界王和 - Medical Cabinet

Medical Cabinet:

TWC: 1,111:

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Nothing in the void but a shining golden eye, and Kai was beholden to its searing gaze. At first he thought he took that card because he was interested in the game he witnessed and wanted to learn how to play it himself. Now he didn’t know why he had it, it felt hot to the touch and weirdly invasive, like Kai had brought the traitorous sun in his pocket to spy on his every move. Along his walk to the bulletin  board for his next job, because what else was he going to do with his time, he thought he saw certain things amongst the flickering night lights of the Hot Springs Village. Whatever these things were, Kai would meet them with disdain rather than the usual awe or fright at the sight of impossible things, for he had been witness to worse.

At the board was an overhead where among a few living souls, the apparitions appeared as vaguely human but completely transparent shapes that were still able to cast a shadow. It was when Kai stepped into the shadow of one of the images to read about a mission about missing medicine that the apparition seemed to take notice of his presence. His eyes were on the paper ahead of him but whispers began to bubble from beneath, and rather than fight it Kai simply took the paper off the board and pocketed it so he could give the whispers his full attention. Among the hushes and the gasps, the moans, groans, rattles of shackles, he was able to make out one word being repeated to him over and over again; ‘Eye.’

”I fucking know about eyes, dipshit.” Kai said out loud, either unaware or uncaring of passersby, as if it should be common knowledge that Kai had extensive knowledge about eyes, their symbolism, and how the card made him feel. He turned and walked off, taking the paper out of his pocket and unfurling it so he could finally get a grasp on what he was going to do next. Evidently some jackass was going around invading people’s homes and stealing from their medicine cabinet. Simple enough, Kai would do a stakeout and confront the thief when they got to their hideout.

”What if they need it for their sick ones?” a voice from behind him whispered, the sound of which caused Kai to tense up whatever threads made up his neck in response, like he heard something disgusting.

”Then they should have done it quietly.” Kai replied coolly and sternly. What patience he had for his opponents would quickly evaporate depending on how sloppy they were, and either you do this kind of thing on purpose, or because you don’t know any better.

Kai found purchase among branches in a tree top looking over a house neighboring one of the other hit houses. This would be his first time taking a job where he had to actually take someone down and bring them in. He felt as if he skipped a few steps and went back to walk the path of a shinobi in a shuffled order. Kai first got his feet truly wet in this business when he took his first life in the Golden Games, spurned on by some sense of self-satisfaction. It didn’t have to come to that today, however, Kai had other means of taking people down and some of them didn’t even involve bleeding them dry! There were a few plans that still had some blood, so he still had to work on those--

*CLICK*

The groaning of a window opening soon followed and Kai’s attention fell not too far behind, gazing out to see who was intruding where. Right below him he saw a vague human shadow crawling through the window and into the house below. Good, his mark did the courtesy of showing up at a reasonable hour. When the shadow crawled back out and headed into the surrounding trees was when Kai would carefully navigate the tree tops overhead. Further along Kai followed this thief through the wilderness until they came upon an area that looked like a river that had dried up only a few years ago and had been filled with rocks in the meantime. Along this rock river was where his mark would move to a certain pile of rocks and begin removing them, revealing a cave he must have found.

The darkness was settling in but his mark had a light, and it was enough for Kai to look at a man whose face was full of fear, regret, such shameful emotions. This was certainly not a man who was doing this because he wanted to, maybe someone in there was coercing them? The man went inside his cave, notably not putting the rocks back up behind him, perhaps no coercion? Puzzling. Kai decided to wait a minute before approaching the entrance himself to try to see what lay within. The pathway zigged and zagged too much for him to see anything from outside, so he armed himself with his tanto and carefully made his way inside.

As Kai made his way inside he came to find the man hunched over what seemed like someone lying in a makeshift bed on the ground, both in front of a shrine, maybe to Jashin? It was obvious what was going on now, though what could have been a tender display of recklessness was spoiled by a smell Kai recognized and a sight that punctured him with fear. Above them was a spread display of tattered golden robes, familiar robes worn by someone Kai knew before, and below them was the smell of death coming from the body on the ground. Kai put his tanto away and knocked on the rock, causing the thief to stiffen as he stopped applying the medicine to his dead companion.

”I’m sorry man, they found you out and twisted my arm. I know you’re not doing anything really wrong here but that medicine is not for you.” he walked forward slowly and managed to put a hand on his shoulder. He could feel him shaking.

”I just didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t know I couldn’t be alone like this.” his voice was broken and cold, tears falling from his wet face and onto his companion below. Looking at him he had only died a couple days ago, though, of what Kai wasn’t sure of. Kai eventually managed to take the man out of the cave and to the station for the help he needed.

Kaiowa wrote:

Medical Cabinet:

TWC: 1,111:

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Approved!