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Hello friends~ I’m back in Tokyo now. Which mean that I’ll be back on here in the next couple of days, after I figure out school registration (which literally just got thrown at me as a surprise because they decided to give RAs prereg again out of the blue...), job situation here, and get all my stuff sorted. Yup. Ilu all and I’m looking forward to being back.

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"Whoa there. I'm not out to steal anyone's chicken." Excitable guy. Yuri couldn't help but be amused by his over-the-top reaction to what was happening. Still, it was obvious that the chicken was important to the guy...in a different way than people usually considered food, apparently. But at least that solved one of Yuri's problems. "Since you're fresh out of chicken, know anywhere else I can get something to eat?" If there were people in the area, there had to be some place around.

He paused for a moment to catch his breath. He had ran straight at the stranger from near the entrance of Nia Khera once he caught a glimpse of him holding the missing chicken. "Yes, she does!” A not so subtle correction to the stranger. "And I’m taking her back right now, so you better be on your way." He flailed his arms wildly, an obvious act of annoyance but otherwise undecipherable gestures. Immediately after he picked up the lost chicken— in a much more gentle manner than how he was previously behaving.

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"Huh. Sounds like an interesting guy," Yuri replied. Though not one that he thought he'd get along all that well with. That tended to happen with people who lived in a world of black and white, though. They tended not to see eye-to-eye with those who lived in the grey. The predicting outcomes to the war sounded the most interesting, though it also seemed like a lot of effort for something that was fluid and could change in an instant.

Based on Alex's device, they had quite the journey ahead of them. But then he directed them to the warp plate. "You have something like that?" the man asked, surprise coloring his tone. Something that convenient could be used for a lot, though not all of the uses were benign. Still, the thought that they could travel that far simply by stepping on something was pretty unbelievable.

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"He’s the type of Digimon that likes to understand conflicts on a deep level, therefore he studied the story of this world for predicting the possible outcomes of the war. He cares a lot about efficiency, and he’s rather dry, even if he may try to lighten the mood at some times. He also has very black and white morals, therefore he can be quite ruthless if someone betrays him. Still, he’s a trustworthy Digimon and likes to meet new people." Alex told to Yuri, replying to the vigilante’s inquiry. He understood why his new friend asked this, as the swordsman had no clue about the creatures that ruled this world.

After that, he checked his Digivice, showing the information to Yuri, incluiding how many kilometers they would have to walk in order to reach the Dark Area, which was rather far away as they were in the fourth layer. However, those distances wouldn’t be a problem thanks to the warp plates, which allowed to travel between zones by teleporting their users. Then Alex mentioned the location of the nearest plate, so they could go there after leaving the library.

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Orange you Glad to see Me?

Yuri watched as the kid sidled up to the fruit stand, little hand snaking over the edge to grab the nearest apple. He was young and obviously inexperienced—the stall-tender noticed him in an instant. In mere moments, the air was filled with squeaks and sobs, begging to be let go. Such was the world of the poor. If you weren't fast enough, you lost out. The stakes were just a bit higher than they were for others.

A pair of knights, dressed in an unfamiliar uniform, came over to see what the commotion was about. Yuri followed.

"...what we do to thieves?" the shopkeeper was asking. "You can save your crocodile tears." He raised a knife above the child's prone wrist, preparing to sever it.

Yuri stepped ahead of the knights, who didn't seem like they were going to do anything, and caught the man's arm before he could bring it down. He was strong, but Yuri held steady. "Whoa there. No need to go that far for an apple. Or do you think an apple's worth that much?"

The man sputtered. "This isn't any of your concern. This is the law."

"Ahh, my bad. The kid ran off before I could give him the money to pay for the apple." With his free hand, he reached into his wallet and drew out money to pay for the fruit, and a couple of others. "Here. This good enough?"

"This criminal will just steal again," the shopkeeper replied, though sounding hesitant.

Of course he wanted more money, but Yuri wasn't going to be pushed that far. "I'll take three apples and an orange." He continued to hold out the money.

At last, the man gave in, releasing the child and taking Yuri's money. "Get lost," he growled to the child, who did, but not before Yuri slipped the apple back into the boy's small hands. "Pleasure doing business with you," he said to the man, sarcastic edge to the tone. He took the other two apples and the orange, tossing one of the apples to each of the knights and the orange to a long, brown-haired man who had joined them at some point. Sharing makes the world a better place.

