Heritage

Shadow Play

Soramaru woke up in the middle of the night, unsure of why. Then he sensed it; a presence. His first thought was that it was Shirasu, but that was complete nonsense. Shirasu was long-dead. That left him with a few other options, all of them spooks.
"Can't you use the front door like a normal person? It's less suspicious you know." He asked, not actually sure if they were a friendly or not.
"Sorry," Came Hibiki's amused voice out of the darkness.
Soramaru turned to look at the vague shadow near his now-open window as Hibiki contuned. Soramaru decided that he needed to invest in better locks.
"But the window was the only way in that afforded a blind spot as long as I was careful."
Soramaru chose not to explain that it was habit to provide one from his childhood growing up with a shinobi and then being married to a former shinobi. If he stopped to think about it he had a very strange life.
Soramaru sat up with a jaw-cracking yawn.
"It's a good thing that I can opperate on very little sleep." He commented wryly, "Where is he?"
"Think you can get out through the window without being seen?"
Soramaru rolled his eyes.
"Easily. I was raised around a shinobi. I did pay attention. Then I married one and she taught me a few things."
"Alright then." Hibiki replied, sounding amused again.
"Out. I've gotta get dressed. I'm not going anywhere in my pajamas."
Hibiki wordlessly complied, sneaking silently back out the window.

A few minutes later and Soramaru dropped to the ground near where Hibiki was waiting, startling the man into palming two knives. Soramaru glanced over at him and eyed the knives for a moment. He hadn't thought that he could sneak up on the guy well enough to make him pull out weapons.
"Put those away." He said quietly.
The knives dissapeared from Hibiki's hands to-Soramaru-didn't-know-where.
"Didn't think I could sneak up on you did you?" Soramaru added, voice still quiet.
"No." Hibiki answered so quietly Soramaru could barely hear him, "You hid your presence well."
"Yeah, well, I'm kind of used to dealing with shinobi, black ops and government spies." Soramaru looked a bit put out as he added in a particularly quiet, slightly resentful mutter, "Older brother gets to deal with normal people from the government..."
Soramaru sighed.
"Well whatever. Where to?"
"Follow me." Hibiki answered, leading them away. Soramaru followed, instinctively matching his steps to Hibiki's. Hibiki - who was Shirasu is disguise - idely wondered how things would have gone if he had trained Soramaru.
Probably no different, he decided.
He had, after all, taught Chuutaro a few things and that hadn't changed a thing.

It didn't take long to get to the building where Chuutaro was hiding once they reached Hibiki's car. Along the way Hibiki explained the gist of the situation to him. Soramaru was more than a little worried about his younger brother, especially after Hibiki described his current appearance. When they reached their destination it proved to be a run-down, abandoned building. Climbing out of the non-descript car Soramaru did a quick scan of the area and spotted several shinobi. He sensed several more that he couldn't immediately pin-point.
"You have an aweful lot of people here." He commented.
"It's to keep people away from Chuutaro."
Soramaru nodded, not entirely believing him. But, then again, after Shirasu's betrayal he didn't really trust anyone except his family. Hibiki led him inside. Soramaru went from alert to high alert, wary of some kind of trap. Instead Hibiki led him to a whole in the concrete of the floor.
"Chuutaro!" Hibiki called, "I've brought Soramaru!"
Soramaru frowned at the lack of honorifics with both of their names, but it wasn't the time to call him on his bad manners.
"I don't believe you!" A voice - presumably Chuutaro's, but it had been so long that Soramaru wasn't entirely sure - yelled back, "Your just a liar!"
Hibiki sighed.
"You trusted me to get you out of those labs, didn't you?" Hibiki answered.
"I shouldn't have! It was stupid!"
Hibiki crouched down beside the hole.
"Then you would still be in the labs getting experimented on."
"You just want to revive the Orochi like last time."
"No, I don't. Times have changed and I've moved on."
"Then why are you hiding your face from Soramaru? Your using a fake one!"
"Oh, so you can see that it's him."
"He-he's just somebody pretending to be Sora-nii!"
"No," Soramaru called down, "I'm not."
A reptilian simulcrum of his little brother stepped out into the partial light where Soramaru could see him. It took the older Kumo sibling a moment to recognize Chuutaro. When he did he it hit him like a 2x4 to the face.
"Chuutaro...?" He asked shakily, horrified at what had been done to his little brother.
"If you are Sora-nii then don't trust him," Chuutaro said, jabbing a clawed finger at Hibiki, "That's Shirasu!"
And then Chuutaro darted back into the shadows where Soramaru couldn't see him. The acusation had startled Soramaru into silence for a couple of seconds. Then he frowned.
"Chuutaro, that's not possible!" He called, "Shirasu would be long dead of old age... It's... It's been way too long..."
"Actually," Hibiki interrupted, drawing Soramaru's attention to see him scrape off the false face he was wearing, "Chuutaro's right. I have no idea how I'm still alive, but I am. At least you and your brothers have an explanation for your longevity. I don't."
Soramaru stared, wide-eyed at the man who had helped his older brother, Tenka, raise him and Chuutaro. Only to stab them in tha back almost literally. It was a betrayal that the younger Kumo brothers never quite forgave him for. He had been like their other older brother. The calm and reasonable one that could make sense out of Tenka when he was at his most infuriating.
Hibiki - Shirasu - stood up and walked away, picking off the bits of the false face still sticking to his skin. When he turned back around it was to sit on some debris and gesture towards the hole pointedly. Now back on high alert Soramaru turned his attention back to Chuutaro.
"Chuutaro, how can I prove to that I am who I say I am?"
"I can't tell you or it won't count!"
"Alright, fair enough. Can I come down there?"
"...Alright - but you have to leave your knives and gun up there!"
Gun? When did he grab his gun? He started patting himself down, trying to find the aformentioned weapon and, sure enough, he'd strapped it on. Pulling it out of his holster he inspected it. Loaded and a round chambered. Good grief. At least he had the saftey on. Soramaru ignored Shirasu's amused snort as he pulled the slide back and the chambered bullet sprang out with more force than was strictly neccessary. Soramaru caught it mid-air, far too used to the proccess. A second later and the magazine dropped out of the grip into his waiting palm. Tossing the gun aside in Shirasu's general direction he pushed the bullet back into the magazine. He put it in his pocket, then went about divesting himself of his knives, some of which he didn't remember grabbing. As he was doing this he noticed Shirasu staring at the gun by his foot.
"Don't get me wrong," Soramaru told him, drawing his attention, "Whether or not you really are Shirasu - and I have doubts about that - I don't trust you... But you had ample oportunities to kill me on the way here, so I doubt that you're going to try anything now."
"And what if I turned out to be a sadist and simply wanted to kill you creatively?" Shirasu challenged, because, really, Soramaru was being far too reckless.
The younger man stared straight at him with a clear, direct gaze and said, "I have a lot of pent-up anger. As long as I know you have that face I will gladly beat it black and blue for you. Besides," He added looking down the hole, "You're not a sadist."
Then he was calling out a warning to Chuutaro that he was jumping down now and disappeared into the hole and out of sight. Shirasu was left to stare at where he had been, not quite sure why he found himself at such a loss for words. Then he turned his gaze to the hole and smiled.
"No," He murmured, "I suppose I'm not."