Breaking Monotony [Haru]

[Vice Ysal]

The phrase 'same shit, different day' was not something that everyone could actively say about their lives. After all there were many opportunities to do a lot of different things everyday and still come out looking for more in the day after that. That was, however, for those who weren't being stuck inside some quarantine that had effectively cut up majority of the things that a person could do in a given span of time. Vice had always been the type to want to be able to do different things, to experience all that he could so that he could be well prepared for everything and though this emotion was easily mitigated by the opportunity to explore the outside world, the area beyond the city walls, it wasn't always enough. Being able to study, and research, the shadows around him was a novel experience that has yet to lose its charm but even the young man understood the implications of continuously doing the same thing.

Suffice to say, he didn't want to burn out and end up dying due to negligence.

So instead of using this day to go outside of the city, the young man simply opted to go splurge on a couple of things. Maybe a new head set for his home, a few good frames for some of the photos and sketches he'd been able to gather since the lock down, and definitely better training equipment. His current set was helpful, yeah, but it wouldn't hurt to amp up his training now that the severity of the situation had increased. So here he was, in the market place, looking for a couple of knick knacks to help spend the day in contemplation. Outfitted in his usual attire, a pair of durable dark blue pants, sneakers, a black long sleeved shirt, and his silver necklace, the young man then continued to go on his merry way.

Who knew, maybe he'd bump into a familiar face today. Always seemed to happen every time he went here anyway.

[Haru Kazuma]

"STOP HER!"

"DON'T LET HER GET AWAY!"

The girl had barely broken a sweat as she dashed from alley to alley, occasionally toppling a pile of boxes or kicking a trashcan behind her to slow down her pursuers. They were police officers, that much was clear, but she wasn't entirely sure why they were chasing her. Honestly, it could have been any number of things, but nothing that she'd done recently. Probably. It was hard to say, considering she couldn't speak Chinese- which happened to the language which the two thugs were shouting in. Still, she was impressed- even though the cops did have the home field advantage, she'd quite literally trained her whole life for this. It shouldn't be this hard to get away from them. Of course, considering that her outfit wasn't exactly subtle and her bright pink hair stood out further still, it wasn't exactly surprising that she couldn't shake them either.

In the end, she was still a ninja with plenty of  training to back it up. All she had to do was break line of sight for a moment and she could escape... just then, about fifteen feet in front of her at the entrance to the alley, a third officer appeared, blocking the path with his body. The girl clicked her tongue in annoyance and reached up over her shoulder to grab the hilt of her sword... only to grasp at air. Shit! She'd forgotten that she had had to leave the sword behind when these losers first jumped her. The cop in front of her sneered as the two behind her continued to close in... there was nothing to it. She just had to keep moving forward. Haru leaned forward and twisted her upper body a little to bring attention to her left shoulder, making it seem as though she planned on tackling the cop to the ground. He braced himself for the impact, so certain in his knowledge that he would be able to withstand her attack... as he should have been. There's no way she could have empowered him in a contest of strength, considering he was twice her size. But she had something else in mind.

When she was only a few feet away from the man, she immediately dropped onto her back and slid between his legs. Mid-slide, she grabbed a handful of her scarf and threw it around the right side of his left leg, grabbing it once she had passed through the arch to yank it forward, pulling the cop off his feet and forcing him to face plant into the pavement. He let out an annoyed howl as he clutched at his face, probably having broken his nose from the fall, but Haru didn't have time to stop. She pushed the heel of her foot against the ground to brake hard, causing herself to tumble forward in a tight roll before hopping up onto her feet. A quick glance over her shoulder told her that the other two cops would be here in moments. There was no time to find a place to hide- but then she saw him. A boy around her age, seemingly lost in his own little word. Perfect. Haru ran up to him and, just before colliding with him, whipped around underneath his arm to get behind him, letting her push her back up against his. She grabbed a handful of her scarf and shoved it back against the boy, accidentally grabbing his butt in the process while tilting her head forward a little, forming a handseal with her free hand. "Don't move.". If he obeyed, she would be rendered invisible to her pursuers. At least, they wouldn't be able to see her so long as the boy stayed behind them and herself, as she managed to both still her breathing and fold her form to fit within his own.

[Vice Ysal]

There was quite a bunch of things to do today. Well,not really, but the implications and decisions that had to be made to bear the best results did take some time to figure out and manuever around. As it were with the budgets and all that, available materials and his increasing source of income, Vice still had quite a bit of leeway for not only his equipment, training gear, and selfish wants, he also had a bit more than usual that could be used for his living expenses. Sure he wasn't going to be buying that 68 inch plasma screen television to hook up somewhere in the room but hey, better food and more of that shampoo he really liked. Still concerned about his surroundings, one could never be too careful in publicly available areas, the biker's eyes slowly drifted towards the commotion that was acquiring quite a bit of attention from the current populace. Apparently the cops were trying to manhandle some person who was wearing quite the eye catching hair colour and what…looked to be a ninja outfit.

