#Rui Onishi

[noahbodie]

Powered Convoy by Rui Onishi.  If the design looks familiar, it's because this figure would become the basis for Transformers character Ultra Magnus.

[thefoolsdeck-blog]

Daisuke 039 - The Birthday Gift of You

Game: Persona MUSH Characters: Daisuke Itami, Rui Onishi Location: Omoikane Investigations, Okina City Summary: Daisuke Itami helps his assistant Rui celebrate her birthday in the best way he knows how. Rating: daisuke is so nice in this log

This morning, like all mornings, Rui Onishi woke up to the sound of her alarm. Sitting up lethargically on bed, letting the sheets slide unceremoniously off her body, she spent several moments blinking her heavy eyes through the tinny beeps. Getting out of bed was never one of her strong suits.

Blearily, she rubs at a set of old laceration scars that run down the length of her forearm, then reaches back for her still-ringing alarm. It's her ever-present PDA, beeping inside the palm of her hand until Rui turns it off. The screen lights up the darkness of her bedroom, as well as the frown that slowly twitches to life across her lips. She's noticed today's date. It's her twenty-fourth birthday. Letting the PDA drop unceremoniously to the mattress, the young woman lets her head drop to both hands. Another birthday without her father. How long will it be before she can have him back? In the end, and birthday or not, mildly depressed or not, Rui knew better than to put her day on hold. She has work to do, an a purpose to keep, even if her great purpose these days is delivering mysterious packages for Daisuke Itami's equally mysterious contacts. Two hours later, she's back to her usual appearances, dressed impeccably without a hair or a hem out of place, carrying that unusual stoic frown and disinterested set of her yellowy eyes as she hands off the mysterious goods she'd picked up from her day trip to the aquarium. Not even its unknown contents are of any concern or consequence to her; the instructions were not to open it, and Rui has always been one to follow the rules. Accepting and pocketing payment, the job is done. Closing the front door and divesting of her long coat, Rui's finally returned to the office in her quiet and ubiquitous manner, trained and trained well to pass through the world and leave it untouched and undisturbed. Also because Rui knows well that entering Omoikane Detective Agency is like navigating an active minefield. One wrong step and it's all over. The quieter she keeps, the more likely she'll be left alone. --- One wrong step and it's all over.  The quieter she keeps, the more likely she'll--  --walk into the side of a massive cake taking up the surface of her work desk.  It is perhaps fortunate that Rui is left unmolested for long enough to truly grasp what she sees in front of her, because the cake is a spectacle to behold in its own right: composed of three tiers, it might almost be a wedding cake if not for the fact that its assembly is schizophrenic at best; the first tier is made with white fondant, arranged with eight lit candles wreathing the surface in a simple and straightforward manner; there are even cute little fondant flowers. It's adorable.  The second layer is the smallest of all, precariously held in place by plastic 'pillars.' This one seems to coated by some bizarre combination of strawberry and possibly lemon icing, striped together vertically across the cake. The lit candles for this one are shoved into the sides of the cake itself.  The third tier is inexplicably the largest, seeming to almost wobble with the sorely lacking support of the tiny cake layer beneath it. This one is covered in chocolate fondant, and seems to have been assembled upside-down. All the decorations, even the 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RU-CHAN~~' made with horrifically neon pink icing, are all on the bottom of the cake rather than the top. As are the eight lit candles precariously held to it by slowly warming icing assembled like a flaming halo around its outskirts.  Judging by the amount of wax that has oozed and splatters its way onto Rui's actual desk in various ways, it seems like this cake has been here for a while.  Yes. It's a good thing that Rui is gifted a precious few seconds to behold the terrible confection masquerading as a piece of surreal artwork on her desk.  Especially because it is a precious few seconds of distraction in which Rui Onishi may find a party hat shoved on top of her head with the painful snapping of elastic bands. And, as if in an echo of the upside-down celebratory salutations on her cake, a horrible, familiar voice intones like some sort of damningly cheerful promise behind her: "Happy Birthday, Ru-chan~~!" And this is about when Daisuke Itami will stroll past, also wearing a party hat. His right cheek is swollen with an ugly-looking bruise, but this does not really detract from the fact that he is happily blowing on a party horn.  "I was trying to decide if soulless dolls actually let themselves have birthdays because it might detract from their precious someone's birthdays, but then I remembered you're not really a soulless doll anyway, so congratulations on twenty four years of human life, Ru-chan~!" To emphasize this, Daisuke gives a celebratory blow of his party horn, letting the paper tube smack Rui in the forehead. In celebration. *bwaaaaaaah*  --- If Frankenstein's monster were made of cake, this would probably be what it'd look like. In her eternally patient, eternally methodic, and eternally boring way, Rui Onishi spends an infinite amount of time hanging up her coat, mindfully brushing stray bits of lint from its cashmere-wool sleeves, then she follows it up by very delicately and neatly folding the long length of her scarf. The entire process takes a good five minutes, terminating with the careful way she arranges it into her coat pocket. Then she turns around, and finds herself face-to-face with lovecraftian pastry. Stopped on the spot, her spine straightening like she's received a lethal dose of electric current, Rui's limbs stiffen and her jaw snaps shut as she slowly lifts her head, staring up and up at the horror of it, like Salvador Dali had risen from the grave to vomit something up on her desk. For the longest time, she's not even sure what it is. Then she finds the courage to lean forward, her head tilting almost comically to one side as she reads the decorations. H A P P Y B I R T -- Her face twitches. He didn't. He wouldn't. He shouldn't even know-- Then, out of nowhwere, a hat is SNAPPED down around her head, and if Rui had a voice she'd shriek in surprise. But she doesn't, and the best the woman can do is part her lips in silent dismay, before old training takes over, and faster than a snake bite she's whirled around, the blade of her kyoketsu-shoge shot out of her left sleeve to hold at the throat of -- Daisuke?! Rui stares incredulously at him, before her face locks itself down with anger. It doesn't look right with the paper hat on her head that loudly declares her to be a PARTY PRINCESS. Staring into her features is probably the closest a living human being gets to witnessing the mouth of hell. Shoulders tense, arms locked at the elbows, blade still held forgotten between two fingers of her left hand, Rui's eyebrows are ticking in barely-concealed fury. She stays that way as he speaks to her, and it's obvious he's just making it worse, by the way one corner of her mouth starts twitching. Taking a deep breath, Rui tries to collect her thoughts in time to-- *bwaaaaaaah* Rui violently grabs the paper noisemaker away and throws it away. Sighing soundlessly, she straightns, letting her weapon disappear back up her suit sleeve. Then she points angrily at the bruise occupying half of Daisuke's face. It's obvious what her furious frown is asking. --- Daisuke Itami feels the cold steel tip of a blade bite lightly into the stretch of his throat just above his adam's apple.  He looks down inquisitively at it for several long seconds of silence before summarizing his feelings eloquently:  "Whoops."  A single heartbeat passes.  "You're not really behaving like a proper party princess, you know."  And Rui summarily helps prove this point by ripping away Daisuke's party horn less than a second later. Brown eyes blandly look in the direction of where the noisemaker falls. A disappointed frown tugs at his lips. "Not a proper party princess at all."  Itami seems content to leave things at a defeated shrug of his shoulders; pressing down on his heel, he starts to pivot away. At least, until he takes note at an almost accusational finger being thrust at his face. Well -- a part of his face.  Itami stares cross-eyed at the finger. And then, as if he could, he rotates that gaze around to peer at the right half of his face. He taps his cheek thoughtfully, helpfully stinging realization back into his mind with the sharp flash of pain.  "Oh, that! Well, you see--"  ~*|An Entirely Accurate and Unbiased Recounting of the Events that had Transpired Previously|*~  "Kuma-kun! I'm so happy to see you again~! Let's bump our fists together, like the great friends we are~~!"  In this interpretation of events, Daisuke Itami - surrounded by a choir of angels singing his praises - holds a fist out happily to his brother-in-arms. He is also bathed in light.  Which is just about when a horrible monster fist punches him into the earth.  "THAT AM SMARTEST THING OOKUMA EVER HEAR!" screeches Akira Ookuma over the fallen and bloodied Daisuke; Akira is also ten feet tall and looks something like a cross between a hillbilly and the Incredible Hulk. Also, for some reason, he talks like Bizarro.  "HA HA HA! BIG BAD OOKUMA AM LOSING AGAIN! ME NO AM THE GREETEST! NOW ME NO AM LEAVING OKINA CITY FOR NO RAISIN!"  At which point Akira promptly jumps through a window pane and into oncoming traffic.  ~~~  Daisuke Itami stares pointedly at the unbroken window pane beyond him.  "Or maybe I should have said 'oh, I just fell into a doorknob~!' That's what people in abusive relationships say, right? Ha ha ha ha!"  Content to laugh this off without any further explanation, Daisuke saunters over to his desk, flopping down in the chair with such intensity it wheels backward a foot or two. "More importantly, though, shouldn't you get to work on that cake? I put a lot of love into making it for you, and besides--" Daisuke squints. "--it looks like it might collapse at any second."  This is probably not a lie.  "... Anyway." It is almost abrupt, how Daisuke's tone changes; once light and airy, it now inflects a degree of seriousness that Rui Onishi may have never heard from her employer before -- a sense of gravity that is reflected on his features as he looks directly at Rui. "Were there any complications with the package?"  --- The entirely accurate and unbiased flashback ends. Rui is left staring at Daisuke, giving him a look about as stale as three-month-old bread. Then the young woman gives her head a shake, one hand lifted to rub wearily at the bridge of her nose, as if to try to snuff away a growing migraine. Her PARTY PRINCESS hat tilts a little askew on her head, until she remembers it enough to rip the thing annoyedly off. Throwing it annoyedly away, Rui slips Daisuke a glance, her deadpan yellow eyes inquiring rather eloquently in their staring: did you provoke him? She's not sure whether to feel angry or amused that Akira decked her employer. Daisuke probably deserved it. But she does have a job to do. She'll just have to keep a closer eye whenever it seems likely Ookuma's temper will snap. Part of her wishes she were there to have witnessed it. And not purely out of Rui's duty to stop it. Glancing back, Rui looks almost morosely back at the sad attempt of a birthday cake when Daisuke points it out. Just the crippled sight of it makes her draw back a little, unable to stop a slight grimace at just the prospect of eating such a thing. Even if she did eat the food human beings do, she doesn't think she'd ever develop the stomach for... that thing. But staring at it, the way her name is written into the decorations, Rui feels an uncomfortable mixture of disgust and disenchantment. She tries not to realize that, really, this is the first time she's ever received a cake on her birthday. Not even her father ever bought her one. In the past, birthdays were celebrated, but they took the form of yearly assessments than anything else. She enjoyed pleasing him with each qualifying test. But it does look close to collapse. Rui supposes she'll need to get some garbage bags. That is, until Daisuke distracts her with a strange, unprecedented sort of seriousness, something that earns her total, and somewhat surprised, attention. Her eyes widen slightly, her expressive face quickly retreating back to its usual blandness. She stares at him a moment longer than is necessary, probably out of disbelief, before she inclines her head in a single nod. Remembering, she reaches into her suit jacket as she approaches his desk, retrieving the small envelope of payment for her boss's perusal. At that point, most human beings, with their insatiable animal curiousity, may be inclined to at least ask something about that mysterious package, and whatever it could be. Rui, stone-faced, holds no such designs for humanity. --- 'Did you provoke him?'  Daisuke Itami squints so profoundly that his eyes almost seem to close. Five seconds of silence pass.  "Ara ara, I don't know what to make of that expression at all!"  And that is the rather eloquent rebuttal Rui Onishi gets from her employer.  A hand swims through the air in an errant dismissal of Rui's "concerns." "But you don't have to worry about that! Kuma-kun just needs to vent his frustration at his failings at someone. And for a friend, I'm happy to be the target of that kind of twisted sentiment~."  Brown eyes level upon Rui, with a stare that seems to peel away those tight layers of professionalism. Daisuke grins.  "But I'm very touched by your concern, Ru-chan."  Spinning his chair around, the private investigator loads up his PC lovingly, even as Rui stares with complex emotions at that cake. "Does it fill you with nostalgia?" His voice cuts in through her quiet contemplation like a knife despite the fact that he is not even looking at her. "Though I wonder if a girl in your situation has ever even tried cake before? ... As if the answer to that isn't obvious, right? Ha ha!"  Somehow, his laughter sounds pitying.  Yet it is by the time that envelope reaches Daisuke's desk that his expression has sobered considerably. Most people, in this unusual situation, would be curious -- outwardly curious. Most people would feel compelled to ask just what that package was, that has Daisuke looking so severe. Most people would at least contemplate the potential of it.  Most people are not Rui Onishi. And yet--  "Good. Your father should be happy to know everything went smoothly."  --Rui Onishi is most people, when given proper incentives.  That single observation is delivered as calmly and seriously as everything preceding it. It is like a vocalized piece of tantalizing bait, swinging just within Rui's reach...  "Well, in any case, thank goodness that's all settled!"  ... before Daisuke Itami cruelly snatches it away.  The information broker does not spend a single second longer on that ambiguous package or his equally cryptic words. Instead, he abruptly and quite cheerfully swings himself around to stare straight at Rui. His smile burns more intensely than sulfuric acid. And yet somehow, it still manages to seem apologetic.  "Ara ara, I hate to bring this up on your birthday, but then again Ru-chan is the type of weak individual who just can't function in any situation that isn't cold and professional so I guess I'm doing you a favor when I say,  "'I need you to do a job for me~.'" A lone second passes in silence. Daisuke then appends:  "'And it's something only you can handle. Probably.'"  --- Just at the first mention of nostalgia, Rui already looks like she's had well enough. Her expression falling back into agitation, she turns away, more than happy to leave Daisuke behind to his laughter, his jokes at her expense, his spinning chair, his envelope of money... When she stops dead cold. She turns sharply on Daisuke, her yellow eyes fierce, almost desperate, as they lock on his. Her lips part to demand something, no doubt the young woman forgetting in a rare moment that she cannot speak, and her commands come out as no more than a weak sigh of air. Grimacing with transparent frustration, she's already pulling free her PDA, her fingers flying across the keypad to hurriedly open a blank message, and start typing what she can't say-- Until Daisuke turns on her, his assistant left paused in mid-sentence as her attention tears helplessly from her half-typed interrogation to watch him. The look on her face looks as structurally sound and balanced as the cake left teetering on her desk, and her hands are clutching that little device in her hands just a tic too tightly. Why would her father be happy? What does he have to do with this? Why didn't she just look at the package? Why didn't he tell her this? What's going on? Rui just stares near-breathless askance, her yellow eyes almost pleading. Most of Daisuke's words, spoken in those pear-shaped tones of his, are barely heard, the young woman having trouble parsing them through the torrent of her own thoughts. Why didn't father mention something like that to her? Why has he been speaking directly to Daisuke? How is he? Is he angry with her? Is he-- Daisuke brings mention of a job, one only needing of her skills, and some half-scorned voice in the back of her head raises hope that he's going to ask Rui to be the weapon she is, finally do the job her father sent her to perform.  She shakes it away, going as far as to ignore Daisuke's request to instead shove her PDA's screen close to his face. The hastily-typed message demands: [ My father?/? tell me ] --- And just like that, Rui Onishi becomes a completely different person. To Daisuke Itami...  ... it's as disgusting as it is hilarious.  It is exactly because of her fervent confusion and curiosity that Daisuke completely and utterly ignores his assistant's obviously dismayed mental state. Vexation seems to just progressively rise within her as Daisuke turns his attention back to his computer screen. He loads up the Spring Frog Cartel's message boards, peering at them with a sense of interest that lies wholly outside the realm of Rui Onishi's concerns.  And he finds his soul alighting with joy at every fumble that Rui makes,  and every perilous thought he knows must cross through her mind.  "Huh, I guess my generosity must have shocked you speechless!" a private laugh in his head "So, I'll just go ahead and explain the job. See--"  When Daisuke Itami turns back around, he receives a face-full of text. His eyes widen with the suddenness of it all as he stares mutely at the clumsily-written demand (plea).  Slowly, that surprise dissolves into unreadable placidity.  "... Really, Ru-chan..."  And as Daisuke Itami speaks with a gentle tone, Rui might feel a hand on hers where she grips so tightly to her PDA.  [ My father?/? tell me ]  "... sometimes..."  And she may see slender fingers pressing upon that PDA.  [ My father?/? tel ]  "... your obsessive fixation..."  [ My father? ]  "... really just makes me..."  [ ]  "... feel sick to my stomach~."  [ no ]  The smile that crosses Daisuke Itami's lips is so wide that it makes his eyes shut with the warmth of it.  Slowly, his hands drift away. "Now, about that job..."  --- Behind that flared-forward screen of her PDA, Rui's yellow eyes are fixed, aiming with the intensity of a firing squad. By the way she stands there, stiff and resolute, her other hand clasped down onto his desk as she practically leans over its mass to make her demand, the woman is not brooking argument. There are consequences for every action, and she makes it well known the consequences for mentioning her father so lightly in her presence. His deferring use of 'Ru-chan', the nickname that Miss Onishi so despises, makes her eyes narrow in clear warning, before she puncutates her demand with a fierce gesture of her PDA. Adamant, she begins to shake her head no, as if to tell him that she won't-- --glance entirely away, shocked, when his hand curl over hers. Her eyes widen in shocked silence, and Rui alternates fierce glances between Daisuke and the screen of her phone, watching as her text is slowly deleted from the screen. She begins to frown, then her attention is soundly stolen, and she takes the words 'obsessive' and 'fixation' as soundly as most people would a direct slap across the face. Incredulous outrage spreads across her face like a poison, the blood colouring her cheeks under her growing, mounting rage.  Her free hand, the one stamped flat against his desk, tries to curl her long fingers into the palm with a distinct scraping of her nails. How dare he. How DARE he... Repulsed, Rui snatches her hand away the instant Daisuke lets go, stepping furiously backward with a sharp inhale, allowing him only one second more of her baleful staring to glance back down on the screen. His parting message reads clearly across her face. No. Rui looks slowly back up. And it doesn't take a particularly telepathic man, or an observant man, or even a creative man to take one dead look straight into her eyes and know what she's thinking. She's thinking about how easy it would be for her to simply give his desk one, solid, forceful kick, and send it, the computer, the papers, and the man seated behind it straight out the window. Expressions like hers, they don't call so much a warning as they do a death sentence. But even death sentences can get pardoned, as Rui's dangerous staring ends as she closes her eyes and exhales out all of her fury in a silent exorcism. She can't lose her temper. She can't fail her father's expectations. She can't break her promise. It takes five seconds for Rui to find her bearings, and ten more to type her inevitable reply. [ What do you need me to do? ] Rui's razored stare adds an unsaid addendum to the message she's too polite to write. --- There are so many things that Daisuke could say to Rui to snuff out the growing outrage in her heart he sees so clearly reflected in her eyes. He could smother it entirely right now, with a simple line.  But he would like to nurture the toxic seed sown in her chest, instead.  Rui Onishi's hand snaps away. Daisuke Itami merely watches with smiling eyes as she reads the simple, two-letter message. He does not say a word. He just watches as her gaze lifts. Watches as she levels death upon him.  Watches as she contemplates how easy it would be to take a life like his.  It takes five seconds for Daisuke's smile to die, and ten more for him to level a bland stare at her PDA. He looks up. And his expression is still monumentally bland when he speaks again:  "Arara. You should feel lucky looks can't kill, Ru-chan!  "Well, most of the time, anyway."  Daisuke stands with such a swift motion it might seem like he wasn't even sitting to begin with. He slips a hand into his pocket, fishing around for several seconds before he pulls something free, and thrusts it directly into Rui's face almost as a reflection of her previous actions: a simple thumb drive.  "I've been hired to look into a certain dorm at Gekkoukan High. Unfortunately, I'm a little too busy and just don't care about the case," not true, "so I've given it to Endachin so he can expand his horizons a little. Unfortunately, I think Endachin might be a little too personable for this kind of client," whatever that means, "so I'd like for you to act as the go between for them. You'll be receiving any information Endachin gets and delivering it to the client directly -- and you'll also be reporting that information back to me.  "And everything else you might discover." Daisuke, whether the thumb drive is taken or not, will turn at this point. He walks around his desk towards Rui's, and pokes at the top of his tenderly crafted cake. Chocolate icing smears across his index finger as he speaks.  "The client's name is, ah... Kichiro Higa-san, I believe. He's a surgeon. Well, the relevant data is all in that file anyway, so you don't need to hear it from me.  "You just need to pretend to be human every now and then." He turns to flash Rui a smile that is far too promising.  "Simple, right~?"  --- Lips curling slightly, Rui tips her head back reflexively as he proffers her a small object, her narrowing eyes recognizing it as a small computer flash drive. With a slight, unspoken scowl, she takes it swiftly from his hand, before her nerves force her backward to give both of them room. Partially because she cannot stand to be within her employer's presence when her blood is this hot, and partially because she can't trust herself to be. Rui would like to pretend she possesses no such thing as a temper, would love to pretend she holds totally mastery over her own anger and cannot lose herself into her own fury until all she sees is bright, white-hot rage, but even there are limits to her powers of delusion. Obsessive fixation... how dare he equate her loyalty to her father to something as base as that. As if he wants to corrupt the only love she's ever received in her life. To say that is to insult the man who loves her. Anyone else, she knows she could be tempted... Her thoughts reflecting sourly inside her half-hooded, waspy eyes, Rui stares them down at the drive held in the palm of her hand. Unresponsive to most of Daisuke's genial exposition, she frowns bemusedly at it, almost in consideration, before-- Did she just hear him right? The name earns Rui's full attention, the surprise enough that, for the moment, she completely forgets her own anger. Kichiro Higa. Dr. Higa? She knows that name. She knows the man. He was the one who treated her. She was so sick that night, but she remembers it in pieces, remembers how carefully he handled her, remembers how she looked up in his face and thought he was-- Rui's hand closes over the flash drive, as though a silent decision has been made. She's not looking at Daisuke as he turns an eely glance on her, the expression on her face more than a few miles away. She nods absently with his words, her face blank save for the strange way she blushes across the cheeks. --- Daisuke Itami knows. For someone like Rui Onishi, feeling genuine emotion of her own-- --is probably the worst sort of thing to feel. Whether it is rage...  (A flush of pink exposes itself on Rui Onishi's cheeks.)  ... or infatuation.  Which is why he treasures each one she shows so dearly.  But it is perhaps fortunate for Rui that Daisuke seems to turn an apparent blind eye to her unusual reaction to her words. That anger is instantly mollified by a fond memory. Daisuke merely smirks, and lifts his fondant-covered index finger to his lips.  "I'm glad you agree~."  It tastes wonderful.  An exasperated sigh is heaved from Daisuke's lungs. He lifts his hands in the air as if in rueful defeat. "Ahh, alas, alas! I wanted to spend the entire day celebrating Ru-chan's birthday, but I'm too busy to waste my time on frivolous things you don't even care about! We'll have to do it next year, won't we?" he asks, like a promise.  "I'm going to be in Inaba for the rest of the week on a job. Well, I guess it's partly for 'my hobby' too, but we can keep that secret between each other, can't we?" Daisuke looks back at Rui. "Like friends would~.  "I'll let you take care of the office in the meantime! Don't forget, I need all the information that Endachin uncovers and any information you find yourself. You could say 'that's an order' but I hate being so strict about these things!"  Rui might be lost still in her ruminations when a slender hand falls to clap her on the shoulder in a light pat.  "I'm putting my faith in your abilities, Ru-chan~."  Unless stopped, Daisuke turns then to leave his own office in Rui's hands. It is only when he gets to the door that he pauses.  His fingertips rest gently on the doorknob as he realizes something. He does not even deign to look back at Rui when he speaks again.  "Oh, by the way...  "It's a good thing you didn't give in to those emotions you're not supposed to have and tried to torture the information out of me or something. I mean, the superficial reasons why should be pretty obvious! But..."  Daisuke Itami grins. It is a grin full of unchecked cruelty and malice.  "... Your father made one very clear request to me about that package. I can't remember the exact words, but I'm pretty sure they went something like, uh...  "'Until told otherwise, Rui Onishi is not to know the details surrounding this job.'"  He forgot to give her one last present. For her birthday.  "I wonder what /that/ means? Hm, hm! Well, I guess you can ask him yourself--  "If you don't mind betraying your faith in him a little bit, anyway~."  And by the time Rui may look over, the door will already be shutting with a soft yet resounding click.  Leaving her with nothing but her thoughts as company on her birthday.  --- Very carefully, the young woman pockets the flash drive, already treating the device with extraordinary care. She's not sure how a kind man like Dr. Higa has attracted the interest of Daisuke, but Rui supposes she'll discover the reasons soon enough. Glancing up from her thoughts, she imparts her employer a needly look, following his movement with his eyes in that cautious way people watch the flightpaths of annoying, stinging insects. Daisuke's talk of next year earns him the most glorious gift of Rui's visible repulsion. For the most of his dialogue, his would-be bodyguard stands there silently, still on the spot, accepting his words with little fight. But it's his mention of secrets that stutters Rui's frowning a little, her expression going briefly pensive, almost peaceful. It makes her remember that secret Nagisa told her, confessing a night ago to her that she was dying. Daisuke hasn't the slightest clue, and in that moment Rui feels a strange sense of power in the knowledge that there is something she knows something that he doesn't. If Rui were a more spiteful person, or someone who allowed herself to be a person at all, she'd consider using that knowledge as a weapon. But she doesn't, doesn't even consider it, and simply lets that rare instant of control be the only salve for her anger. But she wants to see the day come when he learns that she knew something he didn't. Rui thinks she wants to see the look on his face when that happens. '...by the way...' Stolen from her thoughts, she spares him a venomous look, before her expression drops its guard, disarmed on the spot when Rui sees the poison in Daisuke's smile for what it is. Eyes widened, she can only stare helplessly as he pulls his last dagger, and turns her own father's supposed words on her. The door closes. Rui is left staring at it in total, devastated disbelief. Her father said that? Why would he say such a thing? Why would her father-- Father... Letting her head bow forward, her long hair disguising her features, Rui lifts one hand to brush her fingertips across he choker around her neck. Her hand closes over her throat. The cake collapses.

