"'Not emotionally fit for duty,'" Kanashimi said, in a tone not quite level as he stormed into the second floor basement library. "What exactly is this supposed to mean?"
"What it says," Makoto said evenly, trying to disguise the nervous flutter he was feeling, a response to the protective anger that was emanating so strongly off his eldest brother. "I'm not. The end."
Kanashimi rubbed his head and fell into one of the nearby plush chairs, the papers in his hand still held tightly. Makoto didn't need that to read the tension in him though; the protective anger was still there in full force, it was just being hidden better. On the surface.
He'd spent the past couple of days trying to deal with everyone else's emotions, trying to filter them and read them on his own terms. It hadn't worked. Not only was he an empath now, he was a bloody hypersensitive empath.
Kanashimi was one of the most bothersome ones; his posture and outward composure rarely, if ever, masked what he was actually giving off emotionally. Makoto had not known how intense and tightly-wound his brother was until recently. Quite honestly, that intensity was a bit frightening, as if someone were constantly shouting at him whenever Kanashimi was present.
(Tatsuya was the other incredibly disturbing one; there was a gap in his emotions, like there was some range of them he was just fully incapable of experiencing. But Makoto did not need extra reasons to stay the hell away from him.)
"What is it?" Kanashimi asked finally. His emotions were wavering and oscillating between various levels of that protectiveness and worry, with a sharp tinge of anxiety that felt like oil on his skin. "Certainly the past while since you got back has been rough on you, but I didn't think you were to the level of emotionally disturbed."
He looked away, trying to filter to no avail. "Just...stuff. I'm not skiving on work, I promise."
"The thought hadn't actually occurred to me this time." Kanashimi sighed, rubbing his forehead with his free hand. "So this isn't a cover, you really think you're emotionally unfit for duty right now?"
It was a good thing he couldn't feel his own emotions the same way he could feel others', or else the sharp shout of anger! would have made him jolt. "I'm a goddamn empath now."
Kanashimi's expression was inscrutable, but the waves of disbelief and that ever-present worry were rolling off him. "Really."
"You don't believe me." Makoto slumped back in his own chair. "Yes, really. I lost my original core in Sand, and when I got back the phoenix's presence temporarily gave me the one I used to boost Saito into arguing with our esteemed cousin. But that wore off. And while I didn't have one, I was trying to understand people better so I got this, and would you please try and tone it down?"
A pause. "Tone it down?"
"Yes." All the limited filtering he could do was not very helpful right now. "Your worry keeps spiking, and it's gotten to the point where it feels like ants running around all over me. Take a moment to actually calm down, please."
Kanashimi looked at him silently, but the worry did taper off a bit. Replaced in part by...wariness? "...All right then."
Of course he's wary. He's an incredibly private person. I doubt he likes empathy much.
"Why would being an empath make you emotionally unfit for duty?" his brother asked after a minute. His emotions had calmed down slightly, but still scraped across Makoto's senses with worry, anxiety, caution.
"Because I can't turn it off or tone it down," he said flatly, throwing his arm over his eyes. "I get everything at full blast, all the time. It only fades with lack of proximity."
There was a slight pause. "Well. Yes, that does sound like somewhat of a liability." There was something peculiar in his tone, and only the spike of worry let him know that was what it was--that it was audible as well as sensory was...probably not good. "Mind you, I've still yet to debrief you, and something...seems to have come up, regarding Wind Country."
"Come up?" Makoto lowered his arm and eyed Kanashimi, who had drawn something that looked like a letter with the seal broken out of a vest pocket. "How so?"
Were they already in contact with Sand? Why? How? How could they possibly be privy to anything that went on in Sand if not?
"A messenger showed up earlier." His brother unfolded the letter, appeared to skim it briefly as to refresh himself on the contents, and then handed it over. "Her allusions to us as a shinobi village seemed...rather more on-point than the usual mocking. Did you tell anyone where you were from?"
He accepted the missive reflexively and glanced over it. The prose was rather...florid, but it appeared to be an invitation to an intervillage exam. And a wedding. He scrunched his nose automatically at the thought.
"I only told one person, and she wasn't a Sunan," he said after a minute. "A distant cousin of ours, apparently--she was able to use some clan seals. But she wasn't even a ninja, she was a civilian medic. She and several acquaintances of hers, also distant cousins, were apparently disowned from the Mist branch several generations back." He shrugged fluidly. "For the usual, predictable reasons. I told no one else."
