manuscripture | IC INBOX / BUSINESS CARD ( ARCHIVE AS OF 12/13 )

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this is gonna be used for shitposting

IC INBOX / BUSINESS CARD ( ARCHIVE AS OF 12/13 )

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WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, ROHAN KISHIBE.

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[ Somewhere around town-- at the bookstore, the Tomoe-Kaname Bakery, attached to posts and notice boards --you find a small white notecard. On it is printed a little message and some numbers in ornate lettering. If you look closely, it reads the following: ]

Rohan Kishibe, Mangaka & Visual Artist
Owner Pro Tempore of Ebony Threads Tailor Shop
Highly Experienced.
Commissions & Advertising For Hire
Pay Negotiable.
Contact At: 512.66.730.91 for inquiries
Castle Lüvchaque - Directly North of Bavan per appointment ONLY.

(( feel free to use this as an action-based prompt too. any random interactions will MOST LIKELY take place in the form of walk-ins at the tailor shop unless it's pre-planned. just drop a starter in here! ))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ The advantage is that he is making no attempt to make her stand still, leaving her free to move about the room all she wants. He would rather see her move than have her sit still for the next hour. She will continue to find bits and piece of work. If she heads over to the desk, she will find the comic book he has been toiling over, piece by agonizing piece. ]

You may be the one I have met who has been here the longest. [ There are a handful of others he can't remember because he does not care much for them. They didn't make a splash, so he cast them aside. Yuzu looks promising. A grand sweep of his hand makes the arc forming one wing-- he's got it now. The skeleton of what he wants.

One question is hot on his tongue-- ]

Are you a musician? [ It comes out of nowhere. ]

You have a theme. Don't you? Whatever made you this way had something in mind. It had a plan.

[ She hesitates at the question. She knows how to play, taught in school clubs; she plays now, something to occupy her time when her head's too cluttered with thoughts she can't sort out — she could say yes. It is an answer, but it's not the right one. ]

... Sort of? It's not quite that, but you're pretty close.

[ She ambles a little closer to the desk, but arcing away — without giving it much thought, she tries to maintain some distance between them. ]

I'm a duelist. Where I come from, Duel Monsters is a really popular game -- duelists are the players. Each player has their own deck of cards, and each card represents a monster, or a spell, or something like that. You and your opponent use your cards in a 'duel' and battle until one of you's the victor. The decks have themes.

[ She turns to face him directly, wings splaying a little for display, and she stands in clear show; the firm posturing betrays the performative nature of the game. ]

My 'monsters' look a lot like this. For the most part! [ She scrunches her hands in the air, drawing attention to her trimmed claws. ] They're a lot less scary!

[ That sure does sound pretty grade school. Card games. Gimmicky card games. He would roll his eyes but refrains. ]

So you... Look like these monsters from your card game. [ That makes him pause. He furrows his brow with an incredulous pursing of his lips. He was right about the theme business. Hers just seemed way more simple than Schoolyard Monster Card Game. ]

I would have thought that you were in an orchestra. [ A beat. ] Disappointing. [ Rohan scoffs and gives his cute little crate of paint bottles proclaiming DO NOT TOUCH a passing glance. Does he even have a pink that will work for her? He has to get ~Creative~, doesn't he...

Her color scheme gives him a ton of artistic liberties. He has that on his side. ]

Did you come here by yourself? My roommate and I washed up at the same time. Just... He is roughly thirteen years behind where I know him from.

Maybe someday. [ She shrugs — wings following the motion of her shoulders — before they drop, forcing herself to relax. She caught that barb, and her voice is made a little tighter for it, but she knows she can't expect him to understand. ] But I think I'd like conducting better.

[ Easier to boss people around and hit them when they mess up. These are solid priorities. ]

Behind...? [ That's a weird way to put it — but she throws off the semantic confusion with a shake of her head, frowning a little for thought. ] No, I 'washed up' at the same time as one of my friends. It was... hmm. As bad as this place is, it was kind of a relief to see him. The way things were going, we didn't know what was going to happen to me, so...

