Scroll 19: Puppies
As the area cleared out, the spider-boy knocked once again on Kensuke's door. The ANBU nin wasn't there today, so nobody answered. However, the adjacent property owner - obviously rubbernecking the aftermath - looked at the kid and shook his head.
"Sorry, kid, nobody's home today."
The little kid turned and spoke. His voice seemed to reek of fear; whether he had it or gave it was a mystery. But at the moment, he sounded worried, and very urgent. "Do you know where he is? There is something I need to ask him."
The old man that was the ANBU's neighbor shrugged and shook his head.
"No, I don't rightly know that ANBU's location, but you can check the Uzaruki Clan house a fraction mile from here. They might know since that ANBU interacts with them."
The child would nod, and turn as though to walk that way. He knew the layout of the village, but didn't have the skills one of his brothers had for locating people. As he turned, he'd disappear in puff of black smoke and a large spider would be standing in his place – a spider that crawled up the wall past the helpful neighbor. Then it would jump from roof top to rooftop until he got to his destination. He'd change back, then stand around and look for the appropriate door to knock on.
After the kid knocked twice on the traditional-built Japanese estate, the brown wooden gate - the only interruption of the ten-foot high grey-rock barrier wall that surrounded the three acres of the main Uzaruki home - opened and there stood a beautiful woman. Wearing a classic white and pink-swirled decor kimono that accentuated her tightly bun-black hair, the woman gazed down at the boy with crystal blue eyes.
Behind the woman, was a sulking Meiko, who, by appearances, looked like she had just walked through the same gate moments before.
"Konichiwa, child. What do you need?" Maisuke Kushina Uzaruki smiled softly to the child.
"I'm attempting to find Kensuke so I can get a word or two with him. Also, my brother wishes to know if Meiko is home as well. Are they here?" The child asked, all of his features hidden behind various bits of clothing and sunglasses. He spoke without contempt, conceit, or just about any emotion at the moment except a subtle sense of urgency.
Yukari's mother blinked and smiled again. "I'm sorry, I do not know where my son is at the moment. But Meiko-chan is here." It was now that the woman turned around and extended an invitation to enter. "Meiko-chan, one of your friends is here."
Meiko stood up from sitting on the front step to run, almost gleefully, away from her awaiting inside punishment.
"HI THERE!" She'd call out.
The child reached a hand up and flicked himself on the forehead. There wasn't any sort of poof, and any looking would barely sense chakra being used, but there was an image switch and suddenly Jack was standing in his place. They hadn't made any move to hide this, assuming people would take it as just another ninja clan's skill. "Hello there! I see you haven't been confined inside just yet, eh?"
Meiko smiled upwards to her mother as the eight-year old quickly exited through the stout gate and kicked it shut. "Hi Jack, are you done with what you had to do yet?"
She smiled, now, at Jack nodded. "I just got back when you knocked. Thanks for allowing me to not stay to face my Tou-san."
"Looks like I got here just in time then, and I'll always help somebody get away from their parents." He looked around and held up his hands as if to say 'where should we go now?' before continuing to talk. "For now yes. My brothers and I tend to work in a team, though over time, and it's not my part that's needed right now. Do you have your own team yet?"
"Yea, I do, but I don't think I'll be pairing up with them when I graduate in six months. Kaiko and Hanna are a few of my other friends." Meiko allowed her eyes to scan to the left, then the right to see if any ninja were around before opening her mouth to speak: "I have a hidden hideout a few houses from here, wanna go there?"
"Ah, you don't get to decide who you're paired with here either?" He thought about it for a moment. "Sure, why not? A hidden hideout in a hidden village sounds like fun." As he walked, unless he was making a gesture with his arms or using them for something he usually kept them folded, but with each hand clasping the opposing elbow as opposed to resting on the arms like most.
"Yea I go there when my older siblings are home. They pester me to work on my ninja skills. I hate it when they do that." The Uzaruki girl led them to a fairly large oak tree that twisted up like a corkscrew. The height of the tree was at least five stories tall and some of the gnarled roots were waist high. She pointed to a root near the fence that the tree had partially grew onto. "Here is the entrance." She pulled back a flap of bark to reveal a hollow hole. "The root systems create a small cave underground."
She wriggled into the hole that was perfectly sized for her and dropped down nearly three feet. "C'mon!"
XXX
Wydra, deciding to break up the tense, quiet situation, poked Yukari in the side. "You said something about puppies, right?"
