Description: 'Ashley' approaches Hinata to apologize for her bad behavior during their first encounter. Reconciliation is quick and talk turns toward interest in fighting. Eventually, Ashley suggests that it would be fun to organize a tournament among the students of Southtown, an idea Hinata is quick to agree with.
So this was highschool : it was a strange and new experience and Eve was not used to see so many boys and girls of her age. It was ... unsettling, to say the least, and Eve had a hard time trying to keep up the role she was given. Everything was perfect though : official, Ashley Rouge was a new student in Taioy, just as Jason. She had been giving her schedule and she assisted to 'real' classes for the first time.
For a moment, she almost forgot why she was assigned here in the first place but those moments of wonders and awes in this weird way of living fade away everytime she remembers her true objective. Enough fooling around for now, it was time for her to get her mission started!
After studying the files she was given, Eve recognized one of girl on the list : Hinata's face was familiar. She was the girl who stood up to K9999. It was time to meet up with her and have a talk...
The next day, in the morning, Ashley sought the right opportunity to talk to her, and decided to wait up not too far away from Hinata's locker, until she'd finally arrive. She was casually leaning against the wall, and when Hinata finally arrives, Ashley grins and closes up the distance between them, "Heh!" She calls out, to get Hinata's attention, "Your name's Hinata, right?" Ashley asks.
It turns out that Hinata wouldn't make a very good protagonist for a shoujo manga; she doesn't wake up super late and have to run to school with bread in her mouth. In fact, given how energetic the girl is, she's had perfect attendence so far in her high school career.
This makes it no surprise when Hinata shows up to school right on time, enthusiasticly greeting almost every other student she crosses pths with before making her way to her locker as she unstraps her bag from her back.
It's while she's moving her homework assignments around that a voice calls out to her and she looks up. Upon locating Ashley, she starts to frown.
"It's Hinata Wakaba."
The frown that slowly forms on Hinata's brows make Ashley's smile fade away a bit, "Look, Hinata..." Ashley says, lowering her gaze, "I... Hum, I'm really sorry for what happened the other day..." She lifts her free hand up to sctrach the back of her head.
She gives her a shrug and says, "When I'm around Jason, sometimes... I say things I regret and..." Ashley shakes her head and heaves a sigh, "Urg... Why do I always fall for the badboys..?" She ponders out loud.
"Anyway... As you noticed, I'm new around this place, and, well..." She offers Hinata an apolegetic smile, "I was wondering if we could try to have a fresh new start? If you're willing to give me another chance? I'll be a good girl, I swear!"
There's a pause as Hinata looks somewhat thoughtful for a few moments. It would be pretty easy to take someone as being a jerk and just letting it go, but...
The look on Hinata's face brightens back up to a smile. "If you start to act less like a jerk, then I'm willing to treat you like less of a jerk. I guess it must be pretty hard to suddenly transfer to a new school."
She sets her bag back down in her locker before continuing. "I'm going to guess that you've probably never been to a Japanese school before. Did you go to Pacific or are you new to Southtown?"
"Right on!" Ashley says, lifting her right fist up in the air in a sudden display of joy, "I'll try my best, Hinata! It'll help if you can help me staying away from Jason..." Ashley bites her lips and nods, "He's got a bad influence on me..." She admits.
The girl shakes her head, "I... Am totally new here. My parents moved in Southtown a couple of weeks ago... I've been trying to adjust, but it's been rough.. Jason's been more or less in my situation, so..."
"Oh! I almost forgot... I'm not sure you know my name. It's Ashley Rouge," The girl says, extending her hand to Hinata, "I, huh, was wondering, if you don't mind, maybe to show me around? The school, and everything..."
Hinata seems to rather easily move from annoyance back to an upbeat attitude. It barely took a few brief sentences before it's as if she'd never had a reason to dislike Ashley.
"Well, the thing about a Japanese school is, you spend your most time in your homeroom and the teachers move around between classes, except when you've got a lab class or something. So if you guys don't have the same homeroom, the only times you might run into each other are lunch and PE, since some of the classes do PE at the same time." Hinata starts, idly rocking back and forth on her feet.
"This is my first year, but I could show you around. The classrooms are pretty easy, since they're all ordered by year and letter. What do you want to know about?" The schoolgirl's voice is incredibly energetic and helpful.
"Oh, that's great..." Ashley muses, "Different front what I've been to..." She coughs and corrects herself, "From what I've been used to... Students move around," Ashley explains.
