There was a time when Ayu made a living house out of plants. She remembered it clearly, she met an old couple in the flood season, their home was almost swept away with water... It was a tragic scene but those two were calm and friendly to her, a stranger, even when everything they owned was taken away from them. Ayu couldn't just sit there and do nothing. She used trees to get rid of the moisture and mud around them, shaping every piece of flora she could think about into a living, breathing, and stable house. There was everything, water, beds, kitchen... Maybe more magic was used into making that place than Ki but Ayu was proud that she could help them. And there would be nothing wrong with giving the same treatment to her place. After all, she was the one who messed up and she ought to fix it. Ayu just had to take away the trees that sprouted inside, then tidy up the garden and make sure that other plants stay outside. Maybe she should fill the cracks between the walls with moss to secure them, and rebuild the roof with hardened leaves... There were many things she could do but she won't be able to make the house look exactly like before - but that was okay. Some things could never be repaired and return to the status quo, instead, she had to get used to the new state of things. Right... Easier said and done.

So lost in thoughts she was that Ayu didn't focus on sensing her surroundings, nor did she pay any attention to the sound of footsteps growing closer. A small gasp made her jump in place and Ayu blinked, startled a little by a sudden presence. A Namekian... Green skin, antennas, and a half-mask covering the lower side of his face. That was a bit unusual. Why were all the people she met lately so tall? It made her feel even shorter than she was in reality. Never mind that. The stranger was tall and towering over her, and yet, despite her instincts, she didn't move from her spot, simply looking at him with a reserved albeit uncertain gaze. The Namekian looked as surprised as she and nothing in his presence warned Ayu to move away. Normally she would be standing behind the nearest tree by now... Maybe it was because she was part of their race? At least in some twisted way, that is.

"It's alright," she stated after a moment with a soft tone, giving him a shy smile. "We g-green folk blend in the forests well, don't we?" Ayu smiled, trying to joke a little before turning her gaze away from the stranger to look at the house in front of them once more. She still wanted to fix it, as much as she could... Her gaze turned pensive and melancholic after she heard Namekian's question. For a stranger what this place could be? An old and abandoned house overrun by some unnaturally growing plants, if nothing more. "... That's my home," Ayu admitted after a moment, her tone dropping a little. "It got d-damaged some time ago and I never had time to come back here and try to fix it..." she rubbed her cheek abashed and sighed, taking the first step towards the building. "Now I'm wondering how am I going to do that, that's all... Please don't mind me."

After all, the stranger must have been busy around this area and Ayu too had something to do. The wall that was facing the forest was partially broken, destroying Zhang's old room that she chose for herself after Ayu gave her bedroom to Terra. Placing her hand on the old, red bricks and bindweed that enveloped the outer side of the house, she sighed softly. The loose pieces were laying on the ground, some were broken, and the other were covered with moss already. Bushy fern sprouted from the corner of the broken windowsill. As much Ayu loved plants and she wouldn't mind them in her house, there needed to order. First, she would have to remove the flora that was inside the building before attempting to do any repairs, and then... Then she will see.

Only after a moment, she realized that Namekian was still there, which confused her a little. Ayu turned around, looking at him anxiously - her cheeks starting to flush gently. She still wasn't good at talking to people. Did it seem that she intentionally started to neglect his presence? That wasn't it at all... Even if at first it seemed that she did well enough with talking, now she started getting a bit abashed.

"Ah, I'm s-sorry, I didn't mean to ignore you..." Ayu rubbed her cheek again, her fingers fidgeting. "I got lost in my thoughts, I apologize... My name is Ayu. I haven't seen many Namekians around this area."

Aside from Dende and Tabu, there was no one else from his kind that she knew about. Maybe that too was a chance to learn something new?

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Power Level - 283,929 | 10 (Seal technique)
Word Count - 846
Total Word Count - 1,636

Meeting a new person wasn't anything strange but for her, it was always a bit special. Mainly because Ayu wasn't doing well around strangers - at least most of the time. This time she really was surprised by how calm and unbothered she felt, her usual anxiety was nowhere to be seen, nowhere to be heard. Bass was a Namekian similar to others of his race. Tall, strongly-build, green-skinned, and his energy got this serene hue under all the layers she could sense. Tabu wasn't any different but she met him in a dangerous situation, so there was no room for anxiety when they were fighting for their lives. Guardian, on the other hand, saved her life and kept on easing her pain every day... Maybe that's why this fondness was here. To be honest, Bass was the first of his kind that Ayu met in fairly calm surrounding, without her health being endangered - perhaps that's why she first picked on this unusual reaction of hers. Or rather lack of it, putting aside a small joke and an amicable smile.

