For ishallshedmylight

[honoiro_shisen]

It's easy enough to navigate the streets at this point. If anyone sees him, they're too busy rushing by to care. This is when the night and day shifts for a lot of places trade off, so he weaves his way in and out of alleys and shadows. The vague scuttling sound and shift of shadows is the only thing that would tip people off to the waves and waves of microbots he controls with his mind, guiding them along, riding them through and over some objects and buildings when he needs to.

Saionji Park, named after the first Japanese Chief of Police back in the 1980's, is resplendent with Japanese architecture in the gates and bridges over the koi ponds. There's a lot of shadows to leave the bulk of his microbots hiding in, trees to let them cling to - he isn't expecting a fight. Or at least, he's hoping he doesn't need to engage in one. Although he could give himself more of a homefield advantage by sticking to a remote area of the park, he makes his way over to the memorial altar instead. Little candles and incense stay lit perpetually there, usually accompanied by a picture of someone's dead loved one. While he doesn't have a picture of his mother, he lights a candle anyway, and tries to channel her optimism, tries to remember the person he was when she was alive.

He loses himself in watching the small flames flicker, so even though he showed up early, ultimately this is where he can be found, undisturbed by the public; even villains have a right to mourn their losses here.

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[ishallshedmylight]

A green light flickered and flared from behind him after a few minutes; Alan was right on time, since he thought it was rude not to be but he'd wanted to make sure that he didn't startle the boy if he'd come early.

"Would you like me to give you a little time before we talk?"

[honoiro_shisen]

He turned; the small flickering lights catch his mask and make the harsh lines gentler, softer, and though there's a pause as he takes in that outfit, he shakes his head, stepping back from the memorial and its' many - too many - lights.

"No, it's fine. I was just distracted for a second. It's an honor to meet you in person, sir. I wasn't sure you'd come."

Atsuhiko had debated staying home. He'd debated bringing some other kind of weapon. In the end, whatever remained of his moral values had won out and he'd done neither. He nodded his head towards one of the many winding park paths. "Would you like to get a look around while we talk? It's a beautiful part of the city."

[ishallshedmylight]

Alan gave him a warm smile at the invitation and gestured for the young man to lead.

"I'm not so old that I can't do with a walk."

He didn't look THAT old, after all. Perhaps mid forties at the most, and even then someone who'd aged gracefully.

"Lead the way. You're the local."

[honoiro_shisen]

"It's not about your age, sir. I figure if you had any lingering suspicions about this being a trap, letting you lead would help." He shrugged, voice sincere enough. Emoting with a full face mask wasn't easy, but he would do his best. Usually he just had to pretend to be menacing. This was new territory.

Well, new mentally. Physically, he knew the park like the back of his hand. "The koi ponds are this way," he offered up as he picked a trail that led gently down a slight incline. He'd been coming to his park since he was a child, and the layout hadn't changed. This is a good place to set his mind at ease, even if it might be ultimately unwise of him. "I have to be honest, I'm not sure what to say. I'm not really used to people hearing me out."

[ishallshedmylight]

"Let the words flow," he said mildly, turning to offer the young man a little smile. Encouraging. "I'm not here to judge you on your skill at public speaking."

He took a few more steps before turning to look specifically at him.

"I'm here for the evening. And I am here to listen."

[honoiro_shisen]

"I've been doing a lot of talking this past year. Just not in public. Usually, it's been to therapists and doctors. I suppose that might be a place to start," he decided, looking at Alan's serious, open face. "About eight months ago, the Yakuza decided to make an example out of my family. That's what kicked everything off. I should, statistically speaking, be very, very dead right now. The money it took to keep me alive, on top of keeping the family company afloat... it's impossible to put numbers to it with any accuracy.

That's why I kept warning you, and I'll warn you again because there's still time to back out: I'm one of the Yakuza's least favorite people here. Anybody who allies themselves with me is going to get hurt."

His boots make little noise on the paved path to the ponds. In the low light of the park, the cityscape looms, beautiful and multicolored and brighter than the crime rate would lead anyone to believe. There's good things here, good people, superheroes, honest families, and he had no intention of making it sound like a cesspit, but he won't sugarcoat it. This is a city and like any city, it is highly imperfect.

