Hi there all. This is something I've never attempted before, I usually only stick to Harry Potter fics, but being a huge Naruto fan I finally gave in to the idea of at least starting the Legendary Sannin fic that has been floating around in my mind for about a year.
It won't be going anywhere anytime soon, as I'm busy enough with my three other stories BUT I kinda like the prologue which is very basic, bog-standard and doesn't give any hint whatsoever as to the future plotline XD Anyway, it works pretty well as a one-shot and so I thought I post it because it's been almost six months since my absence and well...I felt like it ^^ So there you are. =) Please read, hopefully enjoy and maybe even review.
Luv ya
Lili
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
When We Were: Prologue
It is a wet night.
A downpour to drown the Land of Fire.
Cords of rain strike mercilessly at the dirt and the tiles and the bruised and battered grass. Hard and bitter slaps; all the thousands of times a girl's fists have branded a boy's cheek. They fall again and again relentlessly, too fast to be real, too pitiless to be true. There should have been pauses. Pauses of regret, of wistful sighs and scornful half-laughs to punctuate the unremitting roar of a lifetime of punches. The rain splatters and runs and drips, only to finally sink into the brown haven of the earth.
It is a warm night.
Heavy and hot like a secret tryst, or like ten or even twenty, each one desperate and needed and yet somehow already tinged with the new pain and uncertainty each one would bring. Too hot for the windows to stay closed and barred, even when the rain lashes through the wooden frames with gleeful abandon only to be disappointed that everything of value has already been moved out of harm's way.
Scrolls and rugs and clothes and the single candle are shifted to the other side of the ornately decorated room. It flickers from the huge desk that dominates the space, casting an amber glow into the shadows and the untidiness.
The woman hasn't moved. She's still sitting, knees curled up under her chin at the window pane. A bottle of saké lies empty at her feet and a second is following the same way. The hand trailing towards the ground in easy reach, is young and as ever deceptively delicate, the nails painted and polished to please the most exacting female vanity. Every now and then a gold ring clinks against the glass as she trails her finger around the rim. Debating whether to down another swallow, hesitating and then sighing. Oblivion can wait a while longer.
Dark green robes drape a luscious form, half-concealed within the warm fabric. They hang open, revealing a soft grey tunic and the most famous pair of breasts in all of the Five Lands, only to spread like a pool of water on the floor. The symbol on her back has been her mantra for fifty years. Kake. « Bet » or « Gamble ».
The robes and the ring and room proclaim high status, the highest in the land in fact. But right now the woman staring out into the rain isn't the Fifth Hokage of the Leaf. Nor the Kunoici of the Legendary Sanin nor even the Princess of Konoha and the Senju Clan.
Not tonight.
She's too tired to be any of them tonight. Morning will bring back the titles and the responsibilities and the bleak promise of War. Morning will bring back the gleam of something between arrogance and ruefulness that has earned her the fake reputation of courage. Bravery to the point of recklessness. Confidence to the point of conceit. Everything her country and her Ninja's expects of their Leader.
Morning will come. All too soon.. But for now the woman by the window really is just that. A woman with too much experience to call herself young and too few wrinkles to be branded as old. Not that anyone can see at least. A woman who has lost too much to be truly happy but is still needed and therefore does not yet have the luxury of sadness.
She had too much, she supposes wistfully. Too much to lose to begin with. Perhaps if she'd started out less fortunately,… Without titles and beauty and unbelievable talent. Without people who loved her dearly and were willing to give their lives for her without a second thought. Perhaps if she hadn't been « Hime », the Princess…
That lovely face creases in a sigh. Is she really regretting? Or is she simply looking for someone to blame. Someone to take her screams and insults and her blows. A new someone, now that he's gone. Too many leagues away for her to call back even if she could bring herself to do so.
Only he can bring himself back now, just as he always has. Always late. Distracted by a bust that could never rival hers and a desire that won't wait a single night and won't last another, but when the rest of the world has given him up, all except the two people who know him best, back he always strolls, unrepentant and all too willing to share the details. Happy to be scolded, indifferent to her punishing blows and secretly wondering whether this time she will let him see the tears or whether she'll just break his bones as always and shout the word « baka » over her shoulder as she storms away.
She never did. She never does; they're too old now for those games. Too tired and too alone to risk losing the one thing they have left. « What if's » Kami she know she's thought of them a thousand nights like these. He probably has too. If she'd admitted how much it really hurt. If he'd believed he wouldn't let her down. If Orochimaru had kept his feelings to himself for just a little longer. If he hadn't done the noble thing and respected their friendship. If they hadn't allowed time and tension to prise their once inseparable Team apart. If Orochimaru had cared a bit more. If the Baka had cared a bit less. If he'd stayed….and chosen her instead. If he'd believed in love.
But he didn't. They didn't. And now, after twenty years thrown to the winds, it really is too late to think about such things now. Too late to attempt to define that line that they'd tried so many times to draw to neither one's satisfaction. Too late to wish they'd had more time. More courage.
She smiles slightly but it's more of a grimace. To think of the Legendary Sanin as cowards. Blasphemy from any other mouth. But true. One of Histories best-kept secrets. How the Leaf's greatest Heros were defeated not by numbers or superior techniques. But by themselves. Three people who loved too much and too desperately to be anything but the death of each other.
She sighs and looks up at the black, thunderous sky and they're all there, all so clear and tangible and close enough to touch. But to do so, to reach for them would mean letting go of the sake bottle and she doesn't have the strength for that. She, Tsunade, Godaime Hokage. It brings another faint smile to her lips. If her inhuman force isn't enough, what is? Nothing except perhaps… His grinning face flashes through her mind, still unfairly handsome despite of, or maybe thanks to, his cheerful willingness to embrace the passing of the years.
He's always been the bravest of them all.
Even now, age still frightens her. The running out of time. The feeling of decay slowly seeping into her skin and bones. It was why she'd created the jinjitzu. To flee, to hide from the truth just as Orochimaru did, only in different ways. Eternal youth versus immortality. But somehow even when she's still as exquisite as she was at twenty, and Orochimaru has found the secret he yearned for so desperately, it's still the Baka that seems the most beautiful of them all. And when she looks at him, with his laughter lines and white hair, his thicker more powerful frame and the gleam of a lifetime's experience lurking in his eyes, she has fight the urge to look away.
Because she's never felt more like a coward than in those moments.
The sky outside grumbles, a low rumbling belly and the wind pushes just a little harder, tipping her slightly to the side before she swings back like a teetering robe-walker. A teasing nudge, a shove from behind to wind her up and she almost turns to beat the Baka to pulp for endangering the mission with his silly tricks. But just like him, the wind has already danced out of reach. Such a silly stunt to play, her lovely mouth twists mockingly.
The wind takes offence, whistling angrily and tossing the rain into her face. The droplets splatter against the smoothness of her skin before running down to hang from the sharp, proud tilt of her jaw. Hidden amongst them, two saltier drops snake secretly into the streams.
Tsunade closes her eyes until the rain has washed away the proof of her weakness and if she really concentrates, she can almost kid herself that it's the pads of warm, rough fingers instead.
Et voila =) As I said, this is completely new to me so feel free to critisize to your hearts content. I love any feedback ^^
Lili