Match of the Millennium

Description: And then, at some point after his supposed death, Seishirou wakes up in what he would deem as the twisted space. A realm that is not quite earth, but nor, with time, does he think it to be the Hell that has been described to him. Now, after all has been sacrificed, he finds himself with only one person left in the world who will still remain; the loathsome creature, Marise. But can she hold him there? Is that mentality of his, that psyche of his.. truly alone?

The darkness is no stranger to one such as Seishirou. All of his life, it has been his friend.
Finding himself surrounded by it's obfuscation is not immediate cause for alarm.

Rather, the strange lack of pain is.

He should be dead. He can remember that much. He SHOULD be dead, as per his principles that guided his every waking moment since he first drew breath as a Ryouhara.
As his eyes fail him in the darkness here, his other senses do not avail him significantly more. There's a sensation of stone beneath him, smooth and cool to the texture but organic and unfinished. A natural formation of rock. The sound of his breathing, echoing very faintly in the closeness here ... A cave of some kind?
A faint, distant sound echoes here. The sound of an ocean .. perhaps. Endless waves rushing against a shoreline only to retreat again in an eternal battle between sea and Earth.

"Seishirou..." A voice. A familiar one.. lilting and melodious, "...Seeeeeishirooou..." Spoken with a soft, feminine giggle.
"Wake up sleepy head.." No wounds agonize his body now, but a different matter vexes. His ninkou? Gone. Even the ones hidden in the secret places on his person, even ones hiding beneath his flesh. His clothing? As normal as the sort one would buy downtown in a shopping mall ... Well, antiquated as the style may be.
"It's time to save your world."

For most of his life, Ryouhara has accustomed himself to pain.

In many ways he was familiar with and even comforted by pain. It was a nigh universal constant--the day to day offense of living in this world, having to coexist with the same colorless, soulless people was a nigh unbearable agony, to say nothing of the injuries and stresses his body sustains on a daily basis.

Therefore, to wake and feel nothing is a source of immediate confusion.

His eyes slide open, finding nothingness. A mistruth--what he felt was something far and away from the custom silks and elaborate fabrics he had hand-made, reminding him of the simpler things he preferred in his youth. There was a reason he changed however, and the second revelation he makes is one that evokes immediate alarm. As an engineer and a shinobi, he knows he is completely unarmed.

He should be injured. He's having trouble remembering much else other than that. He should be dead. But the sounds of a distant ocean reach him, and begs the question of where he is. Even more important, the owner of the familiar voice that reaches him. "...." Riko? Not a name he would betray to an unknown. Even though he has nothing else, his instinct flexes, testing the limits of his observation. Can he still use jutsu? Is this... his world?

"..Who are you?" he asks, before pausing.

His voice was soft and lacking steel. He sounds far younger than he intends.

Rather than give voice to the answer, it is given fire.
A sound of flint striking iron precedes a flare of illumination. The air crackles to life as a simple, mundane torch begins to cast shadows all throughout what is revealed to be a cavern. A small, intimate setting - hardly large enough to fit a half dozen fully grown men. Shadows frolic and play upon the smooth stones, revealing an arched path on one side of the cave.. Presumably the exit from this bleak place.
The truth is now revealed, as the torch is held aloft by a slender hand. The flames reveal a woman's face, lips painted a dark violet with matching eyeshadow. Ebon tresses, usually veiling her face in a manner fitting of a ghost.. Now parted enough to reveal those serpentine, golden eyes.
Marise smiles warmly, mischief touching that inhuman gaze, "Someone who's here to help." Her black kimono fitted loosely upon her voluptuous frame. The air feels a bit warm.. Unusually so considering the environment which should be cold and clammy at best.
The floor of the place seems covered in black sand, beyond the water-worn stones Seishirou finds himself seated. While ninkou seems denied him, his more mundane techniques are not far. Chi pulses within his heart.. In his breath.
With the light of the torch, it's clear to see his body is without injury now. Not even a hint of the battle that had taken place moments before... Minutes before?
Years? A lifetime ago?
"Once I had sensed you crossed over.. I simply had to see you here. You see.." Gorgeous lips purse, "..I've waited for this moment.."

He averts his eyes from the light only briefly, giving his building night vision a moment to recede. He moves slowly, his mind still twisted in knots from what he can't quite recall and how it could have resulted in this collision of falsehoods. Something is incorrect, and Ryouhara can't figure out what.

He blinks once, his eyes hooding for a moment longer than necessary.

He shouldn't worry about escape just yet, he resolves. A hospitality is offered him, which is something he should take advantage of. Curiosity and suspicion go hand in hand as the boy's vices.

Still. He is sorely tempted when the silken locks of the aberrant beauty catch his eye. He recognizes her instantly, moving to sit up. A flash of dull gold, as gold as Marise's own, is the deadly stare he gives the spectre-like woman. She might have noticed when she disarmed him that even the lenses that conceal Seishirou's true eye color were weapons in their own right. The thing that keeps him from reacting is one--he still has access to jutsu. The compressing force Shinrou Kiritsu, the deadly seal Ryuuouin.

"..hmph."

"You again. Do you take your life in your hands coming to me like this?" he asks, his sharp eye taking in the details around him. "You know that ninkougakujutsu is not my only specialty." The questions are both exploratory and warning. Seishirou has already determined Marise means him no harm for the moment, else she would have harmed him already. But it does not mean that Ryouhara will abide foolishness, no matter what's happ--

He pauses, as a detail reaches his clouded mind. Something she said..

The edge in his voice gone, he asks;

"...Where am I?"

Something in Seishirou's sudden outburst amuses the Devil Ninja to no end. Unable to completely obscure her chortle with the sleeve of her kimono, she otherwise does not interrupt him as he reminds her how .. under normal circumstances.. He could destroy her with hardly more than a thought. Yes, yes. His techniques are intensely deadly, Marise is most familiar. For what little he knows of the woman, she would never take such risks as approaching him thusly.. Even going as far as disarming him would never be enough to keep the Ryouhara Ninja from destroying her should the whim arrise.
Which makes her presumably self-destructive mirth all the more out of place.

"Where you always knew you'd be some day, Seishirou-san."
She tilts her head just a fraction, her lips contorting in a smile that suggests an apology, "Dead. You'll find that.. As it so happens.. You can't take your toys with you to the other side. All but a few things.. Anyway."
The woman stirs from her perch on a rock, opposite the young man. "I bid you welcome to your final destination. You'll find that Makai is a far.. far better world than the one you came from. Nn?" Offering her hand in his direction, while her opposite tucks a few of her long locks behind her ear. "Shall I show you?"

He stands slowly.

Perceptive to a fault, he becomes aware of the fine details around him. Though the fare he wears is hardly the custom silks and seals to which he had become accustomed, the period style was ... unmistakible to say the least. His feet are still bare--a detail he remembers, but doesn't exactly understand from what--to feel the cool rock beneath them, but he may as well had awoken from a restful nap, otherwise.

That in itself was an unfamiliar sensation.

Somber, he steps towards what he guesses is the exit from this place, following the sound of the ocean instinctively. At first he seems quieted by her scandalous mirth. Marise, unconcerned by the prospect of her demise? Is some jutsu going to prevent him from doing so? As clouded as he thinks now, he doesn't sense any jutsu that would keep him from finishing the job Iga started. He looks down thoughtfully at the sleeves of an apparently new smoke gray haori. The slow glance away from the ebon tressed fatale seems a concession; he finds her a suspicious thing.

"Dead..?" he questions once. Why does that seem right?

.. But her blasphemer's welcome cause his eyebrows to knit in annoyance.

"...Don't impugn the name of the Ryouhara with your foolishness."

His voice is like a riled cobra, the boy turning towards Marise.

He whirls quickly. One step forward, a defiant and angry golden flash of his eyes focuses on her proffered hand only briefly before flicking up to meet her sick yellow eyes from beyond the cut of his brow. His lashes dip, partially hooding his eyes as he calms, and takes one calculated step towards the woman. Regardless of his waxing cavalier, to meet his eyes is to meet the glare of steel from a bared knife. There can be nothing more warning. "Telling me these things, as if even you yourself believe them. The only way I will end up in the youkai's court is with my hands around your throat."

But there's something wrong about these words. Where is he, exactly? Why can't he remember what happened to cause him to remain at this place. Seishirou understands more than most, but he cannot understand this. But he doesn't need to. There is only one answer. The same challenge that will lay bare all truth before his calculating eye.

"Makai.. hmph. I'll give you one chance for forgiveness."

Seishirou opens one hand, offering the exit to her warningly.

"Prove it."

The Devil's expression is cast of indomitable patience. There are few in the world of the living that would not flinch in the face of Seishirou's vehemence, for the boy means what he says at all times. Insincerity is a word wholly unknown to him.
Poor form for a Ninja, in Marise's estimation, but we all have our vices.

As the boy defiantly steps forth with threat in his manner, Marise recoils not at all. Her amused expression is eternal, especially here. The look of a woman who knows something the other does not. Courage does not exist for a creature such as she. Trump cards and hidden knowledge is the only reason she would hold her ground here.. Or so logic would dictate.
Either that, or she's dead too and she's simply got nothing further to lose.

"Even in death you are the soul of rebellion." Comes Marise's mild retort. Looking upon the determined youth with half-lidded eyes and a wicked smirk. There are further words to be said here, or so her demeanor would suggest. However, she simply lets the matter fall away like autumn leaves.
No sense in arguing now.. Not when there's so much to show and tell.
"If you please.." Marise regards then, bowing slowly and gesturing to the exit with all the grace of a trained companion. Proof he requires? He need only follow her into the dark.. As she begins to saunter into the shadowy exit.. And the oddly increasing warmth beyond.

His sharp gold eyes follow her at all times.

Marise of Koga. A woman who is supposed to be dead. Though they were descended from servants, the Ryouhara had roots in the Iga. She would never had been in Seishirou's notice if he hadn't forced her to reveal her hand to him during the times of the first Jinchuu tournament.

Hn..

The boy's sleeves drift as he steps aside, allowing the elegant blasphemy to pass him with a rare grace against his deadly warning. Ryouhara has long since noted that particular trait of hers is uniquely new. Her words tease him, and the faint frown he expresses is at first the only signal to which he indicates he even heard her at all. Though the idea of her death assuring her complacency does not escape him, he still finds her manner frustrating in ways he couldn't quite describe. The woman's promise of knowledge stays his hand. As badly as he may want to draw arms for the insult to his family, he is forced to allow her her moment in the sun.

Passing Seishirou, Marise might feel the livid air pressure at the edge of his body.

"Just find the way," he murmurs coldly. His head dips low as he slowly falls into line behind her, inking over his gaze beneath the hood of his scruffy and unkempt bangs. But that sharp glance never leaves her, even though it cannot be seen now, beyond the recoiling air of his discontent. His reactions to her seem almost instinctive at this point.

With his consciousness, his pulse, comes the oppressive heat.

There exists flames that no mortal can match.

The Devil of Koga speaks no further for the moment. There are no words that can prove life or death. No poet or songstress has yet captured the spirit of the existential question in full. What thing could he expect Marise to say? A challenge to which he had already known the victor.
The woman leads the way as he demands, her hands ensconced within the folds of her sleeves. Her walking movements imperceptible within the hem of her kimono, seeming for all the world the yurei she so often emulates. Appearing to float, rather than walk, through the shadows of the cave.
After a time, Seishirou will begin to notice a new heat overshadowing his own. The darkness beginning to give way to a crimson glow, as if walking into a furnace the color of sunset.
"Behold." The Devil announces as she steps forth from the yawning stone canal, her hands sweeping outwards as she greets the horrid light.
"The shores of Makai."

