The Mission

Lee didn’t really remember much of what happened and to wake up the way he did had him instantly coming to the conclusion that no, none of this was a dream no matter how badly he wanted it to be. 

Now, running from this guy his mom sold him to, has him wondering just what else she could’ve done to screw him over one last time before meeting her end. 

With Kiba having caught up to him successfully, he is able to somewhat catch up to what is going on, “Lee, are you alright? Did they do anything to you at all?” 

He shook his head while maneuvering his way through the forest in some hopes of losing the alpha behind them, “I’m fine; they did nothing to me—why would you think that? I highly doubt they were allowed to touch me.” 

“Just, well…you do smell like a heat inducing remedy and a tranquilizer. I know you’re probably closer to having a first heat than your omega friends…” he stops himself from going further, which Lee is grateful for. The last thing he wants to talk about is his heat with an alpha he doesn’t really know all too well, “Anyway, you’re positive they did nothing to you?” 

“Yeah, I’m positive.” Lee has to wonder, “Do I smell that different?” 

“You do; Akamaru and I didn’t have to work that hard to keep track of your scent when trying to keep up with your captors.” Kiba does lighten the mood by giving him some good news, “Sasuke went after Naruto a bit ago. I don’t know how it’s going since the dumb jerk wouldn’t let me come along to help him, but if he’s involved then Naruto will definitely be brought back safe and sound.”

“Wait—Naruto’s here! When did that happen!” 

“No clue, we’ll have to wait until we get back home to the village.” 

With Kimimaro not too far behind them, Lee is worried because—well—he’s not in the best of shape. 

None of his bones are broken, but his muscles feel rather stiff and he has this piercing headache that is making it a bit too difficult to properly give all his energy and focus to the task at hand. 

Perhaps it’s a leftover side effect from whatever was used on him or from being trapped in the wooden contraption for so long—he knows it’s one of the two or both (or the very horrifying idea of possibly hitting his first heat), yet he cannot focus on it no matter what he does. 

He is lucky that Kiba seems to pick up on this as well, if his moment of concern could be any indicator of such a skill, “You go on ahead and try to find a way home. I’ll stay behind and handle this guy.” 

“Kiba, I cannot leave you, not when you’ve risked so much for me!” 

“No, Lee—you’re not in good shape to be fighting!” Kiba insists, “He’s already gaining on us and you’re not moving as quickly as you need to right now. Let me handle this; I can take him for you.” 

He couldn’t stop Kiba from staying behind and fighting this man as much as he wanted…then again, he had no time to properly comprehend his decision. 

Kimimaro is certainly not one to be messed with: even with his advantages, Kiba still wound up severely wounded by the bone protruding from the young man with Akamaru faring no matter as they both crashed to the ground.

He wonders briefly if his mother knew of this alpha’s strength when she sold him…if she chose to sell him to this man because she had a feeling he could beat him into submission or find him with ease should he have ever tried to run away. It would be like her to completely underestimate his strengths and capabilities as a ninja solely because of his gender, though he does have to ask himself why she ever did back out of a good deal. 

She wasn’t the type to play games with anyone—this applied a hundred times more when it came down to money. So why was she lying now? What made her change her mind all of a sudden when he knew she hated him too much to ever possess any true drive to find him a good mate? 

He knows she has no reason to fear the law. After all, the laws in Konoha are set up in her favor: all she’d have to do is claim she did what she did was done out of tradition and she’d be free from any consequences of her actions. This cancels out the chance of it being due to legal reasons. 

Is the alpha infertile? That would be a very validated reason for her to do what she did, but even this feels wrong somehow. 

As Kiba and Akamaru struggle to fight back, Lee runs for his life, not liking his chance against the alpha in his current condition—or in that of his own. 

Ino will chew him out for this later, but he knows Naruto will get it. 

He would be the one to best understand what Iruka sensei always taught the omegas at the academy: it’s only safe and sane to run from any alpha nearing their rut when one is a single omega on the battlefield. 

Out in the field he arrived at (thinking he’d be far away enough from the alpha he’s said to be arranged to), he feels a bit safer and tries to come up with some plan to get back home without getting the alpha on his back. 

What he didn’t expect was for the alpha to be able to match him in speed well enough to where he would be present at the very same field he’s at in a very short period of time after whatever battle it is he had with Kiba.