The shadows shift behind them, soft not-quite-right almost wind-like sounds as the microbots follow. He never goes anywhere without them. He never unlearned how to use them as a shield, it seems.

[ishallshedmylight]

He's listening, watching, taking in the technology that the kid's using and wondering at how it might interact with his son's abilities, how Michael's T-spheres might like talking to it, heck, what Bruce might think of it. He was an engineer once upon a time, still was if he was honest, but it was a long time since he'd done any practical work in that respect and technology had changed so much. So many wonders.

And then there's the kid himself, this kid who calls himself a villain and treats him so respectfully even though he has no idea who he is. He's no stranger to respect; he's been around for long enough that anyone smart in the business can at least give him a nod for that. But this is different, something intrinsic to the young man, and it makes him like him almost immediately. Had when they were just texting.

"And have those therapists and doctors been helping anything?"

He knows, after all, that there are plenty of well-adjusted people who go out and do the kind of thing he does. And even several who'd call themselves villains in that same camp. But he also knows that this world can be rough. It's part of why he does what he does.

[honoiro_shisen]

"The doctors, yes. I'm fine, if scarred. Took a lot of physical therapy to get back into shape, but that's not the damaged part. Working with the mind is harder. The Yakuza set fire to the building my parents and I were in, this technology expo my dad was doing business at. I... saw my mother die. Or so I'm told. My mind blocked it out. It blocked a lot of things out, actually. I didn't know my own name when I first woke up."

That's not an exaggeration. Atsuhiko had woken up with his father standing over him, looking relieved, only to horrify him by asking who he was. Therapists trained in hypnotherapy and memory retrieval are expensive, too, and for all the concentrated effort everyone's put in, not a lot has resurfaced. Wherever his mother is, he hopes she isn't saddened by his lack of ability to recall what she looked like, who she was. Sometimes, he remembered her voice. That was as much progress as he had been able to make.

He makes a vague hand gestures, and the microbots tumble and skitter over to him, forming a half-dome behind him. "This is how I survived. I remember that much. There wasn't anywhere to go in the building, so I grabbed my mother's invention and tried to make it work. They took the heat and most of the force of the explosion, but at some point when I was unconscious they stopped being able to take the weight of the collapsed building.

There were a lot of other fatalities. It was the Yakuza's way of sending a message that gaijin weren't welcome in the San Fransokyo district. My mother was Japanese, but my dad is white. So him attempting to do business in his part of town? They weren't going to let it happen even without my mother being a 'traitor' to the Japanese people in their eyes.

Background politics aside, though, all that medical treatment alone cost enough to get us into debt. And I remembered enough to get angry at the Yakuza. I started robbing shops that were fronts for them. It... wasn't enough money. Still isn't. I've branched out."

The microbots fall gracefully back to the ground, back a safe distance into the night. Hono-Iro knew they look intimidating and he's not looking for a fight. He never even looked for the name Hono-Iro Shisen, though it's bitterly ironic. All he wanted out of this was, he realized, a chance to talk. Not even help; he just needed to get the full story out to someone. He certainly can't let his father know how bad things have gotten. Nobody around here would be trustworthy - they'd want his secret identity for their own purposes.

Spirits help him, he was tired. Atsuhiko knew he was technically a college kid still, but he didn't feel young. He felt like he was older than everyone around him almost all of the time. And he's still so, so far from having restored his father's company that the future was, at best, daunting.

[ishallshedmylight]

"Sounds like a harrowing time to me," Alan observed quietly, just... walking. Listening. The kid clearly had a lot of bile to bleed out and he was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to help him until he had let some of it seep away.

"And very isolating."

[honoiro_shisen]

"It was. But the isolation isn't exactly new. People in this part of town were never lining up to befriend somebody with mixed heritage. I have some people in my classes at college who I talk to. It's enough." Or rather, it has to be enough.

He tried to rub at his temple through his mask out of sheer force of habit. There was part of him that wanted to go on and give more details, ones that might compromise his secret identity, just to have someone tell him it was okay for this to feel messed up and daunting. Instead, he just looked over at Alan.

