And So, I Wait
Chapter 4: An Awaited Performance
oOo
Three years.
For three years, I've gainsayed what could be the most important letter in the Hidden Sound's history. For three years, I've played at being the weak-willed, gentle Saiyuna. For three long years I've negleted my fucking duty. I've walked by the mailbox dozens of times, running errands for my "mother" or on my way to my job as a store clerk. Yet I never did push the letter, hidden under my floorboards, determined to face down Naruto once more before I plunged his village into chaos.
I soon got a job helping a local girl, Karin, with her ninja tool shop... and as I handed some of the best-crafted weapons I've ever handled to my sworn enemies, I couldn't help but feel I was making a mistake. With a word from my l;ips, my lord could strike decisively. Yet... I never uttered it. Blond hair and blue eyes haunted me.
Fucking bastard. A few moments kindness, and he had me withholding information from Lord Orochimaru, keeping this entire god-damned village from annihilation. Nobody else in the whole world could have had the luck to meet me, and the kindness to delay me. One in a million odds, and he just happens to strike that one.
I had doubts, in the thousand days I spent in Konoha. Every time I began to doubt Naruto would ever show up again, the pink-haired bitch would show up to "check in on me" and further delay my letter. She laughed with me, watched movies with me... She seemed to be friends with me just because Naruto was friends with me. As if him deciding that I was worthy of his trust somehow made my worth a foregone conclusion.
Saiyuna loved the company. I secretly despised the way Sakura whittled down my resolve. Nobody but a weak, trusting Leaf ninja would have spent her free time trying to see a crippled girl walk once more. Certainly no sound-nin medic would have chosen to spend their free time rehabilitating me.
A small part of me was overjoyed, crying genuine tears of relief at the feel of the ground beneath my own two feet after years of nothing but a maddening numbness. I was no longer a useless cripple. I could be a ninja of the hidden sound once more. The only lingering mark that fierce battle left on me was a few small scars nobody would ever see.
Yet, despite my sworn loyalties to my Lord, my dead comrades, and my village... I couldn't bring myself to betray Naruto. Not unless I did it to his face. For everything he'd shown me, for everything he'd done, he deserved better than to be betrayed while his back was turned, while he was away from the people he'd sworn to protect. If Lord Orochimaru were to return and finish this village's destruction, the least I could do for that confusing bastard was make sure he was here to be destroyed along with it. He'd sworn to fight Lord Orochimaru and I'd feel like trash if I stole everyone he loved from him before he got his chance.
After all... What harm could a few years really do? My Lord is immortal, unchanging. He will continue to exist long after my bones have turned to dust. He has infinite patience and would not act on the information anyway. It took him nearly a decade to engineer that last, disastrous attack on Konoha, after all.
He'd want to wait until he could master the Uchiha's body before invading. I'd probably have been stuck here for three years whether or not I sent the letter right after Naruto left
Or at least, so I told myself.
oOo
Naruto's reappearance in Konoha hit me with all the intensity of a hurricane and proved to be just as sudden. I was restocking shelves in Karin's shop one moment, my back to the counter. The next moment as I turned to grab more shuriken from the counter, I was staring up at impossibly bright blue eyes framed by golden blond hair.
"Oneesan, you're out of your wheelchair!"
For a moment, I freeze... Even though recognition strikes immediately:
Few ninja have blond hair and blue eyes, and none but Uzumaki Naruto could possibly have the bad taste and sense to wear a fucking bright orange jumpsuit. Yet despite wanting to snap a retort, I'm too busy being amazed at just how much he'd changed.
The first thing I notice is his height. Before, he'd been shorter than me by a bit. Not much, but just enough to differentiate. Now... Now, he stood a full head taller than me and looked to have a few more inches to grow. It gave him a more commanding presence than I thought I could associate with the large-hearted punk.
The second thing I noticed was his expression and his posture. Both indicated a much-increased maturity, the sort which only came from hard experience. My senses and training still told me that the man in front of me was a stupid moron who'd walk into any trap I cared to set, but my gut now told me that he'd probably escape unscathed.
The third thing I noticed was that my jaw was hanging open like a yokel's. My teeth clacked as I snapped it shut, falling back into a smile as Saiyuna felt joy at an old friend's return. We talked as he grabbed a pouch of kunai, and before I realized I'd forgotten to confess, he was gone. For three years I'd waited to tell him I was going to destroy everything he loved, and in two seconds he'd dashed the thought from my mind with a smile.
I told Karin I needed to take the rest of the day off, and she just smiled and nodded. Happy to make life a little bit easier for someone else, just like any other person in Konoha. I only stopped briefly to retrieve my flute from my mother's house before I began my hunt.
I needed to find that fucking bastard before the day ended. I couldn't survive another day in this place.
oOo
I considered myself lucky to trail my sunny-haired target to a place where I could confront him alone. It had only taken me minutes to locate him. Konoha was large, but a skillful ninja traversing the rooftops can search most common meeting places very quickly. Identifying my foe was made doubly simple by the bright fucking orange he always wears.
No, the problem was finding a time when the bastard wasn't surrounded by other ninja. Any time he stopped for a moment, people swarmed to him to welcome him back, wish him well and exchange a few words. It went on for hours. He would take to the rooftops in a flash of yellow and orange, then leap down to speak with one person or another and spend another half a fucking hour talking.
The sun had nearly set when he finally stopped, pausing in a small clearing in the woods.
"Saiyuna, why are you following me?" He didn't turn to face me.
Saiyuna can't prevent a tear from escaping while I searched for words.
"My name is Tayuya," I finally said. He turned to face me, dawning comprehension making his face a mask of horror. He flinches as badly as if I'd actually struck him with one of Jirobou's devestating taijutsu strikes. Saiyuna chokes out a sobt as I growl, "I'm going to watch this village burn with Lord Orochimaru's light. I couldn't do it before you returned. And now, you have to die so that my master can triumph."
"Saiyuna?" Despair-tinged eyes searched mine as his voice trembled.
His hesitation gives me the only opening I need. My genjutsu trapped his mind as his body toppled limply to the lay on the soft grass below. Saiyuna can't help but deny the sight of arguably one of the mightiest ninja in Konoha defeated by such a simple trick. I know that his weakness, his trust, is the reason I have won.
I pull one of Karin's kunai from my belt pouch as I approach the unconscious man in front of me.
oOo
Author's Notes:
Emporium Karin was a shop from the awesome PS2 Naruto RPG. Yeah, it's a confusing reference, given the relatively recent debut of another Karin in the Kishiverse.
Tayuya says fuck you. Tayuya also says I should write a full-length fic and mess with everyone that way, so consider yourselves lucky it's nowhere near April now that the thought's taken me. I've been tempted to write a Karin/Naruto fic about the RPG character just to mess with people using the search engine.
I may still do it.
Random note: I actually looked up their respective heights for Naruto's growth. Also, Stunna-kun's hit the nail on the head with the Tayuya-Saiyuna thing.
Cheers,
Gaming Ikari