Chapter Twenty
I take great care the first time I dress in my festival kimono.
The members of Saiko-sensei's youngest dance troupe have to be in the huge backstage area erected behind the built-up wooden stage by 5:30 on the evening of October 10, because the dance troupes are the first to perform at the festival, with fireworks planned to shoot up behind them at the end of their performance, the music booming around them, to kick off the entire event. Saiko-sensei has emphasized to us the extraordinary importance of this so many times that I can tell even Chichi has gotten nervous the quicker the festival approaches. Two silent, stoic, masked ANBU lead me through town to the backstage area in the late afternoon sunlight, past all the stalls and the unlighted paper lanterns and the unlighted neon signs, with frantic workers bustling around them and making last-minute preparations for the start of the festival in just a couple of hours. I can also espy shinobi stationed innocuously on rooftops and in shadowed alleyways, attesting to the heavy security that has been set up around the main part of the city for this evening. And I know that for every shinobi I can spot, there have to be at least two more better-hidden ones.
I hurry through the back door to the wooden trailer that is connected to the back of the erected stage. The ANBU wait outside, standing guard around the trailer. I don't wait to see if their guard duty is assigned as hidden or unhidden.
The huge trailer is crowded and noisy, filled with a ruckus of squealing and excitement and shrieks and complaints and entreaties. Girls of all ages, from Saiko-sensei's youngest to the experienced woman dancers, run around, dressed in thin white underrobes, their makeup half-done, their hair up in messy buns, asking someone for a hair piece or to help them adjust something. As I walk toward what I know will be my troupe's dressing room at the end of the long trailer, I pass by different rooms and open doorways, where girls are hotly accusing each other of stealing their clothes, girls are carefully applying makeup or doing their hair meticulously in front of their mirrors, girls are chatting and giggling to each other in excitement and anticipation. Some girls are even undressing, half-naked, right there with their door open. Clearly, since we are all women, there is no such thing as modesty here.
I finally make it to my troupe's door at the end of the hall, where there seems to be something slamming against the closed door or the wall beside it. I open the door and go inside to find girls sprinting with abandon up and down the short room, running into walls and into each other, giggling, too excited to stand still. A few scream when I come in, just to be loud, and then start giggling again like mad. The rest of the girls are standing in front of the mirrors on one side of the room, preparing themselves, sighing and rolling their eyes in annoyance at the noise behind them. A few of the bossier girls occasionally yell at everyone else to be quiet, with little effect. My eyes scan the room for Chichi, and I eventually spot her sitting on a chair in a corner of the room, as close to being curled up as she can be without ruining the perfectly smooth dancing kimono she already has on. Her expression is long-suffering at the atmosphere around her. I grin and walk up to her.
"So," I say, "enjoying ourselves already, are we?"
"Yes, and your presence has just made it even better. Because I have previously shown myself to have such an appreciation for the fine art of sarcasm," Chichi deadpans. My grin widens unrepentantly. Chichi's lips twitch reluctantly, and she points to a rack standing near her. "Our troupe's kimono are hung there for us to put on, and the hair and face materials are on the tables in front of the mirrors. Your kimono and materials for the year should all have your name on them, according to Saiko-sensei."
"Okay, thanks," I say curiously, wandering over to the rack. To my frustration, I have to stand on my tiptoes to see the names written in black pen on each kimono tag (sometimes being short just isn't fair) but I can find mine fairly easily, nonetheless. It's very small and slim, so much so that it had to be specially ordered for me.
As I wrap myself delicately in all the fine kimono fabric, doing the whole process carefully so that I leave no wrinkles in the gown, and then apply my makeup and do up my hair, I consider the standard outfit appointed by Saiko-sensei for all the girls in my particular dancing group.
Our kimono are done up in the country's colors, red and orange, both colors I particularly like. The patterns are strange, though. The kimono has a crimson background, decorated with simple orange flowers, in the design children use when drawing daisies. The flowers are only scattered along the bottom half of the robe, fading away into plain red up at the top. The entire outer lapel is also done up in flame orange, layering over the white of the underrobe. The thick obi wrapped about our waists are aqua blue and white. The kimono seem no heavier than usual, but I still wonder how hot we all will get actually dancing in them.
