Match of the Millennium

Description: The Yata Priestess seeks the Beast of Flame, with promises of unraveling mysteries that daunt both of them...

[K']
Metro City's been largely reconstructed, at least for the people with money. In pockets of the city, amidst the re-congregation of myriad gangers and big-ego'ed crime bosses, shit's still all but abandoned. See a swath of industrial land a few miles up from the harbor, where crumbling factories and warehouse space currently supports little but the occasional squatter or party; assuming they avoid the Mad Gear.

It's perfect for some people, though, at least in theory. See: K' alone in an abandoned warehouse, working on his motorcycle on the dust-shrouded loading dock. That rolling metal door is currently up, letting in a cool breeze across the workspace. His cloth-shrouded station is lit by a single, overhead light, strung up by K' himself.

When he's done, when he's slept, when he's smoked, he'll be back out the way he came with nary a sign of his passage but a couple slicks of oil and grease. That, and the padlock melted to a silvery and misshapen mass beneath its moorings, kindly allowing the Beast of Flame entrance into this posh facility.

[CHIZURU]
There were no words that could describe Metro City better than a den of evil : the laywaste and destruction that was left behind, hardly concealed by the recent constructions that were done by those who possessed wealth and power mostly... The city offered countless places for demons and other foul beasts to lurk and hide...

What brought Chizuru here had not been those creatures, but how could she ignore them now that she was here? Aren't their presence part of the taint of the Orochi on this world? Isn't it partially her fault if they are here now? This lead her to stray from her main reason of her presence here, her vision about this man who possessed a power akin to the Sacred Flames.

However, she didn't get distracted too long and tracked him down in this city. It was no easy task, but with the help of the Yata mirror and Chizuru's divination, she was able to 'sense' the Beast of Flame's whereabout and was able to find the path to his whereabouts.

The loud vrooms of engine can be heard echoing through the abandonned lots of building, announcing the arrival of the woman. Clad in a figure hugging black leather outfit and biker helmet, the woman approached the warehouse using her favored mean of transport : a black Kawasaki Ninja 600. The motorcycle slows down near the open door, and Chizuru gracefully dismounts her ride. The woman stares at K' as he seems busy working on his motorcycle. Her hands move up to her helmet, taking it off from her head to expose her face. She takes a few steps closer, enough for her to assess K' body and make sure she was the one she was looking for. A thin smile spreads on her lips as she says, "Awww... You're a tough one to find..."

[K']
If only it were so simple as a divide between good and evil from city to city, from the spires downtown to the degrading sprawl out here on the outskirts. It's a lesson K' has come to understand only all too well in his time on the run, in the moments he lingers in these spaces between every 'normal' person's world: sometimes it's good and evil, sometimes it's just a question of what one is willing to do to survive. ... and how much it will take to make any given person snap.

By the time Chizuru rolls up, K' has stood from his work, and paced with predator's grace to the edge of his occupied loading dock, looking out over the lot now strewn with detritus and etched with the competition of artistic tags and gang markers. Find another hill, become king of the newest shitpile. From behind red lenses of his shades, the prototype eyeballs the bike, and eyeballs Chizuru in even and intent turn.

What started out as a promising encounter with a like-minded beauty quickly turns to a sour note that's evident in K Prime's scowl as Chizuru speaks. She knows who he is. She's here looking for -him-, specifically. Few of the possibilities that suggests are pleasant ones for the Beast of Flame to ponder.

"Dangerous hobby. Only shitheels and dumbasses actually look for /me/." K' observes with some certitude. "Which flavor are you: here to be an attack dog for /them/, or you just don't know any better yet?" The former carries a note of hostility, ringing in the night air. The latter, just bitter resignation.

[CHIZURU]
The moment Chizuru had found out about this man's existence, she had scried on him. Not only to find his whereabouts, but also to learn more about him, about his past. Her visions have always been quite troubled and she was never truly able to find the right answers about his mysterious past... But now that she was standing in front of him, that she saw his reaction to her presence she was able to put some pieces of the puzzle together in her mind.

"Neither of them," The woman admits with a slow nod of her head. In spite of his hostile intonation, Chizuru kept a benevolent smile on her face. She opens her arms wide, as if to show she had no malicious intention, "Though the reason that brings me here may be similar to the ones who hunts you so fiercely... This gift that you possess..." The smile on her lips fade away slightly, letting a more saddened expression, "... Or curse," She adds, as if she had a feeling it was more the later for him.

