A/N: No you're listening to the same two albums over and over while you write the next arc and yell incoherently at your long-suffering beta. I own Raiku and all original characters and the Genematrix, but not Naruto. Luckily for everyone involved.
There was something in the middle of the road.
Raiku shifted uncomfortably in place, her hands in her pockets.
She couldn't see it. There was no smell, no sound, but somehow she knew It was there.
It was in the middle of the road. A Device.
Raiku lifted a hand to rub at the side of her neck, eyes almost watering from how intensely she was scouring the road for some sign that could tell her that it was the Gairano in her seeing the Device, rather than… the rest. But there wasn't. It was just… sitting there. And she knew they were passive, unthinking things, just gravity wells that Plot would fall into and be distorted by, but somehow, it didn't feel like that was the case.
The Device sat there and waited.
It was an uncomfortable thought, because no; a thing without a mind couldn't wait. A lens could not be patient, could not possess the expectation of light for it to bend and refract.
The Device sat, invisible and unknowable, in the middle of the street. Pulsing, minor Plots curved around a hidden epicentre, twisting on the way through. She took a step to the side, getting ready to walk around it, and she left out a breath she hadn't registered holding when she felt it stay where it was.
Well, she reprimanded herself; what had she been expecting? It wasn't there for her, and Devices weren't Plots, they didn't stalk people. It had just appeared where the Genematrix needed it to, like they all did. It was Konoha, for god's sake. It was more a concern that she knew, somehow, that it was there.
It occurred to her that she should tell her father it was there: she couldn't see it, but surely her sudden knowledge of it had to be good for something? He might even be able to tell her what it was, if he could take a closer look at the Plots it was enabling.
Yes! She could do that. Raiku sidestepped again, continuing to face the causal black hole in the middle of the street. She kept this up, wincing each time someone walked through the seemingly empty space. How could they not feel it? Well, she knew how, obviously, but its presence was so solid in her mind, so impossibly vast in such a small, circular space.
No, she corrected herself quickly, ignoring a woman giving her a very strange look for her totally normal sidestepping. Not a presence. She stepped over a shopfront's flowerbed to continue avoiding the Device's limit.
Not a presence, she thought again; not a presence, like it was a being, or had a mind. She wasn't sure what to call it, but it wasn't that.
'What are you doing?'
Raiku looked up, one foot still braced on the shop display she was edging over. Damn shops, taking up outside space like they owned the damn sidewalk.
The second she registered the pink, she knew the day was a lost cause. Sakura looked at her with her eyebrows raised, Naruto standing with his hands shoved in his pockets at her side. He smiled, as bright and merciless as the sun. 'What up, Raiku?'
Raiku smiled. Grimaced, really, but fortunately the mask would just show her usual eye creases. 'Nothing,' she chirped like she didn't have a foot up on someone's table, dredging up the old cheerful verb in a desperate attempt at damage control.
Sakura sighed to herself, but it was fond. It wasn't the first time she had sighed, since Raiku seemed to have that effect on almost everyone, but she really would never get used to any kind of affectionate adjective from a Character. Still, if it got her out of the situation with a description of "eccentric" rather than "needlessly shifty", she'd take it.
Shit. Ino and Chouji were there too, equal parts gorgeous and Kabuki-esque, but she could be forgiven for not noticing them immediately. Whether they'd also chalk this up to Gairano weirdness was another thing she'd have to pray for later.
'Nothing!' she repeated, just for good measure.
'Liar,' a cheerful male voice said.
Raiku tensed.
Sakura reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose. 'Gairano Raiku, Sai. Sai, Raiku,' she said, eyes closed and taking a deep, slow breath.
Raiku turned to the speaker.
Well. Her dad had said ersatz Sasuke. But the sight of him standing so close still hit like a brick of anxiety, right into the solar plexus.
She tried to focus on the details of the pale and dark-haired, dark-eyed boy, trying to distinguish him from both Sasuke and the Plot wrapping like quicksand around his feet. It was unkind, but she couldn't dispel the kind of photo-copy-Sasuke impression; their new teammate had the same sharp-featured, elegant handsomeness that Sasuke had, that even the failed proto-Sasukes like Ryuu had ended up with. But more muted, thankfully. His plainly cut, straight hair was more lead-dark than the thick, pure black that the Uchiha inevitably sported, eyes more like graphite than ink.
