Chapter Text
Tooth and Nail
Chapter Five: Acclimation
Despite an overall agreement—if a heavily debated one—it took a few days to not only decide on the context of how Charlene Thompson should be trained, but to decide on the trainer in question. In the end, it became a moot point when a volunteer stepped in vehemently daring anyone to question the logic of their decision. In all honesty, Tsuna was hardly surprised that Lal Mirch was the one to demand the responsibility. That said, he still wasn't sure if it was out of sentiment for her once friend's child or because she truly thought she was the best for the job. And as for that later choice…well given the available options, she was probably right. And that was with her having returned to Italy some time ago. Lal had yet to actually meet Ms. Thompson as she'd already returned to the CEDEF home base by the time the rescue was underway—business reasons not due to personal desire. As a result it was nearly another two weeks before Lal was able to reasonably clear her schedule and fly back to Japan for an indefinite amount of time.
She'd arrived barely twenty minutes ago and unsurprisingly was already waiting in his office to be briefed in person—they'd already gone over the specifics numerous times in the last week, but it would seem both of them were hesitant to actually begin Ms. Thompson's training without discussing it in person. It was moments like this where he appreciated Lal's blunt and professional manner. As rude and off-putting as it could be at times, it often saved him from having to give himself a proverbial ulcer as he did his best to tread carefully around sensitive topics…hence their current discussion.
"So, you're sure of these statistics?" Lal was perusing over a small set of documents that were strangely part medical record and report card.
Tsuna nodded in confirmation, "Yes. Fuuta offered to confirm the results, but Ms. Thompson was quite amenable to testing her skills the moment she was able to return to her recognizable fitness level prior to her abduction."
"Really?" Lal looked to him in a moment of suspicious interest.
"Yes," he hesitated at the look upon her face, "It…was a bit surprising at first. Though…I think she may be eager to return to some semblance of activity. She's become a lot more outgoing and willing to engage since she started working out on a daily basis."
"Hmm, that could be it." Lal agreed verbally, but her tone suggested she suspected something else.
"You think otherwise?" Tsuna was open to her opinion. Vongola intuition or not, Tsuna knew when to defer to experience. It didn't help, of course, that that particular gift had been rather silent concerning Kyouya's rescuer—not counting those few moments of heightened emotion. Ever since they'd hammered out an agreement, Tsuna hadn't picked up more than a sort of murky placidness from her and that was even when he'd intentionally reached out for her flames. Typically speaking, that would just mean low level flame capacity, but no, he'd focused intently on her once and while he'd gotten a good read on her flames—a minor to average amount of both Storm and Rain—he felt neither animosity nor fondness towards the Vongola or himself. There was just steady acceptance. It was both a relief and oddly worrying. On the one hand it was a relief not to have to worry about adding another to his strange family of bonds. Not that he was against people getting attached to him, but even when people came upon him via other associates, he knew his being a Sky tended to draw others in and despite his best attempts, he was often described as being far too understanding. It led to an unusual variety of attachments, ranging from rival family heads, former enemies, supernatural beings, and childhood friends. He'd long learned to stop questioning it and just accept it as a fact of life for him. So, he truly wanted to accept that Ms. Thompson's total neutrality towards him was just that: neutrality.
On the other hand, he found himself wary of that particular emotion, because while no longer inexperienced, he'd never interacted with someone who truly felt nothing towards him or those he considered among his family. Sure, there was the clear annoyance or amusement that was easily noticed as she engaged with them, but…never once did any sort of explicit emotional impression develop. Well, that was a lie actually. There was a rather noticeable connection to Kyouya and if the space between Thompson and the others was disturbingly empty, the bond between her Kyouya was nauseatingly chaotic—far too many contradicting and convoluted emotions passed between the two. If Tsuna was a betting man, he'd place a small fortune on the certainty that neither could truly ascertain how they felt about the other. Whatever it was, however, was felt rather strongly, he often found himself dulling his own awareness whenever the two were in the same vicinity just to keep himself clear headed. And yet, Kyouya aside, the feeling of neutrality was so strong he wondered if he could honestly trust her.
