Description: Not too long after K''s unorthodox visit to Shurui's dorm room, Shurui realizes that she's low on groceries, What's a girl to do but hurry off to the local Quik-E mart and load up on staples? That, and find herself dealing with a strange woman who is A. strangely familiar aura-wise, and B. three sheets to the wind. BONUS: K' and Shurui yell at each other on the phone!
Click. Click. Click. Fizz.
Click. Click. Click. Fizz.
Click. Click. Click.
"Fuh--" grunts the young woman who's been trying to light that cigarette for five minutes now. She has that all-American tanned brunette look, long-legged and softly-featured, with uneven pieces of her long bangs escaping her messy ponytail and falling into her brown eyes. They squint down in the quiet half-light of the street, the late hour rendering this part of Southtown a ghost town. In a moment sick with seriousness, she narrows her eyes and examines the dark object in her hand, watching as her fumbly fingers turn a scratched-up lighter over and over in her palm. She stares at it until that intense look in her eyes glazes over, and she sighs raggedly, reaching one hand up to smear clumsily at her face, pressing her fingers to rub the animation back into her face. Time to try this again.
She's sitting on the top step of a pub entrance, and faintly, thumping music can be heard from inside. She's not quite sitting as so much swaying, and that makes it difficult as she tries to light thin air off to the side as her cigarette bobs on her slightly slack lips. She tries squinting one eye, her tongue appearing at the corner of her mouth. She tries again, but the little black plastic lighter is far too clever for her. The slippery son of a gun jumps right out of her hands, she swears, and sort of bounces down the steps before laying on the sidewalk. She starts to stand up. She gropes the railing to help her not wobble. The lighter says help me. A passing foot stomps it into bits. She looks sad.
The spring rain from earlier has let up, thankfully sparing Whip further insult as the evening falls over Southtown like a dark blanket.
The light of the headlamps happen to catch the hood of a plastic dark dull red poncho further down the street, a little red riding hood carrying a heavy load of groceries in each hand. Are these for grandma? No, more like the big bad wolf, if he happens to come again and decide to go through her fridge. Also, for her own use, since it looks like she'll be staying put for a while. The annoying incessant thumping of the club music beats in the distance as dark eyes, unfettered by any glasses that could limit their powers, look at the sidewalk in front of her, then at the traces of energy that bodies give off. She's almost back to campus.
No one will have to know she even left.
Except, when Shurui's eyes calmly scan for any possible danger, they settle upon Whip's form, then blink. Once. Twice. Maybe it's because she's been staring at K''s energy signature for too long, an imprint embedded on her third eye like someone who's been staring at the sun for too long. Something seems... familiar. Not in a way that she *knows* this person in particular; that much is certain. This person is a stranger. And possibly drunk, looking at the way the energy channels flow through the brunette combined with the evidence of the bar that she stands outside of.
"....." How can someone be a stranger, yet familiar? What if this person's from NESTs?
Within that half-slouched, very drunk body that sways on the top steps to the pub, holding a dry cigarette between her frowning lips, a very familiar energy hums. Even as its pattern weaves someone's unique identity in its nonmaterial cursive, the underlying structure pangs of something the young psi user has seen before.
On many occarions.
Now that aura is dulled, much of the colour and flare choked out of it, and its remaining energy is frayed and knotted like a nervous noose in places it should not. Tinged with a confused, yet resolved sort of sadness, her invisible signature is a perfect match for that dispirited look on the girl's face. She's drunk for a reason, and it's probably not because her cigarette lighter has been stomped into pieces. Unaware that she's being watched, whether it be by eyes or otherwise, the young woman leans her hip on the rail and gets her balance, obviously having problems standing. She tugs on her brown leather coat, which most be murder in the spring warmth, pulling her ponytail free of the high collar, and fixing herself up in time for her boot to miss the first step.
The lush stumbles, catching herself by luck along, appearing to momentarily sober and realize she's half-hung over a hand rail by her stomach, her hair in her eyes and her feet every so direction. The insight doesn't last long. She shakes her head with an airy sigh, and gets herself down the rest of the steps to the sidewalk, apparently set on stumbling her way home. Her eyes hood. Her hands crawl into her coat pockets. She's too drunk to even notice her unlit cigarette is still dangling out of her mouth.
One thing is certain about the energy that Shurui sees- everyone's is unique. Everyone is, in fact, a unique snowflake, though the variations go beyond anything on the scope of that somewhat cyncial phrasing. Perhaps that's why NESTS's direct clones usually fail- that unique aura that directs this energy cannot be replicated without unneccessary strain on the body. Perhaps it would have been easier on all parties if it did work, thus sparing clones like K' and his ilk.
It's so rare to see familiarities like this. Where has this happened before? Something in Shurui's past.... not that weird not-past that she may or may not have, but the past she knows. The one that occurred after she woke up in that alleyway. Something that is indicative of something else, neither of which she can put her finger on. Or, perhaps, her brain cannot concieve of a possible relation.
