Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Rosemary For Remembrance ❯ Peonies ( Chapter 6 )

Chapter 6 - Peonies

 

The course of true love never did run smooth.

 

- Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

 

Naturally, the Godaime had taken the head of her emissary tossed over Konoha's walls in a basket as a sign of war from the Hidden Grass. So when a messenger from that village arrived the next day, a flag of truce in her hand, it was hard to say who was more surprised - the three Genin gate guards who greeted her or the Grass envoy when three masked and hooded ANBU restrained her just outside the city gates.

 

Neji busied himself at ANBU headquarters that day, waiting for news. Hinata did not ask him to do it this time. She didn't have to.

 

By the end of the night, Neji could report to his cousin that the Hidden Village of Grass disavowed all knowledge of the attack on the Leaf's emissary.

 

The next day, spy reports had placed two Sound nin between Konoha and Grass. Apparently, the Hokage's envoy had never arrived at his destination and Sound was responsible for sowing the dissent between the two allied villages. Under pressure, Grass - a small village in a small country without even a Kage - finally admitted to their secret dealings with Sound.

 

By the end of the week, Neji was part of the team that traveled to Grass to escort their erstwhile prisoner home.

 

Neji had always served two masters - Hyuuga and Konoha.

 

But when he brought Naruto home, he brought him home for Hinata alone.

 

()()()()()

 

Neji spared a final glance for his opponent before leaving him there at the base of the tree. Three strategically blocked tenketsu and then a chakra push had overloaded his heart.

 

Neji took a position in the trees and quickly found Naruto just forty meters to the south, backing his opponent toward the edge of a stream. The second Sound-nin was quick, but Naruto was quicker. There was no traction on the bank, and the Sound-nin's heel slid in the mud before she could plant her feet. Neji watched Naruto crowd her. He didn't use the distraction with the mud to knock her legs from under her, probably aware that he could just as easily be caught in the same trap.

 

One this day, for once, Naruto was being cautious. It almost got him killed.

 

Suddenly, instead of trying to reestablish her footing on the bank, the Sound-nin bent her knees then propelled herself backward, into the water. She hadn't bothered with chakra to her feet, and the shock of her dive made a sizeable splash. Neji saw the seals she formed through the silhouette of Naruto's body - Horse, Tiger, Horse, Monkey.

 

The Sound-nin had completed her jutsu and tendrils of water crept up over the bank, soon they would cover Naruto's planted feet. Neji stealthily advanced on their location. What was Naruto's plan? He was trying to get to her, Neji suddenly realized. But he wasn't moving. Then he saw the dark spots on Naruto's clothes. The splash. Somehow she had had paralyzed him with the water. He suddenly recalled the mission report, the minor detail that her grandmother had been from the Water Country and how the hell could he have failed to realize this?

 

From his new angle, he could see that Naruto's eyes showed a bit too much white around the edges. His limbs moved, but as if he were walking through cotton. Too slow. Neji gathered chakra in his feet, preparing to spring. The Sound-nin was not aware of him. It would be simple to close her vital tenketsu just as he had done to her companion. It would be nothing.

 

It would also be simple to hesitate. To arrive one breath too late. An unfortunate mistake.

 

It could happen to anyone.

 

The Sound-nin's face was screwed up in intense concentration as the water crept up Naruto's legs like a living thing.

 

The grown man in front of him was the same boy who had promised to change Hyuuga all those years ago. He did not have a spiteful, selfish voice in his head and that would allow him to consider hesitating to save a friend. And that was the difference between them.

 

He sprang.

 

()()()()()

 

“That was a close one, eh Neji? I guess you were right about paying attention to all the information in the Bingo Book.” Naruto rolled his shoulders until they popped. The sound made Neji wince.

 

“I'll take care of both bodies,” Neji offered. The woman had died half in the water, half on the bank, making her dead weight unusually heavy. “You should hurry, there isn't much time.”

 

Rain had begun to fall and Neji realized with a chill that the overcast weather had been a part of the Sound-nin's plan all along. Still, Naruto's usual grin was back in place, the brush with death seemingly forgotten. “Hey, they can't start without me, right?”

 

In response, Neji hoisted the second body onto his other shoulder.

 

Naruto rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “Fine. I hear you. Don't be late yourself.”

