All right! Third chapter in my fic. I'm on a total roll!
Don't own Naruto. Bet no one saw that coming.
Chapter 3: Other Sides
Setsuna didn't look up as the door to Mori's room opened. The princess stepped inside and looked slightly surprised to see her bodyguard in her room. It was several hours into the afternoon. Had she just now found the note?
"Setsuna?" Mori asked to the figure sitting on her bed, staring at the paper in her hands.
"Yes, Lady Zenkon?" she asked without looking up.
"How long have you been in here?"
"A while. Did you have a nice time?" Setsuna was now looking up at her charge, but there was something in her eyes that made Mori uneasy. She looked tired, as if possessed by something.
"Yes," the princess answered nonetheless. "Shino showed me all kind of things in the town today. I had no idea that a Hidden Village could have so many wonders in it. You should go see some of them."
"Do you wish to go out again?" she asked.
"Actually, I'm a little tired."
For a moment the samurai had been smiling, and maybe even looking a little hopeful, but at Mori's refusal she was quickly frowning again.
"I see," she said as she stood. "Then I suggest you rest Lady Zenknon. The Daimyou will be beside himself if you were to exhaust yourself. After all, you'll probably be with a fiancé in a few days." She quickly walked out. Mori whirled around as the door slide shut and clasped her hands in worry.
"Setsuna?" she asked to the suddenly empty air.
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The stone faces of the preceding Hokage's faces stared down at Setsuna as she watched the sky. The railing she was leaning on was uncomfortable to sit on, but she didn't pay it any mind. Angry storm clouds were overhead, threatening to rain soon. She silently dared them to, just to prove how miserable this pathetic village really was. The rain would fit her mood anyway.
'I'm acting like a child,' she thought to herself. 'What does it matter if Lady Zenkon is by my side or not? This country has just made a treaty with us, and she has a Jonin with her. She's in no danger. Why does she need me to be with her anymore?'
Lightning flashed in the sky and she snarled. It mattered more than she could ever explain. Lady Zenkon was the only thing in this world that truly mattered to her, and she was being ripped away from her as if she no longer even mattered. And really, did she? Her country would soon be of ninja, not samurai. She would no longer have a place in the Main Household, or even in her entire country.
"No," she whispered. "Lady Zenkon would never send me away."
And yet she knew that to be a lie. She and the princess had once been as close as sisters. They were never seen without one another. But she was now beginning to step away from Setsuna, and more towards the culture that Setsuna hated so much.
"Damn ninja," she cursed. She hated being here, she hated the union that was going to happen, and she hated every ninja in this God forsaken place. Well, that was not completely true. She supposed that she didn't especially mind that woman she had met last night, Sakura. Surprisingly enough, she had spent most of the night drinking Sake with her. Sakura was nice, for a ninja, though a bit single minded. She had kept going on and on about a man named Sasuke, and also how romantic it was for there to be an arranged marriage between the two countries.
Setsuna guessed that the ninja was simply a hopeless romantic, as it seemed a lot of women were. But then again, most ninja did not act like that. Sakura seemed to be an exception to the rule. Still, that did not make Setsuna anymore happy with the situation was in.
"Well well well. What do we have here?"
Setsuna looked down from the sky to see three men in front of her. One was large and burly, full of muscles, with absolutely no hair to speak of. The second was a small, bent over man who immediately reminded her of a rat, down to the gray hair on his head and the thin whiskers on his face. The last, no doubt the ringleader of these men, was about average height, and his stark black hair and fine features would have made him quite handsome, if not for the fact that the expression on his face made him look as if a smelly pile of garbage was right underneath his nose. She was not at all startled to see that they all had Leaf Headbands on their heads.
"Go away," she told them simply.
"Aw," the rat man replied, "that's not very nice. Hee. Why don't you show us some manners? After all, we're hosting you people here."
"Naw. Word is that she's been rude to everyone," the burly one said in a voice like gravel.
"Is that true? Too bad. We were hoping you could show us some… gratitude for our hospitality."
Setsuna didn't give any reaction of anger towards the leader's words. She instead snorted, and muttered, "Funny, I don't remember you being at the greeting ceremony. You must have been too small next to the Hokage to be noticed."
