((A/N: Let's get right into the chapter. Responses to reviews:
Cool- Thank you? You caught a massive mistake that I made. I messed up the timeline by saying that the Nine Tails attack happened while she was missing. That happened a few years before, and I hadn't even noticed that I messed that up. I'll go back and fix that as soon as I can. But for now, I will do a quick timeline for you: First, Keiko Shimizu is born. At four years old the Kyuubi attacks and Naruto is born. At six years old Kamiko Shimizu dies in the Third Shinobi War. At eight years old she gets kidnapped. She is missing for a total of 13 months(nobody knows where she is for roughly five months, then she's in Suna for eight months) and returns when she is nine years old. Then she turns ten, and you know the rest of the story.
Moonacre BunBun- I know right? Kenta is an innocent babe. Except maybe not so innocent? I haven't decided yet. Please don't scream at the wall. The wall didn't do anything to deserve this.
May525- Who knows, maybe him agreeing is a part of his master plan to pull them apart? It's a mystery. Don't doubt the little booger, he's sly as all hell.
ren7720- whoops. sorry to disappoint again!
QuestGuest- I guess I accidentally created a perfect boy? Everybody seems to be in love with Kenta lol
Enjoy this chapter!))
Rae washes herself rather quickly, but she winces and hisses at every sting and burn the cuts across her body caused with the hot water. She rinses herself off with the shower head, then begins drawing a bath to soak in for a few moments to calm her aching body.
Kenta had been right, no matter how much she didn't want to admit it. The physical pain of the bruises and cuts across her delicate body calmed her down immensely. She had taken out her anger and frustration on the older boy during the fight. She knew she was fighting chakra exhaustion now, the way her eyelids got heavy told her as much. When she stepped into the minty green water, the hot water was both pleasurable to her aching muscles, and painful to the numerous bruises coating her body. She sinks down into the water and lets out a sigh of relief when she is sitting down, the water reaches up to her collar bones.
She lets her blue eyes slide shut, and she simply relaxes for a moment.
Yes, she was still angry. Kenta's fight had helped her feel better, for sure, and she had let go of a lot of the animosity she had been feeling to her father, but she was still angry. It still wasn't his life to control - it was hers. What right did he have to give her away like that? To let someone take her hand in marriage without her consent?
She trusted Itachi. She cared about Itachi. Not the way a wife should care for a husband, though. She didn't love him, she didn't even like him like that. Maybe. How would she truly know if she really liked someone like that? She was ten years old, for Kami's sake! She wasn't supposed to be deciding who she would be spending the rest of her life with. Not here, not now. Not in Konoha. She didn't want to live the rest of her life in Konoha.
She will admit she had let go of most of the anger she felt for the village. Yes, this place was not her home - it would never be her home. She had friends here, and she did have family. A little brother she loved dearly. However, instead of deciding to stay here in Konoha forever, she felt more like she should pack Jirouko up and take him to Suna with her when she left.
And she would leave. This was not her home, and everyone here besides Jirouko was not her family. Not in the conventional sense, at least. She wasn't petty enough to say that Kazuhiko and Emiko were nothing to her - one of them didn't know how to handle her and would make mistakes time and time again, and she hasn't even seen the other one in weeks, but they weren't nothing to her.
She couldn't quite deny that the others meant something to her as well.
Itachi, Sasuke, Kenta, Mikoto, that one nice lady at the market who always gave her a pear if she asked her nice enough. And Naruto. God, no, she would not leave him behind. She would take Naruto with her when she took Jirouko to Suna. They both deserved better than this world. Suna was home. Suna was safe. Suna would be the best place for them to grow up in. People had started acting differently to Gaara when she befriended him - they stopped looking at him in fear and began looking at him in curiosity. The slight smile one of the adults would show his way from time to time. The tiniest of kindness the other kids would show him when Rae came back to school time and time again, not a single bruise covering her form from the 'demon'. If they could change with Gaara, they could treat Naruto the same way. They would care for him there - they would love him there.
Two faces flash through her mind - long brown hair and kind chocolate eyes, wind blown blond hair with deep brown eyes.