When Whip nearly tumbles over that one step, Shurui's mind blanks out in alert, rushing over in attempt to save the woman from colliding with the gritty sidewalk below. "H-hey!" she calls against all better judgment, rain puddles splashing as she runs towards the strange woman that hangs over the railing like an old rug hung to dry. The hood, caught by a sudden gust of wind, causes the hood to fly off, exposing a head of oddly pale hair that nearly glows white as she passes under the gold lighting of a street lamp. When the woman straightens to walk away, Shurui comes to a slow stop, her momentum pressing on her feet from the extra groceries in her bags.
Pale lips purse. She can't help but ask, ".... Do I know you." It's not even phrased as an idle, casual question; it's more a solid request for information, coming from someone who possibly has something to hide.
Whip manages to get one step out before she hears a voice at her shoulder. She stops, looking confused at the world at large, swaying a little on her feet as she makes an exaggerated turn toward the source of the sound. Her brown eyes peer over the line of her shoulder, any sharpness in them soup-skinned over by tonight's four hours of hard drinking. With that cigarette still poking comically out of her twisting lips, she blinks down at the shorter girl, fixing her concern with a blank look. She turns away again.
Then she pauses.
Quick as a gunshot, the drunk does a double-take, turning on the smaller girl and leaning close. She homes in on all that silvery hair, drawn to its rarity like a moth to a flame. Bending at the waist and veering right on in, Whip brings her face right up to Shurui's so that her bleary brown eyes can get a good look at her, trying to make out a face through all that drunken haze. It's not often you see someone with hair like that. It reminds her of Krizalid. Of K'. She wonders if it's one or both of them talking to her right now. She doesn't want that. She doesn't want to be around anyone, least of all them.
Anger colours her briefly as she searches, her growing frown biting a dent into her unlit cigarette. She stares long and hard, the alcohol in her making this process a slow one, and it takes the drunken Ikari soldier a few moments to realize it's neither Krizalid nor K' talking to her. Because it's a girl. They're not girls. That's a relief.
Whip leans back, peering down at Shurui suspiciously. Her dark eyes blink constantly, attention hard to find and harder to keep when you're as drunk as skunk. Her head tilts when that strange-haired girl makes her request, the sound of her voice clipping the words so short it almost sounds like a demand. The Ikari stares on. Soon enough, her eyelids slip back down, and she turns away once more. "Naw," she says, her voice thick and slurred, and she pulls one hand out of her pocket to take the cigarette out of her mouth. "I'm nobody."
Also, Krizalid and K', especially when the latter decides to straighten to his full height instead of slouching, are very tall. This one? Short. About a foot or so, at least. It's no wonder Whip has to bend down to meet the grey-haired girl's face. Also, her eyes don't share the amber glow of K's; instead, they're a dark, piercing brown that borders on black, hiding the girl's rather wonky tendency to stare at off places, as if unable to focus.
There's something almost generic about the girl's facial features; someone could call her Asian, but beyond that, nothing specific. The hair is the most unusual part, a greyish tone that's rather unusual on the head of someone who looks to be much younger than Whip. Also, evident by the pitch of her voice, she's not man in any sense of the word. One could mistake her for a *boy*, but that's nowhere close to 'young man'.
Then there are those scars. A strange pink, tender ring of healing skin cuts around the girl's neck, as if chaffed by a rusty neck cuff about a month ago, rather than just some allergic reaction to cheap jewelry. If Whip were to look down, she'll see the same markings on the girl's wrists, exposed in her attempt to hold onto the heavy groceries.
Shurui leans back uncomfortably as Whip barges in on her personal space, pressing in to see all the details of her hair and face. ".... ....." If this person just happens to be a NESTS lacky, Shurui will *never* hear the end of it from K'. "..... y-.... you just reminded me of someone." Run away. Run away. R-
"....." Wait. Would NESTS really allow one of their employees to go around drunk as a skunk? The comparison between the robed, elegant Igniz and the brunette makes the girl raise an eyebrow. Naw. She *can't* be. But...? "Maybe I saw you on TV or something." Another excuse, but this one might be one Whip wouldn't be willing to hear.
Initially, the drunken young woman starts to stagger off, looking like she's carrying a load much to heavy for someone her age. When Whip leered in close, her face didn't look that much older than Shurui's. She's still got the softness in her cheeks that could betray her as a teenager. But she carries herself like an old war veteran. One hand in her coat pocket, the other rubbing tenderly at the back of her head, her back slouched, and her steps swaying, she frowns to herself and walks away into her own business. And she almost gets away with it too.
That's just about when Whip takes Shurui's last remark like a bullet in the back. That scuffling, heavy-footed pace stops dead cold. Every muscle in her body seizes up like premature rigor mortis. Her arms flinch. Her shoulders square. She goes still for a beat.
