Private Bloody City

[Ishida Ashina]

CORUSCANT | UNDERGROUND | SAFE HOUSE
One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light,
but by making the darkness conscious.
Dagon Kaze

A PLAYLIST FOR DAGON KAZE, XO ISHIDA
​

Coruscant's underground was riddled with grime and crime. The small, pale figure stalking briskly through the streets in a furious B-Line stood out from the shadows remarkably. Her focus was intense, straight ahead, ignoring whatever misdemeanours might have been happening in her peripherals. There was just one thing that consumed her mind now –– to be the Herald of Light and put an and to the mockery of the New Jedi Order from the actions of a repeat offender.

No matter how much redemption she might have thought possible for him after his fall to the darkside (or rather, how much Aeris Lashiec seemed to believe in him), the number of uncanny circumstances that orbited and gravitated around the black hole that was Dagon Kaze, Jedi Knight Dagon Kaze, wasn't something she could ignore anymore.

Not after confronting and almost slaughtering his Sithspawn lookalike.

A Knight. Somehow a Jedi-Karking-Knight had a Sithspawn Twin and was still allowed full access to all things within The New Jedi Order. It was irresponsible to overlook the situation. Insulting to continue sustaining this farce. The Jedi had fallen from the inside before, and she'd be damned if she didn't act on her gut and prevent that from happening again. Even if it was just through scare tactics and confrontation.

Blood would be nice, though.

Her awareness broadened several blocks out from the safe house, and the intensity of her approach scaled down to something less attention-drawing. More subtle, with the same sort of amble the locals exhibited. She couldn't shake looking like a top-sider though, there was too much refinement to her movements. Too much purpose.

Finally, she arrived. All that confounded temper boiling in her chest, making it something tight and sharp. It took her no time at all to force the door open with both curled fists. It hissed open and the girl stormed in –– eyes aflame and focused on one thing. One person. One malfeasance.

Her feet moved so quickly it was as if she was gliding over the floorplates, right up to the individual in question and poking his chest with one hand, while the hilt of her sabre, unlit, snapped to her other.

It should have filled the room with the scent of ozone, and the familiar snap-hiss of ignition, but pause tightened her muscles at the generosity of her master.

"I will give you one chance to surrender to your execution, as a favor to Arden and Asmundr. Just one."

In reflection, she growled. If he wanted her to exhibit patience, she would. Finitely.

"You have five seconds to explain what your Sithspawn twin is doing on Coruscant, Dagon Kaze."

 

[Dagon Kaze]

UNDERWORLD SAFEHOUSE,
CORUSCANT

A dozen colors illuminated the cold, off-white, and rather stained wall of the safehouse's living room slash bedroom. Pacing back and forth, hand going his locks of raven hair, scratching, thinking, frowning, sighing. A rollercoaster of facial expressions and thoughts so typical for a detective to ride on a roadblocked investigation where emotions played part. And how wouldn't they? It concerned his friends, his New Jedi Order and the closest thing he had to a family since his brother so many, many years ago.

The different colors were nothing more than holoprojections forming the mess of a holographic crime board he was working on. Weeks now since Ryv was framed for the murder of DARKCOM 's aide. Weeks he'd been trying to find the Sword, weeks he'd been trying to piece what really had happened then. Weeks of no progress. He had to defer to Bernard just like Arthur had suggested, but his Arkanian friend was as cold as ice. He would not share the same conviction that Ryv was innocent. Would he?

I don't know, man.

So many questions, so few answers, and the freshly minted Knight was certain he was going crazy at this point. So fixated on the case was he that he couldn't sense the storm coming his way. A whole different pack of problems to solve. Jedi Padawan Dagon Kaze barely had any rest, Jedi Knight Dagon Kaze had none.

Speaking of ice-veined Jedi, another one blew in like a frigid gale through the doors of the safehouse. Instincts kicked in. Not fast enough for the saber, his hand grasping the assailant's wrist - had it been a dagger, it would've surely poked his chest, not fast enough, fatigue, no sleep. The rush of cold wind brushed the tired locks of hair from his brow and pallid, grey eyes met blue. Their familiarity rolled back the instincts for a bewildered grimace at the sight of Ishida and his hand leaving hers. No similar reciprocation followed from her. She looked like an assassin determined to get his target's head.

Me?

What questions about himself formed in his mind were quickly slammed away the moment her words reached his ears.

