Description: Just a chance encounter between two girls at the mall. One surprises the other, and drags her off for snacks and a drink. An ordinary thing. Except one of said girls is Riko Koganei, teenage ninja. And the other's Kiyoko Fukakami, the girl pursuing a fighting career against all odds. There's nothing ordinary here. But then, ordinary isn't for fighters, is it?
The Mall. A place teenagers seem to flock to. Maybe it's just the shopping that attracts them, but if that were the case then there wouldn't be so many hanging around and not buying anything. Maybe it's simply that it's seen as neutral ground, where no one person in particular holds an advantage over the other.
Whatever the case is, one teenager here today is Kiyoko Fukakami. She was here with her friends, but they all headed back to school to get some extra studytime in. Kiyoko decided to stay because she studied plenty already, and besides that she really needs to get something new into her wardrobe. So she finds herself in one of the supposedly trendy shops, glowering at both the selection and the price tags. It's not so much that the clothes are ugly, but they... well, they won't compliment her form very well. She prefers loose clothing, you see.
Eventually she gives up, heading out and staring across the way to a food stand. She idly contemplates eating extra foot just to put some weight on, but decides it's probably not a good idea. "Why does everything have to be so complicated?" she asks the wind.
"Saaaa, it keeps things interesting," a voice replies, cheerfully. The soprano lilt rises over the background murmur of the mall crowd, sounding close to Kiyoko.
From behind, an arm snakes around the girl's neck and shoulders, wrapping around her. Fingertips brush Kiyoko's upper body, and the next musical whisper almost tickles her ear.
"Where would we be," Riko chirps, "without a little chaos, ne?"
The shorter girl almost hangs off Kiyoko, melting out of the press of humanity swirling round the food stall, a sudden presence of messy bobbed hair and a bright yellow raincoat. With one arm, she latches onto Kiyoko. With the other, she waves a stick of seafood dumplings drizzled with mayonnaise, twirling it under the older teen's nose.
Grinning, Riko offers: "Takoyaki?"
A voice. A familiar voice. And coming from behind her. It's enough to cause her to turn around, if only she wasn't beaten to the punch by an arm wrapping around her. That causes her to freeze momentarily, and then let out a little sigh when she realizes who it is.
"Probably happily content and bored." Kiyoko responds. Whether it's her true feelings or the ones she thinks the questioner wants to hear is up in the air. The food is held under her nose- it smells a lot better up close... A resigned sigh, "Alright." She tries to bite one off the stick and eat it.
But how do you have a conversation with someone literally hanging off of you, and especially when you're not really comfortable with it? You just deal with it, she supposes. "It's not a little chaos I'm worried about, anyway. It's a lot of chaos making everything I do seem really complex, scary, and annoying. I'm not even sure if I should be trying to eat more or just making sure what I do eat is good for me." How is it her doctors forgot that one? Who knows.
"Batter, octopus, tempura, cooked veggies," Riko says, didactically, withdrawing the stick of takoyaki balls and popping one into her own mouth. She chews briefly, then swallows. Waggling the little bamboo skewer and its sauce-glazed contents, Riko continues, "Not /too/ bad for pan-fried street cuisine. I'm sure one won't /kill/ you."
She remains pressed right up to Kiyoko, her arm still wrapped around the other girl. If she senses Kiyoko's discomfort, Riko gives no sign - if anything, she seems to be deriving a perverse glee in invading the other teen's personal space.
"No more," Riko says slyly, "than chaos, anyway."
"No," Kiyoko admits with a sigh, "Probably not. But if I get into the habit of eating them it just might. Stupid, isn't it? I should be worrying about gaining too much weight, not the other way around." The girl then shrugs a little. The contact is annoying, but there's not much she figures she can really do about it. Riko is some kind of ninja after all, right?
"Thanks for the treat, though." At least she's thankful. "I don't really like talking about things that can kill me, though. It gets scary when I think too much about that." Because it's such a real possibility for her. "Maybe you can talk about something like that... but not me." Ooookay, time for a switch of subjects. "Hey, what do you think would look good on me?" Riko can probably /feel/ her bodyshape enough to know. ...ugh.
