A/N: My god. Still here. In between crimes, obviously. Thank you to Shana, as usual, for the beta!
Mayuko hadn't been pleased to have to put them up in her family's home, but that could just have been her general attitude coming through. Raiku knew she loved them, really. She'd stuffed them into the guest bedrooms with lists of things not to do that, insultingly, included items like "don't touch anything".
It was even worse that Raiku could see how they were pretty justified.
Their cousin's family had long showed her father the same kind of wary friendliness that Raiku had seen before, when he'd been assessing previous candidates to replace him; it wasn't exactly a sought-after role by the candidates' families. Mayu's first cousin Senta was being considered, and she had been especially terse with them ever since she found out. Her dad was still their uncle, their cousin, a Gairano, but no one was eager to offer their kid up for that kind of responsibility. General Plot aversion saved them most of the time but it did seem to make the line of succession pretty hard to sort out, since nominating someone to then immerse themselves in Plot machinations became sort of like trying to catch goldfish with a teaspoon. That previous potential candidates had generally met unfortunate fates didn't help; they'd been shinobi, from memory, and it wasn't like Gairano shinobi had a better life expectancy than the rest of them.
On the bright side, no one woke as early as Raiku and her father, so despite being in someone else's home, at least she had the comforting ritual of eating breakfast across the table from him when it was just the two of them. Well. She ate while he read a book, since apparently taking his own food to the same table as her was "unwise" and "just counterproductive".
She'd been worried, coming down the stairs, that it would be awkward. Luckily, the silence between them felt the same as usual.
'You have a letter waiting,' her father said absently.
Raiku hummed in acknowledgement.
'Uzumaki dropped it off. It's from Gaara.'
Raiku took a sip of tea, making the same sound again.
Her father tilted his book down enough to peer at her over it. He raised his eyebrows.
Raiku picked up her toast and resumed munching.
After a few seconds, crumbs went flying across the room when Raiku spat them out. 'What?!' she howled.
Her father lowered the book again, apparently having had the sense to raise it like a shield. 'I was afraid of this,' he said, not seeming particularly afraid at all. 'There were big things happening with that boy, and it had you written all over it.'
Raiku gawked at him. 'He lives in Sand! He's, he's the opposite of me!'
Chitose shot her a dry look. 'Not your name, Raiku. You. Remember, you saw Sakura and Naruto the day before you left for Iji? You would have seen the Plot then.'
Oh.
Her mouth twisted.
Her father had already filled her in on the latest Plot development. Gaara's abduction. Naruto's triumphant return. She'd been lucky enough to be out of town for those milestones but the idea that her brief contact with them was enough to even slightly contribute to that enormous disaster was…
This was going to take some getting used to.
'Seeking you out wouldn't be unusual for Gaara,' her dad said dryly, brushing crumbs from the cover of his book. 'Boy was a destruction magnet. If that wasn't a common shinobi affliction in Konoha, you probably would have been as good as stapled to him. Carried around like the gourd.'
Despite the incredibly unamusing mental picture this was, his lips twitched.
'So what do I do?' she asked, spitefully stuffing a whole piece of toast in her mouth as an edible, carbohydrate-filled proxy for her irritation. 'Do I write him back? Do I even read it?'
He let out a long breath, considering it. 'Well,' he said slowly, 'the Genematrix is going to find a way to get your particular Narrative potential no matter what you do, so my advice would be to go about business as usual and ignore any sudden, uncharacteristic urges to deviate. Based on my observations, it'll just use a proxy Character to get near enough to you to springboard the Plot to where it needs to go, assuming you don't play ball, and it will then affect whatever it needs to. It won't want to be too near you with the fail-field in effect, not at this critical stage. It'll work around you as best as it can. Like Gaara getting in touch with you now, of all times; he's just had a major life event that you were a factor in. He probably just automatically thought of you when it was over and didn't realise why.'
She paused. 'What, like I'm a… a stop on the Plot's itinerary?' she asked.
He nodded. Or shrugged. It was a weird combination of both but either way, he didn't seem nearly as bothered as he should have.