Rae clenches a fist and brings it up to her chest. Her necklace, the little part of home she carried with her, was on the counter. She hadn't wanted to risk breaking or damaging it by bringing it into the shower and hot bath, so she left it out on the counter by the front of the bathroom. She'd left her ring there, too. The ring was a gift she had received from one of the Suna shinobi that had escorted her to Konoha, a kind, young boy who had to be no less than sixteen at the time. She usually left the plain gold colored ring in a drawer in her upstairs bedroom. It was still far too big to wear on her hands - her childish fingers were still too small and filled with baby fat to wear the jewelry. She had once wanted to add the ring to her necklace, but she was afraid she might drop the glass ball of home if she took the string apart, so she'd never done anything with it.
Rae is pulled from her thoughts by a faint shuffling on the outside of the bathroom door. She leans up in the water, looking over at the door. There was a familiar form behind the sliding door, holding something in their hands.
"Kei-sama?"
Kenta's smooth voice speaks up from the other side of the bathroom door.
"Yes?"
"I have clothing for you to change into once you're finished in your bath."
She leans back in her bath, reaching her hand up to card it through her short white hair. She nods, though she knows Kenta probably cant see it. Probably.
"Okay. I'll be out in a minute," she calls out to him. She can see his head nod in acknowledgement.
"I'll place them outside, by the door."
"Alright."
Rae waits for just a moment, listening to his soft footsteps retreating, and then dunks her head under the water to get the back of her head wet as well. She finishes rinsing the last of the soap off of her body quickly, and reaches for the towels in the front cabinet. She wraps the fluffy cloth around herself and looks down, eyeing the small pearl of sand that made up her little piece of home.
She sighs, shakes her head, and begins drying herself off.
Dinner is a slightly awkward affair.
Kenta is a gentleman the entire time, of course. It's not as though he would be anything else, especially considering who he was currently sitting down to have dinner with. Kazuhiko is politely silent almost the entire time, making conversation from time to time to try to figure something out. Jirouko is a bubbling pile of smiles and baby laughter, which is the only thing Rae is glad for.
And, of course, Emiko is there.
Apparently if there was one thing the older Shimizu woman wasn't willing to miss out on, it was a boy that her daughter brought home.
"So, Kenta-kun," Emiko begins gently, ice blue eyes down at the tempura and rice on her place. "How old are you exactly?"
Kenta raises his head, politely lowering his chopsticks with a bit of grilled fish on the end. He gives her a polite smile.
"Fifteen. I'll be turning sixteen this October."
"Hm." She fiddles with her food, takes one delicate looking bite, and turns her frosty eyes up at the boy. "A bit old, don't you think?"
"Emiko," Rae's father speaks up from the other side of the table, voice light but with a warning to it all the same. Kenta looks up at the man, then back at Emiko, then back at Kazuhiko once again. The poor boy looked so absolutely confused. Rae herself looked back and forth between the two adults out of the corner of her blue eyes, but mostly kept feeding Jirouko little bites of mushed vegetables. It would still be a few more months or so until he started growing his teeth in and could begin on solid foods. Semi-solids, at least. He'd have to start with soft foods, like steamed fruits or vegetables.
"Old?" Kenta asks uncertainly. "Old for what, Emiko-sama?"
Emiko and Kazuhiko share a meaningful look, then the older woman turns a smile to the young boy.
"Oh, nothing. It isn't important."
The rest of dinner goes more or less like that. Occasionally Emiko will ask some questions, sometimes Kazuhiko would shoot her down with a glance, and sometimes Kazuhiko would politely ask a few questions of his own.
"How has your training been going, Kei-chan?" He asks genially, picking apart his food and eating the little slips of meat he liked more than the others.
Rae shrugs noncommittally, making a small noise at the back of her throat while feeding Jirouko that makes the baby laugh. "Okay I suppose. Manabu-sensei has been getting rougher with taijutsu, but he says I've advanced pretty quickly and that I should be able to take the Genin exams when I'm twelve - he said I might even be able to pass them earlier if I keep advancing the way I have been. Kenta has been teaching me lots of cool water style ninjutsu."
He nods along with her words.
"And your fire style?"
