Title: Secondhand Faith

Chapter Title: The Crime of Grief

Author: Lell

Current Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Spoilers…pretty much up until the current chapters. While considered an AU, many things in the timeline remain the same. So, read at your own risk (though that warning applies to most of my work…) Tayuya's mouth and all subsequent obscenities and breaches of political correctness attributed to her.

Summary:They got Sasuke back (yay), Itachi died at his hands (more yay) and Konoha emerged triumphant after having been to hell and back in a handbasket (innumerable amounts of yay.) But sometimes peacetime is just as harrowing as war when old enemies and not so old friends convene at this year's Chuunin exams. (AU futurefic starring the Sand Sibs, various Otonin and the Konoha ensemble. All at once. Fear.)

oOo

As Kidoumaru pelted headlong through the treacherously narrow gorge, his heart hammering wildly against the confines of his ribs, the superior sum of his intelligence and determination was focused to a needlepoint on the disappearing dust-note of chakra that was Tayuya.

'Please,' he prayed, though he was not a praying man. 'Please let me find her before she does anything rash. Before she does anything to damage the peace we've worked for. Or herself.'

An outcrop of rock forced him to swerve and he cursed the loss of valuable seconds spent avoiding the obstacle. Tayuya was faster than himself, particularly when grief and rage added wings to her heels. The dark-skinned shinobi tucked his six arms more tightly against his body to reduce air resistance, ducked his head down and forged onwards.

On either side of him the canyon walls loomed ominously, blocking out most of the sunlight with their ochre bulk. It left him running through an odd sort of twilight gloam that was of no hindrance to someone with Kidoumaru's excellent night sight, but the dimness and the way the gorge walls leant towards him set nerves aflame in the pit of his stomach.

He needed to find her.

And find her first. Because she was his teammate, yes, and because she was the mother of his child, but mostly because you didn't pass through so much blood and war and death with someone and not emerge into the aftermath without some sort of steel bond tying you together.

She was one of his people, just as Jiroubou was, and Kidoumaru wouldn't let her go easily.

He turned a corner and, abruptly, the canyon ended, leaving Kidoumaru into sunlight that was almost too brilliant to bear.

oOo

Like most days in Suna, the morning of the second day of fights dawned bright and blisteringly hot. Having learned from the day before, the audience was festooned with brightly coloured parasols, like some gaudily blossoming tree, and the vendors who hawked their wares of chilled sugar cane juice and little cones of shaved ice with syrup were making a killing. Everywhere, fans served to move the hot, scratchy air in pointless eddies and the body of people gently simmered, sending off the musky odour of sweat to mingle with that of dust and hot stone.

The first day of fights had been competent, but nothing scintillating and there was a general air of expectation thrumming from person to person, escalating as it went.

Today, communal voices whispered in anticipation, today we want something special.

Up in the box reserved for the high-status guests, Naruto was hot under his Kage robes and grumpy as a result. It was alright for Sakura who was sitting there all fresh and sweat free in her vest and shorts, but then she wasn't wearing a bloody dress, was she?

"Stop scratching," she commanded, slapping his hand when he attempted to do so. "We're in public."

The offender nursed the back of his hand. "But it's hot, Sakura-chan," he whined, squirming in his seat. To his right he could see Gaara and Naruto was pretty sure that the bastard was smirking at him.

"Are you the Hokage or a five-year old?" Sakura wanted to know.

"The latter," Sasuke murmured from behind his ANBU mask and now Naruto was positive that that was a smirk on Gaara's thin lips. The prick.

"Shut up, ANBU-san," Naruto growled through gritted teeth. "Unless you'd like me to kick your ass later."

A snort. "As if you could."

"Children…" At Sakura's saccharine warning tone, both Naruto and Sasuke looked down into the stadium bowl where, once more, the assembled genin were bowing to the Kage and Daimyo present. Naruto, belatedly, raised a hand, as did the other village leaders while, below them, Baki announced in ringing tones that the second day of matches was about to commence. "Play nice and watch the little kiddies beat each other up."

