Description: A menace from her past forces reluctant Ayame to find help. Of course, she can't just go asking. That would be too easy.
On a Friday evening, most typical teenagers the world over probably have social life sorts of things to do. Even professional fighters could be counted amongst that number; after all, they want to get dates or whatever out of the way before they potentially end up disfigured in an SNF match or whatever, right? With the students of Gedo High, though, things get more complicated, owing in no small part to the duties assigned to the members of the Gedo Gang.
Others, however, have their own reasons.
Tenma Kiryuu has never been able to wholly go back to the relatively carefree way he was before the time Stasya Voronkova was kidnapped. Oh, it's not like he stayed all Angsty McMoperson, but those days were something of a crucible for the Kiryuu heir. Some of the seriousness from those days has settled into his bones, and he learned a lot about consequences. His recent encounter with another self-proclaimed 'demon hunter' has druged up some old feelings about that matter, leaving Tenma less than inclined to participate in the usual Gedo activities, or his own weekend funtimes.
His persistent problems with a certain Brazilian girl who is /supposed/ to be his enemy don't help any, either.
So, Tenma can be found watching the sun set on the last Friday of January, up on his 'throne', the rooftop of Gedo High. Long since claimed as the territory of the Guardian Kings, it's their habitual hangout and training ground, so it's not uncommon to find them up here, alone or in a group.
Tonight, though, Tenma is by himself, with his bokken resting on the catwalk at his side, and his legs dangling off of the edge. He chews on a lunch bread, leftovers from the day's ill-gotten gains via Hakuya's genius for cheating at gambling, disconsolately.
She owes him one. Probably more than one. Backstabbing her before administering a solid beating in her a SNF event... well, she probably deserved that. Betraying her, ah, betrayal to that devil-eyed fanged monstrosity, on the other hand? No one deserves that, in her mind. The price for that little revelation almost caught up to her just a week prior. And maybe it's with that in mind that the she slunk into Gedo this evening in search of the boy responsible; why she invaded one of the most hostile territories to the likes of her possible in Southtown: The Gedo High Rooftop.
Revenge may be the motivator as she scales the back wall of the building, waiting for a time when no one seems nearby to scramble up through the shadows. Window ledges, piping, and fire escapes all serve to make the ascent quick and easy for the experienced thief; she barely has to exhert any effort at all. Knowing where to find the Kiryuu heir wasn't too difficult. Every kid in the neighborhood knows from where the leader of the Gaurdian Kings rules his turf.
The chance exists that he might not be there; that this trip was a waste of time. It's not important, she can always keep trying. She'll find him eventually. But as her fingers grip the edge of the rooftop and Ayame pulls herself up just enough to peek over the lip, a smirk of satisfaction crosses her features the moment she notices him on the other side, watching the settling sun in the horizon.
No thought is given to how contemplative he appears; about how she's likely interrupting some deep moment of introspection or contemplation. With catlike grace, she slips up onto the catwalk quietly. Her feet barely make a sound as the girl speeds across the distance between them. No warning is offered - no intention to let him prepare himself. Ambushing from the shadows is the least one can expect from the labeled Sneak Thief! Only the faint ring of the chains at her neck or the scuffle of her shoe against the catwalk might clue the Gedo student in to the impending attack.
No weapons, for now, as the girl goes for a brute force shoulder ramming tackle, attempting to bowl Tenma to the catwalk, and maybe even tumble him over a few times, aiming to end up pinning Tenma on his back, using her knees to hold his arms in place, her hands at his neck!
COMBATSYS: Ayame has started a fight here.
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Ayame 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Tenma has joined the fight here.
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Tenma 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Ayame
COMBATSYS: Tenma fails to interrupt Strong Throw from Ayame with Quick Throw.
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Tenma 0/-------/---====|-------\-------\0 Ayame
Of course, people like Tenma - and indeed, Ayame - aren't quite as limited in sensory abilities as a normal person. Oh sure, they might not be psychics or anything, but Tenma Kiryuu in particular is highly sensitive to the ebb and flow of chi, the way it moves around a person, through them; between them, and the world around them. So there's a sense of... /Something/ in the moments before Ayame springs her attack, in its own way far more tangible than the faint noises the girl makes in her approach. Enough so that Tenma's hand comes down on his bokken at the same moment he gets shoulder blocked, driven into the catwalk.
