They climbed strait up into the mountains. Past Sora’s house, and snow peaked caps, moving slowly towards the west. Sora wanted to keep to the mountains until they got closer to the south.
It felt surreal to travel this way. Day after day they trudged through the mountains, moving down the mountain range. The landscape was beautiful but unchanging, each mountain bearing a strong resemblance to the one that had come before it.
For Hinata, it seemed like an entirely different state of being. Her legs were sore and she was exhausted from climbing all day, everyday. But strangest of all, her hand was almost always tucked inside Naruto’s. Sometimes she would become convinced that the pressure on her hand was just her imagination, but then she would look up and there he was, walking next to her.
Sora was obviously used to traveling alone and often didn’t feel like talking. So she would walk ahead of them and they would follow behind, hand in hand, talking quietly. The declaration of their mutual affection hadn’t really changed things anything as much as added another dimension. They found themselves going back over a lot of things now that everything was out in the open, his kyubi, their families, their feelings for each other, they found that things had a slightly different light to them.
“I have this strange memory change thing going on,” Naruto said.
“What do you mean?” Hinata asked.
“Well,” he said, stepping up onto a bolder and helping her up behind him. “I know that I didn’t think much about how you looked back in Leaf, but whenever I go through memories where you’re there, I get distracted by how pretty you look.” He grinned. “Weird huh?”
Hinata stared up at him, not quite sure what to make of that. She was about to ask him to clarify what he meant when they heard Sora whoop for joy.
“Alright, no camping tonight! Oh I can’t wait to get somewhere warm to sleep.”
“What do you mean?” Naruto asked.
Sora just grinned and pointed to a spot beyond herself. The pair moved forward and looked out along the mountains. It took them a second to find what she was pointing to, but when they did their breaths caught in their throats.
It was a building. A huge sprawling building that flowed along the side of one of the mountains. It looked slightly similar to Sora’s house, except it was painted a vibrant red and white with accents of green and yellow. It was partially shrouded in mist, but you could still see the vivid colors shining through, as if the whole building was glowing.
“What is that?” Hinata breathed.
“It’s Daruma Abbey.”
“An abbey?” Naruto questioned.
“Yeah, you know like monks and nuns? This is where some of them live. Those who want to live away from society for one reason or another. In any case, they’ll let travelers stay in the Abbey for the night provided they promise not to break the peace, so we can sleep in actual beds tonight.”
“They’ll let anyone in?” Hinata was amazed. It seemed like a huge security threat to her. How could the monks expect people to keep their promise.
“They’re committed to bringing as many people peace and relief from suffering as possible. Fortunately for us, that’s not as aggressive here as at it is in other orders. They’re of the opinion that they have an almost infinite number of reincarnation to order to get everyone to reach nirvana and that by trying to press people too harshly you end up causing more harm than good. So they take an almost passive approach towards conversion.”
“Are we going to stay here long?”
Sora shook her head. “Just for the night. I personally would like to get out of these damn mountains and into somewhere with some tropical weather.” She sighed. “Ooo yeah, a beach and a bikini sound just about perfect right now. But for right now, we’ll have to make do with monks. Come on you two,” Sora said and started heading towards the abbey.
Naruto and Hinata followed behind her, tripping along the narrow path that lead down to the abbey. It took them almost two more hours to negotiate the rough terrain, but finally they reached the large wooden gates. Reaching up, Sora took the large brass knocker in both hands and banged it against the gate with a grunt.
A few minutes later, the door was opened by a women that Naruto and Hinata had to assume was a nun. She wore baggy gray pants and a matching long tunic. She was also veiled with solid black material wrapped around her head to fasten under her chin and a long silvery sheer material over that, coving her face.
Sora stepped forward and bowed to the women. “Rinpoche, my name is Sora and this is my brother Uzumaki Naruto and my apprentice Hyuung Hinata. We seek a night of rest at your abbey and pledge not to harm it or those who stay within its walls.”
Suddenly the women giggled. “Sora we have heard of you and you are welcome here.” She stepped aside to let them into the courtyard. “It has been years since you visited us, little sister, though the Abbot talks about it still. I’m sure the story of how you came to loose Yasu and take on these two will prove to be interesting.”
They were swept off into a changing room where they were able to remove their coats and change into dry house slippers. Hinata sighed in bliss at the feeling of the heated floors on her feet and Naruto chuckled at the look on her face. Then they were once again lead to another room where the abbess was supposedly waiting.
