Authors note:

Love Lies Bleeding is 1/4th of four different individual stories that will be going on at the same time, and interact with each other. If you want to know the full story, and understand everything that is going on in my twist to the Naruto and Naruto S universe, i suggest you read all 4. The main plot will follow the canon Naruto storylines for Naruto and Naruto S, however my writings will be on a minor plot that will happen during the canonical story. If i have to change anything from the canon or if i add anything in, it is my own choice.

The Way Back Home is a Kakashi Hatake x OC story.
Love and Sarcasm is a Sasuke Uchiha x OC story.
and A Dangerous Secret is a Deidara x OC story.

I will be attempted to update each of these stories at least once every 2 weeks.

As always, i don't own any of the Naruto characters.
I will only claim rights to my own original characters.
You are not welcome to copying any of my OCs, and if you do want them to appear in one of your stories then please contact me first.

Please leave a review! :)

Enjoy~

09/07/2014

(Also, if anyone sees a spelling or grammar error, tell me. Because i don't have a beta reader, and i have a habit of not really editing well :/ )

Its been almost four years since her departure from the hidden leaf village, and in that time Keres has seen the world and encountered many different things in such a short time. It feels strange to her, to be so close to a home she had chosen to leave behind. A crisp wind blew from the west, rustling the crops of an abandoned farm where Keres could be found waiting atop a slowly decaying barn. The skies were a dark grey, foretelling the promise of rain. Strangely, the common humidness to the land of Fire had been lost to instead give an almost sharp cold.

Dressed in black, Keres blended into the grey landscape as she waited. For the past four years Keres has lead a solitary life; she worked alone as a mercenary, and she lived alone. Her only companion happened to be her summon, a dire wolf- the summon of her people, the Lotus clan. Zel, was given to her as a pup, and they grew up together as partners. The dire wolf is a much larger breed of canine; standing to the height of her waist, and has paws the size of a bears. All dire wolves inherit the eerie glowing green eyes that so sets them apart from their kin. The only unfortunate thing about the dire wolf is that they are a dying race, no more pups have been born for almost a decade, within the next few generations they will die out and the Lotus people will lose one of their most iconic symbols.

In her hands, Keres stroked the blade of her most favorite weapon. An elegant dagger, with a bright silver blade and a beautiful black grip with an ivory engraving of her clans symbol. The Lotus clan is often said to be deadly, for most of its people are mercenaries, and their leader is appointed off of how many people they have killed- but they are also a clan of incredible talent.

They are considered to be some of the best craftsmen in all the shinobi world- some would kill to have one of their finely crafted swords or daggers. Perhaps what makes their work so desirable is the resilience of their weapons, a blade could be passed down from generation to generation and never lose its sharpness. But the only way to gain one of these is if they are considered worthy in the eyes of the clans leader- one cannot simply purchase a blade, it must be earned.

And within her past 4 years, Keres has proven herself to be more than worthy. She is the definition of deadly. Anyone of her foes will fall to her lethal skill with her blade. Some have nicknamed her to be a demon, someone so inhuman that some do not even speak her name.

Of course the Leaf village has tried to hunt her down, she is a missing-nin after all. She is the Leaf's responsibility, in the eyes of all the other villages she is a fugitive that the Leaf cannot handle. Keres is even listed in the bingo book as a 'kill on sight' individual. But the challenge is even getting close enough to her to actually even harm her.

In the Bingo book she is described to be mentally unstable, often going into fits of anger and rage. In many cases she is uncontrollable, and the best option is simply to get as far away from her as possible. Many villages would rather they just wait out her life span till she dies, rather than risk their own good shinobi to go after some other villages missing-nin.

As Keres sat atop the roof of the barn her sharp eyes scanned the landscape. She had received word from the leader of the Akatsuki- some man only named Pein- that she was to meet two of it's members to be escorted to their base of operations. As far as she understood she would not be a member of the 10, but she would be a supporting member. Mostly to go out an do their missions and earn money for the organization. That was really fine with her. Just being an affliate of the Akatsuki put her in a position of power and opportunity.

