...Hi...
I offer a sincere apology for the long wait, and a lot of prayers that there won't be another random hiatus...
Much love to you all,
Inky
"I want you to know something."
Solatta and Luminatus were in their prime, stretching high and wide across the expanse of blue sky. Clouds shone bright in long strips of white and lavender, sprinkled with the peppery black of birds in flight.
Carefully she sat up on her elbows, feeling the spongy grasses beneath her bones. The feathery touch of their leafy spines upon her neck and shoulders tickled as she turned to him, wincing in the light.
He sat on the lime green and emerald blue hill with her, one arm slung across a knee in a relaxed slouch she had never before witnessed on his frame. Dark eyes peered at her from beneath equally dark lashes. In the shine of the twin suns at midday his skin was a luminous white, brighter than the clouds. His onyx dark hair reflected a dark blue sheen like the sky at midnight.
Behind him his wings flared enormous and ivory as the snowy caps of the mountains beyond her valley. Pure and scented with a pleasurable haze of perfume she could not recognize but loved instinctively. Clean and invigorating, like the first bright notes of lemon on the tongue or the first gulp of water after a hot summer run.
"Sasuke?" She blinked in the light, each careful snap of shadow as her lashes touched together changing the tone of light from the heavens, turning her vision of him looking at her intently from a bright summer white to a haze of deep blue, a film of soft indigo, a wash of red glow in turn.
"I want you to know something." He repeated, his voice shaking, and it was only then that she noticed the white knuckled terror of his fists clenching tight, his throat working to swallow as though something were caught there, threatening to choke him.
She waited, a pain starting in her chest like breathing in a lung full of tiny glass shards.
His dark eyes searched her face without shame, without reluctance, blatantly frightened, an expression she could not fathom on his features.
Finally his lips formed the words, and although the high pitched noise in her ears seemed to drown it, through the gasping agony burning in her lungs she read his lips, as stunned by what they said as she was by the pain.
Hinata, I am scared.
The wind was blowing soft. So soft that instead of turning the Rot sand to miniature knives with which to skin her the breeze shifted the powder in tiny swirls. Adorable tornadoes lacking bite flurried along beside her heavy lashes.
The silk touch of the wind through her tangled hair tickled her cheek and carefully she moved her fingers.
The pale digits shifted where they lay before her face and slowly she drew in a deep breath.
Regret was instant, a hot poker being shoved through her chest would have been easier to bear and wheezing forcefully she curled tighter about herself. A sound so unlike her voice escaped her throat. She could hardly fathom what was making such an awful dying wail until she realized it was her.
Sasuke's hands were suddenly gripping her shoulders, gathering her stiff pain filled limbs to his chest.
The world beyond the encircling atmosphere of his arms was quiet. The storm had wiped away the smog and fumes so that only the flat expanse of dead wasteland spread as far as the eye could see. It was a sea of orange and crimson stark against a blue sky clear of clouds. The two colors met with an sudden stern line on the horizon.
"Shss." Sasuke's hiss was less soothing and more of an order as he shifted her body in his lap. Her wheezing breath rankled through her chest cavity, like a glass bottle with pebbles shaken. "Breathe shallow, your lungs are still healing."
The coughing that followed his words stabbed. Groaning between snatched breaths she closed her eyes, dizziness and acid pain eating at her calm as she struggled to breathe.
His hand smoothed circles on her back, feeling every bony part of her spine, the wide planes of her shoulder blades, the fragile make up of her frame like that of a tiny newly hatched bird.
"Calm, Hinata. You must be calm. The blood is healing your lungs, you just have to let it."
Her fingers, shoved up to her mouth as she hacked until her lungs felt like they might come out, were suddenly stained blood red. Stunned she whimpered, wide eyes mesmerized by the gore.
His grip on her wrist was sudden, tight like a manacle. Using his sleeve he wiped the blood from her fingers roughly, pulling her knife from the sheath at her back to place against his wrist.
"You need to drink again."
The thought of swallowing seemed impossible. Head shaking she wheezed and closed her eyes against the sudden onslaught of coughing that overtook her.
"There is Rot and sand in your lungs, you have been coughing up blood for half a day- you must drink more."
If she had looked to his face perhaps she would have recognized his expression. The terror that fluttered with confusion in his dark eyes was similar to a recent dream. As the coughing subsided to whistling aching breaths and her shoulders relaxed minutely Sasuke shook his head, frustrated as she turned her face away from him to hide the splattered crimson on her chin.
"Damn it to hell then."
The slice of the knife on his wrist hissed. So close to her face she smelled the blood before her eyes snapped open. Wiping at her mouth she watched as he brought the flooding open vein to his own lips.
Dizzy from the lack of air, tasting the copper of her own blood so much less delicious and powerful than his own she tried to make sense of his actions. Through the web of her swaying tilting world and the rapid pounding of her heart as she tried to breathe she frowned, flabbergasted.
Dark eyes focused, he pulled his wrist away, ignoring the trickle of metallic blood he left on her hair and shoulder as he grabbed her by the base of her neck, drawing her closer.
There was a stain of silver, on the corner of his mouth. It glimmered in the strange unobstructed light of the two suns, shining so brightly in the sky.
Words stained her own lips. Words about dying, about being afraid. Words about regrets and pain. Words that he cut off when he took her face in his hands and pressed her mouth to his.
The flood of ichor from him to her was instant, a tang of copper from her own bleeding lungs and his burning healing silver mixing into a heady cocktail with the electric shock of his tongue.
