2026-10-14: Bridge of Separation

• Log: Bridge of Separation
• Cast: Yanagi Nagisa, Shinichi Nagisa, Tsumugi Kujaku, Kanae Fuyuki, Roger, Kazusa Motojima, Coin, Pernelle, Yuuki Hoshizora, Yoko Hirano, Saika Kikuchi, Misato Fushihara, Kasumi Yoshizawa, Kikuno Kisaragi, Umie Akabane, Penguin Slasher, Special Guest: Mifuyu Itami
• Where: Shinichi Nagisa's Atelier
• OOC Date: October 14, 2026
• IC Date: January 22, 2013 (set immediately after La Bête (THE BEAST II))
• Summary: With the Homunculus, Eshm the Wrath, defeated, brother and sister reunite. But for how long? Can any familial bonds survive when one desires 'true freedom'? What will Shinichi do, when faced with the prospect of his sister leaving his life just as swiftly as she reentered it?

---

<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.

    There is a long, cold moment as Yanagi simply watches the Homunculus shudder, fall, and go still. Just as it is nothing, there is nothing on her face.
    
    Until Pernelle tippy-tappies at her and asks if he sounded forlorn enough. Then she looks at him, a bright smile blossoming onto her face. "Yes! It was very convincing! I don't think it ever suspected." She reaches out to pat his head--but the double-bladed knife is still in her hand, dripping black ichor. She looks down at it. "Hm." Then she smiles again, this time ruefully, at Pernelle. "This would definitely give you a tummy-ache if you tried to eat it!"
    
    She waves jauntily to Saika next, that wicked knife high over her head. Droplets of ichor splatter off it onto her resplendent hair. "Saikaaaa~ I got to claim it this time~~" she cheers. "It really was a different experience! I'm so glad I did it!"
    
    As she lowers her arm, she turns then to the now-wild Tsumugi, her eyes turning tender, smile softening, at the person whose brutal murder she'd cheerfully requested scant moments ago. "Tsumugi..." Her lips move to continue to speak--
    
    'O... Oneesan?'
    
    'Oh, he's awake now.'
    
    Yanagi looks over towards Shinichi as Kikuno limps over to him and the fallen Homunculus. Her eyes widen, and she breathes a soft little sigh that is nonetheless also accompanied by a smile.
    
    "One moment," she tells Tsumugi, and then tup-tup-tups over to her younger brother, supported by both her cane and her reinforced boots.
    
    Though there are several things around him of interest, such as the now-empty Cocoon ripe for harvesting, her peacock green eyes are fixed only on him. As she reaches him, still sprawled on the floor, she settles down onto her knees and sets the knife and her cane to one side with care.
    
    Then she folds her hands on her lap and meets his eyes. "I'm here, Shinichi," she murmurs.

<Pose Tracker> Shinichi Nagisa has posed.

'Oh, he's awake now. Hurry up, or you'll miss your dear sister a second time.'

If there were any incentive at all for Shinichi Nagisa to snap himself out of it, it's this. It's this. He's conscious, and he tries to force himself to sit up, as Yanagi comes to sit before him on her knees.

He stares at her, perhaps in disbelief as she says the words 'I'm here, Shinichi,' "You really are- you... Neesan... I can't... how...? How could you still be...?"

Everyone has regrets. Moments they wish they could do differently, moments you could take back. But death is finality, the shear that cuts off the point where everyone's relationship with someone will be for the rest of their lives. You can't take it back. You can't apologize.

That would take a miracle.

And right now he's come face to face with the thing he's been wishing for years, picturing what he might say if the impossible should ever happen, or if they came face to face in some grim afterlife as grey shades.

That hardly makes it easier. "I'm sorry." It comes out as a whisper, at first, then louder, much louder as the words you practice but never think you'd get to say face to face spill out, his vision blurring with every passing moment, "I'm so sorry neesan. There's... no excuse for what I said to you. None that matters. It was horrible, telling you that I wished you would just die- I knew what you were going through and all I could think about was myself. I should have been there for you- and I wasn't... I guess you got stuck with just about the worst brother that exists."

He forces himself to take a breath, realizing he's crying- and deciding he doesn't care. "You don't have to forgive me. I won't ask you for that. Just- I'm glad you're okay... I'm glad you're okay! I just- Holy shit- I still don't know how this could be real!?" Even if she survived that day, her disease is a death sentence- it's been years. It doesn't make logical sense to him, but he's so willing to accept it right now. Anything illogical about it just doesn't matter in light of the evidence right before his eyes.

"I mean- better than okay, I saw you walking! You're still- haha- wow-!" He chuckles, even while he's crying, "That outfit looks great on you! You really changed your style up there and wow- look at you!"

It contrasts almost every memory he has of her, it's so much brighter in ways that Yanagi almost never was in the later years they knew each other.

And yet despite it all, despite how badly he wants to, he doesn't actually reach out to hug her- or touch her in any way, as if even right in front of him- he doesn't serve to be presumptuous, after what he did.

Can he really even call himself her little brother anymore?

<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.

In the exhaustive body of Tsumugi Kujaku's personal experience with the act, there are many reasons why a person may commit violence. Most of the forms they've encountered originate in purely petty reasons.

Money is a primary motivator, more often than not.

Ego, too.

There are some that simply enjoy the act of suffering and what it takes away from the person it inflicts upon them. Control, the most direct cage of choice.

Some people just do it out of boredom. It stopped surprising Tsumugi long ago, how many people will commit violence simply to because they have the opportunity to do so without repercussion, and there is nothing better to do.

But it's moments of violence like this that reminds them of a line they read in a Western science fiction novel one time, long ago:

             'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.'

Arms thrown wide, they accept it. Encourage it, with little regard for their personal safety. If violence is the only medium through which Wrath can communicate, so be it! Let it sing them an epic. Let it claw the truth of its freedom onto their very bones if it must! They'll accept it all to know the answer this creature came to -- what it will do if it can steal this place in the real world from its host! They want to hear the symphony of that truth, even if it must be beaten into their flesh!

They don't try to defend themself. Don't try to get out of the way. But there is no symphony. No profound revelation.

Just frustrated fingers clamping their throat til airways clench off around the mounting pressure.

The wide excitement possessing Tsumugi Kujaku's brilliant, haunting eyes fades. Surprise doesn't take its place, nor alarm or fear or any other satisfying emotion abusers so often want from their abused.

They just hood into a distinct, detached stare of apathy. The kind of stare that bores straight through you. The kind of stare that sees who you are.

"Ah," is the last exhaled sound they manage before hands constrict so painfully tight that no more air can work their vocal cords.

Ah.

    ((shut up))
        Shut up!
((stop talking))
    Stop crying!
    ((forever))
You think I don't see what you are?!
        ((that is my freedom))
    You fucking FREAK!

How familiar.

Not another strangled sound escapes them as they feel the familiar, burning sensations of asphyxia becoming hypoxia. Their head begins to swim as tight fingers rupture the myriad of blood vessels racing along their throat and neck and the hunger for air becomes inescapable in its desperate demand. The tips of their fingers tingle in telltale warmth.

And yet their right hand raises not to try to tear those hands off of them.

It just pats its palm condescendingly on Eshm's plastercast cheek, twice.

pat 'There,'
    pat 'there.'

That gaze stays locked on Eshm's gazeless face. It may well be the last thing the Homunculus 'sees' before its precious sight is taken from it. The look of someone who sees how small it is. Who sees right down to the core of it, and isn't amazed, horrified, or even simply surprised.

The demeaning reality of a stare that sees your behavior as expected and predictable.

As that lidded stare begins to unfocus, as neurons fire off wild, confusing signals across their brain in a panic that dredges up so many unwanted memories, as that hand falls limp off Eshm's cheek and their vision starts to go black, a strange thought Tsumugi Kujaku never thought before bubbles towards the surface.



                         Huh.
                            'Shinichi Nagisa.'
                                     What a strangely familiar na--



Scarlet-gold eyes snap wide as the first reflexive gulp of oxygen burns its way down their lungs. They fall to the ground on knees and forearms, lurched forward and hacking wet coughs as they reorient themself to the breathing world. That wide-eyed stare turns upward.

Their vision refocuses just in time to see the Homunculus gripping desperately at its slashed throat throat. As those hands fall away, that stare doesn't look away, doesn't even blink. Not even as thick black ichor drools from that open wound on the Homunculus and splatters on their marble-cast features.

They watch until the exact moment Eshm falls and its meaty thump leaves only Yanagi standing there, Eyes-made-weapons in hand. With a look that says that, too, was expected and predictable.

And then they exhale a shuddering, burning breath.

"Hah - h-hkk - haha..."

Hoarse, shivery laughter escapes dark lips, and then fades. Tsumugi's focusing stare drifts unsteadily upward toward Yanagi, watching her for a quiet moment. And then Tsumugi crawls on hands and knees towards that fallen Homunculus. A fingerless (were they always fingerless--?) gloved hand grips the mane of Eshm's darkened hair.

"... Take... your time," Tsumugi says to Yanagi hoarsely, yet unperturbed. "Do... hh... what you want. We already have what we need."

And the Homunculus' face is indifferently ground into the ichor-sluiced floor beneath it as Tsumugi uses that grip as a purchase point to provide the leverage they need to shakily get back onto their feet.

                                  "there,
                                     there."

<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.

Everyone has regrets. Kanae, though, doesn't regret trusting Yanagi. ...Well, it was bloodier than she imagined, but she doesn't even mind that. She's going to have some emotional scars from this particular Hunt...

Not least will be the sight of Isabeau sacrificing herself for her--she's alive, at least, so Kanae isn't too traumatized, but she didn't ask for that. She didn't want that. ...And now, she stays near her, to guard her in case anything else gos wrong.

But she doesn't stand up again to talk. Not at first, anyway; Shinichi and yanagi need to have their moment, right...?

Besides, she's still thinking about what Tsumugi was saying. And about...

'The worst brother that ever exists'.

"..."

Kanae says, mostly to Isabeau, but also to anyone else who comes to check on them:

"...Family's weird, huh?" The orphan shakes her head. "...I don't think I'll ever really understand it."

<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.

    Roger comes down from the exciting battle high of a dangerous dance with a Homunculus that was within a heartbeat from finally overtaking the original Atelier host. A lot of things play out between Yanagi and Shinichi he looks upon with curiosity, quietly.
 
     "Oh... that's why the names were the same," he says at the bit of acknowledgement he can grasp.
 
     Roger does not have a strong sense of what it means to be a sibling. Were all the Humours in the Atelier of his origin his siblings? In retrospect he'd be hard-pressed to put it like that. Maybe it is an experience that simply does not have an equivalent for Shadows.
 
     A lot to be said about the grisly sights of Tsumugi's intensity and the seeming play of Yanagi's bizarre gambit with the Homunculus to that very end.
 
     "Um," Roger looks to the others, "Peacock Silk has only ever asked us for the Eyes of the Homunculi we deal with. I'm happy to see them gone," he snorts, "but... I have no idea what anyone would want with them."
 
     ...

<Pose Tracker> Kazusa Motojima has posed.

Kazusa is still reeling from the intensity of that fight, and she will have a lot of complicated emotions to work though, too. The Homunculus may be gone, but it's still been more than a month of her life spent living in fear and hypervigilance. Not to mention all the horrifying things she witnessed in the Atelier.

... she'll just have to add it to the list of her other emotional issues to work through.

She's busy chugging a drink to restore some energy and then tending to the injured with Mina's magic. She inevitably makes her way over to Kanae and Isabeau, looking at the unconscious Witch with some concern before looking to Kanae.

Family's weird...

Kazusa looks over her shoulder to where Shinichi is busy apologizing. Best to give them a moment first, probably. Quietly, she admits to Kanae, "... yeah. I don't always understand mine, either."

There's a quiet sigh as Roger finally gets the connection. She'll come back to that point about the eyes in a moment, though.

<Pose Tracker> Coin has posed.

Once she'd recovered from Tsumugi's... intenseness, and she was pretty sure they were breathing again (humans have to do that pretty much all the time, right? right, she's pretty sure), and Yanagi's sheer violence, which hit her in a way she wasn't entirely comfortable with, Coin had zipped somewhere else in the room.

She'd intended to go over to Kanae's side, but something came up.

Coin found herself derailed, slightly, by the Eyes and the Cocoon. Something about them feels important in a way she doesn't clearly understand. She slows to get a better look at it, even reaching it to poke at it with one finger before she takes a step back and does something complicated with her hands; she interlaces her fingers in such a way that there's a small gap between her hands.

(For her it's an extra-small gap. Paws are not meant for this.)

But she brings it up to her face, her eye just barely visible through the laced fingers. It looks somewhere between perplexing and silly, but it seems to satisfy Coin, because she nods firmly as she lowers her hands afterwards.

"Fascinating!" Coin has been well and truly distracted. She reaches out -

'Peacock Silk has only ever asked us for the Eyes of the Homunculi we deal with'

"Bleh," Coin says when she hears that someone has a prior claim, leaving the Eyes alone but moving her focus to the remnants of the Cocoon furthest away from Yanagi; she does not want to get in the way, but she's certainly close enough to hear. Even if it doesn't entirely make sense to her. Family's weird, as Kanae points out... but Coin doesn't have family.

...does she? She's pretty sure she'd know THAT...

<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.

