Nari loves the rain.

She loves the way it wraps through the forest and splashes down in great hurdling droplets that reach out and dance with her like the sky is crying and melancholy.

She loves the gentle mist that blankets the world and holds it softly in a dew that gets into everything and drips like beads off her hair and clothes.

She loves the ferocity of thunderstorms, of screaming with the sudden noise and knowing no one can hear her over the top of the drowning, deafening sound and blinding light.

It's raining now and Nari is out in it, fighting off that certain bubble of a giddy laugh that's building up in her throat as a certain type of euphoria usually only associated with sex rolls its way around her chest. She runs in it, leaps over soggy branches that glower at her in her wake, not understanding the primal, animalistic joy of a human-demon in the rain. She is a blitz of motion, an unchecked blur racing over the bright emerald green of the wet world, the birds stop in their grumbling to watch her pass infected by her joy for only a moment. Some will peep a warning at her, others will remain silent in wonder.

She leaps through the forest, knows that it will rain for hours in the underbrush long after the clouds have stopped crying and moved on. It is only fair then, that when she reaches her lake, her world, she leaps into the clear blue water with a grin and not bothering to remove her clothes. They are soaked anyway, and what's a little weight when it comes to swimming in this water?

She hovers underneath the surface, watching with curiosity the patterns the ripples make as the rain strikes the water and disrupts its beauty, its grace, it's everything. The silver-rainbow of a trout flashes to her right and she pays it no heed as her ribcage, a bubble of oxygen brings her back up to the surface and she expels the water up her nose with a mighty sneeze. It's power, is what the rain is. Power.

Yet you know one who has never danced on the surface of a lake in a moonless night while rain pours over your shoulders in an intricate embrace, don't you little fox? You know one who sees only desert, that hungry land surrounded by mountains and crying out for what little cloud that comes. You don't understand it, don't understand that longing, for even though your country is fire, your spirit will always be water and joy and forever clashing with that of the being within you. Your water is the balance to his fire, your yin to his yang, yet you don't believe in balance. Only chaos, only chaos.

Nari sits on top of the water, looking up into the clouded sky. The rain stopped hours ago and now she is wondering why the clouds look so angry that they can't go where they're needed.

It seems like such a long time ago, but in reality it's only six months that the redhead payed his last visit to the village. He's haunting, strange, and yet beautiful in his own way, with black rings around his eyes that will never go away, not even with the makeup she nicked from Sakura's bag and thickly applied over them. They still peeked through, but he looked more normal.

It wasn't a good look. She wiped the shit off with a frown and he wondered why. He let her touch him, let her hold him, let her do things to him that he wouldn't even have let his sister do, just because she was like him in the end. She brought something out in him, something to the surface that scared her and intoxicated her at the same time. It took her a month to realise that he was acting human, longer to figure out she didn't like that. He wasn't human, neither of them were which was probably why they were drawn together into that mess that ended horribly and left them not talking to each other.

Well, left her not talking to him. He never talked anyway, and she was sure it was a good thing. The whole affair was messy and ended nastily, but they had a few laughs along the way. Like the day after they agreed to the shenanigan she wore his sand headband because he never did and hid hers in her room. She wondered how many people would notice, but none of them did, instead choosing not to comment on the fact that the demon was wearing her headband like that pink girl today, and whilst trying to figure out if it was a statement or a cry for acceptance, they walked off into the distance, not noticing it wasn't a leaf band at all.

She had laughed with him about it after, but secretly it had always hurt.

Nari had had many crushes in her time, and had long since decided that she liked the company of both males and females to an equal degree. Her first crush was Sakura, and she still played the front, even though now the girl annoyed her to the point of screaming and she had held in her interests many others. She always accounted it down to the fact of her longing to be male, too strongheadded for flowers and those allergic to pollen like she was knew exactly the agony she went through while flower arranging.

