| Better Things to Do [Closed to Ryouma and Sumire] |
[Jun. 11th, 2008|06:32 pm] |
[[Takes place after Attack of the Ankle Biters]]
Sumire had visited the baths on the first floor less than a handful of times. She'd always had her own bathroom to use, always enjoyed the private act of cleaning oneself. Especially with no one there to look on and judge whether the marks you had came from some over-amorous lover, if they were self-inflicted for psychosis's sake, or if you just came home from getting hammered by some man in a dirty room out on a mission. As she dumped the water over her head several times to get her hair properly sopping, Sumire corrected herself - sometimes the room was clean. The bath next door was suspiciously empty; the sound of drenching herself echoed harshly against the white tile and steam.
The lights flickered every once in a while, as she thought and cleaned herself thoroughly. Her skin was scrubbed pink and clean and she managed to catch a glance at herself in the tiny mirror packed away in her bath basket before it clouded over; a harshly young woman stared back at her, topaz eyes wide and surprised, lips parted and only slightly pink instead of darker and more kissable. Sumire wondered who she was looking at for a moment, and closed her eyes. Just a girl still, really, unable to make the leap to adulthood without the aid of her lipsticks and blushes, foundations and eye shadows. A shiver ran down her back and up again.
( Sumire wondered if she would ever get the chance to take a proper leap. ) |
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| Hard Day's Night [closed to Sumire] |
[Jun. 10th, 2008|08:11 pm] |
[backdated to December, follows the events in Shut Up And Go Away]
The next night was Friday, and Yuzuya was at the counter of a pleasantly worn neighborhood tavern, working on his third beer and a generous plate of yakitori skewers. The place was dark and crowded but the music wasn't too loud-- just a lively pair of shamisen players in the corner, he secretly hated those places with the loud music and lights and shit that Genma seemed to love so much-- and it was slightly smoky yet none of the smokers were sitting directly near him. In other words, a perfect night.
He pulled at his dark malt beer and smiled softly at nothing in particular. He'd worked hard this week, and he certainly deserved a nice evening out, he told himself. Good work, self. |
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| Dyed in the Wool [seven years ago] [closed] |
[May. 25th, 2008|05:08 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | sumire | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  unhappy | ] |
Tonight's victim was one Yamazaki Hidetora, a man about town that pissed off one woman too many and was paying for it. The woman who had paid for tonight's little festivities was an old flame with a deep grudge. Sumire could understand that, really; some men just didn't know when to stop and when they finally did, it wasn't ever on you. So she knew exactly why she knelt before him in that gauzy little gown, filled with a sense of nervousness and trepidation that came so unnaturally to a Murakami girl. Hidetora was a loud kind of man, confidence oozed from every pore. He had more charisma than a boat full of samurai.
( Under her tongue, Sumire's saliva was quietly eating through the protective gel coating of her poisoned needle. ) |
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| Nothing Better to Do [closed to Sumire and Kotetsu] |
[Apr. 14th, 2008|02:34 am] |
There were lots of things Sumire was happy about now that she was running missions. It meant that she had a whole contingent of new agents to torment when she found herself with an unnatural amount of time on her hands. The kunoichi had more time on her hands and a bigger hazard pay for some of her missions. Just some, though, the billing department staff were tight-fisted little misers with hazard pay. What if she ended up having to get a sickness from one of her clients?
The thought terrified her, and made her sick to her stomach. However, those thoughts were neither here nor there. Sumire was busy looking over the listing of people currently away on a mission. Ugh, what's Matsumoto doing on here? That bitch has the clap. Sumire wrinkled her nose and looked at the next list. Ugh, ugh, ew, oh my grinning devils, ew, ugh, ew, ew, ugh, ew. She listed off the people away, and wondered how many of them would actually come back in one piece.
Even if she didn't like a heap of them, they were still her comrades in arms. Sumire shifted her weight to her other foot and curled a tendril of hair around her finger as she continued to read the mission bulletin board. She had to see who was where and when, didn't she? |
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| Digitalis [closed] |
[Apr. 1st, 2008|03:11 am] |
Their mission was coming to an end faster than they were able to think of a viable plan to get the books out. Three days left, and the two agents had almost completed compiling the evidence against Yonaga and Fukuzawa. Sumire felt a little sorry for him. Soon, ANBU Sabotage groups would come for his building, ANBU assassins to take down each member of the board. In essence, not just burning and salting the ground, but pissing on it too.
