Happy Birthday Tobirama!
Just because I just found out and looked on in the Naruto wikia with horror, a new chapter! Hopefully cutesy?
I don't know what happened. It was one of those moments where things just blubbehblubbehblubbb from my mind. Haha...top-of-the-head plots ftw!
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, but guys, it's Tobirama's birthday! *whoooo*
Note: *stares at story* 128 M. Word pages. *faints*
-revives-
Okay, lemme at'em. :'D
Note 2: Guys, I drew more Tobirama and Mariko, just for fun. It's kind of bad, but it was five in the morning...
equestrian-equine. deviantart. c/om/ art/Grumpy-Contest-Tobirama-and-Mariko-354809572
Just take away the spaces...and the / between c and om.
NOTE 3: Warning - I have included:
1) my destruction of Tobirama's backstory, bwahaha.
2) epic writing mood swings from something terrifying to something fluffy and to something terrifying again. =3=
3) PMS Mito. - but we all love Mito.
Etc. :D
(How did I write such a long one...? lol, I did cut some out of ch. 7...)
Chapter 8: Nightmares
.x.X.x.
Dear Momma,
Do you remember the story of the ghost boy and the tree boy?
.x.X.x.
"Look, Mari, I'm the ghost boy from the story!" A common day outside their rooms, by the waterfall where Mariko had fallen ages ago. She had been four when the incident occurred; coincidentally, a short period of time after her mother's magical story of the mainland. Perhaps she thought that she, too, could possess magic powers, and make the leap.
But she had not, and she now had a scar along her left shoulder blade, shaped somewhat like a bird in flight.
At the moment, Katsurou, fifteen and tall, was standing on the little pool. He let a snake of water glide around his arm, and then he floated it out for Mariko to see. It formed a cobra's head, and then a cobra's fangs, and Mariko stared at it, wide-eyed.
"See? I can do it, too."
Mariko laughed and played, never noticing that at some points in time, Katsurou had walked directly onto the pool and across to the other side. She was too delighted by the floating bunnies of water dancing before her eyes.
"I can make the wind blow, too."
It was air magic, to her, the magic of the sky that allowed Katsurou to bring a rush of cool breeze swirling her hair about.
"Look, Mari, I can make an ice crystal." Katsurou was all too happy to show her every single bit of "magic" he'd learned over the years, finally perfecting a moving ice sculpture. It flicked its icy tail and tossed its finely sculpted head, alive. But it was simply an ice sculpture, though one that caught Mariko's eye and didn't let go.
She wanted to ride the ice horse, to dance with the water and the breeze.
"I bet the ghost boy couldn't do this," Katsurou told her, making the waterfall itself bend to his will. The falls arched so that it thundered into the pool before them, and the water behind it quieted, with only subsiding tremors and ripples disturbing the surface.
"Do you remember the story of the rock people?" Mariko called out to her brother. This had been another popular story among the siblings. A mysterious breed of rock people who lived far, far away in the mainland. They burrowed among mountains and stones, sculpted mud plates and worked from rocky homes. They were short and squat and had funny eyes. At least, this was how it went in the story.
In the ghost boy story, the ghost boy was paler than the moon and his entire body was white. His brother was literally the color of a tree, with browned skin and green, leafy vines for hair. The fire clan was made of flickering images, like fairies and phantoms with hair made of real flame.
However, the appeal of the rock story was that when the rain flooded their low-lying land, they always found clever ways to drain their homes. And when the rain people came to conquer them, because their area was one perfect to create an ocean, the rock people, squat and fierce, banded together and formed a mighty mountain. Now, with the tall range of snowy peaks in the way, the rain people could no longer flood the valleys.
"I remember," Katsurou replied. He was about to tell her something more, when a member of his guard stepped forward and touched his shoulder. The royal siblings, forever guarded by a series of soldiers until they turned eighteen. That is, unless they somehow proved to be unable to take care of themselves.
"Queen Manami calls you back to court," said the guard. He turned to Mariko. "Lady Mariko, you as well."
That had been the end of it, for afterwards, Mariko witnessed a repeat of an argument she'd heard three years ago. One that included Manami reduced to hysterics and the king repeating, for the first time after three years of not trying, that Katsurou was never to use ninjutsu.
The magic, Mariko found, was really ninjutsu. It was something she realized along the line, growing up, but had never really thought of. No longer four years old, she understood, vaguely the mechanics of chakra. It flowed, and was used. It was the "magic energy reserve". But she knew that Katsurou had been adept at the "magic" for a while, now. When she was six, she knew of ninjutsu. But she never thought that perhaps all the stories were related to ninjutsu. If her mother made the rock clan sound like a good people, why was it that she denied Katsurou the "magic" that they marveled at?
Was she afraid, perhaps, that they would turn out like the destructive fire people? Wispy phantoms that disappeared with the illusions of their own power?
.x.X.x.
There was once a boy named Kell. He was a shinobi, but not a shinobi. What is a shinobi?
.x.X.x.
Kell returned, bedraggled and harried. Mariko nearly leapt in fright at the sight of him, dressed in the same black as the captured archers and wielding the same, owl-feather fletched arrows.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he gasped raggedly to Hashirama, who held him firmly by the shoulders. "I couldn't catch them, they saw me."
"Did they recognize you?" asked the Hokage, frowning.
"No, but they saw me tailing them. I tried to be one of the captured shinobi, but—"
"Kell!" Etsuko bounded into the living room, face open with her outright horror. "What happened?!" She began blubbering over him with nonsense words, picking a kunai from his side that he'd completely failed to notice. "You rock-headed, bumbling idiot! Look what you did! You're injured all over and you're not even reacting!"
Kell hobbled over to Tobirama and pressed a scroll into his hands.
"Your rogue nin," Kell said simply.
Puzzled, Mariko watched this exchange. What was this now? Tobirama's mission had something to do with her being attacked? And how did Hashirama know what Kell was doing? How was it that everyone knew what was going on, but she still hadn't a clue why she was attacked?
"But you're sure they didn't recognize you," Hashirama repeated.
"I'm sure," Kell said, nodding. "If I'd been recognized, I would have been slaughtered."
"Wouldn't that be considered treason against their own nation?" asked Etsuko, applying a healing salve to any visible wounds. It seemed like the kunai hadn't gone too deep; Kell's thin, bamboo-woven vest was hardier than it looked. His fiancée clucked over him, but wasn't all that nervous anymore. Her hands glowed a peculiar blue-green, and had a warm aura that exuded calm into the room.
Mito noticed Mariko's wonder at the bright circle of chakra that was mystically sewing up the wound on Kell's arm.
"That's healing ninjutsu," Mito told her. "The Senju are quite adept at it, as are the Uzumaki."
Mariko was, indeed, curious about this, but she wanted to know what Etsuko meant by committing treason. Who was committing treason against who? What did Tobirama's bandits have to do with this?
"I thought you dealt with your bandits already," Mariko said flatly to Tobirama, who was studying his scroll. He promptly rolled it shut when she strode over to look at it, and kept it frustratingly out of her reach. Mariko stopped herself from pouting and jumping ridiculously to get the scroll.
"Different bandits."
He slipped out the door.
Mariko swept her gaze across everyone in the room and tried to decide if she was having a terribly out-of-order dream, in which something that should have happened before had not happened yet, and she was left devastatingly out of the loop.
.x.X.x.
Shouts at night. There is a fire, and the wood of the barn is crackling loudly. There is a terrible splinter, the scream of animals. Mariko jolts awake, but she is not awake. A tug at her gut wrenches her outside, somehow through the walls. She sees the barn burning, the stable door collapsing in on itself in the flames.
The scream of a horse. No, several horses. The first one out is a sturdy gelding that she has come to love. It is Yodel, and he is flying faster than she imagined he could fly. The second one out the door relieves her heart — Katrina, safe and free of fire, following the first horse's path. Mariko hardly has time to register why her horse would be here. She is in Konoha, and the barn is one in which she watched Tobirama stack hay in the loft one day.
A third, fourth, and fifth horse. A sixth horse, this one a ghostly white mare. She doesn't realize it, but the white dancer carries the ghost boy, a boy with pale hair and seaweed for armor. He is grown, now. He is no longer a ghost boy, he is a ghost man. His eyes are sharp, and she realizes that they are nothing like the sea. Mariko had always imagined that he would have eyes like the ocean, deep blues and greens, shimmering like waves. But instead, they are like fire, they are the sunset on the sea's horizon, glowing ruby like the fire behind him.
