JAWS • DECEMBER 2025 EVENT/TDM

[uruz]

TDM & EVENT: JAWS

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Show Me Those Pretty White Jaws

The dream has been coming in waves for those new to Sleep's touch, as a shoreline that never stays still. As a sky that never remembers to include its stars. Beneath it all, there is a voice. Her voice: silk-sweet, coaxing from just beyond the approaching wave that towers like a moving mountain. She tells you to come home. She promises it won't hurt, even if she never tells you what waits beneath. You see the shape just before the dream ends: a massive black tidal wave, yawning wide and black until it looks like a pair of jaws breaking upon you. You don't have time to resist.

You and your veteran Vessels will awaken in water.

There is no surface. No bottom. No sky. No sound but your own heartbeat and the echoes of water being slashed though, dull and endless in the still, frigid dark. You are suspended, weightless— Some may have difficulty to breathe without inhaling water the first few times, while those aligned with the waves will feel it come like second nature. Once you acclimate yourself, you'll notice that around you drift glowing filaments; thin, pulsing threads that coil like jellyfish tendrils, softly luminescent. They curl and twist through the water, and when you look closer, you realize: they show you things. Memories, maybe. Dreams, maybe. Each one unique to your gaze: a hand reaching for yours in the dark, a goodbye that never finished, a face you haven't seen in years. They are what you think love looks like. What you once needed it to be. And when you touch them, they wrap around you, gently, warmly . . . Hungrily— and begin to pull you down.

To ascend into the next level, you must let go. But not everything that binds you wants to be released. The filaments drifting through the water show you what you think love looks like— what you've built it into. They are gentle at first, beautiful even, but the longer you cling, the more they pull.

There are ways to escape them: You may bind your filament with another's and together speak aloud a shared truth: what you believe love really is. If your hearts align or at the very least come to an agreement, the threads dissolve into light and lift you upward. If your beliefs clash or contradict, the threads knot tighter, and something . . . May take interest in you.

Beneath you, something moves. Huge, silent and almost regal. It glides through the deep like a phantom, almost too large to be real. You feel its presence before you see its flash of pearl white and glowing red eyes, three on each side of its face: a shark.

The shark is here to choose its next meal. It smells grief, fear and seeks out trauma most of all. It is drawn to the most unspoken parts of you, the very parts you thought were buried, roused from the tightened ropes of what you crave in your heart. And when it chooses you, it does not bite immediately. It invites, with its jaws opening like a sanctuary and slow towards you.

Inside is I, whispers Sleep. Allow Me to have you whole, and you will be at peace. Show Me love.

Fight against her, or even with your current partner about what love is, and Sleep will open her maw, spilling tendrils from her throat and begin to stalk you. Best be prepared to fight the possessed Megalodon— She will laugh, amused as you do, like a great cat playing with its food. And if you were to be caught, well. You'll wake in the dream's next level with an undeniable prey drive, whether Token or Offering.

She will do anything to keep you here.

NOTES:

• There is no surface visible at first. Light only comes from the filaments. As characters resist, act, or ascend, a faint stained-glass shimmer begins to pulse upward, hinting at the dream's next layer.
• Sound is muffled— speech emerges as bubbles, but meaning travels regardless. Words feel heavy here. Some phrases may literally change the water (turn to light, birth dream-objects, or ripple with tension). You will do better using The Murmur as a means of communication. Luckily you have your mask on!
• The Shark always circles once it senses trouble within you. Sometimes close, sometimes far, but always felt. If characters listen closely, they can hear the echo of One's voice coming from inside it: pleading with a haunted, at times screaming melody.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• The dream bends subtly around Tokens, especially at the whims of an Aquamancer. Walls of pressure open before them, and filaments shift course as if expecting them. This can make their path easier, unless they start to doubt their purpose.
• Tokens perceive emotional resonance as currents in the water such as subtle flows of energy. These can guide them (or others) toward escape paths, or signal when the shark is near.
• When a Token speaks or acts with strong intent, the dream sometimes translates it into a symbolic structure: A word might become a floating glyph. A gesture might alter the filament's shape. A moment of clarity might reveal a hidden path. Other characters can interact with these dream-objects, but they're fragile, unstable, and prone to distortion by doubt.
• The deeper Tokens go, the more they feel themselves pulling apart and begin to experience dual awareness: one part dreaming, one part watching— some may even see flashes of within the shark's belly, and One's voice much louder. The deeper they go, the more detached they become, and the more they lack the ability to act at all.