Ashley grins widely, "Oh, that's great... Should be easy to get around then..." The girl hums softly and asks, "Well... Are there special activities outside of school? I mean... I used to be part of a group of cheerleaders so, hum... Are there sport clubs or anything like that?"
Ashley glances down at Hinata's hands for a moment and she asks, "Also, I... Was wondering..." She tries to reach out for Hinata's hand, "How did you do that trick the other day? I mean, the flame! That was so cool!"
"There's lot to do!" It's a enough of an outburst that Hinata's response manages to draw the attention of some nearby students. Once they notice who's responsible, most seem to pass it off as a normal occurance.
"In Taiyo all of the afterschool activities are called clubs; even the sports teams. Usually when there's a new student, some of the club representatives will try to scoop them up to boost their numbers." Hinata explains, her hands gesturing a bit more than most people. "We've got all of the most popular sports in Southtown and other activities like newspaper club, cooking club, movie clubs. Our cheerleader club is always trying its best to live up to the Pacific High cheerleaders."
The topic shifts a bit and if Hinata seemed to have a bit too much energy before, it shifts once the topic turns to her fighting skills. "Oh, that was just a simple chi technique. Do you remember the big World Warrior tournament a few months ago? Well... I watched it with my friends, and my best friend, Sakura, got really excited and decided she wanted to learn how to fight like the winner, Ryu." She barely pauses for a chance to breathe as she continues. "So I decided I wanted to learn how to fight, too, and I found an add for a DVD learn at home course to learn Saikyo-Ryu. It took awhile to convince my dad to let me sign up for it, but I've been training for about 4 months now, and honestly the chi techniques aren't that hard."
"Oh really? There's a cheerleader club here?" Ashley asks with a lack of enthusiasm. Her face actually seems to get a bit paler at the thought. If she ever ended up enrolling in this club, she's not sure how well she'd be able to perform! This could mean a lot of trouble. The girl bites her lips and adds, "I'll definately have to look it out once I'll have settled in and gotten used to the place!"
"Wow, that's really awesome!" Ashely says, nodding eagerly, "I've seen some of those things! I've heard being able to do Chi stuff like that was very rare! You must be really good!" Ashley says, still staring at Hinata's hands. The girl listens carefully to everything Hinata has to say and seems quite interested in all of this, "That's really impressive! You mean, you can do stuff even /more/ impressive than that!?" Ashley asks, awe-struck.
"With a wide grin, Ashley tilts her head to one side and says, "You definately have to show me what you can do, Hinata! I'd love to see more... Have you been fighting and training with other students aside from Sakura?"
The brief flicker away from her smile suggests Hinata's picked up that Ashley doesn't seem entirely happy with her response. "You know, sometimes when you go to a new place, it's fun to try new stuff, too. Maybe you should ask some of the clubs that you haven't gotten to try if they'll let you spend a day with them or something."
The whole fighting conversation is a lot easier to deal with, for one Hinata doesn't seem to have to worry too much about accidently hitting any sore spots. "Well, I've only really had one real fight with Sakura, and since she's studying a different style we haven't done a lot of training together. It's pretty much all just watching the DVDs and practicing what Hibiki-Sensei shows me..." She drifts off a bit, letting a pause hover before adding, "Of course, it's more fun when I add a little but of my own style to the moves."
Ashley lowers her gaze, thoughtful : perhaps, like K9999, this could be an opportunity to have a taste of 'real life'? Even if she knows her real life is not that one, she has to say the more time she spends around, the more curious she gets about this life style, "Huh, maybe, I... Just wouldn't know what to pick, and I..."
Ashley shakes her head, trying to chase away those stray thoughts. Focus! Focus! Ashley grins and she reaches out for Hinata's hands, "Oh! I know, you know what we should do? We should try to find out other martial artists so you can train! You know, sparring partners? The best way to improve yourself! Who knows, maybe you'll find other persons who are as good as you are, no? I mean, manifesting flames like that is quite rare! I think it's really awesome! I'll cheer you on, if you want! We could even try to organize some sort of All-star tournament with all the schools! What do you think?"
It's sort of hard to keep much attention on Ashley's problems when the girl seems so enthusiastic about Hinata's fighting abilities. It doesn't help that Hinata's rather enthusiastic about them as well.
"I guess there's a few martial arts clubs on campus... I could see if any them want to do any sparring or something. I was mostly just planning to keep on seeing how good Sakura and I could get, I hadn't really thought about much more than that.
