The Runaround

Tomomi had really just joined this tournament thingy out of curiosity, and after getting her current regalia Kenny she really couldn't care less about it. She was just interested in learning this soul healing power, because what Kenny had done to her felt really weird but ultimately Tom felt...so much better. Tomo was still broken, obviously, but so much less so now. Well, even if the effect wouldn't have been that big after years of feeling like crap just a small relief felt immense.
But one or two challenges couldn't hurt, or at least that's what Kenny had said. So Tomo had gotten into a trash collecting competition with this dude Jackal. Tomo was pretty sure she was gonna lose but Kenny was happy about cleaning the environment so there was something good about it too.

Tomo was stalking through the more forested route to the spot she was meeting Jackal at, and her regalia Kenny, a small timid looking man, followed after her. Tomo's pace was pretty slow because she kept holding branches out of Kenny's way. She had gotten the urge to do shit like that after Kenny was used soul healing on her. It was weird as hell.
"Come on, keep it up Kenny. Not that long anymore."
Tomo said after keeping another branch out of Kenny's way and he nodded back at Tomo, he seemed a bit tired. But he hadn't complained, not even once. The guy never complained about anything. Tomo frowned a bit and rubbed her neck as they approached the edge of the shrubbery.
"Uh, sorry for choosing such a pain in the ass route. It's a habit."
Kenny looked at Tomo a bit surprised but didn't have time to answer when they stepped out of the bushes and saw Jackal. Yomo waved at the man and his regalia and walked over.
"Yo, sorry 'bout the lateness. Let's do this thing."

Kenny seemed a bit intimidated by Jackal, and stood slightly behind Tomo when he introduced his regalia. It looked like he was trying to hide behind her and that was comical, since he was barely taller than Tomo but still stuck out a bit from behind Tomo's head.
"'Kay, cool with me. This is my only regalia, Kenny."
Tomo pointed a thumb over her shoulder at Kenny, who is turn sent a small wave at Ramil and May from behind Tomo. He seemed a lot less scared of them than Jackal.

"Most trash sounds good, but I dunno about regalia helping. What do you think?"
Tomo turned a bit to ask the question from Kenny, who looked kinda spooked that someone actually wanted his opinion. He glanced around and settled to look at the ground.
"I...I would like to help...if that's okay. Cleaning nature is important."
Kenny said with a rather quiet voice and smiled a bit. Tomo nodded and turned back to face Jackal.
"So Kenny and Ramil can help. We got 30 minutes, whoever collects most wins."
Behind Tomo Kenny pulled a roll of small garbage bags from his pocket and showed it to Jackal and his regalis.
"I-if you don't have your own I can give you half."

Kenny smiled politely when Ramil took the bags and was a bit happy he was able to be useful. Tomo and Kenny divided the bags between each other, and then Ramil sent them off. Jackal shot off so fast Tomo could barely follow him, and Kenny jumped a bit. Instead of running off Tomo turned right around and walked back into the bushes.
"You do you Kenny. I bet you do this a lot."
Tomo grinned at the man and Kenny smiled shyly back and went his way. Tomo made her way through the bushes, following her nose. For the longest time she had been annoyed by the amount of trash people dumped in the more forested parts of the park, and now Tomo was able to harvest that trash for her own uses. And what do you know, soon enough Tomo found a small trash dump, full of cans and snack wrappers and condoms(ew). Tomo started collecting the trash with a grimace, but her bag filled up fast. When about 20 minutes had gone she had to take a new bag, and was able to fill about half of it before she noted time was about up. Tomo headed back with one and half bags of trash.
Meanwhile Kenny had walked around the walkways, mostly collecting trash from around overflowing trashcans and the bushes lining the paths. He was able to collect one bagful.

The two returned around the same time to May, Tomo walking from the bushes her face bit dirty and hair full of leaves. Tomo dropped her one and half trashbags to the ground, with a small smug smirk on her face. Kenny carefully put his own bag next to them and took a
place by Tomo's side.
"Boom. Would ya look at that? We got more trash. Or am I wrong?"
Tomo loked over at May, since she was supposed to be the judge or something to that degree.

Tomo pfft'd a but at May, and even Kenny smiled a bit at the interactions between Jackal and the regalia. Tomo didn't mind being ignored, she was feeling too good about winning and she smiled cheerily and still bit smugly. But the smile was wiped away when Jackal commented on how she got so much. Tomo frowned a bit and glaced at the forested part behind her.
"These parts are kinda my hangout and it's disgusting how much trash there is. I'm no-, I ain't even a treehugger and still I find it gross as fuck."
Tomo grimaced a bit and lifted all three bags of trash she and Kenny had collected. Kenny tried to take at least one bag but Tomo moved them away from him.
"So, where's the dump anyway?"

Tomo squinted at the hand Jackal stuck out towards her, and then at the man himself. Before she would've given the burden to someone else in a flash and bailed, but now Tomo wanted to take care of this herself, it was her responsibility. Tomo was about to say no when Ramil spoke, he kinda made sense, and even Kenny nudged her a bit.
"You could let him help you, we can stay and finish cleaning the trash dump you found. If you want to."
It was a weird but Kenny way of convincing her, and it worked. Tomo frowned and after a minute sighed and handed over the bags. Kenny sighed a bit from relief behind her, and was actually kinda looking forward to cleaning the forest some more.