A Face from the Past (Private: Jiro and Kimiko)

It was going on 5pm when Jiro finally finished the last of the paperwork and the sun was already beginning to dip towards the horizon. It had only taken a few minutes to reach his current location from his office in the Anbu headquarters and he hoped the next part of his journey could be concluded just as quickly. That said he was beginning to think it would take longer to collect the item in question then he had anticipated. All around him a sea of faces bobbed and weaved through the bustling interconnected streets of Konoha’s ever busy shopping district. The place was always busy of course but in preparation for the coming weekend it was swamped with eager shoppers looking for last minute deals. Jiro would normally have avoided the place altogether, he was not a socially minded and was uncomfortable in milling crowds. He was first and foremost a Nin of action, efficiency who always endeavoured to achieve his tasks as effectively and with as little wasted effort as possible. The idea of browsing or shopping for the sake of shopping was a confusing concept and one to which he had no desire to subscribe too.

As he carefully danced through the constantly twisting masses with the subtly of a professional performer he couldn’t help but think how much easier the task would be if people acted more rationally and only bought what was needed. Then again he had long given up trying to truly understand civilians. Like women, they acted in ways that were as baffling as they were nonsensical and there was little point trying to categorise their motives. He recalled a day he spent observing a tea house in preparation for an infiltration mission he had the following week trying to determine their motives and better understand the acts and procedure involved. The technical side of it had been simple enough to understand but it had quickly become evident that the motivations of some of the clientele were irrational to the point of foolishness. Jiro sometimes wandered if there was something he wasn’t picking up on, something his acute Nin senses couldn’t detect but never got closer to a reason people seemed to act without properly analysing their actions.

It didn’t take long to reach the small back alley in which stood the shop of Rinkush the seal maker who Jiro had lately commissioned to make a new item for him. Minutes later Jiro walked out the proud owner of one specially altered wooden stick that he was certain would be of great use in helping to put the new Anbu through their paces. In hindsight it would have been perhaps better if Rinkush had done a poor job then he might have been paying attention when a near by wagon hit a pot hole sending its contents of copper pans flying this way and that. It had taken a moment’s work for the young prodigy to activate the seal on the stick extending it to 6ft long and using some breathtaking acrobatics, swift carefully timed flips and twists and a few precisely aimed strikes to return the semi lethal projectiles back to the cart they originated from much to the relief of those around. However what he hadn’t countered for, lost as he was in his admiration for Rinkush’s fine work was that he had rather less room to manoeuvre then he had anticipated and as he turned to land he realised to late the spot in question was already occupied. A fraction of a second later and the unlikely saviour of many from pot related head trauma was sprawled face up on the ground with a foreign weight on top of him and a throbbing pain in the back of the head. He planned to quickly get up and deal with the situation as pragmatically as possible. Opening his eyes he saw a paper shopping back of what looked to be herbs lying to one side and found him self looking directly up at a familiar face out of the past. She seemed even prettier then he remembered if that was possible, more mature and thoughtful and somehow her amethyst coloured eyes seemed to sparkle in the late afternoon sun. Konoha’s brave Anbu leader, considered by many to be peerless on the battlefield, couldn’t stop him self gulping in worry and from complexion beginning to glow red. He tried to lift himself up and extricate himself from the situation but nothing seemed to be responding as though some unknown fear held him down. Then again if it was fear that gripped him why did some small part of him seem to like it. Getting ever redder as a uncomfortable second or two of silence passed he managed to find his tongue and say in a soft almost tentative voice:

“Hi Kimi”

Jiro reached up and grasped Kimi’s hand in his own, noticing all to closely how soft her skin was to touch. Hiding his uncertainty behind a wall of activity he let Kimi help him up, no mean feat given that he had bulked up a fair bit since their last encounter and before straightening up and to the surprise of any who did not know him bowed deeply in apology.

“The apology is mine Kimiko. I should have paid more attention to the road. It is no good me lecturing others about eternal vigilance when my own is so clearly lacking. Pray forgive my brash action and I can only hope you were not hurt”

Jiro might be Jashin’s right hand but he was anything if not proper. Years of remorseless self indoctrination to be the best he could be had drilled an iron hard discipline and appreciation of manners and knocking anyone over least of all one of his few actual friends did not sit well with him. That was if he could truly count her a friend, he had seen her but in the distance briefly for a little over 3 years now and he had never visited her as a friend would. She had in likelihood forgotten him, forgotten their time together and gone off her own way, it was foolish to think otherwise.

