Issa was once again thanked her father for teaching her Japanese, else she would have had a hard ass time navigating her new life because although some smatterings of other languages were spoken here - the former one seemed to win out as the majority.

Ruffling her growing hair - it was in need of a trim soon - the young girl glanced at the small family making their way through the streets and for the first time since being here for about four months, thought about her own blood relations.

Her mother had been a black woman named Sasha Almanor from the mean streets of Chicago who gone off to college as a first generation graduate and met an international study abroad student from Japan.

Long story short, they fell in love, boned, had her and Matsushima Kei decided to stay in the US instead of returning home to his family and taking over whatever multi-million business organization they had brewing over there. Which was kinda stupid in her opinion - even though he stayed for her mother and her - but love made people do crazy things.

Like herself for example but that would be explained a little later.

Naturally, the Matsushima weren't too happy about the change in plans since their most beloved heir and scion decided to run off with some urchin - but there wasn't much they could do besides cut him off of the money supply.

And considering her father had been engaged to the daughter of another wealthy family didn't help the situation any.

Also yes, she knew her parent's love story was some shit straight out of a fucking romance movie but it didn't make it any less true.

Originally the plan was for Issa to follow in her parent's footsteps and go off to school like they did. But sadly, life was a bitch and both her mother and her father died in a car crash that left only Issa alive - barely.

Coincidently it all happened because they were arguing on the phone with Kei's parents who wanted him to ditch his family and come back home.

The assholes.

The aftermath left Issa an orphan and she fell into the care of her grandfather since her father's family didn't wanna touch her with a ten-foot fucking pole. Which was fine by her because fuck them.

Growing up a half black half Asian kid in the bowels of Chicago was an experience.

Half the time she didn't know what crowd she was supposed to roll with considering she looked more like her mother until they saw the way her eyes tilted - which was a feature that came more from her father than Sasha. But nevertheless, she found her niche hanging out with what little family she still had left.

Issa hadn't exactly meant to fall into crime but when her grandfather - who had picked her up and held when all she wanted was to die with her parents - needed financial help to keep open the gym he had owned for literal generations, Issa knew she couldn't just sit there and wait.

Especially since she had spent a majority of her time in there learning how to kickbox and kick ass since she was six, and so she put away her school books and picked up weapons and dark hoodies.

And at the age of twelve age, Issa robbed her first person and scored almost two hundred bucks. But the reason someone would be walking around Chicago with that much cash on them was beyond her, they were basically asking for it.

Naturally, from there it all escalated until she had enough for her grandfather to stay open and for her have a record a mile long, much to the disappointment of old man Almanor but he didn't need to like it.

As long as he was okay then so was she.

But not to be misunderstood, just because she started off in crime for noble reasons didn't mean she stayed for noble reasons. Issa found out that she was good at being a criminal, more so than she was at school work because she could use her intelligence to her own personal advantage instead of for prestige.

And college.

God fuck college, she took some classes later on to try it out but it was bullshit in her opinion.

Fast forward - or maybe rewind because she had been talking about university - a bit and her police rapport earned her the credentials she needed to join the up and coming gang in the area.

Sighing to herself, Issa shook her head and glanced at the passersby. Her life hadn't been easy but it had been hers and so she loved it as much as she was able.

And if she had anything to say about it, she'd love this one just the same - with greedy hands, bloody grins, and late nights with people she could trust. Which was exactly what she was going to start looking for because the best way to get close to a gang was to quite literally grow up in one.

Issa was hoping to be recruited.

She hadn't done much to be noticed yet, she didn't steal beyond personal need and nothing that would be missed so no one had anything to develop interest in. Which meant she needed to be known for something after all that's how it worked when she had wanted to join Southside.

But the real question was, what did she want to be her specialty because it would follow her for likely the rest of her career.

It couldn't be killing people since it wouldn't be as easy as pulling a trigger. The only weapons she had seen here were the ones that required being all up and personal and she couldn't throw a knife for shit. Not to mention despite having a body count, usually she killed in retaliation or in defense and she doubted that she could kill someone with her body like this.

Issa supposed she could either go into smuggling or thievery since she was already doing the latter and had done the former when she had been alive. She didn't have any problems peddling drugs or other illegal things to people, the only thing Issa would have to watch out for was ending up dead because she had seen or heard too much.

And with stealing, she just had to get more creative and in shape - which she had thankfully started to do a month back once she got into the swing of things.

Issa still remembered the exercises her grandfather put her through and she could mimic some of them, the other ones that she couldn't pull off would have to wait until she put on some more muscle and height. Running around the Rukongai gave her great cardio and the standard push-ups, crunches, and lunges were nice building blocks - all of which she made sure to do in seclusion near the rivers.

Issa had started being able sense the spiritual pressure of people - not very well mind you - but well enough to at least get an uneasy feeling when people neared her.

Which gave her some weird bouts of anxiety when she ended up focusing hard on something and getting sneaked up on, but she figured it was a fair tradeoff for an internal alarm system.

But back to the matter at hand, she had to pick a skill and be recognized for it and she also had to be smart about how she did it.

And stealing was the best option really because she needed contacts to be a smuggler but thievery was freelance.

Issa had to pick someone impressive enough to steal from but not dangerous enough to be a problem if she succeeded. And frankly, she didn't know who that person was.

Grumbling to herself Issa was resigned to the thought of having to do more reconnaissance in district 77 - yeah she knew where she was now - and sighed.

She couldn't implement her plan if she didn't even have a plan to begin with.

Crime life back home had never been this complicated.

Okay so Issa has been here for four months now and you guys hear more about her past!

I'm pretty sure you guys can guess what Issa has been doing for those four months but if you're confused she was figuring out some stuff about the criminal gangs around town and trying to keep her scrawny butt alive and functioning lol.

Her findings about the gangs will be talked about next chapter.

I like Issa so far, she's becoming a fav quickly lol.