It was a stormy day, as I remember it, and I was walking home from school
to my house. I had stayed later at the school than I had originally
intended, enjoying the company of just the piano and perhaps the stray
student or teacher going through the hallway by chance. Eto-sensei would
let me stay after school to play the piano almost everyday; the only days
being when he was sick and the first days of school when I had not known
him as well. I had signed up for an easy Music for Listeners class for my
tenth grade year, figuring to get my fine arts credit done and gone with.
Having some experience with my grandmother's (father's side, of course, my
mother's side would have nothing to do with my father nor myself) old
piano, I learned to from her. She and I did that for hours when I came to
be baby sat in my younger years. When my fingers first touched the keys, I
felt that this was the path in life I was to take. I started to practice
and learn how to play other assortments of instruments over my school years
when I had the chance; mostly leaning towards the gituar, saxophone, and
the oboe (for its sheet music was the same as the piano). Of course, this
isn't what my father had planned for his son; I was expected to take the
title of Yagami heir, and continue the tradition. A tradition of which I
wanted no part of. I had met the Kusanagi heir-to-be that I was to give
the to-be-killing, but that is what I'll get to later.
The sky was an ashen gray color, a prelude to the large ammounts of rain that were to start falling soon. I loved these sorts of days; I loved the sound of rain. Overcast days, weren't they called? I stopped on the sidewalk of the street to look up.
I did not want to go home. I smiled, think that this was the begining of March; only twelve days until my sixteenth birthday, meaning only seven hundred fourty-two days until my eighteenth birthday. Yes, I did count the days. I eagerly awaited them, too. Life with my father, quite frankly, was my living hell. The only reason I had survived those years of my life was with my music, my paternal grandmother, and some of the friends that I had at the time.
"Yagami-kun!"
I turned to look behind me, to see one of these friends of mine, Keniichi, if my memories serve me right. Pure idiot, to put it lightly, but a nice person. I had known him from the beginning of the previous school year in junior high. I stopped for him to catch up; he had been running from the school.
"...Well?" I asked expectingly. "I have to be on my way home right about now, you know."
"I... I realize that... But..my mother... the store...," Keniichi squeaked out in his panting. I gathered that I was supposed to be going to his family's store.
"Why?"
"The... Yakuza.... they're there...," he said lowly as if the words were forbidden. And in a sense, they were. What I hadn't disclosed to him was that my father was a boss of the local chapter of the thugs. This was another thing that had given me a reputation: my willingness to aid the smaller, weaker people. Many a times had I saved Keniichi from a certain beating. I enjoyed defending people, I admit that, to save someone from torment of another...
I started running toward the store, it wasn't far, and I could get there easily from where I was. Keniichi was simply out of breath due to his constant inactivity. I know I constantly go on about this boy's weak points, but they weren't as apparent to me then as they are now; I was the school's band nerd, and he was my over-weight companion.
When I reached the doors of the store, I flung them open, not really caring or having a plan of what to do. The thugs were still there, and thankfully, my father was not among them. I did not think he would be; this was what I thought would be a regular threatening sidequest for the usual band of Yakuza. If I were to help Keniichi, blowing my cover as the crimeboss's son wasn't too important, either.
"What in the hell are you people doing?!" I commanded. There were three of them, as well as Keniichi's mother. She was badly beaten, which turned my stomach to see. The three thugs looked up at me, trying to register my face. I looked like my father a lot, too. That's probably what had thrown them off.
Or maybe it was someone that looked like their boss, only smaller with a book of sheet music.
One slam his fist through the wall, and growled, "What in the hell does this have to do with you, kid?" I smiled. I felt a twinge in my heart, as I always do before a fight. The feeling of my blood flowing inside of me...
"Your life, perhaps," I said in a matter-of-fact tone, as I tenderly set down my sheet music. "Sugu raku ni shite ru..." I smirked at what I just said; I tried to look intimidating as well as sound it. I think it worked rather well. I quickly slid over to the first of the thugs, and connected an uppercut to him. This was soon followed by another slide with an uppercut, then finished with a leaping double axe handle. That thug quickly fell, I not even beinging to break a sweat. I disposed with the second of the thugs with a simple string of punches, finishing with an elbow to his gut. This new outlet of energy that I had found in fighting was exciting. It wasn't so when training with my father. No... that was different. At school my presence was intimidating enough for me not needing to do more than a simple punch to someone. My father's training wasn't the same, as he constantly tried to harm others for his own profit. For the final opponent, I ran towards him, with the intent of elbowing him. It connected, of course, and I decided to follow that up with slamming them into the floor of the shop. A painful feeling that shot up through my arm as I performed this move, causing me to let go of the thug quickly. I had used my flames for the first time.
