Home "Sweet" Home [Private]

[Chiyo]

The sounds of flesh striking the heavy canvas covering of a kickboxing bag drifted down from the roof of a small apartment building as the sun broke the horizon over Sunagakure. Chiyo had taken to waking up before the sun so that she could enjoy some peace while her lover and her father were still asleep. After Michino lost his leg and was having difficulty adjusting, it had been no more strenuous than breathing to have him move in with her. Even after the short time they had been together, their personalities meshed in such a way that conflicts were short lived and the aftermath always made the reason behind any arguments forgettable by comparison. Those few short months had been the best of her life until her father's empire crumbled from beneath him. The old man didn't have anywhere else to go, all of his safe houses having been compromised, so there was no question that he would move in with his daughter. He shouldn't even have to ask, right? Just show up on her doorstep in the middle of the night and move in, right?

The blows against the canvas became faster, louder, as she started to hear sounds of stirring coming from the open window that led into her little one-bedroom apartment. The place had been perfect for one person, cozy for two, but definitely too small for three people. Of course it wasn't as if she would have turned Toushin away, he was her father after all. Despite all the shit he put her through she still loved him. She just wished the two men in her life could at least pretend to be civil for the sake of her sanity. Pushing the thoughts out of her mind, she tried to keep clear of distractions while she trained and soon enough she was again focused only on her blows finding their target.

Long, raven hair whirled around her slender frame as the young shinobi circled the standing bag, alternating blows between her various extremities as she moved. At times her movements seemed almost like dancing, but as soon as she moved in to attack there was nothing fluid about the motion. There was nothing but pure strength behind the powerful impacts, more than most could imagine ever coming from such a small person. Of course, the Uzumoreru had her blood on her side, allowing her to put much more behind her punches than her small frame would normally allow, even with the wiry muscles that were just visible beneath her fair skin.

Chiyo stayed up there for at least another half hour, trying to put off the moment she would have to go and face the barely veiled aggression that had filled her home lately. The sun had chased the last of the shadows away and the dry heat from the surrounding desert was quickly chasing away the night's gentle breeze. A bead of sweat slid down the back of her neck from beneath her dark hair and she aimed one last blow directly at the center of the dummy, causing it to fall over with a loud thud. The cranky old man that lived in the other top floor apartment shouted out his window a few choice words that were not very nice and she flinched a little, not bothering to apologize. Trying to avoid disturbing that man would require complete silence, so she paid very little attention to him. Having made friends with his wife soon after moving in helped of course, and she would always go and make it up to him later. With a small chuckle as she heard him grumble and slam the window shut, she returned the training dummy to its natural position and walked over to the edge of the roof.

For a moment, she stood there, letting the warm breeze blow around her body and she closed her eyes, enjoying the sensation. After a time, she took a step forward, letting herself fall off the side before catching herself on the windowsill to swing her lithe body through an open window and into her kitchen. Landing lightly on the tile floors, she stretched her limbs, glancing anxiously toward the pull-out couch that had become her father's bedroom.

 

[Toraono Michino]

The dark skin male tossed in his bed trying to fight through the vivid dream that clutched him. A film of cold sweat had started to glisten across his bare flesh as his right arm thrashed in a swing. Then again, once with his left, and again with his right. His breath had started to pick up as the vivid dream took hold of his mind. Michino tossed to his right and raised up the stub of a left leg to kick out. The action caused the tissue of the stub to stretch and spike a bone deep pain, breaking him from sleep. His eyes shot open and the Toraono shot up in the bed clutching the twitching muscles of his left thigh. He bit down on his bottom lip nearly hard enough to break skin to distract his freshly awakened mind away from the pain. After a couple of minutes sitting up straight and massaging the muscles on either side of leg he felt the pain slowly starting to slide away.