The hair and makeup are simple, mostly because there is so little time that all of us girls have to be able to do it for ourselves. Our hair is done up in a tight bun held up with dark, polished, lacquered wooden bamboo sticks. Our makeup is the white face mask of professional performers. True to my promise to Jiji, I let the white makeup hide my scars this time, although I don't know if I particularly like it.
After I am done getting ready, it is not long at all before someone knocks on the dressing room door. An older girl, also already dressed, bursts into the room. "Everyone has to line up!" she barks, and rushes back out again to tell another dressing room full of girls. There are a few gasps throughout the room, and as everyone glances nervously at each other, smiling, I feel a rush of anticipation in my chest. I grab Chichi's hand and we push out into the crowd of fancily clad girls thronging the rickety corridor. At the head of the trailer, where the door leading onto the stage is, we line up in six lines, according to our groups, in the order we will be performing. The women performers will go first, followed by my group, then the other groups in order of age, saving the girls aged around eighteen for last. No one performance will be very long, so we all have to stand perfectly still and silent as we wait for our turn to go ahead onto the stage. Hushed, excited whispers grow among the group as we hear the crowd outside, standing in the street in front of the stage. I know that Jiji, Asuma-jii, Aya, Sanken, Konohamaru, Megumi, Sakura, Ino, Shikamaru, Chouji, Shino and his and Chichi's immediate family, and even Katsuya should all be there to see the dance performances, along with a few of my teachers at the Academy and many members of the Fire Court itself.
I turn back and grin at Chichi, suddenly, strangely, intensely excited instead of nervous. "Here we go!" I whisper. "You ready?"
Chichi studies my face for a moment, and then she gives a small, genuine smile and a nod.
At that moment, Saiko-sensei bursts in front of the lines from a place off to the side of the stage, her fiercest, sternest expression firmly in place. She looks as if she has been busy all afternoon and evening. Everyone falls completely silent at her face.
"We have all worked hard for this," she begins, her voice strong even though it is quiet. "We have gone over everything beforehand, we have prepared for everything possible. You are all great; I would not have chosen you if you weren't. Now it is time for you to show your greatness. I expect nothing less than success." She gazes around at us all piercingly, and then, suddenly, she smiles. It is the first time I have ever seen her do so. "The work is over. Now must come the passion."
Beaming up at her, excitement and pride filling my heart, I lift my chin up and bounce on my feet a little. I cannot wait to begin.
Saiko-sensei rushes away, back onto the stage in front of us, so that we can partially see her from where we're standing. I hear the crowd fall silent as the dancing mistress approaches the mic. "Welcome," she says grandly, her voice echoing out over the speakers, "to the eighth annual Kyuubi Victory Celebration!" The crowd bursts into applause, with a smattering of cheers. I can see Saiko-sensei turn and hurry briskly offstage. She isn't one for many words.
Perhaps this is traditional, because the woman dancers to my left do not hesitate. They immediately start moving in a neat, graceful, orderly line, filing out front and across the stage one by one with fast steps, so as not to create a lull. Craning my neck sideways, I can see the backs of the last six of them as they take their places in formation across the grand, polished stage. Then the live band away from my line of vision performs a crash of music and a boom of low drums, and they all raise their arms gracefully in unison. From there, suddenly, they never stop moving.
I thought I was a good dancer. I was wrong. These dancers... they're incredible.
The music rushes forward in the strange, low, undulating, strung-together, chaotic rhythm that I have come to associate with traditional Fire Country instrumental music. The dancers, however, keep up effortlessly with the music that is playing for them. The hardest part of traditional Northwestern dancing, according to Saiko-sensei - next to the perfect synchronization of group movements - is that you have to combine small, flowing twists and expressive gestures with the incredible speed of the natural music, without making the steps look short and staccato. The women on the stage before me do so calmly, perfectly, their bodies performing beautifully the greatest of movements to the slightest, barely visible gestures that I know must have taken them weeks to get to that level. Moving as one, at times they are simply a blurred line of color and silk. It is awe-inspiring.
I want to look like that someday, is the dim, distant thought floating through my mind.
I am only broken from my trance when the music halts as suddenly as it began. The women throw their bodies around in one final twist and then duck down onto their knees, going completely still. Only the movements of their shoulders as they breathe heavily are visible.
There is silence for one pregnant moment... and then the entire crowd bursts into wild applause.
