UWAH have this before I do homework!
This one's more about the Tsukki and Zen interaction!
NINJA CAMEOS!
Disclaimer: I don't own Gintama, yadda yadda, same business! Here we go :D ARUARUARUARU ARU ARU DE GOZARU
Eyes of Wolves
- 8 -
.: Tuesday, LAST WEEK :.
His consciousness returned arbitrarily, fleeing when he attempted to wipe away the blurred line between awake and asleep. Feeling like a creature made completely of lead, he could hardly lift his head, his arms, even his fingers. A soft, cool towelette was placed on his forehead. A light breeze skimmed his torso as someone applied chilled salve to his wounds.
All this registered as cold, warm, and cold again. He witnessed flashes of occasional white and flutters of black — someone's yukata, maybe — but mostly he awaited the pain. Given he was of Yato descent, he expected relatively progressive healing, but his ability to stay awake was so pained that he worried that such would not be the case.
"I think he'll regain consciousness soon," came a soft, very feminine voice. "I'll go out to the pharmacy for more general painkillers."
"He's healin' fast," came a second. "He probably won't need'em."
"Healing fast? He's ripped up!" cried the first woman. "I'll buy them anyway."
A soft, lulling pause. He waited for his awareness to clear, for the blurred cloud to rise and exhaust itself as a bubble of clarity took its place. Nothing happened.
"You said you found him…where?"
"The Hyakka called for me, sayin' someone was injured in the west alleys."
"How do you think he got there? And those wounds? I wonder who he is."
"He's carryin' that umbrella. I'd say Amanto, for sure."
"Like…Hosen?"
He felt his mind struggle under the familiarity of the name, but none of his muscles contracted in recognition, and he could not muster enough strength to even open his eyes. Thoughts turned to slush almost as soon as they entered, and the name folded in on itself until he'd forgotten it entirely.
"Seems like he is."
"Poor boy," lamented the soft-voiced woman. "I wonder why he was there alone."
Alone. Was he alone, again? Had he been alone, before?
And he felt the pain, then. The throbbing emanated not from his cuts and gouged flesh, but from somewhere tapped deep within his chest.
He could not quite think of the word, and it escaped him with a regretful hiss.
.: APRIL, PRESENT :.
"You need me to what?" asked the lavender-haired woman, her glasses slipping halfway down her nose and she comprehended Tsukuyo's request. "Did you just tell me to tail the police? What if the police are tailing me?!"
"Sarutobi," Tsukuyo said flatly. "I'm askin' ya to find out more about the terrorist that attacked Yoshiwara today. Not the police. Is that a problem?"
"But Tsukki," whined the kunoichi, "that's the type of thing you do on your own!"
"I'm busy in Yoshiwara."
"And who's that?" Changing the subject abruptly, the bespectacled woman sashayed her way around Tsukuyo and came up to Zenshi, poking him in the chest. Without another word, she randomly touched his chin, then his cheek. He pretended not to be startled by her readiness for contact.
"Sarutobi," repeated Tsukuyo through gritted teeth.
"You didn't answer me. Who's this?"
"He can answer for himself."
"I'm the president of Planet Pheromones," Zenshi deadpanned with as straight of a face as he'd ever mustered. The woman stepped back, and he could have sworn that a hint of a smile graced Tsukuyo's lips. "A pleasure to meet you, Ms…?"
"Sarutobi Ayame," squeaked the woman, her interest piqued. "But Sa-chan is fine."'
Zenshi took note of her name, her nickname, and Tsukuyo's subsequent refusal to utilize the latter once the person in question was actually present.
"And so, Prince Pheromones," declared Sa-chan, "what brings you here with Tsukki?"
"We're negotiating on behalf of the shogun," Zenshi informed her, completely drawing upon absurd falsities. Tsukuyo shot him an incredulous glare. "And his favorite courtesan."
"Do you want me to stab you?" she shot out, suddenly, glaring daggers.
Zenshi lifted a bandaged hand, and shut his mouth. He was finding it harder and harder to speak less; the people of Earth were particularly amusing, particularly easy to converse with.
"Sarutobi," sighed the ninja man, who had been lingering in the background. "I'm pretty sure there is no Planet Pheromones."
"Of course there is!" she insisted, quite blatantly defending Zenshi despite the fact that the other man was undoubtedly correct.
"Hattori Zenzou," he said, at last introducing himself. He held out a hand, which Zenshi readily shook. "Head of the Oniwabanshuu, after my father, the previous head."
Sa-chan cast him a resentful look.
"Sarutobi will gladly take on your job," he went on. "Right, Sarutobi?"
The woman tossed her hair over her shoulder and adjusted her glasses, looking rather put off but relinquishing her seemingly stubborn outlook on general jobs.
"If you put in a good word with Gin-san for me, I'll gladly do it."
