My very own knives! [P]

Ashe was incredibly nervous at the moment. She held her money close to her body as she made her way through the dingy town Shoku and her had been staying in recently. Like most of the area's she had been staying in, she didn't trust anyone. Last time she thought to trust someone she got food poisoning and almost died! Well, it felt like she was going to die, but thankfully she had Shoku to help her get back to full health! She didn't really remember much about that time, bu- oh there she goes again. She furrowed her brow as she looked around the marketplace. She had let her mind wander again, and now she forgot what she was heard to do.

She paused and thought for a moment, before pulling out a notepad from her pocket. It read "Get gear." she smiled and began to remember where she was supposed to go. As she traveled she kept an eye out for the place she was supposed to go to. There! She ran to the counter and looked over the counter at a middle-aged man. He seemed to be balding and was missing an eye. He wore seemingly scraps of clothes, old torn and dirty from years of repeated use and most likely not washing. Would she end up like him!? She hoped not.

"Hello!" She began, letting out her more happy tone, though it was forced out to say the least. "I was told that you sell Ninja gear." The man turned to her and grunted, before putting two bags in front of her from seemingly nowhere. She shuddered as he did this, creeped out a little bit but also curious as to where he kept it. Was he a Magician? Probably not, more likely a nin- "were you even listening, Brat!?" She jumped a little and focused more on the frightening man "S-Sorry!" The man repeated the price and she quickly paid and ran. It took up pretty much all of her money, but she did it! She bought sketchy equipment!

As she turned the corner and went more to a walk, she examined the contents; For the most part, it seemed functional to her rookie eyes, though most of it was slightly rusted. She scraped at the rust a bit and saw it wasn't that bad. She grinned; maybe her enemies will catch a disease if she hit them with it! She giggled to herself as she made her way through town, trying to find her friend.  

WC: 525
TWC: 525

As Ashe made her way across town, she heard some screaming from an alley. The collective residents seemed to avoid the specific alley, though some looked in though kept their distance. Normally she would ignore it and keep walking, wanting to see if she could find her friend but in this case, she could tell she had already found her. She sighed as she watched a couple of beat down, greasy men ran out of the alleyway cut up. She smiled a little to herself, seeing how bad the creeps got cut up by her bestie that bad for trying to rob her. The only person who got to get things from Shoku was her!

However as she approached the alleyway to meet up with her friend, she saw what kind of shape she was in. She made a dash towards her friend, her eyes wide and exclaiming "Are you ok!? What the hell happened!" She began to look over her friend's wounds a bit more critically. She wasn't a doctor by any stretch, but she was sure she could tell if anything SERIOUS had happened to her. "I didn't see any of it, but I wish I did! I would have jumped in to help, and stab those SONS OF-" She caught herself after a moment, and stood up straight. She looked at her friends cheek and poked it, saying "I swear to god one of these days you're going to be injured worse then what you can deal with, and there aren't many doctors that would help us, so be careful ok?" she followed this by hugger her friend carefully, as to not agitate the wounds.

Shortly after she broke said hug, she smiled "Right! I forgot I got something cool!" She quickly grabbed one of the satchels's on her hip and opened it revealing numerous knives and kunai. "I got these just today! And since I was never the best in the academy, plus the fact that I will need to defend myself when you're not around, would you be able to help me learn how to use these?"


WC: 352
TWC: 877

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Shoku tried to reassure Ashe, wincing ever so slightly as her cheek was poked, agitating her bruise. This place, the world outside the village walls, it was harsh. A place where someone like her, who refused to throw away her pride and lower her head. Maybe she wouldn't have died just yet if she were doing all of this alone. But she didn't know how she could stay motivated to keep going if Ashe hadn't come with her. Why she chose to do so, she didn't know, but she didn't quite feel like asking. Maybe she never would. She didn't quite feel like looking the gift horse in the mouth. "I just - I had a run in the other day, some dude took my pouch. Turns out he had friends and told them about me, and tried to give me some shakedown routine," She explained.

