Orihime Inoue Fri Jan 30, 2009 9:42 pm
Some time later, as Orihime finished up the last of her meal, the performance she had been promised began.
The music went silent, and aside from the occasional conversation being wrapped up, the conversation did as well. The twins, as eccentric as they and their establishment was, had earned a kind of grudging respect from the regulars.
"Thank you, ladies..."
"and brutes. We'd like to thank you for coming, and request that all cell phones and pagers be turned off."
Orihime's eyes brightened as they began... Though she was confused as to what they were doing at first. Ko had somehow managed to boosted Ki up with his hands, and she now dangled upside down from a pair of braces in the roof (quite a solid one, it seemed) and was holding herself up rather remarkably well.. Presumably to prevent blood from rushing to her head...
While she was doing this, Ko was busy with something else entirely - He seemed to have collected a small bowl of oil, a pack of matches and a brace of trick-daggers. Of course, other than Orihime, no-one else knew about this last part... She had been the only one allowed to see them practicing it before.
Then it began - Ko passed a pair of the knives up to Ki, and all but the very tips glinted in the light... Not that many people noticed. Most were already transfixed with the slow, measured unfolding as Ki straightened out. Ko quietly lit a match and dropped it onto the oil, which burst into a low, simmering flame - As if on cue, the building's lights dimmed, drawing everyone's attention almost magnetically towards the performance as the primary source of light.
Then, one by one, Ko dipped the tips of every knife into the fire, beginning juggling them just above his head... And then slowly higher, until Ki's stage-knives began striking the tips. Like brilliant multicoloured sparklers, each knife lit up, simulating an ethereal, ghostly flame effect along each of the blades, each one making a uniquely resonant tone on top of the sound of the knive's collision. This was, in fact, the only noise by this stage of the performance.
However... That wasn't the true trick of it - To those who were spiritually sensitive, a small group of ghostly children could be seen duplicating the juggling act in a circle around the pair, their voices raised in a haunting hymn that very nearly brought tears to Orihime's eyes. Interestingly enough, they had been present the entire time... But for whatever reason, Orihime had never noticed them before. Land-locked spirits?
Of course, to those who were simply ordinary people, it was simply a rather impressive juggling act with home-made special effects, the lights brightly colourful and rapidly becoming as bright as a fireworks display, the rapid "k'ching!" of knives colliding and being promptly redirected back on course an impressive enough scene in and of itself.
When this was done, Orihime said her final farewells to the Masa's before heading out for an evening walk. All in all, the evening hadn't turned out -too- badly after all, she mused.
