Interlude: Redefining Relationships, Redux
Kei felt she had been robbed of her long-awaited family dinner. Ami was back. Alive. Safe. Triumphant. Forever protected from the whims of the rampaging monster whom Hazō reluctantly referred to as his aunt. Glowing, or she should have been, with the payoff from a cunning plot (though the details had been omitted while Shikamaru was in the room). Meanwhile, Kei was finally one with her beloved, her primary relationship no longer hidden in the shadow of the consolation prize that was her marriage to her best friend. Ami might have been as bemused by her other victory, her consensual bond with Snowflake, as anyone else, and less able to congratulate them on it than most, but she who knew Kei better than any human could not mistake or fail to celebrate her happiness.
Instead, this. A tension between Kei and the only person whose approval mattered hung over the dinner table thickly enough that even Shikamaru could sense it. Snowflake, who would have dispelled had she not anticipated potentially needing to comfort Kei in the aftermath, was eating alone elsewhere because facing Ami in casual socialisation was still too much. Tenten had stayed long enough to accept congratulations and fulfil the requirements of social interaction that were obvious to everyone but Kei, then retreated to see to Snowflake's emotional needs. Even the work of the Nara chefs, rich with a perfectly-calculated balance of flavours, only made Kei long for Kagome's home cooking which she might never have again.
Shikamaru had excused himself after second dessert, wisely suspecting that matters would only deteriorate rather than improve from there. Ami and Kei had moved somewhere much, much more private. Now, Kei would be forced to face her goddess and inform her that she was
wrong mistaken incorrect acting on a suboptimal interpretation of an issue of importance. She would almost rather face a condor.
"So what's up, runt?" Ami asked, casually juggling her third dessert, dumplings on a stick, with a single finger while Kei poked hers, carrot cake (much like the first and second desserts), absently with a fork. "Don't tell me. With your companionship bond, you're finally ready to take the next step in your relationship and need professional advice. How I've waited. For a start, there's this thing you can do with your tongue that most girls don't know about—"
"Ami," Kei said evenly, "the fact that I have something important to discuss with you does not mean that I cannot murder you later, after our business is settled."
"Now don't be like that," Ami said. "Having expertise that's actually useful to my loved ones is the perk I get as an I&S expert in exchange for defiling myself physically and emotionally while being left so vulnerable that even a civilian could kill me. Look at Mari—I bet she's already turned Hazō into a sex god who'll make Jiraiya look like a chump once he has a little more experience literally under his belt."
"Thank you, dear sister, for these images which I will have to ask Ino to strip from my brain with excessive force once I am done committing grotesque revenge such as would make the most refined sadist look like a drunken brute with a sledgehammer."
"No tongue?" Ami clarified regretfully.
Not
all the images were deeply traumatic. "Maybe once I—
"NO!" Kei caught herself. "This subject is closed. Very closed. Extremely closed. Now please let us move on to the actual issue at hand. I speak of Mari."
"Even if you're too much of a prude to take sex tips from your own sister," Ami said, "you and I both know the Mari option's been foreclosed. Maybe instead I could introduce you to—"
"
Ami."
Ami's eternal smile disappeared. "Don't worry, Kei. I've got everything well in hand. One way or another, Mari is never going to be a threat to you again."
How was Kei supposed to approach this? Looking at Ami, confident, protective, reliability itself, how was she to reject this freely given gift and the love that lay behind it? What was the point of exercising agency for agency's sake, when she could just trust Ami's judgement and reaffirm their bond?
No. No, Hazō had been correct, in his unsubtly manipulative way. Down this path lay precedent. Down this path lay a return to Mori Keiko, who had to die so that Nara Kei could live. Kei could not allow Mari to use her as a tool ever again, not with any justification, if she were to have any hope of growing as an individual. Could she, then, allow Ami to take over instead, and subordinate herself to Ami's will just because Ami was wiser than Kei would ever be?
She steeled herself.
"Ami," she said, every word taking effort, "please do not make my decisions for me where Mari is concerned."
The dumplings stopped, vertically, on Ami's fingertip.
