Restless Retirement

Hatchling

Heroes are people Keigo only sometimes hears about in passing as his mother watches television. He never expected someone to barge into his life quite literally. Someone who can roam freely while his winged self was trapped indoors.

“You’re not Nobuyuki.”

Keigo looks at the woman. Her presence is the opposite of his mother’s. She stands tall and assured whereas his mother is hunched and frantic.

“How did you?!” Tomie isn’t someone that can easily be sneaked up on. She even has extra eyes for additional vision, so how did she not notice the presence of the person immediately? The woman stood near Keigo but more importantly she needs to warn her husband who’s napping in the other room.

“You don’t think you’re the first person to use this dump of a place, do you? A patched together house at the outskirts of a city poorly blended in with the trees. Could this place be any more suspicious?” Tsunade takes a few steps forward frowning as she eyes the piles of garbage forming and the unavoidable stench.

Tomie flinches as Tsunade looks down the hallway and runs to block the path. As startled and scared as she is, she can’t let this woman get to her husband. She wouldn’t let all the time they spent on the run go to waste.

“Well can’t say I’m surprised.” Tsunade looks back in the other direction where the red-winged child still stands. It looks like he hasn’t been getting proper sleep or exercise, and while fed he’s undernourished. “Protective of that person in the other room yet merciless to your own child.”

Tsunade uses two fingers to reach to under her grey kimono-styled blouse near her cleavage. Tomie flinches as something rectangular is pulled out. A photo?

“Do you know or have you seen this man?”

Tomie has never seen the man before. Does that mean that the woman isn’t here for her husband? “No.” She shakes her head.

“He left no trace here then?” Tsunade mentally crosses another location off her list. “How long have you been here?” The answer could help her decide where to search for Nobuyuki next.

Tomie refuses to answer.

“A little over a year during winter.”

“Shut up!” Keigo flinches and looks down.

“What’s the ruckus?” The voice is deep and scathing as he throws open the door. The knob smacking into the wall. “Who the hell is this? You think you can take me?” He runs down the hall reaching for something at his side. Tomie half moves out of the way and gets pushed to the side as he storms towards Tsunade.

Keigo closes his eyes, not wanting to see the violence, when he hears a sigh. The noise makes him open his eyes once more and watches his father plunge down with a hand knife. He watches her effortlessly dodge and sends a punch his way sending him flying down the hall and through the wall leaving a gaping whole that exposes them to the outside world. His mother screeches and chases after his father who’s knocked out.

Tsunade thinks the whole ordeal has been a waste of time. At least she now knows that the mission hadn’t been given to her out of pure incompetency. She walks to the door and twists her body to look at the kid. “You coming, kid? You need a medical examination and some nutrients.”

Keigo stares at her. The light from the mid-afternoon sun makes her appearance almost glow through the doorframe.

Outside.

How much he always wants to go out, but is only ever scolded when he did.

Without once looking in his parents’ direction he walks towards her accepting the simple offer.