Description: Trouble always has a way of finding Ayame... or visa-versa. Trying to follow a gut feeling that keeps leading her to a place she had been before, Ayame sets off on an adventure to find some of her missing weapons. Along the way, she happens across help from a very strange source.
Nataya has arrived.
[OOC] Nataya waves.
[OOC] Ayame says, "Heya, I'll set."
The streets in the Southern area of Southtown tend to be a bit more run down than the rest of the world-famous city. Oh, sure, the Gedo school vigilante students do the best they can in holding back the stem of crime, vandalism, and just general ne'er-do-wells. But they can only do so much. In the end, a poor, run down area of a major metropolis is just that - a poor, run down area. The streets can vary in their activity depending on where one wanders. There's the main drags that nearly always have traffic...
But the real action in this area is always on the less traveled streets. The avenues and backalleys that tend to see less car traffic, and even less foot traffic if people can help it, are where the deals are struck, the turf fought for, and the lines drawn. At night, one has to be either very brave or very crazy to be out and about on their own. The gangs that slip through the fingers of the Gedo student patrols are dangerous and with the Southtown Syndicate sticking its fingers into affairs, the stakes can quite often be quite high.
The afternoon isn't a far cry better, however. Like this fairly typical weekday; the evening still a couple hours off even though the sun is low enough in the horizon to create slowly stretching shadows. On a schoolyard, the sound of shouts and jeers might draw a crowd - bored students eager to see who is about to beat the hell out of who with little concern as to the reason. But out here, it has just the opposite effect. No rubberneckers wander near the side alley where the commotion seems to be coming from. No curious onlookers peeking around the corner to see what the action is about. That kind of noise can only mean one thing: Someone is about to get messed up bad and no one should get near to that unless they want to be next.
The alley is occupied by three boys and two girls. The boys and one girl are arranged in a half circle, with the second girl penned in against the wall by the four of them. The pack of wolves appear to be local gang members. Dressed street tough, with do-rags, chains, leather jackets, the teenaged punks take turns shoving the trapped girl back up against the wall, each having their remarks to throw her way. "...disappeared..." "... lotta guts coming back..." "...our turf now..."
The cornered victim looks to be distressed, occasionally pushing herself off the wall only to get shoved or, on occasion, punched right back into it. An arm held up at the level of her face to try and ward off blows, the long haired, strawberry blonde figure looks a little bit off. Dressed in the kinds of clothing that might identify her as a fellow street punk with the other four, but a certain level vulnerability or plain lack of confident that makes her seem just a little out of place - like a wannabe that wasn't as ready for the 'hood as she thought she was. "I don't even want this hellhole anyway!" she snaps back, only barely able to fend off the punch her reply provokes by redirecting it into the brick at the side of her head instead. The defense buys her a moment's reprieve, but her position isn't much better off in the scheme of things.
Brave or crazy. Nataya is either neither or both, depending on your point of view. She'd be the first to admit, rather cheerfully, that she falls a little short of normal. On the same token, she'd also admit to being scared by very little. At best, she feels consternation or concern. However, neither of her personality traits that would otherwise contribute to either of those assessments really meet their mark, instead creating a bizarre amalgamation of both.
And it just so happens that one of her hobbies is jogging through troubled areas. It's not because she has a death wish or because she has an overriding need to fight crime. No, it's usually because bad neighborhoods have the best stuff lying around. Broken TVs she can fix, scrap metal to recycle, furniture that needs wash and repair... Nataya wastes not, and wants for nothing. Her apartment is furnished with stuff that was formerly refuse. A little elbow grease and a buck fifty worth of wood stain and you get a credenza out of the deal.
And so she runs through the streets in her sneakers, bike shorts and sweatshirt, dragging behind her an old Radio Flyer wagon that she managed to aseemble from bits of scrap that she found on the north side last week. It's a convenient thing for light work and she already has a blown out speaker and a few rusty tools that someone left in a burnt out wreck of a car.
And then there it is. Hark! A noise! Unlike most people that seem to have a self preservation instinct, Nataya is drawn to conflict like a moth to flame. Disturbances in the peace require her attention whether she likes it or not. Something inside her instantly triggers, and there's little she can do to stop her actions once she's made the decision to make a motion. Sneakered feet that were previously tapping out a stead staccato down the sidewalk find themselves maneuvering in an alleyway just intime to see a girl fend off a punch.
This is the part where a hero would stand, presenting a bold face and make a cunning remark. Maybe it'd be a point where witty banter would be exchanged, or boasting and threatening would occur. Still, some heroes would find an opportunity to demand to know what's going on here. A million variations on a theme, but all of them pretty much end the same way: forceful banter, followed by some manner of scuffle.
Nataya, however, never claimed to be a hero.
She jogs up to the morass, head tilted. She can sense anger, frustration, irritation, concern... it's all very fuzzy, but she can tell that something's not right. There may be more than meets the eye. However, in situations such as this, it's easier to deal with one party. Normally, the best party to deal with is the one that doesn't have superior numbers.
Nataya seems to pop up behind the shoulder of one of the largest of the thugs in the alleyway, a bright, beaming smile on her face. A slender finger taps him on the shoulder very pointedly. "Hello!" But it's not really a hello. It's just an announcement of presence. The warm, calm look on her face belies the swirling, madly dancing sliver clouds already welling up behind him and as he turns, the scene quickly becomes disasterous.
Nataya immediately knees him in the gut. The sound isn't the usual sound of bone against soft flesh. The impact is palpable to those around her, and an unpleasant, sickening pop noise can be heard as she rams the punk, quite likely no more than eighteen years of age despite his large size, against the wall. She drives him forward, slamming him against the wall in the midst of the crowd so that he's not but a foot from Ayame. This is where some heroes would stop, ask questions, demand answers, ang grant stern looks.
