NejiTen "The Fortuneteller" Chapter Two
Surprisingly, I've gotten a lot of this written already. (I say "surprisingly" because multi-chaptered fics terrify me. THE PRESSURE.) It's a little fast-paced I think, only because otherwise it would be this huge monster that would take months and months to finish and I don't think I have that in me at this point. Even now I'm not sure how I'm going to work everything in. It's going to be a car crash, folks, I can already tell.
Title: The Fortuneteller - Chapter Two
Series: Naruto
Pairings/Characters: NejiTen, SasuSaku, NaruHina?, Naruto, Orochimaru, Hinata, Lee
Word Count: 2,721
Rated: PG-13
Chapters: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII
Notes: My cast keeps getting bigger and I haven't even gotten to Naruto or Sakura yet. You still need to download the song if you haven't. Still dedicated to blooming_cosmo.
ONE DAY - TRADING YESTERDAY
[DOWNLOAD]
If I could find the years that went away,
destroying all the cruelty of fate,
I must believe that love
will find a way tonight.
- “One Day” Trading Yesterday
THE FORTUNETELLER
Chapter Two
At such an early hour, the temple was practically deserted, it’s occupants asleep. Two new guards were at its entrance but they made no move to stop him as he was not armed. Neji moved down the pale corridors like a ghost, silent and hidden, his dark cloak making him just another shadow.
There were a few torches burning, casting rings of light against white marble, but Neji saw no one that might question his presence there at such a time. Unnoticed, he made his way past the sanctuary, not bothering to enter the antechamber. The Fortuneteller would not be there. The War Lord did not bring her out unless she had a telling. At all other times she was confined to her own chambers, languid with the drugs that kept her under Orochimaru’s control. However, he could not attempt to go there on his own either. He knew for a fact that it was guarded, and even the Army Commander would be questioned as to his purpose. No one saw the Fortuneteller without Orochimaru’s permission and, usually, his presence.
The oracle’s handmaidens had no such restrictions.
Neji knocked on the first of the doors in the servants quarters and had only to wait a moment before it was opened a finger’s width, just enough for one pearl-gray eye to peer out.
“N…Neji?” The door swung back completely, revealing his cousin in her night dress, her long hair in a braid for sleeping. “W…what are you doing here?” She looked shocked and a little fearful. Neji pulled his hood down so she could see his face clearly, hoping the lack of secrecy would reassure her.
“Hinata, there is something I need to do,” he said quietly. There was a hurried note in his voice he couldn’t disguise and Hinata’s brow furrowed in response. “I must see the Fortuneteller. Now.”
Hinata’s ivory complexion lost what little color it had. “Neji, you c..can’t,” she whispered, “N..No one can see her, not without the War Lord’s-“
“I have his permission,” Neji interrupted flatly. The lie was a necessary one and there was no sign of it on his face. He would not endanger a member of his family for his own purposes. It was better for Hinata to remain ignorant. “I must see her, and I need you to take me to her chambers.”
Hinata’s wide eyes blinked several times before she nodded slowly. “Give me just a moment.” The door shut and Neji pulled his hood back up, tucking his long hair back into the recesses. A few minutes later, Hinata emerged again, dressed in the dark purple of her station, and motioned delicately for him to follow.
She took him down another open-air hallway, the night breeze ruffling his cloak and Hinata’s skirts. His cousin’s slippers made no noise and she moved carefully, as if expecting to be stopped. She grew tense as they approached a set of elaborately carved doors inlaid with bronze, the wood shaped with a pattern that resembled clouds.
The doors were guarded by four men, each of them with a tall spear in hand.
“Those are her rooms,” Hinata said softly, slowing a bit in order to speak to him. “They will let me pass without question but…” She trailed off, still uncertain.
“I will take care of the rest,” Neji told her, and lifted his head as they came in range of the oracle’s guards. All four of them bowed in perfect synchrony.
