To Chisa Chispa: Thank you for your review, dear! :) I'm also excited for what is to come. Oh my god, yes, you may ask questions! If I didn't want them to meet, I would have let Sora die 12 years ago. ;)
To Guest: I'm glad you enjoyed it, dear! :D (Well you didn't have to wait long this time, yes? ;)) Thank you for your review! ^_^
It was hard finding an internet cafe in which I could update, but now that I have found one, things should get back on a weekly schedule. Enjoy! :D
Summary of chapter 3: Council of the Twelve Southern Tribes begin with Morino Ibiki returning as head of the Morino clan after 25 years of exile. It was hinted that there was an old feud between Hyuuga Hoheto, head of the Southern Hyuuga clan, and Ibiki and Sora. Yet, it appeared that Ibiki was exiled because he killed his own father. At the front, Neji and Shikamaru are tired from fighting as Sasuke troops retreated every day without combat leading to a clear loss or victory. In the meantime, Tenten, Maito Gai and Katsuo are travelling together. They stopped when they think Tenten has an infection from Katsuo's shooting her with an arrow. However, when there was no infection and they were soon surrounded by Chinese soldiers. It appeared that Maito Gai still had still sworn allegiance to Prince Chao of China, revealed as Tenten's grandfather. All along their trip, Maito Gai was informing his soldiers of their position. Katsuo died protecting Tenten. Neji then find Tenten's mare covered in blood.
-X-
Curtains of Sand
by Clementive
-X-
The tribes of the South never bowed and refused to be dismissed.
Subaku no Gaara could see their games, barely masked schemes, but they could only see him through curtains of sand. He couldn't side in their insults or find the words that would make the room revolved around him.
It all revolved around Morino and Hyuuga, the Japanese long throne forgotten in their call for blood. Two days passed and they still hadn't voted. There was two sides shifting the room's roar in jerky hand gestures and he was sitting between them. He was the outsider who could crush them if he wanted to. He was the outsider who promised himself he wouldn't and they knew as much, had closed the curtains around them.
He was left alone, ignored and forgotten with a status and clothes that didn't mean anything to them.
Gaara knew in order to handle the tribes, he needed to mould, shape and transfix their ways like sand and resist to the storm like rock. The tribes bred the beasts of the sand, demons that they expected to find in him. His predecessors had ignored the gentle graze of the sand, the shimmer of the dunes. They never slept, wandering the darkness day and night and the same curse befell upon him.
When he slept, something would awake inside of him. Something that growled and clawed its way through his soul. He ignored it when it pressed against his head or twisted his fingers over the scent of blood. There were nights that its sleek whispers would still find him; his ruling was too gentle, his hand too light when closing around the handle of his katana, it would growled.
It was Uzumaki Naruto who told him of demons which slept and never killed. It was Uzumaki Naruto who showed him the light and the darkness that could allow him to sit on his father's throne without slipping into his ghost and ravaging his lands. So, he did.
After all these years sitting on the throne of the shogunate, he still sunk in shifting sands, carried away by the back of the hands of tribes that never stopped unlike his.
His pale green eyes stopped on the disfigured face of Morino Ibiki. Gaara remembered the late head of the Morino tribe, a thick man who never shouted and handled instead silence as a weapon. His father had frowned when the body had been brought to him, a honourable death he had thought. Then, Hyuuga Hoheto had claimed otherwise. They were faces made of sand that the weakest wind could alter in another scheme, another fall. The face of Morino Ibiki told him he knew who Gaara wanted to see sitting on the Japanese throne. The face of Hyuuga Hoheto told him he knew how to exile him from the shogunate just as he had done with the Morino.
Grains of sand flew, the warmest hours escaping them, and they effortlessly swirled those grains of sand, the way Gaara wanted them to, ripping him apart, defying the pull of the wind.
"Hyuuga-sama, how many members of the third branch of your clan can sit on the Japanese throne?" He asked coldly, playing on the disgust of the other lords to feed the strength of his voice and the stability of his throne. Alone, it would have fallen flat against the ripple of their discussion.