Yakuza were out, and I needn't have worried about them any longer, and I didn't. I had to get rid of the flame that had engulfed my hand, so I decided to run out into the streets and shake it off. Hahaha, now that I look back on it, this was a foolish, stupid reaction to such a thing. I still have the pain when I use flames, but nothing like this. The shock and horror of having your right hand suddenly become aflame is a great one, and I wonder sometimes what Kusanagi's experience was with the flames first was.
As I stood there, shaking my hand wildly in an attempt to get rid of the purple flames, people started staring at me. Not many where there to stare at me, but enough to make me feel self concious of this. I didn't want something else to alienate me from people further. That's when someone came up to me. He was the same age as I guessed, though he was shorter than myself. The boy also wore a school uniform, his jacket being open and the pin of his lapel being a small, golden flame shape, instead of the standard diamond shaped pin such as on mine. He also wore a simple pair of leather biking gloves on his hands. He had black hair and big brown eyes. I was unintentially staring at him when he approched me; I didn't notice that I was, being polite isn't the first thing you think of in a situation like this.
"Hey, you're than band guy at my school," he said in a laid back way. He smiled at me; I had seen him in the halls sometimes. He observed me for a moment. "You have flames, too. Never seen someone else with them. Well, yeah I have...." He started to go off into thought after than.
"Y-You've had this happen before?!" I snapped at him, trying to bring focus back onto the fact my hand was still painfully burning.
He blinked at me, then spoke. "Yeah. You want help with that, don't you?"
I nodded and continued to try and shake my hand off.
"Here," he said, taking off his gloves. He handed them to me (in my left hand), and I stared at them. "...Well? Aren't you going to put those on?"
"My hand is on fire!!!" I screamed at him, screaming only from the pain. "How can I put on a glove?!"
"Just do it," he stated. I figure that I was dying anyways, and put the gloves on. I also noticed that my right hand was not at all charred, and neither were the gloves. The pain lessened, and soon my hand went out (I was calming down; that's why it went, I assumed). I stared at him again, in disbelief.
"Wh.. What's your name?" I asked slowly. "How come we use flames?"
"Well, it's genetic. Your name's Iori, right? I'm Kusanagi Kyo," he said with a smile. I'm not sure of wheither or not he knew of the blood feud or not, but I had. Well, all that I knew was that it had been going on for a very long time, and I didn't care.
Kusanagi and I talked to eachother for awhile, until we went into the store again. We helped Keniichi with the clean up of the place. Keniichi was quiet to me, understandibly so. With the help of Kusanagi, I promptly threw the gang members out into the streets. Keniichi and I took his mother to the hospital, along with Kusanagi. He didn't seem so bad; I honestly did not realize that this boy could be such a cancer on the exsistance of the Yagami clan. I would soon learn better than that.
After making sure that Keniichi's mother was safe and being taken care of, Kusanagi and I left the hospital. We stopped in the in-hospital gift shoppe and got some food. We wandered outside of the hospital, where we started to talk some more. He was Kusanagi Kyo, but I did not disclose my full name in our first meeting. Kusanagi and I went back to the store, closing up shop. I gathered my sheet music, and we started off from the store. We parted ways about three fouths of the way to my home.
I continued my walk alone, liking the silence. The first drops of rain started to fall, and I held my music closer to my body. At this time, I thought about when I came home what my father would do to me. He wouldn't be pleased to hear that three of his men had been given a beating. That also ment he might return to Keniichi's store. On top of that, I was more than four hours late home from school; something that I never do.
My street was a very nice place to live; my father was rich from all of the rotten deals he had made as well as the Yagami fortune. The place stood out from the rest of the neighborhood. It was dark looking, under a collection of trees. The house and the trees were older than I could remember. I have a faint memory, or maybe a dream, of being with my mother under the widest tree in the front. She died very early in my life, so I don't remember much about her. I have some pictures that I found in the house, and that's how I remember her: an elegant non-oriental woman with red hair, with a light complexion, and soft brown eyes. I obviously had her fair skin and red hair. I assumed that the red-headedness was a recessive gene in the Yagami family tree, as well.
