Description: Rugal's sudden appearance finally gives Soma the opening he needs to delve deeply into the Suiryuu's deepest sanctums. Sadly, all he finds there is a short and brutal battle with the ship's Director of Operations. Can the detective piece together the ephemeral bits of knowledge he's collected into something useful before it's too late?
The promised hour has arrived.
In more ways than one, apparently. Soma Travedi's cabin is mostly dark; the cop has excellent night vision and while Kasumi Todoh has not exactly been strong in evidence during this trip, he doesn't want to take the chance that she'll walk into a brightly lit room and find him preparing for this. But in fact, the entire thing is going down a little early. Some inner voice yanked Soma from his early rest... perhaps some faint reaction of Psycho Power to the grand events about to unfold, or maybe just good old subconscious intuition.
Either way, Soma is buckling on his shoulder holster and prepping his trusty Beretta M92FS... a little heavy for policework, but the military-grade pistol has served him well thus far... when the spotlights of the impending invasion blaze bright white through the porthole. For a moment he's trapped like a deer in headlights, staring outside at what little he can see while he mentally registers the sudden surge of emotion all over the ship. Apparently the Ryouhara weren't expecting visitors, or at least not THESE visitors.
Then comes Hiretsu's voice over the loudspeakers, and the quizzical, analytical expression breaks out into a grin. It's almost too perfect... but the surprise he senses from the ship's people is genuine, and so it appears fate has delivered the perfect opportunity right into Soma's hands.
The bustle makes it easy for him to move through the corridors as-is, even if he weren't being careful and wearing the typical black and grey ensemble he favors. The only mark of his passing, interestingly, is the occasional flare of blue on the walls as Soma puts his plan into action: his fingers trailing silver-black as he throws out short, small, controlled bursts of Psycho Power... and then uses the ship's own reaction like a guidepost, following the lines, heading to the heart of the ship. He's not entirely sure what he's going to find there... but whatever it is, the time is well past for backroom deals and information brokering. Time to find out facts with good old fashioned detective work.
More or less, the hustle and bustle on the ship is far removed from Soma's current location. This deep in the engineering spaces, it will be some time before invaders pierce through ship's defenses and random fighters to go this far. A s a result, the lower spaces are eerily silent, save for the distant tinny sound of battle and the industrial thunks and thrumms of machinery laboring--some with the distinct sound of mechanical distress, laboring against the toils of the Blacknoah itself.
It only gets progressively lonelier, quieter, and colder, the deeper one goes.
There is no resistance.
At the very end, one reaches a wall, where that energy leads. A door, told by the seams inlaid there, and quite a large one at that, similar to that seen in a bank vault, perhaps. But there is no handle. No wheel. There is no perceptible location for a key. A pick. Nothing. It is only a seam there, in the wall.
When one does not wish to be disturbed, one builds a door without a knob.
Perhaps most disturbingly of all--Once standing before this door..
Though the senses buzz with the energy deep in the Suiryuu's heart, there is yet still no perceptible sound or sense from anywhere else on the ship.
Though many might disagree, there really is such a thing as 'too quiet'. An experienced detective or agent might tell you that true silence -- real, absolute silence -- is the worst thing of all, because it is to a large degree the exact opposite of the standard condition. Almost everything has background noise, except perhaps the breath the entire world takes in before a storm or other disaster... real silence is engineered silence. It has to be created, not found. When things get quiet, then your hackles should be up.
Such silence has never bothered Soma Travedi one bit.
It may simply be a product of his awareness of his surroundings, heightened to a razor's edge through training and psychic ability... but if one were to ask the ICPO agent, who continues his downward descent, the reason, he would likely reply that after a childhood of hearing voices belonging to everyone but himself, a little silence is a blessing.
A part of Soma actually feels regret about what he's doing. After all, it might be that abovedecks, people he regards as innocent civilians -- the precocious Futaba girl, the punk rock princess with attitude, the touchy kid with similar powers he met earlier -- are doing what is, technically speaking, Soma's job, by fighting against an individual that Soma knows to be Rugal. There aren't many people who might recognize the Black Noah in the dark of night, but Rugal's organization is among the top priorities at the ICPO-SCD. Soma knows it well... but its presence here is exactly why he must leave the fighting to the Ryouhara and 'agents of Jinchuu' and get to the bottom of this before someone else does.
