Description: During the Jinchuu tournament, Tenma Kiryuu found out the mysterious Brazilian he had kind of a crush on was member of his archnemesis' team; so what happens when Pás comes looking for him on Gedo's roof? Surprisingly not a fight.
It's been some days since the evacuation of the Suiryuu by now, hasn't it? But the memories don't fade so easily. Some good, some bad; for Tenma, it's about an even balance, all things considered. Of course, the recognition he's getting because of the tournament, and having placed highly in it, is something of a balm to soothe his wounded pride. The wounds to his body have, of course, healed completely by now, all the lacerations dealt to his arms and torso, the damage done to his cranium by Birdie tossing him around, which culminated in the brief loss of the use of his right eye, so by now it hardly seems like Tenma went through a war zone at all.
Sunday or not, Tenma is found on the grounds of Gedo High today, as it's one of his usual haunts; even though it's autumn, there's a definite warmth in the air, the sun still hanging high overhead, and the leader of the Guardian Kings is enjoying this lovely day by sitting on the rooftop, lazily resting with his legs on one of the window overhangs, while his back is up against the curving slope of the roof. Of course, as always, he's got that bundled bokken with him, resting on the same overhang as his legs. With his arms folded behind his head, Tenma's dark blue eyes stare up at the equally blue sky, and he thinks about a lot of things.
In fact, if it were anyone /but/ Tenma Kiryuu, one might even think he was /brooding/. But that's patently impossible for him.
It's been the same few days since Pás has been free of that boat, and if she hasn't been sick about it. Literally, sick. Really, really sick. Landsickness hit her like a mallet the first couple hours she hit land, her body having gotten used to the perpetual bowing and rocking of a boat at all times. She spent the first two days hugging porcelain and sleeping in her bathroom, not that anyone would ever know, not even her teammates, about this. Ever.
But she doesn't think she'll touch a boat ever again. She's resolved that they only bring pain. They're all vehicles of the devil.
Nonetheless, being sick for her longest time in years, Pás treated herself to a rare gift, something she does not do all too often. Unable to move, much less train, and very much less entertain herself, she mostly lay around and thought about things. Really thought. She thought about a lot of things, some of them about the last several weeks of her life, and few of them about loose ends that need tying.
She remembers one loose end in particular that more than deserves its bow.
And that's what brings her here. It was minimal effort on her part to find Tenma Kiryuu, what with the choice of coaxing she imposed upon his Gedo classmates, her acrobatic prowess, and that unmatched persistence she gets when she really wants something. And now, more than anything else in the world, she wants to talk to him.
And there he is. There is the briefest of sounds, like a swift, moving body. Out of nowhere, a girl skids a controlled few feet down the slope of the roof, landing into a crouch as she hits another window overhang somewhat parallel to his. She seems to immediately relax on the spot.
Same bare feet. Same dark skin. Same lazy, half-lidded eyes. Same half-nakedness even during autumn. This could only mean one person in all of Southtown. "Pescador!" Pás beams Tenma's way, one hand waving hello.
He could have won, you know; it was right there, in his grasp, but Tenma couldn't quite stop Tiffany, and that put an end to that. All the things he went through on the Suiryuu, the betrayal of Momo and Birdie and Katana on the Blacknoah, nearly losing one of his friends and teammates, being one of the handful of 'agents' imprisoned by the R invasion force before Seishirou turned the tide and destroyed the boat... All of it was, a tiny, negative voice in the depths of his heart says, for nothing. He'll bounce back, of course. His absolute self-confidence will allow for nothing less. But at the moment?
At the moment, Tenma's whole reverie is interrupted, by the sudden and dramatic appearance of a girl on the roof of Gedo High.
At first, Tenma's look is one of wide-eyed surprise that somebody would make an entrance like that, though it's only a few heartbeats before he's able to realise who it is. Her, the Dakini. A more apt name, perhaps, Tenma could not have assigned to the mysterious Brazilian. On one hand, she DID save his life at the end of that preliminary fight. But, on the other hand, she's one of /them/. Pacific Resistance. His enemies. She probably knew all along, he thinks, her and Marisol, laughing behind their backs at him.
Probably, because of her effort to keep him from falling to his death, he should at least be civil to her. More likely, given his general behaviour, he'll be an aggressive jerk and hurl insults her way or something. That's what you might think, anyway, but instead Tenma regards her, beaming and waving at him, for a silent moment before before he hmphs faintly, and turns his attention back up to the sky. Cold!
