| [Dec. 17th, 2017|03:03 am] |
The tanuki didn't exactly make their prisoners comfortable, while they waited. Standing about with their hands tied was still better than lying pinned beneath several dozen kilos of tanuki, though. Or rather, Kurenai suspected, a few kilos of tanuki and several dozen kilos of tanuki testicle.
The tanuki god — Himself — seemed to be enjoying himself well enough. He rocked back on his scrotal perch, eyes half-slitted closed, and blew smoke rings at the sky and occasionally at the ninja. Kakashi managed not to cough. Ryouma tried to mimic his straight-backed disdain, but inhaled at the wrong moment and nearly crippled himself. Raidou, stone-faced, seemed to have fallen asleep on his feet.
The dogs huddled around Kakashi's feet, and growled whenever a stray tanuki came too close.
At first the audience had been mostly the tanuki who'd caught them. But more arrived all the time, trickling out from houses and gardens, toting strings of fish from the stream or baskets of fruit from the orchard. A toddle of kits bumbled up, all soft ears and pointed, inquisitive faces, and loud speculation about whether these humans had balls.
Kurenai flicked a swift glance at Raidou. His stone mask hadn't shifted, but his head tilted slightly, watching the kits.
Then the crowd began to shift, eddying away from a cleared path. Azami, straight-backed in her teal kimono, led the way. And behind her—
Genma, fully armored, with his mask clipped to his belt and his pale face bare of injury. His roving gaze snared only momentarily on Himself's vast silver bulk before it raced on, finding Ryouma head-and-shoulders above the crowd, Kakashi lean and dour, Raidou transfixed with sudden relief, Kurenai—
She smiled at him, almost giddy with it.
His anxious face split with delight. A fluffy tanuki kit, walking two-legged in yukata at his side, tugged at his wrist; Genma answered it without looking down. He looked healthy, whole, without a hitch in his stride or a shadow on his face. His sun-bleached hair was mussed from its usual neat tail, and a reddish stubble caught the light on his jaw.
He hadn't managed to shave that morning, Kurenai guessed. But the faint stubble wasn't any longer than a few days would justify, and none of the men had shaved since they left Hiraizumi. Time hadn't moved differently for him, in this world.
Except Raidou's punch should have left a bruise. Had the tanuki healed him? Or was this merely another trick, a too-perfect copy?
"Greatest Grandfather," Azami announced, "here is the human. And here," she added wryly, gesturing two small kits and a half-grown adolescent forward, "are his abductors."
Himself's vast belly trembled. "So your kits really didsteal these humans' lieutenant." His furry cheeks pouched, but the black eyes were sharp and watchful.
The smallest kit, in a honeycomb-patterned blue yukata, shrank back against Genma's legs. Genma patted its head absently, his gaze still skimming over his team, holding every time he caught their eyes. Kin was on her feet now, her tail a blur; Genma looked down at her, and cracked another grin.
Surely scent wouldn't lie. But the tanuki were master tricksters, and just as scent-oriented as Kakashi's dogs. They'd think of that, too.
"We were rescuing—" a tanuki kit in a flower-patterned yukata began, but the pink-clad adolescent yanked her back with a quelling glare, and offered instead, "We're sorry for causing trouble, Greatest Grandfather."
"They thought the humans were beating him and tried to help." Azami still looked wry, but she was starting to look a little fond, too.
Raidou said abruptly, "What should you not put in eggs?"
The tanuki stared at him, but Genma's relief finally reached his eyes. He shook his head. "Dried sea ear fungus. I heard you had a statue dropped on you. Are you okay?" |
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