2025-11-30: A Fateful Moment
- Log: A Fateful Moment
- Cast: Tatsuya Sudou, Takaya Sakaki, Niko Kirisaki
- Where: Abandoned Factory, Konan Ward, Sumaru City
- OOC Date: November 30, 2025
- IC Date: August 18, 2012
- Summary: Most organisations have regular meetings, with itineraries, roadmaps, and a clear division of tasks. Strega has... whatever this is, with Play-Doh models, disembodied voices and vague allusions to fated events. Almost as an afterthought, a frontal assault on SEES is set into motion.
(|============================ Abandoned Factory =============================|)
-================================================== Sumaru City/Konan Ward ====-
For an abandoned factory, there sure are a lot of still-functioning machines
here. The dusty halls lead to various different rooms on multiple stories with
still-moving autowalks. It's unclear what these are for or what used to get
produced here, but they're a good way to get stuck--unless one can find the
password for the control room where the autowalk directions can get reversed and
take one out of here.
For those who really can't manage that, fortunately or unfortunately, parts of
the floors have rotted and are known to collapse, sending one on a rough drop to
the floor below. It's not a pleasant trip out, but one can always find a way out
of here. Either way, if this place is anything, it's a hangout for delinquent
teens. No respectable adults would come here unless they absolutely had to.
<Pose Tracker> Tatsuya Sudou has posed.
The good ole abandoned factory, which is Tatsuya Sudou's favorite home away from home. The other home was good for when Sudou needed alone time but there are days that this place felt more like home to begin with. That is why the new project that Sudou had been working on is being done smack dab in the middle of what one might refer to as Strega's living room.
Large plywood has been set on boxes, even the boxes labelled Jin's chair. Strewn around the boxes and plywood are several empty containers of Play-Doh. If Play-Doh was a drink, someone would think that Sudou went on a binger with Play-Doh. On the plywood is the actual Play-Doh, modeled into what one would guess is the beginning of that time in every person's life where they take up being a Dungeon Master. Carved walls and hallways with rooms mixed in, stairways denoted, and even multiple levels made up across the hall. There is even a hint of supernatural buzz to it, which may explain why every so often some of the little security guard looking snow men shaped figures bounce around.
Why did Sudou do this? What is it? Well whenever he has been asked this for the last two days he just looked at them and said that is a stupid question. Now though he sits at one end of his master piece just staring at it with a smile, hands laced together, and his glasses reflecting...when did he get glasses? That's probably not important, as he finally speaks, "It's finally done."
<Pose Tracker> Takaya Sakaki has posed.
"Interesting..." Takaya steps into view behind Sudou as he celebrates his victory. The blonde Japanese man sips from a stale mug of coffee which might be mixed with something. He looks over the 'work' with a flick of his eyes, quickly appraising the work to be 'something'. Something he did not know. The liberal use of children's clay as a material gave the man pause.
"So...may I ask what it is?" Takaya sips his 'coffee' again, looking over to the book in his other hand.
<Pose Tracker> Niko Kirisaki has posed.
Abandoned factories are alright, but you can't beat the good ol' abandoned warehouse back in Port Island, if you asked Niko Kirisaki. What's the difference? Why don't you ask Niko, you know asking her sensible questions always leads to sensible answers.
Speaking of people you can always expect sensible answers from, Niko recognizes kindred spirits in that regard, which could be why she hasn't asked Sudou about what the hell is up with this Thing he's been doing. Or just because she's not very interested in what things are going to be, if it doesn't do anything right now it doesn't matter. Aaaand she hasn't been around here for the past few days, that may also have had something to do with it.
Almost as if waiting for the appropriately dramatic moment, she arrives just when this 'project' is completed, stomping into the 'living room' and pointing a finger in Sudou's direction. "Ojisan! I have a bone to pick with you!" It takes less than a second for her to get distracted by-- "--have you been playing with clay? And you didn't invite me??"
That's... probably not the original bone she was talking about. Lent additional weight by the fact that she proceeds to address Takaya in a whining tone, "Takaya-samaaa, Ojisan's ruining my fuuuun." So about asking Niko sensible questions... is this one going to be worth a shot?
<Pose Tracker> Tatsuya Sudou has posed.
Sudou looks up as the glasses fall off of his face, obviously not fitting save for that very moment. "Hmm? What is it? What is it you ask?" Sudou looks off to the corner of the room where no one is, "He want to know what it is. Yes, yes, I get it. I have to use my words." Looking back at Takaya he smiles, "It's a dungeon."
