Description: What is worth to a person? Ryouhara has never known the meaning of worthiness to others. The only worth he has ever sought is the worth before the eyes of his clan. Everything else is a tool for his use. As the accumulation of savage injuries over weeks past takes their toll on him, he is introduced to a new curiosity. In another world, another time, it may have been his desire to know his worth by another. Hold lanterns high to mourn something that was never born.
His blood littered the dojo.
Sometimes it could be considered a figurative way--the Ryouhara's soul was here moreso than anywhere else, having selected here as his sanctum ever since he'd had the resources to do so. It was meant to be somewhere where he and his student could live a relatively safe existence beyond the reach of the world's eye. The most important work was done here, things that could be deemed his blood legacy.
But other times the expression is simply literal.
His encounter with K' was a performance exactly as expected; the fight was one he'd had little desire to win in the physical sense. In truth, his body has paid the great tolls of his ideals--torn open once again, his wounds which had just barely begun to heal proper had become retorn in the short but brutal fight. As he'd said, he'd made it back to his observation post, but that place was not somewhere he could stay for the period necessary to make his full recovery.
He had to return to the only truly safe place he knew.
Though he took great care outside to cover his tracks, inside was a different story. The tale of his injuries are told in the murky trail of black he left through the dojo, tracking it in as absent-minded as could be after changing his bandages. It geos clear through the workshop and into the back of the dojo, back at his room. It was a feat of will merely to keep his own body from failing to infection, let alone what getting here required and atop that, maintaining a tidy workspace.
He would consider it later, he told himself, though realistically, Seishirou was a cluttered person by nature, organized only in information. Even now, he had important work to do, a diagram of a battleship drawn on the page before him, along with psychology notes on 'Whip' and 'K''. He only had a certain amonut of days to heal and return to nominal condition...so much to do.
He has been making notes while conscious.
While conscious is probably the best emphasis of that term. Ryouhara is currently plied face-down next to his notes atop a small mattress on the tatami that serves as a resting place. From the haori hung to on a hook just above a board next to that bed upon which a plethora of notes is tacked to the pen ninkou on the floor only a few feet form his hand, it does not seem the young shinobi planned for a nap.
Troubling.
It's been weeks since Suzume was last in Japan. Certain duties had taken her out of the country... and only half of them had come from the desk of Geese Howard. From where did the rest come? From the hand which had given her the blade that brought her to this sanctum.
Her thoughts had turned to Ryouhara once she'd settled in, and once they had she'd noted a discernable reaction in the blade. Ah, she'd thought. So that's what this was for...
A little bit of analysis later, Suzume had ascertained something of the nature of the weapon Senchakiri. It was tuned to Seishirou's chi, and therefore it could point her to his location. This discovered, Suzume decided it was about time she paid the Ryouhara a visit. With her own blade slung quietly at her side and the ninkou blade across her back, the young woman had set out on a curious, rambling path to see just where the weapon would lead.
It had not been simple to penetrate the dojo. Only a careful following of the chi residue left by Seishirou's own fresh blood-- something which had, incidentally, sped up her progress considerably, giving her a sort of heart-stopping sensation she hadn't felt in a long time-- led her safely into the heart of Ryouhara's lair. She finally comes across the felled Ryouhara, moving completely without sound: her chi stifled down to nearly nothing.
For a few moments, she regards him in silence. He's still alive, she can tell that much... but who's to say for how long? Stealthily, she moves closer.
Within the next few moments, Seishirou may find himself somewhat rudely awakened by the sensation of a distinct warmth pressing on the mattress, a hair from his side-- the rustle of a sleeve against his shoulder-- and a cool touch against his jawline, tracing down to feel his pulse at his throat.
The Ryouhara shinobi seems characteristically fevered even in sleep. It is not a thing he does well when there's work to be done, of which he has had more than his fair share. His eyebrow is knit in an intense expression, as if he were even to use his dreams as a battleground for want of the ability to wake. Though his will is not wanting, his body is an uncertain thing, a factor beyond his influence to a dismay that will never be spoken in the reach of his unconscious mind.
He seems to have at the least had the good sense to change. A black slit-shoulder monk's work shirt is of the primary import, untied at the collar and left only slightly open. Much like most things he wears, the length of cotton is clearly emblazoned at the back with his family's whirling leaf symbol.
His position is such that he simply seems to have pitched over in the middle of writing, perhaps as a stray error of balance. His furthest hand is long and far, near the stand that holds the gross sum of what he carries with him in this world--a few scattered blades, an academy headband neatly folded, and a long double-loop of silver chain, bearing the curious blade of the Steel Leaf. Ultimately, Seishirou's is body turned in such a fashion that 'comfort' would be a suspicious word to bring to mind. His dark hair is splayed about his rest, one hand lay before lips parted just so for the favor of his slow, ragged breath, tight and controlled, reined shy of irritating injuries even in his sleep...
.. A breath that calms at her soft touch.
