Description: Captured by Shadaloo's research division, SIN, an exhausted and sedated Hotaru finds herself subjected to the mocking company of the Devil of Koga. At odds as has so often been the case in the past, Marise manages to draw out Hotaru's darker thoughts of vengeance ending in the two agreeing one thing at last: Their enemies must pay.
Foot falls sound quietly within the grim, humorless stretch that was once the Halls of Gedo High School. Light fixtures flicker upon occasion, haphazardly repairs barely acknowledging them in the aftermath of the invasion. The lengthly shadows creep across broken tiles and rent lockers. Smears of dried brown-red can still be seen in helter skelter patterns along the walls and floors.
The current owners of these halls care little for this building's form or previous function. Only the bodies have been carted away and dumped elsewhere. If only because they got in the way of hauling equipment.
That and the stench was getting annoying.
Patrolling guards line every corner. Every nook and cranny has an armed soldier. Ever alert for potential infiltration or changing orders at a moment's notice. Everywhere signs of the unfolding war can be seen. Technicians and munition specialists move massive carts and crates hither and yon. Platoons march in-step, mobilizing after briefing to head back out into the field yet again.
Amongst these specters of warfare, a shadow steps quietly. A tall, dark svelte symmetry. An ebon kimono and violet obi. Black tresses hiding her visage as a veil. Hands folded within long sleeves, hidden feet gliding with such grace she seems as if floating above the sundered floors.
None interfere with her. Some here remember this Devil from the Thailand campaign. It only took one example for the newer recruits to comprehend why no one with intelligence or a sense of self preservation should look her in the eye. More than a few guards immediately stand straight at attention, or otherwise inch out of her path as she saunters on through the Halls. Disconcerted.
Chiefly because.. The Devil of Koga is smiling.
A beautiful smile, but not pretty. Never pretty.
War invigorates her. All of this chaos and carnage... She was born to this. If she has no other purpose in life.. It is this. These are heady days. Wonderful days. They take her back to an earlier time, an earlier life. For all these reasons she is besides herself in glee.
But the main reason the Devil grins like the chesire cat?
A little bird told her the names of the most recent war captives and their fates.
The soldiers guarding the final door nod and step aside. The recently reinforced doors open, revealing the Devil's haunting image to the interior of the room. Acutely and inconsistantly lit from the flickering, strobing light of the hallway behind her. The murky, dimly illuminated confines of the hastily field-built laboratory does little to brighten her presence.
"Well. Well. Well..." The words slither as the air itself draws cooler in her aura. The SIN machinery churning somewhat quieter - hushed.
"Serendipity herself brings you to me... Once again.."
Golden eyes flicker behind shadowy bangs. Ivory fangs glint within triumphantly smiling lips.
The cooler air would be a well received welcome relief were it not laden with the unwholesome essence of death. The furnace room offered a particularly secure location for certain projects being handled on the side during the violence in Southtown. But its strengths in being a stronghold with but one exit was also its cause for discomfort. Even though the furnaces themselves lay dormant, the machinery hoisted into the underground chamber brought with it its own heat. And with little in the way of ventilation, attempts at keeping the labratory habitable have been a challenge indeed. A challenge met with an array of cooling equipment and fans that just barely kept the expensive electronics from passing the point where overheating could introduce anomalies into the delicate systems. For the proceedures ahead, the utmost in stability was required...
But given the room's occupancy count is down to one at the moment, there's not really anyone to hear the complaints or misgivings of the sole 'visitor'. The last several hours have been a blur since the moment she collapsed under the brutal assault SIN brought to her front door. It had been a grueling battle - Alma, Shurui, and the estate's heiress had fought hard to keep the forces at bay. They had believed the target to be the civilians and friends that had taken refuge within. And with that in mind, they had put their lives on the line to keep the structure from falling.
If only they had known that they were the items of interest. One by one the trio were studied by the leader of Shadaloo's most secretive division in the heat of battle. One by one they fell to his power. In the end, only one was suitable for his purposes and it was she that he uncerimoniously hefted out of the muddy debris of a trampled yard. Hotaru had been here ever since. Consciousness was fleeting - a transient visit to the waking world of voices murmuring about formulas, equations, stastistics, and chemicals. Remarks about 'ideal match', 'Test subject Alpha', and other references lost on the barely cognizant teen.
