Chiaki had found herself a little bit of wanderlust and had chosen to follow it. She had dressed in a white shirt with patterned stitching which circled her arms and accentuated her curves, or what she hoped were curves. A set of jeans were tucked into longer boots than she normally wore, flat because she wanted to go for a walk. They came up to the middle of her calf and buckled on. On her left wrist jangled a bracelet and she had opted for earrings today, out of a whimsy. They were two globes, dangling from a turquoise band, situated in each earlobe by a loop. She readjusted one as it caught a stray strand of her hair and she closed her front door. It seemed to be a good day indeed, for a walk. A little kick off of her ledge and she landed on the street below, rolling and getting up, dusting off her back from the dust that she had just collected.

Now, the rooftops, or the street? Why not the rooftops. She grinned and ran off towards the woods. She was in a… woodsy mood today. The rooftops clattered beneath her boots, and her thin shirt billowed out behind her in the breeze. Surely it was a day for the woods, a good relaxing walk, pensive and serene. Yes a good day for it. She hummed a bit to herself, a song that she had heard in the place where she liked to hang out, usually alone, and drink. She ran across the rooftop, flipping in mid air and landing on the next one. Today was a day of whimsy.

She soon found herself in the forest, the thick of it, and didn’t really know where the time had gone to get there. The sun faded into the trees, and the cool air greeted her through her thin shirt and pants. She walked along, becoming more and more inward. It wasn’t a bad thing, she was going over what she wanted to do tomorrow, next week, and in her life. Tomorrow she would do some mission, preferably alone, since she didn’t have anyone to do it with tomorrow. Everyone she knew was either civilian, didn’t take missions, or was too high ranking to take missions with her. A grumble as she walked through the forest and her brow furrowed.

It was in this deep state of thought that a flash blasted through her vision and she heard a soft “Thump!” to her left. The scythe hummed from the vibrations of being thrown and impaling the tree. What in the? She looked around and a blue and red set of Drakpo appeared in her hands. She didn’t know this area so well, and perhaps, perhaps someone had made it into the borders of Konoha and were on a mission to collect Konoha heads. She gulped and looked in the direction of where the scythe had come. He, or she, would be coming from that direction.

“I know you’re there.” She shouted, “And I know you know where I am. Come out and we can settle this without bloodshed. I am a shinobi of the village hidden in the leaves, and I am not afraid to use my jutsu on you if you should engage me in combat.” The words were mostly air, she was, in fact a shinobi, but she had little to no training. She had apprehended one criminal before and, it seemed, that she might be in trouble. A gulp couldn’t be helped as she took a fighting stance, her red, offensive, drakpo ahead of her, and her blue drakpo above her head. The blue one was mostly for deflection, or to suture wounds shut should she need. Her face was a mask of nervousness and determination. She could feel her brows come together in a tight knit. This was going to be a fight to the death, probably.


WC: 662

Jutsu used:

Guanyin Needles:

Chiaki watched as a figure emerged, dark skinned and light haired from the undergrowth with a "fine.” Her eyes narrowed to slits, and her head lowered a bit. She stared, much as a cat would a mouse, or a bird, and she grumbled as he kept his distance. She was five foot nothing (or about 152 cm tall) and her blades to her were like swords, each measuring a foot in length. One glowed a chakra infused blue, while the other was a chakra infused blue. She couldn’t help but grumble as he circled her, giving her a look of mild bemusement. She had no idea what he could be amused about.


“A shinobi of Konoha.” She looked him up and down, searching for any sign of his affiliation, any sign that he might not be a foe, but rather another ninja that was training in the forest. She hoped. There was no way to gauge his power, no way to gauge it unless she fought him. She didn’t want that, but she would defend herself, and besides, it was easier to keep these drakpo going rather than letting them go. Her grip tightened as he retrieved his scythe. It looked grim, almost inhuman. No one in their right mind would use that, right? No one except perhaps an enemy?

