Here We Are
Author's Note: This was a response to my reviewer spriterx, who reviewed my ItaTema story asking for another story with Temari paired up with an Akatsuki member. So, naturally, I pick the most obscure one and write a story about it. Cheers!
Disclaimer: Naruto, its characters, and all related plot elements belong to Masashi Kishimoto.
The older sister of the Godaime Kazekage was not a rare sight in the streets of Sunagakure. The older sister with a man other than her brothers, her sensei, or her friends from the Leaf Village was. Seeing such a couple was probably as rare as seeing a plant out in the middle of the desert.
So, one may easily see, why it seemed so strange to see Temari with both.
Alas, that is not where the story begins. It is not even when the main part of the story takes place. No, it all started around two hours before...
The blonde kunoichi had been walking in the streets of the Sand Village, from her brother's office to the house she shared with her siblings. A house of considerable size, it lay somewhat separate from the rest of the village, despite being the shelter of the infamous Kazekage and his powerful family. Due to this, the journey from the heart of the village to their not-quite-so-humble abode lasted much longer than any other journey through the Hidden Village, much to the chagrin of the Sand Siblings. Nevertheless, the dwelling was a comfortable and accommodating one, so the trio endured the longer time in the blistering desert weather, air conditioning and a cold drink in mind the entire walk.
Occasionally, however, their minds often wandered from their precious air conditioning due to some of the rather...strange sightings in Sunagakure. After all, if Suna easily produced people like the Sand Siblings—and only Kami-sama knows exactly how easily—one can imagine what other kinds of people could be found in the Sand Village, be they villagers or vacationers. The vacationers and visitors seemed often the stranger because...well...who in their right mind visits or vacations in the desert?
And so, Temari's mind wandered from her usual thoughts of lemonade along with a soft couch in front of a television set to the wonderment at the man standing beside the road. Now, as everyone knows, outdoor vegetation is scarce in the Sand Village, as the terrain is that of a desert, and most plants there grow in greenhouses, so one must agree with the kunoichi's reaction at the sight of the strange person. After all, a plant—assumably a very large Venus flytrap—encased his head.
"What the hell." It came out as more of a disbelieving statement rather than the intended disbelieving question.
"You shouldn't stare," the man responded monotonously without even glancing her way—he seemed to be staring out into the desert for an obscure reason that Temari could not imagine. He then added in an icier tone as he turned towards her with a lopsided maniacal grin, "I just might decide to eat you."
The kunoichi almost laughed at the idea of the man with a plant on his head eating her, but she abruptly ceased her erupting laughter when she saw he was quite serious, indeed. Or, at least, the black half of his face was.
"You're kidding, right?"
"Maybe." Then, in the creepier tone: "No."
She tried blackmail. "If you eat me, both of my brothers and three quarters of the male population of Suna will be after you, along with my friends from the Leaf." Apparently, the Suna males were very deprived of the opposite gender.
"You look delicious."
Was she supposed to take it as a compliment? Temari had no clue. "Thank you...?"
"You're welcome."
The blonde relaxed a bit when he used his more normal tone. "Nice cloak. Aren't you hot?"
"No. Just thirsty." A pause. "And very hungry. You look delicious."
"Cut that delicious crap, okay?" she snapped, irritated with the man despite his amicability at some points. "Are you trying to flirt with me or something?"
"No." It came in the 'normal', bland voice. "He really thinks you look delicious."
"Well, just stop it—wait, he? You mean to say that someone else is talking?" Gawking was the only word to describe Temari's expression at that moment.
The cloaked man nodded.
She almost laughed again, feeling strangely delighted that she had found someone with a worse case of multiple personalities than Gaara. Of course, the blame truly lay with Shukaku as it was his fault for her youngest brother's second façade, but she still entertained herself by comparing it to this man who seemed to have two minds in one body. Although, that technically was what Gaara suffered from, but this person seemed to have it worse. Heck, he was half black and half white, and it seemed that each side spoke to the other. At least Gaara didn't have his conversations out loud! Most of the time, that is.
"You're crazy," the blonde finally concluded, making her way past him and to her wonderful air-conditioned house that lay all too far away. "You're crazy, and I'm leaving you so I can have lemonade and forget that I had a conversation with a crazy plant-man-thing."
She turned, however, when the man spoke in a low voice, as though he wished to be unheard, "No, stay. I want to eat you." He paused in what appeared to be contemplation before talking again, "I apologize about him. He's really very hungry right now. We've been having trouble getting to River Country, so we have taken a break here. By chance, do you know of any restaurants nearby?"
