Description: Post Thailand: Kurow (unhappy with the war results) rolls up in his Akio Pimp Car, and Yurika (struggling to become stronger), Momo (being annoying), and Sada (being similarly annoying) are off on a road trip to.. Somewhere. Sada gets the front seat and it just goes downhill from there.
Whew, so it seems like all the Thailand stuff is finally over.. Which means that it's looking to be time to finally get /original/ plans back on track. The good news is there's plenty of summer left left in the end of it.
For Yurika Kirishima, there's no rest for the weary. She's still a little shaken up emotionally, but after sorting out her thoughts a bit, the time to finally ship off to another part of Japan came up just in the nick of time. It's a beautiful day out, perhaps a little too hot outside, but luckily today the musician is wearing plenty of white; a lovely, white and frilled knee-length dress with a matching color mantle on her shoulders and of course tights on her legs otherwise. She shields herself from the sunlight with her parasol, seated on one of three large bags that somehow have been dragged out to the front of the schoolyard.
A little overpacked? Well, maybe, but to her understanding there wasn't going to be any mountain climbing to do. Though she could be wrong.
The schoolyard and the sidewalks are nearly void of any pedestrians, so with nothing to really look at at the moment, she passes the time reading one of her favorite romance novels. Mmnnn. Romance.
Sada had been dropping by the school; with special permission due to her representation of the school's honor in public fighting spectacles, she was able to crash in the dorms! But now everyone's heading back, and Sada - who has only one suitcase, plus a boiled-leather black bookbag, de rigeuer after all - steps out towards the gates.
The familiar sight of a dainty parasol indicates the presence of some sort of Elegant Gothic Lolita. And is it not said: One shall stand, and one shall EGL?
She walks over, lifting her voice: "Kirishima!" she calls, her tone friendly. At least she isn't calling her 'Yuri-poo' or anything like that, yet. Fortunately, she is still outside of melee range, which may give Yurika the opportunity to prepare her killing blow!
Suddenly, a voice behind Yurika begins reading her novel aloud, at one of the page's particularly cheesy lines. Should the young lady turn around, she'll come face to face with none other than Momo! The girl is without bags of any sort, what with not being from this school and all, and thus having nothing to carry away, and is clad in her usual tennis uniform. "Wow, do you really read stuff like this? It seems so boring..."
Just how Momo managed to get behind Yurika in the first place is a question left unanswered, but children always have a way of getting where they're not wanted without being noticed.
Yurika isn't going to be making her killing blow anytime soon. Yurika is in an astonishingly /good/ mood for a change, because it's a very good book. Now what Sada may not realized is that Yurika actually does recognize her schoolmates footsteps, which causes her to pause a moment from her reading and a rather dark expression forms on her face.
It seems Momo has summoned the hax to avoid this ability, interrupting her moodiness by suddenly reading out loud, which of course makes her yelp and jump up from her seated position in suprise. She quickly turns around, her cheeks red but finds herself in a position where she simply just can't scold the underclassman. "Y- You.." she mumbles under her breath, then gives a little laugh as she glances to the side, "Of course you wouldn't understand, this is adult reading after all.." the book is snapped shut between her palms, "Also, it is rude to read over ones shoulder, where are your manners?"
Ok, the part about her being in a good mood? Now it's being tested. It was starting to look like this was going to be a very long day. Sada would have to forgive her for not aknowledging her follow Seijyun.
Sada can recognize this moodiness - this tension growing - and she blames it on the logical, reasonable, sensible and natural source of such irritation. And that source must be - has to be - cannot possibly be anything but...
Momo.
It's understandable, Sada knows, to be irritated at a little brat coming up behind you and giving you crap. Her attention turns towards Momo as she steps forwards, telling the girl without much formality, "You shouldn't be disturbing people when they're reading. Sometimes they can get so involved in the world of imagination that they can have really bad reflexes when you disturb them."
Since Yurika is a friendly person, she comes up near the parasol bearing girl and puts her suitcase down, resting her own butt on it in a similar style to the Kirishima girl. See! Friendly. She then turns her attention, briefly, to the street itself, leaving the back of her neck and head exposed, clear and unprotected, to Yurika.
Yurika's yelp of surprise causes Momo to stumble back with an equally surprised yelp. For all of her momentary hax, she still reacts just like anyone else would. "If boring stuff like that is adult, I think I'll stick with comics," the pink one responds, returning the comment on her manners with a stuck out tongue.
