Spreading the Word [Job; Zenshin & Chili]

Job info:

Zenshin remembered a time where Sabertooth was nothing but a shell of a guild.  A time in which he could count the members on his hand. Those times are long gone and the guild under the leadership of Kite Willhelm and it was now a shining example among the legal guilds. As such, one would expect that recruitment was a lower priority than, say, jobs. One would be wrong, for the most part. The former guild master of Sabertooth was personally familiar with the benefits and necessity of recruiting new members into the guild and, as such, found himself today in Rose Garden. He was searching for a new mage to add to the ranks of his fellow Sabertooth companions. But who? That was a question for fate to answer. He knew that at least one of the many people who roamed the streets of Rose Garden would be a great candidate for recruitment. Vigilance was key, though, so he sat down on a bench in front of a restaurant. This way, he could focus all of his attention on feeling the magical energy of those around him and, along with his intuition, gauge the potential of those that he saw.  

The Rose Garden was like a place out of a dream, making it a place in which it was slightly difficult to concentrate. However, the upside was that many, many mages were attracted to the location for one reason or another. Its surreal atmosphere was perfect for bringing in mages and non-mages from all around Earthland. There was even a guild hall here, meaning that the number of mages would be even higher than normal. Some would be part of the guild, but others, others would be coming here to join Black Rose - a guild which he knew little about save for the fact that it was new. Zenshin didn't remember a legal guild by that name existing when he was in Eclipse Soul, nor when he ran Sabertooth. Still, more legal guilds were never a bad thing.

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"Get out of here you varmint!" was all the old man was able to yell at Chili as he came running out of the Rose Garden's library.  "Yeesh, if I knew it wasn't allowed to use a blank wall as a wall of crazy to pin up all my evidence in one sleepless, record, scanning night. I wish they would have said something.  I could have taken more notes before they ran me out." Chili thought blatantly as he continued to run down the street. The library now off in the distance behind him, Chili slowed down to a steady walking speed. As he walked Chili, reached into his pack and pulled out his note book and started scribbling down what he could remember from the wall. Once he was down Chili promptly put his book back in his pack before zipping it up. Chili huffed even with the records intact he was only able to get a small piece of the puzzle, even then he didn't have a definite pattern to go off of. While his mind was spinning through all the knowledge he held on the matter, Chili's nose picked up a whiff of something good. Turning his head as he stopped Chili saw that he was now in front of a restaurant. Hearing his stomach growl Chili raised his head and let out a yawn as a thought occurred "I should have eaten yesterday a little instead of spending all my time reading through reports. All I've had is herbal tea in the past thirty-two hours. I may not like restaurants, however, I need something to keep my energy up so into the place I go and this place seems like the restaurants should have good food."
While he walked to the door, Chili noticed a white haired man sitting on a bench near the front. Taking a second to glance at him Chili could have sworn he saw that the man's eyes were black and white. Blinking for a second Chili shrugged "Maybe I'm just seeing things from the lack of sleep." Chili thought as he opened the door to enter the restaurant. An aroma of wonderful smelling food hit him like a wall and Chili was pretty sure he felt his stomach try and leap out of his body to get at whatever was cooking. The restaurant was a nice joint with tables on one side and booths on the other. Waiters and waitresses were all about taking drink and food orders. As he approached a woman tapped him on the shoulder. "How many will you be having and where would you prefer to sit."
Chili looked at her and simply said "I'll be eating alone and if you have any booths opened near the far back of the restaurant I'd like to be seated there, if not just take me to an empty space."
"Alright, follow me then sir." The head waitress says as she leads him to a booth in the back right corner of the restaurant, it had a good window view of the street he had just come in from. Sitting down the waitress smiled and told him some one would be over to take his order shortly. Smiling at her, Chili nodded his head. Leaning back in the booth Chili began to read the menu, his mind wandering as he did.

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He sat and he watched. Not a single person in the mass of people in transit seemed to be particularly good candidates for his proposition. Unfortunate, but I suppose that this is one of those days. There's no harm in coming back tomorrow he thought. While it was some rough luck that there was no one who really stood out to him, he thought it best to wait for tomorrow rather than pick someone he didn't have a gut feeling for only to later find out he had made a bad choice. Just as he was about to stand up and return to the guild, Zenshin's luck seemingly changed. He locked eyes with a young man, a teenager from the looks of it, and the perfect candidate for the mage's offer. His gut liked the boy and it was also itching for a meal. For these two reasons, Zenshin stood from the bench and walked into the restaurant.

