Fanfiction: Takagari (鷹狩り), 004 fanfic100
Title: Takagari (鷹狩り)
for the fanfic100 comm
Prompt: 004, "Insides"
Genre: General/ Drama
Rating: PG-13 is good.
Warning: None, just hints
Characters: NejiSasu (from Naruto), cameo of Hinata, Lee, and OC
004. Insides
Takagari (鷹狩り)
- this story contains implied yaoi, and if you are uncomfortable with this, please do us both a favor and stay away. The world needs more NejiSasu.
There is a place in Konoha where the migrating birds from the north gather, en route to the warmer coastal islands that bordered the Fire Country. Only very few people know this place, because the only way to get to it is through a densely overgrown, rock-strewn path. The cliff itself was nothing spectacular, but it overlooked Ichigo River; the large, winding river that spewed from the mountain springs, that snaked around the village of Konoha, and joined the greater Biwa Lake that was one of the country’s main tourist attractions.
The Ichigo (named solely because of the long acres of naturally-occurring strawberry bushes that lined the riverside) served as a resting spot for the differently-coloured swans, swallows, and the occasional red-tailed hawk. Some school children stumble upon the path that led between overhanging rock shelves, and to the cliff, out of pure accident; that is to say, only rarely do they ever realize what the place was for, having come across it in the inopportune times when the weather was chilly, or when the first snows dusted the village.
Hyuuga children, however, are taught to memorize the path by the time they are seven. The Hyuuga are well known for breeding, and keeping, the fastest messenger birds in the village-falcons that delivered missives almost as quickly as if they had teleported to the places for example, or the smaller and swifter sparrow-hawks that winged the considerable distance between the ruddy mountains of Konohagakure and the rolling prairie lands of Kusagakure in a little less than a day.
The children are brought to the cliff once, by an adult from their immediate family (like a brother, who had mastered the art of trapping, or a sister who was skillful in imitating bird-calls), and on the second time, they are taught how to tell apart the birds, and taught how to bait the ones that were meant to be trained. They were taught to read the season, when what kind of species would most likely fly in.
Hyuuga children are taught how to be trappers, at an early age. This often gave them an edge over other children when it came to ranger and woodsman skills, especially as Academy students and Genin.
Neji had a fine teacher. Not only did his Kaminari-aniki teach him how to properly pin the wings of a particularly agitated adult kite, but he was also taught how to decipher the shrill shrieks of the birds of prey, how to bait the bird with his own body, before moving smoothly in at the last minute to capture it. Many times had Team Gai, in its earlier days, been tasked to intercept the secret messenger birds sent out by other villages, and in all these missions, Neji was always at the fore.
This was also probably the reason why he was one of the very few who could incapacitate a very aggravated Uchiha Sasuke, who happened to have a left arm stiff with discharged blue chakra; for this reason, the Godaime made it perfectly clear that he was to guard the still-errant Uchiha, who could still do commendable ninjutsu despite being deprived of his curse seal (and consequently, all the jutsu he had learned from Orochimaru which utilized it).
This did not appeal to Neji, but neither did it sit well with his ward. Furious at having to be constantly tailed by a fellow doujutsu user, Sasuke’s first act of “welcoming” Neji into his job was to leap at the Hyuuga from behind (Very clever, thought Neji, who had swerved easily, he was almost near the blind spot), fully intending to sear a Chidori through the other’s chest.
But Neji was far too used to hearing the angry screeches of temperamental hawks to be caught unawares by the sudden din of what sounded like an entire forest of birds resounding about him. The reverberations were too familiar to him, and he did not budge an inch in surprise.
As he did when he was eight and had caught his first bird-raptor, Neji coolly and calmly turned at the last instant (and he felt the sparks of the Chidori singe his cheek a little), solidly jabbing two fingers under Sasuke’s outstretched left hand.
The Chidori fizzled out almost instantly; Sasuke collapsed and his capotor pinned both of his now-weak arms behind his back, and pressed a knee against his neck. Surprise and fury congealed almost violently in his features, and his snarls were inaudible and indecipherable.
“I appreciate the sentiment, Uchiha,” Neji had replied coldly, digging his knee deeper against Sasuke’s head.
He did not want to say it, but there was a strange, and not entirely unpleasant shock that circled his belly at the feel of the weakly resisting body beneath him, the mess of black hair against the ground that looked, for all the world, like the ruffled black feathers of his first osprey.