The ocean stretches before him. Stretching to the horizon as far as the eye can see... A roiling ocean composed entirely of fire. Waves of flame crash upon the basalt sands in an eternal plutonian rhythm. The heat washes over them both, in equal measure of a coastal breeze would cool them down. The spectacle is breath-taking.. A sight no mortal mind could fully comprehend, only survive.
The skies above are dark, filled with clouds of soot and smoke. In the distance, one can perceive white ash raining down like snow in the black mountains behind them. The lands are a dark mirror of Japan itself. The underworld Izanami herself was banished in time before time. A short distance away, the darkness gives way to motes of light.. Suggesting the outline of a great city, perhaps.
Only then, as the larger-than-life vista fully sinks in, does Marise speak once more, "Is there further doubt you dwell within my world now?" She speaks with a tone between triumph and ecstasy. Breathing deeply of the hateful air of the coast. The eternal sunset of perdition casting her beauteous form in an unholy light as she turns to him once more, "Impugn the name Ryouhara? I exalt it now, bringing you to these sacred shores. You wished to see the world aflame?"
Her golden eyes gleam bright, "Welcome to my world."

Seishirou drops Suspicious Lingerie.

He pays attention to every detail.

Following her from the comparitive coolness of the cave, Seishirou's stride is more pronounced than the effortless glide of his 'companion,' each padding step quiet but each one a thought. There is a point in which his own native heat reaches the ambient temperature. He recognizes this because it means he no longer feels cold. It would be pleasant, were it not unfamiliar to him. The number of things that can warm him could perhaps be counted on a single hand. A disquieting notion.

But he follows regardless.

There are some things in life you must stand for.

The crash of waves against the shore brings with it not the fresh scent of water, but a peculiar oily scent. The blasphemous light reflects off of his clothing as he follows the exquisitely dressed maiden. His glare follows her gliding sway into the open air -- though beyond this, he must shield his eyes with the capacious drape of his sleeve, stepping just behind Marise, her sick pride met with his irritable diffidence.

At least, until his eyes adjust to the agonizingly bright sunset.

"...."

An endless ocean of fire? Equal parts desperation and annoyance drive Ryouhara to simply _push_ his way past Koga. To watch him move is to watch someone moving with purpose, with intent. One step leaves the clear impression of his foot in the black grain, put the rest are curtained strangely as he descends from their perch. He slides down the ebony dune, attempting to keep his footing with the only dignities he cares to muster, before he moves right to the edge of the oppressive tide.

This close, even Seishirou's Shinrou Kiritsu is just a cool breeze.

"No," he rejects Marise's ideas.

"S..something's wrong," he insists, breathlessly.

It says something about the boy that he seems not to even think about the fact that he can't breathe, or that perhaps one stray wave will simply eat him away to nothing. Handseals are flicked through with amazing alacrity and dexterity for someone who is just awoke from a coma. He activates the Ryouhara calculation ninjutsu, a curtain of mnemonics flooding his mind and allowing him to take in every detail of what he sees and commit it to absolute memory. He stabs his right hand straight out, as if to lose it in the devouring beyond. Intensely, the shinobi concentrates.

"...What happened to me.."

He still can't remember anything.

Irritably, Seishirou performs the same sequence of somatic gestures again, as if he got it wrong the first time. He didn't do it well enough. Sometimes there is a gradation of effect--he stretches out his hand again, trying to interpret the feeling of his own aura. "...." He hisses through his teeth. And performs the jutsu a third time, this time his hands only a vaguely perceptible blur in the distance. His hand stabs out again--

A white flash arcs between his fingers. "AGH--"

Swooning, Ryouhara is forced back from the tide, gripping his arm and gritting his teeth. One, two spinning steps and it seems Seishirou will simply fall flat right there. But he holds his ground, one sleeve dropping low into the sand as his haori slips off his shoulder and half off of his arm as it falls away from his freshly made injury. He raises his (now bleeding) hand to his temple, the onset of a splitting headache his only reward.

"Is this the work of the Hirano?!" he asks, anger -- clear and livid -- present in his voice. He has started wars based on less expressive emotion. The last of the air vised out of his lungs by the great pressure, his mind whirls. There must be an explanation, but details evade him.

"Why don't I remember?!"

Why don't I remember...

Seishirou slowly drifts to the ground.

The Devil is shoved aside with almost comical inelegance. She stumbles a single step, her arms shifting to regain balance but she otherwise makes no sound. Slowly her balance recovers, the dark veil of her bangs slides into her view while her saturnine smile returns.
The boy charges the eternal flames, as if in challenge. Casting his techniques forth in sheer defiance of the unconquered flame.
Would any hero act any differently? Marise briefly muses bitterly.
No, she reasons. This is simply a moment of disbelief. Not wholly unexpected, even for a man as stoic as Ryouhara. An unexpected fate, an undeserved fate.. or so he'd believe. After all of his efforts for the name Ryouhara to descend to these depths?

In the boy's mind, the flames must seem inviting.

Excepting that death does not mean what he thinks it does in this place. In this time.

The Devil slowly approaches him. Allowing him to vent his vehemence until he collapses to the black sands. There does she meet him as he returns to the beach. Her knees settling upon the oily black as her hands reach for his shoulder, "Calm.. Seishirou. Calm. Just breathe.." Her fingertips, compared to the flames beyond, are ice cold and soothing. "You have time now.. Hnn. All the time in the world.." The Devil muses with a wry, if gentle tone. "The truth will come to you.. If you allow it."

It all must be such a shock. Certainly, patience was never a virtue he possessed in abundance before... But its value in Eternal Damnation is inestimable. Marise knew conferring the boy with such grace would be a ... Trial, to be sure.
Keeping him from making matters considerably worse for himself is going to be difficult, she begins to realize.

Ryouhara breathes slowly, evenly, pawing handfuls of the warm sand beneath his splayed fingers. His shoulders hunch, giving the boy a low-slung, predatory silhouette as he attempts to get his senses about him. He couldn't remember anything, his mind was spinning, and the sheer vertigo almost causes his stomach to rebel against him.

Willpower is a strange thing.

The shinobi hardly seems placated by the soothing words or touch of Marise--did you imagine it would be any different?--but there is a noticeable difference in how the boy reacts. In specific, that he doesn't. He doesn't throw her aside, or attempt to tear off the offending appendage, or even shy away.

There is no tremor in the boy's body, she'll feel.

His breathing is low, forced, but even.

Even now, he is attempting to get ahold of himself as she suggests, forcing his nerves to settle, forcing the rotation of the world to still. Even in the dust next to an ocean of pure fire, Seishirou has some sense of dignity and pride. It is Ryouhara. Even now, it's difficult to tell exactly why he is upset. His movements only a moment prior as arcane as his motives, Seishirou doesn't seem too apt to explain.

A paradigm shift on the level that Marise and this reverse world is suggesting requires that he know. That he break through this fog that curtains off his memory.

This is all wrong.

"What happened to me?" Ryouhara finally asks, a dim flash of gold visible from beyond his curtaining bangs as he turns his head up to glare at Marise. A thought occurs to him. "Was it you? You're here too. Did I kill you? Did you get in my way?"

Once Seishirou finally shows signs of calming himself, or at least containing his shock and confusion, Marise visibly begins to relax. Herself exhaling slowly, breathing softly while she remains patiently kneeling at his side.
She does, for all the world, appear genuinely concerned. And.. For once.. Not for herself.
This is a dangerous and delicate time for him, she knows. Makai is not a place to madly rush off into the woods. Death is no escape from this place, only the beginning. There are levels of suffering that even Marise is reluctant to see visited so quickly on another, and most of those levels exist here.
Her hand falls away from him, returning to a proper place at her knees. A dotting guide and escort, outwardly. Golden eyes follow him with intent and curiosity, searching his frame as if for lost secrets. Her interest unabashed and unhidden. She is not one to hide emotion, rather .. She revels in them.
"Very good... Veeery good... That's right..." She croons softly as he finally catches himself.
At his first question, she responds with uncharacteristic honesty, "I am not certain. I only found you.. And followed you here."

As he gives voice to his thought, Marise's smile grows to its familiar wicked proportions. Several seconds of silence pass before, "Death and I ... have come to an understanding. I am a servant of my ideals... Much as you." Her head tilts, ebony locks pouring over her milk-white shoulder, "My ideals have made me a child of the two worlds. Privileges of passage between the two are... Lets call it a professional perk." Tittering whimsically.
However, before he can react she reaches forth. Her hand hovering over his chest wardingly, "Be mindful, Seishirou. I must warn you, there are dangers here that shadow any of the mortal world. I beg you to not act rashly. I know not what killed you.. But understand that you are dead. While your soul endures.. Understand there are levels of existence you do not want to subject the name Ryouhara to. Allow me to guide you.. And such things will not come to pass."
Marise's tone is warning, but not challenging. These are not terms born of arrogance or hubris... But of simple matters of fact.

Marise's winsome crooning buzzes in his ear like so many cicada.

His one visible eye winks out of view briefly in his esconcement of milky dark, curtained in strange ways by the buffeting of a hellfire tide against the basalt. Blinking so, his look flows away from the deadly and suspicious malaise that he's tolerated Marise with for this long. Instead, he seems more introspective. If he did not kill her.. then someone else must have died. He does not remember, but he knows enough to understand the only circumstances by which he would have ceded his life. The truth was brought to him, and with it, a detail is revealed.

But, her mirth is lost on him.

He is silent for a time, bitter, despondent and confused, as she stays his rise with a hand. She warns him, nigh pleads with him to reconsider his methods. His eyes narrow deadly in the moment she utters the name Ryouhara. Only a moment more passes for her to finish her thought, the space of two deep breaths.

"_Enough!_"

That breath does not come easily. Though powerful, even he must force the steel into his voice, the crushing heat still vising his lungs. He finds his feet underneath him, but only slowly so. He is silent for a time, as his mind is a storm. Ryouhara is in many ways the exact opposite of Marise. As idealistic as the boy might be, his feelings are all too often winnowed away, degraded in the face of the purpose and meaning that is ... was ... his life. But the rain must eventually flood all.

"If... I am dead as you say, then there will be an eternity to determine my fate." Saying it almost made him sick to his stomach. Flexing his injured arm to restore feeling to the numbed limb, Seishirou straightens. Only his focus keeps him on his feet. His focus on his purpose.

"... but I won't settle for that."

Seishirou as an intellect is not an observant one. He is a ravishing one. He will not sit idly by and contemplate the weakness that ultimately curtains off his mind. "I'll find out what happened to me...no matter what."

His eyes flick over the seductive woman. She seems different in this world of fire, no longer a tawdry shredded thing. For a moment, she seemed warm and kind to him, showing him honesty, and offering him succor in the wilds of this place. He seems to consider it a moment, truthfully. There is a decision he makes for a reason not even he truly understands.

"And," he adds, "If you wish to guide me, then you will service this goal of mine." A deal, as honest as he can make it. Not particularly delusional, he doesn't include any particular threat in his words. But, there is the strong implication that their companionship will end abruptly if she betrays his aims. He turns towards the sea of infinite flame, his gaze longing for only a moment as he slips his arms out of his haori's sleeves to fold them at his waist. Her words have fixated him on an idea. "I sense a city in the distance," he notes. "If I was sent here, then I must be assured of the fate of my family."