"Puppies, yea! Of course!" Yukari tore her eyes away from the blossoming scene of friendship that Hani started with the still-scary-to-Yukari Barokendo. "The Inuzukas have just recently produced a new litter of pups, and Kiba-san said I could come over to play with them." She'd smile as she finally acknowledged Gillian with a smirk. "How about we go over there before the Akadou come back and bite me in the ass?"
"Let's go!" Wydra said, standing in front of Yukari and next to Gilligan. "Don't worry! This time we'll protect you from those jerks!"
Sheena still had one of her hands wrapped around Yukari's. Now that the situation wasn't quite so tense, Yukari might notice a bit more about Sheena's hands. They were scarred all over. Her hands had gashes here, patches of warped skin there and she was missing her middle finger nail. It looked like that pattern continued down her arm, but that was well-hidden beneath the chains she always wore.
Hani Takimoto smiled and nodded to acknowledge Barokendo's words. "I was wondering if you would be available enough tonight for a drink or two." It seems that some Konoha women weren't at all shy.
Barokendo turned, and it looked as if he was about to give a rather…unpleasant rejection. He blinked, and a surprised look came across his face.
"That now seems possible. Where would you be drinking? Remember, I don't fit into most places very well…" The words came at a struggle, as though something now weighed very heavily on his mind.
Yukari smirked at BaRoKenDo and Hani-san's flirtings. Hani always had a thing for big, large men - it was prime cliché teasing fodder that her friends always used. But Hani didn't care as she said:
"My Takimoto clan house has a large open area in back for training. I can always use that for anything. And I suspect that you can fit just fine out there as we have an open bar."
Barokendo looked up, talking as if to nobody in particular. "You have a lot of explaining to do…" Before he turned towards Hani, he watched as Yukari stood up and smile at the children.
"I'm following my friend's advice; where will you be later? I have a meeting I need to be at sometime within the next few hours. Assuming there are no complications with my associate later, I will see you there." He nodded to her and walked away, his footsteps falling heavy as he didn't feel a need for stealth.
Hani blushed and nodded; and, taking a quick look around the clearing that Yukari's eagles had landed to see if it was all clear, Hani went her own way.
The Uzaruki heir nodded at retreating BaRoKenDo as she took the three kids and headed towards the Inuzuka district to see the puppies. Yukari looked down at Sheena's hands and pondered if the scars could be healed by the Hokage. The red-eyed girl wasn't at all disgusted, just looking for an avenue to make people feel better about themselves.
"So, Gilligan-kun have you ever seen a puppy before?"
"Yeah, we had a few of them back in my home village once." Gilligan responded. He even held up his hand and produced a small clay model of a generic puppy, the kind everybody might think of when they think 'puppy'. Wydra was on her unicycle once more, as the thing had returned to them while they'd been talking, and Sheena just walked along, back to her usual self though she did stick closer to Yukari.
Yukari and the three little kid-nins made their way to the Inuzuka district, in which Yukari knocked on the Clan's breeding house door and was greeted by Hana-san, Kiba's older sister.
"Hi there Hana-san, I brought some kids here for you to test your new pups on!"
Hana Inuzuka, looking frizzled and frazzled, laughed in mirth as the ten or so squiggling brown, black and white puppies came barreling out in a mass of fur and yips as the young canines smelled fresh playthings – namely the three children and older Yukari. Yukari joined in Hana's laughter as she ushered her group into the compound; the puppies following after.
The group of yipping and energetic puppies mass-surged the children; all of the four-legged beasts wanting to smell, lick, paw and play with Gilligan, Sheena and Wydra.
Sheena would more than likely have an after-smell of blood, as though she had been in a pretty bad fight recently and just needed to bathe. Gilligan clapped his hands and surged forward himself to play with the puppies, even going so far as to act like one. Wydra didn't go quite that far but she did pet them and let herself be licked by them. Sheena sort of tensed up, never having seen a puppy before and unfamiliar with this behavior. She knew her normal 'attack' response wouldn't be appropriate here so she just kind of froze and looked up at Yukari for direction.
The puppies yapped and went crazy as mostly all of them ganged up on Gilligan. It just so happened that the puppies were the right age in discovering how to 'play-wrestle'. It was heaven for them as they tumbled, climbed, fell, rolled, pounced, bounced and wriggled all around Gilligan.
A few of the calmer puppies wagged their tails at Wydra; their tongues licking to taste the new, new human and to catalog her.
Once the majority of the puppies understood that Sheena wasn't at all interesting, they moved on to Yukari, Gilligan or Wydra. However, a small pup; black with a few white splots, stayed to further investigate Sheena and her chains. Putting its nose on the metal and Sheena's legs, the fur ball worked its nose in trying to find out just what the chains were.