OFFERING EFFECTS

• The shark is more fascinated by Offerings. It circles them often, sensing kinship— or potential. The more monstrous the Offering, the more the shark "pauses' near them, almost curious.
• Offerings feel "the pull" more clearly, particularly Merrows and other aquatic-based Offerings—they can sense where the surface might be, and where the shark intends to strike next. They may even see pulses in the water that others miss, similar to Spider Man's "spidey senses".
• An Offering may experience rapid body changes submerged. Fins may appear, bones may shift, teeth may lengthen without warning and so on. This makes their movement easier or harder, depending on how much of themselves they're holding back or how apt their monstrous forms are at swimming.
• Some Offerings may feel drawn to the shark— not in fear, but in understanding. They may see themselves in it, and vice versa— One's song in particular is hypnotic, and for split moments you may understand his pain through his words. This might make you more prone to being consumed, though, so hopefully your partner can help you out of it—?.

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Watching Me With Eyes Of A Predator

The surface you breach is not water— it's glass.

You strike it with the force of falling sky. It fractures beneath you in a bloom of painted light. For one weightless moment, the dream hesitates, sputters. Then the world shatters, and you fall with the cascade.

Water pours through the crack in the ceiling, carrying you down in ribbons of color and a shattering splash. Stained glass shards drift like petals through the now collapsing roof, and you eventually land not in sand, but upon a cathedral floor, slick with tide. Around you, the water spreads, pooling across the stone and swallowing the walls in a rising hush as it finds escape through the doors.

The cathedral is vast, impossibly so. Its architecture towers, crooked and immaculate, built more from longing than stone. No altar awaits you. No congregation. Only the sensation of having trespassed into something meant to be private. Veteran Vessels may recognize this cathedral as St. Patrick's— before it was drenched in One's blood sacrifice.

High above and surrounding you, the stained-glass mosaics churn with captured light. f you linger beneath one of the window's rays, your appearance may begin to change under the light. You appear as someone else sees you. Be it a hero. A monster. A disappointment. A god. A weakness. A temptation. Even a burden. That version of you clings to your dream-body like a second skin; uncomfortable, intimate, and undeniable. For some, it may be beautiful. For others, unbearable.

If you and another stand beneath the same window, you may each appear as the other secretly imagines. There is no control and no negotiation. Only truth twisted through the lens of want, resentment, fear, or love. And it doesn't go away until you leave the light.

Eventually, the cathedral doors open by dream's will. Beyond them lies a cloister garden: narrow paths, pale trees, and wild flowers that bloom in stillness. At the far end, behind the overgrowth and ruined arches, you see a hollow.

It is a corridor where the dream collapses inward, twisting, warped, half-swallowed in fog and dread. Its stones pulse faintly beneath a shallow film of water. Black tendrils reach from its depths like roots, veins, twitching toward sound, warmth, and movement. You see them dragging matter into the earth, and between them lie bones, contorted and fresh, half-consumed.

And farther still, a body that still breathes. Glimpsed only briefly, A masked man's form is stretched by the hollow's gravity, arms pinned behind the veil. He does not move, or speak. Or perhaps, he cannot. The hollow does not let him go and will not, should you make your attempts. If you step foot in the hollows that have consumed him, you too will be consumed. A three eyed Tod sits at the hollow's edge, a single bushy tail splitting into three, as its body plays with illusion like smoke put to dance over fire. It says, as its head floats up and its maw splits into a grin too cheshire to ignore: Wearing shoes, yet no feet in sight. You'll hear steps pound in the death of night. What is it that you need, to cross this narrow blight?

It disappears and only leaves you the riddle to chew on.

Nothing living can cross the hollow, you'll soon find. Nothing except . . . The Nightmares.

Just outside the garden's boundary, you'll find horses built from wind and shadow, flickering at the edge of your vision. Their bodies are black— not the color, but the absence, swallowing all light. Some of their craniums cound be seen, others have a jutting horn of bone from their foreheads. Where eyes should be, there are six: three stacked on each side of the skull, glowing dimly red like distant embers beneath ice. Their manes flow like torn fabric, like drifting vapor that trails behind them like the smoke from a snuffed candle. Their maws are too damn wide to be herbivorous, yet they seem to enjoy the act of grazing. They wait, unchained and wild in a herd.

