The Preserve, Thursday Evening

[intraspective]

So, today had kinda been a wash even though she’d gotten some awesome sweaters of Romeo’s and was going to kill Cal dead eventually, especially if he kept it up, but now—now Ino had something far more interesting to amuse herself with.

Which would be why there was a small blonde ninja out in the preserve.

With a pink rhino costume.

She was trying to figure out how to string it up in one of the trees while waiting for her partner-in-crime. It… wasn’t going that well.

“No,” she said to the costume, “seriously. What are you made of? You’re freakin’ heavy.”

Smoochy didn't answer her. That was probably a good thing since it was just a costume.

[For Reno, please! And totally NFB.]

Comments

[raspberryturk]

"I ain't heard nothin'," Reno agreed, laughing. "I almost wanna sign it, this time. 'Been good knowin' you, I'm outta here. Reno.'"

All true artists signed their masterpieces, didn't they?

[intraspective]

They did!

She fiddled with a playing card, bending it with her fingers, and said, "He did mention, last time, that if he found out who did it, that they'd get extra credit." Ino flipped the card into the air and caught it. "Think he'd remember that? If we signed it."

[raspberryturk]

"Well, I don't really need the extra credit," came the Turk's reply. "But hey, if you're lookin' for a better mark in whatever it was you took last, then I say we write him that note. You got your love letter all figured out, yet?"

Inquiring minds needed to know!

[intraspective]

"I don't think I need one for history," she said, giggling. "Though I wonder if it counts for extra minion credit as well? Because I pretty much am his minion these days, all things considered."

"Didn't give him a love letter, though I might have one planted in his office for when he returns, but I did insult him several times over, plus a death threat, and did it all in flowers. He's got no idea what I said."

Ino pursed her lips. "I suppose I could leave a translation of that for him, as a signature."

[raspberryturk]

Reno had himself a good laugh at that, while he casually started plucking at the seams in Smoochy's face with his pocketknife.

"One hell of a signature, yo. I ain't got nothin' half as creative as that one. If it's all the same to you, maybe I'll just sign my name, yo."

He'd sign it with his knife! On Smoochy's ass!

[intraspective]

Ino knelt beside Smoochy, pulling out a senbon needle and absently driving it through the costume's hand. In and out. Over and over. It was almost soothing, if you didn't stop and consider that the needle would go through flesh at almost the same easy speed.

"I like your name," she said, grinning. "And I'd sign mine, but if I don't, he can at least fake that there's a case for pretending he doesn't know I'm probably going to have to steal any other awful costumes he gets."

[raspberryturk]

"It's more fun wonderin' when it's gonna take off, huh? You're gonna have to come up with all new and excitin' ways to mutilate his stupid outfits once I'm gone, zoto." Smoochy's face was looking a little worse for the wear, now, the seams all but torn apart. "I'm jealous."

[intraspective]

Smoochy's hand was looking like it had more holes than fabric left to it, and she was slowly moving up the arm.

"I'll send you pictures," she reminded him, "and ask for advice. My world ain't likely to give me torture training for years, and I doubt this place'd take well to it anyway. This is 'bout all the practice I'm going to get." Ino wrinkled her nose. "Sunshine and roses, yo."

[raspberryturk]

"Where I'm goin', I won't get none of them roses," Reno mused. "Maybe that's for the best. I ain't a huge fan of thorns."

He was now carving the knife up the length of Smoochy's horn. Twisting it a little. Pulling it out again with a length of stuffing trailing along with it.

Rhino-face-guts. This was awesome.

[intraspective]

So awesome.

"We'll have to leave the neck mostly alone," she said, "if we're going to string it up when we present it."

Switching her needle for a kunai Ino went to work giving Smoochy gouges that bore a fair bit of resemblance to flowers. If flowers had stuffing that poked out around the edges.

"Nothin' wrong with thorns," she drawled, "but I like mine a little more obvious 'less it's me doing the deceiving."

[raspberryturk]

"Of course." Reno considered Smoochy's face for another moment, and then shrugged and reached into his jacket to pull out his smokes and his lighter.

He then went through a very deliberate not-quite-ritual, which involved putting the cigarette into his mouth, carefully lighting it, and then taking a few drags from it before setting it down so very gently on the top of Smoochy's head.

That was going to leave a mark.

"So, we gonna string this thing up with its own stuffing, or do we got rope somewhere?"

[intraspective]

Ino would never be a smoker, but she would probably always find it soothing to be around people who were. Shades of Asuma-sensei there.

"I've got wire that might work, if you want that or," her grin turned a bit cruel, "could always make a braided rope from his stomach, you know? He's got enough fabric there."

[raspberryturk]

"Oooh, sadistic! I like it, yoto!"

About the only thing keeping Reno from applauding was the knife in one hand. Because that would have sucked.

