Won't write much here just:
Hope you enjoy…
Oh yeah Stuff in italics is being said by Ghosts/Spirits.
One of the jobs that I have, as a 'shrine maiden', as my friend Haku likes calls me, is to sweep the area near the shrine. The shrine itself is on the edge of the dense part of the forest and the village; so many animals take shelter near it. Meaning that it has to be cleaned at least once a week. I can't clean in my normal clothes either, something about how I have to cleanse as well as be cleansed; so that means, decking in out if the full traditional gear1.
Now the dense forest is really creepy, you can only see the first few trees and then it just fades into black, but that never stops me from ditching out of my chores and travelling a few metres in, dirtying the whites that I wear.
From inside the forest you can travel around the edge village without being seen, and on the other side, deep in the forest is a beautiful clearing, with lake and everything. That's where I headed, still in my robes, when I heard Tsunade-baa-chan call my name.
Finally managing to stumble through the last bush, my breath was again blown away by how nice the clearing was. The sun flittered down between the leaves and cast magical shadows on the lake.
Starting to undo my Hakama and Kimono,1 I realized that something was splashing in the lake. No one knows about this place, so at first I thought that it was an animal. Not wanting to anger it I slowly started to step back.
"Don't be so shy. I don't mind if you see me naked." The voice was rich and velvety, and it ran down my spine in torrents. Who ever this was, they sure were blunt.
"Well are you going to come over or not?" hearing that voice again I was sure that they weren't from the village. But, unless they too also moved here, like that guy who stole my seat, there wasn't any other place to stay for miles.
"Fine then, I will." I didn't want give up my spot just cause this guy was here first. I stripped off my stuff and left my boxers on as I made a dash for the water and plunged in.
"There's no other way to get into water better then bombing." I muttered more to myself then anyone, totally forgetting about the other occupant of the water, until a clear, ringing laugh spread around the clearing.
"Such spirit, even for one so young. Tell me boy, what is your name?" I turned around to face the speaker, who was leaning against the side, to be shocked at how good looking this man was. He looked to be about 22, with long dark red hair that floated around him in the water, giving off the impression of blood. His skin was the colour of cream and showed off all his well-toned muscles. He clearly was tall for the water lapped dangerously around his hips, and even with out his body, his chiselled face would be enough for him to get by. He looked ethereal. His jade green eyes were bright enough to make Sakura's own forest green eyes look brown and muddy.
I don't normally stare openly at males like that, but I know when I see art, and this guy was perfection. He was almost to good to be real.
I must have been staring too long, cause his full lips pushed upwards in a smirk, showing how much confidence he had, plus a row of shiny white teeth with little canines.
"Please, I know I'm good looking, but to see a look of awe on an exquisite creature, such as your self, is too much." Was this guy ever a charmer, but I was not a woman, nor some little prancy pony2.
"I don't care how good looking you are. I was just wanted to know where you came from." I was hoping to redeem my pride, from staring to long at him with that remark, it didn't work every well.
"Really now? But, how should where I live be of any concern to you, pray tell?" he smirk might still be in place but the 'air' around him increased tenfold as his voice and eyes took on a leering quality. It also didn't help that he was slinking through the water, like a predator stalks it prey, towards me at a very fast, but erotic rate. I was like a deer in the headlights. Paralysed, and so easily hit.
"I…uh…um…I uh…um…I was…I…ah! I just wanted to know, that's all." I almost sounded childish, with the way the words came stuttering, and then tumbling out of my mouth. I couldn't string any sentences together, he had just thrown me on the spot. He stopped just mere centimetres away from my face, I'd say about 2 or 3, maybe 4 if I pushed it.
"Well if you really want to know, I'll tell you." He must have heard something, cause I swear I saw his ears twitch, just like an animals. His body quickly swallowed up those last few remaining centimetres and then he was sticking his tongue down my throat. I was too stunned to do anything as I felt it caress against mine for a moment before leaving as quickly as it came. Pulling away, he leant down again to nibble at the lobe of my ear.
"Meet me here tomorrow, same time, and I'll tell you. The name's Tsune3. Just so you know the name of who you will be dreaming of tonight." I had closed my eyes, intoxicated by the voice and vibrations that were so close to my ear, (what do you expect? I'm a normal teenage boy) that when I opened them again, he was gone.
I didn't think that I had had them closed long enough for him to disappear from the clearing, and I hadn't even heard him get out of the water. I was starting to think I had seen a spirit, wouldn't have been the first time either, when I heard a rustling coming from behind me.