[thefoolsdeck-blog]

Daisuke 020 - Superbia

Game: Persona MUSH Characters: Daisuke Itami, Nagisa Renge, Rui Onishi, Yuzuriha Hatsumi Location: An Anonymous Warehouse Summary: After her attempt to infiltrate Omoikane Investigations thwarted by one Rui Onishi, Yuzuriha Hatsumi finds herself at the whims of Daisuke Itami and his companions. Much friendly banter on the subject of pride ensues. Really. Rating: rated 'y' for 'yuzuriha is too violent'

Dust collects on the marbled faces of countless sculptures and statues, and their hundred of husked-out, hollowed eyes all stare down on the solitary, tethered figure of Yuzuriha Hatsumi. The forgotten art pieces, left to storage and to decay in darkness, have been watching the young girl's imprisonment, their faces looking almost remotely hopeful -- any longer spent here, and she may become as forgotten as them, a new body to join their lonely ranks. Of course, the ninja has not been left completely alone. Rui has been a constant fixture the past many hours, silent and watchful even after Yuzuriha refused to answer the bodyguard's polite, courteous 'interrogation.' With her fate now ultimately left in the hands of Daisuke Itami (she had sent a message with their coordinates to his phone number only,) his assistant has mostly withdrawn her presence entirely to the peripherals, never quite going anywhere but not so inclined to engage the girl, though Rui's yellow eyes slant her more than one thoughtful, curious stare. Every so often, she cordially asks if the ninja, hingecuffed and roped to a backed chair, desires more water or a bit of food; the well-prepared assistant has brought both, and has no reservation against giving some iota of comfort to Yuzuriha's forced stay. Rui spends the rest of the time reading. She occupies a chair of her own, and seems to have entirely contented herself in her duties; a strange skill despite her own grievous injuries. Rui is a bandaged and stitched mess of her own, and enough time has passed that half of her face has discoloured into a bluish-blackish mess. Miss Onishi, ye of the timeless patience of martyring saints, doesn't seem to mind. Then again, she doesn't seem to do much at all. --- And more than once, Yuzuriha Hatsumi has accepted the offer for water. Dehydration, fatigue, and blood loss have run her body ragged, and being strapped down to the chair has allowed a lot of stiffness to settle into her joints. Not once has she complained about the pain she's in. More than once, she's made attempts to wiggle or pull against her restraints, to find a way out, to find out where she is, but... ... Rui is patient. Rui is careful. Very careful. Currently, her eyes are closed. Dried blood and the smell of days-old gauze cling to her left shoulder front and back, and to the top and bottom of her right thigh. She's trying to not think about other things-- like who this 'Itami-san' really is aside from an apparent information broker. The people that he associates with, like the girl that stood so casually in her blood and offered her tea. The man who was apparently asleep downstairs, and could sleep through a battle like theirs. Yuzuriha is a little nervous, all told. The seventeen-year old kunoichi tries her best not to show it. ||Omoikane||  ||Before||  "Arara, someone doesn't have many manners, do they?"  Daisuke Itami looks completely disappointed as he surveys an office marked by destruction.  The door leading into the office reads 'Daisuke Itami.'  "Really, at this rate I'm going to have to get repairs privately done or my insurance is going to go through the roof," he laments, though he doesn't sound very displeased at all as he wanders through the upper floor of Omoikane. Pushing aside dirt and debris, he takes in strewn weapons or any signs of evidence of the scuffle, painting a picture in his mind of the events that occurred here.  "You'd think a yakuza princess would know how to be more graceful and discreet, wouldn't you~?"  And, as if on cue, the information broker's smartphone rings. Without even looking at the ID, he turns it on, and answers simply:  "I hope you know this is coming out of your paycheck, Ru-chan~."  ||Now||  ||A Simple Warehouse||  The doors leading to the dry, dusty warehouse open with the protesting groan of metal hinges. Light pours briefly throughout the brief area surrounding the portal before it is all snuffed out with a creaking slam.  This is where silence takes over, except someone seems to be filling what should be tense silence with the melody of BoA's 'Eat You Up.'  It's a great song.  The person in question is a slender man, older than Yuzuriha but in his mid-twenties at best. He wears a three-layer tweed suit and - perhaps oddly - a pair of worn-out, white sneakers. But what is most unusual is the hair -- dyed white and black, just as likely described to Yuzuriha as a trait belonging to a particular man.  Daisuke Itami continues to hum until he walks up to Rui Onishi. He looks toward the bound Hatsumi, and slowly, his humming stops. His brows furrow.  "Oya oya, what are you still doing with this?" he asks abruptly, head tilting to the side. "I feel like I'm in some sort of mafia movie! Really Ru-chan, sometimes I wonder about how you were raised. Do you think we're going to break her kneecaps? The mood in here is all wrong!"  Daisuke shakes his head solemnly. He looks back towards Yuzuriha, and offers a cheerful smile. " Sorry about the circumstances, but my secretary can be a little rough. She's not built towards handling these sorts of situations." Except for how she neutralized and captured Yuzuriha--  A hand is thrust out, in offering to Yuzuriha.  In offering to the completely bound Yuzuriha.  "Daisuke Itami."  A pause. Seconds pass. Brown eyes look down to Yuzuriha's strapped arms, and furrows his brows.  Silently, he maneuvers around so that he can duck down and awkwardly shake one of Yuzuriha's bound hands.  "It's nice to meet you~."  --- //Omoikane, Earlier// It *has* been a few days since that battle... but then, Rui never cleaned up the office itself, just the blood. Nagisa hadn't done anything to clean up the office either, since none of the plants had been knocked over, particularly not any of the ones in which Daisuke had planted those plastic flowers she'd given him. She *had*, however, been resting on the unmolested couch when Daisuke had returned and taken in the sight of his wrecked office, and woken up when he'd started talking to himself and answered his ringing (more likely "playing some irritatingly peppy J-pop song") phone. Rubbing her eyes, she'd sat up, heart twisting when she heard his voice, saw his face... He died before, according to his older sister. Noriko had agreed, extremely grudgingly, to *maybe* talk to her more about Keitaro... But the pinched paleness of Nagisa's expression fades somewhat when he realizes who he's talking to. She waits until after Daisuke's hung up to remark, "I take it that was about that girl she captured, then." //An Anonymous Warehouse, Now// Nagisa trails after the skunk-haired man silently, like a ghost. Daisuke would have noted that she'd have been rather quiet overall on the way over, though not precisely unresponsive to him--more content to listen than to converse today. Maybe she's coming down with something; she does look a little under the weather. Maybe he'll be lucky and she's coming down with a fatal case of pneumonia~? Ahhh, but surely she wouldn't die so easily. That would be too convenient for him. Because of this, though, and especially because of Daisuke's very loud and bright entrance, the ladies might not notice Nagisa following him inside, watching the man before she turns her pale blue eyes towards the ninja girl. It's not until Daisuke moves to shake Yuzuriha's bound hands that Nagisa bothers to nod to her silently in greeting. She does not, notably, bother to otherwise introduce herself, instead opting to slip silently over next to Rui. --- '... hope you know this is coming out of your paycheque.' "..." Rui's assessment was subsequently delivered by text message, barring that protracted, steely silence on her end of the telephone. [ Perpetrator apprehended in the midst of illicit capture and retrival of personal information. All stolen information obtained as evidence. Perpetrator acknowledges her intrusion was merely for the reason of reconnaissance, but refuses to answer questions, or give her name, orders, and information of possible allies. Interrogation to be determined by Itami-san. ] Now, Rui glances up at Daisuke's arrival, her face tensing at his first question. Her expectant expression immediately folds like a bad poker hand. Eyes hooding, she at least appears to hold the esteem (or respect, or something else) for him to close her book, giving her employer her full and undivided attention. Even if he begins to playfully poke fun at how she was raised. Even Yuzuriha, in her pained state, wouldn't miss it, as the first lapse of emotion makes a telling journey across Rui's bruised face, a muscle twitching up her tightened jaw. She frowns, but says nothing. As per usual. Though, as Daisuke ventures closer into Yuzuriha's personal space, bound and tethered or not, Rui goes on visible high alert, standing at attention as her eyes watching the both of them with the intensity of a... well, bodyguard having sworn a blood oath to a man whom Rui likens to God Himself. One hand flexes at her side. Nagisa arrives quietly after, brushing by the peripherals of Daisuke's grand entrance. Rui doesn't give her any hint of greeting, or a single glance, but appears to plainly tolerate the girl near her. Her eyes don't stray from the ninja in the chair, her duty refusing her attention to wander. --- The doors open, the hinges creak. It's the loudest sound that she's heard in the last few days, and her eyes, desperate and unfocused, open with sharpness and clarity-- she tries to use the time that the door is outside to see beyond the man and get a vague sense of what's outside, what's around him, and-- how far she could potentially run with her leg in it's current condition. Yuzuriha frowns as Daisuke comes closer. It's visible, no less-- the whole of her face, with the mask that was covering the lower half of her face pulled down around her neck. Despite her youth and the charges levied against her by Rui, it seems like if she weren't tied down to a chair and given some time to rest and clean herself up, she would be quite attractive. Daisuke is exactly as Kobayashi described, right down to the hair. His bearing and attitude are not quite ... what she expected, to be truthful. So much so that when he introduces himself, his mood music and all, when he dubs her silent captor 'Ru-chan,' she starts to wonder if this really /is/ Daisuke Itami. If that other girl is here-- that smiling girl-- it might just be possible. The hand is thrust out, but not taken. A weary Hatsumi looks back at him with a flat stare-- and her eyes follow his fingers all the way down to her own hand to give it a proper shake. Looking back up to Daisuke's face, the young ninja parts her lips to speak in a most odd way, old-fashioned like out of the movies and historical dramas. "It is a great honor to make your aquaintence, sir." A beat, with irritation: "I would like to go home now." --- Yuzuriha's hand is taken; despite all the awkwardness of the position and his bizarre behavior, it is shaken with all the professional wealth of a businessman.  Which, perhaps, makes it even more bizarre.  Standing up, this would seem the time when the interrogation begins -- except Daisuke walks away, even as Yuzuriha talks. With almost a hop in his step, he wanders off into the darkness of the warehouse as the ninja insists to be allowed to go home. That voice, that bearing, that look--  A few seconds later, Daisuke is dragging back a chair, the legs of it dragging across the concrete earth to reproduce irritatingly loud sounds of friction and grinding. He ultimately comes to a stop a few feet from Yuzuriha, reverses the chair, and flops into it -- sitting in it informally as if he was some teenager from the 90's.  "Wow, what's with that formal way of speaking?" Daisuke asks, completely disregarding Yuzuriha's request. He looks, from his bearings and his words, like he is simply content to engage in idle chit-chat with the girl. "And that stiff bearing, too -- you give Ru-chan over there a run for her money, and she was born and raised to be a lifeless doll!" Laughter follows -- as if this were a joke.  "So you're the real deal, huh? A real live ninja?" The information broker sounds all too fascinated by this; any concerns he has with her breaking into his office seems to be non-existent. "Who'd think a ninja would try to steal stuff from me? And a little girl, at that! It's like something out of a television show, right?"  Daisuke looks quite pointedly at Nagisa as he asks this particular question. She's been so quiet; and as irritating as her voice is and always will be to Daisuke, it's different enough to make her out to be a target tonight too.  Because he cares.  "Still though, Chibinin," Daisuke begins, apparently having already formulated a nickname for the girl, "it really is impressive that you're in this kind of business at such a young age. I bet you've got a lot of pride as a ninja, right? I mean, you /are/ a real ninja, aren't you~?"  --- Rui doesn't even glance at Nagisa; Yuzuriha's attention is focused on the man before him. It of course makes perfect contextual sense, but the young Stregite finds it terribly lonely somehow. She came along with Daisuke because she wanted to be closeby him right now, but now that she's here, she feels like she could disappear and it would make no difference. Which, in the long run, it wouldn't--but now that matters to her somehow, and it's all Daisuke's fault. Cloaked in self-defensive apathy, Nagisa watches and listens as the information broker drags that chair over to Yuzuriha with the most ear-grating sound to interrogate her after her attempt to hint VERY STRONGLY that she should be released. And yet, it's *because* of that painful feeling of being on the outside that that stare Daisuke shoots her way has the ironic and possibly completely unintentional side-effect of making Nagisa giggle delightedly. And why shouldn't she laugh? That one sharp look cheered Nagisa up immensely, an unspoken reference to when *she* wrecked his office during that fight they had, as if the two of them are sharing their own private joke that no one else in the room is *quite* in on. Because he cares. <3 It's thus with considerably more good humor, and a return of her usual smile, that Nagisa falls back into silence, kneels down on the concrete floor next to Rui, and folds her hands in her lap as she watches the unfolding interrogation with interest. She glances over at Rui, giving her a suffusive smile too, but it's an inevitably brief thing. --- Her right eyebrow twitches slightly, minutely, at the sound of the chair legs dragging across the floor, the sound all but magnified painfully by the warehouse's concussive walls. But Miss Onishi, for the most part, remains either a salient example or horror story of a person allowing duty to supercede all else. She remains as fixed and still as the carved statues that loom above them, sharing in their frozen expressions and unblinking eyes. Like any good, obsessive, fanatical bodyguard, she is watchful and not much else, lending no sort of intrusive presence into Daisuke's cheerful 'interrogation.' She merely seems to be waiting to be called upon, should she be needed. When Daisuke accuses her of lifelessness, Rui just silently confirms him by doing absolutely nothing, not a tic of her intent yellow eyes or flex of her gloved fingers. She could give mannequins lessons in patience. She may not similarly conclude she is a doll, dolls are not tools and have no purpose, but she hopes at least he's begun to acknowledge her for what she is. For Rui, the sooner she is likened to an object, the better her usefulness can be finally understood. It's only when Nagisa moves to kneel on the ground that Rui moves, taking a short step away from that chair she once occupied. Without a single gesture, she's offering the girl her seat in her silent, distant way, taking a slight exeunt to pull her presence the tiniest bit closer to the conversatiom between the ninja and her employer. And she patiently watches. --- The chair's dragging across the floor may as well be a chorus of fingernails dragging across chalkboards, booming into her ears and head and mind and driving her absolutely insane. It's probably being tied down to the chair that does it to her, with no clear idea of the passage of time... and the injuries don't help much. Given, Rui has been there... but that does not mean she's been able to sleep well, if at /all/, and things sort of blend together after any length of time deprived of awareness of time. "This is the way that I speak. I humbly apologize if it is offensive to you," she says, allowing her eyes to close. "I was raised to be... polite to superiors. This includes you, Itami-san, especially if my release is to be ... handled by you." She pauses, hesitantly, feeling herself get angrier as he speaks. Soreness and exhaustion are powerful drugs, most notably when someone cannot move-- and that icy-cold facade shows the first signs of finally cracking. She shifts as best she can in the chair, leaning herself forward. "At a time such as this, pride is all I have. And I will not tell you anything, Daisuke Itami. Nothing." --- 'At a time such as this, pride is all I have.'  "Really?"  Daisuke looks on at Yuzuriha, as if surprised; his eyes are wide with bafflement for all of five seconds... before he raises a hand in the air and waves it around dismissively.  "Well, we'll get to that later I guess," he explains nonchalantly. "You shouldn't rush a good conversation. Still, it's pretty laudable that you following the strict ninja traditions so closely. You probably come from a long line of them, right? I hear ninja are supposed to serve a master, sort of like samurai - though really, a ninja is more like a mercenary than anything else."  If this is an interrogation, it certainly doesn't seem like it. And, in fact, when those words --  'And I will not tell you anything, Daisuke Itami. Nothing.'  --slip Yuzuriha's lips, Daisuke just stares, flabbergasted.  And then he laughs.  "Pffaahahahaha! What? Ru-chan, what have you been telling poor Chibinin? You haven't been threatening her, have you?? Nagi-chi, did you frighten her by being inhuman??" The information broker shakes his head and closes his eyes. His laughter finally stops with the heave of a sigh as those brown eyes open in an apologetic expression. "Ara ara, it looks like I'm going to have to swallow -my- pride and say 'I'm sorry' to you a second time. Ru-chan's skills are more for paperwork and organizing, not 'stopping ninja foes' or anything like that." Again, implying that Rui isn't suited toward the job she had just succeeded at against Yuzuriha-- "I apologize if she gave you the wrong impression, so I'll just make it clear right now to make up for it:  "I don't really want anything from you."  Daisuke lets the statement sink in. And then, as if as an afterthought, he adds: "Well, actually I guess the better statement is 'I don't really need anything from you,'" and all the implications -that- might hold he seems not to expand upon.  "Jeez, now it looks like I have to apologize again for making incorrect statements~! It seems like I'm swallowing my pride a lot today, huh?"  --- The things that irritate Nagisa are not physical stimuli, but the emotions that have been planted into her heart like a grain of sand in an oyster. Even when covering layers and layers upon it to form a pearl, those beautiful "stones" are fragile, and are often deeply flawed... There's no saying how deep the flaw might go in this particular pearl, especially since the grain of sand was planted by Daisuke Itami. But then, Nagisa's a warped girl, and Daisuke's a warped man. Perhaps their respective warped natures will end up cancelling each other out like a math equation and forming something healthy instead? Now if only real life were like a math equation. And if only metaphors weren't so prone to getting away with themselves. Regardless of pearls and such, that's why Nagisa doesn't react to the screeching of the chair, any more than she reacts to Daisuke's otherwise irritating Resonance despite her increased sensitivity, because his Resonance is perversely pleasant to her, just like that Look he shot her earlier. Rui's Resonance is pleasantly *there* as well, for as unpleasant as it probably objectively otherwise is due to the nature of her Persona, because Nagisa *likes* her, and this is underscored when the woman, in her cold, distant way, shows her a kindness by getting up off of her chair the moment nagisa kneels down on the floor. The girl blinks in surprise at her, then smiles again like the sun in springtime. "Thank you," she tells her affectionately before rocking upright on the balls of her feet, then seating herself properly on the chair where Rui's body heat still lingers. It, too, is pleasant to Nagisa. Yuzuriha's being quite stubborn, though... Is it really only pride that fuels her now? Nagisa wonders how far that pride will take her--how far Daisuke will push her. This might give her some insight into him, too, she realizes... though it's just like him to laugh at that, and when he shoots that question back at her, she laughs too. "I just offered her some tea," she replies with playfully mock hurt, feet swinging lightly under the chair. She wonders, how will this unfold now? --- Miss Onishi listens on, stone-faced, as Yuzuriha again denies them any sort of information about herself. She may as well declare herself a ghost for as little of an existence the ninja tries to emit. Her sense of duty is very intriguing to Rui, whose interest is captivated a little more deeply and studiously than necessary -- only forced away on a sudden twitch when Daisuke insults her very purpose, even if just to tease, cataloguing away all her years of specific training to dismiss her as some administrative professional. The fingers of Rui's left hand curl slightly against her palm, her arm's layer of bandaging scratching briefly against the fabric of her suit sleeve. Colour threatens her cheeks when she's accused of threats, just barely, as she fights the impulse to avert her eyes with annoyance. But Rui refuses to look away. Rui's chilliness then drops into sudden hypothermia as Daisuke goes on; Nagisa's polite, gentled thank-you or even Yuzuriha's curious will-power can't even distract the young woman from her wordless fuming. Nagisa, from her spot, playfully explains herself against Daisuke's easy-going accusations. Rui, on the other hand, is solemn and unchanged, and not even her PDA comes out to offer any words on her part. Perhaps she's just taking the role of the silent bodyguard too seriously. Perhaps she's just too irritated to. Still, she watches on, not knowing at all what Daisuke will make of the ninja's fate. Rui had privately wondered if he would make light of this all, and dismiss Yuzuriha as quickly as she'd appeared in the Omoikane offices. It certainly is the kinder path of many options, but she believes adamantly it's his decision to take offence or grant forgiveness to Hatsumi's transgression. Rui has been raised a little too well by the yakuza. --- For the entire length of Daisuke's assumptions, for his analysis of her family, her lineage, and what ninja really are, Yuzuriha Hatsumi is silent. The unfortunate part is, it doesn't hide her emotions that well, from the tics to her eyebrow to the uncomfortable shifts in the chair, to the way that she scowls at him for calling her family-- for everything that she is, and has stood for-- mercenaries. She is a proud servant to the Kuzunoha, like other members of her family before her... regardless of the organization's current iteration, it's leadership, and it's practices. Yuzuriha doesn't speak, but at the same time, she does. Then he laughs in her face, and her expression shifts once again. Marked with confusion and dismay, she eyes the skunk-haired man carefully as he explains himself one more time. His opinion stings, in some strange way, more than the presence of the strange girl that offered her tea while she was busy pinned down to the floor or the woman that caused all the damage to her in the first place. There's a lot of strength in anger. A lot of focus, if it's channeled just right. Right then and there, Yuzuriha tugs against the chair with a lot of vigor that was not there days ago, when she was originally /brought/ here, with ropes straining against her weight and hands balling up into fists. "Then release me from this chair!" she exclaims loudly, trying to ignore the pain and stiffness that builds back up in her joints. The ache in her chest where bone was cracked, from the muscles in her shoulder that pull and strain where Rui's hands laid expert stitching to her damaged shoulder. "Do not apologize... simply release me!!" --- Today, Daisuke Itami decides, is a good day.  