1278/Not a Yokai

Not a Yokai
Date of Scene:	13 March 2024
Location:	Mitakihara Ward
Synopsis:	The Back Street Slasher tries to make a meal out of Lacuna. One failure and a host of insults later, he's been recruited to Obsidian's HR department. Wait, what? CW: Foul Language.
Cast of Characters:	Fuyuko Yuuhi, Taro Yamada

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Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
It's night, the sun long having set, and Fuyuko Yuuhi is making her way through the streets, heading home the mundane way rather than teleporting. Throwing herself into her work had been exactly the way to cure her lingering frustration and anger, her embarrassment. None of it could stand up to the satisfaction of the sheer terror a series of surprise inspections, reviews, and evaluations.

Really. She's over it. Who cared if Kyouka was the same self-righteous bitch she'd always been, sure that she was right and true and therefore Fuyuko wrong and foul?

Who was there to be bothered by the confirmation of her long-held belief, that the present could never oughtweigh the past -

All of which is to say, as she chooses to cut down a dark alley to spare time on the walk home, cleaving away from the brightly lit streets and stepping into the shadows, she's particularly distracted.

Taro Yamada has posed:
Taro perches on the edge of a building and watches the woman go into the alley.

That other vampire guy, Tuxedo Mask? He had been DELICIOUS. The energy he'd stolen from him had kept him feeling warm and full in a way that sucking blood did not. Had not, when he'd tried it again. And though the dregs of that energy will linger in him for a few weeks, he wants more. Needs more.

"Go hunting!" his wooden doll Jack had said, waving his little top hat in excitement; his wooden doll Dory had gnashed her jagged teeth in excitement and wriggled into his shirt pocket to watch the hunt while he was still dressing.

Th eproblem was ain finding prey; all living humans had blood, but he'd only seen one Tuxedo Mask. Jack thought those mermaid girls he'd seen a month ago might also count, but there was no way for him to track them down after this length of time. Maybe he could have used Usagi or Amy as bait, he knew those two knew those mermaid yokai, but he liked them, and furthermore, he owed them. When he had to leave Tokyo, he'd need to payp them back for the help with the stray cat.

"Boo," Jack had said to that, his face angled to turn his wooden smile into a pout, and then they'd gone looking.

"This one's got potential," Jack says, peeking out of Taro's cloak. "And if i'm wrong, maybe one of those girls will show up to save the day. Bait is bait."

"Shut up," Taro mutters, clambering up to the edge of the roof. One good jump would be all it took to land, but he worked best when his target was afraid. He wasn't going to screw up his entrance! Just wait for her to be across the red neon light reflected from a distant hotel....

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
There's a sound on the wind, a three-part disharmony. It doesn't exist to normal ears.

Fuyuko isn't normal. Normal is eleven long years dead. The sound on the wind is magic, and it's not far off. Too steady to be a youma.

Some mahou, off on patrol? Another of Kyouka's brats, looking for trouble to throw away their lives on? The thought chafes, sees Fuyuko's jaw tightening. She stalks forward through the night, scowling reflexively at the red light that splashes across, pleased when she passes through to the dark of the alley once more.

Red may not have been a color in Kyouka's henshin, but it had always felt like her color. Now, in a moment when she's still irritated with her, she doesn't need the reminder.

Taro Yamada has posed:
Taro leaps; he hits the ground rolling and bounces back up to his feet in a move that's part practice, part youth and part supernatural durability. He spreads his arms as he steps into the red light, letting his cloak spread wide to make him look bigger. He'll grow even more once his victim starts to fear him. Each hand grows a red blade from the palm; the shadow of hood over face is broken by two red blades growing from his forehead.

"Don't they teach kids not to wander in alleys anymore? You never know what kind of creature lurks in the darkness."

Come on. Look at him. Transform. Come on! Be afraid and transform!

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
There's a thump in front of her, a body that crouches with the easy grace of magic, and Fuyuko draws herself upright, her tall, lean frame a pillar in the darkness. Between her dark attire, dark hair, and dark eyes, pale skin standing out against such stark darkness.

