[FIN] Need a Little Distraction

[TawnyAngel]

Ah.

KO's smile faltered and his grip tightened slightly on his glass. Yes, that. He didn't like this, he didn't like admitting to... to.... Or he just didn't like thinking about it? Maybe both, he wasn't sure because he really hated thinking about it.

Silence held heavy for a few moments; KO eventually broke it with a small noise of dissatisfaction, broke eye contact with Izaya too. "Yes, I was trying to see if I could get to you... And trying to get you to drop the subject. Not that I would have said no if you had responded positively but...." He trailed off, brows knit tight and lips pressed together into a flat line of displeasure at how awkward and stilted his speech was sounding. If he wanted Izaya's help on this he was going to have to give him information whether he liked it or not.

After another pause KO asked; "Would you just take my word for it, or do you really want to see what the scar looks like?" He didn't sound pleased to be asking the question and as he looked up at Izaya once more he didn't appear to be especially keen on getting an answer either.  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

"Uh oh. Did I step on a nerve?" he asked, noting the slight change in KO's demeanor. "Pardon me. What an awful guest I am." It was interesting, though, because he hadn't realized it would still have affected the other man enough to wrinkle his otherwise flawlessly smooth attitude.

Izaya couldn't help smiling again. It was an awful smile because he knew it was derived from the schadenfreude he got while watching Kirk faulter. Obviously the debonair, confident fellow wasn't used to having his feathers ruffled and it gave the ex-Rocket a sort of terrible delight to see someone else happen upon the same unpleasant feeling that he had so often felt since Aila's death.

It was weird not to be responded to with anger after evoking that reaction, though, as he'd expected to be. The black-haired man blinked at the question and took a couple of steps toward him. "You...would you prefer I take your word for it?" he asked, brows furrowing in confusion. "Are you really so self-conscious about it? Because impalement, disfigurement, and scars or not, that's the last thing I'd ever imagine you to be."  

[TawnyAngel]

Did he step on a nerve? As though he hadn't been trying to! Annoyance flashed across KO's fine features but faded fast with a weary sigh, he was too tired for this. He felt old, and he'd sworn he would never feel old.

"Yes, what of it?" he said reluctantly with a faint hint of surliness. "Forgive me if I'm not fond of being reminded that I.... Died." He had died. He was only here because, what, because of an experiment? He was under no illusions that TR had made a special effort for his personal benefit, he'd been a convenient subject and that was all. He was insignificant. He was a grunt. He was a number. Perhaps that was what his new project was all about in the end, he wanted to matter, he wanted to leave an impression on the world when he died for real. That was probably why other people went around having children.

There was another silence, they were rare from KO in general but closely packed in this conversation as his thoughts skipped around and his emotions twanged taut and raw still even after so long. "I would prefer," he began eventually, "but they do say seeing is believing, and I want you to believe me more than I want-" The red haired man stopped mid sentence, got to his feet and headed over to his laptop. "I'll show you some pictures from when I returned to base, that's more unusual than the scar itself now anyway," he said perhaps a little too quickly as he opened the machine up and pulled up his image files. A few layers down in the neat file formatting brought him to a folder simply marked with a date; KO opened it up and turned the laptop around for Izaya to see. The purple scar on the left side of his chest wasn't a pretty picture but it was definitely a scar, well healed if discoloured and raised.

KO sipped his drink and wished he'd gone for the vodka after all.  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

Izaya held up his palms in surrender. "Hey, I really had no idea. If I were you, I can't see why I'd hold any negative feelings towards being reminded of something like that. Wouldn't that liken you to something like a god? Who wouldn't want to say they died and came back to life?" He shook his head.

"Heh, would you believe me if I told you one of the reasons I joined Team Rocket was so that I could find out if they had any research that involved the afterlife and its connection to ghost pokemon? I figured since that was something that bled into what society might call 'unethical' territory, Team Rocket would likely to be the first to make some breakthrough since they're not afraid to cross thresholds like those involving ethics. I never thought they'd do more than just confirming the existence of an afterlife, though."