Landsickness was probably the most physical reaction the tournament stirred in someone like Pás. And she preferred it that way. The competition managed to escape her totally, and hardly was it her first choice of a vacation being cooped up in a small room as reality itself moved up and down, up and down, up -- she really has to stop thinking about that.
She attended because Marisol was fired up to go, and Pás wanted to keep an extra eye on her team. She wanted to make sure nobody she liked would find themselves up over their head. But she's also really good at pretending that was not the case whatsoever; she just went for the free bikinis and the refreshments!
Keeping up with her lazy exterior, the Brazilian shifts, propping one arm up against the sloped roof and stretching luxuriously. She keeps her dark eyes aimed straight on Tenma, her lips pulled into their perpetual sleepy grin. Having caught his attention, she continues amiably, "I am hear to say you a congratulations! You did very well. I am proud of you. You--"
He looks away. Her voice drifts off, her expression changing imperceptively, confusion filling empty spaces in her face. Hmmmm. Soon enough, her smile returns, and undeterred, Pás tilts her head, leaning away from the roof, toward the edge of her little spot, trying to catch his eyes. "Pescador... is there wrong with you?"
Had it not been for the revelation on board the Suiryuu, Tenma would probably be quite happy that Pas came all this way to see him, not to mention to actually congratulate him getting so far in the tournament. Having his ego stroked by a hot girl, well, that's something he always enjoys. 'Always', but not right this moment. It's possible that he's going to join forces with Marisol, however briefly, for their shared goal of wanting to beat the hell out of Momo, but Marisol didn't - as he sees it, anyway - betray him. Not that Pas actually /did/ anything wrong, but Tenma is a teenaged boy and they're funny in the head sometimes. He built her up in his mind, finding her not just attractive but also fun and interesting, and then she turns out to be one of /them/.
Suffice it to say, Tenma's feelings are hurt. Most people would probably say 'what feelings?' though.
"Yeah, I guess there is," Tenma says finally, his voice tense with anger. His gaze remains fixed upwards though, as he speaks more /at/ the Brazilian than /to/ her. "All those times I met you, tryin' to find out who you were, an' all along you were one a' Red's cronies?" Crony might be the wrong word, but he's angry. Angry and hurt! "Bet you an' her thought that was pretty hilarious, Dakini."
Letting one long leg drape off the ledge, swinging absently, contentedly in mid air, Pás has no trouble reclining and listening to all that Tenma has to tell her. She accepts it with her same old, sleepy grace, her manner that tends to regard the world with one eye and dismiss it with the other.
But something funny is happening here. She's not dismissing this like she does most everything in her life, shrugging and walking away and going on to find what's more interesting. In fact, she seems to be staying put, levelling a calm, thoughtful stare straight on the boy. It tinges with a wholesome sort of innocence. "I am not understand, you are angry with me?"
Sitting up, shaking her long hair free from her face, Pás faces him, absently dragging her thumbnail along her bottom lip. "Hilarious..?" she echoes, sounding at first that she genuinely doesn't understand the word. But she does. "I am not sure what is hilarious. Are you talking of Marisolas? Pescador, I was never telling her once about you."
It should be pretty clear that, yeah, Tenma is indeed mad at Pas. She betrayed his trust! Don't even try to apply any simple logic to this, the though processes of Tenma Kiryuu are far beyond mere human understanding. For a moment though, that innocence of the Brazilian's blunts his anger. Is she serious? Is she just a really good actress? Does Tenma even really care if he's so angry and just wants to vent it on her? A complicated series of questions indeed.
"So, you just happen t' be pals with at least two people who hate my guts, an' I'm supposedta believe it's a coincidence?" Tenma wonders, still avoiding actually looking at Pas, because if he does that, he might see a legitimately innocent or hurt expression on that pretty, tanned face, and how could he be properly angry then? "An' here I actually kinda liked ya, Dakini."
Is this deliberate, that she intended to play him while being assigned as his mortal enemy, or is this all the biggest coincidence? That she, if all Pacific Students, and he, of all of Gedo High, would defy all statistical logic and occupy two opposing teams? Her lips twist in response to Tenma's question, not so much hurt and frowning, as seriously confused. She scratches the top of her head and pushes her narrow shoulders into a careless shrug. "Yea? I do not see what is the matter." The concept of rivals and enemies seems entirely lost on her. A foreign language that goes right on over her head.
Pás is, indeed, a superb actress. Thankfully, she chooses to employ that skill for harmless purposes instead of something truly manipulative. Either way, it is difficult to assess someone as tricky as her, in manner, in combat, in sheer nature, to really be telling the truth. She is cunning, very secretive, but only speaks in truths. And she really does not care if the rest of the world knows that, if it cares to trust her or not.