Naruto's smile was suddenly reminiscent. "Oi, remember when I pounded Neji into the ground at our first exam?"

"As if you ever let him forget it."

"Hey, someone's gotta let the chicks know that he isn't God's gift to women in a pretty, girly-haired package. 'Cause Tenten's totally hot in an older woman sort of way and she's wasted on him. I mean, all of those weapons of hers are kind of kinky when you think about it—ow!"

Sasuke decided that his guard duties didn't extend to protecting Naruto from Sakura's (quiet and discreetly disguised from the surrounding spectators) wrath. Mostly because the blond idiot deserved it.

oOo

When Tenten sneezed, it wasn't a delicate and lady-like sneeze. Indeed, it was more like a miniature hurricane and left her blinking and watery-eyed in the bright sunlight.

"Bless you," Kankurou said, sounding mildly impressed.

"Thanks." Her response was suitably sarcastic, even as she groped for her handkerchief. She was pretty sure she had one somewhere on her, even if it was maybe a wee bit old and—

"Here."

Tenten glanced at the clean, pristine handkerchief Neji was offering her ('Geez, it's even folded!') in some bemusement, but took it anyway. "Uh…thanks."

This, naturally, did not make a Kankurou a happy bunny (his lack of a handkerchief, clean or not, had prevented him from making the sneaky offer that Neji had) and his immediate instinct was to cry foul.

But, in the end, it was just a handkerchief and Kankurou had better things to worry about. Like inching his fingers forward spider-like towards where Tenten's tanned and freckled arm lay on the railing.

Tenten refolded the handkerchief enough that it was somewhat recognisable as the perfect square with razor-blade corners Neji had given her. "I'll wash it," she promised before touching her nose delicately with two fingers. "Geez. Someone must have been talking about me."

Neji rolled his pale eyes at the superstition, but didn't say anything. His posture was as good as always and Kankurou sneered delicately (and inwardly) at the hours of blue-blooded pansy-ass training that must have gone into keeping that spine as rigid and poker straight as it was.

Aristocrats.

Not that Kankurou could talk, being both a Kazekage's son and a Kazekage's brother, but at least he was human.

Hyuuga-hime was just an icicle.

Tenten was looking down into the arena with interest as the first fight of the day kicked off. "That's one of the Suna genin, right? The girl with the orange hair? Temari-san says that she's supposed to be good."

"Who's the other one?" Kankurou asked, more as a distraction than anything else.

"Uh…" She squinted against the sun's glare reflecting off of the sand. "Rain, I think. His headband's hidden by his clothes—Kankurou, stop that."

Not at all chastised, Kankurou grinned and withdrew the hand she'd slapped so that he could peer down into the fighting grounds. "Oh, yeah, he's gotta be from Ame. He's all pasty and pale."

Neji arced an elegant brow. "That's a generality."

"That's the truth."

Quick to diffuse early bickering (she had been on a genin team with Lee and Neji after all) Tenten gestured down towards the fighting genin. "Hey, remember when we were their age?"

Neji sniffed. "As far as I recall someone was trying to invade our village."

"Oi. We said sorry for that."

"Only once you had been soundly defeated."

"Oi!"

Tenten, exasperated, shook her head and washed her hands of all responsibility. Once that had gone the way of the dinosaurs, she allowed herself to snicker, casting an amused glance in Kankurou's direction. "Have you ever actually fought Shino since?"

The puppeteer made an unintelligible noise.

"Sorry, what was that?"

"…no."

Neji definitely smirked this time and Tenten laughed outright. She did, however, also clap a familiar hand on his shoulder, even if she had to stretch up a little to do so. "If it helps, I lose when I fight him – there's nothing I can do against the bugs."

"It's damn creepy, that's what it is."

Tenten continued to laugh, though the amused sound was punctuated by a little wince as, below them, the Rain genin got his ass handed to him. Thoroughly. The crowd cheered the winner on, Kankurou, Tenten and Neji adding their own alternately enthusiastic, sympathetic and polite applause to the hum and roar in the stadium.

