LOG ASoBaF- Tears and Sorrow

===> COH <===> 4/19/2019, 8:38:06 PM <===

	Into the back of the house comes Fenix. Its been cleared of any civilians, and only the most loyal and trusted of the staff are working back here tonight - those that pull double duty as temple attendants. And a few moments after Fenix arrives?

	Like a cold wind blowing through the place by way of rolling over everyone's grave, an entourage arrives. Two burly men in dark suits (asian), followed by an entourage of twelve lovely women (asian) in crimson qipaos, and in the center of /their/ midst? It /might/ be another man in a red suit and dark hat, but its hard to tell. They're all densely packed together.

Upon seeing the entourage of people walking into the building, and Fenix's move to shuffle into the backroom, Ken collects whatever bets and wins he has with him and proceeds to follow the group along. He licks his fingers and thumbs through the money he's earned, then slipping them into his pockets. He makes way to some spot where he can get a better look at the gathering, curious of the red-suited guy who obviously stands out the most amongst them.

	The temple attendants circulate among those gathered, taking orders for drinks and providing smokes and such as requested. The arriving entourage heads on over towards the cage. Fenix approaches and the circle of young chinese women in qipaos parts. Greetings in Mandarin are exchanged.

	<<Sorrow,>> greets Fenix. <<Wu Hong Shen,>> replies the man in a red suit. Beneath the black fedora? A red mask obscures all his features from view.

	The doors to the El Fenix's back room open and in walks Kurumi. The Japanese nigh amazonian woman is prone to causing a stir, what with being 6'6" and seeming to radiate an almost tangible aura of desire. The apex predator that is Kurumi takes a few moments to size up the new arrivals. Perhaps it is her first time seeing an entourage from Yomi, she doesn't seem terribly impressed so far. For the time being she goes and finds a seat next to the cage pit where she drinks from a bottle of Baiju.

Ken will gladly accept the cigarettes as they're passed around. No drinks for him, though- he needs to maintain at least a fragment of his sobriety for this occasion. He bites the smoke in his mouth and sparks it up with a brass lighter, polluting the room with cigarette smoke as clouds of it bellow from his lungs. This bakemono has his eyes on the exchange of conversations with curiosity.

	The temple attendants working the door have a notion of those allowed to be back here this evening, and those not. They politely, deferentially, but firmly traffic cop and re-direct as necessary.

	Aha! Johnny Sorrow, underboss to Lord Ku of the Thousand Tears has arrived with his entourage!

NPC - Johnny Sorrow
Johnny Sorrow is a male figure, standing at a little over six feet tall. His athletic frame and build is sharply dressed in a suit of red silk, a gold colored button down dress shirt and matching pocket square, and a necktie, dress shoes, and a pair of gloves all in black. His visage is hidden behind a featureless red mask that is worn beneath a black fedora.

NPCS - The Sisters of a Thousand Tears
Accompanying Johnny Sorrow is an entourage of twelve beautiful young women, all dressed in red qipaos with gold lotus floral accents. They all appears to be in their early twenties at the oldest. Each of the young women moves with a practiced grace that accentuates their natural dexterity.

	But what about the two burly bodyguard types?
NPCS - The Wu Chou Twins
Formerly the wto non-decript asian men in dark suits, ince in teh back of teh house, their shapes shift to reveal a more interesting form beneath the earlier facade! Two now androgynous figures in pale "clown" style facepaint, now also garbed in red and gold. Lean to the point of aptly being described as whipcord, these figures wear an everpresent smile painted on their mouths but are otherwise cypers.

He's never seen a direct lieutenant of a Yama King before, and to see one of their underbosses is an experience indeed! It's only fair that, out of the protection of their overlords and far from Yomi, that these people are surrounded by a platoon of their own henchmen (and henchwomen!). His eyes, underneath those shades of his, then gaze upon the face-painted figures as they shifted from their previous form. Ken chuckles at the sight, clearly amused of the spectacle.

	Everyone will mingle around the cage pit. There's not much in the way of small talk, no, but definitely a lot of eyeballing and sizing up. These are uncharted waters for all involved.

