| Waiting for Silent Sunrise [Asuma, Ibiki, Kakashi, Ginta] |
[Jan. 28th, 2012|04:12 pm] |
[Takes place immediately following Somewhere a Clock is Ticking]
The medic was about as cheerful as a sack of wet mice, but at least she was good at her job—and she’d divested the landscape of Ibiki, which was no bad thing.
Asuma held his half-lidded trance, humming soft and tuneless in the back of his throat as he pushed heat into Hatake and Ginta, sweat prickling at his temples and down his spine. Ibiki’s fire was bright and healthy, making the shadows dance, another good source of warmth.
“Cracked skull,” Saiyuri muttered to herself, in the same low way she’d said broken orbital socket; broken nose for Ginta. Her glowing hands were still wrapped around Kakashi’s head, doing who-knew-what to whatever piece of damage was lurking under all that blood-matted hair.
“Is his brain bleeding?” Asuma asked quietly, because that was a career-ender right there, if it didn’t snuff Hatake’s life out completely.
She shushed him.
Asuma bit his tongue.
A little snow drifted down outside, hissing as it landed in the fire, but the sky was still clear and star-spangled, lit up silver by a sickle moon. Ginta’s breathing rasped, soft but even. Pakkun crawled into Asuma’s lap, banished from his master with a stern word and a sharp glare. Asuma rumpled his ears with a free hand, sparing a twist of heat for the little dog.
( And waited. ) |
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| Somewhere a Clock Is Ticking [Asuma, Ibiki, Kakashi, Ginta] |
[Dec. 9th, 2011|02:02 am] |
[Takes place May 3, immediately following Tiny Little Fractures and approximately six hours following All Fall Down]
As mission partners went, Morino Ibiki ranked somewhere between creepy and bitchy, but at least he didn’t get seasick. The boat ride from Kuroihama to Hima was long, cold, and mostly boring. Asuma used the time to catch up on sleep in the hold, wedging himself between a netted stack of boxes and a dozen oiled canvas bags filled with sheepskins.
Ibiki stayed up on deck, brooding against the railing.
At least, it had looked like brooding. Maybe he’d been going over his grocery list.
When Asuma dragged himself yawning back to the deck, hours later, and forced a cigarette to light against the wind, the weather was icy. Unseasonably so for freakin’ May, even as far north as Lightning Country.
( He found Ibiki still brooding, but on the opposite side. ) |
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| The Birthday Party (Ibiki, Idate, Tsume, Kiba, Hana, Kuromaru) |
[Mar. 2nd, 2011|03:02 pm] |
Takes place July 7, three months after Ibika’s rescue of Kiba from the Forest of Death in Where the Wild Things Are and Tsume’s failed search for Ryouma in Never and Always, and two months after Ibiki and Asuma’s retrieval mission for Kakashi and Ginta in Tiny Little Fractures (That arc will continue as planned, we’re just time-skipping Tsume and Ibiki)
Ibiki had never been inside the Inuzuka compound before. He’d walked by it plenty of times, but from the road all one could see were the dense thicket of trees that bordered the Inuzuka land and separated it from the rest of Konoha, and the occasional wisp of smoke from cooking fires. Rumor had it, according to his little brother Idate, that setting one uninvited foot onto the path through the trees would result in a vicious mauling by a pack of savage Inuzuka hounds that were too wild to be ninken.
“Jotaro’s brother tried it on a dare,” Idate said solemnly, “and he got his whole face eaten off, and you could see the bones and everything.”
“Really?” Ibiki asked. They were nearing the compound now, strolling under dappled shadows on the road next to the compound. The closer they got, the more Idate slowed down.
“Really, niisan. Really, really.”
(
“Well it’s a good thing we’re invited then, isn’t it? Do you have the invitation?” ) |
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| Tiny Little Fractures [Genma, Raidou, Ibiki, Asuma] |
[Jan. 23rd, 2011|09:17 pm] |
[Takes place May 3, the same day as Off the Reservation]
Genma shut the apartment door behind him and leaned against it, holding the scroll in one hand. He looked across the apartment to Raidou who was in the kitchen, drying clean dishes.
"What was that about?" Raidou asked, pausing mid-motion, damp glass in one hand, tea towel in the other.
