The Rising Storm (Mikage Kadokawa)

[dreameater]

Damien wiped the sweat from his brow with a heavy sigh, shifting his weight to better support the wooden planks balanced on his shoulders. Throwing the material down with a final grunt, Damien grinned, his undershirt soaked with sweat thanks to the June heat. Finally, finished![/i] Damien had taken the construction job just from habit of working, but there was nothing quite like those first moments of freedom, when your time was yours once more.

After running his head under the frozen water from the company shower, and grabbing a spare change of clothes, Damien shook his head like a dog and headed outside, snapping his fingers in time to the beat of the music that played from his headphones. He finally had a chance to explore Namimori, and he was going to make the most of it. He decided to start with the high school- after all, he might have to go there starting next week.

Cutting across several alleys and yards, Damien made it just in time for the final bell. As opposed to the massive outpouring of students that he would have seen in America- and indeed, that he fully expected- Damien saw the slightest trickle, the rest presumably practicing with their clubs. Sauntering in as if he owned the place, Damien made up his mind to go check out the karate club, perhaps see just what Japan was capable of.

However, Damien wasn't paying attention, and he accidentally ended up crashing into a student. In his defense, the student was far shorter than he was. The world slowed down to a crawl as Damien's reaction time kicked in. Bracing himself with his back leg, Damien lunged forward, his left arm whipping around the student and holding him up, ensuring that Damien's accident would not cause a fall.

"Ah, sorry about that, mate. I really should watch where I'm goin-" However, Damien cut himself off in mid sentence, only then actually looking at the man's face. Without so much as a hitch, Damien continued into a new sentence. "Oh wow, those tattoo's are pretty awesome! And they're real, too? Damn. Mind if I ask why ya got them?" Damien stood there with his usual steadfast smile, his arm retreating back to his side. "Oh, I almost forgot! My name's Damien Lier. I'm sorry if my Japanese is a little funny- I just moved here from the 'States. What's your name?"

[konoha]

To say Mikage was weary was a massive understatement.

The day had already began badly enough. His alarm clock had decided to run out of battery the night before, so he hadn't anything to wake him up in the morning. It also meant he hadn't had any idea what the time was, and when he finally managed to find a clock that worked properly, he was already late. That meant no time to dress properly, no time to eat, no time to hide his tattoos.

Needless to say, the last of the three was the worst of them, though Mikage was definitely not going to go around without those bandages on his cheeks. Especially at school. Without them, he would surely blow his cover as Mouse, and the Pikachu nickname, which was already bad enough, would never go away.

In the end, the teen had arrived at school more than an hour late, and was beaten to a bloody pulp as result. Somehow, the disciplinary committee, which had carried over to high school and had stayed ever since, was still at work. Then, without a chance to even lick his wounds, he was sent to class.

The day went from bad to worse. And now, here he was at the end of the school day, tiredly trying to make his way home. After a wary glance around to make sure that no one was going to recognize him, the 'brunet' ripped the patches on his cheeks off, wincing as the adhesive tore at his skin. Sighing, he gave his cheeks a good rub before continuing on, head down. ...Only to crash headfirst into something unbelievably hard. He would've been sent to the floor if it hadn't been for the strong arm that shot around his torso, and blinking his eyes he stared up at the person who had crashed into him.

The man was kind of intimidating in appearance, though maybe that was just because Mikage had never seen anyone as muscular as the person standing before him. He opened his mouth, gaped for a second, then closed it again, unable to find the words to say. But it seemed he needn't have said anything, because the stranger had already started chattering cheerfully.

"Hah...?" was the only thing the 'brunet' managed to stutter out after the rapid introduction, mind blanking out for a second. "I um..." He then remembered just what he had been asked. "I'm Mikage Kadokawa. Nice to meet you, I guess..." the teen trailed off with a sheepish laugh, not really sure what else to say. He hoped Damien wouldn't notice that he had ignored the first question, but that wasn't usually something he liked to let others know.

[dreameater]

Well. Mikage seemed to be a bit reticent, but then again, Damien had just run him over like an eighteen wheeler semi truck. It was probably somewhat to be suspected. On the bright side, not once had Damien been called 'gaijin,' so this was turning out to be a pretty good meeting. However, he was also avoiding the previous question. Must've been a sore spot. Pretty wierd, considering they were on his face, but whatever. His choice.

With those thoughts considered and banished from his head, Damien turned his brainpower to other matters. "Hey, sorry to bug ya, but do you think you could maybe show me around or something? I pretty much just got off the plane, so I've got no idea what to do or where to go." Damien laughed. "I'm sorry I'm pushing this on ya- here, why don't we head for food or something, first? I owe ya after nearly knocking ya over, after all."

It was only then that Damien noticed the bruises. In his defense, while he might have been superb at spotting a receiver on the gridiron, he was not the fastest in spotting injuries. Hell, he had often gone weeks never once noticing he had an injury, only realizing what had happened after seeing the new scar. That being said, Damien hated for others to get hurt, especially someone like Mikage, who didn't really look like he could defend himself. "Hey...what happened? Where did you get those bruises? Someone beat you up?" If the answer was yes, there was gonna be hell to pay, consequences be damned.

[konoha]

Mikage sweatdropped, wondering if every foreigner talked as much as Damien did. Then he dismissed the thought. Of course that wasn't the case, there were all sorts of people out in the world. ...And Damien just happened to be the garrulous type.

It wasn't as if it was a bad thing. For once in the remarkably short time since he had returned to school, he didn't have to be the chatty one, the one who kept things going. It was a relieving thought.

That wasn't the problem on hand though. Since moving to Namimori, Mikage hadn't actually set foot outside of his home all that much. He had stayed holed up in his room for the majority of his stay in the city, adopting a sort of hikikomori lifestyle. When he had finally decided to return to society, he still didn't wander very far from home and school. He had accompanied his mother (read: stalked) (read: followed his mother at a distance) to the shopping center a few times before under the name of Mouse (in case anyone recognized him), but that didn't make him an instant expert on the place.

Smiling even more sheepishly than before, Mikage rubbed the back of his neck. "Well... I'm actually not all that familiar with Namimori since I kind of just moved here," he confessed. It wasn't a complete lie. In fact, it may have been more truth since a little more than a year wasn't all that long of a time. Taking comfort in that, the 'brunet' continued, "And well...you could say that, I guess... I kind of got kicked around by the Disciplinary Committee this morning, so yeah..." Laughing guiltily, Mikage unconsciously moved the hand on his neck up to ruffle the hair on the back of his head. But surely, Damien knew about them already, right? He wouldn't have stepped foot in their precious school if he hadn't known of the dangers beforehand...right?