As she was brought into a hug, the Uchiha couldn't help but smile as she drew her hands out of her coat pockets to hug Ashe as well, letting go of her friend once she would herself."I promise I'll try to stay out of trouble as best I can,". She didn't know if she could very well keep that promise. A lot of people around these parts were apparently able to smell pride, pride that the girl didn't quite feel like dropping just to stay safe. What happened to her didn't very well matter, it was up to fate. But she'd do what she could to keep Ashe safe and happy.

As her friend spoke up about something cool that she had, Shoku gave her a curious look, though would stay silent and wait for the girl to show her the pouch of knives and kunai."Oh good, you managed to get some!". Thankfully, it didn't seem like Ashe had to go through too much trouble to get her gear. Now if the two of them could just find some line of work. Hell, something along the lines of a courier would be nice. Anything that wasn't them pissing people off for the moment would do just fine.

"Uh, I could probably show you a little bit about using knives," Shoku replied, crossing her arms over her chest and cocking her hips to one side as she did so. "Can't promise you'll learn too much, but as long as you're not stabbing yourself, we should be good."

WC: 405
Total WC:740

When Ashe was told she had a run in the day before, Ashe's eyes went wide. Twice in two days!? that's crazy! "Wait why didn't you tell me!? Seriously, you should have told me! We should start moving in groups if the town is that dangerous." She exclaimed, looking into her best friends eyes with her cheeks puffed out in a huff. "The two of us together could totally take on three of them! Easy peasy, no questions asked!" Ashe's huff had transitioned into a smile, one that was wide and excentuated her slight dimple smile. At hearing her friend trying to not get in trouble, the smile faded into a more stern look "Oh no! Don't try! Do! Trying is a start I guess, but I haven't been mugged yet!"

When Shoku saw her gear she smirked a bit. She shrugged a bit, looking cutely smug with a slight shrug of her shoulders "It wasn't even that hard to get~" Of course it wasn't that hard to get when she ran away scarred the moment she got it. She didn't mention that though, of course. She didn't want to look weak in front of her friend, even if she was physically and(most likely) emotionally weaker. I mean, she did cry at her first kill, but who didn't? Right? Yeah!

Ashe had zoned out a bit, her eyes having gone into a thousand yard stare, clearly not fully being there. Thoughts had run through her head. Her eyes sharpened again as she heard her friend agreeing to teach her. "Yay~ Thank you~" though when she mentioned not being able to learn to much she huffed up "What are you talking about! You'll be like, the best teacher ever! Besides, it's better to have you teach me then to actually try and teach myself, right? That could either cause my gear to be damaged or me to get hurt bad, maybe both and worse!"

As the thoughts of knives came more and more into her head, she thought back to that fateful night; was it his knife that had gotten him killed or had she taken one of Shoku's? Shoku's. She had grabbed one of her knives and he ran into it. No stabbing on her end!... or had their been? She had played the scene out in her head hundreds of times over the course of... how long had it been again? It had felt like forever now. Either way she imagined herself stabbing him, mutilating the body in rage- but that was her imagination, right? She knew what she did was terrible, and she felt bad to but... her guilt... it had, dare she say, worn down. She didn't feel as bad as she had felt the day before, and now that she's thinking about it, had she felt as bad the day before as she had yesterday?

As these thoughts swirled in her head, her head had dropped ever so slightly, her thousand yard stair becoming blatent as she bore a hole into where Shoku's neck would meet her torso. Her jaw had gone a bit limp, but she still held out her gear. Her arms began to relax, before dropping the bag, the Kunai and shuriken falling and clattering with a loud steel noise onto the ground. Her eyes snapped aware, and she barely held back a scream. She blinked once, twice, three times before looking her friend in the eyes. "Where..." She looked around once more, before looking to the weapons on the ground. Right, she bought weapons! But what else was happening again?

WC: 598
TWC: 1475