"Kei," Ami said as if stating the obvious, "Mari's shown she's willing to sacrifice you, without permission and without warning. I know Mari. If she did it once because she decided she had a good reason, then she'll do it again next time she decides she has a good reason. It's bad enough that I can't protect you from Orochimaru yet. I'm not going to stand by and let somebody who claims to care about your welfare threaten your
life."
"That is not the point," Kei said. "Mari may or may not be a threat. I grant you that I have no doubt that, in a second scenario where Mari's loved ones are threatened and it is possible to redirect the threat to me, she will do so, since I am better protected than they are, and thus it is a rational choice. But that risk is mine to take. It is mine to assess. It is mine to mitigate. It is mine, in the end, to deal with Mari as I see fit, and to request your aid if I deem it necessary."
"But why?" Ami demanded, putting down the dumplings. "Kei, you're acting as if there's some kind of value in letting Mari live when she's an active threat to your life. That's not how survival works. Don't you have a zillion reasons to live now?"
"I know," Kei muttered. "I cannot account for it either."
"Let me protect you," Ami went on. "It's what I'm here for. I'm not asking you to do anything. Just sit back and let me do what has to be done."
Kei wanted to. She truly did. Perhaps Hazō was mistaken in his interpretation of Ami's strategies and motivations. Perhaps Ami could settle this flawlessly, without casualties, without danger to the clan, without collateral damage. No, surely Ami possessed that power, even if she needed to be coaxed into exercising it. All Kei needed to do was to say yes, or even to say nothing, and Ami would bring about the ideal outcome.
"Mari's supposed to be nobody to you now. There's no reason not refuse," Ami said. "You know I'm right."
But Kei had already made her choice. In a way, in a simple but essential way, this was not about Mari at all.
"Ami," Kei said, "I appreciate your desire to protect me. It is very special to me. I appreciate your desire to take action on my behalf, even at risk to yourself. I appreciate your desire to take this problem and solve it so that I am safe."
"There's a 'but' coming, isn't there?"
"But…" She could say it. She needed to say it. Even if only part of her believed it. Even if the rest of her screamed it was blasphemy. Even if…
…
Even if…
…
Even if it hurt Ami.
"But," Kei said, forcing herself to look at Ami and not at the floor, "that is not the relationship we have anymore."
Ami gave her a look of blank incomprehension. "What do you mean?"
"You raised me," Kei said. "You gave me everything after our parents lost interest. You
were everything, and I constantly relied on your guidance and your support. I am only just beginning to realise how selfish I was, when for most of that process you were even younger than I am now. I cannot imagine the troubles you must have faced and the sacrifices you must have made."
"What?! No!" Ami's eyes were wide with shock. "Kei, everything I did, I did because I wanted to. None of it was a sacrifice. You've always been precious to me. You've always been worth everything."
Kei shook her head. "I am beginning to understand now. I have only a secondary role in managing the Nara and the KEI, and no formal role at all in the lives of the sexual minorities. The people in all three are adults, or, for the most part, have adults, and can organise their lives perfectly well without me, just as they did before I became involved. Yet still I feel a crushing pressure. If I do not notice their problems and factor them into my decisions, I have failed them. If I give flawed orders or advice, I have failed them. If I fail to actively pursue their welfare, and they suffer or even die when I could have prevented it, I have failed them. I do not have the option of rejecting the trust they have placed in me, nor of extricating myself from their lives and walking away, no matter how I feel.
"How much worse must it have been for you, dealing every day with a child who was too pathetic to survive without you?"
"It's what I chose, Kei," Ami said. "You were more important than extra rest, or extra training, or extra plotting, or whatever it is you think I could have done instead with the time I spent with you. It's what I chose, and it made me happy. Everything to do with you made me happy. Don't for a second think that you were a burden."
"It is what you chose," Kei repeated, "and I will always be grateful for that choice. I am coming to understand the magnitude of the gift you have given me more with every day. But it is my turn to choose now, Ami. I still need my sister, and always will. But I no longer need a guardian."
Ami went very still, and for once, despite all her years of using her sister as a human communication textbook, Kei could not read her expression.
"I am an adult now," Kei said. "No, I
need to be an adult, even if I am nowhere near ready. I have to take control, and make my own mistakes, because otherwise I cannot become the person I need to be." A thought, alien and strange, flickered across her mind. She was not sure where it had come from. "The person I want to be."
