View source for 984/White Haired Black Hearted Bishonen

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2016/02/04
|Location=Pikarigaoka - Clover Path
|Synopsis=Takashi vs. Kunzite. fite fite fite!
|Cast of Characters=109,47
|pretty=yes
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{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:109|Kunzite| (109)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;It's late, and it's dark, and there's a girl running. She might be eighteen. Maybe give or take a year. Her clothes, deep red and black, are fairly suitable for getting lost in the dark. It's not helping her. Her shoes -- never mind her shoes. She can run in heels. The problem is her hair. Long pale waves of near-white, cascading to her waist. She might as well be waving a glow-in-the-dark flag.<br /><br />It's late, and it's dark, and the dark is not just the night. The power's been out for blocks. She can see streetlights ahead; but as she comes near, all at once the next three blocks die. Not just the streetlights. Traffic signals. Car engines. Building lights. Neon signs. Everything.<br /><br />"You're only wearing yourself out," says that voice. Maybe ten feet behind her. Not even winded. "You may as well stop. It's time to come home."<br /><br />She's leaving the voice behind.<br /><br />She's left it behind fourteen times now.<br /><br />She knows what she'll see if she looks back. A tall, pale man, white-haired, wearing gray and white. A cape that is anything but a superhero's. He'll be leaning against the wall of a building, arms folded. Amused, like a cat that isn't quite hungry enough to kill that mouse, yet, but hungry enough to keep one paw on the end of its tail.<br /><br />She has yet to see him move.<br /><br />She has yet to ''stop'' moving.<br /><br />Her breath comes in a sob, and she keeps running; there's really nothing else she can do.

:'''{{#var:47|Takashi Agera| (47)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Riventon is above the skies of Pikarigaoka, hand outstretched, Axion preforming a wide-area scan. He hasn't given up the search for his fox, though he's been engaged in less destructive, less energy-intensive methods lately.<br /><br />This has put him in range for the device to give him a pinging notification about Kunzite's presence. A unique energy signature, and the last time he saW it, he was gallavanting around as Frost Knight. So, fortunantly for the girl, Riventon is headed to investigate and assuage his curiosity.<br /><br />Unfortunantly for her, he isn't acting as much of a hero this time, and doesn't really care about her fate.<br /><br />But Kunzite will probably notice the strange and foreign presence of negative energy that flies downwards and rests on a rooftop. Like usual, Riventon is choosing to observe before engaging - at least for the time being. Observation builds data, and data and information is a weapon he can use, as keen as any blade.

:'''{{#var:109|Kunzite| (109)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>There are advantages to less energy-intensive methods. And then there are methods that pay for themselves. That blackout below Riventon reads as one of the latter - an area-effect energy drain, hemispherical, feeding both on the electricity in the area (thus the blackour) and, like his missing fox's gloom, on the life force of the humans within.<br /><br />(If Riventon were at all interested in the girl, that would tell him that she must be unusual. Or she wouldn't still be running at all.)<br /><br />That effect, too, is a familiar signature. In the meeting Homura sponsored, when Sailor V started flinging her laserlike attacks, there was a curved dark shield that came into existence to absorb them. The blackout resembles that strongly. More diffuse, certainly. But the same basic effect, the same basic signature.<br /><br />The same basic signature that marks the man's own body, both now at the center of the energy drain and then at the meeting. As if his physical existence were an ongoing exertion of the same power as the blackout and the shield.<br /><br />Riventon is not, at present, within the area of that power's effect. But his presence is strong enough to call attention. And for the first time Kunzite takes his eyes off of his target, letting her flee unattended for the moment. He can find her again, if he needs to. That's a ''power'' that just arrived. Overlooking that would be a mistake no matter what its nature.

