Note for old readers: You will need to re-read most everything to get some of the references because I reposted everything.
Warnings: Strait or gay fans take note—there will be allusions to guy-on-guy but this will be a minor part of the story and I will not be going into details (This goes out to all rabid Yaoi-fanatics. Chapter five was as good as you're getting!). You don't have to bolt from my work just because that little detail makes you uncomfortable and I will be placing warnings before chapters that have it. I have already scared my beta with it, and I would like to avoid scaring anyone else.
Even if it's really funny to shock people.
AN: I don't like this chapter—it's long winded, out of my comfort zone, and all of my characters feel OOC. Well, more so than usual. Take note, I will be paying close attention to any reviews that offer genuine criticism on style, voice, or any other detail I may have missed so far.
Thanks and sorry for the troubles.
Chapter 10: The Man Behind the Curtain is Bald
"Blerch-ugh-a-hough-gacht-guwe!"
I think Sakura's given up on suicide. Now all she wants is pain, and I get a front row seat.
If only there was popcorn...
I turn off the hose I'd been pouring over her face--ice cold water is good for waking fever-delirious people up, despite the side-effect of almost drowning them.
She fidgets a little, still too weak from her infection to do much else. Her arms are a mess--barbed wires cutting into pale skin with red lines crawling towards her shoulders. Puss oozes around the dark lines. All of this a sharp contrast to the frilly pink party dress I know for a fact she had wanted for months.
She remains somehow perfect, if only to me.
"Where the fuck is Tsunade for this?! Are you two hell bent on making me a permanent fixture at your side or what?!"
I'd bet anything she knew how hard it would be to get help discreetly and she's laughing at my attempts from some half-awake part of her mind. Well, fuck her. This time I can't do this on my own. She needs some real help, not just a boy with a lingering love and a box of bandages.
I haul her to her feet and drag her to the sleek Ferrari that should have been wrecked the day oil prices hit 14.95 a gallon.
"Nn...nooo..." she moans, and I guess she knows what I'm thinking. "Nnoo hospi...alll-echs..." she cuts off with a choked cough and I push her over the side and into the back, thankful for the convertible style.
"Time to go, babe," I "sooth" her, and take my place in the front where I remember her keeping spare keys. The machine starts up smoothly, muffling the beginnings of her desperate sobs. "This isn't between us anymore."
When I round the corner of the school come Tuesday, I am confronted with a sight that surprises me, but not in the way most would expect.
For once, Neji has forgone ruining Lee's self esteem, and his hands rein down on the back of a girl a few years older than either of us.
"You foolish whore!" The girl's face is already red from where he must have slapped her, but he pays this no mind and makes a violent cracking noise against her cheek. "Do you have any idea what this would do to us?! To our family! Stupid, stupid, stupid little slut!"
Dark, bluntly strait hair frames a pale face while telltale white eyes introduce us before I have even met her. Hinata Hyuuga--Kiba's damsel in distress.
He's going to be so pissed.
"Yo, Neji!"
He freezes, momentarily horrified at being caught beating the hell out of his cousin, and looks up. The worry in his face is replaced with suspicion—he knows he can keep me quiet, but unsure of what avenue to take; threatening, bribery, or beating?
"Uzumaki. What do you want?"
I shrug, and show him my palms in a pacifying gesture. "Not that it's my problem, but have you considered how her face will look tomorrow if you don't let her go home and fix it? Could be a lot of trouble for you—she probably has friends who ask questions. And if not, the press sure would." The media watches the Hyuuga family like hawks, because they are the biggest trendsetters on the coast.
He considers this but says, "I will take that risk," and raises his hand again. The girl, bent into the ground, flinches.
"Why?" I ask, both to stall and to quench curiosity. I genuinely want to know what could be so important.
"She must be taught a lesson."
I scoff and shake my head. "Take it from me—no lesson is worth having to learn one of your own." He should remember that the brunt of her father's anger will come down on him if their reputation is so much as singed, regardless of what she's done.