Backstage, the lines are now moving down, my line stepping sideways clumsily to take the spot in front to go onstage, the other lines shifting down in their order to make room for the women as they file back offstage and walk silently down the hall, into the back trailer to get undressed again, their expressions satisfied. My line eyes each other nervously, abruptly terrified to be following up that act. What was Saiko-sensei thinking, putting us next? I think frantically, look back toward Chichi. She is standing straight, her expression matter-of-fact in the darkness of the corridor. She meets my eye. We must go next, so there is no use worrying, her face reminds me calmingly. I take a deep breath and nod, facing forward again determinedly. Let's go.
A crash of cymbals from the band abruptly cuts through the excited chatter of the crowd out front. Everyone falls slowly silent, awaiting the next act.
I pause to take a deep, steadying breath, but the line is already moving forward in front of me, onto the stage.
As I walk out into the chilly night air as slowly and gracefully as I can - it is extremely difficult, to be thinking about something like walking - I concentrate carefully on the brightly lit up stage so that I don't look out into all the faces staring at me in the audience. The band consists of quietly dressed musicians sitting on stools in front of stands with drums and string instruments and sheet music on them, a small group all crowded together in the back and off to the side, so as not to distract from the dancers themselves. The girl in front of me stops and faces forward, and I stop a few feet away from her and slowly turn to face the audience.
I should not have worried about looking at them, I realize. The footlights burn so brightly in my face that I cannot see the audience standing beyond as anything but vague shadow blurs, standing hazily in the distance. I wonder if I am imagining the quiet whisper that runs through the audience as I turn to face everyone.
Then the next second, the music I have learned so well over the past month and a half starts playing. I step back and across my left heel, as I have been instructed, and the dance begins.
Luckily, as always with dancing, it becomes intuitive and instinctual for me as the steps wear on. I forget about having to think through what I am doing. I just... do it. The steps come so naturally to me that I forget about the eyes on me, about the venue, about the controversial event I am performing at. I tilt my face upward, my eyes half-closed against the view of the clear black expanse of sky sprinkled with stars above, and let the music flow through me, sinking slowly into a blissful reverie...
What seems like ages later, the music stops as abruptly as it always does. I am jolted back to earth by my arm pulling my palm forward in the final move. With an effort, I push my attention back to the audience in front of me.
There is another moment of heavy silence... and then they burst into applause.
I barely have time for the giddy disbelief and joy at their excitement to rush through me, and then the girls in my line are turning slowly, precisely, and filing back offstage.
As soon as we're through the dark hall and away from the stage, in the front entry of the trailer... we all start cheering wildly. Jumping up and down, heedless of my kimono and the sweat I am beginning to realize is a sheen on my face, I spin around and grab a startled Chichi in a wild hug. "WE DID IT!" I squeal. I can hardly understand my own words. They liked me. They really liked me!
After that, everything is perfect. Chichi and I walk outside together after dressing back down more normally (she's in loose grey pants and shirt with her hair up in a bun, and I'm in a short pair of jean shorts and an orange tank top with my hair down around my waist) and everyone's backstage, missing half of the performance just to see us.
"You were amazing!" Chouji shouts with rare abandon, throwing his arms wide, his eyes big. Shikamaru nods alongside him, muttering something that sounds like, 'it was troublesome, but I'm glad I came to see it.'
"You were really good," Sakura adds, eyeing me with a mixture of admiration and envy. Ino runs forward to engulf me in a hug.
"Quite exceptional," I hear a quiet voice say behind me, and I look around to see Shino standing there, still and calm. He came backstage to visit me and his cousin. "You were admirable," he adds in a matter-of-fact tone to Chichi.
"Thank you, Cousin," Chichi replies in an equally matter-of-fact monotone. "I worked very hard on it."
"Indeed," Shino intones. "We must go out front to our family at this time. I will see you at school," he says to me.
"I will see you at the Theater," Chichi says to me.
They turn around as one and walk away emotionlessly without another word.
The rest of us stare after them for a moment. "... Weird," Ino finally whispers loudly. I smile at their retreating forms in gentle exasperation.
"Odd ducks," I reply evenly.
"No. Ducks are normal," Ino says firmly. "Aburame are weird."
"I would not consider making that statement in any of your father's political venues," comes my grandfather's voice, dryly amused, from behind our group. My friends gasp and whirl around to see him standing over us with my family and Megumi.
"Y-Yes, Hokage-sama," Ino immediately mutters, turning abashed and scarlet red. I grin at Jiji from behind her, and he smiles back warmly.
