snip snip

[implausibility]

Who: Adachi Tohru (implausibility) and, in no particular order: Jan, Godot, Malik, Isamu, Nagi, Ikutsuki
When: Hours after sirens, forward-dated to Friday evening.
Where: Outskirts of downtown Siren's Port.
Summary: You don't snip the strings of a puppet without it crashing to the ground.
Warnings: I guess it's a little late to say spoilers for Persona 4...

Comments

LOL I mistook your icon for Jan's for a second there.

[implausibility]

The sound of someone cursing not-quite-discreetly under his breath filled the small adjacent area. It was dark, as Siren's Port usually was after sirens, but there was a glint of something on the ground near the shadowed figure's feet. The dull metal reflected what little light there was, and the contours of its shape made it obvious that it was some sort of small firearm, though abandoned as it was, it might as well have been a chunk of scrap metal. "-cking asshole, throwing knives 'round. Bet you don't even need a license to be doing that sort of thing where he comes from, probably some backwater who-knows-goddamn-where in the middle of the country. Bet they're just like, 'Howdy there, son!' and then they chuck some fucking knife at-"

In mid-rant, he cut off, raising his head. More to his persona's credit than to Adachi's instincts, something in the air seemed to have shifted, and Magatsu Izanagi was automatically responding to its presence. Something like-minded, something different but familiar. "Who's there?" Adachi called out, glancing about as he felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck.

[ingrate]

"Here? Nobody's here but us shadows." Unaware of the irony of that statement, Isamu slowly approached this new... someone, hands in his pockets. The mutterings were amusing, and he wasn't going to just outright attack anyone who wasn't a senseless creation of the darkness. He had more sense than that.

He stopped after a few steps, watching. "I don't suppose you need a light?" He held his left hand out and it suddenly exploded into flame, illuminating the alley around them. The man wasn't quite what he expected, and he wasn't sure whether or not to be disappointed by that. Had he been looking for a real challenge tonight?

[implausibility]

His eyes narrowed at that. Another high schooler with powers - they were a dime a dozen here, substantially more than the half-a-dozen back in Inaba, and while his eyes lingered on the flame - That Amagi girl would have a lot to chitchat with with this guy - Adachi ultimately dragged them away not to look at Isamu, but the space around him - over his shoulder, around his feet, behind his back. "Where are the shadows?" he asked instead, snapping his eyes back on target. "I don't see 'em."

He sounded a little disappointed himself.

[ingrate]

No? Isamu had figured he'd created enough light to cast plenty of shadows, so he gave the man another curious look before letting the fire vanish with a wave of his hand. Now it was just his faintly glowing eyes in the dark again. "Then I'm not sure what you're looking for. There's plenty here, within and without." He spreads his arms out to either side, a gesture possibly lost in the darkness of the alley.

Perhaps the man was confused. It was easy enough to get confused in this place, especially without guidance. He would know. He might have written him off as just some drunk or drug addict wandering the streets when he shouldn't be, but that wasn't the case. He knew there was something else. He could feel it tugging at the edges of every sense in his body.

[implausibility]

A confused look, mildly disapproving - one half of his face pulled up, the other pulled down in skepticism. He blinked, shook his head like he wanted to clear it, but it became shake that spread down from his neck into his entire body, until it was a shiver, like he wanted to clear that, too. Adachi raised his free hand to his temple, digging a knuckle into the soft skin at the side of his brow. "No, those aren't...I mean, they are, but they aren't shadows. You had me going for a second, there. I thought that they'd- nah, anyway. Those are just normal ones."

But there was something there. He could feel it too, just like he had had that gut feeling about Dojima's nephew and his friends, the same feeling when he heard Namatame's shaky, guilty voice coming over the telephone line. There was something there, either behind Isamu, in those 'regular' shadows, maybe even right where Isamu was standing, seemingly benign and seemingly normal, but Adachi was already well-versed in Things That Seemed, and he eyed the teenager, clearly suspicious.

