Hey! So, you all thought I was dead, didn't you? Well, I almost am. XD Yep, nice time for morbid jokes.

Thing is, I am completely stuck on "Deal With It!", even thought it's just a couple more chapters until the end. But I've been planning (Yes! Planning! I actually know where I'm going with this one. :D) this fanfic for about a month and, even though I thought that I should prepare some chapters first so that I can update weekly or something, I just couldn't wait. So you'll just have to bear with me.

A/N's:

The flashbacks within brackets will be flashbacks that are encompassed in the flashback mentioned previously;

example:

flashback

(flashback)

continuation of flashback

I'll be using F.R.I.E.N.D.S way of naming chapters, so expect awesomeness (and complete lack of originality). XD

On with it!

The night was dead silent.

Only soft steps were heard through the pouring rain as a dark figure limply dragged his frail and battered up body through the forest.

In his early twenties, the man, clad in a teared up black robe, mingled with his surroundings. His gaze and mind focused solely on his path.

'Not much longer'.

~….SSF4E….~

After a twelve hour shift at an over-packed hospital, a young woman, no older than twenty, dragged herself through the silent streets of Konoha. The day had been tiring, yes, but fulfilling none the less. Her shoulder length hair grazed her neck as a gust of wind passed by, sending a chill up her spine. Looking at the heavy clouds grazing the sky, the woman hugged herself and rubbed her naked arms, trying to gain warmth; but something told her that despite the coming storm, the uneasiness she was feeling had nothing to do with the weather.

~….SSF4E….~

The woman behind the desk, apparently not much older than twenty five, stared, dazed, at the amount of paperwork she surely had to postpone until the next day. After doing nothing else all day, she couldn't figure out how there was still so much to sign. Sighing, the woman dipped her brush in the ink bottle and began her curvy signature for the millionth time that day. As a lightning bolt seared across the skies of the peaceful town and thunder boomed seconds after it, the woman jumped on her seat and her brush ran across the paper. Growling in frustration, the woman crumpled the paper up and threw it into the already over-flowing garbage can. Her chair creaked as she stood up and, facing the window that covered one-fourth of her office, the woman crossed her arms. Thick drops of water were falling at a growing pace.

Squinting at the sky, the woman realized that tonight was no ordinary night.

'Rain, thunder and lightning at this time of the year…?'

~….SSF4E….~

The night had already fallen when an obnoxious twenty year old blonde left his usual spot. He had already walked a few meters when he realized that it was starting to rain on him.

His eyes darted to the skies, small-sized droplets of water wetting his face. He frowned.

"What the hell?"

Swearing loudly, he took off his bright orange jacket, covered his head, trying to prevent himself from getting any wetter, and made a dash towards his home. It was still a long way to run, but currently the rooftops were a dangerous place to run on: the rain was falling at an ever increasing pace and water was pouring from the roofs and splashing noisily on the ground, wetting nearby peasants who sought shelter from the rain.

Thunder roared up ahead. A storm was coming, most likely from the north. It was an odd time of the year for this kind of weather: normally Konoha was known for its warm summer, chilly autumn, cold winter and lukewarm spring. Nothing but regular weather. Of course, they had their share of remains of winter storms that drifted from Suna, but nothing aside from that. A thunderstorm, this size no less, in the middle of spring wasn't normal. And even though Naruto wasn't known for his brains, he could tell, as his feet splashed on the many ponds on the ground, that this storm was no ordinary one.

~….SSF4E….~

As the rain became heavier and heavier, Sakura changed her pace to a jog, trying as best as she could to avoid getting even wetter. It was on one of her stops to get shelter under some roof that she noticed the figure running on the opposite direction, coming her way.

When he passed her, he didn't stop, but yelled at her over the sound of the pouring rain.

"Konbawa, Sakura-chan! Check it out, it's raining like hell!"

Sakura chuckled and yelled back at him, putting her hands in form of a shell on each side of her mouth to increase the volume of her voice.

"It doesn't rain in Hell, Naruto!"

He glanced back over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow.

"Heh?"

She shook her head from side to side.

"Never mind."

He grinned and resumed his sprint towards his home, she presumed.

Sakura sighed, took a deep breath and left her shelter. Thick drops of water chilled her to the bone, the only thing on her mind was a warm shower followed by her comfortable bed.

