Description: Leaving eastern Europe, Frei moves across the continent, following a disturbing development in the world's chi. It leads him to Paris, where he has... well, to call it a 'blast from the past' is probably the understatement of the century.
What has become of Paris the past few weeks? There is an air of mystery surrounding the region. Given the cases of disappearances, the leads up until now have led to nowhere. What was the previous lead was a match up felt eerie, due to the improbability of anyone venturing to the area.
Paris itself has seen better days, but the people are still continuing with the normal life. However, with the disappearances, the people have been more guarded. People move frantically from one place to another, hoping to remain undetected. Those who prey on the weak have hid in their corners due to the high alert.
Here is the teenaged Jiro, wandering through the streets of Paris. Here, he is walking along a small bridge with a river underneath. The white wooden bridge gives a pleasant air with the river. He takes a look over at the horizon to see the Eiffel Tower. Behind him are a pair of dogs; a doberman and a poodle.
"...Huh. It is interesting that the people can try to maintain a normal life despite of the situation." He looks rather thoughtful, lowering his head. "Ahh... Still no leads." He looks over towards the poodle and the doberman. A grin forms and he pats both of them on the head, "Don't worry, you two. We'll find some leads soon." This is met with agreeing barks.
Let's look back a few weeks ago to Frei's life. Specifically, heading to Eastern Europe to pursue rumors that an honest-to-god vampire had come back into the world in some far-flung Wallachian castle. We'll skip over his unexpected, if enlightening, battle with a wayward, beefy ninja while standing sideways on the wall of a very tall building which lasted approximately until the spirits of the restless dead grew tired of their antics and literally dropped both of them off a building. Lesser people would probably have become ghosts themselves. For Frei's part, he ended up spending one extra day in an Austrian hotel, with a fluffy bathrobe, the TV remote, and a lot of Advil.
Not long after that, everything went to hell.
Frei had literally walked out the door of the hotel when, for no reason whatsoever, the redhead suddenly reeled backwards like he'd been hit by some massive, invisible fist. Passersby seem confused; a few even rushed to help him, but they never got there. The entire city block went up in a hellacious explosion mere seconds later. Fire poured from cracked streets; buildings buckled and crumbled as the streets churned like a carpet being snapped in the air. One mysteriously fallen foreigner was quickly forgotten as people fled for their lives.
For Frei, though, it was the start of something awful. The sudden upheaval was preceded by a massive, intense shift in the chi around him. Not just in people, but in EVERYTHING. The upheavals that were experienced during the King of Fighters tournament were like a tap on the shoulder compared to what he felt then. What followed was intense: nausea, dizziness. It was like walking through a very solid fog. Eventually he came through it... and in fact, he came through it in a surprising way.
A week later, he finds himself in Paris. A week of biking, trains... anything but cars or flying. A seemingly aimless journey, without guidance, alone. Helping people as he can, moving through Europe, until he found himself here. If Jiro looks carefully -- or, really, if he stops and just lets himself feel the air -- he'll notice Frei in the distance, on the banks of the river, standing on a small stone quay that was likely once intended for pleasure boats or canal gondolas. His head is lowered, his body hunched; his palm is held down on the water's surface, and outward from his fingers flow gentle, undulating waves of pale blue light, following the contours of the river.
Hrm.
Jiro finds himself reminiscing when he looks over his shoulder to see that the atmosphere seems calm enough. Off of the corner of his eye, he sees something faint. However, what he feels is something phenomenal.
"Huh?"
The boy's reaction arouses the dogs, who pushed themselves up. Jiro finally straightens up and he start to turn his gaze over towards what appears to be the source. That is where he notices a figure on the stone quay.
"...Huh."
The young man tucks his hands into his pockets, squinting over at the monk who is extremely older than him.
"How's the water?" He looks over towards the monk with sheer curiosity. He cannot help but squint, trying to determine the nature of the man. "... For some reason, you look familiar."
The poodle wanders over towards the monk, looking up at him while he seems to be in concentration.
'You look familiar.'
There's the understatement of the decade.
