How had she forgotten this?

Thirteen had to suppress a groan when she slid to a stop on the rooftop, daggers drawn, in front of 'Mad Bark' and Meow. The latter of which had placed herself protectively between Thirteen and the former, who raised his shades to peer at Thirteen with a wide eyed look she would have mistaken even on a face that wasn't his.

"Did you hire her too?"

'Seven you idiot.'

It felt like this had happened so much longer than it really had. She adjusted her grip on her daggers as she assessed the situation, daggers that might have struck him down had she not realized who they'd been aimed at before she'd followed through on her attack. What had he even been doing here?

"No, I only hired the ugly one with the dumb hair." The cat spat in Thirteen's direction, too focused on her target to notice the rude gesture he used to push the shades back into place in retaliation.

Meow kept talking about Thirteen's rank, summoned her underling's to join the fight despite the fact that Thirteen hadn't moved from where she stood. She couldn't just call him out for his ruse before going after her actual target, could she? Seven was strong, but against this many attackers, and with his reluctance to actually fight against them… damnit.

Thirteen would have to create an opening for him to run away as he did the last time she'd lived through this, she raised her daggers and charged at the small army of cats ahead of her cats, if this hadn't been annoying enough the first time.

For the sake of her temper, it was fortunate a few minutes of throwing the things around was as long as it took her to spot Seven's borrowed form retreating across the rooftops. She disengaged, throwing the remaining cats off of her to chase after him before he could escape.

Before, she hadn't known enough about either him or Mad Bark to recognize the practiced ease with which he leaped from point to point, his form was almost flawless, as if this was something he'd done everyday of his life. Almost. When he left the rooftop for the pavement, his landing was sloppy and he fell immediately to his knees, panting heavily as he tried to catch his breath. So making efficient use of his energy was another flaw in whatever training he had, then?

Thirteen huffed as she landed just a few feet from him, she didn't have the time to be assessing him right now.

the rooftop for the pavement, his landing was sloppy and he fell immediately to his knees, panting heavily as he tried to catch his breath. So making efficient use of his energy was another flaw in whatever training he had, then?

Thirteen huffed as she landed just a few feet from him, she didn't have the time to be assessing him right now.

"Wait, wait, wait," he waved his hands frantically as he backed away from her, "I'm not Mad Bark." He was enveloped by a cloud of dense smoke and when it cleared 'Mad Bark' was gone, and Seven, in his white hoody stood in his place with a weak two fingered salute. "See, it's just me, you've been chasing the wrong guuuUUY!" His unneeded explanation of the situation was cut off by a shout when Thirteen charged at him anyway.

"I know who you are, you idiot!" She reached for him, whether to check that he was unharmed or to throttle him, she couldn't have known until she got her hands on him.

He evaded her lunge with ease, stepping aside and twisting his body, then quickly leaping back to put himself out of range. "Then why are you still chasing me?" Another yell as he dropped low to the ground and rolled away to evade Thirteens hands again. "Is this about that job you hired me for? Cause I gave you your refund already!"

"What were you doing there?" She demands, not seeing the point in explaining that even if she'd cared about her made up errand, he should have the sense to know that for most clients, a refund wouldn't even begin to compensate for failure. "I could have killed you!"

"You're trying to kill me now!" He was agile, fast, and put those skills to good use keeping himself just out of her reach all the while either grinning as if he thought for some reason that this was fun or screaming as if he thought… well, he thought she was trying to kill him. Without her daggers drawn, that was what struck her as the stranger of his reactions. Not that she'd need them if he made her even the slightest bit more annoyed.

"Super invisibility!" And there it was. He'd put enough distance between them that the resulting cloud of smoke would conceal him from view.

"Ch," Thirteen scoffed and walked calmly over to the chip of softly snickering rock that was all that remained in the middle of the street, feeling more pleased with herself than perhaps she should have as she picked him up. It was a good disguise, she would admit as she gave it a light toss, the only thing that gave it away was it's weight, it was good enough that it had fooled her last time. Whatever that device he used for this, it would have been invaluable for stealth missions, she wondered why he hadn't used it back in Xuan…

Thirteen felt her throat closing up, her chest seizing as she struggled to force the lump blocking off her airways down as the image of dulled red on white assaulted her mind. 'No,' she punted the image aside as her fist clenched tightly about the rock. That hadn't happened, it was over, Seven was…

"I know you don't have 'super invisibility'," she ground those last words out with the disdain they'd earned and glared at the rock, "and if you turn into half a durian, I will feed you to my sparrow!" She hastily tacked on, remembering that unpleasant experience.

"How did you know…?" Another cloud of smoke and she was holding Seven by the back of his hoody, white and marred only by the dirt of the streets, no blood down the front or anywhere else.

"You're predictable." She lied. "Now answer my question."