"What?" snarled the leader. A flash of lightning cracked the sky in half and rain began to fall but none of them paid it any mind.
"Get lost, before I show you my real gratitude towards this village." Her voice was an even tone but the steeliness in her eyes made her threat obvious as water trickled down her stern face.
"Hee. You don't scare us. We're Chunin Ninja, and you're just one puny girl," the rat laughed. He grabbed at her arm, but she was faster as she snatched his wrist.
"Don't touch me," she scowled. She forced the man away with a punch to the face.
"Lousy bitch!" he squealed from the ground as she unsheathed her sword. It was pointed towards his throat and she was about to give them another warning that they needed to leave or else before a voice stopped her.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," the leader and she eyed him angrily. "You wouldn't want us to go tell the Hokage that you were starting fights with ninja, would you? Just imagine what would happen to your little princess and Daimyou if we showed up with the slash wounds you so obviously want to give us. And whom do you think she'd believe? Us, loyal ninja, or a bitchy samurai?"
After a moment she dropped her sword in surrender. Strong arms grabbed both of hers and she was swiveled around. She could tell it was the giant and she cursed herself for not keeping a better eye on him. The small rat ninja had scurried up to a standing position as the leader donned a pair of brass knuckles and shoved a fist into her gut. The force of it made her stumble slightly, and when her knees were kicked out from underneath her feet she found herself kneeling in front of the leader. Her sword lay pathetic on the ground, and the leader kicked it in mirth.
"Well, this is something slightly better. A samurai kneeling to a ninja. Hee. Now who saw that coming?"
Setsuna's matted hair didn't hide her expression of contempt she held for these three men. Her glare did little but make them laugh though. What could she do? All four of them knew perfectly well that if she injured or even killed one of them then it would be the end of the treaty between the Konohagakure and the Land of the Meadows. Besides, what could they hurt besides her already torn pride?
"Well, girls always look prettier in a little red. Too bad for you it'll be in blood."
"Too bad for you it'll be yours."
The leader tried to look around to see who was talking but the giant dog that had suddenly bit one of his arms somewhat distracted him. Setsuna heard the bone crack as easily as a child could snap a thin branch. That is, with a mostly clean break with a little twisting to finish it off.
The leader screamed and Kiba coolly grabbed his mouth to silence him from on top of Akamaru.
"Tell your goons to get off of her, and then report to the Meds. If you so much as breathe a word to the Hokage about that woman doing this, then next time I'll let Akamaru get nasty."
The broken man nodded like a whipped puppy and Setsuna soon found herself let go of. The three fled from Kiba's wrath as she shakily stood. He…had helped her.
"Jeez, and here I thought I wouldn't need to step in. Scumbags, not only do they go three-on-one but the also have to make threats so you won't fight back? That's just pathetic."
"You didn't need to do that," Setsuna interceded. Kiba gave her a look. "But you did anyways. It's true. I would have survived that encounter, I'm sure, but not without excessive harm. Thank you."
"Uh, your welcome," Kiba supplied. "Are you okay?" he asked as he saw her wince as she bent over to pick up her katana.
"I'm fine," she answered.
Kiba suddenly jumped off of Akamaru and grabbed both of her wrists, lifting them skyward to see her stomach was tinted red in soaked up blood.
"Let me go," she snapped at him and pulled away.
"How did he do that by just punching you?" he asked. Akamaru whined softly at Setsuna who attempted to wave the dog away.
"None of your business."
He rubbed the back of his head and sighed. "Let me take you home," he said.
"Why should- Hey! What are you doing?"
"Keep it down," he told her after he had picked her up bridal style. He sat her down on Akamaru and then climbed on himself. He didn't touch her as they rode back to the academy, and Setsuna refused to look at him.
"I was perfectly fine to walk back," she told him.
"Yeah, whatever. Look, I'm not running the risk of you being jumped again. You're not the most social person," he replied.
"You make it sound as if I personal insulted every person in this village to their face," she retorted dryly.
"No, well not personally. But we all saw you scowling at the ceremony."
"You couldn't possibly understand."