The kid would either learn from his mistake or get caught again, when no one was there to save him. Yuri knew how it worked—he'd been there before. But sometimes, all that was needed was another chance. He turned to leave the scene before the shopkeeper could change his mind and demand more in front of the knights.

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Flames in the Forest

A small figure dashed through the undergrowth, red hairflashing like live flame each time it caught the sunlight filtering down through the canopy—something that the dull traveler's cloak billowing out behind her emphasized. Her run was, while not calm, perhaps, not panicked, despite the three wolves close enough to nip at the cloak, and gaining. She carried a bow in her hands, arrow nocked, but the beasts chasing her didn't give her the luxury to turn to shoot.

Yuri didn't hesitate as she passed under the tree he'd climbed to get a bearing on his location in the forest. He dropped from the branch and, with the momentum, sliced cleanly through the head of the closest creature. From there, he turned his landing into a roll and returned to his feet in mere seconds to give chase. Twice more his sword struck, and twice more the beasts collapsed, lifeless.

Once he ascertained that they weren't going to get back up, he flicked the worst of the blood from his blade and sheathed it. Turning to the girl, he put his right hand on his hip. "You okay?"

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Sooooo I'm back in Japan now, and didn't do replies or the starters I said I'd do at Minky's house because we actually ended up doing things and stuff. Yup. And as a result, she didn't get on, either. Sorry about that. Ok, I'm not actually sorry.

Anyway, I'm at my host family's house for 2 days, so I'm going to try to get some things done...after I unpack and repack everything before I go traveling around the rest of Japan. Yup. I'll probably throw whatever I get done in a queue or something.

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下町

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Oki yeah I'm burnt out on drafts for the night plus need to get ready for tomorrow.

Sooooooo I have a lot of things in drafts. Yup. thread list is completely useless at this point and I'm too lazy to update it. Some of these drafts are like a year old. Still going to reply unless we've agreed otherwise, but it won't be in any particular order. They'll probably trickle in while I'm at Minky's. And by probably I mean maybe.

That said, because I'm a good rper like so many others, like this if you want a starter. Cuz none of us can resist digging our holes deeper. These are the same, though, I'll get to them at some point in the near future probably. Hah.

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"Looking for something?" Yuri asked, not missing the brief searching motion. She didn't seem to be in any hurry, if she could spend time chasing a dog around, but he might be able to point her in the right direction.

"Sure. C'mon, Repede," Yuri said, taking a step to the side and nudging the puppy forward with his foot. "You gotta get used to this kind of thing if you wanna start tagging along with your pop."

The puppy didn't make a sound as he was slid forward but rather sat, making the process slightly more difficult. Once in front of the girl, his tail beat the ground once in a friendly attempt, stirring up a small cloud of dust.

Her heads turns to the right and she seems to be searching for any knights that might be nearby, but she’s quick to realize that isn’t the case at all. It’s just them and despite her slightly silly assumption…it’s easy to face them with a wide smile.

Colette was about to say something about the puppy’s trust in the speaker, but she could see their bond was strong on both ends. In a strange way, but it was still there. “I won’t worry, then.” The smile lessened, but she still had every intention of respecting how shy the puppy was. “Do you think he’d let me pet him, eventually?” 

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The fact that a world existed in which the takeover of a country was not determined by royal claim or war but by playing games was still strange. How was the violence ban carried out? Surely, someone had to have gotten sick of the game thing—it was fun for a while, but to live your life solely on them... Was it actually possible to monitor everything going on? Well, it was food for thought on a rainy day.

Yuri knew where the story was going before Sora got to the end. Leaning back in his chair, he replied. "If you can't fix the problem yourselves, a boost in morale isn't going to do much for you." He couldn't help but wonder if the morale boost was truly the end goal, so he pushed. "You planning to make people work until they drop in hopes that the problem'll fix itself somewhere down the line?"

The vigilante shifted slightly, bored look in place. "And if this is so important, why don't you go yourself? Seems like a better idea than trusting it to someone you randomly picked up out of a bar." The card game had been one thing. He could bluff with the best of them, but games weren't something he was necessarily good at.

Not to mention, the entire thing seemed like a pain. The bet had been for 'something,' so it didn't have any implied limits, but an entire contest would take time, time that he could be using for other things. And his royal majesty had the intent to win. Yuri didn't like being strong-armed into doing things, and this was something above and beyond what he'd expected. There was no way to guarantee what the outcome would be.