Now, Temari, having grown up in a rather odd place and around rather odd people, had become accustomed to many odd things—demon raccoon-dogs made of sand encasing her younger brother and freaky puppet-things popping out of nowhere included. Despite the many strange things the blonde had seen, never in her entire eighteen years of living had she been asked for nearby restaurants by a man with a plant on his head. Of course, she had never even seen a man with a plant on his head, but that's another story.
So, as expected, her reaction was one of disbelief. "What?!" She seemed to be having those kinds of reactions a lot more often lately, especially with the appearance of a certain man who happened to be standing across from her.
"I said—"
"I heard what you said!" she interrupted in a vicious snap, calming slightly afterwards and smoothing her skirt with exaggerated purpose. "There's a small dango stand on that street over there." She pointed at the aforementioned road. "It has good food, though not quite up to par with the dango shop in Konoha. Damn, the Leaf Village has all the good restaurants..." The sudden realization that she had almost begun rambling hit her, so she looked up at him and glared for no apparent reason. "Why am I even telling you this?"
"Because I asked. Thank you for the information." A slight bow after the polite yet seemingly insincere gesture, and he was already walking towards the small street she absentmindedly directed him towards with an incredibly fast stride. In fact, Temari initially thought he was gliding or something.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" The blonde sprinted forward to cut him off. "First of all," she began, "it was a rhetorical question. Secondly, what I meant was why the heck was I telling you things when I don't know a single thing about you? Except that you really want to eat me...but I don't even know your name!"
"Zetsu."
Hearing instead 'bless you' or something to that effect, she responded in confusion, "But I didn't sneeze..." Upon the reception of his golden glare, she immediately stopped whatever it was she was about to say.
"My name. It's Zetsu."
"Oh."
Another silence befell them. Who knew that making conversation to a cannibalistic man with a plant on his head was so difficult?
"I'm Temari." The girl held out her hand in an offer to shake hands, but quickly retracted it when his dark side—in a rather literal sense, she noticed with inward amusement—gave her fingers a rather hungry look. It didn't help that a lick of the lips accompanied the eager gaze.
"Pleasure to meet you."
"Yeah…"
"Would you further my pleasure by accompanying me to dine tonight?"
"Ye—wait, what?!"
"Shut up and—have dinner with me." The interruption between the two voices led Temari to believe even more with the man's schizophrenia (which is what she guessed he had).
"That's a bit demanding, wouldn't you say?" Though her words were brave, the kunoichi felt somewhat uneasy around the man. The fact that he said, 'You look delicious', a little too often did not better her attitude towards him.
"I want to eat—with—you."
"Are you okay?" she asked with a curious, raised eyebrow. She had become accustomed to Gaara talking to himself (although the other voice, Shukaku, remained in her baby brother's head), but when it came so far as to interrupt yourself and change tones, she was left utterly clueless. It did not help much that he had a plant encasing his head.
"Just come with me."
"Fine, fine." Begrudgingly, she shifted her position so that she stood next to the tall man. Together, they strode over to the dango stand, she with much more gusto than he, despite Zetsu being the hungrier being at that moment. "I don't see why I need to go with you though. You're an adult; you can go buy food and eat by yourself!" Temari muttered in an irritated tone.
"And why should I deprive myself of your—delicious—amiable company?" His two personalities seemed to be having a conflict over their opinions of the blonde kunoichi, a fact that amused her quite a bit.
"So I'm delicious and amiable?" she questioned with a raised eyebrow. "I've never heard those two words in the same sentence before, especially not to describe me."
"There's a first time for everything," the man answered readily and with such sureness that Temari could have sworn he was reading from a script.
"This is ridiculous!"
"How so?" For once demonstrating emotion in his 'normal' voice, the plant-encased man sounded truly perplexed.
Giving a look that clearly said 'duh', she explained, "I'm talking to a man with a plant on his head who wants to eat me and sounds like he's a bad actor reading directly off a script. What do you think?"
"I think—he sounds delicious. Can I meet him?" He paused, shook his head quickly, and began speaking again, "What crime did I commit to merit such great dislike from you?"
"What did I do to merit your attention?" she retorted, evading his question with another of her own.
"Who else am I to place my attention upon?" the man asked back, glancing around the empty streets of Suna with a raised eyebrow.
"How about your perverted second personality?"
"What's with all the questions?"
She shrugged, though she had no more of an idea than he did. Both found it unnaturally interesting that they could hold a complete conversation with nothing but questions.
"Hurry up already! I'm starving!"
"Shut up," she snarled, hardly the type of girl to take orders from a semi-stranger (which she decided was what the double-colored man was since she actually knew his name).
"I apologize. He's never usually this open with strangers."
"I see," the kunoichi said, even though she didn't mean it. A constant feeling of puzzlement due to the odd man radiating from her, she doubted there would ever be a time when she would 'see'.