The door, however, presents a bit of a problem.
There's clearly no forced technological entry, but as Soma is coming to discover quickly, the Ryouhara clan are particularly ingenius at integrating semi-supernatural forces into their work. Walking to the smooth metal, the undercover agent puts his hand to it, palm down, and inspects it closely, murmuring, "Riko's work, maybe? Or someone else..."
"Riko, I'm afraid, doesn't have that kind of ability."
Pause.
"At least, not yet, anyway."
The voice is crudely elegant--a clipped tonal assertion of simple nobility. Though the cold, brutally practical tilt to his voice suggests all that it does. A noble lineage, but a soldier's life, hardened by years of battle and an entire secret history of strife.
Though his voice sounded only minutes ago over the auxilary public announcement system, the Director makes unusually good time in getting around the ship. At least, for someone with a cane and a perceptible limp.
Like a ghost, the director of operations approaches Soma from behind, the cap casting eerie shadows over his face in the sparse, but harsh lighting of the Suiryuu's engineering spaces. "No.. that's the work of our Captain. If it were Miss Koganei's, there would have been a keypad. Of course, given our engineer's sense of humor.. I wonder what it would really have done?" he muses openly.
".. So."
To the point. "Going on a little night stroll, Mister Travedi?"
The troubling part about Hiretsu.. is that he has no perceptible presence of his own to speak of. There is no chill down your spine, no hair at the back of your neck. There was no sound of his entry, no visual cue. Only what he ihimself chooses to reveal, and nothing else. He is not here one moment, and then he is the next. It is his way.
For all intents and purposes, Hiretsu doesn't exist.
It seems to have gotten a little quieter since the Director arrived.
Perhaps to his credit, Soma's response is immediate; his hand flies from the door and he whirls, whipping the pistol from its holster and holding it in a traditional two-handed grip, drawing an immediate bead on the general direction that the Director's voice appears to come from and, once the man has actually made an appearance, training it right on his eyes. The man clearly has reflexes like a cat... but perhaps less obviously, he is *genuinely surprised*, which is a rarity in Soma's case. He can be startled, but for a living being it's usually close to impossible.
Absolutely startlingly is that Hiretsu doesn't even appear to BE there to the man's sixth sense, which is the most unnerving fact of all.
The gun stays where it is as Soma responds, but his tone doesn't suggest the mien of someone training a weapon on another human being; it's light, conversational, his American-sounding English giving the entire affair an action movie feel, coming from the dusky-skinned Indian's features. If Hiretsu's voice is the clipped, curt sound of nobility, Soma's is the earthy, self-deprecating amusement of the common man.
"It got noisy all of a sudden," Soma responds carefully, eyes darting for a moment to the armband before travelling back to Hiretsu's face. "So I decided to have a look around. I'm surprised we haven't met yet, Mr. Director... I've been on this ship for some time. Of course, the crew have a certain... how should I put it." One dark black eyebrow rises, brushing against the curiously silver tips of Soma's bangs. "...I guess I'd say an 'elusive' quality. Unobtrusive, but you know they're there. Doing their jobs."
A noble soldier speaking with a common everyman.
Is there any greater expression of the People's Tournament?
To his own merit, Hiretsu seems mostly unstirred by the weapon levelled on him, only moving his cane so that it rests squarely in the palm of his right hand and that the curve of that hand rests in the palm of his left. As he does this, he sniffs faintly, as if to clear something in his airways.
"Of course," Hiretsu allows. "It is the fashion and training of the crew to avoid disrupting the atmosphere of the ship. We spared no expense, obviously, securing the best money could buy of our necessities. Still.."
The Director steps forward. "If you'd wanted a tour, you should have sent a message up to the bridge. We could have arranged one. Now.. well. You understand our situation. Security is.. somewhat occupied. As a result.." Hiretsu shrugs. "Perhaps you've seen a little too much?" he wonders, openly.
It is a /genuine question./
"Perhaps you've not seen enough. You /are/ on my match schedule for this round.."
Odd. Soma was never issued a fight card.
His back is to the door, and Soma suddenly doesn't like that situation. You'd have to be an idiot not to read Hiretsu's intent... if not hostile, or threatening, then at least *promising* violence. A cane is just as bad a weapon as a gun, in the right hands... perhaps moreso, since who knows what kinds of ninja jutsu are wrapped into any number of seemingly inocuous objects on Suiryuu. The place has rocket launchers, but the director of operations is carrying a cane.
