Chapter Text
“You sure this is a good idea?” C called from somewhere behind him.
Frowning, Darui paused and looked down.
Right in front of him, yesterday’s rain had washed away part of the trail, creating a small fissure. He contemplated jumping to the other side but decided to wait up instead. He hadn’t noticed C fall behind and he’d rather not risk losing him completely.
Despite being intimately familiar with the trails around Kumo even Darui would have trouble finding him again out here.
Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he turned around.
“Sure.” He squinted, his eyes moving back and forth as he looked for a sign of movement in the dark. When he spotted C’s silhouette moving towards him some of the tension in his shoulders eased. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
C finally came to a stop next to him. His breathing was slightly heavier and his posture not quite as straight as usual but Darui tactfully refrained from bringing it up. He made a mental note to dial back his walking speed though.
“Well, for one,” C made a conscious effort not to wince as he straightened back up, “it’s too dark. There could be a cliff right here. I could–”
“C, don’t–”
“–walk right off and–uagh!”
C had intended to emphasise the statement by stomping his foot a couple of times. In a burst of alarm, Darui had reached out and yanked C back by the elbow before he could bring his foot back down.
For a second, they both swayed precariously but didn’t fully lose their balance.
Irritated, and more than a little spooked, C pulled his arm out of Darui’s grasp and blustered.
“The hell was that about? You nearly gave me heart attack!”
“Sorry. It’s just…” Darui could hear the muffled tapping of C’s fingertips drumming against the jut of his hip. He raised a hand to scratch at his nape. “There’s a cliff there.”
C blanched, his face a rather comical mixture of horror and exasperation. In a display of what to Darui looked like excessive theatrics, C threw out his arms and let himself fall back against the steep rock face to the left of the path.
A quiet snicker close-by had him narrowing his eyes at the dark mass vaguely resembling Darui.
“This,” he hissed, “is how people get killed. Are you trying to get me killed?”
Darui – the jerk – had the audacity to laugh, even though to C the act of committing grievous bodily harm seemed less despicable the further up the mountain they got. He used the lull in conversation as an opportunity to send a couple more venomous glares somewhere in Darui’s general direction. C doubted Darui could actually see any of them but at this point it was a matter of principle.
Darui took a fairly deep breath which C quickly identified as the ill-disguised attempt at stifling further chuckling that it was.
“I’m not trying to get you killed,” Darui enunciated slowly and his tone was just earnest enough to make C wonder if, perhaps, he’d been giving Darui too hard of a time for the last two hours. He hadn’t known about Darui’s apparent enthusiasm for early morning hikes. “But–”
Nevermind.
“‘Not trying to get you killed. But…?’” C echoed incredulously. The lilt of C’s voice could easily have been taken as a sign of good humour but Darui picked up on the edge underneath.
“–but,” Darui repeated, “your attitude is starting to make me reconsider.” Darui leant in just far enough to see C purse his lips. Darui snorted in amusement and C crossed his arms. His eyes narrowed and Darui took that as his cue to remove himself from C’s personal space again.
“I don’t get what your problem is.”
Rocking back on his heels, Darui buried his hands in his pockets once again and lowered his gaze to the ground between them for a moment. When he looked back up, his expression had sobered somewhat.
“You’re not actually mad, are you?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.
If C was, then this entire excursion would have thoroughly missed it’s mark and they might as well head home now before they started arguing in earnest.
C mulled over his answer for a moment but his shoulders were sagging already as he shifted his weight from one legt to the other. With a sigh, he shook his head.
“I’m not mad.”
“There’s a ‘but’ in there somewhere.”
“Kinda, yeah.”
Having long since grown accustomed to C’s habitual bluntness, Darui found it exceedingly strange when C was actively attempting not to be.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, just–” C briefly licked his lips in an attempt to stall and Darui could pinpoint the exact moment C gave up trying not to be blunt about it and decided to just get it over with.
“Do you even realise how terrifying you are?”
The distinct sound of awe in C’s voice gave Darui the impression that even though C probably hadn’t intended for it to be taken as a compliment it wasn’t meant to be an insult either and Darui didn’t quite now what to make of that.
Because yes, he had met people who had been genuinely terrified and that comment left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth.
Despite his hackles rising, Darui pressed his lips into a thin line and swallowed. It took more effort than expected to keep his voice down.
“Care to elaborate?”
C grimaced and Darui belatedly remembered to pull his chakra back under wraps. Neither of them acknowledged the momentary lapse of control but Darui took another step backwards and C shook his head as if to clear away a trick of the imagination.
