[X] Now I wanna be your dog
"You're pretty tough for a kid," Jounouchi pants, elbows resting on his knees.
You nod, too out of breath to answer, and chug some more water. "Haven't had a fight like that in a while," you gasp out when you're done. It's not a total lie; sparring with Hana is way tougher just 'cause she and the triplets aren't afraid of hurting you, but as far as fights go with opponents outside your family and without Akamaru, this was damn good.
You're sitting on the wrap-around walkway of one of the outbuildings, with the cool breeze giving your sweaty skin a nice chill. The fight was held indoors, away from the blistering heat of the early afternoon, but now the sun's rays beat down on your dark hair.
You breathe in, and the thousand foreign scents of Tanzaku Gai swirl up to your brain to be counted. Someone's making takoyaki down the street - not at a restaurant, you can tell from the amount of cooking oil used, and man does someone love onion rings - and in the other direction someone else is getting a head start on fall and cooking yams in a firepit. A car went down Castle Boulevard about half an hour ago, which is a surprise; you thought they weren't allowed inside the gates. Its stink is finally starting to dissipate, though the two guys nervously stealing a smoking break behind that shed over there are doing their best to keep up this school's usual unpleasant funk of sweat and things burning.
You're upwind of Ino, so you don't know what she's up to, but Ami's citrus perfume (fine, 'eau de toilette', whatever, who cares) is wafting gently by. She's clearly left the library sometime in the last five minutes; she must have found something on Sukaha-san.
"How do you fight in that thing?" Mirioni asks suddenly, indicating your coat.
"It stretches," you say simply, pulling on a sleeve. "See?"
He looks impressed. "Huh. That's kind of neat. But I meant, don't you get really hot? There's fur on that coat."
"Just on the hood and the cuffs, not on the inside." You shrug it off to show him. "It's not to keep me warm so much as lock in my sweat and keep the scent from giving away my position when I'm hunting."
You also think it makes you look like a total boss, but that's beside the point.
"So I've always wondered, how does ninja training actually work?" Jounouchi asks, clarifying, "Not whacha do to train, I mean... is it true you apprentice with an older ninja right from the moment you can walk?"
"What?" you blurt out. "No way, that's nuts! I mean, yeah, we get clan training, if you're from a clan, but we aren't sent into the field until we've graduated from the Academy."
"Huh. Guess my old man was shittin' me. He said once when he was a kid he saw an elite ninja who was only ten."
"Well, during the war there were a few people like that, I guess," you mumble. History isn't really your strong suit.
"War?" Jounouchi blinks.
And apparently it isn't his, either.
"The Shinobi Wars, Jou, geez!" Mirioni says, incredulous. "Didn't you ever see Battle Wizards?"
You suppress a sigh. Here we fuckin' go. No one cares if you can turn into a friggin' werewolf, all they wanna hear about is some time-travelling pretty boy with the Dragon Summoning Contract and a library of 'SSS-rank' jutsu that don't make any goddamn sense.
"Oh, yeah!" Jounouchi says, apparently remembering. "Kazama Arashi kicks ass." He looks back at you eagerly. "Can you guys really bring the dead back to life for celebrity grudge matches?"
"If we could, why would we bother training anyone new?" you ask.
Jou looks disappointed. "Aw, man. At least tell me you can create tidal waves in the middle of a freakin' desert, that scene was killer."
"Yeah, some jounin can," you say grudgingly. "Ya gotta have a water affinity and crazy amounts of chakra for that, though."
"That's somethin' I don't get," Mirioni says, frowning. "How do ya-"
"Dude, don't." Jou cuts him off sternly. "We can't tell 'im about our energy, it's not fair to ask 'im about his."
"And if it's a technical question, it's Ino you ought to talk to," you say, trying to slowly but surely steer the conversation in an acid-in-the-eyes-related direction. "She's the one who's good at all that theory crap."
"Smart and a looker. Is there anything she can't do?" Mirioni asks, smiling like a loon.
"Shut up for longer than ten minutes?" you offer, smirking.
"Oi!"