Neji keeps his hand at the ready, eyes a little desperate. "What else can I do?!"
"Hand her off to me—I'll clean her up and you're free to go wail on Lee, who happens to be in the gym right now, totally alone." Gotta love Moulin Rouge for that line.
Neji can practice his "stoic apathy" look until he's ready to piss himself; I can still see the cruel glitter in his eyes. Much as I am loath to turn an ally over to the hands of his tormenter, the benefits of getting Kiba's girl to him in this condition and looking like a hero to both of them is too tempting to pass up. Lee will just have to suffer a little more.
Finally Neji nods and grabs the girl by her arm, half lifting-and-tossing her into my arms, half dragging-and-dropping her. He flees a second later.
I can't even pull her upright—Sakura's curves were never this generous. She struggles to stand and by the time we are eye-level, both of us have to catch our breath.
"W-w-ho—?" she starts but I cut in.
"You're Kiba's girl, right?"
She blushes deeply and I'll take that as a yes.
"W-wha-why did you help me?" she asks, nervously fidgeting and twitching away from my eyes. A blush swells in her cheeks, sending my panic instincts on high alert. I know that reaction, and so I tell her the truth so she can get rid of any potential thoughts of romance.
"I like a happy Kiba better than I like a healthy Lee."
She doesn't know what to say to that.
She pulls herself away from me (smart girl) and takes out a set of keys. "D-d-do you w-want a r-ride? I-I'm going t-to Kiba's."
She has a stutter—I remember Kiba mentioning that he thought it was sweet. I can only guess why—I have no idea why anyone would want to take so much time to hear what she has to say.
"Sure. He owes me some doggie-bags anyhow." She nods and I'm glad she gets it; Kiba's sister is a better cook than Chouji's dad, and always makes too much.
When we get to her car—a convertible, a pile of papers in the foot space of the backseat makes me stop and stare. She loads her school things into the trunk and doesn't notice what I'm holding until she shuts it with a great thunk.
She freezes and I shift through a few pages of rough drafts and old works then I hold up the ragged but recent magazine. A torn front page of The New Yorker is still in the foot space.
"You write for ANBU?"
She is trapped and she knows it, because like all meticulous writers she dates her work and signs the finished projects—proof of what she alone has accomplished. She swallows and nods slowly, white eyes frightened but sealed to whatever comes next.
I look at the signature on the front page and laugh, because I know her—I have read these words—and I hold out my hand and smile.
"Hello, Gentle Fist. My name is Kyuubi."
We drive in companionable silence, exchanging comments from time to time when a thought strikes us, mostly circling around the Banned-Zines and our fellow writers. We wonder about whom they could be or what irks them enough to write. ANBU is not something to take lightly—writing for them can have you imprisoned for twenty years or more. I notice that Hinata's stutter lessens when confident about what she is saying.
Eventually I get curious and ask, "What was your 'lesson' supposed to be for?"
She looks at the road as if contemplating the asphalt. Does she think it can answer for her?
After a long silence, she pulls to a stop in a deserted street and shows me the delicate birthstone ring Kiba bought a few months ago. The emerald of the ring glitters in the afternoon sun.
"He was teaching me not to love a 20/20."
We drive on.
We pull up before Kiba's family's garage, where dozens of huge but mostly harmless mutt-dogs lounge in the shade of car corpses, most too tired to care for our arrival. They will not attack unless told, and for that we are grateful.
Kiba's legs stick out from the underside of a car too mangled to be salvaged, though I suspect the parts are more what he's after.
The reason for the intimidating dogs is clear--the Inuzuka's chop shop is flourishing.
I wait until we're right next to the car before leaning over the side to honk the horn.
"HOLY SHIT!" he cries and his head connects with the undercarriage of the car. I hear a satisfying clang and grin maliciously. Hinata takes a step away, moving to tend to her boyfriend with wary eyes trained on me.
