[bgcolor=0F4D92]Warm air filled the forests of the Second District of Rukongai. Animals frolicked and played, birds sang loudly, and the sun shone down on everyone, basking people in the bright light, as it watched over the people of this world. Days like these were the days that memories were made of. Few sounds were made, but one distinct sound was made. Footsteps. The slight crushing noise of tiny feet were made, as a short girl made her way around. "No good.. not good at all..", she thought, observing the trees and plant life as she walked along the bushes.

Tenba Gensou, the Third Seat of the Third Division had gone outside for once. She recently acquired a certain object, a kaginawa, made for climbing, after reading about it in informative books. But books won't get you very far alone, she knew this. So she broke traditions and went outside of her safe-zones, aiming for practice.

Treading carefully, she saw something that peeked her interest. A tree that stood out among the others. Walking up to it, Gen put her hand over it and looked up. The tree was smooth, with only a few bark marks here and there, but it reached up high and wide, with branches that reach out among the other trees. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. Hanging from her ribbon-obi was the object in mention, the kaginawa. A long rope with a hook attached.

The girl let down the right side of her torso, the arm waving as if it was freed. She grabbed the kaginawa and held one part with the right hand and with the left, she held it at a lower position. She took aim, a thick branch not high from her... and TOSS! It was now in the hands of fate. Higher and higher it went, Gen looking at it with a sharp stare.. as it fell back down, hitting her on the head.

BONK!

The first attempt backfired, the girl falling from the hit as she let out a quick yelp from the pain.

"Stupid book!"

All night and a good portion of the day, and not a single bite. These were the words that ran through Mihamaru's head as he wandered through the 2nd district back to the tavern. The basket he expected to be full of fish is as empty as the stomachs of those who will be going to the bar expecting delicious fish...

Then again, Boss-man wouldn't let him cook anything anyway. The recipes he picked up while he was gone will all go to waste eventually. Although if he goes on one of his week long hunting trips, that will mean Mihamaru will have to cook everything. And if no one gets sick from his cooking, then he'll be able to keep his skills up!

While thinking all this through, a sharp yelp and a shout about a book runs through his ears, and he looks about, noticing a kid playing near a tree. Thinking that she'd make for a decent time waster, Mihamaru walks closer to her, before noticing she seems to be wearing a uniform similar to what the Swords wear, although it is hardly worn in the same way. Maybe she stole a uniform like he did once? Granted, an entire uniform is probably harder to steal than one of those white coats, but whatever, maybe she's sneakier than him.

Walking over to the girl, he places his basket on the ground, and waves from behind the tree with a smile. "Hello little girl."

[bgcolor=0F4D92]PANIC!

Her eyes shot up like a cannon, as she slowly turned her head to the origin of the voice. An average person, wearing plain clothing with a cloak seemed to have seen her fail. This was bad. However, time to remain cool. Calm down. Gensou took a deep breathe before exhaling, as she observed the person under her speech. "Hello... er.. ", her eyes focused up on his messy hair as the God of Terrible Jokes blessed her with a nickname from above, ".. Karasu-ke." Even if the greeting was a horrible joke, her voice seemed to convey a cold and serious tone, something most people within the Third Division knew about.

She looks at him, as she gets up, waiting for a response, a reaction of sorts. What kind of man was he? Good or bad? Let's find out. As her yellow-dark eyes kept a cold stare at him, her hand moved to her side, grasping for her Zanpakuto, but with a light grip.

SPOILER: Click to show

Karasu = Crow
Ke = Hair.
I called you Crowhair.

Renkai had been roughly in the area, able to overhear the sound of a feminine voice shouting. Normally he wouldn't worry about this sort of thing while off-duty, however this piqued his interest. He made his way to the sound, going at a slightly quickened pace. For all he knew, someone could be in trouble, though it was not his job to protect anyone outside the walls of Seireitei. His sense of duty kicked in without his consent.

As he closed in on the origin of the sound, he noticed two people, one small feminine figure and a man who seemed to be approaching her. Clearly he didn't know the context of the situation, however, his mind pieced together that the girl was in some sort of trouble. Renkai was a very chivalrous man, and immediately decided he needed to take action. By now, his pace had quickened to a full-on sprint, quickly closing the gap between himself and the two others. With his right hand firmly gripping the handle of his Zanpakutō, he called out, "Halt!"