“Commander.” It was Kiba, his sharp smile flashing in the dim light. Neji nodded in greeting but he had no time for conversation. He had very little time as it was.
“The War Lord has ordered me to search the Fortuneteller’s rooms. He is concerned for her safety,” he said, eyeing each of the guards in turn. “I’m sure it is unnecessary but the Lord would take no chances with our oracle.”
Kiba looked a little disgruntled, as if Neji was calling his ability into question, but he was not about to disobey an order from Orochimaru. Neji had trained him too well. “Of course, Commander.” He moved aside and Hinata stepped forward with a little jump, pushing open the left-hand door.
“Keep your posts,” Neji ordered as he followed her, “This will not take long.”
As soon as the door was closed again, Hinata began to light candles, shedding light around the Fortuneteller’s sitting room. It was elegantly furnished with rich fabrics and deep colors, and it was completely round, another door on the side leading to what must have been the bedchamber. Neji started towards it but Hinata put a hand on his arm, halting him.
“Neji, the F..Fortuneteller…” She paused as if trying to find the right words. “Are you really here to search?”
Neji pulled his arm gently out from under her fingers. “Wait outside, Hinata.”
She looked at him, trying to figure out what he wasn’t saying. Finally, she shook her head, her gentle voice barely louder than a whisper. “No, I will go with you. You will need help, she is…” She stopped and simply started towards the bedroom, pulling the door open for him and stepping inside.
Only a single candle burned near the bed, its wick tended by a handmaiden every few hours. It was enough to illuminate the resting figure nearby and Neji felt another murmur of pain in the back of his mind.
The Fortuneteller’s chest rose and fell with the deep, even breaths of slumber, but her eyes were open, staring listlessly into the distance far beyond her walls. She was dressed for bed, her gown light and airy but there were gold bangles around her wrists and something glittered in her hair - jewels, Neji thought. Even now she was still dressed to please Orochimaru’s eye.
“My lady,” Hinata said, crossing to the bed. She curtsied smoothly but her expression was anxious. “There is someone here to see you.”
Nothing. Not even a flicker of an eyelid. Hinata gave him a hopeless look.
“She is given a draught with her evening meal. Lord Orochimaru orders it.” She bit her lip as she gazed at her unresponsive mistress. “It keeps her from seeing things when he’s not around.”
Neji frowned. “I saw her earlier today, with the Lord, and she looked almost the same but she spoke a prophecy.”
Hinata nodded. “He has her taken off the potion a few hours before he needs her power, but it never really leaves her system. She is more responsive, but…” She made a helpless gesture. “She is never entirely aware. She’s always halfway dreaming.”
Neji felt his jaw tighten and forced himself to relax. There was no time to be appalled at the girl’s treatment. He knew how possessive Orochimaru was of his property - people included.
“Hinata, I need to speak with her.” His cousin opened her mouth to speak but he went on, “Even if she can’t understand me, there is something I must say. Leave the room and close the door behind you. I will only be a moment.”
Hinata was still uncertain but she did as he asked, unable to withstand his commanding tone. When she was gone, Neji circled around the bed and knelt by the Fortuneteller’s side, searching her face for the child he had seen in his dream. She was there in the dark hair and the shape of the eyes, but her face had lost its roundness and the bones were more prominent, her skin lighter and smoother. The fingers half buried in the sheets were long and slim, the hands of a young woman, not a girl.
But the child was there. He could see her.
Neji pushed back his hood, revealing his own long hair and fine, aristocratic features.
“Tenten,” he said quietly.
He had only meant to test the name, to see if it had meaning. He was not prepared for her soft response.
“Neji,” she answered and his heart jumped involuntarily. She was still not looking at him but her breathing had quickened, as if she’d been pulled from whatever world the drugs took her to. He leaned forward a little.
“How do you know my name, lady?”
Her lips parted and curved slightly, an echo of a smile. “How do you know mine?”