The sound of that voice is jarring, perhaps because the last time Frei heard it, it came from the 'Einherjar Initiative' earbud with horrifying, crystal clarity. It was the voice of Jiro Kasagi dying. Choosing to do so, in the end, as the person he had always been and not as the 'agent' he'd briefly chosen to be. The light in the water stops; there is a much more simple, prosaic ripple from the sudden jerky movement of Frei's hand coming up from the water. The man himself does not stand; he remains bowed forward, face obscured, hand hovering just slightly over the water. He barely moved at all, but it was enough to totally disrupt what he'd been doing.
The air becomes a little warmer, when before it had been cool; a mist that had been gathering seems to disperse as quickly as it had gathered.
There's a long silence. Cities exploding. The restless dead. And now, a thing Frei had thought was mythical: leylines. The chi of the very planet rushing to the surface in traceable, tangible lines. And this Jiro, he...
Well. He 'feels' familiar.
"Nice," Frei eventually says, slowly standing up, unfolding upwards and turning to glance at Jiro. His face, which is as completely unable to hide his feelings as ever, twists from stoic confusion to a faint smile as he sees the dogs trailing in Jiro's wake. "I dunno that I'd plan to go swimming, though."
There is a squint from Jiro as he notices a jerky movement. This is where Jiro is slowly tensing up now. He is not sure if the man is ready for a fight or he managed to jog the person's memory somehow. Jiro has been coming into terms that his presence has done that to people.
If so. Who is this guy? However, the older man is standing up and he greets the man who is about the same height as he.
"Hah!" Jiro looks amused for a moment as Frei finally responds. The poodle looks up at the stranger, and then barks. It is not one of warning, but out of curiosity. In fact, the poodle is moving to sniff over Frei to detect if he is 'good or bad'.
"Ahh, pity... Judging by the feeling of your energy..." He raises an eyebrow, "Are you here to investigate the mystery of the disappearances as well?" He rubs his shoulder with a grimace, "A friend and I have been looking for some clues, but the trail has turned pretty cold right now."
After the poodle barks, Frei slowly ducks down, bending his knees, and holds out his hand for the little dog to sniff. Is the redhead 'good' or 'bad'? Even he would have a difficult time answering that question, but if animals can sense peaceful or aggressive intentions, Frei is very clearly not 'aggressive'; provided he meets the poodle's approval, he'll even pet the animal a bit before standing back up. Disappearances? He hadn't heard of any, but let's be real, a man come back from the dead is standing right in front of him and frankly, Jiro's aura is exactly as Frei remembers it. So... believable? Sure. Plus, 'a friend and I'...
Still, that ISN'T why Frei is here. "No, not exactly. Though I wonder if they're related." He turns and looks out over the river. "The whole world is... crying." He makes a gesture with his fingers, and a little blue ball of light appears there. With a gesture, he lets it drop into the water. As soon as it connects, the light vanishes and a line appears in its place, stretching in both directions as the river flows. But in many spots the line is jagged, twisted, broken.
Frei turns back to Jiro. "Spiritualists call them 'leylines'. You've probably heard of the term before. I've been... following them."
There's a brief pause, and then Frei gives Jiro a steady glance, letting a smile cross his face... a genuine smile, this time. "My name's Frei, by the way."
Non-aggression. This keeps the stray animals at ease. The poodle wanders over towars Frei and continues to sniff his hand. After a moment, the poodle sits back onto its butt and it lifts its paws over to rest at Frei's hand. It's almost a two-handed handshake.
Jiro keeps his hand along the doberman's head, gently petting the creature while looking up towars the air. "...Yeah." Jiro narrows his eyes as he lowers his head. "Everything is a mess. Southtown is essentially the apocalypse coming..." He stops himself from contiuing. Then, Jiro looks over towards the blue ball's manifestation.
When Frei drops it to the water, a line appears before them. However, it looks frayed.
"...E..-hh.?" His eyes widen.
"Frei?!" Admittedly, Jiro did not know Frei too well. They nearly months back at Angkor Wat when he was trying to find himself. He had been trying to better himself. However, well... things have detoured from that. However, what he did remember about Frei, he was a wanderng spiritualist. He seemed to have a bright air about him. However, this one is different. Older, wiser. However, something has changed with a bit of melancholy?
"...Like Alma and Mimiru, you all have grown so old." His eyes slowly cast down. "Eight years in the future... So much has changed." He wanders over towards Frei, getting a closer look at him. The seventeen-year-old raises a hand over towards Frei's cheek, trying to inspect the teenager.
