Description: Deep in the forest, not one, but two people run shy of the idealism of Seishirou Ryouhara as he combs the world for worthy champions. The first was some thug of no great import, some man who wished to enhance his fame. The second, however... the blood of Towazu, is she? A shame. Ryouhara's ire knows few bounds, but does she have the strength--the will--to be something more than she is now? Time will tell.
There are several things that set Elisabeta Valente off in the world nearby Southtown and other such things. most of these things are things are not too odd for people that were born in such a world, but for a dancer and a /dancer/ feeling her way around town, she oftentimes found herself perplexed. Which was odd, with her tendancy to think things through(Eventually. Sometimes it took a few weeks.)
Promise I'll be Kind
But I won't stop until that boy is mine
However, she has not been quiet, and while that may be both a flaw and a good thing, in this case, it means that personal time has been a very hard thing to get, and the young woman has finally fled to the quiet forest clearing in the twilight, in the utterly early morning light that means no one should be chasing her. Especially since her search has made it very clear she's seeking Alma, and such a name in such a place it both dangerous - and safe.
Baby you'll be famous
Chase you down until you love me
As the light filters down through the spring-blooming trees, 'Beta flexes, slipping out of her ballet slippers to let her delicate feet slip across the grass before she starts working into a simple series of exercises. Mmm, comfort, and blessed silence.
It's not like anyone -stalked- her. Right?
And that's when things start catching fire.
To be fair, it's only one tree that basically collapses into ash the moment a man's body goes through it, rolling across the clearing in a vaguely smouldering heap of fighter until he slumps to a stop, groaning at the precipice between consciousness and unconsciousness. He's a burly one, clad in sparse sections of armor, likely to enhance whatever it is their fighting style is.
Shame it didn't help.
"Unfortunately, a mentality like that won't go far.."
Ryouhara's arrival is surprisingly subdued, compared to the person he sent before him. The shinobi steps over the piles of still-flaming ash after the larger man, seeming for all the while like some kind of ghost. His grey haori, made of some kind of silk, conceals his hands. The wispy fabric drifts in the air at the slightest movement of the wind.
Eyes sharp and dead ahead.
That's the kind of look the young man has about him.
"You're too focused on fame," Ryouhara concludes.
"You won't be a fitting champion for the new world. But at least you'll live on to become stronger."
His attention is focused as peripheral at best upon Elisabeta during the whole exchange. He seems to be completely aware of her presence, but it's as if she's only a passive onlooker to him until he dispenses with his other charge. Then, the weight of his attention settles, shifting focus. His focus seems to choke out all pretenses around him, as if a tangible thing. The /air/ seems to get warmer wherever he goes. "What a pity," Seishirou decides. "It seems there was an audience to my charge's failure." He notices the fact she's not wearing shoes.
"A strong earth-rooted style," he muses to himself. "Karate, perhaps..."
He turns towards Elisabeta at once. And looks dead at her.
"If you value your existence as you are now, you'll leave."
So much for -silence-, you two.
Elisabeta slowly pirouettes on one foot to face the pair, her black eyes falling down from the grey haori to the one in the armor and then it flits to the smoking piles of ash. While she doesn't noticably move into any specific position, the fact that the air around her blurrs as she shifts is a signal that she's on her guard.
"Capoeira." She says, voice soft. "Not particularly earth-rooted, although get us in water and we do tend to have some issues. Yet... dance is flexible, in and of itself, so it is hard to say what the style truly is."
As he tells her to leave, her jaw tightens - the smallest bit.
"I was here first."
He breathes outward, quiet.
She's on her guard, as if she intends to fight him.
Interesting.
The shinobi slowly moves towards Elisabeta. "The same style as Aranha," Ryouhara mentions incisively. "A soft art focused on gyroscopic meandering and stabilities. Hm. Popular, but relatively obscure."
But she refuses to leave.
He shakes his head.
He begins to approach.
One step, then two. Through the grass, Ryouhara pads towards this capoeirista. "I don't recall you asking who was here first. As birds can yet drown, this world is not--yet--fair or merciful." He settles quietly, tilting his head just so in curiosity of the person who'd stand before him and flash even an ounce of defiance. He purses his lips. "You show me such a pretty face... But maybe you don't have a soul of your own to cherish yet."
