NessieGG's Fanfiction - [Naruto, NejiTen] "An Everlasting Vow" - Chapter 4

Title: An Everlasting Vow (Chapter 4)
Author: NessieGG
Genre: Romance/Fantasy/AU
Fandom: Naruto
Pairing/Characters: NejiTen, Tsunade, Hiashi, Shizune, Lee, Gai, Hinata, Hanabi, Orochimaru, Anko, Shikamaru, SasuSaku.
Rated: PG

No region of West Fire was spared from the summer storm's harassment. The weather had turned from balmy to chaotic, exactly like Neji's mood. The young prince did not want to be anywhere near his uncle at the moment, but neither did he want to hole himself up in his own rooms, so he descended to the servants' floor to inflict his presence upon the non-royal inhabitants of the palace.

It turned out, however, that as he paced the crowded floor of Gai's and Lee's quarters in a grounded level, that he had done little more than invite the agony of Gai's presence upon himself. While Lee played a round of chess at the suggestion of Shikamaru, his usual loss well in play, Neji endured the exaggerated abuse of the king's advisor.

“ 'What more compels you than beauty,' she asked!” His account of that day's tragic events grated on Neji's ears with horrible accuracy. “And you said – fumbled, really – 'what more is there.' What more is there?!” Gai shook his head fiercely. “I agreed with King Hiashi about sending Princess Hinata away in the hopes that she would become a refined, charming lady! Yet I think we've wronged you in the process. Even after summers upon summers with Tenten, you are clueless about the fairer sex!”

“I acknowledge,” said Neji sharply, “that I performed poorly. I see no reason for your dramatics.”

“I dramatize nothing!”

“You've lost your queen,” Shikamaru said dully. He was speaking to Lee as he removed the correct piece from their shared chess board.

“Exactly!” exclaimed Gai. “In fact, Prince Neji! Let me demonstrate how disastrous today was for us all.” Bounding over to the board between Lee and Shikamaru, he proceeded to pick up the white queen piece that Shikamaru had just discarded as well as a white knight. “Here, Lee! Play Princess Tenten's role, and I will play Prince Neji!”

Lee gleefully accepted his white queen from his father. “Ahem. 'Oh, Neji!'” he shouted in a voice pitched too high even to mimic Tenten's. “ 'Does it concern you only that I am beautiful?' ”

Gai, in a voice pitched too low to be Neji's, responded, “ 'Oh, Tenten! I can't say anything because I'm so confused!' ”

“ 'What more concerns you?' ”

“ 'What more is there?' ”

Even Lee was wincing now, and he threw down his piece. “As tightly bonded as our friendship is, Neji, even I must admit that today ended in catastrophe!”

Neji, experiencing his humiliation all over again, could only stand beside the window. He looked a perfect figure of discontent as lightning flashed and rain ran down the patterned glass in rivulets. And Gai had claimed not to dramatize. “Is this absolutely necessary?” he queried in impatience.

“In the hours that have passed,” asked Shikamaru in an unchanging, bored tone, “has a good answer to her question occurred to you yet?”

“Certainly.” Neji ignored the indecisiveness that rose within him as he attempted a response. “Tenten is...well, we were children together...” He folded his arms and tapped a finger to his bicep, thinking. “She has always been...at least to me...” Taking a breath, the prince tightened his shoulders, then looked to the three. “Wouldn't you say?” he said at last.

Gai, Lee, and Shikamaru all stared at him with expressions of equal lack of impression.

On the defensive, Neji turned away from them toward the spattered window. “I can't articulate it in the way she wants.”

“Obviously,” Lee muttered.

“But I feel something now that, just last summer, did not exist.” Neji pressed one palm to the chilled glass, remembering the smoothness of Tenten's hand, rough in places from where she had gripped a fencing foil or horse's reign. “It was like taking flight.”

“Ah,” Gai said, a smile winning the plain of his face at last. “So she lifted you into the air, did the princess? And could you have not mentioned that you were floating this afternoon?”

“I could hardly realize it at the time,” murmured Neji, his attention away from the older man. “She was beautiful, wasn't she?”

With a sigh, “Yes, Neji,” Lee agreed. “But you yourself know that your comment today was...”

“What?” His brow furrowed.

“Incredibly dumb.”

The flat statement stung a bit from the distinctively goofier man. “Do you truly think I have no intention of rectifying my mistake?”

