Drina's Bedroom

Drina carried Kohaku back to her own sandstone home and opened the door carefully before walking her inside and laying her onto her bed. Now Drina could examine the wound she'd left more properly. "Hm..." She moved about the house to gather some supplies to clean and bandage the wound before removing Kohaku's shirt and being sure to thoroughly clean the wound and the area immediately around it. There was plenty of sand there from her falling into it, but now it was cleaned and bandaged. Carefully she removed her own armored boots and leggings. There were plenty of cuts through the metal where the chakra strings had gotten her, but she wasn't worried. She had plenty of armor, and the wounds didn't bother her. She simply cleaned them, replaced the boots and leggings, and then sat on the edge of the bed to wait for Kohaku to wake up.

Kohaku was fully aware of her surroundings by the time Drina was tugging on new leggings and boots. Her wound upon her stomach stung. A series of last coughs rattled her body and forced her to awaken, hand going to hover over her stomach to prevent the wound from stretching out and hurting worse. She threw a free hand over he eyes, gasping clean air into her lungs. That whole fire thing wasn't fun, despite not lasting long. Her fingers trembled, for she thought she had nothing to lose. Nothing to care about but herself. Judging by the jutsu used, though, she had something. A frown creased her face instead of a smile.

She had to hide her smiles, at least for now. She saw Drina sitting on the edge of the bed, most likely waiting for her to awaken. Kohaku blinked, removing her hand from her face. She nodded to Drina. "I'm sorry about your legs. I know they're not anything to feet over, but I still didn't like it being done," she confessed, her voice sounding scratchy--most likely from the smoke in her mind. Her lips quivered, threatening to smile, but she pushed it down, shrugging her shoulders instead.

Drina casually reached to the night stand and grabbed the glass of water she had waiting for Kohaku and reached behind herself some to hand it to her. "I went a bit overboard. I did warn you though, didn't I? That if you used chakra you'd see mine, and you wouldn't like it." She said nothing about the comment of her legs, but she took the glass away immediately after Kohaku was done drinking from it and placed a hand against her forehead to push her down against the bed gently. "Lay down. You need the rest." Drina stood and turned; slamming her hand lightly against the pillow beside Kohaku before leaning down over her and staring her square in the eyes. "Look, you're not on the job or in a situation that requires it. You can smile. I see you struggling for it. You need to learn how to be serious when the situation calls for it though. If you aren't...You will be dead. If you smile at someone when you're on the ground like that...They'll kill you. Be serious! You need to do that, and be able to make any sacrifices necessary."

"I was warned, I agree," she told the other, thanking her for the glass of water as it cleared her throat and made her feel a lot better. She was right, this woman was definitely a tough cookie, inside and out. Though Kohaku was definitely not a jutsu person, she understood the powerful ones from the weaker. Her body pushed back against the mattress, for the pressure on her forehead was enough of a warning to lay back down.

Kohaku blinked up at Drina, eyes scanning the dark hair's face as she spoke. There was a moment of silence, where Kohaku's face kept passive. "Now you're saying I can smile..." She glanced off to the side, humor striking her. "Well, people might assume I'm crazy and run away, they don't always kill someone for smiling," she replied, shaking her head. "Though, smiling helps... It does," she told the other, closing her eyes for a brief moment, a sigh leaving her lips.

Drina easily caught the bit of attitude that Kohaku was giving her and straightened up some before quickly reaching to give the woman a slap across the face. It was stern, but not hard enough to cause too much pain. "You will not mock me in my own home. There's a difference between saying things and giving me attitude. Your smart ass comments aren't appreciated." With a slight sigh she lifted her hand to push it through her black hair. "The world is not a joke like you think. I've been at the side of many, and each one who goofed off during the job, died. Except for one lucky, lucky man." She had her back to Kohaku now, her arms crossed tightly across her chest.

The woman did feel somewhat bad for slapping the other now, but still. "Smiling and not taking things seriously...It doesn't help on the job. Tell me. Could you kill your own comrade if you were to be joking around? Think long and hard. What if they were? Could you kill them if they held a smile on their face?" She glanced over her shoulder and said flatly, "I could. Sacrifices need to be made."

The slap was ... Unexpected. It didn't hurt, it was simply something she didn't see coming. Her face was tilted aside now, gaze unblinking. She found herself confused once again. Why was Drina always assuming Kohaku was mocking her? The blond thought better than to correct the dark haired. She'd probably get hit again.

She adjusted herself to sit up, ignoring to faint burn with her stomach. "You were trained, weren't you? A solider, an anbu is what you told me. You put everything thing above emotions, so I guess it's kind of useless to explain myself." She placed her hand over her stomach, blinking. "My answer is no. To be honest, I haven't really killed anyone in my lifetime. Never had to. I've gotten by on my own just fine, smiles and all. I've hurt people, sure, but who hasn't? Just because I'm smiling, doesn't mean I'm not being serious." She paused, realizing her lips had turned up. "I can't help it... It's better. Like holding your breath with hiccups. It helps." She huffed. "Though I supposed it's not something easy to get. I'm strange in that way... But why do you care?" Her eyes went sharp, staring straight at Drina.