There was no time to feel more than the snap of magic through her dilating veins, the ache of her chest tightening with agony as the blood of her angel traveled , reknitting, rewiring, remodeling her aches and pains.
Still, her heart stuttered as he pulled away, glaring into her face as she panted, already starting to writhe as the blood pulled her from the brink of deep endless sleep.
"Don't you dare." The words were bitterly said, his stare unshakable. "Don't you dare stop breathing."
Hinata strained to focus her eyes on him, fighting the scream that was rising in her throat with the whistling whine building in her ear drums.
In her head she heard his tone, and saw his eyes again, so like those of her dream. Her own calm voice whispered in recognition, puzzled and stunned at once.
Hinata, I am scared.
Mercifully, the world darkened as the pain crested and the torture of breathing finally ceased.
On the second night Amaterasu surrendered to his desire to be close to his mother. When Sasuke did not lower her body to the hard wasteland ground he finally slunk with his tail between his legs and his giant velvet ears pressed to his head towards them. Belly nearly to the ground he approached in soft keening supplication, gold eyes wide and pleading.
Sasuke stared through knots of his own dark hair, watching warily as the creature approached, meandering to his back before settling with a whine on the ground, providing a solid warm backrest for him to lean on.
Stubbornly the fallen star surveyed the beast, brows pulled tightly together as they stared back and forth at each other.
"This does not mean I approve of you at all." He muttered, noting with some surprise the grating tones of his voice as he leaned comfortably against the now bony side of the horkney.
Amaterasu deigned to snort something sassy at him before closing his gold eyes and sighing.
The storm had passed after an eternity of blasting, and although he and the horkney had coughed up thick phlegm stained with their blood and looking almost like roan red mud it was Hinata who after passing out in his arms within the cave did not wake.
Her breathing, already shaky rattled like the crunching of leaves beneath their feet when he listened with his ear to her chest.
Soon after her lips always so pink paled and then began to tinge blue. The shallow wheezing gasps more rapid, her heart beat more accelerated. Only then did Sasuke realize with a sickening lurch like his stomach falling away from him that she was dying.
Flashes of memory had shoved and elbowed in his mind as he climbed out of the crevice where they had taken refuge. First with Hinata's limp frame over his shoulder and then Amaterasu's bony hide under his arm.
His mother's pale lips as she whispered her last words kept forming in his mind, repeating her instructions over and over again. Her breath catching, her mouth spilling with her brilliant silver blood of their kind.
In the anxiety ridden struggle to push the thoughts of his mother dying away Hinata began coughing. His hands had moved automatically. His fingers had been steady even as his mind struggled to remain calm and logical. He slid the knife over his wrist, filled his mouth with his own burning blood, pressed his lips to hers and forced her to drink.
A couple of droplets should have been enough. He was not so foolish not to realize that something was wrong when hour after hour although her color improved and her breathing seemed to come with more ease she did not wake.
In the end dizziness plagued his movements as he drained himself of the molten steel coursing through his veins. Only when standing forced darkness to eat his vision did he drag a strip of dirty left over fabric from her pack to bind his wrist. Blinking away the nausea that had arisen in him as he poured his blood between her lips again and again took many deep breaths and too much time.
There was nothing left to be done, and in the end they lay together. A pile of furry horkney, a fallen star, a dying girl whispered on by the sleepy wind.
When her breathing finally slowed to a rhythm that seemed normal, restful even he allowed himself to drift away into the darkness of his mind behind his closed eyelids.
His last thought was the same thought that had been plaguing him since the woods. It was a shivering thing he held delicately in his mind as though it were a ball made of broken glass and his terrified dreams.
I care about her.
He blinked, invisible weights pulling his eyes slowly shut.
I care about her and I'm bringing her to the Scaled Worm.
If he had ever thought that perhaps he was not an immoral heartless person this choice he had made to set her on this path towards the monster he had to face settled the debate.
I am a bastard.
It was easy, moving from hating his brother to also hating himself.
Neji had not spoken all day. As the sun began to lower in the heavens the bustle of Tsunade operating on the injured member of the Rot Clan finally died down in the house. Tenten, having been assisting Ino and Tsunade as best she could finally found him in the courtyard behind the chancellor's house alone.
Lee, Shino and Kiba had known better than to talk to him. Their distance was less of a lack of fealty and more of a sign that they understood the Warren deeply.
Tenten's approach signaled the same knowing.
The courtyard was made of smooth gray and black stone walls, a circular ring of trees dotted in yellow flowers that filled the air with perfume and danced in the soft evening breeze.
Above the heavens turned pink and purple, the edges dimming to navy where the darkness of night was encroaching.
The Warren sat with his back to the house, shoulders hunched and head lowered. It only took a moment for Tenten to know the depth of his despair, just the touch of her brown eyes on the smooth white of his tunic stretched along the ridges of his shoulder blades.
Without hesitation she walked purposefully forward, settling on her knees in the grass before him, hands taking the smoothness of his face gently between her palms.
"Neji."
So long their people had scorned tears. Weeping was something their kind had long ago left behind. Meditation and a calmness of spirit, a steadiness of character...a coldness took their place. The double edged sword of competency was paired with a weakness they did not see coming, despite their Sight.
The inability to weep made mourning impossible and emotions therefore overwhelming. Face in his hands Neji strained to breathe, had been struggling to gasp for air since the night before.
"How can I choose?" His voice was a strangled thing, the invisible noose around his throat tightening. "How can I choose between the two beings I value more than myself?"
Trembling fingers smoothed over his cheeks and Tenten sighed, pressing her forehead to his hard. "...Neji...Hinata made a choice of her own..."