There is a blue horse, then a green horse. She has no idea what she is seeing. There is a brown horse, colored like mud and squat as a stump. He is the color of the Hokage Mountain, a yellow rock. A rock horse.
There is a horse with bark for his coat, his tail made of leaves and his mane of moss.
Then there is a red horse, but its red is flickering. She can see right through him. Atop him rides a fairy, a creature without a definite face. She sees arms and legs, and hair made of flame wisped from the top of the burning barn. But now, Mariko notices, the barn doesn't have a top. It has fallen in on itself, leaving nothing behind.
Etsuko is screaming. Why is she screaming?
There is a hand in the rubble, charred and black. At first, Mariko thinks it might be Kell, because that would explain Etsuko's screaming. But no, it is not the Tea Country boy, for the tuft of unburned hair that is spared from the dying flames is of a strange hue. It is blue, the only thing definable of the charred face and body.
In horror, Mariko realizes who she is looking at.
Her eyes also seek out the figure crouching over the dead body. It is a wolf, coat like slate and silver, eyes bright and hard as an emerald. A wolf that moves like a man, on his hind legs, hunched in an animal style, prowling like a demon beast.
The wolf touches a claw to the blue hair of the Second Prince.
Katsurou disappears.
.x.X.x.
Mariko awoke so violently that she launched herself out of her bed and fell ungracefully to the floor with a thump. She cursed herself and her nightmares, for she always had the strangest ones. The clock read close to eleven; she slept in. Again, the blunette pondered angrily over her dream. Her dreams were always coagulations of the random things running through her mind. The nightmares were the worst because they were the most vivid.
Knuckles rapped on her door, and she shuffled to open it. She was surprised to find a solemn-faced boy staring at her, the one with the x-shaped scar on his chin.
"Toka sends this for you." He placed a paper in her hands and then left unobtrusively.
It was simply a request to see her later in the day, when she felt like it. Toka would be at the Hokage Tower, most likely.
Pulling on a light blouse and riding trousers, Mariko tucked herself into her usual riding boots and set off, despite veering away from the stables. She allowed herself a small glance, just to make sure it wasn't burnt down.
"Mariko," Toka said, upon her entrance into Hashirama's office. "I understand that Uchiha Izuna was at the scene of your attack?"
It sounded horribly like a crime scene investigation, the type of interrogating that occurred in one of those mystery novels that Ryouichi liked to read. Mariko remembered trying one out once, but it wasn't really her cup of tea.
"He was," the princess confirmed.
"And he helped you?"
"Yes."
"Did you see where he went?"
"No. He was helping Arata fight off the rogue nin."
"I see." Toka scribbled something down, as if it were extremely important. "Anything else?"
That seemed more like a question Mariko ought to be asking the pale Senju instead. She shook her head nonetheless. Toka looked as if she wanted to ask a few more questions, but a knock at the door interrupted her. Hashirama, glancing up from his paperwork, called for whoever it was to come in.
Three boys that Mariko should have known the names of appeared. She knew them now by "Team Toka", but could hardly recall their names.
"Danzo, close that, would you?" Toka gestured to the door, which swung ajar. The boy with the x-scar that had delivered Toka's message shut it quietly. So this was Danzo, thought Mariko.
"Torifu, Kagami, you haven't seen Uchiha Izuna lately, have you?" Hashirama asked. Torifu shrugged, mildly informing the Hokage that he had no relation to the Uchiha clan head's brother, and would never really get the chance to interact with him. Kagami, on the other hand, said that he hadn't seen Izuna around his clan quarters.
"That's strange," mused Toka.
"I've seen him."
Everyone turned to look at Danzo, who blinked owlishly.
"Where?" demanded Toka.
"In the strawberry fields to the north, sleeping."
This was such an odd answer that Toka blinked a few times at her student. Hashirama chuckled and supposed that this made some sort of sense. Izuna tended to get tired, and he also liked those herb and fruit filled fields up there.
The following two days were complete confusion. There was a strange thing going on with Izuna, while Sarutobi Sasuke repeatedly dropped in to mention something about Danzo, the quiet child. Hiruzen must have been in the kitchen next to Mito for a good six hours each day, for some reason — something about taking Biwako to dinner? — that was completely unrelated to everything else.
Meanwhile, Tobirama returned from the impromptu bandit mission. Kell recovered, though was covered in bandages, and Arata took to fiercely brushing each of his horses five times over. What's more, a messenger hawk came in saying that Aunt Tari's messenger bird had been found, but she and the two healers were nowhere to be seen. Upon hearing this, Kell fretted, and everyone began to argue pointlessly.
They heard nothing of Katsurou, and the three rogue nin weren't giving them much help either.
"I told you five times," insisted the straw-haired man, a cheeky young fellow, "being a Hozuki has nothing to do with why I'm here."
"I told you, this guy promised to pay me," insisted the other one, still sticking to his story of a frightful, zombie-like man who stole people's hearts. "He's got loads and loads of money. You'd better watch out — he might take your Hokage's head and sell it for some good money."
Finally, the last one, the Tea Country man, nearly went mad with terror upon seeing Kell. This was the one instance that he cracked, while all other times, he was stoic and hard. He attempted to kneel before him in an image of subservience, whimpering something about a man threatening to take his aunt and uncle if he failed. He was in desperate need of money, in order to care for his little sister, because their parents were dead and only their aunt and uncle occasionally looked after them.
"My aunt and uncle are healers, Lord Kell," the man insisted. Under his ruffian looks and unshaven face, he was a young man, around Kell's age. "Lord Gen and Lady Mella," he breathed, still prostrated at Kell's feet. "They give me money, but I wasted it terribly in bad investments and bets and gambling, and now I—"
"You're the nephew of Lord Gen?"
"Yes, I am, sir."
Kell and Hashirama exchanged bewildered glances.
"Who paid you?"
"A man from Takigakure, a famous black market dealer. I met him on one of my…excursions at night. It was shortly after I lost my life savings, and he promised to get it back for me if I did this for him. And then I vowed to never dip into the black market again," the young man insisted.
Now his story lined up with the River man's. Mariko, sitting in the corner next to a tired Arata, deduced that some shady figure from the Hidden Falls was pulling the strings to this. But mainly, she was now concerned about Katsurou, because hadn't he gone to find them?
"What is your name?" asked Kell quietly. "And please lift your head and take a seat."
"My name is Odzalaigh, but my friends call me Odd," he sniffled miserably.
"How old are you, Odd?"
"I'm twenty this winter, sir." He was a pitiful boy, hardly a man. He was thin and gaunt and skinny, never having filled out properly it seemed. Odzalaigh, who looked like he was scrabbling for food in order to keep his sister alive. But he was also Odzalaigh, nephew of a lord. Shouldn't he have enough money?
"Tell us of your so-called excursions," Hashirama said. Toka whispered something harshly, recommending that they attack the child with a different method. Hashirama shook his head, denying Toka's emotionally-charged style of interrogation.
"I tried making money on the black market," Odd admitted. "I bid on closed cases filled with forbidden items like ancient scrolls and sealed jutsu, among other things. It all depended on luck; some days, I might get a few kunai with fake seals, and other days, I'd get a rare gem. Then I'd sell them off to make a profit."
"And then?"
"I splurged on a fancy looking box, and bet all my money on it." Odd sighed dejectedly. "It turned out to be nothing but a few rings that anyone can buy from the local jeweler. I still sold them, but I hardly got anything left."
"Anything particular about the person you sold it to?"
"Well, there were ten rings total, with little characters on the cheap gem. I'm pretty sure the guy was from Konoha, but I'm not sure. Besides that, I met the Taki guy the same night."
Hashirama took little note of the fact that someone from Konoha was participating in black market auction — some things in the dark could hardly be found, and almost never avoided — but instead focused on the Takigakure figure.
"And what was he like?"
"He's near your age, Hokage-sama, I'd suppose. He wears a mask and has dark eyes without the white around them." Odd paused. "He wears a scarf around his head, so I couldn't quite see him, but he's got olive skin and greenish eyes."
"And those were his most prominent features?"
"Yes, that I could really see, sir."
"Thank you, Odd. Kell will accompany you to your quarters."
Konoha had a jail, but it wasn't as dismal as the name sounded. Odd was offered a better room, though he was still being watched just as carefully as the other two. The Hozuki, in particular, liked playing mind games with his guards, so a few Uchiha watched him with baleful glares.
