Ai had to gasp on the air that was suddenly easier to breathe. She was lying on the cold floor of the Marble Palace, a strange tingling sensation on her forehead where Renai had touched her. In fact, as Ai put her finger tips against her forehead, she felt cold blood trickling down from her hairline; had her scar opened up? When would that wound ever heal? Her body felt bizarre as though she had been put under immense physical pressure and suddenly told to lie down; she felt as though she had little control of her limbs. As she opened her eyes and adjusted to the room she was in, she could hear a buzzing, a humming, a low roar like the sea in the background. Had she hit her head?
The dancer sat up slowly, glowing in her jungle green dress, her eyes seemed brighter to the god Raijin who sat, trapped in stone, upon the plinth she had given him in this room. Before performing forbidden magic, the girl had turned this room into a temple to protect herself. So Raijin had been brought in from his usual place in her private shrine, to observe as the woman began to sparkle with an aura he had not seen in a thousand years. Her skin was gleaming as though moonlight lit her every pore, her movement effortless, as though weight did not drag her back to the Earth. Even she seemed to marvel at the way her dress flowed around her like waves of water. Her face lit up the room; was she smiling?
Something had passed into the courtesan from the Other Place. Perhaps Renai had gifted her something special, perhaps the goddess was just as mischievous as Raijin had heard about and was placing a well concealed catalyst into this volatile world. Ai stood on shaking legs, feeling unsure of herself, looking around as though to figure out the source of this new feeling. Raijin spied her as she looked down to her ankles to check her chakra-subduing anklets had not slipped off. He heard her gasp as they were still there.
"Ah!" Ai looked around her; the world was different. The marble walls no longer looked strong and thick but as breakable as vines int he gardens. She could hear voices whispering in a nearby room, talking about her, fighting with one another, calling out to her. "Shukaku…?" she breathed slowly as she heard a familiar growl in the air. She could not only hear more but feel more, the anguish of someone on his way to her was shooting like a permanent lightning bolt through her chest. She was almost dizzy with the strange sensation that pulsed through her stomach, one of guilt and anger but it was not her feeling it, it was someone else. She could almost feel the warmth of Sasuke's hands along her back and suddenly she was filled with joy; was Sasuke coming back to the Palace soon? How could she possible know that? It was overwhelming, as though she was being drowned in a pool of emotion and sensation.
Her sight adjusted and her breathing returned to normal as this strange and inordinate feeling washed away. As her eyes became clear, darkness returned to the room and the girl gulped when she saw what was in front of her.
Perfectly intact, the fourth Kazekage was held upright in a wooden, unmarked coffin. His hands bound to the sides of the coffin, waiting for life to be breathed back into him. Ai had been scribbling on a desk beside him as the sun had been setting. Now, after returning from the Other Place, Ai was stood in twilight with just enough light to see her scribbles. She needed to light the lanterns in the palace but she was preoccupied with a strange new thought.
She had been writing in the dead language and when she was almost at completion of the written work, she had been summoned by Renai. The magic she wanted to write was incomplete. But, as Ai looked at the letters on the parchment, which all seemed alive and dancing in the faint light, the courtesan suddenly knew that she had received a gift from the goddess. The gift of incantation. The written word was no longer necessary to her work.
Looking determinedly up at the face of Gaara's father, Ai squared her shoulders, took a deep breath in to ease her lack of confidence and spoke loudly and clearly into the room:
"前進,失われた男 (Come forward, lost one)."
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, in less than a heartbeat, Ai's breath left her as she watched light pour out of the eyes and mouth of the former Kazekage. Her hand covered her mouth in shock as colour seeped back into the man's face and the corpse took a breath.
What have I done?
Ai stood to her full height, fearful of her fear showing, not letting a single cell on her body cower as she performed the unthinkable. The Kazekage opened his eyes and Ai tried hard not to flinch as those dark empty pools of black stared back at her. It was so unnerving not to know where he was looking but he seemed to be looking everywhere, straining against his chains, feeling everything all over again until the unfathomable truth hit him.