He scratched his head, clearly befuddled, as he tried to listen further and read KO's new attitude and understand where it was coming from. When the other man got up to go to his laptop, Izaya remained right where he was, still staring at the grunt and not seeming at all interested in what said grunt had pulled up on his computer screen. Kirk's words went through his head and he vaguely wondered why the pictures might have been more unusual than the scar itself, but that wasn't what he was currently most curious about. Crimson eyes locked on scarlet red.

"So...this isn't about being self-conscious, is it?" he asked slowly, trying to get a grip on the situation. "This is about...no, you said you want me to believe you more than you want...what, exactly?" Izaya stared at KO with his forehead creased in deep throught, cocking his head as if that might help him see something about the Rocket that he had previously missed. "What do you want, Kirk? Don't you give the impression that you have it all - looks, brains, fashion sense, ambition, and now everlasting life? What is it you think you're missing?"  

[TawnyAngel]

"More than I want to not show you," KO snapped, irritation flaring up again along with his discomfort at Izaya's questioning. "You think I like it?" he made a staccato gesture to the image on the screen. "I died - I must have died but they wouldn't admit that to me and I don't know why. Look at this, an injury like that wouldn't heal completely in a month even with those healing accelerants the medics use these days. Besides that there was my hair, it hadn't grown at all. Am I supposed to believe that somebody did my eyebrows for me exactly the way I get them done? I don't think so. And do you know what else? There was nothing." He'd never really believed in an afterlife but not really believing was different to knowing there was nothing, that when you died and stayed dead that was it.

KO stood up abruptly and crossed the room to his mini fridge, to hell with keeping sharp he wanted a damn drink. Once he'd sloshed some vodka into his soda he turned to Izaya once more with a humourless smile. "I understand it's only anecdotal, but you can add that testimonial to your research on the 'afterlife' if you want."  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

His gaze flickered back and forth between the uncharacteristic look on KO's face and the screen of his laptop while Izaya processed the information he was being told. "...So you stayed the same, essentially? But you've changed at least somewhat since then, right?" This was making even less sense than before. He tried to keep his volume low and his tone calm so as not to alarm or upset the grunt any more than he already had. "What do you mean, 'there was nothing'?"

He stepped aside when Kirk got up to get a drink. At the other man's continuation, it finally dawned on him. "You mean there was nothing regarding being dead?" What? But how could that be? Ghost pokemon existed, didn't they? Or was that just because they were pokemon and not people? Did that mean that stuff about Yamask wearing the semblances of humans they had once been was just meaningless tripe?

Yes, he'd had his guesses. Those suicidal girls that he had met with from the internet - they had all had their own theories of what happened when you died. One of him had also said she thought there was nothing. But Izaya had replied to her with a different idea. "I once thought there couldn't even be nothing because we would cease to exist," he said, trying to calm back down. His face was still contorted as he tried to reason out what seemed to be unreasonable. "So we wouldn't even be able to tell there was nothing. But if you could tell, that meant there had to be some form of existence for you. Especially if they managed to bring you back." He frowned. "Was it like time didn't pass for you; like sleeping? Or did you really feel like there was nothing?"  

[TawnyAngel]

"Of course I've changed since," KO confirmed dismissively; lips tight, stance tight, hand on his drink tight so the tendons showed, "the significance is that when you die hair and nails stop growing, so that was one of the many pieces of evidence that led me to the conclusion that I'd died and been brought back." And the base, the base had been eerie. None of the rockets had looked at him, not one.

KO took a sip of his drink and moved to sit down on his bed in a concious effort to keep himself from pacing the room. "Like time didn't pass, like a dreamless sleep," he confirmed, red eyes going unfocused as he cast his memory back. "One minute I was losing consciousness with a hole in my chest, the next I woke up in an empty medical bay feeling fine.  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

"Ah...of course." Duh. So KO had really been dead. For a while. A month, sounded like. His hands curled into fists in an attempt to keep from shaking. "And they didn't admit that to you."

"You might not be the only one," he murmured, wondering if people who didn't want him to know things were listening to him right now. Damn, if they saw what he saw, they must have seen what KO had shown him. Maybe that wouldn't matter? Maybe they already knew KO was suspicious. Maybe it didn't matter that Izaya knew that he was suspicious. Maybe those were too many maybes to be replying on.