The River man strung a few badly tuned strings along his small guitar, plucking a sad song at night. It was then noticed that his playing was putting people to sleep, and Mito realized that his instrument was from the growing Sound Village to the north, with the power of manipulating the ears to the brain.
Mariko cringed at the thought of the man's only solace, his guitar, being taken away. Though she supposed it was for the best.
Not being allowed to go out on her own, now, and with Arata recovering from his deeper wounds, Mariko resigned to trotting around the ring with Yodel. She was constantly distracted, something that Yodel reminded her of by abruptly dropping from a trot to a lazy walk when she didn't remind him to keep going. Eventually, Mariko relented and let the gelding back to his field where he munched contentedly on grass.
"Hiruzen, what are you doing in the kitchen?" she asked the next day, bored out of her mind, yet completely worn out from trying to piece together too many things that she couldn't possibly connect. Kell was not trying to kill her, this she was sure of. It relieved her, and the Hokage's trust was a very powerful factor.
"I'm learning to cook," answered the boy simply.
"What about your training? And missions?"
"Oh, I go to those, still." He seemed bashful, as if he was withholding embarrassing baby pictures of someone. Sworn to secrecy, his lips were zipped, and he was in no position to reveal to her anything.
"What about your one mission a few days ago? The one with the rogue ninja bandits?" Mariko leaned over to see what he was cooking, and was surprised to find him mixing cake batter.
But Hiruzen was puzzled, his eyes confused.
"We never went on a mission with bandits," he told her. "I caught a stupid cat, but other than that, we haven't done much. We went with Team Toka, since Tobirama-sensei was out."
First, Mariko wanted to laugh in Tobirama's face and tell him that she had been right, that they only got silly D-rank missions in which their goal was to catch a cat. Then at the same time, she was horribly confused.
She sought out Tobirama, who was, peculiarly enough, taking a nap in his room.
Face down on his mattress, the white-haired Senju was completely knocked out. He didn't even sense her walk in, and she assumed him to be a light sleeper. He smelled like soap again — he had lovely shampoo, a corner of herself marveled — and was clad in a light blue polo and baggy, black trousers, a strange combination on him. Mariko then stepped away, because it was strange to be staring at him so closely as to be able to smell him. She realized how odd she was.
Tobirama mumbled something, and it sounded vaguely like "Whashoo do hair, shirt?"
She understood it to mean "What are you doing here, Shorty?" despite it sounding like he was doing something odd with his shirt while washing his hair…
"Looking for you," she answered plainly enough. "And also wondering why you told me that your team was going on a C-rank mission to capture bandits."
"I did."
"You did, but Hiruzen and the others didn't."
"Oh, them." He was still half-asleep, and didn't have any intention to get up and have a proper conversation with her. Leaning closer, Mariko checked to see if he spelled like alcohol again; he didn't.
"Get up."
"Mmph." Tobirama halfheartedly tossed a pillow at her, before burying his face into his covers. He was half in his blankets, and half out. One leg was completely tangled in the sheets, which came up in a bundle to his chest, where he hugged it to his face with both arms. The other leg was sprawled over the blankets rather comically, so that he was hugging his blankets and his pillows, face pressed into the mattress.
Mariko poked his calf; he gently used his heel to kick at her. The Senju underestimated his power, because Mariko rubbed her thigh indignantly where he'd struck her.
"Tell me where you went."
"Sorry, S-class info." She could hardly hear him because he was talking into the mattress, which was now his new best friend.
"You said it was C-class."
"Just kidding."
"You rock headed liar," she said angrily.
"You sound like Etsuko," he mumbled back, shoving her with his foot again. More gently this time, sliding her towards the edge of the bed. Mariko planted herself stubbornly by his side again, closer to his head so that he couldn't kick her anymore. "I didn't lie about everything," he continued. "I did capture some bandits."
"What bandits?"
"The ones that were with your three archers downtown."
At this, Mariko was startled. Did that mean that Tobirama had caught all of her attackers? She asked him, but he shook his head.
"Different people. These are just the general henchmen." He sounded awake, but didn't look it, so she poked his ribs. He swatted her away with a pillow again.
"Why are you so tired?" The change of topic produced a rather relieved sigh — one that sounded like a horse blowing through its nose while it relaxed in its stall — from Tobirama, and he peeked at her from beneath his covers.
"They slipped me a sleeping drug without me noticing."
"Well that was stupid."
"It was. The side effects remain for three days."
"That was stupid, too."
"You're so kind, Lady Princess." He flopped his head back down into his covers again. When Mariko poked him a few more times, he turned to show her the grimace that was on his face. "Shorty, seriously."
"Seriously what?"
"Go hang out with Arata, or something."
"You want me to go hang out with someone else? That's surprising." She made a move to leave, but didn't, especially when her quip didn't evoke any reaction from him. Disappointed, oddly, she sat back down and poked his ribs for what seemed like the tenth time. Still no reaction.
"Shorty, stop," was all he said.
Mariko, in a moment of clarity, remembered a hot day not too long ago. She slipped out the door and quickly went to the kitchen to retrieve something she needed. Hiruzen glanced over, and nearly burnt whatever he was making now. Despite being under the careful guidance of Mito, he made a myriad of mistakes. At least he was determined, though. What now, flan?
"What're you doing with the ice?" he asked, nearly burning himself with a torch. Mariko corrected herself: crème brûlée. A dessert that surfaced memories of her departure, and the kind southwestern townspeople of Hurricane who offered her a delicacy before she took her leave. Her pretty much permanent leave.
"Something," Mariko answered as evenly as she could, failing to hide the little smile that came to her lips. Mito's eyes lit up, and shot Mariko an enthusiastic grin. Mariko hurried back to Tobirama's room before her prank could melt in her hands.
Sumiko and her dashing attempts at mocking her guests came to mind. One time, she'd dunked some unfortunate foreign lord's pants in catnip, and the poor man could not, for all his worth, deflect the herd of barn and house cats that meandered his way. Sumiko held a terrible grudge at that lord in particular — perhaps it was due to his tendencies to leer inappropriately at both her, Mariko, and their younger female cousins.
"Shorty, I thought you left," he said.
"Does that mean you wanted me to leave, or not?"
"I was hoping you left." He didn't look up at her, and spoke in the same, flatly tired manner as before. Perfect.
Mariko swiftly dumped the handful of ice cubes down the back of his shirt. She watched in delight as he seized up immediately, back snapping straight as a board. Tobirama cursed loudly and flipped over, grabbing the tail end of his shirt, his face an outraged scowl. He found the slippery ice cubes, and gripped one so hard in his hand that it cracked faster than it melted. To his dismay, this one place where he least expected ninjutsu, she used it. The ice cubes simply popped back up in her hand, she giggled as he struggled to keep her from pulling his shirt collar again.
"Shorty!" he exclaimed, almost frantically now. She somehow ended up dragging him by the shirt, almost choking him, and throwing the ice cubes down the back of his neck again. His hand whipped out and tried grabbing hers, but she carefully dodged around his splayed position on the bed and stuffed a pillow in his face. Muffled, he grunted and tried kicking his covers off, squirming with the ice in his shirt.
"Yes?" she asked innocently, allowing him to straighten himself. He scowled and flicked the remainder of an ice cube at her. "Ew, why'd you do that?"
"Why did you dump ice cubes down my shirt?" he demanded. At least he was awake now. "I'm going to—"
She threatened to materialize a few more ice cubes by wiggling her fingers, as if she was wielding a magic wand that would whip up some ice to torture him with.
"Stop that," he hissed, grabbing her ankle. She yelped, then smacked him with that same pillow. His hair was a mess now, and he looked absolutely ridiculous, on tuft of hair flattened against his forehead, and right next to it, an entire portion sticking straight up at an absurd angle.
She laughed, and he dragged her closer, grabbing yet another pillow to smack back at her attack. A grown man pillow-fighting with a blue-haired girl looked silly enough, but then they both realized that they were practically on top of one another, trying to whack the other party silly with fluffy pillows.
He paused, and watched her, her body trapped beneath his torso. He failed to notice that she'd subtly freed her arm, and Mariko promptly slapped the pillow across his head, sending him spluttering with the covers.
"I have defeated the Water King!" she exclaimed quite excitedly, doing her best to roll him up in the covers. When she failed to shove him over, she wrapped the comforters around him in an attempt to bind the much larger man.
"More like you've made a Tobirama roll," he grumbled. She snorted at this, and stuffed a pillow into his face again. This time, without hands to push it away, he nearly suffocated beneath the puffy fabric until she pulled it away again. "You know what would be more appealing? A Shorty roll."
