Day on the Town (Steiner)

26TH DISTRICT
Kabuto stood in silence, hand gripping the dingy doorknob in front of him.

The midday sun cast overhead, sweat dripping off the man's frame in the direct heat. This would be the.... Fourteenth? Shop today. They had been getting dingier the further out he traveled, but that came with some benefit. And more than enough danger.

A sigh escaped the man as he pushed the door open, the jingle of a bell announcing his arrival. Thin streams of light shot down from narrow, high windows, LEDs flooding the shelves with surgical lighting. Black boxes lined each shelf, marked with prices and not much else.

A man at the counter looked up from a screen, a frown creasing his face immediately. "What are you doing here?" Kabuto's hand hadn't even left the doorknob.

"Do you know me?" his voice cracked, inquisitive as he stepped into the shop, moving to close the door behind him.

"I do." he responded, matter-of-fact.

"And I'd suggest you turn around and walk out, or I'll blast you out." A hand was held in front of the man, palm facing towards Kabuto. "Given you look like shit, you've got a warning." A blue sphere started to form in the man's head, nodding to the open air behind the man.

Kabuto paused silently, grip denting the cheap doorknob. "I'm sor-"

A deafening ring and flash of light cut him off, the storefront erupted into the street. Kabuto flew freely among the splinters of wood and glass into an unassuming passerby, scattered shouts and yells coming from beneath, above, and around him. All underneath the high-pitched silence.

Dust poured towards the sky as Kabuto stood up, a stream of confusion and apologies mixing between his breath, a finger picking around the inside of his ear as his gaze shot between the person he had slammed into and the shop owner.

"And don't come back!"

The places on the fringe of the Rukongai always had the best deals for musical equipment, at least that was what it seemed like to Yuzuru Satoshi. As a man who had originally had the wealth of the Satoshi family backing him and basically helping him pay for all of his wants and needs for his musical studies, he found the deals available to him to be quite good and also quite necessary. He now had to budget and had to figure out his finances in ways that he never had before as his parents would only help him pay for his instructors in music due to his enrollment at the Shin'o Academy. Which meant that every penny he earned from his work at the tavern had to be used to maintain his equipment and pay for his costs associated with academy work. It was a tough life, but if they thought cutting him off in such a manner would derail his wish to fulfill his promise to his brother? They would be dead wrong.

He was adapting, not as well as he had wanted, but he was making an attempt to become as independent of them as possible, and that created a sense of fulfillment that he had never experience being pampered at the compound he used to live at. After completing a "set", a term they used for him playing music at the tavern, Yuzuru was allowed a bit of free time to run about the Rukongai, and do some things before he would have to come back and perform again. He had become, in a sort of way, the house band for a particularly lively tavern in the fringes, and the pay was good enough to help him stay afloat with a little extra on the side that he was saving up to buy a new drum set. A goal that he was no where near to obtaining, but something that he longed to do.

It was on that particular day, after completing his second set, and making his way out into the Rukongai that he decided to pay a visit to the music store that he had become a frequenter of in the last few months. Mainly to see if there were deals on sheet paper for music as he was running low, but also to just take in the sights and sounds of the day life of the Rukongai. A daily life that would be interrupted by an unexpected explosion and a flash of blinding light. Yuzuru turned to the side, only for his vision to be completely blocked by a rather large form that was speeding his way, and then unceremoniously took him out like a missile hitting its' target, knocking him to the floor, and having him drop his coin purse by the mere force of the impact.

"Gruh...ugh..."

Yuzuru groaned as the figure got off of him and began to pick his ear as the shopkeeper began to yell at him. The crowd began to get antsy, but as soon as Yuzuru got up, and dusted himself off he cast glance to those around him. A glance that probably could have been more appropriately called a glare as quickly the crowd began to be quiet, as the look of rage on Yuzuru's face was more than enough to settle them down.

"Quite the destructive force...are you alright?"

Yuzuru shot a stern glance over at the man he had only briefly looked at a moment earlier and to say the least the man was quite intimidating and powerful at least if his senses were not to be deceived. Even more intimidating was the fact that the man wore a mask, hiding his face from view, and making it hard to discern his emotional state. He began to get nervous, wondering if this person was some kind of hooligan, or thug, or something worse all together. Though he didn't want to shoot those type of titles at a person before he got to know them or perhaps at least discerned their mental state. After all, a lot of people judged him by his appearance as well as being some kind of lady killer with a bad attitude even if he was the exact opposite.

26TH DISTRICT

The pitch of anger roared to life, Kabuto's hearing fading once more into existence. Shouting, mild panic, the laugh that hung joyfully in the back of his skull. Prick.

His knuckles clenched tightly as he stood to height, reaching towards his waist with a primal instinct, pausing his hand midair. Unclenching his fist, the man sighed, pulling down on the sides of his face - touch met with metal instead of skin.

The look of surprise now obscured, Kabuto cleared his throat before responding.

"Yeah, I'm fine." the faint echo of a bell in his ear, his hands dropped back underneath his cloak, the fabric shifting over the man's scars before hiding them away. He turned, looking over the shattered doorframe, passerby having stopped in their tracks to stare.

"Did anyone get hurt?" a half shout, tinged in shame. He'd scratch aimlessly at the metal on his face, muttering underneath his breath. "If you don't cut this shit out, we're going to have problems."

