Adult-FanFiction.org : Naruto

Koiuta	By : dragonslover1 Category: Naruto > Het - Male/Female Views: 1149 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
- 8
Disclaimer: I own nothing of Naruto. Leave me alone.
Koiuta, Love Song
Six O’clock Meeting
Tasha woke up to the sound of knocking on her door. At first, when she moved to sit up, her stomach protested painfully. With a groan, she got out of bed, wondering why it hurt like that. It took just one more step for her to recall that “why,” which made her stop where she was. She didn’t know whether she was closer to paling or blushing, but when the knock resumed, she pushed it from her mind.

Opening the door, she was greeted with the faces of several familiar elderly ladies, none of whom she could quite remember the names of.

“Hello, princess,” one of them started.

“Ho ho, don’t tease, Riku-san,” another chided.

“Yes?” Tasha asked, slightly confused but having a strong inclination as to why they were here.

“Amada-san and Yuri-san spread some rumors this morning,” Riku clarified. “They said our Shino-kun and Tasha-san entered Tasha-san’s room around dawn, then Shino-kun left alone. . .much later.”

Riku certainly looked elderly, but she had a sharp mind. No one here was mistaking the fact that Tasha and Shino did spend a passionate hour or two together. The only problem is that Tasha didn’t know if Shino wanted it to be a secret or not.

“That’s really between Shino and I, isn’t it?” she asked, hoping it was the safe answer.

“Ladies,” a much deeper voice called from Tasha’s right. “Please, don’t give Tasha-san a hard time.”

Giggling to themselves, the four ladies left, giving Tasha pats on the arm and such. Wanting to know who it was who shooed them off, she leaned out into the hallway and looked. A second later and she paled. That was Shino’s father, Shibi, who goaded the elderly women off. She wondered for a moment why he bothered, but she knew better than to wait too long.

She didn’t get to be a clever ninja without having deduction skills. What he said definitely hinted at knowing more than just a little. Though she didn’t see Shino as the type of guy to go running to his father with sex stories, she couldn’t help but think that he must’ve mentioned it somehow, even if Shibi was the one who figured it out himself. Maybe he heard the rumors too, and went to speak to Shino about it directly.

And then there was the fact that he still stood in that same place, hands in pockets, obviously waiting.

“Do you need me immediately?” she asked, having the odd feeling that she was going to get scolded.

“Soon as possible,” Shibi told her. “Shino is already waiting. You know where the dining room is.” He didn’t wait for her acknowledgement, instead turning on his heel and leaving.

She bit her lip. If Shibi was anything like her own father, she was definitely going to get an earful. Shutting her door, she started getting ready to go, choosing now to try styling her hair differently. Leaving most of it straight, she looped two strands, tying them off high and giving each six beads instead of three. With no reason not to, and for lack of time, she put on her top and hakama from last night.

The clothes weren’t warm, but it felt that way to her. Maybe because it was so easy to remember what happened the last time she wore these clothes, but she didn’t have the time to dwell on it. Going barefoot, she left the room and bolted down the hall towards the dining room. She knew better than to keep impatient ninja waiting, and really, there wasn’t a such thing as a patient one.

She stopped before the door, calmed her breath, and entered. Shino and Shibi weren’t the only ones here; there were two ladies as well. She guessed one would be Shino’s mother, but the other girl looked younger. She wondered if she was here just as a witness, or if the girl was involved somehow and needed to be present. When Tasha was gestured into a chair, she sat.

Beside Shino. Oddly, she wanted to reach for his hand, for some security, since she had no idea what was going to happen. Stupidly, she hadn’t thought of every possible option, like she had been taught to. She didn’t bring weapons -- not that she thought she’d need them -- but the fact remained that she was unprepared for every option.

Rather than talk, she waited to be spoken to.

Gesturing herself, the older woman started, “Do you know who I am?”

“Shaniko, right?” Tasha asked.

The woman shook her head. “Tsuyana. Shaniko is my sister-in-law, so I can forgive your mistaking us.”

“Okay.” She had no idea what to say. If her memory served, Shaniko was Shino’s mother, so why was Tsuyana here instead?

“I’m Shibi’s younger sister,” Tsuyana explained. “We’re all here to ask you what your intentions are with Shino.”

“Ah. . .”

“Don’t feel pressured,” Tsuyana interrupted, before Tasha could start blabbering. “We don’t want you to feel like you can’t keep it between yourselves,” she said to both Shino and Tasha. “The point of asking is for you to think about it, Tasha-san.”

“Our clan is very different from most,” Shibi told her firmly. “Because of how things work here, we can’t allow flings. I know you don’t know any of this, which is why we’re going to explain, before anything negative can happen.”

