Open Window
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By FlightAngel
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Originally done for a NejiOC pairing. However, as I am totally and absolutely against OCs being paired up with canon characters, I improvised. Because the OC was basically a female Sasuke (Sharingan, had a curse mark, has black hair, etc.) I made it so that it could be taken either way (It could be a NejiOC and a NejiSasu depending how you look at it.) That is why the story is as it is.
Hopefully, this will explain why Sasuke chooses that specific name for the game.
Anyway, enjoy.
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Cold. Bare. The winter snow, nestling into my boots and, inevitably, sinking into my skin. Slapping me across the cheek, my face, dusty red.
The snows have come early. Too early. The white has smothered the countryside while the trees are still fresh and alive with green. Healthy. Life.
"This drift's gonna slow us down," one of the five jounin whisper from behind my ear. Freezing. It's numbing—my legs, my hands, my cheeks, even my chest, so cold and losing touch.
It hurts.
"Just trudge through it," I growl back, blinking twice—making sure my contacts were in and that they weren't floating about—"as long as we keep track of those foreign ninja." A nod. Understanding.
Flash, the cold whipping against me, black hair ghostly tickling my temple as our speed increases—two fold, three fold, four fold, five, until we are but streaks of green on an otherwise pale white ground.
Attack, spinning. Unleashing our jutsu as we inevitably catch up with the enemy—four, men—slashes of kunai spinning about, shuriken, it hurts, blood, splattering, tainting, seeping into the snow and ground, screams.
Duck. Roll. Head under with a kunai. Damn, damn, damn those requirements—the Hokage warned me not to use that, it'll be too obvious who I was—am—but then I am also restricted here—fall onto the ground, kick, more kunai, shuriken piercing into my shoulder. Numbed—it doesn't hurt. Instead, I pull it out and, immediately smelling the Chakra-poison on its tips, just as quickly vanish from the scene as I had came in.
Stumbling, eyes feeling heavy. Damn contacts. Damn snow. Limping, slightly, running as far away from the fight as I can so by the time I am done and over with I am far enough to avoid my death. A certain death.
Stumble.
Cold.
Stumble.
The snow, greedily inhaling my warmth, snuggling into the crook of my neck, my back, the inside of my shoes, as I lurch onto a tree. Short gasps.
Clouds of fog.
"…screw it all."
Blackness.
--
Voices. Some high, some low, calculating—house, small, wooden, foreign—"—it's a ninja, Mommy! Look! She's waking up!"
She? Ok, play along, just play along—I feel the child turn away, feel her glance, and I perform a transformation on myself, changing me, slightly, so I was not quite what I looked like—privacy and such. I cannot let anyone find out who I was—am. It hurts.
Roll up, look disgruntled. Hair mussed. Blink. Contacts still in. Good.
"Hey! You ok?" Self-check. My jounin uniform's gone—I sense it on the shelf next to me. A wound in the shoulder, several cuts on my leg, head throbbing. Probably a mild concussion. Blearily look up—see a small girl, smiling, smiling back, say—
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"Look, Mommy! The Ninja talks!"
"Shh, don't be so rude! Here, you go out and I'll talk to her…"
It hurts.
Look inconspicuous. The lady obviously knows ninja well.
"I have to get back to my village."
A nod of understanding. "Konoha is just a few miles down the road—" Peering. "You sure you don't need more time?"
"I have to evaluate the mission status and get in contact with my fellow ninja."
Sad eyes look into mine—fake ones, contacts, but she doesn't know that—and she opens the window. Window. The game flashes through mind—and is gone. Limping out the bed and tugging the jounin vest on, I thank her and ducking down, jump out. And vanish. It would really be too sad for her little girl to see her precious "ninja" gone.
Transformation is still on. Don't know who's around the corner—if I am spotted by a fellow ninja that would be bad; the mission was supposed to be secret. Even our own brothers are dangerous. I jump off the edges of the roofs, a blur, over clotheslines, onto streets. The forests come in view and I duck into their familiar canopy, leaves welcoming be back, though full of danger.
Danger. Stumble.
Dammit. Stab, pain. Stop, stagger—I make sure I land on a tree branch and I don't end up splattered across the underbrush.
Ha. I just made a hurt. I mean a joke. I mean—it hurts.
It hurts, it hurts, it HURTS.
Twisting noise. Too bright, too fast, too hard to control; the dam is burst. Suddenly writhing again, in sheer agony as the heat burns its way through my body—out of control, totally out, no, dammit, NOT NOW—my arm, my neck, my shoulders, the horrible marks crawling upon my skin as I collapse, slide with a jolt down the tree, fall over, screaming silently, pleadingly—I had overexerted myself; the chakra needed to keep it sealed was gone, used up, no, no, dammit, it's my own fault, I should've kept a closer watch, over—
No, no, no, no, someone stop it! Keep away from me, no, someone come and help, keep away from me! Another presence and being, heat radiating near me, no, go away, keep away, or else—or else—agh, no! A hand, soft and familiar.
