Jennku – thank you as always for the reviews!:) And especially for the constructive criticism, you're totally right, I do need to tone her down a bit. Although she is supposed to be pretty out there on the power scale. And the secrets of her past are beginning to come out so you shall see…(:
Chapter 10
Daichi strolled casually down the street, hands in his pockets, wishing with all his heart he were somewhere else. Why here? He couldn't help but wonder, What is so great about this place that Akira chose to stay here? He gritted his teeth as he realized the answer: Kakashi. Akira had fallen in love and forgotten all about their pact, the pact she herself had initiated. He still remembered that day with perfect clarity.
"We're different than the other people here," she explained as they sat in the sand box, drawing designs with their fingers, "Different than the other kids our age. Different than the adults. That's what my parents tell me."
"But I don't want to be different," Naoki frowned, looking over at the other children playing happily together on the playground, "Why can't we just be normal?"
"Who wants to be normal?" Daichi snapped, "Everyone else is dumb. We're better than them."
"No, not better," Akira corrected, that familiar thoughtful look on her face, "Just different. Stronger, yes, but not better."
"Brother doesn't like me anymore, since it happened," Naoki sighed, picking up a handful of sand. "He says it's wrong that the younger brother inherited the power. He says it should have been him, since he's going to be the next head of the family, the next great sword maker." The little dark haired boy let the sand slip between the gaps in his fingers. Akira reached out and caught it in her own palm as it fell.
"It's okay, Naoki. Father doesn't like that I can do the things I do either. He says they're signs from the devil. But mother always says that the people like him simply don't understand. That we're not evil, we're just special."
"But brother is mad at me, I don't want to be special."
"Then you need a different brother."
Naoki looked up, surprised. "What?"
"Yeah!" Akira exclaimed, suddenly excited, "That's it! Daichi can be your new brother, and I'll be your sister!"
"But we're not related," Daichi pointed out and the little girl waved a hand.
"Doesn't matter. As long as we promise to always be there for each other, to always love and support each other, to always stay with each other, that's all we need. We can be siblings in all but blood."
"In all but blood," Naoki repeated quietly, then his eyes lit up. "I like it!"
"Good!" Akira grinned, "Then let's make it a pact."
Daichi smiled at the distant memory, remembering how full of light and happiness Akira had been so long ago. But that had been before everything, before her father, before she'd been through hell. A familiar gut wrenching guilt took root. Those men who discovered Akira's one weakness, the one thing that keeps her from being a force of nature…we should have gotten there sooner, we should have rescued her before they did what they did to her…we could have saved her from those scars. Daichi shuddered and pushed away the bloody memories of that day, coming back to the world around him – just in time to collide with someone.
"Watch it," he snapped as he stumbled to regain his balance, then froze. On the ground was an adorable, blushing little girl with short, dark blue hair and a white coat that seemed to swallow her whole.
"I – I – I'm sorry, sir," she stammered, looking down and nervously tapping her fingers together. Daichi felt something strange move within him, something he'd never experienced before and couldn't quite put a name to, but for some reason he suddenly felt very tender towards the young girl.
"No, I'm sorry," he abandoned his usual gruffness and reached out a hand to help her up. She stared at the hand for a long time before finally taking it. He pulled her to her feet easily.
"Th – thank you," she said, blushing even deeper.
"No problem. I should have been watching where I was going. I'm Daichi, by the way, Fukayama Daichi."
"I – I'm Hyuuga Hinata," the girl introduced herself quietly.
"Hinata. It's a pleasure to meet you."
"You too. Well I should really get going, my father is expecting me…" And with that she stepped around him and hurried away, leaving the man to stare after her.
"How strange," Daichi observed as he watched her retreating form. "How very strange."
Akira's Point Of View
My first mission as a Jounin of the leaf village and what was I doing? I was escorting a bickering old couple to the nearby Hidden Rain Village, a mere C rank mission. Not to mention I was stuck with a couple of argumentative brats.
"I see you looking at that young girl, can't seem to take your eyes off her, can you?"
"I've been on this earth for eighty six years, I think I deserve to witness some beauty before I die!"
"You deserve to be put in jail you perverted pedophile!"
This conversation continued to my right as to my left Ino and Tenten nearly clawed each other's eyes out.
"What are you talking about, Tenten, saying Sasuke isn't gorgeous?"
"I'm not saying he's ugly or anything, I'm just saying there are much more attractive guys out there."
"How could you? Sasuke is a god among men, he's absolutely beautiful!"
"You do realize how creepily obsessed you are, right?"
A throbbing headache was beginning to take root in the back of my skull as the two pairs continued to go at it. It had been like this from sun up to sun down for the past three days since we'd left the Leaf Village. Add that to the fact that the journey was taking twice as long as it should have due to the two elderly folk's poor stamina the stress was just piling up. We were passing through a small canyon when I smelled a change in the air.
"Grandma Hitomi, Grandpa Minoru, Ino, Tenten, we'll be taking shelter in that cave for the night," I indicated the hole in the rock face.
"But Akira," Ino protested in her whining voice, "It's barely past noon."
"Would you rather get drenched in the thunderstorm that's on its way?"
"Thunderstorm?" Tenten frowned, "But there's not a cloud in the sky."
"The pretty blonde's right you know," the old man Minoru spoke up, "I thought my joints were aching because of all this walking but my body predicts weather as sure as any farmer. If it's telling me right we've got a massive storm coming."