"You realize I just admitted to waging war on the Yakuza for personal gain and revenge, two things typically associated with villains, right? I can't help but feel that sympathetic response is a bit more than what I really deserve, sir. I get irritated when the media labels me evil, but there's a little truth, there. I haven't fought the Toriningen or the Fujitas when their gangs are just as awful. If I were a hero, I wouldn't be putting all my effort into a fight against just one group. And failing," he added, more tired than bitter. "I've made a dent here or there, busted open drug and prostitution rings when I can, but the Yakuza isn't gone. Scarcer, maybe."

He went into this insane idea of his, mask and all, to get money to rebuild his family's livelihood - well, what was left of his family, anyway. How he ended up ensnared in a one man war against the Yakuza was anyone's guess.

[ishallshedmylight]

He looked over at the young man and he just watched him for a moment. Didn't say anything.

He'd seen villainy over the years, fought some of the most terrible evil that the world had ever known. There were extraplanar demons, beings from other universes, gods and monsters and just plain horrible people. Alan has watched beings that would do the kind of things that would simply break the mind of most people and he's done it since the 40s.

"Is that why you invited me her, son?" he asked quietly. "Were you looking for me to condemn you? Maybe try and take you in?"

He shook his head.

"That isn't what I came here for."

[honoiro_shisen]

"Maybe. I don't know. But you're the closest thing to a superhero hakase I'm ever going to meet. It's very, very presumptuous of me to ask, but if you think there's a way out of all this, I really need to know, because I - I can't take living like this some days. I can't."

He sat down on one of the benches overlooking the koi pond. A lot of his height was in the microbots that clung to his shoes; without them he was smaller, less intimidating, closer to something approaching the person he is with the mask off than he had been so far.

Atsuhiko idly fiddled with one lone microbot, trying to keep some measure of composure. "Why did you come here?" There was no threat or challenge in that question. Just quiet curiosity.

[ishallshedmylight]

Alan is quiet for a moment, taking in Atsuhiko, the way he fiddles with his microbot, the strain in his voice.

"I go by Sentinel now," he said, voice even and measured. It's the voice of a hero from an old movie, smooth and resonant. Reassuring. Someone it's easy to look up to. "But my first name, before that name came to mean something very different, was Green Lantern."

He turned his hand, showed the green lantern ring that resembled nothing so much as an old mining lantern. It was a construct, but one that he kept up most of the time, as much to throw off enemies as because it was familiar.

"I came because it seemed like you needed a light at the end of the tunnel. Someone to show you a way out." He gave the young man a crooked smile. "You need help, son. What kind of hero am I if I can't help someone who needs it? 'Villain' or not."

[honoiro_shisen]

"I did research on you. What I could, anyway; I had a major paper due for my World History class. Unless I'm mistaken, you've been a hero for longer than I've been alive - longer than my dad has been alive, even. That's what made me decide to show up after all."

He fiddles with the microbot, then drops it so it can go click together in a clump with its' brethren. For a moment he tries to talk himself out of this, some old prideful instinct rearing up, but he shoves it aside. He needs help. And it's time to just accept that.

With one hand, he carefully takes off the mask, and he's not as old underneath as he feels like, but he maintains solid eye contact. "Sentinel-hakase, I would be honored to have your assistance. I don't - I don't know what to do anymore." What started out formally enough ends up giving way to desperation and tiredness. There are rings under his eyes. Clearing his throat and trying to sit up straighter, he adds, "But I'm willing to learn and take any advice you'll give me."

[ishallshedmylight]

The boy'd done research. That meant that he knew how old he was, how many years he'd been doing this, possibly even about his son and daughter. It was always hard to know how much the press really knew, so many papers to keep up with, and he was always better informed about Metropolis and Gotham, it seemed, than he was the city where he'd taken up residence.

"You don't need to be honored, son. You just have to accept it. Because you have it."

He held out a hand to the young man. It was an offer as much as anything else.

[honoiro_shisen]

Atsuhiko took his hand and was glad for the gloves that go along with the Hono-Iro Shisen guise, seeing as the leather made them less shaky. His research had been thorough, but still lacking in concrete answers - that was simply the price of working with someone old and obscure. There was, therefore, still an element of the unknown at play.

But he was quickly approaching the point where he was getting backed into a corner, overwhelmed by his own workload and day to day life. He couldn't help his father if he broke down.

"So... what happens now, then?"

After all, he was still a wanted criminal with an interesting if not varied record.