Nataya never claimed to be a hero.
The woman gives a short hop, and /slams/ an elbow against the bridge of the punk's nose. Blood spatters over the gray USMC sweatshirt and over Nataya's face. The smile or calm look never leaves her features. She doesn't even blink. The screams are hoarse, the cries real. She doesn't stop. Over and over, the elbow is driven
into the punk's face. Teeth fly, blood sprays. He cries, screams, crumples to the floor, sinking to his knees.
Nataya sniffs once, delicately wiping ichor from her eye as she turns around. "Yuck. Okay, you over there," she points to the one punk girl, "and you," she points to Ayame. "You two stay so we can settle our differences in a constructive, intelligent manner! The rest of you go away or I'll feed you this guy's teeth." The warmth and smile never leaves her face.
"...payback's a..." growls one of the boys, stepping in with a kick that's met with a raised shin as the outnumbered girl reacts just barely in time to avoid getting struck hard in the stomach before lowering her leg and pressing her back against the wall, every bit the trapped victim it would seem. "You all must have a really short memory," the long haired outsider retorts, "'cause last I recall, I kicked all your asses the last time you tried this."
"That was then, this is now. Word is you've lost your edge." grins one of the middle gang members. "Got a taste of the easy life and just wimped out," adds his buddy right next to him. Slowly Ayame's hand inches down toward a brown leather pouch hanging from a belt slanted across her hips. "Ah ah," the girl with short, pink hair warns, her hand coming up with a sharp stilleto pointed at the cornered girl, "Go ahead and pull it out nice and slowly and hand it over..."
Seemingly feeling no option other than to comply, the girl reaches into the pouch slowly, drawing out a half foot long metal tube, clutching it lightly in her hand. She looks about to hand it over too when the surrender is interrupted by the arrival of a sixth.
It all happens so fast. A cheerful 'Hello' immediately followed by the sickening crunch of a back slammed against the wall at her side. An instant later blood splatters against her bare shoulder as the girl recoils on reflex, cowering back several steps as the three non-smashed gang members attempt to gather their wits. The degree of violence leaves everyone starting at Nataya and her unfortunate victim in a mixture of abject horror and confusion. Someone should step up and put her in her place, after all. You can't go smushing the facemeats of their tough guy boss without bringing some trouble your way!!
But no one budges. Everyone stares, wide eyed, punks and Ayame alike. Slowly the rescued? girl glances to the side, as if hoping that any of the others have any idea who the new arrival is, but their stares don't imply recognition, only fear. Orders come next, coupled with a condition that is all too believable to be discounted as a mere 'threat'.
Only thing is that none of those present are all that good at following instructions. And after the display of brutality, none of them are too keen on finding out what Nataya considers 'constructive'. All four stumble backward together, no longer predators and prey but rather united in their dread at the sight of the first thug to face a vicious beatdown at the hands of the strangely smiling girl.
"Oh hell no..." The two boys are the first to turn, bolting as fast as their feet can take them, leaving the two girls to fend for themselves. But their brief truce ends quickly when Ayame gets a shove in the back, the pink haired punk trying to use her stumble as a buffer to buy her room to spin around and start running as well!
Oh dear. Running away from your problems never helps, ever. It's one of the things Nataya learned from the deep, everlasting wisdom of her Master. The wizened old man had told her that the only way to deal with an issue was to deal with it as quickly and efficiently as possible. To needlessly complicate things only increased suffering. Clearly, the man on the ground was no longer contemplating violence. Complex thoughts had been erased by the karma dispensed at Nataya's hands, or elbow as the case may be. Concerns as to threats, bullying, all gone, replaced with the primal need to breathe without drowining in his own blood and saliva. Much, much simpler.
As the pink haired girl bolts, Nataya strolls over to Ayame. Brown eyes look with concern as she pushes the blonde against the wall, produces a tissue and starts wiping. "You're a fright," she says, but wags a finger, "but don't you dare think for a second that I think you're blameless! After all, I'm not deaf." She smiles as the boiling silver clouds around her feet seem to strain, reaching towards the direction that the pink haired girl has taken.
Nataya turns, rolling up her bloody sleeve to reveal rows and rows of prayer beads, which are already infused with a silver glow. They break off of their bonds, like tiny UFOs leaving their mothership. A swarm of small, shining lights burts forth through the shimmering smoke and swarm the pink haired girl's legs. It's almost comical, the way the retreating punk ends up stomping on the beads, slipping on them and landing with a forceful snap. The flight of two fingers causes the beads and smoke to burst upwards from the girl's leg, causing her to flop ass over end, and the terrible crunch indicates that there's probably a broken leg out of the deal.
Nataya returns to her Radio Flyer and carefully removes the items she's collected that day. "Wait right there," she says to Ayame as if she was telling her to hold her place in line at the supermarket. Hauling the wagon over to the pink haired girl, she grabs the woman by the back of her neck and roughly dumps her into the wagon. It's not a comfortable experience: the wagon is clearly too small for the girl, causing it's edges to grind into her shoulders, thighs, and neck. Any audible moans or complaints are promptly met with: "Well, you should have thought of that before you ran."
Nevertheless, the punk girl might not be in much shape to chat, given that she's probably broken a knee and is also likely to be sporting a concussion. Nataya will know soon enough if she starts vomiting.
The punk girl's head bonks against the ground as Nataya pulls the wagon over a bump, and then stops as the wagon's owner does. "So," Nataya says, sniffing once and then making a 'puh' sound as she spits out some of her own matted hair that seems to have foudn it's way into the corner of her mouth. "You wanna tell me why I probably caused irreversable brain damage on two semi-perfectly-okay-but-not -really people?"
The rest of the thugs are forgotten, of course. Girls are much, much better at discussion than boys!