Confusion turns his fevered brow. Curiously, the terrorist shinobi is pliant and warm to the touch, a favor not allowed any in memorable history while the shinobi remains waken. It is as if the familiarity is calming to him, but confusing, a solitary personality simply not used to the caring of others. His heartbeat is a steaady thing, pulsing deep in his chest, if a little slowed from what much have been a legendary amount of medications and remedies for an equal amount of damage. Feeling there, she will find him, his heartbeat working, a pulse slowly quickening. There, at the mercies of her touch, his hand closest his face reaches absently, a familiar warmth close to him, reminding him of home.. "..what.." he murmurs in his sleep, imagining for, if only a moment, that he _has_ instead of _had_..
An instant later, if she is not clear of him, that hand will be a vise on her wrist, pulling the woman roughly into the point of his blade, held in only four fingers at her throat, a cool point pressing with dire purpose into her carotid artery. Eyes darker than night are open now, a white hot intent to _end_ burning behind silken dark bangs of hair tangled _only just so_ for his nap. Words do not materialize. Not before his suspicion unaware of even _who has come_ still snaps like a chain pulled tight.
It would be a bit of a stretch to call that touch 'caring.' That presumes to give it a warmth and a loving quality which are simply not present. That caress can, at best, be called curious... oddly clinical, in a way. It skates along Seishirou's jaw with idle interest. For all Suzume has committed to Seishirou in the past few weeks by agreeing to follow his ideal... she still barely knows his face. That is the secretive nature of the Ryouhara.
Yet there is something under her surface coolness that implies this woman once did know how to touch out of love. There is a certain languorous quality to it... one which leads her to let her fingertips linger longer than they should, as she coldly and clinically muses on those old, half-forgotten feelings: turning them over like pieces of some broken mirror.
She stays two seconds too long: and abruptly, Suzume finds herself pulled into a hold she'd never-- under other conditions-- have put herself in a position to be locked in. His knifepoint bites against her throat and the woman stutters out a halting, ethereal breath: one which starts startled, but ends on a distinct note of amusement. Her parted lips curve up at the corners, eyes half-lidding as her tensed body instantly mounts what defense it can against that deadly point.
Her trapped arm twisted to force outwards against him, her other crossed across his chest to brace his shoulders, her free hand rests against his throat. Her lips finally close together, but that smile doesn't quite leave her. "Good morning," she greets. "I thought I should drop by."
Even in the scattered reach of his own just-summoned consciousness, Ryouhara's expression reads fierce; a deadly thing that brooks no remorse for the person who'd think to do something like touch him in his weakened state. Even Kula saw that much in the moment before he snapped his fingers. It is an intense thing, Suzume can read it in his pulse--even through a chemical haze and his own injuries, Seishirou's heart beats strong and even, a steady pulse in the long lines of his neck. She can recognize it in clarity. It is far from anger, a pointless rage to something that should already be accepted as reality. It is not fear, for there is not much in this world or the next holding dear succor for Ryouhara's intensely gained fear. He is too calm for that now.
It is his defiance.
Though his memory struggles to even identify the blurry image before him, the assumption that was reached is supported through a heady sense of cold thrill running down the Ryouhara shinobi's spine. If someone wants to kill him? He invites them to try. Even here, in his bed, he will not hesitate....
Ryouhara blinks once, comprehension dawning.
"... nh?" he manages.
His brow raises and turns, until his expression cloys the subtle amusement of Nakatani with something approaching pure bewilderment. When one reality shifts to another, his metabolism makes it agonizing for him to force himself awake in the absence of a threat. Is there really no such thing? "Na.." he repeats. It is a moment before he finds the virgin steel in his voice at last. "...Nakatani," he finally speaks, more a recognition than a greeting or accusation.
Her hand rests on his throat firmly, he becomes aware. For the moment, the ninja is pinned beneath her weight. A natural consequence-- in his grip and without her balance, he has the advantage, few defenses being faster than the knife held in his hand, a double-edged throat-slasher produced from somewhere in the folds of his bedding. That thing is a razor point pressed into her neck whose pressure fades as he lifts the blade warily. He slowly begins to recognize Suzume in all of the important ways. Recognition gives way to concession--he lifts the blade. But he does not turn it away from her.
His hand is still tight on her wrist.
He still looks closely at her through narrowed gaze, as if attempting to ply an answer from her mind with his eyes alone. An answer to a question that hasn't fully formed yet, as if the shinobi is still working off of some baser instinct that trusts very, very few to approach him in this way. The engineer's investigative curiosity runs him now and like his ideal, it is not a subtle thing.
"...How?"
She has to admit that her breath catches in her throat a little at that fierce, resolute look of utter defiance. Her dark eyes study his killing intent as if recognizing something she's not seen in a long time: inspecting him with the rapt and unhinged attention of a girl who is emphatically not all there. Yes, it's been a while since she saw this kind of intensity. The last person was--
Suzume tilts her head to one side, leaning forwards as that blade eventually lifts and retracts. Black hair slides across her shoulder, slithering down into the scant space between them and hanging there. "Yes. It's me." Her calm voice buzzes the steel of his weapon.