Then Whip suddenly, violently whirls back on Shurui, her face flushed and her eyes bright. "Yeah?" she asks in a sudden snap, her voice thick and syrupy with undisguised sobs. "You saw that? You... saw me on TV?" The look in her eyes is gutted and hollowed-out. Her aura is even worse. She blinks rapidly, trying to focus on Shurui, looking like she has just as much a problem seeing. "So you saw me there? So you saw all that? How did it look to you? Huh?"
Without warning, the drunken girl starts forward, moving suspiciously quick for all her previous stumbling, trying to advance a straight beeline straight on that strange grey-haired girl who seems to talk too much and see a whole helluva lot more. Dismissively, like someone would swat a gnat, she tries to swat the groceries from the girl's arms so she can grab her by the collar and bring her close. "What the hell did you see?!" Whip is snarling straight into poor Shurui's face, her breath stinking of alcohol. Tears are rolling out of her twitching, searching eyes, but she doesn't seem to notice. "Tell me what you saw! What'd it LOOK like to you?!"
Well, that was dumb. Shurui slowly lets out a slow sigh, shoulders sagging under the influence of the heavy grocery bags in each hand. Well, she's got some frozen goods and she can't be caught alone, so it's probably a good thing that ended so quickl-
A sharper, deadlier side of Whip's energy parts the waves that once ran slow and stubborn as molasses and, right before Whip turns around, Shurui is on the defensive, stepping back with a cautious, narrow-lidded look on her young face. Then, Shurui remembers. This woman is drunk. Very drunk. If she were to charge her, Shurui would surely be able to duck or defend herself easi-
WHAT THE HELL the crazy woman is coming strange for her! AND DAMN IT SHE'S GOING FOR HER GROCERIES NO
Shurui dodges out of Whip's way with a sort of bodily ease that suggests she has some background as well, though she's hardly a soldier like Whip. Drunk or no, this woman is impressively adept. "..... Oh, for fuck's sake," Shurui finally mumbles underneath her breath, switching from that frightened girl to something more empowered. Now she's just the street urchin, falling back on familiar swear words and phrases in order to puff herself up. "I was just trying to figure out why you were familiar!"
Rare energy signatures should probably be best to ignore from now on, if she gets this happening again. Fuck, why the hell did she have to ruin a perfect run to the grocery store by poking at something she couldn't figure out? "I don't know what the hell you're talking about! I haven't had time to watch the recent fights!"
As that strange and so very soused young woman pushes close, the determination in her body language and movements soon becomes apparent. It's with less a reactive violence and more a needling, desperate kind of urgency that she screams questions in Shurui's face, her warping voice getting so loud and shrill that it gives pause to passerbys on the other side of the street, looking wont to gawk on whatever's happening.
Shurui's sudden change in demeanour gives the drunken Ikari noticeable pause, her snarling questions gone silent and the matted look on her face unraveling into a startled blankness. For several moments, she is still and unmoving... save for the way the tears won't stop streaking down her face. Her unfocused eyes blink and try to fix on Shurui's face, on her snappish rebuttals, but she can't seem to focus for long. Her momentarily glimpses of sobriety are too far and few, and her drunkenness just returns her to her despair.
"Why are you asking me?" Whip slurs back helplessly, her fingers trying to tighten on Shurui's collar to punctuate the point. Her eyes crease and take on a sad slant, and in a smaller, tighter voice, she asks, "Do I look like I know? Do I look like I know anything?!" Her words start to quicken and sound more forceful. Anxiety winds her up. "I don't know anything. I don't know what I am anymore. I don't know what I--"
Anger serrates across her drunken face, and with a sudden, ugly fierceness, she spits out, "Why don't you ask HIM if you want to know so bad? He should know. Says he's my father. He won't tell me. I don't know anything. I don't...!"
Whip's expression changes like her anger's been slapped off. Quickly, jumpily, she releases Shurui like the girl suddenly feels scalding, backing away and returning them both their personal space. Instead of clinging on the poor girl, she turns the focus on herself, reaching up to grab handfuls of her brunette hair as the tears keep coming. "Oh god..." Whip mumbles in a windy voice, sounding tortured, the grated and gutteral way someone tries to speak through blinding pain. She tries so hard to swallow back the sobs. It doesn't last long. She starts to cry, right there on the street with only Shurui and God as her witnesses, because she's sure as hell too drunk to remember this tomorrow. "I don't know. I don't know, I don't know," she keeps bleating endlessly to herself through her sobs, shaking her head and turning decidedly away from Shurui. She stumbles as she starts to walk away again, smearing endlessly at her own face.
Something hot and stinging curls in Shurui's gut at Whip's confused words, notions she's had cross her mind over and over again in those dark days just before and after her rescue from Marise's clutches. 'Patchwork beast.' 'Puppet.' 'A little wooden girl, ensorcelled to dance and believe she is people.' 'Jinzoningen.'
It can't be that, of course. The young woman could be talking about losing her job, finding out she was adopted, or finding that her life has taken a course she's not happy with. Maybe it's all of these at once. That would be enough to drive someone to drink, certainly. Perhaps, if Shurui wasn't so young or unused to the idea of alcohol, she would have been tempted to follow the same solution as this volatile brunette.
