I felt the familiar rush as my adrenalin spiked at the same time as the familiar tingle of apprehension ran down my spine. I was dressed in my black ANBU outfit with my cat mask hiding my pale lavender eyes.
I knew that the thought was silly but I couldn't get rid of the notion that he seemed vaguely familiar to me but his stance was a very common one, if a tad bit modified. But at the moment I didn't care. He was the missing nin that I had been watching running through my genjutsu. The Hokage had said that he was a particularly strong nin, perhaps Jonin or even ANBU.
Getting into a common Konoha stance, she looked at him curiously wondering what he was going to do. Like her he seemed to be wearing a cape but his also had a deep hood that covered his face almost all the way down to his nose, but it seemed that he could see never-the-less. Without really thinking about it she activated her blood line and watched him, with the veins around her eyes enlarging to pump chakra to them. Looking at his tenketsu, she noticed that he had a large amount of chakra and probably knew how to use it.
He knew that he'd been stuck in a genjutsu after crossing the same tree 3 times and therefore he knew that someone must be either tracking or following him. After figuring this out he started to slow, then a large amount of chakra seemed to flare behind him. When he'd finally stopped running and turned around to see the person that belonged to the chakra that had appeared out of nowhere. He knew that the person who was following him had to have been a high ranking ninja, but he didn't expect an ANBU. He knew that it must be a Konoha nin and they were either trying to kill him or bring him back to Konoha.
An 18 year old missing nin who killed Orochimaru and was on his way to kill his brother was far to dangerous to be on his own without someone running after him making sure he didn't do anything reckless. A small ironic smile touched his lips as he thought about the satisfaction of killing the snake man. Thinking about the snake man brought even more confidence to him than he already had and without another thought he jumped foreword to fight the mysterious opponent.
Noticing the smile that appeared on his lips the girl frowned but had no idea why and didn't have enough time to think about possible reasons why before she had to block a flurry of attacks. The mysterious attacker jumped back slightly and threw a few shurikan and kunai to keep the mysterious opponent away while he grabbed his katana and made a small lunge at the person's side. Even with the person being shrouded in a black cape, he could still make out the fact that the person was female. As the kunoichi leaped out of reach of the lethal weapon he charged forward intent upon his opponent.
The kunoichi leaped into a tree started throwing sharp senbon needles while jumping from tree to tree. Watching him either block or dodge them with such mocking ease just started to grate on the girls nerves. Appearing behind the young ninja she started to do 64 palms on him. Not able to jump away from the ongoing pain of blocked tanketsu's he just tried futilely to nock her out. During the time it took her to gain breath though, the young man before her started to form hand seals with incredible speed. Right when she was about to close off more of his chakra points he took a deep breath and blew an abnormally large fire ball at her.
Her eyes grew wide as she remembered that jutsu that a particular avenger Uchiha had used to almost kill her long time crush many times over. Yes, in the face of danger people seem to notice silly things like that. Strange huh?
It was only when she felt the heat of the fire on her face that she jumped backwards about a yard then disappeared as the flames reached the spot she had just been. Frowning, the girl stared more intently at the man as he also jumped back and looked around. Taking out the Katana on her back she jumped above him and dove to the ground with the long blade aimed straight as an arrow directly at him.
Even though she knew that she had not made even the smallest sound, he seemed to have heard something that made him lung to the side and disappear. Still in the air she made a very un-lady-like curse, replaced the whole length of the sword in the sheath on her back, and flipped in the air so that she landed foot first on the ground.
Deciding that he wanted answers, the young Uchiha appeared on a branch with his arms folded across his chest and looked at her.
"So which one are you?" He asked coldly. "A young Kunoichi who has taken it upon herself to see if she can bring back the infamous Sasuke? Or maybe a Kunoichi who thought that SHE would be the one after all who have failed to change the great Sasuke's feelings." He continued to stare at the shrouded girl as she started to smile.
"Hmm. I knew that you were full of yourself Sasuke but really do you not think of anything besides you?" The girl shook her head in despair but never took her gaze off the boy standing on the branch not 15 yards away. Seeing the scowl starting to form on the Uchiha's slightly hidden face the girl continued. "Maybe," she continued as if a thought had just struck her "Maybe that is why you feel you must kill your brother so bad. You just can't stand being second place to big brother." Knowing that these were the correct buttons to push to get a reaction out of him she smirked triumphantly.
Just as he seemed to be on the brink of lashing out, his expression cleared and he tilted his head slightly as if thoughtful.
