From Princes Familiar

Author's Note: I used to play 'Minesweeper'. Then I was doing something, and I played it again recently. It is a deeply psychological game, that's how I've always felt. I love it, and hate it, because I seldom win. I'm a horrible player. I always feel so bad I hit a mine and possibly level a small village in the middle of nowhere. = ( There is some kind of logic to it I know, but it's hard. Later on in the night I had a brilliant thought. This is what resulted.

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12. Mindsweeper

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On a sunny afternoon, in the middle of nowhere, the game arose.

Ok, it arose in the night, actually, like a nocturnal flower—stationary and beautiful. Seductive, too. Sleek walls as petals and a front-view mirror like a woman's compact, but better. And it wasn't actually in the middle of nowhere. It landed on one of the main drags where everyone was sure to see it standing there, beckoning. Calling. Oh it was a peculiar whistle. A cool gloss of the screen flashed curiously and the buttons called, yearning for movement. By sunrise, the genin were playing with it. Coming into town for the chuunin exams no less, it spoke in muffled arcade tones to their cheerful, youthful faces and rosy cheeks: "Hi. Nice to meet you. Can you beat me?"

Morning, the special jounin had some kicks getting rid of loose change.

Brunch, the chuunin were raving before going off to watch the matches.

Lunch, the genin who lost came back to play, push, and boggle at the sheer stupidity of the thing, thus losing interest after a while, and hitting the marketplace.

In the afternoon, it's presence (we should say) arose and made itself known before Hatake Sakumo of the hidden leaf. A jounin he is. Just came back from a mission, he did. Intrigued he was. Then infatuated, he became.

Jiraiya and Orochimaru watched.

"There is one square left…" Sweat poured from the Shiroi Kiba's brow in no delicate fashion whatsoever.

"You mean there's one ninja bomb left," Jiraiya pointed out.

"Don't rush me!" Sakumo raised his hand feverishly.

He had been here for the past thirty minutes. In dirty clothes. A frantic countenance. A peculiar sense of relief and fanaticism sweeping over him, hovering over this 'game'. After watching Jiraiya play juvenilely and Orochimaru clear all the levels expertly and intuitively, Sakumo had yet to win a game. Jiraiya watched the man and the screen. Orochimaru said nothing as Sakumo finally made his choice.

"AH HELL!"

Sakumo crooned.

"Let me do the next one!" Jiraiya pushed the jounin's arm, but Sakumo suddenly glued himself to the device. "Get away! I gotta play!"

Realizing Sakumo was now entering serious zealot mode, Jiraiya looked on at the scene with some careful amusement. Amused since Sakumo wasn't winning, and careful since the man could have a heart attack for how worked up he was over the game and it's difficultly. On the battlefield, Sakumo was always intuitive. In the virtual square, Sakumo was obliterating the land acre by acre. Oh what pain!

Sakumo pushed a random square on the new game and immediately lost. "AH!"

"Ha ha… Found the ninja bomb again you did…!" Jiraiya chuckled.

"Jiraiya, as I told you before, the point is to NOT find the bombs," Sakumo informed who only learned to play the game a half an hour ago. "Wait…" Sakumo attended to his logic—"I mean, yes, the point is to find the bombs, but not to uncover them."

"Oh really…" Jiraiya remarked, trying to keep from splitting his insides laughing.

"We really didn't know that…" supplied Orochimaru and his dry humor, his cheeks grinning pale white.

"AH! Be quiet!" Sakumo waved them off. "I need silence…"

Jiraiya let out a snigger and raised his eyebrows over onto Orochimaru in a rather amused fashion.

Orochimaru smirked at Hatake Sakumo's backside, losing again.

Tsunade appeared. Tsunade noticed the game. Smooth and black it stood along the serene walk through town where quite a few people were passing through today. A silver-white haired man's ponytail was visible inside the cavernous display, along with her teammates nearby. Imagine that! All three of them right there today in one place! Compelled to investigate, she was shocked to hear colorful metaphors coming from Hatake Sakumo's mouth.

"Hi Tsunade," said Jiraiya unoblivious to her presence unlike Shiroi Kiba.

"Hi…Jiraiya…Orochimaru…"

"Oh God dammit!" Sakumo hit the reset button for the seventy-second time.

"Hi…Sakumo-san…"

Sakumo was pushing buttons.

"I think he is disturbed," offered Orochimaru.

"I think he's enthralled," described Jiraiya.

"I think…he has a fever…" she looked at Sakumo from a medical perspective.

All of the jounin's concentration was on the game—watching him for a half a minute longer, clearly Sakumo once again had made it to the point where he had one more square to deduce. "Come on Sakumo," said Jiraiya under false pretences. "You can do it."

"Shush…" murmured the mad man. "I'm trying to think logically about this."

"Of course you are," said Jiraiya.

"We wouldn't think anything less." said Orochimaru.

"We know you wouldn't intentionally lose…" said Tsunade.

"We know you wouldn't intentionally level an entire village with one push of a button…" Jiraiya whispered in his captain's ear.

"Jiraiya…" Tsunade's smile betrayed her narrowed eyes.

Orochimaru covered his mouth.

"…"

NINJA BOMB!

"GAME OVER!"

X (

"Oh my GOD!" Sakumo covered his eyes in defeat and shame while the men laughed their hitai-ate off.

"…Play again?"

"GAH!" Sakumo pulled his hair, thankfully not out…

Tsunade crept in closer as Sakumo was twirling about in some self-deprecating dance of shame and moral fury—"Oh…He's…only on the easy level…?"

And she began laughing too.

"SOMEBODY GIVE ME A NICKEL TO TRY AGAIN. PLEASE."

"Ok Sakumo, here's your heroin…" Jiraiya gave it to him. "I'm going to the market to get some change," he jerked his thumb in the direction while Sakumo was already beginning the new game, "This is so worth it." Jiraiya sounded pleased.

"I'll go too," said Orochimaru, pulling out his money.

"Stay here in case he faints…or something," asked Jiraiya.

"What if he wants to take the game home when it gets dark?"

"Oh I think it'll be jammed up with nickels by the time he's through."

Tsunade looked back at Sakumo.

Smooth and black.

White and frantic.

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-Caliko