Description: The second step of the journey finds an abandoned arena where gladiators met in the bloodiest of the events of the fighting world. Inviting an observer to join her, she tries to bring closure to a victim who still suffers from the evil done him, but will it be the closure he wanted? In the place where the young carried the sins of the old. Damnosa hereditas.
"Ladies and gentlemen!"
The feminine almost annoying voice that echoes throughout the arena is unlike the previous voices. Both in the door-less, reinforced concrete fighting pit below and the posh, dusty, seating high above. There are no fighters here to hear the announcement. The view monitor blinks to life revealing a red clad female visage to the empty fighting arena. A gleeful, overly amused grin spreading over red painted lips as the red clad sorceress continues,
"Welcome to our maaaaaaain event for the night! A pilgrimage to the past that only the Seven Circle can bring you. Behold!"
Slowly and row by row the lights flicker on, illuminating the now errie silence that fills this otherwise empty arena. The seating, the lighting, the sound, it's all there, just has it had been left likely the very last time that its mistress Marise Satsuko had left. Only the dust dared take residence over the seats. Though it isn't entirely empty, there are things seated. Cardboard cut outs of people, mannequins from clothing stores and a few crash test dummies. All of them trained to watch the fighting floor as if there was an event. But she was not alone, despite the seemingly empty arena, the sorceress had waited until the doors opened and a single occupant made their way in, or at least opened a door. She didn't hope he would go to the fighting floor, but she didn't care that much. She had sent a note to him and it read simply:
'It's time to find closure with the past. Come with me to hell one last time.
The gleeful woman continues into the mic, "Our first visitor, this precious young woman has only just begun her journey from end to beginning. However don't let her looks fool you, this lovable little witch may be the only thing who can follow the clues to the beginning.. Or who cares enough."
The spotlight reveals... Naerose, with the mic and a control remote.
While the witch is introducing herself, Aranha himself stands in the darkness of the fighting floor, the exact same place he stood beside Kyle Travers when he fought for the freedom of his sister. In his hand is the same exact note sent to him, balled up in his angrily clinched hand.
Even in darkness with no one to see his face, his features remain fixed in a perpetual scowl. It's obvious he doesn't want to be in this place. To make things even more obvious, he mutters, "Lovable, my ass..."
"I couldn't get the skyway to work," Naerose comments while looking upward and then takes a few steps across the arena floor, she sweeps her hand over the area and comments, "This was the place where some of the most cruel deeds were committed. In part by her," Naerose drops a picture in the exact spot where Ayame had once stood, it is a picture of Ayame how she used to look. A nasty girl. Really nasty. She might of been pretty on the outside, Naerose had no opinion on that, but she knew how mean she was on the inside.
"Over there.. " The witch sweeps her hand toward Aranha with her sleeve fluttering in the wind, "People fought for freedom."
"It wasn't like the Jinchuu tournament though, these people's conflicts were for one person's amusement.." Naerose hits a button on her remote and the monitor flickers to a still of Marise, legacy footage from when the actual Seventh Circle, back in the old days.
"Welcome back, Aranha." Naerose gives a deep flourish of a bow toward Aranha. The stage is set, and just to add the final touch, a button press on the remote causes the speakers to sparkle to life with the cheers of a legacy fight.
The Dancing Spider looks up as he approaches the witch. He wanted to ask what he was doing there but as the witch kept talking the intent became more obvious. He turns to regard the both the cardboard cut-out of Ayame and the monitor displaying a still of Marise. The hand carrying the balled up piece of paper begins to shake faster and faster until it's just short of vibrating. Such was the rage that these memories brought up.
He turns to the witch once more as he struggles to keep control of at least the external expression of fury. He opens his mouth to speak but no words come out. He raises his finger as he pushes aside the initial thoughts he was going to voice and then after another few moments he lowers that same hand again now happy with the thoughts he'll express now. "You've never shown interest in my thoughts on this topic before and now that you do, to turn it into a fucking joke?"
He moves closer to Naerose arms crossed as he practically gets in her face so she can get a close up view of how unamused he is by the whole thing.
"What happened here - " Naerose continues, as though Aranha hadn't said anything at all. This wasn't about the now, this was about the past. The witch continues with her little step around the arena.
"Elle had this place built from the ground up and this place was built for Marise, she was one of the star players. It was around this time, after the disappearance of Elle that Aslynn left, vanished. Tran lost interest.. The only two who still pressed on were Marise and Ayame, but hardly as agents of Blackjack, they seemed to have their own agenda. Was their money to be made? Certainly, but it wasn't paydirt. It was something else, after all, why force fighters into the mix, when Saturday Night Fight manages to so easily get people to play their games. Was it this?"
