Description: Making her way to Sunshine City, Miu runs across an old friend; Mr. Howard Rust, whose fighting star has risen as her own has fallen! Airports are always an interesting place to meet others. That point between arrival and departure, where one exists in a nexus state of being. The future is discussed, and the pair part to go their separate ways. Surely, things will run smoothly for them from here on out, right?
It's really big news for the Kyokugen Dojo for one of their own to make it to the Neo Development Project finals! Yuri Sakazaki's got a fair shot at taking home the entire title, and for this, a lot of the members of the dojo have all decided to take the trip to the United States.
Unsurprisingly, it's a bit rainy here in Seattle, the gray skies trickling out a very light shower and kind of giving an odd sense of foreboding despite the largely cheery and happy mood of most of the Kyokugen crowd that's made the trip. Howard in particular is especially happy he managed to get his passport back in Nepal - he wouldn't want to miss what was about to transpire.
Marco mumbles something in Rust's ear about something or another before he wanders off, met with a nod of some sort of understanding as he finds himself sitting down with some luggage and a bottle of some extremely overpriced airline soft drink or what have you (Yuri totally bought up all the bottled water, there's a gambling pool as to how much of it she'll drink in her big match). It's kind of funny to think that the last time he was here, he was on business with his previous job. Here, well...
Now he gets to sit and wait to make sure everyone's all got their things together as he thinks, hey, this might be a great outing for once. Finally get to leave behind some of the sadness, the horror, just... enjoy life, watch a youngster finally achieve their dreams (while they're still young), happy thoughts like that.
Miu likes the rain. She isn't a big fan of America, but the rain? That's something she can appreciate. When she had stepped off the plane, it had been the perfect weather for what she felt she was walking into. Light struggling to break through the darkness, cold drizzle raining from above to wash away her doubts. Before this is all over, something tells her that she is going to have to fight again. Not just compete, but actually fight, for her life, for the lives of others. It has cast something of a pall over the entire outing. And of course, she'd taken a circumspect route; if she can arrive in Sunshine without her classmates knowing how... it will only add to her mystique.
The young woman has a small suitcase with her, packed with her various supplies, and as she wanders around the airport... it is always so interesting to see people in this state of 'between' ... she happens to spot, a familiar face.
"Mr. Howard." Miu says, from behind the older man. The young goth girl simply seemed to, appear. It is a little unnerving at the best of times. "No. Mr. Rust. Sorry." She clears her throat, and then bows, at the waist. "It is good to see you. I hope you are well?" She eyes the others around him in turn, but, they seem mostly jovial. Even though the rain is dampening the spirits of everyone else caught in this limbo.
No one is a fan of America... 's airport security. This is pretty much a global fact now, even among Americans themselves.
Miu's voice carries oddly to the older man's ears. He sits up a little when he first hears it. It's like, 'am I being talked to and/or do I know this voice?' When he actually turns his head over his shoulder to see her bowing, it becomes a lot clearer to him as to who it is that's addressing him.
Of all the places, in the same airport...
"Ah... hey." He raises up a hand as he pushes himself up from his seat. His elbow is about as crackly as it's ever been. To say nothing about that... /thing/ that adorns his head now! Of course, now there's that awkward pause as he tries to remember her name. Kuro... something, god damn it, her name used to be everywhere in the fighting circuit, how could he forget it so easily?
"Ms. Kuroaki?" He snaps his fingers. "No, no.. 's Kurosaki. I, uh, well... it's been really... happening, 'bout the, the best way I could put it." If he had to sum up 'got stuck in war for a month, spent plenty of time after chasing down lost passport, friend committing suicide, another friend nearly going nuts, yet another friend coming close to meeting her dreams,' that's about the best way he could put it. He decides to roll his shoulder a bit while he's up there. It's been giving him a hell of a kink this entire trip.
"How 'bout you? Fancy, uh, seein' you here... same airport." What're the odds?
"Fate works in mysterious ways."
Miu seems unfazed by the fact that Rust doesn't remember her name. She had stumbled over his name herself, after all. She'd actually come to like the fact that her name isn't on everyone's lips any more. She still gets more attention than she'd like, but it isn't all pervasive. She gives a slight nod of her head. "Happening." Isn't that the way things always wind up being?
"I am going to Sunshine City." She says, explaining her presence, somewhat. Airport security always pays closer attention to fighters, which is hilarious of course. As though she needed anything but herself if she ever decided that she wanted to cause problems on a plane.