[ She looks away. ] It's easier when you're not alone.

[ He motions with his hand to the couch-- once ornate and old-chic, but now having clearly gone through some redesigning with patchwork snakeskin upholstering. Yeah. That happened. ]

Sit if you want. Don't knock anything over. [ It is said in passing. She can't just trot around forever... As long as she knows what to do with her wings. He leans right off of the lump of his coils to begin sorting through his box. ] Jotaro is far younger than the age he is when I am home. Our mutual acquaintance [ Josuke, that is. ] Is from a short while before when I was taken.

It's a timeloop. Something you see in science-fiction stories. All of us from a different point in time. [ His eyes shift to spot her looking away. ] I would differ if that hadn't been the case for myself. I could have gotten along fine without Jotaro.

[ Ehhhh... ] I just knew better than to squander an advantage. It did work out in the end.

Have you ever wondered why you were chosen?

[ She's had them for half a year, she should know what to do with them — and it is a little relieving to get a little further away from that guy. He hasn't done anything, not really, but there's something about him that leaves her feeling a little ill at ease. She's still willing to sit for these portraits (thought to herself as she sits, settling on the couch, tail sweeping in front of her scaled legs and her wings angling properly), still willing to talk, but still, there's something...

And with the story he tells... Yuzu's not sure how much stock to put into it. Her and her comrades from those connected universe, their memories all stop at different places at times, but then they remember... and knowing the Fog God will steal their memories as she pleases, amnesia is a lot easier to buy than time loops.

But then again, thirteen years...

Lost easily in thought, the direct question pulls her back out again. ]

Chosen? [ A beat, too long. ] Oh, you mean, why was I brought here? [ As opposed to— ] I guess... at first I thought I just ended up in the wrong place.

[ He still doesn't understand it himself. With Josuke having brought up that he was not aware of some very important, very key events they had all be a part of.

It didn't add up. It doesn't even now. They seem to have set that aside after a short briefing. Not much more needed to be said about the Reimi thing or the Yoshikage thing. Still, Jotaro's situation is particularly unique. ]

Don't you find it a little bizarre? I have met people from hundred of years ago who are here, fresh-faced as if they were no older than myself. [ He plucks up a bottle of vibrant, doctored candy red and holds it up in the light, peering up through it from the bottom. ] What did we do that made us prime candidates? Are we special? [ There is a twinge in his voice that may be unsettling. He is focused and falling into what might be a smooth trance. It's melodic. ]

There may be no pattern or reason at all. Why we are here, which creature we end up becoming, why we look the way we do... Or who moves the pieces on the board. [ He lets the bottle slip from his fingers, dropping it into his other hand with a thump against his scaly palm. ] It's very beautiful if you look beyond the surface.

Like a fairytale. Just one that we have to live drenched in the macabre sea of what is real. [ He holds the bottle up at eye-level, comparing the color and her hair. ] We just can't turn the page and make it end.

[ Yuzu watches as Kishibe starts narrating to the paint bottle, her expression tightening — this explains some things, she thinks, but even if she has to force her feet still to keep from gouging her talons into the floor, she listens patiently. Fairytale seems to give this world too much credit. At least those have a clear path, with kind old witches that tell young girls the proper way to escape their fate.

She sighs. ]

If there's no pattern, then she has really unfortunate aim. I don't really know about anybody else, but the people here from my world are ones that really need to get back. There's a lot at stake for us.

[ Leave him alone and let him have his fun, jeeze.

His mood hops right away from the distracted pleasantries to wryly irritated. She interrupted him and is killing his jive. A snapping of his jaws click-clicks like the thunderclap that breaks a silence. Rohan squints hard at her with his green, slit-pupil'd eyes. ]

That isn't my fault or my problem, is it? We all have places we would rather be or have things we would rather be doing. There's a lot at stake for me too. [ Another lean and he blindly grabs a bottle of white. He holds it up with the red. Maaaaybe... ]

Too bad, so sad, Hiiragi.