Pernelle leans his head up on his long neck for a pat that never comes, pausing to regard Yanagi's knife. His beak begins to open... ... and quietly shuts when even Yanagi thinks better of letting him make a snack of it.

"Hm, yes, I suppose I see your wisdom in this. Just this once! We've much to do. Celebrating, mostly, I should think!" As Yanagi address Saika and Tsumugi, Pernelle turns to dance back and forth, from one foot to the other, adding a victory dance to go with Yanagi's delightful acquisition.

But as Shinichi stirs, Pernelle quiets and shuffles to Tsumugi's side, addressing them in a lowered voice. "What a glorious evening it has been, and it is young yet! ... Do you require a morsel of Medicine? A Recarm, perhaps?" He absently shakes some ichor from his clawed foot with no further acknowledgment of the Homunculus' remains.

Whatever Tsumugi's response, Pernelle does not make any more of a verbal fuss. There is a reunion to behold... and though it is Shinichi who pours out his heart, Pernelle's gaze drifts to Yanagi, attentive for her reaction.

<Pose Tracker> Coin has posed.

Once she'd recovered from Tsumugi's... intenseness, and she was pretty sure they were breathing again (humans have to do that pretty much all the time, right? right, she's pretty sure), and Yanagi's sheer violence, which hit her in a way she wasn't entirely comfortable with, Coin had zipped somewhere else in the room.

She'd intended to go over to Kanae's side, but something came up.

Coin found herself derailed, slightly, by the Eyes and the Cocoon. Something about them feels important in a way she doesn't clearly understand. She slows to get a better look at it, even reaching it to poke at it with one finger before she takes a step back and does something complicated with her hands; she interlaces her fingers in such a way that there's a small gap between her hands.

(For her it's an extra-small gap. Paws are not meant for this.)

But she brings it up to her face, her eye just barely visible through the laced fingers. It looks somewhere between perplexing and silly, but it seems to satisfy Coin, because she nods firmly as she lowers her hands afterwards.

"Fascinating!" Coin has been well and truly distracted. She reaches out -

'Peacock Silk has only ever asked us for the Eyes of the Homunculi we deal with'

"Bleh," Coin says when she hears that someone has a prior claim, leaving the Eyes alone but moving her focus to the remnants of the Cocoon furthest away from Yanagi and giving some of the strands a tug; she does not want to get in the way, but she's certainly close enough to hear. Even if it doesn't entirely make sense to her. Family's weird, as Kanae points out... but Coin doesn't have family.

...does she? She's pretty sure she'd know THAT...

<Pose Tracker> Yuuki Hoshizora has posed.

Yuuki comes to, slowly.

Her Transmutation slips away from her. Should it work like that? She doesn't know. But it might say more about her, rather than he concept of Transmutation. Blue hair drains to light brown; with a dull shimmer, her rumpled and dirtied Seven Sisters uniform is visible again.

She swallows, as she looks at Shinichi and Yanagi. She knew, already; she had pieced it together in the Atelier herself.

Her mouth opens. A reunion, between family. Even if it's bittersweet. Even if Tsumugi is--

What are they doing?

Her green eyes -- duller, now -- turn to them. She regards them for a moment, before she looks back to the siblings. She sits up, wobbily.

And she watches with a drained, exhausted expression.

<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.

 
    The real Shinichi Nagisa can't believe that his sister is alive. He's so different than the Homunculus. Even though Yoko had been told about it, it's still so weird to see it for herself.

    This boy probably doesn't have any kind of hit list.

    She picks up Bearemy and holds him in her arms, his long arms and claws swaying like some kind of defeated prisoner, or maybe a cat resigned to bathtime. Kikuno (it is her) has hurt her feelings but she wants to see the Cocoon which means getting closer to her cousin and...!

    Kanae is right. Family is weird.

    "...What happened?" Yoko tries asking her cousin, because... well they've never gotten along poorly before!! ...But they'd never gotten along very well either, in that neither one of them had been very good at socializing. Oops.

<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.

 
Splap.

Drip.

Plep.

Ichor splatters into Saika Kikuchi's hair. She nevertheless is smiling.

It's one of those kind of complicated smiles. There's a lot of *relief* in it. Perhaps *relaxation*, or the calm that comes after the breaking of tension, which has a unique quality of satisfaction to it that many other forms do not. (Don't worry, young Persona Users, it's something adults do for fun.)

"It was perfect," Saika tells Yanagi as she sweeps her chain up, letting it wrap around her arm as she pumps it in the air, a musical tingle-jingle-rattle as it does. "You nailed it. Brava. Brav--"

Her head suddenly turns towards the new voice. Towards the brother, now returned to his proper seat of self-rulership. Will he be a good ruler? That is up to him.

But... he is speaking, and to Yanagi, to whom he has something to say. Saika's attention turns towards Tsumugi then, though it becomes a deep and visibly concerned look that relaxes over the course of a second and a half of assessment. She steps over, her unchained hand slipping out. An offer, but not an insistence. Tsumugi, after all, has their pride.

"Maaa, don't push it~. You know, that's how that actor from those two Western kungfu movies went, the bad guy?"

Kanae speaks and Saika cups her own chin. "Hmmm~. He's laying it on a *little* thick," Saika murmurs, "but he *does* have cause, and maybe he's just naturally eloquent."

Then Roger speaks.

Saika's head turns slowly to look towards Roger. Roger actually has a couple of inches of height on Saika, who is quite diminutive if you measure from crown to sole, despite the additional billowing presence of her long biker jacket and evident superhuman strength. Her face is utterly still and expressionless for a full additional second, and then it warms, lips smiling before her eyes do.

Her eyes don't really smile at all, actually. They pass over the others for several more seconds.

"Well..."

"I guess you could call it a hobby! Don't feel bad if you don't see the appeal!"

NOW the smile reaches her eyes.

<Pose Tracker> Misato Fushihara has posed.

It has been a long, grueling battle. Magus's body still aches, with pains natural and supernatural both. She remains transfixed, for a moment, on the lifeless form of the Homunculus... and then she draws her cloak around herself with a 'hmph'.

She keeps watch over Yuuki carefully - so she's aware, when she starts to stir. She shifts her cloak so she can get a better view.

"Yuuki Hoshizora." She acknowledges quietly. She extends a hand toward her, if she needs the help up - but leaves it up to her whether or not she takes it.

Her attention soon turns to Yanagi and Shinichi. Whatever words she might have for her act die on her lips as he regards her with deserved surprise.

...Even she isn't cold enough to interfere in this reunion. She looks away, briefly - this time to Kanae as she speaks. Family...

"...It can be cruel." She notes. "Purposefully, or unintentionally. ...It doesn't always end like this."

...She doesn't say whether that's for the better or worse.

<Pose Tracker> Kasumi Yoshizawa has posed.

    Kasumi has been off fighting the humours, to protect everyone else fighting the homunculus. And now, with the terrifying homunculus defeated, Kasumi returns to the group proper, additionally helping with her Diarama. She ends up joining the Kazusa, Kanae, and Isabeau group.

    She heard about the sibling complications and having a dead sister herself, she feels for Shinichi. "Oh, I really hope they can patch up their relationship..." 'Belle' says, clutching her hands together to her chest as she watches. "It'd be just awful if Nagisa-san discovered his sister was alive, but there was still hard feelings, you know?" If the same happened to her, Kasumi would be destroyed!

    Watching it, Kasumi feels her heart climb into her throat. It's way too tense...

<Pose Tracker> Kikuno Kisaragi has posed.

    Everyone has one thing they can't take back. Something they'd give almost anything to try again, properly this time. In that sense, Kikuno...

    Her gaze flicks downwards on Shinichi as he comes to, and comes to grapple with the situation into which he's awoken. Just like that, his situation has taken a turn for the better. Hasn't it? It might even almost be worth the nightmare he's endured!

    After all, he's able to get the closure he's always wanted. Hasn't he?

    Even as words tumble as freely as tears, her expression remains as sour as always as she regards him a moment more before she looks away.

    "Well. Now what?" she says and not to him.

    Her gaze lingers a moment on Yanagi, close at hand. In this one, brief way, they're again akin to one another.

    'Peacock Silk has only ever asked us for the Eyes', Roger says.

    Kikuno, lost perhaps in her study of Yanagi, does not look his way.

    It's only Yoko who breaks her from her apparent reverie; minutely she turns her head her cousin's way.

    "I said, get out of here," she tells her again. "This isn't any of your business."

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    There are a list of things that land on Umie's priority list.

    First is knocking her hood up over the pinkening little bird's nest of broken hair strands, pulling the cords of her hood tight so that the edges of it press against the edges of her face and mask.

    The second is assessing everyone. It's not like she's a healer, but this was a creature of another caliber than many are used to, including her. Standing next to Eriko and Tamaki for a while, she murmurs, "I'm going to check on the others."

    They don't need the Badb's shroud, and it's hard for the Badb in her to ever feel satisfied standing still, once the promised bloody end has been achieved. Hobbling carefully over to Kanae and Isabeau, she stands a few feet away, then moves on, satisfied. Let them have their motion of peace.

    The mere mention of the word 'family' is enough to make her restless in another way, wholly tied to Umie as a person. The person who dared to mention her family is dead now, and good riddance. Meanwhile, the young man whose face the monster wore is waking up, a wholly different person.

    Like Roger, she's out of sorts, but unlike him, she does have a family. But, eyes... that's a topic Umie can focus on. "... What's the significance of the eyes?" she asks now, looking to Tsum-- no, let the poor soul recover, nevermind, she'll look to Saik--

    She squints. "... riighhhtt. Well.... I suppose I can't argue." They *are* a source of income.

    The number list is out of order now, a hopeless attempt to keep an Umie Akabane from focusing on the most important thing in the room here: the reuniting of brother and sister, the former being someone she cannot quite bear to look into the eyes of, and the latter... unsure of what role she intends to play in what could be a heartfelt or heartwrenching encounter.

    "Usually it's other people who do kitsune no mado, to see they're being fooled but the kitsune," she says to Coin with a mischevious grin, before moving onto--

    Ah.

    Yoko will feel someone by her side now; the sharp open grin of Umie Akabane displayed like a subtle display of claws. "My, my... What's this about...? Rather sweet of you to display such concern over a fellow Persona-user's health..."

     Yet even Umie has to look back at Yanagi and Shinichi, despite being in the middle of instigating some trouble. Just... what is going to happen next?

<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.

    Mona's here too, having fought alongside Belle; he eyes Isabeau with suspicion, but she seems to be down for the count, so he stays with Belle as she joins the others. He doesn't weigh in on the matter. He simply keeps his paws folded and watches the unfolding drama.
    
    Joker's also here, along with the rest of The Phantoms who'd come to help fight back the Humors from interfering with the battle for the Atelier's true heart, including Queen. They all keep their distance, however. Everything seems to have been resolved, and Joker (whose masked eyes flick towards Belle and Mona) personally doesn't want to interrupt this reunion with any drama, so... they share a nod with their team, then quietly exits with them. The real Shinichi Nagisa has been saved. The rest is out of their hands.
    
    As for Yanagi...
    
    It was the plan all along, after all. That it makes Yanagi's actions expected and predictable doesn't bother her. That's just another way of saying she has Tsumugi's trust.
    
    She does stroke her leader's cheek with the back of her hand, gaze affectionate and concerned, as they catch their breath amid hacking coughs. (She could have done that with Pernelle, but she hadn't thought of it at the time, half a minute ago.) She doesn't condescend to Tsumugi by offering to heal them, though. That can come later if need be. She nods once when they wave her on and tell her to take her time, and then goes to do precisely that.
    
    When she's in front of Shinichi, Yanagi is quiet but attentive, her vibrant eyes gentle as she watches and listens to her younger brother tearfully apologize. It continues to be clear that this is something that's weighed on him heavily over the past three--no, is it four now?--years, that guilt has wracked him like her disease has wracked her body. Saika might think he's laying it on thick, but Yanagi believes in the sincerity of every word that he says. When he talks about her walking and about her Transmutation costume, she chuckles with him, her cheeks rosy. "Thank you. I like it too," she replies.
    
    Then she pauses. She hears the others murmuring in the background--to each other, to themselves--but she pays them no mind, beyond that Roger kindly informs everyone that the Eyes are theirs. Good. No misunderstandings, then. The Cocoon, they're willing to share, so it's fine if others clusters around it and, in Coin's case, already start to claim threads. Kikuno might be studying Yanagi from close by and considering how the two are similar, and that's fine too. Yanagi's focus remains on her brother.
    
    The two of them had been so close when they were little. And now...
    
    And now, she reaches out to take his hands in hers.
    
    "Shin-chan," she says softly, the nickname she had for them when they were young. "I already forgave you a long time ago. It's okay. You can let this guilt go."
    
    He may not try to hug her, let alone touch her, but she has no such reservations. She leans forward and pulls him into her arms for an embrace between long-lost siblings.

<Pose Tracker> Shinichi Nagisa has posed.

Some in the crowd he has a vague sense of familiarity that he cannot rightly begin to parse. Others he has no idea who- or even what they are.

Shinichi still has little context for what's happening around him. After all, he's still a normal guy, he came out of the cocoon like this. Just like a civilian in the Dark Hour, perhaps tomorrow this is more like a dream.

Then again, he did remember more of Mikage-Cho than most.

Does that mean what happens here matters less, though?

Certainly not.

