The bee and the Oni

Shinoskay had just finished with his package delivery and was now walking through a restaurant district, their was some good smells that passed through the area but for the most part the boy was more eager to get out of the public space. He had created and released roughly 20 bees and they all passed along the streets, to and fro, to check out the many interesting spaces, corners, nooks and crannies of the street as the boy, hands in pocket, casually strolled along. His coat would be scrunched back oddly due to his hands been hooked so oddly and to some he may have come off as undisciplined and somewhat hoodlumish given that it scrunched the coat but he wasnt the most socially aware and so he just did it anyways.

Most of his attention were on the bees he had in sight, he liked watching his own creations in work as they passed around the area and sometimes he would even watch normal bees. They just seemed more lively and interesting then most people were, they did what they did regardless of the world around them and there was no shame to them. He enjoyed the comfort of knowing he had another 15 or so inside his jacket too, he could fee them crawling along and the presence and energy there felt right.... like his family was comfortable or something.

He never could understand it, he inherited this lineage from his mother but he mostly learned from his father who was not of the Kamizuru lineage. He knew of the power of the family seals and how he could devour chakra but it didnt seem to serve the whole enough. What good did it do the village for him to devour chakra? no one was getting fed by it, it didnt add homes, it didnt grow anything... it just was for him and him alone.

Okinawa Promenade. It's opulence was everywhere. Every little shop, hotel, restaurant flaunting its luxury in hopes to appeal to the tourists' tastes and draw in new customers. It mattered not where they came from, only that their purses were filled and ready to be spent on the countless products displayed. Having hung around the area for a mission, Akari was carried along by the slow yet consistent pace of the tourists, most of her non-Human appearance hidden under a black hoodie bearing a white bunny skull, and a dark green skirt. Face hidden in the shadows of the hood, her horns and black eyes were mostly pulled out of sight of the common crowd. An easier way to deal with the gaping stares of disapproval, mostly. The white wings jutting out of her back were not as easily concealed but in today's modernisation those were easily attributed to her being a 'cosplayer' or wearing a costume. Any excuse was a good excuse. The oni just wanted to be left alone for a change, easily ignoring those pointing at her wings.

Not interested in the beds or foods of hotels and restaurants, the fifteen year old teenager was mostly taking her time looking at clothes of all kind. The badass ripped jeans with seductive tee, the casual and girly dresses, the classy dressed vest and skirt combo. Just anything that caught her eyes would be scrutinised for its looks and practicality. Until something buzzed around her head. Black eyes following the sound, it would lay eyes on a bee seemingly equally interested in the oni. As if it was checking if she was a flower or something completely different still. Rather used to wildlife from a time she survived in the forest by herself, the demoness would disregard the bee and move her attention back to the windows, leaving the little creature to its antics as long as it didn't bother her any more than it did.

Her eyes would once more look through the display window, checking upon a couple of longer dresses and robes and cloaks to match. With the idea of visiting the Jashinists still prodding in the back of her mind, the thought of slipping back into wildlife, the ambition of being a crime lord and the idea of working her way up as torturer and medical expert for the Village, the girl wanted something new in her life. The girl she was wanted to grow up and pick a certain direction, but the clumsy teenager simply couldn't make up her mind. Which was the right way? Which one was hers to walk?

---

XP: 10

Inspired by the descriptive writing presented of the oni...

Shinoskay was wearing his standard apparel of a knee length Haori coat over his cotton vest and undershirt. His Haori was a pale green, almost grass like, color that was actually probably dyed using grass. His Hakama pants were a slightly darker green to make a good contrast against the lighter overcoat while the vest was a more brown color and the undershoot was just a bleached cotton. His goggles sat on his forehead, presently, because it was starting to pass into the later evening hours where the sun was still giving off a little light but otherwise was close to gone, the street lights were already starting to come on to mitigate the darkness of the impending night.

The boy had been passing a hot culture clothing store when, as he glanced over to one of his bee's passing around the head of someone particular. It seemed to smell and see something off about the person and while he would normally just watch before the bee moved on, something about her seemed striking even to him. Never mind how strange it was that she didn't freak out at the bee, clearly shifting her gaze to catch sight of it, but just something about her screamed their was something off. The bee's dance showed that it more smelled something from her over saw something, it took to a round dance that most bee's would perform when they found food... because it wasnt actually a normal bee the boy knew this to mean it was something different from the average or common of the people or environment in the area. It took to a particularly nuance that showed the difference was something other then seen and this is how the boy could tell it smelled something different about her.

