Twists of Fate [Part 9]
Nov. 9th, 2014 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
esp_dragonFandom: Noblesse
Summary: Nakida’s a hacker in the middle of a job to find some information. Except they’re not the only one breaking into the building that night - there’s a silver-haired guy walking around like cameras don’t exist. If he wants to get caught, it’s not their problem.
Huian’s on guard duty to protect the information they’re after. Usually it’s quiet - all she has to do is enter the system, keep an eye on the camera feeds and patrol around the clusters of data to make sure no-one gets to them.
Their pasts connect them, even if they don’t remember. And the past does tend to come back.
Rating: PG-13
Contains: Body horror
Notes: Reincarnation fic! :D Written for nano! So expect some weirdness as I churn this out, haha.
Genre: General.
Word count: 1,938
Total word count: 20,012
Status: Work in progress
A minute later, M-21 was checking out the crowd in a sweeping glance. There were a lot of people rushing towards one direction or another, talking about dinner or getting shopping or a myriad of other things. None of them were the person was trying to find.
The person M-21 had seen still hadn't moved but…that couldn't be right.
M-21 watched from the corner of his eyes, double-checking. She was opposite from Tao in pretty much every way with dark skin, long curly purple hair. She was wearing more pastel colours, not the dark ones Tao tended to prefer. M-21 could pick out the start of wrinkles around her eyes; she was older than he'd been able to see Tao. And she had breasts. She couldn't be Tao. He had to be mistaken.
Except as he watched, the woman tapped her foot in a semi-circle in a way that was painfully familiar to M-21, even though it had been so long. Tao had told him it had been a habit from using his foot mouse – and something he'd tried to unlearn without success when he'd heard the superstition that he'd lose money if he kept doing that. And Tao hadn't been able to keep his money, not when he'd bought things on impulse, or saved just to splash out on gifts for the rest of the household.
She also twirled the stylus between her fingers as she thought. The fact she had a screen up in front of her face added to M-21's growing suspicions.
But they were small things. By themselves they didn't mean anything, and even together, the link was flimsy.
It didn't stop M-21 from wondering, from trying to pick out more clues.
He was desperate, wanting to see something that wasn't there, but what if-?
It wasn't someone trying to convince him they were Tao. It was someone who acted like him without thought.
And the swirling, repetitive thoughts were back.
Most of the reasons he could think of no longer worked. One of the last few was reincarnation, which would explain what he was seeing.
If it did happen with humans. If he believed it could happened.
He did. He wanted it to be true. Throughout the entire time after Takeo and Tao's deaths, there hadn't been anyone else who he'd seen that had given him anything close to this sense of familiarity.
And…
Tao's reincarnation was watching everyone in the courtyard in front of the building through her hair. She would glance up without moving her head, take everyone in and then glance down again at her screen. She was looking for someone. Had to be, or else she should have noticed him standing there already.
Was she also looking for Joyce? But he'd told her-! M-21 pursed his lips, calming down his thoughts. He didn't know if she was who he thought he was, and he couldn't check what was on her screen, not when there was a wall directly behind her. Which was probably the point.
He had to talk to her. If he was wrong, then it didn't matter; but if he was been right and he'd let his doubts ruin his chance of meeting Tao again…
M-21 looked across the courtyard again, in case anyone was watching him or the woman. No-one, as far as M-21 could see, but that didn't mean there weren't people in the adjacent buildings watching, or the ubiquitous cameras.
The woman still hadn't noticed him, and he hooked his thumbs into his pockets, taking a wandering route towards her, pausing to gaze through shop windows first before crossing the street.
He stopped close to her and he saw her shoulders tense. "Hey," he said.
She tilted her head to look up at him; M-21 was close enough to see her irises shrink at the sight of him, hear her sharp intake of breath before she controlled her expression again.
She'd recognised him. She knew who she was.
"Yes?" she said, her face taking on a more curious expression.
There were a number of different ways he could approach this, but a lot of them would have left her the option to deny what he was talking about.
"Tao-" he murmured, leaning in so others wouldn't hear him or read his lips, and her eyes flickered, her lips tensing for a second, "-you shouldn't be here." Saying 'I told you to stay away' would have sounded threatening out of context. …Even in context it did.
"Heh, sorry," she said, her lips twisting up into an apologetic smile, and dammit, it was like an overlay, "you've got the wrong person. I'm not who you think I am."
"I'm pretty sure," he said. This was confirming it for him. "You're here, watching everyone. Waiting for Joyce."
"Uh, no," she said. "I'm an artist." She turned her console around so M-21 could see the screen. It was filled with doodles upon doodles of people in a variety of different clothing and poses. Some had splashes of colour, others were only a mass of lines that gave a hint of a body. "See?" There were also a couple of sketches of buildings and non-living objects and reference pictures in the corners.
