A&E: Cubicles

[i | r e f u s e | t o | s u r r e n d e r]

When the Paramedics pulled him from the car, they expected to see major injuries. All they saw was a black-haired man covered in blood. They didn't seem to realize all the cuts he had sustained were in fact superficial, and that the blood they were seeing was in fact the driver of the car's blood. Underneath all that though, his left arm had greenstick fractures in two places.

So when Aihara Kanezane stepped into the room they had placed him in, he was wrapped up pretty good in gauze and what-not. But was Karasu sitting on the bed like a good little patient? Nope, he was standing on his one good arm with all the weight off of his fingers. He effectively created a vacuum with the palm of his hand.

Body suspended upside-down, he looked up [or was it down since it's reverse] at Aihara. "Hey, I'd be in the morgue right now instead of this room if I hadn't reacted. Besides, I seriously think you're the only competent person in this insane asylum. Nice to see you too Fang." Karasu said as Usarak completed. He didn't smile, barely even flinched as the words exited his lips. Usarak was quite a bit more controlled these days, like he'd suddenly gotten hit with a sledgehammer called reason.

[i m | f e e l i n | i n v i n c i b l e | t o n i g h t]

Karasu bounced onto his feet gently cradling his broken arm. "You don't think I was treating my injuries with the appropriate seriousness? It's the reason I wasn't balancing on this arm." He said as he raised the respective arm. Picking up the X-Ray off the bed-side table he popped it into the appropriate fixture. "See?"

He glared at the Fang King, "Impressed? I don't have any idea what you're getting at, but I was never looking to impress you. If one doesn't keep his body in shape, then that body deteriorates."

He sat down on the bed without putting any strain on the wound, using an invisible cushion of air to keep his arm in alignment for the moment. His other arm rested on his knee. "I guess I should explain the accident and how I ended up here eh? To be frank I don't quite know what happened, but I came off better than the person driving the car I was in. He's dead. I can only say that I reacted as the situation called for."

He looked down at the floor and shook his head. "I haven't been idle Aihara. I've been watching everything and everyone in this city. And you Aihara-san, I consider to be the greatest doctor in the city. That's why I've been turning away incompetent nurses and doctors for over an hour. I could do a better job than some of them."

[t h e | d a r k e s t | n i g h t s]

Karasu glared visibly at Aihara. "You think I'm here to piss you off? Get under you're skin? If you're thinking that after our last meeting then I guess I should explain why I was in that car in the first place. The driver was the right hand man to the Kingpin of Sansai and Seijutsu. I was on my way to the Kingpin's office to take him down."

Hopping off the bed he stalked over to the coat-rack and pulled his coat from it, putting it over his shoulders not wanting to try and put his injured arm through the sleeve. Cushion of Air or no. Sitting down on the chair next to it he began putting on his Air Treks. Sleek black and faceted like a military fighter jet. "I wasn't expecting to be here so soon but given the circumstances and now your report on the state of the Forest, I guess I'll have to move up my schedule."

He stood and faced Aihara's back. "This is my city too, both me and my other half are here to defend it. You want help, then stop complaining and ask for it. I don't care who you point me at and what you tell me to do. I'll do it. Consider this my formal application into the Forest. I'll have my own team, but if the Song of the Forest calls, I'll drop everything." The Forest really was in a sorry state if Aihara, its head, was turning to him. True he had changed quite a bit in just a short time, and Usarak had finally gotten more docile, but this was unexpected. Karasu had been planning on offering his aide, but now he just seemed to be accepting an offer he had intended to make.

Taking his good arm he crossed his chest with it and dropped to one knee. "I am your tool. Your Instrument. If you will it, I shall do it."

[d a y s | c o m e | a n d | g o]

Moonstruck Drop Bagram? Reaching down to his waist he popped the snap on the cord holding the white wheels on. Written across in black marker was "Welcome to Nightmare". "All this time..." He said wistfully as he held the two wheels in his hand. Slowly he moved his hand towards Aihara, "I'm glad I passed your test, and I think the Wind Regalia can be completed now..."

He opened his hand so that the white wheels became fully visible to Aihara. "I...thought they might not be normal, but it just dawned on me what they actually were." Karasu's face was nearly slack, he'd lost all control of his facial muscles for the moment. But then he closed his hand and regained control. "I would guess we can complete the Regalia as soon as possible, no? I don't know if I deserve it, but at this point there aren't any other options."

[r a d i o | i n | a | h o l e]
Karasu slowly retracted his hand as Aihara snatched the wheel casings away from him, confirming his suspicions that these were in fact Aihara's missing pieces. As the doctor popped a cigarette into his mouth and attempted to read the writing on the wheel with a magnifying glass, Karasu went and sat down again.

"I'll be honest, I don't know where they came from. But when the people I lived with gave me my first set of ATs they were inside one of the shoes. I simply took them to be a gift, but as more people showed interest into them I decided to do a little research. Research that I hadn't confirmed until just now."

Looking down at his arm still bound up in gauze and an invisible barrier of wind, he wondered when Aihara was gonna call that nurse or point him in the right direction.

[t h i s | i s | t h e | b l a c k | a b y s s]

Karasu looked down so that Aihara couldn't see his face, even as he took the faux regalia from him. Then his shoulders started to shudder like he was crying, but he threw back his head and let out one hearty HA!

Looking at Aihara with a devilish grin, he had already figured out where the real ones were. "Ai, feel like crashing a laboratory? You just said these are replicas made by Bio7even, which means that they would need to be able to copy them from something. And you don't make copies of copies."

Hopping off the bed he poked his head out of the room and yelled at the first passing nurse. "OI! Get some o' that cast material stuff! I've been in here an hour with three green-stick fractures and you nurses have done nothing but avoid my room. LETS GO! I got important shit to do tonight!"

Retracting back inside as an Intern bustled past with her hair going in every which direction, she fumbled with the padding and the outside shell fabric. Sitting down Karasu held out his arm and dispelled the wind barrier, it took several minutes for her to get the padding on and then she started wrapping that in black fabric soaked in water. Minutes later the cast was hard and ready for business. Thanking the girl as she left he grabbed his coat and got ready to go. "Well Aihara? You coming with? Lord knows what else we'll find. You don't create an entire department for one Regalia."

[f a l l s | o n | d e a f | e a r s]

Karasu contemplated that for a second, Aihara was right. If such a thing had fallen into his hands so many years ago, then it stood to reason that what they had now would be several times better than what was now tied at Karasu's waist. They could be walking into a trap, one full of people wearing faux Regalia. They'd be torn apart, and if they were Charged? God forbid.

"I see. Quite true my friend, who knows what we'd find when we get there. Scratch that, what finds us when we get there. Strategical planning does seem to be in order, though Bio7even has some pretty tight security from what I've heard. Getting someone in for Covert Ops may prove to be extremely hard. We'd have an easier time bribing a security guard."

Karasu considered the possibilities for extricating and collecting data on this Bio7even company. A lot of their work seemed to be cloak and dagger with quite a bit more cloak. Their cloak being that they produced medicine and economy-grade AT parts with little to no harmful effects on the environment. But Karasu could feel that there was something darker in there than the depths of Tartarus. Usarak shifted uncomfortably in his head. You got something to say on the matter? Nope... Whatever.