Maybe Like A Group Effort [IO, NK]

Spoiler:

https://www.narutoroleplaygame.com/t53701-dark-envoy

Isaribi returned to the apartment building, only to be faced with a colored piece of paper that had been taped to her door. Her bleary eyes gazed over it, barely understanding the words and numbers and whatnot. All this was too much for her. Her eyes glanced down at what few possessions she had, sitting outside the door and wrapped in plastic. Ah. Well, it all made sense now. She tried her key, and, as she suspected, it didn't fit. For a few seconds, she thought about just activating her ocular prowess and just moving through the door, or passing down to the landlord and beating the shit out of him, but he was one of hers. The people she had grown up with. Just because they had rejected her utterly didn't mean that she had to do the same. Peace might have become a lie for her, but she could still dream, right? It seemed to her like dreams were just about all she had left. Well, that and the skills and techniques she'd picked up over the years, but it seemed all so meaningless now. What the fuck was she supposed to use those skills for? She thought seriously about taking the genin exam, to do more than cursory work for the shinobi force, but what was the fucking point? Like she had thought about countless times before, work held no value for her.

She could, in theory, camp out in her dimension. That fucking dark as hell hell-hole of concrete blocks and a sun-less sky, but moving back and forth from there tired her out in ways that she could not describe. Also, she'd have to buy a generator to get set up there at all. No, living in Kamui was out of the question entirely. There was just no fucking way. She could take a lot, but there was that nameless stress on her eyes that made them fucking bleed, and that worried her. She couldn't go to a doctor for that shit, and she wasn't sure the medical ninja would take good care of her. Mistrust, broken bonds, burned bridges... it really felt like fate was closing a tight grip around her life. With disgust, she picked her shit up and moved out. She knew this area pretty well, and could think of a few spots to set up shop for a while. Surely, she wouldn't be staying out here on the street long term, right?

The woman began walking westward, into a slightly better part of town. Dark was falling, and she wanted to find a good spot quickly. She could defend herself a hundred times more easily than the average bum in Hoshigakure, but she still didn't want to take any risks, especially with her stuff. She had heard of (and seen) too many cases of some guy's shit getting swiped while he was asleep on the pavement, and was determined to learn from the mistakes of others.

It wasn't long before she found herself standing on a bridge, looking out over the railing at the city below. Lights were flicking on as the sun set, and traffic was slowly cooling off. She always hated bridges like these. Too many people in her life who had simply decided to *stop* ended up here at some point. Isaribi wasn't here for that, though. She intended to pitch her camp beneath the bridge, under its cover and out of the cold and exposure of the city's atmosphere.

There was a deep thrumming in the air. More than that, however, she could feel it in her other sense, the one that detected chakra. In the air in front of her, the air bulged, then turned purple as a rift burgeoned within it. She stepped back, activating her visual doujutsu as she tried to make sense of what the fuck was going on in front of her. Her eyes told her with no uncertainty that this was a tear in space-time, but not at all like the one that she made. Someone or something was trying to come through there. Shit! Fuck!? Where were the local ninja? You would think that someone would have detected this long before now.  

[WC 702]

Baliquis had slept in pretty well and woke up without being interrupted or someone going out of their way to do it. That was the abnormal part; Not being woken up. No one was there urging her to get up as she groaned like a disturbed bear and stirred to begrudging awakeness. No one was nudging her repeatedly to get up, and their nagging was not tainting her crisp air as she completed a morning yawn- the first of many. No one had done with for what was five, no, six days now? It seems that her peers might have had something to do with it, but as Bali sat upright in her futon on the floor, she could only think of one clear response: Good. Another thought soon followed it. ‘Alone.’ She couldn’t feel her little friends nearby or in the courtyard and stared numbly at the sheets under her hands.

How long was this meant to go on? Was there a clock that counted down how much time one was allowed to exist in such an awkward state of grief? Did she struggle to grasp the time as it slipped through her fingers, as solid, tangible, and natural as grains of sand emboldened with the lingering poison of feelings? Sand that always seemed too much heavier than she recalled the time before, which skittered and scattered through hands she never remembered being so light and passive? Was there a clock somewhere that counted, and she couldn’t see it?

Still, she got up and bathed, sighing into the steam as she sat in the water before proceeding with the clumsy routine she had managed to cobble together this past, frustratingly new days of splashing some water on her face to wake up, finishing her bathing then dress and put on a streak or two of makeup. Hence, she felt to be in some control. Afterward was always the question of ‘what to do now?’ and today, the Grand Design answered it for her in the form of Hena coming towards her chambers as Bali exited, “Good morning.” Hena said, and then she ventured another strange new addition to her recent days- “How are you feeling?” Nobody fucking cared how Baliquis felt before she had that… ‘moment of lacking control,’ but now? Almost everyone who interacted with her asked it in the same timid, curious way that the person before them and the person after them would. It made Baliquis pleased to a degree because they all seemed to ask it in a gentle, submissive way as if inquiring any other way would cause Baliquis to suddenly ‘snap’ and turn on them. Was this the way that animals felt when they pestered a parent, and the parent whipped around to bear their teeth or snap their jaws at them? It only pleased Baliquis because it was what she had worked hard for and tried to maintain with her illustrious mask- working to instill some equal measures of fear and respect.

