Hello!
This is A SEQUEL, people! if you havent read Hikari: Path of the Avenger, please go do so before starting this story!
For everyone else, I hope you all enjoy!
PLEASE REVIEW!
Prologue
This couldn't be happening.
Everything in me strained to deny it, every muscle, every nerve, and every beat of my heart. It was all a genjutsu…all just a silly game that would end with a click of a button. Just like on the night of the massacre of my clan, my vision seemed to go slightly gray as I fell to my knees beside the body that was pinned in between two slanted pieces of a fallen concrete rooftop.
It couldn't be happening. Not him, not him, not him.
Not Kakashi.
But it was.
It most definitely was, and for the first few seconds I could do no more than stare. It was like I was eight years old all over again, only this time; there were no tears or screams of horror. There was only a strange and silent numbness that rested in my stomach like a dead weight. It isn't a sensation I can describe to anyone outside the shinobi occupation, because it would be like trying to instill upon a blind person what the color orange – my mind immediately pulled up an image of Naruto in our genin days, and the winces Sakura frequently emitted at the eye watering brightness of the blonde's outfit – looked like. The vibrant brightness of the color was easy enough to describe, but it was impossible to accurately instill the image of the color without the recipient seeing the color with their own two eyes.
Kakashi's face was blank and void of anything but the calm coolness of death, an expression that made my stomach jerk uneasily, though my mind tried fervently to repress the feeling. Even after all those years at Sound, I had never been able to fully put aside my aversion to dead bodies. I suppose the reason is that whenever I see a dead body, my mind automatically leaps back to that day in the Uchiha Compound, when I slid open the door to my family's living room, only to find the bodies of my mother and father lying there, blood dripping from the upraised sword as I locked gazes with familiar Sharingan eyes…
A pale hand – I realized with a start that it was mine – reached up for a moment, as if to attempt to shake Kakashi's shoulder, but with a jerk, I yanked it back. No, Kakashi was gone. This wasn't the teacher that had been more of a father than my real father ever was…this was a corpse.
My feet hitting the wooden floor – my hands pulling open the door – ashen arms and limbs spotted with red, it couldn't be blood – oh no, it was blood, so much – why weren't they moving? Why was Itachi standing there? – no it couldn't be, not Mother and Father! No, no, no, no,no…NO!
I let out a harsh breath, hating myself for the cold sweat that was beginning to soak through my shirt and my hair. I should have prepared myself for this. I should have trained harder, I should have done more…should have tried any and everymental exercise instead of just assuming that I was strong enough.
I had always looked up to Kakashi. Behind the seemingly laid back and lazy exterior was a powerful shinobi with the fighting skills of an elite assassin and the level head of a Hokage. He had been the one to teach me his only original technique – the Chidori – and he understood what I felt better than anyone back in my genin days.
With the Chidori, you've been granted a gift of awesome power. It's not a power to be used against comrades. Or to seek vengeance. I think in your heart of hearts, you know what it's for.
Back then, I hadn't been able to decipher what Kakashi meant by that. What else could such a powerful technique be used for? But, in my defense, I had been young, and my stubborn mind had been warped into thinking that my only purpose in life was to become stronger. I also hadn't been very receptive at that point in time, as Kakashi's lecture was right after Naruto and I had attacked each other on the roof of the hospital. The night before my defection to Orochimaru – my defection to, inadvertently, Sound. A mere two days before Naruto and I would fight at the Valley of the End.
Two years before a blonde girl would appear in a flash of light, landing rather ungracefully into my life.
I let my eyes close, and I got to my feet silently, staring at the body of my sensei for a moment before turning to walk away. There was nothing I could do now, and I felt that if I stayed there a moment longer, all of my control would shatter into tiny pieces.
Yes…I needed to walk.
There were no enemies around, and so I participated in a rare moment of inactivity, and walked without purpose, through the ravaged streets of the village, watching as ninja began to regroup after defeating the last of the animal summons. I had glimpsed a few cloaked figures running throughout the village, but now there were none in sight. The streets were deathly still, and there was chakra beginning to stir the air. This should have made me wary of a jutsu or other technique, but in my clouded state, I was foolish, and disregarded the alarms going off in my head.
