Chapter eight:

Tempus fugit II

(Labor non onus, sed beneficium)

A/N: I hate snow-less winters…


"What's gonna happen with the house?" Hana asked timidly, wiping her tears with a tissue.

Akane led them outside of the graveyard and breathed deeply. The air was fresh and void of the smell of death. It smelled like rice. Her chin trembled for a moment, before she drew in a ragged breath and blinked the haze out of her eyes. "I don't know Hana. It'll go to some relatives, probably."

Hana thought for a while as she tried to keep up with Akane whose rage with the situation seemed to manifest through her feet. She was practically sprinting.

"Maybe old Makoto left us the house" she suggested, thinking she found a solution to their new problem. Where ever were they supposed to live now?

Not slowing her pace, Akane stomped down the street with the girl barely following behind. She shook her head, "No, I don't think she did. Or, more likely, she couldn't. She couldn't have put our names on a legal document of any kind."

Hana lifted a dark eyebrow, failing to comprehend.

"We don't have any sort of document that proves we even exist, Hana," Akane explained, "Heh, we don't even have a surname! If Makoto-obaasama had named us her rightful inheritors, there would have been a whole legal process with people who don't, apparently, exist. If the word was out, what do you think, how would the villagers react?"

"They would think we are criminals or something?" Hana guessed.

"Exactly."

The girls, again homeless, were sliding down the streets of Futari once more. Hana didn't want to sleep on the street again. She really didn't. But if they couldn't stay in that house anymore…

"Don't worry," Akane reassured Hana as if reading her mind and the younger girl caught that warm motherly-like smile she had so rarely on the senior girl, "I've thought about this scenario already."

"You knew she was going to die?" Hana asked in disbelief.

"Eventually," Akane replied, "but not so soon. She was old, Hana. Old people die. Makoto-obaasama was 91."

Hana's jaw dropped, "You're shitting me!"

"Watch your tongue," she warned. Great, Hana maybe left out from her sentences the 'like's and 'totally's (out of the simple fact that Japanese didn't have equivalents to those) but she was starting to swap them with swear words.

"Yes, mother," Hana rolled her eyes at the patronizing tone, "So, anyway, what did you have in mind? Did you find an abandoned house or something? Just please don't let it be a barn! I told you once, and I'll tell you again: I am NOT sleeping in a fucking ba-"

"We're here."

The younger girl looked up. There, above their heads hung a familiar sign. A sign with a knife and a fork.


The name was Ken, he told them.

The old geezer looked the same as when they first met him: a big round stomach from beer, yellowed teeth, almost bald head with bushes of black hair on both sides of it. His most noticeable feature- little black mouse-like eyes that made him look good-naturedly.

The fact was that he was indeed a good man. Once looking pass his extremely… untidy appearance, one would find a real fuzz- ball. However, Hana never took anything from him without dipping it three times at least in water and disinfectant soap.

The thing Akane found most endearing abut the old man was without a doubt his way of talking. Ken didn't talk. He barked. His laughter was deep, loud and even unpleasant at the times. It made people piss their pants. She recalled when she talked to him the first time. And he was only mildly irritated then.

Speaking of their first get-to-know-each-other, Ken was very reluctant about giving them the job. He remembered them the moment they entered his inn. 'I never forget a face,' he informed them. He also told them that he didn't like brats who played jokes on him. When the girls said they didn't understand, he reminded them of their 'conversation' the last time. So Akane once more had to pull out the violins and the amnesia-explanation out of her pocket and, luckily, the uneducated bartender believed the story. He even cried a little.

Yup, that was Ken. A raw strong man with a heart of a teddy-bear. He gave them the job. Ken knew Makoto, just like everybody knew everybody in Futari, and exclaimed that she had been 'a sweet old hag'. The deal was this: the girls would both work in the bar, in different shifts, as he didn't really need much help managing the few usual drunkards or occasional travelers. They would also do all the domestic work (this one was Akane's idea because of the diner's obvious condition), mop, clean and occasionally cook. In return, the girls would get to use one of the spare rooms, the less furnished, cheapest one, and a small salary each. It was a good deal so long as they had a roof over their heads, Akane thought. Although the girls weren't initially pleased with the amount of money they would be getting, Ken explained that he couldn't give them more. After all, he was a poor man himself.


So the time flew by and the girls grew older and higher. The change wasn't as evident on Akane as it was on Hana. The little thirteen-year-old was almost a fifteen-year old now. Akane's predictions were right: Hana grew into a beautiful young lady. Her body gradually developed and curved into a perfect figure, especially for such a young girl. She now stood the same height as her two-year-older friend and Akane could swear the girl weighted more then her. Her legs were long and tanned, and arms smooth and delicate. Her lips were full and lush. Her lashes were long and attractively dark. She kept her black hair the same length- to the middle of her back. The second thing that didn't change was her eyes- they held the same naïve and unhandled energy in her flower-structured-irises.

