Entering the Red Depths...

[Kazumi]

Straight there, deliver the case, straight back. Do not talk to anyone, Do not look at anything, If someone tries to talk to you, ignore them. It won't be dangerous but don't linger. Those were the instructions she was given in a nutshell by her father, and it was those words she kept running through her head as she stood outside the gateway into the glass-encased section of the city known as the Grand Palais.

It did not help matters that she stuck out like a giant red throbbing sore outside of the poorest section of the city. While she was not wearing the entire outfit her instructor had instructed her to wear, she was wearing the orange one piece gi and the matching boots. All in all it was only ten pounds lighter, but she found that she could at least walk around in that. Under the gi was a rather expensive looking white shirt and in her hands she carried a large black suitcase as she continued to stare at the guarded entrance from a safe distance away.

Even standing still she breathed rather heavily, sweating slightly from the exertion of just walking there . Had she not been an aspiring shinobi this likely could have constituted abuse! Unfortunately future mass murderers were not extended those sorts of protections it seemed.
[spoilername="Gi Description"]Bears the clan name of Chikara Homura on the front and back. No blue undershirt, replaced with long sleeved white dress shirt.

[/spoilername]

 

[Samejima]

Hmm... I'm pretty sure this is it, but how am I supposed to find one alley down some winding path in... Naoki the blindfolded genin stood a little ways inside the Grand Palais, taking in the sounds of the area. She'd been told to wear a cloak, and the only one she had was the one that got ripped up in the Diamond Maelstrom. With no money to buy another, she was wearing a dark blue gi with a yellow Toraono Clan sash around her waist. Having no idea exactly how much attention she might attract in that, she walked in boldly, asking around for a place called 'Adagaeshi'.

Or at least she wanted to. It was pretty daunting, even without being able to see the redness of everything there, just standing inside and seeing all those adults and shops everywhere.

She passed by a similarly short-ish figure, and the sounds around her identified the figure to be a girl. She's around my age? Hm, I guess it's not that dangerous after all, if there are kids my age... She kept walking though, passing by.

Naoki caught the girl's heavy breathing, and stopped in her tracks. She seems really tired... How heavy is that suitcase, gosh. Uhh, should I help? Having someone to help me ask around would be nice...

Turning, she walked back to the girl. "H-hey there... Um... Are you okay?" It would be bad if she thought that I thought that she seems like she needs help... For starters, that should be okay right...

 

[Kazumi]

Yumi did not see the other, ever so slightly taller, girl pass her by the first time. She barely seemed to notice her the second time around either. The girl blinked suddenly and she snapped back to reality as she focused on the person that greeted her. She was surprised to see another young girl in that area, but people did live around here and judging from the tattered cloak she probably was one of those poor locals.

Suddenly some of her father's warning flashed in her mind and she quickly responded in what sounded to be a pre-rehearsed line, “sorry, I do not have any money to spare.” Just as soon as she mechanically repeated the line she felt kind of bad about lying like that. It wasn't until then that she noticed the cloth wrapped around the other girl's eyes. Yumi's mouth gaped slightly as that initial guilty feeling surged forth ten-fold. “I-I'm fine, is... is there anything I could do to help you?”

 

[Samejima]

Huh? She seems... guilty? Oh gosh did I do something... Oh! "Ahh, no no, I'm a genin, see?" Naoki moved to tap the metal plate on the headband (which was over her eyes), only to find that it'd somehow moved to the side of her face instead of facing forwards like it should have. Fixing this wardrobe malfunction, and displacing the cloak slightly to reveal the sash, Naoki introduced herself. "Samejima Naoki, recently appointed genin of Sunagakure..." she was a bit sheepish as she said this.

"S-so um, if there's anything I can do to help? That's what I'm here for after all!" Well, I'm probably going to need your help in a while, but... ahh I probably shouldn't bring it up at all. Come on Naoki! You started this to help people, so help them! "Otherwise, I could just give you some water... Only-only if you want any of course, it's not like you seem like you could use some... oh geez." Naaaaah what's the point of blurting that out! "S-sorry," she said, giving up on a proper heroic rescue-type water relinquish and just going with the flow. In this case, putting her face in her hands to hide it until the girl said something.

 

[Kazumi]

A small bit of relief washed over her as the metal plate's existence was pointed out to her. “Ohh.. training,” she muttered to herself, too quiet for most to hear, but not for magical echolocation magicians. Suddenly the lack of eyesight made sense. If she was having to wear this stupidly heavy outfit then who knew what sort of stupidly restrictive stuff genin had to do.