"You were, uh...fighting out here? N-not causing trouble, I hope."

[ingrate]

So perhaps the man was a little unhinged. That didn't surprise Isamu here. Half the "newcomers" probably had a few screws loose in one way or another. this one was just more obvious than most - perhaps not too dissimilar from himself. Not that he liked comparing anyone to himself.

But of course there was that other feeling... He ignores the question (not that he's really done anything wrong) and takes another couple steps closer. "What are you, exactly? Or what were you before you came here? Just a man? Some suited floozy? Because you don't feel like one."

Or maybe it wasn't the guy at all. Maybe he was making too many assumptions and this was just some poor shmuck who'd left the office too late only to end up possessed by some other sort of darkness monster he wasn't yet familiar with.

SORRY FOR THE DELAY

[implausibility]

The skin around his eyes grew tight as he furrowed his brow, and Adachi looked caught off-guard by that question. It wasn't one he usually expected - Adachi went out of his way to make sure people knew who he was (resident clumsy policeman and well-meaning but poorly-performing neighborhood patrolman), but he had always thought the 'what' was rather obvious. Even so, he felt a slight, ill-deserved swell of smugness at the question.

Not just a man, no - after all, he had powers that no one knew about, and he had a story that no one would ever know about, and there were a million secrets locked up inside that head of his that maybe he would never find the answers to, and that was special, wasn't it?

Wasn't it?

"What do you mean?" he asked, giving the teenager a look that made it seem like he was the one with questionable sanity. "You lost me, pal. ...Maybe I just don't understand the question? I mean, 'course I'm a man - it's pretty obvious, I'd think - what else am I supposed to be?"

IT'S ALL GOOD

[ingrate]

"I don't know. What are any of us supposed to be?" Isamu spread his arms wide, a big smile on his face. "What am I supposed to be? Come on. Guess."

Maybe he was reading the situation wrong. Maybe this was just a normal guy. For some reason, though, especially in this place, he doubted that greatly. Something was different here, and he was going to find out what it was.

[implausibility]

Eyes narrowing as his head tilted, Adachi's look of bewilderment didn't fade. "Oh, you're one of those types." He huffed, drew back and tilted his chin up dismissively, waving a hand. "Hate to break it to you, but we don't have time to talk philosophy with you, right now. Kinda in the middle of-" A jerk, and pain flashed across his face, severe enough to have cut him off mid-sentence. He rubbed a hand into his temple, pressing the bottom of his palm into one eye, either trying to rub something out, and push something back in. It was a sharp, chiding pain, like the scolding slap of a parent, a sharp tug into a predestined path every time he set foot off of the beaten dirt. Listen to me, Child of Man.

Adachi looked up, glancing about. "...Did you hear that?"

[ingrate]

Philosophy? Really? Isamu was just messing around, for the most part, but this guy had obviously lost it. If he'd come across as normal for a moment, that moment was gone. And unless he was talking about both of them, he was referring to himself in the plural. That was always telling.

Was he trying to warn him that something was coming? He didn't think so, not with the way the man had been moving so far. He wasn't in enough of a hurry.

At the question, Isamu tilted his head and listened. If there had been something, he'd missed it. There was nothing out of the ordinary to be heard now - probably never had been. "I didn't hear shit, man. You take something before wandering out?"

[implausibility]

Running his hand over his face, Adachi heaved a sigh. He had never had the inclination or the courage to try drugs past the tobacco fix that came from a normal cigarette, and even that he picked up for the simple need to fit in with the rest of the officers - there was little enjoyment in it, just like there was little enjoyment in anything anymore. Still, if 'taking something' made a person react like this, then it was probably all for the better. His memory was a blur - the days all faded into one continuous haze these days. He knew he went to work, carried out his basic duties with mechanical efficiency, to the point where his higher-ups had begun to wander (a strangely quiet week, he supposed, in retrospect), but most of his recollection was spotted with nights like this - powered and driven by the need to just pull her out.