What was this, Cosplayers Gone Wild? Shaking his head at the possibility of such an idea, but nonetheless feeling himself gravitate to the situation and the ensuing chase, Vice carefully followed the girl's form that was steadily increasing the distance between her and the cops. At least, until some unfortunate bloke got used as some kind of distraction of sorts against the guards. Thankfully, Vice wasn't said person because, well, the whole ninja clothing kinda struck him with the whole paranoia thing again. And was she holding the guy's ass? Really? Securing his items this time, and deciding to go have a little fun with the police force of the city--who had been pretty lax as of late despite the situation of being cooped up inside the city for the past few months, Vice moseyed over to the guy who looked like he was just about to get an aneurysm from the sporadic chain of events that had just been thrown onto his lap. When the guy tried to look for an escape route, though with how tight the girl was holding unto him the biker doubted he'd be getting away anytime soon. The moment their eyes met though, Vice gave a small 'wink' that everything was gonna be fine. Blocking the path of the officers, his face having morphed into that of a concerned civilian from the streets, Vice began:

"Sir, I think I saw a flash of pink to the east. She's getting away fast!"

A small bit of urgency and the cops took the bait with a tip of the hat for the 'good will' that had been given to them. The shouts of 'wait' and 'somebody stop' her continued on and on until the enforcements themselves vanished from the vicinity. Turning his head towards the guy who finally managed to grant himself freedom through unknown means, the biker received a hastily made acknowledge before being left alone with the pinkette that had been the source of this little problem. With pretty much everything still secured on his person, nothing some pesky ninja could try and steal from him, Vice slowly walked on over until he was at a suitable distance for conversation.

"Rough day?"

She looked like she just went through one anyway.

[Haru Kazuma]

The man Haru was hiding behind complied with her order, although it seemed to be more out of fear than anything else. He probably couldn't even speak the same language as her, which would make bossing him around difficult. But even if she couldn't understand anything that was being said, the actions of the second man didn't escape her notice. He turned the police away from her hiding spot, and for that she was thankful. Probably. There was always the chance that he expected something unreasonable in return for his help- or maybe he had some personal vendetta against her that wouldn't be served justice if she were taken in by the cops. Still...

Once it was clear the danger had passed, the girl released the man she'd been holding and approached the newcomer, greeting him with a slight bow as she spoke in her native tongue, "Thank you! I'm not really sure why they were after me, but I doubt it was for anything good. I'd say it was a case of mistaken identity, but I don't think I could really be mistaken for anyone else..." She stood upright and placed a hand behind her head, laughing nervously. It was true. There weren't an abundance of pink-haired ninjas running around Mosaic City. 

But then the man spoke. It was probably Chinese, but Haru didn't understand a word of it. It was said that the best way to learn a language was to immerse yourself in it, but... she'd been in the city for how long now? And still she couldn't understand it even at a basic level. She let her shoulders sag a bit and sighed, mumbling incoherent phrases that pretty much summed up how she felt about the situation. Wasn't there anyone in this city that could understand her...?

[Vice Ysal]

Vice wasn't much of a linguist…or whatever it is you call those guys who make it their life's mission to know how to speak over 101 languages including dialects and what have them. He was fluent in English, Chinese, and a tad bit of some other stuff but not enough to hold a conversation. Unfortunately, that came up at the moment when Vice couldn't even make bit of whatever the hell this girl was blabbering out. He noted that that it was Japanese, a few key words ringing up in his head from some of the stuff he'd watched before but nothing concrete aside from maybe the 'thank you' gesture with the bowing.

Ugh, it was going to have to come to that huh?

Coughing a bit to get the girl's attention again, Vice decided to go ahead and just go with the charade game. Doing a set of actions, firstly pointing at the female in an effort to get the message of 'You' across, Vice would then transition it to a thumbs up for the word 'OK' in a questioning manner. It was a bit of an effort and some people were beginning to stare--actually that might be work. After a few repeated attempts of trying to get the message across, the biker looked around and called out if anyone knew how to speak Japanese. It went unsaid that they better know how to speak Chinese or else this was gonna be a useless thing. Unfortunately, none of the passerby's answered his call, and those who did just shook their heads in a negative fashion. Shrugging at that, the young man tried to articulate his words into actions again to at least get them off the street.

Again pointing at her to accentuate 'You' and then pointing at himself for 'Me', before pointing to the side street to indicate 'over there' or something. Hopefully the girl would understand that much, and if it didn't, well Vice was just gonna head on over there while waving for the ninja-clothed girl to follow him.