“Umm... thank you Ms. Naoki,” she sounded just as sheepish as the other girl had been, but it was lessening ever so slightly as the conversation contained. “If you have any to spare, I would really... like some. I already feel like passing out from just walking here.” Her breathing was still slightly labored and small drips of sweat still clung loose strands of hair to her forehead, but the friendly face seemed to be alleviating some of her fatigue.

She leaned forward to give her superior a thankful and respectful bow, “thank yo-!” The weight of her outfit put her off balance once again as she was in the middle of her bow and she stumbled forward, potentially into the other girl if she was standing too close, as she tried to keep the stumble from turning into a face-plant.

 

[Samejima]

Naoki's head lifted quickly, revealing a small grin of relief. "Just Naoki will be fine, or Naoki-chan if you want, we're about the same age right? Oh and this isn't training by the way, I really can't..." Her hands moved to unlatch the flask from her waist as she spoke when the other girl made a move to bow. Had Naoki's strength training commenced at the time, she would have gotten her arms around the girl, hoisted her back up and gotten to act cool for once.

Unfortunately for the both of them, the strength training was not to commence until later this week.

"Ah-"

In an attempt to catch the girl, Naoki had gotten her right arm around the front of the other girl's abdomen and her right foot was planted, however precariously, in front of her to support. But she hadn't expected the girl to be quite so weighted down, and if she happened to fall after all Naoki would, at the very least, do all she could to push the girl back into an upright position, even if it caused Naoki herself to land on her back. No matter how the girl ended up though, she'd get up and dust herself off.

"Ooh... Are... you training?"

 

[Kazumi]

Thankfully the weight was not an absurd amount, only around an extra thirty-five pounds. Even still, for a preteen girl that was about half of her total body weight. Yumi managed to catch herself enough with Naoki's assistance to keep either of them from landing on the unsavory ground. Once she was upright the girl took a step back and gave Naoki a deep nod of her head in gracious thanks, “I am so so sorry about that!” She fervently proclaimed as she bowed just her head a few times more.

“U-uhmm... yeah, our academy teacher says we have to wear the whole thing at all times... even while bathing and stuff. My parents won't allow me to wear it at home, and so I had to sneak it on after I left the house. Even though I really just want to get rid of it...” Yumi's cheeks were still flushed from embarrassment and she couldn't bring herself to looking directly up at the girl she had just collapsed into. “I'm still really sorry about that, I am still not used to wearing it.”

 

[Samejima]

"No, it's okay! Don't worry about it!" Naoki chuckled nervously, and continued, "Oh, um, here," as she handed the flask to the girl, who was a student by the looks of things. Luckily, she hadn't finished detaching the container from its cap and the contents were unspilt. "Go ahead and drink as much as you need!" Phew, thankfully this one isn't like the other kids I've met... I was afraid she'd just start asking me why my skin's so dark or why I wear my headband here or something... Actually I almost let that one slip... Start checking your information before you spit it out Naoki...

She listened as her question was answered, and nodded thoughtfully to herself. And I guess her parents want her to rest at least when she's at home right? She's got a strong will if she's willing to sneak stuff past her parents like that... It wasn't something Naoki would be able to do. Her parents always manage to catch her lying somehow, or acting suspicious. Thanks to that, she still hasn't been able to surprise either of them with an April Fool's prank.

So that's what standard training is like... I guess some things just need lots of time and things like that. Is that endurance or strength training...? A few questions were going through Naoki's head, one of which was how you bathe while wearing weighted garb (or any garb at all really) but it was probably best to just stick to accomplishing what she'd set out to do by talking to the girl. "So then, what's the suitcase for? Is it part of training? If it isn't I could carry it for you, since you already have so much extra to carry... how's that sound?"

 

[Kazumi]

Yumi had shifted the case to be held in one hand, and by the look of how she held it the case must not be all too heavy, at least by comparison with her outfit. The girl then took the contained with another grateful nod of her head and took a long drink from it. It would probably hit her hours later in hindsight how stupid it was to drink something given to you by a complete stranger, but for now she only seemed pleased.

A relieved, “ahh...” escaped her as she finished drinking from it, which by long long it took her might have been at least half of the thing. “Thank you again Mi- erm... Naoki-chan.” She corrected herself rather quickly with an embarrassed smile. She offered the water container back to her, with yet another bow of her head, but not the suitcase. “I don't think I'm supposed to let anyone else hold it. I mean, it isn't that heavy or anything, I just need to deliver it some guy at a place in Chojo's Den for my dad. I'm not really sure where that is though...”

