AN: I didn't update for a whole month. So kill me. I had AP tests, juries, and finals all in a row. I've wanted to die for the last four weeks, so what's stopping you from giving me what I want?
…Ha, don't mind me, I'm crazy.
WARNING: GRUESOME SCENE.
Beta & Fire Department: Kim and Madi
RR
varnished glass: The truth is that while I totally agree with you on the concept of not caring who-likes-who and so forth, Akina as a character is extremely interested in this sort of thing, and therefore also feels the need to preserve and protect her public image. In other words, I am trying to write about someone who would serve as a great foil to my personality. This is why Hinata is the real main character: I can relate much more to her than Akina. Nevertheless, Akina must be developed as a character for plot purposes. As for the "in-depth critique" thing, I figured you were giving me your honest opinion on everything as opposed to just telling me how fantastic I am. It's nice to know if things are working properly. I assumed this because I got an "A-" rating (and also because of this current review of 11), so you weren't trying to flatter me by saying "A+". Your ramblings are much appreciated, because it lets me know how some of my readers might think/react to the story. That is what I really mean; it just took longer to say. And if you still feel I'm wrong, I'm sorry that you felt my first choice of diction was inaccurate.
Shadowed Fear: I haven't read "The Thief Lord," sorry. Recommending something is totally up to you.
Thanks to: esther, varnished glass, akabikam, shikaruTo, Shadowed Fear, and OspreyAnimeG.
Translations:
bento lunch box with food in it. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Aniki brother; familiar term
Chapter 12 – Waking Slow
"I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go."
– Theodore Roethke, "The Waking"
"Sasuke was there," he said.
Sakura peered over his shoulder, but saw no spike of black hair trailing Naruto's blond. She was young, just fifteen, but already old enough to understand heartbreak. It was the second time Naruto had broken his promise. Sakura stared at the floor.
"He was looking for Itachi," Naruto mumbled. "He said that I wasn't worth his time. Then he was gone."
Sakura hugged herself, listening to the thoughts that stampeded through her brain: he doesn't love you, he doesn't want to come back, he doesn't need his home anymore.
"I'm sorry, Sakura-chan," she heard Naruto say. Her eyes were closed, but they snapped open when he leaned over to give her a kiss on the forehead – platonic, yes, but important. She grabbed him reflexively and held on, wanting to blame him for her loss, but knowing that what she really needed was in the here and now, not in the past.
Akina could still feel warm arms cradling her in return in that moment when she awoke. She blinked, rubbed her eyes, and looked around. She was still in the bathroom, alone. She didn't stop to inspect the smooth, unbroken skin on her knuckles or the relatively bleached and stainless quality of the wall before she stood up.
Akina hissed a little at her oncoming headache, but there was still a light smile on her face as she left. Now she was sure of herself; she knew what she was going to do.
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"You'll be my campaign manager, right, Hinata?" Kanaye grinned.
"Excuse me?" she asked, dipping her chopsticks into her bento. They were seated underneath a tree in the courtyard, talking to each other a little over the voices of the other students milling about, also eating. Kanaye winked at Hinata and she choked.
"Y'know how I'm the vice president of the Junior Anti-Drug League?"
"Yes…"
"Well, it's reelection time!" Kanaye exclaimed. "School-wide elections are happening soon!"
"Uh-huh," Hinata agreed absentmindedly. She wondered where Akina had gone. Usually she at least came by to say hello.
"So you will be my manager! Awesome!"
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The bright day Kanaye and Hinata bathed in was very different from the one that Akerou was facing, away in memory.
It was filled with crawly, clicking, segmented maggots and worms, erupting from the chest cavity in an oozing mockery of afterbirth. Leeches sucked at the remainder of eye sockets, pulsating and shiny amid dull scab rust. The cadaver was bloated, tinted with blues and greens that lay barely visible under caked filth. Black flies with tiny, hairy legs on obese bodies and long, thin proboscises diseased it as they buzzed and nipped at it. The stench was sweetly sick: candy and rotting eggs. The corpse's rigor mortis was an aftertaste, a stillness compared with the skittering vestiges of life not its own. Still, Gaara knew who it was, because of the way the hair that remained on the scraps of skin clinging to the skull was tied into four pigtails, although they were no longer blond.
