2025-09-13: Like a Cardboard Dragon: Ishin!!

• Cutscene: Like a Cardboard Dragon: Ishin!!
• Cast: Myunghon Yeo, NPC Suzie Park
• Where: Misen Kaiseki Restaurant, Rengedai Ward, Sumaru City
• OOC Date: September 13, 2025
• IC Date: July 10, 2012
• Summary: After their dinner with So-young, Myunghon Yeo returns to the same restaurant, summoned by the red envelope.
• Content warning:Transphobia, misgendering, suicide mentions/ideation, domestic violence and abuse

---

After thirty minutes, Myunghon Yeo returned to the hallways of the high-class Kaiseki restaurant, Misen. The red envelope their mother handed over was, as always, meaningless; no, the actual message was carried inside. They could feel three coins inside, which meant 'come back after thirty minutes'. That was the Baengnyong code between them, which differed between other members based on their rank.

Like before when they dined with So-young, the entire restaurant was vacant. It was a show of power. A favourite of Suzie Park's.

They were displeased to be back. They weren't sure what they'd prepared for, but the dinner with So-young wasn't what they expected: not a quiet, miserable sixty minutes of watching her eat and largely just enduring the passive-aggressions and occasional direct barbs, only throwing meager shade at her in return. They can still feel the taste of ash in their mouth. They feel faint. The Kaiseki dinner was certainly a provocation.

They quietly turn to face the dining room where Suzie Park seated herself, facing the entranceway with the majesty of the tranquil garden perpendicular to her. Two men in sharp black suits sat in bodyguard positions at either end of her. These were two enforcers from a section of the Baengnyong their mother did not relinquish control to.

Suzie Park was in her late sixties, though one might guess ten or fifteen years younger with how dignified and taut her countenance was. Wizened and world-weathered and tougher for it, rather than bleaker, she dressed ahead of the times; no doubt articles were being churned time and time again of her fashion statements, when she allowed magazines such as Glam and Chic to have photoshoots -- competing against each other. Her hair is cut pixie-short and was greying, but bore a dignified image.

At present, her statement of dress was 'leopard-print fur coat, stylish asymmetric scarf, business pants, and librarian sunglasses rescued from the 70s.'

"I've returned, eomeonim. As you asked," Myunghon tries to keep their voice dignified, but there was contempt behind the restraint. "It seems So-young enjoyed the meal."

Suzie did not answer immediately. Just as always. She liked to make one wait, make them squirm. In everything she doid, she ensured that it happened at her own schedule. They instead reached towards a kiseru and held it up, and one of the two enforcers primed it for her. Smoke filled the air -- some expensive brand, Myunghon was certain -- and she took a long, long drag, before sighing.

"She's doing well, So-young. So full and cocksure about her career! And a concert! At Aoba Park. On the other hand, a full year has now passed since I relented to letting you run the Baengnyong in Hirasaka Ward."

There it was. Myunghon knew judgement was coming, but Suzie liked to do it in her manner -- to just start with facts, and let whoever it is she had her sights on squirm further and further. 'Let' them run the Baengnyong. Everything was couched and steepled in the absolute reality that Suzie Park held all the power -- that people only do things on her bidding.

"Within that full year, I've received feedback of discontentment and anxiety from your subordinates. The majority of it is centred around the fact that you haven't employed them for anything other than basic information gathering -- tasks they can do in their sleep, Myunghon Yeo."

Myunghon's lips remained pursed and quiet. It was true. They'd halted some of the operations they'd found distasteful, hidden as it were in the background, beyond the sights of what day to day Hirasakans would find. The Baengnyong preferred to operate within the gray zone these days, at least in Hirasaka, but some of them still veered quite close to the kinds of activities that you'd find in the yakuza, even in the era where they couldn't operate brazenly in the open any longer with the kinds of public crackdowns in the 2010's.