Outside of their agreement, largely verbal as there'd be rather little for her to formally sign until she had a position to take, he had no assurance of her loyalty. She was as likely to defend one of them as she was to murder one of them—although he was currently more in favor of her simply removing herself from any conflict that might involve him or his people—and it was utterly frustrating for him. He'd gotten far too dependent on his ability to make connections with people via harmonization. Reborn had warned him that this would be a learning process for him. He just didn't recognize how.
After a long moment Lal pulled him from his thoughts as she shrugged, "I wouldn't be surprised, but it isn't as if I've met her to make those kinds of decisions."
"I see. Well," he cleared his throat to break the awkward tension formed by his own introspection, "Do you have any concerns?"
"Fuuta's report claims that she's returned to what he can only assume was her normal behavior prior to her time on board the ship?" She questioned rhetorically.
"Mm," Tsuna agreed even as he pondered the legitimacy of such a statement.
"You know that's not normal, right? She was tortured for two months, Sawada. People don't just bounce back from that."
He nodded grimly, "I'm aware. Fuuta thinks she may be compartmentalizing."
"And you?" She looked at him pointedly, "What does the famed Vongola intuition have to say?"
He had the grace to look embarrassed, "Nothing actually. I don't get much from her at all, aside from when she interacts with Kyouya. Outside of that, it's just an eerie sense of calm."
Lal raised an eyebrow, "Yea...that's not normal. I'm inclined to agree with Fuuta. It sounds like she's not only compartmentalizing, but that she's rather good at it. Even still, she can only do it for so long before she breaks."
"Is that going to be a problem?" Tsuna was truly as concerned as he looked. He wanted this to work out for her--hesitation to trust her or not.
Lal shrugged, "We won't know until it happens; could be weeks, months, or even years honestly. The only thing you can do is try and teach her to handle the symptoms when they come. Everyone is different; I don't know what her mental fortitude is like, so I really couldn't tell you."
"I see."
She nodded, "So, let's go do that."
"Eh?" He blinked at the abrupt decision. "Do what exactly?"
"I'd like to meet her." She looked at him at exasperatedly, a hand on her hip. "Her scores with a fire arm are rather impressive for a supposed non-combatant and her hand to hand capabilities suggest she's no slouch either. And despite a rather large dip in points concerning actual combat usage of those skills, she seems to show a lot of potential for it given the experience." Her gaze turned to focused intrigue. "I want to see what else Charles has taught her. The man was always absurd in what he considered to be basic common sense."
And when a trace of fond exasperation passed through Lal's flames, Tsuna had nothing to say and could only nod in acceptance of her demand. He wondered now, though, who was Charles Thompson to impart such an impression and how much of him was responsible for whom his daughter was?
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Two months trapped as a prisoner on a ship and one learned rather quickly those things that had been taken for granted in life. And yet, it wasn't until two weeks ago when she'd been granted permission to exit the underground facility that she realized just how badly she'd missed wide open and wild space. Charlie had taken a only a moment or two to absorb the peaceful forest that surrounded the hidden door, noting simultaneously that it couldn't be too far from civilization given the size of Japan, and then without warning she burst into motion. Her muscles shrieking at her to stop, but her mind willfully ignorant as she pushed past her body's complaints.
She'd run about two miles before she'd collapsed in a space barely worthy of being called a clearing, chest heaving with exertion. She'd managed to cut her foot on something sharp in her haste—her slippers had been a lost cause barely thirty seconds into her sprint—but it hadn't yet registered. She was too busy inhaling the scent of freshly unearthed dirt, unfiltered crisp air, and the distinctly green scent of plant matter as blades of grass pressed irritatingly against her skin. It wasn't home, she had thought, peering at the small patch of gray-blue sky visible through the canopy of trees, but it was the closest she'd been in a long while. She had enjoyed her bit of peace for about an hour or so, before Fuuta came and tracked her down. Unfortunately, he'd also had to help her back as she had strained a muscle…or two…or three.