	Mild interest registers across Kurumi's face when the burly asian men shift into clowns? She takes another long drink from her bottle of baiju as she studies the men, though her eyes drift over to the Sisters of a Thousand Tears. She licks her lips like a cat who has just spotted a tasty treat as she watches them, that predatory gleam showing in her eyes.

	Continuing in Mandarin, the exchange proceeds. "I'm interested in raising the profile of Barrio Chino's position in the middle kingdom," says Fenix to Sorrow. "A tournament of the capital cities of heaven and hell would go some way towards doing that."

	Johnny Sorrow nods. Its difficult to assess what he thinks, given that all his facial expressions are obscured behind the mask. "And what does Lord Ku get in return for burnishing the profile of this little shithole town you've claimed as yours." Matter of fact and to the point.

	Fenix grins, "Plenty of wayward souls to take back to your own shithole across the wall, especially to the extent your champions win." A shrug from Fenix. He knew traffic was not that easy to come by, and new markets were new markets, shithole cities or not!

Sorrow is /exactly/ Ken's kinda guy! Too bad he's just another poor ass-licker, a pawn in one of the Yama Kings' scheme. Itching his chin as a smile cuts from ear to ear, Ken puffs on his menthol, pondering ways he can slice & dice this 'Sorrow' and his pack of ne'er-do-wells. Hell, even Lord Ku can potentially get some of this, too, if that's what it takes to win this tournament.

	Johnny Sorrow offers a nod. "Sure, why not. Let's get a closer look at your shithole gin joint deathpit." He and his entourage then all move in unison over to get a closer look at the cage down in the pit. One of the Wu Chou twins makes his way into the cage to pace around its perimeter from the inside to take its measure.

	For her part the Oni girl seems bored with the political discussions and negotiations. Her track Johnny Sorrow when he starts moving towards the cage though and then to those delicious looking attendants that follow him. The clown twins are given a slightly wary glance though Kurumi still seems to have trouble taking them seriously.

 	 Had Emi always been in the room or did she recently step from the umbra. Either way the Kitsune is rather silent when listening to Fenix and the servitors of the Yama Kings. She takes a cigarette but puts it aside for now, the young woman didn't know how to smoke. However she takes a drink to relax the muscles as she stood in a fresh black track suit with brand new white K-Swiss shoes. The hoodie on the suit up - like a wannabe unabomber without the shades. The fox woman observing the clowns, the women and Johnny Sorrow, before looking at the pit. A smirk to Fenix over the battles to come.

	The Wu Chou twin in the cagepit clowns around, tumbling to and fro silently. Each tumble takes him to another part of the it, until the clown has largely covered every inch of it on the inside. The painted on smile lingers and masks the otherwise perfectly blank expression on his face. Then he looks up at Johnny Sorrow and offers a shrug. Sorrow nods, then turns to Fenix. "Beasts? Born to lose fodder to whet the appetite? Anyone worthy enough to put on a good show?"

	Fenix nods. "Yes. Yes. And yes. We'd have other cities send ringers too. Once your Lord gets on board, the others will. No one wants to get left behind. Besides, we have tradition on our side."

	The Wu Chou twin continues his pantomiming and clowning in the cage pit. Its not Peking opera, but it is at least mildly entertaining, in a low key annoying way. Fenix arches an eyebrow and then looks over to Ken. "What do you make of things?"

	Johnny Sorrow makes a small sound approximating a laugh. "So. No one wants to knock the clown around even a little?"

Ken turns his head in a slow and deliberate move to Fenix when the question is thrown, and then to Sorrow. It's unsure what's crossing through this bakemono's mind right now while he just smokes and puffs on his menthol, but then he ashes it down and bites it. "That a challenge? Cuz I'm not backing down from one," Ken addresses Sorrow. Nodding to Fenix, he steps up and makes his way into the Cage.

	Fenix gives Sorrow a grin and then makes his way over to peer down into the cage when Ken descends the slope and enters. The Wu Chou ambles around, clearly curious at Ken's arrival. The clown wears a big painted on smile for Ken, of course. He'll slowly begin to ape Ken's movements. Interesting!

