The Girl Behind the Mask

By: Yoru Nekozawa-sensei

Chapter 1: A Flash of White

The entire village was destroyed. Buildings that took years to build fell in minutes. Lifetimes of effort, struggles and accomplishments lay as rubble at the feet of the only living man within miles of the forsaken place.

It only made sense for him to be the only one left, for he was the one who destroyed the village after all.

The man stood tall and alert, though he knew there were no survivors, he also knew that the village had sent for help prior to his arrival. His former ninja village was the only one close to his current location. With the place in mind he had figured he would meet "them" again.

"They" are an elite band of ninja. Two of "them" were his abandoned teammates, while the remaining male was, he had guessed, his replacement. The fourth and final member had always remained a mystery to him.

Just as though he had called them, they had appeared. Four ANBU elite. The leader had the blonde hair that the man had grown accustomed to in the past shown with an intensity that challenges the sun, while the ocean blue eyes that sat below it threatened to penetrate his own obsidian pair. He would have looked mildly threatening if it wasn't for the fox mask that was perched on his crown giving him the appearance of an angry drunk. His pink haired partner had a less comical look of threat in a shade of spring green and a medical ninja mask of a bird hanging on her side.

The remaining two stood as ANBU should, straight, firm and alert with their masks on their faces. He had only seen the male unmasked once when he had taken the liberty of slicing it in half. He will never forget seeing eyes so similar to his only to be framed by a stark white complexion adorned with a small plastic smile.

However, the female was the only one who had somehow escaped his sword. The only thing he could gather was that she was around his age and had long purple black hair that was currently held back in a ponytail behind her own medical mouse mask. The only things missing from this picture was a name and a face.

This is why he always thought of her. Not many were able to evade him the way she did. And he was a man that liked to keep track of those with notable power. He had scouted the village, but never found her. He had searched through every book of bounties he could get his hands on, but never saw her mask or any other significant clue.

He was determined to know who she was. Only so he could destroy her to the fullest extent. The more time he spent on the girl the more frustrated he got with himself for wasting valuable training time. He was a man that didn't like distractions and this girl was very distracting, that much was certain.

As he struggled to control his mental state, the blonde was speaking, vaguely aware that the man he was speaking to wasn't giving him the slightest bit of attention. After a while he grew annoyed at the blonde's rambling and decided to end the little encounter.

"Are you done, dobe?"

"Only if you were listening, Sasuke-teme."

"I don't have time to listen to your stupidity sort itself out now, Naruto. So why don't you just let me go since we both know you can't catch me."

"Alright, but only if you can beat all four of us."

Sasuke almost smiled at his idiocy. He was fairly sure that Konoha had gotten wind of the death of Itachi and Orochimaru, both by his hand, of course.

"Fine. Should I take you all at once or one at a time?"

He turned to find his answer running at him in four different directions.

"All at one, I guess."

He jumped into the air to simultaneously dodge their attack while arming himself with his faithful sword. As he had expected, they had surrounded him with a swarm of blonde clones that attacked him from every direction. He eliminated half of them with one slice of his lightening blade and landed on a taller mountain of rubble.

Looking down on the two males of the team, one was summoning more clones while the other was giving life to his ink monsters. He kept his senses open to trace the females of the group only to see a flash of pink while he evaded the lethal punch that would have surely reduced him to less than the dust of the mountain he was previously on.

Landing in a tree he had summoned a lightening clone to take his place in battle. His clone couldn't be touched, being made of light, and those who passed through it were zapped senseless. He felt no need to turn his sharingan on. He felt that he could just skip around enough then the crumbling land beneath them would give way and allow him to escape. Maybe that was his mistake, chance or perhaps it was his ego getting in his way. For the next thing he saw was a flash of white and then almost frightening darkness.