'Wait, wait, wait.' Raiku waved a hand. 'So I shouldn't avoid Characters?' Sure, she'd spent a lifetime learning the opposite, but why not change that all up now?
Chitose winced. 'No, that's too broad. Go about your business and if they happen to show up, don't be surprised. If you feel the sudden urge to find one of them, then you should steer clear.' He slid a small folded piece of paper across the table, a Suna stamp painfully obvious on the corner.
Raiku picked it up gingerly with two fingers, sliding it into a pocket. She was making a face. She could feel herself making a face. 'Yeah. That's not ambiguous.'
He flicked his fingers. 'I know it's not helpful,' he admitted. 'But we're going to have to learn as we go with this one.' He took a sip of tea and opened the book again. 'Hatori's here, by the way. Got a plan to explain the fugue?'
"Fugue." An innocuous way of saying "that state of shock you entered while a Device latched on to you and dragged you home," she supposed. As good a euphemism as any, but she hadn't been up half the night trying to think of the best way to make this all blow over for nothing. She nodded and stood, draining the last dregs of her own tea before yanking her mask back up. She gave him a quick, one-armed hug on the way past before padding towards the door, someone knocking on it just as she was walking up. 'It's open!' she called, settling down on the step to pull her shoes out of the cubby.
The door swung open, revealing her shortest teammate. Daisukenojo nodded. 'Hey. 'Sup.'
Raiku nodded back, tugging on her shoes. 'Hey Daisuke. You sleep alright?' Don't ask, she pleaded silently; don't ask yet about her weird behaviour when she got back to Konoha. Surely she'd have a short grace period?
Daisukenojo shrugged. 'Fine.'
Raiku nodded again, this time to herself, and fought the urge to fist pump. She stood and dusted off her hands, gesturing. 'Shall we go? To the hospital, right, to see Yamada?'
Daisukenojo turned to let her walk past him and closed the door behind her, then fell into step beside her. 'So why'd you come and get me?' she asked. 'Actually, how did you know where I was? My house had. Um.'
Uh.
'A small fire,' she said slowly, in a way that was not at all suspicious.
'Your cousin stopped me on the way in,' Daisukenojo said, jerking a thumb in some random direction. 'Told me where you were.'
'Oh cool. Cool cool. Coo-ool,' she drew out, tapping her fingers on her thighs as they walked. Unlike with her father, the silence they fell into wasn't easy. It felt strangely strained, and she couldn't help but try to increase the distance between them in expectation of a famous Daisukenojo Temper Attack. Was he just waiting for her to crack and explain herself?
Oh god, had she done anything weird? Had she said something, had she blurted out the wrong thing?!
Oblivious to her spiralling, Daisukenojo skidded awkwardly down the slope leading to the compound gates, even rustier at it than before; apparently Raiku's social lethargy had left her friends unused to getting to and from her house. She restrained a proud smile and jumped down after him, only to try and scramble back up backwards when a red blur smashed into Daisukenojo's side.
'Daisuke!' she exclaimed, trying to catch her footing. Two Daisukenojos ignored her.
Raiku stared.
'Alright, you!' one of the Daisukenojos barked, grabbing the other by the collar and shaking him, while the other struggled with strange clumsiness. 'You've had your fun!'
She skittered down back to the road and stalked up to them, jabbing the dominant Daisukenojo in the side, then pulling at his face. 'What the hell?!'
The dominant Daisukenojo, or Daisukenojo Prime, glared at her and jerked his face out of her gloved grip. 'Oh, so Ryuu you can pick from his identical twin but not me from her?!' he hissed, lowering his voice at the mention of Ryuu's odd new secret.
Raiku gaped, looking between the two. Daisukenojo Beta huffed and suddenly burst into a plume of smoke, making Raiku cough and wave her hand in front of her face.
'Masami!' Daisukenojo accused when the smoke had cleared to reveal a lanky, red-haired younger female still dangling from his grip. She beamed at him proudly, despite his obvious irritation. 'I told you, you can't just do that whenever you want!'