"K-Kiba, are you a-alright?"
"What the fuck, man?!" he directs at me, bypassing his girlfriend's question to threaten me with a wrench. We both know he won't use it. "What was that for?!"
I smile and he hisses, rubbing his head. "You've got a sick sense of humor, man."
"Stop staring at my hot ass and take care of your girl. I'm raiding your kitchen."
I step over his legs heading for the house. The door closes part way on his swears of anger and I begin the steady process of emptying his house of all extra edible foods.
Hinata's face will be a shocker. Bruises, dirt, mussed hair, and a ruined lip to boot. I tune out their conversation, letting them have their privacy. I drop my bag to the floor, pulling out a first aid kit from the bottom.
In it are some of Tsunade's finest medicinal recipes, passed over the disinterested head of Sakura and into my hands.
I pull out two bottles and a can of ointment and scribble some instructions on a pad on the fridge. Gathering my tower of Tupperware into my backpack, I wait until their voices are calm before heading back to the garage.
Kiba's hands are on the undersides of her face, too scared of brushing a bruise.
He looks at me with deep eyes and she keeps hers on the ground. "Thank you, Naru. I owe you."
I tug his hair as I pass. "I'll remember that."
Well played, brat.
I march through the yard feeling the brush of Victory's hands.
The Sabaku sibs weren't at school for a while after that night, but that's to be expected while the police are still alert and wary. Three days ago I got a call from Gaara, and damn but he was pissed.
"I hear you keep the company of the City's Finest."
"Huh?"
"Don't play oblivious with me, Uzumaki!" he snarled. "You were seen with Itachi Uchiha—the heir to the entire Uchiha family! He leads the very men who hunt out our kind."
"Gaara, we can trust him."
"Why the hell—"
"He's a 20/20."
"…But he's…"
"I know. But apparently he's just as crooked as the rest of us."
"How can you be sure?"
"Let's see—in a row, he's let your guys escape with minimum damage, let me go without a scratch, offered an alliance of sorts between himself and the two of us, and to top it off, he's marked."
"Marked? He bares the KS?"
"He hides his, but yeah. Under all that billowing clothing, he's sporting a Hickey."
"Hickey? I don't…understand..."
"Something my new teacher mentioned—because KS sounds like Kiss, and you get it tattooed on your neck…"
"Just like—"
"—A hickey, yeah. Cute, huh?"
"Juvenile at best. Are you in contact with the Uchiha?"
"I have his card..." So much for changing the topic. "Why?"
"Call him. Invite him to a—conference—of sorts. Club Kabuki. Seven o'clock two nights from now."
"And how are you getting us a table at one of the most exclusive clubs in town?"
"Kankuro brings in many patrons with his performance. And they pay me very well to keep him there."
"Fine. Seven, was it?"
"Be there. Both of you."
So that was how I wound up at a table with two of the most anti-social, paranoid, and crazed people in town at the back of a club that looks like it hosts for Asian Incubi. There's a techno DJ opening tonight and all three of us clutch a glass of something stronger than soda.
"...So..." I start, unsure what to do or say now.
Itachi jumps in with a flawless Japanese accent as he says Gaara's name. "Sabaku Gaara--son of a pair of Japanese immigrants who entered the United States in 2011 with their two children, Sabaku Kankuro and Sabaku Temari. Both parents currently deceased--mother due to suicide encouraged by PMD and father due to...'mysterious circumstances.'" He lets that hang in the air with a superior smirk.
Gaara slaps a file onto the table and glares.
"Itachi Uchiha. Eldest son of the head of the Uchiha family. Most infamous accomplishment involved the investigation, arrest, and capture of the 20/20 group, the Nine Bijuu of Konoha, who sought to attack one of the most prominent ROOT centers in the country and revitalize the Konoha Society. Political party is strictly ROOT based, but several connections have been made between your bank funds and donations to the rising Liberal Party known as Akatsuki, who's campaign to put Governor Pein in the White House is causing upheavals in the latest political polls. Not exactly the most clean-cut of histories for the heir of a family who lives in the Government's pocket."