"I," his voice cracked, "I thought you were a dream. But this feels real." Ai bowed her head, the jewellery hanging from her ears and hair all tilting forwards as she did so.
"Kazekage," the girl with the familiar face spoke so gently, like a poem whispered in the nighttime, with a softness the man had not heard since his wife had passed away. He could barely move with his aching muscles or focus with his foggy vision but he could see this delicate girl, barely into her twenties, dressed like a princess but she held herself with a worldliness that he could not explain. Her skin was glowing, her hair flowing like a dark river around her. She was every inch the goddess of death.
"Why am I here?" He croaked. A long moment of silence stretched on until, eventually, Ai looked up at him without emotion.
"For your son's sake." Ai saw the Kazekage frown as she said this. It was clear Raza knew he had been dead and knew that he was back in the living plane. Explaining why would be a little difficult.
"Kankuro? He prays for me no longer," as he spoke, Ai almost laughed. "Neither does Temari."
"You have another son," Ai reminded him and was shocked as Raza genuinely seemed to forget; did he not think of Gaara as a son? Why did she care? Why, suddenly, was she stopping herself from doing what she knew she had to do.
"Gaara?" Raza brought the girl out of her thoughts and was surprised to see she was suddenly angry.
"Why did you put Shukaku inside of him?" She asked urgently. Raza looked to the floor guilty and mumbled:
"To become the ultimate weapon."
"You sacrificed your son," the young woman scolded him, "ensured him a miserable and lonely fate. Empty of love." Raza looked her dead in the eye, his lips twitching in anticipation as he controlled himself, trying not to become angry with someone who looked like the daughter of gods. "That man never had a chance-"
"He was a monster," came the reply through gritted teeth.
"How can you say that about your own child-?"
"Because he took my wife!" In a single sentence, Raza silenced Ai with a tone of such heart-wrenching anguish, even she could not hold onto her anger. "He took the sweetest, most delicate thing the gods every created, tore her body in half, drowned out her cries of pain, soaked up her blood-
"Enough!" As Ai spoke sharply, a gust of wind issued from the open doors behind her, . "Enough," she whispered to the floor, unable to think of why she was doing what she was doing. It was so hard to hear someone talk about Gaara in this way. She may not be in love with him anymore, but it did not mean she did not hurt for that motherless and fatherless child.
"Why did you bring me back?" Raza asked again.
"For Gaara's sake," the girl responded, her sweet pea-coloured lips pursing after she spoke, as though she were unable to say more.
"And why would you ever want to help my son?" As Raza spoke, he was surprised to find the girl almost laugh.
"Because love is a stupid and heartless thing." A moment's silence passed.
"You are in love with Gaara?" The two looked at each other, wondering who the other was, what their role is, why they were here, what was going on their heads.
"It's complicated," Ai finally admitted. "I fell in love with that monster at a time when we were both young, naive, reckless," as she spoke, Ai smiled at the fools they had been. "Now we are either side of a war," all smiles vanished at once. "Both of us completely hopeless in love. And I am supposed to be Love itself in human form!" The girl exclaimed. "Totally unmatched yet totally inseparable. We belong to each other and yet, we are becoming bound to others," her head became filled with the vision of dark eyes and long, dark hair that she had to shake out of her head. "We exist as a paradox." The woman seemed to become lost in her thoughts before realising where she was and addressing the man with dark spikes of red hair, "I understand your confusion," she almost laughed; who on Earth could keep up with the endless saga of Gaara and Ai? "But do not misunderstand me. Your son is a monster no more. Not to others, at least." She added as an afterthought. Raza seemed to think deeply about what she was saying before he asked:
"To you?"
"He has left me with half a heart," Ai spoke gently, her words falling to the floor and floating up all around them, surrounding the pair in veil of melancholy that could only describe Ai and Gaara's story. "Stole one side of it, cut it out of me," Raza heard the sharp way in which her tongue clicked out the words with distaste; Gaara was a dept at destroying the most gentle of things. "It belongs to him" Ai admitted, "and am bound by love and hate him for it. Suddenly, Raza understood what she had meant before.
