AN: Sorry it took so long to get out this chapter, but I've just been so busy lately with school and my application for Pre-College and everything else…so enjoy this, and I'll try to get the next chapter out in a somewhat more timely manner (although I can't promise).

Beta & Fire Department: Kim and Madi

RR:

Bob the Almighty – I want to let you know that I have reasons for everything in this fic, although I can't really elaborate on anything without giving away everything.

Shells – I would like to tell you, but can't.

Thanks to: Shadowed Fear, Bob the Almighty, Shells, Crystalline Tears, OspreyAnimeG, morgannia, and blah

Chapter 10 – We Who You are for Only

"Who's seen jezebel?

She was born to be the woman we could blame

Make me a beast half as brave

I'd be the same"

– Iron & Wine, "Jezebel"

Kado clapped his hands over his ears when he heard Akina squealing in delight as she burst into the apartment.

"OmigodheissoNaruto!" she giggled.

"Uh?" Kado groaned, wondering if her outburst was over. "A guy you like?"

"Yes!"

"I thought you had a boyfriend already," he interrupted, cautiously retracting his hands from his ears. He readjusted his position on the couch, grabbing a throw pillow and concentrating on the TV – or trying to. And she did have a boyfriend: he knew because the poor guy had been calling the apartment consistently for a week, asking for Akina. Kado had turned him away each time, telling him that she wasn't home, partly because of Akina's insistence on this, but also because he didn't want jerks dating his baby sister anyway.

"Oh yeah," Akina remembered. "I'll have to fix that."

Then she flounced off; presumably to call Akiko and have her call Akina's boyfriend and tell him he was officially dumped. Kado felt a twinge of pity at this, but their relationship had pretty much been doomed from the start if you went by the number of boyfriends Akina went through each year. It reminded him of tissues. You use one, then throw it away. Pretty soon you'll need a whole new box.

Kado changed the TV channel and rolled over.

0000

Caden bounded down the stairs two at a time. He wasn't really sure how to act around his exchange family yet, but that wasn't going to stop him from eating dinner. Their cool, soft, full moon faces had that eerie familial resemblance as they looked up at him from their western-style dining hall, resplendent in its elaborate, curlicue rococo glory. Boy, did they live well, he thought: the table had to be twenty feet long! They were all clustered around one end, huddling together, staring at him.

His new "mother" motioned him to sit at her right. His new "father" sat at the head of the table. His new "brother" sat opposite his mother. Caden ambled over and plopped himself into the chair, which earned him a glance, but he tried not to care.

The servants then brought out open china dishes that steamed with good aroma. He politely waited until they had served themselves before he snatched some food for himself, never mind his awkward feelings in the face of their huge, quiet hall. Nothing like home, a small house back in Eden, New York – and positively shrieking with the antics of his younger sisters and parents, and their friends. And nothing like that girl he'd met, either – Akina. She'd been so nice, so willing to talk, not like a lot of the school population, which had largely regarded him as a novelty and then proceeded to ignore him. After the initial curiosity over his origins had subsided, she'd been the only one to approach him. He smiled to himself and continued to chow down on his food.

0000

"Oh, good," Akina chimed, just as the doorbell buzzed.

"What?" Kado snarled, suddenly very aware of the possibility that what's-his-name that Akina had recently swooned for was behind the door. "You didn't tell me anyone was coming over."

"Yes I did," Akina defended, shooting him a look, "when you asked me how my day was."

Of course. Kado made a point not to listen to anything she said in reply to this question out of self-preservation. He felt that asking her in the first place should be enough to show he cared, because interpreting that meaningless blather went above and beyond the call of duty. It figured that she'd drop a bombshell when she knew he wasn't listening.

By the time he had collected himself, she had gone to answer the door.

"Hinata-chan!" he heard from the hall. A slim girl with auburn hair and sea-colored eyes was promptly dragged into Akina's bedroom by one hand, while a tall, sharp-looking Japanese boy closely followed the duo – only for the poor guy to have the door slammed shut before he could enter. The Japanese boy started banging on the door immediately after the offended look registered on his face. Well, that answered Kado's question about whether he was that guy Akina liked or not.

"At least tell me to shove off to my face!" he yelled, still smashing a fist on the door. To Kado's surprise, the door opened and Akina's head poked out.

"Go AWAY!" she screeched, and clapped the door shut again.

The dark-haired, disgruntled teenager then spotted Kado and eventually joined him on the couch, his face still twisted into a sullen snarl.

"Do you get that all the time, too?" he asked Kado dryly.

00000

"I tried to get Gaara to come," Hinata mentioned, biting her lip unconsciously, "but he wouldn't answer me."

They were sitting Akina's bed with the door locked. The room was a mix of creamy, pastel blues and yellows, leaving Hinata wondering at the fact that there were no obvious splotches of pink.

"I'm surprised he talked to you at all," Akina told her, secretly glad that Mr.Tall-Dark-And-Creepy had elected to evade their presence. "Anyway, we still need to find out if Caden-kun remembers being Naruto yet."

"We also need to know what caused all of this," Hinata said, thinking of her Nariko-chan's bright smile and Neji's offerings of flowers and her herb garden and her private apothecary, stocked full of her home-brewed cures. Did Neji know which bedtime story Nariko liked best? Someone would have to teach him how to look for monsters under Nariko's bed before she was tucked in, and Neji certainly didn't know how to cook soba for Nariko, or dress her for school. Neji's missions sometimes kept him gone for days, weeks – would he really trust Nariko to a babysitter? The ache constricted in her throat and Hinata found herself struggling to be positive.