There's no mistaking the sudden widening of those green eyes when Jiro says 'eight years'. Especially because once he does, everything falls into place. The dogs, the expression, even the unsullied waves of his aura. When he and Frei met however many years ago, Frei WAS a different person. How much had both of them suffered, and survived, since then? But now here stands a Jiro given a second chance at may what be the very end of the world. Is he an angel, if such things really exist? A spirit? A guide?
"I wonder," Frei says aloud, the only thing he can think of as he tries to take in all of what just got said, "if Mimiru still thinks I'm one of the heads of the Orochi." Considering that Kyo Kusanagi basically laid that entire story out at Frei's feet a while back, the very thought takes on entirely new dimensions.
He doesn't step away, if Jiro's intent is to actually *touch* him and see if he's real. And indeed, he is real. But Frei's only way to be able to deal with this situation is to keep talking so he doesn't have to think too hard about what's going on. "So have you seen them both? Is Alma the 'friend' you mentioned? I... hmm. I guess it doesn't make sense to YOU that I'd know either of them. How can I possibly say everything that's happened in the last eight years..."
Witnessing those widen green eyes tell Jiro everything. It tells him that in that time, Frei became a good friend to him. To have that feeling over him, Jiro offers a faint smile before he looks over at the older man. However, that smile slowly fades as Mimiru is brought up.
"...Mimiru has forsaken my existence." His eyes turn away. There is the heaviness that weighs down his heart. "When I ran into Alma, I saw that he was with Mimiru. ...I confronted her and she treated me like she did not recognize me." There is a snarl forming as the fists tighten. Damn.
After examining Frei, Jiro nods in satisfation and he pulls the hand away. He takes a couple of steps back, calling back the poodle and dobermen by his side. He keeps petting the both of them, trying to push the somberness away.
"Yeah, Alma and I came to investigate the disappearing children." He furrows his eyebrows, "It is rather difficult to imagine that they would disappear in broad daylight before everyone's eyes." He pauses, "However, Alma and I decided to split up to do some investigation. I've been blending in and listening to the conversations amongst the locals to get some clues."
A helpless shrug is formed, "The answer's been the same. No one knows how it happened. One second, the children was with them, the next second, vanished."
Mimiru... well. Did Alma tell Jiro what happened? Should Frei? For a moment, that decision weighs heavily on the sage's heart. What would that knowledge do to the young man in front of him, one unbowed by almost a decade of struggle? Someone who has an entire clean slate ahead of him. Would knowing what happened prevent him from making the same mistakes? Or would it doom him to repeating them?
In the end, even though it fills his heart with pain at his own cowardice, Frei chooses not to say anything. Instead, he simply gives his returned friend a wan smile. "You've... been away for a very long time. It might be that Mimiru had come to grips with you possibly never coming back and seeing you opened old wounds." Frei tilts his head a bit, reading Jiro's expression carefully. "I'm sure you're always in her thoughts in one way or another."
So Alma's met 'this' Jiro, and in fact is probably here in France. For a moment, Frei flashes back to standing with Alma against Rako, shortly after Jiro's death... how Alma's path through Jinchuu left him transformed in more ways than one. Frei's journey has left mostly emotional scars; Alma's left quite physical ones indeed. "I imagine seeing Alma must have come as a shock, but believe me: deep down, he's the same person underneath all the, uh... well, you know." He waves his hands briefly for emphasis. No matter what, Alma will always be Alma. He's like a fundamental force that way. Though really, in their own senses, so are Frei and Jiro.
"People vanishing. Leylines erupting. Everyone's saying this is the 'end of the world'. And, you... suddenly you're here. How did you even GET here?"
A faint smile grows at Frei.
"Don't worry, Frei. I already know." His head lowers, the scowl forming, "People have reminded me. They have called me 'Memories of the past' or a 'ghost'." He grits his teeth with annoyance, "Even Mimiru reminded me." He sighs. However, an old friend does offer some words of comfort. "Heh, thanks, Frei." His eyes flutter shut, "I just..." He wants to do something right with Mimiru for a change. He doesn't know how.