And yet they were already too deep in this to turn back now. Izaya walked over to speak more quietly to the other man within a proximity that he could still hear. "You know the Trainee I mentioned? Trainee Gaia? If what you're saying is true, that means Gaia could very well be a dead Rocket who went by the name of Agent Aila. If you were dead for a month and were brought back...who's to say they wouldn't try to bring back someone who'd been dead for years?"  

[TawnyAngel]

"No," KO affirmed flatly, "they didn't and I don't know why, which makes it worse. Did they think I was too stupid to notice something wasn't right?" He'd started to wonder if it was some kind of test, and if it was what was being tested; was he supposed to be blindly loyal and say nothing, or demonstrate curiosity and ask questions? What happened if he chose the wrong option? Saying nothing seemed safer....

And he wasn't the only one.

KO's brows knit into a frown as Izaya spoke, he could hardly dismiss the possibility given what he was sure had happened to him. If anything in fact this was more proof that he was right; he could, maybe, perhaps, not have been dead, it was unlikely but possible (unlikely that he had been dead and brought back to life? He'd never thought he would think a phrase like that) but if this Aila Izaya spoke of had been dead for years then she couldn't just have been MIA.

"I don't see why they wouldn't attempt it," KO said after a heavy silence. "If I was the first test - conveniently dead just as they got hold of Xerneas - then they would follow it up with another one to test the limits of," he paused again, frowned, and continued with; "whatever it was they did. If you're right then must still have had her remains; not impossible, I'd always assumed that they incinerated dead rockets but it seems like there's not a lot that it's safe to assume around here." If somebody could be brought back from the dead after several years then what wasn't possible?

"But you said she goes by Gaia," KO continued after another sip of his drink. "She didn't tell you she was Aila then? Do you think she was hiding that from you, or didn't remember?"  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

Izaya's frown deepened, the furrows of his forehead deepening along with it. "You said before...that that Xerneas was like a god of sorts to those pokemon, right?" he murmured. "You said the god of life. And...from what I understand, this whole thing started after you managed to capture it. So since you actually caught this thing rather than just obtained a sample of its DNA, would it be plausible to say that Team Rocket may have somehow learned how to harness the powers of that legendary in such a way as to bring back the dead?"

The man did his best not to betray any sort of emotion when referring to Gaia or Aila. KO didn't know his connection to them and he preferred to keep it that way. "Agent Aila was buried, not incinerated. Aside from being a very valued member of the organization, she had connections to nobility from Grande Ile which might have had some influence on the fate of her remains. Also, her partner was very sentimental about her, as was her mentor, Seth."

He spoke in a monotone fashion, but all he could think of was his last glimpse of Aila in her agent uniform at her funeral. "Her body had been embalmed after her autopsy and she had had an open-casket memorial service for dying in the line of duty on a mission. I'd heard it was a rare occurrence, but they probably made an exception for her. Like I said, very valued member." There had been 17 candles lit on the shelf next to her. Supposedly that was a Grande Ile tradition for those that died - a candle for each year of life. He shook his head to clear it; he didn't want or need to remember such things.

"Anyway...I suppose that makes her an even more likely candidate for them to test their new-found power out on if she was one of the few and perhaps the most recent who actually had a corpse to re-animate. Also, since she was such a hard worker and loyal to the organization until the end, she could only be an asset to them if the re-animation was successful."

He looked back at KO and shook his head. "I confronted her about it one day. She said she had read from records who Aila was but didn't know what possible connection she might have had to her. I tried to ask her more, like if she didn't think they appeared similar because she said she had seen images of her, but Trainee Gaia didn't seem the least bit curious or suspicious. Either she was hiding something or she really has no idea."

Izaya ran a hand through his hair suddenly feeling like he needed to sit down. He planted himself on the floor, not wanting to disturb anything else in the room. "I know what Aila looks like, though, and she had no twin sisters. I knew her before either of us were Rockets and she was the one who recruited me." He sighed. "Perhaps it's been too long and her brain decomposed too much for them to return it back to how it was even if they managed to heal it. She didn't recognize me at all. I guess it's also possible they might have decided to wipe her memory, but if they didn't do that with you, I don't know why they would have with her. Unless, of course, they just didn't want to alarm everyone with this long-dead person. If people were spooked about you, one can only imagine how they would have reacted to her."  