The girl from Sand left the arena on her own two legs, the boy from Ame on a stretcher borne by two medicos. Chatter hummed up from the stalls as the sandy fighting area was swept and made ready for the next battle though service support seemed puzzled as to how to deal with the crater that was the result of a particularly nasty fire-jutsu. What had been the sand at the bottom of the bowl was now rapidly cooling molten glass, sullenly glowing and lava-like, and it was an angry enough colour that they just decided to leave it.

"Wise," Neji replied with a small smile when Tenten commented on it.

The fact that there was a smile other than a smirk on his face at all didn't sit well with Kankurou and his eyes rolled theatrically in their sockets. "Hey, Hyuuga-hime, you keeping score? As far as I'm aware, that's two wins for Suna genin and, wait, let me think, none for any of your lot. Of course, only your girl fought, but I understand completely if you feel embarrassed – it was pretty humiliating looking back at it…"

The sharp pain in his side was Tenten's elbow digging into it. Even when he gave her his best mournful 'what was that for?' look, her chiding scowl remained.

"Be nice."

Kankurou let a corner of his mouth curl up in spite of, on her other side, the smugness that radiated outwards from Neji. "I'm always nice to you."

It was definitely worth the second elbow to the ribs.

When something else hit his ribs on the other side, Kankurou was fully ready to snap at the offender, but his ire wilted when, in a flash of green, the perpetrator made himself known.

"Have I missed Sadaharu-kun's match!"

Lee squeezed past Kankurou to flutter anxiously around Tenten, all jittery and edgy until the smaller Leaf-nin reached up to press her palms down on his shoulders, a smile hinted at around her eyes (the one that was visible, anyway) and mouth behind the amused exasperation.

"Calm down, Lee," she said soothingly. "There's still an Oto/Ame match first before Sadaharu fights. You're not late."

The lanky young man visibly relaxed, though energy still thrummed through the lean lines of his body. Kankurou, despite his protestations that he liked being muscled and hench, spared a moment to cast a wistful glance at the lithe, corded expanse that was Lee's body.

Then he realised that he was staring at a man wearing green spandex. And died a little inside.

He still couldn't begrudge Lee the much-coveted spot beside Tenten, even if it meant that Neji was next to her now and he was now, because the guy was just so damn…nice. And bubbly. And youthful, and all sorts of other charming adjectives that, once you got used to them, stopped being annoying and just became charming.

Kind of.

Now that his panic was over, Lee turned to Kankurou with a cheery "Kankurou-san!" and the Suna-nin braced himself for the usual, exuberant conversation that occurred during an encounter with Konoha's Green Beast.

Once you entered, you could never leave. Such were the laws of the Lee.

oOo

There were certain rules about being a Hyuuga.

The first was that noses were there to be looked down, no matter how tall one was.

The second had a lot to do with perfecting that superior, haughty 'my blood is bluer than yours will ever be however much Koolaid you want to drink' look at a very early age.

The third – and this was the one Neji drew upon now – the third was that quiet displays of smugness annoyed folk vast amounts more than any verbal insult could.

His quiet satisfaction was, he thought, quite palpable judging by the dark look the oaf from Suna sent him before he had to give his attention back to Lee. Tenten, unobservant girl that she was when it came to anything that wasn't a mission, didn't notice and Neji allowed himself a (mental) fist pump of victory.

This round went to him.

By now, the second match of the day had kicked off and, in the arena, a dark haired Otonin faced one of the genin from Ame. Despite there being no Konoha competitor to cheer on, Tenten was watching with an interest that was close to avid, her one visible eye narrowed in thought. She was probably comparing the kids to the ones she taught back at the Academy, Neji mused with an emotion that would have been fondness in anyone who wasn't a Hyuuga.

While he and, later, Lee had seen the rank of jounin as the pinnacle of achievement, Tenten had seemed content with being a special-jounin and taking on a teaching role at the Academy, teaching leagues of too-enthusiastic, too-clumsy children to sling sharp-edged objects around. Or at least she had acted content – losing the use of one of her eyes in that last, great battle of the war had changed her in ways Neji couldn't imagine.

