Well hello everyone! I'm back! And guess what?? You are about to read the first chapter of the sequel to my story, "The Sum of Black & White", which I have titled..."UNSTABLE"!!

Please feel free to go back to "T.S.o.B & W" if you need to recap, and know that this story begins 3 years after the end of the first story, and Mariko is now 20 years old.

This first chapter is a bit angsty, but it's important for setting the scene, mood and plot. I really hope that you like it and that you're all as excited as I am about this story!

Once again, music is key in the writing of this story. The song that inspired the title of this story is "Unstable" by Adema and pretty much can be applied throughout the entire story, but the chapterly music is the same as it is in the first story. If you have any musical suggestions, please send them my way!

Also, reviews are a vital part of my writing, because it lets me know what you, my lovely readers, are thinking, what you like/don't like, and how I can improve myself as a writer. I do appreciate constructive criticism, however, I do NOT appreciate people writing nasty comments or insults that are totally unhelpful. If you're going to say something critical, at least say it respectfully, m'kay??

Alright, I think that's all I have to blurb about for the moment :) I hope you enjoy, and please don't forget to leave me a review so I know if I'm going in the right direction!

Thanks! Much love!

-Keita

P.S. I'll do my disclaimer now, so there's no trouble. It applies throughout the entire story: I don't own any canon Naruto characters, just Mariko and my other OCs. I also can't claim ownership of the awesome songs that are used throughout the story T-T, but I DO claim ownership of my lovely pink Zune, which I use to listen to those songs :D

Music: Title Track: "Shattered By Broken Dreams" by Avenged Sevenfold; End Credits: "Lost!" by Coldplay; Others: "Beautiful Love" by The Afters, "Burn" by Alkaline Trio, "Viva La Vida" by Coldplay, "Warmness on the Soul" by Avenged Sevenfold

Shattered By Broken Dreams

I see you fading away from us,

I'll miss you very much

Room with empty bottles, broken dreams

And pride still running high

Always on your side

But I wanted more for you

You can't go on this way

Now I see it all fall through

We pray for better days

--"Shattered By Broken Dreams"

The man ran through the trees as fast as he possibly could, which wasn't very fast at all. His breathing was rapid and sweat poured over his large body; his round face showed nothing but fear. Finally, he burst forth from the trees into a large open field. His foot caught a stone and he was sent plummeting to the ground. He rolled over into a sitting position just in time to see his pursuer quickly and noiselessly enter the field like a streak of black lightning.

"Please! Please, don't kill me!" he begged, edging away from the dark form that was closing in on him like a wraith.

His wide-eyed and fearful gaze was met by the vehement crimson one of his attacker.

She was like a demon, with her coldly beautiful face, long, black hair and blood-red eyes. She was incredibly fast and made almost no sound as she moved. Her figure was slender and feminine, yet the powerful way that she carried herself made it easy to see that she was far from weak.

He felt that it would be pointless to try and plead for his life, but he knew that there was no way he would ever outrun her.

"Please!" he cried again, "I have a family…a wife and children! Who will take care of them-…"

"Shut up," the assailant hissed dangerously. He obeyed, uttering a small, pitiful whimper of fright as a cloud passed across the moon, momentarily blacking out every feature on her face save for those burning eyes.

When the moon was once more uncovered, she reached a hand into her billowing black-and-red cloak and drew out a sword; the moonlight glinted off the blade, causing a fresh sheen of sweat to form on his brow.

As she advanced on him again, he made one last, desperate plea. "Please! Think of my children! What will they do without their father?"

"Spare me the lies," the woman growled. "I want you to know that even though you're worth more to me alive than dead, I'm going to kill you anyways. What you did to those girls was unforgivable. I'd much rather deal with you myself than let your village determine your fate. Now you will die knowing the same feeling of fear that those girls felt when you came for them."

"No! NO!" he cried as she raised her sword – nearly blinding as it caught the full moon light – and brought it down swiftly and accurately, instantly cutting off his sobbing entreaties for mercy.

She watched with an impassive expression as the dark blood slowly began staining the grass as it seeped out of the large laceration marring the now-dead man's fat neck; the terrified expression was frozen on his face.

Reverently, she wiped her blade clean on her cloak and re-sheathed it.

"Now for the fun part," she said unenthusiastically, pulling a length of rope from her cloak and using it to tie the man's ankles together before hoisting the rope over her shoulder and beginning to drag his heavy body along, back in the direction that they had come from.

