Cha-i is pronounced 'Kay-eye'
/Flashback/
It was raining heavily. The only things distinguishable were blurs of orange and blue, going around each other, slamming into each other. The sound of swords hitting Kunai knives, water under exhausted feet. She was sitting on top of one of the statues in the Valley, watching it all happen. She knew this had to happen. The same battle they had fought when they were 12 years old. The raven-haired boy was about to leave for Orochimaru then. Now Sasuke came back for something. He didn't have it. Yet. He was waiting for her to show up, not knowing she was already there waiting for the right time. She just had to hope the 'Cha-i' she was waiting for came soon. She didn't want to have to wait much longer or the raven would not make it.
There it was. She looked up and saw a small piece of writing going over her eyes.
:: She jumped in between the two battling forces, getting struck with the killing blows both had intended for each other. ::
She stood up and looked down, waiting for the blond boy to jump at Sasuke one last time. She saw Naruto ready himself, Sasuke not far behind. She knew this was going to hurt, but there was no other way. Right below her both boys jumped up and ran towards each other. She took one step forward, and tumbled down the cliff.
/End Flashback/
"SASUKE! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO? WHERE THE FUCK DID SHE COME FROM?!" I could hear someone fall down next to me, his knees hitting the wet grass, the rain patting off his soaked jacket. His voice was obnoxiously loud next to me, but I couldn't respond. I couldn't even move. It was so cold. "Dammit Naruto, I don't know." Sasuke's voice got closer as he spoke. Did he kneel? I don't know. I can't see. "I don't know…" His voice was so soft. So calm. So like Sasuke. Then again, he knew something Naruto didn't. I could hear the thunder rolling over the Valley in the distance. It was so soft, everything was so soft. It was such a pity, the Valley of the End is so beautiful when it rains.
I can't see. I could feel someone sliding his arms under my knees and my back, slowly lifting me of the floor. It was such a gentle gesture that it must've been Sasuke. Naruto would've been rougher. My long red hair swooped behind me, soaked from the wet grass and the rain, dripping heavily onto the ground. I could feel the wind picking up. We we're moving. Naruto was still behind us, his voice barely a whisper, just loud enough for Sasuke to hear. "Where are you going with my big sister, Teme?" We stopped moving. I could feel Sasuke shaking slightly, yet not enough for Naruto to see. An Uchiha didn't shake, nor did he shiver, nor did he cry. "She was never your sister. She's mine. And an Uchiha deserves a proper funeral." We didn't start moving again. Was he waiting for Naruto's reply? Maybe. "She's an Uzumaki by blood teme, and we all know that now." "Even so, she grew up an Uchiha, her surname is Uchiha, so she deserves what is right for her. Blood or no blood." His voice trembled. Did Naruto hear? Did he hear that Sasuke really didn't want to leave, but wanted to stay alongside him. To kiss him and hold him all night? Probably not. We started running, Sasuke shaking more each step, but not able to stop. The last thing I heard was the sound of Naruto crying out.
