Blast from the Past 4: Berries and Bird Food

"Itadakimasu. Courtesy of your friendly nightshift manager of the big M."
Anja grinned, not bothering herself with any honorific titles, claps or bows. And she really had not seen Pulp Fiction, but would have at least laughed over the nutrition value of a Burger if she had known that it was a joke instead of a remark. Strange enough, Anja could really appreciate a Burger after getting fed with calories counters and regular sport. Yeah, that had been healthy, but it also had been extremely boring and restrictive, so she took a big bite of her burger and chewed on it with visible joy.
"Where have you been before you came to NY?"

Runa glanced at Raven as she heard her words. She didn't laugh or anything. As she went back to eat her burger and picked some fries along, the short haired girl would heard the blonde's question and she paused. Giving Raven a long, empty stare, Runa would put her burger on the plate, and swallowed whatever remained on her mouth so she could give her answer.

"Various places," she said plainly. "Japan, China, Bangkok... I think. Moscow, Berlin, Cape Town... wherever the client needed me to be. Never stay for too long, though."

She shortly remembered about her times in the places she mentioned, but the scenes seemed to have a similar theme - she was doing an assassination ordered by her organization. Not exactly happy memories.

Anja was listening closely and had a concentrated look, even foregoing eating more by herself to get all the places where Runa had been. Sounded like her own idea of travelling around, or rather being dragged around. Runa was no businesswoman and had a fragile weapon, so chances to not recognize what she really was were getting slimmer and slimmer.

Funny how a possible Hitwoman had probably lectured her about hunger in the world. And maybe she was the target here? Bullshit. Much too easy to simply shoot her in the park when someone had picked up where she was.
"I went straight from Tokyo Harbor to NY. As far away as possible from Japan."

Runa would look at Raven for a while before she began to eat again. The girl sounded as if she didn't like to be in Japan. That was none of her business, though, and she decided not to pry further.

"I see," was all she would say as a reply.

She didn't really know what else to say to the blonde, even if this silence felt kind of awkward. Normally the short haired girl was always by herself, so it felt strange to actually eating together with another girl like this. Runa quickly finished her burger and reached for her backpack. She took out a bottle of water that's almost empty, along with another bottle with no label on it.

The short haired girl would then open the plain bottle and shake it a bit to bring out a small white pill onto her hand. She glanced at Raven for a second before swallowing up the pill and drank the water. Afterwards she would wipe her mouth and put back the water bottle and the pill bottle to her bag. Her expression seemed to be frowning a little.

"You can fill your water bottle in the kitchen area if you want."
Anja had resumed eating her burger, occasionally adding a handful of fries to her meal. Runa was a girl where you felt alone in her presence cause she was so extremely silent and emotionless, at least from the outside. Inside look could be totally different from that, but at this point Anja doubted it.

Her taking a pill further added to her silent psycho routine. Post stress syndrome? That could be a funny day for anyone who dared to cross her.
"A bitter pill to swallow?"
Now it was Anja's turn for a reference, grinning slightly.

"No, thanks," Runa said plainly at the offer. "I need to refill it in a cleaner place."

Seeing Raven grinning slightly at her, the short haired girl looked away, showing her eye patch to the other girl. The blonde was pretty, she had to admit, which was all the more reason she tried to avoid looking directly at her. She wasn't sure if Raven's words was a simple remark or the girl's own attempt at pulling reference. The phrase seemed familiar, but she wasn't really sure where she heard it before.

"I dislike medicines," she said without looking at Raven. "When I was a kid they gave me some, and I became like this," she explained, pointing at her grayish short hair.

Coincidentally, her eye patch was also in the way of her finger too.

Now she really had Anja's interest, who was not shocked but genuinely interested in hearing Runa out. Her constant mentioning of *them* alone was enough to raise suspicion in her. The world was obviously just a village, and the rifle was proof that Runa was not simply mad.
"Guessed something was different about you. Not alone the sniper rifle on your back. I had an instructor with an eye patch as fake as yours. Ok, probably fake as you can also be pierced instead of slashed or naturally blind, but I would guess that you are not exactly one eyed but built for success."
Anja stated now rather bluntly. She was also hard pressed to not just ask about *them*. It resembled a program her former mistress could have put money in too, but she wasn't sure. There were so many of them. Maybe Asuka was an early prototype of the program Runa had been subjected too? Her head began to hurt in the light of all the possibilities, and her calm voice concealed her inner self when waves of emotions crashed violently at the shores of her sanity.
"A monster that was build to perform and succeed. Sounds familiar."

"Rifle?" Runa asked as she turned her head back, looking a bit confused.

It took her a second to realized what Raven was mistaking and she would took the cloth covered object she had and began to uncover it. The thing might resemble a gun when it's wrapped like that, but now that it's taken off its cover, the blonde would see that it was in fact, a sword. It's not a Japanese Katana, but a western sword instead, for Runa was told that using a foreign weapon would help covering the fact that her organization was actually based in Japan.

"Do you mean this?" she would ask flatly. "My left eye isn't wounded or blind," she would say afterwards, trying to clear another point for Raven.

She would slowly lifted her eye patch and opened her closed eye, to reveal a red iris, almost resemble the color of blood. Runa would continue to look at the blonde with her blank stare for a while as she revealed her true look to the girl.

"This was caused by the drug I got as a kid," she would say before closing her red eye and put back the eyepatch.

Runa didn't mention the fact that her left was nearsighted, but she didn't need to. Raven's next words certainly had an unpleasant feel on it, although she couldn't say that the blonde was too far off the mark. Still, she'd frown at the idea of being called a monster, although she tried not to show it blatantly.

"A monster..." the short haired girl let out softly. "I guess..."

Anja looked a little bit confused, then quite impressed.
"Oh, I see. The eye patch confused me a bit, thought you have been modified to have perfect sight on one eye and nothing or near nothing on the other eye."

The girl must have been really good to fight with a sword and had only the use of one eye, making her half line of sight blind. Or big time modified.
"It's just an appearance and more honest than a silver tongued gang boss or politician, nothing to be ashamed of. Most people that run into me on the street have no idea that I could very well plot their downfall if things had happened just a little bit different. And besides that, nobody asked us for permission or made it harder for criminals to do such things. So they probably deserve what they have coming at them."
And she was not ugly to look at from Anja's perspective, just different.
"Looking common is overrated anyway."

Runa listened to Raven as she covered her sword again as her expression returned to "normal". The blonde seemed to be nice enough with her words, although whether she was being honest or not was a different matter.

"Perhaps," she said with a subtle, barely visible smile.

She would go back to being silent for a while, not knowing what to do or say anymore. Wiping her hands on her jacket, Runa would then put on her gloves before she slowly rise from the seat. The short haired girl would look at Raven with her blank stare before bowing herself a bit.

"Thank you for the meal," she said flatly. "If there's anything I could do to repay this kindness, than I'll be glad to do so."