>>@ENTERTHEDRAGON | @ALL

[ryuji]

Anyone else getting a massive wave of culture shock? It's totally kicking my ass right now. I got a nice little gig set up here above a bar, but the catch is I gotta work. But yeah, people are coming and going like crazy around here. Weird outfits, weird hairstyles. Seeing everyone go crazy about freedom is pretty freakin' cool. Nobody needs some stuffy old dude sittin' in a golden high chair sucking his royal thumb and giving out orders all the time.

Not gonna lie, I've seen some pretty big palaces before, but I totally wanna raid the hell out of Versailles.

So anyway, is it like this all the time when you guys get a new mission? I've never been to Paris before, but I kinda know what it looks like from pictures back in my own time? Universe? Good luck getting your head around that shit, it's way too deep for me. I was all excited to see the Eiffel Tower, but apparently it's not gonna exist for like... a hundred years.

Comments

[hakanai]

@ENTERTHEDRAGON Oh? You think so? In that case I'll arrange a gift, just for you.

If you return to your time anytime soon, head straight for Sekigahara. You'll find me there waiting as a spirit to say hi. I cannot promise I will have my head with me, but that is not a problem for a ghost.

[ryuji]

@MINIMALCAT Sekigahara? Hell yeah. I'll come back and look you up. You'll come see me, right? You'll remember me?

[hakanai]

@ENTERTHEDRAGON Why not? Maybe I'll even bring along some friends.

[ryuji]

@MINIMALCAT They're uh.... friendly, right?

[hakanai]

@ENTERTHEDRAGON Friendlier than I am.

[ryuji]

@MINIMALCAT I mean, if I get to chill with Casper the friendly ghost, I guess it can't be all that bad.

Also, you don't seem unfriendly to me.

Like, at all.

[hakanai]

@ENTERTHEDRAGON It's okay. Sakon might choose to creep up on you and yell in your ear to get a reaction out of you, but that's as bad as they might get.

Ha. Interesting. I am generally considered to be very suspicious in my time by most who encounter me. Isn't it unfair that guards sometimes lock me away for that reason alone when they encounter me at night?

[ryuji]

@MINIMALCAT No clue who Sakon is, but I think I'll manage. Can you uh... hug spirits or whatever?

Wait, you've been locked up here in Paris?

[hakanai]

@ENTERTHEDRAGON Maybe. Let's find out in the future.

Not here, no. But I've been playing a role in order to gather information, so I can't be myself so easily. In the desert lands before this I came close.

[ryuji]

@MINIMALCAT It's a date, then!

Uh. Hey, you gotta be careful too. Don't make me have to bust you out of jail if you ever get caught. I mean, I totally would. We're allies, we gotta watch each other's backs.

Not that I should be giving anyone advice on bein' careful or nothing.

But yeah, you get what I mean, right?

Anyway, whatcha mean that you can't "be yourself"?

[hakanai]

@ENTERTHEDRAGON You sound like Takatora. The flow will deliver me from jail if it so desires, but regardless, thank you.

To be an effective spy requires acting in a way that enables me to fit in a crowd. Here I am playing the part of a 'Chinese' wanderer who came to France and was inspired by the passion and fervour of the French people, to the degree I dedicated myself to their cause. That I took part in the Battle of Valmy before this helps to convince them of my honest and true love of the country.

If I were to act like Yoshitsugu, I would get caught out very quickly and perhaps, as we have discussed, get locked up.

[ryuji]

[See, here's the thing. Avoiding jailtime has been a good deal of what Ryuji had been working towards over the last year. His best friend was about to be dragged into some scary situations, so when Yoshitsugu mentions that he would take imprisonment passively, he feels somewhat aghast.

Prison is for bad people. It's simple; Yoshitsugu doesn't seem like bad people.

Wrongful incarceration is just about the worst fucking thing in the world.]

@MINIMALCAT People out there wait for "fate" all the time when they're in jail. Then they get treated like garbage and lose their rights, waiting for something to happen. If the flow's gonna deliver you from it, you gotta act on it. C'mon, dude, this is like... the time of human rights and shit. And if you ain't gonna do something, maybe defying fate is exactly what you need.

[Mic drop.

Wait, what the hell?








IS THIS DUDE POSSESSED?]

Aren't you Yoshitsugu? Am I talking to the right guy or are one of those spirits talkin' for you.

Because I didn't know I was talkin' to a human Ouija board

[hakanai]

[Ah, now this is just the kind of speech that Yoshitsugu's loved ones have made to him in the past (sometimes right after he stood in the path of danger and had to be pulled out of it). Unseen, Yoshitsugu smiles to himself. No time he has ever been moved to go against the flow has worked out well and he knows he is destined to die in defiance of fate, but somehow, people like Lord Nagamasa, like Mitsunari, like Ryuji himself, always manage to drive him to do so anyway.]

@ENTERTHEDRAGON You want me to reject my way of life and move against the flow, do you? An open defiance of fate if I am dragged to a cell and locked away? Interesting.

Of course you're talking to a spirit. I am merely a youkai possessing a man for my own ends, ready to strike out and claim the energy of my victims the moment they let their guard down.

A joke, by the way.

[ryuji]

[Ryuji's really not into making people do things that they don't want to do, so when Yoshitsugu protests against he, he drops it. Leaving him alone to choose to be a slave to fate is still the act of showing a choice.

Having free will and having freedom is the most goddamned cherished thing in the entire world. He would know- he almost saw humanity collectively lose theirs completely. But he's not articulate enough to join in the debate of fate vs someone changing the flow of it.]

@MINIMALCAT Well, maybe I'd just wanna bust you out to keep you company. I hear it gets lonely in the slammer.

[Right back into spooky territory, huh?]

You think I could invent some sort of vessel that could house youkai spirits?

Like a Youkai Watch?

[R y u j i....]

[hakanai]

@ENTERTHEDRAGON Aside from any guards coming to taunt away their boredom? Yes, it does

[Always spooky. Some of those guards probably stopped taunting him because of some of the curses he threatened to dish out, though it never helped with the suspicious thing one bit...]

[The next response takes a while.]

Was that a joke? Interesting.

[ryuji]

@MINIMALCAT Somehow I don't feel like you're bein' completely honest here

[Are you facepalming yet Yoshitsugu?]

[hakanai]

@ENTERTHEDRAGON Really? What gave you that impression?

[Thinking 'how cute' maybe.]

[ryuji]

@MINIMALCAT Because I gotta friend back home that says that sorta stuff when he's plagiarizing me

[He meant patronizing. Oh well.]

[hakanai]

@ENTERTHEDRAGON You're very interesting, aren't you.

[:)]

[ryuji]

@MINIMALCAT Hell yeah. What's the point in being normal and boring anyway?

[Don't play with him, he's so easy to mess with!]

[hakanai]

@ENTERTHEDRAGON Maybe you'll even be interesting enough to surprise me. That doesn't happen very often.

[That's what makes it so fun.]

[ryuji]

@MINIMALCAT Like... me bein' interesting or you bein' surprised, because really, it could go either way at this point.

[hakanai]

@ENTERTHEDRAGON Why don't you guess?

[ryuji]

@MINIMALCAT I dunno... it's kinda sad imagining a life where you can't be surprised by anything.

[hakanai]

@ENTERTHEDRAGON You make your own fun instead.