He felt his eyebrows rise in surprise. He had not actually expected a response, nor the almost fond look on her face. “I heard it in a dream.” He paused, watching her carefully. “Was it from you, the dream I had?”
Her eyes fluttered closed, lines appearing in her forehead. “I can’t… see clearly.” And then, whispered, “He won’t let me see you.”
“What?” he asked, a bit more sharply than he intended
She made a small noise in her throat that spoke of discomfort. Her eyes opened again but they were still vacant, still seeing something beyond him. “Neji?”
He shifted. “Yes?” He could tell he was upsetting her but his own confusion forced him to continue. He had to know if the dream was real, if he had really been in that cave, or if she’d simply pulled him into her own never-ending nightmare.
But the Fortuneteller said nothing, her body moving restlessly on the bed as her expression scrunched in some emotional pain. Neji leaned over her and gripped her arms, uncaring of the bruises he caused. He had to know and there was so little time.
“Tenten,” he said firmly, “Tell me. Was my dream real? If it’s true, why don’t I remember you?”
“Neji,” she said again, and her voice cracked. Her lashes glittered with tears. He felt his chest tighten in the face of her obvious hurt, but he couldn’t stop. He would never get another chance. One of her hands came up and her fingers curled around his wrist. “They took me away. They took me.” A tear curved down her cheek and fell into her pillow. “I’m not real anymore. You can’t see… what isn’t real.”
And then the Fortuneteller went limp, her arm falling against the mattress, dead weight. Her eyes stared over his shoulder and he knew she was gone again, back into the recesses of her mind.
The tear track on her face was the only proof she had ever been there at all.
Neji buried himself in formations and battle strategy the next day, working himself and his men into the ground as they trained for hours in the full heat of summer. None complained, of course, but they wondered who had angered him so. Neji was not angry.
He was furious.
There was something going on. He had pieces of it but none of it made any sense. He had hoped seeing the Fortuneteller would have helped him understand, but all it had done was raise more questions. That sense of rightness that he’d felt in the dream was gone, replaced by doubt and a cold anger that flowed just beneath the surface.
He was being used.
It was the only thing that explained what he was seeing. When Neji had been called into the oracle’s presence the day before, he’s seen something, something Orochimaru had been very interested in. Neji remembered the War Lord being very intense, sharp in his questioning. He’d wanted to know what Neji had seen and when he couldn’t remember, the War Lord had relaxed. It was almost as if Orochimaru had been afraid that Neji might recall something and had been relieved when he had not.
But that meant that there was something to remember and Neji had a feeling he knew what it was.
If the dream was real, if he had known the Fortuneteller as a child, he could see why that might have made Orochimaru nervous. The War Lord wanted control over the oracle. He’d gone to great lengths to see that she had no distractions, no life outside of his whim. The purpose of her existence was to serve Orochimaru and no one else.
They took me away. They took me.
Neji couldn’t remember Tenten. There was no trace of her in his life. When she’d spoken of being taken away, she could have been referring to being physically taken from her real life and into Orochimaru’s service. But Neji thought she had meant something else. They had taken her from Neji’s life. Her answer had been in reference to his question about why he couldn’t remember her.
I’m not real anymore. You can’t see…what isn’t real.
Could it be possible that Orochimaru had taken Neji’s memories of her? It would have secured his hold on Tenten and would have given him a perfectly loyal warrior in Neji, a young man ready to do his duty by his family, with no conflicts of interest. Surely, if Neji had known Tenten in the past, he would have objected to her treatment under the War Lord’s ‘care’, hence Orochimaru’s need to make Neji forget he ever knew her.
But the Fortuneteller remembered. She had known his name. There was no other explanation for it.
“Unless she had a foretelling about you,” Lee said later. Neji had told him of his late night trip to see the oracle and his reasons behind it. Despite his eccentricities, Lee was a dedicated friend and someone else needed to know what Neji was doing, incase it all went wrong.
And Lee was loyal to his Commander, not necessarily to the War Lord. It was not Orochimaru who watched his back in battle, and who had saved his life during their first campaign.