Sada's, er, 'friendly' words of warning are mulled over for a moment. "Well... I guess you could be right. Some people get really scary when they're surprised!" Evidently, Yurika isn't one of them, or perhaps the tennis player might have shown a little more restraint. "But I didn't mean to disturb her, I just wanted to see what was so interesting."
She continues to stand while the two Seijyun students sit on their bags, occasionally taking a few steps around to relieve the restlessness of standing in one place for more than a few minutes.
"..........."
Oh what the hell. For a moment there, Sada had almost won points in coming to agreement with Yurika, but then just what exactly was the Glee Club member insinuating about the musician?
Her cheeks darken even more then, she covering the lower half-of her face to try and fight off the blush for a moment, the twitch of her eyebrow though isn't as easy to brush off. Why? Why was she cursed with these kinds of 'allies'? Further comments from Momo add to the blow of embarassment and finally she just tries to brush it all off by changing the subject; clearing her throat to get Sada's attention as well, "I- It's all right.. Ah, that's right, you two haven't met just yet, have you? Um.. Sada, this is Momo whom we had mentioned in our last meeting. She's one of our supportees. And Momo, this is Sada, she's from Seijyun of course, and one of our newest recruits. But she's still more or less being initiated.."
That is unless Sada has been some sort of harlot and has been initiated without Kurow telling her. It's very possible.
Sada turns her head to look at Momo. One hand goes down towards that leather bookbag near her...
But she's just adjusting it, at least, after Yurika's comment. She tilts her head to the side, letting one of the painstakingly formed ringlets fall over, and she sizes up Momo. "Ohh," she says, with a smile at the... little... girl. "I didn't know."
Kurow wasn't kidding, she thinks; they must be in desperate straits. A little girl can be a strong fighter, but -seriously-. Maybe it's a legacy, though, she reasons further. Fighting to redeem a family's shame? She speaks up a few moments later: "I think I am. Everything's been -" A glance towards others, but nobody's around right now; it's an empty segment of Southtown! "- all QUIET lately." She looks to Yurika then: "Have you heard anything from Kurow lately?"
Momo is no curse! A bane, perhaps even a jinx, but by no means a curse. "Oh! This is our new recruit?" the brightest (or would that be dimmest?) of the Darkside says, bouncing over to give Sada a once-over of her own. "Hmm... not too tall..." She quickly moves to the girl's other side. "And a strong build! Yeah, I bet you'll be fine!" Looks like the Momo Seal of Approval has been earned, whatever that's worth.
As the conversation turns to Kurow, Momo looks back to Yurika. "Has something happened? A lot happened with the tennis team recently, I couldn't get away to keep track of things at all!"
Has Yurika heard about Kurow lately? Oh there are so many possible ways for her to answer that... Taking her seat upon her luggage again, the elegant gotchic lolita decide that she's goign to go ahead and make her first step at being devilishly evil. She twirls her parasol lightly, and then nods her head, "Ah yes, I have, but I'm suprised, seeing as Kurow is 'your boyfriend', I thought he would have gotten in contact with you before myself..." a mysterious little smile plays on her lips, eyes drawing closed for a moment, "Hmmn, but he has been rather busy, I think.. But I'm more than sure he'll be picking us up today for our trip. Has your tennis practice calmed at all, Momo? We'll be driving out of town for.. I believe a week or so to brush up on some training."
Now then, Momo, what was that about a 'Seal of Approval'? Two birds with one stone, Yurika is quite sure.
Sada turns her head to look at Momo as Momo walks around and inspects her like some kind of horse. She is not terribly thrilled about obtaining the Loli Seal of Approval, but she accepts this. Momo does have seniority.
For now.
"I'm pleased to meet you," she says with a warm, wide, and fake smile, before looking over to Yurika. "... Maybe he didn't write down the number at my family's house," she says, looking straight ahead afterwards. "Besides, it was probably very busy." After this she falls silent, looking tense. Mission accomplished, Yurika! FOR NOW.
She is sitting on a suitcase, for the reference of the inbound. A boiled-leather bookcase, which may or may not contain a brutal death weapon, is sitting against one leg.
"Nice to meet you, too," Momo begins to say, when all of a sudden Yurika opens her big fat mouth.
Instead, the littlest villain stutters through, "Th-that's not..." flushing a brilliant crimson all the while. If only Kurow thought of the two them that way! "Y-yes, my schedule is free!" It's really not, but dammit, she'll /make/ it free. And she didn't miss that 'mysterious' smile, either. You've made 'the list' now, missy!