She has been situated on a metal chair that looks to have been taken from any old classroom, her shoulderblades pressed back against the thick brick wall of the chamber. Her arms are stretched out from her sides and up at an angle that denies her any attempt at getting leverage or an angle from which to apply significant pressure. Each forearm is pressed against the wall and held in place by two cast iron bracers bolted into the bricks.
No further restraints were deemed necessary. Two IV tubes from nearby mounted devices are inserted into either arm. One a tranquilizer, the other nutrients, calibrated to keep her conscious and healthy, but little beyond that. Any struggling during the injections could result in an inproper dosing, after all, and the experiments would be for nought. Even the wave of air from outside washing over her face, slightly damp from perspiration, is slow to provoke a response as the restrained girl lifts her face toward the doors.
A nearby table, looted from the shop room perhaps, tells the tale at a glance. Dirty tan trousers torn in places and spattered with bits of blood and a pink Chinese styled blouse in similar shape are the two most noticeable articles of clothing accounting for the violent battle involved in bringing the Futaba girl here. She has since been clothed with an oversized T-Shirt undoubted pulled from some student's locker. Given the way it drapes over her, it probably once belonged to a young man of much greater stature than she.
Black hair, cleaner now than it was when she newly arrived, bereft of ribbons, rests against the girl's shoulders as she looks up to expect perhaps one of the scientists have returned. What she gets instead is so much worse. The sight of the Devil woman is enough to jar her from her drug induced daze as she shakes her head quickly, eyes squinting closed as if trying to make certain her seeing was not being deceived. There's no telling what they put into her through their needles. Maybe this is just a hallucination. Maybe... hopefully /she/ isn't really here.
"No..." Hotaru murmurs, the slight bulge of her shoulder muscles indicating her vain attempt at testing her restraints for perhaps the twentieth time since becoming aware of being here. Like every time prior, she merely chafes her wrists further. "What... did you have to do with this?" That horrible man that they fought - what is the connection? His power was beyond anything she had ever seen of the creature before her.
The tortured image of the young girl, a girl whom the Devil had once offered to take under her own wing, stirs not a flicker of sympathy.
No. If it were up to Marise, the little rebellious ingrate would be suffering far more ... significant duress. The Devil has not forgotten.
The Devil does not ever forget.
"Ohh.." The dark maiden's sibilant reply draws out slowly. Stepping within the over-heated confines of this Hellish prison, "Me? Nothing..." Head tilting back and forth with smug, whimsical satisfaction, "Perhaps everything. It entirely depends, dear.."
The continued voice, the looming presence proves beyond a shadow of doubt that this is no illusion. The creature is here, in the pale flesh. Sauntering in an unhurried pace, hidden eyes shifting slowly about the room. Vaguely curious of the going's on of this room.. Especially after hearing what these machines may prove capable of.
Curious indeed.
"Hnn.." A clicking sound of disapproval as Marise glides to the edge of the table. Long painted nails fish a corner of the shorn blouse, lifting the pink thing aloft and examining the blood stains with modest interest, "... I see your lifestyle choice is bringing much.. Joy into your existence.. Eh? Keh hnn..." Dangling material falling back to the pile, discarded.
The Devil continues her orbit, every meandering step bringing her closer, if not directly. Fingertips gliding over a panel of controls here ... Toes gliding along the length of a bundle of cables there. Inspecting all things in their due time with a feline smoothness.
"You know.. I feel compelled to mention.." Marise's words lilt across the short distance. Close enough now for her nail-tips to lightly scratch the surface of those bolted iron shackles. A faint sound of chalkboard and nails. "If you had listened to me..."
Milk-white fingers following the plastic surface of the nutrient lines. One of the frightfully rare order of things operating to keep the poor girl alive.
"None of this.." Those fingers follow to the girl's arm, lifting then across her skin to touch her chin. The Devil's cool touch feather-light, tilting the girl's head just so. Just enough so Hotaru can read the Devil's immaculately painted violet lips. "..Would have happened."