This is the only way forward. Only they can pass through the hollow untouched. But how to ride one—? You may chase them. You may plead, command, kneel. You may offer them all your need and all your love, promises that you will provide if they become your steed. But they were not made to answer it. For every Vessel, there is one single Nightmare that will choose them, and thus you will choose each other. They have their own personalities, some more aggressive or shyer than others. The harder you reach, the faster they vanish or harshed they will attack if unready. Try to mount one through force, and you'll regret ever trying. Try to bind one, and it will break you.

But if you are patient, if you figure out its nature and how to please it— your Nightmare may come closer. One may circle you. It may bow its head. Their snort is warm and real against your palm. If successful, it will lower itself to its knees. If you've got the height, they will simply wait, patiently, for you to get on their backs (Or not; there are plenty of sassy mares out there).

If you accept, you might not be taken somewhere safe, but you will be taken somewhere true, away from here. And if you force your want upon them, if you cannot let go— you will be left with something else.

In the distance, across the flooded cathedral floor, you may see One again. Flashes, glimpses. Always chasing a mare he never reaches, or the opposite— the mare chases after him.

NOTES:

• If a character successfully forms a bond with their Nightmare, it will return with them in the form of a waking world steed, officially introduced in the next event. You're free to give it the personality you wish.
• If a character attempts to force a connection with a Nightmare at any point (tries to catch, mount, command, etc.), the mare will bite or kick, which Vessels will suffer as a persistent dream-mark that will carry into the waking world.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• Light clings unnaturally to Tokens in the cathedral, especially near the stained glass. It bends around their bodies like a false halo, casting them in divine or monstrous outlines depending on who watches.
• If a Token casts or channels any magic within the cathedral or near a Nightmare, the spell does not manifest, but instead, a cold mist escapes their mouth, and the Nightmare turns to look. The dream rejects force.
• When a Nightmare looks directly at a Token, their eyes eclipse, pupils vanishing into rings of shadow. In that moment, a fragmented vision floods the Token's mind . . . not from the Nightmare, but from another character nearby. It shows the Token how that character once dreamed of them, what they feared, needed, or hoped they would become.

OFFERING EFFECTS

• The stained glass causes a subtle change in scent and physical appearance turning into a more grotesque version of this— Offerings begin to smell or look like what others most want from them.
• Offerings may always know where the Nightmares are, even when hidden. But the more they try to act on this knowledge, the harder the Nightmares are to reach.
• An Offering's body will react before they realize it, flinching from lies, bristling in moments of emotional pressure, pulling away from contact, and so on. They may startle even at gentle contact, as if something inside them is as reactive as they are.

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Where The Delicate Stops

As your Nightmare takes you through the misty hollow, you may begin to notice the empty city of Manhattan as veterans remember. There is no warning but the eerie silence that surrounds you like impossible weights. The cathedral once behind you folds inward— wrong, deep and full of pressure. It bursts through the hollow's path, through the city's street, and then— The dream ruptures.

Stone peels backward like paper. Glass liquefies mid-air. The sky above the city pulls itself inside out. Time bends sideways. And from the edges of the dream, something, someone, begins to hunt. Sleep's presence moves like the very shark she chose as a vision of her physical manifestation. She does not speak or rage. But you feel Her, rising like fever beneath the skin of Her world as the hairs at the back of your neck do. She does not want you this deep, and neither does One.

Somewhere within the collapse, you may see them— entwined, shifting, trembling. One's face is turned toward you, screaming something that doesn't reach your ears. Sleep's hands are tangled in his body. She pulls him back with a gentleness that breaks the sky, and he screams, reaching for you with his last breath before consumption. The dream convulses.

The Nightmares bolt with you still on them.

The city rises to meet you from the shadows, but it's not the city you know. Skyscrapers twist at unnatural angles. Streets flood, then dry, then flood again. Tendrils burst from subway grates and gutters, slashing upward like tongues. Streetlights spin like compass needles. Cars levitate, crash, freeze midair. You move through it all at breakneck speed, but the exit keeps shifting— a hole in the world that flickers just beyond reach where you see your body, fast asleep.

Somewhere in the chaos, a few Nightmares are caught. Sleep strikes like lightning— she coils like a viper and tightens like a vice. One touch from Her, and your Nightmare collapses mid-gallop, its body unraveling into smoke and light. No sound. No scream. Just absence. And you fall right off it like a ragdoll.

