Tutoring Job

Someone needed help! With classes, they needed help with classes... Their studies, and such... Ikue had had some free time lately, and she'd thought she'd accept a small tutoring job to pass time with.

Some of the people here needed help with their work, and she felt she was up to the task!

So here she sat, in a study room at the university waiting on the person that she was meant to help to show up. Despite waiting, she seemed rather content, reading through one of her own books for one of her astronomy classes.

There was a test in a week or so, so she wanted to be prepared!

Nadia shifted uncomfortably as she walked through the university halls. She felt like everyone was watching her. Like they just knew somehow that she didn't belong here. She self consciously rubbed her arm, shifting the weight of the backpack slung over one shoulder. She only came to the campus for class and she didn't have to really walk through halls to get to the classroom her GED class was in.

Forgoing her usual wardrobe, she just had a T shirt and jeans on, with sneakers over combat boots. She already stuck out like a sore thumb as an Indian woman in a Japanese school. She didn't need to dress like she was ready for a fight.

Finding the study rooms, she glanced into some of them, frowning. She was here to meet an Ikue but she didn't know what Ikue looked like... She pulled out her phone and sent a simple text. 'Are you here?'

Hearing her phone give a chime, Ikue pulled it out of her pocket to look at it, seeing the text; with a smile, she quickly typed and responded -- [Yes! I'm at the study table in the far back to the left when you walk in, here I'll wave!]

Sending that, she glanced towards the entrance and waved just as she'd said she would, Nadia would easily be able to see her by glancing over. She was dressed in her usual attire, feeling the most comfortable in it when she went out.

Nadia looked around awkwardly for a moment before feeling the buzz of her phone. She checked the text and looked up, glancing around before spotting the girl waving. She walked over, quietly standing a moment before dropping her back next to the chair opposite Ikue. "Hey." She said quietly before seating herself.

She stuck her hand out, waiting to shake Ikue's. "Nadia." she said simply. She always hated meeting strangers. Especially sober.

"Hi." Ikue smiled, her hand moving to shake Nadia's as she held her hand out. "It's nice to meet you, I know it said so in the notice and all, but I'm Ikue Iseri."

Even if Nadia already knew her name, it was only proper and polite to introduce herself in person! It was important when meeting someone!

"When I was in high school I used to help tutor some of my classmates for things, so no need to worry, it's not my first time giving lessons." That should be something to get out of the way, if Nadia thought this was her first time tutoring or anything, it might be hard for her to believe this would work!

She needed to reassure her...

"Yeah." She nodded. She knew her name, if not her appearance. She didn't go further in pointing that out. She was on her best behavior today and at least intended to stay as such. This girl seemed entirely too cheery for her taste in tutors. Couldn't she just get someone who wanted to be doing this as little as she did?

"Uh... Yeah." she looked away for a moment. She wasn't worried about Ikue being an inexperienced tutor. It was good to know she'd managed to help other idiots though. Now if Nadia screwed it up, it just meant she was unteachable.

Ikue kept her her smile, though it was time to get to the point of this meeting; Nadia needed help with her studies, and it was her duty to help her!

Knowing this, she glanced down towards the various notes and textbooks she'd compiled before her eyes returned to to the woman. "So, do you have any preference for what you'd like to start with? What's troubling you the most?"

They could start with whatever Nadia wanted to start with, letting her have the choices was good for this sort of thing...

"All of it." Nadia crossed her arms, still refusing to look Ikue's way. She immediately frowned after saying it, realizing that even if she was paying Ikue, she wasn't being much help... and while she needed the help with her classes, she was supposed to help the tutor help her...

She sighed. "I don't know... I'm not doing so good with science I guess. Most of it sort of goes over my head. It's too close to math." She was a little grumpy at the subject. Chemistry sure seemed a lot like math to her right now...

All of it...

Ikue blinked, not becoming impatient in the slighest as Nadia seemed to work through herself to be helpful. She felt she wasn't good with all of it, but they needed to start somewhere...

Alright, science then! That was a forte for her!

"Aaa, I get what you mean; I used to really have to study when I first started learning some of the subject matter in science, but I can definitely help!"

It had required a lot of studying, but she had gotten the hang of it after some time and now it was a strong subject for her!

"We'll start with science then..."