"Huh?" He blinked up at her, head titled like he was puzzling something out, as if what she'd just asked him was the most perplexing thing he'd ever heard. "Uh," his face breaks into an unexpected grin and he points his index fingers at her, "How about I tell you over coffee?"

"What?" Stunned, the word didn't carry the implied threat over as well as she'd intended, his grin didn't falter. "Fine." She surprised herself as much as him when she released her grip on his hoody and turned her back to him, quickly adjusting her mask to be sure her expression was hidden from his view. The sound of screaming cats was growing steadily closer anyway, and she would have rather not dealt with them again.

Unfortunately, actually drinking the coffee necessitated her removing her mask - and no, she couldn't simply refuse to do so after how he struggled at getting two cups of the stuff and a bag of something else back up the secluded branches of the tall tree. She had agreed to coffee after all, and she valued her honor, she wouldn't go back on the agreement. The way his eyes lit up when they fell on her had nothing to do with it.

"Unbelievable." And so, keeping her shock from showing on her face took more of her focus than she could afford trying to puzzle out the rather ridiculous story he'd tried to tell her.

"I know right, so melodogmatic," he turned his eyes skyward, his shaking head making the mottled light that reached them through the foliage of the tree appear to move across his face. He reached into the paper bag he'd brought up with him and dug out a clearer bag containing a stack of candies, he tore it open and offered her one, but she refused with a slight shake of her head. His mouth was full when he said, "You'd think that to have so many people listening to them, they'd be smart or something.

"No, that's not…" As Thirteen had discovered in her dealings with powerful people, the position was seldom accompanied by any worthwhile virtues. She struggled to find the words for her thoughts as Seven held a piece of candy to the large pocket of his hoody and a yellow peak emerged to accept it. "You were hired to kill Mad Bark."

"No, to stab out his eyes." Seven corrected her, raising his coffee to his lips as that little round chicken squirmed out of his pocket.

"Did you?" She knew the answer, but asked anyway.

"Sort of." He shrugged. "I got one of them," and then, under his breath, so soft she might not have heard it, 'sort of.' "She didn't really want me to stab out his eyes, she was being catty." He looked over at Thirteen expectantly for her reaction, and pouted slightly when she was still too busy processing his response to have one.

So no, he hadn't really stabbed out anything. "If you're trying to become a killer, why would you do all of that?" She asked, it wasn't for a killer to judge their clients wishes, only to carry them out. If the client regretted their request later, that was for them to deal with themselves.

"Meow asked me something like that too." Seven said, looking out over the streets spread out under them, his hand now moving along the blue feathers of the softly chirping bird on his lap, his expression far off, he shrugged. "What good would it have done if I had?"

Killers didn't do good, Thirteen didn't tell him, just looked down at the warm, dark beverage in her hand, she held back a sigh, and tried to think of anytime she could remember Seven killing one of his targets. She hadn't followed him as closely at the beginning, but despite his bold claims to the contrary, despite what little information her Master had given her… "Have you ever killed anything?"

"Not yet." He said, eyes narrowed, his brows scrunched up it was a difficult expression to read, but his tone was almost boasting. "I'll get the next one." The strange expression vanished, replaced by his usual slight smile.

Thirteen scoffed, she couldn't help herself, couldn't imagine him with blood on his hands, she could have smiled… except, she could imagine it, couldn't she? Redtooth, as impossible as it felt, as lost as Seven had seemed after, as if he'd suddenly taken on a heavy weight, and then… Hands that laid limply at his sides, the hilt of a sword on his lap and a thousand shards scattered about him. Again, she shut the thought down, but then, the closest she had seen him come to killing someone else was when the Prince of Stan had threatened his home, and even then, that same maneuver had almost killed him too, it would have if he weren't so damned resilient, if not for…

Not thinking, Thirteen found her hand moving to the little chicken, it chirped when she rested her fingers on it's head, it's feather's softer than they looked as she gently stroked them. Why wasn't it with him in Xuanwu?

"No, she doesn't like you better!" Seven's voice jolted her from her thoughts, and she snatched her hand back. The chicken cheeped back at him, and Seven laughed, "Hey Miss Plum," he turned to her, that light in his eyes again, Thirteen saw them glazed over above a mouth that trickled blood.

"I have to go." She said, leaping to her feet. Nearly crushing her flimsy cup in one hand, she raised her whistle to her lips with the other.

"But we didn't even finish our coffee!" He objected, standing up along with her.

There was a shrill, familiar cry in the air and Thirteen leapt towards it, grabbing onto the rope as it passed to carry her away.

"Will I see you again?" He called after her?

'No,' she should have said no, he was alive, she'd undone her mistake and there really was no reason for her to be anywhere near him anymore. Neither of them had gained anything from it before, it 'hadn't done anyone any good'. Thirteen didn't say anything.

Killers didn't do good.

She shouldn't have sought him out again after that.

