IC INBOX | OKADA IZOU

[goei]

@Izou

manslayer

---

ABOUT ME

The strongest, most genius swordsman to ever haunt the streets of Kyoto! That's me! So you better think twice before crossing me, ya hear?

NOTE

As long as you don't get in my way I won't kill you, probably.

Message @manslayer

Comments

[goei]

Mm... Not exactly that I like it more, but it's a nice contrast with the sweetness?

[Izou would like dark chocolate more, is the takeaway.]

Y'know what they should do, is they should put a little bit of liquor inside the chocolate! That'd be good I think.

[Izou I have incredible news.]

[vogelfrei]

[ And McGillis can share these incredible news ICly - what a blessed day! ]

Oh, there are actually a lot of types that come with liquor inside. It's just not my personal preference, so I don't buy them often.

[goei]

[And now he knows what to get Izou for valentines day!!!]

Oh? Hell yeah! I gotta try that sometimes then.

[Hehe... But yeah.]

You did taste real sweet. [Don't just say that in public.] S'kinda cute in a way since ya don't look like the type.

[vogelfrei]

Another one of my little secrets, though not one I guard quite as jealously.

[ McGillis doesn't mind having it said right there in public. If anything, he is pleased that Izou is also thinking it. ]

How lucky I am that you seem to perceive it as a charm point.

[goei]

[Good because the waiter definitely overheard it, he's lurking around, perhaps because silently judging people on dates is his hobby.]

Yeah, I mean, it's like a reminder that you ain't really the big scary bad guy yer so set on tryin' ta make people think you are. At the end of the day yer a messed up weirdo same as me.

[vogelfrei]

[ This waiter is going to sell the gossip to Aaron later, mark my words.

... or maybe he's just waiting until he can clear the plates? McGillis is finished at least. ]

Of course I am. Though I don't think that precludes either of us from being scary. I've faced your blade - merely knowing you're a hot mess didn't make that any less imposing... or painful.

[ It's not accusatory. If Izou had never seen his dream and appeared at his doorstep with sake, McGillis might have grown deeply resentful of him for the limited mobility in his arm. But those things did happen. And as matters stand, he really just sounds... conversational. Maybe even vaguely fond? ]

[goei]

[WHY AARON?]

Damn straight. Sometimes you wanna feel a little scary, I guess. I mean, lotta people in Kyoto wouldn't have considered me worth a second thought until I started killin' people. None of us manslayers had a lotta social power beforehand. Shinbei wasn't even from a samurai family.

[But by exerting their force of will on the people... they left an indelible mark.]

[vogelfrei]

It's power that the world listens to, in the end.

[ As a fellow 'clawed himself from the streets to notability through murder and violence' type, McGillis is absolutely in approval.

Though that raises a curiosity... ]

How did you start killing, by the way?

[goei]

Well... Takechi sensei had supported me an' Ryouma even back when we were just learnin' the sword. Even paid fer me to go study in Edo since my family couldn't afford it.

[Which is not something he'd admit to just anybody. It's embarrassing he had to do that. But it's McGillis.]

I wanted ta make something of myself with the one thing I was good at. So when he asked if I'd be willin' to be the hand that dealt divine justice to our enemies... Why would I say no?

[vogelfrei]

[ McGillis, at least, listens to this without any judgement. Having to lower yourself out of a lack of money, taking the only means you have at hand... Maybe others would question if all of that is worth starting to take lives, but McGillis doesn't have that kind of moral grandstanding in him. ]

How old were you?

[ No age Izou could possibly list would make McGillis feel any kind of pity for him, he's just asking for his own reference. ]

[goei]

[He thinks for a moment.]

23 I think. It wasn't that long after Takechi sensei helped found the Kinnou-tou.

[So it wasn't that Izou was deliberately spared being a child soldier so much as they didn't start deciding murders needed to happen until then.]

[vogelfrei]

[ ... McGillis blinks. ]

That's... recent.

