sunshineverse | Along came a spider

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Along came a spider

Who: Ami and Masanori
When: Backdated to December
Where: Under a tree not far from Team Shisui's usual training ground.

Really, in retrospect it had been a poor idea to stay so close, but after years of being a social outcast Ami had come to expect a certain amount of shunning and negligence from her peers. Or at least, the peers that weren't stupid enough to try and pick a fight with her. She had forgotten, for one crucial, inexplicable moment, that Masanori was stupid, and excessively so.

So she had stayed a little too close to the field after training, choosing to settle back against a large, heavily scarred tree as she penned her latest letter to Sephiroth. It had been disappointing, getting the news that the Chuunin Exam was not an option for the team this cycle, and Ami would be lying if she said that the host site wasn't a large part of why she had hoped to attend.

She shook her head with a soft sigh and signed her name, setting the letter aside for a moment to pack up the rest of her stationary and equipment. She would post it, along with the ribbons, on her way home.

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The letter was plucked cleanly from where it was set a moment earlier and drawn soundlessly around the scarred trunk into the darkness of its shadow by nimble fingers. From his comfortable perch, Masanori shifted just so and no loudly than he retrieved the curious piece of stationary to begin with, then opened it without so much as a hint of regard for his teammate's privacy. His eyes, half-lidded, ran the length of the letter swiftly, committing every little detail to memory. The words, yes, but the handwriting, the strokes, the signature itself -- he was a quick study, quick enough to return it almost as fast as he'd taken it, but he kept it in hand a moment longer, the corners of his mouth tugging upward just so as he pondered the contents of the letter and quietly submitted to the probable consequences of his actions.

He could stand to be caught if Ami caught him. If she didn't, then it would say something about her abilities that he very well needed to know. There was still a lot he needed to know about Ami, Itsuki, Shisui, and their abilities and, when the opportunity presented itself for him to learn, he tended to consider it strongly. Thus, this indulgence, which saw him contemplating the contents of the letter further while he waited to be found.

Deranged, eh? Stupid? He would settle for that. As he continued rereading, he slowed, pausing at the girl's wondering over some strain in relationship. That was something to remember. So, too, was this curious talk of an "Abomination"? Now, what could that mean? And gift giving? Just who is this Sephiroth person?

That extra moment was more than he should have permitted her, especially given just what technique their teacher was known for—and had already begun training her in. A basically silent Shunshin landed her behind him almost as soon as she noticed the letter's absence, and a kunai was pressed to his side at an angle that had unfortunate implications for his kidney. She knew better to go for a chokehold when 'Mi-chan' was a common passenger of his hood. It had been... an alarming first couple of spars, to say the least.

"It's rude to take things that don't belong to you," she murmured, blinking languidly and keeping her tone soft and level enough that the birds on the bough above them kept chirping away at one another. "Especially somebody's mail. That's a crime, between allies." Well, once it was posted. It was just frowned upon, before seals came into play. "Give it back."

Edited 2015-01-15 02:10 (UTC)

Good.

His expression broke with that quiet, unspoken approval into something far less composed, as though he hadn't meant to be caught at all and had thought himself the paragon of a well hidden shinobi. His volume shot from zero to ten in a split second, his mouth tumbling open with an all too loud --

"Kyaaaaaaaah! Ami, you're so mean! That hurts, you know? That hurts!"

Not at all, but he was making quite the fuss, the birds taking flight at first cry. The letter? It was held high, high enough to be good and well out of the shorter girl's reach. His lower lip may very well have been quivering.

The birds flew off, taking the lion's share of Ami's patience with them. The upheld letter was the final straw; she had too many unpleasant childhood memories of different iterations of 'keep away' and 'jump for it' to accept that.

She pulled her hand back and spun the blade, jamming the hilt into his kidney, hard. Simultaneously, she hooked a foot around his ankle, bent and pitted her shoulder against the center of his back. She heaved sending both of them tumbling out of the tree. She could always re-write the letter, yes, but it was the principle of the thing now.

"It's '-senpai' to you, Shizu-baka-san," she hissed, her tone going glacial for a moment.

Oops.

His back finding the ground was a testament in the same vein, not that he particularly minded save that any bruising would be a minor inconvenience. Mi-chan had moved, and swiftly, to take up residence atop his chest, her chittering a soft ring in his ears alongside that glacial utterance. Anyone else might have quickly righted themselves, but Masanori was rather content to reach instead to give the back of his head a ginger rub and take a moment to catch the air that had left him on impact, letter in hand.

"Baka-sempai?" He breathed the question, sitting up all too quickly and guiding his eight-legged partner to his shoulder simultaneously. "That's pretty easy to remember."

Mind, he probably should have made some grand display of being in indescribable pain, but it was the principle of the thing now. The smile that curved across his face was offered simply with cutting clarity as he opened his mouth to pose an equally simple question.

"Did I upset you?"

She stared down at him for a long moment, before returning to the ground far, far more gracefully than he had. "Pairing an insult with an honorific merely negates any actual politeness." She sheathed her kunai back into its holster at the back of her skirt and walked over to him, peering down with eerie blankness. It wouldn't technically be correct to say that she had been warm and open with her teammates so far, but in the wake of her walls slamming back up, it was clear that there had been a gradual thawing.

A moot point, for the moment.