Whoever had destroyed this mission had made a grave mistake. They'd killed his sister and defaced her body. The Kazekage's legendary anger was now fully awake. The demon whispered inside of him, and he answered its cry of bloodlust with one of his own.
When Akerou blinked and found himself back in the office, all he really wanted to do was scream. He knew he was seventeen now, but moments ago he'd been much older than that.
He didn't scream.
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"Something's making Akerou worse, Shishido-san," Doctor Haraguchi said. "Usually he at least focuses on me during our sessions, but lately he's been zoning out more and more, and today he got up in the middle of a session and left."
Akerou's mother fiddled with her purse nervously and stared at the floor before rubbing at her temples and saying, "Oh god… what do we do?"
"I guess we'll have to find out what's going on. Try getting me any clues you can pick up at home, but don't back him into a corner. Just keep an eye out."
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The apartment, at this point, was almost indistinguishable from a snowstorm – although it wasn't as cold. Piles of posters and pins were scattered everywhere, and it made Hinata depressed because she'd just cleaned up the mess yesterday.
"Those idiots don't have a chance," Kanaye crowed. "Not when I've got a ninja on my side!"
Hinata tiredly snapped and clipped 'Vote for Kanaye' pins together. She only had fifty more to go. It still hadn't settled in that Kanaye was actually running in an actual election. After all, he was the best un-listener she had ever met – and now he wanted to be elected, no, reelected, to some sort of leadership position. Weren't leaders supposed to listen to the demands of their followers, at least to some degree?
"I'm running against some smart guy from club and a newbie named Saka-something-or-other, y'know that kid who showed up last week. I talked to him once, he's a great guy, really. The perfect vice president. Knows some English. Too bad I'm gonna win."
"Don't count your chickens before they hatch, Kanaye," Hinata advised.
"What chickens?"
"Nevermind."
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Akina quietly snuck into the apartment, closing the door with only a small click, tiptoeing past Kado as he hung up the phone. Unfortunately, this reminded her of how they used to play hide-and-seek when they were small: he always knew where she was.
"Do you know who just called?" Kado asked, without even looking to see if she was there.
"Um…"
"The principal."
"I can explain!"
"Go ahead. Try."
Kado's arms were crossed now, and he'd turned to give Akina his full attention. Her throat was suddenly parched.
"I-I slapped a girl because – well, she – she stole my friends and told me I was dating that idiot Kanaye!"
"You have Saturday detention for the rest of the year, Akina. The only reason you didn't get suspended is because it's your first offense."
"It was her fault – !"
"Akina, you injured someone at school! On purpose!"
"She was being such a bitch! She was saying the nastiest things to me – !"
"It doesn't matter what she said to you! You still shouldn't hit people! She didn't hit you, did she? Huh?"
"No, but – "
"Maybe you should just go home."
There was a pause. Akina's mouth was open for a rebuttal of his words, but nothing came out for a moment. Kado was frozen as well, a foreboding stone statue. Akina broke the silence first.
"Don't send me back! Please, Aniki! Don't mail me back to mom! I've changed – I'll change!" Akina begged, her face red, her eyes filled. She grabbed Kado by both arms, frantically trying to hold on. "Aniki – "
He started to pull away, but changed directions to wrap her into a hug. Akina stopped shaking.
"One more chance," he said quietly. "I don't want to make you leave, Akina, but I'm not Dad – I mean, I'm not a good guardian."
He sighed. Akina smiled into his shoulder.
"I'm gonna be a better person, I promise," she told him. "I wouldn't trade you for the world."
"Love you, too."
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The next day, Kanaye woke Hinata up at five in the morning so they could go to school and tape homemade posters across every wall. Only Kanaye would break into the school early in the morning to get a head start on his campaign, or a late start, if you consider the fact that everyone else had gotten their posters up a week ago. He knelt in front of the door and pulled out a pin, which he began to viciously apply to a side door on campus.
"Oh my god, Kanaye, you know how to pick locks?"
"Hey, you taught me."
