Spy and Assassin

Seishin had been having a rather pleasant, if boring, day. The sun was shining, he was on shore leave (if, indeed, you could call someone who worked on land someone on shore-leave. The point is, he was off-duty) and was going to be having the entire day to himself. He decided it would be a nice time to go up to one of the lakes near Ba Sing Sei, maybe get a little bit of Earthbending training in, then go for a swim. It was, he had to admit, a little hot and he could use with stripping at the moment.

Walking to the lake side, he didn't notice the stripping girl and instead sat there in the middle of the clearing, for a moment seeming like he was meditating. He held his hand up, ripping two large chunks of earth out of the ground and levitating them in the air. He applied a small amount of pressure and compressed them into several small balls of concentrated earth. Throwing them forwards, they drilled into a nearby tree and left huge rivets in each tree. He grinned, glad that he hadn't gotten rusty. In fact, he figured, today would be a good day for a new form of training.

He closed his eyes and listened patiently, detecting neutral jing. However, as he listened, he could hear something else. It sounded exactly like splashing, and he wanted to go see what it was. Running at one of the nearby trees, he jumped up and grabbed the lowest branch, before using the rest like a gigantic climbing frame. When he was sufficiently high up, he looked over at the lake in his hiding position, and saw a girl he'd never seen before in the lake, swimming around. She looked innocent enough, but nevertheless he pulled two small earth clumps out and prepared rock-bullets, in case something should go wrong. He thought he knew almost everyone his age who lived in Ba Sing Sei.

As he stood on the branch, he saw a woman approach nearby. For a moment, he thought about moving on, this area getting a little too overpopulated for his liking, but then he saw it. The girl he had been pointing bullets at was spluttering and struggling to stay above water. He was getting ready to dive in and save her when the other woman came forth and swam to save her. He decided that as long as someone else was saving her, he wouldn't need to. That.... was when things got bad

The woman burst out of the water and pulled her down to, choking her. He wanted to see what was going on, and was not in the habit of breaking his cover to deal with something like this. However, he did draw his bullets ready to fire in case something should happen that blew his cover. Finally, the bubbles stopped and he knew she was dead. So, this girl was not only not a citizen, but she was a murderer. There was no crime on earth that made up for slaughtering a non-military member. If he was to die on the field of battle or on a mission, that would at least have honor. For an innocent civilian to die like this.... A vein started throbbing on his forehead. This was not how life worked, god did not get to be such a f'ucking jacka'ss, not today.

The murderess seemed to notice him and he grinned in a very disconcerting way, putting his hands on the tree limb and swinging onto the lower one, and so on until he could throw himself safely out of the tree. The bullets followed with him, and as he stood at the bottom, he put his hand up, obviously preparing to fire should she try anything. an arrow could be dodged, these things would pepper the entire area
"Stand down! Stand the F'UCK down!" he called over the area, obviously too annoyed to be making jokes for once
"Now, question time. Big one first, who the h'ell are you and what are you doing killing people in my city?"

Sei gritted his teeth in anger. She was proud of being a murderess? She was PROUD that she'd just been paid to kill what was an almost entirely innocent person. This was disgusting, it made him feel physically sick. This was one of the reasons he was happy to follow in his family's footsteps, because it allowed the army to mobilize against sick freaks like this. Slamming his foot down on the ground, it brought a huge wall of earth up infront of her, stopping her from getting away.

"Now, you're going to play real nice and peaceful, Miss Murderer." he said, lining the bullets up as if it was a firing range. He stepped back a few inches to make sure that she wasn't in a very good range. He didn't know all that much about arrows but he knew that if it hit terminal velocity he was screwed.
"You're going to go back to whoever it was that hired you and you're going to get your money for killing her. I, after you've finished, will slaughter the cruel bastar'd who paid you and then you will get your sorry as's out of my city by sunset." He said, clearly annoyed by what he just saw. Nobody deserved to be treated like that. He'd come back later and give the victim a proper burial.

