This Ain't Good [Sven]

[soji]

The market was slowing down for the day. The sun was setting, and people were headed homes or to bars. The sounds of movement were not restless but rather ragged and tired from the long day's work. Somewhere outside, a dog was walking around the streets looking for a handout only to find none.

Inside a bar that had already started up for the night, a TV was playing some sort of sports show that a few men were gathered around and making bets as though it would somehow increase their fortunes to bet on such obscure odds. Another few were at a pool table not too far from the door, and a black cloud of dust from the smoke that was being perpetuated through the area could be seen as particles in the refracted light. Somewhere in the darker corner of the room, a few people were playing cards and whispering among themselves as though they were speaking the secrets of the universe and wary of anyone else hearing.

Not far down the actual bar-lane at the crack between the bar and the actual wall sat a blond haired man leaned over his drink as though he had been there for quite sometime. In actual truth, he had not been there long at all but had gotten into the habit of appearing so after several long years of such habitual things.

Ren stared down at the drink that he had in front of him. He had ordered something extremely light considering his high tolerance, and it was literally doing nothing for him. Sitting back and resting his head on the back wall of the bar, the blond haired man looked about the area addressing the eyes that had been staring at him as well as those that hadn't. He was waiting for someone and was still wary of actually meeting said someone. It had been five years, and Ren Saber knew all too well that he was about to get a beat down from his long time friend Sven Pistol... that was if Sven even considered him a friend anymore and if he'd actually come. However, there was some sort of undeniable thought in Ren's mind that Sven would come. He had asked Sojiro the day that they had met again back in Hunter HQ to get Sven to come, and the blond haired man was sure he would show up.

[pistol]

Sven walked down the street with heavy steps as the few people that were still out stayed clear of him. His anger and his fury heated the air around him that marked him as dangerous to even the most deadly of mercenaries that began to prowl the evening for work. It wasn't the fact that he wore a suit unlike the normal thugs, nor that he looked nothing less than a quarterback, but it was more of the look in his eyes and that way he carried himself that made him lethal.

Sven reached the bar where he knew that Ren would be waiting for him and paused. For a fraction of a second he hesitated to open the door and give him the smallest chance of changing. His covered magical eye pulsed and all feelings were gone. Shoving the door open with an incredible ammount of force he steped into the bar and looked directly at the blonde haired man sitting in the corner. He gave a half smile and tore off his eyepatch. Within ten seconds he drew his revolver, fired, and hit Ren square in the chest, 2 inches from his heart.

[soji]

Ren was long gone by the time the bullet even came close to him. By that time, the blond haired man had already moved on the other side of the bar and watched as the bar itself took the shot. Should have known... was his only mental thought at that moment before he started moving down the bar and causing the bartender to jump as he did so. "Nice to see you too again, Sven," Ren called as he continued moving and disrupting people as he went.

[pistol]

Sven silently cursed as his magical eye swireved around and got ahold of Ren. The eye was a double edge blade with a taxing toll on his brain but has considerably lessened over the years and has allowed Sven up to 22 minutes of using it. He circled around the bar as people fled. He knew that the people knew him as the Overlord of the Black Market and King of the Pirates by the gun he carried. Some screamed as others ran as fast as they could while the bartender ran into the back room.

Sven couldn't have cared less, all he cared about was planting a bullet so far in Ren that he knew as much pain as he had caused Sojiro. All traces of happiness left Sven's face as he fired another bullet barely missing Ren's skull. He refused to respond, he was done talking.

[soji]

Ren kept moving and eventually away from the bar and ended up on the other side of the pool table. "Not going to question where I was?" Ren asked rather wryly for a moment as an odd smile played on the face of the blond haired man. "Nope? Didn't think so." He sighed a bit at this and then continued moving dodging a few bullets as they came. However, one finally grazed his arm, and he hissed a bit turning for a brief moment. That was it, he stopped completely then and there, and in another moment, he pulled two swords out and waited. "Give me your best," he suddenly taunted.

[pistol]

Sven allowed himself a half smile, as the smell of blood hit his heighted sences from the magical eye. He needed to see Ren writhe in pain as he continued to shoot. Before his own gun ran out of bullets he had pulled another from somewhere else and continued to shoot. His feet had a mind of their own as he easily side stepped all the chairs and tables. 19 minutes left, he thought to himself as a single bead of sweat trickled down his face. He finally shot a few inches where Ren was going to be on a hunch that it would finally hit the filthy snake that had evaded him for five years.

[soji]

And indeed then next thing that Ren felt was a sudden sharp sting, yet not from a bullet but from the rip of his blade being pressed back on his chest from the impact of a bullet. The hunter twitched a moment right then and there before the sword broke from his hand completely and seemed to fulfill some sort of contract slashing the one that was holding it. The bullet itself seemed to suddenly decide to add its own sort of recourse in that it continued moving and cracked into shoulder bone.

