It might not come up in casual conversation that much, but Kyouko does actually still need to hunt for Grief Seeds/Cubes. She might be Shitennou, but at the basic level, she's still a Puella and she needs to cleanse her Soul Gem- not to mention, so is Momo, and providing for them both is something Kyouko takes very seriously. Such being the case, at least a few nights a week she goes hunting.
It's easier now, with the uptick in both Witch and Wraith activity over the past few weeks. In a lot of ways that's a bad thing, but in at least this one it's good- easier to hunt. That's what she's about today, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, in her Puella henshin (which looks much the same as her Shitennou henshin, minus the cape and with a very minor difference in the pattern on the front). She lands on the edge of a building downtown, eyes scanning the darkness between the buildings. Its late evening, but still a ways before midnight, and the Tokyo streets are still busy, though the alleyways are darker and emptier.
She tilts her head up, and actually sniffs the air. Hmm. No Wraiths or Witches in the immidiate vicinity. Another leap, to check the next few blocks over.
It's certainly just coincidence. But the next building she takes a leap over bears someone upon it, already.
Or more accurately, the very edge of it does so, anyway. Where a certain figure in a hoodie sits, quietly, watching over the street- and headlight-illuminated cityscape below, with feet precariously hanging over the several-story drop.
She probably notices the figure immediately. But so does the figure notice her. For the head underneath the flipped-up hood turns to direct one green eye from underneath to her, while she's still in mid-air.
There's no other immediate reaction besides that. Just... watching her. Without any effort in hiding, too.
It's fair to say that Kyouko is very aware of her surroundings when on the hunt. It's also fair to say that, for those who notice magical things, it's pretty hard to miss a girl with a spear leaping through the air over your head. Kyouko does notice the figure on the edge of the rooftop, of course, though she's already passing over to the next rooftop as she does. The rooves are not that far apart, though- only a matter of a few yards. She lands in a flutter of ruffled coat, turning in the same movement to stand across the gap from him, eyeing.
Her demeanor isn't exactly threatening- despite her anger upon their previous encounter, there's no sense she wants to attack him, at least not right off the bat. Perhaps she's had time to cool down, or time to listen to cooler heads around her on the topic. Probably a combination of both.
She regards him in silence for a few long moments broken only by the sound of the traffic coming from far below, and then finally offers, "Hey. You doing alright?"
Conversely, he isn't making any particular gestures that indicate preparing to defend himself. It would certainly not seem as if though it'd be particularly difficult to make an attack on him.
Though Kyouko is probably paranoid enough to expect appearances like that to be deceptive.
Just like her, he merely watches her in silence. Long enough that she ends up being the one to break the verbal silence first.
"About as 'alright' as I can in my situation," Alex responds in that deadpan tone that seems to be the standard for him now, while one hand reaches to tug the hood away from his head. His expression is very decidedly neutral now, too. "The bar essentially just being 'have not dropped to murderous frenzy yet'."
Paranoid might be the wrong word for it in this situation, although she can be that- cautious, due to long experience is probably more what can be seen in her scarlet eyes as she watches the young man perched across from her on the edge of the facing rooftop. She shifts her spear, but not to attack, moving it from one shoulder to the other, her arm looped over the haft in a deceptively relaxed posture.
"Believe it or not, I can relate." Kyouko says, a hint of dry amusement in her tone at his words. "Although I'm glad to hear that." She tilts her head slightly, her eyes darting over his face as the hood comes back, though what she's looking for isn't exactly clear.
"Well look, I ain't about to offer you any unwated advice or assistance- the fact that you made it this long and are still in one piece is proof you ain't helpless. You seen any Wraiths around tonight?"
The eyeing-over apparently does not go unnoticed. The first evidence of that comes in the form of Alex quirking one thick brow upwards, and the second comes when he asks, "My eyes still green?"
He glances away briefly, after that, and a quiet sound resounds in his throat. "Neither of us are really the type to. Talk aimlessly. About something just for the sake of talking about it. Are we?"
His eyes do return briefly to her at that one particular word, though.
Wraiths.
Though his gaze slips away again right after, but this time it's seemingly for the purpose of processing some memories this time around.
"Wraiths," he repeats the word, after a few seconds. "Creatures primarily dealt with. By Puella. Because they leave. An energy source to maintain them. After killing the. Things. They feed on negative emotion. Have a field around them that. Creates despair."
He tilts his head then, to direct his gaze back upon Kyouko once more, this time seemingly to stay. "Those. Wraiths. Yes? Fought a few with. Sayaka. That was over a week ago. Not seen more since then."