Akina watched Hinata's face slowly blank out until she resembled a marble statue. She couldn't imagine what was going on in the other girl's mind, but Hinata needed to be snapped out of it.

"Hinata," Akina called, waving a hand in front of her face. "Helloooo-"

The phone shrilled a loud obnoxious ring at that very moment. It was probably Akiko calling back to tell Akina that she'd told Akina's former boyfriend to buzz off, so she picked it up.

"Hello?" Akina asked.

"Akina, sweetie, please listen – "

Click.

Akina hurriedly turned to smile at Hinata reassuringly, because Hinata was suddenly giving her a look that Akina's mother had perfected: 'I know what you're doing. Explain yourself. Now.'

"That was…short," Hinata said intently, disguised by the softness and frailty in her tone.

"It was my mother," Akina explained. "She's such a bitch."

Hinata looked as if she'd been slapped, as if Akina had insulted her and not the woman to whom she'd been referring.

"But…but…" Hinata floundered, lost and sad. "She's your mother….she loves you….she has to love you…"

Hinata didn't see Akina at all, but Nariko, with her charcoal hair and chalky eyes, older, saying to someone, a friend maybe, over and over and over: "She's such a bitch."

Akina couldn't understand why Hinata was sobbing, and couldn't understand what would make her stop.

0000

Kado didn't pick up the phone when it rang because it was probably for Akina.

"So, if you aren't that guy my sister is infatuated with, then who are you?"

"Kanaye," Kanaye replied. Then he made a face. "The dork, according to Akina. Not geeky like a nerd, and not dumb enough to be a stoner."

"Then what are you doing here?"

"Hinata is my designated babysitter," he grumbled, crossing his arms and grimacing.

The phone rang again. Kado let it go for a couple of rings before he decided that Akina was definitely not picking it up, so he went for it. A business call, maybe?

"Hello, this is Arakawa Kado speaking. Who is this?"

"Kado, baby, it's mom. Speak in English, honey."

Kado got up and paced the room before sidling off to the kitchen as he switched fluidly to his second language.

"Akina hung up again?"

"She won't let me in, even though it's been so long. I'm tired of fighting just to talk to her on the phone, Kado. I need to see her in person so she can't run away."

"I can't take her out of school in the middle of the year and ship her over to you, mom, because that is asking me to drop my life and figure out yours and Akina's for the next who-knows-how-long."

"Please, Kado, she still listens to you –"

"No. If you want, you can come over here any time, but I'm not going to try to book plane tickets, dig up transcripts, and haul Akina kicking and screaming onto the next plane bound for Miami International Airport, even if it means that you two may be forced to talk to each other again."

"Why don't you give it a chance?"

"Give it a rest, please, mom."

The line was silent for a moment, then –

"You know I love you and I'm proud of you, right?" The voice was a little shaky.

"Yes, mom," he said in a singsong tone.

"I love you. Make sure your sister knows that I love her very much, too." Now the phone line was crackling with static, a sure sign of the distance between them.

"Yeah. Okay. I will. Bye."

0000

"It's not what you think!" Akina tried to tell Hinata, who was hunched over on the purple bedspread with puffy red eyes and molten tears that tracked trails down her cheeks. "She really is horrible!"

Hinata couldn't speak, so she waited for Akina to tell her why.

"She's a bitch. She was married to my dad for so long, and they were so happy together. He used to take me out to the park all the time and go to all of my stupid little school functions ever since I was a baby. He even taught me and Kado to speak Japanese! But mom got a boyfriend after all those years, and she cheated on my dad, and by cheating on him she cheated on me and Kado, too, see? She didn't love any of us anymore, so she needed someone to make up for it," Akina confessed, punctuating her rage and sorrow with fingers in the air, the heat rising to her face. "Dad was devastated when he found out, so he decided to go right home to Japan. He would've taken us with him, but mom wouldn't let him. That's how much she hated us. And he died that day when the plane crashed into the Pacific. It was engine failure. If she hadn't cheated, we'd still be happy! Dad would be alive! She tore apart the family, I'm just calling her what she is!"

Hinata let Akina pace a bit more around the carpet in circles, only half-listening to whatever she was going on about.

Hinata prayed that Nariko loved her; that Nariko the beautiful child would grow into a beautiful lady and still love her. Hinata closed her ears and her eyes and opened her heart to that hope.

0000

By the next day, Akina was tired of everyone: tired of her brother's constant badgering, tired of Hinata bursting into tears, and tired of dealing with Kanaye's personality, which was ultimately doomed to clash with hers. And now, of course, she was tired of this:

"Omigod, did you hear?"

"Akane-chan told me that someone saw that Hinata girl and Kanaye go home with her! Do you know what this means?"

"She likes Kanaye!"

They sounded so scandalized. Akina had felt the sting of rumor floating through the hallways before, but this was an outrage. She stalked up to the two gossipers, both female.

"Hi," she said, a grave and terrible smile overtaking her features. The two of them paled, even with their skin as light as it was. "Who started this bullshit about me and Kanaye?"

"Well…"

"Uh…"

"You conniving bitches. If their names don't roll off your glib, lying little tongues in five seconds…I'll rip every pretty little strand of hair off of your fucking heads with my bare hands."

Studies show that humans can tolerate more pain if exposed to it in slowly increasing doses. The fastest way to cause these gossip girls the most pain and embarrassment possible was to rip it all out at once.

Ragnarok was coming, and its name was Arakawa Akina.

0000

Everything was closing in black and wet, dark and cold and clear. How did things end up this way? He needed time to think, time to lament, but the sky was so far away from this place.

So slow, so long was his death in releasing him.

0000