(Pull who? Pull what?)

"Crap...damn if I know." He glanced up. "Did you? You..." Well, saying, 'feel the same' would just open up a whole other can of worms, and even in his current state, he knew that sounded crazy. "You kinda..." A few hand gestures, vague and nonsensical, as he sought the words out. "I don't know. Smell the same. Or something. You're not from...Port Island, right?" Minako had said, after all, that everyone who came from her hometown...

[ingrate]

What a muddled, mixed up answer that was. He didn't know if he was on drugs? Sure, Isamu could believe that. People had been drugged without their knowing before, and there were definitely some underhanded things going on with the corporations from what he'd seen, but for some reason this didn't feel like anything as simple as that.

He wanted to just tell the man to spit it out, but he was afraid he might miss some of the gibberish or keep him from reaching his point in the first place.

Port Island...? "I'm from Tokyo." Or what Tokyo had become, more accurately, but he wasn't going to get into that with this stranger. Not unless he was given a reason. Whatever the case, it seemed the other was getting some of the same vibes he was. Maybe. This whole thing was just weird.

[implausibility]

A disappointed sound. "You and everyone else," Adachi muttered bitterly, thinking of the city and all the people it shut out, threw away. He half-turned, almost looking as though he was going to simply leave the conversation on that hanging note and walk away, before he slanted a glance sideways at Isamu. "So you don't have a persona?"

There was no reason to beat around the bush if the kid didn't even know what he was talking about, then.

[ingrate]

Was he going to walk away? Not cool. You didn't come through acting crazy and saying shit like that and then just walk away. ...Or maybe you did. What would he do, tie him up until he babbled more? This could all be nothing and he was just talking to a bona fide loon. One more strange evening to add to the list.

The question had Isamu tilting his head with a baffled expression. "A persona? Doesn't everyone?" He had to mean something specific, and it annoyed him to have no real response. Did he have a persona? He did, right? "Verdict's still out on whether I have a soul or not, though. Might have to get back to you on that one."

[implausibility]

A strange event in Siren's Pull was commonplace enough to be called the norm, and come morning, something else more interesting, more special, would spring up on the news, and everybody'd forget this. There was little solace in that thought, but it was reassuring just the same, considering how easily Adachi bought into excuses in the first place. There was a sense of security here, because everyone was just as easy to blame as the other, and the moral ambiguity that surrounded the city, oddly enough, made it safer for people like him.

Adachi made an impatient noise, the muscles of his face pulling on one side to curl his lips back over his teeth - blunt, entirely human, no fangs, but not necessarily no bite. "Not that kind of persona, kid. I'm not talking shrink psychology here. I meant one of those, bam, persona deals, like, you know-"

He glanced about for a second before he spotted a monster carcass a few feet away and behind him. It looked long dead, and considering there hadn't even been a ruckus when Isamu approached, it was part of a battle already fought minutes or hours earlier. Adachi squinted in concentration, and a breeze kicked up around them for a moment, before something red and fast appeared between him and then animal, accompanied by the glint of metal and the strange sound of something dripping, though it left no traces on the ground. It disappeared, like a trick of light, and the corpse went flying a good few feet in the air, struck by some invisible force, before it fell to the ground again at the end of a less-than-graceful arc.

[ingrate]

Stepping back out of the way of the thing, Isamu watched this persona with an odd sort of gleam in his eye. He'd never seen anything like this, no, but the familiar feeling was still there, stronger as it was let loose. Something within him resounded with this, a chill running the full length of his spine.

When it vanished, he couldn't help but be disappointed. He wanted to see it again. He needed to get a better look at it, to compare it to what he already knew. There had to be some connection, but he'd be damned if he could tell what it was.

"I made a pact," he said calmly, detached, almost unaware that he was saying it, "with a nameless demon god. It has since left me but nothing but it's abilities. I don't know what this persona is supposed to be, but..." But it felt very similar, much like the demons he'd left behind in the vortex world.