He doesn't even bother looking sidelong at Rui as her emotions build up subtly into slowly mounting frustration and anger; he doesn't have to. To him, it's like clockwork. And as much as he loves indulging in the emotions of a woman who claims to be nothing human, well--  He has something far more interesting to play with, right now.  Eyes widen and Daisuke leaps back as Yuzuriha suddenly, finally, and violently reacts. His hands lift into the air with an exaggerated "Whoa whoa whoa!" as Yuzuriha strains powerfully but ultimately futilely against her restraints.  "Scary scary!" exclaims Daisuke as he continues with that 'I mean you no harm' gesturing. "You ought to be more careful though, right? I mean, I bet Ru-chan at least managed to do some internal damage, and you wouldn't be much of a ninja if you let yourself get injured following some predictable thing like 'emotions', right?"  He smiles. There is something subtly acidic about it, as if it were searing through anything that looked at it like something corrosive, or radioactive. His hands slip into his pockets, his shoulders lift in a shrug. "And besides, you'd be wasting all that effort to prove how much you're disgracing your family name just for a wasted effort.  "After all, I was planning on letting you go anyway."  The monochrome-haired information broker looks up toward the ceiling as he talks. Despite his claim, he wanders -away- from Yuzuriha, stalking up towards one of the statues nearby where Nagisa sits and where Rui is currently silently fuming. He imagines right now she's picturing her dad giving her a pat on the head to try and calm herself down.  It's funny in his mind's eye, at least.  "Like I said, I don't really need you for anything," he continues on, even as he pokes that statue with a finger. "But is that really what -you- want?"  Brown eyes finally roll back to Yuzuriha with all the look of a serpent. "After all, pride is important to you, right? I mean, it's important to your family, and shaming the family line is as good as committing murder, isn't it?  "I wonder how much shame there is in failing a mission...  "... getting captured by the enemy...  "... and then demanding to be released despite your failure?"  Daisuke turns around, eyebrows lifting. "Especially if the very target that you failed your mission against was to release you as if you and your attempt and the shame of your failure meant nothing!"  And then... his shoulders lift in ambivalence. "Ara ara, but who can say, right? I mean, you'd know better than me! The options are pretty simple here: I can let you go with all those things weighing on your back.  "Or I can have the police arrest you for breaking and entering and attempted robbery and have you processed like a common delinquent kid.  "Which would you rather~?"  --- "Rui?" Nagisa murmurs, noticing the twitch of the yakuza princess' fingers as she curls them just a tiny bit, then looking up at the woman's still stony-faced visage... though unlike the statues that surround them, there's a faint redness in her face. Didn't Dai-chan just say that she isn't meant for combat but for secretary work? Is she unhappy about that...? A thoughtful expression steals over her face, and she watches Rui for a moment longer before Yuzuriha's outburst draws her attention, and Daisuke backs away dripping apology like slime from a water main. He *does* handle it well, she marvels silently. Nagisa has no idea if Daisuke truly had any intention of releasing that ninja girl, or really what his goal is here beyond 'be an awful jackanapes' if indeed he /has/ any goal beyond that, but it's fascinating to watch him peel her away as he prods at one of those nearby statues, then lay down the girl's options for her. Nagisa turns her face back towards Yuzuriha to see her reaction. It's a bit like a tennis match, though it seems like it's getting quickly one-sided. Or is it...? --- Rui Onishi wouldn't even have to imagine her father doing something as offensive as touch her. Just imagining one of his kind looks is comfort enough. And it's her utter devotion to him that tempers her through every one of Daisuke's monologues, even if the young woman finds herself wondering if she's gained just the least bit of habituation to this infuriating, insufferable man... Probably not. Nagisa calls her name at Rui's shoulder; unable to help herself, unconscious etiquette ears her a hitch of a glance from Rui, her face cool but questioning-- --and then Yuzuriha suddenly resurrects against her tethers. Rui's attention turns shudderingly on Hatsumi, fixed on her with the intensity of an executioner's axe. Oh, there's a large, internal part of Miss Onishi who understands perfectly well the aggravation coarsing through the girl's veins, the offence prickling to the surface and demanding retribution. She has no problem with Yuzuriha's anger. But she has a problem with anger -- especially aggressive anger -- turned against Daisuke. Ever the bodyguard, she moves so fast that within moments she's at Yuzuriha's side, and one gloved hand reaches out to try to press against her collarbone, and firmly, adamantly, push her weight back into the seat; Rui's own silent warning of 'please do not do that in my presence.' --- She strains, and Daisuke Itami proves to be one of the biggest, greatest bastards in the whole of the world. He calls her scary, moves back from the girl as she writhes in her bonds, and Yuzuriha manages to keep the pain in check if only because she's starting to get /that/ angry. Anger is an amazing motivation... ... right up until someone starts causing you a bit more pain. Rui's hand against her collarbone does more to stifle her than Daisuke pointing out her injuries and the damage that she's been dealt. With her hand against her shoulder, the stitched-closed wound on her shoulder burns bright and white hot; Yuzuriha's first reaction is to shy back from her touch and back against the seat itself with a dull "ahh-!!" Breathing a little harder without actually exerting much effort and expression locked in a grimace, she looks up at him-- she looks at him at the moment he points out the shame that is put upon her by her failures. There's panic and fear in her eyes, and she is very clearly on the wrong-side of Nagisa's one-sided tennis match. It's so hard to respond-- being arrested means her work in the Kuzunoha will effectively be over. She'll have to return home if she isn't put in jail, and lord only knows what her grandfather will say or do to her. The Hatsumi will probably be passed on to someone else, and her hiatus from the agency in the middle of a family tryst regarding that very topic will mean nothing. She may as well hang up her blades. But she would have her pride. Her head hangs, eyes wide. Desperation is starting to well up inside of her. What does she say? What would Shirogane say, or Chie or Kobayashi? "... I-I-- ..." --- Brown eyes rotate from Yuzuriha to Rui, to Yuzuriha to Rui again. Daisuke frowns as the ninja winces and reclines from the pressure on her shoulder.  "A little too violent, isn't it?" he asks chidingly of Rui.  This is helpfully accompanied by a finger waggle and a 'tsk, tsk, tsk.'  Brown eyes twitch from Rui to Nagisa as she speaks out to the would-be secretary. He looks back to Rui, and her response, and a single black-white brow twitches upward. Something to tuck away for later.  Brown eyes roll from Rui to Yuzuriha when she finds herself at a loss for words. With his simple ultimatum is put down, all his attention drifts from the pair of girls beside him to the one in front. Daisuke is all too aware just what must be going through Yuzuriha's head. And as she does--  "Bzzzt! Times up~!"  Suddenly, Daisuke is flopping right into his chair again with a disarming suddenness. He gives Yuzuriha an apologetic look, tilting his chair forward on its hind legs to slowly lean in towards the ninja as he speaks. "Since the sudden realization of your guilt and failure is suffocating you, I'll go ahead and announce what you're going to do myself.  "'If I'm arrested, my future is over. But if I let my captors release me, my shame will be too great. But what if no one else knew I failed?'"  Daisuke leans back again. He slips a hand inside his coat, rummaging around inside even as he speaks.  "'If I'm the only one who has to know this shame, it wouldn't be as great as becoming a public shame of my entire family, and becoming known forever as a black sheep of my clan.'"  And then, Daisuke pulls something out. A manilla envelope. Smiling simply, he places it quite politely in Yuzuriha's lap, before gesturing at Rui; the meaning is clear enough -- untie her.  "'At least then I can maintain the 'family's pride,' can't I?'"  Daisuke will stand up here. If Yuzuriha chooses to take the manilla envelope and whatever its contents might be, he doesn't seem particularly interested in knowing. "And that's why I'm going to have to regretfully let you go free. It's too bad, but I think I made the best choice for you, given the circumstances. Even if you want to choose the other option, I'm not going to call the police, and even if you turn yourself in I won't press charges. There'll be no evidence of your break-in if the police even want to investigate either, so you'll just look like a girl crying wolf at herself instead of a 'shamed ninja.'" Another smile. It is so very, very bright.  This is, as they say, checkmate. But god only knows in what game, or what the victory is.  --- Rui will see Nagisa's wide eyes for that split-second--but now she's rushing forward to keep Yuzuriha *down*, and Nagisa returns to being a spectator to Daisuke's rampant awfulness. Daisuke himself glances around at these various displays, and when he glances over at Nagisa, she catches his brown eyes and smiles, but otherwise does nothing as Daisuke goes in for the kill as the ninja girl obviously is reeling from his previous mental assault. Where, earlier today, she had been in a dismal mood, she's bright again, the cogwheels in her head turning. She doesn't think she fully grasps what it is that Daisuke did, nor does she have any guess what might be in that manila folder... but given the role that she's recently taken up in Omoikane Investigations, as well as the partnership she just established the other day with Yosuke, isn't there an opportunity here that Daisuke, either unthinkingly or on purpose, is passing up? Unless she supposes there's some information like that in that folder, but... Well, she can't let him have all the excitement to himself. And so Nagisa stands up, trying to formulate the words in her head quickly before things unfold so quickly she can't keep up anymore. If Daisuke's broken this girl, then the best thing to do would be to build her back up, right? She's not really sure how to do this, or what would work best, so Nagisa decides that her usual straightforwardness will have to do--especially if she can tweak the monochrome-haired man's nose just a bit. "You shouldn't take what Dai-chan says too seriously," she thus tells Yuzuriha calmly as she approaches her, coming to a halt next to the man in question, to whom she gives an affectionate smile. "The things he says, especially in situations like this, are designed to tear people down, and he loves lies. He thinks it's fun; that's the sort of man he is." She lifts a finger. "However, he's also unquestionably insightful. You understand that already, or you wouldn't be as affected as badly as you are now. In that case, you can't be satisfied with having him make this decision for you and still having nothing to show for it, right? So let me give you something to take back to the people you work for. This is separate from anything Dai-chan said, or whatever it is that's in that envelope, by the way. This is my own personal offer." As she speaks those last few lines, Nagisa lowers a hand into her pocket, pulls out her phone, brings up her personal number, and then finally, after her last statement, holds the phone out to Yuzuriha screen-first, allowing her to see what's there. "This is my number," she explains. "Like Dai-chan, I deal in information. This isn't pity or condescension; I just see in you an opportunity. I won't ask you for your name, nor will I give you mine. If you want to gain something from this encounter, then please feel free to call me, and we can work something out then." She snaps the phone shut then and returns it to her pocket. "Of course, the choice is yours if you call me or not. Since I work with Dai-chan, the offer is double-edged, but wouldn't it be better for you to return to your employers with *something*?" And then she faces Daisuke with a bright, considerably warmer smile than what he just showed Yuzuriha. Checkmate, perhaps--but Nagisa's already proven herself to be a girl inclined to flipping over Othello pieces at random. --- By all appearances, Rui is that lifeless tool, standing sentry at Yuzuriha's soldier, existing to do little but safeguard her employer's life. Her austere face convincingly suggests there is little thought in her head aside from her oath. But there is, as she plays a close audience to Daisuke offering his particular ultimatim to the girl. Rui knows nothing about her, her name, her family, her roots, her particular orders, but in that moment of hearing Yuzuriha's shocked, choked desperation, she can completely and utterly understand her. It's a tactical strike by Daisuke, certainly, but not so much an honourable one, as he slips his own dagger to stab her right in her very purpose, and the duty that defines her. The girl's entire reality is shaken. It's enough that, despite her promise to protect him, Rui's yellow eyes lift from the manilla envelope to slip Daisuke the smallest and most needly of glares, sharp disapproval cast stunningly in that momentary glance. Perhaps even tools can develop an ethical code? Rui knows she doesn't enjoy that proposal of his in the least bit, despite her being the one to capture Yuzuriha in the first place and tether her down for his 'punishment.' She should be in no position to judge... yet that strange impulse still finds her, even through all her duty. It's the duty of what she infallibly abides, taking Daisuke's command as she reaches into her own suit pocket. Rui retrieves a single key, and patiently begins the process of unlocking the hingecuffs shackling Hatsumi's hands. There is the tiniest pinch of discomfort... then followed by utter, potent relief as her aching wrists are freed. Rui repeats the same with her ankles, then starts to the prolonged, tedious task of unknotting the rope from her limbs, freeing joint after captured joint until the girl is finally freed. It's at that point Nagisa steps up to speak her piece, and Rui gives the girl a look steeped with uncertainty, until her face eventually freezes over into its usual forbearing distance. Almost palpably, the bodyguard stands apart from them and their dealings and strategy, having no desire or use for any of it. She simply serves her purpose in her staid way, though her yellow eyes turn constant glances on Yuzuriha -- though Rui seems to be more preoccupied with the girl's face, her expression, than any bodyguard's duty to watch her hands and limbs. Rui's own expression is weighted and dark. --- The envelope hits her lap. It may as well weigh in at a million pounds, for all the things Daisuke Itami has said to her, all the things that he's made her feel. With the envelope at rest on her legs, she can see things happening all around her, but it's hard to say if the young ninja is actually processing them happening-- from Daisuke's threats and apparent victory to the very fact that Rui is walking up with the key that will unhinge her shackles. Her wrists throb the exact moment that they are set free, followed by her ankles. The pinch means little in the wake of the promised relief; Yuzuriha would try to move her arms a little bit, but her limbs are still tied down tightly. While Rui does her work, while Nagisa walks up, she looks at the phone's screen as it's presented to her, the gears in her mind spinning to remember those numbers. When Rui brought her here for questioning-- when she was still pinned down to the floor in Omoikane's office, even-- she was full of fire and defiance. Even with all the pain she was in, the young ninja had spark and fire within her. She said that she wouldn't talk, she would not betray those who sent her and her mission. She told them that they would get nothing at all. Once she's free, her whole body slumps in the chair like a marionette whose strings have been cut. Stiffness and aches are allowed to move in on her at full swing /because/ she's now free to move, and yet she doesn't try to rise from the chair-- weakness, fatigue... pain. She sits there, and her hands slowly lower to the envelope. Yuzuriha Hatsumi swore she would not talk. And talk she hasn't. And yet, that is why Daisuke Itami has been able to make her break. --- For all Rui Onishi's demeanor is so icy and stiff, Daisuke Itami can see it clearly -- the tension, the hatred, like bile rising up to infest and taint the taste in the back of someone's throat.  Inwardly, he pats himself on the back.  He's accomplished two great things today, after all.  But for all Rui's sharp and coldly harsh looks, all she gets is a confused look in return, as if Daisuke simply doesn't understand why she's mad. With the last of those binds finally finished, the information broker prepares to speak again--  --only to be abruptly interrupted by Nagisa. When the pale blonde girl tries to explain away Daisuke for Yuzuriha, the skunk-haired man twists his brows in obvious disgust. But still, he remains remarkably silent at this point; he let Nagisa tag along for a reason, after all. He'd like to see what happens now. And...  '... you can't be satisfied with having him make this decision for you and still having nothing to show for it, right?'  Daisuke Itami clucks his tongue once.  "Nagi-chi, you're as subtle as the brick I'd like to hit you with~" the private investigator croons ever-so-sweetly as he kicks himself off from his chair. "You should try and show some sort of grace when dealing with prospective clients, shouldn't you? Besides, look at her, she obviously doesn't need to deal with something like that right now! Her world's just been shaken! Tsk tsk, Nagi-chi." But he doesn't need to look at Yuzuriha to know she's probably remembering those numbers. And it might be even worse. Even if it isn't pity, after all, it's still accepting succor from an enemy. But--  "Though the truth is, we're not really enemies, are we?" Daisuke asks almost abruptly. "We both just have jobs to do; really, if you were so interested in my business, you should have just asked~. But then I guess that wouldn't be the ninja thing to do, now would it?"  One hand slips into his coat pocket; the other lifts into the air as he turns around, presenting his back to the freed Yuzuriha even as he walks calmly and casually back to the door.  "But I think that's it, isn't it? You can feel free to stay here as long as you like," though the owner will likely be back eventually-- "to wallow in your pity. Or you can go back to your employers or your family, I bet they're worried sick about you~."  And with that, Daisuke will start to wander off towards the exit. If Yuzuriha chooses to open that envelope, what she'll find is a list.  A list of clients and jobs. All in code, but enough for Yuzuriha to discern it is off-the-books jobs, even if not enough to be directly incriminating.  Information. The exact sort of information she was looking for. ... and a card, black, with a number on it and a simple name:  O m o i k a n e I n v e s t i g a t i o n s  "Bye bye, Chibinin~! I had a fun time exploring your pride; I look forward to when we can work together."  --- When Rui shoots that uncertain stare her way, however briefly it might be, Nagisa gives her in return a look of gentle calm and reassurance. She only has a vague grasp of what it is she's doing, but there is something to the feel of her--her aura, perhaps, or more accurately her Resonance, though Rui as she is probably won't get much if anything of that--that serenely says 'it will be all right.' Yuzuriha may or may not pick up on any of this, either (there's only so much an indistinct feeling can do when you've been thoroughly emotionally crushed), but even so, Nagisa will step forward and touch the side of the kunoichi's head, assuming Yuzuriha allows it to happen. A moment later, she turns away, smoothing out her layered skirt--even in summer, she wears quite a bit--and then turns back to Daisuke. "I rather think my gracelessness is one of my good points. I'm not skilled at manipulation like you are, Dai-chan," she says brightly. "So I'll simply be as I am." For as long as she can, because she doesn't have the time to be anything else. But this is fine--she can't reverse what's been done, so she'll walk forward, staying by his side for what breath in her remains, annoying him, disgusting him, loving him. This is the path she chose. She won't waste time on regrets. And in the same way, Nagisa follows Daisuke out. As she reaches the exit/entrance, she turns around and nods once to Yuzuriha. Then she turns back and hurries up a bit, falling into step next to him before looking up at his profile and beginning a conversation on some matter that Yuzuriha won't be able to hear. --- The longer the conversation goes on, the more something ineffable, yet equally dangerous seems to pulse under Rui Onishi's skin. She's never felt anything like this before, so sharp and disconcerting that she fears she may need to ask her father about it. He'll know what to do. Rui has felt countless strange, odd, unexplainable pangs in this new life away from her father, but nothing so strange as this. She doesn't realize it's empathy. Yuzuriha strikes such a note within Miss Onishi that, even despite all the kindness she's extended towards the blonde girl, and appreciated deeply the gentle way Nagisa has treated her -- there's a sharp, deliberate twitch in Rui's hand as the girl reaches out to touch the ninja's head. It's so fast that, if you weren't watching, you'd miss it, as Rui catches an impulse like a swatted fly and buries it back down with her clenching hand. She was ready to strike out at the girl, and violently. Her own self-control isn't even sure where that came from. But Rui almost visibly seethes against any last touches or parting words shot the girl's way, though she's still silent about it, her expression heavy and demure except to those who know where to find the details in her total absence of emotion. Her yellow eyes eventually follow Daisuke's depature, Rui's duty losing its guard as he moves out of the girl's vicinity. He is safe. So is Nagisa, as she follows suit. A soulless, lifeless, doll of a bodyguard would step sternly after. Which is strange, because Rui is lingering, still stopped at Yuzuriha's side and watching her carefully. Perhaps she's considering -- even desiring -- to help the girl walk if she needs it. If she accepts it.

