Two Men Lacking Appointments

Participants:

cardinal_icon.gif magnes_icon.gif kaito_icon.gif

Scene Title Two Men Lacking Appointments
Synopsis Magnes bursts into Kaito Nakamura's office to tell him the Formula is in danger. Little does he know, that danger follows in his shadow… and the fate of the world falls into the wrong hands. Or are they?
Date May 19, 2009

Kaito Nakamura's Office


Afternoon, and Magnes has immediately left the Nakamura owned private dojo to inform Kaito that someone is trying to steal the formula. Unfortunately for Cardinal, possibly hiding in Magnes' shoe, this ride is more rough than normal. He's jumping across the city, without his skates, which is not the most graceful thing ever.

There's a run, then a jump, and finally a landing where he stumbles slightly. This happens repeatedly, but at least he's not completely dependant on the skates anymore. After about thirty minutes, they finally make it to the Nakamura building, and Magnes walks down the side of it, looking into windows until he finally finds Kaito. "Mister Nakamura!" he starts trying to call out through the storm glass, hunching down to rapidly knock on the window.

It's particularly dark beneath Magnes's foot. This is because there's a stowaway shadow clinging there - not minding the rough ride, after all, it's not as if he has bones to rattle or muscle to bruise. Merely an energyform of dubious nature and origin with a sentience that has a very specific goal in mind.

Good old Magnes, Richard Cardinal muses to himself, I can always rely on you to leap to be the hero…

Kaito is at his desk when foot steps make the glass vibrate in its reinforced panes, the elderly CEO lifting his head from where he had been writing in neat script onto a clean pad of paper, the computer off to the side with a Yamagato Industries screensaver scrolling across the flat plane of the monitor.

For a man his age, getting up from his stiff-backed office chair in one smooth movement is almost surprisingly graceful, his eyes wide and expression severe. Luckily for Cardinal, the slightly darker tint of shadow is the least of Kaito's worries. There's a moment of simply staring, until Kaito's hand moves to press a button. No security comes running in, no ninjas fall from the ceiling, but the window does abruptly vibrate beneath Magnes's feet, and starts to slowly slide up with barely even a sound.

Kaito is turning his back on the large, opening window, his hand moving towards the ornamental sword sheathed on his desk.

Magnes starts to run in place on the window, trying not to get pulled up with it, then he falls //into/ the building before promptly switching gravity back to normal and simply falling to the floor. "Ugh…" he groans in pain, starting to stand again. "Mister Nakamura! I have a message for you."

He takes a deep breath, stands up straight, looking very serious. "This guy, someone who's kinda trustworthy, well, sort of, he says to tell you that someone is trying to steal the formula, and that you'll know what it means." Because he sure doesn't.

The sword slices the air as if Kaito were attempting to cut Magnes' last word in half, a smooth arc that has the point of the slender weapon angled somewhere at the young man's throat. English words filter in through Kaito's well-practiced vocabulary, but it doesn't seem to ease the sternness from his face or the tension in his shoulders, the firm grip on the hilt of the pointed weapon.

"You were sent here? By who."

Magnes swallows hard, staring down at the sword and not moving an inch. "U-uh, I was sent by a guy named Cardinal, or something like that. I'm staying with Hiro and Kimiko right now, but for some reason Cardinal is in Japan, and I saw him in one of your private dojos I was training in." He completely spills the beans, because, it can't hurt to tell Kaito, right? He's on our side, and Adam could be lying about all that Company stuff…

An unfamiliar face speaking an unfamiliar name means that Kaito's sword doesn't budge, not that it would anyway. Especially on this subject matter. "The formula," he repeats, his voice a guttural growl, accent makes his words come harshly and clipped. Slowly, Kaito turns back to look at the opened window, then back at Magnes, judgmental before the sword is withdrawn in a smooth, expert movement.

"It means nothing," he states. "I protect a great many things but it seems your trustworthy stranger is mistaken." His back turns to Magnes as he steps back towards his desk, easing the sword back into the sheath, movements efficient, almost impatient.

Their eyes are on the windows, the sword, one another…

…the shadow sees his chance. A slither along the fall of another shadow near the gravity-manipulator's foot, flowing through it, sliding in a barely-discernable sweep across the floor to slip into Kaito's own shadow and conceal himself within it. No more noticable than the shadow of a bird flying past.

"O-oh, sorry about that." Magnes says with a sigh of relief when the sword is withdrawn, slowly walking to the window. "He said it was important, that the fate of the world depended on it, so I didn't wanna screw up and not tell you. Um, while I'm here, can I ask a question?" He stops just short of the window, a few things suddenly popping into the back of his head.

Kaito's back straightens as Magnes makes his leave, rounding back towards his desk and placing his hand on the back of the chair, pausing when the young man speaks up again. Shifting demon shadows, these things go unnoticed. There's a long pause, wherein it seems the older man is tempted to just force the gravity manipulator to go sans question, but he briskly he gives his consent with an affirmative, "Hai."

There's a deep shiver and a sudden jerk of Magnes' entire body when Kaito addresses him, and he continues on in an increasingly uneasy manner. "U-uh, I um, I was wondering, Sir, Sama, uh, I'm not sure what to call you. But, do you know anything about the Company, and Adam Monroe?"

Not entirely the question he was expecting, if the silence that follows it is to be of any indication. Kaito squares his shoulders, looking passed Magnes briefly, then back to him. "One is a danger to the other, and both are dangerous to the rest of the world," he says, simply. "If you know their names, you will be wise enough to know to stay away. The rest… is history."

He extends a hand and presses the same button as before, the window starting its slow trek downwards into place. "And will not be shared without an appointment," Kaito adds, a grunt in his voice, and dismissal in the wave of his hand.

