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I won't have to put up with Niinistö as my president for the next six years! (That means Halonen was re-elected, but that she was is not important; the fact that Niinistö wasn't is.)
Anyway, I ended up not being able to finish the paper I was supposed to work on since the library at my department didn't have all the books I needed, and the real uni library is obviously closed on Sundays. Instead, since my laptop is cooperating somewhat tonight, I ended up writing these while keeping an eye on the results
Title: Forth Shall Stand
Rating: PG
Summary: Silly little Naruto crossover ficlet, set while Naruto's learning the summoning jutsu. Nortes at the end.
Disclaimer: I own nothing
"Kuchiyose no jutsu!" Naruto yelled, slamming his palm down.
There was a puff, and some smoke, and some coughs from inside it. It sounded like Naruto had actually managed to summon something more substantial this time. Jiraya sat up from where he had been laying on the ground watching Naruto fail spectacularly time after time. He'd only yelled at him about every tenth failed try or so the last few hours, it wasn't like it was much use anyway.
He craned his neck curiously to see what kind of toad Naruto had managed to summon.
And promptly did a double take.
The thing that emerged from the smoke did look vaguely amphibian.
Vaguely.
It was also wearing a silly robe of sorts, and carrying some kind of staff.
It finished coughing, and looked around in confusion for a moment. Its eyes seemed to harden as they settled on Naruto, who was currently looking as if he didn't know what he should be thinking.
"You!" the thing said. "What did you do?"
"Err... I summoned you?" Naruto said, sounding slightly doubtful himself.
"You can't just do that!" the thing yelled angrily. "Or this Jaken will punish you! Lord Sesshoumaru might need me! Send me back to him right this minute, or else!" The thing which was apparently called Jaken was probably trying to sound menacing, but even shaking the staff - which, incidentally was decorated with a couple of human heads, Jiraiya noticed - it merely managed to come across as sounding sort of whiny.
"Uh. Back? I don't know how. They just go!" Naruto said, bewildered.
The thing snorted, staring angrily at Naruto. "Why did you summon me anyway."
"I... didn't?"
"You just said you did!"
"Not you specifically! I'm supposed to learn how to summon toads, okay?"
Jiraya could see the thing bristle. "Are you calling this Jaken a toad?" it asked.
Naruto looked thoughtful for a moment. "Yes?" he then said.
"That's it!" Jaken said. He mumbled something and raised his staff slightly. Naruto only just managed to jump out of the way as one of the heads sprouted fire towards him.
"Oy! Don't do that! I summoned you, you can't do that!"
"I don't take orders from anyone but Lord Sesshoumaru!"
"Oh," Naruto said. "You don't have, like, a contract for this or anything then?"
"Of course not!" Jaken snapped.
"How come I could summon you then?"
Jiraiya decided it was probably best to cut in. "Probably because you're just that bad at this jutsu," he said.
Naruto glared at him. "It's your fault for being a bad teacher!" He turned to Jaken. "Blame him for all of this!"
Jaken turned, and this time Jiraiya was the one who had to get out of the way of the fire sprouting from the staff.
"Take it easy, you," he said reproachfully. "Or I won't help send you back to that lord of yours."
"You can do that?"
"Of course," Jiraiya said. "Be prepared!"
"Why didn't you say so right away?" Jaken said angrily.
"Didn't want to interrupt you. Anyway, prepared?"
"Of course!" Jaken yelled, indignant.
Jiraya smirked, and did a couple of hand seals. A moment later, there was another flash of smoke, and Jaken was gone.
"How'd you do that?" Naruto asked.
"You just concentrate on learning the actual summoning first."
Naruto glared, and turned around.
Kuchiyose no jutsu!" he yelled.
It was another tadpole.
Jiraiya sighed, and laid back down on the ground and stared up at the sky. He wondered, not for the first time that afternoon, and not for the last either, where the women who usually bathed in the river were today. Were they conspiring against him by not being there when he for once would have had all day just to watch?
It was going to be a long day.
"Kuchiyose no jutsu!" he heard Naruto yell in the background.
Notes: We're never told exactly what Jaken is, are we? I think 'vaguely amphibian' should pretty much cover it. Kinda. It's silly-fic, and Naruto's bad at this, so lets not pay too much attention to the logical plotholes, okay?
Title: Victory All Around
Rating: PG
Summary: Rikkai-at-Nationals, a short drabble for each of them, with many a cameo.
Disclaimer: I own nothing
I.
"I see you advanced again. As expected. Congratulations," Fuji said.
Yukimura gave him a quick glance before turning back to look at the score board. "Save those for the finals," he said.
