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[kurokenshi]

Who: Kazuto and you
When: Early morning, January 3
Where: One of the main streets
What: Kazuto was practising his sword skills in what he thought was a quiet little yard, out of sight. But he was spotted and dragged into a fight.
Warnings: PG for violence in general


The black swordsman usually took great care not to draw attention to himself. Using swords in an age where firearms were more common already drew plenty of attention from passers-by. But given his distinctly foreign appearance, and the recognisable curved hilts and sheaths, he supposed (and hoped) that they wrote him off as a samurai. That seemed to be the first impression that many people had of him, as much as he had initially tried to dispel it.

For discretion's sake, he always chose an out of the way location to train and hone his skills. The actual place changed daily and randomly so that he couldn't easily be targeted and picked off by a rival assassin. At least, that's what his trainers had told him.

He had drawn one of his blades and settled into a ready fighter's stance, about to launch into his first deadly sword form against an imaginary enemy when a group of perforare users slouched by. From their momentarily surprised looks, they hadn't expected to see anyone in this back street. Their surprise quickly turned into wolfish grins, and they surrounded him.

If Asuna were here, this would be over in seconds, he thought to himself as he wordlessly drew the second katana from the sheath on his back. Seemed like he'd get to practise on real opponents today.

Comments

[positron]

The only problem with those guns was the time it took to fire on themselves. Before the bullets could come into effect, they were briefly vulnerable. Jr proved as much as he shot one in the leg, causing one would-be attacker to drop to the pavement with a pained cry. The other looked at his companion in brief alarm, then back to Jr, light flickering to life around his hand.

"Those bullets-" he began, advancing, light taking on a neon hue.

Jr sidestepped a volley of lights as they shot his way, firing his pistols and nicking the man's shoulder. These guys weren't seasoned, that much was obvious. And two of them really was nothing, certainly not to someone who was raised as a weapon and naught else. "Best on the market, but completely normal."

His powers were too volatile, he wasn't about to use them if he didn't need to. So instead he strafed around his opponent, slipping just past the reach of attacks and firing shots to disrupt any patterns of attack. First chance he got, he'd disable this guy just like the other one.

It was hard to tell how that guy with the swords was doing, when he had to keep an eye on this thug. Jr fired again, unsurprised when it was deflected, and kept moving. He knew the voice now, he was pretty sure. The accent was distinctive by itself, in a place like this.

"Occurs to me these guys probably don't know Japanese," Jr suggested, ducking another attack as he spoke in that language, accent somewhat stiff. He'd never invested the kind of him he had in dead languages, not really. Ancient things just held more fascination to him, but Japanese was good for business, and Soze Kukai had insisted any sons of his learn it.

[kurokenshi]

Kazuto blocked a slew of ethereal knives aimed at his head by crossing his swords and knocking them aside. The two coming after him were harrying him, one drawing his attention while the other tried to sneak behind. Every time he turned to face one, he made himself vulnerable to an attack. What was more, the special abilities drawn out by the bullets of these two men were of a ranged type. As long as they danced out of reach, he'd get nowhere.

He ducked and twisted out of the way as a whip snapped into the ground where he'd just stood. He'd have brought one of his katana down on it if there wasn't hard stone waiting to dull the edge. The swordsman was only subconsciously aware of Jr's own fight, and hearing nothing to indicate that his partner might be in trouble, he concentrated on strafing the volley of knives sent by opponent no.1.

Some light footwork brought him up close to the thug, too near for him to dodge if one last flurry of knives came at him. Praying that didn't happen, he darted to the side and got behind the man, driving his katana through their heart from the back. Just in time for the whip to wrap around the dead man's neck (much to his other opponent's dismay) and yank the body off his sword.

"Obviously," Kazuto panted, taking advantage of a brief reprieve to catch his breath as the man with the whip suddenly looked very unsure about his chances of winning against him. He was glad to be able to slip into Japanese, his native language. He wouldn't have to think so hard about his words as he fought.

[positron]

"We've got a lurker," Jr commented, bullets of purple light whizzing past his ear. Aside from making his earring sway, it hadn't much effect. He was definitely dealing with a rookie, not much of a challenge and enough to almost be bored. Still, those attacks were swift, and the guy kept moving. While he knew the swordsman over there was inclined to kill these jokers, he knew he'd get an earful from Yeshua if he did the same and it wasn't completely called for.

Another volley shot his way and he ducked this time, firing again at the ground between the goon's feet. And then he was back to circling, waiting for an opportune moment. The way that guy was attacking, those spheres could hit someone mistakenly with a poorly timed shot from his pistols.

Jr grit his teeth, growing impatient with the fire-fight, slow as it was. One moment, he dodged. The next, he darted toward his opponent, weaving to avoid fire as he closed distance. Halting abruptly in front of his foe, he reeled back and delivered a kick that knocked the man off balance, staggering.

And in that instant he fired, bullet tearing through the guy's right hand. The gun dropped, and Jr ignored the indignant shouting that followed. Could've killed him, and here the goon was whining and cursing all the same. Just another reason to hate these types.