"Hello. I'll just make my way to a seat with the rest of my party" he said, disregarding any kind of response he would get from the woman behind the lectern. As he walked further into the restaurant in search of the one he had seen, he noticed a few things about the restaurant. For one, the lightning was dark and the floors were made from an old wood. This place must have never been renovated before he thought before processing just how odd the smell in the air was. While it wouldn't be the first place he would choose to satisfy his stomach's desires, he certainly wasn't really in a position to argue with his needs. At last, he had found the brown haired boy all the way in the back of the establishment and took a seat across from him.

"Hello young man, I'm Zenshin. I'm a mage from Sabertooth and I couldn't help but single you out from the tourists, commuters, and others which tend to inhabit Rose Garden. Not being one to ignore my instincts, I decided I'd come in and acquaint myself with you. What brings you to Rose Garden?" he asked, excited to know more about who sat in front of him but also holding back from asking too many questions in too little time. As he'd get his response, he would alternate between eye contact and looking through the menu to find something appealing - after all, he was starving.

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Now that he was sitting directly in front of him Chili could now tell that this guy was about ten years older than him. Chili blinked a few times going over what the white hair had said. "Well it's not like I have anything to hide might as well be honest." Chili mulled over in his thoughts.
"I came to Rose Garden so I could go through the library's records of recent attacks on nearby villages that involve a mysterious fog. I was run out for using a wall to pin up all of the records so I could connect the dots easier." Chili flatly said as he confirmed that Zenshin's eyes were, in fact, white and black. The left one being white while the right was black. Scanning the menu one more time, Chili picked what he wanted and set it down onto the table next to him. Staying silent for a second Chili pondered on something, "So he's from Sabertooth. I've heard about that guild, although I've heard about most legal guilds in my travels. The only question is why is some one from a guild interested in talking to me? Although if he is looking for recruits that want to join that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, I'd be able to make some friends and comrades and not having to fight every battle alone would lessen the stress a bit."
"So are you out here to recruit new members?" Chili questioned pretty sure he already knew the answer. As he finished his sentence a waitress came walking over. "Hi, I'm Kristy and I will be your waitress this evening. May I take your guys' orders if you are ready?" She asked in a nice tone of voice.
Chili smiled at her politely and said, "Yeah I'll take a root beer, a bowl of fruit salad and a large order of fries please."
Nodding Kristy wrote down Chili's order on her pad before turning to Zenshin to get his order.

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"I see. So, you're some kind of detective then? You seem to be a little young for that kind of work" he said, evaluating the kind of value that the young man would provide to the guild. As far as I'm aware, we don't really have intelligence gathering types within our guild. We have powerhouses, we've got healers, but I don't think we have anyone too savvy with that kind of thing. Hm. "You got it! Rose Garden is full of people, mages and otherwise, due to its popularity and status as a city that houses a guild - Black Rose, if I recall correctly. Naturally, this makes the location a great place to scout out new talent. Recruiting isn't to easy if you've never done it before, though with an enough experience a gut instinct will develop towards certain individuals and believe me, I've had quite a bit of experience in recruiting members into the guild" he said before looking at the lady patiently waiting for him to give her his order.

"Ah, yes. I'll have a plate of fried squid and a White Russian" he said, deciding to see just how good the bartender was at this restaurant while getting a nice snack for himself. "Anyways, here I am" he said after turning his attention back to the young man in front of him. "This isn't exactly a test which you can pass or fail with the former gaining you an invitation and the latter gaining you a rejection. I really just wanted to see what kind of skills you can bring to the guild and, of course, just make sure you aren't a murderous psychopath. The invitation to join Sabertooth is always open and the choice is really yours to accept or decline. So far, you seem pretty promising. Few would go out of their way to investigate attacks on villages, and that really tells me a lot about you as far as your moral alignment and interests are concerned. Well, unless you're lying, but I don't think you are. Would you mind if I got your name, by the way?" he said, ending his little speech bluntly. The waitress had left already to go put their orders in and Zenshin awaited for the response from the boy across from him.

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"Chili is my name and as for the attacks on villages, It's due to a personal interest more than me being a hero, however, I would like to prevent anyone else from the same fate as my village. Sadly I haven't been able to save anyone yet since I can't nail down a pattern and as for my moral alignment, I do my best to help the people I come across along the way toward my own goal. I mean why not, like my uncle used to quote, "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph, is for good man to do nothing." I've seen the truth in that quote more times than I can count. So if this an invitation into your guild then I accept. It would be nice to have a place full of people I can trust for a change. Rather than constantly looking over my shoulder." Chili rambled for a second, as a different thought went through his head. "Although I may still have to keep looking over my shoulder, who ever has been cleaning house and wiping evidence of all these attacks is still out there and I'm pretty sure they are watching me."

