Six Feet Under, and Still Breathing: The Jaded Light

What We Are Now
It was the crack of morning. The sun was just rising up over the hills, getting ready to grace the sand dunes with its heavenly light. Surprisingly, there wasn't much activity going on; there were few Adjuchas running around and tearing each other to shreds, and there weren't even any flying Hollows covering the skies. All in all, it looked like a devastated city, with nothing more than dense spiritual energy holding it up. However, when one stepped inside the innards of the area, it seemed like any other home, set up in a particularly comfortable fashion. It was like someone had taken the destroyed remnants and fixed them up as if they had never been annihilated at all.

And one of the helpers that made it that way was about to wake up.

"Urrgh..." A feminine groan could be heard from one of the rooms. Inside there was two people. The woman placed her hands to her face, trying to adjust herself from her dormant state. As she looked over her shoulder, she could see the prostrate figure lying behind her, arms wrapped around her. A small grin crawled up her face, her mind going back to the events of the night before this morning. Slowly, she allowed herself to move, knowing that she would probably wake up her husband.

Her name was Tereya Haruo.

His name was Nori.

"Nnnn..."

As she moved, the small amount of drool that had collected in her husbands mouth smeared across her arm, drenching it. In a few moments, it would dry, leaving an uncomfortable residue on her bicep. The man himself had hardly been woken; despite his wife's movement, he still clung to her dearly, head buried into her shoulder and eyes shut tight as they would go. As he slept, more and more drooled pooled onto his wife's arm.

Tereya should have stocked up on paper towels.

"O...oh, my god!"

Growling, and clearly annoyed, Tereya turned herself to face him as much as she could, with his arms wrapped around her. She was probably going to jump right into an argument for this later on, but the guy was being disgusting, at a bad time! She pulled himself right out of his arms, but stayed close to him in order to make sure she'd actually hit him. She pulled her arm back, took a deep breath....

And backhanded him across the face, the strength enough to knock him out of their bed.

SMACK!

Nori slid backwards off the bed, before finally falling off backwards off of it, landing on his head, then watching in disdain as the rest of his body came slamming down after it. Fortunately, he was out of her line of sight... He didn't care what her reason was; if she thought he wasn't going to retaliate, then she was one dumb bitch.

"You fucker!"

The bed they had been so comfortably resting on flew towards her at breakneck speeds, with Nori holding one of it's legs and swinging it like a bat. She was going to pay for waking him up so rudely... Weren't they past that point in their relationship?! What kind of example would this set for their daughter!?

"...oh, boy."

Thank God she had Shunpo.

Barely, she was able to avoid being crushed against the wall by the bed they oh-so slept in, on one knee and on one foot in a kneeling pose. She looked over at Nori, grinning in a rather smug manner. "Mornin', honey..." She drawled, as if nothing had ever happened. However, she could easily assume that he wasn't going to just shake it off like she could. "How was your sleep?" With one hand, she attempted to wipe off the drool on her shoulder.

Without any hesitation at all, he took the broken leg still in his hand and flicked his wrist; launching it at her like a spear. However, his expression wasn't one of fury, nor did he show any visible signs that he was anything other than a little grumpy because it was morning. A slight nod was directed at the drool she was wiping off of her shoulder, but it didn't really occur to him that it could be his. Nori drooling was as likely as Tereya having dimples.

"Good morning, Tereya... it was nice, but I had some trouble getting up."

"Oh, I bet you did..." Tereya grumbled, looking over at the bed... that was smashed up against the wall. Standing up, she walked over to it and reached within the boards. "And I think you woke up Mitsune... hell, with that, you might as well have woken up the neighbors." Fishing out a lighter and a cigarette, she placed the butt end within her mouth, lit it, and tossed the lighter away in a swift motion.

In a similar motion, a small blonde girl with unmanigable hair took the thown lighter and a conveniently stolen cigarette, popped the bud into her mouth, then lit in; perfect in her mimicry of her mother. It took Nori a few moments to figure out what had actually just happened before he used his spiritual pressure to extinguish both of their flames. The girl, however, didn't seem to be infuriated by it, simply pulling the cigarette slowly out of her mouth before exhaling a perfect ring into her mother's face.

