Private [pvt] Meeting an old student.

[Sazuki Nao]

Nao sat at the usual table these days at the bar, just another alcoholic drink in his mug. He had changed his hairdo these days, a bit thinned out and often in a ponytail. Glasses were placed on his face as he noticed in the far distance he sometimes had trouble seeing. “Wish I had something to fix that…” he would mutter while drinking the alcoholic beverage and going over a case that he had brought with him.

That was when he noticed a familiar face…”Oi.. Kei?” He asked out loud and waved the other over. He moved the papers inside the folder again and would wait if the other did or didn’t approach him.

The sennin sat there in his new attire, but finally, he had the new medical cloaks ready. All the medical ninjas could wear these jackets if they wanted, there were only whole sleeves instead of the cut version that Nao wore. There were two places for the leaf medical symbol place and not to mention a special spot for a small pin, to make it more personal. Nao didn’t wear any pins as he never had gotten any, but he did wear his medical badge still. On the badge was his name, rank, and that he was a shinobi of the hidden leaf.

“What brings you here..?” He asked, leaning on the table, letting his shirt sit a bit wider so you could see the last bits of bandage and the scales on his chest. His right arm had scales all over, he stopped hiding the fact that he was a dragon these days. At least, he didn’t show every single thing about it.

 

[Inuzuka Keiyaku]

Keiyaku certainly looked like he had seen better days. Perhaps he had come back from a mission today, or perhaps he had been out in the woods to hunt or train again; his body was arms were littered with the usual scratches and scrapes they always bore, but his eyes were heavy and baggy, his face slightly lined. He wore a sleeveless flak jacket with a tatty black shirt underneath, his hair as messy as ever it was, and the beginnings of a wispy beard growing on his chin. Moru was curled up on the floor beneath his stool, fast asleep and looking just as worn out.

"Huh?" He said blearily, coming out of his reverie as he heard someone call his name. When he looked over, his eyes widened slightly, and a smile threatened to crease the corners of his lips, "Nao-sensei...? Man, it's been fuckin' ages!"

Sure enough, it was him; his very first teacher. It seemed like only yesterday as he was a fresh-faced academy student, being taught by a top medical expert how to work with bandages and basic first-aid. That had been a lifetime ago as far as the Shinobi world was concerned. Keiyaku was 18 now, the premature leader of his clan, and, by night, a high-ranking ANBU operative. All of it showed in his face; he looked a few years older than he actually was and his complexion had became slightly more pale and washed out. In spite of all of that, he was genuinely happy to see his old teacher, and the look of delight on his face was warmly sincere. Grabbing his bottle of Soju, he deftly scooped up Moru with one hand, somehow without waking the pup up, and slid over to Nao, depositing Moru on a vacant barstool.

"Me? Ehhh, the refreshments," said the Inuzuka stiffly, his eyes drifting down to Nao's arm, trailing along it, and up to his exposed chest. So he was one too, was he? It made him wonder how it affected people; were they given to lose control in the same way he was? To be at harmony with the beast was something he wished for deeply.

"That... looks... kinda uncomfortable," he said, prodding one of the scales on his teacher's arm with interest, frowning at it, "I'd be afraid of poking on eye out in my sleep."

Ironic, considering, as an Inuzuka, Keiyaku's fingers ended in a set of sharp claws.

He took another heavy swig of Soju.

"What about you? I don't blame you for drinking if you're still working the academy and the Byoin; kids and surgery. It's like stress and anxiety had a big, fat baby."