 

Neji watched through the tapered slits of his eagle mask as Naruto disappeared into the rain.

 

()()()()()

 

When Neji was four years old, his father disappeared one day and never came back. One morning Hizashi was drilling Neji on the most basic forms of Jyuken, the next his uncle Hiashi was solemnly placing his father's gleaming hitai-ate in his small hands.

 

Later, when he was old enough to understand such things, Neji promised himself that he would never again miss the events that would change his life.

 

He was a Hyuga, after all. What was the use of possessing the Byakugan if you turned away and did not see? When next his life changed for the worse, he vowed that he would watch with wide open eyes.

 

()()()()()

 

Neji is very late. He has taken the time to change into a regular Jounin uniform so that he could show his face in the tourist town. For the most part, the rain has washed the blood from his hair. Still, a hunk of something - he does not contemplate what - proves more difficult to remove, so he chops the entire lock off with a kunai, then adjusts his hair band to hide the flaw.

 

He will not mar this moment with death.

 

He sees the dress before he sees her face. The white formal kimono belonged to her mother. Neji realizes dully that -- though the dress fits her perfectly -- Hinata is already much older than Himiko-sama when she married Hiashi. She is almost the same age as Himiko-sama when she died.

 

Hinata is nervous. Pale. More so than usual. He realizes that she is smiling at him though, and has been for a long moment.

 

“Neji-niisan!” she beams. Her fingers flutter toward him but he steps back out of her reach.

 

“I'm wet,” he explains needlessly.

 

She hesitates, brings her fingers to her mouth instead.

 

“Don't!” Eyes that supposedly see everything have somehow missed Haruno Sakura in the small dressing room.

 

“You'll muss your lipstick,” Sakura fusses. Neji frowns as he realizes that his cousin is indeed wearing petal-pink color on her lips. Her hair is also styled in the traditional bunkin-takashimada style, complete with gold combs and kanzashi. With a shinobi's eye for utility, Neji briefly wonders about the practicality of all of this ceremony for a hasty elopement. But then he remembers that she is the Hinata who still wears a heart shaped pendant from her mother's jewelry collection. Even in a tourist-trap of a town known for its vast number of wedding shrines, Hinata will have a traditional wedding. The thought beckons his first smile all day.

 

At the mouth of Eternal Happiness Street, a hawker's booth had caught his attention. A pinch-faced woman with a dirty nose displayed the five traditional wedding gifts - dried cuttlefish, kelp and konbu for fertility. A bundle of long linen threads symbolizing the gray hair of old age. And finally a folding fan that, spread out, would represent increasing wealth.

 

Neji holds the fan out to Hinata now. It is the only traditional gift he could bring himself to buy. There had been no occasion for the formal engagement party where such gifts are traditionally given. He spies a bundle of silver linen thread tucked into Hinata's hakoseko and assumes Sakura had the same idea he did.

 

Hinata accepts the fan from his hands with delight, as if it is a rare flower rather than cheap painted wood wrapped in rice paper.

 

She really is the best of them all.

 

Sakura is explaining to him how they let the couple whose ceremony was scheduled after theirs go first, because Hinata and Naruto would not hear of beginning without Neji. Hinata has migrated to the room's one tiny window. She has her fingers pressed against the sill; her eyes are watching rivulets of rain amble down the glass.

 

“I should go check on Naruto,” Neji says, and he thinks he may have interrupted Sakura, but he isn't sure. He sees Hinata turn, her mouth open to speak, but he quickly shuts the dressing room door.

 

Naruto is two doors down. When Neji knocks, he opens the door immediately with a, “God damn, I thought you were the priest already. Get your ass in here.”

 

Neji smirks at the mess Naruto has made of the room. He recognizes pieces of the regulation Jounin uniform littering the floor. Naruto is wearing a blue kimono that darkens his eyes, or maybe that's just nervousness. His hair is standing on end and a white stripe across his forehead exposes the fact that a hitai-ate usually rests there. His obi is tied incorrectly and as Neji watches Naruto unties it and yanks it from around his waist.

 

“Shit, shit, shit.” Each repetition is more frustrated than the last. “It's important to her that this is perfect!” His fingers fumble over the knots again, almost immediately botching the job.

