Author's Notes: I blame the weather here. :)
"The Chariot"
Written by Goldberry
The snow falls in fat, pristine flakes that whirl in the air, carried by a troublesome wind that rises and falls erratically. The air is frigid and heavy against her, a weight that dries her skin and cracks her lips with exposure. The gray cloak she's wearing helps a bit and she holds the flaps of it close to her body, protecting her hands. In such weather, it's most important that her hands are nimble, warm. They are her lifeline, her defense in that rocky countryside, all alone. The fingerless gloves Gai-sensei gave her protect her palms, but she must hide her fingers tight against her ribs and the cool fabric of her clothes. Already, her weapons have become dangerous to handle, the metal so cold that it tears at her skin. She tucks her cloak more firmly around her and goes on.
It's late afternoon, the sky grey with winter and snow, and the land climbs upwards, rocky and desolate. It's beautiful, too, with its high waterfalls and icy lakes, but Tenten longs for the warmth and comfort of Fire Country. The Land of Water has never been one of her favorites, especially in this northernmost region where the mist and snow make everything dreary and wet.
And hazardous.
Moving fast over the countryside safely is almost impossible. The landscape itself hinders her. The mist hides perilous pitfalls and hidden drops and the biting wind won't let her rest. She forces herself to stumble on, moving as quickly as she can, as silent as a wraith. Two more days and she will reach the border and a boat will be waiting to take her and her teammates back home.
Tenten touches the scrolls against her side briefly and hurries.
Just as night is falling, her pursuers catch up with her. She lights up the encroaching darkness with hand-bombs and tagged kunai and takes down a grove of trees before she's able to lose them, running raggedly over the terrain, her hair loose and tangled, breath misting in front of her lips. She does not stop, not even when it becomes too dark to see clearly and she trips continually over fallen branches and the edges of rocks half-hidden in the earth. The Mist-nin would not give up until they reached the shoreline and she could bet they would not be stopping to rest so she can't either.
Instead, she draws stiff slips of paper from beneath her cloak and flings them at passing trees, smirking crookedly to herself at the surprise she is leaving her enemies. She readies more kunai, wincing at the brutal feel of her weapons beneath numb fingers, and checks the scrolls once more for reassurance. It is these that the Mist-nin are after. Twin scrolls bearing the instructions for a single forbidden technique. Tenten has not looked at them. Their mission had been to extract the scrolls only and return them to the feudal lord of the Land of Waves, from where the scrolls had been stolen from in the first place. She does not care to know what power is in them, only that they are still safe.
Hours pass. Her lungs ache with every freezing breath and she can't feel her feet though her legs keep moving, carrying her closer and closer to her goal. Her canteen is empty and she knows that though she has avoided stopping, this is something she cannot ignore. It is easy to follow the sounds of water to a small, rushing stream carving its way down the mountainside. She comes to a stop near its bank, hesitant and wary, exhausted now that she has slowed down enough to actually feel it.
The land is dark around her, the clouds preventing little moon or starlight to illuminate her surroundings. She breezes among the shadows to the water's edge and kneels to fill her canteen, taking a quick drink of the icy water, her body shivering as the cold spikes down her middle.
Abruptly an arm curves around her shoulders tightly and a hand covers her mouth from behind. She drops the canteen, reaching into her cloak to either draw a weapon or toss the scrolls into the dark water, ruining them instantly.
Neither option is necessary as a low voice whispers near her ear.
"It's me."
The tension leaves her body, her shoulders easing as Neji releases her and she turns to get her first glimpse of him in days.
He's wearing a black cloak, almost invisible to her tired eyes, the hood pulled up over his long hair. There's frost on the fabric, a lacy glittering of snow that says he's been traveling with speed just as long as she has. In contrast, his skin is stark white, his eyes as colorless as the mist that is forming among the silent trees. He looks tired, she thinks, but his hand is firm when he reaches out to grip her elbow.
It takes her a moment to realize she is weaving on her feet.
"Are you alright?" he asks, the words almost soundless, veiled in night and very conscious that they were not hidden from prying eyes. She nods once, wearily, and bends to pick up her canteen. Neji releases her, letting her turn to fill it again and cap it securely. Then he lifts a hand and signs for her to follow him. She does, managing somehow to stay just a step behind as he vanishes back into the cover of the trees. They travel a little farther from the stream, two ghosts barely seen as the snow begins to fall in earnest, blowing into her cloak no matter how tightly she holds it.
