Vulnerability is a sin
By: aragon asten
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…She stood beside the faded tombstone.
All around her, the winds blew and wailed in the darkness, and the clouds shone ominously, with hints of a storm.
Standing there in the center of the open field, she was an easy target for the flashes of lightning. Flashes of lightning that could reduce her body to ash and dust.
But she didn't stir.
She didn't move.
Except for those long, dark tresses flying freely in the wind, her body was frozen. And standing there, she largely resembled a cold statue, a symbol, a picture, a shadow of something that was once human, but has now lost all traces of its humanity save perhaps, by the sad tilt of the mouth and the hard glint of its eyes.
The winds rolled on, and one strong gale blew a sharp blast over the deserted courtyard. The sun in the horizon was now dying beneath the gray-fleeced clouds. Its red blood fingers were trying to hold unto the last vestiges of the morning, while here, the gale reduced everything to a disturbing, whirling confusion of dust.
Everything was quiet.
She was quiet, so very quiet. And this silence reigned over this piece of land.
Suddenly, the sky was rent by a great flash of lightning.
It cracked in the air, close, but not close enough. The air cracked and groaned under the onslaught of thunder.
The sun finally died and all light faded beneath the shadows.
Save for the twinkling city lights in the distance, the place was reduced to dusk.
And at last, the cold, forbidding figure stirred.
She was human now. All that was left of the hard edges of her glance, had sunk under the gloom of her chocolate-colored irises, and the only thing that remained was an anguished sort of misery as she stood there, her hair swaying-not anymore forbidding, but instead just a forlorn creature of the dark.
She blinked, once, twice. The dust got into her eyes, and they stung.
She blinked once more, and more, until tears filled her eyes, and one drop was threatening to fall from her lashes.
She sighed.
Falling down on her knees before the piece of stone, she sighed once again, a little sound full of unhappiness. She sighed once more, and it was now a sigh of regret.
She bowed her head down low. One hand-heavily needing bandages and medication-reached out to touch the faded inscriptions on the epitaph. The wounded fingers grew irritated under the rough touch, and one raw cut, opened under the pressure of her fingers. From its red tips, one finger traced its weathered surface, and stained it with blood.
She twitched. The pain from her injuries, made her look up.
And she did. With glazed eyes, she looked at the faded words. She leaned over, very close, until her lips were nearly pressed against the stone. She closed her eyes, and very slowly, her lips moved across it, tracing letters that had long ago faded in history, but were long ago etched in her heart.
Beloved…
She stopped. As if fighting with some inner emotion, she let out a small tremble. Then, she let out a small little sigh.
She wouldn't let herself go crying. She refused to let the tears fall. Instead, she would just continue letting her heart cry vainly, just as it had done for many years before…
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Neji shot Tenten a glance of pure infuriation.
He was wet, dirty, injured, and sitting under the meager shelter of the old, rundown and closed doors of a ramen store somewhere, while the rain blasted drops upon him making wetter than he had ever been.
And all of it was her fault.
If she hadn't run from the hospital, and wandered over here, he wouldn't have followed her-wouldn't have exhausted himself for her. If she hadn't done that, he would have already been home now, in bed, sleeping or perhaps training about something he was going to train about tomorrow.
But he wasn't.
And to top it off, they were now both stranded in this inferior shelter, all because she stubbornly refused to go anywhere without her umbrella, and stubbornly refused to go with him, before she had fixed the damn thing, which she said, he had allegedly destroyed. But of course, he didn't.
The only thing he did was grab it form her, a while ago, just to show her the proper way to hold an umbrella, and not like the stupid, incorrect way she used. But of course, that wasn't her way. That obstinate kunoichi didn't even trust his judgment! So they ended up having a tug-of-war, by which she attempted to knee him in the groin, while he evaded her, and launched a chakra attack meant to disable her arms, while he tried to grab the damn thing. This continued for about ten minutes, until they finally discovered that their chakra expulsions had reduced the umbrella to its now ruined state.
But of course, it wasn't his fault. It was all Tenten's.
Tenten and her stupid obstinacy.
He sighed in frustration as he stole a glance at the girl beside him-that girl who was trying to fix that damn umbrella, while maintaining a constant barrage of insolent mutterings, which mostly consisted of a huge amount of profanity and occasionally, his name.
He sighed once again.
He shouldn't be doing this. He shouldn't have been trying to cope with those insults she constantly threw at him, while the rain made a puddle at his feet. In fact, he shouldn't even be here. He shouldn't be lying here in the worst of all conditions, tired, dirty, incapacitated and angry as hell.
All of it was her fault-all of it.
All because he went all the way in the finding that stupid excuse for a ninja, worrying that she was lying in some ditch somewhere, when all the while she was just wandering around the streets of Konoha, off to God-knows-where.
God he was angry…
He hated her so damn much that moment, that right now every cell inside his aching body was urging him to strike her in some place vulnerable, and watch her bleed-bleed! In fact, his hand was slowly inching now, behind her back, curling up, and threatening.
But just as soon, as it did, he finally caught himself.
Their little argument had used up all of his remaining chakra. And frankly, even if he wanted to, he wouldn't have had the strength to do something about it.
Also, knowing Tenten, she immediately counter attack if he managed to inflict damage upon the slightest portion of her body. No. That was wrong.
She wouldn't just make a counter attack. She'd definitely raise hell.