She purses her lips and lets something akin to a pout cover her features. Jirouko lets out a childish wail when his big sister fails to make another silly noise for him.
"Nobody in the Shimizu Clan has fire style, so none of them can teach me. Mikoto-sama offered to let me practice with one of the Uchiha Jounin they have, but only if you accept and, y'know, agree to the idea."
He nods again.
"Of course. Anything to help you with your studies, Kei-chan."
"Anything, huh?" She asks, and she doesn't try to fool herself into thinking she doesn't notice the bit of venom that slipped into her voice. Kenta seems to notice it to, and though he lets the rice held between his chopsticks disappear into his mouth, his blue eyes narrow at her just slightly. In warning, maybe. "Anything, like marrying me off to the Uchihas?"
Kazuhiko shuts his eyes and lets out a wary sigh, as if he was expecting this to happen. He lowers his food down to his plate and looks over at his wife across the table.
"Keiko-" Emiko begins. Rae lets her hand drop to the table with a quiet clatter, and Kazuhiko lets out a gruff groan. He lowers his hand into one hand, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Kei," he corrects, beginning the conversation over again. Rae looks over at him, and she catches a quick glimpse of how uncomfortable Kenta looked in the center of this all. She wonders briefly why his face was so open and easy to read today of all days, but she doesn't think too much further on it. "We haven't made a final decision on that yet. It was simply brought up to us by Fugaku-sama and we said we would think about it. I was fully planning on asking for your opinion on it."
Rae looks like she's torn between being angry or being apologetic. He hadn't made a final decision yet?
"You wanted to ask my opinion?" She asks again, almost uncertain. She felt like a jerk now, knowing that he hadn't actually forced a future she was uncertain about onto her without asking her first. He nods his head, his long dark blue head falling in front of his eyes with the movement. He brushes it back with his hand and picks up his chopsticks to begin eating his plate of dinner again.
"But," he begins, sounding a little less wary and more accomplished. Perhaps he was proud that he could curb his daughter's anger before she exploded on him. "Now that we are on that topic, how would you feel about this?"
"I don't want an arranged marriage," her response was automatic. "If I ever marry, it'll be because I want to, not because I was 'supposed' to."
Her father nods along silently. There was a faint flicker of both pride and grief on his features, but it was gone before she could get any ideas.
"I understand."
And that was that. Kenta looked as though he didn't know whether to feel relief that it was all over, or surprised that he wasn't making much of a fuss about it. Dinner went on silently from then on. Emiko didn't speak again. Kazuhiko stayed mostly silent, only pitching in when he had some advice for Rae's training schedule. Kenta and Rae made most of the conversation from then on, mostly speaking about ninjutsus and how her training will continue from then on. He mentioned teaching her some new jutsus, and Kazuhiko looked surprised for a moment, then clapped his hands together with a small grin. Everyone looked over at him in confusion.
"That reminds me! Rae," he turned to his young daughter and there was a sparkle of excitement in his eyes. "How would you feel about summons?"
The room goes quiet, all expect for Jirouko's excited baby babble.
"Uh," she wisely speaks. "Summons...?"
Kenta let a small, sly smile cover his lips, and he lets his chopsticks fall onto his mostly empty plate as he claps his hands together as well.
"Summons! Some high ranking shinobi have animal summons by their side during battle. Have you ever heard of the Legendary Sannin?" At the young girl's nod of her head, he continues. "They each have summons of their own. Tsunade-sama with her slugs, Jiraiya-sama with his toads, and Orochimaru-sama with his snakes. They are your aid in battle, and a companion and comrade outside of the battleground. Many clans have summons that they pass down to their younger generation."
Rae nodded along, but stayed silent as she digested this information. Summons, huh? Of course, she had heard of the Legendary Sannin Shinobi in her time at the academy back in Suna. She had been in awe of their legendary summons, of the tales of the things they were capable of with an animal by their side. She would be getting one of those? What animal? When? How would she learn to work with them? When had the Sannin originally gotten their own summons?
"What.. what kind of animal does our clan have?"
Her father leaned back in his seat and placed one hand under his chin, cupping it in thought.