Chili took his eyes off the man across from him and scanned outside the window for a second, not looking at the street, his eyes were looking at the dark shadowy places. Where someone could be hiding, watching him, or they were running ahead to the next library already so they can get rid of all the crime reports involving fog appearing right before an attack happened. Chili sighed as he pondered on that idea, "So one's probably watching my progress while another is told of it and takes the appropriate steps to slow me down. Luckily enough they can't know where I'm going next until I do so it's a race to see who can get to the library first. I'm three for eight now. I'm losing, however, I must be getting close for them to be tailing me. Just wish I could spot the tail although whoever it is probably is using magic to hide so no point in wasting time trying to spot them."
Looking back at Zenshin, Chili, smiled at him "Well if there is anything else you feel like asking me, go ahead, I'll do my best to answer what I feel up to."

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Zenshin listened to Chili's entire story before speaking. "Chili? Like the food? That's an interesting name I suppose" he said, still a bit surprised at the boy's name. A lot of information had been presented, though he felt it was appropriate to comment on the most interesting, in his opinion. "Well ou might not be a detective, but you're surely doing their work. If you nee any help with your investigation I'd be willing to assist. I can't resist a good mystery. Especially not with when another guild member is involved!" he said, happily acknowledging that Chili had accepted his offer to join the guild. He had noticed Chili breaking eye contact to look behind him and towards the corners of the small, dim restaurant. "I don't have too many more question that won't be answered in due time. Of course, I can't say I'm not a little curious as to the kind of mage you are, though I'm sure that I'll find out in due time. I do have one question off the top of my head, though. What exactly are you looking at? Are you expecting someone else to join us?" he asked, though before he could get a response the waitress came with the food.

She apologized for the wait and put the food in the appropriate places. The white haired mage wasted no time in digging into his meal. His excitement and curiosity about who sat across from him had built up quite the appetite. When he had downed three quarters of his plate and all of his beverage in record time, he spoke up. "Oh, and I wanted to say something about that quote you liked. I think it's meant to inspire action for the sake of goodness, which I of course support. However, we must be careful before acting. Sure, evil triumphs if a good men do nothing, but evil isn't exactly as clear cut as it would seem. Just a thought" he said, digging into the rest of his meal.

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Chili smiled at Zenshin's comment on the quote.
"That's why it's just a quote, words of advice and inspiration. Nothing more really,  evil may never be a clear cut thing. It has many forms and some of them are not even evil yet somehow they are. It all comes with the person's belief system, how they were raised to regard life or if they were raised to believe that life shouldn't be valued somehow, is where it usually begins. Don't get me wrong being a killer doesn't mean you have no regard for life. It's the ones that just seem to generally get off on death and destruction although they are never evil either they are just the first step in the evolutionary chain of violence. Even the nicest people can turn out to be diabolical with some sort of torture chamber in their basement so I can't really say what the tell tale signs are. Anyways that why I prefer to observe and gather evidence on a matter although it's pretty obvious when the person in question is trying to kill you whether they are evil or not you need to at least kick them into the dirt."

Chili gave half his opinion on the matter since the concept was too complex to have a simple opinion on it. Not really knowing where he himself stood on the scale between upstanding and murderous. He knew that he slid both ways on it a lot more than he would like. Shrugging he began into his food as he gave a simple no to Zenshin's question about looking for someone to join them. Not going into more detail since he was not a hundred percent sure he was actually being watched.
Digging into his food for a bit, Chili finished off his fruit salad and half his soda before he grabbed the ketchup. Pouring some into the corner of his fries container Chili made a comment as he began to dunk his fries. "As for my venture, help is appreciated, however, I have nothing to act upon now. Once I pin down where the next attacks may happen I'll fill ya in. Until then you needn't worry about it."
Chili was happy as he popped some ketchup drenched fries into his mouth, he had just become Sabertooth's newest recruit and that meant some exciting adventures and good times were ahead of him and he was glad to go forward. Now all that remained was to finish his root beer and fries so he could make a visit to the guild hall and see what a legal guild looked like for the first time.

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Once again he listened and nodded. "Well said. I think you might be right - about the beginning of a person's upbringing shaping their thoughts on life. I'm going to go ahead and assume you've never taken somebody else's life judging from the way you seem to place great value on it. Try your very hardest to avoid it for as long as you possibly can. Being a mage and choosing to go on jobs leads you to some very interesting situations. Maybe you've been hired to find something for a child, or maybe you've been hired to find a child. As you get stronger and the burden of your power urges you to go on harder and harder jobs, you might find yourself hunting powerful monsters. However, some of these monsters might be human. Even with the horrific atrocities they have committed to have been selected by the magic council or other party as, I don't know, an A-Rank threat - even they should not be killed. At least not by you. It's quite easy to rationalize the opposite opinion, especially when you're in the heat of battle. Holding back just enough is much harder than attacking with all of your might, but, in my opinion, it's much better to keep them alive and hand them into the appropriate legal process." he said, taking his refilled drink and drinking about half before putting it back down on the table.

