Central Market

"So you're risking getting your fingers cut off for owning implements of thievery over a few coins? That brings to mind who would pay for something like that, other than a fence, meaning you know a fence. There are not many who would know a fence unless they needed to." He spoke like he was thinking out loud more than to her...or was it the other way around.

" And No, I won't try and take it from you. You earned it after all. Besides, it wouldn't be any fun to try such a thing right now."

The man lifted his arms and interlocked his fingers behind his head. " As for why I'm following you? Well, you're interesting and rather pretty." He said as if commenting on how the sky is blue, still a hair out of striking distance for the woman.

"Pardon, I am not familiar with this "dono" you speak of, but I take it as sarcasm? " He asked, clearly not offended, if anything he was amused. He said sidestepping a man who nearly stepped on his foot as if he hadn't been there. The quick-fingered thief tickled the man's purse on his way by. Calling the faint 'chitter chitter' of coins.

" Six coins, about the size of my thumb. I wanna say copper..." he said aloud.

"Hey now, I may be a thief but I'd never harm anyone, I have morals. " The thief sounded truly offended by her implied accusation. His pace quicked and he was standing to the woman's left matching her pace.... while sidestepping the flow of people walking against their path...

His gaze was accusing. " You take me for a pervert?" He asked in all seriousness. Catching her icy glare, he gave a snort "I can speak as loudly as I wish. You're the one attracting attention to your self. " He said indignantly, crossing his arms over his chest, swaying between passers-by almost as if was dancing around them... His clothing did not make a sound as his cloak slipped across a man's arm... His boots did not so much as scratch against the earth...

Aside from his ceaseless chatter... He made no noise at all...

The man's eyes narrowed ever so slightly... Prying eyes catching notice of things most looked over... That was how a thief made his living after all " Forgive me, I've taken things to far I see. I honestly mean no ill will towards you Miss Matsuda. "

" I could claim to be lots of things, but at the end of the day I'm either a fool, riding on the butt of a joke that long since lost its punch line... or a criminal repaying his debts, and starting new ones." He said.

" Not that that explains much I suppose..." He mused, seeming to have regained his humor.

" I told you who I am, now tell me who you are miss "pretty woman" who caught a kid by his thumb without any effort, carries thievery tools yet hates thieves, and seems nervous as a hen walking among foxes. "

The thief indeed kept walking a pace as Shiori turned aside. He had gotten to near her left and lost sight of her right side to see the subtle shift...

But he felt the slamming door on his face... or rather remembered it... He remembered the cold rain and stinking stones underfoot...
The biting cold that raked through him like an ill knitted cloak...

He stood at the doorway. looking at the intricate patterns in the wood. The shouted " LEAVE!" struck another note with him...

" I can't... " He said softly... His cheerful tone gone... drained completely... " least not very far... Besides you very well know that single pin latch wouldn't keep me out if I wanted in. Even that boy could use a slip knife and get in if he had half a moment alone with it" He said seeming to regain his moxy. In truth he really didn't even need the knife... nor would the door stop him. But doing that felt ...wrong. Just like he sidestepped those people... He didn't have to. He did it because it was the only way to feel real anymore... She may have been right to call him a pervert for all the things he had done in his early days as a forged, walking through walls you were not supposed to had been fun, however when you couldn't drink from a fountain, you started to understand thirst... and loss.

Miss--- Matsuda-san.." He corrected himself, the word rolling oddly over his tongue. " Please?"

He sighed... and took a stepforward...
There was always this feeling, like slipping through iron bars...

First, the man's hands slid from the solid door, held at shoulder height, which was above her head... then he simply stepped through.

"No, and as nice as that sounds, I couldn't touch you even if I wanted to. He said with a forlorn look in his eyes. " No one hired me, and I have been alone longer than I care to remember. I am Darius Rah’Sheed, someone who traded death for immortality and got the bad end of the deal. I don't know what a Ya kah is, and I don't think I'm a demon. Just an idiot..." He said looking down at her. "If I am truly not welcome here cast me aside then. You will not be the first, and will not be the last!" Anger rose in the man's voice faintly... A fire to match her own was in those eyes, Not the same burning hate,but a seething wrath from years of frustration folded over like steel , then quenched in sorrow to temper it---he regained his composure, the cold furry replaced with an apologetic expression" Pardon. I did not mean to shout..."

The woman didn’t reply as kindly as Darius might have hoped. She cried “Oni!” as he slipped through the door, then lashed out, tossing the hairpins at him. They slipped from their wooden holders, revealing very thin, sharp pins that embedded themselves into the door behind the man. They had slipped right through him.

Widening her eyes, Shiori gasped, then promptly skittered upstairs.

The steel slide through Darius felt like ice… He flinched despite not actually being in danger…

“ YOU HAVE NEEDLES IN YOUR HAIR?! “ He shouted in confusion, Darting to the base of the stairs. “ WHY?!”

A sword sang as it zipped through the air and passed through the man’s head, sticking itself into the wall behind him. That wasn’t the end of it, either. What looked to be a normal fan was thrown next, its nature revealed as soon as it splintered through the same wall. Seeing this, the woman skittered farther into her room, heart fluttering.(Done)

Seeing the Sword a mere moment before it impaled itself into his head Darius moved--- but not enough… “ By the light! That would hav--- ‘ THUNK! The fan sailed through his open mouth… leaving him speechless--Grabbing for words the man climbed up the stairs and poked his head up just enough to see the woman. “ Now hold on!”

