Beneath the Sun

Chapter 13

Tenzou encounters resistance after he extracts the information he needs in the shape of two Rain ANBU.

They're young, new to the mask it seems, a little too open in their communication with each other, a hotheaded pair. They're hardly a challenge.

He figures out what they are when he kills one of them, plunging his sword deep into her chest when the anguished cry echoes louder than the rush of the flowing river.

It's easy to kill someone emotional, easy to neutralize the mad and uncalculated strikes. Tenzou watches the second ANBU go down with no pity when he yanks his sword back from the cracked armor, watching blood and pieces of flesh cling to the blade. He looks down at the man, watches him twitch and turn his head to the the other fallen ANBU, watches his fingers tremble and reach out for the body that is several meters away, as his lungs fail and he begins to suffocate in his own blood.

Tenzou knows it's his queue to leave, that at most, the man had about thirty seconds before the light fades from his eyes completely. A sobbing, wet, pathetic noise tears past his throat and Tenzou reaches forward to pull the mask off, watches how the man's wide eyed tearful gaze is trained on the woman's unmoving body.

Tenzou sighs tiredly at this display of utter nonsense, this poor behavior for someone within ANBU's ranks. He tosses the mask aside and picks up the man by the sleeve of his vest, holding him up in his arms as he gets blood all over the white of his armor. Tenzou lowers the choking man next to the woman, watches as the man comes up with strength to hold the woman's hand, lacing their fingers together. Tenzou watches with something suddenly twisting in his chest, as the man closes his eyes and the last of his tears slide down his cheeks, his chest finally stilling as he takes his last and final breath.

Lovers.

That's what they are.

The sad and broken sight of them, lying side by side, blood seeping into the earth, sends a stab of something bitter up Tenzou's throat, makes a tremble go through the length of his arms as his stomach suddenly churns and the world around him dulls to an alarming hush.

Tenzou puts his hands together, presses his palms to the earth and buries their bodies as deep as he can in the ground, and in their place, he plants an entire forest of honeysuckle trees— as large as he can manage, as far as it can stretch, pushing all of his strength and chakra out as something small and soft in him screams.

But the forest does nothing to still the quake in his hands, does nothing to wash down the rawness that remains wedged in Tenzou's throat. Tenzou stumbles back under the towering canopies of green leaves dotted with yellow and white blossoms, staring at his handiwork that symbolizes bonds of affection and devoted love and suddenly he feels sick, feels bile come up to his throat as he brings the back of his hand up to his mouth upon reflex and sucks in loud and heavy breaths from behind the mask, pushing the need to suddenly vomit down, down, down.

Love had no place in ANBU. Love makes you lose your mind and forget how to fight, makes you scream and cry in the face of your enemy. Love may mean that you don't die alone, that you have a hand a hold as you take your last breath, but what good is love to your village when you're fucking dead?

It takes too long of a moment for him to gather his wit.

A moment that he should never have needed.

It takes hours for the nausea to recede.

*

Tenzou arrives seventeen days later in the afternoon, numb and dazed as he hands in the information to Tsunade and politely exits her office. He files his report, collects his briefing and goes back to his apartment. He goes through the motions of his old routine like clockwork — clean up, dress the minor cuts, air the apartment out, change the sheets. He procures a meal from the convenience store around the corner, eats in silence in front the television, and then picks up the briefing and begins to read through over tweeks worth of information