(no subject)
Kaede-sensei, Ryuichi decided, was insane. She was also wasted, which was not a good combination if you wanted to live to see the morrow. Which Ryuichi did. Really. He didn’t want to go out drinking with her, but that was what he was doing.
He didn’t have a death wish.
Though, he reflected, dodging the table-leg swung at his skull by the pissed-off shinobi who was only slightly more sober than the woman who had started the fight in the first place, it might have seemed that way to the casual observer. Just maybe.
If the man had been sober, the blow would have been faster, and, Ryuichi realized with a hard sort of numbness, he wouldn’t have been able to dodge it. But of course he did, and his skull was not smashed into the dirty ground, as it would have been. He knew the fact very well, but dismissed it, because it didn’t happen.
“Get ‘em, brat!” Kaede-sensei shouted (from the sidelines, she wasn’t even doing anything but getting drunker), and took another swing of her beer. The beer she had laced with grain-alcohol. The kind the medics used to clean wounds. The stuff that was about 99% straight, undiluted alcohol. Ryuichi shook his head, dodged to the right, and landed a punch, dropping the shinobi with the eye-patch, who was about four inches taller and twenty pounds heavier, to the floor.
The bartender was acting like the responsible little civilian he was and hiding behind the counter. It was littered with broken bottles and spilled booze. Music still blared from one of the speakers; the other was broken, probably when Ryuichi had thrown someone against it, and he didn’t recognize the song. Something about the running away from something or another.
And we always die, the sun never goes for us, no....
The chorus sucked, and the drum was out of tempo. Stupid song. Ryuichi planed to throw someone into the remaining speaker if the opportunity was given.
He stood, joints cracking, because it was a scary ninja trick that you learned when you had a crazy sensei. It worked. No one else came forward. Ryuichi nodded slightly, and moved back to the table where his mad teacher was finishing up her tenth drink (tenth!), and making to shout for another.
Ryuichi groaned, and slapped her hand back down to the table, disturbing her not-so-little pile of empties. Only two of them were his. Someone had to be responsible, or close enough to it. “You’ve had enough. And finish you own fights, will you?”
“Nuh huh. ‘s more fun ta watch, brat,” she growled, head tipping to the right. Yep, she was wasted. Kaede grumbled something under her breath about students who didn’t know when to shut up, and Ryuichi groaned, knowing she was going to start another fight, and he would have to stop it.
“Oi! Get me some fucking booze!”
Ryuichi’s head hit the table, muffling his strangled curse. Give the insane jounin more alcohol, will you?
It was going to be a long night.
“Sensei….”
“Shaddup, brat.”
“Why am I still here?”
“’Cause I told ya ta, now shaddup.”
Ryuichi's head made an interesting sound when it hit the table repeatedly.
---------------------------------------------------------
After-Effects
Ryuichi was not one to wake up at four-thirty in the morning unless something strongly compelled him to do so. Pounding on his apartment door fit the bill well enough, and he stumbled out of bed in his sweatpants and loose tee-shirt, bare feet hitting the floor quietly, because training said that was the way you were supposed to do it, and not-so-quiet swearing as he knocked something over.
He smelled sickly-sweet perfume even before he opened the door, and blinked twice before he recognized the kunoichi standing there. Her pale face was no longer so, heavily painted with unnaturally bright colors and she stood awkwardly in high-heels and too-short skirt.
Ise-chan didn’t wear perfume, but she there she was, staring at something behind him. Her full lips were set in a defiant line, and Ryuichi knew it was her, even if she was missing her combat-boots and eyebrow piercing.
She rushed him before he could say anything, not even a tired, oi, what’s up?, or, more likely, a rude inquiry as to what the hell she was doing at this hour, and then Ryuichi caught a glimpse of her pale eyes, and the way her makeup was smeared by tears, and didn’t. She hugged him tightly, pressing her head to his chest, and he didn’t say anything at all.
Ryuichi turned slightly, and pulled the door shut. Ise didn’t notice, or at least didn’t seem to. She was crying now, hard sobs that shook her muscular form, but silent, because they were shinobi, and if they had to shed tears, they were to be silent ones. Training said it was so. Ryuichi only held her, and didn’t ask what was wrong, because what could he do?
Eventually Ise stopped her silent crying, and Ryuichi offered his couch, which she accepted with a nod. She said nothing to him, and when the morning came, she was gone. Ryuichi accepted it, and when he saw her again, didn’t ask about the mission that she had gone on.
Ise-chan wore combat-boots and cargo pants. Ryuichi had never seen her in a skirt before, let alone perfume.
He knew better than to ask, and Ise-chan never did offer to tell him.