Ren didn't scream, didn't yell, didn't do anything but simply allowed it to happen and fell back on the wall looking rather blank there. Blood had sprayed on the floor and was now seeping into the carpet. It was quiet for a moment before the sounds of two swords hitting the floor could be heard. The first one came from the one that had been dropped, and the second was what had rolled from the blond haired man's hand as he hit the back wall. A rather heavy sigh could be heard from Ren in that moment as though he had already anticipated it and was glad it was over.

"Sven... you don't have the heart to kill me, and I have no will to die," were the words that escaped Ren in that moment. "I already know that." The sound blood dripping continued where Ren had stopped in that moment, yet in another, he started again. "It really hurt ya know... being away... I didn't want to...." Ren was all but groaning now, yet his eyes never left the green haired man. "But.... I found it...heh...I found it...."

[pistol]

Sven walked over to the poor bleeding man that was slumped agenst the wall. Despite the look of iron on his face, the mans eyes looked truely sorry for leaving. Sven Shot the wall inches away from Ren's left ear and lowered his smoking gun. Kneeling down he punched the man square in the jaw.

Silently with a calm look on his face, he opened Ren's shirt and appled a cloth napkin that he found on the floor to the wound. After calling for the bartender to bring him some booze he removed the bullet as best he could from the wound and bandanged it. "You bastard," He said with a sigh as his nose began to bleed from the excess use of the eye,"you've got a hell lot to explain to me."

He quickly put a hand over it and slumped agenst the wall as well. The eye had exagusted him and he needed rest. After calling one of his minions to come and clean up his mess and send a car, he got up and helped Ren to as well. "You are not going anywhere until you get cleaned up and I get answers," He stated as a very nice green mercedies rolled up the street. A burly driver tipped his hat as the two bloody men slumped into the car.

They drove in silence until they got deeper into the city. The car stopped at a tall building where they entered and went to the highest floor. When they reached the penthouse, three men where waiting for them; one butler, one body guard and one surgon. The doctor immedialty went to Ren with no words. Sven on the other hand staggered to his bedroom and fell on to the bed. It would be atleast 2 hours before the surgon was done so Sven took a much needed nap.

[soji]

Ren refused to sleep. Even with the anesthetics, he was wide awake as the surgeon worked on him. However, he made no sort of motion and did not seem to even notice the pain, yet he remained there awake. After his shoulder was fixed, Ren made a motion to sit up was but quickly told to lay down again as the doctor went to work on the heathen sized slash that extended from the base of his shoulder to his other hip.

The blond haired man continued to not say anything up what was done was done, and everything was fixed. Sighing to himself, Ren forced himself off the bed and found himself eying his arm, the one that had once been broken into disfigurement, as it were now fixed and easily movable. The doctor was talking about potential diseases and infections that he had to look over, yet Ren was ignoring the man then and there and instead forced himself up and walked away as though he were fine. The doctor became quieter as Ren walked farther and farther away.

Ren walked to Sven's room and shoved open the door with sheer force causing it to slam against the wall. "You'd better be awake," Ren breathed out rather dryly. "Cause I don't want to have to repeat this damn story." It was then that he waited there to see if the green haired man would answer.

[pistol]

Sven, now awake, showed no surprise and sat up with incedible diffuculty. His whole head swirved as none of it showed on his face. He looked at Ren and walked over to the mini bar in his own room. He picked up two beers. Thowing one to Ren, he poped the top on the other and took a long gulp. The alchol eased his mind and allowed him to actually listen to him Ren and not end up shooting the idoit again.

[soji]

Ren caught the beer more or less absentmindedly, yet as he looked at it, he set the beer down and rested his back against a wall. A few stitches seemed to threaten to rip if he leaned back too far, and so Ren simply kept himself straight. "The doc said no drinking or smoking for twenty four hours," he stated shrugging his shoulders a bit at it. A good few seconds after, he was quiet.

"Anyways," the blond haired man started with a general sigh. Pulling out a gun, he formed it into his saber. "Remember this?" he asked rather dryly. After another moment, he pulled out another gun that formed itself into the longer sword that he had had at the bar. "This is a friend of his," Ren continued. "Masamune and Excalibur, but what's this? A third." Taking out a dagger, Ren seemed to smirk as it formed into St. Rapier. "And a fourth?"

He pulled out more blades as he called them out, yet after he had too many to hold, Ren flipped them all and watched them disappear. After a moment, he was simply holding the sword that bound him to Sector 12, Excalibur only in title and not King Arthur's. Taking the saber double handed for a split second, Ren seemed to pull something from the base of it.

"Reality Marble," he half laughed. "The rarest substance that allows exact duplication of anything and everything that the holder wields it to." After a moment, Ren released the marble, and the substance itself seemed to creep back into the saber once more. "The warlocks left things behind.....and I sealed it to my sword" His face went serious for a moment. "With it.. I will never have to watch Sojiro be harmed again...." his voice was dry in that moment and almost seemed weak.

