Night of Remembrance [Isaribi | P]

The fuckers at the door had given Isaribi one of *those* looks as she entered, but she was used to it. Kinda one of those things people learned to live with. People like them had some way of sniffing out people like her, even though she looked the same as most anyone else in the village. Maybe it was the way she walked, or whatever accent they thought she had, or whatever. Hell, maybe it was her attire, though other than the headband tied around what was left of her left bicep, her jacket and casual wear wasn't out of the ordinary. It wasn't anything she gave enough of a shit about to change. They probably assumed that she was here to get up to some mischief (false), or that she was too poor to pay for what she was going to order (also falso) or that she had a criminal record (true, unfortunately), but criminals probably ate here every day. Just not the kind that had a record.

Come to think of it, just getting here in the first place had been a pain in the ass. The tram was down, so walking had been her next course of action, and Hoshi was not exactly what she would call a walking-friendly city. Oh, it certainly used to be, in the days of her childhood, but that time was long gone by now. The advent of shinobi forces and a swelling population had caused the bigwigs in the council to take the lazy way out, rebuilding sections of the city to be more accommodating to vehicles. This made it too difficult to get around; stretches that would normally take a few minutes to traverse could now take up to thirty minutes to walk. Little conveniences they were indeed, but even small things like that could add up. Now, she could count a city that she barely recognized as one of the many factors contributing to her general mood. Surely, other people felt the same way, right?

Isaribi had expected the main area of the restaurant to be more packed than this, but was pleasantly surprised by the lack of people here. To be honest, she had been more motivated to try this place out by curiosity than anything else. She'd never been able to eat at places like this, unless you counted snagging thrown-out leftovers in the dead of night. Now that she had finally gotten out and had something of a job, she could afford to try this place, just this once. Then it was back to rice and dried beef for her.

She spotted a guy that looked like he'd been chugging soy with every meal for a decade. Her assessment ended there, however. Judging by the headband, he was also a shinobi, which meant that if he recognized her from whatever bullshit files they kept in the archives, he'd make the same assumptions the security assholes at the door had. Better to pre-empt that.

Isaribi made her way over to the table and put her hand down on an empty seat.

"This taken?"  

[WC 516]

As the man gave his permission, Isaribi felt a wave of irritation and relief at the same time. Relief at being able to sit down, and irritation at the guy. He spoke like some kind of over-educated, prissy nu-male. Was he some kind of theater student fruit? She wasn't surprised that there were nutjobs like this in the force. After all, if they took convicts like her, why not the betas of the world? Sure, he might look like a perpetual bottom, but at least he had something in common with her. Everyone else looked like some crooked aristocrat or equally suspicious businessman. It was the type of person who tended to eat in fancy, clean places like this.

She would proceed to follow the man's instructions and make herself comfortable, draping her jacket across the back of the chair and having a seat, resisting the habitual urge to turn the chair backwards. She sat down heavily and looked at the guy across from her.

"Isaribi." She said, not giving a fuck for formalities. "And you didn't see shit." Little ninjas with big mouths never failed to cause trouble, in her experience. "I only wear this because I have to." If the less informed recognized her face in public and didn't see an armband, they'd be trying to kill her for sure, and that was an inconvenience she was disinclined to afford.

What irritated her more, though, was that look he had on. Who the hell smiled in someone's face like that? Now, that was that shit she didn't like. The writers of old would probably say some bullshit about self-assurance and the like, but to Isaribi, smiling at someone like that was just something you didn't do. For a few seconds, she considered speaking her mind and telling him to wipe that shit off his face, but decided that it wasn't a good idea right now.

Giving the man a skeptical glower, she started paging through the menu in the hopes that a waiter would come around.

[WC 336]

Was he being melodramatic and wordy on purpose? Isaribi had met men like this before. The bloviating guys who loooooved to hear the sound of their own voices. That's right, Isaribi was thinking of pimps. She raised an eyebrow at the fellow as he talked. Well, he certainly didn't dress like a pimp, and he didn't sound like he was trying to sell her a product (yet). As he continued, her inquisitive expression flattened into a level stare. Maybe he was just trying to spoil a perfectly good evening. In that moment, she resolved to *not* let that be tonight's outcome.