And he does get bowled over, because damn girlfriend had some momentum there, but he isn't entirely defenseless; he tries to get his feet up to toss the girl off of him as she holds his arms down with her knees and grabs his damn neck, but he can't quite manage it, which is sort of awkward.
"Ghhk," Tenma chokes out, looking up at Ayame, dark blue eyes meeting brown, and looking quite surprised to see her /at all/. It's sort of weirdly coincidental, given the events he's been thinking on, recently. He'll probably have something to say about it once he can get her /off/ of him.
Ayame stares back at the pinned boy with a level of intensity rarely exhibited by the calculating young con. It would be wrong to call it murderous, though the pressure she's applying to Tenma's throat could hardly be construed as harmless. It's as if she's searching for something there - a hint of regret, maybe - an excuse not to keep going perhaps. Whatever it is she's searching for, Ayame stays quiet, mouth drawn into a tight-lipped, neutral expression.
The Gedo youth gets a reprieve from being strangled as her hands release their grip, going to her waist instead in order to draw two folded butterfly knives, flicked open in the very act of being palmed. Both arms are raised over the girl's head as she draws back, knife blades pointing down. Each dagger catches the last traces of golden sunset on their sharp edges as Ayame holds them aloft for a lingering moment.
Teeth grit, a breath is taken, and then both knives plunge as the girl aims to deliver a pair of painful, twin stabs directly into the youth's torso!
COMBATSYS: Ayame successfully hits Tenma with Assault and Battery.
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Tenma 0/-------/-======|=------\-------\0 Ayame
Apparently, this is not Tenma Kiryuu's night.
Once he's finally released, such as it is, he coughs and tries to force himself up, but he doesn't really have any /leverage/ at the moment. This becomes very unfortunate when those knives come down at him; he tries to twist to at least mitigate the damage, but no, he gets pretty well stabbed by Ayame's blades, which is pretty damn painful, and also bloody.
The bloody part doesn't bother him as much.
"Well, well, look at you, Sneak Thief," Tenma says, running his mouth to avoid thinking about a) the part where that hurt and b) this being somewhat of a precarious situation for him. "Ain't you the big dog now, comin' after me, what, almost a year after I killed your boss? But I told you, didn't I?"
After a pause, Tenma's mouth pulls into a wide grin. She wants to play, fine? "I don't have any patience for ya."
Now, Tenma's style is not a big one for kicking, and normally speaking Ayame would probably have him pretty well immobilised. But he's not much of a 'traditional' fighter in a lot of ways, is he? Particularly when you consider the way he suddenly rolls his lower body up - painfully, considering those stab wounds in his torso - and aims to thrust both of his feet into Ayame's face, hoping to knock her /off/ of him with a good old-fashioned mule kick to the mush.
COMBATSYS: Tenma successfully hits Ayame with Random Strike.
Grazing Hit
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Tenma 0/-------/=======|===----\-------\0 Ayame
In perfect unisen, the two knives hit their mark, sinking in up to the hilts as Ayame leans against them, as if to add even more agony to the inflicted wounds. Bringing her face closer to his, she smirks as he becomes the first one to speak. "I've been busy," she replies, her tone bordering on neutral with a hint of playfulness behind it. "You didn't exactly rank top priority." She winks, but offers nothing more to explain her assault. Given their history, she hardly should need to, right?
She knows he isn't going to just lie still and take this though. She had the advantage of surprise, but that's run its course, and now it's time to buy herself some distance to plan. She's pulling the knives from him when he twists, and already starting to spring back off of him when he kicks. A swift twist to the side avoids the double-shoe to the face only to take one to the cheek with enough force to send her staggering back a couple of steps.