When the mahou in front of her, the source of that three-party disharmony - static and the clack of fangs, that's two of them, some sort of creatures, probably, the sound isn't human. Human-esque. But the third, the stronger part, is the strum of a shamisen. The mahou. She can't 'hear' strength-levels, and she doesn't need to.

"If you think I'm a child, you should get your eyes checked," she says boredly. "What are you, a discount store thriller? Get out of here."

There's none of the buzz of dark energy, the out-of-place whirring she was so used to hearing at work. Whoever or whatever this kid was, he didn't need to be her problem.

Taro Yamada has posed:
"Everyone is a child compared to me," Taro growls, stepping forward.

Hey, this isn't how the script goes! Oh no, there's a monster, flee! Oh no, there's a monster, fight! Oh no, there's a monster, freeze! Where's the reaction??

Jack giggles in a pocket under his cloak, tinny. Irritation runs up Taro's spine and down his arms, and he lunges forward, sweeping his palm-blade towards her abdomen with a speed that would be difficult to dodge -

For someone merely human.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"Try that again when your voice stops cracking," Fuyuko shoots back; never mind that his voice hadn't cracked, there's a juvenality to this that can only equate to a teenaged boy.

Why was he bothering with all of this, anyway? If he wanted energy, there were easier ways than standing around, flapping his arms like some Dracula.

And then he moves, darting towards her as a tinny giggle sounds out, and Fuyuko steps to the side, and is in that instant no longer Fuyuko. The black dress swirls about her thighs, offering glimpses of white-and-purple striped leggings. Her hand snaps out, grabbing his by the wrist - and darkness swirls about her wrist, light winking in and out within almost liquid depths.

"You should have just walked away," Lacuna, veteran magical girl, says coldly, before stepping in, and flipping him onto his back, taking advantage of his off-balanced position.

Taro Yamada has posed:
"You'll eat your words!" His eyes flash with victory as she transforms - jackpot!!! - and then his shriek is cut short by impact with the ground as he's flipped and slammed like an errant pancake.

He snarls and kicks his leg out to the side, growing a red blade on his shin to try and cut her ankles - but it's a move honed in decades of amateur fights rather than honed practice, unusual only in that there's a magic knife involved."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"What kind of form is that?"

His kick out is erratic - swift, sure, a familiar motion, but hardly anything with any real weight behind it. Ineffectual, and the only real surprise is the blade. Lacuna reaches out and grabs the blade itself -

And isn't cut, at all. Instead, the darkness swirling about her hand devours it, the only length of blade left that below the point where her hand touches.

"Cut it out, or we'll see if you can regrow the foot as easily as I suspect you'll regrow the blade."

Her voice is irritated, her face stern. There's not a flicker of fear in her.

Taro Yamada has posed:
Taro stares.

What? What was that? That wasn't supposed to happen! That was his blood blade, formed from his own body! By his own will! People can't just take it away! He can heal plenty back, sure, but -

The shadow over his face fades away. The man under the hood is haggard and thin, skin deathly purple, and all the magic oni horns and vampire fangs in the world can't hide the look of fear on his face.

Plan B: run!!

Crawl, scramble, whatever, he's not going to fight a losing battle!

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"Oh no you don't," Lacuna snarls, and tightens her grip on the boy's wrist. When he pulls - as he inevitably must, in his bid to escape, she jerks him back. The boy under the hood is haggard and deathly pale, unnaturally so for a human, and she has a firm grip - tighter than he could hope to break easily.

"You don't drop in on me and then run. What did you think would happen?"

Taro Yamada has posed:
He's not breaking that grip unless he cuts her fingers, and she'd destroy his blade, so he is? stuck?? Oh, he's really crapped the proverbial bed now! How does he get out of this one??

A memory stirs. Broken concrete, the smell of smoke. Some pipe under the road cracked so hard that water spews up like a reversed waterfall. He spent the so-called earthquake hiding, but when he crawled out of his hiding place, there they were - two of them. Red and white and black, blood and bone and ash. Even an ancient thing like him knew not to get involved.

"Oh, not YOU," he breathes. He can feel his dolls moving in his shirt pockets; he wraps an arm around his torso to try and get them to hold STILL, because losing a foot would suck but not as fatal as losing one of his dolls. "Well, are you going to take my foot or not? Do you really have all night to mess around, grandma?"