Trained...? Did Kohaku assume that they had trained her to behave like this. "I was trained...by myself and my experiences." She seemed to think a moment about whether to tell the woman in her bed a story or not. Then again...Everyone in the sand knew about it and she could simply ask anyone and they would tell her. "I'll give you a scenario. A mother and daughter are sent on a mission together. The daughter's life is in danger, and the mother, the one who holds the vital information that is needed, hesitates and instead of allowing the daughter to die or simply killing her with her own hands, she loses her own life, and that vital information, and the whole village suffers." Drina was staring forward once more. "To be the one who judges on that...One life, in exchange for all the others. Those are the sacrifices that must be made. To have a smile on your face as you take a comrade's life...It's a mockery."

Slowly Drina turned around and caught Kohaku sitting up and swiftly reached out to thump her on the forehead in warning to lay back down. "I care because it could be you. The one in place of the mother. If you hesitate then many can suffer, or you can lose your own life." She was silent; her lips pressed into a thin line. "If it were possible for me to give up my own life instead of the life of another and still have the mission end successfully or not end up causing more damage by putting so many others in harms way...It would be my first option. That's not my role in the missions though. I'm the one who doesn't hesitate, and so I'm always the one that isn't given the information to carry. I'm the one left to make that split second decision to end the life of the other to protect the safety of many more. By training people like you...I don't have to make that decision."

"Mockery," she murmured, heRing that word for what had to be the tenth time. Drina was all about this, like the ANBU of many villages. Always serious, never having the time to smile. Kohaku never was able to get along with ANBU, not even back inner own village when it was thriving with life. The tap on her forehead made her groan, flopping back onto the mattress carefully, doing so just to keep the other from nagging.

"Heh... I doubt I can make a difference, Drina. I come and go--I never stay long enough to make an impression, an imprint on history or the community. I get enough money to eat, and then get out." She huffed, brow twitching. People like me. Like me. Kohaku didn't comment, but rather relaxed her body upon the bed, reaching her hand into her pocket, pulling out her ID to look upon her birth village crest. There weren't anyone like her... At least, not anymore. She would end up like them, though, it was just a matter of time. She put the card away, looking upon Drina.

Swiftly Drina reached out before Kohaku could put the ID away and tapped the crest. "I know about that place." She looked to the woman's face and watched her for a moment. "Are you willing to allow yourself and the last of them to die out simply because you smile in the face of danger?" She looked away for a moment before looking back to Kohaku and watching her closely. "You're not the only one who's the last of something, Kohaku." Carefully she sat on the edge of the bed once more and leaned back slightly before looking over her shoulder at the woman.

"There are plenty of people like us. The last of their clans. We're no one special, Kohaku." She glanced upward towards the ceiling now. "At least not if you allow yourself to die out so easily. You could put up one hell of a fight on your way out." Drina cast her gaze over her shoulder towards the woman in her bed. "The Rinnmas...We were no one special, but I intend to change that. I will leave the mark that means it doesn't matter if we die out. Even if that means I can never smile again. I won't hesitate like my mother did."

Kohaku frowned. "You know about my sorry piece of land mass they called a village?" She really wasn't that harsh when it came to her home, but she figured if she let people know that she cared, then it wouldn't go in her favor. She has enough teasing as the child with two mothers, she didn't need to be the "small town girl", or anything like that. Kohaku nodded he head. "A lot of us are dying out--clans, I mean. It happens, whether I go out with a smile or not is completely up to me. I do not think I'll have children, for that is definitely not something of interest to me, so what does it matter?"

The dip in the best was strange. She hadn't had people beside her like this--so close, yet so far in stature and mind. Her mind clicked, different thoughts racing across her brain. "If you deal with things quickly and without smiling, then that means you have a greater chance of keeping your Clan name out there. Mine was nothing significant, and that is why they does out. Why must I make a name for people who hid within the mountains..." She turned her head away. She'd smile when she needed, and that was just that. Her mindset was completely different than her emotions displayed.

A slight flash of anger crossed over Drina's face and she quickly reached back and down some to give a good press on Kohaku's wound. "Without that 'sorry piece of land mass' you wouldn't exist." Just as suddenly as she'd pushed she pulled her hand away and gripped it close to her chest as if it had been burned. A small frown crossed over her face and she looked down towards the side. "I'm sorry. That was uncalled for." A sigh escaped Drina's lips and she sat in silence for a moment; a hand pressed against her head some.

