Crime of Passion [Day 7, ME]

[Kuni Koyuki]

Nodding, in understanding. Koyuki looks him over as to think of the better way to word it, like his visage held the answer she sought. Though she felt certain enough she understood what she needed to, she was not a woman bred to rely on conclusions made when answers could instead be given.

"You pray to her then, Kyoso?"

[Soshi Kazumi]

Kazumi paused for a few beats considering their words carefully "I pray, and I usually do it here." another pause "I am not sure who if anyone hears them but I suppose given where I do it if anyone is listening it would be her."

[Kuni Koyuki]

That pause, it gains a narrowing of Koyuki's eye. Inhaling, and exhaling, a calm being retaken by force. Stopping she looks all around them, at all the shrine in her wonder. Arms crossing over her midsection she turns away from him. So that when she speaks next her back is what is facing.

"That is all I can learn here then. I doubt one of the others will have as easy of a time speaking with me." Easy, had an emphasis on it that suggests it was perhaps anything but.

[Soshi Kazumi]

Kazumi raised an eyebrow at the Kuni turning away "Is everything alright Koyuki-san? It was no trouble." It had been a pleasant display of Kazumi's ideas as far as Kazuni was concerned. But it seemed the Scorpion had made another misstep.

[Kuni Koyuki]

"I suspect you are holding back, Kazumi-san," she says, directly. Letting that sit for a moment. "However, I also understand that perhaps you are not. Yet that leaves me with one path if either is true. I cannot find more answers than I have already found here." Taking the break to look over her shoulder she scans him for a moment, and considers.

"There is no animosity in this, Kazumi-san. Do understand."

[Soshi Kazumi]

Kazumi regards her for a moment their expression unreadable "I find you chiding someone for not wearing their thoughts on their sleeve to be a little ironic." Their tone was somewhat even but they motioned to Koyuki to follow them

"Come, let's move somewhere where I can be more candid. There are more private rooms with less ears everywhere."

[Kuni Koyuki]

"I was not chiding you, Kazumi-san," she says, grumbly as she was about the comment. Taking up to his side to follow, she continues with that same grumbly vibe present. "I had accepted you would go no further, and decided that I had reached the limit of what I could achieve. I did not push. I did not chide. Find your irony somewhere else," she says with a touch more bite than she meant it to have.

[Soshi Kazumi]

Kazumi nodded as she spoke seemingly growing used to her biting retorts "I'm sorry if I misunderstood your motivations, I'm used to reading into more sub text." They seemed sincere but not distressed. "Are you always so quick to anger Koyuki-san or does the particular matter you've come here to investigate have you more on edge?" They asked as they walked.

Kazumi locates a vacant room used for counseling and prayer and takes a seat motioning for Koyuki to join them

[Kuni Koyuki]

"This is not me being angry, Kazumi-san. Best you do not ever learn what that looks like," she says, there's that clip there. Rolling her shoulders for the little tension it releases. "I am simply annoyed. Nothing that cannot be mended with a little time." Letting that be the last bit of their exchange for the rest of the walk, and allowing Kazumi to lead her into the vacant room.

Entering, she takes a bit to scan around a bit before finally joining Kazumi. Sitting down by their side.

[Soshi Kazumi]

Kazumi held back a quip at her initial response deciding poking the Crab was not in their best interest they shrugged.

As they both got situated Kazumi reached up and unclasped their mask the lights flickering off as it was set on a table. Koyuki now able to see their full face would be met with a face that was androgenous in its appearance, a hairs breath from either beautiful or handsome. Prominent cheek bones and full lips which were painted a crimson red. The lips smiled softly to her despite the tense at of their recent exchange.

"So Koyuki-san I opted for a bit of privacy mainly due to how my frank thoughts might offend others of the temple. They aren't fanatics but many are devout and faithful." Kazumi took a breath.

"I pray as a form of meditation, I do not think or I guess believe that the fortunes, dark or not listen to our pleas."

[Kuni Koyuki]

Looking to Kazumi with the reveal, of both physicality and question Koyuki wasn't quick to respond. There was a needed pause considering the interactions which had brought them to this moment. Tension, but also seeking. Ultimately finding herself faced with a personal revelation which wasn't helpful to her in the slightest. Yet, how was that a fault of Kazumi? That their manner was one she found frustrating was more a fault of her own than Kazumi and she allowed it to drive a wedge in between a helpful soul and the help they were trying to give.

It was enough to bring that little pressure tension built near her temples, releasing the stress with her little breathing exercise. Sending out the tension on the exhale as best as she could manage like a traveler making use of the wind.

"I was like that, recently," she admits, the weariness of her evident. "Not quite the same, as I know the influence they have upon our lives. Guidance over their realms but never such a heavy hand as to push forward or back unless there is the gravest of circumstances. For some time I thought surely that my prayers merely fell on deaf ears because of some offense that I must have been responsible for. Now, I have come to believe that perhaps I was wrong.. I do not know," she says, uncertain.

"What I know, is that I do not venerate these dark fortunes but.. there is something others see in them which I desire to understand."

[Soshi Kazumi]

Kazumi nodded "I would agree with you, as you said the fortunes and greater spirits do not give or take away favor but for the most extreme cases. Historically when the world or one of the spirit realms was in danger. I doubt you have done anything so grievous."

