And I'm back on the one-update-per-week-schedule! ;) Please enjoy!

-X-

Killing Shadows
by Clementive

The sun pierced in thin sunrays the dense foliage of the forest. The wind made them dance against one another, sliding briskly against his pale complexion. In a constant rainfall, the pine needles that the sun had scorched interrupted him. As some of them lightly pierced his skin, he batted them away.

Sai hated the seasonal swings of nature. Permanence was the only state of time and space in his mind, the only one that actually mattered: death. Sometimes, when he observed his prey he found a similar irregularity in their wavering fear. He didn't know if he felt that Danzou had freed him from that pathetic human condition of instability.

He didn't feel; he merely killed.

No question, no answer only permanence and his mark engraved on a tree above each of his victim.

The air tasted earthy and damp in his throat. Expressionlessly, Sai let the flies bit at his skin as he furrowed his brows merely concentrating on his art. He found that only before a hunt, only engraved in a tree did his art have depth. In swift movements, his hand dug, moving his knife deeper into the bark of the tree. He felt a certain resistance, the thickness of the tree. So much like human bones when he cut through them, so much like death.

With the sun rays, the colors changed around him, morphing with the promise of an aggressive hot sun. He slapped his neck, leaving a bloody smear where he had felt yet another needle. Cocking his head, he took two steps back calmly looking for flaws and irregularities in his doing.

Softly, his breath blew away the wood dust that smudged the edge of his croaking raven. His anatomy had to be precise and faithful to reality. His wrist twisted as if he were painting until a satisfied empty smile curved Sai's lips. It soothed him, his art and the human body emptiness once it was done and permanent in its state.

Around him, the tree glittered again; gold and red.

Turning his back to his mark, he began his hunt.

Diving between the branches, he left the nature undisturbed as he ran across it. He was farther east that where Danzou told him he would find his target. He enjoyed the prowl, being the onyx eyes of the shadows. The tightening muscles of a target's shoulders were part of his quest of stability. Physical characteristics never lie unlike human words. When his targets came across his mark, their reaction turned them into tumbling rabbits. Their nervous glance examined briefly surrounding trees. At this point, Sai could smell their sweat, their fear.

Vulnerable, they fell.

Frozen, they died.

He blinked and the trees around him were orange, yellowish dancers that attempted to trip him. Absentminded, he touched his damp forehead, the foggy memory of a needle piercing his neck disappearing in a corner of his mind when he felt a thousand ants running down his spine as cold sweat. In a glimmering violet edge vision, he felt his body movements slowed. Thirst burned his throat and the sun swung between the trees.

Vulnerable, he fell.

His knees met the damp earth and croaking ravens filled his head. Caged in his own body, Sai didn't feel his slowing heartbeat or the fixity of his gaze onto the root of the tree where his raven was engraved.

The shadow took a human form as it bent over the limp body.

"You are so young," a light voice murmured in Chinese. "I hate it when you are so young and dying. Such a waste."

Frozen, he died.

-X-

When he blinked, her shadow appeared in the corner of his mind. Vengeful, its darkness reaching for him. He felt its cold hand on his shoulder sliding up his throat and he didn't trust himself to move. Its icy breath caressed his ear murmuring the words of yesterday and their poison.

She screamed endlessly in his mind.

"You should eat or drink, nii-san. Frankly, you look awful."

The reverie shook, rippling in echo through his mind.

Neji Hyuuga gritted his teeth together trying to keep his calm in front of his cousin. He gripped the edge of his desk until he felt focus again. Oblivious to his uneasiness, Hanabi brought her cup of tea to her lips tranquilly savoring the rich aroma of the amber liquid.

"Well, nii-san, is it true?" She leaned forward, her face expressionless but her eyes sparkled with dark pleasure as she carefully set the cup of tea in front of her.

"What is?" He snapped distractedly searching for the latest report of the southern borders of his shogunate.

The shogun cringed inwardly when she snapped open her fan in a delicate movement. He knew exactly why she was here. 'I would rather be facing the old men than her.' He had thought the elders of the main branch would find him first, lurking around his office in the morrow like hungry wolves. Instead, his cousin had made her way in a rich kimono that restricted both her steps and her movements.

"I heard her screams," she said evenly watching his reaction closely.

Tensed muscled, but nothing else.

