Yeah, started a new story. Actually I started this over a year ago but just started on it again a few weeks ago. I can't promise that it'll be updated regularly (I'm kinda busy and inspiration comes in fits and starts) but I will finish this. I have everything outlined, I just have to write it out. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks to Zadien for all of her encouragement and brainstorming sessions.

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. This story and any unrecognizable characters are mine.

Thicker Than Water

Sasuke finally returns to Konoha and learns of the pain he caused and the loved ones left behind he didn't know he had.

1.

Uchiha Sasuke knelt in the crook between boughs, onyx eyes sweeping over the undergrowth while his chakra brushed over his young companion, who crouched on an adjacent tree. Despite the heat and sweat beading on the nine-year-old's skin, he had yet to hear a complaint since they had started out that morning. He had briefly considered commenting on her silence and then decided against it upon seeing the girl fan herself with a loose bandage. Her brow was creased in concentration as she strained her eyes to search the area just as he did.

After a long minute Sasuke relaxed his posture and dropped his hand from the katana at his waist. The foreign chakra had finally passed and he straightened, subtly stretching the cramped muscles of his legs while the girl leaped to share his branch and level him with a glare.

"See, this is why I hate being a nuke-nin. We have to hide all the time and this sucks. Why can't we be normal shinobi, huh?"

Sasuke didn't reply. It was an old argument, varying only in the increasing desperation in her voice so instead he began to run across the trees, chakra aiding his feet as he set an easy but ground-eating pace. The girl snorted and tossed her long dark blue hair over her shoulder before starting after him, lengthening her stride until she ran beside him. "Bad choices in the past, grudges and all that shit-" she stuck her tongue out at him when he glanced at her because of her language and continued, "but you seriously suck as a conversationalist and I'm getting tired of talking at you because it's like talking to a fucking wall-"

"Megumi." A hint of warning colored the smooth, deep voice of the older shinobi and he glanced back to narrow his eyes at her through wayward bangs.

"See, you only respond to scold me for swearing. You never talk and I'm a kid and a girl if you haven't noticed and I'm used to talking!"

Sasuke wondered again why he had agreed to take his late brother's daughter with him because she was more of a pain than Karin had ever been with her incessant flirting and outrageous behavior, which he had not been oblivious to, as Suigetsu had often (loudly) observed.

Somehow, Sasuke was always saddled with irritating women. It never failed and he supposed, in some twisted way to survive, he had become used to it.

"I bet you're not even listening to me. You seriously suck, you know that? You ignore me and then protect me and you make absolutely no sense sometimes and I'm sick of spending all my time trying to figure out what you're thinking because you're impossible. I can take care of myself! Fuck, why did I even leave-"

Sasuke slammed chakra into his feet the instant he felt it and his hand snapped out to grab Megumi's collar and keep her from colliding with the kunai that buried itself into a trunk two feet away. The girl stared blankly at it for a second and then her body responded the way it had been trained, her fingers reaching for kunai of her own, body lowered into a fighting stance. Sasuke frowned. She hadn't reacted as quickly as he would have liked.

Dark irises bled to red with swirling black tomoe and Sasuke quickly assessed the situation while he sensed Megumi struggling to do the same without the aid of the Sharingan. The enemy shinobi were approaching rapidly in a pincer formation that felt only mildly sloppy. Because he sensed no jounin, he assumed it was a chuunin team.

"Defend yourself," he said sharply, noting the flash of pride in her eyes before he darted left to meet a shinobi head on, katana unsheathed, and sliced clean through the arm reaching forward to strike his heart. Sasuke deftly avoided the splatter of blood and fell back to his bough, tomoe swirling as he studied the damage and checked to be sure Megumi was holding her own. To his satisfaction she was. She held two short blades to block both shinobi as they attacked and turned with their momentum, adding chakra to her feet to leap upward and used their locked blades as a pivot to swing her sandaled foot into one shinobi's throat.

"Fucking bastard!"

Sasuke turned his attention back to the shinobi and fought the urge to retort with the instinctive "dobe" and instead shot forward to imbed his katana in the shinobi's gut, twisting and slicing cleanly upward to sever through the ribs, collar bone and shoulder. A drop of blood splattered over his cheek and he flicked it off absently as he cleaned the blade on a clean portion of the dead shinobi's jacket.

