The Unsung Story of the Inconspicuous
A/N: On behalf of my organisation (me), I would like to apologise for the last chapter. I find it exceedingly difficult to describe fight scenes written by someone else. HOWEVER. The last chapter was designed to be confusing, and I'm delighted to see that I've succeeded! It's going to be made clear. Promise.
Thank you Vanya Starwind.
In this chapter Raiku has a repeated experience, fails utterly to maintain her shinobi person and goes swimming.
I do not own Naruto or any of its characters or affiliates.
The Rookie and non-Rookie teams remained in the clearing in the aftermath, luckily. Raiku had every intention of staying on the tail of Team Asuma, and this large gathering just made it easier to ascertain who had what scrolls.
'Hey, Sakura!' Ino called to her from across the clearing, waving. 'Over here! I'll fix your hair!'
Raiku, much recovered, sat cross-legged on the tree branch with a faint glow and look of deep suspicion. She didn't like this new ability of Sasuke's. The Plot was suspicious and the Chakra was too pointed. This … was trouble.
The wind abruptly died, earning a sigh from Chouji. 'The breeze was nice while it lasted,' he said, rubbing his forehead woefully.
Final sign.
They couldn't be far away now. She wondered if the already aggravated teams would attack Ryuu and Daisukenojo, and decided they deserved it. She'd been skulking around for two days…
'Don't kill me?' someone offered fearfully. Raiku flinched, shuddering at the sound of her own voice. Or, at least an imitation of her own voice. Fake Raiku stepped out of the trees with her hands up in the universal gesture of harmlessness, carefully treading closer to the others.
'Raiku-chan?' Lee blinked, half-rising and easily shoved back down by Tenten. 'What are you doing here?'
Sasuke glared at the girl. 'It's probably a trap- don't be fooled.'
'No! No trap!' the Fake Raiku said hastily. She tried to move one of her raised hands to scratch the back of her head and froze, instantly aware of the numerous weapons pointed at her. 'My… My team and I are moving through the area,' she said cautiously, eyes flicking over the other Genin. 'And they wanted to let you know they weren't hostile… So they sent me, since I've spoken to more of you than they have?'
She ended on a high note, unsure of herself.
Raiku drummed her fingertips on the branch, glowering. They couldn't think this was her! She was… was all wrong! Her eyes were too pale, she was wearing black … somethings instead of wrappings around her shins and her sandals were the wrong colour! Not to mention that her voice was too high pitched and she wasn't smiling out of nervous habit!
All wrong!
'Raiku-chan… can you prove it's you?' Lee asked when it was clear no one was going to take her on her word.
Raiku scowled to herself. Fake Raiku looked uncertain. 'I know that Hyuuga Neji hates me because of my mission to Sand?' she offered.
Raiku knew damn well she'd be more awkward than that, and it only made the situation stick that much worse. She hadn't seen Ryuu and Daisukenojo to indicate this was the point at which they wanted her to strike, and since they would absolutely know where she was by now, that meant she should wait.
'Anyone could find that out,' Neji dismissed. Raiku gave a proud nod. Clearly, anyone could. Go Neji!
Lee shook his head. 'I think she's trying to avoid mentioning what happened on the mission?'
Damn Lee! Damn his misguided attempts to help "Raiku"!
'It… it's sort of embarrassing,' Fake Raiku hedged.
Neji was far too dignified to blush. But he turned his head away. Lee smiled tiredly. 'It's good to see you, Raiku-chan.'
Fake Raiku paused. 'You're… not going to kill me?'
'Too troublesome,' Shikamaru decided, and Raiku's shadow-based favouritism instantly vanished.
Fake Raiku dropped her hands in relief, creasing her eyes warmly. 'Thanks!'
Raiku stared at them in horror, fingers digging so hard into the tree branch that it was beginning to crack. There was no way! That jittering coward had passed their inspection? She was an awkward coward, not a tentative one!
Raiku began to crackle as she fumed.
