A/N: I just completed some research thus--revisions for a certain sections--
oooo
He hears the rustle of fabric by his ear as he gasps, and feels the clinging wetness of tears upon his cheeks. He looks aside and sees Kakashi squat down by him as he lifts his head a little from his hands.
"Ino..? Is that..?"
Ed narrows his eyes at the man's mismatched gaze, and pushes himself off the tiled floor. The sluggish response of his false leg surprises him, and he teeters precariously to his left.
"No..I suppose not." Ed hears the man whisper, the words nearly lost in the noise filling the hall. No. he's in a room. He picks out the high whirling of straining automail gears amongst the general din of voices, and looks down. Many cracks meander from broken tiles, and two of his metal toes are missing. He glances back and sees the bed, and supposes he's still in the same room before he confirms his suspicions by eying the mess of alchemical constructs on his left.
The ginormous white dog whines as he ambles towards a white washed wall. The gathered crowd milling about the door hushes. He freezes his movements as the sharp edge of a knife bites at his throat. He follows the arm as far as he dares, but the strong whiff of dog tells him that it has to be the wild haired boy that has the weapon.
"What was that you were saying about Konoha?" He hears the boy growl in his ear.
Ed smoothly shifts back, takes a firm hold of both the boy's arm and the fur like tunic thing he wears, and rolls his shoulders. The boy lands hard on the broken tile at Ed's feet, and the impact frees the knife. The thing clatters off to bang against base of the low alchemical wall.
"Learn some manners." Ed growls at the breathless boy. He flicks his eyes at the crowd, and then stiffens as he feels a slight prick at his back. The big white dog is suddenly there before him, growling threats with bared teeth.
"Care to say that in a more civil tongue?" He hears Kakashi's voice say calmly behind him. He turns his head slightly, and narrows his eyes at the mismatched gaze.
"Manners." Ed says in careful Gibberish. "You. Need good ones."
"Manners. You say. Ah." The man says noncommittally, and shifts his gaze and adds in a more commanding tone. "Kiba, take Akamaru and the others. Get out of here. Now."
"But.."
"Don't make me put all of you on detail. This mess is your doing and is a serious breach of protocol." Kakashi looks to the crowd, and Ed follows his gaze. Many of the nins look sheepishly down at their sandals." You are fortunate that the villages are still getting organized and I am the one in field command of Konoha nin. You all have your assignments. Go."
Ed closes his eyes and, after letting out a breath, is careful to move his hands slowly. The boy snarls at him in a manner much like the dog before scrambling away on all fours. Ed finds himself wondering if the boy is some sort of chimera.
With little other choice, Ed silently watches as the others shuffle out. The crowd is sullen as they look back, if they look his way at all. His gaze wanders, then lingers on the limp form of a blond girl slumped on the ground a few feet by the door. Her long blond ponytail is artfully arranged over her limp shoulder.
A rather plump nin squats down and, with great care, hefts the body from the floor. As the girl's head is cradled in the nook of his flabby neck, the chubby face glances at him with eyes brimming with hate.
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
Showing posts with label fma-naruto crossover. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fma-naruto crossover. Show all posts
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
Fma-naruto chappy 26 ish, revised..
Ed widens his eyes as the blond girl's body slumps and, with a start, looks around his surroundings.
He quickly stands up in the inky blackness, seeing nothing in the gloom. He breathes deep, intending to holler out, but feels no complex interplay of muscles to intake the no breath. Not sound passes through the nothing that must be his lips, and a heartbeat later, he realizes he hears nothing echoing in the surrounding ether. He knows his heart would have raced with sheer panic, and he wonders if he still has one, somewhere.
He channels his fear into anger, his most reliable of friends; it bubbles forth from his being, and he finds himself wishing he had something to strike with his fists—even though it is a futile wish. He is nothing but a passing thought, and even if it is a crazy notion, he somehow he knows it as true.
Is this how Al feels..? He thinks, darting his non-eyes about. A rumble of something like thunder passes overhead and he looks up to see a flash like blood soaked lightening above him. He reaches for it, and through the afterglow, sees the ghosting of his fingers. His throat would have tightened, he knows, and he wonders if he's dead. He looks closer at his digits and sees dark and red tinted storm clouds forming about his dim form.
No. Those are not clouds, he thinks. He watches them, billowing about above him, and all around They are not composed of something as mundane as water, a mere pair of hydrogen atoms loosely bonded to an oxygen atom do not behave that way. Not in here, wherever here is. Whatever they are, they are certainly pure and very pervasive.
He looks away and around, seeing all of them quickly drape and arrange themselves into orderly formula after formula. He works out what they are, and something of a thought later, permutations of billions upon billions of alchemical arrays storm forth from one of his hands alone. They are numbers: the purest form of data. A particularly ragged looking seal simmers to life at his command from a few of his outstretched fingers, and he can't help staring at the beauty of it. This huge volume of knowledge—a foggy mass that the Gate itself stuffed into his head—obscures the darkness of his own mind from him.
He feels a sharp pain in his remaining knee and gasps. It's a real gasp, and a dull ache of something else in his gut follows. The sudden influx of reality parts the haze from his disembodied sight, and.
He sees her, or rather the ghostly image of her. She floats in the darkness, utterly at home and snarling far far below his current position.
"So what if I can't walk, you idiots! I worked for the Akatsuki! I worked for the Akatsuki! You call yourselves shinobi? " She says clearly in Gibberish, then forces a wicked laugh. "What I did to that Inoichi.. I swear I'll do the same to every last one of you, and when that's done, I'll move on to--to every one of your family members! I swear that Konohagakure will be nothing but dust and bones by the day's end!"
By her words he is sure she is the one that did this something, whatever it is.
No. She couldn't.
Logically, if what he is seeing around him is pure Gate knowledge, leaking as ever from his mind, then he is still somewhere within his own body. If that is so...
Oh.. this is so very very familiar in so many disturbing ways. This is his body, dammit, and somehow she has total control of it!
He would have laughed had he a diaphragm to do so.
If she has control, it won't be for long. She is only human, and nothing really, compared to that ancient monster, Pride, who once, in desperation, tried to wrest his body from him. He won that terror of a fight entirely on his own, and with nothing more than his own mind and soul as weapons. She doesn't know how badly she has miscalculated. She doesn't know just who she is messing with.
She doesn't stand a chance. He thinks. If she expects me to not defend myself against such an hoary invader..!
He figures he'll deal with what and who is beyond that when he gets there; No big deal, really, he thinks, and settles himself to begin.
He tells himself that he is a philosopher's stone, with the power of a single soul, and reaches out.
He lifts his non brows at just how off his perceptions are in this place when his ghostlike hand fully encompasses the girl. He easily lifts her, for she is but a tiny thing, really, and as she rises in his massive grip, she turns to look at him. He winces as she shrieks shrilly, the sharp sound pierces his mind like an unwelcome knife, and leaves a pounding headache in its wake. He supposes he glowers her way in response, for she seems to shrink into herself in her fear. When she is the size of an insect and scrambling along on his forefinger, she brings her hands together. She proceeds to twist her fingers into a complex pattern, filled with the air of one that expects something to happen.
When nothing does, she looks up at him with wide, terror filled eyes. He watches the tears stream down the shape of her face. Even here, he can't but help be reminded of just who this girl, this—nin—looks like.
Besides, he tells himself, those tears are in no way real. He tries mightily to keep his silence stony as he regards her, but here, especially here in what must be his core, he can feel the cracks of his many flaws grinding. As ever, it is those cracks which threaten to shatter his heart to pieces.
ooooo
He hears the rustle of fabric by his ear as he gasps, and feels the clinging wetness of tears upon his cheeks. He looks aside and sees Kakashi squat down by him as he lifts his head a little from his hands.
"Ino..? Is that..?"
Ed narrows his eyes at the man's mismatched gaze, and pushes himself off the tiled floor. The sluggish response of his false leg surprises him, and he teeters precariously to his left.
"No..I suppose not." Ed hears the man whisper, the words nearly lost in the noise filling the hall. He picks out the high whirling of straining automail gears amongst the general din of voices, and looks down. Many cracks meander from broken tiles, and two of his metal toes are missing.
The gianormous white dog stands nearby and whines as he ambles towards a white washed wall. The gathered crowd hushes as he stops mid step, feeling the sharp edge of a knife biting at his throat. He follows the arm as far as he dares, but the strong whiff of dog tells him that it has to be the wild haired boy that has the weapon.
"What was that you were saying about Konoha?" He hears the boy growl in his ear. The dangerous position he is in reminds him much of his days he spent in training, but he swallows anyway.
It is afterall, expected.
ooooo
A/n- still working on it, and it flows so much better this way..
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
He quickly stands up in the inky blackness, seeing nothing in the gloom. He breathes deep, intending to holler out, but feels no complex interplay of muscles to intake the no breath. Not sound passes through the nothing that must be his lips, and a heartbeat later, he realizes he hears nothing echoing in the surrounding ether. He knows his heart would have raced with sheer panic, and he wonders if he still has one, somewhere.
He channels his fear into anger, his most reliable of friends; it bubbles forth from his being, and he finds himself wishing he had something to strike with his fists—even though it is a futile wish. He is nothing but a passing thought, and even if it is a crazy notion, he somehow he knows it as true.
Is this how Al feels..? He thinks, darting his non-eyes about. A rumble of something like thunder passes overhead and he looks up to see a flash like blood soaked lightening above him. He reaches for it, and through the afterglow, sees the ghosting of his fingers. His throat would have tightened, he knows, and he wonders if he's dead. He looks closer at his digits and sees dark and red tinted storm clouds forming about his dim form.
No. Those are not clouds, he thinks. He watches them, billowing about above him, and all around They are not composed of something as mundane as water, a mere pair of hydrogen atoms loosely bonded to an oxygen atom do not behave that way. Not in here, wherever here is. Whatever they are, they are certainly pure and very pervasive.
He looks away and around, seeing all of them quickly drape and arrange themselves into orderly formula after formula. He works out what they are, and something of a thought later, permutations of billions upon billions of alchemical arrays storm forth from one of his hands alone. They are numbers: the purest form of data. A particularly ragged looking seal simmers to life at his command from a few of his outstretched fingers, and he can't help staring at the beauty of it. This huge volume of knowledge—a foggy mass that the Gate itself stuffed into his head—obscures the darkness of his own mind from him.
He feels a sharp pain in his remaining knee and gasps. It's a real gasp, and a dull ache of something else in his gut follows. The sudden influx of reality parts the haze from his disembodied sight, and.
He sees her, or rather the ghostly image of her. She floats in the darkness, utterly at home and snarling far far below his current position.
"So what if I can't walk, you idiots! I worked for the Akatsuki! I worked for the Akatsuki! You call yourselves shinobi? " She says clearly in Gibberish, then forces a wicked laugh. "What I did to that Inoichi.. I swear I'll do the same to every last one of you, and when that's done, I'll move on to--to every one of your family members! I swear that Konohagakure will be nothing but dust and bones by the day's end!"
By her words he is sure she is the one that did this something, whatever it is.
No. She couldn't.
Logically, if what he is seeing around him is pure Gate knowledge, leaking as ever from his mind, then he is still somewhere within his own body. If that is so...
Oh.. this is so very very familiar in so many disturbing ways. This is his body, dammit, and somehow she has total control of it!
He would have laughed had he a diaphragm to do so.
If she has control, it won't be for long. She is only human, and nothing really, compared to that ancient monster, Pride, who once, in desperation, tried to wrest his body from him. He won that terror of a fight entirely on his own, and with nothing more than his own mind and soul as weapons. She doesn't know how badly she has miscalculated. She doesn't know just who she is messing with.
She doesn't stand a chance. He thinks. If she expects me to not defend myself against such an hoary invader..!
He figures he'll deal with what and who is beyond that when he gets there; No big deal, really, he thinks, and settles himself to begin.
He tells himself that he is a philosopher's stone, with the power of a single soul, and reaches out.
He lifts his non brows at just how off his perceptions are in this place when his ghostlike hand fully encompasses the girl. He easily lifts her, for she is but a tiny thing, really, and as she rises in his massive grip, she turns to look at him. He winces as she shrieks shrilly, the sharp sound pierces his mind like an unwelcome knife, and leaves a pounding headache in its wake. He supposes he glowers her way in response, for she seems to shrink into herself in her fear. When she is the size of an insect and scrambling along on his forefinger, she brings her hands together. She proceeds to twist her fingers into a complex pattern, filled with the air of one that expects something to happen.
When nothing does, she looks up at him with wide, terror filled eyes. He watches the tears stream down the shape of her face. Even here, he can't but help be reminded of just who this girl, this—nin—looks like.
Besides, he tells himself, those tears are in no way real. He tries mightily to keep his silence stony as he regards her, but here, especially here in what must be his core, he can feel the cracks of his many flaws grinding. As ever, it is those cracks which threaten to shatter his heart to pieces.
ooooo
He hears the rustle of fabric by his ear as he gasps, and feels the clinging wetness of tears upon his cheeks. He looks aside and sees Kakashi squat down by him as he lifts his head a little from his hands.
"Ino..? Is that..?"
Ed narrows his eyes at the man's mismatched gaze, and pushes himself off the tiled floor. The sluggish response of his false leg surprises him, and he teeters precariously to his left.
"No..I suppose not." Ed hears the man whisper, the words nearly lost in the noise filling the hall. He picks out the high whirling of straining automail gears amongst the general din of voices, and looks down. Many cracks meander from broken tiles, and two of his metal toes are missing.
The gianormous white dog stands nearby and whines as he ambles towards a white washed wall. The gathered crowd hushes as he stops mid step, feeling the sharp edge of a knife biting at his throat. He follows the arm as far as he dares, but the strong whiff of dog tells him that it has to be the wild haired boy that has the weapon.
"What was that you were saying about Konoha?" He hears the boy growl in his ear. The dangerous position he is in reminds him much of his days he spent in training, but he swallows anyway.
It is afterall, expected.
ooooo
A/n- still working on it, and it flows so much better this way..
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
Thursday, October 13, 2011
chappy 26 ish
Ed feels his body slump and, with a start, opens his eyes.
He quickly stands up in the inky blackness. He looks about himself, seeing nothing in the gloom. A heartbeat later, he realizes he hears nothing in the surrounding ether. He breathes deep to holler out, and feels no complex interplay of muscles to take no intake of breath. Not sound passes through the nothing that must be his his lips. He knows his heart would have raced with panic with sheer panic, and he wonders if he still has one, somewhere.
Most of all he wishes he had something to strike with his fists, but he knows it is a futile wish. He is nothing but a passing thought, and even if it is a crazy thought, he somehow he knows this as true.
Is this how Al feels..? He thinks, darting his non-eyes about. A rumble of something like thunder passes overhead and he looks up to see the familiar seal flash like blood soaked lightening above him. He reaches for it, and through it, sees the ghosting of his fingers. His throat would have tightened, he knows, and he wonders if he's dead as he sees dark and red tinted storm clouds forming.
No. Those are no clouds, he thinks. He watches them, billowing about above him, and know they are numbers. He looks away and around, seeing all of them quickly drape and arrange themselves into orderly formula after formula: billions upon billions of alchemical arrays storm forth from that one ragged seal and soon enough he surrounded by the foggy mass of them.
He feels a sharp pain in his remaining knee and gasps. It's a real gasp, with the complex interplay of muscles and the dull ache of something else in his gut. Then he sees her.
Or rather the ghostly image of her, far far below. She floats in the darkness, utterly at home and snarling something in Gibberish. He hears something about a body being hers now, and she states with some pride that there is no defense against her technique. He uses her words to work out that the body she speaks of is his.
Logically, if he can judge by the seal he saw, the seal which he supposes connects his soul to Al's, then he is still somewhere within his own body. If that is so...
He would have laughed had he a diaphragm to do so. She is only human, and nothing really, compared to that ancient monster, Pride. He won that terror of a fight entirely on his own, and with nothing more than his own mind and soul as a weapon. This fight would truly be nothing for him to win.
She doesn't stand a chance. He thinks. Familiar anger from deep in his being bubbles forth, frothing the arrays as though they were sea foam. If she expects me to not defend myself against such an invader, a hoary, living violation of my very being, then she is sorely mistaken.
He begins, telling himself that he is a philosopher's stone, with the power of a single soul…
He lifts his non brows at just how off his perceptions are in this strange place when his ghostlike hand fully encompasses the girl. He easily lifts her, for she is but a tiny thing, really. As she rises in his massive grip, she turns to look at him, and then shrieks shrilly.
When she is the size of an insect and perched on his forefinger, she brings her hands together, and looks up at him with wide, terror filled, eyes. He watches tears stream down the shape of her face.
Even here, he can't but help be reminded of just who this girl, this—nin—looks like. Besides, he tells himself, those tears are in no way real.
He tries mightily to keep his silence stony as he regards her, but here, especially here in what must be his core, he can feel the cracks of his many flaws grinding. As ever, it is those cracks which threaten to shatter his heart to pieces.
ooooo
Kakashi squats down by him as he lifts his head from his hands.
"Ino..?"
Ed narrows his eyes at the man as he pushes himself off the tiled floor.
"No..I suppose not." Ed hears the man whisper.
The white dog whines as he ambles his way over to the end of the bed, and stops mid step when he feels the sharp edge of a knife at his throat. He follows the arm as far as he dares, but the strong whiff of dog tells him that it is the wild haired boy that has the weapon. He drags his eyes to the fat boy cradling Winry's limp form and swallows.
oooooo
A/n--working on it...
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
He quickly stands up in the inky blackness. He looks about himself, seeing nothing in the gloom. A heartbeat later, he realizes he hears nothing in the surrounding ether. He breathes deep to holler out, and feels no complex interplay of muscles to take no intake of breath. Not sound passes through the nothing that must be his his lips. He knows his heart would have raced with panic with sheer panic, and he wonders if he still has one, somewhere.
Most of all he wishes he had something to strike with his fists, but he knows it is a futile wish. He is nothing but a passing thought, and even if it is a crazy thought, he somehow he knows this as true.
Is this how Al feels..? He thinks, darting his non-eyes about. A rumble of something like thunder passes overhead and he looks up to see the familiar seal flash like blood soaked lightening above him. He reaches for it, and through it, sees the ghosting of his fingers. His throat would have tightened, he knows, and he wonders if he's dead as he sees dark and red tinted storm clouds forming.
