#ninjaverse

Crimson heat bit at the underside of his skin as he walked the shadows of the wrapping deck to his room, as if staying out of the orange light of the blood moon would keep his beast from frenzying beneath it. The trainees would be fine in his absence, but Shouta still had a few days to make sure. His schedule remained the same in spite of his growing dispositional changes and worsening sleep, which played its own role in his shorter temper.

Shinsou would keep the ship sailing smoothly without him. Even the upstart alphas knew better than to try to throw their weight around with Shouta's star pupil, although there were already whispers of relief and excitement to have their training taken over by the other glacial shinobi. Most of it was little to do with his omegan features.

What was about his omegan features was also simultaneously about the co-mingling of the classes, as Shinsou wouldn't have enough time in the day to train the younger kunotoko and kunoichi separately from the, so to speak, “traditional” shinobi. In reality, most of the genuine ninja work was performed expertly by the Midnight Branch, but there was always use of brute force and war-like tendencies, especially when it conveniently disguised what was really being taught in their academy.

Shouta looked forward to seeing the trainee alphas’ downtrodden expressions when he returned. Maybe getting their asses kicked around by a bunch of girls would make them take their training more seriously.

Dim moonlight spilled into his room first as he slid the door open, hasty to show off that his quarters had been infiltrated and, judging from the unhurried movement just out of reach of the faint illumination, the interloper was still present. Shouta schooled the initial startled reaction that made his fingers twitch for his tanto on his hip, taking in the room almost as quickly and failing to be alarmed further. There was quite a construction in the middle of his floor. Perhaps his usual bedroll was amongst the nest of linen and wool. Shouta’s immediate first thought beyond questioning was that it looked like some kind of wagashi shaped like a flower but plush like a mochi.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have skipped dinner.

After a moment, his gaze flicked over to the shadowed figure kneeling calmly beside the plump nest. With a tone that was more tired than anything else, Shouta sighed at his trespasser. “Shinsou…”

The kunotoko’s pale eyes flitted down to his project and he leaned over it to adjust the puffed section in front of him to be tighter on the sides with his long fingers. “Have you ever had a nest, sensei?”

“What are you doing?” Shouta had a sinking feeling he knew and refused to play the omega’s little game. Shinsou was a well-honed manipulator, possibly Shouta’s best to date. It was better to not let the younger shinobi get his threads into one’s psyche.

While watching Shinsou’s talented hands tucking sheets and twisting fabric did elicit some primal response Shouta artfully ignored, this wasn’t exactly the first time something like this had happened. It was the first ploy that was so bold, but the hennish hovering to ensure the alpha was uninjured or fed properly or hydrated and the occasional deadpan comment about there existing ways to get Shinsou back in the field faster when he went into heat weren’t entirely lost on Shouta. Those had been easy enough to brush off. This…

Shinsou built a nest in his room.

Say he wasn’t trying hard enough, but Shouta found this particularly difficult to simply overlook.

“All I ever wish to do,” Shinsou twisted the sheets underneath somewhere, pulling the quilted wall more taut. “Is serve my master.”

Shouta didn’t know how to deal with this right now. He heaved an exhausted sigh and crossed his arms while taking a step away from the door for the troublesome kunotoko to walk out of—hopefully. “Goodnight, Shinsou.”

Shinsou seemed wholly unwilling to take the hint, leaning back on his haunches and looking back up at Shouta in a manner that, while coy and polite, had a distinctly haughty air. “‘A nest is not complete until it smells like an omega.’”

“You know Kayama was a beta, right?” Shouta was unmoved by his protégé’s plays. “What could she really have known about all that?”

The question was rhetorical and unpersuasive even to the man who uttered it. Midnight was especially educated in medicine as it pertained to her… tastes. She even disguised herself as both alphas and omegas, depending on how the situation suited her, cupping her students’ or friends’ oils with some technique she learned from the Chinese and repackaged to harvest their scents straight from their skin for her own uses. Her loss was a great tragedy. A true genius of her field. But her teachings were almost equal in value.

“The perfume of a trusted omega can alleviate rutting symptoms.”

Shouta wished she’d educated Shinsou less. “Who said I trust you?”

Shinsou’s head tipped back slightly, and his stoic procedure broke gently as he set Shouta with a look that was best described as unconvinced, not too dissimilar to the knowing level of a parent catching their unruly brat in a lie. “You drink the tea I bring you, and eat the food I make for you.”