Whispered words holding an edge, a faintly perceptible razor amidst the silken tone.
Marise had such hopes for this girl. Such high hopes, in spite of herself. In spite of it all. The Devil was a fool to trust to hope ... But how could she not? Not with a girl of such infinite promise. Promise enough that even that Shadaloo Jinzoningen could recognize it. Promise enough to dominate title after title, accolade after accolade. Victory after Victory.
Many of which ... The Devil gave to her. Marise feels it just to add.
"So much potential... So much greatness.." The Devil muses slowly. A voice laiden with regret and sorrow, gently brushing the girl's cheeks with the back of her fingers. Parting her dampened bangs from her eyes and the sweat from her face. "And you decide to throw it all away.. Just look at you now. Look at you.."
Adrenaline can do interesting things - empower men to remarkable feats of strength or lead a panic induced prey into sprints of never before seen speed. It can sharpen senses and accelerate perception. Or, in this case, it can act contrary to the strength sapping venom dripping into her veins by the deceptively benign looking plastic tube. Teeth grit as she becomes more aware of her circumstances than she had in any of the hours prior. She glances down as Marise strides in to find the Gedo-colors bearing T-shirt. She looks confused as she looks back up, eyes following the woman's slow, relaxed path through the room.
Relaxed indeed. What did she have to be in a hurry for? She stood among the monsters of the world as one of their own and moved freely about because of that. Her eyes come to rest on the torn clothing and then she shakes her head, images of the fight that took place filling her mind. The shouts of pain, the cry of Shurui falling. She wondered what of the other two. Where they here too? Held elsewhere in conditions just as miserable?
Tightened lips are her response to the barb about her choices that had brought her to this point. Regret? Perhaps for the circumstances being what they are but not for her choice to take a stand. Slowly the woman moves closer, powerful nail moving over the metal band, leaving a small gouge with just the slightest touch as if a sharpened chisel had been run over it. She stands over the seated girl but Hotaru looks away, the pace of her breathing picking up.
A soft breath escapes her lips as that gentle, cruel finger traces along her arm before slipping beneath her chin and tilting her face up to look into the visage of the Devil herself. Her lip trembles, her hands clenching as she strains for another moment of futility against the cast iron bands. "If I had listened to you," the girl retorts, pulling her back off the wall for only a fraction of an inch before giving up and resting again, "All of this still would have happened."
She averts her eyes to the side before closing them, "Only," she huffs, struggling against the drug calibrated to keep her just shy of completely sedated, "I would be on the other side..." Azure eyes open again as she looks to the floor, "I would be a monster like them doing all this." It's so hot. She feels like shivering all the same. As if fevered by the plague of Marise's company. "Those are not circumstances I find better than these..."
Eyes close again. She feels hungry. How long has she been here? What are they going to do? She talks bold to the fiend before her but to anyone else she would plead. Pleading may soften the heart of a researcher less sure in his craft than he was when he started. But it won't so much as chip what passes as the Devil's heart. There is no deal to be struck that could be worth the price she would exact...
"We didn't know..." she admits, her own voice trembling, "We didn't think they would care." The war was waged in the heart of Southtown... the remote neighborhoods had not been an item of any interest prior to the arrival of the tank on her porch. What changed she couldn't possibly know. "Just wanted to make a difference." Her tone is grim. Her actions made her an enemy combatant. What fate that has bought her she can't imagine but the man who was in charge didn't seem to be the charitable, forgiving sort.
"I'd do it again though," she growls softly, "Before I would listen to you... before I would become like you..."
A titter escapes the Devil's lips as Hotaru struggles like a bound animal. A moment of feverish movement, struggling against those metal shackles. Her glistening face jogged loose from the Devil's preening fingertips as the pale woman merely giggles into her sleeve.
How adorable! While laughing at the girl's plight is definitely not going to be winning points ... Marise has to admit, this is really comical.
Absently the Devil then moves aside, calmly lifting the tube of dizzying toxins continuously being pumped into the girl's slender frame. Following the length with her fingertips until she reaches the source, vaguely curious about the name of the drug being used.
Always good to know what poisons people are into these days. One must keep up on the latest. Though, Marise is always partial to the old fashioned sources rather than these new-fangled synthetics. No wonder it doesn't seem to affect the girl as much as it should.