Stumbling forward, Ayame rises back up to standing straight just in time to find herself shoved against the very wall she had been trying to get away from all this time. She doesn't budge or put up much of a fight, her expression still one of mild awe and shock. She watches the other girl extend her arm, drawing up her sleeve, and unleash a swarm of beads propelled by a silvery glow against the fleeing street tough like some kind of bad horror movie.
The other girl doesn't seem to know what hit her - taken to the ground and disabled all too fast to do anything other than yelp, scream, and lie still to be collected in the wagon moments later. By the time Nataya has returned with the wagon toted girl, Ayame's hands are once again empty, that metal tube returned to the pouch on her belt. She demonstrates her lack of hostility, raising her up at her sides, palms forward, as if to show that she isn't going to do anything, still staring at the other girl with a bit of a dazed, wided eyed expression.
"Look," she finds her tongue at last, shaking her head quickly, "None of us knew this was your block, all right?" She pauses, one hand going to her forehead where she rubs two fingers back and forth against her temple, "Or, uh, you know, if you're some kind of, ah, kung fu wandering vigilante, well, I'm not even from around here. I was just looking for a certain place, not trying to start any trouble, but..." She glances to the side, eying the end of the alley, then shifts her glance toward the girl 'enjoying' her seat in the wagon, and seems to think better of making a run for it.
"I'm not guilty of anything," she continues, her expression shifting slowly into a grin as the girl seems to gain confidence with each passing second, "You can't bust me for just having a few stupid jerks trying to harass me. I don't really need to stay here so bad anyway, so I'll just be on my way I suppose."
She glances toward the first victim of Nataya's intervention then back toward the girl responsible for the savage damage, "As far as why you did what you did, ah... I dunno. Aggression problems? I'm not a very good shrink but you really seem like you could use one." she finishes, having settled back into a certain state of comfortable control over herself. "I mean, I guess I owe you a thanks, but I coulda handled 'em," she asserts, lowering her hands to rest against her sides after a short, dismissive wave to the side. And then she takes an oh so little step to the side.
The Thai woman tilts her head, and snaps her fingers. "You know, you may be right," Nataya says, taking out a clean hankercheif as she wipes her face off carefully, "I might have an aggression problem. See, the problem is, a lot of people think I'm not too bright because... well. I'm a pretty easygoing person. I like to smile," she says, pointing to her face, which indeed has a smile on it. "Which is fine. I never claimed to be brillaint. But I have to wonder. Who's the smart one when it comes down to deciding whether or not to tease the person with the looney bin smile and the aggression issues, yeah?" She laughs gently, with a wink.
She tosses something to the side, and they clatter to the ground, skittering across the concrete. Sounds like pebbles. A quick glance reveals that they're teeth. Was she serious abut feeding them to the other thugs? Hard to tell, given the way she looks.
"I'm not a vigilante, see? And I'm not going to call the police, either." Nataya's had her own problems with the authorities in the past. Turns out grabbing dogs by their tails and bashing them against fire hydrants is not the acceptable solution to teach a dog owner to curb their animal. Who knew?
"Now you look," Nataya says as she holds up a hand with a friendly grin, all fingers splayed. "Since you think I'm slow, I'll play along. This is the amount of seconds I'm going to give you to stop being a silly and help me fix the obvious conflict here. Otherwise, you're not helping, and you're part of the problem."
She points to the moaning girl in the wagon. "She was part of the problem, and she ran away from it rather than face it down. So I had to /bring/ her to the problem, right? So we could reach a solution. Gummy McLiquid Diet over there looked like he wanted to hurt someone egregiously. So, I kinda thought it'd be swell if he knew how it felt." She shrugs with a general good natured appearance.
Nataya sits down on the wagon, straight on the punk girl's sternum, causing the rusty metal edge of the wagon to grind into the pink haired woman's neck and shoulders further. "So look. This is already way too much talking about this depressing, non-productive stuff. Let's have a seat and hash out things. Looks like 'turf' is a big issue here. What kind of turf are we talking about? Drugs? Prostitution? Illegal gambling?" She holds her arms like scales, as if balancing. "Throw me a bone here. What am I working with?"
Ayame has disconnected.
Nataya has disconnected.
Nataya has connected.
ODROP::Nataya heads OOC.
ODROP::OSUCC::Naerose leaves Gedo Street for the river bed.
Ayame has connected.
[OOC] Nataya says, "Nah. Got 'em in backscroll still."
[OOC] Ayame says, "Cool, my pose."
[OOC] Nataya nodnods.
Ayame stares back at the smiling girl, her expression rather readable. She's pretty sure she's dealing with a crazy person. She can't help but wish she had that wide assortment of weapons she'd seen in the videos she had reviewed of various SNF fights. Then maybe she'd be able to buy herself time to run with a timely application of knives, cross bows, and other surprises. Or, hell, Ayame muses. She knows... /knew/ how to fight. She'd teach this girl a lesson about aggression issues.
The clatter of teeth across the pavement brings an end to the long haired teen's reverie as Ayame chances a glance to the side to see the dancing ivories before her attention snaps back to the Thai girl. She says she's not going to call the police and strangely, Ayame isn't sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. At this point, some kind of armed, legal intervention almost sounds like a relief to her. But that isn't going to be the case apparently.
She's silent the entire time Nataya speaks, glancing to the girl who's title in life just got upgraded to wagon-stuffing as the other girl sits down on her. Ayame takes in a deep breath before exhaling slowly. Playing coy with the girl isn't getting anywhere, and she seems like she might flip on the Random Violence switch at the slightest provocation at that. "Fine," the girl speaks up, leaining her back against the wall behind her.
"If you're that interested," she continues, raising her hands to gesticulate at times as she continues, "I used to live around here, but haven't for some time. I came by looking for a place that used to be important to me when I did. A lot," she continues, holding her hands up to form a square, "Fenced in on all sides. There's the remains of a condemned building on it that looked like it had been demolished by demolition experts then never actually cleaned up."
