Most of the village's experienced ninjas usually got tired of Megumi after exchanging only a few words. Mikio on the other hand enjoyed her company immensely. She was reasonably polite and good enough at reading the room, but most importantly she was on a never ending quest for more knowledge and skill. It was people like her that had made Mikio realize that he wanted to try teaching in the first place.
He smiled at her when she pointed out that the lack of missions gave her time to get better and ready for when danger did come. He didn't quite enjoy her deterministic outlook, when danger arrived, not if, but he also felt that she was right. Another great war was surely brewing somewhere out there, perhaps even in one of the great villages. Somewhere, somehow, someone was angry enough to cause a conflict. If not now, then later.

“Actually, I think that would work out very well” he replied to Megumi's suggestion about assisting in his lesson for the day. “I can't keep an eye on all the kids all the time, so I'd welcome a second pair of eyes if nothing else. These are dangerous weapons after all, don't want any accidents. No that you mention it...” He paused and got up from his seat “We'd better get going, the teacher can't be late after all…” He walked a few paces in the direction of the school building, then paused once more. “Have you practiced your basic techniques by the way?… If not I guess I can use you as a bad example.” He continued walking, and laughing at his own joke.

Haruka sighed a bit to herself, shoving her left hand deeply into her pocket. Back before that time, she had used her left hand for everything, including unsheathing her sword. Now, there was a dull ache in her bicep even when she just gripped at something and it felt like the muscle was gonna tear every time she picked anything that weighted much more than a cup of sake. Cups of sake, on the other hand, she had picked up quite a few of these past few weeks in Gobi.
She took a good, deep whiff of the air as she strolled down Savory Lane. There were so many delicious scents mixing together and her nose easily concentrated on the sweet scent of a nearby dango shop. As much as she wanted to go in and stuff down her own weight in dango, she knew that she'd regret all of that unhealthy eating once she went back to her real life, so she went in another shop that smelled of grilled meats.

After eating more meat than any human should, getting odd looks from her waiter each time she asked for another portion and from other customers passing by her, seeing the unusually short and muscular girl with barbecue sauce running down her chin and dripping onto the napkin in her lap. She felt so much better with a full stomach, so after finishing her eighth portion of barbecue ribs, she indulged a bit and ordered a serving of red bean buns for dessert. They were deliciously sweet. The waiter gawked even more when she placed a generous tip down along with the payment for the food. Haruka had saved up her money ever since her first mission when she was 13, so she had plenty of money.

With one bun still in hand, she left Savory Lane and wandered around the many shops with colorful and festive clothes instead. Maybe a kimono would do the trick of making her actually look like a girl?

After a little more flirting, the cute delivery boy turned down Natsu's advances and left. Oh well, there was always next time. The prostitute had long learned not to take offense to people turning him down. There were plenty more where they came from. With the delivery boy gone, Natsu picked up the food basket with a grunt and carried it back to the kitchen where Megumi and a few others were with the children.

A short breakfast later, Natsu was in his room finishing getting ready for the day. He put his now dry hair into his usual messy, high pony tail, and gathered up his weaponry. The metal rod that became a staff he slid into his thigh belt, right now to his ninja pouch and the war fans, as well as his coinpurse, were slipped into the sleeves of his yukata.

He left the brothel for the day, heading out of the red light district completely. He wanted to get a little bit of training done today, but there was something far more important to take care of first. Some of the clothing for the children at the brothel was getting worn out. Usually it was passed from child to child until it fell apart. It was only when they actually started working that they got clothes of their own. Natsu wanted to get a few replacement pieces for the ones that would need to be thrown away soon.

Natsu walked past the various clothing shops looking for one in particular. This shop catered towards brothels. It carried a variety of kimonos, yukatas, and pieces for stage costumes that were made to fit men, women, and children of all ages, as well as the accessories to go with the outfits. Kataku no Kanki had been buying most of their clothing there for quite some time now. It was a lot easier than trying to go around and all the different shops and find things.

