05 - MECHA-HYDRA: RISE UP

[drakenguard]

Who: Yamato Hotsuin and YOU
Where: Virgo Ward
Summary: Yamato's upgraded. He's making a hydra out of metal cutlery this time
Warnings: You can almost track the gradual loss of sanity.

As Scorpio District is still getting cleaned up after the insanity that was The Event, Yamato had to get his 'supplies' from somewhere that was a bit more generic in terms of wares. Yes, yes, shocking that someone as serious and work-minded as Yamato would go out and do some more arts and crafts, but the thing was...

He actually enjoyed it.

It was a private joy, and no doubt if someone asked him about it he would stone cold deny it without hesitating, but he felt he could indulge in it once in a while. It wasn't like he had anything else to do in his free time (which had thankfully lessened now that he had a job with Ideo in the labs...), so he felt no guilt in wasting his time on it.

So in the Virgo ward, Yamato bought a box of metal cutlery. You heard right. Metal cutlery. He was going to try and out do his earlier project of plastic dragons, and make metal dragons. Bending the metal was a bit harder than the plastic - although it was less likely to snap - but Yamato was quite strong physically (even if he had to use magic to be so) so it wasn't anything too difficult.

Bug him, or simply interested in buying one? Feel free to approach! He is just sitting on one of the few tables outside a café, cup of coffee the only thing fuelling his busy fingers.

Comments

[drakenguard]

Yamato did notice the child, it was pretty hard not to, with how hyper-paranoid he was, and merely watched the mysterious kid from beneath his eyelashes, half of his attention upon his crafting, and half on the other.

The staring was getting annoying though.

"Is something of interest to you?" he finally asked, his fingers pausing as he lifted his head to look at the child properly.

[the_usual_stuff]

Ignore the costant aura of death if you can sense such things by the way? He's not looking to hurt anyone, Pharos is just curious to see how such thin, fragile-looking hands can bend and twist metal eating utensils with seeming ease. When the older male doesn't immediately shoo him away or request he take his leave from his presence, the small child inches closer.

"How are you doing that?" he wondered, switching his intrigued stare from the bent steel hydras to Yamato. "It looks quite interesting."

[drakenguard]

Yamato can indeed sense the aura of death, but considering he happily kept the company of demons over humans, it wasn't enough to unnerve him - make him highly suspicious, yes, but not nervous.

"...it does, doesn't it?" Yamato said after a pause, seemingly ignoring the first question. He held the boy's gaze unflinchingly, probably staring at him too intensely, and carefully bent a fork's handle in two as easily as folding a piece of paper.

"It is my own strength," he finally replied. He wasn't lying, his magic was his strength, whether he used it for the physical of the spiritual.

[the_usual_stuff]

"Yes," Pharos agreed simply, unbothered by the silver-haired man's intense, unwavering stare. And feeling that he wouldn't be reacted to with undue hostility to such an action, the boy circled around the table the other male was sitting at in front of the café, until he was standing on the opposite side of the table from him.

"And nothing else?" he said, smiling innocently as he watched him mold and painstakingly bent the eating utensils with his hands. "Impressive."

[drakenguard]

Yamato scoffed quietly, twisting the bent fork into place, nudging and tweaking the little prongs into place. "Impressive? Anyone with a good grasp over themselves can achieve such a thing."

His tone is slightly disdainful. Alas, the man did not respond well to compliments.

[the_usual_stuff]

"Yet, it doesn't seem like many humans would apply themselves to gaining such a grasp over themselves, thus my comment of regarding it as an impressive feat," Pharos sighed with a trace of mournfulness to that remark, standing with his back straight as a willow tree and thin arms tucked neatly behind him. The tone of slight disdain slides off of him, unimportant and dismissed.

He asked inquiringly, gaze tracing the lines of the twisted forks bent into the image of sublime dragons, "Why are you making them?"

[drakenguard]

"..." Yamato was quiet at the child's remarks. It was true. Society was bloated with shallow desires and laziness, giving no motivation for people to learn and push past their limits. It was a very disgusting state of affairs.

"Because I want to," Yamato replied after a brief pause, moving his hands away from the completed dragon, the metallic surface glinting in the afternoon light. "Do I need any other reason?"

[the_usual_stuff]

"No," and here Pharos almost sounded wistful. "To do something simply because you take pleasure from the act of doing it is a good reason. To need another reason to do anything personally enjoyable strikes me as a unhappy state of affairs."

Motivation was all well and fine, and everyone pushed themselves to toil away at their dull jobs and their assigned roles and their routine duties (there was nothing wrong with that either) but if you couldn't simply do things for the pleasure of them, an already short life might veer into a pointless, tedious course until the moment of death. Which was saddening to him.

Sorry, did he sound philosophical for a moment there? He took a step step closer, leaning forward a little to examine the mythical creature crafted out of metal cutlery on the table, admiring it silently. He hadn't been exposed to much variation in new things before, and neither of his hosts had harbored much interest in the arts.

[drakenguard]

Yamato evaluated the strange child for a moment, his gaze intense and scrutinising, like he was trying to pluck information directly from the kid's mind through staring alone. After a tense pause he pushed the metal dragon over to the child, his expression dulling into one of indifference.