In truth, the fact that the unflattering cloak he wore in the same shade of grey was something no Uchiha would have been caught dead in, that helped a fair bit. Plus there was the fact he was not so much elegantly pale as he was terrifyingly corpse-pale.
She relaxed slightly. Handsome, sure. That was a given. Standing between Naruto and Sakura, some vaguely Character-driven story arc hanging off him, that was a given too.
The completely insincere smile, though – that ruined it. Raiku told herself hers was better, but absently and self-consciously touched her own contrived smile.
She realised, meeting his eyes again, that while she had been examining him he had been doing the same to her, just as closely. 'Hi,' she said, sliding off the table fully and stepping back into the road, having safely completing her circuit of the Device. She'd given that circle of impossible patience and stillness a wide enough berth that she felt a little more secure. 'Nice to meet you,' she added.
Sai closed his eyes again and reduced them to slits lined with infuriatingly flawless eyelashes. A sign of duplicity in any Character it appeared in, so apparently the ersatz Sasuke was going to be even more thematically straightforward than the original.
'Nice to meet you, Liar,' he said pleasantly.
Raiku cringed. To her great surprise, so did Naruto.
'Sai!' he groaned. 'You're killing me here! She's not a liar! She's just—' he gestured at Raiku, an odd up-down motion that seemed to somehow indicate that not only was her table-stepping not unusual, it was totally normal. 'Haven't you started enough fights today?!' Actually, he did have a bruise on his cheek. So did Sai.
Sai kept smiling. Raiku could basically see the words float into one ear and out the other. 'Please, call me Sai,' he said, inclining his head slightly.
Sakura shook her head, stomping forward. Through the Device, which did nothing.
Again, Raiku wasn't sure what she had been expecting. For it to move, for there to be some sign of it? There was never a sign. Only Tsuji had ever been able to see them, and her knowledge of it just didn't measure up.
Sakura caught Raiku by the elbow on the way through, keeping up her punishingly fast pace towards the restaurant. 'If I can get through this without murdering him, I'm going to call it a success,' she gritted out to Raiku. 'He's the worst.'
Raiku threw a terrified look over her shoulder towards no one in particular; the Device, maybe, like it could introduce a meteor or sudden complication to get her out of this? Unfortunately it was intercepted by the guileless, bottle-blue eyes of Naruto, who just shot her a sheepish look.
Raiku shuddered and snapped her attention back to the restaurant. What a day. She could make out Daisukenojo through the glass of the front door, waiting by the hostess station. He turned and waved after a moment, just before Sakura pushed the door open and dragged Raiku inside.
'Hey, took you long enough,' he said, ignoring Raiku's silent pleas for help and failing to liberate her from Sakura's grip. 'You get lost?'
'My fault,' Sakura said dismissively, loosening her horrifyingly strong grip on Raiku anyway. 'We ran into her on the way here and introduced her to Sai.'
Daisukenojo raised his eyebrows. Took in Raiku's look of supreme discomfort. Leaned to the side to look around them just as the bell above the door rang.
'Uzumaki,' he said absently in greeting. Raiku winced, feeling the massive Plot potency of Naruto standing far too close, pressing against the invisible wall around her. There wasn't enough air in the room, there never was when Naruto was there; it was like he was an open flame, burning through all the oxygen.
She reminded herself to take deep breaths.
Daisukenojo bowed his head a little. 'Sai, right?' he asked.
'Nice to meet you,' Sai's pleasant but oddly monotonous voice returned. 'Freckles.'
Daisukenojo paused. '…Hatori, actually,' he corrected slowly. 'Hatori Daisukenojo.'
'Right, Freckles,' Sai agreed.
Raiku wasn't going to turn around and stare at him. She wasn't.
'Would you like to follow me?' the hostess asked with a strained smile, clearly wanting the seven shinobi out of her waiting area and safely sequestered in a room somewhere.