Still, he would have visited the same horrors on her family, that some ninja had his. For a moment, Sumire thought of her sister's painted face contorted in agony, of the little Murakami children screaming for their mothers, and tightened her grip on her makeup brush. She couldn't, wouldn't allow that to happen. The sweet-tasting gloss was cold on her lips as it began to gel and harden. She wet her lips to reactivate the gel with another brush and started working again. Outside, the wind was making a marvellous fuss, she could hear the frenzied screech of metal on metal as the little sign for the motel battled hopelessly against the wind.
Tonight, she would be like a slow-moving poison in Yonaga's veins, undetectable and sublime. According to their data there was no other way. Oda would lift a key from the main secretary, be it through prestidigitation or seduction. After attaining the books and leaving their carefully crafted (and blank) decoys, they would flee the town. "Miwako" would have a terrible fight with Fukuzawa and quit the hostess club, causing a scene.
It wasn't a bad plan at all. |
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| Valerian [closed] |
[Mar. 26th, 2008|11:40 pm] |
Sumire's unfortunate mission read as followed:
Mission Rank: B
Agents Requested: Murakami Sumire, Jounin 010327 Oda Makoto, Jounin 009371
Description/Objectives: Travel to the city of Hiraizumi, on the border between Taki no Kuni, Tsuchi no Kuni , Hi no Kuni and Kusa no Kuni to investigate Fukuzawa Hideki of the Yonaga syndicate. Yonaga is known for trafficking information between the four countries, specializing in village secrets. Confirm or debunk rumor, so that further action may be taken.
Expected Hazards: Caution should be exercised; Iwa, Ame and Taki all operate within the town.
Pre-mission Briefing: 1/15, 0830, B1-130
Special Notes: Agents preassigned for specific skill sets.
Signed
ANBU Mission Desk
And the next day, after collecting her partner, Sumire turned her back on the ANBU building that had been her sanctuary. If she was bitter about it, she handled it with aplomb. If she'd been enraged, it simmered behind a cool, well-used mask of serenity. ( In any case, she was just about sick of the new town she was being made to call 'home.' ) |
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| Clematis [Closed to Sumire and Arakaki] |
[Mar. 2nd, 2008|08:14 am] |
It had been some time since Sumire had been given the honor of speaking with Arakaki-sama. She hadn't bothered worrying about the infrequent snatches of conversation and orders she received: Arakaki Hisoka was a busy man, and she didn't expect to be on his top ten, no, top one hundred, thoughts. She was all the more surprised when neatly filed between her papers for the afternoon's work was a small, sealed envelope
ATTN: INTELLIGENCE AGENT MURAKAMI SUMIRE
"Mm? What's this?" she broke open the seal and removed the paper. The wording was concise, written neatly in Arakaki-sama's current secretary's hand.
Your attendance is required this afternoon in the Director's office.
Please arrive promptly at 15:45, Agent Murakami.
--Himuro Rika
Sumire folded the paper back up, looking for a watermark or some other note that would ask her to be elsewhere at a different time and found nothing. She glanced up at the clock above the door of her office and frowned. It was already 3:30, she'd have to hurry. Quickly, Sumire packed away her codes and straightened her uniform. She checked her hair, her makeup, and her teeth, before hurrying to his office. She arrived on time and was ushered through by Himuro, who quickly excused herself. Sumire kept her posture straight, her head held high and her eyes directly on her superior's chin.
"You wanted to see me, Arakaki-sama?" Don't squeal, don't squeal, don't squeal ----- rub this in Ren's face later. |
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| It Takes Your Last Saving Grace [Closed to Sumire, Genma and Raidou] |
[Feb. 28th, 2008|01:35 am] |
[Following "It Takes Time to Recover"]
In the grand scheme of life, Sumire knew three things as absolute fact: she would always have great hair, Shibata was a dick, and Shiranui Genma couldn't come back from a mission without something going disastrously wrong. In fact, that she had to hear he'd returned from his mission through the grapevine rather then to have him show up on her doorstep with a bag of prawns for seafood curry had sent her into a tizzy. She'd "gently" relieved Shirokawa of his debriefing duty, and slid on her long black coat. Shirokawa wouldn't mind anyway, she knew. He absolutely hated Genma after that one party two and a half years ago. Really, by slipping the minor laxative in his coffee, she was doing him a favor.