Come on! Get upset and hurt him and leave!

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
There's a smug satisfaction at being recognized, because Fuyuko had once been a terrible child, arrogant and proud and unfortunately for all those around her, exactly as good as she thought she was.

That satisfaction dies at the word grandma, and she feels her eyebrow twitch, annoyance flaring hard.

First Auntie, now grandma?!

"Clearly you've never seen a woman in your life if you think I'm a grandma," she says coldly, "And I've got more time than you do, if you were stupid enough to think a scrawny broomstick of a boy like you could hope to scare anyone. Maybe I'll let you go when you've answered my questions. Let's start with the one I already gave you: what did you think would happen?"

Taro Yamada has posed:
Scrawny? Broomstick?? He's huge! He's terrifying! He's so, so, utterly doomed. She's not scared of him at all and that means he's down to blades (not working) and talking (his last chance!!)

The metaphorical scales slam down - survival outweighs pride a dozen times over. He just needs to talk long enough that she'll let him go, and then RUN.

"If you're older than me, you're definitely a grandma," he says, his free hand digging into his side as he tries to keep his dolls pinned against his chest. "What's the line from the movie? 'Edward, you're seventeen. How long have you been seventeen FOR?'"

He's a vampire! It's pretty clear cut! It's - oh no oh no oh NO "Dory, NO!!!" he yelps as a doll crawls out of his shirt and down his arm, making a flying leap at Fuyuko.

The doll is wooden, ball jointed, lovingly crafted. Unfortunately, someone crafted the head with a jagged nutcrackerjaw and bulging anglerfish eyes, and the hair carefully poked into the scalp is wild and messy. Only the tiny white kimono gives the doll a semblance of elegance, though the doll's attempts to bite Fuyuko's hand are going to make that elegance fade real fast.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"You're like sixteen, and - what are you doing with your chest? A little shit like you can't be hugging yourself over a little thing like this."

And then he's quoting movies at her, and unfortunately for him, Fuyuko spent her teenage years fighting monsters, running around with Kyouka, and studying. Movies - especially American vampire romances - are far from in her reference box.

Sure, he's got fangs, but he's also got horns and red knives, so Fuyuko would really like to argue abotu that obvious vampirism claim -

Except then it's obvious why he was clutching at his chest, because a tiny little doll comes barreling for her hand and Lacuna decides to let it happen.

Let the little shit see that she wasn't fucking around.

Which means the little doll manages to reach Fuyuko's hand - and the darkness seething around it. The first delicately crafted hand to reach her is simply - gone. Swallowed by the darkness, a not so much torn away as it is erased from existence, as though it never was.

In the next instant, Lacuna is using her other hand to just - flick the doll away, before it can lose another hand.

Her offensive powers were sealed away, but she's allowed to defend herself. This is defending herself. She isn't attacking. She's letting the hits come to her.

Taro Yamada has posed:
Taro screams, half in pain and half in horror, and lunges as far as he can to grab Dory before she can hit the ground. He's stretched out as far as he can to catch her.

He's basically immortal as long as his dolls are safe. Unfortunately, that means that if his dolls jumped into the battle -

This isn't the first time this has happened. Dory was only build recently, is terribly protective despite being the weakest of the three of them, and has all the experience of danger as a kitten. Usually he limps home and fixes her to fix himself and it's fine. Usually it's not - an entire hand - he can't even feel it, just pins and needles where his hand should be -

The hand she's got in a death grip goes limp, strings cut.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
Lacuna doesn't do anything as dramatic as flinch in horror at the scream, though it is a surprise - there's not just fear in the sound, but pain, as if it had been his hand devoured rather than the dolls -

Interesting.

Interesting.

"Easy weaknesses shouldn't have free reign, kid," she says blunt, and doesn't release him. "Now why don't you lay on back and quit trying to wind me up?"

The hand under her own is limp now, even if the rest of him is tense and fidety, obviously wishing to run.

Taro Yamada has posed:
"Leave her alone," he snaps, hugging Dory to his chest. The bug-eyed doll is trying to struggle free and attack again, despite the lack of hand, and his arm is tensed, straining to keep her contained.