“If she had a vision of you,” Lee went on, “wouldn’t that tell her who you were?”
“You didn’t see her,” Neji murmured, sinking back into his bathtub. They were in the men’s bathing area, washing away the dirt and sweat of the day, the hot water easing tired muscles. Lee was busily scrubbing his arms with soap but Neji simply soaked in the heat, long strands of hair sticking to his skin. “She knew me, beyond just a name.” He felt again her hand around his wrist, that crystal tear sliding down her skin. Even during the more intense moments of the day’s training, he had not forgotten that.
Lee paused, barely visible in the mountain of bubbles he had created. “Can you speak with her again? When she is coherent? Then you could know for sure.”
“She is never coherent, not unless…” he trailed off, tensing slightly. “Not unless she isn’t given that potion.”
Lee was watching him, his childish face thoughtful. “Could Lady Hinata do it?”
Neji’s immediate reaction was to say ‘no’. It would be dangerous, and should she be discovered thwarting the War Lord’s orders, she would be severely punished, Hyuuga or not.
But the fact was that Hinata was already involved. She had gotten him into the Fortuneteller’s chambers, the guards would remember her being there, and she knew there was something happening.
Most of all, she didn’t seem to like what the handmaidens were forced to do to their mistress.
Neji closed his eyes, seeing another piece fall into place.
“I think she could."
Uchiha Sasuke was bored.
Walking down the streets of the Sound, he no longer saw its people, the shops, the houses. Nothing held his interest, not even the noise of men fighting on the practice fields. He had come to that city to learn what he could from Orochimaru, to understand the ways of his power, to ingrain the rules of combat into his very heart.
But he was done.
The Sound had nothing left to offer him. He had become stronger than Orochimaru, who’s strength of arms was based on visions from a woman and the steady, if unimaginative, spear of his Army Commander. Sasuke relied only on himself and so his power inverted. It went wherever he went and so could never be taken. That was the final lesson that Orochimaru had never learned. Let the War Lord rely on his trinkets, Sasuke had found a better way.
The dark, inky whirls on his skin were much easier to hide.
TO BE CONTINUED.
Title: The Fortuneteller - Chapter Two
Series: Naruto
Pairings/Characters: NejiTen, SasuSaku, NaruHina?, Naruto, Orochimaru, Hinata, Lee
Word Count: 2,721
Rated: PG-13
Chapters: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII
Notes: My cast keeps getting bigger and I haven't even gotten to Naruto or Sakura yet. You still need to download the song if you haven't. Still dedicated to blooming_cosmo.
ONE DAY - TRADING YESTERDAY
[DOWNLOAD]
If I could find the years that went away,
destroying all the cruelty of fate,
I must believe that love
will find a way tonight.
- “One Day” Trading Yesterday
THE FORTUNETELLER
Chapter Two
At such an early hour, the temple was practically deserted, it’s occupants asleep. Two new guards were at its entrance but they made no move to stop him as he was not armed. Neji moved down the pale corridors like a ghost, silent and hidden, his dark cloak making him just another shadow.
There were a few torches burning, casting rings of light against white marble, but Neji saw no one that might question his presence there at such a time. Unnoticed, he made his way past the sanctuary, not bothering to enter the antechamber. The Fortuneteller would not be there. The War Lord did not bring her out unless she had a telling. At all other times she was confined to her own chambers, languid with the drugs that kept her under Orochimaru’s control. However, he could not attempt to go there on his own either. He knew for a fact that it was guarded, and even the Army Commander would be questioned as to his purpose. No one saw the Fortuneteller without Orochimaru’s permission and, usually, his presence.
The oracle’s handmaidens had no such restrictions.
Neji knocked on the first of the doors in the servants quarters and had only to wait a moment before it was opened a finger’s width, just enough for one pearl-gray eye to peer out.