Kyouko shrugs, an absent uplift of her shoulders. "Still green." She confirms, because it's the truth. He doesn't need to worry that she'd lie to spare his feelings. That's not the sort she is.
"I don't believe you can solve all the world's problems by talkin' 'em out." Kyouko responds, with a faint lift of one corner of her mouth. "I know plenty of people who have a lotta skill at talkin'. I ain't one of them, so I'm content to leave the talkin' to the people who are good at it. And stick to what I'm good at."
At his description of Wraiths, she nods her head. "Yeah, them." He mentions Sayaka, and there might be a brief flicker of something on her face- not concern, precisely, but something. "You probably just don't know how to look for 'em. They're around." She turns her head and sniffs at the air faintly, again. "Not here, though."
"Unfortunately. My condition did not come with... An innate way to sense magic. In general." Pointing this out, Alex casts a brief look down to the street, before taking to studying Kyouko over again.
"Certainly can't. Smell them."
His head tilts to the side slightly, an oddly canine-like way of it at that. "Sayaka is. At least seemed to be. Doing all right." Apparently that flicker of something didn't go unnoticed by him, either. "She knows what I am. Or knows as well as I could explain, anyway."
Kyouko tilts her head back down, and there might be the faintest hint of a blush on her cheeks as Alex calls her out for 'smelling' the Wraiths. "I don't really smell them," She says, as if by way of explanation. "It's more a.. sense I can't really explain, but I guess I kinda do that by instinct cuz it helps me.. I dunno, focus, to think of it as smelling them."
Her mouth quirks to the side in a grimance which is hard to call either positive or negative as Alex decides to inform her about Sayaka's wellbeing. "Yeah, I know. She talked to Naru the other day, too. She's tough. And she ain't the type to judge people for bein'.. out of the ordinary." A faint snort. "Even when sometimes she should."
A critical eye cast on Alexis. "Don't pull any funny business with her, y'hear? She's a bit too trusting for her own good, sometimes."
If Alex notices the blush, he elects not to comment on it. Thankfully for everyone involved. Rather, he simply observes, "It's. A physical trigger. To help the mental process. Yes?"
For once, his eyes narrow a bit, in particular over her final words. "Define. 'Funny business'," he urges, while his head takes to tilting over to the opposite side. "I don't exactly. Get urges like... 'that', after I turned, you realize."
"Yeah, something like that." Kyouko says, in response to his question about the whole 'smelling Wraiths' thing.
And then her eyes widen slightly at his interpretation of her statement, and her cheeks definitely flush now as she looks mildly panicked. "N-no! No! I mean.. that's not what I meant!" She turns her head a little too quickly, red hair whipping, and sniffs. "I meant that she has a tendency to leap before she looks, and I don't want you to get her into trouble. Just because you might not be concerned about your own safety."
A short sigh, and she looks back, her color returning to normal. "She's tough, like I said. But she also isn't the best at judging when to be cautious." A faint smirk. "Guess I ain't exactly the best person to be offering advice on that count, but it's easier to say it about somebody else than yourself, I suppose. Look, I just don't want her to get hurt, alright? That's as simple as I can put it."
Alex blinks slooooooooooowly over Kyouko's reaction. As if though he'd said NOTHING WEIRD AT ALL and SHE is the one who's being the odd one out of the two of them.
Obviously.
"Have I ever struck you. As the type that doesn't mind. People having trouble. On his account?" Alex asks of her, then, the tone still that slightly oddly-paced deadpan. "There is a reason. I am trying to keep to myself now. As much as I can."
He pauses there for a few seconds, long enough to wrinkle his nose once, twice over. "She did offer. To let me feed on her. But I would. Rather not unless. I really need to."
Kyouko seems to mostly have reclaimed her equilibrium. She snorts faintly at Alex's words. "No, you haven't. But no offense, you gone through a lot of changes recently and it bears sayin' even if it wouldn't have a few weeks ago. But I'm glad you still feel that way. I know what it's like to struggle against your nature."
A brow raises at the mention of the fact that Sayaka offered to let him feed off of her. "That don't surprise me. But let me offer you a word of caution, Alex, and this got nothin' to do with my relationship, past or present, with Sayaka-chan. She's a Puella. There are.. significant risks related to energy-draining a Puella, way more than a normal human. She probably wasn't thinking about that- it'd be like her to offer first and only consider the consequences later. But I'm tellin' you now. It's a bad idea. There are plenty of better choices if you needed to in an emergency. Less dangerous ones."
"Because you turn into a Witch if you lose too much," says Alex, to finish that thought. Which would probably sound significantly less concerning if it didn't come in that same irritatingly neutral deadpan. "She told me."
