For The Good Of The Village: Suna's Princess
Ch 1 Lessons
Sabaku no Temari didn't feel like an engaged woman, yet there it was, on paper with her name, Neji's name, and signed with her father's and Hyuuga Hiashi's signature on the bottom of the document and her dowry's worth underneath in neat accounting gibberish. The whole thing was old-fashioned in its entirety, complete with parchment paper and neat calligraphy. Sighing, she tried not to look at it so much as an end but a new beginning.
Looking over at the bed next to her desk, her 'fiancée's' sleeping arrangement still lingered. He wouldn't share her bed, as was expected to show his interest in her as her future husband. He was adamant about sleeping on the floor to her right, stating his people didn't see it as appropriate till their vows were spoken. What a gentleman, she mused bitterly. His futon lay rolled, neatly tucked away with his sheets folded, pillow laying on top of the pile.
Her lips pinched hard, angry. She didn't want him to start groping her or taking advantage of her body as was his right and expectation of a betrothed. While she had no intention of letting him either, it still was insulting that he didn't even try for the sake of his standing. His aloofness to the point of disinterest for her sake just made her all the more upset that the one who she wanted to touch her wasn't here to annoy her like she had wanted. Neji was away right now, patrolling her compound, as he had started to do at night, probably trying to digest his own circumstances. Begrudgingly, she had found herself doing the same thing. While she knew was she was getting herself into when her father told her about the suitorship, she didn't think it was going to take.
He was a Hyuuga, after all. Those pretentious bastards were notoriously picky and very coveting of their doujutsu. Having their prized pupil here had caused a minor uproar and some speculation. Was this their intention from the beginning, like Cloud? Still, at this moment, it didn't matter. Well, it wasn't supposed to matter, but there was one flaw in the formal arrangements made between Suna and Konoha to partake of the arranged marriage.
Sabaku no Temari was supposed to stay in Konoha.
Thinking back to that paradise city brought about a sense of melancholy, especially about a certain lazy, very chauvinistic, and mildly cute Shikamaru. Just the name in her head made her fist clench. How could he ask her to do this? Take a Hyuuga back to Suna, he asked. Didn't he know what consequences that would cause? Why would he want her to save this bastard and think she wouldn't have to do some kind of political maneuvering? He talked about offering revenge later on, but how? They were all the way over here, in the middle of a desert, behind their colossal walls, swarming with their amazing shinobi? Last, but not least, they had Gaara, always vigilant, always roaming, never sleeping.
Temari blinked, thinking about that last thought. Gaara was out…Neji was out…
"He's going to get himself killed," Temari muttered, shooting out from her chair and heading out the balcony. Grabbing her fan next to her bed, she scanned her courtyard, neat lines of sand or rocks were combed with a rake, making a very hypnotically lined pattern to draw the eye. She landed softly in the gravel, scanning about for signs of her brother or Neji. When the Hyuuga had mentioned he wanted to go for a scroll, suspicions were quickly raised if it was safe for someone of his abilities to go roaming about unchecked. He was still a Konoha shinobi that could see through walls and other subtle yet dangerous ways. The Byakugan was still a mystery in many ways to them.
Then she heard it, the scuffling and scrambling of feet over hard packed sand and dirt. Peering past the corner of her home, the training dojo was occupied by several of the Chuunin and Jounin guards. In their middle, Neji stood perfectly still, staring straight at Mikoyuri no Hatsu, a clan heir and long standing boy who had hopes of courting her. He had been unsuccessful due to his belief in his more traditional beliefs of her staying home and bearing children to strengthen their clan. While she had no problem with that, he was twenty, tall, handsome with his wavy brown hair, shaved half on one side and a tattoo of an eagle on his neck, she just didn't like that there was just a hint of cruelty in his eyes. Everything about him was right, on paper, like Neji, but he just didn't seem...right. Neji had eyes, like him, that could be cruel. She saw it first hand with Hinata.
It made her shiver to wonder what he would do to their children.
Hatsu prowled around Neji, his handsome face gauging the Hyuuga before him. Around him, three other Chuunin spectated, Hatsu's lackeys, she knew, casually keeping a distance so Hatsu could do his work.
"This is what is to come, boys. Little boys that look like girls, not an ounce of meat on his bones, and probably couldn't survive in our world unless they had running water and a toilet following them along."
His fellows chuckled, appraising Neji's nonchalance and, possibly, boredom.
"That's it, little leaf, just stand there." Hatsu walked up to Neji, lowering his chin and glowering down his nose at the Hyuuga's brow. "There is no way a child like you would ever be worthy of the Suna Rose, Sabaku no Temari."
Neji rolled his ghostly eyes towards Hatsu, blinked, and walked past him.
"Where do you think you're going?" Hatsu barked.
"I have a duty to protect the home that has given me shelter." Neji called out over his shoulder, shrugging. "I am enacting the role fate has set me on. Teaching you your place may or may not come in time, but please don't tempt it. Fate is a taxing and unforgiving mistress. Now, if you'll excuse me."
"Teach me?" He repeated, mockingly. "Excuse you?" Hatsu parroted with Neji's lilting voice, causing more chuckles. "Where do you think you are?"
"It's called courtesy. Perhaps you can learn something about it after you've been taught something about hygiene." Neji inhaled softly, wrinkling his nose. "Water, soap, lather, wash and repeat. Sabaku no Temari knows how to do it, so it's not a foreign concept to your country. Perhaps you should learn something about it other than leering at her. She's a woman, treat her like one."
