Tenten [ テンテン ] (oriental_dragon) wrote in last_stretch,
@ 2009-08-28 11:37:00

Current mood:	lonely
Entry tags:	open log, tenten, zetsu

[ Open - In Progress | Truth is you can stop and stare ]
Who: Tenten, Zetsu, Anyone who wants to come... o-otherwise I'm RPing with myself. ;~; ~~I-i'll give you muffins?~~
What: Martial Arts Expo
Where: Hibiya Park
When: Saturday, August 29; 10 AM - 6 PM
Note: Create individual threads/logs at your leisure. ♥

From eleven to twelve thirty, her world would consist of one point. One singular target that was marked at the center of the mato. That was how long the Kyuudo demonstration was scheduled to last. And Tenten was perfectly fine with that. It would be her first of the day, the kenjutsu demo not set to occur until later that afternoon. And if push came to shove, the young woman would have to stand-in for the Aikido exhibition towards the end of the day. Managable at least. And it gave her plenty of time to practice her aim as well as technique. She would need it.

The organizers had saw it fit to squeeze in a miniature tournament for all those participating. One of their better ideas, Tenten thought to herself as she lined up the arrow to the target. But it had not been enough to make up for a mountain of mistakes when they had failed to send out the invitations to the surrounding dojos. Not in her mind, in any case. She had only caught wind of it because of something Sakura had mentioned. And if that had not happened, the event would have a lot less supporters.

And that would have been a tragedy.

Taking in a deep breath, she let it out slowly. And with it went all the stress that had built up over the past few weeks until there was nothing but the point of her arrow and the center of the target. Because only by expelling all other thoughts -- by clearing her mind of all other distractions -- could she perform to the best of her ability. That was the way of Kyuudo. True, it had been a few weeks since Tenten was last able practice, more focused on helping to organize the event and ensuring that the problems were managable. But the lessons were still there. And years of experience could not be forgotten so easily.

Another breath. A twang of the bow string -- a breeze of air just above her ear -- as she released the arrow. And then a soft thud as the arrow made contact with the target. Kanteki. Just off-center. Tenten's lips pressed together in an even line before she lined up to take another shot. She had been aiming for a Zaiteki.

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_feedme
2009-09-12 06:19 pm UTC (link)

There were a wide variety of reasons any given person might find him or herself attracted to martial arts. Many simply enjoyed the discipline requires, a chance to break from their disorderly routines in favour of dedication to something other than a TV schedule. Some appreciated the quasi-religious aspects most of the arts carried with them. The concentration, meditative states, moments of cleansing--it was yet another way to express the fanatical modern mind. Then there were those who needed the outlet, the hours of violent aggression, the time and space to channel their primal urges into something comparatively safe and free of the 'blood' part of 'blood lust.'

Zetsu simply saw it as an opportunity for great potential. After a certain number of deaths, the fight itself became a quietly disconnected moment; styles and form and drills melted into the idea of bodies in motion. Coming to an event like this did very little for the administrator's adrenaline. Instead, it was a veritable buffet of talent, an opportunity to browse the region's youth for anyone of potential interest. Thus far, Hibiya Park was falling short of anything like exciting.

Half of his attention wandered toward the next exhibition of interest: the archers. Kyuudo had never been any particular favourite of his, but it was certainly worth glancing over. Moving with the quiet unerring steps of a man who steps lightly without thought, Zetsu took up his station like an obedient observer, prepared as always to be completely underwhelmed by what he saw.

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oriental_dragon
2009-09-15 02:34 pm UTC (link)

The metal hands of her watch read twelve fifteen. And her stomach was giving that tell-tale sign of impending hunger. But there was little that Tenten could do about that. Food would have to wait until after she was done with the demonstration.

They were well into the mini-tourney's sixth round. Competition rules had narrow the field down to three archers, herself included. And she had been given the last slot to shoot. True, it was just an explo meant to simply show onlookers the aesthetics of the sport as well as put out on display its traditional values. But a tournament was a tournament all the same. And Tenten wanted to win. Not because she placed much thought into winning something as poorly orchestrated as this, although winning was never a bad thing for one's reputation.

No. There was only one reason the young woman was determined to come out the victor of this exhibition: because the young student from the Nakamishi Dojo had said that she couldn't. To leave it to the big boys to bring in outside interest. And Tenten was determined to prove to him that he was wrong about her. About women in general. So very wrong.

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_feedme
2009-09-15 09:51 pm UTC (link)

It wasn't the most inspiring of displays. There was a lot of halfhearted effort, a few moments of luck spiced with untapped talent, not much to feast the eyes on for the majority. Only one girl stood out a bar above the others. Absently turning a coin between his fingers, Zetsu eyed the young archer with something like mild curiosity. She looked more determined than the rest-- there was actually something to the way she held her back, a dignity to the way she stared the targets down. There was something very teachable about her stubborn stance.

