Here we go again (Sharaku)

Naomi would enter through the portal of alternate Standasen and blink her eyes a few times. After spending so much time in the other San Malarus, the contrast nearly gave her visual whiplash. It was like when you came out of a movie theater mid-afternoon. Still, she had to be patient and wait for Sharaku. She had sent him a message earlier, telling him to meet up at this place with her. For a second, she thought about contacting others, but two people was enough to get through her. She learned that the more people there were, the slower you moved. Which was not the ideal situation to be in when you were in the alternate worlds.

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When Sharaku arrived, she would give a slight nod, “We’re here to get stronger, and learn the best way to take on these Shadows.” She thought that was a good explanation, “Anything else?” She would signal that she was ready to head out, recardless of his response. This was going to be a long trek, but it was hopefully going to be useful to them. They needed all the practice they could get, after all. As she continued to walk, one thing was made perfectly clear: this definitely was not her usual stepping grounds, but her place was not the kind you went to fight. In fact, that was potentially one of the worst ideas, given what recently happened there. Still, she was ready to do what it took in order to get stronger. As it stood right now, she was still pretty weak. She needed more experience in order to go toe to toe with what was probably going to appear in the future. Goodness know she wasn’t ready for it right now. Still, it was nerve wracking. She couldn’t show that though. Always move with your head held high and a smile on your face. That’s just what she did, no questions asked. She tried to never lose her smile, even though she was taking it upon herself to walk into certain danger. Maybe that was the sign that she had gotten far too used to all of this. No sane person would ever be able to walk through this all with a smile on their face. Then again, she was never sane to begin with, so who was she to say.

She would look at Sharaku with her usually grin, despite knowing he may not care for it, “So, what do you think we’ll run into today? These things come in all shapes and sizes, so you can never know.” As strange as this question seemed, she was using it to keep this battle lighthearted. She didn’t think anyone on her team understood her need to do this, but they didn’t have to. Only she did. She was afraid that if the entire team took their encounters too seriously, they would lose something important. She couldn’t even stand the thought of it, so she kept smiling despite whatever was going to come. In fact, she would make a game out of it. Though, she figured Sharaku would have a vastly different opinion about what they should be doing, rather than joking around.

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It stood to reason that he would want to know why she chose him, [color=#ffcc00] “It’s simple. You were the best option. First off, you can fight and protect yourself if something goes wrong.” Not that she wouldn’t try to protect him, but you couldn’t account for if she became unavailable, “Kurosawa and I barely know each other and he seems to be lacking in the fighting department. Alphonse is usually busy with Maria, so I didn’t think he’d be free.” That was all she planned to say until Sharaku mentioned Hyde. She would seem to get an annoyed glint in her eye before answering, “I’m so angry at Hyde right now that I can’t even think straight. Trust me, if I would have called him we’d be the ones fighting.” She didn’t feel the need to hide that. She was going to chew him out next time they met for messing up San Malarus and throwing everyone into a panic. Talk about screwing the pooch.

She would hum as she thought about Sharaku’s answer, “I guess you’re right. We fight them no matter what they look like, so it shouldn’t matter. I was just wondering how many different types there were in the world. We’ve seen a few now and each of them seems to be slightly different. They’re like animals, when you think about it.” And people studied animals. Why shouldn’t they study Shadows? Maybe they could figure out how to defeat them more easily if they learned about them. That’s all she had been thinking. It was posed in a childish manner, but it was a very adult and mature idea, especially coming from Naomi, who wore a child-like face all the time, “But personally, I prefer the ugly ones. I feel bad when I destroy something cute, so they ugly ones are easier to deal with.” Just some insight into her way of thinking.

Looking around, she wondered what made the alternate worlds so different from one another. Lunapa was an enchanted forest with magical, sentient lights; San Malarus was a technologically advanced, post apocalyptic (?) future city, and this place was a bunch of sand. Those things had nothing in common. Plus, the fact that she recently found out that San Malarus had lost its other islands a long time ago, so long that there were only legends about how it happened, said that this likely wasn’t in the same alternate universe. Unless it was and she was just an idiot for thinking it wasn’t. That was possible. She was not the brightest bulb in the world. Then again, she also wasn’t the dullest. She was just a bit slow on the uptake and she tended to over think things, which made her seem dumber than she really was. She also hid a lot of her intelligence behind a mask of stupidity so that people would laugh at her and smile. Or they would mock her and find out just how she acted in her earlier years. She didn’t care for them, but she still knew how to use her claws.

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As the Shadows appeared before them, Naomi would call forth Intertwined from the card that appeared before her, “I’ll tell you about it after this.” Talking and fighting was hard enough as it was, but if she had to get into it, she knew her anger would win out and she’d lose her concentration.

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