---------------------------------------------------
Speed
Kaede-sensei was careful when she taught her them, careful to remind them that is was for emergency-use only, and that if they used it when the situation didn’t qualify as one, then they were stupid, and if any students of hers were such, then she would damn well track them down and beat them. And then they would regret it, when they could stand up properly again.
Being eleven and genin, they believed her.
Ryuichi is eighteen now, and this qualified as an emergency. Or it was close enough to it, anyways. He was still careful, as she had taught him, not to let the others see, because it was a weakness, if he let them see. They would worry, and that would make them slow. Being slow could kill them. Teammates needed him to be strong, and he tried to be, because rookies couldn’t do anything but that, if they weren’t dead, and everyone said they were nothing but cannon-fodder. Maybe everyone (whoever they were) was right, but Ryuichi worked to prove them wrong anyways.
He takes the pills, and ignores the taste, because they work, and it is worth the bad feeling at the back of his throat, and the way he smiles, and wants to laugh and laugh and not stop until someone is dead. The pills work, therefore he takes them. It doesn’t hurt anymore, and he can keep fighting.
The fox mask hides his wild smile and dilated eyes. --------------------------------------------------------
Fatal
It had been a simple, stupid thing, and all Ryuichi could think now was, this is so fucking wrong. He’s eighteen and bleeding to death from a bad turn he could have dodged, could have prevented, or at least tried to. He could have tried. Maybe it would have even made a difference. Maybe not, but it would have meant something, right? It would have mattered.
It doesn’t now, because even Ryuichi’s stubborn self recognizes that he won’t be getting up, because one arm is gone and the other numb, and it doesn’t hurt anymore, like it should. His ribs are broken, among other things, and that should hurt. It should hurt a lot, but there is nothing. Pain would be good now, pain would say he was alive, but it doesn’t, and Ryuichi is only numb now. It almost scares him, but he keeps his face blank, icy calm, because training says to, and if you loose it, then you’re weak and stupid. Kaede-sensei told him that, and, crazy or not, she knows what she’s talking about.
She would have been hitting him now for being so stupid, but she doesn’t, because this assignment was solo, and Ryuichi just blew it, and now he’s dying. Kaede-sensei is back in Konoha, back home, and he’ll miss drinking with her, Ryuichi realizes suddenly. He’ll miss it a lot.
Kirigakure is ugly no matter the season, in Ryuichi’s eyes, but the fog hides most of the landscape. Being winter only means that it’s cold. He doesn’t like the fog, because it makes thing blurry, and he doesn’t know the proper way to fight in it. The Mist-shinobi do, damn right they do, and one of them comes forward now, bloody sword out and ready.
It is his blood on the sword, the crude and poorly made thing with a bad balance, Ryuichi realizes, and coughs blood up suddenly, hacking and choking, because it hurts, and dying isn’t supposed to hurt, is it? His mask had long since been shattered, so the blood stains his mouth, and it aches, a break to the numbness.
Stupid. He’s caused enough deaths to know it wouldn’t be painless, unless he was lucky, and Ryuichi never had been.
The Mist-nin is older than Ryuichi, a lot older, wavy hair beginning to go gray at the temples. His face is weathered and scarred, and Ryuichi notices the cut over the man’s cheek, and remembers that it was his sword that did that, his broken katana lying off somewhere he can’t see. It is a small comfort, knowing that he marked the man, but Ryuichi takes it, because it is all he can find, and he needs something to hold onto.
The man’s eyes are hard, and Ryuichi doesn’t expect mercy. He never did, and isn’t disappointed. ---------------------------------------------
Mercy
Ishimaru Yasuo doesn’t have any kids; his daughter died ten years ago and his wife not long after that, but if he did, gods, this boy would be their age. However, Yasuo wears the mark of Kirigaure on his forehead protector, and the boy he is moving to kill is from Konoha, and that makes all the difference, doesn’t it?
He doesn’t have any children of his own, and probably never will again. Too old for students, too old to raise more, and he never did want to take in strays. Now, watching the Leaf-nin, too young to be carrying a sword, too young to be out killing, but there he is, dying on the ground, and staring at Yasuo with the cold defiance he has come to expect from ANBU, he wonders about that. He has dealt with the agents of Konoha’s Black Ops before, fought them, hurt them, and been hurt by them.
Never before has he killed one of them.
The others had not been so young. The boy, because how can Yasuo think of him otherwise?, follows his movements with the hard eyes of a trained assassin, and coughs blood up, and there is no mask to hide the fact. One eye is scarred and swollen shut; the other is a dark, dark blue. Yasuo does not want to kill him, but he has to, because the boy is dying already, one arm nothing but a bloody mass of broken bone and torn muscles, tendons sticking out like limp wires, and the other gone completely, severed at the shoulder, and no medic could fix that. He is also an enemy, which is the most important distinction of them all.