Realising he’d hit a nerve, C deliberately calmed his own chakra flow. When it registered as little more than a quiet hum in the back of his awareness he let some of it bleed through to mingle with Darui’s. Slowly, he took a step forward and reached out, wrapping a hand around Darui’s wrist to keep him from taking another step back.
Feeling quite sheepish, C grinned apologetically.
“Perhaps I should re-phrase that?”
“Perhaps you should.”
Darui’s reaction was understandably terse but C gave his wrist a conciliatory squeeze. Then he took a few moments to think of a different way of putting it. When he did, his eyes lit up for a second before schooled his expression back into a look of seriousness.
“Could you try to stop thinking like the Third’s boy wonder for a minute and put yourself in an ordinary person’s shoes instead?” When a crooked grin threatened to break out, he bit his lower lip.
Dubiously, Darui raised an eyebrow and waited for C to start making sense. He momentarily forgot that the gesture would be completely lost on C.
“It’s pitch-dark and – regardless of your feelings on the matter–” C shot a pointed look at where he guessed Darui’s face to be, “this is not an easy climb. Objectively.”
Darui found himself thinking back to several instances where he had indeed claimed as such. Feeling slightly bashful, he scratched the back of his neck.
C sensed some of the tension draining from Darui and he loosened his hold on his wrist. “And yet you’re just casually marching along like it’s nothing.”
The tips of his ears grew warmer and, for the first time since he left the comfort of his home, C was grateful for the poor lighting as he muttered, “What I’m getting at is it’s impressive. Really impressive even. But, and I hate to admit it, sometimes it’s difficult keeping up with you.”
Darui got the distinct impression that it wasn’t just the hike they were talking about anymore.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.” With a dry chuckle, C averted his eyes and distracted himself by trying to pinpoint the distant lights of the Hidden Cloud. Despite the crescent moon and the stars, their faint glow remained one of the only landmarks he could make out.
Without the usual visual distractions, the steady thrum of Darui’s chakra right in front of him occupied a much bigger presence in front of his mind’s eye. It was more difficult to let it fade into the back of his awareness too.
“Sorry.” Darui’s brows furrowed. “You wanna turn back?”
C only narrowly avoided laughing out loud. “After making it all the way up here? Not particularly.” Well-meant as it was, at this point the suggestion seemed nothing short of absurd to him. When Darui didn’t answer right away he could just picture the skeptical look Darui was levelling at him.
C snorted in amusement.
“Finally feel ready to tell me where we’re going, by the way?”
“Just a little longer,” Darui chided gently and C responded with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. Yet another exchange they had hashed and rehashed already. There was no malice behind the action though. “Trust me one more time?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Great.”
Darui twisted the wrist C was still holding on to until his palm was facing upwards, a silent prompt for C to take it.
“Part of the path was washed away just to your left. We’ll take three steps and then I’ll need you to jump far enough to clear about five feet lengthwise.
“You,” C replied, perhaps a tad less snidely and considerably more fondly than he’d intended, “are an absolute nutcase.” Following Darui’s lead, he closed his fingers around Darui’s and positioned himself next to him. “On the count of three, then?”
“Try not to fall to your death.”
“Better not let me.”
With a snort Darui gave his hand a firm squeeze that could have meant either, “Of course not” or “Fuck you”, and counted to three.
Then they pushed off.
For a brief second, with nothing but solid blackness to their front, back, and underneath, C was acutely aware of the adrenaline pumping through his veins while his brain struggled to catch up with the fact that he wasn’t actually jumping to his death. Probably.
They came to a skidding halt on the other side. Overbalancing, they fell over in a massive pile of flailing limbs, teenage idiocy and dirt.
The tumultuous impact was followed by a moment of stunned silence and for an instant C genuinely thought he’d died. Something of that must have shown on his face because next to him Darui was seized by a bark of laughter.
In a temporary fit of insanity, C joined in.
Darui made futile attempt to stifle his laughter by burying his face into C’s shoulder but it did little to actually drown out the sound.
“Shrieked like a frightened barn owl!” he wheezed. His efforts were rewarded with an elbow to the ribs that, thoroughly missing it’s mark, ended up buried an inch deep in mud instead.
The failed attempt at his spleen just made Darui laugh harder.
Somewhat light-headed himself, C twisted his arm and grabbed a hold of the first thing within reach and waited for the ground to stop spinning out of control. If he ended up leaving mud tracks all over Darui’s shirt front then that was a sacrifice he was willing to make.