There's no anger or resentment in her voice for his reaction. No indignance. She can understand his wariness, and she condones his use of near-deadly force to defend himself. It's not as if she can't defend herself, after all-- and were she in his position, she would have done exactly the same.
She lifts her hand from his throat moments after he puts up his blade. The threat of chi that had spiked within it dims again, subsiding. She uncurls from her pinning defense slowly, her warmth pulling away, and her eyes crinkle in an amused way at his uncomplicated demand for information. So adorable just after he's wakened. "You already know how," she replies with a shrug. Seeming uncaring of his steel grasp on her wrist, she settles back with an unnerving calm and a smile. "You gave me the means, after all."
Senchakiri rests on the tatami, not five feet away.
That space is something intensely studied by the Ryouhara shinobi, his eyes beginning to stray from her face to other parts of the room. Details--catalogued quickly. His urge to research and catalogue moves on quickly even in spite of the want of his usual clarity of thought and purpose. He is, at the least, dimly aware that beyond what changes he made and Nakatani's presence, nothing in his room has been overtly changed and there no one else present.
As her hand lifts from his throat, the tension in his body seems to drain off, something even Ryouhara had failed to notice for the first few moments. He focuses instead on the observation that the kunoichi was not in fact paying a whole lot of attention to his knife.
His eyes snap over to the blade resting on his tatami. "Wh.." he murmurs quietly, more to himself than anything else. The question is a pointless one, not posed to Suzume but more to himself. He is right. He knows exactly why. It just hasn't occured to him yet. "... It's not dulled is it?" is a more fitting first real question, care for his ninkou temporarily superceding even his wariness, before he blinks once. "Hh.."
"... You have a way," Seishirou observes, blinking a second time, "of finding the end of my blades," he manages to explain, after an agonizingly long pause.
As if to explain another item, his hand withdraws with the knife in it, his grip lingering on Suzume's other hand only momentarily before releasing, Ryouhara's intervening heat sliding away and withdrawing delicately from Nakatani as if he had mishandled a particularly delicate vase and was now returning it to its pedestal.
Quietly, Suzume studies Seishirou as the young shinobi flicks his gaze around-- taking in the situation and making sure nothing is amiss. With a seemingly infinite patience and aplomb, she simply waits for him to finish his appraisal, not even appearing to mind that he doesn't see fit to release her wrist during this time. She's a kunoichi. She understands, in a general sort of way, how he thinks.
But there is something unusual about how completely she ignored that weapon. Is she that confident? Or is she just that unhinged? Or perhaps... does she trust Seishirou that much? Think she's got him figured out that much?
She's not forthcoming with answers. Instead, she just lets him slowly come to his realization. When he poses that question, however, indignation finally does flash in her eyes. Her pride, it seems, has finally been affronted. "Do you think I'd -let- it be dulled?" Her expression pulls into a distinct frown, the woman finally evincing some evidence of being ruffled. Few things can disturb her eternal serene calm-- but implying she would mishandle a weapon is one.
She nurses her indignation a little, even through his observation that she seems to have a talent for provoking his pointed blades. Her eyes dart up to meet his, long lashes flickering open to reveal annoyed eyes, but the woman says nothing at first. Presently, however, she gets over her mood. That perpetual, half-smiling calm settles over her again. "It keeps you," she notes, "...sharp." And she pulls away concurrent with his release of her wrist.
She doesn't rub at her wrist. Instead, she just leans back and settles her hands in her lap, looking completely at ease even though she's technically still an intruder in his private space. "I would not have come so far," she explains, "but then I realized the reason the chi trail was so strong. You've bled so much the path to get here is like a beacon." A severe, sharp look has claimed her eyes. "What happened?"
Ryouhara is slow to move when he does, minding some unseen tenderness in his midsection as she finds words to address him with. Though the mind wants badly for rest gone long denied in the furious pace that only Ryouhara is accustomed to moving at, his eyes rarely miss a thing, and he does not fail to catch the equal to his defiance in her indignation. A white flash of her chill disapproval would be paralyzing in some. In Ryouhara, it simply reminds him of a basic tenet of his placent faith in the kunoichi.
As someone who he placed his trust into the reasoning is clear. She, amongst all he meets and reviles, is one of the few who is truly _alive_.
"I'd forgotten," Ryouhara turns, his words disposing the demands and fury earlier, as if the will to end had simply drained out of him. Languid in the uncustomarily lazy way that someone who has only just woken could be, the engineer leans over across the tatami, shrinking the distance between them to slide a hand just past Suzume's hip, "of your love."
The hilt of Senchakiri is lifted, the weight settling in Ryouhara's outstretched arm as he weighs it. His calculating nature awakens slowly, his glance to her manifest just beyond the curtain of tousled hair that ever faintly brushes the kunoichi's skin as he is forced to reach past her. "But there is no blade that can be sharper than this cutter of mine.."