"Tsune?" half of me hoped that it would be him, so I could get an explanation on where he went. While another part of me wanted it not to be him, so I could keep the mystical feeling of the meeting. He had touched me so it wasn't like he was once of the ghosts/spirits I can see. He was real.
Another rustling came again and soon I was starting to get worried. No one knew about here, so it couldn't be a person. Maybe it was an animal? Visions of my body, mutilated by wild animals came to my mind, as the rustling grew louder.
"Tsune?" even I could hear the panicky sound in my voice, how pathetic. The thing that was doing all the rustling didn't respond so it couldn't have been him. Just as I feared that I would be dragged back to the animal's den, to be slowly eaten alive over the corse of a month. I heard an angel's voice.
"Uzumaki?" Okay, so maybe it wasn't an angel's voice (I didn't know they could be so deep) but it was a godsend none the less.
"Yeah?" I turned around to face a boy, my age with pale skin (it reminded me of Tsune) and dark eyes and hair. I guess I had looked pretty confused because he almost gave me an imploring look. Except that none of his facial muscles moved. I must have picked up on his vibe though.
"By the feeling I'm getting I'm meant to know you aren't I? I don't remember you, sorry." Now that both the feeling of danger, from my imagination, and the enchanted feeling, from Tsune, was gone; I was back to my normal self. I dismissed him off as some guy and then went to splashing around in the water, which is what I had come here for in the first place.
"Hn, your forgetful, baka." His voice was low, and I swear I had heard it before. I whipped my head around at the insult to see him walking away.
My eyes widened as I recognised that back. I should have, I had spent all day glaring at it. I had moved to the right of Ino, not the left, so I could send notes to Iruka, via Neji (cause Ten Ten won't send them), so I was sitting diagonally from the very same guy who had just called me 'baka'.
"Hey you, desk stealer, what the fuck are you doing here?" He slowly turned around to face me with a bored expression on his face, almost like Shikamaru's, it quickly turned to amusement though when he saw me.
I looked down to see, that in my indignation, I had stood up from the water, and showed the world my wet, dark green boxers. Quickly blushing with embarrassment I tried to ignore the feeling of shame by yelling out at him again.
"Don't you feel anything for breaking me apart from my desk, huh?" Crap was spewing from my mouth and I had no control over it.
"What? Were you dating it or something?" The arrogance that lined his voice as he made a jab at me, pissed me off, and I said the best thing I could think of.
"Oh fuck off, bastard." Aaand I was back to being a child, with crappy comebacks to boot.
I must have thrown him off with my stupidity, cause he looked at me for a moment before muttering something under his breath. I didn't hear it so I just let it pass.
We glared at each other, well; I glared, he just stared disdainfully at me. The silence was creating a small dome around the clearing and even the wind stopped blowing for a moment.
"So who's Tsune?" the innocent question posed by my new rival, of what I had no idea yet, threw me off a bit.
"Huh? What?" once again my brain was failing me.
"Who's Tsune? You were calling their name out before, I heard you." The desk stealer waited for me to answer his question for a moment before making his way down to the water as he could dip his bare feet in.
"Tsune just some gu… person I know. What's it to you anyway?" I didn't want to tell him that Tsune was a guy, cause then he might get the wrong impression of me, which would be the right one anyway.4
"Nothing." He answered in a nonchalant tone.
I paddled around for a little while longer before turning around to give him a pointed look. After a bit, he turned when he felt my eyes on him.
"What?"
"Can you turn around? I wanna get out." I got a raised eyebrow as my answer.
"I mean it. Now turn around." He rolled his eyes at me, but turned around anyway so it didn't matter. Quickly crawling out of the water I sprinted to where I left my stuff and hastily put them on.
He must have heard my fumbling, cause I soon heard him snigger at me. I would too if it wasn't me who was the one having problems getting dressed. I had both legs in the same hole and had my head sticking out through a sleave.
"You can't even dress your self, here." I stood stunned, as he came closer and tugged the short kimono off me and threw it at my head.
"There. I always thought 17 year olds could dress them selves. Guess I was wrong. Need help with the pants?" He was now officially a prick, one more comment and he would be a bastard.
"Cause dobe's can't put pants on either." He continued, as if he hadn't just insulted me. Now he was a bastard. I was about sock him one when a voice whispered in my ear.
"Forget it Naru-chan. Tsunade's been calling you for a while, and if don't show up soon, she'll be having kittens." I turned my head I to the left to see Haku, standing a little way off waiting for me. He did have a point. I gave him a small nod before turning back to the bastard in front of me.
