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[infamousdelsin]

He hates this place. He hates that he can't leave. He hates that he can't get to the Akomish. It's the first time since Augustine hit them with her concrete power that he's actually felt helpless, and it's a terrible feeling.

He paces his new apartment tensely for a long moment before he swears and runs out the window. He climbs up the side of the building, then hits the roof. There's a neon sign not too far away. Maybe if he drains it, he can try to beat the city's weird Mobius effect. With neon, he can run at the speed of light, right? So maybe he can beat this.

He makes his way to it, heart kicking up in excitement. He can do this. He can do this.

He reaches the sign, holds his hands out—

And stumbles back with a gasp. His hands feel burned, and even as he looks, he can see the red marks start to fade. He pants softly and looks at the sign.

"What the hell!?" he demands. "No. No, no, no, no, this can't be happening." He reaches for the sign again, and lets out a pained sound. He curses and walks in a tense circle as he shakes out his arms.

He's lost neon. How? He hasn't gained a new power, not since concrete . . .

Delsin feels his stomach sink, and he looks around. There are no DUP nearby to drain it from. But he needs to know. If he's lost that, too, then he really is screwed. Because without concrete, the Akomish are going to die. And everything, all of it, even losing Reggie . . . it would have been for nothing.

Delsin shakes his head and he runs for the edge of the building. He needs a TV. If he can drain video, maybe he's still got a chance. He leaps off the edge of the building and lands on the sidewalk beneath it. He gets a few odd looks from the locals, but he ignores them: he's on a mission.

[[ Set to pre-bees, shortly after Delsin arrives in Darrow. He's just discovered that he lost one, possibly three of his Conduit powers and it's freaking him out. He's not on a rampage, but he's definitely on the verge of panic and will need to be calmed down. ST/LT welcome! Closed to top-levels ]]

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[breakthroughs]

It's an impressive leap, all things considered. Shikamaru spots it from a distance, where he's been smoking a cigarette on the roof of a nearby building, and recognizes it as a sport that many people proclaim to play in the city. Parkour, they call it.

Shikamaru prefers to think of it as the fastest way of traveling, but he's not picky about names.

Still, the man leaping around seems to show more than a hint of nervousness, which is what drives Shikamaru to make his way back to the street, similarly leaping off of walls and electric poles.

"You okay?" he asks as he drops onto the ground, his footfalls silent.

[infamousdelsin]

Delsin almost doesn't hear him: he's so focused on his his mission that the words sort of delay in registering. He skids to a stop when they penetrate, though, and looks around to figure out where it had come from.

When he spots the guy, he swallows. "Yeah, sure," he lies, and he doesn't even lie well. It's not like he doesn't want to talk to someone. It's not like he doesn't want help. But he has no idea what's going on with himself, and he needs to figure it out.

[breakthroughs]

Shikamaru raises a brow skeptically, noting the way that the man swallows thickly, the rise and fall of his breath, the flush across his cheeks. None of these things really suggest that someone's okay, but at the same time, 'okay' is a fairly subjective descriptor.

One that Shikamaru offered, so as not to overly pry.

"You don't sound like you're doing very well, to be honest," Shikamaru shares, hands sliding into his pockets. "I've watched you leaping by for a while. You're not running away from something, are you?" Shikamaru turns his gaze in the direction that the man appeared from.

[infamousdelsin]

Delsin shakes his head. "No. I need to find something." He looks around, wanting to find a TV shop of some kind — anything to help him figure out if he still has video. He'd use his own TV, but. Well. He'd probably break it out of sheer rage if it doesn't work. "Look, I gotta go, so if you want to talk, make sure you can talk and run."

[breakthroughs]

Whether or not the man really intended to make such an offer is up in the air, but Shikamaru isn't a man easily dissuaded from his curiosity — at least, when the effort required is as low as this. He might not be as fast as the great legends, but compared to most people he encounters in Darrow, the standard speed of a shinobi is enough to keep up.

He hopes that holds here.

"I'm familiar with the layout of the city. Might be able to help you find what you're looking for," he says, one hand pulling out from his pocket, holding a pack of cigarettes against his palm. He hasn't decided whether or not a smoke's appropriate right now. "But by all means, I can run. Lead the way."

[infamousdelsin]

Without neon, Delsin isn't abnormally fast, so at least the guy won't have any trouble keeping up. He heads off, taking a slow jog to start so he can keep an eye on their surroundings. Even if he just spots a billboard showing off a movie trailer, or an electronics store with TVs on display in the window, that'll do.

"I'm looking for a TV," he says, then clarifies, "Any TV. Preferably one that doesn't belong to anyone. I just— I need to know if I've lost one of my powers."

[breakthroughs]

Shikamaru's mind immediately turns to the various bars that are currently open around the city, but the disadvantage of a bar is always how crowded they can be. He's found some pretty shady people lurking around as well, regardless of neighborhood. The mention of powers leads Shikamaru to think that they should probably pick a better place than that.

"I know a place that'll work. Secondhand electronics," he says, crooking his finger before turning a corner down the street. "They'll be closed at this hour, but they keep some of the televisions on all night, and the security cameras in the place aren't actually recording. Ideal spot to test things out."

[infamousdelsin]

Delsin follows after him. "Shit, awesome," he breathes. He just hopes this works. His people need him, and if he's lost neon and video, he can almost guarantee he's lost concrete, too, and. He's not sure he can deal with that.