"A paradox." The man confirmed.
"Precisely," Renai's incarnate responded. "Now I am here, wondering why I summoned his unloving father." She gestured to him, "why, meeting you, hearing you talk about that beautiful man in such a grotesque manner…?" Emotions were tumbling around in Ai's stomach at a rate she could not cope with. Gaara was the enemy, he was a fool. And, just like that, a new thought formed in Ai's head with all the clarity and radiance of the first ray of sunlight in a dark morning. She gasped with realisation: ""I'm half in love with another fool."
The thought struck her like a thunderbolt; Renai's gift had not been only incantation, nor had it been the ability to hear other worldly creatures across planes…she had pushed Ai further into love.
"Renai?" Ai's thoughts were interrupted as she looked into the face of a man she had always wanted to speak to. Her life had a new light; things seemed so different. The anger, the animosity towards Gaara was different. Her heart felt a little more whole as she smiled up at Raza.
"This spell allows me to disable your thoughts and feelings, to make you into, essentially, a drone," she informed the Kazeakge, gesturing towards the table of papers beside him that he could not see for the sides of his coffin. "But i feel, you can serve a greater purpose than just being a soldier in war," she seemed to wonder to herself. "You should speak with your son," Ai smiled a little at the small gift she could afford. "Your personality and memories will remake intact," she said almost to herself, "when you meet your son," her voice suddenly turned serious, "ask him about his cowardice, encourage him to be braver-"
"Gaara is a coward?" Raza called to her as Ai had already started to exit the room.
"Like you wouldn't believe!' She called back and, with a murmur under her breath, the light went from behind Raza's eyes and his figure returned to an empty husk.
***
Ai had seen Sasuke in the weeks following the Kage summit, but when they had met it had only been for brief moments, barely an hour at a time! He had only come alone three times since the summit, but still they barely exchanged a few sentences before their charges tore them away from one another. But today, it would be different. Ai could not make sense of her emotions, but in truth, she did not want to. She was lost in lust and love, totally caught up in the ecstasy of anticipation, of waiting for his touch of waiting for him to say her name in greeting.
She was in her quarters, preparing a tray of bōshu (offering) for her guests that she could sense only a few miles from her doorstep. With milk blessed by gods and flowers from the garden, she was excited to greet Taka to her palace. With her new found affection, Ai finally felt at home on the other side of the war. Amidst the marble and glass, Ai was dressed in a pale pink with gold sequins, looking like a wisp of cloud in the sunset, sparkling with the stars waiting to be seen. She could almost hear the men making their way towards her with hurried footsteps and began to remember what it was like to be partner to a warrior.
Ai eyed herself in her mirror, a tray of bōshu in her hand; she stood in pink, looking simultaneously delicate and royal. With large diamonds encased in gold around her ankles, wrists, neck and hanging like a halo in her hair, she had, for some reason, adopted the traditional jewellery of the sand village; a thick gold border lined each diamond which was cloudy and unrefined. The polki diamonds sat proudly in her hair as though crowning her. The smell of jasmine fluttered around her as she had placed oil of the flower on her wrists and neck; there was even some tying the string of diamonds in her hair together. She looked every part the young goddess; a mischievous glint in her eye, a smile to beckon even the most secluded hermits out of hiding and the air of summertime in her wake.
"Ah!" Ai gasped in excitement as she felt the gates to the gardens open and her lover's foot step onto the soil of her home. The girl picked up her feet and hurried to the doorsteps of the marble palace.
As Ai pushed open the doors that led to the main entrance of the Marble Palace, she almost laughed with joy as she saw Suigetsu and Jugo looking up at her with teary expressions, clearly tired from their wanderings outside the palace, so ready and eager for a place to rest. She smiled at them both as they approached and looked over to Suigetsu as he threw his head back to move his fringe from his eyes and wink at Ai in a far-too-familiar manner.