Raiku ducked her head in greeting and awkwardly avoided Ino's sharp gaze, already clearly sizing up where Sai was going to land. She clambered over to the far side of the table and knelt immediately. After a moment of staring fixedly at the table she felt warmth along her side, the almost-contact that meant Daisukenojo had decided to finally be a decent teammate and protect her from sitting next to anyone she barely knew. She looked up to mouth thank you, or at least to give him a grateful look, and almost screamed in horror.
Sai glanced at her, like it was normal to sit basically pressed against a total stranger, then looked away.
Raiku gaped, then looked at where Daisukenojo was apparently actually sitting, on the opposite side of the table from her.
He grimaced but didn't say anything. Fantastic.
'Sai, hey Sai, come sit by me,' Naruto said quickly, sprawling on the opposite corner. He waved him over, to no effect.
'I'm already sitting,' Sai replied. Which. Was… true. And the problem.
Naruto shot Raiku another sheepish look, which she returned with one of abject horror. Both because Naruto was, inexplicably, trying to help her and also because he was failing. Ino settled in on Sai's other side immediately, that sweet Sasuke-smile on her face again. It was almost enough for Raiku to feel nostalgic, though as usual the thought of Sasuke made her skin crawl.
'Is there a problem?' Sai asked, looking between her and Naruto.
Raiku tried to smile. It didn't come out right.
Sai paused in his perusal of her. 'Something's wrong,' he guessed.
'She's probably had enough of creepy intense guys in her space,' Chouji said around drool, flicking between pages of meat banquets.
Raiku's mouth twisted. 'Ryuu does think boundaries are something that happens to other people,' she hedged, earning a weird look from Chouji that she immediately returned in kind. What, so it was only okay if he said it? Wait, was this a teammate thing? Was she not meant to agree with muttered comments about members of her team?! Raiku quickly served herself some more rice, silently cursing social cues and their failure to be written down anywhere in plain format.
'Ryuu's our other teammate,' Daisuke added by way of explanation. 'He couldn't make it.'
Sai nodded. And didn't move away.
Raiku hunched into herself a little more.
The time it took them to order food and settle in seemed to stretch on forever, especially with small talk, and not just because waiting for food always seemed to take too long. Raiku was hyperaware of the seconds as they ticked past, of every breath she took. Of her hands, clenching and unclenching on her legs.
When the meat had finally arrived, the smell barely registered. There was too much acid burbling in her stomach and it left a sour taste in her mouth.
It had finally happened.
Naruto had ruined food.
Ignorant of Raiku's inner wailing, Sakura seemed to pray for patience as she heroically ignored Ino's chattering to Sai, and how she was serving him food in a typical Yamanaka flirtatious power-move.
'I guess Asuma and Shikamaru aren't coming.' Ino's words finally penetrated Raiku's depressed haze.
Chouji brightened. 'Sweet, I get his share—' he started, and reached for a particularly tender piece of beef, only for a metal chopstick to slam down through the grill between his fingers.
Eyes crackling and chopstick quickly superheating under the force of her charge, Raiku glared. So maybe Naruto hadn't ruined food entirely. Sue her, she was only mostly human.
Chouji, whose priorities often mirrored hers, paused. He just paused, really, like she wasn't emanating murderous intent.
'Chouji!' Ino snapped. 'Stop and introduce yourself to Sai!'
Chouji flinched at Ino's savage-sweet alternating tone. 'Oh! Right!' He cleared his throat and straightened, somehow forgetting to address the drool he had prematurely allowed to escape when he had thought he was getting what was rightfully Raiku's. 'I'm Akimichi Chouji from the Akimichi Clan. Nice to meet you… Sai, right?'
Sai smiled his non-smile again. 'Nice to meet you, uh.'
He hesitated.
Raiku eyed him. Please god. Not another horrifying nickname. Across the table, Sakura and Naruto suddenly wore hunted looks.
He opened his mouth again. 'Fa—'
Naruto yelped and lunged across, ended up basically sprawled across the table with his hand pressed to Sai's mouth. Chouji tensed, brow furrowed.
Raiku had also tensed, mostly feeling the hideous heat of Naruto pressing into her elbow, where she had left her arm on the table like a fool, a fool!
