Summary:Catching up after their mission, Ranna and Kian speak about next steps. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
  |
.~{:--------------:}~.
Shiranui and Ryoshi had been to the clinic for attention. For herself, Ryoshi had taken a knife to her side. It had missed the vital organs and not gone deep - but it's still painful and needed stitching.
After that she insisted on getting food and alcohol and heading back to her apartment to consume it. The food, she meant to do in moderation. The alcohol - not so. It would be a good painkiller, she's sure.
She's just finishing the beef and black bean she got, scraping the last of the contents from the container and she's two beers down. "What did the doctor say about your injuries, Kian?" He can't miss the way she seems to be … faded. And it's more than just the knife injury.
"Bruised ribs, bruised sternum. Advised me to take it easy for a bit." Which won't happen but he's not likely to injure them worse unless something smacks him right there. It's just going to hurt and be stiff.
He takes the beer and opens it up. He's eaten a bit, which was good, and done a bit of youtube editing which he allowed her to watch. It's amazing how silly you can make someone look with proper cuts.
"What cookie fortune did you give the Doctor when they told you that?" Ranna sighs. She knows he won't rest and neither will she. And her next fight is less than a week away. It's how she pays her bills.
Seeing Kian seems to be finished with his food, Ranna starts to rat through the remaining containers - she'll eat from them - Kian might growl at her but she's hungry.
"Was the point of all that to embarrass them or just to get the trackers on them?" She finally decides to beard the lion in the den. "You have to know we've just painted an even bigger target on our backs, now. They might be licking wounds right now, but they'll be back."
She frowns at the edit he's doing and sighs. "Do you have to make it seem like I tripped?"
"I told him his lucky numbers and let it lay at that." Kian snarks as he takes another sip of his beer. He doesn't growl but he does give Ranna a look as she starts scavenging.
"You did trip didn't you?" The Project Ninja chuckles. "The trackers were important but the main idea was to make them loose face. The Hand and the Order are both deeply rooted in Japanese culture. Face is important to them, even if the individual members are not Japanese. If they fall out of favor with whomever is in charge they might be removed as problems without us having to do anything and at the very least their support within the organization will be decreased."
Ranna looks up as Kian looks at her scavenging, popping the chopsticks with some chow mein between them into her mouth "Were you going to finish this?" She's a little more outgoing with a couple of beers under her belt.
"And I didn't. You've cut my tumble out to make it look that way. Hey, can you put a speak bubble over his head? That look is amazing."
With a shake of her head, Ranna considers Kian's words. "What would you do, Kian, if someone had made you lose face inside The Project?" She's going somewhere.
"I can do anything. I can replace him with a dancing bear if I wanted to." Kian says. He wouldn't, it'd be a lot of work, but he might do something simpler. Like briefly cutting in a meme when he's shooting at them on the way out that says 'hippity hoppity get off my property.'
Hee.
"Depends on who had done it. An outsider? I might have wanted another shot at them. But it's an open question whether I would have been allowed one. I might have been pulled off it. Which would have been an even bigger loss of face and caused bad feelings. There aren't very many really good ways to deal with that kind of thing."
He is clearly NOT going to finish it. He's done eating and been done eating.
"If you're not going to eat it, why the look then?" Ranna asks trying to look innocent. She takes the container and perches on the table next to Kian, only wincing a little as her side pulls.
"I think, even if Shadow Stalker and Midnight are pulled off our job, they'll still come after us. They'll look for a way to restore face and make sure we fail hard." She says. "I don't think anyone in the Order would tell them 'no' directly - which will give them lee-way to fix what we've done."
They both did this.
"I'm not sure there's a way we could discourage them, though."
"No, I agree. However if we make them look foolish and ineffective we can lessen the support they have within the Order. And if other people decide to 'do the job right' we can tangle them up by making them trip over one another." Kian looks up at Ranna.
"There is a reason I've survived this long solo. One of the ways I have accomplished this is by making sure my enemies are never cooperating." Which is why the Order and the Hand and the Snakeroot working together on ANY level is such a very bad thing for him personally.
"You didn't go and tweak their noses like this either or use bait like me. I'm a traitor and a thief in their eyes. I have no honour but bringing my skin back to their masters will mend much in their eyes."
It's true. Normally it's her that Kian would be pitting against the others. Well, others like her.
"I think you need to have him 'saying' something cute. Did you choose some music to go with it."
"Not yet. Why don't you get on youtube and pick something ridiculous." Kian says as he edits a bit more. Maybe he'll make Midnight meme something. 'One v Five Penta?'. That sounds good. Because he's going to fail. HARD.
"They would get a lot if they succeed but the trust of one's superiors is a finite resource in organizations like that. You know that as well as I do." She may in fact know it better. The Project wasn't anywhere near that… dysfunctional.
"You want me to?" Ranna grabs another beer and picks up her phone. It's a burner, she knows she'll have to ditch it at some point. Something ridiculous. She can do that and she starts to scroll as they talk.
"All they'll need is to succeed. But I take your point. What is our next move then? You have a tracker on then - are we going to create mayhem?"
"Yes, find something that suits your fancy." It doesn't actually matter if the music isn't very good. The whole point of this is to mock those two and by various gods Kian is going to do that.
"Now that we have the trackers on them we can track their patterns and response times and I'll be logging that. I also plan to poke at their other operatives, try to make them respond and then cause them to trip over each other when they do. Sew some more discord and mayhem yes."
"And you just want me to be 'on hand' when you do?" Definitely more relaxed than she usually is. "I want to do more, Kian. Now that I'm healed…."
He's used her as bait and she's good with that. But she's ready to do more.
"Try this one …" It's not Benny Hill but it's a similar tempo and comedic timing.
"For some of it. For some of it I may want you to be somewhere else being obvious and make them try to split their response." And then for some of it they need to appear individually. It needs to be unpredictable and a bit chaotic. They need to have no idea what is going on.
"Perfect." Kian goes to the link and downloads the song. Prepare to get memed, weirdos.
"Alright then." Ranna says as she slips from the table and starts tidying.
"I'll you to upload that then. I'm going to clean up."