[ open ] all hands on deck

[kaientai]

Who ⬤ sakamoto ryouma (rider) + other sutoku alliance lost souls
What ⬤ post-event emergency meeting
When ⬤ several hours after the assassination
Where ⬤ konoha — vip area
Content Warnings ⬤ none right now but will update as needed!

[ once the dust (steam?) has settled, an sms goes out to fellow sutoku alliance contacts. some might recognise the username rider more than others and know the man it's attached to but in any case, everyone who shows up will know him soon enough anyway. ]

Hello!

There's a lot of confusion right now, but what's important is to stay calm and not do anything hasty. I'll be organising a meeting tonight at Konoha. Let's exchange what we know and discuss next steps. You're going to have to pay for your own refreshments though, sorry! Space is on me though! (*_ _)人

Don't be discouraged! We're only getting started. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

If you think there are any other Sutoku who haven't gotten this, pass the message along, ok?

— Rider

[ someone has to keep the spirit of the daitengu alive, okay?? the message also comes attached with a calendar invite. ]

---

[ later, anyone arriving for the meeting will be directed to the club's VIP area and encouraged to place food and drink orders as desired. this has definitely set ryouma back, but under the present circumstances, there's no better time than this to spare no expense, right? ]



☆ ooc; this is a mingle in addition to a general sort of information sharing prompt so feel free to throw your own top levels up and thread amongst yourselves! i give everyone free rein to threadjack as you see fit — just check with other individual players if you have any questions!
☆ i left the exact time of the meeting sort of open, but assume it's sometime within the next half-day or so after the assassination to account for people needing to finish up investigations, potentially heal up a little after fighting, time for him to book the club, etc. feel free to have characters wander in late too!
☆ i also provided the option for characters to phone in (since it was mentioned to me on the ooc post), so if they can't make it in person they can still be in the loop!
☆ any non-Sutoku tag-a-longs are assumed to be showing up late so as not to be sitting in on private discussions earlier in the night.

Comments

[kaientai]

[ ryouma is sitting right in the middle of the horseshoe-shaped booth, feet planted unapologetically on the seat cushion while he's seated on the top edge. it gives him a better vantage point to see and also be seen since he's not exactly hiding as the organiser of this get-together.

he's still wearing what he'd worn to the parade earlier, although his clothes are a lot less clean and neat than they'd been when the whole thing got started. is it mud? blood? it's hard to tell sometimes. other than that he has a calm expression and takes slow sips of the sake he'd ordered for himself every now and again. his left sleeve hangs loose, his arm tucked into the front of his kimono; it's possibly a very relaxed picture all-around considering what's going on in hell at the moment. ]

① A PROPER FORUM

[ ryouma gives everyone a generous thirty minutes or so to show up and get comfortable before he gets started. now he's standing on the top edge of the couch. with as much as he's spent tonight, he feels entitled. apparently, a few people who couldn't make it have phoned in as well, so he has his phone laying in the palm of one hand. ]

Hello, everyone! Ah… thanks for coming. I wish we were getting together under better circumstances…

[ he offers an apologetic smile. ]

Anyway, I'm Rider. [ his name might be out there now, but it's a force of habit. ] This isn't me being in charge or anything, I'm just not good at sitting on my hands and waiting around. It's important that we pool our efforts and share information sooner rather than later; it's a big city and no one can cover all of it on their own.

I'm mostly worried about what might spin out of this. This is probably going to get blamed on someone and since we don't exactly call the shots, we can't stop that from happening. Word is that there are a lot of kappa officials that can't be accounted for right now and no one is entirely sure what that means. By the look of things, the workers had no idea any of this was going to happen either and they're worried that the Enma is going to come down hard on them. All we can do is try and get to the bottom of this before that happens because we might be the only ones who can protect the kappa right now. We can't let this place break out into chaos because I have a feeling we're going to have worse problems down the line if we don't find a way to keep the peace.

[ what exactly does that mean? he's not elaborating at the moment. trading information is probably the obvious thing, so it should come as no surprise, but the rest is left as cryptic as it sounds for now. ryouma paces a little, walking heel to toe along the top of the booth like he's on a balance beam. ryouma looks thoughtful and almost like he's forgotten he has an audience for a few moments. ]

The hard part is what else we really don't know. We have to mind the other factions but we obviously don't know the whole story right here at home, so we're all going to have to work on that. Me? I don't think everything is at all what it seems. We don't actually know if anything happened to the Daitengu at all, do we? Remember what they said about "tasty gossip"?

[ this sure is one way to get the rumour mill going, after all. ]

The only thing I know for sure is that I don't know anything at all, so that's why we're here. If anyone has any questions, I'll do my best. Otherwise, let's talk!