She pauses, lowering her arms to rest against her sides, "As I went looking around to see if I could find that place again... I ran into those punks," she kicks a foot idly toward the wagon, sending dust and pebbles skipping that way, "And things got real pleasant from there on out." She folds her arms over her chest, one foot propped against the wall behind her back, her expression shifting into a bit of a smirk, "So there you go. That's the whole boring story. The kids acted like they knew me from somewhere, but I don't remember them at all."
She glances toward the girl being sat on, before looking pointedly away, "I guess they picked the wrong time to play tough kids on the block."
Nataya waves a hand dismissively, her wet sleeve starting to coagulate a little, fading from bright red to black as time passes. "Tough, schmuff." And that's all she has to say on that matter. She stands up and dumps the girl out of the wagon. "Now," Nataya says, looking to Ayame, "I'm pretty sure you did something to get this girl very upset. However, it doesn't look like she's in any mood to make her case against you, and frankly she ran away, which makes her more of an offender than you for the time being."
Using one sneakered foot, she flips the girl over onto her back. "Hm. I'll remember you for next time. You probably have a few problems I could take care of," she muses more to herself than anyone else. Slipping her foot under the punk girl's back, Nataya deftly kicks her up into the air like a hackey sack. With a short grunt, she lets fly with a spin kick, sending the now fully unconscious woman down an alleyway into some garbage. And that's the last Nataya expects to see her for a little while. Dusting her hands off, she moves the wagon to one side as if supremely confident that the wagon won't go anywhere.
"I guess that means I'll help you find it," she says matter of factly, looking towards the setting sun. "You won't get too far on your own, and you're halfway through the neighborhood. By the time you make it halfway out, this place will be filled with all kinds of unpleasant people. So let's look together, you find you peace, and we'll part ways on good terms. Deal?" She holds out her hand with a brilliant smile on her face, as if she had just managed world peace.
"And it's not really a boring story. There's no such thing as a boring story. People tell me all kinds of things, and I'm pretty much duty bound to listen. Nothing could be more uninteresting than sutras anyhow. So which way are we headed?" She shooes Ayame forward so that the younger girl can lead the way towards her mysterious abandeond building.
Ayame's back remains firmly pressed against the wall, the girl seemingly cooperative now, speaking easily and comfortably, as if it's not that big a deal when one gets right down to it. She watches Nataya dispose of the girl hogging her wagon with a thin lipped, neutral expression. 'Few problems?' Like broken bones, head trauma, and who knows what else? Yeah, she'll have a few problems to be solved all right, but given Nataya's apparent approach to problem solving, the long haired teen can't really imagine how she'll be of much help with /those/ issues.
Her eyes slightly as the foreign girl says she's going to help her find the lot she mentioned. She can't argue with her matter of fact observations. With evening not too long off, and the terrain is clearly of the unfriendly sort... who knows how many other people will claim to know her and have a grudge to carry out? Let alone the /normal/ trouble one could get into around these parts in the night while traveling alone. "That's, ah, awfully nice of you," the girl mutters, brown eyes dropping slowly to look at Nataya's offered hand as if she's not sure if the girl is going to break her fingers or not should she actually accept it.
The girl hesitates, "W-well, I don't really want to inconvenience you. You've already helped me far more than I could have asked for, and really, at this point I should just get going and try back another d-" but she cuts herself off as Nataya shooes her, clearly insistant on seeing this good deed of hers through. Ayame twitches a little, pushing off from the wall to face down the alleyway, hand coming up to rest against her cheek, "Well, okay, if I can't convince you otherwise, that's a good question... I don't precisely know, but I think I have a pretty good idea."
She stares down the alley quietly, arm folding over her stomach, elbow propped against it, hand resting at her chin as she adopts a thoughtful pose. "Well, it doesn't get any brighter this way, but I think it's the right direction." She glances over her shoulder toward the very strange, very horrifying girl. "Come on, let's find out." And with that, she walks along eagerly.
The alley exits out onto a street where Ayame pauses, frowning slightly, "Hn... okay, that wasn't it." before she glances over her shoulder toward the other girl, "So, uh, my name's Ayame," she remarks, looking forward again, crossing the completely empty street to delve into a second alley. This alleyway is longer, darker, and more narrow. And at the end of it, a brick wall rises up roughly eight feet tall. The girl cranes her neck up a little upon approaching it, a slow smile working its way into her expression.
"Seeya on the other side," she grins, crouching slightly before springing up, hands gripping the top of the wall in order to pull herself the rest of the way up and over, dropping down on the otherside into a very abandoned, weed-covered, rubble-occupied lot deep within the heart of South Southtown.
[OOC] Nataya is losing focus pretty awful. "Mind if we stop here for the night?"
[OOC] Ayame says, "Not at all."
[OOC] Nataya flops.
[OOC] Ayame grins.
[OOC] Nataya says, "I do this time, yeah."
[OOC] Nataya says, "Sorry about taht. My sister came home and I needed to talk to ger."
[OOC] Ayame says, "No rush at all. I'm SNF'n with Kula."
[OOC] Nataya says, "Yeah. Just didn't want you to think I was ignoring you. I generall only see her once a week and she's not been by in half a month."
[OOC] Ayame says, "Haha, nah. I think I've taken longer to pose than this."
[OOC] Nataya says, "Oh, now there's Choi."
[OOC] Nataya whatevers. Posing now.
[OOC] Ayame says, "No Kohaku, no big deal."
Sharp, cracking noises can be heard as Nataya doesn't leap to grab the edges of the wall as she scales it, her hands digging holes into the bare brick with percussive force that sound like small caliber gunshots. Individual holes for each finger allow her to claw her way up and over the eight foot obstacle, where she does a short hop off the edge, landing with a soft tap of shoes.