He takes a moment to breathe, settle his voice. Was it really cracking? it can't be. This form is grown up, strong, scary. But, but, but - "I'm a vampire. I just found out eating yokai like you is a lot better than eating normal humans," he says. "If I'd known you were the oni who blew up Tokyo before, I would have left you alone."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"I got her out of the way," Lacuna rolls her eyes, "If you wanted her out of trouble you should keep her in a bird cage."
ut then he speaks and she - she laughs. She just outright laughs at him, chuckling, then snickering, then outright cackling in a way that would have had Kyouka shouting something like 'stop acting evil and maybe I'd trust you not to be fucked up and evil!'

"Vampire? Yokai? Fuck, kid, you're not a vampire and I'm not a yokai. We're mahou."

She stops cackling slowly, standing - releasing him - and then sweeping her hair back.

"Run and I'll catch you. I'll be a hell of a lot more pissed if I have to catch you. Just sit your ass down and I'll explain to you a thing about what the hell you are."

Taro Yamada has posed:
The scales fall again, as survival outweighs flight. He saw what she could do, years ago. Whole streets destroyed in an instant. It was the kind of thing his ma talked about on the rare times she discussed the war.

"Fine," he says, and struggles to sit up with one hand clutching the struggling doll and the other flopping uselessly. He's trying very hard not to react to her mocking laughter - at him, no doubt! Making fun of him! For being weak!! He's not gonna cry!! Shut up!

"What the hell is a mahou?" he asks. "Gimme her hand back and I'll put her somewhere safe."

Give it. Give it back. You want a cage? Return the hand.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
And now he's pouting, all wounded pride. And there he was, talking like he was some ancient being - pft! Fuyuko knows a kid when she sees one. She's twenty-three.

"Give it back? Kid, it's gone. You're going to have to make a new one, or get someone else to." There's no giving it back. What the void took, the void kept. Even she's never tried (very hard) to reach into the depths of the void-space her darkness represented.

"A mahou is what it sounds like," mahou meaning magic, "Someone with magic, who can see magic and remember it; at least for a while. Someone like you, and me, and whoever you stole the energy out of that made you think jumping me was a good idea. How long have you been running around, thinking you were a vampire?"

Taro Yamada has posed:
Ugh. He's making Dory's new hand one-handed, huh? The feeling would come back to his hand eventually, but it'd take a while. Jack would throw a fit if he stole his hand...

He starts to make a rude gestures at her, but stops himself in time before he actually does it - or before Dory tries to bust loose again. What she's sayin gmakes sense, even though he is clearly a vampire. Maybe he's a magic vampire?

"I've been doing this since 1957," he says. "I saw the original Godzilla, the American moon landing, the bubble crash," whatever the hell that was, "and I saw that time years ago when you and your Yankee friend blew up a bunch of roads."

Now that's an old-fashioned phrase - the kind of thing people talked about in the 70s when they talked about motorcycle riding student gangs...who dyed their hair and often wore black uniforms.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"The hair is natural," is the first thing she says, because it's the easiest thing to respond to. She frowns at him, because the thing about his age doesn't make sense with what she knows about the Fade, and honestly she's kind of pissed about it if she's honest -

"And you had the nerve to call me grandma," she grumbles, "Have you looked like this since 1957?"

If he has she'll have to figure out what the hell kind of mahou he is -

"And yeah, you better not make any gestures at me, punk, or I'll make you lose the other one. I'm dragging you in; I don't have to make it painless." When did she mention dragging in? Oh right, she didn't. Sucks to be him, but she's decided. He's clearly some kind of fucked up freak, and there's not a chance he'll fit in with Kyouka's preppy bunch. He's one of hers, through and through.

Taro Yamada has posed:
"Oh, so she's a *Yankee* and not a yankee," he says, nodding sagely. There were plenty of Americans here when he was a kid. That kind of thing happened. "Besides,the easiest way to piss off a pretty girl and make her drop her guard is to call her grandma. Everyone knows that!"

It's perfect tactical thinking! It usually works! And he's fast enough to run away from the ensuing hubbub!

