Out on your own (Closed)

[de_faulty_hero]

Characters: Cloud Strife (de-faulty-hero) & Kurapika (ih8spiders)
Where: Hallway of the 7th Floor
Rating: PG
Time: August 1st
Description: Cloud returns after a hard day of hunting around for Crane, and he finds Kurapika lurking around on the 7th floor searching for something. Conversation ensues.

Comments

[ih8spiders]

Talking about what happened to his clan was supposed to get easier with each time he recounted it, and maybe it was easier now - Kurapika no longer felt the urge to kill something whenever he did, but instead he just got really depressed and melancholic. He purposely called up some of his anger, though. Easier to show Cloud than describe it.

"This." He closed his eyes once, and opened them again once he knew that they'd turned red. "I mentioned that Kuroro's group killed my family. That was because they were after my clan's eyes. There were people who liked collecting body parts, and our eyes were apparently valuable. I hunted him because I wanted to stop his group from doing the same things, but you could say I was doing it primarily for revenge," he added, grimacing at the last word. But explanation done, let his eyes go back to normal. He kept them open this time.

"I don't know if they see eye-to-eye." Kurapika vaguely remembered Kuroro describing Sephiroth as a typical villain, and then realized that he didn't really know what the man had done to Cloud. "Was it the same? You said that Sephiroth killed your family and burned your town."

(If Cloud revealed that Sephiroth did something similar because he wanted Cloud's gravity-defying hair, he didn't know if he'd be able to stop himself from laughing at the irony.)

[de_faulty_hero]

His eyes narrowed at the way that Kurapika could change his eyes from blue to red, and they were... quite different from what he was used to. It was amazing what people did for money, and he frowned at the thought of murdering an entire clan of people just to take their eyes from their heads. It seemed so... pointless to him.

"Revenge... was why I went after Sephiroth," he murmured slowly, tasting the word for the first time in awhile. "He... found out the truth to his origins and made false assumptions about what he was. In a fit of rage, he burned my home town to the ground, killing... everyone save those smart enough to play dead, I think." He sighed and leaned back against the wall. "I almost cut him in half, but he walked out anyway. We fought, but... I was just a kid then. I killed his body, but became an experiment for five years instead."

He hated talking about becoming a clone, a false failed one at that. He hated the thought of failure, even if Hojo later admitted him being pure and successful later on. "I became something of a puppet to Sephiroth, my actions bent to his will... and then he failed to force me to murder a friend and instead did it himself in front of me. I learned to fight back then..." he trailed off and heaved a pointed sigh. "And our battle has continued even now to a degree."

He peered over at Kurapika and smirked at the corner of his lips. "I hope you weren't expecting him to be hunting me for my hair, as natural as it is."

[ih8spiders]

"The thought did cross my mind," Kurapika admitted with a sheepish grin. He was getting used to all sorts of characters, having to live in this world, but Cloud's hair was just something else. It looked stiff enough to give someone papercuts. (Or haircuts...)

Kurapika slowly sat back on the couch as he considered what Cloud just told him. The other blond had gone through a lot, too. Just the thought of being controlled by Kuroro against his will was harrowing. And he couldn't really remember seeing his family and relatives getting killed, but Cloud had to watch one of his friends being murdered in front of him, on top of what happened to his town...

"I don't understand why you aren't at each other's throats now. Have you two... err, fought here? With the intent to kill?"

[de_faulty_hero]

"I get that a lot," Cloud replied but with better humour about the entire thought. He had been asked more then enough to know the answer, especially when it was paired with his name. Instead, he made a lame attempt a smoothing down the spikes, but it was unsuccessful.

"I've killed him twice," he stated plainly. "Sephiroth doesn't want to kill me as a weak human; he would prefer to end my life at full strength." Though, he was getting the sneaking suspicion that the ex-General had little want to end his life as they were now or perhaps in the future.