[thefoolsdeck-blog]

Daisuke 019 - Suicide Machine

Game: Persona MUSH Characters: Daisuke Itami, Mamoru Yasuragi, Rui Onishi Location: Hirasaka Ward, Sumaru Summary: Having just taken the time to bond with his assistant Rui over exotic-flavored ramen, Daisuke Itami decides to celebrate by forcing her into a death match with a 6'1" force of nature. Fun for the family! Rating: mamoru yasuragi's blatantly misogynistic rampage continues unabated, oh no!!

There's been an oddly high incidence of strange girls who approach him while completely unafraid of him. Mamoru doesn't understand it in the slighest. First that Itsuka girl, then that Anise girl... He doesn't want people to be afraid of them, but that utter lack of fear they had set them at first at "admirable" and then very quickly on the other end of "creepy." Itsuka wasn't *so* bad, but Anise's fixation on whether he was dangerous or not, and how she thought it would be "exciting" if he was, was... well, pretty off-putting. So when Mamoru manages to complete his homework (IT WAS AWFUL) and go on his daily walk just after dark, he's not in the best of moods. Not exactly close to snapping but those who try to hail him today while he's got his headphones on get completely ignored, whether he hears them or not.

Which means he doesn't see it coming at all when some reedy-looking guy jumps out of an alleyway and shoves a knife in his face. "Gimme all your money!" the guy hisses, all but poking Mamoru in the eye with that blade.

Mamoru's red eyes narrow.

Five seconds later, about a block down the street, the would-be mugger lands with a CRASH into a scraggly streetside tree as he wails through the air, the semi-leafy branches managing to break his fall enough that he doesn't get killed upon landing. However, the guy moans when he flips over and crashes onto the cement sidewalk.

A street up, Mamoru shoves his hands into his pockets, his mood a little more foul, and continues walking.

---

                  -|Shiraishi Ramen|-                   

                                       -|Early Evening|-                                        

"Itadakimasu~!" 

Shiraishi Ramen is hardly the most august of places. In fact, if it was located anywhere in Sumaru besides Hirasaka, it would likely be up for some sort of health review. Yet, it has become well-known and well-received, both due to its particularly unusual selection of ramen -- and due to the rumors surrounding its owner, a Russian immigrant known only as the 'Shiraishi Lady.' It's the mystique that has cultivated a strong popularity for the simple shop. 

But that doesn't mean the quality of their food is any better now than it was before the rumors, a fact that Rui Onishi comes to learn when a bowl of sickly-pink-looking ramen is thrust in front of her. 'Bubblegum-flavored Ramen,' they call it. It's a meal that her employer has graciously purchased for her today. Her employer, the young white-and-black-haired information broker currently grinning broadly at her, holding up his own bowl of ramen. 

"Ah? Are you trying to think of a way to thank me?" Daisuke Itami asks politely, head twisting to the left. 

"No worries, no worries! It's on me! Consider this a treat for all your hard work~!" 

And then he starts to consume his strawberry-flavored ramen, letting Rui take a good look at the pinkish fluids and the off-colored egg floating through her broth. 

The invitation, at least, does not sound like partaking in the food is voluntary. 

"Aaaaaah~ today's going to be a good day, I can tell." 

                                       -|Hirasaka Ward|-                                        

                                          -|Evening|-                                           

"Ah, ramen love~! There's nothing better than the Shiraishi Lady's recipes!" 

Jovial as always is Daisuke Itami as he wanders out of Shiraishi Ramen, a take-home bowl of 'peppermint-flavored' ramen thrust about in his hand as he goes. The monochrome-haired information broker staggers out loosely almost like a drunk, brown eyes sweeping across the city street. 

"When someone is having such a good day like this," he begins amiably to his possibly-less-than-amiable (sidekick) secretary, "about now would be the time a meteor crashes down from space to destroy their house in order to maintain--" 

And that is when a grown man crash-lands right at Daisuke Itami's feet, groaning something about money and the Incredible Hulk. 

"--balance?" 

Daisuke Itami squints. He looks down at the mugger, nudging him (kicking him) in the ribs with a foot to make sure he's alive. And then, he looks back towards the source -- toward that irritable youth, currently stalking off. 

"... Ru-chan," Daisuke Itami begins easily. 

"If I were to ask you to engage in an arbitrary contest of strength for nothing more than my amusement, what would your answer be? --Hm, though I suppose that wouldn't be part of your job as a 'bodyguard,' right? Hmmm..." 

Daisuke looks down at his ramen bowl. 

Thinking. 

"Hm hm hm~..." 

---

Rui Onishi shakes her head no.

She lifts two palms in a clear gesture of dismissal, stepping back from the proffered bowl of ramen as though it were poison.

And it may very well be to someone like her. Rui does not eat 'food' as others do. Under the advisement and instruction of her father, she has always eaten 'sustenance' -- protein, electrolyte, and other mineral supplements designed to fuel a body as honed like her own. Food, with its inaccurate nutrition, was always deemed as too wasteful. So, for as long as she can remember, she has never consumed it. Neither has she ever had the desire to consume it.

The particular rich smells of this meal are already putting Rui off.

Head turned, eyes slanted, the young woman looks like she has as little stomach for Daisuke's 'generousity' as she does to the bowl happily extended her way. 

Feebly, she shakes her head no once more.

She refuses.

She disagrees.

She does not want it.

She is clutching her stomach a little unsurely as they eventually exit Shiraishi Ramen. As Daisuke mirthfully executes his pleased step, Rui is dragging along after, one yellow eye squinting as she hiccups.

Her insides are already twisting and knotting, her body absolutely dismayed at these toxins she's been forced to ingest. Rui is still trying to gag back the awful taste of it, unused to richness, or even sodium at this choking level. Her stomach gurgles warningly.

She burps uneasily into her closed fist.

Expression soured, the frowning assistant finds the strength to soldier onwards, patting cautiously at her stomach as she trails Daisuke onward as his dutiful, if not slightly-nauseated shadow.

She shakes her head no. Never again. Never again.

Stepping up at his shoulder, Rui's yellow eyes turn as Daisuke expounds on his good day. Grimacing, his silent assistant looks less than charitable. Rolling her eyes, she turns away--

--and hears something.

One second later, she's at Daisuke's side, one arm outstretched like a wordless shield as some broken, beaten man all but FLOMPS in his tracks. Eyes narrowed, tensed with caution and warning, Rui's careful guard only lowers when she realizes that this projectile isn't a threatening one. In fact, it's bleeding a little. Arm lowering, she looks on with confusion, head tilted the way puppies do at television sets as she watches Daisuke kick the man at his own pleasure.

Looking away, following the source of the trajectory, the bodyguard's eyes also fasten on that suspicious-looking youth the instant Daisuke speaks.

Staring quietly, she listens. Until her left eye twitches.

Rui Onishi shakes her head no.

She refuses.

She disagrees--

---

If Mamoru were aware of the plot hatching /right this second/ behind his back to cause his life trouble, he'd probably either get a pre-emptive strike in (hi Daisuke), or else just run until he's out of sight (you're suffering enough right now, Rui). As it is, he's blissfully (?) unaware, and likely to remain that way for the next, oh, couple minutes at least.

He stops for a moment in front of an otherwise crappy-looking, run-down store, eye caught by something in the front window. It's, as far as he can tell, an electronics store with suspicious-looking merchandise and bars behind the window to prevent anyone from getting in even if they broke it. What catches his eye is that somebody's set up a pair of rabbit plushies--mascots, maybe--in the front window. One's a masculine-looking brown one, and the other is a cute pink one with a ribbon on one ear. Mamoru's expression doesn't change much as he stares at it, unless one looks closely... at which point one notices he looks lonelier.

He dips his hand back into his pocket and pulls out his steel pocketwatch, flipping open the lid to gaze inside. Then, with a sigh, he tucks it back in and continues on with his forward stalk.

---

She refuses. 

She disagrees. 

She does not want to. 

"Well, I guess that's fair enough." 

The response comes so light-hearted and easy that it's hard to say whether it really just happened or not. But there Daisuke is shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly, almost looking content to accept Rui's disagreement. 

"After all, your duties only extend towards the protection and aid of my life. Even if you do decide to risk your life in a fight against a crazy superhuman kid it wouldn't really be because it was your job and then you'd be risking disrespecting your dad's wishes, wouldn't you?" Daisuke Itami walks forward, his left hand in his pocket. He seems content to keep going... 

... and then, he stops. 

"Still though." 

He hefts that take-home bowl of ramen in his right hand, as if judging its weight. 

"He looks like he could be interesting, and I feel like I should force you into an unpleasant and dangerous situation anyway." 