Untangling herself from Kiyoko, Riko takes a step back. The wheels of her in-line skates rattle against the flagstones of the shopping street as she circles Kiyoko, a thoughtful expression on her face.
"Maa, maa," Riko muses, "that's a hard question. Pale complexion and dark hair gives you many choices, ne? You can wear light colours or dark, without drawing attention away from your face...unless you /want/ to be anonymous, hmmm?"
Riko comes to a halt in front of Kiyoko. Swallowing the last dumpling, she taps the tip of the empty wooden stick against her lower lip, pouting gently.
"You're tall -and- slim, so you can get away with tighter clothes, but probably not heavy prints..."
Pausing, the girl arches a slender eyebrow, cocking her head up at Kiyoko.
"Unless you're asking me -as a ninja-," Riko says, "in which case - definitely places to conceal weaponry, and perhaps body armour."
She says this with a perfectly level expression, quite serious.
Kiyoko does her best to follow Riko with her eyes, though it's just a bit disorienting. She takes in most of the comments at face value, save for commenting, "I don't really like tight clothes..." when that's brought up. At the comment of weapon and armor concealing clothes, she actually laughs a little. "I'm not too worried about things like that." She crosses her arms and thinks, "I actually didn't even realize I had that many options. ...that makes it a little harder, actually."
More quiet contemplation, an she suddenly pipes up. "How about a dress? I actually haven't had any dresses since I was really young. Skirts sure, but no dresses. I guess something like a sundress could work... though it's still a bit cold for that. Maybe one with a belt?" Pause, "No, that'd probably be tight too, wouldn't it?"
"Oh," Riko replies glibly, flicking her fingers, "not really."
The faintly sauce-stained serving stick spins in her hands, the point sweeping up and down Kiyoko's figure. She uses it almost as a lecturer's pointer - or a conductor's baton - providing visual direction as she speaks.
Her voice, pitched to carry over the background noise of the crowded shopping street, is almost authoritarian.
"A belt can make your legs look longer, especially if it hangs a bit from your waist. And if a dress, well, an all-over print will make you look like wallpaper or somethin', but some details here and there can make your figure look fuller..."
She says all that without stopping for breath, the words flowing fluidly off her tongue as she indicates with the takoyaki stick. It seems almost ludicrious for Riko to give feminine fashion advice, garbed as she is in a bright yellow raincoat, t-shirt, shorts, and chunky in-line skates. The only aesthetic she's putting off is juvenile skater grrl. But no, she seems -quite- intent.R
"...clothes are a /tool/, Fukakami-san," Riko confides, leaning forward "you want to /use/ them...like any other."
A smile crosses Riko's face, a too-wide grin of predatory proportions.
As Kiyoko is lectured by the younger girl on things she should probably know already herself she begins to wonder if asking her for clothing advice was such a great idea. It's not that the advice isn't actually good, but more that she was hoping for specific ideas. Well, this is certainly interesting, if nothing else.
"I'll have to consider that then. I'm not really sure if making my legs look longer would be good or bad, but I could probably find out easily enough by trying something on and looking in a mirror." So long as it wasn't one of those crazy cheating mirrors that all department stores seem filled with.
The last thing Riko says, both catches her attention and confuses her. "Tools to be used? The only thing I can think that you mean by that is that you use them to influence what people think of you based on looks. I guess there's also that armor and weapons stuff you said before, though. You really are complicated, you know that?"
"Maa," Riko murmurs, again. She smiles, her eyelids crinkling along with the gesture, half-closing as she beams at Kiyoko.
"Everyone's complicated," Riko admonishes, still with that strange little grin. Her eyes open fully, her pupils almost gleaming as she stares straight ahead, her body still angled forward. The takoyaki stick, clutched between her index and middle fingers, points directly at Kiyoko, underscoring Riko's intent expression.
"The only difference," she says, "is whether you deny it...or embrace it, hm?"
"Okay, you got me. Most people aren't half as shallow as they seem to be." The purple haired girl decides not to let this be a complete concession, "But you're /more/ complicated than most people. Trust me." There.