What's with that attitude? [ She's glowering, but she stays where she's sitting — even if the vane of her tail is coiling and flattening out, as the rest of it flicks for irritation. ] If you didn't want me to answer, you shouldn't have asked the question in the first place.

What attitude? [ He is no stranger to what he considers unwarranted hostility. In his mind, he did nothing wrong. It was Yuzu who interrupted him and is the one being Problematic™. ]

I'm just telling you how it is. You can whine about things that are at stake but it won't change the permanence. You of all people should knows, being here as long as you have...

[ A beat. ]

Is this your natural color?

[ Priorities. ]

I wasn't whining, I was stating a fact.

[ A pause. ]

Which color?

Fancy that. I was stating a fact too.

[ He jerks his chin at her. ]

Your hair.

"Too bad, so sad" is an opinion.

[ Check. ]

And yes, it's natural.

[ Clinking the bottles together-- ]

Let me rephrase it: We don't have a choice, so deal with it.

[ That changes nothing??? ]

That aside... It's going to be difficult to imitate. I hope you don't mind creative license. [ He has a clean palette somewhere around here-- Oh right, on the windowsill. He is just going to spend this time trying to figure out how much red and white are going to make that color. He'll need blue... ]

Was changing painful? If so: How painful?

[ She sighs, crossing her legs and shifting her position to look elsewhere in the apartment. ]

Yes, it was excruciating. I went through my entire transformation at once.

[ She's tempted to elaborate, but he'd just act like she was fishing for pity, wouldn't he? Ugh. ]

[ She might think that way.

However... ]

You too? So I was not the only one who did everything at one time? [ He cocks a curious eyebrow up only once before going back to fussing with his colors. ]

Is that uncommon? I would have liked to skip some of the more intricate parts of my transformation for another day, but alas...

[ Oh? His genuine curiosity takes her by surprise, as does the similarity — although, having that much in common for the latter might explain the former. At the question, she purses her lips, thinking over the different people she's met, and what changes she's witnessed. ]

I can't think of anyone I know that... changed so drastically from one day to the next. And nobody who's said anything like that. But for me, I guess it's more accurate to say it came in... two stages. The first one was about a month after I arrived — when everyone else who arrived with me started their changes, too — but it was all... internal stuff? I still looked normal, but my vision got a little better, and I could use magic, and the... monster's hunger started to grow. Scales would grow if I burned myself somewhere, so I had...

[ She gestures to the middle of each of her lower arms, and the ribbon-like spirals of red against her lighter flesh. ]

...a little bit right here. Everything else came later. The scales, the wings, the tail, the feet, the teeth, the... way my eyes look now, all of that happened over a couple of hours.

[ Interesting. He hadn't met anyone else yet who was thrown right into the fire. If anything, that makes her less of an irritation and more apt to have his attention again. Any points lost through his doing alone have been gained back. ]

I had the worst stomachache for a few days and when the fog rolled in, I vomited so much that I melted my legs off. [ It was Quite A Day. ] I melted off everything it touched. Then we had a little rearranging session until I fell unconscious.

That was not the highlight of my time here.

... Whereas my roommate has barely changed at all except for radiating as much heat as you do. [ Well, well, well. The mystery might have been solved. ]

[ Her eyes widen at his description, pupils narrowing in the light — it's a horrific experience, and she can't even fathom how much it hurt. She's felt her own blood boil in the literal, cooking sense, and felt her flesh burn as scales erupted in injury's wake, but to watch your own limbs disintegrate like that... in comparison, the horror Yuya must have felt would have been a slower, crawling thing.

The difference in comparison is so drastic, it jars her out of her thoughts with the same force as a physical shake; her hands fold together to give herself anchor. ]

I'm sorry, does it bother you? The heat, I mean. I can tone it down if it does.

[ He's gonna put that experience in his manga, man. ]

The heat? [ He cocks an eyebrow at her. After a second, he shakes his head. ] No. I run very cold all the time. There is no need. If the both of you were in the house at the same time, you might. I enjoy the warmth.

