We're All Mad Here Tokyo

TMITM

Megalomaniacal Arbiter
@Lila Renn
Blindfold walked around the streets of Tokyo, his footsteps echoing through the nighttime streets and the Man's words echoing throughout his mind.
It's not just us anymore, Blindfold, The Man had said. It never was.
Blindfold thought about the Man's peculiar words and why he had sent Blindfold here, to this city in particular, after those words.
Of course, Japan was a wonderful country, and the people in it tended to have more respect for supernatural beings, not that they knew Blindfold was one, or at least supernatural-adjacent, but the distinct feeling of unbalance that others tended to feel around him because of his aura of bad luck seemed to get them to treat him with a little more reverance than he had received from the jaded people of the States. And Japan had many wonders to see, relics of their particularly convoluted history, and technological marvels of the present.
Not that there was much for Blindfold to see.
 
Hirata was following a very.. Unusual presence.. It was powerful, not as powerful as him, or atleast he didn’t think so, but it was unusual to find such an anomaly with a power level even remotely close to ‘The Five’ as they were called. His steps were quiet, impossible to hear even, he bent the mere fabric of reality around his feet, distorting it so heavily the sound was so high pitched no one, including him, could hear it... Unless it was TMITM of course, His Master, the only person he would willingly listen to. While it may not show, Hirata was loyal to an almost dangerous extent to the malevolent entity, though tries to hide it through banter and petty insults to the man. Hirata continued to follow the strange man, hands in his pockets, while he could merely illusion himself so it looked like as if he was not there, that’d Be boring, wouldn’t it?
 
Blindfold walked throughout the streets of Tokyo, feeling a strange presence.
We will have to be more careful from now on, The Man said, wavering between cynical and serious. Others will begin to sense you, or more accurately, your connection to me.
Blindfold paused, mentally.
We?
The Man plowed on. Case in point... behind you.
Blindfold focused his attention behind him, but could sense nothing, except the strange presence that he had been feeling recently.
Blindfold stopped.
On the same thread, you need to use the senses I gifted you. You are quite vulnerable without them. Anything that is trying to mask themselves, that is slightly powerful, can easily slip by you if you are complacent.
Blindfold turned around, still trying, and failing, to hear anything.
 
Pathetic. This was supposed to be.. His master’s.. Ambassador..? He didn’t know what he was, but he could now sense TMITIM’s presence in this mans aura, he reached out his mental link to TMITM, trying to talk to him, whether it reached him or not, he’d still talk in his mind, you never know when he’s watching you after all.. Which is mostly all the time for this dangerous, reality bending entity.

‘Is he your’s?”

Hirata has thought in his mind, now bending reality around him so he was completely hidden, using only a tiny fraction of his reality bending prowess to do so. He knew this wasn’t his power, it was his masters, and he would forever be grateful for that. Hence a small reason for his loyalty.
 
Blindfold felt the Man's presence leave him for a moment, the Man going off for a moment and returning. Blindfold wasn't aware, but the Man was answering Hirata's question.
Y̸e̸s̷.
The Man was inherently better at hiding what he was thinking. Maybe it was because of his otherworldly nature, maybe because he had centuries to perfect it, or maybe it was because of the lengths Blindfold would go to to avoid the sheer madness that resided in the Man's hurricane of a mind. Blindfold had only seen the edge, and was still occasionally knocked sideways by the winds.
The connection went both ways, a two-way street. The Man was inside of Blindfold's mind, and Blindfold was inside the Man's mind. He rarely concentrated on that part, though. He usually avoided it like a bad memory.
He knew a lot about those.
 
‘Good enough.’

Hirata has thought, why his master had picked such a.. Ungrateful, pathetic looking creature was beyond him.. But if he had even the smallest fraction of his masters powers.. Mayne Hirata could help. He was given a significant portion of his Master’s reality based powers, nothing compared to TMITM who could create universes and possibly even multiverses at will, but good enough that he was revered as a ‘God.’ Ha! If only the knew this power wasn’t his, but it was borrowed. He did have fun creating things just to destroy them all over again, it was fun, absurdly so. Even though the others didn’t think so, Hirata has thought reality was the best it could get. Reality came with power, as you could simply will something to not exist, and as long as said this wasn’t as powerful as you, you could do it, or you could warp the prospect of time to such a degree you could be talking for months;l, and only a second will have passed.

