[RL WITH AKIHIKO]

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto sat at his computer down in his personal room in the archives--the bowels of the Hub, the closest thing to a domain that Ianto figured he would ever get. He sat back and pinched his nose, frowning against the headache that the fog was causing him. It seemed to be ever-present no matter what he did, and that annoyed him as he tried to work

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[akihiko_sanada]

Akihiko had had a few Torchwood duties to work on, and had spent some of that time conferring with Naoto about what was going on, before he headed down to meet Ianto and see if they could find some way to defend themselves against shadows other than his persona.

But when he reached the archive level, he was confronted not with the usual door, but a red and black portal that seemed to lead into the front door of a warehouse, stuck incongruously in the middle of the archives.

"What the hell?" he muttered, staring. "Damnit," he added with feeling.

There was nothing for it, though. He had to at least check it out, even if he had no backup. He moved his evoker to his hip so it'd be easy to get at, checked that he was still wearing the ring he'd kept on his finger since the fight with Nyx, and then plunged through the portal.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto turned his eyes to look up at Akihiko when he heard the sound of footsteps on the concrete. They were distinctly different--vividly yellow instead of their normal gray-blue. "Oi, hallo," he said, before turning back to his magazine.

He tucked a leg up beside him on the crate, casually turning the magazine sideways, obviously looking at some sort of centerfold. "D'you believe this toss?" He shakes the magazine at Akihiko. "Of all the bloody things to stash down here, I pick a menswear mag? Just how much of a wanker does that make me anyway?"

[akihiko_sanada]

Akihiko was thankful not to have to fight a bunch of shadows before finding Ianto's, which he'd known he would find as soon as he saw the familiar red and black portal where the archives should be.

As he walked across the room towards Ianto, his stance wary and ready to dodge, he hoped that Jack wasn't upstairs doing the exact same thing.

"Hello Ianto," he said. "Are you going to let Ianto go, or do I have to beat you up first?"

[torchwoodteaboy]

"Ooh, tall words," Ianto said, smiling and sitting back on his crate, putting the magazine away. "Aren't we going to talk first? Isn't that what we do, talk? I mope about things to you like a ponce, you try and make me see the better side of things, blah, blah. Yeah?"

[akihiko_sanada]

"You and I both know that that won't work this time," Akihiko said, raising his gloved fists a little.

"Besides, aren't you going to tell me that you're what Ianto really is, deep inside?" He gestured around. "This weird warehouse? That tough act? That's who Ianto is inside?"

[torchwoodteaboy]

"Tough act, you say? It's no act, cariad. This is who I am. This," he said, motioning around the room, "is where I grew up. Home away from bloody home, this dump. Better than being at my real house. Bet I didn't tell you about that, though. About my Da, what a joke," he spat.

[akihiko_sanada]

Caught off guard, Akihiko blinked. "What about your father?" he asked. He hadn't really asked Ianto about his family, and suddenly he felt that oversight keenly. He had thought that this shadow had something to do with Ianto's feelings of powerlessness, but was there more to it than that?

[torchwoodteaboy]

"He was as big a joke as I am," Ianto answered. "Worked in bloody Debenhams, of all the damned places. A bloody low-class department store. And he had the gall to call me a failure, when all he amounted to was selling suits to people who could barely afford them as it was."

"But he was right, look where I ended up. A flipping janitor, in the basement of a place that I can't even tell anyone about if I wanted to."

[akihiko_sanada]

Akihiko's jaw dropped. He'd always pictured Ianto as coming from a well-to-do family - well, not like Mitsuru, but not low class. Not with his love of expensive suits and fine coffee.

But it didn't matter, did it?

"So what if your family was poor?" Akihiko returned, knowing it would probably make the shadow angry. "I grew up in an orphanage. My boyfriend is homeless. And I can't tell anyone what I did while I was in highschool, either. Or what I do for a living. No one but the people who are involved with me - who are my friends. That doesn't make you a joke!"

