A/N: Yay reviews!
Ninja-Bunny-Master: Yeah, Lion's just mean sometimes, and don't you just love Goro the puppy? He's so cute, at first I was thinking of turning into something cliché, like a frog, but then I decided that a puppy was much cuter.
Red X17: You're welcome.
Nappyhead: I actually want to make him have a long meaningful but awkward hug with Gai-sensei now, just because you said that….
Flatwaffles29: Thank you for the love my dear, I will try very hard to make it as long and as awesome as possible for you as a show of my appreciation. :D
This chapter is going to be largely about Miyako-chan's past and the past ninja world. I kind of tweaked it for my own purposes, but I did warn you guys that it wouldn't stay on the facts of canon so…
And really, there isn't much of an explanation of the past before mercenary clans, not that I've seen anyway, and so I think this is a great explanation, for the purposes of my story anyway.
There isn't much else to be said about the chapter, except that I hope you enjoy it! :D
Here's the disclaimer my lovely ducks!
Disclaimer: ZZZzzzzZZZ
SFA: Ahem!
Disclaimer: -wakes with a start- Oh, uh…
SFA: This is the part where you inform everyone that I clearly don't own Naruto
Disclaimer: …What she said.
SFA: -eye roll-
Well let's get on with it then.
Goading Gaara
Gaara was avoiding her.
She didn't mind it, not totally, after all she had clearly seen it coming after their conversation last night, but that didn't mean it still didn't sting her a little.
The real problem was that everyone else seemed to acquire a sudden interest in her.
It had started in History with Kurenai-sensei, she and Gaara's first period class. They had started to backpedal a bit when the relevance of kingdoms had started playing a part in the Great Ninja Wars, and that was when she was first mentioned.
"One of the greatest and most peaceful kingdoms to ever rule was the Wind kingdom ruled by the Kurosawa's, which ended its reign after the last King, King Daisuke, died of old age." Kurenai-sensei had explained, pointing to an old and faded ink painting of the King, who was a kind looking man if his large smile and twinkling purple eyes had anything to say.
Miyako looked sadly at the painting, memories of that same smiling face and lively eyes haunting her thoughts as the class continued, unaware of her inner turmoil.
"He didn't have any offspring to continue his lineage?" Sasuke grunted curiously from his seat, eyeing their sensei with disbelief.
"Very good question Sasuke-kun, and yes, Kurosawa-sama did indeed have one heir to his throne."
Miyako winced as Kurenai unrolled another similarly faded scroll with a flourish, revealing a very old and very worn picture of…her.
Miyako eyed the picture, noticing the similarities and the differences between her and the girl portrayed there.
She was not smiling when they'd painted that picture of her, she could vaguely remember that she had been chastised beforehand by her father's aide about the nature of royals and that they were not to lift a muscle in their face in paintings, as it gave the wrong impression.
She hadn't bought it, but she'd had to sit through a nearly hour long lecture on the subject and listen to the aide complain on her father's behavior, and so she had obeyed, hence why she looked so radically different from her father in the painting, though they were very alike. She had to admit though, everything looked very smooth when she wasn't smiling, or even showing expression at all.
Her hair, she observed, was styled in loose ringlets, all pulled around her shoulders, the length barely stretching past her neck then.
She fingered her now long, wildly curly mane while she continued to outline other obvious distinctions.
Her eyes were still that purple, although they had morphed into something much sadder and lonelier now than before, whereas impassiveness was simply a mask to great joy and liveliness.
Her hands were daintily folded in the lap of a lilac kimono that danced white patterns of wind cascading into twilight skies as it fell down, not that anyone could see that in the painting, but she just recalled it because it was her favorite kimono, soft, wonderful and made of the finest materials.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd worn something like that, the time stretching to literally eons ago.
She was confident that they wouldn't grow suspicious of the similarities, in fact they'd never be able to tell, few probably had remembered her face the one time they'd seen it, and even fewer would look past the obvious differences in hair style and length to even question it.
Mostly though, it was because she knew that she just wasn't that girl. Not anymore.
"He had one daughter, and her name was-" Kurenai quirked her lips a little in Miyako's direction, making the girl have to pretend to be disinterested once again.
"Kurosawa Miyako."
Naruto was quicker than the rest of them to react, spinning around in his chair and facing Miyako with a large grin, shouting:
"Hey, hey! Miyako-chan and the princess share the same name!"
She gave Naruto a weary upside u grin with her eyes at his outburst, deflating in relief when he whirled around once again to fire off another thought.
