vatheon | (no subject)

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Who: Hashiba Hideyoshi, OPEN
Where: Central plaza
When: March 3rd, just after sunset.
Style: Prose preferred.
Status: Open!

After a while - a good long while - Hideyoshi noticed that he was soaking wet.

It had taken a while, because his first priority had been staring - standing in place and simply staring. Then turning round and round - slowly at first, then faster, until he was almost dizzy - and staring, up, about, at every last detail. This was by far and away the strangest dream that he had ever had.

Well, of course it was a dream. What else could it possibly be?

The city was clean, lovely, and utterly alien, even before he caught sight of the overhead dome. It was actually rather kind of his mind to conjure up something like this for practically the first proper night's sleep he'd gotten since beginning the march to Yamazaki. He could happily wander these streets for a while. He glanced down, just a little surprised to find himself in armor - kind as it was, his mind still had a tendency to send him to all his dream-worlds wearing the same clothes he slept in, really very inadequate as they usually were - and then realized that he was completely drenched, and getting more than a little cold. Which put a damper on things, as it were.

"Gah - I didn't even know you could get cold in a dream," he muttered to himself in indignation, taking off his helmet to squeeze the water out of his topknot.

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A soft smile crossed the wargod's lips. "Gracia is indeed here." His reasoning was right. He did seem to belong to the other world here. "She lives with Mitsuhide-dono and Motochika-dono."

His honorifics were very formal, matching his rather formal manner of speech. He'd come to respect the two over the year he'd been here, finding them to be quite pleasant, most unlike their counterparts from his own world. Motochika was a pirate and Mitsuhide was a psycho, destructive, demonic bastard. How different their worlds could be at times.

He'd come to know Gracia too. She'd nicknamed him Kenny, much to his surprise, and had asked him to simply call her Gracia. Kenshin wasn't fully aware of her connections in her world, as she simply wasn't known - or maybe didn't even exist - in his own. However, from what she'd told him thus far, he wasn't entirely surprised that a more reasonable Hideyoshi might be friends with her. She was quite friendly, after all.

"Mtsuhide's here?"

The words hit him like a blow - almost enough to make Hideyoshi physically stagger. No, he thought, a wild stab of denial that he knew was pathetic, that was completely unlike him. No, he can't be. I killed him. I put his head in a box. For a moment he searched Kenshin's face with wide eyes, but no, still no traces of a lie.

And now it was his turn to drop his carelessly affable demeanor, to straighten and raise his head with fiery rage that turned the funny-faced slip of a man all at once into a warlord. His hands balled into fists briefly at his sides, then relaxed. It didn't matter, didn't matter. He would kill him as many times as he needed to.

"Akechi Mitsuhide is dead," he said, flatly but with the ring of steel. "For his crime at Honno-ji. I killed him myself."

How interesting. Mitsuhide had mentioned his crime and that he had died for it, but never who had done it. Kenshin had a strangely large heart and found Mitsuhide quite pleasant, his reasons for his betrayal quite acceptable (After all, Nobunaga was after Kenshin's own head himself). Kenshin also had the tendency to take in strays, those who have betrayed their own, and make them his own. Then again, everyone knew not to betray Kenshin.

And the mention of Mitsuhide had also turned the rather careless and chipper Hideyoshi into a warlord.

"Death is meaningless here," Kenshin stated. "Those who have died may arrive here completely alive, though with their memories intact of their own demise."

That was a rather calm response for such heated words, the quick and practical part of Hideyoshi's mind registered; it was hard to tell if Kenshin simply didn't care much about Mitsuhide, despite the honorific he'd used before, or if he was simply a man quite so composed. I should be able to know. I'm not thinking straight. He realized that through the hot flare of anger and the realization shook him out of it. He couldn't be too careful. If Mitsuhide and Motochika were here then any stranger could be their ally. It's everything all over again.

He let out a breath slowly, a low half-whistle of sounds. "That's... interesting." It was half a dozen things and interesting was none of them, but he had a hold of himself again, now.

"Gracia, Mitsuhide, Motochika... and who else? If you don't mind my asking. I'd hate to turn around and have a complete stranger try to kill me because I happen to share a name with a disrespectful oaf." What was that all about, anyway?

Kenshin was an incredibly calm person, both on and off the battlefield. He was incredibly difficult to read. And in this situation, even more so. Hideyoshi's business with Mitsuhide was theirs alone. Kenshin rarely forged any alliances, and he had fought friends before (even if that wasn't entirely Keiji's fault). Kenshin respected people's skills and honor, usually because he'd be willing to cross swords with them on the battlefield. Such an odd one he was.

