Description: With her fight winnings building up, Ayame probably doesn't need to hit the streets of crime-torn Sunshine City in search of easy prey. But old habits die hard and she doesn't exactly have anything more interesting to do. What seems to be a harmless old codger proves to be anything but when Ayame accosts yet another victim in the streets. Against everything she would have expected, this little outing leaves the wayward girl with much more to think on. And Adon's wallet as a free bonus!
The world's attention has focused on Sunshine City, intensifying emotion like a lens focuses the sun. It is palpable, this tension. As though the entire city is boiling over, preparing to burst into flames and chaos.
It is dark tonight, the pollution of the city has hid the stars, and the moon is obscured by clouds. Cold, shadowy. This entire place is a monument to past glories; faded and better times. Rusting hulks that speak of a time when Sunshine City could have been so much more. Possibilities, decaying into dust.
Sunshine City has risen and fallen within Oro's lifetime, and as the hermit walks these decaying streets, it is as just one tiny man. The robes he wears do not do much to flatter his image. Bent almost double, his hooked nose and beady eyes make him look, ultimately, weak. Despite the strangeness of his bronzed skin, and the undeniable musculature, there is very little about the Sannin which speaks to strength right now. Perhaps deliberately so.
Because Oro cares nothing about the troubles of Sunshine City. The gang warfare and endless petty struggles of the men and women who live out their lives here are not his concern; it is not his place to interfere, and he will not. No. Oro is searching only for that one elusive thing. That person with the potential to do what he cannot.
So far, since that first eventful night, he has not been troubled by the gangs, criminals and ne'erdowells who stalk the Sunshine City streets. After all, what is the point of hassling a man who looks like he does?
Tonight, however, he just seems lost. A confused, doddering old man wandering around the industrial district, staring vacantly into the middle-distance at the rusting hulks all around, as though... trying to pierce the veil of time itself, and see what it was which was here before.
When word of Sunshine City's plight first became the subject of nightly news broadcasts, with press events and announcements of some tournament, Ayame paid it all very little attention. She had her own problems to deal with. Besides, she couldn't imagine why anyone would participate in a /charity/ tournament. The spokesholes said something about it being used to raise awareness of the urban city's travail and hopefully bring in some sponsorships to help clean up the streets or at least push back the surging criminal element...
Ayame didn't care much about any of that. But when her own troubles began to cool off, relatively speaking, she started paying more attention. The escalation of events, the commotion and bruhaha over whatever it was that Seijyun Princess was up in arms over, the flustered, overwhelmed police force... It looked to her like a recipe for opportunity. And thus she made her way to the West Coast of the United States. It looked to her like police were in over their heads trying to cover up some kind of controversy anyway, so law enforcement in the city was probably an all time pathetic low.
Ayame took to the outskirts and began working her way inward, trying to find the perfect line between complete anarchy and the fringes of civilization. Those were going to be the prime hunting grounds. The experienced rogue wasn't afraid of the criminal element of the outter areas. She /is/ the criminal element! Or at least, a willing and eager participant. A long time spent lurking among the gangs of both Southtown and Metro render her capable of slipping through the occupied territories without too much trouble. Agile and quick, the rooftops and fire escapes are her safest bet and provide ample places to perch and scout for opportunities.
She'd occupied herself with waylaying stray gang members who wandered off on their own. The girl wasn't looking for a fight. She didn't want a challenge. Just some fast, easy profit. Jewelry and expensive phones tended to be her priorities. Small, worth a lot compared to the hassle they were to transport, and extremely easy to find fences willing to trade for. And they were something nearly every ganger, no matter how low on the pecking order, would likely be packing.
The girl sits on a fire-escape landing idly, sorting through the contents of a medium sized satchel sitting on her lap. So far it's been a good haul, she muses. One ring alone in the bag pays for the plane ticket out and back, which means everything else she gets her hands on will be pure profit. She'll be gone before anyone gets wise to her mugging spree and the chances of law enforcement doing anything at all about it would be close to nil.
Hearing someone shuffling around below in an all together unhurried fashion, the girl glances over the edge to see what the next opportunity is going to be. The girl grimaces a little. The guy barely looked worth the hassle! But... sometimes vagabonds can have surprises in their looted treasures. It was worth taking a look all the same. Closing up her satchel, she slips it over her shoulders and then begins working her way down to a lower perch.
