2026-09-12: Shallow Stabs, Deep Wounds
- Log: Shallow Stabs, Deep Wounds
- Cast: Yua Ijuuin, Miho Ijuuin, Kurou Ryouhara
- Where: Aoba - Penthouse
- OOC Date: 2026-09-12
- IC Date: Tue, Jan 08 2013
- Summary: Kurou learns the truth of why sweet, motherly Yua was driven to drive a knife into Natari's wounded body a dozen times... and while he doesn't quite understand why Yua and Miho hold him in esteem, he does understand that he ought to be the one to get Yua tea right now, rather than the other way around.
- Content warning: Discussion of rape, flashbacks
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
They kept Yumi on, at the Blacksite, for two hours after Strega left -- trapping the site with her powers, keeping the remaining victims locked inside while the scientists scrambled to secure everyone. Miyu finally managed to argue them to letting them leave once they had everyone locked down and Evokers removed... but it will take days yet for the cognitive shielding to be completely repaired, barring psychic entry or exit.
Miyu was not willing to let them detain Yumi as long as that would take.
After that was the doctor's visit, of course -- as ever, after any of these terrible events. Yumi insists she doesn't want to go to hospital, stringently; it means she gets stuck being monitored for hours by her home health nurse, Sachie Chiba, instead.
And Sachie recognises the shallow-breathed frozen vagueness of a flashback perfectly well -- but she's better at handling these things than many of the nurses in hospital.
No, it's only after that... after that, when they're finally alone...
... Yua rises, unsteadily, from the couch, now in a stylish little house frock and cardigan rather than her ominous combat uniform.
"I'm all right," she insists, her tone shallow. "I just... need some air..."
Miho is the one who can take her by the hand and steady her as she heads out there -- Tyrrha's already been set to charging, after all.
And out here, on the deck... there are so many plants. There's even a beehive, and a little greenhouse, where Miho keeps all her poisonous things safely away from the cat... and on the upper deck, behind a gate, a pool and a koi pond.
It's the perfect place for a ninja to hide!
Does it count as hiding if they let him in...?
It counts as hiding because Yua can't see him. Though, as she's helped to a bench -- with a backrest, Miho's rich enough to spring for the nice garden benches -- she looks up, past her many rosebushes, to try and find him.
"Ryouhara-kun...? Ah... did he go home, already...?"
Some of their bonsai trees, one notes, are surprisingly large -- Imperial bonsai and hachi-uye, eighty and sixty inches at their highest boughs, with bark which has been scraped as if harvested.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Miho is dressed more masc, of course; trousers and a long-sleeved, buttonless shirt. It's the sort of thing one might wear in the house in winter.
She is not dressed for combat... but she feels ready for combat still, after all the adrenaline--not just from the battle, but from after, when Miho had to insist that they not detain 'Yumi' much further. Yua will not go to hospital yet...
But Sachie has been monitoring her. There is that, at least.
Miho helps Yua to the bench and then takes a seat herself. "is he here?" she asks, because if Yua is looking for him he must be.
...Though maybe not.
She has a sword hidden nearby. ...She's just a little paranoid.
<Pose Tracker> Kurou Ryouhara has posed.
Kurou was still on Yua guard duty, and Kurou is not one to be prevented from his duty. If he is not permitted within certain areas, he remains near as he can. He watches. He waits. He guards the perimeter of his target if he cannot guard his target.
... But how do you guard when the attacks are coming from within? The thoughts prick uncomfortably as Kurou waits in the garden deck, among the nostalgic comfort of poisonous plants and the fascination of buzzing insects. It is not as if Kurou would not have suspected it -- he has his own experiences with such things -- but now that the reality is tangible, he finds himself without tools to address it that aren't scorched earth tactics.
He didn't have a family to protect back then, as Yua does.
When she calls for him, he steps from shadows, bowing his head in greeting and deference. "Ijuuin-san." And then, again, to Miho.
"... Are you all right? And Tyrrha-san?"
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"I'm not..." Yua starts, for Miho, and that's as far as she gets before she sees Kurou stepping from the shadows. "Oh! You are here...! Dear, it's not too cold out here, is it? The visitors have gone, you don't need to worry..."
(If you're cold, they're cold! Bring your ninjas inside!!!!)
