Private A Meeting of Old and New

[Kazumi]

She felt like she was a circus animal forced to jump through flaming hoops, all with the dangling of a meeting with the village's leader hanging at the end of a stick. She had gone through worse, and the reception was understandable, given the circumstances, but that did not mean she enjoyed it. With some of those Unbent dispatched, a light interrogation and a full search for hidden weapons behind her, she finally was walking with two shinobi at her side through the tallest building in the village, the Kazekage Tower.

She wasn't given a lot of details, but she presumed they were complying with her request. This was the Kazekage Tower, after all, and that had been explained as he who lead the village. What Aria was not aware of was the current tumult that the village's administration was going through, and that she was not seeing the Kazekage, but instead a steward of the village. After a few more long minutes of silent walking through the halls, they led her to a pair of large metal doors, tapped three times on them and then pulled them open for her to enter. She gave the dutiful shinobi an appreciative nod and made her way into the spacious room.

With as much going on in the village as there was, it would have been easy to miss the small message that had predated her arrival. Apparently she was a foreigner who was not seeking refuge in the village from the threat of the Swarm, like most others, and had actually assisted the shinobi forces on multiple occasions in repelling the threat, once from an escort caravan bringing civilians to the village and another to gather and eliminate a large chunk of the Unbent under the command of the ANBU member Kaen. She had been tight lipped about the exact reason for her visitation of the village, but she had shown no obvious signs of hostility and she had no weapons on her body that could be used in an assassination attempt, nor did she appear to have any shinobi training.

 

[Takahashi Aki]

Sleep was a curious thing. Machines did not sleep, but machines with souls did. A paradox. A machine could push itself beyond the means of a normal human, until the mechanisms broke down or snapped. The Lord Steward sat upon a throne, not of vanity, but out of necessity. His head was inclined forward and there was no soft glow in his eyes. The eyes were simply dead. Various wires fed into the back of the neck area. That was not the only area as the finger tips had wires feeding into them as well. During this state, was the Steward dreaming? Was he resting? Was he gaining nourishment? Ancients fed upon souls, but there was a theory, an old theory that Ancients gained nourishment when put into the purest form of their respective elements. The amount of nourishment they regained was very little from this method. The Steward drank in electricity for nourishment. There were other forms of nourishment as well, but this was the easiest of them.



A knock came upon the door. No. Three knocks. White light appeared in the eyes of the Steward once more. He had been awaken. Was he feeling groggy? No. He was refreshed. He reached up and removed the wires from his neck. He removed the wires from his finger tips as well. He reached for his helmet on the floor. He took hold it soundly, and proceeded to fasten it and various clips were heard as he put the helmet on. There were still a number of people he did not reveal his truer form to. Those who had seen it were oftentimes gasping in horror at what they saw. "Enter." He spoke calmly and loudly. The Steward observed a single person enter the room. An unknown to him. This was curious. He leaned back into his seat for a moment. He would rise then and come down the small staircase that the throne sat upon. As he came down the floor would open up and the throne receded down into the floor. He would hold his hands behind his back. He observed the stranger. "Greetings." He spoke warmly. He was curious now.

 

[Kazumi]

Aria took a moment to marvel at the room, there was, after all, a large amount that you could learn from a person by simply reading the room they resided in. At first it looked to be something of a meeting room, but the throne that sat atop the short staircase at the end reminded her more of the throne room of a minor feudal lord. Aside from the throne and the man walking down the stairs, there was little to look at. Banners bearing the village's symbol, but that was no surprise. It did all seem meticulously cleaned and she would have been hard pressed to find a single grain of loose sand scattered in here somewhere.

The foreigner's brow arched as he stepped off the final step and the groune behind him began to lower into the ground. For every little bit of information she couldn't gleam from the room, the descending throne spoke volumes. She couldn't hear the telltale sounds of people lowering it, it was too smooth and consistent as metal slid against metal. It was automatic, or the man that stood there with his face concealed in a metal mask controlled it remotely somehow. She suppressed the urge to let out a grunt of annoyance, it screamed of someone so insecure in their position that they wished to put awe into those who visited. She noted she could be wrong though, with another glance the room could easily serve as a dueling area with the throne lowering from necessity rather than show.

