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[open] open 24 hours

Who ⬤ Kamui and you
What ⬤ The extremely cursed 7/11 night shift
When ⬤ throughout May
Where ⬤ that one Sutoku/Shuten 7/11
Content Warnings ⬤ n/a for now, will update
Notes ⬤ please see Kamui's permissions to opt into having him sense your character's criminal power!

A. convenience store;

[It's 2 am, or thereabouts, and you are on a street where Shuten and Sutoku territory just barely overlap-- so it's a bit of a dodgier visit tonight. However you managed, you've finally bypassed the oni punks squatting outside the automatic doors and made your way into the waiting fluorescent arms of the 7/11, only to find...]

Welcome.

[this guy, dispassionately welcoming you to the store. Like, has he even blinked? It's like they've seated a cryptid behind the counter in a silly uniform. His lack of enthusiasm, his unbroken stare, and the strange presence his silver left eye seems to radiate all combined make this late night convenience store visit feel especially unnerving.

Sometimes, he pauses to stock the shelves, but it always sort of feels like he's watching you. Not that he's a rude cashier, or treating you like you're going to shoplift: he'll ring you up just fine. It's just his terrible vibes. Sorry.]

B. toilet dungeon;

[There's also a public restroom in this 7/11... if you can find it!]

Oh, welcome back. [says Kamui breezily, as his customer emerges from the 7/11 back door for the second-- or third?-- time.] Did you find the WC yet? I'm sorry for the inconvenience, it was cursed last week, so the hallway has gotten longer. You need to follow the directions exactly or you'll just be sent back here right away.

[In one long, breathless sentence, Kamui repeats the directions:]

Go through the door in the back, take a right, go through the fourth door, turn through the first hallway on the left, then keep going straight until you take a right at the intersection, go through the second door and you'll get to a staircase, so go all the way down and through the emergency exit on the right, take the stairs all the way up to the top, and you'll hit a T-shaped hallway, and you'll find the WC just past that.

[He blinks, head canting ever so slightly to the side.]

Please take your time.

C. hani-uhh???;

[There's a haniwa figure that has cropped up right next to the magazine aisle. Fortunately, this is one of Kamui's earlier shifts, so he's not the only employee around and won't be abandoning the register for this-- but they've still got to figure out what to do with this distinctly-cursed looking little guy before one of their oni regulars kicks it over, right?]

Erm...

[Except that, especially with his ability reactivated, it really, really feels like a bad idea to touch the clay figurine. And yet, he definitely can't just leave it there, can he?

Kamui's brows knit together with concern as he stands over it, armed with one of the tongs for hot food. He clicks them together, uncertain, before he crouches down to get a better look at it. He might be poking it with the tongs. Give it a few moments-- he's making up his mind.]

D. wildcard

[here for a vending machine substory task (or another substory)? just wanna generally harass your friendly neighborhood 7/11 cryptid? go wild my dude]

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[ It's probably for the best that things are quiet. Not that Andy's ever truly opposed to a good brawl, but the last time she and Kamui ended up in a fight, things had gotten messy, and Andy's running out of shirts that don't have blood stains on them. As she settles down on the curb, she pulls a little gauze from the first aid kit, unceremoniously twisting the stuff up and nudging it unceremoniously up into her one bleeding nostril. ]

Yeah? [ Wryly, as she digs out her lighter and flicks the little flame to life: ] I've been passing the time too, but I haven't been nearly as fucking industrious.

[ Her lips quirk upward ever so slightly around her cigarette. ]

Still. Wouldn't mind seeing what you can do with a nicer gun.

It's funny. Time seems to pass so slowly here... outside of clan assignments, anyway.

[He's used to it, of course. He's patient. You have to be, after timeline after timeline of dullness, death, or a death leading to oblivion-- at least until the next go-around. Kamui takes a seat beside Andy, pulling his knees in; he casts the woman a sidelong glance as a little plume of smoke from her cigarette floats away on the air.]

I'm more accustomed to that sort of work than this. [Being a normal-ass convenience store clerk, in other words. He has no passion or preference for either, and it's evident: there's no real enthusiasm for that work in his voice as he speaks, even if there's also no regret.] I like to think I'm a fairly good shot. Practice makes perfect, you know.