"No, I was ten in 1957. I age one year every ten, because I'm a vampire," he says. "What are you dragging me to, Mt. Oe?" he adds with more bravado than he feels. "Do I need to go gnash some bones to make my bread? I can drink sake, I'm basically old enough!"

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"No," Fuyuko hisses out, exasperated, "She just has red hair. And you've discovered the problem with that trick now. When you piss someone off sometimes they're stronger than you."

She snorts.

"Closer to a century than not and you're more ignorant than a year one brat. Age doesn't add up to experience or wisdom in your case." A roll of her eyes. "No, I'm not taking you to Mt. Ooe, because I'm not a demon. And you're almost through with your sentence."

It would take probably twenty, thirty years, but once he was finally heading out of his teens, he'd be normal.

Poor, pathetic bastard. Unsocialized, undereducated, thinking he was a vampire -

"I'm taking you to my office. You're woefully uneducated and you keep going around like that and one of those dozens of brats on the hero side will blast you to atoms."

Taro Yamada has posed:
"I don't need to go to school! I've been independant for decades. And no one's been stronger than me until now," it's fine!! He can deal with people causing trouble! Besides, he's survived all this time with barely any problems! It's! Fine! "And I finish all of my sentances like a normal person - aah!"

He's interupted once again by a wooden doll climbing out of his shirt; this one's top hat hits his chin when he's trying to speak and makes him bite his tongue. He grimaces as the little doll clambers up onto his head via his hair and bows to Fuyuko, all elegance in his little suit, with his little smiling face. "We'd appreciate it kindly if you took us in," the doll says, taking off the hat and holding it to his little chest. "It seems there's a great deal about this world that none of us knew."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"You mean you've been targeting defenseless losers for decades and never ahd a real challenge. That won't work forever. This city is full to the brim with mahou, and once you attack one of them, they'll all start to learn about you. And then what will you do, when it's your turn to be ambushed?"

And then he doesn't know about the sentence, and Fuyuko would explain, except she's irritable enough not to bother.

The creepy little doll with the tophat is better than the other one, in the sense that it isn't actively growling. But it's just as dangerous, she's sure of that. So the dolls were the other two magical signatures she could hear.

"I wasn't giving you a choice," she says dismissively, "The name is Lacuna, or Fuyuko. They're both mine. You're going back to school because you're a punk child and you need some fucking manners. You're getting a job, because I said so, and you're moving into the dorms because it'll give you an idea of how many other idiotic magical children there are in the city - plenty of them attend Radiant Heart Academy."

Taro Yamada has posed:
"Eat them," Taro says.

Jack smacks him with a little hand. "No, we'll be doing what she says. Come on, kid."

Taro groans, but he stands up one handed anyway. In his hand, Dory goes limp, and instead sulks as Taro tucks her into his shirt pocket. "I already have a job," he says as he helps Jack down from his head. "Is a full time job gig good enough for you? And can we get my stuff before we go to your office? And what kinda freak is making kids duke it out, anyway? I just do this stuff so I don't starve."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"Right," Lacuna says in a voice as dry as bone. "Because you managed to eat me, and therefore you're so infallible."

And then he keeps talking and she puts her face in her hand, utterly exasperated.

"So you think you, an idiot who's been doing this purely to eat, are going to beat a bunch of kids who have been doing this because they believe in it, on purpose, some of them for going on two full years, fighting monsters while you poach off idiot civilians who've never heard of magic?"

Disdain drips out of her voice.

"You've been a big fish in a small pond, and I'm dumping you into the deep end. You're getting a job with Obsidian, kid, and I'm going to teach you how to be something more than a joke. Don't worry about going hungry. You'll have enough to buy blood if that's your thing."

Why someone wants to go as far as eating blood for their branding, she can't be sure, but there are weirder things in the world. She's killed them.

"Which way is your stuff? And remember, you run, I put you into a wall, and you still' have to take the job."

Taro Yamada has posed:
He's not going to reply to her barbs, but his sulkiness is going off the charts. He is winning the sulk Olympics.

"You gonna teach me how to fight? Make sure I don't get flattened by the next 'mahou' that shows up?"