 

[Sazuki Nao]

The older male looked towards the child's eyes, for him it still was a child, and he would sheepishly smile. "You are right about one thing, I am quite busy..." hewould speak before elaborating the things further. "I handle classes not only inside the byoin, but also the academy inside. So technically I am splitting myself in 2 positions there. Since there are quite a few classes lacking teachers... I try to fill a spot to teach at least twice a week. Then again, I also need to manage the byoin and help around the bush with the other branch too. " with other branch, he was directing the ANBU branch. "Despite now knowing exactly what I need to do... So it is like being thrown inside the sea with floaties and except how to swim... And I am also the hokage advisor..." He would down the drink that he had right at that moment having displayed everything, yet he already had something.
"Not to mention that my Fiance has been gone for at least a year and a half... so I can only assume that he has been killed in action... Since he never even let me know that he was going to go. But I also don't know half of his life it feel like... We were engaged! And he left me!" He would mutter and then just give a signal that he wanted another round. "Tonights on me if you fancy adrink." he would speak towards the kid and then just start to speak about his physical changes.

"Ahh.. that.. Yea... I thought the major shifting was done, but I started to just embrace it rather than hiding it." hewould speak and point to the glasses. "Same for that... I am getting old..." And just that reminder made him feel sad. Indeed... A person was never immortal.
"The scales aren't that hard that they would harm me... But I also guess my body is reactive against it and makes sure it won't get near.. So far it didn't interfere with much, and I also can still subtract them too. But since I need to use chakra daily on a clone... It get's difficult to keep hiding it all. A puff of smoke came from him as he breathed out. "So what about you..? Wat is lingering on your mind to be here?"

 

[Inuzuka Keiyaku]

"Sure sounds like a busy time," he said, looking up at the Sennin sympathetically, wondering how so many people managed to stretch themselves so thin like that. Then again, with everything going on, Keiyaku felt just as stretched. Between rebuilding his clan, teaching at the Academy, and running the day-to-day operations of a whole branch of the ANBU.... Well, it was all starting to ass up.

"Corvus-sensei, you mean," he said, looking down. His sensei, the ANBU Sennin was of course, very secretive; Keiyaku didn't even know his real name, but they'd met for the first time at the Sazuki residence while Nao was passed out on the couch after an important dinner. The house carried the scent of the both of them, so it wasn't hard to put two and two together. Engaged? For some reason, he'd been under the impression they were already married from the way they spoke to one another. Still, Corvus-sensei was a father figure to him; he'd single-handedly guided him through the ranks of the ANBU, and had taken him personally under his wing ever since he was a fresh-faced student. There was a whole in his heart that his absence had left.

"Oh, thanks," he grunted, taking a sip as Nao offered to pay, "yeah, I miss him too. A lot. But... Shit... I can't imagine what that must feel like, Sensei. If I know him at all, he didn't leave you; something must have happened to him. I'd go out and find him myself, but... I'm just so swamped with my work here."

Shifting? The word sent a slight tingle sprinting up Keiyaku's spine. He'd done enough shifting for a lifetime himself; he couldn't imagine sprouting scales was any less pleasant.

"Still... I've seen that happened to a lot of people. Suddenly everyone starts growing scales and sprouting wings like some weird epidemic. But hey, it's a talking point, isn't it? As long as it doesn't stop you being a doctor, I guess it's no biggie? At least you're learning to control it, even if it's getting tricky to hide."

Moru gave a sudden snore, but continued slumbering on.

"Me?" Keiyaku looked a little nervous as he took another swig, not sure how much it was wise to tell. Not to mention, he knew he was becoming a total drag these days. He really did look quite ill though.

"It's not been too different. My family's still recovering and rebuilding; I've kind of just ended up in charge by default now. A lot of the outlying branch clans came to help us rebuild after the fire."

He took a much larger swig of Soju this time.

"Corvus being gone sure is a blow... But the same with Keniwa. We were kind of... I mean, I thought we were... But... I dunno. It wouldn't be so bad, but the Full Moon's getting closer and each time it does it messes with my head. Gets me feeling all kinds of sick too. Serious pain in ass, y'know?"

As he downed the last of his bottle, Keiyaku reached for his wallet, "hey, I got the next round, 'kay?"