"If you don't, under the jurisdiction of the Earth Nation's military force, I am going to be allowed the right, as a Lieutenant, to execute you on the spot for murder, threatening an officer, and for disobeying orders. Oh, and don't try and fight back, this is going to go peacefully for you if you co-operate. If you don't, however, you will realize why I just made a firing range."

Sei tutted lightly as she asked why he didn't just let her kill the guy.
"Because, if I do it it's called Sumarial execution. If YOU do it then it's vigilantism, if not flat out murder. And there are only two crimes as far as I am aware of that warrant execution. The first is murder, and the second is treason. Now, I doubt someone like her went out and betrayed the Earth King, nor do I think she was capable of murder. I can't say these for sure, but I dare say that unless you had proof, no jury on this side of the world would convict her. Stop talking out of your arse. And no, you will leave by sunset, or find someone who is willing to take you in, and thus take responsibility if you commit another atrocity." He said, coldly and coolly as if reading the information from a text book. He had read over the rights of the military and the laws of the four nations of the world many times, his job demanded that he knew where he stood in legal precedents, in case he was caught.

As she asked why he didn't just kill her, he smiled for the first time since he'd met her.
"Because I strongly believe that nobody who's even remotely redeemable should be put in the firing line. The man who hired her, he caused death and was cold and calculated enough to hire an assassin. That's wrong, on so many levels that's wrong. But I can speak from experience, sometimes people need to do bad things to continue to live, and so I really don't want to kill you right now. But, as warrants my position, I will if I have to. Otherwise what kind of soldier would I be?" He asked, rhetorically.

Unfortunately, less that a minute later she turned around and refused to let him do the case She flat-out accused her of judging her harshly. His smile fell into a scowl, as he pointed a finger at her.
"Now listen here, little missy. I know what it's like to take a life, I've taken plenty. It's not pretty, but sometimes you have to do it. Yet you act like it's a point of pride, like it's something to write home about. Blood'y hel'l, I really really don't care who you are, why you do it, or even if you're doing it to earn money for your starving family back home. Point is, there's nothing that makes up for what you've done. Killing for the sake of protecting your country is fine, as long as you don't just kill civilians. When soldiers join, they sign their lives away to the nation, and are thus ready to die. The only people who should kill are those who are willing to die." he said, drawing three of his bullets forwards. They stayed hovering in the air for a second, before he aimed them. One would have hit the wall above her head as a warning shot, and then the other two were pointed at her legs, aiming to take her out of commission non-lethally. He was still intent on finding out who did it, she could die after he had his information.

Sei could.... well, honestly? He could relate to how she felt. He continued going on with a job to try and take away the pain of the last person who did it. His father had fallen in the firing line because of the job that Sei did to this day, yet he continued. Any sane person would have stopped, thought twice, and gone and become a painter. But he wasn't sane, he hadn't been sane for a very, very long time.
"Look, Lieutenant, I get it. You're completely righteous in every way. You've apparently never sinned; so how in the h'ell would you know if I was prideful about this?" Sei gritted his teeth and said in a quiet voice, obviously ashamed of what he's done
"Who... who said I haven't sinned?"

He looked at her, a bit of resolve tweaking and said louder
"I have sinned. My job requires sins, every single day that I do it. Murder, theft, destruction, lies, blasphemy, sin upon sin is piled up and when I finally fall, I'm coming back as a dog... or worse. There's a reason why half of the people I've met have nicknamed me Paegani. It means 'the sinner'. You still think I don't know what I'm talking about? I've made peace with my fate a long time ago, it doesn't mean I like other people doing it. Call me a hypocrite if you want, but I don't go around slaughtering innocent people." he said, his voice turning into a bit of a growl. This was getting him nowhere fast, and admitting his sins wasn't going to change anything. He now knew the name of the man who's execution he was going to carry out, but that wasn't quite enough somehow.