Disappointed, she reached forward for a bean paste pastry in the plate she had set between them. Neji narrowed his eyes pausing in his search restraining himself from throwing a cold glare to the young princess. He heard them too, tearing at his eardrums. Savage screams of her shadow that cursed him. She pointed at his forehead and her face still haunted him as she was dressed in all her violence.

"I made you a member of the main branch! Your marriage to me is the only thing that doesn't remind them every day of your lower birth, of that disgraceful mark on your forehead."

"Don't you usually have training at this hour, Hanabi-sama?"

The warlord cleared his throat busying his hands with endless pages of reports that rang empty when he read them inwardly. Deep shadows were quivering in his vision and he suddenly felt the heavy weight of his sleepless night on his shoulder.

"I told Anko-sensei that I wasn't feeling well," she replied stealing a glance at him through thick eyelashes.

The elegantly curved letters seemed to dance on the paper before him. He gave up on the report, letting the brush fall back into the inkpot. He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. His head swam, filled with doubt, torn between darkness and the pearl light eyes of his cousin; reality.

"You know very well that I don't approve of this kind of behaviour, Hanabi-sama. Your father wouldn't either," he heard himself say.

The shogun breathed slowly trying to regain control, over her, over his wild mind.

"I told Father that she's wasn't appropriate for you," she replied ignoring him as she broke down another piece of the pastry in her hand. "The second house of our clan in the south is weak. And that doll had no place in our house. Now that you have sent her away, we can find you a more suitable spouse, nii-san."

He briskly opened his eyes watching her eat. A wild shadow curved on her forehead as he watched her mouth moved. Frozen, he reached for his own forehead. His mark burned his hand through the cloth. Jagged words snaked within him.

He flinched.

"Don't worry, Neji-sama, they probably made sure that you won't have children with her either. You will die alone just like your father and everyone will call it destiny."

"Hanabi-sama, I thank you for your concern but I've only sent my wife back to her family for the length of the war. As you've heard, she strongly disagreed," he said carefully sipping some of his tea.

"And your concubine will come here for the length of the war," she added placidly reaching for another pastry.

His throat was suddenly dry. His wife's screams ceased and he pictured Tenten wrapped in anger at the prospect of living here, living in a place that represented everything that she hated. When he had made movement towards her, she had left abruptly avoiding him since then. He pushed the thought of her bloody kimono rippling around her body as she walked away from him the previous morning.

"Her house is unfortunately too near to the border we share with the Uchiha shogunate."

His cousin's placid face was suddenly so close to his that he could see her pale pupils dilating with excitement.

"Is it true, nii-san?"

"I just told you-" He snapped annoyed glaring at her before she cut him off by waving her fan under his nose.

"Is it true that she killed a man with only one kunai?"

-X-

Panic strangled her.

She thought it would be easy. She had played the game so many times; she could now sense the movement of the knights within her. She held them in her clench fist; she manipulated them. She had forgotten that they held weapons in their sleep and fought with the gift of their eyes. It was a mistake that could cost her head. Idly, she stared at the old man before him.

Next door, her husband was pacing talking in hushed words to men from the police department unaware to the present of Danzou in his house.

"This is getting out of hand, Danzou," she whispered licking her dry lips.

She had lost control.

The Senju princess nervously pressed her hands against one another. Her daughter was gone again and her movements were weighed down by the pressure, the fear of being caught. Shame was only one step away from death. Her pieces were cornered on the shogi board and shadows were reaching across their game, smearing their calculations, erasing the impacts of their machination. Tsunade shook her golden hair, her honey eyes still wild. She still saw Sakura endless tears and Sasuke's lifeless orbs.

"You shouldn't have sent Sasuke to Tenten's house," he replied coldly. "That was your mistake."

Her apparent weakness disgusted him. His need for her irritated him. Such weak pieces, but somehow essential. Still, puppets were always limp dolls carefully balanced by a master.

"I thought we could get rid of both of them at the same time. I didn't count on Nara Shikamaru to be there."

"Both of them?" He repeated narrowing his eyes as he leaned towards Tsunade. "What do you mean 'both of them'?"

The air stilled between them and he watched her slow blinks, her own disgust as she pitched her rosy lips. His blood froze in his veins. The sound of Jiraiya's voice was suddenly deafening along with his breaths. He couldn't shake off the unpleasant iciness that he felt at the prospect of losing her, a piece he had so carefully watch grow and blossom. 'I will kill her if she tries something like that again,' he darkly vowed to himself.

