A bent-with-age elderly woman slowly walked her way towards the village gates. With ever step she took the air staff she used more as a walking stick then an actual weapons these days made a soft thunk of a sound against the ground. She didn't rush, simply taking her time: even though she knew she had to be near the ending of her goal. Wrinkled skin and squinted eyes put the elderly woman at about sixty in appearance, though she was easily double that: Air Sages always did have long lives, as did Tatsumaki's as a whole. The woman had long white hair which was back in a braide that hung down her back. She wore robes that were a light tan color and which on the back had the kanji for Air Sage stiched into them with silver thread. Along the cuffs of her robe were more silver stitchings, though these held the Tatsumaki clan symbol, and repeated itself the whole way around.

She came into this /world/ only days prior in the search for her granddaughter whom it had been years since she had seen. She had seen Avery get sucked away by something, and it had simply taken this long to figure out what it was, fiind it, and get it to 'eat her' too: in fact, the old woman had spent several minutes waving her arms and screaming "EAT ME" at it before she realized she simply had to touch it to be grabbed. It hadn't taken her long to hear about her granddaughter, and even more rumors about how some man had kidnapped her five years ago, and she had been with him since. It angered the woman greatly to hear that no one had tried to get her granddaughter back, and so, as old and frail looking as she was she was going to do the job herself. She had heard that this man, this Alec Kane, was a villian, a psychopath: someone who bombed villages, cut of the legs of leaders, and basically did whatever he wanted to because he could and everyone was too scared of him. Granny Tatsumaki wasn't scared of him. Granny Tatsumaki wasn't scared of anyone.

So, as the elderly woman reached the village gates she paused, expecting someone to come and see what such an old woman would want in a village she had heard was over-run with criminals. She made no attempt to hide her massive chakra pull, or to come off as anything but a threat, she was simply who she was, and figured everyone could take it how they felt. "Oi! Anyone around?! I want to see Avery... Avery Tatsumaki.", she called out.

”Sir, there's someone in the village who has the biggest chakra signature i've ever seen in my life,” said Kinzoku over the comms. ”...And as weird as it sounds, it's an old lady. But even I know looks can be deceiving...”

”Yeah... I feel it too. Thanks for informing me, Kinzoku. Keep your distance. I'll take the heat on this one.”

Alec could feel the massive chakra of the person who'd just entered the village while headed back to the Tower after getting the Yanagi twins settled in. Was this the attack he'd been expecting from one of those other villages? Alec wasn't worried about his own safety, but the safety of the innocent villagers. The grin was still upon his face as he began heading toward where this person was...

...To soon come upon an old woman. He heard what she was saying about Avery, and wondered if they were possibly some sort of relation. This was the first time in 5 years that someone actually came looking for her, and Alec couldn't help but wonder if that tea drinker, Natalie was behind this. That's if she was even still around after that last encounter...

”Excuse me, ma'am... Avery is here, I can take you to where she is. May I ask exactly who you are?”

She looked old and defenseless, and the chakra radar told him that this old woman act was no act at all. Alec was still on guard for even the slightest of movements. This old woman was probably capable of things he could only dream of, and he didn't want to take any chances...

Gran squinted her eyes at the man who had approached her. From the wanted posters she had seen this was exactly the man she had been looking for: the man who had bombed villages, cut of peoples legs, and robbed them of their eyeballs, the man who had kidnapped her granddaughter five years ago. The line of her mouth slowly began to tilt downward in a frown. She had been expecting... something. She didn't know what, but something. The last thing she had expected was to be told that he would take her to Avery, all without any sort of physical altercation either.

Were all of the rumors she had heard wrong then?

"My name is Gran. I'm Avery's grandmother. Five years ago I watched my granddaughter get taken by some... thing. Just sucked right out of the world. It took me a while to realize what it was, and even longer to be able to follow her. When I finally got here I heard tales that you were this monster of a fellow who kidnapped my granddaughter, and who everyone was too scared to confront to get back. So, I came here to get my granddaughter back."

She squinted at the man again, trying to get a better look at him through her half closed eyes. "But, something tells me... and it's something, a feeling, I've learned not to ignore... that while some of that story I heard might be true... not all of it is exactly the way it seems to be."

This 'thing' that Gran spoke of had to be the same 'thing' that brought he and his kids here. So she'd found a way through, caught up on current events, and of course, she was told that Alec Kane was a monster. It only made him grin.

”Well, no, Gran. What you were told was right. I am a monster of a fellow, and I did kidnap your Grand Daughter. But no harm came to her, and I even told her that if she wanted to leave she could, but she didn't. Furthermore, the leader of the village that I took her from was a close friend of Avery's, and this person did nothing at all to try and get her back. I did what I did because I thought it would be in her best interests, and it turned out to be justified because that village no longer exists.

“Avery was once the Kuraikage of this village, and still would be, but she doesn't like people looking at her as an authority figure. Still, she is a highly respected member of the village, and I don't think people will ever stop looking at her as a queen of sorts.”

While talking, Alec was headed toward the Tower. The comms were open, and Alec was sure that Avery had to have heard the conversation taking place by now...