Thankfully, Kyouya's ever faithful sidekick with the 50's hair-do was willing to "burn" the ache out of her muscles in return for a promise of not being so reckless with her still recovering body. Clearly, she wasn't stupid enough to hurt herself again pulling the same stunt, but in all honesty, she'd really only agreed because she'd been too stunned over the fact that he'd apparently healed her torn muscles with a bright yellow flame—seeming to literally burn the injury away. She almost asked about it, but instead kept quiet much to their obvious surprise. It took her mind down a path she wasn't quite ready to acknowledge because she'd been quite willing to accept those hazy painful moments of near consciousness on board a ship in the middle of the Atlantic as mere fever dreams. The fact that those moments had often been accompanied by a yellow glow somewhere in her outlying vision where she would later wake to find herself less injured than she expected only solidified her desire to leave it alone. So, she did just that and without another word, left 50's dude to tend to whatever he was doing before she ignored common sense.
In spite of that particular feat, however, she'd gone right back out the next day to run and she'd kept it up. It was probably her favorite thing in life right now. It was the closest to mindless freedom she could get…or at least it had been…until about three days ago when the nuisance showed up. Even now she could hear him crashing through the woods behind her, quickly catching up. She'd noticed after the first day that he could walk through the forest peacefully enough, but the moment he decided to run…it was like all caution and care for his surroundings just evaporated. Oh god, he was right behind her.
"CHARLIE-SAN!"
Well, she comforted herself, at least there had been no hesitation to using her given name as requested.
"I'VE CAUGHT UP TO YOU AGAIN!"
"I noticed." Her tone was lethally flat as she refused to even look in his direction and kept her eyes forward.
"You should push yourself more, Charlie! This is the third time I've passed you!"
She fought not to snort, as she took note of the green stains and minor tears in his workout clothes via peripheral. Running through an untamed forest wasn't anything like running on a paved path and there wasn't even an established hiking trail out here. It took a strong awareness of one's environment to travel unscathed through a forest, even when merely speed walking. Hurricane Sasagawa over there, however, was so intent on just pushing forward he didn't even notice the damage he was doing to both his wardrobe and his surroundings. Tracking him through the woods would be cake. She could probably do it blindfolded.
She didn't tell him that, though, she just spoke to him in the same flat tone she'd deigned to use since the first time he nearly deafened her in greeting. "It's not a race, Sasagawa." Just because she'd told him to call her Charlie didn't particularly mean she wanted to call him Ryohei—he was friendly enough as is. No need to give him further reason. He'd come barreling out of nowhere three days ago as she'd jogged past the concealed HQ entryway and damned near gave her a heart attack in the process. She'd been unimpeded on her runs for almost ten days and had gotten comfortable enough to let her mind wander during them. Ever since that day, however, when she'd snatched up a fallen branch and made to impale the overwhelmingly gregarious idiot out of fear for her life, she'd learned to keep aware no matter how peaceful her surroundings seemed. It was just as well, anyway. The moron only dodged out of the way and laughingly complemented her reflexes. The sad thing was, she was pretty sure he wasn't nearly as stupid as he seemed…which meant it was just his personality.
"It could be, Charlie! C'mon! Don't you want to see who's faster?"
"Not really, no," she responded with disinterest, still refusing to look at him, hoping that he'd leave well enough alone. That hope, of course, had died every day for the past three days, as he kept up with her to the end each time she'd stepped outside for a run. At this rate she was likely to develop a grudging admiration for the man, torn as she was between being impressed with his stamina and sheer determination and wanting to come to a stop and viciously pelt him with rocks and other various debris for ruining her alone time. Didn't hurt that he was rather attractive as well—too bad loud, dense, and overly friendly weren't her type.
He only laughed, "One day, Charlie, we'll see who's faster!"
"I'm sure we won't." She said aloud in a flat tone, but inwardly she snidely felt that she could out pace him with ease…in a forest anyway. She wasn't anywhere near stupid or over confident enough to think she could beat Hurricane Sasagawa on flat open terrain. She'd eat his dust…and the knowledge of this caused such bitterness in her that she hadn't noticed when she'd picked up her speed until he called her out on it.
"That's the spirit, Charlie!" He cheered at the sight, but was clearly not deterred in winning his imaginary competition as he added, "But it's still not good enough!" And as if his prior speed had been nothing but a brisk jog, he suddenly pulled ahead with ridiculous force.
She almost came to a stop as she stared at his shrinking back. God, what an idiot. His good looks were wasted on him.