A sharp butterfly knife is flicked open in her right hand as she springs over the first story railing to drop down to the alleyway floor right in front of her latest prey. In his condition, she's not expecting a fight. The show of blade should be enough to get him to cooperate and make this as easy as possible. "Hold it," the strawberry blonde declares, standing up straight in front of him, right hand extended, blade pointed forward. "Don't do anything stupid and this will be relatively painless."
The smog covered sky and unreliable street lamps make the old guy harder to see than she would like, shadows doing much to mask his haggard appearance. But with a target like this, does it really matter? Taking a step forward, she's about four feet away when she stops. "Empty your pockets, let's see if you got anything worthwhile!" This would be quick and then she'll take back to the rooftops. It would be bad to get caught by any gang members smart enough to not walk around solo after all!
For a few moments, Oro doesn't do a thing. Ayame lands in front of him, and he just stares at her. Not even blinking, not budging an inch. He certainly doesn't look worried about the knife; but then, it is as though he hasn't even registered that Ayame exists! Then, suddenly, he does blink. Ancient, withered features pulling down into a deep, deep frown. There are few men in this world capable of frowning as low as Oro.
"What is a pretty girl like you doing trying to mug an old man?"
He sounds, genuinely curious. There's just no fear in him. Ayame's entrance had been dramatic, impressive even, but, she's going to have to do an awful lot more than threaten him with a knife if she wants to make him afraid. Slowly, those strange red eyes of his slide from the young girl's face, down to the knife in her hands. His one good arm comes up, and he waves it vaguely.
"That's the trouble with you youngsters these days. Too much in a rush. What happened to saying hello? That's what I want to know. Besides."
He takes a step forwards, and suddenly she will find her hand being wrapped in his; not to hurt her, but to raise the knife up, turn it a little to the side. Quite, when he covered that ground, took her hand, is incredible. A fraction of a second; less than the blinking of an eye.
"Your stancing is all wrong, you see? Like this, your wrist will bend less. More threatening. See? If you put your legs a little more apart, you might even be able to put some punch into it."
Throughout the helpful pointers, he sounds more chiding than menaced. Though he releases her hand quickly enough, running his fingers back through his hair. "Ah, but this is the bit where I am scared, right? Do you really intend to use that thing?"
Maybe he's blind, Ayame muses at first glance. He doesn't seem particularly sharp witted. Maybe he's dumb AND blind? If so, the odds of him having anything worth her trouble are pretty slim. But she has to make sure before she gives the old codger a kick in the rump and sends him on his way. The slow, deep frown doesn't bother her. She wasn't exactly looking for a stunning approval from the guy, but the calm voice with which he voices his initial question does catch her off guard if only because it indicates he isn't a mental invalid afterall.
"That's not really particularly important, is it? Quit stalling and just get this over with." Her own stance is lazy as is her guard. She's already dismissed this mark as somewhat of a joke. There's got to be some stupid gangster roaming around that'll be more worth her time. "Eeeh? Hello? What's that got to do with anything? Obviously, I've got to be in a rush if I want to make any money off someone as broke as you. Jeez-"
She isn't sure when he moved. If she had seen it she would have reacted herself. All she knows is that he has a firm, decidedly strong grip on her hand. Pulling against his hold seems to avail her nothing, "Hey, let go-" she protests. He lifts her hand a little, "But I-" Ayame blinks. He IS right, she knows, as he improves upon her lazy stance, correcting her slouch, pointing her to placing her feet in place to better support a lunge without losing her balance. Most of it she knew inherently, but some of his corrections are so mathmatically correct for her given height, weight, reach, and balance that she can't help but marvel at the accuracy of it.
As he lets go of her hand, Ayame simply stares back at him, holding the posture indicated as he asks her more questions that she's not really enjoying in the slightest. "It would be quite helpful, yes," she replies dryly to his first inquiry. She doesn't sound serious about it. He's tipped his hand enough for her to know that she's not in the presence of a crippled old man. To his second question, she glances at the knife in her hand, standing up straight, tossing it into a low spin in the air and catching it by the handle on its way back down, "Well, I DO know how to use it..."