"Mitsune says good morning!"

"...."

For a moment, Tereya kept her eyes shut, the corners twitching. A vein was showing in her jaw, showing clear agitation at both the swiping of her precious cigarette, and the smoke blown in her face. A grin, despite herself, crossed her countenance, and she looked at the small girl with pupil-shrunken eyes. "Good mornin' to you too, ya little bitch...." She muttered, not bothering to hide her irritation.

A devilish grin was shot back at her as the girl dropped the cigarette to the floor. "Who're you callin' a bitch, you tired out whore..?" Mitsune taunted, then gained an entirely clueless expression on her face. It only took a moment for it to be replaced with a cheery smile. "Mitsune's gonna take a bath!" She shouted enthusiasticly, then disintegrated into a red outline, surely heading to the bathroom.

Nori, however, was not as amused as his wife. Staring at her maliciously, he let his hand fly in a large arc, smacking her lightly upside the head and causing the cigarette that was still in her mouth to fall promptly to the floor. "It's your fault she's like that..." He grunted, folding his arms.

Briefly mourning the loss of another cigarette, she raised her head up, a rather tired expression and frown coming over her face. "I know. Just like Mom, right?" She asked, allowing herself to step towards the mirror that was hung on another wall. As she started to take a look at herself, she sighed heavily, raising a hand and taking a strand of her newly colored hair to her face. Ever since the years had went by, it was already starting to get lighter, though the process would no doubt be slow. She was so used to the black hair that had always been around with her... hopefully, it would stay this color for a while.

At least she had kept most of her physique... Grinning a little, Tereya decided to show off a little, performing some poses and stretching in order to check herself. Though she felt like she had lost most of her "battle form", she didn't mind the fact that she was becoming a lot more... ladylike. Was it because she had finally allowed herself to settle in? Or was it simply because of the after-effects of the child? If the latter was possible, she silently thanked Mitsune for being born.

"You should lose that baby fat already." Nori chided, looking away as she began posing in front of her mirror. She looked better when she had abs... Not to mention that her hair had changed color, as well as her eyes... It was like he was married to a completely different person. "And why don't you dye your hair like a normal person?... I don't like you with brown hair..."

"Me, neither..." Tereya agreed promptly. "Go get me some dye and I'll be glad to do that...." Standing straight, Tereya put her hands to her face for a moment, before she moved them away in a "peek-a-boo" fashion. A fake smile was on her face, her blue eyes wide. Then, when she moved to cover her face again, it was fixed with her traditional scowl, as well as dnagerously narrowed eyes. Her irises had switched from blue to red in a matter of seconds.

Nori dismissed her demand easily with a wave of his hand as he sat on the floor, his gaze shifting lower to the stone floor below. "... Maybe we should get a new bed..." He grumbled to himself, though it was loud enough for Tereya to hear. After a short pause, he directed his attention back to her. "After you broke our last one, I guess I'm going to have to pay for... steal... A new one, right?"

"!!!" An alerted and annoyed expression came over Tereya's face, and she stared at Nori incredulously. "Me?" She repeated, dumbfounded. "I'm not the one who used the bed as a baseball bat!! Who the fuck did you think you were, Barry Bonds?!" She turned to face him, fixing him with an irate glare.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that the woman who never watches T.V. and only enjoys going to walks knows about sports. So you're a baseball enthusiast now?" Nori fixed a stare at Tereya. It was fun to poke holes in her character.

"Hey, I watch TV!" Tereya corrected, folding her arms across her chest. "At least, when I was with Kuro...but only when I'm really fuckin' bored.... and that's a lot. Besides..." She walked over to him, until she was standing right in front of him. "I don't actually think there's gonna be cable here in these parts.

"That's the point, you retard." He grumbled, not bothering to be irritated by the fact that his head was near her waist because he was sitting on the floor. "Don't make me smack the shit out of you, like I did when we were in that hotel room... You don't want that to happen again, right?" Nori giggled. It wasn't as if she could actually do anything to shut him up.

"Oh, really?" Smirking at the memory, Tereya allowed herself to go into a kneeling position so that she could look Nori in the face, almost daring him to repeat his actions. "Well, I don't think you want your head bashed into the floor right now, either, so that makes two of us."