A sound, wounded and painful even to listen to made her bite her lip. Fiercely, his arms wrapped around her, dragging her hard to his chest where his heart beat so forcefully she could feel it through his sternum, knocking at the entrance of her own.
Anxious now, Tenten pressed her lips to his neck hard, brown eyes shifting to the doors. This was strictly forbidden, and would be considered an inappropriate abuse of his power over her should anyone from their party witness it. The thought of having that guilt added to his burdens made her tremble in his arms.
Still, she did not push away, but waited. Listening to his struggle for air, the panic of his blood rushing furious through his jugular against her ear.
"I can't... abandon Hanabi...she's hardly grown, but Hinata..."
Closing her eyes tightly Tenten let out a long breath.
"Hinata is with the star. She swore a vow, she traded herself for her sister." Her whisper made his grip tighten around her, the pain of her ribs crushed to his only an echo of the agony within him.
"They're heading to the Worm, Tenten." He was drowning and as he held on for dear life she shuddered, determined that this would not swallow him whole.
"She is strong. She is wise. She is selfless." Drawing a shaky breath she pulled back to peer at his face, at eyes so cloudy despite the lack of tears, face so drawn despite the inability to mourn.
"She was taught by her loving cousin to trust herself. You did your job well. The best protection she has ever had has been to believe in herself. You gave her that."
"Tenten, I..." He paused, eyes closed tightly against the struggle. "I am... I cannot.."
There was only so much anxiety she could hear in his voice, only so much pain. When her lips touched his to silence the agony the only thought was to soothe the hurt, like water on a burn, or stitches to a wound.
She should have known it would transfer some of his pain to her, that the touch of his mouth to hers would shatter something that had separated them, a thinning slice of life that said "No, you may not pass."
His touch was not stunned, but thirsty, his tongue a sweetness within her mouth. The blood was loud in her ears, her breath useless in her lungs. There was only the softness of his lips, the desperation in his grip and the sharp agonizing flare of something hot and earnest in her belly. A sound, so quiet and gentle it reminded her of a mewling feline escaped her mouth. Abruptly he was pulling back, eyes wide and stunned, moving to stand and step away as though burned.
Tenten panted, shocked more by his sudden withdrawal and the stricken look on his pale face than the kiss itself.
"I cannot...we cannot be so inappropriate again." His whisper felt like a blow to her stomach and she scrambled back as though scalded, watching as he carefully drew his limbs tightly to himself.
"I apologize, I have crossed a line." His voice kept coming, blow after furious blow and Tenten pressed a hand to her chest, stunned by the sharp stab leaving her breathless.
"N..no, I... I.." she began, brown gaze searching the ground for something, anything to soothe the sudden twist of an invisible knife within her. "Please, I am so sorry."
"Please, go inside. Find the others and tell them I will be there shortly to discuss our movement at dawn." His orders were calm, the shake in his voice disappeared as though it had never been.
Still shaking Tenten nodded. "Yes, of course." Her feet felt heavy, her limbs like lead and with an uncharacteristic stumble she threw herself inside Tsunade's house, a hand to her mouth to keep the monstrous thing writhing inside her chest from escaping in a cry.
Standing stiffly in the court yard alone Neji let out a long shaky breath, reaching up to touch his face where the trails of her trembling fingers still burned.
He was the Warren, a thing made for guarding, for sacrificing and dying. She was his shadow, living even after his inevitable demise, freed only by the return of his body to the soil from which plants grew.
Grief could not overwhelm him into crossing lines that had been drawn and rules meant to keep her safe. Swallowing hard he gathered himself together. When he entered the house and began organizing the shadows he did not look at her.
In his mind this was the night of his two largest losses. Forevermore his life would be divided. There would be the time before with Tenten and Hinata as planets swirling in the dark night sky of his life. Dominating the heavens, always the most beautiful things to shine. And the time after, when their distance became something he not only knew...but deeply understood as uncrossable.
The rhythm beneath her body brought memories of spring time when she was young. The swaying back and forth rock of a canoe beneath her knees and the comforting ripple of water to support her as she and her cousin traveled down river from the hot springs at the edges of the Hawk Eyed Clan's old orchards. Long ago the Dryness had overtaken the soil beneath the fruit trees and the roots had dried to skeletal limbs like the old arms of corpses. Long before that the leaves had fallen and the trees had stopped producing fruit. At least the roots held back the banks of the river, allowing them to fish when game was scarce in the forest.
The sway of the canoe had been soothing, despite her fear of the river's depth in some places. Back and forth the canoe had swayed beneath her bones, and when she allowed herself to close her eyes and breathe she had felt safe. Memories of being carried in arms much bigger than her own as a child overlapped in her mind and so when she woke in his arms it took her a moment to be surprised.
The wind was blowing with a sort of feral tenderness, all bared teeth with no bite. She could feel it tossing her hair and tugging on her clothes but none of it's ferocity was behind it. The powder that flowed on the breeze was soft not grating sharply and with a shuddering breath that didn't ache into her marrow she realized she felt... alive.
His steps were calm and unhurried, his grip gentle and when she finally looked up his gaze slid down to meet her, so close it dragged blood to her cheeks. Praying that the gritty mess surely covering her face hid the flush Hinata stared.
"What...what happened?"
As he stopped and carefully lowered her feet to the wasteland ground with a hand firmly around her arm to steady her, he let out a breath somewhere between irritation and relief.