Walking down the hallway, Naruto leaned over to whisper a question to Sora. “Why is everyone wearing veils?”
“It’s part of their vow,” she whispered back. “It’s against vanity. All members, both monks and nuns, are required to veil themselves so that they will never think of the way they look because doing so is a completely selfish act. Lives must be dedicated to the whole world.”
“Then why are they living away from the world?”
“Because they have ties in the world they must cut. There are a surprisingly large number of clan heirs and ex-convicts here.”
Naruto was about to question her, when the door in front of them swung open. There, sitting on the floor was a monk, indistinguishable from all the others. “Ah, Sora. It gives me great joy to see you again.”
Sora smiled, unable to see the face, but able to recognize the voice. “And I am happy to see you as well, Rinpoche.”
“But you will not stay more than a night?”
She shook her head. “No, Rinpoche.”
“There are those who think that you live here permanently. They come looking for the dGra Klesha, thinking that they have become nuns here away from the world.”
“Then people don’t understand me very well. Yasu might survive in an abbey as long as she could keep researching, but I would never make it. The name dGra Klesha was something we were given, not something that we chose. Neither of us were ever religious.”
“And yet you come here.”
“Because it’s hella cold outside. Even in summer, these mountains are freezing.”
“Indeed. Well, you shall have to come have tea with me. Then you can explain where you have been for the last five years and how you come to have such interesting traveling companions.” He turned to Naruto and put a hand on his shoulder. “It is not everyday I meet someone with a demon inside them and I have yet to come up with a plausible explanation as to how it would occur. I look forward to talking to you. Would you mind telling me you story?”
“Umm, sure, whatever makes you happy.”
There was a slight sound of laughter. “You cannot make the sky blue,” he said.
“Huh?”
“I am already living in the light of happiness all the time; therefore you cannot make me happy. You can make me happier, but never just happy.”
“You’re happy all the time?”
“My life is dedicated to others. What is there
that could make me happier?”
“I liked them, but they were kinda weird,” Naruto said as they left the abby.
“That’s exactly what I say,” Sora agreed.
Hinata just shrugged. She hadn’t thought they were all that strange: living like that held a certain appeal to her, although she didn’t think she could live a life without children. But the quiet, restful nature of the abbey had appealed to her.
“You liked it, didn’t you?” Naruto asked curiously.
She nodded. “It reminded me of what home felt like before my mother died. It was quiet, but it wasn’t cold.”
Naruto got a very worried expression on his face. “You like it quiet?”
She smiled slightly. “I like it warm. And you,” she said, reaching up on her tip toes to kiss his cheek. “Are the warmest person I know.”
He blushed and ducked his head, squeezing her hand.
Sora rolled her eyes. “Dear lord, when did you two get so sappy?”
They finally emerged from the mountains over a week and a half from when they started. Sitting at the foot of the last mountain was a decent sized town where they planned to stay the night.
Before heading for the hotel, they headed for a restaurant for a lunch. They sat on the second story balcony of a place specializing in some sort of strange food that involved cracking open these puffy pastry thingies and then filling them full of stuff before you ate them. Sora was obviously a pro, but Hinata and Naruto were having a hard time not having the whole thing crack on them. More food was ending up on the table then in their mouths.
“Mmmmm, I had forgotten how much I missed the food,” Sora said, closing her eyes in bliss. Naruto and Hinata looked like themselves, but Sora had transformed herself into a stereotypical western woman of about 40 so as not to attract attention.
Naruto frowned as the pastry crumbled in his hands, spilling all over his plate. The little bit he got in his mouth burned his tongue “Ahhhh! This is the most impossible to eat stuff in the world!” he yelled, pointing at his plate.
“Hey, miss,” a deep voice said in the western tongue.
Sora looked up to see a huge bare-chested man standing next to the table. “Yes?”
“The kid’s annoying. Teach him to eat properly and tell him to shut up.”
Sora’s eyes flashed. “He’s not from around here. Cut him some slack.”
The man leaned down and thrust his face into hers. “I don’t give a damn where the hell he’s from. Get the idiot under control.” The man walked off.
Naruto was about to get up and start yelling at him, when both Sora and Hinata’s hands came down on his shoulders.
“Did you hear what he said?” he asked them, switching back into eastern.
“Course I did. We’ll get him, just not in a way that will get us in trouble.” Sora grinned. “Your mother actually taught me how to do this. High time I passed it onto you.”