“Bastard Hyuuga,” Sasuke had spat, fully unaware of the damage his shot-in-the-dark had caused. His face clouding over, Neji promptly twisted the Chidori arm until he heard it snap, pressing fingers along Sasuke’s back to further immobilize his inner coils system.
He left Sasuke there, belly-down and unable to keep from involuntary shivering, as a result of his nerves being blocked off. But Neji watched, from a good distance, as alert and as poised as he was taught to do so, many years hence. He was a Hyuuga, and he was a trapper; this stubborn one would not find himself doing as he pleased, flying about as he pleased.
He would accomplish his mission. He would guard Uchiha Sasuke, and prevent him from causing damage to either himself, or to the village at hand. He would also prove to the rest of the village how reliable and how efficient the members of the Hyuuga family were; it was ironic, but “all eyes” of the village trained on them both now, especially since they both were well-acknowledged in their own right.
But his hunter’s mind was too perceptive to the situation to simply let it pass unattended. One caught newly-adult birds of prey not to cage them, but to train them, to teach them how to be of better service to the village. Similarly, he believed, the Sharingan was an asset best used to give Konoha an edge against its enemies; underneath the underneath, the Godaime was putting him in a position to test him and his fortitude.
They continued to spar after that, although on closer inspection, Sasuke seemed to be using the Chidori less and less. Their most intense sessions were when neither used jutsu nor weapon, just their hands, and the eyes that made them a little bit more inhuman. They would then move in a frenzied blur of white and black, shifting against each other, fists clenched and skinned, fingers deceptively glancing against an exposed joint, a hip, a limb.
In these sessions, they would kick off their sandals, and Neji would tap several places on both of their bodies, temporarily rationing chakra enough only for simple techniques like sticking to a vertical surface, or propelling a leap, or cushioning a fall. Then they would face each other, and the Sharingan would spin, and the Byakugan would flare, and anyone who would not have known better would believe that the two young men were fighting to the death.
Rock Lee always watched them with a bit of envy in his countenance, green as the colour he liked to associate himself with. “I’m quicker than Uchiha Sasuke, though,” he’d comment in faux nonchalance, if anyone besides himself cared to watch, “I know how to convert that single running leap into several fist attacks all at once.” As far as Lee was concerned, and in the deepest recesses of his mind, he was a beast too, and his jealousy stemmed from the fact that, once again, the one thing he thought he was good at was acknowledged in someone else.
“But I’m sure he trains with you, Lee-kun, and I’ve seen some of the bruises Neji-niisan has after your sparring,” Hinata said to him once, when they both came across the two having at it in the training grove. She was on her way to meet her team, and Lee was jarred from his meditation by the noise.
“He does,” Lee replied, and Hinata was too observant to not notice the mild resentment in the tone. She also pretended to ignore the way Lee’s personal issues came into play as he watched two geniuses acknowledge each other. Hinata nodded quietly and turned to leave.
Neji trained with Lee, and he trained with other people too, like Tenten, his cousin, and the other jounin peers he got to know in the upper ranks of the shinobi hierarchy. He did not exert lesser effort in these friendly duels but many noticed (and indeed, felt) that there was something different in the way he trained with Sasuke-not power for sure, because training with Lee and Genma always brought that out of him, and neither was it subtlety.
But there was a kind of method, a calculated predatory air about him when he fought with Sasuke, that lent a kind of animosity and at the same time a kind of thrill to the scenario. In the onset, it would seem as if the powerful attacks, the aerial ambushes, the fists that seemed to fly one after another from Sasuke’s very self, were gradually slowing Neji down; Neji, who moved in an almost lazy gait, who defended at the last moment, who rarely countered an attack but dodged it. A closer observation, and if one lingered to watch the duel, would give the impression of a falconer testing out an incensed catch, allow it to puff out its feathers, bare its bird-claws, lash out with a sharp beak.
It seemed as if Neji wanted to “catch” Sasuke, in the same way a falconer, (or a Hyuuga child, newly inducted to the family’s hunting techniques) would eventually move in to claim the bird for his own. It wasn’t just a matter of increasing one’s speed to match one’s opponent, or to exercise one’s wit and skill and chakra precision, it was not just a matter of sparring…it was something that transcended these.