His brown eyes turn toward Mamoru the youth pauses, staring into a store window. He looks towards the bunnies, brows lifting. 

"But I also feel like I should be generous and not make you risk your life without fulfilling your duties first." 

He pulls his right hand back, slowly. 

"So--" 

And so it is as Mamoru's is peering at his pocket watch and starts to tuck it away that a container of ramen descends for the back of Mamoru's head to explode across his skull in a rain noodles, vegetables, egg and peppermit-flavored broth all over the poor youth. 

Daisuke Itami, meanwhile, lifts a hand to wriggle his fingers in greeting once he has Mamoru's attention, smiling brightly. 

"Yo!" 

---

Without warning, and to her total and utter surprise, Daisuke Itami agrees.

Rui stares openly, widely at her employer's turned back, shocked and relieved around the edges to hear his confirmation. Transparently hopeful, she nods along with his declaration; yes, it would be against her formal duties.

Her father requested she ensure his life. But as she is his protector, she's not his warrior. It would be gross misuse of her father's generousity to ask her to battle for his amusement. Surely he does not disrespect her father so much to ask her to do such a thing.

Rui continually searches Daisuke for an iota of the purpose that her father must see. She hates she can't see it for herself.

Though maybe she's not trying hard enough, and it's still there, revealing itself in crucial moments like these--

'Still though.'

Confused, her head twitching to one side, Rui follows Daisuke's forward movement with her eyes as he steps away, on a probable -- no, a definite -- beeline toward that lone, brooding teenager. Rui watches on with the frozen, dumbstruck bewilderment of the truly ignorant, so sheltered and foreign to human behaviour to even have the most minute idea of what Daisuke may be planning. It can't be anything terrible, not after what he just told her--

And he speaks suddenly of his generousity, and how he'll oblige Rui her precious sense of duty.

The bodyguard just looks lost. How does her duty have any place here at--

SPLOOSH

Her opened mouth tics at one corner.

Rui's left eye closes. Then her right eye follows. Her eyes squeeze shut, as her expression is suddenly seismic with a resounding twitch that begins at her gritted teeth and terminates somewhere between the furrow between her eyebrows.

She exhales through her molars.

He did not just--

---

Mamoru turns away from the storefront where he might have been staring at electronics or he might have been staring at the plush bunnies, tucking his pocketwatch back as the playlist on his headphones ends a bit of Haydn and moves over to a piece by Schubert--

SPLOOSH

The first few seconds that embodies Mamoru's reaction to getting hit over the head with a flying bowl of peppermint ramen is enraged confusion. A second later, when it displaces his headphones, it's enraged concern. Then, when he shoves them down around his neck and throws off the strands of ramen and egg off his head as he turns around, it's enraged disgust. And finally, when he sees the strange, monochrome-haired man waggling his fingers in greeting, smiling a bright smile that's horrendously familiar despite the fact that he's never seen this man before--

Well, you get the idea.

With a building snarl of fury, Mamoru snaps his hand out and grabs the nearest heftable object; in this case, a trash can spilling over on the sides with garbage. With a brief moment of strain, he lifts it up off the concrete, the look on those crimson eyes murderous and locked directly onto Daisuke. And then he utters the magic words:

"It looks like you don't want to live anymore!!"

And then he throws that trash can directly towards the monochrome-haired man.

For the moment, Rui goes completely unacknowledged. This will almost certainly change in the next few seconds.

COMBAT: Rui Onishi is now covering Daisuke Itami. COMBAT: Rui Onishi takes the attack for Daisuke Itami! COMBAT: Mamoru Yasuragi misses Rui Onishi with his Strike Attack - Found Object attack. COMBAT: Mamoru Yasuragi has finished their turn.

---

When Rui opens her yellow eyes once more, her features burdened with the weight of resolve, she turns her full attention on Mamoru.

Who has his full attention on Daisuke.

She frowns. And in a subtle, soundless movement, her feet slip free from her high heels, one after the other. Her bare soles touch the concrete, brushing the expensive shoes delicately aside.

And, with little warning, the young woman breaks into a run, her unpadded feet near silent as she dashes a straight beeline toward the two, hunched low and moving with all the neatness of a thrown dagger.

The trash can CAREENS violently toward Daisuke, until at that littlest nick of time, there's a blur of movement that reaches him first. Rui is suddenly there, grasping Daisuke around the waist and swivelling on the spot, swiftly twisting them both to one side, and then under, the thunderous flightpath of the can like some macabre waltz. It whistles by, missing them both by hairs, only to connect solidly to one building wall in a wet explosion of garbage.

In that brief moment, Rui's glowering face is turned straight up on her employer in a stare as direct as a barrel of a gun. Her expression clearly says:

'I will not forgive you for this.'

Releasing him, the dutiful bodyguard steps forward, still imposing herself protectively between Mamoru and her precious charge. She's a strange bodyguard one would employ: a petite, impeccably-dressed, and now barefooted young woman whose total absence of emotion stands contrary to Mamoru's seething rage.

Rui, having no voice to try to negotiate, or even having any time to deal properly with this, knows she only has one option left to ensure Daisuke's safety. Whoever this strange young man is, Rui has to do what it takes to keep his attention.

By becoming a larger target.

With not a single word, the strangely silent woman begins to cut a firm, purposeful step toward him, her body still cutting off all direct routes back to Daisuke. She closes the distance surely, her patient yellow eyes lacking any of that fear Mamoru knows so well. This opponent of his seems to lack it, that, and the rest of a human being's full display of emotion.

After all, Rui Onishi is not meant or learned to be human. She is a protector. She is a weapon. And now she is wielded against Mamoru, as her left arm suddenly jerks forward, and careening out of her suit sleeve is a glinting blur of steel.

Grabbing the weapon's extending cable with her same hand, the woman swings it suddenly, sharply, attempting to catch the double-pronged blade against Mamoru's torso and sever a long, deep rip straight up his body: an initial demonstration to keep back.

COMBAT: Rui Onishi hits Mamoru Yasuragi with her Slash Attack - Kyoketsu-shoge attack. COMBAT: Rui Onishi has finished their turn. COMBAT: Mamoru Yasuragi hits Rui Onishi with his Clever Fighting counterattack.

---

And so Mamoru Yasuragi turns murderous rage upon Daisuke Itami. 

Fingers stop wriggling. Hands tuck into jacket pockets. 

Merriment is replaced by the subtle lift of brows. 

And Daisuke Itami whistles as Mamoru hefts that garbage can high above his head. 

"Oya oya."

'It looks like you don't want to live anymore!!' 

"Really, isn't it the other way around?" he asks ever-so-conversationally, as Mamoru's muscles perceptibly begin to strain. Daisuke Itami still does not budge an inch. 

"After all, with anger problems like that," the garbage can is hurled even as Daisuke still talks, "you've got about a twenty percent chance of thinning the walls of your brain's blood vessels and having an aneur--" 

Suddenly, an arm around his waist yanks Daisuke to the side. His body moves as fluidly as water along with the momentum of the pull, and the informathion broker finds himself abruptly ducking low beneath the makeshift missile that is Mamoru's chucked garbage can. 

Metal shrieks and protests even as Daisuke turns brown eyes toward Rui's unforgiving glare. 

"Scary scary!" he says, in a voice that does not sound particularly scared. 

"I'd like to say 'your anger is justified, Ru-chan, and you look awfully pretty when your face scrunches up like a prune,' but the truth is you should really be putting that anger towards a better use, right~?" 

And so it is. And so she does, moving to face Mamoru directly. As she does, Daisuke stands up straight once more; his right hand in his jacket pocket fingers the hilt of his butterfly knife considerately. 

"Please do your best, Bani-kun~!" Daisuke offers to Mamoru with such an encouraging tone for the person trying to kill him it is almost disgusting. A hand waving enthusiastically in the air, Daisuke starts to back track -- into the Hirasaka crowds that are now scattering with cries of 'THE RED-EYED HOUND IS GOING CRAZY AGAIN!'. 

Occasionally, someone says something like 'OH MY GOD, IT'S THE RED-EYED BARNACLE!!'; it's hard to say why. 

COMBAT: Rui Onishi is now covering Daisuke Itami.

---

Mamoru doesn't like fighting women. With how much and how hard he's fought to look after his little sister, he just isn't comfortable with the idea. However, when he's in a state when he's beyond "ideas" and gone straight into "destroy anything that draws his rage," it doesn't matter WHAT it is, human or animal, animate or inanimate, male or female. He registers surprise, sure enough, when that woman he hadn't been paying attention to grabs the strange smug-faced man and pulls him swiftly out of the way, and it's just kind of weird the way she stares at him so emotionlessly, but before he can even try to think of saying anything to the petite woman who's so clearly put herself in between him and the douchebag who threw a bowl of ramen at his head, she's whipping a knife-on-a-string at him and cutting a line of bright red across his uniform top.

"Why the fuck does everyone want to rip up my shirt?!" he bellows the second after the surprise from *that* is replaced with rage, a vein bulging out in his forehead. He stalks forward implacably, grabbing a YIELD sign on the side of the road and ripping it out of the concrete with a brief moment of effort before advancing. Completely unheeding of anybody else in the area, those crimson eyes fix on Daisuke as he attempts to run off and leave him alone with that woman--who, while she may have gotten in his way, is still not his true target, especially since the monochrome-haired man just radiates dislikeability to the short-tempered young man.

"GET THE FUCK BACK HERE!!" he snarls, and as he charges, scarlet light flares around him, Heracles materializing in unthinking response to Mamoru's rage, the both of them swinging together, one with fists, the other with a street sign, to attempt to bat aside Rui and then crush Daisuke.

COMBAT: Rui Onishi takes the attack for Daisuke Itami! COMBAT: Mamoru Yasuragi misses Rui Onishi with his Violent Rage attack. COMBAT: Mamoru Yasuragi misses Rui Onishi with his Violent Rage attack. COMBAT: Mamoru Yasuragi has finished their turn.

---

Rui just doesn't like fighting. For all her skill, the silent young woman appears to glean no measure of excitement or amount of pleasure from this. She catches her kyoketsu-shoge back out of the air, its barbed edges batoned neatly through her fingers before her hand clamps down at the weapon's base. Her serene face mirrors nothing. She looks about as receptive as a corpse.

Of course, it takes looking just a bit more carefully and closely to find the emotion on Rui's face.

Like right there, when refracting in her widening gaze, are two upside-down images of the young man as he finds, in all incredulity and impossibility, the strength to RIP a YIELD sign straight out of solid concrete. Jaw tightening subtly, Rui steps back a half of a pause, her face visibly paused. Her heart sinks with silent dismay.

If she survives it, she really isn't going to forgive Daisuke for this.

Ever.

Tense on her bare feet, every muscle on alert, Rui is quick to receive Daisuke's next assault, already preparing to mindlessly hurl herself again in the line of danger to protect Daisuke. There is not even the shortest degree of pause for her. Whatever promise she's made to that aggravating man, she executes it unthinkingly, her desire to guard him as natural as breathing.

Of course, even breathing must stall and catch when her widening eyes catch the very familiar reckoning as a /Persona/ emerges, taking form out of sheer nothingness and materializing balefully at Daisuke. This isn't good at all. The enraged young aggressor is a Persona-user.

What did Daisuke get himself into?! Will she even manage to return him to safety? If Daisuke gets hurt, then it means she's failed, it means she's worthless, it means she will have disobeyed her father, and then he may stop loving her--

Sudden, nauseating emotion spirals through Rui.

As if on cue, something incorporal pulses adjacent to the snarling form of Hercules. Unfolding out of nothingness, a second Persona declares itself with the initial scrape of rusted steel. It is not so much man as it is rotting corpse, its -- his -- knight's plates and mail fusing into his decaying flesh as armor barbs out of his limbs and torso like broken bones. A broken crown juts out of his brow, and the empty skull sockets where his eyes once were stare out into nothing.

Blood pools endlessly down the half-skeletal legs of the Fisher King. He stands to attention, finding a way to smile despite having lost most of his lips, his bony teeth pearling through the rotted holes in his cheeks. He moves as Heracles does, slowly but with purpose, to catch the Greek god's fist and redirect it away from both Rui and Daisuke.

In the meanwhile, Rui works alongside her own Persona, falling to one knee and arching her spine backward to let the swung YIELD sign miss her in a breath. Rolling to one hip, she's quick to follow-up, lashing out with her kyoketsu-shoge and attempting to catch the sign with its prongs and stop it -- hard -- in its path from even coming close to touching Daisuke. Switching the cable to retract sharply, she tries to jerk the makeshift weapon out of Mamoru's hands... just long enough to move.

Taking back her weapon, Rui swings it again to try to pull it up in a deep and potentially debilitating swipe at the muscles in Mamoru's left leg.

COMBAT: Rui Onishi hits Mamoru Yasuragi with her Cleave attack. COMBAT: Rui Onishi has finished their turn.

---

A haze of red. 

Somehow, it's more viscerally impressive to Daisuke Itami than the fact that Mamoru is currently ripping out a traffic sign from the concrete earth. 

"I guess this is what they call 'unequal reciprocation.'" 

He knew he had felt a Resonance from that boy, and the manifestation of Heracles just confirms it. A red aura, though -- given all that anger, Daisuke rather quickly pieces things together even as Mamoru brings down that YIELD sign like the Hammer of Thor. Interest paints his features -- no, delight, even as that makeshift weapon comes down to literally try and smite him off this earth. 

With confused shrieks, the crowds scatter; Daisuke disperses into them, getting lost amidst the people even as Rui very reliably intercepts the titanic blows of the now infuriated young man. Daisuke bends at the waist, lurching forward and moving a sleeved arm across his face as the raw force of two Persona making contact blows over him like the furious gust of a storm. His monochrome hair ripples chaotically against the kinetic force. He looks up -- and sees the gruesome form of the Fisher King looming above. 

He could say something to Rui about the irony of her Persona but he'd rather let her work for now. He's feeling generous, after all. 

And that was much closer than even /he/ anticipated or would care to admit.

Still, though. "It's just too hard getting people who react disproportionately to act the way you want," Daisuke muses to himself as he flicks out his smartphone. 'The Red-Eyed Hound' -- didn't he hear something about him--? --Right, those rumors he had heard of, about a girl-- 

A second later, an idea forms. Backpedaling further, Daisuke shifts to his right, /shoving/ open the door to Shiraishi Ramen with his free hand. 

"Everyone, come see!" he shouts with a voice full of surprise and awe. 

"The Red-Eyed Hound is trying to beat up on some poor girl again!" 

The denizens of Hirasaka, many of them delinquents themselves, react appropriately -- jeers of 'no way!'s and 'whoa. really?!'s follow as curious students and adults alike come out to bear witness to the event -- even as Daisuke starts dialing up the emergency line. 

Witnesses, after all, are important. 

---

Something that Mamoru and Rui have in common, then. Maybe one day, they'll be able to have a relatively rational conversation about how much of a fucking douchebag Daisuke, and how much, despite their respective physical development, they would really rather not be fighting, especially because of irritating assholes like him.

Until then, they'll just go on trying to kill each other.