'Sai!' Naruto hissed. 'Never ever ever say "fatty" in front of Chouji!'
Sai's cool gaze regarded Naruto over his hand, a blankness to them that briefly reminded Raiku of another dark-eyed menace.
'Were you gonna say something?' Chouji rumbled, chopsticks clicking together briefly.
Raiku, already halfway through the contested meat portion, watched avidly.
'No, no! He wasn't!' Sakura said quickly, waving a hand. Chouji immediately settled back down with a seemingly satisfied hum, while Naruto mercifully withdraw.
The high pitch of Ino's "cute" voice took over. 'And I'm Yamanaka Ino, from Yamanaka Florists! It's such a pleasure to meet you!'
The Yamanaka Clan, Raiku corrected mentally, chewing with her mask already up. Funny how the Yamanaka always played up the nice hair and pretty flowers and left the "clan with proprietary techniques for mind control and possession" part unsaid. Why the cute voice, anyway? Ino was a fairly deadly kunoichi with a beautiful face, surely that was the attractive part, not some cute mannerisms?
Raiku raised her eyebrows at the thought while Sai apparently mused on a nickname; was this the much-vaunted lesbian thought process coming through? Were her father's highest hopes going to come to fruition?
She eyed Ino, leaning back to see her around Sai.
'Nice to meet you… Gorgeous,' Sai eventually said.
Ino blinked, startled, then blushed faintly.
Raiku shook her head and returned her attention to the food. Nope. Didn't do it for her in the slightest. Hopefully it was just that Ino wasn't her type, but apparently it wasn't that easy. At least Sai had dodged a bullet, anyway.
Naruto let out a whimper. Raiku looked up in time for the table to come flying in her and Sai's direction.
'Why does Ino get to be Gorgeous!?'
Sakura had managed to grit out an apology to Raiku for getting her caught in the crossfire of her attack on Sai, but Raiku would still be pulling splinters from her hair late into the night. Chouji had managed to stop the barbecue table from setting her and Sai on fire, sure, but they could never go back there and the far wall would probably need to be entirely rebuilt.
Raiku shifted uncomfortably while Ino worked her magic on the hostess; yes, that was a splinter that had somehow made its way down her shirt.
Awesome.
'Hey,' Daisuke muttered to her, jerking his head towards the door. 'Let's bail.'
Raiku could have kissed him. Sure, he would have died from it, but he had also abandoned her to Sai so that was just two birds with one stone. That was just efficiency.
'Well!' she said brightly, already edging out the door after him. 'This has been great! I will see you guys later!'
No one seemed to pay attention, so they made a break for it.
Only for Raiku to slam into Daisukenojo when he stopped suddenly. She frowned, just about ready to knock him over in her haste to leave. 'Hey, what's the hold up?!' she hissed.
She could have cut stone on the line of Daisuke's shoulders, he was so tense.
'You little bastards,' he growled, clenching his fists. Raiku leaned around him to see a redhaired figure in the distance with a familiar stance and form.
Her eyebrows shot up. 'They really do like copying you, don't they?' she asked as Daisukenojo took off with a roar.
The distant Daisukenojo froze, then turned tail and sprinted off, the real one following close behind and letting out an incoherent yell of outrage.
'What was that?!' Naruto asked, slinging an arm around Raiku to brace him in leaning forward. 'He's so fast!'
Raiku took a slow, deep breath and pretended she couldn't feel the gravitational pull of Naruto trying to bend her, tugging at her sinews and bones that had never felt so fragile. 'It's his little brothers and sisters,' she forced out, unsure what her tone sounded like through the rush of blood in her ears. 'They. Have been copying him. So he's been, uh, trying to stop them.'
There was a feeling in her stomach, but she could barely register it enough to identify it. Was it nausea, or fear? Or some combination of both?
She'd been so close. She'd been so close to freedom. There was electrical charge building low in her chest that she didn't have much of a say in, another one of the stress-tics that had developed during her time in Iji. Not ideal.
Naruto let out a sharp laugh, then lifted his arm off her and settled into a more normal standing position at her side. He let the restaurant door swing closed behind them. 'Hey, so,' he said, lifting a hand to scratch the side of his face, 'you got the, uh, letter Gaara sent? I dropped it with your dad.'
