Description: Nine hours after Seishirou's abduction, K' wakes up in a place he definitely doesn't recognize. Answers are demanded of Seishirou, and predictably the shinobi provides none.
Nine hours later..
The ride to what Seishirou would deem as 'home' had been particularly difficult. Though able, Byakuren Hagoromo was not regularly capable of carrying that much weight for as far he managed to push it. A crash was obviously inevitable. That was something he'd accounted for too, and managed to land without snapping anyone's neck in the process, though he nearly broke his leg. The rest was rooftop travel all the way to the truck.
That was a story in itself.
It was necessary to take them--both of them, he knows--here. A sanctuary beyond the eye of man, and they sit now in the Yomi Point bay, where Seishirou has made use of an old design built on new principles. A prototype so new it hasn't even a name yet. A massive tank dominates most of the groundspace in the western half of the vehicular bay, cabling running this way and that to charge stations lining the wall. Lit from spotlights below, a glass tubular chamber ringed with thick iron reinforcing bands, scrawled over with arcane sealing text. The transparent fluid the chamber is filled with seems to be mildly iridescent. At its base is the familiar sigil of the Ryouhara.
The young lady submerged in that chamber is even moreso familiar.
Though she no longer seems to be bleeding, she is hardly in a nominal state. A child who needed to be resealed in mother's womb, the radiance of that chamber makes her figure seem all the more gaunt. The harsh shadows make the breathing and support mask clipped over her face seem all the sadder.
At the base of the chamber stands Seishirou, his hand engaged into one of two ports on the machine, as if controlling it directly. Though he stands as if he has been there forever, it is but moments before he slides his fingertips free of the engagement, his hand slack to his side as he looks up, his eye sharp and discerning, nothing but the most intense of frowns on his face seen.
In some solemn concession to what would be inevitability, Ryouhara seems content to have left K' in the back of the truck, which has been parked on the opposite end of the compartment, nestled next to what seems to be a partially assembled tank, and crates and pallets full of the freight of Ryouhara's trade.
Wakefulness comes like a splash of cold water in the face, snapping K' from drugged sleep to furious wariness in the space of instants. The young man resumes consciousness with a twitch and a sudden intake of breath, eyes flicking wide and instantly narrowing to appraise their surroundings. Despite his rude awakening, K' has the good sense not to do anything so dire as to leap to his feet; no, the boy hardly even moves, simply taking a few moments first to lay in silence and consider his next move.
He lies very still. Anyone who missed his initial twitch might think he was still unconscious... especially if they didn't notice his alert and half-lidded eyes, searching about him in a mixture of fear and concern. He has no idea how he got where he is. He isn't even sure where he is.
Eventually, he rises. Higher brain functions seem to have been put aside for the time being, reducing K' to a creature of instinct... a machine, operating off his basest algorithms, all of them deadly and subtle. He glances about him searchingly, and then vacates his location with a stealthiness he has not employed since he had the job title Kula boasts now: NESTS' pet killer.
He wanders silently through the echoing spaces of the bay, looking around him at the machines and trade materials without much comprehension. None of them are even remotely close to what he's looking for. He doesn't see his objective until he looks around the corner of the tank into the center of the room... and when he does, sudden fear twists painfully in him as he subconsciously recalls the containment chambers of NESTS.
"What are you doing to her." K''s voice carries easily across the empty space; he himself hasn't moved from his position nearly thirty feet distant, standing beside that tank. Most would scorn this open manner in which he raises his voice as foolish... and indeed, it would be foolish if K' were not actually -desirous- of luring Seishirou away from that chamber. It's the same sort of tactic a ground-dwelling bird might employ to lead a predator away from its nest: use yourself as bait.
Incidentally, his arm is still quiet, that makeshift restraint of Seishirou's proving effective for a longer duration than, perhaps, anyone expected. K' doesn't seem to notice how unusual it is that his arm isn't cinder; his thoughts, by the furious and focused look of him, are all bent towards concern for one person and one person alone: his sister.
Lucky, that. Seishirou hadn't considered that the hagoromo wouldn't last the night. But the luck is most assuredly not his. He is simply not a man accustomed to having it. When you make your own luck, you necessarily shun the lady herself. Of course, that can be a curse. When you no longer think to manufacture chance, that is.
