Kagami was the first of the others to return. Nigou greeted him by launching his small body down the staircase shaft onto Kagami's face, barking excitedly. Kagami screamed and clutched the railing to keep from falling or dropping the lion-dog as Nigou wiggled all over his face and shoulders. Kuroko and Aomine failed to be of any of help whatsoever.
"It's nice how close you and Nigou are," said Kuroko placidly, when Kagami complained.
There wouldn't be any practice tonight. Even the most undesirable of training slots became hot-ticket items the night right before a match, and Riko had advised them to get some rest anyway. Aomine, looking at the slump of Kagami's shoulders while the firebender splashed his face in the bucket, privately agreed. Half his two hundred would be more than enough for all of them to eat out tonight, and tomorrow's food sorted, too. After Kise rolled in through the open window stretching out his shoulders and complaining about being chewed out by half the elders for falling asleep during meditation, that only left Satsuki. It was decided that they would go down first and wait for her, both to save her the trip up and because they were starving. Aomine's injuries bit deep, and it was a good thing he was wearing his long-sleeved tunic, or he would have had a hard time explaining them.
"Lightning bending really takes it out of me," said Kagami.
"It would if you kept it up for that long," said Kise. "I hear they're moving to a more bending-based electricity generation system, but-" He trailed off as the other three stared at him. "That's all I hear about," Kise protested. "The energy crisis this, the bender representation that. Villages in the Earth Kingdom dying out and the Northern Tribe's ice melting. It never stops."
"Sometimes it's hard to remember that Kise-kun is indeed the Avatar," remarked Kuroko.
"Kurokochi!" Kise protested, but then shouting echoed down the hall to them, and he stopped talking to listen.
"-and if you think you can show up with your thugs and threaten me," came Riko's voice, bouncing down the corridors, "Then you can go jump in the bay and good riddance to bad rubbish. I run a clean establishment, and I will not have you coming in here flinging accusations-"
The source of this commotion became clear at the voice that drawled right out at them, slicker than a penguin-seal's skin. "Miss Aida, there's no accusations here," said Imayoshi, who didn't look much different form when they'd met the first day in Republic City. "We just thought, if you had any idea about the originators of the, um, disturbance that occurred today, you'd maybe drop a word through the pro-bender network that Ah'd like a personal talk with him or her. Maybe a bit about how running with the Red Monsoons is kinda bad for the soul. You know this place was-"
Riko wasn't done yet, and cut him off just as decisively. "Don't you dare spout a word at me about this being old Triple Threat territory," she snapped at him. "You know that sort of thing's been defunct for years and I bought this place free and clear."
Aomine had to give the guy his props; Imayoshi didn't seem to have any problems standing squarely in the blast radius. Their own group stopped right in their tracks rather than attract the attention of an angry Aida Riko. "I'm jus' sayin'," he drawled, the words longer and slower than ever. Momoi was standing a little behind him with two guys right out of the brute squad, tall and capable-looking and calmly watching anyone who passed with 'try not to decide to do something about me' glances. Momoi was torn between looking embarrassed and looking decided, an expression Aomine most clearly recalled from the first time he'd seen Momoi break a civillian's arm in public. It looked like Satsuki had landed on her feet, too. "The last time the Monsoons started prowling around here, y'were glad enough fer our help. Let's help each other."
"I no longer have any trouble with the Red Monsoons," said Riko, with finality. Well outside the perimeter on the other side were some groups with a tendency to clump in threes, clearly other pro-bending hopefuls. Imayoshi must have caught Riko coming in for her night's work. "And I'm not getting mixed up in all that business again. Get off my property."
"I'm not on your property," Imayoshi pointed out. His gaze traveled over the arena and somehow managed to pass over them without seeming to notice them, leaving them in no doubt that Imayoshi had noticed them perfectly well.
"Get out of sight of my property," she snarled. "Now." Imayoshi shrugged and waved off his guys, bowing in farewell to Riko and casting a long lazy glance along the semi-gathered crowd, which took immediate pains to make themselves scarce in case Imayoshi remembered their faces.
Momoi raised a hand. "I, um, live here," she said.
"So ya do," said Imayoshi. "We'll take our leave, Miss Aida. See ya tomorrow, Momoi."
Satsuki waved at them as they went off, and got friendly nods from the other two. Nigou barked happily and ran towards the girls, leaving the rest of them no choice but to follow and no route to take anyway but right past Riko's glare.
Riko shot Momoi a Look.
"I didn't think this was going to happen when they said they'd walk me home," said Momoi, apologetically. "Anyway, there was trouble today. Down in Dragonflats, which is... what did he say, Red Monsoon territory? Did you know they dispatched an airship? I'd never seen one that moved so fast before."
Riko shot her an icy look. "Dragonflats is Triple Threats, as you very well know," she said, a touch sourly. "Nothing but the best for our police force. And I'll take advice from one of Imayoshi's lackeys when I feel like it, thank you very much."
Momoi shrugged, rather in imitation of her boss who'd just strolled off. "We've all got to make a living," she said.
