Title: Fighter
Fandom: Naruto
Pairing: Implied Hayate/Yuugao
Rating: PG
Word Count: 303
Summary/Description: It takes a certain measure of control to stand at the cenotaph each day and not let her anger erupt, not let the tears flow; to keep fighting.
Warning/Spoilers: Er… none, unless you consider knowing Yuugao's name a spoiler. Warning-wise… it's probably OOC as hell, and whatever writing prowess I used to have seems to be dwindling into nothing these days. /
A/N: Written for akiomoi's weekly challenge. Prompt: Fighter, by Bird3. This was the best I could come up with, I'm afraid, and it rather sucks. / It's centred on Yuugao, or, as most of us probably know her as, the Purple-Haired-ANBU-Chick. And yes, I named it Fighter, because my unoriginality is so more than my creativity.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Stop gloating, Kishimoto.
It takes a certain measure of control to stand at the cenotaph each day and not let her anger erupt like the volcano simmering within her.
But, above all, Yuugao commands control, and the reign she has on her emotions has seldom faltered. She yokes them to impassivity, harnesses them to guardedness.
She talks to Hayate sometimes, with soft, soft words; sometimes she cannot even hear herself, and she does not think she wants to. She misses him more than she is certainly allowed to. Shinobi live and die for their village and their fellowmen in an irreversible cycle, and ninja are taught from young that this is a cycle that they do not fight.
This doesn't stop her from wanting to drive a kunai into that smug Sand-nin every time she sees him, and quell that infuriating half-smirk.
She almost wishes she could break; wishes that she were fragile enough to shatter under the pain and the loneliness. But Yuugao always fights, to the grimy end; she knows little else.
"I still miss you," she says quietly, gloved fingers tracing the grooves and curves of his name on the memorial. Moisture threatens the cocoa brown of her eyes; it is dashed away ruthlessly. She does not want tears to ruin these precious few moments when they can be alone together.
This privacy is always transitory however, and soon, she recognises the thrumming chakra signature of her subordinate advancing rapidly. Moments later, she hears his soft footfall as he drops to the ground. His voice is urgent and insistent when he says,
"Yuugao-san, it is time."
Her fingers caress his name one more time before she rises to her feet, fitting her mask over her face, obscuring her pain-streaked features. Impassivity and control take precedence, and once again, she is a fighter.
"Aa."
A/N: Review? 'Twould be nice to know what you think.