Compared to his scythe, she supposed that her senbon were “tiny” as he remarked. But then again, his scythe was roughly the same size as her. Her eyebrows knitted together, a tiny spark of anger lighting inside of her, and her red drakpo glowed a bit brighter in the dark of the forest. She decided she would qualify it with a remark of her own, “Like me, their size belies their true power. I would be careful or you might find yourself on their wrong end.”

“Who are you talking to?” Her eyebrow raised as he talked to, seemingly, himself and she looked around, trying to find the person he was talking to, perhaps telepathically. Coming up with nothing, her eyes focused on him once more. He said that if he had known he wouldn’t have missed. She just needed one more piece of evidence to know if he was an enemy. Only enemies would give barely veiled threats right?

“You said you wouldn’t have missed. Are you a killer for fun then? Or have we met?” She seemed more puzzled than she had been, and when he asked if she were trying to convince herself, her grip tightened further, her shoulders lowering into more of an offensive stance, keeping the red drakpo between herself and this new person she shook her head, “A warning, in case you didn’t know who you were dealing with.” Her voice didn’t shake, but her inflection sounded more pleading than definitive. Perhaps she was trying to convince herself, but she also was trying to hide it. She was frightened. This was the first time that she was against a foe on her own. Or perhaps, the first time she was with a newfound friend on her own. She could feel the scales tipping more towards the former than the latter, but she could use the latter rather than the former more.

WC: 1205

She narrowed her eyes at his mentioning of preening herself. She didn’t want to say that she was preening herself, but at least he was honest. She wanted to make herself big and scary to a potential threat. She looked him up and down, wanting to make sure that he wasn’t going to make any sudden and aggressive moves. His face went through a menagerie of different emotions, and it didn’t scare her as much as concern her. She didn’t know if he was well, mentally, and stable enough to have a weapon. She marked his appearance. He was certainly a shinobi.

He said, “I can’t” Suddenly, and reeled a bit before standing rigid. Her breath caught in her throat and she listened to his, a small rasping sound that barely could be heard over the whisper in the trees. Her body relaxed a bit, it hurt from her holding her offensive stance for so long. She kept the drakpo in her hands, just in case, but her stance relaxed a bit, more to a standing stance than a fighting one. She gave him a pitying look before he shouted, “Enough!” The hollar reverberated around them, echoing throughout the forest. It was an angry response. She had remained silent, so he was definitely talking to someone else. Something else.

She didn’t know who it was, but she wanted to help him. It was her bedside manner that did this, the feeling of being a target melted away into a feeling of concern for a mentally conflicted individual. She hadn’t treated patients with Schizophrenia before, nor Multiple Personality Disorder, but it seemed like he suffered from delusions nonetheless.

She looked him up and down, his chest heaving up and down like her eyes, labored breathing finally coming to rest before he answered her questions with a simple negation. He wasn’t a killer, and she hadn’t met him before. Alright, perhaps she could help him. She noted his weapon and dropped her own. Her mind stayed wary to the threat of attack from this boy but she smiled an easy smile, the smile that she had used on dementia patients, or those suffering from a great pain. “I am Guanyin Chiaki, let’s get acquainted properly. I am a genin, graduated nine years ago from the academy, and you?” The smile slipped into a friendly one, rather than one that was wary. She wanted to make a friend today, not a foe.

“If you would like, we could go for a coffee, I am needing something to wind down.” She knew that coffee was usually something that gave people energy, but she opted for using it as a treat. That way she didn’t get addicted to the caffeine, or maybe she already was? Anyhow, she didn’t use it for a wake-up, but rather as a treat. That is what made it seem like a wind-down drink. Her limbs were still full of adrenaline, and her heart still was pounding, but she wanted to make a friend, wanted to be able to let her guard down with someone. This individual, while tormented, might make a friend. Right?

To his question, she shrugged, “It wouldn’t be the first time someone has thrown a deadly weapon at me and I have made a new friend out of them. Why not?” She shrugged in what she hoped would be a nonchalant way. It was practiced, practiced until it was art. It was the nonchalant shrug that she gave that sent the message to the dementia patients that all was forgiven. If they were angry, they soon forgot it, as their minds sometimes had a five minute reset. All that they could really remember, after they were upset with her, is the fact that they were upset. This boy, as she looked him up and down warily again for a split second, was twice as deadly, but probably had a swinging personality.