"A number of them express uncertainty whether you actually wish to lead, or whether you're more interested in running the Cardboard Dragon not as a front, but as a legitimate business. 'Toothless,' they said. 'An embarrassment.' 'The young miss is certainly very distracted, spending far more time with her friends than leading the organisation.'"

This is also true. Myunghon spent a lot of time with the people they've really bonded with in Hirasaka; Shinobu and Remi and Mio for the longest period with frequent visits from Miho and Yua from the outside, and in the last month, they've met Shinjiro, Yukari, So-young, Umie and so many others that've kept them quite busy. Part of it, they have to admit internally, is that they simply get along better with people of their age than the many 40 to 50 year old veterans that fill the ranks of the Baengnyong in Hirasaka, though it didn't mean they didn't try. But there was still an age and generation gap they found difficult to overcome. An unconscious, or sometimes conscious bias from them that they didn't want to take orders from someone of only 23 years of age.

"And worst yet..."

Myunghon braced themself within. This was it.

"On at least three occasions, including at the Sumaru Rengedai Hyakumanzeki Festival, you were seen trying to end your life by jumping into the river. Others report you've been playing with household chemicals in taped-up bathrooms; others note how frequently you play with sharp implements. There are no small amount of hesitation wounds under those bandages. You were stalked, profiled and attacked by Koichi Ishiba, a member of the Sumaru Police Department. You were admitted to Hirasaka Chuo Hospital as a result, and yet you literally jumped out of the third story of your ward room and fled into the night after leaving a suicide note."

The berating came with an even-tempered tone -- Suzie Park never betrayed the tone of her voice. She preferred to let the weight of the words and facts slam like boulders being flung from a siege weapon instead, and they did shake them from within, one at a time. It always displeased Myunghon greatly when they couldn't just wave off and laugh away their actions with clownery, like Magic River Teleportation. The mention of Ishiba only incensed them further, flushing them full of shame and regret and frustration.

"So many attempts, and you're still here. Do you know what these actions symbolise, daughter?"

She did that on purpose, just to twist the knife, Myunghon knew. "I'm not--" Myunghon tries to assert, and is washed away with a sharp:

"Non-binary? Genderless? Musei? Myunghon Yeo, all you've done is signpost yet another way for people hurt you. All you can do is uselessly protest them. These are the actions of a coward."

The words shredded them like a knife through cabbage, but even today, she'd proved her point, didn't she? And there it is again. Coward. The easy way. Aren't you ashamed at the burden you'll impose on everyone else? Everyone ultimately says the same thing. But they know Suzie's not done yet.

"These are the actions of someone fragile, so easily shattered, with no confidence nor conviction. I would have more respect for you if you were a ghost right now. And yet if that were all..." she takes another long drag of the kiseru.

"That would still be, ultimately, fine. Fixable. Many things are fixable. I could reforge and temper you into someone that can manage everything that I'd like you to."

The knot just twisted deeper inside of them. They were just an impure metal to them, one unsuited for purpose. There was no difference between Suzie Park nor Seiichirou Yukichi. They were opposed to each other, and arguably Suzie Park's interests lined with their own, with many other Persona-Users, but...

"But there is one thing I cannot fix."

The full bore of her gaze was now fixed on them -- that was the gaze that won her awards internationally. An intense, disapproving, magnetic stare that charmed whole nations when she was the conflicted yet iron-fisted head of an international intelligence agency, shaking her head in disapproval at the antics of the loose cannon of the main character, a secret agent that brazenly flaunted the rules.

"I cannot fix someone who isn't interested in being someone people *fears*, Myunghon Yeo."

Myunghon's heart sank as they think back to that day, in the warped, twisted tunnels of Mementos. At times, it still felt like a half-remembered nightmare -- but the words of those they called constants in their chaos kept coming back to them, at their weakest moments... and also their strongest.

But also true is this, Miho spoke. Your power is no longer death and violence. Look upon your companions. Would they move for one who had not influenced them?

Maybe your power isn't some sort of raw and vengeful violence, Shinjiro took a risky step forward. Maybe... it's hope.

