[Open]

[crimsonguarddog]

Who: Cissnei, Illusion!Rufus ShinRa and Open! Multiple threads are love as always~
What: Reliving other's nightmares and having them turn into her own. It seems that the rescuer might need some rescuing this time.(Waffles fails at making these up, so she'll torture the muse some other way.)
When: RIGHT NOW FOOLS
Where: Starting in the town. Where

Comments

[shutupandduelme]

That bastard.

Forcing him to trace him down halfway across town. Kaiba counted himself lucky that he hadn't had another...vision, or whatever it was the Island was trying to shove on him. If Yuugi could just do as he was supposed to, he wouldn't have to go and drag Atem out of whatever hole he was trying to dig himself into. He wouldn't have to do this.

The scene abruptly changed around him, and pulled at his frayed nerves even further. Another one? There was no cigar smoke, which Kaiba was expecting. Instead, there were voices, most significantly one he wasn't familiar with. He looked around, catching sight of a blond. It didn't look like the dog, and that chain.....oh.

He scowled darkly. Nightmare or not, Cissnei was his by contract. His hand trended towards his gun, but he hesitated. Cissnei was of no use to him if she was going to bend the knee so easily. He let his hand rest on the handle of the gun, but didn't pull it yet.

"I should think you could handle some brat with a chain," he called out, his eyes locked on the man he didn't know, rather than the woman he did.

[crimsonguarddog]

The woman barely heard Kaiba, concentrating on doing everything she could not to panic and thrash, on escaping the bonds she had felt for some time mentally now physical. The other, however, turns blue eyes to the newcomer, a faintly amused look crossing his face, curling up into a smile.

"Brat? Please." He scoffs, another brief moment of releasing just enough to let the redhead breath before tightening his hold over her again. "That would be the foolish old man who let his dogs run wild and left me to retrain them."

It wasn't hard to make the connection to who he was past that remark.

[shutupandduelme]

Kaiba's eyes narrowed slightly. ShinRa, wasn't it? It was hard to think it was anyone else. With Cissnei caught in the chain like that....it had to be another vision. But why was he seeing this one?

"Your training isn't going to get you anything but a knife in your back," he said coolly, approaching as casually as Kaiba Seto could manage. "And as much use as I can get from a homicidal associate, I'd rather you not ruin my employee."

[crimsonguarddog]

"Your employee?" This time he raises a brow, casting a glance back over to the rather ignored woman who's eyes meet him defiantly. A quiet laugh escapes the man, finding the words funny for reasons that would be beyond most anyone else.

"And you thought you could leave too, how ambitious." He says to her. Cissnei bristles with her eyes bright -Anger, pain it could of been any number of things.- Pulling harder against him, but only seeming to increase the pressure on her own part.

"Fuck you." She snarls as shortly as she can, but that doesn't stop the one holding her leash jerking her forward harshly so that she has to catch herself on hands and knees. Once more he's cut off her air, keeping her from real rational thought as he looks back at Kaiba impassively.

"You can't take something of ShinRa's and make it into something else. They are engraved with it."

[shutupandduelme]

"Can't even get them to come to you willingly? It's sad, for such a supposedly powerful organization. I shouldn't have been able to tempt her at all," Kaiba replied, staring right back easily.

"You must hold everything she ever held dear," he continued, his voice dropping to a low and mocking tone. "And even that wasn't enough to keep her."

/tldr

[crimsonguarddog]

The ShinRa's eyes narrowed slightly at that, but it seemed to be the only reaction past that. It was Cissnei's twisted version of the illusion in the end, and Kaiba's words, even if neither of them realized it, were effecting it and her resolve.

ShinRa had not been able to keep Veld either, after the man hand found what had been done to his daughter. They had followed him loyally out of ShinRa's good graces and into the realm of being traitors, given up everything then and rejected it here as well for something that could possibly be better.

Cissnei was not going to allow it to slip away from her now.

"A dog is still a dog in the end," Rufus says simply, lifting the heavy leash so Cissnei has to sit up. "And this one will always be ours."

"I am not a Dog!"

Her eyes blaze as the Materia-expelled energy leaves her body, wild and untamed and missing her target, but strong.

[shutupandduelme]

Somewhere in the back of Kaiba's mind, he was prepared to react if Cissnei did. He, of course, was no hero, or even selfless in cases outside his own family. If he didn't have to step in to protect his interests, he wouldn't. It was always on the person involved to save themselves. So when Cissnei reacted so violently, his eyes widened at the power of it, but no more. That she could try and fight back was no surprise to him. He wouldn't have bothered with her if she didn't have the capacity to.

For one of the few times in his life, Kaiba actually bothered to assist her. It was all about protecting his investments, of course. The gun was pulled from his belt easily.

