Description: Leave it to Elle to turn a perfectly normal cabin room into a hot, humid sauna full of all the earmarks of a paranoid conspiracy theorist. Once again, Hotaru is drawn further into the plot as the Blackjack leader sees it, studing the strange event from a number of different angles. And once again, she's given more information to chew on and more tasks to follow up on. The quest to find the missing piece to connect all the dots continues.
As the saying goes, the flap of a butterfly's wings can, due to chaos theory, cause a hurricane on the other side of the world. The motions of one inconsequential thing can set into effect a chain reaction a series of unlikely events that can end in spectacular results.
Now, if that's the sort of thing that can result from something considerably insignificant, what can happen when the actions are deliberate?
Taken a step further, the belief becomes that everythign in the world is deliberate. That nothing in the world occrus because of chance. It's a series of actions, no matter how subtle, all calculated to one end or another, and the end result is a masterpeice. A work beyond compare starting at humble beginnings and slowly working it's way into a lattice of almost indecipherable proportions.
Elle's mind works that way. Everything around her is pried apart as she searches for hidden meanings. Everything she sees and hears is something done for a reason, both conscious and not. The motives of others are pulled to peices, analyzed and categorized until she feels that there's nothing left for her to learn. For the most part, she finds what she needs with unfortunate accuracy.
But tonight, she stands on the precipice. Looking at all the gathered iformation, she's unpacked all her files, printings, scrawlings, and data, and taped it to the wall of her cabin. Brown eyes flick acoss the surface as she stands with a ball of twine, drawing lines and inferences literally and figuratively.
Dressed in sweatpants and a tanktop, she stands barefoot on the cold deck of the room. It's hot in here. She's kept the door shut, and her features are tinged with sweat, which tricks down her face in concentration. Ever since her group's failed attack on the Suiryuu, she's been cooped up here. Between exercising furiously and pouring over the information she's obtained, she rarely leaves the cabin now.
The trash can overflows with the result of meals brought to her, the remains of a testing kit stewan across her bed, dyes staining the sheets from the ultra-paranoid mind looking for poisons and bio-agents.
The stick of a lollipop shifts from one corner of her mouth to another as she squints at the layout. There's a few names left. A few bits that don't quite add up. A wet hand smudges one of the pictures on the wall as she drags her fingertips along the twine that links pictures and spreadsheets. Eyes narrow.
What is she missing?
A catastrophic awakenining in the late of night followed by a night alone in the cabin and an early morning venture out to visit with the Director of Operations of the Suiryuu... Since daybreak, Hotaru has been away from the small room shared with the woman who's mind has shifted into a whole new gear as she tries to piece it all together.
The day was spent watching the strange matches for this new round. The sigels, the devices, the readouts... it's like nothing she's ever seen before in a fighting tournament. What ever happened to a good, old fashioned beat 'em up? But all the while she can't help but reflect on some of the things the strange old director had to say earlier in the day. In that context, what the fighters are being put through makes some kind of sense.
By now Elle should be used to it. Though in her frame of mind, she might not even notice. The rattle of the handle. The slam of a palm against the door before it swings open reluctantly. The blast of humid heat from the room strikes the girl immediately as she stands on the threshold. Compared to the cool, sea breeze the difference is shocking. Even more shocking is what has happened to the room though. Straight out of a conspiracy theorist's basement into her cabin, it seems.
She pauses for a long moment before stepping in and pulling the door closed swiftly behind her, as if worried that someone might wander by and see what has been laid out on display in here. Her eyes try to trace the intricate spiderweb of twin, trying to understand the connections that perhaps only Elle can. "I- Do you want me to get you something to drink?" the offer is made. The perspiration smearing against the pictures is kind of hard to miss.
"Been drinking from the faucet," Elle says, her words short and to the point as always as she points to a plastic glass, half filled with tepid faucet water that she likely poured out a good hour ago and just neglected.
The lollipop stick in her mouth has been chewed to a pulpy mass, but at this point she's more absorbed in her work than she should be, having gotten to the point where the only thing that matters is finding the solution.
She pads across the floor, feet leaving little marks of condensation as she goes from one end of the cabin to another following a line that goes from photographs of the boat, to a picture of what looks like an aerial view of a bay. She shakes her head, and goes back to the far side, where a series of pictures are lined up. Dossier files hang from twine. Pictures of Seishirou, Riko, Nikolai, and a few others that are obscured by her standing in front of them are assembled in a neat row.