"The storm nearly slayed you." His hand left her elbow then, as he realized her legs were steady. Her face remained earnestly seeking his, searching for answers. Busying himself with sliding the pack off his back to hand to her he muttered darkly. "You have been unconscious for three days."
Amaterasu's head was suddenly pressing into her hands and Hinata blinked down at the creature, forcing a smile as she tried to think of the last memory she could find. Her mind grasped into darkness as she rubbed behind the horkney's ears. Heart picking up speed at the vast blank emptiness of her memories she frowned, staring at her hand crusted with old blood smudged and dirty.
"Three days..." The smallness of her voice was nearly taken away by the howling sigh of the wind. Looking back up at him she felt her chest constrict, her eyes filling with both guilt and thankfulness that pooled in glittering beads at the corners of her eyes.
"Why didn't you leave me?"
The only sign of a response from the star was the hardly visible wince of his gaze, dark eyes ripping from her face to look at the horizon where their destination now gleamed brightly.
"I need you to look and tell me what you see." He jutted his chin towards the mountain in the distance now no longer impossibly far away but looming large and dark against the azure sky.
Hinata swallowed, aware that her question had been blatantly ignored.
Reluctantly squinting towards the edges of the waste she started. The mountain was a titan, a brutal jagged piece of earth piercing the sky. At the very top a crater sunk deep into it's uppermost hills, dusted with white powder that reflected the sunlight.
There were no trees on the slate and stone that stretched towards the heavens. Nothing but the sharp edges of a desolate mountain flanked by smaller less impressive peaks and at it's base, huddled in the half circle of these giants- white stone spires, shining towers, glimmering fountains spread wide.
A palace... lacking in fortification but brimming with fountains and gardens glowed like a mirage in the distance. Heart hammering in her throat at the sight of glittering liquid that looked painfully like water, Hinata let out a breath.
"There are gardens... towers." She turned to Sasuke, stunned. "There are no fortifications. No walls to keep out invaders, no watch towers or even... a border." She shook her head in disbelief. "Why is the Scaled Worm's realm not protected?"
Sasuke stared on unrelenting for a moment, jaw clenched. In the endless flat of the Rot they would be seen easily by the palace. Likely as not they had already been spotted some time ago.
Shifting his gaze to her again he waved at the Rot. "There is no need to fortify against invasion. No army can cross this. And one warrior cannot take the whole castle." Turning back to his target he let out a long breath.
The Scaled Worm had been nothing but a foot note at the end of a long lesson on the Veil. There had been kings and queens. Countries long gone. Battles long ago fought and at the end of the chapter he had squinted at the scroll in his study as a child. His knowledge of the creature was limited to those four lines detailing the long and endless existence of the monster they sought.
The Scaled Worm, a monster long loathed by Heaven and feared by the Veil.
Not of Hell, not of Veil not of Sky.
Dealing in medicines and remedies,
in the finding of things lost and the trading of lives.
Hoarder of all precious things-
not precious to it but to those who come begging a boon.
May it one day fall away to dust.
Hinata's thick swallow was loud enough to hear and ignoring the jabbing pain in his neck and the weakened feel of his limbs from such a massive loss of blood in the past three days he began to walk again.
"We should be there by sundown, if we make haste."
Stumbling after him Hinata nodded, head down against the growing blast of the wind, still preoccupied with the dark nothing in her mind where the memories of her past three days should have been.
"Does it not...Does it not usually want something to trade?" Her eyes lifted again to the palace so close and so daunting with it's pretentious white pillars, it's glimmering skylights and bubbling fountains.
Sasuke nodded, the nervous thought having already taken root in his mind. Yes, the Scaled Worm was always interested in deals, in trading and bargaining. He had thought arriving with the prized blood in his veins would be enough to secure him the location of his brother. But if what he knew of the monster was true...
Hoarder of all precious things- not precious to it but to those who come begging a boon.
Glancing back at her over his shoulder he felt his chest tighten with the fear becoming nerve wreckingly familiar. His blood, although precious was not of so valuable to himself. Not if death was coming for him after his brother's demise. There was only one thing he could think of that he could admit willingly he now counted as precious in his life.
With wide pale eyes Hinata stared back, confused by his gaze.
Without another word the star turned away, missing the moment when her expression changed, too busy formulating a plan to keep her safe.
Behind him Hinata touched her mouth, wide eyed and stunned as a memory, feeble and unreliable fluttered through her mind. A memory of Sasuke's lips on hers as she nearly died.
It had been decades since the last time either Hidan or Kisame had ever been from their Captain for more than a day. The pangs of withdrawal were heady, and as a result their already short fuses were on the much shorter side. Still, something of the angel blood had taken off many of their prickly edges over the years. As a result they were more like sputtering candle wicks than fuses, if Kisame was truly honest with himself.
"Deidara's bird located them about a week's walk from here." Hidan drawled, stretching his arms up and popping the joints of his elbows and shoulders in a grotesque display. "Why are we bothering to stop at this run down shack?"
It was an exaggeration of course. The wooden gate had been expertly made, and even Kisame wondered briefly how they would enter into the village if the people within refused entry to what looked like a monster (himself) and what was an actual monster (Hidan).
Cocking his head, he eyed the purpling bruise of what looked like crusting blood on the dirt ground before the gate, and raised a dark brow before flicking his eyes back up at the sentry.
He was not surprised to find a pale young face with an arrow pointed at his head staring back at him. The wide grin however was slightly more unnerving.
"Even if you weren't so ugly you would be on dangerous ground now." The young man who was really more of a boy than anything shouted down. "But your ugliness does really not help you by way of soliciting compassion."
