Game of Shadows - Alternative 2

Melted Hearts

[Kurotsuchi]

Eiji Satou had saved her life again.

Eiji Satou had saved her pride again.

Walking besides him and his group, she pondered that, filled with shame and frustration and a number of other emotions. She wanted to show her gratitude, she wanted to scream and she wanted to run. She could do none of those things, of course, not when others were watching. Especially not when her people were watching.

The wholly insufficient thank you she’d offered then would have to do. Pursing her lips and grinding her teeth would have to do. Staying as silent as possible would have to do.

None of them were enough.

Not even close.

Kurotsuchi had come to terms with the limitations and inconveniences of her status as the granddaughter of the Tsuchikage a long time ago. That didn’t mean she was happy with the situation, however, not at all. She wondered, sometimes, if she’d truly accepted the way things were or if she was just telling herself that. Because nothing really felt any easier to deal with even after “accepting” it.

“You got a problem with us, Princess?” How Kurotsuchi hated that nickname, and she hated even more that the obnoxious redhead that Eiji had picked up wouldn’t stop using any chance to call her that. Didn’t help, at all, that Kurotsuchi couldn’t really retaliate in any way without being seen as ungrateful. Her people wouldn’t care for that much, she knew, and Eiji’s group wouldn’t either… But there was a chance that the latters would, that Eiji would.

And she didn’t want that.

There was a voice that whispered others would mind too, but she wasn’t listening to that voice as much as her tutors would have liked.

Much as it frustrated her to no end, the fact was that the Konoha ninja had saved her life, twice by then. He’d helped her train and get stronger. Furthermore, despite the infuriating nickname, he also treated her like few people dared and it was a welcome change, a refreshing one.

People had tried, of course, there was always someone that’d try, especially boys. However, few of them managed to be casual without insulting her and her position. On the other side of the spectrum were those too scared to even attempt to treat her like a person for fear of insulting her, her family and the Tsuchikage in some way.

Eiji somehow toed the line in between successfully, however. Although, it was also true that having saved her life for their first meeting afforded him more leeway than most got. All the same, Kurotsuchi appreciated that. She was grateful for that, even if she’d likely never give voice to that particular thought.

“Cat got your tongue?” Tayuya asked, like the obnoxious little shit she was.

‘Don’t kill his team member. That’d be bad,’ Kurotsuchi chanted in her mind, trying to calm the anger starting to burn in her chest.

“Tayuya,” Eiji interrupted with a roll of his eyes, before the redhead could open her mouth again. Kurotsuchi almost wanted to thank him just for that, if she were honest. “She’s getting bolder and I apologize for her,” the boy added and she just nodded in response, but she thoroughly enjoyed the protests that Tayuya started spouting.

The fact that Kurotsuchi got to ignore her, and Eiji did much the same, made the moment all the sweeter.

“Anything you can tell us about the border?” the boy asked then, but his face didn’t look all that serious despite his words. If anything, there seemed to be what Kurotsuchi could have sworn was an excited glint in his eyes. “What’s there to see over there? Anything interesting?”

“Why?” she asked, feeling her eye twitch. He was being placed there by the Tsuchikage himself in a thoroughly unpleasant situation. With Kumo having attempted an attack on Kurotsuchi and Akatsuki looming over them all… How was it that Eiji managed to look so unbothered by it all?

“Just thinking it might be fun to visit a place or two, you know?” he answered with a shrug. “I’ve been told that I should take better care of myself. In the spirit of that, I’ll be just… you know, relaxing when I can. Sightseeing sounds like something I could do without messing up our mission… probably.”

“Ah…” Kurotsuchi had definitely not been expecting that. Now that she looked, he did look much more at ease than the last time she’d seen him. He’d always given the appearance of being laidback while actually being serious, but then and there? Eiji looked like he was actually calm and content instead of it being a mask put over laser-focused eyes. “I… don’t actually know that much about this area… not in that regard, really.”

“Really?” Eiji asked then, as if her answer were a true surprise. Kurotsuchi had to admit that it stung a little. And she did feel a bit ashamed, because this was her country, she should know all there was to know about it. However…

“The Tsuchikage-” she started, earning a raised eyebrow that didn’t surprise her at all. She continued unbothered, because there was a level of propriety expected of her, no matter the fact that the Tsuchikage was her grandfather. “-didn’t feel comfortable with me being anywhere close to this area. Kumo has earned a… reputation.”

