Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Leaf in the Desert ❯ Chapter 4

Just so everyone knows, I've got a rather poor drawing of Aikou up on DeviantART. Wander over to theamberdragonfly dot deviantart dot com and check her out!

 

Chapter 4

 

Crack! “AIEEEE!”

 

Aikou's expression didn't change as she snapped the Rock-nin's arm like a twig with a tendril of sand. “I asked a question, weakling,” she said, her voice as ice-cold as her eyes. “Where is Kanaye?”

 

The Rock shinobi, wincing in pain, manage to glare through his agony at the lovely, if deadly, female interrogating him. “I… don't… know…” he gasped out.

 

The door to the spacious, nearly empty room opened and both Kages entered, followed by a small group of males. Aikou narrowed her eyes. Sure enough, that spineless whelp of the Hokage was following behind their fathers, looking rather stupefied at the scene in front of him.

 

All four Rock-nins were suspended in the air by pillars of sand, rendered immobile as the red-haired kunoichi interrogated them. Two already dripped blood from wounds hidden by their sand-coffins, creating pools of nearly black liquid on the smooth floor. The third, which she was currently questioning, had at least two appendages dislocated and several deep lacerations from some sort of whip.

 

Gaara's aquamarine eyes glittered as he approached his daughter. “You could have waited,” he murmured, a hint of regret in his quiet tone.

 

Aikou bowed low to her Kazekage father. “Apologies, Father.”

 

“Did they reveal anything?”

 

She turned her head away, almost as if she were ashamed. “Kanaye sent them. More than that they will not admit.” She pulled a scroll out of her pack and handed to him. “This one had this on him. I did not read it as I suspect a destruction seal on it.”

 

Gaara nodded slightly. “You have done well. You are dismissed.” He placed a gentle hand on his daughter's shoulder in a brief show of affection and then walked past her toward the captives, Naruto following, his face grim and serious.

 

Naruto and Gaara turned their attention to the men dangling in sand. As they began to ask their questions, Aikou turned toward the Hokage's brat nearby. His face was frozen in a very blank expression but his eyes held something mixed between horror and shock. Aikou could sense the mingling emotions stirring under the surface just as she could feel her sand in her gourd. He turned to her with wide blue eyes. “You… did this?”

 

She regarded him coolly. “I did what was necessary,” she informed him. “They are of Kanaye's country- they acted upon his orders.” She turned more fully toward him, facing off even though nearly a foot of height separated them. “You should not be so surprised, son of the Hokage- after all, it was your miserable life they were after.”

 

Sasuke moved up next to Kohaku and gave the dainty female a direct, if approving, look. “This is not the place for such discussions,” he said quietly. “Wait outside as Gaara ordered, Aikou.”

 

Recognizing a superior strength when she saw it, Aikou bowed before stalking past Kohaku without even glancing at the other young man with Sasuke. Why is it I am constantly surrounded by men?

 

Once out in the hallway, a voice called out after her. “Hey… hey, wait!”

 

Aikou paused and turned her head to look at the brown-haired man running behind her. She sighed silently. “What is it, Leaf-nin?”

 

Shourai held two hands up in front of his chest as if he were surrendering. “Hey, relax,” he said quickly. “I'm not here to start a war. I just wanted to tell you that was some amazing work back there.”

 

The red-head turned further, her ice-blue eyes giving him a good once-over. “Explain yourself.”

 

“I meant that your abilities with sand and interrogation are incredible. I doubt even my father could have accomplished that much in that short of time. You just got here from Suna, right?”

 

“That is correct. My brother, cousin, and I are here for the finals of the Jounin exams.”

 

He blinked in surprise. “You're a Chuunin? And about to become a Jounin? How old are you?”

 

“Fifteen,” came the slightly relaxed reply. Her entire demeanor loosened a bit and her eyes lost a hint of the iciness that they held before. “My brother is sixteen, and my cousin Kisho is seventeen.”