"...Alma broke down crying when he saw me." He grunts, "... The damn baby." There is a smile growing after a moment. "Oh, Alma has changed in some ways..."
Then his eyes narrow sharply at Frei. The eyes change from a pair of normal blue eyes to feral green slits, "But he is still the same in other ways!" His sharp canine reveal themselves. "Especially after the bikini contest!" Jiro is still fuming over that. Stiiiilll fuming.
After a moment, Frei asks him a great question.
"Funny that you ask that, Frei!" His eyes return to normal, "I was delivering pizza to Geese Tower because I heard he gives a big tip! However, I ran into Alma's goddamn fiancee, Miss Forehead! She and I raced and fought each other." He muses, "It would had been like Mario Kart." He gives a grumble, "And then ran into a white light that appeared out of nowhere. ..."
Both hands rise in the air.
"Lo and behold, I appeared into the apocalypse that is Southtown. And a valueable lesson as to why Xiangfei should not win anything."
Bikini... Xiangfei? What?
"Nope," Frei says aloud. "Not gonna ask."
As they say here, plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. 'The more things change, the more they stay the same.'
It feels good to laugh, though, and more to the point it feels good to let the tension at his own ambivalence drain out of his own body, so Frei lets himself laugh. Probably for the first time in many days; definitely for the first time unequivocally since this conversation started. It helps. The redhead is realizing just how little of his grief he actually dealt with because of the circumstances of Jiro's death. How much of a grudge lay in some dark corner of his own heart, unexamined, unaired until now, when a returned Kasagi simply lets it free because for him, nothing has changed.
"Maybe," Frei says carefully, studying Jiro's face, "you're a Horseman of the Apocalypse. Maybe... War? You're not really a Pestilence or Famine type, and, well..." But he smiles. It's a dark joke, especially for the not-usually-dark Frei, but these are dark times.
For a moment it's silent; only the occasional noises of Jiro's dog companions, and the bubbling noise of the water. Eventually, the redhead cracks first, trying to master everything that's in his head and heart right now. "I wish I could tell you everything that's happened. I feel like over the past however many years everything's spun out of control for ALL of us. Maybe what we didn't want to admit was your death was our reminder that things had grown beyond our control."
There's a pause, and then Frei turns toward the river, watching it, and perhaps interestingly enough, the cool misty breeze springs back up again, a surprising tonic for the stagnant, smoky air of apocalypse Paris. "I mean, what did any of us ever want? I don't think any of us asked to become heroes or saints or... or sages. I think we were just people who got caught up in things beyond our control because we knew we were the people that could do them."
There's a pause, and then Frei turns back to Jiro with a genuine smile. "I miss the Jiro that was bashful around Hotaru and mad when Alma flirted with him. And I missed the Alma that went to dance clubs started every fight with 'do your best'. I even missed the me that didn't almost get killed by his own brother and had to murder his own clone."
A heavy sigh, a dip in the smile, a crack in the facade. "Is that why you're here? REALLY here? Like, are you calling us back to the way things used to be?" Frei shrugs. "I suppose it doesn't REALLY matter why you're here. But I'm... glad that you are."
"Oh right, I have a cousin." The young man muses, "I found this out. A long distance cousin, it seems." He rubs his forehead. "...She needs to work on her choice for a bikini." Jiro is still dying inside from the match-up. The urge to punch Alma a lot is growing once more.
The young man exhales a sigh. Though, as he sees Frei laughing, Jiro's eyes widen. There is a smile that grows towards Frei as he can see that the young monk has become lively. Or rather, this monk is older. However, like Alma, both with scars.
"...HAH!" Jiro gives a feral grin, "Perhaps I am war. I like to make crap happen in the most destructive way!" After those moments, the dogs whimper. Jiro idly pats their heads and then Frei finally lets loose his feelings.
"...No need." He gives Frei a painful smile, "...I am starting to understand how painful it is." He lowers his head, "However, it feels strange. I was in my own time, fighting Mimiru over that shock collar incident again, and fighting Alma, then racing Xiangfei." He rubs his forehead, "...It's a future that is strange. It feels like a place where I don't belong."
He snorts. However, his eyes widen and he furrows his eyebrows, "...Ah... Hotaru." He recalls the time that he and Hotaru was helping out one of the locals. She knew that he liked Hotaru.
