Fated to Meet You
Author's Note:
Disclaimer: I do not own anything, character or plot, from Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto.
Chapter Twenty-Two: Consequences
"We have reason to believe there's a mole in Konoha." Takeshi reported with his team beside him to the Hokage and Hokage Advisor. The six of them were in the Hokage's Office. Senju Hashirama behind his desk and Tobirama standing off to the side.
"What makes you all think that?" The Hokage asked. This was what he was worried about when he gave the tailed beasts away as a part of peace treaties: others would want some as well. But such things like the tailed beasts were finite.
"As you two may already know, we managed to capture a messenger near the Konoha borders." Takeshi explained. "Before he died, Kaito was able to get some information out of him. This messenger was delivering orders to a mole in Konoha."
"Just one?" Tobirama referred to the mole and listened carefully.
"From what we gather, yes." Takeshi answered. The messenger committed suicide from poison after being captured and the team sent word to the Hokage to securely investigate the matter after.
"We have our medic ninja's looking into the body of the messenger right now." The Senju Hokage balled his hands together into one fist. "So far, it looks like they haven't found anything unusual with it."
"This mole would have to be relatively new to the village." Tobirama commented. "From the information we have so far, we know that this village is named Takigakure and is after a tailed beast."
"And they could have only found out we have tailed beasts after the Five Kage Meeting." Hashirama concluded after his brother.
"I'll have Mai look into our records of who settled in the village after the Five Kage Meeting." Tobirama assigned.
Kosei silently took note of how oddly natural it was for Mai's name to come out of Senju Tobirama's mouth. He wondered how it was like for her. Unlike Mai, he lived closer to most Uchiha's. And he would occasionally overhear the gossip amongst the clan. His female companion, who he had been on speaking terms with for a couple months now, also kept him up on what talks were happening within the clan and the village. Especially since he was rarely in the village being in a team like this one.
Mai's behavior was unusual. And it didn't get better. Every meeting and every moment after that day it seemed as if it became harder for Mai to keep her eyes off the white haired Senju named Senju Tobirama.
The Tale of Lady Sugawara had unlocked the truth buried behind Uchiha Mai's excuses. She did not know what to do. Everything in her, even her herself, knew this was not a good place in mind to be in. First and foremost, he was her direct supervisor. And secondly, this man was a Senju.
Mai wasn't the type of person to shun someone because of their clan name. Elder Mio taught her better. Senju's and Uchiha's were allies now. But what she was feeling now paired with the fact that it was with Senju Tobirama contradicted what she had been raised with before she met Elder Mio. What worried her more than anything was the fact that Mai enjoyed every moment with him. And she probably loved him within those every moments.
"But how?" Mai verbally asked herself, almost shocked at her own feelings. Physically, the kunoichi shook her head as if to throw away her thoughts into the air.
She was in the middle of eating breakfast. Dawn was in the midst of happening. Usually after breakfast, a falcon would land on her windowsill with her list of tasks for the day assigned to her from Senju Tobirama himself.
But when she looked down at her breakfast, the salted fish she had grilled reminded her of Senju Tobirama and she lost her appetite. Mai exhaled sharp, irritated at what her brain and emotions were putting her through. Setting her chopsticks down, she drank her miso soup and called it a morning.
This particular reaction was unlike Uchiha Mai and it progressed for days. Senju Tobirama was left puzzled at the sight of the Uchiha kunoichi with the Uchiha fan sewn into the fabric of her shirt gradually shrinking away into the distance. Even afterwards, he noticed the female was jittery and always on guard.
And worst of all, he could feel her chakra just sporadically expelling and regressing whenever she was in his presence. The white haired Senju just did not know what was happening to his second.
"Are you sick?" The Hokage's Advisor asked the female in front of him. She couldn't even look at him.
"I am?" The two were in the Hokage Advisor's office. Her onyx eyes roamed the wooden panels that made up the floors and then up to the windows behind the white haired Senju Tobirama.
"You are?" Tobirama crossed his arms across his chest.
Snapping out of it, Mai finally looked at the man. She learned from experience that if she released her chakra as if she was releasing herself from genjutsu, it distracted her enough to not get lost in the man's very entirety. And she did just that when her eyes remained too long on him before shutting her eyelids. "I'm sorry. I- well, it's just my chakra." She made up an excuse.
Senju Tobirama narrowed his red eyes.
This scene. This exact image she was watching in front of her with Senju Tobirama and his arms crossed over his broad chest that a dark blue kimono shirt was occupying. Uchiha Mai just couldn't stop looking unless she released her chakra. "It's difficult to control right now." She forced the sentence out.
Senju Tobirama blinked down to his desk and then back up to his second in front of him. "Peach Blossom tea." He advised.
A moment of silence filled the air. "I'm sorry?" Mai asked, confused. Every time she looked at him, her onyx eyes focused on different parts of the man. From his white hair to his chest and worst of all, his red eyes. For her, those red Senju eyes were the hardest to look away from.
Tobirama narrowed his red eyes even more and did nothing but amplify the enigma the man was. "I figured you would know what healing properties Peach Blossom tea have."
Mai had given him the remedy for his burnt out chakra point over a year ago. How could she forget that when every moment with him occupied her mind. "Right. Cause I told you about it…"
Senju Tobirama uncrossed his arms and leaned forward. "Did you get the information I asked for?" He changed the subject while the female was too preoccupied.
"Yes!" Her chakra spiked as she said it. Mai walked forward, her arm reached out to set the scroll on the desk. But The Senju Tobirama himself held out his hand.
Uchiha Mai paused. Mid action.