He hadn’t forgotten her though. In truth he thought about her more often then he could have fathomed, from her wit to the care she showed for all loving things. It was never conscious, Jiro was as serious a Nin as one could find and rarely took his mind off the task in hand but every kind act he saw in others reminded him of her. Of her hazel locks and caring eyes. She represented within his mind something pure and noble but more so that she, in this dark world of misery and pain which had made him a weapon, had somehow had risen above the pettiness to become a truly good person. There was a time, when his life was at its lowest ebb were such a person seemed unconceivable, that a flower would never bloom in world so cruel, yet she did. It was part of the reason he avoided her for fear that somehow he would contaminate her by his presence, that his nightmares would become hers

Not that it mattered in any case, his feelings were irrelevant. He recalled she made friends easily and doubtless she had a great many by now. He didn’t deserve to be remembered whatever others said about him. He had never gone to see her or help with her training. He had purposefully avoided creating emotional bonds with others well aware such bonds could be exploited against him, in doing so risk weakening himself. He was a terrible friend, never there when needed, not bringing himself to trust others and Kimi, if anyone did, deserved better then his company. For this reason he mentally noted to bring this conversation to an end soon, it would be better for all concerned if Kimi enjoyed her life free of the pain he carried with him and for Konoha if her weapon had no emotional ties to speak with but if this was the case then why did it hurt so much inside.

All this time Jiro held his familiar smile and polite posture, trying intently not to appear either too assertive or passive. As ever if anyone knew how to hide their emotions then it was Konoha’s emotionally scarred prodigy.

(OOC: Sorry I am late )

Jiro was never quite sure around giggling girls. The books he had read about interaction with the fair sex in social context were fair from clear on the point. Was she mad? Sad? Happy? Was it a prelude to some sort of vocal genjutsu he had not encountered? He assumed it wasn’t the last but he couldn’t be sure the last female Nin he talked over long with tried to convince him to come with her to her bed chambers for some reason. It had been compelling till he broke the technique and sensibly sort accommodation elsewhere much to the women’s annoyance. He noticed Kimi smiled when she giggled a lot and her eyes didn’t have a look of alarm. The smile was slightly unnerving, few people smiled at him so he tried not to look directly at her but found himself stealing a glance every so often for some reason.

He was about to take his leave when she started up in the way girls seemed too. He wasn’t quite sure what made them do it but then he didn’t complain. He liked the sound of Kimi’s voice and it was comforting to know he did not unintentionally bring any real harm to her. As for her offer to heal him he should have really expected that. Kimi had always had a fondness for plants, potions and tonics and if recalled she hard a fine selection of herbs growing outside her window. At least she had done 3 years back when he last went there and with that though Jiro reminded himself how much he didn’t know about her. He could have read her personal files of course and with most Nin he normally did. It was his job to look for inconsistencies and future problems after all yet he had purposely avoided Kimi’s partly because he knew she wasn’t the troublemaking sort and partly because it felt wrong somehow.

As for the offer of aid he knew it wouldn’t be needed, sure he had taken a small knock but his heightened rate of regeneration would heal it within a half hour or so and he didn’t want to have to answer potentially difficult questions about why the mark was fading already. In truth he was more worried about her lip after all she didn’t have any healing abilities to speak of from what he remembered, though he had always envied her immunity to poisons, a useful attribute at the best of times. That said he didn’t want to seem ungrateful and the idea of Kimi disliking him didn’t sit well at all so he decided he would need to let her down gently:

“I am fine Kimi, really I am. It was nothing and I wouldn’t want you to get your hands dirty on my account. I …..”

He didn’t get very far before he heard a female cry of Jiro and the sounds of footsteps coming to stop next to them. He looked up and saw two people, one of which he had been avoiding with considerable skill he might add for some time. Six yards from the pair stood an attractive blond with shoulder length platinum blond here and a rather revealing skin tight Jounin’s uniform whose vest had been cut half way down exposing a deal more flesh then might be recommended on a practical note. Next to here was a placid but equally pretty Hyuuga girl of around 16 in Chuunin attire and both were looking avidly at the target.

The blonde was one Ina Yamanaka. Jiro had first met Ina during the Anbu tests and remembered how she seemed to take a savage pride in beating him at everything. She seemed to take against everything he did and always called him pretty boy in some vain attempt to distract him. In truth his earlier mediocre performances during the first tests had been a ruse to put everyone off guard and he used her complacency to easily go on to beat Ina in every event that mattered often by a larger margin. Rather then get angry, though he recalled her annoyance with him, she seemed to get very talkative and went from ignoring him to practically stalking him and making odd gestures. He had asked the old lady who lived in flat across from it what it all meant after a particularly harrowing experience in a shoe shop but she had just chuckled about something and had told him that girls were sometimes like that. He was not sure what had got into her, perhaps she was suffering a hormonal imbalance from not eating enough. He recalled how she seemed to diet a lot. Whatever the reason this odd game of chase had been going on two years at this point, though on the whole it had been easy enough to stay ahead. Now it seemed she managed to track him down.

The blonde approached Jiro in what she imagined was a seductive pose, though its meaning was lost on the inexperienced Anbu leader

“Jiro, what a lovely surprise, I haven’t seen you in ages. I knew you mission couldn’t last that long. I didn’t you liked to shop. You should have told us you were coming and we could have helped out. I know a Dango store around the corner that does the most delicious …”

It was then Ina suddenly to notice Jiro wasn’t alone and worse that someone was rubbing his arm. Ina couldn’t recall a time Jiro let anyone touch him accept when necessary, she had tried dozens of time to get close but he had always slipped away. Anger seemed to sparked within her and the smile slipped, her eyes narrowed and before she could think asked

“Who the hell is this?”