Avery had been relaxing with a good book, the sort of book that was so detailed and interesting that it allowed you to visualize what was going on in your head, therefore it took Alec calling the elderly woman 'Gran', for her to suddenly start paying attention. She listened as Alec detailed what had happened those five years ago. She also listened as Alec explained that even though she wasn't the Kuraikage anymore she was still a highly respected member of the village, and that the people still thought of her as a queen of sorts: that part she didn't know about, but she wasn't going to dwell on it.

She was already on the move, having started as she heard them speak. She figured Alec was leading her grandmother to the tower and there moved to the nearest window, glad that she had had her fan with her. She jumped out of the window after she opened it and into the air. She unfolded her fan and landed on it as it caught a gust of wind. She rode the fan through the air, around the tower, and lower to the ground as she went. She landed in front of the tower and then closed her giant fan. She shoved the thing into the ground so that it stood upright and then ran over to her grandmother. "Gran!", she called out as she reached the woman. She wrapped her arms around the elderly woman and held on tight for a moment, only bothering to keep her grip loose enough so she didn't harm the woman.

"Gran, what're you doing here? Last I saw you you were in the forest... Did something happen? Did... did they find you again?" It was always her biggest fear after all: her and her grandmother had been tracked halfway around the world all of those years ago, and she constantly feared such a thing happening again. So, the sudden arrival of her Gran worried her, greatly, which showed clearly on her face.

Gran followed after the man known as Alec Kane as she listened to his explanation. She was glad to hear that no harm had come to her grandchild, but was quite confused as to why Avery would choose to stay somewhere where she had been kidnapped: something she was going to get to the bottom of as soon as she saw her. Her frown deepened however as she heard that the village Avery had been in before her kidnapping had been destroyed, meaning that had Avery stayed she likely could or would have been destroyed along with it - it was the sort of thing that made her want to smack the hell out of the village's leader if they hadn't been destroyed along with the village.

She had just been about to ask where Alec was leading her when she heard her granddaughter call to her. She turned her head just in time to catch a glimpse of Avery before she was being hugged. She allowed her air staff to drop to the ground in front of her with a clatter as she wrapped her arms around her granddaughter and gave her a good squeeze. "Oh, Avery. I've missed you something terrible." She heard her granddaughters many questions, and saw the worry on her face. She sighed softly in response. "They did find me, Avery. But, that's not why I'm here, and they're nothing to worry about right now. I came here because I hadn't seen you in years... last time I had caught a glimpse of you you were being sucked away by something and then you disappeared completely. Then you didn't come back.", she added as she pulled back and gave her granddaughter a pointed look.

"Now, this man here has been telling me an awful lot on our little walk. Like the fact that he kidnapped you, gave you the chance to leave and didn't... now, things might be differently over here but I can still see everything that's going on inside of your head because that's just something that Gran does: including the fact I can see the way you feel for this man is no Stockholm syndrome garbage and is the real deal... However, I'm not willing to stay over in that other world any longer alone... so, either you come with me... or I stay here with you.", when she finished speaking she gave another look to Avery and then turned her focus onto the man known as Alec Kane. She had no problem staying here in Makkura, if Avery felt this way about Alec like she could psychically see then she wasn't going to step between them, and it also meant that Alec couldn't be as bad as she had heard about - Avery had suffered in her young life, and she wouldn't be attracted to a monster... no, there was more to this man beneath the surface of gossip and possible lies, even if he was willing to admit he was a monster.

Alec was about to take Gran into the tower, then call Avery downstairs so that Gran wouldn't have to walk up all of those flights, when he noticed her jump from one of the higher up windows and glide to the ground with her fan. She ran over and hugged the old woman. So Avery was reunited with one of her family members, making him nod his head with a grin, slightly melting since besides his kids and Grand kids, Alec had never known any of his people. Sometimes he still wondered who his parents were. The way his family had come about made the grin slide further toward the ground: meeting Sunny near the beginning of a 10 year war. Her nearly dying with the birth of Jr and Serena (the daughter he hasn't seen in years.) The many clones... Sunny leaving to go find the rest of her family.

The fact that he'd by all means kidnapped Avery here; even if she accepted it, he'd taken her against her will. Alec sometimes thought about if he hadn't have taken her from Hana. Where would she have ended up? Avery honestly cared about Alec now, but there was always that part of him that would feel guilty for taking her the way he did. Especially now, seeing as this old woman went through what she did to come and find her... He'd become a source of hatred, envy and fear. Most of the time, he acted like it didn't bother him, but sometimes it did. Gran said people called him a monster; perhaps he actually was...

Gran looked at Alec and he grinned again. He couldn't show weakness or be on some emo kick, he was still technically looked upon as the leader, even if he didn't want to be.

”If you wanted to stay here Gran, that would be fine with me. We can sort you out somewhere to stay easily. Avery; i'm sure she's familiar with where a lot of the new houses are, why don't you have her show you where they are? If the house isn't to your satisfaction i'll personally have it altered to your liking. Sound good?'