"As you seem so interested in it, you may have it if you wish."

It wasn't like Yamato was interested in keeping them - he had very little room in his apartment for personal knick-knacks after all.

[the_usual_stuff]

His reaction when the older man shoves the steel dragon towards him after a pause of scrutinizing silence, is purely that of a child, pale face perking up and beaming brightly. If this was Persona 4, there'd be that little cheerful burst of flowers floating over his head for a few seconds.

"Truly? That's quite generous of you," Pharos thanked him and reached out to grab the sculpture with his own hands, careful to avoid any sharp edges on its metallic surface as he pulls it closer to himself.

He had never had a material possession of his own before, and while he was unsure of what exactly to do with it, Pharos likes it. But he doesn't have anything to offer in return of equal value for the gift... Maybe he could repay the favour later on. "Thank you."

[drakenguard]

Yamato grunted, and leant to the side to collect more necessary materials for his next dragon - as well as the plastic see-through cups used to shape the main body - from the box beside his chair. "Gratitude is not necessary. That dragon would otherwise be disposed of, so it is no loss of mine to give it to you."

[the_usual_stuff]

Pharos looked over his new belonging, lifting it up into the air and rotating it lightly around in his small hands, from left to right and turning it upside to enjoy the pleasant novelty, and then right side-up again. "Still, it is a gift even if it holds no meaning to you. I shall take good care of it."

He set the dragon of metal cutlery back down on the table with a clink, and looked up, blue eyes cheerful in their otherworldly vividness. "Are you making more?"

[drakenguard]

"Yes. You may have those too, if you wish."

Yamato began swiftly bending and manipulating the metal of the spoons, since these made up the body beneath the plastic cups. He paused after a few though, flexing his fingers. Although he was using magic, he was still putting a slight strain on them.

"Who are you?"

[the_usual_stuff]

"No, I only want one."

At some point, he had sat down on one of the spindly café chairs at the table, and now Pharos props his chin up with his hands on his cheeks and his elbows resting on the table. He pays attention to the older man's artistic process avidly, but his eyes remain on Yamato's face.

"Pharos. I'm Pharos."

[drakenguard]

"Pharos," Yamato repeated, his eyes squinting slightly as they gazed at the child. He frowned before abruptly dismissing it, resuming his crafting without pause.

"You hold a strange power about you. Are you a demon?"

[the_usual_stuff]

"Demon?" he said. Well, you could say that he shared certain similarities with them at the very least, or you could just call him a personification of an abstract concept, or a godly being, but he did fit into the title given to the generalization of humanity's repressed emotions. The corners of his mouth curve up.

"Actually, the term used for what I am in my universe is a 'Shadow,'" Pharos answered. The Thirteenth Arcana was never supposed to be, born of the union of the Arcana Shadows, Son of Nyx, herald of the Fall, and so on.

[drakenguard]

Yamato paused. 'Shadow'? That sounded familiar to him. Hrm, did Minako say something about Shadows...?

...whatever he was, Yamato was going to keep a close eye on him. He didn't seem hostile, but, well, beings of a supernatural nature enjoyed having a contrary personality. Calm one moment, raging and hissing the next. He'd like to be paranoid than caught off guard.

"Do you know someone called Minako Arisato?"

[the_usual_stuff]

Ones supposes it is for the best to not let your guard down too much around Death, whether it actively harbors malice towards you or not. At the mention of Minako after the pause however, Pharos looked happier and nodded in a positive response.

"We're old friends," he revealed casually. Their time together had been a long, fruitful one with an unwilling beginning, and while he could only communicate to his host successfully during the last months of it, he felt it certainly more than qualified for him to say he knew her.

[drakenguard]

"Is that so?"

Yamato considered, his eyes narrowing in thought. He didn't wholly trust Minako, obviously, but he trusted her enough not to stab him in the back in the midst of battle. She seemed like one of those irritatingly honourable sorts anyway.

"Old friends...how long have you known her?"

Yamato does not understand boundaries.

[the_usual_stuff]

That's okay, Pharos does not understand them either.

"Yes."

His hands drop from his pale cheeks to join his elbows resting on the smooth table, hands folding over each other and fingers lacing together. The being that appeared to be young deliberates for a couple of seconds, slow and pondering, over his answer before offering in a seamlessly cracked sort of way, "We've been together for a little over a decade."

And Pharos had left. But that was alright... They would always be friends, after all. A part of him would remain to aide them. And he'd found them, both of them, here again. That was nice. Just being around Minako and Minato was nice. He'd be sad if he had to leave once more.

[drakenguard]

Yamato didn't bother saying that Pharos barely looked to be over a decade. It would be a stupid observation considering that Pharos wasn't even human.

However... "Do you also know a Minato Aristo?" he asked after a pause, a sudden realisation occurring to him. He had been aware of Minako and Minato's curious similarities in names, but their personalities and physiology seemed dissimilar enough for it to be a coincidence - but Yamato didn't believe in coincidences.

[the_usual_stuff]

"Just as well as I know her," Pharos said simply with a smile on his lung face.

They shared a common soul, after all, and he had resided in both of them regardless of which universe they had existed within. Two sides of the same coin, and all that. The only humans he had ever befriended in his long, long existence. His first friends.