Funny how such things as trees in a yard could remind you of something unrelated.
The clouds showed their agitation by picking up the force of their gusts and rain drops. I grabbed my key from my pocket, rumaging through it a second or so. When I leaned forward to insert the key, I didn't get it half way to the door when the door openned, to reveal my father.
My father was not the local Yakuza boss for nothing. He had wide, broad shoulders, and a muscular build. His hair fell to one side of his face; one thing I did like about him and I imitated willingly. My eyes were also from his side of the family, crimson red and catlike. I was by far leaner than he, and later, taller than he as well. My father's clothing and apperance was usually clean and classy, unlike he was.
"What in the hell are you doing out so late, Iori?" he thundered. A wiff of alcohol drifted to my nose. This was not good for me. "And what are those?" He pulled my sheet music from my hand. I attempted to grab them back, only to be back handed onto the wet ground. He looked up from my music, and glared down at me. I glared right back to him, my cheek in pain.
"Give those back, father," I said curtly, narrowing my eyes. He laughed at me, flinging my music away. I immeadiately chased after them in the storm, grabbing out for them. It was the first time I had noticed the design on the back of the gloves: a golden sun. Apparently, I wasn't the only one to notice this either. I was on my knees, grabbing the last soaked sheet, when his heel met the top of my hand. I welped out in pain as he did this, dropping the papers to the ground again.
"What is THIS? Where did you find these gloves, boy?" he removed his foot from my hand, which I quickly started to nurse it. He jerked my other hand away, studying the glove on my hand. "This is the Kusanagi clan sun! What in the hell were you doing with Kusanagi, boy?!"
"I... I was defending myself from an attacker, when I started to suddenly use flames. I couldn't put the fire out, and this guy saw me. He gave me his glove and nothing else," I half lied to him. I didn't expect him to believe me; I just wanted to be alone. "The flames hurt me, and he said that if I had gloves it wouldn't hurt as much."
My father's mouth turned into a smile. "You used the Yagami flames, finally. I thought you were retarded, and you'd never learn; now you'll finally see what power is and give up that stupid pasttime with music."
"I don't WANT power!" I shouted at him, gaining only a kick to my head as a responce. My head made an indescribible sound on the ground. The impact left my vision clouded, and I tried to focus on the monster again.
"And those gloves... You don't need them; only the weak need such an aid," my father said as he leaned down to my hands. I attempted to swat him away, but I was in the vulnerable position once again, and he suceeded in pulling off the gloves. Using his own flames, he easily burned the gloves that Kusanagi gave me. I could feel my weakening will give way to him, I just wanted to be left alone. That's all I wanted; to be left to my music. If I could just do this request, he'd leave me alone...
"Just... just leave me out of this family thing... Kyo and I have no desire to be in this crap," I choked out. He flug the cinders of the gloves into my face when I spoke.
"You will give up this stupid music hobby, and focus on fighting!" he said in a command.
"...I want to be left alone... I'm not part of this idiotic circle," I said as I started to sit up again. He pushed me back down with his shoe. He grinded his heel into my chest with some weight into it. He glared into my eyes the entire time, and I found myself averting his gaze.
My will gave through, not wanting to die here, knowing full well that my own father wouldn't mind offing his own disobediant son in a drunken rage. Not like I had to devote my life to the sole cause of killing like he wanted. Maybe if just having to taint my hands once would save me, then that would be the answer. It had to be. Nothing personal to Kusanagi at all. Well, not at first. Each failed attempt added onto my own anger of giving into my father that night.
Around The King of Fighters in 1996, my anger from my failure superceded that of my anger from my paternal surpression. My father had been dead for about three months from there, dying the week before my ninteenth birthday. Upon his death, I was lifted from a minor burden. And, for the hell of it, I wanted show a sign of spite for the old bastard.
==-+++-==
The crowded consert halls were filled with the echoes of thousands of cheering fans. The walls were plastered with the posters of a newly popular band by the name "Rickenbacker". The band member which stood out amoung the rest was a taller, red haired man. He was the bass gituarist of the band, as well as the lead vocalist. The lights went pitch black, and with a sudden scream of fans, consisting of a fair ammount of female voices, the lights focused on the red haired man from the posters, clad in the exceedingly popular style for most rock stars of Japan. He began to play through the cheers of the fans.