He lifts it in the light. The glint trails down an impossibly sharp silverine edge to a guardless hilt and down a polished grip, the trail catching off the tethered bauble trailing from the pommel. It is a bladed symbol almost exactly like the one on that necklace at the stand. ".. Something I trust you do not find wanting.."
Drawing away slowly, he listens to her explanation paying only partial attention. It was something he would have guessed, but the reminder is enough to bring him to speed. "I hadn't anticipated that." There was a vague twitch as he'd moved earlier, something displayed reflexively but then quickly hidden away, as Ryouhara is only fully honest in the few moments before he is truly awake. Now, the scent of blood teases the ninja's sense, and hs is at least this time aware it is his own.
Leaving perhaps an entire range of truths out, he explains simply.
"The operation aboard was subject to an information leak," he admits.
The kunoichi's eyes begin to do some further studying of their own as Seishirou starts to move. They skim across his battered, beaten frame, appraising the nature and extent of the damage, and begin to form a clearer picture of what happened to him. He was attacked first by someone with some sort of pointed or edged weapon, judging by the half-healed slices and the telltale signs of impalement. Then, later, he was attacked again... this time by a far more blunt sort of trauma, the sort that made holes not through keen points and sharp edges but through brute force.
The signs of fire Suzume barely even notices, though they are in actuality also part of his wounds. She simply assumes the burns are the result of Seishirou searing his own injuries shut.
She's drawn from her half-reverie abruptly when Seishirou leans towards her. She doesn't move, doesn't allow her outward calm to be disturbed in any way, but infinitesimally, more on a mental then a physical level-- she tenses. His hand slips towards her, and when it finally ghosts just past her hip her nerves are strung tight enough she almost feels him: even though he never touches her.
The slight rattle of the blade being lifted hits her senses. Suzume remembers to breathe, and does so. Her eyes half-lidding in a vaguely displeased fashion, her expression drifts into a vague moue of cool composure. He comments on the blade, and Suzume holds her silence in response to his assertions of its quality. She has no criticism: as such, she has nothing to say.
The news that there was an information leak is engaged a bit more. Suzume's gaze flicks down to the tatami, the woman considering the floor quietly. "...and was it resolved?" she eventually asks, both question and offer couched in that casual phrase. The fact that Seishirou is still alive answers very little.
The blade rests against his shoulder briefly as he reweights the weapon, testing the mune against his shoulder. She was kind to it, this much he could tell. Senchakiri was a surprisingly delicate weapon for someone who makes weapons that make the sky bleed--the slightest misuse would render it worthless in a matter of days. His appreciation is something offered only in the satisfactory breath he gives at the weapon. Whether it is more an expectation than anything else, it was unclear. But Senchakiri did indeed find its way back to him. Even if he hadn't quite planned it this way.
She was correct. Senchakiri was able to track him that easily in his condition, making it a ninkou particularly dangerous in the hands of an enemy.
Fortunate the, that the woman before him is not.
Scratching his temple brazenly with the kind of wandering eye that still suggests an awareness and maturity that is still nascent to the just awoken Ryouhara, he finally and slowly gets to his knees, picking up the notepad next to his tatami and setting it on the stand. His eye does not miss much, and he was, if only briefly, starkly aware of her eyes on _him_. Absently, he busies himself with the frivolity. His voice is forced level as she questions him. "I sent Riko to handle the situation," is all he suggests. That much is enough.
Standing, Ryouhara pads across the room in bare feet bound in tape, his gait an unsure thing, but only just so. He throws open a certain panel there at the wall, causing several notes nearby to fall to the floor, a tragedy Ryouhara minds very little. Inside what services as a hidden closet, there is a disturbing manner and array of blades and other weapons. From the mundane double kodachi to the longer Onryouken and the bizarre wrist-lance Unagiyari, Ryouhara seems well equipped. From this locker, he draws a specialized leather sheath, which he drops Senchakiri absently in, and sets it to one aide against the wall. The imbued oils in the leather will hold the blade in a kind of stasis, mostly to prevent it from troubling things like cutting into the floor under its own weight.
"I've returned for the time being," Ryouhara labors to explain, turning towards Suzume. "To protect our interests abroad. There will be a match soon--" He pauses, his chest shifting violently as he coughs into a sleeve. The subject changes abruptly. "--please," he begins, his voice a thin, guarded thing, "watch out for any mentions of a 'NESTS' group. Do not engage.."
He trails off at that point, thinking hard about one thing or another, but failing magnificently to put it to words. Her eye mgiht be able to tell. Though he doesn't seem intent on resting just yet, the variance in his gait worsens progressively the longer he stands, almost by the moment.
A detail even Ryouhara himself misses. "..Right now, their strength of science is preeminent even before our own.."
Suzume's eyes travel instantly to the array of blades revealed when Seishirou opens that panel. Her gaze rakes down the lengths of steel with, if possible, -more- interest than she gave Ryouhara himself. She had always been curious to see the craftsmanship of the Ryouhara-- so different and yet similar to that of her own clan-- and now the chance has presented itself. Her eyes virtually catalogue everything in the young man's abode.
