A/N: Ahaha, finally- the long-awaited Ryuu/Ten confrontation! Only two more chapters to go, so I'm booking it on the next arc. I still need name suggestions, guysos.
Spoilers at the bottom of the page! You have to read to get to them! ^_^ I'm so mean...
They weren't sure what to say, at first, even Ryuuichi. It took him a while to materialize to her scrunched body, to raise his hand and place it against the clammy skin of her tender neck.
And then simultaneously they spoke: "… I don't care why," and "Your boobs sure have gotten bigger."
In the dark, their eyes were feverish and indiscernible. Tenten looked as though she had just been removed from solitary confinement, fishlike in her stare.
"No. I mean it. I don't care why you left."
"That's good," Ryuuichi breezed, climbing from the window sill and seating himself on the bed beside her. Beside her; he was really here, musky, thick, and him. It was beyond comprehension. " 'Cause I can't say yet, until we have a little talk."
"…Ryuuichi, did you…"
"Kazeki got to you, I suppose?" he asked in a calm rhetoric, his teenaged voice reeking of cologne and confidence. He artfully twisted his head, and smiled; it literally turned her knees to water.
"Yes, Tenten, I did all he said- unless he told you that I used to steal all his girlfriends in the Academy, or drown kittens. I can only imagine what he'd say nowadays…"
"He misses you." she found herself saying. "He's been chasing what you were ever since."
"Yeah, that's him- always a follower. The scenery never really changes when you're behind the lead dog…" The smirk in his voice was obnoxious but permeating. "So he hasn't grown up too much?"
"Suzuki's older than time."
"She always was." he reiterated, clutching the back of his head. They lapsed again into silence, each their own; again it was the almond-eyed girl on the verge who broke the trance, sliding her pious gaze over him as she contemplated her own death sentence.
"I need a change of scenery." she said, tone pregnant with long thought. "Wherever you've run off to, I want to come, too."
Ryuuichi was conditioned against startling; this was the reason he had come, but it still sounded so odd when actually voiced. Too sentimental, too implausible- too dangerous for someone he still cared so much for.
"I was hoping you would say that," he replied, too relieved to extrapolate. It truly happened this fast; the fate of every character in this story, including the canon ones, was decided by the foolish decision of one lonely young girl- a girl finished with the apathetic world.
He snatched her hand, found it as flushed and warm as her kindly-sloping face as she struggled not to look at him. When he held that hand against his lips, Ryuuichi knew that this was indeed reality- and in her anxious doe eyes, he saw all of the trust he could ever need to work with.
"I'm trying to get into this organization." he whispered against her knuckles. "It's called Akatsuki, and I'm training under one of it's members. And I don't know what I'd do if you came with me. I'd probably die of happiness, because then I'd have everything I've ever wanted."
----
Suzuki was outside, helping Lee water some decrepit daisies near his apartment, when the wind snapped down the alley with biting vehemence. Even a month after the Hokage's funeral, all of Konoha still seemed glum and mourning, on the edge of autumn with but memories of warmer days left.
Suzuki's red shirt whipped up her stomach like a parachute; what hair she had was sent tousling, and she gasped, eyes closed, as soon as the feeling and the breeze had passed.
"What is it?" Lee called from his knees; he was wearing a gardening visor, from beneath which he gazed concernedly at her, and an equally ridiculous polka-dotted glove on his good hand. His casts would be coming off any day, and neither he or Suzuki could stand being inside any longer.
She just blinked a few times, tasted bile. Nothing good, she thought; but she told Lee she'd seen a snake. Just a little one, though. Nothing to worry over.
----
Kakashi stabbed Asuma in the back with a book he'd read four times, and asked for a cigarette.
"You don't smoke," he acknowledged pleasantly, handing Kakashi the pack anyway.
"No, I usually don't." Kakashi replied. "I'm going to go burn some little kids with this. Light?"
"I don't believe that's responsible Jonin behavior, my friend…"
"You don't know Naruto and Sasuke."
"Ha." The day was crystalline, almost saccharine. The porcelain sky was hiding different expressions, in the turncoat trust that accomplished Shinobi learn to have in everything. Asuma inhaled, savoring the thick, sweet cancer smell, and Kakashi, mask down around his Adam's apple, replied in kind; it was as tart an odor as the changing leaves, and just as soothing to them both.
"They're gonna kill each other."
