Dark wind whispered through obsidian boughs, their soft shuddering masking completely the sound of pale bare feet stepping lightly and leaving not an imprint in the new fallen snow. The moon's full gaze stared down, the stars prickling like innumerable tiny daggers shone in the clear sky, but their light seemed to shy away from the one who walked that night. As its shadow passed away and the light returned, where there should have been deep depressions from its path were only the smallest pinpricks of shimmering crimson blood.
-xXx- The Revenant Scroll -xXx-
(Act I, Scene I: O'er moonlit paths...)
The horse-drawn carriage bounced over ice and rocks hidden beneath the smothering blanket of snow. Its twin bobbing lanterns illuminated the road, though to call it a road was being generous to he who had blazed it through this dense forest in the Land of Wood. Driving the team of heavy-set horses sat an older man, gaunt with the strain of too many winters travelling the same path. Cloaked in black, he huddled further into his hood to escape the incessant and only deepening chill of their passage's biting wind.
Within the carriage, Tenten drew her bag closer to her chest and gazed out the window at the bouncing landscape just visible around the wine-colored velvet curtains matching the thin upholstery on the seats. Naught but the skeletal forms of dead trees hibernating in the cold could be seen, though the night was clear and the moon was just waning from full. Little warmer than the wilderness outside, she shivered within the carriage and pulled her gaze away to study the other occupant. One leg crossed over the other, his foot tapping impatiently in time with the horses' steady trot, Neji's pearl-hued eyes stared unwaveringly out the opposite window. Sensing the shift in her attention, he only turned his head and calmly returned her gaze.
A moment passed before Tenten finally broke away and glared out the window, muttering, "I don't like this."
Without a word, Neji waited for her to elaborate, the majority of his attention peripherally focused out his window in an almost unconscious act of perpetual suspicion of his surroundings.
"Who hires ninja to hunt a vampire? Aren't there vampire hunters who make their livings off of things like this?" she burst out, brown eyes flashing as she resumed her observation of her left and the path they were swiftly leaving behind. Her shoulder jostled uncomfortably against the dark wood as she watched the thin tracks of the carriage wheels behind them swiftly carving their path in the snow for any to see.
One shoulder lifted and fell with a shrug. "It's not a vampire," he said coolly in response. "It's probably just a murderer."
Disgruntled, she leaned back against the seat, crossing her arms. "Isn't that a job for the police, then?" she snapped, her right hand squeezing the cloth grip of her bag until the tendons showed through the fingerless leather gloves as she raised her left as if to pound it against the doorframe. "Or even genin?"
"You're upset that your first mission as a chuunin is something that could be handled by local police?" His eyes flicked over to her fully for a moment before returning to the window.
His even question, spoken with as much authority as a statement, angered her even more. "Yes," she growled, slowly relaxing her left hand until she pressed the palm against the wood as if trying to pull in the cold to calm herself. "The mission description doesn't require ninja. A murderer who drains the blood from his victims without leaving hardly a scratch on them? Capture or kill? That's completely beneath us at this level!"
"Then it will be completed with minimum expended effort." Again, he lifted one shoulder in an indifferent shrug. "Whether or not it's a mission worthy of shinobi is not our place to say. As long as we receive payment, I have no problem accepting whatever mission is given."
"Did anyone ever tell you that you're boring?"
Eyebrows raised, he snorted a quick laugh. "You. Countless times."
Silence descended on the cabin, the only audible noise the rattle of the carriage wheels and the whinny of the pulling horses. The landscape rushed by in an almost ethereal blur of dead trees slowly giving way to the occasional evergreen. Drowsily, Tenten felt herself begin to nod off in the monotonous repetitiveness. Resting her chin on her hand, she roughly shook her head and muffled a yawn. The carved lines through the snow from the bouncing wheels wound endlessly back until they disappeared in the fog of the gently blowing snow. The shadow of their tracks stood out like a stranger in the stillness of the forest, a tireless pursuer.
She narrowed her eyes and leaned forward, the bag on her lap sliding unheeded to the floor. "Neji." Tenten didn't take her eyes off the steadily approaching darkness. "Something's following us. Look at the tracks."
Turning in his seat, he glanced behind and studied the tracks left from the carriage's passage. Within the grooves in the snow, what at first glance seemed merely to be a shadow roiled and was gaining ground behind them, occasionally lapping up like an unruly river to splash the sides. "Byakugan," he muttered, focusing all of his Chakra to his eyes and activating his Kekkei Genkai. His muscles tensed, and his eyes thinned. "It's moving by Chakra," he stated, closing his eyes and letting the Kekkei Genkai deactivate.