Of course it was still there, a dull thump that would eventually get worse as the day went on. The doctors had prescribed pain medication but he hated the way they turned his brain into cotton despite finally allowing him to sleep a full eight hours. Every once in a while he’d break down and finally take one, and even as he drifted into blissful sleep he kicked himself for the weakness.
The warrior swung his leg over the edge of the bed and used the wall to help him stand up before reaching out for his walking stick. It was actually more of a staff. It was made from the petrified root of, supposedly, the last tree in the desert. While Michino had his doubts on the origin of the tree, one thing was certain, it did not bend to anything. The staff easily held his weight, grip, and provided him as a service to the missing leg. Once his strong arm gripped the staff he was able to easily move around and made his way towards the bathroom but not before sliding a robe over his exposed form. Opening the bedroom door Michino listened for the sounds in he house to determine what time he had awakened. It was not unusual for him to sleep well towards the afternoon in the last year since his early retirement, but by the sounds of a boxing bag getting a beating he determined it was early. Real early. There was a slight frown over his face as his body went through it’s natural routines knowing that there was a great chance that Uzu would be holed up in the bathroom around this time. By his guess it was about another hour before his girlfriend’s father would be crashing on the living room pull out. Still, he determined it be best to check before going through another morning of mental exercise in body control. Reaching the bathroom the ex-shinobi gave the door a tap with his staff and it drifted open. Not to be one to look a gift for its worth Michino shoved the door opened and locked it behind him.

The water faucet was running when he heard Chiyo’s feet land in the kitchen. Owari made sure to let him know, even though he already knew, and the Toraono wanted to argue with that annoying little voice in his head that she wouldn’t know that the assassin would be in the kitchen anyways since Chiyo didn’t use chakra in nearly anything unless she had to; the demon energy was adapt at picking up energy waves, not sounds. However before he let the bored voice in his head trap him in another useless argument on who was more powerful, because she always went there, Michino took a deep breath and drowned out Owari’s voice with a list of mental tasks for the day. Opening the door he half-hobbled down the hall and into the living room to see his girlfriend, and only her.
Of course immediately what Michino wanted to do was hobble up and give Chiyo the kiss she deserved for putting up with the stress of two extra occupants in her hard earned home…instead he asked the question aloud he knew she would be thinking,
“Where is your father?”

It was highly unusual for Toushin to be missing in the morning time. Looking at the pull out that was still in the form of a couch all he could see was the mental image of a spiteful old man demanding food while harping on the tall youth about his training. The lack of silence was a mix of weird terror and blessed relief. There was no sound or even smell of Chiyo’s damnable father anywhere. The old warrior waited for his lover to begin looking for clues while he tried to sort out what Uzu would still be up to.

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Deep in the underground, far deeper than anyone ever went anymore for fear of what lurked down there, an old man with a torch in his metallic left hand, carefully traversed the maze of caverns and a giant shadow kept close behind. Following old signs no one alive knew of anymore the assassin finally found the false wall he was looking for and moved out into an unbelievably open area in the caverns. A broken bridge stretched about half way into the cave, hanging out over a black pit where the ruins of his clan’s castle rested. Toushin took his sweet time walking down that bridge as he relived the days of his past as a youth, long before Chiyo had been born. Once he reached the edge of the pit the old man could feel a pounding in his heart. This was it. Everything he had kept secret and pushed away in hopes that his family would stay in the dark was down there, waiting. The secrets about Chiyo’s blood, the ticking time-bomb she wasn’t aware of, and the remedy to all of it was down there. His flesh hand reached up and clenched his chest as a sharp pain struck his heart.

“Ye’ah sure ye want to be doin’ this, old man?” the soft and concerned voice of a blonde giant spoke as he slowly stepped from the shadows behind Toushin.
“Yes. Even if it kills me, Tama. Just keep your promise, that’s all I ask.”
“Don’tcha worry. I ain’t the man I used to be,” the scientist replied before placing his right hand on the old assassin’s back. He pulsed a mix of both his chakra and some of his Ancient energy to undo the cursed seal he had once placed there. An explosion of natural energy immediately began to flood the entire space with a painful white light until it all suddenly surged back down through the old man’s eyes. Black blood began to fill around his golden irises once more…