It felt strange for her to be so close to the village that had adopted her. Her parents, just as pretty much every other apart of the Lotus clan, were mercenaries. They had been a moving family, never in one place for much longer than a few months. Keres had been barely even 8 years old when she had returned to her parents cottage from playing in the forest to find ANBU shinobi dragging her mothers bloodied dead body out from the front door.

Keres couldn't remember if the ANBU shinobi had said anything to her, because within a matter of seconds they were all on the ground bleeding out. She has absolutely no memory of what happened, only that she was filled with rage and her hands did what was natural. She ended up finding herself alone in the dense forest of the Land of Fire crying over the bodies of her mother and father.

It wasn't too long after that she had wandered through the forests to be found by a man wearing a silver headband with the engraving of a leaf. He had reminded Keres of her father and had gone with him willingly to the Hidden Leaf village. There she was sent to the academy where she was taught the basics of ninjutsu, taijutsu and genjutsu. She had remained solitary throughout it all, and had graduated the following year. She was then put on a genin team with her sensei being the same man who had found her wandering. She learned that his name was Hirokaza Inoichi. She and her two teammates; Takeo, and Chouga worked together to develop their skills.

Takeo was particularly good at genjutsu and ninjutsu. His weapon of choice had also bee a sword he carried on his back. While Chouga was more interested in medical ninjutsu. Keres had very quickly developed her skills in ninjutsu; eventually learning that she was gifted with the control of not one or two, but four of the chakra nature types; fire, earth, water and lightning. She was automatically looked at to be a prodigy and for the years following the village officials would have a constant watch on her.

Keres felt like the only person she was close to in the entire village was her sensei, Hirokaza. On a regular day, Keres could be found training in the most secluded of grounds; not many people knew about a quiet clearing that had almost been overgrown by the dense forest. Inside the trees one could find a spacious ground with room for sparring, and all types of training. Some days Hirokaza would sit up in one of the branches of one of the trees to sit back and rotate between reading his book and watch her practices.

Hirokaza knew that aside from her amazing gift to control four chakra natures, there laid a darkness in her. Something about her left her teammates unnerved and wary of her. Chouga refused to spar against her, and Takeo regardless of however hard he tried to get to know her he would forever fail. During a sparring match between Keres and Takeo she had gone into her first fit of demented anger. It was meant to be a simple practice in taijutsu and had begun it all by saying that he wanted to see everything that Keres could do. He didn't want her to hold back. She of course didn't stand down from the challenge.

During their match Hirokaza could remember how Keres had smoothly danced with her sword as she and Takeo were locked in a battle. Chouga had at that time leaned over and whispered to him that "It doesn't even look like Keres is trying..." When Takeo had the chance he switched to his ninjutsu technique of utilizing fire style. The events following that surprised Hirokaza more than anything else. Suddenly Keres was fighting differently, her movement was just as smooth but her blows to Takeo were getting more and more violent. She was frequently switching between her chakra natures until she actually allowed herself to be hit by a blast of fire, only to dash to Takeo's side to place her hand upon his exposed arm. He immediately fell to the ground in agony. He screamed saying that he could feel his arm burning, and seconds later Keres collapsed to the ground unconscious. This was the first time that Keres used her kekkei genkai.

The years following the three genin became chuunin, then they all became jonin. When it came time for the team to break up Chouga went to work in the hospital, and Takeo joined the ANBU Black Ops. Hirokaza decided that he was going to go into retirement a little earlier than expected after a mission that permanently damaged his left arm and right ankle. Keres was frequently detained to the village and when she wasn't training at her usual place, she could be found in the archive building.

Together, Keres and Hirokaza read together in the archive building. Kerres read through all sorts of texts, some decades and even centuries old. However she took a keen interest in the village conspiracies, she read through many of the documents and reports regarding the Uchiha massacre. Hirokaza read about Konoha and it's part in some of the previous wars and country politics. They were alone in doing so and because of this Keres began to open up to her sensei. She told him about her parents, and why she feels so empty on the inside. She spoke of the ease that comes from fighting and how her body just fights naturally. She told him her goal- to do something meaningful, to be remembered and make a difference.

