ixis | Portal Maintenance [For Katsuya]

"I haven't had much trouble with the demons since the incident, this is true....but that has been in part I'm certain to the heightened demon patrols I have been doing on my own time." Because keeping people safe off the job is a whole second job. Officer Suou sure has his hands full.

"I...don't think I want to collapse the portal. I would hate to lose my connection to the Nexus. Is there any way of strengthening the security of it?"

"Do you do that single-handed? Patrolling for demons and dispatching them? Busy lad. Have they been getting more frequent, or are you just that increasingly vigilant?"

Naugus examines the door, tapping spots with his claw's tip. "I can add wards to it, of course. Things that would alert you that someone other than you is using it. Or set up a keystone that you would keep on hand? Only you or anyone with you would be able to pass through the door."

He pauses and looks over his shoulder at Katsuya. "Though you know I could collapse it and reopen a fresh one? Always an option."

Edited 2015-12-09 04:17 (UTC)

"I did it on my own until...very recently." Katsuya shrugs his shoulders weakly. "I've gotten in touch with some old comrades of late and begun splitting the city into zones so none of us has to do everything on our own." Katsuya, relying on others? Truly the world has seen the coming of a new age.

"I'm aware." Katsuya will already be indebted to Schon for months to come, he doesn't need to add another on just yet. "I'd be satisfied with increasing it's security. A ward would be a good start. I don't mind others using the door. Truthfully, I'm more concerned with things leaving from my world than I am people from the Nexus visiting it."

"Really? You'll let just anyone march through this portal without your say-so or supervision? Even those that it would be ill-advised, either by intention or just standing out?" He shrugs after a moment of frowning consideration. Fine, your call, kiddo.

The wizard starts to gesture with both hand and claw, swirling them around one another, a small, purple light beginning to form between the both of them. Naugus' eyes are on the task, his staff held in his curled tail so both hands are free. But it must not be so taxing that he can't make conversation.

"You haven't been around the tower lately."

"Anyone who enters this portal will have to face creatures more dangerous than myself if they wish to cause trouble." Katsuya observes quietly. "Really, I feel sorry for them, nearly. Mostly, I don't want to dissuade friends I've made in the Nexus from coming to visit when they should like. I can be rather difficult to find, sometimes."

Surely Naugus understands the desire to be alone from time to time?

Here it is. At this the officer sighs audibly.

"I suspect I am no longer welcome there. Verity made it quite clear that she was not interested in continuing our relationship. Truthfully...I'm not certain she's capable of having one. She has....very specific needs. Needs I was unable to fill." He doesn't sound particularly bitter or broken up about it. It was rough at first, but once you've dealt with the end of the world everything else kind of gets put into perspective. He wasn't the one for her. Simple as that.

"I do hope she'll allow me to continue to be her friend, however."

The ball of light has grown to about the size of an orange by the time Naugus stars picking his fingers at it as if pulling at the strands of a yarn ball. It loosens threads from the glow that hang where he leaves them, looking to be taking on the shape of a spider's web.

Naugus glances up when the news is dropped, then grunts with consideration. "What needs do we speak of? Emotional? Conversational? Sexual?" Oh god, Mobian Grandpa just said 'sexual', end everything.

Katsuya wonders how embarrassed Verity would be to hear her racist grandpa talking to her ex about her sexual needs. Considering they never made it far enough for Katsuya to even know what those are, he merely shrugs in reply.

The officer watches Ixis work in quiet for a moment, before looking down at his hands.

"Cultural, I think. She didn't understand why I did things the way I did, and I didn't realize there was a misunderstanding until she got upset about it. She never said anything. I...don't think I could ever make her truly happy. No matter how hard I tried." He seems a little sad now, but any emotion from Katsuya is only the tip of the iceberg he carries inside.

"She didn't call, after. So...I didn't, either. I respected her wish for space, and she seems....happier. Without me. So I'll continue to keep my distance."

Just gotta cover all the bases of why relationships fail! Be thankful that's not the subject and they have to go into details on or, even worse, advice. Gotta look out for Verity, man. Even if it'd embarrass the living daylights out of everyone involved.

"So there's been no official word on it being finished? Or did she say in no uncertain terms that you two are through?"

The ward under construction is increasingly looking like a glowing, purple mandala. It's quite pretty, honestly.