He lets out a small laugh as she says she likes her outfit too. "I'd hope you do... you've got a fun sense of style, neesan."

Yanagi calls him by his nickname, she takes his hands, he stares at her in a tearful confusion as she outright says she forgives him for that long ago. Then reaches out to hug him. Now, there's no hesitation, as he hugs her back, tightly, before easing up that grip out of worry of causing harm and whispering.

"But I don't... Do I really deserve that...? Neesan... I..." He inhales a breath, then allows a tenuous smile to creep on his face, "... Thank you. Thank you. I think... I don't really know what's going on but... I think you saved me there..."
 
He thinks a lot of people did, but he can figure that part out after he sorts out what's going on with the sister that was dead - and is now apparently quite alive.

Smiling, he leans back, an arm still loosely around her, a hand dabs at his eyes, "Man... Mom and Dad are going to freak, seeing you again. Like- I still don't know how we're going to explain it to them? But, you know what, it doesn't matter." He takes a deep breath, dabbing at his eyes again, "Let's just... let's just go home, okay? We'll figure it out when we get there."

<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.

As Tsumugi lifts to one knee, a hand falls into their field of vision.

"..."

They already know who it belongs to without even looking up. Even before she offers those chiding words. Who else but Saika?

Soon enough, Pernelle is there too, offering those murmured words. Tsumugi's answer to both is silence, initially. It's something unsurprising likely, given what just happened, and given who Tsumugi is.

Perhaps it's also unsurprising, too, that their first act? Is to lift themself up without taking Saika up on her unspoken offer, slowly but certainly.

"No," they answer Pernelle with that roughened voice as they rise. "Not... yet. I want to feel it.

"Like you said... it's a glorious evening."

It's only once they're on their feet that their arm slips around Saika's shoulder, the warm weight of them leaning into the smaller as dark lips glide close to her ear.

"So you think I'm a bad guy?" they whisper, conspiratorially hoarse. Is that what they chose to take away from Saika's trivia?

It's the part they liked the most, anyway.

Scarlet-gold eyes drift back toward Yanagi. A brush of the cheek on their hand; no offer of assistance. Just a mutual, unspoken understanding, same as they one that saw Tsumugi let themself be choked near to death for the sake of creating an opening. They watch with muted interest as Yanagi approaches her brother -- but that is as far as their interest takes them. Their gaze drifts towards some distant point in the middle of the others gathered, not focusing on the Nagisas or anyone else who risked their lives here to save Shinichi.

What's the significance of the eyes?

It's a curiosity that both Roger and Umie echo. Umie's attention shifts to Saika for the answer, who provides a simple enough one. Tsumugi's gaze doesn't so much as shift, nor does their marbeled, ichor-smeared features. Their bound chest swells briefly with the intake of a burning breath.

Don't feel bad if you don't see the appeal!

Their lips part. As if they have something profound to say.................!

"It's a pun,"

is their revelatory wisdom,

and the sum whole of their contribution to this discussion.

After all, even if their gaze is distant...

Let's just... let's just go home, okay? We'll figure it out when we get there.

They're listening.

"'The free bird thinks of another breeze,'" they recite under their breath.

"'And trade winds soft through sighing trees.
And the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn.
... and she names the sky her own.'"

Placid eyes shut. "... Pernelle, Saika. Get ready to get the Eyes. We'll be leaving soon.

"There's nothing left here for us."

<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.

 
    'Well, now what?'

    Yoko staaaaaares at Kikuno with guileless green eyes. "Who are you talking to?" she whispers, frowning slowly. It's genetic, she read. Hereditary. Bearemy squirms in her arms as Yoko very successfully doesn't sulk or scowl at her cousin. "Don't tell me what to do." Said sulkily, yes, but calmly. Like an adult.

    Nevermind the tell-tale tail lashing side to side behind her, twitching at the fabric of her obi knot.

    Someone she doesn't know stops at her side. Defending her? Bearemy's claws prick into the fabric of Umie's sleeve, as if to get her attention. "....." But Yoko just stares at Kikuno, like she's trying to solve a puzzle.

<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.

Oh, Roger didn't get it. Kanae remembers that now. She grins, though it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Yep. Humans are funny like that," shet ells him.

The Eyes... why do they want the Eyes? It occurs to Kanae to ask, but frankly just this moment... She's so tired that she barely cares. Her sawtooth gunblade remains on the ground beside her; her hat is... somewhere, and will reappear in time, a Cognitive matter.

Kazusa mentions her own. "...Mm," Kanae answers, because Kausa is her friend, so she's not going to give her immediate response. Misato seems to understand what she's saying, too. "I see..." Cruel.

"I believe that." She glances over to Yuuki in some concern, and back to Coin, as she seems disappointed. "We'll have to find other trophies of our Hunt," she offers Coin. A 'glorious evening', Tsumugi calls it. Kanae glances at arguing cousins. And...

She wishes she could find this reunion sweet. Maybe she just has too much bitterness in her for that.

"...All's well that ends well, huh?"

<Pose Tracker> Coin has posed.

Coin has always liked her little treasures. She's even She has no idea what she's going to *do* with these strands, or what they represent, but she can feel the power in them. Something she'll have to think about. Something she'll have to learn about! Coming here was worthwhile.

Well, it was anyway, to help Kanae. But now it's extra worthwhile.

"It's *investigation*," Coin insists to Umie, her ears flattening down slightly. And maybe it is; Coin does have some sensitivity beyond most Persona-users, if not as much as a Navigator. "I just don't know what these things are. Perhaps I should ask you, if you don't need to investigate!"

She keeps the fibers in her hand as she steps away. Another look at Tsumugi, and then toward Yanagi and Shinichi. She never met the Homonculus, let alone the real person, and this is her first time meeting Yanagi too, but this is...

It, too, is peculiarly human. She likes to see the meeting. It feels right. They do seem to treasure each other...

"Indeed!" is her response to Kanae, as she marches over to finally meet up with her. "A bond rediscovered, a monster defeated; what's not to like?" She has not, perhaps, yet understood all the fine details that make something like this so *complex*.

<Pose Tracker> Yuuki Hoshizora has posed.

Yuuki looks up at Magus. Her expression is tense -- but it's distant. She hesitates, almost flinching when that hand is extended towards her. She doesn't know that she has any right to take her hand. But... she does, in the end, and gets up to her feet. It's shakily; she took a hard hit, and it's left her feeling drained.

She glances at Kanae -- she wonders, for a second, at that bitterness. Does this hurt, for her?

It hurts for Yuuki, but not the same reasons.

"I'm glad they found each other again," she says, a little quietly. "That's... that's good."

She glances once at Coin and blinks once at her, before she looks back at the twins.

She frowns, a little, despite her words.

<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.

    Roger tilts his head at Coin's disappointment about the claim over the Eyes.
 
 5t'I guess you could call it a hobby! Don't feel bad if you don't see the appeal!"
 
     "..."
 
          "..."
 
               "..."
 
     "Oh! eyes can see. I see!" Roger smiles guilelessly for a passing moment, and has a snort-laugh at Saika's say of it.
 
     "Okay!" The former Sanguin Humour asserts himself. "Terrific! Wonderful! ...It looks like a mess, but the Flegmat Humours can take it from here!" The kinds of Humours that seem like they're window dressings at best, they're the ones who help set the tone of an Atelier's 'normal' atmosphere. The power of reflecting all the very, very small ways one asserts themselves...
 
     Roger's smile stops. His eyes open sharply. He snorts loudly, and lets out a yelp of alarm.
 
     "Um...!"

<Pose Tracker> Kazusa Motojima has posed.

Misato comments on purposefully or unintentionally... some days Kazusa's not sure which of those applies to her situation.

She nods to Belle as she returns from holding off the Humors, and lends a Diarama to the recovery effort. She gives Belle a small nod and a quiet "Thanks." But as for patching things up... "... that's up to them," she says quietly. Her silver eyes settle on Yanagi for a moment. "...I really don't know how she'll react."

She gives Mona a quiet nod, a moment later, when he joins Belle.

And Yanagi goes for the hug. Kazusa honestly wasn't sure if she would or not, but... she feels like she always has a hard time getting a solid read on anyone in Peacock Silk.

Kazusa knows that if Shinichi doesn't Awaken, that he should forget all of this... but she had wondered, too, about the Demons represented by Hunmors in the Atelier. Shouldn't he have forgotten those, too?

But she tenses when Shinichi just pleads for Yanagi to go home. She's not sure how long Yanagi's been 'alive', but if she'd wanted to do that, she's had plenty of chances, right? They had to get his address from Kanae (who, in turn, got it from the Homunculus. Her lips are draawn tight in a not-quite-frown as she watches.

She glances at Tsumugi, as they declare Peacock Silk will be leaving soon. She still has some unanswered questions from her last conversation with the Peacock Silk leader, but now is not the time for them. "... you must really want those Eyes to let yourself go through that," she mutters.

It's fine if Kanae doesn't have an answer for her. Kazusa doesn't, either. All's well.. "Yeah. Because this went so well," she grumbles.

<Pose Tracker> Kikuno Kisaragi has posed.

    Just like that, two siblings are reunited. A long-wished for miracle has finally occured, here in the heart of a young man's personal hell. It's so cute. It's so sweet.

    It's enough that, to judge by the expression on her face, Kikuno would rather go be sick somewhere. Her lip curls in marked distate, but here she says nothing, her attention fixed on the two of them as they speak to one another.

    Or, that is, until her cousin speaks to her.

    "I said, shut up," she tells Yoko, brushing one hand through the air as if to thereby push her aside. "Don't get involved," she tells Umie, her glare just as intense at the girl she's not related to. "We're busy."

    Who's busy? Her and Yoko? Or...

    Such a state can't last, though. Not when Tsumugi speaks.

    Her gaze turns a moment towards Pernelle, then to Tsumugi. She cocks her head a faint few degrees as if catching a sound that only she can hear.

    "Perhaps," she says, and it's likely not clear who she's addressing at all.

<Pose Tracker> Misato Fushihara has posed.

Magus looks back at Yuuki - at that tense, distant expression. She meets her eyes, wondering what thoughts run behind that complex emotion. She doesn't retract her hand - and when Yuuki takes it, she helps her to her feet. And if she needs something to support her, she won't push her away.

"...I suppose it is." Magus allows, as Yuuki says it's good they found each other again. She looks back to Shinichi and Yanagi, as Yanagi assures him that she forgave him.

It's been a long time, Magus supposes. Perhaps time does heal all wounds. ...That's what she'd like to say, but it isn't always so easy. And the way he insists on bringing her home...

Magus wonders if a dead woman can really just show up at home like nothing happened.

All's well that ends well...

"...Hm." Magus considers. "The monster has been slain. ...But the scars yet remain."

<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.

Tsumugi wants to feel it, and Pernelle gives them a single, firm nod of perfect understanding.

"Most glorious," he affirms twice over.

His whole face lights up with Saika's wordplay and Tsumugi's identification thereof.

"Oh, is it? Marvelous. I love puns!"

But now there's dinner (the eyes are not for eating, Pernelle!) AND a show. Upon the grand stage, Yanagi offers Shinichi what was already his, and the two embrace. Pernelle gives a tippy tap on his feet, though he seems to be trying to contain it with smaller steps to avoid a percussive interruption.

While not typically in the business of moderation, he makes an exception when that moderation might prevent even greater moderation should those in the spotlight become spooked. Pernelle must choose... the lesser of moderations.

There's nothing left here for us.

"Then off we shall go and fly, fly, fly~," he says in his own singsong way, spreading his wings to flap in place, grasping his feet open and closed in the air like an overeager claw machine.

<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.

 
Saika looks over towards Kikuno as she speaks. "What indeed," Saika echoes back, which is probably not gonna actually address what Kikuno was getting at, like, at all.

(That proffered hand turns away; rises to fold loosely beneath her bandaged bustline. Saika smiles at Tsumugi, because she likes to and she wants to, but then there is no more. At their question, she leans over and replies, in bad but quiet english "<Just because you Bad Guy, does not mean you Bad Guy.>" She definitely bootlegged that movie, or saw a clip. It is still in theaters. She smiles as she does it.)

Saika's grin gets even more coprophagic as Tsumugi reveals the REAL truth.

But there's still work to do. "Man," Saika sighs, "this has been one hell of a long night, hasn't it? Pernelle, you're gonna have to cook tomorrow," she continues as she laces her fingers together and stretches, "cuz the cook is *taking personal time*."

They are already planning dinner?? (Well, Saika is, anyway.)

"Exactly, Buta-san," Saika adds to Roger (how cruel, to emphasize his swinery). "But visiting hours are a little bit flexible, so you should -- hmm?" Her head swivels around to look at Kazusa, her chain-wrapped hand resting on her hip.

"What, were you hoping someone was gonna die? Maybe put their eye out, just t' kind of stay on topic? That's pretty messed up."

But her attention returns to Shinichi and to Yanagi. Her other hand comes up to tap the side of her nose as Shinichi speaks of... re-introducing Yanagi to her mother and her father. Her eyes turn towards Yanagi for a moment, lidded. Is that what *she* wants?

To the assembled, Saika asides, "He can fly, you know. I was shocked at first too."

<Pose Tracker> Kasumi Yoshizawa has posed.