And taught half his classes. And watched his back on missions. And trained dutifully under him for years.

“You gain nothing from killing me.” Shouta offered pragmatically.

A wicked little motion, a twitch of lips, shattered the other shinobi’s poise entirely. Shinsou’s brows quirked up in similar time and Shouta wasn’t naive enough to assume the lapse was a mistake. “It would be much easier to have your heart if I cut it out of your chest.”

“You’re too young.” Shouta refused to acknowledge the tingle at his back and remembered he wasn’t supposed to be giving Shinsou so many opportunities to puppeteer him. His tone was bleak.

“I’m not.” Shinsou shook his head in objection, but there was ultimately still a coy playfulness to his caramel voice and relaxed posture. Confidence. Or, as Shouta chose to read it, the amusement of a caretaker humoring a senile ward.

“Only those in the thick of youthful hubris believe themselves not to be.” Shouta struck back and hoped to sound sufficiently decrepit to dissuade the omega that he was even still virile enough to be a suitable mate.

Then, Shouta had to endure the worst attack yet. The pale light reflected enough to show the pretty curve of teeth splitting Shinsou’s face in the dark, unnerving in its crafted perfection. “At any other time I’ve been overconfident, you just worked me harder and harder until I understood how much further I still had to go.”

Shouta, admittedly, hadn’t expected his style of teaching to have any notable repercussions. He felt like he was losing this game despite thinking he never started playing. “Yes, well, that same lesson in this instance would be me walking over there, picking you up, and throwing you–” he pointed briefly behind him outside, “–out that door.”

It was at that moment Shouta felt as if he’d made a grave error—a severe miscalculation. Shinsou braced his hands on the nest and leaned forward on his knees, stretching into the faint light so Shouta could see more of his devastating features. The grin was lethal. Violet eyes full of destructive lunar zeal, shaded underneath by what could've been the low lighting or the lack of sleep that was regularly endured.

“Do it.”

Shouta’s body remained firmly anchored in place where he stood, stock-still and desperately trying to keep a rein on his profile. Perhaps it was a pointless endeavor. Glittering indigo and moonstones cut him open and read his insides like the truths of the universe were carved into his ribs.

“Come over here…” Shinsou slunk like a stalking cat over the wall of the nest, his equally slender yet powerful body slipping effortlessly into the central bowl, into the light, languid and sure. Shouta was surprised the kunotoko was still recognizably in uniform—his armor was missing, gloves and various bands and pouches were nowhere to be seen; but he still donned his dark hadagi and his trousers were still rolled and gartered at the knees. However, the splash of creamy white in the swooping cutouts where his pockets were usually strapped beneath his clothes was striking against the clean fabric of the nest.

There was nothing underneath. He wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

“... And put your hands on me, master.”

Shinsou was always an overachiever. Shouta wished he hadn’t given Midnight’s lessons the same gusto.

Shouta’s fingers danced an anxious roll against his arms as he debated his course, attempting to form some kind of strategy like he was dealing with a stray tiger lazing in his bed instead of an eager omega. He thought a good long while about what to do, frozen in place, constantly battling his own traitorous gaze from getting distracted by the dips and grooves of delicate skin uncovered at the hip and where the fabric draped a little too far to the side—

He’d snap his gaze up to the younger shinobi’s curation of unwavering calm and stoicism plastered over that stunning face like Shinsou knew it would drive him crazy to no longer be privy to each little quirk of his expression. The dismay and defeat lobbed his eyes downward a short ways, not wanting to go too far down again, just to get caught up in another war of attention with the soft, subtle peaks beneath the thin hadagi thrust out shamelessly from the way Shinsou held himself upright on his arms.

Shouta knew these tricks, damn it.

The kunotoko and kunoichi were his best operatives because, well, knowing couldn’t save you.

However, knowing this very situation resulted in many an assassinated noble or political leader did add an edge Shouta wasn’t sure how to contend with. Logically, he knew Shinsou wasn’t planning to kill him. There were no secrets to steal. No money or treasure owed to someone else. The omega paraded his body, his intentions—his feelings—before the older man just the same. Odd as it was, that thought did lead Shouta to a flickering flame of conclusion that Shinsou didn’t know how else to do this.

And truthfully, that was the toughest blow to take.

