Rukongai meeting [SOLO]

The sun was shining, the birds where singing, and Shii was in rare form. One could say she was happy; then again the promise of chocolate would make anybody happy. To the untrained eye nothing would have been out of place but somewhere behind the tough exterior was a slight smile. It was like catching Bigfoot in a clear picture, it was dang near impossible. Shii didn’t like to smile; she thought she would lose her tough edge if she did. Now not to say she never smile in fact in the heat of battle as blood spilled she couldn’t stop smiling or at least she was never in a bad mood at that point.

School had been murder on her this week, with all the finals and what not that she was forced to take. Her book work was falling behind and she still was sore from getting her ass handed to her a couple times in the Zanjutsu ring. Not to mention the hand to hand combat stuff was for the birds. Now not to say she didn’t know how to fight but putting her up against some of the toughest opponents out there was just not fair. She had decided that today she would go into town and get some much needed stress reliving, which for her was chocolate.

She lay in bed looking up at the ceiling trying to get herself up and out of bed. “Come on the sooner you get out the sooner you get back and then you won’t have to deal with people.” That thought was the kick start to her day. She gingerly stretched trying not to pull too many of the sore muscles. A bruise was already coming thru on her calf. “Damn that thing is huge; problem is I don’t remember getting it.” She thought as looked down at it. Finally after some prodding she found her way to the Rukongai.

The city was bustling like usual, small children clinging to the robes of their mothers, in back ally’s where gamblers wasting away their money, and then there where the trouble makers that liked to hang outside of shops and puff on their cancer sticks as if it made them meaner looking. Shii really had no intentions interacting with any of these people. Most of them looked at her with disgust because they knew she was in the academy. “Of course I wear the one thing that I should have left at home, really need to make sure I keep a spare set of clothes just for this situation.” She thought to herself as her eyes kept bouncing off of people, trying not to hold their gaze to long.

Finally the smell of the one thing she came here for wafted into her nose. She immediately made a right turn expecting to go into the store but instead found another site. Shii tried to walk past the group of punks beating up on somebody smaller than them and she almost made it in, when she heard the kid let out a scream of sheer pain. “Crap.” She mumbled to herself, fighting for fighting’s sake was one thing, fighting because somebody couldn’t fight for themselves was another. Though a three on one fight wasn’t quite fair and the little guy would def end up on the losing end. “Just go into the shop let the law of the land take care of itself, no stop, don’t turn around, and no don’t talk.” Her thoughts abruptly ended as she turned to face the miscreants. “Hey assholes, how about you pick on somebody that would put up a fight instead of the kid?” Blood had already started to pour into her ears as adrenaline started to take over.

“Put up a fight? Are you saying you would take this kids place?” The biggest one asked her.

“Well no not exactly what I had in mind was thinking more like the big biker looking dude over there.” The young woman nervously chuckled. Watching the group of thugs trying to see what they would do next.

“Oh fellows we have a wise one here and you all know what we do with smart asses.” The leader of the pack proudly stated as he let go of the kid and started making his way over to Shii.

“You give us flowers and send us on our way unscathed?” She asked, sarcasm at this point was just dripping off every word she spoke. Shii grabbed for trusty knives but they weren’t there. She quickly replayed the start of her day in her mind and remembered they were still lying on the table. “Shit!” She screamed to herself as one of the grunts came up to her.

“Hey pretty lady; you’re from the academy I see. Well let’s see how good they are teaching you all.” He said as he took a cheap shot right to her gut. Shii instantly doubled over as air was forced out of her lungs. She fell backwards onto the ground with a hard thud, she was clutching at her side. The academy student hadn’t expected that or at least not this early. Tears started to well up as the pain coursed thru her body, she started to roll on the floor trying to get it to stop, trying to get her breath back. Before she knew it the second grunt had come up to her. Squatting down to her level about to open his mouth to say something or another but never got the chance. She had grabbed some sand and threw it into the guy’s eyes. He instantly recoiled clawing at his eyes and cursing like no other. Without thinking Shii got to her feet and tried running away. However she didn’t get far as the leader of the pack tackled her from behind. He didn’t like him or his men to look like fools and he was going to make sure everybody knew this.

“Bruno, stand her up!” He shouted at one of his underlings. The grunt without sand in his eyes quickly ran over to Shii picking her up and holding onto her, or at least he thought he was. The boss man came over and slugged Shii right in the jaw. Her eyes went wide with sheer pain as she tried to keep from screaming. After regaining her composer and trying not to listen to his vile spewing, she spit out some blood.

“Really that’s all you got? You feel all big and bad because what you can beat up on a girl, good job buddy. We got a real fighter on our hands. Let me tell you if you didn’t have this big lug holding on to me, you would so be in trouble. I mean look already took out one grunt. So how about you just let me go before we both do something we don’t want to.” She asked him hoping that she would be released but knowing that most likely wouldn’t happen. The man had other plans however and decided to tell Bruno to let her go.

“So you think you’re in good enough shape to fight me eh?” He asked in a cocky manner. “Well, let the games begin.” With that he charged at Shii. One on one he wasn’t that great of a fighter. Shii put her leg out for him to trip over, like clockwork he didn’t see it, he began his fall. Shii grabbed onto the back of his neck and brought her other elbow down on his back. He fell to the ground letting out a roar of pain. Shii however didn’t stick around to see what was going to happen. Bruno was in such shock that his leader fell that he didn’t even noticed the girl running away.

She made her way to the fourth squad infirmary seeing how her jaw was killing her. “This is so not cool, I forgot my chocolate, most likely dislocated my jaw, have another practice match in the am, and I was stupid enough to forget my knives. Can say this day effing sucked.” She thought as she sat in the waiting room.