Exams- *sigh*
4. Do not ogle his body and/or features while at training or on a mission. This will be a crucial step in your road to recovery, considering the fact that the Fitzroy has one of the most beautiful bodies in the history of...well...everything. If you manage to complete this step, it will only be a matter of time before you forget the bastard totally. If you begin to stare, just tell yourself to imagine him naked...WAIT NO! DON'T DO THAT! IN ABSOLUTELY NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU DO THAT! Instead...imagine him...wearing...a...a... bunny suit.
Elizabeth was freaking out.
No...Freaking out was the understatement of the century. She was sitting on the floor of her bedroom, ready to completely give up her own goal of giving up Henry. Her next step was impossible. Utterly insurmountable.
No. There was impossible, which included such tasks as trying to teach Lee about Fashion, getting Charlie to go on a diet or managing to get Steven to kick his lazy habits to the curb. There was that impossible... and then there was this, which was about four or five notches above that.
She was is the right mindset to just shove the list down her own throat, choke herself and forget about the whole thing.
'Don't ogle him?' She pressed a hand to her forehead and tightly squeezed her eyes shut. She'd been ogling him for as long as she could remember. In fact, she was pretty sure every woman in Vampiria who was even remotely around their age group had been staring at him from the corners of their eyes.
'Am I out of my mind?' Elizabeth decided to avoid answering the question to herself. She was, after all, trying to get over the one person whom she'd ever loved who just happened to be possibly the most beautiful human specimen ever created, with a set of skills and intelligence to match. Most would debate that as being clinically insane, Elizabeth included.
How on earth had she even contemplated achieving this? The more she thought about it, the closer she got to drowning herself. His abs, his face, his arms...They were all working against her.
But that wasn't even the worst part. She'd just found out this morning that she'd be leaving for a mission with the rest of her team to The Sand Land. Unfortunately that included Henry as well.
The only good news was that their "mission" was really two separate tasks, which had simply arose at the same time and both the destinations were the same. The team would divide into two groups once they reached the border of the Land of Fire and meet up later. Godric had been infected recently in a battle and Elizabeth was required to heal him. After what had happened to his father a few years back, Godric and both his sibilings put their faith in her medical abilities more than almost anyone else's. She had saved him from an injury most medic couldn't. While she spent the time inside the city, the four men would scout the area surrounding The Sand Land and Vampiria to gather further information about the organization that was behind the deaths of the three Ninja's.
Elizabeth was grateful that she wouldn't be spending all her time around the Fitzroy, but that didn't expel the fact that she'd still be traveling with him for at least four days, and would be spending time with him overnight.
Any other time, she wouldn't have a problem, for before, she was always free to swoon over his body however much she wanted to. But now. Now she had the pressure of forcing herself to look away. The pressure of failing on her shoulders.
"Argh...I'm going to have to shoot myself." She thought before falling over backwards and glaring a hole into the ceiling. "That or jab out my eyes with my knives to stop them from mentally undressing the guy."
She groaned. She was so screwed.
The auburn haired girl reluctantly awoke the next day and began gathering all her supplies. The plan was to meet the team outside the gates at seven in the morning before heading out towards the border.
Elizabeth double checked her medical pack and shrugged into her training vest. She may have been inwardly dreading this week's step, but she knew that her duties as a ninja and medic came first. She inhaled a deep breath and puffed out her chest before letting it all out and heading off to greet the boys.
"Elizabeth-Kabe! You're here! Now we just have to wait for the pervert and we can go!" Said William hyper as always. The pervert he referred to was Jasper.
The girl heaved a large sigh. You could always count on William to...liven things up. Even at seven in the morning. That liveliness had often gotten the group in trouble and his spirit and vocal capacities were enough to wake up the whole village. She momentarily made a mental note to have a little talk with him about respecting people's down time and talking with an inside voice.
'How on earth is the guy such a morning person?' She wondered to herself.
"Shut up dobe. It's too early for your stupidity." Elizabeth very nearly giggled. While William was obviously a morning person who woke up with a smile automatically plastered across his face, the Fitzroy was clearly the opposite. The Fire user probably didn't find the words "cheerful" and "morning" used in a sentence together natural.
"What was that Kabe? You're just pissed because you had to wake up alone. Unlike me! "
Elizabeth felt her face lift slightly at William's words. It was well known that the blond haired boy had been living with Hillary for two years now and that they were, without a doubt, the cutest couple in Vampiria.
"Don't make me repeat myself stupid." Henry countered. Had a stranger walked by at that very moment, they would have been able to easily see the twitch that William's face had acquired as well as the fist at his side that was itching to make contact with the Fitzroy's jaw.
