The glider whacked Kise hard on the back of his head. "Do you live," said the other airbender, Kasamatsu, "Do you live to make our lives difficult?"
"Sempaiiii," wailed Kise. "Sempai, this is not my fault."
"You didn't need to come along and make everything more difficult," said Kasamatsu, though he had to concede the point. It wasn't really Kise's fault that their senior official had been called out to the United Republic Council just when the caravan from the Eastern Air Temple had blown in and both their herd of flying bison and Air Temple Island's herd of flying bison had, respectively, gone into heat and gone into labour. "You would be welcome to stay," he told them. "But there's no place for you stay."
Kuroko watched the flying bison huff and blow, corralled by bleary-eyed acolytes on opposing sides of the island. Nigou ran in small circles around one only a few hours old- and still three times Nigou's size- and managed to get in some playing with it before the concerned mother blew Nigou away, sending the lion-dog rolling head over heels until he collided with Momoi's shins.
"But we can eat?" said Kagami, a touch wistfully.
"Food, we've got plenty of," said Kasamatsu. "But unless you want to bed down among the bison, we've got no place for you to sleep tonight. The halls are all going to be full up with futons for the caravan. You could squeeze, but-"
"Not anything on the lines of a permanent occupation," said Momoi, frowning prettily. Kasamatsu went bright red. Gender segregation among the young airbenders, Kise sometimes felt, had a lot to answer for.
"We'll deal with it," said Kise. "We're going to be at the Arena tonight anyway, so we'll be out of your hair at least that long."
Kasmatsu nodded distractedly at him, and then turned to answer the calls of another acolyte from within the compound.
"Will there be any meat?" said Aomine.
"No," said Kise, patiently.
"Then I say we bag it and just go out to eat on the town," said Aomine.
Kagami's open palm cracked on the back of Aomine's head. "With what money?" he said. "Do you think we're going to be able to pass up a free meal when we're roaming the streets looking for a place to stay?"
Aomine clawed back at Kagami. "We'll just sleep on the streets," said Aomine. Flying Bison and also Nigou watched him and Kagami scuffle. "No prob, we've slept out in the open lots of times."
"In the city," said Kuroko. "That is called vagrancy, and is not advisable."
"It's against the law," said Kise. "And it's not safe. Really."
Aomine sighed, put-upon. "Fine," he said. "We'll eat your leaf-dinner, and then we'll go the Arena, and then we'll find a place to stay." He meditatively stared at the floating flying bison clashing horns in the air for females. "Wonder if we could get us one of those, it would be useful."
Kuroko stared longingly at a calf learning to bounce on all six of its legs, bawling as it tried to adjust to new life. It gambolled and frolicked.
"No," said Kagami, enunciating loudly and clearly. "We are not getting a flying bison. We already have a dog. Those are too young to be taken away from their mother. Is any of this getting through your thick head? Go inside and we'll get something to eat."
Aomine and Kuroko both sulked as they let Momoi usher them into the building. Inside, it was just as much of a mad house as it was outside- more, as both acolytes and airbenders rushed around and shouted. Baggage and saddles were piled everywhere there was a spare spot. A handful launched themselves at once towards the Avatar with greetings, questions, complaints, leaving Kise to swallow whatever it was he had been thinking of as he looked at Kagami.
Well. At least tonight, they still had the match. At least they could look forward to that. Looking at a real match might even convince Aomine pro-bending was boring- as Kagami, at least, continued to hope (the thought of his brother's upraised eyebrow remained daunting)- and that he'd be better off getting some work that didn't involve beating other people up.
.0.
Fat fucking chance. Aomine was out of his seat howling and shouting at the fighters just like the most hardcore fans, and Kagami had been caught up in it, too, yelling about bad calls and cheering at the Koala Sloth's first-round knockout of the Flower Cats. Several matches were played out over the course of the night; they'd somehow managed to come in on the qualifiers for the season, picking the teams who would be allowed to go onto the tournament. Any team could present themselves for a night and fight until they racked up enough wins to qualify. If you won all your fights for a night, you were pretty much in. If you didn't, you tried to come again next time.
