Hesitant Reunions [Etoku]

[Kazumi]

This was the moment she had been dreading since she had made her way to the village earlier that day. She had made her way around the village both above and below ground nearly twice over, the pretense of thinking of what to say to her parents fading from her mind with every step she took. Her feet were sore and her muscles ached from the ceaseless pacing down side streets and through market squares. She could no longer put it off any further.

With a deep breath, she passed through the gate that lead into the Oushi-Ouja section of the Toraono Clan home. As to be expected of such a large and prodigious clan, the compound was vast and housed many individuals, the section for the Oushi-Ouja was not as grand. By comparison with their sister branches, the Oushi-Ouja halls were large, yet sparse and utilitarian. The lives the individuals lead here were not grand nor elaborate, but there was a comforting simplicity that helped Suzume's tensions slowly fade as she walked down the interior of the large hallways.

Last she had heard, the clan's numbers were nearly at thirty, and yet their holdings of the land here were as vast as the Byakko, this lead to larger rooms and even longer hallways than most others who frequented the Toraono district. Lit torches illuminated the long halls where no light bulbs were to be found. There were some in the rooms of course, but Suzume had recalled a small bit of comfort knowing she had no chance of shattering torches from their sconces. The thought brought her a chuckle but one that was fleeting. It felt like an eternity ago, even though it had scarcely been a month.

Suzume looked down to her hands, still foreign to her, wondering silently to herself if she even had a home here to come back to...

 

[Miroku Riyota]

"Woooah...Wooooah, wo-woaaah..." Etoku tried his best to ensure the stack of plates remained balanced as the tower wobbled back and forth precariously. Heaven knows why anyone would send the small boy to carry the stack that was easily three times his size from wherever to presumably the Oushi-Ouja kitchens, but here he was anyhow. Despite his focus on the task at hand his mind still wandered to other things. 'If Suzume were here she could...careful...help me with these.' He audibly gasped as the top plate almost slid off of the pile, fortunately he was able to just barely tilt the other plates to slide it back into position. 'If only there were like...six of me! That'd make this a heck of a lot easieeeeeeeeer.' The stack wobbled again and he had to firmly plant his right foot to ensure the stack remained. With a sigh of relief he continued his treacherous journey. 'When's she coming back anyway? I mean how much can there be to do in Tea country? Surely she should've been back by now. Stupid Leaf Water country can't be more fun than hanging out with me, surely!' He paused for a moment, both physically and mentally. 'Can't believe I wasn't allowed to go. Now I'm stuck with kitchen duty.'

He was about to shuffle past the young woman whom seemed very pensive about something. However her general demeanour distracted him for just a moment. He saw a look of indecision on her face and decided to see if he could ease her burdens a tad. That's when he realised he had no idea who she was and she was standing inside Oushi-Ouja territory looking like she had no business being there. This part raised his suspicions slightly. He cleared his throat near to her and once he got her attention proceeded to speak. "Uh...Can I help you?" He asked, trying to sound both authoritative and nonchalant at the same time. "I'm not sure if you made a wrong turn or something but this is the Oushi-Ouja housing district and I don't recognise you." He hoped his overall coolness wasn't too negatively affected by the fact he seemed very short next to the stack of plates. His wish was that if she had intended to cause harm this would be enough to scare her off and it wouldn't result in a confrontation because that would probably lead to the destruction of many a plate. Etoku had no wish to experience what the punishment would be if that happened.

 

[Kazumi]

Suzume's brain, as it had a hobby of doing, ignored the external stimulus of the questioning boy for a few steps before it finally relayed that information to her. Her head shot up from staring at the ground, looking around confused before she caught site of the white tower behind her. A flash back to her serving the same role in what felt like another life brought a smile and then an outright chuckle to the girl. She recognized the voice, even if she could not see the face behind the dirty tower. "Not going to be a very good shinobi if you can't even recognize a transformation technique, Kuku." It was a clever lie, but one she knew she could not maintain for very long, but Suzume was not the long-haul planner like some of her classmates had been. She presumed this would be enough for the other boy, given that she was the one who had conjured him this silly nickname.

Without asking, she reached out at the halfway point of his tower and pulled the top of the stack from his, a few small bits of discarded food tumbling to the floor in the process. With the tower cut in half, they both could see one another, and she seemed to have no issue of carrying her load of dishes, as she had done every day before her admission into the academy less than a year prior. The clan did not look highly upon those who had even less that average of physical strength, although they were not shunned. Instead, they were given tasks and chores such as these to 'encourage' and to 'help' them to grow stronger. The belief in this tradition was genuine, but being on the receiving end of this 'help', Suzume often had wondered if it was just an old tradition for punishing the weaker clansmen.

