Not Unlike A Block Party [Solo, nk]

Isaribi peeked out at her window, down to the block below. There was one of them community parties going on, the kind where the neighborhood chipped in and shared in whatever surplus food had been built up over the past month. To say it was a festival of plenty would be delusional, as plenty did not exist in places like these, but it was good for people to celebrate. Unfortunately for her, it was a tacit rule in these parts that she wasn't invited. Her stomach growled with hunger again. This was what you got when you deployed in the force that kept riot control in these parts.

She dug through the fridge for something, and came up with bottled water, as usual. Well, she'd have to get out of here, try and find something to dig into. She pulled on her jacket and tied her headband to her bicep, then headed the fuck out, pulling on her hood to hide her face from the others. With some grumbling, she walked toward the corner, where a forlorn convenience store sat, moldering away. It looked to be in pretty bad shape, but it had been there before she was born, and would be there long after she was dead. Some things were just constants.

However, much to her dismay, the place was locked up, dark windows and everything. Oh, for fuck's sake. She kicked at a pebble on the sidewalk, missed, and had to catch her balance. Harder, now, that she only had one fucking arm.

[WC 255]

With no small emotional effort, she began walking back toward the party. There wasn't any way she was going to skip another fucking meal today. Not that she was too good for it, of course. She didn't believe that anybody was that good. With naught but a slight exertion, she reached out with her chakra sensory, being on the lookout for any of the Jaws or their various minions. The more she practiced this, the better she got, though Isaribi figured she was too stupid to apply it to anything useful. Maybe someday, she'd find the time to sit down with someone who didn't piss her off and get them to help her out with this.

It wasn't like she'd been unable to accomplish anything, but outside of her ocular prowess, but what little she had been able to work out was ground that other people had covered already. She was, at least, familiar with some of the true giants among the village's shinobi, and knew that she couldn't compare to them in her current state. It pissed her off, feeling small and impotent like that. That disconnect, that alienation from her work killed off so many in this neighborhood, indirectly.

The way Hoshi was build made people dissatisfied, and that in turn was a social pressure that the council and even the shinobi wielded against people like her. For so many, their work was the whole meaning of their lives, "life's prime want" as some old writer had put it. How was she supposed to do anything about that?

[WC 260]

Before they caught sight of her, she started casting the transformation jutsu. Bad memories associated with this thing. Tests involving violent punishment for failure, and so on and so forth. It wasn't as exhausting to use as it was when she was a kid, but the learning process had not been particularly fun. She shifted into an appearance that wouldn't stand out in this neighborhood, while being unrecognizable to those around her. If there had been anyone even remotely capable of chakra sensory in the area, she would have considered a different tactic, but that wasn't necessary today, thank god. The security here was communal in nature, of course. Just a bunch of brothers and sisters with swords and knives and very intimidating fists. Could she have beaten the crap out of them? Sure, but that wasn't why she was here.  She was just here for the fucking grub.

She got in line, behind someone she actually kinda recognized. Old Strohm, who used to live a floor beneath her family's apartment. He used to work in some shitty quarry way out in the woods back before real order had been established in the village, and his lot and the bandits had exchanged blows over time. The scars were still evident on his skin. She didn't say anything to him, now. He probably didn't recognize her either way. In front of him was some up and coming hotshot from some local gang (not the Grima, thank god). She could tell by his ink, and everything. Probably wouldn't amount to much, that guy. Live fast, die young, as they said.  

[WC 268]

The kid serving at the table wasn't familiar to her either, until she blinked a couple of times. Nah, she'd known this boy's family for sure. Come to think of it, this was the theme with everyone around her. People who, at first, she didn't know but who gradually became more familiar as she watched. That regret that she felt almost daily struck her again. It was such bullshit. At least, that was how she felt, but it was more complicated than a simple case of right and wrong. How could they not see her as a traitor? Sure, the Jaws were bad, and they definitely didn't represent these people well, but they were a damn sight better than what Isaribi had become now.

Human beings lived with so much sorrow in their lives. And yet, she felt so helpless to do anything about it. What was to be done about the lifestyles these people led? What change could be brought about such that their reliance on the Jaws of Grima could be released? Did she think too much of herself? After all, she was merely a normal girl from a part of town that nobody thought about. Could she really expect herself to change the world like this?

Except, she didn't have to change the world at all. People who set about trying to do that only ended up drowning themselves in their own ego, and Isaribi wasn't the kind of person to have a large ego. No, all she had to do was change this little piece of the world.

[WC 262]

There was a school near here, too, funded by local taxes. Since people around here didn't have much, the school was shit, naturally. Still, it was either that, or the kids ended up in gangs like the Jaws. No decent person around here would see them go anywhere else. Parents were too smart to let their kids actually join the church, and joining the shinobi was completely out of the question. Well, maybe not completely. She was evidence enough that there was a bad egg in every batch. Evidence enough even for her, which was why she felt so uncomfortable here. If it had merely been the others who had wanted her gone, she would have just given them the middle finger and lived wherever the fuck she wanted, but her own shame, her own distress at the path her life had taken, among other factors, had driven her away from what had by and large been her childhood home. These were streets, sights and sounds that had become building blocks for her.

Words that existed in commonality between areas of the village had slightly different connotations in each, and those words could shape the people who used them, like parasites or, perhaps to put it better, symbiotes. These different frames of reference produced large enough gaps in understanding, generations down the line, driving groups to violence and conflict against each other. Words could kill, and Isaribi despised that. Violence committed via language was craven- no, that wasn't the right term for it.

[WC 253]

The line shrunk gradually as time went on, and then, suddenly it was her turn. She was handed a paper plate full of food. Ah, the good warm stuff. Pulled pork in some savory sauce, mashed potatos, and greens. The food and its preparation screamed "poor", but it was hers. For just a little bit, as she dug in, Isaribi dropped all the walls, cast aside all the bullshit and pretenses and protection from betrayal and from daggers in the back, threw out all the cynicism and  misery and just *be*. This, here, was like something out of an alternate fucking timeline. This was like a different her, someone who had lived here and prospered and thrived, instead of getting so deep into the Jaws and into criminality, that it had come around to bite her in the ass.

This was nice. She didn't have to worry about anything. Oh, in another five minutes, she'd get stressed out all over again over some looming threat to her way of life, but right now, it was like sand falling away from her. The familiar sound of voices from her part of the village, the warm feeling of belonging,  even if she was in disguise. This might be the closest she ever got in her life to real happiness.

With her meal finished, she stood, looking over the scene one last time. Families that she knew well, groups of teenagers who would have looked up to her in another, better time, old timers whose stories of this place formed the backbone of its culture... and she turned away and left.

[TWC 1566
1000 toward https://www.narutoroleplaygame.com/t46051-summoning-technique-v7
250 to master https://www.narutoroleplaygame.com/t22313-genjutsu-release
250 for https://www.narutoroleplaygame.com/t45648-mark-seal-v7

total WC for AP training gives me 30 AP
CLOSED]