"I have been working towards my exams. I have decided that I will become a doctor." She lets that hang for a moment. It, isn't a question with her; it isn't that she wants to become a doctor, that she is going to try to reach that goal. It is a statement of fact. She is going to do it. It is what shall be. But of course...
"First, I need to stop gangs from burning my school down. And for that..." She waves her hand vaguely around the airport. An air of mild irritation in her bearing. It isn't as though she likes this, that she wants to be here. But, fate has conspired to place this path in front of her. To drag her from her studies to deal with some evil half the world away.
Howard's quiet at the mention of going to Sunshine City. Sure, he saw a big tourism advertisement push for it through Southtown and it probably shouldn't be a surprise to be talking to someone who intends to go there. He scratches at the back of his head as she mentions exams, to be a doctor.
As he thinks to start speaking to say 'hey, good on you, hope your exams go well' she drops the bomb about gangs burning schools down. Wait, what? His head tilts a bit at this.
"Seriously, they're... they're makin' organized attacks on schools again?" Howard is a survivor of the Southtown Invasion - any news like that is going to be really worrying to him, whether or not he's no longer employed at one! It's a worrying thought for just about anyone to hear about kids not being safe in schools, regardless of whether or not they're capable of defending themselves from such threats (or /being/ the threat themselves, as the case sometimes is).
"Well... next time I'm back in Southtown, I'll keep an eye out for, y'know, those types." Southtown is still a rough place to live no matter how you slice it - though he probably is missing the inferred context as to why she's even going to Sunshine City, humorously enough.
"'s funny you'd mention Sunshine, 'cause... most of us at the Kyokugen Dojo, we're here 'cause one of our own's in the Neo Dev finals... Yuri Sakazaki." Peppy, determined, and a little airheaded, probably the sort of person that'd get on Miu's nerves quick from the looks of things.
"We were gonna go do a display at Sunshine after the whole thing, too," he adds as he clears his throat. He can't escape things jumping down his lungs! All the particles of dust and everything! He pats his chest a few times loudly. "'scuse me, sorry. Had a, had a bad cough most the trip."
Miu shakes her head, to try and allay Rust's fears. "No. Not yet, anyway." She pauses for a moment, and looks to the side, at the other people around. Yuri Sakazaki. Truth be told, Miu has done her best to avoid dealing with the Neo Development Project, or the Neo League, since her victory. Although she is on the roster for the League, she no longer felt like she had anything to gain from those fighting circuits. She had heard of her, though. Young women fighters are always popular at school... and she remembers something about bottled water.
For a moment, Miu's eye twitches.
"I am glad that your dojo is doing well." Which is true. Not that Yuri is doing well, but she had no problem with wishing success on the dojo! That's something that she owes the man, after the way she was so rude to him before.
"Zaki has started to stir up a hornet's nest to ... make the world a better place." A noble goal, but Miu says it in the same vaguely disinterested tone she uses for practically everything else. She doesn't believe that this is going to end well, but... there are times when what you believe has to take a back seat to what must be done. "It is only a matter of time before they drag it back to Seijyun, unless we finish it quickly." It is... a cold term. To finish it.
"The young woman shrugs her shoulders. Her arms relaxing back by her sides. "If you would like to keep an eye out, though, that would be... good. Perhaps I will come to see your demonstration, if there is time."
After all, it isn't as though she has actually met Yuri before. It is possible that she is more bearable in person. And Kyokugen Karate had proven to be a very capable martial art. It would be nice to have something to look forward to before going back to Southtown. Otherwise it is just going to be a few weeks of stress, and then back to her studies.
"Thanks," Howard adds to Miu's generous statement. Truth be told, they're still ironing out some problems with their main lumber supplier and the high dropout rate does put a damper on tuition fees. Even with these difficulties, one of them's in the running for a championship! It's a cause for celebration no matter the circumstances.
The name 'Zaki' seems to put a brief freeze on him, as though he knows on an instinctual level as to who that is. Truth is, anyone who's ever been a schoolteacher in Southtown would - and should - know those two dangerous syllables. Zaki, feared delinquent boss of Seijyun High, of a gang of over five thousand dangerous young women whose authority of Southtown's student delinquents may only really be challenged by Daigo Kazama himself when it comes to it. (It sends chills down the spine of just about anyone raised in a male-dominated society, really.)
