Soft shuffles
through the streets. Blue sandals, pale calves. Shia was walking in a
soft pace towards the forests just outside of Konoha. She had a calm
look on her sharp face. Her long hair, tied up in a ponytail,
fluttered out behind her.
The grassy fields were very popular
during spring. Families and lovers went there for picknicks, or just
for a stroll.
"...so meet me there
at two, allright?"
Ren had told
her that. He was in love, he said. You've got to meet her, he said.
Shia rolled her eyes to herself. How many times had he told her that?
Ren, who was now seventeen, was quite the player. He had been with
over ten different girls by now, most likely. More so, he kept
introducing her to his friends. Who Shia did not like. At all.
Shia
had grown up to be a bit of a grumpy teenager. If someone criticised
her, she easily snapped at them. She had grown a habit of smoking
whenever tired or stressed.
The village did not like her very much. She was too "eerie". They had never liked her, but her childish manners had made up for it in the past. Now Shia was avoided, especially by the ninja's of her generation. The girls kept mocking her, for no apparent reason. Just because she was a bit more quiet than the others, perhaps.
"Shia!"
Flinching when someone called her name, she jerked up her head, only
to notice she had reached the fields already. A boy approached her.
He was tall, very tall. His stubborn black hair stuck out like he had
just got out of bed. He put a hand on her shoulder. "Hi, midget."
Shia frowned at him. The girl was as short as Ren was tall, who often
mocked her with the fact that she had to adjust all of her long
pants. "Would you mind shutting up, bean sprout? Just take me to
her."
Ren smiled, his eyes narrowing a little bit to that lovely
look of his. He put her arm around her, easily nudging her forward to
a shady spot where a girl stood.
Shia swallowed.
The girl looked pretty. Shia wasn't bad-looking, but she wasn't
the prettiest being ever seen, either. The kunoichi sometimes wasn't
very careful with her looks. Everything about her was
average-looking, except for her long, fine hair which she was indeed
very proud of.
The girl had turned around, bursting into a
gorgeous smile. "Ren!" She exclaimed in a soft, yet clear voice.
Her curly brown hair embraced the sides of her round face gently.
"You kept me waiting!"
Her figure was very beautiful too.
Overall, she was nearly impeccable. Her green eyes had that same
smile's narrow to them, until she saw Shia. The girl's eyes went
slightly cold. Yet she approached Shia all the same. "Hello. My
name is Kiira. You must be Ren's sister." Something about her
pause in the sentence and the way she pronounced 'sister' made
the sentence drip with sarcasm. Shia shook her hand and regarded her
coolly.
Now that they were so close to each other, Shia could see
that her smile wasn't as gorgeous as it had seemed. It was slightly
crooked, slightly made of plastic. The girl released Kiira's hand
quickly, and turned her attention back to ren, who had been chatting
away. "...took me three more hours to finish it at last!" He
burst into his sweet laughter. Shia quickly laughed along with him.
It didn't take
long for her to realize that Kiira was in the same team as Ren, and
that she utterly adored him. Shia sighed and consented that she would
have to try and get along with her. She jerked back to earth when Ren
held out some chopsticks to her. "Here you go, imouto-chan." He
had brought a basket along with him. "I brought the picknick, as
agreed!"
"Oh, Ren...You really went for it again..." Shia
observed, as the basket looked like it could burst every second now.
As he unpacked things, Shia observed Kiira's face. She was
astonished at Ren's cooking skills, but for some reason she looked
like she had expected him to do this for her. She sighed and filled
her bowl with Ren's vegetable rice and his grilled sausages.
Halfway through, Kiira suddenly exclaimed. "Oh Ren, you're too
good for m—" She shifted her eyes slowly towards The pale girl
sitting against a tree. "...for us. Of course." She leaned over
and kissed him on the cheek.
Shia's fist closed tightly around
her chopsticks. Her chest seemed to be pulsating with something she
soon chalked up to jealousy. She dived into her food again, anything
to ignore them kissing eachother on the mouth, anything,
anything!
"Ren." She said softly. "Did you bring any
drinks?"
"Oh...Damn! I knew I had forgotten something! I'll
get us some, don't worry, Shia-chan." And so Ren went running off
towards the village again.
Crap. That wasn't her intention,
to be left alone with Kiira. Shia slapped her palm to her forehead
behind Kiira's back, who was waving at Ren. She was still quietly
damning herself when she heard that soft, clear voice again.
"So...Shia, is it?"
She looked through her fingers to find
Kiira staring a green stare at her.
"Yes. Why, Kiira-san?"
Shia kept her voice polite, yet low.
"Your brother...He's very
nice. He's your only family, isn't he?" Again, that plastic
smile. Shia said nothing, but put down her bowl in the grass, only to
be doing something. Her green eyes were piercing to her
core.