As she walked, her eyes changed from scarlet to silver; she would change them back before she encountered any of the villagers – they seemed much more intimidated by the abnormal blazing red eyes than her natural silver ones, and she found that intimidation worked best for her when dealing with collecting bounties, especially if the target was a DOA; fewer questions were asked.

She sighed heavily and paused a moment to turn her ethereal silver gaze upward to the full moon, hanging in the clear, black sky. For a split second, her harsh eyes softened and a look of almost longing came over her face, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. She slung the end of the rope over her shoulder and began to haul her obese quarry onward once again.

"I still don't see why you felt it necessary to kill him when the village council most certainly would have sentenced him to death anyways! That was a good fifty thousand extra that we could have had!"

"I wasn't after him for the money; this one deserved a death that fitted his crimes, and the village isn't that uncivil."

"But you are?"

Icy silver eyes glared at the miser, but no answer was given. "Let's go home."

He could smell the blood on her before she entered, and when she did – followed closely by her partner – one look at her stony face, so like his own, told him that the night had been another full of bloodshed for her.

Their eyes met briefly; she looked away first and made her way down the hall to her room without greeting anyone.

He sighed and wearily rubbed the corners of his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. He had thought that three years would have been more than enough time for her to recover from the traumatic events that had occurred back in Konoha. She had begun eating regularly again after a few weeks and she was talking within a month, but she had never been the same; she had become more like him: stoic and empty. She was no longer the energetic and happy young girl that she had been before.

He knew better than anyone the mental damage that could result from seeing someone you loved killed, but what he hadn't known before was the pain it caused loved ones left alive who had to witness the frightening changes. This new knowledge caused him to feel more sympathy for his brother, who had been the one to see him in his altered state.

He didn't have any idea how to help her now. He had done all he could think of, but he felt that the rest was up to her; she had to be the one to pull herself back together. Still, he hated feeling so helpless.

She heard a soft knock on the door.

"Come in," she responded softly, not moving from her face-up position on her bed.

He entered and a sad smile crossed his face when he saw her on her back, staring up at nothing in particular.

"That ceiling's pretty interesting, huh?" he joked lightly.

"I'm just thinking," she murmured in reply.

He crossed the room and flopped down on the bed next to her, tucking his arms behind his head, also looking up at the ceiling, his blond hair spilling all over.

"I miss him, Dei," she whispered so softly that he almost couldn't hear her.

He turned his blue eyes on her sad face. "I know, but you're causing your father to slowly go insane with this constantly quiet attitude - which is actually a bit funny, since now you're just like he is. But still, we'd all rather have the Mariko we know back, yeah. This depression is starting to wear off on all of us…even Tobi."

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to hurt any of you. It's just that…" she trailed off.

"What?"

"It's been three years. I've been running around with Kakuzu, playing bounty hunter and doing whatever Leader tells me to, and I don't know how much longer I can keep this up…not really doing anything to help him."

Deidara could see how much three years had changed her. At twenty, she already looked exhausted and a heaviness had settled on her soul to accompany the cloudy aura that surrounded her.

He and the others knew she had grown up far too quickly, her experience outweighing her knowledge of the world and life. There had been nothing that they could do to change that; they had only been there for her in every way they could as often as they could. It had been enough for awhile, but none of them could be what Hidan had been to her.

The blond sighed and reached out a hand to gently and just-barely touch the black-haired girl's shoulder; he caught a piece of her jet hair and softly twisted it between his fingers. She turned her head and looked into his clear blue eyes. It was funny in a strange way how much Deidara reminded her of her stepfather, Naruto. Not only did they both have blond hair and incredibly blue eyes, but they were both so loving and protective of her.

Mariko hadn't been back to Konoha since the night Hidan had traded places with her as their prisoner. She found that from time to time her heart ached for her mother and her Konoha family; Sasuke, Neji, Naruto and her younger siblings and cousins. She couldn't go back though. Not only had Leader prohibited it, but her father had as well, basically telling her that he didn't trust her to be so close to Hidan and not try to pull off some elaborate rescue that would only result in him losing her again.

By managing to acquire use of her Byakugan vision and learning the Gentle Fist fighting style of the Hyuuga clan while in Konoha, as well as already being capable of using her Sharingan, her value to Akatsuki had shot up. Leader had told her that she just needed "training and refining", whatever the hell that meant.

She rolled the ring Three on her finger thoughtfully; her ring, Hidan's ring.