"YOU LOOKED LIKE A REAL LIVE PRINCESS!" Ko suddenly screams from behind him, tearing through the group and jumping at my middle in the world's biggest glomp. I give a startled 'oomph' as I am pushed back a few steps.
"That was amazing that was amazing the way you were dressed with all of your makeup and you were really graceful too and are you going to do that at all of the festivals this year and does that mean that we can go to all of them and..." He babbles on excitedly, waving his arms around, from where his legs are clamped around my waist.
"Troublesome," Shikamaru sighs beside me. I have to choke back a laugh as I smile and nod along to Ko's chatter.
Finally, Aya swoops in and grabs him, picking him up and carrying him off over his complaints. "You were beautiful," she adds in satisfaction, smiling down at me briefly as she steps back appropriately, next to where Sanken is standing, looking very strange in plain black kimono shirt and pants. He eyes me, and then gives me a slight, respectful nod that is somehow so much more meaningful than everyone else's praise. Beside him, Megumi smiles quietly at me, which I know is her idea of 'good job.'
"Yeah, no kidding, Hime! You kicked ass!" Asuma-jii booms, taking the opportunity to sweep in and give me a bear hug himself.
"Asuma!" Aya scolds, as Sakura stares at him wide-eyed. Asuma-jii ignores them. I start laughing as I hug him back.
"Next thing we know, they're going to be carrying you off to the Fire Court and we're never going to see you again," he tells me, his brown eyes crinkling as he smiles.
"What? That couldn't really happen, could it?" Chouji asks, sounding genuinely worried.
"Of course not," Ino scoffs, tossing her hair. "Then Konoha would have to declare war on the Fire Country to get her back."
Jiji starts chuckling. "Indeed we would," he says for my benefit, winking at me before looking around at everyone. "And now we are going to take my granddaughter out to look at the stalls," he adds to everyone in his quiet, firm 'everyone has to do what I tell them to' voice. "You are, of course, welcome to join us," he adds to Sakura, Chouji, Ino, and Shikamaru.
They agree with various levels of eagerness. We all head back around toward the front, but just as I am following behind the rest of the big, loud, laughing group, smiling to myself, I catch sight of someone else I haven't seen yet. He is on his own, standing shyly in the shadow of a corner of the trailer, watching me hesitantly as if he isn't sure whether to approach me among all those other people or not. "Katsuya!" I cry, breaking away from the group briefly to rush over to him happily. "You came!"
He nods. "You were beautiful," he says quietly, smiling shyly and stepping out from behind the trailer after a brief pause.
I beam. "Thanks," I tell him, practically glowing by this point. "Hey, you want to come shopping with us?" I gesture to the group behind me. His eyes widen in surprise. "Unless you have something else to do..." I add when he doesn't respond immediately.
"Oh, no! I can go with you," he says quickly, shaking his head and smiling a little wider as he walks back over to the group with me. Ino is busy calling Shikamaru a lazy bum, Shikamaru is telling her sighingly how troublesome she is, Chouji is moaning about how hungry he is, Sakura is asking Megumi what she does as a jonin in her best polite tone and friendly smile, Aya is nagging Sanken about something as he rolls his eyes at her and asks the heavens why they cursed him with such an irritating co-worker, Konohamaru is beaming around himself excitedly from Asuma-jii's shoulders, and Jiji leads the group with a rare expression of serenity and tolerant amusement. My family.
Katsuya follows me shyly as I walk up to my friends. "This is Katsuya," I tell them as I rejoin them, and the four of them blink and turn to look at us. "I met him at those boring dinner parties," I add in explanation.
Their expressions all clear with understanding. Ino's and Sakura's even become excited. "Why, Katsuya-san! What does your family do?" they ask flushingly, immediately rushing over to him. Poor Katsuya is left with the uncomfortable job of trying awkwardly to explain to the two girls clinging, wide-eyed, to his arm, about his seemingly fabulous home life. I can commiserate.
Our group finally makes it back around to the masses of people I can now see standing in the main square in front of the stage, staring unerringly up at the spectacle happening upon it. The eighteen-year-old dancers are up by now, and they are twirling across the stage with abandon in their silver and blue flashing kimono. Suddenly, just as we make it back around to the crowd, the music stops and they halt regally in one long line in front of us, their arms spread. From this vantage point, I can see how impressive all the wonderfully dressed girls twirling across the wide, magnificent stage truly are. It makes me happy to have been a part of them.