At least until now.
She pauses rather distinctly at Tenma's last statement, blinking her eyes and pursing her mouth. It doesn't last long, but it still happened: he managed to get an expression out of her. And it looked a little hurt. But Pás returns to her gentled sleepiness, her lips crooked with an indifferent patience as her eyes stare at him. "Hum," she says to herself, shrugging again, pulling up her legs and rising to stand. She looks like she's inclined to leave. Turn her back. Not even care.
Except that Pás isn't leaving; she's choosing to do something far more stupid. With little thought, and absolutely no fear, she takes one step back, coils, and then suddenly pushes off her ledge. And, rather suicidally, she leaps from her perch to impose herself on his, despite the little room left, despite the treacherous way the sloped roof becomes steeper if one foot should miss. And though it does, only catching herself by the toes of one foot, her balance wavering, her arms outstretched, Pás is still managing to face Tenma with a reckless, knowing grin.
Right now, though, if Pas did up and leave... Would Tenma even react? He's hurt, and angry - which is funny, because it's entirely his own fault, making assumptions about other people. It's quite possible that he'd just let it go, and let /her/ go, and accept her as just another enemy. It'd be pretty easy to do that, wouldn't it, for somebody who so carefully projects the harsh, uncaring demeanor that Tenma does. Keep the walls up, keep people out. Keep drawing lines. 'Us' and 'Them'. But then Pas provides a distraction.
She leaps over onto the window ledge his feet and bokken rest on, catching herself only by the toes of one foot, her position precarious at best. Certain death or at least serious harm, at worst.
"You--!!" Tenma yelps in surprise and alarm, jerking upwards and reaching out with both hands to grab at Pas, to yank her towards him where, at least, she'll be relatively safe. Of course, this means she may well just end up sprawled on top of him, which sort of defeats his whole 'grr I am angry and offended' thing, but at least nobody will fall off of the roof and plunge to the hard courtyard below.
And she does end up that way. The Brazilian girl seems to go as pliant as a pillow as Tenma grabs her, giving no fight against being reeled on in. Yanked forward, she slumps on top of him, his rescue earning appreciation from all her soft curves and bare skin. Remaining happily tangled, she raises her head to face Tenma, flicking her heavy hair aside so that she can meet his eyes with hers.
Pás is smiling one hundred watts. "Tenma Pescador," she intones affectionately, "you are my hero." After a moment, her arms move, not to help herself up, not to pull away, but to stretch up across Tenma's shoulders so she can twine her fingers at the back of his neck. She doesn't seem like she's going anywhere.
"Please don't make angry at me," she pleads, bringing her face closer to his. "Please like me again. I like you a lot. Why would I want to give you hurt?"
See, now this is hardly playing fair. Tenma hits the rooftop again a bit roughly, cushioning the short fall for Pas, and leaving him acutely aware of her on top of him as his hands remain on her hips, where he caught her to pull her forward in the first place. Breathing heavily from the fact that he was briefly terrified somebody might /die/ in front of him, the Gedo swordsman stares down at Pas wide-eyed, as she seems quite happy in this particular position.
It gets even worse when the young woman has her arms twined about his neck, her face close to his. Close enough that he can feel her breath on his face. close enough that his gaze seems full of her brown eyes, his nostrils full of the scent of her. "Uh," Tenma says, unable to immediately come up with a proper response to Pas' pleas. "Well, if... You're gonna put it that way..." He's crumbling! He's weak!
Pás never plays fair. Fair isn't fun. This is. Treating Tenma like her new mattress, she seems more inclined by the moment to let herself go lazy and pin him straight to the spot until she's sure he's finished being angry. It's not the best method of conflict resolution, but she honestly hasn't ever done this enough to ever be good at it. Usually she's the one walking away.
Maybe later she'll sit back and try to reason exactly why she's doing this. Or maybe it might take getting painfully sick again for Pás to work up the effort to do so. Maybe in another few years. For now, she acts entirely on impulse. And it's a very determined one. Her eyes aim right into his, unblinking, with the steady patience of snipers. With him effectively trapped, and sure that she's snatch up the boy's full attention, the Brazilian moves her lips within an inch of his and begins to speak. "My name is Estella Maria de Santo," she begins, "but everyone calls me Pás. I am from Sao Paulo; it is a city in Brazil. I go to the Pacific School. I am on a team that may hate you very, very much, but I do not." She leans in closer. Her eyes hood. "And I will do anything to have you happy with me again. Any more questions, Pescador?"