Shinsou was a weapon, honed and wielded from a young age. He didn’t know how to be anything else.

But Shouta was watching him try.

It did… change things—the way the encounter felt.

Perhaps Shinsou wasn’t guarding his expression in an act of cloying seduction but because he was safeguarding his own apprehension. Flaunting his emotions, his hesitation, served no purpose here and would, as he was taught many times, only hamper his mission.

Shouta tried not to dwell on Shinsou thinking of him as a mission.

Although, the idea of the omega trying to conquer him did make his blood rush so loudly in his ears he couldn’t hear himself think.

What he heard instead was a soft, steady melody of vocal beats, a slow trill requesting his attention, his approval. Shouta jerked, back straightening in alarm as he felt his chest fill to respond, but he constricted his throat and choked the life out of it before the resounding chuff could surface. Flashes of memories of his protégé as an immature upstart barely old enough to know what sex was, a boy too scrawny to notice reaching for your coin purse but still too loose with his tongue, scolded him harshly inside his conflicted mind. He couldn’t do this.

The thought beat him even harder.

He couldn’t reject Shinsou either.

One of his most lethal weapons was baring himself, raw and fragile, despite appearances. He wanted Shouta to see—he wanted Shouta’s acceptance.

Feeling dizzy as his affect clawed up his chest to bash the gates behind his temples out of desperation to give it, Shouta squeezed his eyes shut and turned his face away. The struggle was rife in his voice even as he tried to swallow it down. “You need to get out of here.”

Shouta wasn’t ready to be this out of control yet.

It took a moment, one that sliced him cleaner than any blade, but Shinsou eventually responded, low and unsympathetic, “you have all my sheets…”

“Boy…” Shouta paused to strangle the growl in his throat. Shinsou may have been too young, by Shouta’s metric, but he was too old for that word. It hadn’t felt just to use it in several years now. Perhaps Shouta was just desperate for any control he could muster. “And what of the classes? You think the kids won’t run off to the city to fill up on treats and laze about without guidance?”

His gaze dared to sweep over Shinsou’s again and found little had changed in the face of what may well have been an admission of guilt. The omega tucked his chin, long lashes shuttering briefly; simple proof it wasn’t just Shouta losing the war of nature and granting him some solace. Shinsou’s cadence remained unchanged. “I can fulfill both duties.”

Shinsou spoke so easily, so confidently, Shouta wanted to believe him, too. He scoffed instead, unsure if it was Shinsou’s confidence he was worried about or his own uncertainty. “You think I’d let you get away?”

He’d expected a bit more than a faint tilt of the kunotoko’s head. Just as he began to wonder exactly how much Shinsou had thought about this, the omega all but confirmed the extensiveness of his planning.

“There’s still time to find a replacement.”

“You–” Shouta felt his emotions knock loose, the deafening roar in his veins allowing them to rattle off the shelf he kept them tucked away on. If it was anyone else, he might have tried harder to douse the flames. Or maybe he would’ve tried less, uncaring to frighten or insult them. He stepped forward, not entirely himself, chest opening in a jerry rigged threat as a last-ditch effort to weaponize his wildness and spare his bright coworker from being stuck at the academy with his dreary ass forever. “–are overestimating my willingness in this situation! Should some tramp of an alpha stakeout in your private quarters when you are due for heat and refused to leave, what would you do?”

It wasn’t a great comparison and they both knew it. Shinsou wasn’t “some omega” and the answer seemed quite obvious. Although the one Shinsou offered was a bit more severe, at odds with the unabashed adjustment of his pants so the slit sat higher on his hip to show off the defined ebbs and swells of his shape. Violet eyes, big and sweet, blinked up at him in a truly unbelievable rendition of an innocent doll. “I’d just kill them.”

Yeah, Shouta believed that. It wouldn’t be the first time some great misfortune befell a pest in their esteemed halls. That had been at the bathhouses, though. An “accidental drowning.” Something like trespassing lecherously in one’s room would surely result in an even more understandably intense… “accident.”

Shinsou continued to stare up at Shouta in anticipation.

Shouta stared back, weapons holstered and, honestly, forgotten about.

Seeing as it was obvious Shouta’s supposed qualms were entirely toothless, Shinsou tucked one of his legs closer to his body and lazed even more casually with one arm draped coyly over his scant waist. “... you think I’m a tramp?”

