The Treehouse

By kyokki

He dreamed of her again. Every night a repeat of the last. Her face, her voice, she would fill his sleeping hours as though making up for her absence in his waking ones. He could not decide whether it was a blessing or a curse, whether he missed her more or less for her constant presence in his sleeping thoughts.

But whichever was the case, no matter how he felt about it, he always dreamed of her.

"Shoufuu-kun…" She whispered. "Shoufuu-kun…"

He groaned and turned over, struggling to awaken, struggling to remain with her just for a few more painful moments.

"I wish I could hate you… Shoufuu-kun…"

He sat up with a gasp, instantly awake in a tangle of sweat-soaked sheets. His hands reached involuntarily for her image, the last image he had seen in his dreams. Her eyes had been full of equal parts pain and love, her voice quiet. Then she had turned away.

She had turned away and had never even looked back. And all he could do was watch her walk out of his life.

In another moment he dropped his hands, his slack fingers resting against his thighs as he strove to collect himself. He stared down at them. Usually so capable, they had failed him when he had wanted them to grasp what he had most desired, to hold her and never let her go.

With a convulsive, angry movement he thrust aside his blankets and swung his feet out of bed. A blanket tangled around his foot hampered him for a moment, making his temper fray dangerously as he savagely kicked it free and strode to his window. He stood there for a long time, breathing the cool, fresh night air and forcing himself to calm down.

It took an effort, for even that scent reminded him of her. She had always smelled like a cool breeze with a hint of green and a hint of flowers. The air was never still or dense when she was around.

He sighed, closing his eyes and letting the breeze play across his bare shoulders and tousle his sweat-damp hair. Just as her fingers had once done.

He sighed again and opened his eyes, surrendering himself to the fact that this night there was no turning back the memories. And so, with reluctance, he let them file back in, going back to when he had first met her, back when they had both been nothing more than children.

His had been a difficult childhood to put it mildly. Orphaned very young, he had been taken in only to be subjected to the cruel and painful genetic experiments engineered by a madman. He had not been the only child to so suffer, but he had been the only one to survive. Some of his earliest memories were of a group of small children, one that every day grew smaller, as friends disappeared one by one. He had not known what had happened to them until later. And for the longest time he had been besieged by the terrible guilt of being the one left behind. The only success, so to speak.

Even so, even after he had been rescued for the longest time he had not been expected to live for very long. The experiment, while not killing him outright, would often make him ill or cause intense pain, or both. The foreign cells in his body fought with his own, often producing disturbing though, thankfully, temporary results. Thanks to this, he went from being a healthy child to a pale sickly one, as the DNA from the Shodai coursed though his system, changing him, making him other than what he once was.

The day he met her had been one of his better ones. The pain and nausea had been at a low ebb and he her had become restless and very, very tired of staring at the blank walls of the hospital room where he had nearly permanent residence.

So he had slipped out for even at that age, because of such a nervous childhood, he was quite good at making himself unnoticeable and made his way through the streets of the village of Konoha. But though the bustle and activity of the busy thoroughfares fascinated him, and smells of good food tempted him, along with bright colors and interesting sounds, he did not stay in the city proper for very long.

For something else called to him, and in no time at all he had sneaked outside the city walls themselves and into the surrounding woods.

At last here he could breathe. He could feel himself relaxing, even though he had not realized how tense he was until now. He massaged his shoulder as he walked aimlessly along the forest paths, until the paths became game trails, and finally disappeared altogether. His face softened from its usual guarded expression and he walked on, not noticing how the underbrush seemed to part to make his path easier or how tiny seedlings rose in the trail of his footsteps.

And as he walked he decided that this was quite nice and perhaps he really needn't return after all. He could live very well out here on his own. So he started looking for a likely spot to claim as his own.

He had been very young, after all.

The impulse might not have been entirely his own in any case. For although the foreign DNA was ravaging his body, already it had given him at least one of the things that had been intended. He could control the mokuton. Not fully, and it didn't always do exactly what he intended, but something inside him, separate from his consciousness knew what to do. It probably would have frightened him if he really thought about it.

But he had been very young, after all.

All he really knew was that he simply had to unleash the power and he could do with wood practically anything he put his mind to.

After a while, he found what it seemed that he had been looking for.