Her right arm goes to rub her cheek a fleeting moment before she begins to act, flicking her knives closed and slipping them back into their respective sheaths. "You're wrong about one crucial detail though." Her left hand goes to the pouch affixed to one of her multiple belts, drawing out her familiar, collapsed metal staff, spinning it idly in her palm as she plants her feet and begins to focus. Energy drawn from the world around collects as crimson chi at the girl's feet, a swirling aura that becomes more translucent as it rises, fading to a blue at the level of her waist.
"But hey - being wrong never slowed you down before. Let's see what you've got!"
COMBATSYS: Ayame gathers her will.
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Tenma 0/-------/=======|=======\-------\0 Ayame
"Well, my feelings are all sorts of hurt," Tenma replies, though he doesn't really sound overly depressed about it, you know? Maybe it'll set in later. The important thing is that his attempt to kick the blonde in the head at least manages to accomplish getting her off of him. As Ayame prepares herself, Tenma rolls to his feet and whirls around to face the thief, still smirking. Though he has to admit, he is a little bit curious as to what she's talking about.
Tenma's left hand goes to one of the wounds from Ayame's knives, as he smears himself with blood, then draws his bloody hand along the wooden length of his bokken, forging the chi link between himself and the weapon. Plus it's pretty gross.
"So... What the hell are you babbling about, anyway, Sneak Thief?" Tenma wonders, sweeping his bokken through the air almost negligently, activating the link and setting it alight that smoky crimson aura of blood and chi. "What really brought you out here, anyway? Run out of crippled two year olds to bully an' orphans to kidnap?"
COMBATSYS: Tenma gains composure.
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Tenma 0/-------/--=====|=======\-------\0 Ayame
"I'm sure you'll get over it," Ayame replies when he pretends to be put out for all of half a second. She holds her ground on the catwalk, content to let him prepare himself - to bring his very curious chi manifestations into being. He might notice, for all the effort she's putting into drawing a surge of potential energy to her, she's paying absolute attention to every move he makes as he goes through that ritual. Eyes focus on his hand as it touches his wound, seeking a bit of his own blood. She's still focusing on him when he runs his hand along his bokken, activating that link that is uniquely his.
It looks almost subconscious to him as he goes through it, rote habit to perform what would be an impossible feat for nearly anyone else in the world save very few. He completes, sweeping the weapon through the air, and Ayame's intense focus seems to fade, as if she's less interested in what's to follow. "Your ineptitude at finishing things properly brought me here." the strawberry blond replies with a sneer, spinning the small tube at her side until, with a hiss of hydraulic pressure, the weapon expands out to its full length of six feet.
The energy she was collecting fades, the girl breathing in deeply, invigorating her beyond the strength with which she had initially arrived even. "She's not dead." she replies, her tone shifting along with her expression. She looks gravely serious. "That demon woman. Marise." She spins her staff at her side, the titanium taking on a blur as her own tension increases in intensity.
"I had the displeasure of her visit last week." The girl's smirk returns but it's lost its playful edge. "She said if I wanted my life to be spared..." She bolts forward, leaning into her charge, "I'd have to take yours!" From two yards out, she springs into the air, twisting her staff up and around in order to bring it slamming back down toward the young man's right shoulder with crushing force!
COMBATSYS: Tenma blocks Ayame's Medium Strike.
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Tenma 0/-------/-======|=======\-------\0 Ayame
He... What?
What did she just say?
WHAT DID SHE JUST SAY?!
"Really," Tenma says, quietly, and there's a lot of different things in his tone. He's... Relieved, in a way. And angry. Angry that the monster who did that to his friend gets to walk around and continue to haunt them. In a way, Tenma can even acknowledge that Ayame herself is a victim too, but he'd probably never say so aloud unless he really had to.
The staff comes down, and Tenma's bokken comes /up/, both hands on the hilt to use the wooden blade to stop the downswept staff before it can actually strike; the impact resounds through the sword, through Tenma's arms, but compared to what he could've been feeling now, it might as well be a hug.
"You are the saddest, most cowardly little piece of shit it's ever been my displeasure to meet," Tenma says, a bit of an amused laugh in his tone. There's a lot of complicated things still going on, but in the end this is a fight, and he's a fighter, and this is where he lives. This is his home, in the middle of battle. "For the things you've done, you'd deserve it if the Grudge kills your sorry ass and leaves what's left for the dogs."
