Author's Note: Well, here it is! The sequel to my Lee/OC story "Neko-Chan". Welcome to everyone, and I hope the continuation of the lives of Lee and Rian can bring you at least a fraction of as much happiness as my first multi-chaptered story about their relationship did. Hi to all my old readers! Hi, peoples! -smiles like a crazed person and waves at them-
For those of you who don't know who Rian is, you probably haven't read "Neko-Chan", the original story of my OC and Lee's story. I suggest you read it. All of it. No matter how cappy it seems. After chappie Six, it gets better, I swear. It was just my first multiple chapter, so at first it stunk, yeah. But, it gets better! I swear! Ask any of my readers!
The first chapter is to fill you in on the seven years between "Neko-Chan" and here, "On The Way Down". Rian and Lee are now 22 and 21, and I think there may be some Anko/Gai in some of the other chapters. Is that too crackish, for I speak as a Gai/Any Female fangirl.
So, say 'Hi' to my newest story, and I promise to have three new "30 Ways" up really quick, my reviewers.
This chapter dedicated to The Funky Platypus, because he's so darn awesome, and I promised him.
... I'm trying to think of some famous quote I can put here to herald the beginning of a new part of Lee and Rian's life.. Ah, how about, "CHAAAAAAARGE!".
Countdown to present day. Begin-
Seven;
"Love me forever?"
Lee's face turned grave for a moment, but in that moment truth was revealed.
And very gently, as though she were as precious as the fleeting Summers of youth, Lee bent down and kissed her the answer.
And their lips met in an innocent expression of their undying affection for each other, Rian remembered what she had been searching for when Neko-Chan had discovered her sitting on a log in the woods. It wasn't Neko-Chan's knowledge or to be a splendid ninja.
It was love.
Six;
Neji! Come on!"
"I have to get it!" the Hyuuga jounin screamed, his voice rising above the raging flames that threatened to bring the entire building down around their heads.
"No, Neji! The roof is coming down! We have to get-"
Gai scowled in desperation as the back of Neji's singed robe disappeared into the pyre of orange and red, undaunted as he side-stepped falling debris and sparks that rained down from the flaming rafters above him.
The hurried form of Rian rushed by, pushing both bent forms from her way as the green-eyed Chuunin, orbs narrowed in determination, rushed through the burning doorframe after her teammate's back.
"No, no, no!" Lee screeched, lunging forward to go after his girlfriend. Surely his teammates would be trapped with no escape from the flames of a burning Otogakure. Panic making his system throb with adrenaline, the pounding of blood beside his eardrums screamed louder than the snarl of the ever-present fire.
Orochimaru's body, pinned to the wall with kunai like a crucified man, stood bleeding and defeating, flames licking his feet near them as Gai's hand shot out, catching the back of Lee's shredded jumpsuit. He wasn't about to let Lee get killed, too. All for a stupid-
"Stay, Lee!" Gai scolded above the roar and hiss of fire all around them The smell of blackening wood was pungent as the two stood, bleeding beneath their shredded suits and waiting for any sign of life to emerge from the burning library within the midst of the vanquished Hidden Sound village.
Ashen eyes wide with horror, Sensei and pupil could only watch in despair as no forms emerged from the storehouse of the traitor Orochimaru's private scrolls. The entire Hidden Sound, demolished by Leaf Shinobi, was being evacuated of Konoha's ninja, their mission of burning Otogakure to the ground complete. Neji had turned on his heels and fled through piles of flaming Otonin corpses and flying soot to rescue a precious scroll. His team had chased him back into the burning village, threading their way through ashen roads and shattered oxen carts to find their cell member, who they thought had gone mad from overexposure to smoke.
Suddenly, the flames parted in a whoosh of a swiping arm, and Rian and Neji emerged from the smoldering doorway, coughing and choking on ash. Neji clasped a rice paper scroll of an ancient technique within the fold of his robes, his wide sleeve beating the flames from the singed edge.
Racing blindly into the smash of a familiar chest, Rian's smoke-weakened body slumped against Lee's for a moment too soon.