She quiets, though, when she thinks of Kurou's question, looking at her hands as they fold in her lap. (It is cold out here, at night in the dead of Winter, but she felt like she couldn't breathe in there...) "Tykko's okay," she settles on the easier question, first, with a wan smile. "She told me... she wasn't surprised when it was that woman they -- we were attacking, because... I'd always been so sad when I came back from that place." She pauses, delicately. "Tykko's more perceptive than she thinks she is," Yua settles on, after a moment.
Can Miho draw a sword out of the rosebush? Hey, at least she's not hiding her swords in Yua...
"And... um, I..."
Yua's hands ball, in her skirt. "... mm... did Shishi tell you about that...?" She wonders, hesitantly. "I'm not sure if... well, it might not be appropriate for a young man..." ... what could be inappropriate for Kurou, who just hours ago instructed Yua on how to hold a dagger to plunge it into someone's heart, even if she could only manage it glancing off of her collarbone and up into her throat?
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Miho has a family to protect; her life is very different from how it was two years ago, still searching for Yua...
"Ryouhara-kun," she greets back, looking to Yua again. It's cold...
"And more perceptive than even we realize sometimes," Miho says of Tyrrha. "...I am glad she chose you, over that woman."
But Yua...
But is Yua all right?
"...That woman injured Yua in ways that do not always show on the skin," Miho explains, though it is euphemizing. "It is up to her if she wants to share the nature of those injuries... But they were grave indeed."
"I appreciate that you were able to guide her, then, Ryouhara-kun. ...I feel better knowing that she had a part in ending that."
A look to Yua, then. "While I would do anything for you... I feel that if you left it to only me and Remi, that you might regret it."
<Pose Tracker> Kurou Ryouhara has posed.
Is it too cold...? Kurou blinks once at this, but has since learned that Yua is a very difficult person to disobey or argue with, even if he were the type to think to argue.
He acquiesces, and some of the tension in his shoulders eases to know Tyrrha's all right. She sounded all right -- chipper, even -- but the damage was alarming. t is probably a relief to Yua and Miho as well, but... Kurou's eyes stay steady on Yua, waiting for the rest of her answer, even as he speaks to let her have more time processing it.
"She is a fine combatant. That requires strong awareness of her surroundings."
Kurou glances down. That woman... someone who made Yua sad whenever she went there...
He shakes his head slowly, for Shiryuu never explained Yua's situation, and realizes the question he's asked is one much more complicated than he intended. Miho explains further, by a hair.
"... I... do not mean to make you relive your pain, Ijuuin-san." He glances to Miho. "Either of you. If it is a story you wish to share, I will listen. But I do not need to know it to understand what had to be done."
Kurou nods to Miho and looks back to Yua. "... And I hope that you are able to remember that it is over now, because you felt it end yourself."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Yua is very persuasive. And chilly, but perhaps that's why she leans against Miho? One of the reasons, certainly.
"Oh! Don't worry about the combat damage, either," Yua adds, when Kurou comments on Tyrrha's aptitude. "Her core stayed protected, so she's just fine... Para-Mind will come tomorrow to fix her up. Oh, she might miss a day of school, though... haa, she's just like me..." Yua's on maternity leave, even now school has started up again; she's rich enough that she doesn't have to work through her last trimester.
She looks down, at her hands, as she drapes them in Miho's lap to tangle in the bottom of her shirt instead. "I... I... I mean, I must have been thinking, mustn't I? I drew the-- the knife, I asked, um..." She quiets, for a moment, and looks vaguely ill. "I just... wanted her to feel it," she says, at length. "How much it hurt... does that make me a bad person...? I -- I'm sick with it," she shakes her head, vigorously.
"Because -- even when you were taking my armour off -- like the kimono -- and the fire alarm light, it was just like a camera, and -- and it wasn't over, my daymares feel like I never left... but it must be, right? She burned! She burned to ash! She -- oh!" Her voice hitches in a sob; for a time, she cries.
"... I'm sorry," she sniffles, at length. "I'm all right, really, just... just..." She looks to Kurou, and then down, to the ground. "... you know the reason a wife's given her kaiken, don't you?" For self-defence -- and for ritual suicide, should she face dishonour. And dishonour, for a woman, was... "... that woman... she ruined me. Laid with me, though I had no choice... and by force. She said... the more I didn't want it, the more she did... she said I was perverted, loving women, and she would fix me. She said... she was obsessed with me... I'd shown her this debauchery, and... but I had no choice but to answer her when she asked those sick questions! When she interrogated even my love for Mimi!"