"Ai," he began with a smirk, "why did you send all those girls away? They were the only reason worth coming to this ghost town!" Exclaimed dramatically. Ai was speechless for a moment as a wave of different emotions and memories came alongside Suigetsu; death and humour followed this boy in equal amounts. Ai could sense the death of his enemies and the laughter in his throat as he cackles watching Jugo talk to birds. It was such a strange mix of emotions Ai was briefly stunned.
"This is a place of pilgrimage for the Old Philosophers," Jugo responded to Suigetsu sharply, his long cloak dragging on the floor as his small frame sprained Ai with curiousity, "I'm pretty sure my mother was born here.." he said slowly, looking at Ai as though he had never seen something so wonderful before.
"Who cares for the old ways?" Ai almost laughed at Jugo's expression when Suigetsu interrupted him. She had become so accustomed to their rhetoric she had found the pair tolerable. "They're all dead since shinobi have taken charge," Suigetsu almost moaned with bordem.
"Where did you all disappear to after the Kage summit?" Ai said happily as she approached the pair, "I've only been visited by that fool!" She said cheerfully, hoping Sasuke would here her. It was in this moment, as she was looking for Sasuke, that Ai noticed a member of Taki was missing. "Where's Karin?" As Ai asked this question, she felt the swell of a great dark cloud nearby. Suigetsu rubbed the back of his neck to personify awkwardness.
"That's a bit of a sore subject," he said to Ai.
"Ai, you look different." The boy with orange hair observed as Ai, holding onto a tray of sweet milk and flowers. Her look of concern turned to one of genuine excitement as she picked a few blossoms from her tray and threw them over Jugo's head in welcome.
"I feel different, Jugo!" She exclaimed.
"You're chakra is so bright," the boy exclaimed, watching the outline of her skin glow silver and pearl, "I can feel it." Ai shrugged happily and turned to the boy with razor-sharp teeth.
"Yes," the boy with silver hair said slowly, trying to figure out what was different. "It feels warm as summer in here," he observed, "your skin is glowing." The man reached out a hand as though to touch her as Ai approached him but quickly withdrew his hand upon remembering her relationship with Sasuke. "Are you not wearing your anklets?" Suigetsu said quickly, ducking as Ai threw petals over his head and blushing furiously in embarrassment as he retracted his hand. As Ai let go of the bright pink petals, they showered over Suigetsu before falling to the floor and she noticed a dark shadow behind her two guests. Her outstretched hand returned slowly to the tray.
"I am," she answered her guest before, to his delight, placing her hand against his face and looking solemn. "You both feel cold," she observed, "like icy water. There's a shadow behind you like death. Where have you been?'" She asked them and when they were silent she remembered the girl she had not seen for a while. "Where's Karin?" She asked urgently. Still Suigetsu and Jugo would not meet her eye.
The two men were stood in front of something angelic, heavenly, ordained; they were not about to discuss their vulgar human matters with a girl who looked like a goddess. Ai notice them falter and took a step back, a look of apprehension before she felt a darker, much more sinister thread enter the palace grounds and wrap around her ankle.
"Where's-?" Ai began and turned as she felt a light fall on her. There, approaching from the gardens, was the man she had been most excited to meet. Her electric eyes softened to a sea-blue as they came across his figure. Dark and alluring, the Uchiha walked up to her slowly. "Sasuke," she greeted him with such a small smile you would think she were planning something mischievous. She threw petals over his head in welcome and lifted the clay mug of milk. But as that man approached, appraising her with dark, cold eyes, the woman could suddenly hear voices all around her, crying out in pain. "Sasuke?" Ai asked quietly, her smile struck from her face. "You've killed someone-"
"I've killed a lot of people," Sasuke did not flinch as Ai put the clay mug back onto the tray and her eyes began to dart around Sasuke as though she could she the souls of those he had hurt. She looked totally out of place to him; greeting a murder with offerings like a wife waiting for her husband to return from war. Sasuke could never understand the woman; what did she want from him? Why did she greet him in a way that made him feel like he was coming home to her. Nothing could be home now. But the girls eyes were dancing, darting from his red, patterned eyes to his lips and back.