[ Truthfully, she couldn't say. Time always seems to pass strangely for her. The moments drag on, but the years seem gone in the blink of an eye. She can hardly keep all the centuries straight in her head anymore. But she still gets the gist. Something about idle hands — or killing time. ]

I could have guessed. [ Wryly, through a mouthful of smoke: ] Your aim's not bad. Pretty steady under pressure.

[ That's an understatement, considering he saved her ass two times with two bullets. ]

What did you do before? [ It's a casual enough question — remarkable only in that Andy isn't usually the type to ask personal shit. But maybe they're past that point now. ] Soldier? Cop?

Thanks. And, cop. [Of a sort. He shrugs a shoulder; the descriptor is close enough unless Andy pries. And if Andy pries, well. He'll cross that bridge when he comes to it.]

I was a member of the Heinous Crimes Unit, in Japan's 25th Ward... it was a department dedicated to cases more dangerous or violent than typical police work. Serial killings and such.

[That's it, right? The usual spiel? He hesitates. The question was cursory enough: Andy's just sitting beside him, making small talk with a near-stranger who just so happened to kill a fox for her. There's no need for him to provide any additional information, and she hasn't attempted to pull anything else out of him, either.

Yet, watching Andy smoke, Kamui's mind wanders to the cigarette waiting behind the register for Kim. Sometimes, he recalls, people will listen when you tell them things. When you're direct.]

...I was trained for assassinations, though. Originally.

[She certainly carries herself that way, too, so he doesn't hesitate to ask:] Yourself? Mercenary, assassin?

[ The "cop" bit doesn't really surprise her — probably would've been her first guess, out of all the obvious options. Maybe she's never heard of a Heinous Crimes Unit before, but she's definitely accepted the existence of more outlandish things since arriving in hell. All of that seems to fit. Explains his steady hand with a sidearm. The relative composure down in the tunnels. Still. It almost feels as if...

Her eyebrows arch ever so slightly when he goes on.

Ah. There it is. ]

Sure. Sometimes.

[ Andy answers his question almost dismissively, as if elaborating on that particular personal fact of hers wouldn't be entirely interesting. Instead, she presses him, just a little. ]

How does an assassin trainee end up becoming a cop?

[So, yes, then. Her reflexes say she's been a killer before, as does the power she exudes. He'd have been very surprised if the answer were different.

But how does a killer become a detective, indeed? There's so many reasons he's wound up on this path in this timeline. As much as he's trying, the Shelter-- the place that made him into Kamui, irrevocably-- is an old, smarting wound he refuses to touch. He tips his head back, forearms resting on the top of his knees, and watches a streetlight overhead flicker.]

The cop part's just an excuse. I was an insider.

[He drums his fingerstips on his knees thoughtfully.]

The HCU was full of thugs, anyway. They may as well have been mercenaries, too.

[ So, here they are. Two killers, sitting on the curb outside a shitty gas station, one with gauze crammed up her nose while the other humors her with his company. Maybe this should feel more strange than it actually does. But, if she's honest — and really, she's not honest as often as she should be — she'd have to admit that it's not entirely unpleasant, getting to know a person. Things might be different if she didn't need the excuse of him practically saving her life to ask.

Wryly, as she takes another drag off her cigarette: ]

I take it you didn't approve. [ Thugs isn't usually a compliment. ] So what were you doing then, babysitting them? Seems like a waste of your training, if that's all.

[It feels, somehow, like camaraderie. Or a step towards it, at the very least. The feeling is welcome, even if it's foreign-- though not nearly as foreign as it would've been before he arrived in this city.

"Babysitting" does get Kamui to crack a faint smile. He shrugs a shoulder, content to keep sitting here watching her smoke for now.]

Killing is one thing. Irresponsibility is another. I was assigned to deal with a threat they were getting close to, but dealing with my cover story's problems alone got so messy sometimes. [And he had to do all the paperwork everybody else was too lazy to do. Thanks for that, Kuroyanagi.]

A bunch of bloodthirsty cops who all hate each other is a terrible work environment.

[ Sounds like a lot of fucking work to her. Maintaining cover, keeping secrets, all of that — it had always been such a damn hassle, especially when she'd had to keep anyone from noticing how she never aged and never seemed to get hurt. That's why her and her boys had never worked with anyone in any one place for too long. They had rules about those things. Rules to keep them safe and hidden. To keep them together.

Andy makes a considering hum of a noise, pausing to gingerly pull the gauze from her nose — mostly dried with blood now, and not especially pleasant to look at. Thankfully the woman has enough decency left in her to throw that shit away in a nearby trash can before answering: ]

Were you alone? Undercover by yourself?