"I'M COMING FOR YOU SASUKE. YOU BELONG HERE AND SO DOES MY SISTER. DON'T LEAVE ME HERE ALL ALONE. I … I love you…"
My body hurts in places I didn't even know existed. I try to fall back into the peaceful slumber, but my mind doesn't let me. I feel myself swaying, trying to remember what happened, where I was. I opened my eyes and immediately shut them again, blinded by the sudden light invading my vision. I let out a small groan at that and all of a sudden everything stopped moving. I opened my eyes again and saw a couple of raven locks from the corner of my eye, a blue clothed shoulder beneath and an entire forest of green and brown up ahead. Sasuke leaned back and put me down against the trunk of a tree, turning around and crouching in front of me. "Are you okay?" I nodded groggily, not feeling fine at all, but he knew that. "You should've never jumped there. We could've killed you, you know. Are you insane?" He snapped quietly. He didn't yell. It's not the Uchiha way. I growled at him. "I just did what I was told to do, you know that. You knew I would've appeared at some point, but you got caught up in the battle. You could've been a bit nicer." "I struck a nerve that nearly paralyzed you. Be grateful you're still alive." We paused, both needing a break. I wasn't even really mad, knowing it would've hurt, but also knowing I wouldn't have died. There was just a lot of pent up anger at the moment. "Alice, I'm…" "He believed it didn't he?" I cut him off. I didn't want my brother to apologize too me, I can't bear with it. It would hurt both of our prides, damn Uchiha's. He didn't respond for quite a while, but I didn't push for an answer either. After a while he nodded, whispering softly and looking away. "Yeah, I think he did. He thinks you're dead." I looked down at the tree trunk below me, fiddling with the hem of my blue jacket slightly. "What do we do now?" I whispered. I didn't know what else to say. We we're basically dead and gone. Well, I was anyway. "There will be a manhunt soon, for the both of us. Maybe it's best if we run along home." I turned my head and looked into his eyes. Home. It has been so long since someone said that to me, while actually wanting me to be there. I have been so alone for the past couple of years. I was so happy, even though every inch of my body was bruised and hurt like hell. "Thanks for getting me out of there, Nii-san." I let out a broad grin. One that showed I was definitely NOT an Uchiha. I was an Uzumaki by blood.
/Flashback/
"Alice, Sasuke, Itachi, your mother wants you in the kitchen. NOW." Their father yelled from the docks. The three ran up the hill back to the mansion, all of them storming through the back door where the smell of freshly baked cookies came up to greet them. The two youngest children, around the age of 8, got in first and glomped their mothers legs. The girl had long red hair that reached to her waist, pulled up into a ponytail, wearing a poufy light blue dress that matched her hair and her striking dark grey eyes. The boy had raven colored hair and wore a dark blue shirt and black knee length pants. His onyx eyes looked up at his mother, smiling. Their brother walked in after them, bowing at his mother. He wore a black shirt and black trunks, his hair pulled back in a low tail. "Kaa-san" was all he said. The boy was slightly older than the other two. Their mother beamed a smile and looked at Itachi. "You don't have to be so formal with me son, come and give mom a hug!" She crouched down and took the two youngest in her arms, looking for the third one to join. He looked around nervously, trying to spot someone. "Tou-san isn't here, you are safe." At that Itachi sprang forward and engulfed his mother and siblings in a giant bear hug. The little girl giggled and the mother smiled, enjoying the warmth her children gave her. After a while she let them go, standing back up and patting the Itachi's head softly. "I backed some cookies, do you guys want some?"
The three of them were sat up on the chairs against the breakfast bar, each of them with a few cookies and a glass of cold milk. Sasuke and Alice were chatting happily about a butterfly they saw today, while Itachi was looking at them kindly. He turned to his mother when he remembered he wanted to ask the woman something. "Kaa-san, why is it that Alice-nee had to get her Sharingan from our cousin. Did she not have one of her own? She seems so young still for the Sharingan to develop. Even Sasuke doesn't have it yet." Mikoto froze at that. She didn't want to tell her children yet. Didn't want to tell the boys their little sister was not really their sister, but someone else's child. Nobody knew. The entire village was in the dark about the older Namikaze sibling. She and Naruto had been twins, but at the time of their birth, Alice had been older. She was born first, and somehow she was taken away, and brought here for safekeeping. Mikoto wasn't fighting in the war, just having had Sasuke, and still recovering. Alice never left the manor. She never told the little girl the truth, raising her as her own, in memory of her best friend. She stood up, deciding she didn't want to lie at the children either. They were old enough, hopefully they'd understand. Hopefully the boys wouldn't shun the girl. Leaning over the counter, the beautiful raven woman smiled kindly upon all of her children, the youngest two also turning their attentions toward her. She started