Now for the rest of the mask, the practices, and the poised words. “I am.” Hena’s face showed relief and hope. What a waste. “I believe I am well enough to go to my office.” Fear flickered in her eyes for a moment but not quick enough for Bali to miss it. What the fuck now?

“I’m actually bringing you something, so there’s no real need to go to your office.” Hena said, but it was only suspicious, though the young woman held up an envelope, “It’s concerning Lady Genosis…o-only if you are up to it. I can read it to you.” There were so many ways she wanted to respond.

“What about my sister?” Her mind demanded her to answer, but Baliquis was more intelligent than to let her emotions take charge. Again. “Summarize it for me, please.”

“You must go to Lady Genosis’s things and empty her house.” Ok, that was much too short, so Baliquis asked for a more detailed summary, to which Hena proceeded, “So, there seems to have been a failure in our system regarding the houses we constructed- for the low-income civilians and the less fortunate? The housing program you made?” Ah, yes… the series of excuses she made to give her sister a house. “Well, at one point in time, Lady Genosis seemed to leave her residence, and it seems no one saw her for a while. It was reported to the temple, and the matter was handed off to a lower-ranking monk to go and check in with the priestess and see if she was alright, but…well…It seems from these reports he never did. So the house was sitting vacant because everyone seems to think it got ‘handled.’” Hena said and then licked her lips nervously before continuing, “When…As she did, Lady Genosis returned to us, the process of resolving many of her ‘worldly possessions’ came across this discrepancy.”

“And what of her things then? And the house?” Baliquis answered, and Hena replied,

“Her things have been boxed up but where they are to go and what is to be done with the house is a bit of a ‘toss-up’- The Elders believe that since you made the program, you should decide what to do with the home and have said they will honor your decision on what to do with the possessions.”

“...She had a family estate; what of them?” Baliquis asked, and Hena said,

“Well… it is empty. We sent a messenger who returned and said there were no recent signs of people being there and that much of the landscaping was overgrown.” Hena said, and Baliquis sighed, “Elder Chi said you have permission to visit the estate and look over it yourself to determine the best course of action.” Then Hena went silent and stared at her for an answer. For a solution. For something. Baliquis sighed heavily instead.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll go over there and look, I guess.” Baliquis said, “Have Lady Genosis’s possessions be brought to the storage room by my chambers.” Hena nodded and wrote down the instructions before Baliquis asked, “How soon do I need to decide on the house she was inhabiting?” Hena answered that much more directly. Three days. That was the time limit. Thankfully, Hena came prepared with a pair of trusty, crudely drawn-in-pencil-on-a-napkin maps. One for her twin sister’s home and one for the family estate. For fuck’s sake. “I’ll take a walk over there, I guess.”

She put on ‘appropriate’ geta in the form of only an additional inch of height and pulled on her updated uniform before leaving the grounds and sighed as she tried to make sense of the two little maps and the key given to her for Geni’s house. It took her until about the afternoon to get into the house. Thirty minutes to walk over and locate it and another couple of hours to stop staring at the massively overgrown front garden and work up the strength to go through, open the small, latched, and iron-born swing gate that connected the enclosed, cookie-cutter iron gates of the other properties, shut it behind her and walk up to the door mat. Filthy. Everything was fucking filthy. Baliquis couldn’t bear to look behind her and see her twin sitting or doing something, but she grabbed a handful of her kimono sleeve and circularly whipped it on the window near the door to make a shakily reliable view to see inside the house. It took her another few moments, but she needed to at least check the condition- right? So she looked inside. For all ten seconds before abruptly pulling herself away, leaving through the same small gate she entered, then shutting it behind her before darting off onto the adjacent street. To start doing the steep ascending climb towards her family’s property- no, ex-family- estate. As she tried to focus on the map and follow its simple directions, to take another street to the left of this one’s end and take that street over a bridge towards the estate, her mind was buzzing.

It was empty. It had things in there, but it was so vacant. Not in the sense of a lack of any items but in the sense that it didn’t have the same warmth she remembered her sister having or any actual personality to it. Like someone just- slept there but didn’t live there.

Was that what Baliquis had purchased with her exchange? That void and that emptiness? Did she imagine it, or did her sister honestly sleep there and barely exist in that house? Was she overthinking it, or was that a reality that her sister wasn’t sharing or didn’t ‘want to burden anyone with?

Either way, she stopped at the middle of a bridge that overlooked the city below just past its railing, where the sun had already set, and she hadn’t noticed lights for the roads had flickered on while she was in her head, and she just stared out.

“Well…fuck. I’m going to be lost on the way back.” Baliquis said aloud to herself and groaned, looking accusingly at the shitty napkin maps, “Who draws a map on a goddamn napkin anyways?” As if the napkin map had led her astray and not her absent-mindedness.