Fuji looked at him for a while. "Something wrong?" he finally said.
Yukimura turned for a moment to give him a measuring look. "Sometimes," he answered after apparently finishing the appraisal, "it's not about whether you win or lose, but how you play the game."
There was no real change of expression on Fuji's face, but somehow, Yukimura could almost feel the politely incredulous disbelief just radiating off him. "All right, it is about winning, and how you play the game," he amended. "And my team played horribly."
"Ah," Fuji said, his gaze flickering to the row of 6-0s on the scoreboard.
"I've been away entirely too long," Yukimura said, almost to himself.
"Well, I hope you can all shape up before the finals then." Fuji said. "Because we've been rather looking forward to it. You wouldn't want to disappoint us, would you?"
The appraising look was back in Yukimura's eyes for a moment. "You won't be," he then said, eyes narrowing and a pointed smile spreading across his face. "Don't worry. I'll definitely see to that."
II.
"Looking forward to losing to Seigaku again, then?" Atobe asked. There was a look of mild curiosity on his face that Sanada somehow assumed was calculated to annoy him as much as possible.
"Rikkai won't lose," he said levelly.
"Underestimating them again, then?" Atobe smirked. "How sad. I would have thought you'd learned your lesson at the Kantou tournament. Maybe I won't even come watch the finals if you're going to take them that lightly, you're going to be crushed so badly it won't even be interesting if you think like that."
"We're not underestimating them," Sanada said. "But we won't lose."
Atobe gave a little laugh at that. "Well," he said. "Once you've lost, maybe you'd like to learn just how easy it is to lose. We'll play sometime."
He didn't wait around for an answer, but left with that, throwing a final amused look at Sanada as he passed him.
Sanada gave a mental shrug and continued on his way. Atobe-who-had-just-lost was not important - not when there were more important things to think of and a third Nationals title to win.
III.
"Seigaku's Kaidoh," a slightly amused, almost mocking voice behind him said, and Kaidoh turned around to see Rikkai's Niou looking at him with his usual half-challenging, half-amused expression on his face.
"I hear some interesting things about you," he continued before Kaidoh had the chance to say anything. "We'll have to watch out so that you don't use our own tricks on us this time, won't we?"
Kaidoh snorted, annoyed at the way Niou was obviously trying to provoce him with his stupid challenging grin and his stupid goading tone of voice. "Whatever," Kaidoh said, stalking past him with every intention to ignore him, but he stopped as he heard Niou call to him again.
"Hey, Kaidoh."
What?" he snapped, without turning around.
There was a moment before Niou answered, in a completely different voice this time. "Thanks," he said.
Kaidoh was silent for a while, but then inclined his head very slightly before continuing on his way. There was no need to answer; it wasn't like there was really anything to thank him for anyway.
IV.
When Marui finished warming up, he found two figures watching him. "Hyotei," he said, inclining his head towards them, because he knew one of them was Oshitari Yuushi, but couldn't recall the name of the other one.
"Jiroh was looking for you earlier," the redhead who wasn't Oshitari said. "Was being really annoying about it, too. I think he probably carries around a picture of you in his wallet or something."
"Huh," Marui said, quite politely. He only vaguely remembered defeating a very enthusiastic Hyotei player called Akutagawa Jiroh once. And the fact that these two were currently watching him with faces that said, I can't believe he's obsessed with something like you, isn't it amusing? didn't really matter. It wasn't like he couldn't just crush them on the court if he wanted to, after all.
"My match is about the start," he continued, swinging his racquet over his shoulder and heading off. "You're welcome to watch if you need a lesson," he called over his shoulder.
He didn't see them in the audience during his match, but then again, he didn't look either.
V.
"This stupid machine isn't working," the girl with the pony tails told Yanagi as he approached the drinks machine. "It ate our money. Twice."
"Oh," he said.
"Stupid thing," the girl scowled at it. Then she seemed to really notice him, and her eyes narrowed in recognition. "Hey, aren't you that guy Inui-sempai defeated?"
"Yanagi Renji," he said, hoping his voice didn't sound too pointed.
"Right, that one. So how's your team doing."
"We're well on our way to our third Nationals title," he told her.
The girl's eyes narrowed at him. "You guys are so annoying," she said. "You shouldn't be that overconfident. I don't like you. Seigaku is definitely going to defeat you!"
"Tomo-chan!" her friend with the braids said, sounding scandalized. A blush spread across her face as she turned to Yanagi. "I'm sorry, Yanagi-san," she said, bowing to him. She then grabbed her friend and urged her away.
"Don't be," Yanagi said to her back.
He then turned back to the machine, and put in a coin.
The machine ate it.
