Description: Sakura and Akira get taken out of the Psycho Drive. And Douyoubi wants to put them right back in!
How long has it been? Two days? Three? Oh goodness no, not nearly that long for a trip in the ol' Psycho Pod, the Pod that makes little psycho miracles that dance and frolic within the puppetstrings of Shadaloo. It's been about eleven hours, four within the drive and seven for the girls to recover; brought out of the pod with a lazy, violet aura about their bodies. Once again their uniforms were changed and brought to the recovery pods, it's difference being they actually get air-masks while they rest within light blue liquid now.
As usual the scientists are taking notes, sitting at computers or doing whatever within the giant square of space. Standing in front of the two pods that the girls reside in (There are blue pods lined up against the west well, and green lined against the right) is Douyoubi, the one currently responsible for getting the girls back into shape, and ready for battle once free. It's a very lengthy method overall but it comes with great reward, one that Vega is quite proud of. She stands in her maroon bodysuit, and is expecting company, company that should arrive shortly.
Down the hall two shadaloo grunts are leading another young member, Kurow of course, down to these labs, and he's probably seeing this room for the very first time, used to just being in the throne/control rooms and whatnot with his visits to Vega. He was invited to come down and 'Marvel at my masterpiece, and see what you may be capable of one day if I allow it'. What a nice guy.
Sakura floats weightlessly-like
Akira floats, a little more weightlessly-like than Sakura. Yeah, you heard me.
Kurow, of course, is used to these kinds of shows of power from Lord Vega; not exactly this -way-, mind, and this is indeed his first visit to Shadaloo's extensive laboratories, but this is about par for the course. If there's one thing associating with Shadaloo has taught him, it's that the only egomaniacal displays of power and prowess Kurow enjoys very much are his own.
Kurow walks ahead of the grunts rather than behind, letting them 'lead' by giving him directions; this, too, is probably egomania talking, but it does get him to the labs without too many problems except, perhaps, a little gossip among the guards about how that boy ain't right.
As the doors to the lab open and Kurow assesses the room, the youth spots what he, most likely, has been called here to see -- Douyoubi, and then those two girls behind... her...
Oh, my, he thinks. Vega always did have such good taste. He walks up to Douyoubi, glancing up to the pods, then back to her. "So this is Vega's masterpiece," he says, with a little smirk on his face. "Very well -- I can spare some time for this. Impress me."
Douyoubi continues to stare at the pods, though her visable eye squints as she peers closer, and then a little closer still. If she didn't know any better, she'd think that Akira is floating a little more weightlessly than Sakura. Maybe she shouldn't have let Sakura eat so much sushi.
Anyway she turns her head, the pale woman smirking to Kurow upon arrival. "You can 'spare some time'? 'Impress you'? What a load of crap," is her response, "You're being given an extremely rare opportunity, you should be doing cartwheels and jumping for joy that Vega has given it to you. This isn't a playground." She'd follow it up with 'little boy', but then it'd likely go very very downhill from there. So she'll stop at that point, turning to the pods once again. "In just fifteen seconds these two will be freed, and you'll be looking at not two schoolgirls, but two very powerful and loyal soldiers of Shadaloo. All flawlessly done in eleven hours flat thanks to our work. Kind of makes a man feel inferior, doesn't it?" jab jab jab.
"Eleven hours? You're trying too hard," Kurow says, with a shake of his head; he's used to working faster and in several sittings, rather than all at once. Examining the pods as closely as possible, the youth gently runs a finger down each of them in turn. There definitely is power in that, he thinks -- for all that he doesn't think the 'single strike' methodology is particularly useful in -any- arena, he can't deny that it's got the capacity to get results.
"Well then -- if you want to show off, then by all means, start the show. It's what I'm here for, isn't it?" He does not address the comment about feeling inferior; after all, it is the weak man who starts getting all up in someone's grill on that. "So, then -- are you renaming them, or no?" Evidently, he's used to the typical Shadaloo modus operandi, at least.