"You mean Sorano taught you."
The lock clicked open, and Kanaye snatched her hand and snuck them inside, humming the "Mission Impossible" theme song.
"Yeah, Sorano is a bad influence," he smirked.
"Shouldn't the school have better security?"
"Hinata, who the hell would want to break into a school? What they want is to get out."
"You want to get in, don't you?"
"Hey, this is how politics works. Remember that Watergate thing that happened in America?"
He was careful not to cover any other posters when he started pasting his around the buildings, whether they were advertising for class president or the president of the tennis club. Hinata was initially surprised at his care for the campaigns of others, but it wore off rather quickly when she saw the permanent marker.
"No, no, no," she muttered, holding out her hand so he could put the marker in it. Kanaye didn't even hear her, though, because he was already dashing down the hall. Hinata, still somewhat unused to her young body (which wasn't in great shape anyway), struggled just to keep up with him. Not all of the lights were on yet, and he kept flashing in and out of the shadows.
His first victim was a poster of the face of 'Saka-something-or-other.' Kanaye quickly scratched in devil horns and a snake tongue and scratched out the eyes, leaving the face with two gaping black holes. Then Kanaye flounced off to the other ones, equally attacking class secretaries and club presidents, even some of his own flyers.
"You are so juvenile!" Hinata tried to shout, but it was softer then she meant it to be. "Kanaye!"
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She had pink hair, cut just above her shoulders, a small, round face, and soulful, dark green eyes above a small nose and rosebud lips. She was fishing through a locker in the hall, stared at by the occasional passerby – most of the school, after all, had black hair and eyes.
"S-S-Sakura-chan?" Hinata gasped. Akina smiled at her.
"Like it?" she asked, picking up a lock of her newly dyed and cut hair for inspection. What once was blond hair to the waist was now short, a strawberry-peach color.
"Same thing," Kanaye said, coming up behind Hinata and shrugging helpfully. "You're still ugly."
Both Akina and Hinata's eyes caught on Kanaye. Akina fell deep into a murderous rage; Hinata stood still, shocked. He pulled a face at them and ran away, Akina hot on his heels, though both of them had to trip around students as they sprinted down the hall.
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Most of the shock value was in how bright her hair was now. The wind rushed over it and the sun hit it at such an angle that it seemed as if she'd just wreathed her hair in cherry blossoms.
"Akina?" Caden asked, wondering if what he was seeing was really there. He supposed that he could be hallucinating.
"Hi," she supplied, flopping down next to him on the flat roof tiles.
"Why did you dye your hair?"
"I needed to change."
She pulled out her lunch and he did the same. He stared at the cuisine that was inside of his – he'd never get used to his foster family. Ever. He didn't really understand why a personal chef was so necessary for them.
"This isn't some sort of creepy suicidal or homicidal punk phase you're going through, is it?" he asked, glancing at her hair again. Her laughter rang out for a good five minutes before she could answer him. He smiled despite himself, liking the way her hair was twisting around her eyes and her grin.
"No, no," she said. "I'm just becoming who I'm supposed to be."
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Akerou shut his door, trying to ignore the murmured conversation going on in the other room. He knew that his parents were talking about him again; it was always the same tone with them, all quiet and frantic.
He gritted his teeth when he felt that other place returning to him, shutting out his room. He wanted it to stop, stop, stop – hurting him –
The wisp of sand he floated on gave a good bird's-eye view of the lake, a sparkling circle beneath him that seemed to be relatively large. He drifted downwards, listening to the demon shifting in his head as it prepared for a battle. As Gaara got closer and closer, he could make out a robed black figure standing on a sand dune that overlooked the new lake. He looked for any customary red clouds on the cape, even though the Akatsuki had been destroyed, but saw none. He let the cloud of sand carry him to the dune, where it settled. The figure, enclosed in its cape, made no remark.
"You killed my sister," Gaara said, his muscles tensing, his anger rising to the surface. His fingers swiftly ran through the jutsu, the demon roaring in anticipation. Sand gathered around him, encompassing his body, and the demon started to stretch out of its human prison.
Inside the cocoon of sand, Gaara went to sleep.