“N…Neji?” The door swung back completely, revealing his cousin in her night dress, her long hair in a braid for sleeping. “W…what are you doing here?” She looked shocked and a little fearful. Neji pulled his hood down so she could see his face clearly, hoping the lack of secrecy would reassure her.
“Hinata, there is something I need to do,” he said quietly. There was a hurried note in his voice he couldn’t disguise and Hinata’s brow furrowed in response. “I must see the Fortuneteller. Now.”
Hinata’s ivory complexion lost what little color it had. “Neji, you c..can’t,” she whispered, “N..No one can see her, not without the War Lord’s-“
“I have his permission,” Neji interrupted flatly. The lie was a necessary one and there was no sign of it on his face. He would not endanger a member of his family for his own purposes. It was better for Hinata to remain ignorant. “I must see her, and I need you to take me to her chambers.”
Hinata’s wide eyes blinked several times before she nodded slowly. “Give me just a moment.” The door shut and Neji pulled his hood back up, tucking his long hair back into the recesses. A few minutes later, Hinata emerged again, dressed in the dark purple of her station, and motioned delicately for him to follow.
She took him down another open-air hallway, the night breeze ruffling his cloak and Hinata’s skirts. His cousin’s slippers made no noise and she moved carefully, as if expecting to be stopped. She grew tense as they approached a set of elaborately carved doors inlaid with bronze, the wood shaped with a pattern that resembled clouds.
The doors were guarded by four men, each of them with a tall spear in hand.
“Those are her rooms,” Hinata said softly, slowing a bit in order to speak to him. “They will let me pass without question but…” She trailed off, still uncertain.
“I will take care of the rest,” Neji told her, and lifted his head as they came in range of the oracle’s guards. All four of them bowed in perfect synchrony.
“Commander.” It was Kiba, his sharp smile flashing in the dim light. Neji nodded in greeting but he had no time for conversation. He had very little time as it was.
“The War Lord has ordered me to search the Fortuneteller’s rooms. He is concerned for her safety,” he said, eyeing each of the guards in turn. “I’m sure it is unnecessary but the Lord would take no chances with our oracle.”
Kiba looked a little disgruntled, as if Neji was calling his ability into question, but he was not about to disobey an order from Orochimaru. Neji had trained him too well. “Of course, Commander.” He moved aside and Hinata stepped forward with a little jump, pushing open the left-hand door.
“Keep your posts,” Neji ordered as he followed her, “This will not take long.”
As soon as the door was closed again, Hinata began to light candles, shedding light around the Fortuneteller’s sitting room. It was elegantly furnished with rich fabrics and deep colors, and it was completely round, another door on the side leading to what must have been the bedchamber. Neji started towards it but Hinata put a hand on his arm, halting him.
“Neji, the F..Fortuneteller…” She paused as if trying to find the right words. “Are you really here to search?”
Neji pulled his arm gently out from under her fingers. “Wait outside, Hinata.”
She looked at him, trying to figure out what he wasn’t saying. Finally, she shook her head, her gentle voice barely louder than a whisper. “No, I will go with you. You will need help, she is…” She stopped and simply started towards the bedroom, pulling the door open for him and stepping inside.
Only a single candle burned near the bed, its wick tended by a handmaiden every few hours. It was enough to illuminate the resting figure nearby and Neji felt another murmur of pain in the back of his mind.
The Fortuneteller’s chest rose and fell with the deep, even breaths of slumber, but her eyes were open, staring listlessly into the distance far beyond her walls. She was dressed for bed, her gown light and airy but there were gold bangles around her wrists and something glittered in her hair - jewels, Neji thought. Even now she was still dressed to please Orochimaru’s eye.
“My lady,” Hinata said, crossing to the bed. She curtsied smoothly but her expression was anxious. “There is someone here to see you.”
Nothing. Not even a flicker of an eyelid. Hinata gave him a hopeless look.
“She is given a draught with her evening meal. Lord Orochimaru orders it.” She bit her lip as she gazed at her unresponsive mistress. “It keeps her from seeing things when he’s not around.”