Gaara's voice sounds much less psychotic when he's talking business.
Feeling a little left out, I insert my own introduction and their eyes flip towards me.
"Naruto Uzumaki--foster child and future leader of the world, once I find a way to elevate myself in the world. Also, revered writer for ANBU for the past four years. Beat that!"
I know I sound like a six-year-old, but the tension at this table is killing me.
"Well now that everyone admits they've been rooting through each other's dirty laundry, I say we get down to business. Which is--"
"A mutual plan to revive the Konoha Society."
I'm surprised to see Gaara nodding in agreement. Apparently everyone's been giving this a lot of thought.
Makes me reconsider all that time spent giving thought to Sasuke's castration or Temari's impending success in hooking Shika on smack.
"And we would do that...how?"
They look at me like I'm stupid. "We will expose the truth to the people," says Gaara.
"Truth? You mean the real stuff behind the Week of Hell?"
"We mean, the real truth behind the cause of the Week of Hell."
Why are they nodding like this is common information? I've never heard it. I've never even imagined it. "Dude, everyone knows about the week of hell--a ROOT official's daughter was kidnapped by a radical 20/20 and when fingers got pointed and denial flew, all hell broke loose. Thus earning those days the apt title, 'Week of Hell on Earth.'"
I don't mean to make it sound like I've eaten a history text, but you can read about this shit in the back of ANBU and any number of other Banned Texts.
The Government enthusiastically brainwashed the next generation into believing that particularly violent and unstable protesters caused the riots of the Week over the latest presidential elections.
In the late 2020's Newly elected presidents were regularly recalled, ignored, or impeached within days of inauguration.
"That you of all people buy into that bull shit is the ultimate proof of the corruption of History," says Gaara.
"Huh?"
"While the kidnapping is what started the riots, the truth behind the event has been held secret from the public for almost twenty years," Itachi explains as if telling a child. "With the nomination of Senator Pein as the Liberal party's Presidential Nominee, we are standing on fertile ground to up-root ROOT's influence in the Government and reclaim the freedoms and truths that have been denied us since Namikaze's fall."
"So wait--are you saying the Government is behind the fall of the KS? I thought that was just because ROOT's higher-ups had such affluence in the Conservative circles."
"That's what they want you to believe. Anyone who pays attention to the history pages knows that even ANBU's story has some holes in it."
"Holes?"
"Like the fact that the name of the kidnapped child is never mentioned in any document. Or the name of the 20/20 who supposedly did the deed," says Gaara. "You'll also note that in the archives, it is claimed that ninety-percent of KS members were killed in the riots, but if you cross-check the survivors' names and the names of about half those reported dead with the phone-book, you find that almost all of them are living here, in this city."
Suddenly a lot of things aren't sitting so well with me.
"Jiraiya was given a coded letter by one of his old colleagues when I was introduced to him. It said to teach me, but there was another part to it. It said, 'They're on to you. You must come home, or else.'"
"Jiraiya Sannin? Namikaze's earliest reported teacher?" Gaara asks. His non-existent eyebrows are raised high.
"Yeah. Aunt of an ex-friend of mine is an old friend of his."
"This aunt--what's her name?"
"Tsunade Gondaime."
Both men shoot each other looks of alarmed knowing.
"What? What about her?"
"You know that she was a doctor, right?"
"Yeah..." I've known that since she was cleaning up my scrapes when I was four.
"Did you also know she was known as the Princess of Konoha?"
"No. No I did not." Hag's been hiding things. Again.
"She is the granddaughter of the founder of the Konhoa Society, and was one of its jewels in political affluence. She was one of three original thinkers--Jiraiya Sannin and Orochimaru Kusinagi were the other two."