She frowns a little, lowering her right hand against her side, her left hand resting at her hip. "But you seem to have some passing familiarity with knives like this. You have wasted some of my time though, so I'm not inclined to leave empty handed. I'm not just a common thug! You may know a thing or two about fighting, but I'll still get what I want out of you in the end! So just make this easy and show me what you've got! I suspect it's all worthless anyway, but now that we've gotten to know each other so well, I might as well see what it is anyway!"
Oro's frown is now merely 'grumpy' rather than 'risking touching the pavement'. He doesn't pay any attention at all to the spinning knife. He had experimented with weapons of course, in his younger days. Now, though, he has moved on from that. The human body can be forged to be far more powerful than steel. The question is... could this girl grasp that fundamental truth?
Lazy stance. Lazy thinking. Lazy showboating. Lazy lazy lazy lazy! The old man does his best to pay attention to Ayame's explanation, but as she announces that they know each other so well... he sits down. Cross-legged, he seems quite comfortable. Comfortable enough to close his eyes, as his hand reaches into his robes, and casually tosses a wallet up into the air.
The arc is entirely perfect, and enough force put into it to pin the expensive leather thing right to Ayame's blade. Getting it off might be a bit tricky, but far from impossible. There's hundreds of dollars in there, and a wide variety of the usual tat one accumulates in modern living (when you happen to be an arrogant rich-living jackass). In short, it does not seem like the sort of thing that this strange old man would be carrying around with him.
The driving license in there backs this up; it is Adon's wallet.
"Is that all you want? Youth is so wasted on the young. Setting your sights... so low. You could have..." He yaaaaawns, long, and loud. It would be entirely reasonable for Ayame to suspect that he's going to keep talking. His tone certainly implied that he had a lot more to say...
But with his eyes closed and his legs crossed, Oro has... fallen asleep? A gentle snoring comes from the ancient hermit, and a snot bubble sloooowly blossoms from his nose. In many ways, there is far more to Oro than meets the eye. But he really is very old, and just as prone to drifting off midway through his thoughts as anyone else his age. Well. If there was anyone else his age.
When he sits down, Ayame twitches slightly. Everything about this old guy seems to be a contradiction. He seems to take his time about eveything yet when he moved to seize her hand, it was faster than her eyes could perceive. And now he's sitting down, like nothing is going on at all?!
"Hey." she protests, sounding a touch irritated at his laxidasical display of indifference. "Just because you've got one foot in the grave already is no reason to act like this when someone is threatening you! I've seen some big guys wandering around here. If you ran into one of them instead of me, they might not even bother warning you before they turn you to paste!"
Of course, he's still going to be sitting there, regardless what she says. He's fiddling with his robes for a moment and Ayame stabs her knife out again, pointing at him, thinking perhaps that it is for a weapon that he's reaching? "Don't do anyth-" There's a weight affixed to the end of her blade. Brown eyes shift to stare at it as she holds her knife up in front of her. It looks like a wallet all right! "Erm..."
She glances from the billfold to Oro then back to the skewered leather. Gritting her teeth, she pulls it off and stops paying attention to him for a moment. "Hm? Well, yeah, I guess it IS all I wanted..." Eyes widen a little at the amount of cash in it. What's this old guy doing with that? And why's he giving it up so easily?! "You sure don't seem too broken up over getting mugged. Is this a daily occurrance for you?" As she mentally tallies up the money, she's assuming that no, it probably isn't. "Let's see who you are, anyway..."
The license is fished up and Ayame squints at it. She recognizes the name and portrait because of all the news coverage the lowlife is regularly pulling these days. But what's this old guy doing with it? She glances up from the license to find Oro sitting there with his eyes closed. "Um... how'd you get this anyway?" She crouches down in front of him, seemingly in no hurry to wrap this up since he doesn't appear to be the most threatening person she's ever come across. Slipping her satchel off her back, she drops the wallet into it, closes it off, then hefts it back to her shoulders.
