Replying to this ask!
No ShinRa signage or commercial frontage. Only a row of properties set back from a clean swept street on the upper plate's quieter residential tier. The stonework on the buildings is dressed granite, copper fittings gone correctly green, hedges shaped by someone who understood proportion. Wealth that had gotten bored of performing somewhere around the second generation. Balto pulls his motorcycle up to the curb and cuts the engine.
The dark haired Turk sits back for a moment. The quiet up here is a different quality than street level quiet: no drip of condensate from the plate seams, no reactor hum bleeding through the walls. He left headquarters early, paperwork filed initialed where Veld's office needed initialing, because missing a mandatory psych clearance appointment is the kind of thing that gets you desk assigned, and desk assignment would be worse than the persistent ache from his mending ribs.
He unclips the helmet and pulls it free, tucks it under his arm. Takes in the street properly while his ears adjust to the absence of engine noise. The property directly ahead sits behind a low iron fence, the garden between gate and entrance composed with the same deliberate restraint as everything else on the block. He follows the line of it... the dressed stone, the copper fittings gone correctly green, the arch above the entrance just visible from where he's standing. Whoever curated this space had genuine taste, or had hired someone with genuine taste and then known to leave them alone. Either way, the result is the same. He stands at the curb a moment longer than he'd intended, helmet under his arm. Balto then exhales a long breath, moving the helmet to lock it to the motorcycle. He swings off the bike carefully.
He follows the path to the door and takes in the facade up close. The quality of the glass in the sidelights. The proportions of the entrance. It holds up. Inside, the waiting room is warm and unhurried. Dark wood, good upholstery. No ShinRa brochures fanned across the table. He doesn't get long to appreciate it.
Balto clocks the other man's knife in the half second after he stands up the way he clocks everything, a reflex that has never in twelve years decided to take a day off. The man's eyes fixed to the pin on Balto's lapel first.
Utility knife. Hardware store grade, the kind with snap off segments. An amateur's weapon in an amateur's grip. Balto's sidearm stays holstered: In a neighborhood like this, a gunshot doesn't go unnoticed. It goes reported, and reported quickly, by the kind of residents who have both the connections and the expectation that something will be done about it. Murasame clears her sheath instead, and the motorcycle gloves take the rest of it. Good leather, close-fitted, enough between the splinted fingers and the man's elbow when it comes through that the impact registers as pressure rather than the alternative.
The rest is reflex, and reflex has a price. The taped ribs find their moment: that specific grinding pressure on the left side that lights up his vision for one white second before it clears. He holds the blade away from himself afterward, angling the edge downward over the body rather than letting it drip across the floor. He's already done enough to the honey oak. He reaches into his jacket with his free hand and produces the cloth: worn soft from use, kept in the same inside pocket as always, and draws it along the blade in one careful, unhurried pass before guiding Murasame back into her sheath.
Then Balto crouches over the man with efficient hands and tips the body onto its side, angling it so what's left of the heart's work stops fighting gravity. It won't take long. The blood is already slowing where it seeps between the floorboards and that's the best that can be done for the honey oak now. He stays crouched a moment longer than necessary. His pulse is elevated. Not badly, but enough that he's aware of it.
Hannibal's voice finds him across the room and Balto looks at him with the particular quality of attention he reserves for things that require it. His scar is the most noticeable feature as he tilts his head: angrier looking than it has any right to be, the tissue raised and flushed along the line from cheek to jaw. The surgery to address it had been scheduled for last month, but then he'd put a SOLDIER through a wall with his bare hands and the surgical team moved him to the bottom of their list.
Balto considers the question. The corner of his mouth shifts... not quite a smile, but in the neighborhood of one. "Occupational hazard," he replies, his response dry as the upper plate air. He glances at the room again: the body, the floor, and then back to Hannibal with the expression of a man making a reasonable administrative request under unreasonable circumstances.
"I'd like to reschedule the evaluation."