Sasuke crouched down to watch the battle below, where Megumi had sliced one shinobi's cheek while the other lay unconscious on the forest floor. The elite nuke-nin dropped to the ground and held a kunai to the injured shinobi's throat, swiftly judging him otherwise to be harmless having both legs broken and one arm sliced cleanly off while the other had a severed artery at the elbow.

Gray eyes fluttered open and blinked in shock before narrowing in fury when recognition struck. "Damn Uchiha-"

Ah. Mist nin.

His voice was cut off abruptly when Sasuke drove a second kunai deep into his gut. His free hand searched the prone shinobi's pockets, well aware that the shinobi was attempting to avoid his Sharingan and failing. Dark amusement almost curved his mouth into a smile. A nasty reputation was a handy thing.

"What, you just gonna ignore the girl?" the Mist nin snapped, attempting to snarl and then realized he was looking into Sasuke's eyes and looked down again.

Sasuke twisted the kunai and watched as the shinobi winced. His fingers grasped a small scroll in an inner pocket and held it up to the light, studying the ink strokes before he pocketed it.

"Fuck you," the Mist nin spat, struggling under the dark-haired shinobi's grip.

The kunai slid upward, slicing from stomach to sternum. Blood oozed from the wound and began staining the long grass beneath them, turning it a rusty brown and filling the air with the metallic tang of death. Mist nins had the most eloquent vocabulary.

Megumi tossed the body of her opponent onto the ground beside Sasuke and savagely kicked his head as she wiped a trail of blood from her shoulder. "This shirt was new, asshole," she grumbled, fingering the black tank that was now missing a strap and revealed the wraps around her chest. She paused, watching Sasuke remove a second scroll from the still struggling Mist nin and grinned, dropping to her knees and rifling through the corpse's pockets until she brought out a handful of coins. "You can just buy me a new one then. Can we go shopping after this?"

Sasuke grunted in response as he slit the throat of the shinobi beneath him and straightened. "Clean your blades as we move," he instructed. He began walking through the undergrowth, allowing the long grass to clean the blood from his sandals. He only registered Megumi throwing up her arms in exasperation and then a loud rip as she tore part of one of the fallen nin's shirts to clean her blades as she walked.

The Mist nins' mission has been a simple one and deemed of low importance, which meant that his capture and death was not as sought after as it had been five years ago. While Mist was still not the safest country to travel in, it was not a constant battle to get through any longer.

It was still rather insulting that they would send three chuunin to kill him.

Apparently it was a new thing to send useless shinobi to their death by ordering them to kill him. Rookies on suicide missions. Perhaps he should have been amused at his unofficial position as executioner of the useless but he wasn't.

At least Megumi had taken care of herself. Her skills had grown rapidly within the past year and he only had to deal with her incessant chatter while sparring with her during breaks in travel. When they had first begun traveling together he had immediately placed a kunai in her hand and taught her to use it. It had been a relief to see that she was a quick study and competent with her hands after so many years of thieving and fending for herself on the streets.

She still had the tendency to lose her concentration on the world around her when she ranted at him for one reason or another.

"See, if we were part of a Village then we wouldn't be attacked all the time," Megumi said loudly, taking one of the bandages off her arm and tying it tightly around a long gash on her thigh. She looked up briefly to see his flickered glance and rolled her eyes. "Okay fine, aside from missions and stuff but still. We won't be getting attacked when we're shopping then. And would it kill you to give me a compliment once in a while? I mean those were chuunin right? I must be pretty good if I can beat chuunin-"

Sasuke flicked his eyes to see her walking beside him. "You were distracted and careless."

Megumi's head snapped up and she scowled, a light flush coloring her pale cheeks. "It was just-"

"No." Dark eyes narrowed into an intimidating glare and she gulped. "You are an Uchiha. Act like it."

The girl flushed and then glared at him. "What, you want me to be an emotionless jerk like you?" She kicked a stone and watched in satisfaction as it embedded itself into the tree bark. "If that's what it's like I don't want to be an Uchiha. I'll be… maybe just a different Uchiha. A better one. I'll be the first Uchiha to have friends." She sent him another glare and stomped off in a huff, leaving Sasuke with the urge to roll his eyes at his immature companion and the sanity he seemed to lack in his decision to keep her with him.

Megumi paused in her stomping and bit out, "So… where are we going, anyway."

Sasuke shook his head and with a burst of chakra, leaped up into the trees without waiting to see if Megumi followed.

Girls were so annoying.

There's chapter one. Review, or else I won't know what I did wrong or right with this. (That and I'm a review whore, but y'know...)