Almost as an afterthought, the wagon comes trailing over the wall as well, crawling up and over as if it's wheels are magically attatched to the surface of the object. The little squeaky wagon makes it to the top and then clatters downward into Nataya's outstretched arms. ever know what you'll find in abandoned buildings, after all. Nataya's no stranger to urban exploration. You find pretty neat stuff in abandoned buildings.
Nataya raises a hand, and the silvery clouds coalesce, forming a mirror the reflects the available light. It's not so much a light source itself as a means of capturing and refracting what little is around. The result is a ghostly sheen that makes it easier to see the rubble strewn disaster, but does nothing to alleiviate the foreboding mood. Even Nataya's cheerful face brings a somewhat macabre visage to the scene.
The Thai woman looks left and right, observing her surroundings without judgment as she takes not of any important features of landmarks. Her sister's the one with psychometry, not her. It takes a minute for Nataya to get her bearings. "Where to now?" She asks, putting a foot on the wagon, rolling it back and forth thoughtfully as if it were a skateboard.
It's hard to say if Ayame was really waiting for Nataya to make her way over the wall, or if the only thing that kept her from bolting from the strange girl was the fact that she looks to be entirely lost in thought by the time the Thai girl makes it over to stand next to her. The collapsed rubble is given some consideration, but it isn't long before the girl starts to look around at other landmarks.
A wide tree stump receives her focus at first, the girl walking over to it, brown eyes narrowing as if trying to identify it as more than just a sizeable hunk of long since dead wood. Slowly she bends down, resting her hand against its flat surface, peering across the plane of the stump, eyes constantly moving, searching, trying to find something it would seem. She stands back up and circles it then, peering at the base as she completes the revolution and comes back around to where she started, a soft 'Hm...' escaping her lips.
Nataya makes it there with her trusty wagon and the girl glances up to stare at her, blinking as if just having noticed her for the first time, "Oh, well, this is the place," she states with a grin that borders on sheepish. She glances toward the stump again, then looks over to the side, eyes coming to rest on a wooden board propped up by two bricks salvaged from the pile of rubble that was once some building.
Lost again in her own thoughts, the girl hurries over to the board, crouching down, shifting her hand through the dirt until her fingers close over something and she lifts it up slowly. A dusty small metal throwing knife dangles between her thumb and forefinger as Ayame holds it in front of her curious brown eyes. "This was mine," she states quietly. She whirls around to face Nataya again, "Yeah, this was mine," she repeats, walking back toward the girl with that small knife in her hand, looking like she almost intends to put the tiny thing to use as a weapon to teach the foreigner a lesson in manners.
But once she gets near, she turns back around on her heels to face the board, holds the blade between her fingers as she lifts her hand, and flings the sharp projectile back toward the board only to have it rebound off and land in the dirt rather than stick in place as she had presumably intended. "Oof. Okay, that's going to take relearning as well..."
The monk-trained woman looks completely oblivious to the predatory advance. Either she doesn't consider Ayame to be a threat, doesn't recognize a threat when she sees it, or doesn't register threat recognition in a way that most people do. Whatever it is, she just stands there, looking as serene as the day is long as Ayame appraoches her, and then turns around to huck a knife against a board.
Then there's the matter of the stump. Nataya approaches the dead chunk of wood, glancing at it without as much careful attention to detail as Ayame. It does get a good looking at, though. It seems to hold some special kind of significance, even if it is exactly what it appears to be.
The monk woman spins around. So what was this? A training ground? A hidey hole? A sanctum sanctorum? It's hard to say. Given that there's a board propped up by bricks and a stump that gives some attention, there's basically one of two things that Nataya can do. Or rather, there's what she's going to do the alternative.
The smart thing would be to indivdually inspect each item carefully, and see if either object may be more than meets the eye. Given that Ayame is mysterious, there's a fairly good chance that eitehr item could be some kind of special or delicate mechanism or spot that requires a careful touch. A puzzle for a more tehcnical mind, likely, and definitely something that would bear considerable thought.
Then there's the Nataya way.
First thing's first. If there's anything behind the board, Nataya will find it by launching a barrage of beads at the board, blasting the base wood to splinters. At the same time, Nataya raises a hand high into the air. The beads around her arm glow brightls as they charge up her fist. Concentration is clear on her face, eyes closed as she chants under her breath.
With a powerful strike, Nataya slams her hand down square into the middle of the tree stump as if to crack the thing in twain, her hand being buried up the the wrist if it is indeed just a solid tree stump. However, if it's anything else but... it'll become perfectly clear very shortly. Who said violence never solved anything? Well, it certainly solved World War II, but that's neither here nor there, really.
Ayame lowers her arm as the knife bounces off the board ineffectively before running her hand through her hair as if trying to shrug off the rather paltry display. A quiet breath is taken, followed by a soft exhale as she glances to her side at Nataya just in time to see her unleash a barrage of beads, sending them speeding across the distance between the two girls and the propped up board. Splinters beyond number shower into the air as the makeshift target suffers catastrophic levels of destruction.
Ayame stares at the mess wide eyed before turning to the girl and taking several steps back from the girl as she begins to charge up her fist, uttering chants that go completely unknown to the Southtown locale. "H-hey, what're you do-" The question answers itself as the black haired girl slams her fist into thick wooden stump with enough power to bury it out of sight for a moment. The wood splinters, the old bark sluffed off to the sides, but for all intents and purposes, it appears to be just a wooden stump. Now with new, improved hole in the top.
Ayame shakes her head quickly, "Jeez. What the hell. Are you looking for gang members around every corner to smack around or something?" She rolls her eyes, walking over to the shattered board to collect her discarded throwing knife, this time just craddling it in her palm as she looks at it thoughtfully. "You must not get along with people too well with all that explodey you got going on," the girl continues as she throws the knife up a little only to catch it sideways in her palm again.
