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The Beach, Tuesday Morning

He'd gotten to the beach early: early enough to have seen the sun come up. Staying at the apartment to rest seemed, intellectually, like the right idea (sleep to catch up on, baby materials to clear out of the house), but the restlessness in his limbs wouldn't let him. So Nathan sat, alone, a bottle of water by his side, watching the tide come in.

For a while, his eyes were pulled to a crab, struggling to move through the sand. Then to Madagascar, far and yet close.

Maybe he should pay it a visit. His powers might've been limited to the island, but that didn't mean he had to be. Permanently or temporarily.

For the moment, though, he just sat.

[ open like a beach. ]

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It was after first period, and Ino knew that she should probably be heading to Wellspring to give Tether back, but she was taking the longest way possible to get there.

And Tether seemed to enjoy the beach. Ino grinned a bit when she spotted Cable-san. She didn't have to go and see Temari then. Excellent.

Ino knelt down beside Tether, he licked her face, she giggled, and let him off his lead. "Go see your Dad," she told him, pointing at Cable-san. "I'll follow."

He wasn't absorbed enough in his thoughts that he didn't hear Ino coming, but the dog had achieved an altogether stealthier approach-- one minute Nathan was sitting there, brooding, the next he had an enthusiastic Tether jumping up against his arm in an attempt to get to his face.

When the initial surprise faded, he brought up a hand to pet the dog, brushing a thumb behind Tether's ears with a faint, almost non-existent smile. "Morning, Ino."

"Mornin', Cable-san," she said, wandering over to him, Tether's lead dangling in her hands. "How're you feeling today?"

Edited 2008-06-17 14:43 (UTC)

"I'm good," he replied, looking up. "You're improving."

...

Improving? "At healing? Yeah, I guess a bit," having to heal her own bruises all the time did net her a fair bit of practice. "I don't have any of the more advanced stuff to start learning though."

"Would you be able to get any books from home?" Cable asked, curiously. Ino's powers could be an asset; especially if he'd be heading out into some of these trouble zones in the near future.

"I might," she said, considering that, "but then I'd have to figure out how to explain why I need the more advanced stuff and not the starter stuff. I mean, they keep track of the who is learning medical jutsu, 'cause it's one of the more dangerous things to try learning on your own, and it's also pretty much the single rarest sort of ninja. We don't have many medical nin. Lots of doctors, but that's more traditional stuff, you know?"

"Or you could just start by asking for the basics," he replied, pulling Tether closer for a good scritch. Maybe he had missed the dog, to an extent. "It seems like a valuable skill."

"I've got a fair bit of that," Ino said, "Kabuto gave me his starter notebook and I never gave him back the scrolls he was teaching me from."

"I know," he said, mildly-- in general, at least, "However, I think your village elders might be a little happier giving you further instruction if they feel you've learned it the right way in the first place. It's one thing to know something, it's another entirely to be able to do something with it."

Ino wrinkled her nose slightly. "It's going to be really odd though to have, you know, two copies of the same book. And some of those are expensive." Supply and demand, she remembered Sakura complaining about it. "I mean, it'd get me under the radar, though. Even if Dad would so write and demand on knowing why I've got time to buy medical books but not write to him."

"It's something to consider," he said, simply. And not just for her, either-- for a couple of reasons. Which he was going to keep to himself. "I take it your class went well."

"I'll look into it." She grinned, just a bit. "We talked about good and evil." A beat. "And cows, cats, crows, bugs and stealing lollipops from babies."

Best class on justice ever in her opinion. Ino's opinion was probably suspect in this matter.

Right.

"I see the school's continuing to maintain its policies on teaching about the judicidial system," he deadpanned, with a lift of an eyebrow.

She grinned. "It's an awesome class," Ino said, "though, really, all of mine are this term."

"Anything else I should be wary of?"

He'd take notes. Probably.

Ino blinked at him.

"In my classes?"

"Yep."

He was smirking a little with harmless amusement by this point.

Um.

"...bomb class continues to be awesome?"

"Bomb class?"

Durden's, the former student. Rikku was in it, too. But that hadn't told him everything about the actual class itself.

"Just like it sounds, we're learning how to make bombs and then get to practice blowing stuff up in the danger room." The class bits where he talked about the right and wrong times to blow things up might've been ignored by Ino. You blew things up when the mission called for it. End-of-story. "I can make a bomb just starting from making soap. It's fun." A beat. "And explody."

"And also dangerous." The first thought on his mind... "Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Cable deadpanned. The school's class selection was... often worrying.

Not that the skills couldn't come in handy in some situations, but... "I hope he's taught you the necessary precautions?"

But fun!

"...like the whole... make sure you're out of range, make sure you know how much damage each bomb does, becareful while mixing and stuff? A bit. But, isn't that like common sense?"

"You'd be surprised," he said, dryly. "Anyone can make an explosive-- but determining the how, where and why of detonation is something else entirely."

Anything could be useful. But only if used responsibly. Limiting loss of life.

...

Like not taking a grenade into a bar.

Ino glanced at him. "If the mission calls for a bomb, then the mission calls for a bomb. Not a whole lot of thinking there."

"Using a bomb means causing harm to others," he said, glancing back and keeping his gaze set firmly on her face. "Which makes you responsible for the damage. Which means you also have a responsibility to consider your choices. To the people who might get caught in the blast."

...

Ino was pretty sure he wasn't going to like her answer. At all. She said it anyway though.

"So? Long as you get your target, don't hit your teammates..." What's the problem?

"Someone doesn't have to be one of your loved ones to be a person in their own right," Cable said, his gaze not wavering in the slightest. "Dreams, hopes, warts and all. You're responsible for your own actions, Ino. You don't get to ignore that responsibility simply because you act on someone who isn't your teammate. Especially when you end a life."

It was, he knew, a lot like hitting a brick wall, and any strategies as to dealing with it had been shoved aside due to more urgent things. Now, though... he was thinking.

Ino shrugged. "Not my problem though, is it? Not my fault some guy decided that they wanted them killed, or that Hokage-sama took the job and passed it down to us. People want people killed, they go to the ninja villages." She sat down, drawing her legs up close. "So why should I care about them? They're just... incidental to the mission."

"Because they're people," he said, and of course it wasn't working. "Who might feel, or have felt, everything you have. If nothing else, you owe them consideration of the whys. So much needless pain has been caused because men and women simply failed to ask themselves a question. To take some responsibility."

Like him and Apocalypse.

He looked away, finally, considering the waves again, Tether's fur still a steady presence against his hand.

"Sure they're people," Ino said, irritated, "but I don't see why I'm supposed to care." Because she didn't. "You do the job, that's what matters."

"But who decides the job..." he asked, rhetorically, trailing off. Then got up, gently pushing Tether away. "It's time I get him home." Cable held up a hand for the leash.

She handed him the leash, wrinkling her nose.

"I'm still not with the getting why it matters, Cable-san."

Taking the leash, Cable glanced at her one more time. "It's only the difference between tearing something apart and building something to last," he said, as he turned to leave. "Killing a thousand men, blowing up a hundred mountains-- it rarely accomplishes anything worthwhile."

With a firm tread, he began to walk.

She stayed where she was. "Depends on your perspective," she noted, as he started going away, "and what you consider worthwhile."

"There are some things," he replied, "Which shouldn't be up to perspective."

And made his way up the beach, into town.

Edited 2008-06-17 17:40 (UTC)

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The Beach, Tuesday Morning

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