Title : Singing lullabies
Summary : It's almost too easy to make an Uchiha fall into depravity, Mikoto noticed as she pushed many of her clanmates over the metaphorical edge. Mostly because no one is surprised when it happens. Uchiha Mikoto-is-Arba Centric, Magi x Naruto Crossover. Dark.
Disclaimer : Neither Naruto or Magi are mine.
Rated M : not really a sunshine-and-rainbow fic, just so you know
Format : multi-parts, but not really chapters, so collection of vignettes, I guess?
Note : I'm not beta'ed and Engligh isn't my first langage
.
Singing lullabies (of despair)
.
II. Black and White
.
.
Mikoto was just finishing her shopping trip for pointy letal toys when one of the most beautiful Dark Ruth Mikoto had ever lay eyes upon landed briefly on her shoulder before resuming its journey.
Naturally she followed it. There was no way in hell she would just go back to the compound without at least trying to know who produced such a concentration of hate for their own fate, without her personal intervention.
The odd thing, Mikoto noticed as she drew closer to the source of the mallevolent chakra, was that the Dark Ruths seemed to be intimelly linked with disgustingly pure White ones, as if the two kinds came from the same vessel.
Arba just had to find out. And find out she did.
.
.
Sheba.
Sheba, here, just in front her. All flamboyant hair, huge smile and determined eyes. With her usual strong and pure Ruths dancing around her, and Arba wanted to cry, wanted to kill something, wanted to laugh hysterically until the world crumbled under her feet.
Sheba, drapped on a kunoichi attire, loudly ordering for another bowl of ramen.
And Mikoto just stood there, bemused, deeply regretting the days were things still made sense.
"It's kinda rude to stare at people, ya know.", Sheba frowned at her, finally adressing her stalker, as she turned to face Mikoto, her chopstiks still fermly held in her hand.
It really was, and definitly not Mikoto-like. 'Get a grip, damnit. So the reincarnation of the best friend you stabbed without remorse a thousand years ago stands in front of you, alive and kicking and bitching. Big deal.'
"Oh, I'm so sorry", she smiled sweetly at the red-haired fellow kunoichi. "Your beautiful hair completely caught my attention."
'When in doubt, flirt shamelessly'. That had to be the only thing she learned from her useless teacher. Besides, it wasn't even that much of a lie.
Sheba's face turned as red as her hair as she stuttered incoherently at the completely unexpected bold declaration. Some tings never changed.
"Oh, I'm sorry if I upset you, I swear I didn't meant to," Mikoto shamelessly lied through her teeth, while keeping the friendly grin on. "Have we met before? Your face seems familiar to me."
Now that she though about it, it kinda did, outside of the whole Sheba dreadful buisness, that's it.
"I'm Uzumaki Ku..Kushina," the poor thing managed to say, her eyes still wide with incredulity and embarrassment. Arba knew that face, for having seen it many times before when Sheba couldn't seemed to choose beetween wanting to stab something or dissolve into a puddle of humble self-awareness. "We were in the same class at the Academy, ya know!"
Uzumaki Kushina. Of course. Uzumaki I'm-gonna-be-Hokage-ya-know Kushina. Uzumaki Minato-was-so-not-having-an-oblivious-crush-on Kushina.
Oh my, the usual Solomon and Sheba show, right back on track. Mikoto felt so not ready for this nonsense.
"You're completely right, my bad, Uzumaki-san," she even to managed an embarrassed smile for effect. "We were in the same class for years and I never properly presented myself, I feel so terrible!"
"Ah, it's fine, ya know!", Kushina grinned, still blushing though the red of her face had diminished to a pretty shade of pink. Shame. "I didn't either so I guess we're even!"
"Still, not to recognize the girlfriend of my teammate," the Uchiha's heiress sighed, figthing the urge to laugh at the face Minato would make at her jab. "Shame on me."
Foolish Kushina did not disappoint though.
"Girl...girlfriend? Who's that sassy's girldriend? We're not..I mean..."
"No?" she mused with an impressive display of casualness. "My bad, I though so, since Minato-kun speaks all the time about Uzumaki-san. Oh well."
Well, he did, in fact, from time to time, let something slip about some Kushina-san. However, since both Jiraiya and herself never failed to tease him about his 'crush', Minato had become more tingue-tied about the matter. Which had hardly stopped them anyway. Arba had kept little pleasures in life, but making Solomon's life hell, in all his incarnations, definitly remained one. A girl just had to have her hobbies, beetween backstabbing betrayals and worldwide destruction.