Others fall beneath impact, too— a wrong turn, a shattered wall, a burst of heat from One's grief. A broken leg. A crash. A wound too deep to ride through. If your steed is lost, you fall. And if no one reaches for you, you stay fallen. Others are near, and their Nightmares still run. All of you have a terrible dread in your bones— if you are caught or left behind, the consequences will be dire. You might not even wake up. So, call out. Cling. Climb. Share. Two Vessels on one mount. Anything to survive and flee as the dreamscape tightens its wrathful grip around you.

Sleep calls inside your spine. You can't make out what She says. One answers, the same blur of garbled words in your marrow. And then, just before the dream can take you, just before you reach an exit— you rise.

Your body lifts from the Nightmare as it paddles the air with desperation, it too rising. You're pulled upward, weightless, as if a thread inside your heart has been yanked by a furious god. You float, twist in the air. Your vision glows white.

We've got you.

And then you wake up— mid-air in the waking world.

Your body slams into your bed, floor, street, soil, wherever it was that you had slept. Reality greets you with terrible impact.

NOTES

• If a character does not find a mount in time, they may be caught in the dream collapse. They still wake— but they wake broken. These characters may wake up bruised, disoriented, or emotionally fragmented, and this can be explored in the next waking world event.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• Any Tether they feel becomes unstable—splintered. For brief moments, they feel it breaking and re-forming again and again, with slight differences each time.
• The more emotionally charged they are, the more the dream pulls toward them; tendrils snap faster, debris veers unnaturally close.
• Their body flickers with signs of their own magic—sigils, symbols, runes— burning just beneath the surface of their skin like constellations. These glow brighter as the dream collapses, as if trying to tear free.

OFFERING EFFECTS

• Where Offerings are grazed or injured, they bleed light, not red. It floats up like mist.
• They hear One's heartbeat, not theirs, and it speeds in panic. It affects their own pulse, the mare under them . . .
• The Nightmare no longer follows the Offering's will—it will respond to their fear instead.

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OOC NOTES

➤ Welcome to Somnia's third TDM, which doubles as the month's gamewide event!
➤ This TDM is considered game canon. You are free to have your character remember as many details as possible when they wake up.
➤ Only new characters are free to experiment with the Vessel options, Token or Offering to your liking; this is a dreamscape, so multiple/different situations for you to really test which option you like most is possible. Current characters must remain as their chosen Vessel type unless you requested a switch, which can be done on the Taken page.
➤ All TDMs take place within a dreamscape, meaning characters can interact with the setting without needing to apply. Come have fun with us!
➤ Veteran players, I ask to please refrain from making post-event threads for the time being! We have some important information to take into account in next month's event when characters are slated to "wake up". At the very least, please wait for the information to be offered on the next plotting post. Thank you everyone for your patience!
➤ Please comment on the TDM's INVITE TL if you are a new player interested in joining the game, but don't yet have an invite. Current players or the mod may reach out to extend an invite. Once you've got one, please don't forget to comment on the Invite page so you may properly link it in your reserve and app.
➤ Questions? Please direct them to the designated questions comment linked below!

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Comments

delicate;

[hallowedly]

( The porcelain dream shatters like so much shrill glass, aching. He watches it, maws clumsy and open and snapped at creaking hinges, watches the world dissolve to black, watches shadow eat shadow, watches death demur, then rewrite itself.

It's silent, isn't it? Like Monou-Kamui never learned to be, choir of fecund screams and sawdust and violent combustion. There: a wrenching, bone by bone, and Kamui suckling out the marrow. Here, road breaking ahead to melt into shade, a tepid yawn.

He could die and wouldn't know it. He's died before — ...ah. And there, there comes the whirlwind.

It's a battering when it starts, bruises and howling and street lights ripped and asphalt torn off like derma, and the screech of iron, always iron, barely giving. He walks patiently, kitsune mask obstructing brutality, silks of his dark ceremonial robes afloat and wandered. He'll trip, he supposes. Nearly did, when his horse —

And where has that bloody thing gone?

...ah. But it's on this leg of the hunt that he catches up with Kigai Yuuto, here and now, dancing over falling infrastructure and landing to break his fall, knelt by his — coworker that their stars align. Horses always go where chaos isn't.

Kigai Yuuto may wish to do the same, as Seishirou captures his wrist non-committally and yanks him onward. )

If you live, you can find a pretty rebound.

[salaryman]

[ He lightly is waving his other hand in a gesture of "don't worry, don't worry" as he finds his smile.

The situation is much more dire than that, of course. Death actually seems to be chasing them. It's best to start the run as to not end up hunted. ]

Seishirou, that outfit of yours looks quite fetching. Everyone is dressed so nicely. I'm jealous.

