Description: Zach and Hotaru run into each other on the Suiryuu. Hotaru is there to watch the tournament while Zach's uncertain if he is still /in/ it. The two learn a bit about the other in the meantime.
Not invited to the tournament yet welcome to hang around all the same it would seem, Hotaru Futaba has become just another figure lurking around on the large, highly modified boat. She hadn't intended to stay when she came to the harbor at night, only to confirm that the vessel was real. But when Riko indicated that she was welcome to, the girl decided to take advantage of the opportunity to watch the strange tournament play out as a passive observer.
There's a lot to do while waiting for the next round of matches to get fired up. She's meandered about the boat, checking out the things to see, watching the ocean, enjoying the little break from the normal rigors of her school and daily training. The small, onboard library has caught her attention now, and it is there that she leans forward to peer at the old books, eyes squinting at titles she's never heard of.
But she has always been interested in the history of Asia, developing a facination with traditional styles and appearances as a result. Finally she settles on a thin, tall book to pull from the shelf into her hands. A brief analysis of martial arts evolution in the late seventeenth century. Huh!
Interestingly enough, there is another young adult in the library, on the other side of the room. He sits crosslegged in a chair that seems to swallow him. In one hand there is a book on meditation technique, opened partway through. The other hand opens and closes in a steady rhythm. When the hand is spread completely open a slight, almost impossible to see unless you know what to look for, burst of faint pruple energy erupts and disappears with a whisper of a *foof*.
The book must be engrossing; the reader has not noticed Hotaru yet.
The book now in hand, the young Kenpo artist starts flipping through the pages with careful ease, in no danger of damaging the old text. "I wonder where they got books like these," she muses out loud, eyes straying over the words speaking from the dust of generations gone by.
Sitting down and perusing the book seems like a good idea to her, which is why she glances up to see what sort of seating is available, only to notice Zach in her cursory inspection of the room. Huh, the girl ponders, wondering if he is one of the Agents of Jinchuu as Riko described it, or if he was like her, a different tier, as the small ninja had said. Considering how he fared against her, the girl's initial guess is that he's in the same boat as her with regards to the ongoing events. But she's been too busy as of late to follow the broadcast fights as much as she normally does, leaving her uninformed as to how Zach has done in his other match ups.
She is hardly one to interrupt someone in deep concentration, however, understanding how such a practice might be important to him.
It's actually Zach that speaks up first. He's not certain /how/, but he sort of felt Hotaru on the edge of his perception. Like seeing something that stays right at the point where you catch it out of the corner of your eye. The hand clenches into a fist one last time.
"Oh. Hotaru," Zach greets as he sets the book down. "I didn't see you at the opening ceremony." He smiles a bit; between some of Ingrid's instruction and his own decent faring of late he seems pretty upbeat, "I didn't realize they were letting spectators on already. How's your head?" Zach recalls the Saturday Night Fight.
She would have left him in peace, but he seems to pick her out before she can slip away and now that he's noticed her, the girl pauses mid-step, turning back around to face the young man. "Nn," she replies when he mentions the opening ceremony, nodding just slightly. Followed by a grin and half shrug at the comment about spectators. She imagines a lot more people will be milling about when that happens. She just decided to get an early seat. Kind've.
As he inquires as to her head, she looks sheepish, one hand coming up to rest at the back of her neck, her other hand occupied with holding the book she picked out. "Ah, well, I'm all right." The fight is a vague blur in her mind, having gotten clobbered so fast as to not really be able to realize what was happening the whole time. So much for supposedly being the better fighter of that trio.
Stuff happens. Fights are random like that. Zach completely expected to be on the losing end of that fight, truth be told. "Good to hear," Zach replies.
"I have to admit, I'm not sure how much longer I'll be on the lists. The fight ended... a bit odd," he admits, "I was supposed to keep Katelynn off of the boat, but I couldn't just let her drown." Zach say this with a slight bit of distaste; he has the impression that it was almost expected that he do exactly that, given the assignment. "I'm glad she's okay, though."
"Yeah," replies Hotaru as the young man discusses the nature of his fight. She's been putting together the pieces of the first round of Jinchuu little by little, filling in gaps with rumors and word of mouth. "It sounds very much like how many of the first round of fights were designed." she remarks after a moment. Maybe he already knew that though. She wasn't there for the start of the tournament after all.
"But just being in some event doesn't mean you should stop being who you are." the girl offers after another moment. "I suspect... well, the more I hear about some of the people that have been participating... are like you, but others will stoop to whatever it takes to win, no matter who gets hurt." She smiles faintly then, moving back to the shelf to replace the book where she had taken it. "You'll have to be real careful. Not everyone will be as decent as you."
Zach tugs on his cap a bit to allow the brim to hide his cheeks, all the better to hide the slight shade of crimson they are taking.