[ WC: 1545 ]

Isaribi turned at the sound of approaching clogs. Well, at least there was somebody here, on this starry, starry night. More importantly, there was somebody here to witness the advent of whatever bizarre space-time anomaly was attempting to manifest in the middle of the fucking village. She heard that Hoshigakure had some kind of countermeasures against shit like this, so for something of this size to appear in mid-air, it meant that whatever was trying to come through wasn't weak. Her mind scrambled for a few seconds as she floundered for a course of action, and then she settled on one.

She eyed the young woman on the other side of the bridge appreciatively. To Isaribi's eyes, she looked like someone on official business who had stopped by on this bridge to take a short break, or something like that. Bah! The Uchiha woman had no idea what went on in the lifestyles of the prosperous, and she didn't really care either. There were more important things to deal with, at the moment. After all, if the two of them weren't able to do something about this, who would? Isaribi reached out with her chakra senses again, trying to sense farther out than before. Fuck, any presences she felt other than the well-dressed lady weren't large enough to be shinobi or others of talent, and she doubted there were any cloaked Grima operatives lurking in the shadows. As much as she hated to admit it, necessity was swiftly driving her toward a specific conclusion.

Forgetting to deactivate her sharingan (on purpose, perhaps? After all, the burgeoning rift was still there), Isaribi turned and waved the ruined stump of her left arm at the other woman, trying to get her attention in time.

"Uh, hey, Stacy! You seein' this shit?", she shouted, indicating the rift. In the seconds that it had taken her to think, the thing had swelled a little, and had turned from a dull purple distortion in the air to a glowing bulge of sorts. It wasn't making any noise (not yet, anyway), but there was a vaguely sweet, sugary smell in the air. Isaribi looked around frantically, trying to see if it was a vector for some kind of genjutsu, but apparently she was safe. While she was quite good at illusions herself, dealing with the stuff from other people was just kind of annoying. That, and there were other people in the area who could be affected.

One might have expected her to not give a shit about the people living in this area, and under normal circumstances, she would not have. The resident gang that occupied these city blocks was one that had blood on its hands, blood of people she knew and had spent her youth with. With a sickening feeling, she remembered the family photos that the neighbors had. Three children, cut down in retaliatory killings, the hazy pictures being the only evidence that they had ever been alive in the first place- nay, evidence to the fact that their lives had, one day, just *stopped*.

In a moment of weakness, Isaribi considered just leaving. Leaving the rift for someone more competent, more devoted, more caring than she to deal with it. Leaving the rift to expand and have whatever consequences it was going to have on the people below, because FUCK them. Fuck them for all the pain, and all the misery she had had to go through before joining the Jaws. Hell, fuck them for making her feel like she had to go to the Jaws in the first place. To hell with this neighborhood. She could just let it burn, right? Nobody would ever know, and she could finally pay them back.

And yet, she couldn't do it.

Even as she thought about it, she knew that it just wasn't going to happen. This wasn't just a matter of ruinous necessity, either. Even if they weren't her people, they were still people, right? If she let some kind of catastrophe unfold here, then was she not inflicting the same despondent misery she felt onto other people? Would it not just be the same old cycle, starting again and again and again, a hundredfold? Let the cycle end here, she thought to herself. Let the buck stop with me, please.

She would just assume that the other woman could see the rift. After all, the light coming from its luminous cyst-like form was flicking across the pavement of the bridge. There were other signs, too; animals veering away from it and insects scuttling for cover. Thank god for the fucking sharingan. In the night, like this, she probably wouldn't have noticed little signs like that, much less been able to interpret them. Now, at least, she knew that the anomaly wasn't just some figment of her imagination. If she was going crazy and seeing shit now, she didn't think she'd be able to handle it.

"I think it's like, uh..." she struggled to find the right words for it. Clearly, the fancy lady was more educated than she was (at least, that was a good assumption). "... rip in reality? In time and space." Good enough. "Or it's about to be, anyway." God, that sounded so fucking awkward, but it would have to do. She hoped that she was able to at least convey how desperate she was for help with this. What was she supposed to do? In the Jaws, whatever middleman boss was in charge of her would point her at something and just let her loose, but this was a situation that was so radically different from anything she had had to deal with during her time in the gang. It wasn't a problem she could solve by pouncing on something and slitting its throat.

At that moment, the rift swelled again, and Isaribi turned. It hadn't fully opened yet, but it was almost there, as far as she could tell. The temptation to activate Kamui and try to interact with it was growing as well. One of the functions of her doujutsu was to synchronize with rifts like these. Although she had never tried it before, she knew that it was well within her abilities. All she needed was a little bit of time to focus, and she could probably take herself and others into that rift before it opened onto the village.

With that, however, came dire consequences. She would never forget the first time she had used something like it, the hot blood pouring from her eyes down her face like tears of pain. As much as she wished she could just take that thought out of her head, she could not. It was the only thing keeping her from sacrificing just a little bit of her own vision for the sake of this village.

That, and the fact that using jutsu like that hurt so fucking much. If she had to, though, she would. Fel necessity had driven her to do more risky things before, and she had an ominous suspicion that it would do so again before she went to her grave. The pressure of constant threats to her wellbeing would, ironically, drag her slowly toward death.

