A/N: The Loki in this chapter is Loki IV, the God/Goddess of Stories, introduced in the third arc of "Loki: Agent of Asgard."
o.o.o.o.o
Leah smiles.
It's rarely a cruel smile, or a particularly nice one. Polite is the best way to describe it, with an occasional dose of smugness.
It's a smile that Kakashi's quickly learned to recognize, because he's quickly learned to recognize Leah, and she smiles quite a lot. He's now one of the two people that the Sandaime assigns to follow the woman when she appears, along with Mikoto, since Leah seems particularly interested in both of them. Something to do with Kushina and Naruto, apparently. Kakashi thinks, personally, that the woman was only initially interested in them for that reason, and now has others that are even less understandable. He thinks the interest in Mikoto is much like a human's interest in a child, or a particularly clever animal.
(Though he never says it like that to her face, he's pretty sure Mikoto realizes the same thing.)
Leah's interest in him, on the other hand, he thinks is largely related to his Sharingan. She tilts her head, looks directly at his headband, and smiles, every time they encounter each other.
At first it was annoying. Now it's just the tiniest bit alarming.
(There are days where he's actually glad that Gai seems to find them with disturbing accuracy on days when Kakashi is the first to come across Leah. He thinks it might be the peculiar shade of green that Leah's dresses are all made of. It's not like Gai's made any secret of how much he loves the color.)
"Milkshakes again?" Kakashi asks after he spots Leah at Michiko's Café on his way home from training. It's been over two years since he met her for the first time. "How are you not tired of them yet?"
"I only every have the chance to get them when I come to Konoha." Leah tells him as he takes a seat. "I would very much like to enjoy them when I have the chance."
"You're here every few weeks." Kakashi says, as blandly as he can manage, which isn't very bland yet, but he's working on it. There's a certain kind of air he's trying to cultivate, after all; he hasn't managed it just yet, but he's getting there.
"That's not a lot of milkshakes." Leah informs him. There's a matter-of-fact air to everything she says that Kakashi kind of envies; he's pretty sure she legitimately does not give a shit about anything going on, ever. It's impressive and it's not fair.
"I see."
"Do you?" Leah starts to smile again, but the expression drops from her face halfway through. She cocks her head and furrows her brow, looking out the window and dropping the straw she habitually fiddles with.
Kakashi tenses. "What's wrong?"
"…I didn't expect…" Leah trails off, and then stands up and drifts out the door, dropping off some cash at the counter on her way out. It's enough to pay for both her milkshake and Kakashi's pudding.
"What is it?" He tries asking again as he follows her.
"I don't know." She says, and Kakashi thinks she might be telling the truth. "At the very least, I'm not particularly sure. There's something very strange going on."
In the shinobi world, that's almost always code for "something is about to go horribly, terribly wrong and we're all going to die screaming in a fire."
Leah isn't a shinobi, so that might not apply, but Kakashi knows to prepare for the worst.
His fears are reaffirmed when all the sound in the street abruptly vanishes. He's not the only one that seems to have suddenly gone completely deaf, if the stilling shinobi and stumbling civilians are any sign. At least the civilians aren't panicking. That would just be embarrassing.
Kakashi tenses further when music starts up, especially since he recognizes the style after a few seconds. It's that weird Western music that Leah likes, the strange, bouncy thing he doesn't know if he likes the sound of.
"A little bird once said to me, you've got to live a little before you're happy, and if you take a lot, you'll be left with none. I had to learn a bit and live a bit, let it all sink in a bit."
Kakashi sees the bewildered smile on Leah's face before he sees who's singing, and really, he only sees that person when Leah turns and looks up a the roof of the café.
"Karaoke to Zarif?" Leah's hands are on her hips, and her mouth is wide in the most genuine smile Kakashi's ever seen on her face. The person the roof winks and jumps down to land in front of them, and doesn't even pause in their singing. "Really Loki?"