A glance out the window told Mariko that the full moon was still high and that the night was clear. She sat up and Deidara released the strand of black hair he had been holding.

"I need to go out," she said.

"Out? Where? It's the middle of the night, un," he said, also sitting up and watching as she grabbed her red-cloud-printed cloak and pulled it on.

"I just need to be alone for a little while. Don't worry; I'll be back in a bit."

Deidara wasn't worried that she was going outside in the middle of the night – he knew perfectly well that she was able to defend herself against enemies – he was worried about protecting her from herself. The lack of sleep combined with roving the woods at night while the temperature had been steadily declining were bound to take their toll on her sooner or later.

But, like Itachi, he didn't know what else he could do for her. He would continue to be there for her and talk to her and do anything he could to help her; from the moment the explosions artist had met the newborn baby with silver eyes, he had sworn to himself that he would always protect her. But he couldn't slay her personal demons; no matter how perfect his art or physically strong he was, he would never be able to get rid of them for her.

She knew the seasons were changing; the nights were getting colder. Even now, her breath misted in the frigid night air as she took it in long drags, letting the coldness freeze her lungs and burn her throat. She shivered involuntarily and drew her cloak a little closer around her shoulders. Like the ring, the cloak had been Hidan's before it was hers, and if she concentrated, she could still detect his scent embedded in the fibers. That wonderful, spicy autumn smell; of course, now that the actual season was upon them, she sometimes wondered if it was really his smell, or if her mind was just tricking her into thinking it was.

A chill breeze blew, tangling her long ponytail and the two pieces of hair that framed her face. She closed her eyes momentarily as she let the wind numb her face, then she started forth into the trees, glowing as they were bathed in the moon's beams.

Had she been paying more attention to her surroundings, Mariko might have noticed the black-clad figure stalking her from the trees above. It was the figure of someone who had seen her before and who would be able to handle the girl as long as she was by herself.

Yakushi Kabuto ghosted along through the treetops, keeping a close eye on the dark-haired girl below him. She seemed unaware of his presence, but he knew that he was close enough that she could easily detect him; she could be pretending not to notice him. However, as he continued following her, he became more and more confident that she really didn't know he was there.

Kabuto was a strategic and patient man; he was willing to wait as long as it took to carry out his plan. That opportunity presented itself when the Uchiha girl stopped walking and gracefully leapt up to the lower hanging branches of a tree and sat with her back against the trunk.

The medic-nin moved so that he was positioned directly above her. Once he was certain that she was truly oblivious to his presence, he quietly withdrew a loaded syringe from the pouch on his belt and used his teeth to delicately uncap the needle. It was a little risky, he knew; there was always the chance that he would stab himself if something went wrong. But he also knew that his success depended on the element of surprise, and he couldn't afford to waste even fractions of a second later on.

Three…two…one…

Even with her amazingly fast reflexes, Mariko wasn't able to react before she felt the sting of the needle in her neck. She instantly dropped from the tree and into a crouch on the ground, jumping up immediately to either fight or run, but found that within seconds, she was barely able to see, much less stand. She fell to the ground, trying to push herself up on her feet, only to sway and stumble before falling back down to her knees. She was doing her best to fight off the blackness that was beginning to cloud her vision, but she was losing.

The last thing she remembered before going unconscious was the shape of a man wearing glasses walking toward her.

Kabuto smirked as he stashed the re-capped syringe in his belt pouch. He looked over the seemingly lifeless form of the girl on the ground, then bent down and hoisted her up over his shoulder. A quick adjustment of his glasses and a look around to make sure that none of the other Akatsuki members had managed to sneak up on him and he was off.

He went as fast as he possibly could; there was no way he was going to give Akatsuki – especially Itachi – even the slightest chance to catch up to him. He wasn't capable of going as fast as he normally could because of the added weight of his catch, but he was still going at a breakneck pace.

The sun was just breaking over the eastern horizon when he entered the borders of Sound. Kabuto was exhausted and there was a film of sweat across his brow, but his smile was triumphant. He knew that Lord Orochimaru would be pleased, no, ecstatic, when he showed up with the daughter of Uchiha Itachi and Hyuuga Hinata, a possessor of both Sharingan and Byakugan.

Kabuto could only imagine the praises that his Lord would bestow on him, as well as granting him endless resources and supplies for his medical research. As he pressed forward towards Orochimaru's compound, Kabuto was all smiles.