Surely, she was just that nice a woman. He could thank her later.
The sound of her heels against the hospital tile sounded like rocket fire, and the closer she came to the room on the so-called Suicide Floor, the more irritated she got. It didn't even matter if any of this was actually his fault or not; he'd broken his promise. After getting the assurances from the nurse that her subjects were awake and mostly amiable (a state she was bound and determined to fix), Sumire opened the hospital door and looked at the two recovering shinobi.
"This," she stated as she swept into their room, "doesn't look anything like a 'light wounding', Genma." Sumire frowned at him, her lips a thin line. |
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| War [closed to Sumire] |
[Feb. 19th, 2008|08:39 pm] |
[backdated to November]
This was war, plain and simple.
She was increasing the frequency of her attacks. Every day this week that code girl Murakami Sumire had had something oh-so-very important to discuss with him. She'd barged right into his workspace-- his desk area!-- without asking or even showing the slightest sign of awareness that she was intruding on another human being's personal space. The concept didn't seem to make it through all that glossy black hair into her thick skull. Yuzuya figured she wasn't used to the idea of her presence not being welcome. In fact, she probably considered her interruptions a wonderful favor. Other men fell all over her like imbeciles, treated her like she was the gods' gift to the humble planet. ( Yuzu was convinced by now that inside Sumire's exquisitely pretty little head, the story was not much different. ) |
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| Shut Up And Go Away |
[Feb. 17th, 2008|05:34 pm] |
Yuzuya drew in another angle on the blueprint he was creating, and then peered down at the scroll before him. The classified information contained a detailed description of the Tsuchikage's new pleasure mansion. Currently he was neck-deep in measurements that didn't quite add up to a proper floor plan. Had there been a mistake? He needed to go back and check each line from the beginning. This was a tedious one. The building was a veritable warren of hallways and secret passages, and each room more absurd than the last. There was a golden fish pond in the bathroom. In the bathroom. And what kind of elite shinobi needed so many rooms for concubines, anyway? Yuzu wrinkled his nose with distaste. He hoped that this place was high on the list of targets to take out. He'd be first to sign up for the mission.
Meanwhile there were other things that were distracting him from the Tsuchikage's wine cellars and plush boudoir. Namely, a soft, sweet, and slightly sultry soprano that had been filtering towards his ears all day. He traced a sharp line for a wall and trained his ears to hear the conversation outside his tiny office. Murakami was lurking about, and behaving rather ostentatiously... feminine today. He wondered why. Traced another line, and waited to see who she was talking to. A man? Who? How come she was sounding so nice? |
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| As You Were [Open] |
[Feb. 9th, 2008|07:15 am] |
Sumire was about a week behind New Year's celebrations proper. It didn't matter too terribly much, of course. She'd gone and cleaned the snow out of her mother's name, burnt the incense and left an offering (because who else had more fun during New Year's than their lively mother?). Now, she was walking up the snowy street with her elder brother, arm in arm. The two Murakami were almost painfully similar to each other, despite her brother height, and their genders. The older man kept his hair up in a queue, bound tight with red cord.
"You know, I don't like having to drop you off here," her brother told her quietly. "It feels like I'm leaving you at the kindergarten." Murakami Aoi glanced at the shadowy white building. Whether it was the fact that he hated giving his little sister up into the "loving" arms of ANBU (or Arakaki-sama, as the case may be) or that he knew he wouldn't see her for weeks, Sumire couldn't say. Her brother frowned at the building like it had taken his lunch money.
Silly older brothers.
"You know, considering how some of the agents act, Nii-sama, it's like a big kindergarten," Sumire agreed and tossed her hair behind her shoulders with a mitten-covered hand. "All the idiots shrieking and blithering on at all hours. It's enough to make me want to kick someone in the teeth."
"Sumi'e." Aoi gave his sister the same pale-eyed look she chastised Ren with.
"Yes, I know. Better to not speak of those that cannot control themselves," she muttered, cowed.