"Here, I'll help," she finally added. "You will be in for a serious lashing if you broke half of the clan's dishes all in one fell swoop." Again she giggled with amusement as she would turn to walk towards the kitchens, with or without him. It felt good to relax for once, though her mind drifted back to her worries as she moved down through the hall, wondering how long it would last.

 

[Kazumi]

[[Ack, double post...]]

 

[Miroku Riyota]

Etoku's cheeks quickly turned red and his face turned sour at the mention of his 'loving' nickname. He knew there was only one person who would ever call him that. Still flustered, he cleared his throat to speak "Of course I knew it was a transformation. I...I just...wanted to see if you...would...give yourself away!" Etoku was cunning and intelligent for sure, but he was a terrible liar. With a sigh and a grumpy look still plastered on his face he addressed the woman whom had now identified herself, mostly. "Nice to see you too, Suzume. I thought you would be making a far grander entrance than this. As well as, y'know, not disguised!" He said, addressing her 'transformation' "What are you trying to get in trouble with the guards? This was a bit of a dumb plan even for you!" It was the same back and forth banter they usually had with one another. She would embarrass him, he would attempt to embarrass her in return. It was a classic scenario.

He was just about to request...well, demand that she assist him with the stack of plates since it was a chore he thought they should share after she abandoned him to go to leaf. However before he could get a word out she had taken the upper half of the tower into her arms, allowing both to get a good look at each other."That's a pretty good transformation jutsu though." He mumbled the compliment slightly but still smirked when their eyes met again.

He began walking again with the now far easier to carry stack of plates, making his way down to the kitchen areas presumably with Suzume in tow. "So...are you planning to drop the transformation anytime soon or are you trying to practice bluffing your way into the housing area?" He asked her, still curious as to why she had this transformation active. He was starting to grow a tad suspicious, he had trusted her initially because of the nickname, but somebody else could've fairly easily found that out. He decided to wait and bide his time, but he was ready to strike if things went wrong.

"So, did the guilt finally force you back after you left me here to go frolicking in Tea?" He paused for a moment after they turned the corner, then continued. "Actually you probably just got bored, I mean what could be more fun than hanging out with your favourite cousin?"

 

[Kazumi]

There was no way she had actually expected it to work. In reality, it was a mistake to even make the lie, as it would only make things worse moving forward but... the though of immediately alienating him outweighed the knowledge of the eventual damage it might cause. "It isn't dumb," she lied, "I have my graduation exam coming up in a week. Try telling me how dumb I am when I am a fully licensed genin, and you are still taking classes at the academy." She gave him a cocky smile before she began to pick up her pace towards the kitchens. With luck the area would be deserted now, and with even more she could get there and away from Kuku before he got suspicious.

Annoyingly, he persisted with his questions as they rounded the corner into the kitchens area. The room was a large as the hall was tall, having ample room for nearly a dozen of their clan members to prepare meals for the rest. Suzume, at least, never had the voracious appetite that her parents did, though she still somehow managed to consume a good deal more than her body mass should have allowed. She carefully, if a bit too hastily, set the dishes down on one of the counter surfaces as she turned and waited for him to do likewise. "If you must know, I have permission from the Steward himself for my erm... training." She gave him an smug smile as she tilted her head up and away from him, as if the act alone made her superior to him.

It was no secret that she admired the once Steward turned Kage and back again. It may have been due to her rebellous nature, but there was something about the break from tradition that Sousuke had represented that captivated her. In fact, it had been one of the few bright spots, in her eyes, when she had been chosen as the Storm Lord's heir that she was able to meet with the man in private.

"But yeah," she relented after basking in her newfound superiority for a few long moments. "There were some erm... complications in Tea that required me to swing back home. Samejima," a name Etoku may vaguely recall hearing as her shinobi escort to the foreign country, "had to return, and so I uh... decided to tag along home as well." The smile she gave was not very convincing, she never had been that capable of a liar, but there was enough distored truth with which she hoped to deflect any significant questions. There had been, in fact, a small outbreak of a toxic substance there which had cause more than a few issues for Suzume, but that was certainly not a subject she wished to speak to him about. "But yeah, you are just jealous that the clan let me go and not you." Quickly shifting gears she stuck her tongue out at him and cracked another amused smile.