A pair of chocolate eyes looked on from the back of the crowd, the figure in a white jacket and jeans leaned against the door, his wallet chain clinking against the door frame. He smiled at him. "I'm relieved I never had to face Yagami with that sort of passion; he'd explode and I'd be dead."
"What was that, Master?" spoke the "Master's" companion with darker eyes, leaning against the opposite side of the door.
"Nothing, nothing at all." His smile grew a little. "Ikuze." The white jacketed one started to walk out the door, expecting the other to follow.
The sky was an ashen gray color, a prelude to the large ammounts of rain that were to start falling soon. I loved these sorts of days; I loved the sound of rain. Overcast days, weren't they called? I stopped on the sidewalk of the street to look up.
I did not want to go home. I smiled, think that this was the begining of March; only twelve days until my sixteenth birthday, meaning only seven hundred fourty-two days until my eighteenth birthday. Yes, I did count the days. I eagerly awaited them, too. Life with my father, quite frankly, was my living hell. The only reason I had survived those years of my life was with my music, my paternal grandmother, and some of the friends that I had at the time.
"Yagami-kun!"
I turned to look behind me, to see one of these friends of mine, Keniichi, if my memories serve me right. Pure idiot, to put it lightly, but a nice person. I had known him from the beginning of the previous school year in junior high. I stopped for him to catch up; he had been running from the school.
"...Well?" I asked expectingly. "I have to be on my way home right about now, you know."
"I... I realize that... But..my mother... the store...," Keniichi squeaked out in his panting. I gathered that I was supposed to be going to his family's store.
"Why?"
"The... Yakuza.... they're there...," he said lowly as if the words were forbidden. And in a sense, they were. What I hadn't disclosed to him was that my father was a boss of the local chapter of the thugs. This was another thing that had given me a reputation: my willingness to aid the smaller, weaker people. Many a times had I saved Keniichi from a certain beating. I enjoyed defending people, I admit that, to save someone from torment of another...
I started running toward the store, it wasn't far, and I could get there easily from where I was. Keniichi was simply out of breath due to his constant inactivity. I know I constantly go on about this boy's weak points, but they weren't as apparent to me then as they are now; I was the school's band nerd, and he was my over-weight companion.
When I reached the doors of the store, I flung them open, not really caring or having a plan of what to do. The thugs were still there, and thankfully, my father was not among them. I did not think he would be; this was what I thought would be a regular threatening sidequest for the usual band of Yakuza. If I were to help Keniichi, blowing my cover as the crimeboss's son wasn't too important, either.
"What in the hell are you people doing?!" I commanded. There were three of them, as well as Keniichi's mother. She was badly beaten, which turned my stomach to see. The three thugs looked up at me, trying to register my face. I looked like my father a lot, too. That's probably what had thrown them off.
Or maybe it was someone that looked like their boss, only smaller with a book of sheet music.
One slam his fist through the wall, and growled, "What in the hell does this have to do with you, kid?" I smiled. I felt a twinge in my heart, as I always do before a fight. The feeling of my blood flowing inside of me...
"Your life, perhaps," I said in a matter-of-fact tone, as I tenderly set down my sheet music. "Sugu raku ni shite ru..." I smirked at what I just said; I tried to look intimidating as well as sound it. I think it worked rather well. I quickly slid over to the first of the thugs, and connected an uppercut to him. This was soon followed by another slide with an uppercut, then finished with a leaping double axe handle. That thug quickly fell, I not even beinging to break a sweat. I disposed with the second of the thugs with a simple string of punches, finishing with an elbow to his gut. This new outlet of energy that I had found in fighting was exciting. It wasn't so when training with my father. No... that was different. At school my presence was intimidating enough for me not needing to do more than a simple punch to someone. My father's training wasn't the same, as he constantly tried to harm others for his own profit. For the final opponent, I ran towards him, with the intent of elbowing him. It connected, of course, and I decided to follow that up with slamming them into the floor of the shop. A painful feeling that shot up through my arm as I performed this move, causing me to let go of the thug quickly. I had used my flames for the first time.