Still in the midst of her enthusiastic mini-victory dance, Mariko plopped down beside him.
"No," she answered simply.
"I could throw you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes," he said. "It would be funny."
"And then what, have Toka chase you with a knife?" she joked.
Tobirama grimaced at this.
"I'm awake, Shorty, what do you want?" Reduced to a squirming egg roll of a man, Tobirama stilled and waited for her to ask what she wanted to ask.
"Where did you go? What happened?"
"They're just henchmen, I told you. We're grilling them for info, but they hardly know a thing. They only helped transport black market goods, and only know of their destinations and not their employers."
"That's sketchy."
"It is," he agreed. "Let me out, will you? It's getting stuffy in here."
"No." Mariko, just to spite him, wrapped another layer — there seemed to be several — of quilts around him. "What else did you find? Anything about Katsurou? Aunt Tari?"
"No, they don't know anything besides what cargo they carry, which happened to include your archers."
"So you're telling me that there's more of those archers out there?"
Hesitantly: "Yes."
Mariko stood up abruptly, suddenly nervous all over again. She had inklings of fear trickling into a gaping hole inside her, and it was filling up rapidly. Confusion replaced the information that she'd just received, throwing her into a mess again. Who was the Takigakure man, and what was his motive? Hadn't the one archer said something about Ice Style? If he was after Mariko, he could easily also be after Katsurou or Sumiko or even Ryouichi. Maybe he was after her because she seemed the easiest target. But that didn't make sense either — she was surrounded by the world's strongest shinobi. Well, at the time of the attack, Arata had been taken completely by surprise, the poor guy; he was still beating himself over it. Even then, Mariko was sure that he was a man that surely no one wanted as an enemy.
And before her, the Water King.
And the powerful mistress of Uzushiogakure, Uzumaki Mito.
And the god of shinobi himself, Senju Hashirama, Hokage of Konohagakure.
She was safe, wasn't she? Mariko fisted her hands. She was always being protected.
"Shorty?" Tobirama's voice broke into her thoughts. "You okay?"
He's wiggled an arm out of his dinner roll situation, and had touched the back of her hand gently. She sat back down, unceremoniously bouncing the bed.
"I'm fine."
"Who's the rock headed liar now?"
She sighed and gently pulled the covers away from him, peeling away layer after layer of rolled up covers to release him. Unexpectedly, she resented his touch for once. She allowed him a hand on her shoulder, but when he came closer, she floated away. He didn't pursue.
"I miss my brother," she admitted, suddenly.
"I know."
"You don't, your brother is here," she replied miserably. "You wouldn't understand."
"I would."
She glared at him then, confused and pained. What if Katsurou was dead? And no one knew? She refused to believe this, for it was best to think positive. Mariko had always learned many political sides of things. Should Konoha go to war with some other nation, she knew that Hurricane had quite the mighty navy to back them up, despite being significantly weaker than the Fire Country for its lack of shinobi.
"I get lonely too, Shorty," he said softly. She let him touch her hair, a comforting movement. "I was lonely when I was a kid."
"Kids aren't lonely if they have siblings or friends."
"I had a brother, but no friends."
She glanced up at him.
"Why not?"
He went silent, almost brooding. After a few long moments, Mariko thought her question would remain unanswered, and settled into the comfortable crook of silence. Then: "People shunned me."
"They did?" A curious statement, coming from someone like Tobirama. He was accepted here, wasn't he? A bit grumpy, but still loved by his family, right?
"My own clan shunned me," he added, sensing her confusion, though this only baffled her more. "They called me a curse because I was born with this coloring."
It seemed he was referring to his albinism, the whiteness of his hair and the paleness of his skin, his red eyes. Mariko knew only a little, things like how such a light skinned person was liable to get sunburn, or other dark melanomas of the skin. Red-eyed people with vision problems, among other health issues.
Yet Tobirama was none of this, so she wondered what exactly he was.
"They didn't call me a rare genetic change," he said. "They called me a phantom, the cursed ghost boy that would bring dishonor, shame, and bad luck to the Senju."
The ghost boy that dances with the waves.
"Water King".
"They tried to, well…" he paused, and glanced at her. Mariko silently willed him to continue, delicately squeezing his hand because she knew that if she reacted too extremely, he'd shy away like a frightened animal, and never open up this to her again. It wasn't every day that Tobirama gave away his feelings. You could talk all day to him and know close to nothing of his true emotions and thoughts.
"What did they do?" she prompted.
"Some tried to kill me. Others tried to ward me away with knives and spears. My parents, of course, still supported me." He smiled fondly at a memory. "My brother was the best. When the hateful ones came at night and dragged me away, carved into my skin and poured searing red ink into my wounds, he saved me."
The three, red marks, angry triangular streaks along his cheeks and chin.
"One for the mind, one for the body, and one for the soul," he explained. "They tried to purify me. Traditionally, they could carve your face, your chest, and your hands or feet, but they decided that the quickest way to rid themselves of a cursed four-year-old was to just get his face."
Horrified and full of an aching heart for him, she held his hand. It was limp and cold. Surely, however, he must've seen the look on her face to know what she felt.
"Why?" she whispered in the middle of his speech.
"Around the time I was born, there were immense droughts and increasing wars. One of the clan leader's most trusted men betrayed him, and because his other advisor was driven to insanity by the guilt of not being able to save his friend from turning to the other side's cause, he committed suicide."
This was war, politics, family, memories, and pain.
"And you were blamed."
"My brother," he said, trying for a lighter tone, "was our clan's genius. No one really wanted to see me, the shadow. But I guess this hair was just too bright for them; I stood out."
It was a poor attempt at a joke, and she didn't smile. His own false one dropped from his tired features, and he stood. He went silent, and the silence was deafening. The expression he gave was one that meant he was done talking, perhaps, for eternity. As if he'd let slip too much.
He wasn't one for admitting his feelings, after all.
"My mother once told me of a story," Mariko began, "of a clan on the coast. The main character, we called him the ghost. Ghost boy."
He looked up.
"His magic was with the water, and he danced with the waves. He was made completely of white mist. His brother was literally a tree, we called him the tree boy. He had bark for skin and leaves for hair. Their clan was the strongest in the land, far stronger than the rock people or the people of the flame illusions.
But I'm getting ahead of myself, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about." She laughed, lightly. "These are all stories my mother made, most of them bedtime stories. Ryo told me that she based them off news from the mainland, but I didn't think that anything could be so crazy in the world. I know now, however, that she was actually telling us the truth. Just with a creative spin."
Tobirama waited to hear the importance of her little story.
"So, next time you remember that people shunned you," she said quietly, "and made you unhappy and called you the ghost boy, remember the silly story a blue-haired princess told you of a magical little boy who was whiter than the snow and the ghost of the mainland we always tried to look for during high tide, in hopes that he would find his way over to Hurricane."
There was a long pause, as he tried reading her face. Mariko hoped that she'd made somewhat of an impact; after all, she had just connected that the so-called ghost boy that her siblings had idolized, especially Katsurou who longed to learn Suiton ninjutsu, was before her eyes. He was not just a story, but a real person living in the Fire Country. Belonging to a clan of warriors and the younger brother of a tree-turned-human, or the other way around, and the former enemies of a fire-breathing clan of illusionists.
He pulled his hand away from hers, but smiled.
"Thank you, Shorty."
.x.X.x.
Dear Momma,
I sent mail to both Sumi and Ryo. Neither of them have heard from Katsurou. It's been a week and a half since I was "attacked". Things happened far too quickly last week. First, Aunt Tari comes and goes. Within three days, Katsurou arrives. He stays for two nights, and on the third day, he leaves. On that third day, I am attacked. Or was it the day after? No, I'm quite sure it was that day. Yes, that's right. Now it's been more than a week, and it feels both like ages have passed since Katsurou was here, yet it also feels like it might have been yesterday.
.x.X.x.
If one was to watch Arata, probably ten days after a serious injury, there would be no reason to believe that he'd been shot by an arrow in two places. He rode confidently, his hands steady on the mare's rein. The pretty white animal was more lithe and tall than Yodel, and she jumped with a deer-like grace. She turned on a dime and galloped with the lightness of an antelope.
Yodel, not to be outdone, mowed down the strawberry fields. He thundered down the rows and leapt over hedges with a determination unrivaled by the mare. He made up for his lack of finesse and fine breeding with sheer willpower, hooves pounding relentlessly against the hard earth. In a way, horses were like humans.