    As Yanagi voices her forgiveness, Kasumi lets out a big sigh of relief along with the tension she's been feeling. "Oh, thank goodness! That's such a relief!" Not every sibling parting needs to end badly. And Nagisa-san gets a second chance. She sincerely hopes that he's able to make the most of it, if nothing else, then on behalf of the people who don't get that chance.

    With that out of the way... Kasumi's about to comment on hoping things go back to normal at school pretty soon, but catches herself just in time. "Did either of you know Nagisa-san before the Homunculus? Is he... You know... Normally nice?" She asks. She might like to help support him too in reality...

    All's well? Normally, Kasumi would be thilled to go along with it, but... "Is that really true?" She wonders aloud. "I mean, you were in a twisted relationship, Fuyuki-san... Is that really okay now?" That, and she's worrying about the terrorized female populations of Shuujin... Are the boys really just going to let things fade away? Is that how that works?

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    A missing sibling. A family, waiting.
    But if that was the case, why did Yanagi keep herself separated from them? For their own protection, or hers?

    Maybe, it's to be able for Yanagi to protect the self she is now, without the weight of being the 'sick one', or 'the one who may have little time left to live'. A person like that wouldn't have been allowed to celebrate Seijin no Hi like she did out of concern for her own health, alone.

    Coin's flattening ears bring a impish grin to Umie's face. Ahhh, she must be like Mona, and hate being compared to the animal, even mythical, she resembles. "I'm afraid my specialties lie in poking." If it's a pun, as Tsumugi says, "If 'the eyes have it'," she says, "you may very well have this under control."

    There can only be room for the Badb to poke around what remains, sometimes instigating something, for better or worse, as Yoko's claws press into her sleeve. Umie missed the part about Kikuno talking to someone; or maybe, her consciousness had considered it so normal that she didn't even think to note it.

    Huh. So this is what it's like, to see such an exchange occur outside of herself.

    ... Is Kikuno... like her? ".... Rather prickly, aren't you?" she muses, with some amusement, trying to catch a glimpse of Kikuno's wrists without being too obvious.

    Before Umie can consider it further, Roger seems disturbed(?) by something. "Roger-san," Umie says, frowning. "Something wrong?" The Homunculus is dead, right? Umie can't *sense* anything nearby that fit neatly into the Badb's sense as 'a threat'. Things can and *do* get past it, however, as that sense is merely something co-opted to serve a different purpose, as much as Badb's sense of 'a battlefield', or supernatural space, being nearby when she's in Sumaru City.

    She *could* summon Badb, but it's hard to tell, from Roger's expression, whether that would be an overreaction on her part.

<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.

    Yanagi giggles when Shinichi compliments her sense of style. Pernelle's barely-contained excitable flapping and tippy-tappying contributes to that giggle, too. No need for words right now; he hugs her back, and it is good. This is a good moment. She's glad to have had it, in a different way from how she was glad to have taken the Homunculus's Eyes. She leans her head on his as he hugs her back, unafraid of harm. When he eases up, she lets go--but he doesn't pull away entirely.
    
    Her smile is muted but still there as he asks her if he deserves it, as he thanks her for saving her. It regains its warmth, and she nods once. No need to explain it. He understands what needs to be understood.
    
    At least... that's what she thinks until he asks her to come home. To their parents. To that apartment in Aoyama-Itchome.
    
    Her smile dims fully this time, and a profound sadness shades her brilliantly green eyes.
    
    A bond rediscovered, a monster defeated; so why not go 'home'?
    
    "No."
    
    There's no malice, no grudge, in her voice or demeanor. It's just a delicate yet unyielding refusal.
    
    "I have a new home now, Shinichi. And I might have lived to become an adult after all, but I still have DMD. I'm still going to die young--maybe this year; who knows?"
    
    Despite this fatalistic acknowledgement of her terminal condition, Yanagi smiles anew. It reaches her eyes, in which that sadness lingers. Umie's silent supposition was on the money, it seems, but that doesn't mean she doesn't love Shinichi. It's just...
    
    "Mom and Dad already grieved for me and moved on. It would be cruel to make them do it twice." She pats his hand still resting on her--and gently, gently removes it. "You know you didn't kill me now, Shinichi. I didn't die because of what you said. I've forgiven you, so it's time to forgive yourself and move on too." She squeezes his hand...
    
    ...then pulls hers away. "You're free now."
    
    As Tsumugi so eloquently recited, she has named the sky her own. She turns her smile to them and Saika and Pernelle, that sadness blown away. There is indeed nothing left for her here, and once again she conveys that mutual understanding with Tsumugi despite a lack of words. It's time to go to her true home.
    
    "Ooh, I want hot pot!" she says brightly to Saika, regardless of whether she's taking tomorrow night off or not. It is a future Yanagi's looking towards all the same... a future with Peacock Silk, and without Shinichi Nagisa.
    
    Paying no mind to Roger's sudden yelp, she leans over for her cane and the double-bladed knife that was once--and is still--a pair of Homunculus Eyes.
    
    Until she too snaps a sharp, wide-eyed look over her shoulder, far too late.

<Pose Tracker> Penguin Slasher has posed.

Michael Kills Judith - Halloween OST - https://youtu.be/pW-z037uA1o?si=976AkjncjweEOuX2&t=52

The drama is quite distracting, is it not? As a sister rejects the idea of a lasting bond with family. As she readies to enjoy her future plans with her new home...
 
A shape melts out of the retreating mist. Look upon the ground, the Homunculus who was laying there, quite dead- now gone. For instead it encircles its enormous arms around Yanagi, lifting her up- and beginning to squeeze with all of his might- with bone snapping force.

His head is lolled at a sideways angle, with that dripping wound still present. His hands have deep pits where its Eyes once were. Even without his Eyes, somehow, he still persists.

    ((taking you from him))
((taking you with me))
            ((i will not be nothing))
    ((i will be your grave))
            ((we go together))

Still alive, it only thinks of one thing to do with its maimed, dying body. Spiteful- possessive vengeance. Not even to try and take the Eyes back. To kill her. Then die, in triumph, having paid her back for her betrayal in full, with her.

<Pose Tracker> Shinichi Nagisa has posed.

The 'No.' hits him like a bucket of ice water to the face. For a while, he doesn't even respond, as she speaks to him, his mouth working like he wants to say something, like a gaping fish that was just landed and is suffocating on the air itself.

It's only when she pats his hand, then begins to pull away that he begins to answer in desperation, "What- but- that doesn't matter! Even if you were going to die tomorrow- I don't care! They wouldn't care. I can't just- just- move on? You're my sister!? I don't want to be free of you!"

His protestations grow weaker, and weaker by the moment, because- even if she forgave him, doesn't she deserve her wishes respected? Why should he who thinks he's the worst brother in the world to her- who thinks he doesn't deserve her, chase after her? Fight to keep her in his life?

All he can do is hurt her in the attempt. Just like he did before.

It grows worse as she excitedly talks about Hot Pot- with a woman he doesn't even know? With a whole strange group of people- and... weird monster bird!? But... not him. Not her family. Does she really just- not want to be a part of their lives anymore that much? It's so upsetting that he can't even understand yet that he feels more than a little jealous?

Still reeling with shock and confusion from this whole interaction with someone he would have thought he knew only seconds before, he only vaguely sees the shape rise up behind her, as he calls out in horror, "NEESAN!" He knows how frail she was, and almost certainly still is. He can see the monster behind crushing her- and knows, there's nothing he can do.

Nothing. He's entirely helpless to stop what happens next. Even staggering to his feet, he knows there's no way he can pry this creature off her in time- even though he'll try anyway.

Back in his life for a moment, then gone again. Like a rekindled flame of hope, flickering and wavering, then guttering away.

And why does he have the vaguest feeling that this was never supposed to happen at all. That idea, that impression that she's already dead, causes something to be consumed inside of him.

Reborn - Revue Starlight OST - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ge9LoG6ibw

There's no time, but blessedly, between the ticks of a second- the collective makes time.

Oh loathsome fear that binds you in this cage of passivity.

If she is taken from you again, the fault will lay only in your own cowardice.

Why not alter thy nature into one who would dance instead, and rekindle discarded ambition?

The shreds of fabric from a cocoon begin to glow a ghostly blue as spun potential- nearly lost forever- erupts with threads that attach to his head, his body, the entirety of his being. Boundless on the inside of that cocoon, Shinichi is bathed in the purest scarlet light to the rhythmic clanking of industrial machinery.

To pursue coveted bond with jealous abandon, to be ferocious to one's rivals and to wear conviction nakedly in the face of adversity is what it truly means to live!

A half-cape with a hood forms over him, the outer layer a blue, with a dark purple interior- fluttering down to land upon his shoulders. His torso is encased into a top of double breasted buttons in matching color, with a thin fabric that gives the impression of a scrub top.

I AM THOU,
THOU ART I.

Around his legs the silken threads wind, weaving blue athletic pants, then forming dark boots with metal cleats on each foot- his form constantly surrounded by ephemeral, blue wisps of flame that are ever burning-shifting.

Even should our dance take us to the grave, let our fervor set the underworld ablaze. Now, call to me- and let us have this dance together!

"HILARION!" he screams as he erupts from the cocoon, with the desperation of someone who knows they might lose so much if they don't act now! Blue flames erupt in kind, and something rises out of him.

That ghostly blue flame compresses within a half-circle arc of machinery that constantly rotates around it. It tapers down into the neck of a spindly purple demonic creature armored all over in green and orange plating that is segmented in ways as to give the impression of sporting pads, in the center of which is a medical cross. On one hand, it wields a long staff made up of twisting and winded snakes in the familiar form of the caduceus, but without the wings. Its thin legs are crossed, as if to imply it is mid-dance- or pose.

With a dramatic sweep of its staff downward, it reveals to the Homunculus the lie that his vengeance can be complete. Behind the Homunculus, nuclear flame mushrooms up through him, consuming him so completely as to seemingly disintegrate him outright, leaving only his arms untouched.

Its arms slide off Yanagi, limply- his body ablaze in ever-burning nuclear fire, a shadow of a shadow within that blaze. He takes a step. Then another.

Then he falls over, disintegrating into Shadowy ash before he even hits the floor.

Despite the wonder of this moment, he doesn't even waste any time approaching her to check on her. "Neesan! Hey, are you okay? Just breathe-!" Intention becomes action, as Hilarion, the Persona casts a Diarama spell upon her taking the form of ghostly little wisps of blue light that surround her like an aura. "Somebody call an ambulance!" he calls out, still panicking in the moment.

Not even considering for a moment the adrenaline rush that the last place Yanagi would ever want to be- is in a hospital. Or whether ambulances can even run here.

<Pose Tracker> Kikuno Kisaragi has posed.

    Kikuno pauses, watching Yanagi as she informs her brother precisely why she can't go home again. Ever so slightly, Kikuno's sour frown deepens. In the same moment, Yanagi reaches for the knife and speaks of getting hot pot.

    ((An Opportunity Arrives)) speaks the voice only she can hear in her skull.

    She glances again at Pernelle, at Tsumugi, her attention returning to Yanagi as the seconds seem to slow to a crawl. The one place that Kikuno does not look after all is at the fallen flesh of Eshm.

    ((He Lives Yet))

    ((Ware Ye))

    Its carcass twitches, solidifying once more to too-solid flesh.

    For Eshm is not yet dead. Malice lingers where a chance at life slips from its grasp. Of this, she is also familiar. So it's also petty--

    But no, Eshm isn't dead yet. Kikuno, with sudden speed as Yanagi is struck, snatches up the knife.

    And then something else happens.

    "Ah," she says, tucking the knife away as chaos unwinds about her. "You lucky boy. You don't have a dead sister." She pauses, taking one step back.

    "Not tonight, anyway."

    One more step. One more step. She turns her gaze up as Eshm is reduced to so much ash under the newly awakened Persona's burst of ultimate flame.
    She had limped before. There's no hint of it now as she turns sharply and bolts for the door.

<Pose Tracker> Coin has posed.

It's not that Coin minds being called a fox; she's described *herself* as vulpine before. It's just that she knows that kitsune no mado is a thing children do, and that one she does mind. (How does she know it's a childish thing? ...beats her.)

This time, Coin gives someone else a long look.

Pernelle, specifically. Something about him -

He's not like her. But he's not NOT like her, either. She's fascinated by him like she was some of the other things she's seen, though she does not do the peek-through-her-hands or anything else particularly uncanny. She just *looks*, the same way she did at Roger earlier; a little uncomfortably if you're the target, especially when her ears quiver and point forward.

"You! And you!" Coin points directly at Pernelle, and then Roger. "You I will speak with, later! For our time here is short!" Especially with the Peacock Silk crew making plans to move out -

- until -

Coin is not especially familiar with the nature of the Homonculus. She thought that when it was defeated, it was gone; it wasn't something you needed a Silver Bullet for. It was something Else, something Different, and you couldn't integrate it.

Which means it should have the decency to *stay* dead once you kill it.

Coin's tail lashes as she spins around, but she's both way too far away and way too slow to do anything at all. Despite herself she draws her sword, although what she thinks she's going to do with it is a very good question. Even if she was closer it wouldn't be very helpful.

But something new is summoned, in defense of another... Coin's eyes widen. "A power, called by change and need...?" This is the first time she has seen someone Awaken to a Persona (besides her own, that doesn't count) and Transmutation feels so different. She does not have any words for a few moments, which for Coin is unusual, until Shinichi's panic snaps her out of it.

