"Bingo!" Chapter 2 -Part II-
Bingo
By: El Kitano
Chapter Two
Green Spandex and Grisly Fates: Team Kakashi Mobilized!
Part 2
Guy and Tenzō stood outside of Kakashi’s apartment in full ANBU gear. “Okay, my ornery burrow-dwelling friend, we’ll check his place first. If he’s not in there lost in some super-hip academic literature, he’s most likely at the park, staring at a rock.”
“…does he talk to the rock?”
“I don’t know, maybe. Come on, Badger!” together they leapt to the balcony outside of Kakashi’s apartment. Apparently, Guy found placement on the same squad as another shinobi as grounds for breaking and entering, because he busted through the balcony door with his foot. As he struggled to remove the bits of screen from his sandal, he hopped further into the Copy-nin’s home on one foot. “Hey, Kakashi! You home?”
Tenzō, in a vague attempt at politeness, pushed the broken door open, walked inside, and closed it behind him. He noticed the plant he had given Kakashi earlier that night resting on the coffee table. It was completely withered. He sighed and picked up the browning fern. At a single touch, half of the leaves fell to the floor. Tenzō attempted to revive it with a bit of chakra as Kakashi entered through from the bathroom door in a cloud of steam. “Yo.” he saluted casually. His face and hair were both wrapped in a white towel; his body was covered with ANBU blacks.
“Sempai, what did you do to this poor plant?” Tenzō gestured pointedly to the fern in mild alarm. Kakashi scratched his neck and smiled apologetically, “Oh, that. Sorry-I’ve never been very good at taking care of plants.”
“But-but-you’ve only had it for six hours!”
“And it was dead in four.” Kakashi pulled his mask over his face from beneath the towel. His grey hair made an audible poof as it was freed from its terry prison. “We’re not moving out yet, you know. It’s only… whatever time it is.”
“Oh, Kakashi,” Guy clapped a hand on his friend’s back forcefully, “You’ve truly gotten lax in your old age.” Kakashi eyed him dangerously from the corner of his sharingan, but Guy ignored this and continued, “Which is why I propose a competition composed of a variety of contests of strength, youth, and skill… the first to one-hundred wins is the victor.”
Kakashi began pulling on his ANBU arm guards. “I’m sorry, what was that, Guy?”
“You-“Guy poked him in forehead, “-are a jerk-pants.” Kakashi shrugged and pulled on the rest of his gear. He picked up a pack from beside his destroyed door and jumped out of the gaping, Guy-shaped hole.
Tenzō had been feebly attempting to revive the plant all this time, with some success. Success, meaning, he had gotten rid of the original plant, and replaced it with a small variety of tree, commonly found in Suna. “Hah!” he said victoriously, “kill that!”
Guy sighed and pulled out his rolled-up chart. “He didn’t get to see the score board.” He tapped it into his hand, resulting in a puff of green glitter. Tenzō and Guy looked at each other, grinning beneath their masks. By the time they did follow Kakashi, the entire apartment was coated in a dazzling sheen of verdant sparkles.
---
When the pair of ANBU arrived at the Nara compound, Shikaku was bent over a mildly-distressed buck, with his son Shikamaru at his side. “Hold that.” the father passed his spiky-haired son a jar of something yellow.
“It smells like butt-you hold it.” Shikamaru pushed the jar into the side of his father, who was currently attempting to reattach an antler. “It does not smell like ‘butt’; Stop poking me. Put it on the grass if you don’t want to hold it.” Shikaku continued to nudge Shikaku in the side with the jar. “Why does he need his antlers, anyway?”
“So he can be competitive with the other deer.”
“Why don’t we just chop ‘em all off so he’s square?”
Shikaku sighed as he taped up the splintered antler, “Okay, Shika, you go and chop off all the bucks’ antlers. Let me know how it goes.” Shikamaru nestled his chin on his knees, and balanced the jar on his head. “My hand smells like butt now.”
“Hey, Shikaku!” Tenzō waved at the commander and ran over to him, pushing his mask to the side of his head. “What are you doing?” he asked as he crouched beside Shikamaru, who passed him the jar of smelly yellow paste. “Smell this.” Shikamaru told him. “What does it smell like?” Tenzō took a quick sniff and scrunched his nose in distaste. “It smells like deer-rear.”
“See?” Shikamaru poked his father triumphantly. “You just can’t smell it anymore ‘cause you’ve been using it so much. I bet you smell like butt all the time and don’t even know it.”
Guy walked over and removed his mask. “Hey, now-what the hell is that?” he gave the deer on the ground an experimental nudge with his foot. It responded by snorting into the dirt. “what does it do?” Shikamaru rolled his eyes, “It’s a deer, dumbass, what the hell are you?”
“I,” Guy placed a hand on his chest, “-am awesome. And that’s all you need to know. A more glowing description would only serve to blow your spiky little mind.”
“Yeah? I doubt that seriously. I bet you wouldn’t know what a rhinoceros was if it rammed its horn up your-“
“Oh yeah?” Guy yelled, pointing at the child angrily, “well you smell like butt.”