Then again.. She does seem quite cross.
As far as the other prisoners? Oh no. Marise is all too happy to keep the girl in the dark. Their fates are not for this insolent little girl's to know. If she was being more cooperative, or at least feigning it with reasonable skill, the Devil could oblige a few snippets. As is? She's content to let Hotaru's fear for their safety roil.
All through the young girl's tirade, the Devil listens. Inhuman eyes scrutinizing a tube or cable, her attentions seemingly anywhere but Hotaru.. Though they most assuredly are focused on her entire. Down to her beating heart. Only in the aftermath of those words does the Devil lift a hand. Fingers waving open in sequence over her shoulder towards the girl as she muses, "You would still have -choice-."
Letting that thought settle a moment before dropping the plastic length, letting it dangle as she turns to the girl once more. Looming over her with sharp attention. Humor drained, gone as quickly as it arrived.
No. Hotaru may not fear her any longer. But she will learn there is still much to fear.
"..If you listened. If you obeyed me. If you truly learned what I had to teach. Rather than lead that insipid band of morons into a trap they could NOT have escaped from.. You could have kept them from harm in the first place. If you were a PART of this.." Sweeping her hand to the surrounding laboratory and the occupational army beyond, "..You could have had a measure of control over it. You would have known what was to happen. You could have kept your so-called 'loved' ones away. You would have lost nothing and many.. Many lives could have been saved..."
The Devil then approaches the chair once more. This time leaning down, hands upon her knees to balance. Looking the young girl square in the eye. Cold breath pouring over fevered cheeks.
As ever.. Breath that smells of other spirits.
"You. Can. Not. Change. This."
Those words are forced onto the girl. Pronounced clearly and concisely. "You can not make a difference if you have no control. You have no control if you do not have power! And now.."
That hand reaches up yet again, this time clutching the girl's jaw with force. Shaking her head just so, as if trying to physically sift the truth into her, "... You see the real price of your failure. Your mistake cost your 'friends'. You have doomed them, because you thought you could.. 'Make a difference' with your cowardice and pacifism. Feh.."
The hand recoils, tossing Hotaru's head aside as she slowly rises then. Staring down at the broken girl, her eyes narrow to slits.
"Since you continue to choose failure, it is for the best then.. That this time you will not be having ... a choice ... in the matter." A menace underlies her tone. A slow, deliberate statement. Reading like a judge delivering a sentence to the condemned.
The price she will pay.
She doesn't seem to mind Marise's appearance of inattention in the slightest. Restrained, locked in a room left empty most of the time but for the scheduled tests and data collection, talking out loud to anyone in the room is fine even if they aren't listening. Besides, the words aren't entirely /for/ the fel woman either. She had to convince herself more than anyone. Her vision swims at times, her breaths strained as her body struggles to compensate for the sedatives after her brief burst of activity, but she still knows where Marise stands. She doesn't need to /see/ her to know precisely, and it is in that direction she stares as that hand is lefted to gesture back toward her.
She flinches as Marise hovers over her again, the presence suffocating an already stressed psyche. She looks away again, eyes open, narrowed, her mouth tight lipped in an expression of frustration. The words sound so familiar to her. They were her words when she drew upon the Satsujinken to augment her fighting power in horrific ways. It was so she could have power to keep people safe, she had argued. Protect herself and anyone else. If shortcuts were needed to accomplish such then so be it. She could control it, she had insisted at the time.
But she discovered a painful lesson in all that. "I already tried that," she replies, her voice short. "I learned the truth. Evil is what it is. Trying to walk the line in the middle; trying to fight against it by using it... it doesn't work." Her chin is gripped, her face turned back to face Marise directly though her neck strains to fight the tight hold. Face to face with the Devil woman again, her mouth trembles, her expression shaken.
She cites the cost of her approach. Her friends, lost. The shaking of her head jars her further, her eyes focusing intensely on the woman's visage, the only unblurred thing in sight. It was an expensive mistake. Doing the right thing sometimes is. But that price seems /too/ much. Is there not some great right that would prevent those kinds of wrongs? Thoughts of Alma and Shurui, fallen in battle, possibly killed in her very yard, sinks in. She had kept the picture out of her mind of what their fates might have been.
