Interlude: In Which [N/A] People Meet [Yes] of Their Old [Error: Undefined], and Much [XXX] Is Had By All
Courtier Mari hesitated outside Ami's door. She was the best Mari when it came to playing from a position of vulnerability, and to getting out before the vulnerability turned physical (she regretted the original showing Ami the extent of their CQC skills), but that didn't mean she enjoyed approaching an interaction like this without adequate research and preparation.
Unfortunately, the consensus was that it needed to be done. Pragmatic Mari was insistent that they needed to cultivate Ami as an asset given that she alone could instruct them in the advantages and pitfalls of plurality. Mariko argued that they should say thank you to the person who'd given them helpful advice out of the goodness of her heart (Mariko didn't really get the favour economy). The Heartbreaker wanted to seize the initiative in any confrontation over their supposed betrayal of Keiko in Isan—one-on-one in Ami's home territory wasn't ideal, but it prevented the worst-case scenario of being blindsided by an attack on Ami's terms, which might include anything from the social power of the KEI to the physical power of Naruto. Of the other Maris, none had both the interest and the influence to successfully argue otherwise, though Cautious Mari had quietly done her best.
"Come in," came the call from inside Ami's Uchiha quarters before Courtier Mari ever knocked. That in itself was not remotely surprising—various Maris did the same to Hazō for fun now and then—but that didn't mean it wasn't concerning. By delaying exactly this long—and Ami had a freakishly precise sense of time—and then being the one to initiate the interaction anyway, Ami was making a second-tier dominance play. Ami generally didn't bother with dominance plays against fellow players, as she claimed to find them boring, so it was possible that she was making a special point of starting off on the wrong foot. Alternatively, she could have done it on a whim with no purpose whatsoever but to throw Courtier Mari off her game and see what happened.
This, this was how life was meant to be lived. It was yet another thing Akatsuki and Hidden Rock had to pay for. In cutting down so many of Leaf's finest, they'd left the Maris looking for worthy challengers among the likes of Lady Inuzuka (who simply didn't have the skill to compete) and Yūhi (who wasn't interested in playing the game for its own sake). The Maris weren't born to sit at home reading all day (with the possible exception of Scholarly Mari). They were born to fence with fellow masters using words sharper than blades, dancing on battlefields far more subtle and no less deadly than any blood-drenched warzone.
One day. But for now, onwards and inwards. To Courtier Mari, the only thing worse than entering an encounter blind was entering it too late.
"Mari!" Ami exclaimed cheerfully, a bowl of peacock delights in her hand. The incredibly expensive sweets were strongly associated with the Hyūga, since the manufacturer paid them through the nose for a clansman to inspect the material vats for impurities once a month. "Come in. Sit down. Have some snacks. How does it feel to be back on the mission roster? Did you enjoy Hidden Haze? Do you ever get tired of hurting Kei? Here, have one from the top row."
She offered Courtier Mari the bowl. Courtier Mari took a sweet without hesitation. A test this obvious was nothing more than a casual greeting between professionals.
"Don't worry," Ami said after watching her eat the (delicious) peacock delight altogether too alertly. "Kei asked me to hold off until she's decided what she wants. My little girl's all grown up!"
That was either a ploy to get Courtier Mari off guard or a massive relief (however much it grated to have to take advantage of a little girl's incompetence). Courtier Mari wasn't sure how far Ami was prepared to go in the name of vengeance, but considering what any
Mari would do to someone who so much as laid a finger on her family, multiplied by Ami's obsession with her sister... On the whole, it would be best not to find out.
For now, Courtier Mari decided to play it smooth. The best move when the target's objectives were unknown was to build rapport while feeling them out, and in this case ideally wait for a more predictable Ami to turn up.
Trickster Mari was the best when it came to engaging with this bouncy Ami (and also in general). She ran through a few good jokes in her head, made a choice, and opened her mouth—
"Blood in the water," Ami gasped. "You've
awakened!"
Nope. Nope nope nope. Trickster Mari was not up for this. Forget this not being her wheelhouse, it was a ship on completely the wrong side of the Kaiju Ocean, with a kraken amorously entwined with the steering wheel.
"What exactly do you mean by that?" Scholarly Mari asked.
"You have been liberated from the delusion of singular identity, likely by a traumatic experience that the original construct could not process while the majority of your power was locked behind a warped concept of the self," Ami explained. "While you are not the first plurality I have encountered, I believe you and me are going to have so much fun!"
This was Bondsmith Mari's opening. "We'd like that," she said. "Still, we're very new to this, and we don't really know how to manage this way of being now that it's suddenly not a metaphor anymore. Do you think you could help guide us through it?"
"It is a dangerous thing, tracking the mud of one's flawed reality into the pristine domain of another's heart," Ami said distantly. "You arrived here when your shell was broken by force. Where will you go if a careless touch breaks you a second time?"