"But hey! What ever happened to Miyako-hime, huh Kurenai-sensei?"
Kurenai shook her head sadly, "No one knows, Naruto-kun, some speculate that the girl died of a disease that was spreading rapidly around their kingdom, others still claim that she was kidnapped by the man they had trusted to cure the kingdom of their disease in exchange for her hand in marriage, but the full story has never been told."
"So no one took over after the Kurosawa-sama's death? What happened to the kingdom?" A platinum blonde girl, Ino? Miyako couldn't remember, questioned.
"The kingdom dissolved, for the villagers loved the Kurosawa clan so greatly that they felt they could not raise up a better kingdom after his death, and so they all split up, some into the mercenary clans we discussed earlier in the year."
"So that was it? They never looked for her or anything?" Sakura cried, sounding much more hurt for Miyako's situation than she should be. After all, it happened a long time ago.
"They did Sakura, but they never found her, many documents say the king died searching for his daughter, as well as many of the people of his kingdom, they never gave up hope that they would find her."
Miyako's eyes widened at this revelation, true she had thought that her father would look for her, but she'd never imagined that he'd go searching for the rest of his life! And not to mention the village people as well?
A sudden sadness washed over her, the abruptness of it all causing her to spiral into a depressive state that she hadn't encountered since she'd first been cursed with this life.
She tried to choke it down, to pay attention to Kurenai-sensei's lecture of the other kingdoms of old, but her father's smiling painted face kept tipping her over the edge; it got so bad that she had to put her head down on the cool desk to keep the pins and needles pricking her eyes into tears at bay.
She let in a shaky breath, and knew she was starting to draw attention to herself, something she did not want at this time, and so she had to come up with a plan; quickly.
She resolved that feigning sickness was the easiest route to take, as she already looked the part of an ill individual, but still she would have to do so subtly, as she did not want to draw more attention to herself than she'd already accumulated by do something rash.
When Kurenai-sensei had taken a pause in her lecture, Miyako gently lifted her head up and raised her hand, catching the teacher's attention quickly.
"Yes, Miyako-chan?"
All eyes than turned to her, curious, as she had never before interrupted a lecture.
"May I go the nurse's office sensei? I've been feeling a bit ill all morning." She offered repentantly, shooting the teacher a wry smile with her eyes.
"Very well Miyako-chan, do you require assistance?
"No, I think I am capable of making it there on my own."
"Please get better than." Kurenai allowed, writing a quick pass on a blue slip of paper and handing it to the slowly approaching girl as she passed.
"Arigato." She then ambled out of the room, her mind whirring rapidly with what she was going to say to get Lion off her back.
The ANBU had now been given the permanent duty of watch dog after Miyako's Goro-puppy incident, and had been taking his duties very seriously, standing guard outside each of her classrooms for its whole duration and vigilantly walking her to each class, his stare never wavering.
Although she appreciated his silent but warm company, she did not wish for it at this present moment; he did not need to see her in such an emotional state.
When she exited she found he was nowhere in sight, and she let out a quiet sigh of relief, quietly ambling to the restrooms a little ways away, as she knew that if he did decide to cut short his good graces he could not follow her in there.
She entered the empty bathroom, double checked to make sure it was empty and then entered a stall.
It was there that she cried silently for the duration of first period.
G /M
Gaara silently watched the girl leave the classroom curiously, his expression blank though his mind was not.
What was suddenly the matter with her?
It's not as if he cared, for her anyway, it's just that she was supposed to be doing a job at the moment, and getting "sick" was not in her job description.
He had a strange feeling that she was not "sick" as she had claimed, rather that she had heard something from the lecture that had caused her to have a sudden emotional reaction, what emotion he did not know, and he couldn't pin what had set her off either.
But again, it's not as if he cared.
It's just that, he knew she wasn't sick, she had been perfectly cheerful this morning as she cooked and served breakfast, and that the breakfast had been perfectly fine as he was not sick, nor were his siblings, and she had remained her chipperly annoying self on the way to class, chatting as usual with that strange Konoha ANBU that kept following them around, so what was it?
He didn't know, but he was certainly debating telling Baki, it would prove beneficial to him to have her out his hair if Baki decided to boot her off the mission for her incapability, and if he mentioned that she had an ANBU tailing them around due to what he assumed was the prior incident in the lunchroom, than it would certainly get her sent back.
That would be nice.
Just as he was deciding he was going to do just that a thought occurred to him.
If he got rid of her, who would make him gizzards?