"You've hurt people," Ai said, taking a step away from Sasuke.
"I've hurt a lot of people." Hearing this reply, Ai was suddenly able to tune out all the voices she felt she could hear and focus solely on the man in front of him. his dead eyes appraising her with little interest, stood in the light of a dying sun, the green of the leaves of the garden turning dark in the evening. Ai kept her yes locked with Sasuke's but instructed the other men:
"Leave us." Jugo and Suigetsu knew not to cross the woman they had grown to respect. They slinked past her in less than a moment, noticing how her eyes never left Sasuke's.
"Someone's in trouble," Suigetsu sniggered quietly. "What's there to eat around here anyway?" He said loudly, causing a flock of birds to erupt from a bush near by and soar into the darkening sky. "Yo, Madara…" And with that, the two members of Taka walked into the Marble Palace as the large wooden stores closed, leaving Ai and Sasuke on the porch.
The Uchiha shifted a little to lift he weight of his katana off one shoulder as he appraised a woman he was finding hard to forget; Ai had this long dark hair that reminded him of his mother, this stern, moral stare which made him constantly question himself. He had not seen her for weeks and had barely spoken to her since the Kage summit; he did not want their reunion to be one so full of judgement. As the lanterns around the palace were mysteriously lit by unseen forces, Sasuke clicked his tongue with impatience and stood with his hands on his belt.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" He asked sharply as he noticed the dancer's blue eyes begin to fill with tears.
"I can see them," Ai whispered, a tear falling from her eye. The dead were calling out to her, they were clutching to invisible breezes on this plane and begging Ai to let them pass into the next plane She could not see or hear anything really, truly, but she could sense the souls of those who had met their end at Sasuke's hands. "I can feel them," whispered before something was caught in her through and she saw, deep in the darkness of her mind, a girl with long red hair crying out in pain, Sasuke's face the same as when he had done it to Ai, sparks flying all around them. It could only mean.…"Karin," Ai whispered in disbelief, trying to keep the tray in her hand from falling from her grasp. "Sasuke," Ai gasped, tears streaming from her eyes as the pain of loss engulfed her, "what have you done-? Ah!" Before Ai could even finish her sentence, she heard the clatter of her silver tray hit the floor and tumble down the stairs of the marble palace. Her back hit the wooden doors as Sasuke walked towards her, grabbed the courtesan by the neck and pushed her back into the wooden doors.
"Why must you always question me?" Sasuke snarled, his face contorted with anger. "Why must you greet me with a smile and a tray of-" he glanced down to the tray, "whatever the hell this is?" He spat at her, watching as tears rolled down her cheeks, as her weak hands clasped onto his, begging for relief. "Why must you beckon me into the palace like it is home?" He asked, his face coming close to hers.
"I-"
"Why must you wear your hair like that?" The Uhciha's patterned eyes seem to swirl and turning a menacing manner as he pulled her forwards by the throat and knocked her back into the wall again. "Why must you smell like heaven? Why must you look so inviting?
"Because-"
"Why must you," he interrupted her, whispering now in a menacing manner, tightening his grip on her soft, breakable neck, "every, single, time," he emphasised each word by knocking her head back on the wall gently, "speak and act like the keeper of all that is moral and just?" He asked before raising his voice: "Why must you look like salvation and hell all at once-? Ah!" something erupted from Ai's skin like a bolt of electricity, pushing Sasuke away, causing him to release her neck and cradle his hand in agony. He stumbled back and looked at her in shock as Ai stood against the wall, barely able to keep herself upright.
"Because I am in love with you!" She screamed. But it seemed to have no affect on her lover who shrugged, rubbing his hand to soothe his skin.
"They all say that," as Sasuke said this, it took all of Ai's strength not to walk up to him and slap him.
"Do you think I want to be?" Ai asked in an almost mocking tone. "Do you think I enjoy this ridiculous relationship we have?" She asked him and shook her head as the warrior finally looked up at her. "Do you think I want to pine after a murderer?"