Aeric?!

Wild-eyed, Dagon looked for any signs of his brother around as if Aeric was going to materialize from thin air, then his brain checked back in again.

Sithspawn. Kai...

He breathed in deep and exhaled a weary sigh. The sithspawn from Necropolis. He didn't want to admit it but Dagon had forgotten about him. Not deliberately, of course. At first, it was the fear of seeing the appearance of a dark sided version of himself - or rather his brother - that kept him away from Kai, then all the issues in the galaxy seemed to pile on his shoulders, and thus Kai remained somewhere beneath the stack of problems to solve.

Now Kai had sprung back on top of that pile.

Oh, brother...

At the precipice of the last second Ishida had given him, Dag's mind returned back to the white-haired Jedi before him. A mixture of her threatening demands and him going thirty-six hours with no sleep hardly helped him keep his composure.

"If you're gonna brandish your hilt like that, you better use it." the raven-haired Jedi said through a clenched jaw. He left the intensity of his tone linger in the air for a moment before adding, "Or you can come in, sit and tell me what's going on."

Dagon was already assuming what had occurred but no one came in down to his underlevels and start brandishing their own form of justice.

Especially not on him.

Ishida Ashina

 

[Ishida Ashina]

Announcing her arrival had been a generosity, one he greedily consumed by snatching up her wrist and putting inches back between them. At this proximity, observation was easy. His eyes widened, defeating the pull of exhaustion that flanked his under eyes, caught in an expression between startled and confused. Startled, she could understand. That was good.

The confusion was a little more unpredictable. How could he possibly be confused by her accusation? Sithspawn was pretty clear.

Something seemed to click, she watched it while the looseness of his eyes tightened again and the slop of his brows became more severe.

"If you're gonna brandish your hilt like that, you better use it."
"Or you can come in, sit and tell me what's going on."

Or? Or?

With clenched teeth, she mentally renegotiated the options to and.

Simultaneously, she jerked her wrist away and out from his grip, and punched the butt-end of her hilt, still so graciously unlit, into the softness of his abdomen.

"Both." Ishida sneered.

This version of Kaze didn't bleed out the evilness the other did. All she could feel from him was light. And fatigue.

"You, or someone who looks exactly like you, is eating people. And by some undeserved benevolence, Sardun gave them the option to surrender to execution, thinking it was you, and in that instant, they escaped."

Her jaw tightened, and she fixed her hilt back to her hip. And despite all the composure she usually managed, all her frustrations boiled out. He'd fallen to the Darkside, brought some sort of Sith lookalike to this world, and just generally seemed a nuisance. She wanted to accuse how dare you! But it came out as a thin, hoarse: "Who are you?" instead.

 

[Dagon Kaze]

BLOOD CITY
BORN ON A MONDAY vol. I
Issue #8 w/ Ishida Ashina

Tension. Could cut it with a knife. It was personal; he could feel it and see it in her posture and in her glare, but he could not understand it. Dagon barely knew Ishida, his knowledge limited to only know she was Sardun's apprentice. So was Kaska, and while she also solved problems head first, that's where the similarities between the two apprentices of the Jedi Crusader ended.

Dagon didn't bother throwing a glance at the hilt pushed to his stomach. He merely turned heel and headed back into the living room. Straight for the caf machine. There was no indication he would be getting sleep anytime soon. Unless Ishida stabbed him in the back and liberated him from this agony. Doubtful. If she was to use her blade, she would've already done so, he believed.

His hand opened the drawer beneath the humming caf machine and plucked in his palm three energy-boosting pills as he listened to Ishida give him a sitrep that sounded more like an indictment than anything else. Dagon was processing it all down with his coffee and pills when he nearly spat it all out at the odd question she levied at him.

He blinked, put down the mug, and faced her, "What do you mean who am I?"

"I am not eating people, Ishida, if that's what you mean." he added, unsure if that's what she was asking him, "but I do know the spawn you're talking about - his name's Kai... and he was supposedly safe and secure in the Temple." and now he was out in the open and back to his past shenanigans at the worst time of all. He flashed a tired, almost irritated glance at the holo crime board still illuminating the wall beside him. Yeah, my luck exactly.

"Not anymore, apparently."

 

[Ishida Ashina]

"No." Ishida corrected. That's not what she meant.

She meant so much more.