Gaara cuts in here. "Orochimaru betrayed both them and Namikaze to the Government in exchange for amnesty for his actions. His information was fed strait to ROOT during the riots, causing half the Society's downfall."
His fist grips the table, and I can say no more. My brain is overloading.
Namikaze was sold out--the entire Society was set up? The Government has been hiding the truth about the ROOT child's kidnapping?
What more don't I know?
It's very lucky for me that about that time, Kankuro and his band troupe on stage.
Kankuro's voice reminds me of really good liquor--smooth, rich, bitter, and delicious on the tongue. His band--the Puppeteers--is a mish-mosh of kids from Sand, school, and other places. He plays and sings lead.
They would put the Beatles to shame.
Even Itachi is riveted in place--eyes blank but fixed on Kank, and Gaara's eyes gleam with something akin to pride.
They rock out with three fast songs before introducing a new song called Vegas Dolly.
They call it a ballad.
I call it an obituary.
I saw you last in a mirror of Las Vegas
You tried to sooth the bruises and made it sound like salvation.
I tried to take your needle. You said it wasn't my place.
I want to hold on a little tighter for your sake.
But there's nothing I can say to make you stand up.
Kankuro's eyes get angry as he plays. My mind goes back to Shikamaru and Chouji, and the new blond head that has taken the rosy-boy's place at his shoulder.
My little dolly girl is grown up now and look at what she's been.
A whore. A crack. A sack of waste. A Mary Magdalene...
Does he know we can hear his sadness? His grief?
His song is less than subtle. I wonder if Temari has heard it yet? Or does she care anymore?
Let me save you for a while more and love you for who you are.
Let's play in sand and dirty clothes and fall asleep in cars...
I suddenly understand the phrase, "Wearing his heart on his sleeve."
...Cause I can't yet bring myself to let you fall apart.
I think a little dolly girl came and stole my heart.
I stopped breathing when he hit the final chord.
"So what'd you think, bro? Still good enough to keep me here?"
They blew through their entire repertoire because the crowd wouldn't let them stop playing encores. He came strait to the table and stole my drink without a word, downing half of it like a starving man.
My eyes follow the drops of sweat on his face as they slide down his face. They look like rubies in the red strobe lights.
"The Manager will likely let me double the fee if you continue like this."
Kankuro grins, his lanky arms folded over the table as he takes a swig of my drink.
He casts me a lazy grin and I am very aware of his body heat. "He kid. Long time no see. Nice that it's not behind bars."
I am incapable of anything but, "Mm."
He laughs. "Come by here any time. Tell 'em Kankuro put you on the VIP."
Again with the, "Mm."
I can't look anywhere but his face.
"Right then." He doesn't seem perturbed by my lack of eloquence and gives his brother a polite pat on the back of the chair before leaving. His calf brushes mine.
I spend the rest of the evening being silently mocked by green and dark eyes.
"So, what's it going to be—boys or girls?"
Jiriaya holds up a pair of porn movies ("Girls Gone Wild" and "Boys Gone Wild" respectively) that are supposed to be my reward for finishing the book he made me read by the due date.
I have to admit—Achebe's work is impressive, if a little difficult to relate to.
"Why are you giving me an option?"
He gives me a smug look that makes me want to hit him for treating me like a stupid child. I get that enough from other arrogant teachers, I don't need it after hours.
"I've spent enough time around people like you to know that if you are strait, you have to fall for a woman too perfect to last more than a few years before dying tragically. As I've yet to find a picture of anyone important in my searches of your apartment or your wallet, I assume you've already lost her, or you aren't interested. So I'll repeat my question—boys or girls?"
I glare at him and we stand like that until his expression changes from smug to ….something like sympathy.
"What was her name?"
I grab the gay tape with a snarl and make for the door. "Sakura. And I didn't lose her," I call over my shoulder.
I never had her to begin with.