[TawnyAngel]

KO shrugged but nodded at the same time, it was what people seemed to believe - and those pokemon had been very keen on revenge - but he wouldn't even begin to use the word God himself. As if there was any such greater benevolent power, it was laughable really and yet most people nodded and took the great invisible friend or friends in the sky seriously. It was pathetic and yet he understood it, people were desperate to believe that firstly they were special and secondly that when they died they didn't stop existing.

"I guess I would say that," KO continued after a short pause, in which he collected his thoughts as best he could. "It may be just another pokemon but it is a very powerful one. We already know other pokemon that do the seemingly impossible, why not one more impossible thing?" He shrugged again, looked down, sipped his drink and listened to Izaya talk about this Alia person in a strangely emotionless voice. Now why was that? He was pretty preoccupied by his own problems but not so preoccupied that he hadn't noticed the sudden change in tone.

After another pause KO looked over at Izaya, who was now seated on the floor, and said; "You knew her well then." It wasn't a question. "I don't know which of your guesses might be right about the memory issue and I couldn't hazard a better one myself. If she was only pretending not to remember I don't suppose she would speak to even me about it but I could try." If there was somebody else who had been through the same thing, but who had been dead for far longer.... Maybe... maybe she had seen something? Maybe there was more after your heart stopped and brain activity ceased. He wanted that to be the case a lot more than he liked or would ever admit to. He didn't want to stop existing.  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

The informant nodded slowly, trying to let the idea that Team Rocket might actually have found the secret to immortality sink in. Well, a type of immortality anyway; one that involved death but also infinite resurrections. If that were true, what would that mean for their organization? For humanity? For the whole world?

He didn't care. At least right now, he didn't care to puzzle out all the details and implications. KO's comment about him knowing Aila made his mouth tighten with anger at himself. He hadn't wanted to betray anything about his relation to her and yet he'd somehow gone and done it anyway. Unfortunately for Izaya, KO was sharp in more ways than one.

"It might be better for her to speak to someone who didn't know Aila because then she wouldn't keep feeling like she was being compared. Like I'm pretty sure I made her feel," he remarked. "You're charismatic. Good-looking; smooth. I'm sure you'll do better than I at any rate."

He rested his cheek in his palm and looked up at KO. "Sometimes people who have died - or at least think they've died - temporarily in situations like on an operating table claim to have a new perspective when they come back to life. So. I asked a question before. You still haven't answered."

Izaya tilted his head slightly, adjusting his palm. "What was it you decided you were missing when you got your fresh new perspective on life? Or are you going to tell me that other than being spooked out of your wits, everything was exactly the same?"  

[TawnyAngel]

"Mmh," KO agreed vaguely, too distracted even to bask in the compliments of his many wonderful attributes or even to really notice them. Did he have a new perspective? He supposed he did, he'd never thought about death before and deliberately so but now....

KO finished his drink and set his glass down with a decisive thunk on the little table beside his bed. "I've confirmed an unpleasant hypothesis, that's all," he said flatly. "I'll speak to this Aila, or Gaia, if an opportunity to do so presents itself. Do you have a picture of her I can keep?"

It wasn't a new perspective as such; he hadn't resolved to be a better person or got religion in an attempt to deny the nothingness, he just... He didn't want it to be real, final, a complete end to existence and no way to escape it. The idea of being remembered for his work was cold comfort but it was something, it was al there was.  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

"Tch. Fine, be boring," Izaya sulked, disappointed with KO's answer or lack thereof. He took out his phone and brought up the picture of Aila at the department store in Camphoreon - one of the few times he'd seen her smile whether or not it'd been genuine. Then he looked up.

"Wait. Why do you need a picture of her?"  

[TawnyAngel]

"Why do I need a picture?" KO made an impatient noise. "Maybe because I've never met the girl? How am I supposed to know who she is otherwise, should I just approach every female trainee and ask if they happen to be Gaia née Aila? You don't have to send it to me if it bothers you though, I can remember from that." The girl in the picture was smiling, her dark hair and bright eyes were quite striking; given what they supposedly had in common he wasn't about to forget her face.