They weren't something that had been pulled out in reserve, not when M-21 recognised a couple of the buildings from this angle, and one or two of the people, their clothes striking compared the other people.
…Shit. He'd been wrong after all.
M-21 took a step back, flushing. "A-ah, sorry about that," he said, giving her a small bow. "I'll leave you alone."
He'd been so sure-!
Squashing his disappointment, he turned on his heel and left her alone.
* * *
Nakida stared at Kang-dae's retreating back, her heart hammering and not intending to slow down any time soon. How…? How had he known they were Tao? They'd been suspected of other things, but never that.
That was exactly why they'd created Tao to look the way it did, to throw people off them since they would be looking for someone different.
So how had he picked them out of the crowd after only talking with them three times? What had given them away? There had been people who been searching for them for years and hadn't come close. He had to be a lot better than he let on. Or it had something to do with his abilities.
They turned their head back their doodles so not to be too obvious. But damn, it was good he'd approached them hours after they'd sat down. They were used to sitting around and waiting while their console finished searching for something or decrypting something they needed; they tended to fill that time with drawing and this time hadn't been much different.
Drawing the people around them gave them an excuse to look at everyone and if someone was suspicious, they had proof they were doing something innocent. They hadn't managed to see Joyce yet in the time they'd been there, but her car still seemed to be in the car park so she was still in the building.
They tried to find Kang-dae, but he had already disappeared again. So long as he believed they weren't Tao, that was what mattered. It had seemed like they'd thrown him off, so now they were free to concentrate on trying to find Joyce.
* * *
No, Huian thought as she gritted her teeth.
Why not? Dark Spear demanded. We need more power! You saw that! A rustle like a multitude of moving claws. If you give us your soul we can-
I said no. Huian had seen and felt what Dark Spear had been doing to that rat. She wasn't going to be eaten like that if she could help it.
It wouldn't like that, Dark Spear said, voice soothing. You'd be part of us, you would have the strength to-
It would be exactly like that! Dark Spear had only been interested in gathering power, intent on ripping the rat apart to get what it wanted.
We thought you wanted to get out of here.
She did. Dammit, she did. Huian had been tied to the table for far too long already.
Give us your soul and we'll get you out.
Except it won't be 'me' anymore.
You would be part of us. You would still get out of here.
No, she wanted to be herself when she got out.
Then you'll stay here until they kill you, or change you so much you aren't yourself anymore. There was a weight there, tempered with knowledge. Like it had been in a similar situation. Or had known someone who had been in a similar situation.
Takeo.
Had Takeo been - he had. Takeo's memories came to her in a trickle rather than a flood, easier to manage and understand, not trying to overwhelm her.
He'd been in an exact situation like hers, except he didn't remember who he'd been before, and even Dark Spear's digging while bored or allowed out hadn't been able to find out anything.
See? That's why you should give me your soul.
Dark Spear was more persistent than Tao, dogging for the answer it wanted, trying to wear her down.
She was distracted from retorting at the hiss of the door opening. When she opened her eyes, shaking her head, it wasn't Joyce walking in, but the guy who'd taken her blood before. There was a filled packet in his hand like the one that was plugged into her arm.
Dark Spear was watching out her eyes, taking an interest in how close he was getting. Calculating.
Wait-
It's us or them, it said bluntly. Would you rather be hurt, or hurt them?
The answer was simple when put that way, but it wasn't sitting well with Huian's stomach.
Hah. They don't feel the same way about you.
"Tch," the guy grumbled, changing the packet. "All the food'll be gone by the time I get there."
See?
Huian had been trained how to take people down to protect - and she'd been trained just for this, hadn't Joyce said.
And Dark Spear was already taking that as agreement, coiling up as it sped to the arm closest to the man.
She was going to allow it to kill him, or consume him, whatever, but they'd already kidnapped her and had treated as a lab rat (but not quite like how Joyce had treated the real one).
Fire was burning her arm as Dark Spear travelled. "Gggk!"
The man glanced down at her gasp. "This is good for you," he said with disinterest, dropping . "You'll be - what?"
She'd distracted him enough that he hadn't seen her skin purple and lash out at him.
He tried to jerk away, but he was too slow and more tendrils snapped out, holding him in place.
Dragging him closer.
Dark Spear was more interested in securing a hold on the man than trying to eat him and then tendrils whipped up his arm, hooks piercing his skin. Blood flowed to be absorbed by the tendrils without a trace and with each drop, Dark Spear got more energised, more tendrils snapping up, reaching towards his torso and neck.
"Fffu-!" He was working himself up for a scream, except the tendrils had already reached his head closing his mouth and Huian shivered as she felt Dark Spear pulse. She could hear the man's muffled breath, the scream trapped in his throat as Dark Spear dug in deep, knowing exactly where it wanted to go and going there with precision.
