From Princes Familiar

Author's Note: Though I didn't know it at the start—a small dedication to beginnings. Everybody has 'em.

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14. Rival

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Sakumo stared across the lake with a torrid stare atop a rigid body.

Tsunade looked too.

He was unmoving and warm. His muscles were tensed and tight. He eyes were even and filled with something on the controlled side of rage. Tsunade had never seen him so perturbed by the stranger's presence across the calm lake, limpid with the reflection of the clouds above. Tsunade squinted a little to see the stranger's form. All black. Cloaked. Clean white face. She opened her mouth but thought better of it. Even Sakumo wouldn't stand the silence much longer.

"Look at him," said the leaf shinobi tersely.

"…I'm looking…" but Tsunade couldn't see what the fuss was about yet.

Sakumo sighed. "Don't you recognize him?"

"No."

"Him. Of the Grass. The man who foiled me two years ago at a campsite. That man."

The memory still did not push off any cymbal clashing in her mind but she nodded anyway. "So…"

Sakumo wouldn't move.

"Not going to say 'hi'…" Tsunade murmured inquisitively.

"We've already said it."

Suddenly, the man began moving left.

Subsequently…Sakumo began moving right.

The man from Kusa stopped.

So did Sakumo.

Tsunade pursed her lips, beginning to stiffen herself, watching this strange, dangerous greeting. It would have been funny if the man opposite the placid lake were Jiraiya, yet something told her it was much deeper than that. "Captain…Sa…ku…"

The kunai blade flew across the water fast—the man on the opposite side blocked and sent his own whirling back across the lake—Sakumo easily deflected it harmlessly aside as he leapt onto the water without making a ripple on the surface—the man came forward and the fight commenced. Forced to keep out of it due to some sort of manly grudge, Tsunade stood and watched, keeping an eye on both fighters, sensing Sakumo was holding his own very well—yet the other man intrigued her. He was quick, lethal, and handsome, whoever he was. A man a little older than Sakumo from greying brown hair he appeared highly intellectual and precise—the kind of fighter Sakumo admired. The man from Kusa matched all advances—their blades clinked faster and faster and Tsunade struggled to keep up. The fight raged on. Faster and faster they fought hand to hand, blade to blade, without making a wave upon the water. Tsunade became nervous for a moment as the action paused in a still frame—their weapons locked and reflected on the glassy surface below…

At long last the Kusa man was sweating under some enormous pressure. Sakumo was winded, but unmoved. They broke apart over few yards distance. Sakumo's eyes were steel locked on the Kusa man. "Ok…ok…" said the man from the land of grass… "I can't keep up the disguise any longer…!"

…Poof.

"…Jiraiya…" Tsunade's voice was exceptionally flat.

Sakumo turned quickly, "No! Not Jiraiya! Don't you see it? How could you not see your own husband!"

Jiro smiled.

"…Ohhh…sweet Kami…" the cymbals clashed and she put a hand on her migraine from all the noise.

Nohara attacked with fury, "I WILL get that manuscript from you!"

Mr Deguchi laughed breathlessly, "NEVER!"

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-Caliko

(…you've just been had.)

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