When Seishirou finally addresses her, she rouses as if from a reverie, her eyes turning to him. She says nothing about Seishirou entering himself in a match, though the faint look of disquiet that enters her demeanor suggests she has doubts whether he'll be healed up enough to fight anytime soon.
Just more evidence of how she doesn't really -know- Ryouhara well. Not yet.
"NESTS," she eventually echoes. The strange name sets her eyes to narrowing, as she realizes it's a name she's never heard. "Were they the people who did this to you?" It would seem so, judging by how he cautions her against even approaching them. "...Sit down. Please. You are doing nothing for the healing process." Already the woman is rising, looking at him critically.
"Your bandages need changing again," she notes, after a pause.
Though Ryouhara's arsenal is a vast thing envisioning explosives raining from the sky like freshly fallen snow, cannons small enough to hide in your sleeve, transforming ear renders and such mechanical nightmares that might shift Giger from his grave, Ryouhara is at the least of a noble sensibility. Here, it is only his array of blades hung up with such clear accounting and preservation.
Some--realistically, most--are made of dirty, cheap steel. They are things made to be inserted and then snapped off at the hilt so that the wound never heals, other things made to explode and to shatter when taken by the enemy, weapons that demand the requisite skill in use. Unagiyari, Onryouken. Low quality weapons in practice, easily replicated and doubtfully the first in their number. They are the kind of weapons the samurai would simply scoff at, and perhaps even some that Suzume herself would find trouble seeing value in, seeming worthless things unable to stand up to even a day's worth of hard use.
But engineering weakness is as careful a process as engineering strength. Calculated to the end, and amongst the parade of trash steel, there are a few genuine jewels of interest, chief of which be the sheathed blade propped now against the wall. Roukage, the straightblade that cuts steel. Hiryuu and Hineko, the two kodachi, unusually hardy weapons for their small size, still sharp despite the bites they took.
They all are.
Despite their individual quality, each has a purpose. And each are sharp.
The closet slides shut abruptly.
His fingers lightly disengaging from the catch in the wooden panels, he did not need to turn back from Suzume to shut the closet, instead doing so as merely an afterthought to his frame of mind. "--A group of scientists in the contemporary fashion," he allows. But it is the only allowance--there is no response as towards her suggestion that they in fact, did anything to him. That is damning evidence enough in itself, as Ryouhara's expression is that of a thin pressed frown. "Their assassin is as curious about us as I was about them when I engaged one of their lesser experiments.." the crass being flickers to mind, Kay Four Nine, but it is quickly replaced by that one girl, Kula Diamond. Reactionary by nature, he raises a lip in derision, apparently off on his own tangent. "Trash science," he mutters absently. "A weakness I will not forget.."
Had she read him truly that easily? Ryouhara's transition from lines of thought is considerably rougher than Suzume's gentle stir. He twitches--noticably, before fixing one dark eye on the kunoichi rising. "There is no trouble in this world that the ideal of 'this world reenvisioned' cannot surmount," he makes clear, his stance shifting open slightly, as if in battle. His arms sway with him, loose and at his sides. It's an absent adjustment, one that could easily be mistaken for the free floating dark hostility that Ryouhara is known for. In this case, however, it's a concession to sheer balance. He is more stable in this fashion. "My jutsu," he breathes, "will suffice where the natural process fails."
Reminded, it would seem that Ryouhara is determined to stand, in any context.
A chill dispassioned eye rolls downward. Just past the shifting rough linens of his samue, blood drips onto his carefully maintained floorboards.
The last of the Ryouhara shinobi frowns distinctly and from the way he addresses himself, it would be easy to believe he would bring his own body to the fire for insubordination if he even thought for a moment it would help his affairs.
"There's still work to be done," his voice resonates, an unfeeling edge forced in.
It's true Suzume's eye lingers longer on the fine blades than on the ones she knows have been purposefully made to be weak. Raised by a clan of bladewielders, the girl cannot help but look up until the last moment before the closet clicks shut.
The sound of the door closing jolts her eyes back to Ryouhara. Faintly, she frowns.
"Human experimentation. Augmented assassins." A light chuckle escapes her. "Sounds like something out of a science fiction novel, doesn't it..." Amusement riddles her voice at the deep irony inherent in that phrase: she and Seishirou are no less 'outlandish' in the eyes of normal men and women. The girl rises, her loose clothes unrumpling and slipping straight as she stands. For the time being, she does not approach. "I think I can guess why they're angry with you."
It's not until Seishirou begins to insist against the complaints of his own body that Suzume starts to approach. It is clear she finds little logic in his determination. "So you will exhaust your energy to use jutsu to remain standing... putting out a subpar performance, and exhausting yourself all the same." The woman stops, a few feet away. She clicks her tongue, cool eyes studying him.