"...I would ask what became of that, but... I think I am better off not finding out." He pauses for a moment.
"...I found out that I have a clone. Or army of clones." He grumbles, "...I need to start punching all of them."
"Don't feel bad," Frei says distantly. "It's happened to pretty much all of us by this point." He doesn't actually specify what he's talking about, but the fact that it's extremely likely he means 'have been cloned' is sort of jarring, given some thought. Let's not talk about the part where they cloned Frei twenty six times, the 26th tried to kill both Frei and Jiro, and then they dropped a building on said clones right after Alma 'killed' Kula Diamond.
Good times, good times.
Despite himself, the idea of Jiro Kasagi, Horseman of the Apocalypse, amuses Frei enough that he grins too. "Do you read comics? One of the X-Men is named 'Angel', and he comes back as a Horseman of Apocalypse after everything thought he was dead. He was even War, if I remember right." He jokes because broaching the subject of Hotaru is hard. He doesn't want to, really, but he will, because she's a mutual friend. "Hotaru's gone through a lot. We all have, I'm sure you know that. Just... if you see her, remember there's been a lot of water under the bridge. That's all." When in doubt, focus on the practicalities.
Reaching down, Frei brushes off his jeans from where he was kneeling on the quay, and then looks to Jiro with a grave expression. "Jiro." It's the first time he's said the other young man's name this entire conversation, and in a weird way it feels good to hear his own voice say the word. "I need to follow this trail. I feel like these leylines are... leading somewhere. That something important is going to happen. I have to see that through, and... don't take this the wrong way, but this isn't something you or Alma could do." It's the truth, though he takes no pleasure in saying it. Part of what defines the Alma-Frei relationship is is their complementary but distinct domains; as for Jiro, the Stray Dog's no stranger to the energy of chi, but his is a fundamentally grounded personality, even back from the dead. These are voices that only Frei can hear, for the time being.
"But... you just have to call my name. Okay? I'll come running. Even if the whole world is crazy, even if everything's gone to hell. I'll hear you. I'll be there. I promise."
"Ahahahahhaa. Yes! Perhaps I'll earn wings and be able to fly as well!" He gives a thoughtful look, "I'll have something cool like that. Flaming wings." He pauses. "...Or not. Let's not."
Now, Hotaru is another matter. She was a girl that Jiro was fond of and even wanted to ask out. Did he ever do that in the future? ...If so, what became of them? The more that Jiro thought about that, the more his heart started to sink. He no longer wants to know what happened.
This isn't his time.
Frei's warning was more than enough to snap Jiro out of it, "...yeah." He considers, "Both of you all have grown." Tough, when Frei finally gives him that grave look.
"...Alright. Well, tell you what. Let's try to meet up again soon. If you find something pertinent, we can exchange information from how this is all related." He considers, "All of this is related somehow."
Pause.
"By the way, watch out for the tournament organizer, if you come across him." His eyes furrow at Frei, "He is NOT human. His movements were like gelatin. He... is disturbingly fast and extremely powerful."
With that, Jiro is starting to wave for his strays to follow him, "I should do the same thing." As Jiro turns around to bring his creatures with him, Jiro is moving back towards the alley.
"I need to keep an eye out on the streets." He considers, "While the whole spirit thing is your calling, my usefulness lies within the streets. Nothing that information gathering can't solve."
"Well," Frei says as Jiro begins to walk away, "do what you do best."
For a long time after the Stray Dog has moved away, Frei sits there staring at the grey sky overhead, trying to collect his thoughts. Was that an illusion just now? It felt pretty real. Maybe more accurately: "It felt real enough," he hears himself say.
There's a brief moment where he takes out his phone and decides to text Alma. Just in case. There's almost no chance he'll respond, of course. But hopefully 'Saw Jiro. Did you? In Europe. Call me if you need me.' will make sense.
Putting his phone back in his pocket, Frei turns and glances at the bridge and, in his minds eye, sees eight years of Jiros walking, like some sort of living time-lapse, up on to the street and away.
And then the sound of the world in pain is in his ear and it's impossible not to leave. He says nothing.
Log created on 21:14:05 08/26/2014 by Frei, and last modified on 01:12:50 08/27/2014.