[ He finds his voice that the wind knocked out of his chest. His smile returns as some blood does slip out of the corner of his mouth -- he bit the inside of his cheek when he wasn't able to make the turn as well as he did. Pity! Embarrassing. Water usually listens to him better, but with everything collapsing as it is; he supposes he can forgive it.

Any good lover would be the first one to apologize, yes?

And good to start as they're once more needing to go, go, go, go. ]

Besides this part - have you had a good dream?

[hallowedly]

( On foot, they make a fetching pair of desperate refugees hunting a breath's solace. They won't make it long; one lacks the stamina, the other the sartorial advantage. Either way, better to die rested.

Still, as buildings are dismembered, rooftops to walls to cracks to shriveled foundations, Seishirou drags them in an experimental zig-zag run. If there is no sense past gravity to these timed tragedies, he will accept the futility of his actions. But as things stand, perhaps... )

You are likelier to die of your pleasantries than their absence. ( Muttered between gritting teeth, because, really. Which part of underwater exploration alongside Big White or wooing hell's discount version of Black Beauty is supposed to recommend their latest animal kingdom experience? )

But, if you insist. How has your sleep been?

[salaryman]

[ Yuuto would've let out a verbal ha-ha-ha at the comment of how he'll die. However, he's not able to take the time for it. Instead, he turns his head toward his companion to give him a cordial smile -- before his head snaps back to huffing and panting away as they rush onward. ]

I was able to make up with my past relationship, but it broke up with me yet again.

[ He holds his hands out before he's back to pumping them at his sides. If he can't waste his breath for a laugh, he can at least do a little physical comedy while they are going along. If they have to die, he'd like to be as flippantly as he has lived his live up until this point. ]

But I feel the water is a little confused by our situation, so I'm forgiving. We'll make in dreams again... at least, those are my feelings.

[hallowedly]

( Of all the things, in all the worlds, levity is the one trick entirely misplaced in their paltry getaway act. Seishirou might criticise, if he weren't briefly piqued by the second matter at hand. )

You haven't found the new tricks as good as the old, I take it. ( Some comfort in that, if anything. ) Neither have I.

( He retains his illusions, his parlor tricks, the hereditary arsenal of the Sakurazukamori even in the absence of the blood-thirsting false divinity that accepts his tribute. But his onmyoudo is &mdaSH; ...compromised, for want of better words, and he has screeched and ground his teeth against many. )

The Sumeragi has also found his abilities dulled, if not entirely compromised. ( Of course even this world would favour the Sumeragi. Ah, the only constancy lies in systemic injustice. )

[salaryman]

I'm afraid not. Although, Subaru is going to teach me something with blood rituals.

[ He holds up his index finger as he tells Seishirou the fun news. As someone who has only communed with his element, it'll be interesting to see what rituals are all about. Honestly, he probably should've tried that sooner, but here in dreams ... he no longer can use his blood. ]

I spoke with him in the beginning of how well-liked he is. It seems like destiny likes him much more than it does us. [ He flicks his finger between the two of them as he laughs - it's brief and short. More of his breathing needs to go to focusing on running and jumping. ]

How rough it is to be him! After all, he must feel very bad for us!

[hallowedly]

If time and destiny have shown anything, it's that the Sumeragi head will somehow survive his heartache for us.

( Let this be a lesson unto one and all: beautiful wives with a penchant for world-shattering magical abilities are a lethal commodity. Never entertain them. Perhaps reconsider and steer your ambitions toward the life of a chronic, good-for-nothing Casano —

...oh. Still the Apocalyptic trick, even then? Well, Seishirou's masked smile is a pleasant fiction, an artifice without an audience. He likes to think someone in the Heavens that wait is watching. )

Don't concern yourself with him too much. ( Why, chipper: ) People who do don't often end up well.

[salaryman]

Am I not already in an "unwell" state?

[ He chimes back, but agrees with Seishirou that Subaru seems to be blessed.

Of course, he also feels how unfortunate that makes their mutual acquaintance. Being someone who is beloved by the world, by magic, by everything makes it hard to see those that are not.

But he supposes his present companion might be worried that Yuuto plans some nefarious scheme against his long-time rival.

Or ... maybe not?

Actually, he's very pleased the two of them aren't going head-to-head, as it were. He wouldn't want to be dragged into any fighting; he is a pacifist (or so he will cry if he's asked anything). But it seems both are being reasonable.