He had reached the two, coming to a stop and turning his attention to the male, "Explain yourself. What was the shouting I just heard?" His eyes were fixed on the male for a moment before he turned his attention to the girl.

After hearing the small girl's mild insult towards his hair, he pulls a bit from the front down so he can look at it, before voicing what is either sarcasm or mild sadness at her remark. "But I like my hair..." Before commenting directly to the girl, he turns around and looks to see a Sword, apparently ready, or at least itching, for a fight. While normally he'd be happy to oblige, his mood has been soured by his lack of success at fishing, and his look being insulted by a small child. "Oi Beardo, calm down, or I'll even out your other sleeve."

Seconds after his threat, he realizes that it sounded less like a threat, and more like he was an unusually enthusiastic tailor. "Er, anyway, I was just saying hi to the kid. Shouldn't you Swords be out in the craplands keeping us safe from Masks?"

Cart held high over his head, Kiba would have been quite the sight to see if anybody were actually out there to see him. His workshop was out here somewhere in these trees - he always used a different path to find the place - and it wouldn't do to just leave his cart back in the First Division, so he was bringin' it back. But what was this - noises! In the woods! Not altogether too strange, until he came to the realization that they were people voices. People voices in the woods - and one of them in a threatening manner - followed by a threat of tailoring? By God, what a strange troupe. Probably performers. Pushing through the brush and around a tree, Kiba stared at the sight of his brand new Fukutaicho, holding his Zanpakuto and staring down some fellow standing somewhat near a small girl with blue hair - kinda familiar, her.

"Motoyoshi-kun, what're you doing out here? What kinda play is this?" Kiba was shocked to see the Fukutaicho - though perhaps not as much as the fukutaicho might be to see his Taicho with neither his haori nor zanpakuto - staring down a tailor in the woods. It just wasn't a very normal sight. Like his holding a perfectly serviceable cart above his head. Totally normal.

[bgcolor=0F4D92]Suddenly, another person appeared, Gensou's glance moving to the newcomers chest, the small yellow 4 catching her look. He appeared to be of the Fourth Division, his most prominent feature to her being his bearded face with glasses. Since she didn't know his name, a nickname was made from impressions, much like Karasu-Ke got his. Glasses are associated with owls, so the only natural thing was to call him.. "Nothing is going on here, Fukurou-men."

Her voice, as sharp and serious as it always was, would always creep most people out, with the nature of her speech being silly and light-hearted. However, before she could say another thing, a third person appeared. However, Gen recognized him from before, when they were "remodeling" the Third Division garden. She turned her face to him, and greeted him from the distance. "Konnichiwa, Daiku-san. We meet again.", and for once, Gen was not making a joke. She was under the firm belief that he was a carpenter-shinigami. And this adventure in the forest would only strengthen it, until, of course, he would prove otherwise.

SPOILER: Click to show

Fukurou = Owl
Men = Face
Daiku-san = Mr. Carpenter

THE MOAR U KNOW.

Renkai was at a loss for words. First the odd nickname from the male whom he did not recognize, then from the young-looking female. Of course, she couldn't be that young; she was dressed as a shinigami. Of course, the oddest thing in his opinion was his Taichou carrying his workbench overhead. His senses were almost on overload.

First things first.

He sheathed his sword, as it clearly was not needed for this situation.
His attention was then immediately directed to his Taichou, saluting him and responding first to him, "Shuchiku-sama! I heard this girl shouting, so I rushed to see what the problem was. After all, it is my duty to serve and protect.

He then stepped to the side, feeling that it would be more appropriate for his superior to handle the situation now that he had, for whatever reason, arrived at the scene.

Despite the Sword Captain seemingly coming from nowhere, there is obviously something far more important at hand. Something that needs to be dealt with before all else. "Owl? Really? He looks nothing like an owl. And really, that's the best you can come up with? Come on, give it a few seconds of thought, and you can think of something more fun to call Sleeves over there." After a few seconds of thought, he realized that he used a different name then last time. Sleeves, or Beardo? Eh, it doesn't matter either way. One will find a way to stick with it.