I nodded at him in appreciation. "That settles it then. We'll set up now. Tenten, Ino, go gather what firewood you can find and bring it into the cave. I'll go see if I can catch us some game. You two just sit tight," I nodded at the old couple and everyone set about their tasks. I climbed up the canyon wall and not far away from its edge I found a small stream thick with fish. Grinning, I decided to use the opportunity to brush up on my water jutsu. Forming the proper hand sign I focused my chakra and a section of the water began to rise slowly, pulling fish with it. In a moment I had a bubble of water floating in the air with several fish swimming about in a panic inside and I began to move it towards the shore. However, as I did so the rest of the water in the stream began to stir strangely, choppy waves rocking its surface and the fish began to leap out of the water several at a time. My control over my jutsu began to weaken as the water in the bubble did the same, then suddenly bubbles began to rise in both the stream and the sphere of water and I gasped, completely letting go of the jutsu as I realized it: the water was boiling.
"No!" I cried out, "No stop it!" A memory flashed through my mind.
The sun was high, the sky clear over a brilliantly blue lake, calm but for the children splashing in its shallows. Laughing, a little girl ran for the water herself, leaping and turning, enjoying the brilliance of it all. Her parents watched fondly from where they sat on a blanket on the sand, holding hands with her mother's head rested on her father's shoulder. The young Akira paused in her playing to wave at them.
"Mommy, Daddy, look what I can do!" Those little eyes closed as she concentrated and suddenly the water around her began to stir, swirling around her in a circle. Then a thin tendril began to rise up and the little blonde girl giggled, directing it with her hands as she moved it about through the air. That's when disaster struck. The entire lake began to move strangely, waves coming towards the shore though there was not even the slightest gust of wind, and the others in the water began to notice it getting strangely warm. Most of them grew wary and scampered frightened to the shore, but one remained oblivious, continuing to frolic around, tossing a ball to himself. Until he started screaming. The entire body of water was boiling, scorching his skin as he stood until he collapsed beneath its surface, writhing in pain.
"Akira!" Her mother shouted, running to the water's edge, "Stop it! Let the chakra go!"
The little girl just blinked at her, confused, and let the water she'd been playing with drop. As soon as she did the lake calmed and cooled and several people rushed towards the little boy who'd been trapped. He wasn't breathing when they pulled him out.
"What happened, mommy?" Young Akira asked as her white faced mother grabbed her hand and pulled her ashore, "What's wrong with that little boy?"
"He just got a bit overtired, dear," the woman explained, hurrying to pack up their things, "It's time for us to go."
"But why? And why is daddy staring at me like that?" It was the first time she'd seen that expression in her father's eyes: fear. And it was as he looked at her. It took the healers three days to get the little boy's burns to the point where they could be bandaged and he barely survived, scarred for the rest of his life.
I gasped, jerking myself out of the memory to realize that the water before me had calmed again. I shuddered. For years I hadn't realized that it had been my fault, I hadn't known the reason for the suspicion and anger behind the glares of my fellow villagers, I hadn't known the reason for the abhorrence in my own father's eyes when he looked at me. Not until that fateful night he died. Then I found out everything.
A strange smell touched my senses then and I moved towards the stream to find many fish carcasses floating on the top. I wrinkled my nose. "Boiled fish. Brilliant." Extremely shaken up, I gathered several and brought them back down to our camp. The sky was now beginning to cloud over and everyone was waiting for me in the cave.
"Akira?" Tenten asked as I entered, "Are you alright?"
"Of course!" I replied brightly, "Why wouldn't I be."
"I don't know. You just look pretty pale, like you've seen a ghost or something. Hopefully you're not getting sick."
"Let's hope not," I said genuinely, shuddering as I remembered the last time I'd gotten ill. Compared to that, the incident at the lake was nothing. Sure to our predictions, a vicious storm rolled in hard and fast, shaking the ground with the power of its thunder and lighting up the sky like midday as lightning struck. Luckily we all huddled safe and warm next to the fire, clear of the torrential rain and gusts of wind. The next morning the sun was high in the sky and we rose to see the wake of destruction left over from the night before. Trees were split in half, rocks lay spewed everywhere and the canyon now had a thin stream of water running down its middle.
"Thank god the valley didn't flood," Ino commented, looking around us and everyone nodded in agreement.
"We'd best get going," I said and we continued on. It wasn't until late afternoon that I felt the other presences. We were being followed. "Ino, Tenten," I called out casually, "Come here, I've got a question for you about the Sasuke situation." The two girls approached and I lowered my voice. "We're being tracked. I sense three presences so far but there could be more. They're probably bandits so be on your guard. Chances are there's a point up ahead that will be perfect for them to ambush us."
The old lady looked sharply in our direction though out of earshot. "Something wrong?" She inquired a bit too casually.
"Nope," I smiled, "Nothing at all. Just wondering whether Sasuke's older brother was ever as attractive as he is." The old woman grunted and turned back to her husband, continuing their conversation. However she'd succeeded in raising my suspicion and I began to wonder if the trackers I felt were actually random robbers. Tsunade assigned me an effortless mission to get experience with leading a team and giving the runts a chance to get out in the field. She knows there are bandits in these parts, probably expected us to go up against a couple, but if there's something else going on we don't know about…things could get dangerous.
All of a sudden I sensed it and tackled Ino to the ground; a kunai stuck in the tree in front of her, passing right through the space where her chest had been. Sure enough, we were under attack.