"Danger! High Voltage" by Electric Six
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Stacked Game
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They were rumored to be the best.
Hand-picked by the Hokage himself, they were said to be Konoha's dark hand; feared across the land. Whispers of their deeds carried like shadows on the wind, tales of their feats bordering on the bizarre and supernatural. They were the silent threat. The hollow rattle of night, looming and unknowable, before it overtook the day.
They were the incestuous byproduct of a trans-generational war that'd forced all the great nations to splinter into a hushed division of what was surely the most elite, deadly warrior-factions known to man.
There was no height they would not scale, no depravity they would not plunge for the sake of the mission. Their reputation was as sensational as it was odious.
They—they were flying by the seat of their pants.
Scanning the crowd of writhing, kaleidoscope-cast bodies packed tightly onto the sprawling dancefloor, and finding nothing; Tenzo felt his expression flatten.
Amazing, he mused dryly to himself with an exasperated shake of his head, how exactly NONE OF THIS is going according to plan.
"Why am I not surprised." he mumbled quietly with a stony blink of resignation.
And then, shrugging, he decided he might as well enjoy himself.
Who knew how badly this night could end for them all anyway? Blackmail, castration, public execution - it was all equally possible.
The wood-user snagged a shot glass from the tray of a passing waiter. The ivory dressed man gave him a sideways, altogether unimpressed look. Tenzo rolled his eyes.
"Oh, shut up." he slurred under his breath, making a loose, shooing motion with his hand over his head. He spun on the heels of his newly purchased shiny black loafers, sparing only a passing glance at the curious amber-red hue of the alcohol before pinching his nose, grimacing, and tossing it back in one swig.
There was a brief stumble of moments wherein the young ANBU in-disguise fought valiantly to repress a full-body shudder. Molten fire raked down his throat, vaulting through his insides. His eyes burned with steamy tears.
"Eeuugheh eh-Woah..." the wood-user blinked sluggishly in inebriated surprise, "That. That just got good."
He had just artfully deposited his empty glass atop some fastidiously piled sandwiches on another waiter's tray, when he saw Genma.
Tenzo promptly choked on his own spit.
Less than three strides away, making his way cautiously through the gyrating crowd in recently appropriated five-inch heels, his teammate looked vaguely constipated beneath all the glitter and polish.
Tenzo suspected that the scratchy-voiced youth was still feeling a little sour about being the only one who had to cross-dress for their self-assigned infiltration into the Consortium's secret upper-tier. (Being the first one to skip out on the tab after a long night's worth of drinks-consistently, Tenzo might add-tended to result in episodes of mass self-degradation in Team Ro)
Also, as Kakashi had so eloquently put it, Genma clearly had the sexiest calves.
Although, right now it was pretty clear that the senbon-user felt anything but.
Genma looked ready to skin a cat... Or possibly a granny. And her cat.
Feeling somewhat nonsensical, Tenzo simply had to turn around. He couldn't keep a straight face. He discreetly bent over and hacked emphatically into his hand in a half-hearted attempt to cover his laughter.
Chuckling, he felt someone's fierce gaze level on him and he looked up, blinking blearily.
And was promptly met with fierce gaze of an imperious, thin-browed old woman who was staring at him over the round shoulder of her partner in disgust.
Well shit. There was the granny.
Hope she didn't bring her cat with her.
Feeling rather flippant, a toasty warmth licking through his skin, the teenager adopted an overly enthusiastic apologetic expression. For a strange, unguarded moment he found himself copying the behavior of the infuriating Copy-Ninja and, for all intents and purposes, the true squad captain of Team Ro.
Tenzo hacked wetly into his hand and then, smiling sheepishly, offered his moist, dripping palm out to her.
"Lovely party, no? Such an honor to attend. I've only just finished a sporting bout of tuberculosis myself, and-"
So quickly they might have been shinobi, the alarmed couple hurriedly shuffled backwards into the mass of thrashing dancers behind them.
"That's right!" he crowed after them in inebriated triumph, "Go back to your cat!"
Feeling rather pleased with himself, he grabbed another shot from a hurrying waitress who had just enough time to cast him an alarmed, rather contemptuous stab with her eyes before she was swept away by the crowd. He tossed the whole thing back in a motion that was becoming markedly smoother as the night wore on. Winced and coughed.
"Whew..." he huffed, blinking back tears, "That is a po-tent spi-rit. Whatever it is."
