- Location
- The Deep Blue Sea
Having done a bunch of writing today (the next update is pretty much done!) I went back and tried to improve the tone of the Barrel-Boy interlude. Here is the updated ending, which should now be in both this thread and the story-only one correctly. If you are like a couple people (including me, eventually) who thought the end was a bit off/disconnected, I would appreciate any more feedback.
...
Eventually he made the right impression, and got called out from his squad for a special large-scale mission into enemy territory. The only Wakahisa going, a representative of his clan! Finally something was going his way. His dad would be so proud.
-o-
Their trip to the village had been a disaster, as far as Noburi was concerned. Sure, they'd accomplished a couple of their mission objectives, but they'd been made to look like idiots and the villagers were now probably suspicious of their cover story.
And it was all because of that smug bastard Kurosawa. Even though Shikigami-sensei had made him nominally the head of their squad, Noburi should have been taking the lead in a first contact situation. Putting a socially incompetent weirdo like Kurosawa as their point-man was, frankly, stupid.
If he had been in charge, Noburi was sure they would have come away with better information, more of the goods they needed, and without having made such a poor impression. Why did Shikigami-sensei and Mari-sensei pay so much attention to Kurosawa anyway? The other boy was probably a huge kiss-ass behind the scenes.
And Mori, kami. How do you even make it through the academy being that passive? Though maybe that was fine for someone expecting to go into logistics, and Noburi had to admit that he probably wasn't seeing her at her best. She'd been pretty shaken up by all the gruesome deaths happening, so maybe he could cut her some slack. Plus, she was cute, and when did that not earn you a little leniency?
He glanced over at the object of his musings as she surveyed the death swamp around them, stone-faced. Yeah, she needs a pick-me-up, he thought. An idea came to him, one that would let him get one over on Kurosawa and show off his sense of humor in front of Keiko.
...
"Kurosawa." He poked his teammate's dozing form as Mori disappeared to relieve herself.
"Mmh?"
"I have a plan. Mori seems pretty down - I think we should try to help her lighten up. You know, do her a favor as her teammates."
"Sure. And how's that going to work?"
"Well, tomorrow when you're doing your water-walking training…"
-o-
"Hey, Mr Ninja, where do you come from? Is it cold like it is here? Is it full of trees? Are there giant fish? Are you married? Can you do ninja magic? Would you like some berries? Is that lady your girlfriend? Are any of the ninja villages bigger than our village?"
"Woooah, hang on girls," Noburi said, holding up his hands to stem the tide of inquisitive village youngsters. "Saya- I mean, Sachiko," he quickly corrected himself, "you first." None of them seemed to have caught his slip-up. Including Mori and Kurosawa, who were occupied silently commiserating with each other about their apparent mutual hatred of little girls. He sighed. Marching around and corralling hyperactive munchkins was cutting a little close to home.
-o-
Kurosawa, Noburi, and Mori sat around the campfire as the sun set (figuring that if Inoue-sensei wanted them, she could damn well find them herself). There was a curious feeling of warmth enveloping them that had little to do with the dancing flames.
Kurosawa broke the comfortable silence. "You know, we've been through a lot together. Remember what terrified little newbies we were back at the Swamp of Death? Now look at us."
Noburi gave him a skeptical look. "Are you saying you're not terrified anymore?" I mean, we're definitely better, but we almost died multiple times just today. Surely even he's not that overconfident?
Kurosawa shrugged. "More like… I know you guys have my back. All those bizarre chakra monsters we've fought? None of us could have faced them alone. I think today just drove that home. And that goes for all the infiltrations as well. I like how I have you to brainstorm plans with, and point out errors, and how you guys can do things I can't, and the other way round, without me having to feel bad about it. I never really had that with my old team. I was a loner, and that suited both me and them fine."
Noburi leaned back and looked up at the emerging stars, partly to give himself time to think and partly to hide the emotions on his face. "You know what I like?" he asked somewhat hesitantly. "The two of you have never once treated me as a walking chakra battery, and Inoue-sensei hasn't either. That's what I was expecting when I went on that mission. You don't get to shine as a Wakahisa. No matter who you are or what you can do, everyone just wants you to power them up and then stay in the background while they steal the spotlight. And… you don't do that. So thanks, I guess." God that sounded lame... He forced himself not to look down to gauge their reactions.
What felt like an eternity later, Mori spoke up. "I… I don't mind being in the background so much. I like that there's something only I can do, even if it doesn't look impressive. I'm not saying I want to be here, not knowing what's going to happen next, and scared for my life every day, but I'm glad I can be helpful to someone, and I'm glad I'm not alone."
"What do you want, Mori?" Kurosawa asked. "We've been so focused on running away, we've never discussed our plans for the future."
Mori looked surprised. "Want? I want all this to be over. I want things to make sense again. But that's not going to happen, is it? You can't come back from being a missing-nin."
"Maybe not," Kurosawa replied. "But I think you can move forwards. We've all grown a lot compared to how we started out. Maybe not yet, but sometime soon we can start thinking about where we want to be, and what we want to do. I don't know about you guys, but I only ever had one thing tying me to Mist, and that was my mum. Now she's on her own, and… and I want to get her out of there, or at least make sure she's safe. Then I can move on with no regrets."