It pierced the curtains of sand and Gaara could see the hint of a smirk on Morino Ibiki's face. He felt the beating of his heart, the thumping of silence. He was still sitting between them, still powerless. Still a puppet and his strings hung loosely in the palm of the Morino. An eye for an eye, his face told him. I can give you power, it assured him.
"Three have royal lineage, but none would dare sit on the throne," he gave him a frozen smile as if they would know better. "They are nothing more than perfect shields, accustomed to the pain and unable to use the gentle fists style because of it. Gaara-sama can rest assured that none of them can pretend to anything I do not give them myself."
"Morino-sama, I want you to hold custody of those princesses," he locked glance with him, the voices of the other lords already buzzing, escalating in a hurried tumult of stunned defiance. Excitement, rage. It swirled around him, a storm forming in the room and he was its eye.
He clenched his teeth riding the tempest. The mood of the room stilled and he pretended not to notice the narrowed eyes. He could almost feel their mouth handling for the Law of the Sand.
"Gaara-sama," Hoheto snapped, his eyes narrowing. "They belong to my clan and they are married. A honourable man would never allow his woman to live under another's man roof. This is despicable and terribly unwise on your part."
Ibiki crossed his arms, cocking his head on the side as if evaluating the young shogun for the first time.
"I refuse to feed women I do not bed."
"Morino!" Hoheto shouted, turning towards the smirking lord.
"Hoheto-sama is lying," he continued while other lords fidgeted. "There are four princesses and only one is dangerous. Ebisu-san reported that a Chinese diplomatic boat has reached the harbour in the shogunate of the Sound. I will take the Chinese princess in my custody. With the ship here, I'm sure I can find an arrangement for her to pay for her own food."
Gaara sensed the trap, noticed the subtle change in the Morino's posture alongside the silence of the other tribes. 'He planned this. This is all a game to him and I have practically given him the authorization to hold that prisoner and use her against me.' When he turned towards Hoheto, his lips were quivering, his composed features exploding, stretched in a mask of disgust and rage.
"It's not possible. She died!" He exploded, wild eyed, raising to his feet while pointing at the Morino. "Hiashi-sama assured me he killed the girl!"
"He must have lied. He must have feared the dragon more than he feared the sheep," Ibiki replied with cold amusement. Deliberately slowly, he shrugged waving his hand as if to wave a fly away.
"Get her," Gaara ordered, clenching his fists over his knees. "When she arrives here, I want to speak with her."
"I give my support to the Uzumaki kid," Ibiki answered instead never glancing away from him and the lords fell into place voicing their support.
He won but he was still behind the glass, walking on shifting sands that never stilled beneath him. They compressed his chest, restrained his movements and he was always in debt. He drifted in their games and sank between their fingers.
They dismissed themselves and he rose his body tensed with frustration.
Ibiki passed in front of Hyuuga Hoheto and allowed himself to bend over him. He watched him, battling to maintain his calm, his lips pulling over his teeth in a soundless snarl. The scavengers of dunes were known to pick at their food for days. They were known to enjoy the hunt and their meal with their prey's heart still beating.
"I will tell her you looked like this when you learned she was alive. I will tell her you were scared enough to shit yourself and she will smile. Then, I will give her your head and she will laugh." his tone was low, the threat deeply embedded in its coldness.
Gaara watched Ibiki's face for a while before shutting the door behind him. In the shogunate of the Wind, enemies and friends shifted constantly like sand. He hoped he hadn't made a mistake in choosing one over the other.
He hoped supporting Uzumaki Naruto wouldn't cost him his throne.
-X-
"We can't board the ship with the princess this sick."
An icy curtain would raise from her body. Tenten shivered, she could sometimes feel hand passing over her skin. It would heat her from head to toe, her head rolling back onto cushions. She would see Katsuo's dead eyes turning to liquid steel, she would feel the her fingers slipping over the handle of a kunai, the taste of earth still filling her mouth. Then, it would lift and left her dry and shivering.
She couldn't tell ghosts apart from the living that hovered her.
Voices would cease then urged her in Chinese. Her tongue was too thick, but she knew she would have called her father if it could leave her palate. If it could move. If she could move.
"She's losing it."
Tenten opened glassy eyes and tried to focus on the clear female voice, but her voice skewed and when she bent over, she saw brown eyes and deep haunting wrinkles.