"Sudou makes sweeping arm gestures as he continues, "See over there you have the rooms where the inmates are kept. Over there you have the cafeteria. Over there is the janitor's closet, the wardens room. Right down there is where visitors have to check in...." Sudou continues to ramble on as it might be getting implied that this 'dungeon' is based on something a little more real. Somewhere along pointing out where the visitor restrooms were he looks at that same unoccupied corner again, "Me? Rambling? What do you mean I am explaining! FINE!" Sudou grumbles a bit and says a few unpleasant words under his breath before taking a deep breath and calming down.
That is when Niko storms in and interrupts Sudou before he can continue, and instead responds to Niko. "Niko I swore I asked you if you wanted to help. I remember it clearly you were asleep and in a very quiet inaudible whisper I said in a totally different room. Niko do you want to help me. You never responded so I assumed no. Don't worry though I wouldn't leave you out of the real fun."
One more grand sweeping arm gesture from Sudou, "This is the sanitarium, where I will be live streaming my big face reveal. Oh and killing a whole lot of people." Sudou smiles before he produces a little snowman figure who is wearing a mini paperbag on his head and put's it in the wardens office. Then he places a few more play-doh people off to the side, and close examination would show they are each Strega people. "Now who wants to be a dungeon boss?"
<Pose Tracker> Takaya Sakaki has posed.
Takaya drifts his eyes over to Niko when she starts whining about Sudou's activities. He smiles slowly and shakes his head. "I'll see if I can talk to him." He almost sounds like a TV Dad but smells distinctly of real dad energy (bad coffee spiked with alcohol).
He turns his head when Sudou begins to explain it all. In the way only Sudou can. A smile creeps on the cult leaders face, nodding his head as he takes it all in. "So you are proposing a strategy meeting?" Takaya tilts his head and sips his brew. "That is rather unlike you, Sudou. This must be quite the event you have planned. A Fateful moment as it were."
<Pose Tracker> Niko Kirisaki has posed.
Niko is no stranger to how things work around here, Sudou's ramblings - explanings, yes, of course - just kind of bouncing off of her. None of that really matters right now anyway, when she has business to discuss. Business which she proceeds to distract herself from, and Sudou then throws entirely into disarray with his response. Niko raises a finger as she turns on him with a retort in mind, but... her head tilts, as she visibly considers. Is that what happened? If what he said is how that happened, it's probably likely that she'd have have missed it. Seems fair.
She shakes her head though, back to being upset by the time Sudou finishes his spiel. "Don't change the subject!" So she declares with a dramatic wave of the arm, only to realize, "...Wait that IS the subject! That video you did, where you told people the truth. Why would you do that, don't you want to keep people guessing? I was having fun making people guess, you can't just give away the answers!"
She looks over to Takaya for support. "That's what you always say, right? That we can't give people the answers, they have to discover the truth for themselves?" She's... pretty sure he said that at some point. Can't remember the context, but that hardly matters right now.
She runs a hand through her hair with a sour expression, clearly confused about this whole Thing Sudou appears to be planning. "So then, it's all leading up to something, is what you're getting at? Can you... say anything about what that something is? I mean, you know me, I'm in as long as it's fun, but I think the plan changed somewhere and I missed it. ...Did I sleep through that too?"
<Pose Tracker> Tatsuya Sudou has posed.
Sudou looks up at Takaya and has a blank expression on his face, " A strategy whosit whatsit?" Sudou stares at Takaya's cup of coffee as he contemplates the statement, coming to a single conclusion, why will Takaya not share that wonderfully smelling coffee. Sudou regains some focus before he slowly shakes his head, "Nah meetings are more like dad's thing. I don't wish to contain us to such a formal expression of our ideas." Looking back to the 'dungeon' map he has laid out, "This is more like the beginning of a game."
Looking back to the corner for a moment, "Is it a fateful event? Huuh? You're going to go take a nap. You lazy disembodied voice!" Sudou picks up one of the walls of the sanitarium and throws it at the corner. "Fine don't need you for this." Sudou clears his throat and regains his composure. "The reason for the video, the reason for this and that too is that the bottom line hasn't changed. It's chaos." Sudou leans back on his box, acting like it has a backrest. "More and more people already know who I am under my mask. It use to just be the Suou brothers, but now even that discount Jun knows who I am I think. The secret is going to come out, so before that game is over I need to prepare a new one. My sleeping friend says that as long as I don't let them choose which game I play we will keep having fun."