"Why are ya askin' me?" Tsukuyo snorted.
"Because you like him, don't you?" There was a very unnerving glow of evil in the kunoichi's eye, brimming with something like jealousy stirred into a melting pot of mischievous masochist mayhem.
Tsukuyo flushed deep red. "I do not."
Sa-chan merely waved and turned on her heel, laughing with a little bit too much enthusiasm. The blonde courtesan, on the other hand, simply slapped an initial down payment into Zenzou's hands and stalked away. Zenshi trailed cautiously, a good few steps behind the fuming woman.
"Are ya still followin' me?" she spat, whipping around on him out of the blue.
"Would you prefer I return to Planet Pheromones?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure?" He found inexplicable amusement in goading her, and suspected his utterly smooth, noncommittal politician's voice was driving her to the edge. It was, after all, one of his hated and loved skills. In the Yato world, the galaxy, these politicians weren't simply government officials — they were more like negotiators, lawyers of entire planets. He liked to note that they weren't the excessively tedious, boring type of lawyers. Instead, they were the type of people that eloquently swayed votes and opinions in elections and in court, like movie stars from far corners of the universe in all those popular dramas.
Tsukuyo, however, was having none of it.
"Shut it, or I'll stab you."
"I'm sure you will," he replied easily, falling in step beside her.
After a few minutes of silence in which Tsukuyo brooded, her heels digging heavily into the dirt, she chanced conversation again. She cautiously approached her words so as not to provoke another witty tease from him.
"Yer welcome to stay with us," she offered, eyes down.
"I appreciate it," he said graciously.
"We'll have to renovate a bit, though," she added, grimacing slightly.
"It's fine. You will have acquired a decent bomb detector, I will say."
She threw him an accusatory glance. There it was again, the streak of snarky witticisms that she would not have expected.
Zenshi would have been the smart-alecky boy, the talkative classmate, the one who made the most interesting comments. But he turned out to be a silent child, one who probably made such remarks inside his own head alongside the critical analyses of everyone who existed around him. No, more like the constant passage of information that simply confused him, rather than enlightened him. That was, after all, how he viewed the Yato.
"I didn't ask for a bomb detector." Tsukuyo drew her pipe from her belt, turning it in her fingers.
"Well now that you've obtained it, you must pay a certain price."
She looked over at him, raising an eyebrow and tilting her head at such an angle that he was tempted to feel mocked. She was imitating him.
"And?" she prompted, when he simply appeared to be between amazed nodding and silent spluttering.
"A sample of all the Earth foods you find enjoyable."
She stopped in her tracks, staring at him with a twitching smile, half baffled and half incredulous.
"Hinowa's homemade bento box," she said, once she regained her comprehensive faculties. "Start with those. You 'n Seita can have lunch together."
Now, it was Zenshi's turn to flash her the skeptical glance. Tsukuyo pursed her lips, rolling her eyes slightly as she turned and continued their way back to Yoshiwara.
.: Thursday, FOUR DAYS AGO :.
"Yer finally awake." Her unique accent threw him off, as he had been dreaming of a rainy home planet. He dreamt that his mother was the one regularly changing the cool, wet cloth on his forehead, and that his doting aunt had wrapped him up neatly in gauze. But when he actually came to, he was quite possibly mummified around his midsection; while the bullet wounds on his arms were wrapped neatly and cleanly, someone else entirely must've done the rest of his body because it was quite simply a bundle of bandages and pads and other miscellaneous medical kit supplies.
The woman kneeled to his right was slight but muscular, with toned arms and an upright posture. Her straw-colored hair framed her face, but most of it was drawn back and tied up. He first noticed the scars running along her face: one above her brow, horizontally, and one straight down from her left eye. It reminded him of himself.
"You've been sleepin' for nearly three 'n a half days," she told him, though his eyes merely wandered to the ceiling. "Yer lucky we found you."
"So it seems."
She appeared to be wary of his flat, uncaring tone, but went on nonetheless.
"You nearly bled to death."
"That's how it looks." Still a little disoriented, Zenshi found himself answering the most pointless of comments. Useless words were tiring.
"An explanation would be fine," she prompted, starting to display annoyance in her voice.
"Wouldn't it be?" he agreed, closing his eyes again. Awake was a state too taxing to maintain.
"It would," she said. He could almost feel her tension, the way she balled her right hand into a fist and assumed a nonchalant position.
"I'm grateful," he offered, hoping to amend his apparent rudeness. "For your help. I owe you my life."
"So it seems," she threw back dryly.
He decided, then, that she was not exactly a bad person, nor was she a good person.
Only someone slightly irritated by his sardonic demeanor.
And he was fine with that.
Only a few exchanges in timeline, but I wanted to write more interaction!
Comments, question, EXPLOSIVE REACTIONS?! Do tell, please! :)