Chapter Sixteen is coming soon. Chill out. It's over 40 something pages long.

"People..." an epiphany, or an interesting thought barely grasped, and the word slips out like a tired, exhausted whisper while a shot glass is raised to the ceilingandlooked through -everything beyond and through it hued amurky-amber-gold-red.

"...?" a shift of a still head as ears perk up. The head stays down, too tired or bored to move as a sense of 'This is going to be something vaguely important' enters the mind.

"...Are like islands." The words heaved out in a sigh as the shot glass clinks down on the table preceding a head dropping onto and into a pair of crossed arms.

Deigning it necessary to, or interested enough, the question is proposed. "How so?"

The shot glass is emptied, clangs back down onto the table with a vaguely wooden thud. "Hit me, and I'll tell you."

The bottle is cold and clammy, like dead skin on ice or wet silverfish bellies in the sun.

"They're all...like islands." A hiccup, a swig. "...Small, lonely islands..." a pause. "...that have water on every side of them."

A vulpine smirk in the darkness and the head rises. "Most islands I've seen generally have water on every side of them.", withholding a chuckle as this is said.

"Thas' not what I meant...", downing another glass, swaying almost hypnotically with the music in the background. The band was actually good tonight.

"What do you mean, then?" another question, another edge, another want or need to know.

Another hiccup spoiled the moment. "We...We keep everything to ourselves, you know?" a vague, angry gesture with thin, ivory Med-nin hands that were not med-nin trained. "Like freaking vacuums. We suck in all that emotion, all that scary shit we have to do..." the eyes across the table watch, and blaze, like sapphires in a storm of fire. "...and for what?"

This time, there is a drink right out of the bottle. "...Cuz' we're fuckin' shinobi, that why." The voice is bitter, angry, hateful. "We're contract killers. Assassins for hire, mercenaries and psychopaths that can fry your ass from half a mile away..."

Wide, violet eyes watch from across the table, interested in the depth of the thought. "...shit like that, man."

A bitter, too-old-to-be-nineteen laugh. "You're insane."

"Oh, I know this." Said while balancing a glass atop three others, seemingly finding these glasses in thin air that is, in fact, thicker than thick with cancer-smoke.

The head that was raised falls back down to the arms on the table.

"Where's the honor? Where's the fuckin' pride?"

A laugh, barking, high, almost-psychotic like don't you get the point that there is no point?.

"Honor? What the fuck? I've killed fuckin' children, man, I have no honor anymore."

Another bottle, and the one thereafter, downed completely.

"We're from bloodlines, or at least I am. Your just..." a look across the table, either derogatory or examining. "...Whatever. the point is that we're not samurai. We're supposed to be honorable."

Another laugh. "That's pretty twisted logic." A small pause, a thought, a lopsided smirk. "...seeing as our entire way of life is, essentially derived around killing samurai."

A tired shrug." 'still logic. You shouldn't be so sober, either."

"Shinobi don't get drunk."

"Then what do they get?"

"Inebriated."

"Fuckin' prat."

A moment, a thought, a raise of the head and a dangle of arms at the sides of the chair. "Honor's jus' another concept, seriously. Don't get hung over it."

A lift of another head, and the bottle is gone. "We're all just lonely islands, my friend...Just lost, insignificant little islands...""

A smile, a clink of a bottle against one that was not raised. "Hijos de putas, every single one of us, right?"

A question, a raised eyebrow. "What the hell does that mean?"

A shrug. "No clue. Heard it once in the Sand. Sounded fairly curse-y."

A flick of the nose, a tired "Idiot."

A stick of his tongue out at him. "Chicken-wuss"

"Gimme another beer."

Thinking that is not a good idea. "I'm thinkin' you've had enough, mefriend"

A drop of the head. "We are all islands...I'm surrounded by water but I'm still thirsty."

The other head crashed against the back of the chair. "Please, no more asinine realizations..."

"We are all like islands, every single one of us. We're like fishermen, casting lines out in seas of death, depression, and..." standing, and preaching, and drawing attention no one should'e given.

"Something else that starts with the letter D!" supplied, yelled, appluaded and laughed.

Swaying on feet, clutch the table for support. "Yeah! D! We're fuckin' islands man, and we're lonely little fuckers, and we kill, and we destroy, and we're shinobi, right?"

In the back of the bar, a shout of "Damn straight!"

"Then none of this should matter! We're not at fuckin' war with the world tonight, man! We're alive! We're gonna have a goddamn party like we were fuckin' livin' human beings!"

The party rages.

Sitting back down, legs jumping up and looking at the world through a glass of liquor.
"Yeah...Like we're human beings...Pfft... We're all goddamn islands...We're all motherfuckin'shinobi around here..."

"Damn straight. Now quiet bitching about it and drink."

.Fairly Pointless.