Slowly, the star’s stopped swaying and returned to their proper positions in the night sky.
“You’re not hurt, are you?” Darui asked eventually.
Grimacing at the amount of dirt he could feel spilling down the back of his shirt, C sat up and shook his head. More dirt went flying everywhere and Darui pressed his eyes shut to avoid the worst of it. When C was done, Darui pointedly cleared his throat.
“I’m fine,” C croaked. “Peachy.” C was fairly sure, he’d swallowed at least half a pound of gravel. “Totally didn’t fear for my life.”
“Of course not,” Darui said dryly. With his thumb, he rubbed the small indents C’s nails had left on his other hand. Rolling his eyes, he huffed in amusement and proceeded to shuffle his legs back underneath him. Then he pushed himself off the ground, provoking yet another rainfall of dirt and gravel.
Back on his feet, Darui extended a hand to C. He was about to retract it when he remembered that C probably wouldn’t be able to see it and, therefore, nearly fell right over again when C grabbed it after all and pulled himself up.
Right. Even if seeing was a problem, sensing was a different matter.
For his age, Darui had exceptional chakra reserves. In terms of chakra detection, he probably couldn’t have made it easier for C to pinpoint his location if he put on an bright yellow jumpsuit and fired flares every couple of steps.
But while large chakra reserves certainly had their perks, the Third, his former academy teachers and occasionally even C, frequently got on his case for his sloppy control. When he wasn’t paying full attention, his own chakra tended to drown out nearby signatures.
He regularly forgot that C’s – or even a non-sensor’s – perception of chakra networks was much more nuanced than his own.
Even directly in front of him, C’s presence was barely a faint, albeit familiar, flicker at the edge of his consciousness. Darui had to actively suppress his own chakra to properly pick up on his position
Conversely, C had once let it slip, that on a good day, with few distractions he could pick up Darui’s chakra from several towns away.
It had baffled him when he’d learnt about it and continued to do so to this day.
C thanked him briefly and turned away to dust himself off.
In the meantime, Darui tried to make out the position of the moon behind the shreds of clouds cutting across the sky. Once he found it, he did some quick mental maths and after a moment’s contemplation he turned to face C again.
“We should get going.”
Dubiously, C looked at the sky as well but he wasn’t sure what exactly had captured Darui’s interest up there.
“The weather’s gonna hold for at least a couple more hours. What’s with the hurry all of a sudden?”
“Nothing in particular. Though we might have to pick up the pace a little.” Darui buried his hands in his pockets with a shrug and started walking.
“C’mon, we’ll be late!” he called when C didn’t follow immediately.
C remained rooted to his spot while he attempted to follow Darui’s reasoning.
“Late? For nothing in particular? Darui, you’re not making any–”
When C realised Darui wasn’t slowing down, he cursed under his breath. Rolling his eyes in annoyance, he jogged after him.
“Damn it, Darui! You’re doing it again! Wait up!”
Despite hearing C’s footsteps draw nearer, Darui nearly lashed out when a hand unexpectedly seized his forearm from behind.
Upon realising that it was C the appendage was attached to, he exhaled audibly and forced his shoulders to relax.
C was looking far to smug for his own good for having caught Darui off-guard. Several beats passed while they were staring at each other. Twice, Darui caught his own gaze getting stuck on the crooked line of C’s smirk.
He narrowed his eyes and C’s grin only widened in response.
“Hey, C.”
“Yeah?”
“What… do you think you’re doing?”
C’s grin had now reached shit-eating proportions. Darui’s own gaze darkened automatically.
“Making sure I don’t get left behind while you go and storm a mountain.” He slipped his hand into Darui’s as if it were the only logical thing to do. “Shall we?”
Darui had had every intention of giving a pointed retort but his gut did the strangest flip-flop that made the words get stuck right there in his throat.
Swallowing past the lump, he glowered and tugged at C’s hand.
“Let’s just go.”
They spent the next couple of minutes walking in silence. The pace Darui set was brisk, but manageable, and he lead them up the winding mountain path without hesitation.
The closer they got to the top the more apparent it became to Darui that C must have got caught up in a train of thought at some point and was now mulling over the pros and cons of actually voicing it out.
He was about to ask if something was bothering him, but C was quicker to speak.
“Hey. Darui.”
“Hm?”
“How often did they make you climb that mountain?”
