#satoru 01

@mirrorcantus

To Konoe, a “clean job” meant no blood, and that was about it. As long as she didn’t make a mess, anything was fair game. Blunt force trauma would work fine, and strangulation would work even better. Drowning, a broken neck, or smothering. When she went through the list, it was a satisfying thought. This kind of variety made her work easier.

Holding the rope in her hands, the ninja stood perfectly still on the ledge overlooking the street, cloaked in darkness. If all was right, the target would be approaching any moment now -- she had tailed them sufficiently to ensure that, at least. Right on cue, an older man turned the corner, coming into her line of sight.

Steady.......steady.......now! Konoe leaped into action, throwing down the rope with deadly precision, draping the fatal ornament around the man’s neck and using a nearby stone outcropping as a fulcrum to wrap the rope around. Pulling up, she raised her target off of the ground with ease, the poor man struggling for his life. Hmph. Whatever. It was a pointless struggle, and pretty sure he would pass out from lack of oxygen....and then, the end.

Konoe, however, wasn’t anticipating the intervention of an outsider. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted the young man who had come into view, coming down the street towards the hanging man. Damnation. Skulking back into the shadows, the ninja tied off the rope, holding her quickly dying target up, her eyes affixed on the boy.

@mirrorcantus

The walled city had not yet exhausted Shakespeare's expectations. All manner of figures, both in form and frame of mind. A pen yet pressed to its paper. And yet he did not believe it was possible to have his fill. It was in the hope of tempering such a hunger that had added an excursion to his daily routine. A foray out into the streets in search of those who might yet spark his inspiration.

It was only logical, wasn't it? He had, after all, been well informed of how wide a net those scientists had cast. To say nothing of his own first hand accounts of such a fact. It was in defiance of this knowledge that recent endeavors had failed to bear more than a handful of fruit. All the more frustrating for how much time he had put towards them. No heroes of myth, with might to pierce the heavens. No villains calculating, cunning, or candid. No scions deposed, defeated, or dead.

It was in this frustration that he had taken to a new method. Polite, (if perhaps accosting), and probing, (if perhaps aureate), conversation with the boorish drabs that seemed to make up much of the city's population. As distasteful as he found it, it was towards a worthy goal. For certainly, not all kings wore their crowns upon their heads. There could be those whose benign appearance belied a hidden boon. His own Earl of Kent made flesh. Or just as deserving, might he not come across a diamond in the rough? A more humble star. One who had yet failed to fully ascend. It was all towards a worthy goal! ...Such were the words he echoed towards his reflection. If he had had little regard for ordinary folk before, then the past few days of failure had only amplified such feelings.

“Persistence is a virtue...”

These words became a silent mantra in his head as he approached his final target for the day. Eager to be pleasantly surprised, but equally eager to simply call it a day and take in the comfort of a warm meal.

“Gods, could it truly be?! Good sir, are you and I not kindred spirits? Stripped of hearth and home, only to be cast into the vortex of this vile Hive. Would that you should say as much, for as we stand contracted by a cage we cannot see, is not our only hope to cling together?”