To him, the loss of sight – however incomplete – could not be imagined.

But Tenten, as always, had been adaptable and even though she was no longer highly suitable for missions in the way that he and Lee were, she put her skills to the best use possible.

Even if he missed having her fighting beside him.

Since Hyuuga also didn't do 'remorseful' Neji abandoned that train of thought and watched Tenten instead. Her blind eye was towards him, hidden behind its frank covering of black cloth, so there was little chance of her noticing his scrutiny.

Then again he was a Hyuuga and the Hyuuga were always watching, whether they appeared to be or not.

Big Brother had nothing on them.

In the desert heat, a thin sheen of perspiration dusted her brow, though the well-milked coffee shade of her skin said that she didn't burn at least in the hot desert sun. Wisps of hair escaped the triple bindings of her buns, her hitai-ate and her eye-patch, it would be easy to compare her to girls like Sakura and Ino, prettier, flashier girls and dismiss her. Even for Neji, for whom aesthetics were of little consequence so long as the aesthetic was neat, it was easy to work out that Tenten wasn't the prettiest girl around.

The eye patch didn't help.

And it wasn't as if she was the strongest either. She could beat Ino, would always lose to Sakura, and didn't even bother fighting Hinata anymore. Lee had always been stronger and she only fought Neji because her skill-set uniquely served as a workout for his own abilities. She was strong, yes, and competent too, but others had advantages that she didn't.

Oh, and she wasn't a Hyuuga. Being the family prodigy that he was, Neji was expected to meld his own genetic code with that of the female in his family with the strongest Byakugan possible to pass on his beneficial alleles, so he'd been through many years of indoctrination regarding women from outside the clan as taboo.

…so why did she fascinate him?

On the one hand, he'd known her since she was seven, had been on a team with her since he was twelve, had battled besides her for too many years and survived too many battles, so it wasn't as if there was anything new to learn about her – he already knew it! On the other…she was unfathomable, given to certain unpredictabilities despite her steady nature.

In her sheer normalcy, she was as different from the aristocratic Hyuuga as chalk was from cheese.

And though he resented the expectation that everybody and their mother seemed to have that he and she would somehow ended up together and was almost determined not to satisfy the gossips, he also wasn't quite ready to hand her over to someone else.

Hence the dislike for Kankurou.

All of this had traversed the emotional pathways of his brain without so much as a hint of their passage showing on the cool, considering features his face bore like a thumbprint.

In short…well, was there even a short version of this tangled-yarn mess? In some sort of brief sense, Neji was pretty sure he didn't love her. Like her, maybe, and she was always going to be on his list of people for whom he would sacrifice his life for without a second's thought (Hinata and Lee, as well, and probably even Naruto if you wanted to know) but, right now, not love.

But he still wasn't willing to share.

As he absently cast his eyes over the slim, brown expanse of her forearm, he felt the hairs on the nape of his neck stand to attention, a prickling, sensitive awareness and, for a moment, he was shocked that she could evoke such a response from him.

Then he realised that it had nothing to do with Tenten's arm, however smooth and rounded, and the Hyuuga took in the sudden wave of heightened, deadly chakra that rippled out from the arena like a tsunami with something like surprise.

"Oh," Tenten said dumbly next to him. "Oh." Perhaps that was all that she could say. Personally, Neji thought that 'oh no' was perhaps more apt, but, for once, his anal retentive nature let the chance to correct her slide past him, mostly because he was watching the scene in front of them unfold with a quiet sort of horror.

Down in the arena, an ocean raged.

Neji wouldn't have thought it possible. Water jutsu, however simple, relied upon the amount of water in the surroundings – hidden in flowers and trees, vapour in the air, the plasma in a person's blood. Water didn't come from just anywhere – it was like energy, not able to be created or destroyed, only transformed.

Yet, somehow, a mere genin from Ame had conjured a raging typhoon that roared against the sandy walls of the arena. Angry floodwaters that were enclosed in the stadium thundered around in a deadly spiral, blue depths rapidly turning a sickly yellow at the edges where loose sand discoloured at it.