"Fancy," she commented in an off-handed manner, a mixture of amusement with just a hint of reproach. She waited for a moment as the doors respectfully closed behind her, their final clicking thud echoing throughout the room with a newfound silence. "Name's Aria." There was no hesitation in her voice, she had quickly gotten used to the new name and didn't stutter with name changes like she had used to. "You're the head honcho of the ninja village I take it? Kazekaze, yeah?" She was, however, still having trouble getting used to the strange sounding titles the shinobi liked to give themselves. The red haired woman waited a moment before asking in a mock-serious tone, "I'm not supposed to be bowing am I? Would be a shame to come all this way only to get sent packing for not knowing the proper etiquette, if you will excuse it My Lord." Regardless of all the rules she didn't know, she had never met a ruler who didn't like to be called my lord.

 

[Takahashi Aki]

​

Sousuke stared at the young woman slightly confused. "Fancy? ... Do you mean? Oh. Yes. The descending stairs. Yes... the mechanism for that isn't exactly fancy itself. It's just a series of cogs that work together. When one speaks to steel, it usually grasps what your intentions are." He spoke about it casually. Yes. The office of the Steward was too clean. It was not human. There were no other individual like the Steward, only the Steward himself. That was perhaps both a good and a bad thing at times. Sousuke's intelligence came at a price. It had taken him years and years for him to grasp social queues and to be comfortable in dealing with people. He still didn't like public speaking, but he had a mastery of it in some respects. It was a difficult thing for him to get over, but he did pull it off over the many years of rule he had.



Aria quickly introduced herself. First name. No family name. There was perhaps for a reason for that. Something Sousuke could poke at later about. Aria. Simple name enough. "Sousuke." He spoke in turn. She was going to go by a first name basis, so may as well do the same. It was sometimes awkward to state his full name, considering he was indeed named after his ancestors. Aria then started making assumptions. Even used his former title. "For the most part. It' is a ninja village, but people of various ilks and professions live here too. Sometimes a hard thing to realize." He answered. Head Honcho was a colloquialism. It informed Sousuke more of what to expect of Aria. He wondered how long it was going to take before a dialect took form and then the words that were going to be used were ... complicated? The Steward was able to figure out dialects quickly and easily enough, it just took a few moments to process.



To his surprise the dialect did not manifest immediately. He was inquired if bowing was to occur. "Mmm... no. No bowing required. Handshakes are generally good. I was Kazekage for a time, but I am the Steward of the Kazekage. I tend to his affairs and I help to guide him. Lord Raizo is adapting to his position... as he is one of the youngest individuals to become Kazekage." He would pause for a moment. He would incline his head slightly. "I'm not going to send you packing for lack of etiquette." The Steward would hold out his hand for shaking all the same. "How can I be of assistance to you?"

 

[Kazumi]

The man sounded as if he built the descending throne himself. On one hand that spoke to something she respected. It also meant that he designed it, likely for some grandstanding purpose, with spoke to something she didn't. She stepped forward as he spoke, getting close enough to offer his hand once he finished. As he spoke she hesitated as he refereed to himself simply as a steward. Was she getting the run around still? Damn shinobi were worse than bureaucracy. Never-the-less, she took and gave his hand a firm shake, her grip strong and tight from decades of working tools and weapons.

"Pleasure 'tah meet you Steward," it was obvious from her tone that she was expecting something different. "So you don't mind escorting me to the young Lord Raizo then?" With all the hoops, both small and flaming, she had jumped through just to see the man, she was still getting the runabout. She doubted it'd be that simple, but he seemed amicable enough, and it was surprising how well bull rushing ahead worked. With her goal in mind, she promptly turned from him and gestured towards the door. "If you do not mind leading the way, I do not yet know my way around your pristine village."

 

[Takahashi Aki]

Sousuke for a few moments was silent. This woman had expectations, and wanted to go see Lord Raizo. Curbing one's expectations was not the easiest thing to do, but it had to be done. He considered his words, choosing them like carefully in his mind. He would lower his hands behind his back. "Lord Raizo is tied up at the moment. He is in the midst of communications... which I have sent one of my bannermen to assist him with. I would be more than willing to take his place in this manner you wish to discuss. Being a former Kazekage and... Steward-Kazekage I can assure you I am more than capable to assist you in your endeavor." He spoke sincerely and honestly. Sousuke could have considered himself one of the older statesmen in Sand. The only one having more time than him was his father in this regard. An unhealthy thing most people realized or didn't was... how long did one with ninja training maintain a seat in statesmanship. Sousuke considered himself a rarity as he both led secretive operations to dismantle the slave network in Wind Country, and he able to delegate others to other military operations. Lord Katuso had difficulty on that front, and he wondered how the young Lord Raizo was going to do the same. Both of them were for ... lack of a better word, brawlers. They were highly skilled in this, but it brought about concerns in terms of life expectancies. The more Sousuke thought about the more he realized he too was problematic in this regard.