"....."
Douyoubi's eyebrow twitches in mild annoyance, where exactly is this confidence coming from anyway? She'll have to let it slide though, because when it comes to science and all that jazz, she knows pretty much zilch. The only thing she knows is actually witnessing what she went through one time is pretty astonishing. Though she wasn't allowed to go unconscious. "Hmph, all right then, take a look," There are a series of beeps at that very moment, the lights at the top of the pod flash and then the front visor raises, letting the liquid splash from the pod and into the drains below them. And at that instant the two would wake up. There probably aren't many thoughts going on in their head at this point. Much like Vega's dolls, their speech may be rather mechanical in tone, and they may need a moment to fully come to, to 'remember' that they're somewhat silent, loyal soldiers, ready for war. "Renaming them? No that would work as a disadvantage, the less obvious we make it that they're different people, the better. Good morning, girls."
Blue pod, blue pod, follow the blue pod... oh, there they are! Sakura and Akira are =sopping wet= with windshield washer fluid. They're SQUEAKY CLEAN now. ... Okay, maybe it was another more diluted protein bath. Who knows? It's just... blue.
But yeah. Sakura's initial reply to Douyoubi's greeting is to barf up all the diluted blue jello crap that's still in her throat, as she lunges forward and plants her gauntleted hands against the glass. *HORK*
... Then she opens her eyes, slowly, and realizes she has an audience.
At which point she rolls her eyes and makes a general =brat= of herself, pressing her face to the glass, smearing her nose and mouth all around it for one of the most disgusting shows she can manage with... y'know, blue junk in her mouth. You can't really go =up= from there, really.
... After which point she straightens up, coughs into a balled fist, and says to Douyoubi, "I suppose this is where I start calling you 'lord doofus' and stuff, right?"
... Waaaait a minute. What the hell's Kurow doing here? Kasugano's eyes shoot over to him, cheeks flooding with red. "What the hell are you doing heere?!" Never say Sakura wasn't outspoken.
You can find a transcript of this exchange filed under the topic: FAILED BRAINWASHING EXPERIMENT.
Akira is so ICKY now. Argghh. She stumbles out. He barf is more graceful than Sakura's as she just coughs a few times, gradually hucking up the goop. The downside of this is that she is slower to realize there's an audience than Sakura. She's blue aba dee abu da. aba dee abu da. She then pants to recatch her breath, shakes her head slowly, and stands back up.
Lord... Doofus? Is that who she is supposed to serve?! Then she shall serve Lord Doo--wait a minute. Akira squints. "That really sucked." She tells Douyoubi, holding the gauntlets up slightly and narrowing her eyes--bout to say more when... KUROW?!
"You brainwashed Kurow?!" Akira gasps, "That's... sort of funny."
Kurow takes a step back from the pod when it starts to drain, watching with much the same interest he showed last night when he was doing something similar to another poor, unfortunate woman from Southtown. He has to see exactly how Vega's process works -- after all, perhaps that way he can have it /now/ rather than 'someday.' Dissecting the technique can't be /that/ hard...
... of course, when they start talking, it becomes apparent that he may not want to, at least not yet. He looks both girls dead-on in the eye, seeing their sudden panic at finding themselves where they are... and for that matter having the mental wherewithal to panic.
There is only one answer he has for this.
The youth puts a hand over his face, looking down slightly, and starts to chuckle, only to launch himself into a full-on Evil Male Rival laugh. /Someone's/ borrowing mannerisms again.
Douyoubi is smiling as one could swear they're hearing some dramatic music, the Imperial March or something as the two schoolgirls are released. It'd probably be a cue for Douyoubi's maniacal laughter; but seeing as it isn't really -her- achievment, there isn't much to laugh about. But she is eager to have new toys to play with for a while.
But the initial reaction from the two girls is clearly unexpected and the look on the black-haired womans face is priceless, the smile just vanishes, and her bloodshot eye briefly goes blank. "What."