"What is it?" She tore her gaze away to look at him questioningly as he didn't answer. "Neji?"
He shook his head and leaned over to unfasten the latch of the carriage door. "Driver!" he called. "We're getting out now. Continue to drive for another half-kilometer, then return for us. Understood?"
Tenten raised an eyebrow at his casual presumptuous commands to a man who hadn't even introduced himself, but the driver only nodded. "Whatever you say, shinobi-sama," the old man croaked over the rushing wind.
"Return for us?" she asked, eyebrow still raised as he sat back in the carriage and held the door closed.
He nodded toward her bag. "We're going to see what's following us and why. We must assume it's not friendly."
From the bag, she pulled a small scroll and nodded grimly. "Understood."
In perfect unpracticed unison, both jerked open the doors and leapt from the moving carriage. Tenten rolled in the snow to break the momentum of the fall and jump to her feet, scroll tucked securely in her belt. The carriage continued without pause, the doors banging once against the sides with a resounding crack before the latch caught, and it moved on as if nothing had happened. Communicating without words, she and Neji darted forward in a weaving zigzag as the encroaching shadow stopped and churned within the narrow groove of the carriage track. Upon closer examination, the shadow was a liquid, thick as syrup.
Sensing the buildup of Chakra within her partner, she understood that he'd again activated his Kekkei Genkai and pulled her scroll from her belt with one hand, simultaneously biting the scab off her thumb. A single drop of blood fell slowly from the tiny wound as she pulled open the scroll with her free hand and her teeth, but as that insignificant droplet plummeted, the viscous twin threads of fluid veritably leapt forward in an eager bound.
"Tenten, move!" Neji concentrated Chakra in his palm and shot it like a jet of compressed air. The Chakra-laced fluid screamed upon contact and rose like two snakes, twining about another and whipping forward.
Momentarily forgotten, Tenten swiped her bloody thumb against the first symbol of her scroll, snatching the summoned kunai and clenching it in her teeth. With that one hand, she threw the scroll forward to let it unravel until the proper symbol revealed itself. Several paper bombs materialized in her hand, and she let fall all but one, dropping the scroll and wrapping the exploding tag around the handle of the kunai. "Neji!" Trusting him to comprehend her plan, she leapt into the air, spinning in a tight pirouette to add momentum before letting the dagger fly. As soon as she released her grip, the paper bomb began to sizzle as the kunai sliced through the air, embedding itself in the curiously thick fluid and driving the screaming mass to the ground. She landed and sprinted to the safety of the tress, catching a quick glimpse of Neji running opposite her to his own cover on the other side.
The flash momentarily blotted out the moon, the shockwave knocked her from her feet and hurtled her forward. A smaller explosion raced across her vision as her shoulder cracked against the trunk of a tree. Spitting out a mouthful of snow, Tenten shuddered as the shrieking wail of the liquid-creature faded into silence. Heavy droplets splattered to the ground amidst shards of destroyed kunai and shattered tree branches as she pushed herself to her feet. Wincing as her shoulder complained loudly, she clutched the strained tendons and stumbled to the remains of the Chakra-thing. Already kneeling beside it, Neji's brow furrowed as he gazed into the thick remnants pooling in the crater from the explosion. "The Chakra is gone," he said as she knelt next to him. "If it were ever truly alive to begin with, it's dead now."
With a grimace, she stripped the glove from her unwounded hand with her teeth and dipped a finger in the fluid. Rubbing her finger and thumb together before her eyes and tentatively sniffing it, she frowned and looked to Neji. "It's blood," she said finally, wiping her stained fingers in the snow.
"Human or otherwise?" Not expecting an answer, Neji pulled from his equipment holster a small bottle and collected a sample, twisting the cap tightly shut. Brow raised, he remarked, "You were saying about this not being a mission fit for ninja?"
A/N: Welcome to The Revenant Scroll, my latest work! I'm suffering a serious case of writer's block with Itsuka, so here I am, writing some NejiTen to try and regain the writing flow. This was inspired by listening to the song The Revenant Choir by the JRock band VERSAILLES. I'll post a link to the streaming song on my profile if anyone is interested.
As with all of my literary work, additional information such as deleted scenes, Q&A, and author's notes are posted on my livejournal (the link to which is also in my profile), including translation and language notes for when I venture out of English, which I will do occasionally. I hope to see you in a review; constructive criticism is extremely welcome. Even flame if you want; they're fun to read. This is my first time writing a "Gothic" setting and my first time really trying to stick to third-person objective, so I'd love feedback. Thanks for reading, and I hope to see you back soon for chapter two!