"Anyway Sleeves, are we done here, or are you going to force us to watch as you kiss... Daiku's ass?" True, it's a little lazy to steal the girl's nickname for him, but at this point, he's still struggling to nail down a nickname for Owl-boy over there.

Damn it, now she's got him doing it too!

"Eeeh... Improv?" Kiba murmured after first being referred to as a carpenter, then being spoken to about defending laws. This wasn't Seireitei, out of their jurisdiction, and surely Motoyoshi knew that - nono, now he was thinking about real life, not the game they were playing. The game, the game... that meant that Motoyoshi was playing the good cop, who was accosting the other male, who had accosted the blue-haired girl, which meant she was probably a cop too.

Ah! So then he should be a villain like the other male to counter the numbers!

Grinning as he began to understand the game, Kiba lifted the cart in his hands even higher, all the while laughing a loud, overly obvious laugh. "We have the numbers equal now, law-man!" Kiba exclaimed in a horribly fake, deep voice, winking at Motoyoshi, then the one complaining about Motoyoshi's nickname, then the odd little blue-haired girl. Yes, he could play the improv game too! Though, clearly, Kiba had never been very good at theater.

"Other villain, come! We abscond!" Kiba proclaimed, looking again to the man asking about nicknames, jerking his head to the side as he began to sidestep, still hefting his cart about in a half-menacing manner. Was he threatening to throw it at people? Was he just losing his grip? It was getting really hard to tell!

[bgcolor=0F4D92] He was right. The nickname just did not cut it. She looked again, the intense stare trying to piece together information in her head to.. create another nickname.. and wouldn't you know, she found it! She slammed down her clenched fist into her free hand's open palm, and proclaimed that.. from now, "sleeves" would be called.. "Hako-ke!". Besides, wearing those glasses just calls for bad nicknaming.

Daiku-san, on the other hand, kept his name, as.. well, he was a carpenter, right? But the talk of 'the other villain' and 'law-man' led her to believe he was an actor was well. A bad one, but still an actor. With her cold voice, she tilted her head with a gaze towards Daiku-san, and told him.. "You should work on your act.. I can recommend you a book at our division, if you'd like, Daiku-san."

SPOILER: Click to show

Hako = Box
Ke = Hair.

Has a nice sound to it. HA-KO-KE!

Swoosh!

Was the sound John Poppop made when he set off in the direction that he heard a girl scream from. Almost as if it were instinct, his sense of justice and do-goodyness had set in, and he was off at full speed. At this blistery speed he closed the distance between himself and the girl, which wasn't very much in the beginning, in an extremely short time. However, John still hadn't mastered the ancient of...STOPPING. What kind of superhero didn't know how to stop running without crashing!? A bad one... A really, really bad one.

So what did he do? Slap a "To be Continued" at the end to create suspense for his viewers? No. That would be too meta. He didn't have time to be meta..

HE HAD TO SAVE THE GIRL. :O

The minute the clearing had come into his view, John began to decelerate as quickly as he could. In his next motion, he took off with a jump, his entire body flying forward with a little too much momentum. Nothing about this scenario screamed a good ending. Anyone could see how this would end, well, except for John. BUT HE WAS A SUPERHERO, AND SUPERHERO'S DIDN'T LISTEN TO LOGIC.

And, with a heroic yell, John announced himself.

"Never fear! John Po-"

And then he crashed into the floor, face first. No bones broken, but in the pain.. Quite a lot of pain.

Best. Heroic. Introduction. Ever.

The entrance of this fifth party member certainly served as a good distraction, for anything Renkai had planned on saying had now gone out the window. Clearly, this was a Rukongai citizen, and quite the strange one at that. He felt as though he were surrounded by a troupe of comedians, and he was the subject of their jokes.

What was even more shocking to him, given the situation, was that his own Taichou was in on it.
However, he did suppose that he had only been 2nd seat for a matter of a few weeks so far, and had not had much time to get to know his Taichou properly.

It was no matter, though. As of right now, he just wanted to know what was going on. It just seemed as though perhaps there was too much confusion to really determine anything. He continued to keep his mouth shut and see where things went, silently observing from the side.

...

... ...

... ... ...

"So, no one is going to question this, then? 'Serve and protect' here isn't going to so much as check if he's okay?" No wonder the boss-man hates Swords so much. Maybe that Sword Tax may not be all that crazy to suggest. While mulling it over, he walks to the child, and offers a hand to help him up. "You okay there, John?"