[WC 1203
TWC 1905]

“Uh, hey, Stacey! You seein’ this shit?” She did not recognize the voice, but she looked over to where it came from to see a damaged arm being waved at her, and she was immediately caught off-guard and without her ‘Mask’ on. Being in the temple, she needed it on at all times but being out here in the village where she had never been before, and she didn’t feel a need to extend the extra effort to keep up appearances since no one knew her or better yet, someone might mistake her for her twin sister.

Which would work in the long run; Quite well for her if she decided to slip and try to co-mingle amongst the shinobi. After all, they might frequently mistake her for her sister and keep their guard down since Geni always had a habit of finding a way to lower them naturally.

However, Baliquis looked in the direction the other young woman was pointing to and saw what she was talking about- some sort of tear in the air. Almost at attention, it began to bulge and grow more significant in its purple and abnormal existence. What the fuck was that? It began to change from a lackluster purple to a glowing rip. Baliquis raised her right arm and covered her mouth and nose with her kimono sleeve against the strange, disgustingly sugar-sweet smell that began to permeate the air.

Run. A thought crossed the darkened waters of her mind, but it didn’t break the surface nor bring forth anything- A more dominant voice seized that surface-breaking title when it shook the water with a low growl of, Stand your ground. Baliquis gleaned at the other woman who seemed to be doing the latter and if she would endure this encounter. Baliquis would instead not do it alone. Though the company of another person she didn’t know was foreign and rippled with uncertainty, there was a nostalgic comfort in existing with a singular person. Was it because she had always felt ‘whole’ with her twin despite them being two different and complete people? Was that origin where she got this warmth and comfort of not being entirely alone? “I think it’s like, uh...” The younger female said, “... rip in reality? In time and space.” She paused, then added, “Or it’s about to be, anyway.” Baliquis looked to the rift as it began to wonder what COULD be done. They were both closest to it, and she didn’t see or sense anyone else around, so if anyone was meant to tackle or approach this situation, it would have to be them- there was no one else around, and they were closest after all. Teaming up would be the best option, so Baliquis folded the napkin maps she had and slipped them into the waistband of her skirt before turning and trotting over to the younger woman,

“I’m not ‘Stacey,’ but fuck yeah, I see it. I’m Baliquis.” Baliquis corrected but stopped next to the young woman, “I’ve never encountered a situation like this before,” Balquis looked her over, “You seem more experienced, and I don’t think there’s anyone else near, but if you’re willing to act on this with me, I’ll follow your lead.”

[ WC: 541 ]

Ah, geez. The other woman was definitely of better stock than Isaribi was. If there wasn't a crisis of reality right now, she might have felt a little embarrassed, talking so openly with someone like this, using her very colloquial way of speaking. Few like Baliquis ever bothered to show up where she lived, and when they did, it was rarely a good sign. People who wanted to spend money in those kinds of neighborhoods usually had some kind of ulterior motive. She'd heard of shit going down in neighborhoods where folks with a lot to spend started buying up empty properties. Nothing good could follow from that. This was different, though. At that moment, Isaribi was grateful for having someone to back her up.

"Okay, um..." She tried to gather her thoughts again, and they came faster this time. She wasn't sure how comfortable she was to have someone following her lead, but if her chakra senses were working right, she was just as capable of fighting as Isaribi herself, which was more than she could have hoped for. The veil had become thin enough that with her sharingan, she could see through it, partially, to a chakra beyond. There was something, or someone there, though by its shape and lack of movement, she could tell that it was something asleep, or possibly nascent.

"I have a jutsu that can get us from here to there", she began, pointing at the rift. "Right up inside of it. It'll hurt like a motherfucker, though." She had made up her mind already to use the mangekyou sharingan, despite the obvious consequences. "Once we're inside, you gotta smash whatever's making the rift. It'll be alive, probably, and asleep or growing, or something like that." Isaribi reminded herself to improve on her chakra senses after all this was over and done with. If she was going to have any kind of success getting the fuck out of danger from here on out, she was going to have to get good.

"Once we do that, we should be home free." With that, Isaribi activated her mangekyou sharingan, the three-tomoe design in her eyes twisting into a more trefoil-like pattern. Oh, that shit stung like hell. Worse, still, was the phantom pain in what used to be her left arm. Fingers and skin and tissues and fat that were just no longer there, and yet she could still hurt, still feel pain. Maybe she would never be rid of the ghostly sensation, that cursed sign that turned up whenever she pushed her ocular prowess to this point. If Baliquis would allow her, Isaribi would place her hand on the other woman's shoulder, establishing the physical link required for the teleportation.

"Three, two, one..." And Isaribi moved the world.

Her vision blurred, and her body was racked with pain. She could tell that they were inside the rift, now, but for the moment, she couldn't see much around her, other than a stone plinth and something human-like sleeping on top of it. Isaribi stumbled, fell, and clutched at her head.

"Fucking kill it!" She shouted.