It filled him with horror yet he did not allow the other to see it anywhere on his person as he stood tall, defying the very advice he had been given and instincts within him shrieking at him to run for his life. This, for some reason, managed to intrigue alpha even more, “…You truly are ignorant of everything about me to be so fearless.”

“You’re right, I am ignorant on everything about you,” he does all that he can to silence his instincts further, “and that does not matter to me. I will not mate anyone who has no issue with harming my friends or killing people to get me as a mate.”

“Ah, so you are ignorant on your own clan’s traditions then.” he is being too casual about this when speaking to him, which only makes Lee’s instincts flare up in a much worse manner than before, “Last I checked, you have no say in who your mate is, and you cannot deny any mate chosen for you. Make this easier on yourself, on your friends, and come back with me to my home to live as my mate.”

Lee finds himself starting to get angry at the powerful alpha, acting a bit too much like Naruto when reacting without thinking anything through, “I am not going to mate anyone who threatens my friends…I will not mate you, not now or ever. My clan is gone and their traditions are gone with them. I don’t have to obey them anymore—much like how I don’t have to mate you if I don’t want to.”

He can already hear Ino’s cheer and see the smile on Naruto’s face when he gets home to get to tell them of this moment.

Right—when, not if.

He doesn’t care what his instincts are telling him, nor does he care about the piercing headache he is still dealing with at the moment. He only cares about defeating this young man, going home, and living his life free from the confines of his clan’s traditions.

This rush of confidence in such a decision is not normal for him, but then, he’s allowed to have such a rush of confidence when he’s deeply hurt and angered over what his mother did not only to him, but also Naruto as well!

He may not know where Naruto is or why he got caught up in this, but he cannot casually shrug off her actions this time. In the past, when her actions caused him harm he didn’t bother to be bothered by it since he saw it as being a fact of his life. Omegas are treated poorly in conservative clans and he knows he’s not the only one being treated in a similar manner in the village. He got dealt a bad hand in life; all he could do was make the best of it.

It's all simple fact he has since long come to accept.

Now that her actions have either directly or indirectly led to Naruto, one of his best friends, being dragged into this…hell, not only Naruto but Shikamaru, Sasuke, and Kiba as well…he’s angry at a dead woman for her decisions.

He can excuse what his clan has done to him in the past. He can even excuse her selling him off to Kimimaro. What he cannot and will never be able to excuse is getting other people—especially one of his closest friends—endangered in the process.

The alpha is nearing his rut and while he’s feeling the urge to flee, he cannot bring himself to when he hears him say, “So you’d rather fight an alpha nearing their rut than accept defeat and allow me to take you back with me?”

“I would.” he is firm in his choice because…it was always easy back in Konoha when he was mentally preparing himself for the day he’d be sold off to or arranged to his mate. It was easier when he was mentally preparing himself for a situation he knew the ins and outs of, a situation he had seen happen to omega relatives in his clan.

Being thrown into a situation he had no control over when he knows there’s nothing binding him to the traditions of his clan now has him desperately wanting to do anything to remain in Konoha with his friends and sensei.

Even in this situation, he cannot bring himself to follow the clan traditions. He had always told Guy sensei the only way out of his traditions would be for every remaining alpha and beta in the clan to die so there’d be nothing legal to keep him bound to such traditions. Now that he has this way out, he has a fair shot at obtaining his freedom from the one fate he never wanted in the first place: a fate where he’d have to leave everyone he ever cared about behind to be with some stranger who will never be Gaara.

Gaara…that’s right, this isn’t just to remain in Konoha. It’s also to follow his own desires for himself for the first time ever now he’s perfectly free to do so, just like he promised Guy sensei he would when he first became his student.

He didn’t make much movement for an alpha nearing a rut; though he will admit he’s being far too rational and coherent for a non-asexual alpha nearing a rut in general. He closes his eyes, exhaling a small sigh, and is plain in his response, “I see…well, if you wish to fight me for your freedom, then so be it. Just know I will return for you at your village should you manage to win.”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take.” he does make this comment in the hopes of getting some answer to his question, “I am not going to mate someone my own mother didn’t want as a mate for me.”

“Your mother only tried to weasel out of the deal made with my master because she wanted you mated with him, not myself. I am only grateful he had no desire to mate you and he deemed me worthy enough to have a mate bought for myself,” somehow Lee can believe this; it would be like her to try to get him mated to someone with some sort of power or status even if they are from an enemy village, “None of this matters now—what matters is I am here, ready to claim you as mine.”