No. Those are no clouds, he thinks. He watches them, billowing about above him, and know they are numbers. He looks away and around, seeing all of them quickly drape and arrange themselves into orderly formula after formula: billions upon billions of alchemical arrays storm forth from that one ragged seal and soon enough he surrounded by the foggy mass of them.
He feels a sharp pain in his remaining knee and gasps. It's a real gasp, with the complex interplay of muscles and the dull ache of something else in his gut. Then he sees her.
Or rather the ghostly image of her, far far below. She floats in the darkness, utterly at home and snarling something in Gibberish. He hears something about a body being hers now, and she states with some pride that there is no defense against her technique. He uses her words to work out that the body she speaks of is his.
Logically, if he can judge by the seal he saw, the seal which he supposes connects his soul to Al's, then he is still somewhere within his own body. If that is so...
He would have laughed had he a diaphragm to do so. She is only human, and nothing really, compared to that ancient monster, Pride. He won that terror of a fight entirely on his own, and with nothing more than his own mind and soul as a weapon. This fight would truly be nothing for him to win.
She doesn't stand a chance. He thinks. Familiar anger from deep in his being bubbles forth, frothing the arrays as though they were sea foam. If she expects me to not defend myself against such an invader, a hoary, living violation of my very being, then she is sorely mistaken.
He begins, telling himself that he is a philosopher's stone, with the power of a single soul…
He lifts his non brows at just how off his perceptions are in this strange place when his ghostlike hand fully encompasses the girl. He easily lifts her, for she is but a tiny thing, really. As she rises in his massive grip, she turns to look at him, and then shrieks shrilly.
When she is the size of an insect and perched on his forefinger, she brings her hands together, and looks up at him with wide, terror filled, eyes. He watches tears stream down the shape of her face.
Even here, he can't but help be reminded of just who this girl, this—nin—looks like. Besides, he tells himself, those tears are in no way real.
He tries mightily to keep his silence stony as he regards her, but here, especially here in what must be his core, he can feel the cracks of his many flaws grinding. As ever, it is those cracks which threaten to shatter his heart to pieces.
ooooo
Kakashi squats down by him as he lifts his head from his hands.
"Ino..?"
Ed narrows his eyes at the man as he pushes himself off the tiled floor.
"No..I suppose not." Ed hears the man whisper.
The white dog whines as he ambles his way over to the end of the bed, and stops mid step when he feels the sharp edge of a knife at his throat. He follows the arm as far as he dares, but the strong whiff of dog tells him that it is the wild haired boy that has the weapon. He drags his eyes to the fat boy cradling Winry's limp form and swallows.
oooooo
A/n--working on it...
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
Monday, October 10, 2011
Chapter 25ish
Ed nearly inhales what appears to be a sticky brownish mess of some sort of goop, which he knows most back home would have thought, at first glance, as belonging buried in a hole somewhere rather than presented as a meal. He avoids Sakura's astonished gaze as he places the empty bowl aside, and sweeps another from her hands. He pours the contents of this dish into his mouth, nearly without taking a breath and startles when the door swings open.
A quick and dirty equation shines in his head, and he leans his back more solidly against the wall as he touches his fingers of his right to the fingers of his left about the round shape he clutches in his hands. The composition of the ground beneath him is easy enough to calculate, as are the bowls, and he shifts his weight slightly. Even as the bare metal of his left scrapes against the tile and echoes into the hall, he is ready. He feels the hum of the earth singing within his bones.
He swallows what he can, (what he can't he crams into his cheeks), and glares up past the plain white rim. For good measure, as he chews, he narrows his eyes. Towering above him, just past the door itself, is the woman called the Hokage. She smiles down, a false friendly toothy thing, just as his left cheek is freed of a mass of sticky stuff.
"Natto agrees with him, I see." She chuckles, and looks over the arrangement of bowls he has placed around him. He sees her intelligent brown eyes narrow and for a moment, he wonders if she recognizes the pattern of the defensive array they form.
"Yes, it was, uh, the only thing that didn't have chakra enhancers in it." Sakura says from the wall by the bed. The Hokage nods and gazes down at him once more, familiar face unreadable. The look on her face reminds him so of the sneak thief Clara. Brown orbs full of intelligence, tricks, mysteries, and broken promises, and more. His heart hammers in his chest now as it did then on that roof in Aquroya, and he nearly triggers his array. He tells himself it's not so that he may flee instead of facing the sheer embarrassment of his own hormones.
"Kakashi. Why is he on the floor?".
Ed swallows down the clumps stuffed into his right cheek as he lowers the empty bowl from his face.
"Ah…" Kakashi begins, his single visible eye blinking rapidly as if the man had awoken from a light doze. Ed suspects it's mostly an act. Mostly.
"My choice." Ed says, and carefully places the bowl in the center of his arrangement as he climbs to his feet. He levels his gaze at the Hokage, then glances over to Kakashi before he steps away from the door. His metal foot clinks on the tile as he turns, and he takes care to never face away from any of the nins in the room.
"And, uh.. did you examine.."
"That. Has yet to be accomplished." Kakashi says vaguely, and turns a page of his tiny book.
Ed folds his arms as his metal heel bangs noisily against a wall, and lowers his head to allow his bangs to curtain his eyes. He watches for a rolled parchment of any sort, and seeing none, settles his back against the surface behind him as he considers several equations flittering about his consciousness. He hears more sandal leather squeak and some weight shift some grit at the doorway, but his view of the bodies they belong to is blocked by the door.
The Hokage's gaze sweeps over him as a frown creases her faint brows.
"I see. Sakura, come with me please?"
He watches the door slowly close. The silence that follows fills the room. In time Kakashi clears his throat, and Ed turns his head just as the man makes a show of closing his little book.
"So. You really like natto I take it."
Ed snorts, and looks at the hinges of his false toes.
"No." Ed replies. "Is nasty. Better than no food. You?"
Ed looks to the door, then slides his eyes towards the silently watching, slouching man.
"Is…Question for question. Equal good, yes?"
"Excuse me?" Kakashi's single eye squints. Ed lets out a breath and turns away as he shrugs.
"Thought not."
"What are you..um. Would you explain what you mean?" Ed looks back.
"Equal good. No. Not right. Bad word. Equal… Equal.. trade! That it. Equal trade."
"Equal trade..?"
"Is of I am. I look and look, but books no word of it." Ed grumbles, and kicks out his metal toes at an imaginary rock. "You nin word simple. I no nin."
"I know that. Sakura filled me in." Kakashi says. "What.. what exactly are you then?" Ed narrows his eyes, and tilts his head.
"Answer question first.."
"Ah, equal trade is it?"
Ed nods a single slow nod.
"No, then. I have no particular fondness for natto."
"Ah." Ed grins. It is not quite his best and brightest fake one, but he thinks he manages nicely. "Alchemist." Ed says proudly in Amestrian, and adds in gibberish. "Think close word in you talk be "scientist", or "craftsman"."
"Craftsman, is it?" Kakashi says, "That reminds me."
Kakashi straightens and Ed's grin vanishes. He immediately ducks down, spreading his fingers just over his elbows, watching warily as the man slowly rises to his feet.
"Stay there." Ed growls out. Blue colored discharge flashes as the tiled floor warps up into a low wall between the bed and himself. The dishes he placed on the floor crash down on the lip of the thing, and he adjusts the equation to incorporate the trace amounts of iron and glass to form several wicked spikes pointed Kakashi's way.
"Hey ..easy." Kakashi says and lifts his hands to pat the air. He begins moving around the bed with the exaggerated care that one would use with a frightened wild animal. "I am here to examine those marks that are on you, and I can only do so up close."
"I fine. Just, stay there." Ed shifts the active equation further, allowing several stone hands to take shape from the walls. Kakashi stops, and fiddles a bit with his face mask as stone fingers form near his head. Ed grimaces as a particularly large and wildly snapping discharge launches into the air, forcing him to unfold his arms and place on hand on the wall behind him. The direct contact with the medium allows for him to smooth out the flow of energy, and he folds the unexpected excess back into the earth.
He sees Kakashi rubbing his chin, looking his way with two eyes now: one angry red iris nestles in a scarred socket; its partner, a more sedate deep brown.
"Let me ask you something Ed-kun."
"Not let you touch me." Ed says, and allows the active equation to shift stone fingers like they were living muscles.
"No I suppose not. But that wasn't my question. Could you tell me just how you did that?"
Ed narrows his eyes at the man.
The door bangs open, and Ed darts his gaze away. The fraction of a second it takes him to shift the equations he knows is far too long, and instead he whirls down and away to the safety of his low wall as much shouting fills the room. He's crawling at the far edge by the time he hears only Kakashi shouting for whoever it is to get the hell out.
He's behind the man, and very near the bed, when Kakashi begins looking over the wall and tentatively calling out his name. In that vantage point, he sees a pack of nins crowding the doorway, and ducks down before they look his way.
"Fuk." He whispers, and wracks his brain for options. At the moment, the only viable one is to create his own exit—preferrably through the nearest wall. He brings his palms closer together to do just that.
He hears a deep resonating sound just before a shadow drops over him, and has a heartbeat to look up before a white furry mass blocks out much of the world.
"Woof!"
oooo
When he arrives, the air is thick, yet nothing like what he knows killing intent is like. From long practice, he knows better than to let his eyes drift, so he keeps them locked on the agitated, pacing blond.
As he slumps his way forward, Shikamaru knows without looking who it is that is noisily chewing. He hears the dry crinkle of an ever-present potato chip bag and that is all he needs to locate the fellow sitting unseen, likely cross-legged on the tile floor around the corner. Automatically, Shika shuffles along with his hands deep in his pockets and, at a certain point, he turns and settles his back against the wall. A heartbeat later, he lets out a breath, and, like a deflating balloon, slides down to the floor as well. He lazily crosses his legs in a similar manner as he hunkers down beside his rather, uh, rather big boned, teammate and best friend, Choji.
Shika doesn't feel the weight of Choji's gaze, and his friend doesn't shift his massive form to acknowledge his presence. He doesn't have to. He knows Choji, and his friend would wisely choose not to shift his eyes his way in a delicate situation such as this. Instead, he would be observing the blond's behavior like a true nin.
He hears Choji swallow down his nervousness in the silence.
The pacing blond's name is Ino. She is, well, a woman, and women have ever been a great bother. In his experience, they are ever unpredictable-- volatile-- especially when someone they deeply care for is seriously hurt.
He knows she is a trained mednin, but she is far too personally involved with a particular patient. She would be highly likely to make many deadly medical mistakes due to her current emotional-- maelstrom. It was a highly logical, professional decision to remove her from this duty, and, considering the patient in question just happens to be Ino's father, Shika considers the policy a wise one.
He knows Ino would not agree at very high volumes, which would only serve to distract the other mednins.
He holds his silence as he watches the troublesome slim body pace the hall, carefully observing every twitch of muscle with trained ease. The tenseness of her shoulders alone tells him much of her current mood. Her high ponytail swishes with each harried turn, but, for now, she merely worries her lower lip with her teeth as her blue eyes constantly dart towards a certain closed doors nearby. There is no mystery why her face is twisted up with a noxious mixture of frustration and worry.
Those doors have sign above the jamb, announcing the room beyond as "Intensive Care". An eerie green blue glow flickers like candlelight through the tiny glass window nestled in the wood, and indicate that the mednins are currently treating the patient. As in the other times he has been in the hospital, he knows precious little.
Not wishing to agitate Ino any further with bothersome questions, he instead leans his head towards Choji, and whispers.
"Any news?"
Choji shakes his rotund head slightly, choosing to also honor the silence. Shikamaru frowns, and then quickly schools his face into a semblance of unreadable blankness as Ino turns his way. He isn't sure how successful he is, but as her eyes slide off him, he doesn't bother to wonder further. No, Instead, he narrows his eyes as blue colored lightening dances down the hall from beneath a particular door.
He flinches back as ominous rumble fills his ears, sounding quite thunderous, and takes in a startled breath as many sandaled feet pound the previously tranquil tiles about him. His brows nearly meet when in the sudden crowd of bodies, he feels a hand lifting up his biceps. He darts his eyes to the invasive grip as he rises to his feet .
A pair of jagged red fangs frames the savage smile that greets him, and it takes all of a second for him to recognize the nin that sports them: Kiba Inusuka.
"Come on lazy bones!" The wild haired nin growls, and tugs the band at his forehead down with his claw like fingernails. The joint army plate shines like a new thing, for it was just issued that morning. Shika hadn't bothered to put the drag of a thing on-- yet.
Shika stumbles and glances at a blur of white on four legs as Kiba's beastly partner, Akamaru, rushes by, nudging against his legs in his rush to get to the source of the disturbance. A heartbeat later, Kiba lunges gleefully after, nearly scrambling on all fours like a dog.
Shikamaru blinks dumbly at the nin's sheer eagerness. But then, he supposes, that's Kiba.
"What a drag." Shikamaru grumbles, and stumbles again as a meaty hand slaps heavily against his upper back. Choji graces him with a sidelong glance, then crumbles up his empty bag of chips.
"So. That's where...?"
"Yeah." Shika answers. "Looks like it."
Shika watches Choji turn away and lumber after the crowd. He hears a door bang open, and much shouting as he looks around. That's when he notices that his female teammate is no longer pacing.
Ino is just. Gone.
ooooo
Ed slaps his palms together an instant before he has them on the ground, where he quickly finds a sort of precarious balance to swing his false left leg at the huge white mass of fur. He misses, but the wild swing has the desired effect: the beast lunges away from the edge of the bed and ducks its head down to snap and snarl in his general direction. As Ed pushes off the ground and regains his feet, he reaches out at the metal frame of the bed. The discharge flashes as the quick and dirty equation takes effect-- reforming the rail into a stout staff. Ed tests its weight between both hands as he sees the beast watch him with wary brown eyes.
Ed hears voices around him: One or two seem to be "egging" in tone, but Ed isn't sure what exactly is said. Gibberish slips completely from his grasp, for at the moment, he has far more important things on his mind than understanding the stupid language.
The lumbering dog is huge, easily the size a.. a lion, and Ed swallows as he recognizes the familiar, but ultimately doomed beast somehow conjured up from the nightmare in his past. He feels his throat tighten, and barely whispers a weak, "Alexander..." as someone calls out, "Akamaru!"
When a view of Kakashi's back cuts the big dog out of the world, Ed knows he is staring. He also remembers to breathe. He hears the man's commanding tone, likely directed at the others crowded at the door, and takes the opportunity to shuffle his back against the wall.
He feels his arms tremble, and grips the staff tighter as a dark haired boy with a pair of red triangles painted on his cheeks leaps into view. He is thankful he doesn't recognize the face glaring his way, and as the boy snarls a choice phrase at Kakashi, darts his eyes to others. There is a sea of shining head plates, and many angry expressions directed his way.
One girl in particular extends her arms towards him, cupping and entwined her fingers together. Her long blond hair is tied up into a high pony tail, and her watery blue eyes regard him hatefully as tears trace tracks down her cheeks. He swallows his bile, finding her pose strange, but by long habit he braces himself. He knows in his heart he deserves whatever she plans to hit him with, for there is no doubt who she is.
He can never deny her a thing, especially since he is sure he caused her tears in the first place. The metal staff slips from his slack fingers, and he hears the metal ring when it strikes against the tile at his feet.
"Winry."
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
A quick and dirty equation shines in his head, and he leans his back more solidly against the wall as he touches his fingers of his right to the fingers of his left about the round shape he clutches in his hands. The composition of the ground beneath him is easy enough to calculate, as are the bowls, and he shifts his weight slightly. Even as the bare metal of his left scrapes against the tile and echoes into the hall, he is ready. He feels the hum of the earth singing within his bones.
He swallows what he can, (what he can't he crams into his cheeks), and glares up past the plain white rim. For good measure, as he chews, he narrows his eyes. Towering above him, just past the door itself, is the woman called the Hokage. She smiles down, a false friendly toothy thing, just as his left cheek is freed of a mass of sticky stuff.
"Natto agrees with him, I see." She chuckles, and looks over the arrangement of bowls he has placed around him. He sees her intelligent brown eyes narrow and for a moment, he wonders if she recognizes the pattern of the defensive array they form.
"Yes, it was, uh, the only thing that didn't have chakra enhancers in it." Sakura says from the wall by the bed. The Hokage nods and gazes down at him once more, familiar face unreadable. The look on her face reminds him so of the sneak thief Clara. Brown orbs full of intelligence, tricks, mysteries, and broken promises, and more. His heart hammers in his chest now as it did then on that roof in Aquroya, and he nearly triggers his array. He tells himself it's not so that he may flee instead of facing the sheer embarrassment of his own hormones.
"Kakashi. Why is he on the floor?".
Ed swallows down the clumps stuffed into his right cheek as he lowers the empty bowl from his face.
"Ah…" Kakashi begins, his single visible eye blinking rapidly as if the man had awoken from a light doze. Ed suspects it's mostly an act. Mostly.
"My choice." Ed says, and carefully places the bowl in the center of his arrangement as he climbs to his feet. He levels his gaze at the Hokage, then glances over to Kakashi before he steps away from the door. His metal foot clinks on the tile as he turns, and he takes care to never face away from any of the nins in the room.
"And, uh.. did you examine.."
"That. Has yet to be accomplished." Kakashi says vaguely, and turns a page of his tiny book.
Ed folds his arms as his metal heel bangs noisily against a wall, and lowers his head to allow his bangs to curtain his eyes. He watches for a rolled parchment of any sort, and seeing none, settles his back against the surface behind him as he considers several equations flittering about his consciousness. He hears more sandal leather squeak and some weight shift some grit at the doorway, but his view of the bodies they belong to is blocked by the door.
The Hokage's gaze sweeps over him as a frown creases her faint brows.
"I see. Sakura, come with me please?"
He watches the door slowly close. The silence that follows fills the room. In time Kakashi clears his throat, and Ed turns his head just as the man makes a show of closing his little book.
"So. You really like natto I take it."
Ed snorts, and looks at the hinges of his false toes.
"No." Ed replies. "Is nasty. Better than no food. You?"
Ed looks to the door, then slides his eyes towards the silently watching, slouching man.
"Is…Question for question. Equal good, yes?"
"Excuse me?" Kakashi's single eye squints. Ed lets out a breath and turns away as he shrugs.
"Thought not."
"What are you..um. Would you explain what you mean?" Ed looks back.
"Equal good. No. Not right. Bad word. Equal… Equal.. trade! That it. Equal trade."
"Equal trade..?"