Momo is completely without luggage, seeing as this is the first she's heard of a training trip. Ooh, darn those social obligations, how is she supposed to stay in the know as she should when the world wants her to be a tennis star? They'll have to take a quick detour for Momo to rush to throw together a week's worth of luggage.
Yurika is completley innocent! There's nothing for her to get any odd looks for, it's just such a nice day out, that's all. Though suddenly her dark eyes widen slightly.
Well then, with that seed planted, things should go a little more smoothly for the musician, but she is mildly worried that she didn't do anything /too/ bad. If no training got done, it wouldn't benefit the girl in the least. But she's pretty certain it shouldn't be that bad.
"Oh! Well in that case when Kurow arrives, I'll ask him to make a quick stop by Taiyo and you can get your things. I don't think it should be a problem at all.. It should be really interesting and helpful overall, since we all use different weapons in combat. And an even greater chance to bond a bit more."
When you're one of the few surviving members of a vast criminal organization that just had a very... loud, visible ascent and equally obvious descent, there are a few perks. One of them is, yes, actually acquiring what one might call the 'pimp car' that is essential to true mastermind status (/and/ learning to drive it -- it isn't /that/ different from a Jeep!) No one quite knows where the fast, sporty little red conveyance that (barely) seats four came from, but in the last days of Shadaloo's reign in Thailand, it has fallen into Kurow Kirishima's hands.
And right now, it is -- pulling up to Seijyun High! Confirming that it is, in fact, his vehicle, Kirishima gets out of the driver's side door, giving a little wave to the three young ladies that make up the full fighting force of the Darkside Student Congress. "I'm not too late, I assume," he says, looking to each of the girls in turn -- there's /something/ up here, though he can't be sure quite what. "And -- Momo, what a surprise." If not necessarily a pleasant one.
When the car starts coming up, Sada hopes. Hope is fulfilled and the promise kept as she recognizes Kurow's distinctive hairstyle and beak from the windscreen, standing up qickly. "There he is!" she says, picking up her equipment easily. The bookbag rattles with its carried chains and she hastily moves in, climbing into the driver's seat and turning quickly to scoot her suitcase back -- Momo is small and can share a seat with it, Sada reasons.
"Where have you BEEN," she says to Kurow, rhetorically, following up with, "I wish you'd called~" in a less rhetorical tone.
"Kurow!" Momo says excitedly, in much the fasion that a girl greeting her beloved older brother might. "It's been a while! I'm sooo sorry that I haven't been able to help recently." She gives him a pitiable look, like a little lost puppy. This doesn't last for long, however, until she goes back to hypercheerful. "I heard that you're going on a training trip! Is there room for one more?"
Without waiting for an answer, she jumps into Kuro's car (doors are for wusses) right behind Sada. She certainly isn't thinking about kicking the girl's seat out of spite for the entire ride, not at all. "We'd need to swing by Taiyo to get some of my stuff, though, is that alright?"
Oh thank goodness, Kurow is finally here. She actually didn't recognize the car headed their way, but once she recognized the driver, a truer smile forms and she stands up slowly. *Pop* goes the trunk, it'd seem, so she can put her luggage (all three of them) inside.. Somehow it just doesn't even occur to her that there'd be any competition for the front seat, so when she carefully closes it afterward, she gets an extremely unpleasent suprise.
This is what Turk and Macy would gladly call an EPIC FAIL moment.
"No, you're right on time, Kurow..." she replies in her usual quiet manner, which is likely outvolumed by Momo's bouncy bubbliness and Sada's 'almost' nagging. She'll leave it for him to deal with those two, then, she shaking her head to Momo's entrance into the vehicle; she goes ahead and opens the door and takes a seat as she closes her parasol. Great, she doesn't even get to sit -behind- Kurow either. Sigh.
"I was securing what was left of my potential assets after Vega fell in Thailand," the Kirishima scion says, watching as the girls scramble for seats. At the moment, this is a particularly welcome gesture -- after watching the powerbase he traded the Darkside Society Organization for crumble, he could hardly be said to be in the best of spirits. Oh well, he reminds himself -- he took plenty from it. It's not as though it was a complete loss, which is good enough -- besides, now that he's back home he's back to having his team scramble for his attention.