“At this point,” Shikamaru answered cynically, “I don't see how you can.”

A bit of the damp rolled off Neji's conscience now that he had restored hope in himself. “For a beginning: why has she always come here? I am just as able to travel as Tenten. In a week, after I've prepared myself, I will go to her in East Fire.” As the plan unfolded, he really started to feel confident once again. “I will see her country as she has seen mine, and I will tell her—”

Before he could relay that his intended quote, the servant's door burst inward, allowing the rain and wind and noise of the storm to enter the already chilled room. The figure in the doorway was out of the reach of the candlelight, until another bolt of flashed from the sky and lit up the arrival.

“Shizune!” exclaimed Gai. Immediately, all men, including Neji, raced to the door. Once the personal aid of Queen Tsunade was carried inside to recline by the fire, the door firmly shut against the storm, the dark-haired woman began to speak.

“Queen Tsunade...and Princess Tenten...on the road to the dock.” Panting, she lifted a hand to wipe at her brow where rain and sweat mingled. Her shoes and the hem of her cloak, they saw, was muddied and torn. They concluded that she must have ran miles back to them. “We saw...something. A flash of green. And the horses, they panicked and my lady. My lady!” The aid shuddered, so upset and broken by the weather. The sudden warmth increased her exhaustion, and she promptly passed out with her head upon Gai's knee.

“What on earth,” began Lee.

“Tenten.” Neji was faster thinking and went to his feet with jarring alacrity. Turning, he bothered only to call out, “I'm taking your horse, Shikamaru!” before bolting out the door. He either did not hear or did not heed Gai's shout for him to wait.

Green flash.

These were the two words that repeated in his mind as he drove the steed of the captain's son through the tight, rain-whipped trees beyond the palace grounds, over cliff-sides Queen Tsunade would had to have traversed to get to the road leading to the docks. What could cause a green flash in the midst of a lightning storm? Lightning was white. Rain was...wind was... His thinking blurred as his fears increased with the length of the ride.

Nothing could settle him, not even the thought that he crossed the same distance as the queen and her daughter in half the time due to the way he commanded the horse. But when he caught sight of the queen's carriage – overturned and splintered, with several wheels pulled clean from the spokes – Neji's heart contracted painfully.

Dismounting, he hunted over the slick ground for signs of life, squinting through the curtain of needle-like water droplets, and exhaled sharply when he saw no one. “Tenten?!” As another string of lightning struck, something gleamed and caught his eye. Spying it, Neji found the golden heart on a chain, given by him to Tenten almost two decades earlier. Half covered in the water of a puddle, the pale swan sat lonely on its surface, the necklace's wearer undoubtedly disappeared.

Suddenly, he heard an odd groan. The noise brought his gaze to the left, and Neji saw Queen Tsunade, her hair thrown into tangles and her dress ripped, as she sat propped against a damp tree trunk. Clutching the necklace, he sped to her side, saying her name forcefully to bring her to consciousness.

“Neji,” Tsunade said in recognition. “The little prince...”

He swallowed before he spoke. “Queen Tsunade – what happened? Who—”

“No preparation. Once again, I did not think.” Her eyes were drooping. “It happened, as it was said, and so quickly. How did I not...” Her eyes widened now upon Neji, realizing the importance of his presence. Leaning forward, she seized him by the shirt front. “Listen to me, Neji! It seems to be, but it isn't. It seems to be...” Her strength gave out, and her hand hit the ground. “But it isn't.”

Neji now noticed the gash on the side of the queen's head. Passing a finger through the stream of blood at her temper, he tried to coax her into alertness again. “What isn't? Queen Tsunade! Where is Tenten?”

Shocking him, cold tears leaked from the monarch's eyes (so like Tenten's, he thought) to join with the rain and blood on her cheek. “Tenten...she...she is...” Trembling, she fell forward into Neji's arms. “Gone,” she whispered as the hands of darkness gripped her.

Neji's face went taught with a combination of fear and anger. “Tenten,” he said softly to the unconscious mother. Then, raising his face to the sky, so that above the wind, rain, thunder, and lightning, anyone could hear him:

“TENTEN!”

“Is beauty all?”

Breathing hard, he gathered the queen into his arms and lifted her into the saddle of Shikamaru's horse. Mounting himself, Neji gulped down the urge to continue his hunt for Tsunade's assailant and guided the animal back toward the palace. The queen required medical attention.

And he...he would have to think.

To Be Continued...

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