"Forgive my rudeness, but I must agree with him; it is rather late, and I am particularly hungry."
"You know what?!" Temari snapped, opening her mouth again for a witty comeback. It came as a surprise that the blonde found herself incapable of conjuring an intelligent, sarcastic response. So, instead, she said, "You look funny."
"Your witticisms have yet to amuse me," he replied bluntly, dropping the insult like a bomb on the blonde girl. "I see nothing wrong with my appearance other than it is different than that of everyone else."
"Shut up, plant man."
"Look," he turned on her with a stern voice, "I have tolerated your immature insults long enough. I do not know whatever it is I did to provoke you into disliking me so much, but it would please me greatly if you would just tell me what it is so that I may fix it."
"You said you wanted to eat me!" Temari exclaimed. "I shouldn't even be talking to you after you said that!"
His golden glare at her words seemed to pierce through the blonde kunoichi and directly into her soul, sending a spasm of shivers up her spine.
"I never said that. He did."
She scoffed, "He? Who's he? I'm pretty damn sure I heard the words coming from your mouth."
"We share a mouth." At her skeptical expression, Zetsu continued, "Your youngest brother has a second personality, does he not? Why, then, is it so difficult for you to believe that I have one as well?"
"I—you—he—" Temari began sputtering incoherently at the man, desiring very much to rip his leafy appendages off and make them into a salad. In fact, she desired it so much that she recovered by telling him so.
"You're going to rip them off?"
"Hell yeah, I will!"
"Doubtful."
"Goddamn you!"
"I don't believe in a god. Atheist."
Glaring at the man once more, she asked with an air of victory and finality, "How do you know about Shukaku?"
And for the first time in their entire knowledge of each other, Zetsu was rendered speechless. However, if he was shocked or surprised or even confused, he did well in hiding it beneath his expressionless visage.
"You're one of them, aren't you?"
The Akatsuki did not reply, but he failed to deny the accusation. Temari sighed at his lack of response, subtly fingering her fan.
"You're going to shun Gaara, not for who he is but for what is within him, is that it?"
Zetsu almost emitted a sigh of relief at the fact that she had no idea he was part of the Akatsuki, the organization that aspired towards world domination through the control of the bijuu. Although, he did not know why he would be relieved at that; it was not like he liked the girl or anything. As far as he knew, he just wanted to eat her.
"Delicious."
"SHUT UP!" Too late did the missing-nin realize that he did not deny the kunoichi's claim of his intolerance, but thankfully, it was not too late for him to dodge the fan swinging down upon his head.
Frustrated beyond belief, she screamed again, though this time in a more animalistic fashion than anything recognizable to Zetsu, and swung again, but now so blinded by rage that it was almost too easy to evade. He sidestepped, grabbed the end of her fan, and yanked it from her arms in one smooth motion.
"Calm down."
"Like hell, I would, you conniving son of a bitch! Leave me and my brothers alone!" Another swing (this time with her fist), another miss. Infuriated, Temari kept at it, kicking, punching, screaming, and yet, not a single one of her attacks affected the man in the slightest as continued dodging the blows.
Having had enough, Zetsu grabbed both of her wrists and pinned them to her sides. "I hold no quarrel between you or your brothers. I already said I am on my way to River Country and am in need of food and shelter. So, Temari-san, I would greatly appreciate it if you would cease antagonizing me."
"Fuck you." The blonde tugged her arms out of his iron grasp, ignoring the sharp pang in her shoulders as she did so, and began walking away.
"I know you feel no warmth towards me, though as to why I cannot fathom," the man admitted, "but I feel obligated to tell you this—dark colors do not become a desert bloom."
Temari pivoted on her heel, unable to ignore the comment of the eccentric person. "What do you mean?"
"One such as yourself shouldn't swear like a sailor."
"Why do you care?"
"I don't."
"Then why?"
"I am a scout. I convey my observations to my leader. Now, I convey my observation to you."
"You called me a desert bloom."
"A flower among stones, yes."
"You think I'm pretty."
"If that is how you wish to interpret it."
"I do not understand you."
"Nor I you, and yet here we are."
Temari stared at the strange man, all instincts screaming at her to just turn around and walk away, but something in her brain kept her feet from moving. She did not trust this man, but she could not help but consider his words. "Yes…here we are."
She never saw Zetsu again, but Temari knew she would never forget him. After all, it was not often one saw a bi-colored man walking around with a large plant on his head.
Afterthoughts: Just in case people are confused, Temari doesn't recognize Zetsu as an Akatsuki member because she's never been involved directly in any of their conflicts (at least, not that I know of), so the cloaks don't really register in her mind. Plus, the fact that Zetsu has a plant on his head is just so mind-blowing for her that she doesn't really notice much else about him. Thanks for reading!