"Yeah, she's got a mouth," Jou says with a grin. "I'm surprised she didn't go all out when Shinyuu tried to put the moves on her."
"Oh, yeah?" you ask, trying not to sound too concerned. "I guess he got shot down?"
"Birds get shot down; this was more like she stepped over a cow patty that was in her path," Jou replies gleefully.
"Yeah, that sounds like Ino," you say. "He isn't gonna be showing up later to take revenge, is he? She tends to bring that kinda thing outta people."
He snorts. "Shinyuu? Take revenge on a girl? Nah, if anything he's gonna try to hit on her again. I don't think he even noticed she dissed him."
"Seriously?" You shake your head. "Man, that's kinda pathetic, hittin' on a twelve-year-old girl. Can't he get a girlfriend his own age?"
"Try two," Jou says bitterly. "They're twins, even."
"Are you kidding me?" you ask, mouth agape. A girlfriend and a chick on the side who don't know about each other is one thing, but there's no way a pair of sisters wouldn't figure something out eventually. Which means they're probably cool with it.
Ugh. You think you liked it better when you just hated the guy; stirring envy into the mix just makes this whole thing extra-fucked.
"... she's twelve?!" Mirioni says, horrified.
You blink, then remember that he tried to flirt with Ino, too. "Well, yeah. She's thirteen in September."
The X on the poor guy's face bends in a few different directions as his expression switches back and forth between shame and disappointment.
"Hey," Jou says, in a kinder tone of voice than he's used before, "look on the bright side, Mitch; at least this time she's actually a she."
Without a word, Mirioni stumbles away in a daze.
Jou shakes his head, obviously trying not to laugh. "I don't know how he thought he had a shot; she couldn't keep her eyes off Momiji all through class."
"Sorry," you interrupt, "I still can't get my head around this. This Shinyuu guy is dating two sisters at the same time? Do they both know he's dating each of them?"
"Oh, they know," Jou says. "Crazy, right? To hear him tell it, it was their idea. He's even buying out Sei-san's contract on Monday." He hmphs. "Lucky son of a bitch. Those girls must be nuts."
Hello, Ms Fiancée. "Contract?" you ask.
He nods. "She works next door. He spends more time over there than in class." He lowers his voice. "But I'll bet you already knew that, just like you already knew who Shinyuu was when I mentioned him."
... ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
"Do you really think all civilians are morons?" Jou asks, rolling his eyes. "Sheesh. At least Ino-chan was subtle about it. I didn't even work out what she was doing until just now when you perked up at Shinyuu's name." He gives you a look. "So. What's your interest in him? Who has he pissed off now?"
Ami is going to kill me and Ino is going to take humiliating pictures of my corpse wearing stupid hats, you think glumly.
"He's a suspect in an ongoing investigation," you say, trying to put a little bass in your voice. But... shit, you're thirteen; it goes about as well as could be expected. Fuck puberty, seriously.
Jounouchi scoffs. "Well, yeah, 'course he is, but what are you investigating?"
You wince sheepishly. You've fucked up enough today; if you're the source of a genuine leak, you won't have to worry about Ami killing you, because your Mom will do it first. And that's if the mission is still a success. "Can't tell ya."
"Figures." He tilts his head back, and lets the sun blaze on his closed eyelids. "Ninja never make allies without bein' able to hold somethin' over 'em."
"Hey, asshole," you say angrily, "you try keeping your friends alive in a place you've never been to before by trusting every random jackass you meet. See how long you guys survive."
"That's exactly what wandering martial artists do, you posturing little twerp," he fires back. "Some of the 'random jackasses' Edajima-sensei met on the road back in the day are teachers here now. That's how sane people get allies; by showing trust, you gain trust."
"What the hell do you know about ninja politics, anyway?" You scowl. "You wouldn't even know we've had three world wars without seeing it in a retarded action movie!"