Kurow is only seeing the results. But he can safely guess they go into the green pod first, and then the blue. Immedietly the scientists start to panic, yelling at one another and scrambling to back off as quickly as possible away from the arguing girls, and Douyoubi looks mildly upset, even moreso when Kurow starts laughing, "Y- You SHUT UP!" she shrieks, and gives a deathglare to the two girls, "What's going on, this.. I did everything exactly as the papers said!" almost out of desperatly she sputters, "Get back in the pod immedietly! That's an order!!"
Get back in the pod. Ahahaha. Problem with that is ... Sakura and Akira have both had =several hours= to recuperate. They ought to have been groggy. In fact, they =are= groggy, but being freed from their prison, if only for a little bit... is refreshing enough to young Kasugano. Hearing Kurow break out into laughter is... pretty much all that Sakura needs to assess the current situation.
Point one: Kurow doesn't like Douyoubi. Sakura decides to jump out of the pod against Douyoubi's orders.
Point two: Sakura missed an opportunity to drop Douyoubi before, when she was groggy and encumbered by a curious chi-blocking collar. She's making up for lost time, hurling a totally unencumbered kick at Douyoubi's bloodshot eye!
Point three: Despite being groggy, she has no such collar now... and fresh as a spring day, she'll be following that high kick up with a rather significant blossom of chi right to the chest!
Point four: Sakura's able to speak her own mind now! "Your sushi wasn't even that good!!"
Akira looks at her hands. No gauntlets. Huh. She looks at her neck. No collar. Huh. That's weird. If she was running an evil organization that brainwashed people, she'd leave those on until she was sure her evil minions were loyal. But of course any sensible brainwashee would probably pretend until they were off, so maybe it doesn't change things as much as she thinks it would. "Well," She says, "I'm not as easy to control as my brother, I guess!" She is still groggy and disoriented--but there are things she can do anyway. Like rip a computer free and chuck it at Douyoubi. Sure, she hates Kurow too, but it's Douyoubi who tortured her!
"And I didn't even get sushi!" She shouts as she flings. It's true, she didn't. So unfair.
At the very least, Kurow stops laughing at Douyoubi's request; it takes a little bit, but his laughter eventually dies down to nothing. He looks at the girls, watching them aggress on the Seven Days member -- he actually feels like letting this go for a little while, just to spite her. This is a small, subtle way of sassing Vega for giving him orders; he'll step in -eventually-, but for now, he just watches.
He actually goes so far as to sit in a chair, booting one of the techs out of it. He feels he has the right.
Oh the pair are definatly still wearing their vembraces, but thus far they haven't proven to be anything other than heavy. But even at this point the two would be able to handle that with no problem. But Douyoubi is just so shocked that she can't go into her usual masochistic self.
It's important not to panic at this point though, only to get things back under control immedietly, but how? She's certainly no Vega! At this point in time there's only one advantage that she has over the other girls:
Sakura may notice that aside from her skin being a nice, bronzed tan, the chi that she's trying to pull up isn't coming out, making the kick less effective overall. "You brats!" she yells, she raising her right arm up to not just block the kick, but seems to effortlessly push it back, and she reaches to grasp Sakura's neck. The computer moniter thrown her way smashes into her from the side, causing her to stumble shortly to the side, forcing her to release the grip if she had gotten it at all, "If you want sushi, do what I say! Or I'll destroy you two, you're only half-complete, you know!"
Unfortunatly it's an empty threat. If she did, Vega would be pissed. And there was no way at this point that she'd as for that punk Kurow's help.
... Okay, that blossom was significant because it was only in Sakura's mind! Damn, she hates it when that happens! She could have =sworn= she felt =some= kind of energy welling up in her hands, but... well, little chance of that as she gets grabbed by the neck! ... Which she summarily breaks free of courtesy of Akira's monitor toss.
At least Kurow's having fun with this! Sakura really has to laugh as she notices his leisurely attitude out the corner of her eye.