It was then that Natsu's eyes locked onto something far more interesting. A short, muscular, woman with purple hair. If the prostitute remembered correctly, she had been to see him last week. Natsu thought for a moment, bringing up all the facts that he could remember about her. She was visiting Gobigakure, her scars were sensitive in all the wrong ways, oh and, she had been a beast in the sack. Natsu only remembered the good ones after all. Though her name wasn't something that he could bring to mind.

Natsu decided to tease the woman a little bit, he was bored and it would be fun, so why not? The prostitute quickly but quietly caught up to the woman. He flung his arms around her shoulders, catching her in a loose hug. Though he had to lean down to do it, he rested his chin on her shoulder. "Miss me, my dear? I know a certain part of me that definitely missed you." He practically purred into her ear.

She could not wear purple, Haruka decided mentally as she ran her fingers over the soft silk of a violet kimono with butterflies in various colors and sizes ornamented into the fabric. If she did, she would have to put her hair up, too, for the two shades not to blend into one another and putting her hair up would expose some of the head of the phoenix on the nape of her neck, where the body and flames stretched down to her shoulder. Her fingers ghosted over a cream-colored one, never touching it in feat that it would remind her of the sensation of Suzaku's. Maybe a red one?

Before she had the chance to reel herself into a state of depression by going through all of things that reminded her of her old life, she decided to leave. Just as she had turned to do so, she was startled to a halt by the sudden embrace that caught her from behind, arms resting lightly around her shoulders. Her breath hitched and she had to repress her every instinct to reach behind her and toss this person across the marketplace like a football. A chin fell to her shoulder and by the way the arms pulled back a bit at the move, this person was much taller than her.

"Miss me, my dear? I know a certain part of me that definitely missed you." came the smooth, almost seductive comment from the man behind her. She could tell it was a man by the voice.

For a long moment, a moment so long, in fact, that it might have gotten a bit weird, Haruka just stood like frozen. Her every muscle was clenched and she had no idea what to do. She could not quite place the voice in her mind. She turned her head just enough to see red. No, literally. She saw red hair and something clicked inside her head. Immediately, her face matched his hair in color and she was sure she radiated heat from pure embarrassment.

This man, who was so obviously hugging her in the middle of a populated area, was a hooker. Half the women, and men, if she remembered correctly, there were likely clients of his at some point and knew very well what he was.

“I, uhh,” Haruka mustered oh-so eloquently. Her throat snared up and she was sure she was going to explode any minute now, “Thanks?” she finally managed, only to immediately start mentally kicking herself. What the hell kind of response was that?

As Mikio made his way across the small village he passed one end of the mouth-watering Savourly Lane. Even though he'd already had both breakfast and fruit, and was feeling a bit on the full side, the magnificent flavours that the fumes hinted at made him want to take a detour. He'd arrive at the school too fat to do anything, and the children would have a merry time running laps around his big, fat belly, but to stuff his face with meat so tender it would literally melt in his mouth was almost too tempting to walk away from. However, as one of the best and brightest of the village he had to lead by example, took one last sniff and turned away toward the school building.

He passed though a section of the commercial district. It was just about to heat up with the wave of prostitutes on the night shift coming off duty. He spotted a familiar face in the crowd. One of the villages other dedicated ninjas, a fierce woman by the name of... Haruna? Harune? Haru... te? Something with Haru... They didn't have a long history together and there were too many people in the village to know them all by name, even in a relatively small village with an even smaller group of dedicated ninjas. In a small ninja village like this, the whole roster of ninjas on active duty could probably fit on a single page, no need to use a scroll for it. Bigger villages had to use a filing system and some way of sorting out which people were best suited for which tasks. In Gobi you only looked at the bottom of the list to find the poor sod that had gone the longest without a mission.

As he watched she's just taken a step away from the rack of clothes in front of her when a young man, sneaky like a tiger in a bright orange forest, threw himself upon her from behind and sensually groaned "Miss me, my dear? I know a certain part of me that definitely missed you." into her ear.
Mikio physically flinched, for several reasons. For one his own ninja reflexes kicked in to shrug off the surprise attack. His view of the Haru-woman was of a strong warrior capable of trowing the youngling across the village without breaking a sweat. Last but not least, the pick-up line was cheesy on a level seldom seen in the land of mortals. The cringe-level was only further elevated by the response from the Haru-woman, which was to freeze.

