The Unsung Story of the Inconspicuous

A/N: The shortest chapter of this story, by far! Ahahaha. Thanks to my beta, the lovely Vanya Starwind.

I do not own Naruto or any of its characters or affiliates.


'So the bastard finally went home?' Daisukenojo asked, sitting cross legged at the head of his bed, oxygen mask exchanged for a thin tube taped under his nose. Raiku, sitting in a similar fashion on the other end, nodded and put down a four of Hearts from the half-deck of cards in her hands.

'He said he'd had just about enough of us in the past two days,' she sighed, laying down four cards grudgingly as he put down a king. Daisukenojo collected the cards up and added them to the bottom of his own half-deck, smirking faintly. The effect was somewhat ruined by the faint wheeze that made her want to hand him some sort of cough medicine. 'That,' she admitted. 'And I may have burnt his hair. A little.'

Daisukenojo snorted in amusement, resulting in her immediate flush. 'Stop laughing at me!' she scolded, sending a card flicking through the air to hit him in the face. 'It was an accident! And then he had the nerve to trip me over when I tried to run! I hate it when he does that!'

It was impossible for him to be able to catch her. And he always, always did. Each time she took a step to flee he would know, and not even perfect speed would stop the air from seizing around her legs, withholding from her lungs or from her own power dragging her into one of his traps.

He always caught her.

She'd known he would the moment he'd said it. Ryuu never lied. He bent the truth and he evaded it masterfully, viewing it only as a picture that could be deconstructed for easy subterfuge. If he could be persuaded to talk for long enough it was possible to see the pieces of the truth and how they fit together, with him sitting in the middle in his web of almost-lies. It was the one weakness he refused to part with. He never lied.

She put down a jack and won the pile, tucking it in place under her own thin stack with a quiet smile. Daisukenojo groaned, looking mournfully at the cards. 'There go my aces,' he muttered ruefully.

Raiku flashed the jack of Spades and a wide grin. 'One jack can win the game.'

'You always cling to that card,' he said, rolling his eyes. 'It's the one card I can never win off you.'

She shrugged carelessly, shuffling her cards. 'I have an affinity with Spades,' she said easily, putting down a miscellaneous number card. 'They're my thing.'

'You know they symbolise death?' Daisukenojo asked dryly, putting down a queen of Diamonds.

Raiku smiled faintly, producing (to his profound disgust), yet another jack. 'Yeah, well,' she said eventually, gathering the cards up. 'I'm not really suited to the red suits.'

'Why?' he asked, producing his own jack of Hearts, the only jack he'd managed to keep, and placing it over her jack of Spades, so close to victory he could smell it.

She shrugged, drawing a queen of Clubs out and placing it casually over his jack of Hearts, as though she hadn't just ruined his best chance of winning. 'Red's not my colour.' She looked up briefly, smiling at him. 'Though, red suits you, Daisuke.'

He rolled his eyes. 'Ha ha,' he said, perfectly droll. 'Enough with the hair jokes.'

She just smiled, picking up the last few cards and shuffling the completed deck. 'Again?' she offered.

'What are you playing?' Ryuu asked from where he leaned against the doorframe, a piece of grass casually sticking out of his mouth and hands tucked into his pockets. He'd gone and changed his clothes and obviously showered, hair and skin still slightly damp. She wondered if his mother minded how infrequently he came home.

'Beat your neighbour,' Raiku said, holding up the deck. 'Would you like to play?'

'What do I get if I win?' he asked, narrowing his eyes shrewdly.

'You won't win,' Daisukenojo snorted, breaking into a brief fit of coughing. 'She always wins.'

'Oh?' he asked with an arrogant tilt of his head. She smiled at him cheerfully, pulling a card from the middle of the deck and turning it over to reveal her beloved jack of Spades. Without tragic romance and fraught character arcs, Gairano had a lot of time for card tricks. And scrabble.

'Pretty much,' she said, still smiling. Ryuu just looked at her for a moment, and for a brief and uncomfortable second she felt oddly ill at ease but for the card in her hand, before he grabbed the chair she had been using previously, turning it to straddle it backwards and resting his arms on the top.

'Hurry up and deal,' he said, looking at her too directly for her to really be comfortable. She nodded obligingly, shuffling the cards again.