As always, Riko seems to be talking either in poems or riddles, which seem obvious on the surface but probably has some deeper meaning to them. Deny it or embrace it- that sounds like it's some kind of deep and meaningful choice, when in reality it's probably something you just do on a subconscious level and go on with your life.
"Like I said before, everything seems to be way too complicated, whether it makes it interesting or not. There's no avoiding it either, unless you decide to just lock yourself away and read, or something."
"Mm, mm," Riko nods her head, making little noises of agreement.
Around the two girls, the stream of human traffic continues to flow, people making their way down the length of the shopping street, just barely steering clear of the two teens standing motionless by the roadside. Facing Kiyoko, Riko gives a little shrug, inclining her head and lifting her hands to either side, her lips formed in a pout, pushed outward.
"Maaaaaaaaa," she muses, drawing out the syllable, "and /you/..."
She fixes Kiyoko with a look.
"...are /you/ locking yourself away, hmmm?"
"What, me?" She asks, almost sounding scandalized. "No way. I've been meeting new people and doing new things all the time. I've even started fighting in a new fighting league. I've been doing just about everything /but/ locking myself away. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe I should take a little time off from all that and just... do nothing for a while."
She sighs a little, "I certainly haven't done much to make a name for myself, other than to get beat up. And some of the places I've been," She looks Riko dead in the eyes, "Who thought it was a good idea to put some crazy person in a blimp in the middle of the ocean and let them crash it? I had to /parachute/ out. I could have been killed."
"That's the point," Riko says brightly, "look at it /this/ way. You've gone from expecting an early demise..."
Twisting her wrist, Riko tosses the takoyami stick to one side. The length of bamboo flips end over end through the air, before bouncing off the rim of a nearby trash can and into the garbage. Then she looks back at Kiyoko, waving a raised finger.
"...to having /average/ life expectancy...for a fighter!"
Riko beams.
"It's an improvement!"
Kiyoko reaches back and rubs her neck a little, "I'm... not really sure that's right, Riko. Anyway, I don't think getting into crazy situations like that is right. I can understand if there's a risk of getting hurt when someone punches me, but not so much when they just start blowing things up that are required for survival. I sure hope no one gets the idea to try fighting in space or we'll all be dead."
Her arms cross a little and she shakes her head, "Besides, fighters live way, way longer than normal people. That's the exact reason my parents wanted me to get into it in the first place. I mean, when's the last time you got a cold, or heard of a fighter breaking a bone from falling down. Almost never, right?" She's really not going anywhere with this- just defending what she sees as her point of view. "Besides, if fighters died off after a few years there'd never be time to invent all the crazy legendary techniques people throw around these days."
"Saaaa," Riko says, placing one finger over her lips. She rolls her eyes skyward, mulling over Kiyoko's words, her other hand resting on her hips. A classic thinking pose, her body language exaggerating it to levels of clear caricature and absurdity.
"That depends," Riko replies, "on what you consider 'fighting', doesn't it? A recreational sport..."
She winks at Kiyoko, fluttering her lashes.
"...or controlled violence designed to kill people."
"I prefer the sport version, really. I've actually gone up against people who have some, uh, 'killing technique' type things, and it's really not very fun to fight them. It's also not fun fighting people who seem to enjoy /hurting/ you more than fighting you. There was seriously this one chick who told me /how beautiful my scream was/. That's just sick."
Kiyoko lets out a little sigh. "I guess in some ways fighting wasn't everything I'd made it out to be." Pause, "But then with some people, like Mizuki, it was even better than I thought it could be. It really just depends on the person I'm fighting, I guess." She looks towards Riko, "But yea. I know ninja are supposed to be all about killing people as fast and silently as possible, but I really think of all this as more of a sport. Guess that'd probably get some people mad at me, but oh well."
"Mou," Riko protests, huffing. She lifts a hand, holding her thumb and forefinger about a quarter inch apart.
"I only want to kill you a -little- bit," she whines, "don't look at me like that!"
Placing her other hand in front of her, Riko gives Kiyoko a hurt look, sticking her lower lip out and letting it quiver with heartfelt emotion. Her fingers and palm rest on her ribs, over her heart, trembling slightly.