[WC 519
TWC 2424]

The conversation that followed Baliquis's offer began with "Okay, um..." That was never an excellent sign, but it would seem this was also a new experience for the younger woman. "I have a jutsu that can get us from here to there," The woman said and pointed at the rift again, "Right up inside of it. It'll hurt like a motherfucker, though." Was that pain meant for Baliquis or this woman who was about to perform the jutsu? Either way, the implication triggered something stranger in Baliquis- excitement. A thrilling charge and release of adrenaline helped her focus on the task at hand, and a small thrill skittered up her spine as she focused on the other woman's words, "Once we're inside, you gotta smash whatever's making the rift. It'll be alive, probably, and asleep or growing, or something like that."

Yeah! Wait. Wait, wait, wait, no, what!? Killing in public?

"Once we do that, we should be home free." The woman said as her eyes began to change- strange blackened markings with curved tails took formation in her eyes. Baliquis couldn't help but struggle to think of what type of witchcraft- no- 'jutsu' this was. Baliquis's mind went into a frenzy as she tried to rack her brain for anything. Glancing at the rip, she could see it now- what the other woman was talking about. A darkened mass was seemingly not moving entirely.

Did she even have anything on her? She scrabbled to hastily pat herself down and remembered a kunai on the outside of her right thigh, under her skirt, and moved parts of the fabric to get to it- fingers fumbling to find the body-heat-warmed handle. It was taking too long for her to see it, but when she found it and produced it, she concluded that she needed to work on a design change to her outfit and felt something on her shoulder. Bali looked over to see the other woman's hand on it- "Three, two, one..." Wait. Wait, wait, wait. That's what her mind screamed frantically, but there was no waiting because the entire worlds were blurring together and then apart, and they were standing in some darkened realm. Then the hand slipped, and Baliquis looked to her left to see the other woman stumble over and fall to her knees, then start to clutch her head with her one good arm and what was left of her other arm, "Fucking kill it!" She screamed, and Bali twitched before looking toward the direction she had remembered seeing the mass before shifting into the rift-

It was massive and laying on a stone slab but wasn't really moving or reacting to them, and it seemed human-like from its structure and how it slept on its side- but Baliquis moved forward towards it anyways.

Honestly, she didn't want to do this. The killing part wasn't entirely welcomed, but it was the fact that this creature wasn't a shinobi and most definitely did not believe in their village- it had no connection to her. She didn't know it from a cone of incense, but this task had to be done by someone, and she was the only abled body among them. When she got to the stone slab, she used some edges in its natural counterface to climb up on top and decided to be as quick as she could about this so that she could feel less guilty- by going to its upper body and then it's head and put the tip of the kunai just outside of its ear canal. With a deep breath, she drove the kunai down its ear canal, and when she heard a sickening pop and the thing started to move, she hiked up her skirt enough to get what she needed-

A single, steady foothold on the creature so that she could balance on that foothold and do what she proceeded to do- drop kick the kunai jammed in the beast's ear canal with her left foot's geta as it screeched. Unfortunately for her, the beast moves at the last moment, and the shift in foothold also causes misfortune for the beast- there was a shift in weight to the death-dealing blow. From a percentage of Bali's weight to fucking all of it when she was nearly bucked and instinctually moved to rely on her other foot. In the last death spasm, Bali slipped, tripped, fell gracefully off the beast, bounced off the stone slab, and hit the ground. As she tried to get her bearings, it happened- this world started to shake and tremble. "Oh fuck-" The other woman. Baliquis got to her feet, wobbling before turning and clopped as fast as she could over to the other female as the stone slab erupted and tossed off the fresh corpse. She grabbed the girl and, if allowed, helped her to her feet by wrapping her good arm around Baliquis's shoulders, "I don't suppose you know how to leave because it's time to go!"

[ WC: 834 ]

With one last throb, the rift began to collapse, but Isaribi was as insensate as she'd ever been. She had a vague sensation of Baliquis slaying whatever had been ripping its way through the space-time defenses that Hoshigakure relied on, and felt an odd stab of guilt that she'd had to have someone else do it. If Isaribi was more well-trained, or if she had been smart enough to find some way to do this without damaging her eyes, she wouldn't have had to ask someone else to soil their hands with blood. What was done was done, now, and there would be time to process it later, as long as she could get them out of here.

With an abrupt twisting sensation, Isaribi warped them out of the rift and back to the bridge, landing smoothly with no impact whatsoever. Her own status, however, was not so great. She almost blacked out from the pain of using that jutsu again, but managed to clutch onto the other woman as Baliquis helped her to her feet. Oh, how she detested this. The situation, that is. In the Jaws, feeling weak and helpless in front of another talented individual was likely to get you stabbed in the back. Now, Isaribi felt a variation on that anxiety and drop in self-esteem.

"Yeah, uh..." Isaribi wiped at her face with the upper part of her left sleeve, and as her vision cleared she could tell it came away stained with blood. Ah, crap. It was probably all over her face. She probably looked like some kind of living red soyjak. Yet another thing to be ashamed about. Under normal circumstances, would she have felt this way in front of somebody so high-class? Maybe, maybe not, but as she deactivated her sharingan, she found that she couldn't bear to look Baliquis in the eyes.