"Huh?" He really does seem completely out of it. Ayame lifts her hand to scratch at the back of her head as she gives Oro a puzzled look. "You're not going to just sleep out here, are you?" Still crouched, she stretches her hand out to poke at his shoulder. "Hey! What're you doing here? Walking around with some other guy's wallet, taking a nap in the middle of this alleyway... With the money you had you could rent a room, you know?" It seems his incomprehensible behavior has caused the girl to stall a little. Why would someone have hundreds of dollars of stolen money and be content to settle down for a nap in the street like some hobo!!
Poking Oro's shoulder is a little like poking a statue. There's just no give in him like there would be in a normal person. His bubble pops, and one eye opens, eyebrow raised archly. The second opens next. He really /doesn't/ seem to be in a rush to do anything. Time takes on a different meaning when you've been around as long as Oro has. It isn't like he's got anywhere better to be, is it?
"You're, annoying."
His little finger is brought up to his ear, and idly he begins to clean that out. The damning words aren't spoken harshly; he's got a whiny note in his voice. He'd given this girl that cash, why is she still bothering him? Shouldn't she just go away and spend it all on bubblegum and motorcycles or whatever it is young people are into these days?
"There was a young man trying to make himself great. His money was a distraction so I decided to help him by taking it away."
The idea that she seems to be worried about where he sleeps crosses his mind, and that makes his frown finally disappear. His arm rests across his lap and he shakes his head.
"Girl. What do I want with a room? You can't experience the world by shutting it out with walls and doors." He shifts, working his neck back and forth for a moment. For the first time, it feels like Oro is looking at Ayame. Actually looking at her. Those strange red eyes are like looking into a stained mirror. Uncomfortable silences are always a part of dealing with the elderly, but there is some energy back in his voice when he continues, and the pause does not last long.
"You said you aren't a common thug. I can believe that. You're carrying a lot of weapons for an ordinary thug. But, if all you want to do with that, is achieve what any other thug could achieve... then what does it matter? You may as well be."
His eyes drift upwards, looking at the sky. "There is only one goal in this world worth striving for. Do you know what that is, young lady?"
Before, when he'd asked questions, he'd immediately carried on talking in the way old people do. Not really caring what the answer is because obviously, being so old, they already know everything they could need to know. This time is different. He's throwing her motivations all back at her at once, casually discarding any notion of comfort, and seizing on the young woman's interest to try and draw her out further. For all his bizarre behavior, there is a method to Oro's madness. He rather doubts that anyone so young and inexperienced could answer the question well... but it would not be the first time he has been proven wrong. Really, he hopes he is.
When he declares her annoying, Ayame just makes a bit of a face back at him, "You should know," she retorts, but it seems more that she's just hassling him now that he's awake again. He starts to clean his ear and the wouldbe burglar just stares at him as if he's the most curious thing she's come across in a long time. She finds she can't really sense anything about him beyond what she observes with her eyes and that in and of itself makes him an interesting target to prod at a bit longer.
He explains how he came to possess Adon's wallet and Ayame leans back in her crouch a little, as if not wanting to get too close, just in case he decides she needs help in that area as well!! "I'm..." She really isn't sure what to say so she sticks with her ol' reliable sarcasm. "...sure he appreciated the help." Her own experiences in relieving many of their money suggests otherwise of course.
He explains the problem with rooms and Ayame blinks, falling back out of her crouched position into a seated position on the ground. "What? But where do you keep all your stuff? And what about when it's dangerously cold or miserably hot? Old folks like you are dying all over the place every time the weather gets severe and takes out their climate control!"%r He mentions that she's carrying a lot of weapons and Ayame's brow furrows. She'd only shown him the simple knife, the most basic weapon in her arsenal, yet he seems to know a lot more about what she's got stowed away than she's exactly happy with. He points out that if her aspirations are to only obtain the same thing any other lowlife in the streets might be after, then what she is or isn't makes little difference, doesn't it? "Tch." She rolls her eyes a little. She doesn't want to get lectured! Yet for some reason, she's still sticking around? "I guess I was bored."
She crosses her legs at her knees, plants her hands on the ground behind her, and leans back, staring at Oro as he looks up to the sky and poses another question. "Huh?" No one /really/ asks her opinion on anything. She's typically too willing to give it anyway, which leaves few actually wanting /more/ of the often caustic teen's take on things. The question makes her frown. There's any number of answers that come to mind. Answers she once pursued as if they were true. Money seemed like a worthy goal, fame... power... the ability to live one's life as one pleases by virtue of the freedom afforded by wealth and influence... But she's gone after those sorts of things with not particularly satisfying results so far.
