Shinobi Isekai: Round Two

Mommie Dearest

Unless...unless he couldn't?

There were a million reasons why he would have difficulty expressing emotion, his asshole father among them—or maybe Hashirama and Itama got all the emotion genes. Without knowing the specifics of his situation, she really shouldn't be so judgmental. Besides, she understood him just fine, right?

"Have you learned anything cool?" She asked, turning off her sharingan. Though they often met like this and discussed the jutsus and techniques they were working on, there was a tacit understanding between them to never ask directly about the fundamentals behind a technique—or use the sharingan. "If you'd come a little sooner you'd have seen me finally make that break through I was whining about before."

"Oh?" He raised one pale eyebrow. "So, you admit you were whining?"

Her face lit up with flaming embarrassment. "Sh-Shut up! It's not my fault whining at you solves all my problems!" She turned away from him, crossing her arms over chest in a theatrical pout. "You listen better than my dumbass cousins, ok? Hmph."

She didn't have to be looking at him to know his expression hadn't changed. He was a stoic kid with the most micro of micro expressions. If Kyou didn't have fancy magic eyeballs, she'd think he was angry all the time. His default expression was a narrow eyed scowl that made him look way too much like his dad, but Kyou was starting to think he just needed glasses or something. His brows always unfurrowed when he was working on something up close, after all.

Poor guy. His vision must be shit.

Just another reason to give him her eyes, should misfortune befall her.

That was one of the reasons she played up her actions around him. She wasn't sure and she didn't want to piss him off by asking, so she just took the initiative to project her emotions so he might pick up on the social cues better. Sure, she probably looked pretty stupid, but it was kinda fun. If only she could figure out how to stop doing it with Izuna, too...

"I should hope so," Tobi replied, tone flat and unamused in the way Kyou knew meant he was totally amused. "If they took the time to understand your problems, they would be much more formidable as opponents."

True, true. If more people listened to Kyou, they'd be smarter by association!

Ego sufficiently stroked, she turned back to Tobi with a wide grin. "Tobi, you're the only one who understands me!"

Aha! There it was! Her guiltiest of pleasures! A brilliant red blush spread across Tobirama's face, down his neck and even over the tops of his ears. He turned away from her, clearing his throat and scowling.

No! Bad Kyou! He. Is. A. Child!

"I," he said, clearing his throat again when his voice broke, renewing the heat of his blush. "I have also had a breakthrough."

Ha. Smooth transition, there, buddy. "Ooh! Really! That's so awesome! On to the next project then, yeah?"

That....should have sent him ranting and raving about his newest off the wall experiment, but instead it seemed to...make him sad?

"Tobi? What's wrong? Is Hashibaka being extra stupid again? Do you want me to get Mada-nii to beat him up while extolling the virtues of brotherhood, or something?"

He snorted, lips tilting upward in a rare smile, but the expression faded as swiftly as it came. "No, that won't be necessary. Kyou," he hesitated, the nervous look on his face completely out of character. "I don't think I'll be coming back."

Oh.

"Oh." She shifted her weight. "Is that it? I mean," she said in response to his wide eyed shock. "We always knew this might happen, Tobi. Yeah, I'll miss you and, yeah, it'll be boring without you, but what did you expect? It's already a miracle we got hang out as often as we did, you know. In another life...well, we should just be grateful we got to pretend we were friends."