Had it really been two years? It had passed by so quickly, perhaps because I refused to let myself focus on the silly details such as the date.
I remember the first day that we met. To be perfectly honest, my first impression of Hikari was that she was a stubborn idiot. I supposed she was attractive enough – I couldn't very well say otherwise, to do so would be childish of me – but all that seemed to linger with me was how insufferably emotional and ignorant she was. She talked too much, she intruded on my small world of security and strength and began destroying my stoic calm, like a bull in a china-shop, or so the saying goes.
Hikari talked back incessantly, and her confidence bordered on arrogance most of the time. The fact that I was forced to teach her did not help my irritation, if anything; it increased my already growing dislike. The one good thing I could think of back then was that she was a very quick learner.
But then – when had it been? – something changed. It wasn't love, or even friendship. It was something, though, and I spent many a night staring up at the ceiling to his room, trying to figure out what that something was. I think it started after Sakura – disguised as Hana – came to Sound. I don't know what it was, but after that, the annoying brat that reminded me – both fondly and infuriatingly; a strange combination – of Naruto was suddenly shifted into a different category.
I remember the way Hikari would float on the surface of the lake, her chakra supporting her, long blonde hair rippling just below the surface. Her face was always so peaceful, it made me slightly uneasy, the way she always seemed so happy whenever we trained outside of the Sound base. It was a strange opposition, seeing as Hikari was always on edge and snappy whenever in the base.
I didn't love her, but I didn't exactly hate her.
Hikari was my clean slate.
I had been slightly dishonest with her earlier, when I told her that she wasn't annoying to me back then. She had been annoying, and still was at times, even now; after all we'd been through.
It wasn't until we met up with Suigetsu and Karin that I really began to realize that my thoughts concerning her weren't just ones of teammates, or even just friends. I remember this because of the way my blood boiled when Suigetsu smiled at her. My hands clenched into angry fists when he grinned at her in that flirtatious way.
The feeling itself was disconcerting enough, but the other emotions that came along with it were even more unnerving. Jealousy? Protectiveness? Affection? Lust? That last one was the most unnerving of all. I had seen unclothed women before, but seeing as I had no attachment to any of them, their beauty – in some cases the term beauty wasn't applicable, but instead the sheer nakedness was enough to pose a threat – did nothing to my self control. But after arriving in the camp I had arranged near the prison where Karin was located, and seeing Hikari standing there, her long gold hair pulled in a bun, her toned legs tensing as she turned, the wariness to her blue-gray eyes…I am unfortunately forced to recall that the first thing I thought of was pinning her to the ground and kissing her as hard as I could.
It was strangely exhilarating, and yet at the same time extremely terrifying. I was an Uchiha, I had my revenge to consider, and I couldn't just put it all aside because of some girl. Sakura had done that in her genin days – her infatuation led her to be lacking in strength, a key factor in being a shinobi – and all it had done was make her less of an asset and more of a useless body that got in the way.
They became harder and harder to ignore, the feelings that arose as a result of Hikari. My dreams became plagued with her face, and whenever she spoke my eyes couldn't help but follow. How had I not noticed up until that moment how striking she was when she smiled? Was I blind?
Hikari was a horrible – an understatement – cook, her skills in genjutsu were adequate at best, her often lack of a censor was taxing at times, her stubbornness was both admirable and infuriating, her nails were cracked and bitten, her blind compassion often got her into serious danger, her words – when in a temper or when being confronted – were often self-righteous and arrogant.
But I loved her.
I loved her smile, I loved her long gold-blonde hair, I loved her laugh, I loved her strange but refreshing sense of humor, I loved her strength and her kindness, I loved the way she felt in my arms, I loved the way her blue-gray eyes stared unblinkingly into my own, like the glassy surface of a sunlit pool that changes its reflection constantly; sometimes I could see into the very deepest depths, and other times the sun forced the reflection of my own face back at me, and I could do nothing but stare into the water and wonder what made it so indecipherable.