He flashes her a challenging look - com eon, bring it on. He can take it. Even if he doesn't know half the things she's talking about, he can learn.

"I'm at a capsule hotel about half a mile thataway. Can I put on my normal clothes or will that also put me into a wall?" he asks dryly. "And you didn't say what kinda freak is making all these other kids fight. If we're Obsideon, who's the other freak?"

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"Exactly."

It may not have been the answer he expected. She doesn't care.

"The next time someone gets the drop on you, you're going to do more than try and run with your tail between your legs. You're going to know how to use that power."

And of course he's still asking, and she exhales, exasperated, "No one. They're doing it because they want to. That's the whole point of the whole thing. Doing what you want, with what you have. They have power. They want to use it to help people. And in Obsidian, we have people like you - who have power, and want to use it for themselves."

Which is a dig, but not a target or judging one; if anything, for once, there's a tone of approval.

Taro Yamada has posed:
"Good. I want to be as strong as you are."

He's going to be the strongest in Japan. Maybe - maybe this is a good thing, after all. He can get training, get his powers to work better, see what the competition is like... and then slurp down some more 'mahous'!

And he squints at her. "No one made them magic? It just happened? They don't have little yappy guys giving questionable advice like 'go to Tokyo, it's a perfect nice city, you're not gonna have the shit kicked out of you'?"

"It is a nice city," Jack says primly. "It was a good idea to come here."

"Big words from the guy who gets carried everywhere," Taro grumbles, not dropping the doll at all. "So - does using power for ourselves mean you tell me who to beat up? And do you have a cat policy?"

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"Plenty of them have little twerpy things like that doll," Fuyuko allows, and suddenly she is Fuyuko again, in her business attire, and the look she gives him says that he shouldn't think she won't transform again in a second.

"Fairy things, creepy little furry beasts, there are plenty of them. Most of them don't control the children, as far as I know; most of them can't take the power back, either. It's yours now. What're the little wooden guys going to do about it if you leave them locked up in your capsule hotel for the day?"

A challenge, but also, she's curious - has he ever tried?

"It's a great city; it's not the city's fault you thought you were the scariest thing in it. Lead the way to your capsule hotel."

He asks, and she grimaces.

"It means I'm giving you a job, and training, and the rest, you'll figure out. If you want to drain energy, do it; the consequences will be on your head, and they won't come from me. If you want to try and rule the city or whatever the latest fad is, same deal; try it, and the consequences are on you. My job is giving you a job and training you. What you do with the job is on you. When you're working for me, you'll be a paper gopher for the office."

Stapling, folding, holepunching, fetching coffee. That's right. Intern-drudgery, but at least paid intern-drudgery.

"Cats? Ask the dorms."

Taro Yamada has posed:
Right, right, he's terrified. He gives Jack a shake, and he's back in his human form again - a teenager stretched tall and thin like taffy, with messy hair and a too-huge sweatshirt and a face that's...still pretty haggard and pale for someone in the ballpark of 16.

"Dory'd try and dig through the door to find me, she gets seperation anxiety cuz she's young. Jack journals weird shit and he'll do it on the walls if I haven't gotten him paper." Don't even ask what he uses if he can't find a pen.

He starts leading the way, dolls tucked into his sweatshirt pockets. "I don't want to rule the city. That sounds terrible and boring. I do want to eat more energy, though. And I want to be the strongest mahou in Japan!" That's the important bit! "Do you pay over minimum wage? And do you need an official ID? All I can get are fakes since I don't age right."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"Put them in a cage," is her advice, "A bird cage, or one of those portable cat carriers. If you can't control them, control where they go."

Don't be bound to your mascot! Make you mascot bound to you.

"Eat more energy then; you can get it out of regular people too, you know. You shoulder consider quitting it with the blood; you're lucky you haven't given yourself some kind of disease." Of course, if it turns out he does need blood...

"You're not allowed to eat my staff. And if you attack the mahou in Obsidian, they're liable to attack you, so save it for the enemy. And yeah, we pay minimum wage and a half, starting," So one and a half times more than he did, "And more, if you're worthwhile. If you want to be the strongest, you'll get the chance to earn a raise."