As she asked if he was going to let her leave, to sin again, he sighed.
"Look, the mere fact that you're alright with the thought of me killing you is surprising me more than I thought possible. Most thugs and assassins never want the touch of death upon themselves, but you? You honestly seem like you want it, or at least wouldn't mind it if it happened. It's a royal shame that we had to meet on opposite sides of the law like this, because you could have been an honorable soldier in another life. But Indeus apparently doesn't want us to meet on friendly circumstances." he stomped his foot and earth covered the area where she had dropped her weapons and supplies, and wouldn't move until he made it. He started walking forwards, his bullets trailing behind him as he did.

"Your punishment has already been invoked by Indeus, and you will carry the scars and memories of it for the rest of your life. That's why, just this once, I'm considering letting you leave. I doubt you'll turn over a new leaf, but every kill you do will leave it's fresh scar upon your mind, until you're nothing more than a drooling husk. There is no fate worse than that. However, you continue to kill the innocents under my protection, and I will have no choice but to slaughter you like the animal you're becoming. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"

Sei wasn't entirely surprised that she reacted badly to him completely disarming her, but the words she said when he disarmed her kicked him in the gut.
"It was HERS! YOU CAN'T TAKE THAT!" it was who's? He remembered that she'd mentioned that her family died..... oh crap, he realized too late, that must have belonged to her mother. She is going to be pissed... he was proven right seconds later as she charged at him. Years of military training kicked in, and within seconds of the beginning of her charge, he'd whipped both of his wazishikis out of their sheaths, holding them towards her
"You're going to regret this, girl."

As she ran, two whips cracked out of her wrists and he raised a puzzled eye. Where had she been hiding those? Well, her wrists probably, and it wasn't exactly like he had strip-searched her... or searched her at all really. Why was he surprised that she had concealed some weapons? He put his sword up to protect her throat and chest as she charged towards him and, like clockwork, sliced through the one that was heading towards his throat and let out a sigh of relief. Before, of course, the inevitable stifled cry of pain as her other whip went for his leg, slicing it and drawing blood, even through his trousers.

Thankfully, despite how much pain it caused, he could still move the leg that had been whipped and jumped back, pushing his right hand forwards and sending the volly of all eight bullets towards her.
"I'm sorry.... I didn't know they were more important than usual weapons... " he started to apologize, as if already giving her a mourning. She would pass, an unredeemed villain, and would sink to the levels of the worms, rampant in the soil.

She asked him to give them back and he raised an eyebrow. She thought he had taken them permanently? He had just wanted the conversation to not involve any more hostilities, but that had backfired horribly. Now they were both bleeding profusely from their wounds and it was all the fault of misunderstood diplomacy.
"Of course, I never intended to keep them. I just wanted us to not have to fight and... you saw how badly that turned out." Before he had even finished speaking, however, she fell to the floor in what he could tell was unbelievable agony.

He looked down at her, pity and anger at what she'd done both streaking through his eyes, as if fighting for dominance. She wouldn't be able to take much longer, and was already making her wounds worse by just scratching at them. He looked at her with cold contempt, it apparently winning out for a second as he put the side of his blade against her throat, his voice dripping with contempt and malice
"You know what? Since I've met you, You've murdered a woman who risked her life trying to save you, insulted me, attacked me, and now you're begging me to help you? Begging me to take the pain away from you? When I could just as easily deal with you like I deal with other murderers..." he said, the side of his blade pressing against her throat. For a moment, he looked down at her as if about to slice, but then crouched and looked her in the eyes, clearly still angry.

"I won't. because I'm not as bad as you. I don't kill people who can't fight back, unless it makes the world a safer place." he said, pulling the blade back. He waved his hand and the two bullets ripped out where they'd come from and crumbled to dust as they hit the fresh air.

"By my estimation, you're going to bleed to death if you don't get that seen to. Run, little girl, run away and get help." he said, gesturing for her to run, to leave.
"You'll get your weapons back at the gate. Until then, there will be no more killing in Ba Sing Sei. Well, after I've dealt with your employer. Do. You. Understand?!?"