 

[Miroku Riyota]

Etoku mimicked her silently when she spoke of how she was going to be a Genin whilst he was still a student. It was a speech he'd heard time and time again to the point that he was sure he could repeat it word for word with the exact same intonation on every word. "Sure, sure we'll all bow down to the glorious might of the newbie ninja." He rolled his eyes. "Or maybe I'll make Genin before you and you'll beg my forgiveness for all the times you were mean to me." He teased, trying to egg her on. The kitchen was empty when they arrived and he observed that his cousin seemed to be in a hurry to be somewhere else, noting her subtle body motions. Etoku began to piece some things together in his head. When he had last seen her Suzume seemed incapable of any advanced chakra control and even basic jutsu. Now all of a sudden she was capable of a perfect transformation after a few weeks in tea. Something wasn't adding up.

He didn't act on his suspicions yet though, instead opting to bide his time and continue the conversation to maybe find a point where this imposter might slip up. "Oh yeah! I forgot you were the prestigious student of the former Robokage, well I mean, you and every other student in Sand at some point in there life." He mocked this time genuinely to see what kind of reaction he would get. To see if it was the same as the Suzume he knew. The fact that she was one of the Steward's students was actually impressive, and Etoku did admire his cousin, even if it did not seem this way in this instance.

Suzume began to explain that complications had forced her to vacate Tea with hr companion and then proceeded to tease him on how he wasn't allowed to go. Etoku turned his nose up and bit back with "Only because they couldn't have me outshining our glorious heiress. What a scandal that would be!" He tried to act like he didn't care, when in fact he cared a lot about the fact he had to remain in Sand.

After his preliminary investigation he decided that a small bit of further probing was necessary to figure out the precise truth of this matter. For a moment Etoku closed his eyes and began to focus chakra into his ocular veins. As his eyelids opened once more he saw the world more vividly than before. Colours were brighter and contrasts were clearer, everything was brought into better focus as his eye shifted to its Sharingan form. The three tomoe rotated as he analysed 'Suzume's' chakra system to see if it correlated with the one he knew. What he saw was one far more functional and calm, less erratic and volatile than the one of the past. Something was certainly off about it.

"Oi" Etoku spoke to get her attention, if she gave it he would look her in the eyes and catch her in a hypnosis that would prevent her from moving from her spot. "You're not the Suzume I know, so what the hell's going on?" He would ask her, his strange eyes focusing in.

 

[Kazumi]

With a smug smirk, she retorted, "you are just jealous." She had never enjoyed the term Robokage, as it seemed to diminish the great works that he had done and why she admired him. It was for the same reasons that she admired him that the Oushi-Ouja did not care for his rule. As practitioners of staunch tradition, to see their village's Steward take up the mantle which, in their eyes, did not belong to him, was unsettling. It was for reasons such as that for which she worried as to what she would say when she spoke to Nabushin.

Dreading the moment, she turned from Etoku, raised her hand in a wave and began to round the corner back into the hallway when he stopped her with a call. Reluctantly, she turned and met his gaze, his eyes having shifted from their normal appearance to that of an activated Sharingan. Without understanding why, she suddenly felt the desire to stay here and not make a break for it, but she wasn't sure why. "O-Of course I am," she replied with feigned confidence, having difficult from breaking her gaze from his. "What are you going on about Kuku?" One day, if she were to survive in this field, she would need to become a better liar.

 

[Miroku Riyota]

"Don't know why it didn't come to me earlier, but the Suzume I know couldn't do a single Jutsu to save her life. Yet you've come in claiming you're her under the guise of a high-tier transformation jutsu. It doesn't add up, so spill." He commanded, anger in his voice as he began to worry about what had happened to his cousin. Perhaps this other woman had murdered her in tea and was now trying to infiltrate or some other such thing. He didn't know, and not knowing things concerned him.

He focused his gaze more intently. "I want honesty! Unless you can convince me you're Suzume and give me a damn good reason why you look like you do I'll take you out right here!" If she was observant she would notice his hand trembling slightly. Internally he was scared. Because if the person in front of him had defeated his cousin he knew he didn't stand a chance.

"So...have you got a good story to spin or do you concede defeat 'Suzume?'" He said the name with a sarcastic bitterness.