"You actually think these kids have any perception, Kakashi? I know that Naruto doesn't have a lick of common sense, just like his father."
"Despite the fact, I know Naruto is going to make something of himself. He's just about beyond where I can teach him, I think. But Sasuke…What do you like so much about these, anyway?" came the unruffled, unmuffled hum of a tone that you could almost forget Kakashi had ever had; he turned the paper over in his hands a few times, his open eye lethargic and rimmed with sleeplessness.
Asuma just sighed deeply. "I like knowing I could burn someone if they needed it."
----
Tsunade was exceptional, not only for her 'endowments' both bodily and skill wise, but because she had the rare ability to carry herself as a woman should. When anyone noticed her artificial beauty or the ease of her carriage, they were sensually jealous, deep within themselves, simply because it took audacity to be that clever and be sure of it.
She was altogether a fitting Hokage, and she settled into the role with more ease than she would have liked to admit. She did it for Dan, for Nawaki and Naruto, but mostly for herself; she knew she needed the responsibility, and she knew that Konoha needed an inflammatory dragon at it's bow, with the staunch and emotionally constipated heads of state who had been running things in Sarutobi's absence. She would have bitten off Jiraiya's face before admitting it, but she was glad to be back in Konoha.
The road held too many memories.
While she was making her rounds of a chronically understaffed hospital with Naruto as her ceaselessly-chatting guide, Tsunade suddenly realized how long she had been gone: the streets had all changed, the faces of the neighborhoods and the eyes of the children. Izanagi Minami had died, she was told; Kakashi was grown up and handsome now, and Rin hadn't survived the Third Shinobi War. What she didn't know was that Orochimaru was still in every cranny of this place, the locus of his power within the feverish, swirling head which she placed a healing hand against.
Tsunade was amazing, in many aspects and facets; but her greatest skill was knowing that an undercurrent existed within the Uchiha boy, and that something even more fearful than snake-men and Sound-nin cavorted outside the reconstructed barriers of this farce of a city.
----
"Naruto, get your filthy face over here and eat this."
"You're so sweet, Sakura-chan!" he called to her as he came running, jacket whacking the backs of his legs rhythmically. The bluebird pairs nuzzling and chatting in the nearby trees never stopped their exchange, for all the noise Naruto made.
Looking highly annoyed, Sakura was waiting by the base of the path, jiggling a bento wrapped in a red furoshiki cloth. Her mother had made it especially for Naruto, whom Sakura had been complaining about that morning in a very tempermental, teenaged kind of way. Being kind to him was never a high point in her day, especially not when she was forced to.
Naruto accepted the gift with opened palms and a grin that was made him look like a monkey imitating a human smile. He completely undid the politeness of the gesture, however, when he opened the container and began scrutinizing the little rolls of fish and vegetables, arranged by the artfully idle fingers of a pleasant housewife.
"Stupid." she told him. "You're not supposed to pick through it while I'm here! And where's my thank-you?"
"Hehheh. Sorry- thanks, Sakura." he quickly patched upon the situation, smiling again. Sakura turned and began her long hike home, given that she had the luxury of resting there today. It was a Sunday, and she hadn't yet had the strength to pursue anything that she had been contemplating.
"You look stronger," Naruto yelled after her, box clutched against his sweaty chest.
"… What'd you say?"
"You do," Naruto affirmed. "You just look…different now. Since the Chunin exams. Like you've just learned some awesome new jutsu or something."
In spite of herself, Sakura ended up smiling- and staying. As Naruto devoured her mother's delicate seasonal goodies, they chatted beneath the eaves of an age-old oak, trying to avoid the hail of bluebird droppings.
"So what are you doing out here anyway?"
"Training, duh! I've got a huge stinking battle coming up. You should stay and watch me bust this guy up."
"Who?"
"Kid from the exams." Just as Naruto said this, Kazeki came tromping around the corner, Kayoko and Hirako at his heels.
"Hey, why are you babysitting?" Naruto shouted, loud enough to make Sakura squirm. Kayoko shouted an unintelligible ephitet towards our kawaii kitsune, but Kazeki had enough decorum to wait until he reached the pair to begin complaining.
"I seem to have my magnet on today."
"We want to watch Kazeki fight again," Hirako answered for them; he looked incredibly boyish that day with his driftwood-colored hair shining and combed; he seemed much younger than eleven.