This was what the Godaime had been banking her decision on.
At the end of the day, at the end of the fight, and spread-eagled beneath him, it could be said that Sasuke perhaps liked being “caught”; as he was thoroughly against expressing such a want early on, he certainly allowed a hint of it to escape sometimes. In the same way that a bird would be drawn to the one that waits for it, so was he drawn to the strange gravity of Neji, a gravity, an attention, that was never once accorded to him otherwise.
Sasuke never called Neji a bastard again, and “expresses his sentiments” in far more constructive ways. Neji has never returned to the overgrown footpath that was taught to him by Kaminari-aniki, though he clearly remembers the way to get there.
He draws a map with his fingers, feather-light and grazing the hairs on Sasuke’s back, tracing the inner coils that wound beneath the skin. Here was the path only Hyuuga eyes could see. Spiraling across his backbones (where the horrendous wings borne out of his curse-seal transformation used to sprout forth), down the long, slender line of his spine. Even the Byakugan his family shared would not be able to “see” it in the way he did.
The birds that land along the Ichigo leave after several days, and move on towards the coastal regions where the sun continues to glare on the shores. Neji knows that Uchiha Sasuke was naturally a restless sort, and even every falconer has to release his bird soon. It irks him how such a thought nevertheless brings a strange sadness to him.
What he does not know is that Uchiha Sasuke now knows where to return. Every bird must build its nest, and every bird, even with its legs released, recognizes its falconer's arm and the comforting weight of hands cupping its wings.
[1] takagari - falconry, a sport practiced by Japanese nobles, particularly of the samurai clans. Thought it would fit Neji very well, because he's very much a noble indeed.
[2] "even with its legs released" - in falconry, training falcons are usually attached to the trainer with a long, red cord. The cord is lengthened as the bird is given more freedom from its trainer. Eventually the bird becomes familiar with its owner, and at this point, the cord will be cut off entirely.
[3] prompt for "insides" for which the general idea is in the latter part of the story--the "map" being "within" Sasuke himself, and the prize bird being himself as well.
[4] Oh yeah, "raptors" are generally what is used to describe the birds of prey. Not the dinosaur-raptors who like ambushing kids in empty industrial kitchens.
Link to my little Damn Table (tm) XD: here
for the fanfic100 comm
Prompt: 004, "Insides"
Genre: General/ Drama
Rating: PG-13 is good.
Warning: None, just hints
Characters: NejiSasu (from Naruto), cameo of Hinata, Lee, and OC
004. Insides
Takagari (鷹狩り)
- this story contains implied yaoi, and if you are uncomfortable with this, please do us both a favor and stay away. The world needs more NejiSasu.
There is a place in Konoha where the migrating birds from the north gather, en route to the warmer coastal islands that bordered the Fire Country. Only very few people know this place, because the only way to get to it is through a densely overgrown, rock-strewn path. The cliff itself was nothing spectacular, but it overlooked Ichigo River; the large, winding river that spewed from the mountain springs, that snaked around the village of Konoha, and joined the greater Biwa Lake that was one of the country’s main tourist attractions.
The Ichigo (named solely because of the long acres of naturally-occurring strawberry bushes that lined the riverside) served as a resting spot for the differently-coloured swans, swallows, and the occasional red-tailed hawk. Some school children stumble upon the path that led between overhanging rock shelves, and to the cliff, out of pure accident; that is to say, only rarely do they ever realize what the place was for, having come across it in the inopportune times when the weather was chilly, or when the first snows dusted the village.
Hyuuga children, however, are taught to memorize the path by the time they are seven. The Hyuuga are well known for breeding, and keeping, the fastest messenger birds in the village-falcons that delivered missives almost as quickly as if they had teleported to the places for example, or the smaller and swifter sparrow-hawks that winged the considerable distance between the ruddy mountains of Konohagakure and the rolling prairie lands of Kusagakure in a little less than a day.
The children are brought to the cliff once, by an adult from their immediate family (like a brother, who had mastered the art of trapping, or a sister who was skillful in imitating bird-calls), and on the second time, they are taught how to tell apart the birds, and taught how to bait the ones that were meant to be trained. They were taught to read the season, when what kind of species would most likely fly in.
Hyuuga children are taught how to be trappers, at an early age. This often gave them an edge over other children when it came to ranger and woodsman skills, especially as Academy students and Genin.
