Sealed

Sealed
IX

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Author: Ms. Trick

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Note: Reviews make my life. No seriously.

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Chapter 9

THREE YEARS LATER

TenTen breathed heavily as the rain poured down, her multitudes of weapons scattered around her. Neji stood in the centre of a weapon-free ambit not too far away. Lee delivered a kick that splintered the tree he was practicing against and spent the next few seconds pulling his foot out. He managed, and ambled over to his two team mates.

The three of them were drenched--it had been raining heavily all morning. But with the summer humidity, the downpour was a welcome relief.

Now that they had stopped their intense training, TenTen was starting to feel a little chilled. She folded her arms but only grumbled about having to manually carry all her weapons home as the carrier scrolls would be useless if the rain made the ink run.

“Where’s Gaara today?” She asked.

They were at the section of the training grounds they always used, but usually the stoic redhead would be with them. The four of them would spar, breaking off into twos--Neji against TenTen, Gaara against Lee--or sometimes three against one if Gaara was up for it.

“He didn’t say anything at breakfast,” Lee confessed, hopping from one foot to another to stop from getting chilly. “I think he’s just discontented that his sand attacks are less effective in the rain. I’ll go find him, if you don’t mind.”

“Go ahead, Lee,” Neji said, coming towards them, dripping wet and looking a little less majestic than he usually did. “I’m meeting Hinata soon.”

Neji watched Lee head off and then turned to find TenTen laying out one of her scrolls in a dry patch underneath a tree Lee hadn’t busted. He swooped down and gathered two handfuls of kunai and shuriken out of the wet grass that was getting muddier by the second. Drops of brown splattered his wife’s ankles as she hurriedly collected her weapons, picking them up and throwing them towards the seal in the middle of the open scroll before the rain could do any damage to it.

The weapons landed dead centre each time and disappeared with a small puff of smoke. With Neji’s help, their task was done in a few short minutes.

Neji twisted and wrung out his long hair as TenTen protectively packed the scroll into her pack. Overall, Neji thought, she hadn’t changed much since their wedding almost three years ago. At least she didn’t appear to have. She wore her forehead protector in the standard place across her forehead like she always had but Neji didn’t need the Byakugen to see the seal hidden underneath now.

He wondered if TenTen minded the mark of the Hyuuga branch house. He asked her, knowing she would deny it regardless of how she actually felt and also knowing that there wasn’t actually anything he could do about it if she was unhappy.

“Of course I don’t mind it,” she predictably responded as she slung her wet bag onto her equally wet back. “I don’t really think about it all that much. It’s not in a place I can see all the time, after all.”

She smiled at him as he brushed back a wet strand of his dark hair. He put a hand on each of her damp cheeks and pulled her in for a brief kiss. It was sweet, if a little passionless.

As they quickly made their way back to town, TenTen inaudibly sighed. Neji was always good, romantic even, to her--she just wished that once he would kiss her like he meant it, like she meant something to him.

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Gaara swiped at the drops cascading over his forehead. Despite the downpour of cool rain, he was sweating.

He stood in a clearing that, on a good day, was opportune for drawing sand out of. He growled, dug his feet into the softening ground and brought his hands together purposefully.

He gritted his teeth and concentrated. The sand lying damp and downtrodden at his feet rose in a heavy cloud. The rain fell hard, shooting holes in the gold cloud mercilessly. Gaara panted as he forced it to shift into the form of Shukaku’s spear. But before the soggy lump of sand could become anything other than a soggy lump of sand, he dropped his arms, which were burning from exhaustion. The jutsu broke and the sand collapsed back onto the ground formlessly.

Though breathing heavily from the exertion, he managed to glare at the sandy brown earth. He scuffed his shoe against it, frustrated at his body’s limits. He closed his dark-lined eyes and soaked in the rain for a minute.

“Know what you need to work on?” Came a voice.

Gaara opened his eyes to see his slightly-less soaked husband squelching towards him. Gaara’s deep red overcoat absorbed water at much quicker rate than Lee’s spandex and chuunin vest.

“Believing in the springtime of my youth?” The redhead asked flatly.

“Close. Taijutsu,” Lee said with a grin that somehow managed to sparkle despite the lack of sunshine.

It was ironic, Gaara thought, how different their styles of fighting were. Lee solely depended on taijutsu while he hardly ever used it, though being a ninja, he did have a basic range of it as his command. He was utterly disabled by rain, Lee was unaffected.