softly. "Well, it may be time I told you this then, though there is no easy way to tell." The children looked at her curiously, not really sure of what the woman was going at. "You guys know that little Alice has a different hair-color than all of us right? And a different color eyes?" Sasuke nodded, looking to the side and smiling at his sister. "Nee-chan's hair is so pretty and red. It's almost like fire in the sunlight!" he exclaimed happily. Itachi merrily nodded. Alice smiled at Sasuke, and looked back at her mother. "Have any of you ever wondered why that is?" She watched as the two youngest began to frown, wrecking their young minds to this question. Itachi remained motionless, waiting for a couple of minutes before answering her. "She is not your and fathers child, is she?" The youngest brothers eyes got bigger, staring at her sister, who had gotten silent and still, not believing what her brother just said. Her mother nodded in approval at Itachi, and then looked back at the little girl with a sad smile. "Your real parents died when you were really young. They were our very good friends, so we took you in, and raised you as our own. We love you very much, and to us, you ARE our lovely daughter." The little girl nodded, tears staring to well up in her eyes. "I l-love you too mo-mommy" she hiccupped, hiding her eyes behind her hands, sobbing slightly. Sasuke glomped onto his sister, hugging her tight, while Itachi also got up, picking the poor girl up. She latched her small arms around his shoulders, and buried her face against his neck, sobbing softly. He nodded a goodbye to his mother, and took his little sister outside, to the lake. She would calm down there. Sasuke followed at his heels.
/End Flashback/
It wasn't until years later that I learned the 4th Hokage and his wife had been my real parents. It was even longer until someone decided to tell Naruto he had a big twin sister. Tsunade had told him after Sasuke had left to be with Orochimaru. I knew Sasuke was in love with Naruto at that time. I also knew that Naruto was oblivious to it (thank god) . Now we are here, 6 years later, and Naruto still doesn't know. Orochimaru is dead, and Sasuke and his band of weirdo's (consisting Karin, Yuugo and the Idiot) joined Akatsuki. Naruto was probably staging a rescue mission right about now. Either that, or looking for the grave Sasuke made for me just outside the village. "He probably hates me now doesn't he?" His bangs were covering his face, but I knew his mind was in the gutter right about now. I had no way of cheering him up. I honestly didn't know. "You are not the one that killed me. I killed myself by jumping in between you guys. It was in no way your fault. You didn't know. You couldn't have known." I shook the memory from earlier that day from my head. The 'Cha-i' had come so late, it had nearly killed either one of her brothers. Maybe even both. I looked over my brother, looking for scars, trails of blood, or any other wound indicating he was hurt. It surprised me when I saw he didn't have any. "You didn't get hurt at all?" He stopped walking and looked down, hiding his face behind his back and mumbling. "He avoided hitting me entirely. I didn't know what was going on, I was going at him with all my might, trying to hurt him, trying to kill him. And he did his best trying to not hurt me in any way possible. I didn't know why. I still don't." He shook his head and walked on. I can't say I wasn't a little worried, but then again, Sasuke never really did tell me what was going on in his head. He was just like that ever since our parents died. "Your vision was late." Now it was my turn to stop what I was doing. He shook me from my thoughts. He wasn't supposed to know of my visions. It was supposed to be a secret. Only one person knew, and he kind of found out by accident. "How did you…?" "I've known all along. I think Itachi as well." He gritted his teeth thinking about our brother. "When we were still pretty young you always seemed to have the miraculous ability to know something was about to happen, when it would happen, and exactly how it would take place. It was almost like you were reading from a script." He laughed a little at that. "Itachi was so mad at you about that. You always seemed to know exactly where we were hiding when playing hide-and-seek. He could never win." He laughed a bit more, thinking fondly of our nii-san, as we continued our slow pace through the woods. We kept on talking casually, the heavy air lifted and almost forgotten. "They are called 'Cha-I'." "Hmm?" "The visions, they're called 'Cha-i.' You were pretty accurate when you said they are like reading a script. I can jump to other worlds, as you call them." It took him a while to process that, his brow furrowed. "Why do you have that ability? I mean, what do you do there?" the raven asked. "We are called 'Walkers. I keep an eye on how things are going there. I get a script piece, or a vision as you call it, indicating where I need to go, and what needs to be done. I then travel to the world in question, and make sure it happens." He frowned. "What if it doesn't happen?" I bit my lip. "If a world doesn't follow its script, a sort of 'glitch' occurs. It can mean the world can fall apart, or a party that was supposed to win, at the cost of one life, a life that I accidentally saved, will lose in the end, resulting in the deaths of all of them. A lot can happen if the