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Naomi Aoshima - Saito's Pachinko Parlor She kept her fingers clasped to keep them from dancing for a cigarette. She'd had to stub out a fine one only half-smoked when her phone had jangled with the tone she reserved for Mr. Minobe alone, but to smoke in the presence of the organization's superiors without leave to do so seemed the proper, respectable thing to do. The Japanese thing to do, maybe. If she was back in Aoteara, she'd have lit up without a care--yet Aoteara was far away, and her cares were close enough to touch. Whether or not her cares were the same as the others at the meeting--not likely, she thought with a wry, inward smile. No doubt they spoke the same mushy standard as everyone else, no doubt they had no trouble blending into a crowd of their countrymen. Except for the European, at least. Naomi had given her a careful look when she'd come in. What the hell could a European bring into consideration that the Japanese couldn't do equally well themselves? It could be that there was more than she was seeing. She tapped her cheek with her right index and middle fingers, anything to make them forget they weren't holding a cigarette for a while longer, while she buried her fear. Four months--it wasn't enough time to get used to this. Hardly enough time to forget that her life was a chopstick balanced on a rice grain.
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Apr 1, 2014 04:30
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Naomi Aoshima - Saito's Pachinko Parlor Naomi looked the man up and down. Squarish head with the hard-packed look of the sort of enforcer she'd had to dodge time and again on the streets of Tamakikyo--she didn't expect to find hidden depths under an exterior like that. He spoke in the overly formal, standoffish tone that was so common in this Japan and which she was still having to get used to. There were just as many people in Aoteara, but at least people there were direct. Conversation here seemed more like dancing with words. "Naomi Aoshima," she said with a nod of the head. She would speak as properly as she could manage, but drat if she would put her family name before her own. Not even the Home Islanders did that, not the ones she'd known. "I'm something of a specialist as well."
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Apr 1, 2014 05:14
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Naomi Aoshima - Saito's Pachinko Parlor "I'm sure we would not have been assembled if the need was not pressing," Naomi said with quiet calm. It drat well better be pressing, she could have been finishing a new cityscape sketch otherwise. "Nevertheless, speaking as a... foreigner, of sorts, there is a certain advantage in bringing unanticipated elements to the field. Surprise can be worth an army, if used properly." GTD Aquitaine fucked around with this message at 04:53 on Apr 3, 2014 |
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Apr 3, 2014 04:25
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Naomi Aoshima - Saito's Pachinko Parlor "Intimidation absolutely has its place in any proper arsenal," Naomi said. She was still unsure regarding the precise politics that circumstances had thrust her into, but some things were universal--people would be themselves, no less and no more, regardless of which Japan she was in. "The best way to win a battle is to convince the enemy to concede the field to you. I would imagine my own particular talents lie in that direction."
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Apr 6, 2014 05:29
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Naomi Aoshima - Saito's Pachinko Parlor Naomi regarded the man Saito with a look that was half pitiful and half predatory. There was no way he could know if he hadn't been told--no way he could even guess, unless he was mad. Naomi herself would have thought the same way only months before. The world was a certain way, after all, and some things just couldn't happen in it. Until, of course, the day that they could. "Some things are more than can just be seen," Naomi said, standing up from her seat. "I've seen things, Mr. Saito. Things that made me learn. Things that made me... well, I suppose I can show you. If we're to be working together, we should all know what we're capable of... what each of us brings to the fore." She walked to as open a spot she could find in the cramped room, knelt--the roof was low enough that she couldn't quite judge it, and a concussion would be an unpleasant end to her usefulness--and took a long, calming breath. Then she grew, reveling in the sensation of warmth and power that shot through her, until she reached her full scale. Her proper scale, it felt like, in which she could be the person she'd always been meant to be. "As you can see," she said with a smile, "I do indeed have something up my sleeve."
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Apr 6, 2014 21:07
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Naomi Aoshima - Saito's Pachinko Parlor "This person does, in fact, just turn into a giant," Naomi said with a cat's grin, as she moved to sit cross-legged on the floor. If some of them were having such trouble with her being nine and a half feet tall, better that they accustom themselves to it now--in the heat of battle, there were enough distractions that no one could control. "The world is not as limited as what you can see. Believe what you want, or the evidence before you."
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Apr 7, 2014 15:03
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Naomi Aoshima - Saito's Pachinko Parlor "You may, Taka-san," Naomi said. The honorific still tasted odd in her mouth, as if she was speaking a language hundreds of years dead. The executives and courtiers in Chukyo loaded their mouths until they overflowed with grandiloquence, but it only hid souls tarnished and dim. Here--she still hadn't made a decision about here, yet. "I apologize for demonstrating my talent in such a crass manner, but I trust its helpful nature is clear."