All that she could do was either hold on tight and try to make him dance to her tune, or wiggle with him where he went. Since he wasn’t showing hostility anymore, she might as well try to wiggle. The midnight stroll was what she did to unwind, but she didn’t want to say that to him, no, it wasn’t the thing that you say to people that you just met. He must think she was a bit nutter as well, being out here in the forest alone.

The laughter caught her a bit off guard, her eyes hazing for a moment in defense. She was ready to go back at it, and dance the night away, or at least until the morning’s light would bring help for her, but at the end of it, she found penance, or at least the offering of such.

The grin was a bit strange, and she could sense some hostility behind it. Perhaps someone else like her had come around? All that she could think about was getting somewhere public, making a new friend, and perhaps testing the waters where someone would find her body should this tango fall down the steps and break two ankles.

She led from the side, walking at a pace which he could easily keep up with, keeping a close and watchful eye on him in her periphery, but not staring directly at him, making light conversation all the way to the coffee shoppe. “The midnight air is bracing, and it seems like the chill of the morning hasn’t set in. Perhaps we should have our coffee outside.” She tilted her head in a thoughtful way toward him with a small candid smile, “And as for before, penance is a strong word. You probably were training in the forest, and I lost my cool. It is me who should apologize. I showed my claws before anything else, I seem to have somewhat of a short fuse.”

WC: 2207

“Well.” Chiaki paused to think, letting her guard down with a frown and furrowed brows. She looked to the cobbled stone as if it were going to spell out the answer to her internal question. She stayed silent for a bit and he started again, giving her a compliment. A bit of color came to her cheeks and she cleared her throat.

Chiaki wasn’t used to being complimented, least from someone who was a night owl like her. They were usually partiers, dancers, drunkards, or pensieve people who kept to themselves. The wind licked the houses and stuttered over the stones, whispering about the feet that had been there that day. She couldn’t understand it, but it talked, all the same.

“Thank you for the compliment. She finally said, looking back up at him, light dancing behind her eyes, the same light that her blue drakpo had. The light of healing, perhaps mending some of her previous thoughts that she had let come between her and her new acquainted friend. “I ah, I didn’t think of it that way. I have only been in the village’s employ for a little.”

She nodded to the question and sighed, “It’s ah, yeah.” She shrugged and her gaze turned inward again, “I don’t have a mentor, more like… a shadow?” She thought of her first mission, with Takao, and wondered if that was an appropriate thing to call the previous kage. His name meant “shadow” so why not? And everyone had a bit of shadow in them. It just didn’t seem to stick to him and his scarred arms though. Which is why she hesitated.

The boy put his scythe behind a tree, and Chiaki nodded, she weaved a set of hand seals, the same for her drakpo and conjured the red one. She wrote the kanji for protection and it turned black, she explained, “So that we remember where it is for later. I can also heal it later.” She grinned, “I am a medical kunoichi.” She blinked and sighed, “I ah, I can explain my bloodline jutsu at coffee if you’d like?”

They walked along, and the fences were working late, it seemed, or at least on towards the middle of the night. Chiaki noted that there were good sellers for poisons in this district, both ingested, all the way to topical. She remembered having to get these poisons for the hospital, once, and having to pretend to be buying them for herself. She had come across some deadly weapons that could be bought that were too dangerous to be handed out to the common folk. With enough money and the right people behind you, however, you could buy just about anything in Konoha under the very noses of the Military Police.

The odor of coffee stung her nose and woke her more than she already was, and her stomach gave a little grumble as she neared the building. In the daylight, when she would see the sun peek out over the mountains, it was a light brown color, but under the lamplight, it was a tanned color. She nodded to the person who disappeared to the back room.

Chiaki didn’t know what to do with the time that they had, so she opted for pulling up a chair on a bar height table and scrambling up, offering the seat in front of her to Xion. She hoped that they still had her favorite, a triple shot dark chocolate mocha. She licked her lips in anticipation.