"Tenten and-"

His unleashed anger startled her. A savage shadow ran across his face and her breath caught in her throat.

"And how exactly did you plan on getting rid of the Hyuuga and the Uchiha without the armor?"

"Tenten's just a pawn, Danzou. Don't make her more than she is," she spat qui a quiet voice.

'No, you are the pawn, Tsunade.' Playing in the shadows sometimes killed him but he couldn't reveal everything that he knew. Not yet, the time still wasn't right. Instead, his face shook and he settled back placidity on his features.

The mask of the master ready to play her. Again and again, he still played her within his strings.

"Do you know how many men died because of this armor?" His voice quiet as he pushed himself on his feet with his cane. "And Tenten's the key to it. So, be careful Tsunade because she's not a pawn. She's the board itself."

He left her with no further word. The air shook with the electricity of nearing thunder around him as a shadow fell in step with him. Frowning, he stopped walking tasting the hefty humidity in his bones.

Behind him, the shadow kneeled.

"Fast," he barked.

He hated when they showed up without he asking them to. Pawns shouldn't take such liberty.

"Sai's body was returned this morning to your compound, Danzou-sama."

The news rocked his old bones. It started in his throat then the movements reached his shoulders to finally explode in his mouth. He humourlessly laughed shaking his head while sending his shadow back to darkness by a distracted wave of the hand.

"So you let her live after all, Hiaishi," he smirked talking to the shadow of the past as he carried on walking in careful slow steps. "And she's still guarding the armor for you, how touching."

-X-

"My name is Matsuri, Tenten-sama. Please be charitable about my young age. I will serve you at the best of my capacity."

With a frozen smile, the concubine observed the young woman in front of her. She had short pale brown hair and her dark eyes remained fixed on her knees. Her timidity approached nervousity and she could also observe it on Neji's posture. Next to her, he shifted then cleared his throat waiting for an answer.

"Why are you giving me a new servant, Hyuuga-sama? The other two did satisfactory work."

She avoided looking directly into his pearl eyes as she pulled at her mask so that it would fit her pleasant act. In slow movements, she fanned herself.

"We need to move," he said quickly locking eyes with her.

"Does the living room not suit your taste, Hyuuga-sama?" Tenten asked playfully raising a brow. "Or is this child dismissing us?"

The shogun cleared his throat again forcing the words out of his mouth before his resolve could weaken.

"I meant that we need to move from this house to another."

Her fan snapped close.

Her smile fell off her mask and her face darkened. He paused as her eyes burned through his.

"Step outside, Matsuri-chan, please," she ordered in a blank voice.

"Pack her things while you are at it, Matsuri-chan," he added in a measured voice.

The confrontation began in the stillness of the room as they refused to free one another from their stare. Slowly, Tenten narrowed her eyes at him as the young servant nervously bowed. Quickly, she slid the doors open and slipped out.

"No," she said simply once the doors slid back into their place.

Raw pain exploded within her and her mind fluttered with cadavers and haunting pearl eyes. She wouldn't, she couldn't.

"It's the only way for you to be safe."

"I was safe when I had my weapons on me," she snapped. "I'm not the one who let my blade fall onto the ground during a fight."

"Tenten…"

She shook her head, some locks falling from her bun in the process. When she moved, her shadow imprinted her broken motions on the thin layers of the sliding doors. They appeared as droplets of blood, as ghosts of her past. 'Surely, he doesn't know…' She watched him closely, looking for a sign, for the recognition she would fear on the elders' face if she were to live under their roof.

Fear compressed her chest.

"The pressure I applied on his ocular nerves won't make him permanently blind. Uchiha will see again in a month or two."

"I don't care about the Uchiha, Hyuuga or whatever clan," she shouted forcibly. "This is nothing to me!"

"It's just a compound, Tenten," the warlord replied impatiently.

"Would you also expect me to drink tea with your wife, Hyuuga-sama?" She asked sarcastically. "Or to sleep between the two of you?"

"I sent her away yesterday."

She pinched her lips whipping his words away with a graceful agitation of the wrist.

"You've truly gone mad, Hyuuga-sama. I'm not moving from here."

She abruptly stood up reaching for the sliding door of the veranda. She couldn't shake off the fear as it penetrated her bones and accelerated her heartbeat. 'No, no, no,' her mind screamed.