VI.
"Rikkai," Echizen said, looking impassively at Jackal from under his cap.
"Echizen," Jackal said.
They looked at each other in silence for a while.
"So... How's Seigaku doing?" Jackal asked after a while. "Do you think you're going to the finals?"
"Of course," Echizen said, face and voice still impassive, almost bored. "You just worry about yourselves."
Jackal blinked. "We're not worried," he said, raising his eyebrows.
Echizen actually smirked at that. "Huh," he said. "Well, we're not worried about us, and we're not worried about you either, so I thought that since you're worried about us, you must be worried about yourselves too."
Jackal looked at him for a moment. "You really are quite a brat," he finally said.
"So they say," Echizen said, shrugging. He took a sip of his Ponta, and left without further ado.
VII.
"You're Rikkai's Kirihara. You injured Tachibana-san."
Kirihara turned around. A boy in a Fudomine jacket was staring at him. He looked vaguely familiar; was this the one Vice-captain Sanada and Yanagi-sempai had defeated?
"Yeah, sorry about that," he said, probably not sounding all that sorry at all, but then this boy hadn't sounded all that upset anyway.
The boy watched him impassively for a moment. "I don't like you," he then said.
"Oh," Kirihara said, shrugging. "Okay."
"Maybe it's vindictive of me or something," the boy continued. "But I really, really hope Kirihara loses horribly here. More horribly than he did to Fuji-san that time, because that wasn't actually all that horrible anyway. Yeah, I hope he does, even if it's vindictive. I really want Rikkai to lose. I heard Rokkaku acted as Seigaku's temporary cheering squad for one game. Maybe we can do the same when they play Rikkai. Although I hope we don't have wear skirts if we do..."
"I hope you don't have to wear a skirt too," Kirihara said over his shoulder as he left, but he wasn't sure he was heard, because the boy was still talking.
VIII.
"Tezuka-kun," Yagyuu says.
"Rikkai's Yagyuu," Tezuka says. They haven't met before but they both know who the other is anyway.
"We'll be seeing you in the finals then," Yagyuu tells him. "Good luck."
Nothing in Yagyuu's manners is anything else than - of course - the perfect gentleman, but somehow, Tezuka hears the slightly condescending you'll need it at the end that really shouldn't be there anymore.
"We're looking forward to it," Tezuka tells him, and he thinks Yagyuu must know what he really means is, we're looking forward to defeating you.
Anyway, I ended up not being able to finish the paper I was supposed to work on since the library at my department didn't have all the books I needed, and the real uni library is obviously closed on Sundays. Instead, since my laptop is cooperating somewhat tonight, I ended up writing these while keeping an eye on the results
Title: Forth Shall Stand
Rating: PG
Summary: Silly little Naruto crossover ficlet, set while Naruto's learning the summoning jutsu. Nortes at the end.
Disclaimer: I own nothing
"Kuchiyose no jutsu!" Naruto yelled, slamming his palm down.
There was a puff, and some smoke, and some coughs from inside it. It sounded like Naruto had actually managed to summon something more substantial this time. Jiraya sat up from where he had been laying on the ground watching Naruto fail spectacularly time after time. He'd only yelled at him about every tenth failed try or so the last few hours, it wasn't like it was much use anyway.
He craned his neck curiously to see what kind of toad Naruto had managed to summon.
And promptly did a double take.
The thing that emerged from the smoke did look vaguely amphibian.
Vaguely.
It was also wearing a silly robe of sorts, and carrying some kind of staff.
It finished coughing, and looked around in confusion for a moment. Its eyes seemed to harden as they settled on Naruto, who was currently looking as if he didn't know what he should be thinking.
"You!" the thing said. "What did you do?"
"Err... I summoned you?" Naruto said, sounding slightly doubtful himself.
"You can't just do that!" the thing yelled angrily. "Or this Jaken will punish you! Lord Sesshoumaru might need me! Send me back to him right this minute, or else!" The thing which was apparently called Jaken was probably trying to sound menacing, but even shaking the staff - which, incidentally was decorated with a couple of human heads, Jiraiya noticed - it merely managed to come across as sounding sort of whiny.
"Uh. Back? I don't know how. They just go!" Naruto said, bewildered.
The thing snorted, staring angrily at Naruto. "Why did you summon me anyway."
"I... didn't?"
"You just said you did!"
"Not you specifically! I'm supposed to learn how to summon toads, okay?"
Jiraya could see the thing bristle. "Are you calling this Jaken a toad?" it asked.
Naruto looked thoughtful for a moment. "Yes?" he then said.
