sunshineverse | [Closed] It's not an excuse I swear!

Where: The topmost part of Whirlpool near Rice
When: BGS 5, May 24th
Notes: And then the day came where Ashiko met Obito in the most horrifying way possible.

Obito was in a hurry, that was the only thing that he could put it down to. He was hung up on not being able to see through his arm full of scrolls, had run out of room in his bag, and was attempting to meet the caravan that was going to go down to the site where Uzushio was going to be... all at the same time.

He only had five minutes to get there otherwise Kushina was probably going to take his ear off.

None of this excused the fact that this was a purely civilian village... and thus had civilian roofing priorities. Which might explain how he went from being on the roof to inside the building between one step and another, and how he might have brought down a chunk of the roof with him.

Ow.

He didn't even glance around before realizing that his landing had scattered his cargo to the far reaches of the room however, and with a curse, he immediately made a grab for the closest ones rolling away from him.

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Ashiko had never been so far from her master's side since swearing to follow him. He had sent her out on an errand while he stayed back to watch over one of his experiments, and she was very resolutely tamping down the withdrawal pangs. He sent her because he trusted her, and that was something she should be honored about, case closed.

...that said, however, she was rather relieved that her stay in the little village was coming to a close, and had returned to her hotel with all due haste. She decided to take a bath before dinner, having had to deal with the particularly muggy weather of the village for too much for her taste, and was just about finished undressing when she heard a faint, strange creaking from the ceiling.

And then the unthinkable happened.

In the aftermath, Ashiko found herself rooted to the floor, kimono layers pooled at her elbows and hands knotted in her untied obi as she stared at the man suddenly in her room. She was, from the front, virtually naked aside from a simple white pair of panties, but her mind was still too busy reeling in shock to properly register that. Until, that is, a scroll rolled slowly across the floor, bumping into her foot.

Ashiko shrieked.

It was the scroll he'd been chasing. It was the scroll he'd been chasing and he was on hands and knees when his head lifted to look up at the source of the shriek... and he promptly flushed red as his gaze darted away, his hands coming up in a placating motion even as he looked at anything not her.

Okay, forget being late, he'd just horrified some poor civilian girl. "I'm so sorry! I promise I didn't mean to! Just. Clothes. I- Ahhhm."

Then he finally turned around.

Ashiko spun around, hastily clutching the silks to her chest, and trying to tie her obi back on with sloppy, hurried motions she would never dream of making on a normal day. She glanced back over her shoulder at her sudden and fairly unwelcome guest, trying to find her voice.

If the situation was different, Ashiko might have found the tableau funny; between her dark hair and eyes, the pale sloped skin of her back, and the almost artful dishabille of her robes, she looked like something straight out of a dirty wood-cut of old. Perhaps, years and years after the fact she might see the humor in it, but for now she was a shocked, vulnerable sixteen year old girl.

She finally managed some amount of modesty, though the final product looked more like a bathrobe than her normal put-together appearance. All the same, when she turned back around her arms were folded tightly across her chest. ".......so," she said, after staring at him for a long moment. Her voice was much higher than usual. "I-I...ex...an e-explanation is warranted, I should think. Sir."

He was gathering the scrolls rolling around in... not her direction, trying to occupy himself so she wouldn't think he was looking. He really really was not looking and hadn't meant to crash in on her at all.

However, he had absolutely no good excuse... so he just gave her the truth.

"The roof collapsed on my way over."

"...that is actually an acceptable answer," Ashiko had to admit, after a moment of contemplation. That, and all the evidence seemed to point towards his evidence. But that didm;t make her tense posture relax very much at all; he had still gotten an eyeful more of her than any other man still living.

"Hopefully the innkeeper will be understanding of the situation," she remarked, striving for civility but still a little too stiff to properly reach it.

"....Right. Well. Um. I'll just... I'll have to swing by and throw money at the damages I guess or- Crap I am so dead. Um. Maybe I can throw it at you and you can throw it at him and no. Wait what if I- Aaaaagh."

He glanced toward her, was relieved that she seemed mostly clothed now and darted across the room to grab more scrolls. "How about. Um. Damn. Er- I mean."

He took a deep breath. "How about I give you a way to reach me so that you can just fling a bill at me?"

"How about you give me a way of contacting you and that, if you're going to stick me with a bill?" She forced up a sweet smile and leveled a steady finger at his forehead protector. Perhaps it was overly-shrewd of her, but if a strange ninja was going to have her pay for his accident at his convenience, she wanted some form of collateral that she could either hold in good faith or cash in at his village.

Just in case, of course.

He blinked, but the moment he knew what she was pointing at, he shook his head, frowning at her sternly. "Hey look, I get I didn't exactly make a good first impression here but that's just not done. Civilian right? You can ask a shinobi for a lot of things, but never their sign of allegiance, got it?"

For a moment, all good humor was missing, and he peered into her face as he made sure she got it. "Pick something else if you wanna keep something I have okay?" His tone softened, then he turned to moved off after the last couple scrolls. Stupid scrolls. Everywhere.

"That's exactly why I asked for it. It's the one thing I can be sure you won't renege on, since I know nothing about your character. Some shinobi may lack honor, but I have yet to meet a single one without pride." In either their status or their village. Even her master still had his original forehead protector tucked away somewhere.

"Plus, it would force you to explain matters to your superior officer." If her arms tightened across her chest, if a bit of ice crept into her tone...well, perhaps Obito was a good enough shinobi to find the fear beneath them. Ashiko was in a very vulnerable position, even if he didn't see it that way, and she didn't like it one bit.

"Sorry Hime, no can do. I'm not in my own country and doing something like that is putting my village at risk." He flashed her a wry smile, and it was a little sad. "I'm not sure I can trust you with it. You might not be as harmless as you seem, you know?" He dug around in a pocket, then balanced against a table, scrawling something, a seal, over a piece of paper, then did another over another. "This will work once, but if you contact me with a place to meet you, I'll show if I can, got it? Use this if you think I'm taking too long getting back to you, or if you can't get a hold of me."

"A princess wouldn't need collateral," Ashiko corrected reflexively, because her grandfather had always taught her to never let anybody think more or less of her than she actually was. "She word have clout enough that you couldn't dodge, even if you wanted." She shook her head lightly, breaking away from that casual, normal rebuttal and trying to force back the formality she had been clinging to before. She didn't quite succeed if the faint wryness clinging to her voice was any indication.

"Yes, I'm sure you are utterly aghast at the sheer number of weapons attached to my person that you saw, in great detail." Still, she took the paper and committed the instructions to memory.

He put the seal on the table and tapped it once, showing her the other one and tucking it into his pocket. "You can be a princess without being a princess." He rolled his shoulder in a shrug and gathered up the last of his things, voice soft as he looked over at her. "You might just be a nice civilian girl... but you might not be."

He gave a shrug that clearly indicated 'such is life'. "I'm Uchiha Obito. Contact Konoha and they'll get a hold on me. If that fails, use the seal. A drop of blood and a written missive will be sent over if dropped on top."

[Closed] It's not an excuse I swear!

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