Twists of Fate [Part 13]
Nov. 13th, 2014 11:48 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
Notes: Reincarnation fic! :D Written for nano! So expect some weirdness as I churn this out, haha.
Genre: General.
Word count: 2,026
Total word count: 29,179
Status: Work in progress
They scanned the network of feeds open in front of them, skipping back a few minutes. Once they saw their little group appear on a few feeds (was it only that time? It felt later) the closed the ones that weren't relevant so they could focus.
Muscles protesting, Nakida hacked into the first camera and switched off its wireless, making sure it couldn't any more data. They couldn't hack directly into what camera feed's server from where they were (and wouldn't it be ironic if its company was the one they'd just ran from?) but they could knock out the camera from being scanned if the tech thought it wouldn't have caught anything important.
There was only one other feed that had caught sight of them and that was at a distance, where their faces weren't that clear.
Nakida turned their head at a soft sound and stopped, frowning.
"What is it?" They'd been immersed in keeping the three of them safe but…Kang-dae was staring down at Huian, his eyes wide. They looked at what had his attention, but from what they could see, it only seemed like there was a dark tattoo stark against Huian's wrist that could explain Kang-dae's reaction.
"Nothing," he said, the syllables running together. "It's nothing." He shook his head and raised his attention, going towards Huian's head.
As Nakida watched, he lifted his fingers to her jaw, opening her mouth.
"Uh, what are you doing?" they said, straightening, making sure he wasn't going to try to do something. They were close enough to kick him if he did.
"Checking for injuries," he said, not looking up.
"Through her mouth." Right. That made sense.
Kang-dae seemed to pick up their terse tone and he tilted his head to look at them. "She could have internal bleeding; if there's blood in her mouth, she could need help as soon as possible."
…Oh. That explanation made sense and it explained the rumpled state of Huian's clothes at her stomach. They hadn't trained in even first aid to know if there were signs of anything they should worry about.
And now they weren't distracted by that, Nakida couldn't deny the…thing they'd been feeling wasn't just their body complaining about the workout they'd given it. Their breathing had settled to something somewhat normal and while their heartbeat was still trying to quieten down, there was something else there. They couldn't say the goosebumps on their arms were from the cold now, now when they'd been overheating; it could be from having strangers close to them in a private space that was setting them on edge though.
"All right," they said, turning back to the camera feeds. "Sorry."
They could leave the second feed alone – one camera being knocked off was a normal occurrence, but something happening to a second in the same area could alert people of something happening rather than hiding their presence. There was enough of the three of them obscured that it should be all right. Nakida hoped. Kang-dae's and Huian's faces weren't in full view for a face recognition scan to be able to identify them with one-hundred accuracy at least.
While they kept Kang-dae in their peripheral vision, they tuned into the police chatter, listening to see if they were looking for anyone matching Kang-dae's or Huian's description.
The channels didn't seem busy, and no-one had been dispatched for the security building either. Which meant the security guards hadn't been found yet, or the Union was handling it themselves. Hm. They'd keep it open, in case that changed.
Kang-dae stood up and they watched him over the top of their windows as he walked across to go to the bathroom. They heard him running the tap and return with a wet washcloth.
When he folded it up and placed it on Huian's forehead though, the police chatter wasn't loud enough to cover the hiss that came from nowhere and when Kang-dae pulled his hand back, purple tentacles tried to follow, squirming over the washcloth. Slicing through it.
"What the fuck is that?"
The tentacles were connected to Huian's skin and Nakida had a sick feeling that that was where Huian's 'bruises' went. There was a crease in between Huian's eyebrows, but other than that, she didn't seem to be reacting to what was happening to her.
"Shit," Kang-dae muttered under his breath, and how was he so calm about what he just saw?
Nakida blinked and then the washcloth was gone. It was in Kang-dae's hand, a few tenacles still moving over it.
He swiped at his communicator, putting someone on speed dial.