An instant before the entire building exploded, Lee snatched Rian into his cracked and bleeding arms and dragged his ardor from the range of the blast.
Team Gai ran, fleeing the smoldering gates of the ashen remains of Orochimaru's dream, to Neji's bouncing chest a last shot at his complete team.
Five;
Squinting, Gai let his eyes rove over his pressed and ironed clothes in the full-length mirror before him.
Perhaps it was because they weren't green or spandex that he felt uncomfortable in them.
"Are you two sure?" the Green Beast asked for the two-hundredth time that night, eyes riveted to the penguin print on his dark blue tie.
Rian's head popped out from one side of the mirror, her cat-like eyes glinting at her appropriately dressed sensei. In clothes normal human beings wore, Gai was actually quite handsome.
"She will love it. Take my word, Gai-sensei. I'm a woman. We know these things." the neko child said, grinning with pointed teeth.
Looking uneasy, Gai glanced flightily at his prized pupil as Lee jabbed a bouquet of purple-colored flowers at his mentor's chest, admiring for a moment how awesome his sensei looked in pinstripes.
They both walked Gai to the door, Lee with one hand steadying his teacher's quivering arm. For a fearless ninja, Gai was sure acting like a spooked horse over this trivial matter.
The jounin turned to look back at his two pupils as Rian and Lee prodded him gently onto his front stoop. He knew the minute he was out that they would lock his house's door, making it impossible for him to back out of his tête-à-tête .
"Good luck, Gai-sensei!" Lee added, Rian reaching out to straighten the crisp crease of Gai's dress shirt's collar an instant before Lee slammed the door in Gai's face. There the click of the deadbolt, and the sounds of the couple tittering behind the wooden door.
Sighing, Gai loosened his penguin tie (Lee's idea.) and decided to get the last word in.
"No making out on my couch!" he shouted, grinning at the silence as Rian and Lee both flushed dark red on the other side of the front door. Almost as an afterthought, knowing Rian's devious libido, he added, "And nothing on my bed, either!"
Done beaming his triumph, Gai turned and began to try to swagger as manly as possible toward Anko's apartment. It was just dinner, he kept telling himself. Just a meal with a woman in a skimpy skirt. He could handle a drunken Lee, a cranky Rian, and Neji in general. So, he could definitely handle a date with Mitirashi Anko.
Four;
"Neji's ten minutes late." Lee duly noted, kicking his legs tiresomely against the edge of the stone wall on which he sat.
A gale ruffling her shaggy brown hair, Rian nodded at the horizon, her expression placid.
"Yeah. What the heck does he want us for, any way? He already kicked my ass in training today." she spat, before leaning her head onto Lee's shoulder tediously.
Gai tapped his fingers in succession to the pebbly granite on which his cell, minus Hyuuga Neji, and of course Tenten, sat upon. Said Jounin had asked his squad to meet together at a small barrier wall near the edge of Konohagakure for some reason unbeknownst to the gathered party.
"He better not make me miss my youthful match with Kakashi. He's two points ahead of me already." Gai stated, narrowing his eyes at the scalding silence that hung around his two pupils.
"You won't be missing any match." came Neji's voice from behind them.
Three heads simultaneously turned to face their belated squad member, ready to scold him for making them wait when they had much better things to do.
And there was Neji, beaming like a search light in the dark, his lavender eyes smiling with the curves of his lips.
"Hi, guys." came a feminine voice, an instant before the long-lost member of Team Gai strode from the bushes behind the Hyuuga prodigy.
"Tenten!" Lee screeched, before he promptly fainted into Rian's lap.
So Orochimaru's resurrecting technique really did work.
They could scold Neji later. But, for now, Team Gai was complete again. In more than one way.
Three:
"Please?"
Rian could only stare into Lee's begging eyes as he gripped her hand, staring up at her from where he was down on one knee, half out the door of her apartment. His raven eyes were pleading, beseeching an answer to possibly the most important question he had ever asked her.