"So Manabu-kun hadn't told you, eh?" He let out a hum, and Kenta went back to eating his food. Emiko was still as silent as ever, although she was now busy with feeding the fussing baby between her and her daughter.
"Told me..? Told me what?" She asked, curious and just slightly wary.
He opened his eyes again and glanced at his young daughter, then sighed. "The way I see it, you have two choices here. Our Clan, the Shimizu, have a contract with the Doves. Their leader, Mae-sama, is always willing to let another generation of shinobi sign on as long as you're polite about it, of course. However..."
"..However?"
"However," Kenta begins the conversation next. "Manabu-san has his own summons - something separate from the Shimizu Doves. Since you are his personal student, you are technically allowed to ask if you can sign onto his contract. If he says yes, then you can have those instead of the Doves."
Rae blinks. She looks back and forth between her father and her servant slash sensei - maybe a little bit of a friend, too - and starts.
"Wait, Kenta, do you have summons?"
He smiles.
"Of course. I have the Doves."
Her eyes open wide in awe and admiration, and she looks at her friend in a new light. Summons, huh? Rae had never known that he has summons, especially not the Clan summons. She had thought, for just a fleeting moment, that perhaps the Side Branch members weren't allowed to have something the Main Branch family had. She didn't know whether she was glad to be wrong or not. On the one hand, she was sure a summon like that could help a spy in many situations, and she was glad he was being treated the same as a Main Branch family member would be in that regard, and both of those were good. On the other hand... he was kind of cooler than her now. That was.. less than good.
So she nods, a determined look on her face.
"I'll ask him tomorrow, then, during training, about his summons."
Kazuhiko nods, Kenta smiles, and that was that. She would talk to Manabu-sensei about his summons, find out what they were and what they could do, and then she would decide whether or not she wanted them. Of course, she was still feeling rather rebellious to her Clan at the moment, even if the entire marriage idea was thrown out the window the second she protested it, so just the idea of having a summon different from the rest of her Clan made her happy. However, this was one thing she would really think through rather than decide immediately because of emotions. Doves could be useful as well, she was sure. She didn't even know what Manabu-sensei's animals were just yet, so she didn't know whether she would even want them or not. Hell, she wasn't even entirely sure what the Doves did just yet.
Her answer to that last part came sooner than the others did, in the form of one fifteen year old spy late that night.
"You're curious, aren't you?"
Rae startles, nearly dropping the glass she was holding. She was quick enough not to, however, and was fast enough to place the pitcher of orange juice onto the table before her grip could go slack with that as well. Once she was one hundred percent certain she wouldn't be dropping any glasses or drinks any time soon, she whipped her head around to glare at the keeper of that voice.
Kenta stood in the door way to the kitchen, one hand on the door frame and the other lazily hanging by his side. He wore a light yukata, similar to the one he usually wore but with darker tones to it, an outfit he had changed into earlier that day when he had first come to her home and showered. His feet were bare, and Rae made a quick mental note to buy him a pair of house slippers at some point - he was beyond the point of just being an occasional guest. It'd be kind of rude not to get him a pair at this point.
Rae huffed, one side of her lips pulling up higher than the other.
"Speak for yourself, sir 'I'm gonna go scare the hell out of a ten year old girl in the middle of the night by asking a vague question out of nowhere'. What are you doing up?" She asked, pout still on her features even as she refocused on pouring herself a glass of orange juice from the container. She filled the glass halfway, and pouted further when she heard Kenta's light chuckle from the doorway.
"I heard you get up. I should also be asking you that, madam 'I'm going to get up in the middle of the night for a glass of' - what is that, lemon juice?"
"Orange," she corrects him sourly, putting the pitcher back in the cold storage space she'd taken it from.
He nods - alright she couldn't see him but she was sure he was nodding.
"Right. Either way, you're up in the middle of the night as well. I suppose I wanted to come out here to check and see how my charge was doing."
She sends a grudging look his way, a mixture of a childish pout and a seriously disbelieving glare.
"Alright, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt," she mulls, bringing her class up to her lips and taking a few sips. Cold and calming, as usual. She turns her head back to the boy beside her, and sends him a curious look. "So say your charge is curious about something. Are you.. obliged, to answer?"