	Kurumi's expression turns to mild amusement as Ken makes his way into the cage to fight the clown, regardless of the outcome this should be fun. The Oni girl is a creature of Desire afterall and two things that Oni love are liquer and fighting. She takes another long pull from her bottle of Baiju as she turns to watch. She also waves to Emi when the Foxgirl appears, favoring her with a toothy grin.

	The Wu Chou twin bop bops along, weeble-wobbleing his way around Ken for now, with that silly-stupid painted on grin.

As Ken enters the Cage, his whole form undergoes a transformation. It takes him a few seconds, but then his figure now turns to an eeringly similar version of the Wu Chou twins, albeit one with shades and a cigarette hanging from his mouth. He grins from ear to ear in return, tilting his head at the clown, and spits the cigarette at its direction. Ken stays back and waits for the Wu Chou's reaction.

As Ken enters the Cage, his whole form undergoes a transformation. It takes him a few seconds, but then his figure now turns to an eeringly similar version of the Wu Chou twins, albeit one with shades and a cigarette hanging from his mouth. He grins from ear to ear in return, tilting his head at the clown, and spits the cigarette at its direction. Ken stays back and waits for the Wu Chou's reaction.

	The Wu Chou twin mimics Ken's movement, with an imaginary cigarette and all.He's quite good at pantomime and mimicking!

 	 It's hard not to look at the demon slut harem - but Emi eyed them all to get makeup tips or fashion ideas for hair. Maybe they weren't sluts, but it was a happier thought to think that they were. Emi slinks up to Kurumi and cracks open two chu-hi's for her and the oni. One was strawberry the other grape, allowing Kurumi to choose which one she wanted. What where the chances the woman would turn down free alcohol. Leaning closer to the window to watch Ken transform. "Freaking awesome. You gonna fight? Because I'm going to sign up.", watching the action in the pit.

It's all a meaningless show of mimicking now, and clown-Ken decides to seize the initiative and step forward, though without any hostile intents. He moves, hand reaching forward to try and poke this annoying clown, or maybe he's just looking to close the distance.

	The Wu Chou now mirrors Ken's movements with almost perfect symmetry, including the finger-poke. But refrains from making any actual contact just yet. Its quite the spectacle. There's a soft murmur that makes its way across the twelve sisters of the Thousand Tears. Johnny Sorrow remains quiet as he watches the clowning in the cage.

	In the cage, Ken bursts into fire! Also in the cage? The Wu Chou catches fire! Look - a clown with a silly grin pastered across his face. On fire! The smell - well. The smell isn't particularly pleasant. Fans above the cage do their job so no one fucking asphixiates from smoke and such.

	The twelve sisters gather close to the cage peer down at the clown, crowding in on each other. Things got hot and bothered real quick!

When both figures touch and make physical contact with each other, a black hellish flame the size of a bonfire suddenly erupts from Clown Ken. Clown Ken stays silent and unresponsive, watching for the Wu Chou while both are caught on fire. Balling his fist, he tries the Wu Chou twin's durability with a haymaker right at its face.

	Kurumi watches the flaming pair, now seemingly quite curious if this is all the clown has got to offer. She glances back towards Johnny Sorrow and then back to the pair fighting again. She expected more from the bodyguards of a Yomi Underboss. At least she has liquer though, she takes another swallow of Baiju only to find out oh no! She's finished the bottle! This distracts Kurumi from the fight for the moment as she tries to signal an attendant to get another one!


	Well, its certainly an interesting time in the cage now! Not only fire! But now violence two! (Well, this place /was/ a yang temple to blood and fire, sex and violence!) Fenix grins from ear to ear as things heat up inside the cage down below.

	POW! RIGHT IN THE KISSER! The Wu Chou staggers backwards from Ken's mighty blow. That's gotta leave a mark! The clown reaches up to wipe at his blood stained face, rubbing at his face with his hands. Rub, rub rub. Wipe, wipe, wipe. The thing about the Wu Chou in Chinese opera? Sichuan opera? There's a thing called face-changing. The magic stunts such as quick face changes without makeup and the acrobatics such as jumping through burning hoops and hiding swords entertain and amuse audiences. The magical face changes are /particularly/ famous.