Wait - dammit. If he was calling someone - Nakida pounced on their console again, checking where the signal was going. Except they couldn't. Nakida knew his phone was on and ringing someone, but they couldn't pinpoint anything else about it. Who had designed this?
...Right, they hadn't been able to track Kang-dae's phone last time either.
But that at least alleviated some of their worry that they could be found that way.
The call was answered, a blond man with blue eyes on the other side. "Ishi-" The man's flickered to them for a second. "Kang-dae, what's wrong?"
Hm, the man had probably been about to call Kang-dae by an older name. Nakida wasn't curious about finding out what he was called; if he'd wanted to be called something else by them, he would have said. Though they hadn't had the time to...
"This." Kang-dae turned his communicator around, showing him Huian.
A soft exhale. "...I see."
They both knew what was going on, what that meant while Nakida flailed in the background. Nakida kept their mouth shut, listening and not interrupting, letting the two talk.
"She knew me, papa." So that was their relation together.
...Wait. Nakida frowned as another thought hit them. If the man was Kang-dae's father and Kang-dae had a longer life than usual, was that man the same?
"She knew my name."
Huh. From what Nakida had gleaned, they doubted the two would have met before, and if they had, Kang-dae wouldn't be so caught up by that. If it was the Union that had told Huian, why would they do that?
The man studied Kang-dae. "Is she the one-?"
Kang-dae's breath came out in an explosive sigh, his shoulders slumping. "No." He rubbed his face with a hand. "Later." He dropped his hand, shaking his head. "What can we do?"
The man pursed his lips. "Only wait, unfortunately. It will be up to her if she's - lives."
What had he been about to say but changed at the last moment? There were a few different options Nakida could think of, watching the purple tentacles sink back into Huian's skin, the skin going back to normal. But if those were in her brain, who knew what that could do to her.
...Well, Kang-dae and his father probably did from their reactions.
"Okay." Kang-dae nodded. "Thanks. I'll keep in touch."
His father nodded and they closed the call.
Kang-dae sighed, closing his eyes. "And...thanks for the help earlier," he murmured, opening his eyes to look at them.
Nakida eyed him. "You didn't need my help." He could have done this all himself - he had found Huian first, he knew someone who could give him advice on what was going on with Huian. They'd helped him with escaping somewhere not connected to his name, but he would have probably been able to handle it anyway. "Why did you accept it?"
He opened his mouth for a second, sounding like he was about to say something before he closed it again. "You wouldn't believe me."
"Uh-huh." Their lip twisted as they raised an eyebrow at him. "I've just been towed by you over tens of kilometres an hour and I know you can go even faster than that."
Kang-dae frowned at them, moving a bit so he could keep both Nakida and Huian in his sight. "...How do you know that?"
Nakida huffed and waved at the console in front of them. "I was able to get some of the recordings of you the second time I went in. You 'disappeared' from the feed, but I could see you were running."
His eyebrows quirked up. "Oh." Kang-dae shifted the weight on his feet, looking away.
"You thought I'd say something else?" Nakida said, trying to work out what his body language meant.
"Yeah," he said, his voice quieter. "It doesn't matter."
"Mmmn, no," they said, and they saw his eyes flick back to them. "I've seen a lot of shit in my life, had a lot of people to 'not do that' because it was dangerous or it would cause problems. But I did it anyway, because it seemed like if I didn't, no-one else would find out, or it would keep happening.
"So tell me already and I'll decide for myself if I believe it or not." They'd pursed their lips at the end, waiting for his response.
It was mostly to blink at them.
"Why do you-" They sighed, scrunching up their eyes as they covered their face. They were starting to get an inkling what this was about. "How did you know Tao?" they asked instead, switching topics.
Kang-dae kept acting like he was expecting something else from them, and if it was because he had a pre-made image of them from the Tao he'd known before, it would be better if they got rid of that before they could continue.
"You won't-"
Nakida glared at him, grabbed the pillow at their back and flung it in his direction.