 

[Kazumi]

She hadn't thought of that. Well, there was not much she could do about it now. So, she had three options presented before her. Subdue Etoku through some physical means. Lie to Etoku about what was actually going on. Tell him the outlandish truth. The first option didn't seem like a very good idea, even for Suzume. The last idea was more practical but she doubted he would believe her anyway, and she was not sure she really wanted him to.

"Yeah, well I have been erm... training with one of Toraono Kuro's favorite students! Samejima Naoki! Also under Riyota." She muttered his clan name, knowing it did not have great connotations around these parts. "I will have you know that have been improving more quickly than you can possibly imagine." She tilted her chin up and away from him, finally managing to break her gaze lock with him. "So... you better stop threatening me, especially after I helped you wish the dishes. Otherwise I will tell a certain someone about that crush you had on them a few months back." She lowered her chin and gave him a knowing stare.

 

[Miroku Riyota]

"I've heard of the first one, I'm not entirely sure you didn't make the second one up so I'm just going to pretend you didn't say it. I guess it makes sense. Our grand heiress can only train with the finest after all." He remarked with feigned reverence. His snark was borne of a small bitterness about the fact that Suzume was allowed all these privileges and freedoms whilst he was barely allowed to go outside without signing a piece of paper denoting exactly what he was doing, where he was going and who he was with. The clan's officials claimed it was because of his "Special circumstances." He was fairly sure they were worried he would make a nuisance of himself out in the public eye. It prevented him a lot of contact beyond the Oushi-Ouja housing district and was one of the many reasons his only real friend was Suzume.

His cheeks flushed red when she indirectly referred to a past crush of the boy's. A young lady named Monomi. A low-ranking attendant in the clan's employ with beautiful scarlet hair. Etoku had confided in his cousin that he was planning on confessing to her but in the end he hadn't had the courage to follow through. He clenched a fist as he stood there getting more and more flustered. "You won't! Because if you are Suzume you would never break a pinky promise!" He said to her, slightly angry that she had even threatened to expose one of his secrets.

He took a breath to calm himself down before continuing. "A-anyway...if it is just a transformation then why don't you drop it right now? You might've proven that you know a few things but you could've easily tortured those out of her for all I know!" He explained. "So drop the jutsu and it'll be settled." He took a step closer. "I know you helped with the plates but that can't change anything. I can thrash Suzume in a fight so I could probably beat you too! Whether you are her or not!"

 

[Kazumi]

Suzume was beginning to quickly grow tired of his exaggeration of her new title within the clan. Sure, it was sudden and helped to drag her life out of the rut that it was, but before that she had no prospect of ever becoming a shinobi, unlike him. If anything it felt like a bit of sweet justice that she suddenly had gained a measure of freedom that even he had never really had. The fact that she may very well be about to lose all of that, depending on how her meeting with Nabushin went, and how the rest of the clan accepted it, only served to fuel her frustration even further.

"Yea, because anyone would torture someone just to find out some annoying brat's secret love life! Get real Etoku!" Her tone was unintentionally hostile, but such hotheadedness was not foreign to her, even if she might regret it later. "If you must know, I have had difficulties dispelling it, alright? Happy!?" She looked over to him, glaring angrily at him. Thankfully for her, she was a much better liar when fueled with rage than she was when calm. "So, either stop threatening and bugging me, or I will have to show you exactly why you are not allowed to walk around the village unattended and why I am!" Suzume's face was flushed red with anger as she tried to keep her labored breathing under control.

 

[Miroku Riyota]

He was slightly taken aback by her sudden anger but that wasn't initially what caused his own negative reaction. His skin paled even further than normal and his hand clenched tightly into a fist at her matter-of-fact statement about how he was practically a prisoner within the clan. It was one of his sore spots, one of his emotional weak points that he had shared with her and she had practically gone and taken a kunai knife straight to it. Etoku tried to hold back the tears welling up in his eyes without much success.

"I guess you must be Suzume then. Because you're just a bullheaded and arrogant and annoying as she is!" He said with a faltering voice. He stormed forward and shoved past her, tears starting to well up in his eyes. Anger from his cousin bringing up such an important detail about his life and frustration from the fact that he knew she wasn't being truthful with him were combining into a true mess of emotions that had put him on the verge of weeping.

He had made his way out of the kitchen rushing to find his room so he could be alone, sprinting past any fellow clan members who stopped to make friendly small talk with him, unwilling to show his weakness in front of them.