"It was Ginta. He wants me to give this to Arakaki on the sixth." Genma stared at the scroll, a standard mid-mission report type, like countless scrolls he himself had filed from the field on longer missions. It was sealed and secured, addressed to Arakaki, and coded with the red and black stripes that marked it as ANBU-specific, A-class or higher, and urgent.
"He can't hand it in himself?" Raidou asked. He put the glass and towel down and took a few steps towards Genma.
"He was dressed in his gear, like he was heading out on a mission." Genma turned the scroll over and over, as if he could somehow read it through the opaque outer covering. "But there's no way he's mission-fit yet. I mean, shit, he and Kakashi were both in the ICU the same time as us, and look at us." He shrugged his arm in its splint and sling, tilted his head back to expose the remains of a more-than-a-month-old garrote injury, still fading red lines under a dusting of stubble. Looked at Raidou's bandage-covered cheek, where the worst of the burns still hid.
Raidou graced Genma with the dryest of grins. "Speak for yourself. I'm the picture of health." He came the rest of the way to Genma to peer down at the scroll. "Assuming 'stamped-on shinobi' counts as healthy, anyway. You gonna open that?"
"I don't know." Genma met his partner's eyes. "It's sealed for Arakaki, it's a mission scroll. That right there makes it a big deal for me to violate the seal. And then he looked at me and he was all, 'I'm trusting you, Genma.' Like... Like I don't even know. Serious. The only time Ginta's ever serious is on a mission." |
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| Wild Dog in a Nest of Vipers [closed to Ginta, Tsume, & Ibiki] |
[Apr. 6th, 2009|10:44 pm] |
[Takes place Saturday, March 22, three days after Don't Wanna Fight This War, and two days after Picking Up the Pieces]
Ginta was just on his way out his door when he ran into Tsume and Kuromaru. That wasn't unusual--they were neighbors. But seeing them in the company of Abe Jimon was. He knew the man more by reputation than direct experience. Officially he was one of Intel's debriefers, but rumor held that he worked Internal Ops, handling the sort of debriefings that followed mission failures, agent deaths, suspicions of treachery...
"Hey Tsume, Kuromaru," he said casually. "What's up?" He nodded a half-bow to Abe, who returned it with stiff-necked formality. "You coming in or going out?"
Tsume gave their escort a sharp-eyed glance. "Going out, apparently," she said. Her voice held nothing more alarming than irritation. Kuromaru, at her side, evinced a distinctly doggy version of the same sentiment, shaking his ruff and grumbling something so low it sounded like a growl.
"That good, huh?" Ginta asked. He gave Abe a cool look. "Something going on a friend ought to be concerned about?"
"Not at all, Sakamoto-san," Abe replied smoothly. "It just happens that I was delivering a request to Inuzuka-san to go over some details of her latest mission. Since she happened to be in, we agreed that there was no time like the present." ( His smile made Ginta itch. ) |
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| Slow Dancing in a Burning Room [closed to Natsumi and Ibiki] |
[Jan. 26th, 2009|10:50 am] |
[[Set the day after Hit the Mark ends.]]
Late evening dimmed the room to twilight when Natsumi woke in a tangle of sheets and sweat. Her left shoulder throbbed angrily, and the lingering shreds of a dream teased at her mind. It had not been pleasant.
She sat up, bracing herself on her right hand. The clock on her nightstand blinked 18:35 at her; outside the window, the last color was fading from the sky. When she'd tumbled into bed in the small hours of the morning, too exhausted to do more than shed her clothes and brush her teeth, she'd planned to sleep the clock round. But the nightmare had wakened her, and now she wouldn't be able to fall asleep again for hours.
At home, her parents would just now be settling down to a quiet evening, her mother reading aloud by lamplight while her father trimmed hawk-feathers for arrow fletching. Her brother Takeo might have stopped by for dinner, perhaps with his latest conquest on his arm; he'd be telling stories, illustrating the latest news from the village gossip vine with graceful hands and dancing eyes. If Natsumi showed up now, her old place beside her father would be waiting for her...
No. She kicked back the sheets that trapped her legs and stood up, smoothing the crumpled skirt of her sleeping yukata. Even in the dim light, she could see the bruises that bloomed like dark flowers on her right wrist. Those on her throat and shoulder would undoubtedly be worse. If she went home now, barely five days after her induction to ANBU, with the marks of a strangling still fresh on her throat and the memories of a nightmare still haunting her eyes, her mother and Takeo would know they'd been right.
( And Takeo, at least, would never let her forget it. ) |
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