He caught it like they had expected him to, and any other time, Nakida would have been amused at the sheer surprised expression on his face but not right now. "Try. Me. I've seen tentacles rise out of Huian's face, and I've seen you grow claws and - I don't even know, fur? Stop stalling and get to the point."
Kang-dae set the pillow down on the foot of their bed, his fingers lingering before letting go completely. More time wasting. "You saw the claws."
"Yeah." It was dark in the feed, but the fur had helped to direct Nakida's attention, especially with the way he was moving with wide swings.
"And what did you think?"
Nakida narrowed their eyes but didn't snap at him to get to the point. Was he trying to lead them to the answer, or was he trying to explain why he couldn't answer straight out.
'Modified human' was on the tip of their tongue, but that didn't seem quite right and they hesitated. There was something about the memory of Kang-dae fighting like that that was scratching the back of their mind, but they couldn't place what it was.
With those claws…
They exhaled, rubbing their forehead as they looked him over again, seeing the deep scars that marked his body. …They should offer him one of their own clothes; they were sure there was one loose enough that it wouldn't be too tight over him.
And that set off another half-memory and they frowned, trying to chase it. They hadn't met him before this; why was he feeling like a hazy half-remembered stranger from years ago now?
Something clicked and they could picture Kang-dae with spiked up hair, fur tracing over his cheeks, the claws in high definition, like they'd seen him change in person rather than trying to imagine what he looked like from a dim camera feed.
"…Werewolf…?" they said, still frowning. That did sound off, but after everything they'd seen over the last hour, they weren't as self-conscious about saying it.
"Hah." Kang-dae sighed, and his shoulders slumped. It wasn't exasperation, something else in there. Relief…?
"Do you mind…?" He waved towards the foot of their bed, and they shook their head, starting to dig through their bag.
It had seemed like they'd broken through to him, and they pulled out a few of their clothes bags, sorting through them, trying to find one that could fit Kang-dae.
When they found one, they held it up for him to see.
___________________
'Ishibil' is 'twenty-one' in Korean.
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
Notes: Reincarnation fic! :D Written for nano! So expect some weirdness as I churn this out, haha.
Genre: General.
Word count: 2,026
Total word count: 29,179
Status: Work in progress
They scanned the network of feeds open in front of them, skipping back a few minutes. Once they saw their little group appear on a few feeds (was it only that time? It felt later) the closed the ones that weren't relevant so they could focus.
Muscles protesting, Nakida hacked into the first camera and switched off its wireless, making sure it couldn't any more data. They couldn't hack directly into what camera feed's server from where they were (and wouldn't it be ironic if its company was the one they'd just ran from?) but they could knock out the camera from being scanned if the tech thought it wouldn't have caught anything important.
There was only one other feed that had caught sight of them and that was at a distance, where their faces weren't that clear.
Nakida turned their head at a soft sound and stopped, frowning.
"What is it?" They'd been immersed in keeping the three of them safe but…Kang-dae was staring down at Huian, his eyes wide. They looked at what had his attention, but from what they could see, it only seemed like there was a dark tattoo stark against Huian's wrist that could explain Kang-dae's reaction.
"Nothing," he said, the syllables running together. "It's nothing." He shook his head and raised his attention, going towards Huian's head.
As Nakida watched, he lifted his fingers to her jaw, opening her mouth.
"Uh, what are you doing?" they said, straightening, making sure he wasn't going to try to do something. They were close enough to kick him if he did.
"Checking for injuries," he said, not looking up.
"Through her mouth." Right. That made sense.
Kang-dae seemed to pick up their terse tone and he tilted his head to look at them. "She could have internal bleeding; if there's blood in her mouth, she could need help as soon as possible."
…Oh. That explanation made sense and it explained the rumpled state of Huian's clothes at her stomach. They hadn't trained in even first aid to know if there were signs of anything they should worry about.
