Match of the Millennium

Description: Senna is hired by the Syndicate to go find an employee gone radio-silent. Her search leads her to an underground fighting arena abandoned for years-- and Tairyu.

[TAIRYU]
It's a bit of an unusual job. But it's a job nonethless. The syndicate has tasked Senna with finding an 'employee' who has not been answering calls made to him throughout the day. The fact alone that an enforcer is sent after the employee this quickly on after the start of radio silence likely has plenty implications about the working relationship involved, but the people who hired Senna on for this particular job elected not to elaborate further. Need to know basis and all. All they're telling her is that the employee is one Katashi Tairyu, and he was expected for a goods exchange.

So probably some shitty courier, right? Nevermind that the list of places she's been given as potential places to find either him or clues for his whereabouts include places like the office area of an illegal gambling den and a long-since abandoned underground fighting ring. And that she's been adviced to remind him of how fragile the safety of one 'Miku' is, if he happens to not cooperate.

The location of the abandoned fighting ring is one she's adviced to check on very first, ultimately. A large basement floor underneath an equally-abandoned warehouse on the very edges of a red-light district. A roped ring still remains at the very center of it, along with spectator stands surrounding it. Thick layer of dust covers every surface and rust spreads through piping on the floor and the walls as proof to the fact that the arena has not been used in upward to years, now. Whatever glory that was gained here and the fighters that shed blood here both have faded into obscurity. It's a wonder there's even electricity routed here still, to let the lights function.

However, there is a sign of fresher activity to be found when Senna comes in. A trail of red droplets that begins at the stairs leading down to the basement floor, and leads all the way past the ring, towards a door on the opposite side of the big arena room from where the stairs end. Still not fully dried up. Maybe two hours old, at most.

[SENNA]
Senna is not the type to ask questions that don't need answers. Sent to find someone? Sure thing. She'll call if she needs further info, or to get any updates. But stuff that doesn't concern her--things like, 'why are you sending an enforcer to find this guy who is supposedly an employee', she doesn't ask. She just does. It's a living, if a crappy one.

But she hates, hates, _hates_ jobs that take longer than she thinks they should. It's one of her most endearing traits, really. So after the first place came up empty, and then the second, and even the third? Oh, she's pissed.

She could've been doing something else by now. ANYTHING else. Get a beer. Go fuck up kids' days at the game center. Find a nest of unruly street rats and beat them into submission. Anything but this goddamn JRPG fetch quest shit. Spotting the blood--something she's well faimilar with--she follows that trail, her anger simmering for now, but like a pressure cooker, it's ready to go off at any second.

"Hey. HEY!!" she shouts, as she reaches for the door the blood trail leads to, raising her voice to make sure anyone on the other side can hear. "I'm lookin' for Tairyu!! If you're in there, would you get your goddamn ass OUT HERE?!?!?"

[TAIRYU]
"Over here."

The call comes from behind Senna, and a few ways off. When she inevitably turns to look to the source of the voice, she'll locate it amidst the spectator stands.

It's a man few inches taller than her. Dressed up in black suit pants, an unbuttoned black blazer jacket and a red, high-collared button-up shirt. Though the clothes are rumpled up enough to suggest they were put on in a hurry, and the four upmost buttons on his shirt have been left open-- giving way to a peek at the white color of cloth wrapping there. Bandages?

He walks calmly along the stands, with green eyes sharply set on Senna from that distance. Senna has probably seen the type before. Everything about the man practically screams 'Yakuza'. Or as much Yakuza as one can find in a city where the underworld is controlled almost exclusively by the Syndicate.

"I'm surprised anyone knew to come find this place," the man speaks out while he moves along. "Don't think even most people who actually came here while it was still running remember it. Not since Aizawa-san decided he can't compete with all the other rings around."

Once past the rows of seat on that side of the arena, he circles around the ring itself, until he's set on the pathing that leads to the door Senna had walked up to -- and he's facing her, albeit still at a distance.

"So... Who are you supposed to be, anyway?"

[SENNA]
Senna was just about to bash in the door--a good release of tension--but just as she raises a fist, Tairyu speaks. Senna spins around, hands still clenched into fists, but she relaxes them after a momnet, almost visibly drawing that energy of anger back into her and trying to calm down a little. Doesn't help much though, as she still looks palpably irritated.

Senna does not look 'put together', the way Tairyu does. She looks like what she is--a rough and tumble brawler, someone who lives low and, if she doesn't revel in it, is at least used to it. She isn't _dirty_, but she isn't clean-cut either.

"Yeah, well. The Syndicate knows a fuckload about people. How you think they maintain control? It ain't all just beatings and threats." Though that's what she's used to and good for. And that answers his question, at least partially, although she is polite enough to answer, "Name's Senna. You oughta be able to guess what I'm here for," she says. Surely he hasn't _forgotten_ the job he was supposed to do.

[TAIRYU]
"You're Syndicate...?" Tairyu's head tilts slightly to one side at this revelation, and a single dark brow cocks itself upwards, sloooowly.

"Am I supposed to? I didn't have any prior arrangements today." His head straightens back p with that, and he starts a slow stride down between the stands, towards Senna herself.

"My phone has been destroyed for maybe three hours, and I already get a chaperone sent for me? ...But, no, you carry yourself a lot like I do."

He comes to a stop, roughly five meters' distnce away from her, and his eyes narrow. "... They didn't decide I am useless to them now, did they?"