"Kabe..." William growled out.
"Oh calm down dickless. We all agree with him so just shut the hell up, you're giving me a migraine."
William silently fumed at Sam's comment. He'd show him dickless! Elizabeth quirked an eyebrow at the team's antics. Had she been twelve, she would have been fretting about the team's fighting and yelling at William to listen to Henry- babe. But since she dealt with this kind of thing every day, she just contented herself with watching them tear each other apart until Jasper arrived. Today she was glad for the bickering between the others, for it took her mind off of her list and reminded her that this would be exactly like every other mission. Perfectly normal.
She turned her head when she heard someone sigh beside her.
"Still fighting I see."
"Jasper..." Elizabeth blinked, a bit surprised. She was so lost in her thoughts she didn't even notice his signature puff of smoke.
"Yo."
"You're late again..." She stated simply in warning. She had grown accustomed to his late arrivals and had learned to accept them, for she knew that he was never going to change...William, however...had not.
"You're late AGAIN you pervert! We've been sitting around here for ages!"
And so it went. Elizabeth just laughed she watched as William yelled at him, Jasper attempted to defend himself, Henry glared at the blonde and Sam just rolled his eyes and ignored them. Their routine was comforting.
The crew stopped their flight through the trees a little after sunset and began to make camp. They had been running for hours and it was time to settle down for a while.
Elizabeth began to pitch her tent in between Jasper and William's tent. Jasper would be sharing with Sam for the trip, while William would share with Henry. Elizabeth giggled when she heard Henry muttering threats under his breath.
"I swear dobe, if you kick me, you'll be out on your ass outside...Even a touch..."
The three tents would always stand together and because Elizabeth's was the smallest, she had to place it between the two others.
After all their tents had been laid out, the group sat (relatively speaking) around a fire. Sam was leaning against a nearby tree with his sketch book in hand, the scratching of his pencil the only sound emanating from the area. Henry lay above him in the branches of the tree, completely ignoring the rest of the group sit while Jasper was sitting next to the fire reading his book and giggling quietly to himself. William, of course, was shoveling food into his mouth and jabbering away about the mission and how he'd complete it and come one step closer to becoming a senior Ninja. Elizabeth merely hugged her legs and stared into the flames.
Suddenly Henry jumped from the branch and started walking away.
"Hey kabe! Where ya going?" William asked with a slight furrow in his eyebrows.
Henry merely shrugged his shoulders and with a "Hn" kept walking.
"Antisocial bastard." William muttered under his breath before shouting out to the man "Yeah well just make sure you come back after you leave this time!"
The group heard the sharp sound of a branch being broken, quite viciously, in half.
"Jeez it's hot" she muttered as the Fitzroy footsteps grew fainter. She was sitting right in front of the fire and the combination of all her clothes plus her training vest was causing her to sweat. She swiftly pulled off her vest and outer layer, leaving her in only a sporty black tank top. She smiled happily as the night air whipped around her overheated arms. She was perfectly comfortable.
"Well guys, we should probably head in. It's pretty late and The Sand Land is still a while away." Jasper mentioned while stuffing his porn into his front pocket.
"Yeah, you're right. Goodnight guys." Elizabeth mumbled while getting up. Weariness was creeping up on her, and she knew that if she didn't go in soon, she'd fall asleep on the ground.
"'Night Elizabeth-Kabe!"
"See you tomorrow hag."
She climbed into her tent and changed into some shorts. Burrowing herself deep inside her sleeping bag, she smiled. Everything was going well. She hadn't even thought about Henry and his damn body. This step would be completed no problem.
The girl stopped thinking about the list and started to doze off before realizing that she'd left all her clothing out by where the fire had been. She rolled her eyes at her own forgetfulness and unzipped her tent. A shuffling could be heard outside but she just figured it was Henry returning from...wherever he'd been. As she climbed out she realized that that was exactly who it was. Wet haired, bare chest and rippling with muscle. Apparently he'd gone to bathe himself and was returning just now. He was passing the entrance to her tent and she got a nice close up view of his structured form.
'Holy hell!' Inner Elizabeth cheered before correcting herself. This wasn't exactly what you'd call hell. Heaven seemed to be a more fitting word.
She choked out a small gurgling noise when she saw him, instead of paying attention to where she was stepping and found herself tripping forwards, fast. She braced herself to land hard on the ground and embarrassed herself, when she felt a firm hold on her wrist. She caught her balance and stood up straight, fast as lightning.
She quickly closed her eyes and thanked him politely for catching her before she kissed the ground. Elizabeth didn't dare to look at him again because she would probably pass out, either from humiliation or the overwhelming sensation in her gut from his looks.