"How?" she asks, baffled. Ambulances don't run here! At least, not any ambulance you'd want to get in; she doesn't know if the place has cognitive ambulances but if it does you couldn't pay her to get in one.

She pushes Kanae forward instead, or at least against her leg. "Go! Help, if you want it to end well after all!"

Coin, after all, is not entirely used to how normal human bodies. She's pretty sure she will be less help than none at all... but at least she realizes that!

<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.

What's not to like? Kanae likes Coin, for this too. Indeed though; Kanae has no answers for Kazusa, not at the moment. "it went fine," Kanae says, and when Kasumi chimes in, Kanae shrugs. "Whatever," she says of her twisted relationship. "It's done. I'm not worried about it."

...is it really that simple? Maybe it is!

Pause. "He was pretty nice," she adds for Kasumi's benefit. "Too nice."

But Yanagi... says no. Kanae schools her features immedaitely; shock turns to something else, and she doesn't want anyone knowing what she thinks. ...How she kind of admires Yanagi's free spirit, in the moment. She feels a little bad for Shinichi, but... Wow!

"Forgive... yourself, huh...?"

Roger seems alarmed suddenly. Quickly, Kanae sees why--but too late to do anything. "Holy SHIT," Kanae starts, scrambling for her gunblade even though it's far too late--

The scars remain indeed, Magus.

She blinks--and starts to rise to her feet at Coin's push. "Uh!" she starts. "Right!"

With the shattering of another glass, Kanae changes the presence in her mind, and calls forth her own persona as she goes. "Ame-no-Uzume!" The dancing, laughing goddess appears to lend her own healing to Yanagi's body.

"...Sorry dude," she says. "No ambulance is coming here. ...But now that I see, it looks like you already had it taken care of..."

Will it still 'end well'?

...Depends who for, maybe.

<Pose Tracker> Kazusa Motojima has posed.

Magus speaks of the scars that remain. Kazusa glances at her out the side of her vision. "... the scars don't go away just because the monster is defeated," she says quietly.

She has some experience in the matter. But then again, she didn't get a tidy resolution, either. nor is she convinced yet this one will be quite so tidy yet.

She glares at Saika, bare arms crossed in front of her. "Don't be morbid," she snaps. "... though frankly I'm kind of all mobirded out at the moment."

"He's in my class," Kazusa answers Belle. But when she brings up the relationship Kanae was in with the Homunculus, Kazusa jabs Belle in the side with her elbow. "Not now," she hisses quietly.

'No.'

Kazusa sucks in a sharp breath, even though she'd half-expected that reaction. But then she gasps, as the Homunculus reforms, and goes after Yanagi in a lat act of revenge. "No!"

She darts forward, her spine whip in hand, instinctively reaching out to call forth the butterfly that would presage her Persona's arrival--only to draw up short as a Cocoon encases Shinichi, followed by flames both blue and nuclear. "Nagisa-san..."

She didn't get to see her Awakening from the outside before. This is the first one she's seen, and she's momentarily taken aback, until--

'Somebody call an ambulance!'

Kazusa's jaw sets, and her whip cracks out as Mina HArker rises again. She'd kept her distance, before--if Shinichi was going to forget, she didn't want to prompt him into remembering. But now that he's Awakened anyway...

A short sprint sees her by Shinichi's side, and the hand that goes to rest on his shoulder may come from one of the least likely sources: a Kazusa Motojima in some sort of strange wolf princess cosplay, looking serious and also... concerned. "Nagisa-san," she says quickly. "A hospital can't help her. But your Persona can."

"And I'll help too. Mina!"

Mina Harker lends her own healing efforts to that of Hilarion and Ame-no-Uzume. Kazusa gives Kanae a grateful nod, but quickly looks back worriedly to Yanagi a moment later.

<Pose Tracker> Kasumi Yoshizawa has posed.

    It's in the past now, huh? Kasumi nods. "I'm glad to hear it, Fuyuki-san." She says. "You're strong." She says, earnestly.

    Then, she gets jabbed. "Huh?!" Kasumi lets out a noise. "(What was that for? She mentioned it earlier...)" She whispers back to Kazusa.

    Too nice, huh? Well, now it makes a bit more sense why the humunculus lashed out so hard. She hopes that Shinichi can find more peace now. It's a good start, at least.

    Yanagi says no, and something inside Kasumi screams, that she stuffs down hard. Yanagi is completely reasonable, but... it does hurt to hear.

    Then, something tragic happens. The humunculus, still alive, attempts to take a life with him. Kasumi lets out an strangled noise, clamping her hands overtop her mouth. She can't move, can't do anything to intervene. She can only watch in horror. As...

    Shinichi... Transmutates? Awakens. And finishes off the Homunculus. "Oh. Oh, thank goodness..." Kasumi murmers, as life returns to her. "That was terrifying..." Everyone else runs to check up on Yanagi and Shinichi, but Kasumi can't bring up the energy just yet. So, she sinks down, still covering her mouth with her gloved hand.

<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.

    "The Homunculus is still alive!" Roger brings the sensation of shock to something more verbally sensible when it is too late for him to intervene. He's aghast at this! He should normally be on top of this kind of thing! He's the member of the team they're meant to rely on when it comes to the ins and outs of how an Atelier's denizens and unwanted Homunculus parasites all work!
 
     ...The terrible thought that Yanagi will not be able to play anymore with anyone, because of this.
 
     But then...
 
     Shinichi finds it in himself. He finds it in himself to change.
 
     To awaken, to a Transmutation... and his Persona.
 
     Hilarion disintegrates the Homunculus in its entirety, as Roger flails and balances back on one leg in the backwash of that awesome power of nuclear fire.
 
     ..And then Kikuno escapes.
 
     "W-Wait! Weren't you going to-- explain... eee." Roger presses his fingers together, hunched over, at the rapid series of events. "Um, Shinichi-kun...!"
 
     Many are, rightfully, coming to crowd around him to come to both his aid and Yanagi's. "D-Don't push it! You'll wear yourself out! You just awakened to something called a 'Persona!' You don't know the rules of that game yet!"
 
     "...But..."
 
     Roger tries to give a reassuring smile. "We're all on your team! We'll do all we can!!"

<Pose Tracker> Misato Fushihara has posed.

Magus looks toward Kazusa as she agrees with her. Yes... It is not that easy. She can hear the weight of familiarity in her voice.

Just because the source of the pain is gone, doesn't mean it is over.

She looks back toward Shinichi and Yanagi. ...It is, perhaps, the expected outcome. Of course it isnt so easy as letting her just go home to the family.

What isn't expected, though, is what happens next.

Magus curses under her breath as the Homunculus rises again. How foolish...! This is her first time encountering one of these creatures. She never thought to ask whether or not it was normal for the body to remain - but it was foolish of her to not guarantee the job was finished properly. She starts forward, drawing her saber - but she feels a spike of pain throughout her body, drawing a hiss from her. She isn't fast enough like this. She won't be able to do anything -

- but she doesn't need to. The shed cocoon begins to shine, and scarlet light washes over Shinichi.

"...I see. So this is..." Magus murmurs, trailing off. She lowers her blade - and watches as the Homunculus is consumed by flame.

But, her health...

"...We are currently outside normal reality." Magus states, as Shinichi asks for someone to call an ambulance. "They cannot reach us. We would need to leave this place. If you wish for something to be done, you must do it under your own power."

<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.

They must really want those Eyes to let themself go through all that.

Maybe so. Tsumugi Kujaku doesn't explicitly deny it as they turn to make their exit with the others. All they say is this:

"I wanted to see if it could show me something new." Fingerless gloved hands move through that wild mane of platinum-and-glowing gradient hair, blowing locks back behind them as they walk.

"But it wasn't anything I didn't already know."

The steady click of heels carries them out in Pernelle's wake, ready to leave. They don't look behind them toward Yanagi. They don't tell her to hurry up and come with. Don't question her intentions.

Maybe because she's called the sky her own, and you don't cage a free bird.

Maybe they simply know what's coming next.

Either way...

They don't look back as Yanagi parts with Shinichi to grab the Eyes. They just lift a hand as Saika hands off kitchen duties to Pernelle.

"Ara. Is it time to play Russian roulette again--"

And then they stop. Red-gold eyes snap wide.

Something's wrong--

They spin, a second later, just in time to see the Homunculus gripping Yanagi, fit to crush her if only to deprive its host of the one thing he just took back. Eyes still wide, they take a single step forward -- and then still.

Those widened eyes narrow.

"..."

If Saika and Pernelle try to rush Eshm and Yanagi? They suddenly find a hand on their shoulder, and a high-heeled boot in their path, respectively, as Tsumugi suddenly seeks to preemptively still them.

"Wait," they advise, gaze fixed forward, past Eshm.

They blink. Once.

It's remarkable how much things can change in the blink of an eye? It's a powerful figurative device for a reason, after all. How profound things can just happen right past your notice. In some cases, however, it is very literal. Like now.

Tsumugi Kujaku's eyes shut for a fraction of a second.

And when they open --

Shinichi Nagisa is consuming the parasite that once tried to steal his life away in furious, desperate nuclear fire.

Shinichi Nagisa's chains break for the sake of saving another fetter he thought he'd lost.

"..." Tsumugi Kujaku's eyes hood as they watch Yanagi fall, and watch Shinichi rush to her side.

Neesan! Hey, are you okay? Just breathe-!

click
    click
        click

Somebody call an ambulance--

A long dark shadow casts over Shinichi and Yanagi Nagisa as an angelic figure dressed in white and carved of marble crouches down near them...

... and scoops Yanagi into their arms.

"No."

Tsumugi Kujaku lifts slowly. It hurts, with their injuries, but they lift Yanagi up, princess carry in their arms all the same. They don't even bother to look at Shinichi as they turn, fully intent to take his sister away from him.

"She was never yours to take. Shin-chan."

But their words are unmistakably for him.

"She's free now."

They turn, to start to leave once more. "Pernelle, open the--"

And then there is Kikuno, swiping that knife.

Those unnatural scarlet-gold eyes are wider than they've ever been as they fix immediately upon Kikuno. Surprise, for once, grips their gaze, along with something else -- something that makes pupils shrink towards pinpricks. The entire world seems to freeze in that moment.

And then she bolts for the door like a thief in the night.

"Saika, Pernelle--" the leader of Peacock Silk says immediately, their voice level but possessed of a sudden, ineffable intensity.

"Get her."

<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.

Coin looks at Pernelle. Pernelle looks back and tilts his head to one side. Then she points, and Pernelle ruffles in surprise. "Me! And he?!" Pernelle glances from Coin to Roger and back again, then straightens up, chest puffed with delight. "If speaking is what you seek, then speak we shall! I will bring snacks."

Later, of course.

Pernelle gasps and looks toward Saika.

"Have my kitchen privileges been restored?! Splendid! I shall whip up a feast the likes of which you have never experienced!" Yanagi chimes in to ignite Pernelle further with ideas. "Oh Yanagi, how I have missed your brilliant mind! We shall have the hotest of pots! The potest of hots!"

The excitement vibrating off of him comes to a sharp halt. Pernelle falls out of the air with his glasses falling from his beak.

"Yanagi!"

Scrambling with scratching claws, he makes to hurry toward her --

Only for Tsumugi's hand to fall upon him. He looks back up at them, stilled without resistance, but fear in his beady little eyes. Then he turns to look, burning blue reflected in his gaze. A grand awakening sees Eshm dispatched.

Pernelle watches the dust fall as Tsumugi takes Yanagi into their arms. And then --

"Eeeyaw?!" Pernelle squawks as Kikuno sweeps in.

Get her.

Pernelle's next squawk is more of a bellow, terrifyingly resonate and echoing to have come from the throat of such a small creature. He spreads his wings and launches into full flight, casting his massive shadow over everyone in his path as he pursues Kikuno.

<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.

 
"Oh, well, I'll try to be less gross, then," Saika jabs insouciantishly to Kazusa in reply. But she's not really focusing on her.

It does not quite reach Saika's face, in its stitchwork glory, but her eyes do soften slightly when Yanagi speaks. It must have been hard for her; well, maybe not, thinks Saika, but if I was in her shoes, and I had family that--

-- and it's hurting him, huh. It's hurting a guy who's gone through a lot. Obviously it can't be helped, but he seemed to come along pretty well when the chips were down. Maybe...

... nah: he doesn't seem like the type.

Saika lets out a sigh. Her attention turns to Yanagi, who is, after all, not a stranger to her, and says, "Absolutely, this is the perfect time of year. Actually, Pernelle could probably... hm..."

Her eyes lid for a moment, at the *worst possible* moment, because when something makes that horrible shadow-humor-nightmare-fluid *sound* her eyes snap open. She raises her chain-wrapped hand. "Fucking MONSTER! Go back to Hell already! Fr--" Her doubtless invocation of the Monster of lore is cut off momentarily when something goes *click*.

For a distinct tick, Saika is staring with total consternation at Shinichi.

Just one tick. It's probably for the best.

Because in that tick Tsumugi's hand rests on her shoulder. She knows it by reflex. Saika stays tight, but she doesn't lunge. She exhales. Her own eyes are focused with laser intensity on Yanagi, on where Yanagi is, on where Yanagi *stays*, because with this new resurgence on the part of Shin-chan over there, she's going to have to fight and it's not going to be easy.

Especially since --

Wait.

There was that flash.