Then, suddenly, fireworks burst into the sky above the stage, wide and loud and colorful up close. Even though I was expecting it, I have to gasp in awe and lean forward as everyone around me starts clapping. The huge, bright, rainbow shoots of fire fly up into the sky, burst into bloom, for a moment vibrant and beautiful, and then die abrupt, violent deaths as the sparks left from the explosion fade out of existence. It is... awe-inspiring. I glance around, beaming, at my friends, who share my excited expressions, albeit to a somewhat lesser degree. Even Shikamaru is smiling, though he does mutter in an undertone next to me, "Haven't you ever seen fireworks before?"
"Never up close," I whisper back to my friends, staring up in awe at the colorful stars of shapes above me. "Jiji has never let us go out to the festivals personally before..." Then I fall silent to gaze in raptures at the rest of the fireworks display. I cannot believe how much I didn't see from my home's forest.
When it is over, we browse the streets of the festival as one huge group. Colored paper lanterns are strung everywhere among all of the neon lights and all of the golden light flowing from open shop doors, positively lighting up the city, with darkness pressing into our small glow of happiness from the night without. People point me out to each other excitedly as we pass, but they point out the rest of my family too - probably because no one from the Hokage's family usually ever goes to the festivals personally. Certainly, Ino, Sakura, Shikamaru, Chouji, and Katsuya seem to think nothing of the pointing. Occasionally, when I am on the edge of the group, looking at one of the stalls of wears and food set up along all the main thoroughfares, I hear someone mention the word 'vessel' - but not the word 'monster.' I smile and relax into the happiness of the evening.
Ko seems uncertain of my friends at first. But as I distract him, pointing out different delights and shows going on around us, he can't help but brighten up at all the exciting novelties. Soon, he is bouncing around by my side, chattering and pointing at everything excitedly. Sakura tells me my little brother is 'so cute' and Ino nods in charmed agreement. (Ko soon takes advantage of their delight by using his puppy dog eyes to get them to buy things for him, and Aya and Jiji have to share the burden of making sure Ko doesn't use his cuteness to too great effect.) Katsuya and Shikamaru quickly strike up a comradeship, to my mild surprise, when they discover a shared interest in books and puzzles, and they take to talking about their favorites and traveling together to different booths and shops which bear such things on sale. Chouji is mostly interested in all the treats and foods that the vendors are selling, and he regularly shoves something under my nose, telling me enthusiastically to 'try a bite of this!' I try everything. It is all delicious. Sanken, for his part, is as preoccupied with his love as usual, and spends most of his time traveling from favorite gardening and botany haunt to favorite gardening and botany haunt, talking to intense connoisseurs he is friends with in them. So I find myself normally with Megumi, as we wander along, just enjoying the sights and the atmosphere around us, occasionally pointing things out to each other. I insist that she buy a pair of amethyst earring that look absolutely wonderful with her elegant neck and finely tilted head, and she whispers to me a favorite trick of the young shinobi-in-training she knew while growing up, wherein they would take a running jump at one of the poles holding colored paper lanterns, pushing chakra into their feet and leaping up the pole quickly, high enough to catch a lantern, grab it, and jump back down to the ground. They would then keep the lanterns for themselves. I think this is a great idea, so we wait for a moment when a particular section of a street isn't too crowded. Then, when I think no one is looking, i take a running jump at one of the flimsy wooden poles, push chakra into my feet and make it wobble as I push off the pole at an angle to shoot myself higher and snatch at a big, beautiful, crimson paper lantern which is warm in my grasp. Then I jump back down, ignoring the tingle that shoots through my feet, and look inside. There it is inside, lighting up the lantern: a candle.
The lantern is so wonderful that I decide I have to have it, so of course Megumi also has to help me pick out some wonderful scented candles to put in the lantern to light at night. With a warm glow in my stomach, I have to wonder if this is what having an older sister is like. Around this time, Asuma-jii seems to spot Megumi and starts hanging around behind us, grinning in a devil-may-care sort of way and flirting with her shamelessly. Megumi is her typical reserved, business-like self, but Asuma-jii seems to have fun trying to pull her out of her shell, and the usually-blunt Megumi lets him. (She murmurs to me at one point that Asuma is nothing like his brother, and as I think of reserved, self-contained, inwardly caring, quietly sarcastic Shigeru-jii, I smile a little and have to agree.)