	When the smoke and fire and blood clears from the Wu Chous face? Well. Its no longer the Wu Chou's face anymore but Ken's instead! When? What? How did that happen? BRAVO!!!!

	Johnny Sorrow laughs and claps his hands in applause at the show that's being put on down below. The masked bastard just might have a sense of humor! hHe calls for another round of drinks even as the sisters of a thousand tears continue to huddle together and twitter amongst themselves.

Out of a sick twist of events, the Wu Chou twin is now Ken, and Ken is now the Wu Chou twin. To add even more spice to the spectacle, Clown Ken lands a powerful punch into his own face, blood dripping out of his mouth and nose. A humorous grin crosses his face as he mirrors the actual wounded Wu Chou, by wounding himself! OK, so who's the real Ken, and who's the real Wu Chou now? The black flame dies down.

	There's a twitter of delight that passes through the gaggle of tears sisters as the barrio chino combatant goes with the flow. One of the tears sisters? Inside the trhong of them? Loses her lunch. Or her drink rather, ralfing the mess all over the floor. Uh oh. Someone's a lightweight. Giggling ensues as the mob of tears sisters shifts away from the mess to an unspiled spot aroudn the cage en masse.

	Wu Chou Ken staggers around Ken Wu Chou. Anyone with Awareness at 3+ will detect chinese black magic at work. The darkest sort. But that had to be a given, right? I mean, its chinatown, Jake!

A single step forward and Clown Ken, face bleeding from his own punch and possessing an unholy speed, is now in front of False Ken with an uppercut served /bloody/. As his opponent staggers backwards, oddly deciding /not/ to dodge his attacks, Clown Ken moves to strike with two more successive strikes that by all means are no less powerful than the previous one.

	Man, that /HAS/ to hurt. Never get into a land war in China, and /never/ let a bakemono wail on you with impunity! Two things tht are as true as the rising and setting of the sun! Wu Chou ken staggers backwards with each blow as Ken Wu Chou advances, until Wu Chou Ken's back is against the wall, his face againa bloody mess! But then? Then there's nowhere to go but forward, like one of those clown punching bags weighted with sand at the bottom that bounce back at you after you hit them? Yeah, just like one of those.

	The Wu Chou Ken bounces back from the cage wall and into Ken like one of those crazy clown punching bags, unleashing a torrent of blows that match Ken Wu Chou for the earlier blows. Three mighty blows land true, sounding out in the cage with resounding thwacks! Maybe they resound so loudly because Ken Wu Chou has an armored hide! Either way, despite their power, the local bakemono is jostled and rattled but left otherwise unharmed!

	Kurumi manages to get herself another bottle of Baiju! She may be huge with stamina to match up even she is starting to look a bit pink in the face after the amount that she has drank. She saunters over to sit next to Emi bringing her bottle of baiju with her, drinking and watching fights are always better with company!

	Johnny Sorrow laughs again, clapping his gloved hands at the display before turning to clap Fenix on the back. "You have interesting enough friends here in your shithole gin joint. I will convey such to the Lord, along with my recommendation that we accept your invitation. But on accout that we get the lion's share of proceeds after yours but over the other Lords that sign on after /us/."

	Fenix watches the curiouser and curiouser cage fight before looking to Sorrow when he speaks. "Of course, I would have expected nothing less. There'll be plenty to go around. I'll keep you posted as other Lords and Ladies sign on." Then the little god of blood and fire looks back down to see what Ken will do next!

	Another wave of titters and screams pass through the gaggle of sisters of the thousand tears as Ken wails on the poor Wu Chou! Two more sisters lose their lunch/drinks from the bloodspatter violence taking place in the cage!

Ken's skin will ripple and turn into a thin metallic sheet that encompasses his entire body as the Wu Chou's hits connect. Staring through those glasses, he'll let out an audible "Ouch" as he prepares for a counter-attack. A burst of energy flows through his body into his fist as it pulls and releases a thunderous blow, the hardest hit out of him so far, and continued with two more successive strikes just like before. "Still gonna fool around?"