Kiyoko narrows her eyes, "You know what, now I think you're just teasing me. I wasn't really talking about /you/ anyway. And I don't think I want someone to /kill/ me even it's a little bit. How do you kill just a piec- No, you know what, don't answer that. You might actually have a way and I do -not- want to know."
An exasperated sigh. "Anyway, I just mean that for me fighting is more of a sport and testing your limits, and seeing how you stack up to other people than learning how to kill people in case a war breaks out." Which, as anyone who watches the news at all, actually happened not too long ago.
Riko folds her arms, crossing them between ribs and stomach. She taps one foot against the ground, the front wheel rapping a faint stacatto rhythm against the paving stones.
Her mien changes, the hurt look evaporating from her features. It's a subtle change, one of posture and simple facial expression, all combining to convey a rather different effect.
"Is that so," Riko says, her inflection calm, her voice silkily slow.
"And what have you learnt," she asks, her tone lilting, "about your limits, hm?"
Time for the girl to hang her head somewhat, "That they're actually pretty low. I pretty much can't beat anyone the way I am now without help, and I'm also not able to defend myself good enough to really protect myself if something bad were ever to happen. It's not really that I'm a bad fighter... it's that everyone else is so much better."
Kiyoko thinks on it further for a moment, "I can hold off just about anything... but only sometimes. And it seems to happen more when I'm not expecting to be able to than when I'm trying. I think the main reason I'm not very good is because I just can't hurt anyone like they can hurt me. I've been trying to find people to help me but... I never seem to run into them more than once."
Riko bends at the waist, leaning to one side. She turns her head at the neck, looking at Kiyoko from different angles, as if sizing the other girl up. Her arms remain folded, but she brings one hand up higher, such that it touches her chin between thumb and forefinger. Yet another thoughtful pose, as she regards Kiyoko.
"And what," Riko asks, "do you -think- you need to become..."
She pauses, as if carefully choosing the word.
"...strong?"
"I really don't know, and that's the problem." Kiyoko states. "I know I need to start focusing on something, but I just don't know what. I practice all the time, but that alone doesn't seem to help me do anything other than stay where I'm at. I've tried looking for people who could help me find out more about what I do right and wrong, but I already told you how that goes." Her head shakes, "I think I need to be able to hit people harder, one way or another, but I don't know what I need to do to be able to. Weight training? Learning better spots to hit them? I /guess/ I could just pick up a knife and stab people like Ayame does, but..." Her head shakes, "That's just not me."
"Knives aren't bad," Riko remarks, "but weapons..."
She unfolds her arms, stretching one hand to her side.
With a violent flick, and something flashes from the slick yellow fabric of her raincoat sleeve, meeting her palm.
"Point down, blade out."
A dull gleam of metal, spinning through her fingers.
"Point up, blade in."
Hide-wrapped hilt meets a palm, skin stretching taut across Riko's knuckles.
"Point down, blade out against arm."
Then she turns her hand, spreading her fingers, making the dagger vanish like a stage magician.
The girl's shoulders shift as she shrugs.
"...are a philosophy," Riko continues, without missing a beat, as if the little interlude had never occured.
She looks Kiyoko in the eye.
"And what," Riko asks, once more, "are you willing to -do-, Fukakami-san?"
Kiyoko watches the display with a certain amount of levity. "As always, Riko, you make things way more confusing than I thought them to be. Yea, I guess there's a bajillion different ways to hold a knife, and all of them can have different meanings. But like I said, I'm not really the type of girl to use a knife at all, so it's all pretty meaningless to me, unless there's something I can learn by watching the way someone else uses one." Which... there probably is, really.
"Um... train hard? Practice as much as I can?" She shakes her head a little, "That sounds like it's some kind of huge moral question. If your asking whether I'd sell my soul for power or something like that, then no. Like I said, I fight to have fun not to try to kill people, so something like that really doesn't appeal to me." She really is just a teenager who happens to know how to fight, rather than a fighter who happens to be a teenager.
Which would, really, put her in fairly stark contrast to Riko. For whom actual physical age is merely...incidental, a site and nexus, a perspective, but hardly the source of identity in itself. She regards Kiyoko with an appraising gaze, pupils glinting behind a messy fall of black hair.