And now they weren't distracted by that, Nakida couldn't deny the…thing they'd been feeling wasn't just their body complaining about the workout they'd given it. Their breathing had settled to something somewhat normal and while their heartbeat was still trying to quieten down, there was something else there. They couldn't say the goosebumps on their arms were from the cold now, now when they'd been overheating; it could be from having strangers close to them in a private space that was setting them on edge though.
"All right," they said, turning back to the camera feeds. "Sorry."
They could leave the second feed alone – one camera being knocked off was a normal occurrence, but something happening to a second in the same area could alert people of something happening rather than hiding their presence. There was enough of the three of them obscured that it should be all right. Nakida hoped. Kang-dae's and Huian's faces weren't in full view for a face recognition scan to be able to identify them with one-hundred accuracy at least.
While they kept Kang-dae in their peripheral vision, they tuned into the police chatter, listening to see if they were looking for anyone matching Kang-dae's or Huian's description.
The channels didn't seem busy, and no-one had been dispatched for the security building either. Which meant the security guards hadn't been found yet, or the Union was handling it themselves. Hm. They'd keep it open, in case that changed.
Kang-dae stood up and they watched him over the top of their windows as he walked across to go to the bathroom. They heard him running the tap and return with a wet washcloth.
When he folded it up and placed it on Huian's forehead though, the police chatter wasn't loud enough to cover the hiss that came from nowhere and when Kang-dae pulled his hand back, purple tentacles tried to follow, squirming over the washcloth. Slicing through it.
"What the fuck is that?"
The tentacles were connected to Huian's skin and Nakida had a sick feeling that that was where Huian's 'bruises' went. There was a crease in between Huian's eyebrows, but other than that, she didn't seem to be reacting to what was happening to her.
"Shit," Kang-dae muttered under his breath, and how was he so calm about what he just saw?
Nakida blinked and then the washcloth was gone. It was in Kang-dae's hand, a few tenacles still moving over it.
He swiped at his communicator, putting someone on speed dial.
Wait - dammit. If he was calling someone - Nakida pounced on their console again, checking where the signal was going. Except they couldn't. Nakida knew his phone was on and ringing someone, but they couldn't pinpoint anything else about it. Who had designed this?
...Right, they hadn't been able to track Kang-dae's phone last time either.
But that at least alleviated some of their worry that they could be found that way.
The call was answered, a blond man with blue eyes on the other side. "Ishi-" The man's flickered to them for a second. "Kang-dae, what's wrong?"
Hm, the man had probably been about to call Kang-dae by an older name. Nakida wasn't curious about finding out what he was called; if he'd wanted to be called something else by them, he would have said. Though they hadn't had the time to...
"This." Kang-dae turned his communicator around, showing him Huian.
A soft exhale. "...I see."
They both knew what was going on, what that meant while Nakida flailed in the background. Nakida kept their mouth shut, listening and not interrupting, letting the two talk.
"She knew me, papa." So that was their relation together.
...Wait. Nakida frowned as another thought hit them. If the man was Kang-dae's father and Kang-dae had a longer life than usual, was that man the same?
"She knew my name."
Huh. From what Nakida had gleaned, they doubted the two would have met before, and if they had, Kang-dae wouldn't be so caught up by that. If it was the Union that had told Huian, why would they do that?
The man studied Kang-dae. "Is she the one-?"
Kang-dae's breath came out in an explosive sigh, his shoulders slumping. "No." He rubbed his face with a hand. "Later." He dropped his hand, shaking his head. "What can we do?"
The man pursed his lips. "Only wait, unfortunately. It will be up to her if she's - lives."
What had he been about to say but changed at the last moment? There were a few different options Nakida could think of, watching the purple tentacles sink back into Huian's skin, the skin going back to normal. But if those were in her brain, who knew what that could do to her.
...Well, Kang-dae and his father probably did from their reactions.
"Okay." Kang-dae nodded. "Thanks. I'll keep in touch."
His father nodded and they closed the call.
