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Anja's unease with modern phone technology was quite similar to Natasha's own feelings on the subject not too long ago so it was rather entertaining to be on the outside looking in on what she must have been like when Lucky was showing her the ropes. It was also rare to see the blonde stammering over her words like that, the woman did not get embarrassed easily, and she was rather adorable when she was. A special treat for Natasha to enjoy in their first face to face meeting in quite a long time.

"Lucky is pretty easy going, just wait until she sees you in the flesh. Now that will be a very happy Lucky."

Natasha was then surprised by Anja's next question, her eyes darting back and forth between the glass divider and Anja herself. That stopped when she laid her head against Natasha's shoulder. She then relaxed and sunk a little deeper into the thick cushions of the leather seat, pressing a small button over the door to click on the intercom. "Hey if we reach the spot before you hear from me again, just drive around okay?" She got an affirmative and clicked off the intercom.

"No seeing us, no hearing us, and no interruptions. Feel free to tell me whatever is on your mind."

Anja now was kind of curious what kind of a girl this Sakura would be. Right now, she imagined a sweet as candy girl who was also an airhead and a hopeless optimist, probably clothed like a box of chocolate or something like that and also never without her cellphone wile a lot of strange happy noises and squeaks and squeals came out of her mouth. This may have sounded like she did not find her overly sympathetic from the first impression, but this was not the case. Optimism was a quality that Anja found quite important, although a little bit tiresome too.

Anja herself was getting a little bit tense when she realized that Natasha did not know what she meant, and her paranoid mindset would have probably shrilled with all bells if she had thought that her host was probably thinking that she was in danger right now. This was far fetched from the perspective of a regular person, but for Anja it would have made perfect sense. But so the moment passed and so she just enjoyed the feeling of Natasha beside her.
" I was living in a German orphanage until I was 6 or so. There I also got my nickname because there was a large tree where Ravens had their nests and I often watched them."

Natasha wasn't exactly sure what to expect but she wasn't worried about it, more just nervous in the anticipation of whatever it was Anja wanted to ensure total privacy for. That went away the moment Anja began, Natasha quickly realizing the woman was about to share her guarded past with the Frenchwoman and she understood just how significant that was. For all the time she had known Anja, nearly her entire AFW career with gaps for her travels, she had learned relatively little about her history or even basics like the origin of her nickname which she had only now revealed to her. She remained quiet in reverence to the woman's words, slipping her arm around Anja's waist to gently hold her as they sat there, her listening to the story intently.

"I have often wondered where the Raven came from, a fitting origin." She remarked softly, but saying no more as she was eager to hear more.

"I was not an orphan. My parents, both lowlifes, were deemed unfit to raise a child by court as I learned later, something that happens quite rarely in my home country. I guess I was just unlucky to not get adopted as an infant."
She continued in a rather monotone voice as if she was reading a lawyer book. Everyone, even someone like Anja had a desire to learn where they were from and how her environment had been. To say that she had not been surprised that one of her parents was a unredeeming addict and the other a *St. Pauli Kietz* hooker would have been an understatement, but it still had been kind of disappointing.

"The director of my orphanage was a man named Falkenberg, a cold technocrat with a knack for finding cracks in systems. An upfront honest man who secretly arranged for children to get drafted into the wrong hands when the price was right. I learned that he was arrested later by Interpol and currently serves 25 years for various crimes including membership in a criminal organization. My next station was Japan."
It was hard to believe that this would even be possible in the heart of Europe, which made it even more bold and secretive from the criminal organization that had arranged it. Also paper was patient and the ministry of youth was continually overworked.
"The next years are honestly kind of a blur for me. The only thing I clearly remember is living with a lot of girls in a large room, a big dog that somehow seemed to like to watch into our bedrooms and a Blonde woman who had a photo that had an uncanny resemblance with me. I later learned that this woman was my legal custodian and also the head of a subdivision of a syndicate."