"Let me paint a picture for you," Elle says, her eyes training on Hotaru. "You're a ninja. The last one of your clan. You build a magic boat that sucks up energy and you proceed to hold a tournament in which everyone on board is supposed to be your servant of revenge. In the meantime, you make everyone on board jump through hoops, and watch them like hawks, recording everything that everyone does."
Eyes narrow once again as she steps back from her board. "Ninjas. What do they want?"
To be honest, Elle looks like a wreck. Hotaru had asked her point blank if this was business or personal and she insisted the former. But to see her now is to know for certain that regardless what this search for knowledge began as, it is, without a doubt, personal now. She ponders quietly the words of Hiretsu. '...many do not believe in what is said... fortunately, that's the point.' Is this the point? To drive people mad with paranoia as they try to solve the biggest, most open mystery of the decade?
Her eyes drift over the pictures from time to time, squinting at some to pick out the names of people she has never seen in person. But mostly she watches Elle move around the room with a controlled frenzy. The heat is stiffling. How it cannot be getting to her is beyond the girl as she feels like she's standing in a sauna while fully clothed.
"I don't know what Seishirou and Riko want. I... I've encountered Riko on several occasions and she is always the most confusing person I've ever met. But I do think I know what Hiretsu wants. Or, well..." She frowns slightly. "At least, what he thinks is important." She's tried to keep as much of the conversation in her head as she could as she's gone throughout the day. Mulling over it, turning his words around, seeking the double meanings that she is certain is there. But she lacks the circuitry in her head with which to provide a perfect recollection like Elle's Silent Assassin could.
"If I was the last of a clan that was once great, I would probably want the clan to continue on if possible. And if not possible... I would make sure that the world knew of its name before I went." the girl states quietly, citing not her own inclinations but trying to see things from the eyes of a ninja. "I might be seeking revenge against anyone responsible for my clan's diminishing or inevitable demise." she adds after a moment's pause. In her mind she pictures a cave. Full of skeletons and a village beneath the ground. A sight she will never forget.
"Have you asked... /her/? The -ah..." She shakes her head and takes a breath, inhaling more of that humid air. She shouldn't be afraid to say a simple name. It's not as if it will summon her straight away to the room like some fuedal Japanese take on Bettlejuice or something. "Marise. She might think like they do."
The mercenary nods, sitting down to take a sip from the warm water. "Already spoke to her. She's busy digging up more information for me," is the reply. "And, you've nailed the answer right on the head."
"That means, this entire project is for either one of two motives, or both. Let's assume," Elle states, "for the moment, that Nikolai Tippin is the person that vengeance is being enacted upon. I won't go into details, but what it boils down to is that he's an incidental party to this whole nonsense. Exacting their revenge is a nice diversion from the real focus here. Knowing what I do, what he's done isn't enough to warrant a devestating retaliation by Seishirou."
The cup is brought down to rest on her knee as she wipes the sweat from her forehead. "Now, if we place what we know about the Ryuohara ninja clan to the forefront, it becomes obvious they're excellent at doing more than two things at once. Having set up Nikolai as a whipping boy, that means only one thing left. This boat, and all that goes with it, is a way to perpetuate the Ryuohara ninja bloodline."
She raises a hand to point at the pictures. "The only problem," she says, "there's two gaping holes in this theory that can't be explained away immediately. One: Hirestu should be able to produce another heir. Then again, from one of my agent's observations, it's still up in the air on whether or not Hiretsu's actually 'alive' at all. Two: Why can't Seishirou produce an hair himself?"
She counts off on her fingers. "There's a few theories on that, too. Maybe it's not fast enough. Maybe they've found a way to ressurect every dead Ryuohara from the last twenty years. I honestly don't know."
"But," she continues, "one this is for certain. I've confirmed it with three very solid sources. There's only two things on the mind of any ninja clan. Maintaning their status, and preserving their bloodline. Having saved face by taking Nikolai down to the gutter, it's time for them to bring their clan back."
A lot to say. She falls silent for a while before finally stating, "Two people I haven't talked to yet. Seishirou and Sakura. Sieshirou won't say anything, but I need to know if either Riko, Hiretsu, or Seishirou have said anything unusual to Sakura since this entire tournament began. She's the last stone I haven't kicked over. If the answer's not there, then I have to stick with a more generalized theory, and I won't be comfortable with that at all."
That she apparently was spot on with her thoughts as to what it is ninjas wants is not exactly comforting. The girl hadn't ever thought she would be trying to think of things the way they do. Then again, she never thought she'd be at sea on a giant floating chi battery while various unproven or lesser known fighters battled for some big financial prize either.