'How'd you know I was over here?' the girl demanded, giving a token struggle. Now adjusted to the the shock of one-hundred-percent more Daisuke than she was used to, Raiku recognised the girl as one of Daisuke's younger sisters, still in training to be a Genin.
'Oh yeah,' Daisuke scoffed, 'like I don't have you little monsters chakra tagged, get real! And you!' he snapped, turning on Raiku. 'Don't you think that this is gonna mean we're not talking about your crazy-ass behaviour yesterday! This—' he shook Masami, whose giggles implied that she mainly seemed to enjoy it, '—is not weird enough to make us even, this is just a tiny speed-bump!'
Raiku looked at Masami, then back at him, then back at Masami. Daisukenojo shook her again to try and stop the giggling, but there was clearly no malice in it despite his scowling. He was strong enough to have ripped the girl's head clean off if he was so inclined, so that kind of gentle wobbling wasn't fooling anyone.
'Don't tell Ma,' Masami whined.
'Oh, I'm so telling her,' Daisukenojo said, relishing every word. 'Toaster, go to the hospital, straight to the hospital. I'll meet you there.'
'What the hell is going on?!' Raiku burst out, since no answers seemed forthcoming. This was, even for a shinobi, not exactly a normal morning.
'I said go to the hospital!' Daisukenojo repeated, lifting Masami slightly higher to carry her off like a cat absconding with an errant kitten. 'Straight! There!'
Raiku remained standing there, staring after them long after he'd taken the turn that would eventually take him back to his house.
'What is my life, even?' she mumbled to herself.
In Raiku's experience, people tended to look smaller in hospital beds. Diminished, somehow.
This was not the case for Yamada, probably because they'd had to put him across two beds pushed together.
She awkwardly sidled into his hospital room feeling like an intruder, sliding the door closed behind her with exaggerated care.
Yamada's heart monitor beeped out his resting heartrate achingly slowly. She felt unfit just hearing the gap between beeps. The room was small but he didn't have to share it—perks of a Jounin, she supposed—and was restful, with cheerful sunlight filtering in through leaves outside one of the window. There was enough room for Yamada's two beds and a couple of chairs, as well as—
'He's been awake, on and off, but it took a lot out of him.'
- Ryuu, crouching in the second windowsill like a gargoyle.
Raiku jumped back, thudding hard against the door. 'What the hell—!' She glanced at the sleeping Yamada and dropped her voice to a stage whisper. 'What the hell is wrong with you?!'
Ryuu rolled his eyes, dropping fully into the room and straightening. 'Good morning to you too, toaster.'
Raiku remained plastered to the door. 'There are chairs! Why couldn't you sit in a chair, like a, a normal person!'
'Normal is for peasants,' Ryuu said, bending down to rummage through the bag he'd left propped up against a chair leg.
Raiku pushed herself from the door to enter the room more fully, shaking her head. '...Peasants?' she repeated, scratching the back of her head.
'He's been pretty out of it. Doesn't remember anything past killing the gang in the forest,' Ryuu informed her. 'We just need our story straight for the report, and we can wrap this up for good. The same thing we all agreed on before he woke up last time.'
'But he's going to be okay?' she asked, hovering uncertainly near Yamada's elbow. People were meant to look peaceful in their sleep. Yamada still looked vaguely disgruntled, like he was dreaming of someone disagreeing with him. The bags under his eyes were more pronounced, even in sleep, but his chest was rising and falling with reassuring steadiness. She wasn't sure what she'd expected. Either, she supposed, that he'd be up and keen to leave already, or that he'd be on the verge of death. The Genematrix generally didn't bother with chronic states or long recovery, so neither were frequently seen in Jounin.
She eyed him, half-scared he would expire at any moment.
'He'll be fine. He'll outlive us all. But look over here for a second.'
Raiku nodded to herself but didn't, self-consciously pulling the blanket up to cover Yamada's stomach more fully where it had drooped down a bit. She jerked back when Ryuu snapped his fingers in front of her. 'Hey. Look at me.' She looked back at him to find him holding a piece of white cardboard between his hands in front of him. His expression was worryingly deadpan. With a flick of his wrists, the cardboard between his hands had flipped over.