[Haru Kazuma]

She glanced up at the boy with half-closed eyes when he coughed, assuming that he had more to express despite the obvious futility of it. Her head tilted slightly to the side as she watched his hand motions, not entirely sure what they meant. In Japan, pointing directly at someone to address them was reserved for matters of extreme importance, but it didn't seem like the appropriate situation for something like that. Her eyes narrowed even further when he went back to calling out to the bystanders, wondering just exactly what he was playing at. But then he made his meaning a bit clearer, making it known that he wanted her to follow her into a more secluded area. The girl hesitated for a moment as her cheeks grew redder until she finally whipped her hand forward to smack the boy across the face before turning away from him with her arms crossed over her chest, "J-Jeez! Trying to do something like that already..."

[Vice Ysal]

Confident steps, broad shoulders, and head held high. It was a picture perfect walk, and it would've been true as well had the ninja girl not reached up and smacked Vice right across his face. Now why the girl would do that, well, she was probably half mad or just insane and probably thought there was something wrong with what Vice was trying to convey not too long ago.

Wait.

The biker slowly reached up to his face, the stinging sensation on his cheek already fading, and palmed it. Whoever was ballsy enough to go running around in a goddamn cosplay outfit of all things probably had some serious mental issues to deal with as well so the latter part of his observation and evaluation of the girl may probably hold true to an extent.

And then he groaned.

The smack was apparently strong enough to jog his head to the point of him remembering that he had a smart phone. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, a smart phone that had a translating application in it. English was a hard language, and Vice didn't exactly have time to go flipping through the thick ass hard bound dictionary. Whipping the gizmo out, and telling the girl to stop via hand motions once more, Vice carefully typed in words and waited for the thing to translate the sentences before reading them out loud in slow, direct, methods.

"I can not speak Japanese."

"I hope that this works."

"Who are you?"

"And are you Hungry?"

Vice didn't know what in the bloody fuck he was doing right now.

[Haru Kazuma]

She continued mumbling to herself as she looked down at the hand that she'd hit him with, rubbing the palm with her thumb to sooth the soreness in it a bit. Man, his head was hard. Still, he'd made a pained sound, so she imagined the slap had some kind of effect- although she had difficulty accepting that his face hurt more than her hand did. Although she hadn't given it much thought yet, it seemed as though she was lucky. Although a few people cast awkward glances at the pair, nobody appeared to be particularly concerned with the scene unfolding before them. After all, the reason they were out and about is because most of them had somewhere more important to be.

For whatever reason, the boy persisted in bothering her, although now he seemed to be able to speak a bit of Japanese, albeit terribly, but at least it was enough for Haru to turn her attention back to him, letting her catch a glimpse of his phone. So that's it... She wasn't really sure if he would be able to type in the words correctly if she spoke normally, which would just lead to even more problems than it would be worth. It would be best to keep it simple, then. After he finished speaking, she leaned forward a little and pointed towards her face, "Tsu...ki." If he didn't recognize the name, then there was no harm in lying to him. But if he did recognize the name, then it was her chance to learn something more- and then he would end up being useful to her after all. But when he asked her if she was hungry, she started to shake her head and say 'No' only for her stomach to betray her and growl loudly. She placed a hand over her belly and smiled awkwardly, really wishing that it hadn't done that...

[Vice Ysal]

She was smiling awkwardly now? What for? So her stomach grumbled and she was looking at him as if he said something---wait. Double checking his phone, checking the characters that had been punched into the thing to be translated, Vice had to repress the twitch that was beginning to take control of his left eyebrow. Breathing in and out slowly for a moment, the young man just decided to go with the flow of the bullshit. He wasn't exactly looking to treat someone to lunch but now that it was more or less there now, he might as well.

"Tsuki."

The word wasn't exactly foreign but it wasn't completely local either. Still, it was a word that Vice could easily enough pronounce it and repeated it once to make sure it stuck with him. Nodding to himself and by reflex, the biker almost returned the phone he had with him to his pocket but thought better of it. Keeping it with him and turned on while staying in the application for translation, he entered the next few words to try and see what it could bring him.

"I see."

"Okay then."

"What kind of food do you like?"

This time, the young man made sure to double check what it was he wrote in order to avoid future mistranslations and possible unnecessary expenses. Looks like he'd have to hold off on getting his accessories repaired for the time being at this rate.

[Haru Kazuma]

The boy kept plicking away at his phone, but she didn't say anything. After all, it seemed to be for her own benefit, so it'd be kind of rude to tell him off when he was already going out of his way for her. Still... he struck her as a rather odd fellow. After all, she had smacked him upside the head after what seemed to be a misunderstanding. Or maybe it wasn't a misunderstanding at all and he was simply trying a different, less direct approach. Haru eyed him suspiciously for a moment before turning away so that she could look down the street beside the pair. He was asking her about food now? Well... it had been quite some before she'd eaten something that couldn't be salvaged from a garbage can. It was probably safe enough, so long as she kept an eye out for any funny business. "Nn... nothing in particular. I'm not familiar with this city, so..."

