Neverwhere Chapter 9: Unreal City, a naruto fanfic

AN: Recently, I read The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot and I want to let you guys know that it is an absolutely stunning poem so you can go and read it. Right now. Er, I mean, after you finish this chapter.

Beta & Fire Department: Kim and Madi

Love you guys: MommyRogers, Dead Fairytales, saturnova, and Shells. I love you all, and thank you for all compliments.

Chapter 9 – Unreal City

"Unreal City,

Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,

I had not thought death had undone so many."

– T.S. Eliot, "The Waste Land"

When Hinata crawled off her futon in the living room and glanced at the kitchen clock, she realized it was 7:30. In the ensuing confusion, she tripped over her sheets, banged her ribs on the coffee table, and hopped into her uniform as fast as humanly possible while massaging a bruised stomach. Then she flew into Kanaye's room, skirt ends flailing frantically.

"We're late!" she gasped, yanking the tangled comforter away from his body. What she saw made her want to cover everything back up.

His impossibly smooth, sharp features – the ones that made girls come up to him before his personality drove them away – would have made him darkly handsome today if it weren't for his puffy red eyes and spinach-like complexion, coupled with an unidentified crusty substance at the corners of his mouth and eyes.

"Are you sick?" Hinata murmured, putting a hand to his forehead to feel for heat.

"Double hangover," Kanaye wheezed in a death rattle.

"What do you mean?"

"I woke up at 3 AM with a hangover, so I drank to forget it."

"Oh God."

Hinata managed to drag his limp body to the bathroom while he wheezed out death threats in a barely-there voice. She made sure the Advil bottle was in a conspicuous place on the bathroom counter before closing him in. She put an ear to the door until she heard the shower start. Satisfied, Hinata went to make breakfast.

The halls were already empty by the time they reached the school, but they heard the PA announcement anyway.

"If anyone has any information concerning the miscreant who spiked the punch, please contact Student Services immediately. Due to the popularity and success of the art show, there will be another next year, but due to said extremely irresponsible action, there will be no refreshments served."

A horrified look dawned on Hinata's face and she turned to Kanaye for reassurance, but all he gave her was a knowing smirk.

Akina came over to Hinata after the end-of-first-period-bell stopped ringing and people began to leave. Hinata watched her send away a couple of her lackeys.

"Hi, Hinata-chan," she said.

"Uh, Sakura…I have something to tell you…about the art show," Hinata told her. "It's just…well…I found…Gaara. Of the Sand."

Akina discovered that her throat wouldn't work for several seconds.

"Are you sure?" she whispered. Hinata just showed her the drawing.

"He gave this to me," she offered.

"Good God. What do you want to do?"

"Find him. Talk to him, I suppose," Hinata thought aloud, feeling very strongly that this was much easier said than done.

"At lunch," Akina agreed. "And let me look for Naruto. Please."

"Okay."

They left the empty classroom and headed downstairs together amid the push and pull of students. Akina stopped Hinata at the foot of the stairs, before they went their separate ways.

"Hinata…I've been meaning to ask you this…"

She let Akina fumble for the words for a few moments.

"Your registered name is Toya Sorano, right?"

"Yes."

"But you go by 'Hinata' with everyone, and you don't act anything like you used to. Not that I knew you very well, but…I mean, did getting the memories of another life change you that much? I mean, I feel different, but…"

Her words trailed off and she looked embarrassed.

"That's not the problem," Hinata sighed. "The problem is that I'm not Sorano. She got knocked out somehow and I was the one who woke up."

Akina just stared at her. "You don't know what happened to Sorano?"

"All I know is that I'm nothing like her."

The concerned look disappeared off of Akina's face when she glanced at her Gucci wristwatch.

"We'll talk at lunch," she promised, and jetted off to her next class.

Hinata was very, very confused. She'd nicely asked to borrow a yearbook from another person in her third period, and had studiously flipped through every page, searching for the red-haired, dark-eyed boy she'd seen the other night. She couldn't find his picture. Did he even go to this school, then? Or had the changes to his hair and those piercings been recent? Hinata had looked again, but couldn't seem to find his face: no one quite had his pallid skin, streamlined nose and chin, and those thin, slanted eyes.

"Hello, Akerou," the man greeted, tilting up his head from behind his desk. "Sorry to call you in at this hour, but my schedule is horrendous this week and only a morning appointment worked out."

There was no answer, but the man wasn't expecting one. He leaned back in his leather chair and steepled his fingers, the sunlight flooding the room from behind him and illuminating the bookshelves in his office. His chair squeaked when he started rocking it back and forth.

"So, Akerou, are you willing to try Group today?" he tried again.

"No."

That was about as emphatic as Akerou ever got. At least it was a response.

"Allegedly it's a better environment for you then just sitting here with me. There are people your own age there."

Silence was all he got. The man heaved a sigh and creaked his leather chair again. Funny how Akerou had picked the one chair in the office that drowned in a deep shadow. He briefly pondered on the possibility of Akerou being a vampire, but quickly shook it off.

"How are you today?" he asked, back on track. The man leaned back in his broad-shouldered chair and kicked his feet up on the table. He listened to the vague sounds of air conditioning, and the chirp of a bird outside the window. He listened to his chair squeak in protest as he rocked it. He smiled.

He didn't need an answer, not now, maybe not even today. They had all the time the world could offer.

"Not in the yearbook?" Akina asked. "Did you get his name?"

"No, but he was tall, with bright red hair and piercings," Hinata described.

Akina whisked away to steal the yearbook out of someone's hands and returned promptly, turning the pages until she reached one that had one black square on it in place of a photo. The name corresponding with it read "Shishido Akerou."