Raiku nodded jerkily. It was that letter burning a hole in the pocket of her flak jacket.
Naruto nodded to himself, satisfied. 'I'm glad he's made some more friends,' he said. 'He's always been a really lonely guy, you know?' He smiled, giving her a sidelong look.
Raiku looked back out at the road, the space where the Device had been and wasn't anymore, leaving nothing but a sinking feeling. Really, in terms of composition it was the closest thing she had to a peer, and she was just relieved it was gone. 'I guess I do,' she lied.
Naruto nudged her with an elbow, almost startling sparks from her. 'Hey, Raiku?'
Raiku hummed high in her throat, reluctantly glancing at him but unable to hold it. Naruto, being the kind asshole that he was, waited for her to, struggling all the way, maintain eye contact before he continued. 'It's really cool of you. Writing to him, I mean. All this time. I know he can seem pretty… terrifying?' He let out another laugh.
Internal screaming: as long as it stayed internal, no one had to know! Raiku thought hysterically, managing a strangled noise and a nod.
'A-nyway,' Naruto said, thumbing his nose and looking slightly sheepish. 'Sorry about Sai. I know it's probably weird for you, right? He's super bad at that stuff, you can just shove him away.'
Raiku wasn't sure how to feel about Naruto apparently taking note of her need for personal space. Horrified? Maybe… Vaguely violated? Yeah, that seemed about right.
'Ha, maybe!' She was twitching uncontrollably, she had to go or he'd know she was terrified rather than awkward. He was pretty good at picking up on those cues, but then, the world did arrange itself that way. 'Well, I'm gonna catch up to Daisuke! Catch you later, Naruto!' She quickly marched off, shoving trembling hands into the pockets of her flak vest.
'Seeya. Oh yeah, Kakashi's in hospital! You could go see him if you want!' Naruto called after her.
Raiku threw a wave over her shoulder and rounded the corner, immediately stopping to brace her hands on her knees and take a few huge, shuddering breaths. Gulping down air so rich in oxygen she could almost taste it.
She was going to kill Daisuke.
She looked up when she could finally slow her breathing to something approaching normal, eyes steely.
Next training session they had, she promised herself, she was going to—
Her hands sparked unexpectedly, charring the ends of her gloves. She hissed and tugged them to be a little looser, shaking them out.
Anyway. Clearly the universe got the point. She straightened and rolled her shoulders, but they were already sore from the tension she'd been carrying around. So. She had some unexpected downtime between The Lunch and her next training session. A whole… half-day of liberation.
Raiku tilted her head thoughtfully.
She could spend it scheming against Daisukenojo; that was an appealing thought.
Her eye twitched as she wondered whether this warm, bloodthirsty feeling was how Ryuu felt all the time. Her own destructive urge was generally more reflexive rather than premeditated and felt like nothing in particular. Well. Natural. It felt natural, effortless, in a way she was starting to recognise made a lot of sense. It made… blood-sense. Bone-sense. It made the kind of sense that a body did.
She shook her head quickly, because that was going nowhere. A Device thinking about being a Device? Too recursive.
Plans.
She tapped her foot, standing in the sunshine of an uncomplicated Konoha sidestreet. It was warm, and there was a breeze that just smelt like clean air that started to unwind the tension still caught in her hands and stomach.
She closed her eyes and inhaled.
Exhaled.
Raiku hadn't been at a genuinely loose end in years. Not for any length of time. She might actually have a brief time window for her interests, which was basically unprecedented since she'd become a Chuunin.
She opened her eyes, blowing some over-long white hair out of her face.
Interests.
Raiku's interests.
The interests of Raiku.
Which were…
A gaggle of shrieking children passed her on the street while she tried to narrow down something, anything in that category. Her mental file under that name was depressingly blank. She'd liked electronics when she was younger, but she'd basically given that up during the timeskip in favour of letters.
So, letters?
Iwao had stopped writing a while ago. Realistically he had either finally had enough or died. She would eventually have to write back to Gaara, but ideally that could be put off until she reached legal drinking age.