I am loaded down with treasures from shopping by the time the night is winding down, chief among them my colored paper lantern and scented candles, my makeup bottles for the year from dancing, and a huge, beautiful fishnet hand-woven from pearly, shimmery gossamer thread by some old women running one booth. I plan to drape it over my entire bedroom ceiling, pinning it in the four corners of the ceiling to keep it in place. My crimson colored paper lantern will be hung on the same hook in the left corner near the window, I decide. I can just imagine my room now: My walls painted sky-blue, the way Shigeru-jii did with me all that time ago. The back of my bedroom door covered with a collage of taped-up pieces of shining wrapping paper from previous birthdays. My huge, fluffy, comfy bed with its hand-made quilt set with its headboard against the wall. My bedside table covered in an odd mix of hair accessories makeup brushes and bottles, and kunai and shuriken with their sharpeners and polish. My little mirror above it. The drawers down below filled with sentimental pictures and drawings and birthday cards and paper and ribbons. The gossamer fishnet hanging above me, glimmering faintly, covering the ceiling with its thin weaves. The crimson colored paper lantern with its scented candles hanging in a corner by the window, filling my unusually sharp senses with its rich, lovely, soothing aroma. The flowers and ivy glowing and blooming around the nearby window on their wooden trellis, adding their scents to make the room smell wonderful... from even two or three rooms down the hall, I imagine. The view from the window itself, of the Sarutobi Estate's beautiful gardens, and of the woods beyond, and then of the fields and training fields and clan compounds, and then of the city of Konoha in the distance, and then of the tall, huge, smooth, thick, man-made wooden wall that surrounds my world. The wardrobe on the other side of the room, filled with a mix of dark shinobi clothes, normal casual clothes, and a great variety of beautiful kimono. The enormous bookshelf next to it, filled with all of my favorite action adventures and fantasies and mysteries and romances.
It's perfect, and it's all for me.
Toward the end of the evening, I need to use the bathroom from all of the punch and fruit juice I have drank tonight at the different stalls. The whole group is back together by now (Ko is holding a Yondaime Hokage plushie in honor of the occasion, much to my amusement) and someone points me to a nearby public restroom. It's down an alleyway in front of us, and then to the left.
I walk down the alleyway obediently. It's a bit darker here than in the rest of the city, because no one has strung paper lanterns in the alleys. I walk along in the shadows until I find the public restroom. It's rather dirty and disgusting and it smells awful, utterly unlike any bathroom I have ever been in before, but I am just very careful not to let my skin touch too much. After going to the bathroom naked in a chamber pot inside a dirty little dark room, not much phases you.
As I walk back out of the restroom after washing my hands, I hear an unexpected shuffling sound in the alley, and the sudden scent of someone behind me hits me. I look around curiously.
And then, amost too fast for my eyes to catch, the shadow of a man lashes out viciously at me. I dodge frantically, quickly, jumping back into a taijutsu stance. His hand just misses me in the darkness, and I can hear the distinctive whistle of a kunai in it. He was trying to stab me!
Suddenly, my grasping senses pick up on several scents all around me in the alley. How did I not notice them before? Were they masking themselves? But I don't have time to ponder this, because they're moving; three more closing in on me in the alley, blocking me in from all sides, one crouching hidden on the rooftop above me. But they aren't making any noise and I can't quite see them in the darkness; they must be shinobi, I think, trembling. I grasp at my side for the kunai holster that isn't there; why didn't I think to wear my weapons tonight? I pull my arm back to aim at the man in front of me, to push myself through him, to get out of here, but suddenly a huge, callused hand wraps around my shoulder from behind and yanks me back. I whirl around and try to cut at his hand, to pull myself out of his grasp, but he's much larger and stronger than me and he grabs me on the other side, too. We grapple with each other for a moment in the darkness, but in order for my taijutsu to work I have to be able to attack my enemy and then get out of range again; only in the more advanced katas of the Water Dancing Style do we cover how to get out of somewhere on the off-chance you are caught in close quarters and I haven't gotten there yet. He overpowers me easily, pushing my arms behind my back, pinning my feet in between his legs, pushing me down... onto the sharp edge of a kunai.