The person (a woman, Kakashi thinks, but he isn't entirely sure) reaches out and takes Leah's hands, pulling her into a dance to the song they haven't stopped singing yet.
The movements look both smoothly practiced and wildly improvisational, a strange combination that really only confuses Kakashi. There are flailing limbs everywhere, but they look controlled, mostly. Kakashi barely knows how this dance is supposed to look, but he's fairly certain these two know what they're doing. Leah's grinning and spinning, anyway, and that's kind of terrifying in its own way.
When the song ends, sound returns to the world with a pop, and Leah and the stranger take a few seconds to separate. They're too busy smirking and staring each other down like they're only seconds away from admitting to having poisoned the other.
"Found you!" Loki finally says, and the accompanying grin is practically feral.
"I noticed." Leah steps back, though she doesn't let go of Loki's hands. "You're not the Loki I knew, are you?"
"Ehhhh," Loki lifts a hand and wiggles it in the air a bit. "Not quite? Closer match to my predecessor than any of the previous changes, though!"
"So, what do I call you, then? In relation to the others?" Leah asks, reaching up with one hand to cradle Loki's pale, pale chin.
Loki leans into the touch, as though starved for it. "God of Stories, I suppose."
"And what do you call me, in relation to my others?"
"The daydream Leah." Loki answers promptly.
"All it takes is whims and daydreams," Leah mutters, and her fingers move from Loki's chin to Loki's hair, carding through the long, tangled mess. "You're so young."
Kakashi is so lost.
(The civilians have long since dispersed, with others taking their place, and the shinobi seem to have collectively labeled this as Kakashi's problem, now that it's over.)
(Assholes.)
"Um," Loki says, and looks almost sheepish. "I, uh… yeah. Kind of. I mean, I have the memories of the others, but I don't… I'm not them."
"A lot like me, then." Leah's hands finally come to a rest on Loki's neck, one thumb held precariously close to a jumping pulse. "The Agent Loki created us both."
"Intentionally or otherwise, yes. We're like siblings! Maybe. Kind of." Loki's head drops to the side a little, and the expression on it is wondering. "I don't think they expected you to last after the Mother debacle." Loki says, marveling at Leah's… existence, maybe? Kakashi isn't sure. He's going to have to compare notes with Mikoto later.
"Whims and daydreams are powerful, but stories can last forever." And when Leah says that, Loki's face lights up, a mixture of complete delight and a sadness so complete that it's almost crushing.
"That's true." Loki looks down at a blue bracelet, and somehow calls down a boombox and a spear from the roof. "I mean, that's why I did what I did, right?"
Leah stills, staring at the bracelet and utterly transfixed. "Loki, what did you do?"
Loki's mouth opens and closes for several seconds, lost for words. Finally, Loki gulps and speaks through a fake, fake grin full of shiny, shiny teeth. "Magic. More powerful than anything I've done yet as me."
"Clearly." Leah's eyes move to the spear. "Why?"
Loki's fake, fake grin softens. "Oh, Leah. There is so, so much I need to catch you up on. But first, you need to meet Verity, which should probablyhappen somewhere a little less public. Probably."
Kakashi's day only gets weirder from there on out, and he can't wait for it to be over.
o.o.o.o.o
Next Time: Take me up on my job offer.
o.o.o.o.o
A/N: Loki is presenting feminine, but the Ren-Faire Nordic style is foreign enough to Kakashi (who knows plenty of shinobi whose appearances don't match their identified gender) that he isn't sure, hence the attempt at not using pronouns for Loki.
The song Loki sings is Box of Secrets by Zarif.
My headcanon for Leah's taste in music is electro swing, and I've got a collection of playlists here. This is what I listen to when I write this story, by the way. Just in case you were curious.
I feel like I should explain Konoha's attitude towards Leah, but it's not like this is a serious story anyway, and I think I've covered it enough in-story, yeah?