The last of his name stands there for some time in silence, not even seeming to notice K' padding out of the truck. He doesn't move, doesn't shift, still as stone. But the same can be said for when K' finally addresses him. Seishirou doesn't think to move for a long time, absent in his own thoughts. Is it wise? In a space where he controlled only himself he was able to gain the advantage. Think of his capability in his own domain. A price ... still gladly paid.
But there is no attack. No suffocating gas, nor epic explosions.
No knives. No swords. No spears.
His answer is long suffering, lost is the crisp matter of factness in his tone.
This is an amplification and binding ninkou...the details...
"...I don't really know."
He turns slowly.
"I guess I'm fixing it."
A bolt of light. A young child with tied black hair as long as his hip bolts into and through the empty complex, eyes comically wide. "AAAH!!!" he wails loud and clear as he runs back and slams the rice paper door to his room. "Sensei will kill me!" The sparrow is set on the floor, a book pulled out of the casement and slapped on the ground. No!! It was just supposed to be practice! He didn't think he'd be that good today with a shuriken! Panicking, the youth flips pages quickly. "Rocketry, restoration, ah, repair! hold on;;" he urges, "I can fix it!" gh--he's done this before! It's no problem--clocks are the same size aren't they? "I can fix it!" he insists, louder this time.
"I can fix it..!"
There's no page here for birds!
"... I can fix it ..."
Ryouhara breathes outward, his eyes sliding open again.
"You didn't seem as bad. I would have left you."
To K' at least, he doesn't need to explain why he didn't.
He steps forward now, towards K', allowing himself to be baited. "You should get that looked at," he comments of K's arm. His voice is simplistic. Level. Calm. But hardly... hardly.. hardly. Settled. The distinction between the two is fine; it would be lost on most. The register of Seishirou's moods are hard to get a grip on even when the shinobi isn't clouding things deliberately with words. Why should now be any different from any other moment in time?
The fact that Seishirou's potential would be vastly increased in his own lair has occurred to K'. But the young man, in stark contrast to all his usual paranoia and wariness, simply didn't care that he might well be outmatched. The moment he saw his sister, concern over what Ryouhara might do became a nonissue. Far more important was the preservation of Whip's life.
Of course, it takes some balls on Seishirou's part too, to be quite so confident that the advantage of home territory could provide infallible defense against an angry, genetically-engineered assassin.
Yellow eyes regard Seishirou with an animal wariness as the ninja approaches. But layered under that is an almost childlike look; one triggered by Seishirou's crisp assertion that he's 'fixing it.' That childlike quality, of course, is triggered by vague hope that Ryouhara -can- fix it. That the shinobi can work another of his miracle healings. That he really can take care of everything... solve all of these problems.
That more vulnerable aspect to him is very brief. Soon enough, it's overtaken by a sudden suspicion that the coldness of Ryouhara's demeanor implies a disapproval of his failure to protect Whip properly. Sudden abject shame floods him, though he is careful to show none of it outwardly. Ryouhara has already impugned his ability to protect his sister... and right now, K' can't help feeling that he's proved Seishirou right. He will lose her, through his own weakness. He foolishly declared that he could keep her safe, and proof of his failure is staring them both in the face.
He can hardly bear to ask Ryouhara to save her. To do so would be to admit everything... to lay bare all the shame. But how can he -not-? His pride is precious to him, but not more precious than Whip; he starts to speak, but Seishirou cuts him off. K''s hand tightens when attention is drawn to it. "...You did something to it already." He can feel the foreign aura wound within him, holding it back. "Take back whatever it was-- I have to learn this myself."
He falls silent, as if ready to dismiss the topic. Circling warily as Seishirou draws nearer, he cuts an oblique angle off to one side; in this fashion drawing no nearer Seishirou, but at the same time slowly approaching his sister. He wants to see her. He wants to know what is being done.
A shinobi in confidence. He /is/ confident. By nothing short of necessity. Someone who doubted himself for even a moment could not have beaten Rugal. Could not have attacked China. Success is not something predicated by skill alone. Will is a strong determinant to success. Not to say Ryouhara is incapable of failure. The insistence and opinion of someone who is perfectly skilled is meaningless. Failure is experience. And Ryouhara has tasted equal measure failure and success to know. That's not something Kula ever 'got' about him.
