| Diversionary Tactics | [Mar. 4th, 2014|05:43 pm] |
[Takes place the early morning of May 5, Yondaime Year 5, the day after Shoot the Messenger.]
The first morning of team training started cool and misty and, Raidou was gratified to note, promptly. Kakashi was actually early, which made a first.
And… surprisingly enthused.
Raidou leaned his elbows back on the dew-dappled fence rail, and watched in faint puzzlement as Kakashi hauled Ryouma out onto the field, bullied him through a fast warm-up, and proceeded to hound him viciously around the field, sparring him repeatedly into the dirt.
Sitting on the railing, Katsuko cheered sleepily.
Raidou leaned sideways and muttered to Genma, “Hatake seem a little extra peppy to you?”
Genma didn’t quite meet his eyes. “He seems to have developed a real enthusiasm for sparring of late. Showed up at my door last night with his face out to here.” He brushed two fingers across his left cheek, indicating a pretty sizable ouch.
“I’m not sure which part of that made the least sense,” Raidou said. “He came to your door?”
“Yeah. I was as surprised as you are.” Genma propped his chin on his hands; he was standing behind the fence, leaning slightly over it. Compared to Katsuko’s half-lidded slouch, he looked almost lively. “He came to tell me— Ah, shit, this is probably still not common knowledge. He came to deliver some amazingly good news he had access to because of his relationship with the Hokage.”
That—could be any number of things, but going by the faint curve of Genma’s mouth behind the silver senbon, Raidou had a pretty good guess.
He flicked two ANBU-signs. Teammate followed by home safe?, ending in a curl-fingered question.
Genma’s smile spread, actually showing a flash of white teeth, and his fingers tapped against his arm: Looks safe. That wasn’t quite as definite as all clear, but hopeful. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I was shocked as hell Kakashi actually came to tell me. He wasn’t under orders or anything. It was a spontaneous act.”
Raidou didn’t even know what to do with that.
He looked back out onto the field, where the spar had devolved into a wrestling match, and wondered what Ryouma had done to earn the opposite treatment. Maybe Kakashi had just woken up contrary.
“Tousaki, watch your— Face, yeah. Never mind! You got it,” Katsuko yelled helpfully.
They felt the exact moment Ryouma woke up. There was a dull, ominous thump of chakra, flattening the tall grass down in a perfect ten-foot circle, and Kakashi went flying. Ryouma surged to his feet, wiping blood from his nose on the back of his wrist. Kakashi tumbled and landed in a neat crouch, grass sticking out of his hair at wild angles, and gestured invitingly.
Ryouma’s eyes narrowed.
The next spar was faster-paced, meaner, and ripped a trench out of the ground.
“I feel like we should intervene,” Raidou said, making no move to do so.
Katsuko flapped one hand at him. “Shhh.”
“Tousaki’s still favoring that leg,” Genma said, and raised his voice to carry over the field. “If you break anything, Toushirou-sensei’s fixing it, not me.”
There was the briefest flicker of an acknowledgement, and then a sharp, breathless flurry of blows so fast they were hard to follow. Raidou watched with interest, dissecting the chosen styles: a bastardized version of tobu no aisatsu for Kakashi, all calculated grace and economic movement, and ue'chiwassu for Ryouma, with its long, aggressive strikes designed to disarm and drive through an opponent. They made an interesting match, Ryouma’s reach and strength against Kakashi’s flexibility and vanishingly irritating talent of not being where you expected. Raidou couldn’t call it.
“Actually, I might have set this off,” Genma volunteered quietly, while Kakashi performed a maneuver that looked mostly designed to unscrew Ryouma’s head. “I told him he needed to make more of an effort towards building camaraderie.”
Ryouma wrenched loose and threw Kakashi into a tree.
“Well,” said Raidou, watching leaves rain down. “At least he’s engaging.”
“Engaging with the foliage,” Katsuko managed, through gasping laughter.
“I didn’t actually suggest this particular method, in case you were wondering,” Genma said.
A silvery streak flashed. The tree shook, showering yet more leaves and a broken branch. Kakashi landed, re-bounded, and hit Ryouma low, scything his legs out. Ryouma snatched Kakashi’s collar before Kakashi could twist away, taking the smaller man down with him. They hit the dirt in a tangle of limbs and—in Ryouma’s case—swearing, and rolled around like scrapping dogs.
That was probably enough.
“Ueno, go tap in before they kill each other,” Raidou said. |
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