A small smile graced Gaara’s lips and he nodded.

“You’d be the one to help me work on it,” he said evenly, turning to face the taller teen.

The rain seemed to wane from a roaring downpour to a sulking drizzle. On the shoulder strap of the leather chest guard keeping Gaara’s large gourd strapped to his back, twin forehead protectors reflected the light silver sky with a glint.

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The drizzle kept up. It nearly created a disjointed beat that Hinata and Neji could spar along to as it plunked and dribbled down the roof above the Hyuuga dojo. The mock battle ended as it always did: with Neji delivering a mock fatal blow. His hand screeched to a halt in mid-palm thrust mere centimetres from Hinata’s pale eyes.

There was silence for a second, only the constant sound of rain, and her cousin’s calloused palm filled her vision (well, not all of it obviously). Then he pulled away calmly, leaving her slumped against the wall, catching her breath.

She collected herself with a sigh, running a hand through her long hair.

“I should get back,” she said.

“Want me to walk you out?” Neji offered politely.

She shook her head. “Um, it’s okay. I’ll see you soon, Neji-nisan,” she said as she exited through the dojo’s wooden sliding door, trying not to let on how tired she was.

She hurried through the once-mundane hallways, guiltily using her sight to make sure her father was still in his study. Coming to meet with Neji had been strange at first, knowing she didn’t live here anymore. She was used to it now, of course. She reached the front door and quickly tugged on her shoes. She didn’t hesitate to escape into the light rain at a jog.

Her father had practically disowned her. She knew that. She didn’t really want him reminding her. He wouldn’t say anything about it if they ran into one another but the tight smile and the lingering gaze on her red facial markings said enough.

Down the street from the Hyuuga complex, Hinata tiredly slowed her walk despite the drizzle. She wasn’t quite sure she wanted to go back to the Inuzuka sector yet. If she did, she’d be coddled and dried off...taken care of like she always was, more so since she got the seal.

She sighed. She loved her new family but they were a little suffocating sometimes. Inuzukas were always nudging each other or tussling with each other or hugging each other or pushing each other--there was always a lot of physical contact, between humans and dogs.

While she relished the warm, familial atmosphere, sometimes she got nostalgic for the more clean, polite way of living/eating/addressing each other that the Hyuuga clan ground into its members.

Right now, she just needed space to breath. Away from those she loved and who she knew loved her. Just for now.

Her thoughts irritably turned to her spar with Neji. She stepped in a large puddle as she made her way up through the town and past the Hokage building. She kicked her icy feet to shake off the drops.

She liked sparring with Neji but she seemed to be making little headway. She tucked her hands into her pockets, resisting the urge to run her fingers over the seal just visible under her mesh shirt. She often thought the seal encompassing Orochimaru’s one only seemed to draw more attention to it.

But it was a moot point. The seal didn’t matter. Any occasional, sporadic boosts she got from it were always severely quashed afterwards, suppressing some of her own chakra with it. So little headway or no, sparring with her cousin was the only way she would get any better.

She found herself at the top of the Hokage Mountain and realised she wasn’t alone. She hesitated, unsure whether the dark figure would want company, or if she herself wanted it.

“Did you want something from me?” Sasuke asked, not removing his gaze from the damp village below.

“No, I...um, just c-came here to...well,” Hinata stammered, her fingers automatically meeting each other in a fidget.

“It’s Naruto’s favourite spot,” Sasuke supplied apathetically.

Hinata blushed and ducked her head. “Y-yeah.”

She eyed his back for a minute, taking the taller teen in. His style hadn’t changed too much in Naruto’s absence. He was in his usual black t-shirt, the Uchiha symbol stitched into the back of the collar with a miniature Uzumaki spiral stitched right under it.

His katana was strapped ominously to his back. His shorts were also black and cut off about his knee. From there down, his legs were wrapped in bandages with black straps crisscrossing over them. His forearms were covered in the same manner. He wore his forehead protector around his shoulder, much like Shikamaru.

But what was truly striking about him was the immensely strong chakra snaking through his body.

It could be hers too, she knew.

Though she wouldn’t even think it too loudly for fear of someone hearing...a very small part of her was in awe of what the seal had done to him despite the mistrust and the added bonus of the tracking seal around his ankle that let the Hokage know his whereabouts at all times.