Thankfully, Neji stops in front of a well-hidden screen of pine boughs that he had leaned up against a large tree. It made a sort of shelter – a small one – but Tenten is glad of any kind of relief from the cold. Her teammate pulls away one of the branches and motions for her to go first. She bends down and slips through the snowy opening, feeling immediately the relief of being out of the wind and into the muted dark of their small hideaway. Neji enters a second later, pulling the branches back to cover the entrance securely. She makes room for him and they sit pressed together, their backs against the bark of the tree.
"How long have you been here?" she asks, wincing at the sound of her hoarse voice. It's the first time she's spoken aloud in days. Neji takes his own canteen out and warms it between his hands before giving it to her. She takes another drink, this one going down easier, luke-warm.
"A few hours," he says, watching closely as she hands the water back to him. "The Byakugan showed me where we might cross paths."
She rubs her eyes, feeling a little sleepy now that she is getting a bit warmer. "I left Lee almost three days ago. He was taking the path over the lake. The enemy split to follow us both."
"The scrolls?"
She looks at him. "I have the real ones. Lee took the fakes."
Neji nods. He would be taking the real scrolls from her when they parted again and she would continue on with the imitations that he carried. This was the plan they had devised to get the scrolls to safety, trading the real ones between themselves so as to confuse their would-be captors, tag-teaming their way over Water Country. If one of them was taken, the chances of them actually having the true scrolls was slim.
"Your chakra is low," Neji comments neutrally, still watching her. "You can't travel any further without rest."
His words are sounding a little muffled to her, her eyes wanting to close on their own. She understands what he is implying though and she shakes her head. "No, it's too dangerous for us to stay together. If we're caught…" She trails off, already half-asleep where she sits. She hears Neji exhale quietly and then his arm curves around her back and her head comes to rest against his shoulder as he reaches around her to pull their cloaks together for warmth.
"An hour or two will make no difference," he says, "If they come within my divination, I will know."
They wake in the same moment, pulled from sleep by some of Tenten's traps exploding. She stiffens against Neji's side as he activates the Byakugan, turning his head to focus on their backtrail.
"It's time to go," he says.
There's nothing to pack, nothing to take but what they're already carrying. In the stifling dark, Tenten presses the scrolls into Neji's hands and takes the fake ones from the pocket of his cloak.
"I'll slow them down," she tells him. She can't see his expression but his fingers catch hers for the briefest of moments.
"See you at the boat," he murmurs, and then they're dashing out into the snow and cold, the impact of the freezing air hitting Tenten like a slap in the face. She grits her teeth and forces her aching body to stand, watching Neji disappear ahead. More of her tags explode, wild bursts of fire, and she takes more from her pockets and lines the trees around the river. Then she takes invisible wire and makes a fine, deadly cobweb while she can still feel her fingers. She lines the strings with more exploding tags and summons makibishi, littering the ground with their sharp spikes.
Afterwards, she tucks her cloak around her body again and heads in Neji's direction, altering her path slightly so that it diverges from his. He would be meeting up with Lee to change scrolls once more before they would all converge at the boat – hopefully well ahead of their pursuers.
Saying a mental wish for their safety, she heads for the shore and the way back home.
When she gets to the beach, no one is there.
The boat is at the dock, little more than a skiff, bobbing gently with the incoming tide, but neither Neji nor Lee are anywhere to be found. She stays behind the tree line, keeping her body absolutely still as she processes the situation. She's sees no other signs of life, the shore empty but for the cold rocks and white tide. It might have been an ambush but for the lack of chakra she feels.
She spends the night in the hollow of a fallen tree and wakes with dirt in her hair and frost on the blades of her kunai. She is still alone and time is creeping up on her. She hasn't had a proper meal since she and Lee parted ways and so her energy is low, her mouth parched from the icy water she drinks. Looking at the vacant beach, she knows she has a choice. She can either wait a few more days for her teammates and hope they arrive, or she can go back and search for them, possibly help them if they'd fallen into trouble. There is a third choice – take the boat and go – but since she does not have the true scrolls, she doesn't even consider it. If it were Neji, she would want him to leave, fulfill their mission, but she's only a decoy. She can't leave, not without the scrolls and her boys.