Who was Dagon Kaze to fall to the darkside foolishly, and not be held accountable? It made the rest of them look a fool. Who was he to bring down the library of Krayiss, to have access, and balance out Bernard's failures? Who was he to have a connection to a Sithspawn and who was he to have enough time to be confused about which Sithspawn she'd referenced.

"Who are you to bring Sithspawn into the Jedi Temple and keep them safe?

Why?"

 

[Dagon Kaze]

Frowning, he crossed his arms.

She was inquisitive.

No. Not inquisitive.

Judging.

It was drawn across her eyes. Burning embers of conviction lighting up the dull grey orbs.

"Because if there's even a small chance to save them from the dark side, I'd take it..." he narrowed his eyes, "...instead of offering them 'surrender by execution'."

A scoff.

"Cause that really worked out well." Dag shook his head, "Now it'll take me twice the time to find him and there's a thousand other things to do." his eyes naturally drifted to the holo crimeboard on the wall. The foreboding sight of the investigation drew concern on his face.

Ishida Ashina

 

[Ishida Ashina]

"Because if there's even a small chance to save them from the dark side, I'd take it..."

Kaze's insolence was astounding, and she felt her eyes narrow at him.

"Salvation from the darkside can come in a more straightforward delivery," Ishida muttered, mostly to herself while the knight prattled on about something else that demanded his attention. What else could be more important than stopping a Sithspawn? Er, redeeming a sithspawn.

"So you think you, who've fallen to the darkside before, are empathetic and strong enough to ––" she pinched her index and middle fingers together on both sides, gesturing quotation marks around her next challenge. "Save the proverbial them from the darkside? What happens if you just don't? You can't? You aren't that saviour?"

Then something clicked.

"This Kai isn't the only one..is he..?" Is that the thousands of other things Kaze had to do?

Ishida's glare flashed.

"Who else are you hiding?"

 

[Dagon Kaze]

He didn't hear what she muttered under her nose, but he did hear loud and clear the banging of the gavel in her words. Brow furrowed at her and energy to argue resurfaced from his tired shell - a trick he'd honed out of necessity to argue with Yula.

Dagon ignored her inquisitive, albeit surprisingly sharp deduction and addressed the court of Ishida which seemed to have convened in his safehouse.

"Yes, me. Exactly me, who stumbled into the Dark and came back - who else would know better?" he rhetorically asked, a colder tone in his voice. The Jedi was well aware that there were cases beyond redemption and that his return to the Light was mostly, if not fully, thanks to Sardun's intervention (ironically). His father was one case beyond saving and his brother... well, for his brother, he still secretly kindled hope. That didn't matter right now. What mattered was the Jedi Inquisition storming his door, threatening a fellow Jedi, a very, very exhausted Jedi at that, and throwing a spiel about the Light and the Dark.

Eyes further narrowed into his signature glare.

"Cut the crap, Ishida - what exactly do you want? You're not here for Kai, otherwise, you wouldn't have spent the long hours tracking me down instead of him." safehouses were safehouses for a reason. The investigator's glint flashed across his glare. Now it was his turn to ask questions.

"You're here for me."

"So what is it?"

Ishida Ashina

 

[Ishida Ashina]

DARK SIDE​

Stumbled into the dark. Only someone with unsure footing ever stumbled. She made an irritated noise at the back of her throat, stone-coloured eyes flashing up quickly in a roll and a look away over her shoulder at the collection of artifacts on the walls.

Conjecture and conversation came to an abrupt end, and he forced an abrasive tone to his dialogue. Enough to make the girl evidence a knowing simper. It was a smile like relief, like watching someone trying to perform and then they missed their lines; but you knew the script by heart. Better than them. He was getting testy, and she wondered just how long it would take until he reacted a little more violently.

Conducting a silent appraisal, Ishida deduced it would take too long.

On one hand, Dagon Kaze was correct: The Sithspawn, Kai, was still out there eating people. On the other, he definitely was harbouring more of these malfeasances and needed to be brought to heel.

Beyond that though, he was right. She was here for him.

The safehouse had been difficult to find, and anyone without connections or the Force's intuitive guidance would have been extremely ill-favoured to discover it. Which, by her assumptions, would have meant it was a good place for his body to lay until discovered. And being a safe house meant the security overrides weren't incredibly connected to any other sources.

