Ban - "Fox's Sin of Greed"

Sanzo’s not sure what making this guy bleed has to do with helping the dumb kid out but whatever. He pulls out his gun much too casually and shoots the guy. 

… Not pointblank of course—he’s not that uncivilized—just enough to graze the guy.

“AH-” The sound of the gunshot surprised you, along with no really knowing what a gun was or what had just happened. A small click of the tongue- but whatever it was did it’s job, your arm was bleeding. “Give a guy a little warning next time man . .”

You waste no time, holding the wounded area over the wound on the kid. As soon as your blood touches him steam rises up and it begins to close itself- not even a trace of scar tissue left. The kid rose up in surprise- confused understandably. Well whatever that was your good deed for the day. A quick pat on the head and you turn from him.

“Mmmmhmm— s’bad, man,” he says plainly. But he’s Helpful, he’s a helpful brat, even if he’s going to grow up to wear washed out army print onesies.

Immediately a charge of electricity zips up his spine at the mention of the tunnels. 

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. Is it worth dying for? You just got here, you got no idea what’s down there. You could start with a normal job, busing tables or something.”

“Huh, well I’ll worry about that kind of thing later. Clothes won’t really matter down there.”

You raise an eyebrow in mild surprise, was he . . . Offended by this question? No maybe offended wasn’t quite the right word.

—— oh, this man was incredibly lucky foxflames are on lockdown. her tail twitches and bristles as her cheeks continue to hold in air. there was a point in his words—she should not have dozed off so openly in public, but by this point she doesn’t particularly care. she is awake, tired, hungry, and slightly irritated. 

        ❝ The heck you implyin’ ?  I can just tell by lookin’ at ya that yer father isn’t an Erune, ‘cause you’d have ears, too.  So of course, I ain’t related ! ❞ she’s never heard of an erune relative without ears. so yeah, he’s totally wrong. at least he admitted it. ❝ ‘Course, I got a bed at home !  Rooms are confining as heck, though.  I need more space than that. ❞

She seemed a little frazzled by his statement, well probably for the best. He didn’t know what her deal was but nothing good would come out of whatever the hell she was doing.

“Erune?” You have no idea what that word means. You can speculate its what her kind calls themselves . . . Maybe he had a word like that and never told you. “My father and I aren’t directly related to begin with. He was a fox however. . . Fox-like . . . He looked like you basically.” A pause. “Okay he didn’t look like you SPECIFICALLY but he had the whole ear thing going on and . . .” What the fuck were you trying to explain to this person? “Never mind. It’s tiring to talk about.”

     IT’S blur once the staff makes contact. Pedestrians can’t get out of the fast enough when the eight foot Stand whirs around and swings the back of his hand at his attacker’s face far faster than a human eye can track.

⦑ Get lost. Whatever you wish to accomplish shan’t be worth the pain of my crushing your spin. ⦒

He grunts over the excitement of the public struggling to get out of the way in the middle of rush hour. Really, of all the times to start a fight on the sidewalk?

*:・ﾟ☆

You land a clean hit, smiling but only if for a fraction of a second before you feel something connect with your face. Was that a punch? You couldn’t follow it. Your body was forced back, sliding but not quite enough force to knock you over.

A moment of shock more than anything else. Although now you were more sure of it than ever, that thing wasn’t human. You didn’t know what it was, but it was just unfortunate that it could only remind you of one thing.

“Crush my spine? . . . Hah. Hahahahaha.” You can’t help but laugh at this pathetic situation. Judging from the speed of his attack without snatch or any of your other powers you wouldn’t be able to do much to him. Your face was already healing, it was also unfortunate that it was automatic and you had no control over it. You could probably push it a little bit farther before you had to stop.

Despite her actually having been around for at least a thousand years, her appearance doesn’t lend itself well to having others take her seriously. Such is the case here wherein a visitor’s approached her, mistaking her for a student. Whatever this strange man is doing inside the school, she’s not having any of it – not at least, without getting some sort of a better understanding as to what kind of an individual he is.

And what better way to do that than to conduct an interview, as she has many times before with any of those employed under her.

She makes a quick motion, implying she wants to move toward the end of the corridor. “I am certain the director can assist you with such a request. Follow me and I’ll lead you to the office.”

“The director?” There’s a pretty visible look of detest on your face. Authority and the like . . You never cared much for it. Though who knows maybe this director lady would be interesting.

“Yeah yeah, alright lead the way.” You could ask about her, or what she likes but you’d be wasting your time. You wouldn’t put the information to good use, instead following the small girl closely behind as she heads into the school.

Yeah, no this might actually hurt.

Badou takes one look at the other male and hums, lighting a cigarette in one easy motion.

“Since you just got here, guess I won’t charge you for the first batch of info. What place do you wanna find? Besides a clothing store, probably.”