Curious, the boy felt like approaching her and sniffing... he knew this sort of behavior unnerved people and he was trying to not be so obvious about his lack of social grace, never mind his own uncertainties, so he would instead walk up to the window and gaze in while standing next to her. Feeling a little more secure that he wasnt being obvious, he would then take a slow but deep whiff of the air in an attempt to catch her scent. His cloths made a constant swish as he moved into position, he wasnt sure what to do with his hands so he would end up gripping the inner part of his hoari's sleeves to try and use the textile sensations to distract himself from the situation as best as he could.

The clothing inside was some strange and rather revealing design, he didnt think about it as he approached but now that he was looking he almost felt like it would look like he wanted to look female, for him, to stand here looking in and that people would get the wrong idea about his interests in the genders. His own clothing a strong and clashing contrast to what the store presented, most would see it as obviously out of place but he wasnt thinking about that.

How did a yokai even smell? A question few would bother to ask or figure out, fewer still spending the time to think about it. Akari was of demonic heritage, a lineage relating to the Baku, the dream eaters from a folklore most had forgotten since long. To humans, she'd smell like every other person would, a particular feminine scent with, perhaps, a slightly biting undertone that would only hit seconds later - much like many mistook her for an angel. Once. That she smelled differently to those with a finer nose would be an understatement of the century. The finer nose would pick up the fleeting scent of a flirty passion easily attributed to those 'dream demonettes' today's youngsters were familiar with, which would eventually turn into an almost sulfuric tint of danger that betrayed her demonic heritage. On another layer there would be the warmer scent of mouldy earth and nature that told them about a life before Kumogakure, the hints of a no-nonsense personality which would leave little to the imagination. Mixed within that earthen scent, a vague tinge of impending fear, of living nightmares seething under the surface, would hardly be caught by the nose itself but certainly be registered by the sub-conscious. The dream eaters, though supposedly alleviating their summoners from horrible dreams, equally shared them and had their very essence express them.

The boy would come to discover all of this as he stepped closer in a rather inconspicuous way, seemingly taking a look at the clothes Akari herself was overlooking. Taking a whiff of her scent like a dog trying to recognise someone else. And he would have succeeded at remaining unnoticed were it not for two factors: Akari was a shinobi herself, retaining a sense of alertness the untrained Human would not bother to uphold. And she had survived in the wilderness for years, beast and man observed in their more feral state. Though she couldn't state exactly what the boy was trying to do, she certainly picked up on the abnormal behaviour and so the dream-eater's black eyes would look into the glass to catch his distorted reflection of green and brown toned clothes.

Playing on the perception that he was looking at a window filled with mannequins wearing girl clothing, a wry smile would play on her lips before she'd casually start to talk to him. "Trying to figure out how your girlfriend would look in those clothes?", she'd ask him with a raspy voice, eyes fixated on him through the weak reflection in the shop's window until he realised she was talking to him. Then, once she had caught his attention, she'd turn around with her head slightly down to hide her black eyes from first sights. Fully turned around, she'd lift her head and look straight at him with black eyes.

---

XP 20

It was strange indeed, the smell of sulfur, like a smoke bomb almost but more potent, mixed with the all too familiar scent of earth and an overtone of some kind of appealing perfume. She smelled like she was from outside the village, in the woods, like he was but then she also smelled foreign. It made sense why the Bee had taken notice of the oddity. It was almost thrilling and he felt something familiar coming from this girl, something comfortable and inviting that he could relate to... almost like a dream beckoning you to rush off to sleep so that you could frolic within it once more.

He hadnt noticed at first, but as she spoke to him he quickly was drawn from his trance of thoughts and bid to turn her way. His mind immediately raced to the implications and how to deal with the interaction. Something about her was still rather enthralling and he felt an even stronger curiosity towards her, almost a desire for her, but this was presently mixed with an anxiety. His heart suddenly raced and his mind swirled as she now faced him, He was trying to grasp at what she had said and his instinct was to just deny whatever her inquiry was but before he could summon up the worlds... she locked eyes with him.... and then there is was again. Now, like a devouring aura, he could feel that sulfur laced perfume almost caressed his nostrils, to take a hold of his flushed face and grip it tight to keep his eyes locked on hers. the smell of earth, still inviting and comfortable, seemed to almost draw the sensation of him sinking inward, downward, like he was suddenly being swallowed.

Her eyes, her black and inhuman eyes... a starch contrast to what was oddly a normal pair of eyes on the younger boy. His bloodline was that of the devouring chakra but at this very moment he was the one that felt like a snack. Everything about his sense of self felt like it was slowly draining into the blacks of her eyes. Something deeper inside of him them all of this, a similar darkness, flared in defiance at him for succumbing so easily but yet still he felt himself falling into her while slowly turning inside out. The mix of sensations would be dizzying if it weren't for the over whelming draw to remained focused on the one fixed point of her eyes. His flush lightened slightly but as he stood there... he had no words.