Cicadas were doing their best to fill the awkward silence with their weeeo-weeeo-weeo. In the land of fire crickets would chirp in with their own unique sound and people from the village of sand would probably expect a tumbleweed to slowly roll by. One more sound could be heard though, from the crowd of more or less horrified onlookers came a laugh. Not just any laugh, but the kind of involuntary laugh that complete shock brings on. The kind of laugh that could not be stopped, no matter how many times you slapped your knee or dried your eyes. The kind of laugh that was not contagious, but only added another layer of uncomfortable on top of those already present. A few people tried to chime in with an uncertain hahaa, but it didn't catch on.

After what seemed like an eternity, but which really was only a few seconds Mikio's violent laughter caused him to start coughing, which finally put an end to the laugh. As he wiped his eyes a final time, and with a voice coarse from coughing he said
"That was so smooth... Ow, my stomach..."

Things didn't go quite the way that Natsu had thought it would. His former client hadn't reacted with laughter, or violence, or in any of the ways he had expected. Instead he had felt those strong muscles tense up. She stood there, stiff and silence for a long moment, before responsing with an awkward 'thanks'. Somebody got a kick out of it however, Natsu heard laughter coming from the people around them. Most of which had stopped what they were doing to stare. It's a good thing that Natsu didn't get embarrassed anymore. Shaking your ass on stage while wearing women's lingerie tended to do that to you.

Natsu released the poor woman and stepped so that he was now in front of her, chuckling as he did. "I'm sorry my dear, my intention was to tease you, not make you uncomfortable. Though I'm glad someone got some amusement out of it." He said, light blue eyes sweeping around to try and find the owner of the voice. His eyes set on a figure he hadn't been expecting to see, since classes at the ninja academy should have been starting soon.

Mikio-Sensei, a man that Natsu as a child had hated but now had a great amount of respect for. Back when he had been more interested in dancing than being a ninja, he had disliked the man and his lessons. But those lessons had saved his life more than once. Natsu offered the man a flirtatious smile before his attention returned to the woman he had just unintentionally embarrassed.

The prostitute put a hand on his own chest. "My name is Natsu, or as you might remember me better by, Aoi Bara. I remember many things about you my dear, but I'm afraid your name isn't one of them." Natsu rarely remembered the names of clients, unless they were regulars of course, he had so many customers that were passing through and he only saw once. It would be hard to remember all their names. The energy from that task could have been much better spent in a number of other areas.

Haruka released a breath she did not quite realize she had been holding, along with a strained chuckle. She was absolutely livid, but tried her best not to let it show on her face. She really wanted to literally smash the laughing guy's face in or maybe just kick him really hard in the nuts, but she repressed her murderous thoughts in favor of replying to what seemed like a sincere apology from the male prostitute that had now stepped in front of her and was looking for the offender. When his gaze stopped and landed on a man who stood, winded and looking like he still wanted to keep laughing despite his coughing fit, Haruka released another breath, but rather than being accompanied by an awkward chuckle, this one came with a soft sigh.

“It's fine,” she assured with a wide grin, trying to save some face despite her earlier obvious discomfort, “I was just … I wasn't really … I mean,” she tried, but failed to come up with a reasonable explanation as to why she, a trained ninja, would freeze up at something as innocent as a hug. Her face was burning by now and she decided to forgo the explanation and just answer the question she was asked, “It's Haruka,” she blurted, “My name, that is. It's Haruka.”

The slight crowd that had gathered due to the sudden, bombastic laughing fit of the stranger was starting to dissipate and before she could embarrass herself any further, Haruka took a slight step back, just enough to make it clear that she was making distance between the two of them, but not enough to make it seem like she wanted to get away from him. She did not really mind him. However, instead of engaging in further self-humiliation, she turned to the one who had laughed and felt her anger flare again. She was pretty sure the slight twitch of her eyebrow was visible as she, with a slightly strained expression on her face, asked the simple question, “Can we help you with something?”