"Very flattering. Now get lost." Kazeki spat, and began unfastening the straps of his satchel. He looked about as pleasant as Neji on one of his PMS days, as though he had a mouthful of gravel rather than chewing gum. Naruto immediately demanded some, which the boy obliged. He nodded attentively towards Sakura, glad that Suzuki hadn't seriously messed up her face; if you could disregard the forehead, she was actually quite comely.
Sakura plopped down in the grass, patting beside her to encourage the hard-faced Kayoko to join her. Skirt pooling in her lap, the dark-haired girl pulled Hirako down with her by the shirtsleeve. He ended up on his back in the dirt, which made both females grin sadistically.
Unlike Kazeki, Sakura preferred the company of younger children. They were much easier to please, she thought as she stretched to touch the tips of her sandals and watched Naruto and Kazeki strut about hurling pre-battle insults.
"So he can use wind-type jutsu?" she inquired, to none of them in particular.
"Just a little. He's working on beefing up that Heian technique." Hirako answered ploddingly, now lying on his stomach with his forearms beneath his chin; he hadn't taken his eyes off of Kazeki. "Naruto-san was totally awesome at the exam."
"Don't let looks deceive you." Sakura grumbled half-heartedly; she was proud of Naruto's performance herself, but being nice about him, as she had resolved to, was harder than it had seemed.
"Guys are the worst." Kayoko agreed; when Hirako made an offended sound, she balled her fist and let it fall squarely atop his brown head.
"Phh. Stop beating each other up. It means you'll have to get married someday." Sakura smiled.
"What's gonna be your fighting style?" Hirako asked, trying to ignore Kayoko's snickers and get rid of his own, adorable blush.
"Hmm." she said, trying to sound knowledgable. "I'm thinking about asking the new Hokage to train me- in medical jutsu. I think I'd be good at it."
"Lee-san keeps meaning to ask you." Kayoko noted, glad to be snitching. "He's just too scared to come talk to you. He keeps around Suzuki-chan, as if she could teach him anything about girls."
"I very honestly thought Suzuki was a boy until she opened her mouth… and don't you go telling her that, Kayoko-chan!"
When they had all finished laughing, Kayoko stretched out on her back like a gleeful puppy sunning it's belly, and let her smile fall.
"Gaara wanted me to tell you that he's sorry for hurting you."
----
"I'll make chicken soup out of your internal organs!" Naruto called uselessly as he ducked; Kazeki's foot struck the tree behind him with a resounding echo, and the fight nearly ended as Kazeki began leaping about pathetically, clutching his ankle.
They began with a taijutsu round, finding themselves equally matched. If anything, Naruto was wilier, and Kazeki was practically line-dancing to evade his looping counterattacks. When the stakes went higher, Kazeki bared his blades; Naruto just smirked, and sealed his hands to encapsulate his fledgling, signature jutsu. As the Rasengan hummed to life, Naruto made one last comment:
"I'm gonna hurry and beat you, so I can take on Sasuke."
"Sorry. Not gonna happen." Kazeki replied soundly, swinging one of the blades about and letting the blunt side land on his shoulder, "I've got my own match coming up."
----
It took her forever to find them; this neck of the hospital was dank and misplaced, like the decapitated hall of a grim factory, perhaps akin to the grim labryinths of death from The Jungle; nothing potentially safe came from it.
She fingered the door open in her usual, silent manner, and found herself gazing into a room occluded by grim clouds. Gai, standing beside a stern-looking woman with pained and yet ceaselessly strong eyes, simply looked at her, his expression that of a man trying to hold a bridge together with only his hands. The mousy intern, the pig- everyone was staring at her, the turd in the punchbowl. Had she wandered into where she didn't belong?…
But Lee didn't see her. He just pulled the jumpsuit over his bared shoulders, took his crutch, and tacked right past her into the latent, murderous intent of the dark corridors.
The absence of his hope needed no articulation. He had just seen Tsunade, the only hope for the retrieval of that dream they'd all been hoping would stay at bay.
AN: My poor sad Lee-kun. :,( The Jungle, if you don't know, is something you should have read in-utero.
Good thing there'll be no Lee/Suzu in this story...this one, I mean. That was a really lame hint, so because I promised, I'll tell you this rich little tidbit about the next story:
You won't believe the kind of horrors Tenten will face as she follows Ryuuichi; it's gonna get bloody traumatic and positively pregnant with poigancy.