"Hehehe, it seems you've made a friend there, Sheena-san." Yukari hadn't moved that far away from Sheena – only taking a step or two due to the effect of moving puppies had on her feet. The kunoichi was currently pulling her ankle-length ponytail away and out of the puppy's mouth that was playing with it: more like Yukari was teasing the puppy with the pulled-back hair. "These things love hands, you can pet them with your hands, Sheena-san!"
Sheena blinked awkwardly, looking down at the puppy that was nosing itself against her chains. Their immediate reaction was to slowly tighten themselves up to prevent entry, and the chains did rather hesitantly because it wasn't an attack. But following Yukari's advice, she blinked a few more times, quivered momentarily as though taking a nervous breath, and began to pet the puppy. She could tell the dog was nice, and it was trying to see what was lying underneath, and even though she kind of liked it so far she wouldn't let it see her always-hidden-body just yet.
The puppy jumped back, and assumed the 'play' position - which was why its tail was wagging a mile a minute. The other puppies were now a squirming mass of fur on Gilligan. Yukari just laughed as she sat down with Sheena's puppy and let the other two bite her ponytail.
Sheena slowly swatted at the puppy's tail. She didn't want anything go to fast, because she had a tendency to think just about anything could be turned into a fight. It was almost adorable, how cautious and nervous this normally scary girl was. Gilligan continued to roll around with the puppies, at one point actually becoming a rolling mass of fur, before turning into a number of teddy bears equal to the puppies and having a mock battle with them. Wydra was just playing with whichever happened to wander up.
XXX
"Haha, holes in the ground. Father once got nostalgic and said that's what his great and powerful nation started out as: a small village of nothing more than a few holes in the ground." Jack hoped that his slip didn't make her prod for more info, it would just get awkward. He was just a little bigger than her so it might've seemed like he didn't fit, but he squeezed thin and, if you were looking close enough, his joints sort of squished together until he fit down the hole, landing next to Meiko.
"So this is your hiding hole, eh? My kind of place; all dark and quiet." He'd smile mischievously as he looked around.
Meiko smiled at Jack and allowed her red eyes to widen in interest. "Really? A hole in the ground grows to be a village. I would have loved to see that!" She used her nin skills to strike a match and light a stubby candle on a plank of wood and illuminate the six-foot by six-foot hole.
"Is that where your village is, Jack?" Meiko's words might have surprised him; making her look not so daft in the head. "Underground?"
"Not entirely. Father found it necessary to have places above ground, so he made sure they were included…" it was awkward having to word things so he didn't let on to too much. Normally he either didn't care, or didn't talk. He looked around at the hole itself. "So you spend a lot of your time in here?" Sounds of footsteps in the area above could be heard.
"Yea, at least three times a week I come here to get away from my annoying sisters." Meiko spoke softer as she, too, heard the footsteps. The footsteps stopped for a moment, and Jack continued.
"What do your sisters do that's so bad? I've only ever had one."
"Yukari is so strong and optimistic it makes me sick. Mai is completely useless as an Uzaruki, since she doesn't have the Akashingan trait." Meiko scowled as she spoke of her other siblings. Just then, a figure stepped out of the candle-made-shadows behind Jack and spoke:
"Well, it's been done for awhile now. I didn't want to disturb you so I went off to relieve some stress. Eyeballs got pretty pissed though, but he didn't know what was going on until it was too late, so you should expect trouble from him soon…" the mysterious kid paused for a moment to examine Meiko. This was the kid that had entered and spoken was the same one that had come looking for Kensuke earlier, and same one that had asked if Meiko was home. If she didn't say or do anything, he'd take a breath like he was going to continue.
Meiko looked wearily at the other intruder of her hideout. "Who are you!" She let her lip curl in surprise. "Are you another Jack or something!"
"Kind of…" The two of them said at once. Jack continued speaking. "I'm one of three out of triplets, he is the second. The third is the one you saw leaving with that Mind-walker earlier. Anyway…" Jack turned towards his brother. "I'll meet up with whom ever is present later. If she is under control, then you're free to do as you wish for now."
"The three of us are pretty close. I hope that didn't dampen the mood too much." Jack would smile and wink at her ever so slightly.
With that, the second brother started to just walk backwards, and was fading into the shadows when he flickered and in his place was the third brother, the one with the hood and all of his features hidden. He looked around, shrugged, and climbed back up out of the hole.