Kang-dae sighed, closing his eyes. "And...thanks for the help earlier," he murmured, opening his eyes to look at them.
Nakida eyed him. "You didn't need my help." He could have done this all himself - he had found Huian first, he knew someone who could give him advice on what was going on with Huian. They'd helped him with escaping somewhere not connected to his name, but he would have probably been able to handle it anyway. "Why did you accept it?"
He opened his mouth for a second, sounding like he was about to say something before he closed it again. "You wouldn't believe me."
"Uh-huh." Their lip twisted as they raised an eyebrow at him. "I've just been towed by you over tens of kilometres an hour and I know you can go even faster than that."
Kang-dae frowned at them, moving a bit so he could keep both Nakida and Huian in his sight. "...How do you know that?"
Nakida huffed and waved at the console in front of them. "I was able to get some of the recordings of you the second time I went in. You 'disappeared' from the feed, but I could see you were running."
His eyebrows quirked up. "Oh." Kang-dae shifted the weight on his feet, looking away.
"You thought I'd say something else?" Nakida said, trying to work out what his body language meant.
"Yeah," he said, his voice quieter. "It doesn't matter."
"Mmmn, no," they said, and they saw his eyes flick back to them. "I've seen a lot of shit in my life, had a lot of people to 'not do that' because it was dangerous or it would cause problems. But I did it anyway, because it seemed like if I didn't, no-one else would find out, or it would keep happening.
"So tell me already and I'll decide for myself if I believe it or not." They'd pursed their lips at the end, waiting for his response.
It was mostly to blink at them.
"Why do you-" They sighed, scrunching up their eyes as they covered their face. They were starting to get an inkling what this was about. "How did you know Tao?" they asked instead, switching topics.
Kang-dae kept acting like he was expecting something else from them, and if it was because he had a pre-made image of them from the Tao he'd known before, it would be better if they got rid of that before they could continue.
"You won't-"
Nakida glared at him, grabbed the pillow at their back and flung it in his direction.
He caught it like they had expected him to, and any other time, Nakida would have been amused at the sheer surprised expression on his face but not right now. "Try. Me. I've seen tentacles rise out of Huian's face, and I've seen you grow claws and - I don't even know, fur? Stop stalling and get to the point."
Kang-dae set the pillow down on the foot of their bed, his fingers lingering before letting go completely. More time wasting. "You saw the claws."
"Yeah." It was dark in the feed, but the fur had helped to direct Nakida's attention, especially with the way he was moving with wide swings.
"And what did you think?"
Nakida narrowed their eyes but didn't snap at him to get to the point. Was he trying to lead them to the answer, or was he trying to explain why he couldn't answer straight out.
'Modified human' was on the tip of their tongue, but that didn't seem quite right and they hesitated. There was something about the memory of Kang-dae fighting like that that was scratching the back of their mind, but they couldn't place what it was.
With those claws…
They exhaled, rubbing their forehead as they looked him over again, seeing the deep scars that marked his body. …They should offer him one of their own clothes; they were sure there was one loose enough that it wouldn't be too tight over him.
And that set off another half-memory and they frowned, trying to chase it. They hadn't met him before this; why was he feeling like a hazy half-remembered stranger from years ago now?
Something clicked and they could picture Kang-dae with spiked up hair, fur tracing over his cheeks, the claws in high definition, like they'd seen him change in person rather than trying to imagine what he looked like from a dim camera feed.
"…Werewolf…?" they said, still frowning. That did sound off, but after everything they'd seen over the last hour, they weren't as self-conscious about saying it.
"Hah." Kang-dae sighed, and his shoulders slumped. It wasn't exasperation, something else in there. Relief…?
"Do you mind…?" He waved towards the foot of their bed, and they shook their head, starting to dig through their bag.
It had seemed like they'd broken through to him, and they pulled out a few of their clothes bags, sorting through them, trying to find one that could fit Kang-dae.
When they found one, they held it up for him to see.
'Ishibil' is 'twenty-one' in Korean.