"No, I believe I made the final call." Ixis and Katsuya talking about the sexual needs of women is like fish talking about the moon. They should stick to their areas of expertise. "In the end, I walked away first. We probably could reconcile, but I firmly believe that I can't be the person she needs to make her happy in life. At least not as a partner."

He gives the magi a sideways glance and a small smile.

"We'd make a hell of a cooking pair though. I've thought about leaving the force, did she ever tell you? She wanted me to open a bakery in the Nexus." It's better remembering the good things. They made better friends than lovers. It's plain to see.

His hand and claw move away from the ward under construction, the threaded light hovering in place. With one finger extended, Naugus starts to draw small arcane symbols in the negative spaces between all the triangles.

"Always good to make sure something is finalized. Sometimes turbulence comes and you refuse to speak for ages, but it does not mean it's over. It simply means some distance is required until you decide it's time to apologize." Not 'one of you decides'. 'You'. Naugus is speaking from the viewpoint he knows best.

"But since that is the case, does she know it's through? Or did you leave it on an open, if sour note, with no certain conclusion?" Since Katsuya's willing to take the blame for the fissure, time to make him commit to that decision. See it through, young man!

"She seems to have moved on already. If it wasn't final before, it is now. But I haven't approached her. I didn't want to fight. Didn't want to face was was untrue...or what was true about our last talk." Wow people are coming out of the woodwork to talk to him about this.

He supposes he shouldn't be surprised. He likes Verity as much as they do. More, even. It just wasn't meant to be.

"...I don't suppose we could go back to talking 'shop'?" He tries not to sigh at the end of that sentence.

"So what was true about the last talk? You sound as though you've already given up on this when it could very well be a simple spat. Unless it was a constant, recurring thing that made you two, ultimately, incompatible. Or is it simply you are ready for it to be over?"

Guess that's a no. Naugus has a subject he's interested in and he's gonna bulldog it. His eyes are still on his work as he fiddles with the runes now being installed into the ward. One gets rubbed out with a fingertip poking through it, to be replaced by a slightly different on.

"...That's a fair point." It certainly could have been a spat. The Suou flight response is probably the worst possible way to react to this sort of situation. Save, you know, turning aggressive. He left. Katsuya can't deny that. He didn't want to argue. But walking away, well, that was an argument all by itself really.

Just a nonverbal one. And a choice he has to live with.

"I'd rather discuss the details with Verity, than to gossip." He doesn't even know what to think, anymore. So much of what she said came out of nowhere to him. And he reacted poorly. Shut her down. Walked away. It's something his brother would do, and that alone is a telling point of how pear shaped this has turned. This time he does sigh. Heavily.

"You think me a gossip? This is concern. I value Verity's well-being, at least because we share a living space. And who else do you have to discuss your thoughts on the matter with?"

Though he did get a concession that things need to be discussed with Verity; that is a positive turn, isn't it? Naugus certainly thinks so.

"I don't." Katsuya pinches his nose. "Think you a gossip, I mean. But I don't know what to think and I've seen what assumptions and rumors can do and I just--"

Calm down, Katsuya. Ixis doesn't know about Sumaru. Or his hangups.

"I don't want to talk about things I don't know for certain. I don't want to continue assuming I know what's going on. If I did, I wouldn't be in this situation. I'd rather discuss it with Verity."

"It's reassuring that you wish to discuss it with her at all. Good lad. I personally learned the hard way that even if your beau does not speak frequently does not mean she doesn't have things to say. Or that you should be the one asking after matters and making yourself clear." Is he admitting he does have experience with romantic relations? Who'd date an old wizard like him? Is that even something Katsuya cares to dwell on?

The ward seems to be coming together, Naugus holding it aloft on the tip of his claw, watching it hover and shimmer. Then he waves for Katsuya to come closer. "Now it's just a matter of binding it to you so you'll be alerted whenever someone cares to pass through its doors from the side you live on."

Everyone was young once. Trying to figure out when that could have been for Ixis, or if he's talking about now versus the good old days is a mystery best left unsolved. At least in Katsuya's mind.

Between the webbing and the runes, his door is looking less and less like a destination people would want to check out. Unless you liked decidedly foreboding doorways to another world.

Katsuya will oblige the magi and move closer.

"Thank you." He bobs his head in gratitude. A partial bow of sorts.