It was a tall, solid tree with sweeping branches. It looked like it had weathered many a storm without breaking.

With something like reverence he approached the venerable old tree and lay his hands upon the rough bark, feeling the voice of the tree welcome him as one of its own kin. He nodded and closed his eyes, telling the tree what it was he wanted. Through the contact of his hands he gave the tree the power with which to accomplish it.

Then he just stood back and watched as the tree…changed.

Some of the wide branches flattened, others grew and curved, or took on impossible right angles. Some moved together, others apart.

Finally it stopped moving.

He surveyed the result. It was a blend of tree and house, the kind of home that he had always associated with friend and family. But of course, most homes weren't twenty feet above the ground and didn't look like they had been grown rather than built.

This would do quite nicely.

This would be his place.

He stepped back and bowed slightly in thanks to the tree for the aid that it had given him when he heard a rustling behind him. And he was already turning swiftly around when that rustling was followed by a loud crash and someone tumbled out of the undergrowth and into the small clearing that he had claimed as his own. It was a girl, about his own age.

He stared down at her, she stared up at him.

And finally she broke the silence by stating in a loud voice. "Are you a tree spirit?"

This was perhaps the last thing that he had expected to hear her say and he let out a swift smile before could stifle it. If anyone were a candidate for a tree spirit it would be her, not him. He was still attired in the hospital yukata and pants that he had snuck out in, and they were still as clean as they had been when he put them on that morning.

She, on the other hand… It looked as though she had been fallen in a mud puddle, then rolled down a hill. There was mud covering her face and legs, making her bright blue eyes look even bluer. There were twigs stuck in her reddish brown hair, which had been pulled up into an inexpert ponytail. She was covered in scratches, and her clothes had been torn.

He completed this inspection in a fraction of a second before replying, shortly. "No."

She made a disappointed face as she stood, brushing down the front of her tank top and dirtying it even more than it had been before. "That's no good. I've always wanted to meet one."

"Are you serious?" He asked, intrigued despite himself.

"Of course!" She replied cheerfully. "So if you're not a nature spirit, what are you?"

"I'm a boy."

"And I'm a girl!"

'Obviously.' He thought, becoming amused.

She grinned at him as though reading his thoughts, or perhaps she had seen the amusement on his face. With a little bow, she introduced herself. "Everyone calls me Tsu! What about you, tree-spirit-san?"

"I said I'm not a tree spirit."

"Of course!"

'What is with this girl?' He thought before saying, "My name's Te-"

"Wait! I know!" She smiled even more broadly, her small, dirty, cheerful face becoming rounder in her delight at solving the mystery. She walked toward the tree that he had just manipulated and put one hand softly on the trunk.

"This is a maple tree. Your tree. So your name…" She looked over her shoulder at him, then whirled and struck a triumphant pose as the breeze stirred her dirty hair. "Must be Shoufuu!"

He stared at her for a long moment, dumbstruck at how completely wrong she was. But then he shrugged and nodded. After all, he wasn't all that fond of his own name, and Shoufuu was so much better than 'survivor' or 'experiment'.

And so he had met her.

A lost girl in the woods who one day met a boy she mistook for a tree spirit. It sounded like something that should have begun a fairytale.

'Mukashimukashi, there was a young girl sent into the woods to look for herbs by her father, but she became lost and frightened. And then, the girl met the spirit of a tree who helped her return to her home. The girl fell in love with the tree spirit who had helped her. But he was of a different world…and one day…' Not every fairytale had a happy ending.

But he had never expected his to turn out the way it did.

He turned away from the window and let his feet lead him to the bed. He sat, his forearms braced against his thighs, his hands clasped between his knees, his head bowed.

Since that day she had always been there whenever he needed her. When she found out that he was in the hospital she would come and visit and bring him flowers or fruit, or just conversation, anything to distract him. She somehow found out where his small apartment was located, though he never told her, and would visit there, too. And of course there was the tree house.

Which somehow became, not his but their tree house. Or as she liked to call it, the Fairy Fort.

When he would find the time to steal away and seek a few hours away from the close surroundings of his rooms that was where he would go. And more often than not she would be there as well. He would almost suspect she was stalking him except she was always genuinely surprised and happy to see him. And he always knew when she wasn't being truthful. He never knew why, but he always knew.