The enemy always has to die, no matter how young they happen to be.
Yasuo closes his eyes and tries to think of it as mercy when he swings his blade.
He didn’t have a death wish.
Though, he reflected, dodging the table-leg swung at his skull by the pissed-off shinobi who was only slightly more sober than the woman who had started the fight in the first place, it might have seemed that way to the casual observer. Just maybe.
If the man had been sober, the blow would have been faster, and, Ryuichi realized with a hard sort of numbness, he wouldn’t have been able to dodge it. But of course he did, and his skull was not smashed into the dirty ground, as it would have been. He knew the fact very well, but dismissed it, because it didn’t happen.
“Get ‘em, brat!” Kaede-sensei shouted (from the sidelines, she wasn’t even doing anything but getting drunker), and took another swing of her beer. The beer she had laced with grain-alcohol. The kind the medics used to clean wounds. The stuff that was about 99% straight, undiluted alcohol. Ryuichi shook his head, dodged to the right, and landed a punch, dropping the shinobi with the eye-patch, who was about four inches taller and twenty pounds heavier, to the floor.
The bartender was acting like the responsible little civilian he was and hiding behind the counter. It was littered with broken bottles and spilled booze. Music still blared from one of the speakers; the other was broken, probably when Ryuichi had thrown someone against it, and he didn’t recognize the song. Something about the running away from something or another.
And we always die, the sun never goes for us, no....
The chorus sucked, and the drum was out of tempo. Stupid song. Ryuichi planed to throw someone into the remaining speaker if the opportunity was given.
He stood, joints cracking, because it was a scary ninja trick that you learned when you had a crazy sensei. It worked. No one else came forward. Ryuichi nodded slightly, and moved back to the table where his mad teacher was finishing up her tenth drink (tenth!), and making to shout for another.
Ryuichi groaned, and slapped her hand back down to the table, disturbing her not-so-little pile of empties. Only two of them were his. Someone had to be responsible, or close enough to it. “You’ve had enough. And finish you own fights, will you?”
“Nuh huh. ‘s more fun ta watch, brat,” she growled, head tipping to the right. Yep, she was wasted. Kaede grumbled something under her breath about students who didn’t know when to shut up, and Ryuichi groaned, knowing she was going to start another fight, and he would have to stop it.
“Oi! Get me some fucking booze!”
Ryuichi’s head hit the table, muffling his strangled curse. Give the insane jounin more alcohol, will you?
It was going to be a long night.
“Sensei….”
“Shaddup, brat.”
“Why am I still here?”
“’Cause I told ya ta, now shaddup.”
Ryuichi's head made an interesting sound when it hit the table repeatedly.
---------------------------------------------------------
After-Effects
Ryuichi was not one to wake up at four-thirty in the morning unless something strongly compelled him to do so. Pounding on his apartment door fit the bill well enough, and he stumbled out of bed in his sweatpants and loose tee-shirt, bare feet hitting the floor quietly, because training said that was the way you were supposed to do it, and not-so-quiet swearing as he knocked something over.
He smelled sickly-sweet perfume even before he opened the door, and blinked twice before he recognized the kunoichi standing there. Her pale face was no longer so, heavily painted with unnaturally bright colors and she stood awkwardly in high-heels and too-short skirt.
Ise-chan didn’t wear perfume, but she there she was, staring at something behind him. Her full lips were set in a defiant line, and Ryuichi knew it was her, even if she was missing her combat-boots and eyebrow piercing.
She rushed him before he could say anything, not even a tired, oi, what’s up?, or, more likely, a rude inquiry as to what the hell she was doing at this hour, and then Ryuichi caught a glimpse of her pale eyes, and the way her makeup was smeared by tears, and didn’t. She hugged him tightly, pressing her head to his chest, and he didn’t say anything at all.
Ryuichi turned slightly, and pulled the door shut. Ise didn’t notice, or at least didn’t seem to. She was crying now, hard sobs that shook her muscular form, but silent, because they were shinobi, and if they had to shed tears, they were to be silent ones. Training said it was so. Ryuichi only held her, and didn’t ask what was wrong, because what could he do?
Eventually Ise stopped her silent crying, and Ryuichi offered his couch, which she accepted with a nod. She said nothing to him, and when the morning came, she was gone. Ryuichi accepted it, and when he saw her again, didn’t ask about the mission that she had gone on.
Ise-chan wore combat-boots and cargo pants. Ryuichi had never seen her in a skirt before, let alone perfume.
He knew better than to ask, and Ise-chan never did offer to tell him.
---------------------------------------------------
Speed
Kaede-sensei was careful when she taught her them, careful to remind them that is was for emergency-use only, and that if they used it when the situation didn’t qualify as one, then they were stupid, and if any students of hers were such, then she would damn well track them down and beat them. And then they would regret it, when they could stand up properly again.