[ Her tone is a bit unreadable. She's not sure why that matters to her. Why she felt the need to ask. Maybe she just doesn't like the idea of... Well, a friend being on his own. Especially not with a bunch of bloodthirsty cops who all hate each other. Damn. ]

[Kamui's eyes fall shut gently. He doesn't think about the ramifications of that assignment often-- he nearly forgets the name of the agent who'd placed him, for how far-off and unimportant everything feels. (Sakura Natsume, connected to him by the invisible tether of their programming, their mutual upbringing in the Shelter Project.) He had been alone, hadn't he? Was there even a plan to extract him from the 25th Ward-- or was he really only ever just the 24th Ward's secret weapon?

The realization strikes him where it had never before. Probably not. Even Sakura said she'd kill him, if she needed. For the first time, it doesn't feel fair.]

Yes. Alone.

[He opens his eyes, hugs his knees.]

That applies to most of my assignments.

[ He's stronger than she is. She's certain of that now. Not that she'd never had to work alone — seven thousand years is a long time, and when she'd first left her homeland, she hadn't known there would ever be others like her. But then she'd found Lykon. And Noriko. And Nicky, Joe, even Book. The truth is, for all the suffering and sacrifice, all the loss she's lived with, there's been very little of that she was forced to endure on her own.

Dwelling on it leaves her quiet for several long moments. Then, finally, she reaches out between them, wordlessly placing a hand on top of his knee and giving it a gentle squeeze. ]

Um.

[The gesture's small. But until just before he'd arrived in Jigoku-cho, he'd never have expected it. Maybe never really thought he'd need it, either. But Andy's hand on his knee... it's bracing. A reminder that he's never deserved a life like this-- being yet another Kamui Uehara, much less the greatest one of them all-- and that somebody else can see that much for once, too.

(Travis' words ring distantly in his mind; from now on, you rest easy and live in the light. He'd made him cry then, but he won't crack today, even if there's a little waver in his voice.]

Thanks.

[He lets the silence wash over them. And then he chuckles, awkwardly, to break the tension:] Ha, s-sorry, what were we talking about?

You.

[ She answers with a quiet wryness, finally letting her hand drop so that the space opening back up between them. Maybe it's a conscious courtesy when she looks away to take another drag off her cigarette, exhaling smoke to the side as she goes on a bit unreadably: ]

But we can talk about something else, if you want.

[ It's hard to be seen sometimes. She knows. ]

[And he's grateful for her courtesy. He's making small steps forward into that light-- reaching out-- but hey: walk before you can run, right?]

Fair is fair...

[He's recovered his composure, apparently. Kamui leans forward on his knees, canting his head to the side to look at Andy:]

Tell me about yourself, then. Sometimes assassin, sometimes mercenary? Is that where the swordsmanship comes from?

Edited (I USED THEN TWICE (GENERAL) AGHH) 2022-06-12 22:49 (UTC)

[ This is, admittedly, not Andy's favorite subject by far. If she's honest, she'd have to admit that there's a lot she simply doesn't know about herself anymore — things she can't remember. Memories that might be more imagination than anything else, after all these centuries. Besides, what is there to really tell? She was born? She fought? She killed? She died, but she didn't? And then she kept doing the same shit, over and over and over again, like Sisyphus, rolling that damn rock up the same hill for all eternity.

But Kamui's sitting there, looking at her expectantly, and despite herself, she finds it hard to refuse him. Especially after... Well. ]

Some of it. [ She concedes at length. ] I was raised on bows and blades from when I was small. Probably had a weapon in my hand as soon as I was old enough to walk. That's just how it was, back then.

[He just keeps running into swordsmen and women, doesn't he? Styles and weapons aside, they all seem to handle a blade the same way: confident and smooth, like an extension of themselves with every strike. Almost makes him want to join the club too.]

"Back then"?

[Odd. Andy looks modern, though he's long discovered that appearances can always be deceiving.]

As in the year? Or do you mean wherever you were raised?

[ Had she meant to say it that way? She half doesn't even realize it until Kamui echoes her words back at her. A small slip — but maybe she'd gotten a little more comfortable than she intended.

Dryly, a deflection: ]

That's getting dangerously close to asking how old I am. [ She gives Kamui a sidelong look. ] You know you can't ask a woman that.