 

The handsome young man offered her a smile that his father often used when amused by something. “My name's Shourai, by the way. Shourai Uchiha. I'm sixteen- same age as your brother, it would seem.”

 

She inclined her head politely and offered a tentative smile that was dazzling regardless. “Aikou of the Desert.”

 

A familiar orange head poked around Shourai's shoulder and raised an eyebrow at her. Damn… she could be really pretty if she'd smile more…

 

“Well, Miss Of-the-Desert, why don't I take you on a tour of Konoha?” Shourai asked.

 

Kohaku sniffed the shoulder of Shourai's black shirt and wrinkled his nose. “You might want to take a bath first, mate,” he whispered in the younger man's ear. “Girls don't like it when guys smell like Lee-sensei after a workout.”

 

Shourai flushed bright red as he whirled in embarrassment toward Kohaku. “Can't you keep your nose in your own business, Uzumaki? I'm trying to have a conversation with this lovely young lady here!”

 

“Trying and failing, I'm afraid,” Kohaku sighed. “She is much too sophisticated for a young pup like you.”

 

“I say we let her decide- she's perfectly capable of choosing the better man.”

 

Aikou scowled at the two of them. “I have absolutely no interest in either of you.”

 

They blinked at her in confusion, as if they had forgotten she was right there listening. “Beg pardon?” Kohaku asked.

 

“You… don't?” Shourai added, a hint of disappointment in his voice.

 

“Protecting Suna and my family is my life,” she informed them coldly. “I have no time for hormone-driven pretty-boys like you.” With that final statement, she turned in a huff and stalked away from them.

 

As the two Konoha ninjas watched her leave, a strange silence surrounded them. Kohaku broke the quiet first.

 

“Did you hear that? She thinks we're pretty.”

 

A whoosh of air and the hooting of amused laughter from the orange-haired smart ass followed this statement as Shourai swung a fist at his companion, who dodged skillfully and jumped away. “Baka! Can't you ever take anything seriously?”

 

Kohaku chortled as he raced down an adjacent hallway, his mind on one thing and one thing only. “This is serious, Shou! It's called `love'!”

 

Shourai sprinted after him, scowling. “And what would you know about love? You've never been in love!”

 

“Of course I have. Many, many times. And each time is more glorious than the last.”

 

The Uchiha heir groaned. “Yeah, for about a week…”

 

“Ah, but what a week…”

 

“You sound like Jiraiya-sennin,” Shourai grumbled.

 

“And a more perfect role-model has never been found,” Kohaku agreed cheerfully. “But I'm serious now, Shou. I will woo her and I will win her. I will melt the icy heart of the Princess of the Sands.”

 

“In your dreams, dobe,” the brown-haired boy muttered under his breath.

 

----------------------------------

 

Aikou was seething by the time she reached the outside of the building. Needing to vent some frustration, she held out her arm and clenched her hand toward a nearby stone outcropping near the base of the mountainside. “Sabaku Sousou!” she fairly snarled.

 

The rock was immediately engulfed in sand and crushed effortlessly, crumbling into even more sand. Breathing a bit harder from being unable to effectively expel some anger in this foreign village, she glanced around quickly, searching for another target.

 

“What has burrowed under your skin this time, Aikou?”

 

She whirled around to see her much taller brother gazing at her rather neutrally. She nearly growled in the face of his emotionless attitude. “These Konoha bastards…” she hissed, “they think of me as a… as a…”

 

“An eligible female?” Haru finished, raising an eyebrow. “Heaven forbid. There cannot be anything worse in this world, can there?”

 

Aikou flung her arm at her brother and he neatly dodged the tendril of sand she commanded without changing facial expressions. “You will have to do better than that if you want to hit me, baby sister,” he said in a rather bored tone.

 

His unconcerned attitude fueled her ire, just as it always did. She made a few hand seals and then seemed to shoot needles of sand as she thrust her palms toward him. “Suna Shigure: Hari no Oujou!”