Truth be told, having a girl on top of you is a good way to forget being angry. In his current position, Tenma's temper has gone right out of his head, his simple awareness of Pas' proximity and contact with him overwhelming most other things. As brash and inappropriate as his behaviour so often is, he's pretty much 'all talk'; a situation like this is completely different. Completely different! His eyes are quite impressively wide, like they might be in danger of falling right out of his head at any moment, and his attention is, quite solidly, fixed on Pas. His face feels very warm, probably because he's turning red.
But then, Pas goes and ruins their whole bet! Sure, he hasn't been able to beat her - not in a fight, nor in less physical forms of competition, it seems - but to part of him, this seems like a dismissal. Like she's saying there's no way he could possibly defeat her. But at the same time, it's nice to actually know her name, now. Honesty is a funny thing.
"Estella, huh," Tenma repeats, with the Brazilian's face really rather close to his. It's perhaps strange that he, Tenma Kiryuu, a young man who spends so much effort coming up with nicknames for people in order to dismiss them, would actually latch on to the name of Pas' birth, rather than her assumed one. For a moment, he seems like he might say something else, like he's on the point of making a dirty response to that 'do anything', but instead... He lets out a short laugh, and slumps back against the curve of the roof. "You really are a strange one, Dakini," he says, but the expression he directs at her is a smile. Not a grin, or a smirk, or anything like that, but a simple, understated, genuine smile.
She too was enjoying their little bet, rather the one who has the infuriating capacity to keep a game going long after it's stopped being funny. But let it be known that even Pás believes in a little reciprocity. She could tell he was hurt, and even if she didn't mean any of it, not deliberately, she feels she owes it to him. After all, she supposes, she hasn't told him everything. And she may not, unless he works to get it out of her. But, for now, she regets saying nothing.
Or maybe not.
Her face scrunches up comically when Tenma calls her Estella. He didn't. He just did not do that. "Puta que te pariuuu," she suddenly lets go in an amused, but pained groan, burying her face momentarily against his shoulder. "You cannot use that name; it is not tough at all!" But her face uncovers again, smiling, as if to express that her bemoaning is mostly superficial. Maybe.
Exhaling, her mood elevated by the visible change in his, Pás returns to throning herself on Tenma like a spoiled cat, as if she owns him and the lot of the surrounding territory. Her hands untangle to flick a thumbnail playfully at the back of his neck. Her dark eyes slant, turning back on him, but she seems to falter a moment, appearing to parse his smile there, something she knows she hasn't seen before. She seems momentarily flustered. The Brazilian stops, but not for long, quickly forcing back on her crooked grinning, huffing out put-on indignation. "Psiu, yea, I am. I would have to be to like you, crazy man."
Of course, that just confirms it, you know. Tenma, being Tenma, is unlikely to ever give Pas the name she prefers. His own nickname for her, of course, he'll continue to use; but now he has access to her /real name/, the one she was born with. Which gives him something he hasn't had before, where the Brazilian is concerned, and that's potential ammunition should he need it. "I dunno, I think it's a nice name," Kiryuu allows, graciously indeed. He might even mean it, but it's just as likely, if not more so, that he's just messing with her since she seems to dislike it.
The fact that Pas actually gets flustered by his more genuine smile isn't lost on Tenma, but he's not going to go telling anybody about this, because it would mean confessing there's more to him than fighting and listening to loud music and ogling hot girls - you know, guy stuff - and revealing depth of personality that, if anyone at all, only his two closest friends previously might have suspected existed. "/I'm/ crazy?" Tenma repeats, snorting as he fiddles with a lock of Pas' hair, wrapping it around his index finger; two can play the proprietary contact game, after all. "I ain't the one who near to fell offa the roof here, now am I?"
Now, for as excessively friendly, excessively affectionate, and so very, very excessively hands-on as Pás is, this kind of prolonged contact is a strange, new world. Usually she forces herself on some hapless boy either to toy with him or humiliate him, an action that, while leaves little to the imagination, is done entirely in play. After all, she embodies the living opposite of seriousness. But this? This is starting to stray out of the realm of fun and games.
Especially when he starts touching her hair like that. Her rackless grin fading away as she stares at Tenma, Pás' first instinct wants to freeze right up, ever so used to initiating all the touches, or dissuading all the rest as something meaningless. This is something very different and very new. And it makes her respond to his accusation a moment later than she should.