Natasha was no longer as eager to hear more but if it was this painful to hear how terrible Anja's childhood had been she couldn't even imagine what it took for her friend to tell all this to her. No wonder she had requested privacy before mentioning any of it. Listening to her voice she noted the almost clinical way in which she recited this story, as if she were trying to keep herself as detached from the story as she could. She wondered if she even realized she was doing it or if it was just a coping mechanism she did on instinct alone, whichever it was didn't really matter though, she just hoped this wasn't too taxing on her to go through.

As the tale went on Natasha was struck by just how different their upbringings were, she was by no means blind to her own great fortune in being born a Loclear but never had she been faced with the extreme opposite of her own childhood like she was now. She found herself gripping the armrest to her seat tightly as Anja continued, wanting nothing more than to bring justice to those who had done this to Anja but that was one of her worst tendencies and she knew it. It wasn't her place, all she needed to do in that moment was listen and offer what kind words she could. "Thats all...just terrible. I think I know the answer but I don't want to say it. What did this blond woman want from you girls?"

"That depended on your grade. A Chinese, African, Latin or Indian girl is relatively easy to come by, the poor farmers and pariahs basically wait for recruiters to take their children. White girls were the really sought after prices."
Anja sunk a little deeper until her head would rest in the lap of Natasha, her legs would stretch out to find maximum comfort. Somehow she figured that if she told this as casually as possible and with the greatest of relaxation, it would not push so hard against her mind as it usually did when she thought to long about it.
"People are not all good looking and suitable for the tastes of the rich and powerful. So some girls did not make the cut and were resold or reassigned to factories, mines. Those who passed with a poor grade were send on the streets or in brothels. Most of these I have never seen again. Still I sometimes think that these were the luc...less unfortunate ones."
The word lucky seemed inappropriate for this kind of situation.

"For the rest of us, let´s say that I have seen video footage which is sentenced with up to three years of prison in my homeland. Still I can´t remember much of it."
A defensive mechanism which one of her psychiatrists had said her once.
"When I grew older, I was both introduced to sensual and actual wrestling, the study of human behavior and the leadership of an organization. It was a full time 16 hour job so to say, although much was observing and learning. I could probably work in both of your public relations and accounting departments despite having any formal credits."
She closed her eyes and smiled a little bit before turning stony again. She remembered much more of this time.
"My legal custodian was known as the Mistress of Masks. Not because she was a mustache twirling supervillain, but because she had over fifty passports and nobody I ever met knew her real name. I have heard several stories about her. Some were from her own mouth, and I think the most realistic version is that she was the daughter of a high ranking don who lost both her father, husband and child in a car crash. For me, this meant that I was groomed to be her daughter because I looked like her late children."

It was a world Natasha knew existed, she was by no means naive to the underbelly that existed in every country but this was the first time she had known someone who had personally experienced some of the worst that society had to offer. Watching a documentary or reading a book on the subject just didn't compare to hearing a personal account like this, especially when it came from one of her closest friends who had been with her during her entire life in the AFW.

She ran her fingers through Anja's golden hair, feeling heavy as she sunk further into the leather seat, time seemingly staying still for the two of them in that isolated space. Only the gentle motions of the car turning or going over hills alerting her to the outside world that felt so much more cruel than it had before.

"So you were trained for...did they make you fight the other girls?" It was the first question of dozens that had popped into her mind, Natasha unsure if even that was okay to ask.

"Our subdivision was specialized in all kinds of hedonism. Special interest like wrestling, hookers, models and the associated modes like blackmailing. That is quite profitable and very popular, but no match for drug dealing or the arms race so it was a rather small subsidiary but easier to stay under the radar of federal law. My legal custodian was an avid supporter of the philosophy of the Manchester capitalism, so the market always made the product and the human capital had to react to that."
Which meant in plain language that they were doing whatever was asked for from paying customers.

"The adult people I was living and working with looked like normal people and behaved like normal people when you met them on the street. Some were even pretending to be nice or helpful. But they were not regular people. They were devoid of compassion or mercy, and they gave a shit about justice or just the law. Quite the contrary, some of the most horrible people I met there were actually high ranking cops, accomplished doctors and judges tasked with fighting organized crime."
She went on, breathing in and out for a deep breath. She had basically no trust left for doctors, judges and cops, despite being aware that not every cop was a crooked asshole.

