Chapter 10: Woes of Parades Getting Out of Hand
'I don't like making plans for the day, because then the term 'premeditated' gets thrown around in the courtroom.'
Yori was not quite certain that fearing for her life when it wasn't being threatened was normal, but that's exactly what was happening.
It was a wonderfully warm day in Sunagakure no Sato, with several humans running around and feeling inadequate (like how she felt most of the time), and a huge procession coming down the street.
There were, of course, the straggling mourners who weren't joining in with the festivities, but that was all right—expected even. What was a problem was that Mogi had let the snakes escape again. And now, Yori , who reallyshouldn't have been in charge of that shit, was responsible for the nine people who'd been injected with boiling venom by the Kazekage's Sea Snakes.
She was understandably going insane.
And to top it all off, Rasa-sama was getting married today, hence the procession.
There were children and mothers and fathers and grandparents and uncles and aunts streaming through the streets, some fresh from warring, some fresh from showering, some fresh from trying to drown their sorrows in hard liquor…
It was chaos, and Yori, spineless and inept Yori, had been given the herculean task of organising said chaos.
Why me? she thought hysterically, trying to keep her shit together. He's the one who's going to be Kazekage! He's the one who needs the practise!
"Of course, if you can'tmanage on your own, you can find people to help you," Rasa-sama said generously, and before she can get a word in edgewise about—is that a fucking elephant!?—the situation—that kid is going to fucking die—Rasa-sama had already left with his bride-to-be, who looked extremely pleased with herself.
Yori almost regretted not saying no.
Almost, because she was sort of, maybe, kind of glad that she was, while not on top of it, but in charge of it.
Who knew she liked responsibility?
Even if she already had strands of grey hair streaking through her ponytail…
Amidst the screaming and shouting and hollering and mad giggling, Sasori and Komushi were being swept away by the crowd, Sasori with a blank, irritated face of abject boredom, and Komushi bumping shoulders and nudging elbows and hollering himself hoarse.
"Right, make way fer the—here sir, don't be shovin'…is that the new one Kona?—what's this 'ere then chaps—watch yer step missus—"
If it wasn't beneath him, Sasori would have killed everyone by now.
As it stood, he'd just come back from the frontlines—another victory for Suna, so hurrah, at least until Jiraiya of the Densetsu no Sannin decided to show up, the tosser—and his uniform was sweat and blood-soaked, he just wanted to go home and sleep on his not-entirely-legally-appropriated cushion, and not have to deal with humanity in general, preferably for the next millennia or so.
But the crowd had a sort of inevitable magnetism, where if you were going against the flow of the crowd, you got swept up in it anyway (unless you killed them all or in some way shape or form made skin contactwith them, and Sasori had had enough of human interaction for this year, thank you very much), and here Sasori was, having been sideways twiddled forwards by not only three distinct people who'd claimed to be in his graduating class but who he couldn't recall (not that he wanted to—what was the point? They were sheep people who were going to die soon anyway) but also by Komushi, the one human in the world he was all right with letting live.
Hence, he'd adopted a touch-me-and-die-but-stare-all-you-want-I'm-too-indifferent-to-rearrange-your-insides look, and it had happily been working.
In so far as about twenty people had just stopped and stared at his blood-covered face—none of it, of course, was his blood— and then promptly looked away when he tilted his head in silent contemplation (ripping out the jugular first, or the spleen?)
And the worst part was that no one was even attempting to explain to him why this ridiculously perfect exhibition of mob mentality was even happening in the first place.
He'd tried asking Komushi with his subtle non-verbal cues, but Komushi was too busy being one with the mob to truly pay attention to Sasori's uncharacteristic confusion.
Of course, it got to the five minute marker and Sasori just stopped caring, so there was that…
Out of the crowd, and quite bravely so he might add, someone rammed right into his blood-splattered uniform, and began apologising profusely.
"I-I'm sorry! Ex-excuse m-me sir… " the child stuttered, trying to get past him. Sasori raised an eyebrow as the girl tried getting past him and then bumped into Komushi, and immediately, with sudden clarity, he realised that it was Female.
Komushi realised it too. "Ah, Yori-chan! You tryin' to get to th'front? 'Cause we've been tryin' fer ages, right Sasori-kun?" he prattled cheerfully, turning to Sasori as he addressed the question to him.
Female yelped in surprise and horror at having bumped into him—see? She wasn't stupid; she knew he was a happy homicide just waiting to happen and showed the appropriate response to it!—and then did that irritating thing where people apologise even more and waste everybody's time.
"Stop," he said in monotone, although if one looked for it, they would notice irritation.
Female abruptly stopped, and for that, Sasori was grateful.
Then, just to sate his curiosity—and maybe a tiny bit because he wanted to talk to her just a little, though whywas up for debate—he asked, "Why has Suna turned into a sheep fest?"
He didn't mean for it to come out sounding as accusatory as it did, but the fact that she bobbed her head in sheepish apology made him think that it might actually be her fault.
"A-ano, well, Rasa-sama is get-getting married today…" she said, trying to be quiet but realising that she had to be louder to be heard. She had just come up to normal volume, but luckily, Sasori had the rather useful ability of discerning noises in a miasmic mess.
"And."
"A-and…" she trailed off, forgoing looking him in the eye, and that irritated Sasori for some reason, "he wanted a parade…s-so he asked…um, well, asked isn't the right word…one of the Honoured Siblings to arrange it…"
Honoured Siblings?
So Sasori had his grandmother to blame for this?
Goddammit Grandma!
Sasori pinched the bridge of his nose and counted to ten, wondering if that would make any difference to the homicidal rage that had enveloped him.
It didn't.
"What're you doin' here Yori-chan?" asked Komushi, still shoving past the six year old that looked like she'd chomped many a shin today, and he was her next target.