'So why are you all here in the same place, Lee-kun?' Fake Raiku inquired, stepping closer to him. And that was it. Screw the rendezvous point, screw the final signal! No one gave people the wrong impression of how high they were placed in her affections by use of the wrong mode of address! No one!
Raiku braced her feet on the tree and leaped off, propelled through the air faster than the average projectile and sprinting across the ground so quickly everyone else seemed to be standing still. She flung her arm out and used a move Daisukenojo had taught her, catching the girl's throat with the crook of her elbow. Fake Raiku choked and slammed into the ground as the blur solidified into Raiku, who promptly kicked the fraud.
'That's for using the wrong level of formality!' she said triumphantly, slightly giddy with relief that that had actually worked. 'Don't you people do research? And you,' she said, looking up from Fake Raiku to Lee, currently gaping. 'How could you honestly think this was me? Look at her!'
Lee realised it was futile to try and point out how eerily similar the two were as Raiku pointed at her victim. He stared in helpless shock at both of them, unable to register fully what had happened. 'Her eyes are all wrong! And her clothes! Look at them! Was this illusion made by some sort of colourblind Rookie!?' she demanded. 'And Hyuuga! I expected better from you!'
Neji's eyes, true to form, narrowed slightly. 'I see you failed to find your team.'
'No, I totally found them. Non-sequitur much?' she asked, giving him an odd look. 'This is an illusion that was trying to trick my team that we allowed to infiltrate so that I could incapacitate the one who tried to dispose of me and we could keep an eye on this one, thus lulling the third one that was undoubtedly carrying the scroll into a false sense of security.' She gasped for air, resting her hands on her knees. 'Very long sentence.'
'So where have you been?' Lee asked, blinking owlishly.
'Following Team Asuma. But that's not the point here,' she dismissed. She pointed at the fraud again. 'Look! It's a terrible fake!'
She kicked her again. 'Also? To the selective Byakugan and Sharingan users?' she asked, shooting them both glares. 'The one I caught? Told me this one was a boy! A boy, jerks!'
Neji was, again, too dignified to blush. But there was a suggestion that there could, one day, be some form of colour rising in his face.
Still muttering darkly under her breath, Raiku grabbed the ankles of the fraud and dragged them over to a bush, kicking their arms into the leaves to hide them completely. 'You guys all suck,' she grumbled to herself. 'I no longer respect you, Hyuuga, and I'm very pissed off at you, Lee.'
'We tried to tell if it was you!' Lee ventured.
'I don't care!'
'You set a trap so that someone would set a trap?' Sakura asked, tilting her head slightly. Ino instantly grasped it and put it at the angle she preferred, still wielding her impromptu hairdressing implement.
'Well it's- trap,' she paused, suddenly wearing a hunted look. 'Trap, I know there was something I was meant to remember about a- oh.' She deflated, running a hand through her hair awkwardly. 'Oh, it's been about two days upside-down now. He's… he's definitely dead.'
'Who!?' Naruto exclaimed, finally cluing into the conversation. Raiku severed the wire attached to her fingers, resulting in a large thud moments later.
'No one!' she said hastily. 'Well,' she began awkwardly, taking a slow step back. 'You guys… seem really busy, and I should probably get back to my team…'
'Wait a second, how long have you been following us?!' Ino demanded.
'A while,' Raiku answered evasively. She took another step back.
'How long is "a while"?' Shikamaru asked, fixing her with a shrewd gaze.
'Since dawn,' she replied reluctantly. Her next step took her to the edge of the clearing. 'And on that note-,'
'Raiku,' Ryuu hissed from two inches behind her spine. She shrieked in reflexive terror, lunging several steps forward and spinning around. She clutched her heart, breathing heavily.
'What!? Why did you do that vampire thing again!?'
'You weren't meant to take out the imposter until we gave you the signal,' Ryuu growled, advancing.
'We lost the target,' Daisukenojo added as a sidelong explanation, leaning casually against a tree. 'So he's pretty pissed off. The fake was even more annoying than you are.'
