Description: At the very end, two conspirators look up at the shredded sky, and speak honestly for what is perhaps the first and last time.
The crimson sky is splitting.
Despite the oncoming catastrophe, it is eerily quiet here. A supernatural loneliness has beset the forest. Though gale winds tear through the tops of the trees, all is at peace here.
He has set paper lanterns throughout the branches with the same kind of humbled care and caution that a man would set down buckets in a house with a dripping roof. Those paper lanterns sway against the distant breeze only mildly. THey serve the same purpose as the bucket as well--using some small amount of chi from what he'd gathered from their Spheres, he was able to construct small stabilizer ninkou, keeping the area from ripping apart, or falling into an errant time well, or any number of the other blasted calamities that had befallen others. It was relatively critical that his construct survive almost to the end.
That lute, nestled carefully against the side of the ruined shrine and bound in that same protective paper as it had at France, seems too small a thing to carry the dreams and wishes of everyone important to the revolution. It seems too small a thing.
A soft cawing pulls the shinobi's attention upwards, to a flock of crows that had taken up camp on top of the skeletal remains of the shrine, his form calm and introspective. "Everything that you are and ever will be," the young shinobi says to the crow, "will come to an end shortly. Doesn't that concern you?" KRAWR. "...a brave conversation partner, aren't you."
"Ayame."
Seishirou Ryouhara looks away from the crow and his idle work with the lanterns, eyes lidding with the movement. He doesn't really bother to look. He knows she is there. "A survivor to the end.... I'm pleased. And, it's just us now, really.." Everyone else has either left for other things... or have chosen to be eliminated. The latter seems to wear on him deeply, for whatever hand he may have had in it.
"You know, it may be the years slipping by... but I remember that I owed you one wish. In return for your cooperation. It is a debt unfulfilled."
In the shadows, she lurks, seated on a stone beneath a rotting outcropping of the ruined building. Arms folded in front of her, back propped against the wall that seems ill suited to support anything at all. After everything; the trails, the pursuits, the conflicts, the wars... it comes down to a simple matter of waiting.
Into the heart of the storm she had traveled, bearing the burden that belonged to Strolheim's vassel. It was to be his burden to carry the wretched artifact, altered by artifice, into the End. But when no one answered the call to carry out this Final Operation, Ayame had risen to the task. If it had been anyone else, it would probably been a one-way trip into the churning, expanding vortex that signals the finale is not far off now.
But here she sits, hours later, alive. The package was delivered, the plan can carry on, she has been unusually quiet since. Withdrawn. Speaking nothing of the horrors seen beyond the Gate.
She seems content to observe the culmination of the Master Tactician in action. If there is a single mistake, the most miniscule abberrant calculation in his craftmanship, then this will be the last Magnum Opus of the Ryouhara.
On the other hand, if every piece has been placed with scrupulous accuracy, no detail left wanting, exactly as designed... well... there may yet be a future past to be concerned about.
It is when he speaks that she shifts. He has her attention even if neither looks at the other for now.
He speaks of survival and her shoulders drop just a little. A survivor indeed, even in the face of the most catastrophic attack she had ever been targeted by. Suvivor of the calamities that have claimed so many of even the most powerful lives. Survivor of war after war, slipping between the fronts to navigate her own path. Her right hand lifts, coming to rest over her eyes, fingers resting lightly on her forehead, a soft exhale escaping her lips, a release that serves as a memoir of what she has been through.
"It is hard..." she muses, "Around anyone else. The mask has felt heavier." Only around the last of the Ryouhara has she ever let her guard down, allowed herself to be taught, extended trust - not the superficial trust that exists between a craftsman and his tools that she has for others - but true, deep, unqualified trust.
She lowers her hand as he speaks of a wish, the corner of her mouth curling, a flicker of rememberance, perhaps, a moment to call to mind a perfect memory archived from years past.
"Saa... you would say that," she considers. She leans forward out of the shadow, eyes on him. Her face is pale - she's exhausted. Sleep was last experienced some time ago. There were too many pieces in play to afford rest. Her hair scorched, frazzled, framing her face in uneven, uncared for strands. Scabbed marks line her cheeks, a bared shoulder is bruised and bloody, small fragments of what seems to be grey ash and clay cling to her body in places.
"You wouldn't know." She looks to the side then, eyes resting upon one of the lanterns as it jostles slightly in an unseen current.
"You have fulfilled it every day."
Even as the sky above churns, giving the sense of a great and unbearable rainfall from which there will be no escape, the shinobi is crushingly aware that the future of dreams lay in the structural integrity and placement of a single steel linchpin, or the strength of a seal written on a sheet of paper a hair's width thick. His ninkougakujutsu is strong, but even someone as deliberate as Ryouhara would be nothing but egotistical if the thought didn't even occur to him that he might be singularly, crushingly, wrong.
Is that how Noah felt, when he eyed the pitch-sealed waterline of his ark as the waters rose?
It's nothing to think of now...now that he is committed.
Instead.. "A weight among many. Some of which I have asked you to bear personally."
He has always had a tremendous respect for Ayame. She reminded him of Riko, in her own way, his wayward apprentice who had been the only successor of Ryouhara-type Ninjutsu and Ninkougakujutsu in general. Her own methods were a mirror of his, and he'd taken some time to measure and internalize it. If he should ever faltered in his own ambition and drive, her method would have been--will be--strong enough one day to have matched his own.
After hanging the last lantern, Ryouhara's arms fall limp at his sides--it is as it is ever. Ryouhara rarely lifted a finger unless he intended to act, and his fingertips are mere ghosts of motion at the hemline of his haori's sleeves. Opening his stance by stepping to one side with one foot, he inclines his glance just so that he can see Ayame when she leans into the light. Dark lines of raven black occlude his glance--and golden eyes seem to glint faintly even in the dark. Dull gold. The color of his actual eyes, without the ninkou contact lenses he regularly wears to conceal the distinctive trait. It was an accident, when he almost died at the hands of Vega himself.
Clearly, he no longer sees the need to wear them.
The idea that his ambitions alone could have been enough to satisfy his ward a somewhat confusing one for him, Ryouhara approaches Ayame, folding a lip, deep in an obvious thought as he tries to grapple with the concept. "....hrmph," he suddenly grouses. "You've lived a long time on the edge of the revolution. If you've served your own heart well all these years.." he decides, "... then any suffering I will bear is worth it. I will find you in the next life. You're strong. Strong enough for me to acknowledge as ..."
He takes a moment, uncomfortable with the words.
"....an excellent partner."
Stepping past her, Seishirou breathes outward in effort, taking the wrapped ninkou from the wall of the shrine. He unseals it with a single gesture, and the paper falls away, floating past into the wind as a string of paper seals. He takes a seat on the steps next to her, resting heavily as he sets the heavy lute on one foot. Only a few last adjustments to be made..
"You've worked too hard, and have seen too much," Seishirou admits.
"It's time for you to rest.. you should listen to this song of mine. I've gotten quite good, if I say so myself. Let me handle it from here."
Seishirou's eyes half-lid as he slides a finger across the strings, drawing a slow singing note from the lute ninkou. The sound feels good to him. Perhaps for the first time since that day he gave up writing letters to his brother, Ryouhara feels as if there might be something other than desolation.
"... thank you."
Log created on 02:21:00 10/21/2014 by Seishirou, and last modified on 03:53:34 10/21/2014.