It was a good place to kill Dagon Kaze.

That had been her original objective.

Then, after she'd punched his stomach and he'd pleaded saviour to those cursed by darkness, something in her gut shifted. Something more curious and rooted in observation. Both he and Bernard had been spared on Krayiss, and caused the destruction of the Library. Somehow managed to tread the thin line between salvation and retribution.

He didn't say it again, but still the question echoed –– lingering between them unanswered.

"You're here for me."
"So what is it?"

Her jaw tightened.

"I came to kill you, finish where Sardun showed mercy." She admitted, slackening her posture for an additional comunactive that her intention had altered.

She still wanted to–– to feel the satisfaction of her blade driving through his chest (or throat, whatever) and that final, pathetic gasp slipping through his mouth before the blood crusted on his lips –– but from what she'd observed so far, he was doing it to himself. Putting himself in the position to be responsible for darksiders. When they turned on him, he'd deserve it.

"Still might." The white-haired Atrisian shrugged through her half-murmur and kept as calm a demeanour as if she'd just come to trade Galactic Illusionary Gaming cards.

Keeping a measured pace, she circled a chair that had been abandoned at some point and considered sitting down. Prodding one of the legs with the front of her foot, she hummmmm'd at the back of her throat.

Dagon, he may have fallen to the Dark Side, but he didn't succumb to it. It invaded his system, just like those particles invade yours, and his conviction in the Light cleared them away like an antibody. Corruption isn't absolute, Ishida.

"Because I know that he is capable of learning from his mistakes, same as you."

"But the strike teams on Krayiss are alive partly because of you. So." Instead of shrugging this time, she rolled her wrists and stretched her arms by her sides–– strangely listless as if she was disassociated from the scenario. The admission to murdering people came as easily as the action itself. It was the hesitation, the patience that she found difficult. The words.

"Since you're alive, and redeemed and here I.." Her teeth clicked shut.

What does it feel like. Falling and..coming back."

 

[Dagon Kaze]

"I came to kill you..."​

He flinched, a bare squint of his eyes and squeeze of his shoulders. Not a lot of people in the galaxy that wouldn't; even when Dagon had stared down the maw of death a thousand and one times since becoming a mere apprentice of the Jedi, someone so frankly stating their intention fired up instincts. Instincts which he had found, over the course of his teen years crimefighting in the Coruscani gutters, kept you alive.

The nonchalant manner she voiced her intentions with - circling the chair and spreading her arms all so casually as if they were conversing about last night's gravball games - kicked up something too familiar in his mind. No, not the femme fatales you meet busting a drug cartel, but the very thing Yula and dozens of others had warned him about - that damn savior complex. Dagon was no longer gazing at a girl resolved to plunge a blade into his heart but a problem to solve, a person to save. Very much like the Sithspawn Ishida wanted to cleanse from the face of the galaxy by the tip of her sword. Ironic.

Man...

<"I suggest calling for backup, Master Kaze. Such insolence should not be tolerated by the New Jedi Order."> Arthur's voice came through his earpiece. Dagon's silence was a clear no. He hadn't been so different from her once - well, definitely not as murderous - but definitely equally rebellious. Oh, how the turns have tabled. Age and experience surely changed the way he viewed his teenage self in retrospect. Poor Asmundy.

"Well, inquisitor, you might want to take a seat for this one." he huffed a laugh of air through his nostrils, then shuffled a few steps to the side and lean on the stool of the window. This was another 'trick' he'd learned from the bowels of Coruscant - setting the pieces on the table to your advantage. It's like Feng Shui. Seating her meant she'd be in a more vulnerable position if she did decide to commit to her initial intentions. And the window behind? Meant a quick escape if push came to shove. "I'd offer caf but you're too young... and I'm all outta hot chocolate."

"Alright, you wanna know how it feels like, huh?" Dagon continued before she could throw a snark back at him, "Well...scary." he said, putting a fist against his chin thoughtfully. He never really had put the feeling to words before, "Fulfilling at first. Empowered so much that everything you want to do seems like a child's play and in your reach...like as if you've broken shackles you've never knew held you back--" Dagon elaborated, reminiscent both of his 'trips' to Bogan's Diner. "--but then it's not enough. You want more of it at the expense of who you are. Just like spice." he added, squinting at the worrying thought of how similar it sounded to Yula's vice.