 

[Sazuki Nao]

"yeah, I miss him too. A lot. But... Shit... I can't imagine what that must feel like, Sensei. If I know him at all, he didn't leave you; something must have happened to him. I'd go out and find him myself, but... I'm just so swamped with my work here." Nao played with the rim of the glass as he was listening to the young male. His gaze softened up but at the same time, there was not much left in that gaze. "While that may have been true... but after all this time, you give up, you live on. Despite that being difficult... And trust me, i tried to look into it all. I went through the Hokage office, I went through the files at the guard tower. To see if any of his names popped up, but nothing. So either this would have been a radio-silent thing... or he is just gone. I can either torment myself with it endlessly.. or let it go." He would speak before taking a big gulp.

"Still... I've seen that happen to a lot of people. Suddenly everyone starts growing scales and sprouting wings like some weird epidemic. But hey, it's a talking point, isn't it? As long as it doesn't stop you being a doctor, I guess it's no biggie. At least you're learning to control it, even if it's getting tricky to hide." At that, he was laughing. "Yea- they aren't the best to grow, but at the same time, it isn't the worst. I feel like a burn is a lot more harsh. Yes, it hurts when you shed a scale or pull it. It will even bleed if you pull a scale... But at the same time, it will itch. It is hard to explain exactly how it feels as I am still not done doing tests on myself or these scales... BUt you can sharpen the scales..." He would grab one out of his coat, it used to be a bigger one... and he would rather not tell how he got this scale. He would show how durable and difficult to break it was. "See? It is something." He said after he cut the napkin with it.

"Ah right... that did happen... If you need something please let me know, I may not look like it but I am capable of helping in building. Altho some things are better left to experts..." He muttered now that he thought about the electrical work or the plumbing...
Grabbing a piece of paper out of his inner pocket he would read it out loud. "It's been a year now.... There wasn't a day that I forgot, about that friend who went away. I wonder if he is doing okay. I wonder if he still remembers me... But it is fine... I am sure that one day, we'll meet again. So i don't mind waiting if he finds this message somewhere, I wonder what he'll think. This is one that I wrote for a friend of mine... but if you want, you can place this down where you hope to meet Keniwa again... Maybe he will find it. Maybe he won't.. I gave up anyways." He would slip the folded paper towards Keniwa before downing his drink and look towards the kid.

"Full moon..? the same principle with me and suddenly hoarding stuff?" He would question without much in thought, but he was curious as to what the other was exactly talking about.

 

[Inuzuka Keiyaku]

Keiyaku felt a little bit disheartened at that. Give up and live on? He almost wanted to get indignant at that, to challenge Nao on why he was ready to do such a thing. If he were in the same position, no matter how much searching he'd done and how many clues he'd tried to dredge up, he didn't think he could give up on someone, even if the search was completely vain and fruitless. Even if he had to wait ten thousand years, he would refuse to give up on someone if he were that close to them, if he considered them something like a soul mate. But maybe that was just his culture as an Inuzuka; maybe the blind loyalty his clan often carried wasn't a sentiment he could expect absolutely everyone to share. Still, it saddened him, but he didn't want to labour an uncomfortable topic.

"Yeesh," he winced a little as he leaned over to watch Nao give him a tour of the ridges and bumps of the scales on his arm, demonstrating their sharpness and durability, and giving him a rundown of what it felt like to possess them. It wasn't something he felt particularly like he'd like to have; he looked down at his hands, at the sharp claws he possessed on the edge of each finger and thought about how many times he'd cut his skin open in his sleep, then tried to imagine what it would be like even he had them covered the length of his arm.

"Oh, I uh, I appreciate that," said the Inuzuka, taking another heavy swig, but shaking his head all the same, "we are pretty industrious. It's less the physical place that's important to us; we're a wild people, and we can just as easily live in the open wilderness as anywhere. It's more the people we've lost. Some of us lost our partners, and for us, that's like losing a part of your soul. It's a really special kind of agony, y'know? And once it's gone, you can't get it back."

