Between the backyard chickens, the engagement party at the bar, and having to rescue the alcohol supplier for said party, Makoto was looking forward to an actual relaxing day off afterwards. Some people would say attending a party for a friend should count as relaxing, and he would tell them to stuff it, because parties were not relaxing to him, particularly parties that came on the tail end of realizing that you were in fact not as lazy, passive, or rebellious as you had previously thought you were.
The phoenix had said something similar, although it was more along the lines of 'shouldn't you be happy you are better than you think you are.' He had told it quite bluntly, no, because in his home country having 'good' morals could and did get you killed. So he had to work out what, exactly, he was going to do about this. When it had suggested that his initial plan of possibly finding others like him to help change things he had responded that was how third factions were formed and subsequently rooted out and burned to the ground, so he wasn't about to be so foolishly optimistic again. When it had attempted to continue on that vein he had ignored it.
So instead he had chosen to take his new 'little sister' (and wasn't that going to be fun to explain to his family; he still wasn't quite sure how to put that into the letter he was still procrastinating) out for ice cream. Unsurprisingly, ice cream was not too hard to come by in a desert community. He found about five places within two blocks of the hotel.
He'd never actually looked for them before, usually looking for bars instead, but it was nice to know that if you had a probably-around-six child to take care of, they were there.
"Tatsuya said too much sugar will make me hyper and I shouldn't eat it a lot," Miki recited when Makoto offered the ice cream. At least she wasn't calling Tatsuya big brother; he still felt oddly smug about that. "And also that sugar rots your teeth."
"The first is a myth that has never been proven, and the second can be dealt with by healers," he said easily, ignoring his cousin's exasperated look. "Besides, you aren't even human and don't technically need to eat for anything other than fun, so I think it's safe to say the normal rules don't really apply to you."
"I want chocolate," Miki announced to the room at large, apparently deciding that his being okay with it meant she didn't have to think about the negative qualities of sugar anymore.
So they went for ice cream.
Sitting outside on the open-air patio, he briefly ruminated on what he was going to do about the letter before discarding the idea. He'd meet with the Kazekage so he could say he'd addressed part of it truthfully. That was all that could be done.
Miki was sitting on one of the green-cushioned white chairs, legs dangling over the side as she spooned rapidly-melting ice cream (the chocolate she had wanted, of course) out of a dish. The first time they had taken her out for it she had declared she didn't like cones, so dishes from then on it was.
He rather agreed, mostly due to the mess that could be made in Sand's fatal to ice cream heat, so the small bowl of strawberry she'd insisted he also get was perfectly fine by him. Even if, strictly speaking, he wasn't normally that big on sweets. He'd have thought that a sweet tooth was a child thing, but he hadn't had one himself, so who knew really.
One of the things that he'd finally managed to get her to agree to was to leave her headphones back up in the hotel room. She had been constantly wandering around with them sitting around her neck, and while he could understanding having a comfort object, she also needed to know nothing would happen to them or her if she left them on the desk in a secure hotel room.
He was mostly ignoring the phoenix, so instead he made conversation with Miki, inasmuch as you could make conversation with a not-quite-human child intent on a bowl of chocolate ice cream.
All in all, it was shaping up to be a pleasant day.
That is, until he saw it.
Miki had apparently noticed it too, although whether it was out of her peripheral vision or some sense he couldn't tell. Fortunately she was done eating, the bowl scraped practically clean by the little plastic spoon, and reacted with curiosity to the animal that was approaching them.
Makoto's hand twitched toward his parasol, sheathed as ever on his back.
"What's that?" Miki asked curiously. This was a common question coming from her, being as she hadn't seen many of the things normal children had.
And, he realized, she didn't actually have a frame of reference for 'cat.'
"That," he said carefully, "is a dangerous animal native to Sand. It's called a yeowler cat. Of no real relation, I am sure, to your average normal, fluffy pet cat."
At least she wasn't the type of child who would yell 'kitty!' and run over and get clawed.
"Oh," she said, appearing to ponder this. "Okay."
She picked up the disposable ice cream bowl and he felt sure she was going to turn and dump it in the nearby trash, whereupon he could lead her away from the insult to real cats, but instead she flung it at the creature before he could stop her.
And with surprising accuracy, to boot.
Later Makoto would admit there were many things he could have done to avert what happened next. He was fast enough he could have grabbed or blocked the projectile. He could have decided simply to grab Miki and high tail it out of there so the yeowler cat would not realize who its attacker was. He could even have tugged her back inside the shop on the same principle.
Anything other than what he had done, which was absolutely nothing but watch as the little dish, still with a small amount of melted ice cream residue on the inside, soared in an unerring arc to land on the cat's head.
It immediately emitted a noise more suitable to the kind of hellish nether-spawn it clearly was and jumped about four feet in the air. Cursing his slow reflexes, Makoto finally reacted, intercepting the cat-shaped missile on course for Miki. It smacked directly into his outstretched parasol and latched on, clawing and biting to no avail.
"Why in the world did you do that?" he asked her, exasperated. For her part, his little sister looked unrepetent.
"I felt like it," she said. "You said they were dangerous. So that means that we should catch it, right? Besides, it was funny."
"Attacking dangerous things isn't something you should do," he said, exasperated.
"You do it all the time," she said stubbornly, folding her arms across her chest.
"That is different," he said. "It's my job. You don't have the training yet."
"Can I?"
He almost opened his mouth to say no, when another part of him asked, and why the hell not?
"I suppose," he said at length. "As long as you are hanging around in physical form, you should know basic self-defense. But!" He held up his free hand. "That means no provoking things that can hurt you until you're ready. Okay?"
"Okay!" she said cheerily, all sunshine and smiles again. Making him wonder if that had been her aim and he'd just been played by a child.