The assassin shook her head again. “I do not know of such places.”

The man’s face fell, drained white as hers now. He was speechless.

Upon observing his expression, the woman paused, letting the reality of the situation sink in. She reached into her kimono, withdrawing the pick set. “This is you?” she asked the man, holding it up. “Is that what I’ve gathered?”

“In a way. Yes.” he said, holding up the same set... Not one like it. The same set. “ An item close to that person must be used.”

“And if I dropped it, would it hurt you?”

The man watched her for a moment “ Yes.” He said smoothly, lying through his teeth.

She stretched her arm out to the side, pick set in hand. “How much?” she asked coldly, staring into his eyes.

“ Depends on how hard.” He answered, his eyes went to the pick set, then back at to her gaze… Swallowing the frog in his throat.

Shiori held the pick set in the air for several tense moments, never once breaking eye contact with the man before her. Suddenly, the muscles in her arm flexed, fingers stretching to drop the object-

-until she simply turned her hand around, holding it flat in her palm. She bent her elbow and held the leather case closely to her breasts. “And when I stored it in my kimono, could you feel that, too?”

The thief leaned forward as she was about to hurl them on the floor--- but didn’t instead she caught him with a question he’d not expected… He shook his head clearing his mind--- then began to laugh. “ Oh, ah--- “ He pushed a hand through his hair. “ Unfortunately not, I have an idea you’re close, but no more than that, I wasn’t lyi---” he bit his tongue - Shit he took the bait hook line and sinker… He damn near swallowed the cane pole… Still a fool it seemed.

The corner of her lips twitched until she pursed them. One of her eyebrows raised as she tilted her head up, just slightly. “I’m sorry. What was that? Not sure if I caught it, Rah’Sheed-dono,” she said in a sarcastic, singsong lilt.

He met her gaze evenly, his own lips threatening a smile. He was fucked, well might as well--- wait! “ I wasn’t lying when I said you were ‘interesting’,” he said with a clumsy shrug, tilting his chin down tossing his hands up.

“ Any place worth stealing from, if you’re caught its best to go with the flow and take your lick, Fighting only excites ‘em” He said slipping back into his buttery accent as he got comfortable talking. “ And no, that’s the point of Su’met. You do not strike, you take and redirect. It allows openings to exploit and escape. Ummm” he rolled his fingers in the air as if to start the gears. “ it’s closer to dancing that fighting. ” The man explained.

“Hmph. Sounds like a way to try and deny the inevitable,” she hissed as she pulled the needles from the door.

The burglar leaned over pointing at the pick set, and pressed his lips tight, raising an eyebrow as if that explained everything.

“Tsh.” Shiori rolled her eyes as she put the weapons away. “You have a point. Still, even the boy reverted to violence when he was caught. I find it hard to believe. A woman will stand for being murdered without giving it too much effort, but a man? Save it.”

He gave her the most puzzled expression. “ So you’re telling me, a woman, i.e you, would go down quietly? After this display? Or do you mean to say a regular woman.” He said pointedly as he gestured to her weapons.

“I meant in general, yes. I may play the damsel, however-” She gestured outward at the damage done. “As you have witnessed, that is not the case.”

The pins were put away, not back in her hair, but onto a table. Her do had come undone during the turbulence from her panic. She walked upstairs and knelt down in front of a small, round mirror in her room that sat on three small wooden legs. The assassin, a woman of little suspicion and deadly countenance, combed her fingers through her hair and began to braid it.

“Why can I still see you?” she asked after a brief pause.

“ Because I want to be seen, I can leave you be if you wish.” He said sprawling on the floor near the stairs, gazing at the ceiling.

“But you will still see me?”

“ Technically yes, but I’m not one to peek.”

She glanced sideways at the man, but gave her eyes to the mirror soon after. “Can you show yourself to anyone?”

“ If that was the case, I would have asked you to break it.” he said with a honed seriousness that rivaled her weapons.

“Eternal suffering?”

“ Eternal suffering is what I put up with. I can’t feel anything new. Taste anything new. Nothing. I died the day I became a forged, but instead of fading away in a long deserved slumber, I remain in this waking nightmare.” The edge became slightly serrated… but his tone and posture wilted, breaking eye contact again.

“ Pardon..”

Shiori let another lengthy silence draw out between them. She finished braiding her hair and finished it with a knot.

“Sit yourself up here,” she ordered. “Do not come down. I need a bath.”

“ Yes Matsuda-dono.” He said , as if trying to using the word correctly, but something about the inflection suggested he’d figured how that dono meant something else than whatever it actually meant… planting himself cross-legged near the mirror, well away from the stairs.
“ I won’t move.” He said resting his hands in his lap, palms upright. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.

The woman found a simple yukata among her kimonos and brought it downstairs with her, taking a moment to eye Darius before she made her way to the baths. She needed to look at him one more time, just to make sure he was real. A part of her believed that she would come back upstairs and he would be gone, along with the pic set.