Akane on the other hand changed more inwardly than outwardly. She grew a bit in the height, but was still as skinny and weak-looking as ever. Her once expressively pale complexion became pinker from the time she spent in the garden under the blazing sun (she cursed the Land of Fire's hot weather repeatedly in those months) with blotches of healed sun-burns. She curved a bit, but nothing noticeable. Seeing as her soul changed the most, her eyes changed as well. Olive dots that spotted her jewel-structured-irises grew bigger, making her eyes appear green at times. Her long hair grew even longer until it touched beneath her bottom. It got in the way a lot, so Akane started braiding it in one single long plait. Hana suggested cutting it, which Akane refused.

Two years had passed since they came to this world, as well as a whole year since Makoto-obaasama died and they started living in the inn. Ken was a good employer and paid them generously, but Akane calculated that it wasn't enough for food and other necessities. Hana didn't help much. When she 'discovered' she was beautiful, the first thing she bought with her entire first salary was a big wall mirror from some merchant that stopped in the bar for a drink. Akane tried talking to her, but Hana defended saying that she didn't eat much so she could afford it.

So Akane went into the streets to find a part-time job. She always took the forenoon shift, as Hana didn't want to get up at five in the morning, and spent the afternoon cleaning houses as a maid. She cleaned the bar spotless with her two hands and opened the windows to let the smoke out. Being one of a few young people in Futari turned out to be a good advantage: all the elderly people needed a pair of strong arms and legs. She scrubbed, she went to grocery, she cooked and most of the older inhabitants paid her nicely for helping them out. She smiled, thanked them and was polite, constantly impressing the villagers with her mannerism and speech, but on the inside she was bitter and resentful and hurt. She was eighteen years old and she had been living like the poorest soul in this world for the previous two years. It wasn't so much the money that mattered to her, event though it did, but she couldn't help but feel like this was all somehow below her. It was egocentrically to think that way and she knew that, but she couldn't even begin to describe the feeling she got when she remembered her past.

A straight A-student and a prized pupil. Black belt in aikido and a winner of golden prizes. A talented musician and an artist, recognized by many. Speaking three languages fluently. And she could have been so much more. Akane had had many, oh so many plans. They said she had ambition like very few have. She wanted to study languages and travel the world, and now it was nothing but a mere dream.

Look at her, taking care of old people like a nurse! Serving drinks. Taking care of a child. Because no matter how old she claimed to be, Hana would always be just a child in Akane's mind. She walked the streets of a peasant town of Futari and kicked the dirt with her torn sandals, humming a song from her own world. Her gratitude for the little things and everything she had was soaked in anger for everything she had had and could have had, before it was ripped away from her.

"My shadow's only one that walks beside me, my shallow hearts the only things that's beating, Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me, Till then I walk alone," she sang in her mind, in a moment foolishly afraid that she forgot English.

The worst was the loneliness. She had friends back home. She had family. Here, she had a friend named Hana who spent most of her time hanging out who-knows-where with the boys from the village and with whom she couldn't talk without starting to bicker almost immediately. With her next salary, Hana bought a nice flower-patterned yukata* and make-up. Akane didn't dare ask how much it cost her.


Hana liked talking about her relationships. Akane didn't have much time to talk with anybody due to her 9 hours of work, so she enjoyed listening to her young friend and indulged her in those conversations. For a while at least. There were only as much 'And he was so cute and I could see he was completely in love with me' as she could take. In the end, on her part of conversations were all the 'Aha's and 'Mmm's she could mumble while Hana talked for the tenth time about some silver-haired guy ('Oh my God, he's not even old and it's his natural colour! Hot!') she was oh-so-madly in love with. Akane listened until the part when the girl talked about how he wasn't from the Futari unlike all of her previous boyfriends and how he was only going through the village, when Akane's concentration seriously shrank and she made up a story about a job she forgot to do.

"I'm walking down the line that divides me somewhere in my mind, on the border line of the edge and where I walk alone," Akane sang, "I walk alone, I walk alone"

With her next salary, Akane bought her first book from a traveling book merchant. If there was a good thing about living in a bar, it was that it was a place travelers actually visited. Futari was situated on parting ways of three routs, one of which, she found out, lead to Konoha (as she suspected), the other Rice Country (as she feared) and the third to the Lightning country (that supported nicely her story about their place of birth). Because of the inn's magnificent location, Akane should have been less surprised when some ninjas came to the bar to rest from their travels.

Fortunately or not, the ninjas were always some random people, clearly not important to the plot and so not even screened in the anime. Akane felt relieved, but there was a tinge of disappointment as well. Ninjas were edgy people, she learned. Rude, too. They were always impatient and hurrying her up. They often boasted that they had 'very important missions' and winked shamelessly at her. Needless to say, Akane ignored them. Most of them were ugly anyways. Kishimoto-san did them no favors. Even though the ninja visits were mostly unpleasant and tense, they were always short and rare. Akane didn't know if she should look forward to those or be saddened by them. On one hand, they proved to her that she was indeed in the Narutoverse, because it didn't feel like it most of the time, but on the other hand, it felt like a provocation from the heavens. Akane constantly felt as if they were just taunting her to go to Konoha and blow up her cover.