"Even if she did not. I would still prefer. Not to do that. Even for magic people it does not. Feel that good when I do it. I can't fine tune the feedback like Norie can."
He sighs, then. "I think. She is trying a bit too hard, maybe. To help me. To find a way to. Save me, I guess."
Kyouko's eyes narrow as Alex mentions the Witch thing. "She did, huh?" She asks, not sounding pleased. "Of course she did. Look, Alex, that's supposed to be a secret. Only like six or seven people in the entire city know about that. So keep it to yourself, huh? That's a safety issue for myself, and Sayaka and my sister and every other Puella out there. I do not want that knowledge getting around, and she was stupid to tell you so easily. She doesn't even know you."
A faint sigh. "I do know you though, at least a little, and I don't think you'd abuse it. But don't spread it around, okay?" She nods a little at his mention of preferring not to do it anyway, then.
"It's not just you," She adds, on the topic of Sayaka trying to hard. "That's what she does. She has this thing where she wants so bad to be a hero, and ends up getting in trouble because she wants it so bad it clouds her ability to see what's in front of her face. That's why I was worried. Not that you ain't worth helping, Alex, that's not what I mean."
"I did tell her," says Alex, and he actually lets out a sigh now. "That it was. Really trusting of her."
"I would say. I don't know why she trusts me so much. But..." The boy's eyes drift off away again, peering downwards-- and his neutral expression turns along to something that actually resembles rueful, now. "I think. Maybe I see. Some of myself in her. From before I was turned. She's... More. I don't know what the right word would be. Blatant? About it. But it's... still very familiar."
"Yeah." Kyouko shrugs her shoulders. "I think that's why I liked.. like her, too. She reminds me a little bit of me. But I'm serious, Alex. I hear you been spreadin' that bit of news around, and there will be consequences." Her expression is severe, because she means it- this goes beyond just her and Alex and any relationship they might have to each other.
Then she shrugs again, relaxing slightly. She doesn't really think Alex is going to betray her, but she can't afford to take chances. "She'll learn. I hope. Everybody's gotta grow up sometime. I been doin' a lot of that the past year or two. I just don't wanna see her kick the bucket before she gets the chance."
There's no verbal response to the warning. On the matter of trust. But Alex's expression does change a bit-- if for the sake of nothing else, to match that same severity she holds there, over his own.
But then she's speaking of Saya again. And his expression returns to that same ruefulness, again. He's silent, for a moment.
"I won't let that happen," he declares soon enough, though, in time with him bringing his gaze to find Kyouko's. "At least. Not for as long as I can still. Feel myself."
Kyouko nods her head, after a moment of studying Alex's expression. "I believe you." She says, and her expression is just as serious about that. "And I'm glad. And look- if you feel yourself starting to slip, if it comes to that. You tell me, alright? Some people 'round here, they don't know what it is to make the hard choice. But I know, and I can make those choices, if needed. I won't do it on my own, but if you need to ask.."
She falls silent for a moment, glancing off into the distance. "She's mad at me, and she's got a right to be, I guess, but that doesn't mean I want to see anything bad happen to her. It makes me feel better knowin' you got her back, at least for now."
"You have to understand--" Alex starts, but he pauses briefly to reconsider his own words. "... Us both have to understand. That there's a chance. If I start. Slipping. I might not acknowledge it. I might not come asking. Because of it." With that being said, his brows furrow downwards, and his eyes narrow slightly. "Be it you or someone else. There can't be any hesitation. If there's any signs. Understand?"
He turns to look away from her again, over the mention of Sayaka having the right to be mad. "...I don't. Really have the. Qualification to say anything about that." Which is his way of saying he's gonna try to avoid that particular subject matter if he can help it.
"I don't hesitate. A lot of times, I get in trouble because of it, but it's true. I ain't afraid to do what needs to be done." Kyouko says, firmly. And it's the truth, as much as she (and a bunch of other people) would sometimes with it were otherwise. "I'll keep an ear to the ground."
She sees the way he purposefully avoids raising the subject of why, exactly, Sayaka might be mad at her, and she nods. "Yeah.. that's fine. I just wanted you to know that no matter what she might say about me, I still want her to be safe. That's all. So thanks."
"Then you know what needs to be done," is all Alex says to that matter. Even with him talking about it in such a neutral tone-- it might be apparent enough that, somehow, that particular possibility of an ending does not really scare him.
"It's. A little early to thank me yet, though," he points out, afterwards. "Especially considering my. State."
"Yes." Is all Kyouko says, about knowing what needs to be done. "But I really hope it don't come to that. You got some really smart people lookin' into ways to.. undo what happened to you. They'll figure somethin' out, eventually."
