Chapter 4
Ding! Ding! Ding!
The three mile walk from the Infirmary to Rin's little corner of a home was a refreshing one, even if Len was tagging along.
Slight breezes of wind felt nice on her face in the sweltering summer heat. What little of the sky she could see through clouds of gunk was a beautiful blue.
But the best part of the long walk was that Len surprisingly kept his mouth shut the whole time, leaving a nice peace between the both of them. Every so often however Len would glance at Rin and stare at her, his eyes roaming over her features for a minute before looking ahead of him again, and it made her feel uncomfortable.
As much as she wanted to glare at him and snap, 'What are you looking at?' she figured it wouldn't be the best. Might as well try to get along with her new 'roomate'.
Rin scrunched her face at the horrible thought. She had to live with this arrogant, rude, cocky and vulgar person from now on. She still couldn't believe it.
"We're here." Rin said bluntly and dropped the cot Kaito had left in the infirmary room for Len onto the ground far away from hers. Len exaimened his bricked in surroundings. It was sometime in the evening now.
He leaned against a brick wall casually, no doubt trying to look cool, Rin thought. "So, I'm supposed to live here, out in the open?" He asked. NOW Rin glared at him.
"Be grateful. Atleast we accepted you and didn't leave you on the streets to die." she replied coldly. Len held up his hands in surrender.
"Jeez, sorry." He said and than added, "Babe." with a sparkle in his eye, knowing how it'll piss her off.
Rin clenched her fists and walked into Kaito's stone one-roomed home thinking it'd be best not to drive her fist to wipe that arrogant smirk off his face.
There wasn't much in the familiar building. A couble of wooden chairs ready to snap at the legs if you werent careful, a small table, a cot with a pillow and other odd's and ends. Nothing extravagant, like all the other residents who were lucky enough to actually have a roof over their heads.
Rin stomped over to a battered punching bag held up by a stand on the ground. It was nothing too special or fancy.
The three mile walk was a good warm up for her legs, so she skipped her stretches in that area. She lifted an arm up in the air, bent it at the elbow and brought it down across her shoulder with her other hand. She held it like that and did the same with the other arm.
Len finally followed her into the building when she didn't come out and caught her kicking the bag with such fierceness for such a tiny body.
Rin alternated between powerful kicks, swift punches and ducks. Len stared at her in awe. He never thought that Rin, a beautiful, petite, shy (to others, not to him) girl would be a fighter. She just seemed too harmless!
But now he knew better, she was a great fighter and could probably kick his ass anytime, anywhere. He made a little mental note not to go too far with his little nicknames.
Beads of sweat started to form on Rin's forehead as well on her arms, making them shine slightly and show off her perfect, flexing musceles; big enough to show she was physically strong, but small enough that you can still tell she was actually female.
Len thought how ironic this scene was. Rin, who was usually such a timid girl and wouldn't even attempt swatting a fly was pounding the bag into smithereens.
Rin was so into her practise that she didn't realize Len had creeped up behind her, studying her movements in awe. Len's eyebrow raised to his hairline when Rin turned slightly as she was jumping around pretending to dodge punches as she threw back her own. Someone needed a sport's bra.
Len snickered into his hand immaturely. Rin stopped mid-roundhouse and turned at the sudden noise, startled.
"What?" she asked, her face getting even redder than it was before from exhasustion. How long had Len been watching her? She was sure the lazy bum was going to hit the cot for the rest of the day!
Keeping in mind that if he told her that he was checking out her 'goodies' as he would of put it, she would pummel him into the concrete wall he was leaning against.
"You're good." Len finally said. Rin wiped her wet bangs off from her head and to the side and grunted a 'thanks' in between catching her breath.
"So, who taught you all that?" he asked. "It was pretty badass." Rin looked down at her fists as she clenched and unclenched them.
"Rei did. He taught me years ago when I. . . never mind." She shook her head and took a deep breath to calm herself.
Len realised something must of happened that she didn't want to talk about so he strayed away from that topic. He was surprised when Rin did the subject changing for him.
"Rei's better than me, obviously. He says that our dad taught him when he was younger. Before all this." Rin gestured to the space around her. She continued.
