Hide and Seek. The professional way. (Yume & Ace pm for permission)

1-7-2015

Yui had managed to sneak out of the infirmary when nobody was looking... Well... They kept guard by the door to make sure she wouldn't leave. But nobody would've expected her to jump out of a window. It was pretty high up but in her mind she already had a path laid out to carefully descend. And so she had slid down without anyone noticing... At least, she hoped nobody saw her do that. She was tired of all the questions being asked. Yes, that was hypocritic since she herself would want to know alot about everything and then constantly keep generating questions until she understood the concept. Anyways, she had ran into a little forest area she saw from the window when she was looking outside. The cover of trees made her feel more safe. She climbed a tree and sat in it take cover until chaos would die down for when they found out she was no longer on that stupid bed.

The sound of wood cracking would soon shake Yui out of her calm state. A silver haired boy was below her, rapidly beating his fists into a tree that was next to the one that she was on. After what was likely a predetermined number of strikes, he pulled a star from the pouch on his waist and quickly shot it into a skull-shaped piece of wood that was hanging from another tree. This action was followed by various other trivial ones. Eventually, rather than merely pushing through boring, systematic tasks, he longed for a bit of self-amusement and produced several more stars before slinging them forward, wildly but seemingly with keen precision. Once he'd finished, every single tree in front of him had a star stuck in it, save for one. This lone tree that the boy had choosedly refrained from hitting with a star was the exact same one that Yui was resting on.

A motion of his hand revealed that from each star a metal wire was drawn to a small wooden handle held in either of his hands. These silver strands, the tens that there were, glistened in the slits of sunlight that peeked through the canopy above one second, then vanished the next. Their puppet master was now whipping them through the air, ripping the stars out of the trees and wrapping the wires about the lone tree before him, filling the air with the smell of cooking wood as the intense friction singed the bark. The boy shifted his position, giving him better leverage from which to pull, and gripped the handles tightly. At first, save from the odd scent, it appeared as though nothing was happening, but surely enough, after a few seconds, the trunk of the tree began to split loudly and swayed with its weight. With a grunt of effort from the boy, the entire thing came down, along with anything still inside of it.

Yui suddenly heard the snapping sound of wood below alerting her. She tried to look through the branches to see what was going on. The smell of burning wood filled her nostrils. She looked at the base of the tree she sat in, noticing wires strangling the tree. She felt the tree swaying. With a loud crack she realized it was too late to quickly jump to another tree, so she quickly scampered over the branches until she was sure she wouldn't be crushed by the tree. She held on tightly as the whole thing tumbled over and landed with a loud bang on the ground. When it seemed safe to stand up Yui's head popped out between the leaves and branches.
"What you you think you're doing!? I was sitting there!"
She yelled angrily.
"Wait.. Nobody sent you here to drag me back... right?"
She toned down realizing she shouldn't raise her voice right now as to not draw too much attention.

At first, the boy seemed relatively uncaring for the girl that had apparently been in the tree that he'd just fell. In fact, he'd all but turned around to walk away when she started shouting at him. He figured he'd warrant her anger with his attention for the time being. A scoff escaped him in response to her angry rant; her yelling at him as though he was supposed to know she was in that tree. He figured he should voice his opinion on this, but the girl's tone changed before he could.

"Sorry to rain on your parade, princess, but no, the King and Queen have not sent me to whisk you back to your castle. Anyways, since you're here, that means you're either an incredible idiot and somehow managed to get this lost, or you're a student at the academy. If it's the latter, I'm in the mood for a good fight. As you can tell the trees don't exactly hold up much opposition. I, Ace Toromaki challenge you." During this time, Ace had gone through the effort of reeling in his wires and stars, and stuffing them back into his pouch. He was now objectively pointing his finger at Yui, expecting her to step up to his confrontation. He had begun to analyze her in every way, possibly to the point of making her uncomfortable. It was fairly obvious, after all; his eyes seeking her entire body for any sort of tells that could tell him more about her as a person, or give him the upper hand in combat.

There was a long silence. Yui was clearly in one of those ridiculous thought trains again. She had no idea what the guy just called her and if she should feel insulted or something.
"What's a princess?"
Her question had some kind of honest tone in it that she really didn't know.
"You know what, scratch that question. Forget it."
She assumed everyone knew what a princess was and she didn't want her cover blown or anything by some random human, getting into a fight to the death was she least she needed right now. And there she had it. The guy challenged her to a fight. The moment she climbed over the branches of the fallen tree didn't go that charming and her limbs were protesting every movement she made. When she finally got out of that mess of sticks and leaves she spoke.
"My apologies, but I probably can't give you the fight you want right now. Give me a week or so and I happily try to punch you in the face or something."

"Can't give me the fight I want right now..." Ace pondered this and looked at the girl differently now. His face holding an ounce of concern. Is she injured? He hadn't intended to announce that thought at first, but later decided he wanted an answer. "Are you implying that you're not physically well? If you're injured, then I can assume you've sneaked off from the infirmary. I can't blame you. I hate being pent up like a sick dog too." It was hard to tell whether Ace was more so asking a question than he was sympathizing with Yui or accusing her. Of course no matter which way his intentions leaned, he seemed to be lacking in manners or any other social skills.

"Close to recovery, just my limbs ache like hell if I strain them too much right now. Those guys at the infirmary wouldn't let me go yet because they assume I might have some kind of internal injury somewhere. But they couldn't find anything when they searched for it. Yet they believe I should have something. I see no reason to be confined to that stupid bed any longer."
Yui had her arms crossed. She didn't mind the way he talked, she a;ways remained neutral with it. She only used formalities if someone did it themselves.