"Well, two half-completes are still way more than you, Lord Doofus!" See, this is why you introduce yourself to Sakura properly: she won't make up names for you that way. And maybe she won't leap forward, aiming to bring both 45-pound gauntlets crashing into Douyoubi's skull for a Seven Days Sandwich! "Hnnnnnngh!" If at first you don't succeed, try throwing some Strong Punch!
Akira may be following sakura's lead because her AV is just sort of sitting around, while hers is actually fighting. Akira may have also realized that escape is probably pretty hard when she doesn't really know how she is--hench why she's throwing around all the expensive stuff she can find--just in case they don't get out! Akira doesn't have heroic surges like Sakura. Akira tries to break the vambraces against another computer--but gives up, instead throwing ANOTHER piece of delicate (but hard) equipment for Douyoubi. "It doesn't seem like you're gonna be able to 'complete' us, Lord Doofus!" She totally can't think up a nickname herself. She's not half as imaginative as Sakura and still feels like throwing up. Luckily she doesn't throw chi out ANYWAY, but will Akira be able to handle this without the aid of... BOND BEAM!? Or Kikou Kai. Whatever works. "Is she really a lord doofus?" She asks of Sakura, "I mean, she's just a super toadie, maybe she's more like... Knight Doofus..." And there she goes with overanalyzation.
After checking his pocket for something, Kurow returns to being thoroughly entertained; he does, however, actually start doing something that approaches looking like he might pull his weight and make himself useful in the next hour or so, maybe.
Specifically, he turns to the technicians nearest him, and starts issuing orders. "You," he says, pointing to one of them and looking at the monitors, attempting to discern their specific purposes, before saying, "That monitor," with another point. "You, that monitor. You're both going to want to watch this." More pointing. "You... leave, or your signature is mysteriously going to end up on the report about the initial failure."
This is really a nightmare. It's going to take some time to figure out what exactly went wrong, and figuring out what that was -actually- was the scientists to figure out and not Douyoubi. That didn't mean she wasn't going to panic herself though; she's not afraid of the girls, and she'd been looking forward to another fight with them but she pictured it in a completely different circumstance! She could just hope for now that they'd just get completely exhausted and leave at that, but by that time the lab would then be completely destroyed. Why did things have to be so difficult??
In the meantime though, Sakura's technique seems familiar, like she's seen it many many times before once.. But that's impossible. It's inconvenient that Sakura had already figured out how to adapt now, and in the combination of some sort of very important and heavy meter being chucked at her back, it explodes into plenty of fun little pieces that comes in the same time both the heavy hands come crashing down onto Douyoubi's head. She hits the floor hard, "Rrrgh!! Damn you!" she groans, cupping the back of her head and so annoyed that she loses it for a moment, snapping up to clutch Sakura by the shoulders of her top, twist and just throw her right at Akira in a fit of rage, "This isn't funny, you brats!" Oh she hates teenagers so much right now.
The confused lab-workers though, they're not going to waste any time questioning the young Kirishima. If it'll get things back under control, then so be it. Kurow guesses right, camera is rolling and some wave-moniters are running in just seconds flat, the latter going haywire at the moment. The other guy? Well, he's actually more than happy to high-tail it thanks, though in a geekly fashion does trip over his own two feet along the way.
Sakura still hasn't figured out =why= she can't throw fireball without that chi-suppression thing... but that's probably a bit too technical for someone who's been awake less than five minutes. The fact that she's already realized how she can apply momentum to get those giant honkin' gauntlets moving is achievement enough, she figures!
"Well, she keeps talking tall and won't give us her =real= name, so--" Sakura had been quipping to Akira at that moment, figuring a good braining like the one she'd just doled out would be enough to immobilize Douyoubi for a moment. But it seems... she underestimated, for the amped-up schoolgirl finds her shoulders latched onto. "H...hey..." And she soon finds herself flying through the air into Akira! How embarassing!