"No yearbook picture?" Hinata asked Akina, who shook her head. "What is he like?"

"Well," Akina begain, "if this were the social scale – "

She paused to draw a vertical line on a sheet of notebook paper. At the top she wrote "Popular" and at the bottom she inscribed "Loser."

" – And if I were here and Kanaye were here – "

Akina stopped again to write her name near "Popular" at the top and Kanaye's name next to "Loser."

" – then he wouldn't even be on the scale," Akina finished.

"What do you mean?"

"He doesn't talk to anybody, not even the total geeks. If he's Gaara, I'm not surprised."

"That's him," Hinata said faintly.

Akina picked up her bag and pulled out two Styrofoam cups that read "Cup Noodle" on the sides. She returned the yearbook to its owner and came back to give Hinata her blessing. She'd need it.

"Good luck," Akina responded fervently, and left the sunny picnic table to find her blond-haired idiot.

Against her better judgment, Hinata walked around outside to find Kanaye so she could get his opinion.

It was, in all honesty, a nice day. This was why most of the student population was in the courtyard, not the cafeteria, even if there were only a few stunted trees there to brighten the concrete atmosphere. Hinata managed to lead Kanaye away from a lunch table full of his laughing cronies and out of their earshot before she started on him.

"Have…have you ever heard of someone called 'Shishido Akerou?'"

Kanaye rolled his eyes at her. "Yeah, well, let's just say that anyone who can stick a safety pin through his own ear has balls in my book. Still, you should probably stay away from him, Hinata. He might secretly be a cannibal."

"Actually, Kanaye…I'm pretty sure that you're the one who needs to stay away from him."

"Damn. Did I punch him while I was drunk?"

"No…you told him that I could shoot laser beams from my eyes and Gentle Slap him."

"Then I slugged him?" Kanaye interrupted.

"Um…then you threw up."

"On him?" Kanaye prodded hopefully.

"No."

"Goddamn. What do you want from him, anyway?"

"He's a ninja. Was a ninja. Gaara of the Sand," she explained.

Kanaye studied her and she felt uncomfortable as she tried not to twitch or fidget, as was habit.

"You're sure."

"He drew a picture, Kanaye. Of Gaara."

"And no one in non-Ninja Land looks like this guy?"

"I don't think many people, in my world or yours, tattoo the kanji for love on their forehead, Kanaye," Hinata wearily replied.

It took Akina half of lunch to find him. Mostly she walked around campus describing his chiseled, roman features and unique hair and eye color. Since most of the school wasn't blond or Western, this was greatly to her advantage. She located him sitting by himself on the roof of Building 3. Thank goodness someone had seen him climb up the stairs to get here.

At any rate, he looked ridiculously pleased when she introduced herself in English.

"Hi, I'm Akina Arakawa. Mind if I join you?"

"You're welcome to. Sit down anywhere you like," he grinned, speaking in English as well. "I'm Caden North. Whatcha got there?"

Akina put the two steaming Styrofoam cups down and seated herself Indian-style.

"Ramen," she answered. "So you're American?"

"Yeah. I'm a foreign exchange student. I do this bit for a couple months, then go home."

"I'm American, too, though you wouldn't know it from my name," Akina smiled. "My mother lives there. Would you like some ramen? It's miso-flavored."

"Sure." He grabbed one of the two containers and started slurping it down. "This stuff is great."

Hinata had given up. He wasn't in the courtyard, and apparently he had no friends so no one kept track of him. This made him practically invisible. So she went to the art room, fully intending to retrieve the portrait she'd entered in the art show. They'd promised to return all of the artwork to the room on Monday.

Akerou was there. He had a paintbrush and palette in hand, and a cup of turpentine at his elbow. Hinata resisted the urge to hold her nose. The canvas on his easel had a lot of red on it, from what she could see, but the rest was blocked out by his black trench coat.

Just seeing him reminded her of the dream she'd had last night; a flash of the panic her life had exploded into after she'd discovered Gaara's death.

Hinata gave Neji a quick goodbye kiss and a murmured "be careful" before she let him vault out of the window. The Hokage needed him more than she did right now.

"I hope Naruto's okay," Sakura sighed, staring out of the kitchen window and surreptitiously rubbing her swollen stomach.

Hinata thought about it, she really did. And she couldn't understand why someone would kill Gaara. He had made quite a few enemies in his youth, but Hinata couldn't think of one that was still living. Gaara had a way of dealing with people like that. And now Sasuke was missing, presumably plunging ahead (against orders, of course) as he tended to when he found someone or something that ticked him off. And Sakura had mentioned that Naruto hadn't been happy about that. There was something she was missing…

Naruto had left to chase after Sasuke. Just like always, so predictable.

Hinata nearly dropped her teacup.

Had someone predicted this?

Hinata hurriedly pulled herself back into reality when she reminded herself of her task. She needed to figure out what was going on.

"Excuse me," Hinata softly said, "You were at the art show and gave me this. My name…you can call me Hyuuga Hinata, if you like."

He turned around to look at her, and took his drawing back when she offered it.

"You're…you're Gaara of the Sand, right?"

He didn't speak, didn't affirm or negate her question. What he did do was dip his brush in the turpentine. Hinata suddenly felt embarrassed, like she'd interrupted some sort of sacred communion between him and the canvas. She waited, though, sinking down onto a drawing horse a few feet away to watch his brush dab at the cloth. She'd just gotten up to leave when he finally answered.

"Yes."

Just like that. One word. She sat back down to watch him paint.