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Apr 8, 2014 05:19
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Naomi Aoshima - Saito's Pachinko Parlor "I just do," Naomi said. "But it was not my intention to distract us. We did not assemble so that I could be the center of attention. I'm sure there are far more vital things that need to be discussed."
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Apr 8, 2014 17:16
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Naomi Aoshima - Saito's Pachinko Parlor "I recognize that it's important." Naomi suppressed a bolt of anger. Still, she wasn't going to return to her small size yet--not with that Kenichi bastard talking like he did. She doubted he could carry the whole pachinko parlor on his back, so what the hell did he bring to the party? "I have experience in the field of document alteration, for one, and games of chance to separate fools from their money. What's more, I have the astonishing ability to show respect for the people I work with by not calling them things like 'monster.'"
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Apr 9, 2014 16:36
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Naomi Aoshima - Saito's Pachinko Parlor "That's a fair question... honestly, I wasn't sure," Naomi said. "People here can be so difficult to read sometimes."
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Apr 9, 2014 23:41
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Naomi Aoshima - Saito's Pachinko Parlor "The wrong letter in the right spot can make an eternity of difference," Naomi said with a smile. Forgery wasn't anything new to her--back in Tamakikyo she'd done it now and then even once she'd been settled, on those occasions when some lowlife needed a proper adjustment. "An artist like me carries many different brushes, and in my experience... I can fall quite beneath attention when I must. I've found people tend not to look for people like me."
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Apr 13, 2014 06:24
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Naomi Aoshima - Saito's Pachinko Parlor With the fact of her talent settled for now, Naomi took a breath and let the meeting wash over her. She'd never been one for this sort of deep planning or talking through this and that around expensive tables--that was for the executives, the corporate heads, the men in the great towers that pushed and pulled the Empire in a dozen directions at once, to every point of the compass and some new ones they invented on the spur. With enough time and cigarettes to steady her hand, she was confident she could forge whatever documents the Inagawa needed to be fooled by. For now, she had nothing to add to the plans, and was content to watch them be spun until she could add her voice, her hands.
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Apr 21, 2014 15:36
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Naomi Aoshima - Saito's Pachinko Parlor "I will have a--" Naomi paused for a moment. Four months had been enough to smooth the differences between her Japanese and the locals' tilted version into a mere accent, but there was still so much that eluded her. What the hell was it called, that stuff made from earthapples? "--vodka, if you have any." It was sharp, at least. It would do.
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Apr 25, 2014 05:30
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Naomi Aoshima - Outside Saito's Pachinko Parlor Naomi filled her lungs as she steps outside. The air tasted clearer out here--hardly an exaggeration, it was cleaner than any city she'd ever visited in Japan or Aoteara. Too, it calmed her heart. Such meetings only reminded her of how delicate a balance her life here was. There were too many things she didn't know, too many things that could trip her up. She would have to see about addressing that. "Taka, let's talk," she said. "My talents only go as far as whatever tools are at hand. I'd like to establish just what's within reach, if you wouldn't mind."
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May 20, 2014 02:03
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Naomi Aoshima - Taka's Pad The city was full to bursting with the alien. Everything here was strange, unusual, foreign--the sort of foreignness that was just similar enough to be familiar, and just familiar enough for the foreign floruishes to stand out like sharp knives. At least when she could throw herself into art, into creating, Naomi could put that all aside. Without a place to escape to, she'd have been lost. "Certainly a lived-in spot," Naomi said. It was clear Taka didn't give much thought to putting up false facades, to impressing people by his surroundings. That was a viewpoint she could agree with; a man who carefully assembled a fiction of a life often had little of value hiding beneath it. "Let me see..." She walked to the desk that Taka had indicated, piled high with tools. At least she could work with these; no matter where she might go, a ruler would still be a ruler. Forgery/TL8-11 to judge the utility of Taka's tools with her skills.
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May 27, 2014 17:44
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Naomi Aoshima - Taka's Pad "Fine quality, assuming you have steady enough hands and a keen eye," Naomi said as she turned away from the equipment. Not basic, not really, just outmoded--the sort of things a beginner might use because she couldn't get anything better, and sweat and pray that her skills would paper over any deficiencies in her tools. "Letters, certainly--don't ask me to reproduce anything a government makes with equipment like this, though. Better for us to come in from a direction they won't expect... and I will take some tea, thank you."
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May 30, 2014 15:11
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Naomi Aoshima - Taka's Pad "The finest tools are the ones that ask the most of the user's skill," Naomi said. "You must know more about the specifics than I do. I'll just do all that I can." Forgery/TL8-11 - strictly practice, of course.