The entire time he gave Keres his undivided attention. He very quickly learned that there is far more to her than just this seemingly dark and dangerous young girl. There was absolutely no doubt that she is a prodigy and could potentially be the greatest strength or greatest fault to Konoha. But Hirokaza had all the faith in the world for his young student.

The night that Keres left the village it was her 18th birthday. She armed herself with all the weapons she could carry and a small pack of rations, clothing and whatever money she had saved from her previous missions. She also wrote a letter to her sensei telling him thanks for all his teaching, and his patience with her. Hirokaza knew that she would never say it out loud, but he knew that he was the only person that she would ever trust, and he considered himself lucky.

As the wind blew it made Keres's long brown hair ruffle; if anyone were to look upon her from a distance they would surely have seen a wild creature and not a human being. Her eyes scanned the landscape as she waited, when suddenly she felt an immense shift in the feeling of the chakra around her. And only seconds later she watched as a pair, dressed in black cloaks with red clouds stitched to its outside walked down the path leading to her perch atop the decaying barn. Keres then jumped down from the roof and sheathed her dagger on her hip and walked to meet the pair.

As she neared the pair Keres began to study her two escorts. There was a taller one, possibly almost seven feet with blue skin and shark like features; complete with sharp pointed teeth, possibly gills on the sides of his neck and eerie silver eyes. To say the least, Keres was mildly shocked to see someone with blue skin... after all, it is odd- even the most experienced of people would treat this as a rare occasion. As she studied the blue creature further she noticed the large great sword on his back and strangely wrapped in bandages. Aside from his strange exterior he seemed to just swell a massive amount of chakra. It felt like it was radiating off of the man-shark. He's quite obviously a very powerful shinobi.

The second wearing the black and red cloak was a man much shorter than his partner, but Keres could feel the darkness to his chakra. It felt somehow so much more intimidating that just the overwhelming strength of his partner. This one is powerful in a much more skilled and deadly way. He stood at a height of about 5'10, and his long black hair draped down in bangs to frame his thin face. The man could be described as having aristocratic features, as seen from his high cheek bones and long sharp nose. When Keres looked to his eyes she was struck by the sheer hardness to his black eyes, and in that moment she knew exactly who he was- Itachi Uchiha.

When the pair and Keres met half way no one extended their hand in welcome, instead it looked like the blue creature was itching for a fight, and the shorter Uchiha kept his gaze fixed on her.

"You are the one named Keres Lotus, correct?" The Uchiha spoke, his voice sounded particularly regal to Keres's ears; the best way to describe it was that it was deep, but not overly so. And when the words rolled off his tongue they sounded calm. But they left an eerie feeling of danger.

Keres would never admit, neither to herself or another person; but deep down she knew that her best choice would be to not ever get into a fight with this man. It could very well end up being the death of her.

"Yes. And you are the Akatsuki?" she replied, and crossed her arms over her chest not even budging under the intense eyes of both the Uchiha and the shark creature.

"This is Kisame Hoshigaki." the Uchiha motioned to his partner. "And I am Itachi Uchiha. We'll be your escorts to the main establishment in Amegakure."

Keres nodded, finally she got an understanding of how far away the hideout, it would take up maybe two or three days to make it to the land of Rain. However, the weather didn't seem to favor our trip. The sky had somehow gotten even darker, and now Keres could even smell the rain sure to come. The unnatural coldness to the air threatened to send a shiver down Keres's spine, so she resulted to zipping up her own long black cloak to try and conserve heat.

"Great, lead the way."

The pair turned to begin their walk once more. Itachi and the shark walked with an even stride while Keres walked more to the right of Itachi, giving some space between them. They walked in silence for some time in silence. It felt like the shark was just itching to say something to strike up a conversation- until he finally did.

"So Missy, how old are you anyways? You seem a little young to be out here all on your own." The shark taunted with a smirk.

Keres turned her hard gaze to the blue man and kept an emotionless exterior. "I wasn't aware age mattered when it came to wether or not I could do my job."

"This one is prickly- eh, Itachi?" the shark let out a little chuckle of amusement.

Itachi didn't say anything.