"I don't have time to deal with you now, but just you wait, I'll get you back for calling me that, you bastard." While talking, I quickly put my clothes on properly, and ran over to where Haku was standing, not far off I could see Zabuza waiting as well.
"Ok I'm ready lets go. Don't wanna get into much shit with her." I whispered to Haku so the bastard wouldn't hear.
That's right! I still didn't know his name, I didn't listen to Ibisu call out the names this morning.
"Hey, seeing as you know my name, what's yours?" I tried to come off as though I didn't care, and I think I did a pretty good job of it too. He looked at me for a moment, probably contemplating wether or not he'll tell me.
"Uchiha Sasuke." Was all I got, before he too started walking away.
"So he's an Uchiha? I heard that all of them died in a dreadful massacre." Haku had walked back to Zabuza and they were both discussing this bit of info.
"Yeah most did, only two survived though. They were the two sons of the chairman of Uchiha Corp. The youngest was only 6 or 7 when it happened." Zabuza replied to Haku's question.
Zabuza knows everything, and has a connection to everyone. Well, at least in the underworld. He died when he was 25, mass gang war I think it was, but cause of some unfinished business, haunting the guy that dealt him the finishing blow, couldn't move on like normal spirits. A few years later he met Haku.
Haku had died from hypothermia out in the middle of nowhere. Because of his girlish features, some of the local evil spirits wanted to torment him. They had closed the gate on him so he was forever stuck on our plane.
Once Zabuza heard about Haku's problem, he took Haku in and gave up on ever killing his guy, to keep him company for eternity.
I'd say that it's love, but Zabuza just glares when I suggest it, though I know I'm right.
By now you should have been able to guess that there's something wrong with me right? I mean, how many people believe in ghosts, demons and things that go bump in the night?
I know I do, but that's cause I'm a medium. I can channel ghosts, just like my grandfather Jiraiya. He can do animals as well, though I don't know why he would want to.
Running all the way back home, I could hear Tsunade's yelling from a mile away and she sounded pissed. She was not going to like how I looked. I popped out off the clearing behind her with out making a noise.
"Naruto, if you think you can sneak past me and try and put on some cleaner robes, then you are sadly mistaken brat. I know your there, there's not point in freezing up." She had caught me, and without turning around either. Relaxing from my frozen position I turned to face her back completely.
"How do you do that? You don't even see me but you know what I'm doing." It always baffled me how she could do that. Ino could do it as well, which was really annoying when your trying to sneak around and all you can hear are two banshee's yelling 'stop what your doing or you'll get it'.
"I have eyes in the back of my head. Now come here and let me see the damage." She must have had a long day, cause she wasn't yelling at me anymore. I gave into her request and walked around to face her.
My grandmother looks quite young for her age. She always takes good care of her skin and figure. If you didn't know how old she was, you could say that she looked about 30, instead of the 50 the she was. She had never had a wrinkle once in her life, and her hair still had the same vibrancy of what it was 20 years ago, and don't get me started on her figure. All I will say, is that Ino is constantly wining about she wishes that hers where as big as Tsunade's.5
Whatever she normally looked like, was none existent now. Her normal straight and proud posture, was now a limp bean. The hair from her left pigtail was almost falling out, and I swear I could see at least ten wrinkles on her forehead. Her eyes had dark rings around them and were almost half closed.
"What happened to you? You look like shit." I got hit for the last, comment but it wasn't has hard as it normally was.
"The statue of Kyuubi6 has gone missing. I've been looking for it all day, but no luck. I want you to go to Sarutobi and see if he can locate it." With that, Tsunade made her way inside and left me to grumble about my task.
Don't get me wrong, I love going to see the 3rd elder of our village, his grandson, Konohamaru is often visiting him when I'm there. The only problem is that I have to pass by the Hyuuga house and I'm slightly creped out by all the spirits that float around the branch house. Some of them are nice, and I will often hear about things that are happening inside, but others have a tendency to try and possess me.
I run to my room to grab some wards that I had made last night, changed into more normal clothes that a teenager would wear and started off.
The ghosts from the branch house have a 50 metre radius limit around the Hyuuga land, so I knew I was getting close when the ghostly hand of Hizashi, Neji's father, is felt on my left shoulder.
"How is he going at school, I haven't seen him staying out much lately." Hizashi has a deep baritone voice that could calm an angry hornet.
Every time I pass by here he would always ask about his son and how he is faring with friends. I have often told him that I would pass a message on, but he never takes up my offer.