It... is funny, though, Sakura muses as she crashes into her companion. She lands on the cold, cold floor with a crash! "G-go get her, Akira!" she calls out, while she tries to figure out how to get those 45-pound gauntlets off the ground. It's not so bad when they're =already= up and/or moving... but there's still some growing pains here...
SAKIRADOUKENED!
Akira goes down in a heap, with Sakura right on top of her. She bangs her head against some more fragile things and is dizzied. Birds do not fly around her head, however, she's not that dizzied. "Uh." She says, "Sure. One sec." She stumbles back up to her feet, oofs with the exertion of all the extra stuff on her, and then she throws... a dancing cyclone kick for Douyoubi's body, spinning in the air as she does so but...
Er.
There's no cylcone. It's only a dancing kick, one supposes, no wind chi erupts along Akira's feet. How embarrassing! She would 'hyaah' but, well, she feels like vomiting.
And now, Kurow starts to -- at long last -- make himself useful. As Sakura lies on the ground, trying to pull herself back up in spite of those heavy gauntlets, he starts to walk over. Unlike them, he isn't carrying around any wounds he didn't intend to take; as such, he has little trouble walking toward her, reaching down, and picking her up. "I apologize that you don't get a break from this," he says, grinning Rock's twice-borrowed grin before taking a step to the side and throwing her toward Akira and Douyoubi.
What comes next is, if nothing else, not much of a surprise; the Kirishima ninja rears his hand back and then thrusts it forward, forming claws of chi rather than bothering to put on his usual clawed gloves. The reason for this is, of course, to allow himself to extend them freely -- the blades of energy streak out for the flying Sakura, Akira, and Douyoubi. Kurow has /such/ a hard time avoiding collateral damage with this one. It's like it's cursed.
Douyoubi stands up slowly, and if her hair was brushed out of her face, someone could probably see a big vein buldging from it. She's getting more exhausted from the stress more than actually fighting the two; they're not a huge threat currently but if they figure out how to tear up without their chi again quickly enough it'll be an even bigger problem! "Don't take those damn things off, or your energy will tear out your body like a firehose!!" is pretty much the last thing she can offer before Kurow comes into the game. And she looks considerably confused toward whatever it is he had been planning to do. Slouching forward slightly, she tilts her head and reaches out to break Sakura's flight with her back, blinks, and then before she knows it is getting blasted by the unexpected burst of cutty chi.
It's suprisingly pleasent, but even when she slams up against one of the pods, the machine caught in the cut-wave abruptly exploding into sparks and smoke she shrieks in utter disbelief, "YOU!!" she yells, breathing heavily and completely ignoring the slashes along her blouse; She's about seconds away from completely losing it! "What are you doing??"
Oh wait she's not ignoring the slashes, as she's suddenly holding the attacked area.
"Pfft, whatever! You're full of it, Lady Good-for-nothing!" Warning her to keep these gauntlets on -- yeah, right! Sakura's all but paralyzed for a moment. It's hard to regain lost momentum, especially when your weight has effectively doubled overnight. It's like the opposite of the Subway diet!
Luckily, Kurow is not bogged down by this in the slightest, as he plucks Kasugano up. "H-hey, what the heck, you finally decided to he--"
It's in mid-flight that she realizes where his loyalties lie. She's still groggy, and more than just a bit slow! ... "WATCH OUT!" she cries out, but it's much too late -- not only does she crash into Akira and Douyoubi, but she also gets a back full of slashy chi waves!
... Now, despite Sakura's =actions=, she's still in a tremendously fragile state. She doesn't even know this yet, herself.
Perhaps it's more correct to say she didn't know this, before she got hit -- and she had all of about 0.65 seconds before the shockwave knocks her unconscious to really make sense of this. Kurow having enough chi to lance =through= her and hit two other people, now... =that= is power, and it's a wee bit too much for Sakura to handle in her current state.