They couldn't answer Suzie, though -- they couldn't indulge in flashback and memory for too long, and yet the outcome there was clear, even if they couldn't vocalise it in words, in their throat and lips. They didn't want to be an instrument of death and violence any longer. Because...

"You were Seiichirou Yukichi's obedient puppet. You caused much death and suffering under his wing. How many people do you think you've killed in one performance report cycle alone? What was the cost of your meteoric rise in his corporate world? You found ways to rewrite reality and convince media that that girl's critical kidney transplant was an elective operation after all. She died four days later. You wave a magic wand and people die, all in the time it takes for you to click a mouse and hit Send, Myorei Yukichi."

Myunghon convulsed, unable to keep their face level any longer. There was no malice evident in their mother's tone -- Suzie Park's speech was as carefully neutral as ever, but they could sense hatred behind it. The past would catch up to them, one way or another. Shinjiro's was; even now, he was either taking the train to Tatsumi Port Island, or had already arrived there. There, he'd have to face the reality that the boy of the mother he killed was now a target of SEES.

One day, Myunghon would face Myorei's sins too.

"When you orchestrated the Great Surrender, when you caused Frey Pharmaceuticals to collapse in on itself... when you were marked for erasure and clung on despite it all, I thought I saw the shadow of great Rebellion within you. But ultimately..."

Suzie Park shook her head with no small amount of disdain.

"I greatly overestimated you. I don't need a fragile corpse that desperately clings for approval from her small circle of friends. I don't need someone with such, paltry, mediocre ambitions as yours, Myunghon Yeo. I don't need someone..."

Two metallic clicks changed the tone of the conversation in one instant.

"... who is No Longer Human人間失格 ."

Both of the men in the room drew their handguns from their breast pockets, silencers attached on the ends of the barrels. The sight of the matte-black pieces sent Myunghon into a bit of a spiral; once again, guns entered into the equation. Whether Koichi Ishiba, or themself, or mother, ultimately power and fear was handled at the barrel of a gun. That was the reality of violence Suzie Park lived and traded in. That was the reality Myunghon was ensnared into.

"Your friends won't give you what you want. Your paltry, shallow attempts at taking your own life won't give you want you want."

She rose, tone still detached, and stepped forward to loom over Myunghon, who was still seated seiza-style on the tatami floor. Suzie knelt, tilted their chin up with her bony fingers, and then shoved the kiseru to their lips and squeezed, deliberatel forcing them to inhale the smoke from their kiseru. Myunghon sputtered and coughed, turning her away with a weak shove from their still-functioning arm -- but Suzie grabbed their wrist forcefully, as if in a mirror of how Ishiba yanked at their wrist so hard their right shoulder was now still injured, arm in a sling.

"This is what you are, Myunghon Yeo. Someone so powerless she can be acted on without consequence--"

Once more, they drowned in the memory of that day, the voices of the others echoing in their ringing head.

I think you should be over here with us. You don't need to be powerless, Myunghon! Shinjiro called.

The mystery's going to continue without you. You going to give up now, after that wild ride we've all had with you up to now? Umie challenged.

If you feel powerless... then rely on us. Shinobu spoke so sincerely, back then. Even if you're a sinner, we aren't going to just turn our backs on you.

The echoes of those that they consider hope, but also...

You are the one with true power here. Tsumugi's expression was burnt into their mind forever. You should make her realise that.

Their vision exploded into a flash of Blue--

POP

POP

Sometimes, the most violent actions bore the most unsatisfying sounds. The two guns present on the scene fired, once each. There was a bullet mark that pierced the tatami square, one away from the one Myunghon was kneeling on. The other sank into the venerable old timber of Misen.

Two black, angry ribbons crisscrossed the space and bisected both guns down the barrel, greatly disrupting their aim -- and turning them into nothing more than scrap.

The ribbons, of course, originated from Myunghon's Cognitive Coat. But that was only two of four.