It's only good for Rui that she is a) fast and b) a Persona-User, another thing that surprises Mamoru about this fight. "You're one of *them*, too?" he growls, veins of anger popping further. How many of these is he going to run into in this city!? The visage of the Fisher King itself, at least, is nothing that puts Mamoru off--it's disgusting-looking, and that shows in his face, but he doesn't hesitate or freak out at the sight of it beyond the fact that it wards away Heracles.

Heracles doesn't like that. He expresses this by bellowing and attempting to grab the Fisher King by the neck and /slam/ the Persona into the street, damange that would translate into a pure mental assault against Rui if it's successful. By fortune, the moment Heracles moves is the moment Rui attempts to pull the yield sign out of Mamoru's hands, something that wouldn't have been possible given his strength and grip if he weren't loosening his grip to clutch his head anyway. Her slash attack is deep enough to bleed, anyway, but Rui's underestimating Mamoru's vitality; even if she managed to slice his leg, he'll still be moving.

With Daisuke having run off to Shiraishi to draw out a crowd and Rui having removed his weapon, his immediate target has gotten too far out of range for him to reach him easily, and not being able to hear what the monochrome-haired man yells into the restaurant, he can't get mad for that yet--but he's already plenty mad enough at Daisuke that that doesn't *matter*, and so Mamoru attempts to grab the yield sign from wherever Rui dropped it on the ground when she attacked.

He needs something to throw at the son of a bitch, after all.

COMBAT: Mamoru Yasuragi misses Rui Onishi with his Grip of Wrath attack. COMBAT: Mamoru Yasuragi has finished their turn.

---

That silent, strange protector of Daisuke Itami does not reply Mamoru's snarled question. She says absolutely nothing at all.

Her eyes tranquil, her face near unreadable, Rui takes back her weapon once again, its springline cable retracting with a shriek back up the sleeve of her suit. Her bare soles strafe her backwards, and she walks like a trained combatant on the balls of her feet, weight barely placed on her heels and rendering her step close to soundless. She's watching Mamoru, careful of him as she reads his movement, trying to learn the strange algorithm in his pure, ruthless violence. She's careful not to get too close despite proclaiming herself his combatant; he's already displayed one gruesome feat of strength.

She doesn't want her broken limbs or snapped spine to be his second feat of the night.

Her watchful eyes only turn minutely when Mamoru's Persona makes the movement for him.

The Fisher King hulks on the spot, rotting and dripping with blood and ichor, his bent form swaying back and forth as though his battered bones can barely support his decaying weight. But even though the Persona seems to lack eyes in his empty skull, he still seems to see Heracles coming for him; the weathered King moves with deceptive quickness, escaping the god's fatal chokehold and turning with that razory, scissoring skull grin of his. Flesh falls in hanging clumps off his rotting left arm as it suddenly moves, pulling free one weapon from his back: the Bleeding Lance of Longinus.

As the name implies, arterial blood gouts off the ancient weapon.

Rui's sharp yellow eyes catch Mamoru's sudden swipe toward his discarded weapon. She can track his eyes as they find the distant body of Daisuke. She can't let this happen.

Propelled forward by her sheer protective instinct, this duty that is her only reason for existing, the young woman lunges forward to try to stomp one foot securely down on the sign. Surely Mamoru's immense strength can press through her less-than-imposing weight. She buckles down, her face suddenly burdened by that familiar look of mental stress, anguish--

--and that's when the Fisher King strikes, with his empty eye sockets and face-splitting grin, attempting to use any split-second moment of diversion, as the Persona lashes forward with the Bleeding Lance to try to thrust it forward straight at and for Mamoru's body--

COMBAT: Rui Onishi hits Mamoru Yasuragi with her Impale attack. COMBAT: Rui Onishi has finished their turn.

---

There's nothing more appealing than a spectacle. 

Even with how dangerous this fight has become, this is exactly why the crowds come out en masse yet do not really try to directly help Rui Onishi. It's the thrill of seeing something uncanny in action that draws them, not actually participating. Cellphones flip open to record as the 'Red-Eyed Hound' wields that yield sign like he were wielding a stick and his silent target seems to deftly disarm him. If they were aware of how dangerous the situation is, maybe they'd be running. 

But ignorance is just part of the thrill of a spectacle. 

People brush past Daisuke Itami as they make a break for the outside world from Shiraishi Ramen, clamboring to catch sight of the barely perceptible 'shinigami.' No doubt many of them will later claim it's a trick of light or something else, but Daisuke doesn't really care about that. 

Looking over his shoulder towards the streets as the last of those frenzied and curious masses leaves, Daisuke pivots on his heel to grasp the closing door -- only to pause. He looks back. 

Ten seconds later, Daisuke Itami leaves Shiraishi Ramen carrying a bowl of pizza ramen. 

The information is slurping up an entire mouthful of noodles as he turns his gaze upward just in time to see the bleeding lance of the Fisher King lance for Mamoru Yasuragi. His brows lift, and he lets out an appreciative hum. 

He doesn't say a single thing; he just watches from the outskirts of the crowds, smiling like a child might smile playing their favorite game. 

"Wow, this really is good ramen~."

COMBAT: Rui Onishi is now covering Daisuke Itami.

---

In comparison to Rui's trained, ingrained, wasteless motions, Mamoru's are massive, wild--but at the same time, unpredictable. Rui's trying to learn the algorithm, but there IS no algorithm because none of his actions are trained, and all of them are instinctual. She'll just have to dodge when the moment comes, because there's no point in trying to predict him before he moves.

Unless of course one does something to deliberately aggro him a certain direction, in which case it becomes sliiiiiiiiiightly easier.

Case in point: Rui's the one there in front of him, irritating him by keeping him from killing /that guy/ by calling up that Persona of hers to lance him in the stomach, making him grunt in pain but still not quite slowing him down, and also stepping on his weapon, which won't actually stop him from picking up again but it's the principle of the thing. However, it's that ever-so-happy look on Daisuke's face as he drinks a bowl of nasty-ass ramen (and Mamoru KNOWS it's nasty because he can smell the broth from where it's soaked into his shirt and hair) that reminds him so much of HIM, that fucking shitbag who went out of his way to get him in trouble and spread rumors and sic other people on him and make him punch and kick and fight and fight and FIGHT AND FIGHT AND--

Really, it's not Rui's fault. It's just that the look on Daisuke's face reminds Mamoru far too much of someone he hates enough to want to not just kill but annihilate.

"GWWWOOAAAARRRRGGHHHH!!" is perhaps the best rendering that this scene is going to get of Mamoru's feral scream of rage. Heracles flares up behind him and rains down towards Rui and Daisuke--and any of those foolish enough to stick around to try to keep gawking, because while Rui and Daisuke are Mamoru's only true targets, Heracles is not big on precision; at the least, they have warning enough to bolt, because Mamoru is not fast, merely unstoppable--a cascade of force, like punches raining down from the heavens.

COMBAT: Rui Onishi takes the attack for Daisuke Itami! COMBAT: Mamoru Yasuragi hits Rui Onishi with his Akasha Arts attack. COMBAT: Mamoru Yasuragi misses Rui Onishi with his Akasha Arts attack. COMBAT: Mamoru Yasuragi has finished their turn.

---

Even Rui's solemn eyes widen as this strange, powerful boy takes a direct hit from her Persona with all the dismissive annoyance of a human being suffering a stomach punch. He looks winded at best. Winded and irritated.

She needs to find a way to get Daisuke out of here. This is not some random street fight. They're both in very real danger.

And Daisuke--

Rui grimaces, her right hand curling into an irritated fist. If she manages to get him out of this, alive, unscathed, she may just kill him herself.

Or just fantasize doing so, violently, bloodily, as she quietly serves him his evening tea.

Already beginning to habituate to that familiar spark that dawns across Mamoru's face an instant before his temper unhinges -- she leaps backward at his first instant of renewed rage, her guard already raised. And, light on her feet and utterly aware of every deft inch of her body, she expertly and acrobatically escapes every one of his snarling Personae's strikes, her darting jumps and skidding rolls having her body escape those torrenting fists by millimetres. Curling her spine, she rearranges herself around every single attack, the apathetic expression on her face unburdened and unchanged.

At least until, out of the corner of one yellow eye, Rui sees Heracles' attention turn on Daisuke.

Daisuke, who has not taken cover as a sane man should. Daisuke, who is still in the vicinity. Daisuke, who is standing there as though nothing is amiss. Daisuke, who is EATING PIZZA RAMEN?!

Rui mouths something silently as she pushes off into a hurtling lunge--

One of Heracles' widow-maker fists careens directly for Daisuke, until, again, in that nick of time, a black-haired, white-suited blur gets in the way. Rui stands fiercely in front of him, arms extended both directions in clear declaration, as in front of her unfolds the re-materializing corpse body of the Fisher King. Unfortunately, neither can hold -- not to Heracles. His fist SLAMS straight through her Persona, who disentegrates on the spot, and Rui's face locks up with an instant of mental agony before her body quickly follows suit.

But she doesn't move an inch, taking the direct hit like the born protector she is. The young woman folds on the spot, crumpling, blood oozing out of her mouth as she trembles to support herself on one arm. Seething voicelessly through the pain, Rui distantly notes her own broken ribs. She won't be able to take many more hits like that.

Unable to waste the time to even catch her own breath, Rui is back on her feet again. Summoning focus, the Fisher King's hulking, festering form returns, and he wastes no time to simply try to collide weight back at Heracles, not as an attack, but merely as a way... to try to give Rui a direct beeline straight on Mamoru.

She needs to get him as far away from Daisuke as possible.

Hurling forward, her kyoketsu-shoge springs forth out of her sleeve once again, its bladed tip attempting to sink and barb straight into Mamoru's shoulder, enough to try to catch down... so that, in one leap, Rui can twist the cable just enough to make a loop that tries to find its way around his throat. If this connects, she'll be heaving with all her considerable, unnatural strength, both to try to drag him away by this choking garrote and even /swing/ him through the first unyielding brick wall she can find.

COMBAT: Rui Onishi hits Mamoru Yasuragi with her Dal Niente attack. COMBAT: Rui Onishi has finished their turn.

---

Twirling noodles around into a conical clump around his fork, Daisuke looks down at the cloudy orange broth of his ramen considerately. He looks back up at Mamoru, so expertly dealing with all that damage, even as the crowds whisper all around them. 

"Isn't it terrible?" he asides to a thin young student standing beside him. "Who'd think a human being could be so full of wanton violence? Ara ara, it's so disturbing to think about. Maybe he's what they call a 'sadist'--" 

And that is when Mamoru roars. Brown eyes dart up to see the specter of Heracles come crashing down full tilt -- not just for Rui, but for Daisuke within the crowds. 

There is more than enough warning, but not everyone is so quick on the uptake, especially when something so surreal is happening. Many people bolt with shrieks and cries of panic, but it's so hard to comprehend some sort of /brain ghost/ barreling down on you from the heavens like some sort of angel of judgment that not everyone can really absorb the sensory data in time-- 

--before they get blown away by raw kinetic force, people shouting things about red barnabies; thankfully, there aren't many, and considering they're only caught by the fringes the damage is minimal as they crash some feet away. 

But one hit is enough to get /them/ running too, like hell is nipping at their heels. 

Daisuke, for his part, pretends to be part of the panicked crowd making a break for it, /leaping/ and hitting ground in a roll just seconds before the fist that should have struck him -- strikes Rui Onishi instead. Rui folds just as Daisuke recovers into a crouch. He squints, his white/black brows scrunching together. 

"Have I ever told you how grateful I am for your dedication?"

And then, Rui is back on her feet, and Daisuke is back to scrambling like a fearful citizen should. It is just as Rui latches on with her weapon and attempts to hurl Mamoru though, that Daisuke turns -- and a blue haze starts to surround him. 

"Well, I guess I should try to make things more interesting for Ru-chan's sake." 

It is then that Daisuke turns around; it's barely noticeable, the way his Persona partially manifests, its eyeless face seeming to literally bulge out of Daisuke's skull; the bone white face opens up, large teeth gaping wide to reveal a chasm of darkness within -- and a single, large glowing eye. 

Invisible force ripples out a second later to catch Mamoru just as Rui tries to swing him. And if it finds the delinquent student and seeps into him, he'll find his whole world distorting -- as figments from his mind become 'reality' to confuse and disorient him in a host of illusions. 

COMBAT: You have missed Mamoru Yasuragi with your Illuzone attack. COMBAT: Daisuke Itami has finished their turn. COMBAT: Rui Onishi is now covering Daisuke Itami.

---

Rui does have one advantage here: Mamoru might hit with all the force of a freight train, but no matter how strong his strikes are, he still needs to be able to *land* them. She's small and nimble, and the first hit he's managed to land on her was a direct result of her getting in the way of a hit meant for Daisuke. Meanwhile, she's managed to land every hit his way. Of course, Mamoru hasn't tried very hard to dodge anything, either, given as he's more or less been trying to walk through her to get to Daisuke. When Heracles crumples her body under the force of that attack, Mamoru literally tries to do exactly that, vermillion eyes riveted on Daisuke, intent on simply walking past or even over Rui to get to HIM--

Except then Rui's back on her feet, her Persona slamming into his, Rui ninja-diving towards him to barb her kyoketsu-shoge to pierce his shoulder and strangle him and then slam him into a wall. She succeeds, too; for all her petite size, she is stronger than she looks, and throws him into a wall.

Rui just wasn't banking on the fact that Mamoru is more unyielding than the bricks.

He smashes through them, Heracles vanishing abruptly under the force of the break in mental ability, Daisuke's spell ironically and harmlessly disippating on the spot where he was a few seconds ago. Mamoru steps forward, grabbing the strangling cord, tightening the muscles on his neck, and *snapping* the cord off. That which remains around his neck forms a macabre necklace to match the one he already wears, and he otherwise ignores the bit of metal sticking out of his shoulder; perhaps he's already forgotten it's there, or perhaps part of him is sensible enough to realize that if he removes it, he's just going to end up bleeding more. Whatever the reason, he roars again as the cord breaks and his breath returns, and Heracles appears above him in a flare of crimson to answer the maelstrom of his rage and bring down a hail of arrows. The rubberneckers have fled, so they're safe, but...

COMBAT: Rui Onishi tries to take the attack for Daisuke Itami, but fails! COMBAT: Mamoru Yasuragi missed you with his Arrow Rain attack. COMBAT: Mamoru Yasuragi hits Rui Onishi with his Arrow Rain attack.

COMBAT: Mamoru Yasuragi has finished their turn.

---

For a brief, precious moment of respite, Rui stands in the wake of her attack, breathing harshly as Mamoru disappears under the explosion of brick. Her yellow eyes turn, her frantic stare suddenly finding Daisuke. Daisuke, who is still there. Daisuke, who is going to get himself hurt and it will be all her fault--

Gritting her teeth, Rui faces him that instant, one arm outstretched and pointing off down the street. She can't speak to yell at him, and she's appeared to have forgotten that, by the way she mouths uselessly at him: 'GO!'