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Jun 7, 2014 22:51
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Naomi Aoshima - Taka's Pad She was no stranger to long nights, hunched over the table with imperfect tools in her imperfect hands, making just the right stroke here and the proper flourish there to elevate a work from mediocrity to mere passability. By the time the sun came up again, throwing harsh light across what she'd pulled from the darkness, her body ached but her mind was fired with accomplishment. "Worth the exertion, I think," Naomi said to Taka as she went over the documents with as sharp and critical an eye as she could manage. "Presentable, perhaps--but it's not for us to decide if they're good enough to be used. We're too close. We should show the others. What do you think?"
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Jun 19, 2014 17:50
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Naomi Aoshima - Taka's Pad zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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Jul 9, 2014 15:11
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Naomi Aoshima - Taka's Pad Naomi couldn't remember going to sleep. Once the letters had been finished--hard work, but hardly the first time she'd watched the first fingers of sun creep through the window--she'd meant to sit down, rest her eyes for just a moment... it was like she'd become disconnected from the world for a second time, about to be cast into another one. She stirred at the noise of sharp movement and the click of a door. Taka was gone, but at least the European was still around. "I... apologize," she said. "My skills are not always welcome to practice. What did I miss?"
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Jul 11, 2014 17:17
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Naomi Aoshima - Tokyo Fish Market Offices ----discontinuity--- What the hell was that? For a long moment Naomi felt as if she was--trapped inbetween, somewhere, somehow. She'd been in Taka's apartment, and she thought she'd been staying there when Taka left, then the fish market had risen around her and Katashi collapsed, dead in front of her, holy crap he's really dead, she's never seen anyone DIE like that before-- She blinked and tried to focus herself. The things that lack of sleep could do to a person. All she could do was try to take what had happened and move beyond. "We've made progress on the letter project," she said. "I think we're ready to go."
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Aug 23, 2014 21:36
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Naomi Aoshima - Tokyo Fish Market Offices Naomi nods to Taka. After how confused everything had seemed--even more so with Katashi's death--it was welcome to find things settling back into familiar patterns. "Certainly, I can come with you."
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Aug 30, 2014 15:39
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Naomi Aoshima - Tokyo No weapons. Every now and again, she still wondered just who she'd fallen in with in this strange world, and how much of them was hidden like a handgun beneath baggy clothes--in the back alleys of Tamakikyo a simple knife had always been enough, and the report of a gunshot would have brought police and whirring drones from every quadrant of the city to fall upon anyone unlucky enough to be in the area like a storm of fists. She went along with Taka until they found the mail carrier, her heart pounding like a giant's footfalls. Would it be enough? Would it even be convincing? She'd forged before, of course, but the consequences here seemed rather... more final if she was to trip up on something seemingly unimportant. She stood and watched, silently.
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Sep 11, 2014 15:21
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Naomi Aoshima - Tokyo Just like that, it was over. It would've happened the same whether she'd been there or not--when her talents weren't in play, Naomi didn't cast a particularly intimidating presence. Nevertheless, she felt a certain surge of professional pride as the mailman took the letters she'd prepared, though it was leavened with a churning dread of what might happen if they didn't pass muster. A long night's work... A night that was catching up to her still. "I will see you at the temple," Naomi said. "If I don't sleep soon, I might come apart." Naomi is heading back to her apartment to get whatever rest she can before the meeting.
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Sep 15, 2014 03:59
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Naomi Aoshima - Shinto Shrine to the Raihōshin Miss Mimasuya's fish sandwich--not like the ones she'd have found back home, heavy and full of presence, like anything she'd have found in a Tamakikyo market was a dream that hadn't boiled away with the dawn--felt like a brick of lead in the pit of her stomach as she entered the shrine. It was like stepping into history, this strange tangent history that combined cousins of modernity with unspeakable antiquity. Japan, her Japan, had been Christian for centuries, and the shrine's rituals seemed like nothing more than ancient superstition that someone had nailed to the wall. Still, propriety was propriety. She removed her shoes and tried not to goggle at the rituals. When Taka motioned toward her, she couldn't help but feel like she'd stood next to an open furnace. The big man, though, calling her "contraband..." as if she couldn't have reduced him to a paste, given the opportunity. "I am aware," she said, "that my existence is uncomfortable."
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Oct 11, 2014 05:10
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Naomi Aoshima - Shinto Shrine to the Raihōshin "I do," Naomi said to the man in the suit. "I--I'm a long way from home."
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Oct 12, 2014 06:09
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Naomi Aoshima - Shinto Shrine to the Raihōshin "I--" Naomi started, but caught herself while trying not to let too much of her bewilderment show. Mortal realm? Giant slayers? If anything, home was the realm of death, with pollution choking the cities--the air in Chukyo wasn't breathed so much as it was chewed--and great dead zones appearing in the waters, empty of life. Was this related to the survival of ancient religion in this Japan? She leaned toward the suited man and whispered. "Where, exactly, do you think I'm from?"