"Well, our exams are coming up soon, so maybe he's just getting a head start on studying, but I can ask Lee how he is, if you want." I always liked Hizashi, even when he was alive, he would give me sweets, and when I had a problem I would often go to the park that was 49metres7 away from the Hyuuga house. He would always come out and listen to me bitch about my future or stuff that happened that day.
"They're still not sitting next to each other, but I have seen them sit at the same table a few times at lunch." Not only does Hizashi want to know about Neji, but also about 'Young Hinata-sama' as he calls her. He wants the two to get along, but with the circumstances of his death, it is kind of hard.
"Well, that is a start. So, Naruto what brings you here? Anything good happened today?" I look up to his face to see an interested look on it and I pondered if I should tell him or not. In the end I decided only to tell him that we had a new student in our class.
"So that's why there is so much commotion with the spirits, something like this hasn't happened since… well you and your sister came here. You had relatives here so that's understandable but why would people move here. What's their name?" What Hizashi said about the spirits threw me off a little, why would they care about new people; they were dead so they couldn't meet them.
"He's name is Uchiha Sasuke, and I hate him." I pouted to prove my statement. Hizashi's laugh however, made me turn to look at him once again.
"Now, now Naruto, you've only just meet this… what was his name again?" Hizashi's light and joyous tone became deadly serious when he asked me to repeat the name.
"Uchiha, Uchiha Sasuke." He's normally bright eyes widened in shock and then soon to blank indifference. With a soft 'that's why they're so excited' mumbled under his breath that I wasn't meant to hear, he's smile soon returned and as I continued to walk along we talked about different things. I found out that Hinata had a secret admirer and that her sister was going very well at school, getting the top marks in every subject.
When we stopped to say goodbye, Hizashi leant down to whisper in my ear, which I found dumb because no one could hear him anyway.
"Keep a close eye on the new kid alright Naruto? And try not to get to close. Promise me this." I looked at him for a minute trying to find out why he would say that.
"Naruto promise me." His voice was starting to take on a harsh tone, which was creeping me out.
"Alright I promise, but if I have to do something with him for some reason or other, it doesn't count ok?" Hizashi seemed to ponder it for a little while before looking down at me with a begrudged expression
"Fine, I accept that as the deal for the promise." I smiled a big grin up at him, and he ruffled my hair, and we let the conversation drop.
TBC
1 Naruto lives in a Shinto shrine, so that is why he wears the traditional robe, and a 'Hakama' is the traditional ceremonial robes worn by Shinto priests/priestesses. It's what Rei wears at her temple in 'Sailor Moon', the red and white thing. The red pants/skirt thing is called a Hakama, while the top is a short kimono. (I've always wanted to wear one.) now, I got that from a website (I studied up a bit on Shinto terms so if I got that a bit wrong, tell me and I'll change it.
2 like myself I can imagine Naruto making up weird words and phrases to suit whatever situation he is in. This one is just him telling himself that he isn't like the 'ultimate uke', failing about, needing to be saved every ten seconds, like, as he says, a prancy pony.
3 I know I know the 'Tsune is not very original of me, but I wanted to show you that it's really the Kyuubi or 'Kitsune'. The name reminds me of 'Tsume' from 'Wolf's Rain." Now heres are question for all of you. Do you class the Kyuubi as an OC, even though he is in the magna/anime (just not in the same body, he's still a fox demon though) or as OOC because of his personality?
4 'Get the wrong impression of me, which would be the right one anyway.' Brain Slade, from the movie 'Velvet Goldmine' says something like that when a reporter questions him, about how his audience might get the wrong impression of his sexuality (being bisexual) and what he thought about it.
5 Her boobs people, which are gigantic.
6Kyuubi statue, is a small portable statue about 6 inches tall and 3 inches wide. It stays at the shrine and is only moved during the festival.
7 Not all spirits can travel the full 50 metre, only the powerful ones, like Hizashi.
Well that's the second chapter done, I feel quite proud of it. Writing this would often get my mind off all the homework that I had to do. My screen has cracked and has lots of black spots on it, ones as big as a tennis ball. Well that's my reason (excuse) that this hadn't been posted earlier.
If you deem my story worthy of a review, then by all means, go ahead and review it, we all now where the button is.
To the people who reviewed my other Naruto fic 'This Time Imperfect' I thank you. I'm glad that you liked it, cause it's my favourite. I've been thinking about writing a sequel for a little while, but I haven't found the right motivation yet. Give it a bit of time and I'll soon find one.
