| [Sep. 4th, 2017|11:32 pm] |
Briefly, she summarized their findings, emphasizing the missing traces of three peoples' lives as much as the old blood stains. "I think Nomiya Harubi left on her own, but she had help," she concluded. "Someone needs to talk to Suki-san and her friend. Hatake's patrolling a perimeter now; he'll meet us at the tanuki statue."
Raidou scratched the back of his neck. "This was weird before. It's weirder now." He dropped his hand. "Yuuhi, I want you to talk to the women — take Shiranui with you. Tousaki, you and I are going to step into the izakaya, buy a lot of drinks, and see if anyone wants to complain at us."
Kurenai glanced at Genma. "One pretty boy is interchangeable for another?"
Genma's mouth curled toward a smile. He looked away, but not before Kurenai caught the hint of a rising flush. "I hope Suki-san isn't disappointed by the substitution."
"No comment." Raidou's mouth tugged, too. He thumped Ryouma's shoulder. "C'mon, Tousaki, I'm going to show you how to lose impressively at darts. We're gonna make people feel manly."
"An' ruin Konoha's reputation forever…" Ryouma trailed after him obediently.
Kurenai tipped her head at Genma. "Suki-san may not be the one you need to charm. Her friend was angry. You could hint you've seen enough of Nomiya to sympathize."
He glanced toward Nomiya's house. "I won't have to pretend."
"Good." Kurenai's own anger was cold, deeply buried, and growing.
She dropped the silencing genjutsu and retraced their steps toward the edge of the village. Genma corrected her once, with a slight shoulder-touch; he'd seen the house Suki-san's friend came from. It was small, plank-walled and thatch-roofed, but light still gleamed between the narrow wooden shutters.
A teenage girl answered the door. Her eyes rounded; she stepped back involuntarily, then regained her composure. "Shinobi-san?"
"We're looking for Nomiya Harubi-san's friend." Mother or aunt to this girl, Kurenai guessed. "She wanted us to ask where Harubi-san and the children are."
"And did you?" The woman came through a sliding door into the genkan, her dark eyes unafraid. She was still dressed in a dark cotton kimono and plain obi, as if she'd expected these late-evening visitors. Laughter-lines framed her mouth, but her lips were drawn thin.
"We asked," Kurenai said quietly. "And then we searched. And now we want to talk to you."
The woman looked at Genma. "Where are the rest of your band? Team?" She pronounced the word the way Ryouma did, when he wasn't quite sure it was right.
Genma gestured back towards the izakaya at the village center. "Asking other people in the village what they might know about the situation." He lowered his voice. "But from what you said before, we guessed you might have more to tell us than most others."
The woman hesitated, then reached for a wood-framed lantern on a shelf near the door. "Tell your mother I'll be back soon," she instructed the girl. She lit the lantern and came out between Genma and Kurenai. "This way. Around the back."
The restrictive kimono kept her steps short but fast. Kurenai kept pace easily. "Your niece?"
"My sister's oldest." She wasn't afraid to speak to ninja about her family; she was looking down the street instead, alert for any hint of her neighbors. Satisfied, she ducked down a narrow alley between houses and led them to a tiny, sheltered garden, with a wooden bench looking over a raked spread of gravel. "This is Yoshida-san's meditation garden, but he's been deaf for twenty years. He won't hear."
Kurenai sat at the other end of the bench. "What don't you want him to hear?" |
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