They make their way to the electronics shop and he looks at the TVs. They're set up, right against the glass. So easy to feel, except . . . he can't. He presses his hand to the glass and focuses. The pixels on the screen seem to pop a little, and Delsin feels something shove against his hand: an invisible concussive force that is his own powers, denying him access to something he can't control.

He feels his stomach drop, and he's so fucking tempted to punch the glass in rage. Instead, he turns and fires a heavy smoke shot at a nearby trashcan, sending it a good ten feet into the air. It lands with a heavy clang and rolls into the street.

[breakthroughs]

Shikamaru's brows raise sharply when the trash can practically leaps into the air. He could stop it, if he wanted to expose some of his powers, but the fact remains that this guy is practically a stranger to Shikamaru, and keeping his abilities mostly hidden might come in handy later. Just in case they're ever on opposite sides of a matter.

"Wow," he remarks lamely, reaching into his pocket for his cigarettes. Pulling one out for himself, he holds the box out for the man. There's the possibility that he doesn't smoke, but the gesture's worth making nonetheless. "Looks like you just got a major disappointment handed to you. Sorry about that."

[infamousdelsin]

Delsin sighs, pacing in tight, uneven circles. He shakes his head at the proffered back. Remarkably, he doesn't smoke. Well, he smokes, but not— whatever.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do, Man," he says roughly. He scrubs the back of his neck uncomfortably. "I'm losing all my powers!" And that's not an option for him. "People are counting on me," he adds, voice breaking, "and I'm stuck here without the powers I need the most to help them."

[breakthroughs]

Arching a brow at the break of the man's voice, Shikamaru can't help but be reminded of Naruto, and of the panicked anger that Naruto often showed when he found himself pulled away from his comrades at the front lines of a battle. Naruto's all too willing to put his own safety aside for the sake of protecting others. There's a streak of that which Shikamaru observes in his current companion.

Calmly, Shikamaru raises a cigarette to his lips and dangles it lightly between his teeth.

"You haven't lost your powers for long. At least where I'm from, there's plenty that can end up suppressing a power temporarily. It doesn't mean you give up, and it doesn't mean that you blame yourself for the things that you won't be able to do for a while. What you focus on instead is how to get those powers back, or even work around them if you have to," says Shikamaru. "You've got the drive. I'm sure you can find a solution."

[infamousdelsin]

He shakes his head. "You don't understand," he insists. "I need Augustine's concrete power to save my tribe. The doctors told Reggie: the only way those concrete shards that bitch put in are coming out is with the same power they were used to go in." He swallows hard and looks at his hand, letting it fill with smoke. "I had it. For a fucking second, I had it, and now I'm here and it's gone."

[breakthroughs]

"No, I think I do understand. I understand using power to save a tribe. To save your people. And I know what it's like to have people's lives hang in the balance when you falter; to have one misstep mean the deaths of many comrades. Don't let the age fool you. I've been there," Shikamaru says, finding his lighter and flicking it, flames licking at the air.

"But panicking isn't the solution. Now that you've lost your power, you need to figure out how to get it back. Or how to replace it with something else that will work just as well. Which won't necessarily be quick or easy, unfortunately."

[infamousdelsin]

"Nothing else will work," he insists, feeling tense and despairing. "And the only way to get the power back is to get it from Augustine." He holds his hands out to the sides, indicating the city at large. "Who didn't happen to follow me through." He shakes his head, pacing restlessly. "Not that it even matters, because apparently I'm not getting out of this fucking city, anyway!"

[breakthroughs]

"You'll get out at some point," Shikamaru says, raising a brow and slipping a hand into his pocket, keeping his countenance casual and relaxed. It might not help the man much, but Shikamaru doesn't see the point in stirring the pot when his companion is already agitated. "Will it be tomorrow? Probably not. And will you have a say when you do? Maybe not, either. But the chance of leaving is pretty high. I've been keeping tabs on outsiders in this city for a while, and most people leave before they hit two years in the city. About a third of the people who've arrived have already left."

[infamousdelsin]

Delsin shakes his head. "I don't know if that's better," he says. Shikamaru's quiet calm is penetrating, and Delsin's a little frustrated by it, but somewhere in the back of his mind, where a little voice that sounds like Reggie reminds him when things are bad ideas, Delsin knows that this is better. "I don't know if my tribe has two years." Augustine hadn't gotten to all of them, but Betty, and several others, would die if Delsin didn't use Augustine's concrete power to take the shards out.

And if he can't get back in time, Delsin isn't sure he'll be able to handle the knowledge that everything that happened in Seattle — losing Reggie — was for nothing.

[breakthroughs]

It's easy for Shikamaru's thoughts to immediately turn to Sasuke, the only one left of his clan, who had ventured on a lifelong path of revenge to try and get back at those responsible for wiping out his family. Delsin doesn't seem like he's half as bitter as Sasuke was, but Shikamaru doesn't want to know what Delsin might look like if he really does return to a world without his tribe.

"I hope that they do. If nothing else, you're alive and well. It might sound harsh, but even knowing that one person still remains is a ray of hope all its own," Shikamaru points out.

"But for the sake of you and yours, I'll certainly keep trying to learn about this city, and see if there are any exits to be found."

[infamousdelsin]

He swallows, forcing himself to relax a little more. When Shikamaru speaks, he nods. "You'd do that?" He swallows again. "Thanks, Man." They barely know each other, and this guy is just . . . offering to help him out. Even if he doesn't follow through, that seems like kind of a big deal.