An hour later she and her eager—uninvited—companion were stretching in the glade before the HQ entrance. Sasagawa was chatting her ear off, as usual, asking her simple and mundane questions about food and training styles. Most of which she just answered with quick yes' or no's. It was moments like these where she eyed the man cautiously. For someone who hadn't even learned more than basic English greetings until his last year of high school—he'd told her as much—he was surprisingly fluent with nary an accent to be found. It fitted nicely with her theory of him being a lot more intelligent than his personality suggested. And when she found herself giving him more detailed answers, she had been pleasantly surprised to find that he was rather easy to talk to. That said, when one factored in the subject manner: sports, fitness, and diet, it really wasn't all that surprising. She was pretty sure the only thing stopping him from being a muscle bound jock was a furious metabolism. He probably couldn't really bulk up if he tried.
She recalled with unease, the day before, when she'd mentioned offhand, her grandfather, as Sasagawa's chosen sport of boxing came up. She'd told him how her grandfather had boxed professionally when he was younger, but never made it to wide acclaim since he was pretty young when a factory accident mangled his left hand. Sasagawa looked on the verge of tears as he waxed poetically over the man's loss. Charlie had just put her leg down—she'd been in the middle of stretching her hamstrings—and stared at him. She then awkwardly shrugged and said it was cool, since that led to him meeting her grandmother, who was a nurse. Sasagawa had just nodded and said of course, but then stared indecipherably at his left hand with a rather disturbing intensity. Charlie had decided then, that for all his unsuspecting intelligence and brick wall-level persistence, he was clearly insane when it came to boxing and that she would never broach the subject with him again. She was dancing around said subject for the fourth time in ten minutes when she took note of someone new exiting the HQ doorway.
The blue hair was a dead giveaway as she eyeballed the woman approaching her. This was the woman from the photo Tsuna had shown her last week. It had been a photo with her father. That alone would have made this meeting strange as Lal Mirch was someone who knew a version of her father she had never met. And yet, as Charlie studied her, she was far more concerned with the fact that Lal Mirch didn't look much older than she had in that photo. In the photo they'd seemed about the same age. Her father had clearly been mid-forties when he'd passed and he had aged well. Lal, on the other hand looked mid-thirties at best. It was highly suspicious and something about it was bugging the hell out of her.
The woman stopped when she was a few feet from her, crossing her arms with an easy smirk, "I'd like to say it was ego that did it, but knowing Charles…he probably couldn't think of anything else to name you."
Charlie's response came with the practiced ease of someone who'd responded to the same inquiry numerous times. Expression deadpan, she told her evenly, "When I was a kid we had a goldfish named, Goldie and a hamster named, Ham. I stopped letting him have naming rights when I was 7."
Lal snorted, "For the first two weeks after I met him, he insisted on calling me Sniper Lady."
"Ughhh,"Charlie rolled her eyes in exasperation, managing to prevent the smile that tugged at her lips as a painful wave of nostalgia rolled through her. It had been a while since she'd thought of the more embarrassing and dorky aspects of her father. She'd hated it growing up, but now, now she just missed it—painfully. She'd indulge him in a million stupid pet names and tragically bad puns if it meant he was still alive to voice them, but that wasn't a possibility so she quickly dropped that train of thought like a hot rock and reassessed the woman who was supposed to be training her.
"So, you worked with my father?"
"I did."
"And what was your impression of him?"
Lal blinked at the question, but answered quick enough, "Impulsive, vindictive, selfish, absurdly easy going, rarely took anything seriously, underhanded, and too damned smart for his own good."
It was Charlie's turn to blink, "I see." She could see some of that in her father, but the rest of it? Impulsive, selfish, incapable of being serious? Those didn't fit. Perhaps, they'd been traits lost at the hand of fatherhood or even the cost of being a single parent. She wasn't exactly sure, but it did make her wonder if he would have been capable of being anything like the man that had raised her had he still retained those traits in the process.
"I take it he was different as you knew him."
She shrugged, "Some of it was familiar."
Lal nodded, "Mmm, as expected." She tilted her head to the size to appraise her. "I've seen your scores."