He spared a glance over at the sleeping Moru, wondering how it would be if he lost him. Somehow, he didn't think he would survive it.

"Oh, nah, that's too personal for me to take off you," he said, sliding the note back towards Nao, but rather touched by the kind gesture all the same. If he were to see Keniwa again, he would want to use his own words to express his feelings rather than borrow somebody else's.

The Inuzuka downed the rest of his drink before answering Nao's next question, taking the time to swing the bottle lazily by the neck between his finger and thumb.

"Uhhhh, possibly? I mean, if becoming a dragon-man has up and turned you into a hoarder, I guess it's not too different," Keiyaku said, allowing himself a little chuckle before setting the bottle back down, "I figure Corvus might've told you about me at some point though; he was the one helping me get a handle on it and all. He did a good job before he left, but there's only so much he could do."

With a small wave of his fingers, he caused the empty Soju bottle to levitate a few inches off the table, watching it twirl around smoothly in place

"The full moon, yeah. I'm a Werewolf. Man, the transformation is rough. It's like every bone in my body breaks and I can actually feel my skin shredding itself to pieces," he explained, giving a little shiver as he recalled the sensation, "I gotta lock myself up in a bunker each time and wait for the sun to come up. But yeah, the lead up to it and the aftermath gets me feeling all kinds of sick."

It wasn't lost on him that he took up this curse, albeit very unwillingly, to help save the lives of his teammates. But he did, admittedly, take some solace in the fact that the one who shoved this demon inside of him was dead.

"Let's just say pissin' up trees and howlin' at the moon isn't the way I wanted to spend the last day of every month," he chuckled, trying to inject some levity back into proceedings.

 

[Sazuki Nao]

"Please don't get me wrong... I can't get back anything either, despite me being one of the higher-ups in medical searches. Everyone always thinks that I have it all. I lost the person I held dear to me, I already lost my family at a young age. Some of the children I was taking care of, did vanish, only one came back recently."
' After all... The saddest thing is that the people that are most broken and the hurting and are the saddest, are the ones that would do anything for anyone else because they know the pain. They know what it feels like and they don't want anyone else to have to go through that. But in doing so, they break even more because nobody ever does that for them... It's crazy what a person with a kind heart, what a kind soul would do something for anybody. But all they want is the same thing in return, but they cannot receive it. and that hurts. I know... because I used to be that person, who would give my life, I would give my soul, I would give my heart... but in reality, all I would get back was a broken heart. tears... and pain mental health issues... Because I just wanted someone to treat me the same. It's a sad world we live in...'

The bottle back on the table was a moment when Nao watched the young Inuzuka again. "Sorry... He never said anything about his line of work really... So I am afraid I have no idea." He would speak softly as he placed the glasses on the table, he felt like he didn't need to see the world right now. "Lock yourself up... Is it because you lose control..?" He asked a bit worried for the child too. Since other people might try to attack him. Wait.. he was talking about someone high up, he should probably be worried for the other party in that case.

"I can understand that. If you want I can put a leash on you in the backyard, at least then you are safe too without being locked up... Heck, I will stay up with you, ever single night you have that till you have control over it. In the end, almost everything is something you can control. you just need to learn to how." he tried to joke with the other in tow and would leave a small silence going through. "The reason I let go... Because it takes a lot more courage to let something go than it does to hang on to it. Letting go doesn't mean ignoring a situation. It means accepting what is exactly as it is. Without fear, resistance, or a struggle to control it. It already has been a year and a half without anything from him. If I were to hold on longer, I would be sinking too. Then Leaf also doesn't have anything left."

He would order a shot and once that was brought, he instantly downed it. "So what do you want to do now..? Take another round, want a smoke..? I can do a smoke..." He was slowly getting wasted here. "What else is ailing you, my fine little sir?" He giggled at those words but he was serious at the same time. It had been enough about him...