She crossed her arms on the table and immediately slumped down, not quite putting her head down along with her arms. "Okay." She said, sounding dejected. She'd do her best not to resist Ikue's attempts to tutor her, but she'd rather die than get EXCITED about schoolwork.

"Sorry. I just never did very good in school." She said, her voice wavering slightly. It was... sort of a lie. She didn't, but that's because she never WENT to school, really.

Ikue got the necessary books out that they'd be starting with, having kept everything in order so they'd be able to have quick access to their resources. Settling one of the science textbooks in front of her her eyes went to Nadia as the woman spoke up.

"It's okay, school can be really hard, all people learn differently, but schools can't accommodate every student's needs..."

It was unfortunate...really, school could be really difficult with how it was all handled, plus pressure...

"We'll figure out which way you learn best though, or if you already know we can jump right into that method!" Again, Ikue gave another kind smile.

Nadia eyed the book like it was a landmine, raising one eyebrow and glowering at it. Wretched thing. Here to make her miserable. She considered pushing it off the table but that seemed less funny and more childish. She might have gotten a laugh out of it if she were drunk but unfortunately she was just... depressingly sober...

"I'm not like... special needs." She said sullenly. "I just... can't focus properly." Which was to say that most of this shit just didn't seem that important to her.. How could it?

She sighed. "I dunno... I guess I learn things... practically? Hands on or... whatever."

Practically... Alright, hands on.

With science it was possible to do those things, definitely; the first part was figuring out the best hands-on way to go about it...

"Alright, we'll think of some hands-on ways then. Let's see..." Ikue began looking through the texts, quickly reading over some of the most important segments of the first bit of information they had.

Nadia looked over the text book and felt her mind trying to boggle a little bit. Hooo boy. Nope. Nope nope nope. Fuck this, she should just run away. Just.. Fuuuuck all this. She cleared her throat and strongly.. STRONGLY considered pushing the books off the table and walking away but... No.. No no.... She needed to try... REALLY hard at this... it was important..

What she didn't need right now was one of her spirits, Raijin actually, to pop out and begin traipsing around the desk. Her hand moved to her chest on instinct before she remembered she was wearing a T-shirt. No need to hide a suddenly missing tattoo when it wasn't visible to start with... She glanced at Ikue. Mm, not like she could see the spirit either. She gave a half-committed cough to explain the hand on her chest, then went back to sullenly staring at the text.

How to turn this into a hands on lesson... Ikue was thinking, trying, at least... She really wanted to be of some help, and had promised to help Nadia! Let's see...

-Ah!?

W-Was there a...c-cat!? That... This wasn't a normal cat either! S-Spirit kitty...?

Ikue had been surprised at first, she'd almost vocally let out her surprise but kept it in. She hadn't even noticed Nadia cough or give any notice towards the cat, as she'd been too focused on trying to come up with a lesson plan at first.

Now, her focus was on the cat... W-Where...had it come from!?

Nadia ignored Raijin, waiting for Ikue to say something but she just seemed to sit there flabbergasted at the table. What was she staring at? It's like she could....

Nadia raised an eyebrow and scooped Raijin off the table, watching to see if Ikue reacted at all. "Something the matter, Ikue?" She asked. If Ikue was spiritually aware it would make sense if she could see Raijin. Not that it seemed to change much.

H-Huh!?

U-Um...

"Um..." Nadia had...scooped up the cat... Scooped up the mysterious...magical looking cat. "That's...your cat?" She questioned, her voice a bit quiet; considering what the cat looked like...it was obviously not a normal cat...

So this was a spiritual thing...

Nadia looked from Ikue, down to the cat in her hands, then back up at Ikue. She stared at her for a moment before giving a sullen "No." As she placed the cat inside her shirt collar, trying to usher it back into its place on her skin. "I don't know what you mean." She said curtly.

Raijin had no intentions of returning to tattoo form at the moment however and instead decided to mewl cutely, squirming about inside Nadia's T-shirt. Nadia sighed. "Yes. It's my cat. It's also a spirit, which I guess you can see because this entire damned town is filled to the brim with you people." You people meant spiritually aware, which included Nadia herself, but she was too grumpy to count that.

S-She didn't know what she meant!?