The other two was aimed at their mother. They weren't sure where they were aimed, but that was all a moot point, because a large, pure-white shadow emerged at the same time Kudlak did behind them to block their attack. Contrasting Myunghon's pitch-black Persona, the legendary creature of the night, Suzie Park's Persona was a humanoid in all-white, in garments that could be described as an extremely stylised hanbok. Their face was a featureless iron mask, with only two yellow beads for eyes, contrasting Kudlak's own featureless face with red beads.

They always suspected their mother was a Persona-User, but now they'd forced her hand. This felt like a small victory, that was ultimately drowned in favour of their first, actual instinctual stammer of--

"They... they-- *you* shot at me," Myunghon was saturated in disbelief at the reality of another near-miss with death. One that originated from their own mother's hand.

"Did you expect it all to have been a bluff, Myunghon Yeo?" Suzie Park took another drag of her kiseru, with no more exertion in her voice than before. Her voice was as disaffected as if she were talking about weather.

"Did you think I didn't have the stones to mercy-kill my own daughter?"

Then Suzie took a step forward.

"But besides that," she reached for one of the ribbons and flexes it like the harmless piece of fabric it now is, "You did find the guts to take a stab at me. That's not bad, daughter."

Myunghon's expression turns taut, uncertain how to read Suzie's reaction--

"So I'll give you one in return. Bari-gongju," Suzie called for her Persona, then chanted. Myunghon's eyes widened as the syllables took shape.

"魔 光 牙MA KOU GA ..."

Blackness swiftly erupted before Suzie's eyes.

"/音ON /."

It didn't matter. All was washed in an apocalypse of white -- and Suzie saw Myunghon thrown clear back, slamming through several shoji doors all now pitted in the same shape their body ragdolled through them. She saw them reach into their pocket and pull out their smartphone--

...

...

When the light fully subsided, Myunghon was absent. How crafty. Their Persona took the sheer brunt of the hit, and Suzie saw Kudlak crumble into pieces, which largely softened the brunt of the blow. She stepped forward through the sheer carnage she herself caused, glancing around. Myunghon fled within the light, and whatever it is they did purchased them passage elsewhere.

Suzie Park's lips curled to a smirk.

"Should-- we give chase?"

She turned towards her two enforcers.

"No. It's more interesting this way. We've already instilled all the fear we can in her today. Get the cleanup crew on hand and make sure the restaurant is well compensated."

A final long drag of her kiseru. Then, she handed the silver pipe to the enforcer.

"A heart drenched in fear will either break or Rebel. Which will it be... I wonder?"

...

Elsewhere, at the entrance to Mementos, Myunghon Yeo's lungs were ablaze as they lean on one of the distorted plastic seats, not unlike the one they'd collapsed upon on that day they hazily sought to end the life of Officer Ishiba. Superluminary thoughts and emotions seared their brain, and they failed to make sense of it all. They'd escaped, with their life, thanks to their quick thinking. A brilliant little escape plan. You little mastermind.

... and yet, now what?

The point their mother made sank into their head. So what if they were clever, and escaped that frightening situation? They were always just one more violent hate crime away from Ishiba. They were now just one silenced pistol away around the corner from another of their mother's spooks, now. They were just another difficult choice Miho would make between them and Yua, and the choice was already made for them, because they were not part of their true world. They didn't change their material reality one bit, only added more threat and danger to it.

It was all just demonstration. Even this escape was likely something she expected them to take all this time. Suzie Park was saying: "The only path you can take is the one I prepared."

That being feared was the only way to keep oneself safe in society.

The bile and anger rose full-throatedly within them. They'd been haunted at how useless all their supernatural knowledge felt against material reality at times, but this was now unmistakably, unbearably at the front of the fore. They growled and slammed their fist against the wall, and winced in pain at their mistake in anger.

A minute later, they rose, and quietly walked towards the entrance to leave.

Because today was traumatic, but they still have to return to their friends tomorrow.