[ The answer is a bit unbelievable anyway. ]

Probably old enough to be your mother anyway. [ And then some. ] What are you, twenty? Twenty-one?

[ She's had a little trouble telling for a while now. That'll happen, when you're centuries old. You lose your sense of those things. But maybe that's beside the point — she knows as well as he does, appearances can always be deceiving. ]

Haha, sorry.

[He smiles back, wry. The rule doesn't apply in reverse-- and he knows well by now how young he looks to most people. Maybe it's the eye taking its effect, maybe it's just his features? Who knows.]

You would have had to be a very young mother. I'm twenty-five, I think.

[A beat. That's a slip of his own, he realizes. How old he really is, he probably won't ever know for sure: even if he could count the many years he'd spent looping over and over, his early childhood's a blur of memories pushed to the back of his head, documents falsified to cover up where and when he'd been spirited away by the Shelter Project.

Quickly, Kamui corrects himself.] Actually, twenty-seven. [sigh...] Can't believe I'm already forgetting my age.

[ It's funny, the odd little thought she has just then. Not that it's strange for a person to forget their own age — more that she's often felt the same way. That her own age is a hazy thing. Uncertain. She's sure she's forgotten a few years here or there. It got hard to keep track, after the first few centuries. Time started to blur. And it wasn't as if she kept celebrating birthdays.

She thinks it's around 6,732 years or so now. But who can be sure? She can't even remember if the woman who raised her was her was the same one that gave birth to her. ]

...Still a baby. [ Her answer comes after a tangible delay — a pause where she consciously chooses not to interrogate that unexpected train of thought. ] Young for an killer. [ Though maybe not that young. Not for them. Not in the lives they've led. A faint wryness then: ] You'll probably be terrifying in a few decades.

I'd hardly call myself a "baby", Andy. I've got more experience than you think.

[No matter how much the eye's smoothing down the edges, he's still twenty-something going on... certainly over a hundred, by now? Two, maybe? God knows.]

We'll see when I get there. I hope to surprise you sooner than that.

[But this topic's edging dangerously close to himself as a topic, so he's bringing it right back to talking about Andy. She intrigues him-- as easily as they seem to be meshing right now, he still doesn't know much.]

As long as you aren't coming after me, officer.

[ There's a tangible little pause. She can't exactly put her finger on it — what it is that caught her just a tiny bit off guard just now. Something about his tone, or his phrasing? How easily he countered her teasing? Was she not expecting him to do anything except endure her?

Yeah, okay. He might surprise her. Maybe she's been going too easy on him.

The corner of her lips quirks up ever so slightly. She takes another drag off her cigarette, exhaling one last mouthful of wispy smoke before grinding the remaining stub out onto the sidewalk beside her. Finally, she leans in, answering mildly: ]

You wouldn't know what to do if I was.

[If she's phased him, he doesn't show it. He doesn't flinch or back away this time-- not like he had in the sewers with death around them on all sides. There's just that same serene face, and the same gentle smile tugging at his lips.]

Maybe not.

[Kamui breaks eye contact to brush his hair out of his eyes and cast a look over his shoulder at the 7/11 behind them: thankfully, still empty. For now.]

I do know I prefer being on your side, though.

[ It's hard to say what reaction she had expected exactly — but whatever it was, he hardly bats an eyelash, offering only that familiar smile and an answer that feels entirely too earnest for the likes of her. Makes her wonder if that says something. Has he always been so cool and calm? Or maybe it's just that she's unconsciously let this conversation become a little too comfortable.

And maybe she doesn't mind that as much as she probably should. ]

Guess there's no accounting for taste. [ She quips back after a moment. Her attention follows his as he glances over his shoulder, back at that fluorescent glow waiting inside. Wryly then: ] Anyway, don't you have a convenience store to be running? Pretty sure they don't pay you to sit out here with strange women from the sewers.

You're only a strange sewer woman if you're down there twice, I think.

[But she's right. Busy or not, he's still on company time.]

Thank you. It was-- [A bit too easy to speak to her, perhaps? Kamui had been almost certainly too forthcoming this time, and yet with Andy it hadn't felt incorrect. It's an odd feeling. But not bad. Maybe he's making more progress here than he thought.] --nice to pass the time.

[Kamui gets to his feet, waiting for his new friend to stand too before he returns to his post.]

Feel free to stop by whenever. I'll be around.

[Hopefully he'll learn a little more next time. He's pretty sure there'll be a next time, anyway.]

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