Charlie's expression pulled flat as Lal cut right to the point, "Uhunh."
If she was bothered by the nonverbal reply she didn't show it, "They're rather impressive for someone with no formal training. I take it Charles taught you."
Charlie shrugged again, "Yea."
Lal nodded, "Good, it means we won't have to waste too much time on the basics. That is of course," she paused to narrow her eyes at her authoritatively and boy did it chafe, "provided you don't have too many mistakes when we run through it all."
Charlie scoffed at her, "Mistakes?"
The older woman smirked at her knowingly, "Skilled or not, Ms. Thompson, you're a civilian with barely a handful of experience under your belt. And given Charles' death," Charlie wasn't sure whether to flinch or appreciate Lal's lack of hesitation to drop that statement, "you've probably spent the last few years getting sloppy and developing bad habits."
The sneer that dragged across her face was so fierce she felt the muscle in her cheek spasm in pain, "Oh, remedial lessons. How nice."
Lal snorted, gaze flicking down then to the side as Sasagawa began stealthily—not at all—inching his way back into the hidden HQ, "Look, I'm not discounting your skill set. It's far from useless as it seems to have saved your life more than a few times this year, but the whole point of this is to make you more than capable of rescuing yourself. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the whole point of this to get you to a place of capability where you can't be abducted in the first place?"
Her jaw was tense as she considered the words, but eventually she relented, sucking at her teeth in irritation before she spoke, "I suppose that's true."
"Good. Now, can we go back down before I freeze? I don't know how the hell you and Sasagawa hang out in this weather dressed like that." She turned away before she could answer.
Charlie stood there for a moment in her simple white tee and sweatpants, only just starting to process the temperature. After a few seconds she shrugged, moving to follow her. "Eh, it's only like 50 degrees, maybe 45-ish." (*50 to 45°F is 10 to 7.22°C)
Lal stopped to throw her a scandalized look, "Only?"
Charlie just gave her a look as she matched her steps, "It's still plenty warmer than 15°." (*15°F is -9.44°C) She felt more than witnessed Lal's look of disgust and began to wonder if this whole situation might not be quite as horrible as expected.
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She was wrong. It was worse. She'd thought the friendly and fond recollections of her father would mean the woman wouldn't try to kill her. Instead, she felt like she was going to run her into an early grave—a grave that the slave driver was making her dig herself. At the rate she was going, she thought as the breath was forced from her lungs for maybe the thirtieth time today, she'd have to be carried into that grave. She groaned cracking her back as she recovered from a vicious toss to the floor.
"Get up. I'd like to go through that last drill again."
Considering that drill ended up with her flat on her back every time, Charlie was sure her face did nothing to hide how much she disagreed with Lal's decision making.
The woman in question rolled her eyes, "Quit that. The sooner you learn to recover from being laid out, the sooner we can move onto the fun stuff."
"Like what? How to take a hit?" She'd spat the words with sarcasm as she stood, but the growing smirk on Lal's face told her that that was exactly what she was thinking. Before she could help herself, the bitter words spilled past her lips, "Oh, well you're a little late for that. I had a nice two month crash course on that bit."
The amusement vanished from Lal immediately as she sighed in acknowledgement. "Of that I have no doubt, Thompson." Her words were sincere even as her expression offered little in the way of sympathy, "But learning how to take a hit isn't the same as knowing how to recover from it."
Charlie scowled at her logic, but didn't argue against what she knew to be true. She fought for a response, but none was needed as Lal spoke up, "C'mon, one more round and we can go eat."
She swallowed her emotions and nodded.
Sitting in the small and almost familial feeling kitchen, it was easy to feel a respect for the older woman. She'd been playing the hated drill sergeant balanced with dry humored mentor for the past few weeks and Charlie still wasn't sure if she hated or liked her, but she was certain that she respected her. There was no doubt in her mind who had been in charge when it came to working with her father. Respect or not, however, she had never done well with taking orders, especially from someone who wasn't her family. Still, Lal's cool and neutral tone made them easier to accept. What she couldn't handle was the midget with the fedora who liked to throw in his two cents.
"She's a bit slow with recovery efforts. Maybe you should up the stakes a bit, Lal?" Reborn suggested from his place leaning on a kitchen counter, a cup of coffee in his hand.