He turns towards Marise.

"You'll take me to a place where I can seek out Arinori Ryouhara."

%With Seishirou's powerful command for silence, Marise's warning fingers recoil into a pensive fist. Her arm upraises slowly as she is indeed quieted for the moment. Hidden eyebrows lift while her secretive smile remains immutable.
At his assertion of his fate, her fingers slowly uncurl again. Clawed nails rolling in a wave motion, mirroring the stirring interest behind those loathsome eyes, "If only that were true.." She comments mysteriously, but seeks not to enlighten for the moment as the boy is not yet done issuing his counter demands. She then allows his second absolute to go unremarked. After all, she is not here to argue. She does not need to argue.. Not here. This is a place where veils and eccentricity are lain bare and revel. After all, he will indeed understand the truth of things here... Marise will see to that.

Warmth and kindness betray deeper meanings than their tawdry counterparts in the sleeping world usually faire. Perhaps only in the light of perdition itself does the Devil's compassion stand revealed. Marise has never been less than supportive to Seishirou, even when her associates and alliances find themselves at murderous odds with his revolution.

Though the last hope of the Ryouhara challenges her anew. Commanding her with totalitarian authority born likely of equal parts terror and superior intensity.

While Marise yet kneels, she does not bow.

"You sense correctly." The Devil replies smoothly, in a slow tone implying all of his questions... But she does not move. Hands return to her lap comfortably, head tilting in a lazy manner of a curious feline, "Save for your impropriety in the face of my kindness."
She continues looking up to him now. Though the tall woman most often looms over others, capable of looking a tall man such as Seishirou dead in the eye... Her posture is outwardly humble. Subservient even.
Which makes her sudden rush of noncompliance even more perplexing and out of character. In her world view, might makes right. The mighty dictate terms of the weak.

"Revelations of the fate of your name is a concern of mine ... But not an Earthly one of yours... I question..."
While the name Arinori and the rest of his collecting purpose is brushed aside for the moment as she chooses to get to the point, "If death has concluded her business with the name Ryouhara ... Have you a weapon left to protect it?"

Seishirou says, "But she has to hold back because she knows there'd be nothing in it for her"

He blinks.

Surely, for a moment it may be amusing to see the former scion of the Ryouhara so consternated with an idea. It's simple, after all; Ryouhara is simply not used to meeting resistance to his deals and bargains, on the rare occaision he makes them, especially not a person who purports to be concerned for his safety--a new thing in itself--as much as Marise does.

His ambition gently resisted, his head dips low to curtain his golden eyes again in darkness. Vacated sleeves hang limp at his sides as his arms fold ever tighter about his waist. As Marise lowers herself to look at him, he finds her nigh-inhuman look inescapable, his eyes flicking down to meet hers.

She speaks of his world, of his fate, of his death concluding it all.

There is a flash of resolve across the shinobi's face.

Of which, he does not speak.

"No matter where you stand..." Seishirou begins quietly, "...there are always weapons."

Nothing less than the strength of steel. It is conventional Ryouhara doctrine he parrots, and could have been uttered from the lips of any member of the clan. Ryouhara takes a step to one side. She calls to him on his rudeness, but it is something he sets aside for the moment, a thought lost to the imminent distraction that comes from discovering the reality of your own death. Regardless, his attention is dichotomous; as pensive as it is solemn. One ambition must necessarily be replaced with another, for someone like Seishirou. There seems to be things that are of concern to him.

It would seem, to an extent, that the business of the tools he has is not one of them.

He approaches the question in a different manner. "Do you imagine that better answered resting upon my laurels..?" he asks simply. For Ryouhara, it is a deadly thing. But his voice drops an octave. "...and of you..."

She is tall, a powerful woman by any measure. But Ryouhara determines his moment of weakness brief; he cannot falter in this Hell, and so he stands. Moreso, he walks. His arms fall, slipping to his sides and obliterating the body language of fear from him. He steps around Marise, slow meandering strides taken in the black sands. Though his lashes hood low over his wandering gaze making him seem almost lazy, her sublimations are measured from every angle by an attention that loses no detail. She would almost feel his dismantling gaze at the nape of her neck. For a moment, every physical and projected facet of the female--from delectible curve to the pliant resistance she gives him--at his knee is measured. There are things that distract the shinobi. Curiousity, as you well know...

For a moment, Seishirou is indescribable.

"The Koga," he dispassionately points out, "are not known for their myriad charities."

He is irreverently close in his stalking, close enough for his haori's sleeves to knit his particularly faint oil-and-citrus scent into the air. He is testing Marise's resolve to resist his request, simple and pure. "So...what is it about me that you desire so? If I am dead, of what use am I to Marise?" he asks. "Beyond that name's sanctity, there is nothing I care for, nothing I like. The world I left behind leaves no one who will shed a tear for the lost clan of Ryouhara." That has never been an illusion Ryouhara entertained, as much as the idea of it seems to give him pause. "If nothing else is real.. are you asking if this bothers me...?"

At her side, Seishirou leans over, hands to hips. His lanky frame curves, his sleeves almost meeting the sand at Marise's right thigh. He enjoys her proximity now in the utmost, his eye only a blink from her own. "What of Marise?" he asks simply, his cold volume dipping below sotto voce. "Does it bother her?"

"For what other reason would she try to save me?"

As resolve flashes like an inch of bared steel, The Devil's eyes alight. Glinting in the hellfire sunset, clearly demonstrating her approval of Seishirou's answer.
Yes. There are indeed always weapons.

That is an answer she was looking for from the ghost of Ryouhara. Indeed, as matters are turned on their head.. The Ninja meets this new-found mystery head-on. No dwadling or indecision, he. Seishirou is incapable of losing his resolve.. It would seem.
For now.
As the man begins to orbit her, her eyes follow him as far as they're able without an arc of her doe-like neck. Once he meanders into her shadows, she listens intently. Kneeling still, even as the edges of his fine silks touch her toothsome form.
Upon a time Seishirou recoiled from her presence. Now he seems to bask in it.. An interest piqued perhaps?
The Devil's head tilts just so, as if imagining the feel of that fabric along her bared shoulder.

The name 'Koga' jolts her eyes from that indulgent distraction, but she listens yet still. If anything.. Her chest heaves a breath of excitement.

And then, Seishirou demonstrates his lack of fear. Daring to bring his eyes so close to hers.
Marise's are killing lips. A hundred men and women have died at those luscious curves, configured now in delight. Is it courage that compels him to nigh-kiss the demon? Proof, to himself if nothing else, that he is still without fear? That fleshless ideology is truly invincible?

Why does this remnant of the Ryouhara bring such passion to her empty soul?

"You only ask questions.. When you think you understand the answers..."

The Devil's half-lidded eyes gaze deep, a cool breath passes his lips as she whispers, "...Or would you kiss me and know for certain?"
Existence's most dangerous game is not one The Devil of Koga shies from. At all.

His eyes are upon her. It would be a fool's measure to think him naive; to think him unaware of the danger he is so curious of. He is not a boy immune to terror, but he has never cowed to it. Never in life, and now he knows it will be no different. His ambition and his curiosity are both ceaseless, and the end of one goal and one proof winds into another. Proof to Ryouhara as well as Koga that there are always weapons.

He leaves her no room for misunderstanding him. Leaning there next to her, Seishirou plies the once-woman. Bargaining his scent against her own, his only reply against the kunoichi's graceful vigil is the sharp flash of his eye, reflecting the bizarre dusk. To know everything you are about to do and not falter; he is volatile but paradoxically calm--the enigmatic mongoose staring down a cobra.

A soft vocalized sound of agreement rises to her inviting reply.

"Sa..." he breathes in the intimate space. "If I'm to trust you.."

He has lived only to die. Now that he has, and now that there is nothing but the bittersweet thanks of this guide, he seeks to test her, to taste a taste of who--what--she really is. Did she once love, or is that invitation something else.. If allowed into her space, Ryouhara will show her his warmth. He has never entertained company in the fashions to which Marise is accustomed. But, his haori curtains the motion of his arm as he raises it, hinting at more. The fleeting but unrelentingly rough touch of his drill sleeve sweeping the fatal curve and cool skin of her exposed shoulders. It seems an almost cruel familiarity with holding such insatiable custom.

"Then, prove to me everything you say..."

As he moves against her, he tucks a single unruly and lethal tongue of her ebon tresses behind her ear with his last two fingers. It is as if only the fatal finds his interest. He has only one last curiosity that must be sated. He drifts closer, lowering his head to hers. If he is dead, and nothing else remains.. what then, on this backwards place would be worth dying for?

His lips are only fractions of space from her ear.

"But.." he whispers, a deadly chill suffusing:

"... don't think me your plaything."

His touch, illusory.

But she could feel him.

The touch of his clothes, the heat of his breath.

..But he never laid hand on Marise of Koga.

His scent, his warmth, recedes from her's. He allows Marise her space once again, the young man standing and stepping away once. There may be no hope. He may be beset on all sides by obscenity, desperation, and the pulse pounding in his own chest. But he is not so easy. For every tear shed and every weakness shown, he will walk a mile. "I will find him." Seishirou repeats simply, sliding his arms back into the wider sleeves of his haori. He offers no room for discussion or question. He turns his back on her, showing her the flashing sigil of the Ryouhara clan that persists on his back even here. His resolve cannot be broken by putting it to question. "With or without you, I will find the truth. . . ."

An argent flash in his mind gives the shinobi a momentary pause. Though his outward demeanor does not change, it wouldn't be difficult for someone like Marise to determine the pause in his words are wholly unintended. His eyes slide shut briefly. From the curtain of unfamiliarity with his own memory, he is aware of only one thing: a deep, crushing regret, alien to him.

A moment passes.

"...you won't stop me," he completes his thought, though his insistence is without fang. He blinks, looking back over his shoulder and showing her a flash of a single eye. "...You said something when I awoke," he asks, remembering it clearly. "Something about saving my world."

That eye narrows. There's something he's missing.

"...Just what are you playing at?"

Seishirou =.=

Once, Seishirou offered to baptise the Devil in flame.
A gesture that Marise relented from swiftly. Since the earliest of times, flame has been the weapon that kept the darkness at bay. The substance mankind used to defend itself against the sadistic unknown. From torches to Kusanagi The Sword has her adopted kinder fled.
However, fire is not all that burns.

From this heat Marise does not recoil. The closeness of the young man, the Koga Scion enjoys. Her half-lidded eyes gaze deeply into his, unabashed in her invitation. Those lids flutter for the span of a moment as the fabrics of his haori touch her in ways the man dares not. As his fingers touch silken black, it almost seems to caress his fingers back.. the length twining about his fingers for just a little longer than hair has any right to before falling back behind her ear.
Violet lips part, offering a breath of satisfaction at his intimate whisper.

Disappointed? No. Not in the least. This... This is progress.
The sultry woman smiles wildly, her eyes closing to savor his lingering tease as he steps away. This.. is most nice.
Seishirou deserves to be rewarded.

"Yess... Yes indeed you will find the truth.." The Devil purrs after a few breathless moments. Her fingers moving up to slowly brush asside the stray locks from her milky shoulder. Only then does she rise with graceful elegance, inhuman eyes spying him with a new measure of respect and interest.
The truth? Oh. He will find out about that certainly enough. Especially here, especially now.
"Stop you? Hnn.. You really think I want to stop you?" She half titters, waving a hand in mild dismissal at the very notion, "As for your own blood.. I do not know what other Ryouhara dwell here. Though.." Eyebrows lifting as she glances to the ashen skies above, "..I have my suspicions on one or two." Returning that playful gaze upon him as she steps after him, merely matching his pace before he stops, "Hnn? Ah.."