It was in this instant that she felt that rare kind of sensation that she only got when talking to people like this. A sensation like she was being squeezed out the top of her own body while being riddled with bullets. To put it more simply, listening to his limp-dick attempts at nettling her was pure cringe. How she dealt with it, however, was her own problem. Sullenly, she cast her gaze around for a waiter, not giving a shit if her counterpart at the table thought it was rude. In the absence of the fucking restaurant staff, she turned back to him instead, sighing.

"Listen, you're askin' a whole lot of questions. What are you, some kinda rat?" She would have asked him if he was a cop, but strictly speaking, they both kinda were. The thought made her more uncomfortable than it should have, and she couldn't quite put her finger on why. Sure, it could have something to do with the fact that it put her on the same team as Mr. Twelve Years A Cuck, here, but that wasn't actually that important to her. Bah! She was sure that if she had better vocabulary, she could give a better voice to her feelings. Well, at least she didn't end her sentences with "eh". He certainly wasn't doing himself any favors there.

She picked out an item on the menu. In restaurants like these, the menus were practically incomprehensible, much like the signs on the doors, but she could tell more or less what was up by looking at the pictures. That, there, looked like a good plate of fried rice with an assortment of fancy-looking additions. It was foreign enough to interest her while being familiar enough to make her want to eat it in the first place.

[WC 404]

This guy (Enishi, apparently??) was annoying, at first, but she figured that he at had some kind of angle. Up until this point, she thought that, just maybe, he was trying to get some start at a decent conversation. Now, though? Now it was just kind of boring. He was reminding her less and less of the talkative pimps every second, and more of a junkie, perhaps. Come to think of it, did shinobi have a tendency to buy from the dealers in her neighborhood? It was something she really had to think about. Yeah, maybe once or twice, and those were the only cases that she'd heard of. Hell, for all she knew, this guy really could be a fucking junkie.

Come to think of it, some of the dealers around the area had started to a get a little too problematic for her liking. Sure, she could just take them out herself (and had been considering doing so for some time), meeting this spastic asshat sure had her thinkin' about a plan. Why sure, she could just get rid of two birds with one stone at once. Get the dealers behind bars, if Enishi wasn't too corrupt, and get this guy the shit he needed to get through the day. He was the kind of guy to smile in your face nonstop, which she didn't like, but she wasn't about to throw a fit over it. Isaribi waited for him to finish talking.

"Um, listen", she began, taking a sincere but slightly lower tone, "you like, need a fix really badly or something? I know a couple o' guys, if you know what I'm saying."

One of her many cousins was always in the habit of saying that the right kind of drug could burn the beta right out of the male, and she figured that maybe he felt some kinda way about being the way he was. Would explain why he was so... aggressive? No, that wasn't the right word, but it was close enough for her. Isaribi wasn't the kind of dumbass who stressed out over diction. Language was just words to her.

More to the point, Enishi reminded her of the skinny fucker who hung out behind the corner store sometimes. He'd passed away of an overdose at some point while she was in prison, but she remembered how constantly upset and bewildered he was at random people. When he got his fix, though, he was almost normal. He could talk with folks just like anyone else. He told her that the drugs made him "a good person, again". It was in pursuit of that, maybe, that he'd spiraled down the path to an early grave.

Oh well. At least he had had a decent bulk before the end, and a full beard, unlike this frog sitting in front of her.

[WC 476]

"Bleh, you're truly no fun," the former Chuunin was the furthest from pleased. Did this woman not know how to take a damn joke, or take a barrage of extended quips for that matter? It was these types of people that really got on Enishi's nerves - either taking everything anally seriously or not wanting to follow common social norms and accept a damn stunt. Well, she got him good he had to admit; he hoped that she got enough pleasure calling him a druggie the same way that he hoped to make her armless by the end of the night. Hell, the Sage forgot why he was even acting this way in the first place; was it because she was a woman so he instinctively thought that acting preppy and high class was the "gentlemanly" thing to do? Was he just bored? Either way, he could feel Suguru in the afterlife yelling at his retardation...which he couldn't really contest. His rough observation arrived in his natural tone with an irritated sigh, devoid of any form of "soy" as some would call it. It still felt rather odd to show his "true" personality to others, but he made a promise to her - to walk without any more masks. "I'm at a loss whether you're making fun of me, or you seriously think I want drugs from you. Anyway, it seems like you've been in some deep shit if you're automatically suggesting that, so sorry I guess? But no thanks, Becky." A slightly amused expression arose from his face from that final word. 