 

[Chiyo]

For a beat Chiyo felt a panic rising in her chest as she processed what was wrong with the near silence in the house. Normally she would come back inside after her morning warm-up to some light nagging from her father while she made them both breakfast but the couch was still in its normal position and there was no sign of the old man anywhere in the living room. The sound of running water coming from the bathroom calmed her somewhat, though it was still strange that he would still be going through his morning routine at this time. Maybe he wasn't feeling well or had a particularly rough night. Then again, he was getting older, it was only to be expected that he would start to have some irregularity issues. The man's diet certainly didn't help, she thought with a roll of her eyes. Of course her past attempts at getting him to eat healthier had only been met with grumbled refusals.

She stared at the bathroom door thoughtfully as she tried to come up with arguments in her head. The "I want to keep you around" approach didn't go over well, he had stubbornly turned it into a lecture on being independent - as if she needed that. She had also exhausted pointing out the tactical benefits of keeping the body in prime condition, but he shut those down too, citing that he had never had any trouble before. Well, it was time for extreme measures. With a resolute nod toward the closed bathroom door that she assumed concealed her father, the small Uzumoreru spun on her heel and opened the fridge with a snap. Shooting another glance toward the closed door, she started to pull various containers of prepared fruits, vegetables, and leafy greens from within and piled them on the counter next to a well-used blender along with a tray of ice cubes, a jar of honey, another jar of some sort of nut butter, and a couple of spice canisters.

This was part of her normal morning routine; get up early, train for a while, get yelled at by the neighbor, then breakfast with Toushin and occasionally Michino. She always made a hearty breakfast for the male occupants of the house while she drank a carefully chosen blend of ingredients that were meant to improve her blood flow but provided countless other benefits as well. Now her routine was going to become much simpler. Michino wouldn't mind the change, he didn't complain about much thankfully, but the elder Uzumoreru was going to put up one hell of a fight. Well, if he wanted something else for breakfast, he could just make it himself. The flurry of stubbornness swam through the dark-haired youth's head as she added some of everything to the glass pitcher before securing the lid and setting it to blend.

The kitchen was filled with a loud whirring as the myriad of colors swirled together into an unappetizing green liquid, so she didn't hear the bathroom door open as her lover came out, so she didn't expect to see a huge, dark figure out of the corner of her eye as she shut off the machine and twisted to grab a couple of glasses from the cupboard over the sink. Stretched up on her toes with one hand on the cabinet door and the other reaching for a glass, she froze before she whipped around as the realization hit her anew that her father wasn't home.

Golden eyes stared into violet as the surprise, then panic set in as she several possible scenarios ran through her head to explain where Uzumoreru Toushin might be. After what seemed like a long time to her but was really only a few seconds, she finally answered his question with a slightly annoyed tone. "Well...I assumed he was in the bathroom and you were still in bed, but that's apparently not the case." It wasn't as if he had ever been in the habit of letting his daughter know where he was going when he left the house, nor did she normally care, but he was almost always home by now. Pulling her lower lip between her teeth she started to chew on the soft flesh as her eyes flooded with black blood allowing her to more clearly see anything out of the ordinary that she might not notice otherwise. A quick glance around the small living space told her that his gear was missing, so he hadn't just stepped out or anything. There wasn't even a sign that he had tried to let them know where he would be, even the notepad she used to make grocery lists just had a couple of items written on it in her own loopy script. "He wasn't here when I woke up, and he didn't mention anything to me last night before I went to bed..." she muttered to herself for a moment as she stood in the middle of the living room, her eyes gazing out the front window as the smoke clouds faded as quickly as they had come.