"S-sorry Sir! And I'll remember." Magnes runs for the window, then just leaps out, not wanting to imagine what kind of trouble he'll get into if he stays in there until the window closes. What happens when he jumps out? It's hard to say, but he certainly doesn't hit the ground.

As the window seals in place, and promptly tints to disguise him from the rest of the world, Kaito's mouth draws into a thin line, watching the window as if he were expecting more guests to drop by. Veins stand out in the backs of his hands, clenched in a tension he was not aware he was holding onto before he forces relaxation back into place.

But he doesn't sit down. Instead, he picks up a disk, and also a small grey remote control device placed by his computer, one with a singular button on its center. This is pressed, and with a hiss, a compartment of the wall slides apart, a deconstruction of architecture that moves as smoothly as if it were organic. The safe is small, secure, and has no visible lock.

Foot steps sound out in the office and Kaito presses his thumb against the console, an affirmative beep heralding the safe's opening.

The office is private, secure; windows tinted to darkness to hide prying eyes, and untold electronic countermeasures against spying, no doubt. This is the heart of Kaito Nakamura's empire, and he has every reason to believe that he's protected from all enemies here.

Save, of course, those who are already inside.

The shadow slithers up the man's back, nothing more than something unseen between his back and the light where his eyes can't see, a thread of darkness curling to his collar to watch as the safe is opened. Remote control. Thumb-print identification. Fancy.

What's inside is almost banal in comparison. Mail. The packaged letter is that mustard sort of yellow these things come on, a thick envelope that Kaito extracts if only to hold it in his hand for a moment. To make sure it's still there. There's a fine film of dust settled on it, his fingers smearing through before the envelope is replaced back inside. Far more sleek and modern is the disc case, black and featureless, that he places just beside it.

With a press of a button, the legacies of his peers, the legacies of history as well as the future, are closed off to prying eyes unknown with a hiss of metal.

Bingo.

The shadow slips away from the older man, flickering over the floor to curl beneath the desk. All that remains is to wait for privacy, now. His target's located, he's in position… of course, this next part is the dangerous one. Shadow is nearly invincible. Flesh and blood can die, and flesh and blood is needed to open a safe and lay his hands on the item.

Cardinal is joined by Kaito's shining shoes when the man sits himself back down at his slick desk, and resumes writing without even a hesitation. Phonecalls are made, some in rapid fire Japanese and others even in English - things of little consequence, all business, day-to-day moving of money, of the stock market, of events.

For hours, and only when the untouched computer is powered down for the evening and the sun sinks low enough to make city shadows long, does it appear as though the office will be left to the devices of others, whether Kaito wants it or not. He doesn't spare a glance back to the safe now secured and hidden in the wall, or anything so sentimental.

He simply picks up his coat, his briefcase, and leaves the room flooded with enough darkness that Cardinal could have a field day.

If there's one thing that Richard Cardinal has learned over the years, it's patience.

The patience of waiting for a mark to move into the right position, for a tenant to leave just the right window open before they leave. The patience of a prison cell, with nothing to do but pace and think.

The hours leave the shadowman with plenty of time to consider how best to pull this job off. Left to his own designs, he could work a long-term angle, acquire a thumb print, transfer it to latex… but, no, there's a timetable here, and he's got business back in New York to deal with. This'll have to be done the quick and dirty way.

An hour is counted out after Kaito Nakamura has left, and then in the darkness rises a masculine figure that emerges from the shadows themselves. The lack of lighting hinders him none as he reaches over to tap the remote control, as he paces near-silently across the room to where the safe's seemingly uncrackable facade sits awaiting a thumb-print identification for access.

The best things in life are free. For everything else, there's Semtex-A.

A line of orange plastique lines the edges of the safe door in short order, the detonator pushed into the mass before he steps back and out of the way, turning his back on the safe.

Three. Two. One. The hinges and door are obscured in a sudden flash of light and crack of sound as the explosives do their work.

Well, that probably triggered an alarm.

It triggered several. There's a mournful, piercing wail that comes from somewhere that sounds just over Cardinal's head, and other distant echoes of the sound vibrate through the walls. It only takes for the sounds of footsteps come like thunder down the hallways of the upper echelons of the Yamagato building. Someone yells out in Japanese, an order of some kind, and unfortunately— it only takes second for the fate of the world to fall into the wrong hands too.

Are they the wrong hands? It remains to be seen. History, after all, is judged by the victor.

The door's pulled free, crashing to the ground with a heavy clatter. A gloved hand darts into the safe, brushing past the glossy plastic of the disk case and closing about the dusty envelope, drawing it free of the confines of the once-secure safe.

"Sorry, Nakamura," Richard whispers under his breath as he feels the rough mustard-yellow paper in his hand, "If it wasn't me, it would've been someone else."

Three seconds, it takes, for flesh to subsume to shadow, for the thief to cease to exist, taking the envelope with him. It won't take too much longer than that to slip out of the office, and begin working his way through the chaos of the security alert to escape.

The door slams open, flooding the place with light from the corridor until some quick-thinking individual throws out a hand to slap the light switch, but by then— well, how fast do shadows move? And no one is looking at their feet. Uniformed security guards and a young man in a primly tailored suit, one Haru Hidaeki, all swarm inside the spacious confines of Kaito Nakamura's office, guns pointed at nothing until two break from the back and move towards the ruined desk, reporting what they find— or don't find.

The young businessman takes a few long strides over, holding out a hand. "«Get away from Mr. Nakamura's private safe!»" Haru orders, harshly, and security falls back as he takes out a phone, and with hesitant fingers, he dials a number, turning away from the mess, eyes landing on the sheathed sword on the desk as he presses the phone to his ear.

"«Mr. Nakamura? Something has happened.»"


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