Sei sighed as he heard the girl ask for her pack back. It was a reasonable excuse, he guessed, but he really didn't want to do anything for this girl right now. He had something he needed to do... He walked over and picked up the pack, throwing it onto the ground at her feet. He didn't care if anything in there broke or not, as long as she got it and stopped complaining that's all he cared about. Then, he had to do something out of respect for the innocent.

He'd seen her tie a pair of stones around the poor victim's body before she'd thrown it in the water, letting him use his bending to get her out. There was a lot of rocks under the water, so it took around a minute, but finally he got the right one and levitated the rocks attached to her body out of the water, pulling it onto dry land. He then ripped the stones off, leaving it uncovered. Bending down, he closed her eyes and said a quiet prayer for her.

"This girl... she didn't do anything to deserve what you did to her, assassin." he said, sighing quietly. His original rage was gone, left with an empty depression. He'd seen bodies everyday but he'd always been able to say that they deserved what they'd got, or that they'd signed up and thus were alright with it. But her.... this was one of the few times he'd ever seen a dead innocent. He raised his hands up and the ground underneath her ripped out, leaving a small grave that he closed up afterwards, giving her the proper burial she deserved. Using one of the stones she'd been dragged down with, he used his bending to inscribe a small epitaph.
'Karina Zhai, taken by undeserving hands. A victim of her time' he slammed the stone down into the ground above the grave and clasped his hands together in a short prayer for the departed soul.

With the quick ceremony over, he walked back over to the girl and offered her his hand.
"If you can't get into Bei, then I'll have to help get you there. Now take my hand and stop being awkward."

”I don’t understand why you’re helping me. Not that I’m complaining, but I wouldn’t do it for someone else if I were in your situation.” Sei sighed audibly, wasn't it obvious? It was so clear to him, but she was so absent minded that she had no idea why a man would do something for someone else?
"The main problem with seeing why I want to help you is that you can't realize a simple fact; I'm not you. There's been one death today, there doesn't need to be two." He said, as if it was the simplest thing in the world, but there was the truth. Death wasn't a nice thing, and even though he didn't turn away at having to kill someone when the time came, and would often kill those he didn't need to if it made his job easier, it was always for the sake of the country. He'd never killed someone just because he wanted to, or if he thought it wouldn't aid him in any way. That was the difference between the spy and the assassin, he knew how to choose his victims

The girl asked him his name and he smiled slightly. He wasn't exactly going to tell her his name, but he would certainly tell her his false name. The one he went under behind enemy lines.
"Well, nokomi, your name is beautiful. I'm Lieutenant Nisemono Aburame, Earth Country military. I wish I could say that it's been a pleasure, but I hate to lie." he said, before crouching down and offering her to climb onto his back
"It doesn't look like you'll be able to walk very well, so come on."

Nokomi

Noko smiled at his words. Yes, he was not her; they were two people from the same source. Like a ceiling with two holes, you would be able to see two rays of light; same source, separate beams. She was actually curious about what he did; she had generally begun to hate the army, what with her brother leaving her for it. Well...he didn't exactly pack up and leave-leave; it was more like she ran off for a day, went back, and he was gone. She'd tracked him to an army camp, and left; she wouldn't follow in his damned footsteps. But this soldier...he was nothing like her brother. In fact, she sincerely wondered that if, in another life, he could be the same as her. She didn't just kill people for the pleasure of killing; she did it as a means to survive. She wouldn't bring herself to ask...but if he was willing, she'd like to see his lifestyle. Life in the army didn't seem half as bad as life as an assassin--at least he didn't have to watch his back at every turn. "Well, Nokomi, your name is beautiful; I'm Lieutenant Nisemono Aburame, Earth Country military....I wish I could say that it's been a pleasure, but I hate to lie," he said and she actually chuckled a little. Her shoulder had stopped its bleeding by now; she was glad he'd given her the pack; slinging it over her shoulder, she turned back to him as he crouched down; she couldn't help the smile that lit up her usually serious features; it was a rare sight, and one to behold as well. Not only was he a strange soldier, he also acted the part of a gentleman. She climbed onto his back easily, although her hip was providing some difficulty with the ability to bend it, but she managed. She wasn't a heavy girl; barely one hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet, she wrapped her arms around his neck carefully. She didn't want to choke him--anymore, that is. "So...how long have you been in the military? You don't even seem old enough to be a Lieutenant," she said lightly, slightly teasing but still wanting a serious answer. She was very curious about the army at this point.