Still, part of her was focused on the sorry state inside her house, so much so that she lost track of her thoughts and forgot about Namekian for a minute. After apologizing, she gently shook his hand - a welcomed greeting. Her fingers seemed pale green compared to the vivid verdant color of his skin... It's not like she was a pure-blooded Namekian, or even human, she was just something in between, made by someone's whim. No matter, thinking too much about it won't change anything. They both had white nails and pointy ears, though Bass's were much sharper at the ends. Unconsciously, Ayu kept making those little comparisons in her mind before she shook away those thoughts. Something else caught her attention... The phrasing and the tone of his statement when Bass spoke about the state of his home planet. Maybe she didn't expect that answer but it did make Ayu wonder about the things happening at Namek.

And like that, an awareness that things could be equally tangled and messy on another planet, it wasn't just Earth, made her skin crawl. Her home wasn't the only place in the universe that could be in danger. It really seemed that things at Namek weren't looking well... Her expression softened, wondering what Bass has been through that lead him to a foreign planet, so far away from his home...

"A-Ah, I'm going to remove the plants from the inside," Ayu replied right away, herself distracted from the grim thoughts when she heard his sudden proposal. It was an important matter but she recognized that the Namekian himself wanted to change the subject. Bass offered his help right away, not even suspecting that she might have been... Stronger than him. The Seal worked well, the softly glowing pattern on the palm of her hand was covered by a fingerless glove. Ayu's power was suppressed enough to not catch unwanted attention or not to cause any misunderstanding... She very much welcomed his offer - would it even happen with the Seal not present? Deep down, by the sounds of her thoughts swarming in the back of her head, she knew that it would be better not to stay here alone for too long. For various reasons. "Thank you," she smiled, a little abashed giving him a soft smile. "That's very kind of you. I think that I-I would like to have some company here. As much as I love my home, its state now brings back some..." her tone dropped into more melancholic tones when Ayu took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "... Unpleasant memories."

With this said, she raised her hands, sensing the Ki of the plants, vibrant and peaceful. Their pulse always was soothing to her as if it unconsciously matched the beating of her heart... The flora overran her home carefully, wrapping and twisting around at least one-third of the building, openwork covering the walls like a lace. She felt it. Even those plants didn't bear a grudge even if they were born out of grief. It would hurt her to cut them down - it wasn't their fault that Ayu lost control and created all of them, taking their lives on a whim didn't sound fair either. You are responsible for what you have tamed, as they say. She slowly inhaled air again, focusing on the energy within them - Ayu's fingertips lit with gentle light, and... The trees inside her home were rooted deeply but that wasn't going to be a problem. The biggest bushes and vines started to rustle, not only that, they moved. At first lazily, stretching their branches and trunks as if woken up from a long nap, they started to stroll towards the broken wall. Then, more swiftly, they were leaving the place. Some of them changed their sizes when Ayu returned back grains of energy that were within them, shifting them back to saplings. After all, trees as big as this would just ram through her house and she did not want any more damage to happen. She wanted to fix this place, to make it ready for...

... Ayu wasn't sure if she would ever return here but she needed to be prepared for the future.

"I'm not sure what t-to do now..." she glanced at Bass as the flora was still leaving her place, looking like a tiny and fancy green parade. Ayu scratched her cheek, lost in thoughts while she looked at the house. "I do not have experience with homebuilding but I think, we could try fixing the walls," taking a big step to not step on the shrubs that were obediently walking in the line toward the forest, Ayu walked up to Namekian. The ferns' leave were waving as they softly crawled from the corners of her windows. She glanced down, at the moss and what was left of the walls. "The bricks should be here, if not, I c-can try making more..." she suggested, looking around. Some tidying up was needed...

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Power Level - 283,929 | 10 (Seal technique)
Word Count - 1,009
Total Word Count - 2,645

For someone who she has just met, Bass was surprisingly kind. Was it his nature or was every Namekian like it? Without a word of complaint, he suggested he'd help, accepting the work without judging first how hard or how time-consuming it would be. That was admirable - and all this time his energy was honest and his words were genuine. Ayu could feel it. Even the way he tried to reassure her was selfless, trying to make her comfortable even if they still only knew their names. Good vibes... She might have started to feel them already.