"No regrets, huh?" Noburi repeated thoughtfully. That had been a surprisingly emotional statement from the normally mechanical boy. "I like the sound of that. Let's face it, we've got a really badass jōnin leader, a girl with a brain the size of a planet, and a rising star of ninjutsu. Oh, and Kurosawa, you can be pretty good in a fight too. Sometimes. I don't like the idea of getting killed any more than the next man – and the next man is Kagome – but I feel like it would be a waste not to do something really big with all that talent sooner or later."
Mori gave him a weird look. "How can you sit here, on the edge of a forest full of deadly monsters, in the middle of nowhere with Mist hunter-nin out there looking for us, and say something like that?"
"Because, Mori, once Kurosawa and I have a plan, I trust you to figure out how to make it work."
Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly as she tried to come up with a reply to that, which Noburi was pretty proud of.
"Guys," Kurosawa said before she could respond, with a slight tremor to his voice, "we've saved each other's lives several times each now, and we're probably going to be stuck together for the foreseeable future. And I could be wrong, but I feel like... we're becoming friends. Do you think that--" he swallowed "--maybe it's time we moved to first names?"
An awkward silence filled the clearing. The fire seemed to burn more quietly. Wow, all kinds of unexpected things coming out of Kurosawa tonight. Or, I guess, out of Hazou? That doesn't sound so bad, I guess... thought Noburi.
"I… I mean, if you don't think that's…" the other boy continued.
"You've really got to chill out… Hazou," Noburi said, finding it much more difficult to say than it had been to think. "You always have to take everything so seriously. Right, Kei… K… Ke…" Gah! Why?? That could have been so smooth!
"Don't push yourself," Hazou teased. "It's not like we don't have time to get used to the idea. If you're both OK with it, I mean."
Keiko didn't say anything, but gave a faint nod.
-o-
Keiko was almost shrieking, on the verge of tears. "There's nothing left, you're the only thing I still lo—"
Realizing what she was saying.
The awful silence as everyone else realized it too.
Noburi had sort of known, if not totally accepted, that she wasn't attracted to him - might well not be attracted to guys at all - but… was he really nothing to her? Were the rest of the team nothing to her, after all they'd been through, after all they'd done for each other? After the times they'd saved each others' lives?! He started to open his mouth to respond.
"We need to keep moving," Hazou said loudly. "We're still being pursued, and we should meet up with Kagome-sensei and get out of Hot Springs as fast as possible. If he's not at camp, he must be checking the tertiary trap array."
Noburi looked over to him in shock. How could he possibly be thinking that coherently right now? Did he not care, just as much as Keiko said she didn't care? She at least had the decency to act horrified by it!
"Keiko, we all care about you and respect your feelings," Akane said suddenly, "but right now we have to put everything on hold until we're safe. Now, you're the least injured, so could you drop back and guard the rear of the formation? I'll be just ahead of you carrying gear."
Akane too?? No, no, breathe, he told himself. It dawned on him what they were doing, and he slotted into formation next to Hazou.
...
"Not now, Hazou, I'm trying to figure out how to not die," Mari-sensei said darkly.
Noburi caught Hazou's split-second frown, and then the other boy suddenly sprang into action.
"Kai! Damnit!" he shouted before jumping at a startled Kagome and frantically starting to search through the squirming sealmaster's pack. "Calm down, I just need something! Here's the plan," he said, not looking up. "We head over that way"—he gestured west-northwest—"moving fast and leaving a trail. Hopefully we can pull the Hot Springs and Leaf teams together. Whether they start talking or fighting, it gives us more time to escape. When they're getting close we stage our deaths, Yellow Flash to break trail, then run like hell. Noburi, dole out some water for everyone. Overcharge us, because we need to run fast, and we're probably going to be tossing around a lot of jutsu."
He followed the instructions almost on autopilot, reeling from how fast Hazou had put that strategy together. It had happened a couple times before - in fact, it had happened earlier that night when Joutarou's voice came through the door. Noburi shook his head as the team took off running again, figuring that was another topic for when they were all safe.
…
As the light and heat of the fire fell behind them, Akane's legs gave out under her and she crumpled to the ground.
"Shitshitshit!" Hazou said, sliding to a kneeling stop next to her. "What did you do, you stupid girl?!" He frantically grabbed her hand, and seemed to be feeling for a pulse.
"Move!" Noburi said roughly, recognizing the chakra exhaustion for what it was and shoving Hazou aside. Idiot, getting in the way of the medic! He lifted Akane's head and poured water into her mouth; it dribbled out her lips.
"Do something!" Hazou said, practically shouting.
"This is gonna suck," Noburi muttered. He grabbed Akane's jaw, poured in some more chakra-soaked water, sealed his lips to hers, and blew hard.
Akane's head slammed into his before he could pull back, and she spat much of the water back up at him. A good deal landed in his mouth.
He watched Akane for a moment as he spat and wiped his face, then noticed her chest start rising again. "Okay," he said. "She'll be fine in a minute. She coughed most of it out before it could help, so I'll give her another dose when she's breathing properly. That was too damn close, though."
As Hazou grabbed his apprentice's hand again, relief and gratitude clear on his face, Noburi marveled at how it was possible for a guy who was some kind of tactical genius just minutes earlier to have been reduced to hysteria so quickly. Then he shook himself mentally and refilled the cup to give Akane a second dose. They weren't out of the woods yet. They were all depending on him, and he wasn't about to let his friends down.