"Hm." Kanashimi drummed his fingers on his leg absently. "All right. And you doubt she told anyone else?"
"Exceedingly unlikely bordering on impossible," he said dismissively. "Not an ounce of subterfuge in her. There was another group there at least vaguely affiliated with the Isaki, I believe, and they openly identified as from here, but none of them recognized me and we only met briefly."
In a bar, while drinking. Albeit he skipped that part of the tale. It wasn't necessary.
"We can't know what they did, of course," his brother murmured. "Still, if no one knew where you were from, then this may well be a coincidence."
Kanashimi did not, of course, say it was a good thing he had been the one to take the letter. That went without saying. "Right."
They both remained silent for a moment. Makoto sensed that Kanashimi was gathering his thoughts somehow; the current of curiosity, thoughtfulness was at least much less unpleasant than the earlier, negative emotions.
Come to think, he'd been able to filter a lot better, albeit unconsciously, when they were discussing something...
"All right then, I'm not sure yet what to do about this," Kanashimi said after a second. "For now, we'll cover the debriefing. Did you find out why Sand was cut off from the rest of the world so long?"
"Ah..." That was, at least, something he was qualified to talk about. "Yes, well..."
He explained, as best he could, about the Maelstrom, the being at the center of it, and the retreat of the Sand population to underground. He only made vague allusions to the Cabal; he wasn't entirely sure what it was, himself, other than that they had also caused a great deal of trouble. While it had been exceedingly difficult to get into and out of the village for a long time, that difficulty was now lifted, in part due to his own actions; prior to the lifting of the storm, some but not many had bothered to try.
When he finished, he leaned back in his chair, waiting to be scolded for the level of danger he'd thrown himself into. The scolding did not come.
"Well," Kanashimi said slowly, appearing to choose his words carefully, "it isn't what I'd rather you'd done, but it is probably what I would have done. So perhaps your moral compass isn't as hopeless as you think it is. And this won't be in my report, but I assume it was during this that the spirit in you surfaced again?"
He didn't hesitate. "Yes. During the final battle."
Had it been the right thing to do? Yes, undoubtedly, at this point he could say it had. But had that been his intention going in? He felt he had been thinking something less altruistic, something along the lines of 'this sounds interesting.'
You were. It is fine. That is not a bad thing, curiosity, as long as it does not go too far or in the wrong direction.
"This also means you got on the good side of the people there then, yes?" Kanashimi was drumming thoughtfully on his knee again. "I doubt they'll send you out again on the instant, but if there's a party to be sent, you'll likely be on it. For this...event, anyway. Assuming we wish anyone to know...anything about us."
"Terrific." He shifted himself around in his chair, so he was lying sideways on it with his back against one armrest and his legs draped over the other. "Whoever it is ought to bring water--oh no no no, not him."
"He's not a Warden, so that seems unlikely," his brother said noncommittally, and he sighed in relief. "We have other water specialists. Though it doesn't seem much like Kiyomizu's thing, does it? Being diplomatic. Saito would in all honesty be better suited. But we need to keep him here."
"Better you put up with him than me," he muttered. "I wouldn't mind Kiyomizu, except that she's liable to cause an international incident. Can't think of other water specialists in the Wardens besides her."
"If they send you along with someone, they'll pick someone good," Kanashimi said, almost dismissively, before getting up. "But this whole emotionally unfit for duty because you're an empath now deal...that won't hold for long. You'll need to work around it."
He made a noise of objection. "It's not that simple...!"
"I know." An edge of compassion, pity that he'd never expect from this brother. "But you need to try to find a way, all right? This isn't the kind of thing you can ignore until it goes away."
With that, he seemed content to leave, with only a backwards glance and a brush of sorrow, worry across his senses before everything from him faded.
Makoto stared at the door for a while after Kanashimi left, then turned back to the letter and picked it up, skimming it again. He made a face at it.
If there isn't some kind of trap buried in this, I'll buy a hat just to eat. Not that that will matter. He stood, letter in hand, and stretched. I'll...I guess I'll hang onto this, and hand it over when I go back to work tomorrow...? What a strange thought.
It didn't seem like he ought to act like nothing had happened and go back to work as if the past weeks had not been filled with a great degree than usual of insanity. But then, he didn't think there was anything else important he had to do, or that he was forgetting.
Oh, be reasonable...I'd remember it if there was...
He brushed off his clothes absently with one hand while folding the letter and tucking it away with the other before heading out into the main halls.
Completely forgetting, of course, the other person he'd met who grated on his empath's senses, and what that person wanted...