After a time, she turned back to Michino with a shake of her head. "Yeah, I have no clue and he didn't mention that he was planning anything, either. Did he say anything to you?" It wasn't likely that he would have said anything more than the usual snide remarks to his daughter's boyfriend - especially since the he barely tolerated the Toraono's presence in the first place - but it didn't hurt to ask. Just as she finished speaking, however, the green concoction she had created in the kitchen caught her attention and she groaned angrily. "Oh, I forgot! I made him some Green Juice and now he's disappeared somewhere!" With a huff, she walked back into the kitchen and pulled two glasses out of the cabinet before pouring half the mixture into each of them. "It's just like him to do something like this to get out of eating healthy.......even if he...wasn't exactly aware at the time." That, of course, was stupid. Could she blame him for something he didn't know about when he made the decision to leave without telling anyone? Yes, absolutely. Setting the pitcher back onto the base, she let out a laugh, shook her head, then put one in the fridge with a slightly vindictive grin. "Well this works great, he'll just have to drink it after it's been sitting in the fridge. He's not getting out of it either, that's what he gets for making me worry."

Taking the other glass in hand, she brought it to her lips for a long drink then walked back over to stand in front of Michino, the worrying grin replaced with a sweet smile she reserved especially for him. "I'm sure Toushin will be home eventually, he's a big boy. If he needed our help I'm sure he would have said something. This isn't the first time he's disappeared without telling me anything." The last part was added with a slightly sour twist of her lips, but she shook it off and stepped closer to her lover, slipping an arm under his robe and around his waist. "Anyway, good morning, love. You're up kind of early, did you sleep okay?"

 

[Toraono Michino]

There was a smell.
Michino had no idea how the hell Chiyo choked down what she called, ‘Green Juice’, and he had no desire to find out mostly due to mortal fear she would make him try it. Carefully he eyed around the corner to see that she was filling two goddamned glassed. His heart dropped, his stomach flipped, and he could already taste the bile at the back of his throat. With a deep breath, Michino steadied himself and rounded the corner; totally prepared to drink the breakfast offered to him.

Thank the Demonbeast, it was for Toushin.

Relieved that he didn’t have to choke down liquid breakfast, his body relaxed right before her hand slipped inside of his robe. The feel of her warmth against his flesh was always relaxing and for a moment he just stood there in his half-wake state as she finished her meal. Before Chiyo set down the empty cup, the large man had hobbled back into a chair at the dining room table, stretching out a little and wincing at the pain in his leg. He looked somewhat comical sitting in a chair made for normal people as his seven foot frame seemed to almost dwarf the seat.
He was actually really happy, inside, that she had dismissed her father’s random break in his routine. The logical side of his mind knew that when Uzu broke routine, he was making a move on something. No doubt that man’s daughter had also already figured that out and was moving about her day as per normal She seemed to be just as out of the loop on this as he was and didn’t care at all; it really put the ebony toned man at ease.

Michino’s breakfast was next. He waited patiently while Chiyo began to make preparations to cook him the meat heavy breakfast he was eating to rebuild his lost strength. It had been nearly two years since he had taken training seriously. The last month had been hell on his muscles, but thankfully between Chi-Chi’s ability to see where his blood was flowing and Toushin’s ancient remedies, he was making it. A smile wavered across his face as the smell of cooking meats raised into the air, though he still felt something was missing. The Toraono looked around and realized that normally he’d be waiting for the assassin to finish the morning news paper Michino was subscribed to. If the old bastard wasn’t on the couch bitching, then it probably meant his morning paper was still untouched. Grabbing his staff the young man hobbled across the small apartment and opened the front door. The usual desert warmth blew in a little, carrying a bit of sand with it that slapped against his face. Looking down by his right foot, the Toraono joyously saw the rolled up paper waiting for someone to take it inside away from the horrible elements that would see it destroyed before anyone could read the contents. Turning around carefully, he closed the door and began to hobble back to the dining table to read, for the first time in awhile, the news first.

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Toushin hopped off the ledge and fell nearly two-hundred feet down into the ruins of his old home. At the last moment before impact he made a motion with his hands to cause his own blood to flay itself from inside his body, through his suit, and latch onto the rubble like a spider-web, slowing his decent so that he touched the rubble without a sound.
Ryuu Tama, on the other hand, simply crashed against the ground into a pile of broken human, causing a small crater to form around his body from the impact. Toushin could only stare at the utter stupidity of the man to simply follow along in suit. Surely the so-called genius knew the length of the fall simply by listening to the air, why would he not even bother using the vast amounts of chakra the assassin personally knew the mad-man had?