'Thanks, Daisuke,' Raiku said flatly. 'That makes me feel really good about myself.' She backed off as Ryuu approached, yellow eyes burning with rage.
'… Would you like a hug?' she offered nervously, holding out only partially covered arms as she backtracked.
'He's not going to fall for it, toaster!' Daisukenojo called. 'Run!'
'Got it!' Raiku nodded fearfully, turning on her heel and promptly vanishing.
Ryuu froze, slowly turning his head back towards Daisukenojo. Daisukenojo shrugged unrepentantly. 'She was going to run anyway. How was I supposed to know she'd gotten better at using that kind of running?'
Ryuu growled and turned back, hands already forming a quick sequence of hand seals. 'I'll slow her down, you catch up,' he said over his shoulder. He paused before making the final seal, nodding to the current, stunned, occupants of the clearing. 'I apologise.'
He formed the last seal and vanished as though he'd been blown away by the sudden wind, which he technically had.
Daisukenojo shifted awkwardly under the intense scrutiny of the Genin still there, realising he'd yet again drawn the short straw. 'So… How's the Exam been?'
'Why does this keep happening to me?' Raiku lamented, currently dangling by one foot over a large, beautiful lake. The lake sparkled in the light, casting wavering reflections onto her and Ryuu's faces. Reeds shifted gently in the breeze on the sandy banks, disturbed slightly by the current of the river feeding the lake. 'I try to be a nice person. I've never killed anyone on purpose. I help little old ladies across the road.'
Ryuu sat on the grass next to the water, enjoying the breeze he'd generated. 'So,' he said, without opening his eyes. 'What have we learned?'
'I should definitely never try to hug you,' she said firmly. She screamed as the wire holding her up dropped her several inches. 'Never deviate from the plan!'
'Very good,' he smiled thinly. 'What else?'
'Don't run!?' she tried.
She dropped a few more inches. She raised her arms to protect her face, shaking.
'Right,' he said coolly.
'If I answered right then why did you still drop me!?' she screamed.
'Because you made me chase you.'
'I'm not going to fall for your stupid teleportation trap next time!' she snarled, glaring at him. 'You'll never catch me again!'
Ryuu tilted his head, opening his eyes a sliver. A yellow… ominous sliver.
She dropped abruptly, stopping only when the water grazed her hair. She could smell the damp breeze flitting lightly across the surface, the earthy smell so much like rain. She could feel the cooler air rising off it, and trembled so violently the wire started jerking on the branch.
'I will always catch you,' Ryuu said, looking at her intensely. 'Do you understand me?'
Too petrified to speak, she nodded, screwing her eyes shut.
He tilted his head again. 'Why are you so frightened of water?' he inquired.
'C-can't… swim,' she forced out, trying and failing to curl into a ball.
'That's not the only reason.' His fingers toyed with the wire threateningly.
'I can't turn the… thing off and it reacts badly to water!' she blurted out, wrapping her arms around herself and trying desperately to pretend she was somewhere else.
'How badly?'
'Very very very badly!'
'How much can you generate and for how long?'
'As much as I like, indefinitely! Also, as much as I don't want to, indefinitely!'
His eyebrows shot up. 'That's impressive.'
'Please don't drop me in there!' she wailed.
Ryuu looked at her for a while, not bothering to look away at Daisukenojo when he appeared, red-faced and out of breath.
'God, Ryuu, asshole much?' he asked dubiously, staring at Raiku's violently shaking form. 'How'd you catch her?'
'Lightning will always take the path of least resistance,' he said unhelpfully.
'Water's a good conductor,' Daisukenojo grinned. 'But toaster! We have good news for you!'
'….What…?' she asked weakly.
'We found the hidden scroll!'
'Oh… That's… that's nice…'
'And it's in this lake! We were going to ignore it and just go for what we had set up, but now that you're back do you think you'd like to get it for us?'
'No,' Ryuu interrupted before she could speak, getting to his feet. 'Not without a chakra net,' he specified, easily destroying Raiku's hopes. 'If you can make one good enough to keep her contained, we send her in.'