Being eleven and genin, they believed her.
Ryuichi is eighteen now, and this qualified as an emergency. Or it was close enough to it, anyways. He was still careful, as she had taught him, not to let the others see, because it was a weakness, if he let them see. They would worry, and that would make them slow. Being slow could kill them. Teammates needed him to be strong, and he tried to be, because rookies couldn’t do anything but that, if they weren’t dead, and everyone said they were nothing but cannon-fodder. Maybe everyone (whoever they were) was right, but Ryuichi worked to prove them wrong anyways.
He takes the pills, and ignores the taste, because they work, and it is worth the bad feeling at the back of his throat, and the way he smiles, and wants to laugh and laugh and not stop until someone is dead. The pills work, therefore he takes them. It doesn’t hurt anymore, and he can keep fighting.
The fox mask hides his wild smile and dilated eyes. --------------------------------------------------------
Fatal
It had been a simple, stupid thing, and all Ryuichi could think now was, this is so fucking wrong. He’s eighteen and bleeding to death from a bad turn he could have dodged, could have prevented, or at least tried to. He could have tried. Maybe it would have even made a difference. Maybe not, but it would have meant something, right? It would have mattered.
It doesn’t now, because even Ryuichi’s stubborn self recognizes that he won’t be getting up, because one arm is gone and the other numb, and it doesn’t hurt anymore, like it should. His ribs are broken, among other things, and that should hurt. It should hurt a lot, but there is nothing. Pain would be good now, pain would say he was alive, but it doesn’t, and Ryuichi is only numb now. It almost scares him, but he keeps his face blank, icy calm, because training says to, and if you loose it, then you’re weak and stupid. Kaede-sensei told him that, and, crazy or not, she knows what she’s talking about.
She would have been hitting him now for being so stupid, but she doesn’t, because this assignment was solo, and Ryuichi just blew it, and now he’s dying. Kaede-sensei is back in Konoha, back home, and he’ll miss drinking with her, Ryuichi realizes suddenly. He’ll miss it a lot.
Kirigakure is ugly no matter the season, in Ryuichi’s eyes, but the fog hides most of the landscape. Being winter only means that it’s cold. He doesn’t like the fog, because it makes thing blurry, and he doesn’t know the proper way to fight in it. The Mist-shinobi do, damn right they do, and one of them comes forward now, bloody sword out and ready.
It is his blood on the sword, the crude and poorly made thing with a bad balance, Ryuichi realizes, and coughs blood up suddenly, hacking and choking, because it hurts, and dying isn’t supposed to hurt, is it? His mask had long since been shattered, so the blood stains his mouth, and it aches, a break to the numbness.
Stupid. He’s caused enough deaths to know it wouldn’t be painless, unless he was lucky, and Ryuichi never had been.
The Mist-nin is older than Ryuichi, a lot older, wavy hair beginning to go gray at the temples. His face is weathered and scarred, and Ryuichi notices the cut over the man’s cheek, and remembers that it was his sword that did that, his broken katana lying off somewhere he can’t see. It is a small comfort, knowing that he marked the man, but Ryuichi takes it, because it is all he can find, and he needs something to hold onto.
The man’s eyes are hard, and Ryuichi doesn’t expect mercy. He never did, and isn’t disappointed. ---------------------------------------------
Mercy
Ishimaru Yasuo doesn’t have any kids; his daughter died ten years ago and his wife not long after that, but if he did, gods, this boy would be their age. However, Yasuo wears the mark of Kirigaure on his forehead protector, and the boy he is moving to kill is from Konoha, and that makes all the difference, doesn’t it?
He doesn’t have any children of his own, and probably never will again. Too old for students, too old to raise more, and he never did want to take in strays. Now, watching the Leaf-nin, too young to be carrying a sword, too young to be out killing, but there he is, dying on the ground, and staring at Yasuo with the cold defiance he has come to expect from ANBU, he wonders about that. He has dealt with the agents of Konoha’s Black Ops before, fought them, hurt them, and been hurt by them.
Never before has he killed one of them.
The others had not been so young. The boy, because how can Yasuo think of him otherwise?, follows his movements with the hard eyes of a trained assassin, and coughs blood up, and there is no mask to hide the fact. One eye is scarred and swollen shut; the other is a dark, dark blue. Yasuo does not want to kill him, but he has to, because the boy is dying already, one arm nothing but a bloody mass of broken bone and torn muscles, tendons sticking out like limp wires, and the other gone completely, severed at the shoulder, and no medic could fix that. He is also an enemy, which is the most important distinction of them all.
The enemy always has to die, no matter how young they happen to be.
Yasuo closes his eyes and tries to think of it as mercy when he swings his blade.