	The Wu Chou Ken is still silent, even if his face and body IS a bloody pulp. Backed up against the cage wall again, he has no chocie but to bounce back against the Ken Wu Chou like some dumb weighted clown punching bag!

	The Wu Chou Ken unleashes three blows, perfectly mimicking Kens earlier torrent of martial prowess. But Ken? The REAL Ken? Is made os /stern-ass/ stuff! He /maybe/ breaks out into the tiniest of nosebleeds. Or maybe the Wu Chou's fist just bled on his nose. Its hard to say.

	Sorrow laughs again, then looks over at his thousand tears bitches as they gasp and scream A sigh as he looks down into the cage. "ENOUGH!" He reaches into his suit pocket, pulls ot a rubber banded wad of bills and tosses it over and down into the cage. "To the victor go the spoils." His featureless gaze goes to Fenix. "Let me know when the turnament is set. You can expect one of mine to show up here once a week to continue to build interest until then." And with that, he and his gaggle of 8 sisters of a thousand tears turn to leave. Bloody throwup of drink stomach churn from earlier is left behind on the floor. Lightweights.

	In the background, 99 Luftballons begins to play on the speakers.

There's another counter attack winding up when Sorrow yells out his demand, and the energy building up in Clown Ken's body is tamed. He lowers his fist, his form returning to the initial, /real/ Ken that apparently is suffering from a nose-bleed. Ken looks up to see the wad of bills being tossed, stares at the bloodied Wu Chou, shrugging, and goes to collect his prize. The man doesn't even regard his defeated enemy anymore, back turned to him as he adjusts his pair of dark shades that was slightly staggered by the Wu Chou's first relevant blow. He counts through the money as he walks out of the Cage, wiping the nose-bleed with the back of his hand.

	Kurumi looks after Sorrow's entourage, seemingly disappointed they're going after only one fight. She still doesn't seem terribly impressed by the entourage, especially after they couldn't hold their liquer, though she does still seem like she might like to eat one. Perhaps for the best that they are making their exit. She just continues drinking her baiju.

	The Wu Chou wipes at his face again, and literally wipes off Ken's viage from it, returning to his original generic clown visage that was won when he first arrived. He'll gingerly weeble-wobble his way out of the cage pit. Someone needs liniments and oils, stat!!! 'cause that beating from earlier? Is gonna leave marks!

	Hell Broke Luce by Tom Waits plays in the background.

	And as suddenly as the ill wind that is the entourage of Lord Ku of the Thousand Tears arrived? They depart. Barrio Chino has suddenly become a place of interest! This little border shithole outpost will be keeping things lively!

    Fenix makes his way down with a bucket of beers for Ken. "Hell of a show."

"He had me on my nerves, I swear. Pssh, what, these Yomi spawns think they're still real shit once they're out of their realms? Welcome to the Middle Kingdom, ya fucks." Ken lets loose a thunderous laugh, and he nods to Fenix. "Much thanks, man," he says as he pulls out a beer for himself. His head turns and stares at the exit for a moment, then eyes Fenix. "Don't you think something felt kinda... wrong there, though? I could've sworn they had more people when they arrived." Then he looks to Kurumi. "You felt it too?"

	Fenix nods in agreement with Ken's assessment of the diminished power of the Yama. "But right now, the Yama Lords got to do what's right for them. Because it's their time. Their time! Down there! Up here, it's our time. It's our time up here." ... .... ... Man, someone's been watching too much Goonies.

Kurumi shrugs her shoulders, "They didn't put on much of a show. They were toying with you just to see what you could do. I wouldn't get cocky about beating the bodyguard of a mere servant." She takes another long drink of alcohol and might be a bit drunk at this point given she's on at least her second bottle of baiju. "They probably possessed some mortals, it's what I would do. Put spies in the area, dig in their claws. If this area's profile does go up they'll want agents already in place." she hiccups and leans on Emi.

===> Log ended by user <===> 4/19/2019, 11:51:38 PM <===