He gets back into the car once all three of the girls are inside, taking the wheel. "I apologize -- like I said, Vega was having his 'destined battle' or something equally ridiculous, and I was expected to be present. I'd meant to call, but time was tight," he explains, before glancing back to Momo. "... well, if you can gather your things, I don't see why you can't come with. After all, you /are/ a valued part of our organization."
It is Yurika, however, who gets the most troubling words to deal with from Kirishima. As the youth starts to pull out, getting the car going, he asks her, "... have you -- caught up with Kazama yet?" No elaboration on what that means. Just those simple words.
"A 'destined battle'? What crap," Sada says easily, settling back in the seat. She has not yet identified the Momo nature behind her and it is probably for the best, although she does have a kusarigama in there; you might not want to kick too hard, shortcakes.
She continues talking. "Anyway, it was BORING around here; I went home, of course, because of the break? But it was so quiet there, you know, it gets dull. Kyoto isn't that bad, but it's sometimes like everything shuts down after 10 at night, unless you have a festival..."
She continues talking. "The S.N.F. the other day was sort of a shame, too... do you know Marisol at all? She's in this group over at Justice, I was hoping you'd be there. It's a great auditorium, although she BLEW UP HALF THE STAGE."
"Of course I am!" Momo says, glad that Kurow is recognizing her obviously indispensible talents. The kicks have not begun yet, oh no; she'll wait until it's too late to drive off without her to start doing that. "Hey, Sada, if you don't mind me asking," the pink one says, leaning forward to try and look over the other girl's shoulder (and barely succeeding, because the seat is too tall for her), "how did you meet Kurow, anyway? Is there a good story behind it?" Yeees, tell Momo all of the sordid details.
The rather ominous question towards Yurika is noted by the tennis player and filed away. /That/ sounds like it has a sordid story, too.
Apparently Yurika was OUT OF HER MIND, because she finds herself indeed seated behind Kurows seat and this also means that she has entered a small little bubble of bliss. Happy with her table scraps our elegant musician is, though don't get her wrong- She's still quite jealous. She sets her parasol on her lap, a sort of lazy gaze into space until she's addressed by Kurow, snapping her back into reality for a moment.
"I have.. Things went well."
Now then. Kurow likely knows things didn't go well at all. Yurika's either a big fat liar, or something very weird happened. The question troubling? Not at all, Yurika is completely convinced she was successful with her duties. And how did Sada and Kurow meet? Maybe Yurika had forgotten, she has to wonder why she had never asked that before herself.
'If things went well, where is she?' Kurow wonders to himself, but elects to simply offer Yurika a smiling, "I'm pleased to hear that -- I look forward to the day when she begins to make the right choices," as he gets ready to start driving. It's still something of a new experience for him, but he's obviously not terrible at it -- those reflexes are good for something other than killing a man, after all. The car cruises along at a nice, even pace; Kurow is a careful driver. After all, he has yet to forge proper registration for this particular piece of his spoils of war.
Kirishima recognizes the question from Momo for what it is, but tries not to seem as though he cares /too/ much about balancing the pair -- after all, part of the reason Momo was charmed by him was the fact that he /didn't/ pay her a whole lot of attention. As such, he lets Sada handle that particular story -- better to just smile a little at the mention of it and leave it at that.
Sada pauses in her talking for a moment. "Well..."
The pause doesn't last. "I'd gotten all the permission and everything to join Saturday Night Fight, right? So I went in to drop it off, and then Kurow was signing up too... so he comes by, and he sits down next to me at the bus stop..."
A dramatic pause. "And he then asks me - why don't you come with me? Since he was getting picked up by someone else at Justice, right? And then later..."
She trails off, with a sigh, and then finally notices the car. "Where did you GET this! It's wonderful!"
Momo smiles her usual smile during storytime. "Oh, is that how it was? He saw you and had to have you?" Her smile fades into a frown as she sits back into her seat. "How /boring/. That sounds like something out of one of those dumb romance novels. Where's the fighting, and the explosions, and the legions of ninja?"
The tennis player crosses her arms and pouts, pressing the subject no further, since OBVIOUSLY it's super boring and doesn't concern her in the slightest, KUROW.
That is a side of Sada that Yurika isn't really used to.. But when she thinks about it, Sada -did- seem to be just chatting away with one of her club members when they first met. Seems she hadn't been doing a good job really 'being friends' with her classmate.
Though on the other hand, when there's a lingering image of Sada and Kurow holding hands, rolling in the sand and giggling, it kind of sucks away any real desire to do so.
