Secrets and Rain
Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine.
Asuma wonders, as the scythe drives deeper into him if the child really was his. Kunoichi do go on certain missions after all.
They say a couple should never have secrets between them. And that they should not keep anything from each other. Kurenai is sorry to have broken this unspoken oath.
Kakashi had told her that the Hokage wanted to see her in the office right after returning back from a mission with Team 8. She walks slowly up the steps, knowing that a mission which required only one female ninja was never good news.
Kurenai opens the door and sees not only the usual blonde woman sitting at the desk together with Shizune and a pig, but also four other people with grey-turning white hair.
The mission the genjutsu user was assigned to was a special one. Firstly, it was a kunoichi mission that did not involve any form of seduction. Secondly, it was long termed. It was not Tsunade’s idea, but one of the elders.
Despite hearing the usual phrase of “Your mission is ……, do you want to attempt it or not?” Kurenai knows that there was simply no option for her to refuse. It was an order. And ninjas obey orders. Relationships between the earth and the fire country were beginning to tense up. What better solution than to have a “hostage” in each country?
It was the perfect truce, according to the council members at least. The Tsuchikage was chosen from a different system as compared to Konoha’s. They went with a monarchy system. The position of the kage was passed down from parent to child and so on. So what do the elders do?
They take advantage of it. They want the kage to have a child with a kunoichi from konoha. Call it a permanent hostage or some sort. However, it was all to be done in a secret. The only ones who were supposed to know of this truce was the kunoichi, both the kages, village elders and no one else.
It was Kurenai’s luck, honour and downfall to be the one picked for the job. The elders had to select someone who already had a partner. Less suspicious, they claim.
They wouldn’t care for her feelings. Nor her objections (about how asuma and her had not that far a progress in their relationship yet). They do not listen to tools after all.
Kurenai spots a certain dark hair Jounin walking past and announced loudly at the roof of the hospital that she’ll go out officially with anyone who gives her flowers. Asuma suddenly changes his direction and walks quickly to Ino’s family shop to purchase a bouquet. Ninjas aren’t experts at love. They just know how to kill. He doesn’t care about the stares he gets because it was not an often sight. Jounins don’t just hold flowers and scream at kunoichis standing on top of the hospital.
It was the first, and probably the only time he’ll do it. She places the flowers on her windowsill and requests her neighbour to water it when she goes away.
Two days later, the sun shines brightly and she was off.
It was her duty. Duty duty duty, she repeats to herself. Never mind that she has to bear an outsider’s child and treat it as if it belongs to her and Asuma. No. That did not matter. Only the village did.
She will just have to pretend that it is all a dream. That everything is just one of her many illusions. But the creak from the wooden boards below her tells her its not. An old woman passes her a bathrobe and points to her the direction of the bath house. She has to clean herself up. It was simply not right for her to visit the Tsuchikage without a bath.
Kurenai puts on her usual smile, the one that slightly shows her teeth and holds in at an angle of 130 degrees. What was the point of not applying whatever they learnt in school anyway? The Tsuchikage walks in and she lets nature takes its course. The first attempt did not do it. She has to re enter the room. She closes her eyes and tries again. She hates the feelings; the fact that her body betrays her. So four handsigns later, she no longer feels anything. The jutsu numbs her senses.
In exactly three days, Kurenai walks back into the village. Her hair was wet. So were her clothes. It was raining. Rain to wash herself, to cleanse the thing in her. But she knows its there. The growing thing that she cannot see.
Asuma looks at her when she tells him the news. Kurenai seems happy, but he sees at the corner of her eye a contrasting emotion. He has spent plenty of time in his lifetime looking at her. He knows how she is supposed to look like when she smiles. So Asuma feels a sense of suspicion rising in him, yet he brushes it aside. He trusts her.
When the two Akatsuki members disappear, he sees the once team 10 appear in front of him right again. He feels the prickling pain in four of his vital points and knows his dying. So he says some words, and requests to smoke. Asuma beckons to Shikamaru as he places the cigarette in his hand and gives him his final orders. He tells him about the child and wants him to apologize to her.
Not for dying and leaving her alone. But for questioning her trust.
Kurenai sees the entire flower falling off the stem and the scattered petals on the floor. She doesn’t need anyone to tell her that’s a bad omen. Two flower buds dropping are not a frequent occurance. Especially not when the flowers were only five days old.
And the rain pours. It washes off the cigarette smoke and the blood. It cleans the guilt and thoughts.
It also washes away the soul.