INTERVENTION
Raiku gawked.
Ryuu, face still impassive, freed one hand to gesture at the words like he was a game show host.
Raiku tilted her head, still staring helplessly. Like the sign would resolve itself into something that made sense if she saw it from the right angle.
'Fucking. Hatori,' he said, like it was more than a woefully insufficient explanation.
'Is that red ink?' she asked.
'But he's not here, so apparently it's now my goddamn intervention,' he continued, just steamrolling over her. 'So much for just "holding the sign, Ryuu, don't be an asshole about doing that one thing".' His imitation of Daisukenojo was strange, mostly because he'd captured Daisuke's cadence perfectly but hadn't changed his pitch at all. It was a little eerie. 'So here we are.'
Raiku shifted back, but knew any attempt to escape would be futile when Ryuu just tilted his head slightly. Go on, that tiny gesture invited, you really want to try it?
Raiku braced herself.
'What the hell has been going on with you.' Ryuu asked bluntly. Or really, Ryuu asked (probably). He never had mastered the art of making questions sound as such. 'You've been totally insane since we fought Yamada.'
Raiku felt her eyebrows slowly start to creep up her forehead. 'What's been going on… with me?' she asked.
Ryuu sent the sign spinning away carelessly, like a frisbee. 'Yeah. You.'
It was a fair question. Fairer than he knew. But the hypocrisy still rankled and she couldn't help herself.
'I've been insane?! That was—we were—we got sidelined by you getting replaced by your evil twin so that your secret-bloodline-having family could try and convince you to come home before you could murder aforementioned twin—'
'Say it a little louder,' Ryuu said, 'I dare you. Just yell it right in the middle of the hospital. Maybe go right to the Hokage's office on the second floor, save us all some time.'
'I'll say it as loud as I damn well please!' Raiku said shrilly.
Ryuu nodded, putting his hands in his pockets. His shoulders were relaxed. That was never good. Ryuu only found a few things relaxing, and the suffering of others was the main one. Shortly followed by "being proven right" and "more suffering." 'Sure. And then why don't you tell her all about how you totally lost your mind, zoned out like you were under mind control all the way home and then tried to blow up your own house?'
Raiku was saved from having to respond by the door opening, which was convenient because she didn't really have a response and was mostly caught on the idea of Ryuu somehow knowing what had happened to her home. 'Sorry,' Daisukenojo said, not having bothered to knock before he came in. 'My brother's learning henge, and he went and taught the others so now they're all turning into me whenever they get the chance. It's their new favourite thing, I'm running into myself all the time. Where are we up to?'
Ryuu gestured at the small, ominously red-inked sign, now lying face-up on the floor by Yamada's bed.
'Right.' Daisuke rounded on her. 'What the hell is going on with you?!'
'Nothing! It was a hard mission!'
Daisukenojo and Ryuu exchanged a look that made her cringe. Great. Solidarity. Exactly what she needed.
'Think she'll crack?' Ryuu asked.
Daisukenojo frowned. 'She can be pretty stubborn.'
'That's pretty rich, coming from you.'
'Well I'd know, wouldn't I?'
Raiku had to do something. They were bonding over banding against her, again. They had that worrying tendency. 'Okay,' she began. They turned to her with foreboding synchronicity. 'I know I was super out of it on the way back.'
'No shit,' Daisukenojo agreed, folding his arms. 'You didn't even hear us. You were a zombie.'
'I was trying… really hard, to,' the key had to be partial truths, had to be, 'deal with it all?' Raiku swallowed. 'That guy was a civilian, and we'd been fighting Yamada, and I didn't know what we were going to do when we got back here—'
Ryuu cut her off rudely. 'She's lying.'
Daisukenojo frowned, squinting at her. 'I don't think so, man.'
Ryuu gestured at her. 'Look at her, she's thinking too hard about what she's saying. Lying.'
Daisukenojo made a face. 'She's pretty emotionally stuffed-up, though, so it could just be that.'
'You're not buying this,' Ryuu said flatly. 'You can't be.'