[Topic Entered/Left; 30 Min S-Rank]
"What it says," Makoto said evenly, trying to disguise the nervous flutter he was feeling, a response to the protective anger that was emanating so strongly off his eldest brother. "I'm not. The end."
Kanashimi rubbed his head and fell into one of the nearby plush chairs, the papers in his hand still held tightly. Makoto didn't need that to read the tension in him though; the protective anger was still there in full force, it was just being hidden better. On the surface.
He'd spent the past couple of days trying to deal with everyone else's emotions, trying to filter them and read them on his own terms. It hadn't worked. Not only was he an empath now, he was a bloody hypersensitive empath.
Kanashimi was one of the most bothersome ones; his posture and outward composure rarely, if ever, masked what he was actually giving off emotionally. Makoto had not known how intense and tightly-wound his brother was until recently. Quite honestly, that intensity was a bit frightening, as if someone were constantly shouting at him whenever Kanashimi was present.
(Tatsuya was the other incredibly disturbing one; there was a gap in his emotions, like there was some range of them he was just fully incapable of experiencing. But Makoto did not need extra reasons to stay the hell away from him.)
"What is it?" Kanashimi asked finally. His emotions were wavering and oscillating between various levels of that protectiveness and worry, with a sharp tinge of anxiety that felt like oil on his skin. "Certainly the past while since you got back has been rough on you, but I didn't think you were to the level of emotionally disturbed."
He looked away, trying to filter to no avail. "Just...stuff. I'm not skiving on work, I promise."
"The thought hadn't actually occurred to me this time." Kanashimi sighed, rubbing his forehead with his free hand. "So this isn't a cover, you really think you're emotionally unfit for duty right now?"
It was a good thing he couldn't feel his own emotions the same way he could feel others', or else the sharp shout of anger! would have made him jolt. "I'm a goddamn empath now."
Kanashimi's expression was inscrutable, but the waves of disbelief and that ever-present worry were rolling off him. "Really."
"You don't believe me." Makoto slumped back in his own chair. "Yes, really. I lost my original core in Sand, and when I got back the phoenix's presence temporarily gave me the one I used to boost Saito into arguing with our esteemed cousin. But that wore off. And while I didn't have one, I was trying to understand people better so I got this, and would you please try and tone it down?"
A pause. "Tone it down?"
"Yes." All the limited filtering he could do was not very helpful right now. "Your worry keeps spiking, and it's gotten to the point where it feels like ants running around all over me. Take a moment to actually calm down, please."
Kanashimi looked at him silently, but the worry did taper off a bit. Replaced in part by...wariness? "...All right then."
Of course he's wary. He's an incredibly private person. I doubt he likes empathy much.
"Why would being an empath make you emotionally unfit for duty?" his brother asked after a minute. His emotions had calmed down slightly, but still scraped across Makoto's senses with worry, anxiety, caution.
"Because I can't turn it off or tone it down," he said flatly, throwing his arm over his eyes. "I get everything at full blast, all the time. It only fades with lack of proximity."
There was a slight pause. "Well. Yes, that does sound like somewhat of a liability." There was something peculiar in his tone, and only the spike of worry let him know that was what it was--that it was audible as well as sensory was...probably not good. "Mind you, I've still yet to debrief you, and something...seems to have come up, regarding Wind Country."
"Come up?" Makoto lowered his arm and eyed Kanashimi, who had drawn something that looked like a letter with the seal broken out of a vest pocket. "How so?"
Were they already in contact with Sand? Why? How? How could they possibly be privy to anything that went on in Sand if not?
"A messenger showed up earlier." His brother unfolded the letter, appeared to skim it briefly as to refresh himself on the contents, and then handed it over. "Her allusions to us as a shinobi village seemed...rather more on-point than the usual mocking. Did you tell anyone where you were from?"
He accepted the missive reflexively and glanced over it. The prose was rather...florid, but it appeared to be an invitation to an intervillage exam. And a wedding. He scrunched his nose automatically at the thought.
"I only told one person, and she wasn't a Sunan," he said after a minute. "A distant cousin of ours, apparently--she was able to use some clan seals. But she wasn't even a ninja, she was a civilian medic. She and several acquaintances of hers, also distant cousins, were apparently disowned from the Mist branch several generations back." He shrugged fluidly. "For the usual, predictable reasons. I told no one else."
"Hm." Kanashimi drummed his fingers on his leg absently. "All right. And you doubt she told anyone else?"