Oh well. He'd dwell on that later, he decided as he put the yeowler cat to sleep with a quick Temple of Nirvana cast.
Really, that was the simplest way to deal with the things.
[Topic Entered/Left in 1 Hr]
The phoenix had said something similar, although it was more along the lines of 'shouldn't you be happy you are better than you think you are.' He had told it quite bluntly, no, because in his home country having 'good' morals could and did get you killed. So he had to work out what, exactly, he was going to do about this. When it had suggested that his initial plan of possibly finding others like him to help change things he had responded that was how third factions were formed and subsequently rooted out and burned to the ground, so he wasn't about to be so foolishly optimistic again. When it had attempted to continue on that vein he had ignored it.
So instead he had chosen to take his new 'little sister' (and wasn't that going to be fun to explain to his family; he still wasn't quite sure how to put that into the letter he was still procrastinating) out for ice cream. Unsurprisingly, ice cream was not too hard to come by in a desert community. He found about five places within two blocks of the hotel.
He'd never actually looked for them before, usually looking for bars instead, but it was nice to know that if you had a probably-around-six child to take care of, they were there.
"Tatsuya said too much sugar will make me hyper and I shouldn't eat it a lot," Miki recited when Makoto offered the ice cream. At least she wasn't calling Tatsuya big brother; he still felt oddly smug about that. "And also that sugar rots your teeth."
"The first is a myth that has never been proven, and the second can be dealt with by healers," he said easily, ignoring his cousin's exasperated look. "Besides, you aren't even human and don't technically need to eat for anything other than fun, so I think it's safe to say the normal rules don't really apply to you."
"I want chocolate," Miki announced to the room at large, apparently deciding that his being okay with it meant she didn't have to think about the negative qualities of sugar anymore.
So they went for ice cream.
Sitting outside on the open-air patio, he briefly ruminated on what he was going to do about the letter before discarding the idea. He'd meet with the Kazekage so he could say he'd addressed part of it truthfully. That was all that could be done.
Miki was sitting on one of the green-cushioned white chairs, legs dangling over the side as she spooned rapidly-melting ice cream (the chocolate she had wanted, of course) out of a dish. The first time they had taken her out for it she had declared she didn't like cones, so dishes from then on it was.
He rather agreed, mostly due to the mess that could be made in Sand's fatal to ice cream heat, so the small bowl of strawberry she'd insisted he also get was perfectly fine by him. Even if, strictly speaking, he wasn't normally that big on sweets. He'd have thought that a sweet tooth was a child thing, but he hadn't had one himself, so who knew really.
One of the things that he'd finally managed to get her to agree to was to leave her headphones back up in the hotel room. She had been constantly wandering around with them sitting around her neck, and while he could understanding having a comfort object, she also needed to know nothing would happen to them or her if she left them on the desk in a secure hotel room.
He was mostly ignoring the phoenix, so instead he made conversation with Miki, inasmuch as you could make conversation with a not-quite-human child intent on a bowl of chocolate ice cream.
All in all, it was shaping up to be a pleasant day.
That is, until he saw it.
Miki had apparently noticed it too, although whether it was out of her peripheral vision or some sense he couldn't tell. Fortunately she was done eating, the bowl scraped practically clean by the little plastic spoon, and reacted with curiosity to the animal that was approaching them.
Makoto's hand twitched toward his parasol, sheathed as ever on his back.
"What's that?" Miki asked curiously. This was a common question coming from her, being as she hadn't seen many of the things normal children had.
And, he realized, she didn't actually have a frame of reference for 'cat.'
"That," he said carefully, "is a dangerous animal native to Sand. It's called a yeowler cat. Of no real relation, I am sure, to your average normal, fluffy pet cat."
At least she wasn't the type of child who would yell 'kitty!' and run over and get clawed.
"Oh," she said, appearing to ponder this. "Okay."
She picked up the disposable ice cream bowl and he felt sure she was going to turn and dump it in the nearby trash, whereupon he could lead her away from the insult to real cats, but instead she flung it at the creature before he could stop her.
And with surprising accuracy, to boot.
Later Makoto would admit there were many things he could have done to avert what happened next. He was fast enough he could have grabbed or blocked the projectile. He could have decided simply to grab Miki and high tail it out of there so the yeowler cat would not realize who its attacker was. He could even have tugged her back inside the shop on the same principle.
Anything other than what he had done, which was absolutely nothing but watch as the little dish, still with a small amount of melted ice cream residue on the inside, soared in an unerring arc to land on the cat's head.
It immediately emitted a noise more suitable to the kind of hellish nether-spawn it clearly was and jumped about four feet in the air. Cursing his slow reflexes, Makoto finally reacted, intercepting the cat-shaped missile on course for Miki. It smacked directly into his outstretched parasol and latched on, clawing and biting to no avail.
"Why in the world did you do that?" he asked her, exasperated. For her part, his little sister looked unrepetent.
"I felt like it," she said. "You said they were dangerous. So that means that we should catch it, right? Besides, it was funny."
"Attacking dangerous things isn't something you should do," he said, exasperated.
"You do it all the time," she said stubbornly, folding her arms across her chest.
"That is different," he said. "It's my job. You don't have the training yet."
"Can I?"
He almost opened his mouth to say no, when another part of him asked, and why the hell not?
"I suppose," he said at length. "As long as you are hanging around in physical form, you should know basic self-defense. But!" He held up his free hand. "That means no provoking things that can hurt you until you're ready. Okay?"
"Okay!" she said cheerily, all sunshine and smiles again. Making him wonder if that had been her aim and he'd just been played by a child.
Oh well. He'd dwell on that later, he decided as he put the yeowler cat to sleep with a quick Temple of Nirvana cast.
Really, that was the simplest way to deal with the things.
[Topic Entered/Left in 1 Hr]