She ran to the where she'd left all of her belongings and bolted into her tent with a quick "Goodnight Henry-babe. Thanks again. See you tomorrow!"
The Fitzroy merely smirked and very nearly chuckled. She was still affected by him after so long. She really was an amusing person to observe sometimes. Annoying and highly irritating, but amusing nonetheless.
The man climbed into his tent and growled when he noticed that the dobe had put his sleeping bag on the right side of the tent. Henry grabbed the edge of William's bed and hauled him over to the left side before settling himself down. He had to keep reminding himself that it was because he felt more comfortable on the right side, for that was the side he slept on at his house, and had nothing to do with the fact that the right side was the side closest to Elizabeth's tent. The very idea that he wanted to be as close to her as possible was absurd.
Meanwhile Elizabeth was currently slapping the sides of her face repeatedly. Images of her Inner pointing an accusing finger towards her shouting "OGLER!" was surprisingly overpowering.
'So much for "forgetting about" Henry and his "damn body"' she thought vehemently. She'd need to work twice as hard to look away. She'd underestimated the power of a beautiful, god-like body. Groping around for her bag, she pulled out the list and a flashlight from her bag and quickly scanned the step again.
'Imagine him in a bunny suit...? I...guess I can do that.'
She shut her eyes and tried to picture the last of the prestigious Fitzroy clan wearing a fluffy pink rabbit costume. She was briefly amused, before her mind's bunny-Henry began to unzip the costume revealing a sliver of his bare chest.
'Oh crap! Abort! Abort!' Inner Elizabeth screamed. However Elizabeth was trapped. Bunny-man was now pulling the zipper past his abdomen, dragging it slowly until Elizabeth was practically drooling in her mind. She caught a glimpse of the body he was revealing and nearly fainted.
Suddenly, almost as though someone had drenched her in water, she shook her head and grabbed the nearest pillow. Burying her face deep within the feathery depths she let a muffled scream escape her lips, before collapsing backwards.
How ironic it was that the one guy she happened to be trying to let go of was the one man in the world who could make a fuzzy bunny outfit alarmingly sexy and abnormally erotic.
'Figures'
The wind was blowing roughly through The Sand Land. Elizabeth wrapped her training vest a bit tighter around herself while she trudged through the streets in the desert town. She was, for lack of a better word, exhausted and completely drained. She had known that Godric's injuries were serious, but the medic had severely underestimated how bad they really were. She had drained almost every ounce of her raw power, while healing him.
Still, the happy and satisfied smiled grazed her features, as she strolled through the streets. She had successfully healed the Heir to The Sand Land without a hitch. Godric held a special place in her life. She hadn't known him very well, but she trusted him with her life and considered him a good friend. Knowing that she had helped him made her feel good.
She knew she had to leave soon to meet up with her own team. She really didn't want them to have to wait around too long for her. Elizabeth planned to leave immediately, so she picked up the pace to the Heir's tower to gather her belongings from the room they had provided for her and to bid her farewells to the sand siblings. This would be the last she'd be seeing of them for a little while.
When she had packed up all her medical supplies and clothing, she made a beeline to the Heir's office. One gentle knock later, she found herself face to face with Godric, for the last time for a few months. She bowed deeply.
"Thank for your hospitality your highness." The red haired man gave her a subtle look at the formality and Elizabeth laughed lightly. "Sorry. Godric. I hope you're feeling better. I really should leave soon though, 'cause the rest of my team will be waiting for me."
"I understand Santiago." It was Elizabeth's turn to give him a look. Godric sighed and very nearly smiled. "Elizabeth. Thank you once again. You better say goodbye to Tanya or she'll throw a fit." Elizabeth tilted her head back and laughed. She could just picture her close friend complaining about her leaving without a real goodbye. Tanya was Godric's sister.
"Will do. Thank you once again. Goodbye Godric." She bowed one final time and quickly left to find the blonde haired sand sibling.
About ten minutes later, Elizabeth was already sprinting through the trees. Because of her lack of power, she had to run at a normal speed, instead of instilling power into her feet to enhance her speed. She silently hoped that they wouldn't have been waiting for her for too long. To be honest she'd feel guilty for being the one to hold them back. She hadn't seen them all for a few days, so a late entrance wasn't what she was looking for.
The leaves whipped around her as she jumped quickly from branch to branch. She burst through into a clearing to take a small break after about an hour or two or traveling. The depletion of her powers was taking its toll. She leaned against a tree and slowly slid to the ground. She panted quietly. She knew that she must have been somewhat close to her teammates. They should be around the area somewhere and she deserved a break. The girl had really pushed herself.