"Exceedingly unlikely bordering on impossible," he said dismissively. "Not an ounce of subterfuge in her. There was another group there at least vaguely affiliated with the Isaki, I believe, and they openly identified as from here, but none of them recognized me and we only met briefly."
In a bar, while drinking. Albeit he skipped that part of the tale. It wasn't necessary.
"We can't know what they did, of course," his brother murmured. "Still, if no one knew where you were from, then this may well be a coincidence."
Kanashimi did not, of course, say it was a good thing he had been the one to take the letter. That went without saying. "Right."
They both remained silent for a moment. Makoto sensed that Kanashimi was gathering his thoughts somehow; the current of curiosity, thoughtfulness was at least much less unpleasant than the earlier, negative emotions.
Come to think, he'd been able to filter a lot better, albeit unconsciously, when they were discussing something...
"All right then, I'm not sure yet what to do about this," Kanashimi said after a second. "For now, we'll cover the debriefing. Did you find out why Sand was cut off from the rest of the world so long?"
"Ah..." That was, at least, something he was qualified to talk about. "Yes, well..."
He explained, as best he could, about the Maelstrom, the being at the center of it, and the retreat of the Sand population to underground. He only made vague allusions to the Cabal; he wasn't entirely sure what it was, himself, other than that they had also caused a great deal of trouble. While it had been exceedingly difficult to get into and out of the village for a long time, that difficulty was now lifted, in part due to his own actions; prior to the lifting of the storm, some but not many had bothered to try.
When he finished, he leaned back in his chair, waiting to be scolded for the level of danger he'd thrown himself into. The scolding did not come.
"Well," Kanashimi said slowly, appearing to choose his words carefully, "it isn't what I'd rather you'd done, but it is probably what I would have done. So perhaps your moral compass isn't as hopeless as you think it is. And this won't be in my report, but I assume it was during this that the spirit in you surfaced again?"
He didn't hesitate. "Yes. During the final battle."
Had it been the right thing to do? Yes, undoubtedly, at this point he could say it had. But had that been his intention going in? He felt he had been thinking something less altruistic, something along the lines of 'this sounds interesting.'
You were. It is fine. That is not a bad thing, curiosity, as long as it does not go too far or in the wrong direction.
"This also means you got on the good side of the people there then, yes?" Kanashimi was drumming thoughtfully on his knee again. "I doubt they'll send you out again on the instant, but if there's a party to be sent, you'll likely be on it. For this...event, anyway. Assuming we wish anyone to know...anything about us."
"Terrific." He shifted himself around in his chair, so he was lying sideways on it with his back against one armrest and his legs draped over the other. "Whoever it is ought to bring water--oh no no no, not him."
"He's not a Warden, so that seems unlikely," his brother said noncommittally, and he sighed in relief. "We have other water specialists. Though it doesn't seem much like Kiyomizu's thing, does it? Being diplomatic. Saito would in all honesty be better suited. But we need to keep him here."
"Better you put up with him than me," he muttered. "I wouldn't mind Kiyomizu, except that she's liable to cause an international incident. Can't think of other water specialists in the Wardens besides her."
"If they send you along with someone, they'll pick someone good," Kanashimi said, almost dismissively, before getting up. "But this whole emotionally unfit for duty because you're an empath now deal...that won't hold for long. You'll need to work around it."
He made a noise of objection. "It's not that simple...!"
"I know." An edge of compassion, pity that he'd never expect from this brother. "But you need to try to find a way, all right? This isn't the kind of thing you can ignore until it goes away."
With that, he seemed content to leave, with only a backwards glance and a brush of sorrow, worry across his senses before everything from him faded.
Makoto stared at the door for a while after Kanashimi left, then turned back to the letter and picked it up, skimming it again. He made a face at it.
If there isn't some kind of trap buried in this, I'll buy a hat just to eat. Not that that will matter. He stood, letter in hand, and stretched. I'll...I guess I'll hang onto this, and hand it over when I go back to work tomorrow...? What a strange thought.
It didn't seem like he ought to act like nothing had happened and go back to work as if the past weeks had not been filled with a great degree than usual of insanity. But then, he didn't think there was anything else important he had to do, or that he was forgetting.
Oh, be reasonable...I'd remember it if there was...
He brushed off his clothes absently with one hand while folding the letter and tucking it away with the other before heading out into the main halls.
Completely forgetting, of course, the other person he'd met who grated on his empath's senses, and what that person wanted...
[Topic Entered/Left; 30 Min S-Rank]