(D8, LA) Yogo Nogo? Oh no! (Open)

Bayushi Degarashi · **Joined:** Fri Apr 03, 2020 7:02 pm **Posts:** 1027

"I'm not quite so far gone as to attempt anything particularly unseemly, Soshi-sama. Aya-san just has a keen sense of humor. Probably picks it up from me. But enough about ourselves, how are you finding yourself today?"

Soshi Tameaki · **Joined:** Fri Apr 17, 2020 9:36 pm **Posts:** 234

"Busy," he replies before taking a sip of sake. "Racing out of the rain straight into a meeting, then on to the mess in the Blue-Tiled Room. This is the first chance I've had to settle since I entered the city."

Bayushi Degarashi · **Joined:** Fri Apr 03, 2020 7:02 pm **Posts:** 1027

"Iie, that sounds terrible. And coming into the situation happening within the city and without. The list of necessary work must be staggering. I've had... my own set of concerns across the past few days as well." Degarashi glanced meaningfully at Aya, who certainly looked like she'd only just arrived on the correct side of presentable.

Soshi Tameaki · **Joined:** Fri Apr 17, 2020 9:36 pm **Posts:** 234

A serious look crosses Tameaki's face.

"Brief me on these troubles," he requests. "Anything that may impact the current situation must be accounted for, if our efforts are to be successful."

Bayushi Degarashi · **Joined:** Fri Apr 03, 2020 7:02 pm **Posts:** 1027

Degarashi drummed his fingers lightly on table in front of him, glancing around carefully, just to indicate sensitivity. "A particular mission was issued within the last day that turned out... unsuccessful. Three of our fellows were involved, including my younger brother." He looked at Aya. "Only one returned."

Soshi Tameaki · **Joined:** Fri Apr 17, 2020 9:36 pm **Posts:** 234

"Hmm..."

Sip.

"What effect might this...unsuccessful venture have on the current troubles?"

Bayushi Degarashi · **Joined:** Fri Apr 03, 2020 7:02 pm **Posts:** 1027

Degarashi took a sip as well.

"This was a mission of retrieval. Scrolls as I understand it. Most are white."

He caught the magistrate's eyes with his own.

"These were not."

Soshi Tameaki · **Joined:** Fri Apr 17, 2020 9:36 pm **Posts:** 234

"Oh. That kind of problem."

Sip.

"Who holds it now?"

Bayushi Degarashi · **Joined:** Fri Apr 03, 2020 7:02 pm **Posts:** 1027

"Toshigoku itself."

There wasn't much Degarashi could do to make the words more ominous.

Soshi Tameaki · **Joined:** Fri Apr 17, 2020 9:36 pm **Posts:** 234

"So, in the hands of Steel," reasons the Soshi, "or it will find its way there soon enough. The dark power within always seems to pull them toward those most likely to break their seals."

Bayushi Degarashi · **Joined:** Fri Apr 03, 2020 7:02 pm **Posts:** 1027

"Less than auspicious circumstances at the best of times, certainly. But, unfortunately, little to be done about it now."

Yogo Aya · **Joined:** Sun Apr 05, 2020 12:42 am **Posts:** 719

Aya shakes her head.

"No, no that's not it.....Yogo-Ue...had a vision. Of how the Empire has lost it's way. In order for it to not be doomed to darkness, those scrolls needed to come back from Toshigoku. He was going to get them, but then the invasion happened and the Lion accelerated their plans to close the portal. He foresaw that there was but one chance to retrieve them before it was lost forever."

She drank deeply at that.

"And now it's gone." she said with a grim finality.

Soshi Tameaki · **Joined:** Fri Apr 17, 2020 9:36 pm **Posts:** 234

"Little, I would say, short of seeing that the current bearer of the problem is banished from this realm," suggests Tameaki. "While that will not solve the larger problem, it would limit the immediate damage caused by the breaking of the seal."

Sip.

"As for the Empire losing its way, and its subsequent doom," he continues, turning to Aya, "if all we can do is work to mitigate or reduce the harm that will be done, then that is what we must do. No mind must be paid to the hopelessness of the situation, or any grim fate that might await us. The failures of the past must not be allowed to become the failures of the future."

Yogo Aya · **Joined:** Sun Apr 05, 2020 12:42 am **Posts:** 719

Normally, Tamaeki's status would have shielded him from the worst of Aya's tendencies.

But Aya was having a really bad couple of days.

Instead his words were met with a rather exasperated sigh.