 

Neji silently takes the ends of the obi from his hands and in a few moments it hangs correctly.

 

“Do something with your hair,” he directs. His own sodden mane clings to his neck and shoulders.

 

Naruto seems surprised at his own reflection in the mirror. Neji watches, amused, as he tames his hair with a comb and then allows himself the small vanity of turning left and then right to view his wedding kimono from different angles.

 

“You'll have to teach me that trick with the obi someday,” Naruto mutters. He tosses a crescent-eyed grin over his shoulder. “I'll need to know when I become Hokage.”

 

Neji agrees. He can almost pretend that they are preparing for another mission. Something undercover. Something with a low chance of success.

 

A young priest knocks on the door and Neji and Naruto share a glance.

 

“You know, if you were any other man, right now you would be telling me there's always time to jump out the window,” Naruto teased. His hands fiddled with the obi.

 

“I would kill you first,” Neji says in what he hopes is a teasing, light-hearted manner.

 

“No doubt,” Naruto agrees, and he is grinning again as he leads the way to the sanctuary. He rolls down the hall on the balls of his feet in a stance ready for fighting. But Neji realizes Naruto's gait for what it is. He is happy. Ecstatic even.

 

Neji thinks he can suddenly feel the weight of his own heart in his chest.

 

They purposefully chose one of the smallest shrines. It is unadorned for the most part except for the altar dominating the room and the calligraphy scrolls on the wall denoting various well wishes. Benches provide seating for about a dozen or so guests, though of course, since Neji and Sakura are acting as the symbolic go-betweens, no one sits in the audience. They four and the priest are the only people in the world who know what is happening here at this moment in time.

 

The grin on Naruto's face when he sees Hinata in her wedding kimono outshines the candles in the sanctuary. They stand apart, to allow room for Kami-sama between them until they are joined, but when Hinata's eyes meet Naruto's there is no room for anyone else in that look.

 

Sakura beams at the pair of them. Her fair skin turns blotchy and Neji sees tears well in the corners of her eyes.

 

Neji bows low during the ritual purification of the wedding party.

 

The priest pronounces the four Konoha shinobi pure and Neji feels Naruto's eyes cut to him. He doesn't dare return the glance. At this point, laughing would be completely inappropriate.

 

Next are the oaths to remain faithful and obedient to one another. Neither hesitate over their words, though Hinata's voice is soft and does not carry. In contrast, Naruto's oath sounds overly loud in the sepulchral space.

 

Then comes the San San Kudo ceremony. The two of them never take their eyes off of one another as they drink sake from the three ritual cups. Still, the whole thing is all over and done with very quickly. Neji has never realized how fast a wedding truly is.

 

Rings are slipped over knuckles, then. Naruto's hands are huge compared to Hinata's tiny ones, and he has trouble with the delicate maneuver. Instead of taking over herself, though, Hinata is patient and they all watch in silence as Naruto carefully slides the cheap silver band over her knuckle.

 

Before Neji knows it, the priest is handing Naruto and Hinata their sakaki twigs to offer to the gods in the inner sanctuary. Naruto places a hand on Hinata's elbow as she spins her twig on the altar.

 

Neji and Sakura receive their sakaki twigs next. He is the last to place his on the altar. It spins too hard, and for a moment he thinks it will fall, but it does not. It comes to rest against Hinata's twig instead and for some reason he is ashamed.

 

After Neji steps out of the sanctuary, the priest pours five cups of sake and they all echo his cheerful, “Kampai!” then drink. When the cups leave their lips, Naruto and Hinata are married.

 

After, as they prepare to return home to Konoha and break the news, Hinata impulsively grabs Neji's hands.

 

Naruto is standing behind her, his hands possessively on her hips. Neji can count on one hand the number of times he has seen them together likes this, but it already seems like they have been married forever. They are comfortable. Familiar.

 

“I'm truly am glad you were here for this, Neji-niisan.” She beams.

 

When he was four he had brushed his thumb over the Leaf symbol on his father's hitai-ate, leaving a small fingerprint on the gleaming surface. As small as he was, the metal plate had felt heavy in his hands. Now, he gently extricates his hands from Hinata's grasp. He doesn't smile as he answers her, but then, he rarely does.

 

“Hinata-sama, I wouldn't have missed it.”

 

TBC…