:'''{{#var:47|Takashi Agera| (47)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Riventon keeps himself just on the edge of the drains' effect for now - if he was sitting a few inches closer on the ledge he's leaning off, he'd be potentially suffering the effects of it all. As it is, his labcoat is flowing behind him, and his tie's flowing a bit too as he looks.<br /><br />"Well, you're the curious one. It's hard to tell where your power begins, and you end." There's a self-satisfied smirk. "I'm sure less astute minds have a lot of trouble with that." he adds, because he can't help but talk himself up. "So is this the real you, or are you someone else's projection? Youma?"<br /><br />Riventon's already started with the questions, because, frankly, the questions tend to get less answered when he starts trying to haul away things and people for experimentation. There's a pinprick of 'bright' energy at the periphrial of his senses, but it's far away enough - and Kunzite is so strange - that he keeps Riventon's attention.<br /><br />"I've seen you around before, too. Intelligent. So where do you hail from?" He wonders how long it'll be before this goes the way most of his meetings go - but he can be cordial until then, can't he?

:'''{{#var:109|Kunzite| (109)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>The pale figure below regards the pale figure above for a moment, and then lifts one hand toward the running woman.<br /><br />The energy drain (which was perturbed for a moment at that pinprick of brightness, and therefore less stable to begin with) collapses into him and is gone.<br /><br />A new dome, much smaller, much more concentrated like the shields in Homura's living room, manifests itself over the fleeing girl. She runs facefirst into it, yelps, has a moment of off-balance wobble, then collapses with her face in her hands. Her shoulders don't shake. She doesn't weep. She does, after a moment, crawl to the edge of the blackness confining her and start pounding on it with her fists.<br /><br />Kunzite ignores this in favor of a second flare of energy, small and tight and confined: shadows flare around him with a crackle of off-color lightning, and then he's gone from the street below and standing perhaps two-thirds of the way across Riventon's rooftop. Far enough not to be an instant threat. Not so far that a sudden bolt of force would be all that likely to knock him off.<br /><br />"The polite," he observes, "usually start with introductions." ... only an observation; there's no suggestion of a warning. Instead, he's studying Riventon with interest in turn. Something in the way he puts his questions, in the cascade of information-seeking without preamble, is naggingly familiar. He can't put a finger on why.

:'''{{#var:47|Takashi Agera| (47)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Riventon's eyebrow raises slowly as Kunzite takes the Dusk Zone Express and closes the distance. "Well, don't mistake curiosity for caring." Riventon says, slipping off the edge of the building - ducking into the dusk zone - and ducking out about a foot above the roof, landing casually a few feet from Kunzite.<br /><br />"I'm Riventon." he says, after a moment. "You just went through the Dusk Zone too, didn't you? So I reiterate, from where do you hail? That's not something just anyone can do. Of course, you're not just anyone, or I wouldn't have stopped my search."<br /><br />"On that note, before we continue, I don't suppose you've seen a small black fox running around anywhere? Or a girl who has black fox-like features? If you haven't fair enough, but I figure it's worth a try."<br /><br />Riventon makes note of the trapped girl, but makes no moves to free her. Not his problem. She might get free coincidentally, though, depending on how the white haired man in front of him acts."<br /><br />Riventon casually puts both hands in the pockets of his lab coat - what might look like a less threatening, more casual posture is actually him wrapping a hand around a small, purple-black crystal in one of the pockets.

:'''{{#var:109|Kunzite| (109)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Curiosity for caring? That receives a momentary arched eyebrow. Who'd make that sort of mistake? -- oh. That's right. The crawling sea of magical girls that infests this city. Back to neutral, then, as Riventon makes his own teleport-relocation, and his point with it. Something faintly familiar about the name, too. It takes up residence less in the back of his skull than at the back of his ribcage, curled up against one side of the spine. Not worth thinking about, wherever he learned it won't come back to him, but there might be some hint of reflex that might prove useful.<br /><br />Wherever he has the fraction of memory from, it's impressed enough that Kunzite inclines his head a half-inch or so. "Kunzite," he replies. "Of the Dark Kingdom." Titles are left aside. They're only words, after all. The location might or might not be enough to sort the Dusk Zone question neatly, depending on what Riventon knows.<br /><br />The fox question prompts him to lift a hand, gesture idly outward, in the direction away from the human still struggling pointlessly below. "A foxgirl? Not in months. Ten weeks, or eleven." Since the last time he remembers, that is. Her visit to Infinity is lost along with his memories of that identity. Hunting beside her as Christmas neared, talking with her more recently, watching over a particular house at a particular time - all of those were projections of something he is no longer permitted to remember he ever wanted. All drowned, and the only trace of them the mild familiarity of Riventon's name, the vague sense that the man is significant somehow.