"So...Has to be tough losing him, right?"
Shia's
fingers stopped fiddling with the grass. The clenched tightly into
the soft earth beneath it. "I'm not losing my onii-chan to
anything."
"Oh, but you are, Shia." Kiira leaned up close to
her and smirked, her head tilted to one side. "He's mine now. He
used to be talking about 'Shia-chan' constantly. Shia-chan,
Shia-chan. His heart belonged to you. Who has be been talking about
now, you guess? Hm?" She played with a curly strand of hair.
"Kiira-chan. Kiira. He loves me, Shia. He doesn't like you, a
small lost freak's child anymore."
Shia's eyes widened. She bit her bottom lip and spoke through her teeth. "Ren arrived here together with me. He's the same as me. He loves me." With every breath she took, she felt her heart racing in her throat. Doubt gnawed at her. She could be right. Kiira was prettier, more popular. She seemed to take good care of him. Yet still, a small piece of certainty remained. Ren promised he'd take care of her. He promised.
"Ren was old
enough to take care of himself. You can't even cook a simple meal.
Ren has to do it for you. He's sick of it, Shia. Ren-chan told me
that himself. You're a burden he has to drag along." With every
word, anger flared through Shia's body. From the pit of her
stomach, to the tips of her fingers. It was throbbing in her chest.
She stumbled up, shaking with hate.
"Just who...do you think you
are?"
"I'll tell you. I'm Ren's important person. I hold
his heart." Kiira had gotten up gracefully, and calmly.
"Well,
I'm off to tell my sweetie to come with me. See you, little
pathetic girl." Kiira turned around and started walking the same
road Ren had been running on three minutes ago.
Red-hot fury was
seeping through her bones, into her blood where it ran at a high
speed to her legs and arms before it reached her mind to even
consider.
"You do not hold Ren's heart, only I do!!" She
shrieked with a pitch-high voice. It rang across the plains,
startling other couples and families. The fury blinded her, and
suddenly she found herself in the air, leaping at Kiira. She landed
on top of Kiira, who had half turned around. They dropped onto the
ground with a hard thud. Shia lay on top of her, griiting her teeth,
and through her wild fury began tugging at Kiira's pretty hair.
Shia was, unlike
Kiira, a brawler type. She battled in close-range, and had a
rock-hard physique. Kiira was a medium-range genjutsu user, but her
part in the fight was not bad at all. After all, Kiira was taller and
older than Shia, and was not blinded by rage.
Kiira grabbed a hold
of Shia's fringe, tugging it towards her. Then, suddenly, she
jerked up her elbow, hitting Shia in the throat. The pale girl
gagged, losing her grip on Kiira's head, who took every chance she
got. Immediately, Kiira was crouching over Shia, hitting her in the
face once, twice, three times. Her punches weren't powerful, but
powerful enough to dizzy Shia. The punches seemed to wake her from
her anger. She blocked Kiira's next punch, and held Kiira's body
off hers using her shin. She bended her leg and pressed her shin
against Kiira's upper body.
Kiira jerked herself up, thinking Shia would punch back, and concentrated fully on the short girl's clenched fists. The attack came from a completely different angle though. Kiira felt a hot white pain spread through her chin, her mouth and her teeth. She fell back, shrieking and clenching her mouth. Blood ran through her fingers, dripping onto her neck and arms. The girl looked up, her eyes filling with tears. Shia was leaning on her elbows, her leg outstretched into the air. The black-haired girl had hit her straight in the mouth, with her powerful kick.
Shia's face was
swollen and blue where Kiira had struck her, and she was bleeding
from her nose. She had a triumphant grin on her face. The kunoichi
was panting.
"Shia..? Kiira?" The otherwise so cheerful and
warm voice sounded small and shocked. Shia's smile faded from her
face. How much had Ren seen?
He was holding three cans of soda.
Kiira stood up. "Ren! You-your little sister! She just attacked me!
Look what she did to me, Ren, sweetie!" Kiira's voice was
shaking, but there was no hurt in it. Just pain. Ren dropped the
cans, closing Kiira in his arms.
He looked at Shia, accusing and
cold.
"What...did you
do Shia? Why did you do that?" Ren's voice was cold as stone.
Shia sat on her knees. "R-Ren...She provo—"
"I don't
want to hear an explanation." Ren interrupted her. "You let me
down, you didn't even try to like her. I don't want to see you
right now, Shia." He looked away from her, into the plains. Hurt
was in his blue eyes.
"Ren..kun..."
Shia whispered softly.
Next to Ren, Kiira smiled her plastic
smile, her blood-coloured teeth crooked and askew.