Dear Momma, Mariko thought. People are determined to do things they cannot. Horses are too.
Though Yodel couldn't possibly make it over the next fence, he tried. His hooves scratched the top rail, but he somehow scrabbled over, leaving Mariko breathless and pretty much scared out of her boots.
After that, she praised the old bay and patted him fondly, lavishing him with too many carrots for his own good. A good rubdown was called for, and she spent over an hour brushing the sweaty crinkles from his coat out.
"Lady Princess, Kell is looking for you." Arata gestured out the door. "I'll finish for you."
She thanked him and stepped outside to find Kell nervously pacing back and forth across the path to the barn. He quickly motioned for to follow, and they huddled in a dark corner behind the barn.
"He said you would understand this," Kell said mysteriously, handing her a small package. "I'm awaiting a message, Lady, so I must be on my way. If you would, please tell me what it means."
He was gone, lanky figure striding nervously back to the Hokage Tower. Mariko opened the small package, an envelope with a strange bulge in its middle.
A lock of blue hair, tied over and over again with string until the string outweighed the hair. Scrawled on the inside of the cover, the roof of the envelope's paper mouth, were the words: Find Sumi now.
And not just in any words. It was an old Hurricane passage, a script that they were required to learn for royal encoding, but unnecessary for world communication. It was a message written in cipher, to which Mariko tried three of the most obvious codes before finding the one that worked. The ciphers worked in that a certain word would become the code, and wherever a certain letter was repeated, that was where the alphabet began, overlapping with another letter to produce what looked like scrambled words. For example, if the code was EMERALD, then the second E would begin the alphabet. From then on, one would write the alphabet following E and recurring back to A until a complete cycle was made. Underneath, a regular alphabet was written in regular order, so that whatever letter atop it was what you wrote down as the coded message. In addition, Hurricane's old script made for an overly complicated code that was nearly impossible to crack without highly skilled code breakers familiar with old eastern languages.
Ryouichi had seven rotating codes that his royal network, along with any underground organizations, recognized. However, he also had one personal code that only his closest knew. He used "FOREVER" as his family code, simply because it served to trick whoever was trying to hack his code. One could choose the R, which appeared twice, but the E also came up more than once as well. Even within this, Ryouichi had three rotations. He would either use the F, the O, or the V, but never the repeating ones, just to throw off the cipher. His siblings and closest family had learned to easily swap through each rotation until something made sense.
Sumiko also used the royal code, but her personal one was "STIRRUP" for her love of horses. The R was obviously her cipher letter; she hadn't any need to be as complicated as Ryouichi, who was already a major role in Hurricane as a country.
Finally, Katsurou used "ARROW", for his archery skills. The R was also his letter of encoding, and from there Mariko read his quick message. There was something else scrawled beneath the first message, behind the lock of hair he'd cut off.
Show Ryo —
A word she couldn't read, even with the cipher. She tried rotating everyone else's code through it, but nothing turned into a legible piece of information. Mariko assumed that it meant only Ryouichi would be able to understand this one, which put her into a frustrated mood.
Besides that, something had gone amiss, and it was urgent that she tell Hashirama. Mariko ran to the Hokage Tower.
"We'll contact your sister," confirmed Hashirama. "Though I'm not quite sure what this is about. Is Katsurou is danger?"
"I don't know, he left a lock of hair."
"Is that significant in any way?" Hashirama reeled through a series of reasons why Katsurou might chop off his own hair. "Is it to prove something, perhaps? Does it symbolize something? It is another code?"
"No, none that I can think of. Maybe to validate the letter? Though no one else knows the code besides him…"
"You don't know that, though," sighed Hashirama. "In any case, we'll send word to the Hot Springs. Luckily, they're just on our northern border. By falcon, it should take less than a day, at most."
Again, Mariko was astonished at the speed of shinobi. No, not just shinobi, but animals trained to work alongside them. Perhaps these birds were enhanced with chakra running through their wings so that they might fly faster? It was definitely possible. Tobirama made a horse leap higher simply by channeling chakra to it through the reins.
It had taken her sixteen days to travel from Hurricane to Konoha. Mail to Hurricane took less than three, maybe even less than two days at top speed. The world shrunk in the mail department.
"And the last part?"
Mariko realized that she'd completely gone off on a tangent in her own mind, and now Hashirama was asking her something. She blinked a few times, a slow deliberate action, like a disorientated owl.
"What did he write to you, the last part?" He was referring to the end of the message.
"He said to show my oldest brother something, but I can't read the last part. I've tried every cipher."
Hashirama muttered something about foreign languages being particularly hard to crack, especially since they had little information on the topic in Konoha.
"No matter. We'll send word to your sister immediately, and then see from there. Kell gave this to you?" Hashirama stood. Mariko's eyes widened, remembering how Kell had come out of nowhere with the package. Where had he gotten it?
"Yes."
"Did he say where?"
Mariko shook her head.
"We'll go find him for that, too," Hashirama said. He glanced outside. The sun was about to dip below the horizon; Mariko had not realized how long she'd been out this afternoon with Arata. The morning she'd accidentally wasted away by sleeping in again, plagued by another hideously vivid dream. This time, it had been of faceless people screaming at her, trying to hold her down and carve into her face, vials of red ink at hand. But then she'd floated away, and instead, Tobirama was in her place, struggling. He opened his mouth to scream, she covered her ears — but then she woke up.
"I can't imagine where he would get it," she murmured, thinking of Kell again. "Perhaps Etsuko would know?"
"We'll check with everyone. Hurry back to the house, my dear, Mito should have din ready." Hashirama checked something in his drawer, then his eyes went comically wide. "Of all things to forget, I forget to buy the milk. Mito will have my hide."
At this, Mariko burst out in laughter, because it was the most random thing she'd ever heard, and especially with the tension of the situation that she couldn't quite understand, she was relieved to see that Hashirama worried too. Even if it was a trivial thing.
"I'm serious," claimed the Hokage, fretting now. "She's probably waiting for me to get home just to see the look on my face when I remember."
"Does she need it?"
"She needed it two hours ago!" Hashirama clutched his head, and then he, too, began to laugh. "I'll just apologize and hopefully laugh it off."
"What was she going to make?" What in the world could be so urgent that the Hokage himself was worrying his hair off about? A super recipe with milk as its secret ingredient?
"Not Mito, Hiruzen. He wanted to make something again," Hashirama said, sighing pleasantly.
"Why has he been cooking, he hasn't told me," Mariko replied.
"Oh, he's learning to cook because he likes a girl," Hashirama laughed. "I think it's quite charming of him! Tobirama should learn from his own student." A wink.
"I agree, that's very nice of him," answered Mariko. She grinned at Hashirama's comment. "Tobirama doesn't really like to move at times, so I've taken to dumping ice cubes down his shirt."
Hashirama guffawed then, and the two burst into a fit of hysterical laughter. Mariko laughed partly because her memory was amusing, but more because of the humorous way that Hashirama was gripping his desk as he tried to catch his breath, trying to brush away tears of laughter from his eyes.
"What a wakeup call, I would've liked to see that," the Hokage exclaimed between laughs. In the end, their conversation ended with another mischievous plan to tease Tobirama with, before Mariko headed back to the Senju complex at the brink of dusk.
.x.X.x.
Note to self: Tobirama and Tenzou get along smashingly when Tobirama is not tired. Otherwise, either 1) fear for Tobirama's face, or 2) make sure Tobirama doesn't drown the cat and regret it later.
Also, I found out yesterday that Hiruzen was trying to make a milk chocolate creamy rice pudding, so he needed milk for part of his recipe. It was quite good – he managed to make it the next morning. Mito was angry about her loss of milk, though. I think she overreacted. Mood swing?
.x.X.x.
Mariko laughed, a tension released off her chest, when Tobirama began to battle with the cat. Tenzou chased a loose thread from Tobirama's blue shirt, and was trying to hang from it unsuccessfully. The tabby took to chewing the ends of the garment, while Tobirama repeatedly shoved the poor cat away.
"Hey Shorty, if you wouldn't mind, I was trying to see if your mail came in," snapped the Senju contemptuously. He eventually managed to dump the cat in Mariko's arms, but the cat was still hanging onto his shirt, so Mariko just followed Tobirama wherever he went, simply for Tenzou to keep playing with the shirt. She found it adorable.
Tobirama stopped by his room, and stared sourly at her. He glanced down at his shirt, which Tenzou was clawing at excitedly, and then back at her. Just to irk her, or rather, make her yelp in surprise, he pulled the shirt over his head and threw it at her.