"You are awake." A frown curled the thin lips, when she closed her eyes, groaning at the light escaping between the curtains.
The old woman's hand closed around her shoulder and she gasped in pain, her eyes shutting open. The breeze caressed her moist skin. She shivered, her breathing falling into pants. Abruptly, she lifted the silk sheets from her body. The birds chirped, but she was waiting for a sharp intake, a pity tap that would tell her what she already knew.
"You haven't bled, yet. Are you married?"
"Yes." she breathed out, her hand falling onto her stomach.
"You have drunk too much moon tea in your life," the elder clicked her tongue disapprovingly, pulling back the sheets over her legs. "You will probably lose the baby with this fever. Does your stomach hurt?"
"No," she whispered, clenching her jaw.
The weight of Neji and her was resting on in her stomach and it seemed she couldn't bear it. It seemed it would escape her, piercing her when it would. She would lose both herself and Neji if it did, she thought. Her throat hurt, her heart compressed.
"Don't cry, Your Highness, you have enough bad luck with this child. You don't want to chase his spirit away. It will only be harder for you. A shame your mother is nowhere to be found."
The elder gave her a sharp look forcing her to meet her eyes, her voice trailing on her last words. She still wanted to call for her father. His absence had always been heavier than her mother's. It had always been his arms over her arms. It has always been his smile and the absence of her mother's one.
"Do you know where she is?"
She closed her eyes, a shaky laugh echoing in her chest. Katsuo's dead eyes replaced by Gai's cold stare and bloodied katana flashed in her mind. It had been about her. All along it had been about a fleeing mother. After twelve years she was still the price of her punishment.
"No."
Slowly, Tenten turned on her side, her arms curling around her belly. She felt the emptiness of the title they wanted to force on her. She felt curtains rising and falling over a shogi board, she thought she knew by heart now. The voice harassed her, her tears dried hanging on to the only thing she wanted to give Neji.
The old nurse held a grass in front of her and she remembered all the times she had seen Tsunade extended the same glass in front of a sick girl. Tenten wanted to laugh at the irony of the bottomless beginning.
"I don't want to lose him," she spoke slowly, but the roar burnt at the back of her throat.
"You are not being reasonable, Your Highness. The child will die and it does so will you considering the way your body has weakened."
"I'm not drinking this," she ran her tongue over her dry lips.
They still vibrated from the strength of her voice. The mist cleared over her mind for the briefest moment and she remembered the guilt and fear loosely swaying on Katsuo's face.
"She will cut off your hand if you try to force it down my throat."
"I was her nurse, if you think I'm not used to this kind of talk," the woman laughed and Tenten's fingers curled around a kunai resting against her breast. "Did someone ever tell you about Prince Chao, your grandfather? He has no enemies because their heads are hanging in the hall of his palace and there are hands and fingers in every room. Like father like daughter but you don't have it in you, child. Unlike you, they don't negotiate."
She bared her teeth and the silver of them shone in the room. She let it fly. Tenten felt the weakness in her muscles when she threw kunai towards the elder. In a swift movement of the wrist, she caught it the tattoo on her arm bare despite its deformed shape against her wrinkled flabby arm. With equal strength, it sank in the floor.
"I will bring you something to eat. Your Highness should rest and stop acting like a spoiled child."
She was still the child between two seas of bodies. She was still the child with an absent mother and a dead father. She was still the orphan searching for the roar inside of her.
Repeatedly, it escaped her, sinking in troubling waters that closed in onto her mind and weakened her body.
-X-
Sweat gathered on his temples while sand rolled under his horse's hooves when Uzumaki Naruto took off his helmet. The tents of the clans of the valley of Konoha were spread in front of him, clinging to the rocks in colours that should have hidden them from sight. Naruto's gaze jumped from the camp to the one of the Uchiha camp, his throat closing.
He wanted to believe he would have the strength in his arm to dive his blade in the body of his friend. He wanted to believe that the mere thought of Sakura's would hold his arm steady. He wanted to believe it was all worth it.
"Naruto-sama?"