And just as much as he hated the thought of it, he couldn't do anything about it, not even evade a single attack.
Because he was so tired… so damn tired…
He looked at her again, and then sighed. He sighed, because he hated Tenten for all those reasons. And he sighed because he hated himself for being the stupid genin that he is.
Letting out into that small sigh, all the frustrations he felt, he looked away into the darkness, from whence the raindrops fell.
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…The night was cold.
The air was stale. Every thing was quiet.
Perhaps, even the beating of his own heart.
Because it felt nothing…
Every part… Everywhere…
The dusk seemed to invade across every corner of his soul…
He felt nothing…death…pain…anguish…
nothing…
Everything that he had felt in the four years he had lived in this world, seemed to collide with each other in the gloom, and the only thing that remained was the void, and the darkness, and the pain that he felt.
Nothing
Nothing seemed to matter anymore, except this pain and this betrayal, and the questions-Why?
Guilt… He felt the searing drip of acid guilt burn across his throat, across every part of his body. For what?
Why was he guilty?
For being himself?
For being the person he was born to be?!
Why? Why?
Nothing…
Nothing. The only thing that remained was the look in the eyes of those who were supposed to protect him-but failed… Those of sadness, of hurt, of pain… of the deep rush of guilt, at his vulnerability, at the desperate look in his eyes, which trusted so much, so damn much. But he was betrayed, and wounded and lost, and now slowly losing every ounce of hope…
Nothing…
Only that look remained…
And also, that face in the mirror…
Of blood,
burnt flesh
and betrayal…
and that weak look in his eyes.
A look he will try to hide forever…
… Since eight years ago…
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He blinked.
A drop had fallen on his nose, breaking his silent reverie.
He glanced beside him.
Tenten was still there. She was still muttering strange inanities, and swearwords, loudly expressing her displeasure, and the rage she felt towards him. She didn't look him in the eye, of course.
She just kept on talking, and talking, and talking…
He looked at her intensely for a second, and, before long, he noticed the swift side-glance she did at the corner of her eye.
Towards him.
He inwardly grinned to himself.
That was Tenten.
She knew that those words wouldn't affect him, but rather, she was exhausting every air that came out of her lungs knowing that the constant barrage of noise would infuriate him much more.
But just at the moment, he was amused at it.
Strangely enough, after hating her for about the last four hours, he was suddenly amused at the way she was acting.
Or rather, he was intrigued with her.
Hyuuga Neji was suddenly seeing the female kunoichi in a different light.
In a space of a few hours, he unexpectedly, found out that he practically knew nothing about her…nothing.
The day after yesterday, she was just his teammate of two years, then before that, a classmate of many more years.
Back then, she was just the plain girl who never failed to train with him-rain, shine, whatever, or, just that girl who'd always try to bear with Rock Lee's folishness when he'd just usually like to pummel him to bits.
Or that girl who always offered him her instant ramen for lunch, or that ninja who always liked to compete with him or the girl who hated dark apartments or the girl who…
She had been a silent part of his life for most of it, and he knew almost everything she did day to day…
But she was different. And he never knew it.
He never knew this side of her, none of it. He knew nothing of this side of hers who grinned in such a way that affected him somehow, rather strangely. Or the way, she laughed at him, looked at him or that picture she painted the day before, when she fainted in his arms.
Most especially that.
In fact, that was what bothered him truly.
Never in his life had he imagined seeing strong, capable, and cold Tenten, painting a portrait of utter defeat, and sadness, hopelessness, and blatant vulnerability.
He couldn't understand it-couldn't comprehend what it meant.
It disturbed him, so much-that picture, that stupid, freakish afternoon.
Why?
He tried to reason it all out.
Why?
Nothing came out.
Except the vision of two pale eyes staring at him, with the same bleak desperation.
He blinked.
It reminded him of something that happened four years ago.
He blinked again.
That was it. It reminded him of something else he was trying hard to bury deep. He inwardly shook his head. He wouldn't remember it.
Not for the price of the world.
But all the same, the Tenten of today, drove him nuts.
With all that she'd been acting, he was slowly turning him into a whackjob. In a space of a few minutes, his mood had changed.
In a space of a few hours his emotions had gone into a rollercoaster ride of anger, worry, uncertainty… Damn it! He felt so damn much he didn't even dare to think what he would start to feel next.
Good Lord, he was going to be a nutcase.
And it was all her fault.
He sighed. All he ever did was to think. Aside from training endlessly, the only thing he did was to brood all day long. He was suddenly tired of it.
He sighed.
That was foolish… He didn't have any thing else to do.
He really was getting crazy…
And it was all Tenten's fault.
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A/N: Okay… that was weird… That was a bit slow… I think I this have this tendency to distort the emotions of my characters because, well, that was what I frequently do to myself.
And here, I wanted to change the mood of the scene, different from last chapter (if you still remember , considering how far back I last updated…) and at the same time, give a foreshadow of what was going to later happen in chapter-dang!!
I think I almost gave it a way… But I think I'm not going to delete that statement 'cause I figured I'd give you a hint.
I promise I'll update soon!
Oh! And I promise to put a little more action, and fluff next time…
I know you people like that kind of romantic…thing…
BTW, bakutiku… here is the pov you longed for…
I planned it even before you asked for it. It's just that I'm sorry that it took me almost a month to fulfill.
But for all sorts of excuses I leave to my profile to clarify.
And the rest? To hell with the rest…