"Is of I am. I look and look, but books no word of it." Ed grumbles, and kicks out his metal toes at an imaginary rock. "You nin word simple. I no nin."
"I know that. Sakura filled me in." Kakashi says. "What.. what exactly are you then?" Ed narrows his eyes, and tilts his head.
"Answer question first.."
"Ah, equal trade is it?"
Ed nods a single slow nod.
"No, then. I have no particular fondness for natto."
"Ah." Ed grins. It is not quite his best and brightest fake one, but he thinks he manages nicely. "Alchemist." Ed says proudly in Amestrian, and adds in gibberish. "Think close word in you talk be "scientist", or "craftsman"."
"Craftsman, is it?" Kakashi says, "That reminds me."
Kakashi straightens and Ed's grin vanishes. He immediately ducks down, spreading his fingers just over his elbows, watching warily as the man slowly rises to his feet.
"Stay there." Ed growls out. Blue colored discharge flashes as the tiled floor warps up into a low wall between the bed and himself. The dishes he placed on the floor crash down on the lip of the thing, and he adjusts the equation to incorporate the trace amounts of iron and glass to form several wicked spikes pointed Kakashi's way.
"Hey ..easy." Kakashi says and lifts his hands to pat the air. He begins moving around the bed with the exaggerated care that one would use with a frightened wild animal. "I am here to examine those marks that are on you, and I can only do so up close."
"I fine. Just, stay there." Ed shifts the active equation further, allowing several stone hands to take shape from the walls. Kakashi stops, and fiddles a bit with his face mask as stone fingers form near his head. Ed grimaces as a particularly large and wildly snapping discharge launches into the air, forcing him to unfold his arms and place on hand on the wall behind him. The direct contact with the medium allows for him to smooth out the flow of energy, and he folds the unexpected excess back into the earth.
He sees Kakashi rubbing his chin, looking his way with two eyes now: one angry red iris nestles in a scarred socket; its partner, a more sedate deep brown.
"Let me ask you something Ed-kun."
"Not let you touch me." Ed says, and allows the active equation to shift stone fingers like they were living muscles.
"No I suppose not. But that wasn't my question. Could you tell me just how you did that?"
Ed narrows his eyes at the man.
The door bangs open, and Ed darts his gaze away. The fraction of a second it takes him to shift the equations he knows is far too long, and instead he whirls down and away to the safety of his low wall as much shouting fills the room. He's crawling at the far edge by the time he hears only Kakashi shouting for whoever it is to get the hell out.
He's behind the man, and very near the bed, when Kakashi begins looking over the wall and tentatively calling out his name. In that vantage point, he sees a pack of nins crowding the doorway, and ducks down before they look his way.
"Fuk." He whispers, and wracks his brain for options. At the moment, the only viable one is to create his own exit—preferrably through the nearest wall. He brings his palms closer together to do just that.
He hears a deep resonating sound just before a shadow drops over him, and has a heartbeat to look up before a white furry mass blocks out much of the world.
"Woof!"
oooo
When he arrives, the air is thick, yet nothing like what he knows killing intent is like. From long practice, he knows better than to let his eyes drift, so he keeps them locked on the agitated, pacing blond.
As he slumps his way forward, Shikamaru knows without looking who it is that is noisily chewing. He hears the dry crinkle of an ever-present potato chip bag and that is all he needs to locate the fellow sitting unseen, likely cross-legged on the tile floor around the corner. Automatically, Shika shuffles along with his hands deep in his pockets and, at a certain point, he turns and settles his back against the wall. A heartbeat later, he lets out a breath, and, like a deflating balloon, slides down to the floor as well. He lazily crosses his legs in a similar manner as he hunkers down beside his rather, uh, rather big boned, teammate and best friend, Choji.
Shika doesn't feel the weight of Choji's gaze, and his friend doesn't shift his massive form to acknowledge his presence. He doesn't have to. He knows Choji, and his friend would wisely choose not to shift his eyes his way in a delicate situation such as this. Instead, he would be observing the blond's behavior like a true nin.
He hears Choji swallow down his nervousness in the silence.
The pacing blond's name is Ino. She is, well, a woman, and women have ever been a great bother. In his experience, they are ever unpredictable-- volatile-- especially when someone they deeply care for is seriously hurt.
He knows she is a trained mednin, but she is far too personally involved with a particular patient. She would be highly likely to make many deadly medical mistakes due to her current emotional-- maelstrom. It was a highly logical, professional decision to remove her from this duty, and, considering the patient in question just happens to be Ino's father, Shika considers the policy a wise one.
He knows Ino would not agree at very high volumes, which would only serve to distract the other mednins.
He holds his silence as he watches the troublesome slim body pace the hall, carefully observing every twitch of muscle with trained ease. The tenseness of her shoulders alone tells him much of her current mood. Her high ponytail swishes with each harried turn, but, for now, she merely worries her lower lip with her teeth as her blue eyes constantly dart towards a certain closed doors nearby. There is no mystery why her face is twisted up with a noxious mixture of frustration and worry.
Those doors have sign above the jamb, announcing the room beyond as "Intensive Care". An eerie green blue glow flickers like candlelight through the tiny glass window nestled in the wood, and indicate that the mednins are currently treating the patient. As in the other times he has been in the hospital, he knows precious little.
Not wishing to agitate Ino any further with bothersome questions, he instead leans his head towards Choji, and whispers.
"Any news?"
Choji shakes his rotund head slightly, choosing to also honor the silence. Shikamaru frowns, and then quickly schools his face into a semblance of unreadable blankness as Ino turns his way. He isn't sure how successful he is, but as her eyes slide off him, he doesn't bother to wonder further. No, Instead, he narrows his eyes as blue colored lightening dances down the hall from beneath a particular door.
He flinches back as ominous rumble fills his ears, sounding quite thunderous, and takes in a startled breath as many sandaled feet pound the previously tranquil tiles about him. His brows nearly meet when in the sudden crowd of bodies, he feels a hand lifting up his biceps. He darts his eyes to the invasive grip as he rises to his feet .
A pair of jagged red fangs frames the savage smile that greets him, and it takes all of a second for him to recognize the nin that sports them: Kiba Inusuka.
"Come on lazy bones!" The wild haired nin growls, and tugs the band at his forehead down with his claw like fingernails. The joint army plate shines like a new thing, for it was just issued that morning. Shika hadn't bothered to put the drag of a thing on-- yet.
Shika stumbles and glances at a blur of white on four legs as Kiba's beastly partner, Akamaru, rushes by, nudging against his legs in his rush to get to the source of the disturbance. A heartbeat later, Kiba lunges gleefully after, nearly scrambling on all fours like a dog.
Shikamaru blinks dumbly at the nin's sheer eagerness. But then, he supposes, that's Kiba.
"What a drag." Shikamaru grumbles, and stumbles again as a meaty hand slaps heavily against his upper back. Choji graces him with a sidelong glance, then crumbles up his empty bag of chips.
"So. That's where...?"
"Yeah." Shika answers. "Looks like it."
Shika watches Choji turn away and lumber after the crowd. He hears a door bang open, and much shouting as he looks around. That's when he notices that his female teammate is no longer pacing.
Ino is just. Gone.
ooooo
Ed slaps his palms together an instant before he has them on the ground, where he quickly finds a sort of precarious balance to swing his false left leg at the huge white mass of fur. He misses, but the wild swing has the desired effect: the beast lunges away from the edge of the bed and ducks its head down to snap and snarl in his general direction. As Ed pushes off the ground and regains his feet, he reaches out at the metal frame of the bed. The discharge flashes as the quick and dirty equation takes effect-- reforming the rail into a stout staff. Ed tests its weight between both hands as he sees the beast watch him with wary brown eyes.
Ed hears voices around him: One or two seem to be "egging" in tone, but Ed isn't sure what exactly is said. Gibberish slips completely from his grasp, for at the moment, he has far more important things on his mind than understanding the stupid language.
The lumbering dog is huge, easily the size a.. a lion, and Ed swallows as he recognizes the familiar, but ultimately doomed beast somehow conjured up from the nightmare in his past. He feels his throat tighten, and barely whispers a weak, "Alexander..." as someone calls out, "Akamaru!"
When a view of Kakashi's back cuts the big dog out of the world, Ed knows he is staring. He also remembers to breathe. He hears the man's commanding tone, likely directed at the others crowded at the door, and takes the opportunity to shuffle his back against the wall.
He feels his arms tremble, and grips the staff tighter as a dark haired boy with a pair of red triangles painted on his cheeks leaps into view. He is thankful he doesn't recognize the face glaring his way, and as the boy snarls a choice phrase at Kakashi, darts his eyes to others. There is a sea of shining head plates, and many angry expressions directed his way.
One girl in particular extends her arms towards him, cupping and entwined her fingers together. Her long blond hair is tied up into a high pony tail, and her watery blue eyes regard him hatefully as tears trace tracks down her cheeks. He swallows his bile, finding her pose strange, but by long habit he braces himself. He knows in his heart he deserves whatever she plans to hit him with, for there is no doubt who she is.
He can never deny her a thing, especially since he is sure he caused her tears in the first place. The metal staff slips from his slack fingers, and he hears the metal ring when it strikes against the tile at his feet.
"Winry."
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
Friday, September 30, 2011
chapter 24ish
Ed turns and paces, moving much like a starved cat with every harried turn. He mulls over the recent events. It was fortunate that he stared Sakura down until she let his wrists go, and as he shook out his hands to release the circulating energy, he finds himself thankful not to have dripping blood on his hands as a result. The equation in his mind at the time would have left little of her, for the effort to speak Gibberish would have broken his concentration he needed to control the flow of energy; he suspects that not even a smoking corpse would have remained of her on the tiled floor.
A breath later Sakura had the gall to suggest that he should take it easy, and Ed recalls thinking he should never, ever trust anyone with that damned hunk of metal bolted to a piece of cloth. He knew damn well it's all her fault he's stuck here, and immediately demanded to be taken to the site that he was found at.
"Rescued", they called it. Ha. Ha. Funny that.
He wasn't completely sure he had gotten the words right, but the woman called the Hokage said something that sounded like she must consult with the guy he knew as "Scarface" before she could even bother to find the map of location. She smoothly introduced the gray haired, and mostly masked fellow that Ed currently choses to ignore: one Kakashi Hatake.
"Why is he here?" Ed demanded.
"You have seals on you." Sakura said in a tone which clearly suggested that he had the intelligence of a knat. He looked her way and had to tilt his head up slightly to meet her gaze.
Ed narrowed his eyes, not liking the slight to his stature her look suggested.
"So." He spat out in Gibberish., voice full of rightous bile.
"We think they're doing something to your body." The Hokage said smooth as silk, and Ed glowered up her way.
"You mean marks." Ed pulled up a sleeve, then waved his palm over the scribbles and waves tattooed on his skin. He followed that up with a deft wave over the ones marring his living leg. "They do nothing. Those that had me put them on me. They stupid."
"They're doing something to your chakra.." Sakura said with slow care. "When I touched you I disrupted the flow and you.."
Ed huffed with a dismissive wave at the ridiculous belief, and a shook his head. He then glared Sakura's way.
"You touch me. Yes." He said, and pointed at the large jars on the wall. "Liquid on skin. You fingers. Knock me out. Then you take me here. That. I no like."
He didn't miss the look that passed between Sakura and the masked Kakashi, one that has Sakura's face contorted even now with concern, incredulousness and worry.
Ed makes sure to lower his brows as he turns about, recalling the Hokage taking Scarface by the elbow. That reminds him that the woman left the Kakashi guy behind in the room.
Ed flicks his gaze over. The man's back leans lazily in a plain wooden chair: He is sloppy for an interrigator, sprawling much like a sack of potatoes with a tiny book perching in his gloved hand. Kakashi calmly turns a page, the one visible eye on his covered face seems entirely engrossed in the clearly questionable material. The mannerism is familiar: He finds himself vaguely reminded of Jean Havoc, and forces his eyes violently away before he can find anything more.
That's when Ed notices Sakura's staring sea-colored eyes.
"What." He snaps at Sakura as he turns once more to pace.
"Sit down."
"No. No sick."
"You're certainly not well. Sit."
"No. I pay no more. I go." He makes it a point to sweep his way towards the door.
"No you don't I..!"
"Sakura-kun." Kakashi interrupts in a maddening calm voice than makes Ed pause his rant.
"Kakashi-sensei?"
"Let him be." Ed's brows rise to his hairline, and he takes in a large breath. Sakura turns and snarls out.
"What?"
"Recall the reports. Ed-kun was a slave." Kakashi says with a maddenly calm tone.
"I don't need you defending me you fukken ass…!" Ed yells out explosively, then scowls as he realizes he's speaking Amestrian instead of Gibberish. He takes in a breath as he reaches for the words, but before he can say anything remotely understandable, he hears the masked man continue.
"If you really want to be like the scum that held him, then you may as well put chains back on his wrists right now and call it a day."
Ed shoots a fiery glare. Sakura turns away in a huff, and as Ed reaches to turn the round bit of a doorknob, she speaks coldly over her shoulder.
"Step out that door, and you're very likely to collapse after a few steps. As it is, your chakra is so low, I don't know how you're even breathing."
Ed hesitates at those words, noting this is not the first time he has heard them uttered. He then lets out a huff of air.
The phrase "A man called Alphonse.." filters through the wood, spoken by a deeper voice in the hall.
He recalls "Man" is not an entirely different word than "boy" in this Gibberish, and the exact meaning hangs quite loosely, depending upon how one uses it.
His nostrils flare as he realizes his mistake, and he bangs the meat of his fist soldily against the wall. Once. And half-heartedly, twice. He then turns about and leans casually against the wall, folding his far too skinny arms across his chest. He feels Kakashi's gaze sweep over him.
He knows well that he is too eager for any news of his brother, and swallows he rolls the one sleeve down back into place. He supposes he doesn't have anywhere to go in such a hurry, especially since it's clear that Scarface told him exactly what he wanted to hear.
Like any good interrogator would to get useful information-- he learned that much from Hughes.
He reminds himself pointedly to never trust nins, and ignores the nagging ache in his gut to leave. He tells himself that he has to learn all he can of their ways.
For Al's sake.
Minutes pass in silence.
Sakura doesn't quite smile his way as she breaks it with a nervous voice, chattering along too quickly for him. His eyes glaze away from the matter at hand, and he supposes she's filling the Kakashi in on all events Edward thus far when he hears several mentions of his name. He frowns as he barely catches a word.
"Must be a kekkei genkai." Kakashi quips as he turns the page of his book, one visible eye never wandering away.
Ed glares at the masked man.
"A what?"
Kakashi waves to the bed without looking up. Ed makes it a point to keep standing.
"You say word. What…kekey gen.."
"Strange, the Hokage indicated you were quite fluent. I have no idea why you would choose to speak the way you do."
Ed keeps his face stony.
"I..pay." Ed watches the movement of the cloth covering the man's face, and supposes an eyebrow raises in question. "I tell more. If. You tell me of key key den.."
"Say it with me: Kekkei genkai." Kakashi says, leaning his chair's back further against the wall, still not raising his gaze.
Ed tastes the word and directs his glare to the tiled floor. The hard accents take several tries to get somewhat correct.
"He told Ibiki a week." Sakura sighs and sits on the bed's corner by the low nightstand. "He sounds completely different than what I heard, too."
Eye-beak-ee? Ed thinks with a scowl, wondering at the weirdness of the name..
"A week to learn an entire language. I suppose that is a feat that some would call impressive…"
"We deal?" Ed growls from his wall, and snaps his gaze back up to look through the curtain of his bangs.
Kakashi sighs and closes his book with a snap. He then leans forward and rests his elbows on his thighs.
"Kekkei genkai: Simple enough of an explanation, really. They are very rare things for a person to have. Perhaps it is the very reason that the Akatsuki bought you. It's a thing that tends to run in families. Does this sound in any way familiar to you..?"
Ed frowns, then nods slightly.
"Good." Kakashi says. "Before I say anymore, I would like to take a look at the seals that are on..."
"No." Ed says,"If is by blood, this kekkei genkai not thing I need to know. What else you got?"
An embarrassing gurgle echoes in the room, and Ed slumps as he shifts his elbows slightly downward.
"Uh.. How about lunch then..?"
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
A breath later Sakura had the gall to suggest that he should take it easy, and Ed recalls thinking he should never, ever trust anyone with that damned hunk of metal bolted to a piece of cloth. He knew damn well it's all her fault he's stuck here, and immediately demanded to be taken to the site that he was found at.
"Rescued", they called it. Ha. Ha. Funny that.
He wasn't completely sure he had gotten the words right, but the woman called the Hokage said something that sounded like she must consult with the guy he knew as "Scarface" before she could even bother to find the map of location. She smoothly introduced the gray haired, and mostly masked fellow that Ed currently choses to ignore: one Kakashi Hatake.
"Why is he here?" Ed demanded.
"You have seals on you." Sakura said in a tone which clearly suggested that he had the intelligence of a knat. He looked her way and had to tilt his head up slightly to meet her gaze.
Ed narrowed his eyes, not liking the slight to his stature her look suggested.
"So." He spat out in Gibberish., voice full of rightous bile.
"We think they're doing something to your body." The Hokage said smooth as silk, and Ed glowered up her way.
"You mean marks." Ed pulled up a sleeve, then waved his palm over the scribbles and waves tattooed on his skin. He followed that up with a deft wave over the ones marring his living leg. "They do nothing. Those that had me put them on me. They stupid."
"They're doing something to your chakra.." Sakura said with slow care. "When I touched you I disrupted the flow and you.."
Ed huffed with a dismissive wave at the ridiculous belief, and a shook his head. He then glared Sakura's way.
"You touch me. Yes." He said, and pointed at the large jars on the wall. "Liquid on skin. You fingers. Knock me out. Then you take me here. That. I no like."
He didn't miss the look that passed between Sakura and the masked Kakashi, one that has Sakura's face contorted even now with concern, incredulousness and worry.
Ed makes sure to lower his brows as he turns about, recalling the Hokage taking Scarface by the elbow. That reminds him that the woman left the Kakashi guy behind in the room.
Ed flicks his gaze over. The man's back leans lazily in a plain wooden chair: He is sloppy for an interrigator, sprawling much like a sack of potatoes with a tiny book perching in his gloved hand. Kakashi calmly turns a page, the one visible eye on his covered face seems entirely engrossed in the clearly questionable material. The mannerism is familiar: He finds himself vaguely reminded of Jean Havoc, and forces his eyes violently away before he can find anything more.