But the conversation switched to who was here. "I have seen the One-eyed Dragon here, however, he rarely seems to stay long. Of the other world, there is the Tiger Cub and his ninja."

"One-Eyed dra- that's the Date boy, isn't it? Masa... something." And the Tiger Cub would be a man of the Takeda, though with Katsuyori dead, he couldn't guess which one. It probably didn't matter. Not one loyal Oda retainer among the lot. He was surrounded by enemies and potential enemies. And I'll be damned if he sees me wince!

There was no fighting in Vatheon, Gracia had said. Maybe it made sense, when none of them really had anything to fight over - who cared about ruling a city under the sea where there wasn't even any money? But he knew - better than ever, with Mitsuhide's name freshly on his mind - that some wars didn't end with the one battlefield. He kept studying Kenshin carefully.

"Uesugi and Takeda and Date and Akechi..." he said slowly. "And none of you jumping up to chop anyone else's head off. That's impressive, that is."

"Date Masamune," Kenshin corrected him. An interesting lord he was, trying to fight Kenshin several times. Kenshin had an odd sort of respect for him and his chief retainer, Katakura Kojuurou. Perhaps it was because of their strategy. Perhaps they simply entertained him.

"There are threats greater than one another," Kenshin pointed out. "This land has been invaded several times by various creatures, from ghost pirates to oversized lizards and a giant squid. It is more beneficial to work together than fight one another."

"No fighting, she said..." Hideyoshi muttered, more to himself than to Kenshin. What, are you surprised? There was always something, no free meal, nowhere perfect, it simply couldn't be, When people left a void, things stepped in to fill it - and why not ghost pirates or oversized lizards or really anything else in a bubble-city under the sea? The principle was the same.

He found himself grinning up at Kenshin. "Makes you think, doesn't it? If we'd all could have gotten along back home if only we'd had..." but he trailed off, then waved a hand in dismissal. "Ahh, but your home isn't even like mine. For all I know, you and your Takeda Shingen get along just swimmingly."

It was more than a joke or a confession of ignorance. He was still testing the water, as it were, probing for information, the lines of conflict and alliance. In the end, ghost pirates or not, you simply couldn't trust warlords not to go to war.

"Perhaps, though there were times when the lords banded together, though rare." They had all banded together to fight Oda Nobunaga, then after that, little had changed. Lords fought against one another once again.

Kenshin smiled at the mention of Shingen. "Shingen-dono is the only lord worthy of calling my rival," he added. It seemed to be a commonality between his world and the other here. Kenshin longed for that rivalry while trapped here. No one had truly satisfied that need for an equal.

"Your lords, maybe." He gave a faint snort at the suggestion. In the world that he remembered, even Nobunaga had not been great enough an enemy - even when the might of the Oda blazed into the sight of the entire country practically overnight. And a good thing too, or we'd not have stood a chance!

"Well. I suppose not having a land to fight over also helps a little," he mused.

Kenshin's smile wasn't quite a surprising reaction. He knew that it wasn't quite enmity, properly, what the Takeda and the Uesugi had, but maybe he just wasn't samurai enough in his heart to understand what it really was. "He isn't here, is he? Or you'd be at it already."

"Shingen-dono has yet to make an appearance," Kenshin replied. "Solely his Tiger Cub, both of my world and the other, though only the one of the other world remains here."

The two were so vastly different yet so vastly the same at the same time, it was eerie. The one of this world was extremely excitable and polite to a ridiculous degree. The other was much calmer but also incredibly polite and respectful.

As for Takeda? Kenshin's heart had grown cold once again, longing for the rivalry he shared with the fiery lord. Over a year now he'd sought out his rival yet he'd not once appeared.

It took Hideyoshi a moment to decide how he was supposed to reply to that; but in the end, when he thought about it, it was really obvious. "Sorry to hear that."

So what if it was a little bit crazy? He had to start thinking in these terms - about the people who were here and what they could do and what could be gotten out of them. Alliances have always been his strong suite - and he had an enemy already. He knew the game. The quicker he got to playing, the better.

"You haven't found anyone like him, have you?" His sympathy rang genuine. "Even with people from all sorts of worlds around here."

Kenshin shook his head softly. "Unfortunately none have reached his level." None had managed to grab his interest, though he had tried several times. He had found a girl very good at shogi, but she had returned home long ago and hadn't returned since. He was left unparalleled both academically and strategically, and that quite frankly bored him. It wasn't exciting at all.

During the invasions of the land, Kenshin had thrived in the battle, but it had been some time since the land had seen an invasion. He couldn't quite spar with other people here as he didn't want to harm them and he could get carried away in battle. So he was simply left to train by himself.

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Sorry for late...!

all good :D

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