"What… What are you saying, Kei?"
Ami should not have looked so vulnerable. It was unnatural. It was wrong.
"I am not rejecting you, Ami." Kei hurried to get the words out of her mouth. "You are still my sister. I still need you in my life. In some ways, I need you more than ever."
Ami stared at her helplessly. "Then I don't understand. What do you want me to do?"
It was a little easier now. The worst was over, even if part of Kei was still begging her to take it all back, to retreat into Ami's unconditional love before she destroyed everything beyond repair.
"I want you to respect my agency," Kei said, "even over my welfare."
Silence.
"And if you get hurt?" Ami whispered. "If you die, and I could have stopped it?"
The words, and the tone, were like kunai through Kei's heart.
It was not too late to take everything back.
"If that happens… then I am truly sorry," Kei said. "I know that when I am hurt, you share my pain. I know that the thought of losing me is as terrifying as the thought of losing you. I… I hate myself for increasing the odds of both of these things for my own sake. But there is no other way forward for me. I hope you can understand."
Ami was struggling. That much, Kei could read without trying.
"I am not asking you to abandon me to my fate," Kei clarified. "If you see Lord Hagoromo standing outside my bedroom door with an axe, please feel free to do what comes naturally. But here and now, you have the ability to consult me. I am asking you to use it, and abide by the results.
"I am not rejecting you," she repeated, because it was what she would have wanted someone to say to her. "You are the wisest person I know, and your insight and advice will always be irreplaceable. But even if ignoring that advice is a mistake, and it surely will be, it is a mistake I need to be able to make. I cannot surrender my agency to your decisions simply because they are yours."
A stab of panic.
"Ami? Ami, why are you crying?"
The reply did not come immediately. Fortunately, Ami was the soul of contingency and preparation, and the one thing she would never leave the house without was a lavender-scented towel.
"Because you weren't supposed to grow up yet," Ami said after a while.
"Yet?" Kei queried. "I am fifteen years old. When was I supposed to grow up?"
"I dunno, a thousand? I think maybe, if it happened when you were a thousand and I was a thousand and four, I might have been more ready for it. Until then, couldn't you just have stayed my cute little sister?"
"I have not stopped being your sister, Ami," Kei said with wry impatience, "although I am making a concerted effort to address the 'little', and guarantee doom to anyone who refers to me as 'cute'."
"But you
are cute!"
"I have a relatively sharp fork," Kei replied calmly, "and I am not presently in the mood to finish my carrot cake."
"Shutting up now," Ami said hastily. "But… you're serious about Mari? You know she's a threat, and you want me to stand back and do nothing?"
"I do not consider her an immediate threat," Kei said. "With the trust between us gone, she cannot easily betray me, and the circumstances in which she exploited me to redirect Orochimaru from Hazō were quite specific. Hazō even believes that, in general terms, her existence is of net benefit to my safety. Besides, although she no longer means anything at all to me, I do not wish to see her harmed. Nor do I consider the potential destruction of the clan an acceptable risk purely for the sake of my safety."
"I do," Ami objected.
"But will you accept my decision on the matter?"
For a second, Kei had a vision of one of those awful dice Hidan had given Hazō, frozen in mid-air and waiting to come down odd, even, or Jashin.
Ami sighed as the die came down even. "...Yes."
"Thank you."
"Still," Ami said, "bear in mind that I have agency as well. If you're wrong and she gets you killed, she burns."
"Assuming you do due diligence on making sure it was definitely her," Kei said. Mari as a stranger did not deserve to suffer for Kei's sake. Mari as an enemy received no protection.
"I'm not an idiot, Kei. Killing the wrong person means the real culprit gets away. Although I suppose there
is the ever-popular omnicide option if I want to be sure…"
"No omnicide," Kei said wearily. "I could have sworn we had had this conversation before."
"Yeah," Ami said, "and the results were inconclusive."
Kei opened her mouth to argue, but a different thought struck her as much more urgent.
"Ami, aside from the issue of protecting me, are you still angry enough to want revenge on Mari?"