His moves aren't sudden, nor are they immediately threatening, but Soma begins to circle to his right, moving so that the door is no longer at his back while as much open space as the room affords is. "If I'd wanted a tour, you'd have shown me everything you wanted me to see, which would, I am assuming, be 100% of nothing helpful." At least he's doing Hiretsu the honor of not playing the conversational gambit out too much. Something is nagging at him, at the back of his memory...
'Don't think we've met... Sakura Kasugano, chief of Suiryuu security.'
Thank you, Arika Fade.
So it's not the person in charge of security that got sent down here to ferret him out, which does interest him. Presumably Kasugano -- who Soma knows to be a more than capable fighter -- is up on the decks dealing with Rugal. But then, why send someone able-bodied down into the holds to keep someone from seeing a featureless door that can't be opened by anyone but Seishirou?
Seen too much, indeed.
The agent circles a few more steps, gun still trained on Hiretsu as he comes to a stop. "I'm going to get the answers I need one way or another," Soma responds calmly, though some part of him is screaming about the problematic issue of a psychic 'blank spot' sitting in front of him. "As an 'agent of Jinchuu', shouldn't I be privy to the 'new dawn' for the 'fighting proletariat'?" he asks, taking one hand off the grip of his pistol to point at his forehead... indicating the rising sun emblem on Hiretsu's hat. "Besides. I certainly can't be a bigger threat than Rugal Bernstein..."
"The answers you need.." Hiretsu notes.. "should not be confused with the answers you want."
Without appreciably moving his left hand from his cane, he gestures at the door behidn and to the side of Soma's circling, as if it were merely Exhibit A, proving his point without any further words needed.
"There are many questions to be asked of the great dawn. However, only a few of those questions actually matter. 'Why'... is of the greatest importance, and is what any detective of notable measure should concern himself with. Why is where all methods intersect. As I said. You are on the schedule. And your orders were to battle," he reasons, following that brutal line of logic to its conclusion. "Do you seek answers?"
The director moves suddenly, circling out of Soma's firing angle. Despite his apparent disability, he moves silently, and as quickly as a lightning bolt.
The head twists. The cane snaps open along its length, revealing itself to be hollow. A familiar edge folds sideways in the haft. The straight length that folds out of the cane at an angle reveals a familiar rayskin-wrapped hilt.
"As you said, as an agent, you're entitled." He's standing to Soma's side at some distance, moving with a great deliberation to each step. "But you shouldn't think it would be easy. I'll demonstrate a 'What' to you now..." Hiretsu explains, inexorable as he draws the length of blade from the cane, which stays standing on the deck plates without falling over, even as the Director maneuvers around it. After counting off some measure of ticks, the cane snaps shut again. "..So that you may move on to more appreciable questions."
The ghost turns the straight kodachi reverse in his hand, ready.
COMBATSYS: Hiretsu has started a fight here.
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Hiretsu 0/-------/-------|
So that's what it comes to. A gun's not much use in close combat unless you're quite specifically trained in using it that way, and Soma definitely as not... so while Hiretsu does his thing with the hidden sword, the ICPO agent slips the handgun into its holster through the top of his jacket and shakes out his arms, presumably without a weapon now, facing the Director of Operations with a calm expression.
"I've got my theories about the why," he adds airily, taking a deep breath. Unknown quantity... so this is going to take strategy. Best to think it through for now. "Though I'm not the only one hard at work there, as you probably know. You might not believe it, but I'm actually open to the possibility that you're not doing anything particularly 'wrong' here either, though unlike your erstwhile Director of Security, I don't seem to have any rose-colored lenses for the purposes of a ninja clan, either."
Soma's stanceless-ness is almost strange, as he stands there like a man chatting with another at a bus stop, his violet eyes fixed on Hiretsu. "And there's multiple whys here too, of course. Jinchuu's quite the little hurricane, isn't it? Drawing all sorts of fascinating flotsam. You've got Belmounte's little operation in it so deep even they can't see the surface anymore. And of course, a powerful crime lord known to be interested in stealing certain techniques is right now hovering over your boat, trying to steal it."
