[The onset of darkness makes the city's empty spaces worse — wide, hollow, echoing distances with shadows like long fingers stretched at every sharp edge. Sasuke has spent the day searching for information; he's found nothing, and he feels he has less than he did even when he began, as if the hours of futile investigation took something away. A precarious sliver of determination. In its place, Sasuke is left restless and frustrated as sunlight slips and night descends, pulling a veil across the sky.
The height of the buildings is an advantageous location. He'd scaled one earlier when deciding what part of the city to explore next, and it is here he returns, the concrete rim of a residential tower his chosen surveillance point. And where normally he would have picked out the presence of another person across roofs with keen perception — distracted thoughts, as well as diminished power, make it possible for the first crane to descend on him unaware.
A hand lifts, deft fingers snatching it out of the air moments before it lands atop messy black hair. He doesn't open it. Mismatched eyes, one pale purple and one black, coolly assess the stranger on the other roof without a wave in response. Only when the second crane swoops down will he bother to unfold the paper, finding the doodle, complete with a frowny face on the caricature of himself and the bold ?, within.
Breath fans from his lips as Sasuke steps up onto the edge of the building's embankment and leaps that distance, buoyed by chakra, an ease to this preternatural movement. He lands gracefully a pointed distance from the other man.]
What do you want? [Both cranes, crinkled paper warm from his hand, are tossed back.] This is juvenile. There are other ways to get my attention.
iv
The height of the buildings is an advantageous location. He'd scaled one earlier when deciding what part of the city to explore next, and it is here he returns, the concrete rim of a residential tower his chosen surveillance point. And where normally he would have picked out the presence of another person across roofs with keen perception — distracted thoughts, as well as diminished power, make it possible for the first crane to descend on him unaware.
A hand lifts, deft fingers snatching it out of the air moments before it lands atop messy black hair. He doesn't open it. Mismatched eyes, one pale purple and one black, coolly assess the stranger on the other roof without a wave in response. Only when the second crane swoops down will he bother to unfold the paper, finding the doodle, complete with a frowny face on the caricature of himself and the bold ?, within.
Breath fans from his lips as Sasuke steps up onto the edge of the building's embankment and leaps that distance, buoyed by chakra, an ease to this preternatural movement. He lands gracefully a pointed distance from the other man.]
What do you want? [Both cranes, crinkled paper warm from his hand, are tossed back.] This is juvenile. There are other ways to get my attention.