Now that it was no longer held at bay by panic, the distant noise of the village around her filtered into her brain more and more as she grew calmer, trying to settle on something to pursue. Her friends were her teammates and family, neither of which she was particularly inclined to seek out before training and after her freakout, respectively. So she'd have to pick something else.
Easy.
She just had to pick… something to do.
And after the seconds just ticked by, Gairano Raiku realised she had no idea what normal people did. Not in their free time, or in the spaces around shinobi life that they carved out for themselves. She could list activities and rattle off schedule patterns, but she didn't have a life outside being a shinobi or a Gairano.
Raiku scratched her head.
Huh.
She looked around for ideas in the absence of any obvious guidance. She was pretty close to the main road and it was a lovely day, she could afford to notice without Naruto taking up all the space in it. The sun was out, the sky was a kind of stereotypical blue, the birds were singing, the steady thrum of the village's electrical grid was in the air—
Nothing helpful, in other words.
She started wandering absently down the footpath, head tilted back so she could bask in the sunlight. Her senses weren't top-notch, but she was still good enough to bump into anybody. Probably. There was a chance.
Anyway. What did Daisuke do for fun? Could she just copy that? Shit, no, he gardened with his family, it was a whole thing. Raiku had electrokinetic thumbs and possessed an ambient electrical field, she was the grim spectre of death to all plants.
…Ryuu…?
Despite the warm air, Raiku shivered. She hopped up onto the wall running along the footpath when the opportunity presented itself, continuing her long meander up high where it was inexplicably just more comfortable.
Yamada seemed to spend his free time training or doting on his loving, terrifying family, but she already had plans to train later and didn't find it particularly helpful to do it alone. People in general seemed to want to spend time with friends whenever they could, but Raiku saw her friends pretty often and didn't at all mind being alone in between. It was less complicated, less full of exciting new ways in which she could find herself socially at a loss.
She stopped when the wall ended at a busy street junction, dropping into a crouch and perching there to watch people pass by below, civilians going about their lives and shinobi ducking in between. Plot slicing through the masses occasionally on their way elsewhere or pulled behind someone specifically.
Honestly, this wasn't bad just on its own, she mused. She had nowhere to be, nothing to do, no one to run from. The absence of violence was new and a little weird, but overall it was almost relaxing; she could just go wherever she wanted. Was it interesting enough to be an interest, just… walking around, watching people?
She watched an enterprising sparrow make for a little boy carrying bread, following the least predatory bird in the world as it went for the golden opportunity.
It probably wasn't, she had to concede, when the boy decided to just give it some crumbs from the mess he had already made. She might have liked it, but a person needed interests, a complex internal world. Gairano were big on hobbies and aspects to your life outside your job and family. It was a miracle she'd been allowed to let it slide for so long, even after her dad discovered what she was. Especially then.
She tilted her head back again, shading her eyes to look at the perfectly blue sky.
There was that, she supposed. She could try to see if there were any other Devices floating around Konoha, to tell her dad. It wouldn't be wise to interact with them, but she would eventually have to try and figure out the parameters of her non-human status. Origin? She wasn't clear on how to refer to it. She felt human. Or thought she did, as she didn't have much of a frame of reference. But trying things out in Konoha, where her dad could reach her within minutes and would know if something went wrong, that wasn't a bad idea.
Paranoid, she tried to test the thought for veracity. Was that a Raiku thought? Or was that a Genematrix suggestion? Raiku wasn't exactly the type to expose herself to major Narrative risks, but then, identifying Devices for the purposes of being able to stay away from them, that was just intelligent avoidance. And if there was one thing Gairano did well, it was avoidance.
Raiku stood, absently brushing some loose mortar off the brick wall with one foot. She cracked her knuckles then stretched her laced fingers overhead, limbering up.
Then she sort of stopped, awkwardly, because that was as far as she'd thought ahead.
Maybe there would be one… where there were lots of people? But when she looked down across the street, despite the people pushing through it, she couldn't feel anything. She frowned, glancing towards the Hokage mountain and the building at the foot of it.