"What work is so pressing?" Suzume's gaze is uncompromising. It is not unimaginable that she might be offering to do what she can herself.
"I prefer fantasy," Seishirou mutters, his tongue mild.
With his shift, the sleeves of that light work jacket sheathe neatly over his hands up to the knuckles of twitching fingers. As if locked in that position, he does not move when the kunoichi begins to approach, his gaze phasing pensive and wandering only a moment in the diligence of her logic and presence nearing him.
"No," he murmurs, turning his head away.
"A performance that one does not struggle to give is pointless. The banal record of this world's history is rife with the routine, the destruction of many of the finest in this world rendered a simpleton's task. Pointless," he repeats, "and without merit. Even if I exhaust every nature of this body of mine..." He moves with slow deliberation as he meets her approach at final. Dexterity forces his fingers wide to gesture at his midsection, still dripping crimson. The edge in his voice is hell-bent on proving his point. "There can be no weakness of purpose."
"If the goal cannot be struggled for, it is not worth my time."
"The ship requested by our benefactor will be a great thing," he mentions offhand, changing the subject to that of her question. "To capture the imagination and fear of every fed and greedy decadent in this world. Our goals are dependent on that. But it requires a weapon like the sun in the sky. A shining force unyielding to anything Man would create to stop it. Our contacts in Howard Enterprises have informed me of a battle aboard a ship that I must neutralize and attain control of to create such a weapon."
"The Kyousha has already been moved to the coast to prepare for it."
Suzume holds her silence, her eyes flicking up to watch his as he speaks. It's her way of saying 'have it your way.' She can tell she won't sway him on his convictions, and so she doesn't try. However, very briefly, for a moment she does look humored. He just likes to make things difficult for himself, doesn't he? Well, it's not as if she can't understand his point.
Still. She has to wonder whether it is wise for him to push himself even harder when he is already in this state.
She turns away softly as he begins to explain the work ahead, slowly pacing back to the piled tatami. With a cool presence of mind, she gathers herself and resettles on the mats as he talks. She knows already of this plan. What she didn't know is that there is an upcoming match critical to its success.
"When is this match?" Her head has turned back to him, her gaze threatening to become critical again. "If you require me--"
"--not necessary," Ryouhara interrupts predictably. At first, he is dead even in tone. "Plans for any contingency are already being formed. Our engineers will dismantle the cannon and I will take it. Preferably there will not be significant resistance, but if there is.." He trails off, before breathing hard, "...it's not a situation they can control." He seems dead set on that much, just shy of taking offense to the suggestion that he might need assistance he didn't specifically plan for. "Your hands are meant for the ongoing mission in Afghanistan."
He stands there a moment, his eyes a careful study of Nakatani as she settles, shifting in something just shy of wariness when she sits upon his tatami once again. It is followed by an unnatural stray of the shinobi's body, abbreviated by his stance, and a blink. The emotive itself is brief, quelled by Ryouhara easily as he moves to match her, but only until he can draw something from the stand--a small drawer, near the back is pulled open. A bag--however colorful it might be--is removed, a piece of foil taken from within and unwrapped.
Orange mints?
He turns away. You will never actually /see/ or /hear/ him eating. "The battle will be in a week's time. Until then, I will need to work to arrange the necessary details.." In that moment, though the knowledge is implicit that he is weak, he speaks as if he is only mildly discomfited by injuries that probably would have killed someone else of his body's endurance. More or less awake now, his ideals are now in full control, curiosity taking a firm backseat. This is no more significant than the moment he looks over his shoulder, a dark eye flashing.
"Of that goal.. I assume you've come to report," he reminds.
".. Unless you truly did mean to kill me while I rested .."
Oddly, the cant of his lighter baritone seems not to begrudge Suzume such an attempt in the slightest.
Her dark eyes follow Seishirou as he moves, amusement gleaming under her lashes at the sight of sweets. Still, she does not interrupt: letting Seishirou speak to his conclusion. Predictable. He wants to shoulder the entire burden, leaving her to continue with her assigned task. She knows this kind of personality-- it is a personality that would be insulted should she insist to offer it aid.
She therefore says nothing more about helping him. She can understand that sort of pride in one's own work. Instead, she considers his reminder, turning over the events of the past few weeks in her mind. Absently, she smoothes her clothes, hands straightening the folds in her lap.
"If there were anything wrong with the progress of our mission in Afghanistan," she eventually replies, some of the amusement draining out of her eyes to leave them just a little more cold, "I would not have the time to return to Southtown. You may be assured that it proceeds as it ought. A week is too long for me to be absent from it; I will give you no aid."
Her eyes lift to his. "Of course, I highly doubt you would accept it in the first place, even under the duress of my insistence."
As to his 'joke,' if such a thing could be called a joke? Suzume stares evenly at Seishirou for a moment, her expression betraying nothing, a cool calm laid over her like an obscuring veil. Eventually, the corner of her mouth lifts in a slight smirk. "I'm afraid," she replies quietly, the cadence of her voice coiling with stifled laughter, "there was only one way for you to find out if I -did-."