Pulled back to the present, I looked around at the broken and somewhat destroyed buildings, and smiled without humor as I recognized the ramen shop Naruto loved so much. The name was unreadable due to the dust floating in the air, but Sasuke could still imagine a smaller Naruto sitting at the bar, his blonde head bent hungrily over his bowl.
Was he still away from Konoha, unaware that his beloved home was slowly crumbling to the ground?
Sakura was there with him, her long pink hair flipping angrily as she smacked Naruto over the head with the palm of her hand.
Had she succumbed to the enemy ninja, or had she survived? Was she crying, was the fighting…was she pinned under some rocks like their sensei?
Kakashi was on the other side, setting his chopsticks over the empty bowl – he had once again somehow managed to eat the ramen without either genin seeing his face – as he smiled at the two arguing kids to his right.
He was gone. Dead and dead and never coming back. But in this wistful memory, his smile was just as laid-back and amused as it always was.
On the other side of Sakura, there was an empty seat, and a bowl of ramen waiting there for the last member of Team Seven to arrive.
I slowed to a stop, staring into the hazy image of the figures sitting there.
Time couldn't stop, when I left. I knew this, but at the same time I wished that for a moment, I could go back to the day that I left Konoha. I would still leave – that much was undeniable, it was necessary in order for me to meet Hikari – but before I left, I would tell my teammates how much they meant to me. I would tell them the honest truth about how I felt, for the first and probably the last time. I would tell them my feelings; I would tell them how grateful I was that I met them.
Now, as I watched in my mind's eye the image of my teammates, all grown up without me, I could only whisper the words in my mind.
Naruto, you're like a brother to me. More of a brother than I deserve. I know that I've made fun of you almost constantly since we've met, but I want you to know that I admire your dream. I'm jealous of the way you make people feel needed, I wish that I could forgive as easily as you. You're an idiot, that much is obvious, but without you…Konoha wouldn't be the same.
Sakura, you need to work on your social skills, and your lack of physical strength is really embarrassing. But you're so warm and bright, and I've always liked the way you smack Naruto around like it's no big deal. It gives me a reason to show up at the bridge to wait for Kakashi-sensei every morning. I hope that someday you focus more on making yourself happy than making me and other people happy. You're a good person, Sakura. Annoying and over-emotional at times, but still good. You deserve happiness, more than everyone else.
Kakashi-sensei, you're like my father in so many ways. I know that you probably don't want to hear that, but it's true. You support my will to learn, and you gave me a powerful weapon that I will cherish and develop in my life outside of Konoha. You're strong, and skilled, and you're more of a teacher than anyone at the Academy ever was. Thank you for everything you've done for me, and for the rest of my team.
I took a step towards the ramen shop, and suddenly, everything exploded around me. Crushing pressure, suffocating and horrible, pressed around me, and I tried to keep my balance as I was knocked off balance.
My sense of direction was skewed by the suddenness of the shaking, and blurred dark shapes of buildings and the strange cheery blue sky swam in dizzying waves as I struggled to close my eyes.
Suddenly, a blinding pain smashed into the right side of my head.
White lights – painful throb – ground raising to meet me – muted echo that sounded as my body hit the ground – fading sounds of buildings crumbling – the screams of dying – pain pain pain pain –
Nothingness.
Annoying high voice – "Sasuke!" – soft hands touching my head – pain – lower, deeper voice asking something – then blackness.
Nothingness.
Another voice – "Sasuke, can you hear me?" – softer, less annoying, familiar – warm air – less pain – blood on my tongue – loud voice yelling – "Is the bastard going to be alright?" – eyes flutter before closing – flash of pink hair – orange cloth – warmth – blanket – brain is picking up speed, I can think clearly again, but my head still hurts.
But I recognize the voices, and quickly open my eyes.