And yet, Whip's words take that notion and transform it into an emotional dagger, twisting in the short girl's gut with effective force. 'Says he's my father. He won't tell me. I don't know anything.' "Wait." Even as the grip on her collar is tightened, Shurui's voice comes out as yet another command, sharp and sober against Whip's drunken words. 'For you see, I am your father. And I am here to take you away... back to paradise where no one will hurt you.' "..." Did K' ever feel this way with her? That whole 'deja vu' that's just so hard to confirm without giving yourself away? To feel that, time and time again, each time you saw that person, and for that feeling to get only stronger... until it explodes into a reality, instead of a nagging series of parallels that seem to fall flat when you look at them directly.
However, Igniz hardly made a negative impression on Shurui. Just a... vague one that K' was able to dispell. Somewhat. If there's another person in the same position as her and K'... "... Tell me. Tell me who told you this."
Those staggering steps don't last for long. When you're drunk, you can only do one thing at a time. You can walk, or you can cry. You don't even dare try both. Despite having the good skill of a soldier, Whip doesn't last long, with her last hitched sob stumbling her something awful. She catches herself, just barely, with one shoulder planted against a street light, and she leans against it feverishly for some kind of relief. The odd person walks by and gives her a look of askance, though their confused gawking doesn't stay long. Regulars and neighbours know of the pub just a few steps down, and crying drunks are commonplace on any night. Plus, it seems this young girl has a friend nearby talking to her.
So far gone out of her mind to do anything but grieve and cry, Whip does just that for a long time, the tears rolling endlessly down her cheeks. For many minutes she stands there and just cries. She cries until it hurts, and when it does, there's a fortunate break to her sobbing, her voice catching itself and staying caught with a sudden gritting of her teeth. Without warning, her legs give way, and the young woman sags, letting herself slowly collapse until she's sitting on the sidewalk. With her back against the street lamp, her feet in the gutter of the road, and her puffy, soggy face in her hands, it takes her all too long to realize she's been spoken to.
Moving her head minutely, she spots Shurui out of the corner of her eye. Just like before, it's the hair she sees, the familiar white-greyness of it a relief to her in her soused madness. For a moment, she thinks it's K' or Krizalid she's talking to, even if she's not where where or when, or really how; all Whip is sure of, in her drunken haze, is that it's all right for her to say. Testament to just how damn intoxicated she is, the upset girl spills her guts. "Igniz," she says, in a bone-dry, dead voice. Even drunk she remembers that name. She'll never forget it.
Despondently, she sits on the pavement, slouching forward until her head is nearly between her knees. Her eyes stare holes out of the dark cement, the look in them begging it for something it could never give her. "Igniz," she repeats.
Until Shurui gets an answer, she'll stay there, shuffling the heavy groceries in her arms to redistribute the load. Besides, the young woman looks clearly distraught, and, while one side of Shurui's brain tells her to not care and move on, another, less selfish part of her urges her to stay. She can't be selfish about everything, after all. Muda would have disapproved immensely, even if he would at the same time disapprove of the other woman's drinking. Then again, Muda had barely an inkling of the sorts of things Shurui and Whip are facing right now, despite his educated past.
When Whip collapses, Shurui runs over, groceries laid down to the side of both of them as she kneels down in front of the drunk brunette. "Tell me." The offer to help that was about to follow is stopped on the edge of Shurui's tongue, and swallowed back. Not until she knows more information. She can make sure the woman gets to someplace safe, but she cannot guaruntee she'd be willing to take on the brunette's troubles. Not when hers are heavy enough as is.
For once, having that odd hair proves to be an advantage. "...... Ig.... niz...." Shurui's eyes, dark like ebony, lower to the ground. How many could have a name like that and do the same things? It's unmistakable. If his name was Bob or Will, that would be different. "...." For a moment, Shurui looks too stunned to speak. "Let's get you to someplace safe where you can sober up. I know someone who might be able to help you. If he can't, I'll try." And when she sobers up, what will Shurui do then, with a possibly dangerous woman on her hands? Well, hopefully, K' will be there by that time.
If he chooses to. She can't count on him to take on another problem; it's got to be his idea first. Standing up and arranging the groceries on her arms, she attempts to offer a hand for Whip to pull herself up on. "What's your name?"
Bracing her forearms against her knees, her flexing hands dangling uselessly in mid-air, it takes all of Whip's strength just to lift her head so she can look Shurui in the eye. However bleary her face must look, its twisting grief seems almost palpable. She stares at the girl, looking at her closely, even if her face, her questions, and all her kindness will all be forgotten tomorrow. For now the mysterious drunkard looks grateful. After a long time, her eyes take a sad slant and finally fall away. She rubs a hand against her already-messy bangs, exhales noisily, and shakes her head no. "No. I can't. I have to go. I have to go do this. I'm not ready."