"Really? Not that I really care or anything!" the Uzumaki hastly added, trying her best not to appeared pleased at the admission.
What a perfect exemple of pre-pubescent denial. So sweet Mikoto would puke here and there had she not develop extrem self-control over the years.
"Of course. I'm afraid I have a huge advantage on our acquaintance, Uzumaki-san. I feel like I know so much about you already."
She did as a matter of fact. Not the things she most needeed to know however, such as where did those Black Ruths came from, damnit? Sheba couldn't be the one producing them, which meant something else did. Something inside one clueless Uzumaki Kushina. Or wasn't she?
Arba was missing a huge piece of the mystery, and she absolutly hated it.
"Does that meant Uzumaki-san is up for grabs?" Mikoto went for the final kill with a deliberate sly grin full of innuendo, and her interlocutor reached level of redness never accomplished before on a human face. "I'm just kidding! Minato-kun would definitly skin me alive, and, as much as cutie Uzumaki-san is, I rather like my skin where it is!"
Fortunatly, the blushing young girl was relieved from having to find a appropriate answer to Mikoto's daring statement by what had to be a divine intervention from the Ramen God.
"And there come your Pork Miso, only the best for my favorite customer!" the chief put down a huge bowl in front of the confused Uzumaki, before he took notice of Mikoto's presence. Civilian. "Oh, is that your friend, Kushina-chan?"
"I'm her boyfriend's teammate, Uchiha Mikoto", she presented herself with a sligh bow.
"Ah, Minato-kun's friend then?" the cook grinned, completely discarding his 'favorite customer's' indignant cries of protestation. "I knew something was going on beetween those two. Well, can I get you something, Uchiha-san? It's on the house."
Ugh. Ramen had to be like, unhealthiest food ever.
"Thanks for the offer, but I've eaten already", Mikoto lied smoothly, flashing the older man with a regretful smile as he nodded and then went taking another customer's order.
"Ya know, Minato was kind of right about you," Kushina mused out loud, as she started at her ramen with what passed for thoughfulness for her.
As if Solomon had ever been right about anything in his life before. He certainly wasn't going to start now. "Oh? What did my dear teammate have to say about me?"
"That you're not the a typical Uchiha. I'm pretty sure it was a compliment."
Arba had to laugh at that one. Wasn't Minato so perceptive? "Uzumaki-san, I can assure you, I'm not your typical anything."
.
.
"Hey, Mikoto, remember what you said about my hair the day we met..?"
"Yes, what about it?"
"Did you...meant it? I mean...ya know, never mind."
.
.
Once upon a time, Arba used to run her fingers through sunset locks.
"He's never going to accept me," whined Sheba, her voice unusually frail.
"Of course he will, you just have to be perseverent," the older woman argued, containing a long-suffering smirk. "You will worn him down eventually. Trust me on that. And stop fidgeting would you ? We're never gonna be done overwise."
Standing still on her seat, Sheba had the nerve to roll her eyes at her surrogate sister.
"You're the one insisting on petting my hair, ya know!"Arba teasingly pulled a strand of her friend's hair as 'punishment' for her cheekness. "Ow! I'm never letting you even close to my head again!"
"My, don't be so dramatic," she laughed softly as she began to form a small braid with a few wild strands.
"I'm tired of being rejected, Arba. It's been like, the fourth time this week," the petite woman sighed, with a dejected look on her face. "There are so many hit a girl can take, ya know."
"Solomon's not rejecting you," affirmed her compagnion with conviction. "If he was, he certainly would have take you aside and told you he just wasn't interested, even if you were a nice girl or something. Trust me, the guy's in denial."
Her speech made her small affect, as her yonger friend straightened up with a more in-caracter expression of determination on her features. Solomon wouldn't know what hit him, that idiotic master.
"You're totally right! Thanks Arba!"
"You're welcome, sweetheart. Anything for my two favorite people in the world."
Once upon a time, Arba used to run her fingers through sunset locks. It was a long time ago though.
.
.
"Of course I meant it. Your hair are beautiful, Kushina-san."
.
.
And then eventually Mikoto learned about those magnificient creatures named Bijuus and their Jinchurikis. What a brillant idea, and not even hers.
Sometimes, Arba could only wonder why she was there for. Clearly, humankind hardly needed her help to destroy itself.