But here and now, pressured into considering it as she is, her cheeks pale, a shimmer of tears ringing her eyes even as her face is tossed to the side, her cheek hitting the brick behind her. Eyes and hands clench closed, her resolve shaken as certainly as her head had been by the evil creature. She's silent, unable to keep the tears from rolling down her cheeks. "Failure isn't a single loss," she stammers out a reply, "Defeat isn't until you give up." She blinks her eyes open, forcing images of her friends from her mind.
"We did what we could..." It wasn't enough in the end - the stand they took against the evils of the world. Her voice is choked, her composure slipping, her mind reeling with the implications of Marise's words and the disorienting drugs. "It wasn't a mistake to not side with them... joining these people for my own protection isn't any choice either... it's no way out..."
She closes her eyes again, her head slumping slightly as she slouches in her chair as far as her restrained arms will let her. "Whatever happens..." In the back of her mind she wishes she could wipe away her tears but her arms won't budge. She has to strain to remember why they won't move, her grip on her circumstances slipping rapidly. "These people will /pay/." She grits her teeth, glaring at the floor again. If not by her hand, then by someone else's. There are people strong enough to fight back, she consoles herself. Somewhere. There must still be resistance.
The tall maiden looms over the imprisoned girl now. At the captured thing's rebuttal, the Devil issues an annoyed snort, "Evil. Hnph." Tossing her head to the side and glaring at a far wall, bolted with scientific components and machinery of all description. Arms slowly crossing over her chest, frown creasing the edges of her lips, "'Evil' is what people are. Every last one of us." Golden eyes slide over to the girl, glancing over her pale shoulder and downwards, "I am the only one honest about it. Everyone else.. Lies to comfort themselves." Absently spoken. Nearly rhetorical in its tone, as she paces several steps aside. Aimless in her meanderings as she listens to the drugged and nearly delirious girl's trembling replies.
She can see it there.. In her expression. Her tears. What a battle that must have been.. What a heroic defense they must have waged. Only to suffer the fate of all heroes.
To die horribly. Face down in the mud. The Devil has seen that her whole life. She herself shuffled many so-called heroes along their way to the after-life.
Though.. As Hotaru utters those words defining defeat and failure, Marise immediately adds, "Correct!" Turning in place, pointing a claw directly between her eyes. Affirming the statement with forceful verve, "You ARE right. Never give in. Never give up. Do NOT surrender." Slowly then stalking towards the girl, hunching forwards slowly as she moves.
"You fight back against your enemies. However you can. As long as you draw BREATH.. You fight to destroy those who would wrong you. You.." The Devil punctuates that sentiment as she settles her hands upon the girl's shoulders. Leaning down to stare eye to eye with the youth. Invading her personal space and perhaps dragging the girl's floor-driven gaze back upwards, "..Are damned right. And you.." Gently clutching the girl's face, squeezing her cheeks between her clawed fingertips. Golden eyes burrowing into her own, "..Will help me do JUST that. But you need to learn, Hotaru. You need to learn that you cannot defeat the beast from without. Only fools stand in front of the engines of war, thinking they can hold back the tide with force of arms. That -NEVER- succeeds!"
Letting that idea sink in as the monster slaps the pinned girl across the face. Loud enough for the clap to echo off the walls, but no serious damage. A sound reproach.
Only then does the Devil prowl slowly, circling sideways. Brushing the girl's hair from one side to the other to expose her ear, all the better to whisper into. "You want revenge on those that attacked you? Fine. You think I won't kill them myself when I get the chance? ... One thing at a time, girl. First.. The ruler of this empire must fall. You choose targets carefully. Caaarefully. Pick them off, help them destroy each other one after the other.. When few are left? ... Knnhnn.."
A gentle shove, pushing the helpless girl's head away, letting it bounce freely on her shoulders as she straightens slightly. Placing a hand upon the brick behind her for balance. "Think of this.. As an opportunity. You see.. You will be given another chance. You will be given great power.. Tremendous power. It will awaken within you. You will embrace your TRUE potential.. Despite your ardent efforts to the contrary. The means of your revenge will be handed to you on a platter.. And you don't have to do anything.." A slow, gleaming grin. Her hand waves in a dismissive circle, "Just crush some.. Meaningless rabble."