He begrudgingly admitted that he liked that she made gizzards for him, and that she did it exceptionally well, something that he had not encountered in a long while and certainly made his stomach very happy.
He would also begrudgingly admit that she cooked well too, much better than Temari, there was no question, but that didn't take a lot of skill to accomplish, so he had to admit that she was on an even higher level than that.
He would not eat any more burnt meals; he had gotten too used to Miyako's cooking to go back to square one.
Fine. He would keep her, and he would make damn sure that Temari didn't open her mouth to tattletale to Baki about this incident, as he knew that Kankuro was not a problem being as much in love with Miyako's cooking as he was.
He would kill Temari before she got rid of Miyako, that's how serious he was about her cooking.
Then it was settled.
G /M
Miyako made herself look as pitiful and ill as possible when she entered the nurse's office, which wasn't too hard to do considering she had been crying for almost an hour.
Still, the nurse, Shizune, had fretted over her obvious warm forehead and bid her rest for at least a period before she commenced her school activities once again.
Miyako didn't need it, after all she was only going to the nurse's office for show, but she was grateful to fall into the springy mattress and sleep her cares away, regardless of her responsibilities.
She awoke at the sharp shrill of the bell and was immediately alert and walking out of the office, bidding Shizune good day and almost running smack dab into Lion.
He gave her a stare she hadn't yet seen, but by his tense posture she assumed it was concern, and therefore named it the: "Are you alright?" Stare.
"I'm fine." She assured and Lion minutely relaxed under her sharp gaze, before gently taking her wrist and towing her off to her class.
It was Japanese Literature this period.
She and Lion made it there at their snail pace just in time for the bell to ring, so Miyako bid him a quick goodbye and hastily rushed to her seat.
"Ah, there you are Miyako-chan, I was beginning to worry you wouldn't show if Anko-san's speculations of your condition were anything to go by."
Miyako gave Kakashi an eyebrow raise, a thing they were both familiar with seeing as they shared the same adverse response to showing their faces to the public.
"Maa, she said something about you having a horrible stomach bug, or that someone poisoned your breakfast, and when Kurenai-sensei brought up that you suddenly fell ill in her class, she was sure that it had to be that her lecture bored you to death."
Miyako couldn't hold it in, letting out a loud boisterous laugh, making Kakashi grin his upside down eye u at his accomplishment.
"There we are, now that Miyako-chan is back to her cheerful self we can begin the lesson, today we are going to discuss the folklore of: genies."
Miyako had settled into quiet giggles as Kakashi had started the lesson, but immediately quieted at today's topic, not so much out of fear, but more out of curiosity, how would Kakashi's lesson portray what she was?
Kakashi then began to weave a tale of "The First Genie", which involved a poor man being cursed by a powerful demon into fulfilling his every command, and when the poor man found that he could not complete some of the tasks the demon gave to him, the demon would imbue the man with some of his powers, and these powers stayed and multiplied until the man was all powerful.
She started to wonder where the "trapping in lamps" would come in, but Kakashi quickly answered that silent question when he reached the climax of the story.
The man apparently felt that, with all of his newfound powers, he could challenge the demon to a duel, where if he won, he would be free of him and keep his powers.
The demon allowed it, feeling confident about the extent of his also awesome powers, provided if the man lost, he would serve the demon without question and give him a fatal weakness, tying him to a lamp he had made himself.
The man accepted and they dueled, as Miyako predicted the man lost and the demon sealed him up inside the lamp, binding his powers not only to him, but to the lamp, so that if he chose, he could break it as well as kill the man whenever he chose.
The whole class was silent as Kakashi finished his tale, some looking on at the man who U smiled at them in awe, while some, mainly Sasuke, looked bored.
"Kakashi-sensei, what does any of this have to do with real life?" Sasuke droned.
"Yes, as you say, all of these stories you are telling us are simply that: stories." A stoic boy in front of her, Neji if she recalled, stated.
"Ah, but I did not say that Neji-kun." Kakashi sang. "I said that these are legends!"
"Ah, ano, but Kaka-sensei, isn't that the same thing?" Naruto questioned, scratching his head as Kakashi's eye only arched farther, if that was possible.
"No, Naruto-kun, won't someone explain what the technical definition of a legend is to Naruto?"
"Naruto," Miyako called softly from her seat, knowing that if Sasuke explained it to him he would just belittle Naruto, which would irritate Naruto, which would start a fight, which she did not want to see happen.
"Hm?"
"A legend is a story from the past that is popularly regarded as historical, just not verifiable."