"My intentions, on the other hands are quite different from theirs..." Chizuru says as she approaches him with slow strides. "I want to tell you more about your flames, where they truly come from, their purpose and, hopefully, I may be able to help you harnessing this power,"

[K']
Neither. The dubious narrowing of eyes, knitting of brows, it's abundantly evident despite the shades obscuring the youth's features. He's otherwise dressed in motorcycle leathers-- an ensemble that does only the minimal amount, just now, to obscure the hefty gauntlet containing his right hand and forearm, right up to the elbow. It has a sleek, futuristic and armored look, but the true purpose of the item is to modulate chi; much as Chizuru outlines it, to control the Kusanagi spark.

But the Yata priestess is subtly wrong, and it brings a barking chuckle of genuine amusement from K'. "Harnessing the Flame... is not my problem." It's the first solid information he volunteers, extending that red right hand as the runic circuitry on the device flares white-orange and furious. The prototype is less calling to the Kusanagi fire... and more a honed conduit directly to it.

"It is bottomless; all-consuming." It's a strange paradox-- the living weapon has none of the context or religious tradition to other keepers of the sacred fire, yet he's simultaneously closer to it than most. His new self, a flickering, flaring expression of that purified forge itself. "It sings in war-drums and violence for you." But not with malice. The fire knows her, and this in turn intrigues K' on a fundamental, instinctive level.

The circuitry dims, but does not extinguish; it takes control from the profane conduit of the sacred fire -not- to bring ever more of it into the world. Not to bring as much as he can in a self-immolating glory of heavenly convection. "What do you wish me to know; and who do you expect me to serve?" The prototype speaks in even, wary Japanese-- cynical and cagey well beyond his years.

[CHIZURU]
Drawing ever closer, Chizuru does not seem to fear the flame that appears in the man's hand : on the contrary, she felt this strange attraction to it as if it was calling out to her. The moment it sparks in his hand, a faint glimmer crosses Chizuru's eyes for a second as she stares deeply into it. The woman seemed almost tantalized both by the glowing embers and K' poetic way to describe them.

This semi-trance seems to end however when he speaks of another matter. Chizuru blinks and turns her gaze to him. She gauges him for a moment, before she shakes her head slowly, "No one..." She answers. She takes a pause, before she adds, "There are many things I want to tell you about those flames, if you are willing to hear them, and once I will have told you and taught you everything I know, then you will be free to decide what you wish to do with your power... With your life..."

Chizuru closes her eyes, maintaining her calm and serene composure before she adds, "Once you know the history of your flames and better under its purpose, then you will be able to shape your own destiny as you see fit, but in the end, you are the one and only true master of your future,"

[K']
It's clear that K' doesn't believe her. The intent side-eye the considering predator locks upon her conveys it even without the prototype outright declaring she's full of shit. Everyone has an agenda-- an agenda that's seldom 'whatever you want, K', it's cool'. "My freedom is not yours to grant." The living weapon's words are quiet, deceptively quiet, for the resolute force in them. "My freedom is mine to seize."

Even contained, it's easy to see why even an organization capable of such a creation might find K' difficult to deal with. Some days, he wonders it himself-- is he not free because he fights so hard, but because he's such a pain in the ass to herd? And in the end, isn't it much the same thing? K' drops smoothly to take a seat, booted feet draping over the edge of the loading dock as he continues to survey Chizuru evenly, unabashedly.

In other circumstances, it might be inappropriate staring-- here it might be inappropriate, but it's the wary consideration of a youth who's never sure who to trust; and who he might have to blast an escape route through. "It's fire, its purpose is to burn shit." K' observes with arrogant certainty. "In theory this particular fire burns shit particularly well, which is why a whole bunch of assholes want to burn more shit with more of this particular fire." He's not particularly wrong on the shape of it, at least.

Perhaps it's Maxima's voice in his head going 'Whoa, K', -whoa-', perhaps Chizuru's serene zen-like approach, but K' steps back the sardonic vitriol long enough to append, "I'll hear what you have to say." because he's magnanimous like that.