"There are," Riko says, mildly, chidingly, "different paths to success, Fukakami-san. Not all of us have powerful bodies, a gifted bloodline, or a devil bound to our souls..."
She smiles impishly, her cheeks dimpling.
"...though those things can't hurt. But no, Fukakami-san, no matter what the world tells you, what matters is..."
Riko taps one index finger against the side of her head.
"...ne?"
Kiyoko nods a little. "Yea, I know. I'm one of the ones who really doesn't have much of anything other than a bit of training and a pretty good eye for figuring out what people are trying to do. Sometimes that doesn't help so much, though. It really sucks when you know exactly what someone is going to do, but you have no way of stopping them."
What matters is your brain. If only it were true. If that were the case people like Choi would get their asses handed to them, but straight up beatdown smackdown brawlers can indeed manage to lay the smackdown on an intelligent, analytical fighter. "Yea...I guess. I hope that doesn't mean my brain is defective."
"I could always open up your head to check," Riko offers, drawing her hand across her own brow in a cutting motion, sketching a line from her eyes all the way to one ear.
She says this in a completely guileless fashion, her voice earnest, smiling brightly at Kiyoko in a fashion that extrudes warmth but also shows far too many teeth, pearly white or otherwise.
"Uh, no thanks. I'm sure I'll find out if it is one way or another, anyway." Kiyoko puts her hands on her hips lightly and looks to Riko, "You know, some times I get the idea you're just trying to freak me out. Maybe it's just a ninja thing, or something." She gives a quick shrug. Her head shakes slightly, then. "Jeeze, look how far we've gone. From Takoyami, to clothes, to fighting, to whether or not you should cut me open and look at my brain. This is officially weird."
"Oh," Riko gasps, reeling back. She feigns a swoon, then fans herself with fluttering fingers.
"You wound me," she wails, her voice a sad and forlorn lament, "so badly."
She laughs, then, a brief songbird's note, before dropping the pretense and winking at Kiyoko with a conspiratorial grin.
Riko reaches out to pat Kiyoko's arm in a friendly fashion. The gesture would quite possibly be comforting, if not for the small fact that said hand is the one with which she was doing knife tricks just a few moments ago.
"It's okay, Fukakami-san," Riko says, "we're still friends, aren't we?"
"Yea, still friends." Assuming they were what you'd call friends in the first place. As for the knife hand? Kiyoko doesn't mind at all, as long as the knife isn't actually in her hand when she's doing that. "I guess I've pretty much just stood around and talked about myself, haven't I? That's pretty rude, really. So lets talk about you for a bit. What've you been up to? I know you were doing some work for the Saturday Night Fight people before. Uh, getting devices and stuff like that for them, I think. How's that going?" Smalltalk... well, the conversation had to go somewhere, and Kiyoko -is- a teenage girl.
"Oh, well," Riko says, tilting her head, "I suppose the contract might be renegotiated when it's up for review next quarter."
She puffs her cheeks out a little.
"There was a small misunderstanding."
You could call it that. Or you could refer to it as Seishirou Ryouhara apparently trying to assassinate Geese Howard on live TV, in front of a stadium of witnesses.
"Just one of those things. But the media's made such a big fuss."
Well, yes, they would.
She blinks her eyes, giving no sign of the significant understatement.
"All very boring, though," Riko says, tugging lightly on Kiyoko's arm, "and I don't want to bore you. Let me buy you a drink or dessert or something!"
A beat.
"No ninja poisons, promise!"
"Uh huh. Well, hopefully they'll up your pay, then." Or perhaps more likely, grill her for information on the whereabouts of her Sempai. Kiyoko nods along and then seems to smile when the mention of dessert comes up, only to have her face fall at the addendum tossed onto the end of that.
"Right... and I'll make sure not to accidentally jab your eye out while taking it from you." She lets out a sigh. That really wasn't necessary, but the young ninja had to know that before so much as saying what she did. She really must get a kick out of teasing the girl. Whatever the case, the Justice student simply follows along when her arm is tugged on. You don't say no to Ninja.
Log created on 03:59:27 03/25/2008 by Riko, and last modified on 08:29:47 03/25/2008.