"...and coming back?" he pursed his lips, , "Refreshing. Painfully refreshing." cleansed by Sardun's fire to witness the cost of Dagon's fall in the form of his trust broken with Kaska. The tunnel vision trance he broke through murdering his first love Ayana. Almost stabbing his friend Bernard in the back on Krayiss. All painful memories scarring his heart, but to some they were a small price to pay for 'salvation'. Those some - like his father - were almost always beyond redemption. Key word - some.

He found his eyes had drifted away into a spiral of the past. Slightly shaking his head to brush away the memories, Dagon returned to locking gazes with the white-haired menace before him.

"See, if I could come back, then others can, too." Dagon said, a hint of compassion in his tone which flowed more evidently in his next words, "If we go straight to killing those who've fallen, then we fall to their level, Ishida." Surely Dagon had a lower tolerance and patience for the Dark than Aaran, but he was still no Sardun.

Far from it now.

Ishida Ashina

 

[Ishida Ashina]

Dagon's attempt at banter was met with a stone-faced Ishida. There was no reaction to the suggestion of sitting down, nor the jab at her inability to handle caffeine. She did, however, roll her eyes and fold her arms across her chest –– adding additional barriers of an efficient kill. What's more, he moved around the room like a little rat. Skittering and adjusting and manipulating parts of the environment to better suit his chances. Maybe it would help him relax more, be more willing to ––

"Well...scary."

Nice.

A small grin pulled her lips into a crescent, a twinkle of intrigue lighting her grey gaze and she leaned in, bending slightly at her waist. Still refusing to sit.

Truth be told, she was surprised he was so ready to serve up information, given he'd just heard the nature of her intentions.

The naturalness of his description prompted her to suck air through her teeth, letting it fill her cheeks before she swallowed it down. Shackles, desire, greed, gluttony. The short descriptions he gave were reminiscent of what she'd been told. Corruption that fed on, and rotted the very soul of it's giver. Stockholm syndrome at its finest.

He squinted at something, and she straightened when he shifted the conversation back to what it was like returning to the light. Refreshing. She made a face of understanding, rocking her head to the left and right as if hem-hawing the uh-yeah, duh of that statement.

She was interested, fully-invested in his story, until he turned this into an opportunity to step on a soapbox and give her insight that she hadn't asked for.

"See, if I could come back, then others can, too.

At that, her neutral-bordering-fasctinated expression darkened. The corners of her lips folding downward, and lids dropping over her eyes to narrow her vision beneath her bangs.

"Right.." She doubted that and she was about to challenge that suggestion given his origin and training was rooted with the Jedi, constantly surrounded by The Light, and those who hadn't known it, who'd been born and exposed to The Sith, didn't have the option of coming back. It was just them going in an entirely different direction, and if they chose it because of fear...

Her jaw tightened, about to speak up and offer her two cents to the debate when he continued his compassionate exposé.

"If we go straight to killing those who've fallen, then we fall to their level, Ishida."

And then she wanted to stab him again. Right through the mouth. Not for divine purpose or preservation, but for being unnecessarily irritaating and audacious.

The only thing that held her back was Sardun's condemnation.

"Ours is a solemn duty. We kill without hesitation, because it is the right thing to do, but take no pleasure or excitement from it."

It would have been too pleasurable to enact.

Biting down on the words left unsaid, she clenched her molars together before tsking her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

"Uh-huh. Fall or stumble." Her brow arched accusingly, and she unfolded her arms with an exasperated gesture. Dubiouisness dripped from her words. "Thanks for all..that. But you look busy with.." that gesture shifted to motion at the beautiful mind tapestry on the walls. "All this. Best of luck with it. And keep an eye on those you're now responsible for.

My kills have as much purpose as your supposed redemptions. Death is more assured than faith.”


She turned to leave. "And I won't be as patient as Sardun."

 

[Dagon Kaze]

And keep an eye on those you're now responsible for...

Oh, I will, he thought, fully aware that his eyes lingered long over her departing form. Dagon wanted to say something but her nonchalant gesture to the mess of a crime board simply brought up the reality of his priorities; his mouth closed just as the door slid behind her. He pushed himself from the stool of the window and approached the board, eyes scanning it all over for hours but finding no focus.

The thought of Ishida weighed on his shoulders and it was a burden he knew he wouldn't shake off anytime soon.

Oh man.

Ishida Ashina