In a brief moment of sobriety, Whip scolds herself for drinking more than she could handle. Just where is she? She's outside sitting on the street. She needs to get back to her place. She needs to tie up her last loose ends. She wasn't supposed to get this drunk. Tomorrow she takes the port out of this godforsaken city and starts her hunt. She's going to find that rat bastard and make him tell her everything. Who she is. What she comes from. The person she's supposed to be. If she fails, it means she dies, and she doesn't have to spend another day feeling incomplete. She gets to die for her own goals and on her own terms.
She's just too angry to see it any other way.
Movement flickers across her periperals, and Whip turns her head to follow it. It's a mistake, as the world turns and swims and spins dizzily in front of her red-rimmed eyes. She sees a few proffered hands stuck out in front of her, and frowning lightly, she dismisses them all. Shaking her head tersely, Whip closes her eyes to Shurui's offer to help. A thread of politeness seems to escape her drunkenness, the intrinsic kindness to the young woman's nature giving her frown an apologetic slant. She doesn't take the hand and uses her own strength to push herself up, stumbling brokenly and forced to plant one hand against the street light to get her bearings.
"I'm sorry," Whip says without looking at Shurui, a tendril of control returning to her voice. The emotion's passed. It's time to return to reality. Her hand tightens briefly against the light post, and she pushes off, the movement of forcing herself to walk like ripping off a bandaid. Quick and merciless. With little warning, the soldier just starts walking away. And this time she's not stopping. "Go home. Leave me alone."
There's a thread of politeness there, but it's tempered by Shurui's need. K' is protecting her, but she can only do so much to protect him back when she is needed. Igniz's energy was overwhelming when she saw it, a literal cup tipped over from the weight of so much power artificially packed inside. She could stand up to him for K''s sake, even if the act would be beyond stupid and against her usual methods regarding a fight. She could, but she wouldn't last that long. It would be like that match with Kain, all over again.
That's why Shurui needs that third person, this 'nobody' who moves like a soldier despite the haze of alcohol and the bitter resentment of life on her soaked breath. "Wait." Briefly abandoning the groceries by the lightpost as Whip moves away, Shurui follows after her, lips pursed, her mouth opening slightly with words that she has no idea how to phrase. Finally, she speaks. "He came to me too. Igniz did. Wouldn't say anything about who I was or anything... just that he wanted me back. Offered me everything."
Shurui's footsteps match Whip's, one for one, allowing that distance to stay but not grow any further. "I know he's lying. A friend of mine showed me that. We can't take him on by ourselves, but together... we'd be able to. He wants us to be disconnected; he can collect us better if he can manipulate us!" She stops after a distance, finally saying, "At least tell me your name! Even if you're not sure it's your real name, it doesn't fucking matter to me. Like I said.... I'm in the same position as you."
If there's one thing about being sloshed, it really helps you ignore the world at large. Whip does just that as she staggers along, already decided through her drunken haze that she's spent too much time sitting on her ass. She needs to sober up, swallow back whatever hangover is guillotining over her head, send her temporary leave to Ikari, load up the weapons she's managed to purchase, and hunt down that sonuva bitch. She's going to find that Igniz, and she's not going to stop until he tells her everything.
As she staggers along, the young woman fishes her bent, nearly-broken cigarette back out, stuffing it between her lips as she absently pats herself down for her lighter. She's already forgotten it's been demolished. All she wants is to smoke, and badly. Smoking settles her nerves. Especially when she can still hear Shurui's voice calling at her turned back. It's also mentioning that name. Igniz.
Squinting, she veers a narrow-eyed glance over her shoulder, back at that grey-haired blur that seems set on following her. Just as begrudgingly, she looks away, staring tiredly forward as her cigarette hangs off her lips. A much sober Whip would probably be turning on Shurui now, shocked and demanding her of more information. A much sober Whip would actually have a reaction to make. Now she doesn't even flinch. That incredible information barely grazes the peripherals of her attention, just as easily forgotten in her drunken haze. She doesn't ask Shurui how he knows her. She doesn't ask what he offered.
In a slurring voice, Whip just grunts around her cigarette, "'M gonna find him. I'm gonna kill him. I'm gonna..." Her voice dies out into a sigh. She keeps on walking. "...Just leave me alone."
When Whip looks back, it's Shurui's dark ebony gaze that there to confront her, her hair dyed gold-white from the lamps shining overhead.
It'd be strange if this was the one thing that Whip would manage to remember when she wakes up from her drunken state, though, with how inebriated she is, there's no telling if she'll remember anything at *all*. After reaching a certain point, the grey-haired girl simply stops following her. After all, each moment she stays out here, alone, is one more moment Shurui's sticking her neck out for the inevitable axe that will come down on her head. The short girl has less reasons to hate the cloaked man who spoke so smoothly to her, as well. Who knows what would happen if she met him out here? The other woman's too drunk out of her wits to be of much help, fast as she is, and both of them being in the same place could increase the chances of such an encounter.