That's when Ed notices Sakura's staring sea-colored eyes.
"What." He snaps at Sakura as he turns once more to pace.
"Sit down."
"No. No sick."
"You're certainly not well. Sit."
"No. I pay no more. I go." He makes it a point to sweep his way towards the door.
"No you don't I..!"
"Sakura-kun." Kakashi interrupts in a maddening calm voice than makes Ed pause his rant.
"Kakashi-sensei?"
"Let him be." Ed's brows rise to his hairline, and he takes in a large breath. Sakura turns and snarls out.
"What?"
"Recall the reports. Ed-kun was a slave." Kakashi says with a maddenly calm tone.
"I don't need you defending me you fukken ass…!" Ed yells out explosively, then scowls as he realizes he's speaking Amestrian instead of Gibberish. He takes in a breath as he reaches for the words, but before he can say anything remotely understandable, he hears the masked man continue.
"If you really want to be like the scum that held him, then you may as well put chains back on his wrists right now and call it a day."
Ed shoots a fiery glare. Sakura turns away in a huff, and as Ed reaches to turn the round bit of a doorknob, she speaks coldly over her shoulder.
"Step out that door, and you're very likely to collapse after a few steps. As it is, your chakra is so low, I don't know how you're even breathing."
Ed hesitates at those words, noting this is not the first time he has heard them uttered. He then lets out a huff of air.
The phrase "A man called Alphonse.." filters through the wood, spoken by a deeper voice in the hall.
He recalls "Man" is not an entirely different word than "boy" in this Gibberish, and the exact meaning hangs quite loosely, depending upon how one uses it.
His nostrils flare as he realizes his mistake, and he bangs the meat of his fist soldily against the wall. Once. And half-heartedly, twice. He then turns about and leans casually against the wall, folding his far too skinny arms across his chest. He feels Kakashi's gaze sweep over him.
He knows well that he is too eager for any news of his brother, and swallows he rolls the one sleeve down back into place. He supposes he doesn't have anywhere to go in such a hurry, especially since it's clear that Scarface told him exactly what he wanted to hear.
Like any good interrogator would to get useful information-- he learned that much from Hughes.
He reminds himself pointedly to never trust nins, and ignores the nagging ache in his gut to leave. He tells himself that he has to learn all he can of their ways.
For Al's sake.
Minutes pass in silence.
Sakura doesn't quite smile his way as she breaks it with a nervous voice, chattering along too quickly for him. His eyes glaze away from the matter at hand, and he supposes she's filling the Kakashi in on all events Edward thus far when he hears several mentions of his name. He frowns as he barely catches a word.
"Must be a kekkei genkai." Kakashi quips as he turns the page of his book, one visible eye never wandering away.
Ed glares at the masked man.
"A what?"
Kakashi waves to the bed without looking up. Ed makes it a point to keep standing.
"You say word. What…kekey gen.."
"Strange, the Hokage indicated you were quite fluent. I have no idea why you would choose to speak the way you do."
Ed keeps his face stony.
"I..pay." Ed watches the movement of the cloth covering the man's face, and supposes an eyebrow raises in question. "I tell more. If. You tell me of key key den.."
"Say it with me: Kekkei genkai." Kakashi says, leaning his chair's back further against the wall, still not raising his gaze.
Ed tastes the word and directs his glare to the tiled floor. The hard accents take several tries to get somewhat correct.
"He told Ibiki a week." Sakura sighs and sits on the bed's corner by the low nightstand. "He sounds completely different than what I heard, too."
Eye-beak-ee? Ed thinks with a scowl, wondering at the weirdness of the name..
"A week to learn an entire language. I suppose that is a feat that some would call impressive…"
"We deal?" Ed growls from his wall, and snaps his gaze back up to look through the curtain of his bangs.
Kakashi sighs and closes his book with a snap. He then leans forward and rests his elbows on his thighs.
"Kekkei genkai: Simple enough of an explanation, really. They are very rare things for a person to have. Perhaps it is the very reason that the Akatsuki bought you. It's a thing that tends to run in families. Does this sound in any way familiar to you..?"
Ed frowns, then nods slightly.
"Good." Kakashi says. "Before I say anymore, I would like to take a look at the seals that are on..."
"No." Ed says,"If is by blood, this kekkei genkai not thing I need to know. What else you got?"
An embarrassing gurgle echoes in the room, and Ed slumps as he shifts his elbows slightly downward.
"Uh.. How about lunch then..?"
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Fma-naruto crossover chapter 23
Ed takes in a sharp breath, filling his starved lungs with precious cool air that stabs deep in his chest. He chokes and sputters against what seems to be barbs digging into his throat, clutching smooth cotton with both hands as he claws his way back to the world.
"He's awake." He hears spoken in a distorted soft feminine voice somewhere above him. He cracks an eye open, and winces at the too bright light. He sees a hulking shadow hovering nearby, and breathes a hopeful, "Alphonse..?"
He stares blankly at the form, which is neither familiar nor made of empty metal, and it's several blinks later that his mind recalls exactly where it is that his brother is waiting.
The nothingness of white and he's all alone and it's all my fault in the first place and.. dammit I can't just...!
He grits his teeth and jolts up, but large hammy hands shove him down into the vague softness he knows has to be a mattress. He arches his back against the unwelcome touch, thrashing and kicking out savagely.
He hears a grunt as his unfeeling left foot connects with something, and the blow that follows has him gasping with pain.
He desperately tries to shove the agony down, needing to move above all else; he grimaces as, at the moment, he can only move his knees upwards and barely roll to the side. Several heartbeats later he works out what happened, and through the burning throb of his groin that seems to reach his ears, he picks out bits and pieces of a rather scathing scolding by the female voice.
Gibberish seems so much easier to understand now, he thinks, gasping, and cracks his eyes open once more. He sees a bland wall, a thin bookcase, in which are several large dark bottles and piles of green bundles he supposes are herbs. He fells a hand on his bare shoulder and the touch makes his muscles twitch.
"Easy there." The hand lifts. "Easy." He hears soft footfalls, and follows the sound to his feet. A glimpse of shoulder length pink hair has him lower his brows. Sea green eye peer down at him at first, and the girl, "Sakura", bends to look rather closely at him for several moments with a studious expression. He narrows his eyes and glares right back.
He holds his gaze steadily even as he feels just how naked he really is under the thin sheet of cloth that is draped over him.
"Sorry. What happened was my fault and.."
"Where I?" He squeaks, throat brittle and dry like sandpaper. Her lips curl in a slight smile he knows is supposed to be reassuring, and he watches one of her hands with great suspicion as it slowly moves to the side. He blinks owlishly at the cup it cradles as both approach. Stubbornly, he jerks his chin away, and flares his nostrils in alarm.
"Shh... just water. Drink." She insists, and the cup hovers just at his lips. He looks at the clear liquid and frowns. Several drops spill down his cheek, and his tongue darts out before his brain truly engages. He pushes his head back away, stubborn still, but greedily swallows in spite of himself as a full gulp after gulp is poured in his mouth.
The liquid, if only water like the pink haired nin says, soothes his parched throat well enough that when the cup finally moves away, his voice is near normal strength when he tries again. "Where I. Now?"
"Med.."she begins.
"You are laying in the medical department of the Allied Shinobi Forces." The voice of Scarface growls. "And you can drop the act right now. We know you can speak our language."
Ed uncurls himself from his protective ball as he looks over his shoulder at the man. The beefy arms fold over the back of a wooden chair almost casually as the man returns his glare with an icy stare of his own. Ed shakes his head as he takes a breath to answer.
"Not."
"Quite fluently, in fact." The man adds.
"Books one week..." Ed began.
"The Hokage heard you herself." The man continues, interrupting. "You spoke about some kinjutstu she only heard of as though you were reading a damned textbook, so obviously your claimed ignorance of chakra techniques is also a lie. Not that those facts matter all that much as to your agreement with us. That's why I'm here you see." Ed watches the beady dark eyes of the man narrow. "We showed you what you wanted, now I believe you should hold up your end of the bargain."
The man's hand moves slightly, and a sparkling jewel, pinched between a thumb and forefinger, inches towards him. Ed directs his gaze to a spot vaguely over the man's shoulder, only to see more onlookers with nin plates on their foreheads standing there.
"Talk."
Ed darts his eyes to the man briefly at the tone of command. He rolls to his back, and holds out right hand for the jewel. When it is handed over, he makes a great show of rolling it about in his living palm.
Ed sighs as he pinches the gem between a thumb and forefinger to peer at the thing with narrowed eyes. As he feigns further thoughtful examinations, he says, "I have questions."
"Answer ours first. Begin with the Akatsuki."
"Your people. Have much rules, yes?"
Ed isn't quite surprised at the silence he hears, and he slides his eye to Scarface. The man's face is carefully composed, but his beady eyes twinkle with what looks to be confusion. Ed looks back to the gem and waits. When the man shifts in the seat, he asks again.
"They are criminals and are our enemies."
"What they do?"
"Just. Tell us what you know."
"I answer what I can. What you want."
"Where is their current...?"
"Things of mine would help." Ed interrupts. "Tell to me where."
"Safe." Ed gives a small nod and tilts his head as he feigns looking up at the gem. He lets the silence stretch some more. The man growls and speaks to someone too quickly to follow. When he takes a breath, Ed interrupts.
"What makes them enemies of you?"
"The Akatsuki are made up of criminal nin who have abandoned their home villages and are known to have killed a number of nins." Sakura blurts. Her eyes are glassy with unshed tears, and Ed frowns as guilt twists in his belly. He can never stand seeing a woman cry. "They're after a friend of mine...that's what this war is all about. Protecting him, and.."
"Haruno!" Scarface barks. Sakura frowns and looks away.
"..Murderers?" Ed says in Amestrain, and watches as Sakura busies herself with the bundled greenery. Ed tosses the gem into the air and deftly catches it with his left, before he hands the gem back to Scarface.
"Where. I not know."
Scarface frowns as he holds his gaze steady, and Ed sees the man's jaw move slightly as if he were chewing the inside of his cheek.
"Are you certain you have no knowledge of their location?" The man says steadily. "What if.. What is it now? Ah yes." Scarface reaches slowly into a pouch and withdraws a slip of paper. "We have reports of a man calling himself...ah... Al-f-on-ze..."
Ed bolts up as the man mangles the name, and completely misses what else Scarface says as he hotly meets the man's beady cold gaze.
"They have Alphonse..? They...? Fuk fuk..." Ed scoots the edge of the bed, where he hurriedly wraps the sheet about his naked self. He rubs a hand over his chin as the man looks at him in plain confusion, and takes a breath to begin again in more careful Gibberish. "You say they have Al?"
Ed watches the man carefully as Scarface leans back. He leans forward as the moments tick by, and just as he's about to reach out with a firm grip to demand the man answer, Scarface takes a measured breath.
"That's what the latest report says."
He says as he slowly pockets the slip of paper. Ed narrows his eyes and lets his gaze sweep across the floor. He scrapes his memory, searching for the faint fragments of those frantic moments at the Gate.
"Did that Bastard actually do it? And was Al pulled through by that Homunculus, too?" Ed stands up on unsteady feet, and act that had Sakura yelling out in alarm. Ed slaps away Scarface's pawing hands, and hefts the sheet firmly about himself as he begins to pace. "If I'm in this bad of shape, Al has to be.. no I don't want to think of it. No!" Ed snarls in Amestrian as he runs his free hand through his hair. "Al should be home, safe, and not.."
"Tell me what you know." Scarface says, and Ed looks at the man. His gaze hardens after several heartbeats, then falls to the floor.
"I.. cave. I know cave by...a water. flowing." Ed tries in Gibberish. Then begins pacing again. At the next turn he angrily touches his palms together. A flash of blue sparks later and the stupid sheet reforms itself into a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of boxers, both of which were still just as white as the material from which they came. Scarface's eyes widen, and Ed sees that the guy didn't quite get what he describes. He takes a deep breath, and squeezes his eyes closed as he concentrates on the stupid Gibberish he can reach in his head.
"Where I fell." Ed says in Gibberish. "Cave is."
"Fell?"
"Yes."
"I don't understand."
"I don't have words to say. Or time to say it." Ed snarls in Gibberish, and steps for the door. "I go..."
"..Now." The door juts inwards as he reaches for the knob. He see the face of the woman called the Hokage blocking his way. He looks behind her briefly and sees a nin with high flying gray hair; his face so covered in cloth, that only one eye shows. As Ed calculates the equation he needs to get around the pair in his mind, the Hokage's brown eyes widens as her gaze sweeps over him, and then looks within the room. "Ibiki? What're you do...What's going.."
Ed slaps his palms together, and as he is about to reach out, Sakura dives and grips both of his wrists. Ed frowns at her and nearly growls as she looks over her shoulder at the woman.
"Tsuande-sama. I'm sorry. I thought he had your authorization to be in here and.."
"This is an Intelligence matter, Hokage. I was simply doing my job." Scarface says over Sakura as he rises from the chair. "And I have ..some.. success to report."
The Hokage's eyes narrow, and as she hears the man's words, the corners of her mouth pull downwards.
ooooo
A/n--I hope you can see some serious malipulation going on, as I can't figure out how to make more blantant without make Ed look incredably stupid. Also-- this chappy was officially done on a real computer, as opposed to my poor, much abused, cell-a-saurus.
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
"He's awake." He hears spoken in a distorted soft feminine voice somewhere above him. He cracks an eye open, and winces at the too bright light. He sees a hulking shadow hovering nearby, and breathes a hopeful, "Alphonse..?"
He stares blankly at the form, which is neither familiar nor made of empty metal, and it's several blinks later that his mind recalls exactly where it is that his brother is waiting.
The nothingness of white and he's all alone and it's all my fault in the first place and.. dammit I can't just...!
He grits his teeth and jolts up, but large hammy hands shove him down into the vague softness he knows has to be a mattress. He arches his back against the unwelcome touch, thrashing and kicking out savagely.
He hears a grunt as his unfeeling left foot connects with something, and the blow that follows has him gasping with pain.
He desperately tries to shove the agony down, needing to move above all else; he grimaces as, at the moment, he can only move his knees upwards and barely roll to the side. Several heartbeats later he works out what happened, and through the burning throb of his groin that seems to reach his ears, he picks out bits and pieces of a rather scathing scolding by the female voice.
Gibberish seems so much easier to understand now, he thinks, gasping, and cracks his eyes open once more. He sees a bland wall, a thin bookcase, in which are several large dark bottles and piles of green bundles he supposes are herbs. He fells a hand on his bare shoulder and the touch makes his muscles twitch.
"Easy there." The hand lifts. "Easy." He hears soft footfalls, and follows the sound to his feet. A glimpse of shoulder length pink hair has him lower his brows. Sea green eye peer down at him at first, and the girl, "Sakura", bends to look rather closely at him for several moments with a studious expression. He narrows his eyes and glares right back.
He holds his gaze steadily even as he feels just how naked he really is under the thin sheet of cloth that is draped over him.
"Sorry. What happened was my fault and.."
"Where I?" He squeaks, throat brittle and dry like sandpaper. Her lips curl in a slight smile he knows is supposed to be reassuring, and he watches one of her hands with great suspicion as it slowly moves to the side. He blinks owlishly at the cup it cradles as both approach. Stubbornly, he jerks his chin away, and flares his nostrils in alarm.
"Shh... just water. Drink." She insists, and the cup hovers just at his lips. He looks at the clear liquid and frowns. Several drops spill down his cheek, and his tongue darts out before his brain truly engages. He pushes his head back away, stubborn still, but greedily swallows in spite of himself as a full gulp after gulp is poured in his mouth.
The liquid, if only water like the pink haired nin says, soothes his parched throat well enough that when the cup finally moves away, his voice is near normal strength when he tries again. "Where I. Now?"
"Med.."she begins.
"You are laying in the medical department of the Allied Shinobi Forces." The voice of Scarface growls. "And you can drop the act right now. We know you can speak our language."
Ed uncurls himself from his protective ball as he looks over his shoulder at the man. The beefy arms fold over the back of a wooden chair almost casually as the man returns his glare with an icy stare of his own. Ed shakes his head as he takes a breath to answer.
"Not."
"Quite fluently, in fact." The man adds.
"Books one week..." Ed began.
"The Hokage heard you herself." The man continues, interrupting. "You spoke about some kinjutstu she only heard of as though you were reading a damned textbook, so obviously your claimed ignorance of chakra techniques is also a lie. Not that those facts matter all that much as to your agreement with us. That's why I'm here you see." Ed watches the beady dark eyes of the man narrow. "We showed you what you wanted, now I believe you should hold up your end of the bargain."
The man's hand moves slightly, and a sparkling jewel, pinched between a thumb and forefinger, inches towards him. Ed directs his gaze to a spot vaguely over the man's shoulder, only to see more onlookers with nin plates on their foreheads standing there.
"Talk."
Ed darts his eyes to the man briefly at the tone of command. He rolls to his back, and holds out right hand for the jewel. When it is handed over, he makes a great show of rolling it about in his living palm.
Ed sighs as he pinches the gem between a thumb and forefinger to peer at the thing with narrowed eyes. As he feigns further thoughtful examinations, he says, "I have questions."
"Answer ours first. Begin with the Akatsuki."
"Your people. Have much rules, yes?"
Ed isn't quite surprised at the silence he hears, and he slides his eye to Scarface. The man's face is carefully composed, but his beady eyes twinkle with what looks to be confusion. Ed looks back to the gem and waits. When the man shifts in the seat, he asks again.
"They are criminals and are our enemies."
"What they do?"
"Just. Tell us what you know."
"I answer what I can. What you want."
"Where is their current...?"
"Things of mine would help." Ed interrupts. "Tell to me where."
"Safe." Ed gives a small nod and tilts his head as he feigns looking up at the gem. He lets the silence stretch some more. The man growls and speaks to someone too quickly to follow. When he takes a breath, Ed interrupts.
"What makes them enemies of you?"
"The Akatsuki are made up of criminal nin who have abandoned their home villages and are known to have killed a number of nins." Sakura blurts. Her eyes are glassy with unshed tears, and Ed frowns as guilt twists in his belly. He can never stand seeing a woman cry. "They're after a friend of mine...that's what this war is all about. Protecting him, and.."
"Haruno!" Scarface barks. Sakura frowns and looks away.
