Private Getting caught up in things again x Uzu.

The air in the bar was thick with the smell of spiced ale and woodsmoke. Ryota felt it cling to him, athe awakening he had lately. A piece of hairdye was still on his skull as he adjusted his scarf. At seventeen, he was a full head taller than he had been in the begin of this year. His voice an unpredictible instrument and the world.. The world had dramatically shifted. Colors were sharper, sounds louder, and the simple truths of childhood... Now felt as stable as mist.

Ryota had chosen the corner booth, shadowed and quiet. His fingers traced the swirls in the oak table, over and over, almost a desperate attempt to anchor himself. He had invited his old mentor Uzu... A familiar hand that may have hurt him in the past, but still... A small smile got to him as he thought about how he had met him. Pranking with the painting. Then again in his office... His hand halted and he sat down even further like a gremlin. Half hanging in the booth he was drinking a beer. He started, he didn't know if Uzu would show up or not. But he needed this. Would the man even recognize him?


[Topic for Uzu.]

<!Thread Entered as NPC Uzumoreru Toushin!>

Cancer tried, but Toushin was never bested by the same thing twice.

Recovery was going swell. The hair he had lost from treatment was growing back fast. Thicker than ever, and a deep raven black that made the older man smirk every time he caught his reflection. He had never known a shade to his hair other than white, unless he was transformed into the shape of another. The darker tones took well to his golden eyes- well, eye. The chakra cancer had manage to take one thing away from the old assassin, and that was his left eye.

It was a handicap benefiting a veteran such as himself.

His stamina was coming back into swing with far more effort, but the hard-earned body he had shaped for combat had not receded in the slightest. You’d be hard pressed to believe the older gent was in remission heading towards fully cured. Tama’s last gift to the assassin had worked like a charm, and the medical staff had been entirely prepped for the moment, allegedly, for years. Toushin was assured that this was the last he would ever see or hear of the cancer, ever again. He felt amazing.

In his private home, tucked away deep in the Red Light district, Toushin enjoyed a fresh black cup of coffee as he began to move through his morning routine; but something felt…off. He took a sip of brew, and stopped. Then, a longer, slower, sip. Eye narrowing, he moved to dump the coffee out and looked into the cup. It had been freshly broken, and reenamled with a message written into the bottom of the cup naming a local bar; and the Toraono symbol.

Ryota. How, by all the good grace of the kami, youkai, and the filth inbetween, that boy managed to even find him, but break in. Steal his favorite coffee mug. Break it, remake it, and leave a message that would have slipped by entirely until his last sip. The only reason Uzu noticed it was the bottom of the cup had been lifted slightly to put in the new words. Meaning his coffee had been just a few centimeters higher in his cup than normal.

…and he wasn’t mad at all. In fact, Toushin began to chuckle with mirth until it broke out into a full laughter. He put his new favorite prank into the kitchen sink, then moved to get dressed to see the fool of a boy. He knew the location, but never hurt to do some reconnaissance before the meeting. The old killer needed to get out of his home for a little bit and socialize. Doc said it’d be good for the immune system or, something. Maybe he was making that up. Really, he was just bored.

When Ryota’s old boss came in, he walked in with a simple white button-down shirt with rolled sleeves, navy blue slacks with office-class shoes; something you’d never see him wear. A pair of suspenders held up his pants to facilitate the small bit of weight loss. A simple black eyepatch covered his left eye, and the right soon caught the boy in his favorite spot of a bar. Like a shadow, he was gone. Someone passed in front of Uzu, and in their wake all that remained was air. He appeared once more, suddenly and without movement nor sound, across from Ryota with a whiskey sour in his right hand.

“Evening, boy. You’re looking well, keeping up with training?”

Cancer or not, Uzumoreru Toushin’s presence was like sitting across from a hungry tiger. He exuded a deadly aura without lifting a finger, but his face only showed genuine concern. He had a light smile that pushed at the wrinkles in the corner of his right eye.
“I loved your newest trick there. I’ve yet to know anyone as quiet, or as fast, as you can be. I’m sure its done well in the defense of our village. I noticed we’re not caved in, and I’m sure no doubt in largely part to you. I salute.” Uzu lifted his drink and sipped it, the golden eye never closing or moving off of Ryota.