K''s searching for something. Shurui'd better make sure to at least give him a little bit of time before it's do or die. Going back to her abandoned groceries, Shurui rebundles them and takes ahold of the plastic bag handles, taking care to shift them so they won't break. Her plan? Get the food home, put the frozen stuff in the freezer and hope it's not too late, and then call K'. Leave it up to him on what he wants to do with that bit of information.
Watching the drunk Whip go off in the distance, Shurui pulls her hood over her head and heaves her load of groceries along with her at a steady pace, back on her original mission, severely botched as it is. She won't be surprised if K' spends more time yelling at her than worrying about whatever strange information she has to give him.
Ah well.
When she gets to her apartment and puts her groceries away, Shurui flips out her phone, audibly speaking the number she just just called so much earlier. If K' answers, she'll make it quick and painless. And after that? Well, she'll be googling a certain name...
The phone rings only once before it's picked up. The background noise of wherever K' is is prodigious but indistinct, a dim roar that threatens to overpower whatever conversation they might have. Eventually, the components of that background noise resolve enough that one can pick shouts and blurred voices out of the sea of sound. Wherever he is, there's a lot of other people there too.
"What do you want, Shurui..." comes his tense and unimpressed voice. She certainly is having a lot of crises this evening.
If Shurui had her say, she'd say K' is the one with all the crisises.
It's probably a good thing she wouldn't have her say, because, for one, 'crisises' is a hard word to say, and two, this is K'. There is no point in winning an argument with a guy whose insides seem to be continually on fire. "I have some information. There was a girl outside my dorm, about your age. She has a weird aura, so..." Well, she'll skip that part. "She's also met Igniz. During an SNF. He mentioned the same things to her as he did to me. The whole 'I am your father' bit." Shurui's voice is quick, seeming aware of the other experiment's need to get going.
Also, well, the longer he's on the line with her? The bigger the possibility that he'll start asking questions. And she doesn't want that just yet. "She was drunk. That's how I found out. Wouldn't listen to reason either. She wouldn't tell me her name, but, I'm going to find out in a few seconds." There's some clicking noises as Shurui types on a keyboard. "...... Ha. Igniz.... versus Vanessa and Whip. She was one of those two."
That whole thing about asking questions? Too late.
"WHERE IS SHE."
The voice that abruptly thunders across the line, cutting Shurui off the instant it becomes obvious she's talking about Whip (Vanessa is certainly 'not about his age,' though she looks great for hers), doesn't sound like it's about to brook any arguments, demurring, or, well, anything other than an immediate answer. Preferably an answer in the vein of 'oh, she's still here.' The noise around him shifts, dimming-- he's probably moving again, and quickly.
It's probably a good thing that Shurui isn't talking to him in person, because he wouldn't be all that nice to look at right at this moment. It wouldn't be visible outwardly, but his aura would be all kinds of terrible fiery death.
Well, as long as he isn't asking questions about why Shurui was talking to a woman outside of her dormroom in the evening, that's fine.
The loud voice on the other end of the phone? Not so good, especially in reference to her poor sensitive ears. Shurui's teeth grit as she allows the phone to drop from the cradle of her neck and shoulder onto her lap, causing K' to hear fumbling noises as she picks it back up. "Last I saw, west along Ichiban Street. There's an intersection there that'll run north to south and east to west." Damn. If she knew K' actually knew this person, she would have tried a little better to keep track. "I couldn't get her to listen to me. Maybe you'll have better luck. Igniz had a worse effect on her than me."
A pause. "If you're nearby my apartment and need to get her to a place to sober up, call me. I'll make sure to lead you in."
If she had called him over pretty much anyone but Whip, he probably -would- have opted to focus on the idiocy of her talking to strangers outside at night after he just TOLD her to be careful. But the mention of Whip is more than enough to cause him to forget that. It's kind of like throwing chaff, or like pointing an angry wolf at more easily-caught prey: you throw just enough distraction so as to escape intact.
Rather unrepentant, all told, at the way his behavior is obviously causing Shurui to cringe, K' just waits in silence for his answer. There's complete silence in the background now, as the young man makes his swift way through the city right on back towards the vicinity of Gedo Street. From the sound of it, Whip's distraught and drunk and generally being a CONSPICUOUS IDIOT in the middle of Southtown: that has to be stopped posthaste. K''s jaw grits at the foolhardiness of it all. If he gets there fast enough, he can scour the area, maybe find her... but then again, too much time has already been wasted.
Somewhere in there, he still manages to find the breath for a dry chuckle at Shurui's words. The sound, despite being a laugh, is so far from being genuinely amused it's depressing. "She's as fucking stubborn as I am," he replies shortly, and from the way he says it he doesn't sound like he thinks it's a virtue, "so if I find her I'm not -giving- her a choice."
Uh oh.