Like many before him, peering straight into the black pools of infinity seemed to have pulled him out of his reality. The baku often had that effect, their eyes small galaxies of their own imposing a sense of grandeur and loss at the same time. It often took one well-rooted in life to snap out of the dreamscape created by these mini-universes. That forlorn effect generally didn't last all too long, the mind and soul not trapped in the slightest by one of her genjutsu and so everything would last, perhaps, a couple of seconds. Still, the girl would roll her eyes at the usual reaction.

"What, cat's got your tongue?", she'd say with certain irritation, even if most of the time that ended in Humans getting ticked off and irked by her demeanour. These "Outsiders" didn't understand what it was to be an oni but they were rather fast to judge her rather than their own behaviour. Moving a hand to her hip and shifting her weight to one leg, her new position made clear she was rather impatiently waiting for him to snap out of his dream and get to it. An observational glance left and right of her told the yokai that no one had noticed their little interaction just yet. Good. The last thing Akari wanted today was more gawkers as she had suffered more than her fill already on those.

---

XP 30

Just as he felt like he had become devoured whole into this void of earth and foreign worlds, the words "What, Cat got your tongue" drew him back to the person before him. Like a sudden shunt he went from inescapable black spice and all encroaching darkness to back to in front of this girl... still, he felt her smell tease him, he felt the heat and cold wash across his face, still the comforting presence of the earthly smell... all moved to enrapture him. His mind was forced to register the world, however, and so while it was once more filling and falling all in the same instance... he would be in a semi registered state now with one foot in that trance and the other to here where she and he really stood. A bee would move out from the boy's clothing, almost like a fly indicating a form of pestilence, as if it had been there forever with no care in the world. It would crawl up to his collar, he himself seemingly completely oblivious to it, before it then would release its wings and take flight to join the many others out and about from the boy.

"I-," he couldnt come up with anything to say, the clouding in his mind chased all excuses, "I noticed you had a strange smell, actually... I am sorry." his face was one of confusion and resignation topped with a dash of extremely mild shame. his head tilted slightly upward with his eyes glancing down his face towards the black eyes girl.

"I noticed you had a strange smell..."

Akari blinked at the unusual answer she was given. Most would talk about her wings or get mean about her horns or eyes as fear struck them but this guy was talking scents. The yokai wasn't sure if that was meant to be a compliment or a slap in the face, since 'smelling strange' didn't sound quite positive, not to mention that someone declaring they came to smell her felt a little awkward. At least the answer was something different than the usual reaction she had to deal with.

"Uhm, okay...", she replied with a sceptical tone, a bit at a loss of words herself in this situation. "Do you often show up to smell girls out of the blue?"

Hopefully not, since that'd be totally creepy. Which was strange considering the oni generally creeped out others. Not that Akari had much rights to judge him considering her own hobbies involved torture of bugs and people either through Ijutsu practise of mental torture but she considered herself otherwise to act rather normal around other people. Outsiders were such a weird bunch to deal with.

---

XP: 40

As she asked him if he often went to people to smell them, he felt a shiver down his spine as in his mind her facial features shifted in amusement at his statement, her face lowered slightly in a demure manner while the left side of her mouth and her right eye brow both curved upwards as if she was teasingly smirking at him in some taunt. Whether this was what she was really doing or not, didnt matter. His head, leveling out again as he shook it in a no gesture to reply to her, his jaw hung slightly as his faculties still held a strange lul to it.

Her dark eyes started to register in his mind, the oddity of it now becoming more clear and the raised lumps of her horns reinforcing the abnormality of her. He had not quite grasped that they were strange but he was starting to realize they were there at least. Her clothing covered her well but from his vantage he could easily see the features, his mind began to subconsciously re-devout itself to actually thinking rather then what he found to be an intoxicating scent. His eyes would now, just slightly and almost imperceptibly, twitch to scrunch as he began to try to make sense of what he was looking at, his head tilting just slightly, almost as much so as his brow twitch, to the side towards the glass display.

He shook his head yet remained staring at her. She would have felt relieved but the way his eyes registered the horns, the eyes and the general non-Humane features she sported felt like he had yet to fully register she was an oni. Perhaps that was it. First the scent, now the demon? Her eyes would narrow at the realisation of the situation, not really wishing to deal with another of these confrontations again. She could have ended this all with a few genjutsu which would temporarily erase his mind as she disguised herself but she was fairly exhausted on chakra from maintaining the human guise when she had been spreading flyers for that new cafe. She just wanted to stroll along the Promenade in peace now.