Swiveling his focus back to the mission at hand, he found himself snorting into his hand again upon remembering how they'd actually had to frighten a poor stewardess into helping Genma apply his makeup. Tenzo giggled, but felt his amusement fizzle short as his mind plucked along to his other teammates.
Hayate was supposed to have met him at the bar an hour ago.
And so far there had been no trace of the specialized katana-fighter. He was supposed to have assisted Kakashi with bugging the place after helping the Sharingan-user slip inside the heavily fortified Underground Palace. Thinking of which, he hadn't heard a peep from the silver-haired, self-proclaimed leader of this escapade either.
Nervousness glowed through him again, and he found himself looking for nearby waiters out of the corner of his eye without really thinking about it. Man, what was that drink? It was seriously-
-Genma suddenly released a wave-like snap of killing intent from nearby, jolting him from his alcoholic musing.
Tenzo's brown eyes widened. A few people dancing nearby whipped their heads around, but, evidently not being shinobi, passed it off as just another strange feeling-to be had and then forgotten.
Tenzo watched the scene unfold before him with a sense of preemptive regret.
A bent, rather elderly gentleman had just made a passing grab at Genma's slinky emerald cocktail dress. It had been under the guise of an ill-timed stumble. But the man's hand was still scooped against the pert curve of the young man's backside. Genma's flecked brown eyes were wide, his powdered face flushed with impotent rage.
It may have been the smokey slant of kohl dusted in a seductive stripe across the senbon-user's lids, it may have been the tom-boy's already narrow features, but something in Genma's face took on a decidedly devilish tilt.
"Here we go..." Tenzo mumbled.
In a swift, stunningly blurred motion, Genma swung one lace-gloved arm like a lashing whip.
The old man's denchers settled with a ringing jangle inside the now mostly empty champagne glass of another man standing nearby.
"Oh." The man said, holding up his spoiled drink sadly.
And, Tenzo decided, it was about that time. Again. Pivoting on his heel, he plucked a test-tube shooter from a waiter's tray. He tossed it back without checking to see what was in it. He coughed, blinking. Huh. That one tasted a little strange...
"Well," husked a low voice suddenly in a wash of heat against the back of his neck, making him shiver, "don't you look like a big boy, all dressed up for his special night."
The wood-user spun in alarm, and the motion sent the colors of the room blurring faintly. He blinked twice. And then his tilting vision zeroed in on Genma's derisive smirk.
"Why," he intoned smartly, trying to save face, "If it isn't my dear cousin... er, Genmabella. Hic. "
Genma rolled his eyes. Crossed his silk gloved arms.
"Nice to booze you too."
Missing the jab entirely, Tenzo leaned in close to whisper loudly.
"Hey, have you seen Hayate? You don't think he needs help getting in, do you?"
Genma snorted. Jerked his head over to the cluster of eggplant-hued leather couches in the far corner of the room beside the bar.
"What are you on about? He's over there."
Tenzo leaned up onto his tip-toes, squinting over the packed bodies writhing on the dance-floor. He tottered and nearly fell, conveniently catching his elbow in the face of a girl who had just been nasalizing profusely to her friends, interrupting her mid-sentence.
"Oh." he blinked at the girl's alarmed squawking with dim incredulity, "Why'd you put your face there?"
But she was already retreating quickly across the ballroom, gesticulating wildly with her hands.
"You." Genma said in a tone of mild respect behind him, "Are. A gump."
Tenzo whirled around, his stomach sloshing. Was it just him or had all of the lights somehow managed to get brighter? And were there always that many colors?
Just what was in that last drink anyway?
"You're a gump." He retorted lamely, still searching for Hayate.
"Up yours!"
"Gladly!"
There was a brief pause wherein he caught what he'd just said.
"Retraction." he mumbled distractedly, his searching eyes having finally latched onto Hayate's garish burgundy suit. His brown orbs promptly widened in shock.
"Too late." Genma sighed and fluttered his false lashes.
Tenzo shoved him in the face.
There was a giggling ring of busty women all stuffed into a booth alongside the wan-faced teenager.
"How... How-Why is he over there? He was supposed to be one of the string quartet." Tenzo's brow twitched incredulously, "And, hold up, hold up-Are those body-guards?"
Slinking his satin-gloved arms around Tenzo's neck, Genma chuckled and began to shuffle half-heartedly. His finely arched brows (he'd cried when the maid had whipped out the tweezers) seemed to be reaching for his elegantly parted hairline. Tenzo couldn't decide if the senbon-user's expression was amused or exasperated.
"What're you talking about?" Genma sighed in a beleaguered way, "You're the one who made the fakes."