[CHIZURU]
His words and attitude were the ones who was betrayed and abused too many times. One who would not give his trust so easily. Were Chizuru's words truthful, though? Is what brings her here a pure act of altruism toward him, a complete stranger? If she has an agenda of her own that is more egoistical, she chose not to share it with him.

The woman returns K' stare with one of her own, unphased by the way he was scrutinizing her and assessing her. She had seen enough about the man's past in her vision to know he would not give his trust easily and would be likely to constantly doubt about her. The woman rests her hands on her hips and arches a brow, replying to K' observations about his flames with a simple, "Is it really all there is to it, though? Mere flames who are particularly efficient at burning shit?" She says, quoting him. "... Or is there more to it?" She adds.

The woman looks up into one of the pocket of her leather bodysuit, slipping out a simple envelope. She walks up to K' side and she hands him the envelope. "If you want to know, to understand it and its true purpose, you have to come where it all began... Centuries ago..." If K' looks into the envelope, he would find a pair of tickets for a flight to Japan, along with a card with only a phone number on it. The tickets were a very particular kind, no specific date set for them, generally for sudden business trips. "You are right about this : your freedom and destiny are yours to seize,"

[K']
Plainly, K' rather doubts it. Strange women riding up to WMDs in the slums at night always have ulterior motives. If the prototype is lucky, though, those motives might lead him closer to the truth; and to not going up like so much paper mache, sooner or later. Hey, it could happen; everyone gets lucky sometimes. Tom Petty promised. He plucks the envelope of tickets with his motorcycle-gloved left, and flips them over to eye the contents briefly. "Japan's a big place, you got a card or something?" The living weapon snarks, even as her question weighs on his mind.

Is that all there is to it? The fire itself is one thing-- but how much of the rest is it, and how much is other programming? Internally, the bioweapon flashes back to the climax of his battle against Abigail; to how easy it truly is to cut loose. How natural and deadly the entire affair is becoming, perhaps always has been.

It doesn't speak to him in words, but there's little doubt that sacred spark expresses itself through this living breach to its furious heart. "There's always more to it." K' murmurs instead of sharing his own theories and concerns, the words somewhere between wisdom and frustration. "I'm sure flying to Japan to learn history will clear it all up."

[CHIZURU]
"The number on the card is my own : if you decide to come to Japen, call me, and I will come pick you up," Chizuru says with a slow nod of her head. Once K' took the envelope from her, Chizuru takes a few steps back. Obviously she had said to him everything that she wanted and didn't seem she would reveal him anymore today. Why? Simply because he was not ready to know more yet. His mistrusting and hostile nature meant that he had to be the one to come for her for the answers and not her who imposes them on her.

The woman's lips curl into a smile at K' last words and she simply nods her head, keeping her secrets for herself right now. "In due time, I hope you will be able to find the answers that you seek and that I will be able to guide you through this," Her voice was sincere, but then again, cunning and manipulative people knew how to allure others with honeyed words.

The woman turns on her heels, ready to stride back toward her motorcycle. Though before she walks away, she glances over her shoulder to K' and says, "My name is Chizuru Yata, but most knows me under the name Chizuru Kagura," The woman states, offering another bit of her intimacy, revealing a little more about herself.

[K']
Truth be told, both withholding information and not pressing for knowledge of him in turn is probably a wise approach for Chizuru to take with K'. Rather than pressed and paranoid, it does indeed leave him intrigued; if also still paranoid. The tickets and card are slid away inside his leather jacket, rustling the silver cross around his throat, the prototype's only visible finery.

"You know associating with me is dangerous, even deadly, right?" It's a weighty warning, and one that weighs deceptively heavy on K Prime's mind, for all the nonchalance of delivery. In this particular instance? K' /is/ rather sure that the Yata Priestess knows this already... and doesn't care. Something tells him this woman can take care of herself-- a quality he does certainly appreciate.

"You can just call me K." It's a step beyond the 'Dash' moniker that the living weapon commonly fights under. Trust is earned. Assuming his warnings do not forestall the priestess, his farewell to her revving engine is a decidedly sarcastic, "Yataaa~." K' spits, and then lights a cigarette with the tip of his red right thumb.

Log created on 10:32:29 11/06/2018 by K', and last modified on 20:25:00 11/06/2018.