Perhaps she was just begging to be broken and rebuilt. He had a thing for women like that. Men as well, if he were honest with himself. But hell, he also had a thing for the vulnerable and victimized. He was probably just a people person.

That didn't take away from his quietly building interest in the young woman in the competition. Zetsu was no expert on the coping mechanisms of angry people (although it was something he was constantly being told to look into), but there was something marked about the way this girl carried herself. There was something decidedly undiscovered about her, the sort of sparkle that glistened through a river bed before gold was discovered. She would put up a fight, certainly, but she had the look of someone that could be mined, who could be pushed and pulled and battered into understanding and then rebuilt from their shell into a truly impressive creature.

It was the slightest bit exhilarating.

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oriental_dragon
2009-09-16 02:36 pm UTC (link)

It was one matter to tell her that she simply was not good enough. That, Tenten could have lived with. Preparations for the Expo itself and little nit picky things that needed to be tended to had taken the young woman's attention away from actually practicing for the miniature tournament. As good as she was, without the proper training, even she had her limitations. But to say that the reasons behind them was due to something that was out of her control... something that she was simply born into... that was where Tenten drew the line.

She had been fighting it all her life. Or at least for as far back as she could remember. The stigma of women being inferior to men had always been there. They were considered the fairer and weaker sex. But Tenten never liked having restrictions on who and what she could be and, in a sense, made it her unspoken career to prove people wrong. An easy enough feat to accomplish when others constantly underestimated her abilities. But that only made the victories more satisfying.

And she had been doing fairly well. In the competition as well as in her life. Stepping up to the line, the young woman quickly took her position and corrected her stance for the drawing of the bowstring. Lined up her shot with the target. And in that single momentary breath that she was staring down the shaft of her arrow, just before releasing the string, Tenten pointed her glance -- glare -- to the young man from the Nakamishi Dojo.

At the end of the sixth round, she was already in second place by a narrow margin. Her aim was near perfection. The strength of the shot, frighteningly remarkable.

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_feedme
2009-09-16 03:55 pm UTC (link)

It was interminable, the tension. Zetsu could see it in the faces of the other observers as the two top archers remained separated by a hair. The other observers were quieting, beginning to hold their breath, dropping their inane babble to a nearly silent whisper. Half of his face manged to follow suit and pull into an aspect of frowning concentration. The other half, however, as usual seemed to have a mind of its own. The right edge of his lips remained slightly curled, the glimmer in his right eye slightly more amused than serious. It was a habitual state of being when he wasn't strictly needed to make pretend--when he allowed his face to remain in a natural state, it tended to subdivide itself slightly.

The girl continued to retain his attention. It was difficult to tell exactly what it was that was enraging her to the extent that she seemed to be. She was obviously frustrated on the surface by something superficial. A passing concern, some sort of personal competition with the boy to her side, a quiet rage at being the only female competitor, a displeasure with the fact that she had not yet simply won the event. It was deeper than that, Zetsu decided as she notched another shot. People could be incredibly adept at hiding their anger, but he could almost always tell when it was there. Something personal, something from the past, something he'd have to send in his tendrils and rip from her soul before she could be anything like useful.

The amused side of his face softened slightly as he leaned forward a centimetre. True, he'd been abusing his photographic memory lately, but that didn't mean he couldn't flit through the facebooks of the last four years to see if this girl was a match at his university. Everyone else could be concerned with who won or lost the competition. He was going to zero in on this potential acquisition.

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oriental_dragon
2009-09-17 04:01 am UTC (link)

During the rest period and all throughout the final round of the tournament, she tried not to think about it. About the competition or the strong dislike -- hate was a strong word and one she refused to use on him, because he was simply undeserving of it -- she held for her fellow competitors. They were not important. Neither were their opinions (although it would be very satisfying to finally shut them up about it). And the more she dwelled on it, the more effected her own performance would be. Then her efforts in this entire tournament would be for nothing. And the last thing that Tenten wanted was to lose to the likes of them. So she detached herself from such emotions, at least for now, and concentrated on scanning the faces in the crowd.

The fliers had been posted all around the city for at least an entire month. And Tenten, herself, had reminded all of her friends about it the day before. So it should not be a big surprise to see a familiar face. The one individual she had not expected to see, however, was the very person she spotted at that moment.

Dean Zetsu.

It was only for a brief moment as the second competitor stepped up to the line to take his first shot of the round. But it had been just long enough for her to catch a gleam of the administrator's face in the sea of onlookers. And then he was gone from sight. But before Tenten had the time to wonder about his presence there, her name was called to take her first shot of the round.

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_feedme
2009-09-21 12:19 am UTC (link)

He didn't need to stay to see her win.

After all, it didn't particularly matter if she won or not. Zetsu had seen what it was he needed to see. The look, the brief recognition, the possibly unconscious understanding that she was the best and she would be easy to convince to step on others just enough to claw her way securely to the top. Big words were whispering back and forth between the two sides of his easily divided mind. Both halves were absolutely in agreement: potential. Desirable. Delectably edible.

