Leah takes a sip of her tea, grateful that ninjas are secretive enough to have cafés with secrecy seals painted into the wood. Granted, she could cast a spell to keep people from overhearing if she felt like it, but that would take effort. The booth is fairly cozy, anyway, and there's a nice, large window instead of a wall.
"Thank you for informing me of the incoming changes." Jashin says, his own cup cradled in his palms. He looks much the same as he had the first time they'd met, clothed in red and gold silk, with half-closed pink eyes and long silver hair. The only real change is that his hair has gone from tied low on his back to pulled tight against his skull in a high tail. There is a wraith hanging at his elbow, invisible to the shinobi and acting in much the same way that Rin does for Leah, though Rin isn't here today.
"I've gone many years without assigning a reaper." Leah shrugs. "Psychopomps were largely unnecessary in my old world, but spirits tend to linger more here, whether out of stubbornness or out of blurring the line in terms of which kingdom they go to upon dying, and I know you have plenty of your wraiths to cull those for you. I felt it was time to begin… building the ranks, as it were."
"You anticipate a war?" Jashin asks, eyebrow raised. It's a relevant question, because the only gods she really interacts with here are Jashin and Shinigami, and the only person she could realistically wage a war against is Jashin himself.
"No, but going by my memories of the old Hells and all their counterparts, it pays to be prepared." Leah swirls the tea in her cup a little. "There may not be war for another thousand years. There may be war tomorrow. Either way, I would like to remain standing by the end."
"I suppose you do come from a world where the larger conflicts do not see fit to confine themselves solely to the living humans and the living world's local deities." Jashin muses. "This world hasn't had a deity attempt to involve themselves in a conflict since shortly before I ascended."
"Oh?"
"Princess Kaguya. She was a human that ascended by chance after eating a cursed fruit. The power allowed her to put an end to the conflicts, and she did settle amongst the humans peacefully for a time, but power corrupts."
"And it corrupts absolutely."
"Precisely." Jashin nods. "Her children eventually sealed her away, but not before she'd nearly put the entire world into an illusion of her own making."
"Impressive, if short-sighted." Leah tilts her head. "Did other deities get involved in the sealing?"
"They may have had more to do with the powers the children gained than most humans suspected." Jashin allowed. "I was, of course, not yet ascended at the time, and as such cannot act as a proper primary source."
"But you've asked Shinigami?" Leah asks with a wry grin, and gets a small smile in return.
"But of course." Jashin's fingers tap along the wood of the table. "The incident was actually what led to chakra being as prevalent as it is in this world, which lead to people being both better at killing one another, and better at keeping their children alive. The population only grew slowly, overall, but the rate of death and rebirth grew to the point where they needed another caretaker for the dead."
"And so they found you." She wonders whether he'll ever tell her what he did as a human to catch the interest of the gods. He hasn't answered her casually posed questions before, so she doubts he will any time soon.
"And so they did." Jashin shifts in his seat, and his pink eyes track to the side. "How long will that woman continue watching us?"
"Mikoto?" Leah asks without even turning her head. "I'm sure she'll approach now that we've acknowledged her. They like having someone around to keep track of me while I'm here."
"Too powerful to leave alone, but you haven't done anything to warrant getting arrested yet?" Jashin summarizes, though she hasn't explained it to him before. He does know the shinobi better than she does.
"More or less. I think they're hoping I'll ally myself with them in the event of a future conflict, or at least bring some sort of business beyond simply frequenting cafes and the like." Leah shrugs. "It's all rather unlikely, but I'm sure they'll notice some more oddities soon."
"Such as the lack of aging?"
"Precisely." Leah smiles, and then sighs. "It seems Mikoto has finally decided to approach."
"She has children with her."
"Ah, I haven't met the younger yet." That actually does have her attention. She turns to look, and—
Oh my.
Fate's pull here is almost as strong as that of Naruto, and definitely stronger than that around Rin and Kushina and Yahiko. Itachi had had a strong Fate pull when Leah had first met him, but Sasuke's is larger, and almost consuming Itachi's.
"Indra." Jashin hisses, apparently as surprised as Leah, if for different reasons.
"Mikoto, what a surprise." Leah says, standing to give a shallow bow of the sort that Konoha prefers, much in the way that the Japanese did back before. "And your sons?"
"You've met Itachi," Mikoto's hand ruffles the boy's hair, "And this is Sasuke."
The three-year-old is standing on Mikoto's other side, clutching her hand. He waves shyly at Leah before hiding his face behind Mikoto's leg, staring at Jashin with undisguised interest.
"Hello, Sasuke." Leah says, keeping her interest out of her tone. She wants to know where this child is going to end up. She wants to know why Fate's got him so entangled in her strings.
"And your friend?" Mikoto asks, dragging Leah out of her thoughts. The woman's eyes are on Jashin, who blinks back and nods politely.
"My name is Shin." He says, which Leah finds more amusing than she probably should. She can guess how he's spelling it. The usual kanji for the name, she's learned, is that of truth or reality. A fine name, she supposes, but Jashin is undoubtedly imagining it with the kanji for death somewhere in there. Then again, she's fairly certain there aren't any kanji that are read solely as 'n,' so she may be wrong. "I've been told your name is Mikoto. A pleasure to meet you."
"Likewise." Mikoto gives a shallow bow, and then seems slightly unsure of what to do.
"Would you like to take a seat?" Leah asks, gesturing to the booth she and Jashin have spent the past half hour in. "I'm sure the boys' feet must be tired."