The admission of that caused Yumi's attention to shift away from Naoki in uncomfortable embarrassment. Her father had also given her verbal directions, but those types of things tended to get jumbled in her head. After having to sneak her training outfit outside and then wearing it all the way here, the exertion seemed to have only helped to purge that tidbit of important information from her head.

 

[Samejima]

"Hmm... That might be a problem..." Naoki herself had only arrived within the village a few days ago. This was the first time she'd even touched Grand Palais territory. Not to mention her inability to read signs due to obvious reasons. It seems though, that most of the signs here are either in neon lights or carved into wood. Naoki should be able to identify any signs in that case. Should've gotten Yoko-nee or Naito-san... I'm sure they had other things to do though, never mind that...

"Did your dad give you directions? Landmarks? Anything you remember would help a lot."

The plan being formed in Naoki's mind right now was a big jumble, but it had something to do with her canvassing the area and rushing back to describe it to the girl... the name of which she still hadn't heard. Will get around to that.

"I'll be able to get around faster, so I'll go around and see if there's anything that stands out. All you have to do is see if you can remember any building names or something like that, and I'll loop around then tell you if there's anything like that in the surrounding area... What do you think?"

 

[Kazumi]

“Yeah but...” she replied softly to Naoki's initial question. Once the other girl offered to not only help, but to practically try and find it for Yumi she received a quick shake of her head. “No no, you don't need to do that. Besides, I wouldn't want you to get in trouble with your training and such.” She still wasn't sure how the girl would be able to get around without bumping into everything blindfolded, but ninja were strange and she was apparently a genin so who knew what else she could do.

“I remember it was a few blocks in and sou-... north I think... It was one of those two.” She paused a moment and shook her head more insistently this time. “Really, you don't have to worry about me, I am sure I will be able to get around on my own!” Her tone was that of forced self-reassurance, but she seemed to be easily enough able to convince herself of it. “You've already been a big help Naoki-chan. I couldn't impose on you any further.”

 

[Samejima]

Training? Uh... "I'm not doing training right now actually... On the job, sorta. I'm helping citizens! 'specially students! That's what I'm here to do, so please don't mind me, haha!" Cue big grin.

Naoki, in her usual self-reflective ways, is overthinking things yet again. Hmm... maybe she wants me to leave her alone. I guess I wouldn't exactly accept help from any old genin, especially not one so small. I still have a long way to go before I can gain people's trust...

She took a deep breath, then decided to help out anyway. Walking that many blocks carrying so much weight, it would be time much better spent in a designated training area where there were people watching... Not in this part of town. "I'll be around the few blocks and back in a couple minutes, so please stay put for a while... I'll tell you how everything goes as soon as I'm back!" The last sentence was spoken as Naoki dashed off to the north, leaving no room for the girl to respond.

Okay, it was... Chojo's Den I think? And there might be someone waiting outside. I should've asked for which kanji the place uses before I took off like that... But hey look, first task Naoki! Just a couple dashes round a couple blocks, no big deal... Let's see... Passing several risqué shops and several more suspicious ones, Naoki's mind was thankfully occupied solely with finding any sign of Chojo's Den and/or Adagaeshi.

The sounds of the Red Lights guided Naoki down the roads quite well, and several somewhat dangerous conversations were happening around her, though she attempted to tune it out.

"-time no see! How's the family? No, not your family, THE FAMILY."

"Hey, wanna come with me? There's a nice bar-"

"-bal. Dunno about that. What password? ...Alright yeah, right this way..."

"Come on man, I know you got more! I need it-"

"Have you heard? The Cabal is supposed to meet nearby!"

Naoki froze, hearing the terrorist group's name. Whoa! What should I do? Umm... blend in, blend in... She wrapped the cloak tighter around her, and tried to get a bit closer, keeping her head down. Unfortunately, the two headed down an alley. Ahh, I can't follow now can I? ...I'll come back later.

One pass through though, and nothing relevant popped up. She reached the alley again, but the two from before were gone. It did seem rather suspicious however, this alleyway.

If the student was still waiting there or if they met on her way back, Naoki would greet her and tell her only that Chojo's Den wasn't in that direction, as far as she's searched, and would ask if she'd recalled anything significant. Otherwise, she would get pretty worried about the girl before sprinting in the southern direction, attracting quite a bit of attention as opposed to the fast walk she was using before, to try and find her.

 

[Kazumi]

Not training? Yumi began to ask, “what abo-,” before Naoki broke in with the request for her to stay here while she scouted around for her. Before the aspiring shinobi could insist that Naoki did not have to... she was already off. The other girl was not gone for long, and she did not only offer to help but she actually insisted. Even still Yumi was feeling a little guilty about having the other girl help her.