"Anyways, you're from the Leaf village right?" Kisame smirked. "Looks like you've already got 2 things in common with Itachi here- you're prickly and you're both from that village."

Of course Keres already knew who Itachi Uchiha was. After all, he was part of the reason why she left that village. In her time reading in the archive building she had spent much of her time reading about the history of the Uchiha and the Senju clans that had initially built this village and all the way up to the massacre that lead to all their deaths. That is, all the deaths except for one- Itachi's younger brother, Sasuke Uchiha. In all her time being detained to the village walls she had seen the young boy around. He was popular and smart, according to the rumors. But he looked like he was angry.

Something that always puzzled Keres was why someone who had killed his entire clan leave behind one. He had killed his mother and father, cousins and even his best friend. So he obviously had no care nor interest in any of them. So what made his younger brother any different? Did he simply forget to kill the little brat? No. It has to be more then that. And as soon as she figured that out she found people following her around the village. She was being watched because she began to question one of the village's most taboo of topics. And the only reason why they would go out of their way to watch her, was if she was on the right track to the answer.

"You're annoying." Her voice sounded cold as she spoke to the shark.

The shark let out a laugh. "Aren't you the one people say is fuckin crazy?"

Keres caught the sideways glance that Itachi sent in her direction. It was as if he was waiting for her reaction. If anything, this could even be a test. If this was any other case she would have killed someone for speaking to her life that. But in this case she didn't know enough about this blue thing to actually have a fair fight. She could tell that he's obviously very powerful, and because he's apart of the Akatsuki he clearly has some kind of skill that makes him valuable. In this case, it might just be better to let that walking fish dig his own grave. So maybe it's just better to ignore him for now.

The group fell silent once more. And as they walked the rain began to fall. As they walked they had to take a direction that would actually bring them rather close to the Leaf village, or at least close enough that they could potentially run into some of its shinobi. This knowledge set Keres on edge. She had spent four years running away from or even killing some of its shinobi. At this point if they were to run into anyone it would be better to just kill them, there was no use in letting an entire village know that not one, but two of their most wanted were within striking distance.

So as they walked Keres stayed as alert as possible; she listened for the sound of puddles being splashed, or a sway in the branches of a tall tree too powerful to only be the wind. Itachi noticed her change in behavior but didn't say anything as the group continued to walk. At one point on the path they walked there was a merchant traveling in their opposing direction with a cart that was pulled by a mule. As he passed by he looked at the three with mild interest, but something in his eyes told Keres that he knew exactly who they were. And yet... she didn't do anything to stop him from continuing. But something told her it would have been best to kill the man. So she was put even more on edge.

And her suspicions were made true when she heard a branch sway to heavily. In an instant she turned around and whipped a set of three kunai into the branches of a tree to her right. Seconds later a shinobi wearing a standard green flak vest fell gagging from the cut made by the kunai on his neck. Blood spilled out until he lay dead on the ground.

"How the hell did you hear that?" the fish asked sounding rather astonished.

"If you'd shut up we might find out if there's a few more." Keres hissed back.

And that's when she heard two more sets of branches sway and bend from the weight of a human. Keres prepared herself to fight the two waiting silently in the branches.

"We can't have any delays." Itachi spoke, but at the same time giving Keres the go ahead to kill them.

With that in mind, Keres propelled herself forward with her chakra to find herself perched on the branch that the now dead man had fell from. Not even 10 feet away on another branch stood a women with light blonde hair and someone that Keres hadn't expected to see; her old teammate, Chouga.

Chouga had lost much of the weight he had held as a young teen, now he was very much a seasoned shinobi. His shoulder length light brown hair was now pulled back into a ponytail and he dressed in the standard Leaf jounin attire; complete with the green vest and navy blue long sleeved shirt and pants. He carried a slightly larger pack on his hip- clearly still a medic.

The girl standing beside his looked to be slightly younger- or at least young enough that she wasn't a jounin yet. She wore a black long sleeved shirt, and dark red shorts. The way she looked at Keres was as though she was disgusted with her. That alone was enough to make Keres kill the girl.

