Night of Remembrance [Isaribi | P]

The idea that the only thing holding someone like her back was her own reluctance to take chances stung a little. It wasn't entirely true, but she wasn't about to explain that kind of thing to a guy who couldn't possibly understand. Of course, she had spent a good long time locked up for crimes she had, indeed, committed, but that was the kind of shit you got into when you joined up with the Jaws. Young folks pushed to desperation would look for the most radical solutions to give voice to the dissatisfaction and unease they felt with their lives and with the world.

"Well, that's the question, ain't it?", she said, as she started digging in. "Have I turned a new leaf? You think after years of running with the kinds of people I ran with, I just changed my mind after a decade in prison?" Well, the answer to that wasn't necessarily "no", but she acted like it was, partially for effect and partially because she half-believed it herself. "Maybe I still have sympathies for the Jaws." God, wouldn't that be fucked up? To be clear, she still looked favorably on a lot of the minor gangs, but the Jaws didn't speak for the people, not in the way a lot of villagers thought. But as for the shinobi? They felt like a boot on her throat, more often than not.

"I dunno anybody in the ninja forces. There's nobody there who would treat me like family, not the same way my old crowd would have."

[WC 259]

As the night wore on, Isaribi grew increasingly aware that she did not belong here. There was the superficial fact that she didn't fit in in this building, with the eerily clean carpet and walls, nor with the other patrons who seemed like they were off in an entirely different world of their own. She ate in silence, not really willing to move to another table to make the situation less awkward. All that coming here had accomplished to was put her newly made convictions in doubt, not unlike deforming a freshly made clay bowl before placing it in the kiln. Nothing good could have ever come here, she thought to herself, so why come to begin with? Had she had some kind of vain hope that it would offer her a better perspective? What a joke.

She finished and paid the bill, stalking out of the diner, ignoring the judgmental gazes of the rich folk around her. She was thinking the same thing they were: that she should not be there, that she should get the fuck out of that place. Hell, they probably suspected her of being up to something. Maybe years and years ago, she would have been in this neighborhood to plan some mischief, but those days were long, LONG gone. Now, she was just so fucking tired of the looks, tired of the judgment. It was something she had to deal with all her life, but for some reason, she was in a stage of her life where it was just too much to handle.

[WC 260
TWC 2846
56 AP
2500 to elevate sharingan genjutsu from A to S
250 for sensory deprivation
sorry, Enishi
EXIT]

Approved