"I-I'm supposed to…get them organised?" she said, although it ended up sounding like a question.
Sasori, exasperated with his situation, decided that it was time to do something about this 'parade'.
He reached into his pocket and, with a look at Female and Komushi to back away (something in Sasori smirked in satisfaction as they both did just that, without any verbal prompting), he released his thousand puppets from his special scroll of mass destruction and threateningly brandished each and every grotesque-looking wooden abomination in people's faces.
It was very silent after that.
Of course, he was sure that there was a rule he'd broken somewhereabout threatening civilians in a non-combat situation…
…but it was worth it, because his headache was receding…
(And Female would've been trampled in the attempt, though that did not matter to him.)
They were in the dining pavilion by the time Yori had a chance to process what had happened just a half hour ago.
After silently threatening majority of Suna's population, Sasori had promptly turned to her and raised an eyebrow, silently telling her to get on with her appointed task. Yori had, ostensibly, freaked the fuck out, and hyperventilated her way through a Suna-wide address—nearly five hundred people and oh my god why?!—telling them to walk in less of a hubbub and more of a straight line, towards the gigantic tent erected specifically for the wedding.
"A-And please try not to k-kill each other!" she ended, eyes wide in her plea. Several tittered, thinking she was joking, but she was being dead serious.
People died in stampedes.
She should know.
That's how Rose had died.
(There were, of course, extenuating circumstances, but the basic reason was definitely being trampled underfoot by a three hundred and fifty pound tub of lard.)
Sasori, believing her address to be over, retracted most of his puppets, leaving the ones at the edges of the crowd as creepy, childlike sentinels ensuring people didn't step a toe out of line.
Komushi had been hyperventilating with excitement, madly whispering in her ear, "You did it Yori-chan! Sasori-kun likes you!"
Yori wanted to give him a look of cutting razor-edge condescension and then kick him in the oopsie-daisy place, to get him to realise how stupid that kind of thinking was, but she was too spineless to do so.
She let Sasori do it instead. (Of course, he didn't kick Komushi, but The Look was enough.)
By the by, the people had made it in a neat and orderly fashion (ha!) to the dining pavilion, and were now mingling.
At least the only casualties were two Sea Snakes and a teddy bear…thought Yori, now scanning the crowd for either one of the hosts.
She passed by the table stacked with plates and plates and plates and plates of mahshi (somehow, spiced rice rolled up in cabbage leaves actually worked—and Yori made a mental note to grab some before they ran out), the excess mahshi because Karura-sama had had a craving this morning and refused to attend the wedding if there wasn't piles of it available.
Seeing as it was her wedding, that would have been a disaster.
Rasa-sama took things very literally, and that's exactly how the catering staff would make the Kazekage bankrupt.
Just as she was passing the kulfi falooda vendor (the ice-cream-like milky sweetness topped with rose syrupy wiggly strands of cool sweetness brought back a lot of happy childhood memories, both in this world and Rose's), she felt someone staring at her.
Goosebumps picked up on her back as she turned around and—
Why was Shingi glaring at her?
"Yori-tan~!" she whined with a pouty glare. "Why didn't you wear the clothes I sent you?"
Because I don't want to look like a cheap prostitute, is what she wanted to say, but instead, she said, "Because I don't want to look like you."
Shingi must not have heard the mildly derisive undertones (if you weren't looking for it, you couldn't really hear it either) and moaned, "But Yori-tan~! You would look so," and here the sultry voice came in, which made it sound like Shingi was orgasming, "so delicious."
She licked her lips seductively, bending over to look short Yori in the eyes, exposing her underwear for any and all onlookers to see.
Yori felt like digging a hole and jumping into it.
That's a lot of old men staring at her…
Just then, two blurs barrelled into her from both sides, sandwiching her violently. Nae-chan was at her back and Komushi had crashed into her front, cushioned by her breasts.
Yori yelped in pained surprise and the two of them hugged her simultaneously, suffocating her as Nae-chan said, "Nee-chan, you're so cute!"
"Yori-chan, who's this?" asked Komushi, staring at Shingi in consideration.
Shingi took this to mean he was interested. Never mind that she looked like she could be his mother. "For you hun, anyone."
Komushi, of course, being the obtuse fruitcake he was, did not notice what this actually meant. "Oh, so you're an ANBU then?"
Shingi, being as she was completely in denial about people being actually obtuse, purred and said, "Kinky."
Nae giggled and Yori contemplated seppuku.
And if things needed to get worse, Rasa-sama and Karura-sama were heading their way, kicking people in the head absentmindedly.
"Yori!" yelled Karura-sama, her voice causing many to look over at her. "Where's the ice sculpture I asked for!?"
Rasa-sama groaned audibly, and the volume of the populous died down to hear their soon-to-be-famous lover's tiffs.
"We're in a fucking desert Karura!"
"Don't yell at me, you manslut!"
Rasa-sama's face went purple. "You wanna talk about infidelity? Bring it bitch!"
Yori would rather he didn't.
"I'm keeping the cushion," a voice informed her from behind her, and instead of jumping six feet in the air and having a cardiac arrest, for some inexplicable reason, Yori wasn't even slightly startled.
"We have too many of them anyway," replied Yori wrily.
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on who's asked, this piqued Sasori's interest.
Wow. Two months. What even. So…stuff happens in this chapter, and I'd completely forgotten I hadn't updated until I got two reviews in one morning informing me that people are, in fact, reading this story…and what all of you have said so far? It makes my insides melt, I am so happy!
So, nearly the entire cast was here (sorry Papa Shin), Shingi was perverted (let me know if it's too perverted, mkay?), Nae was…kind of there I guess, Komushi was obtuse, Sasori and Yori had feels development guys!