"At the risk of sounding clichéd, I gotta ask: 'And if I don't volunteer?'"

ante up

      “Well, hear me out and you might find you are quite mistaken,”        Sora says, lacing his fingers together.       “As you may have learned from earlier, people get what they want        by playing games in this world. Anything that they’re willing to bet                    anyway. And—yes—it’s exactly how I claimed the throne. But alas—”                His confident grin fades and is replaced by an exaggerated frown.

      “—y-you see, economically, we’re in a bad position due to        some…rather risky political decisions in the past.       It’s gotten to the point where even we can’t fix it ourselves.”      ”But there’s hope! Elkia has recently been invited to       participate in a world-wide tournament where representatives from       each country play various games to win. The prize? Some petty       amount of money and maybe a diamond encrusted trophy of some       sort, but that’s not what I’m after. What I desire is a morale boost for       our people. Can you imagine? The feeling of the underdog winning a             world wide competition? Exhilarating.”      A scrawny finger is jabbed in Yuri’s direction.      Sora’s grin returns, but this time it’s even bigger.

     ”And tonight I found the perfect person to represent us.       You, Yuri Lowell, will be our representative.       Thank you for kindly volunteering.”

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"That so?" Yuri asked disinterestedly, neither believing nor disbelieving the man's assertion. Whatever the truth was didn't really matter to him—the only thing that did was the fee at hand. With every minute that passed, the vigilante grew more and more resistant to the idea of paying. This man seemed like just another noble, using his position and power to extort from those who had the misfortune of relying on them.

Yuri wouldn't roll over that easily.

But he had to admit, the man played the game well. He seemed more than comfortable with these types of dealings, and Yuri caught the double entendre threat in his words. We, huh? he thought, his own smirk widening ever so slightly. Well, that was natural. No one in their right mind would just let someone wander off when they wanted something from them. The second part was the more interesting. This man was telling Yuri that he had the confidence to deal with him, sword or no. Was it overconfidence or something well-founded? Each was an unknowns to the other, so it could've merely been a bluff, and Lord Peacock was definitely a manipulator; even if his tactics hadn't made that clear, his careful demeanor and play of emotions certainly had. So what was the reality?

He'd cross that bridge when he came to it, he supposed. It wasn't like was guaranteed to end badly. "What, and let you add a finders' fee to my bill? I'll pass. I'm a big kid and can do my errands on my own."

A Lesson Learned

Of course Redau had been in this business a good while; the way people were dressed and the way they acted were both very clear signs of their financial status: All he had to do was compare them to himself. Most would perhaps call Redau unique, or maybe strange, but when it came down to it what mattered was he left a big impression with the way he dressed and acted. Bad or good, it didn’t matter to Redau. So long as his past was not the focus of anybody’s unnecessary attentions; that, would be the most shameful thing. Even he wished to forget about it, most often.

He smiled with a feigned innocence and delight, before it turned to a smirk and he shrugged. "I suppose you should, it’s not every day I save a life. But believe me, I charge the same either way." That was a little bit of a lie; most of the time the fee was much lower, but there was something to be said about having someone indebted to you—why not take that chance now? Especially since this person didn’t know the ins and outs, clearly, of the situation. Had it been someone he’d seen before—someone with regularity—perhaps he would have been far kinder in his evaluation. 

But, Jintech was something that affected his life almost as much as the Corpse Shell he wielded. It wasn’t so bad to set a price high. 

"Then I suppose we had ought to get you to a bank, hadn’t we?” his head tilted, "unless of course you have a further issue with that?" A knowing smile flashed upon his expression, before he pushed himself to his feet from the bar. "How about we search for your weapon while you think about it?" he suggested; even if the man ended up trying to give him the slip, he wouldn’t get far. Not that he needed to know that. Either he could guess that for himself, or Redau would simply have to catch him to prove it.

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                                            “I’d thought it’d be—”    A glance to the side to realize he still had an audience kept    him from admitting what statuette he’d truly wanted,    clearing his throat instead.

Yeah, he should've known that was how it would end. At least the last one had turned up now, and it didn't seem like the kid wanted it--maybe he'd be willing to give it up.

"Mind giving that 'outdated junk' to me? I'll pay you back for it." He wasn't sure what it was the kid was looking for and generally didn't care. Yuri, for his part, wanted to finish up this mission and move on. He'd spent more time here than he cared to admit looking for  what had just fallen into the blue-haired stranger's hands. "Far as I know, that's the last figure in those things," he added, gesturing at the capsule dispensers. "Might be better off asking one of the guys here if they know about the one you're looking for."