"... I guess so. My stop's here, I was about to set up under the bridge 'fore the rift opened up. Um..." She looked down. They hadn't installed any spikes underneath the bridge, at least, not yet. Good. She'd heard from some of her acquaintances in other parts of town that the council had ordered a bunch of measures that would fuck up life for the homeless, and that was one of them. Spikes under bridges... fucking unbelievable.

"... Thanks, for helping out with this. I don't think I could have done it alone."

[WC 402
TWC 2826]

The rift throbbed as she held the woman who voiced - “Yeah, uh...” - things began to twist and shift once more as the surroundings once more turned to where they had been before- the bridge overlooking the village. As Baliquis tried to still come to grips and terms with what had just happened, as her adrenaline screamed for her to do more than stand, the woman she was helping stand up - despite the entire head’s height difference between them- wiped her eyes on her sleeve, “... I guess so. My stop’s here, I was about to set up under the bridge’ fore the rift opened up. Um...” She was bleeding from her eyes.

So, even their witchcraft has a price? How helpful for Baliquis.

“... Thanks, for helping out with this. I don’t think I could have done it alone.” The woman said, and Baliquis knew this was the moment she should pull away and leave but-

Please don’t leave her. Baliquis flicked her eyes to the side and saw her sister there. Don’t. The phantom said, and Baliquis looked away from it as soon as she had looked at it. What was she meant to do? Leave her there? Missing an arm, fucked up, and bleeding? Bali glanced down the path she had meant to go before the rift. It was still another 15 or 20-minute walk to the family estate, and she wasn’t entirely sure if the woman next to her would make it through the night. The abandoned house she couldn’t bring herself to enter was closer and down the hill, she had come up.

“You are welcome; I certainly could not have done it by myself,” Baliquis said, removing the girl’s arm from around her neck and holding her arm parallel to the ground with a firm grip on the girl’s upper arm, which was intact so that Baliquis could assess her own condition. She wasn’t too badly injured but sore, and thankfully her geta were still in well-enough shape for her to make it back to the temple. “I have a better idea than staying here and under this bridge, but you’re not in shape to walk.” Baliquis said, “So, excuse me for being so forward, but I’ll be carrying you for a bit.” Bali said bluntly as she crouched a bit to make picking the younger girl up a bit easier on her back, wrapped her good arm around Bali’s neck with her left hand, then swept her legs out from under her at the knees to pick her up and eased to a standing position, Bali putting her left arm around the girl’s upper back and lightly clasped the shoulder of her injured arm, “I’m sorry if it’s a bit uncomfortable.” Baliquis said and hesitated, feeling a raindrop of a presence, and looked towards its direction. Henna was coming up the hill she had taken to reach this bridge, and Hena twitched to attention when she met with Baliquis, “What are you doing here?”

“I thought… maybe you got lost.” Henna said, and Baliquis instead started moving forward,

“You came in time; this woman has possessions under this bridge. Please collect them and meet me at the housing complex I checked earlier.” Baliquis said, and Hena nodded as Baliquis walked past the shorter woman and carried the one-armed woman down the street,

“Between you and I-” Baliquis said to the woman in her arms as she turned down her gaze and looked at the street to watch her measured steps, to ensure safety at the expense of some comfort, “I found out recently that my sister died and she left behind a house I gave her…but I have my living arrangements, so the house sits empty.” Bali said slowly and slowed down her walk as she came to the end of the sloped street to ensure she stepped carefully to the joining street, “It’s this row of houses here; the one with the overgrow front garden.” Bali advised as she walked over to it and, when she got to the gate, turned slightly with the girl in her arms still and unlocked it before entering the meager courtyard and setting the young girl on her feet on what remained of the weather-beat doormat. Baliquis took a breath and pulled the key out from where she had it tucked in her waistband with the napkin maps, putting it into the door, and unlocking its top lock and the lock in the door handle before opening the door and looking around, “Fuck it’s dusty in here, but the utilities are on… I’m sure,” Baliquis said and looked at the dusty little two-seater kitchenette table and chairs. If allowed, she would help guide Isabiri to the closest chair and help her sit down, “And warmer than outside, for sure.”

Once sat down, Baliquis would step back and move over to the kitchen sink to test the faucet by turning the handle. The pipes screeched, and there was an audible lurch before a gurgling, and the metallic tap spat up brown water for a moment before it began to run clear. She didn’t turn it off quite yet, she just let it run, but Baliquis turned the faucet head, so it ran into one side of the sink before pulling away. She went to the light switch for the kitchen and flicked one on to test the electricity- instead, the light for the outside porch light turned on a moment before its fuse popped, and it went dark once more. She turned on the other slitch for this switch panel, which turned on the overhead kitchen light that held steady. “Water and electricity; what more could you need?” Baliquis said with some level of delight as she looked at the kitchen trashcan- empty. She had a sinking suspicion about the fridge’s contents and grabbed the trashcan before going to the refrigerator and opening it to find-

A jar of pickled eggs that were still good for another year and a pot of what may have been honey, but it has completely crystallized. Still, Bali checked the freezer to find it had a few frost-bitten and long-from-useful meat packages. “Yumi.” Bali sighed, “What the fuck.” More concerned about her sister’s eating habits and leftover…tantalizing options of ‘chow,’ Baliquis threw it all out.