The sun casted shadows on the ground that ran between the camps. On the battlefield, siding was never about the darkness because it restlessly filled them whenever they killed. It was never about the light, because they preferred to fight under the sun. They preferred to see the hanging limbs and the fallen enemies. The first time he killed, he emptied his stomach and when he rose again, he killed another. And another. The light never let a solder pause and the darkness never released a solder's gut; he knew as much.
"Naruto-sama? Shouldn't we head down? We are exposed."
"Yes, of course," his voice rang raw as he pushed his horse forward.
His eyes searched the thickening darkness, the breath of the night brushing aside his golden locks. He wanted to be exposed. He wanted Sasuke Uchiha to know he was here.
He wanted him to know if he did raise his katana he would take his life and let him take his if it was it took.
He wanted him to know it was the end for the both of them.
-X-
Her world revolved around closing and opening sliding doors; piercing shadows and the wait of the pain. It was painted in Chinese colours, the shape of her necklace, embedded in the dragon's mouth of her robes.
The coldness of her fever slid off her skin, disturbed only by Rong's rough hands. Tenten panted, her lips paling as the layers of clothes closed around her. The nurse's voice always rang clear but her manners left harsh searing imprints of heat on her skin. Her hands would push her up without faltering, her tongue always clicking, a rhythmic mimic of her disapproval.
"You hold yourself like a peasant."
"What does it mean?" She asked, pointing at the elaborate drop of water that didn't belong with the fire of beast.
"It's the sign of your grandmother's clan. Princess Sora would throw tantrum after tantrum whenever her mother's emblem wasn't on her clothes. That foolish angry child," Rong roughly snapped a fan shut on her palm to slid it between her cold fingers. "Since you are as stubborn as her and prone to throwing kunai and daggers, I thought you would like to be reminded of whom you are."
"I know who I am and I'm the daughter of a peasant."
It was the only thing that kept her from saying she was the wife of Hyuuga Neji, because even then, it felt more like her than anything she remembered of her mother. She didn't want the sign of her grandmother's clan, she didn't want her grandfather's imperial dragon placed above the one that did make her the warrior she knew she was meant to be.
"Oh, some peasant that man was," she snorted.
Her head swayed heavily, her shoulders stiff from the weight of her hair pulled in a tight bun. Her eyes barely registered the movements around her as Rong closed her robes loosely around her hips. Then, she took her chin between her fingers her eyes scanning her eyebrows before nodding to herself. Tenten clenched her teeth, fighting to grasp the venom in the intonation of Rong's voice. She didn't want her nods and rough her hands pushing her up.
"Your features are too thick around your mouth, daughter of a peasant. Now, would you stand still?"
She turned her head away from her reflexion under the old nurse's watchful eyes. The silk cascaded around her legs. She wondered if blood would be as fluid and she looked down, expecting weight of her stomach to lift while dreading it. Twice, she had again refused the tea that would stop her sickness and stop her pregnancy at the same time.
"Why do I have to dress up like this? Your movements give me nausea."
Her knees almost gave him until she was pulled down again. She looked behind her at the unmade futon and her body bent towards it. Rong's hands pressed against her back and she straightened her posture, panting.
"Because someone has sunk the ship. If you ask me, that is your mother's doing. It feels like one of her pranks," she narrowed her eyes the whitened tip of a wide brush over her skin. "We need to get another a Japanese one now and that means asking a lord for it."
Her heartbeat quickened filling her ears until she couldn't feel the oppression of her stomach and robes, sweat prickling her nape. Kneeling and handled like a doll, she could only sink in the aversive thought of letting her child run wild like silk. Rong dipped a smaller brush in a red liquid and held her chin firmly. She wanted to laugh; make-up still felt familiar to the faintest movement of the wrist. However, she didn't think anything could smudge the awaiting pain and sickness buried in her womb.
"Which lord?"
"Does it matter?"
"Yes," Tenten murmured.
Because if it were Neji she would straighten her back on her own and kill the waves of nausea and unstable worlds that seemed to keep them apart. She told herself, the weight of them wouldn't disappear as easily if it were him.
She could hold him in. She could give him a son.
-X-
And I have found a way to reunite them. :D Next chapter, there will be NejiTen! ^_^
Reviews? They are quite lovely, you know. :)