Neji frowned. “I saw her earlier today, with the Lord, and she looked almost the same but she spoke a prophecy.”
Hinata nodded. “He has her taken off the potion a few hours before he needs her power, but it never really leaves her system. She is more responsive, but…” She made a helpless gesture. “She is never entirely aware. She’s always halfway dreaming.”
Neji felt his jaw tighten and forced himself to relax. There was no time to be appalled at the girl’s treatment. He knew how possessive Orochimaru was of his property - people included.
“Hinata, I need to speak with her.” His cousin opened her mouth to speak but he went on, “Even if she can’t understand me, there is something I must say. Leave the room and close the door behind you. I will only be a moment.”
Hinata was still uncertain but she did as he asked, unable to withstand his commanding tone. When she was gone, Neji circled around the bed and knelt by the Fortuneteller’s side, searching her face for the child he had seen in his dream. She was there in the dark hair and the shape of the eyes, but her face had lost its roundness and the bones were more prominent, her skin lighter and smoother. The fingers half buried in the sheets were long and slim, the hands of a young woman, not a girl.
But the child was there. He could see her.
Neji pushed back his hood, revealing his own long hair and fine, aristocratic features.
“Tenten,” he said quietly.
He had only meant to test the name, to see if it had meaning. He was not prepared for her soft response.
“Neji,” she answered and his heart jumped involuntarily. She was still not looking at him but her breathing had quickened, as if she’d been pulled from whatever world the drugs took her to. He leaned forward a little.
“How do you know my name, lady?”
Her lips parted and curved slightly, an echo of a smile. “How do you know mine?”
He felt his eyebrows rise in surprise. He had not actually expected a response, nor the almost fond look on her face. “I heard it in a dream.” He paused, watching her carefully. “Was it from you, the dream I had?”
Her eyes fluttered closed, lines appearing in her forehead. “I can’t… see clearly.” And then, whispered, “He won’t let me see you.”
“What?” he asked, a bit more sharply than he intended
She made a small noise in her throat that spoke of discomfort. Her eyes opened again but they were still vacant, still seeing something beyond him. “Neji?”
He shifted. “Yes?” He could tell he was upsetting her but his own confusion forced him to continue. He had to know if the dream was real, if he had really been in that cave, or if she’d simply pulled him into her own never-ending nightmare.
But the Fortuneteller said nothing, her body moving restlessly on the bed as her expression scrunched in some emotional pain. Neji leaned over her and gripped her arms, uncaring of the bruises he caused. He had to know and there was so little time.
“Tenten,” he said firmly, “Tell me. Was my dream real? If it’s true, why don’t I remember you?”
“Neji,” she said again, and her voice cracked. Her lashes glittered with tears. He felt his chest tighten in the face of her obvious hurt, but he couldn’t stop. He would never get another chance. One of her hands came up and her fingers curled around his wrist. “They took me away. They took me.” A tear curved down her cheek and fell into her pillow. “I’m not real anymore. You can’t see… what isn’t real.”
And then the Fortuneteller went limp, her arm falling against the mattress, dead weight. Her eyes stared over his shoulder and he knew she was gone again, back into the recesses of her mind.
The tear track on her face was the only proof she had ever been there at all.
Neji buried himself in formations and battle strategy the next day, working himself and his men into the ground as they trained for hours in the full heat of summer. None complained, of course, but they wondered who had angered him so. Neji was not angry.
He was furious.
There was something going on. He had pieces of it but none of it made any sense. He had hoped seeing the Fortuneteller would have helped him understand, but all it had done was raise more questions. That sense of rightness that he’d felt in the dream was gone, replaced by doubt and a cold anger that flowed just beneath the surface.
He was being used.