"That's it!" Jaken said. He mumbled something and raised his staff slightly. Naruto only just managed to jump out of the way as one of the heads sprouted fire towards him.
"Oy! Don't do that! I summoned you, you can't do that!"
"I don't take orders from anyone but Lord Sesshoumaru!"
"Oh," Naruto said. "You don't have, like, a contract for this or anything then?"
"Of course not!" Jaken snapped.
"How come I could summon you then?"
Jiraiya decided it was probably best to cut in. "Probably because you're just that bad at this jutsu," he said.
Naruto glared at him. "It's your fault for being a bad teacher!" He turned to Jaken. "Blame him for all of this!"
Jaken turned, and this time Jiraiya was the one who had to get out of the way of the fire sprouting from the staff.
"Take it easy, you," he said reproachfully. "Or I won't help send you back to that lord of yours."
"You can do that?"
"Of course," Jiraiya said. "Be prepared!"
"Why didn't you say so right away?" Jaken said angrily.
"Didn't want to interrupt you. Anyway, prepared?"
"Of course!" Jaken yelled, indignant.
Jiraya smirked, and did a couple of hand seals. A moment later, there was another flash of smoke, and Jaken was gone.
"How'd you do that?" Naruto asked.
"You just concentrate on learning the actual summoning first."
Naruto glared, and turned around.
Kuchiyose no jutsu!" he yelled.
It was another tadpole.
Jiraiya sighed, and laid back down on the ground and stared up at the sky. He wondered, not for the first time that afternoon, and not for the last either, where the women who usually bathed in the river were today. Were they conspiring against him by not being there when he for once would have had all day just to watch?
It was going to be a long day.
"Kuchiyose no jutsu!" he heard Naruto yell in the background.
Notes: We're never told exactly what Jaken is, are we? I think 'vaguely amphibian' should pretty much cover it. Kinda. It's silly-fic, and Naruto's bad at this, so lets not pay too much attention to the logical plotholes, okay?
Title: Victory All Around
Rating: PG
Summary: Rikkai-at-Nationals, a short drabble for each of them, with many a cameo.
Disclaimer: I own nothing
I.
"I see you advanced again. As expected. Congratulations," Fuji said.
Yukimura gave him a quick glance before turning back to look at the score board. "Save those for the finals," he said.
Fuji looked at him for a while. "Something wrong?" he finally said.
Yukimura turned for a moment to give him a measuring look. "Sometimes," he answered after apparently finishing the appraisal, "it's not about whether you win or lose, but how you play the game."
There was no real change of expression on Fuji's face, but somehow, Yukimura could almost feel the politely incredulous disbelief just radiating off him. "All right, it is about winning, and how you play the game," he amended. "And my team played horribly."
"Ah," Fuji said, his gaze flickering to the row of 6-0s on the scoreboard.
"I've been away entirely too long," Yukimura said, almost to himself.
"Well, I hope you can all shape up before the finals then." Fuji said. "Because we've been rather looking forward to it. You wouldn't want to disappoint us, would you?"
The appraising look was back in Yukimura's eyes for a moment. "You won't be," he then said, eyes narrowing and a pointed smile spreading across his face. "Don't worry. I'll definitely see to that."
II.
"Looking forward to losing to Seigaku again, then?" Atobe asked. There was a look of mild curiosity on his face that Sanada somehow assumed was calculated to annoy him as much as possible.
"Rikkai won't lose," he said levelly.
"Underestimating them again, then?" Atobe smirked. "How sad. I would have thought you'd learned your lesson at the Kantou tournament. Maybe I won't even come watch the finals if you're going to take them that lightly, you're going to be crushed so badly it won't even be interesting if you think like that."
"We're not underestimating them," Sanada said. "But we won't lose."
Atobe gave a little laugh at that. "Well," he said. "Once you've lost, maybe you'd like to learn just how easy it is to lose. We'll play sometime."
He didn't wait around for an answer, but left with that, throwing a final amused look at Sanada as he passed him.
Sanada gave a mental shrug and continued on his way. Atobe-who-had-just-lost was not important - not when there were more important things to think of and a third Nationals title to win.
III.
"Seigaku's Kaidoh," a slightly amused, almost mocking voice behind him said, and Kaidoh turned around to see Rikkai's Niou looking at him with his usual half-challenging, half-amused expression on his face.
"I hear some interesting things about you," he continued before Kaidoh had the chance to say anything. "We'll have to watch out so that you don't use our own tricks on us this time, won't we?"
Kaidoh snorted, annoyed at the way Niou was obviously trying to provoce him with his stupid challenging grin and his stupid goading tone of voice. "Whatever," Kaidoh said, stalking past him with every intention to ignore him, but he stopped as he heard Niou call to him again.
