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

[manuscripture]

DO NOT REPLY TO THIS POST WITH NEW THREADS. TO START A NEW THREAD, REPLY TO THE NEWEST ONE HERE!!!!

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.

[ 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! ))

Comments

[manuscripture]

[ 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?

[operadiance]

[ 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.

[manuscripture]

[ 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.

[operadiance]

[ 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.

[manuscripture]

[ 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.

[operadiance]

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.

[manuscripture]

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. ]

[operadiance]

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

[ A pause. ]

Which color?

[manuscripture]

Fancy that. I was stating a fact too.

[ He jerks his chin at her. ]

Your hair.

[operadiance]

"Too bad, so sad" is an opinion.

[ Check. ]

And yes, it's natural.

[manuscripture]

[ 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?

[operadiance]

[ 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. ]

[manuscripture]

[ 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...

[operadiance]

[ 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.

[manuscripture]

[ 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. ]

[operadiance]

[ 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.

[manuscripture]

[ 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.

[operadiance]

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.

[manuscripture]

[ 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?

[operadiance]

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.

[manuscripture]

[ 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.

[operadiance]

Huh?

[ She's not at all sure what to make of this guy. One minute he's dismissing what she says like he couldn't care less, the next he wants to know everything about her. What gives? But her resolve is still adrenaline in her veins, so the words burn just as easily. ]

We're entertainers, so we're always supposed to put on a good show, but — it's not thrilling to me unless there's a challenge to it. Yuya used to always clown around when we were matched up, and wouldn't focus on his opponent at all. It was really frustrating! What's the point of winning against someone who never really puts himself into the fight? He's gotten better since then, but our duels are still really different.

[ Is she still talking about card games?? Rohan why did you do this to yourself. But hey, if he wanted passion, he's getting it in spades. ]

That's why I'm always getting into more trouble — I can't back down from a challenge at all. As soon as I hear someone threatening one of my friends, or something important to me, the first thing I want to do is challenge them head on. The dueling we're taught is supposed to be to bring smiles to the people around us, but I keep using it for arguments... and when I lose, I try to make myself better so I can win the next time and get back what I've lost. I want to be stronger than I was, and I want to protect the people that are important to me.

But more than any of that... more important than any of that, the world I'm from is on the brink of war. It's standing on the edge of invasion and destruction. I'd do whatever I have to to protect my home. Even if it kills me, so long as I have life now, I have to keep fighting for that future no matter what. It doesn't matter how many gods there are or how much they change my body or what other people think — I'll rip open the gateway between dimensions by myself if I have to — I'm not going to abandon the place that's so precious to me.

[ #fight me #i'll fight you #i'll fight me #i'll fight god #yuzu could you please chill ]

[manuscripture]

[ He has sparked up what he wanted to see from her. He knows how she is going to look in the finished product. It has been clear as day in his head since he first set eyes on her. She might be talking about her card games-- which he does not actually care about and they sound stupid as Hell --but Rohan is looking for what is fueling it.

It goes from card games to My World Is About To Have A War™ real quick. ]

There you go. You've got it now.

[ The reddish-orange he has made sticks out against his black fingers. His lips have peeled back, flashing his white teeth lined by his black gums from behind his jade lipstick. He palms about for his brush, sweeping it right up and leaving a bright pink smear on the canvas in its wake. The sketch behind it doesn't stand a chance.

He's already getting the base of her hair down. ]

Your love of your home and the people around you makes your colors flare up. Have you noticed? It's beautiful! [ Rohan is diligently working on splashing colors on the eggshell white canvas with expert precision. He swaps brushes with a mere flick of his wrist-- good Lord, he's fast. Colors, colors, and more colors which harshly contrast his own black and white scheme. ]

You're a remarkable creature...

Who matters the most to you here? Are they even here? Or are they back home so very far away from you? How does that make you feel?

[ there's no stopping this train!!!!!!!! ]

[operadiance]

[ She knows artists are supposed to be... eccentric, but this Kishibe guy is really taking not just the cake, but the whole pastry shop of weird. It doesn't help that the weak part of her latches onto that compliment, that beautiful, has taken hold and wants to preen for it. The gargoyle's heart that lives inside her own hungers for praise as much as it does for flesh, but this is an appetite she won't feed, either. Her cheeks flush for irritation, and her hands clench into fists against her knees, and she forces herself to look elsewhere.

As sour as his phrasing makes her feel, she'd rather take that different topic than hear him go on about the way she looks. ]

My best friend is here. Yuya. He's a naga, too. We've been friends for years. We don't always get along, and we fight sometimes, but we're still really close. He's the only person from my dimension that I'm friends with.

[ A beat. ]

Well, I guess there's Sawatari, too — he's a guy that goes to our junior high, but we weren't friends until after he got here. All our other hometown friends, though... our parents, and the other students, none of them are here. [ She frowns. ] I'm glad none of them have to suffer in this world, but... even though we have to open that doorway back, so everyone can go home... I'm still glad that I got to meet him again here.

... Even if we're always fighting, it's more time than I would have had.

[manuscripture]

[ She isn't into flattery but he surely is. He prefers to receive it. No one is more perfect than he is and that is based on his professional opinion. When he finds something PARTICULARLY worthy though...

The mention of her friend (also a snake) pops up and he draws his eyes away from his work for the moment she explains. And another friend? Oh man. He chuckles to himself, not bothering for even a second to filter his words: ]

You fight with the latter one all the time and you're best friends with the former. [ Time to be Inappropriate. ] Is there romantic investment involved with either of them?

Maybe both?