And yet...
Stepping in, Tenma whirls his bokken around to get it into position; he brings it down in a harsh, overhand slash aimed across the blonde girl's torso, reversing the blade at the bottom of the slash before bringing it back up in a second strike, forming a narrow V-shape in blood and chi. "But did you think that just maybe, instead of coverin' your own ass, YOU COULD TRY AND FIND SOMEONE TO HELP YOU?!"
COMBATSYS: Ayame fails to counter Ungyou from Tenma with The Sunrise Of Broken Dreams.
- Power fail! -
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Tenma 1/------=/=======|=======\===----\1 Ayame
As staff and bokken clash, Ayame leans into her weapon, attempting to push the young man back hard enough to pressure his next option. Both hands positioned properly to lend arm and torso strength to the endeavor. With gritted teeth, she seems like she isn't going to let him slip away to get time to breath. She doesn't bristle at being called a craven coward, the words laced with nothing but the honest truth. "It's better than dying from Samara sucking on your neck," she mutters in reply.
He forces her back, however, and Ayame seems to acquiesce, intent on letting him take a swing only to turn it right back around on him. Positioning her feet, adjusting her grip on her staff, she readies herself to retaliate. She makes the mistake of underestimating his force, however, as she whips the low end of her staff up quickly, aiming to glance his attack to the side and catch him wide open before he can recover. But without the proper upswinging force, the staff is smacked right back down, leaving her undefended against the punishing strike.
The force almost bowls her over as the girl crumples forward, a splash of red draped across her torso from the blood coating his weapon. She grits her teeth, her breath knocked from her lungs as she tries to retaliate all the same, bringing her staff up from the other direction only to be struck in the chin by his upstroke with enough jarring force to take her clean off her feet and leave her landing in a sprawled, seated position a few feet away.
"As if anyone would help," she growls, tightening her grip on her staff at her side, the weapon glimmering to life with a faint crimson hue. Forcing breath back into her lungs, she tucks her feet under her and starts to rise.
"Gosh," Tenma says, his tone one of elaborate innocence and completely mock confusion. "I wonder whose fault /that/ is?" Seriously, she brings this on herself. And Tenma knows allllll about bringing things on oneself through socially unacceptable behaviours. The difference is, /usually/ in Tenma's case it's not attempted murder.
Usually.
Actually letting Ayame get her balance again, Tenma rolls his neck as he considers his next words. "But the bitch of it is, you're wrong on that one. They'd help you," he says, gesturing vaguely because there's no easy way to indicate who he means. "Hakuya would, without a second thought. Ashima probably would too, more fool him. Hell, for all I know, Voronkova would wanna save you from getting your dumb, skinny ass killed."
He might think it's foolish, Tenma does, but he can't deny that it's true. Hakuya Suigetsu is pure of heart, and can see the good in anyone, if there's any left to be found. Kenji Ashima is a bright light in any darkness, willing to stand up for people who can't stand up for themselves. Stasya Voronkova is empathetic, caring. Possibly caring enough to forgive her betrayer. Maybe more of a big sister than a protector, but...
What does that make Tenma?
He's the one who leads them, usually. He's the one who brought them all together, the common link that binds them. He's the one who protects them, the one who took the weight of what happened in the Seventh Circle onto himself. "Personally, I'd rather help you by beatin' you so ugly the Grudge can't even recognise you anymore. But..."
Ugh, he's really going to do this, isn't he? He's going to stick his neck out for /her/.
"...We'll help you," Tenma Kiryuu says.
COMBATSYS: Tenma takes no action.
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Tenma 1/------=/=======|=======\===----\1 Ayame
He doesn't charge her again, giving the undeserving girl a chance to get back on her feet. Her left hand grips her staff, furious, crimson chi coursing over its polished surface. Her right hand, on the other hand, rubs her knuckles against the buttom of her chin. Her jaw is definitely going to be bruised from that second hit. Glaring back at him, the strawberry blonde stays silent as he repudiates her claim, eyes narrowing, skeptical to say the least.