Folding her purple clawed hands back into the sleeves of her regal kimono, she furthers, "I'm surprised you have not considered a small detail at my appearance here.. Of course, with your keen intellect I'm certain you must have dismissed the potential for a reason or another..." Her head tilts just so, as if trying to slither back into the peripheral of his turned vision, "... But ... As others before me.. I have learned to conquer death and return to the living..."

Serpentine eyes glisten, her smile stretches just a little too far, "..Would you like me to show you how?"

The boy is distant now, his gaze flicking away from Marise. He thought he saw pleasure in that woman's eyes when he came so close to her so as she could taste him. In kind, it would take some time to remove that aftertaste from his tongue. Every part of her wanted some element of him that he can't put his finger on. At first he thought it might have been his power, his strength. Now.. in this situation, it was different.

His world was still spinning from that chance brush with that ill-encountered feeling, that brush with the Koga shinobi. It made it infuriatingly hard to think, even though his focus was sharpened until his mind bled from the jutsu he used earlier.

Annoying.

It just means he knows in exacting detail why he has a headache.

The boy takes a single breath to recenter himself as he turns to walk to one side slowly, thoughtfully. His glance is always sharp--without exception, he is never unfocused, not even for a second. "Hmph."

"Play your games, but don't get in my way." There are two kinds of people, as far as Seishirou is concerned. People who feel the same as he feels, and everyone else. In that scenario, anyone can be an obstacle. The problem with that is, Seishirou approaches all obstacles in roughly the same way; inexorably and without relent. This much is told to Marise wordlessly--the deadly edge in his voice is enough to imply it.

Even now, he's measuring her response. She doesn't know about his clan, which suggests the reality of the Koga's station here. He will have to wring the information out of her concerning individual members of his clan after he gets to the real truth of this affair. After all. Does he not have the gift of eternity, now?

A moment later, the gravity of what Marise says thereafter settles.

He blinks once, but says nothing. Confused for a moment, he wonders; had he actually considered the idea? Had he merely assumed Marise was some sort of otherworldly eldritch creature? He dimly remembers asking Marise if he'd killed her, but the idea that a similar ability to the one she described could be made of use by him was never considered. He frowns, for a moment being embarassingly crystalline in his thoughts.

Did he miss that detail? Why?

Was it important?

Seishirou pauses, suddenly lapsing unreadable. "I imagine..." he finally manages, "...that you would have had to had paid quite the cost for such an ability."

"Heh." The boy grins dangerously. "Show me."

"To avenge the name of my clan.."
That devillian grin yields to a sobering expression. What mirth she held earlier dissolves in an instant. Its as if that wicked smile traded venues as the boy grins at the burgeoning possibilities, and it is the Devil's turn now for macabre resolve.
"... Price is no object."

And there her motives are lain bare with sinful clarity. There too, perhaps now the boy is reminded of the implications. Reminded of the reality between them.
She stalks closer then, bare feet leaving the faintest impression upon the blackened sands. Her paleness a striking contrast to the oblivion surrounding them. "You yourself know this. I see it in your eyes... Yes.." Gold searches gold now, lifting her height a moment to stare deeply into his own golden depths. Focus shifting, as if sifting through the contents of the indomitable spirit behind his vision, "Get in your way?.. Nn."
She then moves past him, striding forth in the direction he himself was moving yet moments ago, "I will show you the way. Follow."
She moves with purpose and intent now, familiar grounds as they are to her. The rocks beyond lead higher into the hills beyond the burning shores, leading into the ruined forests and the hillsides beyond.
Death has come, a new journey begins?

She seems taller when she searches his mind.

One will meets another in that tumultuous second. The price of curiosity well know, Ryouhara is more than willing to entertain the kind of danger that reads his eyes now; Marise finds little fear there. Only something signalled by the narrowing of the boy's eyes; suspicion? No. It's a close look he gives Marise, the kind that would only entertain a subject of the utmost importance. There is a question there, a question hovering in his mind. There is a glimpse of that curiosity, that dipping brow, before Marise brings to mind other things.

Vengeance and familial piety.

She is right.

Ryouhara knows much of both.

Even here, even in death, hesitation has no purchase on the boy. When Marise moves past him as he requests, her gliding step making her seem a ghost in a ghost's land, Ryouhara takes only a moment to turn after her and, haori drifting in the wind, wordlessly follow.

He follows her beyond the shores, through the desolated forests. And through all of that, he seems complacent uttering only chance words, taking in every detail around him. He walks behind her for some time without complaint or question, as if lost in his own thought. Finally and at once, he asks a simple question.

"Hnf. Your clan. Have any of them made it anywhere other than here?"

A rather back-handed way of asking about the afterlife, but Ryouhara is not so trite to think her ignorant of his meaning. Any way he can attain information; about her, about her clan, about this world itself--there are few things he won't test her with.

"Only the unimportant ones." The Devil whimsically chimes at the idea some Koga may not have been wholly damned. All Clans have their bad apples.. Their black sheep as it were. The Koga was no different - Though, betraying the beliefs of one's clan often carries with it considerable price. Some more than others.
The Koga leans on the 'more' side of that scale.

Time passes.
Marise is an elegant hostess, often volunteering information as Seishirou requests of it. At least in terms of the geography of this forsaken land. The dark mistress sounds proud of this Hell, speaking of the burning fields and mangled trees with the revenance of an empassioned curator.

If the netherworld is a reflection of the living realms above, then the province they pass through seems to be the northern section of Honshu. Steadily heading towards the tall mountains cloaked by the blackened clouds on high, wreathed in crackling energies of a distant storm that only abides ... Never ending.

Many, are the desecrated landmarks they witness.
They pass a creek.. Entirely composed of venomous serpents of any and all kinder. Hundreds of them, flowing through a depression in the ground.. worn deep by their endless torrent. Marise suggested they are the tears of a great spirit, shackled within a tree sanctified by the fifth maiden of the Yamato era. It's sense of injustice at its imprisonment long-since transformed it whole into the demon it never thought it was. She enjoys that story.
Time later they pass a vale, emptied of it's flora and replaced entirely with a haunting series of clawed bones.. Reaching for the sky from the smoldering, eternally charred ground. Marise tells they are not native to this land, even she is not certain where they came. In the mortal world some thousands of years ago a great explosion on the far side of the world blackened the skies of Japan for three years. These claws fell to the depths of Hell itself, destroying all they struck. She knows not what became of the rest of this beast, easily the size of a mountain at full size. She suggested they move quick through there. Sometimes the bones watch..

Strangely enough, weariness begins to set in after a long time. How many hours... days.. weeks.. They've wandered through this land, it's difficult to say. There is no reliable way to record the passage of time here. The morbid sun occasionally breaks the dark skies, only for the moon to follow moments later. Sometimes neither reveal themselves, the land illuminated entirely by fluorescence of fallen souls, strewn about the ground from a plague long forgotten by the time Genji drew his sword.
A brief respite is suggested as Marise settles herself onto patch of grey moss, growing upon the flat of a rock.. Overlooking a glade of poison blossoms, "We will be safe here for now.. Few dare approach these flowers for long." The Devil slowly waves her fingertips over the nearby dark petals. Violet claws almost teasing their deadly symmetry, "... You and I can survive here for six hours.. Long enough to regain our strength." Golden eyes gleaming with mischief.
She knew he wouldn't mind.
Seated as she is, sideways with a hand upon the moss for balance.. Her dark tresses pouring over her shoulder as a rivulet of black over smooth ivory, she muses, "Of all your associates remaining in the world above... Which one do you think will betray you first? Now that you're departed.." Acknowledging for once Seishirou's circle, "..Hnh. What was the name of your little band?"

He has fully lost track of time now.

The realization of the truth troubles him somewhat. Ryouhara is not one to 'lose track' of anything, and the fact galls him as much as the consuming fog enveloping his mind. To this end, as Seishirou travels with Marise, he touches upon the primal mutation of the landscape around them very little, though it is obvious he resists the temptation to collect serpents for his later study.

Details do not escape him, but the boy is no fool.

Aside from the wistful commentary, there exists an all-consuming thing around Ryouhara. It's not anger, per se, but a deadly curiosity about what lay at the center of this knot, at what is beneath the veil. So when Marise comes to rest at the overlook of a poisonous and beautiful vale, the whip-lean youth seems to surrender to Marise's whim, as opposed to succumb to his own fatigue. He was always that type--he rarely slept for any length of time, and rarely ate anything of great import. He stands for a time, but shortly kneels, making great care and a show to secure the ties at his ankles. Golden eyes flick underneath the cut of his brow, and Ryouhara cracks the faintest of grins. A test to his patience, or his endurance? "Just six hours," he echoes. He doesn't question, but he does set the figure to focus.

His fingers pause upon the ends of the wrap for chance moments when she speaks next.

"...Kagero," he puts it bluntly, "is filled with betrayers. Unconscionable scoundrels, every last one. But they do not possess the capacity to betray me. They are not fools."

There is a second meaning in his words.

The boy is under observation at all times. Even when the Devil's back is turned to him, one could swear her eyes yet follow him somehow through a gap in physics and dimension. Occasionally, she steals blatant glances to gauge his reaction with simple, innocent curiosity. Always smiling regardless of his continued deadly determination. She has no illusions of surprising him. If anything, she hopes that all he witnesses is old hat and common to his thoughts, hopes and dreams.
It would make things so very simple.

"Always testing are we?" Marise replies to his echoed challenge, a playful grin on her beauteous expression. "I am surprised you have not yet asked the obvious... Or perhaps you already know the answer? Indeed.." She muses as she gathers nearby petals within her violet claws, "...What does the dead fear of death?" The pretty things pass between her fingers like sand through a siv. Leaving that question to for him to answer.. or not.
What's more intriguing is his reply to her latter inquiry.

"Aaaah.. Kagero.. Hah. I'm flattered." She answers brightly at the revelation, "It always was a beautiful name.. She was something of an inspiration to me, if you'd choose to believe.." Musing idly on that, but lingering upon thoughts of her ancestry only in brief. Golden eyes return to him from fussing over the lethal flora, "Interesting. Foolishness is a symptom of betrayal.. But not always the necessary cause. In difference.. To your wise insurances.. Which do you believe will try to betray you first?"
The cheshire grin plays over her lips. Her posture leisurely, relaxed. It could be a picnic within a flower garden in Kyoto for all her care, here. Perhaps the depths of Makai is the one place a monster such as she could ever feel relaxed? Or just another layer to the game she plays with Ryouhara now.
Marise is intrigued, regardless. So much have been spoken of his ideals and their sovereignty. But what of those who follow them? Surely the guide possesses others along the path.
"The Christians say Christ was renounced by the very man who became their first Head Priest shortly after their messiah died. I wonder if your name will suffer such a fate.."

For someone who has seen what lies in the center of Vega's Final Psycho Crusher, someone who has fallen from heaven and landed in the center of a Pinto, there remains little left in the world that can terrify him. True, the horrors of this world are great, and do not be mistaken--had Seishirou had the presence of mind to take it all in, he would truly express wonder at the dark miracles the underbelly of the corporeal world had to offer.

But as of now...