Something catches her eye, however - a glimmer of light reflected by those beads of Nataya's seems to shimmer against something in the dust. "What's this..." It appears to be a corner of a metal box, burried in the dirt beneath where the board stood. Scraping the dirt with the knife in hand frees it quickly from its spot quickly before Ayame hefts it up and puts it down to the side. Roughly a foot in each dimension, it isn't terribly large. "Don't blow this up," she snaps preemptively, glancing up toward Nataya, sounding a little defensive, as if she expects another smashing demonstration any moment now.
"Hey, you found something!" Nataya points out the obvious, but stops very shy of taking credit for it. That's not the point. The solution is always more important than how you get there as long as it's done with the minimum amount of stress on her part. After all, at the end of the day the only two things that got broken were an old board and a stump.
Ayame's jibes go unanswered, pinging off her oblivious hide like pebbles off the side of a battleship. Either Nataya's extraordinarily simple in the worst kind of way, or she's just the worst kind of unflappable: the sort that's so impervious to being shaken that it's hazardous to their health.
The beads on her arms flicker, shimmer, and then power down. A moment later, the silvery sheen on them fades away into the dull rosewood that they're actually made of. As Ayame takes the time to tend to her treasure, nataya takes the moment to doff the blood stained sweater, revealing a modest black t-shirt that probably had a graphic on it once, but has since faded into obscurity.
Despite it's probably ruined condition, the monk woman folds the sweater up neatly, placing it into the wagon and patting it once. So far, her attitude towards Ayame has stayed very much the same, and the enigmatic smile she seems to wear is all the girl's getting. She strolls over, hands at her sides in a nonthreatening posture. "Well, go and open it already," she urges, gesturing with her hands in a box-opening gesture. "This reminds me of all those games my brother used to play where the main character goes on a scavenger hunt, and every time he found a good item, he'd get more skills and abilities. Or something like that. i was absolutely terrible at video games."
She drops to her haunches, and then sits on a cinderblock, hands on her knees as she awaits the revelation of what's in the box! Hopefully it'll be a red snapper, or something that's similarly very tasty.
Or it could be nothing, absolutely nothing.
But that would be stupid.
Ayame watches Nataya rather than her new found box, eyes focused on the girl as if she really does expect her to go on one of her wild, smashing rampages at any moment. When those beads 'power down', the energy coursing through them no longer channeled by their owner, the girl relaxes a little, at last looking down at the metal container. It looks simple enough. Metal box, metal lid, metal latch. No metal padlock secures the opening either.
As the foreigner encourages her to open it, Ayame nods, narrowing her eyes, taking in a deep breath. If she gave any thought to Nataya's observations about video games, she might have expected what was coming as her thumb presses into the clasp to spring it open. A small hiss heralds the needle that pricks her thumb and the girl draws her hand back, shaking it rapidly, "Ow! What the hell," she growls, eying her thumb and the slowly oozing bubble of blood escaping from the small puncture wound. Just like a trapped chest out of every RPG known to man, it seems this little box is no different.
Hissing a little, she shakes her head, before she suddenly grips her wrist with her other hand, eyes widening a little, "Ugh, wow, that had something on it," she declares as she sits right down on her skirt in the dirt, holding her now throbbing hand up in front of her dumbly. "It's making my hand numb. Stupid me, putting a trap needle on my own boxes!"
And Nataya without her first aid purse. The massive tote would have come in handy if Nataya had any idea what was in the spring loaded needle. Instead, Nataya does what she does best: act. She marches forward, her face still the gently smiling visage of perfect peace she always tries to bring to the world. Her body, however, says something completely different. Ayame's free hand is batted clear, as if anticipating interference from the limb as Nataya's hand spreads out, the beads from one hand unravelling into a tournaquet onto Ayame's arm.
The weaponized beads constrict tightly around the younger girl's forearm to an almost painful degree, but the effect is that it stops the toxin momentarily. "I'm assuming you don't have access to neurotoxins, because you'd be a foaming mess right now," Nataya says, recalling her experience with snake bites at her mother's free clinic. "That being said..." She turns about, shoving Ayame away so she can take a look at the box.
Again, a liberal application of beads, this time like a makeshift cestus as she pounds the box's lid so that it dents, and her hands form a virtual claw to rip the thing apart. Why?
In order to determine how lethal the poison might be, Nataya's going to want to know what's inside.
Without even looking at the contents, she drops Ayame into the wagon, hefting the girl up by the scrff of her neck, and then the rended box and it's contents in her lap.
A hand grabs the wagon handle and Nataya's calmly walking towards the eight foot wall. Not time to climb over it, though. She steps towards it, and rears her hand back. "Hey, you might want to cover your hears and duck down a little..." With a deafening smash, the brick wall crumbles on repeated impact, mortar and brick chips flying everywhere as dust rises.
"So what's in the box?" She asks, eyes darting around as she begins to jog, her feet picking up speed. It's a stead pace at first, which breaks into a trot and then a full tilt sprint as she starts to shoot down the alleyway into the main street so she can get the girl to a emergency room or hospice. The closest proper hospital is downtown. here's a free clinic somewhere here, and the closest actual place where she can get aid is in Gedo high, which is closed for the evening, but the nurse's office will likely be stocked.
"More importantly, are you wanted for anything? It's not going to help you out one bit if I get you fixed up and you get arrested for grand theft auto or something."
Everything starts to happen in a whirlwind of activity, leaving the strawberry-blond too stunned to really keep up. In the next instant, her hand is swatted away so fast she isn't really able to put up a fight about it, and then her right arm is suddenly constricted with a makeshift tournaquet of beads. "What are you do-" she starts to ask, cutting herself off as the girl tears into the metal box with assault beads and a powerful clawing from her hand rips the lid free before dropping it into the poisoned girl's lap just as she drops the teenager into the wagon.