script isn't followed." Silence again. I hated silence. "Doesn't that mean you shouldn't be part of the world, but more like a neutral occurrence." He has always been smarter than was good for him. I let out a big sigh, my head still throbbing from the beating I took. I kept trying to formulate how I could explain this to him. I mean, how the hell do you even begin to explain that you're a freak that can travel worlds, making sure nobody fucks up their path in life. "Yeah. That's what's supposed to happen. Does not count for this world though, since I was born here. I am supposed to be a part of the story here." Sasuke nodded at this, smirking slightly. "You're not doing a very good job at staying out of other people's worlds then." I shake my head at that, my voice getting thick. "I know, and someday, all of them are going to have to pay for my mistakes." Holding back the oncoming tears, I gripped Sasuke's shoulders tightly and buried my face in his neck. He remained silent after that.
'Rule number one: "Never let yourself be known by the participants of a world."
'As a Walker you need to keep yourself from joining the worlds members in their stream of time and place. Talking and associating with the people can make you join their 'script', resulting in major defects and unnatural occurrences. Disregarding of this rule may result in the disruption of said world space and time, leading to it's eradication.'
I must have fallen asleep again not too long after. My brothers running was so smooth and soothing, it was hard to stay awake. I don't know exactly how long it took us to get where we wanted to go. I didn't even know exactly where it was I was going. Sasuke was shaking his arms slightly, running them over my legs to wake me up again. "Wake up, we're almost there." I groggily opened my eyes, only to stare out across an extensive forest. Everywhere I looked the trees surrounded us. It was a beautiful place, the ground all covered in fallen leaves, the trees standing high and might above us. The birds were singing their soft music, and in the distance you could hear small forest animals scurrying for food. The filtered light from made it look so peaceful. At a second glance at the trees I frowned slightly. A lot of the trees had different kinds of marks on them. Slash marks, from a sword, burn marks. Looking even more closely I could swear I even saw some watermarks. This made my blood boil with contempt. Hell, if my pride would let me admit it, I even felt jealousy. "The bastard has been here. You trained here. With him." He saw our house before I did. I would never admit that out loud. Sasuke let out a deep sigh. He was about to say something when he whipped his head to the side, staring out into the forest. He let out a barely audible "Oh no.." before I knew what was going on. "Now that is not a nice thing to call an old friend, now is it Alice-kun?" My blood reeled. I stared straight ahead of me, not wanting to admit to the fact that the damned baka was here. He should've stayed out of my sight. I looked to the side anyway as I saw two people appear. Yuugo and the water-punk stepped out of the shadows of the trees. I frowned. Two? Before I could think any further Sasuke let go of me, letting me fall harshly to the floor. I yelped in pain as my sore body hit the hard floor, but when I looked up I saw why. Just a second after he dropped me he got tacked by a dash of red and purple. There's my number three. It was all I thought when I looked up apologetically at my big brother. "Hello Karin." The venom was dripping off of his lips as he spoke the words. The girl didn't seem to notice. "Sasuke-kuuuuuuun. Don't leave me alone with those bastards so long agaaaaaain." Her voice got more annoying by the minute, as she grabbed hold of his arm as to emphasize her pain. I could swear I saw Sasuke's eyes turn an even darker shade of black, but didn't comment on it. Instead I looked to the side, where the original voice had come from. "Old friends? Have we ever been friends, baka?" I couldn't bring myself to be polite to him at all. Not after nearly drowning me 'as a joke.' He rolled his eyes at me. "Get over yourself, little girl." We just stood there scowling at each other for a while, before Sasuke broke the tense silence. "Will you two cut it out? Why are the three of you here?" Suigetsu broke eye contact with me, and looked up to face my older brother. Yuugo had walked over to me and helped me up, keeping an arm on my waist for support. He was a kind man, I always wondered how he had gotten stuck on the bad side of life. He was the one that spoke. "We can't just come up and greet you?" "No." Suigetsu sighed. "Madara wants to see you. About you leaving without notice and… other things." He glanced at me from the corner of his eyes, and I couldn't help but feel bad for getting Sasuke in trouble. I could hear Sasuke let out a hush of air. I highly doubt anyone else heard it though. An Uchiha doesn't show those emotions. "Fine, tell him I will meet with him shortly. I am taking her home first. Now scram." They bowed slightly, knowing it would be a bad choice to tag along when he was in this mood. They disappeared with the wind. "At least they still know how to listen, ne?" I said jokingly. Sasuke walked up to me, and lifted me up, bridal style. I held onto his shoulder for balance. "We're almost there, and there's someone waiting for us at home." He started to run again.