Daisukenojo cracked his knuckles. 'No problem.'
'Please don't drop me, please don't drop me,' Raiku repeated as a mantra, unable to bear opening her eyes and seeing the water. 'Please don't drop me.'
'How about some trust?' Daisukenojo asked, offended. 'You're hurting my feelings here.'
'Chakra net, if you please,' Ryuu sighed.
'I don't see why I should help you,' Daisukenojo muttered, spreading his hands. 'You left me alone to deal with those bastards…'
'I thought you had a crush on Tenten?'
Daisukenojo froze, the fine, spreading mesh of chakra halting in the middle of its creation.
'I'm not blind,' Ryuu said by way of explanation.
Daisukenojo flushed scarlet. 'Tell anyone and I'll kill you,' he muttered, resuming work.
'I want that net so fine not even a hair gets free,' Ryuu specified. 'Accomplish that and your secret's safe.'
'Sneakiest bastard… ever.'
'I have to agree!' Raiku called, trying to make herself disappear.
'It's done,' Daisukenojo announced, holding in his hands something that, for all intents and purposes, nearly invisible. He handed it to Ryuu, who stepped onto the surface of the lake towards Raiku, quickly and efficiently shrouding her in it.
'Please don't drop me,' she whimpered again.
'It's in the exact middle of the lake, wearing the same kind of mesh as you to keep it dry,' Ryuu commented. 'If you can't swim, I advise you hold your breath, sink to the bottom and walk.' He severed the cord.
It was a testament to Daisukenojo's truly formidably skill that as Raiku splashed into the water, there was no surge of electricity. It was a testament to Raiku's subconscious trust of Ryuu that she immediately let herself sink to the bottom, despite the liquid, terrifying cool of the water. She held her nose closed with her fingers, eyes squinting through the gloom to try and see the scroll. She could hear her heart beating so quickly it was like one continuous noise.
She found herself a new mantra as she forced a foot forward towards where she guessed the middle of the lake was.
I hate Ryuu. I hate Ryuu. I hate Ryuu.
She stretched her fingers out nervously, groping along the floor for the scroll. Dirt billowed up in front of her face to complete the sensation of suffocation and to add to her claustrophobia as the mesh stretched over her skin.
I hate Ryuu so much…
After a short while of false hope and rocks, her lungs started to burn. She froze in terror. She was underwater.
It finally struck her. She was blinded momentarily by electricity pouring out of her skin and encountering the mesh, struggling free and distorting the shape but unable to break it in her terrified state. Her fingers closed on something smooth- success!
Please let it be success, she prayed, raising her hand to her face. The Heaven scroll sat innocently in her palm, as though it weren't causing her all this trouble.
She sagged in relief, inadvertently allowing bubbles of air to escape.
Wait.
Her eyes widened.
Now how the hell was she supposed to get out!?
A/N:Hopefully it's become slightly clearer. If it wasn't- the scene in the last chapter with Raiku and Ryuu/Daisukenojo was the Fake Raiku. Everything else was the real Raiku. They set it up so that a team following them would have the chance to put an imposter in their ranks. Raiku allowed the imposter to take her place, taking care of the person who was sent to make sure she didn't ruin the other team's plan. She then went a different way to ensure the Fake didn't sense her, confident that Daisukenojo would be able to sense her. The signals were designed to let her know how far away they were.
Reviews:
anonymous yay: Thank you for picking that up, it has been corrected! As well as something else that was bothering me. Thanks for pointing it out! I really hate the Forest of Death, and apologise if that comes across in any other aspect of my writing.
envysXsin: I'll update as much as I please! I apologise for the fight scenes. While very visually interesting, they didn't translate well (I didn't translate them well).
M&M: I'm sorry! I've put an explanation above. The entire chapter was the real Raiku except for the scene with Ryuu and Daisukenojo. The chapter was meant to be confusing in order to reflect the confusing nature of the actuul events, but I definitely see where the problem is. If you need further explanation, please let me know.