"I learned early that harassment requires a hard response early on," Ami said, her voice soft but utterly, tonelessly even. "Clear consequences in regards to actions." So, yes, but she wasn't feeling charitable enough to give him a simple or blunt answer. That said, she slowly extended her hand, still expressionless.

Had Masanori hailed from any other clan, Ami's even tone and expressionless face might have ruffled him. Being a Shizuoka, however, such presentation inspired nothing but the faintest hint of curiosity in him for the source. For all that people tended to tout that extremes were dangerous, even was not always better and nothing could scream more powerfully than anything. And it was, wasn't it? An observation made to be remembered for future reference, but that was that. His little game was done not for fear, but a sound word from the hungry mouth at his ear.

"Is that all?"

The question uttered, and with a smile that much wider, the letter was placed in her hand. He made no move to stand just yet, eyes still keenly focused on the girl.

"For the moment," Ami decided. She blinked slowly at the prompt return of her letter, and carefully put it away in the bag at her hip. That hadn't been her immediate intention, however, and she once again extended her hand. Her index and middle fingers were ever so slightly bent ahead of her ring finger and pinky, if he looked close. In short, it was one of the most grudging and pathetic Seals of Reconciliation ever offered. But it was offered all the same.

Ami knew she would get nowhere fast if she allowed herself to view her teammates with the same deeply entrenched sense of enmity as her former classmates, so she was trying as best she could to...

Well, to not follow her instincts.

Grudging and pathetic was right. Despite his critical eye, Masanori had initially missed the sign altogether. It was a grievous oversight he would be sure to reflect upon later, but evidently not damning enough for the girl's persistence. That was curious, surprising, unexpected enough to give him the slightest pause. Why was it so unexpected? He pulled his mind quickly from the question, filing it in a mental folder to draw when he was perched in relative safety. More immediately, he had to decide whether or not he would return that gesture, not that there was much of a choice.

That was realized in the next instant.

Pushing himself up and dusting himself off, he held her gaze. Then, his hands remembered his fingers and his fingers remembered the pose somewhat less grudgingly, but only somewhat. This was where his path had led him and he hadn't strolled long enough to decide whether or not it required some changing. Any forest had many, but for now --

"Strange," he said, and more to himself than Ami with an odd little smile.

She closed the distance between them and curled her fingers over his, holding the seal for the one-two-three beat you were supposed to. She had never lingered that long with any of her classmates post-spar, but that was because she really had no interest whatsoever in reconciling with the brats that had teased or ignored her for years. Shizuoka Masanori was... infuriating, and flippant, and ridiculous and a thousand other things.

But he wasn't her enemy. Not yet, and hopefully not ever.

"Strange?" She tilted her head to one side, eyes narrowing. "What is?" She wasn't sure she wanted to hear that from a boy like him. If anything, he was the strangest person here. And that included the large spider riding in his hood.

Miourugumo had indeed taken the liberty of returning to his hood. For all that Masanori enjoyed flaunting his companion, and he did more so in the perceivable safety of the presence of his team, she was not a creature particularly inclined toward unnecessary spotlights. Masanori on the other hand --

A shake of his head was the response, his smile something decent in size, but not quite taunting and far from sinister. A change in subject was in order.

"'Abomination'?" That was the question of the moment.

Ami actually grimaced at that, her mask of indifference shattered by the aggravated wince that stole across her face. She didn't like thinking about that particular aspect of the letter normally, let alone explaining it to other people. Her aunt thought Sephiroth's doting on the doll was a cute way of teasing her, her uncle was often just as fanatic with the shop mannequins, and her cousin had elected to reserve judgment on the issue.

"...something I sent to my—friend," she stumbled briefly over the word, unused to using it but moderately certain it applied to him, foreign jounin or not. "I had hoped he would destroy it for me, but he has apparently opted to maintain it with... unsettling care."

She puffed her cheeks out in a reflexive pout, before she could think better of it.

Well, that was unexpected. And rather amusing or so was his thought as he processed that shattered indifference, the aggravated wince, and the puffing cheeks. The puffing cheeks really stole the show, though.

"Haa! You should always destroy your own things," he replied, pausing. "I guess you must trust him a lot, though, if you asked him to do it."

Which made said 'friend' that much more a curiosity. Ami didn't seem the trusting type, after all.

"It..." She visibly hesitated. "It looks... too much like me." She mumbled out the last part, shoulders inching up defensively as she buried her face in her high collar. "It felt—" too ominous "—wrong to do the deed myself. I didn't think he would get attached."

Certainly not to the extent that her had, at least.

"I... do," she said, and if her voice faltered, the shy, warm certainty shining in her eyes certainly didn't.

Edited 2015-02-24 21:09 (UTC)

A so-called Abomination that looked too much like Ami? Masanori puzzled a moment over what it could be. A piece of artwork commissioned by some creepy stalker client maybe? In any case, his attention was drawn rather pointedly back for Ami's rather odd behavior. Her body language was different and that look in her eye was worthy of a long stare and a slowly lifted hand placed to the back of her head.

Was she sick or was this guy worthy of concern?

(Hi! I'm working on updating the Timeline. You have mid-Dec for the letter and give no date here. Do you have an exact date you'd like this and the letter to have taken place, or would you prefer I just assign it a day?)

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Along came a spider

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