Raiku raised her voice over them to keep going. 'And Ryuu had been abducted and it all went really wrong on our first Chuunin mission and I didn't know how to deal with it so I just sort of shut down until I got home and then I lost it and almost burnt my own house down—'
Ryuu wasn't looking appeased but Daisukenojo was starting to look more sympathetic. That suited her fine; she just needed one of them to believe her. That was the problem with groups of three: it was always two against one, one way or another.
'But I'm going to be fine!' She spread her hands. 'It's over, and we're okay! I just need a bit of time to get through it and I'll be all good again!' She tried her best to look vulnerable. This was made easier by her incredible discomfort, fortunately.
Daisukenojo scratched the side of his neck, taking her in. He hummed thoughtfully, clearly testing this against his own observations, AKA the only emotional intelligence present in the group. Raiku looked down at the floor quickly, feeling Ryuu's glare boring into her face. 'You haven't done anything like that before,' Daisuke said, tone neutral.
She nodded, keeping her eyes down. 'I know.'
'You know we're gonna be worried when you go off the rails like that.'
She nodded again.
'But you've been talking to your dad? You're working it out?'
Another nod.
Daisukenojo huffed. 'If she's dealing, I say we let it slide.'
Ryuu exploded. 'What?!'
'Well, she's fucking traumatised! Because of that whole thing with your family! Everyone gets a freakout now and again, we're goddamn professional murderers!'
'This was your idea!'
Raiku snuck a look at the two of them. Ryuu seemed mostly outraged by this point, which fit the idea of Daisukenojo bullying him into having an emotional conversation and then making him be the one to advocate continuing it. Ryuu would never appreciate being left stranded in any sort of emotional dialogue, let alone one with her.
'Hey, I just wanted to make sure she was okay and not just bottling it all up again, since we all know what happens when she gets feelings!' Raiku wondered briefly if Daisukenojo was talking about the lightning, which he'd dealt with pretty gracefully in the past, or the crying. Based on his brief hunted look, she'd have to say the crying. Any shinobi worth their salt would rather deal with lightning strong enough to liquefy them than a single emotional outburst, herself included.
God, the crying.
'No, no way,' Ryuu denied. 'She can't get away with this, she's barely even trying!'
Well, that wasn't fair. She'd spent ages thinking of the right words to use! This was a very carefully constructed not-quite-a-lie.
'What?' Daisuke asked slyly, in that way he had to know infuriated Ryuu beyond measure, 'you keen to be a shoulder for her to cry on? We all have a giant feeling-fest?'
Raiku froze like she'd been the one to mention the forbidden Ryuu Feelings.
Ryuu slowly, slowly tilted his head to the side.
'Now now,' Raiku said, voice shrill with panic, 'he's just being a shit! Ha-ha,' she said pointedly, patting Daisuke on the shoulder. 'It was funny! He's being funny.'
'Hilarious,' Daisukenojo said. Smugly. Like an idiot. Raiku broke out in a cold sweat. Abruptly, a knock on the door broke the tense silence.
Raiku threw up her hands, more out of hysterical relief than anything. 'How many people did you invite to this?!'
'Morning!' Sakura said cheerfully, entering the room with clipboard in hand. 'How are you guys doing? I'm here to check on Yamada.'
Raiku cast her eyes heavenward. 'Of course you are.'
This fortunately stole Daisukenojo's attention, the fickle bastard having been fascinated by Sakura since he'd seen her punch a wall in half. That was one thing that really did stand in Daisukenojo's favour: he wasn't intimidated by strong women however literal the adjective was.
'Liar,' Ryuu mouthed to her behind Sakura's back. Raiku widened her eyes innocently and did her best to look wounded.
'Hey, I was actually hoping to run into you,' Sakura said over her shoulder as she did something mysteriously medical with Yamada's IV. 'I'm getting lunch with my new teammate and some friends, want to come?'
'I have plans,' Ryuu said immediately.
Sakura didn't even slow down, slowly injecting a syringe of clear liquid into Yamada's IV port. 'Didn't say when it was.'