If he could prevent someone else from killing, or at least prolong them from the action, then he would feel good with himself. He had told Chili all of these things from personal experience. He regretted every time he had taken the life of a torturous bandit, especially now that's it's gotten to a point where he'll even go into a frenzy and not even be consciously aware of what he's doing like what happened on a recent job with Advent. At this point in time, he decided it was probably for the best if he didn't tell the newest member of the guild of his exploits on jobs for fear of scaring him away. In time, though,  he knew that the likelihood of that little fact about him would surely be found out if he continued to interact with him, professionally or otherwise. I'm sure by then it would be a bit better for him to find out - once we get to know each other a bit better. "I look forward to working with you Chili. You might want to get started on your food, I think it's getting cold."

Word Count: 433
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Chili understood what Zenshin meant in his response, however, Chili had seen infants who had been killed in their cribs while he had heard the screams of the mothers who were forced to watch. The fathers who were helpless to save their families as they were either taken or slaughtered. He had been unable to do anything, having been atop the lighthouse near the fishing village at the time all he could hear were the screams. Which was sent crashing off the cliff and into the ocean with him along in with it. Only once he got ashore was he able to see the after math. Bodies piled up in stacks in the middle of all the village houses, it looked like a war scene with some of the houses still burning while others seemed untouched. He searched every house to see if he could find any survivors, all he found were corpses, Chili had stumbled out of the third house he was searching, this one he had found a pair of cribs one was empty with the child being taken and the other had an ashen form in it. He had almost thrown up all the contents of his stomach, the smell was still in the air and his head was spinning. He'd met a fellow on his way to the light house who had been over joyed with his wife's successful birth of twins many months before however, the man was still glowing, showing pictures, and that was it the pictures showed the cribs.

Chili shuddered as the memory played through his head. That day alone solidified something for Chili. He may not always have to kill, however, the ones responsible for those attacks and the ones that are still happening will be put to rest in the burning inferno. Chili was not driven by revenge or rage. One of the many things that drove him was the memory of that day and the thought of how all the attacks that happen follow those proceedings. He was fine with being labeled a killer no better than the ones he hunted, even if the title was only a fourth of the way on the target. It wasn't like he hadn't killed someone before may it be an accident or not. Though having value for life doesn't mean you'll never take one it just means you argue with yourself a lot over the matter and carry a little self-hate. However, it's easy to deal with once you have chosen your path and you're determined to walk it all you can do is just do your best to become a better you as you go.

Shaking his head to fully get off the thought though, Chili was lucky enough that his mind had raced through all of it in a few seconds, so he had not been spaced out long enough to be noticed. Quickly eating the rest of his fries and downing the last of his root beer. Chili proceeded to stand and head over to the place to put the dirty dishes and then returned to his seat. Chili decided to ask one final question, "So you wanna keep talking and get some desert or shall we split paths here and see each other later at the guild hall when I arrive there in a few days?"

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"I wouldn't mind staying a little while to get some dessert. I need something cold. Can't tell you why but I'm a bit hot right now" he said, feeling some sweat make its way down his back. I guess it's the restaurant. The fans on the ceilings aren't turned on for whatever reason. I suppose it's a cold night, but still. he thought, a bit frustrated with the temperature in the restaurant. The waitress walked by and Zenshin asked her to bring him the coldest dessert they had which, along with whatever Chili decided to order, was brought to them not long after they ordered. "You know, I think I'll be coming back here. Food's good enough for the price and the service is quick enough. The only thing is that it looks kind of dingy, but I don't mind that too much if my stomach appreciates what I'm shoveling into it."

"After we're done here I insist on taking you to see the guild firsthand. It's a bit of a walk, but well worth it. The guild is a lot bigger than when I ran it and is now is the heart of a city - Ace of Spades! Can't say I'm surprised that a city sprung up, though. What's a safer place than around a legal guild of mages? I can't personally think of one. Then again... Fairy Tail is a bit notorious for their property damage so maybe I spoke to soon" he said, happily remarking on the current state of his guild, a guild that had grown so much and a guild that he could be proud to call his own. After eating his three scopes of frozen vanilla ice cream, he waited for his new guild mate to finish and, once he did, he would beckon him to come so that he could pay in the front and they could be on their way.

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