Nikolai Tippin. Some had talked about him when he approached her in the hall. So he is connected. Elle doesn't see the need to explain the details and Hotaru doesn't really care to know either. The girl kinda hovers over by the door. Not because it's any cooler, really. But because there's a certain comfort in staying over there. It makes her feel like she isn't getting into this /too/ deep. That she's lingering next to the way out should the time come when she can't take it any longer. It just feels better to think of it that way.
"Maybe he just hasn't found the right spouse," Hotaru conjectures, her tone someone light as if trying to slip a little humor into the otherwise suppresing atmosphere of the room. It doesn't sound like she really thinks that's what the problem would be. But then Elle gets on to speaking about Hiretsu like he might not even be alive and she pales a little, looking back at the woman almost if she expects her to let her in on the joke. Because that can't possibly be a real part of her theories, can it?
Seishirou and Sakura. Good luck with Seishirou. Until that picture hanging in this very room, Hotaru would have been able to walk right by him without knowing it, as she'd never seen anyone admitting to being the supposed Captain of this event. But now that she's seen the photograph attached to the wall, with all of the twists of twin leading away from it, she's pretty sure she's never seen the young man before.
The recent Taiyo grad on the other hand, "Sakura? She's in charge of security." the girl states, feeling rather lame after saying so. Of course Elle knows that. "If you wanted, I could talk to her... I've, well, I like to think we're friends."
"Do it," is the reply, cold and flat. Elle doesn't seem to be particularly concerned with the details of Hotaru's association. "The sooner you do, the faster I can finish this and get out of here. I don't like this place."
The time for thinking and theorizing is coming to an end. With Marise dispatched to talk to Hiretsu to make a final determination as well as picking up the peices from the Mad Gear attack, Elle's about ready to extract herself from this mess entirely. What she'll do with the information? Well, that depends on who bids the highest, doesn't it?
She does, after all, still have that 'bomb' stored somewhere, right?
She walks over to the wall, and begins disassembling her diagrams. "And how about you? Did you learn anything new?" There's no real expectation in her voice. The fact is, Elle's narrowed her next course of action to a small group of plans now that she has a definitive idea as to the Ryuohara's motives. Neverthless, she's going to keep her mind open for new developments.
Fingers remove twine and pictures, slipping them back into plastic sleeves and folders as she snapes them all back into a large black binder, which is slipped into her rucksack.
"You know, subjectively speaking, if what I beleive is true... there's a question as to whether or not Seishirou's plot is bad. After all, it might be 'immoral' as most people see it. To me? It's just selfish. Granted, having seen everything he can do, it begs the question as to what he could have done if he was actually more malicious."
"Okay," comes the simple acknowledgement of Elle's request. For the Blackjack leader, the truth will be an escape from this boat. A way out of the mind games. The deception. The second guessing. For Hotaru it will merely be the solace in knowing full well what lies ahead. The knowledge to worry if necessary or not worry if it no longer matters. Either way, helping Elle piece it together still seems like the right thing to do... though that may swing heavily depending on her own conclusions.
"I talked with Soma again." she states. And that's all she says about that, leaving Elle to draw the obvious conclusion that she doesn't have anything new from their exchange.
"And I talked to Hiretsu this morning. He... spoke a lot about freedom and governments. He spoke with meloncholy about the state of the world. That people aren't really free. That it's all an illusion. He said that this ship is the proof that freedom can be seized, however, not by strength but with the mind."
She leans a little, her back pressed against the wall next to the door. "He said that this boat exists to restore wonder to the world... While it certainly has made a lot of people wonder about its purpose, I don't think that's exactly what he meant." There's a fair amount of uncertainty in her tone. But then again, she is struggling to recall a conversation from over twelve hours ago in as much detail as possible.
"I asked him about those aboard this boat. If something terrible was going to happen. He said not to worry but also said that there were..." She frowns a little then, her tone taking on one of warning now. "-a- ah certain someone or... two aboard the boat that deadly force may be used against." If Elle is right, and Nikolai is slated as a target for revenge, then who is the second that the old man hinted might be in danger? "According to the Captain's whim, was how he put it."
She nods. If there was anyone worth killing on this boat, it would likely be either Nikolai or herself. One for the wrong he committed against the clan, and the other for simply being too inquisitive. Then again, she could be wrong. Either way, once she gets what she needs, her presence will no longer be necessary in a competitive capacity. Until then, she'll bide her time and make sure her crew has her back.
"Don't worry about it," Elle says. "If there's one thing you'll learn when you do this kind of thing, is that if they're not talking about you, don't push it past knowing who it isn't. That way, you don't end up on someone's hit list."