“Whaddya mean? This stuff is all the rage back home.” Well, your fashion choices aside- which were amazing to begin with- he at least offered to help a little.

“Those underground tunnels. I was told there’s stuff down there. Valuables. Something like that. Apparently other people aren’t too good at finding them though.” Honestly you probably wouldn’t be interested even if you did find a lot of treasure down there, you simply wanted to prove you could find it.

Much as he wants to forget, he doesn’t feel like showing his face to a complete stranger. But than he looks at the drink. Than back at the man. Than the drink. Than the man. 

 “….”

He tilts his mask a bit and than drinks the whole glass in one go!

 “GA-

 “THATS disgusting…”

“YEAH ITS GROSS.” Whatthehell, he drank the whole thing in one go. Brave for a first timer. “YOU DON’T EVEN GET TO TASTE IT PROPERLY IF YOU DO THAT.”

He raises a hand to his face, motioning for the bartender to bring another drink over. He was gonna have to show this kid how to properly enjoy a drink.

“If you see him, do point him out, I’d hate to miss him.” It would have been so satisfying if she could have turned him into the side of a lipstick tube, oh the fun she could have had with him.

Even though he seemed to be making a move towards her chest, she didn’t flinch or falter, she stared him down. 

“Aren’t you a little old to flirt in such a childish manner?” She asked, swatting his hand away at the last moment with the back of her own, her eyes still fixed on his. She would have been less aggravated if he had tried something with any other part of her out fit - her headpiece was a point of pride. 

She reacts quick, slapping your hand away. You give it a shake, no big deal, you had just wanted to see what was up with her little headpiece.

Ah, but what was that she said? Flirt? Flirting?

“Hahaha, you’re just joking right?” More laughter erupted from you, you couldn’t really contain it. “Me? Flirting? WITH YOU?” You slap your knee, that was a good one. Taking a moment to wipe away a tear before continuing.

“Anyways. . . I was just curious about the horns, if they were real or not. I assumed not but you never know ♫ in this city ♫.”

Although just the fact that she would attempt to swat your hands away was interesting to you. Childlike, that’s not a bad way to describe your attitude, now that you had been told ‘no touching’ you want to touch of course.

The short joke would’ve been irritating, if you haven’t heard it constantly for centuries. You’d think humanity would evolve into a species that can come up with wittier jokes.

You stand up, keeping your armed hand out of the tall creep’s sight.

“It was self defense.” You say blankly. You have a feeling that this guy doesn’t particularly care what the reason was. He’s definitely charismatic, but the way he’s looking at the kids’ unconscious bodies, it was like he was on the hunt.

You couldn’t care less about the punks, but a certain cowboy asshole made you wary of tall charismatic men.

“Sorry to ruin your parade, but I’m not a savage animal looking for its next hunt. All I’m doing is trying to teach the younger generation a lesson.” You give the kid another strong kick. Like a squeak toy, he lets out a groan at the smallest amount of force. “You can have the scraps once I’m done. Until then, don’t get in my way.”

A smile, followed by a simple. “Hah.” You raise a hand to your mouth, attempting to hold back your mirth. “Defense? Hah. HAHA.” Oh man you were gonna lose it. After another moment of stifled laughter you finally straighten up, still smiling however.

This clearly wasn’t self defense, if it was she would’ve stopped a long while ago.

“A lesson? You didn’t teach them anything. You’re just bloodthirsty, I can respect that though.” You use your wooden staff to push the boy she had kicked to his side. Looking him over it was pretty obvious he was already picked clean, nothing left on him.

‘You can have my scraps once I’m done. Until then, don’t get in my way.’

Ohhhh. . . That did it, you focused on her once again. Smile growing, she would deny you a prize? She would deny you anything? Scraps? Your tongue ran along you lips. Maybe she wasn’t a savage animal, but that’s all you were.

Drinking, was something that adults his age would do right? he wouldn’t know. Considering his past, he would have rather taken a nap, but here he is, untouched drink in hand as he looks at the scene. Suddenly a tall man, taller than most but not than him, leans in to punch him.

…

Wearing armour does work!

 “I….this is my first time drinking. Thats all!”

He dips the bottle to drink it but…. at the last second does not, putting it down, still untouched like a virgin. Like him.

“….Ugh. You reek.“

“Ohhhh. . .?” You push finger into his mask. “Your first time, huhhh??” You laugh just a little. “Well you got ta actually DRINK the stuff to feel good you know?”

“You–and that’s–”

Immediately, his palm went to his forehead, and he groaned. “Are you telling me there was–some scientific equipment in that building and you started messing with it until you quite possibly destroyed it?”

He threw his hands up, looking up to the night sky as if that could help him now.