The plants were leaving the building steadily. Their roots moved as tiny legs while they crawled out of the floor, leaving only broken fundaments and tiles in the kitchen. The ferns and moss around the walls slithered down gently, and the living, breathing green carpet moved out to return to the forest. The vines that twisted around the roof and gutter waved and curled, untangling from between the cracks - leaving only clean space. Any leaf, flower, and bush were either returning into a small sapling that was trotting back to the wilderness or moving away from the house on its own. It was like springtime cleaning just very, very green... Ayu stood there, watching over it, making sure not to hurt any piece of flora. Once they were out of her place, their roots dug inside the soil of the forest and they stretched their branches and leaves comfortably. She simply wanted to remove them and find them a better location for their growth - a space they could thrive in the best conditions. It took a moment but finally, everything was cleaned.

Now to repair the place - that was the hardest part of today's task. But Ayu was prepared to finish it. With a bit of help and patience, the work should go smoothly.

"Oh, that's the truth..." she had to admit that Bass was right. If the building's structure would be damaged too much no amount of fixing would help unless they take care of the main issue. And the layout should be either intact or repaired first before adding anything else. She'd hate to think that the whole thing could collapse with one wrong move, the house was already quite old. Just, there was one little problem. "... I don't know h-how to check that," Ayu mumbled, feeling how her cheeks started to heat up with embarrassment. House building wasn't something that they teach at schools and despite her knowledge about herbs and flora that might have not been too useful. Fine, she made once a living plant house, but that was a different thing. Creating it from the scratch would be easier, yet she wanted to preserve as much as she could from the house in front of her. It was simply too important for her to just abandon - and mixing it with her powers was a challenging task.

"I don't think I can make bricks..." Ayu smiled bashfully, rubbing her heated cheek. "But I could make a block of wood? Though that won't work as a brick I think," she murmured the last part to herself, starting to ponder what to do. Bricks, bricks - she started walking around the place, picking them from the ground and creating a pile on the side. Some fell into the house, and a few were broken but it didn't seem that they were missing a lot of those. Maybe a handful? What would work as a substitute... Still, Ayu's power wasn't only about making plants, she could bend them and change them at her whim. Achieving something that wasn't seen in nature was easy... "I can make anything that is plant-based. I could try making a part of a plant that will be dense and hard so technically, do you think it would count as a brick?" she glanced at Bass, asking for his opinion. At this point, she hoped that he knew more about house-building than she did because Ayu had honestly a very faint idea of what she was doing.

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Power Level - 283,929 | 10 (Seal technique)
Word Count - 678
Total Word Count - 3,323

"Right, t-thank you," Ayu replied to Namekian when he offered to check on the structure of the house. Watching him lower his head as he entered the building reminded her a bit about how Liari had to enter their home - her height made it difficult for her to walk inside comfortably. She would slouch or crouch or- she smiled a little at this memory. They tried to modify the entrance but none of them knew enough about buildings so in the end they were always improvising. But they made it work.

Sitting down on the grass, Ayu focused on the task at hand. That was - making bricks. Her magic wasn't good enough to pull them out of thin air and she could modify the plants, so maybe..? Trying to search through her mental notes, she pushed through to remember what was the hardest plant matter she knew about. She hadn't spent months studying botany to not know that... An ironwood tree would be ideal but that wasn't the best option. Sclerenchyma was the ground tissue in plants that was the main structural support in any type of flora. But those cells were drying out quickly, dying, they could absorb the water easily too. Taking that into consideration, she might create a plant, shaping it into brick but the wall would end up soaked in the first rainfall. As she thought about it a cube-like structure appeared in her hand, the wood pattern present on the smooth surface... The density and hardness increased but that wasn't all she needed to focus about. How to make it waterproof - with wax, probably. Certain palms were able to create oil or wax-like substances, so that might be a good approach.

So busy was Ayu with her thinking that it felt like a second has passed since Bass left and returned to share the news. She blinked, raising her head to listen to his judgment carefully. The situation wasn't the best but it wasn't worse either... They could fix this place.

"I see... My plants did a number on this place," she recalled with melancholy in her quiet voice, lowering her eyes to the brick she was holding in her hands. Ayu wasn't in control back then but she knew what she could do with the flora. Her ability was about the connection, control, and manipulation of the plant matter, so making the roots as sharp as blades and branches harder than stone would be easy - the damage to an old house would be devastating... Luckily there was no rhyme or reason, it was chaos, so... In a way she was glad. If the place would end up overrun with vines and roots like the part of wastelands she wouldn't know what to do. Retrieving her home from splinter-size pieces would be impossible but as Bass assured her, they could work with what they had. The majority was looking good and the foundation was solid. She could fill the cracks with something but the walls were a more crucial matter.