"We all hurt ourselves sometimes, even without help," Bondsmith Mari said. Sometimes you couldn't start out on equal footing, but a well-built master-apprentice relationship was a thing of infinite possibility, both to deepen and to evolve into something more. "That's why we have to reach out and look for others who won't make the same mistakes, so that we can learn lessons from them that we can't teach ourselves. Please teach us how to do this right… if you're willing."
"It would be a mistake to set optimisation as your terminal goal," Ami replied in a slightly clipped tone as she placed the bowl in the exact middle of the table without looking, "or even a central milestone. You can now observe, if you have not already, that the optimiser is only one or more of a larger number, and for them to pursue extended dominance will invite disjunction. You will, in time, attain an equilibrium or selection of same, whereupon unified priorities will accomplish the same goals organically."
"Sure," Bleak Mari said, "and lay waste to all around us in ineffectual flailing until we get there. The more Maris, the more potential for disaster. One was bad enough."
"I will not gainsay you," Ami agreed. "How many times have you already hurt Kei through your carelessness? She draws suffering to herself like a lodestone, offering her own efforts whenever the universe falters, but she is inexperienced, and can only torment herself so much. You, the expert, achieve much more by abusing her trust."
Ah, crap.
No, you know what, Wrathful Mari had had enough of this shit. She was not going to keep walking on eggshells because of Ami's messed-up sister complex. If Ami didn't have the guts to force a confrontation, then Wrathful Mari would do it for her, and teach the girl her place once and for all.
"Could you give me a little time to think this through?" Ami asked just as Wrathful Mari was winding up for her offensive. "People like you are rarer than secret police officers who don't take bribes, and it would crush me to break one by accident. There's more chaos potential here than you can imagine, but chaos is like arson—if you want it to rage out of control just right, you need to be scrupulously precise about where and how you start the fire. How about we call it here for the day?"
"Sure thing," the Heartbreaker said. The strongest, most experienced Mari had nothing but contempt for the brainless imbecile who couldn't even get anger—her raison d'être— right. Anger was cold. It lay beneath the surface, silent, watching for the moment when the enemy was defenceless. Then, only then, did it destroy. Mercilessly. Absolutely. With no nonsense about leaving your enemy behind in a weakened state. The Heartbreaker didn't confuse domination with destruction any more than she confused her left hand with her right.
"I'll be in touch," she said, letting Ami assume whatever she wanted to assume, and committing to nothing.
She turned to leave, keeping Ami in her peripheral vision until the last moment.
"That said," Ami whispered in her ear, "I do have one lesson for you… if I have your consent."
The Heartbreaker turned back, recognising the tone. She nodded slightly. "Just like old times?"
Ami grinned. "
Nothing like old times."
She placed her hands around Harlot Mari's waist. "For now, just follow my lead."
Then she twisted around and hurled Harlot Mari across the room, through the other doorway, and onto the bed, with all the precision of a jōnin throwing expert.
Before Harlot Mari could get her bearings, Ami was on top of her, holding her down.
Ami held still, as if in expectation, not making any offensive move.
Harlot Mari was a professional. It clicked after only a second of locked gazes.
Submissive Mari relaxed into the hold, tilting her head back as Ami stole a kiss, then another. Ami lowered herself down, shifting into a tight embrace, and Trickster Mari slipped out of her grasp with the maximum amount of bodily contact, and out of her blouse in the same elaborate movement. Ami's fingers danced over the exposed skin, and Sensual Mari allowed herself to melt into her touch for a little while before Fire Mari shifted to be on top and kissed Ami deeply, repeatedly, the rhythm building into a frenzy. As she felt fingernails scoring lines across her back, Masochistic Mari pulled away and leaned back to rub against them, and when those hands began to glide questioningly in interesting directions, Managerial Mari guided them into place
there and
there…
-o-
"Mari," Noburi greeted her as she staggered into the Gōketsu living room. Given the weather outside, he'd long since prepared her a mug of hot chocolate—storage scrolls were incredible things as long as you were prepared to faff around with reinforced containers every time you brewed a drink for later—and she accepted it gratefully. "You're back late. Also, is that a litter outside?"
"Couldn't walk," Mari said. "Would have been a bad idea to stay overnight." She took a deep drink.
"Where were you, anyway? Weren't you going to see Ami? I thought you tried to ration the amount of time you spent around her."
Noburi prepared to mentally update his "things that make Mari happy" list in the direction of greater chaos.
"Wild orgy," Mari said with a mischievous grin. "Dozens of people, and that's not counting the shadow clones."
Noburi put the list away again. He was not having that permanently recorded in his head.
"Uh," he said, looking away. "I know I was the one who asked, but TMI."
"Actually," Mari said, "it was just the two of us, and we spent all day training in our specialisation. This doesn't really apply to you since you're on a general track, but for someone like me, there's a lot you can only learn from a fellow specialist."
"Oh," Noburi said. "Well, that's all right, then. I can think of certain people who would straight-up explode if they thought you and Ami were doing anything inappropriate together."
Mari gave him the strangest smile as she waved him good night and slowly climbed the stairs to her bedroom.
