoba?" The Bride calls, as she grasps her Evoker tightly, stepping into a salarywoman's existence. "I'm here--!"
But it's the kind of ruckus which doesn't carry between the walls of an office building like this.
<Pose Tracker> Hana Fukami has posed.
It's lucky, all right. Well, mostly lucky.
Until a few salaryman-Cognition shadow-men look up and around the Bride, blinking as she appears in the building; the office is nearby, but it is locked, with a big Cognition Shadow-man in front of it, muscular and dressed in a nice suit.
"What are you doing dressed like that?" one of the little guys says, in shirtsleeves, suspenders, and short 'hair'. Another says, "Is there something in your eye?"
"Yes, yes, you're here, go get me some coffee."
"Should the secretary be out here doing nothing...?"
The suspicion level is rising.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
She called for help, but...
The Bride staggers, when she arrives in a place which reminds her so much of ferrying forgotten lunch into Katou Corp. She hears that little guy ask about her eye, and so flips her veils back over her face, scowling. "It's nothing," she says, suspiciously.
"Kotoba... where's Kotoba?" She presses, taking a shaky step forward, grasping onto the side of a water cooler. "I'm not a secretary, I'm -- I'm her friend! I didn't mean for this to happen! Kotoba...!"
<Pose Tracker> Hana Fukami has posed.
A manager Cognition puffs on his cigar as he comes out of another office. "Kotoba...?"
He frowns. "If you're not a secretary, what are you doing here? We've got work to do!"
Kotoba...
"Is that what the prisoner was calling himself?" another wonders. "Oh, I don't remember. Whatever."
The one iwth the cigar points it at the Bride.
"If you're not here as a worker, then you're here as a distraction!"
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
... this is so much like Katou Corp, Yua thinks, as the Bride grows ashen beneath her veils.
A 'distraction'...
"Kotoba -- Hana Fukami," she insists, taking a step back. "You're saying she's a prisoner? Then -- then where did you take her! I'll--!!"
<Pose Tracker> Hana Fukami has posed.
It's very much like it, but even more rigid and old-fashioned.
And here, "Hana Fukami..." Another guy pipes up, "Did the prisoner have a wife?" he wonders.
"Nah, if he settled down properly he wouldn't have to be a prisoner!"
"Whoa, she seems agitated..."
"Security!"
Huge, heavily muscled 'men' in suits start to walk up, right towards the Bride.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"It's not like that!" The Bride snaps. "We're just friends! We're both cats, it's not suspicious! I'm allowed to have friends!" But her alarm over being misconstrued is, if anything, even more agitated --
Security?!
The Bride takes another step back, and lifts her Evoker, to her eye, firing on herself. "Gretchen! Save me!" She cries, as that massive woman in white encircles her arms around the Bride, trapping her in the bars.
But she's still perfectly visible, in there.
And the cage rattles, as security batters it.
"Stop it! Stop it!" The Bride cries, within those bars. "Gretchen--!"
Gretchen spreads her arms to summon diamonds down in a shower, onto one of those muscled men -- but the threat of three more diving onto her soon has her shrieking, clutching her Persona's dress-skirt, calling her back to focus on her defence. She could fight back... but one of them might be able to hit her, if she did, in those moments where her psyche focuses on hurting them instead of stopping them from hurting her.
"I'm scared!" She yelps, despite herself. "Just -- just let me see her!"
<Pose Tracker> Hana Fukami has posed.
Security arrives, and people are no longer answering the Bride's questions.
Gretchen appears, a powerful Persona, and security batters againsst hr bars at first unworkably. But soon...
"Form up!" whistles a third Security member. "If we can't get through the cage with normal attacks, we'll batter it down as one!"
That's right: not only are these Cognitions big and muscular... but they can use tactics far beyond Shadows in general.
The one that was diamonded narrows his eyes. "I got her," he says.
"Women should just go HOME!"
<Pose Tracker> Jerri Bar has posed.
Women should just go home, those vengeful Shadows declare, and the Bride hides her face against her Persona. "No!" She cries --
Only to hear --
"I warned you, didn't I? Oh, no, don't listen to Jerri, she's just talking to waste her breath! That's you, that's how dumb you sound." The droll tone of that pink cockatoo cuts in between security's blows, as the bird alights on a fake fern brightening the just-as-droll hallway.
"Oh, don't give me that snivelling look," Jerri goes on, seeing the Bride look to her. "I can tell you're pathetic, even under that ridiculous disguise. You must think you're so clever playing pretend with those powers of yours! I'll tell you what, girlie: I see through you perfectly well. This isn't a play-pen for your little Order, how about you get that through that thick little head of yours? There's no help coming for you. And you can't very well fight without it, can you?" Jerri laughs, acidic, as she fluffs her feathers up cozily. "Oh, I'm sure you're a magnificent doll, but let's not kid ourselves... all alone, you're about to die!"
"No!" The Bride's voice cracks, as she trembles, against Gretchen. "I... I'm strong! I --"
"Oh, what can you do, stupid girl?" Jerri sighs, exasperated. "You can't keep up this aegis and attack in the same breath, clearly. Or are you enough of an idiot to get hit when you're carrying that egg around? Ha ha, unless... do you not care?"
"That's not true!" The Bride cries.
"The next time you come here with those pesky powers of yours," Jerri promises her, "I'll make sure you crack."
"No! I don't want to! I -- Gretchen! Gretchen, let's go!" In a flash of light, they disappear, as Gretchen takes Yua to the outskirts of the Kingdom -- and the Bride rushes through the door, panting. She will not give that Devil-bird a chance to fulfil her promise; friend or no, she can't go back there again.
"-- hey! Mama! Where you at?! Mama!"
Only to realise Scion's calling for her, in the lingering gloom.
"Ah... T -- Scion," the Bride's breath shudders, as she grasps onto her, tightly. "The target...?"
"Who cares! You disappeared, mama! Where'd you go?!" Tyrrha asks, clearly disturbed.
The Bride straightens, looking behind her. "There was... a door...?"
"Nothin's there, mama," Scion says, and the Bride is forced to agree, as her eyes trace the space around them only to find nothing at all. "But these weird guys started showin' up..."
"Strange... men?" The Bride asks, numbly, as she turns --
-- and a muscular Legionnaire busts into the women's room. "We heard there were men using this room," he growls. "You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"
"But -- you followed me?!" The Bride yelps, her eyes widening, as she grasps Scion tightly. "Gretchen--!"
Through Mementos, and to other places, they go.
... and what they leave behind is a blackout which only veils the Legionnaires who pour forth.
<Pose Tracker> Hana Fukami has posed.
Back in the office...
A secretary comes through the door, in a red skirtsuit. She's a little Cognition like all the others, with a 'hairdo' that serves as most of hr head. She places some papers on the desk Hana is using. "Ah, sir..." Her cute little voice is hesitant.
"Yes?" Hana asks.
"Ah, what you're wearing..." She looks at Hana's pink dress.
"...Oh," Hana says. "No good...?"
"If you want to go on the comedy shows it's fine!" the Cognition says. "But since you're here to work..."
Pause. The Secretary continues, "Well, the closet right there has suitable changes for you, sir. It's fine; I won't tell anyone it was an issue."
"...Ah." Hana--Teruo--looks down. "I see..."
But she doesn't remember why she was so sure of herself, when she picked out this outfit.
She doesn't remember why it was so important.
And she doesn't know her 'self' is still calling for help out there at the studio in the 'real' world...