I Hate Sand (Closed training Yoko)

[Yoko Kusanagi]

Abaddon seemed to be under the false impression that it was easy for Yoko to make a good impression on the reporters, and that had bugged her a bit. Maybe it simply wasn’t an issue for him. He was a tall charismatic man. He commanded respect by existing. Besides that, he had a talent for saying what people wanted to hear. Well, he at least seemed to have that when it came to the guests that had been at the fundraiser. Yoko enjoyed none of those advantages. She had made it seem like it took effort because, despite her reputation, she knew that people would be less likely to believe her if she made things look too easy. Stupid gender roles were always keeping her down.

The rest of his comments, at least before they got outside, mostly got ignored. While she didn’t mind the idea of praise, or his disappointment in the evening, she also didn’t care one way or the other about either. Once they were outside, and clear of line of first responders and reporters, Abaddon approached her again. Apparently he wasn’t done with her yet, even though she thought their involvement with each other had ended when the last corpse hit the ground. Oh well. She could play ball a bit more. It could be a valuable chance to get some useful information out of him if nothing else. Initially she listened to him only because of that motive.

He spoke with disdain for the “elites” as he put it. This was the first thing he had said that they truly agreed about. Abaddon was back up to something like negative five points in Yoko’s book, but quickly dropped back down to negative six when he offered her the coat off his back. She rolled her eyes, sighed, and gave him the same kind of look she’d give a two year old that kept trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. ”I appreciate that you are attempting to be a gentleman. Please understand that I have never wanted to be treated that way. I am a warrior, not a princess. Please remember that in the future.”

It was rare that she had to be so blunt with someone. Part of her actually felt bad about it, but he had continued to get on her nerves. Honestly, it wasn’t really through any fault of his own. He had good intentions, he just had no idea how to read Yoko at all. What Abaddon would observe next might peak his interest though. He had been right that it had been cold out, and Yoko certainly wasn’t dressed for the weather, but she was also a Fullbringer. Even one as spiritually weak as she was could handle something like creating a cushion of warmed air around her with a use of Soul Command. Much more pleasant than a jacket in her mind.

Abaddon began to leave, but beckoned for Yoko to follow him. Begrudgingly she did so. Not because she wanted to, but for the same reason as earlier. The possibility of gaining intel. He asked her why the Vandenreich might have come after her, or Uzaki Enterprises, and she saw no benefit to hiding the truth. ”Some of our other members have battled with them on a number of occasions. Given that I’m the face of the spiritual side of things lately, it makes plenty of sense to try and send a message by killing me. They really should have picked someone weaker on our side to start with first, or just sent a general. I didn’t see any brass on their leader’s uniform, but it certainly wasn’t enough.”

As they continued to walk, Yoko stopped a moment to rip off her heels. God she hated those things. ”So tell me, oh great benefactor of the arts, what will you do now? You’ve seen who I am and what I stand for. You know that we share mutual enemies. And you probably know that I’m not even the strongest person in Uzaki Enterprises. Would you join with us in alliance against foes like the Vandenreich, or do you still see us as no more than a possible future threat?” Given her overall attitude towards him as a person, she wasn’t too keen on the idea of working with him, but Abaddon seemed to have knowledge and resources that Uzaki Enterprises lacked. He could be a valuable asset for that reason. And it wasn’t like they had nothing to offer. Their military might wasn’t trivial anymore. Together, they could do great things.

[Abaddon]

With the refusal of his coat Abaddon placed it back on himself and acknowledged that Yoko didn't want to be treated like a princess in her words not his. “Sorry for that Miss Kusanagi, however the way I was raised was to treat all women with respect, something that is lacking in this era.” With that out of the way Abaddon continued walking towards UE with Yoko listing to what she had to say about the Vandenreich and the knowledge that UE had about them. Then came the time that he was waiting for, she had asked him about what he thought about UE.