"Tell me, Tameki-san, what tragedy has befallen you? Have you watched noble and honorable men mowed down without a chance? Have you had to make the choice to leave someone to die instead of helping them because there was a chance that all would fall into ruin if you spared them a moment's attention? Perhaps you've seen someone you've worked with for years, who seemed invulnerable to all misfortune sliced like sashimi and devoured before your eyes while you could do nothing to stop it? Or maybe you've had your willpower to do anything but run like a coward by a Tsuno's otherworldly howl?"

She finished her drink.

"That was my yesterday. Not even touching on the years preceding it. If you've been marked by that kind of tragedy, Tameki-san, it would give weight to your advice. But if these are merely the words your sensei told you were proper to say, and the hardest thing you've ever had to deal with were improperly filed papers, my advice to you would be...."

She poured another drink.

"Drink more, Talk less."

Bayushi Degarashi · **Joined:** Fri Apr 03, 2020 7:02 pm **Posts:** 1027

Degarashi glanced sideways at Aya, but said nothing. Those words, harsh and toxic as they were, needed to be spoken, bled out of the suffering woman before they could find purchase to fester and rot in her soul. Degarashi felt the sting in them, the vitriol that could boil away even the thickest of hides.

He just endured it, silently, and wordlessly moved closer to Aya, saying what he wanted to say by his mere presence alone, and hoping the message would be received.

Soshi Tameaki · **Joined:** Fri Apr 17, 2020 9:36 pm **Posts:** 234

"Oh, are we too damaged to go on? Too tired to fight? Too afraid to serve?" asks Tameaki, his legendarily sharp tongue getting a chance to show itself off. "Are we the only people who have faced the darkness, and no one can understand the pain we feel? Then there is a way out at your side, coward. Perhaps you should take it, if it's just all become too much."

Sip.

"I am a Scorpion magistrate, and I have served the clan through the war with the naga, the Crossed Pincers rebellion, and the Bloodspeaker uprising," he continues. "I've seen doshin flayed alive at the word of a sorcerer as my team struggled to contain and execute him. I've had to look into the defiant eyes of once-loyal Scorpion during their last moments in the Grove. I had a yoriki whose mind was annihilated by the powers of a naga jakla whose alien mind decided that the man had committed some arcane breach of protocol. You are not the only one who has lost people, or who has looked into the depth of horrors you could not before imagine. You can choose, as so many have before, to come to grips with what you have witnessed and continue onward, or you can rid the clan of your weakness."

Yogo Aya · **Joined:** Sun Apr 05, 2020 12:42 am **Posts:** 719

There is a pause.

Then finally a satisfied nod from the Yogo. (and quite squeeze of the hand to Dega)

"You should've led with that magistrate. Does your lord pay you by the word?" she said dialing back to playful banter from doji melting anger.

She tops off her drink.

"Ie ie. I'm too stubborn to quit. If I wanted to quit I could have easily found a patrol to tell Emma-O I was finally accepting his invitation. But they say a true lady makes a gentleman wait."

She lifts her cup in toast.

"To Darkness then. May it confound our enemies moreso than it does ourselves."

It seemed the Yogo was willing to accept the magistrate as a valid person, if he returned the favor.

Soshi Tameaki · **Joined:** Fri Apr 17, 2020 9:36 pm **Posts:** 234

"In the legal profession one must learn to amplify one's tendencies toward the verbose," he says, raising his cup to join the toast, "as it offers the opportunity to confuse the unwary and exploit the inattentive. Plus, there are libraries full of clerks that doubtless receive some twisted satisfaction from receiving and cataloging twice as many reports and briefs than are necessary, all of which are twice as long as necessary..."

Bayushi Degarashi · **Joined:** Fri Apr 03, 2020 7:02 pm **Posts:** 1027

Degarashi squeezed Aya's hand in return with a sense of triumph, gladly raising his own cup to the proposed toast that most definitely hadn't implied death only moments before.

"Ah, the troubles of bureaucracy. I had some comments on that during my rakugo performance summer few days prior. It's a shame you weren't able to see it, Soshi-sama."

Soshi Tameaki · **Joined:** Fri Apr 17, 2020 9:36 pm **Posts:** 234

"Once we get through all this mess, perhaps there will be the opportunity for an encore performance," suggests Tameaki. "When once again the biggest challenge we will face is officious administration and procedural knots."

(D8, LA) Yogo Nogo? Oh no! (Open)

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