And she stared into the palm of this white haired Senju's hand. Instantly, her mind took over and she really missed gliding her hand over this hand.
Release!
She dropped the stack of papers into the palm of Tobirama's and backed away before folding her hands behind her.
Senju Tobirama's red eyes looked at Uchiha Mai puzzled and intrigued at the same time. You see, even if he increased the load of work for her to harden the boundary between the two of them and to keep his older brother off his back, moments like these with her made Tobirama feel like he was more than alive. And he wasn't ready yet to completely push her away.
Tobirama nonchalantly phased out of his thoughts. "Team Takeshi is back for a few days. You should take a couple hours to go see them." He set the stack of papers down and began looking at the first paper on the stack.
"I'm okay, Tobirama-" Mai began but was cut short by the man's glare. "Okay. Yes, sir." She nodded at every word before nodding her exit.
The wind blew the green grass and the grass slapped at Mai's sandals. But no leaf of grass dared touch Elder Mio's tombstone.
Her onyx eyes glossed over each engraving done onto the gray stone. The Uchiha crest on the left and the Konoha symbol on the right. "I don't know what to do, Elder Mio." Mai whispered.
She had spent little of her day reuniting with Team Takeshi. Most of her day, she stood here, wishing that things were back to where it was before when the deceased female elder was still alive. Because deep down, she knew that Elder Mio knew everything about Mai. And if Elder Mio were still alive today, she would know what to say without Mai having to say anything.
The moment Uchiha Mai knew she had become infatuated with the Senju, she pushed that thought and all those that came after away, as if there were no consequences to what she was feeling. And Mai knew that if she had still been Elder Mio's apprentice, she would've never pushed this feeling away. She would have burned it out of her mind for Elder Mio and for the Uchiha Clan and even for the village, if the consequences harmed it.
But no. She had lost her way. She had lost her sense of reason. Not because Elder Mio died. And not because Senju Tobirama offered her a spot as his second. No, none of that. But all because she had let herself choose her path without even thinking of the consequences her actions could have done. She was too hopeful. Too blind. Too be adventurous. Too deep within change.
To see that this kind of relationship with a superior was beyond her work ethic. To see that this kind of relationship with a Senju was never done before. And there was a reason why it was never done. Even now, even in peace, such things as an Uchiha loving a Senju just didn't go right.
Maybe had they been born after the establishment of the village, just maybe it could have happened. But Mai could already tell the reaction the clan would have on her.
And so, here Uchiha Mai was regretting every action she'd done in the past year or so. And here she was hoping her teacher could give her a sign of anything she could do because she was lost.
. . .
The sun was within an hour of setting. Elder Mio's stone gradually was casting a larger shadow as the minutes went on. Mai's internal time clock knew what that meant. Deep down, Mai knew Elder Mio could not help her or guide her. But she could only hope.
When the time came for her to meet with the Hokage Advisor as they always did every evening, Mai decided it was time. It was time for her to at least give in to her feelings at least just once. To look into those red enchanting eyes. Because she had found her solution.
Her onyx eyes could see the bench in front of her. Literally within the blink of her eyes, Uchiha Mai accepted it. Sitting down, she straightened her back parallel to it. She was whole again. After so many days divided, she accepted every part of her.
Uchiha Mai was in love with Senju Tobirama. And she accepted it with all of its consequences, at least for this moment. But acceptance did not mean confession. Mai drew the line between that.
Turning her head to her left, she didn't have to wait too long for the Hokage's Advisor to flicker into view.
One would think that the conversations that occur between the advisor of the Hokage and his second would be more befitting of their positions. But what you did not know and what no one knew other than the two of them themselves were that most of their conversations were just about anything unrelated to their job.
You see, the two of them over the months together as a supervisor-subordinate duo found that they shared something they enjoyed.
Science.
"Why do you think the sky is blue during the day?" Senju Tobirama leaned back. His red eyes scanned the colored sky.
"I think it has to do with light." Mai responded. "And how our eyes take in light." Her mind reminiscing back to a scholar had hypothesized about waves of light.
What these two found between them was that they were two people of science. And these two enjoyed to debate about the mysteries of the world.
The Hokage Advisor agreed. He believed the conditions have to be right for people to see a blue sky and a red one, just like how one could see a rainbow by shining light through a mirror.
"What do you think make up the sun?" It was Mai's turn to propose a question. Her mind and body completely within the moment, and everything in her was calm.
"Is that even a question?" Tobirama condescended. "Have you dabbled too much into children's stories at the Konoha Library now?"
Mai just had to smile at the man's remark. He was a little too blunt for her to the point it was funny. "Are you not the man that believes in the children of Konoha?" And Mai always matched his bluntness with hers. Something, she hadn't done in a handful of days.
"Now this time it is you who is taking this topic elsewhere." This time it was Tobirama's turn to smile. Their eyes met, red on onyx. And Mai did not look away.
"Gas." He answered her question. Tobirama had no trouble looking at her, because Senju Tobirama always looked at her even if he tried not to.
"Like a ball of fire?" Mai asked and raised a brow. Their eyes still on each other.
"I agree with you." Tobirama leaned back into the bench.
Uchiha Mai let her eyes, body, and thoughts flow naturally. Because this would be the last time the two of them would speak in terms like this. She had decided so. She needed everything in her life to be like it was before. She needed normalcy. And so, she let herself enjoy this moment. She opened herself to this moment.
"And what of the moon?" Tobirama asked. "What do you think the moon is made up of?"
The next day, Uchiha Mai submitted her letter of resignation.
A/N (again)
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