He stopped walking as he waited for her to deal with her heels, it was a shame that she destroyed them, it helped gap the distance in height between them. Her question sadly was a bit more complex than she knew. While he wanted to say that he would work with them, to trust someone so easily after just a night wasn't that easy, especially when there would be so many other things that he would have to keep from them until the time was right. He knew that having these secrets would cause issues between him and the rest of UE. Especially given how Yoko had been acting this night.

Taking a deep breath in he looked over at Yoko before speaking. “Sadly that answer isn't as black and white as you might think Miss Kusanagi. While I personally do like the idea of working with UE, my goal when meeting with you earlier was to determine if UE would be a threat. I can say for now your actions and goals aren't a threat.” He stopped to adjust his shirt a bit as it had become untucked in the fight earlier and it had bothered him as he was walking. While normally he would have fixed it back when he was leaving the little attack he had to make haste in doing other things that were more important, but now that he had the time he was able to fix it. 

“That however doesn't mean that I can so easily enter into an alliance with UE. Not with anything that you or UE has done, but more or less there would be things that I would have to keep from UE and I doubt that you or Mr. Uzaki would enjoy your allies keeping secrets about the nature of themselves from you.” Abaddon stopped walking for now and looked to see what Yoko would say about all of this. He was being forthright with her about the truth, he wouldn't be able to tell them everything and yet at the same time he could tell them that there was more.

“Tell me Miss Kusanagi, how old do you think that I am?” Abaddon would wait for her to answer or ignore the question. “Although I look like a man in my mid twenties Miss Kusanagi I can tell you for a fact that my date of birth is around the start of the Byzantine Empire's first golden age. As for how I've lived this long I can't tell you, however these are the sort of things that I would have to keep from all of UE. So I ask you this Miss Kusanagi can UE afoird the risk of letting someone like me a total unown as an ally.”

[Yoko Kusanagi]

Yoko listened as Abaddon continued to rattle on, talking himself up. He had an impressive amount of balls, she’d give him that. Now Yoko was no sensory type, but she’d just been in a room with the man with over a dozen dudes he could’ve taken out, and he didn’t manage to kill any of them before she did. You didn’t have to sense energy to identify a difference in power there. He continued to go on and on about how little she knew, and how she was trying to oversimplify things, but really he just liked to hear himself talk. That was what she thought of him. He was a talking head with no muscle to back it up.

The enemy of her enemy was supposed to be her friend, but it seemed that Abaddon insisted on overcomplicating things once more. She was tired of it. Her patience had already been worn through by him this night, and it was only because she couldn’t utilize gravitational pressure that the man before her was not smushed into the pavement. A look of irritation, disdain even, was plainly obvious on her face as she answered the Quincy. ”Your age is irrelevant. What matters, and what I was asking about, was whether or not I should call on you if humanity needs more heroes. I know now that I shouldn’t waste my time reaching out to you as you are today.”

This man truly had an impressive talent for pushing her buttons. He acted as if was so important, but his body didn’t seem to have the strength to save even himself. In her eyes, he was barely any different from the bankers and politicians she had fought to protect earlier. ”I’m afraid we’ll talk in circles if we continue. I had hoped that your eyes would be opened by seeing me in combat, but I know that isn’t the case now. You think you have something that makes you a risk…” in a blur of movement too fast for Abaddon to follow, Yoko moved up and behind him, with the aid of air ground to fix her height disadvantage, so that her mouth was right next to his ear.

”...but you’re only alive because you’re too weak to be a threat despite your ego. Don’t forget that.” It was with those words that she vanished, having left behind nothing but a flickering pillar of light where her feet had been. She had had enough of that man for one day. Enough for one lifetime really. She genuinely hoped that she would never see him again. Though she would save him if he would ever need it, to her, she had just dealt with another politician who thought he could use her for some ulterior purpose. That didn’t change just because he was aware of the spiritual world. If he didn’t see himself as on her side even after she probably saved his life, then he was hopeless, and she wasn’t going to waste any more time on him.

[Deleted]

Abaddon did not specify what he was training for, therefore he will be receiving CTP.

540 CTP rewarded to both participants.