At least her stainless-steel elbow guard still got to crack Douyoubi in the head, even if she weren't coherent enough to enjoy the aftermath...
Akira can't interrupt circle slash when he's throwing Sakura again! She lets out a brief and wordless yelp as Kurow ALL OF A SUDDEN interjects, catches her with a second Sakuradoken AND slicey chi waves. Akira breaks some more fragile things as she crashes to the ground. She does not stand back up, and instead grunts and lays across the ground i enormous pain.
You're a jerk, Kurow! But a jerk who has saved ... the day ...? for Shadaloo??!??
Kurow looks to Douyoubi with a smile. "Fixing your failures. Stay there and tend to your stomach wound. I don't want you touching this -- we all saw what happened the first time." He looks the two injured girls over, and says, "All right. This isn't going to be too difficult, I imagine -- considering you're both in a bad state already. We've established that your situation is mostly hopeless, that you can't escape, and that generally it's probably healthiest to cooperate. At the very least, your -basic- needs will be met if you do."
Kneeling down next to both of them, the youth pulls out his flute -- unlike his previous experiences with both of the girls, he both has a good opportunity -and- isn't in excruciating pain! Bonus. "Listen, and you may learn something. The reason this failed, most likely, is because -- while the brute force method usually works on adults, and on created beings -- it's tougher on younger specimens. It's still viable, but it's very often imperfect. This leads to results like this." Every explanation Kurow gives is patronizing. He's like some sort of Patronization Elemental. (If that wasn't a word it is now.)
"The key is not to simply overwhelm the mind, then, but merely to frame its objectives in a way that best suits your own needs." He begins to play that somewhat fast, yet haunting melody that he's put to use so many times, trying to 'aim' it at the girls in the way he was taught to years ago, trying to shut their mental defenses back off; when everything hurts and feels hopeless, a cessation of pain -- and of anguish of a more emotional nature -- can seem all too welcome.
Kurow starts with Sakura, coming in close to her. It's an oddly intimate closeness, one which is no doubt entirely calculated. "Sakura... all your life," he says, "you've been trying to follow in Ryu's footsteps. Trying to pursue what he pursues. You keep telling yourself you want to be like him... but you know, somewhere down there, that that's not true, don't you? You'e latched onto him because you want to /surpass/ him -- but in spite of how far you've come, you still haven't. Isn't that right?"
e lets that hang for a minute, sink in, and then starts to drive it home. "... this is your opportunity. This is the one chance you'll have -- if you stay with me, stay with Vega, stay with Shadaloo... I think you can do it." He pulls her in close, even though she likely can't respond much, if at all. "You can have that power, that opportunity you've always wanted. You just have to let it in. You can do that, can't you?"
He'll handle the groundwork on Akira next. There's more to be done, obviously, with /both/ of them, but laying a good foundation is the most essential part.
Fixing her failure?? Why that snobbish, know-it-all, punk so-and-so! But Douyoubi doesn't have any choice but to comply, if anything because if Kurow can do something, it'd be worth taking a bit of sass. She'll just chew him out later. Also a chance to laugh and say 'I told you so' for Kurow's own failure would be pretty sweet, too. She realizes that she's bleeding at the face now, and touching the area she realizes those vambraces must have hit her at some point. Wow, when she's actually not realizing she's in pain, that's probably a bad sign. Her breathing starting to calm, she just mumbles under her breath. She never understood the schematics after all. However the music he plays, it's eerily familiar. It's almost like the voices she had talked to Sakura about. It makes her quirk a brow.
Shaken back to consciousness by the sheer will of Kurow's condescension, Sakura looks up at the Kirishima youth with glazed-over eyes. Sure... she's pretty sick. She may have been willfully =ignoring= the sickness to capitalize on her opportunity to smack Douyoubi around, but... well, the fact remains that it's still there. And moreover... it's been multiplied by Kurow's attack. Fun stuff!