"First of all, short stuff, Battle Wizards is not a retarded action movie - it is the god of retarded action movies," Jou says sternly. "Second of all, I don't need to know the politics to know that people are more willing to work with ya when you show that you respect 'em. That's just common sense. How you guys expect to enforce the law when you act like a bunch of shifty bastards-"
"Are you gonna answer any more questions about this Shinyuu dick, or are we done here?" you ask finally. Fuck this; from now on Ino can do her own damn recon.
He sighs. "Ask away."
"Does this Sei girl have expensive tastes?"
"Haven't really met her," the blond guy says, "but Shinyuu does. He's always givin' girls jewellery - his money's the only thing he's got going for him."
Well, that makes the scenario Sukaha outlined at least plausible.
"Does he have any friends?"
"Couple of underclassmen follow him around, but no friends, no. Not here."
"Anything we should know about if he puts up a fight?"
"Normally I would say he's a tricky bastard and to expect the unexpected, but hey. I'm sure the brave Konoha-nin will protect us from his evil schemes."
"Thanks." And with that, you snatch up your coat and head back to check in with Ino, silently fuming.
You know what you just did is unprofessional, and you don't give a rat's ass. Over-grown kid hiding in a schoolhouse acting like he understands anything about the kinds of things your mother and sister have been through or what Iwa and Kumo have done to Konoha for three generations! What right does he have to judge you?
You never thought you'd be so glad to hear Ami's annoying soprano voice. Even the whoosh of her sword as she does her daily 200 cuts is a relief after dealing with that jerk.
"... like she's just always been here," she says to Ino as the stables come into view across the way. "The school history says she was one of the people who trained Edajima-san's great-grandfather!"
Paranoid, you wonder for a moment if everyone else can hear their conversation - but then you relax. Mom warned you about this during The Talk (Inuzuka Edition); while your ears are growing more refined you're gonna go through a period where you won't be very good at judging what's too quiet or too loud for normal people.
"It could be a relative; we don't know if Sukaha is a family name or not."
"Look, all I can tell you is what I found."
"What about ninja links? Or to Sorato's family?"
"Y'know, that was weird, actually; there was speculation in one book about her being an Uzumaki. What does Naruto have to do with this?"
"It's a Konoha tradition-"
"Acid-boy is in a three-way relationship with twin sisters, one of whom is an erotic masseuse," you announce.
Ino and Ami stare at you.
"... nice," Ino says.
Ami thumps her with the flat of her sword.
"OW! Careful with that hunk of metal, Happy Homemaker-san, I have a very delicate complexion!"
"You are revolting," Ami says, and goes back to practising.
"The rest of Sukaha-san's story checks out, too," you say, taking a seat on one of the benches. "He's a big spender and he's buying out the girl's contract on Monday."
That catches Ami's attention. "That sounds like the actions of a man of his calibre," she says contemptuously, switching to a chuudan run-through. "Owning her contract would mean he'd be her boss until it runs out, and if she quits not only would he have the right to sue, her options in the job market would be limited; no one wants an erotic masseuse who leaves when her clients are too unpleasant."
Ino frowns a frown you've never seen on her before. It disturbs you a little, and it takes you a minute to figure out why.
She's quiet.
Ino is never quiet when she's mad. When she's pissed about something, people for blocks in every direction learn about it in fairly short order.
You're about to ask if she's okay when Asuma arrives.
"You have sake?" Ino asks in surprise, turning on a dime. "Where'd you get sake? Aww, man, did they have the wedding without us?"
"Long story," Asuma says, corking the bottle he's been sipping from and tying it to his belt. "So," he says, "have you got a plan?"
[X] Yet Another Plan Write-in.
Ino has already removed the valuables from their trunk in anticipation of the receipt of the costume jewellery; currently the contents of Nabiki's luggage are crammed into the seal Ino's been using as her own suitcase after she made a few quickie adjustments to its capacity.
Ami has not yet bought the jewellery or spoken to Sei.
Kiba has not yet spoken to the nurse who tended Hazuki.
Akamaru is still presumably tailing Shinyuu Sorato.
Wat do?
-----
In this episode, teenagers think they know how the world works.
Ami just strikes me as a perfume kinda gal.