 

Haru made a series of hand seals so fast even his sister couldn't see them, then placed his palms on the ground. “Gurasu: Keikyoku no Kakuheki!”

 

Immediately the ground began to rumble and a multitude of thorny vines erupted from in front of Haru's feet. Entwining together so quickly that Aikou's sand needles were unable to pass through them, they created a solid wall of thorns from which several white roses bloomed.

 

Standing, Haru plucked a particularly large rose from the brush and flung it with uncanny aim at his sister's feet. As soon as the stem pierced the ground, twin tendrils of thorny vines sprouted and wrapped themselves around the girl's legs and arms, preventing her from moving. Aikou growled as she struggled to move.

 

Haru appeared in front of her, another rose in hand. “You are fortunate Mother made me promise to use blunted thorns on you, baby sister,” he murmured. “Else you would be fertilizer right now.”

 

“You and your bloody rosebushes,” Aikou snorted in a rather unladylike fashion. A stream of sand slithered around him, ready to strike. “I could crush you to an unrecognizable pulp.”

 

“But you would need to catch me first,” came the stoic reply just before Haru vanished, leaving the red-head bound in the rose vines, biting her lip to keep from howling out loud in frustration.

 

------------------

 

Safaia glanced around uncertainly as the ground beneath her trembled slightly. Flicking her sapphire eyes to her 10-year-old son Sora, who was walking next to her quietly, she quickly dismissed him as the source of the sensation. Although he displayed a similar ability as his older brother with plant manipulation, he was as of yet still a novice and sought every opportunity to practice his skills. Yet the slightly baffled look in his dark blue eyes as he looked up at his mother confirmed her conclusion that he was not to blame for the tremor.

 

“Haru,” she murmured with a mother's intuition. Altering their path away from their sight-seeing walk, she led the way toward the Hokage's mansion, with Sora following closely behind.

 

As she got closer, she could feel the chakra lingering in the flora just ahead of her- indeed, Haru had been using his plant-based jutsus again. But why?

 

The answer appeared in the form of her daughter, wrapped up in vines like a fly in a spider's web. A rose-bush wall was positioned not too far in front of her, giving testament to what had probably occurred.

 

Heaving a sigh, she walked over and looked her dainty daughter directly in the eye. “What did you do now to infuriate your brother?” she asked wearily.

 

Aikou muffled a snarl. “I did nothing to that rose-weaving sand-jackal,” she bit out. “I was trying to tell him about the Hokage's spoiled brat and his little pretty-boy companion and he-!”

 

“You became angry at something he said and you attacked him,” her mother guessed correctly.

 

Aikou actually blushed. “I…” Then she straightened up as well as she was able in her vine prison, immediately defensive. “Haru started it! He claimed that having those two think of me as an eligible female instead of a kunoichi was not a bad thing!”

 

Safaia raised a delicate eyebrow. “They are interested in you?”

 

“Mother! That is not the point! I am a shinobi! I live to protect you and my country!”

 

The older woman gave a slight nod to Sora, who was trying hard not to smirk at his sister's misfortune. He promptly moved over to Aikou's side and made a few hand seals before focusing on the rose vines. Slowly the plant retracted and released his sister, allowing her to drop to the ground.

 

“You may be a shinobi, Aikou,” Safaia replied, placing an arm around her daughter's slender shoulders and guiding her away while Sora finished with the rose-bush wall nearby, “but you are also becoming a woman. There is more to life than fighting and survival.”

 

Aikou lifted her chin and stared stubbornly in front of her, her eyebrows drawn together in a defiant scowl. “Not for me, Mother.”

 

.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.

 

Sabaku Sousou: Desert Funeral

Suna Shigure: Hari no Oujou: Rain of Sand: Needles of Death

Gurasu: Keikyoku no Kakuheki: Grass-type: Barrier Wall of Thorns

 

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed! I really appreciate them and they inspire me to write more! So if you want faster updates, make sure you review! -wink-