But she looks up at him slowly, still more or less trapped by drug-induced sluggishness and her own gauntlets. She can tell he's being patronized, sure. She grits her teeth at that, able to do little more.
Her resistance is... moot, once the melody of the flute sinks in. He's wrong, part of her mind states... he's =wrong=. That's not what she thinks, that's not how it really is at all! But the story she's being told, and coerced into believing, nonetheless, has some basis in truth. It's enough to merit a listen-to, at least.
Sakura is then swept into Kurow's arms.v The... arms of the guy she wanted to kill on several occasions before. But the flute melody is still fresh in her mind... overpowering the rest. She closes her eyes, fighting to sort out the conflicting thoughts...
But in the end, all she can do is murmur a slight, drowsy, "Mm-hmm..." in response to his query. At least for =now=... just before she drifts off once again, she has temporarily revised her opinion of Kurow: He's not such a bad guy after all.
And, with that initial work done, Kurow carefully returns Sakura to the pod for now. He'll work with her more when she's conscious but still reasonably accepting -- that's when he does his best work. An unconscious target is good at accepting basic commands, but less so at accepting new feelings, new thoughts, new emotions.
He turns, then, to Akira, with a little smile. "Ah, Akira. I admit I was hoping to be able to choose my own timing with you, but then -- you've always had a knack for giving me the run-around, haven't you?" He comes over to her, kneeling down next to her. The creepy intimacy doesn't come -- at least, not /yet/. Perhaps he's saving it for a special occasion, in her case. "But that's all right, because that's what you want, isn't it? You want to feel in control of something -- you want people to work on your timetable. Trying to build up the force of personality to push -into- things rather than move around them. You have it, sometimes, I've noticed -- but it's not perfect." He's figured out that much from his encounters with both members of the Kazama family; initially he thought what drove them was hatred, but now he knows a little better. After all, someone with a lot of hate doesn't seek to lead a gang -- that's someone who wants to exude power and confidence. And she looks up to him, so she's likely the same way...
"Like I told Sakura... just let us help you, let us buff out those tiny little imperfections, and you can have it. You'll be subordinate to some, yes -- to me, to Vega -- but you'll be the elite. Foot soldiers will bow to your every whim. You'll be able to move through life unfettered, able to push through any obstacle. You just need that first little push." If Kurow were less selfish, he'd likely be a great servant of the people -- he knows them well. He knows how to read into them, how to really understand what they want. Instead, though, he finds something close enough to minimize cognitive dissonance and which serves him better and starts feeding them /that/ until they actually believe it. It's a cruel, terrible thing, and when it is broken -- as it often is -- it's even more of a violation than that so-called 'brute force' method.
"I see why Yurika likes you," he says, seeming to be leading to a conclusion of the initial foundation work. "She always did have an attraction to people with the capacity to become competent, strong, powerful. I wonder how she'll feel about you when your full potential's unlocked."
Douyoubi looks rather shocked by what she sees. Stunned in silence she be for teh moment, but as time passes on she only gets more furious. It's inconceivable, just how could a mere flute do in minutes what advanced technology and psycho power does in hours? She doesn't accept Kurow's answer at all. Maybe he's a warlock. Yeah, that's got to be it. As it stands, he's proven that he could keep control of them.
The woman snorts, her arms crossed as she shakes her head, "They need a little more time to recover. I'll teach them how to control their new power tomorrow." her tone is obviously begrudging, her visable eye glaring to the young assassin.
"Then you'll take command of them. Remember, they're primarily for helping defend our part of Thailand, and to capture Ryu and Daigo. I'm sure Lord Vega will give you further commands down the line if necessary." Jerk, ".. I suppose I don't need to tell you what will happen if you get any 'bright ideas'."
At least Douyoubi can smirk about that much. Things should then be getting into the clean-up phase at this point; the recovery-phase will have to be done all over again, but at least it'll be a shorter time interval.
Log created on 23:32:45 06/09/2007 by Sakura, and last modified on 11:13:40 06/30/2007.