And, somewhere in the midst of all that elemental fury, a small, lanky body fought to keep its head above the surface.

Even with Neji's eyes, it took him a while to locate the source of all the water. The other genin, the one from Ame, crouched on the concave wall of the arena, seemingly still having enough chakra after his attack to adhere to the flattened sand by a single kneecap and the sole of one foot. Almost directly opposite Neji, he was far enough away that the Leaf jounin couldn't see his lips moving or what seals his flickering hands shaped, but the results were clear enough when, with a cry of exertion, the child flung his arm out.

And death rained down on the water's surface.

Later, Neji would label this as flawless, heartless planning. Filling the battle environment with water was only the first step – using all of that liquid as a medium for the lightning that crackled over the turbulent surface, sending up steam in roaring columns as water broke the glass ceiling and burst up, exultantly, into the sky was the clincher. But, mostly, he'd just be horrified at the vastness of it all and the dreadful finality that it brought to bear.

A collective sort of hush feel over the stadium. It was a breathless, anxious quiet and no one wanted to be the traitor to break it, though break it would.

Mist cleared. Water stilled and turned to liquid glass, a mirror of the burning azure sky.

The film of the water's surface gently broke, but still managed to cling to the curve of a cheek, a shaggy lock of dark hair, the lax line of a finger. The boy from Sound floated, limp and graceful, with a silent stadium as his audience.

Something moved in that shocked, static environment and Neji watched as, across from him, a woman with red, red hair and dark wells of horror for eyes got to her feet.

oOo

The brat couldn't be dead.

It was a trick. Some water and a few sparks of lightning couldn't kill him, not someone she'd spent so long teaching that you did everything and anything just to survive. He was playing dead, laying low, waiting for the right moment…

The brat couldn't be dead.

He needed to get up. Any minute now he'd be crawling to his feet with that idiotic grin on his face. 'Gotcha!' he'd crow, like his trick wasn't at all transparent. And then he'd pull something out of his ass to win, like he always did. Unless it was Dai – he could never beat Dai. Or Kaede, when she was having a good day.

Seiichi couldn't be dead. Not him.

Tayuya was on her feet by now, hands turning white with the strain as she gripped the railing like a lifeline.

She'd always gone through life with a certain awareness (it came with being a genjutsu master) and the people she shared that life with occupied certain portions of her mind. Kidoumaru was a dark, secretive sort of presence, his chakra leaping out at odd moments to surprise her with all the wickedness of a child. Jiroubou was a steady, bright blaze – eternal and ever present. Dai's self had a purple sort of tinge to it, sometimes more of an absence of anything flashier than a presence, while Kaede's chakra identified her by being as pure and sunny and giggly as possible.

And she'd always read Seiichi as fireworks, fireworks that were no longer there.

A high, painful keening grew in her ears and it took her a while to recognise the voice as her own.

oOo

"Tayuya, stop!"

The woman tried to wrench her arm out of his grasp, but Kidoumaru had six to her two and held on grimly. He'd caught his teammate before she'd reached the Ame-genin, but it had been a close thing – she'd launched herself from the viewing platform with an unearthly sort of speed.

And even if he too wanted to take Seiichi's life out of the genin's skin, he couldn't allow her to spark a war in front of all these witnesses.

Grief had to take a back seat.

She still fought him, too maddened by grief to think to use real combat skills, only writhing and struggling to be free of his grip.

People were flickering down into the arena in a thick, urgent rainstorm of shinobi from all nations. Death, while anticipated in the chuunin exams, was never received well and many of the high-ranking enforcers were pre-empting trouble.

A familiar face was one of them.

"Control her," Sasuke snapped, stalking across the water's surface towards them. Temari wasn't far behind him, the nervous tension they all felt apparent on her face.

Part of Kidoumaru would always almost instinctively wish to obey any order from Sasuke-sama, but he ignored that minority. "Keep out of it." The snapped comment wasn't at all diplomatic, but fuck diplomacy – he had more important matters to waste neurones on. Tayuya's nails were scrabbling madly against his skin and, blunt and bitten as they were, blood welled up in their ragged passage.