Kisame was unfazed. A lifetime and then several more of his lifetimes had been spent hearing such talk. At about a century words no longer burned, just stung. Like mosquito bites.
"Want me to maim him?" Hidan cocked his head at him lazily, and the scythe cut the air in a humming circle expertly in his hands.
"No." Kisame didn't bother looking at him. There was nothing about his offer that was for Kisame's sake. Hidan just had a penchant for making people bleed. Sometimes Kisame wondered at their Captain's choices for his band, but then who was he to judge? He'd slaughtered all his kin, sins were sins were sins no matter who did them.
"What do you want?" The archer remained steady, his arrow well aimed, his arm unshakable. Kisame sighed.
"Child, fetch an adult to speak with us. This might be beyond your wisdom."
Sai cocked his head, his smile as unshakable as his arm. Both the same level of unnerving.
"I don't recall ever being a child. Children are innocent."
Hidan grunted, amusement coming out with his breath. "The insanity in this one shows."
Another face appeared at the gate then, more drawn, eyes cool and observant. It took Kisame one second to figure out he was dealing with the brains, if not the leadership. He smiled wide, showing all the sharpened teeth that filled his mouth. Too many to fit and yet there they were, flashing in the light.
"We are looking for information, nothing more. Cooperate and we will happily retain our manners."
"Manners?" Hidan's voice was just at the point of not being a shout. "What manners?"
"Information of what sort?" Shikamaru's voice was steady, and one hand on Sai's shoulder had the pale smiling man lowering his bow a fraction, relaxing his arm enough to look almost like they were calm.
Almost.
"We are hunting a fallen star." Kisame raised his hands. "We know he passed this way. Have you any knowledge of this?"
There was a moment of contemplation and for once Shikamaru was glad to see that Sai's face remained completely unmoved, his smile as unreadable as a mask.
"And if we did?"
"Well then we would ask you share and then when you did we would be on our way."
"What if they have fermented brews?" Hidan put in. It had been several months since he had tasted liquor and the thought put him in a sudden hankering mood, something Itachi's blood had repelled when taken as a tonic every day. "...or women." He added, is eyes lighting up at the thought.
Sai's arrow and the powerful pull of his arm raised once more, his smile unchanging.
"Ignore him." Kisame shrugged in Hidan's direction. "We need to make haste. We know the star is ahead of us by some time."
"Three weeks at least." Shikamaru said and Sai's head snapped to him, revealing his shock at the revelation and therefore it's authenticity. Kisame's feral grin returned. "Is that so?"
"It was headed to the Scaled Worm. That is our assumption. We did not see it, only knew of it's passing." Shikamaru's eyes flickered to Sai to signal he keep quiet and the archer returned to his targets, face no longer smiling, but placid.
"That bag of filth." Kisame muttered, thinking about the Scaled Worm. "Well. We thank you."
"But the spirits... the women?" Hidan whined behind him as he began to step back towards the woodland.
Another sweep of his eyes landed on the bloody stain of the earth before the gate and he paused.
"Been slaughtering on your door step lately?" His eyes, so unlike anything else Shikamaru had ever seen left no room for half truths. Thankfully Shikamaru knew better than to even test the waters. These beings pulsed with a power he had not encountered before but at the feel of the Hawk Eyed magic and only in short increments. Like breathing, these two strangers fluctuated the realm of reality around them. Their black eyes so alike in shade it could be no coincidence. They were something else... something beyond his abilities.
"The people of the Rot brought us a wounded man." He swallowed, remembering the mess of blood and filth that had coated Tsunade's operating room, the crunch of the hardened mud beneath her feet crackling as she withdrew an arrow from the man's head. "He left his essence smeared many places."
"The people of the Rot." Hidan grunted, glancing at Kisame again. "Those poor sods." There was not much compassion in the statement.
"Three weeks, you said?" Kisame asked once more and Shikamaru's brow furrowed. "An estimation at best, but yes... about that."
One swift nod had the shark-ish creature and his humanoid monster of a partner heading into the coolness of the woodland at an easy lumbering walk without another word.
"Are we crossing the Rot then?" Hidan grumbled, flinging his scythe back to his shoulder with a petulant scowl.
"It will hardly take us a week." Kisame threw back impatiently. "We can check on that sack of excrement that calls himself wise."
"The Scaled Worm." Hidan sighed, and then flashed his teeth. Despite their lack of points they still made him look feral as Kisame. "Can we slay him?"
Kisame's slow unwavering smile rose to meet his. "Well... the Captain never said not to, so perhaps-"
"Yes." Hidan snapped, and in two hops of his feet he was off at a run, faster than any deer, rippling through the wood and grass and leaves in a flash.
Shaking his head Kisame followed, throwing a quick look at the white clay bird that followed from the air.
Far, in a land almost too distant to seem part of the same Veil they traversed Deidara blinked rapidly at his Captain. He sat with his wings white and extended in a halo of light among the greenery and stone in front of the wide expanse of freezing tundra that housed their ultimate destination.
Sitting in his lap, head on his chest and eyes closed Izumi breathed in sleep, completely at ease in the grip of what many called the Apostate.
"The Scaled Worm." Deidara reported softly. "It would appear that is where your brother was last known to be headed. Although even at their speeds, I do not know if Kisame and Hidan will reach the mountain while he is still there."
The blonde paused to gauge the reaction on his captain's face. The angel sighed looking down at the sleeping woman in his arms, tracing her brow with one long elegant finger long calloused from years of violence. He had figured as much, if his brother's goal was to end him then the Scaled Worm would be the first stop. Not an easy step, but the first of many difficult ones.
