[Day: Sunday, April 23rd. Time: 2:35 p.m.] [Weather: Snowing lightly.] [You're at a cafe, meeting with Soichirou and his two flunkies: Megan and some other girl. The conversation is really at a standstill. God, what a standstill. Oh, Katie can come in whenever.] [Start!] * Taki was the last one to speak and is waiting for either a reply or to be ignored. * Satoshi is keeping ready in case this gets nasty. [Souichirou sips tea. Mmm, tea.] * Kyon signals for a refill for his coffee, and waits for Souichirou to respond. * Kaede watches the whole situation impassively. * Katie opens the door to the cafe and steps in, standing by the door and looking at the lot of them. * Taki turns to look at Katie and spends a moment trying to figure out wich one this is. Scar? Slightly crazed look? * Kyon looks back and smirks. "Running late." He gestures curtly at the seat next to him, and doesn't bother really checking who this one is. * Katie has a scar on her throat and no crazed look. "" She walks in and has a seat next to Kyon. [Souichirou sighs. "You always have to make things so difficult."] * Kyon shrugs tersely, turning the smirk on Souichirou. "Just the way I am. You know." It takes two to truly make it that way anyway. * Satoshi looks a bit pensive. [Souichirou's smirk is turned? "Yeah, I do. This is pretty pointless. Neither one of us is going to give any ground."] d2 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Brett (d2) and gets a natural 1 for a result of 1. (Kyon gets 7 smirk turning attempts per day) What happens if the ritual is performed incorrectly? (I'm going to guess, everybody dies!0 (The World dies.) [He shrugs. "Nobody told us." Then he sips tea, and says, "I'm going to guess, everybody dies."] (We've been misreading the prophesy all this time.) (/me snickers) (That'd be AWESOME.) (It would be.) Makes sense. * Kyon shakes his head bemusedly. "That's the answer to all the questions." What? Everybody dies or nobody told us? Both. That's what I thought. * Kyon looks coolly at Souichirou. "Right. So you're not giving us yours. And we're not giving you ours. Any chance at cooperation?" [He shifts in his seat. "Here's the problem. You need all of the artifacts to perform the ritual. Neither of us has all of the artifacts, because neither side trusts the other."] I wonder why. [He nods at Katie. "See?"] We have never had a reason to trust you. * Katie glares at Souichirou. "And every reason not to." ["Neither have we."] And if we don't find a way to compromise, everybody dies. Hey, it really is the answer to everything. [Souichirou glares back at Katie. "Yeah..." Suddenly, his face changes. His hair grows long and unkempt, and burn marks cover his flesh. "Tell me about it."] * Satoshi glances over to Katie and the over to Kyon. He then looks immediately to Souichirou and gasps. [It only lasts for a second before it reverts.] * Katie twitches, but she doesn't jump up and slit Souichirou's throat, so it's all good so far. * Taki rubs at the side of her faces and take a sip of tea. [The tea does not explode.] [Neither does the restaurant.] * Kyon narrows his eyes, and stays quiet for a second. "You could have fixed that." * Satoshi nods. "We have ways of healing." (Nice come on, Satoshi.) (Actually, I think only Akemi has ways of sexual healing.) (And that's EP) ["How? Plastic surgery? It'd bankrupt my parents. They don't deserve that. Or do you mean the Cup? Should I put someone's life in danger to fix my looks? I don't think so."] * Satoshi 's tone is fairly cold. "Well, assuming Haruko isn't powerful enough, one of us could use the cup. If you'd then cooperate. Our lives after all." * Kyon shakes his head irritatedly. "And if you want to avoid magic, we'd have financed it. Arisugawa does well." ["The damage is extensive. It would take close to a million US dollars to fix. You don't do that well."] And the cup? It's a little late to get pious about our lives. * Katie says flatly, "It's a little late for him to be pious at all, but I'm glad for the change." * Satoshi nods at Katie's refinement. [He shrugs. "If you want to try, you're welcome to. But I'm not bargaining our allegiance on that."] How did you change like that? * Satoshi glances over at Katie, looking a tad worried. ["It's a secret."] * Kyon looks sidewise at Katie, then turns back and shrugs quickly. "Don't think you could bargain it now. Your subordinates wouldn't let you." * Katie smiles at Souichirou. * Satoshi shudders. ["Well, then I guess we're done here."] * Kyon shrugs quickly. "You could just give in. Make everything easier for everyone." ["Or you could."] * Kyon smirks, and gestures curtly at Katie. "Even if I wanted to, don't think she'd ever give you the Sword." You harbor the one that did this to her intentionaly, why would we trust you to save us? [Souichirou finishes up his tea. "So... yeah, we're done."] * Kyon shrugs quickly. "Your call. But sounds like you're not changing your mind." I have another question. * Satoshi looks on edge. I wonder why. You did this to me. You and your friends. Why? * Satoshi actually calms a bit and looks at Souichirou. Katie deserves an answer to that one. * Kaede gets quiet and pensive. * Taki takes a sip of tea. * Kyon closes his eyes for a few seconds, then opens them again and looks down towards Katie. * Katie is just gazing at Souichirou. She doesn't *look* like she's going to kill him. [Session end for now.]