Trying to kidnap someone with Bloodline Limits from inside a Village would do that. The Hyuga Incident had caused waves even outside Konoha, after all. The fact that it wasn’t even an isolated incident – but certainly the most notorious – didn’t help matters either, admittedly.

“We can find out together then, I guess,” Eiji commented absently, tilting his head as if he were considering this new development. And Kurotsuchi… she had to do her best to not react, hoping against hope that the warmth on her cheeks wasn’t what she thought it was.

“I think someone’s excited to go on dates with you, Fearless Leader,” the obnoxious redhead made a return with a vengeance, making Kurotsuchi once more want to run away and hide from everyone.

“She forgot we’re here too, didn’t she?” the biggest member of Eiji’s team commented dryly while the new green-haired girl giggled.

“Apparently,” the medic commented, an amused smile on his face.

Kurotsuchi suddenly wondered if being taken by Kumo hadn’t been the more merciful option.

[}-o-{]

She watched, breathlessly, as Eiji talked about something with a Kabuto that looked about as dead on his feet as she felt. All the same, the medic humored his leader, replying back and not even seeming to feel any frustration at the fact that they were all more or less out of it while Eiji himself barely seemed winded. ‘He gets more and more ridiculous every time I see him,’ she thought to herself, taking another gulp from a bottle of water and feeling it do absolutely nothing to help her.

If anything, she felt even more thirsty and tired, which didn’t make any sense.

“Hey there, Princess,” Eiji called, approaching. Either he’d twisted space-time to jumpscare her or Kurotsuchi had taken a lot longer to drink a few gulps of water than she thought. It said a lot that she wasn’t sure which option was more likely. “You’re doing really well. Kept up with your training while we were away, did you?” he asked.

Kurotsuchi idly wondered if he was aware of how little that encouraged her when he seemed to have progressed so much more than her in the same amount of time that it wasn’t even funny. Even the rest of the Squad had progressed faster, if in a much more reasonable way than their leader. A very shitty consolation prize, if she did say so herself.

“I had to,” she replied, somewhat curtly, and not only because of how weary she felt. It was the truth though. She really had to, because how else would she show her face to them, to him if she didn’t keep up with her increased routine after their last visit. If she returned to how things had been prior to their first visit to Iwa, Kurotsuchi would have been laughably behind.

She would never let herself fall that low.

“Had to,” Eiji commented, like those two words were the most interesting thing in the world. His easy smile seemed to ebb away, replaced by something more thoughtful, more… curious. “Why?”

“I didn’t want to be left behind,” she explained, feeling ever so slightly disappointed that she’d been left behind anyway. Disappointed and angry and she wasn’t sure if it was at herself or at them for being such monsters. Probably both, if she had to pick something.

“Hm, I guess I understand that,” Eiji replied, sounding like he meant it and at the same time not. He glanced away then, checking on the rest of his Squad while they took a moment to rest. “We have a reason to push ourselves this hard though. Do you?”

A reason to grow stronger?

“Of course,” she answered, standing a little straighter. “I have a duty to my village,” she said, the words coming to her easily and without even needing to think about them.

“Fair enough,” Eiji mumbled, but he sounded… disappointed, or maybe just sad. Either way, Kurotsuchi was left with the confusing feeling that she’d failed and she was just as confused by the fact that it hurt. “I want to be stronger for my village too, I guess,” he continued, but he sounded a lot less sure than Kurotsuchi had. “I want to be stronger for myself too though, because if I don’t, I’ll fail, and if I fail, I might lose everything, my friends, my family, everything that makes my life worth living,” he explained further, making each point like he was telling himself rather than her.

It made Kurotsuchi pause though, that notion. She considered it for a moment, the idea that if she failed, everything could crumble. It wasn’t so outlandish, after some thought. Any day, if she failed, Iwa could suffer, the repercussions possibly spanning all over her country and definitely her family. It was something that she’d always been aware of, in things as simple as how she behaved around certain people and such.

But she’d never taken a fatalistic look at it and it left her… scared.

“I want to be stronger for a goal too, I guess,” Eiji commented, drawing her attention away. She was, in that moment, a little embarrassed by how much she was paying attention, hanging onto his every word. Yet, despite that, she didn’t stop, couldn’t stop. “I have a goal and I’ll do my best to reach it… do you have something like that?”

“I… don’t, not really,” Kurotsuchi admitted.