Soma's eyes narrow. "Geese Howard and Wolfgang Krauser don't have 'Teacher of the year' statues on their desks, Mr. Director, so I have to wonder what it is Bernstein is here to take by force... see, the 'what' and the 'why of that are connected." Suddenly spinning, the agent of both Jinchuu and the law flicks his arms once, unique daggers dropping into his hands, held blade backwards... in another time and place, Soma himself might be considered a ninja from the way he fights.
"So if I have to cut the 'why' out of your damn hide, so be it!" Springing, the Fighting Novelist leaps at Hiretsu, one silver dagger slicing a vicious arc through the air. It's not the swiftest of strikes, but that's only a problem if the detective's goal is to hit his opponent...
COMBATSYS: Soma has joined the fight here.
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Soma 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Hiretsu
COMBATSYS: Hiretsu dodges Soma's Fierce Strike.
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Soma 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Hiretsu
"Do you really imagine Bernstein concerns this operation in the slightest?" Hiretsu asks, genuinely. Of course--it's something of a lie. In truth, the attack on the ship--like the one before it--was a matter of great importance. Still.. there are things that are.. simply more so.
The dagger cuts that arc through the air, but Hiretsu is no longer there to cut. The director moves with speed just shy of unearthly. The movement--to the trained eye--is simple. A side step, and then a small circling jump. But to make a simple maneuver seem complex is a matter of execution and speed. Neither of which are traits Hiretsu has a deficit of.
"Despite his insistence on having this ship, Bernstein is still only a spectator. In the ancient times past, an invasion--a shipwide war such as this would only be considered a courtesy from the enemy--"
From one side to another, the voice snaps across the room, "--nothing but a greeting!"
Hiretsu doesn't pull punches. His own arm whips out, the director closing the considerable distance in a single step, and from his shoulder fires a cannon thrust right through the space that currently holds Soma's chest.
"You'd waste time concerning yourself with the attention of big names. In that way your attention can easily be misled, controlled at will. It is nothing but.. /tch/. Western thinking! Subtleties. The smallest detail! The most nondescript man! That is where the real act is committed!"
COMBATSYS: Hiretsu successfully hits Soma with Fierce Strike.
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Soma 0/-------/---====|-------\-------\0 Hiretsu
He expected Hiretsu to be fast, but that doesn't help Soma one bit when the kodachi comes straight at his sternum, sinking into flesh with a rather unnerving sound; the ICPO agent flings himself backwards, forcing the blade out, and puts a hand to the surprisingly invisible slice in his black bolero jacket where the entire affair sank through, his fingers wet with blood. Well... the man isn't pulling any punches, is he? But a sword is made to kill people and little else... the ICPO agent wasn't expecting mercy.
"Don't try to convince me this is some sort of altruistic endeavor, because there's no bait in the world good enough to get me on that hook," Soma hisses, shaking one arm out as the dagger in that palm suddenly disappears back wherever it came from. Apparently the ICPO agent has a talent for hidden weapons. "I look to the big names because the big ripples on the water indicate happenings beneath the surface. You're gathering... something here. Not just 'chi', though that's part of it. Fusing technology and spiritual energy to some end. I know some think of Suiryuu as a walking bomb, but if anything this is the egg of the phoenix, to my eyes." He indicates his head toward the walls. "Burned to ash in the process to create something new. Of course, what it's going to create is certainly up for grabs."
Twirling, gritting his teeth against the pain, Soma drives forward with one dagger, the tip glowing with an aura of bright silver, lined with crackling black... the light and the shadow, together. The thrust is perhaps slowed by the painful injury Hiretsu just inflicted on the ICPO agent, but if it connects, the knife drives into the closest nerve point on the human body as Soma can manage... and while the touch of steel on said nerve bundle is painful, the cold sting of Psycho Power added to it is worse.
COMBATSYS: Hiretsu blocks Soma's Sagittarius.
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Soma 0/-------/----===|=------\-------\0 Hiretsu
"Who said anything about altruism? Such a thing cannot exist in today's modern world. These fighters did not come to realize a grand future.. In that, anything in this world can be used as a weapon, if you know the secret. No, this event has a purpose. There are no lies being told here--we will crown a victor. By all necessary means. But in the end, there is only one goal of Jinchuu that someone of your talent need concern yourself with.."