It was the only thing that explained what he was seeing. When Neji had been called into the oracle’s presence the day before, he’s seen something, something Orochimaru had been very interested in. Neji remembered the War Lord being very intense, sharp in his questioning. He’d wanted to know what Neji had seen and when he couldn’t remember, the War Lord had relaxed. It was almost as if Orochimaru had been afraid that Neji might recall something and had been relieved when he had not.
But that meant that there was something to remember and Neji had a feeling he knew what it was.
If the dream was real, if he had known the Fortuneteller as a child, he could see why that might have made Orochimaru nervous. The War Lord wanted control over the oracle. He’d gone to great lengths to see that she had no distractions, no life outside of his whim. The purpose of her existence was to serve Orochimaru and no one else.
They took me away. They took me.
Neji couldn’t remember Tenten. There was no trace of her in his life. When she’d spoken of being taken away, she could have been referring to being physically taken from her real life and into Orochimaru’s service. But Neji thought she had meant something else. They had taken her from Neji’s life. Her answer had been in reference to his question about why he couldn’t remember her.
I’m not real anymore. You can’t see…what isn’t real.
Could it be possible that Orochimaru had taken Neji’s memories of her? It would have secured his hold on Tenten and would have given him a perfectly loyal warrior in Neji, a young man ready to do his duty by his family, with no conflicts of interest. Surely, if Neji had known Tenten in the past, he would have objected to her treatment under the War Lord’s ‘care’, hence Orochimaru’s need to make Neji forget he ever knew her.
But the Fortuneteller remembered. She had known his name. There was no other explanation for it.
“Unless she had a foretelling about you,” Lee said later. Neji had told him of his late night trip to see the oracle and his reasons behind it. Despite his eccentricities, Lee was a dedicated friend and someone else needed to know what Neji was doing, incase it all went wrong.
And Lee was loyal to his Commander, not necessarily to the War Lord. It was not Orochimaru who watched his back in battle, and who had saved his life during their first campaign.
“If she had a vision of you,” Lee went on, “wouldn’t that tell her who you were?”
“You didn’t see her,” Neji murmured, sinking back into his bathtub. They were in the men’s bathing area, washing away the dirt and sweat of the day, the hot water easing tired muscles. Lee was busily scrubbing his arms with soap but Neji simply soaked in the heat, long strands of hair sticking to his skin. “She knew me, beyond just a name.” He felt again her hand around his wrist, that crystal tear sliding down her skin. Even during the more intense moments of the day’s training, he had not forgotten that.
Lee paused, barely visible in the mountain of bubbles he had created. “Can you speak with her again? When she is coherent? Then you could know for sure.”
“She is never coherent, not unless…” he trailed off, tensing slightly. “Not unless she isn’t given that potion.”
Lee was watching him, his childish face thoughtful. “Could Lady Hinata do it?”
Neji’s immediate reaction was to say ‘no’. It would be dangerous, and should she be discovered thwarting the War Lord’s orders, she would be severely punished, Hyuuga or not.
But the fact was that Hinata was already involved. She had gotten him into the Fortuneteller’s chambers, the guards would remember her being there, and she knew there was something happening.
Most of all, she didn’t seem to like what the handmaidens were forced to do to their mistress.
Neji closed his eyes, seeing another piece fall into place.
“I think she could."
Uchiha Sasuke was bored.
Walking down the streets of the Sound, he no longer saw its people, the shops, the houses. Nothing held his interest, not even the noise of men fighting on the practice fields. He had come to that city to learn what he could from Orochimaru, to understand the ways of his power, to ingrain the rules of combat into his very heart.
But he was done.
The Sound had nothing left to offer him. He had become stronger than Orochimaru, who’s strength of arms was based on visions from a woman and the steady, if unimaginative, spear of his Army Commander. Sasuke relied only on himself and so his power inverted. It went wherever he went and so could never be taken. That was the final lesson that Orochimaru had never learned. Let the War Lord rely on his trinkets, Sasuke had found a better way.
The dark, inky whirls on his skin were much easier to hide.
TO BE CONTINUED.