[torchwoodteaboy]

"You don't understand!" Ianto yelled, childishly, yet the walls of the warehouse seemed to shake with it. "You," he spat. "You grew up in an orphanage, you couldn't tell people about SEES, but you fought monsters, you did. Your boyfriend may be homeless, but that's his own choice--he could just as easily live with you or your friends. Even here, you're still on the front lines, fighting against evil. You were bloody invited in with open arms." He laughed bitterly, standing up from his crate.

"Cer i'r diawl!" he fumed. "I fought for this job, long and hard! And where did I end up? The janitor, the tea boy, the boss's bloody rent boy for Christ's sake! Nothing to my name but a disappointed family and a man that will eventually move on and forget me! No!"

((Welsh = "go to hell"))

[akihiko_sanada]

Akihiko tried not to let the words sting, knowing that Ianto would feel awful for them later. He looked up at Ianto, fists clenched. "I know it all sounds awful," he said with determination. "Well, if you're so mad at me for being so privileged, why don't you show me how mad you are? Why don't you fight me, Ianto, if you dare."

[torchwoodteaboy]

"I don't dare!" he shouted, crossing his arms across his chest. "What point is there when I know that you're set on winning? And I know you will. You taught me how to fight, you know my capability level. Do you really want to kick a man when he's down?"

"Why are you even here?" Ianto growled at Akihiko. "What sort of a kick do you get out of it all? Why don't you just run off and do whatever it is that you all do out in the field and leave me here to rot like normal. It'd be easier and I'm sure you'd enjoy it more anyway."

((Sorry that this has been all over the place. I wasn't exactly sure where I was going with the Shadow at first, but I think I've got it now! :Pb))

[akihiko_sanada]

Akihiko cursed inwardly. He knew what needed to be done - he had to get Ianto's shadow to lose control, reveal its inner self, so he could kick its ass and try to find the real Ianto so he could accept it. But this shadow was pretty stubborn.

"I'm here because you're my friend," he snapped. "Because I want to help you, Ianto. I want to free you from these feelings, that you're not as good as the rest of us, because you are!"

He gestured sharply with one hand, taking a step towards him. "I'd never kick you when you're down. But I'll beat the crap out of your shadow if it means you'll see sense!"

((No worries, playing shadows is a lot harder than I would have suspected))

[torchwoodteaboy]

"But I'm not!" Ianto snapped right back at him, taking a step closer to Akihiko and clenching his fists beside him. "I'm not as good as the rest of you are! You're always lying to me, you all are. You just want to make me feel better about myself." His words sounded childish and the more he spoke, he began to look a bit more childish as well.

"Because you just don't get it! This is me seeing sense! I might hide behind the fancy suits, but this is me on the inside! A failure! I can't even keep the people I love to stick around, I'm so unimportant. Lisa would have left me when she saw sense. Jack had no problems doing it. And neither will you, not when I've made you see the truth of it all!" The Shadow looked to be steeling himself for the next move.

[akihiko_sanada]

"You're wrong," Akihiko said angrily. "I don't lie about stuff like that! Why would I? Why would I lie to make you feel better if I don't care about you and I think I'm so much better than you are?"

He drew his evoker and placed it against his temple. "If you're going to make me see the truth, you'd better hurry up. Because I'm not going anywhere."

He fired, and Caesar rose majestically into the air, slashing with its sword towards Ianto's shadow.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto's shadow let out a vicious growl, and hunched forward, contracting its back, before abruptly arching it and shifting forms. He grew a couple feet, transforming into what looked like the shadow form of a large humanoid goblin, complete with ill-fitting clothes and long scraggly hair.

The shadow narrowly dodged Caesar's sword, and seconds after, another form appeared, far closer to Akihiko himself. It was smaller than the younger man, and looked very similar to him, or similar to what he looked like when he was a child right after he lost his parents and his sister. It was a plentyn newid, a changeling child version of Akihiko, and raising its head to look Akihiko directly in the eyes, it cast a Marin Karin to protect itself and its master.