:'''{{#var:47|Takashi Agera| (47)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>"Well, that's not particularly useful information. I knew where she was until about a week ago myself." Riventon says, his face a contorted mix of bad feelings. "Dark Kingdom. That is not the most terribly imaginative name I've heard for an organization, you know?" he comments offhandedly, a clear tone of derision in his voice.<br /><br />"Oh well, can't have everyone as creative or intelligent as me. And I'm also going to go out on a limb and guess you're not willing to donate whatever the heck that thing is you're using as a body to scientific research?" he asks. His posture just get a bit more tensed, and surely a veteran like Kunzite will be able to tell that he's much more ready for a fight than he was moments ago.<br /><br />"Fortunantly for that girl down there, I'm not feeling particularly... amicable lately, so you're not getting a choice on that."

:'''{{#var:109|Kunzite| (109)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>"Why waste energy on a name? They're largely irrelevant." Which may explain why Kunzite's borrowing one from a rock. His tone's a bored one, briefly. At least until Riventon brings up the subject of research.<br /><br />At which point Kunzite's mouth turns up at one corner, and he gestures his negation with his fingers held in a particular orientation. Shadows begin to swarm and coalesce between them, forming another of those barriers. At closer range, no less. Everything's more data, isn't it? "You're intelligent enough to predict my response," he observes. "But not intelligent enough to realize that scientific research is itself an inefficient use of energy at this juncture. Unless you're set on ... short-term projects, shall we say." And by now he's almost outright smiling.

:'''{{#var:47|Takashi Agera| (47)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>"Names are important. First impressions, and all that. But I guess it doesn't surprise me that you wouldn't think so. Apparently, you couldn't even be bothered to get all of the buttons on your shirt. Sloppy." he says, matching that tone of derision.<br /><br />Kunzite's gesture and preparation for the fight gets a bit of a smirk back from the other white-haired villain atop this particular rooftop. "Ah, and this is why I resist my employers' attempts to relocate me out of Tokyo. Never a boring day. And I really love putting people in their place. Or... well, whatever you are. I don't think it's people - maybe even less than I'm people." he adds, offhandedly, as large orbs of energy begin to form spontaniously in the air behind him, while a Mid-Childan magical circle in dark blue swirls out from under Riventon - even though he's yet to draw his gauntlet from his lab coat. While Kunzite's setting up his close range barrier, Riventon's preparing a swarm.

:'''{{#var:109|Kunzite| (109)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>"I try not to be plural," Kunzite agrees, as his shield solidifies. There's no other visible preparation; just that solid barrier like the one that swallowed the Crescent Beams, and his hands lifted, and a mild interest in the magical circle Riventon's manifesting. As if Kunzite were the one gathering data, now, and not overly concerned about the consequences. "It never seems to work out well."<br /><br />That is perhaps not the best thing to say to a man looking for the fox who used to ''hold a piece of his soul.''

:'''{{#var:47|Takashi Agera| (47)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Riventon glares a bit. Something about the man's attitude, posture, and phrasing annoys him. Reminds him, in a small way, of someone else who annoys him a lot. He draws his right hand out of his lab coat pocket, and points his hand out at Kunzite. He'll have to get a little bit inventive - you don't fight fire with fire, and you don't want to fight dark magic, at least not exclusively, with dark magic.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<span style="color:#3877C9">&lt;HEXENSCHLAG!&gt;</span><br /><br />A forceful blast of strange and distinctly wrong energy, like watercolor vomit, bursts out of his hand and towards Kunzite - the blast of disreality, like a concentrated burst from a Witch's Labrynth in a condensed beam.<br /><br />But he expects that to impact the shield or otherwise be infective. Like a street magician, it's the hand in his other pocket that's doing the work, and the swarm of generated energy orbs swirls around Kunzite on either side and over him, aiming to slam into the (hopefully) less or unprotected backside of the 'man'.<br /><br />"Today isn't going to work out well for you, either."