Her first thought had been to say what she’d parroted since she was a child. She’d always answered such questions saying that she’d take over for her grandfather. It was the expected answer, especially when she was young… er. It had also stuck around as she grew though, as she became a shinobi and as she got stronger.

And along the way, it had become a weight for her to carry. People stopped thinking it was just the words of a child and Kurotsuchi wasn’t even aware until it was too late. Suddenly, she’d felt like she’d been carrying a backpack that’d been slowly filled with rocks without her noticing until the weight started straining her back.

She couldn’t shrug it off anymore though.

“Maybe you should find a goal then,” Eiji told her, breaking her out of her straying thoughts and turning to fix her with piercing red eyes. “Because if you’re this strong with no goal, I can’t imagine where you can reach with one,” he added.

A part of her mind wondered if she was feeling her face heating up because of the compliment or the look he’d given her, or some other at the moment unknown reason. The majority of her mind was too busy going over those words and staring at Eiji, even as the boy turned away and moved to talk with his Squad once more. And a minute later, Kurotsuchi came to the realization that maybe she’d already found her goal, funnily enough.

A goal in the shape of the very person that asked her to find one. Eiji became her goal then… and she told herself that it was strengthwise. It had to be.

Couldn’t be anything else.

[}-o-{]

It was getting increasingly more difficult to play dumb and Kurotsuchi didn’t know what to do with herself.

The world wasn’t keen on throwing her a bone either, apparently.

“Nobody else wanted to come?” she asked, shifting self-consciously where she stood. She didn’t do that very often, but… But nothing. She shouldn’t be doing that. What did she care that she was alone with Eiji in their outing? What did she care that she was using her normal ninja outfit instead of something else?

She wasn’t going to think about why she cared about any of that

She was not.

“Kabuto’s studying and working on his puppetry,” Eiji answered with a shrug and a slightly incredulous expression, as if he couldn’t fathom why someone would want to do that instead of going exploring like a tourist. Personally, Kurotsuchi got it, but she wasn’t going to voice that. He might change his mind and not spend any more time with her.

She quickly squashed that thought.

“Tayuya apparently got a burst of inspiration or something,” he continued and this time he looked mildly interested in that. It made her feel uncomfortable and she hated that it did. “So, we left her to do her thing. We’ve learned to leave her to it if she gets like that. I’m kind of looking forward to hearing it.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Kurotsuchi muttered, eager to be done with that topic.

“Jirobo and Fu wanted to spend time with each other,” Eiji continued without issue, sounding very amused. Kurotsuchi so hoped it didn’t have anything to do with her. She was realizing that she gave away too much with her expressions those days. Especially around E- “I think they wanted to go on a date.”

‘They weren’t the only ones,’ her mind unhelpfully supplied and she almost slapped herself. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. She was not some damsel in distress that fell for the first guy that saved her life. Falling in love like that was stupid.

“Didn’t expect that, let me tell you, but after I thought about it, it does kind of fit, doesn’t it?” Eiji continued and she shook her head. She was way more out of it than she thought. She needed to get her brain to stop being stupid or she’d go mad. As she did though, she took a moment to consider what he was saying.

“It does,” she replied simply, feeling like it wasn’t nearly enough of a response. She should say more, right? Kurotsuchi could imagine her etiquette teacher hitting his head against a wall in frustration. She’d never been great in that class, admittedly, but she wasn’t as bad as she was making it seem at that moment.

“Yeah,” Eiji said blandly and she felt even more embarrassed at her failure to keep a proper conversation. She really needed to get herself together. “Anyway, where are we going? Or do you wanna call it off. Might be awkward with just the two of us,” he commented in an odd – or maybe not, all things considered – display of awareness of her situation as he looked at some of the people around, who were in turn looking at them.

Now, if only he hadn’t chosen that moment to show he was capable of understanding social settings such as those that involved her.

Fortunately, Kurotsuchi had a plan, sort of.

“And miss this place? Not on your life, string boy,” she replied bluntly, getting a raised eyebrow. Was that too much? Maybe she’d overcompensated. “I heard there’s this hill that shows seven colors on its side, you know, with the sediment lines.”

“You’re weirdly and stereotypically interested in rock stuff. You know that, right?” Eiji pointed out and she felt her ears start heating up. Still she mustered an angry expression through her embarrassment that made him chuckle instead of cower. Not that she expected differently, but it was still insulting, really. The least he could do was act like he was scared. “It’s kind of cute.”