"... I think, I could?" Ayu half-asked and half-assured him about this possibility, standing up and looking at the house in front of them. She stroked her cheek, walking up to the cracked wall, trying not to get lost in her thoughts again. "Though I could use your help in telling me where I need to make the wall. You know more about that than me so it's only fair..." she smiled a little abashed, putting Bass's guidance above her lack of experience. That felt obvious, did it not? "I wouldn't know where to start if I was on my own," admitting that wasn't hard but she genuinely appreciated his offer and his help. Ayu would hate to think that she could damage her house more if she'd tried to repair it with goodwill but no idea what she was doing.

There was just one thing that needed explaining... Judging by Bass's energy he was way stronger than regular Earthlings but on the other hand, Ayu was - something else, if she could describe herself like that. It made her feel bad. Telling people that she was more powerful than them always made her feel guilty and she was afraid that they would mistake it for bragging. In reality, Ayu did not want that power and since she learned how to hide it, she felt more reassured than ever. The thing was that if she was to make whole walls with her powers, the Seal that was concealing her presence to the bare minimum was going to break, revealing everything. She didn't want to look like she was deceiving anyone, especially not the person that so selflessly offered to help her - a stranger - with restoring her home back to normal.

After a moment of hesitation, Ayu took a deep breath.

"I was the one who did that," she smiled sadly, placing her hand on the damaged wall. Ayu closed her eyes. "You s-see, I'm connected to nature in some way and I am q-quite strong," saying that felt always so embarrassing... But Ayu's life signature wasn't hostile, she wasn't bragging, if anything, she felt ashamed. Her expression was melancholic, pained even. So many people would love to reach that level and she was only dreaming of having nothing to do with this power struggle. Yet, being in the middle of it, she had to change her priorities. "Although I am strong I am not exactly skillful at controlling this power. Back then, here, I met someone I did not wish to see," she didn't mind sharing that and it felt important to explain if she wanted to reveal her power level. "They said things I knew about but wasn't ready to accept and I panicked," opening her eyes, she looked at Bass and send him a small, unsure smile. "I didn't mean to destroy my home, it just happened before I could do anything."

Tucking the wooden cube she made under her arm, Ayu slid off the black, fingerless glove from her one hand. The faintly glowing pattern of the Seal was present there, sitting on the skin on her palm.

"I'm concealing my energy with this but if I'm going to use my power like that, the Seal is going to break," she explained and bashfully looked at the cracked wall. "I swear that nothing will happen today... B-But I wanted to say that before my energy would rise, j-just in case." She would hate to startle him or make Bass think she was hiding her Ki for some unpleasant purpose. No matter what he was going to think of it or of her, she wanted to be honest.

She owed him as much.

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Power Level - 283,929 | 10 (Seal technique)
Word Count - 1,118
Total Word Count - 4,441

"That will be appreciated, thank you," she replied with a sigh of relief. House-building... Was more complicated than one could guess. The newfound friend was of a dependable kind and she couldn't help but smile a little. Ayu did warn Bass that her energy might have been a bit too high. He seemed to take her words quite well. Maybe she was just making it weird? On the other hand, he could be the one far more powerful than her, keeping his power on this level right now. It's not like she wanted to assume things... Oh, w-well, they will see. Either way, they were here to build the house!

Bass seemed more focused on work than her previous statement. What was the worse that could happen... In many, many ways, Ayu dared not to answer that question. At least this day was peaceful and busy enough to keep her thoughts occupied, and besides, she did not want to attempt transformation. That would be just overkill if all they wanted to do was to fix the house... And she knew the dangers that could come with it. Just her power level as it was would be easy for others to read. Making a plant wall did not need all of her energy but there was no middle ground - it was either her power hidden and dormant or exposed and ready to use at any moment. Later, when she'd be back in the Lookout, Ayu should try working more on this Seal ability. It wasn't perfect but if concealing Ki by regular means is out of her reach, she could experiment some more.

"Here I go then," she warned him carefully, still a little uneasy but trusting Bass's judgment. The Seal on her hand gleamed and then the pattern faded away almost instantly, leaving nothing behind. And that was it. When the technique come undone, there were not any noticeable differences. Almost as if nothing had happened - no ground cracking, no lightning in the background - maybe aside from some gentle breeze around her silhouette, nothing more... It's just, her energy rose to the actual level, now free from the magic that was bounding it to the low shape she had when she arrived here. Ayu squeezed and opened the palms of her hands and rubbed her cheek a bit abashed. Her Ki was in no way hostile, as usual calm and gentle, and quite uncertain... "S-So..." she mumbled after a brief moment of silence, looking at Bass why a shy smile. Hopefully... That won't be too much to take in? "Which w-wall we should fix f-first?"

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Power Level - 283,929
Word Count - 435
Total Word Count - 4,876