However, all that was forgotten as she passed by the main gates and found a dark figure laying on the ground. Her medical senses kicked in as she rushed to help whoever the stranger was.

As she got closer, she noticed that it was a male, not much older than herself, she guessed, and he had been brutally beaten.

She knelt on the muddy ground near the man and searched frantically for a pulse, a heartbeat, a sign of breathing, anything that indicated that the man was alive.

She grabbed his pulse and felt a faint pump through his skin. She sighed, relieved, but didn't relax.

He was lying on his stomach but she didn't risk rolling him over until she was sure there was no injury to his spinal cord.

Applying chakra on her hands, she took a deep breath and concentrated. Passing her hands over his upper and lower members, she could tell that his left arm was broken; but she didn't heal it right away, in case there were more critical damage to his body and, therefore, more urgent to treat.

Part of his body had been badly burned and she thought that that would most likely be the wound that required more urgent treatment.

When she reached his back, she noticed several broken ribs, but there wasn't any laceration to any of his organs nor was his spinal cord damaged, so she grabbed his good arm and turned him around. Suddenly, she let his arm drop and raised a hand to her mouth to muffle the shocked scream she couldn't avoid.

~….SSF4E….~

"I can't believe we have to stand guard today of all days. It's pouring hard, dude."

"Shut up, Genma." - his partner for the night shift, Nagisa, barked at him. "And don't call me dude." Genma frowned.

"Well, excuse me, but I am a special class Jounin, ya know? I'm not supposed to spend my days sitting around keeping guard on a gate that no smart person would cross in this weather!"

Genma considered himself a smart and efficient shinobi. He was trained by the best to interrogate and spy. That was his specialty. So why was he, on a Friday night, chilling to the bone, keeping guard on a gate? Sure it was needed. Sure the village's safety rested on his hands, but that didn't mean he liked it.

Nagisa sighed.

"You know as well as I do that Tsunade-sama only appointed us to be here because all the other Jounin are away on missions."

When Tsunade had appointed them both to take the night shift by the village's gates, Nagisa knew that this would happen. Genma had always been a very active person, always wanting to be on the field. He was a strategist. Only Morino Ibiki surpassed his interrogation skills. So when you put him all night sitting behind a desk with no dangerous criminal on the other side of it, he gets grumpy.

Genma was a complex fellow, she mused. He was always complaining about the lack of work but he had a weak spot for his mid-afternoon naps.

Nagisa liked to think that Genma was bipolar. That would explain a lot, the kunoichi thought.

She herself was more of a tracker. When on a mission, she never failed in finding who or what she was supposed to find. She was smug enough to think that she was the best tracker of Konoha. Well, except maybe Hatake Kakashi, she thought, groaning inwardly.

Genma bit on his toothpick hard as he tightened his jaw.

"Well, she could've sent me, now, couldn't she?"

Nagisa was about to retort about his lower Jounin status when, on top of the sound of the pouring rain, a high pitch scream was heard, not that far from there.

~….SSF4E….~

A lightning bolt lit the skies for a split second, enough to catch his features and give Sakura the certainty that she was already felling. Clutching her chest, she willed her heart beat to return to normal as she looked down at his face. His head didn't seem to have been hit, as his hair was ebony black, with no trace of crimson blood. Though he did have a very nasty cut on his eyebrow and most likely a broken jaw. Sakura sighed.

He was just like she remembered, only his features were harder and his (now broken) jaw straighter. He seemed more built, too.

She shook her head, clearing her thoughts, she was first and foremost a medic nin, so she canalized chakra to her hands and began treating his burns, which were mostly located, she now realized, on his torso and legs. She was so concentrated on her work that she didn't hear hurried footsteps approaching.

~….SSF4E….~

"Just a bit more." - he muttered, forcing his legs to carry his body and his feet to keep moving.

He could see the front gates. Just a few more steps and then he could rest.

100 steps.

Slowly, limply, he made his way through the forest, his broken arm curved and pressed to his chest, his right hand resting on every other tree to keep his stand.

70 steps.

The gates drew nearer and nearer. Why had nobody noticed him yet?

50 steps.

Tsk. Their security was lousy.

30 steps.

The pouring rain wasn't helping at all, he grimaced, after almost slipping on the wet grass under his feet.

10 steps.