As of this moment..

There are things Seishirou needs settled, first.

"That's the thing about the obvious," Seishirou responds with a slow blink, "what point is there in asking?" He looks up. Though the boy is gifted, he is hardly one for wasting his breath. For shinobi, it should be similar. They are beset on all sides by potential failure and death. One threat is the same as another, and dealt with in the same manner--without hesitation.

He watches her play at the petals some, as if attempting to divine a deeper purpose, before she compliments him. "I didn't name it," Seishirou answers stiffly, quickly. "The revolutionary genius Ikou-sama did, long before I was ever born." He of course, refers to Ryouhara Ikou, the originator of the Ryouhara clan as it is known today--for good or for ill. He is questioned by her, and --some part-- of the shinobi almost instinctively bristles, as if loathe to have to explain his designs. Dusting off moss from his knee, he slowly rises. "...What a pain.."

"Listen up, because there are things I'll only say once," Seishirou explains this, his youth showing for a moment. "When a person attempts to subvert someone else's goals secretly in favor of their own, that is 'betrayal.' But that definition fails when the goal of the superior is to allow the subordinates to realize their own goals..."

His fangs are showing in that whip thin smile. "The only way for me to be betrayed is for those who would betray me to become irrelevant. This is just the nature of 'idealism.' It is not something that can be changed or tampered with. When you ask about betrayal, think about that."

He turns away. "... But so you ask. Who will be the first to realize my intentions?" he asks, rephrasing her question. This time, the answer is simple. "Those who fight for money. They will be first. Then those who fight for power. Then those who fight for a better world. Those who exercised some superficial attachment to me..." he pauses for a moment, as if confused briefly by a passing thought. "...they will be the last."

It was his hope that Koganei would be the first to understand his meaning, as his only apprentice. But his fear otherwise is not something he'd reveal to the likes of a Koga.

For a long moment Marise continues to watch the youth as he rises from the soft bedding of unnature. Her expression remains placid, even as she can't understand a word of what he just said.
The goal of enabling others to achieve their own goals? And only that?
So rarely has Marise heard such nonsense strung together in a single statement before. A latch-key stitched verbal gibberish on par with anything Lewis Carrol spun amidst psychedelic daydreams and fantasy.
"I see.." The Devil lies. Rather than follow this odd turn of conversation Marise plays with a few ebon tips of her hair a moment before pursuing a different thread.
"My.." The Koga Matron seems positively tickled, "... No wonder you seem so distant, considering how everyone in the world above betrays you so blatantly."

The nature of humanity is to be irrelevant, as far as Devils and Demons are concerned. Still, now that she understands a bit more of the young man.. She's just beginning to understand his view.

As he turns her phrase, she offers a shrug of her smooth, bare shoulder.

Listening to his categorization, Marise nods in acceptance, "A sound reply."
It was a roundabout answer to what she already knew, an expert way of telling her nothing. She was hoping for names.. But, even in death he seems uninterested in betraying their confidence.
All in due time.

"By the by.." The Devil brushes her kimono softly, preening over her dark raiment needlessly. "Do you know the story of Lady Kagero? A fitting name this revolutionary genius granted this ideology.. I should mention."
Wicked eyes glancing up to him anew. Playful expression returning.

There are precious few things in this world that Seishirou can hold to. The ninkou that he and his family created is, according to this unnaturally tall willow of a woman, gone and without use in this new world. To that end, it is only natural that he rely on what other shinobi have for centuries before him--his wits, his hands and ... most importantly, his secrets.

Those flashing golden eyes take on an intense aspect as he looks carefully over his shoulder and the edge of his nose at his ever-graceful hostess, his countenance just shy of imperious. He is very much a creature of individual prides--not in himself or his strength, both being nonexistent and otherwise unimportant in his measure--but in his ideals? His preparations? Oh, yes. That is the facet of Ryouhara that weighs on Marise's bared shoulders so cavalier just now.. Her many eyes can tell that much from him. And for every eye she has upon him, for a moment he holds each one's gaze in kind.

"Nnn," the boy vocalizes suspiciously. "Do you?"

"People," he says pointfully, as if distinct from Kagero itself, "live out each day of their lives as if a thousand more will follow, content to allow the tyrants to seize hold of them. Layabouts at best, whores at worst. A repulsive way to live life..." As he speaks, Seishirou audibly seethes just to think of it, and it takes a moment and a breath for him to calm.

"...but... I wouldn't discount the strength of the sacrifice."

He doesn't glance back, but he does shift slightly as Marise asks him of her story. Breathing out, the boy slowly sits back down on his knees in the moss, folding his hands in his lap and facing away from her. "Saa..." he vocalizes, admitting ignorance before even speaking. "I can only attempt to understand his reason."

A thread seems to reveal itself continuously in what gentle probing Marise attempts of this young man. An idea of consternation, amusing in its contradiction and yet troubling in its application.
Seishirou rabidly opposes tyranny.
A surprisingly illogical conclusion, if not entirely surprising for a man of his generation. Tyrants have had their way with the world in the last century. She should know.. She was one of them. But how could those eyes, so akin to her own, be so blind to the truth of what tyranny actually is? A word endowed with horror and contempt by the weak. Even the very notion of 'weakness' has taken on a bizarre connotation in the fractured kaleidoscope of the final Ryouhara's perspective.
A matter of translation. That's all it is, she knows.
He senses the truth, he tastes it - That much she knows. No man of true power can ever be fully ignorant of what is true. Their greatest flaw is often that they simply choose not to believe what they see for ... Truly irrelevant reasons. All she need do is understand his language.. And then she can explain.
Then she can let him understand what he yearns for.. He can come to terms with it.

And then.. Oh yes then..

"Well said." The Devil demures with an incline of her head. The bulk of his statement she emphatically agrees. If one of its tiny.. marginal details she leaves alone for the moment.

As for his vaguely bored turn away, she only continues to smile. That sly smile plays on her lips, monstrous eyes glinting mischief in recognition of his own. Always hold the upper-hand, he tries for. More often than not, others will vent what they know in a vain attempt to make an impression. Curiously enough, torture a man for days and he says nothing. Seem uninterested and whole worlds of secrets will be divulged compulsively. Seishirou knows this, Marise knows. It serves her to simply reveal anyway.

After all, she's likely lying. Doubtlessly this respective genius named Kagero upon the flowering blossom but.. The Koga Ninja wastes not an opportunity to opine for her murdered clan. Its not like the legend is secret anyway.
"She was an ancestor of mine, you know. Kagero No Koga." As properly her own name was Marise No Koga. Of her original family name? Does not matter for Kunoichi of certain rank. One becomes wholly Koga then, irrespective of the 53 family names that compose the clan itself. A clan nuance, a small thing. "She was among the first of the kunoichi to recognize that strength comes not in force of arms.. But using what strengths one has. A weakling, one could call her. Not terribly gifted in the fighting arts or directly combative methods. No.. Her strength was in.. her body." A toothsome grin. Leaning perhaps a touch closer, even if the two are yet distant, "Any man who so much as touched her lips died.. Then and there. A more lethal assassin my Clan never produced. The first Kunoichi to use wiles and guile where sword and force could not hope to conquer. A revolution of technique, you could say. Muscle and blade are not all.."
The woman taps a violent claw to her brow, "The mind.. And force of will.. Is the true throne of power."
The Devil slinks back to her side-saddle pose upon the moss-velvet covered stone. The knowing look of a woman who just preached to the choir, "Fitting enough.. Yes?"

Seishirou doesn't pretend to know Ryouhara Ikou's motivations. That man knew a lot of things Seishirou doesn't even dare to dream of now, even though he knows on some level that his entire purpose is to somehow find a way to live up to that person, that 'ideal' that his family possessed so long ago. To that end, he listens to his hostess now, eyes sliding shut as he works over her words in his mind. There is nothing about Marise that says anything good. This he knows. There is nothing about her that says truth. This he knows. But ... on occaision ...

Truth can slip.

"...A woman whose lips can kill," he echoes quietly. "Heh. Our ancestors knew the things that people today have been allowed to forget."

Though he isn't anywhere near her, though he doesn't even face her, he feels--felt--the shrinking of the space between them. A chill at the back of his neck that raises the fine hairs, no matter how tightly his haori is pulled about him. He recognizes the effect distantly, and some part of him riles that it can still occur. Maybe it's not her. Maybe it's the subject matter. A slow opening of his eyes reveals his distance--half-lidded, he seems as if partially in a dream, a chance thought occurring to him.

"So.. tell me. How did this Kagero no Koga... herself, die?"

"Betrayal. Of course." Marise is somewhat surprised the young one even asked the question. The emotion is allowed to play in her gaze a moment as she once more shrugs, eyes closing with an expression of acceptance, "The one word, the only word, capable of murdering greatness."
Her golden eyes open again, staring directly at him with a certain coolness. A weight added to those words buoyed both on the very sentiment he espoused not moments ago.. But also to her own experience and what she knows to be true.
"Too much has been allowed forgotten." Marise sustains with unveiled bitterness. Lips twisting upwards in a defiant sneer as she casts her gaze skyward, piercing the layers of Hell and delivering malice to the living above, "They've just begun to remember.. However. The efforts of those who cherish the old ways are beginning to bear fruit." Glancing in the direction of her companion, "Yours and others. Many things have begun to stir in the dark, secret places. The banality of the west is beginning to fray.." Her claws sliding amongst each-other, mirroring the cogitation behind those serpentine eyes as she furthers, ".. With the rise of your great dragon of the ocean.. The siege upon that accursed town.. They can smell it. The power being unleashed even now..." Squinting once more above, as if sensing the energies coruscating in the depths of China even now, "... If one such as I takes notice of these things... Far greater sleepers are just beginning to stir.. Mmm.." The Devil's shoulders visibly chill, exhaling in a moment of exhilaration, "..Exciting times are coming."
Only then does she slyly glance back to poor deceased Seishirou, "..It would be a shame if you missed out on them."

If Seishirou can sense the energies from here, he doesn't seem to show it. No, for him, China is as distant as America from the shores of Japan--a world across an impassable, imperceptible, unforgiving sea. The young man does not turn to Marise no Koga as she laments her worst fears. As Marise susses out his mentality, so does he suss hers. The weight of her gaze settles upon the unmoving back of his crisp vestments.

"During those times," Seishirou recounts, his own grasp of history coming to play, "betrayal decided the fate of clans and nations alike. It's no wonder you and it have become intimate."

A back-handed reference. Due to his own subterfuges, Seishirou does not have the fugue of presumption when he speaks with Marise. He knows that for every lie she tells him, she tells a truth. And that truth is not one born from observance and reason, as his may regrettably be on occaision. Her truths are born of experience. That is one of the few things that Seishirou dislikes..

"Of course," Seishirou responds, as if that was truly the only thing they could agree upon without any question. "That dragon.. this ambition permits nothing else. That weapon, and its spear in the other will be the beginning of it all--"

A shame.. .. if he were.. to miss it?

To see the future with his own eyes.

Golden eyes unseen narrow to deadly slits. "...Marise."

He says the name addressing the wraith no longer with his customary relaxation and politeness. His words carry a cold steel edge. It is as if a lightswitch were flipped somewhere in the boy's mind, and no rhyme or reason exists as to why he responds in the manner. Simply and abruptly no longer conversational, the boy's tone betrays confusion. It is flat. It is uncompromising.

"I wish to rest."