More carefully Deidara cleared his throat. "Will he survive?"
Itachi looked up then, his expression calm if a little sad. Around him the ferns and wide palmed plants of a northern wood shivered at the touch of his wings as they shifted.
"It will be difficult, if he is alone. However, you said there was a companion."
Deidara shifted his feet, and beside him Sasori fixed him with a look that said "Do no lie."
"A girl." The blonde's eyes lingered on Izumi so happily resting in Itachi's arms. "Dark haired." He swallowed. "White eyed."
Itachi froze, his wings stilled, his hand tracing all of Izumi's delicate features stuttering to a stop. Slowly he raised his gaze to Deidara.
"Someone from Izumi's Valley travels with him?"
Deidara nodded. "I would say...judging from the features... she's from the Clan you gifted in his name."
Itachi stared, his thoughts a volley of fireworks and confusion and perhaps even hope.
Life it seemed, enjoyed a healthy sense of irony.
He had been concerned that despite all the silver blood he had forced into her mouth that she would wake shaking and weak as she was before the storm. Days of coughing up bloody sand, clearing her damaged lungs and writhing in pain as he worked to get air into her chest left him as exhausted as he figured she was.
Now, as the dusk bled into the darkness of the night he realized with the pain on his neck throbbing worse than ever and the strange weakness in his limbs refusing to abate she was perhaps in better shape than him.
Amaterasu slunk along at his side, long pink tongue scratching at his fingers from time to time, as though sensing something different in his walk, or his breath. Sasuke eyed him warily as they trudged, half annoyed and half amused by the horkney's attempts to soothe him.
"There are lights." Hinata's voice was clear, subdued but steady as she came up beside him.
They could both see the palace clearly now. Right up to the dusty red disaster of the Rot, marble tiles had been laid down so that the contrast between order and chaos was abrupt. Hinata stared at the blocks of white marble in the half light of the settings suns. They formed a path, long and straight hedged by bushes perfectly round and unnatural in pots made of glass, showing the roots like white hair passing through the dark rich soil within them.
On either side of the path, gardens spread. Bushes and trees heavy laden with fragrant flowers and whispering leaves in the wasteland wind shuddered. Dragonmoths glowed, pink, purple and green as they buzzed from flower to flower, alighting on ponds fed by fountains that gurgled and giggled as water poured.
She had expected a dank hole, the smell of rotting bodies and the remnants of precious gifts strewn about a blood stained cave mouth.
"No sentries." She whispered, releasing Amaterasu as he rushed to a fountain and began to drink in heaving gulps.
"That creature will make himself ill." Sasuke grunted, black eyes studying the stillness of the Scaled Worm's territory.
The path, shining bone white in the growing shadows led towards imposing wooden doors at the top of an endless staircase of white. More marble pillars thick as the pine tree trunks of the forest they had left behind held up the roof of the palace that rose up against the mountain as though it had been carved out of it. There were towers and turrets and windows to spare, dotting the black shadow of the mountainside more numerous in their glow than the stars above in the sky.
"I... I would have thought they would see us approaching." Hinata whispered again, and for a moment insanity seemed to filter through her fingers and the itch to take Sasuke's hand made her press her palm to her thigh tightly, as though in restraint.
"They did." Sasuke muttered, turning back to her he searched her face and she stilled, feeling the rush of blood that his eyes seemed to trigger now every time he stared.
"You will do as I say when we go in. You will not argue, and you will not question. In order to get us both out of here alive I need you..." he paused, and she waited feeling tension snapping across her shoulders as he drew a deep shuddering breath, eyes as endless and unreadable as the black sky. "...I need you to trust me."
The words were out of her mouth before she had even really thought them.
"I already trust you."
Confusion, brief like the sudden rise of frightened birds to the heavens fluttered on his face and disappeared as he turned away, starting down the long white path to the doors.
"Amaterasu." His voice was stern, his walk rapid and in a moment, despite the indulgent slurping of the water he had craved so much on their trek the horkney snapped to his side like a magnet calls a nail.
Slinking along behind them both Hinata focused on staring ahead, scouting for danger. It was a good attempt at ignoring the pounding of her heart trying to escape in her chest.
The silence was only breached by the sound of so much water. Fountains seemed to sprout every few feet. It took all her restraint not to dive into one in the same fashion Amaterasu had done but following Sasuke's cue she continued after him, ignoring her thirst.
There was nothing about Sasuke's movements that suggested he was hiding and so for that reason Hinata kept her hands from tightening around the knife at the small of her back. On his shoulder Sasuke carried her bow and arrow and for a brief moment she was surprised to find the urge to take it, the familiar soothing feel of the fletching between her fingers and the bow solid in her palm sorely missed in her anxiety.
"Do no speak unless spoken to." Sasuke called back as they came finally through the endless gardens and to the rising white steps that lifted the enormous carved wooden doors above them.
Hinata frowned slightly at his back, opening her mouth to ask something only to be cut off suddenly as light carved through the dusk's growing darkness in a ever widening sliver.
The giant doors creaked loudly on their hinges and her fingers tightened painfully on her knife hilt as the golden shaft of light widened with their opening embrace.
From below at the bottom of the steps they started, stunned to see women lined on their knees on either side of a long crimson red carpet. Their robes were simple brown and clean. Their hair pulled tightly into a knot at the base of their necks and their faces were bowed low to the ground. There were dozens, stretching back into the glowing brightness of the palace entrance. Above them a chandelier made of a thousand candles spilled light in excess down the steps towards Sasuke, Hinata and Amaterasu frozen at the entrance. Hinata's eyes focused on the black leather strip she had never seen before that seemed to be tight around all of the women's necks, confused by the decoration.