She throws her smirk back on, head tilting, finally reeling one arm back in so she can poke a pinky finger into his chest. "Che! Crazy and blind!" she bemoans theatrically. "Ask help from Cristo, it comes in twos! Me? I do not ever fall, Pescador. I am the graceful." She puffs up. "Like butterflies. Everything is built so strangely, this is a mad place."
Well, clearly it's Pas' own fault for getting herself into this situation! But really, Tenma's never been a touchy-feely person himself, unless the touchy came as a result of violence or the feely was designed to send Marisol into a conniption. It's all fun and games though, they say, until somebody loses an eye. Or whatever the rough equivalent would be in this situation. Surely it can't be somebody playing with her hair, given she seems to do it to everyone she meets in turn!
Tenma hardly seems to even notice what he's doing anyway, especially once the Brazilian girl recovers from her shock and is poking him in the chest with her pinky finger and talking nonsense at him. "Yeah, well," Tenma says dubiously his right eye closing as he looks up at Pas. "Looked like you were gonna fall, t' me. Guess I should just let ya take care of yourself next time, huh?" He's joking, and it shows in his tone, which is best described as 'a bit less gruff than normal', but hey, it's a change. "It is a pretty crazy place though, ain't it. Ninja boats an' who knows what else." Which isn't what she meant, but he can assign his own meanings to things, he's /just that good/.
Now, his teasing remarks she can handle much more easily, her crooked smiling taking permanent station along her mouth. She decidedly shifts against him, either to get comfortable or to try to coax another blush out of him, who can tell with someone as fickle as Pás. But as Tenma slumps back against roof, so does she but against him, her weight somewhat negligable for someone who can deliver a helluva mean kick. She pauses, and then for reasons she's not so sure herself -- better not to even think them -- she leans back to rest her head on his shoulder, able to find the inner pillow in Gedo's worst delinquents. Pás is skilled like that.
"Hum," she says lazily in response, much too content for someone who may have had a near-death experience a few minutes ago. Her dark eyes turn, seeming to partake her first drink of the view, something she dismisses just as easily when Tenma speaks again. Though he misinterprets her playful taunt on his homeland, she doesn't seem to mind, slowly letting herself have a faint smile as she considers it. He might just be getting a serious moment out of her. "Yea," she finally agrees. "But I like it."
Tenma isn't even very well padded, you know, he's kind of on the skinny side. But, Tenma knows better than to complain in a situation like this, and instead he just lets Pas make herself at home, and truth be told he rather enjoys it himself. So much for teasing him with impunity! "S'got a few nice things," Tenma allows in agreement, nodding once. But is Pas even capable of having a serious moment? He wouldn't have thought so before today, before her seemingly sincere upset at having him mad at her.
Today has been a funny day.
"Hey... You ain't fallin' asleep there, are you?" Kiryuu wonders, his tone grumbling but at least he's not shouting at her or anything. Of course, if she does decide this is a good spot for an afternoon nap, then he's going to be stuck here for a while.
Pás, who always believes that one good turn deserves another, is all too alert to Tenma's abject grumbling. Smiling crookedly to herself, she finds herself mysteriously that much more comfortable, and that much more inclined to steal a nap on top of both Gedo's rooftop and the Guardian Kings' leader. That's what happens when you call her Estella. She burrows against him as though he were genetically half-man, half-foam mattress, finding herself less inclined to move, now that she realizes she's made a warm spot. And, to his dismay, she begins to initiate her superhuman prowess for falling asleep on the spot. It's an innate talent of the permanently lazy.
"Mmmn," Pás answers Tenma eloquently, burying her face against the cradle of his shoulder, her free arm winding up to absently hang onto him, her fingers lightly curled at the back of his neck. Looks like he's going to be stuck for as long as she likes to sleep. And Pás really likes to sleep. For a long, long time. Her foggy voice mumbles absently into his shoulder, "What you going to do about it, Pescador?" He could probably feel her smiling. "...Lose to me in a fight again?"
With his head leaning back against the curved steel roof, and Pas' face against his shoulder, the Brazilian can't see Tenma's expression when she totally harshes him right then and there, but his brow twitches and his eyes glare at the very sky, as though daring the heavens to make something of that comment which escaped the girl just now. Still, she's got him on that one, huh? "Tch," Tenma grunts, a sharp exhalation between his teeth. "We'll see 'bout that next time," he says.
And then he waits a beat.
"Estella."
Log created on 18:27:33 11/04/2007 by Tenma, and last modified on 15:50:03 11/18/2007.