Neji had a fine teacher. Not only did his Kaminari-aniki teach him how to properly pin the wings of a particularly agitated adult kite, but he was also taught how to decipher the shrill shrieks of the birds of prey, how to bait the bird with his own body, before moving smoothly in at the last minute to capture it. Many times had Team Gai, in its earlier days, been tasked to intercept the secret messenger birds sent out by other villages, and in all these missions, Neji was always at the fore.
This was also probably the reason why he was one of the very few who could incapacitate a very aggravated Uchiha Sasuke, who happened to have a left arm stiff with discharged blue chakra; for this reason, the Godaime made it perfectly clear that he was to guard the still-errant Uchiha, who could still do commendable ninjutsu despite being deprived of his curse seal (and consequently, all the jutsu he had learned from Orochimaru which utilized it).
This did not appeal to Neji, but neither did it sit well with his ward. Furious at having to be constantly tailed by a fellow doujutsu user, Sasuke’s first act of “welcoming” Neji into his job was to leap at the Hyuuga from behind (Very clever, thought Neji, who had swerved easily, he was almost near the blind spot), fully intending to sear a Chidori through the other’s chest.
But Neji was far too used to hearing the angry screeches of temperamental hawks to be caught unawares by the sudden din of what sounded like an entire forest of birds resounding about him. The reverberations were too familiar to him, and he did not budge an inch in surprise.
As he did when he was eight and had caught his first bird-raptor, Neji coolly and calmly turned at the last instant (and he felt the sparks of the Chidori singe his cheek a little), solidly jabbing two fingers under Sasuke’s outstretched left hand.
The Chidori fizzled out almost instantly; Sasuke collapsed and his capotor pinned both of his now-weak arms behind his back, and pressed a knee against his neck. Surprise and fury congealed almost violently in his features, and his snarls were inaudible and indecipherable.
“I appreciate the sentiment, Uchiha,” Neji had replied coldly, digging his knee deeper against Sasuke’s head.
He did not want to say it, but there was a strange, and not entirely unpleasant shock that circled his belly at the feel of the weakly resisting body beneath him, the mess of black hair against the ground that looked, for all the world, like the ruffled black feathers of his first osprey.
“Bastard Hyuuga,” Sasuke had spat, fully unaware of the damage his shot-in-the-dark had caused. His face clouding over, Neji promptly twisted the Chidori arm until he heard it snap, pressing fingers along Sasuke’s back to further immobilize his inner coils system.
He left Sasuke there, belly-down and unable to keep from involuntary shivering, as a result of his nerves being blocked off. But Neji watched, from a good distance, as alert and as poised as he was taught to do so, many years hence. He was a Hyuuga, and he was a trapper; this stubborn one would not find himself doing as he pleased, flying about as he pleased.
He would accomplish his mission. He would guard Uchiha Sasuke, and prevent him from causing damage to either himself, or to the village at hand. He would also prove to the rest of the village how reliable and how efficient the members of the Hyuuga family were; it was ironic, but “all eyes” of the village trained on them both now, especially since they both were well-acknowledged in their own right.
But his hunter’s mind was too perceptive to the situation to simply let it pass unattended. One caught newly-adult birds of prey not to cage them, but to train them, to teach them how to be of better service to the village. Similarly, he believed, the Sharingan was an asset best used to give Konoha an edge against its enemies; underneath the underneath, the Godaime was putting him in a position to test him and his fortitude.
They continued to spar after that, although on closer inspection, Sasuke seemed to be using the Chidori less and less. Their most intense sessions were when neither used jutsu nor weapon, just their hands, and the eyes that made them a little bit more inhuman. They would then move in a frenzied blur of white and black, shifting against each other, fists clenched and skinned, fingers deceptively glancing against an exposed joint, a hip, a limb.
In these sessions, they would kick off their sandals, and Neji would tap several places on both of their bodies, temporarily rationing chakra enough only for simple techniques like sticking to a vertical surface, or propelling a leap, or cushioning a fall. Then they would face each other, and the Sharingan would spin, and the Byakugan would flare, and anyone who would not have known better would believe that the two young men were fighting to the death.