"Tayuya. Tayuya." Nothing. Kidoumaru regarded her for a moment and then, coolly, drew back one of his arms and slapped her around the face. The blow didn't make the wildness dissipate from her eyes, but she did turn her face up towards him and he caught her chin to keep it here. "You need to stop." Something in the dilation of her pupils hinted that she was about to speak—to argue, to rebel—but he cut her off. "He was a soldier, Tayuya, and soldiers die." The sharp, callous words sliced his tongue as he said them and his throat may as well have been in tatters, but still they came forth in their calculated little lines. "I forbid you to make a scene, Tayuya, and I forbid you from laying a finger on that genin."

Long fingers more suited to music than physical violence gripped his wrist and dug into the sensitive places between sinew and bone. Kidoumaru didn't even twitch, only turning her face (however unwilling) towards the sad bundle that used to be Seiichi. Dai and Kaede were already at his side. The boy was unabashedly crying while his blonde teammate looked lost as she rested one hand on his shoulder and the other on Seiichi's forehead.

Tayuya stilled abruptly. Beneath the rough pad of one finger, Kidoumaru could feel her pulse beating rapidly through the paper-thin skin of her wrist.

It should have been a warning.

In a whirl of pale cloth and scarlet hair she was gone, leaves drifting down in the space her body had once inhabited. Kidoumaru swore – he'd thought that the sight of Seiichi would at least have been enough to shock her back into sensibility – and flickered after her.

oOo

"We can't let them out of our sight," Temari said urgently in Gaara's ear, straining to keep her voice low despite the worry that kept her muscles stretched-bow tense.

A nod was all the prompting she needed to follow the two rapidly disappearing Otonin.

oOo

"Sasuke, you go too."

For once, the Uchiha didn't bridle at taking orders from his Hokage. Mostly because Naruto's face was as far from its normal defiant goofiness as possible. It made him look old, more serious, and Sasuke didn't like the reminder that they'd all moved on in the years since they were children.

"Yes."

In a whisper, he was gone. He was the natural one to send, of course.

He knew them best after all.

oOo

Shading his eyes against the sudden burst of light, Kidoumaru skidded to a halt. The landscape had morphed gradually into a wasteland, some amalgamation of the deserts of Suna and the lowlands of Kawa that was flat with little cover to break the monotony.

In the midst of all that barren ground stood Tayuya. A wind from River country's direction sent her long hair tangling around her slight form, smelling of wet earth and growing things. It was a change after the desiccated heat of Sand.

Her dark gaze was almost mocking – scornful – and Kidoumaru hadn't seen her look so cruel for years.

He mourned the circumstances that had wrenched such an expression from her.

When she spoke, her voice had menace to it. "Someone," she said, and her hair screamed danger against the muted landscape, "is going to fucking die for this."

oOo

Author's Comments:

This was one of those chapters that I had in mind when Secondhand Faith first formed in my mind and, in some ways, I'm quite disappointed with my skills when it came to putting some of those ideas on paper.

I like the beginning. I like the end. I just feel that I didn't do the middle section justice.

I suppose the purpose of the first eleven chapters was to lay the scene for this chapter and the ones that follow. The action starts here, people, and I hope the climb to where we are now leaves you with an understanding of how the characters will act from now on.

I know. Eleven chapters. I need to learn to be more succinct.

You all know that I adore your feedback and it's always useful. For example, Claymade pointed out a silly error I'd made regarding Kiba and Tayuya in chapter eleven, which has now been fixed. Thank you for that! And thank you all for your kind words. I write because I need to get these words and stories out of my head, but your feedback adds a certain fulfillment to it – if even one person enjoyed it, I'd feel justified in posting it.

In Next Week's Episode:

"This is off the record, Kidoumaru-san. We have unfinished business, her and I. We will not be long."

"Damn straight we won't be long," Tayuya spat. "I'll wipe the floor with you Sand-bitch."

Temari's answering smile was chilly, but a little wild around the edges. "We'll see."