Riko muttered something and then strode back into the Arena's depths. They shrank back against the trash cans to avoid catching her eye, but Nigou earned himself an ear-scratch from the girl, petting him with no regard for her expensive clothes and his growing mane of fur. Kiyoshi detached himself from the wall to follow Riko- the first time any of them had been aware that the earthbender was there, watching. He'd almost melted into the background, but he'd been there. Huh. Aomine wondered if Imayoshi had known that Riko hadn't been facing him down alone before he'd backed off at seeing three clearly strong benders come out of the Arena. Kiyoshi was clearly no ordinary earthbender. He waved at all of them; automatically they waved back.
"Boys," said Satsuki, smiling. "Why are you all down?"
Aomine rubbed his forefinger and thumb at her. "We're flush tonight," he said, pleased. "We're going out to eat."
"Momoi-san," said Kuroko, looking after the closing path in the crowd Imayoshi had left in his wake, "Were you with-"
"I got something more secure today too," said Satsuki, brightly, and slipped her arm through Tetsu's, reassuringly, "Where should we go? I know you like Water Tribe food and I heard good things about Narook's, but that whole section of town is closed off tonight."
"I know a place," said Kise, who'd reached for a glider he hadn't brought down with him when the shouts became apparent. He looked at Kiyoshi's back with curiosity.
"Vegetarian?" said Kagami.
"No," said Aomine, decisively. "Kise can chew his rabbit food, but I want some meat."
.0.
By the time Aomine woke the next day, it was late afternoon and Kagami had left food on the table, but had gone back to his own sleep, spread out on the futon beside Aomine's bare-chested in the fire nation style, his pendant gleaming in the sun sparkling through the huge attic windows. Aomine vaguely remembered waking at some point to eat breakfast and then promptly passing out again once he was full, Kise promising to return earlier than his usual today and Satsuki extracting the promise from Kagami to not try to go in to work today. Tetsu had told Nigou to look after them, which Aomine felt was over-ambitious. Probably Tetsu just hadn't wanted to bring the mutt to work with him today.
Aomine yawned and stretched. Sleeping for nearly twelve hours straight had fixed the last of the kinks in his body from fighting that waterbender- that other waterbender- and he felt raring to go. Kagami looked better, too, after eating what Aomine swore was twice his body weight in food last night and sleeping in. You could tell that Kagami was royalty, really. He didn't have a scratch or scar on his body, or they'd all been healed up pretty by expensive and experienced royal healers, and only Fire Nation royals had those extraordinarily sharp and clear yellow-red eyes, the product of years of inbreeding. Aomine had thought, working the boats at Kiyoshi Island, he'd seen every type of person there was, but in Republic City the races had mixed and produced fog-eyed earthbenders, firebenders with mud-brown colouring, and dark-skinned airbenders with their fine hair shaved from their heads. Kise himself, airbender to the bone, had the yellow fire eyes, picked up by his nomad mother from some other traveler somewhere in the cold nights bison-back over an arctic sea.
Aomine himself couldn't have been more stereotypically Water Tribe if he'd tried, even then a rarity in their village just on the edge of earth and water. But they'd never found his parents among the Southern Tribe, and Aomine had never bothered looking further afield for what he did not miss.
Nigou woke when Aomine padded down, rinsing out his mouth with water from the bucket he iced over and then broke with one well-aimed fist. He fed Nigou an ice shard, then absently erased the last of the bruises from his chest.
"We're going to win tonight," he said to Nigou. No one was better at bending than he was, not even some bespectacled rich boy important enough to have a United Fleet soldier escort him out to lunch. "Those two aren't bad, either. We'll do it."
"Why are you talking to the dog," said Kagami, blearily staring at them over the railing that kept them from rolling out of bed to the ground.
"He's smarter than you," said Aomine. "Besides, I think he's Tetsu's spirit animal. I've heard about those. They're smart. Look how much he looks like Tetsu."
"My brother has one," said Kagami. "But it's not always like that."
"A spirit animal?" said Aomine.
"Yeah," said Kagami. "He's- seriously, how do you not know this shit? Everyone knows this shit. I think I met hermits on mountains who knew this stuff about the crown prince."
"I had more important things to think about," said Aomine, with dignity. This was partially true. Until the Kise had fallen into their lives, Aomine had not even known or cared that the Avatar was the same age as them, and had not needed to in the least. He certainly hadn't known jack shit about the Fire Nation royal family, or any other royal family, for that matter. "Like I do right now. Like how badly we're going to kick everyone's asses tonight."
Kagami grunted. He didn't usually talk about his brother, but had been sleepy enough to offer something; Aomine didn't push. He rather thought you didn't walk out of a palace and not go back in two years for no reason, even if you were Kagami, who had thrown in his lot with them without blinking, who was clearly mentally defective in a million myriad ways.
"We ready?" said Kagami, once he was properly awake and Aomine had whined him into assembling last night's substantial leftovers into something even more appetising.
"I'm ready," said Aomine, which was all the answer he needed to give.