She shut the doors and opened a cabinet door to find a cabinet of plates and dishes- meager but 4 of each and all black. Another cabinet had dusty glassware, but she pulled one down and cleaned it with an edge of her kimono sleeve that didn’t have some blood before putting it in the sink and dipping it under the faucet to catch some water. When it was nearly complete, she pulled the glass back and went to the table, setting it between her cloth belt and the young woman, “Here; drink up.” Baliquis said, “I’ll step out to grab you somethings for the night…if you’re lucid still when I get back? We’ll discuss the deal for you living here.” she said matter of factly but then softened and said, “But worry about that later; you’ve done quite a lot for the village… and me. You deserve the rest.” If she had any requests for something in particular or another word she wanted to say, Baliquis would hear her out. Still, if not, she would leave the young woman in the house and shut the door behind her as she tried to find the closest convenience store. At the same time, Hela came down the slope with most of the woman’s things from under the bridge to set them in the front garden for the wounded woman to pick up later or for Baliquis to move into the house when she got back- whichever came first.

[ WC: 1,303 ]

At first, every instinct told her to struggle, to fight, to not permit this to happen. Instinct and pride warred with pain and raw exhaustion within her. Everything that she'd grown up with, everything that life had taught her told her to bare her teeth, wriggle free from the woman's grasp, and run like hell. Here, she was belly-up and vulnerable, like a turtle flipped onto its back. She was supposed to be the kind of person who lifted others with her, someone who could stand up for herself. Being carried like this, hurting and bleeding because of her own actions, felt so...

But as she looked up at Baliquis, she couldn't help but relax. Maybe after spending so much time caring about other people, especially people who didn't give a shit about her, having someone look after her for a change made her feel soft and fuzzy on the inside.

... or maybe that was just the stress and trauma. It had been a while since she'd used Kamui like that. She'd heard of other, safer methods, but this was hers, this was the one she knew. Some people were good under pressure, and still others less so. For her, she picked a single course of action and stuck to it, hard.

But this was nice. Isaribi wasn't happy, but for the first time in months, she felt okay. She felt like maybe the future wasn't so bad, that things would turn out for the best. It was certainly possible. She listened to Baliquis explain the empty house, which was an oddly familiar story to her. Empty rooms, empty apartments. Places where life had just stopped. She remembered the second floor of the apartment building she had grown up in, and how so many of them had gone quiet over time. *Now you are here, at room 242. Now you are here, at room 243. Now you are... gone.* With those memories came memories of those same old photographs. Pictures of folks at parties, at sports games, at work or at play, their expressions half smile and half grimace, their last legacy to a world, their past known, fading, disappointing.

"I'm... 'm sorry..." she mumbled, as they entered the buildling.

The house itself was fucking amazing. Isaribi didn't know they could make places this big. Well, she did know, cranially, but she'd never been inside something like this before. Awareness and control were slowly returning to her faster now, and she was able to at least sit up and have a look around. Furnishings, food in the fridge, real running water (oh my god??!)...

Of course, she knew better than to think this was all for free. She didn't get the sense from Baliquis that she was trying to use her, but that this was the first handshake in a long series of handshakes. In the stories, the characters always said shit like "oh no, I could never accept this" and whatever else. Nah, not Isaribi. She would be a fucking moron if she turned down the kindness of somebody who'd helped her kill that thing in the rift.

"Yeah." She spoke, keeping it short. "I'll do whatever you need me to." Wouldn't be the worst deal she'd ever made. In a sense, she trusted Baliquis. They had a sort of bond now, forged in a fight. That was the kind of thing that told Isaribi to treat her in good faith. And, well, she was nice, too. Isaribi didn't have the words to make her ideas communicable, but Baliquis brought some kind of calm or order to all this stuff around the house that she interacted with.

[WC 608]

Finding a convenience store wasn't too hard. She was standing before it and deciding what to grab to tide a wounded young woman over. Baliquis had never been entirely good at the 'hospitality' thing, and now she struggled to decide on milk or juice as she stood in the store and looked everything over. Eventually, Hena caught up with her and didn't even offer to help; she just said, "What is going on?"

"Well." Baliquis said as she kept looking from one side of the standing cooler in front of her to another, "I am trying to decide on things to get for that young woman I was carrying to put in the fridge. It's empty." Baliquis said, "Well, it's mostly empty; there's nothing of sustenance, so that means I need to pick something out for her to eat now to get her strength up and later for when she rests so she has something to tide her over."