She glanced at where it was hidden under the bandages and briefly entertained the thought of being told she was so powerful that they’d have to keep an eye on her too. But Hinata knew she’d never be that dangerous, never be considered enough of a threat to be marked. She wouldn’t go to Orochimaru and took some comfort in the fact that the Hokage trusted her on that.

Hinata slowly approached the railing, coming to stand at Sasuke’s side. His head was tilted up, watching the sky as the rain began to clear, first gradually and then very quickly.

“Th-the three years is almost up,” she said quietly.

He looked at her, dark eyes weighing whether she was thinking of Naruto’s subsequent return or Orochimaru’s coming unrest. She absently ran a thumb over the mark on her chest and Sasuke concluded her thoughts probably weren’t on her infatuation with his husband.

“They want me to tell you to ignore the seal,” he said, returning his gaze to the village. A humourless chuckle escaped him, mimicking Hinata’s own feelings on the topic.

Both of their seals, despite the ancillary one containing Hinata’s, had been flaring up regularly since last week. The black marks would feel hot, as though burning the skin, and several sharp lances of pain would sing through the body--Orochimaru was calling, morbidly reminding them that they had not been forgotten.

“I d-doubt they really understand,” she said dejectedly.

“They don’t,” Sasuke stated, a little disgust creeping into his usually neutral tone. As he turned to leave he paused, allowing a rare smile to cross his face.

“I can think of someone who might though,” he said, blonde hair and blue eyes that turned red flashing into his mind.

She watched him go, briefly wondering if he didn’t love Naruto a little more than she did. She smiled to herself, thinking she should go find Kiba. She could use some puppy love about now.

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Sakura turned her attention away from the drops hanging on the window back to the other occupants in the Hokage’s office.

“When are Temari and Shikamaru getting back from Sand?” She wondered out loud.

“Later today,” Tsunade said as she lay out a large scroll on her cluttered desk.

“Great!” Ino said brightly. “The academy will certainly be glad to have them back.”

“You’re just sick of having to listen to Koori complain about having to be the substitute for their classes,” Sakura snickered.

“Well, what does she expect?” Ino huffed. “The frickin’ ChuuninExams are coming up and someone’s got to be the correspondents to the other nations.”

“Girls, pay attention now,” Tsunade said. “Just one or two more things before we’re done for today.”

The two girls grew serious, eyes on the Hokage expectantly. The blonde woman gestured to the scroll, which was spattered with various black designs ranging from simple symbols to complex ciphers.

“Seals, like I was saying, are another way of forcefully and, usually permanently, manipulating another person’s chakra.”

Sakura bit the inside of her cheek at ‘permanently’.

“A seal can clearly do a number of things--suppress one’s chakra, increase it, poison it, contain it, store it...not to mention alter physical traits,” she said, folding her arms and leaning against her desk.

Sakura and Ino both moved forward to get a better view of the open scroll.

“Medically, seals are prone to causing complications. If a patient has a noticeable marking, make note of it immediately. Often, they can interfere with the healing process.” Tsunade sighed, staring out the window while the two girls pored over the example designs. “Plus, seals are usually play-it-by-ear, different for everyone. Even two people with the same seal, like Sasuke and Hinata, will react differently to it.”

The two girls looked at her and she continued her lecture while studying her crimson nails.

“Hinata’s also a good example of a seal designed to block another seal,” she said before stifling a yawn and staring longingly at the sunlight falling onto her floor.

“We’ll continue this lesson later,” she said abruptly, standing and stretching. “I need a nap.”

Ino laughed and ran a hand through her hair and Sakura snorted.

This was nothing new. More often than not, the Hokage ended their weekly lessons with a jaw-cracking yawn. This was becoming more common as the weather steadily got more humid.

Sakura playfully elbowed Ino as they made their way out of the office and wondered whether Temari would be home in time for dinner.

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As the afternoon went on, the sunshine grew bolder and splashed down confidently on Konoha’s rooftops. The sidewalks and doorsteps dried quickly. The puddles settled into still, horizontal mirrors and then began to shrink.

Adults and children gleefully fled their houses. Many bright faces tilted upwards happily as the sun tossed every cloud away...and suddenly the tranquil afternoon broke into pieces, as a voice seemed to ring from the sky:

“ALRIGHT!! I MISSED THIS PLACE! LOOK OUT KONOHAGAKURE! UCHIHA-UZUMAKI NARUTO IS BACK!”

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