'I have a lot of plans,' he replied.
'You never have plans, you only have schemes,' Raiku grumbled. Ryuu quirked a brow but had apparently made his stance clear enough for his liking.
'I was really just talking to Raiku,' Sakura said, pulling on a rubber glove with an ominous snap. She turned to face Raiku with a slightly strained smile, not that Raiku could blame her: Ryuu had that effect on people. 'You guys would be welcome to come, but our new teammate is kind of…' she trailed off. Raiku could have sworn she saw her eye twitch. 'He's… Well, I know Raiku more than you two, and we're sort of taking the introductions… slowly.'
Raiku looked at Sakura like she'd peeled off her face to reveal she was a machine piloted by millions of spiders. 'What?' She immediately realised she couldn't express her horror at the idea of Sakura knowing her and quickly followed with, 'why?'
Sakura exhaled short and sharp, but not powerfully enough to be a huff. 'Do you want to come or not? It's going to be me, him, Naruto and Ino. Chouji might make it as well.'
Raiku hesitated.
On the one hand, she'd done her due diligence by checking on Yamada and was now desperate to leave the room. On the other…
She hadn't sought Sakura out, that was definitely clear, but should she agree? That would surely be uncharacteristic of any Gairano, so even being confused about it was probably a sign that she was being unnaturally drawn to consider it. Did that count as an unusual urge to seek out Characters? Or was this a happy medium, where she'd been sought out and had the option of interacting with them before the Plot achieved potency? The fail-field should be able to repel the Plot enough at a nascent stage that she didn't get involved, and it just bounced off the way it should. But wait, how was that going to work if the Plot was still young enough that it was vulnerable to being dispersed by the fail-field? Could that even happen with main storyline—
'Sure!' Daisukenojo said, interrupting Raiku's spiralling thoughts by clapping her on the shoulder so hard and pointedly that her teeth clicked together painfully. 'We'll both go.'
That.
Floozy.
Raiku ground her teeth together, hoping the mask hid the tensing of her jaw. Sakura smiled. 'Good, we're having it at noon, in the restaurant just down the street from the hospital. The one next to the second-hand store?'
Daisuke's grip tightened on her shoulder. 'Yeah, I know the one. See you there!' He quickly steered Raiku out of the room, Ryuu slipping out and closing the door behind them. As soon as it was shut she shook him off roughly, shooting him a pointed glare that he happily ignored. 'You guys wait for me downstairs, I've gotta drop something off to my mother,' he said, waving them off. 'Good talk. Toaster, don't even think about trying to get out of this. You owe me.'
Raiku let air hiss out from between her teeth. He was right. He certainly didn't have to turn on Ryuu as fast as he had. But still. Lunch with Naruto?
Not her fault, she chanted mentally; not her fault. She didn't decide. Daisuke did. Didn't count.
Wait a second.
'You can't leave me with him!' she protested. But she was already talking to Daisuke's back, and he just sent her a jaunty wave over his shoulder.
The seething rage machine that was Ryuu said nothing from behind her. After a few minutes of her waiting for an attack that never came, she and Ryuu made their way down the stairs in tense silence. She half expected him to turn on her, to demand answers like he'd clearly wanted to before Sakura came in, but he didn't say anything. In fact, by the time they left the stairwell he seemed calmer, perhaps more grounded by Daisuke's absence. She loved that angry little guy, but Daisuke really did have the most catalysing effect on Ryuu's anger levels. She wouldn't call him "calm" when it was just the two of them, but he almost never got to the apocalyptically enraged level that Daisukenojo seemed to get a weird kick out of. Though, she had to wonder if that was really worse than the intense, slow-boiling variant that her presence seemed to prompt. The two of them settled by the sliding doors, taking up two of the waiting room seats.
Raiku drummed her fingers on her knees for a few seconds, until Ryuu flicked his hand and cracked his knuckles into the bony part of her wrist. While she clutched at the joint and emitted a high-pitched, quiet screaming noise from the blinding pain, he settled more firmly into his chair.
'To be clear, I still don't buy it,' he announced, slouching down.