She falls quiet, staring vaguely toward Marise as the woman becomes excitable, her voice raised, her clawed finger extended. The words uttered ring in her ears, as if spoken from across a great distance, echoed against canyon walls at the edges of her mind. For once it seems the two agree on something. Protracted defiance and never ending resistance to opposition - undying devotion to survival in the face of any foe... She closes her eyes briefly, taking the words in, only to open them again once her face is held, cheeks pressured by the Devil's talons.
Her eyes are searching, seeing, if dimly, those golden irises through a thick fog of struggling consciousness. The slap brings her back, eyes narrowing, mouth opening to protest but closing without a word as she glares back at Marise, the sting sharpening her attention again. "It isn't revenge," she murmurs, "if it's deserved." It's simply justice being metted out, she reasons to herself.
The ruler she speaks of... she must mean Geese Hotaru manages to surmise. That Marise is in all this for herself comes as no surprise to the girl. That anyone at all even trusts the wicked thing is beyond her comprehension. The extent of the woman's plans are only barely followed and cared about even less. What backstabbing trechery exists in the ranks of this invading force isn't her concern, she tries to reason.
Hotaru stays quiet, her head shoved back, only to shake as she tries to keep her wits about her. The woman speaks of opportunity... potential. What is she going to do? "I'm never going to touch that again..." she murmurs. That killing technique or the philsophies behind it. She promised herself. She can't break. She can't come back from that again.
Marise speaks of the means for revenge, however, and Hotaru's mind stops resisting so much. For Alma and Shurui, someone should pay. Someone /will/ pay. She doesn't understand how this could be. How she could be the hand by which this price will be extracted from her enemies... But the flickering smile at the corner of her mouth hints that on some level she might not have a problem with this opportunity at all.
"They'll..." she muses, her eyes long since dried of her tears but for the dampness lingering on her cheeks. Her gaze is distant, the girl beyond seeing anything clearly now. "...regret what they did." she exhales, exhausted.
"My dear girl.." Marise chuckles lowly, a bemused sound purring from her throat. Straightening once more, the ghoulish creature sees now that the injected sedatives are beginning to retake hold upon the girl. All this conversation and the subsiding adrenaline in her system must be taking it out of her. Besides, it is just as well. The girl will need her rest for what is to come.
"If it was not deserved.." The creature strides soundlessly away. Increasing the distance between them as she helplessly shrugs her shoulders, claws openned to the dim ceiling above, "..It would not be revenge." This monster knows something about revenge.
She exists for it. She has openly defied death itself in its name. Anything, and everything, is justified for it. Marise does not rest, does not stop, does not ever relent. Not ever. Not until vengeance has been metted out. Blood for blood, life for life.
So wonderful now that Hotaru is beginning to understand how that feels. Perhaps that was the missing ingredient.. The one thing the Devil had missed in her previous training. Yess.. Perhaps so. Perhaps so.
Continuing to gain distance, her dark form becoming more and more indistinct as the haze of drugs reasserts its vexing grip, "Thankfully. You don't have a choice in the matter.. Not any more."
The shadowy figure reaches the door frame then, her claw touching the edge of the doorway as she glances back to the trapped youth. Listening to those final exhausted words slip from her. The ghoulish maiden allows those words to sift through her mind. Painted lips trembling in a thin line, hardened golden eyes glaring to the girl.. So haggard and filthy.
An image of a woman. Water-sogged hair clinging to her face, clawing from the crashing waves over the ocean at midnight. Golden eyes glaring in a daze. Lips working in a slow whisper.. Repeating the words over and over to herself. The only words that comforted her in the timeless void.
"Yes.." Marise whispers. A haunted, breathless tone. A tremor of emotion passes over her face. "...They will."
With a flicker of the strobing hall, the Devil is gone. Leaving Hotaru once more in the den of machines. The engines of war rumbling around her.
Log created on 23:31:09 04/01/2009 by Hotaru, and last modified on 14:15:22 04/05/2009.