Of the fates of clans, and her own experience with that particular word.. Marise pleads no contest with her eyes. Shifting in her place quietly as she tugs the kimono upon her shoulders uselessly, glancing away.
Her gaze slowly returns, however, as he elaborates upon this Ryouhara Prophecy. To this.. she only smiles..

Mmmm.. Soon now. Very soon he'll be ready to know the truth.. It is only fair, is it not? He should know what wonders that will be unleashed upon the world, due in no small part to his schemes. But.. soon enough.

It seems she touches something raw within him. His steel retreat is not unnoticed, a maddening smile is the only offered reply as she watches him now.
Surprising? Hardly. After all, at face value needling one's death is a source of contention. Of course, the fact that the boy lived with a death-wish for his short life contradicts the craven desires of a man who simply wished to live a day longer. No, the source of this angst is something else..
And the Devil finds it intriguing.
After long, silent moments Marise finally replies with a simple, "..As you wish."
Reclining further upon the flowers, luxuriously sprawling and enjoying the sweet scent of poisoned blossoms.
No further ribbing or prodding? Not this time. The journey has only begun, after all. Now there is all the time in Hell, and there is much to yet consider in the time ahead...

Time passes...

For all the bizarre spectacle the lands of Makai has to offer, this world yet exists as a parallel to the world above. Through the looking glass darkly. For those who forget few details in life, certain landmarks are similar enough to be recognized in both worlds. The mountains of Japan's distinctive silhouette is recognizable enough. Enough to know the pair travel through the greater bulk of what would be the isle of Honshu in the world above.
Though, it would seem either time passes differently here or memory is not quite what it should be.. As Seishirou finds himself a great deal further inland than a mere day's walking would deem possible. They find themselves winding through mountain roads, precariously overlooking the black nation below. Glimpses of crimson lights spot the bleak valleys beyond, suggesting city-states of a sort.. A civilization of the damned.
It can be both disappointing and reassuring, at once, to know that even in the world beneath.. The path of damnation is reminiscent of the living.
But there are differences.

Marise continues tirelessly ahead, guiding her compatriot now to what seems a simple mining town. Built mostly into the sides of the rocky outcropping of the mountain itself, the ground yet salted with blackened snow. The buildings themselves, ramshackle affairs at best. Composed of rotted timber, stonework and whatever else can serve to support a roof of straw and thatch. Notably.. The establishment seems scaled precisely to house giants.
"Our destination is but one more day ahead of us. We can rest here a moment... And.." The Devil tilts her head as she spies a chain-gang of miners disgorging from entrance to a mine not far away, "..I wish to show you something."
Massive demons.. Thuggish brutes with single horns sprouted from their heads. The very image of ancient Oni of yore.. Save these variety are noisome and slow of mind, yet possess legendary strength. Massive chains bind their wrists as they draw forth unspeakably huge boulders of ore.. Some carry them on their shoulders, others drag them along. Hard, unforgiving labor.

Memory..

The fugue has created an uncertainty to which Seishirou is becoming irritatingly and increasingly accustomed. Time is something he attempts to track with his senses--one would not be a fool to guess that the boy was using his advanced command of calculative ninjutsu in attempts to keep track of his movements, only to find the attempts fruitless. With his arms slung into the folds of his haori and out of its sleeves, the overcoat is allowed to drift more freely as he follows his senior.

"Another day..." Seishirou echoes quietly. Since that last exchange at the vale, he has become increasingly quieter, and possibly more obsessive about remembering what he has forgotten, and has such taken the next leg of their journey in comparitive silence--leaving very little words left over for even the shorter conversations concerning the alien landscape, so his speaking now is something of a peculiarity.

He looks across the snowy and blackened street, his eyes following the Devil's gaze across the way, to the lumbering oni in the distance. The scale and presence of their chains tell all Seishirou would need to know about them. Creatures of massive strength...

"It must have taken someone strong to bind all of those to servitude," Seishirou observes, absently paying the Devil mind, his comments only a method of acknowledgment. If Marise's mean was to draw his attention there, she might notice then his attention is less upon them and some imaginary figure who has enslaved them.

As it so happens, Marise had counted upon the boy's natural instincts in this matter. The strength of the Oni is legend. Their physical might virtually inestimable in mortal terms, there's hardly two surfaces that exist that cannot be moved apart from each other should an Oni exert himself in full.
Seeing them now, as slaves, is a ridiculous proposition made real.

"Aaaah.. Good to see you again, my lovely." A voice echoes forth wholly unlike the massive beasts plodding before them.
The Devil titters demurely at the greeting, "And I you.. Master Ikou." As a small imp meanders forth from what appears to be a small hut literally built into the back of one of the giants.
The tiny thing bounds forth, leaping from muscle to muscle of the leviathan until he stands no higher than Seishirou's knee before the duo. The imp would seem harmless enough, flimsy of limb and curved of back. His tiny hands folded behind the small of his back in a contemplative posture, long mustache nearly sweeping the ground at his ankles. The red-eyed creature peers up high at the newcomer to the lands of Hell, tiny spectacles perched on his crooked nose, "My my... And who would this fellow be, eh? He's a sharp look about him."
Marise steps forth, gesturing to her compatriot, "You address Ryouhara Seishirou, head of the Ryouhara Clan." Facing this youth in turn and gesturing down to the tiny one, "Seishirou-san. It is my pleasure to introduce you to Master Ikou. Head Master of the Stone Quarry Clan. An old family acquaintance."

The imp paces back and forth a moment, a scrawny hand poking his tiny glasses a moment before musing, "Mmmm. Yes.. I believe I have done some small business with your Clan before. My product has found its away even in the world above, from time to time."

hat this tiny weakling could possibly lord over such incredible beasts ... One can only wonder what sorcery must be employed.

Standing at the feet of giants is something that Seishirou is accustomed to, but in all honesty, usually that's meant purely figuratively. Even someone as imperturbable as Ryouhara has to look up as the massive, foul-smelling creatres go from being large creatures in the distance to behemoths blocking out the sky.

Then a peculiar voice that Ryouhara places as belonging to no tyrant at all echoes from behind one of the beasts of burden, at a clarity Ryouhara suspects has something to do with the acoustics involved from living in the canyon between a muscle mountain's shoulderblades. He seems partway between annoyance and curiosity when the imp appears in a burst of agility, landing at his feet and looking up at him as he was looking up at the titanic oni only moments prior. But Ryouhara is not an idiot. He was looking at the oni in something resembling awe.

No such sentiment exists in the imp's eye.

Allowing Marise to speak for him as he makes these various observations, Ryouhara's arms shift, sliding back into his sleeves as if expecting to be called upon momentarily. "Headmaster," Ryouhara greets evenly when bidden, though it's not hard to catch the concealed flash of recognition in his eye when the imp's name is mentioned. For whatever reason--likely some insight of true wisdom--Ryouhara elects not to speak on whatever idea his mind comes to.

"The Stone Quarry clan.. that would make you the strongest in this region," Ryouhara guesses idly. He doesn't /see/ any other gangs of oni hauling mountains away. "But I don't recall you." Has his clan truly done business with them? "Your workforce is impressive," Ryouhara offers as a back-handed compliment, though Marise can probably easily recognize the look in his eye as he asks the master simply, "To what do you honor it?" Some manner of enslavement seal, perhaps...

There was a containment that Ryouhara himself was working on some time ago...

It is not very often that Marise's expression is capable of configuring itself into a semblance of sheepishness. Consider it unfortunate a camera is not handy.
As said Headmaster takes in Seishirou's commentary, his diminutive gaze turns over to Marise immediately. To which the woman lifts her dainty hands and replies in a sing-song tone, "He's new." Eyes smiling and closed.. With only the smallest droplet of sweat betraying her calm.

The Stone Lord turns his stern expression back to the young man then in full. The one truly responsible duly vexed for this lack of decorum as she discretely steps away. The small creature hobbles in a curved pace, his old garments vaguely akin to a feudal lord long-since past luster, "Do you take me for some kind of samurai, boy? Kid's today - I swear!" Throwing his hand in a widely dismissive arc as he turns back to his retinue of grunting monoliths. The vast creatures paused in their labors for the moment, groaning stupidly and passing time by scratching themselves or picking at their nostrils.
"You're bringing this one to Kyoto, are you?" The creature's voice is thrown without direction.. But the target of those words is not confused.
Marise chimes in once more, "I am." She replies swiftly, perhaps in a bid to try and pre-empt the further question but the short one is too quick.
"No good." He sniffs, twirling once more to point a shriveled finger at Seishirou's face, "You're wasting your time with this one, Ninja. Uncle is not going to like anything this one has to say and you're on thin ice as is since the last one.."

The Devil of Koga steps forth, partially eclipsing Seishirou's symmetry with her own. As bold a gesture as she's ever offered, "I respectfully request that honored Master would recall appearances and words can be deception. Comprehension comes soon after the fall.. Yes?"
To which the Headmaster exhales loudly, his shoulders slumping as if resting his case. A long moment before he turns around once more, directly addressing Seishirou once again. Picking up the conversation as if he was not intent on leaving it dead where it lay, "They honor me, point of fact, boy. Service is the greatest reward. I figured as a Ninja you'd know all about that. But yes.. They are impressive indeed. Tireless and strong, they move more earth than a hundred mortals each. They've been in service to me since long before your great, great, great grandfather was a glimmer in his father's eye. Try not to demand qualifications of everyone you meet. That ain't going to serve you well in any world, let alone THIS one."

Half-lidded eyes flick to the side. For a moment, Ryouhara affects what must to others seem a most fierce expression of curiosity as he eyes Marise's suddenly embarassed expression.

Is this some kind of joke.

At which point, Seishirou is rapidly dressed down by the impish master. He can feel an acute sense of nigh-endless youth as Ikou effectively tells him what's up. To this, he has a whole range of emotional responses; first shock, then confusion, then something in the vague semblance of irritation--partly because his question is never quite answered to his satisfaction, and partly because--he's being taken to an adversary? Ryouhara tilts his head down, shadows curtaining his eyes.

"Uncle? Kyoto? What last one, this is--"

Ryouhara opens his mouth...

... and is partly shadowed by the svelte form of Marise no Koga.

Behind the unnaturally tall woman, the most that can be seen of the shinobi is his haori shifting. Ryouhara is not entirely comfortable with being spoken for--not to anyone, not to anything. The sensation was confusing, but in absence of any perceived insult from his guide, Ryouhara seems to calm when he's not the direct subject of the imp's attention. At least, for the brief moment when he isn't. That changes rapidly, when Headmaster Ikou's attention changes. Seishirou blinks at Ikou once when he explains to him the purported truth of his arrangements. His hands disappear into his sleeves as he puts them together. The boy glances from the massive manacles around the lumbering onis...

Suddenly, the mood of his attention shifts.

Stepping past Marise, he bows his head to this imp.

Pride seems to disappear, like a moth to the flame.

His voice, for a moment, affects humility.

"Headmaster. It seems I've spoken out of turn and have embarassed my hostess. For this, your pardon. I've spent too long in the despicable selfishness of the world above. If my representative finds it tasteful, I will owe you twenty four hours of labor for my indiscretion. In this way, my clan's suitability for this realm will be without question." As one head of clan to another, he does not affect any great prostrations, but his humility--can be hoped to be enough.

He does /not/ lift his head until bidden.

"Better." The Headmaster of the Stone Quarry Clan replies stiffly. His expression changes hardly at all from gruff blase, however one gains the impression he finds this performance - sincere or otherwise - acceptable.

