(no subject)

[bondsoflove]

Characters: Sasuke, some poor NPCs, and you.
Open? Yes.
Where: An alley.
When: RD15, late morning.
What: Stop the Knight of Fire from gutting an NPC and wearing their intestines as a belt! Or don't, whatever you want.
Warnings: Possibly violence.

They would never see him coming. 

He shook the girls with clones, sending one of them to the markets and one of them to the tavern to flirt, chat and brood in the way they find so attractive. He slunk off into the castle by using Naruto's prank jutsu--who would have known it would actually be useful?--to turn himself into a girl with long lashes, an hourglass figure, and waves of black hair like his mother. 

He made the tailor stammer by leaning forward and displaying cleavage, but it meant he got a display model of a tunic and leggings without having to wait to have flames embroidered around the edges, and a good solid pair of leather boots to go with it. He changed in his room at the Heroes' Headquarters, releasing the jutsu first so he'd actually fit into the clothing, and after tying the handkerchief Bakura had given him around his face to obscure his features and strapping his broadsword to his back, he set off towards the seedier areas of town. 

It didn't take long for him to find his target. A man, slow-moving with a mean glint in his eyes and hands that kept straying to the front of his pants every time a girl walked by. 

Sasuke crept up behind him and jabbed the soft tissue under his jaw, stunning him for the drag into the alleyway. And he waited. 

He wanted to see the light in the man's eyes go out.

Comments

[shiromadoushi]

There was the feel of something... not right.

It had been plaguing Bakura all day, enough so that he went out for a walk to try and escape it.

Only it hadn't gone away. It'd gotten worse. If he were in an RPG (a video game type, not this odd mock up of a LARP) that nagging NPC guide would be fluttering in his vision like a hyperactive child pointing at the exclamation point in the distance. Hey! Listen! Hey! Hey!

Finally, he gave into the railroading, heading for that bouncing exclamation point.

"Someone there?" he called, giving whatever it was a warning before peering into the alley.

[bondsoflove]

Sasuke glanced over his shoulder. Bakura. He grinned, although it would be invisible with the mask, and poked the NPC's boot with the tip of his sword.

"Came to see what happens?" he asked, voice a shade hungry. "I'm waiting for him to wake up."

[shiromadoushi]

"...what happens when what...?" Bakura asked cautiously.

[bondsoflove]

"When I kill him." Another prod, and the NPC jerked a little, but didn't wake. Maybe Sasuke had stunned him too hard... "Think he'll bleed? Or will he just dissolve into ink and paper?"

[shiromadoushi]

....shit.

"They bleed and die like normal people, Sasuke..." Bakura pointed out, voice soft. "This is their world, after all..."

[bondsoflove]

His eyes narrowed, and this time he kicked the NPC in the shins, hard enough to bruise. It drew a groan, but still no consciousness.

"It's a fucking book," he replied, equally quiet, but much more dangerous. "It doesn't matter what happens to characters in a fucking book. And in the real world, people are slaughtered for no reason every fucking day."

BTW, assume this is all in Japanese. Since it would be.

[shiromadoushi]

"And you want to be just like those people? Killing for no reason other than to see what happens?" Bakura asked, a note of something cold in his voice. "Causing pain and destruction to people just because they aren't as real as you are, not knowing or caring if they have their own existence that feels just as real to them as ours does to us?"

Gotcha.

[bondsoflove]

"These people are fictional." Sasuke spits at the NPC's feet, responding to the chill in Bakura's tone with a fire in his own. "Their existence is pathetic. They're so dumb it'd be a mercy to take them out before they hurt themselves."

[shiromadoushi]

"Have you ever talked to them? Not the air headed girls, but the people who don't chase after you. Even if they're dumb, they're still people. They worry about each other, fight with each other, love each other. It doesn't matter how pathetic that is. You don't get to decide that they don't get to live that life just because you think that they're too dumb to live. If they kill themselves by being dumb, that's their own doing. It shouldn't be yours."

[bondsoflove]

"You don't think they might be illusions, programmed to be that way to make us pity them and keep them happy?" Sasuke snarled, hand on the hilt of the sword. The body under him stirred and he kicked it again. "Have you considered that killing whoever brought us here might send us back? Maybe that's what we're supposed to do."

Another kick. There was a groan this time. "And it's funny. The village elders didn't seem to give a fuck that my family, real flesh and blood, worried about each other and fought with each other and loved each other, and they decided it was up to them whether or not we were butchered like livestock."

[somewhatpointy]

In a place like this, sometimes it paid to keep moving. To keep looking for something, anything that might be interesting. Ryo wasn't the sort to really care what the townspeople thought, and so he moved pretty openly through all the parts of the town, heedless of what they might say if a hero was running around in a particularly seedy area. He wasn't on his horse today, at least, choosing instead to get a little exercise and walk on foot. Still, the day seemed like it would be another boring one...

...or not. That was interesting. A dude with a handkerchief tied over his face dragging another unconscious dude into an alley. Yeah, that would definitely liven up the day. Ryo wasn't carrying any weapons; they'd given him a battle axe when he'd arrived, but he didn't need it. He was bad enough on his own when it came to hand-to-hand.

He approached the alley looking just as casual as if he were walking into a restaurant to see how long it would take him to get seated. Didn't take long at all for him to spot the two he'd seen enter earlier. "So what's going on here?"

[bondsoflove]

He recognized the face and the tone, from his arrival two days ago. Didn't associate overly positive feelings with the meeting, but that didn't matter as long as he didn't try to get in the way.

Sasuke touched the tip of the sword to the NPC's throat, just watching it glint. "I'm going to kill him when he wakes up, and see if he runs on blood or ink," he said, voice flat and dull. "Want to watch?"