Now it was her whole face that was heating up, and he was an idiot.

“Lead the way,” he commented, grinning widely and like an idiot. “Now I’m interested in this seven-colored mountain.”

“Hill,” she corrected heatedly, only realizing that he was teasing her after seeing his even more pronounced grin and way too late. “Idiot,” she added for good measure, but she only got a chuckle for her troubles.

Why was it that she turned into an idiot too when she was around him? It wasn’t fair, damn it. The worst part was that she got worse and worse with every passing day she was forced to be around them, around him.

Kurotsuchi wasn’t dumb enough, or in denial enough, to not realize what it was. She was in enough denial to keep ignoring the issue though. Not like she could get anywhere with the stupid thoughts and feelings. It was better to not water that flower, else the issue would just grow worse.

Now, if her method showed any amount of success, that would have been nice.

“I get the feeling that you don’t like me very much these days,” Eiji commented, eyebrows raised curiously and an amused smile on his lips. “Did I do something?” Did he know? Why did she feel like he knew?

Kurotsuchi felt a chill run down her spine at the idea.

“No,” she replied flatly, cursing her lack of eloquence. The entire thing couldn’t be done soon enough. His time around her would be over soon and she’d go back to being fine. Surely.

Surely.

“Hm, if you say so,” he said, as if there was nothing wrong with her short answer. “Would be a shame if something happened,” he continued, looking at some street stands selling random trinkets. “I rather like you, after all.”

Kurotsuchi decided Eiji was an idiot.

He was also an unfair idiot.

[}-o-{]

Kumo’s second attempt at shenanigans had gone even worse than the first one.

Kurotsuchi almost felt bad for the black eye that Eiji and his team had delivered the entirety of the Hidden Cloud. There were piles of their shinobi strewn around and the Suicide Squad was spread out, looking like they were taking a break after a leisure trek. Like how Jirobo and Fu were sitting back to back on top of one of the aforementioned piles of people or how Eiji was stretching half-heartedly as he approached her and her grandpa.

That was the scene that welcomed them. A massacre of people that somehow didn’t seem to have that many casualties – was it counted as a massacre in that case? The word seemed to fit regardless – and a team of people that was, somehow, even more insanely strong than they’d assumed. And considering they’d assumed they were insanely strong, that was saying something.

“Hey there,” Eiji greeted casually as he got closer and Kurotsuchi almost winced at it. Somehow though, that didn’t so much as earn a frown from her grandfather though. That was, maybe, an even crazier feat than the scape before them. “We weren’t sure what’d you want us to do here, so we didn’t kill… most of them,” he commented, as if that were a small thing to confess.

To one-sidedly crush such a force while trying not to kill them…

Kurotsuchi wondered if her perception of the Squad would ever fully settle or if that was just a fool’s errand.

“That’s… good,” her grandfather replied slowly, as if unsure how to take the news himself. It was nice to know she wasn’t the only one on that boat. “That’ll make things less complicated… and more so too, at the same time.”

“... Yeah, that’s why I try not to think about politics too much. So not my scene,” Eiji told them with a grin and a chuckle. Kurotsuchi's heart, against the better judgement of her brain, withered a little at that. It was stupid. She was stupid. Eiji was stupid. She shouldn’t feel so crushed by those words…

And yet she was.

“Thank God for that,” her grandfather said dryly. “Nevertheless… thank you for this,” he added afterwards and Kurotsuchi guessed the snort that Tayuya let out had something to do with how reluctant he sounded saying that.

“Don’t mention it,” Eiji replied casually, as if it were an inconsequential thing that he’d done and not… protecting their border from what looked like an invasion. “I’m sure you can make it up to us,” he added and Kurotsuchi saw her grandfather stiffen at the words. Casual too, but there was nothing casual about saying such a thing to the Tsuchikage.

“And what do you have in mind?” her grandfather asked with narrowed eyes. He was wary, but she could hardly blame him for that. Eiji didn’t seem to take it personally either.

“Hm, maybe let’s talk about this in private,” the boy commented, glancing lazily at the Iwa shinobi that had accompanied Kurotsuchi and her grandfather. Several of them shifted, expressions twisted, but none of them so much as considered speaking. Not only would that be disrespectful towards the Tsuchikage, but it’d also be blatantly stupid considering what they could see Eiji and his team had done.