Summary: Nakida’s a hacker in the middle of a job to find some information. Except they’re not the only one breaking into the building that night - there’s a silver-haired guy walking around like cameras don’t exist. If he wants to get caught, it’s not their problem.
Huian’s on guard duty to protect the information they’re after. Usually it’s quiet - all she has to do is enter the system, keep an eye on the camera feeds and patrol around the clusters of data to make sure no-one gets to them.
Their pasts connect them, even if they don’t remember. And the past does tend to come back.
Rating: PG-13
Contains: Body horror
Notes: Reincarnation fic! :D Written for nano! So expect some weirdness as I churn this out, haha.
Genre: General.
Word count: 1,938
Total word count: 20,012
Status: Work in progress
A minute later, M-21 was checking out the crowd in a sweeping glance. There were a lot of people rushing towards one direction or another, talking about dinner or getting shopping or a myriad of other things. None of them were the person was trying to find.
The person M-21 had seen still hadn't moved but…that couldn't be right.
M-21 watched from the corner of his eyes, double-checking. She was opposite from Tao in pretty much every way with dark skin, long curly purple hair. She was wearing more pastel colours, not the dark ones Tao tended to prefer. M-21 could pick out the start of wrinkles around her eyes; she was older than he'd been able to see Tao. And she had breasts. She couldn't be Tao. He had to be mistaken.
Except as he watched, the woman tapped her foot in a semi-circle in a way that was painfully familiar to M-21, even though it had been so long. Tao had told him it had been a habit from using his foot mouse – and something he'd tried to unlearn without success when he'd heard the superstition that he'd lose money if he kept doing that. And Tao hadn't been able to keep his money, not when he'd bought things on impulse, or saved just to splash out on gifts for the rest of the household.
She also twirled the stylus between her fingers as she thought. The fact she had a screen up in front of her face added to M-21's growing suspicions.
But they were small things. By themselves they didn't mean anything, and even together, the link was flimsy.
It didn't stop M-21 from wondering, from trying to pick out more clues.
He was desperate, wanting to see something that wasn't there, but what if-?
It wasn't someone trying to convince him they were Tao. It was someone who acted like him without thought.
And the swirling, repetitive thoughts were back.
Most of the reasons he could think of no longer worked. One of the last few was reincarnation, which would explain what he was seeing.
If it did happen with humans. If he believed it could happened.
He did. He wanted it to be true. Throughout the entire time after Takeo and Tao's deaths, there hadn't been anyone else who he'd seen that had given him anything close to this sense of familiarity.
And…
Tao's reincarnation was watching everyone in the courtyard in front of the building through her hair. She would glance up without moving her head, take everyone in and then glance down again at her screen. She was looking for someone. Had to be, or else she should have noticed him standing there already.
Was she also looking for Joyce? But he'd told her-! M-21 pursed his lips, calming down his thoughts. He didn't know if she was who he thought he was, and he couldn't check what was on her screen, not when there was a wall directly behind her. Which was probably the point.
He had to talk to her. If he was wrong, then it didn't matter; but if he was been right and he'd let his doubts ruin his chance of meeting Tao again…
M-21 looked across the courtyard again, in case anyone was watching him or the woman. No-one, as far as M-21 could see, but that didn't mean there weren't people in the adjacent buildings watching, or the ubiquitous cameras.
The woman still hadn't noticed him, and he hooked his thumbs into his pockets, taking a wandering route towards her, pausing to gaze through shop windows first before crossing the street.
He stopped close to her and he saw her shoulders tense. "Hey," he said.
She tilted her head to look up at him; M-21 was close enough to see her irises shrink at the sight of him, hear her sharp intake of breath before she controlled her expression again.
She'd recognised him. She knew who she was.
"Yes?" she said, her face taking on a more curious expression.
There were a number of different ways he could approach this, but a lot of them would have left her the option to deny what he was talking about.
"Tao-" he murmured, leaning in so others wouldn't hear him or read his lips, and her eyes flickered, her lips tensing for a second, "-you shouldn't be here." Saying 'I told you to stay away' would have sounded threatening out of context. …Even in context it did.
"Heh, sorry," she said, her lips twisting up into an apologetic smile, and dammit, it was like an overlay, "you've got the wrong person. I'm not who you think I am."
"I'm pretty sure," he said. This was confirming it for him. "You're here, watching everyone. Waiting for Joyce."
"Uh, no," she said. "I'm an artist." She turned her console around so M-21 could see the screen. It was filled with doodles upon doodles of people in a variety of different clothing and poses. Some had splashes of colour, others were only a mass of lines that gave a hint of a body. "See?" There were also a couple of sketches of buildings and non-living objects and reference pictures in the corners.