She shakes her head at his saying it's too early for thanks. "I ain't thankin' you for what you're gonna do, or not do. I'm thankin' you for being willing to do it. That deserves thanks in and of itself. This is a mean world we live in, I'm sure you know that. Just somebody bein' willing to help.. that's worth a thanks all on its own."
"I know," Alex sighs out, but then he's shaking his head. "Still. I can't let myself just assume that. The 'cure' will come. I will have to prepare for... potentially living the rest of my life like this. That's just how my reality is, right now."
Over her further elaboration - as it is - on the giving of thanks... well. He rolls his shoulders around, and murmurs, "What kind of man would I be if I wasn't?"
Beat.
"Other than vampire."
Kyouko nods her head. "An' I appreciate that too. Bein' able to accept the world for what it is.. and your situation for what it is. That's somethin' I value, and I'm glad to know you ain't optimistic to a fault. But you also shouldn't give up hope entirely. There's always hope. Just not blind hope."
A mild grin then, showing a hint of fang. "You can be a man and a vampire. But I know a lotta men who'd do less, and a lotta women, too. Honor ain't dead in this world, Alex-san, but it ain't exactly healthy and thriving, either. Gotta nurture it where you find it."
"That was. Supposed to be a joke." Alex might say so, but it probably didn't really come across as one with his deadpan. Oh well.
And now, he starts pushing himself up and away from the rooftop edge, and to standing upon his feet. "For as long as I am physically. Able to do that, anyway. Honor. As long as there's... still some semblance of me. Myself. Norie says I should... be able to keep on to it. As long as I stay properly fed. But... I don't know if that's. All it will take."
"Well, I ain't so good at jokes." Kyouko shrugs, not seeming to find this to be a particularly bad thing, at least in the moment.
She nods her head, taking a step back from the edge of the roof as he rises, as if to give him room. "Good. An' I trust you.. trust that about you. But look- don't be afraid to ask for help if you need it, and if you're able. Don't need to be from me, although that offer stands."
She meets his eye, and nods. "An' I'll keep a lookout.. just in case you're not able."
"I... did tell Saya she might have to do that, too," Alex admits-- and for just a moment, he might actually seem... vaguely guilty.
"I'm. Not sure if she could, though. She does not seem like the kind of person who would. Resort to that."
He gives his head a firm shake. "I suppose it's. A litlte early to worry about that. About who exactly will take my head off when the need for it comes. ... At least I hope. It's still too early for it."
"She wouldn't. That's what I meant about optimism." Kyouko says, with the faintest shrug if her shoulders. "Can't hold that against anybody but.. I know sometimes you gotta make a choice you'd rather not make. I done it before and I can do it again."
She quirks a brow at him. "The very fact that we're havin' this conversation means that it's still too early, Alex. When you stop thinking about it.. or start thinking it's never gonna happen, no matter what.. that's when maybe you got a problem."
"I suppose. That I would rather be rid of all this power, is... an okay sign, too," Alex mutters. Though he's standing now, he's not making any move to run off, yet, at least-- now just looking down at hte palms of his hands, held by his stomach. "I. Wanted that kind of power. So I could. Protect people. On bigger scale than. All the gang fights I got involved with. I have that power now, but..."
"It's not worth it. Worth having to hurt people just to live. Worth the risk of becoming something even worse."
"As a Puella, I am very familiar with the fact that it often ain't worth it." Kyouko says wryly, "The power, I mean. Not that I regret where I am right now but.. it took a long time and a lotta shitty experiences to get here, and you'd have to be crazy to choose that, knowing it goin' in. I wanted to protect people too.. and I ended up hurting a lot more people than I protected. I'm still makin' up for that to this day."
"Like I said.. the fact that you think that means it ain't too late. Keep thinkin' that way, and there's still hope you can make somethin' outta this.. one way or the other."
"We will just have to see," Alex murmurs, in a quieter tone, turning a longer, distant look off into the horizon-- or as much of a horizon as one can see from downtown anyway. Which is not a whole lot, let's be honest.
Look, it wasn't supposed to be literal.
"I should. Go," says, after, now starting to turn towards the edge of the roof. "I haven't fed in a while again. And I. Should. Just to be safe."
"Yes.. I guess we will." Kyouko says, shrugging her shoulders. That seems to be an alright place to leave things to her.
She nods her head again. "Yeah. And I need to get hunting.. just like you, Puella gotta eat." She grins, faintly fangy.. then tilts her head at him. "Take care of yourself, Alex."
And then she's turning herself, and leaping back away across the rooftops, in search of Wraiths.