"AND DON'T COME BACK!" exploded from what remained of the storefront, Kabuto shrinking back as he shuffled away from the incident.

"Ah, you know what, I think I'm just going to..." A grey finger shot out, pointing into the direction of anywhere but here. As he walked backwards, his gaze would meet that of the man he had ass-tackled. "....go."

Before he could further question the man who had been shot out of a shop owner's front door like a canon with some kind of explosive ability of some kind, he was already trying to leave. This made Yuzuru curious, as he was not truly accustomed to seeing such blatant acts of violence so readily thrown around in the Rukongai that he usually traveled around in. Sure he had heard of some seedier elements, but he had never personally seeing it, and as of right now his curiosity over all of this compounded by the mystery person trying to make his exit from the scene of an incident seemed to kick his shinigami training into gear. Though a student and a newer one at that, he knew that it was up to him to get to the bottom of this, and resolve things at least in some official capacity.

"Care to explain why a shop keep shot you out of a store front like a bazooka?"

Yuzuru stated in his normal gruff tone as he took a few steps toward the mysterious individual in front of him, trying his best to be unbiased at that moment in time, just like the books told him to be at the academy in situations like this. He would not disappoint anyone at the academy today, at least he hoped he wouldn't, and he would definitely figure things out and report them to someone with much more authority than him. After all, this man had been assaulted right in front of him! It was his duty not only as a shinigami, but as a citizen of the Rukongai to do his part.

"Any and all information would be extremely useful in case charges need to be filed or potential arrests need to be made."

He tried his best to act like how his brother would have acted in this situation, with authority, and consideration for the power that came with that authority. At this moment, Yuzuru wasn't some shy man who had no skills with social interactions, but acted pretty much like his looks showcased. He was stern, authoritative, and analytical in his assessments. In the back of his mind, however a part of him was trying to recall all the things he had studied in his introductory guide books, so that he could do a good job in this situation, and hopefully reconcile both parties in a way that would be beneficial to both parties.

26TH DISTRICT

"Arrest?" Kabuto's indignancy bled through the mask, fingernails digging into the palm of his hand as knuckles tightened. Pure reflex he'd tell himself, nothing more.

"I'm no-" he held his tongue, a pause - closed eyes and a tight knit brow.

"Look, I don't know why that happened." he huffed, his voice frayed with exhaustion, walking toward the dented wreckage that was once a door.

A twinge of memory, the doorframe, still new. The cling of a shop bell, a man with no face. A smile twisted with golden teeth. A glimpse into uncertainty before he was flung back to reality, a brief surge of reiatsu off the back of Kabuto's neck.

"Hey, guy! Sorry! For whatever!" He yelled, gesturing loosely at the storefront. Reaching down, Kabuto's fingers ripped the door from a pile of splinters, the doorknob rattling away as it rolled down the street.

He'd step forward, roughly placing the door where it should stand - propped against the ground in his grip. Letting go, it'd fall forward, an explosion of sound amid the silence.

. . . . .

Mumbled words, indecipherable to anyone, and he turned, facing Yuzuru. "What are you, anyway?" A hand shot out, pointing towards the man. "A cop?"

Just what the hell was going on with this guy? Yuzuru mentally asked himself as he tried his best to piece together just what was going on from the absurdity of the man who had only just recently exploded out of a store front. In truth, his limited Shinigami education was not doing him much favors in this moment, and time, but he was still trying. It was the duty of a shinigami to maintain order and preserve the soul cycle, so he was in the right to attempt to ensure that order was maintained here, even in the fringes of the Rukongai.

A flair of reiatsu caused a bit of a stir from his train of thought and brought his eyes, which had been drifting off to the side as his train of thought sent him far away from the place he was at, back to the man who was now fumbling through debris. A doorknob rolled casually past him as he titled his head to the side, not really knowing where that reiatsu had come from and not really knowing how to process all of this at the moment. After all, he couldn't really put a thumb on the type of guy that he was dealing with, but at least he could assume that he was non-violent as he had yet to make a move to attack him.

"I'm not a cop...I'm a Shin'o Academy student.", Yuzuru said as he folded his arms across his chest and in a moment realized he was dressed in his stage attire. In fact, his sword was back at the dorms, and without it he very much didn't even look like a Shinigami at the moment. Still he had to do as the books he had read suggested that he did! He had to maintain order at all costs.

26TH DISTRICT
Shin'o. the word bounced something loose, although faint. A furrowed brow tightened behind the mask, green flame starting to ignite across it's edges.

An old memory. The grip of a formless blade, brighter now than the thought had been before. Yuben'na responded, silent words behind the memory's veil. The graduation ceremony, streaks of fireworks across the sky. A long exhale as his mind came back into focus, stepping towards Yuzuru.

Kabuto's frame appeared to sag, lowering himself to match the other man's stature as his hand further extended, splaying from a pointed finger as he attempted to place it on Yuzuru's shoulder. His other arm opening to the left, the hilt of his Zankpakuto peeking out.

"Then you can tell I'm a shinigami." Kabuto responded, eyes meeting with the man's. A hopeful stare of emerald, hard and bright. "And I think you might be able to help me." His stare would hold until he got a reply, in which either affirmative or negative -

"Take me to the Academy. I-" a glance away, looking again at the ruined storefront; a tinge of guilt. "I forgot where it was?" he questioned aloud, unsure of his own uncertainty. His mask's edge furled with flames now, licking silently against the air.