"Mine wasn't known either. Certainly we weren't in the mountains, but we did nothing significant." Slowly she stood and looked to Kohaku before shaking her head some. "That's exactly why. Because they hid within the mountains, and there's nothing wrong with that. If you don't care enough...Then I suppose there's no point at all." She walked forward some before punching the wall and glancing over her shoulder. "Disappear into nothing then. Go ahead and give up."

At the pressure applied to her scorched area, Kohaku released a pained whine, one that was high-pitched and obvious that her injury was still rather fresh. The blond quickly covered her stomach whenever Drina released it, half-hear tingly glaring at the woman for doing so. Though, she figured, this was Drina's way of getting her to cooperate, to punish her for not saying the correct answer. "Uncalled for, just a bit," she grinded out, eyes falling down to her injury.

"What do you expect me to do," she murmured quietly after she figured Drina was finished. Her orbs followed to Drina's face, a soft "hah" leaving her up-turned lips. "What do you expect me to do? Kill someone important? Do some extordinary, that no one thought I'd do? The only time I was worth paying attention to, is when I piss someone off," she gestured to the scene before them to prove her point of them two, "or it was to scorn me for having two mothers." Kohaku at this point didn't care to let that information slip out, just because it was something in her records. "Tell me, what modivate a you to do something so nice as to make something great of your name? Were you beloved before all that; did you make an outstanding impression to be within favor?" Her eyebrow rose, head tilting in curiosity. Why should Kohaku do something to glorify her Clan name, if the only people she loved there were her parents?

Slowly Drina's head tilted to the side a moment and her hair covered her face some. "Two mothers, one mother, one father, a father and a mother, or two fathers. What the Hell does that matter? People scorned you for that, but really...Does that matter?" Carefully she lifted her head back up before turning around to face Kohaku. "I expect you...To not give up. You don't have to kill someone important, or do anything extraordinary. Just try! That's something people will recognize you for. Otherwise...You're nothing. A lowlife that disappeared into nothing."

The female ANBU member stared at the woman in her bed. "My mom....She was a great person, but no one recognized her because she simply did her job at an average level. She never tried to be greater than she was. She was alright with being "okay", but I knew her...She deserves better than okay. That's why. I may not have known anyone else from my clan, but my mother is my purpose. My mother deserves to be remembered for all that she did. Yeah, she messed up when she let me live and died in my place with all of that information, but she was an honorable woman. Should I just let her name die out for no reason? We weren't known before. We were just here, but she deserves to be known, and not just on the memorial stone."

Does that matter? Kohaku had been asking herself that for years. Did it really matter that those people were the way they were? Well, in her mind, it did. All she ever knew as that place, and they treated her and her family like crap. Kohaku's fist tightened ontop of her bandaged injury, wondering why. Then again, she had to stop thinking this way. A lot of people had worst lives than she. A lot died without being remembered; it happens on a daily basis. This woman, was she pushing Kohaku, because she pushed herself?

In the end, Kohaku shall do whatever she chooses, and what that ends up being, who knows. "I regret you losing your mother," she told the other, thinking that it was probably a good choice for the woman to sacrifice herself. What woman would let their child die? Not one she wanted to meet. It was a big decision, but adults make those things with their child's best interest in mind. Kohaku bit her lip. If that was so, why didn't her mothers tell her they were starving, that they needed help? The blond placed a hand over her eyes, sort of hiding herself from the other woman.

"I regret that she caused damage to so many people for the sake of my life. How many people have to die for one person to live because of a bad decision?" Drina watched Kohaku for a moment, noticing the position she was sitting in. Swiftly she made her way to the bed and reached out to grab the woman's wrist and pull her hand away from her face before gripping both of her arms and pulling her close to stare her down with somewhat cold eyes. This woman wasn't being truthful, and that was irritating for the ANBU member.

"Are you telling me that you don't care about where you came from at all? That this place is just a meaningless "landmass" to you? You're a liar. Tell the truth." Being rough like this...Drina found it was often the kick that people needed to get them motivated and telling the truth.

Being man handled was something she didn't expect. Kohaku stated into the other woman's eyes, trying to tug her hands free. Drina's grip was rough, just like the state in her eyes. It was almost frightening how stern she could be. Kohaku listened, and stiffened. What was up with this turn of events. At first, Drina wanted to clearly get rid of Kohaku, and now, she was keeping a form lock on her hands.

The blond frowned, gaze fluttering to the ground. "I thought you didn't care for my life story. What difference would it make if I liked my village or not?" She felt it, the clogging in her throat, the lump that also built her eyes with liquid. She couldn't cry, not in front of this woman, especially about something so private to herself. Kohaku wanted to curl within herself, to hide from those stern eyes.