"Your cat can have it, now. Happy?"
But she'd ducked her face behind the cat, who was happily playing with the shirt that swung back and forth from his paws.
Tobirama smirked, and then disappeared beyond another door. Just in time, too, because Mito blasted through the door like an ox on a rampage, so hard that Mariko feared for the door's safety. Luckily, it was still intact when she barged through.
"Where's that uncouth boy, get him out here!" she snapped.
"Bathroom?" Mariko gestured towards the door as best she could, one arm full of wriggling cat and the other with his shirt.
"Is that his shirt? Why do you have his shirt?" Mito had this funny expression plastered to her face, as if she was deciding why it was so odd to see the blunette holding her brother-in-law's clothing. Maybe the princess had been digging through the Senju's drawers in an oddly creepy manner. Highly unlikely, though.
"Um, he threw it at me?" offered the blue-topped girl.
"Tobirama, get out here, now!"
Mariko guessed that was part of the reason he'd disappeared into the bathroom; he'd sensed Mito barreling down the hall at light speed.
"Did you get Shorty's mail?" he called.
"I didn't get any mail, you rock head! Get out here!" Planting her hands on her hips, Mito glared at the door to the bathroom. If she glared hard enough, maybe it would burn to ashes.
"No thanks."
"You don't throw things at young ladies, Tobi," she snarled. "What are you doing, hiding in there?"
"Pretty much," supplied Mariko, to which she could imagine Tobirama scowling at her for. Tenzou pushed away from her and scrambled out into the hall, disappearing. He knew when a human was going to blow up, and his animal instincts — instincts that humans should have as well, Mariko would say — told him to get as far from Mito as possible.
"I'll break this wall," threatened Mito. Mariko didn't doubt the woman's ability to do so.
When Tobirama peered out, it was the meek gaze of a ten-year-old boy who knew he'd done something wrong. Mito grabbed his arm and hauled him out, banging his shoulder against the swinging door.
"Ow," Tobirama said unnecessarily.
"Hurry up, Tobirama. Why are you shirtless—hey!"
When the shirtless man tried dodging the redhead's fury, a well aimed kick nearly maimed him. He bumped into Mariko, who leapt back in fright, and then tumbled onto Tobirama's bed. He glanced at her, a somewhat baffled expression on his mostly stoic features.
"Toka will have your ass," barked the Uzumaki.
"Toka will have none my ass," deadpanned Tobirama with as much of a straight face he could manage. First, Mito tried whacking him upside the head. When he deftly dodged that, she went to knee him in his lower regions, but he danced out of the way as well.
"I have no time to waste, Tobirama," she hissed.
This time, Tobirama wisely kept his mouth shut, and waited to hear her next words.
"I want to know why Madara is claiming you stole his horses, and why Izuna was in a horse's stall this morning. If you won't tell me now, tell me later. If you won't tell me later, tell Hashi. If you won't tell anyone, even Mariko, then Toka will have your ass, and you'll be running to Iwa by sundown."
Vicious.
The only word that Mariko could think of was vicious.
When Mito slammed away and stormed down the hall, Tobirama rubbed the back of his head.
"Any ideas, Shorty?" He was obviously referring to why in the world the Uchiha were causing such a ruckus. Her being the horse girl should have helped solve this mystery, but she was too busy getting an eyeful of finely toned man. She blinked a few times, flushed, and then threw a pillow at him, inexplicably. Nonplussed, he caught the pillow and watched her carefully. That didn't really help, because now she was drawn to his perfectly sculpted arms and chest and…everything.
He muttered something about Mito being on her "time of the month", and then something else about warning Hashirama, and then telling Arata to go hide in a hole. Afterwards, he just waited to see her reaction.
She threw another pillow.
"Rocks, Shorty, what are you doing?!" He chucked the pillows back at her. One hit her face with a ceremonious pomf noise, and then fell to the ground. Mariko realized the predicament – he couldn't put on a shirt because she was holding it. This, for some reason, seemed like the most epic epiphany she had ever had, so instead of throwing the pillow back, she grandly whipped the shirt at him. Problem solved.
Not really.
When the tall Senju just stared at the shirt flung over his head without moving, she wanted to scream and tell him to put it on. But that would look ridiculous and insane, so she just kept staring, because that was the easiest thing to do.
It wasn't that she'd never seen a male torso – she did have two older brothers, after all – it was just that she hadn't seen any male torso that didn't belong to a family member, simply put. How Sumiko would have laughed at her.
"Appreciate the human figure," she once said. "It's natural."
Then Mariko made a disgusted face at her sister, in a way that meant she firmly believed boys to be contagious, human-shaped pathogens that might infect her through her eyes.
"Suit yourself, little sis," said Sumiko, shrugging. "You'll see what I mean one day."
Sumiko was adventurous. Mariko was not. Katsurou was adventurous. And Ryouichi…he was somewhere in the middle.
Always the most reserved of the siblings, the most modest, and the most shy, Mariko was one took polar ends of the stress bar. She either shut up completely, closed herself in a box, or she squealed and threw pillows at shirtless men. It seemed to be the latter at the moment, and Tobirama threatened to start laughing at her.
"Have I shown you enough, yet?" he called over flatly, dodging a third pillow. He suddenly loved the fact that his bed was adorned with a bunch of decorative pillows that he, for some reason, never failed to put back into place. Supposedly, he was a tidy person, but he didn't seem that way based on looks alone.
"Put the shirt on," she hissed.
"Let me think about it." He pondered magnanimously over his shirt, just to mock her. Then, he pretended to have an epic realization, one similar to her own, and he flung the shirt back at her. "Nope."
"W-we should go find out why Izuna's in the barn," she stuttered quickly, standing on his bed now. She wielded another pillow, which she whacked him with mercilessly, but failed to keep him from leaping up on the mattress alongside her. Nearly losing her balance, Mariko stumbled backwards while Tobirama measured carefully if his head would hit the ceiling or not. Deeming it safe to stand upright, he smirked down at her.
"Izuna's got enough patience to last the entire Uchiha clan for another generation," Tobirama answered. "I think he can wait."
"Patience is decided by whether or not someone is waiting," Mariko replied. "Izuna's not waiting."
"So?" Tobirama inched closer, in a stance that made him look like he was sword fighting with her. Mariko shoved a bigger pillow at his chest just so that she wouldn't have to look at it.
"Mito's waiting," Mariko pointed out.
"So?" he repeated. "Innocent girl, shall I tickle you?"
This statement was so bizarre that she took a moment just to stare at him, silently. She supposed that it would be best to dodge whatever happened next, because he'd bluntly told her he was about to tickle her. Then again, she got the strangest notion to try and tickle him back into her head. As if the world's greatest Suiton user would be ticklish, that was just absurd.
But she poked him in the stomach, and he recoiled, eyes wide.
"I'll tickle you," she replied, dead serious.
Somehow, the two managed a Hokage-level tickle-pillow-fight battle that threw them down on the bed and had them throwing more pillows. Outside, one would wonder what in the world they were doing in there, because it sounded nothing like bedroom activities nor normal human conversation. They never knew that Koharu and Homura stopped outside the door, and then turned right back around. Perhaps Tobirama noticed, but if he knew, he never let on, because he was too occupied trying to pin Mariko to the bed.
Exhausted, Mariko gave up on poking him, because apparently that was his new pet peeve. They collapsed among a fortress of pillows and ruffled bed linens, Tobirama sprawled so that he took up most of the space. She tried shoving him aside once or twice, but found again that poking his chest was not the same as placing her hands on him and physically trying to move him. But he was warm – hardly sweating, like she was, embarrassingly – and once tried to hold her hand there, closing his eyes and seeming to take a nap.
When it looked like he dozed off, she slipped her hand away and slapped his arm. He peered at her, obviously awake.
"Izuna, in the barn?" she reminded him.
"I'm not in the mood to see an Uchiha in the barn," he replied, tugging the corner of her shirt. Mariko looked down, and was appalled to see that he'd slipped her loose tee off her shoulder and was inching his hand up her waist. She kicked his shin. "Shorty, do you have to try to injure me all the time?" he snapped. "I'm going to have bruises, everywhere."
"Aren't you used to it?" she clipped easily. "You and your shinobi skills."
"Good shinobi don't get injured."
Scoffing at this, she sat up and pulled her shirt back on straight. His hand was still on her hip, so she leaned over and poked his bicep, jabbing him with a fingernail. He scowled.