"Where I went to... where I was.... doesn't really matter," Ren started. "But at the end of it, I found myself in front of a swordsman like no other... I could have sworn he was my own master at first, yet he had a style that was different. I wanted to beat him, but he beat me down pretty hard... harder than you, anyways... he left me dead....well.. almost"

Ren stopped and half laughed before becoming serious again. "He asked me what I wanted, and I said 'to be the strongest' and he asked why, and I said 'for Sojiro'. And he told me to go home... but it was all a stupid trick....I couldn't even leave... I wandered for a year, and couldn't even get home, damn it.

Ren found himself hissing and sighed taking in a breath before resuming his rather calm manner. In the end of it... I was stuck in a superior reality marble.... that damn guy could make the entire world with ease... where just now, you saw I could only make swords...."

The blond haired man was quiet for another moment before resuming again as though he had not stopped at all. "And shit I never wanted to go home so badly... I wanted it, but the more I wanted it, the more stuck I got...." Ren seemed to turn his head away at that point and all but forced a rather dry and pained laugh as though there were something deeply wrong but hilarious with the situation itself

. "And then when I finally realized what it was, he appeared again to me and said I was some weak stupid human for coming after such a powerful warlock...." Ren broke off and coughed feeling the stitches on his chest seem to tighten a bit.

"Fucking hell... I couldn't even begin to say what I wanted to... He just kept laughing at me like it was all some big joke," Ren growled a bit feeling an odd vibration in his throat. "And I fought him again, and he beat me down just the same and then told me I was unfit to be alive. Well... shit I yelled all this harsh shit at him, and all it did was make him laugh more. I wanted to kill him so bad... I just.. wanted to get home, and he was in my damn way. I couldn't even get close to him.......So I started walking through his damn marble... it was so like the world but so damn empty.... there was no one... I swear it was like that I am Legend movie only without the freak-vamps....." Ren broke off again and finally broke down taking hold of the beer again, opening it, and sipping it before setting it down again.

"And I swear I was gonna go crazy..... But in the end of it, I somehow ripped a piece of his reality marble and formed so many swords.....And I finally killed that bastard," Ren found that he had methodically seized the can and was now squeezing it so hard that the fizz was drizzling all over his hand. "And when I got out of the marble.... so much fucking time had passed... god damn it...I didn't even know." The can would have been wailing ion pain if it had been a person.

"And then where do I end up?" he asked rather dryly. "Some freakin' island with no memories. That's where... I couldn't even remember my own damn name... and there were these werewolves... but they were multicolored like some crayola set went fucking insane on 'em. And shit if I knew fear, I didn't know anything else. I hid out like some god damn sap... and I lived like that....." Ren breathed but said nothing for a few seconds after. He hadn't vented like this in years and didn't plan to again any time soon. Might as well kill it all.

"And then these humans came to the island.... and they started building some sort of resort.... hell....they brought all my memories with them, and it slammed me like..." Ren broke off and shook his head. "I hid on-board and sailed back and ended up in Europe...." Ren shook his head. "And I couldn't even find HQ... I went to Italy, and it was freakin' gone....And what do I hear? It's all the way in Saipan of all places.... I had no money, no food, and I was walking to Saipan." Ren breathed in again and breathed out.

"But I did find some hunters.... and they recognized me... and started to send me off towards Saipan... I got a lot of what happened while I was gone from them....Stopped in Moscow and ran into Valerie Raym-whatever her name was...." Ren rolled his eyes at that one but continued on. "And when I finally get back... Everyone and their mother jumps at me...Screw Gulliver's Travels...I had it much worse." After that, Ren was quiet.

[pistol]

Sven listened with a heavy heart. With every word he felt the intense agony that the experience had put on the man in fron of him. Pressing the bottle to his lips, Sven took a huge swig of beer before allowing himself to start thinking of his next few words carefully.

He sighed and told looked at Ren. "Despite what you have said, I still stand by what I did." Sven told the blonde haired man as he rubbed his eye patch thoughtfuly.

With a weary smile he sighed again, this time with a feeling of dread that engulfed him. Uneasily he got up, walked out of the room, and dismissed all but one of the guards and the surgon from the penthouse. Telling them to relax and enjoy themselves, they went to a different part of the house to catch a futbol game.

After he was sure they had gotten immered in the game he went back to the room and after grabbing another two beers from the mini bar he flopped onto his bed once more. You've told me a story," he sighed opening one beer",Now I'll tell you one."

"Several years ago, well before I had even met you I was somewhat new at hunting. I had just taken up my postion as one of the 12 and had little support from them. They told me I was too young and inexperienced and placed me with a mentor. Furious as I was, I reluctantly went with my gaurdian.

"After months and months of training, I went to ask them if I could take my place and head my father's spot. They refused." Sven paused and sighed as he took another swig of beer. Resting his head in his hand as the emotions came flooding back to him. In a memory of his past anger, he gripped his beer until his knuckles turned white.

WIP