Queen of Air and Darkness

I. First Interlude

Sai did not like the capital city of Konoha. It was a new thing, this having preferences. They had suddenly crept into his thoughts, like a well-organized infiltration. They bubbled into his throat, filling his tastebuds with acid when confronted with the object of his disgust. And yet he had not expected that he would come to despise an entire city. It was a massive thing, as though he hated the very air he was forced to breathe. And despite his best efforts, it welled up into him as he completed the morning drills and readied himself to face his first opponent for the round of sparring that had become routine.

Across from him stood Ino Yamanaka, blonde and confident and overwhelmingly rude. Once again he found himself facing a noblewoman who had little business on the battlefield. This was more of a trend in Konoha than he had been led to believe. Sai had been trained amongst boys to become the perfect blade to be wielded in the kingdom's defense. He had never been confronted with girls, not the girls who haunted the halls of the castle with gossip on their lips and flowers in their hair, and especially not this new type of girl. Girls who wielded steel with fire in their eyes despite all the logic of their world. It was confusing, fighting these girls. First, the pink-haired squire, who he had spared against orders and better judgment. And now this blonde fury who seemed determined to batter him to death with her wooden practice sword.

But he had been confronted by many confusing things since his arrival at the capital city of Konoha. It was built on contradictions, girls with swords and boy kings with too much power, and too little sense of duty.

He missed the quiet of the training yard, the quiet house where he had first learned to wield a sword. In the days before it had become a graveyard, it had been peaceful. Not like the noisy stone streets of this town, where everywhere he turned someone was speaking. Their voices seemed to echo along the walls to assault his ears with rudeness and unnecessary observations.

Much like the way Ino's voice lashed out at him as surely as any blade, as he blocked her pummeling strikes and ultimately disarmed her.

"A good battle," he said, bowing formally. Dueling etiquette was not the kind of thing he had practiced in his training, but he had read it was expected of knights. Instead, Ino looked up at him with a puzzled expression before bursting into a harsh staccato laugh.

"Gods you're so formal, you're like one of those old knights in storybooks," she said, dusting herself off. "But you're good with a sword. I can't believe you lost to Forehead."

This was the most confusing part of life in the capital. When he had been told to come to this place, he had expected to spend months ingratiating himself with the supposed ruler of the realm. Instead, King Naruto had accepted him readily, inviting him to spar with them in the mornings. Their group was made up of a few select squires that seemed to know the king from his page days.

Sai had, of course, received intelligence on all of them, but what his intelligence could not answer was why they all flocked around one another, in one large mass of people that threatened to overwhelm Sai with their noise. Any of them were willing to spar with him, ready to share gossip and information. They had no idea how valuable the snippets of gossip they easily tossed around could be. The only one who seemed like a proper squire, who knew the carnage that awaited outside these walls, was the king's new shadow: Sasuke Uchiha.

The traitor himself stood to the side of the scene, watching the entire tableaux with narrowed eyes. Like called to like, and so Sai knew that Sasuke was watching the group with the same eager intent. But where Sai was gathering intelligence for Lord Danzo, steward of the realm, Sasuke's motives were a mystery.