They quickly discovered why the girls had been so quick to give up their tickets to Kise- most of these teams weren't bad, but they weren't good, either. Only a handful really were pro pros, with their own uniforms and sponsorships. The real fights and the real money wouldn't start coming in until the tournament proper, and neither would the audiences. Still, it wasn't a bad show all around. The atmosphere was infectious since they hadn't had space to spar at all on the ship, and they were all antsy with the desire to fight.
Even Nigou enjoyed it.
"One of those," said Aomine triumphantly. "One of those, we win all the way, and then we're in. We've got this."
Aomine dragged them all into the depths of the Arena, cornering a janitor in a corridor outside a training area. He was, Kuroko noted, a terrible janitor, absorbed in moving dust from one side of the room to another.
"Hey," Aomine said. "You know who we can talk to about getting piece of that action?"
The janitor blinked at them and smiled. "Action?" he said, looking about at them all interestedly.
"We'd like to fight in a qualifier," said Kise.
"If it's at all possible," added Momoi, smiling brightly at him.
"But there are five of you," said the janitor. "And a lion-dog. You can only have three in a team." He frowned. "Otherwise that's cheating. Also animals can't bend."
"...only three of us would fight," said Kagami. "Er, we three."
The janitor looked shocked. "An airbender?" he said. "But the teams are water-fire-earth. And airbenders are pacifists."
Everyone wondered how to bring it up, and also if maybe this janitor was one of the differently-abled. Or screwing with them.
"Well, that's true," said Kise, carefully. "But I'm the Avatar, I can earthbend."
The janitor peered at him. "You are," he said, then brightened. "Well, that all seems to be in order. Ok, follow me, I'll see about getting you someone to talk to. Wow, we haven't had an avatar pro-bend since... Avatar Korra! She almost won a championship, you know."
He set off, and Momoi said, "That would be very nice of you, Mr- er-"
"Kiyoshi!" said the janitor, still beaming. "I work here, so I know exactly who you can talk to."
"Was that racist?" said Aomine as they trailed after Kiyoshi. "I mean, assuming that Kise was an airbender. And the rest of us."
"Kise is carrying a glider," Kagami pointed out.
"Or a very unorthodox walking stick," said Kuroko.
"How'd he know the two of us?" persisted Aomine.
Kuroko looked at Aomine's dark blue eyes and brown skin, the Water Tribe-style armbands and necklace he wore. Then he looked at Kagami's red-amber eyes, his sharp features and the something in his face and shoulders, indefinable, sunk into his bones. They'd passed the statue of Fire Lord Zuko on their way to the park earlier in the day, and there was something of the same in Kagami, once you looked for it. Wandering in the wilderness, cooking their food, caring for them fiercely and with abandon, arguing with Aomine, Kagami was royalty. "I haven't the slightest idea," he said. "Perhaps he guessed."
.0.
They were relieved to find that Kiyoshi hadn't been leading them somewhere to possibly kill and eat them, despite three wrong turns, an extended lecture on the history of Republic City, and nearly diving off the match platform to block Nigou from peering over the edge at wrong turn number two. In the office, a girl and the referee from the match stood over a list of pro-bending teams, with numbers between them. They were discussing the tournament match-ups and, most reassuringly, they also looked at Kiyoshi like he was insane. A few of the other teams who'd won well tonight were there too, looking at match-ups, making sure they'd qualified. Koala Sloths were especially smug- they'd just bought their entry into the tournament next month.
"Have you people ever even pro-bent before?" said the referee. His name tag identified him as Hyuuga. He'd spent as much time during the match cursing the pun-happy announcer as he had calling fouls and points.
"Teppei, honestly," said Aida Riko, who owned the Arena. Her family was a Name in Republic City, and Riko, despite being unable to bend herself, had been immersed in the pro-bending business since pretty much birth.
Aomine shrugged.