At the same time, hiding what she was annoyed her as well. And since he had already caught wind of her inhumane nature, she decided to pull back her hood so he could have a better look at the full truth of what she was. As she pulled back the black cotton hood of her sweater was, her black horns would reveal themselves in full, partially hiding in between the white strands of her long hair spilling out now that the hood no longer confined it to darkness. Like many others had done before him, she was ready to endure the grimace of disdain or scream of terror she expected to follow.

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XP: 50

In his trance, he didnt realize he was so obvious in scanning her features but yet still, he did. Her reaction was then to draw her hood back in defiance. Once more, in his mind, it was as if she was challenging him further, daring him, in some way. Something about her mannerism seemed to be an almost fluffed, flushed, action of sass and playful mockery. His mind was trying to grasp that she was actually uncomfortable but the young and inexperienced boy just wasn't getting the connections.

As the oni drew back her hood, his head shifted back to a leveled and upright position and his eyes grow wide... at first his widened gazed shifted back and forth between her own eyes... scanning them to try and understand what she was doing. He could feel their was something off about the situation and that most people would be reacting in a different way but he just couldnt see what it was. As she took to her defiance, he heard someone walking up behind her take a gasp as their gawking at her wings quickly changed to a horrified shock before then then turned the other way and back tracked to avoid passing her. He didnt look their way, he was still looking at her, but his mind registered the action.

If he found now indication of her intent, he would then shift his eyes slightly up and upon her horns... indeed, they were peculiar... they were real and actual horns obviously made of bone much like that of antlers, hooves, or the such. His eyes shifted from left to right as he took them in, his eyes now furrowing in concentration as he took in their detail more fully. Every angle seemed symmetrical which was typical and they held grooves that suggested it grew in layers yet he had a small trouble understanding where they came from out of her head. If she bared herself further to him, he would continue to inspect these horns... but if she expressed greater outrage and defiance... making it clear she felt he was judging her... he would call forth his bees, drawing to him those in the area while simultaneously spawning more... almost as many as he could... turning his immediate area into a swarming mess of them. If she further emphasized her discomfort then he would finally get it and he would show her he too had an abnormality that people strongly shunned in an attempt to empathize with her. He hadn't actually decided how he felt about her strange features, however. the situation, for sures, was still settling in his mind.

Curiously, he didn't scream neither cowered in terror. Unlike that person behind him, he just stood there before her. Not quite unfazed, not quite affected either. Like he wasn't even here. Akari would sigh. Not only was he being creepy, he was also an oddity to work with. An eccentric or an alienated being, who could say? In any case, her desire to leisurely stroll through the Promenade was gone, and so was her desire to deal with this sort of weird behaviour.

"Way to make an impression...", she'd say, making her irritation clear. He had not replied to her first question about the girlfriend, and the way he had acted had caused her to assume this guy probably didn't have a one either. As to why he had been drawn in, she couldn't tell. Probably the white wings giving off a false first impression. Just more of the usual. Deciding that she had lingered around long enough, she'd start flapping the wings strong enough to create gusts of wind hinting at her about to take leave into the skies. As her body lightly took off the ground, more bees would seemingly swarm in and around them. The buzz of the insects seemingly increasing as the yokai's mind raised alarms. Hanging a couple of feet above the ground, she would maintain her minor altitude and look back at the guy before her.

"These bees belong to you?"

---

XP: 60

The girl seemed to visibly be bothered by the situation, she clearly didnt know how to react and neither did he. In fact he felt he was making things worse overall, and this was starting to grow like a weight on him as he quickly began to question what to do next.

Finally, she moved to take flight, as his bee's began to converge onto him. In that moment, as she took pause to look at the many insects swarming in and around.... the boy would vanish in a Body Replacement technique via the bee's. When the girl looks back, she will see only a Silhouette shape of bee's where the boy had once been as he had take off and around the store corner just a few feet behind where he was. No sooner then the moment he was out of sight, the swarm would disperse and disappear as well.

`exit`
ooc used Body Replacement Technique. 1 chakra spent.
2215wc
2215 /100 body flicker - 100 haze clone - 100 mist servant -  100 lost souls - 150 false surrounding - 150 descending hell - 100 mirror flower water - 150 hazy genjutsu = -950+2215= 1265
earned 70 xp11:40:21

Her question would be granted an unusual answer. By the time she had looked back to where the boy stood, his presence would shatter in a cluster of bees, the boy no longer around. The cluster would then scatter, each bee going its own way and leaving Akari by herself. As her mind thought about this strange encounter, she pulled the hood of her sweater back over her head and allowed her wings to carry her higher into the air, away from the Promenade and into the wide open air.

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EXIT

XP 70