payback | (no subject)

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(no subject)

I...

[There's a long pause here, where she fidgits with her hands and looks down at her knees, at her fingers and her fingernails, avoiding eye contact. This is painful to start even a few years removed from the original event - getting stronger every day, but still raw and oozing and wet under where it's scabbed over. Nothing's hurting right now, of course, but there are... these little flutters of sensation that could so easily become pain. Later. Soon. Once they start digging around.]

So. [She swallows.] How... exactly... did you want me to start?

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Who and what, then?

...He let his guys hurt her.

My condolences.

[Glare.]

So I wandered around for a couple years after that. I'd decided I would kill all of them. Except then I realized I'd need help to do it, someone to back me up, and that was sort of how I ended up finding Manji.

One teenaged girl on a death mission, turning to whoever she can find to help. Why did Manji agree to follow along?

[Calming again. Relaxing the slightest bit. Ow it hurts.]

He said I looked like his little sister.

And such a thing would spur him to becoming your personal hitman?

...She's dead. [Shrugs a bit.] The whole thing... it's more his story then mine. So... I think he maybe wanted to look after me the way he couldn't look after her.

Fair enough.

[Steeples her fingers and considers the next bit for a second, glancing over at him.]

I needed someone who was the best, because the Itto-ryu... those men who destroyed so many dojo... they were the best too. And Manji was definitely the best. [An awkward sort of shrug.] He's immortal.

Interesting. [And it is.] How?

Creatures called kessen-chu. Bloodworms. If he gets hurt, limbs can be reattached... just stick 'em back on. Spiked through the head... it'll be repaired. It's a good thing, too. If he hadn't had that immortality, we'd both have died right away.

Interesting. If he ever comes to Paradisa, I'd like a sample.

You could take a sample, I guess. You can't detain him.

If I chose to detain him, I wouldn't ask your permission, Rin.

I busted - I'm on my way on busting - him out of one prison already. All right?

Go on. That sounds like an interesting story.

[Pauses slightly, but hey. If he wants to skip around, that's all right.]

That's how I met Doa and Isaku actually. Sort of. Anyway, it's mostly because you're not the only person who wanted to know more about what made Manji immortal... although these people were mostly trying to work out how to transfer it. I think.

Hmm. Immortality is useful to the individual, but if giving it to more people can be avoided, it should be. Immortality is a crime.

[Distracted -] A crime? How so?

Imagine an immortal society. Progress, as a whole, would stop. Imagine the same people maintaining positions of power for centuries without change. The dregs would be dregs for eternity. There would be no reason to reproduce, no reason to change power... an immortal in the presence of mortals, in uncivilized cultures, would be revered as a god and ruin everything.

[Listens attentively, chewing on her lip a little as he goes, and then nods.]

Okay. Yeah. So... it was more than that too, I think. The techniques they were using - hundreds of people died in just a few weeks. They had a few of what you could call... semi-successes, I guess, but they were nothing like the other true immortals I met. They were just... I don't know. Destroyed mentally, or something. They lost their minds and became no better than animals that couldn't tell the difference between friend or foe.

Beserkers. I suppose the semi-successes were used as weapons?

I don't know if they were meant to be used for anything - Doa and I just got under the castle where Manji and Isaku were being held, and... we blew up some stuff on the way, they got out of their cells. There was one... quicker success that we fought near the end, us four. It was terrible. Terrifying.

Oh? Howso?