There's a good pause as she gives the idea a good once over. "There is probably more fighters at some of the other schools. I know at Gorin some of the athletes try to work their sports into fighting and... well, Gedo's fighting all the time for any little thing. I don't know how much luck anyone would have actually getting an organised tournament together, though."
It might be better that way, or else Hinata might end up noticing Ashley's real life experience is slim to none, and that she's definately more clueless than she looks like.
Ashley beams proudly and she says, "We could work it out together! You never know until you try! I'd love to give you a hand about all of this, I mean... Wow, I've never seen someone with real flames like that!" The girl seems rather enthusiastic about the idea, and she waves her hand up in the sky in a wide arc, "Making up adds, visiting the other schools!" She nods at Hinata, "I mean... Sorry, I'm getting a bit hyped about this," Ashley lowers her gaze, "I, huh, I've always been a fan of, well, you know, martial arts fighting and, I never would have thought I'd see someone who had talents like this here,"
Ashley grins and she says, "What do you say? Think it's a good idea? All the schools trying to earn the title of the best school through this tournament!"
And less than half an hour ago, Hinata thought that Ashley was kind of a jerk, here they are talking quite enthusiasticly about setting up a really cool fighting tournament. While quite a lot of that goes to the manipulation of 'Ashley,' it certainly says something about Hinata that she's so willing to move past a bad introduction.
"There's nothing wrong with getting excited about cool fighting techniques. I don't really know how good I am compared to other trained fighters, but this would be a real cool way to find out." Hinata's practically bouncing with enthusiasm now.
"We should probably start by talking to some of the martial arts clubs in the school, they've got to have some experience with how tournaments work, even if they are usually only for one style."
"Right on!" Ashley says, rising her fist up in the air. This was the perfect plan, everything was coming into place. Though there was a part of Ashley that was genuinely excited about all of this, the activities, the potential friendship... It was part of those new experiences Eve had been so curious about.
"I think I should find some colorful pens and some cardboard of various colors! We could write up adds and post them around town, maybe do some auditions for a special homemade tournament, a little test or something... Or go for the big thing right away! What do you think?" Ashley asks, beaming proudly at the thought, "Yeah, that seems perfect!"
Helping a new kid fit in at a school she hadn't had the best introduction to is the sort of thing that Hinata's legitimately proud of. She isn't just popular around the school because she's got a natural aptitude for sports (among other things) so much as the enthusiasm and friendship she brings so readily. It's hard not to get a little caught up around her.
"Getting some ideas started would be a good idea. I can let Sakura know about this and... I'll talk to Natsu, too. She'll probably be able to help get word out around Gorin." Hinata grins as the plan evolves. The Southtown schools already have plenty of rivalries over various sporting events, there's no reason why there can't be a friendly one over a martial arts tournament.
While most of this was just a front to hide Ashley's true goal, a part of her was still happy to participate in all those seemingly mundane activities with Hinata. Doing something after school... It's not something Eve ever had the chance to do, nor actually having friends. It was easy to get caught up in Hinata's enthusiasm, letting it sparks her own enthusiasm about this whole thing. Ashley smiles, a genuine happy smile and chuckles at Hinata's energy.
The girl glances over her shoulder at one of the clock, and then back at Hinata, "After school! You and I... It's a promise?" Ashley asks, biting her lips. She was getting her hopes up, a bit more than just for her true task here, "I'd really like you to show me more of this Chi you can do... And, maybe we could get started too? To advertise our idea... I'm sure it'll get everyone just as hyped as we are about it..."
Ashley lifts her schoolbag up, hugging it against her chest, "I think I'll off to class, I.. Don't want to be late but..." She bites her lips, taking a pause before she adds, "Thank you, Hinata, for giving me another chance," Her voice sounds sincere and honest. Mostly because there was a part of Eve that was thrilled at this.
"Sure, nobody needs me to help out with any of their club activities after school today. I'll see if I can get Sakura to show up." Hinata pauses thoughtfully for a bit before adding. "Maybe Kei would want to come... he's really enthusiastic, even if he's not real used to going to having a lot of friends."
Oh boy... Now this might be a problem if he's actually around... Ashley's lips curl into a smile and she feigns her enthusiasm, "That all sounds great! I... Huh, just hope he won't mind my presence.." Ashley gives a shrug and then lifts her hand up to wave at Hinata, "Thanks again, and see you around!" And then the girl dashes off.
With a wide, almost wicked smile on her lips.
Log created on 19:10:18 10/30/2014 by Hinata, and last modified on 21:58:29 10/30/2014.