Hiretsu twists just so. Oh, he makes no move to brace or to evade the weapon. But where the knife lands is just two inches off from the nerve cluster at Hiretsu's arm point. Though the knife lands clean, Hiretsu moved the necessary point for the weapon to achieve its full and total damage. He seems to have a working knowledge of pressure points, at least....
In the tight space, the old man whispers. ".. The one of judgment."
He moves to take Soma by his collar, insinuating his leg--the one with the limp--just behind Soma's own. And moves to simply knock Soma over by applying his elbow to the wound he just made in the man's chest to knock the agent across the floor into the wall.
That similarity in terminology causes a blink. "Did you talk to that kunoichi at port?" Hiretsu asks, weathered by the effort, but concerned. Genuinely curious, for a moment, before shaking his head. "Ah, likely not. Still... Imagine for a moment what would hatch from those ashes."
COMBATSYS: Hiretsu successfully hits Soma with Quick Throw.
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Soma 0/-------/--=====|=------\-------\0 Hiretsu
Perhaps Soma's simply not up to snuff as a fighter, despite the compliment Hiretsu just paid him... or perhaps the ICPO agent is simply trying too hard to think like a detective when he should be focusing like a fighter. His reliance on his empathic powers to 'know' where his opponents are and react accordingly being shut down is certainly hindering his efforts. In any regard, the detective's attempt to fall with the sudden trip does not work in his favor; instead, Soma lands on his back with an unnerving *crack* sound. That can't be good.
But he does stand up again, even if he decides not to attack. Being forced onto the defensive isn't like him, but simply hurling himself at Hiretsu's defenses when his own aren't up to snuff is suicide... and the longer he can keep the man talking the better, quite frankly. So instead he hangs back, getting rid of his other dagger as well, leaving himself bare-handed... not a smart tactical move when your opponent has a weapon, is it? But assuredly Soma knows that too...
Kunoichi. The term for a female ninja, and one that's clearly not a Ryouhara to hear him talk about her thus. Soma doesn't reply, and instead simply moves on with the thread of discussion. "'Judgment' is an interesting term because it can mean a lot of things. The application of a legal system to an offender, or the gauging of something's worth. It's similar to but not exactly the same as 'justice'... so you tell me. Who's being judged? You hand-picked a group that's just at the right stage of their lives and training to be perfectly malleable, led along on a string. Lord knows I've let you hold my leash a little too long. But you still call us 'agents of Jinchuu'; the harbingers of vengeance. So I expect we're to do the judging. It's not the Bratva, though inviting Nikolai Tippin was a fun diversion... even though I'm not sure you're done with him yet. But your vegeance isn't on the Russian mob either."
COMBATSYS: Soma gains composure.
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Soma 0/-------/---====|=------\-------\0 Hiretsu
The blade of his weapon turns horizontal in the air.
The length of a kodachi makes it useful as a hard defensive weapon. Not as short as a wakizashi, thus suitable as a main arm, but not as long as a katana, making it a close quarter weapon. Though it is not quite as effective for hard offense as compared to the daggers that Soma just put away, it is suitable for an air tight defense.
The weapon gleams as it catches the light from an overhead caged fixture.
Weapon at his hip, Hiretsu slides his free hand into his pocket. Leaning just so, it might be clear that the man is still a little stiff, despite his due speed. Aah, the wonders of engineering.
"It can mean many things," he agrees. "Though every one of you has something to contribute to this Suiryuu's mission--even meddlers like you and Miss Belmounte--hence your roles as agents.. in the end, the truth is always a little simpler than you'd imagine. The closet door walked past. The man, overanalyzed until he becomes worthless. A deposit box, in a Japanese bank. When a secret is already revealed, pretense and theatrics becomes the new truth to plumb. Fools obsess over simple things they aren't meant to know. That ... is valuable in itself."
COMBATSYS: Hiretsu focuses on his next action.
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Soma 0/-------/---====|=------\-------\0 Hiretsu
There's that name. The hated name, that Soma knew was going to come up. Elle. Why is she here? What does she really want out of Jinchuu? There's a faint twitch of the features, a little movement of the face, that suggests if Hiretsu threw that name out to annoy the ICPO agent, it worked... but in a flash he's calm again, trying to find some center to all this. Thinking about what was said.