Of course, she wasn't stupid enough to do that. Even if she convinced Hana to go (which wouldn't have been a hard thing to do- the girl has been whining for days how she would like to leave Futari and meet some new boys) it would have taken them about seven days to get there. Not to mention that they would be walking through the woods swarming with wild animals and possibly robbers and rogue-ninjas. And even if they got there safe and all their belongings intact, the gatekeepers would never let them enter it. After all, they had no documentation whatsoever.

No, Akane concluded, taking on that travel would just be stupid. She thanked to a higher presence that she was born with a stronger mind than a heart, which was, by the way, screaming to her to go to bloody Konoha and find herself an adventure!


Another month passed and life went as usual: Hana was going out with the village boys or even occasionally with somebody that was only passing through the town. Akane was working her ass off, but she discovered she was somewhat happy. She was still upset, naturally, especially when she figured she couldn't see any perspective for herself, nor find any new ambitions to cover for her lost ones. There wasn't much to do in Futari except to work and read books she kept buying one by one with hard-earned money. She needed a purpose dammit! She needed an ambition. She needed something to do with herself. Nevertheless, living in Futari was becoming a habit she was rather starting to enjoy.

One evening she went behind the diner and buried her and Hana's cellphones. The devices were long rendered useless when the battery ran out, but the girls had kept them, as something that sued to connect them to their world. Now, Akane dug a deep hole with her bare hands, as she couldn't risk anybody seeing her with a shovel and finding out about funny-squared-objects. Her fingertips stung but she paid no attention to it. Her pain tolerance had risen by a few points ever since she started gardening with Makoto-obaasama. She laid the phones in their symbolic graves and looked down on them. "Rest in pieces, guys." Then she took apart the phones, taking out the battery and cards, just in case, and ceremonially covered them with earth. Goodbye technology. Akane was aware she had just buried a piece of herself. That cellphone was a piece of her previous life. It was a reminder. It connected her to her world. But she had to move forward. In order to survive. To live. She learned that too, amongst many things. She couldn't risk anybody finding out about their past.

Akane went back to the diner, noting that Hana was still working the latest hours of her afternoon shift. She greeted the girl upon entrance when she noticed something strange. There was a red tinge on the girl's cheeks and she was breathing heavily. She didn't look too well..

"He's here…"Hana said in a strange voice and led her to the small kitchen behind the bar table. Ooookay, she was freaking her out. Was she drunk?

"Who's here?" Akane questioned calmly and watched as the girl's face flushed even further. Now she was getting really worried.

"Him.. You now, the dreamy guy I told you about?"

Oh, so this was about a guy? How ridiculous. Akane breathed out the air she was holding, discretely.

"Which one?" she asked nonchalantly, a note of mock entering her voice. Of course, Hana didn't notice it.

"The one with the silver hair," the younger girl said, giggling.

"Um, remind me," Akane said in a lack of anything better to say. Hana's eyes shone with excitement.

"Why don't you see him for yourself? He's right here. He's sitting with his friends in the dining part," she was blabbering as she pulled her through the door, "He's so hot, you have no idea! He promised me he'll come back when I first met him those months ago and he did! All for me! I just know he's MAD about me!"

As they turned around the corner, Akane desperately tried to make a grab at anything they passed to stop herself from being dragged in by her passionate friend. In the end, seeing that resistance was futile, she gave up and let the fifteen-year-old lead the way. When they approached the dining part of the inn, Akane cast a look at the quiet room where 'Mr. Hotness' was apparently sitting and... she almost felt her jaw drop.

Ninjas.

There sat a group of shinobi dressed clad in gray soldier clothing with patterned scarves around their necks. The aura they emitted… was dangerous. They all had full-face black masks, leaving only their eyes unclothed. All of them, except for one. His silver hair was done in a pony-tail and as he made a motion with his hand, the glasses on the bridge of his nose glimmered under the artificial lighting if the diner. Akane felt her blood run cold as the same time the man turned to them and made eye-contact with her. He waved good-naturedly to them, his lips forming a pleasant smile that was so wrong, because it was so in contrast with his personality.

Murderers shouldn't smile.

"Isn't he cute?" Hana's voice was whispering in her ear heatedly, "And look, he's saying hello. Told ya he's mad about me…" She giggled some more, her breath fuming in Akane's ears. She felt her throat go dry.

"There is one thing Hana was right about…"

Her fingers felt as if she had dipped them in freezing water. Shock.

"This guy IS mad."

There, at the table across her, was sitting one of the people she never thought or hopedshe would ever meet.

Right there, staring at her and smiling so encouragingly was none other than Yakushi Kabuto.


Translation: Tempus fugit- Time flies.

Labor non onus, sed beneficium- Work is not a burden, it's a welfare.

*yukata- Japanese traditional garment; summer kimono made of cotton.


A/N: Whaaaaat?! OMR the first character they met is Kabuto?! What OC in the world meets Kabuto the Four-eyed Henchman first? Well, I did NOT expect this from myself…

Oh yeah, I'm unpredictable. Hear me roar.

I officially announce the 'Introduction arc' has ended. Let the games begin.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY! May all your wishes come true! I wish you the happiest 2010 ever from the bottom of my heels! (which is where my heart is ^^)

Lots and lots of love,

from Yours truly.