Bring the Noize! {Cyril!}

Cyril couldn't decide if he enjoyed walking around the auction house or hated it. There was so much wasted potential here. Urakata who could have been perfectly obedient had either been either irreparably broken or simply given up. It was cramped, the stench was terrible, and he was not a fan of many of the guards.

However, every once in a while he'd find an urakata who was still salvageable.

Walking by the cages, he passed by those who were trembling or had a look of complete resignation in their eyes. They weren't even worth his time. Every once in a while, he would stop by a cage and ask a few questions of the urakata. He didn't talk to the humans, of course. They just wanted to sell these individuals, regardless of what little white lies and baseless embellishments they told.

Eventually, he came to a blonde male with the features of what seemed to be some sort of cat. He was tense, though Cyril considered this a sign of his willingness to resist. Surprisingly, those were the ones who made the best trainees. They would resist at first, but Cyril had enough experience to know how to redirect that strong will either towards the continued enslavement of urakata or towards the pleasing of their master.

"What can you do?" Asked Cyril simply. It was a rather vague question, but it was more useful than one would think. It not only gave him a bit of insight into the urakata's abilities, but it also gave him insight into what information the urakata believed to be pertinent. Or, of course, it could show him the level of resistance an urakata was willing to put up. One time, he had asked the same question to a spider-like urakata, who replied "How about I show you?" before attempting to spit some sort of venom in his face. 

Suffice to say, Cyril didn't let that spider live for much longer.

The urakata seemed to be observing Cyril just as carefully as Cyril observed him. He was attentive. That was good.

Or perhaps it was because some of his scars were showing. He was going into work later, so covering them up would have been impractical. He could feel all of the eyes on him, like a fish in a glass bowl. Perhaps his mind exaggerated such things, perhaps not, but it couldn't hurt to be cautious and overly aware. 

Cyril's expression remained decidedly unamused at the urakata's response. However, the rebelliousness of those words sparked just enough interest in Cyril to cause him to pause his metronome-like rhythm of walking from one cage to the next, one cage to the next, over and over, unstopping. Surely the aura which this one gave off deserved an extended pause, at least.

"I'm sure," responded the urakata trainer of the shinkansen after a brief moment of thought. His eyes traveled along the curves and angles of the slave's body. Whichever idiot on the auction block who had been trying to advertise this individual had been doing something wrong. This was the body of a perfectly good urakata deprived of sufficient food and exercise for some time. Such a bloody waste...

"How many times have you been sold before?" he finally asked as his golden eyes flicked over to meet those of the slave. He looked young enough, not even twenty, so a large amount of experience with being repeatedly sold would indicate a rebelliousness and will that no one else had managed to tame.

Those were always the most interesting to work with.

Ah, a question in return. It wasn't exactly unusual, though generally the urakata's tone was dripping in sarcasm. This one, however, seemed to have a genuine interest in him. Now that was rather rare.

"One of my better talents is having conversations," he replied after a moment, though not at all boastfully. It was a purely neutral statement, as if this trait was neither good nor bad, but simply was. "I ask the right questions to find the answers I want, and answer the questions that the other hasn't thought to ask directly," he added. After all, if this urakata was attempting to learn more about Cyril through asking his own questions, a bit of an explanation to his answers was simply common courtesy. Of course, vagueness was also a necessity, as they were in a public setting. It just wouldn't do to bluntly admit that training, interrogation, and torture were some of his strongest talents.

His next question certainly struck a chord, though. It seemed the other took offense. Though unusual, it could be explained away by the even more unusual fact that this was the boy's first time at the auction house. Generally urakata were first sold, if they were to be sold away at all, much earlier than this. His previous masters must have either been inexperienced or simply in need of money. Or, perhaps... he had not had previous masters at all?

But there was another question being asked of him, and the ones floating through Cyril's mind were perfectly capable of patiently waiting. "Of course not," he responded, just as calmly as before the blonde's outburst, "I think you're an urakata, someone who is neither human nor beast, but, rather, something much more impressive. Why; what do you think you are?"

This urakata seemed quite willing, if not almost eager, to talk. Cyril had seen what the auction house did to urakata over long periods of time, so that wasn't a surprise at all. The neglect to the mind was just as bad, if not worse, than isolating someone in solitary confinement. No, it was definitely worse. In complete isolation you could at least pretend that you weren't being acknowledged because you were physically separated from society. When the physical separation ended, the mental separation did, too. However, the auction house was different. The humans were openly abusive and neglectful, while the urakata turned on each other to express their frustrations. In those cages, the strongest ones became desperate to cling to whatever sense of humanity they had left.

Ha. "Humanity." What a deceiving term...

The real interest of the moment, however, was that this urakata wanted to learn. Many urakata did, of course, but few admitted it so openly. It also seemed that this drive was the source of his master's displeasure, or, at the very least, the reason for his own capture. Of course Cyril heard the urakata mutter an admittance of his stupidity, but he didn't deem it significant enough to comment on yet.

"You know," Cyril said, not yet intending to answer the caged man's question, "You likely haven't been sold yet because you assume you have the right to ask humans questions before first telling them about yourself. You have too much initiative to be salable." His tone held an odd lack of judgement. Personally, he wasn't fond at all of urakata who enjoyed groveling for any human who passed them by.

"Regardless, you can call me Cyril."

Who says I want to be sold into slavery?

Well that was an interesting question, wasn't it? It implied that this urakata had been in a state other than slavery before being brought here. The next statement strengthened Cyril's suspicions. This urakata had likely never had a master before. He had probably come from a life of something the urakata called "freedom". It was not the same type of freedom humans knew. Rather, it was more similar to the life of a convict: always trying to run and hide from their true place in society.

"Then you would prefer to stay here instead?" Cyril asked, deciding against drawing attention to the caged man's slip-up.

Cyril's eyes didn't move from their steady gaze over Mike, even after the urakata mentioned his name was on the cage. He didn't need to know this person's name. The fact that he even had a name was enough, wasn't it? How would the organization of letters and sounds have any significance?

Mike's final question was curious, and perhaps more sentimental than Cyril knew how to answer properly. "I'm afraid you'd likely be disappointed today, then. It's rather overcast," he replied after a moment, "You still wouldn't be able to see the sun."