[ ryouma sits back down and yields the floor to whoever else wants to speak up first, whether with a question or something to offer of their own. his "organisation" here begins and ends at getting a room and making a little introduction — he's not going to do much to keep things on track otherwise — but ideally, the most valuable information will get around anyway? ]

② AND A SIDEBAR

[ ryouma also makes himself accessible both in the half-hour before and at any time after the main discussion, just in case anyone wants to speak about anything in private — whether in person or remotely. the info sharing is the important part, so he's here to offer himself up as a vehicle to make that happen. ]

[ ooc; questions? wanna plot anything else out? hit up my plotting comment here! ]

(Open to threadjacking!)

[enterthe]

[Ydris is quick to assert themselves in this conversation. Having sat as patiently as they could manage until the meeting was called to order, they're ready to get into it. There are so many questions they cannot come up with answers to. The mystery of this is as infuriating as it is enticing.

Rider gets addressed first, since he did well to brief the situation,]

What I find most odd is the coordinated effort to protect the Kappa's plans. Why did they have full clearance to do as they pleased in complete secret?

My immediate suspicion was a coup in the works, but the Alliance was united in keeping the project under wraps. How could this catch our so called leader off guard? It was obviously suspect even to us new recruits.

[kaientai]

That's a good question, naturally, but it's also part of why I'm not sure it's even real.

[ so there, he said it outright. maybe when this is all over and the truth comes out that'll seem ridiculous if he's wrong, but with so many questions in the air, it's a possibility that's still on the table. ]

The entire point of the Daitengu is that the Daitengu is more of an idea, right? You can't exactly kill an idea, you can only kill the body wearing the costume at the time. We didn't see or hear the Daitengu like the others, so there's no guarantee the person who spoke was the same person who typed out the post on the network.

[ but that's all he's got, so he sighs and trails off. ]

It's just hard to see the point, you know? Maybe I'm overthinking it. It's hard to guess anyone's motives when we don't know what they want. The kappa weren't exactly talking...

[ because he sure did try. ]

[enterthe]

[It's good to have it said! Ydris was thinking it, but blurting such a thing out felt out of place. Their expression burns in a way that probably reads like anger, though their words do nothing but agree. They don't always have the best grasp on making the correct face to match what they're feeling]

Yes! Exactly! This must be some manner of game being played, we're just not being let in on the rules. Or perhaps that is the game. This has felt like some twisted test to me from the start, like we're supposed to riddle out our own faction's intentions. [they try to level out their look a bit... it only helps so much]

If we are the ones overthinking this, then nobody else is thinking enough.

[playfoul]

I can't see what the Daitengu would gain from orchestrating this, but I agree it's suspicious that much of the planning came from within the Alliance.

[ Yuri had slinked in looking a little scuffed up but eyes alert. Having listened to Ydris and Ryouma up to this point, he's going to put out an idea for them to chew on. ]

What if the Alliance isn't as unified as we believe? If the Daitengu is an idea and anyone can assume the identity, maybe a tribe within the Alliance is scheming to instill a member of their own in the position, and used the Kappa as scapegoats to deflect blame.

[aceslow]

That was my immediate suspicion too. But I would think that anyone attempting to stage a coup from within would have taken advantage of this far sooner, [ Kim chimes in, tapping his pen thoughtfully against his notebook. ] The Kappa seem to be valuable allies in orchestrating this, even if it was done without their knowledge. I don't think it's to any new leader's benefit to allow them to be rounded up. Or to their advantage not to take advantage of the chaos and step up immediately, depending on how leaders get chosen.

[ He grimaces at that. He doesn't know how the politics of this place work, and his ignorance grates on him. ]

[enterthe]

[Having been shut down on the idea the Kappa are merely dead weight, Ydris has also taken to having their extra hands scribbling some notes out. No notebook for them, just bar napkins shifted about the table for the party to collectively gawk at-

They tap a foot impatiently as they multi-task this, considering Kim's input]

The Daitengu's death is suspicious itself, but if we presume it is genuine... then the other faction leaders stand the most to gain? Weakening the Alliance and narrowing competition...

[laughitoff]

[Wei Wuxian has bought a few bottles of alcohol and bowls of snacks for the in-person Sutoku attendees to share around as desired, while they wait for more personalized orders. it's sort of middling stuff, but decent, and he keeps refilling and nursing his own glass tiredly. that would probably outrage whoever got his injuries from the assassination scuffle treated and bandaged, but hey, it helps numb things, and he is notably not showing any signs of tipsiness, let alone drunkenness, no matter how much of it he consumes through the meeting.]