What is a person without their pride?
Can they be a free man, without limits?
Or are they a disgrace, shackled to fear?
Perspectives vary. But Ryouhara's does not. He cuts an odd figure, jaw working over candy with grim intensity as he thinks. But it is not a concern for him. There can necessarily be no doubt that his mind focuses purely on his ability to stand, his ability to act and move as opposed to any baser desire at this point..
"There are measures of duress..." he observes, coldly. It's a passing thought, but it is no less a thought for it, the shinobi continuing onward. "As a master of the ideal we call 'Kagero,' you will understand better than any other. A meaning is a treasure in this lost world. Mission is passion--" he pauses briefly, his teeth gritting in the shadows, gripping his midsection. Knifelike, like fires of shredded amethyst, the force of pure trauma and agony necessarily wracks his body.
He utters not a sound other than his word.
"Mission is passion," he repeats, a drop of sweat sliding unseen down the curve of his jaw, "and... its costs are gladly paid." His chest rises visibly with every breath, "I entrust the protection of that base to your delicate touch," he states, emphasizing that last, "My goal will be something different entirely."
For those, he will pay whatever cost is necessary.
The candies rattle in their cellophane bag as it drops to his side. When the shinobi finally turns, haze no longer clouding his eyes. Clarity is a beautiful thing in contrast, the sharp lines of his gaze setting pins in his own mind to the details lay before him. Suzume is a comfortable view in his eyes, but she is not a person he faces with warmth. Who would he? He sets the bag on the stand only some was from her. "Only one way to find out," he echoes as he does, his chill voice ringing dark in the confined space of his room, lit only by the warm flicker of his lanterns, things forgotten in his prior works. He turns.
Those words are something less than a challenge..but more than a repetition.
"With the puppeteer and yourself, the base will be secured until I return with the cannon. But I have to attend to my body first," he suggests, moving away slowly across the length of his bedding. He shuts his eyes.
"Suzume." The subject changes abruptly.
"This dojo is sanctum. As something where my clan's ideas are born, it cannot be a part of Kagero. There can be no forgiveness for someone who speaks of it to others." For once, his meaning is simple. "You can understand that. Can't you?"
"No one will ever know of this place." Suzume's reply is sharp, abrupt, tacked straight onto the tail of Seishirou's question without a break. Her eyes have slanted up to his with a certain intensity, almost as if affronted that her ability to keep her mouth shut about this place would even be a question.
But that is the only thing he says that seems to draw any significant reaction. The rest she simply absorbs, her gaze going momentarily distant. It's not until Seishirou begins to move away that Suzume suddenly rises in a rustle of cloth.
With a delicate care, she steps off the tatami, picking her way off Seishirou's bed and moving with little more sound than a slight whisper of silk. He tries to move past her, and one hand lifts: attempting to snare his sleeve and arrest his progress. Her other hand soon follows, lighting on his shoulder, trying to reroute him to force him back into his bed.
She kneels down beside him, leaning in frowningly, her hands pinning lightly against his shoulders. "Measures of duress indeed." Her eyes flicker, and it becomes clear in that instant that she did notice his moment of wracked agony. "I have decided to up my measure." Her hands withdraw.
"My plane does not leave until tomorrow afternoon, and your bandages need changing. Your body, as you said, requires attending: and you will suffer my care, while I am here." She rises, clothing straightening out as she stands, and begins to move off in order to acquire a pan of water and bandages. "All blades require care before they are put to use again. Even the most resolute steel, held by the most passionate of wielders, will snap if it is not cared for."
His brow twitches as he detects the movement, looking down to follow the flicks of silk as they rise. He was intending on leaving Suzume right where she sat once he was assured that she wouldn't speak to anyone of the secrets he keeps here. That was his intent. After all, he was aware of his own weakness right now as much as she reminded him. A retreat made necessary by his own physical composition more than a need of solitude. With the damage inflicted on him, Seishirou was barely capable of standing right now, and his consciousness measured in the minutes--
But Suzume's grip on the rougher fabrics of his sleeve was fast. He tugs against it, once and insistent.
"What are you--"
In a normal situation, Nakatani would be on the floor in an instant.
But it isn't.
For a moment, his form is wired and tense, his shoulders flexing tight against her comparitively lighter touch, his every nerve rioting in his body, waves of pain hitting him as his sharp, all too cold gaze snaps to Nakatani warily. For a moment, there can be no words that describe the level of suspicion he regards her with. At her touch and for a moment, he is ready to fight, no matter the circumstance. He will not fail. A freedom that is his by blood right will be protected by him... weakness is not something he will permit himself to show--
That voice of hers reaches him.
Grudgingly and beyond his will, strength drains from him in a breath.
"....hhh....Su.."