Yes, Seishirou has balls.
He has earned them in every way one can earn them.
The meaning of confidence is having the experience to know better than to second-guess yourself.
But the judgment, the words that would agree with K'--that he is too weak to save his sister without his help--never come. As K' circles him, Ryouhara follows his trail, slowly stepping until the two of them are side by side to Whip. She is not being hurt. Quite the opposite. Her wounds seem to sparkle in the solution. Ryouhara's grand solution, basically an amplified application of his own jutsu that he used before. Full body. Though, it will take some time to figure out what is really driving the device..
The experiment's hope is not lost on the shinobi. But he seems tired. As if something inside of him has recently broken, and he simply hasn't had time to fix it. If K' were not so close, perhaps he could read that fatigue for what it really is. The responsibility for this is not something he wishes to discuss.
It is simply not K's to bear.
In response to the shift of subject, Ryouhara just shrugs. "She asked. And I had no choice." As someone who necessarily allows people to stand on their own, the unnatural assistance is another trepidation from the norm for the scion. As if a glance alone could grant K's wish, his dark gaze simply turns down to look at the sash cinched tight around K's waist, the ninkou that was created and used. He doesn't need to undo it.
K' is perfectly capable of that himself.
In that Seishirou is the polar opposite of K', for the young experiment doubts himself almost every moment of his life. His outward arrogance is a sham, and whatever confidence he -does- possess is of the mathematical sort that can be proven in cold numbers: not the sort of conviction that must stand on faith alone. After all, his upbringing never did put any stock in anything except his numbers and test results... and those always came up short.
And doubt is heavy in his eyes right now, even as the young man warily turns shoulder on the shinobi in order to look up at Whip through the glass. Doubt, and a subtle fear that dreads things more intangible than mere flesh wounds.
If something troubles Seishirou, K' doesn't notice. Selfish as he is, he can only think first of his sister, and then of himself. His left hand lifts tentatively, touching the glass, the experiment seeming perfectly content to let the question of culpability and his ability to save Whip go. He looks at the slow mend of her injuries-- or at least, the implication of them-- in silence, and for a time he says nothing.
He doesn't speak again even when Seishirou lifts his voice to explain K''s quiet arm. It's as if he's tacitly taking a moment to marvel at the sensation of not only being free of the glove, but also free of -pain-. But such things cannot last forever. The young man catches the glance, understands the meaning of it, and turns his eyes towards the strip of cloth about his waist.
For a long time, he does nothing. It's as if he needs to work up the nerve to disturb the suppressant -- to willingly go back to the agony he existed in before. But eventually, his left hand lifts. It shuts on the sash, and then it draws it off with a sharp and reluctant wrench. His eyes immediately shut, a flicker of agony ghosting across his brow.
Fire -rips- out of his arm in a sudden plume. For an instant, the twisting flames actually threaten to jump CLEAR of his body and his control. He wavers a little, shoulders bowing, head sloping, before he manages to clear his head enough to exert what small amount of control he's managed to teach himself so far over the fire. He blasts thought out of his mind, as Geese has taught him, and then he fixes his focus on the fire. All this is still only enough to quiet his flames from leaping feet away from him, howeever; only enough to keep them from turning inwards and consuming him where he stands.
"Why did you help us...?" he finally manages to grate, once the initial surge of pain has passed.
It's clinical. Controllable. Perhaps that's why Seishirou doesn't hide now as he had before. It's not necessary. Here, he can be himself. He can study K' solemnly and quietly as he makes the decision himself, without any other manipulation. It was fine enough. The hagoromo's time was dialated already far longer than Ryouhara had calculated. He pauses. How long /has/ it been?
Long enough. He doesn't bother to check his watch.
Better K' should make the decision himself than fate. Watching the Beast's Fire crawl out of him was interesting to Seishirou. On a scientific level, surely. He really has only the smallest rudiment of control over it, doesn't he?
At the growl, Ryouhara shakes his head once.
"You attract the cartel. Your continued existence is useful to me," he lies.
"Right now, though. You only have one job. If you're going to stay with her.."
