The Day of Thunder

[Bayushi Norikage]

"It's not really something you get trained to do", the Scorpion offered. "It's something you feel out, really. I'm being open about it only because you don't understand, once you get comfortable with someone it becomes much easier."

[Ryoshun Yukara]

"Really?"

She returned her gaze to his face, expression quizzical. "I have never seemed to 'feel it out'. Perhaps when all this is over, I will try."

Slipping away her prayer beads again, she continued, "I appreciate your honesty. I suppose I just never viewed myself as someone who was allowed to even think about such things."

[Bayushi Norikage]

"Well, it's honesty of a sort, certainly", he muttered. "And which makes you say so more, I wonder? How people will view your gaze, that you were raised by a monk?" he asked.

[Ryoshun Yukara]

"My eyes. My life."

She tapped her fingers on the haft of the bisento. "I was a child in the care of a monk, then I was an avenger hunting a beast. Then I have been a... reaper. Culling the weeds so they cannot choke out the healthy garden that remains. Through it all I've had these eyes, and the blood on my hands. They say that I am an omen of ill fortune, you know. That my arrival foretells tragedy."

[Bayushi Norikage]

"Sounds tough", he said. It had a simply sincerity, perhaps of someone who knows exactly what she meant. "I went a house once, inhabited by a family. A woman had killed her husband and two children, she was terrified they were going to kill her in her sleep. It's too much to imagine, you can't make something like that up, you just find it and have to deal with it. Everyone in the village was afraid to approach her house and so it fell to me because I showed up with swords that tell people I'm supposed to help them."

He let out a small, bitter laugh.

"She was happy to see me, she could finally die and apologize to them, because now that they were dead she felt nothing but remorse but she was too cowardly to end her own life. There in her house full of the pieces of her loved ones she'd carved up and thrown into a dark corner she begged me to kill her. Begged and begged. When I drew my sword she attacked me, still too terrified of death to meet it."

Yeah, that was a rough fucking day.

He stared at nothing for a moment.

"Even the villagers of that shithole could barely scrape together the words to thank me, because who wants to be grateful for that?"

[Ryoshun Yukara]

She listened, nodding.

What a tragic tale repeated, here, there, everywhere. One could grow numb as an attempt to escape.

She chose not to.

"I am sorry you had to carry the burden of their weakness. You can at least rejoice that you were able to stop it early... when it was only one family. For that you are to be commended."

[Bayushi Norikage]

"Yeah, killing a woman screaming, begging to die while hissing and attacking you with a knife", he looked off into the forest. "Commendable, alright."

"But you know, so you saying so doesn't bother me."

[Ryoshun Yukara]

Yukara nodded. "At least it was not the children. Kami..."

Her voice faltered, and she shook her head.

"I cannot remember how many people I have put to rest... When a village goes mad, it becomes a blur. You have no more time to think. Only act. To save those you still can."

Taking a steadying breath, she concluded, "That is why I am here, Norikage. I heard this place may be an answer to the madness. An end to it. I will have the answer, if it costs me everything that I am."

[Bayushi Norikage]

Why in Jigoku is everyone so self-sacrificing around here? What's the point of killing yourself for the Empire if you can't live for it?

"Well, that's noble", and he turned away slightly. "Selfless."

Pointless.

"What if someone cared about you, though?" he asked. "What if someone wanted everything you are right where it is? What if someone important to you was the one making the sacrifice instead?"

[Ryoshun Yukara]

She seemed as though she were going to answer, but then she fell silent, gazing pensively at the forest, and then the earth.

The silence began to stretch out, her expression unchanged as if it seemed she was deep in thought.

Yet even after a good 30 seconds... no answer was forthcoming.

[Bayushi Norikage]

Norikage looked back at her, trying to read the silence. It seemed to him she had never thought much about herself, or had always felt no one would enter her life in such a manner.

That was a real shame.

"Just something to think about", he said, waving a hand. "You seem studiously focused on doing what you need to, which is more than I can say for most. It's something to be proud of."

He couldn't help feel like he was lying through his teeth, even though it's what someone should say.