Elle listens to all that Hotaru has to say, digesting it and comparing it with what she knows already and what she expects from each of the people Hotaru has dealt with. "Good for them, then," Elle concludes. "Nice to know that a petty crook like me can ckeep a few steps ahead of crazy old men, investigators, and a crew of teenage Junior Sleuths," is her dry rebuttal.
"You've been a big help to me," muses the mercenary for a moment as she steps into the bathroom to tidy herself up a little. The procedure takes a surprisingly short amount of time. She runs water, arranges her hair, washes her face, and changes her clothes to a dark blue track outfit. "I'm getting paid. All you're getting is more paranoid about being alive. I owe you a favor. But, all you get is one, so you best make it count."
What Elle's endgame might be at this point is difficult for Hotaru to discern. If she tries to back up to it being all about money like it probably is with the woman. This is one hell of a way to make a living, she ponders. But then again, it's the big gambles like this that tend to score the biggest profits. Taking the chance. Risking so much by being here, picking and proding at the threads of this byzantine plot.
Naturally the girl had drawn the same conclusion. That perhaps Hiretsu was hinting at Elle with his guarded warning. That it doesn't seem to bother the woman in the slightest doesn't go missed. Nothing seems to phase her. Except for not knowing everything. The woman she sees now compared to the one she saw when she entered a few minutes ago is almost a different person. Whatever it is she needed to get out of her system - whatever tiny detail she needed to chew into in order to calm down, it seems to have made a difference.
"Thanks," the girl states as the offer of a favor. It's the /real/ currency Elle deals in. Money is only the means by which to buy and sell more favors. She had told Soma the same thing. That if he thought of the woman as a broker of favors he might find her easier to deal with. But that was a price he wasn't interested in paying.
"I'll keep that in mind." Considering what she is able to guess at when it comes to Elle's connections, the idea of being able to cache in a marker with her someday is oddly satisfying. Fair enough. She'll make it count when the time comes. "I'll see if Sakura can remember anything that might be helpful. Though, considering how strange most of the things that come out of their mouths seems to be, it might be hard to narrow it down. I imagine she's spoken to them often throughout all of this."
Moxie. Fearlessness. Whatever Elle has, it certainly keeps the freon in her veins running smoothly. It's not that Elle never feels fear, concern, or terror. In fact, she feels these things more often than she'd like to admit. Nevertheless, she can't show it for various reasons, and won't show it for a few others.
That paranoia is twisted and shaped in order to fuel her drive to understand everything.
Though eagerly labled as 'evil' by her detractors, Elle is simply privy to things that hide. Nobody likes a person that pounces on an opportunity. Opportunistuc ambition is viewed as evil in a world where everyone gains power through personal triumph and purity of spirit. Elle's recognition of all of this places her in a niche uniquely her own.
"It'll be interesting to hear what she has to say," Elle says as she makes sure everything is placed away properly. "But it'll only confirm suspicions and add detail. Remember what this is all about. See if she has anything concerning the specifics. If not her, then Riko."
"While you're at it, I suspect that once you get the answers, you're going to want to think about an exit plan yourself. Never forget the underlying theme here. Everyone here's being used in some way, shape, or form. Just some of us have the kind of thinking necessary to get around all of that, and manipulate in return. If you learn anything at all from this experience, it's to make sure you always have more than one way out."
And with that, Elle heads to the door, to do God knows what to God knows whom. She's got a knack of disappearing for a while, and coming back with worse news each time.
Hotaru focuses on Elle as she's told to remember what this is all about. It was easy to get side tracked when speaking with Hiretsu. The man had a way of weaving topics together and speaking in just vague enough terms to leave her struggling to discern the message behind them. But Elle is right. She needs to keep her head on straight and not get distracted. She makes clear her understanding with a quiet nod.
An exit plan. It's an interesting way of phrasing it. It makes sense, since that's how Elle thinks. For Hotaru the ways out seem to be a jump into the ocean in the middle of no where, or getting off the boat the next time it docks. Whether or not any other options exist between the two hadn't occured to her, just as she hadn't though to consider it. There's a rueful smile at that. It's interesting seeing a glimpse of how Elle has gotten to where she is. Always planning.
And with that, Elle slips off, leaving the pig-tailed girl to contemplate on her own. She'll be asleep by the time Elle returns. Or at least pretending to be. She's found the more she knows about all this, the harder it is to fall asleep at the hours she's used to. "An exit plan," she murmurs to herself as she begins her own meticulous nightly rituals. "Maybe I should get a life jacket."
Log created on 01:06:00 09/18/2007 by Hotaru, and last modified on 03:28:03 09/21/2007.