Yumi waited patiently in that exact spot like a good little girl, holding the suitcase between both of her hands as she rested and awaited. When Naoki did finally return Yumi didn't even notice at first, her head was still tilted downward looking towards the ground as if she were slightly shameful or embarrassed. Her head perked up upon hearing the darker skinned girl's voice and that look of embarrassment returned.

“Y-you really don't have to. I mean, it can't be easy doing all this wearing that,” she reached up to point at the cloth and plate covering Naoki's eyes but stopped halfway in realization of how silly making the gesture was. “N-nevermind...” Even if Naoki didn't even actively call it training, she could only imagine how grumpy she herself would feel if some complete stranger asked her to help them carry stuff while she was wearing this evil... dumb outfit.

 

[Samejima]

"Wearing... This? Ah, it's okay, I can cover it with the hood so not many people would be able to see it and scurry off... See?" Naoki demonstrated this fact by turning her head downwards and flipping the hood of her cloak down about a third of her face. She still looks pretty guilty about something... I did tell her I was a genin, and I'm pretty sure she's a student since she's training but doesn't have a headband yet...

Naoki's eyebrows scrunched together, trying to figure out any reasons why a student would feel guilty about asking a genin for help. Then she reached a viable answer, and the scrunched-up eyebrows de-scrunched, rising up to just touch her forehead.

She couldn't... still be thinking I can't make my way around because I can't see... Could she? "Um... Well, let's walk together while you bring that down the southern path. If we don't find it after a couple blocks, we could start asking people... But we should probably be really careful about who we ask." The Cabal stragglers were about, and who knew what they'd do with two small future mass-murderers.

Naoki would have to find some way to clear up the misunderstanding about her not being able to navigate without her eyesight (though surely she would reflect on what just happened and realise there was no chance of this being the case if Naoki was able to sense her falling quickly enough to help) as well as ask the girl's name. This was something she could do now of course. She walked ahead a little, then deliberately turned back to face the student, hoping to hint at her ability to sense things, if not see them. "Oh! By the way, to make things easier, could you tell me your name?"

 

[Kazumi]

“Ahh.. of course,” she remarked in an unconvinced way. Now she was just confusing herself more and more the more she spoke. Yumi gave Naoki a silent sight as she shook her head, “I guess so. Thanks Naoki-chan, I did remember my dad said it was in the green block. I think signs in that area are colored green... or lit green, I'm not sure which. If we see that we should be in the right area.”

She then followed after her as they began to start the hunt. Each step Yumi took seemed to take a large amount of effort on the young girl's part due to her garish training gi. As Naoki pointed out that Yumi had yet to even tell the other girl her name Yumi almost stumbled and fell in embarrassed surprise. “T-Tsukino Yumi. I'm sorry it kinda... slipped my mind.” Once again her attention shifted down towards the ground in front of her in embarrassment.

 

[Samejima]

Ohh boy. "G-green huh? Well, if everything's going to be green, she should be able to tell. "Okay... then I'll be counting on you to see any green in the distance! It's nice to meet you, Tsukino Yumi!" she said, as they walked down the street, hopefully to Chojo's Den.

She had been intending to just finish helping and return to trying to find Adagaeshi in at most 15 minutes, but at the rate they were going, it was going to take longer than 15 minutes to walk the length of the area they were looking in. It was getting a little awkward, and it would continue to get awkward unless Yumi said something before Naoki did. It was times like these that made Naoki wish she knew more about things other than fish. Then the most obvious subject popped up, one that probably wouldn't tread on any land mines. Should I say something about training? We're probably doing different menus, so there should be stuff we can talk about there... But it'd be kinda weird just up and asking what people's training menus were wouldn't it What if it was a super secret special menu developed by her instructor and I'm not supposed to know...

What about clothes? Aside from that training stuff she's wearing, I'm pretty sure she likes pretty clothes as much as the next girl right? Uhh, but I don't know about any fashion trends or anything here... I just like the clothes mom likes, it's always fun pretending we can dress up in that kind of stuff.

Hmmmm...

 

[Kazumi]

Yumi’s head perked up a little and a shy smile traced her lips at Naoki’s friendly greeting. “Yumi is… is fine. Nice to meet you too Naoki-chan.” The smile then widened with a little more confidence before silence consumed the duo. As they made their way forward Yumi looked around from building to building, each with stranger or more confusing names than the last. She thought about pointing out the oddities, but embarrassment out of simply being associated with them out of a mere mention kept her lips tightly sealed.

