Description: Batsu is heading off to beat some answers out of Ichiro until Hinata shows up and changes his priorities to checking on their friend Roberto in the hospital. Hinata's baking ability is brought into question.
The streets of Southtown Village. Quiet. Peaceful. Tense. The fallout of the war still rang through the hollow shell of the city. Slowly, people were returning to their lives. Even here in the Southtown Village, commerce was back, with people lining the streets to buy and sells their wares. And with the Syndicate in route, things were even more safe than before. Nothing could break this silence... except...
"Hey! Watch it!"
Batsu blazes from the school grounds, picking up speed as he rushes past a young couple. He got the information he needed, he wanted. After scaring the curls out of Yurika, the hot-blooded teenager found out from the Taiyo Soccer team about a certain target of his: Roberto. Roberto was away from the school grounds, recovering from the attack... from Ichiro. The very fact that a member of Taiyo would betray the school only boiled his blood to the extreme. He knew what he would unleash upon the kid once he found him.
Great Justice.
But first, he had to find Roberto.
And of course, he'd have to deal for the fact that he wasn't the only one out looking for someone. No, there was someone after him as well. Watching him, following him and getting closer and closer by the moment. It wouldn't take long before his pursuer was upon him and then...
"HEY, BATSU!"
The cry fills the air in the distinctive, perky voice of Hinata, and it's surprisingly loud for someone of her size. Certainly not the sort of thing someone would be able to ignore very easily, especially not with her legs pumping to send her flying toward Batsu as fast as she can manage.
*SCREEEECH*
Promptly, Batsu digs his heels down, and stops short. That voice. Hinata! Batsu stops his blind charge and hunches his shoulders. Hinata. His first friend at Taiyo High, and one of his best ones. The girl stood with him through the Schools incident, and afterwards, she stayed in the three-man 'team' of Taiyo High: Batsu, Kyosuke, and Hinata.
Turning his head around, his eyes were stern, though fairly soft. He would make time for Hinata. She might help him with this entire incident. Batsu opens his form a bit, though, when he sees how FAST she is going. Drawing back, a glimmer of dread overcame his face.
Hinata WOULD stop, wouldn't she?
She just seems to keep coming as fast as her legs can carry her; which makes her practically a cake fueled rocket on a collission course with Batsu!
Closer and closer until it looks like there's no stopping the inevitable disaster of...
Oh, wait, her feet pull her to a halt right in front of Batsu at the last second while all the force in her charge comes whipping around in her arm to clap him on the back in her usual, overpowered backslap of greeting, "BATSU! I've been looking for you all day!" Her hand doesn't draw back immediately while she throws in the accusatory, "Why weren't you at the bakesale?!"
Bakesale?
-BAKESALE-
Sweat began to form on Batsu's brow as Hinata unleashes her explosively friendly pat on the back. The bakesale. The fundraising bakesale that Batsu promised... before he saw what happened to Taiyo High. Batsu slowly realizes that, in the heat of his rage, he forgot about the entire bakesale. Digging his hands in his pockets, he turns bright red. He could have just explained things to Hinata. He could have just been level-headed, and thought things through.
But then, his ego and his nerves hit each other head on.
"I dunno, Hinata, I had more important things to do." The teenager mutters, looking away from his friend.
More important things?!
"How can you have more important things than helping raise money to fix up the schools?! You could have done the charity fight, too." Hinata draws back at that, planting her hands firmly on her hips to glare at Batsu with all the intensity of her sunshininess
A quick side step draws her right back to stand in front of Batsu, and it's pretty clear he's not going to get out of this conversation with mumbling avoiding eye contact. Well, he could probably ignore eye contact if he looked up, but then she might just go find a garbage can to stand on to fix that problem until he tried to look somewhere else, but she'd do something to solve that, too, probably.
"Did you accidently schedule a date for that night?"
"Hinata, I didn't have a date!" Batsu fumes, turning a shade of purple. "I just, well..." The teenager turns silent. He didn't know why it was so hard to tell Hinata about what happened. When she appears by him, he just stares down, mulling about what his heart was telling him. Finally, he just lets it out.
"... I didn't know that the school was damaged, Hinata." He bites, closing his eyes tight. "Trashed! And a fellow student did it!" Batsu explodes from his introspection, his fist tightened in a ball. The nearby walkers begin giving the pair a wide berth. "I wanted to go, but this was just TOO IMPORTANT! I have to avenge our school! I have to beat up..."
And Batsu turns around, glaring down the street with both fists waving. "... ICHIRO!"
Wait a second. A STUDENT trashed the school?
From the look on Hinata's face, it's pretty obvious that no one had given her that information yet...
"Wait... Ichiro did all that to Taiyo? That... doesn't make any sense at all." A brief pause just lets her sink back a bit, an unusual sight for the every perky, energetic, and upbeat girl, but it doesn't last very long.
"No, that doesn't make any sense. Why would a student want to cause damage like that to Taiyo on purpose." Right back to her bright, sunshine personality as she darts around Batsu again and claps a hand on his shoulder, "If Ichiro did it, I'll bet it was probably an accident or something. You can't go around beating people up until you're sure what the reason was!"
The hero of Taiyo High's vision was locked on some far away point as he gradually took in Hinata's wisdom. "I don't know whole story and nothing makes sense, but I know it wasn't an accident! I, uh, talked to some so-called 'president' from Seijyun and the Taiyo Soccer Team. And they told me he was involved! That's why I'm out to find Roberto! Ichiro jumped him, and he... he is in the hospital."