Yakuza were out, and I needn't have worried about them any longer, and I didn't. I had to get rid of the flame that had engulfed my hand, so I decided to run out into the streets and shake it off. Hahaha, now that I look back on it, this was a foolish, stupid reaction to such a thing. I still have the pain when I use flames, but nothing like this. The shock and horror of having your right hand suddenly become aflame is a great one, and I wonder sometimes what Kusanagi's experience was with the flames first was.
As I stood there, shaking my hand wildly in an attempt to get rid of the purple flames, people started staring at me. Not many where there to stare at me, but enough to make me feel self concious of this. I didn't want something else to alienate me from people further. That's when someone came up to me. He was the same age as I guessed, though he was shorter than myself. The boy also wore a school uniform, his jacket being open and the pin of his lapel being a small, golden flame shape, instead of the standard diamond shaped pin such as on mine. He also wore a simple pair of leather biking gloves on his hands. He had black hair and big brown eyes. I was unintentially staring at him when he approched me; I didn't notice that I was, being polite isn't the first thing you think of in a situation like this.
"Hey, you're than band guy at my school," he said in a laid back way. He smiled at me; I had seen him in the halls sometimes. He observed me for a moment. "You have flames, too. Never seen someone else with them. Well, yeah I have...." He started to go off into thought after than.
"Y-You've had this happen before?!" I snapped at him, trying to bring focus back onto the fact my hand was still painfully burning.
He blinked at me, then spoke. "Yeah. You want help with that, don't you?"
I nodded and continued to try and shake my hand off.
"Here," he said, taking off his gloves. He handed them to me (in my left hand), and I stared at them. "...Well? Aren't you going to put those on?"
"My hand is on fire!!!" I screamed at him, screaming only from the pain. "How can I put on a glove?!"
"Just do it," he stated. I figure that I was dying anyways, and put the gloves on. I also noticed that my right hand was not at all charred, and neither were the gloves. The pain lessened, and soon my hand went out (I was calming down; that's why it went, I assumed). I stared at him again, in disbelief.
"Wh.. What's your name?" I asked slowly. "How come we use flames?"
"Well, it's genetic. Your name's Iori, right? I'm Kusanagi Kyo," he said with a smile. I'm not sure of wheither or not he knew of the blood feud or not, but I had. Well, all that I knew was that it had been going on for a very long time, and I didn't care.
Kusanagi and I talked to eachother for awhile, until we went into the store again. We helped Keniichi with the clean up of the place. Keniichi was quiet to me, understandibly so. With the help of Kusanagi, I promptly threw the gang members out into the streets. Keniichi and I took his mother to the hospital, along with Kusanagi. He didn't seem so bad; I honestly did not realize that this boy could be such a cancer on the exsistance of the Yagami clan. I would soon learn better than that.
After making sure that Keniichi's mother was safe and being taken care of, Kusanagi and I left the hospital. We stopped in the in-hospital gift shoppe and got some food. We wandered outside of the hospital, where we started to talk some more. He was Kusanagi Kyo, but I did not disclose my full name in our first meeting. Kusanagi and I went back to the store, closing up shop. I gathered my sheet music, and we started off from the store. We parted ways about three fouths of the way to my home.
I continued my walk alone, liking the silence. The first drops of rain started to fall, and I held my music closer to my body. At this time, I thought about when I came home what my father would do to me. He wouldn't be pleased to hear that three of his men had been given a beating. That also ment he might return to Keniichi's store. On top of that, I was more than four hours late home from school; something that I never do.
My street was a very nice place to live; my father was rich from all of the rotten deals he had made as well as the Yagami fortune. The place stood out from the rest of the neighborhood. It was dark looking, under a collection of trees. The house and the trees were older than I could remember. I have a faint memory, or maybe a dream, of being with my mother under the widest tree in the front. She died very early in my life, so I don't remember much about her. I have some pictures that I found in the house, and that's how I remember her: an elegant non-oriental woman with red hair, with a light complexion, and soft brown eyes. I obviously had her fair skin and red hair. I assumed that the red-headedness was a recessive gene in the Yagami family tree, as well.
Funny how such things as trees in a yard could remind you of something unrelated.
The clouds showed their agitation by picking up the force of their gusts and rain drops. I grabbed my key from my pocket, rumaging through it a second or so. When I leaned forward to insert the key, I didn't get it half way to the door when the door openned, to reveal my father.