Kazumi took a breath "but I didn't reveal my thoughts on the fortunes to spark an ideological debate on theology. But to emphasize a point that this temple did help me. But it wasn't the hand of Kyoso reaching down to deliver me from my addictions it was people. It was the monks here in their spirit of helping and understanding that helped me overcome my problems." They looked about for a moment before looking to her

"You obviously have something that weighs on you and I won't pry on it but if you're looking for help with it you'll have to open up about it with someone, someone willing to talk through and help with it. I know that's not easy, if you had met me a couple of years ago you would have met a very different person, an angry person but people here helped me through that pain and that anger and I've made it where I am today."

The Scorpion took another deep breath and ran a hand through their long black and red hair, crimson lips smiling almost rueful "I could be way off base and maybe talking out my ass but you seem to be struggling with something big and well I might not be the one to help you with it but I do hope you find what you're looking for."

"But back to your question maybe what the people see in Kyoso at least is a drive to help. Maybe that's all the fortunes really need to do is inspire people to be the best versions of themselves. To show us ways to help each other."

[Kuni Koyuki]

Koyuki's gaze lowers for a moment, heat rising on her skin. "I have," she says, and seems unwilling to elaborate further there. Simply because what she was learning of herself with Yakumo was perhaps the most frightening thing she's had to do. Trusting after the ultimate sort of betrayal of trust. How terrifying a thing it was. Let alone to allow someone as close as she'd had again. Surely, she felt she was the greatest of all fools.

Kazumi was never going to be that person. Koyuki didn't have it in her to let too many in, and certainly not that close.

"What would you do if you had the person who killed Kenji in front of you, Kazumi-san?"

[Soshi Kazumi]

Kazumi was true to their word not pressing on the information. They knew it only worked if given up willingly not pulled out.

The question gave Kazumi a thoughtful pause "That.....is a fresher pain. But it's hard to say in the actual moment what I would do. In my mind I've killed them a hundred times a faceless spector for me. I've tortured them, poisoned them, Shot them, stabbed them, killed them again and again in the most gruesome ways possible." Kazumi took a shuddering breath their veneer of calm worn thin with the raw emotion roiling in their chest.

After another moment they continued "but at the end of the day Kenji's death was an accident. Killing his killer won't bring him back, his killer was likely just some ronin or heimen lackey killing them would change nothing. Now the people in charge.....that's a different story but a bit more divorced from the question."

[Kuni Koyuki]

"And yet Kenji's killers incompetence ended in the death of the man you knew," she says, but it didn't having any pressuring of the words. Just calling attention to that particular note when she continues, "What if you found that Kenji's killer was someone you cared deeply for, Kazumi-sama? What do you think you would do? Justice would dictate you avenge him by matter of cause. Does it matter if it would not change something? Death of such a degree needs to be answered for, and yet- what if the thought of being the dealer of that justice terrified you more than you were drawn to it?"

[Soshi Kazumi]

"Does it though? Obviously context matters, motives matter. Killing someone because of an accident just leads to more death. Should their loved ones then come seeking my blood for exacting my justice? And if they did would those that care for me hunt them down? It's a spiral of violence that just leads to more and more death and pain."

"If it was someone I cared about that had accidentally done it I would not take my revenge but if they had betrayed me, done it to hurt me or for some selfish reason? I might if only because they themselves are a dangerous person."

Kazumi fixed Koyuki with a look, nearly black eyes holding pain and turmoil but even then a core of peace "But my situation might not be your situation. It depends so much on what happened and why. We both lost people but I think not in the same ways. But I think you have to ask yourself if enacting this justice will do anything. Will it help you heal, will it change anything meaningful? I can't answer these for you, only you can decide what you have to do."

[Kuni Koyuki]

'Does it though?' the idea, and what follows builds a slight grimace that she keeps as buried as she possibly can. Inhaling a calming breath as to steady herself. There was a difficulty in asking questions without asking questions, you rarely got the answer you hoped for. Yet this was not something she could stop because she needed answers, and to ask directly would compromise more than she wished.

Thus she listens, takes it in, and turns her attention toward Kazumi with a focus. Following his statement the stillness of air overtook the sense of the moment. Leaving just the two of them looking at one another for one beat, two.

"You do not speak much like a musician, do you?" she asks, breaking that tension filled silence. Off in the distance the soft sound of two beats of a Tsuzumi from within the temple.

[Soshi Kazumi]

Kazumi didn't respond to the first question, having already made their thoughts on it clear.

They didn't break that eye contact sharing that moment with Koyuki, the moments stretching in the silence feeling much longer than the few fleeting moments they actually were.

At her words reality snapped back into place and an eyebrow rose curiously "Well now I'm curious as to what a musician talks like?"

[Kuni Koyuki]

Clearing her throats, "I've tortured them, poisoned them, shot them, stabbed them, killed them again and again in the most gruesome ways possible," she finishes with an inhale that is slow and deliberate as if to draw her point up further. Settling down as she settles into and with the breath. Looking over Kazumi with no judgement, or almost any emotion really. Like the blank slate of a Kuni face looking at him just waiting to see how it responded.

"Not like that, Kazumi-san."

[Soshi Kazumi]

Kazumi shrugged "People can be more than one thing Koyuki-san." The answer was somewhat cryptic and the expression that accompanied it was flat reining in their reactions.

"I told you I'd seen action, I've had a number of experiences you probably wouldn't expect a musician to have."