A flick of her wrist and Naerose points out a platform with sharpened edges, like a huge saw blade illuminated by a spot light.
"Perhaps, but only the truly demented act just to hurt people, ya know?"
Ironically, by ignoring Aranha, the witch ends up calming him down. He started out livid at first but then as Naerose comments on the fates of the other members of Blackjack. He calms down.
In fact, it's through Naerose's ignoring him to go through what happened in the past, that he learns more about how the fall took place. Between the information that Zach gave him during their Strolheim fight, and this information now, the pieces were beginning to fall in place.
And because he's hoping to learn more, he stays silent. Foolish man keeps talking and learns nothing. Wise man speaks little and allows himself to stop and listen and gain a bit more knowledge in the process. Of course, going off on Naerose will be put aside for the time being.
It is almost beginning to be as though Naerose had forgotten that Aranha were even there. She steps through the area back toward the picture on the ground and kneels by it. She picks it up, the photo of Ayame. She turns it over and then walks over to the monitor, the silence falls again for a moment as the cheering had apparently stopped.
"The remaining two were like all others in Blackjack, a ruthless group known for corruption, murder and betrayal. In Ayame, Marise had a perfect protégé, a girl with only a care for herself. But what happened next not even Marise could have predicted, despite her cold heart. It was prolly not that surprising to know that Marise was vicious and whatever she was after her may remain buried with her, but it wasn't shared.. Not with Ayame, I don't think Ayame knew what Marise wanted. I don't know if anyone knew, perhaps Elle, but buried here with Marise and her secrets must of been such anger. Ayame's betrayal was in the very heart of who she was and Marise too, they were like two peas in a pod. Ayame might of felt trapped, or just wanted more, so she took. She took pride in her work, she took what she was given, she took what she could get her hands on, she took Marise's life. But what drove her to that. Didn't she enjoy hurting people?" Naerose turns to look at Aranha and fixes her shades,
"She didn't have any regard for them."
"Ayame, the agent of Marise captured people, children mostly, I don't think they ever kidnapped you or anything like that, but.." Naerose leaves the next part silent because she knows pretty well what happened when Aranha had his sister taken. He had gotten so angry that Naerose had to hear about it for months later and she didn't even have anything to do with it. Naerose pauses a moment then looks suddenly interested,
"How many times were you here anyway?" Naerose turns to Aranha this time having asked a question.
Aranha doesn't finish the sentence. After all he's gone over it so many times. To say it once more would be like beating a dead horse. And it is at this point Aranha turns to move away from witch, moving towards the wall and sitting down against it. His arms folded as he waits and listens for more information.
The witch addresses him directly and he doesn't quite expect it. His eyebrow rises and then after a short pause. He answers Naerose's question. "Three. Only one of them didn't involve her."
His head lowers and his lips press together. He won't go into further details such as how his sister was used to bring him here in the third match even if it had nothing to do with his feud.
Even the thought of that makes him sick to his stomach to this day.
That was but one example of the sorta stuff that Ayame and Marise did, so they were like cooking, in a pot some sort of disgusting food. But after all those fighters were brought here, often by force and put into a possibly deadly situation, she had to eat her own dinner." Naerose continues,
Ayame betrayed her, the enemies that were created here and leading up to this point led to the demise of Marise, the rebellion of Ayame and the end of Blackkjack." The witch starts to turn off the light, one light after another.
"The domino's fell one after another. Elle vanished." A light flickers out. "Aislinn." A light flickers out. "Tran vanished." A light. "The minor agents are gone." More lights.
"Ayame betrays and kills Marise."
The lights all go out, and only a lone spotlight shines on Naerose.
"So now do you like understand? Evil begot evil, you were one of the victims, your family and the karma was up to their eyeballs before it paid back in full." The final light is out and for a moment there is only darkness.
And once all the lights go out. Aranha rises back to his feet. "It seems as though karma was kinder to some than others although in some cases, they didn't deserve said kindness." With that he walks out. He gains a bit of closure if not quite the type closure he wanted.
"But why did Elle leave." Naerose asks in the dark. There isn't anyone else there to talk to, just Naerose and her sea of dummies and cardboard cut outs and crash dummies. She decides to leave them behind.
"Man I'm hungry."
Log created on 14:13:10 11/18/2008 by Naerose, and last modified on 17:56:12 01/22/2009.