Tasha sat back in the chair. So that’s why she was here. “Okay, I’m listening.”

“And because you’re an outsider,” Tsuyana was saying now, “we shouldn’t even have to mention that you need to keep everything you hear a secret.”

Tasha nodded. “I swear.”

“You know about our insects already,” Shibi started, “but you know only a piece of the truth. Every child born into this clan is infused with insects at birth, usually within a week. At first it’s just a few, until they start reproducing amongst themselves. They feed on our chakra as a life source, and in return, we use them as ninja, in a wide variety of ways. This is already known to most of the village.”

“What’s not known outside of the clan,” Tsuyana went on, “is just how deep this bond goes. It’s through the insects that we began to understand more and more about chakra itself. These insects are more than just tools; they seek out chakra like our own, individually. That is to say, my insects are attracted to my chakra, and anybody else who has chakra similar.”

Uncertainly, Tasha glanced over at Shino. But with just a glance, she couldn’t tell what he was looking at, let alone what he was thinking.

“Think of it as matching kindred spirits,” Shibi explained. “People with whom it’s easy to get along with. We generally seek out these people, since among them is the person we will eventually marry. This is key to keeping the clan alive.”

“I can tell you’re confused,” Tsuyana said now, giving Tasha a smile. “Similar chakra makes strong children, you see. It can make very smart children as well, or children who are naturally drawn to using chakra. And if a child has a lot of chakra, like Shino for instance, then that child will grow into a very strong ninja.”

“Hold on a second,” Tasha said, leaning forward. “Are you saying my chakra is like Shino’s?” She glanced at him again, and this time, she saw him glance back.

“You catch on quick,” Shibi nodded. “That’s a good trait. Yes, your chakra is a lot like Shino’s. Closer than you’d think, actually. This is especially odd since you’re neither from this clan nor of the same element as Shino. That’s another thing we wanted to ask you, concerning that jewel by your eye.”

She touched it, self-consciously. “It’s just excess chakra.”

“From how many people?”

She bit her lip. This clan was definitely filled with geniuses. Being able to figure that out so quickly, when she hadn’t explained a thing. . . “I don’t know the number, but it’s all from my bloodline.”

“So,” Tsuyana said, “just people you’re descended from?”

“Yes.” Tasha wondered if she should go on.

“How long has it been in existence?”

“Again, I don’t know,” Tasha answered regretfully. “Certainly a long time, before my ancestors settled in Iwagakure.”

“They didn’t come about in the Land of Earth?” Shibi asked, sounding slightly surprised.

“Nope,” Tasha shrugged. “From what father told me, we were mercenaries before. We moved around a lot, from country to country. At some point we kept going back to Iwagakure as a safe place, and then just stayed there. This was after we started losing our ability to use chakra, which was a while after we lost our kekkei genkai.”

“What was it?”

“No one remembers anymore,” she said with a laugh. “And even if it does show up again, it won’t be in me.”

“You’re sure of that?”

She couldn’t help her smile. “I did some research into it when I was younger. I tested my blood against one of my ancestors, the last one we knew could use a kekkei genkai. I’m not even close to a match.”

“How long ago could he use it?” Tsuyana asked her.

“I think he died almost two hundred years ago, but father never did answer my questions well.”

“If it was two hundred years ago,” Shibi started, “how did you get his blood?”

“He was mummified,” she explained. “I guess to preserve him as best we could. I wasn’t the one who did any tests on him, anyway; I don’t even know where he’s kept. I just found the results.”

“Isn’t this off-topic?” Shino interrupted.

“Yes,” Shibi agreed with a nod. “Thank you, Shino.”

“If all of this is true, though,” Tsuyana started, “won’t your father be angry at you leaving?”

“I’m sure he will. But I don’t care,” Tasha answered. “He talks big, but he isn’t anywhere near a ninja, so he couldn’t do anything if he tried.”

“Tsuyana, this isn’t the point,” Shibi told her. “Of everything we’ve told you, Tasha, we haven’t gotten to the biggest concern yet.”

“Which is?” she prodded.

“One of Shino’s insects entered your body this morning,” he said bluntly. “And it refuses to leave.”

She felt like shuddering, but held it back. She didn’t want to offend anyone at the table, especially Shino. “Is this a really bad thing?” she asked, unsure why they called it the biggest concern.

“Well, it’s happened before,” Tsuyana said slowly. “It’s not too uncommon for a married couple’s bugs to go between them, but it’s never been permanent. The insects always return to their host.”

“If it’s one, there’s no problem,” Shibi went on. “We already know it’s a male, so there’s not even a chance it’s a female whom is going to lay eggs. But yes, this is a really bad thing.”

“Because you’re not of this clan,” Shino added, “and you’re an adult. There’s almost no chance you could adapt to being a host of insects. If I can’t keep my insects out of you, it could very easily kill you.”