Her hands lift, to bury her face in them. "I laid there, and I thought... I'll kill you, I'll kill you... but even when she was vulnerable, I never could. I was so afraid... I couldn't do it... they always said I couldn't do it! Oh, I think I must have killed a demon, once, but that didn't feel so impossible, not like, not like when Dr. Tani gave me that gun and dared me to shoot..."
But it seems they were wrong, about Yua's killing power.
She can.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Yua's hands fall into Miho's lap, and Miho curls her own around Yua's fingers. She'll keep those warm, keep Yua aware of her in the moment.
"It does," Miho agrees with Kurou. "...Yes. What had to be done. I appreciate your role. ...And I hope the same. Still..."
She wanted her to feel it. "No, that doesn't make you a bad person. ...She hurt you; it is not 'bad' to wish to see her feel that pain herself."
A pause. But...
"...Yua," Miho says gently. She knows these things, of course. Yua told her. But...
"You fought for your honor, instead. She's gone, now. ...But..."
"...During battle, we ignore pain. We look away from that which troubles us, and focus only on the battle. But when the battle is over, those pains and wounds and fears can all return to us; now that it is done, we have the time to process those feelings..."
"It is unfair. It is not kind. ...But it is normal, i think, that you would still have troubles, especially so soon after."
"It is done, now--but you must still heal. She is gone, but the injury remains."
"I do not blame you. I blame her. And she has been rewarded for her perfidy."
<Pose Tracker> Kurou Ryouhara has posed.
"It was... important," Kurou says to Miho. Even if he did not know, he could feel that, deeply and keenly, through the way they both acted.
Where Kurou's face refuses to change, it makes the subtle shift in the way his stance becomes less rigid more obvious by contrast. He does not know how to offer reassurances in such vulnerable times, because he does not know many things about a future that turns out brightly. But... school is now something he can understand, at least a little.
"I have missed many days of school, but... I have been able to do well, with the shihaisha's support. Tyrrha will surely manage, as well."
Because she has support, too.
It hurts. Not as much as Yua hurts. But there is something that coils inside his heart, like a rising, bolstering structure, to see her take comfort in Miho, and for Miho to give it. It's a similar sense when he sees Shiryuu with Umie. There are things that are difficult to reach, but some people find a way.
But that hope dims as he listens, his fingers curling into his palms, and his gaze unfocusing as Yua's words wash over him. It's the kind of thing he's only starting to realize, much to his own shame... That some roles in this life are chosen early, based on strange, superficial reasons. He's beginning to understand why his mother taught him how to wear his hair and paint his face and dress to be seen differently, but with the warning that it could bring more attention, and not less.
"... I do not know what it means to be 'bad person' or a 'good person' for that matter. But... there was something she did not understand... something she needed to understand." Kurou's eyes are clear as he looks directly at Yua. "You communicated it to her through the rules she set."
To live by the sword is to die by the sword: take by force, and be answered with it.
Miho's words send Kurou's gaze back to the ground. Ignoring pain in battle, with wounds that must heal...
"... Some pain... remains for a long time." Or is it his own weakness? "... But, even so... there's still tea and hot pot, or learning new things, or dancing and making cupcakes..."
He hesitates a glance to both of them, and is sure it would not be polite to look directly at Yua's belly. "There is still family."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"Just remember that school's important too, okay, sweetie?" Yua tries to smile, to Kurou, though it's strained. "You're still young, even with all these responsibilities..." And is it worse, that she fusses over him like a mother, even though she's not his?
These things... they're too heavy for Kurou, Yua thinks, and on any other night she would have just assured him she'd tell him when he was older.
But here -- now -- she cannot see to the youth when she is still bloodied, though the superficial blood has all washed off. (Sachie, as it happens, is an ex-Yakuza woman -- yes, that's a marked impossibility, but you'd be surprised what kind of honourable discharge you can earn when your Boss is open-minded -- so when Yua started rambling about the blood on her hands, she rolled with those punches remarkably well. No one was willing to hire her thanks to her tattoos, but Miho could see past all that...)