A bored youth was sitting in that corner, playing with the rim of his glass. Lifted it up and took a bigger sip before setting it down. Maybe he aint coming.' was the thought. Getting his hopes up on his past papa figure and then this. He took a small sigh before playing with the glass itself, head low to the table.

“Evening, boy. You’re looking well, keeping up with training?”

You could see the error the boy had with his mind; he didn't hear him, didn't sense him. His back straightened up like he had been stung in his behind. "S-sir..." He stammered out before looking more closely to his old mentor. "Talk about me... but you look like shit... Well... recovered... shit... What the hell happened with you?" He blurted out one thing after another before thinking. "S-sorry..." He muttered those words after and lowered his head. If he had known this man had a depth problem now with his vision, he could have chosen something less... Depth as a prank and a message.

“I loved your newest trick there. I’ve yet to know anyone as quiet, or as fast, as you can be. I’m sure it's done well in the defense of our village. I noticed we’re not caved in, and I’m sure no doubt in large part to you. I salute.” He saw Uzu sitting there with whisky, and he looked from Uzu's remaining eye to the missing one and felt like he had failed him. Maybe what he had was because he failed to keep people down here safe. at least those whom he cared about.

"It's a mess..." He simply said. "We have people below acting out, people above acting out, trying to drown us in sand. Up there..." And with that, he began to recount how everything had happened up there. "So yeah... that is kind of it." He purposely left out the part where he died basically... Or that whole ordeal for now, for now... That one whole event up top with Shin, Akkuma, the mercs, the everything was probably overwhelming enough. And.. maybe it was better that fewer people knew about him.

“It is fine, you don’t need to apologize to an old man,” Uzu chuckled with a geniune smile that pushed the wrinkles of his eyes together.
“Cancer,” he answered after another sip of his cocktail, “Chakra cancer, to be precise. Up until ten years ago, it was considered a deadly death sentence. Mine stems from genetics. The black blood my clan was once infamous for is a genetic defect that overstimulates the chakra coil to a point of inert. However, it makes our bodies incredibly durable, and acceptance of Nature Chakra. The trick originally was to swallow a small lead ball that we kept in our stomachs. It would absorb Nature Chakra naturally overtime, and when we need a boost, we’d consume the stored chakra and digest it. Sadly, non of that actually stops the progress of the defect. Eventually, it all ends with cancer.
“That was, until an old rival came up with a solution. You might have heard of him; Ryuu Tama? Your brother’s older brother. He not only cured this type of cancer, but set aside a specific cure for mine knowing it would come back up again some day. I’m on the mend.”

Ryota, despite being a prankster with more pep than the normal ANBU, seemed to finally be showing the signs of wear that came with the job. Uzu’s look of happy turned to one of concern, wishing he could say something supportive enough to actually help; but he knew full well what that life brought. Only reason the two of them could meet like they did was entirely due to Toushin’s retirement. He had been an unknown force while leading the branch, and he continued to be unknown as a civilian; he preferred it that way. However seeing the first Toraono he had ever trained struggle gave the old mentor pause. To be straight, he wished more than anything he could stand up and remove the Barons from power himself; but he wasn’t quite there yet. There were already rumblings of the war, and his connection into Chiyoko’s network spoke of a lot of movement. Even the other clans seemed to be working towards a unified front as opposed to their normal cat/dog antics. It was the young man’s first real war, and it was going to stick.

“Drink slinger,” Uzu’s steel voice cut through the crowd to the nearest bartender, looking up with a jolt to wonder how he heard the old man over the rest of the bar.
“Two Stingers,” he said with golden eyes gleaming. The man nodded and took out two shot glasses. He built them with tequila, bitters, and a swirl of black fluid that seemed to swim within the liquors. He handed them off to a young blond waitress who served them up to the two man with a wink before walking out.
“There’s nothing I can say that will make you feel better, believe me I know. Instead, I can do the next best thing; get you completely shit faced. You’ll feel worse for it in the morning, but for a few hours, I can teach you how to really let go.” Toushin grabbed his shot glass and raised it up to the light above the table. Golden green light reflcted between the black swirls as he toasted,

“To taking a night off,” and tossed it back.