He steps forward. The topic will violently change. A brisk, military snap in his step, he shifts only to whip out a hand and grip K's flaming wrist in his hand pointfully. The sizzle of his own burning flesh should not be discounted. For chance moments, Seishirou's intent is to simply re-mute that flame in the midst of K's focus.
Grimacing only faintly at what must be simply intense and crippling waves of pain, Seishirou gathers up the wherewithal to indicate the crates around them. Intensely uncharacteristic of the shinobi, his wording is terse and simple. That is because K' needs to hear this. And this alone.
"...Mind the explosives," he stresses, indicating the crates and bundled pallets.
...There is a lot of both in this cargo area...
And there is little doubt that the process by which the flames crawl out of his veins is intensely painful. The young man's status as an imperfect attempt to fuse holy fire with an inappropriate vessel is glaring. He stands as some sort of creature whose parts do not fit together into a seamless whole. Yellow eyes shutting, K''s brows twitch and knit as his head bows. He attempts first to keep the struggle out of his face; and then, realizing the futility of -that-, simply settles for attempting to hide it.
He doesn't have the presence of mind or the perceptiveness to detect the lie behind Seishirou's reasoning. All he derives from it is that, for the time being, neither he nor Whip will necessarily be harmed. Too exhausted to think back all that hard on the conversation he had with Seishirou in weeks past-- to come to the conclusions that the more candid words Seishirou spoke at the time might suggest-- he just lifts a shoulder in a shrug.
"We're leaving once she's ready." His head lifts as he speaks, will stringing back into his lean form and backing his words as he makes that assertion. It's clear that being referred to as 'useful' has set off something in him. His eyes narrow. "If you want to attack the Cartel, you'd better talk to us than try to just use us as bait. We aren't -things- to be used--"
K' cuts off when Seishirou's hand suddenly shuts around his fire-ridden wrist. It's a move so unexpected K' doesn't even begin to start guarding against it before it's already consummated. At first, he's too surprised to jerk back: and then he startles like an angry dog, pulling back as if against a tether. Briefly, the flames even -intensify- as K''s startlement relieves some of his control. Why is Ryouhara willingly letting himself be burned?! "What the fuck are you..."
The point is swiftly taken. K''s yellow eyes flick once to either side, before settling back on the shinobi. His fire calms... but it doesn't go away. It simply reverts back to that pseudo-control he's managed over it. "You could," he replies eventually, visibly irritated, "have just told me."
That's what he wanted to do. Seishirou can read K' easily by now, and he simply isn't bothered noticeably when K' makes the move to just take him at face value. Most people wouldn't. But K' isn't most people. That's what makes this bearable. To be able to supply information to K' that is simply accepted and not scrutinized for anything other than the soullessness of it. Seishirou can appear exactly as he needs to. That makes this kind of thing easy for him. When K' riles against him--literally and spiritually, the flames crawling up /Seishirou's/ arm instead of shutting down at his will, Ryouhara seems critical, but the flinch was brief, a snowflake in hell that K' is not likely to see again even if the flames eat his arm away.
A difference between the two.
Or is it really so?
Flames licking up the voluminous folds of his haori, not turning the bloodstained white sheen black only by the locus that is Seishirou's will, the ninja's brow knits with effort, the only concession made, beyond the grilling of his hand like a hamburger slightly overdone. His grip still viselike, his response is still mercifully but now understandably terse.
"When you are surrounded by enough supplies to level a small portion of the countryside," he states, levelly, "You do not 'just tell anyone' anything."
Ryouhara lets go, smoke curling from his hand.
"When she's ready," he echoes K'. "I'll release you both..."
He stands before the Beast for only a moment more, dirty, scalded and bloody, weary after all the time has passed. It is as if he watched his own sister die. As if he has killed her by his own hand. The scene is jangled, but has the bittersour taste of contrition coiled about him. A subtle thing K' or anyone else is unlikely to ever really notice. It isn't a thing most people need to bother themselves with. A cost... gladly paid. Ryouhara turns and begins to walk away, passing a palletized cannonball at least three times larger than his own body as if it were nothing.
"Don't tamper with the ninkou," he warns. "There's a pacification switch." He never elects to specify what it does, beyond 'pacify.' "You'll be able to talk to her when she's awake," is the final aside, an offering of last words that ultimately mean nothing to him.