Hirata continued to follow Blindfold, humming a tune as he did so, glancing around every so often to see where the man was walking off to.
 
"I know you're there."
Blindfold looked, using the senses the Man had 'gifted' him. He 'saw' a creature, looming above him.
Blindfold remembered the thing he was here to obtain, distracted as he was by the Man and the strange feeling he had. Maybe this was part of it?
Should I? Blindfold asked the Man, warily looking up at the monster towering over him.
Ask him, The Man said, explicitly amused by the surprise Blindfold eminated at the creature that was following him the whole time.
"Right, well, " Blindfold said, feeling awkward at talking to something he wasn't even sure could understand him, "I'm looking for a gemstone. About..." Blindfold guestured about the size of his palm, "Yea big, emanates sorrow, tear-shaped?"
 
Hirata shrunk slightly, a human Male with jet black hair and piercing red eyes taking his place, the air shimmered around him, revealing him to anyone who wasn’t Blindfold, the man listened to Blindfold speak for a moment, confused, this was someone else’s Job, Not his.. Who was Knowledge Again... Artemis! That’s right! Atleast he hoped he was right.

After Blindfold had finished speaking, Hirata, despite all of his confusion about this mysterious item, he parted his lips to speak, a light, resounding click echoed from his mouth when his tongue met the roof of his mouth and the man began to speak.

“Well, I can’t say I do. Never heard of it in fact.”

Hirata pauses once again for a moment, he didn’t have anything better to do, so would there really be any harm in helping? Sure it was severely out of character for him to even suggest that he might help, But if his master took an interest in him, maybe Hirata should see what he was so interested in.

“I’d be happy to help, should you require it.”
 
Blindfold nodded as the creature reduced in size, and revealed itself to him, very willing to accept his help.
"Sure, you could tag along. I'm not quite sure how to start looking, though."
Blindfold looked at the newly-appeared 'creature', which was certainly someone intelligent, and looked Male, although that part was hard to tell.
"So, do you have a name?" In Blindfold's experience this was not rhetorical, but an actual question sometimes, and it amused him to ask.
 
“You May call me Hirata.”

The Male spoke, his ruby red eyes gazing at Blindfold in-front of him, judging him with his very gaze, trying to find what Master found so interesting about him, hopefully he’d find out on this little adventure of theirs. Hirata once again opened his mouth to speak, going from his slouched position to straightening up, his red eyes gaining their rare sparkle, he hadn’t done something like this in ages and boy would it be fun.

“Any idea on where to start looking? And anything we need to help us?”
 
Blindfold shook his head.
"I have no idea. I only know that it is extremely powerful, but somehow hidden from the Man's sight."
Blindfold shrugged. "I have no idea where to look first."
It was true. The Artifact that the Man had told him to look for was somehow hidden from both Blindfold and the Man's gaze. Blindfold didn't know where to look, but he had been hoping that Hirata would have heard something.
 
“Hidden from Masters Gaze? That’s.. That Artifact has to be powerful.”

The man licked his lips at just the prospect of it, his Master would like it if Hirata gave it to him, this would be a lot more fun then he anticipated, The mans eyes glimmered in a sort of excitement as he began to walk forwards, expecting Blindfold to follow behind shortly after,

“Well, Do we have any leads where it could be? Or anybody that would even slightly know where to look for such an Artifact? Any unusually well guarded place?”
 
Blindfold Agreed.

Blindfold wasn't listening to Hirata's second statement, however, as he was concentrating on something peculiar that he had noticed with his newfound senses. There seemed to be a ... thing, a bird of some sort? Of moderate power perching in a tree on Blindfold's left.

"Is there something to my right?" Blindfold asked, as he was generally not sure with these senses. "It feels strange."

If Hirata were to look, he would notice that there was a raven bleached white, with pitch-black eyes that had numerous points of light shimmering inside of them. It was a strange bird, to be sure, and emanated the same kind of sorrow that Blindfold seemed to be looking for. Just noticing it, Blindfold felt memories return to him that he had tried to forget. Things that made him feel... sad.

As Hirata might be able to notice, it seemed similar to the Man, but without his trademark enduring anger and hate and power. This being, or whoever it was connected to, had fallen so low that he had forgone anger entirely and just wallowed in sadness.

There, The Man said, confirming to Blinfold that this thing was connected to what they were looking for.
 