Hm! Point one, I don't think the Kappa are going to be able to avoid being blamed for that explosion, and all that steam that made things such a mess. Even if they've destroyed everything that was down in the sewers, I've got some proof of what they were building down there, and how much water they were pumping into it before the Parade, though I didn't get an extensive look. If it isn't related, then--that's maybe too big and expensive for a simple diversion, don't you think?

Point two, those attackers didn't seem to be Kappa, either, from what I can tell, but I don't like that they were able to hide themselves so similarly. If that's a clan ability--well, it looks like someone's aiming to throw them even more thoroughly under the bus.

Point three, who of us actually got near the Daitengu? Could we tell if there was anything off there? I find it strange that they weren't prepared for something from the water -- the Kappa weren't subtle! Maybe this is part of something bigger? Some kind of double-blind? No one heard rumors of the clans being actually unhappy with the Daitengu's rule beforehand...did they?

Point four, yes, if anyone knows people in the other factions well, I'd love to know if we can get any insider information on what moves they're making on their ends. I have some people I can talk to in Tamamo, but not the others right now, I'm afraid.

((this is also open to threadjacking o7))

[worldbent]

By the time I reached the stage, they had already perished, [Matoba replies to point three,] However I have some of the same doubts. It was too difficult to discern their aura with the interference from the river water [And his lack of power, he doesn't add], but an ayakashi with enough power to be this clan's leader should easily be perceived through anything around it. ...There were also no visible wings to the body, although it isn't as if tengu are incapable of hiding their wings at will.

[Still- in all that commotion, wouldn't it be a natural instinct? Matoba agrees there is something fishy about it, about the leader of a clan that prides itself on being in-the-know being taken by surprise within its own ranks. Perhaps the irony was just too convenient.]

...We were given the orders not to interfere with the kappa's progress, so there is obviously no way the Daitengu was entirely unaware of what they were doing. That said, if they were truly betrayed, it would have to have been quite high up on the chain. Much higher than any of us here are privy to. It is a waste of time to speculate for newcomers such as us, until we have further perspective as to how the leaders of each family operates.

[laughitoff]

Ah, are you an expert on the creatures here? I'll take your word for it; I've no way to sense anything spiritual at the moment, and while some of the yao types here seem familiar to me, I'm afraid the tengu aren't one of them.

[he's perked up a little out of his couch slump, interested]

All good points. I think...we could still do well to figure out more of the intricacies of our own host Alliance as well, no? We are, unfortunately, the faction where it's most likely for the problems to come from within the house, so to speak. For all we know this is a bid from other clans to lessen the Kappa's influence, instead of the point being to depose the Daitengu.

[kaientai]

[ whoever had to attend to ryouma would be similarly displeased that he's even doing all of this, but it's an easy thing for him to brush off no matter how uncomfortable something is. this is way bigger than him! so he can sympathise — and also assumes everyone knows their own limits about these things.

he pushes his arm back into its empty sleeve, feeling around inside it for a moment with the other hand before he pulls out a little notebook he'd apparently had tucked away in there. it's quickly become clear that if he doesn't start jotting things down he's never going to be able to keep things straight. ]

I doubt the Kappa can avoid blame entirely, sure, but this might just be the excuse they need to come down on them hard...

[ he doodles something in the margins of his notebook while he thinks about it a little more. it's easy to want to follow things in one direction but he's trying to keep the whole picture in mind. ]

I tried to see if the Kappa would talk at all, but they weren't budging. If there was any unrest beforehand they were being very tight-lipped about it. Besides, it was the Daitengu who told everyone to keep the other factions from disturbing them, so why protect them if there was a possibility they were hatching some kind of plot right under everyone's nose? Either this is some kind of game or someone's trying to frame the Kappa. We don't actually know what that thing they were building was actually for, after all. It could've easily been some kind of engine or a generator and then someone sabotaged it.

But... I guess if we go about it assuming the worst case scenario and it turns out to be the other way, no harm done, huh?

[ he laughs, which maybe shouldn't be such a light and easy sound what with the seriousness of what he's considering, but there it is. ]

I'm with you in seeing what we can see with the other factions too. I know a few in Shuten, at least.

[laughitoff]

[he takes a long draught of his drink while he thinks that over, and clinks his glass down again with a decided sigh.]

I don't think I like these sorts of games, but it would certainly be better than the alternative, you're right. Well, let's see how things go down...you can talk to who you know in Shuten, I can talk to who I know in Tamamo. I hope you're close?

[not that most of the people he knows in Tamamo aren't relative acquaintances at this point still, but hey. he has someone from home there. maybe Ryouma does too.]