"Well...Looky what decided to drop in." Elizabeth tensed suddenly at the words. Spoken in a deep male voice, Elizabeth shivered at the realization that it was no one she recognized. It was impossible to miss the malicious tone behind the words.
She cursed herself for letting her guard down. Her eyes snapped open and she snarled as she noticed the three males that had surrounded her. A brief thought crossed her mind and she wondered if these are the ninja's they were searching for.
"What should we do with her Ryan?" One of them asked.
"Do with me? You won't do anything with me." Elizabeth snapped as her temper flared. How dare they talk about her that way! She had risen to her feet sharply and was preparing to make a break for it. She literally had no power left to fight them. Her only hope to make it out of this situation was to run and attempt to find her team members.
"Oh? Is someone a bit edgy?" Another spoke up as he advanced towards her, too close for Elizabeth's liking, "Or are you just feisty like that all the time?" He added as he pinned her to the tree. Elizabeth snarled again before locked her leg behind his and pulling it towards herself. Her tactic had barely affected him, due to her weak state, however it had caught him off guard and thrown off his balance just a bit. That was all she needed to squirm out of his grasp and bolt through the trees.
She was mentally petrified. She had really gotten herself in deep shit this time. No Voodoo left, exhausted, no teammates in sight with three rogue Ninja's chasing after her.
'Oh god, please let me find someone. Anyone.' She prayed mentally. She knew she wouldn't last long.
Suddenly a shooting pain instilled itself in her shoulder and she cursed loudly. A knife was embedded deeply in her skin and the blood was already trailing from the wound.
Twenty minutes and countless wounds later, the ninja were catching up to her and she was growing more terrified by the second. Abruptly her ears picked up a trace of movement farther in the trees and she immediately switched her direction and headed straight for the sound.
She threw herself through the branches and breathed a slight sigh of relief.
"Henry-babe.." She was crying she knew, but she had never been so happy to see a friendly face.
"Elizabeth. What happened?"
"Henry...babe" Elizabeth could feel herself losing consciousness. The last thing she remembered seeing was Henry turning towards the approaching enemies with his Sharingan- his power of fire- spinning blindingly fast, his shirtless figure positioned in the fighting stance.
He wordlessly unsheathed his enemies with a murderous glare and silently faced the rogues that had just revealed themselves. Somebody was about to pay dearly for Elizabeth's current state. He'd certainly make sure of it.
A few days later, Elizabeth slowly opened her eyes. She gathered in her surroundings as soon as she'd woken up. She could finally breathe when she recognized the white room as a patient's room in Vampiria's hospital.
She took in the vase of flowers on her bedside table and the numerous bandages that covered her arms.
The girl tried to remember everything that had happened to her while she had been running for her life. She could remember no further than when she had first run into Henry. He'd been doing...something, she didn't know what when she'd finally found him.
She could clearly recall the mildly surprised look on his features before he'd turn away to face the men chasing her. He didn't even pause to prepare himself. He'd probably taken on those ninja's with nothing but his pants on. He'd been barefoot and shirtless and yet she knew in the back of her mind that he'd punished those ninja's and that thought made her smile lightly. He was certainly a good friend.
'Wait...Whoa...Hold it! Shirtless..? As in chest exposed, abs blaring, the whole package? And we didn't notice?' Her inner screamed. She was a little more than a bit shocked. In fact she was a lot more than a bit shocked. He'd been shirtless and she hadn't even noticed. All of a sudden she smiled softly at the thought because she'd finally made a revelation. She knew exactly why she hadn't notice them.
It was because she didn't really care about that stuff! She'd needed him at that moment. It had been a life or death situation, and he had been there for her no questions asked...and that meant a great deal more to her than the fact that he had a great body. He had shown her that he would be there for her.
All this time she'd been drooling over him, saying that she was attracted to him simply for his looks. That was her shield. Her excuse because she was too scared admit anything else. She knew she loved him, but her excuse for loving a traitor who'd deserted the village was that, hell, the man was hot. Who could blame her? Any villagers who still held a grudge against him could still comprehend why she had a crush on him. It was her safe zone.
But after the incident in the forest, she finally admitted to herself that she cared about him because he was always going to protect her and be a good friend. There were so many better qualities in Henry that were hundreds of times more attractive than his looks.
He was her friend. And in her eyes, even as she was fainting from exhaustion, that shone more than what was on the outside.
That's how she discovered, laying in a hospital bed, covered in bandages, that she never had to worry about ogling him again. She'd never care more about his looks than his personality. She'd never look at his body that way again. He'd been a good friend to her today, so she'd repay him in her own little way by being the same for him. She vowed to always look past the surface, because that's where the real Henry was.
'Step Four: Complete.'