With Seishirou being dead, all issues are moot. Even doing anything at this point is just silly. He's glad they're such reasonable coworkers. It's so awkward when previous competitors come to work and there's tension in the office.

Ha-ha. Good one, Yuuto.

He blinks and refocuses his gaze as he lands after one dangerous jump. ]

I didn't listen to your answer... my mind wandered to all sorts of things, but I think it's panic that is having me think of useless topics. [ He claps one hand against his face. ] But I know you know that I was singing you praises in my head.

[ Another cheerful addition: ] I'll scour the offices to search for more cigarettes for you once we return. How's that?

[hallowedly]

Amenable.

( This, while bravely evading a lamp post that decides, mid flight, that transfiguration is the most memorable trend of the season, and its truest spiritual calling was to collide furiously into everything and everyone like a bull seizing up the matador.

Bereft a muleta, Seishirou grudgingly ricochets off a wall and applies himself to the task of dubiously entertaining a conversation, as they flit off road ruins, devastated fixtures and the occasional rabid hydrant. Nothing to see here, only two gentlemen taking on weather calamities, the supernatural and alien god(desses). )

Still tempted to give Sleep your loyalty? ( Look at this all too literally tempestuous woman, behold her whims and her wrath! It's enough to drive even the most convinced family man to the bachelor's way of life, and Yuuto, well. He never quite needed too much convincing. )

[salaryman]

That's a difficult question for me to answer when we're in her - or One's - dream!

[ He lightly claps his hand on the side of his face as he jumps along side of Seishirou. Yuuto pauses to give him a sad, pleading look - it doesn't have any sincerity behind it, but the two of them are having a casual conversation so it's fine, right? ]

Actually who is sleeping? I wish it was more obvious. Do you think one of our dreamseers could know the answer?

[ Cocking his head to the side, he muses over this idea. Would any of them be strong enough to take control of the dream? Possibly? His eyes roll up as he realizes that he's deflecting and not properly answering the question. Even if they're being casual, he can't be rude. ]

But to answer, I am not sure! [ Probably not! ] I did give tribute, however, because I said I'd do that much. [ And he holds up his left hand - its missing his ring finger. ] I got nervous she'd be mad if I didn't do something after whispering sweet nothings in her ear...

[ Sniffles. ] A woman scorned is too scary even for me.

[hallowedly]

That's — ( And he blinks, and he stares, mouth lightly agape for the exact three nanoseconds that endanger permanent deformity, before he somehow wrenches himself out of a rogue cello's way in just the nick of time. ) ...a remarkably good question.

( But he doesn't linger on it, the sourcing and origins of their dream excusably secondary to their present survival. Kigai Yuuto has his way of asking precisely the direct questions of an amateur in the ways of the supernatural — the same that Sakurazuka Seishirou, Sumeragi Subaru, and their combined middle-aged eldritch spawn of experience have failed to consider. Whose dream is this?

One for later exploration, as Seishirou ventures a glance the way of Kigai's untarnished hand, and a second toward a galloping piano, because of course, of course where there's one musical instrument, the entire orchestra must follow. )

I don't suppose you've found a way to calm her temperament since? ( A beat. ) Now would be a good time to test your prowess, if so.

[salaryman]

Why thank you!

[ If he could, he might've patted himself on the back.

Unfortunately, he's jerking himself out of the way of a tuba that seems to want him to play a tune. He even makes a comical sound in the back of his throat as he dodges the instrument. ]

Should I ask for her hand in marriage? I think that's far too soon since I just gave my finger and not sure if she's willing to give anything back. [ Yuuto jokes along as he holds his hands up. ] But I suppose I might ask for mercy.

Only issue is I can't be sure if you'll be counted in it, so I'm afraid I'll have to deny your request and hope to survive with you.

[hallowedly]

Oh, put me down as your dependent. The adopted son from another — ( Oh look, there's the vast enormity of an entire accordion barrel ahead, determined to flatten all of Seishirou's fetching looks in its wakes.

He's still blinking unambiguously when it wheezes over, before reminding himself that, deprived of the brunt of onmyoudo though he might be, he remains Sakurazuka Seishirou, an educated assassin of some artistry and better skills. He kicks it out of the way with an excess of brutal force that may or may not poise it to ricochet off Kigai.

Well. Sharing is caring. And there's a gutted-out cord of piano string that coils around Seishirou's fingers, thumb to fore, as he holds it up for Kigai's appraisal in blitzing passing — )

I can loan you a ring.