[OPEN] Well, look what the cat dragged in.

[canofworms]

Characters: Kariya Matou [AU4] & ALL THE PEOPLE
Setting: Dorms, Various Floors, Choose Your Own Adventure
Format: Any!
Summary: +1 flailing bug magus. Does it count if 'he' is already here?
Warnings: Fate/BUGS


This man, wherever you meet him, may look just the littlest bit familiar. Maybe it's in the hair, or the slightly gloomy look on his face, or even the rumpled turtleneck he's wearing.

Not many will recognize him as the Matou he is, though, unless he has his insect familiars out. His hair and eye (the working one) are a deep purple, and the prana rolling off him in warning waves is no longer a hallmark of the clan.

Now who could this be?



[Dormitory Floor: Room 1-16]

[Hey, folks, you may or may not have an extra body in here. Don't worry, it's wiggling and quite lively.

Click.

If not for the minor commotion of him going through his trunk, you probably wouldn't notice he's here; his clothes and hair are dark enough that he gets lost in the shadows quite easily. The slant of his shoulders is wary. There's a metallic glint in his hands.

Nothing to see here: just a magus loading a handgun.

(Unless that's a nice bulky camera in his hands, but in that case he's just taking a picture of the wall. So productive!)]



[F1: Cafeteria]

[New arrivals season! There are like a million of them here making faces at their oatmeal. You could probably fill an album with the variety. Maybe decorate each floor of the Tower with a different expression of disgust.

This guy would make a pretty boring picture, though, since he's sitting there with absolutely no trace of feeling on his face as he mechanically brings the spoon to his mouth. In fact, his eyes are closed.

Is he sleep-eating or just trying to find a safe space away from the mush??]



[F20: Outside]

[It's fairly chilly out here, but the thin shadow of a man standing about halfway up the ramp, carelessly at the very edge, doesn't seem to notice. He's strangely silhouetted, staring expressionlessly over the edge.

If you come in close enough, you'll realize that those strange irregularities and bumps in his figure are actually countless large, skeletal, demon-eyed insects perched on his shoulders and arms, crawling clumsily in their attempt to keep their foothold in the wind.

Every now and then, he'll raise a hand, and one or two of them will obediently go walking off into the air. They go plummeting downwards until not a trace is left, and leave him looking a little more frustrated each time.

In the meantime, that shadow in the fog behind him may or may not be something sneaking up on him. Or your eyes are just playing tricks on you.]



[F??: Choose Your Own Adventure]

[Any floor, any time, any bug flavor!

There's a rather surly-looking guy pacing up and down the place, muttering angrily to himself and occasionally raising a hand to swat at the two Blade Wing Worms buzzing along behind him whenever they hover in too close.

It's a little hard to tell whether the familiars are actually worried about their master or just trying to get close enough to chomp on his hair.]

If you're not going to make yourselves useful, go chew on each other or something. I don't care.

Comments

[canofworms]

[The smile fades off his face as he looks over Lancer again, his eye sharper this time, catching at all the little things that are wrong. He can't quite catalog all of them, but...]

I haven't changed much in the last ten years. You've changed a few things since I saw you yesterday.

[Actually, he doesn't know how long it's been -- it's a little tricky to determine when you suddenly wake up in a tower surrounded by creatures and energies you don't remotely understand.]

[puppy_lancer]

I haven't changed anything.

...But why are you bringing up the "last ten years?"

[Was this yet another fucked up experiment?]

[canofworms]

As a point of comparison. [He suddenly looks a little sheepish.] But it's also true you haven't been around for ten years.

[This time he does tug his fingers through his hair with a sigh. It displaces a few Worms, and with an irritated gesture he somehow causes all of them to plop to the floor at once, where they crawl around rather pitifully at his feet.]

No, I don't know. We know each other, but nothing else matches up. [He hesitates.] You are Cú Chulainn?

[puppy_lancer]

...How the fuck do you know that?

[He never told Kariya his identity. Not to his memory, at least. Perhaps Diarmuid had told him, or Kariya remembered it from the experiment in January.]

[canofworms]

[He's a little taken aback by the violent reaction (not literally, because there's kind of a drop behind him), even if he'd been braced for something like it.

There's a bit of a pause, and then Kariya smiles crookedly.]

That answers it. You're probably the same, but not the same. [That's the way Servants go. They can figure out the gaps in their mutual acquaintance from there.] I learned it in the Fifth Holy Grail War.

[puppy_lancer]

...Fifth.

[He restates the word. Be it ten years in the future or sixty, he can't see Kariya living to see a second Grail War. Not the Kariya he knows anyways.]

[But this Kariya looks decently healthy despite having seen two Grail War.]

Something tells me that's what happened to you too. Same, but not the same.

[canofworms]

Yes, the Fifth.

[The word is imbued with a resigned sort of frustration -- this Lancer might not understand his preoccupation with it, but he doesn't understand the way the Servant responds to it, either. This is going to be a long, long day.]