Rock Lee always watched them with a bit of envy in his countenance, green as the colour he liked to associate himself with. “I’m quicker than Uchiha Sasuke, though,” he’d comment in faux nonchalance, if anyone besides himself cared to watch, “I know how to convert that single running leap into several fist attacks all at once.” As far as Lee was concerned, and in the deepest recesses of his mind, he was a beast too, and his jealousy stemmed from the fact that, once again, the one thing he thought he was good at was acknowledged in someone else.
“But I’m sure he trains with you, Lee-kun, and I’ve seen some of the bruises Neji-niisan has after your sparring,” Hinata said to him once, when they both came across the two having at it in the training grove. She was on her way to meet her team, and Lee was jarred from his meditation by the noise.
“He does,” Lee replied, and Hinata was too observant to not notice the mild resentment in the tone. She also pretended to ignore the way Lee’s personal issues came into play as he watched two geniuses acknowledge each other. Hinata nodded quietly and turned to leave.
Neji trained with Lee, and he trained with other people too, like Tenten, his cousin, and the other jounin peers he got to know in the upper ranks of the shinobi hierarchy. He did not exert lesser effort in these friendly duels but many noticed (and indeed, felt) that there was something different in the way he trained with Sasuke-not power for sure, because training with Lee and Genma always brought that out of him, and neither was it subtlety.
But there was a kind of method, a calculated predatory air about him when he fought with Sasuke, that lent a kind of animosity and at the same time a kind of thrill to the scenario. In the onset, it would seem as if the powerful attacks, the aerial ambushes, the fists that seemed to fly one after another from Sasuke’s very self, were gradually slowing Neji down; Neji, who moved in an almost lazy gait, who defended at the last moment, who rarely countered an attack but dodged it. A closer observation, and if one lingered to watch the duel, would give the impression of a falconer testing out an incensed catch, allow it to puff out its feathers, bare its bird-claws, lash out with a sharp beak.
It seemed as if Neji wanted to “catch” Sasuke, in the same way a falconer, (or a Hyuuga child, newly inducted to the family’s hunting techniques) would eventually move in to claim the bird for his own. It wasn’t just a matter of increasing one’s speed to match one’s opponent, or to exercise one’s wit and skill and chakra precision, it was not just a matter of sparring…it was something that transcended these.
This was what the Godaime had been banking her decision on.
At the end of the day, at the end of the fight, and spread-eagled beneath him, it could be said that Sasuke perhaps liked being “caught”; as he was thoroughly against expressing such a want early on, he certainly allowed a hint of it to escape sometimes. In the same way that a bird would be drawn to the one that waits for it, so was he drawn to the strange gravity of Neji, a gravity, an attention, that was never once accorded to him otherwise.
Sasuke never called Neji a bastard again, and “expresses his sentiments” in far more constructive ways. Neji has never returned to the overgrown footpath that was taught to him by Kaminari-aniki, though he clearly remembers the way to get there.
He draws a map with his fingers, feather-light and grazing the hairs on Sasuke’s back, tracing the inner coils that wound beneath the skin. Here was the path only Hyuuga eyes could see. Spiraling across his backbones (where the horrendous wings borne out of his curse-seal transformation used to sprout forth), down the long, slender line of his spine. Even the Byakugan his family shared would not be able to “see” it in the way he did.
The birds that land along the Ichigo leave after several days, and move on towards the coastal regions where the sun continues to glare on the shores. Neji knows that Uchiha Sasuke was naturally a restless sort, and even every falconer has to release his bird soon. It irks him how such a thought nevertheless brings a strange sadness to him.
What he does not know is that Uchiha Sasuke now knows where to return. Every bird must build its nest, and every bird, even with its legs released, recognizes its falconer's arm and the comforting weight of hands cupping its wings.
[1] takagari - falconry, a sport practiced by Japanese nobles, particularly of the samurai clans. Thought it would fit Neji very well, because he's very much a noble indeed.
[2] "even with its legs released" - in falconry, training falcons are usually attached to the trainer with a long, red cord. The cord is lengthened as the bird is given more freedom from its trainer. Eventually the bird becomes familiar with its owner, and at this point, the cord will be cut off entirely.
[3] prompt for "insides" for which the general idea is in the latter part of the story--the "map" being "within" Sasuke himself, and the prize bird being himself as well.
[4] Oh yeah, "raptors" are generally what is used to describe the birds of prey. Not the dinosaur-raptors who like ambushing kids in empty industrial kitchens.
Link to my little Damn Table (tm) XD: here