Hinata looked back and forth between the two of them, frantically trying to diffuse the situation. “You guys he didn’t actually do anything that bad.”
“And we won’t do anything too bad to him. Now watch this. We’re going to force him to transform.” Sora started making seals underneath the table. “Projected transformation no jutsu,” she said quietly, starting at the man. After a second she relaxed and giggled.
Naurto and Hinata looked around behind him to see the man, still looking like himself, but now dressed in a rather lovely pink floral saree. All the men who were standing with him at the bar were laughing hysterically.
Sora gave them a self satisfied smile. “See if I was really mean, I would change his voice and maybe put some sort of hypnotism technique on him to make him act like a girl. But that would be a waste; genjutsu really takes too much out of me to really justify it.” She went back to eating.
“Cool, I want to try.”
“Well you’ll have to wait until someone else insults us. Or is mean to an innocent bystander: Nanashi used to do it to men who were harassing girls.” She laughed. “You come across your prankster genes legitimately.”
Hinata stared down at her plate. She had just about given up on trying to get any of the strange food into her mouth. She wanted chopsticks.
“Ya’ll done?” Sora asked, wiping her mouth with a napkin.
“As done as we’re going to be,” Naruto grumbled.
“Cool, then lets go get a room and plan out what we’re going to do for the next few days,” Sora said, getting up to leave.
The pair followed her out, unaware of the fact that there were two pairs of eyes following them out the door.
They found a hotel and settled in before hauling out the maps and starting to discuss plans for the next few days. However one person had a far more immediate problem he wanted to deal with. Naruto’s primary concern was going out and finding something edible, preferably something that involved ramen noodles. His secondary concern was doing it with Hinata and without Sora.
Unfortunately for him, Sora wasn’t having any of it.
“I can’t let the two of you go wondering around the village unescorted! What is someone tried to take you?” Sora and Naruto stood practically nose to nose, yelling at each other. Naruto was trying to get Sora to let him and Hinata explore the city some without her. He really wanted some time with her without Sora around. There were some things you just couldn’t try with your big sister around.
“We’re really well trained now! Even if something does happen, we can hold them off long enough for you to get there. Not that we wouldn’t be able to kick their asses by ourselves. The battle probably be over when you arrived.”
“Because you’d be snatched off by Itachi and spirited away to some secret hideout where I can rescue your ass!”
“You said they don’t know where we are!”
“I said I’m pretty sure they don’t know where we are. Actually knowing is a whole different kettle of fish!”
Naruto stared at her. “Kettle of what?”
Sora took a deep breath, ready to start yelling again.
“Onee-chan?” Both Naruto and Hinata were startled by the sound of Hinata’s voice. They turned and looked at her. “Naruto and I wouldn’t go far from the hotel. We just want a chance to look around a bit. We could stay close enough that you would be able to tell if something was going on. Plus, anyone would have trouble taking us out of a crowd.”
Sora sighed. “Fine, fine, you have exactly two hours. If the two of you aren’t back here in two hours, I am going to come looking for you and it’s not going to be pretty.”
The pair wasted no time gathering up their stuff and running out the door. “Be careful!” Sora yelled after them, as they ran down the stairs of the hotel and out into the street.
They stopped right outside of the door, staring at amazement at the sight around them. Where Leaf’s architecture all seemed to go together in a somewhat organized, if eclectic, method, things here seemed to be out of control. People crowded the streets, shoppers and venders and people who just seemed to be mulling around. They yelled, calling out about how good their wares were or how they needed to get through with the cart. The buildings rose tall over the crowded streets, tan stucco walls reflecting the beating light of the sun.
Naruto smiled and grabbed Hinata’s hand. “Come on, lets go see if we can find any ramen.”
They weren’t able to find any ramen, but they were able to find a number of pots full of bubbling sauces. After the first and only one they tried ended up practically burning the roof of their mouth off, they settled on some sort of grilled meat on a stick. Walking along, they stopped and looked at the vendors and shops, selling clothing and talismans, weapons and food.
Hinata stopped at one of the windows and peared in through the glass.
“What?” Naruto asked, looking into the window next to her. His heart stopped when he saw that it was a salon.
She fingered the end of her long ponytail. “I was just thinking that I should get my hair cut again. In this heat, having long hair is going to be tough,” she said, munching on her satay.