"I-he." Tenzo stopped and shook his head, wobbling a little from the erratic motion. No, no, wait a second. That couldn't be right.
The walls shouldn't be melting.
Why... Were they... melting?
"Oh my god..."
Genma snapped his fingers in front of Tenzo's nose sharply.
"Tenzo."
Snap.
"Tenzo."
The wood-user batted the cross-dressing shinobi's hands away, snarling.
"Stop-Would you stop that?" he snipped reflexively, "I was... I was thinking."
"Well don't strain yourself too hard." Genma quipped back and, after a short pause, added, "This plan is fucking dangerous enough as it is."
"Shuddup." Tenzo pinched the freshly shaved skin of Genma's armpits meanly, earning a terrific squeal of displeasure, "I just thought... The photo on the id I gave Hayate..." It was quickly becoming a struggle to string words together into a sentence, "Was... He was supposed to be a ginger!"
The senbon-user hissed, cradling his wounded armpit before slapping Tenzo girlishly flat across the face. They both continued dancing in time as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
"Yeah." Genma scoffed, reaching for a glass of champagne over Tenzo's shoulder even as he stuffed a miniature crab-cake into his mouth, "A ginger pimp. Apparently."
Tenzo blinked.
"What?" the senbon-user scoffed through a mouthful of shellfish, "You didn't think gingers could be gangsters?"
Tenzo raised his brows and looked back to where the katana-user was through the rapidly swirling mass of light and color.
Hayate dipped a sly tip of his burgundy fedora to them from across the floor. A smoldering cigar jutted crudely from between his dry lips and a fistful of money fluttered from one hand as an elegant glass of some sort of bronze liquor swirled pleasantly in the other.
"Well then." Tenzo said, not a little lost at Hayate's bizarrely good luck. How did he always seem to get the good roles for the infiltration missions?
"Well, you know what they say about gingers and souls, they-Ow!" Genma hissed suddenly as Tenzo stepped absentmindedly on his foot, "That's my foot!"
"Sorry."
"Yeah, I'll make you sorry... Treebeard." Genma growled quietly to himself as Tenzo drunkenly spun him in an impromptu twirl, emerald skirts fluttering enchantingly about the senbon-user's lean legs.
"I don't like this." Tenzo murmured distractedly, peering blurrily somewhere to the left of Genma's carefully styled half coif, scanning the crowds for any sign of Kakashi or their target. He blinked hard.
Wait. Weren't the colors supposed to stop when he closed his eyes? He shook himself back into gear.
"Someone shut down all the comlink channels within a twelve-mile radius of this place... About forty minutes ago now."
'Kaede has to know we followed him here.'
His eyes met Genma's, and he saw a flash of the same worry he was feeling mirrored in the other's hazel orbs. He added reluctantly.
"Right after Kakashi was supposed to break in."
"... Yeah."
"I'm sure he's fine."
"Yeah." Genma reassured him reflexively, kicking his heels in a ghastly approximation of a dosido, "I'm sure he's just fine."
...
...
"Oh dear."
Kakashi twisted around in the cluttered dressing room, lugging the unconscious form of a gargantuan transvestite behind him. That didn't go as planned.
"Guess it's time to improvise."
Whistling absently to himself, he began to rifle through the drawers of the sparkly pink mirrored dresser, throwing makeup and jewelry over his shoulder as he did.
"Laxatives." he hummed, searching, "Where are the laxatives-HE-LLO."
The Copy-Ninja's uncovered eyebrow raised as he held the enormous veined purple dildo up before him.
"Ambitious."
Shrugging carelessly, he tossed it over his shoulder as well, accidentally bonking the passed out transvestite on the head as he did.
Honestly, he hadn't really expected her to swallow it.
Turns out gag reflexes were really much more useful than the general public might believe.
Sighing regretfully, Kakashi slid the now empty drawers back into place with a sigh. No laxatives to be found.
What sort of seedy underground entertainment company was this? And no condoms either, he'd noted.
Now that Meatflap McDrips (he was still quite impressed by her choice in stage name) had swallowed the last bug he'd had to plant, how was he going to get a clear view from the stage?
It was such an elementary mistake really, placing the bug inside the target rather than on them. Kakashi sighed again and slumped against an overflowing dresser.
It looked like there was only one thing to do really...
The Copy-Ninja turned to face the wide, lipstick-smeared mirror and stared at himself dead in the eye. His arms fell down to his sides and he took a deep breath, steadying himself.
"Hello Chubsly Lickington. We meet again."
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