WHO: Gate Walkers and Civillians alike
WHEN: May 1st, 1952
WHERE: GOVERNMENT SECTOR, RESIDENTIAL QUARTER
FILTER: Come one, come all!
WHAT: May day Parade with an added twist! Maes is holding a covert operations with it to map out this part of the government sector no Gate Walker has been allowed to see. There will be a thread for the secret
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He shifted through the crowd, stepping around people by sight and not touch. It still amazed him sometimes that his vision was to its previous condition. Before the Mangekyou. Before everything... but now he couldn't use his genjutsu at all, not anything substantial anyway, and his sharingan was even a drain. He knew through experimentation about how far he could go, and that wasn't far at all. Disconcerting...
...but that was neither here nor there. Hughes was screaming and the Uchiha could see why, with dogs snarling at him. He almost quirked a lip at the man's over-reaction and slammed the butt of his rifle into the ground, close to the nearest dog's head. It gave a startled yip as he stared at the owner, forcing him back.
Itachi turned to give Hughes a blank look. Maybe a little bit of 'Pick your battles more wisely', but mostly blank.
[[It begged to be done. Just a brief encounter for the hate~]]
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Look underneath the underneath.
The ninja didn't have much time to really contemplate his revelations on Maes, however, before the older man was getting into a fracas with... Dogs of all things. A lot like Kakashi....
Sasuke trotted to catch up and see if he couldn't assist Maes--all that time walking dogs as a genin had to pay off some time, right?--when Itachi seemed to materialize next to the other man and Sasuke stiffened and froze in his tracks, face going still and cold as he stared at his brother. Of course Itachi handled the situation not only flawlessly, but efficiently.
It made Sasuke so damn angry. That blank stare. The superior attitude. It grated. Sasuke stayed still, fingers tightening so hard the clipboard creaked under the strain as he willed himself not to launch a random attack at Itachi--though fantasies of shoving the clipboard down his brother's throat were briefly and lovingly entertained. He was a few steps to the other side of Maes, a little behind him, staring at Itachi around the man's shoulder.
The pure anger and hate in that look was undisguised.
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Maes watched them slink off, and then turned back to Itachi. The man was practically oblivious to the disgruntled look the soldier gave him; it was that or Maes truly didn't care for his safety. "Hey! Thanks. Thought I was going to be dog food, for a second there." Had they been off duty, he surely would have done something embarrassing just to get a reaction out of the stoic soldier. Probably a bear hug and a good old set of Russian kisses. That would be fun. Anything to make the nearly silent man say something. It was a game after all that Maes enjoyed every Rations day: Make the man talk for his food.
But then he spotted Sasuke and grinned. The animosity between the two did not go unnoticed, but ignored. "Well! I guess I'm not getting a puppy for Christmas, am I?" With that he laughed, definitely clapping an arm around Sasuke's shoulders and peering suspiciously over the clipboard. "Damn people thinking that my design is flawed. See? Right. Here." He punctuated those two words with a pounding on the clipboard. "Says right here that they needed to be just before the floats and just after the soldiers. Not in the middle. Jeez! No one can take any direction around here, whether it's in Amestrian or Russian!"
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"Unless you require something else," Itachi stated, letting it trail off as he turned to leave. He'd prevent the man from being eaten, perhaps shot, but otherwise, he had no reason to be there. whatever his plans were, the parade wasn't something he cared much about. He would follow it to the end, see what he could see, and that was all. He wasn't quite sure of the route through town, however, or he would have been more keen to be a part.
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It really pissed him off to be dismissed so casually. For all that he really should have been used to the treatment, he just... Wasn't. Unbidden came the flash of memory, Itachi's fingers poking his forehead before his brother fell...
Sasuke jerked a little under Maes's touch, as if shocked. His eyes fell away from Itachi, hesitating near the edge of the crowd, and he frowned, trying to dispel the unsettling memory. It brought up questions he didn't want to ask. And even if he did want to ask them, it wasn't exactly the time or place.
Pretending to ignore Itachi--rather unsuccessfully, since his eyes kept straying to his brother--Sasuke attempted to concentrate on the details of the parade plan Maes was pointing out, lips pressed so tightly together they were a thin white line.
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"So then since he said he didn't like sweet things, I persuaded to have made this really decadent chocolate cake, because who can't resist chocolate, right? No one can! Once we had that beauty baked with chocolate fudge icing and chocolate drops on top, we almost had our trap set. The plan was to set this cake out in a reeeeeeally quiet place and string up one of those camera things. Like-" He sniggered a moment, trying to regain his composure, "Like he pulls the string, and then 'snap' goes the picture!"
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He was already making his way out of the center of it all, to slink back into the shadows until something else came up that may need his attention. Knowing the other man, it probably wouldn't be long before he stumbled -purposefully or not, he can never tell- into another situation where something might take a chunk out of his hide.
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Sufficiently distracted from his hate by the complete one-eighty turn in the discussion, Sasuke graced the older man with a highly arch look.
"What?" Oh yes, intelligent response. But really, what?
By the time Sasuke thought to look for Itachi again, his brother was already fading back into the crowds. In a way, that was creepier then having him within sight. Sasuke knew he was going to be jumpy and looking for a glimpse of Itachi for the rest of the parade.
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"Sasuke, do you know how to draw? We should have really pretty sketches of this place for the paper, you know?"
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"Good enough for your pretty pictures." The ninja replied honestly. If Maes wanted the Birth of Venus he'd be disappointed, but Sasuke was practiced enough at mapping and layout sketches to be exceedingly accurate.
He contemplated using the sharingan, it would improve his drawing and detail, but it would also drain him considerably. And red eyes weren't exactly inconspicuous. For the time being Sasuke just flipped the page and looked around, ready to start. Anyone watching from a distance would just see him making notes continuously as Maes chattered his ear off, after all.
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After ward, he needed to pay a visit at the jail and bail out the girl who was supposed to be drawing out the map. He honestly hoped she was doing okay.
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After the parade he could make a neater set of copies. He nearly walked into one float while he was distracted and following Maes, and after that kept his attention divided between what he was doing and where he was going, because following Maes too closely was apparently not the brightest idea.
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So far, so good! The parade was moving along just as he planned.
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He rubbed his temples and kept drawing. He didn't bother to ask about how they'd exchange information, Maes lived next door, after all, and talking in the open wasn't a bright idea.
"How's your hand?" he asked instead, absently, as he sketched out a twist of the street.
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Once he was done with some other errands, he would check out Sasuke some more.
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The time to escape was now. Or he'd get roped into helping with clean up.
"Well, I better go finish up the paperwork." Sasuke commented, almost sadistically. "I'll just let you take care of the rest." He started to turn to leave, with every intention of leaving Maes to deal with the aftermath of the parade while he found a nice quite nook to re-copy the map in.
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