The next day was the weekend and just to make sure that none of the masters beat Kenichi for his rude, and scathing comment the night before Miu took the teen out of the dojo against his will. For a day of shopping so that everyone could cool their tempers and pull themselves together.
It was well past noon and Shio was still beating the hell out of the punching posts, beating each one down until they were nothing but splinter sized slivers of busted wood.
Shigure was sitting next to Apachai, both of them had their knees drawn to their chests and were staring blankly ahead. While Kensei and Akisame played a nice calming game of shogi. So far Akisame was winning and Kensei was doing his damndest to cheat. But it was no good. Akisame was just too good at the game.
He won the game in less than five moves at which point Kensei growled and knocked the game board aside, sending the pieces scattering every which way. "Aw, why did you do that?" Akisame asked curiously as he tilted his head to the side and studied his old friend with his sightless eyes.
"Because you won." Kensei said as he pulled a girly mag out of his shirt and flipped it open and started to sulk as Akisame sighed and started to pick up the pieces. He understood everyone's foul moods. But did they have to take it out on helpless little board games and such?
He was getting tired of picking up the messes that they made.
Shio finally ran out of posts to hit and made his way over to where they were and sat down next to Kensei and rested his elbows on his knees as he tried to catch his breath. "Damn that kid. Who does he think he is talking to us like that..."
"Still upset about last night, hm." Akisame said as he picked up a few more of the shogi pieces and set them aside.
Shio wiped some of the sweat from his face with the back of one of his hands and made a low growling sound then snapped, "Aren't you?"
Akisame chuckled at his friend and shook his head no then said. "I don't get mad, Shio. I get even. And you can bet Kenichi will really feel it once he starts training again."
Shio turned his head slightly and looked at the younger man then snorted. "That's sadistic Akisame."
Akisame shrugged his shoulders.
Sadistic was something that he did very well. So it shouldn't be surprising that he was biding his time and thinking up very painful things to do to Kenichi once he snapped out of his funk. He figured that he should get a few laughs out of whatever he did while he punished the teen for saying something so disrespectful and rude to them.
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Setsuna had been walking around in circles ever since she had come home from taking Uzu to school and had gotten lost while looking for her idiot brother.
What was supposed to be a nice walk/possible visit had turned out to be a hellish trek through the neighborhood and to make things worse, Uzu would be home from school in another hour or so.
Which meant that if she ever wanted to see her precious daughter again then she was going to have to break down and ask someone for directions.
She sighed and looked around, trying to find a place where someone was home. But so far she hadn't been able to find a place with any signs of life aside from the place up ahead with the vaguely familiar looking gate that seriously creeped her out.
She didn't want to go there if she could help it, but it was looking more and more like she wouldn't have a choice in the matter if she wanted to get home to her daughter. She stood outside of the gate for several minutes weighing the pros and cons then took an extra few seconds to gather her courage and walked up to the large gate and knocked.
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Akisame was listening to the others talk among themselves about Kenichi when he picked up the soft sound of a knock coming from the direction of the gate. "Someone is at the gate."
"It's probably that dumbass boy. I guess someone should go let the little punk in before he throws a fit and burns the neighborhood down or something." Shio said as he sighed and got to his feet and quickly made his way across the yard.
And upon reaching the gate, jerked the damn thing open and was a little bit startled when instead of Kenichi, a young woman fell through the opening and hit the ground on her back at his feet and stared up at him through wide alarmed turqoise colored eyes.
"Oh shit." Shio muttered as he quickly knelt down and slipped his hands under the woman's back and picked her up off of the ground while apologizing to her for letting her fall like that.
She gave him a slightly strained smile and assured him that there was nothing to apologize for. It was entirely her fault for leaning against the gate to begin with. The giant gave her an awkward smile and glanced behind her.
Setsuna turned her head a little bit to see what had distracted him and blanched a little bit when she saw the group of curious people watching her interaction with the guy. "Hm, you're not our idiot desciple-" One guy in his forties said before pulling out a camera and pointing it at her then saying, "But you are rather lovely and thus the chance to take your picutre is too much to pass up."
There was a flash of movement sweeping upward and the man's camera fell to pieces as the dark haired young woman in the ninja outfit turned her back and tucked what Setsuna could only assume was a short sword back into it's hiding spot under her scandalously short dress. A tall man wearing a form fitting yellow sleeveless shirt and red shorts with spikey greyish white hair walked up to her.
"Hello! I'm Apachai. Who are you?" Setsuna tilted her head back and looked up at the man's face and made a slightly distressed sound as her eyes widened to the size of saucers. Dear lord the man looked like he was nine foot tall and was probably close to four hunderd pounds of solid muscle.
"I-I-I'm-" The man leaned down a little bit and somehow wound up with his face a scant inch in a half from hers causing her to blush and quickly step back as she stammered a little more but couldn't seem to get past the words 'I am'.
Someone clapped their hands and the giant calling himself Apachai turned his head shifting his attention from the girl to Akisame who still had his hands in the air.
The man lowered his arms slowly and took several steps forward and reached out and set his hands on the woman's hips and then smirked as she sputtered and turned a vivid shade of pink. "Ah, your the young lady from the other day. I thought you're voice sounded familiar. How are you?"
Setsuna looked at the man with a distraught look on her face she realized that she knew him. "You're that guy from the clinic." She said as she grasped his wrists and carefully removed his hands from her waist. The man smiled kindly at her, his pale eyes sparkling.
"Yes, I am. What brings you here? Did you lose consciousness again?" He asked curiously, his smile fading as it was replaced by a concerned look.
"Oh. No. Nothing like that. I was just out walking round, looking for someone and kind of got turned around and uh...sort of got lost." Setsuna said with an embarrassed look on her face.
"Ah, that is a little bit of a problem. Who was it that you were looking for? A friend? A lover-"
"My little brother actually. I ran into him the other day on my way home and thought that maybe he was hanging out with some friends somewhere around here and thought I'd look around and see if I could find him."
"I see. Well, my friends and I know pretty much everyone in the area. If you tell us his name we could help you find him." Akisame offered.
"Oh, of course. His name is Kenichi Shirahara. Have you ever heard of him?"
There was a heartbeat of silence before everyone started laughing hysterically, Setsuna blinked and took a small wary step back from the group as the guy that had opened the gate and caused her to fall, doubled over holding his sides.
The group laughed for close to ten minutes straight before sombering up. The man from the clinic slipped an arm around her slender shoulders and said in an amused tone, "Forgive our outburst. Please come in. We have much to talk about." And quickly ushered Setsuna inside of the yard as the large gate was closed behind her, locking her in with the group of strange people.