Shouta sighed, exasperated. Perhaps he’d pushed Shinsou too far as a shinobi. The kunotoko had seen too much, done too much. Shouta had accused him of lacking survival instincts but the older alpha knew that wasn’t it. Shinsou was just… temerarious.

Headstrong.

Reckless.

“I think you need to go back to your room.” Shouta tried once more to gain control over the situation.

Shinsou huffed and laid himself out amongst the fluff of the nest. “I meant it… you have all my sheets.”

Shouta felt as if he was trying to teach a leopard to sit on command.

A burst of flavor colored the air as Shinsou pinched some fabric and rubbed it against his neck, leaving the matte, powdery substance keeping his scent at bay on the sheet. He’d always had a distinct, arborous smell that was difficult to decipher in specifics under the powders. Removing them unleashed the blooms of flowering trees and its rich, resinous appeal. Shouta had been exposed to it before on a handful of missions, but it was still a bit strange to associate Shinsou with actually being an omega. It was one thing to say he was but another to intimately know he was.

And there was no way to mistake that kind of bold, fresh sweetness as anything other than omegan in nature.

Shouta cleared his throat. It did little for his head. He gestured vaguely at the nest and tried to keep his voice steady. “Roll the whole thing up and take it with you.”

Shinsou released a breath with a small smirk, scenting the fabrics unimpeded. “Then where would you sleep?”

So, Shouta’s bed was in there somewhere.

“The floor.” Shouta put all his remaining energy into sounding thoroughly harassed.

Shinsou gave him that look again, like he was a silly old man. “Sensei…”

“Do something in your own best interest for once,” Shouta practically pleaded.

No, he was pleading. They both knew he was too weak-willed to fight with Shinsou much longer, unable to draw the line he kept threatening. Shinsou needed to be the one to do it.

There was a notable and rather cute pout on the kunotoko’s face as he sat up on his arms, giving Shouta a bemused and disappointed glare. It did serve to make the older man feel as if he’d stepped on a cat’s paw by mistake. Surprisingly, though, Shinsou eventually pushed himself to his feet.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” was all he said as he stepped out of the nest, walked past Shouta and out the door without a sound.

Shouta stared in baffled uncertainty at the construction in the middle of his floor, scratching a hand through his hair to loosen the strap holding his dark waves back, peppered gray like the quarry stones outside. Frankly, Shinsou wasn’t looking much better with the stripes of silver already breaking up the smooth wash of indigo despite his age. They were soldiers, in a watered down way, and they lived hard lives. Of course, Shouta had done better than his protégé regarding their hair. The omega was probably going to be gray by the time he reached his master’s age.

Maybe that was it. Shouta crouched down to investigate the beautifully crafted bed as he mused. He knew women sometimes went into baby mania, especially when growing older. Maybe the kunotoko just needed something to love and care for, and that might make him settle down a little. Truthfully, Shouta had been hoping to retire Shinsou soon anyway, give the omega a chance to live instead of following the rough, lonely path of his sensei. Shinobi weren’t meant to work forever. Their careers were greatest when they resembled the cycle of a cherry tree—short and sweet before anyone could start to pick up on patterns or recognize them.

Or kill them.

If Shinsou wanted a baby…

Shouta mentally beat himself out of that train of thought because he did not need to be the one who gave Shinsou that.

“I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Shouta rubbed at the tension in his forehead, the warning finally clicking in his mind. Perhaps Shinsou had already worn him down, but it wasn’t as if it was a completely disagreeable scenario. It would be easier to…

Shinsou deserved a doting husband who would be there for him and his children for the rest of his life.

Shouta shook his head and stood to disrobe, sliding his door shut while slipping his haori off. He was blind in one eye, for god’s sake… The scars littering his body were constant reminders he was lucky to still be alive and was pushing that luck each and every day. The thick, jagged tissue cutting a rude line from his calf to his thigh was the most recent. He’d been told he may lose it entirely when the wound was fresh, but he was fortunate it healed. Not well, as far as Shouta was concerned. He learned to adjust his gait to hide it well, but the joint was terribly stiff. It wasn’t pretty. Shouta held no reservation that he was particularly pretty either and was quite confused by Shinsou’s interest.

No, Shouta was a mess. He’d be lucky to see another ten years.

Shinsou, on the other hand… Shinsou was horribly pretty. He was still young and healthy. There was no sense in pursuing an old alpha ready to fall apart at any moment.