"Don't thank me yet." Wait, what's that supposed to mean? A strand of the ward is pulled away between forefinger and thumb and then sharply prodded against Katsuya's chest. It's not painful, but the thread vanishes in a way that's probably disconcerting, slithering inwards and vanishing like some kind of particularly determined snake.

"There. You should get an inkling when someone steps through from your city to the Nexus. Just a sense someplace in your chest, a hunch, if you will. That should be useful either for interlopers or ensuring guests make it back here safe, hm?"

Naugus turns to the door. "Now, just a matter of getting this installed..."

Wait, why not? The officer stares down at his chest, breath hitching when he feels the magic taking effect. It's not constricting the way it is when he's overused his Persona. It doesn't hurt, and he can breathe. But he could feel it for a moment and it was almost like...

How sad is Katsuya's life that the first thing that comes to mind is the stupid zombie virus he and Baofu had gotten infected with years ago? Knowing something foreign was inside you, mingling with your internal organs like the parasite it is?

"...Ixis. What exactly could you do to me with a piece of your magic within my body?" Katsuya why the fuck didn't you ask this sooner? Idiot.

He'd been in the process of tapping the door again, ward suspended still at the tip of his claw as he looks for a good place to insert it into the magicks already at work. But he glances over his shoulder when Katsuya asks that.

"Hm? Nothing, really, aside from cancel it. Which would happen either way if something were to destroy this ward or the door it's affixed to. That might feel a little unpleasant, but what doesn't kill you, right?"

Right.

"..So...why did you say not to thank you?" He doesn't bother pointing out he's had worse things happen to him. Like Las Plagas being removed, for example. Or trying a fusion combo with 0 SP and nearly dying. The point is, Katsuya's baseline for intolerable chest pain is pretty damn high. He's going to have a heart attack some day and not realize it because it 'didn't hurt that bad'.

"Oh, sometimes the infusion of the ward can be equally unpleasant. Glad you took to it so well. Must be some magicks already stirring in your chest. Does this sound accurate?" He might be curious now! He didn't take the tall fellow to be magically inclined, but you learn something new and exciting everyday!

The door seems to have surrendered a suitable spot for installation of the ward, based on how Naugus gives it one last tap and then grins. The ward is held nearer now as the wizard braces his hand against it. The process produces sparks and a loud FZZZZT, as well as the curious smell of ozone. The way Naugus has to set his elbow and slowly push the ward against the surface of the door, it seems this is a process of forcing something to fit where it otherwise wouldn't. Wedging it into a spot that was already meticulously organized. Soldering something foreign onto a piece of art.

Ixis Naugus, however, grins the whole while the process is underway. And when he's done, he steps back to look at his work. There's smoke rising from the angrily glowing ward, the symbols and lines pulsing with arcane heat. Over time, they fade, and look as though they were never there. Except for the acrid smoke and the smell of an oncoming thunderstorm still hanging in the air, of course.

"Oh, I see. I'm the least magically inclined of my comrades, but I still manage to do quite a bit." He says that, but almost all of his magical talent goes toward putting his aura into his blows because there's no other explanation as to why someone as thin as he is can punch holes in steel when he's angry enough.

~~WTF Japan.~~

Katsuya somehow doubts Schon is going to be pleased with this turn of events, but he'll deal with that can of worms when it comes. For now, he's grateful there's one more security measure in place to keep the Chaos that crawls within Sumaru contained to his world.

Naugus doubts Schön will be pleased with this either and that's fine! That's just fine. He dusts off where the ward settled in, clearing what little char there might be.

"You know, if you ever wanted to broaden your magical scope, I've been looking for an apprentice. Just a thought."

Yeah, considering Katsuya's sort of in debt to Schon, he really doesn't want the magi pissed off at him. Or calling in a favor that Katsuya really can't refuse. This could get ugly and fast. He should really wrap this up or at least get them away from the door.

"I'm afraid all I excel in is force and fire." Don't be modest, katsuya! You say that like those are bad things!

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Those were the days

OH MAN THE GANADO WAR still one of the best weeks of my life

Right?! I had SO MUCH FUN with that

We'll have to run another event someday to top that one. B] THIS IS MY BELIEF

I'd love to do that. We need more villains though!

REMEMBER WHO YOU'RE TALKING TO

ALL THE VILLAINS DEL!