"Our dad was a fight teacher who knew different styles, according to my brother. He taught Rei some self defense teqniques, Boxing, and Taekwondo, which Rei taught me." Rin said quietly. It was hard for her to even mention her dad who Rei remembered.
"What do you mean?" Len asked with a scrunched eyebrow. "'According to my brother'" he quoted. Atonishingly, Len felt bad realizing he asked the wrong thing when he saw the change in the girls face.
"It's ok, you don't have-" Len spoke quickly
Rin interrupted him. "I. . .I don't know who my parents were. I'm orphaned like you. They died when I was seven but I have no memory of them at all. Isn't that weird? Seven's old enough to have memory of your own parents." she said somewhat hesitantly. She didn't think much about whether it would be a good idea to tell him about all that. She almost regreted it now, having to dump all that on him so suddenly. She didn't even know if he was trustworthy.
"Trauma." Len replied shortly after her emotional dump. Rin stared at him like he was insane.
"Excuse me?" She asked not knowing what he was talking about.
Len explained, "My old man was a psychologist, before he. . ." he trailed off and shook his head. "Anyways, if someone goes through something that becomes hard on them, like their parents death, their brain will delete the memories that they have of it. It's called Repressed Memory, a type of Amnesia. In your case your brain wiped out all your memories about your parents and everything before it." he finally finished.
Rin's jaw dropped open. "Y-you're actually smart?" Rin finally babbled, shocked. Len snorted
"Nope. My dad just liked to lecture about his job a lot." he said. "And anyways, looks ain't everything, blondie." Len smirked.
After speaking her absurd comment outloud, she muttered to herself, "Something that bad actually happened to them for me to forget everything?" while putting her fist over her mouth in thought.
A wail of an alarm brought them both from their thoughts and shattered the silence.
"Is it ten already?" Rin thought aloud. She didn't even realise the room grow dark, light only being able to come in from the empty doorframe. The girl tied her hair up into a short ponytail using an elastic around her wrist.
"What are you talking about, babe?" Len asked once again becoming his suave self. He was ignored as Rin left Kaito's home and started to walk down the alley. Not knowing what else to do, he strut quickly after her.
"The arena." Rin said simply and kept walking.
The alarm echoed across the whole Malevolent district. Once a week, every Saturday night the warning siren would go off before 10 o' clock alerting everyone before it started. Everyone in the area would hear the whining siren and would cluster at the arena.
The arena was probably the best looking thing in all the slums and it belonged to Malevolent and Malevolent only.
Like every other building, it was made of gray stone and concrete. The inside of the seemingly dull building however was the complete opposite.
Walking in, Len noticed how festive the lights almost looked. There were dozens of long strands of lights that lit up the inside of the building in surprisingly joyous hues of orange, yellow, pink, and a bit of regular white light. He realized how friendly and slightly inviting the atmosphere was in here compared to the outside world of the slums.
The perimeter of the big, completely open room was lined with chairs of different kinds. Metal foldouts, plain wooden chairs, metal chairs that looked like they were stolen from a classroom outside of the slums and even a couple of crumy recliners.
Even with possibly the HUNDREDS of chairs, some people were forced to find a spot on the floor to sit because the arena was so packed. The only time Len had seen people actually smile in the slums, even the slightest, was in that building. Other than that, everyone looked almost dead as they lived their lives in miserable repetition.
"Len? Down here." said boy got called out of his thoughts by Rin. Rin was standing about 30 feet in front of him in an empty aisle where the rows of chairs egan off to the sides of her. It almost looked like the blonde girl was. . .smiling. Len blinked a couple of times and rubbed his eyes, thinking there must be something wrong with his eyes and he couldn't see properly from a distance. The faint whisper of a smile was still on blonde girls face.
Was that the first time he's seen her remotely happy? And what was making her so freaking happy? She motioned for the now staring boy to come to her and he complied, strutting down the aisle. Rin rolled her eyes but not even Len's 'i'm-all-that-and-a-bag-of-chips' attitude could bring her down.
