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damnfooltalkPosted: Nix, nada, ZIP-P
Still, not too shabby considering I had the plague for the first week of the month. :p
IN PROGRESS:
- Founders Era fixit (Naruto): 9832 words
- Tatsuki Was Robbed (Bleach): 643 words
Sneak Peek:
> Founders Era fixit <
Mito finally looked up from her tea as the unusual studious silence stretched on, watching as Haruka worked quietly on the conversion matrix for their next trial run. She didn't seem outwardly distressed or even what Mito would consider listless, if she didn't know her well enough by now to mark the absence of any extraneous motion- no fidgeting with the beads in her hair, no tapping of the pen she favored in rhythms to whatever song was in her head, no absent-minded, under-the-breath snatches of song or humming.
Her people seemed to favor a direct approach, so Mito just asked. "Haruka-san, is something wrong?"
She didn't respond immediately, finishing a complicated symbol, and her eyes when she looked up were blank. "Not particularly. Why do you ask?"
Tobirama glanced up from the fortress of scrolls and bound collections surrounding his desk- he was feeling uncommonly social, tolerating not just herself and Haruka in his workspace, but even Hashirama had yet to be ejected while he sat quietly reviewing the sealed scroll that Mito knew contained the most recent draft of the Senju-Uchiha treaty. Tobirama still seemed content to defer any actual response to Mito despite his show of interest, much as she expected. "You've been quiet today."
Haruka's face stayed almost empty of expression, which told Mito as much as anything else that she was right. "I found out last night that my sensei died," she said after a pause that went on long enough that Mito wondered if she wasn't about to just resume working instead. "That's what the song was."
"Song?" Hashirama chimed in, looking innocently curious.
Haruka threw him a dry look that had only a trace of her usual attitude, but still answered, "Yes, the song that would have been clearly audible to whoever you had watching us last night."
They all knew that the stupid ploy was more to draw her into engaging more than any real attempt to deny that the Senju were monitoring the Kitaalo enclave in their midst, but evidently Hashirama wasn't satisfied with that. He put the handle of his brush to his lips in a would-be thoughtful gesture, ignoring Mito rolling her eyes and his brother's quietly exasperated sigh from the back of the room, and after a moment of theatrical musing, announced, "Nope! I have no idea what you're talking about." In a gentler tone, he added, "But I am sorry to hear about your sensei."
"So was I," she said. The subdued moment passed, and Haruka quirked an eyebrow his way, more expression than she'd shown most of the morning. "And you should probably talk to your spy network about that, unless you mean to perch on our roof yourself tonight, in which case you may as well come in."
Hashirama beamed. "How kind. I may do that."
>Tatsuki was Robbed <
Tatsuki snorted and took a swig of her water bottle, watching Ichigo stagger off to Orihime for healing. "Still can't believe the crybaby I spent years kicking around the dojo grew up to be such a beast. I'm gonna have to kick his ass once he puts his body back on, keep him humble."
The arrancar straightened from his lounge, weirdly bright blue eyes wide and intent. "You're saying you could beat Kurosaki?"
She rolled her eyes. "Sure, when he's human." She eyed the line of tension running through the hollow's body, experienced eyes cataloguing every twitch. "Don't worry, I won't come between the two of you. When he's in his spirit body, he's all yours."
He sneered at her in response, but he still asked after a beat, "So what're you, then?"
"Just human," she said absently, preoccupied for a moment with the sight of Orihime's shun shun rikka settling, gleaming, back into her shining hair. If Tatsuki were a poet, that would have become a poem, something about flowering stars coming to rest in silk the color of the setting sun... but she couldn't get the words to do it justice, never could.