Major Plot points tended to congregate there. The Gairano who worked there basically had to swing by to see her father whenever they came home every day, to try and dispel any lingering traces they may have tracked back with them. Even then, no matter what their job was there it was classified as high risk. So logically, a Device would made a lot of sense where there was Narrative potential to work with. Or did they only appear for weaker Plots that needed reinforcing? She shrugged and leapt forward, springing from rooftop to rooftop to get closer anyway. It was worth a shot, after all.
The air got imperceptibly thicker the closer she got, until she eventually ended up perched on top of a telephone pole, as high and far away from the ground-floor Plot fiesta that covered the square. Shinobi passed through faster here, or just walked to and from their more administrative duties. It was basically a bingo-card of identifying characteristics: unnatural hair colour here, improbable scar there, tragic backstories everywhere, all moving around beneath her.
She eyed a Genin getting too close to her perch, who immediately pretended she hadn't been creeping in on Raiku's spot. Damn. High perches like the one she'd scored were hot real estate wherever shinobi were around. She settled more fully into her crouch, resting comfortably on her haunches, and took in the sights. She also took a moment to internally gloat about being taller than everybody else since her and Ryuu were only just about the same height after her latest growth spurt and she needed the ego boost.
Scanning the area, she tried to hold on to that quiet feeling of peace. After a few minutes of looking, this was made easier by the fact that there were no Devices to be seen. Nothing. There was Plot—enough to make her dizzy and sick with it, to make her skin itch – but she didn't have that same… feeling again. If there was a Device present, she couldn't identify it.
Raiku tugged her ear absently as she thought. Devices were thought by the Gairano to be reasonably rare, mostly due to their efficiency. The Genematrix didn't need a lot of them floating around when a single one could imbue any number of Plots with new attributes, or so the Gairano theorised. They'd only been able to detect a few duplicates of the very commonly used Devices, while the larger and more profoundly transformative ones tended to stay in a single place for extended periods.
But all of it was conjecture. Their inability to see the Devices made it all pure guesswork. And it was highly educated guesswork, because the entire family revolved around the Genematrix, albeit in a very different way to most people, but that was what it boiled down to.
Raiku straightened and shifted to the side, before a powerful surge through her feet forced her to jump away from the sudden bang! and explosion of splinters.
For the second time that day, Raiku found herself being gently showered with wood fragments, where apparently she'd been so focused on Devices that she'd let herself blow up the top of the telephone pole.
She coughed.
She could feel eyes on her.
She reluctantly peered over the roof she'd jumped to, dozens of shinobi faces staring where she'd damaged public property. Weapons had been drawn, but when they saw her familiar head of hair and mortified expression, the general atmosphere seemed to lift.
Raiku wasn't sure how to feel about that.
'Sorry!' she called weakly, lifting a hand to wave. A set of tiles near her exploded in a flash and the sudden smell of ozone, leaving her fingers tingling. She yelped and clutched the treacherous appendage back to herself, unwilling to look down and meet the judgemental stares she could feel.
'Are you serious!?' she hissed to her unreliable fingers and the second set of gloves she'd damaged that week. 'We couldn't keep it together for a single day?!'
Her hand, predictably, did not address the issue.
She sighed, blowing on her fingers before carefully, carefully putting her hands back in her pockets. Apparently walking around aimlessly was going to have to be her fallback because if just trying to eyeball another Device was setting off spontaneous power surges that she still couldn't get a handle on, then she'd have to put off developing any hobbies until Yamada had beaten it out of her. Trained. Trained it out of her. She'd had issues with controlling output in the past, but mostly it boiled down to her either not particularly wanting to—she could admit that—or it being one of the automatic features she'd never been able to control to begin with, like her skin. While traumatic, she couldn't ignore the fact that Iji had given her a bad habit, even if it was a subconscious one. Or that was what she was hoping it was, because the alternative of "randomly sending out electricity bolts of varying intensity" wasn't an appealing development.
Raiku briefly considered asking her dad for advice. An image of him sitting her down to awkwardly talk about hormones and their theoretical interaction with electrokinesis flashed through her mind.
She shuddered, starting to descend from the roof back onto the street.
No, no. Training it would be.
A/N: look, who hasn't set a telephone pole on fire and damaged a roof before skulking back to earth in a disgrace. #relatable.