“So… how long have you been, um… with that headband like that? I don’t think I could ever wear this dumb thing long enough to ever not-consider it a mean spirited training tac… tac…” she struggled to find the word for a moment before settling on, “way of training.” She paused yet again and then nodded in soft affirmation that she had chosen the correct substitute word for the one she couldn’t remember. “I’ve only been using it for like… a week or so. We were supposed to wear it all the time and I mean like… -all- the time. Not sure if that would help or put me in the hospital though.”

 

[Samejima]

"This one? Hmm... Last week I guess it was, quite a happy moment for me when I got it! The few days before that were pretty tough so it felt like a huge accomplishment." ...Actually, wouldn't this be a good time to tell her that I can sense things fine by just hearing them? It would clear up a lot of confusion for sure...

Naoki herself wasn't all that keen on revealing her blindness though, and simply having the student think she's been at this for awhile would be much more impressive than simply explaining she has some kind of super hearing that she got without knowing it was happening. "A-ah, but I've been wearing a blindfold for a while now, ahahaha! Man, getting used to this was pretty tough! But you'll get it eventually, and you'll feel a lot better too, trust me!" They were about the same height, so it was really only natural that Naoki would think the student was the same age as she was, and that it was perfectly fine to be giving her advice as if she knew what she was doing. She didn't.

Ahhh what am I saying? I don't know her instructor, how'm I supposed to know something like that? This is going to seriously bite me in the butt at some point...

Going by her gut and memory, she suggested the only thing she really could, considering the circumstances. "You could stop by the hospital if you think the strain's too much, and the mednin there will be able to tell you whether your body's responding to it well... I think." She'd gone to the hospital for a checkup post-battle earlier this week, and it was by sheer chance that the mednin she was with mentioned something about training being hard on a small body sometimes. It was good that Naoki's memory was dependable, or she would've messed up some of the vocabulary and given herself away.

Ugh... How many more times will I be able to pull that off...

 

[Kazumi]

Yumi looked a little more surprised at the mention of having to do something similar herself. “Wow... I can imagine. I mean, I guess it makes sense and stuff.” She walked along close behind Naoki as they made their way through the semi-crowded streets, marveling silently at how Naoki hadn't yet crashed into someone. The young pair had gotten a few glances from passersby and street 'workers', but none of them cared more to offer them anymore than that.

“Not sure I'd ever be able to do something like that. I mean, I've closed my eyes before, you know, to pretend and stuff. I always am really scared to take more than a few steps without opening my eyes again. It must be a terrible life to actually have to be like that all the time, you know?” She shuttered a bit, “I couldn't even imagine it. It would be like... all darkness no matter where you looked.”

She forced a small laugh and she paused to glance down one of the side streets. “I think I see something green down that way... to the right, I mean.” Even if the girl could hear people walking well enough to bump into them, Naoki obviously couldn't see silent gestures. She stepped over to Naoki to attempt to take the girl by the hand so she could lead the girl down the direction she meant.

“I wouldn't want to be a bother to them. I am sure there are a lot of other people who have actual stuff wrong with them, aside from sadis.. saydis...” again she paused her speech as she attempted to lead Naoki down the narrower alley. “Mean teachers and stuff.” She paused again and then nodded in silent satisfaction.

 

[Samejima]

Naoi began shaking her head, about to disagree with the notion of darkness being scary to a 9-year-old. "It's not all that bad really, the darkness- uh," She noticed her almost-mistake and began retracting it. "Y-y'know, like how fish is all fishy, but after eating it a lot it's not so fishy anymore? Something like that, haha..." She wanted to seem as normal as she could right now, but was most likely failing, judging by the forced laugh.

And very likely failed entirely as she reflexively glanced in the direction Yumi pointed at before the student spoke. Heh, what am I thinking, trying to see if that street's green. I can't see. She didn't realise this however.

"Really? Let's go this way then." Naoki, having less weight to carry than Yumi, moved a little faster than she did and was a bit further ahead when the attempt to take her hand was made. Uhm... Did she want to hold hands? Naoki stopped, turned, and held her left hand out if Yumi still wanted to do so.

"Ohh right, of course. That's really only if you're worried the training's bad for you though, so if you ever feel like you have to go, there might actually be something wrong..." I've never really trained that hard though... The classes at the Academy... I still have to go there at some point if I'm going to get better. I mean, I don't look powerful enough to be dependable, even with an official headband on! She made a silent resolution to herself to look more dependable.

Not too long after that, she sensed a sign near a rabble that might have read 'Chojo's Den', but she wasn't all that sure. She waited to hear Yumi's observations before saying anything though.