"Hey, Kaidoh."
What?" he snapped, without turning around.
There was a moment before Niou answered, in a completely different voice this time. "Thanks," he said.
Kaidoh was silent for a while, but then inclined his head very slightly before continuing on his way. There was no need to answer; it wasn't like there was really anything to thank him for anyway.
IV.
When Marui finished warming up, he found two figures watching him. "Hyotei," he said, inclining his head towards them, because he knew one of them was Oshitari Yuushi, but couldn't recall the name of the other one.
"Jiroh was looking for you earlier," the redhead who wasn't Oshitari said. "Was being really annoying about it, too. I think he probably carries around a picture of you in his wallet or something."
"Huh," Marui said, quite politely. He only vaguely remembered defeating a very enthusiastic Hyotei player called Akutagawa Jiroh once. And the fact that these two were currently watching him with faces that said, I can't believe he's obsessed with something like you, isn't it amusing? didn't really matter. It wasn't like he couldn't just crush them on the court if he wanted to, after all.
"My match is about the start," he continued, swinging his racquet over his shoulder and heading off. "You're welcome to watch if you need a lesson," he called over his shoulder.
He didn't see them in the audience during his match, but then again, he didn't look either.
V.
"This stupid machine isn't working," the girl with the pony tails told Yanagi as he approached the drinks machine. "It ate our money. Twice."
"Oh," he said.
"Stupid thing," the girl scowled at it. Then she seemed to really notice him, and her eyes narrowed in recognition. "Hey, aren't you that guy Inui-sempai defeated?"
"Yanagi Renji," he said, hoping his voice didn't sound too pointed.
"Right, that one. So how's your team doing."
"We're well on our way to our third Nationals title," he told her.
The girl's eyes narrowed at him. "You guys are so annoying," she said. "You shouldn't be that overconfident. I don't like you. Seigaku is definitely going to defeat you!"
"Tomo-chan!" her friend with the braids said, sounding scandalized. A blush spread across her face as she turned to Yanagi. "I'm sorry, Yanagi-san," she said, bowing to him. She then grabbed her friend and urged her away.
"Don't be," Yanagi said to her back.
He then turned back to the machine, and put in a coin.
The machine ate it.
VI.
"Rikkai," Echizen said, looking impassively at Jackal from under his cap.
"Echizen," Jackal said.
They looked at each other in silence for a while.
"So... How's Seigaku doing?" Jackal asked after a while. "Do you think you're going to the finals?"
"Of course," Echizen said, face and voice still impassive, almost bored. "You just worry about yourselves."
Jackal blinked. "We're not worried," he said, raising his eyebrows.
Echizen actually smirked at that. "Huh," he said. "Well, we're not worried about us, and we're not worried about you either, so I thought that since you're worried about us, you must be worried about yourselves too."
Jackal looked at him for a moment. "You really are quite a brat," he finally said.
"So they say," Echizen said, shrugging. He took a sip of his Ponta, and left without further ado.
VII.
"You're Rikkai's Kirihara. You injured Tachibana-san."
Kirihara turned around. A boy in a Fudomine jacket was staring at him. He looked vaguely familiar; was this the one Vice-captain Sanada and Yanagi-sempai had defeated?
"Yeah, sorry about that," he said, probably not sounding all that sorry at all, but then this boy hadn't sounded all that upset anyway.
The boy watched him impassively for a moment. "I don't like you," he then said.
"Oh," Kirihara said, shrugging. "Okay."
"Maybe it's vindictive of me or something," the boy continued. "But I really, really hope Kirihara loses horribly here. More horribly than he did to Fuji-san that time, because that wasn't actually all that horrible anyway. Yeah, I hope he does, even if it's vindictive. I really want Rikkai to lose. I heard Rokkaku acted as Seigaku's temporary cheering squad for one game. Maybe we can do the same when they play Rikkai. Although I hope we don't have wear skirts if we do..."
"I hope you don't have to wear a skirt too," Kirihara said over his shoulder as he left, but he wasn't sure he was heard, because the boy was still talking.
VIII.
"Tezuka-kun," Yagyuu says.
"Rikkai's Yagyuu," Tezuka says. They haven't met before but they both know who the other is anyway.
"We'll be seeing you in the finals then," Yagyuu tells him. "Good luck."
Nothing in Yagyuu's manners is anything else than - of course - the perfect gentleman, but somehow, Tezuka hears the slightly condescending you'll need it at the end that really shouldn't be there anymore.
"We're looking forward to it," Tezuka tells him, and he thinks Yagyuu must know what he really means is, we're looking forward to defeating you.