Batsu turns grim. "And besides, I don't know where he is hiding. It sounds strange, but all I know is that he probably is a jerk!" Batsu punches the air furiously. "And once I talk to Roberto, I will track him down and get that truth. And... I guess I might not beat him up." Batsu sulks a bit, looking over at Hinata. "Maybe we can get a cake to Roberto or something."
Does nobody tell Hinata anything important anymore?!
"Wait, Roberto's in the hospital again?" That damages the girl's bright, cheerfulness for another moment... but it's apparently pretty hard to keep her down, as almost anyone from Taiyo can tell you. Whenever something's wrong, Hinata will stay bright and happy to keep everyone else going strong.
She draws herself back into a smile and takes on a quick dramatic pose, "We will make him the best cake ever! And this time it won't get used as a baseball!" Oh... Hinata making a cake... the fact that almost nobody bought any of the one's she brought to the bake sale tells an awful lot about how they look.
What Hinata lacks in taste she makes up in spirit. And frankly, Batsu thinks that would be the biggest help to Roberto. Once he heard he was in the hospital, Batsu held back on the aggression... and more of the concern for his friend. Roberto usually recovered faster than this, and frankly, he was worried. He suspected that it wasn't just the fact he was beaten up... it was the fact he had his Burning Spirit broken.
And that was unacceptable.
"Hinata, I am sorry I didn't tell you once I found out." Batsu snaps, digging his hands in his pockets. "I was just so angry, I didn't think. If anyone can make Roberto feel better, it is you. Come on, we got to cheer up our friend... do we need to stop at your house to pick it up?" Batsu gives Hinata a look. A special look, the kind of look that can only happen between friends. Hinata should know it, and know it well.
Can I mooch dinner off you?
If there was one thing that Hinata had, it was definately spirit (and anyone who actually bothered to eat her cakes liked them just fine! Honest, not everyone's scared of them like Batsu). Some might suggest that it was her spirit that made it so it would never rain when she showed up for sporting events. It was certainly her spirit that helped the teams do better with her cheering them on.
With a bright, energetic and enthusiastic look on her face she says, "I'd want to bake him a new one, I can't just offer him one of the ones from the bake sale. Otherwise it's just leftovers instead of a present to show how much we care!" Of course spirit isn't the only thing making the world go around. "But... my mom says I'm not allowed to bring boys over when she and my dad aren't home yet."
Batsu shrugs his shoulders, his stomach rumbling a bit. While Mrs. and Mr. Wakaba tolerated Batsu well enough, the fact he was both a teenager and male left him at the whims of the elders. Normally, he wouldn't care about the rules, but... it was Hinata. "Well, if you know the way to the hospital, we can meet up there." Batsu starts, sniffing the air a bit. "It will probably be a while before I can be allowed to see him. Otherwise, I can wait outside your house."
Batsu glanced over at Hinata, and grins. Truly, her energy and warmth was a big help in calming him down, and helping him think clearly. He was almost forgetting about the whole 'beat up Ichiro' thing, and thinking more of 'helping good friend Roberto.' Kyosuke would just help interrogate him, but Hinata... Hinata had real kindness in her heart.
The best of Taiyo Spirit.
Once again, the Sunshine Girl shines into the heart of darkness that tries to form in one of her fellow students and claims victory by filling it with light! Take that, darkness!
Hinata has clearly been spurred on by the idea of cheering up one of her classmates (although it might be nice if it wasn't always Roberto ending up in the hospital) and seems as excited at the prospect of making a cake as she is of eating a cake. "Unless they moved the hospital, then I know just where it is! And I've still got plenty of cake ingredients from the bake sale, so it shouldn't take that long to whip up a cake!"
Batsu gives Hinata an intense thumbs up, and a big, toothy grin. "Great, Hinata. Then lets split. I am going to the hospital, and give Roberto a heads up. You bake that cake, and I will meet you there. And remember." Batsu sternly points at Hinata.
"Don't experiment with your cooking. Just follow the book, okay?"
With that, Batsu begins to walk off backwards, still pointing that stern finger. He remembered the one time she decided Mayo was an acceptable replacement for Butter. A moment that still burns the pits of his nethers.
Hey, it's not her fault! She ran out and it... sort of looked the same. She only made that mistake once! After learning that lesson, her main issue has been with presenation... and she's sure to manage to fix that someday, right?
"You don't need to remind me all the time, everything is going to be just fine!" Hinata calls back as she starts to turn around. In a flash all that speed from her earlier chasing down Batsu has moved on to her efforts to blast home as quickly as possible! That sort of enthusiasm, unfortunately, suggests that she might be moving a bit fast through the baking of the cake...
Batsu makes a mental note to avoid tasting Roberto's cake. And to make sure Roberto survives it. Batsu barely has time to give Hinata a thumbs up before she disappears. Man, she was fast. Hinata's imagination, while a prime factor of her spirit, could sometimes be very dangerous.
Still, at least the thought counts.
Batsu turns around, walking calmly towards the hospital. His rage was gone. His temper was even. Overall, he was relaxed. Happy. A smile over his face, he marched on. Not to get revenge, no.
But to help a friend.
Log created on 20:17:12 06/17/2009 by Hinata, and last modified on 20:45:31 06/21/2009.