"Well then. It appears that your not one of those thoughtless fan girls that would have brought on the tears before they would insult me. And yet I still can't think of who you could be. I'm sure that I would have remembered someone with such potential in the academy days. But back to the point. You do seem like the type who thinks that they can bring me back. I hear that the Hokage doesn't like risking her precious Shinobi's on a futile stunt like this, so you must have thought you could do a better job than anyone else. Indeed a curiosity. To bad I'm going to have to kill you." He said the last sentence calmly, as if it was more of a wasted nit of energy than a battle. Even though he had said it though, he had not yet moved from his branch.
"What; aren't you going to come and 'finish me off?'" She lifted her hands so that she could put quotes around the last three words along with the heavily laid sarcasm.
A low chuckle came the Uchiha. "You truly are a curiosity. No I was just going to see if you would answer my questions. It appears that you won't though, so I guess I will carry on." Leaping off his branch, the Uchiha charged towards the girl in front of him. Taking out his own Katana, he raised the blade over her head but just as he was about to bring it down over the arm that appeared to protect her head, he reversed the blade in his grip and brought the thin blade into a half arc behind him and swung the hilt up and under her chin. Before it made any contact however, one of the senbon needles that she had hit him in the throat and he went down like a ton of bricks. (AN: Think what Haku did to Zabuza so Naruto and people wouldn't kill him)
Laying him on the ground, the girl closed most of his tenketsu's in case he woke up. "Now that you won't be able to use your chakra if you wake up I should probably get you to Konoha." Picking him off the ground and tossing him over a shoulder, she started to run to the direction of the fire country. "My god Sasuke what do you eat, rocks?" She said after running until she entered Kanoha many hours later.
Running in the shadows so that no one would see her she ran straight to the hospital and slipped inside unnoticed. Walking up to the front desk the girl cleared her throat to get the woman behind the desks' attention. "I need someone to go and get Lady Tsunade please." She said firmly.
"Right away miss. But," The receptionist paused to take in the girl's appearance and what appeared to be a boy hanging over her shoulder.
"Don't worry about anything I'll take care of him." The girl said quickly cutting off any response that the other woman was about to make. After turning away, the girl turned back and said "Oh and could you tell her that it's extremely important? Thank you." With that she turned and disappeared in a puff of smoke.
"Lady Tsunade! Lady Tsunade wake up, its important!" Shizune cried shaking the Hokage awake.
"What's so damn important that you had to wake me up Shizune?" pouted Tsunade.
"A lady from the hospital is here and she says that she needs to speak to you right away. Should I send her in?" After a nod the Hokage the woman from the hospital came and told her of the incident earlier. Throughout the whole thing Tsunade had her chin resting on her intertwined fingers and her eyes narrowed. When the medic was finished she stood and waited for Tsunade's reaction.
Standing abruptly, she put her hands on her desk and waited. "Hurry. We have to get to the hospital."
A groan from the bed alerted the girl to the fact that Sasuke was now awake. Still in her ANBU uniform, she had been standing guard in the hospital room just in case the boy woke and tried to make a break for it. Not that he'd be in any shape to even try. Also she had to talk to Tsunade.
"What the hell?" was the first question that came from the bed. "What did you do? You couldn't have actually gotten me. Konoha ninja don't get that strong." Glancing at the narrowed eyes directed at her she went back to looking at the door.
"Yes, well, it appears that I did get you and I am from Konoha so you seem to be incorrect on both accounts."
"Just who in hell ARE you?" he asked with a glare. About to turn around and tell him to shut the hell up and stop bothering her, the door opened with a crack and both Sasuke's eyes and the girl's eyes were drawn to the door that now held an angry Tsunade.
Sweeping the room with her eyes, Tsunade took everything in; opened windows, white room, Sasuke's wounds, and lastly the girl hidden in her cloak.
"You didn't tell him?" She demanded of the young girl.
"No. I didn't think that it was necessary. That and he had been talking about um… what was it? Oh ya. He had been droning on about 'past potential,' and how he would remember anyone who showed as much 'potential' as me." The girl gave a little chuckle at some hidden irony. The Hokage herself gave a large smile, partaking in the joke.
"Then do you think we should tell him? You don't seem to have taken your mask off yet so if you want to go right ahead." Giving a slight nod of encouragement, Tsunade looked at Sasuke to see his reaction.
After taking a moment to deliberate, the girl pulled down the small hood that covered her hair and gently pulled it down. Taking both sides of the cat mask in her small hands she lifted it off her head and watched through pale lavender eyes as Sasuke's own opalescent ones widen in shock.
"B-but… you… how?" he stuttered through numb lips.
"Come on Sasuke!" The Hokage goaded. "Aren't you going to say hi?"
The very last person who he would have thought to have been able to take him down stood in front of him with a smirk plastered onto her pale face. "Hinata Hyuuga."
How's that for Irony?