Snark is snark, but it can wait until after safety is confirmed, after all. It's the right thing to do, after all.

Kiba blinked in utter confusion as one 'Johnpo' flew onto the scene, colliding into the ground in a truly fantastic display. It was really almost too much for the Taicho to take - he had after all just dropped off the most exquisite cup Seireitei had ever seen, despite the weight - and really, these people weren't even trying to play the game they themselves started. For a moment, Kiba contemplated setting the cart upside down over the Johnpo, but really, that would have done nothing but upset people, so with a sigh, he simply half-turned away.

"Motoyoshi-kun, please see to it Johnpo-kun isn't harmed; I really need to get this cart back to my workshop. Blue-hair-chan, if you get back home before I do, tell Sumie I'll find her for dinner at the usual place - she'll get it." And with that, the Taicho, cart still held high over his head, trundled off through the brush, to be seen later, under other circumstances, by other people.

[Exit to save you lot my more or less absence]

[bgcolor=0F4D92] "To be fair now, Karasu, I am not on duty. And to you..", her eyes moved over to the direction of Owlbox, ".. I am in no need of a hero, as I am very capable of defending myself.", as the sentence was finished, a crash went down at the site of their gathering, causing Gen to dive away from the hit... as it went down 15 feet away from her. Without intention, she had mimicked the crashing boy, John-Poo, perfectly, with her face planted firmly into the ground.

'I couldn't be having any worse luck today.. urgh..', she thought, the words of the carpenter flying over her head as she tried to get up. As she raised herself from the ground, she shook the dirt out of her long hair, trying to collect herself from the things that went down. It was almost as if the force of nature was messing with her, as only the appearance of the devil could make things worse.

She stood, and thought to herself that the people that had gathered here were too many, and thus, she took her leave, waving her hand back as she walked in a slow gesture..

"I.. I have to go! Bye!" [EXIT]

It would seem the hit to the face had done more damage than anticipated - John Poppop was out stone-cold, eyes unfocused and mouth hanging, drool escaping the side of his mouth. There was a hustle and bustle of commotion as all too suddenly a matronly mother-figure hustled through the area, crowing and cawing incessantly about motherly things as she plucked John from the ground and spirited him off to who-knew where. The trials and tribulations of a young hero!

SPOILER: Click to show

John Poppop has been exited as per the activity rules Heeya

Before he could even carry out the orders of his Taichou, the young fellow who had face-planted was being whisked away by a lady that appeared to be some sort of parent or guardian. Things just kept getting weirder and weirder. Alas, the only two people who remained in the area were himself and the Rukon citizen who insisted on calling him strange nicknames. It wasn't that Renkai had no sense of humor, however he had never been addressed in such a way in his six-hundred years of life. It was a strange occurrence and he hadn't quite grown accustomed to it.

Renkai looked up to the sky briefly. Judging by the position of the sun, it was near time for him to start his shift patrolling inside Seireitei. "Well," he said, "Seeing as my services weren't needed here to begin with, I'm afraid I must be going. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon."

Despite the fact that the man had been somewhat rude to him earlier, he still gave off a pleasant disposition while he said his goodbye, turning to walk away immediately after. However, before he even took five steps, he turned back around and said, "By the way... My name is Motoyoshi, Renkai." With that, he continued on his way back toward Seireitei. [EXIT]

"Huh. That happened." After the last sword walks off, Mihamaru simply picks up his empty basket, not even thinking about the unusual events he just experienced. Apparently, the kid was a high ranking Sword, or at least high ranked enough to be recognized on sight by a Captain of a different battalion.

That's what they're called, right? Battalions? Maybe it was squad? Regardless, she was apparently a high ranked Sword, and he ended up just trading nicknames for her. That's not even counting the weirdo in his PJs. "Yeah... I'm in no mood to try explaining this to myself..." And with that, he walked on, heading back towards the tavern.

[exit]

Point breakdown is as follows:

Tenba - 5

Miha - 5

Renkai - 4

Kiba - 3

Poppop - 0 [1 * 0.5 for exitted = 0.5 rounded down = 0]

Points in the process of being given out.