On the subject of comedy, it's an excellent thing that Seishirou does not lift his head at any point. Marise is scarcely capable of collecting her jaw.
The Devil is clearly taken aback by Seishirou's adaptation, hastily following suit and bowing her head a few moments after which with her hands upon the skirts of her kimono. In truth, The Headmaster is mostly annoyed at Marise. One cannot blame an impertinent guest for being impertinent, only the one who invited him. Still, the young ninja's gesture goes a long way towards rendering the situation far more amiable to the parties involved. With a lifting gesture with an off-hand, Ikou bids the redeemed Ryouhara Clansman to rise, "Your offer is accepted."
Curiously enough, the Headmaster does not elaborate on this day's indenture-ship, seeing fit to then continue pacing. Nodding his head in Marise's direction as he inquires, "And to what do I owe the joy of your visit, hrn?"

The Devil then rises, her expression wiped clean and reverted to her standard saturnine smile, "Does one always need a reason to visit old friends?"
"Always." Ikou replies instantly.

"Ah. As it so happens I wished to show my dear and close friend your operation as we had passed through on the way to Kyoto. I felt that he may find it as interesting as I do. Perhaps he may be curious to know what standards of business there are in Makai.. As I am so very interested in similar ventures in the world above." Marise's eyes glint as she then side-glances to her companion.
"I see, I see. Alright.. Fine. Just try to stay out from underfoot then. We're very busy around here! Time is money you know, Time is money!" He waves his hands frantically as he begins to head back to his lead Oni.

Sincerity is a question, to Seishirou, of actions.

The samurai spoke often of honor as they oppressed the lower class.

The Ryouhara, as engineers of ninkougakujutsu--weapons used by feudal lords and those in their service to attain dominance over their region--were deal-makers at heart. For their neutrality in the conflict that would have demanded Seishirou annihilate Marise where she stood, they learned a thing or two about honor. One of the first lessons was--your word is your brand.

Whatever reasoning, Ryouhara is genuine in his offer.

Seishirou looks up as bidden by the Headmaster. His gaze does not take on a great change in subservience--he still has that look about him as if he thinks constantly of fire and steel. But he makes no more demands, and his hands do not leave their sleeves, as if deferring to Marise's wisdom from that point onward. He doesn't ask what he is to do, merely glancing sidelong at Marise when she tells Ikou her purpose here. Admittedly, even someone as normaly imperturbable as Seishirou is impressed upon by the ability of the imp to handle the Koga kunoichi, and so Seishirou takes great care not to upset the order of things further.

After all. If this one did business with his clan as claimed...

Only when Ikou is out of the earshot of formal address does Ryouhara speak.

"Dear and close friend?"

That look shifts to Marise in one slow blink.

The tiny Headmaster leaps and bounds upon the giant as a flea, hopping back into his hut and moments later the massive cretin lurches forth with a groan. The parade of monstrous thugs plod forth then, rumbling the rocks and soil beneath the duo's feet as they continue on their merry way to the processing complex a little further down the mountain. The wind and debris of their march stirs the edges of haori and kimono alike as Marise seems content to wait until Uncle Ikou moves some distance out of earshot.
To the comment 'Dear and close friend', Marise offers only a musical sing-song of a hum and a side to side bob of her head. A whimsical non-answer.

Once the procession has gained some distance, and the sounds of their avalanching movement dies away, Marise then speaks again, "You do realize you just handed a Demon Prince of Makai twenty four hours of your life."
A pause.
"I'm proud of you." The Devil smiles then, perhaps the single most sincere expression Seishirou has ever witnessed on this creature to date. "Come. It's a truly fascinating operation." She then steps forth towards an outcropping of rock, a perfect vista to oversee the procedures and methodologies of the mining complex below. "So often you speak of improving the world. Would you like to see how I intend to contribute?" The Devil then glances over her bare shoulder, her grin daring him on as she tilts her head towards the overlook.

Her reaction gains her a long-suffering frown.

A Demon Prince of the Makai?

For some reason, Ryouhara seems unsurprised.

But there are few costs Ryouhara is unwilling to pay when it comes to satiating his curiosity. The quintessential cat, and all that like. When Marise smiles at him, she only gets his dour expression in response. The shinobi's attention is not focused so much on Marise as the oni stepping far into the distance. He is at that moment, not particularly someone who is accustomed to servitude, instead someone with goals all their own. She pounds the point home, to which Seishirou scoffs quietly, finally--finally--looking over.

"A pittance, compared to the number of hours he would have taken from yours if I had shown him my clan's strength directly."

Ryouhara Seishirou steps forward. "That one knew my clan," he finally explains, his hands slipping free to finally hang loosely in his sleeves at his hips, now that this headmaster is gone. "But what oni.." Ryouhara observes passively, "..honors a master by allowing himself to be shackled?" Either he was lied to as a matter of perspective, or he was lied to simply as a matter. He is curious to find out which. "During that twenty four hours, I'll dig to the bottom of that," Ryouhara finally says. Why he simply doesn't ask the Devil herself is the obvious question, and to which carries an equally obvious answer.

"Show me this contribution of yours, before your prince becomes annoyed with us."

Comments go unanswered as Marise is content simply to look upon the works of the Headmaster of the Stone Clan and allow Seishirou to absorb the dizzying vista as it stretches out before them.

The mountain-side itself has been carved into an awe-inspiring facade of faces. Hundreds of miles, perhaps more, sheered away over the countless millenia of tireless demonic labor. The efforts of the quarry have literally worn down the mountains themselves into a series of statues, each over a thousand feet tall.. Hundreds of them, until they disappear into the murky horizon far away. All of this eternal business has led to the point where they are standing now, where thousands of workers toil away by torchlight. Massive Oni cracking whips over the smaller creatures.. Some looking remarkably human.. And smaller beasts in turn intimidating the larger Oni into working yet harder. An ecosystem of master and slave, sheering away the mountains themselves into artifacts of hellish splendor and glory.

The statues themselves are foreign, though oddly familiar. Certain likeness seem as though the Scion of Ryouhara had seen them before. Perhaps in dreams or fairy-tales, if the Engineering Clan had told such things.
Perhaps they are likeness yet to come.

"Magnificent, is it not?" Marise breathes, the mountain air buffeting the partly excavated cliff-side beneath them stirring her ebon locks and kimono. Wicked eyes looking upon these works ... And enthralled. "The Headmaster has been at work here since long before mankind harnessed fire. The greatest of our kind earn the right to be glorified here.. Those strong enough.. wise enough.. brilliant enough. And these.." Gesturing a clawed hand to the enslaved rabble, "... Have earned the right and privilege to exalt them. Do you see.."

Crouching down onto her haunches, a difficult feat at that with her strict apparel, pointing a violet-painted fingernail in the direction of a human cracking the whip upon a massive Oni. A reversal of the typical in this panorama of servitude and bondage, "..That man there. Can you imagine how he had earned the right to bring that massive brute under his thrall? Despite the fact the beast could rend him in two should it turn?"
The Devil glances upward to the Ninja, "Or.. You do not have to imagine.. do you?"

When only pregnant silence meets his word, Ryouhara's dim expression stiffens. Following the woman whose attention seems to wander from him, Ryouhara settles on the forest, asiding the trees.

"So.. this is the Makai."

Few words avail themselves to describe the depths and lengths of the miles-long work that stretch out before their much coddled and cozy vista. Beyond that peak lay a certain trepidation in adventurous industry thuroughly beyond the boy--to whom had only prior been exposed to the urban sprawl and the untamed nature. Though no less work was done here than in even mankind's greatest city, the work of exhultation seems a primal thing to the young man. As well it should, for an endeavor purportedly begun at a time in history before his race discovered the tools with which to record it.

Seishirou takes a single step forward, his gaze smouldering but muted as he glances over the epiphany in the form of parade. None of the facades mean a thing to him in specific--Seishirou has met none of these faces before him, and though his clan left writings, there was comparitively little treatises on ancient history that were not penned by the scattered few historians amongst the artisan class nin. He would be hard pressed to name a single one.

Still, though, that man standing beside Marise has a nigh encyclopedic knowledge of ninkougakujutsu forms--the individual devices of his clan's invent. Even those long since lost to time exist as parcels of memory inside the boy's steel trap of a mind, devices that he is able to recreate in the confines in his head and visualize. This is to the extent that even though his memory fails him the important details of his death even now in the forms of an all-consuming fog, Ryouhara still remembers ninkou decades old. And, several of those faces..

Upon those ninkou's particular ornamental fittings, to his recall..

Though Marise's resonant breath buzzes in his ear, Ryouhara obliges her. Glancing at the person at which she indicates, though not deigning to kneel, Ryouhara is yet forced to squint. His clan are by and large not storytellers. "It is said..." Ryouhara recites slowly, in response to that man, "...that if a man kills enough people, the blood of his victims will make him a demon in his own right." His father was another person entirely. There is still something such as suspicion to Ryouhara about Master Ikou's operations, but the idealism of Marise's perception of things is fitting. "At great cost, that ability.."

"Is that your ambition?"

He seems to reserve a thought or two for later. As she continues, he simply steps aside. "In the end.. the greatest idealists of the world will be remembered by the will of history, if none else." He states this as if Marise's revelation was something he simply knew in his heart all along. He speaks no more of his own individual right and ability to imagine, letting her thought die by the wayside in silence. Only after a moment or two does another materialize.

"..Marise."

He seldom speaks her name directly, but his glance has returned to the infinite stretch.

"Do you imagine that you will one day be recorded in Master Ikou's mountainside as well?"

"Victims. Martyrs. Dreamers. Gods." The Devil recites as her gaze has returned to the stunning vista beyond, "There is always power in blood."
As Ninjutsu's Scion inquires of her directly, her eyebrows lift as she offers a whimsical sniff, "An ambition long-since realized." The Devil Ninja of Koga had sacrificed her humanity long before Seishirou was born. When his father's father first made strides to progress his family's name.. She had long since drowned whatever innocence remained within her.
No. To Marise, the real cost would have been if she had not..
However, as Seishirou recants this fundamental fact from the depth of his being, Marise immediately looks to him. Nodding with absolute sincerity, "Yes. But there are other forces between heaven and Earth than history's will.. And their memories are long indeed. Far longer than the insanity the living, modern age." The Devil insinuates without hiding her blatant disdain for the latter.
The single word of her name is replied with a look.
And a long pause.
Then a very small smile.

Marise's attentions return to the vastness, absently adjusting the shoulder of her kimono as the silence grows uncomfortable. Before long, "The path of the Ninja is to serve, Seishirou. You know this. Our likeness' are never to be carved into the mountains or shouted from on-high. We are the quiet ones. Our works are subtle and selfless. Perhaps you think of me a rebel, but I am not so. I serve Clan and Ideal, I am nothing else. I need be nothing else."
Her head tilts, her inhuman eyes simmer as she stares to the world beyond.
"But if heaven itself stands against me.. Then heaven shall break."

"So you imagine yourself a true shinobi?" Ryouhara asks lightly. There is no implication in his tone, no indicator that he'd given the matter much thought until that exact moment that Marise of Koga brought it up. There is the distinct sense that if Ryouhara held any sort of opinion about Marise's ability as a shinobi, he would have little trouble telling her to her face.

"For everything that is part of your ambition," Ryouhara asides, "a sacrifice must be made." He steps away from the precipice, as if no longer caring to look upon Ikou's work.

"Blood is just the beginning."