"..w..what-?" Hinata began and froze at the look Sasuke shot over his shoulder at her. Remembering his instructions she clamped her mouth tightly and stepped back, choking on her confusion.
The women remained still except for the four that were pushing the doors wide, two on either side.
"Someone comes." Hinata whispered, straining her eyes to count heads. At Sasuke's side Amaterasu growled deep, the rumble like the first groaning war cry of thunder.
"How many?" Sasuke's soft voice reached back for her as he stepped in her way, shoulders tense but as always straight and determined as he looked forward. There was no fear in that stance, no hesitation.
Hinata swallowed, wishing somehow she could absorb some of his confidence. Folding her hands behind her back to hide their trembling she murmured. "Five. Two men, three... girls, I believe."
Finally able to see them clearly walking towards them Sasuke sighed. "Remember what I said. Be silent unless spoken to."
Nervously she nodded, just as the approaching crowd became clear enough that the man in front was able to flash them a wide smile.
He was tall, and lithe as a panther, moving with the elegant gait of someone feeling at ease with himself, sure of the world around him. Billowing robes of blood red draped from his shoulders and swung like curtains at his arms. Something about him seemed strangely female despite the fact that he was taller than Sasuke by a head and his jaw was hard and carved like stone.
Still too far for quiet conversation he waved a hand, not a hello so much as a flutter of his fingers to signal his amity and he shouted, "Welcome, welcome! We have been expecting you! Please do not linger at the threshold. Come."
Behind the man stood a boy really, by comparison. Where one exuded age and wisdom in charming behavior so the young boy on the brink of manhood exuded nerves and uncertainty. Spectacles lined his face and his hair was so blonde it appeared white. Hinata stared with wide eyes having never seen a person with hair so pale before. At a distance she had thought it was an elderly person, but his features so perfect and young flickered with interest at the sight of her and nervously looked away.
Behind them, dressed in identical brown dresses, neat and simple stood three girls. Their hair cut the same with straight bangs across their forehead and sheared short in the back. Besides their differing lips and noses one would have thought they were triplets. Eyes down they paused just behind the red robed man and the young boy, still as statues.
"I was unaware I would be welcomed here." Sasuke replied finally, having waited until they were close enough that he would not have to shout the way the other man had. Hinata tried to stay still, her eyes watching Amaterasu's trembling side, his growl so very low it rippled through his body and into her in near silence.
"Oh of course you are welcome." The smile on the man's face widened a fraction and his eyes flickered over Hinata and Amaterasu, the affect of his lingering gaze evident on his vanishing grin. "My, my... I see you brought pets."
Hinata's flinch was involuntary, but as her face flooded with heat Sasuke's reply muted her voice. "Is that a problem?"
"No of course not." The man waved a hand as though batting away a fly, his eyes rolling. "My master has many such pets himself." And his eyes flickered to the four behind him, including the boy who was now staring fixedly at the stone ground.
"Your master." Sasuke allowed slowly, eyes fluttering from each face until he came to a stop on the most animated of them all.
The dark haired man smiled again. "Ah. Yes. I am Lord Utterance." He waved his hand in a strange way that seemed to give the impression of a curtsy with none of the actual bowing. "Speaker for the Scaled Worm."
Hinata stared, her frown involuntary and bewildered as she looked again at all the silent figures behind him and at the palace beyond them too. This was not what she had anticipated. A cave bleak and dangerous, a creature repulsive and faceless had been the thing of her nightmares when she had first heard of the Scaled Worm.
But this...
"I have no business with you then. I come to see your master." Sasuke snapped, impatience making his wings shift behind him, and Hinata watched as Lord Utterance fixed on those glistening black feathers, his smile unshakable as though wrought of iron.
"Yes... he is unfortunately not available for the next few days but I have been instructed to offer you every courtesy. He is most interested in what you might have brought to trade..."
At this his eyes flickered behind Sasuke's shoulders where his wings huddled tightly to his back, and then his gaze snagged like a piece of silk drifting down a river caught on a sharp branch, frozen by the sight of Hinata's pale eyes.
"...how...very interesting." He whispered.
Subtly Sasuke stepped into his line of vision and Hinata lowered her head, searching the marble ground and her boots with wide eyes for something to calm the frantic terror that was making her heart gallop in her chest.
Out of her periphery the gardens shone like emerald encrusted fields. The fountains gurgled and giggled in the fading light. Their basin bottoms overflowing and pouring into trenches dug into the earth, criss crossing through the cobblestone paths in the plants as they irrigated everything to a lush green impossiblyy healthy glow with the red of the Rot in the background.
"It is a pity that your wings are such a shade, Fallen Star. I had understood from my lord that he was most interested in the feathers." He smiled, all teeth and no affection on his too wide mouth. "I believe he was hopeful you would consider trading your flight for whatever service you wish him to perform for you."
Behind Sasuke Hinata strained not to recoil at the thought of someone assuming that limbs were a viable trade option. Mouth dry she forced herself to breathe calmly, staying right at the edge of Sasuke's shadow as he glared at Lord Utterance before him. The barest tightening of his fists suggested his disgust at the insinuation.
"Your Lord hoped in futility. There is nothing that would separate an angel from it's wings. Perhaps he is not as wise as he was said to be."