:'''{{#var:109|Kunzite| (109)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Infective is an excellent word for witch energies; they like to try to warp things to suit them. So ineffective would not be ''entirely'' accurate. Kunzite's attention is caught up for a moment in sounding out that blast as his shields swallow it, designing a containment that won't make it start infecting the rest of ''him'' --<br /><br />which has him just distracted enough that the first of the energy orbs makes impact. He staggers forward a step, his cape and hair flaring --<br /><br />-- catches the edges of his cape in his hands, and the rest of the swarm ''deflects.'' Some off to one side or another, soaring off harmlessly where Riventon can regain control. Some forward into that partial shield, absorbed like the Labyrinth-beam.<br /><br />Some downward, at the rooftop beneath them, which is less resistant to their impact than Kunzite's half-armored body.<br /><br />The rest of the shield-bubble forms around him as his footing crumbles, leaving him hovering in midair. And when he catches his breath from that first impact, he uses it not to attack or to threaten, but to laugh out loud. "''Finally,'' this miserable planet comes up with something ''interesting.''"

:'''{{#var:47|Takashi Agera| (47)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Riventon is - admittedly - a bit impressed and surprised at the way Kunzite fights, at the way he shields himself from the swarm of projectiles intended to break through - and the way he manages to get most of them off-course. Riventon grabs control of those that move into the sky, and he moves them to interpose between himself and Kunzite - for the attack that doesn't come.<br /><br />Another raised eyebrow. "I could say the same about you, except your tone indicates you're not from around here. I would then gather the Dark Kingdom lies within the Dusk Zone somewhere. Or beyond it." Riventon's expeditions through the Zone have been substantially hampered by the fact that the... native flora and fauna percieve him as an outsider, an invader, and impede his progress in ways they wouldn't for Kunzite.<br /><br />Riventon's hand bursts forth with a surge of energy, pulling Kunzite, himself, and notably the woman Kunzite was chasing (along with the energies holding her captive) into a Mid-Childan barrier. "Alright then. Well, the only way out of this barrier is through me or with me, so lets see what you've got. Unless you're content to float there forever."

:'''{{#var:109|Kunzite| (109)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Multiple tactics, from or influenced by multiple sources. Multiple angles of attack. Kunzite ''is'' pleased, which might as well be a bit impressed and surprised. "Reasonable deductions," he agrees, from the far side of the hovering energy orbs. "Then again. Given the comparative expanse of the Dusk Zone, it's almost always a reasonable guess."<br /><br />The draw into the barrier prompts a shout from the woman, who straggles back to her feet in the center of the trap holding her. "Hey! I don't ''care'' what you two are doing, leave me ''out'' of it!" -- not that either of the men is likely to spare the time to sort out what she's saying, or much care. She glares in their direction, but she's already managed to give herself near-frostbitten knuckles from trying to beat her way out; she settles for a sort of impotent rage.<br /><br />Kunzite, on the other hand, gives Riventon a mildly reproving look. "Two-dimensional thinking? You didn't seem that lazy until now. But as you've entertained, I may as well return the favor."<br /><br />Blackness floods out from him, sudden and fast, filling the area around the two of them. A moment later, that odd-colored lightning follows it. The lightning itself doesn't affect Riventon much; its primary quality is atrocity, and Riventon's soul is accustomed to darkness, lending him a certain degree of armor. But its secondary quality is as a more efficient channel for the energy drain that the blackness signals to begin with. Tearing at the survivors of the orb swarm, testing at Riventon's device, trying for a taste of Riventon himself. On a magical girl, it'd likely be a crippling attack. Here -- it's just an experiment.<br /><br />Research.<br /><br />But very short-term. Only enough to try to gauge what the follow-up attack should be.