He blinks once.
"I told you.. to go."
Elisabeta is dead quiet without her shoes on, something that comes from years of ballet practice and even the occasional jazz-tap dance routine. As he moves closer, she just holds her position, the lightly shifting, almost hyper-active bobbing from foot to foot. Her black eyes in the dark don't reveal much, unless he gets too up close and personal...
In which case there is sheer stubborness.
And perhaps, a bit of fire herself.
"Why should I leave on your word?" She asks, voice soft, warm, flecked with -- not anger, but passion.
There is a peculiar quality to her voice.
It is not the cool, cavalier attitude to which he is accustomed. The shinobi frowns at Elisabeta, only faintly incensed by her attitude, but entirely so by something else which he cannot yet put a thought to.
When Ryouhara moves, it is with muted sound alone, as if his stride were simply uncaring of the capoeirista's quick bobbing movements. There is the sense that behind every step is a thought, and behind every thought is a plan. To the young lady's passion, there is only the white-hot edge of that boy's attention. There is no otherwise rhythmic movement about him. The boy is already ready. He is someone who acts in an instant.
"You seem to take your life into your own hands quickly," he observes.
He doesn't need to indicate the beaten man nearby.
"You're not leaving on my word. You're leaving on my will."
His voice is like unsheathing steel.
That spark of fire in her voice is the one revelation that when it comes to passion versus ice, she's all fire, and it takes the ice block of sensibility to cool her down. As such, she watches him warily, body shifting to watch him as he steps - closer, farther away, she's not that sure, but all she knows is that she's very wary. Physically, mentally, he seems to have an edge on her, and as such, she's careful not to press him too much.
"Why?"
Such a simple question, yet, sometimes, such a hard one to answer.
He is behind you.
It seemed for a moment that he would be satisfied with that much, that much distance between them, a few spans of space between them, enough for a man to lay down and die comfortably in. But it isn't that much. A moment of confusion is enough. Between eyeblinks, the shinobi took a single step--and passed Elisabeta in an instant. The movement is silent. Without any sound, or visibility of motion, it's easy to believe he'd been there the whole time. A soft breeze stirs the haori at his flanks, the only evidence he'd moved at all.
In absolute terms, he stands back-to-back with the woman, the 'swirling leaves' clan symbol at his back the only thing he shows her now. His hands are at his sides, still ephemeral in the sleeves of his jacket. There is nothing that says he intends to attack. But -- standing this close to him is to be subject to his 'Shinrou Kiritsu' -- an aura of heat that surrounds him. The source of the heat in the air, the taste of ember on the tongue.
It -is- a simple question.
"Because someone such as you isn't ready for the world you've seen."
If he hears the riling fire in her voice, he doesn't show it.
A judgment passed instantly, from one glance. It seems enough.
"Is it something you're prepared to argue with me?"
Back to back. Yin, Yan. Sun, moon. Fire, Fire.
One of these is very, very right.
Elisabeta may have grace in her movement, but his ability to move gets a startled gasp from the young woman, her black eyes flashing as carefully, calmly turns around staring at his back. Her jaw works slowly as she considers his clan symbol on his back, not speaking yet - she is too busy getting comfortable with the feeling of the heat against her slim body, and the ember of the char of flesh and wood on her tongue.
"I am not arguing." She merely states, her voice soft. "I am seeking answers, and these answers require me to see the world. How am I supposed to learn if I am sheltered?"
"Hmph.."
He's heard that before. His scoff comes with it the slow exhale and low vocalization of a boy vexed. Jet black bangs conceal his eyes as he lowers his head just so, studying the downed body just behind Elisabeta--and just before him.
"You know, there have been many who have come to this world seeking answers. Men who believe the only answer to life can be found in the fist. Becoming stronger, and gaining more experience through their battles. Many of these lay in the dirt now, realizing their folly only moments before their death."
"There is more than one world out there. Seeing some will necessarily change you forever. There are no second chances where the self is concerned."
He smirks. For one, slim, roughened fingers appear at the very edge of his jacket sleeve as he lifts his hand to cover his mouth, stifling an idle laugh.
"... So. Do you like who you are?"
He scoffs. She tchs back at him.
