Hazō was most of the way through his hot chocolate when Noburi returned. The other boy had lagged behind as Hazō went home after the match and had remained absent for the two hours since. The expression on his face suggested that part of his absence might have been due to getting his feelings under control.
"Noburi!" Hazō said, abanding his chocolate in favor of meeting his sibling at the door. "You're back!"
"Welcome home," Keiko said from the kitchen table. "We were starting to get worried."
"Had a thing. That's done, so on to more important stuff! Great job on that fight, Hazō," Noburi said, clapping Hazō on the back with only slightly too much force while wearing a smile that was at least partially sincere. "I got worried when those clones tagged yoUUUUUU—!"
The gasp/scream at the end was, of course, due to Hazō grabbing his brother and squeezing the entire life out of him in a hug that did indeed owe something to his grappling training under Shiomi-sensei back at the Academy. (Momma, of course, preferred keeping her enemies at an appropriate distance to be carved into giblets, so she had never spent much time working with him on grappling. Mari-sensei had repeatedly and loudly expressed her feeling that grappling was a sweaty, dirty, unbecoming art form practiced only by people who couldn't manage to fight standing up and that her dislike of it had nothing to do with being at least half a foot shorter and up to a hundred pounds lighter than many potential opponents. Shiomi-sensei had grunted his contempt for those who dismissed the art and thrown Hazō to the ground, showing him the merits of a properly-applied side control and how easily it led into a devastating armbar.)
"Thank you," Hazō said, releasing a gasping Noburi. "The way you got the crowd on my side was great. I really appreciate it."
"It was nothing," Noburi grunted, bent over and trying desperately to inhale.
"Seriously, it was a lot," Hazō said. "I think I pushed a little too hard with the explosive banter and the judges might actually have disqualified me if you hadn't gotten the crowd going."
Hazō decided to interpret Noburi's smile as pleasure at having been useful instead of at the thought of Hazō being disqualified.
"Anyway, we've been waiting for you. Jiraiya told me two things: First, that I just gave away the fact that we have an armor jutsu—"
Noburi facepalmed.
"—and, second, that we should go out and party because it's the expected thing. So what do you say? Want to grab Ino-Shika-Chō and that Sand team, go get loaded, hit on girls, and tear up the town?"
Noburi pulled his hand away from his face, peering at Hazō suspiciously. "'Get loaded, hit on girls, and tear up the town'?" He cocked his head in thought, then punched Hazō in the chest, hard.
"Ow!" Hazō said. "What was that for?"
"I was checking for...dunno. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Anyway, are you quoting Jiraiya or something?"
Hazō rubbed his neck in embarrassment. "No, I was just trying to be fun." He reached into a pocket and handed Noburi a paper. "Would you mind taking a post-interaction survey to grade the success of my 'fun'ness and specify precisely where it could be improved?"
Noburi snorted and tucked the paper away. "Maybe later. Someone promised me booze, girls, and tearing. Keiko, you coming?"
"No. The crowds have no appeal. You boys enjoy yourselves. Don't stay out too late."
Hazō turned to face his sister so that he and Noburi could both stare in shock.
"Do not even dream of punching me," Keiko hissed.
"Uh...no, of course not," Hazō stammered. "Just...that isn't really the kind of thing I would expect you to say."
"Hmph. I was attempting to model Mari-sensei's humor." She cocked her head. "Perhaps it would have worked better had I added 'Don't do anything I wouldn't do'?"
The boys snorted.
"We'll see you later," Hazō said. "Try not to scare anyone into a heart attack."
"I make no promises."
o-o-o-o
"Why, exactly, am I being offered a sweaty and filthy shirt?" asked Inuzuka Mayu, tucking her hands behind herself to make it clear that should not be accepting the offending garment.
"Your sanity will likely suffer less damage if you do not insist on an explanation," Nara said.
"That's one of my training shirts," Hazō explained, blithely ignoring the comment. "Jiraiya said that we could go out on the town to celebrate, but to watch out for kidnap attempts since this many clan heirs in one place could be a tempting target. I figured I should give you something with my scent on it to make it easier for you to track us if there's a problem."
Inuzuka eyed him in amusement. "Kid, we spent two days on the trail together getting here. Akabunto and I know your stink perfectly well without needing to stick our faces in a refugee from the rag bin." Her nin dog, currently leaning against her leg with sufficient force that she had to brace against it, barked agreement and lolled his tongue in a doggie-grin that held just as much amusement as his two-leg partner's.
"Oh," Hazō said. "Right. Sorry."
Inuzuka shrugged, amused. "No worries. At least you're the type who thinks ahead. Better than I can say about some." She gave Kiba a speaking look.
"Hey!"
"Don't worry about it," the jōnin said. "Go have a good time. At least two of us will be keeping a discreet eye on you. You won't see us, but we'll see you."
"Right," Hazō said, his tone decidedly ambivalent. "Okay, thanks."
o-o-o-o
"Come dance!" Hazō said, dragging Ikeda out of her seat and towards the dance floor. The Sand team had been surprised to get the invite and had checked with their jōnin-sensei before agreeing. Said jōnin-sensei was currently two tables over, being remarkably undiscreet about watching the celebrating genin.