My father was not the local Yakuza boss for nothing. He had wide, broad shoulders, and a muscular build. His hair fell to one side of his face; one thing I did like about him and I imitated willingly. My eyes were also from his side of the family, crimson red and catlike. I was by far leaner than he, and later, taller than he as well. My father's clothing and apperance was usually clean and classy, unlike he was.
"What in the hell are you doing out so late, Iori?" he thundered. A wiff of alcohol drifted to my nose. This was not good for me. "And what are those?" He pulled my sheet music from my hand. I attempted to grab them back, only to be back handed onto the wet ground. He looked up from my music, and glared down at me. I glared right back to him, my cheek in pain.
"Give those back, father," I said curtly, narrowing my eyes. He laughed at me, flinging my music away. I immeadiately chased after them in the storm, grabbing out for them. It was the first time I had noticed the design on the back of the gloves: a golden sun. Apparently, I wasn't the only one to notice this either. I was on my knees, grabbing the last soaked sheet, when his heel met the top of my hand. I welped out in pain as he did this, dropping the papers to the ground again.
"What is THIS? Where did you find these gloves, boy?" he removed his foot from my hand, which I quickly started to nurse it. He jerked my other hand away, studying the glove on my hand. "This is the Kusanagi clan sun! What in the hell were you doing with Kusanagi, boy?!"
"I... I was defending myself from an attacker, when I started to suddenly use flames. I couldn't put the fire out, and this guy saw me. He gave me his glove and nothing else," I half lied to him. I didn't expect him to believe me; I just wanted to be alone. "The flames hurt me, and he said that if I had gloves it wouldn't hurt as much."
My father's mouth turned into a smile. "You used the Yagami flames, finally. I thought you were retarded, and you'd never learn; now you'll finally see what power is and give up that stupid pasttime with music."
"I don't WANT power!" I shouted at him, gaining only a kick to my head as a responce. My head made an indescribible sound on the ground. The impact left my vision clouded, and I tried to focus on the monster again.
"And those gloves... You don't need them; only the weak need such an aid," my father said as he leaned down to my hands. I attempted to swat him away, but I was in the vulnerable position once again, and he suceeded in pulling off the gloves. Using his own flames, he easily burned the gloves that Kusanagi gave me. I could feel my weakening will give way to him, I just wanted to be left alone. That's all I wanted; to be left to my music. If I could just do this request, he'd leave me alone...
"Just... just leave me out of this family thing... Kyo and I have no desire to be in this crap," I choked out. He flug the cinders of the gloves into my face when I spoke.
"You will give up this stupid music hobby, and focus on fighting!" he said in a command.
"...I want to be left alone... I'm not part of this idiotic circle," I said as I started to sit up again. He pushed me back down with his shoe. He grinded his heel into my chest with some weight into it. He glared into my eyes the entire time, and I found myself averting his gaze.
My will gave through, not wanting to die here, knowing full well that my own father wouldn't mind offing his own disobediant son in a drunken rage. Not like I had to devote my life to the sole cause of killing like he wanted. Maybe if just having to taint my hands once would save me, then that would be the answer. It had to be. Nothing personal to Kusanagi at all. Well, not at first. Each failed attempt added onto my own anger of giving into my father that night.
Around The King of Fighters in 1996, my anger from my failure superceded that of my anger from my paternal surpression. My father had been dead for about three months from there, dying the week before my ninteenth birthday. Upon his death, I was lifted from a minor burden. And, for the hell of it, I wanted show a sign of spite for the old bastard.
==-+++-==
The crowded consert halls were filled with the echoes of thousands of cheering fans. The walls were plastered with the posters of a newly popular band by the name "Rickenbacker". The band member which stood out amoung the rest was a taller, red haired man. He was the bass gituarist of the band, as well as the lead vocalist. The lights went pitch black, and with a sudden scream of fans, consisting of a fair ammount of female voices, the lights focused on the red haired man from the posters, clad in the exceedingly popular style for most rock stars of Japan. He began to play through the cheers of the fans.
A pair of chocolate eyes looked on from the back of the crowd, the figure in a white jacket and jeans leaned against the door, his wallet chain clinking against the door frame. He smiled at him. "I'm relieved I never had to face Yagami with that sort of passion; he'd explode and I'd be dead."
"What was that, Master?" spoke the "Master's" companion with darker eyes, leaning against the opposite side of the door.
"Nothing, nothing at all." His smile grew a little. "Ikuze." The white jacketed one started to walk out the door, expecting the other to follow.