"I have," she pauses as if for emphasis, "Absolutely no idea." Well, she's not afraid to admit not having everything figured out for once! "The rat race seems pointless. Those who have power one day lose it the next, those who have earned their fortunes spend them as fast as they can as if to stall the misery they know is lurking just around the corner for them." Ayame shrugs a little, smiling, "Is there really anything worth striving for? I don't know. I just keep getting by and improving my craftmanship. Whether or not it's worthy of a lifetime spent in devotion to it or not..." The girl sighs a little, "Well, there's plenty of years left to figure that out."
Another pause. "For me, anyway. You're so old, you better have it figured out by now or you really blew it, eh?"
It is easy to see how people could get sick of Ayame's sarcasm. But, completely defying rational responses again, Oro burst out laughing when she says he may have blown it. It is a high-pitched, shrieking kind of laughter. It is also completely genuine, without any kind of ulterior motive. Purely entertained by the brash youngster's words.
"A good answer!" He crows, slapping his thigh with the palm of his hand. "Craftsmanship, eh? Well. If craftsmanship is what you want, then pursue it. Don't waste time robbing from old doddering fools like me. But don't make the mistake of thinking you have all the time in the world." Oro himself has had... far, far too long, devoted to his 'craft'. And it was nowhere near long enough. It never is. The bratty teen had accused him of having one foot in the grave already... she may be more right than she could know.
"Do not seek your worth in others." He says, "What possessions you have? Who knows you? What they think of you? These things are worthless. There is only one thing which is worth anything. That, is knowing that you have reached your potential."
He's not got a face which is made for smiling, but there is a definite sense of satisfaction. As suddenly as he had sat down, he has decided to stand up again. Hopping to his feet in a single bouncing motion, he raises his arm, working his shoulder back in a long, slow circle. "You're young. You have a lot to learn about what is possible. It is cute that you think I might freeze, or burn, or starve. No, girl. Survival is the first step on the path." Which is perfectly true; one cannot become a legendary hermit if you can't survive in the harshness of the natural world. Ayame is not like the other young people he's met though. Whip and K' had been clearly intimidated by him; and who could blame them? He was cranky after his nap. Adon had just been endlessly rude and disrespectful. Yes, Ayame is being rude too... but it is the rudeness of a young woman trying to tolerate an elder who hasn't really given her any reason to listen to a word he has said. Not the sheer blinding arrogance of Adon at all.
And lets be honest. He's always been a sucker for showing off to cute girls.
"I'll tell you what. If you promise not to tell anyone about it, I'll show you one of the last steps. Then you can tell me whether or not I've 'blown it'." His eyes flash blue for a moment; so quick it might just have been a trick of the light.
When he laughs in response to her jab at both his age and the insinuation that the fact he's wandering around in the gutters of Sunshine City means he's probably missed his boat somewhere along the line, Ayame cants her head to the side a little, a faint curl of a grin at the edge of her mouth. Normally she's the sort to eschew dealing with the elderly in any context. Buncha tired old know-it-alls who missed their window of opportunity and want to tell everyone in the world how to run their lives...
But this old timer? He's proven to be more amusing than annoying, and as loathe as she would be to admit it, he immediately piqued her curiosity when he proved he knew every bit as much as she did about handling her knife, if not even potentially a bit more. He says she gave a good answer and Ayame's expression turns into a strange blend of amused and annoyed. "It's not a very good answer. You better be able to come up with one better!" It's her backward way of admitting that she wants to know what he settled on - what was worth striving for that has brought him to such an abnormal state of contentment that defies anything she's ever seen before.
He mentions her craftmanship and Ayame nods slightly. "Well, I do enjoy it..." She contemplates her stowed staff, the pinnacle of her engineering thus far, a remarkable blend between conventional sciences and chi-engineering picked up from her associations with the mysterious Seishirou. What would she do differently if she devoted her all to it though? She's always solely crafted for herself, never for anyone else... and what does she need with even /more/ inventions? He warns her not to take her time lightly, and Ayame's brow furrows, the girl lifting her hand to her chin. It seems she's not dismissing the suggestion as lightly as some might expect.