Ikue blinked, quiet before Nadia gave and claimed it was her cat...a spirit cat as she'd thought once it'd mewed. "I-It's really cute...aha...um...I guess there's a lot of spiritually aware people h-here...I've met a few myself..."

She wasn't really anything to bat an eyelash at though, she had a weak presence, and thanks to that scarf luckily none at times to keep hollows away, and also no powers... Aha...

Nadia...seemed grumpy though, she could see that...

Aaaaah! The studying! Right! That's... A-Alright, she'd gotten side tracked... How to make this...hands on....

Nadia's frown deepened as her brow furrowed at the word cute. It was not cute. It was a pest. A rather annoying one. She loved that her power was her ink. And she loved that her ink turned into various tools of war. But why the hell did they have to turn into these dumb little animals? They caused her more trouble than help... Not to mention put her in weird situations like this.

She sighed, letting Raijin drop out the bottom of her shirt before placing him on the table. At least there, he was only visible to Ikue. If anyone looked over and her shirt was just moving on its own, it would raise questions...

"Yeah. Me too. What sort have you run into?" She knew it was an obnoxious question, but she kept tabs on what kind of spiritually aware people were around. It was just safer that way.

Ikue had begun trying to read through more pages as Raijin was placed back on the table, hardly noticing him at first before she caught movement out of the corner of her eye.

What sorts...

"W-Well... I've met...healers, and her boyfriend uses his powers to protect her from what I gathered, though I just know he's offensive based...um... Also someone that is able to make inanimate objects move... I've only met a really small couple... I've only just started meeting people since I guess...my own signature is starting to grow? So I notice more...?

I-I personally don't have any powers y-yet...so there's no telling my type..." Ikue had purposely left out Tsuyoshi, knowing the man liked his privacy, especially when it came to his power...even if explaining that little bit about him wouldn't really give away anything...she still wanted to respect the fact he wasn't used to being open yet. He was a good friend after all!

It was...also probably not a good idea to mention Alwin, that she also knew...considering how some people reacted to Bounts, p-plus...Alwin didn't even live out here so he wasn't around that much.

Testament...she wasn't sure if she should speak of him or not... Nadia might take poorly...Testament was...a type of Hollow, and with how Meiko had reacted at first before her curiosity took over...

Nadia listened intently, giving Ikue a look that was like a glare, but was really just a focused expression. "Hrm. Alright. Sounds like an interesting bunch." She said, relaxing a little. She felt like she'd just security cleared the poor girl.

"I've only met one other person with powers and I was pretty much an ass to her." She said with a shrug, reaching out and giving Raijin an absentminded pat on the head. "I've just got these little assholes." She said with a snort in the cat's direction. "They're more of a pain in the ass than anything, though." She didn't like giving them too much attention, but it was better than focusing on science right now.

That didn't sound too good... Hopefully the person Nadia had met hadn't been too offended, or hopefully not offended... It was...good to make acquaintances and friends between people like them, it was...safer when there were people you could count on.

Nadia had her animals as her powers, they...well from what she knew of as she watched Raijin he was at least really cute... Though if she had lots she could see how they could be troublesome, it was like having a lot of pets?

"I guess if you have a lot I can see how they can be troublesome...but...at least they're there, with them you always have company." Ikue gave a small smile then, trying to look at the brighter side of things.

Nadia looked at the little glowing thing. "I guess they're company or whatever." She said with a frown. She didn't... MIND the company she supposed... but really they seemed so totally unnecessary to her power... Tattoos turn into weapons. Why the extra step of turning into animals first. It was just obnoxious.

"They're just a pain. They all turn into things, but I don't know why they have to be animals." She pet Raijin on the head, enticing the little lightning cat to roll over. "Raijin here turns into an assault rifle for instance."

"Aaah...yeah... Having them like this...it's like having pets, huh? I guess having a lot of them when thought of like that can make it hard..." Tatoos that turned into animals that turned into other things? That honestly seemed like a really interesting ability!

Ikue couldn't help but gain a small smile as Nadia explained it in more detail.

"Aaa, that sounds really cool; with that you can protect yourself." She wasn't familiar with using guns or weapons of any type really... She knew a little self defense, but that was about it. It took a lot of skill to be able to use a weapon well though, and for those that had them with their powers... It must take a lot of practicing to get the hang of it!