Still, she gives a pleasent, small smile to her brother, and with that the group is off to adventure, mystery, and ninjitsu, that is after a pit stop is made at least. The musician gives a passing glance to Sada, and then gives a small chuckle in response to Momo's reaction. She hides it best she can, of course. "Momo, romance isn't about violence or ninjas or anything like that. It's a beautiful, and sometimes intense moment between two peoples hearts. It's an experience that one can very rarely feel on a regular basis, so it's touching and beautiful every single time."
Knowing how Momo works, this is probably the best that can be hoped for; Kurow lets Momo pout a little while. After all, now Momo has more to worry about than just Yurika being overprotective -- which will probably get her to work all the harder! /Everyone/ wins. "It was a friend of mine from Pacific, actually," Kurow notes, off-handedly -- there are always those /little/ details people disagree on, after all.
After doing Momo the small courtesy of a vaguely sympathetic look (and conveniently hitting a stop-light to do so), the younger Kirishima turns to Sada. Evidently, he isn't much interested in Yurika's comments on romance right now -- that's not really his cup of tea, even if he can occasionally pretend it is. "I brought it back with me -- after everything started falling apart," Kurow explains. "It's really quite the vehicle... it's not /perfect/, but it's close. I haven't really had a chance to do as much with it as I'd like, though -- it's only the second time I've driven it."
The car starts to move again; they're getting close to Momo's house now. After all, if Momo's coming, she's /probably/ going to want a change of clothes.
Sada smiles. It's the smile of secret death. Yes, she thinks to herself, if this Momo character is the best that they could do before I came along, they were in sorry straits. Poor Yurika! Poor Kurow! She'll show them what a real, non-irritating, non-shrill-little-girl person can do.
"So, Momo," she says as they draw further on, "you're in high school already? Did you skip a grade?" She says this in a tone which, while rather cutting, has enough superficial friendliness to maintain plausible deniability!
Oh, Yurika, if only you knew what was going on in Momo's heart right now. Actually... nevermind, she's feeling some boundless rage for Sada right now, not that she shows it. If you'd known what was in her heart half an hour ago, you might've been more impressed. "No way! Momo would've liked to have skipped a grade," she says, slipping into an even more childish third person for a moment, "but I had to get there the old fashioned way, one year at a time. Being good at sports doesn't impress some teachers."
Her tone also contains that ever-so-subtle sharpness to it, though perhaps in her case it's justified. After all, she's being called a little kid! Not that she really does anything to dissuede the idea.
Momo also catches Kurow's momentary glance, and affords him a small smile in return.
Yurika probably would be! But who is she not to throw in a lecture or two about romance? She was about to take a moment to sink back into her own little world, but after a moment the talk between Sada and Momo becomes a little more.. Interesting. Passive aggressive behavior always tends to be a bit fun, after all.
Dark eyes looking from one student to the other, amused by Sada's painfully obvious (to herself) disappointement with Momo. But she doesn't say anything, they'll realize once their at their destination that they're no push-overs. But she could really only imagine what's going on in the older students mind right now.
The car is saved from having to deal with too much bad, cutting social behavior by the girls therein by its proximity to Momo's house; they are, of course, now parked right outside. Turning to Momo, and deciding to simply avoid commenting on the little half-friendly squabbling between the pair, says, "Get your things, please -- it's not as though you'll all be trapped in the middle of nowhere, but it'd probably be more convenient for you to have them accessible than to start making trips back and forth every day." They're not even going to be that far out of town, really -- perhaps Kurow just doesn't want to have to drive them back and forth over and over.
"Oh, how nice," Sada lies with a sweet smile. "Are you enjoying your first year?" BUT THEN instruction comes, and Sada leans back, looking at the roof and waiting patiently for the horror of Momo-chan's fetching of her luggage. She remains silent.
Waiting.
Momo will know suffering before long.
With a cheerful, "Yes, Kurow!" Momo hopes out of the car, again ignoring the fact that there are doors. Not that the intervention was necessary to keep the peace, Momo has far greater tolerance for annoying people than that.
After a few minutes, one of the second story windows opens, and Momo climbs out of it, a pink and white duffle bag over her shoulders. Hanging onto the edge for a minute, she reaches up to grab the open window, then lets go of the sill, letting her weight pull the window closed before she falls into the bushes beneath.
A skip, jump, and hop later, she's back in the car, all the while looking like nothing out of the ordinary has happened.
Log created on 19:59:00 07/09/2007 by Yurika, and last modified on 03:24:07 02/09/2009.