| [Jan. 21st, 2012|11:42 pm] |
This didn’t seem much like a good decision, but at least it might end in sleep. Or unconsciousness.
Hopefully unconsciousness.
Kakashi folded a leg up to brace his arm on the knee, and watched Katsuko throw back two more long draws of shouchu, her throat flexing. She winced and coughed, wiping her mouth. The bottle dangled between her skinny fingers.
“Drink often?” Kakashi asked.
She smiled at him, looking happy and smelling nothing like it. “Actually, no.”
Wonderful. “Have you eaten?”
Her shifty-eyed pause both failed to reassure him and got her a mental point deducted for stealth. “Since when?”
Kakashi gave her a long look. “Not to criticize your coping mechanisms, but alcohol poisoning probably won’t help you. Slow down.”
“How is this my life?” Katsuko muttered, raking her hood back and tousling her hair into a schizophrenic bird nest. She set the bottle down by one flip-flopped foot and dug into her six-pack, popping the tab on the first can she touched. This time she drank slowly.
“You can always quit,” Kakashi suggested, lifting his chin to look at the Monument’s silhouette. “Retire and be a baker.”
She followed his gaze. “I have as much a chance of doing that as you do,” she said, stripped down flat. She caught his eye, twitching one shoulder in an angular shrug. “I’m a ninja. There’s nothing else.”
Kaminari and her husband are still out there. Whatever time you can get me will have to be enough.
A week ago, he might have taken the bottle and toasted her with it. But with Ryouma asleep (alive) two stories below, he just nodded once. We have that in common.
Except she was still ANBU, and he was...
Sharingan no Kakashi, last of the Hatake clan, the Yondaime’s student, who survived six years in ANBU and has now retired to begin a distinguished new career as the village’s top jounin.
Uncertain.
He braced his weight more firmly on his knee. “You never told me how you escaped.” |
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