Chapter 9
In her apartment, Hay Lin looked up curiously at Will for what must have been the fifteenth time. The keeper had started banging her head against the wall about five minutes ago and kept muttering the words "I am an idiot."
"You know if you keep banging your head like that, it could cause brain damage," the air guardian said, hoping it would make Will stop. "You've been like this for a few hours now, what exactly happened.
With her head leaned against the wall, the redhead groaned. "I freaking kissed Sasuke!"
"You what?" Hay Lin cried in shock. "Why? When?"
"I didn't mean for it to happen, it just did. He found me and Elyon talking and the second she saw him Elyon ditched me as fast as she possibly could. Then Sasuke started asking me questions, I got mad, and when I started to leave he kissed me. And I kissed him back!"
"Oh boy," the dark haired girl said. "What possessed you to kiss him back?"
When Will said nothing in response, Hay Lin figured it out. "You still love Sasuke don't you?"
"Yes," the leader said in a voice barely above a whisper.
Before Hay Lin could say anything else, Cornelia and Taranee burst into the apartment. Without saying a word to her friends, the earth guardian fell face first onto the couch, burying her face in a pillow.
Will looked at Taranee with an eyebrow raised. "Problems?"
"We were training with Lee and Neji," Cornelia said, her voice muffled by the pillow.
"It wasn't anything to big. Where's Elyon?" The fire guardian asked.
"She's probably walking around the village cooling off steam after her argument with Kiba earlier," the keeper said.
"She talked with Kiba?" The blonde asked turning her head to look at her friends.
"Yep. Irma went off to talk with Shikamaru and Will over here is going nuts after her little, um, moment with Sasuke," the air guardian giggled.
Will was about to glare at Hay Lin when she realized something very important, which resulted in her giving a cat like grin. "Oh Hay Lin, I hope you realize that now you're the only one who has to talk with her ex since the rest of us have already done it."
Taranee and Cornelia's heads all snapped toward the petite guardian whose eyes had widened. "Oh crap!"
Within the space of three seconds Will, Taranee, and Cornelia grabbed Hay Lin and threw her out the door.
"You are not allowed back in until you have talked with Naruto!" Cornelia cried.
"Why do I have to do it now?" Hay Lin asked, desperate to avoid Naruto even longer.
"The sooner you talk with him the sooner we get out of here!" Taranee replied.
"So get on it!" Will added, before the door was slammed shut, leaving Hay Lin outside with no choice, but to go see Naruto.
"Oh dang it!" The black haired girl cried, slapping her forehead.
Elyon tapped her foot wondering when the heck Hinata would arrive. After leaving Will to face Sasuke, she had gone back to where her former teammates were and had gotten Hinata's attention. The queen had then signaled for the heiress to meet her at Ichiraku's so they could talk and the girl had nodded in agreement. It was only a matter of time now before Elyon figured out what was making Kiba so irritable around her.
"Elyon, sorry it took me so long to get here," Hinata said as she sat down next to her friend.
"I'm just glad you showed up period," the blonde said. "After Kiba chewed you and Shino out earlier, I was afraid you wouldn't talk to me again."
The Hyuuga girl looked her friend straight in the eye. "I know Kiba won't be happy that I told you this, but I think you have a right to know why he's acting so cold around you."
"I'm listening," the queen said leaning a little closer.
Hinata took a deep breath before beginning her explanation. "As Shino and I told you before, Shikamaru told us everything about you and Kiba took it hard and it wasn't because you hadn't told him."
Elyon blinked in surprise. "Wait he wasn't upset that I hadn't told him?"
"Well he was, but that's not the main reason. You see, Kiba thinks that with you being a queen it will prevent…" she trailed off. "I'm not quite sure you want to hear this, considering the circumstances."
"Hinata please," the blonde said, taking her friend's hand in her own. "You're the only one I can really talk to around here. Please tell me. What does Kiba think that my status will prevent?"
"He thinks that it will prevent him from being with you," Hinata finally admitted.
"What?" Elyon breathed her eyes wide and her heart starting to beat faster.
"Kiba's afraid that you'll have to marry someone with a high status like yours and even if you don't he thinks that since he isn't royalty he won't be allowed to be with you. He's trying to convince himself that he doesn't care about you, so he won't get hurt. But Elyon trust me when I tell you that he does still care about you, more than you know," the violet haired young woman said.
At this point, Elyon was pretty sure her heart was going to explode from its rapid beating and she had difficulty breathing. That explained everything. Kiba was calling her by some sort of title, however mockingly, and always referring to himself as being a peasant, all the while displaying cruelty towards her in an attempt to hide how he really felt.
"I-I have to go," The blue eyed woman said quickly standing up.
"Where are you going?" Hinata asked.
Elyon hesitated before coming to a conclusion. "I have to go talk to Kiba," she said running off to go find the dog ninja.
Watching her friend leave Hinata smiled to herself. 'Well it's about time.'
'This is awkward,' Shikamaru thought rubbing the back of his neck.