He was almost past the gates. Here he was, Konoha. Now all he needed to do was get to the Hokage's Office and- He didn't get to finish his thought as he lost consciousness and fell, face first, on the ground.

Flashback:

He felt weak. Weaker than he has ever been. He hated the feeling.

What was he thinking?

(Flashback:

After killing Orochimaru and running off, exhausted, the first thing he heard when he finally settled down in a small town near Taki border was that there were sightings of the Konoha traitor and Akatsuki member, Uchiha Itachi, right there on the village. That was all he needed to know. He didn't even sleep; high on soldier pills, Sasuke ran off to the location his brother was last seen at.

The thing about Takigakure was that the ocean was connected to it by an enormous waterfall. That said, it was obvious that it was constructed on a high cliff, being connected to the other villages by four bridges, two of them connected to two of the most important villages in the Ninja World: Konoha and Iwa, so that is to say that Taki was a very busy place; merchants came and go selling their products and buying others. Though Taki wasn't a hidden village, it still was a prominent place.

But that was the last thing on Sasuke's mind: clad in all black, he mingled with his surroundings as if he belonged to nature itself; a shadow in the midst of the night. He quickly reached the town's end and jumped to the first tree of the forest that separated the town he just left from the bridge that led to Taki. Sasuke felt his blood boil with both hatred and adrenaline, the tiredness and fatigue from the fight not four hours ago, long gone.

He let a sadistic smirk cross his once stoic expression.

After so many years, it was time.

~….SSF4E….~

What were the odds? He felt it clearly: Itachi's chakra signature, mere kilometers in front of him, coming his way. A twisted smirk etched upon his stony face: this will end now, he thought.

When his feet touched the muddy earth in the clearing that opened up in his path, Itachi was already standing on the other end, his cloak flowing with the wind. He wore an amused smile on his face, which aggravated Sasuke to no end.

"I must say I'm impressed little brother." - Itachi told him with a note of false surprise in his voice. - "I never thought you would actually come looking for me."

So it was on purpose, Sasuke thought, they didn't meet by chance: Itachi knew he was coming for him.

Not impressed, Sasuke clenched his fists by his sides.

"Well, sorry to disappoint you." - he said, getting into a fighting stance.

Itachi closed his eyes and smirked.

"Hn. Then I guess there is no other way, is there?"

Sasuke didn't answer: he was already hurling at Itachi.)

~….SSF4E….~

"What was that?"

Genma suddenly jolted up from his chair and ran in the direction of the noise.

"H-Hey!"

Nagisa sprinted after him.

Genma stopped abruptly on his tracks and hadn't Nagisa been a trained shinobi, she would've crashed into him.

"What the he-" - she began, only to shut her mouth close when she noticed why Genma had halted.

"Haruno-san? Who is that?"

The medic nin glanced briefly over her shoulder to see who was addressing her and then turned her head towards the male on the ground before answering.

"He's Uchiha Sasuke."

~….SSF4E….~

He didn't think, he concluded.

How foolish he had been. Orochimaru never intended on helping him avenge his clan, he only needed his body, his eyes. Sighing, he looked up at the sky. The heavy rain falling on him like a frozen blanket. He didn't care. He couldn't, even if he wanted to; he couldn't move. He laid on the mud, dirty, bruised, broken, bloody; barely conscious. Would the outcome of this battle been any different if he had never left Konoha? Would he have gotten stronger enough to kill his brother without having to sever his ties? He closed his eyes and shook his head (which he regretted right after, as a searing pain shot through it). This wasn't the time to think about the past. What was done could not be undone.

Funny how things work; it was precisely the past that led him to where he is now.

He wasn't able to kill Itachi.

Yep, I made my own "Sasuke comes back" bit. I always told myself that I wouldn't because, obviously, it's the most cliche-ed topic in SasuSaku world. But I think my way hasn't been written yet. (Please don't kill me if it has.)

I had trouble placing the flashbacks. :S There seemed to be no good place to put them.

About the OC Nagisa: yes, she doesn't like Kakashi (or does she? ;)). (I love him though, so don't harass me, 'kay?) I got her name from Clannad, which I strongly recommend. (Not suitable for those with a weak heart, though. I've never cried so hard while watching anime. It really pulls at your heart strings.)

The information about the two different Jounin classes (which I didn't know until I read about it) were taken from my most awesome possession: "Naruto: The Official Fanbook".

Review now, please! :D