Mood: Curious Condition: Wounded

Nokomi Nefara Sen

”

Sei felt her weight upon her back and let out a small breath of air, letting his muscles tense just enough to be able to carry her weight properly. He'd carried heavier things and people than her, but it had been a while.

"So...how long have you been in the military? You don't even seem old enough to be a Lieutenant," Nokomi had said, and her words sparked a train of thought that he had never really embarked on before. Sure, he'd technically joined the military at fourteen, but it was clear to anyone, and especially him as he looked back upon his years with his father, that he had been in training long before that. As he dwelled on the issue, a sad thought surged through his body. He had been born into the military. The last nineteen years of his life, building up to being one of the most infamous agents the earth country had. Still, he wouldn't let Nokomi know how much that thought horrified him, the thought that he had had no choice about his life ever, he just forced a smile and replied.

"Why? How old do you think I am?" his voice was pleasant, if a little teasing, but then he allowed himself a bit of seriousness
"honestly, I was born into the army. My dad was a soldier, and his father before him, and his father before him. For the last few centuries, since birth we've been dedicated to fighting for the Earth King. I've been a lieutenant since I was seventeen however, and I'm almost certainly up for promotion within the next month." he said, as if it really didn't matter.

"so, how'd you turn into a murderer?" he asked, the question seeming rather strangely normal, asked the same way as someone might ask how their day went, or why there was a dog on the front lawn again.

Sei listened patiently and, honestly, his heart went out for the poor girl. However, his head didn't. She had turned into an assassin because an assassin had killed her parents? in his head that seemed about as dumb as keeping a snake as a pet because you were allergic to snake skin. Everything else in her story made him understand her pain, losing a sister because of a mistake made out of good intentions, being forced to lose her brother to the army. He'd heard about that from his allies but he knew he'd never be able to feel the same way.

"I'm sorry to hear that..." he said, although he knew the words would give little to no comfort
"If it helps, I've been there. My dad died when I was only thirteen, because he'd been caught by the army that he'd tried to infiltrate. He was hung like a deserter, and that was the last I heard of him. Still, there's one thing that we can stay happy about. My dad, your parents and your sister; they're all alive somewhere, even if they don't remember the life where they were these important people to us. Reincarnation is funny that way.." he said, before forcing himself to be quiet about the concet.
" But, let's not get onto that topic, you probably don't want someone like me preaching onto you about my belief. " They were getting closer to the city and Sei was getting a little tired about these depressing conversations. But... what else was there to talk about. They might have been different sides of the same coin, but nobody had landed it on the coin's side yet. There was little to nothing that the pair had in common, apart from their jobs.

Sei regarded her pulling out the poison from her pack and for a moment considered dropping her. He didn't want to have another fight. Thankfully, however, she was just administering it to herself. He assumed it was some kind of poison that made muscles become numb and hard to use. He sighed, this was the damage he'd done to her? She seemed so small and helpless like this... but then again, twenty minutes ago she was trying to kill him. He wondered what exactly had happened to make this sudden change of character happen, and so quickly too.

As she asked him to show her how he lived, his heart seemed to stop. He couldn't show her, she was an assassin. If he showed her his place, he'd just be making it easier for her. One day someone would come calling for Paegani, and he wasn't going to open the door for her... but still, there was something about her that seemed legitimate. It was hard to say no to her, it would be like kicking a harmless puppy. Well, a very very powerful puppy who'd just tried to kill it's owner, but a puppy nonetheless. For a few seconds he stayed quiet, before saying

"We'll see..."

As they got into the city, they started walking past people. People recognized him and smiled, some waved. A few people smiled and said things like "good morning Seishin" or "who's the girl, Sei?" and he blushed bright red. Well, there goes the cover name.