   He would remain quite oblivious to that presence    behind him, silently pressuring him to hurry—at    least on the outside. He was quite aware the other    had yet to move off, and had been digging through    his wallet. Still, the younger would simply continue    his leisurely turning of the machine’s crank, and    opening of capsule. A small statuette in hand—

               "This was the rumored figure?                                    It’s outdated junk—”    The outburst is incredulous, though kept to a conversational    tone as he stood, frowning upon the held figure.

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So I was trying to double-check something and ended up coming across this, which is completely unrelated, but nonetheless very important. Hahahaha.

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Well that was a new one. No one asked about Repede holding the pipe. Was it that strange?

"Nah, he doesn't use it. He's just liked carrying things since he was a puppy. The pipe belonged to his former master. Pretty sure he just carries it because he likes it."

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Eyes are drawn to a certain object of a blue-haired dog.

“ yuri, can animals properly utilize that smoke pipe? i suppose he could breathe it, yet it would seem difficult to use proper herbs without opposable thumbs… ”

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Oh boy. One headache after another. It'd been bad enough that he screwed up and landed himself in here, but add to that Flynn's noisy right hand and you had a recipe for disaster. Well, maybe not all that bad, really. They had their issues, of course, but Sodia was, in her own right, a competent knight. Question was, had she come alone?

"Feeling's mutual. Thought the empire was keeping their hands off this one."

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                                “ ——-Yᴜʀɪ Lᴏᴡᴇʟʟ?! ”

             It seemed her past would always be there to haunt her at every               turn. Guilt churned in her stomach, the very sight  of  the  man               bringing up unwanted conflict and emotion.  Time had allowed               her  to mostly allow the feelings  to  subside,  however,  some               would never fully dissipate. To think she’d find herself trapped               with him of all people.

                                   “ To think I’d find myself locked up with you. ”

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The guy got weirder and weirder. From riddles to courtly manners, it seemed that this one was intent on weaving a web of mystery and confusion. He'd called himself a simple minstrel, but from Yuri's experience, minstrels only had this kind of elegant aura about them if they were well-accustomed to performing for the upper-echelons of society. All that meant, however, was that the man's skills at his job were no joke.

This guide thing was another matter entirely.

Truthfully, Yuri wasn't exactly sold on the whole thing. He'd walked through his fair share of forests and, while some had been rather convoluted, he'd always made it out to the other side. Even the Quoi woods with its Aer poisoning had proved passable in the end.

Would it be foolish to ignore this man? Or would it be foolish to trust him? Honestly, the man's comment about a 'higher power' and apparently free services made him more suspicious—Yuri had never heard of a 'rupee' before, but payment could come in other forms. Plus, who did he serve? A noble lording over this area? Had someone sent him here for this purpose when he, himself, with the next statement spoke to neither assurance or concern?

Then again, the fact that he was telling Yuri to trust his actions rather than his words was of some comfort, as words could often be less than trustworthy. And he didn't seem like a bad guy but, he supposed, the best ones never did.

"What else will it cost? A favor to your master?" Yuri asked, bluntly and ignoring the question of the rupee, hoping to maybe offend enough to get a straight answer. He didn't think it would work, given the other man's amusement to this point, but it was worth a shot. "And I'm supposed to just blindly trust you, huh?"

There was a soft tutting of his tongue, Sheiks red hue staring up towards the other, never losing that spark of mirth. Of course he could manage it, how well was the other question. That also required knowledge upon the other however, and with such little understanding as-of-now, the Sheikah could not answer the other properly. Then again, when did that ever stop him? There was a purring of tongue against the back of his throat, languid body motions twisting up to stand and this revealed the meeger height of one hundred seventy three centimeters. The other’s own standing above him by seven centimeters, head tipped upward to look the man in the eye. Sheik was not one to be discouraged by simple things, height difference bothered him little and being called as he was —a minstrel— he decided it best to confound his new-found clientele. After all, things were always best done whenever someone was confused.

Turning his hand backwards, Sheik took a light step behind to accompany room enough for a regal-esque bow. Hand pressed into his chest as his head tipped downward, eyes closed, thick golden hair making certain any attempts at perhaps seeing behind the loose cowl around his face was for naught. “Ah, but I am but a servant to higher power. My services in-thus cost not a rupee from ones purse.” The red eye visible lifted, that same amusement never leaving its’ color. “As for my ability to see one through the forest’s maze, you must trust a guide.”