Entering the Red Depths...

[Kazumi]

A loud thud of something heavy hitting wood resonated through the building that the man had entered a few seconds ago urged Yumi to suddenly take Naoki's. It took some effort to get the weighted girl to her feet, but they managed it after only a moment. She leaned back over and grabbed the case off the ground and clutched it protectively in her hands once again. "Y-yeah lets go, I.. I don't really want to be around here anymore."

Yumi, unsurprisingly looked rather shaken up by the potentially near death experience. She had only caught a brief look at the handsome man's face as he had chased after Naoki, but those features would likely haunt her dreams for weeks. She took one final look back towards the door and the sound of wood cracking and splintering from within ushered her to speed walk herself back towards the path they had taken to get here. She did not even look back to make sure Naoki was following her, though she undoubtedly was.

It would be at least five minutes of continually labored haste before Yumi would finally allow herself to stop and rest next to some building that seemed to be a bar of some repute. Her breathing was rough and she gasped for each breath as if it might have been her last. Her eyes shut and she allowed her back to plop against the wall a dozen feet away from the establishment's door, her hands clutching onto the handle of the case as fervently as it had when they had left.

 

[Samejima]

Mmm, she might want something sweet to drink. Dad always said that after a big storm, sweet things are best. Ahh I miss mom's red bean soup...

The place Yumi rested against wasn't exactly a place for children. It did look alright, and much less deserted than the last place, but the people tumbling in and out of the bar deterred Naoki from walking in, even to ask if they had any Stinger Milk, which she remembered in a distant sort of way. Do I have any candy in here...? She rummaged around in her bag, which had been transferred to her front, but found no candy. Instead...

"Here, want one?" Naoki asked, holding out an energy drink labelled "Grape Burst". She didn't know how necessary it was, but it was rather sweet so it might've helped. "Dad said sweet things are good after a scary thing happens. I've got another flavor here too, if you want... I'm pretty sure anyway, I can't read the labels.. um..." she trailed off, rummaging a little more with her right arm still holding the can out while she stood with her right arm inside the bag.

If Yumi took the one she offered, she'd stop. Otherwise, "I have this," stack on first can, pause, "This," stack, pause, "And this," stack, stop. Naoki didn't know if they were other flavors, but that'd be a start.

 

[Kazumi]

Yumi's eyes opened as Naoki offered her the drink. She didn't look entirely sure if she should take it at first, but that sentiment did not last very long. In the back of her mind she wished it was actually cold, but she knew that was just her being selfish. As Naoki commented about not reading the label she would receive a momentarily confused look before realization washed over her expression.

"You know... I won't tell anyone you... took a break from training and stuff..." She still sounded a little out of breath, but she was quickly recovering. Perhaps wearing that gab so much had actually been... helpful? "I know they say not to take the things off, but if I could have stripped this stupid thing off back there I would have..." That comment elicited a belated blush of embarrassment once she had realized what she had ended up saying.

Quickly she popped the can open and retreated into its protective depths while taking a long drink of the too-sweet drink. In hindsight it likely wasn't good to give a young child such things as concentrated cans of pure energy, but the same could be said about weapons or teaching them how to blow up buildings with giant balls of fire. No one said shinobi villages had any sensibilioties.

 

[Samejima]

Naoki's shoulders stiffened a little when Yumi mentioned taking it off, and tried to brush it off as serious business. "Ah, well, um, I wanna finish this thing as soon as I can! Ahaha..." I'm going to have to tell her some time... and she's not like the others, she didn't say anything about my skin being weird at least, even having been underground for so long... I should just tell her I'm... I'm...

She couldn't finish the sentence in her head. She was fine with the darkness, liked it even, to an extent, but there was something about being different that she didn't want any part of. She couldn't see what Yumi's skin or hair color was, or anyone's for that matter, but she wanted to be like that, to fit in at classes and not stick out so much. She'd stick out either way now though, being a genin, but still.

"I'm sure your instructor didn't expect this kind of thing to happen, so you could've-" Then she stopped, tilting her head from side to side in thought because they might've been weights attached to the actual garments, as she'd somewhat experienced before.

"Doing okay?" she asked, as soon as Yumi stopped drinking for a while. "We have to decide whether we're staying and trying again or if you're going back to your dad about the case..."

 

[Kazumi]

Yumi's blush had faded as soon as it had began and she eventually did look up from her drink once Naoki had finished speaking. "I am not really... sure running around here in my underwear would have... helped." Her eyes averted again and once more the embarrassment blush returned to assail her. She took another long sip, and judging from how long she continued to hold it at an angle to her mouth it surely must have been finished off once Naoki asked what they should do now.

Interestingly, she lowered the can from her lips as if it still had liquid in it and her eyes slowly drifted up towards the blindfolded girl. "I think... I will just go home. I think I want to take a long shower for the next few... years or so." She forced a small smile, but it was simply that, forced. She leaned over and picked up the case from between her legs with her right hand as her left continued to hold onto her drink. "I... wanted to thank you for helping out. I am not sure what I would have done if that man had seen me. I never could have ran fast enough to escape and he.. he really creeped me out."

 

[Samejima]

Flustered as all get out after Yumi mentioned underwear, Naoki realized Yumi's weighted garments were the latter of the possibilities she'd considered. "Oh, they were those kinds of weights? S-sorry, um, th-that's not what I meant.. uhh..." and the blathering would continue, arms flailing about in an attempt to explain what she thought the weights were before, until Yumi spoke up.

"O-of course! Here to help!" The genin nodded happily, pretty happy with herself for being thanked. Then her expression dropped a few notches in happy. "Although... Woulda been nice if we got that case to him," she mused, rubbing the left side of her neck, eyebrows scrunched up. "You sure you don't want me to try getting it over to, um, Ryu-san? I can wait out here until they come out anyway, I've gotta make a report about them since they attacked a little girl." Naoki wanted to be sure she did everything she could, within reason. She wasn't going back there to fight them, that's for sure.

 

[Kazumi]

She took another drink from the can as the air of embarrassment settled itself down between the children. A few long seconds passed before she finally did speak up to answer Naoki's offer. She shook her head softly and replied, "I couldn't. You've already been a really big help Naoki. I am just going to hurry back home and give it back to my dad. I am sure he will understand..." She spoke with as much confidence as a girl could in the given situation, but even then she did not sound entirely sure of what she said.

Yumi offered a bow to Naoki, careful not to spill whatever might be left in her drink. "Maybe... I will see you around the village sometime?" She would wait until Naoki had amble opportunity to say her farewells as well before she would begin to try to make her way towards the entrance she had used to enter the distract before all of this madness had started.

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[Samejima]

"Y-yeah! I'll be stopping by at the Academy a lot anyway, so we're bound to see each other at some point!" Naoki said, grinning, and waved in Yumi's direction as she turned.

Okay. ...What was I doing here again...? Um... Naoki thought back to her last few minutes, but found she couldn't quite get past that moment when the claws pierced her eardrums (or might as well have, they were loud. Not something she wasn't already used to with her training, but loud).

After a few moments of standing there with her headband glinting in the artificial sunlight, she remembered what she was doing. Patrolling! Of course!

And so off she went, making sure it was relatively peaceful and forgetting about trying to look for Adagaeshi.

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