Fate/Antiquity (IC)

[Kirby]

Archer
Day 0 - Night (3/3)
Nishi Ward - Crossroads

"This here, this is, Kagamihara. My first time here as well. So I know about as much as you..." He trails off here, unable to complete the obvious lie. "I may." He grimaces. "I have been to other places, many others, much like it. The difference is not much between them. All cities are alike. These days. Fundamentally. But you know this. I am sure. You know something of this kind. I suspect. Therefore you are asking, I think, "where" in a different - sense. Yes? This, here, this is Japan, of course, which is in Asia, which is in the World, which is in the Universe, which is in the Reality, which is whatever the fuck it is. You will notice this by its distinct...distinctness." He sniffs.

Archer had never remember visiting a city herself, had never heard of Japan, and only vaguely heard tales of Asia, and so she nods, understanding only one thing— that she was somewhere far, far away.

He mentions distinctness. That makes her frown. Despite the unfamiliarity of this place, strange spires of metal and stone and glass and light, she can almost feel it. As if this landscape had been painted over something else, but it flaked away in places, leaving that something exposed. Something familiar, like home. Was it comfort, or fear, or excitement that she felt?

"- never mind. Tell me what you want. But before you do that I want you to tell me another thing. Important thing. You are Archer, so you say. Archer is a fighter, a killer. We do need to kill people. Perhaps some, perhaps a lot. I said that to you before. You know this. That is what we are here for. That is what you are here for. At minimum you "arrived" with this understanding. So I believe. So you are okay with this I assume. I surmise. Now I want to know the important, the only important thing about this."

"You can as I see it fight in two ways. Through strength and endurance. Or through speed and secrecy. Which of these is you? I ask that. I ask only one thing. The rest - we will figure the rest out on the way. Just tell me that."

Strength or speed.

Endurance or secrecy.

Hunter or prey?

She puts a finger to her mouth, frowning as if lost in thought, to what should be a simple question. For a while, she is silent.

“Hunter, or prey?” She smiles, as if making a joke. “Prey, maybe.”

—An obtuse answer to an otherwise simple question, but this, she supposed, would be the best way to describe it.

“But I guess that’s not a reassuring answer, is it? Don’t worry if anyone comes after us. I can deal with them in my own way, and even prey can kill. But for now,” she says, clapping together her hands, “Donuts!” Did she pronounce that correctly? She had never heard of a donut until now, and did not know what they were, but as that borrowed knowledge told her, they were something sweet, right? Loaded with more sugar than she’d probably tasted in her life? The scent agrees.

She presses her face against the glass, peering into the store, the display cases filled with a dizzying array of colors and shapes, pinks and greens and reds and golds. Someone in the store shoots her a quizzical look, but she ignores it. “Have you ever had one of these?”

A proper meal can wait. Time to ruin her appetite.

[Dullahan]

Cuan Yugou
Day 0 - Night (3/3)
Nishi Ward - Crossroads

Cuan Yugou is thinking. He is thinking about that bullshit Archer just said.

“Hunter, or prey?” She smiles, as if making a joke. “Prey, maybe.”

Maybe. Maybe. Somehow it bothers him less than he thinks it should, or would otherwise. The answer being bullshit, that is. Perhaps in a certain sense he finds it "rational" - no, that's not the right word. It seems to fit, it makes sense. (The smell of sunlight.) In her position, he thinks, he would possibly have given a similar answer.

(Is that right?)

Well, maybe. The crucial thing is that it is not - not, emphasis not - a lie. If she was lying it would be been relatively easy to tell. Probably. He does not feel that Archer is lying. But the truth is clearly being "selected from" in this individual instance. And that is - he looks at Archer as he thinks this, and then rapidly finds somewhere else to look at - sensible. Some truths have to be garlanded. Have to be protected. That is fair enough.

(Would you ever tell the whole of it?)

He wonders about that.

"But for now,” she says, clapping together her hands, “Donuts!”

<"What?"> Snaps him out of it. Back to the "world" and its inclement texture. Taste. He is looking, he realises, at Mister Donut. That is what he is looking at. This is that kind of world. A world where there are such things as this. He reminds himself of this, as he does periodically. Metaphysically he is aware of it. Mister Donut.

She presses her face against the glass, peering into the store, the display cases filled with a dizzying array of colors and shapes, pinks and greens and reds and golds. Someone in the store shoots her a quizzical look, but she ignores it.
“Have you ever had one of these?”

"Yes," says Cuan Yugou. He is not intending to answer that question but somehow he does. He thinks of Archer's expression but does not look at it. "In Thailand," he adds, by way of clarification. He frowns. "Which is also in Asia but, hm, some distance away. From here." He is buying time with this nonsense. He is thinking - is, irritatingly, being "compelled" to think by the demands of a peculiar "rationality" - how, or, no, what exactly he needs this to look like. Archer, for example. Archer - he is standing here with Archer. What does that look like? (A headache is coming on.) He grinds his teeth a little. He scratches his head and finds very little hair on it. He wonders if he is too old by now to look like her father. Cuan Yugou is thinking about this and a few other things, namely the proximity of the bridge and the therefore probable proximity of that woman from earlier who - this is another conclusion that invites itself in, sidewise as it were - he probably actually needs to kill pretty soon, as a matter of "good business sense" so to speak. He thinks: I am being observed. Probably. He thinks about that and looks at Archer again.

He says, or thinks, to himself: fuck it.

"Right then." He puts his hand on Archer's shoulder - which is not as low as he thought, or expected, by a small margin - and more or less steers her through the door, out of the night air, into some kind of cultivated mercantile dimension. Scent of sugar and cooking fat. The auditory equivalent of the colour that is called bubblegum pink suffuses from elsewhere. His nose wrinkles. There are not many people in here, which is mildly interesting. Cuan Yugou and Archer approach the counter of Mister Donut. He arrives there and finds himself looking down at some chirpy sales representative aged approximately fifteen to forty. He glares at her. She pales. Then he looks at the menu, which is displayed behind her on some kind of brutally yellow illuminated display. He thinks, in passing, about the phone which the dàlǎo gave him and the expenses cards it came with, pre-loaded. His expenses are being monitored, almost certainly. Probably by Sekigahara's kids as well. He wonders about that. (Let them wonder.)

"Alright." He looks at Archer and tries to take the measure of her facial expression, and fails. Then he looks at the retailer again. "Alright. One-" He points these out rapid-fire. "-one...green tea doughnut. One Mister Croissant. One crème brûlée doughnut. One - no. Two Brooklyn Merry-Go-Round doughnuts. Two black coffees. Both large. Both triple shot." He pauses for a second. "Both with honey."

Then he turns to Archer. "And for you?"