He continues on about the futility of possessens and with that, he strays into territory the girl isn't so ready to accept. She realizes that she has lived a life light on possessions even with her fight winnings... staying in run down, simple places. Keeping her belongings to a minimum, giving up her safe houses whenever they seem to hot to move onto some other place to lurk. "I know I haven't yet..." she replies with regards to reaching her potential.
She remembers the change she saw in Roland. Some freakshow lops off his arm and his entire perspective on life changed. He stopped loafing his way through existence and dedicated himself to improving, and while she gave him no credit to his face, she knows he is a changed man. What about her? What about her potential? Is she even trying to reach it?
The mysterious old man hops to his feet with all the spring of a child and Ayame blinks again, slowly pulling herself to standing as well, looking a little confused as to what he's doing now. He speaks to her on survival and Ayame looks a bit skeptical. She dusts the back of her skirt off from sitting on the ground but keeps her eyes on him. "How do you get any peace and quiet without a place to stay?" she asks, but immediately falls quiet as he continues.
He asks her to promise not to share a secret - a daring request to make of a girl who makes part of her living finding out secrets and selling them to the highest bidder. But... he isn't something she'd go after for gang warfare secrets or cartel tech theft. No... he looks distressingly a lot like the hobos one finds on the streets. They've all got their secrets to share too about conspiracies or whatever other insanity fills their heads.
Ayame rests her hand on her hip then, giving Oro a very careful look, as if taking his offer very seriously. "All right." She half-smiles then, a rare expression on the usually bitter girl. "I promise I won't tell. We wouldn't want too many peope like you wandering around or else every last jerk who is being distracted by money is going to end up penniless anyway."
"You'll never find peace and quiet around people, girl." Oro explains, "When I want it, I go where nobody else is. But I've had enough of that, for a little while." He nods his satisfaction when she agrees to his terms. He doesn't truly know her; he has no idea about what she does, who she works with, or the purpose of her craftsmanship. Chi engineering? A fascinating concept, but, one more mystery which belies his ultimate failure. Oro has achieved mastery of the body, but mastery of the mind? That eludes him. Perhaps she has the potential for that... perhaps not. He has no idea what that would even look like. But it IS one of the things he is looking for. Although... if it is in one so young, there is no chance at all that he could hope to pass on everything.
If Ayame is still trying to sense something from Oro, it is, quite suddenly, all there.
It is as though a veil has been drawn back. In one instant, he is just nodding, seemingly content. In the next, chi surges. The grim funeral city of debris and broken dreams that is the Industrial Sector is bathed in light, radiating from him without any apparent difficulty at all. A bright and brilliant corona of energy that makes it seem as though dawn has decided to break early.
His palm stretches high above his head, and his fingers flex. The concept of a 'fireball' is one which has reverberated through countless martial arts over the years; normally these are small things. Some fighters can generate impressively large ones of course, but rarely for long periods of time. Usually with, insane amounts of effort.
The sun itself swells into being from Oro's palm. His eyes are crackling blue lightning, the energy growing and expanding until it threatens to swallow the walkway above the pair. Filling the alleyway with tightly controlled power, shedding light more intense than the noon, banishing all shadows away and radiating with powerful heat. And yet; not too powerful. Oro's control is absolute, and he has no desire to harm the young woman he is with. The sheer quantity of chi gathered in the space of a few seconds is absurd; that he can control it with enough precision to ensure that it doesn't so much as flicker, is unbelievable.
He glances up for a moment, considering the size, and the shape. He is weighing up whether he should fire it above, allow it to detonate over the city and shine down upon it, to let the full effect spill out as clear as the day itself...
And just as quickly as it had come, it is gone. Blinking out of existence, and allowing the shadows of the alleyway to reassert themselves, the darkness of the night to spill back in and swallow them. There is no need to do such. No. If he did, he would only draw unwanted attention. He isn't here to test his power - not really. He's already learned everything he needs to learn about what he is capable of. He is here to find others who might be able to exceed that power. To complete the work he himself cannot complete.