Amazingly, he finds one. Right in front of him.
"I think at this point, I just have to mention that I don't care," Soma says, almost blithely. A silver dagger falls back into his grip, bright against the black of his clothing. "The funny thing about this whole conversation is that you people seem to think I actually give a damn why you're doing any of this. You know who I am, but I think you have a misapprehension about why I'm here."
And now Soma's violet eyes narrow, his tone becoming cold. Hiretsu's had his time to pontificate; now it's Soma's turn. "I don't serve something so inflexible as the 'law'. I'm an agent first and foremost of 'justice', a concept you are sure to think of as abstract and loose but which I am here to tell you is not. If you're really harmless, if you're actually just here to mete out some abstract vengeance and move on, then I may simply do nothing. I only care about the 'why' insofar as it's instructive to the 'result'. If that means I had to be your puppet for a while, fine. If it means you can feel good about yourself for making me run your maze? Fine. In the end..."
And he's suddenly a blur of action, moving at a speed he hasn't shown before. "...it's irrelevant!" The dagger-holding arm whips out, the blade suddenly detaching and coiling on its increasing length of wire to snag around whatever part of Hiretsu is handy like a whip. If he can get a grip? Soma simply tugs and then flings Hiretsu into the nearest hard surface with all the force he can muster.
COMBATSYS: Soma successfully hits Hiretsu with Wishing Star.
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Soma 0/-------/---====|===----\-------\0 Hiretsu
"Hrngh--"
That one was faster than he'd expected. He'd even had to stop shifting his stance to try and compensate. Unfortunately, it might not have been enough, and the old director flies across the space and slams into the far wall--though those scrawled lines there react not in the slightest to his impact. The agent hitting the ground in a wreck, he groans. .. or at least, he seems to, until that ragged chuckle.
"Still thinking like a cowboy.." he comments, wetly, inbetween ragged coughs.
He is not well.
"You think your sense of aesthetics wasn't accounted for already? I thought you were a detective.." He stiffly gets to his feet, dusting his cap off on a pant leg. "All you do is parrot what you have already been told. If you are really an agent of justice.. you should know that "Why" will determine your response more so than anything else. As an agent of justice.. it is not a question of intelligence that you allow yourself to be used by Jinchuu." He grins, a bit of blood crawling down his lip. "... It is a question of /duty/. It is yours to listen and act accordingly. .. You've heard everything you need to know. I won't need to hold back from here."
He puts his cap back on. And flicks that hand out, throwing the smoke bomb once concealed in the hat onto the floor. Smoke billows through the room. Hiretsu's intent is simply to leave Soma blinded in the face of his next. His voice skillfully echoed off of every angle in the room, Hiretsu prepares. "Ninpo - Yoi no Mai."
The attack comes instantly.
COMBATSYS: Soma endures Hiretsu's Deep Strike.
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Soma 1/------=/=======|====---\-------\0 Hiretsu
Dance of the Evening Primrose.
Four pressure points in the torso. In an instant, Hiretsu's blade will strike all of them. Almost at once.
If he's going to hide his attack with tricks, why bother getting out of the way? Answer: you don't. The smoke bombs go off, Soma's vision is clouded, and because of his... status, whatever it is, he can't track Hiretsu. So he stands there and waits. It's going to come. And eventually it does. The blade sinks into the pressure points, mostly as planned.
Soma absolutely fails to fall over or give up or, in fact, even so much as *move*, which might not have been.
Silver-black light glows in both of the ICPO agent's hands as he effectively traps Hiretsu in place with his body on the last stroke. All it does is cause the blood to flow more freely, but at the same time... "Blah blah blah, nobody feels appropriately awed by my tampering in God's domain. Get a MySpace like everyone else. Why you think I should jump through hoops for your 'answers', which most assuredly will be useless to me because you're ninja and that's how you operate, is beyond me."
The light turns from glow to fever pitch as, brushing back from the stab to the chest, Soma slams his hands together, trademark light daggers forming a sort of double-bladed silver-black spear of Psycho Power that sears the air between the two combatants. Soma's lost the fight, he knows this much already... yet oddly, this doesn't seem to trouble him. "If you want to stop me, you're going to have to kill me."
COMBATSYS: Hiretsu dodges Soma's Ashvinau.