:'''{{#var:47|Takashi Agera| (47)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Riventon gets a brief warning of the attack from his device, and outstretches a hand to create a swirling Round Shield of energy against the hungering surge of energy. The barrier, though - like most things he creates - is an energy construct itself, putting it at a distinct advantage against Kunzite's powers. Riventon can feel the energy construct being eaten away by the attack, as do the orbs he was holding in reserve. Fighting against someone else who can drain energy? That's a novel adventure.<br /><br />But he can't stay in this field, or the shield will give way and he'll be subjected to the drain himself. So he makes a tactical retreat, jumping backwards out of range while leaving the shield there to be drained and shattered by Kunzite's attack.<br /><br />"Shut up!" he shouts at the woman below as he does so. "You shouldn't even be in this barrier if you're normal, so now I'll come get you after I deal with this guy." Riventon says, generating two small orbs in his hands, and hurling them like baseballs at Kunzite.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<span style="color:#3877C9">&lt;GLITZERN KREIS&gt;</span><br /><br />These spheres glisten with a sort of sparkling blackness, and on connection with Kunzite or any sort of interposed attack, will erupt into a spray of small, but explosive motes of energy, like a burst of crystals.

:'''{{#var:109|Kunzite| (109)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>''"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, IF I'M NORMAL --"''<br /><br />Apparently the woman down there is not actually smart enough to listen to the man throwing explosions and energy orbs around. That's almost as much of a confirmation as her existence in the barrier is.<br /><br />Kunzite is ignoring her much the way that someone who already deals with fifteen dogs in a day would ignore a particularly yappy chihuahua. She's just background noise, not to be considered unless there's a sufficient deviation from the expected tones. What that says about how many kidnap victims he's already accumulated -- well, perhaps he doesn't have any particular moral high ground to stand on, when it comes to collecting his body for someone else's purposes.<br /><br />Not that he cares.<br /><br />Those small orbs intersect the energy-drain and the lightning, first. And that's enough to set them off. The tiny explosive motes shower in overlapping fields, and Kunzite is right in the center of the overlap. The blackness manages to swallow ''some'' of the attack; it still functions as a sort of shield --<br /><br />-- but Kunzite's shielding himself with his cape again, letting it take the brunt of the attack. And precisely as fabric shouldn't, it survives.<br /><br />For that split second, quick and deft and precise, he moves ''exactly'' like Tuxedo Kamen. Or Tuxedo Kamen, when he was irritating Riventon, spent some time moving ''exactly'' like Kunzite.<br /><br />This is, it should be noted, ''not'' followed up by flinging any kind of floral greenery. No. When Kunzite straightens -- he didn't manage to intercept all of those explosive motes. His face is scored and bleeding. And he's still smiling, but the savage edge to it suggests that he's done playing, now.<br /><br />His arms are still half crossed. In his hands, energy manifests, a bright and disturbing and unlikely pink that flows into twinned shapes less like proper crescents and more like scimitar blades. It's not the energy that makes these dangerous; it's the force, the sharpness of the edge. He snaps his arms forward, flinging them toward Riventon, separated enough to make dodging either of them an adventure in trying to miss the other. The lightning fades away, but the ''blackness' stays, a chill clinging fog that rushes outward along with the attack. And that's the channel for his own second maneuver.<br /><br />Feeling for the connection between Riventon's device and the barrier. Seeking after a way to chew on ''that.'' There might or might not be one -- the barrier they're in has relatively few inhabitants, for one thing, relatively little need for constant adjustment or maintenance; for another, trying to randomly collapse a barrier without being sure where you're going to wind up when it goes, or whether all of you is going to wind up in the same place, is probably a ''terrible idea'' -- but there might, or might not, be psychological effects a little more interesting to watch.