Lord Utterance laughed, surprising them both despite the insult. "Oh, he has dealt with angels before, my Lord Star. He knows your kind quite well. Perhaps you are the one that has not had enough experience with those of your own breed."
Sasuke shifted just slightly and had Hinata not being paying attention he would have bumped into her. A sizzling pop of electricity bubbled in the air along with the giggles of the fountains and Lord Utterance paused, looking contemplative as he studied his new guest. Behind him the three girls and the blonde blue robed boy stayed perfectly still, like statues.
"You would do well to remember that my patience is threadbare, my time is precious and your Lord is disrespectful to keep me waiting." Sasuke's dark eyes leveled on Lord Utterance the same way lava slid down mountainsides, consuming, threatening, burning.
Lord Utterance looked strangely unfazed, hands clasped behind his back as he surveyed the star before him.
"I apologize, Lord Star, however you would do well to remember that my master is a thousand years of wisdom embodied. He was here to see empires rise and fall, he was here to witness the rain of stars and the emptying of the skies. Here at least, if no where else you are not invincible, despite the battles won on your way to my Lord's domain."
"No battles." Sasuke replied smoothly, face impassive , watching the subtle flick of Lord Utterance's tongue at the corner of his mouth and the twist of his lips as he smiled. "Besides the wasteland the path here was dull."
"Dull." His smile continued unrepentant and firm. "Is that so?" His eyes shifted from Sasuke's face, sliding like fetid oil onto Hinata's form, so carefully trying to blend into the growing darkness of the setting suns.
Sasuke finally allowed his gaze to leave Lord Utterance's face and flickered to the dark head of hair that was meticulously bowed, shoulders mercifully still.
"How came you then to boast one of the Hawk Eyed as your... companion?" There was weight to the question, interest and not for the sake of curiosity but calculating. Sasuke felt his stomach clench.
Stubbornly and with the same candid tone as before he replied. "Her Clan was foolish enough to think they could take me, and the blood that runs within me for the sake of their fields. They were wrong. She is nothing but a trophy." His gaze lingered on Hinata for a moment and he managed with some effort to turn away with disdain. "She is half starved from the Rot, I admit I did not take much care for her through the journey and I am surprised she survived."
"Is that so? Here I thought perhaps you came to offer her as a...down payment for my Lord's assistance."
"I doubt he would take her."
"I suppose it would depend first and foremost on what her value was to you."
It took effort to remain calm, to keep his face placid and his fingers from tightening. The flicker of memory rifled up the lines from his texts, read so long ago in the shadows of his study in heaven as a child.
Hoarder of things precious-not to it but to those that would come begging a boon.
"Then he certainly will not be interested."
Lord Utterance did not look away, did not shift to a different topic nor let his eye wander from Sasuke's face. The flick of his tongue at the corner of his mouth once more made Sasuke's insides tighten and with the same feeling of approaching a cliff edge he realized.
He does not believe me.
"A trophy, you say." He mused softly, and blatantly he glanced at the blonde young man beside him, who looked back with a soft agreeable expression behind his spectacles.
"Well, no matter. My master understands trophies rather well, seeing as he keeps many of his own." His eyes so focused on Sasuke's wings shifted finally to his face again, his smile expanding once more. "Unfortunately the beast will have to remain in the stables. The chit you may bring with, if you must."
Gazing at Hinata uncertainly he added. "If you must. Although I cannot imagine what use she could be."
The insinuation to leave her behind was strong, and Hinata swallowed down the growing panic in her throat, confusion at Sasuke's words and his sudden cold demeanor tangling in her mind with memories of his arms around her tight and the smell of mint so bright as she let herself be held.
Chin down she stared at the white stone beneath her feet, feeling suddenly how very dirty she was compared to these strangers. Their clothing gleamed, their faces shone with the recent touch of soap, their hair reflected the light of the dim wasteland suns.
"She has her uses. She will be coming with me." Sasuke's voice left no room for further discussion, his tone hard.
"As you wish. At least allow me to have her bathed..." Lord Utterance turned and motioning for the others to begin back up the steps he added furtively over his shoulder,
"...nothing of personal use should ever be quite that filthy. Chattels, take the beast and the Fallen Star's slave to get...refreshed." The hesitation in the Lord's voice was not in the three girl's limbs as they snapped forward as one, moving like a spill of chocolate down the white steps towards Hinata and Amaterasu at Sasuke's back.
Tensing visibly Hinata's hand snatched for her knife, breath coming in panicked gasps. Beside her, the growl that had been so low it was more of a vibration than a real sound erupted from Amaterasu in warning, hackles rising and teeth bared. Startled Hinata realized the sheer growth of his body since his arrival. The endless waste and the starvation that came with it seemed to have not stemmed his growth and despite his skeletal frame his shoulder stood nearly to her waist when drawn up in threat.
"Rasu!" Sasuke's snap muted the pup's snarl and Hinata stilled, breath held silent in her chest at the sight of Sasuke's barely turned head in their direction.
"Obey."
It was all the horkney needed to hear, jaw loosening his clenched teeth, a soft whine rising from his throat, he lowered his tail, ears deflating on his head and uncertainly he inched behind the one girl nervously approaching with hands up, motioning him back.
Before she could argue, before she could beg for Rasu to be with her the other two Chattels were at her sides, hands on her arms, faces stern and severe as they dragged her backwards.
Panic fluttered in her stomach and despite her best intentions to do as Sasuke instructed she shuddered in their grip, tugging at their hold petulantly.
Without another word Sasuke climbed the steps to stand beside Lord Utterance, engaging him in another conversation without once looking back at her pleading gaze.
TBC