The veil falls back into place, and he is an old man again. Allowing his arm to fall back to his side, he nods his head slowly, eyes returning to their usual hue, as the energy is allowed to dissipate back into the world; no longer held in the steely grip of the legendary monk.
"So." He says, as cheerfully as though that were a perfectly ordinary thing. Perhaps, to him, it is. "Your verdict?"
The expression on Ayame's face as he nods to her agreement is best described as somewhat skeptical bemusement, as if she's waiting for him to show her something while simultaneously not believing that it could possibly be all that impressive, whatever it is.
What follows is an eye-opening experience in every sense of the word. The girl is a prodgy when it comes to the shaping of chi. She may not be capable of the gigantic, explosive outburts of energy some of her peers or superior fighters can master, but when she does channel chi, using her precision crafted weapons to augment its manifestation, her control over it is incredibly precise. Hue and behavioral properties of that life energy are hers to command, a skill that started out strong from the time she was tiny and has only become more precise with experience. Her ability to recognize chi use and identify its strength is not to be taken lightly either.
Thus it is, perhaps, that she of all people is able to judge the magnitude of what takes place before her eyes in that humble dump of an unnamed alleyway. What she can see is blinding by comparison, eyes widening, pupils constricting as she stares into the localized star given birth right in front of her. At first she doesn't budge, simply staring unapologetically at Oro as if seeing him for the first time. The brilliance of the energy pouring of him... he shouldn't even be alive! She's been punched down by the likes of Kain Heinlein. She's stared in awe at the power of Kyo Kusanagi's flames. But what he is doing is something more than simply destructive bursts of chi for the purposes of inflicting harm.
What's more is how pure the energy is coursing through him, even pulled from an environment as foul and corrupt as what exists around them. It's as if it is being refined simply by passing through his incomprehensible aura. Ayame lifts her hand before her eyes, shielding them slightly from the sheer brilliance of it all. And that's /before/ the enlightened sage lifts his hands and begins to channel all of that energy into a supernova of incredible power.
Ayame raises both hands then, taking one step back, then another. Now she's worried. If he loses control of that - if all that refined, surging chi were to get lose from him, it would lay waste to the alleyway for at least a block or two, and her with it!! But it's then, as she forces her mind back from the brink of panic, that she realizes the astonishing detail. For as bright, for as emulgent as that massive sphere of power is, it isn't flickering, it isn't bursting at the seams, it isn't lashing out at matter all around it. No... it is, in every sense of the word, flawlessly contained. The precision defies anything she's ever done herself, and the magnitude dwarfs anything she has ever seen from even world greats.
The girl stares, mouth agape as Oro lowers his hands, letting the energy return to the earth without so much as an iota of disruption to the urbanized matter surrounding it. Ayame lowers her hands from before her eyes, blinking for several seconds of abject blindness in the aftermath of so much light. "You... that..." Ayame turns to the side, her hand lifting up to rub at her temple in thought. "I..." She's at a loss for words - a state she's practically never in. Slowly she looks back toward Oro. Now that the veil has returned, now that he no longer glows with incomprehensible energy, he's almost hard to see as her vision slowly recovers.
"I've never seen that from anyone alive!" And the girl has spent a lot of time in the arenas, scraping up money by sweat and blood, pit against living legends. Yet this old man... "But no one's ever heard of you!" Why is he not world famous? Fighters the world around should be throwing themselves at his feet, Ayame marvels. "Who /are/ you?"
Oro is not surprised that Ayame is stunned. It, is not the first time that his abilities have amazed another after all. He's far from perfect; he does take some satisfaction in wiping that skepticism from the teenager's face. It isn't as though it was a challenge for him, but it is pleasant to demonstrate that your life's work has not been for nothing at all. He's accepted that his ego is a flaw. It doesn't bother him much to enjoy the girl's amazement for a few moments more.
But Oro does not want worshippers. He does not want the fighter's of the world bowing at his feet. It is a lucky thing that this is the case. The particular journey he had to take, the selfish rejection of all the distractions of the world... the very distractions that most people would call 'living', have done a very thorough job of purging the desires from him which motivate men with less power than he to cause great and terrible change upon the face of the world.