She turns and flows back into the forest, a swath of gray in a misty world. She angles her path this time, trying to find Neji's route. She travels all day and the land is darkening when she finally stumbles upon it.
Her own pursuers had followed Neji, not her. She hides herself above the edge of their camp, high in the canopy, and watches them. Neji is in their midst, tied to a tree with rope bearing paper seals. His body is limp and there is blood on the side of his face, dripping out from underneath the silver of his forehead protector. His long hair has come lose from its tie and hangs like a curtain, shielding his expression. She can tell from his posture though that he is unconscious. How they managed to catch him, she doesn't know. Neji is not unbeatable, of course, but it's rare – very rare – for an enemy to corner him.
There are craters nearby that speak to the battle, souvenirs of Neji's Kaiten, and she sees several ninja out cold under blankets, their chakra sealed.
She feels no chakra from Neji. The lack comforts her, as it gives her a reason for his unconsciousness.
She pulls one of her own scrolls from its pouch at her waist, gripping the end with stiff fingers. Calmly, she lets it unfurl, the opposite end unraveling over the tree branch and down towards the ground. She touches the symbols written there and pulls two fuuma shuriken from the parchment. She sends their inky, black blades whizzing towards the camp and follows close behind.
Surprise is on her side, and the ninja who survived Neji's attacks are sleepy and slow to respond. Her windmill shuriken slice the first two almost in half before they're even aware they're under attack. She takes them with a kunai to their heart, moving past them like a white phantom, breathing ice and mist. She counts five more ninja ahead of her, between her and Neji, and reaches up to catch one of her returning fuuma shuriken.
By the time she reaches the last, she has left a bloody trail of bodies behind her and she can no longer feel her hands. She's made of cold metal now, the great curved fangs of her black fuuma held before her eyes. The last of her enemies responds by lifting a katana to Neji's neck.
"Give me the real scrolls," he says, "or I'll cut his throat."
She laughs, a bare, breathy sound that is really no sound at all. "Cut his throat and I'll kill you and keep the scrolls."
The ninja's jaw hardens and she thinks he's just a kid before her second fuuma shuriken impales itself into his back and he staggers forward, blood welling over his lips. His katana falls into the snow at his feet a second before he does.
It takes her precious minutes to untie Neji from the tree, her fingers bleeding as she works at the frozen rope. His body finally falls forward and she catches him awkwardly, half-kneeling in order to position him on her back, his arms pulled limply over her shoulders. She smiles to herself, thinking he will be embarrassed to have been carried in such a way, before she gathers what's left of her energy in order to shoulder his weight.
She leaves the clearing as it is, unable to spare the energy to hide their tracks. She travels slowly, using only a thin cord of chakra to sustain her legs and arms but even that fails after a few hours. Neji is heavy and she has spent too many days on the far side of exhaustion.
She reaches the beach just as the sun is beginning to rise, walking with halting steps out onto the grey sand. The waves crash and a bird cries and Lee is running towards her, his face stark with worry. He calls her name and her expression eases.
"Finally," she says, and collapses.
The first thing she notices is that she is warm.
It almost hurts, this light feeling of not freezing and her eyebrows draw together before she opens her eyes, blinking slowly in the dim light. She feels heavy, as if she hasn't moved in hours, and her mouth is dry again. She makes a small sound in the back of her throat and tries to sit up. A bandaged arm around her middle tightens, stopping her.
"You should be resting," Neji's voice says near her ear. She turns her head slightly to find him lying on his stomach next to her, one arm over her waist, his eyes closed. They are both covered with a plethora of blankets and Neji's long hair pools in the ripples of the fabric. He, too, sounds warm and lethargic, muddled by long hours of cold and dark.
"Neji," she whispers, "are you alright?"
She remembers reaching the beach but nothing afterwards.
He cracks one pearl-white eye at her briefly. "You're the one who almost killed yourself." There's no anger in his tone, nor judgment, but she feels the need to defend herself anyway.
"I couldn't leave you behind," she tells him quietly. They look at each other for a long moment and then Neji's closes his eyes again, and his forehead comes to rest against her shoulder. He doesn't say anything but Tenten knows.
She smiles carefully and shuts her eyes as well, and outside the snow keeps falling.
THE END.