| [Jan. 1st, 2011|08:19 pm] |
Pakkun considered this, feeling his fur prickle as the fire stroked heat up his back.
"Nah," he said finally. "I don't think so."
Ginta's eyebrows twitched. In the flicking light they were bright gold. His wildfire hair looked sun-thatched. There was a wealth of skepticism buried in the sharp bone-structure of his aristocrat's face.
Pretty kid, for a human.
"Lemme guess," Pakkun said, settling comfortably on his achy haunches. "It's only the ninja-discipline that keeps you on the straight and narrow. If you hadn't been learning to break skulls and mix poisons and set leg-snapping traps from the age of — six, probably — you'd be some kind of baby-eating serial killer by now?"
Ginta's blue eyes were flat. "Something like that."
Pakkun snorted softly, a whuff of breath that ruffled his whiskers. "I swear, you ninja — you and Hatake-brat could keep a full fleet of counsellors employed between you. I don't know what kind of education you had, twinkle-toes, but here's ninken lesson number one: ninja-life does not make you more balanced. Not at all. Just look at Kakashi. You think he'd be ripping wannabe-friends apart if his dad had been a painter?"
Ginta's glassy, ironic laugh could have scoured steel. "So you know about all that? He's... There's... With Ryouma and him and me... It's complicated. And stupid. I should have been smart enough to cut and run way back in February." Thin shoulders shrugged. "But you know, it's not like I think being a ninja makes me sane. It just — it gives some direction to my — to our — insanity."
"Uh huh," said Pakkun, supremely unconvinced. "Because when you were a blue-eyed tot, I bet you dreamed of knifing throats out."
"I burned my mother with a chakra burst when I was three," Ginta said, hard-voiced, as if that was damning evidence. "If you want to tell me I'm who I am now because I've spent my entire life living with and becoming a ninja, fine. Maybe it's true. But you know what? If you took away my oath and my orders and my discipline now, I don't think I'd end up being a scroll painter. I traded any potential brush for a blade when I was five."
Pakkun wondered how likely he was to get kicked into the fire if he rolled his eyes. "No kidding. The heir of a family of high-ranking ninja, raised in a ninja village, reaching for weapons. I can't tell you the depth of my shock." He huffed, fur bristling wetly over his shoulders as the sleet gathered force, peppering down over their small camp. It steamed in the fire.
Ginta interrupted sharply, before Pakkun could add more. "That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying I know myself, and without my discipline... I scare myself."
He stiffened up all over, eyes a little wide, as if he'd just badly shocked himself. Pakkun waited to see if he had anything else to add, but Ginta sat with his mouth clamped shut, jaw blanched white at the hinges, looking young and shadowed and very much like a killer in his bloodless armour.
Very much like a tired, badly damaged boy. Just like all these other ninja-kids.
"Good," Pakkun said simply.
Ginta's head came up.
"You kill people for a living," Pakkun reminded him. "You should be scared. It'll help keep you human." He glanced over towards the tent; the canvas gleamed in the hissing firelight, bowed slightly inwards. Inside, there was nothing to see but darkness. Even with his sharp ears, Pakkun couldn't make out the faint sound of breathing. He looked back at Ginta. "You should get some sleep, glitter-bug. You look dead on your feet. I can keep the watch."
Ginta unlocked his tense jaw.
"I'd appreciate it," Pakkun added more quietly. "Kakashi could use the warmth." |
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