Taking the opportunity to do so, with inhuman speed her hand flashed to her pack on her hip and she launched a set of five shurikins at the girl. She had no time to react from the time that they had left Keres's hand to the time they embedded themselves into her body; two in her stomach, two in her neck and one in her forehead. She fell to the ground without a word and landed in a heap lying dead on the wet forest ground.

Now Chouga stood alone on the branch, and he had shifted back into a slightly more powerful stance. His blue eyes looked angry and they burned with the goal to kill her. It made Keres want to laugh! She knew all along when they were kids that Chouga hadn't liked her at all. He refused to spar against her. And even when they went on missions, if Keres were ever to get hurt he would refuse to heal her unless their sensei told him to.

"Chouga." She smirked.

"Keres."

"Maybe I should let you live to go back to that village of yours as a warning?" Keres taunted, her voice sounding cold.

"What makes you think you could kill me so easily?" he retorted sharply.

"Was that girl your student?" Keres asked as she stood up and shifted her weight onto her left leg as she pulled her prized dagger from its sheath on her right leg.

"Yes." he choked out.

"Pity. She could have used a better teacher."

"Shut up!" he screamed at Keres. "You don't know anything about me, and you have no right to say anything after the four years you've been gone!"

"Oh- touchy." Keres smirked. "I've changed my mind... I've always wondered what you'd looked like if I were to kill you."

"I won't let you!"

"You were always weak. This should be easy." Keres shifted her weight back evenly so that she could use her chakra boost once more.

But before she could launch herself towards him he threw a cloud of senbon towards her- no doubt poisoned with something. How cute.

Keres put her hands together in a familiar hand seal and threw her head back as she took in a deep breath. "Fire style- fire ball jutsu!"

The blast of fire that spewed from her lungs and her mouth was so hot that it melted the glass senbon in mid air, leaving Chouga speechless.

"How would you like to die?" Keres asked as she watched him trying to come up with some kind of idea on how to fight her. "It's always so much more fun to go the most painful route- but I'm kinda on a time limit."

"Oh yeah? Where the hell would you ever be wanted?" he threw right back at her.

Without giving him the chance to react she flashed forward using her chakra boost, and with her dagger in hand she had him pinned to the tree with the blade pushing into his neck. He gulped when he realized what just happened. With his eyes wide he stood frozen against the tree.

"You were always weak." she sneered at him.

"Go to hell."

She leaned in to whisper in his ear,"Happily."

And then she did it- she pushed the blade into his neck and dragged it over the thin skin of his neck, spilling his dark red blood. His body slumped down and his forehead fell to lay against his knees.

"So long." she said and hopped down from the branch to take her place with the pair that waited for her.

Itachi met her gaze with his onyx eyes. They gleamed with some kind of emotion that Keres couldn't recognize. She couldn't tell if he was impressed or bored with her.

"Old teammate? That's gotta be kinda rough." the fish asked once they began to walk down the path once more.

"He was weak, and he's wanted to kill me since we were kids anyway."She replied.

That was the end of all the conversations for the rest of the day. They ended up camping out in an abandoned cottage in the woods. Itachi had set up genjutsu marked throughout the forest to keep them concealed.

By the time Kisame and Itachi had fallen into at least a semi-conscious sleep Keres finally had the chance to actually look at the older of the two remaining Uchiha. Somewhere deep inside of her she found herself attracted to the danger and darkness surrounding him and his reputation. She had spent enough time reading about the Uchiha and its history to know that something was up about Itachi. Sure in the beginning of her readings she had found it to be utterly amazing that he had the strength to kill off his entire clan all alone. Now that she thought about it, maybe it was that kind of thinking that got her detained? She wanted to laugh at herself.

Nevertheless, Keres found herself interested in the elder Uchiha. She wants to get to know him. She wants to hear what he has to say about his actions. And she's entirely willing to go through the no doubt long and tedious process of earning his trust. She has to be smart about it though. Because there is the undeniable fact that he could probably kill her at will. But there are some risks that she is willing to take to get to know him.

Keres closed her eyes and in the back of her mind the memory of Chouga's frightened eyes surfaced as a reminder of her actions. As much as she hated it, Keres knew that she would never forget killing him.

He was a teammate after all.