They would play together there, and for a child like him, who was unused to playing, every moment was a new experience. But not all of those free days of youth were perfect.

He still recalled with perfect clarity the day that she had found about his true nature. One moment they had been walking together while she chatted away and he listened indulgently, the next he had been face down on the ground writhing in pain. He knew what he must have looked like. He had seen himself in this state in the mirrors of his hospital room. One was a one way; he pretended not to know.

He curled up on the cool ground and felt his skin grow scaly and hard, bark-like in patches. He could feel wooden protrusions expanding and contracting all over his body and struggled with all his might to contain the rampant mokuton power. That had been one of the worst attacks that he had had in a long while. And she had seen it all.

He felt a soft hand hesitantly touch his shoulder; looked up and saw her terrified face.

"Get away!" He had ground out harshly, his face twisted into a mask intended to frighten her further. He hadn't wanted her to see him like that. He didn't want anything that his body was doing to hurt her unintentionally.

She sat back on her heels, her face stricken now as well as frightened, but she did not run away as he had expected. She stayed by his side until the worst of it was over and he was left gasping on the ground fighting back his tears. And when he finally was able to look up at her again she seemed calm enough, wiping his face with a napkin out of the bag that had contained their lunch and giving him something to drink. Then lifting his head and settling it on her lap as he lay staring at the sky and recovering his strength.

He couldn't look her directly in the eyes, so he directed his question at the sky instead, "Why didn't you run away?" He asked quietly, his voice much more tremulous than he would have liked. "Don't I frighten you?"

She was silent for a while, so long that he thought she wasn't going to answer. He hand stroked his damp hair from his forehead with a repetitive, absent gesture. Finally she spoke, very softy. "I was scared. It was very scary." Her voice was as shaky as his had been, and for some reason that made him feel slightly better even as her words made his heart sink and his stomach feel sick again.

"Then why didn't you go?" He asked accusingly.

"And leave you here alone?" She sounded surprised that she needed to explain. "What happened was scary, but I'm your friend aren't I?"

He had been too young to fully realize how very special she was. It would take him years to fully understand her, as much as any man ever understood any woman. But even then he, who had known so few people, began to get an inkling.

She seemed worried, he thought, as to what his answer might be.

"You…" He was seized with a fit of coughing, and she held his head up and helped him drink a little more. When he could speak again he continued. "You still want to be my friend?" He heaved himself up on his elbows so he could look at her. "Even after…"

"Yes," She said simply. "But you still haven't answered my question."

"No." And he hastily amended that when her face fell a mile. "Not just friends. Nakama. Now and always."

"Now and always!" She exclaimed happily. She bent so she could throw her arms around his neck and impulsively kissed his cheek. "Now and always, Shoufuu-kun."

"Now and always, Tsu-chan." He said, glad that she was grinning so happily that she could not see the burning blush mounting his cheeks.

And now he whispered it again, to the floor between his bare feet, "Now and always…"

But they had just been words, just words. A vow between children who knew nothing of the world. Words that hadn't survived what would happen.

"I wish I could hate you…. Shoufuu-kun…"

And it had been all his fault.

He stood and began to dress, seeing ghosts in every corner as he did so. Ghosts not of people, but of time.

Times when they had been together.

Times when they had just lain in the grass and watched the clouds drift slowly overhead until the setting sun painted them with bright colors. Times when they had just sat and talked about everything and nothing. Well, mostly she talked and he listened.

When she had entered the ninja academy he had been there, watching from the shadow of a tree near the entrance, idly pushing the swing hanging there with a sulky finger. He had not been well enough to attend the academy, so he had been afforded private lessons. Even then they had been priming him for what he would become. But still, he would have liked to go to school with her.

But that's how it had always been with her. When they weren't alone together, just the two of them; he would be the one watching from the shadows. And though on that day he had primarily looked at her, once in a while his eyes would stray longingly to the others there, the ones who were going to go to regular school with regular classmates and regular teachers. The ones who were being hugged and congratulated by happy parents. A mom, or a dad. He leaned against the tree and watched.

Until she saw him there. And she ran over to pull him out of the shadow into the light.

As she had always done.