Outside, her skin swam in bright colors, an elongated shadow in toe. Tenten ignored his cries until his skin grazed hers. He caught her with ease before she could reach her room. He forced her to face him, his hands almost painfully digging at her arms. The garden still smelled of burned flesh and curdled blood.

"We need-"

"There's no 'we', Hyuuga-sama," she cut him off trying to push him away.

She lurched at him, her features quivering with disgust. Dragons were allied with the moon of his eyes long time ago. For now, they were enemies. It was them and her in separated ground and customs.

She wished he could hear the hammering of her heart, the silent shrills of her mind so that he would understand. They belonged to different world. She was the hidden concubine, the woman who should have never survived a massacre. She stared at him as his features froze in an expressionless mask. They were exposed, bare to one another. Her widened hazel eyes closed as she felt his hands slowly release their grip. Short throaty breaths broke out of her chest.

"There's no 'we'," she repeated quietly opening her eyes to the void of his.

He stood frozen, as she staggered away from him. He expected the world to stop turning, the concubine to disappear. The shogun couldn't admit to himself that her words hurt him deeper than his wife's had.

Breathing soundly, she kept shaking her head. Again, she walked away from him.

"I can't go there, Hyuuga-sama, and I won't."

He saw the shadow of whom he used to be in her stubbornness; he glimpsed at the familiar ties of destiny around her.

"When will you finally live in the present? They are dead and they won't come back whether you live here or there."

Neji barely recognized his harsh voice as it vibrated through his chest hitting her façade. He had merely wanted to chase his old shadow and now he had driven her away. He helplessly watched her back stiffened and her delicate fists clench and unclench. She turned pale cheeks and angry narrowed eyes.

"My father was executed along with his brothers in the place you probably call your courtyard," she whispered coldly. "I know he's never coming back, Hyuuga-sama, but I certainly won't be walking on his blood."

"We don't execute people, don't be ridiculous."

She gave in to an empty laugh taking a step towards him. He watched her pupils flickered, up then down. The truth was blatant on her face as he saw the signs of painful memories. She looked up at him panting with pained hazel eyes and a sad smile.

"It looks like the Hyuuga elders have forgotten to tell you about that story. Are you really their shogun?"

"And who are you, Tenten?"

'A killer, a dragon, a fighter, a concubine.' Her mind whirled 'No one. I'm nameless.'

She flinched. Suddenly, her body appeared to be crumbling on itself, her hair slipping out of her messy bun. In two quick steps, he reached for her, closing the distance between them. His pearl eyes fell back on her rosy gaping lips. She tensed, her hands pushing against his chest as if she could physically experience his eyes traveling on her body. 'She's not going away. Not this time, not ever.'

Swiftly, his arm circled her lower back and her body was pressed against his. A cool sensation filled her as he secured the nape of her neck in his hand.

"Hyuuga-sama, stop," she voiced breathily.

She perceived the vibration of his lips through hers like a caress and her eyes fluttered close.

"How many times will I have to tell you to call me Neji?"

His fingers pressed down two points on her neck and she fell limply in his arms like a rag doll. Carefully, the shogun picked her up settling her head against her chest. Her features were calmer than he has seen them.

"You didn't leave me a choice," he murmured.

He stepped onto the charred herbs of the garden balancing her weight in her arms.

"Lee! We are leaving! Get her chest in her room and tell the men to bring in the palanquin."

In the dying sun, they were one and only shadow drawn onto the ground.

-X-

He woke up to a searing pain devouring his shoulder blade. Confusion seized him as he glimpsed at the darkness still surrounding him. A weight on his back immobilized him in the uncomfortable position as a hand pressed down his head onto the tatami. Bony knees pinned down his arms far from his body. With his vision still blurred with sleep, he saw the tangled sheets on the futon and her vacant place.

"Good morning, Tenten," Neji growled testing the mobility of his legs.

He felt her weight shifted on top of him. Her body bent over until her breath tickled his ear.

"I will make you regret every second that you brought me here, Neji. Every second."

Then, her weight was gone. Carefully, he pushed himself warily watching her form in the darkness. He inattentively started massaging the blood back in his arms. He couldn't help but smirk at the venom he had deciphered in her words. Amused, he watched her slipping back under the sheets and lie down her back to him.

-X-

I'm quite a tease, I know. :P As always, feedback is appreciated. ;)