Darui took note of emphasis and hummed, quiet and low in his throat.
He rarely felt compelled to talk about life before the academy and C, despite his curious nature, rarely asked.
“Who?” Darui pulled up his eyebrows, feigning confusion. C fixed him with a flat stare. Sighing, Darui ran a hand through his hair and scratched the back of his head.
“About three, maybe four times?”
C sent a dubious glance Darui’s way that trailed from his face to their joined hands, down to the winding footpath they still hadn’t lost despite less than ideal circumstances.
“A month?” he asked.
Stepping around a particularly large rock, Darui scoffed.
“Make that ‘a week’ and you might be getting closer to the real number.”
Rather than look at him with an expression of shock or astonishment, C looked down and nodded to himself as if Darui had just confirmed a hypothesis of his. Darui became uncomfortably aware of the fact that he’d been baited.
He narrowed his eyes at C to let him know that his little scheme had been exposed and that he thoroughly disapproved. In a lousy imitation of innocence, C widened his eyes and tilted his head. Darui scoffed and gave him a nudge with his elbow, to which C retaliated with a gentle bump of his shoulder and a mollifying crinkle of the eye.
The entire exchange lasted less than three seconds. When it was over, Darui’s gaze got caught on the streak of mud still stuck on C’s cheek. While he suppressed a chuckle, he nearly missed when C asked another question.
“Even in the dark?”
Darui shook his head and focused on the trail ahead again.
“Not at first, no.”
Averting his eyes as well, C frowned and hummed his acknowledgement. Darui had expected more questions to follow but C seemed content to be left alone with his thoughts once again and Darui was happy to drop the conversation too.
This high up in the mountains, wildlife was scarce and even the most ambitious of climbers would only just be starting their ascent. Right now, the crunch of gravel underneath their feet was the only sound.
In the distance, slivers of grey and green were stretching across the horizon. When he noticed, C stopped to look at the changing sky, accidentally jerking Darui off-balance.
“Sun’s coming up already,” he remarked somewhat absentmindedly.
“Already?”
Wordlessly, C let got of Darui’s hand to fold his arms in fron of his chest and nodded in a direction somewhere vaguely to the east. Darui’s jaw tightened as his gaze followed the movement of his head.
C was waiting for a cue of Darui’s on how to proceed when he noticed something in the corner of his eye. Shifting his weight, he leant to the side until he could see past Darui’s head.
He squinted until the yellow of one of the flags the Hidden Cloud used as summit markers swam into shape.
When an idea struck him, he smirked and placed a hand on Darui’s shoulder to get his attention.
“You know what would probably help us cut down on time?”
Raising an eyebrow, Darui turned to face him.
“I’m all ears.”
With a slap to his back, C disappeared in a flash of light and, within the same second, reappeared twenty feet ahead. “Race you to the top!”
Then he took off running.
By the time Darui’s brain caught up with the challenge, C had already gained several precious seconds on him. With a huff halfway between irritation and amusement, Darui channeled chakra to the soles of his feet and followed suit.
C sensed Darui’s pursuit before he heard him. The shock wave of the first burst of chakra almost made him miss a step but he regained his balance easily enough and picked up the pace.
What followed felt a lot like trying to outrun a storm surge after getting dropped in a dried up riverbed.
For having had a bad start, Darui was catching up fast. C channelled more chakra to his feet, lengthening his strides.
When he concentrated, he could feel the serrated edges of foreign raiton-infused chakra lap at his heels. The faint prickle of electricity made the hair at the back of his neck stand up.
While he prepared to vault over a boulder obstructing part of the path, C gathered a small amount of chakra in his hands before he jumped. Pushing off the top of the boulder with his palms the energy from the chakra release was enough to keep him in the air for several seconds.
As he twisted back into an upright on the way down, he was laughing in exhilaration.
Behind him another burst of chakra shook the earth, and C noticed a second pair of footsteps barely a second away. Entering the final bend, he risked a short glance over his shoulder to shoot Darui a provocative grin which Darui matched with one of his own.
The flagpole was almost within reach now.
Still a good three feet ahead and mere steps from the goal, C was already extending his hand when Darui made a split-second decision and leapt.
For an instant, C thought that a mountain lion had latched on to his back and he was going to die.
Then, said mountain lion crashed into him and C, having had the air thoroughly knocked out of him, found himself forced to revise his previous assessment. His assailant quite obviously was an mountain elephant.
The momentum of said elephant made C lose his footing and together they went down, tumbling through the dirt and past the flagpole that had been almost close enough to touch.