"Stop poking me," he said darkly.
"Nope."
She didn't admit that she had wanted to touch the strong muscle of his arm, even if it meant poking him and annoying him to no end. She'd elbowed him once before, in the gut, hard enough to know that his abdomen was rock solid. Compared to Ryouichi, who was rather skinny and was never very athletic, the god of shinobi's younger brother had a godly shinobi body. Mariko recalled Katsurou teasing their older brother for his limp, thin arms and slim torso. Ryouichi had responded by building a good amount of muscle, but never anything as athletically built as Katsurou.
Mariko thought that in terms of well-sculpted muscle, Tobirama won the competition.
She would never tell him, though.
"Seriously, stop poking me." His voice was nearly a growl, now. Scowling, he leaned over her, placing both hands on either side of her head and forcing her to lie down again. "I will tickle you."
But she went quiet, trying to decide what to do in this situation. Warmth radiated from his skin, and it was quite comfortable.
Then, she poked him in the chest, a small grin trying to hide itself struggling on her face.
"Shorty." His eyes narrowed. "What did I just tell you?"
"To poke you," she answered. Her face must've looked ridiculous, the way she was trying to suppress her imminent smile.
"You'll regret this, princess."
Down the hall, Koharu and Homura exchanged wary glances at the squeal that came from their sensei's room.
Yodel was a friendly, sociable animal. He always hung his head over the stall door in anticipation of anyone coming through the aisle. He had a large, fine head that he bobbed up and down whenever someone came near him. Sometimes, it looked like he was nodding.
However, today, a fine almost-noontime period before lunch, his rump was to the door and he was intrigued by something in the back of the stall. There was a person, dark-haired and calm, sitting peacefully on a pile of blankets with the straw to cushion his back. He was lean and quite fit, though his face was a little gaunt. He had a straight nose and a mild smile, a genuine one that one could see through the dimples on his cheeks and the way his head turned up slightly.
Usually, people watch the eyes.
But this man lacked eyes completely, a factor he made for with his quiet, charming charisma. He was not loud and violent like his brother, but rather the silent, strong coyote in the background.
"He seems to know I'm blind," Izuna said softly upon their entrance. "See that? He watches for me."
It actually did seem like the horse was acting as Izuna's eyes, for his bay body swung around to peer out into the aisle. He recognized Mariko as his rider and Tobirama as the tall man who smelled like a lake and had treats sometimes, but didn't pay them much mind. The gelding snuffled into Izuna's hands fondly, dribbling horse drool on his former owner. Izuna casually petted the horse's noses, ignoring the carrot-drool that dripped onto his lap.
"He's a lovely horse," agreed Mariko.
"My brother's outside, if you haven't noticed," Izuna replied lightly. He rubbed the horse's ears. "He's avoiding Mito, though."
"Everyone avoids Mito around this time," muttered Tobirama, folding his arms. He turned to Mariko. "Shorty, if you get mood swings to, I'll seriously move to Iwagakure."
Mariko made a face at this.
"What brings you here, Uchiha?" Tobirama continued.
"I was visiting my horse. I told my brother I missed my horse, mentioned that Yodel here was happy with the Senju, and he got it into his head that the Senju stole my horse."
"Typical," scoffed Tobirama. "I'll go see what's up. Shorty, make sure Saru doesn't burn down the kitchen, and keep an eye on this Uchiha for me."
"That was a lovely pun," deadpanned Mariko. Eyes and Uchihas, especially Izuna, were quite the funny pair.
"I haven't any idea what you mean," he replied lightly, exiting the barn. When he was gone, Izuna stood up and moved around his horse. Yodel followed, nosing the man excitedly. He seemed to be asking if they were going to a ride, which Izuna sadly declined.
"I could still ride him, if I really wanted to," he said softly. "He'd guide me anywhere."
"He would," Mariko agreed.
"He likes you." This was said in a slightly different tone of voice, one that Mariko couldn't discern from serious or sad. She assumed he was talking about the horse.
"Yodel? Yes, he's very friendly, I like him too."
"Lady Princess, I was talking about Tobirama."
Silently, she regarded the Uchiha, whose insight and ability to see what he could not were astonishing. He had given his own eyes to his brother, yet was completely happy without them. Did he ever feel as if he lost something? Mariko felt like she was lost simply without her horse. Putting her white pastels away felt like peeling a layer of home from her skin, a layer of family and culture. She donned Konoha's casual attire and put away the layered and folded dresses from Hurricane. She had eyed Katsurou carefully, for once noticing how oddly the ochre patted around his temples made him stand out.
And here was Uchiha Izuna, content without his sight. Content because he learned to adapt to every situation his life threw at him.
Perhaps that was the ability of shinobi – to adapt.
But then, perhaps, regular humans should do so as well.
.x.X.x.
Her hands shovel desperately through the ashes. She finds a hand, but it disintegrates upon her touch. It's not Katsurou; she can see the face. But it's a face that doesn't have eyes, and the lips are dry and pale, his hair dark. She thinks it's Izuna, because who else could it be? But she peels back another fallen board, her strength a product of her dreams, and she sees the face. It is horridly familiar, this face, with its two crisscrossing scars over the forehead and down the bridge of his nose. Eyeless and oddly lacking in color, it is Arata.
She screams.
The scene changes, and there is a woman brushing her hair. A soft voice, singing a Hurricane lullaby about trees made of emerald. At first, it seems like her mother is there, braiding her hair into long, winding rivers of overlapping blue, but it is Sumiko, hands delicately running down her back.
But Sumiko falls silent, her eyes trapped in the distance. Mariko turns to ask her what is wrong, what has she seen, why is she suddenly so still?
"Flip it all, child, do you know what you've done?!" her sister suddenly screams at her. "Flip it all, flip it all, flip it—"
A hand unexpectedly clamps around Sumiko's throat, effectively cutting off the words of Queen Manami screeching from her lips. This is not a person Mariko knows. She backs away, frightened.
A dark-skinned man, toned like an old olive, with hard eyes and dark red sclera. The most defining thing about him — his horrid eyes, unnaturally bright green, the whites of his eyes stained a bloody crimson-black. He wears a mask, under which he seems to be grinning horribly. His hitai-ate is pulled from his pocket, and he wraps it around Sumiko's neck slowly. He allows Mariko to see the piece of metal engraved with his nationality.
She recalls the name of the peculiar, jagged lines. She has memorized so many nations and their symbols, from the unique swirl of Konoha to the hourglass figure of the Sand.
He knows she's recognized him, and he tightens the band around Sumiko's neck. There is a deafening crunch and Sumiko falls limp; the hitai-ate clatters to the ground, bloody.
Mariko must have been screaming, but she couldn't hear herself, and the corners of her vision were blurred with what must have been tears.
She is left staring that the plate of metal, engraved with the symbol of Takigakure.
.x.X.x.
"You've been having bad dreams?" Mito asked patiently, when Mariko came stumbling to her door at night, disturbing both the Uzumaki and her husband. She hadn't the will to go look for Tobirama, because she wasn't sure she wanted to tell him, so she sought the closest woman. Mito, compassionate and warm, forever a welcoming embrace, was her answer.
Mariko nodded, sipping a cup of warm tea in the kitchen.
"What kind? Do you see people you know?"
She nodded again, and when Mito asked her to describe them, she shook her head.
"Mariko, I can't help you if you don't tell me. Think of me as the funny therapist man who asks people how their day is."
At this, Mariko offered a wan smile, and then described her worst two dreams. She'd had several recurring ones, and this last one was new. Most of the time, the barn burned down, alternating from the one in Konoha to the one by Emerald Palace. Every time, Tobirama rode out on a white mare, followed by a faceless fire-fairy — each time taking a semblance to an Uchiha, more and more — and finally, the wolf creature bending over Katsurou before it all vanished.
"It seems you're jumbling a lot of things that go through your mind," Mito said quietly. "Perhaps you just need to take a relaxing break during the day, and stop worrying about this recent business. Don't think of it as a big deal. Think of Konoha as the largest shinobi nation, which it is, completely engulfing your problem and resolving it. That's what we do."
Mariko took a deep, shuddering breath, and then told Mito of last night's dream. Mito responded by repeating the same advice.
"Take a break for a few days, then see how you feel."