She always had an uncanny ability to locate him, no matter how well he thought he was hidden. She took him over and introduced him to her father, and to her classmates. And under her basking warmth some sense of belonging had been cultivated. Although it had been nothing like what she and he shared. Theirs was a bond like no other.

He pulled on his sandals and stood up from his seat on the bed, glancing over at where his flak vest and face protector hung. With not even a shrug he left them behind. Tonight he just wanted to walk, tied to nothing, nothing that, at the moment, he wanted to be tied to. He quietly shut the door and walked out into the breezy night.

Her talent had been with wind and some fire, his with earth and water. And she found the best way to manipulate her element had been with fans.

"And they're handy on a hot day, too!" She would laugh as she twirled in the clearing beneath their tree house. She danced with the wind, her fans deftly weaving and slicing through the air, which became visible as she manipulated it.

He loved to watch her move in the wind, so gracefully, so different from the small girl that he had first known, all knees and elbows, clumsy and graceless. Now a teenager she moved fluidly, becoming almost the wind herself as she danced through the complex movements of her specialized kata. He would watch her as he did his own practice, occasioning more laughter from her when he was sufficiently distracted to miss easy targets or trip over his own feet.

When they had both tired themselves out, they would retreat to the tree-house, always to the tree-house. It was their safe haven, their true home.

As the years passed that was always where they returned to. After a mission, after a triumph, after a failure. When she was there he always seemed to know it, and he would go to her. If he could. Whenever he could.

His special training had led him into the ranks of ANBU and the intense training and secrecy of that order kept him from her far too often for his liking. She wasn't too happy with it either. He could tell even if she never said anything, and when she attained jounin rank and was assigned a squad of genin their time together became even more scarce and ever more precious. So they would steal what moments they could together and cherish them all the more for their rarity.

But then, their moments had not been plentiful even when they were children, for school and training and his illness had conspired to keep them apart more often than not.

So they stole them whenever they could. Some of the best times that he had counted in his young life, when neither of them were quite old enough to pay much attention to the difference between boy and girl, had been when they had played tag in the forest.

She would always tease him about his unfair advantage, accusing him of creating trees to hide behind.

But she had always won. Because she always knew where to find him, no matter where he hid. And of course, afterward they had retreated to the tree-house, where they sat on the porch and watched the sunset.

Precious, every one. And they had all, or almost all, revolved around that place.

Their first meeting, the first time she got mad at him, the first time he got mad at her, the first time they kissed, the first time they had…

He stopped in his tracks, the memories crashing down on his shoulders immobilizing him for a minute, then two. He had no idea how long he stood there and when he looked up and actually paid attention to his surroundings, he had no idea how he had gotten there.

But he knew where he was. It was all too painfully clear where he was. He could just make it out through the trees. Their tree-house, the fairy fort, lit softly by the moon that had risen while he had not been paying attention. He sighed, and let his feet take him along the barely perceptible path that their two pairs of feet had worn over the years.

It had been a while since he had been there, was it one year, or two? Maybe even three, now that he thought about it. Had it been so long ago that it had happened? What had separated him from all that he had held dear?

It had been on orders.

But what kind of excuse had that been?

How could she ever forgive him?

For being part of the group that had attempted to arrest, then had been forced to kill her father.

He had not known it, but for many years her father had been selling Konoha's secrets to their enemies. Many shinobi had been killed as a result of his betrayal. When he had been given his orders he at first had not known that the man they were after was her father. But the moment he had seen him, he knew. And she had been with him.

She had tried to protest, to demand to know what was going on, had tried to protect the man who had raised her, and who she loved. He had been the one to restrain her, to hold her back from the fighting. And for the first time, behind that blessedly, cursed concealing mask, he had wept as he held her back despite all her struggles. He knew her best, her techniques and tricks, and no matter what she tried he could hold her.

It was the first time he had ever held her against her will.

And then when it was over, they had left, left her there crying on the ground over what was left of her father's corpse. For ANBU traditionally burned their targets.

The next day he had gone to the tree-house, his guilt burning in his stomach in a horrible similarity to the illnesses he had suffered as a child.

She had been there. She had flung herself into his arms. But the moment they closed around her, she stiffened, and he knew that she knew.

Words were said, bitter, unwavering words as he had tried to explain, to defend his actions, and she accused him of terrible things.

"But I protected you. You could have been killed as well!"