"Hey," Ayame protests, making a face, holding up her hand, "I don't need any-" Okay, she's pounding through the wall right now. Now would be a good time to duck. Covering her head and leaning forward to protect the contents of the box as grey shattered bricks go flying, the girl slowly sits back up as if not really sure if the coast is clear.
"Well," she states, glancing down into the box with a blink, but says nothing as Nataya continues to speak. Her hand continues to throb, though she isn't sure if it's from the blood flow being blocked or whatever she so brilliantly laced the needle with some time ago. Her thoughts get side tracked as Nataya asks about being wanted however, the girl's face paling noticeably. "I, ah, well, there, um, very well could have been some misunderstandings between me and, ah, legal figures, sometime in the past," the wagon-carried girl states. She sounds strangely unsure about that fact, even though a run in with the law should be something one wouldn't easily forget pretty much ever.
Her left hand comes up to rub against her cheek, "I'm sure it can't be anything /major/ though... Like, they probably won't know. Yeah." Her attention strays back to the box in her lap that got her forced into this mad wagon-rush in the first place. Her left hand dips in, coming up with a dangling cross earing. With a black, ebony center, and silver border, it's an interesting little piece of jewelery, but probably not horribly expensive. "Huh," she muses, putting it back in the box.
Her hand comes up the second time with a Justice High student ID card. There's a picture of a girl on it but it isn't Ayame by a long shot. "Kiyoko Fukakami. Huh," is the girl's response as she drops the card back into the box. Nothing of value thus far, it seems to be more a container of keepsakes important only to their owner.
She produces a small leather pouch with two narrow lock picking tools sticking out of it next. A shifty glance gets cast up at Nataya to see if she's even paying attention, and then she quickly shoves that little set back into the box. "Nothing too important," she states quietly in summary as she continues to rumage around in it.
That's enough of an answer for Nataya to make her calculations. She doesn't know anything, and therefore likely doesn't have insurance or even a decent form of identification. That rules out the big downtown hospital. Then there's the hospice, which will take some finding, and then there's Gedo's nurse's room. She's only listening for key words now, however. And if the answer is 'nothing', then she's not going to worry about it overmuch.
That makes things a little less severe. Swinging around a corner, she's all action as she heads over to a small convenience store on the border between the Gedo area and the better part of Downtown. She hauls Ayame in on the wagon, getting stares but otherwise not much else. It seems that counter clerks in this part of town are smart enough to just not ask questions anymore. It takes a moment or two, but soon Nataya's out again, hauling Ayame to the free clinic.
The pace is a little less frenzied. Ayame can talk, so clearly she's not going to die anytime soon, although her arm is likely turning an odd shade of red or purpose due to the constrictive nature of the tournequet.
"Hospice is about a half mile that way," Nataya says offhandedly as she points with her free hand, legs still moving the pair at a considerable pace. "Honestly, what kind of sneak theif poisons a random box of junk?" The comment is made almost as an afterthought; no additional inflection is given indicating she means anything by it other than random brain firings, which is something she appears wont to do.
Still, given her strange nature, it's hard to tell if she's getting at anything. If anything, it doesn't really appear that she is. Then again, she doesn't look like she's smart enough to perform First Aid either.
By now the girl seems to have come to accept that she's going to get hauled around on that wagon to who the hell knows where until Nataya says otherwise. And considering she's pretty sure the girl is rather crazy, this could go on for a long... long time. The ride through the convenience store even has her hamming it up, waving her left hand absently at those who stare back, giving them a teethy grin in response.
It's all fun and games until someone's hand dies and falls off, however, and Ayame begins to tug at the beads around her wrist, "You know, I'm not so sure about this whole, thing. I mean, it might not even be that bad. Maybe I should just take this off," she theorizes, her whole arm starting to feel kind of tingly from the tournequet.
Nataya mentions where the hospice is and the girl nods her head slowly, seemingly only vaguely paying attention to where they're going. She's partially given up on any hope of making sense of it. So she'll enjoy the ride. It's Nataya's question that snaps her attention back on the girl, however. 'Sneak thief?" Ayame blinks, squinting for a moment, wondering if she saw the lock picks of if she's picked up on something else that's gone and clued her in. Maybe she should pay more attention to the route at hand to make sure she isn't being wheeled right into the police station.
Not that she really suspects that's the case. All things considered, she half imagines Nataya doesn't want to part with her captive victim 'in need' so easily as all that. "Yeah..." she mutters, flipping through the junk in the box. "Seems pretty dumb to me," she exhales, sounding a little defeated. Her left hand digs in further, coming up with a small contraption with a wrist strap. Poking at it causes the thing to open out into a mini-cross bow. "Well, that's kinda neat at least," she observes with a grin before dropping it back into the box.
"Maybe I should walk some. It doesn't seem right for you to have to pull me all around!" she observes with one last ditch effort at trying to regain some kind of dignity out of the whole thing. Of course, at the speed Nataya is booking, she isn't about to just roll out of the wagon to demonstrate this 'walking' she sounds so confident in.
"Don't worry about it. I don't get tired easily, and I was out to get a workout anyway. I've already beat up two people and you've got to weigh at least ninety pounds or so," Nataya says, musing. "So I'm probably burning up that cup ramen I had for lunch today." Sneakers keep eating up pavement as the hospice pops up in the distance. "Besides, looks like we're almost there."
The beads are fastened on fairly tightly, but they do have some give. Enough to allow some blood flow for whatever good that does. Pulling them up will allow the poison to flow. This is why you don't leave tournaquets on for too long. Granted, the short amount of time it's been applied is hardly enough for permanent damage to set in.