:'''{{#var:47|Takashi Agera| (47)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Riventon is caught off, guard, to say the least. It's not so much just Kunzite's ability - though that's there, used as Riventon is to fighting a lot of opponents that are relatively weaker rather than one meeting him on even ground - but it's the way he moves that boils up subconscious irritation and draws attention away from the true spirit of the fight. Wether it's intentional, or just a product of a lifetime spent together before this one, it's grating.<br /><br />And with Kunzite rushing forward after lobbing the two blades of energy, this isn't the time to be distracted. The first blade of the two meets another Round Shield, but the second one is coming from a different direction, and the Mid-Childan shields, being directed energy, suffer in a way from attacks like that. Reflexively, he brings up his gauntlet bearing arm, which flows with it's own black energy, to deflect the attack.<br /><br />But Kunzite is done playing around, and that sabre pressures hard against the gauntlet - the best thing Riventon's energy can do is deflect it off-course, which means instead of finding his stomach, the blade cuts a wicked gash in the right shoulder of his barrier jacket labcoat - this hasn't been a good few weeks for Riventon's shoulders.<br /><br />There's a link there, for Kunzite to feel. It's not a strong barrier - because usually, people have no problem fighting Riventon to a standstill, and with so few people that have ever tried to break through a barrier - much less, investigate the magical tether that binds it to him - there's never been much reason to defend or empower one. If Kunzite wants out of this strange world, all he has to do is pull and yank.<br /><br />Meanwhile, there's a reactive response to the damage from Riventon as he pushes the second blade away from his energy barrier - maybe a parting shot, or maybe the start of a new offensive.<br /><br /><span style="color:#3877C9">&lt;ELEKTROSTOB!&gt;</span><br /><br />This attack comes with no snark or fanfare, Riventon's grown serious, too. There's a bolt of black-green lightning that erupts from his gauntlet, a reaving series of tendrils surging forwards at Kunzite from Riventon's gauntlet.<br /><br />Riventon has lost some of his cool - which has made him a more dangerous but less tactical fighter. And of course, the connection to the barrier is now in Kunzite's magical hands.

:'''{{#var:109|Kunzite| (109)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Kunzite's answer to that black-green lightning is black in turn. His hands come together, one perpendicular to the other, fingers held just ''so'' in a mnemonic pattern. There's a strobe of that disturbing pinkish light, an energy signature doing -- something --<br /><br />And in its wake, on the instant, is a ''flood'' of blackness, something shadowy and reptilian and hungry, all teeth and jaws. Something very much akin to the distant calm behind his eyes, to the consuming darkness he wields, to the energy signature he is. That thing intercepts the lightning, swallows some of it, is coiled in other tendrils -- given that the energy it's made from is effectively part of Kunzite, on the one hand it might signify something like taking significant damage; on the other hand, what's retained in what passes for his body is intact.<br /><br />But the important part was that strobe of light.<br /><br />Kunzite does not want out of the barrier.<br /><br />Kunzite wants the barrier.<br /><br />And that burst of twisted magic hammers at the tether, not to destroy it, but seeking to ''infect'' it. To try to swallow it whole and turn the entire nonspace they stand in into an extension of the Dark Kingdom, a playground for his own devouring shadows.

:'''{{#var:47|Takashi Agera| (47)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Riventon is... perplexed, to say it honestly. He was unaware such a thing as Kunzite just did was possible - and in truth, he's filing it away later for his own tactical usage. If he survives. It's a dangerous game he's playing, and now he knows it. But he's here, so there's not much he can do but play this one out to the end. And if worst comes to worst, he does have a trump card.<br /><br />Riventon backs pretty far as the shadows close in on his barrier. "That's a neat trick." he says, and means it. It's a measure of genuine respect for his opponent. He reaches into that coat pocket and draws out that black-purple crystal - and smashes it in his gauntlet. Instead of shattering like crystal, it drips like a thick oil. As the drops hit the ground, they begin to create small humanoid youma, made of shadows - with claws and vicious grins on their faces, with red beady eyes, as the barrier is tainted by Kunzite's strength.<br /><br />"But the first rule of a duel is - never make it a duel." he adds. And then the swarm attacks, while Riventon does something different - he moves towards Kunzite's prey, and screams out himself, rather than his device "BARRIER BREAK!" his fist smashing into Kunzite's barrier and aiming to destroy it while the horde distracts the general.
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