A/N: Sorry for the wait everybody.
I get distracted easi- hey a kitten!
*clears throat* Sorry about that.
Anyway, to (sorta) make it up to you, not only did I upload a chapter buuuuut-
-I uploaded a picture for this story as well! ^^
I currently using it as a temporary cover to this story.
To see the whole thing just go to DeviantArt and search for New Face in Ikebukuro by White Belt Writer.
If you guys like it enough, I may be inspired to do more.
Please R&R!
Chapter Nine
After finally reaching the ground floor and exiting the apartment building, Sora moved as far away from the building, as fast as she could.
Which, when you're covered in cuts and bruises and have a gunshot wound, isn't all that fast.
Slowing down after a while, the tourist sat down on a fire hydrant and thought about what she was going to do next.
"Haa haa-this is probably-haa-far enough-haa-for now," she huffed, wiping her forehead and licking her lips. Looking around, she mumbled, "God I'm thirsty…wonder if-haa-there's a vending machine-haa-around here?"
Hoisting herself back on her feet after catching her breath, Sora was about to go look for a drink when she heard something over the din of traffic.
Pausing, she cocked her head and listened to a whistling sound that was slowly getting louder and louder.
Twisting from side to side she wondered, "Where the heck is that coming from?"
On a whim, the unusual girl looked up and saw something glinting in the sunlight high above her.
"What the heck..."
Watching the strange object, she noticed it was box-shaped and seemed to be made of metal; it was a second before Sora realized that whatever it was, it was falling down to earth.
More importantly: it was falling straight towards her!
Her reflexes taking over, Sora leapt back just as the box made contact with the ground, cracking itself and the ground on impact.
The people around her all gasped or shrieked in one way or another, before quickly recovering and going about their business, a few muttering something about a crazy bartender or something.
Curious about what the hell had just happened, Sora walked over to the wannabe meteor to see what it was.
As the dust settled, the tourist realized that it was a vending machine: fully stocked too!
The force of the crash had caused its glass panel to shatter, but the plastic bottles within had survived the fall to earth unscathed.
After a quick check for any nearby cops, Sora happily cried, "Lucky~!" and snatched a bottle of green tea from the machine.
Twisting off the cap, she chugged half the bottle before sighing in relief.
"That's the stuff," she said, closing the bottle and stuffing it into one of her bags' side pockets, "I feel much better!"
Refreshed, somewhat, Sora decided that since she wasn't, at the moment, being chased by anyone, she would finally play the role of tourist and actually see the sights of Ikebukuro.
Smiling her impish grin, the girl wandered around, looking at various store window displays and the colorful signs.
At a glance, she would have seemed just like any tourist fresh off the train: innocent, a little naïve, and not looking for any trouble.
Unfortunately, she had a habit of running straight into it.
Walking down yet another colorful street, Sora heard some sort of commotion going on in a smaller side street.
Looking down it, she was greeted by the sight of three bizarrely dressed girls wearing too much make-up and wings on their backpacks, cornering a girl with glasses and big boobs and a skinny looking nervous guy. The guy was standing in front of glasses girl like he was going to protect her, but his nervous smile kinda killed that notion. The girl was just staring at the other girls as if debating something, her eyes occasionally flicking between them and the boy.
Sighing angrily, Sora grumbled, "What is with this town and bullies?" before walking down the small street towards the group.
'This is bad,' Mikado worried as the Ganguro Girls surrounded him and Anri. Aloud he said, "Take it easy, we don't want any trouble."
"Too bad, squirt!" The leader girl spat, "Cause today is the day that you and parasite here get what's coming to you!"
'I need to get Anri out of here!' the boy desperately thought, 'Maybe I can distract them long enough for her to get away?'
Unbeknownst to Mikado, Anri was having similar, but at the same time, drastically different thoughts. To be specific, she was debating whether or not to bring out Saika and end these annoying girls once and for all.
'But,' Anri argue with herself, 'Doing that would reveal what I am to Ryuugamine-san.'
As she went back and forth over the matter, the bespectacled girl noticed someone entering the side street they were currently standing in. It was a girl, about the same age as Anri was, if not slightly older, dressed in denim shorts and a black t-shirt.
Pausing just inside the mouth of the street, the girl slid a backpack off of her shoulders and placed it gingerly on the ground beside her. Straightening back up, she looked upon the Ganguro Girls with distaste, revealing dual colored eyes: one blue and one green, and sporting a large white bandage on one cheek.
"You're days are up, you jackass!" the leader girl sneered, "And this time there's no Izaya or Black Rider to sav-oowhaa! "
No one aside from Anri had noticed the strange girl; her presence had been completely ignored by the others right up until the point where she strode purposely forward and side-kicked the girl nearest to her so that all three fell like dominoes.
Mikado was stunned.
One second the too-tanned girl had been about to kick his ass; the next her and her friends were in a heap on the ground.