Ikeda resisted for only a moment, then changed her mind and went along. The floor was crowded with civilians, but wherever the ninja moved there was at least a full body-length of empty space on all sides of them.
Neither Hazō nor Ikeda knew any actual dance steps, but that was all right. The band was shatteringly loud, the drum beat was so deep that it was impossible to miss (mostly because it rattled the bones), and they were both young, flexible, and physically coordinated. Their arms-length energetic bouncing was at least as good as most of the civilians who surrounded them.
"I see you're also a fan of bombing your own position!" Hazō shouted, leaning close so the girl could hear him over the sounds of a steel-string zither screaming at the hands of a talented and clearly insane master.
"It gets the job done!"
"Cool! We should get together tomorrow sometime, grab a drink!"
Ikeda laughed and twirled away, then back. "Looks to me like you've already had a few!"
Hazō had, in fact, emptied half a dozen large mugs of strong sake already. About half of one—just enough to give his cheeks a bit of a flush—had gone in his mouth, two had been spilled after just a sip, and the rest had had enough fruit soaking in them that there wasn't actually much room for booze. The girls from Sand had been far more moderate, but Akimichi had been matching him drink for drink and seemed utterly unaffected. Nara had politely held a mug all evening but Hazō hadn't seen it actually touch his lips. Ino had spent most of the night drinking fruit juice and trying to get Hazō to slow down. Noburi, aware of the plan, had been running interference for him, loudly declaiming Hazō's inalienable right to make poor choices.
"I'm celebrating!" he said, allowing the Iron Nerve to replay the slight slurring he'd experienced when Jiraiya took them out partying after the fifth event. He had a limited drunken vocabulary and nothing at all in his bloodline's library of motions for convincingly looking drunk while dancing, but he was doing his best to fake it. (
Note to self, he thought.
Get drunk in safe circumstances and perform various actions so as to have them in the Iron Nerve.)
"You were amazing!" he continued. "Boom! Skoosh!" He flung his arms out dramatically. "Gian' pillar of fire!"
She danced closer, running her hands up through her hair (newly shortened and styled to cover up the fact that half of it had been burned off in the aforementioned giant pillar of fire). She gave him a wicked smile as she turned and pressed her back into him, her hips moving in time with his own. She tilted her head so she could speak into his ear at a volume less than a shout. "You weren't so bad yourself. I thought he had you."
"Nah," he said, waving dismissively and deliberately losing track of the beat for a moment as she made contact. He put his hands on her hips and 'recovered' his step, desperately trying not to let her heat distract him. Had he actually been as drunk as he was pretending, all OPSEC would have fallen away at this point, so it was a good opportunity to seed the misinformation he'd been angling for when he invited her in the first place. "M'uncle always says that explosives solve everything. Boom! Squish!" He released her so that he could gesture wildly again, then put his hands back.
"Well, you sure are tough to walk it off like that. You can still smell the smoke in my hair." She looked down and to the side, putting her neck and hair almost under his nose.
"Dunno," he mumbled, nuzzling her a little. It was, on the one hand, very appealing; she was lithe, attractive, and muscular in a way that was making his breathing stutter and his pulse race. On the other, it reminded him of Akane and what they could perhaps have had if only he had been more aware or she had been more communicative. The thought instantly killed his body's interest and he desperately started channeling the Iron Nerve's recollection of his own movements from thirty seconds ago in order to not blow his cover.
"I don' smell any smoke," he said, making himself nip her neck in a way that he'd seen Jiraiya do to make Mari-sensei squeal. (The memory served to strangle to death any trace of lust that might have somehow squeezed past his thoughts of Akane.) "An' it wasn't that hard."
"Yeah?" she said, looking over her shoulder at him and reaching back so she could trail one hand down his cheek while grinding into him. "You're tougher than you look."
"Nah," he said, flashing her the pleased grin he'd worn the first time that Kagome-sensei commented that Hazō's seal blank was 'not entirely awful'. "Normal Kurosawa stuff, that's all." He jolted, his steps stuttering as his eyes went wide to exactly the degree they had done when Jiraiya told him about the OPSEC implications of demonstrating armor jutsu. "I mean, I used him as a meatshield. He had this defensive blood construct that he was using. I grabbed him and swung him between me and the tags. His armor...shield...whatever it was, it soaked most of the blast and then he took the rest of it." He stepped back from her. "Let's take a break. I could use another drink."
Ikeda wasn't nearly good enough to keep the smile completely off her face, but she did her best.
"Sounds good," she purred. "I'll buy this time."
The Kurosawa clan had nothing (that he was aware of) that would let you tank an explosion to the face, but it was extremely good at ensuring that you didn't give away your satisfaction of a lie well planted.
XP AWARD: 1 + (1 for brevity)
Vote time! What to do now?
Voting ends on Wednesday, January 9, 2019, at 12pm London time.
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