"..Murderers?" Ed says in Amestrain, and watches as Sakura busies herself with the bundled greenery. Ed tosses the gem into the air and deftly catches it with his left, before he hands the gem back to Scarface.
"Where. I not know."
Scarface frowns as he holds his gaze steady, and Ed sees the man's jaw move slightly as if he were chewing the inside of his cheek.
"Are you certain you have no knowledge of their location?" The man says steadily. "What if.. What is it now? Ah yes." Scarface reaches slowly into a pouch and withdraws a slip of paper. "We have reports of a man calling himself...ah... Al-f-on-ze..."
Ed bolts up as the man mangles the name, and completely misses what else Scarface says as he hotly meets the man's beady cold gaze.
"They have Alphonse..? They...? Fuk fuk..." Ed scoots the edge of the bed, where he hurriedly wraps the sheet about his naked self. He rubs a hand over his chin as the man looks at him in plain confusion, and takes a breath to begin again in more careful Gibberish. "You say they have Al?"
Ed watches the man carefully as Scarface leans back. He leans forward as the moments tick by, and just as he's about to reach out with a firm grip to demand the man answer, Scarface takes a measured breath.
"That's what the latest report says."
He says as he slowly pockets the slip of paper. Ed narrows his eyes and lets his gaze sweep across the floor. He scrapes his memory, searching for the faint fragments of those frantic moments at the Gate.
"Did that Bastard actually do it? And was Al pulled through by that Homunculus, too?" Ed stands up on unsteady feet, and act that had Sakura yelling out in alarm. Ed slaps away Scarface's pawing hands, and hefts the sheet firmly about himself as he begins to pace. "If I'm in this bad of shape, Al has to be.. no I don't want to think of it. No!" Ed snarls in Amestrian as he runs his free hand through his hair. "Al should be home, safe, and not.."
"Tell me what you know." Scarface says, and Ed looks at the man. His gaze hardens after several heartbeats, then falls to the floor.
"I.. cave. I know cave by...a water. flowing." Ed tries in Gibberish. Then begins pacing again. At the next turn he angrily touches his palms together. A flash of blue sparks later and the stupid sheet reforms itself into a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of boxers, both of which were still just as white as the material from which they came. Scarface's eyes widen, and Ed sees that the guy didn't quite get what he describes. He takes a deep breath, and squeezes his eyes closed as he concentrates on the stupid Gibberish he can reach in his head.
"Where I fell." Ed says in Gibberish. "Cave is."
"Fell?"
"Yes."
"I don't understand."
"I don't have words to say. Or time to say it." Ed snarls in Gibberish, and steps for the door. "I go..."
"..Now." The door juts inwards as he reaches for the knob. He see the face of the woman called the Hokage blocking his way. He looks behind her briefly and sees a nin with high flying gray hair; his face so covered in cloth, that only one eye shows. As Ed calculates the equation he needs to get around the pair in his mind, the Hokage's brown eyes widens as her gaze sweeps over him, and then looks within the room. "Ibiki? What're you do...What's going.."
Ed slaps his palms together, and as he is about to reach out, Sakura dives and grips both of his wrists. Ed frowns at her and nearly growls as she looks over her shoulder at the woman.
"Tsuande-sama. I'm sorry. I thought he had your authorization to be in here and.."
"This is an Intelligence matter, Hokage. I was simply doing my job." Scarface says over Sakura as he rises from the chair. "And I have ..some.. success to report."
The Hokage's eyes narrow, and as she hears the man's words, the corners of her mouth pull downwards.
ooooo
A/n--I hope you can see some serious malipulation going on, as I can't figure out how to make more blantant without make Ed look incredably stupid. Also-- this chappy was officially done on a real computer, as opposed to my poor, much abused, cell-a-saurus.
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Fma-naruto crossover chapter 22 continued...
The door clicks nearly silently behind Hinata as she emerges from the restroom, and Shika slides his gaze away from her blushing pale face to allow her more time to compose herself.
"..and Shizune determined there is nothing inherently wrong with the rice or the bowl. With that drag of a violent reaction, either he's allergic to chakra boosters or to, um, well, rice." Shika says, completing the report as he had heard it.
"So we tossed out that entire batch of food for... nothing?" Sakura says, folding her arms thoughtfully as she directs her gaze to the door.
"It was a good precaution to take. We determined that we have no sabotage by the enemy. Also, the investigation showed that no one attempted to take his life. Considering what we do know of him, of his extended time in Suna, that is good news to hear." Shikamaru says.
Sakura narrows her eyes and looks to Hinata.
"How is he?" Hinata's pale white eyes flick her way. Shikamaru frowns and wonders if his plan to send her in first was such a wise one.
"Ed-sama.. H-he's..Um. H-he doesn't wish to go to the h-hospital." Hinata looks his way. "H-he didn't d-do anything while I was in t-there but..uh..."
"Is he sitting by the toilet?" Sakura presses softly, and is rewarded with a shy little nod. The veins on the sides of Hinata's temples bulge from her extended use of her Byakuban, proving that she sees what is currently beyond the closed door quite clearly. "Good, then this is still a medical matter, and not for Investigations. Shika, could you give me some room?"
Shika does his best lazy yawn and slouches his hands into his pockets. As he leans one shoulder against the far wall, he hears Sakura's sharp knock echoing on the rest room door.
"Fuk off" Ed's ragged voice rasps from beyond the wooden plank. Shika shakes his head and looks off to the side, searching for a cloud to watch.
"H-he really s-should be examined the w-ward, like Mr.Y-yamanaka is now."
"I know." Shika widens his eyes at the unexpected arrival of the Hokage herself. Sakura darts her eyes to Tsunade's and immediately steps back into a respectful bow with both hands clasped together. Tsunade sweeps by as if ignoring her presence and folds her arms as she faces the closed door. She takes in a deep breath, which serves enhance her ample bosom, and speaks with a tone of great authority.
Only Shika finds he can't understand a single word she says.
It's as if he's listening to.. Ah. Now he gets it. Of course. She must have come from examining Inoichi, and he either implanted the language in her brain, which he imagines would be a bothersome pain, or, (This would be an awkward drag if so) he told her exactly what to say and had her practice it to perfection.
Shika lowers his brows slightly as she finishes the Nonsense, and silence fills the air. For several heartbeats, she turns her gaze to Shika, and turns back only when the knob jiggles. He notes that Tsunade doesn't appear to be in pain, and is well aware that her significant medical skills would mask any signs of mental distress.
The door creaks open.
Bruised golden orbs burn them all from within sunken pale cheeks. Enveloped in far too much cloth, the rail thin young man shambles out and painfully reminds Shika much of Choji's nearly fatal visit to the hospital ward.
"Chakra exhaustion. Before the war has even begun, We have chakra exhaustion." The Hokage mutters softly as if to herself.
Shika darts his eyes to Sakura and Hinata, and sees them share a startled glance. They didn't miss the weighty lesson their teacher was giving them this very moment, of what signs to look for in a nin for the coming days in the medical core. If not for the shiny metallic left leg, Shika rather thought Ed resembled a walking corpse having a good day.
He watches Ed's gaze flare with a mixture of recognition and deep suspicion as he looks them over.
"Have we met?" Tsunade says slowly.
"No." Ed rasps, and swallows as he does not quite look away from the amble bosom of the woman before him. "You very like someone."
"And me?"
Ed darts his gaze to Sakura, and Shika sees a faint fluttering of expressions as he looks away.
"Not one I trust." He says steadily, glare fixed pointedly upon Tsunade's face. "You want thing I know. Pay fair? Yes?"
Tsunade nods, then turns to Sakura.
After Sakura introduces the Hokage, herself, and Hinata, Tsunade breaths in to speak again.
"You said word I not know." Ed interrupts with a raised index finger. The gesture shows off the many seals on the pale skin of his arm.
"Huh?" The Hokage says wisely.
"Then I open." Ed gestures to the door. "I learn you speak word."
"Uh. W-what word?"
"Chakra." Ed says, and skews his brows. "What "chakra"?"
"..you're really not a nin." Sakura says with a chuckle.
"No." Ed lowers his brows.
Tsunade looks at him with narrowed eyes.
"Then tell me why you wish to see a sealing so much?"
Ed folds his own arms as he lifts his chin with a straight spine. Shika smirks as he sees the cloth of the borrowed outer shirt flop nearly to his knees; the overall effect making the blond appear ever smaller amongst the slightly taller women.
"Reasons." Ed grinds out. Shika notices a vein throbbing at his temple.
"Very well." Tsunade looks over at Sakura. "This is done with my full authority as Hokage of Konohagakure. Show him exactly how a person is sealed."
ooooo
"This no harm this person?" Ed asks in Gibberish as he points to a guard standing in the very center of a large scribble placed on the floor. The guard rolls his eyes and begins examining his fingernails.
"No. Neither of them will be hurt." The girl called Sakura says with a wide faked smile on her face. "Now will you just..?"
Ed darts his eyes her way, swallows with a deep frown. He steps back with great reluctance and sweeps his gaze over the design, studying it.
Another nin stands across from them both, and bring his hands together. The fingers are a blur of movement, and Ed feels the little hairs on base of his skull rise.
He tries not to think of the long ago basement experiment, or the massive wave of blood seeping into neatly balanced chalk lines. He grips his left thigh as he feels the throb of remembered pain, and equation after equation flowing forth unbidden from his memory.
The nin lunges down suddenly and smacks his palm onto the floor. Ed feel a faint buzzing in his bones as the room fills with a burst of white smoke.
"There." Sakura says with a false cheer. "A real sealing."
"Yeah." Ed manages, watching the smoke swirl. He turns his widened gaze to the girl, and frowns.
"Listen. I'm sorry that they choose to deceive you with the switching technique and an lousy illusion, but..."
"Bring! Him! Back!" Ed snaps his eyes back into the haze.
Sakura stops talking so fast, her smacks uselessly closed. She lets out a breath of air, and says. "Do it."
A burst of smoke follows another set of waving fingers. Ed doesn't wait for the bored guard to walk off design before he grabs the man's chin and examines his general condition with his own eyes. The man nearly snarls as he pushes him away, but Ed is grinning as he stumbles back. At the side of the scribble, he impulsively waves his right hand over the great mark. The entire thing glows faintly gold in response, and he hears several gasps of surprise.
His smile fades as he looks to the pink haired girl, who offers up a frail grin.
"Is trick, right?" Ed says in Gibberish.
Her brows lower as her face pinches in confusion.
"Is trick of eyes. You show me what I want to see." Ed says, trying to clarify with his limited mastery of the stupid language. "Like that Kankuro. Tricks and tricks and.."
She shakes her head.
"It's real." She says, and adds. "Oh! I can show you how to tell but..."
Ed narrows his eyes.
"I'll show you, ok? I might get in trouble for it, but it's simple enough that it's not really much of a secret."
Sakura brings her hands together much like the other nin had. Ed darts his eyes to that side of the room and sees the nin slouching against the wall, seemingly glaring daggers at the guard.
"It's a technique we nins use to break ourselves out of the illusion cast by others like us." Sakura continues, "Kai!"
"Kai?" Ed says, and shakes his head. "Say word and..?" Ed waves his hand in a lazy circle.
"More than that actually. You disrupt the flow of your chakra at the same time." Ed lowers his brows.
"It's like waking from a dream." She simplifies and raises her palms. "You do not have the skill I do, I guess. So, um. Shall I..?"
She steps closer, and nearly places her palms on either side of his chest. He steps back with a disbelieving frown.
"What?" He says, chuckling nervously.
"I'm just going to disrupt the flow of your chakra." She says. "That way you know this is real, ok?"
Ed stares at her sea green eyes, seeing in her a faith, no, a confidence, which is only brought about by learning a skill. It is so very different in nature than the misguided Rose of Liore. He swallows down the bitter pill that this "chakra" nonsense may be as much about faith as it is about a technique of an unknown science.
He's is an Alchemist, and wells knows that true Alchemy is a science which emphasizes one must experience all that life has to offer.
With that thought, he stands solidly, and nods to give his permission. Even through the cloth of the massive borrowed shirt, her palms are quite warm.
He hears her cry of "kai!" before the world completely shatters.
ooooo
Tsunade strides into the room and immediately knows where to go. She begins pushing her way past the many nins clustered in the small place, and wonders just how so many can be so idle at a time like this.
"All of you clear out of here. Now." She orders, "Go to your posts!"
Some begin moving off, and other stubbornly remain. She turns her glare at them and allows her killing intent to rise.
"T-this is my post." One nin stammers. "I-I'm in Intelligence..." The others nod even as they back from her presence warily.
"This is a Medical matter. Now. Get. Out." She says, and doesn't bother to note their passing as she turns her attention to the matter at hand.
The boy she saw earlier stands so solidly still he may as well be made of metal, and the only movement she sees is the steady twitching of his lips. Her student, Sakura, is on the ground, hands shaking, and as she looks her way, she lowers them limply to her lap. She shakes her head as she says, "Tsunade-sama.."
"What happened." A statement of a demand rather than a question of any sort.
Sakura swallows as she begins. "I just disrupted his chakra and this.." She lifts the draping cloth of the over large shirt just enough to expose the skin.
The dark march of the many seals she glimpsed in the hall is readily apparent, and she lowers her brows at the disturbing sight.
"W-what's it doing..?"
"Shh..!" Tsunade hisses and turns her attention to the only other movement on the boy's body. His voice is hoarse and so wispy, she brings her ear close.
She widens her eyes in horror at what she hears. She shakes her head as she steps back to gaze at the unseeing golden eyes. She snaps her fingers, the noise echoing loudly in the near empty room, but the boy doesn't so much as blink.
"Disrupt his chakra." Sakura obeys without question.
"Kai!"
Tsunade dives to catch the boy as he collapses into a boneless heap. She grabs one of his limp wrists and looks closely at the seals, now sedate on the too pale skin. At length, she slides her eyes towards her student.
"We need a seal specialist to look these over right away." Tsunade says. "I think I know what the Akatsuki bought him for."
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
"..and Shizune determined there is nothing inherently wrong with the rice or the bowl. With that drag of a violent reaction, either he's allergic to chakra boosters or to, um, well, rice." Shika says, completing the report as he had heard it.
"So we tossed out that entire batch of food for... nothing?" Sakura says, folding her arms thoughtfully as she directs her gaze to the door.
"It was a good precaution to take. We determined that we have no sabotage by the enemy. Also, the investigation showed that no one attempted to take his life. Considering what we do know of him, of his extended time in Suna, that is good news to hear." Shikamaru says.
Sakura narrows her eyes and looks to Hinata.
"How is he?" Hinata's pale white eyes flick her way. Shikamaru frowns and wonders if his plan to send her in first was such a wise one.
"Ed-sama.. H-he's..Um. H-he doesn't wish to go to the h-hospital." Hinata looks his way. "H-he didn't d-do anything while I was in t-there but..uh..."
"Is he sitting by the toilet?" Sakura presses softly, and is rewarded with a shy little nod. The veins on the sides of Hinata's temples bulge from her extended use of her Byakuban, proving that she sees what is currently beyond the closed door quite clearly. "Good, then this is still a medical matter, and not for Investigations. Shika, could you give me some room?"
Shika does his best lazy yawn and slouches his hands into his pockets. As he leans one shoulder against the far wall, he hears Sakura's sharp knock echoing on the rest room door.
"Fuk off" Ed's ragged voice rasps from beyond the wooden plank. Shika shakes his head and looks off to the side, searching for a cloud to watch.
"H-he really s-should be examined the w-ward, like Mr.Y-yamanaka is now."
"I know." Shika widens his eyes at the unexpected arrival of the Hokage herself. Sakura darts her eyes to Tsunade's and immediately steps back into a respectful bow with both hands clasped together. Tsunade sweeps by as if ignoring her presence and folds her arms as she faces the closed door. She takes in a deep breath, which serves enhance her ample bosom, and speaks with a tone of great authority.
Only Shika finds he can't understand a single word she says.
It's as if he's listening to.. Ah. Now he gets it. Of course. She must have come from examining Inoichi, and he either implanted the language in her brain, which he imagines would be a bothersome pain, or, (This would be an awkward drag if so) he told her exactly what to say and had her practice it to perfection.
Shika lowers his brows slightly as she finishes the Nonsense, and silence fills the air. For several heartbeats, she turns her gaze to Shika, and turns back only when the knob jiggles. He notes that Tsunade doesn't appear to be in pain, and is well aware that her significant medical skills would mask any signs of mental distress.
The door creaks open.
Bruised golden orbs burn them all from within sunken pale cheeks. Enveloped in far too much cloth, the rail thin young man shambles out and painfully reminds Shika much of Choji's nearly fatal visit to the hospital ward.
"Chakra exhaustion. Before the war has even begun, We have chakra exhaustion." The Hokage mutters softly as if to herself.
Shika darts his eyes to Sakura and Hinata, and sees them share a startled glance. They didn't miss the weighty lesson their teacher was giving them this very moment, of what signs to look for in a nin for the coming days in the medical core. If not for the shiny metallic left leg, Shika rather thought Ed resembled a walking corpse having a good day.
He watches Ed's gaze flare with a mixture of recognition and deep suspicion as he looks them over.
"Have we met?" Tsunade says slowly.
"No." Ed rasps, and swallows as he does not quite look away from the amble bosom of the woman before him. "You very like someone."
"And me?"
Ed darts his gaze to Sakura, and Shika sees a faint fluttering of expressions as he looks away.
"Not one I trust." He says steadily, glare fixed pointedly upon Tsunade's face. "You want thing I know. Pay fair? Yes?"
Tsunade nods, then turns to Sakura.
After Sakura introduces the Hokage, herself, and Hinata, Tsunade breaths in to speak again.
"You said word I not know." Ed interrupts with a raised index finger. The gesture shows off the many seals on the pale skin of his arm.
"Huh?" The Hokage says wisely.
"Then I open." Ed gestures to the door. "I learn you speak word."
"Uh. W-what word?"
"Chakra." Ed says, and skews his brows. "What "chakra"?"
"..you're really not a nin." Sakura says with a chuckle.
"No." Ed lowers his brows.
Tsunade looks at him with narrowed eyes.
"Then tell me why you wish to see a sealing so much?"
Ed folds his own arms as he lifts his chin with a straight spine. Shika smirks as he sees the cloth of the borrowed outer shirt flop nearly to his knees; the overall effect making the blond appear ever smaller amongst the slightly taller women.
"Reasons." Ed grinds out. Shika notices a vein throbbing at his temple.