He opened his mouth to tell her not to, when he remembered how Sora acted everytime someone commented on her hair. She always yelled something along the lines of “It’s my hair, I like it and that’s what counts” although generally with curse words liberally inserted before, after and during.
Would all women react to having their hair choices critiqued like that? Sakura had cut off all of her hair while he was knocked out and then simply said it was time for a change. When he pestered her about it, she yelled at him. Then again, she always yelled at him.
Oh, no. He wasn’t going to risk talking to Hinata about her hair. He could be sneaky about it, he knew he could.
He tried to think of ways to talk her out of it without actually telling her what to do. “But... all the women here have long hair,” he said, waving his satay stick around.
“Yes, but they put it up in a bun to keep it off the back of their neck.” She sighed. “We’ll I’ll wait until tomorrow and see if Sora will take me. No point in wasting our time getting my hair cut.” She smiled and started to move on down the street.
Naruto stared after her for a few seconds before running to catch up. He had to think of a way to keep her from cutting her hair!
Walking further down the street, they ducked into something that claimed to be an antique shop. The air inside was dark and musky, most of the furniture covered with dust. Urns sat on top of carved tables and sets of singing bowls lined the shelves. And in the back was a long glass case filled with jewelry.
Hinata leaned over the case, studying the contents. “Those are pretty,” she said, pointing.
Naruto scrunched up his nose and peered through the glass. They were sticks made out of some sort of wood with white glass balls on the top with some sort of flower drawn on them. From underneath the balls there were little ropes of slightly curved disks of glass “Why would anyone need such short, fancy chopsticks?”
Hinata laughed softly. “They’re not chopsticks, they’re hair sticks. You use them to put your hair up.”
The phrase ‘put your hair up’ caught Naruto’s attention. He bent down to study them closer. Looking at them from below, he caught site of the price tag. They weren’t cheep but he should be able to swing it. After all, he was still getting his gennin pay from Tsuande via Sora and he wasn’t really buying anything. There was only so much ramen even he could eat. “You use these things to put your hair up? How?”
She started to explain, going through the motions. “Well you pull the hair up into a bun, and then catch some of the hair in the bun with the stick and then you sort of flip it over and catch more of the hair on the...” She trailed off at the lost look on Naruto’s face. “Its sort of hard to explain.”
“Oye! Mister! Come open the case for us!” he yelled at the shopkeeper in loud if slightly jumbled western.
The man looked up from reading his newspaper, then slid off the stool and rambled over to the case.
“Whatcha wanna look at?” he said in an irritated tone, convinced that he wasn’t going to get a sale out of the teenagers. At least that what Naruto thought he said: his accent was a little hard to understand.
Naruto jabbed his finger at the front of the case. “Those hair thingies.”
The man took a key from his pocket and unlocked the back of the case before reaching in a grabbing the two sticks. “They’re vintage glass, from just a few years after that particular factory was destroyed in a gang war. The base is magnolia wood which is apparently what inspired the etching on the main ball and petal shaped beads.”
Neither of them got any of that, but it didn’t really matter. Naruto took them out of his hand and gave them to Hinata. “Go on, try them.”
“But I...”
“I wanna see how these things work. Go ahead.”
Hinata sighed, tugging the band that held her hair in a tail at the base of her neck. Then gathering all her hair up into her hands, she started to twist it into a large bun. She held it in place with one hand as she slid the sticks into her hair. The white glass sparkled like little stars against the blackness of her hair.
Naruto nodded. They looked good and her hair was now up. No reason to get it cut if it was up. Oh yeah, he was the man. He had it all figured out. He turned to the shopkeeper.
“You’re asking too much for them. There’s no way I’m going to pay that much for hair thingies.”
“Wait, what?” Hinata asked, whirling around.
The shopkeeper’s eyes narrow, sensing that he might have underestimated the boy. Or rather, underestimated the boy’s purchasing power. “Nonsense. Those are easily worth 150.”
“One hundred and fifty?” Hinata gasped, shocked.
“Ha! More like twenty five!”
“Perhaps one hundred twenty five, but no lower. They’re antiques.”
“You said they were vintage. Fourty.”
“Young man they mean essentially the same thing. One hundred.”
“Fifty.”
“Seventy five.”
“Done,” Naruto said, hauling out a large fat frog. He removed the money and put it on the counter before reaching up to take the price tag off the end of one of Hinata’s hair sticks. “Come on, Hina-chan we only have forty five minutes left.”