'Which suits suit Ryuu, toaster?' Daisukenojo asked, resting his chin on his hand, watching her fingers with a bored expression. She knew he found the whole hospital stay idea to be so incredibly dull that he'd considered escaping, hence the card games.

She glanced over at Ryuu, watching her through heavy lidded golden eyes, chin resting on his arms. Oh, Ryuu was red. Raiku wasn't the expected black sheep, but these two were mostly definitely red. Even if they weren't Main Characters, they still had the potential to get involved. They were still there, they were still part of things.

She smiled. 'Red. But he's more Diamonds than you are.' Ryuu had sharper edges.

But they were both still so very, very red. Gairano were black. The most unlikely of black sheep. Ironically also the colour of Plots, which her family treated as one enormous inside joke.

Daisukenojo scowled. 'Are you saying he's worth more!?'

'No!' she denied hastily.

'So he's worth less,' Daisukenojo smirked.

'No!' she exclaimed, leaning away from the glaring Ryuu. 'He's just different! Different! Stop putting words in my mouth!'

Daisukenojo puffed his chest out with masterfully concealed difficulty. 'Yeah! Totally worth more than Ryuu! Thanks, toaster!'

Raiku lunged forward, dragged back by Ryuu by her underarms. She dug her hands into the blanket to stop him from pulling her towards him, murder written on his face. 'Stop framing me!'

Daisukenojo just laughed as Ryuu started to- cheerfully, as he no longer bothered to hide his tendencies as a sadist- strangle her.


'So why is it?' Mura asked, sitting next to her on the wall as the sun began to set. The wind carried the sweet air to her nose and she inhaled obligingly, wondering why the air was always clearer on the walls of the Compound, sitting next to the child who ruined her life. 'Why is it red doesn't suit you?'

She never had gotten the joke. From what she'd heard, Mura had never gotten a lot of things.

Raiku shrugged as the wind ruffled her hair, sending small, brief sparks from the rough strands.

'Because you can't suit both.'

'And I?' Mura asked.

'I guess that means you suit red, Mura,' Raiku said simply, as the sky faded to dark purple behind them and dark red before them. Mura wasn't like them, not really. That was the problem.

'And you?'

'I suit black.'

'What does that mean?' Mura pressed.

'It means,' Raiku said eventually, as the first stars began to quietly glow in the sky above them. 'That one day… I'll probably kill you.'

'Will you kill your red teammates? For that and all this?' Mura asked, letting her head fall back so she could look at the stars. She still hated them. Raiku supposed she could understand that.

Raiku shook her head, smiling faintly.

'Why?'

Raiku's eyes traced the last dregs of sunlight as they flickered out of life on the horizon, ignoring the stars. She'd seen enough in the skies of the Wind Country, where Mura would never go. 'Probably because…' she said eventually. 'They'll kill me first if it comes to it.'

'Because you're a Gairano and they aren't?' Because they could be part of the story, and she couldn't?

Raiku shrugged.

Mura's head fell forward, eyes bearing the same hunted expression they had worn when Raiku had first found and retrieved her. 'Because we're expendable,' she told her quietly, bitterly. 'We're poison.'

Raiku shot her a wry grin, eyes flashing in the fading light. Red. Black. Mura really had never gotten the joke.

'Play cards with me?'


A/N: Yes it's different. Stop giving me evil looks.

Reviews:

envysXsin: Wrought; bringing people together accidentally. x3 Thank you for telling me that, it's awesome. I tragically require sustenance from my real life in order to continue, but this short of a chapter isn't a result, it's actually because this was the longest I could make it without convoluting what I wanted to get across. Thank you for reviewing! (Also, that moment where you blushed and everyone stared? That's how Raiku feels allllll the time.)

Blinkin: It is the worst nightmare of a Gairano. They're also the 'faceless ninja' that get mowed down by main characters, so it's also the most expensive nightmare they have. Other than Naruto, of course. The idea of Gaara is one I've been discussing with my beta... the agreed result is Raiku running, shrieking, through the streets saying: 'The power of obscurity compels you! THE POWER OF OBSCURITY COMPELS YOU!' So... since I love tormenting her, it's a possibility. Thanks for reviewing.

Impatiens Psittacina: I've gone to the DocX part of the user area and proposed a connection, if you accept it I'll send the doc through. It doesn't spoil anything, promise. Thanks for reviewing.