She wondered at how he’d said that -- flatly, almost devoid of emotion, yet at the same time, there had definitely been a tightness to his tone she’d never heard before. It was surprising enough that his words didn’t hit her for a few moments. When it did, a rush of fear went through her.

She calmed it, though. “Then I doubt I’m in any trouble.”

“You say that with a lot of confidence,” Shibi pointed out. “Is that confidence in you or in Shino?”

“Both,” she answered. “This jewel has protected me in the past. I don’t see why it wouldn’t in this case.”

“And what would it do if your body becomes a host to insects that start to kill you?” Tsuyana asked.

“Probably kill them all,” she shrugged.

There was a silence between them all for a moment, and then Shibi asked her to go into further detail.

“My element is wind,” she explained. “So that’s what the jewel calls upon when and if I need it. For instance, if anyone tries to touch the jewel whom I don’t want near it, the jewel tends to -- well, shred their hand.”

“With blades of wind,” Tsuyana finished.

“Exactly.”

“And you think this could seek out and kill insects within you?” Shibi asked.

She shrugged. “It’s a new situation, so maybe. Certainly I’m immune to my own chakra, anyway, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.”

After saying that bit, she noted very particularly that no one looked happy. She thought about it for a moment, until she realized that probably sounded monstrous to this type of clan.

“Ah, but I doubt it’ll happen,” she threw in now. Glancing over at Shino, she said, “It’s not so tough to control the bugs, is it?”

“It can be,” he answered her. “Some things are much more difficult than others.”

“And,” Shibi added, “you have to understand what it means that the insects won’t leave you. It’s not just about control. Think of it as that single one chose not to obey Shino and instead become addicted to you, Tasha.”

She bit her lip. When he said it like that, it sounded almost like cheating. “So, what, you’re saying it. . .likes my taste better?” she asked, trying to wrap her mind around what that meant.

Tsuyana gave a laugh. “That’s an interesting way of saying it.”

“And it works, relatively,” Shibi agreed. “So Tasha, because of this, that insect is feeding off your chakra. Make no mistake about that. If a female were to join it, even one, then we would have a large problem. Because once they start to breed, all the while feeding on your chakra, it’s going to drain you -- a lot. It might even hurt to someone who’s an outsider.”

“It is a potential fatality,” Tsuyana told her, sharply. “You can’t mistake that, no matter what.”

Tasha bit her lip. “I got it.”

“We’re lacking in choices of how to deal with this,” Shibi went on. “When Shino came to me and told me about this, myself and Shaniko consulted scrolls of our past, searching to see if this happened before, and what they did about it. While there are records of such things, it was never described as strongly as this.”

“The quick and easy solution naturally being for me to leave,” Tasha concluded. “Remove the root of the problem.” Again, she sent Shino a look, wondering how he felt about her, if it was the same as her love for him.

“There are many reasons why we don’t want to do that,” Tsuyana replied, looking regretful. “But yes, it is a solution. One we’re hoping won’t be needed.”

Tasha had to think about that, about why they wanted her to remain here. It couldn’t just be for Shino’s sake, could it? This was a ninja clan, and in her experience, ninja clans all thought about the clan as a whole first and foremost.

“Our other ideas,” Shibi was saying, “include you letting the insects have. . . ‘tastes’ of your chakra from time to time, so they won’t be so addicted to it should this happen again. Failing that, we would need to train Shino directly for control of his insects.”

“And lastly, kicking me out,” Tasha finished.

“Y-yes,” Tsuyana agreed, though reluctantly.

“Shaniko and I will try our best to discover a solution before things can get out of hand,” Shibi was saying. “Until then, I need the two of you to stay apart, regardless of how difficult it might be.”

Much like Tasha had done at the start of this conversation, Shino leaned back in his chair. It was the first clear thing she could read about him since the day began -- he just pouted. If what she knew about men as a whole was true, then he had been considering more “alone” time between them before this fiasco began. And now he was just told that he wasn’t going to get it.

Amusing though it was to think of him pouting, she couldn’t blame him. She felt like throwing a tantrum as it was. Even so, she replied, “Okay.”

Some time later found her outside in the fading sunlight, warm but not feeling it. She was playing her flute. The melody was melancholy, in a way, and mirrored her own sorrow. She liked this place, overlooking the village from afar. Right here, sitting on a log, was the place she and Shino visited only yesterday. She had to admit it led to her happiest memory so far, but it also led to her most feared prospect: having to leave Shino, to save her own life.

She wasn’t sure she could do that. The tune coming from her flute went down an octave, growing in depression as she was. The critters that usually gathered about her in times like this weren’t now, and she hoped she wasn’t depressing them. It wasn’t her intention.