We arrived at a giant tree not too long after that. I looked around, trying to locate the house I so desperately wanted to go too. I frowned when I saw nothing. "Where is it?" I asked in wonder, not knowing why we stopped at this particular place. Sasuke smirked and nodded up, glancing at the top of the trees. I followed his gaze, and there it was. Home. Up there, in the thickest branches of the tree, was a beautiful wooden house. Located up there, no normal civilian would now it was there, and even as a ninja, you had to really be searching for it in order to find it. From down here, it looked gorgeous. I couldn't help but wonder how It would look up there. "We're home." Sasuke put me down. I frowned at him as he started jumping up the branches in order to get up. Why did he leave me down there? Wasn't it much easier to just carry me up? I leaned against the trunk, not being able to stand on my feet properly, when I saw a rope fall down. I stared at in in curious amusement when Sasuke appeared right next to me again, effectively scaring the living shit out of me. "Goddammit 'suke!" He said nothing as he attached the rope around my abdomen, knotting it tightly, and pulling on it slightly to test his knots. Pleased with his work, he nodded to himself and jumped back up before I could say anything. I grumbled a low 'baka' under my breath when I felt a tug at the rope bound around me. That was all the warning I got when I got pulled up suddenly. I held in a yelp to save my pride, but quickly grabbed the rope with my hands as so u wouldn't be hanging upside down. I was being pulled up slowly but surely, all the way to the top, and a hand reached out over the edge, grabbing my arm, and pulling me up in one swing. Before I could even register where I was, I was clasped I a bear hug. I frowned a little. "Huh? Sasuke wha-" I looked over the shoulder holding me, and saw Sasuke leaning against the doorpost, smirking at me slightly before turning around and walking back indoors, leaving the rope behind. If this isn't Sasuke… then who? I looked a little to the side, seeing a lock of red hair in the corner of my eyes, feeling wet spots on my shoulder. Disbelief registered with me slowly. "L-Lavi?" I could feel a small nod from him, and wrapped my arms as fast and as tightly around him as I could. "Why are you here?" I whispered. I let him go of my grip, and pushed him back just a little, so I could take a good look at him. He was crying. I couldn't take it anymore; I put my arms around his neck and roughly pulled him closer so I could kiss him, having missed the feeling for so long. The kiss was gentle and sweet, lasting for a while, but never long enough. A foreign object hitting the back of Lavi's head broke us up. He yelped slightly and rubbed the back of his head, looking back and pouting. "Eat each other's face later, dinner's ready." I growled at my brother, not liking the interruption. My stomach though, loved the idea of food, growing loudly the minute Sasuke disappeared through he door again. I could hear my boyfriend giggle a little beside me, wiping away a tear with his free hand, whilst the other snaked around my waist, supporting me as I walked. He got me to the door and I could finally step in. I was home.