Raiku's fingers were twitching uncontrollably from the pain. She bit her lip to try and stop the noise, but it honestly felt like he'd smacked her across the back of the hand, hard, with a bamboo switch. How did he do that?! What kind of evil magic was he—
'I'll let it slide for now. But I promise you: I'll get the truth out of you eventually.'
Raiku glared at him with watering eyes. 'You're willing to die on this hill?' she hissed.
'Honestly?' Ryuu bared his teeth at her briefly, a flash of white that she'd been long conditioned to shudder at. 'Yes.'
The two of them glared at each other until Ryuu jerked his chin up; Daisukenojo had emerged from the stairwell doors across the lobby, neatly sidestepping a patient in a wheelchair speeding past with undue haste. By unspoken agreement, they stood, shedding their enraged expressions. Well, Raiku did, but hers wasn't permanent like Ryuu's. They turned and walked out of the doors, feeling the rush of warm air just as Daisukenojo caught up and fell into step beside them.
'So… what do we do until Yamada is recovered?' Raiku asked, injecting some cheer into her voice through sheer bloody-mindedness, kicking a pebble in her way. 'Like, take on little Genin missions to earn some extra money, or… train?'
Ryuu considered. 'Well, today you're going to lunch with the Sunshine Brigade,' he said with trace amounts of spite.
Don't remind me, she almost said, before she forcefully swallowed the words and instead creased her eyes in a pseudo-smile.
He continued. 'In general, restock and train is my vote. Hatori is doing up the mission report this afternoon for the team, and he's got his story straight. We're basically at a loose end until we find out how much long Yamada will take to recover.'
'Daisukenojo,' Daisukenojo said loudly. 'You know my name.'
'I don't want to be on such familiar terms with you.'
Raiku turned her head slightly to keep her ear away from Daisuke's inevitably loud response, but he just grumbled incoherently to himself. A sudden bump made her look down to see Ryuu's arm stretched out, having caught her across the chest to stop her. She looked over at him curiously, but he'd just stopped her to apparently… glare at Daisuke suspiciously.
Raiku shifted back from Ryuu's still outstretched arm as Daisukenojo glared back. Ryuu turned to move away and Raiku relaxed, but he turned on his heel with blinding speed to kick Daisukenojo in the side before she could react.
Daisukenojo exploded into a puff of smoke.
Voices emerged from the tiny smoke-cloud before it even started to dissipate. 'No fair!' A tiny redhead, androgynous in their extreme youth, was the first to become visible.
'Yeah!' the identical child perched on their shoulders agreed. 'No fair!'
'Hatoris,' Ryuu said grimly, narrowing his eyes at the inexplicable stack of children.
'Again?' Raiku asked faintly.
Ryuu put his hands on his hips, looking down at the two small children with a fierce glare. 'Where the hell is your brother?'
'Bad word,' the top one criticised.
'How old are you?' Raiku asked incredulously. 'Like, four?' She could barely do a henge at seventeen, where did they get off?!
'Almost six!' the lower one said with a mortally offended frown.
'So, five,' Ryuu said flatly. The child pulled a face at him. 'Where's your brother?'
They grinned in unison. It was… unsettling.
'Right,' Ryuu muttered, jaw set in a way she hadn't see in years; like he had a strand of grass between his teeth. Whatever had happened to that trait? He nodded. 'I'm gonna kill you,' he told the twins, and took a single step forward. They immediately tumbled off each other with a shriek and started running with surprising haste in the other direction. She honestly couldn't believe that speed—was it their low centres of gravity?
Ryuu surprised her then as well, simply shaking his head instead of taking off in hot pursuit. 'Idiots,' he said.
Raiku shot him a sidelong look. 'Did you actually know it wasn't him or did you just want to kick Daisuke for the intervention?'
Ryuu smiled beatifically. 'Don't you have a lunch to brace for?' he asked, sticking his hands in his pockets and smugly sauntering ahead.
Son of a bitch.
Raiku,
It has been a while since your last letter. You should write again.
Gaara
A/N: Bet you thought her letter-writing days were over!