[Vice Ysal]

With how difficult this was being, Vice had half a mind to look around for one of those people that owed him favours and just ask them to create some kind of Translating App that worked with voices instead of having to type words in. And it better be damn well effective too. With that said though, Vice had been able to make out whatever it was the girl was trying to say through body language and hoped to high hell that he wasn't making stupid assumptions again.

Nodding his head, crossing his arms, and tapping the floor, the young man tried to think of where it would be possible to go eat without spending too much cash. Looking around the place they were at, the occasional street vendor calling for their attention to try something, Vice tried to pick out something that looked 'japanese' ish. One of the stands caught his eye, and with no other actual choice to the matter, just pointed towards it and made sure that the girl with him knew it.

The stall was populated, though not heavily, and there seemed to be a light enough atmosphere that some of the groups were benefitting from. There didn't seem to be any of his kind either so that should make ordering a lot easier. Looking over at the girl again, Vice made a face that pretty much universally meant ' you okay with that?'

[Haru Kazuma]

The girl let out a little sigh as she thought about how this encounter might progress. No matter how she thought about it, the language barrier was a fairly large problem, even if it was somewhat mitigated by the app on the boy's phone. She joined him in looking for a suitable place to eat, but as she said, she was still new to this city and didn't know Chinese, which made most of the signs illegible and unintelligible. For now, at least, she would have to rely on her companion's judgement.



At the very least, Haru was attentive enough that she recognized the boy had picked a place out just before he pointed towards it. Yet again with the pointing... she ignored the gesture for now and glanced back at him, only to offer a slight shrug in response. She couldn't really see what the vendor was serving from here, and she wasn't really in a position to reject the offer of food anyway. She hesitated for a moment before finally speaking, this time in broken English, "Name...you?"

[Vice Ysal]

Well, that more or else answered his question. WIth an answer to go off on, the biker had began to lead the way towards the stand. Thankfully for the unlikely duo, the line wasn't that long and thus the distance between them and the guy up front who was serving the street food wasn't that big. Looking back at the girl, his ears finally perking up at the familiar language being used despite the butchery of it (he probably wasn't any better when it came to Japanese), Vice would have been more than happy to finally introduce himself…or something to that extent.

Yeah, the whole cosplay thing was a bit of a problem. Well, he was pretty sure that as uncommon as his last name was, he was pretty sure that there were some other guys who had it. Shrugging mentally, the young man introduced himself as: "Ysal" without much protest. Finally having reached the counter, the guy greeting them in some foreign language, he didn't know what it was but it vaguely sounded like the one his companion was using, the biker decided to order some of those octopus balls. Paying for two sets an order, making it extra large for the girl who seemed to be a bit hungrier than usual, the Biker was then giving a number and just had to wait for it to be called.

With that over…how the hell does he continue this increasingly difficult situation of his?

[Haru Kazuma]

Haru followed the boy for now, noticing that he reacted a little to her question. So he could understand English. Good for him. It was a subject that Haru did very poorly in at school, so her grasp on the language was incredibly shaky at best. That was probably the last she'd be using it for some time at least. Her head listed to the side a little when he revealed his own name- or at least, what she assumed was a name. Ysal certainly wasn't anything like she'd ever heard before... then again, it was a different country. Maybe they just named them weird here.

She didn't have much time to consider it as it was their turn to step up to the vendor. The man seemed to be Japanese like her, but he spoke in some dialect that she wasn't familiar with. She could pick out a word or two that was similar, but the rest of it just sounded like gibberish. The boy seemed to understand enough of it to get by though, considering he managed to order something from the menu. When he stepped away from the food stand, she followed behind him with narrowed eyes. He could understand the vendor but not her? What he just messing with her?

[Vice Ysal]

A few things went through the chinese man's head. Ideas and thoughts to how to go about this problem of his but none of them really made sense because, well, the girl didn't understand a speckle of Chinese and could only really speak in broken english if her reluctance to do such was any indication. He gave the girl a glance before returning his focus to the waiting time allotted for their food to reach them.

Repressing his want to sigh at his predicament, the young man decided that maybe staying quiet wouldn't be such a bad thing. He wasn't really the talkative type and this was really all just a game to amuse himself but in hindsight, he probably shouldn't have done anything then and just let the cops actually find the chick. Rolling his shoulders, his arms going back to the comfortable position of being crossed in front of him, the young man's foot then began to tap slightly impatiently on the pavement.

Honestly, this was stressing him out a bit more than it should have. Maybe he'd just bring the girl to one of the police stations that didn't have competent officers, hell there were a lot of those around this area, and find a translator or something. It'll be a lot easier than going around in circles and this ugly atmosphere they had going on.