"Why are you bleeding? That guy was a hell of a lot less skilled than you were; they all were. I could tell just by watching you four, you could have taken them. You held back on purpose, which I suppose I can understand why, but that jerk couldn't have possibly hit you hard enough with a blunt weapon to make you bleed."
Setsuna didn't give any inclination that she even cared about his sudden change of conversation. Instead she just shrugged.
"I've been a samurai for over two-thirds of my life," she said. "I was younger than ten when I started to protect Lady Zenkon. You think it's so strange that I not have an old wound on my stomach? That kind of thing can be torn into easily, even after a long time. But believe me, I'm fine."
"Oh really?" he asked as he poked her stomach.
A hand reached out to clutch at the aggravated wound and Setsuna clenched her eyes shut from the pain.
"Forget it," she objected. "Stop. I can walk the rest of the way."
"And get your injury infected by walking around in the rain. Not to mention the fact that you could collapse from blood loss because you're bleeding heavily enough to seep through a trench coat," he contemplated sarcastically.
"I said-" she argued before a finger poked her again.
"You think for just once, you can just be reasonable?"
The samurai grumbled, but did not argue the point any further.
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"I'm sure that you'll be fine," Sakura smiled down at Setsuna as she finished bandaging her stomach. "It was just torn into, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem. As long as you don't aggravate it too badly, it should be okay."
"Thanks," she replied as she slipped her shirt back on from on top of her bed. She already knew all of this. It was nothing she hadn't heard before.
"Um," Sakura said, "if it's not to much to ask, where did you get such a bad injury? It doesn't look fresh but I can tell it's been torn into… several times."
Setsuna sighed. "Kiba asked you to say something, right?"
Sakura looked guilty for a moment before chuckling. "Yeah, he did."
'Why's he so interested all of a sudden?' she thought before sighing again. "I got it a couple of years ago when I was seventeen. The Zenkon family was celebrating Lady Zenkon's fourteenth birthday. There was an attack that night on the family. I received the wound when it happened. It's never healed properly because… I was the last surviving member of my family after the attack. I was the only one left to protect them, I could never give myself the time needed to heal."
"Oh," Sakura said as she looked away. "I'm sorry."
Setsuna shook her head. "Don't be. It's in the past." She looked around Sakura's bedroom. So nice, so cozy. She never thought she could be comfortable in a ninja's home, but this was much better than the Hokage's mansion. She suddenly felt grateful to Kiba for taking her to Sakura at the last moment instead.
'And such a skilled Med-Nin. I barely even felt the stitches,' she thought. "I suppose I should be going back to Kiba now."
Sakura nodded. "I'll get him."
"No," the samurai replied as she stood and walked in the living room. "I can move on my own. Thank you."
"Ready?" Kiba asked. The door was slightly ajar behind him, as if he had just walked in.
Setsuna looked at the floor. She suddenly felt very angry with Kiba and she didn't even know why. He had helped her. Taken her to be patched up, had even taken her to a person that would not talk about it to other people. He had rescued her from those men.
And she was angry in spite of all of those things, not despite them. He had done them even with her protesting, as if she had been too helpless to take care of it herself.
'I didn't need his help. He's acting too much like him,' she thought before she found Kiba was in front of her and waving his hand in front of her face.
"You okay?" he asked.
Setsuna looked away. She didn't want to see him right now. "The rain's stopped so I'm walking back. Don't follow me."
She just waked past him in a brisk pace. She didn't see his expression, but she didn't want to. As the door shut behind her she heard Akamaru whining at her. She looked down at him, since Sakura had asked for the big, furry dog to wait outside instead of pacing around the living room with all of her breakable things.
"Sorry boy," she found herself saying, and she didn't even know why.
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I really loved doing this chapter. I was so happy to break Setsuna out of the anti-social thing she originally had. It's a small change, but it's still there. I was originally going to have her friendship bloom between Hinata instead of Sakura, but I liked this idea a lot better. Sakura was just plain easier to write for the whole "I'm just going to approach you and decided to start being nice to you for no reason other than the fact that I want to" thing more than Hinata would. That, and I didn't want it completely focused on Team 8. There are other characters in this anime and I will use them.
Anyway, please review so I know how I'm doing.