"That's not what I'm asking about," Henna said in a harsh whisper, and Baliquis cut her off,

"I know, but I don't want to answer you now." Baliquis told her, then added, "We may talk about it on the way back; Right now? Help me pick something out" "Elder, you have blood on you, and that woman was bleeding-" Her assistant interjected. Her superior rolled her eyes before reaching out and picking up a triangular, plastic container with a diagonally halved sandwich consisting of wheat bread, lettuce, tomato, cheese, and turkey. Turkey was lean meat, but the girl was skinny, so something fattier would probably be better.

"So, clearly, it is not my blood." Baliquis retorted, "Do you think I should focus on common allergens and be more mindful if she has some allergies or not?"

"You have blood on you." Hena said in another harsh whisper, and Baliquis moved towards her, "You even left your cloak-" Balquis naturally stood taller than her assistant, and in the one-inch geta that was only more apparent, but Baliquis leaned down to her assistant's ear and said coldly,

"Again." Baliquis watched the woman shudder and close her mouth, "Question me. Again." The words were cold, but they were orders as well. It was a challenge to the shorter woman to contest Baliquis's authority because she didn't heed it when she was ignoring her superior. Henna slowly licked her lips as the taller woman watched her try to collect herself and form a sentence even as she shook slightly as the tension grew, and Baliquis wondered if she might have to kill this assistant too.

"I…" The assistant stammered in a much quieter tone, "I'm sorry." Baliquis decided that was enough and she stopped leaning in, righting herself as she stepped away to put some distance. As if those tense few seconds didn't exist. When she collected herself, the assistant said, "A gallon of milk would…probably be best."

"Why Hena, that's so thoughtful of you." Baliquis said, "I'm so glad I have you to help me decide on things like this." The next few minutes were mainly Hena picking out things for the younger woman, they paid, and they split the four bags between each other as they walked back to the house, and after a while, Baliquis spoke up,

"The girl was going to sleep under a bridge." Baliquis said, "The Elders told you they trust my decision; I feel very strongly there are none more aptly suited for housing geared to the less fortunate and destitute than a one-armed girl who was about to sleep under a bridge." Henna nodded in agreeance,

"And…I do not know any jobs hiring people of her physical encumbrance at this time." Henna said, and Baliquis nodded,

"I already requested that Lady Genosis's things be brought to the temple. We will put in another request for the charitable funds we have allocated for these situations to be used on furnishings, as the girl is lacking." Baliquis said, "Maybe clean the place up a bit since the front garden is horrendously overgrown. Maintenance will also need to come through to test everything and replace the porch light bulb." She didn't say anything for a while until they got to the house's front gate, where Baliquis put her hand on the gate first and paused to look at Hena, "This is my decision. Return to the temple and report it."

"Yes, Elder," Henna said submissively before Baliquis opened the gate, and she put on a smile as Hena handed off the bags before leaving and shutting the gate behind her while Baliquis put the bags on the kitchen counter space,

"I've got a few things to tide you over," Bali said as she picked out the selected triangle sandwich and ripped off the plastic seal, then took the top off so the younger woman only had to pull the halves out and eat them, then she pulled out a protein shake. She shook it up before opening it and removing the seal on the chocolate drink. "I struggled with the selection, but these should do for now." She went over to the woman and set both things down on the small kitchen table before going to the door and shutting it, then went back to the bags and pulled out a gallon of milk from one, going to the fridge and opening its door to put the milk inside and on the shelf,

"This will be your home from now on; however, tomorrow, a group of people will be coming to take the things belonging to my sister." Baliquis said as she left the fridge door open to go to another one of the four bags and pull out three more protein shakes, "These protein shakes will help you recover a bit more; I do not mind waiting a couple of days for you to rest before we go to the store for more groceries, but I will be putting in a request that new furniture is brought. We can't have you sleeping on the mattress here for too long; not good for your health. However, use what's here until then if you need to." Bali said as she put the shakes in the refrigerator door, then went to the third bag, pulling out a few more sandwiched in their little triangle containers onto the shelf in the fridge as well, "I'll put in a request for maintenance workers to come and check the house; make sure everything is running properly." She paused and went to the last bag, pulling out a loaf of sliced bread and three packages of lunch meat- turkey, honey ham, and roast beef. She put all of it in the fridge before shutting the door and turning to the younger woman, "Now? For the deal."

Baliquis went to the table and tapped the key to the house, "This is the house key; only you can get in from now on, so don't lose it. There are no other copies." Baliquis turned to her slightly,

"In exchange for the house, I'd like friendship." Baliquis said simply before following it up with context, "I…do not have any friends. My sister died, but I believe a shinobi killed her, and if I will make the best of my revenge? I will certainly need a friend, if not to help me on my path, but to exchange information with, at the very least." Baliquis told her,

"I gave my life to the temple so my sister could be a part of the Shinobi world, but since they gave her back to me as a corpse without information, I find this ending wholly unacceptable. She deserved better, and so do I, but I know nothing about the shinobi, and you are much more informed than I am…So, even if they do not always align, I would like to form a friendship with you and ensure it stays resilient and dependable when and if our goals DO align." Baliquis said and smirked,

"So? What do you think?" Baliquis asked and followed it up with, "Shall we seal the deal with an exchange of true names?"

[ WC: 1354 ]