What Ayame is showing the first signs of grasping is that the destructive potential is the least important aspect of the technique. Yes, it is there. If he chose to turn it against anything, there are perhaps only a handful of fighters in the world capable of withstanding such a technique. But the unity of his body with the flow of chi, the control he exerts over it, the iron discipline and the decades upon decades of effort which have been heaped into the fundamental skills necessary to control and manipulate power on that level... those are the important things in the demonstration. The fact that his potential makes him a strong fighter is a pleasant benefit... but it has become secondary to the mastery of that skill.
'Who are you?' Now, that is a far more interesting question. K' had asked who he was, and Oro had told him he was an old man. He didn't have the time or inclination to answer more properly. Adon had asked him who he was, and then gone on to answer; he is nobody. For the very reason that Ayame points out, to Oro's quiet amusement. No one has ever heard of him. He'd been critical of the purpose to which she puts her strength, but is it any different for him? Does it matter that he is capable of such feats, if nobody knows it?
"My name is Oro." The old man says, his voice calm, almost serene. The real test will follow from this. It is a name which exists, in history. Here and there, if one has the wit to hunt it down and find it. Whether or not Ayame decides to do so... whether she is capable of it? And whether she could use that information in any useful way even if she did manage to find it...
"I told you. Recognition. Wealth. Even power itself. These things are unimportant. What is important is fulfilling your potential. I have succeeded."
For a moment, he allows that to hang in the air.
"Now, I am looking for the person who will do better."
It is the clearest he has ever been with another about what he is looking for, what he is after. But it wouldn't do to make it too easy, now would it?
So no sooner has he said it, than the ancient monk springs up into the air. And up, up, up. Hopping to the roof of the building above in a single coiled motion of those ancient legs, he turns, and quite simply, he ... is gone. Leaving no sign that he had ever been here, that this wasn't all some fevered dream or imagination...
... except, that Ayame had to get Adon's wallet somehow, didn't she?
The name is noted. Such a simple moniker. But the demands of curiosity will not let her rest until she has investigated it. She wonders if the Ryouhara scion has heard of something like him... the world renown terrorist tends to know ancient things long forgotten by most. She's quiet as he continues, reminding her of what he had mentioned regarding how such temporal things have no importance whatsoever. Achieving one's potential... that alone is worthwhile...
He states he is looking for a person who will do better and the previously skeptical street rogue glances to the side in thought. She's almost never acknowledged another to be her better in intelligence or wisdom. She's always learned her own way, struggled down her own path, suffered her own setbacks, taken her own lumps for the sake of hubris and vanity. But even she can't deny the transcedental old man in front of her has her trumped in every way on matters of knowledge and wisdom. Looking for /the/ person, a singular individual, out of the billions of people in the world. The significance of that is staggering.
The girl looks back toward Oro then, wondering what she could possibly ask of one such as him. While there's time, gleaning even a single shread of additional knowledge would be worth it, she decides. But with frightful agility, he springs upward. At first she's confused why he's simply jumping, but a split second later she realizes that he's just continuing to launch straight up... and up... and up... executing the singularly highest high jump she has EVER seen.
Blinking as he vanishes over the corner edge of a tall building, Ayame staggers backward a couple of steps until her back finds a sturdy wall to lean against, staring up into the now quiet, dark sky. Several seconds pass with the strawberry blonde staring up into the sky. She blinks finally and lowers her face, rubbing her eyes for a moment. What did she just go through? It couldn't possibly have been real!
Dropping to her knees, she swings the satchel off her backpack, looking for the one piece of solid evidence that this exchange even took place. Her hand tremples a little as she pulls out the incriminating wallet, Adon's ID still sticking halfway out of it. Lowering her hand to her lap, Ayame exhales quietly. "...huh."
There's noise just around the corner. Someone saw the brilliant display and has come to investigate, no doubt. Given the neighborhood, she doesn't want to meet them. Shaking her head to clear her wits, Ayame stows the wallet and swings the satchel back onto her back. Bending her legs, she springs up. Her leap is far less spectacular, managing to be just enough for her to get her fingers around the bottom rung of a fire escape ladder in order to pull herself up from there. By the time the patroling gang members make it to the alleyway, it will be as quiet and vacant as if no one had been there to begin with.
Log created on 17:35:57 07/04/2012 by Ayame, and last modified on 20:38:42 07/07/2012.