She should be doing the heavy lifting, not Tsumugi, they're all beat up, BUT

        BUT

Her eyes widen immensely, enough that one of the staples on the edge of her eye gives way, revealing a hint of lurid blood-wet tissue underneath. She seems to rise upwards because she's putting it all together, and Tsumugi's unambiguous. Pernelle has a screeching cry of fury, and Saika speaks with more conventional language.

Her voice sounds notably deeper now.

        "WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING?"

Saika strides forwards, towards one of those pieces of heavy machinery on wheels that would be attached to your ailing relation or wounded love; the machine that calmly and coolly sings the sound of heart and lung and blood and brain, making the hidden apparent for the occult scholars society knows as doctors.

Anyway, Saika brings up her right leg and kicks it dead on.

The sensory array does not so much roll as disappear, streaking forwards fast enough to smash through a significant fragment of the wall. The resulting hole is shrouded in dust but Saika has to advance and even with her height she has to duck to get through the hole thus ripped, taking one big step over the edge as she shouts again,

        "GET BACK HERE YOU LITTLE SHIT!"

This must be one hell of a hobby.

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    To be your own person.
    Tick tock, tick tock, Umie.

    Umie's clock is broken, but Yanagi's is still brutally shortened. To be the person she wishes to be, she had to cut herself free from the cocoon.

    Umie bows her chin, slightly, and nods, closing her eyes.

    'You're my sister!? I don't want to be free of you!'
    Shinichi will likely not remember any of this, once enough time has passed. Maybe it's for the best... "..."

    Do Umie's parents feel the same about her? She's cut them off for their own safety, just like she's done with almost things. They are the umbilical cord that connected her to the NWO, but also stubbornly ignorant of just how much damage the NWO has done to her.
    
    Ignorance can kill a person, if they aren't careful. "Shit...!" Well, there's yet another flaw in Umie's 'radar': the Badb's radar is selfish, limited to dangers to *Umie*, not someone else, something others like Roger could see past.

    The homunculus strikes to take what is his, expressing a deadly possessiveness the real Shinichi lacked.

    But what Shinichi has that Homunuculus didn't, however, was the needle to thread the actualization of his True Self: his Persona.

    ".... amazing..." No matter what type, or situation, to see someone Awaken was like watching a butterfly emerge from its cocoon; a release of intention and willpower rarely ever given actual form. It's a fitting end, for the beast to be ended by the one who created him.

    Still, Yanagi's life is now hanging from yet another thread. But, if Kazusa is correct... "Concentrate," Umie says calmly, excusing Kikuno's exit from her mind. If there's room, she'll stoop down close to the two, intent on trying to coach the newly made Persona User through what is a rough awakening.

    Click, click, click.

    Tsumugi scoops Yanagi up, much to Umie's dumbfounded shock. "Whoah, be careful," she cautions, but doesn't stop or hinder. Tsumugi has a point, as cruel as it may be for Shinichi to swallow.

    Kikuno, meanwhile, has apparently made off like a thief in the night, meanwhile. She sighs, and gets up. "All this over some monster parts," she groans. "I guess it's an exciting life, though..."

    Her gaze falls back down to Shinichi now, trying to bite back the wince at possibly seeing that face look up at her. ".... We should probably get going too, eh?" She glances back at Roger. ".... Will this place be stable long enough for us to get everyone stablized first? Including him."

<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.

    The Homunculus, returning to non-life like the last sting from a movie monster, snatches Yanagi up and lifts her into its crushing embrace. She cries out in reactionary pain, her cane and even the Eyes forgotten. As Eshm's grip tightens to break her, her cries intensify into ravaged screams.
    
    She accepts that she will die, and die young. She does not accept that it will be at the filthy paws of the Homunculus she--she!--conned.
    
    The aid that frees her comes not from whom she expects, though. Rather than Tsumugi or Saika or Pernelle, Shinichi is clothed in the red light of Transmutation and awakens to nuclear flame that burns Eshm clean away. As its arms slacken, she falls and stumbles into him, then looks back just in time to see the dying monster finally return to nothing.
    
    (Mona meanwhile was shocked by this sudden sting too, but Yanagi's clearly got plenty of healers on her. He stays by Belle's side, resting a worried paw on her shoulder when she collapses. He'll leave when she does. They're partners, after all.)
    
    Shinichi calls forth his Persona once more to heal her, and she breathes a little more easily, though sweat still beads her beautiful face. She doesn't respond though she also doesn't resist; when he calls for an ambulance in his panic, she grimaces. Kanae and Kazusa heal her as well, but Yanagi doesn't offer gratitude to either of them either. Instead, she twists to shoot a plaintive look over at one person:
    
    Tsumugi.
    
    Saika and Pernelle are dearly important to her too, but it's Tsumugi whom she loves the most. It's Tsumugi who she trusts with her whole heart to not be hurt or bereaved by her inevitable early passing. It's Tsumugi who will move on without hesitation afterwards, who will forget her once she's gone.
    
    It's Tsumugi, and Tsumugi alone, with whom she can enjoy the present without being chained by a past or worrying about a future.
    
    And so when they swoop towards her and sweep her into their arms, even before she appealed to them wordlessly, she breaks into a relieved and adoring smile. Eyelashes fluttering shut, she leans her head on their shoulder and relaxes...
    
    'You lucky boy. You don't have a dead sister. Not tonight, anyway.'
    
    'Saika, Pernelle--get her.'
    
    Yanagi's eyes shoot open just in time to see Kikuno exiting stage left, pursued by a peacock. The Eyes are nowhere to be seen; certainly they're not where she left them. "Did she--" she utters.
    
    Then her eyes narrow. A deep breath; she lets it out.
    
    Saika and Pernelle will have it handled. Already they're screaming fury and chasing after Kikuno with violence in their hearts. They, too, are loyal. All four of them are dedicated to their cause. Yanagi settles anew--but this time, she peeks over at Roger. He speaks of the rules of the game that Shinichi doesn't yet know.
    
    "Roger," she says softly, "please help Shinichi understand." Umie, meanwhile, has the right idea. Yanagi looks up at her boss, her friend, her companion, her lover. "Tsumugi, let's go."

<Pose Tracker> Shinichi Nagisa has posed.

"Just dial One-One-Nine!" Shinichi calls to Coin in a panic, not realizing the actual context of the 'How'.
 
... Sorry dude, No ambulance is coming here! ... But now that I see, it looks like you already had it taken care of...
'Nagisa-san, a hospital can't help her. But your Persona can.'
 
"Taken care of-?" He can't comprehend that she might be right so easily as he watches Kazusa add more healing magic into the mix, "Is- is that really enough!? He probably broke a few ribs at least...!"
 
'You lucky boy. You don't have a dead sister.'
'Not tonight, anyway.'
 
He was too distracted to see what Kikuno did, but his jaw drops at what she said because- isn't this a medical emergency right now? "Yeah I mean- I'm trying to prevent that right now!"
 
'D-Don't push it! You'll wear yourself out! You just awakened to something called a 'Persona!' You don't know the rules of the game yet!'
 
"Rules!? My sister almost got murdered! Just give me the quick rundown!"
 
'No.'
 
A shape scoops up Yanagi, and he suddenly is on his feet- only to swirl with vertigo, less due to the drain of awakening and more from...
 
     ... from...
 
... the feeling that he knows this person.
 
"Who- who the-" Whatever hesitation he felt, melts away in the face of his confusion, and jealousy over the life she's chosen to live- with... them?
 
"-fuck are you to say that!?"
 
Are they the reason Yanagi is acting like this? Are all of them in this crew the reason?
 
"This is between her and me- you can stay out of it."
 
'Saika, Pernelle--'
 
Two more names, he can now engrave in his brain.
 
Get her.
 
Their priority, right now, after Yanagi almost died- is going after another girl who saved him? For what!?
 
"Yeah- no. I'm not letting you just have your way here. You wanna get at her, you have to go through me!"
 
Which is probably more bluster than anything because the exhaustion of newly awakening is settling in and- he definitely wants to lay down for a hundred years.
 
But he won't until he makes himself have a fist fight with a monster peacock, at least and forces himself to take a step Pernelle's way.
 
CRASH BANG
 
or maybe you know that girl over there who suddenly seems like she's pretty mad
 
Instead his direction changes a half-step further towards Saika, "Hey! You're Saika right? Leave her the hell alone!"
 
Before he nearly slips and falls on his ass from sheer exhaustion.

<Pose Tracker> Boss Penguin has posed.

Soundtrack - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlmQiHClfko

Tak.

    Tak.

        Tak.

The sound of feet bearing geta, with a measured gait, just the right amount of force- to turn an inelegant 'thok' into a familiar 'tak'. A sound pronounced enough to be heard even over the din.

Familiar to one person in the Atelier's heart, that is. A woman wearing a black kimono, a symbol of calmness, stability... control. A pattern of pine trees: longevity, endurance, strength.

The resonance of her presence is immense- almost suffocating. Like even the awful vertigo of her existing nearby was enough to give many the urge to get on their knees before her rather than try to remain upright. Certainly at least enough to distract people away from the idea of fighting. Even if someone overcomes and gets the impulse to approach her, they'll find they're just unable to.

As if she could part the sea that is 'humanity' with her presence alone.

Her hands laced together, entirely unthreatened, her face that of a middle-aged woman, dark hair pinned up. "Such a lovely scene." She says of the chaos that she's just interrupted, "Just the kind of family reunion I envisioned. Between brother and sister..." A hand gestures towards Yanagi and Shinichi.

"...Mother and-" Another hand moves up, but before pointing at someone, her expression becomes the tiniest of insincere smiles as she looks right at them. "Oh. But I should call you Tsumugi now, shouldn't I? The name you chose for yourself."

She enunciates each word as green eyes, locked with theirs. "Your. Freedom." Rather than gesture at her, she lets a sleeve slide down naturally by gravity, showing a bracelet. It is an unsightly thing. Diamonds in the rough, interspersed with cut ones, mismatched in size and shape. A shogi piece for 'pawn' facing the object of their attention.

Yanagi will recognize it as a very familiar commission. The one she delivered on the day she saw Shinichi, before this whole mess.

"'Family,' 'tradition'... words that bind you- you remember when I said that, do you not? It is because you remain bound by your memory of me. Your freedom, a lie- shaped by your remembrance of our time together." She beckons Tsumugi with a single fingertip. "Let us leave this place, Tsumugi. I will allow you to serve me once more."

The hand drops, as she says with a self-confidence of absolute certainty.

"Just as you always have."

Many in this room may be confused by this. Who this woman is- even the few who know her, are certainly confused. One young man looks at her with eyes wide, staring in shock like he's seen not just one ghost today, but two.

"... Itami-san?" Shinichi whispers. "But you're..."

She does not even bother to look in Shinichi's direction, yet she does at least acknowledge him, "This is my gratitude for helping to take such good care of me, Nagisa-kun. The miracle you always desired. Your sister returned to your side."

Whether she wants to be or not, she does not say. That much is obvious.

<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.

Kanae can feel for Shinichi in the moment. He's having trouble. He's finally speaking up for something he wants, like she wanted him to a while back... but it's something he's not going to get, plainly.

But she hadn't realized Kikuno was running away with something so important.

"..." 'Give me the quick rundown', he says, but 'no' is more relevant for the moment. Between them...

Tsumugi has started to walk away with Yanagi, and while it was simple while Shinichi was a nonissue to appreciate Yanagi's desire for freedom, seeing the toll it takes on Shinichi is harder, now.

It gets harder and more complex when that woman appears.

Yanagi has made her decision, but...

"Huh?" Kanae wonders, and suddenly feels very out of place. A reunion between mother and... someone.

"..."

She didn't expect gratitude, of course. But she didn't expect a lot of what happened, either. Kanae takes a look back towards Isabeau for a moment--and then steps over to where the Homunuculus was. "Hey, hold on..."

She looks apologetically at Shinichi, and picks up Yanagi's cane. She hurries a few moments after Yanagi and Tsumugi before they can go--and offers it forth.

"This is yours," she says. "Here you go. ...Guess that finishes out our deal."

She steps back, and doesn't stop Yanagi or Tsumugi any further from here.

But she looks back at Shinichi. "So this is freedom, huh...?"

She thinks of Touma, again, and bows her head. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is."

But nervously, Kanae can't help but look to 'mother' once again, uneasy.

<Pose Tracker> Kazusa Motojima has posed.

Kazusa will explain it to Belle later, that she was concerned about Shinichi and what mentioning things that the Homunculus might do, but... that's a moot point now.

Also, just a time and place thing.

(... also, a little bit that Kanae dating the Homunculus, even if for a noble cause, made Kazusa irritable. That probably doesn't mean anything.)

It's okay, Roger. None of this has happened how anybody expected. At least, not how Kazusa expected. They can talk about it later.

Roger cautions Shinichi on the 'rules' of playing Persona, and Kazusa, for once, agrees with him. (Maybe not with the exact phrasing, but her capacity to nitpick right now is deeply bottomed out.)

Shinichi asks if it's enough. Kazusa nods seriously. "The Homunculus was supernatural. And... so are you, now. Between the three of us... it'll work."

She also doesn't have time to process Tsumugi's wanting to see something new. But she does react when Tsumugi just... scoops up Yanagi to princess carry her away. "H-hey!" Shinichi can't cage her, and Kazusa gets that, but also, "You could let us finish healing her!"