And--actually, has anyone tried talking to any of the Kappa since this all went down? It sort of slipped my mind until now, everything's been such a scramble. But maybe they're scared enough right now to open up, if they know we're asking for their potential benefit.

[enterthe]

The Kappa were certainly not subtle, most seemed to believe the work was for a generator of some kind. If they're to be believed, [a big "if" to Ydris, because lying to save ones' skin is certainly a common thing in their own culture. Still. Trying to look more objectively, not immediately presume incompetence or malice... such motivations often allude them, anyways, especially of non-human entities] what they were building was not intended to be used the way it was.

The only discontent within the clan I heard was between two Kappa tribes; River and Mountain. It seems the former are in charge of the sewers and the latter resent them for... reasons unknown to me.

[laughitoff]

It would be handy if we had some way to verify truth with the right spells and techniques or somesuch, but I'm guessing no one's been conveniently awarded that back before all this went down.

[sighs! he doesn't always feel the loss of his powers in the day-to-day bustle of Jigokucho, but certain ones would have been immensely useful in this mess.]

That said, I'll go around and see who I can speak to after this meeting among the Kappa, and we can at least verify if the story changes or stays consistent.

How strong did this discontent seem, by the way? Did it seem like a mild grudge? Or is it the sort where they seem hostile enough to each other, that the Mountain tribe might find messing up the whole faction worth it in order to put the River tribe in a precarious position?

threadjack away!

[worldbent]

[Matoba entered in a timely fashion, changed from the festival wear and into his normal dark kimono by the time the meeting takes place. His mood is a bit more sour than any who had previously encountered him might be used to- and he seats himself quietly on the edges of the meeting, without a drink.]

[After Rider's introduction has passed, he takes some time to listen to the points of others before making any commentary of his own, but it was Rider and Ydris's suspicions that cause him to speak up.]

The weapons used seem quite human, no? [He's not addressing anyone in particular, eye pointed at some spot on the opposite wall as he continues,] The network post that had been made in accusation earlier in the month. There had been some discussion from other clans regarding seals and wards in place in the sewers. That is something of a specialty of mine, so I went to have a look.

If there were any such seals in place, I could neither see nor sense them. I don't suspect magic was at play there, and this furthers my suspicion.

[It wasn't that he necessarily thought the assailants themselves were human. But production... Rather, Matoba did not associate the use of non-magic items with youkai.]

[kaientai]

[ sour moods are to be expected and ryouma personally takes no offence; he's used to being the odd one out when it comes to things like that and just appreciates that people showed up. more important than any of that is what matoba has to say, which he makes note of here and there because it's the only way he's going to keep up with things once it's all over. ]

Human? You mean because they're non-magical?

[ he smiles a little because he has to bite back the urge to ask what matoba is if he's not human but maybe that'll reveal itself in a less awkward fashion. ]

You're not wrong. The guns behave similar to a human variety I'm familiar with, but only in that when they're fired they don't leave spent casings behind. Smart, when you don't want to leave evidence. Whether those are human weapons or something else is something I'm not sure of; we would have to get our hands on one. Maybe the bullets will tell us something.

[ seeing as how there should be a few on hand for someone to take a look at eventually. ]

I can sense magic myself but can't make heads or tails of how exactly it works otherwise, so good to know that's an area of expertise.

[worldbent]

Yes, [Matoba answers, apparently not picking up whatever amusement Ryouma was getting out of that assumption. He was certainly human himself, despite the pretty awful aura exuded from his covered eye. But none of this tracked with his (granted, extensive) knowledge of youkai, and he wasn't exactly the type of person who easily amended himself to changes in world-view.] This society of theirs is already quite a bit more modern than I have never known ayakashi to be capable of. However, for that to extend to using such human tools as firearms when they are ...more capable in other ways of going about killing- that seems suspect to me.

[The idea that a youkai as powerful as the Daitengu had to have been in order to be in their position at all being gunned down by a mere human tool was laughable.]

[But while he was also somewhat familiar with aspects of the criminal underworld, firearms and technology in general were definitely not among Matoba's areas of expertise. He draws a sleeved arm up to his chin in consideration as Ryouma goes on.] Yes... I initially presumed that the lack of evidence might have been due to magic, but I sensed none at play when facing the assassins. [Or getting shot by said bullets. He's trying to keep the injury on the down-low.] If there was a way to obtain one...

May I ask the provenance of your magic? [His eye drifts down to Ryouma's kimono; it catches on the crest. There's not a child in Japan who didn't sit through boring history classes about that crest....] I have come across a number of different traditions in this place; certainly, put all together, someone should have a solution if magic was a factor. I am a practitioner of Shinto exorcism arts.