"Like my father?" If he had known that her next words would be the last ones said, in a cold dead voice behind the tears that streaked down her face, he would have thought of something, anything, to say to make this better.

But he didn't and stood facing her, helpless, frustrated.

"I wish I could hate you…Shoufuu-kun." Then she turned, and walked away.

"Tsu!"

"Tsu!"

"Tsu-chan!"

'Don't leave me. Please. Don't leave me alone, Tsu-chan. You're all I have.' He dropped to his knees, his words left unsaid by the next thoughts that wound poisonously through his mind. 'And thanks to my actions, I'm all you have.'

And for the second time in as many days he wept, his arms wrapped around himself, bowed over in his grief, he wept as though he were a small child again, all alone in the world with no one to make it all better, to hold him when he was ill, to wipe his forehead when he had a fever.

He had no one without her.

He had wept for hours. It had felt like centuries.

And when he could, he had left. He had not returned but even then he could not leave the memories behind.

So here he was again, staring up at the house in the spreading branches of the sturdy maple that he had created so many years ago. He sighed and sat at the ground at the base, his back against the supporting trunk, his head back, his eyes closing. He dug his fingers into the ground beside him, willing his chakra into it, and small vines rose twining sinuously up the trunk of the tree. From there they spread into the branches, through the windows and the door, covering everything. One last burst of chakra and they bloomed.

'Mukashimukashi there lived a beautiful princess, but one day sorceress put her under a spell of eternal sleep and placed her in a castle surrounded by thorny rosebushes. And so sharp were the thorns that any man, prince or common, who tried to enter was torn by the thorns. And so the princess slept on…'

He dozed off for a while, emotionally drained by his voyage through the trips into his memory, when he thought he heard a small rustle. He opened his eyes, and at once knew he was dreaming.

She stood at the edge of the clearing, lit by the moonlight. "Are you a tree spirit?" She asked softly.

He knew how to answer, but the dream seemed off this time. Why was she grown and not a child, why was she wrapped in a thick shawl, with her hair neatly pulled up, only a few strands escaping to wave around her face?

"No." He said, as he always did.

She stepped closer. "That's no good. I always wanted to meet one."

He smiled slightly, and the words that came out didn't match the ones he had always said before. "Then sit beside me and we'll wait together."

"If I wait, will the spirit of the maple tree come?" She said, coming even closer, and now he could see tears running down her face. "It's been so long since I've seen him last. And…and I know some things I didn't know before."

"Would that keep him from coming?" He asked gently, wondering at the strange turn this dream had taken.

"He would come if he knew."

"Tell them to me and when I see him I'll tell him." He replied. "Because I think I'll be waiting here a long time."

She settled beside him on the ground. And he could feel her warmth where she pressed up against him. "You know… I know the name of the spirit of this tree."

"Is that so," He said, his arm coming up of its own accord, his hand caressing the side of her face. "I heard it was given to him by a beautiful lady a long time ago."

He could feel her shaking against him. How peculiar.

"What's his name?" He asked. "I'm sure he'd come if you called."

"Sh…" She wailed. "Shoufuu-kun! Shoufuu-kun!" And she threw herself on him, sobbing into his chest. And he knew that somehow, things would be all right again. And he knew that this couldn't possibly be a dream. For never could he have imagined that she would ever forgive him.

"I'm here." He said gently, raising her face so he could look at her. "I'm here."

Then he kissed her, and was sure that somehow, things would be all right again. Somehow.

…

'Mukashimukashi, there lived a young princess, one day her father, who carried a canker of evil in his heart, sent her out into the woods to gather herbs. She became lost and frightened and wandered until she came upon the spirit of a maple tree. She fell in love with the spirit…and then…one day the spirit learned that her father was an evil man who had caused the death of many of his kind. He and his fellows went to take him to the spirit of the wood, to account for his actions, but the man would not come, and after all was done he lay dead. The princess was heartbroken, for she loved the spirit, but he had been one who had caused the death of her father.

So she closed herself up in her castle and so great was her grief that she caused herself to fall asleep for many years. In her sleep the birds whispered to her of her father's deeds, but still she did not awaken. Then one day the spirit came and made the roses bloom. The princess woke up…and knew that she had wronged the spirit that she loved…and so…

…

Now and always.