While Mikoto hesitates, Sasuke's eyes light up, and he clambers up into the empty side of the booth that Leah had occupied before she stood up. Itachi follows him after a second, and then Mikoto just sighs and gestures for Leah to take her place again.
"Oh, no, I can sit on Shin's side." Leah assures her, letting Mikoto take a seat with her children. She slides in next to Jashin when he moves to make room for her, and she sees the gold patterns on his sleeve, hidden from Mikoto's sight, shift to Nordic runes that the shinobi would be hard-pressed to recognize, let alone read.
I call dibs.
"So, what do you do for a living, Shin-san?" Mikoto asks.
Which one? I have my eyes on Sasuke, now. Fate's toys hold an interest for me. I'm building up a collection. Leah lets the words play out in green light, still on Jashin's sleeve.
"I'm a human resources manager in a company that works in concert with Leah's holdings." He answers, which is just…
Leah wants to laugh, because it is such beautiful bullshit. Most of it isn't even a lie, not really.
The elder, Itachi. By the time he dies, he will have suffered more than a thousand men five times his age.
Leah smiles as Mikoto and Jashin continue to make small talk, with little white lies peppered all over the place. Itachi's watching them with interest, while Sasuke is poking Itachi to get help reading the menu.
Then lay your claim. We've no quarrel. She pauses, and adds, Earlier, you mentioned a name. Indra?
Kaguya's grandson. He was powerful and stubborn enough to have entered a very strange sort of reincarnation cycle upon his death. There are two souls in that boy's body; I suspect you will be getting only one upon his death.
Leah almost frowns. That is… unfortunate, but acceptable.
"I still haven't managed to figure out what Leah does." Mikoto informs Jashin, which is true, and Jashin knows it.
"I'm not surprised. She does have a tendency to hold her secrets close to her chest." Jashin agrees gravely, though Leah's sure he would be laughing if he were the type.
"How long have you two known each other?" Mikoto asks, reaching past Itachi to pull a bottle of soy sauce out of Sasuke's grip without looking.
"Since a few years before the Third War." Leah says, since she can't really remember the exact number of years, but it's a good estimate. Maybe ten years? She should ask Rin.
"You must have been very young." Mikoto says, and she looks almost concerned. Worried, even.
"Very young, yes." Leah says, because, well, she was. Younger than Sasuke is now, in some ways. Older than humanity itself, in others.
"I suppose I could ask you to call me sempai, if we were honest about it," Jashin says, the ghost of a smirk on his face, and—
"When Hel freezes over, I'll consider it." Leah says. They both know the event is possible, if unlikely.
Sasuke chooses that moment to interrupt, "Kaa-chan, there's someone weird outside!"
"Sasuke, don't call people weird." Mikoto scolds, and looks out the window. "…ah."
"Is something wrong?" Leah asks. She's visited Konoha too often to pay attention every time something strange happens.
"They're coming in!" Sasuke says, pointing at something outside of Leah's range of vision, and a second later, the doorbell chimes. Staggering footsteps make their way in.
"Er, sir? Sir, you have to wait to be seated." The civilian waitress says, and the footsteps pause. "U-unless you're here to find someone who's already been seated?"
There isn't an answer.
"Hey, who the hell are you?" One of the patrons, a shinobi, demands.
.
"W̧͔ͤͮh̬̝̦͖̮̰̩̎̿̎ͥ͐͠ą̪̖͇͎̖̦̲ͭ̈̈͂t̞ͧͣ̓ ̱͉ͭͤȳ̛͕̥̗͚ͪ̚o̊ͫ͡ṵ̟̭̩̗̪ͅ ̣̤͖͍̓ͦ͌̿ͦ͒̋c̠̄̂͒͛̆a̢n̳̗͆ͭ'̶̀̿̐ţ̝̱̖̫̻̟͛͊ͣ͆̽̽ͅ ͙͍̝ͪͭ̈́͊ͬͦo̢̥͓u̳͍͚̩̞̞ͤ̆̊̃̂͢t̷̞̲ͤ̈̄ͩͮ͒r͎̹̈̃͛ͯͣͬ͐u̙̤̳̗ͣ̐̏̓ͩn͓̼̦̠̳," The person replies, and Leah feels her cold, dead heart stutter, because she knows that voice.
.
"Um..." the shinobi that asked the question seems stumped. "Okay?"
Leah stands up and spins, faster than the usual languid movements she uses when she's in Konoha, and faces the ragged uniform once worn by the Young Avengers' Patriot, now on the body of an Eldritch Abomination from beyond the Void.
"Patri-not?"
.
"H͉̘̔̐͒e̫̰̎̐ͧ̒ͭͫ̿̍l̢͉̭̻͚̼̖̝ͬl̨̗̠͈̉͂̉̋̂͛ͥ̚̚͘ǫ̸̘̺̭͙̘̳ͩ͂́̈̓͆̐͊͜ͅ,͇̜͚ͬ͌͆͂͒̿͒ͤ͘ ̧̖̞̘͍ͤ̈ͣͅL̢̹͈̘̳̯̯͎͆̀̐̆̎̚e̡̳̞̠̝̩̼̹̊̿́̎ͤ͛̓ͩͅa̡̾ͫͫ̊̐̉h̷̯̟̭͈̒̒̚͡.ͨͣ̿͑̕͏̻̘͖͡"
o.o.o.o.o
Next time: In which the author is clearly struggling to figure out how to characterize an Eldritch Abomination from beyond the Void.