Hearing Blindfold talk, the reality bending entity turned to his right, seeing a sleek white bird, with jet black eyes, that seemed to sparkle slightly with a dim, white light, and most of all it looked.. Sad? A bird? Were that even possible?

Hirata waved his hand, he wasn’t taking any chances with whatever this thing was, encasing it in a relatively strong steel prison, big enough for the bird to fly around in but not escape, the entity got a feeling it didn’t want to escape though, but whatever.

He then turned his attention back to Blindfold, tilting his head towards the bird as an invitation for the blindfolded man to go check it out, and Hirata himself stepped out of the way so the man could walk past him.

“Do whatever I’ll be over here.”

He gestured to a nearby tree, and appeared there in an instant, sitting there, watching Blindfold with piercing, slitted red eyes.
 
As Hirata teleported away, Blindfold approached the snow-white bird that Hirata had trapped in a cage. The bird looked at Blindfold, acknowledging his presence. Blindfold got the sense that something happened to the bird, or someone he was connected to, somehow.
Blindfold felt a - connection to the bird, or rather, a connection to a connection. Unsure, Blindfold sent a tendril of thought, much like controlling the Ink, to the bird, asking what it was. Surprisingly, he got something back.
Huginn.
"What happened?" Blindfold asked the bird.
The bird laughed audibly. It didn't look sad, as much as it radiated it.
"Madness, pain, and shadows, yes, the shadows!"
That didn't help.
"What do you mean? Tell me more," Blindfold said, feeling self-conscious with Hirata watching him.
"Wyrda!" It screeched, as it phased completely through the cage and flew off.
Blindfold turned his head towards Hirata, and then started walking where the bird had flown off.
 
Hirata watched the strange man in the blindfold talk to the bird, while he could easily make the creature speak english, so he would understand what it was saying, He'd let Blindfold tell him instead, for what reason? None at all, the cosmic entity always liked a bit of a surprise. Well, not really a surprise.. Hirata didn't know why he didn't just make the creature speak english, he just felt no such reason to do so.

His bright, slitted fiery red eyes observed Blindfold as he talked to the bird, before he watched it phase through his steel cage, nothing special about it really, no power dampening, no enhanced structure, so the bird would of been able to easily escape. As much as he wanted to snuff the creature's life out for shits and giggles, he did no such thing.

"So? What'd the quite literal little birdie say?"
 
Blindfold cocked his head a bit.

"Nothing much, just his name, stuff about madness and shadows, and then a word in a language I don't understand."

Blindfold 'saw' the bird cock his head toward a street to Blindfold's left.

"I think he wants us to follow him."

Blindfold felt the Man nod.
Follow him.

Blindfold got the strange feeling this bird was important, and more strangely, that he had seen him before.
 
“Great.. Here I thought we were doing something fun and now I’m following a crazy man who just talked to a bird..”

Hirata murmured under his breath as he began to stalk towards the bird, and followed its cocked head to the street just on the left of them, the reality bending entity began to talk, barely a whisper,

“This better be good....”
 
As Blindfold followed the bird, his thoughts turned to Hirata, the supreme ruler of reality. What could he do? Anything? Were there any limits at all to his power? Obviously there was someone above him, the Man, but what was stopping him from overthrowing him? Respect? Power? Or was there a piece that Blindfold couldn't see? Some piece of information? A power? Some issue of a semantic?
Hirata seemed different than the Man. He still had the endless ego that omnipotent beings seem to have, and they acted much the same way, but the Man made different choices, things that could only come from experience.
Besides, there was also the unnerving feeling Blindfold always got that there was something about the Man that was not supposed to be there. That was the biggest difference.
Strangely, the Man left Blindfold to his thoughts, constricting the bond between them. Faintly, Blindfold could still feel his thoughts, though. Something about transience. It flickered and was gone.
 
Hirata was following Blindfold, Who was following the bird, to god knows where. He didn’t exactly care where they were going, however, An Adventure is an Adventure after all, And being blah blah Supreme Ruler Of this and that, who cares?! He felt like an old man. Well- He technically was an old man but that was besides the point. What was the point again? Ah! Yes! Hirata rarely actually ever had fun. He had responsibilities after all! Did he? It sure felt like he did.

Wait did he have responsibilities? Is this what humans called an existential crisis? No that’s not the right word.. Or is it? Hirata feels like he’s losing touch with reality.

But of course, that’s impossible.

He’s the one who decides what’s real and what isn’t after all.

@TMITM
 
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