Hatsu's jaw worked, unable to speak. "You watch her bathe?"
"No, she is an untidy woman," Neji smoothed his sleeves to his shirt. "She has a habit of using lilacs, rose petals, and other oils in her bathwater and refuses to clean up afterwards. It also seems she has a dismissive habit of dropping her clothes where she removes them. Instead of picking up, she spends her time putting lotion her legs with lavender oil. I just wish she'd put on her underpants before doing so. Modesty would benefit her greatly, but what is to be expected of those who have no decency."
Temari's eyes widened, a low growl escaping her. The grip on her fan got tighter.
"You watch her, the Desert Rose, undress and she let's you?" One of Hatsu's men called out in disbelief.
"Let's me?" Neji exhaled impatiently, giving them his full glare. "I am her betrothed. It's my right."
That spurned a reaction from the four men, including Temari.
"So he does look at me," Temari's lip turned, unsure how to take him accepting his role as her fiancee, but she would definitely have to do something about his perception of being indecent. Dark thoughts started to form, but her focus returned back to the quartet as they attacked as one.
Temari started to intervene, but a voice behind her stopped her in mid step.
"Let them."
Snapping her head around, Gaara's sleepless stare made her shiver. She hadn't felt his presence at all. He was here this whole time?
"Gaara, shouldn't we-"
"No," He moved to her side, arms crossed as he watched the four Chuunin attack the smaller, but highly nimble Neji. "This is our world and he needs to be able to survive in it."
Suna Chuunins were nothing short of some of the best extreme heat survivalists as well as hard as nails shinobi she had ever seen. They were tough, through and through, and she knew a little of Neji's and the Hyuuga's techniques, but she had never seen him in real combat.
The sight of him was spectacular, beautiful, elegant and deadly.
He made it look easy, remarkably easy to dodge them, duck them, weave around them with a grace that took her breath away. She didn't know if it was the way his hair flew across his face, the way it seemed to never distract his focus as the fists or feet came at him with deadly force, or the way he stretched himself into almost impossible angles, blocking attacks with simple pushes of his palms, finger tips, or keeping his body just out of range of their blows, but something inside her jumped at the arrogant simplicity of his confidence.
Then one of the chuunins pulled out a kunai. One, then another, steel was flashed.
Neji's eyes narrowed, closed, then flashed open, "Byakugan."
Hatsu charged, but Neji slapped the knife of his hand across his ear, stunning him. Behind him, two nins aimed at his kidneys, but Neji twisted sideways, narrowly being maimed. Slapping his hands over their clavicles, blue chakra exploded through their shoulders down their backs. They fell over the other, agony and pain wailing from their cries.
Hatsu and his remaining peer to Neji's left circled him, grim faces that let him know they were ready to take this onto another level.
"Gaara," Temari warned, her fan slowly sliding open.
"Just wait." Gaara motioned with a hand.
Each Suna nin started weaving signs, "Sinking Sand no Jutsu!"
The earth shifted under Neji's feet, consuming him. He tried to jump, but it only pushed him further into the ground.
Hatsu had recovered enough to start weaving signs of his own, "Sand Stone Barrage no Jutsu!"
Large chunks of earth rose from the ground in small boulder sized pieces, shooting themselves at him.
"Kaiten!"
Spinning with blinding light and speed, he deflected the stone and shifted the sand deeper into the ground, finding solid footing. Hurling himself out of the shifting sand, he charged chakra into his feet and leaped between the two men and posed into a wide crane stance.
"You are within the field of my divination." Neji's smile was deadly, purposefully intent on one purpose. "Now my first lesson for you, will start with..."
Temari held her breathe, she could feel it inside herself become drawn further into this master of movement and grace.
"Two strikes!"
They weren't mere pokes or strikes, these were whips, snake fast strikes of pain and power.
"Four Strikes!"
The impact slammed into Hatsu, tearing into him like getting impaled with a raw spike of power. Then the speed increased, impossibly fast and furiously accurate.
"Eight Strikes, Sixteen Strikes, Thirty Two Strikes!"
Hatsu fell to his knees, eyes rolled into his skull, barely balancing to stay erect.
Neji's arm cocked back, a looming promise of more to come, but his arm lowered, stopping himself from completing his attack. Shaking his head, he released his Byuakugan and turned to face Temari hiding behind the wall. Her breath was still held in her chest, her hands clenched around her large tensen fan, her eyes and mouth open wide in wonder.
Her cheeks were flushed and she could feel it.
Turning to Hatsu, Neji lowered himself to look him straight in the eye. "Class dismissed."
Walking past him and daring the last chuunin lackey to do something, he walked past him to Temari. "Your home is safe, Sabaku no Temari. I'm going to take a bath."
Temari didn't know what to tell him, since bath water had to be recycled since it was rationed. When she could talk, it came out in a low growl.
"Are all men from Konoha this aggravating!"
"Temari," Gaara kept his head straight, but turned his eyes towards her. "You have duties to uphold. Don't keep him waiting."
He disappeared in a swirl of sand before she could retort.
Shikamaru's grim face entered her mind. She missed him, really, really missed him, but things were already set as they were. Her duties to her people and what was needed to keep the relations good between their two villages. Might as well enjoy it.