He gave it his all despite his piercing headache and instincts trying to force him to submit for the sake of survival. In the end, it wasn’t enough and Kimimaro is hovering over him, his eyes cold when giving him the most piercing gaze he’d ever faced from anyone on the battlefield, “Looks as though you’ve lost…” he leaned over slightly, making the omega tense on the spot, “what was the point of fighting for your freedom if you were damned to lose it anyway?”

“You have never lived a life where you grew up knowing because of your gender, you would never have a say in anything in your life,” he almost wants to laugh at the man for being so brazen in displaying his privileges as an alpha in such a manner, yet he holds it in to fill him in on this in the hopes of giving himself enough time to find the right moment to regain his footing, “All my life, I’ve been held up to a beauty standard to appeal to alphas and betas in my village, I’ve been raised on how to be submissive and proper to them to the point where I have no voice for myself anymore, and to know I would live my whole life without ever having any true say in it.”

“Still, I dreamed, and I did all that I could to become a shinobi. I did everything I could to one day to be the best taijutsu only shinobi around, but even this couldn’t guarantee me freedom from my clan’s traditions. I was still something to be sold, something to given away to someone else—I was a thing, not a person in their eyes, something I knew I never would be because omegas simply don’t matter as much as alphas and betas did in this world. Now that they’re gone, I have a shot at living my life as I see fit: this alone is enough reason for me to fight for my freedom even if I know I will lose.”

None of this was truly making much impact on the alpha if his unwavering apathy was anything to go by, “I’d rather die fighting for my freedom than to give it up without a fight.”

All Kimimaro could say to this was, “How petty; to have lived amongst a clan that taught you the harsh realities of the world we live in while giving you a roof over your head and a chance to become a shinobi. Your ‘freedom’ is nothing more than the cries of a cornered animal who cannot accept their fate. For an omega, you put up a great fight…but your tantrum is done.”

He was about to grab him by the arm, his scent somehow growing stronger as something more feral began to slowly take over him, “Your fate is mine now.”

Lee knew his fate was sealed and his mother—his clan’s traditions—had won. This alpha will not let him go unmarked, not when he is in the state he’s in. An alpha so dangerously close to his rut, whose rut seems to have made him stronger in battle, chasing after him in the woods should he manage to land a hit strong enough to distract him and escape is not going to end well for him…or Kiba or Shikamaru or anyone else who interferes.

He's going to be mated and taken away from his home, just like his other omega relatives were. Except he won’t get a chance to have a final day with them, nor will he get the chance to give them the proper sendoff they deserve from him. Naruto, Ino, Tenten, Guy sensei…Gaara…he’ll never see or speak to them again.

He's going to lose them forever and it’s all his own fault for being too weak to win against this young man.

At least…he was supposed to lose them forever.

Had it not been for the sand wrapping around his waist and taking him away at a speed the alpha couldn’t keep up with, he would have been marked by Kimimaro.

When he’s finally standing up—thanks to the sand choosing to place him on his feet as opposed to dropping him without care—he turns to see the Suna ninja he’s been thinking about this whole time they’ve been separated, “Gaara? You’re here?”

“Upon learning of your situation, I decided to step in and aid with the rescue efforts.” he gives him a side glance, eying him closely for a good minute there before appearing to lose the tension in his shoulders, “Is this the one your mother is said to have sold you off to?”

“Yes, he is,” he does warn him, “He’s nearing a rut and he’s very powerful—he can make bones come out of his body to use in battle. I want you to be careful around him.”

Lee gets in the proper fighting position, offering his dear friend, “I’ll fight alongside you—”

“No. I am going to handle him on my own.”

Before he could protest this decision, Gaara raised his hand to silence him enough to listen to what he has to say, “He’s an alpha nearing a rut, one who would have marked you had I not shown up in time. If you fight him, you’re risking the chance of him marking you and should such a thing happen…”

Gaara goes quiet to this, yet his scent deepens to something truly revolting, “I may or may not lose complete control of myself, which is the last thing any sane person should ever want to encounter.”

“But—”

“No. Now stay back and let me handle this.”

Lee’s not going to fight him, though he knows he wouldn’t want to with how strongly Gaara defended his decision.

“Okay…just be careful.”

“I don’t need to be.”

Something about Gaara wanting to fight for him in this battle makes him feel a bit more special than it should.