Hakuya. That was the other one the devilish woman listed, and she flinches a little at the mention of the name. That's other one Marise feared; that she wanted to enlist Ayame to kill. Mention of a Ashima, on the other hand, doesn't seem to register with her at all. Nor does she even so much as blink as he mentions Voronkova.
She's silent, not cutting him off for once, nor even making a move to attack the young man back. His comment about beating her ugly earns him a reaction, however, as she smirks, swinging her staff around in front of her, held at an angle, as if inviting him to take a shot - that she'll be ready to deal with whatever he wants to try next. But he doesn't make an attempt, doesn't come charging back at her with that bloody chi of his, and the girl gives him a weird look, as if surprised; for one who prides herself on reading other people like a book, she doesn't seem to have anticipated this from Tenma Kiryuu.
When he declares that they would help her - even him - the girl blinks, lowering her weapon to her side, the bottom of it clanking against the catwalk as the chi coursing over it flickers then fades entirely. "Hmph." she replies, feeling disarmed all of the sudden. Maybe she took that blow harder than she thought, she questions herself. She shouldn't be standing down!
"I told her no." she finally declares with a sigh of resignation and roll of her eyes. "I wasn't here to kill you, I just wanted to kick your ass." She smirks, hefting her staff up to rest against her left shoulder, craddling the bottom of it in the palm of her left hand. "Think of it as saying hello. And just to show you what could happen if she finds someone more copacetic to her ideas." Her hand goes back to rubbing her jaw, "But who knows, you seem... /okay/ at taking care of yourself." she allows begrudgingly
Her expression becomes more sober as she lowers her hand to rest at her hip, "I want to finish the job you guys started. Something like her... she needs to be destroyed. You..." she frowns faintly, struggling to bring herself to say this. "...your family line supposedly knows how to deal with things like that." She didn't believe in this nonsense. Demon hunters? Sealing? Holy rites for dealing with monsters that shouldn't even exist? The girl scowls, bringing her attention back to focus squarely on Tenma.
"When I fought her off, I negated..." That isn't quite the right word. She knows what she should say, but can't seem to bring it to the surface. It implies too much. Grimacing, she sighs, shaking her head. "This is ridiculous."
COMBATSYS: Ayame takes no action.
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Tenma 1/------=/=======|=======\===----\1 Ayame
There was a time, not too long ago, when Tenma wouldn't have stopped. He would've kept going, until either he or Ayame couldn't fight anymore, with his obvious preference being for /her/ to be the one crawling on the ground, barely able to move. There was a time when his anger at Ayame over what happened to Stasya was nearly all-consuming, and what /that/ resulted in is still in the Saturday Night Fight 'greatest hits' collection.
Don't think that Tenma doesn't notice Ayame's lack of reaction to the mention of Kenji or Stasya. What's up with that?
"Hey, congratulations, you're not a murderer. I'll go buy you a cake, we can have a party," Tenma says, with a heaping helping of delicious sarcasm. It's probably too much to hope for him to actually /get along/ with the strawberry blonde, but at least this is progress of a sort. The bokken rests against Tenma's shoulder, the aura around it still in evidence, though it doesn't seem to affect Tenma himself much at all, the blood not even staining his jacket. His free hand hooks thumbwise into his slacks pocket, as he regards Ayame thoughtfully.
As for the rest of it? "Pretty much. My family an' Hakuya's are sort of in that business, taking care of 'demons'. An' yeah, it IS pretty ridiculous, but so is some dude beating up a tank, don't you think?"
COMBATSYS: Tenma takes no action.
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Tenma 1/------=/=======|=======\===----\1 Ayame
So the two stand facing each other. Neither attacking, neither entirely unready to defend themselves. It would be more satisfying to clobber the boy, Ayame's quite certain, but ultimately that wasn't why she was here. Attacking him was just taking advantage of an opportunity she couldn't bring herself to pass up. "Nah," she replies, lifting her right hand from her waist to wave it dismissively. "Not yet. But I'm not much of a party person. Though you're sweet to offer."
