milliways_bar | (no subject)

(OOM:

the artists of the future
will make up new things, and different nomenclatures
and they'll stand among their pictures
and they'll sing, and laugh and quote from scriptures and
when they go home, they'll dream up brilliant paintings)

When the front door opens today, it's on... well, it's on what might happen when someone tries to build a subway station in the middle of a screaming hellscape. The walls are tinted a deep purple; the tracks seem to be made of bones, with what looks like the spine and ribs of a great beast holding up the ceiling; angry red clusters of something that might be piping or might be veins gather at either end of the columns on the platform. Compared to that, the safety glass of the waiting area is almost incongruous.

The figure that steps into Milliways stops short for a moment, before lifting his white and red mask to rest on the top of his head. This is not a diversion Yusuke was expecting in the middle of the Metaverse, and yet, here it is.

After a pause to make sure the door will still open when he's ready to return - but also that it's securely shut against anyone trying to wander into Mementos unprepared - he approaches the bar, considering a snack.

[tiny tag: Yusuke Kitagawa]

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"Interestin' outfit," Yamato, perched at the bar and picking at an ice cream, says as Yusuke approaches.

He cants his head slightly. "... Superhero? That seems to be what most masked people here are."

Yusuke considers the question for a few moments. "Not precisely, but neither would I call myself a villain."

"People generally don't," Yamato points out, just a shade wryly.

Even Vamdemon didn't call himself a villain, and the guy was literally an opera vampire trying to murder an eight year old.

He holds a hand out, almost absent-mindedly: "I'm Yamato. Nice to meet you."

"This is true." No doubt even Akechi believes himself justified, for all his motivations are difficult to glean from any one interview.

He hesitates for a moment before returning the handshake, but that's mostly due to lack of cultural familiarity (Also, for all he's lifted his mask, he hasn't bothered removing his blue gloves). "Call me Fox."

Silly, perhaps, to stick with the code name when his face is visible, but it feels appropriate.

The use of a codename -- or Yamato thinks it's a codename, at least, but it's never entirely easy to tell in Milliways -- warrants a slightly wry sidelong glance, but he doesn't comment on it.

He digs his spoon into his ice cream, instead, carving off a chunk. "So, if you wouldn't call yourself a superhero or a villain, what's the mask about?"

"An attempt to stop those who would abuse their authority over others from doing so."

"Modern day Goemon kinda thing?"

Yusuke pauses for a moment, then laughs. "Precisely."

Yamato gives him a slightly quizzical look at the laugh, but doesn't openly ask after it.

"Not a bad deal," he murmurs, instead. "Provided nobody tries to boil you to death at the end of it all."

"They have yet to do so, so far." Which hardly means the group isn't worried about the possibility.

"Is it just you on your own doing this?" Yamato asks, cocking his head a little. "Or do you have allies?"

"I have allies, yes. Had it been down to me alone to start this enterprise, I likely would have been blind to the necessity for it."

"Oh?" Yamato furrows his brow a little. "What convinced you? And what is it you actually do?"

"My friends did. It's... difficult to believe an exit from dire circumstances exists when one hasn't come through before." Sure, some of Madarame's other pupils left, but Yusuke wasn't in any position to do so, or to tell anyone what was happening and be believed.

"We bring about a change of heart, so that the culprit sees for themselves the damage they've done and is moved to repent."

Yamato's eyes narrow, nearly imperceptibly, as he turns about in his seat.

"'Bring about a change of heart?' How does that work?"

"Interaction with a cognitive world. I was very surprised, at first, that this was not a part of it."

There are apparently enough similarities for his costume to still take hold, at times, but it's not part of the Metaverse.

"That's -- sounding a little like brainwashing. Or mind control, I guess." Beat. "With costumes."

The costumes do marginally improve things.