[ As in he literally attaches himself to his favorite heat source when he needs it. Yuzu doesn't need that fate. ] I look at it this way: If what I experienced the night of my transformation did not kill me, there is far worse that could have happened. Everything I get handed up until it passes the tolerance I had at that moment is something that I can survive.

It holds a pseudo-philosophical symbolism to me.

[ An afterthought: ]

I was shot with an arrow that was meant to kill me, which granted me a power back home through my sheer willingness to live through it.

That's amazing.

[ It's spoken with a quiet breath of awe, but no high energy of great surprise or incredulous disbelief. People have been dragged here from all sorts of different times, different realities, different dimensions — why shouldn't that sort of thing be possible? Her tail curls and uncurls as she thinks. ]

Any world can be a place that creates pain and suffering. This world is just... much faster about it, I think. Much more extreme than most people are used to. It's difficult to endure, and survive, but I think it's much harder to do that and to still... want to keep living.

[ She looks towards the ceiling more than she does toward Kishibe, seeking words from the patterns in architecture. ]

Not quite that... but to survive and still have passion. Where the things that were most important to you before you suffered so much still are just as cherished. Not everybody has the strength to hold on like that.

[ He has had to have this conversation with Jotaro before to a different degree. This gargoyle has a lot more to say than the other one. ]

What do we gain from abandoning our passions after staring fear in the face, Miss Hiiragi? [ Ah-ha... He peers up from the color he has finally created-- no, mastered to match her hair, having added a pinch of blue during their conversation. It's perfect. ]

If your passions are all you have left in the entire world... Would you be so willing to give them up?

Of course not.

[ She says it with the quickness of certainty, but perhaps she shouldn't say it so easily. After all, isn't this the same conversation she's had with another Naga — an argument where his only venom was his voice, accusations that she was throwing away the things she believed in, trading her Entertainer's smile for a hardened will and unstoppable spirit, trading softness and kindness and a heart that bruises so easily for one that can withstand the fires and agonies of this world. Does she really have the right to declare something like that, when even her best friend — the person who knows best the place she came from, and the future that once shone bright before her — can't see it?

(But then, is that really her truest passion? Is that really the thing that sets the fire in her heart, that gets her blood boiling?)

Indecision is a weight on her shoulders, but she forces herself to shrug it off, to shake her hands at the wrists, as though these heavy thoughts were physical things that cling to her body, like cold water and dark algae. Her cheeks puff for a moment of held breath before it expels outward, thankfully bereft of fire or smoke. After all— ]

The thing I want most in the world isn't going to change just because it's difficult to reach. [ To protect her friends — to protect the city she calls home, to safeguard the peace that makes those smiles possible... isn't that the thing that makes her Yuzu? The girl who wanted to become stronger to protect her school — the girl that would challenge anyone who threatened her friends, isn't that who she's always been? Isn't that who she is?

She speaks with greater confidence, and it shows in her very skin: the change would be slight to an untrained eye, but an artist would spot immediately the richer saturation to her red scales, their color shifting ever so slightly to a warmer hue. Fired up indeed. ] I won't back down from that, even if it's terrifying, or if I get hurt along the way. You wouldn't need courage or passion if everything came easy.

Once you give up on what you love most, then you've already lost everything that makes you you.

[ He DOES spot it immediately. He nearly drops what he is working with, precariously balancing his little slat of paint in one hand whilst the other palms around for his bottle of-- Uhm... Yellow, maybe? We'll start there. He drags some of the untouched red around with one finger, followed by little bits of yellow being flicked onto it. He doesn't need orange, but something fierce. ]

You are absolutely correct. You need to fight for what makes you who you are in this very moment.

[ Good, good! ]

Tell me more, Miss Hiiragi. What are you passionate about? Tell me everything.

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, ROHAN KISHIBE. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 512.66.730.91 * USER has joined 512.66.730.91 <AUTOMATED REPLY, DO NOT RETURN:> You have reached the inbox of Rohan Kishibe. I am currently away and unable to answer messages. Leave a BRIEF** message with a subject line below. Messages will be replied to in order of importance and subject matter. Advertisements and junk mail will be ignored and blocked from this server.

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