She's silent then, staring at him, mouth forming a faint frown. She needs this - the help he offered - but just accepting that is difficult enough. That he was so ready to offer even after she all but went out of her way to make him not want to seems to have caught her off guard. She had hoped, on some level, to corner him into refusing; into just chasing her off so that she could write off having to stoop to actually getting help from the Gedo youth and his friends.
It seems she didn't predict Tenma's reaction as accurately as she had thought. Holding back in his chance to attack while she recovered; declaring not just his more forgiving friends would help but that they /all/ would... The conniving bandit scowls, turning to the side, sweeping her right hand as if brushing away his counter point all together. "It seems our families have something in common then," she mutters, staring out at the multicolored horizon as the sun sinks lower.
"But I never learned it like you did. How to deal with things like her. A... a tiny part of it came back to me when that thing tried to kill me. I wouldn't have lived to tell you that she's still out there otherwise." She glances along her shoulder back toward Tenma, her right hand lifting to brush her hair back over her shoulder, "But now you know. So you can take your little gang of buddies and go do whatever it is you do," she grunts, gesturing vaguely out toward the cityscape. "There's a good chance she isn't going to go after me next anyway." The girl turns to face Tenma again. She has to do this. She can't stop now.
"But I-" She cuts herself short. "Well, I mean, I want to-" The girl shakes her head, waving her right hand again as she turns around, "Screw it." she declares over her shoulder, not looking back. "I just came to warn you so that you damn fools don't get caught off guard thinking that monster is dead. She's out there, and she specifically mentioned you and that Hakuya kid as being on her hit list. So now you know."
Unfortunately for Ayame and her fiendish plan, something awful and terrifying has happened to Tenma in the past year: He has GROWN. As a PERSON.
Scary, huh?
"Yeah, that seems to be goin' around these days," Tenma mutters mostly to himself as Ayame reveals that their families have 'something in common' on that front; he remembers all too well his encounter with the weird girl claiming to be a demon hunter the previous day. But really, how would he /forget/ something like that? Absolutely looney tunes. He can't believe Kenji has such strange taste in girls.
Of course, is he really one to talk?
Tenma once again gets the nagging feeling that something isn't quite /right/ with Ayame, but just what it is, he doesn't know her well enough to tell. Clearly something is bothering her, and her seeming lack of any connection to the names of people he's pretty sure she knew just makes it more obvious. Whatever it is though, it's clearly her own damn problem.
"Now I know," Tenma agrees, basically giving a 'what the hell is /her/ problem?' look at Ayame's turned back, before he sighs a little and shrugs his shoulders. What he says next is a begrudging rarity, and delivered so quietly that she might miss it. It also has many different meanings to it.
"Thanks."
She must hear it, because Ayame stops just then. She does nothing for a heartbeat or two, before she finally glances over her shoulder, giving the Gedo youth a conflicted expression - it speaks of surprise that things turned out like this and perhaps a hint of regret that she didn't have the strength to ask what she really wanted to know; mixed with a subtle tinge of melancholy only partially hidden by her curious grin.
"Things never go back to how they were." She lefts her staff slip through her fingers until she grips the center of it. A hydraulic hiss heralds her prized creation collapsing down to its more portable size. The girl shrugs, pockets her now-smaller weapon, then plants one hand on the catwalk's rail, vaulting herself over it to drop to the shadowed courtyard below.
COMBATSYS: Ayame has left the fight here.
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Tenma 1/------=/=======|
Watching Ayame go, Tenma shakes his head again, ruefully. "Don't I know it," the Gedo swordsman says, as the aura around his bokken dissipates with a sound like a slowly exhaled breath, the crimson swath he painted on it with his own life's blood long since gone. "Guess I'd better go to the nurse's office," Tenma says consideringly, poking a finger through the holes in his jacket and shirt, before heading towards the actual /exit/ from the roof, because he's not a freak who jumps off of rooftops.
Most of the time, anyway.
COMBATSYS: Tenma has ended the fight here.
Log created on 20:17:48 01/30/2009 by Ayame, and last modified on 02:24:56 01/31/2009.