At least it’s a nice smelling elephant, his brain provided helpfully. He let his head drop backwards and he surrendered himself to the bright spots dancing before his eyes.
“You,” C wheezed, his tone somewhere between accusation and a soul is leaving its body through the left nostril.
“You,” he tried again, but he had to inhale twice more until his lungs inflated properly, “so would’ve lost that one.”
For good measure, he added, “Dirty cheat.”
Darui’s reply was lost somewhere in the bunched up fabric of C’s shirt but he suspected that he was saying something along the lines of C being a hypocrite of the highest caliber and the only reason he didn’t lose more decisively was that C had had a head start about a mile wide.
Slowly, tentatively, Darui opened and closed his hands several times until he figured out that it was C’s shirt he’d been clutching. His grip relaxed and his knuckles came to rest against C’s flanks which, thankfully, remained stationary. Unlike the ground underneath.
The cold mountain air was nipping at an exposed strip of skin on C’s stomach. Further up, Darui’s warm breath was filtering though his shirt. Goosebumps rose on his arms. C wiggled his shoulders experimentally and grimaced when he felt a rock digging into one of them. This was getting uncomfortable fast.
“Any plans on getting up any time soon?” he asked.
“No.”
Since Darui showed no intention of moving, C briefly contemplated flicking his temple. He lifted his hand but found himself lacking in spite. His hand spent two seconds hovering awkwardly in the air before he settled for running his fingers through his hair instead.
“Fine. Any plans on letting me up, then?”
“In a minute.”
So much for being in a hurry, C thought to himself. In passing he pondered the merits of following Darui’s example and just never move again. But that rock was still digging into his shoulder and Darui’s weight felt as if someone had dropped a sand sack on top of him.
With a fond roll of his eyes, C sighed and reached for Darui’s right arm.
In a series of quick, decisive movements, he pulled the arm across his chest and off to the side, wedged both feet against Darui’s hips and raised his own to give himself more room to manoeuvre. Hooking one leg behind Darui’s back, he grabbed a fistful of the back of Darui’s shirt with one hand and, angling his body, hooked his other arm around Darui’s left knee.
With one final, forceful jerk of his body, and using his legs as a pendulum, he reversed their positions.
Darui grunted as his back hit the ground. “Just so we’re clear, I let you do that,” Darui groaned as he shot C a look of irritation that was met with an impish grin.
“Mhm, keep telling yourself that.” Steadying himself with his hands on Darui’s chest, C leant forward. “So.”
Darui clapped his hands down on C’s thighs and raised an eye brow at him. “Well?”
“Ready to tell me what it is we’re doing all the way up here?”
Darui took a moment to savour the eager expression on C’s face, his eyes softening. Then he inclined his head to something on their left.
“Over there.”
Dubiously, he sat back on his heels and turned in the direction Darui had indicated.
And he very nearly lost his balance.
While he and Darui had been busy messing around, C hadn’t been paying the least bit of attention to the sky changing around them. The faint glimmer of green outlining the mountain tops had given way to an explosion of colour. The morning sky had lit up in various shades of yellow, orange and pink. Behind the twin mountain peaks east of Kumo the sun was ascending slowly, dyeing the clouds enveloping the hidden village a faint red.
When he squinted, C could just make out the outline of the Raikage Tower blocking out some of the light. Below the tower, some of the village’s streetlights just barely broke through the countless wisps of cloud like a hundred tiny ships navigating the Land of Lightning’s jagged coastlines.
“Like it?” Darui asked.
C hadn’t realised he was spacing out. Slightly embarrassed, he closed his mouth and gave Darui a sheepish grin. However, his attention was still on the sunrise and his gaze soon wandered eastward again.
“It’s… wow,” he breathed, “I don’t know what to say.”
Darui smiled. To him, the sunrise in the mountains had long since lost a good deal of it’s magic. Having climbed this mountain again and again, the amazement had quickly given way to indifference. Still, he remembered being a little kid and absolutely awe-struck the first time he made it to the top in time to watch the sun go up and bathe the mountains in a soft golden glow and seeing C captivated to the point where he was lost for words was it’s own kind of gratification.
“That view…” C’s gaze was still fixed on the horizon. He shook his head in disbelief, the first sunrays catching in his blond hair. “It’s beautiful.”
Darui nodded, his thumbs drew slow, absent-minded circles on C’s legs.
“Yeah, beautiful’s a good way of putting it.”