"I, uh... I see." He's back to scratching his head. IT's a vague descriptor about making 'the world a better place,' and on some level he kind of gets that she's maybe not a hundred percent sure what that means either. The 'dragging back to Seijyun' comment is ultimately very worrying if it means having gangs drop by and burn down schools and... hoo boy. He nods at the mention of keeping an eye out, because after being told that he sure as hell will!
"Yeah, 'd be happy for you to just, c'mon by." He's not exactly sure when or where in the city. "Actually, uh, lost my cellphone some time back," he's not going to admit it shattered to a million pieces inexplicably when he dropped it at the end of the war as he digs through one of his pockets with his left hand, "if you want, uh, we could exchange numbers... call you when I know when 'n where."
"We'll see." Miu says, with a nod. Her hand moves to the pocket of her skirt, and she produces a dark black smartphone, with a dangling raven. "I'm not sure where the end point of this is. If things end with Abobo, fine..." If they don't, then Miu is going to have to confront Zaki. She has been turning it over and over in her mind, trying to figure what her angle would be. The girl just has, a presence about her. A force. Miu is a dark young woman, but she is not actually fearless. The Five Thousand Strong Women's Team is held together largely by her personality. It is not a role that she wants to have to fill, but if she has to...
"The future is a frightening thing, Mr. Rust." She murmurs, at last. Not having realized quite how long she'd allowed the silence to linger. There's so much she has to worry about, and so little that she is certain of. It is a position that she never wanted to find herself in.
"When I was in Sunshine the first time, with Alma, I thought I felt..."
And then she sighs, and shakes her head. "Anyway. Your number."
That's the smoothest change of conversation she's had in ages. Lurching around like a drunk driver. And it ends with asking for Rust's number, at, about the same time that she finally locks eyes with his toupee.
Miu shudders.
Compare this to one Mr. Rust, whose phones always seem too small for his hands and, somehow, hilariously out of date despite being newly purchased. Maybe there's a thrift store for cellphones somewhere he's been doing business with?
"Well, I gotta say," Howard says as he struggles to get his thing to flip open so he can get her number down. The sad thing is they don't even make phones a size that would fit his hands any more, and so he is but a victim in the continued miniaturization of technology, "'s good that, that you know what you want. You... you wouldn't believe, how many kids I talked to... so, so few of 'em really think 'bout college, how hard it is to, to even /get/ in 'em over there."
It's a kind of bitter pill to swallow when he knows a lot of them are going to be met with disappointment about their fighting careers if the bubble ever bursts - he himself is no stranger to this, given the events of his own relative youth back in the day. Back when he was still a schoolteacher he tried to make it clear that they had to get serious with their studies. It's really reassuring, on some level, to see a student - a relatively famous one! - actually still take their studies so seriously!
"I, I don't think the future's gonna be... too scary for you. Anyway, uh, my number--" he finishes up as he starts to recite his number.
His voice is drowned out by the sudden sound of loud arguing down the hall between people about a bear being put through customs. /A bear./ A few moments later, the arguing and noise die down.
"--'s the last one. I'm... gonna need yours again, too."
Miu's lips press together and... then something happens which, happens so rarely it is a genuinely noteworthy occurance.
The Crow Girl of Seijyun High... smiles.
She's going to go and try to destroy the operations of a powerful drug dealer, possibly murder him. She's the target of crazed cultists, and her brother clings to life by a bare thread. On top of all of that, she now knows for certain that Zaki sees her as a threat; as an equal on some level, and that she is probably going to need to confront her before everything is done. Oh, and the mysterious Mukai has taken a direct interest in her, too.
And Rust doesn't think she has anything to worry about; that her life will not be too scary.
It is a pity that Miu doesn't smile very often. Even when it is a smile with a sad edge, implying that she doesn't believe Rust is correct... she does look very pretty. Far prettier than she does when she just glumly stares at people, as is her default state.
"I am always thinking about the future." She says at last. And she completely ignores the craziness going on behind her; just like always. Madness happens around her, but she rarely pays attention to it.
"... Incidentally, did you get dressed in a hurry today?"
And this, as she punches in the number for Rust's phone; always easiest to call rather than read it out and risk hilarious misunderstanding.
Even after being caught in the middle of what amounted to a giant turf war between extremely powerful and dangerous shadow organizations, put through the wringer by probably the purest elemental expression of fire (through a filter of menace and evil), and an entire warzone as one of the big resistance figures against Vega's conquests, it's kind of a wonder that this man still attempts to think in terms of the mundane in a lot of ways. Day in, day out, work, study, train. Maybe he just clings to what normalcy he can as a means of keeping sane after all's said and done.