"Isn't that just so easy for you?" As Sauke asked this the anger inside of him faded. The girl's face sunk, she withdrew into herself, "how are you so easily fixated on one monster and then another?" Sasuke asked her with a small smirk. Ai thought for a moment before laughing at their predicament.
"The world exists in equilibrium," she taught him, "everything moves towards a balance. Love goes where there is none, and there is none in you," she said with all the malice she could muster, "you heartless bastard." And with that, the goddess incarnate walked away, down to her quarters of the Palace, paying no attention to the man who followed in pursuit.
The night was saw a starry inky blue sky and warm breezes wrap up the palace in its own exotic climax. As Ai walked purposefully through the palace, looking like a queen on her way to battle, the entire garden seemed to freeze and surrender. She reached the outside entrance to her quarters and as she reached out a hand to open the door, Sasuke pushed it shut from behind her.
"Leave me alone," Ai said, her hand resting on the door handle, not willing to move.
"Finally," this odd response from Sasuke caused Ai to turn and face him. He towered over her in the night, causing her to back into he door.
"What?"
"A girl who's in love with me and doesn't want me around," he smirked at her causing Ai's lip to twitch with desire to unleash hurtful and ungodly things to the wretched fool. "Finally," hearing Sasuke repeat this made Ai take a step forwards, right up to his face, look him in the eye and say:
"You are a disgrace to a clan that stood for unity-" The girl with blue eyes was cut short as her lover, within a split second, had his blade against her neck. Gently, he pushed the blade further against Ai's glowing skin until she backed back into the carved wooden door. For a few moments, they could hear the crickets, the gentle rustling of the garden grass in the breeze, the trickling of water from the spring.
"I could so easily kill you ," he informed her, "I could destroy all that you are and all that you are doing to me." Ai almost laughed; it was not the first time she had been threatened like this.
"Go ahead," she cocked her head at him, her eyes daring the blade to come closer. "Death would be better than being in love with a soulless creature like you."
"AAAH!" Ai jumped as Sasuke this girl did to him was beyond description; didn't she know it was torture for him too? Didn't she know how he thought of her constantly, hated her constantly, longed for her constantly? "I do not love you," the man said eventually. "But," the girl's eyes widened at this word, eager to hear more. "If anyone else put their hands on you I would kill the both of you. Do you understand? If you so much as glance at another man, it will be the last thing you do." Sasuke dropped his blade, watching in delight as Ai jumped at the sound of the metal clanging against the marble floor. "You are for me and me alone. If I even hear a rumour that a man touched your feet in worship, I will destroy you. You are my prisoner and exist for me alone."
"Have you lost your mind?" The girl asked.
"Whatever I have lost," Sasuke smirked, "it belongs to you and you belong to me now. I cannot offer you love. But I can offer you enslavement." Ai pushed his chest, causing Sasuke to take a step back, before she turned, opened the door to her bedroom and walked into the darkness.
"Don't touch me," Sasuke heard Ai call. "Ever again. Leave me alone." But Sasuke did not let the door swing shut. He threw it wide open and stepped inside to the circular room with Ai's bed and belongings. The candles gave the room a gentle gold glow, making the already ethereal girl look like light itself.
"I cannot do that Ai." Sasuke said as he stood in her doorway.
"Why not?" Ai asked him, hating herself, hating him, hating the feelings she was caught between. "You leave so easily, so on a whim, so eagerly for every mission. You abuse me. You use me, you wretched, wicked, awful man. Why can't you leave me be!?"
"Because you will be the mother to my children." Ai stopped short as Sasuke said this. Lost for words, the girl with the face of a goddess almost fell to her knees in surprise. "You are the woman I will rebuild the Uchiha Clan with. When the war is over and the red moon shines, you will retreat in hiding and bear a child. Do you understand?" The seriousness in his voice, the anger in his tone, the controlling-desire in which he appraised her left Ai in shock. "Well?" He asked her. "Will you take on such a role?"