Her stillness was one of shock, not of repulsion. In his shattered mind, Lee didn't know whether to interpret Rian's action as acceptance, or shock, or-
All at once, she was down on the ground and within the circle of leather-clad arms, face pressed to the chest where Lee's heart was thumping like a bird in a cage. A taut breath caught in the throat above her, an instant before her answer burst from it's prison within her mind.
"Yes!" she nearly screamed, before hugging his neck so tightly she thought it would snap in half.
"Yes, yes- Oh my God, yes!"
Tears were soon coursing down both of their cheeks as they embraced on the floor of Rian's apartment, laughing and sobbing and hugging each other as if they let go, they would lose this moment forever.
Sniffling, Rian groped for Lee's hand until she could clench it and squeeze her joy into his palm.
Still sobbing, Lee rested his chin on the top of Rian's head in a comforting gesture exhibited in their teenage years. He couldn't compose himself enough to even speak adequately.
"Of course I'll marry you." she whispered, reassurance to herself.
Two;
"So, let me get this straight."
Lee looked nervously at his yellow-slathered hands, while Rian grinned sheepishly at the head of chocolate hair greased with the substance. The owner of said tresses didn't look too happy with either of them right about than, but that was a given.
Neji was snorting with trying to keep from laughing outright at the situation, wishing he had a camera to capture this moment of his teammate's stupidity.
"He put his head between the railing of the stairs." Tenten recanted, sounding exasperated, either with her three year old son or the Rock couple crouched on either side of her first son's exposed head.
"And you two tried- to grease his head, so that it would slide out…"
Rian and Lee nodded guiltily, where young Ai's face crumpled with fury at his parent's lack of action to dislodge him from the predicament his babysitters had only been trying to get him out of.
"-With butter." Tenten finished, massaging between her eyes. Upstairs, Hyuuga Kei, Neji and Tenten's second child, woke from her sleep and began to cry for attention.
Neji hopped up the stairs two at a time, waiting to burst into laughter over his newborn daughter's crib.
Sighing, Tenten strode over to her son's goopy head to examine the situation. Rian and Lee looked at each other guiltily over their teammate's back. The mother of two children began trying to push her son's head out to the side where Ai was crouched, his head lodged between the wooden railings of the stairs that led to the second floor of the Hyuuga's abode.
"I can't even go out to dinner with your father without you getting into trouble with your equally stupid babysitters, can I?" Tenten asked, while Ai gazed guiltily at the floor.
Lee took the tub of butter back into the kitchen, while Rian attempted to help Tenten shove Ai's head from between the railings of the stairs.
Something told Lee he and Rian wouldn't be charging anything for tonight's babysitting.
One;
"Please don't hurt her!" the young medic cried breathlessly. "Wait!"
Amazingly, Itachi ceased his artifice show of power, slackening his vice grip around Rian's throat and dully pressing the kunai to neck. His bored expression seemed to exhibit his dislike of this tiresome sham, and implored the Leaf Shinobi to explain so that he could finish the capture of another Biju and go do something better.
"Please…" Sachi breathed, her emerald eyes welling with tears. Lee's eyes slid cautiously over to Sachi, his vision coloring crimson as blood dripped from the gash on his forehead. Clouding pain and the electric atmosphere made it hard for him to see, but he knew. Something huge was about to be revealed.
"No." Rian mouthed, trying to hush the sobbing teenager, who seemed to pull herself together enough under the gaze of blood colored Sharingan.
"Please don't hurt her-" Sachi sobbed. Itachi's cape billowed menacingly in a gust of wind that interrupted the mood, misshaping his body beneath the red-clouded blackness. His glare demanded the troublesome redhead to speak than, or forever hold her tongue.
Lee only had time to gasp a fiery breath before his entire world bottomed out.
"She's pregnant." Sachi gasped.
The years have been filled in to the present. The countdown to the end of three people you have known and loved begins-
Now.
A/N: Alright! Who's not dead? Sound off! Remember, this is an introduction to fill you in up to the present, which is the last italicized event. Woah-ha-ha. Cliffies.
Review and be glomped by your ol' pal HMR.