Welcome to Gaia! ::

Something had the youma in the area stirred up, he was pretty sure of that. He'd dusted two of moderate size, and was brushing the remains off his gauntlets as he considered the area, wondering what had them stirred up lately. The cats might know... there had been that huge energy wave a while back... but he would have expected them to react sooner if that had been it. Like... who knew. Animals in an earth quake, unless they were just really incredibly stupid. Which he supposed wasn't entirely possible for youma. They tended to vary pretty wildly in terms of intelligence, and the one's he'd pounded he was pretty sure mostly had gotten by in terms of being stupid but vicious.

There were power signatures though, at least on powerful order one, and he slowed up his walk to look around for some sign of the person that came with it. Senshi maybe? Order was order, he didn't necessarily bother to care too much about what party it belonged to.

"Ok seriously I hope you're not waiting around to b***h I just dusted a youma you were after or I'm going to have to accuse Themiscara of teaching people her techniques on how to introduce yourself to people." He called out, still without eyes on the target, though he was looking.

"...I know who you are." By name he knew anyway.
Kairatos blinked, in surprise. He wasn't all surprised to find out that Castor could take on a less powerful form, not after Iris, but he just...

"It was just a basic youma, not that smart. It's smart ones you have to watch out for." He wasn't sure exactly sure how to handle this. It was his first hint that the guy was even still alive since that battle. "Who have you been hanging out with that has trouble?"

The words 'we've met' were bouncing around just one hint away from being blurted out, and waiting for a reaction.

"Yeah. Kairatos of Mars."

The raw power of glamor on someone who hadn't had the truth revealed to them just floored him, and Kairatos tilted his head slightly, searching Castor's face for anything that resembled recognition. There was a flicker of something that might have been... and blame speaking with Bishophite... he wanted to see which was stronger. Glamor... or an long absent Royal.

"My story OR my opinion huh? I think it's a mess. But I see raw talent, and I see people who could go far if they figure out their mistakes. And I've seen people take a meteoric rise only to trip on their pride and sabotage the entire basis for their empire. It's been... an interesting ride."

He wasn't sure what Castor was fishing for...and he felt strange holding back the truth, but maybe Alois's party tricks left behind a certain taste for mischief. He could find out what Castor was fishing for anyway. He'd tell him in a minute maybe. He wanted to know where that expression was going.

And just like that, Kairatos' expression went from cautious curiosity to stubborn and angry, and he dug in his heels both metaphorically and literally.

"Let. Go. Of. Me." He pronounced each word carefully, and as sharply edged and brittle as a thin black crust of stone over an bone blackening run of Lava, ready to burst out if prodded too deeply.

The reaction made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle, and suddenly this wasn't a potentially funny moment. No ha ha remember that time we beat the s**t out of each other, but pretty sure you are looking to beat the s**t out of me again..

He was reasonably sure he could have shoved Castor's hands away, but he froze instead, muscles clenched and eyes blazing, and waited for the Prince of Hail to take his own hands away.

"Fff...!!!" Reason had definitely left certain quarters, and Kairatos was pretty sure it had packed it's bags and left before he himself had arrived on the scene. The world spun and tumbled until the wall hit him, spiking pain through him followed by breathless numbness when he hit the ground. For a frightening moment he was half sure that he had been paralyzed, and the fear hit him like a second hammer blow. Pounding on him like a blade on an anvil.

He remembered in a blur things he had yelled at the Prince the first time the met. Something about torture. Had Castor been one of the ones doing the torture or had he simply turned a blind eye to it? He couldn't remember. He was too rattled as he struggled to draw himself together.

"********... You." He panted, dragging himself to his feet. He had been much weaker the last time they met. He would not be broken now by a man who had not then. "You... Seem to think you know me. You... Tell me. Who I am to you."

He had been warned against telling many who he had been before, and this made it make more sense. The first one to do so and they were supposed to be on the same side now.

"I don't recall asking for your absolution from anything." Kairatos growled, as he caught his breath again. As it happened, he remembered doing better than just trying, even if the Prince wanted to forget he had been caught off guard. "I don't need your absolution, or your protection, and I was briefed about the risks before I changed sides."

His back and shoulders were still prickling like someone had strapped pins to a fuzz roller and was running them up and down his skin, and that bit, but he wasn't sure this conversation wasn't worse.

"Let 'em come. I'll burn my name in the park and add '******** Zinkenite' and any other General King you care to name there too. I didn't trade away most of my memories to hide in the dark and pretend, and if I go down it'll be flipping Metalia the bird because I will rip out my own ******** star-seed rather than corrupt again, and I want them to know it. Even if It costs me, I know others will follow, and I will laugh all the way from the cauldron to see the ******** writhe."

Kairatos narrowed his eyes suspiciously, still not sure how he felt about any of this. On the one hand, it was pure human nature to crave approval. On the other hand, it was equally human to consider the source and weigh it with a bias.

"For myself." The senshi of Mars had not presented herself, Iris didn't seem inclined to ask for his oath... So he fought on his own behalf. If he couldn't value his own opinion, there was, he reasoned, a problem. "For Mars also I suppose. Without having a chance to speak to them, Kind of puts it in my own hands if they would approve."

Castor was fishing for... something and it prickled the hairs on the back of his neck.