"You could always move back home, to Hanagumori, and not live in the complex," Aoi suggested as the rounded the corner. It would be best for her anyway, wouldn't it? He wouldn't have to worry about her defending her honor from some cruel, bloodthirsty sexual deviant. The fact that Sumire had taken care of her self for nearly four years and outranked him as a jounin was irrelevant, she was still his little sister.
"Not even if Hokage-sama got on his knees and begged me," Sumire replied sternly. "And don't you go planting ideas in anyone's head at home that it would be a good idea, either, Nii-sama." The building was insight now, rising up out of the darkness like a vicious creature that ate good girls and spat out vicious monsters. Aoi's frown deepened.
"Fine, but don't say I haven't suggested it." He kissed her temple and her forehead as they stood before the building.
"Aoi-niisama..." Sumire half-whined. "I'm not ten anymore."
"Pah, you'll always be ten to me," he grinned and tweaked a long bang. Sumire puffed her cheeks in frustration at him. "See you in a few weeks."
"Yes, see you, onii-sama. Have a good time with Karin-san, okay?" Sumire replied watching her brother walk down the street and get swept into a crowd of passerby. She straightened her shoulders, wiped that sweet, honeyed look from her face and turned on her heel to face the building. "Hmph."
It was time to go to work. She hoped no one had seen her brother's act of affection, and wondered if she might be knocking people out with the sensu in her jacket pocket. |
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| Pass the Perfume, Hold the Glitter. [closed to Kakashi & Sumire] |
[Feb. 1st, 2008|04:20 am] |
ANBU received their missions for a whole host of reasons. Sometimes you were selected for a specific skill set you had. A jutsu you'd mastered. A mindset you'd perfected. Sometimes it was something as simple as the way you looked. Sometimes you volunteered because you had bills to pay. Sometimes it was completely random.
Kakashi looked at the mission scroll in his hand once more and didn't sigh.
Mission Rank: A
Number of Agents Requested: Hatake Kakashi, Jounin 009720; Murakami Sumire, Jounin 010327
Description/Objectives: Target: Miyake Sou. A well-connected civilian from the Land of Lightning with known ties to the Village hidden in the Clouds has been reported to be selling high level intel obtained from Konoha. Verification is needed. Target must be detained and interrogated without alerting Cloud or revealing Konoha as the source behind the attack. Agents Hatake and Murakami assigned for their respective areas of expertise. Murakami will obtain the information in any way possible. Hatake will provide support and back up as necessary. A cover story is essential. Target is known to frequent local 'swinger' clubs, it is possible he may be accessed that way. Target is to be terminated once information is obtained.
Expected Hazards: Target is a civilian and thus poses little threat. The close proximity of the mission to Cloud requires all appropriate stealth measures must be taken, Cloud must not be alerted to the presence of Konoha shinobi.
Signed
ANBU Mission Desk
Sometimes it was because the mission gods just liked to screw with you.
Kakashi rolled up the scroll and slid it into a pocket, absently slapping a seal over to top to conceal it. Reflex. Then he went to find his new mission partner. |
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| Baby, The Stars Shine Bright [tag to Genma] |
[Dec. 25th, 2007|01:20 am] |
Sumire could count exactly how many times she'd woken up in the HQ Apartments screaming into her pillow on one hand. It had been so real, the heat, the burn from the ropes around her wrists, how she couldn't swallow because her mouth was so dry that her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Lucid dreams, hah! They could go to hell along with unduly short mission reports and Shibata.
Of course, all the answers to the physical pains in her dream were easily explained. She'd left her heater on too close to the bed, slept with too many thick quilts, wound some of her sheets around her hands as she flailed in her sleep, her mouth had opened slightly during the night and dried out.
The screaming hadn't helped either.
Once awake enough to pull herself from the mass of covers and get a drink of water, Sumire realized that sleep was not going to be coming to her for a long while tonight. She leaned against her counter and looked at her half-lit room; everything was still and peaceful, but as welcoming as a horde of Iwa-nin.
She snatched a book from her shelf without looking, bundled herself up in a thick sweater, long jacket, thin gloves and trooped upstairs to the roof with an electric lantern. Fuck Sleep. Tonight, she'd be awake until dawn and watch the goddamned stars, maybe catch up on her leisure reading.
And who knew? Maybe she'd have an epiphany on how to better stomp Shibata's ego into the ground, or maybe she'd finally find out what happened to Gallant Jiraiya. |
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indifferent
irritated