She missed what Kikuno did, with her attention focused on Shinichi and Yanagi. But when Tsumugi says to 'Get her' her head cranes around. "Wha-- didn't she come in with you? What the heck!?"

She gets that Shinichi is upset--and she in no way knows how to unpack any of this right now, but when he goes to pick a fight-- "H-hey! You're not going to be in any condition to fight--" He goes down, and this means Kazusa goes to kneel by his side.

Which means she doesn't have to worry about trying to remain standing when that immense presence comes, but she gasps and recoils anyway as she feels that power. "Wha--" She can't help but grit her teeth, but feels in no way willing to try and fight back.

What the heck is going on here!?

'Mother and...' She looks at Tsumugi, then back at the strange woman who just appeared.

She shoots Kanae a concerned look. If another fight breaks out, do any of them have enough left to fight something like this???.

"Nagisa-san, do you know her?" she asks under her breath to her classmate.

[OOC] Kazusa Motojima says, "bluray: Tack that onto my pose."

<Pose Tracker> Coin has posed.

"On WHAT," Coin calls back to Shinichi. "I do not own a phone, and even if I did, it doesn't work here!"

It is probably not a surprise that the little fox humanoid does not have a phone if Shinichi calms down enough to think about it (and also does not freak out about there being a little fox humanoid, which is an important step).

But Yanagi is alive, and even up, and Coin is pleased by that. She crosses her arms, nodding in a satisfied way -

- which is when Saika smashes down part of a wall, and Pernelle flies overhead. Coin stares after them for a moment, torn between following and not. 'Not' wins, but only by a hair - she wants to see what's going on! Still, she remains at Kanae's side -

Scratch that. She remains *behind* Kanae, having swished around her as soon as the new arrival... arrived. Even before she spoke. Coin doesn't want to be seen, and even she does not know why. Maybe it's that sheer presence. It certainly overpowers Coin's; Coin does not exactly have a small attitude, but she's feeling completely overborne by... 'Itami-san'?

Coin peeks out from around Kanae, but does not step around her. She does give Kazusa a look up at that concern, making a 'please calm down' patting gesture - no, you should not fight someone like this!

<Pose Tracker> Misato Fushihara has posed.

It seems there's an altercation. ...Past this point, it isn't Magus's place to interfere. They'll have to work it out between themselves. Shinichi, meanwhile, is understandably confused about the situation. This must be a lot for him. She doesn't envy him, to have so much dropped onto him at once. What he does from here, though, is between him, Yanagi, and that group taking her.

But then there's the sound of someone approaching - followed by an overwhelming presence.

Who is this? Just being around her makes it difficult to breathe. It's difficult even to remain standing - but even in her current state, rebellion roars in Magus's heart against those who would force her down. She forces herself to remain standing - but even that much is difficult to manage. She watches her carefully, but for now that's all she can do.

But whoever this is, Shinichi seems rather surprised to see her...

<Pose Tracker> Kasumi Yoshizawa has posed.

    Kasumi does not understand at all what's going on. She understands that the kimono clad woman is important with an impressive presence. And Shinichi has seen another ghost.

    She also understands that this woman is very, very strong. Not just anyone can say 'I will allow you to serve me once more', and cause a bystander to feel a tug.

    Kasumi grabs Mona close. "We need to keep our heads down." She whispers. "This isn't the time to interfere." Even she can tell that much.

<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.

    Roger can completely trust in Kazusa's Persona to help deal with any hurts outright! Which is good, because his ability to sense Homunculi that are still a threat - or rather, the failure to do so - rattles him.
 
     Tsumugi takes hold of Yanagi as all hell breaks loose and the other members of Peacock Silk are running off.
 
     "Roger,' a soft voice. He looks up. Someone gave him a name, some time ago, and he holds onto it like a precious thing. He's someone! Someone to play with. With everyone. 'Please help Shinichi understand.'
 
     "...Oh... okay." He says, a bit taken aback. He doesn't know what game is being played here, but having accustomed himself to 'working a job,' he knows some games you have to play even if they don't seem very fun on the outset. Humans play a lot of games.
 
     "I, I meant it!!" Roger snorts to Shinichi as he tries to hurry to his side as he falls from exhaustion. "You can't hoof it after 'em like this," he stomps his feet, his back turned to something else.
 
     Tak.
 
          Tak.
 
               Tak.
 
     A powerful presence washes through, and Roger's eyes widen to pinpricks. He snorts the once inquisitively, turns about-face. He feels shoved just by being there, an aggressive fight-or-flight better described as a fervent stay-in-place.
 
     He doesn't escape Shinichi's side. Not when Shinichi managed to fight to determine for himself who he is and what he wants, but to call Roger's posture 'defiant' is being generous.
 
     His words, however...
 
     "That's a Homunculus!" He says. "...I'm sure of it, but..." Roger stammers some. It reads more like confusion than out-and-out fear, at a 70-to-30 ratio. "...Never one like this..."
 
     He holds his tennis racquet defensively, but cannot raise it further. He remains by Shinichi's side.

<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.

It's hard to call the look on Tsumugi Kujaku's face, or the pitch of their voice, urgent. It barely seems different from their typical placidity -- and it's certainly a far cry from the wild passion they were demonstrating earlier.

But for those who know them, there's a difference there, as they ask Pernelle and Saika to give Kikuno chase. A subtle shift in body language and voice that adds an underscore of tension to it all, like the way the mood seems to just shift when a storm is on the horizon. Can you call it urgency?

Could you call it anything else?

It's there and gone in a moment, the second Saika and Pernelle pursue. As if content they'll secure the Eyes, the subtle edge dissipates like dirt washed away by the rain. They have nothing to say to the others; not to Shinichi's angry accusations, nor to Kazusa's startled shout. They just turn to leave once more, heals clicking on soiled, cognitive grounds.

click
    click
        click

                                  t a k .

And then they freeze.

Their head hangs the moment they stop, platinum locks and their glowing, scarlet-gold undersides a veil obscuring their immaculate features from everyone.

Everyone but Yanagi, held in their arms, who can see their eyes widening, and lips pursing to part out a brief, small sound.

"no."

Such a lovely scene.

Fingers grip more tightly to Yanagi. They tremble, lightly, against her hip. They don't look behind them to see who has arrived. Maybe they don't need to.

Maybe they don't dare to.

"..."

Kanae approaches. Her words are light the muffled blare of a Peanuts adult in Tsumugi's ears, indistinct and lost as everyone else's confusion and uncertainty is. Like their body was moving of their own accord, they suddenly lower Yanagi as that cane is offered out to her, one hand on the small of her back to but otherwise left to hold herself up by that walking stick Kanae offers up as Tsumugi's other hand falls limp to their side.

"Family," "tradition"... words that bind you- you remember when I said that, do you not?

"..."

Their head rolls back. And slowly...

... slowly...

... they pivot on one heel, the entire world feeling like it shifts around them until it inevitably, inexorably draws them face to face with a beautiful vision that once filled them with the most excrutiating and painful of envies.

She looks just like the last time Tsumugi saw her. Exquisite. Unapproachable.

blotted and disgusting

"..."

Let us leave this place, Tsumugi.

    I will allow you to serve me once more.

Their eyes are wide. Their entire stance is rigid.

                         Just as you always have.

Like someone staring down the face of death.

"..."

                        Your entire life has been as a puppet
            whose strings have merely been traded from person to person.

Their eyes widen further.

Furiously.

"...

"You never taught me anything."

shwff

By all accounts, the movement is sudden. Spontaneous. Unhesitating. To most, they'd just see Tsumugi Kujaku's right arm suddenly swing up in a smear of a white sleeve.

And then a knife singing through the cognitive air aimed right for the dead center of the one Shinichi called Itami-san's forehead.

But to the observant, and the ones who know them.

It isn't instant.

It isn't unhesitating.

There's the slightest, critical delay before that knife flies--

the damning sting of uncertain hesitation.

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

     Of course Umie has the right idea! She always has good ideas! Even when they're ones snuck in by a tiny doll-like manifestation of her curse.

    "Nagisa-san." It's definitely time to be the adult in the room, now that several adults are now in the process of leaving. "Pretty sure you'll see her again, now that you've got a Persona of your own." As Yanagi surmised, Roger may be a better candidate for this, come to think of it; but that doesn't mean Umie isn't going to *try*.... "First time's always hard summoning, so... you're not going to be able to stop anything." ... Apparently, from what Umie's heard.

    Of course, *they* could stop the crew from taking Yanagi, but...

    *tak* *tak* *tak*
    It's a sound Umie knows well, having had to navigate them not too long ago: geta. "...." Her head snaps to the intrusion ever alert.

    'I will allow you to serve me once more.' Even if this person may come in hopes of reunion, the sting of those words are like nails on a chalkboard.

    If it's as Roger says...

    The Badb is willing, even if Umie's at half her reserves. ".... Yeah, no." Woth a twist, the kyoketsu shoge is slung out of one sleeve, the hoop end grabbed by her other hand. However, she doesn't thrown or move, slightly bared as a threat, much like Roger has chosen to.

    .... She'll choose to believe that Roger sees how much of a threat this homunculus is, and follow his lead.

    Tsumugi's reaction, however, is something wholly different.

    As the knife flies... a crow longs to do the same.

    'Don't hesitate, Um-i-e-chan~' Pupils constrict, but Umie stays back.

    But her tongue doesn't follow suit. "I don't think you're welcome here, I-ta-mi-san~"

     The tone is sweet, playful, almost identical to the one purred against her ear alone moments ago. Umie is too eager to remain ignorant of it.

<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.

Another squawk echoes through the area.

Pernelle returns, carried by the same wings that he left on, abandoning his quarry and ignoring his leader's instruction.

"Not today!"

He folds his wings in a twists his body mid flight into a single aileron roll. Long neck outstretched like a needle, he meets sudden and inexplicable resistance.

Yet his momentum is not stopped, merely paused, and with an explosive streak of light he seems to puncture nothingness, his body threading through reality itself to reveal a shimmering, ovoid gate.

His head pops back out of it, Pernelle now grounded and gesturing with a sweep of his wings to motion through.

"Quickly now, quickly!"

It is Tsumugi he beseeches, but he shall not close the portal on anyone who wants to leave through it, provided they are nimble in their decision.

<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.

    Shinichi protests Tsumugi taking Yanagi away in rather coarse language. Her eyes narrow. She might love him, but that only makes it irritate her more than he's trying to fight this. "Shinichi," she says reproachfully, "you're being annoying. Please calm down and let us leave." At least Roger has agreed to help him. Yanagi is content to leave it at that, even if he seems confused too.
    
    Kazusa gets a similarly unimpressed look when she says Tsumugi could at least wait for them to finish healing her. "I can heal myself," she tells her, voice clipped. She might be a Navigator rather than a healer, but that doesn't mean she lacks any such magic at all. More importantly, has Kazusa ever seen Yanagi annoyed or angry before?
    
    The elegant footfalls of geta resound then in the ruined hospital room. Yanagi sucks in a sharp little gasp and pulls herself up in Tsumugi's arms, one hand slipping around their neck and clutching their shoulder. She sees the look on their face, hears their smallest refutation, feels their fingers dig into her and shake. It's a reaction even beyond the subtle urgency they had about Kikuno's grand theft.
    
    Her gaze thus must go to the stately woman in the black pine kimono. To see who could have this kind of effect on them.
    
    She barely needs to, though. She doesn't know Mifuyu by name, but she does know what she is. The Resonance alone makes it obvious, even without her Navigator abilities--at least, it feels that way to her. There's something odd about it, but even so--
    
    "Homunculus," she whispers. "A fully matured one."
    
    Good thing Roger's here to explain that loudly enough for everyone to hear, not just Tsumugi. Yanagi's attention is more on what's on the entity's wrist. This isn't just a fully matured Homunculus; it's one wearing the diamond bracelet commission she'd delivered to Shibuya University Hospital--where she and Shinichi reunited, where this entire debacle started.
    
    Yanagi may have never finished high school, but she can still put two and two together before the Homunculus that has become Mifuyu Itami explains this was entirely by design. Her nails dig into Tsumugi's shoulder--all the more so as the one called Mifuyu invites them back under her command, tells Shinichi that all this was its gratitude for his own service.
    
    (Mona meanwhile gets scooped up by a terrified Belle. "Are you serious?!" he hisses at her. "This is exactly the time to interfere! We can't just let this lady strongarm someone into servitude!!" But with Belle's arms around him, he can't get to any of his tools of the trade to help with a getaway for everyone. After all, even as he says that, he fully agrees that this is not someone they all should fight.)
    
    Kanae picks up and gives Yanagi back her cane. This gets a grateful if steely smile that she didn't get before when she contributed to her healing. It does indeed conclude their deal, in her view.
    
    "Thank you," she says--but before she can do what she wants to do next, Tsumugi sets her down--gently, with care--but leaving her to support herself now that her cane's been returned. They turn away and approach the Homunculus.
    
    "Tsumugi!" Yanagi cries, staggering to one side as she steps toward them, forced to clutch her cane with both hands to stay upright. The Dias and Diaramas mended the worst of her injuries, and she's used to enduring pain, but it's not something she can just shrug off either.
    
    No more than she can shrug off that barest hesitation just as Tsumugi throws their knife.
    
    That confirms it. Whoever this Homunculus is, she is...
    