"Very well." Tsunade looks over at Sakura. "This is done with my full authority as Hokage of Konohagakure. Show him exactly how a person is sealed."
ooooo
"This no harm this person?" Ed asks in Gibberish as he points to a guard standing in the very center of a large scribble placed on the floor. The guard rolls his eyes and begins examining his fingernails.
"No. Neither of them will be hurt." The girl called Sakura says with a wide faked smile on her face. "Now will you just..?"
Ed darts his eyes her way, swallows with a deep frown. He steps back with great reluctance and sweeps his gaze over the design, studying it.
Another nin stands across from them both, and bring his hands together. The fingers are a blur of movement, and Ed feels the little hairs on base of his skull rise.
He tries not to think of the long ago basement experiment, or the massive wave of blood seeping into neatly balanced chalk lines. He grips his left thigh as he feels the throb of remembered pain, and equation after equation flowing forth unbidden from his memory.
The nin lunges down suddenly and smacks his palm onto the floor. Ed feel a faint buzzing in his bones as the room fills with a burst of white smoke.
"There." Sakura says with a false cheer. "A real sealing."
"Yeah." Ed manages, watching the smoke swirl. He turns his widened gaze to the girl, and frowns.
"Listen. I'm sorry that they choose to deceive you with the switching technique and an lousy illusion, but..."
"Bring! Him! Back!" Ed snaps his eyes back into the haze.
Sakura stops talking so fast, her smacks uselessly closed. She lets out a breath of air, and says. "Do it."
A burst of smoke follows another set of waving fingers. Ed doesn't wait for the bored guard to walk off design before he grabs the man's chin and examines his general condition with his own eyes. The man nearly snarls as he pushes him away, but Ed is grinning as he stumbles back. At the side of the scribble, he impulsively waves his right hand over the great mark. The entire thing glows faintly gold in response, and he hears several gasps of surprise.
His smile fades as he looks to the pink haired girl, who offers up a frail grin.
"Is trick, right?" Ed says in Gibberish.
Her brows lower as her face pinches in confusion.
"Is trick of eyes. You show me what I want to see." Ed says, trying to clarify with his limited mastery of the stupid language. "Like that Kankuro. Tricks and tricks and.."
She shakes her head.
"It's real." She says, and adds. "Oh! I can show you how to tell but..."
Ed narrows his eyes.
"I'll show you, ok? I might get in trouble for it, but it's simple enough that it's not really much of a secret."
Sakura brings her hands together much like the other nin had. Ed darts his eyes to that side of the room and sees the nin slouching against the wall, seemingly glaring daggers at the guard.
"It's a technique we nins use to break ourselves out of the illusion cast by others like us." Sakura continues, "Kai!"
"Kai?" Ed says, and shakes his head. "Say word and..?" Ed waves his hand in a lazy circle.
"More than that actually. You disrupt the flow of your chakra at the same time." Ed lowers his brows.
"It's like waking from a dream." She simplifies and raises her palms. "You do not have the skill I do, I guess. So, um. Shall I..?"
She steps closer, and nearly places her palms on either side of his chest. He steps back with a disbelieving frown.
"What?" He says, chuckling nervously.
"I'm just going to disrupt the flow of your chakra." She says. "That way you know this is real, ok?"
Ed stares at her sea green eyes, seeing in her a faith, no, a confidence, which is only brought about by learning a skill. It is so very different in nature than the misguided Rose of Liore. He swallows down the bitter pill that this "chakra" nonsense may be as much about faith as it is about a technique of an unknown science.
He's is an Alchemist, and wells knows that true Alchemy is a science which emphasizes one must experience all that life has to offer.
With that thought, he stands solidly, and nods to give his permission. Even through the cloth of the massive borrowed shirt, her palms are quite warm.
He hears her cry of "kai!" before the world completely shatters.
ooooo
Tsunade strides into the room and immediately knows where to go. She begins pushing her way past the many nins clustered in the small place, and wonders just how so many can be so idle at a time like this.
"All of you clear out of here. Now." She orders, "Go to your posts!"
Some begin moving off, and other stubbornly remain. She turns her glare at them and allows her killing intent to rise.
"T-this is my post." One nin stammers. "I-I'm in Intelligence..." The others nod even as they back from her presence warily.
"This is a Medical matter. Now. Get. Out." She says, and doesn't bother to note their passing as she turns her attention to the matter at hand.
The boy she saw earlier stands so solidly still he may as well be made of metal, and the only movement she sees is the steady twitching of his lips. Her student, Sakura, is on the ground, hands shaking, and as she looks her way, she lowers them limply to her lap. She shakes her head as she says, "Tsunade-sama.."
"What happened." A statement of a demand rather than a question of any sort.
Sakura swallows as she begins. "I just disrupted his chakra and this.." She lifts the draping cloth of the over large shirt just enough to expose the skin.
The dark march of the many seals she glimpsed in the hall is readily apparent, and she lowers her brows at the disturbing sight.
"W-what's it doing..?"
"Shh..!" Tsunade hisses and turns her attention to the only other movement on the boy's body. His voice is hoarse and so wispy, she brings her ear close.
She widens her eyes in horror at what she hears. She shakes her head as she steps back to gaze at the unseeing golden eyes. She snaps her fingers, the noise echoing loudly in the near empty room, but the boy doesn't so much as blink.
"Disrupt his chakra." Sakura obeys without question.
"Kai!"
Tsunade dives to catch the boy as he collapses into a boneless heap. She grabs one of his limp wrists and looks closely at the seals, now sedate on the too pale skin. At length, she slides her eyes towards her student.
"We need a seal specialist to look these over right away." Tsunade says. "I think I know what the Akatsuki bought him for."
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Fma-naruto crossover chapter 22
If there is one thing in the world he hates, it's hospitals.
He feels a cool hand rub his upper back and jerks his shoulders free from the invasive touch. The pale eyed girl moves shyly away, and he doesn't miss the fact that the veins bulge rather large at the sides of her head. Her brows rise as she lifts a glass of what looks to be water his way. He eyes the glass, but turns away to lean his forehead back on the cool curve of the toilet bowl.
"E-ed-s-sama..." The girl stammers again, and Ed weakly shakes his head in answer to her unspoken request.
"No." Ed breathes in Gibberish. "No hospitals." He scowls as he grips his stomach, and dreading returning to the next room.
This's all their fault anyway, he thinks.
ooooo
Ed scowls at the sandals which do nothing to hide his automail leg from view. It's as good an excuse as any to keep from seeing the many curious and pity filled faces that flow past him as he is lead along the plain dull corridor. The borrowed clothes he is dressed in feel baggy, over large, and generally ill-fitting. He certainly despises the color of them, and a surprising portion of him greatly misses the heft of his recently recovered pocket watch.
He wonders whatever became of the bloody thing as he gazes blandly toward Inoichi's pinched, pain filled face. He watches the man open one of the many identical doors and waves him inside with a heavy hand. He doesn't bother to listen to the name as the man says, introducing him to the tower of a fellow lounging in a chair within the equally bland room; instead he discreetly darts his eyes about as the chair he is clearly expected to squirm in is pulled out from the plain wooden table. He is unsurprised to see several more people standing about with the nin plates on their headbands, and he certainly is not introduced to them.
After all. Who really needs to know the name of their guards?
The towering freak folds his arms as Inoichi speaks too quickly for Ed to follow in Gibberish, and Ed pretends not to stare at the several long slashing scars running across his displeased face. The man replies just as quickly, and nods towards one of guards.
A sheet a paper is grandly produced, placed neatly just out of reach on the table, and something incomprehensible is scribbled upon it. He watches with hooded eyes as a jug filled with some sort of sloshing liquid is carefully plunked down on the ink. A loud cry and slap of palms later,
Ed waves the smoke clear of his eyes with a stony face.
The paper with the scribble on it sits on its lonely end of the bland table. Jug of liquid gone.
He leans forward, intending to wave his fingers over the symbol as a test, but goons on either side of him grab his shoulders. He abandons the tactic immediately, and, feigning an incorrigible struggle against the hammy hands on his arms, kicks his living foot out into the general area beneath. He figures he should be able to trigger something with his reaching toes, or at least find where the jug fell.
He frowns when he finds nothing but the stir of air. Instead of a faint glowing hum of the most basic of alchemic reactions, the ink on the paper remains a flat sheet of failed childish scribbles.
"There you go." He hears Inoichi say, as if translating what Scarface says. "What do you know of the Akatsuki?"
"They like to wear shower curtains." Ed replies flatly, staring at the spot on the table.
He hears someone let out a huff of air. A faint sparkle of light catches his attention, and with a flick of his eyes, he sees that, pinched between his massive forefinger and thumb, Scarface holds a diamond. He watches the man slowly lower the gem to the table, placing it just-so in the very middle.
At that moment, Ed's belly roars, and he presses his hand hard to his middle as if to restrain it from attacking anyone. He hears stifled chuckles erupt around him, and grimaces his irritation. Inoichi. speaks Gibberish too quickly again, and stops, almost like he was swallowing back his words.
The room is achingly silent.
Ed hears a dribbling something splatter like rain drops against the surface of the bland wooden table, and his gaze widens as he recognizes that the red substance dripping down and splashing about is certainly not composed of water. He darts his gaze to the source, and sees Inoichi holding his hand to his freely drippling nose.
The man squeezes his eyes shut as he swoons back, and Ed instinctively lunges up, intending to catch him. He takes in a breath as he sees the man's light hair is matted an ugly sort of pink by his ears. Before he can get very far, many hands attempt to force him back into the stupid chair.
He watches Scarface grip the fallen Inoichi in his beefy arms before the man hits the ground. Someone calls for a med nin as Ed meets and holds the man's cold beady eyes.
"Oh no!" A girl breathes, forcing Ed to break the useless stare down.
Ed looks over and feels his knees weaken. He flops into his seat as a girl with pink hair rushes by. He watches owlishly as her fingers glow like fire, pads lightly touching various spots on Inoichi's neck and temples.
"I'm sorry Mr. Inoichi, you really need to rest." Ed hears in Gibberish, and the girl rambles on further so fast that he can't follow what is said. He forces his eyes from her too familiar face, telling himself that she is a stranger no matter who she so strongly resembles.
She obviously is not from Liore. She certainly is not Rose. He sees Scarface frown at him, and directs his gaze elsewhere.
"Can't." The blond man breathes.
Ed's belly roars again, and he grimaces. The noise has Not!Rose looking his way with sea green eyes, which are certainly not the shade of brown he knows Rose possessed. She works with great confidence on Inoichi, and hands steady and face composed. She eyes the men standing about, surrounding her and frowns.
Several heartbeats pass, and with something of a growl, she calls out to the door. "Hinata-san!"
A girl with pupil-less white eyes pokes her head in. Ed suspects she is blind until her eyes move in such a way that he knows she is not. (Mustang's hadn't moved like that after being blinded on his forced trip through the Gate.) He finds it eerie, that seeing look with those unseeing eyes.
Without a single prompt, she looks right at him, almost as if looking through him, and asks something that sounds like rice and bowl after several stuttering attempts.
Ed mouth is dry as he nods.
He supposes he responded correctly, because the girl soon returns with a bowl that smells somehow off and delicious at the same time.
He glares at no one as he fumbles with the pair of stupid sticks stuck in the rice clumps, but manages to scoop in a mouthful of the stuff after a few tries. He ignores the amused smirks he sees as chews.
Inoichi is propped against the far wall, and waves off Not!Rose's attempts at forcing him to his feet. Beside him leans Scarface, face set in a stony frown as he speaks. It takes several moments, but he makes out the gist of what Scarface mutters in a low voice towards the fallen blond.
"We're getting nowhere with this. We'll need to probe his mind again."
Again?!
Ed angrily bangs the table with both fists, and turns his best glare to Inoichi. He recalls the recent, out-of-place, glimpses of a long flowing blond pony tails in his memories, and feels his stomach begin to churn.
"You. Were in my head!?" Ed yells out, and Inoichi cracks his eyes open.
"Yes."
Ed wrinkles his nose in disgust and shoves the bowl aside as his stomach tap dances about the thought of anyone traipsing about in his mind. "You have no right to..to violate my privacy..!"
"I told you. It was necessary. We are at war. I suspect this..." Inoichi gestures a hand weakly at his head, nose and ears still dripping blood. "..is a result of what I ran into while squeezing in. We needed to be able to speak with you clearly, and quickly. I had no choice but to master your strange language."
"You deserve what you got you son of a.. " The grumble is weak in his ears, but the sudden sinking of his middle is certainly not. He swallows the off taste lingering on his tongue, and the medicine tinge reminds of his extended time in hospital. He looks to the still mostly full bowl sitting innocently to the side, and looses his fingers. The stupid sticks clatter noisily onto the flat surface. He vaguely wonders of the dish's specific ingredients, for if he judges by his intestines' dramatic reaction, he believes he's found something he is allergic to.
Besides certain mushrooms, that is.
"..Even with able assistance, there's not much room to maneuver. Your head is crammed to the brim with.. Knowledge. Dangerous knowledge."
"..None of which concerns any of you." Ed snaps heatedly, wrapping his bubbling belly with both arms. He squeezes his eyes shut, willing the food he just downed to stay the shit down.
"That is something for us to determine." Inoichi says with a drawn out breath. "Now, back to the gem. What can you tell us of.."
Ed shakes his head slowly.
"No more. Not equivalent." Ed squeaks as he opens his eyes, looking pointedly at the slip of paper beyond his reach. "We are adults. You showed me what amounts to only a simple parlor trick."
Inoichi's face twists into a scowl, and by the gasps he hears, Ed knows the man doesn't dare say he's wrong.
"Apparently "cooperation" is another word that doesn't translate.." Inoichi states rather flatly.
ooooo
To be continued...
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Fma-naruto chapter 21
The sun is higher in the sky, and the toe cramp is no better in his left foot as he stands frozen in mid step. His muscles still refuse his mental commands, and Ed keeps his glare carefully aimed at the rather large stump as he hears the crunch of foot steps around him. If he could frown, he would have already, beginning soon after his stomach rumbled its displeasure near his rib cage. At the moment, the low growl of anger bubbling in his throat is nearly as loud.
Occasionally a pair of sandaled feet breaks his rather bland view of the world, and sometimes the body they belong to scrunches low to allow a curious face to float by. He ignores them all.
He runs the story relayed by that Shikamaru, that he somehow managed to destroy a building, (ok, ONLY half a building, big whoop), through his mind. He recalls many such buildings he destroyed in the course of performing his duties. Hutchinson's castle. What a blast that was. Laboratory 5. Not entirely his fault, that. Then there was that stupid church in Liore which he didn't technically destroy, per se, just half transmuted into a statue. So what. At the time he was righteously pissed.
Try as he might, he finds no memory of doing any such demolition in the place stupidly called "Sand".
Sure, he knows he's beaten people up in his sleep, but to have no recollection of doing it? Especially when he could only dismantle something that big with.. With..
...Alchemy?
He blinks, wondering at his mental tripping over the very word that is as familiar to him as his own heartbeat. With a mental shrug, he attributes the slip up to his overloaded mind.
..And of that Temari's promises! He is still fukken a prisoner. Or a slave. Like...
He feels his skin crawl in revulsion as he recalls the cold look that bastard poor excuse of a father, Hohemheim, gave him as the door closed on their lives together. He shoves the memory back where it belongs.
Ed wiped at his forehead as he sat on the log by the campfire, and looked blankly over at the slums the Ishvallans had built and settled in. Every wooden plank of the squashed together structures seemed to add to the fleeting hope of the place which gave them shelter for the night. He ignored the older blond looking at him for the time being, and flexed the joints of his false right hand as he seriously considered punching the bastard's face once more.
It wasn't as if it would hurt the immortal bastard.
Well not that much anyway.
Four hundred years. Ed thinks. So. The old bastard is a stone? From Xerxies. I'm fukken Xerxian?
And Al is Xerxian, too..?
He narrows his eyes at the awful features that his own face is beginning to resemble. The wide forehead. The prominent nose. The strong jaw line and that chin which supported a thick..
Wait. What happened to the bastard's freakken beard..? Come to think of it, the guy sitting there doesn't look a thing like the old bastard...
"Brother.."
AL!! He immediately screams in his mind. The sweet sound of that welcome voice would have his head swiveling for the source if he could move. Instead, he burns holes into the stupidly huge tree stump that suddenly reappears before him like a mirage. He lowers his brows, and vaguely wonders if he's feverish.
Well, it would certainly explain much. His eyes are certainly playing tricks on him lately. First those dancing arrays at the edges of his vision, and now this.
He squeezes his eyes shut as an unwelcome hand settles on the top of his head, and the world begins to twist off to the right.
Alchemy.
He sees through his pudgy fingers, and gazes at the millions of stars dancing through the void above his head.
He sees the broken bits of steel at his feet, and stares blankly at the shattered blood seal that once housed his precious brother's soul. His best friend is gone. His only family. May looks up at him with a tear streaked face, shoulders hitching with every breath.
"I'm sorry..!" She says brokenly as wipes her eyes.
"It wasn't your fault" he hears himself reply. "It was Al's choice."
He focuses his mind on grasping for a solution, eyes sweeping to the familiar and unfamiliar faces surrounding him in the rubble of Central. Never stop thinking, he thinks. He lingers his gaze on Hawkeye, who's hopeful face is huddled close to the ear of the blinded Colonel. She gives him an encouraging nod that the blind man can't see to give.
"Dammit, Fullmetal..status!" He hears the man call out. "Report to me now! What the hell is going on?"
He hears ecstatic cheers of "we won!" in the distance, but the faces on soldiers closest to him show at least some realize how very hallow the victory really is. Someone else will fill the blind bastard in, and he lingers his gaze on Hawkeye. She nods and speaks softly into the Colonel Bastard's ear as she helps him to stand.
"One life for another. That's equivalent trade." He hears Hohemheim say with a cracked voice. "I've been such a lousy father to you, that I owe you both that much.."
"No." Ed hears himself snap, "Don't. Listen. Al wouldn't want..."
One glance of Hohemheim's face, and on impulse, he slaps his palms together. At the same instant the bastard reaches out for the remains. He sees red lightening dance up Hohemheim's outstretched fingers as the great eye opens beneath them both, and he grimaces. He knows he just managed to match the old bastard's speed. He feels the tiny hairs on his arms rise in alarm as the tiny black hands rise up around them, and offers up no resistance as his body is taken apart molecule by molecule.