"Can't tell if it's a scout or someone's sizing you up. I'm sure they've got plenty of information on me by now," he added when it appeared his opponents were inclined to drag themselves away rather than continue their assault, exchanging an empty magazine in one pistol for a fresh one.

[kurokenshi]

Kazuto stared hard at the man with the whip until the guy lost his nerve and backed away with his two remaining companions. They knew a lost cause when they saw it, so they had good self-preservation instincts if nothing else. But the katanas did not return to their sheaths until all three of them had staggered around the corner and out of sight, and the blades had been given a clean on the dead men's clothing.

Free to relax his guard a little (he still didn't know if the newcomer was an ally or not), he turned to Jr while trying not to look too ill about the corpses at their feet. He personally would have preferred to have left them alive if he could, but those overseeing his conditioning - they called it 'training' - encouraged him to hone his skill where he could and establish a reputation. For that reason he tried to think of the corpses as your typical monsters in a video game, but it still wasn't easy.

"They probably thought I looked weak," he commented. "Groups like that always seek out lone fighters." Kazuto's eyes quickly sized up Jr and he added reluctantly, "There's still time to catch up with them if you don't want them to leak any information..."

[positron]

"Guess you really are new here, after all," Jr had already figured it was the guy he'd spoken to on the network before. There weren't many out there who were fluent in Japanese. Or, at least, he hadn't seen very many people use it for their writing. It was distinctive and interesting enough in its way.

He didn't spare the retreating figures a glance, sparing a moment to twirl his pistols before holstering them with practiced ease. Not like he couldn't whip them back out just as quickly if he really felt the need for it, but he didn't see this guy as an opponent at the moment.

After giving his shoulders a roll, relaxing muscles after that little skirmish, he gestured to a particularly tall building some distance away. "I'm a co-head at the Kukai Foundation. Those assholes all know who I am, and what I can do - or they're green as hell."

While the Foundation was known to the world for their technologies, particularly in the arms department, and their humanitarian efforts, it was different on a local level. Here, people knew at least one head of the Foundation was not a friend to any mafia organization. If anything, he was known for blowing their facilities to bits. The satellite ones, anyway.

He'd shoot for their main bases of operation eventually, but he knew that was going to take time. A frustrating amount of time.

And with that, he stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jacket. "Sounds like you knew it wouldn't be safe going out alone though. Did you have something that important to see to?"

sorry for the delay!

[kurokenshi]

Kazuto glanced at the building pointed out by the other boy. He recognised it for the way it stood out, and the name, too, sounded familiar. He'd seen it written across the entrance to the place of course, but that wasn't where the recognition came from. Running his fingers through his hair, he shook his head and gave up trying to remember. There was no use forcing what wouldn't come to mind.

"No, not really. I only came here to practise with these." Kazuto gestured to the swords on his back. "They draw a lot of attention and I thought no-one would find me here."

In a violent society that used guns and other firearms, archaic weapons like swords drew derision and mockery from many people here. No-one could believe that something so unwieldy could beat, say, a Glock. So Kazuto tried to practise out of sight and used the skills honed continuously over the past four years to show them just how wrong they were.

no worries! i'm a turtle anyhow

[positron]

Jr thought about that for a moment or two. This guy knew how to kill with those blades, which could say one of two things about him. Which was the truth of the matter, he couldn't tell just yet. It was something he'd look into later, surely enough. He had enough resources at his disposal...unless this guy was completely unheard of.

"There're training facilities on the Foundation grounds. Stop by sometime - I'm sure they'd love it compared to the usual gunfire," Jr offered casually, his statement more or less accurate. It was usually him there, and sometimes Yeshua. While his friend chiefly practiced martial arts, Jr was always about artillery. "Practice dummies too, rather than...well."

Jr spared a glance at the corpses on the ground. As much as he hated those scumbags, his friend had driven home the point that he wasn't any better than the lot of them if he just went around killing the thugs.

Not that he didn't from time to time, but Jr tried to keep it to a minimum.

[kurokenshi]

Kirito wasn't unheard of, per se, but he wasn't on the level of instant recognition when his hitman pseudonym was used. The title Black Swordsman would probably come up in Jr's searches if he dug persistently enough, and it would surface more quickly if searched in relation to his name. Which he had not yet given to this stranger. The 'Black Swordsman' may not be well-known in Italy for the moment, but it would definitely come up in several Japanese news websites with regards to a game called 'SAO'.

If he could have a space to practise without needing to worry about gawkers... The offer to train on the Foundation grounds was tempting. Kirito wanted to say yes and thank him for the offer, but he hesitated.

"Are the training facilities neutral ground?" he asked cautiously. "I could be part of an enemy family for all you know. No offence, but I don't want to walk in there and be massacred."

Kirito knew that his trainer would be gleeful over any chance to spy on other organisations under a legitimate pretext. As much as it disgusted him to exploit Jr's kindness, he wasn't brave enough to defy them for the sake of his principles. They'd quite clearly stated he'd be killed if he tried to leave.