Rin walked to the very front row with an almost visible bounce in her step. Len raised an eyebrow slightly at the discovery while trying to sneek a peek at her ass.
Len noticed how the floor dipped slightly ahead of the front row. And there, in it's own trench in the center of the room was a huge fighting ring. Len's eyes nearly popped out of head, but of course, they didn't because he was Len and he had swag.
About in the middle of the front row two people with familar looking hair were had light brown hair and the other had blue. He followed Rin down the row and emerging from behind other peoples heads were the faces of Rei and Kaito.
Rei got up from the chair and smiled his usual caring and reassuring smile. Kaito beamed at her proudly.
"Hey, Sis." He said in his mellow voice and hugged his sisters petite frame. Rei looked down at her looking back up at him with a smile and asked, "Did you warm up?"
Rin nodded enthusiastically, "Of course! You know by now not to ask. It's not like back when I was ten." she laughed lightly remembering how sneaky she would be about practicing at that age.
Now Len was befuddled. What were they talking about?
Rin's brother noticed him standing behind her and something flashed across his face. Len noticed the sudden change in facial expression but it passed too quickly to tell what it was.
Rei sat back down next to Kaito, and Rin sat in an empty seat next to her brother. Len was left standing. Kaito gestured him to sit in the extra seat chair to him.
"Umm, so what's going on here?" Len finally asked to try and clear the confussion fogging his brain. The three others looked at him like he just asked what the sun was.
"It's Saturday. Every Saturday we have a fight competition." Kaito explained. That didn't help Len at all.
Len scratched the messy bangs in the front of his head. "And? What does it have to do with cu-I mean Rin?" Close call. It wouldn't have been pretty if he called Rin one of his nicknames in front of her brother.
Rin sighed, no doubt thinking how much of an idiotic pretty boy he was. "Why do you think I was beating a bag before?" she answered his question with a question.
It suddenly clicked. Little, delicate, harmless Rin was actually going to FIGHT now? It front of all these people? That seemed nothing like her.
Being the fool that he was, he spoke without thinking. "YOU'RE going to fight? That doesn't seem like you at all!" Len blurted out. Rin was offended and turned stone cold.
She crossed her arms and turned forward, her face completely cleaned of any traces of earlier merriment. "You don't even know me." she said bluntly. Kaito and Rei were whipping their heads back and forth to keep up with the conversation coming from both ends until Rin's comment stopped Len from speaking anymore.
Rei gave Len a look for killing his little sisters good mood from blondes blood almost ran cold but he brushed it off.
After a while, Len spoke."So how long has she been doing this for?" Len asked Kaito quietly. The blue haired man turned to him slightly, keeping one eye on the fight that was currently going on. The tournament started an hour before.
"Did you hear her talking to Rei earlier? Since she was ten, now shh." Kaito said shortly and then continued to watch the men punch and kick each other.
That had to be a lie, Len thought. Ten? Who would let a ten year old girl fight? He decided to find out later after the tournament as to not pester Kaito.
The current fighter got knocked out and dropped to the floor with a heavy thud. Cheers erupted from around the arena as the victor raised his arms in victory.
"Next up, RIIIIIIN." The announcer shouted. Howl's, whistle's and shout's broke the buildings sound barrier. Len was amazed at how loud everyone cheered; louder than when the fighter just got knocked out.
Rin jumped up, appearing pumped up and excited.
She hugged her brother who shouted "Knock 'em dead." over the still screaming audience. Kaito yelled, "Good luck, kiddo!" Before she ran up the ring and got in.
A spot light hanging above the ring cast a bright light on Rin as she grinned and hopped from foot to foot waiting for her opponent.
When at last, the person she would be facing appeared into the ring, Lens jaw dropped.
Here's the next chapter! A little more insight about the charater's and some development, woot woot! It's extra long to so I hope you enjoy it! A way for you to tell me how much you liked this chapter is to post a review ;D
Not sure when the next chapter will be up, probably in the next 3-4 days since I have school and time for writting will be less. Also, I notice how Len seems a bit OOC in this chapter, but who said that people only have one side to them?
Thats all for now, see you next chapter!
~Sabby-Sama