And maybe she should force his hat down his throat, she thought viciously as she stabbed at her food. God, she hoped that coffee stunted his growth.
She'd thought the brat was an annoying know-it-all when he'd been smugly presenting her father's records and issuing an ultimatum; having to hear his every thought and criticism about her capabilities or lack thereof was enough for her to want to barbecue his pet gecko—lizard—chameleon—whatever the fuck it was—and feed it to him. He'd been hanging around like a specter from the beginning, criticizing her form, her grip, her reaction time; all with nasty quips and low-key insults. She almost attempted to fire at him through bullet proof glass the other day, but Lal had caught her arm just as it swung away from the target sheet.
It was hardly a surprise that Lal was the voice of reason yet again. "She's not Tsuna or Dino, Reborn. There isn't exactly a deadline for excellence here. No need to drop her in a shark pool to teach her to swim."
Charlie paused in the violent spearing of her food at that statement. Was that an actual thing that had happened or just a figure of speech? Possibly both…. She'd noticed that while both of them seemed to be native Italians they always spoke in English around her. At first she thought it was to make her feel more comfortable, but after a day or two she realized the suited shrimp was just doing it so she knew when she was being insulted. So, she chanced at look at the two of them, wondering just what those cryptic words meant and from the baleful stare Lal was giving a smirking Reborn she acknowledged that it may have just been fact. For some Dino guy or Sawada, she wasn't sure, but she still felt her stomach clench in shock. Who the hell would do that? Scratch that; how the hell did that brat have that kind of pull? Ughhh, there was still so much she didn't know about this place, the people—the entire fucking culture.
Just last night, Lal had sat her down to give her a brief overview of something called Dying Will Flames. If Charlie hadn't witnessed the magical freak show with her own two eyes, she would have called bullshit. As it was she'd witnessed Kyouya's purple flaming tonfa from her own doorway, been choked with a flaming blue whip, and chased by a purple eyed jackal. She still wasn't lingering on her experience of being healed with the bright yellow fire known as Sun flames. She'd caught the naming irony there pretty quick. That one, however, was the only one that made any real visual sense. She'd say the Rain one was a close second, being that it was a nice cerulean blue; apparently it carried a calming trait. Charlie would have supposed it was a nice serene way to die…if she hadn't nearly done just that. Her neck itched every time she recalled it.
Still, the color associations pretty much bewildered her from there: Mist was an indigo flame, Storm was red, Lightning was green, Cloud was purple, and the Sky was friggin orange for some crazy reason. Whose idea was it to name these things after weather phenomena? She'd asked and gotten only a shrug in response. Apparently, it just was. Charlie had not been satisfied with that and said so. Lal had only laughed and gone on to explain that all people had flame types; however, not everyone could physically manifest them. Something about strength of will coupled with actual output capabilities. Even weirder was that flame types tended to have personality traits accompanying them—though they seemed to be more noticeable once a person's flames were physically active. Charlie, in her pettiness, called it Flame Astrology and out of morbid curiosity for her horoscope, asked just where along the weather rainbow she fell.
The answer she'd gotten was a mix of Storm and Rain. She hadn't realized you could be more than one and said as much. Lal said it was rare, but it happened and that she herself contained three types. According to her flame horoscope she was supposed to be an ocean of serenity and damned near chemically volatile. She called bullshit, but Lal only smiled and said the description had fit her father to a T. She'd worn a scowl for the rest of the evening. And that was even with Lal having shown her the cheap looking jewelry that served as a focus for the magical rainbow flames. If Lal thought she was being a bitch about it, she didn't say so, she just told her there was no need to use high quality materials or go in depth in design when these were just practice and low quality pieces. She'd gestured to the red stone imbued pieces with the theory that Charlie might be able to use them one day. Charlie had focused on the might, pretty quickly. And then Lal had proceeded to shatter her dreams of ever being a mafia super hero.