"We haven't fought more than verbally," he offered softly. "If... we came to physical blows, it would probably be a fight to the death."

[ih8spiders]

Cloud running his hand over his hair to try to flatten it was amusing to see (Kurapika mentally filed it alongside his smirking, under a side that he hadn't seen much of until now because the other blond had been serious in all the times they'd talked previously) but the actual thought of Sephiroth and Cloud wanting to kill each other was sobering. It was a waste. He'd seen how the pair fought as meister and weapon, and if he hadn't already known that there was something dark between them he'd even say that they were well suited to each other.

"So you have a--a truce, at the moment?" Kurapika asked, using the word Kuroro had given him.

[de_faulty_hero]

"I guess you could call it a truce," he murmured with a shrug of his shoulders. "We are trying our hands at friendship as well, but..." he trailed off and stared at his boots for awhile. It wasn't the kind of friendship he was used to, and he wasn't feeling like it would last either. Sephiroth refused him at every turn and then somehow saw fit to blame him for asking for something.

"What of you? Our paths are rather similar, wouldn't you say? Yet... it seems to be ending the same way." It was odd to think of how close their pasts were to each other. "Is Kuroro your ally and friend?"

[ih8spiders]

"It's very similar," he agreed. Similar enough that he was now entertaining half-baked thoughts of other selves in alternate dimensions - although it also begged the question of whether he was doomed to the same kind of life for all of his hypothetical other selves, and that was just sad.

"But I don't know about 'friend' at the moment. 'Ally' sounds more fitting. We're on the same side. We have the same goals." There was a slight hitch at the word "ally", though, as if he was trying it out for the first time just now.

"And Kuroro can be quite reliable when he's dead-set on completing a task," Kurapika added grudgingly. "He's just... really overbearing and insufferably tactless at times."

[de_faulty_hero]

Eerily similar, he had mind to iterate. He would have never wished his fate on another person, and though there were distinct differences, they were both settled into the same kind of boat, so to speak.

"He always gives the impression of being a happy trustworthy guy... but I always get the feeling he's secretly laughing at us," he murmured coolly. He hadn't express his feelings about Kuroro to anyone before, let alone the man set up to be Kuroro's partner. "Do you trust him with your life?"

Ah, he didn't have to suffer from overbearing, but Sephiroth could be tactless at times. "He seems possessive of you... like Sephiroth is to me. Like you belong to him and no one else better think about threatening that."

[ih8spiders]

"I'm... going to have to agree with you on that," Kurapika said, tone less than pleased. "I've been at the butt end of too many of his jokes lately." He could always try to defend the man and say Kuroro was just amused at all this: his relative anonymity, the absence of bounty hunters, the fact that he and everyone else in the building were more or less equals - but Kuroro had been having too much fun at his expense. He was entitled to his complaints.

"But if it's a question of whether I trust him to watch out for me in battle... he did tell me that he'll watch out for me now that he considers me one of his own."

The admission came with an pinched expression, like the blond couldn't decide between horrified and embarrassed. Cloud's choice of words only made it sound worse.

[de_faulty_hero]

Well, at least he wasn't alone in his assumption that Kuroro was laughing silently. That made him wonder what the other was up to when no one else was around to watch or better yet, what Sephiroth and Kuroro talked about. No, he actually didn't want to know. It was for the best that he remain on the outside of that potential disaster.

"That's not what I asked," he said with a raised eyebrow. "Do you trust him with your life? Do you think he has your best interests at heart?"

That was an interesting choice of words as well. 'One of his own' was not something he would have thought all that friendly. "He's got you under his thumb, doesn't he?"

[ih8spiders]

Kurapika flinched as if struck. A couple of months ago he would have given Cloud hell for that comment, but the last few weeks had proven just how easy it was to change his stances and opinions given the lack of power and circumstances beyond his control.