Eventually he made it to his room, he slid down to sit, leaning against his door. There he sat, pondering and contemplating, his cheeks red and puffy from his outburst prior. He felt another droplet across his face, but this one was cold and felt heavier. He reached a finger up to wipe away at the liquid only to look and see that it was indeed blood. "Ah crap!" He put a hand over his left eye and pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket. "Not again...c'mon." He complained to no-one in particular. Dabbing away at the bloody pool forming on his lower eyelid.

 

[Kazumi]

Her rage helped to dull her heart from the pain that radiated out from him. It would come, quick and hard, the weight of her own words, but for the moment they steeled her resolved as she continued to stare back at him. Before it had a chance to falter, he pushed her aside and rushed out of the kitchen. She continued to glare at him for the scant moment that it took for him to round the corner, but within a few heartbeats that resolve began to crack and waver. Anger gave way to numb labored breathing as she stared blankly towards the hallway.

She should have been happy, and in some ways she was. She had successfully avoided being discovered, but had practically stabbed one of her very few friends in the chest to do it. She cast her eyes downwards and pressed them shut hard as she fought to keep her own emotions of regret and self-loathing from overwhelming her. Brash as she was, she knew that it would have been for naught if she chased after him before she had a chance to speak with the Storm Lord. It would not matter for much that she hurt his feelings if she was cast out of the clan, or even the village less than an hour later.

Sniffing hard to pull her moments of weakness back inside of her, she lifted her head and took a slow deep breath to try and calm her. While it was no longer an issue, she had trained under Nabushin for a fair while to control her emotions. When the Storm had ranged within her, it was risky to let it run unchecked, and now, with that weight gone and the threat of exile looming so close, it was strange to rely on it once more. Smacking her face to snap her from her own mental loop, she marched forward out of the kitchen and towards the Storm Lord's chambers. Without knocking she opened the door and made her way inside, knowing that she would either solidify that room as her own one day or it would be the last time she entered that village again.

..........

An hour had passed, and her emotions had been tapped dry by the time she had exited his chambers. Her body was bruised and sore from the ordeal, with a small cut on her right cheek. She had let her anger consume her once again, no thanks to her cousin putting her on edge before she had entered, but it had somehow served her well. As Nabushin had subdued her, he had told her that he believed her, that it was difficult to fake that instability that he knew dwelled within her. It was a bruising remark to be sure, but one that seemed to solidify his trust in her.

There was still much to discuss, and she still harbored doubts and worries about the future, but she had more pressing matters to attend to. Now, with the threat of expulsion removed from her mind, she made her way towards her cousin's room. Finding it closed she hesitated before knocking two times on it, trying to keep her knocks as generic as possible so he might not recognize her and refuse her entry. If he eventually opened the door, she would have difficulty looking towards him, her eyes cast down to the side with a faint bruise starting to form around her left eye as she muttered, "... Sorry."

 

[Miroku Riyota]

Etoku had not moved from the door, having just been sat there contemplating everything in solemn silence. He had drawn the assumption that she had gone to see the clan head in the interim, or perhaps she just took a long while to compose herself. Regardless, eventually he heard footsteps approaching his door. Then silence. Then two light knocks. He didn't move or say anything for a long time, just letting the silence hang in the air. Planning out the conversation twenty-seven different ways with thirty-three different conclusions and variables possible.

After a short while he spoke up. Not moving from his sitting position at the door. "Nabushin gave you a thrashing didn't he?" He made the presumptuous statement in an attempt to throw her off guard. If Suzume answered he would listen, if she did not he would continue. "Did you tell him the truth?" He asked, putting her on the spot further, demanding she take some accountability.

He would wait for her to answer and then sit in silence for another short while, his foot lightly tapping against the floor of his room. Nothing but the dulled hustle and bustle from elsewhere in the clan housing to fill the silence. After the wait, he slowly stood and steadily opened his bedroom door.

His cousin apologised, brief but sorrowful. He looked down to the ground, then to her, then to the wall, then down again. "I forgive you for what you said, but I don't forgive you for what you're refusing to say. You're my best friend and you can't tell me what's up with you. That hurts more than anything you could say." He paused. "I know it's not a jutsu, I may not be a Genin but I'm not an idiot, but until you can tell me what's going on I can't forgive you."

He pushed past her gently before looking back. "Everything I do is regulated and watched, the stories you tell me when you come home are the highlights of my day. So when you refuse to tell me stuff, I feel just as trapped as ever." With that finally impactful statement he walked away.

[Leaving topic unless stopped]