Itachi was up before the rest of the Akatsuki. He had wanted to check in on Mariko. It had become a habit lately; he would look in on her and watch her sleeping for a little while, just like he had when she was a baby.

He went to her room and silently opened the door, only to be met with the sight of her bed, empty and still made; obviously, she hadn't slept in it that night.

She must have fallen asleep outside, he thought as he exited the lair and headed towards the treeline.

He searched the entire forest for her; even with his Sharingan activated, he couldn't pick up the faintest sign of her. He was beginning to grow panicked.

Uchiha Itachi wasn't an affectionate man, but he would always love his brother, Hyuuga Hinata and his daughter, unconditionally. He could feel his chest tightening up at the thought of losing her, just like it had three years ago when he realized that she had been captured by Konoha.

He was becoming so inwardly frantic that he nearly missed the small area where the grass was crushed down and fragments of bark, scraped off from the tree branch above, lay crumbled.

Years of ANBU training in tracking techniques allowed him to make an assessment in seconds. Obviously, Mariko had been attacked here; she had been in the tree and the attacker had come from above. Itachi wasn't sure how the enemy had managed to take his daughter by surprise; being able to utilize both Sharingan and Byakugan, she should have been able to see anyone within a radius of at least a mile of her.

Something caught his eye; something that was out of place and would be obvious only to a well-trained eye: a thread. One single, purple thread was caught on a blade of grass. Itachi bent down to gingerly pluck it from the grass between his thumb and forefinger; he brought it close to his scarlet eyes in order to better study it.

He gave it a sniff. He was no Inuzuka, but his sense of smell was sharp enough to pick up on the distinct smell of formaldehyde.

His brain began to put all the pieces together: Mariko was taken in the middle of the night by one person who had the means to subdue her alone. This person had been wearing purple and spent a lot of time in a hospital or working with medical supplies. He could think of only one person who would possess all these attributes: the snake-bastard's medic.

A dangerous, grim smile crept onto his face. "So, Orochimaru, you think that you can send your goon here to steal my daughter and actually get away with it?" His eyes flashed with anger, but his voice remained level.

Itachi's hand closed into a fist at the thought of the snake-like man being anywhere near Mariko. He already knew that she had had a run in with Orochimaru years ago in Konoha, and that she had been the victor in their little spar, but this was totally different; she was going to be in his territory this time, and Orochimaru was full of nasty tricks and surprises.

In the blink of an eye, Itachi had turned and was practically flying back to the lair.

I will kill that spineless, ground-dwelling piece of shit if it's the last thing I do, he thought as he ran along.

Back in the safety of Orochimaru's compound, Kabuto took a few seconds to catch his breath. He used his free hand to wipe a trickle of sweat from his forehead and to readjust his glasses before continuing further into the darkened building.

With Mariko still slung over his shoulder, he made his way down the windowless hallways to the room adjacent to Kimimaro's; there was a cot there that he could leave the girl on until she woke up. There was also a decent lock on the door, so she wouldn't be able to slip out once she woke up.

Kabuto glanced over at Kimimaro as he passed by him; the pale man was asleep in his capsule-like bed. He had a grimace on his face and he twitched a little; the medic briefly wondered what his patient was dreaming about.

Continuing on to the room behind Kimimaro's, Kabuto easily deposited the light girl onto the cot. He stepped back, rolling and massaging his shoulder that had carried her all the way from the Akatsuki territory, and studying the girl before him.

One of the long pieces of hair had fallen over her face; he reached out and carefully brushed it away so that he could see her clearly.

"Beautiful," he smirked, walking away and making sure to shut and lock the door behind him. He set the key next to one of the computer monitors as he paused to type something in and turned to watch as a fluorescent mixture of pain killers, antibiotics and vitamins and minerals began to slowly make its way down an IV line and disappear as it was pumped into Kimimaro's arm.

The Kaguya shivered slightly and gave a short whimper, but he didn't wake. Kabuto sighed; he knew that no matter what, Kimimaro would never recover enough to be the strong host body that Lord Orochimaru had hoped he would be.

The medic wasn't entirely sure what Orochimaru's plans regarding the Uchiha girl were, but he had no doubt that all would be revealed to him in time.

Just because I'm losing doesn't mean I'm lost

Doesn't mean I'll stop

Doesn't mean I would cross

Just because I'm hurting doesn't mean I'm hurt

Doesn't mean I didn't get what I deserved

No better and no worse

--"Lost!"