So, when her grandfather agreed and they moved a reasonable distance away from them to talk, there were only a few whispers lost in the wind behind her. Kurotsuchi ignored those in favor of staring at the pair, chatting away and not getting a single clue as to what it was all about. She stared all the same, as if she’d somehow manage to catch something that way, even though she knew she wouldn’t.

“You’ve got it bad, huh?” a voice asked, entirely too close to her and she jumped, together with a bunch of the shinobi close by behind her. It made Kurotsuchi think that Tayuya had used genjutsu to sneak up on her – them, really –, which… she didn’t think it was outside the realm of possibility, especially for the redhead.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she denied flatly, even though both of them knew she was lying. Of all the people she feared knew the truth, Tayuya was up there, the one Kurotsuchi was almost hundred percent certain knew what was up. It was only the lack of straightforward confirmation that kept her from acknowledging that fully. She didn’t know how, or why, the redhead seemed to have sussed her out so fast, but she hated it. She was, quite possibly, the worst person to know her secret.

Well, other than Eiji himself, that is… and maybe her grandfather.

“Keep telling yourself that, Princess,” Tayuya told her, all but cackling as she moved back away. It seemed she’d approached Kurotsuchi just to mess with her, which was not at all weird or unexpected, really. “Maybe look to your side, by the way,” the girl called over her shoulder and when she followed the instruction – more out of instinct than anything – she almost jumped again, noticing that Eiji and her grandfather were back.

The former raised an amused eyebrow at her while the latter simply looked at her, seeming distinctly unhappy. That last detail was almost enough to stop her cheeks from heating up, but alas, no such luck for her. The world itself was conspiring to ruin her, she was pretty sure.

“We’ll take care of things here. You can go back with… the Squad, if you wish to, Kurotsuchi,” her grandfather said, nodding at her and then turning to the shinobi behind her to bark orders.

“So, what’s it going to be, Princess?” Eiji asked and she hated that she knew the answer she’d give instantly. At least, it was a small mercy that she managed to at least pretend to think about it.

“I guess it beats dealing with this,” she replied, glancing at the piles of Kumo shinobi she’d completely forgotten about. “What were you talking about with my grandfather, by the way?” she asked, trying to be casual and probably failing miserably.

An infiltration ninja, she was not, but even less so when Eiji was around.

“Oh, you know,” the boy said, waving his hand in the air dismissively as they walked away together towards where his team was gathered, discussing something amongst themselves. “I was just asking for permission to date you,” he said, as if commenting on some dull D-rank mission report.

Kurotsuchi froze.

Had she heard that right?

“If you accept, that is, of course. He was very adamant about that,” Eiji pointed out, as if amused. “Which was a little insulting. Do I seem like the kind of guy that’d force the issue?”

She had heard that right, hadn’t she?

“So… do you need time to think about it or…?”

She did, she absolutely did. What the fuck kind of bomb was that? How dare he drop that on her so… so…

“Yes,” she said.

And she immediately found herself internally cursing her own tongue and its apparent and sudden development of free will.

“Great,” Eiji replied with a grin.

And, despite the chaos in her head at that moment, Kurotsuchi found herself smiling right back, wider than she remembered ever doing so.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Well well well, I’m sure this comes as no surprise for anyone. It’s kind of been tradition for me to drop extra content for Game of Shadows every year around this time, hasn’t it? It has been, in my head, at least. It’d be neat if some of you guys noticed that…

Other than that though, this might be the first step into a new thing I’m attempting. Together with the new story, A Round of Drinks, I’m trying to get more content out there. Because I’m addicted to Validation that way. So, yeah, this might be the first of more Monday content to come. Right now, what I have in mind is a rework of my Sides Series and another rework… of Game of Shadows itself. We’ll see what comes out of that though, yeah?

Onto this chapter itself though, Kurotsuchi was a pairing that was so tempting back in the day, but I felt like there was a lot of shit going on back in the day. I wasn’t quite used to taking things as slowly as I have as my writing style developed, so I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take forever to develop the pairing as it’d need me to.

There was also, the slight, very slight, issue in that the characters didn’t seem inclined to go for it. But I’ve managed to put it into this chapter, so take that, characters! Beyond that, as you can see, this was a lot more slow-burn than the Ino one. I might write a follow up extra chapter for this at some point to make it seem more complete.

With all that said, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Would you rather a second chapter of this or something else for the next extra chapter?

See you.