"I was kind of privileged, but also pushed the hardest. I had to be the best in everything and stay above my fellow orphans. Losing always meant the loss of something, or someone. I couldn´t tell them because if that went public, the game would have not been going on like it had before and the Mistress would have probably started anew, with new girls to test me. So I am not sure how the others saw me. But I had some friends there and also in the other syndicate subsidiaries, so it was probably kind of visible that I had no choice but to hurt and belittle them."
One of her feet tapped lightly against the door, again and again.
"At some time, Interpol had planted a snitch in the syndicate. That snitch rose to a position of prominence, and some day while there was a special, high stakes fighting event with millions of dollars on the line when they struck. It was a big meeting, some customer or low life thug probably lost his cool and began to shoot so all hell broke loose. My legal custodian was killed while she attempted to flee with me. I escaped the grasp of the police, or you could also say that I ran away from them. I did not want to be stowed away again. I wanted to be finally free. I wanted to live!"
Involuntarily, she had formed one of her hands into a fist with the last sentence.

For Natasha wrestling and later on erotic wrestling had always been a real joy in her life, a sport she had fallen in love with at first sight and had since made her living off of it. To describe it as sacred would be going a bit too far but Natasha held the sport in incredibly high regard, its partly why she used to get so upset when other wrestlers would look down on those in the hentai division, seeing them as being inferior to what they viewed as the real wrestlers. She had made it one of her missions to prove those thoughts wrong in the ring, though she had slacked off on that since the departure of one of the biggest advocates for that train of thought. But to hear that the sport she loved so much had been corrupted and forced upon young girls, that Anja had been raised into a life where losing such fights held dire consequences...well it tore her apart inside.

It left her with a question that gnawed at her though and while it wouldn't be a comfortable one for Anja she felt now was the only time she could ever ask. "If I had been forced into such acts with so much on the line, I don't think I'd ever want to do anything even close to it ever again. Yet you joined the AFW, we've personally had several intense matches and other encounters together, what made you keep it all up?"

"I had nowhere else to go, and all my other venues had collosaly kept me on the edge and frightened me at once. I also never had a home, I mean a real home. Besides I really like to wrestle with other girls, and I really like girls of many colors and sizes. I don´t know if that was drilled into me by the way I lived, but I wouldn´t want it any other way right now. Blame the players, not the game."
Anja explained, opening her eyes to look upward to the silk clad car roof . She has often asked this question to herself but had come to peace with it.

"After my legal custodian had been killed, I began to drift around. It was pretty rough, but from the syndicate I knew some places where I could go to to find some day to day work and which were not part of the organization itself. I stripped, wrestled, boxed, worked as a waitress and picked up bored college girls. If that wasn´t available, I usually found a rather good place to sleep and eat what others left me or what charity had to offer. I never asked for help from anyone, but some kind people just gave me something. The kindness of strangers so to say."
A deep sigh ran through her body. She could not say if she actually liked this time in her life or not. She had learned how to pose as an adult from a very young age, so even the 16 year old Anja had been very convincing as a young adult woman, much to the delight of older women.

"I was arrested several times. Always for minor stuff like stow away, prostitution, loitering or theft. That was really a problem when I was underaged because it meant that I was brought into a no security correction facility for youngsters where I was tested and looked over by psychotherapists which I loathe, but at least they told me that I am a danger for the order of society or something like that. But at least there my identity was fully cleared and I got some insight into my files. And a passport."
She had snorted out in disgust when she had told about psychotherapists. They had basically told her that she needed to be schooled even when she was not inherently ill or sick but just not socialized in a common sense. What kind of a sentence was that? It didn´t even make sense to her. She was not violent or manipulative by definition, the classical signs of a sociopath. So she had come to the conclusion that psychotherapy was mostly a form of con artistry, especially in the light that some of them had lobbied to get her locked away until she was *cured*.
"I tried to find some girls from back then to get my girls back. But most just want to forget about it. I understand that. But still it hurts sometimes."