[SENNA]
"Shit." Senna spits on the floor, cricks her neck by tilting her head back and forth.

"I'm not here to kill ya. That's not my deal. Besides, they've made a statement first. Burn you out with a fire, kill you out front, you know. That dramatic shit."

"But I guess it's fair to say they got your eye on you. Why? I don't know. They didn't tell me shit about you." Reaching into her pants pocket, she pulls out a phone, a cheap cellphone, and flips it open, punching up the message, tossing the phone to you.

"Here. I don't know why they don't like you. Said somethin' 'bout a Miku who you might want to think about." She can guess. She doesn't, doesn't want to know, but she can guess. She might be a brawler but she's not entirely stupid, even if this life _is_ her own fault.

--but try getting her to admit that out loud without a lot of alcohol in her.

[TAIRYU]
"... So what is your deal usually, then?" Asks Tairyu, with a brief further narrowing of his eyes. He lets that scowl go, though - it's not like he really has a valid target to glare at in the phyysical vicinity - when he reaches his hand out in a snapping motion and catches the flying phone. And reads through the message.

"...Tch. They must have decided to put me in at the last minute. That's so like them. Just flexing those puppet strings." The phone's flipped closed again, and tossed back over. "A deal like that isn't something that can wait either, so they'd have sent someone else there. And you're here as a reminder more than anything else, aren't you? ... With a healthy dose of 'kick-your-ass' if I suddenly decided to have a rebellious streak, right?"

His eyes sweep down towards the floor, and he starts taking steps closer again. "...I'll forgive you for holding Miku over me, Senna-san, since you are just the messenger. But..." Is he approaching to fight? The way he's talking, he might be.

...But. Just before he gets into striking range, he diverts to the left, to step along your perimeter, before crouching down to... wipe at the goblet of spit there with the sleeve of his jacket. "Leave the spitting outside. This place might not have held much significance in comparison to all the other arenas around even when it was still functioning, but for some of us.. there's important memories here."

[SENNA]
"My deal? You can't guess? Didn't think it was a mystery." She raises her hands, showing the scarred, well-worn knuckles. "I beat people's asses for the Syndicate. It's what I'm good at," she says, putting the phone back into her pocket.

"Obviously the head honchos thought you might be trouble, otherwise they wouldn't'a sent me, but, whatever. I'm just pissed it took so long to find you," she says, sounding entirely serious about that.

"I could've been drinking, or workin' out, or finding punks to fuck up instead." Senna reads the body language without really thinking about it, and though her hands are up, she isn't expecting him to actually strike.

"Tch," she says, the closest Tairyu'll get to an apology. "I got forced out of boxing 'cause fragile little fucks couldn't take me winnin'. I ain't got nothin' for places like this." She turns, moving to start leaving the building.

"Anyway, that's my job done here," she tosses over her shoulder.

"I don't wanna come back here and drag you out of here, so, go do that shit, okay? They ain't payin' me enough for this."

[TAIRYU]
Tairyu doesn't say much, for a good moment, while he's down there wiping off the spit. Even if it stains his jacket. Just because he doesn't happen to have a napkin or anything else of the like on him.

However, once Senna has already set into her stride of leaving, he turns his gaze to her. Staring at her back for a silent few seconds before calling out, "Senna-san."

He pauses for a couple seconds just to see if she reacts to his call, but regardless of wether or not she does, he goes on to ask, "Why do you do it?"

His head cants over to one side, tongue clicking at the roof of his mouth. "And don't say it's just because it's what you're good at again. Is it because it's the closest thing to the boxing you got pushed out of? If that's the case, then why did you start boxing, too?"

Awful curious for someone who had just accused her of being a hitman sent after him.

[SENNA]
"Why?" Senna stops after a few steps, turning to look back at the Yakuza man. Senna shrugs, elaborately.

"Ain't got nothin' else. I was a loser boxer, and I ain't cut out for a nine to five. Street fightin' don't pay the bills unless you win, and most people," she grins, sharkily, "would consider me... not a good corporate fit."

"It's a livin', is what I'm sayin'. And that's all." There's more than a little bitterness in her tone, but resignation as well.

"Anyway... if you don't show, it's both our asses, and I guarantee I'll hunt you down and beat your ass before they beat both of ours, so, you better get a move on. Sounds like that shit is goin' down soon, huh?"

[TAIRYU]
"Hmmm... Just curious," is all that Tairyu claims on his reasons for the question, but... even his own tone seems to deliberately make it clear that there's more to it. More than he's willing to give right now. For now.

"You are right, though... I am really pushing my luck here..." He smooths himself up to standing, brushing his hand over pant leg to swipe off some dust that ended up gathered there. "But, Senna-san, one more thing..."

Both hands find their way into his pockets, and he comes walking after her. "If you get bored of just the regular Southtown punks and Syndicate shakedowns..." When he comes to passing her, he cranes his neck wth a languid stretch that ends up directing his eyes directly to meeting hers.

"You come find me here."

In the next instant, he's already taking the next step to bring him walking past her. "Ah, tell you what..." With his back already turned to her, he draws a hand out from his pocket and flicks it in a casual over-the-shoulder wave and adds in, "I'll even toss in prize money," before he's ascending up the stairs.

Log created on 14:01:13 06/19/2020 by Tairyu, and last modified on 19:10:52 06/19/2020.