"Look, can we or can't we," said Kagami. Please say no. Please. Please.
"Ten thousand yuan buy-in," said Riko. "Up front, cash, no crying and no refunds and if you lose you're out your ten thousand for the season."
"That's highway robbery," said Momoi, appalled.
Aida eyed Momoi for a moment. "No," she said. "Highway robbery was back in the day, when the buy-in was thirty thousand yuans and whatever else the organizer damn well felt like charging for. The ten thousand buys you participation, competition slots, lets you check out equipment before a bout." She crossed her arms. "Take it, leave it, I've got enough one-time kids champing at the bit for their shot at the glory. Once your team's got some actual wins under your belt, we'll talk."
Momoi bristled. "If you think that just because we're newly arrived you can take all our money-" she started.
"It must be nice living on Air Temple Island," said Kiyoshi to Kise while Riko's and Momoi's gazes clashed in the air.
"We're not," said Kise. "No room, so we're looking around, because there's so many of us. And the dog," he added.
"Oh," said Kiyoshi. He thought for a moment, picking up Nigou. Then he smiled. "You could stay in the attic!" he said.
"What?" said everyone.
"The attic's a free space, isn't it?" said Kiyoshi to Riko.
"Freezing in winter, sweltering in summer, no running water, ragged furniture and the roar of the crowd every night during the season?" said Riko. "I wonder why."
"...so, it'd go for cheap, then," said Kise hopefully.
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Not that cheap," she said.
Kise held up Nigou. "But then the doggie would have no place to live," he said.
Riko looked at Nigou's face and visibly faltered. Kise's face failed to have any similar effect.
"Well-," she said, reaching out to touch Nigou's soft ears and mini-mane.
Kagami and Momoi immediately bent to haggle and hash out terms, sensing weakness. Aomine, who gathered that they were pretty much in, wandered off to catch the Koala Sloths before they left.
"Soft match," was his opening sally to the waterbender, washing his face in the corner over a bucket.
"Heh, yeah," he said. Winning had clearly put him into a good mood. "These prelims are all like that, though. Most of the big guns blast out against each other in the first few weeks and leave the kids to battle it out over spare slots. They're running out fast. You registering?"
"Seems like it," said Aomine. "If all the weak benders are up from now, though, should be easy to get a leg in."
"You're new?" said the waterbender. His raised eyebrow said everything about what he thought about that, but he kept his mouth shut. "Never pro-bent before?"
Aomine eyed him in turn, and conceded, "Could probably do with learning the rules first."
The waterbender laughed and pushed his hair back from his face, but his eyes were sharp as they looked Aomine over. "If you're looking for fellow waterbenders to train pro-bending with," he offered, "There's a guy I know. Down by Dragonflats District. Ask for Mako. They'll know who you mean."
"He any good?" said Aomine. Well, he might check it out.
The pro-bender smirked. "He's pretty good, yeah," he said. "Pro-bending is different from regular bending, you know. But it's got its tricks just like anything else. You want to win, you have to know them."
Aomine nodded. He'd take that, yeah. Couldn't hurt, either.
Kuroko had wandered over to the referee left at loose ends once Riko had started in on the property dispute, discovered that he too was a fan of the Adventures of Captain Mako series, and was asking about gangs. A small frown had formed on his face. "Are they much of a problem in the city?" he said, thinking of their earlier encounter. "Would it be unsafe to walk alone?"
"The Arena is neutral territory, at least," said Hyuuga. "It's not as bad as it once was- I mean, historically speaking. But some of the old ones still have a bit of a hold on the rough parts? The Red Monsoons, the Agni Kais, the Triple Threats... they're all 'legitimate businessmen' now, of course," he said, making it clear how much he believed in that. "Pretending they're squeaky clean. The police have been making a push to clear them up, though." He scratched his head, and sighed. "Kiyoshi's probably right," he said. "For your money and if you can take living there, the attic's not a bad place if you're brand-new to the city."
Kuroko nodded. The attic it was.