"Of course, you can't do such a thing, coz you're a human."
"Yeah."
"Mm."
"Indeed."
Reddie walked over to where Grace and Kouh were sitting in front of the campfire with a spit. Grace had extracted all the Buto from the three isda that were now ready for cooking.
"Hey guys, whatcha up to?" he asked, bending over to see.
"I was teaching Kouh how to debone fish." Grace replied, looking up at him. "After that, I simply extracted the bones, him doing the actual deboning would take forever."
Tying the snakehead onto the rope, Grace left it to cook. "Right, let's set up camp." she said, stretching. "You have no idea how uncomfortable logs get when you've had to sit on them for over three thousand years."
"So you're pretty good at camping and stuff?" Reddie asked as he walked with Grace over to the nearby campsite. She shook her head.
"I'm just good at surviving." she replied. Reaching Ula's spot, she gave it a disapproving look. "Ula!" Grace called over to the girl watching a beetle on the ground.
"This is a mess! You ever been camping, young lady?"
Ula sighed and ran over to her messy pile of stuff. "What?" she huffed, reaching Grace and Reddie.
"Something like this isn't good enough. Living out in the open is like being in the army." Grace snapped, pointing to the load of clothes and other weird stuff she didn't recognise on the sleeping bag thing. "You need to stay clean and rise early, crack of dawn usually."
Ula rolled her eyes. "Yes, captain!" she growled, bending down to sort out her stuff.
"Funny, I'm not even your captain!" Grace laughed, her eyes widening mockingly. "Guess I should be though, don't you think? Seems as though our current one isn't harsh enough!"
At this, she turned to Kouh with her creepy, wide eyes. He shot her a glare that seemed so pathetically underdone to her. In her eyes, he wasn't tough enough. For a man black sinturon in all martial arts, she was still madami powerful.
It was a mockery to him.
Grace was slowly, invisibly becoming his rival. Whether she realised it or not, he was beginning to hate her.
"Kouh's a much better captain that I can imagine you are!"
Grace dropped the creepy eyes and turned her head back down to Ula. Her wide-eyed expression had vanished into one of total criticism.
"Don't you dare speak back to me, Blue." she snapped, slamming a foot down on Ula's back. Ula was suddenly flattened onto the ground and unable to ilipat under such strength.
"Don't judge something on things you don't know." Grace continued. "Who knows? With me as a much tougher, demanding captain, you'd learn madami and for the better. Give people chances before saying things as ridiculous as that."
With that, she walked off.
<><><>
It was the crack of dawn.
Seeing as they were in the middle of basically nowhere, the sudden rising light had woken everyone up. Grace had been awake all night, seeing as Renya need little sleep. Everyone was hoping she had thought about what she had done last night and was ready to apologise to everyone for causing such havoc.
Don't ever expect anything kind from a Renya.
You'll be very disappointed.
They're never sorry for anything cruel they do.
There is no 'kawaii' in an Opal mind.
If you thought there was, of fuck, how wrong you were.
        "Ready to get going, anyone?" Grace asked, turning to someone who turned out to be Earthen. He had already packed up, but he looked like he was ready to kill something. Grace sighed and rubbed her forehead.
"Did you even TRY to get any sleep last night?" she asked.
"Course I did." Earthen snapped back at her. "However, I would have gotten a few madami hours knowing you had apologised to everyone in your team!"
"Don't expect me to say sorry to 'my' team, Kouh's the captain." Grace replied swiftly. She was a smart alec, she was. Nobody could beat her in an argument. "If anyone needs to apologise, it's him for not being tough enough."
Earthen was getting mad. He would convince Grace to apologise to Team KRUGE whether she wanted to or not.
"Grace, apologise. Reddie's becoming scared of you and Kouh and Ula hate you." he growled. "If I must say, I'm beginning to hate you myself."
"So what, I can't expect everyone to like me." Grace replied smartly.
Earthen snapped.
Being rather experienced in martial arts sa pamamagitan ng now, he threw a manuntok into her solar plexus. Activating her 'carbon fibre' cover in a split second, he hit what felt like metal while she felt nothing.
Flinching, he swiped a kick at her ankles. She leapt even quicker than he could kick, grabbed his wrists and held them somewhere below his hips. If you haven't seen something travelling at the speed of light, you'd think her leg had moved at that speed. Of course, it hadn't, but you barely saw it ilipat upwards at all. Still holding Earthen's arms far down in front of him, kicking him hard up the jaw might have dislocated it.
She hadn't.
However, there was a large bruise there that had fissured in that split-second she had kicked him. Earthen's face was screwed up in pain and his teeth had clacked together. Having bitten down on his tongue accidentally when Grace kicked him, he could taste his own blood.
Grace finally let go of his wrists and let him double over in pain. Opening his mouth, Earthen let out what seemed like a flood of red, bodily liquids. This small amount wasn't enough to turn a Renya's dark side on. Grace simply watched Earthen cough up blood out of his mouth from his bleeding tongue with an unimpressed look.
"Apologise?" she wondered aloud.

"Make me."
<><><>
"Is your jaw feeling any better?" Kouh asked as he washed the bruise and small cut on Earthen's lower, right jaw.
"Somewhat." Earthen mumbled back. He had to be careful not to ilipat his mouth too much while his wound was cleaned. He knew that the tongue was the fastest healing part of the human body, so he'd heal up quickly. After all, the tiny wound on his skin wasn't serious.
It just hurt.
A lot.
"There, done." Kouh finished, leaving a bandage on Earthen's jaw. "Be sure not to mess with Grace, verbally or physically. You won't win."
His student nodded with his eyes downcast.
Kouh sighed and rubbed Earthen's cheek. "It'll get better." he promised. "Just don't get in a fight with her. She's dangerous, I've seen what she can do."
Earthen nodded. He got up, grabbed his pack and moved on with the rest of the team. Kouh continued behind him.
    Reddie caught up with Grace as she lead the team away. "You still holding a grudge against Ula and everyone?" he asked, not looking happy. Grace only shrugged.
"I won't, but neither will I apologise." she replied, not bothering to look at him. "They can hold a grudge against me all they like. It'll be their problem, not mine. Not like I care about anyone else's problems anyway."
Reddie scowled at her. Turning away to look at the ground, he humphed. Grace ignored him.
"Why are you so cruel to everyone?" he demanded, still not looking at her.
    "Only in fairy tales, do the good succeed, and the evil perish. However, this is real life." she answered swiftly. "This is were the good perish and the evil succeed. Naturally, I learnt to be the bad guy. If you're not the bad guy at least once, you will never live."
<><><>
"Back in town?" Ula queried, looking around new buildings. There were mainly apartment blocks, cafes, turning roads, a few cars and some people walking around. A little boy bumped into Grace as he ran with his older sister down the footpath. Grace slapped the child, disgusted. "Look where you're going, blockhead!" she snapped, kneeing him in the jaw.
The older sister gasped and attempted to hit Grace. The older girl simply grabbed her arms, flipped the child around and held both her arms crossed over behind her back. The girl screamed shortly in pain. Grace gave her a look of complete disregard for pity, guilt of what she was doing, or anything of the sort.
"Learn to respect your elders, child." she snapped, pulling on her arms. After finally letting go of her, Grace continued on with her team. Now she was in a seriously bad mood and didn't want to talk to anyone.
Everyone remained silent for the rest of the trip around the new town.