She knows that he is vexed. When you've dealt with the boys that tend to follow her around, you learn to pick up the little things that make their emotions clear to her. In this way, she's a little heart-breaker. Drop one when he gets vexed. Drop the other when he gets sad. Drop the third when he starts getting angry. Keep them guessing.
She can't do that here.
"I seek only the answer to a simple yes or no quesiton." Elisabeta says, voice iron-forged steel now as he laughs so idly. "Do you know Alma?" She ignores his taunting for a brief moment as her black eyes concentrate on him in a bit of a fury.
"Do I like who I am?"
She looks down at her barely-clothed figure, and tchs again.
"When have I ever?" Her voice is dry now, and there's a small slump to her shoulders. "To be treated as a sex toy, to be called slut and whore, when I'm the only one left in my class with their virginity?" She gives a short, hollow laugh, fire briefly radiating from her in a flicker. "But one can't change who she is right now, but only change it later.
As she speaks, his glance never falls upon her. There is only the judgment of symbology; the emblem of the Ryouhara ichizoku, the only eye staring at her now. As she asks him such a simple question, Ryouhara's expression darkens, his frown only one of degrees. For someone as inexpressive as the mountain itself, it is enough.
"Alma..." he repeats, with darkening familiarity.
"Such a name... means less than nothing to me."
"There are men who presume to be striving for the purity of the world, exulting their fell wisdom with their tongues. Those same then find the tyrants that hold the world in their ill-fitting grip, to bend knee and service them as a whore might. Those men are cherished and heralded as heroes. Meanwhile, in the darkest bowels of society, those reviled as harlots and tramps have done more for the turning of this new world than any other. Kunoichi in anything but name. The world of the light is one blinded to its own hypocrisy."
"Tell me..." the boy continues, his tone still darkened but with the edge of dire curiosity that suggests that one's words may determine his next action. "...How do you know of 'Alma?'"
His voice drips a disgust that seems to span generations.
"I see." Elisabeta says quietly, even as she continues to be gazed at by the judgement of Ryouhara ichizoku, the lone eye of symbology. She sees the darkened expression, the tiny frown, and the corner of her mouth twitches faintly - almost up into a smile, but also dipping down into a faint frown.
"He is my cousin. He has no idea I am alive."
The words, while flat, have the edge of honesty that do explain absolutely everything, even as she doesn't move a muscle. If she's breathing, it is honestly hard to tell.
There is - anticipation, almost, in the air.
"... I see."
"That's a shame."
The symbol on his back seems to frown.
There is an audible clack inside of Ryouhara's sleeve--then the sound of discharging air. An unfolding(!?) scabbard slams into the warming soil, embedding itself there so the weapon stands straight up. A click, and the hilt koshira pops free with a snap of steam. Though the sword itself seems nondescript, with only the etching of a tengu to decorate the otherwise bare scabbard, it's a bizarre weapon--a full length unfolding sword that can be concealed in the jacket. Before the weapon even fully decompresses, Ryouhara's hand is on the hilt, his whole body whirling.
Then, in a breath's span, the blade is at Elisabeta's throat.
For some reason, he doesn't cut her right then. Though Seishirou Ryouhara moves like the wind, there is something that stays his hand--should she stand still, his blade is only an inch from her throat, and the poit rests somewhere at her collar. The cold bite of even steel is there--even this close, it's hard to tell where the seam is from where Ryouhara unfolded the sword.
"You seem to have poor luck in blood," Seishirou states flatly, wisps of his hair having gone rogue about his face for such exertion and speed. "Fortunately, there is only so much of it in you. If I can take out enough of it, perhaps you will not be so unfortunate when you are reborn.."
"This will be the price of your blood and the story of you," Seishirou decides at once. "Beyond your ill reputed life, there lay only a destiny of strife and pain. Everything has a price. Even the answer you seek. The price now is in in blood. What cost is justifiable to be something more than you are? Answer."
"You don't."
"It isn't, yet it is."
If it frowns, then Elisabeta notes it, except -- there's a clack, then a embedding THUD of a scabbard into the ground. She tenses a slightly bit more, then there's a click, and snap, and steam - and then the whirl of metal on air. Thank god, she doesn't move.
She can feel the bite of the cold steel against her bare skin, the poit on her bare shoulder. The sheer musculature of his arm that is required to hold the position and not let the blade quiver. She relaxes, though, as he states the poor luck she has.