“See?” Shikamaru told his father, “Even Sergeant Fail over here thinks so.”
Guy smiled widely and planted a firm hand on top of Shikamaru’s head, “I understand that you are overwhelmed by my epic, blazing, unbelievably handsome manly-features, and so little ass-scented friend,” Guy squeezed his head lightly, “I forgive you.”
Shikamaru twitched in annoyance, but knew it to be the path of least resistance to end it there. “Thanks.”
“Well, friends-I’m going to leave you to playing with your weird little horse friend there, and track down Kakashi. It’s about time we met in battle once more.” He posed dramatically before running off into the spontaneously forming, then vanishing, sunset.
“What a weirdo…” Shikamaru muttered. Shikaku laughed, “Hey, be careful-he could be your sensei one day.”
“I’d kill myself. Living would be too troublesome at that point.”
“Me too, son, me too.”
“So,” Tenzō began, “how’d he break his antler?”
“Little creeper tried to feel up one of the Inuzuka nin-dogs-got a chakra blast in the face.” he gave the large buck a rough belly rub, “isn’t that right, you pervert.” the deer snorted into the dirt and pawed at the ground playfully.
“So, what do you need to do?”
“I need to tape up this antler so the lùjiǎo paste can have a chance to take effect. Trouble is,” Shikaku ripped the tape with his teeth, “Donguri, here, can’t keep it in his pants long enough to keep from busting them again. What a pain.”
“How about a hollow wooden brace?” Tenzō asked playfully, forming the ram hand-sign. Shikaku smiled and sat back. The young ANBU formed a number of seals and clapped his hands down on the deer’s head (whom, at the moment, was too enamored with a passing boar to care). As Tenzō concentrated chakra into his hands, fresh maple wood spread from his fingertips and wrapped itself around the deer’s broken antler. “There, break that, you horn-dog!” Tenzō sat back on his heels triumphantly.
Shikaku pulled out a cigarette and ruffled Tenzō’s hair fondly. “You’re alright, kid.” He noticed Guy and Kakashi, fully clad in ANBU gear, heading up the path. “Hound, Bear. We moving out?” lighting his cigarette, he straightened himself.
“If you’re not too busy.” said Kakashi. As Guy began to stare at the newly-braced deer suspiciously, Yoshino entered the clearing from the side of the house, laden with three stacked baskets full of laundry. “M’lady!” Guy shouted, “Please, allow me to assist you with that most onerous of burdens.” His eye glinted through his mask as he sashayed over to Mrs. Nara. “You cannot perceive my features from beneath this most impenetrable of disguises, but let me assure you…” he leaned over her shoulder, “they are most manly.”
Yoshino twitched and Shikamaru snorted. “Thanks, Guy.” She shoved the baskets unceremoniously into his arms and took the opportunity to crack her back. Gesturing toward the house she said, “Just leave them there on the table.”
“With the upmost haste!” he skipped into the Nara home as Yoshino held the door open for him.
“Babe!” Shikaku yelled, “I’m leaving soon.” Yoshino headed into the house behind Guy and said, without turning around, “Get some eggs on your way home. Shikamaru, get inside and do your homework!”
The small boy rolled his eyes and stood next to his father. “What a hag.” reluctantly, he followed his mother into the house, hands in his pockets, just as Guy exited. Shikaku ruffled his hair as he left. “See you, Shika.”
“Bye, dad.” his son attempted to wave, but was dragged into the house via the ear by his mother. Shikaku just smiled and took a drag of his cigarette. Tenzō replaced his mask. “Well that was… weird. Didn’t you tell them how dangerous the mission was?” Shikaku sighed. “’Course I did. All my missions are dangerous-occupational hazard. But they know that I’m doing it to protect them and the village, and that I love them, just like I know that they love me.” he turned to face Tenzō as he slipped on his mask, “You’ll learn this when you have a family of your own-it’s hard. Every time I hug my son it could-actually it’s pretty damn likely-that it’ll be the last time. You can’t think like that; no one can live like that.”
“So you just ignore it?” Tenzō asked sadly.
“Nah. We just don’t waste time bitching about how unfortunate our lives are when we could just be living-loving, instead.”
Guy brushed away manly tears from beneath his mask. He wrapped an arm around his hound-masked comrade, “I love you, man.” Kakashi gingerly lifted Guy’s fingers from his person and muttered, “Thanks.”
Shikaku lightly kicked the deer at his feet and headed up the path. “Alright, Team Kakashi, let’s move out!”
“Can I use your bathroom?”
“No, Guy.”
Author’s Notes
lùjiǎo: 鹿角 (Deer antler) creative, right??? Fun fact: bucks shed their antlers once a year, and grow more branches as they get older. But THIS buck is a skeve, and needs them fixed NOW.
As for the ANBU names, my first thought for Guy was something like a peacock, or a gorilla, but it’s um…awkward to say and I can’t imagine what a peacock mask would look like.
Chapter 2 -Part II- Green Spandex and Grisly Fates: Team Kakashi Mobilized!