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Soma 1/------=/=======|====---\-------\0 Hiretsu
Hiretsu is driven back in the face of Soma's impaler, twisting the blade with Soma's motion to break it free without having to harm Soma much more. He's no fool. Even at his strength, the wily Director knows quite well that people like Soma still pose a measurable threat. That boy is quite hardcore. And there IS still an invasion aboard his boat.
Circling about, the director shakes blood off his blade, and slams the weapon back into the unfolding cane, bringing the length up between the two.
Unlike before, there seems to be a more deadly air about the man. He is /not/ wasting any further breath on Soma. It seems as if those were the last words he's intent on saying, and now, he is quite literally playing for keeps. The cane twirls once, clearing the smoke cover just enough. One jab is shot out. It seems Hiretsu's style is based on .. well, capitalization. Every injury his stabbing blade has made, Hiretsu goes for now, aiming to strike each bloodied point to inflict damage, but more importantly, to inflict almost paralyzing pain. So much for trying not to injure Soma further.
Beyond the beads of sweat at his brow, his eyes can now be seen. Sharp, familiar, cold things.
His style.. hardly seems just and fair.
COMBATSYS: Hiretsu successfully hits Soma with Fierce Strike.
- Power hit! -
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Soma 1/-======/=======|=====--\-------\0 Hiretsu
That Hiretsu is his better in combat is now without question. The *fierceness* of the strike overpowers Soma's sudden evasion... and it's clear from the way he moves, an almost black-silver-tan blur in the air, that if he weren't fighting someone with equal speed and precision this fight would have ended considerably differently than it did. As it is, the jab to the already-wounded torso is just enough to end this. Not enough to put Soma down -- he clings to consciousness yet through sheer tenacity -- but enough to end the exchange of blows.
That said, should Hiretsu care to notice his cane as it impacts Soma's body, he might also notice the dark-skinned hand taking hold of it.
"I'll ask two questions. They're pretty simple and you just cost me about four pints of blood and a tailored shirt, so. One, what are you going to do with the chi you've stored down here? And two... why did you *specifically* invite me?"
There's a pause, and then Soma lets go of the cane, stumbling back... leaning against the very door he was moving away from at the start of this violent tete-a-tete. "You can choose to do two things. You can give me the runaround, the poetic answer that doesn't say much, or you can just tell me the truth. If Jinchuu is as inevitable and entrenched as you say it is, Director, then telling me the truth -- the real truth -- won't hurt you a bit, will it? But it might convince me to turn my efforts elsewhere. It's up to you."
After a moment and a wet cough, the ICPO agent does give a grin to Hiretsu that could almost be called wolfish. "Or you can kill me. But I think that would get you even less than telling me the honest truth."
COMBATSYS: Soma takes no action.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Hiretsu 0/-------/--=====|
COMBATSYS: Soma can no longer fight.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Hiretsu 0/-------/--=====|
The director labors with breath. His voice is even, but his rhythm is not. In that moment, the agent has control. A short-lived thing, but raw tenacity keeps him standing? -- It keeps the both of them standing, in certain ways. Or so one could say.
Hiretsu leans heavily on his cane, winded despite a relative lack of injury. Though all of that disarming facade--the humble attitude, the gentle nature--is discarded for his purposes during this fight, there is still a hint of that simple humility in his bloodied smile. Just enough to .. remain practical. "Every fledgling organization needs funding, and arms." the director states, simply.
"I told you. You have all the information you need to know." he turns. Oh, he's very sure the agent doesn't have the will to attack him any further. Not as he is now. "Though, your conclusions are wrong. Jinchuu is neither infallible nor set. It exists only as an exertion of our will. That will will see it to fruition. Why were you invited? Exactly that reason. Though your sense of humor fights it, the truth is this. Those not intelligent enough to observe and find the truth for themselves... can't be trusted with that truth."
It's as simple as that.
As for Soma's tailored shirt? Hiretsu only tugs at his own jacket. He's going to need to get a new uniform. This one is useless now. Hiretsu will make his way out of the engineering spaces. He makes no effort to usher Soma out. In his condition, Soma couldn't pick his nose, much less any lock down here. And after all. He was right. Why bother to stop someone from trying to break into a door that's not a door?
Log created on 23:15:02 10/05/2007 by Soma, and last modified on 12:06:19 10/08/2007.