"The rules... if it was her rules, I'd just lie there," Yua supposes, miserably. "They moved her away from Project Sybil after they realised she'd been interrogating me in such a lurid manner... and she blamed me for messing her job up. Uu, but... can I really get my honour back after something like that...?"
Looking to Miho, as she does after that question, she can see the way her heels metaphorically dig in. "I don't want to process them," Yua insists, looking to Miho with a knit brow, and if anything she's a touch petulant. "I just -- want them to go away! Every time I have a bad dream, even when I'm awake, it's like she's touching me again! I don't want iiiit! No fair, no fair, no fair!!!"
Her hands wave, under Miho's, as she tries to vent off the energy that's poisoning her beneath her skin, but even stimming can't soothe her.
... but of course, Miho said it was unfair, and after a few moments of losing her cool Yua sinks against her again. "I hope she burns in her Hell," she grouses, and of course she's just assuming that the Russian woman is Christian because all foreign blondes are, but never mind that, sometimes the conservative tradwife is xenophobic, that's not exactly news at 9. "Forever and ever and ever and ever! Uuu..."
Sniff, sniff, Yua turns her face against Miho's shoulder, as she looks to Kurou again. "Mm... you're right," she nods, sniffling again. "I... I can still... bake y-you a yummy cake, or... oh, dancing's hard right now, but I could make you some nice tea! A-and soon... soon Hiroki will be here, and... and then Mimi will adopt him, just as soon as she can, and... and I'm sure you'll teach him lots of good things too, right, Ryouhara-kun?"
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"It was." Important, that is. But Kurou... Kurou is doing well, despite missing days. "Even if you will not go on to university," Miho says, "The experiences you can have in school are important as well as the knowledge you may gain. ...There are many things one can come to understand in this way, and all have value."
Miho can see past many things.
"...'bad' and 'good' people... It is not something I care to consider. But as you say, Ryouhara-kun. She lived by force, and she died by force."
Miho has known much of this. But...
It's not fair. She does not know, of course, what will become of Natari's 'spirit', if anything. Unlike the witch from a storybook, she has no power to see her punished in death as well as in life. ...But she is gone from Yua's life; that will have to be enough.
"It does," Miho agrees with Kurou then. "...But there are those things. I have to remember that sometimes, too."
"We'll all have a great time welcoming Hiroki into this world," Miho says gently. "We will."
<Pose Tracker> Kurou Ryouhara has posed.
The way Yua fusses over Kurou is quite unlike the way his own mother ever did. But there is something similar in the warmth of it... in the desire to see one be healthy, and to grow up well. There's a sting at its brush, like the way the first contact with hot water burns even if it isn't boiling.
For all these things may be too heavy for Kurou, it is only because they are too heavy for anyone. Yet that does not stop them from being so.
Kurou's gaze darkens again, to hear of how these rules were set, how Yua was treated in them. Perhaps he does not fully grasp it. Perhaps he is too young and too inexperienced in certain things to get it, truly. All he has instead is the burn of bile in his throat and a sick twist in his gut brought on by a simple animal instinct.
"... It should not happen." It comes out with more voice than Kurou's gentle voice tends to introduce itself with. "When 'should' did not stop it, you did."
Is that too simple a worldview? But it is Kurou's.
"Her rules were status and strength could be leveraged to hurt another if it pleased her. Her rules were that pain inflicted on others was not to be mourned. I will not mourn hers."
He will not say that he now thinks Yua did not stab her enough, for there is nothing left to stab to rectify it. If Yua thinks she is a bad person, for wanting it to hurt, then Kurou will be bad with her, and maybe that is something less lonely... But Miho, he is sure, does not mourn it either.
A bad dream, happening again... Kurou brings a hand to his own arm, squeezing as Yua complains of it. It's... really not fair. But those things that he wants her to remember, that he tries to remember, and Miho, too, even needs to remember.
"... It is remembering 'purpose'."
Why one fights. Why one wakes up in the morning.
Yua offers many nice things for Kurou, and his own simmering rage cracks. "Ijuuin-san, it... may be better if I made you tea, for a little while..."
If Yua could rest, if Yua could be taken care of, if Yua could have a moment where she did not have to be used or of use. But to teach Hiroki lots of good things? Kurou straightens, as if startled. He blinks back at Yua for several beats of stunned silence.