[Ryoshun Yukara]

She returned her gaze to him.

"It is not simply what I need to do in some... moral sense. It is all I know to do. My life has been shaped by violence. I have lived as a blade - so the idea someone might... cherish my life... is strange to me. However, you need not force yourself to say what you think I want to hear. I cannot grow if I am not challenged by that which I do not know."

She did not relent, did not look away, even if her face was pink. "You are making me consider many things I had long discarded. You are... cruel... to do so in these environs, yet you are also right. I do not simply wish to die. I want to live. I want to win, and to see a better world, and to live in it."

Placing her left hand over her heart, she added, softly, "I would not like to watch someone else sacrifice - selfishly, I would rather suffer than have to watch someone else suffer. I am used to pain. But most of all, I want to make what is wrong... right. I want to create a world where people can be happy. Where even I, child of a Demon's child, can be happy. I think you also want to make that better world - for yourself and for others. I do not think you would come here on a whim and care nothing."

[Bayushi Norikage]

He listened and after she finished, his eyes, just above his mask, showed some resolve. Though his words did not match it quite so.

"My reason for coming here isn't even my own", Norikage admitted. "I followed someone else, but if I get caught up in what happens here, if someone needs the help of someone like me, then I'll do what I can." He relaxed somewhat. "Running away is shameful, so I understand holding your ground even if it means your death."

He was still curious what danger would be coming their way, this place was strange but so far everyone had been welcoming. It made him suspicious.

[Ryoshun Yukara]

"I am sorry you were dragged into this. It feels strange to imagine stumbling into a life or death struggle... supposing one truly happens here."

Yukara offered a kind smile. "I do not think it is shame that holds me here, however... I simply do not wish to continue as I have. I wish for something better and will bet all I have to make it come to pass."

She met his gaze and those cat eyes seemed oddly concerned. "I would like to imagine a better future. To learn how. I believe I can do so, if we can truly triumph in this prophesied battle."

[Bayushi Norikage]

He let her comments hang in the air for a while, thinking about what she said. Then he seemed to realize he was thinking about it too much and changed gears

"Well, all that said, there's time before something terrible happens and the me in the present is happy about that."

[Ryoshun Yukara]

She laughed, a husky, alto laugh. "Yes, we are not dead yet."

Offering a handshake, she added, "I am glad I have met you, Norikage. You have given me a great deal to consider... and I would like to speak again, once I have undertaken at least some of that consideration."

Pausing, she looked away, the first hint of shyness she had shown the entire time, "Of course, only if it pleases you to do so. I would not have you waste any of this time alive, if I bore you."

[Bayushi Norikage]

"No, that's fine", he said. "Let me give you a little bit of the way I was taught, Ryoshun Yukara-san."

He did shake her hand, as it was offered. He made sure to give her a proper grip too.

Then he bowed, a proper bow from the waist, but he did not scrape the ground with his hair, it was respectful. "My people were hikaru tribe, but I learned everything from those who swore their names to Bayushi, and the way of his family is the etiquette of heaven." He straightened, a little sparkle in his eye. "The depth of your bow communicates your respect for your companion, the honorific you put on their name does the same. I call you by your full name and call you san, so you know that despite flirting, I recognize you as an honorable soul worthy of respect, and it's polite to say someone's whole name when you've only just met them. They'll tell you when you don't need to anymore."

[Ryoshun Yukara]

"Ah? Is that so..."

She looked somewhat abashed. "I had no idea... nobody told me. Maybe they were simply being polite."

Embarassed, she offered a bow of her own, rather stiffly, and probably too deep, as she passed 90 degrees, showing surprising flexibility.

"Bayushi Norikage-san. My apologies. You may call me Yukara, if you wish."

[Bayushi Norikage]

"And, Yukara-san, you may call me by my name as well", he said, clearly content with that. "Shall we go back?"

[Ryoshun Yukara]

"Of course, Norikage-san."

She smiled, trying to memorize that change.

"I appreciate you being... honest... with me."

Stepping to his side, she added, "I have much to deliberate, indeed."

(/scene?)