He hears someone cry out in pain. He sees a long blond ponytail flying high in the elderich wind just before his irises completely deconstruct and he leaves the world.
Instead of the timeless white, Ed feels quivering fingers in his scalp. He frowns as the hand on top of his head lifts, and opens his eyes to unexpected blackness. He jerks his shoulders, and feels his arms pinned to his sides.
There is no point in yelling out, so he scowls his displeasure instead.
"Well..?" Ed hears in muffled Gibberish somewhere behind him. It a few moments later that he recognizes the voice as Shikamaru's. He grits his teeth against several moments of clanking noises filling his ears. The sound is suspiciously like metal bits drilling their way into his skull.
"You alright? What happened, Inoichi?" Another says in Gibberish as a weighty something lifts the darkness from his eyes. Ed squints his eyes against the sheer brightness of the spacious, mostly empty room, and takes in a startled breath. His heart thunders in his chest as he renews his fruitless struggles to free his arms.
He is wedged in the very center of what could be mistaken as a rather large tree stump, and the round shape of it chills him to his core. What array could it be hiding? He thinks. In this room, he doesn't quite sense the subtle hum in his bones that an active array usually produces, but that doesn't mean that being in the possible center of one brings him any sort of comfort.
"Can you understand me?" Someone says in flawless Amestrain. Ed darts his eyes away from the contraption pinning his arms to his sides and stares at the man for several heartbeats. He then scowls and resumes jerking his upper back as much as he can to one side, which admittedly isn't all that much.
"Please stop struggling. You will only tear your own muscles."
Ed flares his nostrils. Being helpless and on display amongst complete strangers is nothing new, but he certainly refuses to put up with it for long.
"Fuck you." Ed growls in reply.
The man who spoke stands before him, holding what looks to be a flat topped helmet in his hands. Blue eyes squinched in pain, his hair is blond, and although the front is spiky, he has the back in a long flowing ponytail that reaches his lower back.
"I ran into something that broke the connection." The blond man says in Gibberish. As he rubs his fingertips at his temple, he closes his eyes. "I was at least able to breach his word bank, so simply speaking with him should be easier. At least for me."
Ed narrows his eyes and warily sweeps his gaze toward the older blond. The jaw line in particular looks far more familiar on the stranger than it should be. He recalls the flash of memory of Ishballan slums; specifically the strange image of the campfire.
His stomach performs a few unsetting back flips as he compares the unbearded companion he saw from moments ago, who had somehow stepped in the place of the old bastard: There is a strong resemblance to the older blond before him. In fact, the two could be twins.
He has no answers for how that can possibly be aside from a mental contusion. Perhaps he really is feverish. He swallows again, and abandons his obviously faulty recollections to grasp the more trustworthy information presented to him thus far in the room.
"You are Inoichi." Ed states in careful Gibberish.
"That's correct." Inoichi says in Amestrain. "Allow me to apologize. Under normal circumstances such extreme measures as this would not have been authorized much less implemented without first performing a simple interrogation."
Ed freezes a moment to chew on the phrase "extreme measures", then turns his head. He glimpses several more figures towering behind him, but not much else.
"Where am I?" Ed asks in Amestrian. "This doesn't look like that Sand village."
Inoichi squats down and rests his hands on the platform of the "stump". From that position, his steady gaze is comfortably eye level, but doesn't quite completely remind him just how small he is.
"That's because it's not. You are the guest of the Intelligence Division of the Allied Shinobi Forces."
"Prisoner more like." Ed snorts.
"Hardly." Inoichi says with a bit of a flinch.
"Some words translate real badly then." Ed drawls and tries to flex his fingers. He feels his fingernails scrape against his thighs, and remembers the small transmutation circle he scratched on his left. He decides the right will have to do now, as he can't remember if the thing completely faded from his skin or not.
"Fair enough." Inoichi says. "Now that we can communicate, I need you to agree to cooperate with us."
"What do I get if I do?"
"If you do not cooperate, we simply reseal you back in the scroll to deal with after the war."
Ed widens his eyes.
"Hold on. Stop right there. I was sealed? In a scroll?"
"Why is that so surprising? I saw that you are not entirely unfamiliar with such methods."
"Prove it." Ed interrupts. "Let me out of this thing, show me that, and I'll... I'll cooperate with you."
Inoichi's brows lower a fraction of a second as he frowns. For a moment Ed holds his breath, but he keeps his gaze on the blue orbs of the older blond.
"Equivalent exchange." Ed adds eagerly as the man's gaze wavers. "Do we have an agreement?"
A heartbeat later, Inoichi nods and directs his gaze to someone behind Ed. In Gibberish, he hears something like: "End the drag of a tree illusion while you're at it. It's giving me a headache."
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
Occasionally a pair of sandaled feet breaks his rather bland view of the world, and sometimes the body they belong to scrunches low to allow a curious face to float by. He ignores them all.
He runs the story relayed by that Shikamaru, that he somehow managed to destroy a building, (ok, ONLY half a building, big whoop), through his mind. He recalls many such buildings he destroyed in the course of performing his duties. Hutchinson's castle. What a blast that was. Laboratory 5. Not entirely his fault, that. Then there was that stupid church in Liore which he didn't technically destroy, per se, just half transmuted into a statue. So what. At the time he was righteously pissed.
Try as he might, he finds no memory of doing any such demolition in the place stupidly called "Sand".
Sure, he knows he's beaten people up in his sleep, but to have no recollection of doing it? Especially when he could only dismantle something that big with.. With..
...Alchemy?
He blinks, wondering at his mental tripping over the very word that is as familiar to him as his own heartbeat. With a mental shrug, he attributes the slip up to his overloaded mind.
..And of that Temari's promises! He is still fukken a prisoner. Or a slave. Like...
He feels his skin crawl in revulsion as he recalls the cold look that bastard poor excuse of a father, Hohemheim, gave him as the door closed on their lives together. He shoves the memory back where it belongs.
Ed wiped at his forehead as he sat on the log by the campfire, and looked blankly over at the slums the Ishvallans had built and settled in. Every wooden plank of the squashed together structures seemed to add to the fleeting hope of the place which gave them shelter for the night. He ignored the older blond looking at him for the time being, and flexed the joints of his false right hand as he seriously considered punching the bastard's face once more.
It wasn't as if it would hurt the immortal bastard.
Well not that much anyway.
Four hundred years. Ed thinks. So. The old bastard is a stone? From Xerxies. I'm fukken Xerxian?
And Al is Xerxian, too..?
He narrows his eyes at the awful features that his own face is beginning to resemble. The wide forehead. The prominent nose. The strong jaw line and that chin which supported a thick..
Wait. What happened to the bastard's freakken beard..? Come to think of it, the guy sitting there doesn't look a thing like the old bastard...
"Brother.."
AL!! He immediately screams in his mind. The sweet sound of that welcome voice would have his head swiveling for the source if he could move. Instead, he burns holes into the stupidly huge tree stump that suddenly reappears before him like a mirage. He lowers his brows, and vaguely wonders if he's feverish.
Well, it would certainly explain much. His eyes are certainly playing tricks on him lately. First those dancing arrays at the edges of his vision, and now this.
He squeezes his eyes shut as an unwelcome hand settles on the top of his head, and the world begins to twist off to the right.
Alchemy.
He sees through his pudgy fingers, and gazes at the millions of stars dancing through the void above his head.
He sees the broken bits of steel at his feet, and stares blankly at the shattered blood seal that once housed his precious brother's soul. His best friend is gone. His only family. May looks up at him with a tear streaked face, shoulders hitching with every breath.
"I'm sorry..!" She says brokenly as wipes her eyes.
"It wasn't your fault" he hears himself reply. "It was Al's choice."
He focuses his mind on grasping for a solution, eyes sweeping to the familiar and unfamiliar faces surrounding him in the rubble of Central. Never stop thinking, he thinks. He lingers his gaze on Hawkeye, who's hopeful face is huddled close to the ear of the blinded Colonel. She gives him an encouraging nod that the blind man can't see to give.
"Dammit, Fullmetal..status!" He hears the man call out. "Report to me now! What the hell is going on?"
He hears ecstatic cheers of "we won!" in the distance, but the faces on soldiers closest to him show at least some realize how very hallow the victory really is. Someone else will fill the blind bastard in, and he lingers his gaze on Hawkeye. She nods and speaks softly into the Colonel Bastard's ear as she helps him to stand.
"One life for another. That's equivalent trade." He hears Hohemheim say with a cracked voice. "I've been such a lousy father to you, that I owe you both that much.."
"No." Ed hears himself snap, "Don't. Listen. Al wouldn't want..."
One glance of Hohemheim's face, and on impulse, he slaps his palms together. At the same instant the bastard reaches out for the remains. He sees red lightening dance up Hohemheim's outstretched fingers as the great eye opens beneath them both, and he grimaces. He knows he just managed to match the old bastard's speed. He feels the tiny hairs on his arms rise in alarm as the tiny black hands rise up around them, and offers up no resistance as his body is taken apart molecule by molecule.
He hears someone cry out in pain. He sees a long blond ponytail flying high in the elderich wind just before his irises completely deconstruct and he leaves the world.
Instead of the timeless white, Ed feels quivering fingers in his scalp. He frowns as the hand on top of his head lifts, and opens his eyes to unexpected blackness. He jerks his shoulders, and feels his arms pinned to his sides.
There is no point in yelling out, so he scowls his displeasure instead.
"Well..?" Ed hears in muffled Gibberish somewhere behind him. It a few moments later that he recognizes the voice as Shikamaru's. He grits his teeth against several moments of clanking noises filling his ears. The sound is suspiciously like metal bits drilling their way into his skull.
"You alright? What happened, Inoichi?" Another says in Gibberish as a weighty something lifts the darkness from his eyes. Ed squints his eyes against the sheer brightness of the spacious, mostly empty room, and takes in a startled breath. His heart thunders in his chest as he renews his fruitless struggles to free his arms.
He is wedged in the very center of what could be mistaken as a rather large tree stump, and the round shape of it chills him to his core. What array could it be hiding? He thinks. In this room, he doesn't quite sense the subtle hum in his bones that an active array usually produces, but that doesn't mean that being in the possible center of one brings him any sort of comfort.
"Can you understand me?" Someone says in flawless Amestrain. Ed darts his eyes away from the contraption pinning his arms to his sides and stares at the man for several heartbeats. He then scowls and resumes jerking his upper back as much as he can to one side, which admittedly isn't all that much.
"Please stop struggling. You will only tear your own muscles."
Ed flares his nostrils. Being helpless and on display amongst complete strangers is nothing new, but he certainly refuses to put up with it for long.
"Fuck you." Ed growls in reply.
The man who spoke stands before him, holding what looks to be a flat topped helmet in his hands. Blue eyes squinched in pain, his hair is blond, and although the front is spiky, he has the back in a long flowing ponytail that reaches his lower back.
"I ran into something that broke the connection." The blond man says in Gibberish. As he rubs his fingertips at his temple, he closes his eyes. "I was at least able to breach his word bank, so simply speaking with him should be easier. At least for me."
Ed narrows his eyes and warily sweeps his gaze toward the older blond. The jaw line in particular looks far more familiar on the stranger than it should be. He recalls the flash of memory of Ishballan slums; specifically the strange image of the campfire.
His stomach performs a few unsetting back flips as he compares the unbearded companion he saw from moments ago, who had somehow stepped in the place of the old bastard: There is a strong resemblance to the older blond before him. In fact, the two could be twins.
He has no answers for how that can possibly be aside from a mental contusion. Perhaps he really is feverish. He swallows again, and abandons his obviously faulty recollections to grasp the more trustworthy information presented to him thus far in the room.
"You are Inoichi." Ed states in careful Gibberish.
"That's correct." Inoichi says in Amestrain. "Allow me to apologize. Under normal circumstances such extreme measures as this would not have been authorized much less implemented without first performing a simple interrogation."
Ed freezes a moment to chew on the phrase "extreme measures", then turns his head. He glimpses several more figures towering behind him, but not much else.
"Where am I?" Ed asks in Amestrian. "This doesn't look like that Sand village."
Inoichi squats down and rests his hands on the platform of the "stump". From that position, his steady gaze is comfortably eye level, but doesn't quite completely remind him just how small he is.
"That's because it's not. You are the guest of the Intelligence Division of the Allied Shinobi Forces."
"Prisoner more like." Ed snorts.
"Hardly." Inoichi says with a bit of a flinch.
"Some words translate real badly then." Ed drawls and tries to flex his fingers. He feels his fingernails scrape against his thighs, and remembers the small transmutation circle he scratched on his left. He decides the right will have to do now, as he can't remember if the thing completely faded from his skin or not.
"Fair enough." Inoichi says. "Now that we can communicate, I need you to agree to cooperate with us."
"What do I get if I do?"
"If you do not cooperate, we simply reseal you back in the scroll to deal with after the war."
Ed widens his eyes.
"Hold on. Stop right there. I was sealed? In a scroll?"
"Why is that so surprising? I saw that you are not entirely unfamiliar with such methods."
"Prove it." Ed interrupts. "Let me out of this thing, show me that, and I'll... I'll cooperate with you."
Inoichi's brows lower a fraction of a second as he frowns. For a moment Ed holds his breath, but he keeps his gaze on the blue orbs of the older blond.
"Equivalent exchange." Ed adds eagerly as the man's gaze wavers. "Do we have an agreement?"
A heartbeat later, Inoichi nods and directs his gaze to someone behind Ed. In Gibberish, he hears something like: "End the drag of a tree illusion while you're at it. It's giving me a headache."
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Fma-naruto crossover..chapter 20
It isn't long before Ed feels the drag of his lids. It feels as though the thin membrane is at least a ton or so weight, and he settles a sort of squint towards the three people gabbing on and on in Gibberish before him. The harried words flow past his ears much like so much mist, and he finds he couldn't care less that his tiny toehold grasp of the linguistic "code" slips away more and more as he props himself up stubbornly by the bathroom door.
He smells the lingering sickly sweet wafting in the air, and recalls the sharpness of the poisoned blades that recently hovered over his head. More than that, he swallows as his gaze drifts to the hooded "Kankuro", sitting on the monstrosity of a couch. He recalls the relaxed ease that this "Temari" and "Stinkamaru" had to their gait as they entered to such a sight. Temari's tone contained a bit of a scolding note to it, as though Kankuro often played such nasty tricks on passersby or something.
For his own amusement, Ed muses darkly.
As the three are busily yakking, Ed drags his gritty eyes to bathroom door and mentally debates the relative merits a quick splash of water on his face would bring.
He decides the fix would be far too temporary, and shifts onward to the tiny round windows shining brightly high on the wall. His gaze settling there proves to be a mistake, as he calculates the glassy openings far too small for even his body to squeeze through. Painfully stabbed with cheery sunlight, his eyes water with each leaden blink, and when fleeting equations shine at the edges of his sight, he knows he's far more tired than he realized. He knuckles the annoyance of a liquid away, and huffs heavily to hold in the yawn that reminds him ever more of his fatigue.
He smacks his own forehead with his fisted hand, belatedly hating himself for ever thinking himself as "small", and thankfully, the jab awakens both himself and the lingering throb of his broken nose. He thinks he'll have to resort to stabbing his own eyelids open with those damnable sticks these people use to eat with long before he'll feel anywhere near safe enough in here to ever allow himself to droop away properly.
He assesses that those three don't look to be about to leave anytime soon, and mulls over the remaining option as he studies the floor.
He was assured he wasn't a slave or a prisoner by this Temari person, and he knows the wakefulness he feels certainly won't last long at all. He has no choice but to find someplace else: there has to be someplace somewhere he can feel somewhat safe enough to sleep.
His hand twists the knob of the easiest exit by the time his name is called, and he's past the threshold a heartbeat later.
He rubs at his eyes as he walks, but the mirage doesn't completely fade. He supposes if he weren't so tired, he'd be way more weirded-out at seeing the things actually leaking forth from his brain.
Head down, he shoves his hands into his pockets as he strides, allowing a portion of his mind to devour one of the shining equations floating in the persistent hallucination. He puzzles over the coils of power that elegantly re-enforce the stabilizing runes, and just as he works out what the overall design is for, the inner circle abruptly shatters apart.
He blearily blinks several moments, making a study of the many cracks on ground under his mismatched sandaled feet.
He finds by a painful cramp that his weight is on his living toes, body precariously balanced between one step an another. He tries to move, but his body refuses to answer. He can see he faces a rather large stump of a tree. The curtain of his long bangs obscures his view of everything else.
Fingers wave too close to his face, and he growls, longing to jerk his head back. He breathes in, smelling the tang of ozone. He squeezes his eyes shut at a sudden sharp bitterness on his tongue, and instinctively scrapes the surface of his taste buds with his teeth.
"...we found him passed out in the hall." Shikamaru says somewhere far behind him. Ed narrows his eyes and peers down at his shadow. It's a shade darker than it should be this early in the morning. "We couldn't just leave him there, so we moved him. He was completely out even while being carried, and still out a day later."
"Sure he's not a Nara?" Someone quipped.
"Bother. Shut it. The Kazekage ordered us to move out. As everyone else was busy, an academy student was sent. I wouldn't agree with the kid's drag of a method, but the worst of the damage to Suna happened soon after."
"Care to explain?"
"The student ran in from tossing kunai's at practice, and came up with the drag of an idea that holding a kunai to a throat would really wake anyone up."
"Oooooh."
"The drag of it is, Ed here somehow blew apart half of the Kazekaze's tower, and most of the street."
Ed widened his eyes. How..?
"..w-without chakra?"
"..Without having access to any chakra." Shikamaru confirmed.
"And Gaara let him live..?"
"Apparently, no one was killed in the incident, not even the prankster. Any way, since we previously confirmed he had some sort of involvement with the Akatsuki, Gaara ordered him sealed until the Alliance could question him. Mr. Yamanaka. His language skills are not the best."
"Understood."
"Byakuban!" A unfamiliar male voice says beside him, close enough that he supposes the voice and the waving fingers belong to the same person. "Your assessment?"
"Near as I can tell? He's sleep walking." Shikamaru replies. "See his face..? Blank and..."
"Not anymore." Fingers says in interruption. "He indeed, has very little chakra, but as I can judge by the trickle of energy, he's very much awake."