If it was anyone but Whip, Shurui'd probably be the safety of her dorm room around a half hour ago, with no need to let the Beast of Flame in on her little secret excursion, as neccessary as it was. Again, you don't argue with a guy who looks like, for all intents and purposes, a humanoid-shaped flame coated in a hard candy shell. Except, not candy.
Weird analogies aside, Shurui is tempted to allow K' to go on his way and hang up, but, after hearing that wry laugh and his ensuing comment, she stops. "...." It comes to her, finally. 'She's as fucking stubborn as I am.' That similarity she saw in Whip's energy signature. Perhaps, if she hadn't been staring at K''s just hours before, she may have missed it, but having him lurk around her room like a stray cat has kept the memory of what he 'looks' like fresh in her mind.
Fresh enough that when she looked at Whip, she said something that called it her. That's only happened a few times before, and it was always with twins. Fraternal or identical; it didn't seem to matter. Could they be....? "K'. Another thing. Remember how I said her aura was strange? The way her body energy looked to me. There was something in her that was in you too. Something I've only seen when I see one thing."
A memory of happier times floats by in her mind, of a time in Muda's antique shop. A frequent customer who would, later on, inherit the store, showed Shurui the new additions to his family: a pair of babies swaddled in blankets in their dual carriage, one male and one female. "Twins," Shurui says carefully. "In your case, fraternal."
Quickly, she tries to recover from this weird theory, going on to say, "With NESTS involved, though... she could have enough of your DNA or whatever triggers it to make me see that."
There is a silence so long that at first, Shurui may think K' didn't hear her, that his cell lost reception, or that he just simply hung up on her speculation.
The reality of it is, K' has just completely ground to a halt on a mental level. He's still moving in a physical sense, but the sheer unexpectedness of what he just got told is still pinging around in his mind like an ricocheting bullet, shredding his thoughts and sending confusion twitching down his nerves as he tries to reconcile this idea with everything else he knows and feels. She what. Whip is his what. What is she even saying to him.
"Are you fucking playing with me?" There is a strange quality to his weirdly-calm voice. He sounds unhinged, like his even voice is just a twitch away from spasming into a shout: like he's balanced between disbelief, a scrap of hope, and an urge to just laugh. Or maybe do the opposite. "Is this some kind of joke?" He always knew he had a sister, and he always thought his and Whip's shared circumstances-- the way she made him feel on an unconscious level-- were unusual, but this? It's such an easy and ready answer-- it's TOO easy. That last caveat she adds is a possibility too, of course-- but then Shurui doesn't know what he does. The fact that he DOES have a lost sister drives him to hope for a little more than just a big genetic mixup.
Just like that, Shurui's latest speculation drives him to doubt her abilities: even though everything he's seen points towards her truthfulness concerning them. "I never told anyone I lost--" he starts, sounding so bewildered he sounds like a different person: and then he stops, realizes the irrelevance, and amends. His suspicion leads to a sudden anger. "I swear to God if you've been stringing me along about your sight, I'll kill you myself." And he sounds pretty serious about that.
His breathing comes over the phone raggedly. The transmitted sound breaks up a little once in a while, the result of the phone protesting the stranglehold K' now has on it. "How could you even know," he's asking, talking more to himself than Shurui now. "How could you even fucking know, how could -you- know when I don't..."
Is Shurui playing with K'?
Shurui's answer comes, as definite and resolute as a tomb being shut. "No." A beat. "... At least about what I saw. I'd have to see you side by side to really be sure." Even then? Such a correlation is rare. Shurui would have to see the twins in front of her, or be familiar with one of them, as is the case here. K''s aura is hard to miss. Thankfully, it doesn't casually burn her eyes at first glance like Kenji's. But that's an entirely different story.
"....." He had lost....? Shurui nearly drops the phone in shock. Lost a sibling? A sister? For some reason, it had never entered her mind that K' would have a sibling of any sort. Besides, hadn't he forgotten all that, like she did? K''s accusatory tone and subsequent death threat causes the girl to get angry instead of scared. ..... Familiarity helps in this regard, as does the fact that he's talking to her on a phone, as opposed to face-to-face. "Do you think I'd be dumb enough to do that!? I ain't suicidal!" Shurui says, her voice deadpan. "Besides, after all the stuff *I've* been through concerning family or a lack of one, you think I'd dick around with the one guy who has any clue what it's like?! I can be mean, but I ain't *that* mean." There's some silence as Shurui rubs the sides of her head with the index finegr and thumb of her free hand, trying to regain her wits.
"....." K''s next question makes her stop and look down. .... God, how can she reply to th- Wait, no. He *did* know. ".... From the way you reacted, I almost thought I wasn't telling you anything you didn't know before. Besides..." She frowns. "... I guess that's why Marise wanted to fucking pluck out my eyeballs."
With time, K' forces his concentration back on looking for Whip: trying not to think about who she might really be to him now. If he just focuses on the paths he's taking, the streets he's already been down, the places he's already checked, he won't have to face the sick feelings of doubt, uncertainty, and weird longing sitting coldly and heavily in his chest. He pauses, one hand pressing against a nearby wall, and just puts his head down a second.