Elisabeta hesitates.
Then she moves.
Leaning, even moving slightly so the blade slips from her collar to her throat, she jerks her head slightly, slicing open the smallest slice of skin. Red drips down the relatively smooth cut, and she licks suddenly dry lips. She doesn't say anything yet, just takes a few deep inhales and slow exhales, before she turns her head slightly.
"I am going to be very honest with you." She whispers, voice rough, still with that spark of passion, but still taut with anticipation. "Everything has a price. To be more than what I am, I would ask what being more than I am requires, but yet, I feel I know the answer."
A pause, pregnant with -- not fear. Never fear, not from Elisabeta Valente. Curiosity, maybe.
"... to that, I answer, there is no justifiable cost, because there is no justifiable way of putting something like that in merchant terms."
That's all it was. Whatever one imagines one sees in his kamon is only a figment of the imagination. Just an illusion of no import. But it seems all too fitting..
"To what do you imagine you speak?" Ryouhara asks, imperiously.
He holds that stance for some time, his blade moving only with his slow breath, even and heated with his sudden decision of excision. In that moment, he has the young lady, the self-proclaimed toy, at an impasse. His blade could cut through her at a moment's notice, and that would be that. If the edge of his blade is as sharp as his gaze, it would certainly easy to believe that.
"Everything strong in this world requires sacrifice. Ambition, integrity, honesty... even companionship." The edge to his own voice is not at all like Elisabeta's. Not at all with that passion and tension in equal amounts. Ryouhara speaks as if he's already made every decision he's ever going to make in his life, expectation taking the place of tension. He speaks as if he knows nothing of passion, his voice void of betraying emotion. That voice bears the scars of history. Confidence takes the place of passion. An ice-cold demeanor, as chilling as the bite of his steel, eclipses the rest.
"That in itself is cost. This is not the cost of the pointless mercantile castes, but the only cost that is important--the barter of the spirit." He seems to reach some sort of internal decision, and his hand seems to lift slightly before..
Elisabeta tests the sharpness of his edge.
She moves ever slightly against the cold touch of his blade, until the dancer draws her own blood fearlessly, sending long crimson lines down the waving temper-lines of his blade, staining it with her countenance. This is enough to give the Ryouhara scion pause. "Hmph."
"We've danced long enough."
Ryouhara's eyes narrow. Unfortunately, it's hard to see behind his wave of inky black bangs. "You speak naively. The world which you are so eager to learn doesn't abide by the conscripted ideologies of half-wits and minions. It is history itself, the history that is never written. If that is your true feeling--that there can be no price to be paid... then you should go."
For some reason, his sword lifts away from her, as he strips the blood away from it with one pass of a produced handkerchief. This blade is set into the buried scabbard with the same click he used to draw it. Ryouhara turns away again, sparing her the weight of his glance. He takes the sheathed blade from the earth with him.
He begins to walk away.
"Find your cousin, and ask him about the world that /he/ sees when he wakes."
But Ryouhara doesn't strike her. He doesn't hurt her at all.
"If you think differently.. then come find me. Stand before me as someone who is not afraid to pay any cost."
That's all there was. That's all it was. Whatever it is, it is simply an illusion, and in this world where chi is more than it seems and a commoner can be more than the highest merchant classes, illusions have more impact than they seem. So, Elisabeta lets out a little huff of breath, her black eyes glinting in the light that barely shines into the woodsy area.
"To be better than who I am." She replies, voice soft.
His gaze does not faze her. The blade, however, whirled red with her blood that continues to hang at her neck does, and her body remains at its' most tense that it has throughout the past few months since she came to the Southtown area and started her search for the part of her family that has for so long remained an utter mystery. As such, she keeps her eyes not locked on the bloodied blade, but on the man holding it, for it is not a boy that does, nor a teen.
"Everything in this world requires a sacrifice, not just everything strong." Elisabeta points out softly. "I gave up my ambition a long time ago when I was told I'd forever be an only child. One follows best what their parents put before them, yes?" Her voice, as she speaks, goes calmer, quieter, the edge of the coal just starting to burn in the fire. Why her flame goes down becomes clear in a few seconds when at it's smallest, she is at her fiercest. "I would give it all up, haven't you heard?" Her voice turns slightly mocking.