He and Irma were both sitting on the couch, him on one end, her on the other and Shikamaru didn't miss the way she was squirming. He hated the fact that she was uncomfortable in his presence and he felt like an idiot for having kissed her.
Figuring that she wasn't going to start the conversation he decided that it was up to him. "So what do you-"
"Why did you kiss me?" Irma blurted out suddenly.
"Huh?" Shikamaru said his eyes widening in surprise. That was certainly not the type of question he had been expecting.
A deep blush appeared on the young woman's face. "Why did you kiss me?" She repeated in a much softer voice.
"I-I uh," the supposed genius stammered trying to get his thoughts back in order.
Irma buried her face in her hands. "Oh man, why did I just blurt that out? I'm sorry Shikamaru, this was so not how I wanted this conversation to go."
"Well how you were expecting it to go?" Shikamaru asked.
"I don't know! I was hoping for some sort of closure if nothing else," the young woman replied. While she spoke her hand had unconsciously began to play with her necklace as it usually did. When she realized what she was doing Irma quickly tried to hide it, but the lazy man saw it.
Breaking the first rule, he reached over and grabbed Irma's wrist feeling her flinch automatically at his touch, while he kept his eyes on the small blue stone.
"That's the necklace I gave you at the Christmas party," he said softly, mostly to himself. "I thought you would have gotten rid of it."
"I guess it was just too pretty," Irma said in an attempt to make the atmosphere a little bit lighter.
Shikamaru lifted his gaze from the necklace to her eyes and the water guardian felt a shiver run down her spine when she saw the several different emotions in his dark eyes.
"You're not the only one who hasn't been able to get rid of something," he said softly, pulling something out of his pocket. When he opened his hand Irma could barely breathe at the sight of the silver ring in Shikamaru's palm.
"I thought I lost that," she mumbled.
"I found it just after you had been taken by the Akatsuki. I was going to give it back to you after I came home from the Sand Village, but you were already gone by then," he said. He felt his chest tighten at the memory of the pain he had went through finding out she had left him.
Irma swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to keep tears from forming in her eyes. "Shikamaru I-"
"No you don't have to say anything. I'm sorry that I brought that up," Shikamaru said looking away from her.
"You never answered my question," Irma said after several seconds of silence. "Why did you kiss me?"
"Why do you think I did?" the shinobi said, still not looking at her.
The guardian took a shaky breath. "You know I stopped by your mother's house to find out where you lived." She noticed the way Shikamaru's shoulder's tensed at her words, but she continued. "Yoshino told me that you had never stopped…loving me."
Shikamaru still didn't look at her. "Irma-"
"Is that true Shikamaru? Before I left did you really love me?"
Finally the genius looked up and he could see the tears in her big blue eyes. "Do you think that I loved you?"
"…yes," Irma whispered looking down at her hands.
Hooking a finger under her chin Shikamaru brought her head up so she was looking directly at him. "Then answer something for me now. Do you still love me?" he asked, his heart hammering as he thought of what she might say.
'How does this man have so much power over me?' Irma thought, almost melting at his familiar touch. She so badly wanted to tell him how she felt, but knew that even if she did, nothing could ever come of it. "Please, Shikamaru don't-"
"Tell me, please. I have to know."
"I…I can't!" the girl cried jumping up and running out the door before Shikamaru could even react.
Seconds after she left, the man clenched his fists tightly, his emotions jumbling inside of him. Angrily he stood up and slammed his fist into the wall leaving a large hole in the wood. At this point 'troublesome' didn't even begin to cover what he thought of his current situation.
Hay Lin gulped as she stood in front of the door to Naruto's office and tried to resist the almost overwhelming urge to take off running.
'No I can't back out,' she thought to herself. 'The others already held up their end of the deal and now I have to do my part.'
Despite the confident thoughts, she was worried about how this would go. Would he let her talk and be a gentleman or would he be like Shikamaru and Sasuke had been with Irma and Will and kiss her. Unfortunately for her, the latter was most likely.
After standing in front of the door for about five more minutes, Hay Lin decided that enough was enough. With that thought in mind the air guardian quickly opened the door before she could chicken out.
Naruto was writing something and didn't look up to see who had entered the room. "For the last time Konohamaru, I am not interested in seeing how you improved the Sexy Jutsu!"
'Sexy Jutsu?' Hay Lin thought raising an eyebrow. "You know Naruto that's not exactly how I imagined this conversation starting."
The young Hokage's head shot up. "Hay Lin."
"Hi Naruto."
END OF CHAPTER
Alrighty everyone so I have an announcement to make. Recently I have been thinking about how very few Naruto/W.I.T.C.H. crossovers there are so I have a challenge for all of you readers. I challenge you guys to write an original Naruto/W.I.T.C.H. crossover story. It can be anything you want it to be, whether it's related to my stories or completely unrelated to my stories. It can be a one-shot or a chapter story, song-fic, parody of a movie, etc. It can be AU and have any of the Naruto/W.I.T.C.H. pairings you want in it. Basically it will be anything you want it to be. So who's up for the challenge?