[ YOU WEREN'T EVEN A TEENAGER??? ]

[goei]

[I WAS SURPRISED WHEN I LOOKED IT UP TOO. He just got lucky with the timing I guess ]

Yeah, well with how many officials I was offin' they were pretty intent on tracking me down I guess.

Kei joined up too as soon as Dad'd let him, but as far as I know he never had ta kill anybody.

[vogelfrei]

How strange to imagine that you've had a whole life before 'Manslayer' became central to your being.

[ McGillis is trying to imagine a murder-free Izou as a young man - in debt, involved with radical forces, but overall on the right side of the law. He can't picture it. ]

[goei]

Whole life? I was just barely gettin' started. I mean yeah, I was alive fer all those years before, but until we were teenagers me an' Ryouma were just kinda fuckin' around doin' nothing.

[To Izou, he wasn't really living his life until he had a purpose and direction. Very dog coded of him.]

[vogelfrei]

That is also hard to imagine.

[ Both because he can't picture Izou that way and because he can't picture what it's even like to be a tween who's life barely started yet. Theoretically, he's lived those days with Gaelio. But emotionally, he'd always been in such a different place that a lot of Gaelio's worries seemed alien to him. As far as McGillis is concerned, he's always been going through the motions rather than truly experiencing the stages of one's life as they are meant to be experienced. ]

[goei]

[Yeah, if he was actually asked to mentally engage with hiw easy his childhood was compared to McGillis, he'd understand the perspective, but. He doesn't think ]

Easier to imagine if I told ya we got into so much trouble my Mom'd joke they had Kei as a backup after seeing how reckless a kid I was?

[He unsurprisingly sounds weirdly proud of the fact that he was a handful of a child ]

[vogelfrei]

[ At the very least, that does make the corners of McGillis' mouth quirk up in amusement. ]

A little bit. Though I never once questioned that you were a troublemaker.

[ Covered in dirt and with an indignant look on his face... Yeah okay, the picture is coming together. ]

And that I also always pictured you as a child-soldier says more about me and my world than anything.

[goei]

[Shouting that there's no proof he was the one who untied the neighbors horses while there's hay in his hair... That sort of thing.]

Why, they make you go fight when you were still a kid?

[The kid he met was certainly up to the task, but he didn't imagine rich people sending their kids to war.]

[vogelfrei]

Not me, no. I went to military school and didn't experience real combat until my early 20s... previous incidents notwithstanding.

[ The murders were unrelated. ]

My most valued allies were all forced to work for private security companies as children though. It's not an uncommon path for a child from a poor background, unfortunately.

[goei]

Aah... Well, even though we didn't have much money, my family was still samurai. Probably even if the revolution had started earlier I probably still woulda been spared somethin' like that.

[Probably. Maybe.]

[vogelfrei]

Still quite fortunate that you didn't need to put that theory to the test.

[ And quite fortunate for me, that I instead met you after you were already completely tainted in the eyes of the world. Even McGillis won't go so far as to say something like that out of the blue, but the sentiment rings in his mind clear as a bell.

Though the ominous beat of silence, the silent waiter once again makes his appearance from the back of the room, this time to remove their empty plates and leave them with just the remainder of their drinks. McGillis glances out the window - by now, the sun has fully set. ]

Hmm... Time flies when you're having fun.

[ Because he has been having fun. Tense moments aside, it's been nice. Relaxed, even. ]

[goei]

[MCGILLIS WHY ARE YOU GLAD FOR THAT. WHY IS THAT GOOD FOR YOU???]

Crazy ta hear a phrase like that come outta yer mouth.

[But yeah, he does seem to be, for what he's come to expect from McGillis, in a good mood. Weirdly(?), Izou feels like he's had a nice time too??]

That mean I actually met yer expectations? I figure a guy like you had some sorta idea in yer head about how this'd go.

[vogelfrei]

Well, I can't deny that I had some intentions.

[ To kill time. To stay awake. To make Izou look at him and only him for an evening. ]

And I'd say I've achieved my aims. I know you a fair bit better now.

[goei]

When ya talk like that you make it sound like it's over and done with. Who says we gotta stop with just havin' dinner?

[As he finishes off the wine in his glass.]