"The spirit is broken, but the body is willing. Or the body is broken, but the spirit is willing. It is never anything else, but one or the other. It is never that both are willing, someone that has always been willing to barter their soul for whatever it is that needed done - their hearts desire or not."
Her black eyes spark in the light, a challenging fire.
She is going weak, slightly, not quite used to having deliberately given herself such a blow that sends temper-waves on his silver blade. However, her face firm, muscles taut, she gives him no sign of the dance having any fatigue on her other than a simple flick of a hand on which blood had dripped.
"No, we have not."
This is a bold, black statement. Her eyes focus on his frame that lifts the sword away, her hands loosely curled up next her body as she listens to him. "Naiveity is just a thing, one that is often exchanged for wisdom and knowledge. You too, were once a student. Then you became a master - and figured out the price for yourself." Her black eyes study him more intently.
"I did not say there was no price to be paid. I merely said it would be hard pressed to determine such a pricing. Many would haggle for what you seem to be offering. Yet, you seem to believe that there is only one price that can be given. A soul is special. I have heard the stories. Of the soul-bound, of the lost. And those that have given up who they are for the higher acension... this is what you offer."
"As long as I am not afraid to bleed, not the blood of my body, but the heart of my soul." Her words reflect softly in the dark as he turns to walk away.
"I shall ask him, if I can find him."
A pause. "Afraid? I have never been afraid, truly. Curiosity, yes. You have given me my first taste of fear." Another pause. "I respect you for it." There is no sarcasm.
Walking away, Ryouhara doesn't even look back.
His grip tightens on the sheath of his blade. The twisting of flesh is so loud in the silence that you can hear it. She speaks to him of her ambition and of its abandonment, of her thoughts on the body and the spirit. She challenges, they fire in her eyes falling upon an incomprehensibly grey attitude surrounding him, to match with the flowing silks he wears.
"Stop...!"
Tilting his head slightly, the young man lifts the blade to his hip, attaching it to an unseen catch at the pack which hangs suspended there. "Long ago, there was a boy who had a family, which he loved above everything else. A boy who didn't understand the curse this family had upon it. Did not understand what price had to be paid for their freedom and his consequent birth."
"That boy still exists, somewhere in the past."
The young man whom Elisabeta refers to... does he exist at all?
"But this 'body' you speak of.. is immaterial. For the ghosts who walk in the dark, there is no such thing, no such limiter. There is no dichotomy of forces. There can be no negotiation. There can be no fatigue. There is only what is needed, and what can be achieved. The difference between the two is sacrifice and will. You understand cost, but until you stand before us, you will not understand sacrifice. Giving up what you never knew to do the things that must be done. The things that that body wants so badly, gone. Replaced with will and fortitude. Giving up with zeal--when you stand before us, you will understand that much."
Ryouhara smirks, slightly, still not looking back.
Does she fear now? Does she understand powerlessness?
Good.
"Because the alternative to understanding is to be reaped."
As if to punctuate the importance of his words, he leans down and picks up the man he felled by the hair, the large man seeming only pence of effort to him. "After you see him, and know his selfish misgivings, if you still think you have tasted sacrifice... we will meet in the darkest place."
"There, your survival will determine your fitness to walk the shadowed path."
And then, as if an illusion all along, the Ryouhara scion's image seems to stretch along with his wizened charge. He kneels slightly, the muscles in his legs bunching. With that and a swirl of wind and hot embers, he is simply gone.
He doesn't look back, but yet-- in a situation like this, Elisabeta understands that this is something that should be happening. It makes the situation more ... interesting, not to mention, not being able to see his face, the little telltales she normally can see emotion-wise are hidden. She takes a deep breath, and nods as she listens to him faintly.
She watches him quietly, even in the faint seconds between his last words and the swirl of wind, and her heart beats.
Ba-dum.
Ba-dum.
"Sacrifice. Of the heart, of the body, of the soul." She whispers. "I see - yet, I have a strong suspicion I don't."
Who was that stranger? Why did he make her so -- well. Curious, at the very least? Black eyes close, and she sinks into a meditation seat on the ground of the woods.
Log created on 22:35:19 04/11/2011 by Seishirou, and last modified on 01:41:08 04/17/2011.