The Unsung Story of the Inconspicuous

A/N: Whoa boy, are you guys gonna hate me. I don't own Naruto or any of its characters or affiliates, and I am in no way profiting from this representation.

Short chapter, I'm afraid.


'We're not moving,' her father denied flatly. He stood at the foot of her hospital bed with his arms folded stubbornly across his lean chest, giving her a cold glare.

Raiku looked at him pleadingly, beseeching, and not least because he kept smacking the backs of her hands away from her bandages. Her open injuries had reached the "it itches because it's healing" stage and she had very little impulse control. 'But it's following me!' Her eyes, she reflected, weren't the best for this.

She widened them anyway, sticking out her lower lip, for all the good it'd do under the mask-the fucking mask- she pulled herself up short. Her father frowned in grudging concern as she cringed. 'Something wrong?'

'I can't stay here,' she begged, clasping long, bandaged hands together. 'Please, I can't! I'm starting to not like my mask and getting angsty about it and thinking about boys and nothing's,' she gestured vaguely at herself, 'acting up so I think I'm in danger, dad, and I want to go home!' she ended on a sob for good measure.

He stared at her like she was an emotional time bomb. Rather than the literal one he was used to dealing with. He leaped into action the second her eyes started shining, pretty much clambering over to her side and putting a hand on hers, seating himself gingerly on the edge of the bed. 'Raiku,' he said with equal parts reassurance and borderline hysteria. 'Raiku, honey, don't cry.' He patted her hand uncertainly after a pause.

She sniffed pathetically, pulling her other hand up to carefully try and dispel the moisture. Mostly because it could have disastrous consequences, but also because it was undignified. 'I'm not crying,' she muttered. Gairanos didn't cry.

Neither did shinobi, she reminded herself belatedly.

'Look, Raiku,' he said gently, awkwardly, shifting slightly. 'Everything's going to be alright. We can take care of this,' he stressed, leaning forward slightly. 'There's a large event coming up,' he said, dropping his voice and looking to the door cautiously.

Raiku nodded desperately. That could be handy.

'So we're about to lose… a lot of people,' he hedged.

She nodded again, listening intently.

He winced. 'And in your condition…'

Her blood ran cold, her heart stopped. 'Dad?' she volunteered uncertainly, swallowing hard.

'You'd be temporarily put into a Plot we made for you,' he continued, looking as though he had to force the words out of an unwilling throat. 'You couldn't be a shinobi anymore, but,' he added hastily. 'You'd be able to touch people.'

'What do you want to do to me?' she whispered, trying to distance herself from someone she no longer recognised.

'Please, Raiku, I'm trying to keep you alive!' He dropped his head, swallowed hard before he went on. 'You'd save lives, honey. But you couldn't be a shinobi anymore. You'd be normal,' he added with emphasis. 'Normal. Just like you always wanted.'

And she did want it. She wanted it so much it made her sick and miserable in the middle of the night and crushed her with envy, but every part of her was saying that she couldn't do it, that she couldn't just take it out of her. That it couldn't be that easy. That leaving her team would hurt her more than it was supposed to and that without trying to be a shinobi she wouldn't want to try to be anything else.

She choked on the thought even as it forced its way free.

That she'd turn into Mura.

Numbly she realised she was shaking her head, that she was leaning away and he was starting to look strangely grave. 'We can't keep you out of the Narrative, Raiku,' he said, looking at her with odd intensity. 'We've been trying. You've been trying. But even since we crushed the Hyuuga-' customary curl of his lip, she wondered with sickened horror if she was the same- 'Plot, we've had Mayuko on Runner duty ever since. It can't be maintained.'

'You're trying to burn me out!' she exclaimed, the protest escaping her self-control. She clamped her own hands over her mouth but kept shaking her head. Rock Lee exhaled heavily in his sleep and twitched slightly- they both froze until his breathing once again evened out.

'It's the only way to control this and the only chance you have to be anything but-'

Raiku visibly flinched and her chest constricted. 'A what?' she whispered hoarsely, eyes starting to cloud with tears. 'Anything but what?' she demanded, louder, throat burning. He hissed at her to keep it down, looking over at the mildly Plot ensnared but still dangerous Character Lee.

It was the broken ribs; it was the broken ribs that were hurting. 'They were going to kill me, weren't they?' Oh god, don't. She couldn't understand why she was hurting so much, why she couldn't breathe and why she wasn't okay with this. She always knew she was going to end up like every other Gairano, and from his confused expression, he had too.

But she'd tried so hard

'Raiku-chan?' Lee mumbled from the other side of the room, rubbing his face with a fist that failed to obscure his almost suspicious expression at the state she was in. Her father tensed. 'Are you alright?' She was suddenly so glad he knew who she was and cared enough to try and…

And…

She nodded, watering eyes creased at him in a smile. 'No problems, Lee.'

He didn't like it, but he reluctantly nodded, curiously circular eyes moving between them as he started to turn onto his other side. '…Alright then.'

Raiku looked down at her hands, at the faint blue she'd always thought she'd be. She tugged on a piece of her spitefully unkempt white hair and wondered quietly what she'd look like, wondered if she'd miss what she'd never seen when she looked into a mirror for the first time.

But she'd been stupid, and she'd gotten caught up in what wasn't her Plot to deal with. She'd bonded with people she had no right to be anything but disposable towards and she'd made too many mistakes now.

Her fingers started pulling threads from her blanket nervously.

She'd done too much now.

'It's okay,' she mumbled. 'It's okay, dad.' Because he was trying to save her, in his own way. She realised with a low twist in her stomach how afraid he must be, to even try and suggest something that would hurt her so badly.

How much she'd hurt everyone else before this was done.

She sniffed, blinking back moisture with renewed determination. 'It's okay,' she repeated for the third time, steeling herself. She nodded, trying to compose herself. 'I can do it.'

Her father sagged in relief. Or something that wasn't even close but that she had to believe was what she wanted to see if she was going to do this. 'We'll look after you, Raiku.' He smoothed the bandages over her forehead, pressing a kiss to the safer linen. 'You'll be alright.'

She tried not to flinch away.

'I know,' she smiled bravely, almost a wince.


A/N: Hey, just a heads-up- killing me means this has no resolution! Aha... ha? You can trust me I swear. But you guys had to see this coming. Contrast chapter 1 with chapter 31 Raiku. 31 was the opposite of everything she should've been.

Reviews:

: Don't murder me, man, I can be trusted! I'm glad to be back, but this next part... will be hard. You guys know I'm good for it, right? Sorry again for the lag, and I'm glad you stuck around.

Dureth: I missed you guys too! Try to stick with me, pal.

anonymous yay: Erm, right back at you? Thanks for hanging in there.

Thanks for reviewing.