"Ano…" He put his finger to his chin, making the class groan and even Gaara tighten his jaw and roll his eyes.
"So that means, it could be true?" He guessed with a hesitant expression on his face, it lighting up when Miyako nodded happily to him.
"Oh! Thanks Miyako-chan!"
Everyone either sighed or inwardly sighed in relief that the disruption was over and Kakashi continued with the lesson.
"Very good Naruto-kun," Kakashi mocked lightly, making the boy in question huff, "and I even have an example to back your new found vocabulary up."
Kakashi pulled out a large book that said: Konoha History: Underneath the Underneath, which made Miyako very suspicious, as that was exactly Kakashi's motto.
"Kakashi-sensei we already studied history earlier today!" Naruto objected.
"Ah, but Naruto-kun, how am I to present to you the evidence of the existence of genies, a folklore, without citing a reference in history?"
The boy settled down at that argument and so everyone settled down for yet another history lesson.
Miyako was very curious at this point, tilting her head in tandem with her emotions as Kakashi opened his book.
"So today you learned about the kingdoms prior to the mercenary clans, right?"
They nodded in sync.
"Well, it is said that the clans still had a small allegiance to their kingdoms, even though the kingdoms were gone, and so they fought under their last king's names, the Senju and the Uchiha only being two examples.
"They were enemies before the creation of Konoha due not only to their equal power and strength, but because they hailed from two warring kingdoms. The Senju were from the Wind kingdom and the Uchiha were from the Fire."
Miyako nodded, as she already knew all this, it was one of the many reasons why she had been weary of the Uchiha, as they were the Fire kingdom's strongest warriors and fierce opponents. She remembered that before she was kidnapped they were meant to bring about a peace treaty with the kingdom, but that the horrible disease had broken out in her kingdom before it could be carried out. Many always suspected the Fire kingdom, and subsequently the Uchiha. It was one of the reasons the Senju had held out on their fighting grudge for so long, because they still blamed them for the many deaths in the Wind kingdom.
"And so because of this the Senju fought under the name of their last king, Kurosawa Daisuke-sama, and their would- be queen, Kurosawa Miyako while the Uchiha fought under their last king Fukui Nori-sama.
They had many fights because of this, and each clan documented the fight, victory or loss, and there was an interesting occurrence that the Uchiha kept encountering when fighting the Senju. Would you like to know what it was?"
Everyone nodded, even Miyako was faintly curious, though she had a tiny feeling that she knew where this was going.
"The occurrence was that a woman kept appearing on the field to aid in battle."
Kakashi let the silence fester before Naruto habitually ruined it.
"So?" He murmured, "That's not much of an occurrence."
"Baka," Sasuke hissed before Miyako could interject, "women weren't allowed to fight on the battlefields back then." Naruto made an "oh" shape and Sasuke, along with all the other smartasses in the room, that's Neji and Shikamaru, rolled their eyes. "Continue Kakashi-sensei."
"The strange thing about it, Naruto-kun, wasn't just that she was a woman, but that she could counter the Uchiha's fire techniques flawlessly, and without even making a hand sign."
Naruto vocalized his "oh" this time, quite loudly, but Kakashi continued without pause.
"In fact, the Uchiha will claim that she could copy any jutsu they threw at her, they believed her to be so powerful that they thought she was a goddess. And so they appropriately called her as much, Miyako: Goddess of Jutsu."
Naruto gasped, "What?! The supposed goddess' name was Miyako too?" Naruto shot Miyako a very intense stare, with which she simply shrugged, feigning innocence.
"Oh wow Miyako-chan, you're named after a princess and a goddess!"
"Maa, Naruto, don't jump to conclusions, the woman was not actually a goddess, remember this is a story about genies. And the genie was simply named after Miyako Kurosawa, because she had the princess' eyes." At this Kakashi showed a picture inside the book, casually walking around so that everyone could see it, even Miyako, who rolled her eyes at his happy smirk, she knew because his eye had that mysterious twinkle.
"But that is interesting isn't it?" Kakashi continued as he paused to show it to the girl. "It is very interesting that our precious Miyako-chan is named after such powerful figures when she herself is so powerful."
Miyako made a show of snorting, and hid her face further within her scarf when everyone starting staring at her, contemplating Kakashi's words.
She was glad when Kakashi rounded back to his desk, tiring of seeing her image staring back at her with purple eyes she could actually place.
In that drawing it was much harder to discern that it was indeed her, because back then she was extra careful to hide her image from the Senju, as they were from her kingdom and would surely recognize her. In that drawing she was only a pair of glowing purple eyes and long flowing black hair, the style still slightly the same as when she was a royal, the rest of her was cloaked in a purple light that was so bright few could hardly tell she was a woman unless they had actually been there.