"It looks like she disagrees," he commented dryly, before firing right at the blond man's head.

[crimsonguarddog]

The shot hits, shattering the illusion of the man and the leash easily like glass and spraying across the sidewalk. A choked noise of relief escapes the woman as the weight is finally lifted off of her, hands immediately going to her throat as if to tear off the collar no longer there.

The power doesn't die down.

Cissnei's eyes catch Kaiba's after a moment. Wild, feral and reflecting the rage that the energy she was pushing out of her. Cissnei was rarely without restraint, but for those few moments she was without it, snapped after stretched and frayed so. A person's true self.

"I don't belong to anyone." She hisses as final words to the man the nightmares brought, before her voice dissolves into a bought of coughing, throat raw and her spells beginning to reined back in.

[shutupandduelme]

It was the shattering of the illusion and not the gun's recoil that had Kaiba stepping back. That was....more than he expected. What the hell had he stepped into?

Cissnei's reaction only left him even more wary of the situation. He had seen eyes like that before. They had reflected back at him in the broken glass of Gozaburo's office windows. They had glittered in the dark on the duel arena of his Battle City blimp. It was a look that promised nothing good.

He lowered the gun, but did not holster it. Nor did he move to offer any help in getting up. Not yet. "No," he replied calmly. "But I'm paying you to represent my name. There is more you need to do without this dragging you down, Cissnei."

[crimsonguarddog]

There is more you need to do. Responsibility, she couldn't even phantom it right now. The lid on her tightly held emotions had not just come off, the entire bottle had shattered outwards. And there was so much of it, so much and so many different feelings that she couldn't name the mass it had become. It was what she was feeling now.

Cissnei was not so sure that the pain she had been in was the only reason for the heavy pressure of threatening wet under her eyes.

Her fingers uncurl from the collar of her shirt, and she lets them rest beside her knees as her breathing evens out slightly. She aches in far too many ways. If she heard Kaiba, she doesn't give any indication in the long moments it takes for her to find her voice again. "...I can't believe I used to let them treat me like that." She murmurs, disgusted with herself. Of course, the chains were much more metaphorical for the situation then they had been then, but all the same...

[shutupandduelme]

"Mistakes," Kaiba said easily. "You can spend your whole life trying to deal with them." He certainly had thought about it. "Or you can move on and leave what cannot be changed behind you, where it belongs."

He took a few steps forward towards her, but carefully like he was dealing with a wild animal. With as wound up as she was, it probably wouldn't be a good idea to startle her.

[crimsonguarddog]

This time she hears him, raising her eyes up to the other and finding herself wondering when he had appeared, so caught up in the illusion she had been. She had hear his words yes, but it hadn't quite registered as Kaiba past her own thoughts.

You can't even keep yourself together?

"I stopped being one of ShinRa's long ago." Those words aren't just for him, mostly repeated for her own resolve to make sure she believes them. "I don't care what anyone else says about it, that was my choice." Cissnei's choice to stay, her choice to stop waiting for Zack, her choice to hedge her chances on Kaiba for something more after all of this.

"They can try to kill me for it all they like, but I will not allow that to happen."

Cissnei shifts, bringing up a knee but not quite ready to stand yet.

[shutupandduelme]

Kaiba still wasn't moving to offer his hand. That raise of her knee was a good sign. If she buried herself in her own past (like too many other people he knew) she would be of little use to him.

"So get up and leave it behind," he prompted. "Unless you will allow it to drag you down."

[crimsonguarddog]

She knew what he meant. It was much more past shaking it off mentally and standing up now. No matter how much she didn't want to, how tired she was, Cissnei had to get up and move on because if she did not do it for herself, nobody else would.

She stands. It isn't graceful, and her restraints had not all mended back into place and had left her raw, but she was not on her knees like one who could not think for themselves.

"No, it is going to stay behind me where it should be."

The look she fixes him with this time isn't feral anymore, just grimly determined.

[shutupandduelme]

Kaiba's lips curved upwards slightly. It wasn't quite a smirk, and certainly not a smile, but he was certainly satisfied enough with the outcome. His arms crossed over his chest, not likely needed at this point.

"I doubt you want to stay here," he said coolly, his voice as stoic as it had been through all of it. "These visions...I've seen a few already just on the way here. It's unlikely you will escape another one if you keep still."

[crimsonguarddog]

Great, just what she really needed at this point. "So we are plagued by more than just our own." One hand comes up to pinch the bridge of her nose for a few long moments. There was likely something on the LP's about it by now, but she wasn't in the mood to look at it right now. She would wait until she had fully composed herself and everything was in place before she did that. Preferably out of range of the nightmares.