Scratching the back of his head he sighs, "There is still a lot to do in preparation though. This isn't happening tomorrow or anything like that, I don't think anyways. Just when it does I am hoping all my fellow supporters are there with me."
<Pose Tracker> Takaya Sakaki has posed.
Takaya nods along with Niko, smiling when she seems to attribute something to him. "True but an answer can sometimes cause reflection. Perhaps that is his goal." He looks over to the other man and shakes his head. He knows very well that while Sudou's visions could be reliable, they also had their detriments.
The leader of Strega does however see some follies in whatever this was. Still as long as it didn't take down the 'organization' they prided themselves on, Takaya could care less if Sudou was going to tell everyone his truth. As the man goes into his method, Takaya nods his head, letting the brew loosen him up with each invigorating sip.
"We will be there in some capacity." Takaya says flatly, knowing that is what Sudou wants to hear.
<Pose Tracker> Niko Kirisaki has posed.
As confusing as Sudou's language can be, he clearly does speak Niko's in denouncing meetings and framing things like a game instead. That's always a good way to make sure she's paying attention and won't fall asleep in the middle of it. Someone must not have done that and that's how she ended up missing what parses to her as a significant change in plans. Takaya seems to understand something about this on a level she doesn't, so what other explanation could there be? Don't answer that.
She starts, shaken out of her own thoughts by part of the model suddenly hitting a wall. "Whoa, whoa, hang on. Are we smashing it already? I keep telling you, you have to tell me when it's time to smash things."
Not yet though, Sudou makes clear. Sounds to her like the summary of what he's going on about is 'the game has changed'. But there still seems to be a game going, and the magical word 'fun' was used, so she can probably still get something out of this. Even so... it feels like she's been missing a lot in the conversation, so just in case, she refrains from immediately running her mouth again. Her look to Takaya isn't subtle at all, wanting to hear how he responds before she does. But after the (more or less) positive response...
"Alright, alright, I think I get it now. 'An answer can sometimes cause reflection'... so basically, you want to give them these answers and see their reactions. I see how that can be fun, too. They were never gonna guess the truth anyway, and they're never gonna believe it. Kinda playing the long game for that to pay off, but when it does... gonna be sooo much egg on their face, right?"
Having rationalized it in a way that makes sense to her, she gives a firm nod, and raises a fist. "Okay then! I can work with this, I'll totally be there, see how it goes."
<Pose Tracker> Tatsuya Sudou has posed.
Sudou looks at the two with a smile on his face, "Excellent. Now if you all could help me get the others on board. " Sudou looks at the map and smiles...and smiles..and then loses the smile. "Bored now."
Sudou stands up and stretches, "It feels like I have been sitting for 25 hours." Rolling his neck around he looks at Takaya, "So what about you, got any strategy meetings we should attend for the next step in the life of Strega?" It's a fair question as Sudou rummages through the Play-Doh containers with his feet looking for something. He swore he left a can of energy drink undrank somewhere.
<Pose Tracker> Takaya Sakaki has posed.
Takaya's eyes widen briefly when Sudou presses him for plans on Strega. He smiles despite noting the gall of this man. It was as if Sudou was trying to test Takaya. He chuckles and shrugs. "I'm afraid I left most of my plans at another location. This said...I believe Strega's next step is to finally deal a blow to SEES. I also would like us to look into a number of things I have been reading about."
Takaya finds a stack of boxes that feel right and sits down, still watching the other two. "I think we need to make ourselves more terrifying to these meddlesome agents. We need to make a statement."
<Pose Tracker> Niko Kirisaki has posed.
Ah yes, the 'bored now' mood. Niko knows that one quite well. Not so much the 'sitting for 25 hours' mood, she could never manage to stay in any one position for that long. Whatever mood it is that causes one to actually ask after a strategy meeting, that one's totally alien. She inwardly braces, but thankfully Takaya decides to keep things brief, for reasons that she doesn't pick up on.
What little he does say visibly pleases her to hear, if the growing grin and cracking of knuckles is any indication. "Oh hell yeah, I've been waiting for that. I've been messing with some of 'em, that's been fun, but they're not gonna get the message if we don't start wrecking their shit." Mainly because Niko is likely to get distracted from whatever message she was planning to deliver when she isn't acting under any instructions.