"Since I first arrived in SouthTown, I've run across a gun-deal, run afoul of the man /behind/ the trade, and fought something..." Zach trails off, somewhat thoughtful, "Well... hitting that guy didn't feel like hitting you, or anyone else I've fought. It was," Zach looks uncomfortable; Jaeger left him gutted in a field. He's still not sure why he's not dead, ".../odd/." He pushes back the cap, "I'm learning to stay on my toes."
Sounds like he has a way of getting into trouble, the girl muses. Reminds her of some other people she knows. But his expression when he iterates over the list of fights he's been through causes her to blink, focusing a little more on the young man. "Oh? How was it odd? Who was this?" After all, fighters in the circuits have names. Then again, from the descriptions of his encounters, he spends a lot of time mixing it up outside of the circuits as well.
"Never caught his name," Zach says. "He was kinda big, armored, had some kind of jetpack." He gestures, as if trying to describe the size of a fish he caught, "Had a knife on his arm about this big." Zach frowns, "And I think he had a missile launcher hidden in the woods somewhere."
He frowns, concentrating a bit, "When I hit you with my energy, or just about anyone else for that matter, it feels like I am hitting /something/. Some people have more of it than most, but that's rare. Ingrid was the first one that felt.../solid/. This guy? Nothing. Nothing at all." Glen shrugs. "Maybe some people are like that. I don't know."
Armored? Big? Jetpack and knife-hand? Hotaru lifts her own hand, her palm coming to rest against her right cheek, reminded of a painful wound inflicted there not long ago. "I think I've seen what you're describing. He stormed into Southtown and started blowing everything up in sight. It..." She shakes her head slowly, "I don't really know what your deal is. You strike like..."
Hotaru frowns a little, "Well, there was someone that I battled against once in Thailand during the war working for Shadaloo. Your power feels like his." She finally voices the suspicion that has been on her mind since their Neo League match weeks ago, only to shake her head slowly, "But it's probably nothing."
Zach's face goes from frown to concerned/curious when Hotaru brings up Thailand, "...like who?"
In the back of his mind, he recalls the month of terror that he experienced during the Thailand Affair. Of changing sleeping places every night so that the Man in Crimson didn't find him to do...
...to do /what/, exactly? Zach was not sure, but on a deeper level, it scared the spit out of him.
Hotaru blinks, then shakes her head a little. "He was a monster of a man. Seemed to be a prison warden or something. I don't know..." Shrugging, she continues, her expression softening a bit. "We didn't exactly exchange pleasantries." she waves her hand as if to suggest there's not really anything else she can offer. "Kind of exploded at us... just like you did when I thought you were finished in our Neo League fight," the girl continues. Only, she managed to actually get away from the explosion that time.
Zach blinks at this. He had seen the end of the fight. It was a source of shame to him. He would have much rather come by that draw cleanly.
"...guess I'm not alone then," Glen whispers before going back to conversational, "I didn't always have this," He raises a palm, and summons up a purple sphere for a moment, holding it there with a bit of concentration as he stares at it, "The first time... It was a stupid arguement about a rent check." The sphere wavers, darkens, "I levelled the /house/. The other guy, my roommate, was in the hospital for a month." The sphere holds, "Since then, I've been going from place to place, part-time job to part-time job. I've been trying to learn what I can about this power since then. I need to control it," the sphere pulses, "Before it runs /out/ of control." The sphere darkens, "Before..."
Zach frowns, and clenches his fist, snuffing the ball of near-black energy out completely. It's much louder than the puff-like sounds he was making before. He doesn't make eye contact with Hotaru.
Hotaru is quiet then, listening, though her expression is unusually reserved. She felt the brunt of that explosion, even from the outskirts. The idea that it could level a house isn't hard to believe. But she had thought it was some kind of trick on his part. A trap to lull her into thinking he was done only to unleash such a devestating attack, and since then had considered him a decent enough person in the scheme of things, but someone who was still willing to stoop to, well, dirty tricks to win a fight.
That it wasn't a trap but rather him just flat out losing control isn't really that much more comforting, and in fact, her expression darkens a little as she turns to walk away, resting her hand against the door frame leading out of the library, glancing over her shoulder toward him. "You really have no place fighting other people competatively until you get that under control. If you... if... something happens, it will be your fault, whether you wanted it to happen or not." Her tone is heavy with condemnation now. "Feeling bad for losing control doesn't mean much if you willingly enter competative fights with other people." A walking timebomb has no excuse for what it does if it willingly gets close to the victims it explodes on, after all.
Zach sets the book aside, looking up at Hotaru for a moment before standing up to look her in the eye a bit better.