They weren't something that had been pulled out in reserve, not when M-21 recognised a couple of the buildings from this angle, and one or two of the people, their clothes striking compared the other people.
…Shit. He'd been wrong after all.
M-21 took a step back, flushing. "A-ah, sorry about that," he said, giving her a small bow. "I'll leave you alone."
He'd been so sure-!
Squashing his disappointment, he turned on his heel and left her alone.
Nakida stared at Kang-dae's retreating back, her heart hammering and not intending to slow down any time soon. How…? How had he known they were Tao? They'd been suspected of other things, but never that.
That was exactly why they'd created Tao to look the way it did, to throw people off them since they would be looking for someone different.
So how had he picked them out of the crowd after only talking with them three times? What had given them away? There had been people who been searching for them for years and hadn't come close. He had to be a lot better than he let on. Or it had something to do with his abilities.
They turned their head back their doodles so not to be too obvious. But damn, it was good he'd approached them hours after they'd sat down. They were used to sitting around and waiting while their console finished searching for something or decrypting something they needed; they tended to fill that time with drawing and this time hadn't been much different.
Drawing the people around them gave them an excuse to look at everyone and if someone was suspicious, they had proof they were doing something innocent. They hadn't managed to see Joyce yet in the time they'd been there, but her car still seemed to be in the car park so she was still in the building.
They tried to find Kang-dae, but he had already disappeared again. So long as he believed they weren't Tao, that was what mattered. It had seemed like they'd thrown him off, so now they were free to concentrate on trying to find Joyce.
No, Huian thought as she gritted her teeth.
Why not? Dark Spear demanded. We need more power! You saw that! A rustle like a multitude of moving claws. If you give us your soul we can-
I said no. Huian had seen and felt what Dark Spear had been doing to that rat. She wasn't going to be eaten like that if she could help it.
It wouldn't like that, Dark Spear said, voice soothing. You'd be part of us, you would have the strength to-
It would be exactly like that! Dark Spear had only been interested in gathering power, intent on ripping the rat apart to get what it wanted.
We thought you wanted to get out of here.
She did. Dammit, she did. Huian had been tied to the table for far too long already.
Give us your soul and we'll get you out.
Except it won't be 'me' anymore.
You would be part of us. You would still get out of here.
No, she wanted to be herself when she got out.
Then you'll stay here until they kill you, or change you so much you aren't yourself anymore. There was a weight there, tempered with knowledge. Like it had been in a similar situation. Or had known someone who had been in a similar situation.
Takeo.
Had Takeo been - he had. Takeo's memories came to her in a trickle rather than a flood, easier to manage and understand, not trying to overwhelm her.
He'd been in an exact situation like hers, except he didn't remember who he'd been before, and even Dark Spear's digging while bored or allowed out hadn't been able to find out anything.
See? That's why you should give me your soul.
Dark Spear was more persistent than Tao, dogging for the answer it wanted, trying to wear her down.
She was distracted from retorting at the hiss of the door opening. When she opened her eyes, shaking her head, it wasn't Joyce walking in, but the guy who'd taken her blood before. There was a filled packet in his hand like the one that was plugged into her arm.
Dark Spear was watching out her eyes, taking an interest in how close he was getting. Calculating.
Wait-
It's us or them, it said bluntly. Would you rather be hurt, or hurt them?
The answer was simple when put that way, but it wasn't sitting well with Huian's stomach.
Hah. They don't feel the same way about you.
"Tch," the guy grumbled, changing the packet. "All the food'll be gone by the time I get there."
See?
Huian had been trained how to take people down to protect - and she'd been trained just for this, hadn't Joyce said.
And Dark Spear was already taking that as agreement, coiling up as it sped to the arm closest to the man.
She was going to allow it to kill him, or consume him, whatever, but they'd already kidnapped her and had treated as a lab rat (but not quite like how Joyce had treated the real one).
Fire was burning her arm as Dark Spear travelled. "Gggk!"
The man glanced down at her gasp. "This is good for you," he said with disinterest, dropping . "You'll be - what?"
She'd distracted him enough that he hadn't seen her skin purple and lash out at him.
He tried to jerk away, but he was too slow and more tendrils snapped out, holding him in place.
Dragging him closer.
Dark Spear was more interested in securing a hold on the man than trying to eat him and then tendrils whipped up his arm, hooks piercing his skin. Blood flowed to be absorbed by the tendrils without a trace and with each drop, Dark Spear got more energised, more tendrils snapping up, reaching towards his torso and neck.
"Fffu-!" He was working himself up for a scream, except the tendrils had already reached his head closing his mouth and Huian shivered as she felt Dark Spear pulse. She could hear the man's muffled breath, the scream trapped in his throat as Dark Spear dug in deep, knowing exactly where it wanted to go and going there with precision.