I swallow and go completely, totally still as I feel the cold metal softly pushed up against the back of my neck. I was so distracted that I hadn't registered the other four coming up behind me to surround me in a tight circle. Up close, I can see my attackers at last: four innocuous-looking, dark Konoha chuunin in their typical green vests. The other four are smaller and slimmer than the one I grappled with, who looks large enough and muscled enough to be a taijutsu specialist.
I open my mouth to scream, but someone slaps a hand over my mouth roughly, pushing my head down a little more thoroughly in warning. I can feel a faint pain in the back of my neck. The kunai must have scratched my skin. "Silence, monster," they hiss under their breath, and I finally understand: these people are angry at my being allowed to come to the festival. These are Kyuubi-haters.
And then some tension I hadn't even realized was building up inside of me suddenly breaks.
I push all of my chakra out recklessly in one great attack, blindly bursting it into the air around me in an explosion, and for a moment a mass of red and blue covers my vision. Faintly, through the roaring of power in my ears and the sudden rush of of energy swelling my veins, I can hear screams of pain. The hands holding me let go of me and I stumble back, hot power fluctuating around me, angry, vicious, seeking an outlet. My head is spinning, my ears are still roaring, I cry out and bend over double against the assault that is suddenly inside of me...
And then a hand touches my stomach, the focal point of the whirlwind of pain inside of my body. Suddenly, all the power is sucked up into the point of his hand, and I am simply myself.
I stand there for a moment, doubled over, shaking, breathing heavily, wide-eyed... and then my body gives out, and I collapse into a pair of waiting, strong arms. I just have time to register hazily a rabbit ANBU mask above me. Then everything goes black.
[Scene Break]
"... ruto! Naruto!" A pair of hands is shaking me gently.
I scrunch my nose up and blink my eyes open slowly against the bright light above me. I register a thin, pale, angular face, with two dark pieces of hair falling around it from a dark ponytail at the back of their head, and a pair of elegant amethyst earrings dangling from their ears. Then I blink again, and Megumi's worried face swims into view above me. She is kneeling over me, and my brother and my friends are standing behind her. I can even spot Chichi and Shino in their midst. When did they get here? I wonder vaguely.
Then the memories come back to me, and I gasp and sit up. "The chuunin...!" But I don't have to finish. I can see that I am now lying in the street in front of the alley I was in. My older sister, my younger brother, and my friends are surrounding me in a protective circle, and in front of them are two masked ANBU, guarding the little group silently and stoically where we are huddled off to the side of the road, against a shop wall. One of the ANBU is wearing a dog mask, with crazy silver hair sticking up in every direction beyond it. The other ANBU is shorter and stockier, with the traditional Konoha dark hair and tan skin. With a start of surprise, I can recognize the rabbit mask who caught me as I was falling.
But in the street beyond them, chaos reigns.
Shinobi are running back and forth across the street in front of us, toward and away from the main spectacle a little way down the street. Surrounded by ANBU and high-ranking shinobi - I can spot the Aburame, explaining Shino and Chichi's presence, as well as the Yamanaka, Nara, and Akimichi clans, and my grandfather, scowling thunderously, his presence more intimidating than I have ever seen it, along with his two equally solemn advisors, and several important-looking shinobi whom I don't know directly - are the five chuunin who attacked me. They are tied up, although I'm not sure they need to be: the gruesome, mangling third-degree burns all over their front sides don't look very primed for healing anytime soon. As I watch, one ANBU kicks one of the men and shouts something at him. The man groans through his bloody face and mutters something back. My grandfather nods in understanding, his face cold as he listens to the man's confession, a shinobi writing something frantically on a clipboard beside him as the man speaks.
"You pushed so much chakra out of your body so fast that you physically burned their bodies," Megumi says quietly by my side, pulling me back to where I am sitting. She is watching me carefully. With a start, I remember the red and blue power bursting in front of my vision, and I wonder if it was truly only the speed of my chakra that burned them. "Naruto," Megumi continues insistently, "are you all right? I put a bandage over the cut on the back of your neck; the bleeding should stop in a few minutes," I reach my hand up behind my hair and feel something soft covering the back of my neck, "Did they do anything else to you?"
"No," I reply, shaking my head uncertainly. "I mean, they didn't really have time to..."
Megumi nods in understanding, looking relieved. Suddenly, Asuma-jii breaks away from the group of shinobi a little way ahead and runs over to us. The ANBU move aside briefly for him. "Is she all right? Are you all right, Hime?" he asks worriedly.