“But, but” she sputtered.
Firmly putting his hands on her shoulders, Naruto started to steer her out of the shop. “Come on, I think I saw a tea shop across the street. We can try that chai stuff Sora has been talking about.”
Still protesting, Hinata allowed Naruto to push her out of the shop and into the street.
Hinata sat across from Naruto in the booth of the teashop. “I can’t believe you bought these,” she said, reaching up to once again finger the ornaments in her hair. She knew that most girls would be swooning at this point. Not only had her boyfriend bought her a present, it had been jewelry and relatively expensive at that. But she didn’t want him to think that she expected this, that she thought that this was an important part of being his girlfriend.
“But you were complaining about how hot it was,” he said, he mouth full of some salty concoction of crackery things on the table.
She had said that yes, but she wasn’t playing games. She hadn’t been trying to drop hints that she wanted a present or insinuate anything. “But that meant that it was hot, not that I wanted you buy me hair things.”
She had been protesting since the moment they left the store. Man, had he done something wrong without realizing it? “You like them, don’t you?”
“They’re gorgeous, but-“
“So what’s the problem? Your hair is off the back of your neck and they look pretty.” He was desperate. He really couldn’t see what he had done that was making her question him. She liked, he bought. It wasn’t as if he had a whole lot of other things that he needed the money for.
“They were just so expensive!”
And if they kept her from chopping her hair off, they were worth every cent. “I didn’t mind. What did I do wrong?” He asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t understand what I did that was wrong! You say you like them, I wanted to get them for you, so I bought them.” He was pleading with her, trying to figure out where in this process he had gone wrong. Maybe she realized that he was trying to keep her from cutting her hair and was upset about that. “Just tell me what I did!”
Hinata sighed. “I just don’t want you to think that I expect this sort of thing. I mean...just because I’m your girlfriend now, doesn’t mean you have to buy me things.”
“But I want to.”
She laughed. The whole thing was just so atypical of other couples. “I know...a lot of girls would drop hints that they wanted something expensive and romantic and then expect their boyfriends to go out and get it for them. But they don’t actually tell them they want it, and they get mad if they don’t get it. I don’t want to play those kinds of games.”
Naruto found this very confusing. “Huh? We never have before. Why would that change?”
“Well, now that we’re going out, I just worry that...I don’t want to start doing stupid couple things just because we’re going out. I want to do couple things, just not the stupid ones.” Gods that had sounded nonsensical.
“And the hinting that you want something expensive and then me going out and getting it one of those things?”
“Yes. As is feeling like you have to buy me things.”
“But that’s not what happened, with the hair thingies.”
“I know...I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t.”
“So then, it wasn’t that I bought you the hair thingies, it was what you thought my reason’s where for buying you the hair thingies?”
She stared at him for a second and then shook her head. “I sound like a complete idiot don’t I?”
He waved his hands frantically in front of himself. “No, no, I just don’t get what you’re saying. But don’t worry about it; just tell me if I do it again, okay?”
She laughed softly to herself. It hadn’t even occurred to him that she was playing games. It hadn’t occurred to him to buy them for her because that was what a ‘good boyfriend’ was supposed to do. He just knew she liked them and wanted to get them for her.
Sometimes she forgot just how straight forward things with him tended to be.
“Naruto –kun?” she said softly.
“Hai?”
She smiled at him and reached up to brush the end of them with her fingertips. “I love them. Thank you.”
He grinned and held his hand out to her on the tabletop. She placed her hand in his and felt him squeeze it. “Your welcome.”
Sora sighed as she sat at the hotel bar, nursing a chocolate martini. When had she become such a pushover?
Ah, well, the damage was already done. They were young and in love and thought they were invincible.
The chance that Itachi had figured out where they were was small. After all, she was good at slipping under the radar; it was one of the things that had made the dGra Klesha so powerful. Nope, no one, not even Obaa-chan knew where they were.
“Hello, Sora,” a voice said behind her.
Maybe she had spoken to soon.
Author’s Notes: Hmmmm, that’s a rather nasty cliffhanger. Ah, well.
And in the next chapter we get to see how well I can do writing a fight scene. Not my forte, as I proved in the SoraNaruto battle way back there, but I’m going to give it a go.
FYI, there are going to be about 30 chapters
total, maybe a few less. There are four major fights, so its
going to be a lot of action. The story ends in the same place it
began.
This site is published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT info@seltzerbooks.com
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