The forest had never minded her though, and the flowers were kind, if they made her sneeze they apologised immediately. The forest was hers, her family, her friends, all she could ever need besides that rickety old town that stifled her and smothered her with its leers. She would leave if she wouldn't become a missing nin, because Sasuke would never forgive her for that.

"Uzumaki! Uzumaki!" Spiral! Spiral the forest calls, but it's not the voice of the forest that yells her last name and she sits on the water as he springs into view, the moon peeking weakly out of the clouds and shining on his pale skin. Sasuke is not perfect, far from it, with limp black hair and a panicked and almost wild look about him as he frets for her. He sees her sitting on the surface of the lake, soaked and bedraggled and like a stray dog that was kicked by the man who took it in. She turns her back on him with a huff, and that's all the apology he needs for worrying him so because at least she's safe.

Of course she's safe, the forest is hers. Her oldest friend and closest brother, but he can't see that, he's too blind to see the connection that the old fox has called out of her, her need to be in the water when it rains, and to dance on top of it when it's dry, but there's storms about and that lingering scent of ozone in the air. He can't bring himself to apologise, though he knows that that is what it will take to get her to turn around and come back with him, come back with him out of the forest and home.

Look at him, you cheeky blighter, look at the way he pines for you and wants to hold himself ever just that little bit above you. But he doesn't have that training and that certain air you do and he just knows you're better than him. He knows it deep down that he can never compete to you. That's why he doesn't try anymore. That's why he let you convince him that day up there on the lake with the statues and you and him going at it like a pair of old dogs after a three day old bone that smells bad and is the perfect prize.

Shut up! Nari hisses inside her head and turns to face the cold uncaring smirk that is the Sasuke, bastard that he is. He's not going to apologise, she can see that immediately in the eyes and the way he holds himself, the way he expects an apology from her for running off like that.

She's not going to either and they should both give up and forgive the other before the rift grows deeper and they loose trust and power. "Uzumaki."

"Nari." She replies, reminding him of her name. Nari for Naruto, the ramen flower and the powerful whirlpools which wrap around out there somewhere she's never seen and probably never will. Nari for Naruto.

He glares at her. "Uzumaki. Kakashi is worried and wants you back." He'll never admit he's worried, the cold bastard, and she doesn't expect him to.

Nari shakes her head at him. "Give me the rest of the night. I'll be back come morning." He's used to it, her frequent visitations to the forest in the way, and he can't dispute the way she lives, though the tight frown on his lips suggests he might like to.

"You're going home now, Uzumaki, you bitch. And you'll damn well get some sleep tonight."

She stands on the water, aware of the moon in her hair and her clothes dripping. The night chill eats at her but it makes her feel alive and ready to run, but she knows he'll catch her, he always does in the end. It's an eternal game and she knows they'll always play it and he'll always win.

Meekly she follows him while a fox snarls in its den.

She sits there in the freshly laundered tank top and a baggy pair of sweatpants all too aware of the fact that they're trying to convince her not to go running off to the forest every time it rains, but they don't understand, and it's not their fault but certainly their own doing. She tries not to think about the forest and the perpetual drips raining down through it, startling insects into flight as they attempt to find a shelter.

She wonders why she lets them do this to her.

Sakura presents Nari with a cup of hot cocoa and the blonde takes a tentative sip, the sweet liquid sliding down the back of her throat and pooling in her belly as the heat of it sends fire crackling through her veins. It won't be long before the girl leaves, Nari thinks, Kakashi will follow her and Sasuke will stay a few minutes more on some flimsy excuse before he gives up on her and leaves to his own deserted part of town where he lives with the ghosts of those who were once his tribe.

Then Nari will train. It's all so simple, so routine.

They'll leave and she will train, while they attempt to dream.

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A/n: HI everyone. Sorry this took so long, and I swear this fic will get better with time, it's just important mumbo-jumbo now that's going to confuse you for a bit.

But I swear everything will be explained!

Anyways, leave a review for a hungry authoress? -rattles a little tin-