His silence strings on longer and longer as Shurui sputters her surprise and explains herself. She's right, of course. About all of it. It would take a suicidal and stupid person to string him along on something like this. Her own past would militate against jokes like this. And lastly, most convincingly... the girl's abduction and torture only prove there IS some power to be garnered from those eyes of hers.
And now they've seen something way more personal to K' than he ever anticipated.
"I -didn't- know," is all he can say, over and over, numbly and blankly. "Not for sure. The only thing I remembered is that I -had- a sister. I never knew who she was, or if she was alive, or if she existed." Poor Shurui, forced to deal first with Whip's breakdown, and now her brother's. K', however, is a bit simpler to handle in that his moods always eventually come circling right on back to one thing:
"...I don't have TIME for this." Sudden, familiar fury fuels a frustrated slam of his right fist into the wall, the brick powdering under the metal. "I'm going to figure this out LATER. Stay where you are. I am finding her before she does something even -more stupid-." Oh, K'.
God, Shurui's been on a roll, hasn't she? First she inadvertantly causes Whip to briefly break down, and now, of all people, K' is beginning to have a meltdown of his own. "...." After a while, the girl runs out of things to say, just allowing the silence to grow between them. Then, when K' speaks, she listens, not raising her voice or interrupting his train of thought.
What could she say to something like that? Should she voice that bit of envy that crawls through her gut, hearing K''s gut-wrenching words?
Finally, there's a empathic huff of air that lands against the phone, followed by a weary voice. "Go find her. We can sort things like this out later. Whether she's really your sister or not, we need to stick together. Igniz is no lackey from what I saw in his aura. He's probably used the same things that were used to make us into what we are to make himself more powerful. That girl wants to take him on alone." She frowns. ".... That may just be the alcohol talking, though."
Then, K' comes to his senses. "Right," Shurui says in agreement to his first statement. "I'll have the phone nearby if you need anything."
Take him on alone. On alone. Him. Another long silence ensues.
It has to be the alcohol. Whip was the most cautious, rational, and careful person K' ever met that came out of NESTS. She couldn't be so abjectly foolish as to think she's going to take him on solo and expect to win: or live. Disbelief patterns audibly through K''s silence, and for a time all he does is sigh an incredulous breath. Okay, now it's -really- important he find her fast, before she disproves his faith in her sanity and does something really stupid.
But eventually, he manages to deal with the surprise of all he's been told, shoving it all to the back of his mind and telling himself there will be time to think about it all later. Action is far more critical now. "I'm leaving mine on," he replies her eventually, sounding a lot cooler than he did about ten seconds ago: his familiar ruthless control knotted coldly back into his voice. If nothing else, K' reverts easily back to his usual overbearing habits. "If she comes back, don't wait. Call me."
A long pause. And then, when Shurui thinks she's finally off the hook for her little escapade? A sharp admonition dashes that hope. "And don't get in any more fucking trouble." The chide is almost gruff enough that one could imagine it's tempered with forgiveness-- after all, her traipse led her path to cross with Whip's-- but K' hangs up immediately after, leaving it eternally vague.
K' and Whip seem to be very quick about getting themselves in order, when not under the influence. It's a skill Shurui can certainly appreciate, especially during a time where everything seems to be falling down on top of them. "I won't wait. Do the same if you run into anything." Like Igniz. That she leaves unsaid, but K' should get the hint. Then again, he might decide to not tell her *because* of that.
He better not. She needs to pull her weight too, and having him or that girl there would make sure her resolve doesn't falter. They'd serve as reminders of what she could turn into. Reminders that, despite her struggles and problems, she's the lucky one. She wasn't forced to do anything but survive. And nature is not as cruel a mistress as a self-made god. Shurui had little love in her life, but what she had was true. And that, with the journey coming to a crossroad, allows her the ability to recongize it when she sees it.
Or allows her to be forgiving of people whose idea of caring, if K''s notion of her or Whip has come to that point, is yelling and cussing at them. And, well, oops. K' *did* notice the story tucked inbetween the lines she fed him. But it seems like everything is balanced, to the point that she doesn't feel readily threatened by the Big Bad Wolf's temper.
For now. Who knows what Whip'll say, if she has any inkling of meeting Shurui by the time K' finds her. "Not planning on it," is Shurui's equally short answer. Not getting into trouble, that is. "Still going to school, though." NESTS be damned, she still needs to get out. If anything, she needs to train, and Gedo is just as good as YFCC in that respect.
Hearing the click of the phone, she collapses into the futon with a sigh. ".... God, it'll be a miracle if we get through this without any lasting mental tramua...." For now, though? She'll sleep. She'll sleep until that damned phone rings, or her alarm clock does the same.
Log created on 20:18:36 04/14/2008 by Shurui, and last modified on 20:35:06 04/16/2008.