"I don't know if he has my best interests at heart, but I trust him to keep me alive while he's wielding me." His tone was quiet, resigned, and he avoided Cloud's eyes and uncomfortably picked at his jeans. "I'm a weapon, without a partial form, it looks like. I need someone capable to wield me if I'm to feel like I'm doing everything I can to do what I was brought here to do, if it will let us go back sooner."

These were thoughts that made him feel highly guilty and helpless, and he hadn't really talked about it to anyone. The reason he was admitting it now was because he knew that Cloud disliked Kuroro almost as much as he did.

[de_faulty_hero]

Well, he supposed that was something. He drew a leg up so that he could rest his arm on it, noting how they were now avoiding looking at each other. Yet, he couldn't help but feel... sympathy for Kurapika and understood all too well. He lips pursed together for a moment before he finally forced his gaze back on the other.

"I'm a meister with no power of my own," he said softly. "Nothing to copy, nothing special. I'm used to being the underdog in everything, but this place... I have been stripped of everything. I'm... useless." That was, quite possibly, the most difficult thing that he had ever uttered to another. Sephiroth didn't understand what it felt like to be stripped of absolutely everything, but... Kurapika seemed to. Kurapika had no partial form, and he had no power of his own. It felt like AVALANCHE all over again; strength in common weakness.

"Seems like we just keep getting more and more in common," he said with a light chuckle.

[ih8spiders]

More and more in common, enough that he was starting to wonder--again--what might happen if they tried to resonate and see if they could be compatible. But even though he did feel an unusual kinship with the other blond, he was unwilling to make the suggestion, primarily because their respective partnerships seemed to work where it mattered - in battle. There was also the issue of Sephiroth possibly finding out and causing trouble for Cloud, and he didn't want that.

"Considering that we're dealing with multiple worlds here, the chances are high that there's at least one poor sod in every one with similar experiences." Kurapika tried to keep his tone positive, but his attempt to lighten the mood fell flat, and he shook his head self-deprecatingly. "I wouldn't wish my fate on anyone. Thank you for telling me, though. I thought it was just me."

He looked back at Cloud now, and recalled what he'd seen of the man's capabilities. "You haven't found your meister skill?"

[de_faulty_hero]

He was also thinking the same though with regards to the possibility to resonating, but he had given his word that he would remain with Sephiroth until it was clear that they wouldn't work well together. He couldn't go back on his word, or he would just be like everyone else who had betrayed Sephiroth's trust in the past. And because Kurapika made no mention of it, he assumed the other was content with the partnership arrangements.

He nodded a little, he supposed that was true. "No, it appears that we have rather... parallel fates, even if they diverge a little in their own way to suit our worlds." It was bad to find some level of comfort in someone else because his past and pain should have been unique. He wasn't alone though.

"I don't believe I have one," he murmured softly. "I have the sword skills I developed and that's it."

[ih8spiders]

"All meisters have skills outside of any physical ability they already possess prior to getting dragged here, if our lecturers are to be believed. And you're a meister, otherwise you wouldn't be able to resonate with Sephiroth." He didn't think he could do anything about his own lack of power without help, since weapons get stronger by eating kishin eggs, apparently, and he needed a meister for that. Cloud, on the other hand, should find his situation more bearable if he improved even more on his physical fighting ability and found his meister skill.

"Maybe it's passive, or activates only under certain conditions," Kurapika added musingly.

[de_faulty_hero]

"If it's there, it's not appearing regardless of what I do," Cloud replied simply and with a shrug of his shoulders. He didn't have an ability that he was aware of, and it was frustrating to continue to feel powerless. At least weapons could advance themselves by eating those Kishin Eggs whereas a meister just wielded. "I'm not improving like Sephiroth is; he's never had to work at much."

He leaned back against the wall and clenched a fist in front of him, staring at it. "If it's passive, I'll never know. That's as good as useless to me." His blue eyes hardened as he shook his head. "I suppose I should just train more; effort is the only way to improve here."