thenearshore

Who: Ken, open
What: He preferred having no memories at all, thanks. Also he doesn't feel at all bad about stealing some asshole's motorcycle.
Where: Starting at Antheia's temple, in town, then up around the mountains in the Far Shore. Feel free to encounter him at any point.
When: June 13
Warnings: Violence, flashing back to violent murder ~~the guy totally deserved it~~, brief domestic abuse, parental advisory for crude language :(

[The memory rose up from nothingness, very nearly crystal clear and echoing--as if underground, surrounded by thick walls and monitors as they are.

There are no faces that got caught up in the memory, besides his own in the glare of the monitor. Everyone else is nothing but hazy impressions of what might be people, no discerning characteristics to them, as if they're ghosts.

Even the man in front of him, he can't see his eyes, his hair is only a vague impression, he might be wearing a military uniform, but it's nothing solid. All Ken can tell is that his expression is pained, bloodspattered, and he's crying the desperate tears of someone who knows perfectly well he's about to die horribly. He's pinned, like an insect to a board, arrows through his arms and legs and hopelessly tangled in the web of bloody razor-sharp wire digging into his flesh. The air reeks of blood and his fear.

That's not what's about to kill him.

What's about to kill him is the sawed-off shotgun Ken has shoved practically down his throat, so far he's drooling around it uncontrollably, muffling his pleas for mercy into something garbled and unintelligible.

'Akira. This is your revenge.'

Who Akira is, he doesn't recall. He just knows, viscerally, with absolute certainty, that this person whose name or face he doesn't recall deserves every single ounce of the buckshot Ken's about to empty into his skull.

He feels his lips curling upward, baring teeth in a razor-sharp smile as his finger tightens on the trigger. The roar of the gun in his ears is almost deafening, the smell of gunpowder, lead, and blood overwhelming from so close.

He can remember the blood and fragments of bone and brain matter splattering his face, the weight of the shotgun as his arm falls to the side, the terrified shrieking of a young girl somewhere behind him.

What he doesn't remember is feeling a single shred of guilt about it.]

------

[He still doesn't feel guilty when he wakes up, the memory clearly and undeniably etched into his mind, so deeply he knows it's true.

He doesn't know why he made some fucker deepthroat a shotgun, but hey, if his memory's to be trusted he deserved it. So, Ken doesn't feel bad. At all.

But he needs time to parse it nonetheless. He'd already figured whatever he'd done in life, it had been violent, after all he knew how to fight, where to strike the human body to cause the most damage with his bare fists. He was pretty sure he knew how to work a gun, and well...he'd just gotten proof of that.

But he was the shinki of the goddess of god damn flower crowns, not the patron god of violent homicide.

So, he goes to the city. He finds some drunk fuck with a nice motorcycle parked in the alley about ready to lay into his girlfriend and descends on them like the wrath of god, and he doesn't even feel bad about that. He'd been about to hit her, she'd been crying, begging him to stop, no one else paying attention--what else was he around for?

She had run the second Ken had dropped her shitty boyfriend, heels discarded so she could get away, and hopefully she wouldn't come crawling back to him.]

First off, you shouldn't hit your girl, and second, you shouldn't fucking drive drunk you piece of shit. You're gonna fucking kill someone.

[Ken punctuates his last word with a kick to the guy's kidney, not that he's conscious to hear it, and steals his jacket, wallet, helmet, and the keys to his bike.

An hour later he's outside of town, opening up the engine as fast as he can push it up into the mountains, until he finds a clearing of wildflowers overlooking the road below and makes a sudden decision to stop.]

Threaded | Flat

[Hibari wanders to get alone and away from people, and often found himself in strange out of the way places in both the city and surrounding countryside. This time was no different, except the spot he was haunting had been invaded by another person.

Or he assumed there was, because why else would a motorcycle be sitting by the side of the road? Its owner probably just stepped off for a bit or whatever; Hibari didn't really care. It was a very nice bike...expensive and in good condition, if a bit dusty from being driven here.

Why he knew how to drive one despite being so young he didn't know and didn't really care, he just really wanted one. It would make getting around a whole lot easier.

That is, if the person who owned the bike didn't walk in on a teenager attempting to steal it from him.]

[Further down the slope, Youji hears the motorcycle stop and looks up.

He takes a general survey of the bike, which starts and ends with 'where the hell did that come from?' and... well, he doesn't really care much beyond that. He briefly considers throwing something at Ken to catch his attention, but there's nothing to throw and something is... edged, sharp somehow, and he doesn't want those sharp edges stuck in his back when he turns back around.

So he tosses aside the sketch book he wasn't using and walks slowly up to where Ken is... wondering.]

[Schuldig's out being his usual creepy self, as far from his temple as possible. With Crawford around, it's got him thinking about Tot again, so teleporting near her temple is a good option.

He doesn't necessarily plan to run into Ken as a result, but it's to be expected, and Schuldig can feel the shift in focus from the last time he saw Ken.]

Woah, someone's in a bad mood.

[He keeps walking towards Ken anyway.]

Run into an ayakashi or something?

[Omi first spots Ken in the city intervening on behalf of the girl under attack. He almost calls out, but something holds him back. There's something unsettling here, and that concern only deepens as he watches from a distance as Ken mugs the guy and rides off with a bike that doesn't belong to him.

Omi follows him through teleportation-- partly out of curiosity and partly out of worry. And when Ken finally stops at the field of flowers, Omi gives him a few minutes before approaching.]

Hey, Ken... are you okay?

[Tot had been in a state for most of the day. There's a lot of energy she doesn't know what to do with. And then there was joy and pain and a whole lot of confusion on her part. Maybe if she'd thought about it, she would have realized the source and called Ken back one way or another.

All thoughts disappear once Ken walks in the door. Just looking at him the pain and all finally make sense and she's up and pulling him in to sit down immediately.]

You're not supposed to go fighting things on your own! Tot doesn't know if she has enough bandages for all of this.

[It's not easy to tell which she's more upset about - being left behind or not knowing anyone who can heal him (as far as she knows). He'd better have a good answer for everything.]

here to steal ur bike

no subject

On his way back to Antheia's temple

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late to the party