Master was growing less and less patient with Thirteen's sloppy handling of her mission. Not only had she not removed Mad Bark, despite him being far from the island's strongest fighter, she had yet to present a replacement. More time, she'd told him, to find all those she would need to remove. If he sensed her deception - he did, he had to - he didn't say anything about it. She could only guess at what he thought she was really doing on the island.

She could only guess herself, on what she was still doing here. It would have been easy to pick a target from among the many martial arts masters on the island and leave, claiming she'd completed her mission, but...

All she'd wanted was to bring him home. She'd told herself at first, that it would be enough just to know he was on the Island, obliviously going on with his… well, she wouldn't have said his life was peaceful by any stretch, but it was a sort of chaos that suited him. Bright, and ridiculous, and he lived it so well, digging out the best in everything and everyone seemingly without a thought, without even knowing what he was doing, let alone doing it on purpose.

As it had before, when she'd only been watching and waiting for a chance to kill him for seeing her face, it drew her in, warmed something in her she'd believed had been killed off in her childhood. This time…

"Hey Miss Plum!" He called to her from behind his offal stand, set up today near the beach, his lips stretched into as wide a grin as she'd ever had directed at her, warmth in his eyes brighter than she'd been afforded since she'd been a child. She didn't deserve it, she knew, she didn't deserve it, but Thirteen was greedy.

"You're here again today?" He asked, plucking a paper bowl from the stack as she drew closer, he stalled in his ladling of soup into it to turn a heatless narrow eyed scowl on her, "Could it be…" his lips twitched, clearly struggling to hold onto their down turned shape, he was going to say something stupid, "you have a crush on me!"

"No!" Even prepared for it, he had her wishing she hadn't removed her mask so that she could have hidden her affronted expression, an expression that seemed only amused him more, because he chuckled as he passed the bowl of offal over to her.

"Well, it's either that, or you're stalking me." He hummed, curling a hand under his chin, "but ugh," he groaned, his face scrunched in displeasure as he muttered something about his agent.

"I just…" Thirteen inspected her bowl, her hair sweeping over to hide much of her face from view as she did so, "like beef offal," she said, it wasn't a complete lie, she didn't mind beef offal at least. "Yours is the only stand on the island."

"Yeah, we got the market cornered." He twirled his scissors proudly on one finger. "So soon you're gonna have to make your own, top one hundred killers don't have time to sell soup in front of elementary schools." He stopped the spinning to hold the scissors lightly in his palm.

"I'm crushed." Thirteen said, and took a sip from the soup she didn't mind. Seven would become a top killer when Thirteen went back to her father and Master defected to Stan, all very likely possibilities, she scoffed inwardly at the thought.

"Hey it's happening, Dai Bo called about a mission for tomorrow already, I'm gonna kill this one for sure." Seven said, folding his arms as if her lack of belief was an affront.

"Or you'll get the next one?" Thirteen asked, feeling her lips turn up in a smile, she stirred the soup with her chopsticks, pondering on which piece of meat to fish out. When she looked up after deciding and chewing on her chosen piece, his affronted look was gone, his eyes alight with something softer in it's place. The paper bowl warped in her hands. "I should…"

"Hey, what if I taught you?" He spoke suddenly, before Thirteen could announce her intent to leave.

"Teach me?" She asked there was soup running down her hand now, she watched it drip from her finger warm and red…

"To cook beef offal!" He stepped around the stand to reach her, a napkin held out between the two of them in offering, without a word, she set her bowl aside on the stand and he carefully cleaned the soup off her hand. "A cooking lesson." His cheeks flushed, he turned aside, looking unsure of himself. "And in return, maybe," he fiddled with his hands. "We could go to the beach sometime?"

"The beach?" She shouldn't have been as surprised as she was, this had happened before, not this early, but it it had happened, she'd never worn that white dress.

Yeah! Have you been yet?" He flung the napkin into a nearby waste basket, then waved his arms in an animated manner as he kept speaking. "The beaches here are the best, or" he paused, looking contemplative, "I think they are, no," he hit his palm lightly with his fist, "they are, guaranteed. And the weather's supposed to be great for it tomorrow."

"Don't you have a mission tomorrow?"

"Eh," he waved her question off, flopping his hand between them, "that can wait another day."

Again, Thirteen knew she should say no, find a target and leave, such a small, worthless island, it would be assimilated into Xuanwu and forgotten about just as fast. She didn't even want to learn how to make soup, but…

Seven waited for her answer expectantly, his hands stuffed into his pocket to give an air of casual patience that the tension in his shoulders refuted.

"Fine." She turned away from him and unlatched her mask from her side to place it over her face. "In exchange for… a cooking lesson." she turned to look at him grinning back at her wider than she'd seen yet, his eyes wide and bright as the sun hanging in the sky above them.

He held back his excited shouts for when he probably thought she was out of earshot, but they were loud enough the entire small island might have heard them. Like every stupid thing he did, Thirteen couldn't help but to find it endearing. It suited him.