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A/N- I was stuck as to how to approach this. Sorry for the confusing abruptness, but there is a good reason. And I couldn't figure out any other way to get Ed to the ninja war camp setting without him going completely ooc. You'll find out exactly what happened to dear Eddie in further updates, and besides, after all that hard work, he needed a nap.
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Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Fma-naruto crossover 19 continued...
The flash of guilt is soon overwhelmed by a heavy scowl.
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"No." Temari swings her arm out. "Shut that door."
"Yeah. Got it." Kankuro drawls extending a single forefinger from where he leans on the far wall. Ed widens his eyes as he watches the door to sanctuary obey with a slam.
"I don't believe for a moment that your don't follow exactly everything of what we are saying." Temari says.
Ed stomps, fully intending to kick that damned door in, but pauses as a faint glittering of something catches his attention. He turns his head a little as if to answer Temari, and narrows his eyes at the glimmering strands of-- is that energy?-- he can see extending out from a space of empty air. The threads resemble the flow of an active array but lack all of the underlying structure. The more he tries to analyze it, the more it flies in the face of the science he knows.
The odd effect may be based on some sort of air array, he thinks. Figures. The one field of alchemy I haven't bothered much with.
The focus of the energy strands shift very subtly. Almost all of them point to the doll on one end. No. Puppet. And the other end seems to gather like it's converging...
"Is Fact: I can't." Ed replies in halfhearted Gibberish as a working theory forms in his mind: If the source is really human shaped, much like a mirror of the so called "Lord Kankuro" crouched down by the door is, then the calculation for the skull should place it roughly..
Ed is careful not to grin.
"Convenient is it? That you pick up a book and..suddenly can speak with us?" Temari snarls.
Instead, Ed scowls as he turns. At the same time, he flicks out his right fist. His knuckles slam with a satisfying meaty thunk onto the nothing. An "OOPH" and a swirling flicker of colors later, Kankuro's painted jaw appears: in the flesh. The sight of the jerk's face smashed bloody against his curled fingers has Ed smiling savagely, and he calmly checks his knuckles over the body slumps to the ground.
Somehow, the possibility of being poisoned feels so worth it.
Ed leans over to prone form as he hears a startled gasp behind him.
"For "small"." Ed says in a low hiss, and smoothly steps over the dark dressed body. He pivots suddenly on his living toes and punches again, aiming into the softness of placid kidneys. He is rewarded with a loud, pained grunt.
"And "dwarf"." Ed snaps as he shifts back to a balanced stance. He flicks his eyes the others in the room.
Temari's face twists with rage, and she darts two steps forward. Ed scowls her way, and she pauses with a calculated look to her dark green eyes.
"I pay what I owe." Ed says as way of explanation. He sees Shikamaru grasp Temari's forearm, and only when he sees her turn her head, does he take the remaining steps to the bathroom door.
ooooo
"We're getting nowhere here." Shikamaru says. Temari frowns as she helps Kankuro to sit up. His legs wobble, and he settles with them splayed out on either side before him.
"You think?.." Temari snaps.
"No. No. There was something." Kankuro says as he works his jaw back into place.
"What. Fear of puppets?" Temari demands.
"Not exactly." Kankuro says as the toilet flushes. He rubs his injured jaw. "What a punch. Sure he doesn't have chakra?"
The door creaks open, and Kankuro watches as Temari rises to tower over the short blonde. Ed's fierce golden eyes never waver from hers as he stands in the doorway, and Kankuro slides his eyes to his elder sister's hands as waves and waves of her killing intent spill over him.
"You were asked specific questions, regarding this scrap of cloth." Shikamaru says, breaking the tense silence. "Tell us."
Ed sighs, and slides his hands to grip his elbows.
"Said you yet. I up for sale. Saw two wide straw hats wearing cloaks with red cloud sitting with others."
"And..?" Temari snarls.
Ed shrugs.
"Fuzzy. Much very sick. Can no walk. No. Barely. Walk." Ed says, and pushes up sleeve to finger the tattoo. "Woke with these next day. Much fuzzy. Think next day. More days..no. Weeks.."
Ed frowns and looks off, then shakes his head.
"You mean to say you got sold?" Shikamaru says.
"Then why were you there with the others and.." Temari adds.
Ed shrugs, and shifts his weight as he glares back at Temari.
"Better be question. Who want sick slave?" Ed frowns, and runs one hand through his hair. "Should dead. Where I come of slaver would dump body."
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Fma naruto crossover chapter 19
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The sun is nearing the horizon when Gaara makes the decision, clasps his hands behind his back and breathes in a deep breath.
He gazes out of the window, looking over his Suna, but keeps his face rigid within an unreadable mask of sand. Behind him, through the reflection on the glass, he can see Temari standing with folded arms. Beside her stands a slouching Shikamaru Nara.
"I am the Kazekage." He says solemnly. "Only one of five Kages that this matter truly concerns. I have heard both of your arguments."
"Shikamaru Nara." Gaara says, and watches the chunin pause, looking up from the open scroll in his hand.
"You have succeeded in convincing me." Gaara shifts his gaze to his sister, and watches as the corners of her mouth tug downward in clear disapproval. "You are correct. I find it true that Temari's recommendation would have be much like the late Danzo Shimuro's way."
Shikamaru bobs his head.
"However, there is a condition that must be met for the sake of the Alliance."
"What a drag. More seals?" Shikamaru drawls. "He's already so covered in seals, that no one here can figure out how they interact, much less what they do to him."
"That is not necessarily what I have in mind. I judge the golden one to be a foreigner. All indications I have personally witnessed thus far show he knows nothing of the ways of shinobi. In short: This is not his war.
"He may prove useful. However, at this time, we know as much about him as we do the plans of the Akatsuki." Gaara turns and looks steadily at Shikamaru. "As he is somehow involved with our enemies, we need that remedied."
"What a bother..."
ooooo
Ed mulls to himself that what Matsuri called a "library" proved to be something of a disappointment. The place was small, and barely much more than a cupboard. The walls were covered in dusty shelves that reached from floor to ceiling, and stuffed in every cubby space were piles of rolled up paper scrolls. After shuffling through a dozen or so piles, he had indeed found two thick books.
Both happened to be chained up to the walls as though they were slaves about to run off.
He had browsed about a quarter through one tome when one of his escorts had the gall to shut the covers on him. He graced the med-nin with a glare, but the overly cheery girl immediately said something that sounded to be about food.
That was when he realized his stomach was roaring. The meal that followed was, as always, a strange one with a side of long noodles.
As Ed drags his tired feet over the threshold of the guest quarters, intent on aiming for most of the mattress as he collapses, he can only stare blearily at the unwelcome sight sitting on the room's newest addition.
The poor excuse of a couch, somehow squeezed in next to the mattress and the low bookcase, is bad enough. The behemoth of a piece dominates the room, and on it, dark eyes looking right at him, slouches "Pride." He tells himself that the only reason he doesn't outright attack the creature is because of "Not!Sheska".
No. "Matsuri" he reminds himself.
Yep. It's her fault.
He watches owlishly as she ducks her head in Pride's direction and turns her face back his way with a great grin plastered on.
"Ed. This is Shikamaru Nara. Mr. Nara, this is Ed."
Ed blinks a slow blink, and stares some more at Pride as he wills his mind to work.
"You one of shadow who took, and I wake to chains in hated place."
"Huh. Uh. Hated place?"
"Hospital." Ed waves one hand. "Hate hospitals."
"Ah." Pride leans his elbows on his knees. "Don't like them much myself."
The tone of voice is highly polite, and before his brain can properly analyze it further, Matsuri nods to someone. Ed turns his head to see who.
"I see you have met Mr. Nara. He is our guest like your are, and will be staying in here with you." Not!Riza- "Temari" says. He firmly reminds himself of her name as his gaze glides over the four ponytails.
"Your rescue was a joint effort between both of our villages."
"Villages." Ed looks to the headbands, and fiddles with his watch chain attached to a loop at his waist. He remembers that he should really find a better belt than the braided cloth one tied there now, and drags his eyes off of Temari's forehead and stares blandly at the plate tied on Nara's shoulder. "Snail village...?"
"Its a leaf." Matsuri says with a snort. "The symbol of Konohagakure."
Ed narrows his eyes, and supposes it looks sort of like a leaf if he squints at the thing too long. Instead of saying so, he yawns.
"I owe." He says as he looks at Temari as he straightens his sagging shoulders. "Now. Questions I yes?"
"What a drag." Nara whines. "Can't it wait for morning?"
Ed frowns, and drags his eyes longingly to the open door. He hopes Temari can read his unspoken request.
"Considering what the questions will concern, Kankuro will want to be present." Temari says coldly. "Expect him early."
Ed swears silently as his stomach seems to drop to the floor.
oooo
It is late into the night, and all the lights in the guest room are still on.
Shikamaru leans his head back into his clasped hands and studies the brightly lit ceiling from the vantage of the lumpy couch.
He hears the uneven thumps of mismatched footsteps, accompanied by a soft rustling of paper, and follows the short blond with his eyes. By the drag of cold glares he receives from the startling pair of blazing gold irises, he judges that he is, at the very least, an unwelcome guest to these quarters.
The bright lights reveal that the boy's eyes have massive bags under them, indicating days of little sleep, and the bruising of the broken nose adds an almost Tanuki shading to the boy's sockets. No. Not a boy. According to Kankuro, this Ed's in his late teens. The blond restlessly flips through more pages of the books, and abruptly turns away, muttering rather loudly in that non-sense that Shika can't follow.
Shika sighs. The bother of an assignment is to get information, any sort of information, about this foreigner. The drag is, he has to force a friendly sort of interaction with a certainly unfriendly fellow.
"You're keeping me awake."
"No care." Ed growls, and squats at a low bookcase without turning his way. "You no like, you can go."
Shikamaru lowers his arms. The teen is certainly intelligent. It could be a challenge.
"How about a game?"
"Busy." Ed snaps. "You words.."
"...Are better understood if you speak them properly. What a drag. Me telling someone this, but you really need to be practicing speaking with someone." Shikamaru leans his elbows onto his knees as he watches the tenseness of the teen's back. "I want to show you to a favorite game of mine. It's called Shogi."
"Shogi." Golden eyes narrow his way.
After a moment, Ed nods.
Shika proudly brings out his board from his pack, and dumps the tile pieces onto the middle cushion. He points to the far end of the couch, and waves Ed to the tiles.
Ed selects one, still standing, and holds it by the edges between his right thumb and forefinger. As he narrows his golden eyes, peering at the writing, Shika takes in a breath to explain.
The movement is quick. A slap of two palms together followed by a blindingly blue flash of light.
Before he can do a thing, Ed snatches his forearm and slices into the flesh with something in his right hand. Shika squawks at the stinging cut and does his best to kick him off. Ed's grappling hold persists though he squirms mightily.
Blood dribbles out in a heartbeat's time.
"You human." Ed breathes with relief. "All human."
"Of course I'm all human!! What the..! Tell me. What was that about?" Shika shouts as snatches his arm back. He sees the cut is shallow, and covers it with a cloth he finds in his pack. The bleeding stops in a few moments.
Shika watches Ed warily as the teen settles himself at the opposite end of the couch, fierce golden eyes flickering with unguarded astonishment. It's some time later when the teen seems to come to a decision, and lets out a breath.
"We meet. I call you name."
"Pride?" Shikamaru says. "Who's this Pride?"
"Is thing not who. Can do like you did. Shadows. Near word is "beast". " Ed wrinkles his nose. "Demon. Pride thing worse. Smart. Much smart."
"What if I tell you that my whole clan can do things with shadows."
Ed swallows, and blinks a few times. Then he nods with a creeping grin. "Neat trick." Ed then busies his hands with game pieces. "You..ah... villages battle coming. Yes?"
"War."
Ed nods, and fiddles with the tile as he softly tastes the word.
"Yes, so?" Shikamaru prods, taking a game piece himself from the mess on the floor. It happens to be the king, and the narrow end has a curiously sharp taper to it.
The golden eyes flicker his way.
"Hope you no die."
Shikamaru brows nearly touch his hairline, and he places the piece on the game board. Tiles click on Ed's side, and Shika frowns.
"Tell me. Of this, um. "Pride"."
"Uses people." Ed says. "Um. Eats. People. Um..no....worse than "eat"."
"Eats..? People...?"
"Yes." Shika's hands move as if one automatic, placing the tiles in their proper places.
"Tell me, what's worse than a thing eating people.?"
"Your move. Porcupine hair."
Shika looks up from his half-set up side and sees a wide smirk on Ed's pale face. The pieces of tile on his side are all set up in perfect order.
oooo
A/N: ok.. The plot bunny bit me... couldn't resist... a round two....
oooo
The rising sun kisses the dunes when he knocks on the door, but he widens his eyes slightly as the door swings wide, as if opened by a ghost.
Kankuro takes a step forward, and pauses to look about for the guest that was supposed to greet him. This Ed is supposed to be alone in the room, as Temari had come by to be debriefed by Shikamaru barely fifteen minutes ago.
As he turns his head, a fist flies out, striking his exposed painted cheek.
"For. "Small"." Ed bites out angrily, and straightens his spine to adjust his stance from behind the wooden plank of a door. Kankuro raises his hand to his cheek as the blond cups his hands together, and pops his knuckles one by one.
A heartbeat later Ed grasps a firm hold of the front of the dark colored shirt with one hand, and Kankuro widens his eyes. He watches in amazement as the skinny arm not only easily holds his weight aloft, but slams his back to the wall.
The blond cocks his arm back for another blow, and growls "Now "dwarf"."
Kankuro's fingers fly through the signs, and with a poof of smoke, the illusion breaks. He smirks as he settles himself, leaning casually against the far wall well out of the blond's sight.
He never tires of seeing the surprise the body switch spell has, even on seasoned nin, and with the puppet taking the brunt of the short blond's blows, he finds he was more than wise to use such a tactic here. That the puppet, named Crow, happens to have on one of the Akatsuki cloaks Suna had collected from a defeated Sasori is just part of the plan.
After all, what better way is there for Kankuro to glean information on what the short blond knows?
He watches in silence as Ed immediately releases his grip on the cloth and pedals back a few steps. He tilts his head with interest as Ed then narrows his eyes, and breathes in deeply. Then touches his palms together.
ooooo
He sees two pairs of arms rise through the mist, and given his many field assignments, he may be forgiven if his first thoughts of the thing before him gather around the term "chimera".
The hallow clanking he hears, as he ducks beneath the useless strikes of the arms, force him to shove that theory aside. He listens to the incessant clicking of wood against wood, the creaking of many wooden mechanisms, and his brain stumbles to catch up with sudden events.
Lord Kankuro: a puppet?
He chokes down a bitter laugh.
"Stupid." So stupid. "You all stupid as me."
And that is not all. That's not all that he is aware of. There is a distinctive odor that he had smelled earlier coming off of that "Lord Kankuro", and he broke off the righteous smack down because of the alarm he felt over it. He could not quite place the smell at the time, true, but now the sickly sweet sort of odor gave rise to many dark suspicions.
As an Alchemist, he has long heard of poisons, and while working as a field agent, he occasionally ran into them. The worst he found worked by seeping into the bloodstream, sometimes just by contact with bare skin, and it was those times that his automail arm proved to be a real blessing.
The sweet smelling alkaloid, surely dangling off someone else's hemoglobin, is certainly dangerous, but he doesn't have the time to check if his skin is clean of it. The puppet swings about, arms flying wildly with more stupid slapping attacks, Ed quickly determines his best course of action. He flips to his hands, leaping back, kicking out his left leg to keep the bulk of puppet back. His metal toes strike true, and as the wooden body bangs against the far wall, Ed rises to his feet.
He frowns, and watches with widened eyes the two pairs of arms hovering about him in defiance of gravity. At the junction where the shoulder should be on each is a long wicked blade. He crouches low and as far away as he can from the dripping points directed at his vital parts.
"Blood seal..." Ed says in Amestrian. "Where is it.."
He swallows the lump forming in his throat. He knows well that he doesn't have to know where exactly a bloodseal is. He just has to deconstruct the material it is on.
"Kankuro." Ed says in careful Gibberish as he hovers his splayed hands over the floor. "Sorry. You stuck in.." Ed scowl, tries for the word, but settles for.. "..Stupid doll. Bad. I know. No want kill.."
".. Ed?" Temari says behind him.
He doesn't move as he sees her stride into the room, but he feels her slide her glare his way. A heartbeat later she snaps."Kankuro!"
"Hey! He attacked me." Kankuro's voice says across the room. Ed darts his eyes and sees him give a smooth, flesh hosted shrug. He scowls, and feels his ears burn at how easily he was tricked.
"What are you doing?" Shikamaru says in a harsh whisper that makes him jolt.
Ed shoots scowling glare over at Kankuro, and darts his eyes to the arms. Instead of floating, possibly poisoned, blades, he sees thick smoke obscuring the ceiling.
"Tell clownface." Ed shakes out his hands and rises to his feet. "Too old to play with toys."
"As you know, Kankuro is here for a reason. We have questions." Temari says firmly. "About people who wear cloaks like the puppet."
oooo
Kankuro raises his hand and the puppet moves over to slump on the other end of the couch. Ed watches it move with tense shoulders, and Kankuro finds he can't resist making it move in a very life like manner.
For Ed watches it with wary glances as the questions begin.
Mostly, the questions are direct and to the point, asking about both the slavers and Akatsuki. He watches as Ed's jaw sag with rising confusion as between the two of them, Temari and Shikamaru gradually speed up peppering him with query after query. Rather than actually listen much to the increasingly halty answers offered, Kankuro busies himself with his new amusement.
Kankuro finds he enjoys the watching the many conflicting expressions fluttering over the short nothing's face. Disgust wars with relief, dusted over well with hurt, and oddly, with every passing minute, a great underpinning of guilt.
Kankuro frowns at the sudden, long, and loud line of non-sense that the short blond shouts, not understanding a thing except for the highly expressive gestures the boy makes with his arms at the entire room.
"Too." Ed snarls, and frowns and repeats with he eyes squished shut. "Many Too. Wording.."
Kankuro wiggles the puppet closer, and the golden orbs pop open once more in response to the noisy clattering. Kankuro's brows rise as Ed suddenly bolts up as one of the four arms brushes close to the long white sleeve over his arm. He stands, eyes on the puppet, panting aloud for two breaths, before darting his eyes towards the bathroom.
"I go." Ed says evenly, and steps away before another swinging arm can so much as touch him. Kankuro smirks as he sees, just for a moment, the flickering of an unguarded emotion.
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
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