To perhaps make things for the young woman feel better about dealing with the Steward he would consider something. "Would you like for me to show you about the tower? It might help you to learn your way around... or perhaps would you like to see the village as a whole from the rooftop?" Sousuke wondered if offering this much to the woman would help her... feel better in dealing with Sousuke rather than deal with Raizo. "I find that a broader gaze tends to help one gain a full view point of everything." He inclined his head slightly. He was curious now as to how the situation would next unfold itself. There was a perchance that the woman could react horribly to this, in which... well, Sousuke would handle this fallout too in whatever manner it came in.

 

[Kazumi]

In all honesty, Aria was not entirely surprised that the village's leader was indisposed. Having seen the threat first hand, she imagined he must have been organizing a dozen different scenarios at once, all similar in scope and scale to the operation she was drafted into. "I am sure you are more than capable of providing information. What I require are assurances. I'm sure you'll excuse me, but shinobi are not known for being the most trustworty of sorts." This, of course, was not universal to all shinobi nor all of their hidden villages, but those were more exceptions than the rule.

"Now I don't mean any disrespect, but did you mind taking off your helmet? I don't mind a hat or something, but it makes your eyes look all funny. I'm sure it works wonders to impress, and it does, but you don't have to be impressing me." Her accent would shift on occasion, waving from crisp and cordial to a more relaxed and casual tone that sounded rural. "Now if you wanted to walk and talk up to the roof, I've got no complaints. Perhaps once we're done there, your Lord Raizo will be finished with his important meetings with your bannermen." Once again she gestured towards the door for him to lead. She didn't have much in the way of bargaining, after all. She had to play part of her hand just to get through this door, and the only thing keeping him from sending her packing was his good graces. Best not to push things too hard, just yet.

 

[Takahashi Aki]

Women were fickle. Women were complicated. Women were moody. Even Sousuke was unsure of what to expect here. It seemed like everything was going alright? There was an offhanded remark about shinobi not being trustworthy. Yes there was an element of deception, it was needed at times. That much could not be debated. "Deception is needed when espionage is involved... but sometimes that deception comes in at moments not appropriate." It was not an excuse being given, it was just a statement. Sousuke would pause for a moment before adding, "I like to think myself a trustworthy person."



Then the next series of statements would give Sousuke a pause. A long pause. In fact it was a very long pause. It had not been for some time that this happened, this long pause. He would look up for a moment and consider how best to approach this request of hers. "I'm not taking my helmet off. My eyes are what they are. It is a manner of expressing myself." He would press his index finger on the middle of his forehead. He would consider for a moment taking it off, but he didn't want to send the new immigrant fleeing in terror because of what was beneath the helmet. Yes, how does one tell the new immigrant, 'I had an accident and lost a very large portion of my body, but I've got a fully functioning soul now'. Yes. Stating that was going to make things more than difficult. It would cause Aria to perhaps think most of the Sungakurian forces were automatons, or monsters. Both were relative terms."I would prefer not to ... cause night terrors because of what lurks underneath this helmet." There. simple enough. Less than ten individuals knew of what was beneath the helmet. Among those were the new Kazekage and his attendant. The other was Kaen. Akkuma was another individual who had stumbled upon Sousuke as he was working.



Sousuke would make a gesture for her to follow him, he would speak to her as they walked. "This tower was built over seven years ago. I worked on it personally. Not only the structure but the wiring and piping as well. We in Sungakure take great pride in our family history. It's not about the Kazekage, each family has played a significant portion in the rise of our city-state." He explained. He would approach the elevator and made the gesture 'after you'. There might have been some tomboyish presence in Aria, but there were still rules of etiquette to be had. As the elevator would rise, there was indeed a view to be had of the village.