| [Dec. 17th, 2017|03:10 am] |
Himself's belly wobbled alarmingly when he laughed. So did his testicles, what the hell. Every time Ryouma thought he was beginning to adjust, something like this reminded him.
Kakashi's hand on the back of his neck was grounding, though. So was the dark, wary look in Harubi's daughter's eyes. He looked at her, half-hidden behind her mother's hip, and scraped himself together for a smile.
They were here for her, really. And Kakashi was here for him.
"Hmm, yes," Himself told Raidou. "Excellent sake. Harubi-san is well worthy of her title as Master Brewer." He smirked, sharp-toothed, and waved a paw at Harubi. "You'll join us, won't you? And the kits can play. Bring me some of that sake," he added to a matronly looking tanuki. "And food for our guests! Plenty of food of every kind."
The matron scurried off, collaring several other tanuki as she went. Himself's black gaze fell back benevolently on Raidou. "You humans are all so skinny. Especially those three." A curved claw pointed out Kakashi, Genma, and Kurenai.
If Kurenai was insulted, she didn't show it. "We've had to rely on speed, not natural defenses. Harubi-san, would you sit with me? We spoke with your friend, Noriko." She eased the tanuki kit out of her lap and edged back from Raidou, opening their seated semicircle. Kakashi nudged Ryouma over to make more room. His hand dropped from Ryouma's nape, but his thigh tucked warm against Ryouma's hip. Kin grumbled and rearranged her front half into Ryouma's lap.
Harubi shooed her children gently. The boy hesitated a moment, then tore himself away to join a tumble of kits. The girl stuck resolutely by her mother. She was perhaps ten years old, more sturdy than skinny, with her dark hair tied back from the scar on her cheek. Her eyes skipped distrustfully over the shinobi, too hard for a civilian her age.
Harubi knelt facing Kurenai, with the girl burr-like at her side. "I didn't catch your name."
"Yuuhi Kurenai. I'm a kunoichi of Konohagakure no Sato. I specialize in intelligence." Kurenai met Harubi's eyes directly. Her voice was low but clear. "My companions are members of an ANBU team. They specialize in difficult situations."
Harubi's brown eyes skimmed over them. "They don't require intelligence?"
Kurenai's lips curved. "That's why I came. Though they've done all right on their own, so far."
A faint smile echoed on Harubi's mouth. "What did Noriko say?"
"She wanted us to ask your husband where you and the children were." Kurenai's red gaze held steady, with no hint of the false humility or subterfuge she'd shown with the brewers in Tanigawa. "She was angry. At the rest of the village, and at herself. She told us what Nomiya did to the rice merchant's guard, that no one intervened then or ever. That you stayed to protect your children's inheritance. And that you might have left, at the end, to keep them safe. She wanted us to find you. And, I think, to avenge you."
Harubi's brows pinched. She looked exhausted under her tan and freckles, a papering of new health over years of strain, but she seemed to have cried out all her tears. "She suggested I poison him once. I was never sure if she was joking." Her hands knotted in her lap. She looked down at them, and then up at Kurenai, fiercely. "I traded the sake to Greatest Grandfather for his help. I won't ask for it back."
Himself puffed on his pipe. "The Fire Daimyou does have very good taste in sake. If he misses this year's batch, it will make him long for the next all the more."
"Can we get that in writing?" Raidou asked.
A handful of acorns appeared from somewhere in Himself's voluminous white fur. He stuck the pipe between his teeth and bounced the acorns in his palm. They spun in the air and came down as a scroll, bottled ink, and brush. He swept the scroll out grandly across his paunch, dipped the brush, and wrote in graceful characters that could have adorned any elegant tea-room.
Kakashi snorted softly. "A pleasure denied is a pleasure doubled." |
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