Ten for Ten: Linked Drabbles

(gravity)

For a moment she’s glorious – soaring into the air, her body unbound by the demands of earth – surrounded by the winds of dragons that coil about her, the flash of weapons that manifest themselves at her bidding. The sun is hot and clear on her upturned face – she feels the immediate coolness when she turns away from it, faces downward to the world she left behind.

They’re staring up at her, as transfixed by the sight of her twisting like one of her own dragons as by the knowledge that she is about to hurl several hundred sharp things at them. She grins tightly – over the kunai clenched between her teeth - and lets go.

And when it’s over, the ground beneath her is shining with the light of the sun being reflected off hundreds of bloody-bright blades – and Lee and Neji are running towards her, their mouths open in cries she cannot hear over the rushing of air in her ears – and she

                                                  is

                                                                       falling.

(listen)

“Tenten – Tenten. Look at me – look at me, don’t close your eyes!” He is not shaking her as his voice would indicate he would like to do – instead he is holding her carefully, gently – not letting the slightest motion jar her, protecting her with his arms as though they were as all-deflecting as his Kaiten.

Lee is gone. He’s heading back to Konoha at his best possible speed, his ubiquitous weights flung carelessly to the side where they now rest at the bottom of an impact-crater. They crushed several of Tenten’s weapons in the process – Neji tries to think about the scolding Tenten will give Lee…later…when they’re all gathered in their practice-grounds and Lee is grinning and Tenten is shaking her head and everything will be back to normal.

But it’s so hard to think about that when Tenten is limp in his arms, and her blood is spreading warm and sticky through his clothes, forming a clammy dampness on his skin. His Byakugan has activated reflexively, as it does in times of stress, and Neji wishes it hadn’t because now he can see how weakly her chakra is moving through her body, faint whispers of energy, trailing off, fading…

He is shouting at her now, his voice loud and wild like it never is, and he is telling her things – like how the mission is complete, and how she killed over fifty men with one attack, and how stupid she was to do so – why hadn’t she waited for him? He is telling her that Lee has gone to fetch help, and that everything is going to be all right (his voice trembles, and it is not because he is unused to talking like this)

He is telling her not to leave him – but he doesn’t know if she’s listening.

(white-out)

She is floating, not soaring any longer – somewhere beyond pain and beyond sensation. She can’t feel her limbs.

She hears a voice, dimly – it is faint over the roaring in her ears. She knows this voice. So she opens her eyes a little more, fixes them on two silver moons dancing in front of her, blazing at her, filling her vision. She tries to smile at them but coughs on a sudden upwelling of blood – the moons narrow into crescents, and she feels herself being clutched more tightly. A hand gently dabs at her chin with a scrap of cloth.

She turns her head a little more to see his face, to fill her eyes with his. And when she drifts off it is not into darkness, but into a silver light like his eyes.

(gamble)

There’s nothing they can do, they tell him, tell everyone. She’s too far gone. Her brain has been oxygen-deprived for too long, nerves have died, centers have shut down. Gai does not cry – he clenches his fist and then slams it into the wall, cracks spider-webbing out as though the material were glass rather than three-inch-thick concrete. Lee is crying enough for the both of them – not loudly, not dramatically, just tears sliding down pale cheeks as his throat works convulsively.

Neji stands there and calls the doctors liars.

He rails at them, asks them why they don’t try to help her, don’t cast the regeneration jutsus, the healing chakra. He is the cousin of medic-nins, he knows Tsunade’s apprentice; he knows what they can do.

The older doctors roll their eyes (and Neji notices, and remembers who they are) or they are annoyingly sympathetic and soothing and understanding. But one of them is young, and frustrated, and he has nightmares about the patients who die under his hands, and he fears that the pale girl with the wavy brown hair will join his nightmares. So he shouts back at Neji, who is being hauled back by his teammates. (Lee is the calm one, and Neji is the wild one, and Gai is the angry one – there’s something so wrong with this, and it’ll go only more wrong unless she comes back)

“We tried, don’t you think we tried? We just can’t…can’t…we’re not Lightning, we don’t have the technology!”

And Neji, being pulled away by the others just as the older doctors are turning on the younger, silencing him, realizes what he has to do.

He steals her away from the hospital that very night.

(sincerely yours)

White-eyes,

 

Hope this finds you well.

 

You’ve been declared missing-nin by the Council of Elders. They’ve got you on charges of kidnapping, desertion, dereliction of duty, and treason by way of revelation of Village secrets to the enemy. Your uncle tried to block it – Tsunade too – but they were overruled. Tsunade said that the Hyuuga on the council seems to really hate you – he spit when he said your name.

 

(Hidoki, Neji thinks, and tightens his fingers on the paper)

Everyone’s really worried about you, especially your cousin and your teammates. But we understand. Lazy-ass thinks we might be sent on a mission to hunt you down. He also says that he’s already got a demonstrable failure rate of hunting down missing-nin.

 

We hope your mousepanda dragon gets better.

 

Watch yourself.

 

Sincerely yours,
~the rookies

(running)

They’re fighting in low voices, because Tenten has just recovered from a coma and Neji is still scared and because they’re in a hospital – Neji had seen no reason to take a room of his own, since he spent all his time beside Tenten.

Until now.

He’s trying to say goodbye to her; he’s shown her the letter from their friends, she knows what it means. But somehow she thinks that it includes her.

Neji’s trying to explain: he’s the kidnapper, she’s just the victim, hell she was comatose so she has no responsibility for his actions. She can go back. She should go back. She’s shaking her head and refusing and Neji is growing frustrated.

“Don’t you know what that means? They’re going to find me – even if they’ll never catch me, they’ll know! You’d be declared missing-nin too!”

“I don’t care!” she shouts back, her voice rising despite herself, and Neji is shocked to see she is crying. “How can you ask me to – to leave you? When it’s all my fault you had to go? When I...I…”

Neji shakes his head. “It wasn’t your fault. I made the decision. I…”

“Do you want me to go?”

The thought of never seeing her again makes Neji’s stomach clench painfully. But he nods. “Yes.”

Tenten flinches, and Neji wants to kick himself. But then she raises her eyes to his, and they’re shining with determination. “I don’t care.”

She’s grabbing at him now, curling her fingers into the fabric of his cheap shirt, refusing to let go. “If I’m not with you…”

“Tenten…”

“If you send me back to Konoha, I’ll run away to look for you.”

Neji’s breath catches in his throat. Then he reaches up, slowly, and pries her hands loose from his shirt. She resists at first, only to slacken immediately as she feels him intertwine his fingers with hers.

He shakes his head, and his voice is wearily accepting. “Alright.” He squeezes her hand, and she squeezes back. “I guess we’re both on the run, then.”

“Running together is more fun than running alone.” Tenten’s smile is brilliant now, and Neji is deeply, guiltily happy that she is refusing to leave. “That’s what Lee always says, you know.”

“I notice you never accompany him for the full three thousand laps, though.”

“Well, he’s got Gai-sensei. He’ll be all right – they’ll be all right.” She squeezes his hand again, and Neji can’t help the little shiver of happiness. “We’ll be all right.”