She had come up with a solution in her time here, a simple way of ending this problem she was facing -- but it generated more problems, specifically that she knew no one would agree to it. She was willing to be infected with the bugs, slowly, allowing her chakra to become used to them. Hopefully, with time, she would be able to control them as well, pointedly in making them leave her if she needed a break. To reject them from her body and have them go back to Shino. . .well, the bugs certainly would put up a fight, if they were ‘addicted’ to her chakra, like Shibi suggested.

At the very least, she wanted to consult some of the Aburame clan, to learn how they controlled the insects. Even if she could only practice on the one, making it leave her body would be the deciding factor. As the solution in her mind grew in components and steps, it became simpler to enact.

Yes, this would work, she agreed. Practice with her chakra, try to control the bug, to make it leave her body because she said so. If she could do this for one, then later, she could keep up the practice, controlling more and more.

This train of thought led back to the first big question that had plagued her mind: why her? Of all the kinds of chakra, why was the bug addicted to hers? Shibi and Tsuyana told her that the bugs seek out others with similar chakra and sometimes go between married couples, always returning to the original host. So why was Shino’s bug stuck where it was? Why wouldn’t it leave? Why was her chakra so tempting?

Absently, she paused her tune to touch the jewel at her eye. Was it because of the jewel, the crystallized chakra? It would be the easy answer to say ‘yes,’ but she didn’t know for sure, and that was unsettling. Perhaps. . .perhaps the bug was attracted to the mixed chakra of the jewel. Perhaps, unbeknownst to her, the chakra jewel itself did more than absorb excess chakra, but mixed with her own. Perhaps her particular brand of chakra had become one with the multiple-flavored chakra of the jewel. Perhaps -- but how would she know for sure? The jewel had been implanted in her within a week after birth. If her chakra had changed because of the jewel, then she would never have known.

If nothing else, this theory would explain the bug’s interest. It wasn’t getting just any type of chakra within her, but many types. She imagined it like any one person’s chakra being a meal, whereas her own was a buffet. It would explain everything -- if that’s how it really was.

She realized, sitting there, contemplating her future with the Aburame clan, that she cared nothing for the Chuunin Exam. She didn’t care about returning to the battlefield, didn’t care about training, didn’t care about fighting at the front lines or assassinations or reconnaissance. She cared about Shino -- she loved Shino. In her mind’s eye, she saw him looking at her with desire in his eyes. . .the eyes she knew very few people had ever seen.

Maybe the Aburame clan wore those sunglasses just for it to be a theme. She’d considered the possibility before. But regardless, it made her feel special that she had seen Shino’s eyes. And she knew it was a step for him, an offer of trust (or perhaps something more), that he let her. She wasn’t expecting his eyes to be silver, either; and it rose the question about whether or not the entire clan had mimicked eyes. Certainly they all had black hair, not a lick of diversity in that matter.

And it wasn’t unheard of, for clans. Many individual clans had common traits like that -- most of the ones she knew of, anyway.

She frowned. This isn’t what she wanted to think of, wasn’t the pressing matter at hand. Lifting her flute to her lips once more, she thought again about the bug and the solution she’d come up with. If everyone agreed to it, of course, it meant she’d be training with the bugs for the rest of her life. But maybe there was a silver lining: sleep.

The chakra jewel kept her super-charged all the time, too much so to sleep more than a few hours a night, regardless of how tired she was. Maybe if she exhausted that chakra -- let the bugs drain some of it -- it would let her get a real night’s sleep. Or maybe all she needed for that was spending every night with Shino.

A furious blush stole over her face and several sharp notes came from the flute in one harsh breath. She cleared her throat before continuing, though she couldn’t clear her mind of her next train of thought.

Oh, but Shino had made her happy. And that was putting it mildly, even. She didn’t want to think that he already knew what he was doing, that he had experience in the subject, even if he seemed skilled. Then again, how would she know what ‘skilled’ was? It was her first time, last night, and she’d never heard any stories about others losing their virginity. She would never know if her time with Shino had been average, below, or above.

She knew what she thought of it, though; she blushed again in remembrance. However he’d done it, he had tantalized all of her senses, something she could honestly say had never been done before. Everything about him seemed to make her happy.

The melody coming from her flute increased in tempo and mood. Ah, all she had to do was think of him, and her mood brightened. Thinking of it now, it didn’t matter what happened in the future, whether she ended up dangerously infected with bugs or not. All she cared about was the now, with Shino. She was in love.

A curious thing, love. She remembered her first thoughts of Shino, her first assessment, was that he was interesting, if a little imposing. Who knew, then, that she would end up here, now?

And she didn’t regret a thing.
- 6
- 7
- 8
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Koiuta