WC: 2801

It's late and despite a long day, the barista struggles to get the machines to warm, and Xion ponders over the young man's shoulder. He’'d let him sort the contraption longer, and drink in the aroma of this place. The barista has tired eyes, yet there is that glimmer, a give away of his good heart. A tiring job no doubt, but he's one of those surviving sparks, one of the ones who held on to who they really are. He turns them, a bemused smile plastered on his face. As if no matter the situation, that trill of a smile was permanent. Xion asks him for a freshly warmed, honey toast, and a part of him apologizes amid his own tired smile.


“I'm sorry for being one of those guest. To ask of you such a thing while you already seem so busy.”


The light haired man looked him over. Xion could feel his eyes trace the jet black hue that adorned him. It wasn't atypical. To be caught off guard by the deepness of his skin. Then Xion sees his spark glow a little brighter, his face more relaxed, a smidge more joy in his eyes, “Too late for that, right?" Xion steeled his face, not wanting to grin. “Toppings?”


Xion titters a bit unexpectedly, a fringe of ‘Himself’ trying to suppress it. “Whatever fruit you have lying around. I'm not picky.”


“Whatever I've got? Careful there, I’ll hold ya to it.” He winked at them both, and disappeared into the kitchen behind a hinged door. It swung out behind him, and swayed like a pendulum until it lost its energy. The sign of a high volume kitchen, that surely hummed to life during the day.


He supposed that's why he liked it here, in Konaha. That despite what calamities were to befall places like Suna, and anywhere else in the world, a place like this tiny café, huddled despondent among the evil of the world. Or washed out under the overcast sky, to hunch in itself, fighting against the drizzle. Still it would stand as a place for people to meet peacefully. Undoubtedly, he thought, hundreds of people rushed by it, outside on the crowded streets. The handful amount of customers glanced up as the door swung open, heralded by a blast of warm wind. Unlike the outside, the interior of the café is cool and cheery, with bright lights and colourful walls. Even now, as a customer came bustling in, a rarity for this graveyard shift, everyone returned to their conversations as the door swung closed behind the new entrant, and the warm breeze was forgotten.


Xion busied himself, settling his hands over and over. A buried glance over to Chiaki. Yes, she was still there. He was searching for anything to say, anything, be it pointless, to fill in the empty space.


“So--what we're you talking about earlier? About you're bloodline? Since you brought it up, I'm actually kind of curious.”


To his right, sat as if He was invited, he could feel that intrinsic dread. The sentience that always gave his mind and body pause. Xion's lips parted for a sigh, stealing a glance from the corner of his eyes. That billowing, dark brume accompanied by a soulless voice. Had it been earlier in his youth, the whisper in his ear would have sent all the air rushing out of his lungs. But now it was more of an inconvenience, and a battle of mental fortitude.
 
'You sly fox. Not an honest pick of her brain, is it?'

He leaned, though barely out of her earshot. “Hm? What do you mean?”


His otherself grinned. ‘We know exactly what I mean. Remember Xion, the trite that says honesty is the best policy was always met with criticism. Honesty is not a policy. Of truly genuine men--at least.’


“Quiet, you.” He waft his hand to and fro, waving the entity into a black mist. He took pause for a moment, hoping that Chiaki would somehow be aloof. It was quite easy. To be enraptured by the voices. He would have to keep that in check. At least for the remainder of their encounter.


The young barista returned, the pastry on an ivory platter, and disposable chopsticks. He looked a bit labored, but his smile was genuine. Caramelized apricots on a golden and crispy cake. Steaming tendrils still reaching from it. Xion thanked him with a nod,  and that was good enough for him to turn his sights to Chiaki, eager to get started on her order.

((Exiting to take word count and use as rank up stiff))

1000 words for Guanyin sutures
1000 words for guanyin caltrops

187 towards ranking up suiton
250 words towards ranking up ninjutsu
364 left over

[Thread Exit]

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