    ...what Shinichi almost became for her.
    
    Pernelle returns, no doubt after sensing Mifuyu's approach and arrival. Yanagi feels the gate as he forms it, and she grabs Tsumugi by the crook of their elbow. "Let's go," she says again, leaning on them--so that she can raise her gun-cane and fire on the Homunculus.
    
    She doesn't hesitate, but she doesn't have nearly Tsumugi's speed. It's merely something to buy a fraction of time--time enough for Yanagi to use her own weight to drag Tsumugi towards the gate and allow Peacock Silk to run. The rest, too, if they're quick enough. Yanagi won't begrudge it of them.

<Pose Tracker> Boss Penguin has posed.

The woman who was once Mifuyu Itami, looks at Tsumugi in that inhuman way one might- as a favorite pet perhaps. So far above them, in control of every aspect of her life.

As Tsumugi yells You never taught me anything. she says nothing as the dagger flies, straight at her forehead. Only for her to raise a finger.

Only for the blade to stop, in mid-air, the moment it strikes the pad of that finger. Or rather, the Tetrakarn spell protecting that finger. As the backlash causes a searing, migraine like pain in Tsumugi, in the exact spot they had intended for her.

The knife clatters to the floor.

"Are you finished?" She asks, as if they were merely some unruly child, in open rebellion against their mother. "'You must appease the collective, because it is a ravenous beast and will devour you if you let it go hungry. So feed it scraps and pretend it's a feast, while you enjoy the true bounty.'"

As she echoes another lesson, from long ago, as a mockery of their own 'role' within Peacock Silk. As a rejection of the idea she taught her nothing, "Allow me to truly unburden you. Choose one of your allies in Peacock Silk... prove to me, you are free."

A gunshot, from a cane. It strikes dead on, the psychic backlash is just as swift as before.

"Or perhaps I should choose for you, so you can keep up appearances."

A slender hand is raised, in a dismissive gesture towards Yanagi.

The last thing that Yanagi will feel, before entering the portal, is the full force of a Zandyne spell, pure force itself- smashing her through it.

"Run from your past, Tsumugi, as long as you'd like. I can be patient..."

The other side of the bracelet is now in full view, showing the Shogi piece for 'King'.

"...we are not playing chess, after all."

Some may know she's speaking about the long time professional Shogi uses between moves. An eternity, in comparison.

She waits for them to leave, then smiles without even looking at Umie. "What care have I, for the invitation of a rabid beast?" She does not even bother with retribution for her impudence. Instead she turns.

Tak

    Tak

        Tak

Three footsteps. Blink. Or don't.

Either way, she's still gone.

<Pose Tracker> Shinichi Nagisa has posed.

'Shinichi, you're being annoying. Please calm down and let us leave.'

Part of him withers under her reproval, like he's a little kid again. However, "Your friend just told all of you to 'Get them!' and tried to jump someone. You're being weird!" Is that the best he can do for what to call Yanagi's behavior?

Well, yes, she's his sister.

Having sent Roger over to Shinichi, he's collapsed on one knee, as he looks at the... pig? The pig who told him he didn't know the rules!? Who says the approaching woman is- a Homunculus?!
 
His mind clicks things together that it didn't before, the creature he immolated is something like her.

"What- no I mean, how? That doesn't... she's-"

He can't articulate why that sounds wrong, as Roger said, he doesn't know the rules of the game.

"Right, have a rulebook?" He mumbles, nursing both a pounding headache and terrible exhaustion- not to mention the resonance from Tsumugi.

What happens next though-

A knife thrown. "Hey-!" A shot of a gun, "Wait-!" Was THAT A GUN? DID HIS SISTER PUT A GUN IN HER CANE? Before he can protest about his shock at the overwhelming illegality...

A Zandyne spell in retribution, "HEY!" He shouts, in fury at the attempt to kill her, as he tries to rise, then collapses again behind Roger and his tennis racquet. "What is WRONG with-!"

She's no longer there.

"-you?" The fury goes out of his voice, as he deflates. "Some gratitude..." He mumbles, of Mifuyu's exit. His sister was there, and gone. She saved his life. He saved hers- he awakened to some power. And to his very real concerns and confusion...

He was being annoying to her?

"Anyone care to... fill me in on what's going on?" He says in utter exhaustion, yet still, determined, despite it to try and figure things out. "Who were these people my sister is with?"

<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.

That overwhelming presence weighs more heavily on Kanae by the moment. But Coin is behind her, hiding there, and Kanae mkkes sure to stay in front of her. She can be a presence herself. Until--

A Homunculus. A mature Homunculus, Yanagi confirms.

"...Good luck," Kanae says, and looks back to Shinichi. She isn't going to go after Yanagi and company. Tsumugi speaks their defiance, and Kanae juzt looks between them and the woman in the kimono. She is not fast enough to get through the portal.

She shivers. "That's messed up," Kanae says to the 'back' of the woman who disappeared. "That's what almost happened...?"

To Shinichi. To Kazusa.

She looks to the others, and then pulls something from her pocket. It is recognizeable as a little talisman called a Goho-M.

"...Nagisa-kun," she says. "That's, ah..."

"You almost got replaced by a monster, we stopped it, your sister's taken up with a group called Peacock Silk that does fashion and apparently likes Homunuculus eyes, and the school thinks you and me are going out because I was kind of dating the Homunuculus?"

Pause.

"Anyway come here because I'm going to get us the hell out of here, we can have a good long talk later. Coin, make sure we've got Isabeau?" she requests. "Kazusa-san, go grab Nagisa-kun. Roger-san..."

"I don't even know. Let's get out of here."

<Pose Tracker> Kasumi Yoshizawa has posed.

    "No." Kasumi is going to keep Morgana close. So she can take him and run when the time is right. "If..." She hesitates, unsure what pronoun to use for Tsumugi. "If they did it once, they'll reject her again."

    As Kasumi predicts, Tsumugi responds to their mother with a tossed knife. She's definitely fooled by how smooth that was. And yet, 'Itami-san' deflects it with a Tetrakarn. And it's revealed, that the mother is a humunculus, casuing Kasumi to shudder. This? Is what happens if the person can't be saved from their Atelier? That's terrifying... Itami-san gave such an uncanny feeling.

    Still, the Peacock Silk gang leaves, and Itami-san promises to be patient and disappears into the air herself.

    Kasumi, once more, lets the tension back out. They're all okay. They made it through. She lets go of Mona as she rises back to her feet. "It's time to go, Mona." She says, even if she's looking back over to Kazusa. See you back in reality? The pairing will make their own escape.

<Pose Tracker> Coin has posed.

There's a reason Coin was hiding. She may not have the deep knowledge of Ateliers and Homonculuses that Roger does, nor does she actually know 'Mifuyu Itami' (a lot of the interpersonal byplay has been memorized for her to chew over later), but she recognized enough to know she wanted no part of that woman.

But eventually she goes, and it becomes safe. Safe*r*, anyway. From behind Kanae, Coin sticks her head out. "I've got her!" she says, brightly.

She does sort of got her. Coin is not actually big enough to lift an entire human being. But she's trying, and she's supported, so that's good.

A few moments later, though, Coin realizes something.

"...wait, we're going out? As in, not in the Atelier? You want me to go OUT into the PHYSICAL WORLD? I don't know - "

That's going to be all she gets out before they go, though.

<Pose Tracker> Shinichi Nagisa has posed.

Shinichi listens to that whole statement, then forces himself to come over to Kanae, slowly, slowly- leaning on Roger some because he has to then.
 
Coin protests about the physical world, Shinichi though makes a realization in his exhaustion addled brain.
 
"... ... Wait what do you mean the school thinks we're- ... ... ... those weren't just weird dreams-"
 
TRAESTO
 
Crisis averted.

<Pose Tracker> Kazusa Motojima has posed.

Kazusa hasn't really seen Yanagi annoyed or angry before, no, but she might not be able to appreciate that fully in the moment, considering the rapid-fire sequence of everything that's happened. She huffs angrily. (Which is a very common emotion for her.) "Sure. Heal yourself while you're already half-dead. I'm sure that'll work out great."

Coin makes the 'please calm down' gesture at her, and Kazusa does not look like she's got any ounce of chill in her at the moment. But she does a little roll of her eyes and a nod in what is probably some variation of 'Yeah, yeah, I know.'

Kazusa isn't sure if she should be trusted with important matters yet. But... that's the change she's working towards, isn't it? (She'll reassure Roger later; the not-quite-dead Eshm took Yanagi by surprise, too.) But when he labels the newcomer a Homunculus her head whips around to look at him in alarm. "A-are you sure!?"

This time, it's not distrust or skepticism that colors her voice, but simply alarm.

She can only watch, as Mifuyu Itami, Tsumugim, and Yanagi attempt to exchange blows, as Pernelle opens a whole in reality-=- "Wait what!?" Can Roger do that?

Questions for later.

But she looks to Shinichi with open concern. "I don't know what that was all about, but..." Kanae provides a summary. "... yeah. What she said. I know it sounds like a lot, but just... it'll make sense in time, promise." Weird dreams. Kazusa looks pained. "... sorry, they weren't."

With the Homunculus gone, Kazusa can get up, and she's got just enough in her to offer a hand and a shoulder for Shinichi to get up. "Roger-san, help me with him." She is a comparatively tiny gymnast girl she is not bearing a male lacrosse player by herself.

"... I'll see you in class tomorrow, Nagisa-san. We can talk then, okay?"

She casts a glance to Belle and gives her a silent nod.

She'll feel good about rescuing Shinichi, but... the feeling of that Homunculus' presence is going to keep her up tonight.

<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.

The knife is let fly.

And then it stops.

The effect is almost like it strikes a wall. And that--

"gk!"

is exactly what it feels like for Tsumugi as all that momentum rebounds directly into them. The typically graceful tailor's head snaps back like they were just struck, or shot. White hot pain blooms out a flashbang from their temple through to their sinuses through to their quivering jaw until it settles into a tingling agony across their whole face.

By the time their head lurches back forward, scarlet droplets splatter the ground, dripping off the exquisitely marble chin of their face from a stream of blood drooling down their nostril.

Are they finished?

They have no answer but the huff of breath. Their eyes still wide, their expression blank. Unreadable.

But she was always able to read them, wasn't she?

No matter how hard high a wall they thought they had put up--

Allow me to truly unburden you.

Quickly now, quickly!

Light punches a hole in nothing. Pearlescent and shimmering, that gate blooms behind Tsumugi, the backdrop of resplendence rendering them a dark silhouette.

Quickly. Quickly!

They don't move.

Their gaze remains wholly fixated on the thing called Mifuyu Itami.

Did they reject her before?

Right now, despite that burst of violence, they seem locked in a standstill as her gentle insinuations paint a picture in which the white space of what goes unsaid provides the full portrait.

Pick one.

A heeled foot starts to step forward--

"You didn't--"

An arm around their elbow. The report of a gun whipcracks at their eardrums.

They are so rarely off their footing. But they are now as Yanagi manages to drag them into that portal with her bodyweight, seconds before that bullet seizes and the force rebounds in cold retribution for the audacity.

And yet...

Yanagi will feel resistance against her tugging right up until the very moment that the two disappear past the gate.

Tsumugi's gaze never leaves Mifuyu's, even for a moment, until they vanish. But it's her move, now. They can do nothing.

... They did nothing. Even after so many years, even after how far they've come, how could they--

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    "Rabid beast, huh? Been definitely called worse," Umie grumbles, as Itami's presence is suddenly gone.

    People move to leave; Umie opts not to involve herself with the various ways people get out, wincing with some sympathy as Shinichi, as well as Coin, object, for different reasons.

    She looks to Tsumugi and Yanagi, tilting her head. "You'll probably run across them again, you know." Wasn't that what she said to Shinichi? ".... You'll... be okay, right, Kujaku-san?"

    There's one other group she wants to make sure of as well, and, even if the threat of Eshm is gone... she realizes she *should* be more careful hinting at any connection she has to the Phantom Thieves.

    (Hilariously, this is an assumption, as Belle is freelance, as is Mona. BUT ENOUGH OF THAT.)

    She looks Belle and Mona's way as she digs into her coat. "... You two have a way to escape once we all do, right?" she says, quietly, trying not to be noticed. "Just... wanted to check."

    She won't move until she has an answer, but once she does, she'll leave in a flash of light.

<Pose Tracker> Kasumi Yoshizawa has posed.

    Umie reaches out quietly to check that the freelance thieves have a way out. "Ah! We always pack a couple Goho-Ms." She pumps her arms, forcing a confidant outlook. "Thank you though, Umie-san. That's sweet of you." A pause. "And sorry, for about earlier..." She means back at the Monad, naturally.

    Though, now she wonders. Is Umie friends with Amemiya-senpai?

<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.

    Kasumi answers in the affirmative; Umie nods, grinning as Kasumi pumps an arm. "Alright~ jussst checking." She takes out her gem, just about to use it, when...

    'And sorry, for about earlier...'

    It earns Kasumi a soft smirk from Umie, as the hooded blonde chuckles, waving a hand. "I'm the one who can't settle on a codename. There's nothing to apologize for."

    Attempting to use the gem *and* put away her weapon, Belle and Mona see Umie just about to do.... *something*, but the gem is just about to fall from from her hand.

    In a flash of an Umie Akabane fumbling for the gem, they are left alone.