She seems fairly oblivious otherwise. She doesn't look backward, nor does she seem particularly interested in the prizes Ayame's discovering in her ruined lockbox. The fact is, things are pretty unimportant to her for the most part. Sure, she'll pick up things and fix them to use or sell for a modest price, but they're just items. The important thing is how Ayame reacts to the things, and not the things themselves.
So far, she seems placid and content, as if something's been revealed that will make themselves clear eventually. That's exactly what Nataya seeks to acheive. That surety that comes with the knowledge that everything is as it should be. And right now? Well, she severely doubts that helpless, stuck on a wagon is Ayame's natural state of being... but it's a means to an end to her over-arching problems. Therefore, it's all justifiable to her mind.
Nataya kicks the door to the hospice open with a quick shove of her heel as she makes her way into the small, dingy, old office. "Hey," she says to the nig nurses. "Got a poison victim here. Doesn't seem to be any pain... probably numbing from some kinda nerve agent she found rummaging in junk." She pushes the wagon up to the desk with her foot.
"You fill out the paperwork," Nataya says to Ayame as Nurses move to help the girl up. "I got to go to the bathroom. I'll stay long enough to make sure you're all set up here, and then you're on your own, 'kay?" She pulls her wagon back, setting it by the old, cracked leather waiting room chairs, and trots off to the toilet, leaving nurses to fuss over Ayame, the bead-tournaquet falling away so that they can apply a real, less restrictive one.
As Nataya insists on continuing to pull her along, Ayame gives up trying to protest the free ride. It IS free, right? Part of her mind can't help but wonder what the costs of this little favor are going to be in the long run, certain that no one is this helpful for /nothing/. "Right," she replies, glancing up as they draw near the clinic. While she toys with the beads around her wrist, she doesn't go so far as to really try to break them free. On some level, she can't help but trust the other girl knows what she's doing. Even if she is a psychopath.
The girl continues to browse through the box, coming up with other small odds and ends. At times she looks puzzled by what she finds, but at other times a certain flicker of nostalgia works its way across her features before she stuffs the keepsake back in the box. Clues, ideas, memories, the girl exhales softly, closing her eyes as the wagon comes to a stop sitting inside the lobby right in front of the desk.
Glancing up as Nataya describes her problem to the night nurse, Ayame nods her head slowly, slowly shuffling out of the wagon to get back up to her feet, metal box held under her left arm. She lifts her right arm as the Thai girl mentions the poison and even waves it somewhat wobbly toward the nurse for emphasis, the gesture coupled with a bit of a grin, "For some reason, it's /really/ numb," she states. "Might have something to do with not having any BLOOD getting to it." She shoots Nataya a glare that lasts all of half a second before her grin returns, making it clear that she's just teasing.
Taking a step forward, she flops her arm down on the desk with a bit of a deadened thud. "So what do you think," she asks, leaning foward, dragging the box to plunk it down on the counter on her left side, "If you need to amputate, do you have bionic arms for sale here? I've got a box of treasure here that'll cover the costs of a robo arm I'm sure." The nurse responds by blankly sliding a paper over to Ayame to fill out attached to a clipboard. "Good thing I can write with my left hand," she eyerolls, leaning forward to start filling in lines on the form.
The beads fall loose as Nataya turns to walk away and Ayame grimaces at the painful sensation of blood rushing back in, "Guh, you coulda warned me," she calls to the girl, turning toward her as she starts to head toward the bathroom. The pain in her arm fades from her thoughts quickly, however, as she regards the young woman quietly for a long moment while someone steps to her other side to start dragging her to the back rooms, "A-ah, right... hey, um, thanks!" she calls after the girl.
Her right arm gets tugged for emphasis as the staff on hand begin to get more urgent about getting her taken care of. Dragging her box off the counter with her left arm, the girl begins to complain nonstop. "Watch it, that's my zombie arm, okay? You don't know what it's going to do. It could come to life any moment and start choking the crap out of you, all right?!" The white doors swing closed behind the girl and the staff and the rest of her rant fades into something unintelligible.
The psychopath is defined by a continual seeking of psychological gratification in criminal or aggressive impulses and the inability to learn from past mistakes. While in some sense, Nataya definitely has an aggressive response to everything she encounters, the fact of the matter is that she's paying a little more attention to things than she lets on and does learn... well. Eventually anyways.
Nataya washes up in the bathroom, splashing the hot water on he face, looking disdainfully at the uncontrollable mop of shaggy black hair that genetics saw fit to give her, and cleaning off all the nasty dried blood. Gross. She takes stock, looking at her face in the mirror. Ayame's saved from having nerve damage, and has recovered her treasure box. She'll be in the hospital a while, and peace will come to Gedo for at least that long.
Nataya also got exercise! She's run at least a good three miles straight at speeds most people would consider a sprint. What's she forgetting? There's something that she's not quite recalling...
Oh, that's right. All that stuff that she picked up is all the way heck over on the other side of town.
She pauses, frowning a little, and then shrugs. Oh well. Can't win 'em all. Overall, on the karmic scale, today was a good day.
She backs up, looking at her elbow, which is scratched up a little from smashing a guy's teeth in, and her shoes are an absolute mess from booting that punk girl away. And so it goes. She steps out of the bathroom, brushing her outfit off with her hands as she enters the lobby to find that Ayame's already been carted off.
That means her work here is done. And she never asked a name. That's not important, though. Despite all appearances to the contrary, Southtown is a very small town. She'll see the girl again. She's certain of it. Turning to grab her wagon, she begins to whistle as she steps out into the night, despite the ferverent protests of the nurses urging her that it's a pretty bad idea.
She stops, turns her head, gives them a bright grin and a wave.
'Cause for Nataya? It never hurts to help.
Never hurts /her/ anyway.
[OOC] Ayame laughs, "That's a good ending."
Log created on 00:35:44 09/04/2008 by Ayame, and last modified on 03:23:50 09/10/2008.