"Me?" He blinks once at the question. "Uh... no... moreso than usual, ah," this is awkward. Even moreso is how a man - even with the gloves on like he does - is willing to even /touch/ that... thing on his head. That dark purple mass of disgusting, atrocious, fine stringy mass that desperately wants to be considered hair, that perhaps it clings to his scalp because it has found the only man desperate or ignorant enough to believe in the complete lie of its continued existence.
His head turns as the arguing grows louder and louder yet. His shoulders immediately slump, as if to say 'oh son of a bitch this is going to involve me.' He already gets enough hell every time he comes to America with Ol' Rusty. This was going to be a good outing, not...
"What were you asking me, again, sorry, just," he starts to grumble, taking his phone back whenever she's done putting the number in, "I, I got a feeling I'm 'bout to be... dragged into something," he points a look back over to the source of the arguing and noisy hijinx. He can never escape the hassles of the mundane everyday existence when it is challenged by people so strong that they seem to develop a severe disconnect with it.
Miu's smile flits away as swiftly and suddenly as it had arrived. The young woman slides her phone back into her bag, and considers Rust for a few moments longer. That hair... it is quite distracting. She's certain he didn't have it when she last saw him. Perhaps he had and she had simply blotted it out of her mind. Who can say? It is one of the great mysteries of life.
"Well. We'll probably see each other again, in Southtown. I will try and make sure I can see this demonstration. And I will hope..." Eyetwitch, "Yuri does well in the tournament." Is it a tournament? A league? She's not sure. "I am surprised you aren't taking part in this, Dragon's Tournament that everyone is talking about, but, perhaps it is for the best..."
Miu isn't like Rose. She can't see into the future. But she is a perceptive young woman, and she has seen enough to know that these things, inexorably, tend to become linked and tangled. Zaki makes her waves, and the waves crush into others, and it all comes together in a storm.
"If you need to deal with that... bear ... problem, I, ah, will leave you to it. I should probably get another book of puzzles before the flight."
"Yeah," Howard attempts to effect cheer in his voice, but the looming spectre of seeing just about everyone with Kyokugen needing to come in for A Talk (based on some of the other milling students being approached) kind of puts a damper on it somewhat. This... this'll blow over after a good hour or two, maybe. Surely. Probably. Hopefully.
Turning his head away from the spectacle as to make proper eye contact and at least try and keep a proper, composed face about it all given this is catching up with someone he hasn't seen in some time, he nods his head. "Yeah, I, I considered it, but... been waitin' to hear about, uh, about if I can get in on the Neo Dev thing, next season."
It's unlikely, given both his age and his involvement in the war, but he's probably not too deluded in thinking he might qualify. After all, Zach has a fairly storied fighting career and Mr. Jones was an established martial arts movie star. The cutoff line does not appear terribly clear to him, let alone where he actually sits in regards to it.
"I-I'm sorry to cut us off short," he speaks as she graciously allows him to deal with the... bear... problem. The ellipses is really integral to describing what this whole issue amounts to, bowing his head once towards her out of politeness. It's not as deep as it probably should be, as he clumsily fumbles the phone back into one of his pockets. "Nice to, to see you again, ah... good luck with your, your studies, too. Sure you'll get in a good colleg--"
"Excuse me," says a frowning man in security wear over Howard's shoulder, "could you come with us?"
Howard visibly grimaces, raising a hand up in a wave in Miu's direction.
Miu nods solemnly at the notion of the Neo Development Project. "If you need any help in any way." She says, with a cryptic note that might just do her mentor proud. "I still owe you for the shrine." From her position, she can see the oncoming drama before it hits, and she makes sure that she has as much time as is needed to bow properly to Rust. It is, after all, the proper decorum.
When she straightens, she waves, because that is how they do it in America, too. That disgustingly informal nation that they are! Hmph! Though she keeps that unfortunate bad taste hidden. "Good day Mr. Rust."
She doesn't meet the eye of security, instead, she turns neatly on her heel, takes her bag, and heads towards the gift shop. She's only got a short flight to get to Sunshine, but if she gets sat next to a baby (or a bear) she is going to need all the distractions that she can get.
Log created on 10:40:26 06/05/2012 by Miu, and last modified on 13:25:44 06/05/2012.