It'll mean the world to her.
No. K' isn't most people. Most people weren't raised to know only the worst of humanity, and to expect only the most depraved and soulless of actions from fellow humans. Most people wouldn't find Seishirou coldly calling them little more than a tool something far more easily understood than the shinobi's earlier talk of protection, loss, and the value of family. And most people wouldn't feel almost -relieved- to be told such a thing; though in truth, K' is only really relieved in the sense that this makes it far easier for him to appraise where he and Seishirou stand, and thereby makes it easier for him to know how to handle the shinobi.
Unmoving and unrelenting, K' stares holes in Seishirou's eyes as the flames-- restrained only in the sense they don't explode and leap clear off the young man's arm-- chew away at them both. Grudgingly, K' is forced to respect the shinobi's lack of substantial reaction to the bite of the fire.
He's relieved when Ryouhara draws back. In spite of his pride, he had been moments away from jerking his wrist out of Seishirou's grasp. Physical contact, to him, still triggers every fearful defensive instinct in him. He wasn't raised to expect anything but harm, threat, and injury to come from people reaching out to him, and thus never learned any reaction TO it but to defend himself. Most often with force.
Seishirou's first dry, terse point is allowed to pass without comment. K' does, at the least, seem to be taking more care about where he gets his fire. Seishirou's subsequent words are similarly met with silence, K' seeming to recognize that he has no option but to stay while his sister is in this condition. Restlessly, he paces around the chamber, as if intent on staying by her until she does waken.
It's not until Seishirou has turned and started to walk away that K' finally speaks; though his eyes remain on Whip. He feels this is a point that bears making again. "Don't expect us to be your -tools-, Ryouhara. You do that, I consider you just the same as NESTS." He means he'll consider Seishirou an enemy. Outright. Instead of... whatever it is the shinobi is to them now.
He pauses on the cusp of the sliding barrier at K's words, his fingertips chancing across the edge of the steel and paper that together sectionalize his sanctum against the random explosions from within--and without. He stands there for a moment at the deadly order from K', as if his attention were only pulled gently from the confines of wherever his mind is truly at. His eyes shut.
"That's fine," he suggests mildly.
He doesn't even look over his shoulder as he speaks.
"Seishirou, male, age 21, engineer specialist. I am the last of the cursed genius clan of Ryouhara. I will commit to war on this age in every way that is imaginable until the goals of that doomed name are realized in full uncompromising victory. Until that day is seen, everything in this world exists only for my use, exists only for that purpose. That is not a thing that you can control. In that.. your cooperation.. your camaraderie, is not required."
"I was at war with you since before you were born.."
Passing, he shuts the gate behind him hard.
Ripping the air, telltale hiss of violent machine compression and bolts sliding shut.
Yellow eyes follow Seishirou warily as he takes his leave. K', who had never quite relaxed his guard during the entire exchange, watches with a deep and quiet suspicion as the door slides shut. The ninja's words are left to hang in the air, unremarked upon save in the confines of K''s own mind.
Possibilities flicker through K''s racing mind. Could it be that Seishirou will simply seek to pay off whatever grudge exists between him and the Cartel by turning them in? Could he have done something strange to either one of them while they were out, something he isn't telling them about? Is he doing something to Whip, even now? Paranoia floods him. Momentarily, his head dips in overwhelmed thought.
Time passes. And then, K' finally looks back up, his eyes settling back on Whip as if the sight centers him. He does not even seem to notice how exposed she is: his sibling's state of dress, or lack thereof, is entirely a nonissue to him. His mind, after all, is busier with other thoughts; and it's just now come to a conclusion.
It's impossible for him to know Seishirou's mind. For now, all he can do is go along with Seishirou's seeming desire to render them aid-- even if only for the ninja's own selfish reasons-- and hope that the shinobi does not have darker reasons for his assistance.
It's too bad K' was never too good either at trusting or at hoping.
At the least, he has a better idea of how to deal with the shinobi. And that is to treat him exactly as he seems to want to be treated: with wariness, and with fear of betrayal. To use the ninja... just as Seishirou insists upon using him and his sister.
Log created on 17:31:25 09/03/2008 by K', and last modified on 07:10:28 09/07/2008.