Mariko tried hard to relax, but after Mito padded back to her room and left Mariko in her own, she couldn't help but feel a chill up her spine. She desperately wanted to hear back from Sumiko and Ryouichi, and most of all, Katsurou. She knew who she had seen, and it was definitely the man that Odzalaigh had described. The blunette found the urge to find the meek Tea Country boy, a child who happened to be twenty years of age and struggling.
But she stayed in bed, and for the next three days, spent most her days at the barn, just to make sure it didn't burn down.
.x.X.x.
Dear Momma,
I remember you used to give me a honey-based remedy that would rid me of bad dreams. I'm not sure if it actually worked, or if it was just all in my head, and my own imagination cured by nightmares. Do you think Ryo would remember what exactly you did?
.x.X.x.
"Close your eyes and take a sip." Manami held a small mug to her daughter's lips. Mariko drank it, tasting a sweet tang on her tongue and a glob of honey sliding down her throat. "Now spin in a circle."
Five years old and forever obeying her mother's words, no matter how ludicrous they sounded, Mariko spun. When she faced her mother again, the queen pinched her cheeks and told her to take another sip.
"Now count to ten, and then breath out slowly. As you do so, say this in your head: Demons, demons, don't come my way. The moon shall chase the wolf away."
And so Mariko thought it, imagining little, ugly demons fleeing from her mind and the moon descending to blow a wolf monster out of her head.
Manami tucked the Second Princess to bed, humming a familiar lullaby.
"Sleep well, my child. May the stars crown you with the emeralds, and the sea wash upon a herd of sapphire horses. In your dreams," Manami whispered, pressing a tender kiss to the little girl's forehead. Mariko smiled and wrapped her short arms around the woman's neck, breathing in the familiar scent of rain and freshly baked bread. It was something she always liked, especially when Manami was gone and the only older woman who cared for her was Aunt Tari, who smelled similarly due to the shared love of baking between sisters.
Mariko fell asleep, released from her nightmares.
.x.X.x.
Dear Aunt Tari,
I wonder where you are.
I wonder where everyone is.
Perhaps Ryo will answer me.
.x.X.x.
The fourth day after her horrid nightmare — after a few nights of, thankfully, dreamless nights, despite her restless tossing and turning — Kell was pacing back and forth across the path again. He didn't explain why, but Mariko came out to talk to him anyway. He glanced repeatedly in the direction of the Hokage Tower, and then admitted that he wanted to talk to Odd again, but they were forbidden contact with the three archers until Konoha's Torture and Interrogation department finished with them.
Mariko thought the name overly gruesome.
Out of the blue, through the clear morning sky, a commotion rang loudly through the air. There were shouts and the clattering of many, many horse's hooves. Yodel, intrigued, lifted his head and pulled his rope taught, ignoring the chance to graze. Arata came out on his red-chestnut colt, which was filling out into a fine young horse, and followed their gazes.
Several Senju clan members peered out from their homes, and a number of shinobi formed a condensed crowd just outside the gates near the town. Someone ran from the road from the Hokage Tower.
"What happened?" asked a Senju. The townsman announced that some foreign governor or ruler of some sort had made an unannounced arrival in Konoha, and was now making a big commotion about it.
"What's the big deal? Is he here to beg to the Hokage of something?" asked the Senju.
"I don't know, but he's on horseback and the crowd is huge. It's like he's calling for attention on purpose. I wonder…" The townsman put his hands on his hips and shook his head. "Ah, let me correct myself. It's a woman."
"Is she here to declare that she's claiming some poor man as her own?" joked the Senju, then promptly shut up when he noticed Mariko and the rest of them gathered behind him. Mariko ignored him and his jab at people who couldn't decide their marital fate for themselves.
"My Lady, my Lady!" called a squire, galumphing down the street on horseback. "Oh dear, I'm lost."
"Who are you looking for? Is it the entourage at the Hokage Tower?" asked the townsman.
"Yes, indeed, it is this way?" asked the squat man on horseback, fidgeting with his reins. The horse tossed its head. "Thank you very much," he said, before jarring his heels into the poor animal's sides and cantering briskly to the Hokage Tower.
And came cantering back just as briskly.
"May I ask, is Senju Tobirama here?" His voice was nasally and small, and he constantly huffed nervously. "My Lady is inquiring."
"He's—" the Senju turned, glanced around. "—not here at the moment. We'll get him for you."
He motioned, and someone, probably Etsuko, jogged back to the main house.
"In the meantime, my Lady is also looking for, um, Senju Hashirama?"
"He'd be at the Hokage Tower," Kell answered simply enough. The squire looked annoyed, as if he wanted to be in five different places at once but, obviously, he could not.
A second horseman trotted down the road. He wore a dark, navy-blue uniform with a stiff black collar. His boots were shined till they reflected the sun in a magnificent gleam, and he wore his lieutenant's hat jauntily on his head. A small bar identified him as a lieutenant of the coast guard, but whose coast guard, it was difficult to discern.
"Squire."
"Lieutenant, we're currently searching for Senju To—"
"Squire, please show some respect." The lieutenant swiftly dismounted, and motioned for the shorter man to do the same. Baffled, the squire dismounted, proving himself to be shorter and squatter and far more portly than he seemed on horseback.
"My Lady is requesting—"
"Lady Princess." The soldier bowed his head and kneeled. Everyone turned to see who he was paying his respects to, and the subject of attention stepped forward.
"Lieutenant of the Coast Guard," she addressed. "You may lift your head."
He stood and saluted, before gracefully mounting once more. Mariko always liked the fact that Hurricane's coast guard was mounted, even though they dealt with matters by the ocean, before the navy took over. Then again, the navy somehow also employed horses, for some obscure, abstract reasons. They didn't use horses all the time, but anyone working in service for Hurricane was adept in horsemanship, whether he (or she, for women were also capable soldiers) knew how to ride beforehand, or knew absolutely nothing of horses.
Everyone gaped at Mariko, then at the lieutenant, then at Mariko again. Tobirama arrived at a light jog, and stopped, breathing lightly.
"I hear I am called for?" he asked flatly.
"Sir," the lieutenant says.
"My Lady requests your presence," snorted the squire, who had scrambled to get back on his horse, which was, thankfully, a smaller one so that he didn't have to find a mounting block.
"Your lady?"
Mariko had a good idea of who was causing a commotion, now. The dramatic entrance was quite characteristic of her, actually.
"Yes, please come quickly." The squire rode off, inexplicably brief and rather strange. The townsman and the one Senju he was conversing with were still staring at Mariko.
"Lady Princess, my horse may be of service to you, if you wish it." The lieutenant prepared to dismount.
"Remain mounted, lieutenant. I'm fine on my own." That was because a glance back at Arata sent him to snatch up Yodel's lead rope. The bay gelding had returned to his pleased chewing, yanking up tufts of grass and grinding the blades slowly. He looked quite happy to be the center of attention, as Arata boosted Mariko onto his bare back. Riding without a saddle and solely guiding the horse with a single lead rope to the nylon halter, Mariko nodded the lieutenant, whose stoic demeanor broke for a moment.
Tobirama touched her knee, meaning to mount up behind her, but his eyes widened when she grinned and suddenly legged Yodel forward. The bay launched himself into a springy canter, blowing through his nose, and headed towards the Hokage Tower. Mariko heard Tobirama swear. Then, with practiced ease, he was suddenly next to her, leaping along the rooftops, a graceful shinobi running up and down the walls.
The lieutenant, startled yet amused, galloped after her. The squire, a little slow to comprehend the situation and absorb it all, frantically slapped at his horse's sides and rode after them.
When Mariko came thundering into the plaza before the Hokage Tower, the crowd broke with alarmed exclamations, and the figure in the center of the crowd turned to look at her.
Face painted white and adorned with colors more vibrant than a rainbow, lips painted into a bright red smile, a blue-haired woman, gold hoops dangling from her ears.
Sumiko.
Just curious, has anyone caught anything throughout all the chapters that they'd like to say so far?
I drop hints...-ish.
Like, remember Haku and Zabuza? Haku, Ice Style, blah-de-blah, something in the first chapter...?
There is one man that should obviously be obvious (coughHidan'sbuddycough)
PLUS
Kell is based off an adorable Bird Country filler character.
But really, when is Naruto going to have time to visit all those filler characters he promises to visit? As phoenixyfriend said to me: "In another filler...of course."
I also threw nonsense Tobirama minus shirt in there, probably for wisdom-jewel.
Run, children, run. XD
Hurricane, if you're wondering, pulls an Uzushiogakure and disappears, far into the future, leaving YOU to wonder where all the blue-haired people went...dun dun dunnnnn.