You can say that much for Niko - as much of a chaos gremlin as she is, she does listen to Takaya's every word. And more often than not, Sudou's, for that matter. Their vibes are very different, but they each have a way of speaking that impresses they know more of the truth of the world than she does. ...And it helps that they both tend to tell her things that she likes to hear.
"A statement, huh?" she questions, crossing her arms. "So what're you thinking? Go over there and mess up their dorms?" Please try to act surprised that Niko's plans begin and end with 'frontal assault'.
<Pose Tracker> Tatsuya Sudou has posed.
Sudou does give test, sometimes, when he is told to, and the testing material is provided, and he is walked through the test himself. His shadowy friend does a lot of the heavy lifting for those things. "Yes I can definitely say the last run in I had with some of them they didn't even fear me. Totally made me sad. I have been trying to figure out how to get them to cower in my presence like the others." Do people cower in Sudou's presence, that is not the question right now.
At the mention of messing with things that reminds Sudou of something, "Oh speaking of messing, Jun. I heard y'all messed with him...Good job. I know, I know, that Jun is not the Jun I have talked about. It saddens me too, so by all means please continue to mess with him. Let's see if perhaps that flower has the same roots as my Jun." A chuckle is given.
Sudou clears his throats and turns his attention back to Takaya on his throne, "Sorry, please continue. You were saying something about being more terrifying and burning down some poor students dorm?"
<Pose Tracker> Takaya Sakaki has posed.
But Takaya doesn't shut down Niko's idea. "If you can make it happen, that is certainly the type of statement we want to send them." Sometimes a frontal assault is exactly what you need to get someone's attention. He finishes his drink and sets it down, leaning back on his trash throne.
"If we want to attack their dorm, that would be the sort of statement we want to make...But we need to be wary of their counter attack. That's the thing about kicking the wasp nest, you almost always end up stung....that said, it is very sad that our lesser aren't fearing us."
<Pose Tracker> Niko Kirisaki has posed.
They sure did mess with Jun, didn't they? Though when Sudou says good job for it and urges to continue, Niko seems less enthused. "Well, if you think there's any point. Most people have fun reactions to being messed with, his have just been kinda boring. Must be the whole 'Normal Dude' thing, they just don't get it." Whatever 'it' is in this context. One could ask, but there's that thing about asking Niko questions.
Messing with SEES sounds comparatively more fun, but even Niko's surprised by her suggestion not getting shut down. "Whoa, really?" The tone and expression say it all, she was just saying whatever and expecting a better plan to happen. It's almost a relief to hear acknowledgement that it isn't actually that simple. "Yeah... I mean, there's kind of a lot of 'em, if it was just me getting swarmed that doesn't sound like a good time." She may be a little crazy but she's not stupid.
She has to laugh though, when Sudou has his own addition to the suggestion. "Oh Ojisan, always hearing what you wanna hear. I didn't say anything about it burning it down!" She considers that a moment, before looking to Takaya. "...Does burning a wasp nest work better than kicking it?" How much of this is still a metaphor?
<Pose Tracker> Tatsuya Sudou has posed.
Sudou yawns as the lack of sleep catches up with him a little. "Perhaps we should go take over the tower they like to hang out at during the fun hour." Sudou scrounges with his foot a little more but frowns. No luck on that energy drink. "Well they are your toys so just tell me where you want me. Though I make no promise I won't sneak off and play with them myself." A devilish grin appears on his face before another yawn erases it.
Sudou moves instead to pick up his trench coat. "Niko, when it comes to messing with normal people the funnest thing is to stick them in un-normal situations and just watch. Sometimes they surprise you, sometimes you get to see what they on the inside. " From within his trench coat, that always appears to hold more then possible, he produces two poorly wrapped gifts.
Sudou hands the book shaped one to Takaya and the box shaped one to Niko. "Picked these gifts up for you guys. Niko yours is more of an everyone gift, but seemed up yours and Jin's alley." In Takaya's is a book of poetry from Akiko Yosano, and in Niko's, is Detonating Cats, the card game. "Didn't even rob the shop during the fun hour."
Sudou finds a corner and sits, "Hope..." Yawn. "they are enjoyed." Moments later Sudou is asleep, and not even an insistent Niko could probably wake him.