"You're probably asking 'why the fuck is this orange-haired beta binky boy talking to me so much?' I get that a lot. Well to be honest, I wanted to scout out who's recently joined our military for the Nova Corps and personal reasons." He took a risk in saying the Nova Corps which identified his position, but seeing as though he was nationally inducted as part of the highly esteemed organization - there was no reason to hold back anymore. "Our village is growing complacent, there's still a lot of threats that need to be eliminated in the near future. For that reason, I want to ensure that everyone is of suitable caliber to defend Hoshigakure. That is why I'm talking to you. I don't think I'm wrong in believing that it's fate that we're meeting each other." He paused for a moment, internally taking a deep breath since he was now disclosing information about himself. "I am Enishi Kurosawa, an imperial Nova Corps serviceman. If you're confused, we are the 'status equivalent' of the Queensguard; if you're still confused, then know that we are essentially the ANBU of Hoshigakure. Before you say it, no it's not a drug syndicate." This was a lot to take in, and judging by how this woman is, she would be skeptical of him. "I sense potential in you, Isaribi. Your chakra is far too high for just some run-of-the-mill NPC. Do you want me to hook you up with people so you can get juiced out? Do you need some people to train with? I got you for real for real. It's the least I can do for a fellow comrade. Connections ya feel me?" A neutral expression appeared on Enishi, his ice blue eyes staring straight at the woman. 

...We also need to get that arm fixed too.


WC: 567
TWC: 2422

At last, it seemed that the barrage of bullshit was finally coming to a close. While the guy was wrapping up his insipid comments, Isaribi went ahead took a sip from the glass of water that a waiter had set down on the table for her. She wasn't the kind of person who could taste minute differences in flavor, but she could have sworn this shit tasted more clear than the stuff that came out of the tap back in her part of town. It made her wonder what the difference was, exactly, and if there was something suspicious about the water she'd been drinking for most of her life.

She gave Enishi a skeptical look when he used the term "Becky". Surely, he knew that in this specific context, given her mundane appearance and lost extremities that it was a compliment, right? Whatever. It was her word, and she took quiet satisfaction at the man's social flailing. He thought he was so fucking slick, too. She should have been insulted by the implication that she was the one slinging the good shit, but at that moment she just couldn't be bothered to give a damn. This guy spewed so much crap from his mouth that the barbs didn't mean much.

This whole dealio about this secret paramilitary group didn't seem like a scam. If it was a conventional cop or queensguard talking to her, she'd have just stood up and got the fuck out of there as quickly as she could. However, this was a shinobi, and they tended to be pretty deadly serious. What he was saying kind of made sense, too. Every village had one of those black ops underground groups, and this was apparently the one for Hoshi. She didn't know much else, though, and if Enishi knew her background (he probably did), he'd know how wide her gap in knowledge was.

However, if that was the case, then why feel the need to check her chakra signature? None of this shit made any sense. This encounter stank, and she wanted out. That being said, it wasn't like she could just stand up and walk out on someone of this caliber. Never piss off an expert, like they said. So instead of leaving, or firing back with some kind of retort, she just gave him a tired look, which at that point in time was a pretty genuine reflection of how she felt.

"Uh, listen. I don't think you want someone like me, you know what I'm sayin'?" He probably knew where she'd gotten her training in chakra from, but she wasn't about to give him more information to chew on. The Jaws had been pretty harsh about it, and even in the present day, she found it difficult to get out of the mindset that they'd pressed her into. Isaribi was not particularly eager to get back into another tightly knit group of killers, but she wouldn't be surprised if fate pushed her in that direction. That seemed to be her life now, just little loops of misery again and again.

The woman resisted the urge to activate her sharingan and just try to get a read off of this smirking, sneering squeaker. Then again, maybe she shouldn't ask questions about people that she didn't really want to know the answers to. Did the really want to find out how much of a dumbass this guy was? No, not really.

[WC 575]