[moondregs]

[ Setting foot in the nightclub again was not exactly something Junpei had wanted to do. It wasn’t his scene in any sense of the word, and unless he was ordered to go there by his superiors it’d been his plan to avoid it.

Ydris, however, had insisted it was incredibly important for him to attend this meeting and dragged him along. Considering he owed the dragon big time for shielding him from bullets and other perils during the chaos of the surprise attack, he didn’t put up as much of a fuss as he normally would.

So he’s sitting there, feeling incredibly awkward as he nurses a soda, mostly just listening as the others float their various theories and observations. The truth was he’d been so wrapped up in his own internal mess that he hadn’t given much thought to the goings on of any of the factions let alone his own. Hopefully everyone else would be so busy with their discussion they wouldn’t notice he wasn’t actually contributing anything.

At least he wasn’t just eating conbini snacks again for dinner. ]

[camyoflage]

[yo what's up team young adults who don't really know what they're here to contribute but it felt wrong not to come]

[ethan's swiping fries from junpei's plate though]

[nom nom nom]

[moondregs]

— hey! I ...

[ ‘Paid for those’ is something he can’t really say since Ydris bought the fries for him. So instead: ]

... don’t even know you. It’s not safe to just eat some random stranger’s food here.

[strikingchords]

[in his ice-white clothes and with his severe face, Lan Wangji is an odd addition to luxurious atmosphere of the nice VIP room. he doesn't sit, or make himself comfortable. he keeps to the edges of the gathering. he refuses to mingle. he doesn't reach for any refreshments. he makes no particular effort to catch the eye of people he already knows at the gathering, or draw them closer to him.

later, Ryouma will discover that he's spoken to the club owner and paid off part of the tab for the room, so the hit to Ryouma's own pocketbook isn't quite so heavy.

in the meantime, he listens for a long time to everything being said without speaking himself. for all of his reticence, he's very politely attentive. there's no doubt he's here to understand the situation as much of any of them.

his only contribution without further prompting is a single cool, deep-voiced sentence:]

The Alliance's higher officials fear overthrow.

[pathofsacrifice]

Fear overthrow?

[ He feels his mouth go dry just hearing those words himself. Furthermore, what does that even mean? ]

There's been that much discontent? [ Artemy prompts the man to talk a little more about what he has found out. He has been under the belief that all the youkai were as kin together. Family may squabble, but the "parent" would never be truly threatened.

And yet... they were. Their leader was killed. ]

[strikingchords]

The factions would destroy each other.

[the other man lays it out with the same blunt simplicity, his slightly archaic-sounding mode of speech (maybe he's just very formal?) working to highlight rather than obscure the point this time. he doesn't sound uncertain.]

This is the belief others in the Alliance carry. The Kappa's imprisonment, only the beginning.

[Lan Wangji can only say what he's been told, but what he's heard... hasn't sounded great.]

I'm mad that I had this written before the Enma post went up, why does he keep being terribly right

[worldbent]

As they should. There is no protection for those at the bottom when the ones at the top are declawed.

[That's giving a lot of benefit of the doubt that Alliance leaders care about that; but at the end of the day, when you are part of a clan, you are putting that trust into your leadership.]

[You work for them, they take care of you. And that is an aspect of the relationship that Matoba takes entirely seriously.]

[There's none of the humor that has been in Matoba's countenance on previous encounters. His eye slides to meet Lan Wangji's.] That is what will happen, if there is no action taken.

[kaientai]

[ the getup definitely catches ryouma's attention, but partly because he's usually the guy hanging around in all white. definitely different energy though, that much is obvious.

ryouma is bad at pretending like something isn't interesting, so catch him shooting looks across every so often to see if lan wangji will ever decide to speak up. or change expressions. honestly, it's impressive how long he just stands there. ryouma, meanwhile, has found it difficult to sit still for more than a few seconds since he got here.

later, lan wangji will have all of ryouma's gratitude because as of right now he's dreading having to sort out his financial situation for the foreseeable future and it gets expensive when you occasionally have to ply your contacts in other factions with food and liquor.

but back to the present. the moment lan wangji finally does speak up, ryouma expects... more than one line. it's not to say he's disappointed as much as he's confused. ]

Eh? [ hold on, it takes him a second or two to refocus on the point here. ] From who? You don't mean the Kappa...?

[ he obviously has his own theories — especially after hearing from others — but as with anyone he's addressed directly he likes to try and draw out the angle a little more before he starts filling in with his ideas. that helps him know if he's thinking clearly or just hovering around the easiest thing to blame. ]