[somewhatpointy]

Ryo didn't recognize the face thanks to the mask, but he thought he recognized the voice. Not like he cared at the moment, not with that tone. And really, anyone acting like this was going to irritate him...not like it took much to do that.

"Just a bored little serial killer in training, aren't you?" Ryo crossed his arms, weighing his options. He certainly didn't seem too worried. "Tell you what--how about instead, you just walk out of this alley and leave the guy alone?"

[shiromadoushi]

"Stop it."

There was a shimmer as a barrier formed between Sasuke and his victim.

"Do you want to be just like them? The people you hate?"

[bondsoflove]

Sasuke's eyes narrowed and he pressed the sword a little harder, still not breaking skin.

"And if I don't?" He was sure he could fight the guy off, if it came to that; if nothing else, he could lop the NPC's head off if his opponent took a step.

[bondsoflove]

Sasuke growled, turning his sword on Bakura. He wished he had his chokuto with its razor-fine edge, the handle practically molded to his palm by now, but this awkward, heavy blade would do.

"They should have asked themselves that question before they made me into what I am," he hissed, through clenched teeth. "They told my brother he could keep me alive. Why would they do that if they weren't trying to create an assassin? And an assassin needs blood."

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura didn't even seem to react past looking at the sword for just a moment. He'd cast so many shields so often that he trusted his reflex if Sasuke at all swung at him to block it.

"Are you going to keep being what they wanted, then?" he asked. "Keep being a puppet on their strings in a world so far removed from your own that even if you killed every single person in it, it wouldn't even make a breath of air move where it would have mattered?

"If you want revenge, save it for where it'll hurt the ones that hurt you. Otherwise all you're going to do is create more people who want revenge on you."

[somewhatpointy]

Ryo studied the situation carefully. He was unarmed, the other guy had a sword...okay, yeah, there could be a problem there for some people. And for the unconscious NPC's sake, perhaps a bit of a distraction in order. "Well, if you don't..."

He spread his arms as though he were about to receive something. "HENSHIN!" If Sasuke watched, he would see Ryo glow a weird shade of green and sort of shift into some sort of humanoid bug-thing. The transformation was quick, almost instantaneous.

Ryo, now in his Rider form of Gills, growled softly at Sasuke to let him know just what he was getting into.

[bondsoflove]

"Don't talk down to me," Sasuke growled, voice shaking. The sword clinked as he raised it, pointing it more solidly at Bakura's throat. The tone of the speech was familiar enough to be jarring--for a second, he swore he saw Naruto's bright blue eyes in that face. He stepped back.

"The Uchiha name is strong. If I'm going to be stuck here, then here's where I have to prove it." He was unsteady, his head swimming, although like any good shinobi, he kept his balance physically. "My family will have their blood repaid."

[bondsoflove]

Henge, Sasuke thought, although it was like nothing he'd seen anyone transform into before. Normally he'd take it on, but with his power drained, he wasn't sure it was worth the risk.

Carefully, he lowered the sword, then turned, and raised it again.

"What stake do you have in his life?" he asked.

[shiromadoushi]

It would be easy to confuse one blue for another, especially when Bakura's were so focused and bright because of the magic he had called close to the surface.

"Not in the blood of these people," he countered, voice firm. "Their blood will prove nothing."

[bondsoflove]

"Then what am I supposed to do?" Sasuke cried, staring into Naruto's eyes--Bakura's--so bright it hurt to look, but he couldn't make himself pull away. He put his other hand on the hilt of the sword, trying to steady its trembling. It had been forty-seven hours since he'd last slept, and his body was feeling the effects. His vision blurred.

"Am I supposed to just--sit here and forget that they were stolen from me--that my own brother was forced to steal them from me and I can't bring them back, nothing can bring them back to me but--" His throat ached. "If I can't avenge them, then I'm useless--a fucking worthless little insect--I should have--"

Died with the rest of them. Trembling, he pointed the sword towards his own stomach.

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura reached out, fingers shielded in glowing white as they wrapped around the blade to try and pull it back.

"Don't..." His words were softer now. "Killing yourself won't avenge them either. You aren't useless, you're just cut off from your goal. Rest. Regroup. Plan. And until you go back, get your revenge by living."

He held out his left hand, the faded scar oddly illuminated in the light that streamed down between the rooftops. "Let's go back... okay?"

[bondsoflove]

"Why would they banish me here if they didn't want to back me into a corner?"

Sasuke stared at the ground, gripped the sword against the pulling and ignored the hand stretched to him. This was what they'd wanted all along--to drive him to madness, incurable despair so that he would stop sullying their name with his existence. He'd been a fool, a child--he'd thought about it so many times when he was little, but always pushed it away with thoughts of taking his brother's life and earning the right to live again.

But that had never been an option. And they must have known.

"I can't," he muttered.

[rutagraveolens]

It was Rue's second day in Schwanheim and it was still no less disorienting than the first. It was like the Capitol with all the people going about their business, gossiping and whispering, but yet not. It was much more simple, almost rustic, though compared to District Eleven, anything was nicer and fancier. Even the poorer district was nicer than the shacks families in District Eleven lived in. Everywhere she went, Rue looked around with wide eyes, amazed at everything she saw.

Whether there was a game or not, Rue wasn't sure. No one seemed to know anything about them, much less anything about Panem or the Capitol or the districts. A world without games... wasn't that what people whispered that was what the afterlife was? Maybe this was where people went after they died.

That was a question Rue wasn't wiling to ask yet. Later, but not now.

As she wanders around the city, she turns down an alley and sees a masked man standing over another, unconscious man. Before she can even stop herself, Rue's picks up a rock and throws it.

"Stop it! Leave him alone!"