"Ever go dumpster-diving for your day's meal? Wonder whether or not you would have a roof over your head at the end of the day, or if you'd even have something to cover up with at night?" Hotaru might get a better look at his clothes; maintained, reasonably clean, but /definitely/ well-worn. "Or what'd happen to you if you got into an accident somehow? Do you have any idea /just how hard/ it is to hold down a normal job for someone like me?" Zach has apparently given this some thought. He's not /proud/ of what he has had to do in order to keep himself fed and sheltered. He /knows/ that he /shouldn't/ be fighting competitively.
Since he has, however, the incidences of him just... going off have dropped off. HE's not sure if it is simply a function of having to actively /apply/ the power during a fight, or if the fighting acts as a sort of release to bring the energy down to levels he can manage. "I know that what I do has consequences, Hotaru. I also know that since I have started this course, it has become easier for me to control it. I don't explode as often anymore. I can sleep nights and have everything in my room where I set it down, instead of on the floor, or broken."
Zach jams his hands in his pockets, "Hell. I'm not even sure why I'm /in/ this tournament. The note was pinned to my cot when came home from a job picking up trash at the SouthTown mall. The prize money, if it's legit, would mean that I wouldn't have to do work I'm too /smart/ for because I couldn't finish college."
As he stands, the girl pauses, turning around to face Zach directly. She is taken aback by the accusing questions at first as he describes an existence that is, well, completely foreign to the girl raised in a wealthy home with a loving mother and a severe, austere father. Never a question of where her next meal would come from or whether there would be a shelter over head at the end of the day for the young Futaba heiress. Her own clothing is fancy, with expensive, custom floral imprinted fabrics and scintillating gold embroidery, pristine whites and regal blues.
"Nn," the girl replies, having no answer to his questions, only falling silent to listen as he continues. Her expression softens gradually, the faint frown remaining present on her face though. She remembers another that described something similar then, and she averts her eyes for a moment of thought. "Well," she finally remarks, exhaling slowly, the brief spike in temper bleeding out of her gradually. "Maybe releasing your power makes it easy to control. I've... met others with that kind of issue before. I guess if you ever need someone to spar against to let some of that pent up energy go, I wouldn't mind helpyng you."
She is quiet as to his motivation for the tournament. Surely the money factors in for a lot of people here. Money, fame, a chance to make it big. Those are the opportunities of the Jinchuu, as Riko explained it to her just last night.
It's pretty much the money for Zach. A chance to make it big, or fame? These don't appeal to Zach. His first appearance on Saturday Night Fights lead directly to him getting the crap beat out of him by Rugal.
"I think I'd like that. It makes a certain kind of sense. Ingrid said she was willing to help me learn about it. That maybe I could learn how to heal people instead of wreck stuff with it. That it comes from within, as opposed to whatever it is that most fighters use." Zach sounds frank, as if he is uncertain about the whole thing but willing to try it.
If only because the alternative is simply...unacceptable to him. He looks at the floor for a moment, "I can't do anything to make you accept the reality of my situation. It's... not the best set of choices, I know." He grins softly, "I promise you, however, that I will do my level best to keep the damage to an absolute minimum."
One should realize that the world of fighters, of any kind of ethical code of martial arts, reasons to fight or not to fight... most of this is incredibly new territory to the twenty-one year old man. This was not something he was raised to, steeped in since childhood or anything like that.
Rugal beats the crap out of everyone who's face pops up on TV at some time or another. It's just the way of things. That he had a specific axe to grind with Zach just means he got to him sooner. "Okay," the girl replies with a bit of a smile as he seems to be fine with her offer to help him out with a spar from time to time. It worked for someone else she knew once before...
As he mentions Ingrid and further discusses things she has told him, Hotaru blinks, leaning her head to the side a little. Ingrid's power hurt terribly fierce, but it didn't seem like Zach's power to her. Then again, she did find it distressing how hard it was to sense anything the young blond girl was doing when they fought each other. So there is a connection, she muses thoughtfully.
"Heh!" the girl replies when he mentions keeping damage to a minimum. "I've already seen what you can dish out. I can take it!" she replies with a shake of her head. Which is a pretty big stretch. Maybe she's just forgotten how bad his attacks hurt in the time that's passed since then.
"Well, I wish you luck in this tournament then. If you're still in it." It does sound to her like he might have violated the terms of the match. But she's also completely unsure as to how much the ninjas who are hosting this strange event are sticklers for the rules. For them, rules might just exist to be broken.
Zach grins a bit, and nods. Fighting Ingrid felt a lot like fighting himself to Zach. He scoops up his book and nods to the younger lady. "Thanks! I hope I am. The experience has been... interesting thus far."
He tucks the book under one arm as he yawns, "But I think I should get some sleep in the meantime. Would be bad if I had to fight all sleepy."
"Sure," the girl replies, finally turning back around to step through the exit as she had meant to do earlier. "Be careful," she adds after another moment before vanishing off to explore the rest of the deck.
Log created on 20:43:03 08/28/2007 by Zach, and last modified on 07:34:26 08/29/2007.