Looking left, the boy finally noticed a teenaged girl standing next to him, clutching her left side with her head bowed, as if in pain.
'Damn,' Sora thought, 'That was stupid. Pulled my bullet wound.'
As the tourist silently berated herself, the girls she kicked over hopped back onto their feet and began scowling at her.
"Hey bitch! What the hell's your problem!"
Sora glared back at them, causing them to flinch, and growled, "Shut up. I'm in a bad mood right now, so why don't you three bimbos just get lost."
A large vein appeared over the leader's head as she snarled back, "What was that, you lil' bitch? I'll kick your ass for that!" She got into a fighting stance. "Don't think I can't, neither! I've been taking karate! I'm a yellow belt!"
"You tell her, Kasumi!"
"Yeah, kick her ass!"
Listening to the girls' urging their leader on and seeing her pathetic excuse of a stance, Sora chuckled slightly before giving the Ganguro a smile that didn't reach her eyes and said, "Bring it on, Bitch-san."
Growling with fury, Kasumi stepped forward and swung a wild hook at the tourist's head.
Sora swayed back to avoid it, but had to stop short as her wounds once again flared up in pain. She managed to move far enough that the punch wound miss her-
-But not her hat.
Almost in slow motion, the Ganguro's fist hit the brim of the cap and wrenched it off of Sora's head, causing it to spiral and land on the ground with a small fwap.
Both girls stared at the hat for a moment before Sora clenched her teeth and punched the girl in the stomach with an uppercut. Stepping past the girl's right side, she spun and delivered a left back kick to one of her lackeys before following through and hooking the other girl in the liver with her left.
All three hit the ground nearly simultaneously-
-And after a second Sora nearly joined them.
Doubled over, clutching both of her sides in pain, the strange girl wheezed, "That…. was really… really dumb."
Concerned about their savior, Anri and Mikado stepped towards the girl as the Ganguro Girls picked themselves up and made their escape, throwing back insults every step of the way.
"Hey… are you ok?" Mikado asked, somewhat timidly.
Realizing the boy was talking to her, Sora smiled, straightened up and waved him off.
"Daijoubu, daijoubu! Just pulled my stitches a bit, that's all," she assured him.
Mikado smiled and nodded, "Ah, so desu ka. You just pulled your-STITCHES! You have stitches!"
Now that the couple got a good look at her, they could see that along with a bandage on her left cheek, the girl had gauzed wrapped around different spots on her arms and legs and sported bruises and scratches on nearly even patch of skin they could see.
In short; she looked like she'd just gotten hit by a truck.
"What happened to you?" Anri asked.
Scratching the back of her head as if she was embarrassed, Sora replied, "Not much. Just got into a little fight with a gang last night, is all."
'"Is all", she says,' the couple both thought, sweat drops appearing behind their heads as the tourist cocked her and looked at the sky.
"At least… I think it was last night. I just woke up so it might've been longer. What day is this anyway?" Sora admitted as she looked at the two teenagers.
Mikado and Anri could only stare at her; their mouths open in amazement.
Shaking herself awake, Anri smiled and said, "At any rate, thank you very much for taking care of those girls for us."
Grinning broadly, Sora answered, "No problem!" as she walked to her hat, reaching down for it when she was close enough.
"I can't stand bul-hey!"
Just as she was about to pick up her hat, a random gust of wind sprang up from behind her and carried the cap up into the air and out of the alley towards the main street.
"Get back here!" Sora yelled as she dashed after it, picking up her bag on the way by.
Mikado and Anri were about to chase after her when both of their cellphones chimed at the same time. Stopping to flip them open, both received a message from Celty.
[Looking for a girl with reddish-brown hair, dual colored eyes and covered in bandages. Have you seen her?]
The couple looked at each other for a second before Anri sent a text back to the Dullahan while Mikado ran out of the side street to get the girl.
Celty replied, [Where?] and Anri told her.
Stepping onto the sidewalk, the boy scanned the crowds all around him, but it was too late.
Shinobu Sora was long gone.
"What-haa-the hell-haa-is up-haa-with-haa-this-haa-wind?" Sora panted as she followed her hat down one street after another.
She was beginning to lose hope of getting her hat back when she finally arrived at a stretch of street with nobody on it.
Crying out "Yosh!" the tourist sprinted until she was ahead of her hat, turned and jumped as high as she could.
Stretching up her right arm, Sora grasped the brim of her hat in a death grip before coming back down to earth, grinning all the while.
Landing awkwardly, the strange girl stumbled backwards until she ran into someone with an oof.
Straightening, Sora turned to apologize to whoever she had run into-
-And found herself being glared at by a blond haired guy with blue glasses and wearing a bartender's outfit.
A/N: Enter: Shizuo Heiwajima!
Also, translations.
Daijoubu: I'm fine or I'm okay
so desu ka: I see (as in you understand)
Til next time!
Please R&R! ^^