A hand touched Uzu’s shoulder and the assassin spun around to swing a metallic backhand only for it to be caught by the hand of an elderly gentleman. Toushin jumped back and with a flick of his wrists caused two blades made of his blood to form in his hands. Even after decades of his powers being sealed away, the technique came to him like he had always just been holding back or something. Though the old man simply shoved his hands inside of the lab-coat he was wearing and sighed,
“Look, you want to fight? W-we can do that later, trust me, I’d have nooooo problems stomping that smug fucking face in - but we’re here for a reason, right?” Old Tama finished on a harsh note, his patience having significantly waned from his age jump.
Toushin shook his head, rubbed his eyes, and for a full thirty seconds just fidgeted around trying to wrap his head around the phenomenon. His eyes gazed to where Tama’s broken corpse was just seconds ago and saw nothing, then turned back to see that the time-jumping old man had suddenly stepped inside of his guard without a sound. The old assassin felt a creeping feeling roll up his spinal cord. Something deep, deep, inside of his stomach told Uzu that the old man walking into his range was no longer human. As far as Uzu was concerned, the scientist had finally screwed with the fabric of nature enough to transcend beyond apparent death.
“Well?!” The impatient immortal snapped at Toushin, easily out aging him now by at least twenty years. For the first time in his life the assassin knew a true fear, and jumped at the elder’s snappy tone. With a deep breath he tried to calm his racing mind with the knowledge that at least the fucker was on his side.

“It’s…probably near the center. The entrance to the dungeons was a giant staircase that went down another hundred feet at least. According to what little information I had gathered back when Chiyoko started her training, there is supposedly a great store of information that my mother hid.”
“What’s it for? You didn’t just drag me out here to unleash your seal. You could have had me done that back at my trailer, what gives?”
“Aside from you owe me?” Uzu banged his bone knuckles against the metal of his shinobi arm prosthetic, but then sighed,
“I’m honestly going to need your help. Aside from what ever the hell is down in the dungeon, and I promise you it’s going to be terrible, alive, and hungry…I’ll also need your help deciphering the collective knowledge.
“My mother was a lot like you, very scientific. She was also incredibly sadistic and preformed more than her share of twisted experiments all in the attempt to extend her miserable life. Almost a whole year before you destroyed what remained of my clan and our home, she disappeared. In the little of her writings I was able to obtain from merchants, I’ve gathered that it was possibly due to the powers Chiyo has now. Supposedly, our black blood is actually a curse that will eventually consume us, but, Mother thought it was also a disease that could be cured. Either way, I want to see if she found a way to break the curse so I can spare my daughter the same fate.”
The scientist furrowed his eyebrows, a little annoyed by something that irked him.
“What about you? You’re blood is naturally black too, aren’t you worried about it consuming you?”

It was then that the old warrior’s face dropped a little. Toushin’s golden eyes stared down at the ground for a moment before sighing and pulling up the sleeve of his suit to reveal an arm that looked like it was being afflicted with frost bite. The scientist winced at the sight of it, his mind already racing on trying to deduce the symptoms and causes. Before he could get far, though, the assassin spoke up,
“Please, don’t bother. It’s too late for me. The blood has started to weaken me and parts of my body are breaking down. Releasing the seal probably added another two years though, so, thanks I guess. Enough talk, lets get to work.”

Uzu rolled down his sleeve, carefully, and turned towards the darkness to start searching through the rubble for a broken door. Before he even spent a full minute looking, Uzu heard a snap. A near hurricane force of wind rushed from the scientist’s masterful control over chakra and elements to lift the rubble away and push it off the platform to fall the rest of the way down into the chasm.
“Well, that should make it a little easier,” Toushin mumbled to himself, not wishing to further pester the man with a firm grip on time’s metaphorical testicles.