It would seem that as impressive as her own personal will power was—Charlie was only a bit pleased to have it acknowledged—the likelihood of her ever manifesting flames physically was dismally low. If she hadn't managed to manifest them while being tortured for two months while still having kept a sense of self and defiance…then it was unlikely that she would ever. They suspected low reserves. The information had been presented to her gently as though it would cause her pain. Charlie, however, was just relieved. Her world had been tilted on its head more than enough in the past few months, she didn't need magical powers. Lal had corrected her numerous times saying that it wasn't magic—Charlie didn't care. The mere idea of having to learn to wield rainbow flames that didn't act like flames on top of literally having her ass kicked into shape for the next however many months…was just depressing. Apparently, Lal had found her opinion on the matter both refreshing and a sign that she had more sense than her father. She took it for the compliment that she knew it was.
Still, she did wonder how much the flame horoscope thing played into her new reality. If it was all true, then Lal was some sort of odd mix of tranquil, aloof, and sneaky. She didn't really know her well enough to see it. As for Kyouya? Well…clearly the man was the definition of aloof. Evidently, Clouds were more the free spirit types with little inclination to bonds and rules outside of their own personal philosophies. She remembered his little recovery get away in her cabin and imagined if he'd been a cat, he'd have been scratching at the walls to escape. The Cloud flame definitely fit him well enough. Reborn was apparently some kind of super Sun; Lal had been extremely vague in her explanation of the teen and Charlie didn't care enough to press. All she knew was that Suns were supposed to be highly energetic and while Sasagawa clearly had that in spades, she wondered if Reborn had some kind of opposite problem there. Going by his level of coffee intake, it seemed he was more in need of energy than in excess of it. Maybe his was more mental? It would certainly explain his never ending repertoire of witty insults and replies. She glanced up from her meal and watched her part time mentor and the espresso chugging brat duke it out with snark and verbal barbs for a moment before turning her thoughts back inward.
There had been two other men on the ship, a guy who scowled too much and smelled like cigarettes, Gokudera Hayato, and a guy with an actual katana, Yamamoto Takeshi. Only a minute with either of them and it was easy to figure out which was the volatile Storm and who was the tranquil Rain. Even though, she hadn't met the other two, Mist and Lightning, she thought it was kind of funny how Sawada had managed to wrangle perfect examples of the flame types for his guardians. And wasn't that an odd concept. Guardians. Sawada Tsunayoshi, the head of all this craziness, was supposedly a part of the rare collective of people that possessed Sky flames. Sky flames carried a harmonious trait that conveniently allowed them to inherently bond with other flame types, hence Guardian bonds. She could kinda pick up the whole harmonious vibe from Sawada, but she still didn't understand how the hell he'd managed to form any kind of bond with someone like Gokudera Hayato and Kyouya. Gokudera seemed like the type to have bullied Sawada once upon a time and Kyouya…well…Kyouya was probably doing his own thing. Why the hell was he involved with any of it?
Charlie sighed heavily, pushing the last of her food around on her plate. She noticed the silence a split second later as her heavy breath seemed to have bought her the attention of the only other people in the room. She blinked at them, wary at having their eyes on her so intently. Clearing her throat, she stood, "I'm gonna go take a bath and crash."
Lal nodded at her, "I'll see you in the morning. 6am."
"Yep." She quickly cleaned her plate and hurried away to her excuse. She hadn't actually been thinking about bathing at the time, but after the words had come out of her mouth she'd found the idea rather appealing. The hot water would be a kindness on her abused muscles. Unfortunately, she still wasn't sure where the actual bathing rooms were in this place since her room had an on-suite bathroom with a shower. She did know, that they were supposed to be on this level, however. She wandered about for another five minutes, turning corners and doubling back and was just about to say fuck it, when she nearly collided with a body going around a bend.
"I am so sorr—"
Her apology ended abruptly as she realized just who she'd been about to apologize to. He'd gotten a new suit, she'd noticed. She knew that he'd had a new suit back on the ship and even in the office shortly after she'd arrived, but she'd been a bit too preoccupied to really pay attention to his clothing. Now, she could see the tailored uniform for what it was and she had no doubt in her mind that it was in fact a uniform. It fit his lean frame with an almost militaristic precision, giving him a strange sense of ruthless grace when he moved. It was a far cry from the tattered remains she'd found him in months ago. He looked good in it. She hated it.
"Woman." He'd narrowed his eyes at her.