Original Character Interview
by artisanrox
CHAPTER 10. TERMS AND CONDITIONS.
Bankotsu stepped through the threshold between the main room and the weapons room, grinning widely after speaking to his men.
He turned around and began to shut the screen behind him. "I don't know what you've chosen, but I have to say I'm curious." He began to turn around to face Akiko, his eyes closed. "You really-"
He had to cut himself short as he opened his eyes. The grin promptly left his face and he scanned the weapons room in wide-eyed shock. Everything was overturned. Boxes looked rooted through, some of the racks of equipment were a mess, and a big pile of...!stuff!...lay in the middle of the floor.
"-left the damned place a complete mess," he finished quietly, his eyes flicking discontentedly around the disaster area.
Bankotsu had to roll his eyes and sigh deeply. Akiko really destroyed the room. Bankotsu just knew Jakotsu would have a whiny fit that would put some women to shame if the weapons room was left like this for him. Damned neat freak, Bankotsu thought to himself. And it's all because he hates dealing any of this crap when we end up moving!
Bankotsu scanned the now-messy room and saw Akiko sitting in the furthest corner away from the door, to his right. A trail of mess led right up to where she was sitting.
"Sorry," she said as innocently as she could as she sat on the floor, her hands hidden, completely covered by her long sleeves.
He humphed. "Cute" doesn't work on me, girl.
He began making his way over to her, thoroughly irritated. He knew that whether he won or lost, Ginkotsu and Kyoukotsu would probably get a kick out of making themselves useful by cleaning up the mess once this was all over. However...
"One thing's for certain," he began firmly, stepping clumsily over the random !stuff! as he made his way toward her. "If you lose, you're the one that's going to put everything back exactly as you found it when you walked in!" he said to Akiko.
Akiko startled backward. "Um...ok..."
Reaching Akiko's immediate left, Bankotsu got down on a knee, which surprised her a bit. A dark, flirtatious grin returned to his mouth as he looked down at her. One hand lightly rested on a leg, and he reached out the other hand to brush Akiko's cheek again, much to her worry. "And after that-" he said, giving Akiko a most uncomfortable intense gaze, "-you're mine." He leaned way in, andwhispered as he stroked her chin with his thumb. His lips relaxed and parted, barely revealing two rows of brilliantly white teeth. "And since you're rather pretty, I don't think I'll be giving you up for quite a long time." One side of his mouth curled up in a chilling smirk.
Before Akiko could do anything more than widen her eyes, he spoke again. "Now, let's see what you have there," he said as he chuckled, thoroughly amused, getting up off his knee and coming around to her right. Seeing the grey box on the floor and the black box in front of Akiko, he chuckled. "You found the anachronism! Hah. Good searching skills you have there." He turned and gave another unhappy glance toward the mess in the room, then looked at Akiko, grinning again. "We hardly ever pull this out anymore as the glassy box-thing here doesn't seem to work very well sometimes. So when we move around it tends to get buried way underneath and behind other things."
He picked up the disc case on the Playstation. Looking at the title made him laugh even more. "And you chose Bushido Blade!" He briefly considered asking her if she was kidding, but rolled his eyes and figured that if that's really what she wanted to use, that's what he'll do. He began turning on the game deck and TV, pondering how ironic it was that Akiko would choose one of his favorite games with which to challenge him. "I'll tell you something...the rest of the guys out there really suck at this game," he said to her secretively. "But I'm trusting that you have some impressive skills with it since you chose it."
Bankotsu was just about to pop open the top of the game console.
"Wait! While we're discussing the deal, how about we make this a little more...uh...fun? Um...instead of doing the one-kill-one-win thing, why don't we...um..." she began. She looked around nervously as she stalled for time to get an idea, bringing her hands together under her long kimono sleeves and rubbing them together slightly.
Doing that gave her the idea she needed.
"Why don't we...uh...strip for it?" she said to him, leaning towards him. As much as she disliked the possibility of getting herself very naked, she gathered that she could never win in one virtual match, no matter which character she used. Being laid off was certainly useful as she had more time to do useless things like play video games, but she knew the real combat skills Bankotsu had only went in his favor. Yeah, she could beat her little cousin, who was the town's guru of fighting games, almost single-handedly at Bushido Blade. However, she was not about to underestimate the skills of the young man sitting next to her, particularily after seeing the weapon he wielded.
Besides, with the strategy she was using now, she might even get to see him naked. That was much more potentially interesting, anyway.
"So...uh...what do you say? When someone loses a match, they remove one item. Last one with nothing removeable from their body loses!" she said with a completely fake grin.
Bankotsu laughed again, and cocked an eyebrow, thoroughly amused. "Strip Bushido Blade. Sounds really...weird...but hey," he shrugged. "I'm all for it if you are. Hah. I have to say I don't get to do that very often when I'm hired for a job. Kind of a nice change of pace."