"No," his answer was plain and simple and said with a calm smile. "No, I am not 'obliged' to answer any of your questions. I can, however, answer them if I simply want to."
She's silent for a moment, thinking over his words, then a flat look overcomes her as she understands.
"What do you want?"
"Could I have a glass of juice as well?"
Rae won't lie - she certainly wasn't expecting a request like that. She's only startled for a moment, however, before she grins and walks over to him, giving him the rest of her glass of orange juice. She already had enough that she felt better - cold juice always calmed her down for some reason - so she really didn't need the rest of it. He looked more than glad, even if he did send her a dubious look, and took a small sip.
Dumb jerk would make a prettier and more delicate girl than she does.
"The Doves," he begins suddenly, and Rae shuts up her own inner thoughts to listen in intently. He seemed to sense her eagerness, and he smirked down at her, just a tad sharper than his usual serene smiles. "Are mostly for infiltration and information gathering - hence why they are a perfect summon for me, yes?" At her eager nod, he continues. "I have been contracted to them for roughly six years now. I got them when I was nine, back when I first began my training to become a spy. From what I know of them thus far, they specialize in mind tricks - genjutus. It seems to be a common occurrence where bird summons are very good with genjutsu type attacks, so it really isn't all that shocking, I suppose. If that doesn't seem to work out, however, they also have unique, natural sensing abilities. A newborn Dove could perhaps sense things better than a full-grown shinobi."
He shrugs, even if she was looking up at him with wide, awe filled eyes. "In my opinion, anyway. However," here, he opens his eyes, which had closed at some point through his miniature lecture about Dove summons, and looks down at her with a curious expression. She couldn't tell what was in his eyes, but it was a guarded and calculating look from what she could discover. "I do also know of Manabu-san's summons. I have been on a select few missions with him, and I have seen them in action."
He shakes his head, tisking in mock annoyance.
"Such a rowdy bunch, they are, animal and man alike. Well, you know what they say, like summon like master, hm?" He smiles sweetly down at her, and she thinks for the first time since knowing both him and Manabu-sensei, that perhaps he doesn't have the best feelings towards the older man. She wonders why, for just a brief moment, before she is inching closer and closer in anticipation.
"Wait, wait, wait - you know what his summons are? What they can do?" At his slow nod, she inches even closer, until she's all but grabbing onto the front of his sleepwear and looking up at him with wide, wide blue eyes. "What are they?! What do they do?! Can they fight? Do they do mind tricks like the Doves do? Can they fly? Oh, oh, can they do fire jutsus-"
Kenta holds up a hand to silence her, and she shuts her mouth with a firm clacking of her teeth. He smiles again, and she forcibly reminds herself that she once, just once, got the better of him, just to make sure she didn't feel like clawing his face off.
"Well, first of all," he opens his mouth, takes a breath to continue, and Rae bites her lip with anticipation. A childish pout overcomes his features suddenly. "Why would you care about fire jutsus? Aren't my water jutsus good enough for you, Kei-sama?"
She levels him with a flat look.
"I have water and fire affinity. I wanna learn both."
He pouts again, but lowers his hand onto the top of her head and begins again.
"Yes, his summons can fight - it really seems like the only thing those mutts are good at - and no, they do not do mind tricks like the Doves. Genjutsu, by the way Kei-sama, they're called genjutsus. No, they can not fly. Not as far as I know, anyway. I may just keel over the day they learn to fly... Oh, and," he sends another innocent, disarming smile her way.
"They're desert coyotes."
((A/N: Duh duh duhhh! It is literally no surprise which one she's gonna choose, is it. Damn.
Somebody once suggested Rae should get a desert animal for her summons, so I was like, fuck ya dude a little piece of home always with her, yknow? So yeah. These are gonna be her new summons, surprise surprise, desert coyotes!
Question!: Can anyone guess why Manabu and Kenta don't seem to like each other? Is it just clashing personalities, or something deeper? *waves fingers* ooooo spooooky~~
Anyway, there's your chapter. I hope you know I slaved over the laptop for like 3 days for you fools. Enjoy!
Leave reviews, reviews are love!))