Mamoru returns. Stepping free of that ruined wall, he does what no human being should and /tears/ through her weapon's braided steel cord as though it were threads. The broken-off remainder, less its crucial blade, retracts uselessly back into her sleeve. Standing down at her arm, Rui's widening eyes reroute the slow, torturous path back up to Mamoru's face. She frowns, immediately steeling herself into a defensive stance. He broke her weapon. This isn't optimistic at all...

Out of nowhere, Heracles fires back into existence, bringing with his appearance a reckoning of razory arrows that torrent down from the skies. Rui tries her best to nimbly outpace them, darting left and right, but she makes one wrong move, her first of the night. She pays for it in spades.

One arrow slices into her abdomen, felling the young woman straight on the spot, her lips parting to no doubt try to cry out a surprised sound that she can no longer make. Blood spreads brightly, visibly against the white fabric of her suit, until she's gained a matching wound identical to the unhealing one that brands her Persona. Blood reappearing at the sides of her mouth, Rui doesn't seem to notice it -- her eyes are too busy recklessly searching out again for Daisuke--

Horror clenches over her heart. Pulling up to her feet, she tries desperately to cover him as she did before, her protective instinct strong, but not able to outpace her own pains. Another arrow catches her in the leg, and Rui falters, looking truly terrified for the first time tonight as she fails to make it to her employer's side to protect him from the falling storm of arrows.

The shocked look on her face says all: NO! She's failing him--!!!

As if on cue, manifested by Rui's borderline hysteria, the Fisher King appears once more, raising to his full, hulking, dilapidated height. Blood drools endlessly from his body, but he still grins on in demented pleasure, his body sufficed with his otherworldly duty. He raises both of his rotting arms, and suddenly flaring out of the King's outstretched hands are dozens of fishing lines, burying countlessly down into the ground as they web and tangle with themselves. In their netting mass, those lines try to catch both Mamoru and his Persona, and if tethered, both will find out quickly that these wires are razor-sharp, splitting flesh like butter at the barest touch.

Grabbing both fistfuls of his lines, the Fisher King sharply draws back, as from that webbing mess water -- or once was water -- suddenly torrents forward. It's mire from the wastelands, water mixed with stagnant mud and eons of the King's own blood, buffeting snarlingly at them to try to smash and skewer them all the more in this webbing nightmare.

COMBAT: Rui Onishi misses Mamoru Yasuragi with her Dolorous Stroke attack. COMBAT: Rui Onishi has finished their turn. COMBAT: Mamoru Yasuragi hits Rui Onishi with his Clever Fighting counterattack.

---

Invisible force ripples through nothing, as Daisuke tilts his head to the side. 

"Ru-chan, you're bad at teamwork, aren't you?" he laments openly. Rui turns her head to glare at him, the message as clear as crystal despite the lack of words to accompany and reinforce it. 

Which is exactly why Daisuke raises a hand to cup his right ear; leaning forward slightly and mouthing a single sentence: 

"Sorry, I can't make out what you're saying!" 

For all he looks completely and sincerely apologetic, there's no small amount of joy for Daisuke Itami at the scenario unfolding before him. 

Still, even off at his safe distance as he is, the fact that Mamoru is still gunning for him is impressive; that hailstorm of arrows comes, biting into Rui's flesh repeatedly as Daisuke's assistant tries desperately to protect him. The information broker himself takes a cautionary leap backward, the remains of those arrows all darting into the ground one after the other in the space he was just occupying. 

"Dangerous, dangerous," he remarks to himself, looking Mamoru square in that furious face even as the Fisher King once more rears to deadly life. 

There are a number of things he can do here, Daisuke realizes. 

He can directly play ignorant to Rui's commands to run and stick around to see how much longer Mamoru can last, like a matador with a raging bull. 

He can directly participate in the fight for once and actually help Rui (least likely scenario). 

Or-- 

Daisuke takes out his phone, casting a glance to it even as Rui keeps Mamoru occupied with her Persona. A response to his emergency call should be coming soon, which means the authorities should be getting here momentarily--

And Rui looks like she's been suitably beaten by a raging delinquent-- 

And so, Daisuke's ultimate response is-- 

"Bye, Bani-kun~!" shouts Daisuke Itami. He gives a condescending grin with this just to stoke the flames -- and, to make it even worse-- 

He gives a Congratulatory Thumbs Up and Point. 

"Thank you for letting me waste some of your precious time with my passing interests!" 

And at this point, Daisuke is going to start running in the opposite direction. The meaning is clear: he's bait. And if he times it just right... 

COMBAT: Rui Onishi is now covering Daisuke Itami.

---

It's completely incomprehensible to Mamoru why *anyone* would want to protect someone as obviously obnoxious as that asshole, when it was clear that he was the one who started the fight--to the point where the woman looks genuinely *afraid* when it seems for a moment like she might fail, even if the skunk-haired asshole manages to get out of the way just in time. He'll wonder about it later, as well as the fact that Rui made no sound when she screamed, but right now, he's after one thing. ...It doesn't need to be reiterated what that is.

The Fisher King responds to Rui's hysterical desperation to protect Daisuke, and the masses of bloody piercing muck deluge towards Mamoru. Heracles' power activates then to reflect it back where it came from, a barrier forming palpably in front of the youth. He gives the white-suited woman a look--

And then Daisuke's stepping up, ramping up the condescending cheer to 11 and even going so far as to a) call him by an annoying nickname (just like Seishi) and b) thank him for providing amusement (JUST LIKE SEISHI). Murder has already been on Mamoru's expression through the night, but for this moment, he looks like he might well literally explode with fury. Instead, he chases after him for a few feet until he reaches a vending machine that they'd passed while Rui had been swinging him around, and begins to lift it up, muscles straining with the weight--but keeping it aloft with the sheer power of adrenaline and the most legendarily strong hero in Western history.

"STOOOOP RIIIIIIIIGHT THEEEEEEEEERE!!!" he roars, and then lets the vending machine fly. No matter who it lands on or if it lands on anyone at all, Mamoru will start giving chase, ducking down only once to snatch that YIELD sign off the ground where it was dropped earlier. Rui is momentarily forgotten, and if she doesn't get in his way (or ends up getting crushed under said vending machine), she'll *stay* forgotten.

COMBAT: Rui Onishi takes the attack for Daisuke Itami! COMBAT: Mamoru Yasuragi hits Rui Onishi with his 'Subtlety' attack. COMBAT: Mamoru Yasuragi has finished their turn.

---

And, off to the side, the burdened and broken bodyguard still crouches on the spot, sealing a hand over the quill of one arrow jutting out of her abdomen. Rui knows better than to rip it free. She merely splinters it in half, shortening it close to her body. The pain is sharp and indescribable, even to a face as notably expressive as hers. She just closes her eyes for a distressed moment, but does little else.

Attack foiled, the Fisher King bows and fades back into nothingness, Miss Onishi left in the Persona's wake. Her yellow eyes search the dark street desperately, relief palpable in them to find Daisuke unharmed, able to save himself where she could not. Rui doesn't account that to any measure of luck. He should not have to do such a thing. It's an unacceptable failure on her part, and she must not let it happen again...

Just like the many times before, Daisuke's protector lurches back up to her feet, her maimed body half-bowed by the pain. But Rui will stand up, again and again, a countless amount of times until the point she can no longer move. This is the duty she had accepted by request of her father. If she fails, he'll have no other use for her. He won't have any reason to love her. And then...

Rui's eyes, still sharp despite her pains, register Daisuke's extremely sensible, if not EXTREMELY BELATED, retreat. She huffs a silent exhale, pleased and resigned, daring to hope that at least he will be able to escape unharmed. It means it will be up to her to ensure his flight is a safe one. She can't--

--look away as Mamoru rips up and LIFTS a vending machine straight above his head.

The blood drains out of Rui's face.

This can't be--

Her eyes narrow. And, without a thought more, the young woman breaks into a reckless sprint.

He THROWS it maniacally, possessed with a strength that shouldn't and /is/ not human, and the hulking object hurtles through the air like a bullet at Daisuke's turned, unprotected back. But fast as it moves, Rui is just that little bit faster, and summoning all of her strength, all of her duty, all of her raison d'etre, she leaps forward from one side and careens straight into the projectile like an anti-aircraft missile, SMASHING into it with all her weight and displacing it just enough that both vending machine and vexed bodyguard hurl away, missing Daisuke completely.

Their combined blur rolls and STOPS violently when it slams up against a reinforced wall, energy dispersing in a rain of dust. And, along the ground, lost beneath the dented metal and shattered glass, Rui Onishi's body sprawls lifelessly in her own blood.

---

Footsteps resound lightly on concrete as Daisuke moves with an unusual sort of grace through Hirasaka. Speed is something the information broker has going for him, darting through the dwindled crowds to obscure him even more against the chaotic city streets. 

He hears the popping of metal screws and bolts. 

Brown eyes look behind him. 

"Tsk," is his wordless response to the sight of Mamoru lifting an entire vending machine high above his head. 

That, and the redoubling of his speed as he blazes past shoddy buildings and confused bystanders. The vending machine is hurled when Daisuke gets to the first intersection on the street, the moment Daisuke is most open-- 

He doesn't even have to look behind him to know that the thunderous crash he hears is the sound of Rui Onishi formally introducing herself to Vending Machine-san. 

After all, he has utmost faith in her dedication. 

Metal shrieks in protest as the vending machine crunches with impact on the earth; it is at that very second that Daisuke Itami leaps forward. He lands on the hood of a car stopped in traffic with the slight groan of bending metal. 

"Excuse me--" he offers to the highly-confused (but still angrily hitting the horn of his car) driver as Daisuke springboards off, grasping onto the rails of the nearby building's fire escape. It only takes him a moment to inelegantly scramble and then flip onto the metal grating, looking behind him at the still-stampeding Mamoru and the bloodied and fallen Rui beyond. 

A little bit more hurt than even he wanted, but it'll just have to do. 

And with a merry salute, Daisuke starts climbing that fire escape. Of course, now he's more vulnerable than ever to hurled debris -- 

--except that it's right as Mamoru makes his way towards that intersection that he'll hear the wail of sirens in the distance, and the high-speed approach of a police-issue Daihatsu Atrai barreling right for the scene of the crime. 

Because Hirasaka police totally rock the microvan. 

---

Dashing past the woman who'd bodily crushed herself into the flying vending machine and at the same time left the field clear for the chase to resume, Mamoru charges after Daisuke. In another time and another place and another world entirely, maybe the Rui and Mamoru would've been able to find a common ground and see past their differen--nnnnnno, no, them having that ability would require them to be completely different people entirely. The best Rui can hope for right now is the chance she has now to recover and compose herself, as well as the opportunity she'll have to strike at Mamoru's back now that he's stopped paying the slightest bit of attention to her now that she's been effectively removed from the fight and his original target is still sprinting about like he's just playing a game of tag. Probably not so good for Rui, then. Get well soon?

"YOU WON'T GET AWAY!!" Mamoru roars, still hunting Daisuke with single-minded relentlessness. As the driver of that car keeps honking, Mamoru leaps up on top of it, a few too many seconds behind the monochrome-haired man to catch him even if he weren't still carrying that yield sign one-handed. The driver keeps laying on the horn--

"Shut the FUCK UP!!" he snarls, turning enraged red eyes towards the driver as Daisuke pulls himself up onto the fire escape and keeps on climbing, leaving himself open to an attack from the rear even as police sirens scream behind him. Mamoru snaps his eyes back forward, lips curled back in a snarl, for the moment failing to connect that police sirens + him rampaging + lots of property damage = he should probably run, too, before he gets thrown into jail. Daisuke *really* shouldn't have saluted like that. Daisuke's back is open. He can throw the yield sign at him, and that yield sign *does* get thrown--at the bottom of the fire escape grate, bringing it within Mamoru's reach. He jumps over and grabs the flat end of the sign, then drags it down... along with the rest of the escape ladder.

And then he begins to pull the fire escape, and Daisuke with it, inorexibly *down*.

---

If he hadn't saluted like that, how would he have kept goading Mamoru on? 

The fact of the matter is, the fire escape is not only an easy escape route for Daisuke, it's also the only easy way to get up onto the roof of a given building without entering and climbing up yourself. 

Thus as he climbs - already well up the flimsy metal stairways, for as furious as Mamoru might be Daisuke still has raw speed and flexibility on his side - and Mamoru decides to go for a slightly /unorthodox/ tactic, Daisuke's eyes widen ever-so-slightly -- not out of worry, but surprise. It could be dangerous, if Mamoru decides to climb the fire escape, he might get out of the line of sight of the police, and those seconds delay could cost him quite a bit-- 

And then metal groans. 

"...?" Daisuke looks down. He sees Mamoru there. 

Pulling down the entire fire escape. 

"... wow, you just don't like acting like a rational human being, do you--"

Metal protests, bolts strain and pop one by one. And then, with a horrific SHRIIIIIPPP of metal divorcing itself from brick, the entire fire escape comes tumbling down. 

Daisuke only has seconds to react. And react he does; stepping onto the rail of the fire escape, Daisuke positions himself between it and a nearby window. Gripping the edge of the window frame, Daisuke teeters perilously between it and the collapsing grate. The entire metal collapses into a free-fall-- 

--and it is at that very moment that Daisuke kicks free and /smashes/ into the window with the shatter of glass. Daisuke Itami falls into the living room of a suddenly very surprised and scared old woman. 

The fire escape falls to the earth, redirected in free fall from Daisuke's push so that the bulk will land right on Mamoru unless he can react in time. 

It is right about when Daisuke is getting beaten out of the apartment by an old woman and her cane that the police arrive with the screech of tires and the blare of sirens to a scene that no doubt leaves many of them wondering how a typhoon managed to precision-hit a city block of the Hirasaka ward. 

---

Oh, right.

Izaya-types don't like acting like rational human beings, either. e_e+

Mamoru snarls in frustration when Daisuke crashes away from the fire escape and through that window. Even then, he isn't about to give up--until he suddenly realizes that the fire escape is coming straight down just like he'd been pulling it. Down, as in on top of *him*. Instinct takes over and Mamoru dives forward into the alleyway just as the whole thing comes crashing down behind him, blocking him away from out where he'd been fighting earlier. The wreckage is also well short of that broken window, so Mamoru would have to climb up the wall itself to get there. There's a persistent pain in his shoulder, but there's still other things to take care of, so he ignores it, especially when he realizes that annoying wailing in the background was the police.

...Wait.

With Rui out of the picture and Daisuke having gotten himself away, it suddenly occurs to Mamoru that he's in an /extremely/ bad position here. His thoughts flash back to him seeing Daisuke talking on his phone like he didn't have a care in the world, just like that sack of SHIT--he grinds his teeth together, but the maroon-streaked brunet knows when he's been cockblocked. He turns and runs to get away, and when a chain fence gets in his way, he just rips a hole in the middle and powers through, pausing long enough in a sort of guilty afterthought to tie it back together in the middle. He's not used to this city, but Mamoru doesn't have to be; he can make a straight line for himself where need be to get away and eventually make it back to the dorm.

...at which point, he's reminded of the blade still pierced into his shoulder, along with the cuts on his chest and leg still bleeding. God. How many uniforms is he going to wreck at this rate?! Ahhh, he'll need a few bandages and a shower... That ramen broth is *really* starting to get to him.