Ami scowled. "Bleh. Hazō begged me—in dogeza, even—to leave her alone for the sake of everyone else, and I gave in. In retrospect, I should've made it a favour."
"Even though you were prepared to do it without one?"
"It's the principle of the thing," Ami said. "Sure, I like Akane, Noburi, and Yuno—and Kagome too, though I don't look forward to having to persuade him that my instinct to blow up the stinkers who threaten your life is as legitimate as his—but Hazō was asking me to do a thing I really didn't want to do, and people expecting freebies just because you like them messes with the favour economy just like it does with the money kind."
Ah, yes. Ami liked Hazō. It seemed Kei had missed some dramatic developments. Depending on how far matters had progressed, perhaps Mari was not the one for whose safety the Gōketsu should be concerned.
"That reminds me," Kei asked innocently, "how long have you and Hazō been on such intimate terms?"
"Intimate terms?" Ami asked. "We haven't even been on a proper date since he got me to fondle his tower."
"Kindly do not dissemble," Kei told her. "The degree of assistance you provided him with during the recent incident was preposterous."
"He asked me to outsmart
the Mori Ami," Ami said. "You know I can't turn down a challenge."
"
Ami…"
Ami looked down at her plate, pondering her dumpling.
"Kei, what would Hazō do if he decided you were doing something highly unethical?"
Promote it with all his strength, came the initial uncharitable thought. But no, clearly Hazō had not considered the skytower trade highly unethical, given his prominent role in it, and besides, he had fully backed her once she finally decided to terminate it.
What other highly-unethical activities had Kei been accused of lately?
"You recall the case of Fu Kōhei?" Kei asked.
Ami nodded. "Poor kid. I never thought I'd see a ninja go missing because of a fish god sex cult in Leaf."
"In the immediate aftermath," Kei said, "Hazō came to me to condemn me for my actions, or possibly my inaction, and to exhort me to change my ways, and the ways of the KEI, to prevent such a tragedy from ever taking place again. It was that conversation that inspired the Guidelines."
"Right," Ami said. "So you feel that if, say, he thought a member of his family was murdering people by the dozen for their personal benefit, he'd say something to them."
Did condors count as people?
No one had ever condemned her for causing the Condor genocide. The Pangolins sang her praises. Hazō shrugged it off as a tragedy for which neither of them should feel responsible. Her loved ones did not raise the subject, either out of respect for her feelings or out of obliviousness. The population of Leaf at large did not care (even those to whom it was relevant, like the Hokage). Even the condors she personally met at the Battle of Five Clans had said nothing to her (and their summoner, whatever her feelings, was too diplomatic to touch on the subject).
But this was not about Kei. Ami was asking a question, and Kei was being too self-centred to answer it.
"Unquestionably," Kei said. "I understand that he admonished Haru for killing a mere six civilians, even before Akane became involved, and that was for the sake of the clan.
"However, please do not imagine that I have forgotten my original question. I have known you too long to be so easily misdirected."
"You got me." Ami laughed. "But no, Hazō and I are just a couple of people with common interests who occasionally have fun together. If you thought your brother was in danger of becoming your brother-in-law, then I'm happy to reassure you."
"Oh, that was not the danger I had in mind," Kei replied. "After all, I continue to have unfettered access to his bedroom."
Ami gasped. "Byakuren's hefty mast, Kei! Are you telling me that Shikamaru and Tenten and the Snowflakes and Shiori and those two girls
still isn't enough for you? You really are a seduction specialist's sister."
Kei glared. "I
meant in order to murder him in the event that he oversteps his bounds. As you well know. Also, I am not romantically attracted to Shiori."
"Your loss; she's cute." Ami flicked her remaining dumplings up towards the ceiling with a fingertip, then chomped them out of the air. "And with that," she concluded, "I'm off. I need all the rest I can get before my exciting top-secret negotiations with the Hokage resume tomorrow morning."
Kei raised an eyebrow.
"You'll find out at the proper time, just like everyone else."
"When it is most dramatic," Kei translated.
"That's my cu—my ugly oversized sister!"
Ami laughed as Kei chased her out of the building, waving a fork with perforating intent.
-o-
What do you do?
Voting closes on Saturday 26th of December, 1 p.m. New York time.