"... If that is your wish," he says. It is not a response of reluctance, but one of an uncertain, perhaps shy kind of hope.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"Mm, mm," Yua hums, nodding to Kurou, as she leans on the woman beside her. "I met Mimi in highschool, you know...!"
Yua, your romance standards aren't exactly attainable, Kurou probably doesn't have a Fated Partner waiting for him in second year...
"I'm not very forceful," Yua admits, "but... I did my best to stop it, even though I think Mimi and Recchi did most of the work. It wasn't like stabbing a pie at all... it was like I was hitting a wall," she's talking about her bones and muscles, "every time... mouuu, my arms were so tired..." ... perhaps twelve was the limit of Yua's ability to stab, then, though Kurou is too kind to voice his thoughts. She's not trained, like Miho is; she isn't a killer, like Kurou is. She's just... Yua!
Yua, who has always done better with nourishing and nurturing than tearing down... even though her Persona's powers are greatest in detention and torture, which suggest something rather much darker to the hidden reaches of her psyche.
What is Yua's purpose?
The purpose she's chosen, at least, is...
"Oh," Yua smiles, looking to Kurou, gently. "You're such a kind boy. Would you...? I like tea... nice, sweet tea, with lots of honey..." She trails off, and takes a breath, looking to Miho for a moment as she expresses her wishes too. "Mm, mm," she adds, looking to Kurou, still making that attempt to smile. "I hope you'll look out for Hiroki for a long time! You're a good boy, Ryouhara-kun... I'm sure you won't grow up into a cruel or thoughtless man!"
You know -- unlike most men.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"We did meet in high school," Miho remembers fondly. But...
"I agree." Should... "...Should often does not stop what should not happen." The rules, though--Kurou sees it. What he says, Miho sees as well. "You did your best. ...You were part of it. Indeed, the human body is difficult to harm in some respects; while life is fragile, the body is sometimes hard. ...Especially when striking places that are not as vulnerable."
Violence lessons? Don't worry about it.
"'Purpose', though.." Miho considers it. "Yes. I understand. To remember what is painful, it clarifies the world. ...It is not kind or fair, but sometimes, we must be unkind and unfair, in order to survive and thrive."
But purpose... "I would find that amenable," Miho says of Kurou coming to make tea. But that startlement--
"I believe that you have more to give than 'death', Ryouhara-kun. 'Security' for those who need it is only one thing you can do. ...I believe the same for the shihaisha, but he will not hear of it. Perhaps one day we can test each other again, and I can convince him."
She smiles, then. "Yes. Do your best, Ryouhara-kun." She squeezes Yua's hands. "...I hope that both of us get to see the man you become."
<Pose Tracker> Kurou Ryouhara has posed.
School is important for learning, but for partnership... Kurou had not considered that possibility. He tilts his head to the side, turning the thoughts behind his brow, but let's be honest: he will forget about this thought as soon as it's not in front of him. There simply isn't anyone at school Kurou sees that way.
Does Kurou see anyone 'that way'? Well, Kurou's definition of 'that way' is probably its own unique subject... ('Isn't it for everyone?' he would think.)
"No, you are not," Kurou agrees of Yua's nature. "She knew this, and did not think she would be subject to her own rules." There are many such people in the world. Kurou has met them, and he has killed some of them. "... But she is gone. You can rest your arms."
Life is fragile, and bodies hard, Kurou nods with this. Miho has a way of putting to words much of what he's experienced. It's strange, how the words make the pictures clearer...
But these words are foreign and tenuous. It is Miho's parallels to his own thoughts that makes him try to cling to them, though: someone who has seen what he sees, but understands it a little better. More than death.
"Security..." he says, like it's a precious idea he needs to etch somewhere in his memory. He nods of her assessment of Shiryuu. "There... should have been four cups."
A nonsensical thing to say, but a memory that sticks out all the same. Shiryuu did not stay for tea, because Shiryuu did not think he was meant for it. Does Kurou have room to judge such a thing, when he himself does not know how to process being called 'kind'?
Looking at the two mothers who smile with hope for a future pins Kurou to the spot. Again, he is silent for moments too long to be appropriate in most company, but perhaps they both understand.
"... I will do my best," Kurou finally promises.
"For now... please rest. I will serve tea."
Sweet with honey, just as Yua requests.