| [Dec. 17th, 2017|03:22 am] |
Ryouma’s pupils dilated like ink in water. Tension spilled off his shoulders. His scent — acrid since the moment Genma had vanished, worse after the wolves, blackened in front of Sen — finally settled, curling to thunderheads over calm seas.
Warily, Kakashi looked at Harubi. She was standing with ease, a smile touching her lips. Next to her, Kurenai’s eyes were nearly as dark as Ryouma’s, gleaming crimson. Genma had turned to look at the bonfire, where kits tumbled gleefully near the crackling sparks with Harubi’s son. He expression was soft. Raidou, equally relaxed, was watching Genma.
All of them, especially Genma, had poison training. They wouldn’t just stand there.
Kakashi watched them just stand there.
The purely intellectual part of his mind, which studied the world and took notes, thought, interesting.
Ryouma offered the cup to Kakashi. Kakashi accepted it, balancing the weight, and squinted at the contents. Liquid sloshed innocently. It smelled like sake. There was nothing smeared inside the rim. No powder granules in the base. Himself had drunk, but Himself was a magical interdimensional being with unknowable body chemistry.
Kakashi pictured the conversation with Minato. And you drank the mysterious drink why?
Everyone else did?
Then again, Minato shared Gamabunta’s toad sake and came home with ringing hangovers, so who was he to comment on peer pressure?
Kakashi looked at Himself. The immense tanuki lord was watching with glittering black eyes.
“What’s in it?” Kakashi asked.
“Rice from Kamakura polished to forty percent,” said Himself, without guile. “Water from Kinano River, rice koji, and yeast. Or do you put something else in the Fire Daimyou’s sake, Harubi-san?”
“A blessing for good sense,” Harubi said. She looked at Kakashi, and something — not judgemental, but something — in her expression made him feel young and foolish, as if he was missing a piece of adult knowledge. She said, “Tanuki magic affects it a little, but it won’t hurt you.”
One of the kits piped up — the older one, who ordered her siblings around. “They drink it and laugh and tell stories.” Grouchily, she added, “We’re not allowed to have it until we’re older.”
Himself’s laugh rumbled through the twilight air. Genma rumpled the kit’s soft ears, which made her swat at him, but look pleased all the same.
“And if I don’t drink?” Kakashi pressed.
One of Himself’s curving ears flicked. “Then you’ll envy your friends who did, and regret missing the opportunity forever afterwards.”
That wasn’t a threat, exactly. |
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