If that's true, this becomes a little more complicated. [Or perhaps it's just his wishful thinking, that the Second Magic would do something useful for once.] How do you know me, Lancer?

[puppy_lancer]

I met you in this Tower, duh. Back during...November, I think?

[canofworms]

'The other me'.

[He's avoided thinking about him, because it isn't helpful to his staying calm or dealing with the Tower in a reasonable way. Of course, it's hard to avoid someone who shares your name and magic, especially with Servants on the loose.

He's silent for a moment, walking around Lancer to lean on the outside of the Tower.]

So I wasn't in your version of the War at all.

[puppy_lancer]

[And yep. This is the second Kariya in the Tower.]

No, you weren't. A lot of people here weren't.

[Same fifth war, mostly different players.]

[canofworms]

I haven't found someone from mine, either.

[It's quiet, maybe a little sympathetic, but to be frank he's not sure whether it's a good or a bad thing that he hasn't seen anyone truly familiar here.

It would at least help ease that tiny nagging question in his chest about whether the world as he knows it is still there.]

[puppy_lancer]

There used to be someone from my war here. She's...not here anymore.

[His voice cracks just a little as he says this.]

...And I don't know if she's from your Grail War, but Rin is here.

[canofworms]

[It takes him a few, contemplative moments after that to speak up.]

I know about Rin. [She's not from his War; she could never be. He doesn't want to talk about it just now -- it's raw, he doesn't know what to make of it.] The one who left... your Master?

[For the moment, he sees no other explanation. The Lancer of his War, being Kirei's, didn't have so many chances to form attachments.]

[puppy_lancer]

Yeah, she was my Master.

[Kinda obvious, wasn't it? For some who held loyalty is such great esteem, there was nothing more devastating than knowing he had failed to save his Master.]

...She was a good Master.

[canofworms]

I'm sorry. You must have wanted to return with her.

[For a Master to be sent back without her Servant... Well, he still believes wholeheartedly that they'll all be returned to where they were. The Matou denial is strong.]

It seems you're luckier with your Master than the Lancer of my Grail War, though.

[puppy_lancer]

...Pretty much.

[Even if the two of them had to drift alone in a wasteland, he would have wanted to continue protecting her.]

I was lucky with all my Masters. What happened to your Lancer?

[canofworms]

Do you know a priest named Kirei Kotomine?

[No use presuming at this point, though his War and other Wars have had a number of things in common; not everyone seems to have crossed paths in the same way.]

[puppy_lancer]

Never heard of him.

...Can't be that bad if he's a priest, though.

[canofworms]

[There's a low noise that doesn't quite make itself audible over the faint crackling and humming sounds of the Worms still on the ground. Eventually, though, it grows, keeps growing -- it's laughter, wild and more than a little sharp.

Kariya keeps laughing until he's bent over gasping for breath, hands on his knees.]

Ahh, he was very good at that. He was so good at 'being a priest' that sometimes he praised himself. [There's something dark and ugly in his voice, but he's speaking at the Worms.] Just count yourself lucky you weren't his. That's all I'll say.

[He straightens after a moment.]

What you want now is to leave the Tower, then?

[puppy_lancer]

[He shrugs.]

Then it sounded like he was a huge stiff. How'd I end up with a Master like that?

[He shakes his head.]

I don't know. I don't really have much back in my world. Even if I did go back and help that little lady...

[He trails off. Back in their original world, his and Ayaka's contract would be over the second that she took Saber back.]

[canofworms]

Luck of the draw.

[His tone is light this time, carefully dismissing the topic for the moment. It hasn't escaped his notice that Kirei, as one of the participants in both Holy Grail Wars, has a substantial chance of coming here. Whichever version of him it is.

He can worry about that later.]

This place does seem the better choice for Servants, if you can stomach it. [There might be an amused edge to that.] I don't envy you.

[puppy_lancer]

...Or maybe I was just too lucky in this life and this world. All the bad stuff had to go somewhere.

[Half joking, and half genuine self-mockery.]

Why not? I pretty much get to do what I want without worrying about prana, and I've made some great friends here.

[The original universe Kariya included.]

[canofworms]

[It's a moment before he laughs again, quietly -- it's a little more pleasant this time, at least.]

... You might be right. What an optimistic Servant.

[And a beat, then--]

You're okay with being collared?

[puppy_lancer]

[He runs his fingers along his collar.]

...Not that different from what I was wearing back home.

[It had been his catalyst--the collar of Culann. A special torc (or rather a dog collar) given to him when he had first taken on his role as Culan's hound.]

[canofworms]

[He stares for a moment before shaking his head.]

I admit defeat. Who am I to stand between a Servant and his home?

[The fact that he's willing to push, and almost to tease -- that might still be because of the resemblance. The human faculty of 'sight' is such a funny and fallible thing.]