"You know how to braid, then? I sure as hell don't." He was already cutting long ribbons of fabric from the costume's belly, though. He knew how to do that much, at least!

[intraspective]

Ow. It's probably for the best that he refrained from applauding. Just, ow.

"Had my hair past my ass for years," she said, switching sides so she could cut Smoochy's other arm up. "I can braid. How long of one do you want, since you know the knot that'll make the noose."

[raspberryturk]

Reno considered that question carefully, looking at the rhino, and the length of material that he had to work with, here.

"We're gonna do the knot, and then hang'm from a tree, right? Tell you what, I'll cut the ribbons, here, an' by the time Smoochy ain't got no belly left, we'll call that about enough."

This had the added bonus of making the stuffing-guts so much easier to muck around with, didn't it? It did.

[intraspective]

"You just want to play with his guts," she accused cheerfully. "But that sounds good, worse comes to worse we take some from his legs."

As cut flowers blossomed on Smoochy's arm. Ino took a moment to arrange the bits of fluff popping out artistically. "Should've brought food colouring."

[raspberryturk]

Reno paused mid-slice and held up a finger, a grin on his lips as he started to rummage through his pocket, surfacing after a moment with a red pen.

He wasn't going to be needing it. He wasn't a student, anymore.

"More'n welcome to crack that open an' piss around with the ink," he offered.

[intraspective]

Ino reached to steal the pen from him.

"You are genius," she enthused, cackling, while she fiddled with it. "We'll definitely need some for his guts."

[raspberryturk]

"See, it's totally art, yo!" Reno grinned and cut another length of fabric from Smoochy's belly. "How many strips of this stuff is it you need, again?"

[intraspective]

"At least nine to start," she said, frowning in concentration as she broke the pen with a sharp crack and started dabbing red ink on Smoochy's injuries. "I'll braid three braids then braid those together--otherwise our lead-filled rhino might break the fabric. The strips can be fairly thin though, 'bout half an inch or thereabouts. No need to have wide ones."

[raspberryturk]

"Fairly thin strips of dead-rhino belly, comin' right up!"

Reno was now humming as he worked. This was right up his alley, wasn't it?

A couple of minutes later, and he was holding up nine lengths of Smoochy-gut ribbon. It was almost a fashion statement!

"An' here you go!"

He was going to reward himself with another puff or two from the cigarette that was dwindling away on Smoochy's increasingly-charred forehead.

[intraspective]

It was so many levels of wrong, and yet Ino was happy doing this. While he was cutting strips, she was adding 'blood' to the injuries. They were insane.

"My hero," she said, batting her eyelashes at him, and carefully taking the strips with one hand while offering him the ink. "Want to make his stomach bleed while I'm braiding like a good little girl?"

Ino was no one's good little girl except, perhaps, her father's.

[raspberryturk]

"Ooh, gimmie!" The smoke was now hanging from the corner of Reno's lip as he made a nab for the remains of the pen. "I'm gonna put some in his eyes, an' then dribble some down the corner of his mouth, yoto!"

He was about as enthusiastic as a five-year-old. One with a penchant for torture and making things bleed.

[intraspective]

"Tears of blood," she murmured, already getting to work on her braids, sitting cross-legged in the grass--the ground was still damp, but that didn't bother her--and looking like a cat that had gotten into the cream. "Never a good sign for your continued health."

Not that Smoochy had much to look forward to here.

"We should put his feet in his stomach," she opined. "Chop 'em off and claim we made him eat them."

[raspberryturk]

"I like it. But should we cook 'em, first? You know what they say about eatin' raw meat. Especially when you never can tell where it's been, zoto."

He emptied out the last of the ink, and then knelt down to inspect the rhino's feet.

"I'm thinkin' bonfire, if we can find enough dry wood. What're you thinkin'?"

[intraspective]

She was mid-way done the second braid already, fingers working quick as she thought.

"There's still dry wood," Ino said, with all the authority of someone who'd grown up in a forest, "for cooking something like that. Just means you've gotta look a little harder for it. Check hollows of trees, and under the ones that got so many branches that they nearly brush the ground--thicker the canopy is, the better odds of finding some dry."

[raspberryturk]

"Heeeey. Good thinkin'."

Reno could appreciate her expertise, really. Seeing as everything he needed to know about trees in his lifetime could typically be summed up in 'they are made of wood.'

Not exactly a Junior Forest Ranger or anything, that Reno.

He took another drag from his cigarette, stubbed it out against one of Smoochy's eyes, and then started to snoop around for dry wood. He always did like barbecue.

[Bedtime for me! SP?]

[intraspective]

Ino hummed as she continued braiding, the strands turning neatly the way she wanted them to, and when she had the three smaller braids she started combining them to form the larger one.

Quite a macabre picture, really, a happy girl and a very dead rhino.

"Try over that way," she said, glancing up and pointing. "It looks a bit dryer there."

[SP is amazing!]