rashness | XIV

[Close to five in the morning- the same time he left on the 25th - of the 29th is when Rin arrives back in Luceti. He's tired, and hungry, and just spent. Izumo is most likely with him as he trudges back to his house to eat something and fall into bed.

He tells himself that he had to retreat - there was a cure, but his flames were just making things resurface, making it worse. And he had to get Izumo out. And he didn't have his sword so he didn't control anything. But it's still lousy feeling, because he knows at least in that first and more so second day, he actually did some good out there. When he was still saving people, not just destroying things that used to be people. Really, the experience there was no worse than the experience with the Impure King, just... They banded together, and at the 11th hour Ucchusma had stepped in to help him end it, in that case.

Dammit.]

[(Edited In) Morning Action]
When he wakes up the next morning, he remembers that he was shot. As far as he knows, unless he melted them or burned the or something, he's still got three bullets inside of him. Actually, when he sits up in the morning, he realizes it hurts to sit up, now he's at 50%. He groans, and after scribbling something for Shiemi and Izumo about going to the hospital, he head off to the Med Center.

To ask what to do about bullets in him. He'll be showing up at about noon]

[Voice]
[Later in the day, once he's slept and gone to the hospital, he puts on the voice for the journal-] Oiiii! Who the hell's got my sword?! If you don't fork it over, I'm gonna find you, and you're gonna regret taking iiiit!!

[Because that's why I had to come back.

...Well not entirely, but enough of the reason for him to be even more mad than he should be for someone taking his father's legacy. Not like they could know.]

[Action]
[More to give himself something to focus on which isn't the fact he's back and other people aren't, he goes to fruitlessly work Seventh Heaven to cook for whoever comes in. And damn does he hope someone come in. He actually stays there way beyond when he usually would - way past his usual shift. Sure he's missing the sunlight (which he sorely missed in Vaskoth) but it's so misty and there's a lot of rats he needs to clean out for some reason.

Either way, by the time he actually steps out of it, it's nightfall...

An ghosts are partying in the square. His last experience with ghosts was really annoying, but these guys actually seem cool, so he deigns to party with them for a while. It's fun! ...Aside from when they prank him, but he can survive that! Run into him there, at the job, or other places between]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Demon-slaying. Magic. Nice. My swords are just... swords.

[Rin's tail curls behind him and he looks a little sheepish for a moment before nodding] It's something my old man left for me, so I'm glad you found it.

Really? My dad left me a weapon before he went to war. So. I get that.

Oh?! What'd he give you?

[He is, perhaps, too eager to latch on the topic of fathers. But he likes that topic]

My boomerang! [Here, Sokka will just whip it on out.] This little guy has been with me through a lot.

Oh wow, that's so cool. [He almost goes to grab it, but then thinks better of it and puts the hand he was going to do that with under his chin to make his almost-movement less lame. He then nods, looking it over] I've never known anyone who uses a boomerang for real before.

Well, I did? Because... everyone did. Growing up. So. Not that unusual.

[He finishes lamely. A beat.]

I used it to beat a guy that could shoot fire with his mind.

How'd you manage that? [It's a fair question. In his opinion. He's actually clearly absorbed in the story, as vague as it... well. Wasbefore it was a story]

Well... okay. This guy was called Combustion Man. Big huge guy, like... eight feet tall, probably. Bald, ugly, and he had an eye tattooed on his forehead. Also an automail arm and leg. From that eye he could shoot these fiery lasers that exploded whatever they hit. This guy had been chasing us all over the Fire Nation. We thought we'd lost him.

But he tracked us down to the Western Air Temple where we were hiding out. So suddenly he attacks. Toph is already out of commission after uh, a previous injury. So it was just me, my sister, and Aang. Both of them benders. Zuko was there too, but he didn't really do anything. But anyway, my sister tries bending water at him, which seemed like a good idea. But she couldn't even get close to the guy. Neither could Aang. All he could do was run around and not get hit.

[Sokka hops over the counter and heads towards a corner, pressed up against it like in the story.]

So, there we were, trapped behind a wall with nowhere to go. No one was going to save us. No one but me, anyway. The thing about Combustion Man was that unlike most benders, his attacks meant you could trace every blast from an origins. You didn't even need to know where he was, as long as you understood the concept of angles and had a basic understanding of Trigonometry. [Which, granted, Sokka didn't know the math of. But his spatial awareness was good enough to suffice.]

Of course, boomerang here is not like an arrow or a gun. I don't have to be aiming directly at the target to hit something. I just have to know the vector of its return arc. So with only seconds to work it out and using Boomerang her as a straight edge to figure out the angles, I made a throw that would include Combustion Man's head in the return flight. Like this.

[Sokka demonstrates! Without actually throwing boomerang. Then he stands up, looking satisfied.]

And without even seeing him, I hit him smack on the forehead. The big guy had one of those chi spots there or something. What I hit managed to clog up the whole firebending laser thing, so when he tried to attack again? He just blew himself up. Sokka: 1, Combustion Man: 0.

[Okay he missed some of that. For one, he doesn't know what's up with bending or who the other people are (though he does know Katara, interestingly) but... the principle of it hits him and he looks both impressed and surprised]

You beat him using math? Man, so you're strong and smart, just like my classmates!

[... ah, praise. Just what he likes to hear!]

Yeah, it was pretty great. Me and Boomerang have had a lot of adventures together.

Man, I don't have anything quite as cool with that with Kurikara. Best I've got is beating the Impure King, and it's not like I really had a strategy with that and Ucchusma helped.