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Oct 12, 2014 06:31
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Naomi Aoshima - Shinto Shrine to the Raihōshin Naomi pursed her lips for a moment. Giant clans... Lord God, what kind of world is this? "Yes," she said with a sigh. "I was normal once." It was the truth, after all.
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Oct 12, 2014 18:28
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Naomi Aoshima - Shinto Shrine to the Raihōshin "I was living the life of an ordinary person," Naomi said. "I'd rather not talk about it."
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Oct 16, 2014 04:28
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Naomi Aoshima - Shinto Shrine to the Raihōshin It never changed--this Japan was so different, but people were always the same. For a moment, Naomi entertained the notion of showing the man why it might not be wise to piss her off, but it was an entertainment that would end only badly. As long as she was stuck here, as long as these yakuza decided whether her life was pleasant or brutal, it was best to give them what she could. As much as she could that they would believe, at least. "It was a sculpture at an exhibition," she said. "At least they told me it was an exhibition. A few months ago, here in Japan. Maybe it was made by one of those 'established giant clans' of yours. I'd recognize it if I saw it but I've never seen anything like it before and I don't imagine I'm likely to again."
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Oct 20, 2014 04:38
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Naomi Aoshima - Shinto Shrine to the Raihōshin "Of course," Naomi said. She bowed once she made her way to the priest, and followed the way the others had conducted themselves as best as she could--with this ancient religion, how many traps were there for her to fall into? Best to just stay quiet and try to muddle through. At least she wouldn't be interrogated about what "giant clan" she came from--hopefully.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:35
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Naomi Aoshima - Shinto Shrine to the Raihōshin Naomi had thought falling out of one Earth and into another and becoming an impossible giantess had hardened her heart against the strange--then the man unfolded, twisted into something definitively inhuman. She felt a swelling urge to turn, to flee, or to make herself bigger the way some animals did in an instant before it passed, before she was locked in barely comprehending what she was seeing. Am I really seeing this? Or am I insane? Were there... beings like this in the Japan she'd left behind, skulking in Chukyo's dim alleys... or ensconced in its shining towers? Some kind of alien from another star, as in the strange v-programs the Brazilians loved so dearly? "What..." she says. "What is this?"
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Nov 27, 2014 06:16
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Naomi Aoshima - Shinto Shrine to the Raihōshin "I'm sorry, but the reality I lived in... I suppose the one I used to live in--didn't have people like you," Naomi said, exceedingly carefully. The man--man would still do, even when a crab crawled out of his throat--was unreadable, but at least for a moment she was a resident of a world where her own unique skill was not so unique, after all. She let his question rush over her, and felt her fear wash away. She was standing in a room with an alien, or a being from mythology, or whatever he was. Her own secret seemed far less relevant in that context. "The exhibition," she said as she moved closer to Gekido, keeping her voice low. "You may not be able to find it. It was nowhere in this Japan we stand in. It was... another."
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Nov 28, 2014 16:19
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Naomi Aoshima - Shinto Shrine to the Raihōshin "I've told you everything I know," Naomi said. "All that I've learned is the extent that I don't know anything."
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Dec 8, 2014 02:26
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Naomi Aoshima - Shinto Shrine to the Raihōshin For Naomi, it felt like the world had frozen--as if time was passing but not really, that she was rooted to where she stood for an eternity while madness washed over her. It could all be a dream, could it? No--she wasn't this creative. There was a cold chill of reality to it all, perhaps the wind left behind by the reality she knew running into the distance, abandoning her among strange people and brand-new rules. It was a while before she found the courage to speak. "Pardon me," she said, "but may I ask a question as well?" GTD Aquitaine fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Jan 21, 2015 |
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Jan 19, 2015 19:53
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Naomi Aoshima - Shinto Shrine to the Raihōshin "It's about my... I don't know if you would call it a 'talent,' it's not really something I had to practice," Naomi said with a weak smile. "Have you ever heard of anyone else being able to do this sort of thing? Being able to control it or refine it?"
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Jan 21, 2015 05:20
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Naomi Aoshima - Shinto Shrine to the Raihōshin At least, in the end, Naomi could take comfort in that it was another world. There was no reason it had to play by the same rules as the one she'd left behind. She was confident that magical curses, mystic diseases, priestly interventions, none of them would have meant anything back home. Ichiro's suggestion was the most sensible thing she'd heard all day. "After what I've learned," Naomi said, "a drink would be a good start."
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Jan 23, 2015 21:35
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Naomi Aoshima - Outside the Shinto Shrine to the Raihōshin "Missing?" Naomi bit her lip. It had been months since she'd been torn away from home--had anyone back in Tamakikyo searched, even asked questions, when she'd never come back? Was there anyone who would've even cared? "That's unfortunate. I hope it's nothing serious."
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Jan 24, 2015 04:35
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