"So Miyako-sama was a genie, for real?" Sakura inquired, though she sounded hesitant to believe it.
Kakashi shrugged, "As I said before, it is only a legend, and no one can prove it for sure, all we know is that the Uchiha saw a woman who would only appear during battle to protect the Senju. That, in my loose definition, is a genie." Kakashi remarked, just as the bell rang to dismiss.
"See you tomorrow, where we will analyze the tale of The Little Peachling!"
Miyako stifled her giggle as the class groaned, quickly meeting up with Lion while she waited for the siblings.
Lion was staring at her calmly now, curiously, which meant he was asking: "What did you learn about today?"
"Today we discussed genies, Lion."
His stare shifted into one of honest curiosity, 'oh yeah? What was that like?'
"It was very interesting, Kakashi-san even seems to think they are real."
Lion abruptly stopped staring to stare at something else, most likely the arrival of the siblings.
"Hey, Miyako."
Yep, that was Temari's voice alright, as per usual she sounded annoyed about something, and it probably had something to do with her.
"Yes, Temari-sama?" Miyako answered coolly, even adding a bow.
"I've been meaning to ask you about him." She threw her head to Lion, who simply stared at the exchange blankly. Yeah, blankly, that's how good Miyako was at reading his stares.
"Lion? What about him?" She mentally prepared herself for where this was going.
"Why is he around us all the time? Or more specifically, you? What have you done that's gotten you in trouble with the Headmaster."
Miyako could feel the hidden statement behind that question ooze out of Temari with her vicious and annoyed posture: 'we can't afford to have Konoha ANBU guards hanging around us, so you'd better get rid of him.'
It was unfortunate that she could not get rid of him and she said so as much in her stare.
"You do recall when I turned Himura Goro into a puppy, right?"
"He was there even before you did that." Temari accused, and she was right, but as always Miyako had an answer for everything.
"He was my escort before then, the Hokage posted him to me between classes so that I wouldn't get lost." She droned, truthfully, because that was truthfully why he was there before.
Although, she also suspected it was because the Hokage didn't trust her, but that was to be expected.
Temari, having run out of arguments, resorted to venting out her frustrations by bringing up old incidents.
"Well if you had just let us take care of ourselves during that incident we wouldn't have this problem."
"Right, if I had let any of you take care of this problem, you'd have still have this one." She threw her head to the still intrigued Lion.
"Is he staying?" She barked.
"It's not like I can get rid of him." Miyako clipped back.
"Well, we'll just see what Baki has to say about these developments-"
"No."
Miyako whipped her widened eyes to a glaring Gaara, but he was not glaring at her, for once, but glaring at…Temari?
"W-What?"
"Temari, you will not tell Baki about this." Gaara deadpanned, but his glare still remained deadly and promising.
"But Gaara-!" She started to protest, that is, until Gaara's sand started to have a say in it, and it looked ready to share some violent words the way it whipped around like that, nearly cutting Temari's cheek.
"I said no, or would you like to continue this discussion?" He questioned darkly, making the girl shudder.
"R-right, no, s-sorry." Temari immediately stuttered out.
"That's what I thought, now shut up and let's go to class." Gaara then stalked off, Miyako making haste to follow him with Kankuro not far behind, though he made sure to stick behind Miyako.
Lion's stare was upon her again, but this time it was accusing: 'What was that?'
"Oh Lion," She whispered exasperatedly, "of course I didn't mean any of those things. You know I enjoy your company."
He silently huffed, slowly folding his arms, which to anyone else might look like he was trying to be intimidating, but she knew that he was silently fuming.
She turned to face the back of Gaara's head as he marched them to their next class, smiling and silently mouthing: Thank you.
G /M
Yeah, I know, I changed a few things in ninja history to benefit this chapter, but I think it's a nice and plausible change, don't you?
Anyway, you know the drill, give me 7 reviews and I will be the happy camper who updates faster and thus makes your life better with my oh so creative writing. Don't, and make a sad and lonely person who does not update on time due to her all-consuming sadness, and only reviews will make her happy again.
As always if you give me more I will just burst with joy, then I'll be like THE SUPER HAPPY CAMPER 5000!
Anyways, the next chapter is called: Hell Begins. And yes, that is code for the beginning of the Chuunin exams! Yay! Tell then my precious pretties!
Stupendous, Frivolous, Acronym.