He drifts. A moment later, he crashes onto his bedding a little harder than might be expected, his button-up slicked with his blood clear through as he is pinned. Ryouhara as he is now exists as a steady state between unconsciousness and will, his body a boneless, spiritless thing as formerly clear eyes dim with relent. Consent comes hard for him, her reproach only drawing a press of his lips as he recognizes his scant few alternatives. It is hardly defeat. For the moment... there is simply no more fight. The lightness of her touch in this case is no more surmountable by his will than loving Amaterasu's herself.
Below the gentling submission of half-lidded eyes, his lips move, but only just. The strengths of his youthful voice are winnowed to a soft low that can barely carry, little more than a breath.
"There is nothing that can exist within me... that I can give to you."
He speaks nothing of material gains.
She can recognize the killing intent in his gaze when she first lays her hands on him. She knows that if she so much as twitches in the wrong way, he'll think nothing of killing her on the spot in order to ensure his own autonomy and safety. Suspicion burns in his eyes, tensing his body, tuning it until it is a hairsbreadth from instant retaliation: but she doesn't look away. She doesn't let go.
She just speaks. And eventually, what she's saying gets through to him.
As she had expected, his strength soon fails him. She had guessed that he had no more than another forty-five seconds of ambulatory capability within him. At that point, collapse is not a defeat so much as it is an inevitability; she knows he would recognize that. As such, she had timed her action to correspond with it, such that it would prick the least at his pride.
Once she is certain he will not stir, she stands and begins to move away. The sound of his voice stops her, however, and what he says roots her in place: her halt as abrupt as if she were just doused with cold water. For a long time, she does not reply. She doesn't even look at him. She just, very slowly, lets her head bow. Her shoulders follow soon after, slumping wearily, as some old memory weights her down.
"You gave me an ideal. A purpose." Her voice grates with pained resolution-- an unusual thing to hear from the customarily soft-spoken woman-- and when she turns to look at him, her eyes blaze with some long-past pain. "I -want- you to give me nothing else. Not your love. Not your trust. And least of all your reliance." Her voice finally gentles, softening to a whisper. "I can no longer merit any of those things."
He'd believed he had minutes.
His calculations seem to have been off.
Frame listless and without strength, Ryouhara couldn't move away as he'd desired even if he'd wanted to. Though he has long suffered and prided himself on his ability to endure and soldier onwards in his family's name, there is a cant in her voice, a strength in her resolve, that keeps him lain. It is not a physical defeat as much a mental one, the young boy simply tired out from the trying time. Even young idealistic and driven Seishirou has his limits..
He watches the weight consume her with the complicated eye known to be uniquely his.
Prior, such things seemed to have been mere points of articulation for him. Facts he could gather and make use of. A child or a lover becomes fear. A cherished pride becomes a weakness. But there are few things passing in this world that escape that boy's dark eye. And of the parade of things he can sense, of all of them, the tangible weight of _loss_ is something that strikes the deepest, most familiar chord in the shinobi.
In contrivance of pure will, he riles noticably. Wincing as he shifts from the prone position on his futon to sit up, the folds of rough blood-darkened fabrics buckle as he moves. It is only a small inkling of what he can do if engaged sufficiently, but he cannot lay here as that much alone. His eyes are somber but pitiless things as he does, drowsing repeatedly as what remained of his white-hot focus drains away into some deeper recess of his being. "Then.. you understand," he decides.
"We are beyond it... Ghosts the past has abandoned..." he murmurs. "We reach ever higher for the light. But it is not a thing that can exist in us."
He pauses, as a tired boy labors or a man is thoughtful.
"...favor me," he requests, his voice faint and faraway.
His eyes draw a single tear as they lid under the light of the nearest lantern.
"You tire as well.. you can't defeat my eye."
"Rest your own body." His voice slowly fades.
"quell the light, and sit with me awhile..."
"...please. would-be assassin, suzume."
Darkness reaching over him, Ryouhara is silent.
For a long time, Suzume is quiet. She had faced back forwards in silence once he decided she understood-- the motion serving as a silent confirmation of his words. She has nothing to add to what he has to say. He has said all there -is- to say. They exist now, the both of them, primarily as creatures defined by what they have lost, and those ragged edges left on them from where their hearts were ripped away now bear no symmetry that could fit them together into a functional whole.
His request seems, at first, to go unheard. The young woman simply waits until the boy is silent, lingering in her contemplation until he has completely stilled into unconsciousness. It's only then that she moves, drawing a pan of water and gathering an armful of bandages. She walks back to Seishirou's side, and sets her burdens down. The time to use them will come.
She sits by his bedside, hair whispering over her shoulder as she turns her head to look at him. He's far younger and far more idealistic... but the same sort of intense charisma beats in him. The same force of will burns in him. The similarities cannot be denied. She knows he is insensible now, dead to the world... but somehow, she still needs to prove that she -did- ultimately honor his request. Even if no one will ever know but her.
She leans towards him. She knows he probably can't feel her. But nonetheless, she lets a cool hand rest gently on his forehead, brushing his hair away from his eyes.
Log created on 00:52:29 07/24/2008 by Seishirou, and last modified on 22:38:01 08/02/2008.