Half of his face twisting into a highly amused little smile, the dean allowed himself to fade back into the swelling murmuring crowd. It was enough that the girl had seen him there, that they'd made a split second of significant eye contact. That was the sort she was, after all. She'd find him after the competition or run into him while flitting across campus to thank him for coming and possibly flutter around some sort of pleasant surprise or she hoped he hadn't seen her horrible form when she won or did he go to this sort of thing frequently she'd never seen him around? It would be sweet in its own way. And then, like any other delicate fluttering creature, she would be snapped up in the jaws of the life people with a certain skill set inevitably led.

Perhaps there would be someone selling dango. He could go for something sweet and savoury while he waited for a more substantial catch.

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oriental_dragon
2009-09-22 02:43 pm UTC (link)

Despite finally gaining the lead after the first shot, and only furthering that margin with her second, there was no ignoring the ominous chill that ran the length of her spine. It was almost eerie. Foretelling. Of what and where the feeling had come from, Tenten was not sure. But if the worn deck of tarot cards in the young woman's bag were any indication, they were signs she could and would not ignore. If only to still the growing concern within herself. Now was not the time to ask the universe about the future, though. She had a mini tournament to win. And two young men to thoroughly shut up.

And so, as she stepped up to take her final shot of the round and the competition, Tenten cleared her mind of all other thoughts and distractions. There was nothing else. In those few seconds of time, nothing was given more focus than her straight-line view of the target while she lined up the shot. And for those precious moments, it was as if Artemis herself was guiding the young woman's hands. She trusted in her instincts and her skills. Could find comfort in the fact that time could never erode all the effort she had placed into learning her craft, no matter how long it had been since she last practiced those skills. And it was with that knowledge in mind that the young woman closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, drawing back the bowstring to send the arrow flying through the air in a calm exhale of breath.

Only when the hushed silence of the crowd erupted into applause and the occasional cheer did she finally open her eyes once more, a knowing smile spread out across her lips.

The presentation of the trophies did not last long and before she was fully able to fully enjoy the defeat of her opponents, it was over. And none too soon as her stomach finally growled its final protest, to which Tenten was more than willing to give in to as she wondered if they were serving sesame seed dumplings anywhere nearby. It was another hour at least before she would have to report in for the kenjutsu demonstration. She had time to wander around a little.

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_feedme
2009-09-26 03:42 pm UTC (link)

Food on a stick would never cease to amuse him. There seemed to be no limit to the amount of meat, dough, or vegetable that the human mind could not conceive to shove a bamboo skewer through and call by some adorable little name. It was one of the most adorable parts of the human psyche, as far as he could tell. Well, that and the nearly omnipresent fear of the great unknown which is death. Silly, adorable creatures.

Calmly munching on the second to last bite of his Goma dango, Zetsu's left eye found itself wandering back toward the archery range. As the cheering had indicated, the event seemed to have come to a close. Of course the girl from his school had triumphed. He checked away the information, sending it zapping through the giant filing cabinet which was his mind. Really, when it wasn't a dark and disturbing place, the catalog of photographic memories was absolutely phenomenal to appreciate. Looking a little closer at what it was his mind documented, at the immensely immaculate detail and intense personal level of information slipping its tendrils into the lives of those he shouldn't know very well, it got back into being a dark and disturbing place, but the shining level of organization was a marketable skill.

His right eye managed to catch sight of the girl again, wending her way through the crowd toward the small cluster of food vendors, a dango in their own right if the world were a giant go board. Slipping around to come up behind her wasn't difficult at all; it was the sort of thing he did all the time, sneaking through crowds toward unsuspecting prey. Zetsu didn't bother with a tap on the shoulder or a precursory noise of recognition. Instead, he simply materialized at the young female archer's side, finishing the last little nibble of his dango off of the skewer.

"Congratulations."

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oriental_dragon
2009-09-29 03:51 am UTC (link)

When in doubt, following your nose was a good course of action. With the crowd as thick as it was, everyone else well-fed and hungry for some excitement, it was hard to zero in on the charts and booths that were set up to distribute the food to wandering patrons. But nothing could mask the delicious smells that wafted through the air. Scents that became stronger with every step she took. Normally one with impressive control and restrain, Tenten was almost too starved to pay any mind to what was going on in the surrounding area. Or to who may or may not have been following her.

So when the Dean of her university seemingly appeared out of thin air to greet her, the young woman had been relatively caught off-guard. And nearly dropped her plate of sauteed pork kabob because of it.

"Dean Zetsu! Uh... thank you." It was never exactly easy to address a figure of authority. Especially when there had been no interpersonal relation to fall back on. And particularly when the conversation occurred outside of the familiar campus grounds where she had been accustomed to seeing him. For Tenten, it had simply seemed awkward, at least for her part.

But she was not without tact and her own brand of adaptability. After all, such respect towards authority figures in his position were an ingrained part of her upbringing. "So I did see you in the crowd during the tournament."

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