Megumi nods. "She's fine. She just seems a little stunned, that's all."
Asuma-jii sighs, looking a strange mix of relieved and infuriated. "I don't blame her. Those bastards..." he mutters. "The one time of the day she wasn't with someone else... We should have just let the civilians trample them."
Suddenly, looking beyond even the shinobi surrounding my attackers, I can see another line of shinobi holding back an entire crowd of the civilians who have been at the festival tonight. Contained there at the end of the street, the civilians are struggling against the shinobi holding them back, shaking fists and shouting furiously. But not at me. At my attackers.
Suddenly, I feel rather faint again.
"You need to come over and see what's going on," Asuma-jii is saying to Megumi now. "Dog and Rabbit can watch the kids."
Megumi nods and stands. "I'll be right back," she tells us, and she jogs with Asuma-jii back over to the crowd of shinobi surrounding my attackers, extracting information and confessions. Some shinobi are now flying over rooftops with purpose to other parts of the city, which makes me wonder if my attackers are now ratting out other attackers who were lying in wait to catch me alone at other parts of the festival. Just how widespread was this? I wonder, feeling cold for a moment.
"What the hell happened to you?" Ino asks me loudly now that the adults are gone. "What the hell's going on?"
"For once, the loudmouth's questions are warranted," Shikamaru speaks up, and Ino looks over to scowl at him briefly.
Ko's expression is alarmed and angry. "They attacked you because of who you are, huh?" he speaks up suddenly, angrily, puffing himself up. "Because of the..." He cuts himself off, eyes wide, as I give him a Look and he remembers just in time that he's not supposed to speak of the Kyuubi.
"Yes," I sigh. "That's probably why."
Sakura gasps suddenly, her eyes widening in rememberence. "Your parents," she says softly in realization.
"Are you kidding me?" Ino explodes, looking as angry as my brother.
"Parents?" Shino asks sharply, looking between us. Chichi, Shikamaru, Katsuya, and Chouji also seem alarmed and confused.
"Naruto's birth parents, the ones who died when she was born, were dishonorable to the village in some way," Ino growls angrily. "Not even her grandfather will tell her how. But some people in the village have never liked Naruto, just because of something stupid her parents did."
Everyone turns to stare at me for a moment. Poor Konohamaru stands quietly in the background, trying to look as though this story isn't new to him. I just blink back at everyone wearily.
"That's... that's horrible," Katsuya finally says indignantly. It's the first angry emotion I've ever seen on him.
"And senseless," Shikamaru says, looking annoyed. "Why didn't you tell us about this before? It explains a lot about the way some of the Academy teachers treated you on the first day of school. Chouji and I would have gotten together with Inuzuka Kiba and put frogs in their coffee cups in the teacher's lounge or something." Katsuya looks over to stare at him at this announcement.
Chouji is nodding fiercely. "That's right," he says. "No way are we going to let anyone get away with treating you like that, Naruto. You're way too nice."
"It only makes sense to protect fellow allies for the sake of overall colonial well being," Shino adds coolly, his expression tight in that way that means he's upset and trying not to show it.
"And to repay their comradeship," Chichi reminds him quietly, looking up at him. He looks down at her for a moment, and then his gaze softens and he nods.
Everyone else is looking confused. "I think they mean that they won't let anyone hurt Naruto because she's their friend," bookish Sakura offers thoughtfully from off to the side. Everyone's expressions clear in understanding again.
"Well, in that case, well-said, Shino!" Ino crows, holding a fist in front of her face fiercely, like she's about to go out on a campaign trail.
Ko sits down softly next to me, bumping shoulders with me and giving me a concerned glance. I smile quietly and bump shoulders with him back. "Your friends are weird," he whispers to me in an undertone, grinning. I smile and look up to my righteously defensive friends, to the two ANBU guarding all of us, to all of the shinobi interrogating my attackers for my safety down the street, to the indignant villagers shouting curses and insults to the men on the ground just because they attacked me. For the first time, I am intimately aware of my own status, not only as a shinobi of Konoha, but as a citizen of Konoha.
"My friends are wonderful," I correct him warmly, a sense of peace filling me.
[Scene Break]
Author's Notes: Okay, so, I do write really uplifting, sappy chapters every now and then... This is one of them. They're good for the soul, though, I think. And I really, really like just... everything about this chapter. It's rare that I feel that way about something I write.
Any comments/critiques are greatly appreciated.