"—are you ok?"
Pupils hollow with grief, face contorted. Snapping. My restraint has gone.
No! No, no, no—ripping, blood, hair, caking my uniform as I lose it, the curse clutching my very being, writhing outside, writhing within as I painfully recognize the figure above me—white eyes, who won't?—and I pray, in all my agony, let the jutsu hold, let the jutsu hold, no, dammit, stop!
Pain contorting outwards as, surprised, the ninja lashes back, a flurry of kunai and shuriken tossing, blood soaking the dirt beneath us until finally the hand lets go. It draws its sickening black mass from my body and slithers away back to that curse, that agonizing curse which torments me—slithers back as I collapse, covered in either mine or his blood—I can't tell.
Grief. It hurts so much, shaking me to the pit of my stomach. Shivering, as a slightly ragged hand—the flesh torn off, no, no, no, I did that—reaches over me.
"Sleep," he says. And I, exhausted and thoroughly done up with useless pride, do so.
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Cold. Neji liked his rooms slightly chilly. Bandages covering the side of his hand and up his arm, his face and stomach area, leg snapped, though unwilling to go to the doctor, resting on a chair, backwards, so he can lean on its back and stare at the figure unmoving on his bed. Dark. Neji liked his rooms dim, too.
A moan from the ninja. A Konoha jounin, he analyzed, slightly standing up and wincing at his uncooperative left foot. Limp. Step. A hand on the nin's temple.
Breathing, steady, as the Hyuuga leans forward and sees his temporary companion. Smile, maybe a smirk.
"I know you're awake."
No response. Finally, an eye cracks open. Dark red with black designs—the hollow Sharingan. Neji carefully shows the figure the dark black contacts he had extracted when first inspecting the jounin, smirking, though eyes dark with grief.
"Why are you still here?"
A pause. Nothing. Silent, so deep and dark it slithers across his skin like the acidic feel of a snake. A sigh. Neji's.
Let's start the game.
"What's your… name?"
Cracked voice. Eyes, dark with suspicion and an urge to flee, clutching the sheets under the covers. Neji notices. He is the all-knowing, all-seeing Neji and even such a miniscule movement is not lost to his ghostly pale eyes.
"Mi…Miya."
Miya. Good one. Funny. Not that this game was funny—pretending to not know each other, to not see each other, to pretend to be just-met-colleagues, to pretend that all this was routine, the ninja way of checking up on one another. A whole puppet world of make-believe—the strings almost visible in the dim light.
"Last name?"
"…Fu…Fushigi…"
Silence. Obvious disbelief. The light flits through blinds as Neji shifts his weight, back to the figure, though even his own head could not keep the bloodline limit from doing its work. Pure silence, hissing with anticipation.
"Nice to meet you Fushigi Miya. You do not need to know my name. You need to get to the Hokage, correct?"
Nod. Play along. This is make-believe, an act, a pretend-to-be, when really the two wanted to entwine fingers and perhaps nuzzle with each other—but this was their ninja way. They were ninjas. They are ninjas. The silence is deafening as the air takes on pressure from more lies.
"…yes." Shift, eyes closed. Don't look at my Sharingan. Please. Light is flitting more insistently now, beckoning. Neji, who does not look back, carefully put his hand under the coverlet and onto the jounin's arm.
Stiffen. Relax. Grasping it in his, he sighs.
"I saved you because you are a ninja like me. I have no duty to you nor you, me. Return to the Hokage—they are probably waiting for you." The words and actions do not match—but that is ok. It is part of the game.
He feels the creaminess of the ninja's skin, pale, smooth, warm underneath his touch. A caress—the only sign of emotion. Affection. Something forbidden.
It is part of the game.
Pause. The warmth is gone—no, don't go, I want more, I don't care, if it is forbidden, a forbidden love, I don't care, just stay here with me, no—and the pressure of the man on the bed is released as he carefully walks to the blinds.
The ninja watches as the other carefully tugs the blinds up, light spilling across the room. Not once looking back, not once acknowledging this tiring game of make-believe. Make-believe, it is said, is for children. Though not always.
A ninja is a player in make-believe.
That is how it is.
That is how it will always be.
He opened the window.
Turned back, once, soft eyes sad and painful, turning back. No more lies. No more pretend. Of course, that is only a lie in itself, really. Everything was a lie to a lie, pretending to be pretending.
"Miya" lies, awake, and waits until Neji is gone. Tiptoe. Ninja style, up to the window.
Look around.
Black hair blowing across my cheeks, eyes red as crimson, mark dark as my pitiless heart. Not once looking back. Not once dropping the act.
Out the window.
Gone.
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Request made by Hanyou-Chan-2006, DeviantArt. This story is also on my dA account along with a crappy vector drawing (my dA username is also FlightAngel).