Drina shifted her grip to take a hold of Kohaku's face with one of her hands and forced her to look up at her. "I don't care...Whether you came from a family that was from two mothers or two fathers...but I told you before, didn't I? I'm going to teach you a lesson in life. That you need to be serious during times, and it's turned into this. So with this...My lesson is changing."

The ANBU member wouldn't let Kohaku look away from her. "If you turn your back on your parents...On your mothers. If you let them die out without a memory...The only useless thing I can find about that village...Would be you."

"Do you... Do you always teach random people lessons," she asked, her voice cracking a bit as she tried to breathe properly. It was becoming overwhelming to hold tears back. Kohaku wasn't in need to reminders, of what she came home to, of what she lost. It was enough to have her tail whooped by this woman, but to be stripped emotionally naked and spilling her truths to this woman.

What spit out of her mouth was surprising, so full of self-hate. "Don't you think I know that?!" She hitched a breath, closing her eyes to block the crying that was threatened to start. Kohaku wanted to curl up on the floor, to run out of the village. She didn't want to be reminded of these things. The memories were pushed to the back of her mind, never to be brought back again. "Don't you think I know," she repeated, her voice softer, more aware.

Slowly a very small but still existent smile crossed over her face. "You'd be surprised. I told you this before as well, didn't I? If I could give up my life rather than take someone else's...It would be my first option. Doing things this way...If I can teach dummies like you. I won't have to take anyone's life."

Quickly Drina gave Kohaku a light slap across the face. "Calm yourself." Carefully she shifted herself this time to pull the woman close against herself while she said quietly in her ear, "Do you really...Want to be the useless person that's always running away?"

Kohaku hiccuped, her eyes downcast as much as they could. "I'm not a dummy," she told Drina, shaking her head just a bit with what Drina's hand could allow. She refused to accept the insult of being a "dummy". That wasn't something she wanted to be titled, simply because she knew she wasn't dumb, though she suspected Drina didn't mean it as harsh as Kohaku thought.

It was weird to be pressed against someone who had been lecturing her. That rap that could barely be called a slap wasn't anything to cry about, but she didn't stop the whine that escaped her throat. She didn't want to wet the fur around the woman's neck, but found herself doing so anyway as she whimpered into it, her shoulders shaking as little as possible, hoping the woman wouldn't know--that was a lost hope, though. Kohaku shook her head against Drina's shoulder, her hands clutching the front fabric of the older woman's clothes. "Nn... No."

Slowly Drina lifted a hand and placed it at the back of Kohaku's head to pull her a bit closer. It was odd to Drina to even touch someone let alone actually hold them like this. "Then...Stand up and fight. Don't fade away into nothing. Fight for your name." Gently her fingers tangled into Kohaku's hair and she said nothing for a moment. She wasn't dumb. She knew the woman she held was hysterical, but that didn't matter at this point.

"You know...I won't accept any sort of flirting from someone who's weak. You know what that means?" She still held Kohaku close to her. She'd train this woman. Whip her into shape so that she could handle herself. She was cunning, and she seemed to have strength, but she seemed to be unrefined.

Kohaku had always been a sort of pascifist. Due to her mothers being simple medical types, rather than skillful ninja, it influenced the blond to do what she could to prevent a fight, rather than try and beat someone to a pulp so there won't be a chance of her dying. She nodded against Drina, signifying she understood what the woman said. She couldn't fight for herself, no, but she would fight for her mamas; the only people she cared to hear opinions from.

There wa a moment of silence, but then Kohaku's muffled laughter chased away the sobs. There was that hidden humor again. She smiled, turning her face aside so her cheek rested against Drina's shoulder. "Are you saying you find me worth a chance," she muttered with a smile, trying to make her eye dry at will to saw her some embarrassment.

"Find you worth a chance?" Drina made a "tch" sound before feigning irritation. "Please, there's no way." Slowly Drina allowed her hand to move from Kohaku's hair to rub down her back gently. "I'm saying I'm going to keep shooting you down until you get stronger." She shifted against Kohaku carefully. "You're definitely cunning. Those chakra strings can be useful, but you need a bit of something else to protect you. And you know what you have that I don't?"

Kohaku laughed softly once again, nudging Drina's shoulder with her forehead. "Hey no, I'm friggin' adorable," she chuckled, ridding herself of those weak sniffles and ready eyes. Her vision was still bleary, and no doubt eyes are red, but it was always the stupid side-effect for crying. Kohaku rose a hand, wiping her tear-stained cheeks."If you're trying to motivate me, you have my interest," she said lightly, humor seeping through.

Well, that was humiliating, she thought to herself. Raising her head and looking to Drina, an embarrassed flush across her cheeks. Crying on a stranger seemed to be petty in her opinion, but Drina did push her to that extent, to which Kohaku figured was on purpose. "What," she asked Drina, brushing under her own eyes with her hand to get rid of any left-over moisture.