From the street of open-air garage-esque blacksmith stores, the sounds of clanging metal and screeching chings polluted the air. Temperance dragged his heavy feet behind him as he gazed at the various specialized blacksmiths surrounding him while the others trailed a little behind him to muse at the stores' wares.
"Talk about going at a snail’s pace," Temperance murmured under his breath; he halted his stride and looked back at the others as they gathered around the sole ice cream cart on the street, making Temperance squint at them and itched the roof of his ear.
"If only you said they were as slow as slugs then I could’ve made a sluggish pun… for shame," a deflated girly voice whined. Temperance paid the voice no mind before a sharp pain in his side made him flinch and dart his head at the originator of the voice. Temperance mentally paused as his eyes locked with the mass of wool-like dark-green to lime green to snow-white gradient hair with a metallic-esque appearance.
Temperance tilted his head to one side before slowly swaying it to the other side; he gazed at the mass of hair as a pair of small light-tanned arms poked out from the front of the hair mass. The pair of hands parted the mass of hair to reveal the super short, young-looking female teen underneath. (she's a humanoid being who has crystal-textured golden-coloured eyes with her left pupil being in the shape of a five-pointed star and is a glowing cyan colour)
"Do you know how to tie hair using this?" The girl asked as she held a silver fur cloth with cyan ends at Temperance. Temperance mindlessly took the cloth from the girl, and she smugly turned around while commenting on how straightforward Temperance was being. Temperance felt his senses return, and he stared at the cloth before sighing and begrudgingly tying the girl's hair for her.
Despite the monstrous amount of hair, Temperance found it surprisingly easy to guide and move the hair around into a tidier state until Temperance finally finished. Temperance took a step and gazed upon the new state of the girl's hair: the hair was tied behind her head in the shape of an eight-petalled lotus.
Thanks to Temperance's handy work, he was now able to see a few things on the girl which were previously hidden: such as the two large tuffs or purely metalic snow-white hair on the sides of her head, which vaguely resembled mammoth tusks and the girl's extremely large woolly snow-textured dark-green kitsune tail.
The girl spun around on the spot and giddily smirked as she fluffed up her hair with her hands.
"Thanks... erm buddy or should I call you bud since you're older than me?" the girl remarked as Temperance forced his face to remain as neutral as possible.
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"I think you should deal with your... well, I don't think you can call it a wardrobe malfunction in your case," Temperance uttered as he stared straight at the girl's evidently perplexed face. The girl raised an eyebrow and gazed down to see she was for lack of a better term in her birthday suit.
"Oh, guess I got too relaxed while you were messing with my hair," the girl uttered as some of the fur from her tail curled back from the rest before coiling around her body and taking on the shape of a fur coat hoodie, baggy trousers, and leggings.
"There we go~," the girl said as she held out a hand to Temperance, "I'm Xenazuki by the way.".
"Temperance.". Temperance raised a hand to shake Xenazuki’s hand, but the remnant pang in his side made him pause and mull over whether he should shake Xenazuki’s hand.
"It would be rude to not reciprocate her gesture, so I suggest a fist bump if you want to keep functionality in your hand," the voice of Teach in Temperance’s mind recommended. Temperance sighed and balled up his hand into a fist, causing Xenazuki to giddily giggle at what she viewed as Temperance’s shyness to a simple handshake. Xenazuki curled up her fingers and reciprocated Temperance’s fist bump.
"And with the introductions out of the way, I'm gonna punch you now~" Xenazuki announced as she took a step back and reeled back her fist. Temperance nodded as Xenazuki began winding up her arm like a boxer. Temperance sighed and shook his head whilst he placed his hands on his hips.
"Honestly, why do kitsunes have the strangest social custo -.". Temperance was interrupted mid-sentence as Xenazuki’s small fist socked him in the face. Her punch sent loud ripples through the air before it was shortly followed by a thunderous shockwave exploding through the air and blasting everything not bolted down in every direction.
Meanwhile, on a nearby repurposed radio tower into a watch tower, an adult male who appeared to be in his thirties with pale skin stood on the top of the radio antenna of the tower as he watched the shockwave Xenazuki created far in the distance launching things high into the sky. (The guy is a humanoid ice/wind elemental: he has slightly long pale cyan hair with an icy texture tied back into the shape of an eight-petalled lotus flower and crystal-textured ocean-blue eyes)(He's wearing a dark-green fur ninja face mask which covers his mouth and nose, a full-body aside from his head black jumpsuit, fuzzy dark green fur baggy trousers, and darksteel [black metal] boots)
"Looks like Zuki found the fellow Hika-01 and Neo Hika informed me about," the ice/wind elemental remarked with a deep voice and a faint feminine voice mimicking his words. He tilted his head to the side before a basket of fruits flew past him. The elemental sighed before teleporting beside the basket and catching it by its handle. Snow sprung forth from his back, collecting together and forming into large wings made solely from snow.
"Best head over and minimize the collateral Zuki's caused," the elemental uttered defeatedly before he flexed back and soared towards the source of the shockwave.