“That isn’t science!” Like he hadn’t done it before… “You’ve got to at least know what you’re working with, set up experiments, take notes! Then if stuff blows up, it’s a conclusion, not property damage. There’d better be some stuff I can salvage…”

Varian dropped his arms to his sides, fists clenched as he began marching towards the building.

“And before you ask again, I’m used to getting by on my own. I’m pretty sure I can take care of myself without supervision.”

“Some? There was TONS of stuff up there.” Once more you glance back up there, yeah that fire definitely wasn’t going away on its own. In fact you’d be willing to bet-

/ / BOOM / /

Another explosion went off shattering another window. No body thing time though, just some kind of chain reaction.

“That sounds like a pretttttttyyyy big hassle, I think I like my way better.” A small sigh as your shoulders drop. You probably should do something about that fire though. . . What a pain. Raising a hand to the back of your head for a quick scratch while you think of something. There wasn’t really any water around. . .

“Yeah kid, I’m sure you are.” No malice in your voice, you believe him. You’d seen too many kids on the street to not believe it anyways. You were one yourself. “Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get help. Take care of yourself, eh?”

You turn to him taking out your wooden staff.

“Wanna show me how well you can take care of yourself? You sound pretty confident. . .” 

A pause, then a laugh, before putting the staff back.

You were spending some time in sector oo2, trying to familiarize yourself with the various sectors as quickly as you can. Plus. . . There was that whole deal with the supposed treasure in the district next to this one- the tunnels? Whatever they were. . . It wasn’t really possible for you to say no to treasure.

Sadly you didn’t even know the best way in there, or anyway in at all. So when you spotted a scrawny little kid in the area of course it couldn’t hurt to ask him a question or two.

Sector oo3 had slowly become your regular place to stay, it reminded you a lot of Ravens, your home city. At least as close as it was going to get to it, not to mention there was a nice little bar here. It wasn’t quite as good as your own, but you know- make do with what you got.

After a few rounds of drinking you were pretty much plastered. To no one’s surprise really, the only issue is when you get plastered you need something to do. Thankfully there was a rather large man around, heavily clothed- he’d work to pass the time.

Logically, Varian knew he probably shouldn’t be walking around an unfamiliar city at night. However despite how much he might profess to the contrary, logic didn’t always rule his decisions.

He seemed to have wandered into a less populated area, which was fine with him. It would be a good place to remember for when he enacted his plan–

And then the all-too-familiar sound of an explosion rang out, causing Varian to glance around in alarm…only to see a very tall person flung out of a window and a bit too close to him. Varian jumped back, instinctively throwing his arms up in front of his face.

Science? Varian quickly glanced up at the window the man had come from, then back down, then back up again. Finally his gaze settled on the stranger.

“I–I could ask you the same question!” He didn’t really want to admit there wasn’t a good reason for him to be out here. Varian waved his arms around in a vague kind of gesture as he searched for words.

“What did you do in there?” He pointed at the window, where smoke was still pouring out.

 You stand up- you can feel the burn marks already healing, your lungs getting clearer as time passes. Right, you’d have to be more careful that was a limited thing now.

“Whaaaat? I’m an adult, I can go out whenever I want.”

You take a moment to stretch your body. The kid seemed a little shocked- well maybe that was fair. You laugh at his second question.

“I have absolutely NO idea.” Looking towards the building you can still see the smoke filing out, hmm. . . Hopefully there wasn’t a fire. “I just mixed some things together turned up a flame and poof, here I am.” You scratch the back of your head, laughing a little still, before getting a little more stern.

—— oh, but she was having such a wonderful nap !  the erune tumbles to her side, waking up. ❝ Guh-bwuh ! ❞ yuel sputters, trying to catch herself. somehow, her fall breaks by her tail swishing sideways to the rescue, acting as a pillow. big, bushy, and always there for her ! 

        ❝ The heck !   What did ya do that for, huh !? ❞ her voices raises, irate. her hands press down on the ground, acting as support to raise her up to stand. they then move to her waist—one on each side—and her cheeks puff up with air. ❝ Can’t ya see I was sleepin’ !? It’s such a nice day out, lemme enjoy it ! ❞ or was she meditating ?  praying to ninetails ?  no, she would never do that. she would pray for ninetails to never return. she can’t remember if she actually was asleep or not. 

        ❝ You owe me, like, a buncha food for that, Mister !  And my name is Yuel, not ‘Lady’ !   You sure got some nerve to bonk me like that ! ❞

You let out a pretty audible laugh, what a funny little fox, person, thing.

“Yeah yeah, real sorry little fox.” You spin your staff around for a moment, considering your options before placing it away again. “It is a nice day out isn’t it? It’s an EXTRA nice day out for anyone who wants to mess with a lone half-dead girl on the side of the road.”

You weren’t referring to yourself, mostly. There were definitely a lot of people out there who would do things worse than you.