(D0, EM) Trouble at the Gates

[Shosuro Hikimasu]

Blinking sleep and internal thoughts away the Scorpion looked at the boy.

Part if him wanted to throw it on a roof and laugh in Scorpion, but that wasn't really his style. So he smiled through his mask, dead eyes not really helping that, and looked to see how far the ball had traveled from where his friends were.

"Did you kick it this way? Not bad."

[Saibankan]

Blinking sleep and internal thoughts away the Scorpion looked at the boy.

Part if him wanted to throw it on a roof and laugh in Scorpion, but that wasn't really his style. So he smiled through his mask, dead eyes not really helping that, and looked to see how far the ball had traveled from where his friends were.

"Did you kick it this way? Not bad."

The small group of friends were watching from around corners of a house not too far away. Just out of earshot, but certainly not out of eyesight.

"No Masa....um, yes, I did. Uh...you're not like...hurt are you?" the boy said trying his best to complete the mission for his friends.

Masa may have, in fact, been glaring at the boy, but he would soldier on!

[Shosuro Hikimasu]

"Your man Masa looks mad, is he a problem?" The scorpion asked and his dead eyes shifted at the other boy.

[Saibankan]

"Your man Masa looks mad, is he a problem?" The scorpion asked and his dead eyes shifted at the other boy.

The Scorpion's gaze was like a firehose sweeping away the other children behind the house until only the one near him remained, looking shaken.

"Um...no, I haven't seen Masa today, and I don't know anyone named Masa." he said.

He shifted nervously.

"Um, can I have our...my ball back now?"

[Usogawa Emiko]

Tanabe sighed "but writing is just so boring. And your mother is a very strict teacher, she would put some of my sumai instructors to shame honestly."

"Writing is an important skill for the future Tan-tan, and mother was a Crane. She knows how important these things are, so you should be honoured that she takes the time to help you" Emiko tutted "I know it is not your focus, but please do try. For me?"

[Shosuro Hikimasu]

The Scorpion's gaze was like a firehose sweeping away the other children behind the house until only the one near him remained, looking shaken.

"Um...no, I haven't seen Masa today, and I don't know anyone named Masa." he said.

He shifted nervously.

"Um, can I have our...my ball back now?"

"What is your name? I am Shosuro Hikimasu." A horse scraped the ground with it's hooves and snorted. "This is Yūdaina-san."

He held the ball out.

[Saibankan]

"What is your name? I am Shosuro Hikimasu." A horse scraped the ground with it's hooves and snorted. "This is Yūdaina-san."

He held the ball out.

"Um, Ichiro" the boy said. He gave the horse an appreciative glance. "Uh, Yudaina is very pretty."

He held his hands out for the ball.

[Shosuro Hikimasu]

Boy, even i was named Ichiro once, ha!

He lobbed the ball the last short distance to the child. "Be careful playing Kemari in the street, there is more than just a sleepy Scorpion to have come to visit your family lands this day. There's even an angry, drunk Mantis back there, I'm sure he'd be all to happy to steal you and make you scrub the deck of his ship."

[Saibankan]

Boy, even i was named Ichiro once, ha!

He lobbed the ball the last short distance to the child. "Be careful playing Kemari in the street, there is more than just a sleepy Scorpion to have come to visit your family lands this day. There's even an angry, drunk Mantis back there, I'm sure he'd be all to happy to steal you and make you scrub the deck of his ship."

The boy catches the ball with only some minor difficulty.

"Um, he better not. My dad's really good with his yari. He said he can make any bad guy his puppet with it."

Ichiro considered his own point.

"Hey, Shosuro-sama, how do you make a bad guy a puppet with a yari?"

[Shosuro Hikimasu]

You run them through, pick them off the ground as if they were straw and your yari the pitchfork, then shake their bleeding corpse around, their flailing limbs resemble a puppet's.

Not that the kid needed to know the Scorpion version.

"I wonder, your father must be a great master."