Long memories? "You knew my grandfather." Simple fact. Hiretsu Ryouhara was the visage that Seishirou took on to manage the first Jinchuu tournament. "He would remember well. In the old times, there was a clan called Iga." He doesn't need to say much more to someone like Marise to evoke memories of the Edict. "And in that time, there was much persecution and strife amongst the clans. If the will of history is not the only power. If Heaven is something that would stand in your way..is it your intention to cause that strife anew? Is that ... your desire?"

As she clarifies, the boy's attention turns to her more directly and seriously then. An ideological chasm. The world that Seishirou created in the world above had been deemed Nirvana. But if she serves her clan and its ambition.. then to what ambition does she aspire?

The fact that Marise proves capable of hiding the outrage that Seishirou would question her qualifications as Shinobi should be proof enough.
At the mention of sacrifice, Marise's eyes close. Without the constant reminder of those monstrous eyes, she is indeed a beautiful woman. Standing in solemn repose over the edge of that cliff-face.
Of sacrifice, the boy knows much.. But not everything. In that, she is content for him to know just enough.
"It is so." Marise stirs from whatever thoughts she found herself brooding within, admitting to her knowledge of Seishirou's grandfather, "Is it not yours?" Marise then stares straight back at the younger Ninja. His break from the Leaf Academy not unknown to her. The very nature of Jinchuu itself is in stark rebellion of what the old clans would wish.
This ideological chasm is far less grand than the youth perhaps realizes.
"Since you walked amidst the so-called world warriors and fighting kings in the world above, strife has been your legacy. I ask you in turn.. Is that not your desire as well?"
The tall woman stands before him now, inhuman eye to inhuman eye. Shinobi swathed in warrior raiment of old.
"In old times, I remember well there was a clan called Koga. In old times, you remember well there was a clan called Ryouhara."
Eyes glare with lifetimes of hate.
"You have as much intention of letting your name slip quietly into the night.. As I have have of mine."

About Ryouhara stirs attentiveness. He seems to eye Marise--a woman by any other name--with curiosity not dissimilar to that of a young child. But it would be folly to imagine Ryouhara of childish intentions. Seishirou is a perceptive young man, and he may have simply been testing Marise. Either way, as she hides the truth, the boy's eyes settle upon her. Whether it is in appreciation or suspicion..

Perhaps the thing that draws him the most away from the idea is less her grace or her poise, but her words invoking his own relationship with that strife. The boy pauses a moment. Whether it is the fog esconcing his skull or some other distraction, he is taken off of one track of thought onto another.

Does he truly want strife? A moment's thought is not enough. He speaks regardless. "The world above us is already in strife. The peace that has purportedly gripped the world is an illusory thing. People of skill and mind who live out their lives dominated wholly by fortunate tyrants. That is no peace by my frame. That is perversion." He stares evenly with her, his attitude showing little bruising from its earlier encounter with the Headmaster.

So. "...There is still a clan called Ryouhara," Seishirou corrects simply, turning again, this time to walk away from Marise. "My name will be lost to history. That much is undeniable. But it is the right of those who become lost to write their wills in history. That is an immutable law that no king or world warrior can contest."

"If we are but ghosts.."

"Then we've no business looking upon the cherished faces of those who are not."

He may be stopped yet still.

The dark creature has no illusion that the rebel flame would ever be quelled in Seishirou's gaze.
If anything, Marise is relying upon it.
Simply, Marise can only hope to fan it's flames in a direction that isn't problematic towards saving face in the presence of her masters. That the boy stares at her with his head held high, she only tilts her head and replies with a soft, patient smile.
"Tyrants.. Mn." Is all she speaks of that state of affairs. More to this she has to add, but as the youth turns to walk away.. Clearly enough has been spoken for now on that subject.

As Seishirou denies the end of his line, Marise's brow lifts in jovial accusation, "Oh? Then the cold and distant Seishirou has sowed his wild oats? A boy or a girl, I wonder? Twins?"

Then, a change of subject, "Come now, Seishirou." Marise's amusement dampens a single degree. Taking not a step after him as the distance begins to grow, "What are ghosts if not wills of history that refuse to leave their masterpiece yet unwritten?"
She then gestures in a different direction, a sweeping hand offering a different route than his current one. One directed towards the other side of the mountain range and.. Should genius intellect process vaguely Honshu topography.. The direction of Kyoto.
"If it is your interest to yet nurture the business of those cherished faces, then the way is this." Tilting her head in that direction welcomingly, her pleased smile returning.

Ryouhara takes a step forward.

It is the last one he will take for a few moments.

Now still, the young man frowns as Marise brings up the subject of his clan's continuance in a far more.. literal fashion. He breathes outward once, a soft vocalization accompanying the breath.

"...Enough."

It would seem Marise hit upon a sour note for the shinobi. Seishirou does not face Marise. "There is no fate for a Ryouhara living but to die. That is the nature of the 'poison' that the tyranny of the Hirano placed within us. I wasted years attempting to think of the way to close the circle that is my line."

But...

"I will not burden another blooded Ryouhara with that ignoble end."

The clan will live on through its ideology, its works.

And most importantly, his preparations. Marise speaks of masterpieces, and that, at the least, is something Seishirou can get behind. "My children are made of stone, steel and fire. Of ideas, of reason. They will be coveted as surely as any boy covets a father's daughter. Then, the children that my children will bear will be a new world entirely. That is the meaning of the world 'revolution,' and that is something any father would be proud of."

Ryouhara smiles faintly in the dark.

"Would you care to meet my children one day..Marise..?"

His voice is silk, innocence and invitation.

His eyes flick to the far distance as Marise indicates the proper direction of what he would be a fool not to recognize as the direction of something similar to Kyoto, stealing a glance from her to follow the direction of her gesture. The shinobi shakes his head once. "Of course. We've business. A pilgrimage to be made. But do you have so much credence with the Headmaster as to allow me to forget my promise?"

Seishirou, you see, knows exactly where he's going.

Marise can feel free to lead him wherever she pleases.

At her risk?

"It is the fate.." Marise immediately corrects, "For all men living but to die." Allowing no fatalistic succor for the young man's morose dictum. "Kami are to blame for this."
For the Hirano, The Devil voices their inclusion not. She knows well the vitrol that can be exchanged between rival clans, she would never deny Seishirou his for his enemies. No more so than she appreciates his lack of defense for the Iga for their crimes, yet to be returned in full.
he Koga rarely lived to an elderly age. Their ways are ones of blood and death, few can walk such a path for long and remain among the living. For them, and early Death is not a curse.. It is a way of life. A choice, not damnation.

Though, Seishirou boasts of his true children, of the great works that shall endure in their name ... And neither can Marise deny him this. She nods slowly, acceptingly of that faint smile, flinching not at all at what dire promise lie behind those pleased lips.

"Unquestionably." Comes the Devil's soft, smiling reply.

And then Seishirou brings up mention of his ... deal.

To which Marise's expression is caught somewhere between a laugh and a heavy sigh. Violet fingertips touching her cheek, visually reinforcing her inward dilemma.. Though it has little to do with Seishirou's suggestion.
"You.. Do not seem to understand what you've done. The lesson comes unfortunate then.. But I suppose it is a good one to learn." Marise finally explains, rolling her bare, beautiful shoulders in a helpless shrug, palms to the sky.
"You gave the Stone Lord a day. You did not say when. Or how. You promised him twenty four hours of service.. And he will collect, of that you can count. But not now. You see.."
She begins to step in his direction, toes stirring the dust upon stone in absolute silence, "He will wait now. To see how your.. Journey unfolds. Mortal you may be, nothing you claim yourself, but a great prince of men you are. Of that, he can see at a glance. Through me he can see, he knows what I hope of you. He knows what I hope you will become... And if you become what I so greatly desire.."
She then stands before him, smiling whistfully.
"Then he'll take those twenty four hours and devour what you cherish most, when you finally have it in your hands."

And then, she steps past him. The fringes of her soft, silken kimono brushing his leg, "It seems I am now to share your children with a demon far greater than I. As generous as you fancy yourself, please at least consider what the westerners call an 'expiration date' when next you speak of contracts?"

The shinobi's lips draw a touch at Marise's internment.

The woman's movements, her words are briefly arcane to him, as he attempts tosuss out her intentions as she instructs him in the way of things originated both above and beneath the world. His gaze flicks quickly from point to point, his eyes narrowing in suspicion as she comes close enough to touch. Finally, his eyes just half-lid, sliding shut to that mesmeric cicada's inky silhouette.

"...Before you continue. Let me remind you of something about the Ryouhara."

Ryouhara's arms exit his sleeves, slowly drawing closer to his body as his arms fold underneath the hang of his haori, leaving the overcoat's sleeves to drift lazily in the wind.

"The life that our bloodline has been given, the grandeur and elegance of our strength has come at great cost. Our patriarch bargained our years to the Hirano for our freedom. First he did so in blood and steel, then by suffering us the undying spite, did so again in misery. Ikou-sama took my mother away from me. My father and my brother. He left me the freedom of 'that' dismal fate. And if you were to ask me, 'Do I hate him?'"

He says nothing for a time, coming to a decision.

"From now on.. understand what I mean when I say 'a price gladly paid.'"

The sharp-eyed glance Ryouhara gives his hostess then when his eyes next open should explain the rest. He is inexorable, and no quarter is granted. A decidedly male outlook to say the least. But it is not reasonless. Seishirou has no hope for himself, and he has truly no concept of what is 'cherished' beyond his ideas and his creations. An absence of fear is simply an absence of anything to lose. That is the life that is lived when you abandon a 'human' life for idealism. It is a belief so long ingrained that Seishirou has forgotten what it is like to smile from the heart.

"Having bargained so much to preserve your grace in front of the Headmaster..." Ryouhara observes, cold and placid at once, but clearly no longer in any sort of a serene mood, "...we should hurry onward. My blood has not yet cooled. After all.."

He watches her closely.

"I'm interested to see what it is you so desire of me, Koga."

As Ryouhara bids the Demoness to pause, she does so. Yielding her egress as she half-turns back towards him, her elegant eyebrow lifting beneath the veil of her shadowed locks as she shealths her arms within the confines of her elegant vestments. A precise reversal of Seishirou's drawn hands. Allowing him the floor without interjection, and for once without that knowing smile that seems to forever mock all that exists.
The details of Ryouhara's schism is unknown to Marise Koga, though perhaps the broad-strokes had reached her peripheral understanding. The war of names between vassals and liege lords is hardly unknown.. One could call it the natural growth of all Clans. Koga was not without its inner uprisings and revolutions, nor the Iga. She knows of the Imawano and the Kirishima. Of a hundred feuds in the great history of those who follow the paths of shadow. In these matters, Seishirou only finds kinship in Marise's inhuman eyes.
No interjections, no rebuttals. She only listens, and understands.
At the culmination of his words, she only then wordlessly nods with a grace born of decades.
These are words she simply had to hear from the youth's own mouth, before she could accept them as a matter implicit.

To this final question, only then does she stir from stillness. A single hand slipping from her Kimono to gesture forth then, the way of Kyoto.
"Douzo. Seishirou-san."
The first time ever an honorific has been used for the boy. A concession? A reward for his words and deeds? Perhaps, for once, she seems what the samurai would refer to as 'honored', if the concept could ever be understood by a creature such as she.


[ To be continued . . . ]

Log created on 23:09:44 04/12/2010 by Seishirou, and last modified on 23:02:45 02/20/2011.