A/N: This is my first fic for this site, and also my first Naruto-fandom-fic, usually I just keep my fics to myself and my non-internet people, but I figured that I would post a story here, just to see what some other people think of my writing.... Alas, most tragically, my friends don't read Naruto, so they don't really appreciate the epicness/ adorableness of the Ita-Saku pairing : P .... Thankfully, I'm sure you all do.
: D
Happy reading!
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Prologue:
Dark, unemotional, calm, uncaring, detached, cold, unnerving in every sense by his professionalism.
These were the things that he had been described as, and he could not well refute them. His body was warm under his ANBU gear, but his heart felt as though it was encased in a block of ice, unmelting, and it was stifling him.
Hurt, anger, fear and all the things he buried, and locked into that frozen heart. Love is not among them, not locked away. The love for a brother is not compromised, not dimmed, and merely unshowable.
His love for his village, shown through the dedication to the ANBU elite corps.
Pushed as a child beyond his limits; what should have been the brink by a normal person's standards, it has rendered him this way, has cast him into this internal hell.
He feels shadowed, jaded.
And then, there is her.
How her light has not been overcome by the darkness that surrounds her, is a mystery to him.
She is one of his stars on the distant horizon, a bright pin-prick amongst a small handful forming the constellation of his life.
And She has no idea what she means to him.
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He had been traveling fast, the trees had been going by at a decent rate, and now, his velocity was not what it should have been.
The already blurred deep-greens of the foliage and moistened, dark-brown bark of the surrounding, and exceptionally high trees became even hazier.
He chanced a glance upward through the eye slits of his porcelain mask; the sky was growing an even darker, more ominous shade of tumultuous, angry, gray. He could see them building, growing larger, and they were ready to burst at any moment.
Rain was definitely not what he needed at the moment; the branches were slick enough as it was, what with all the storms that had rolled through lately.
His depth perception was off, he noted as he very nearly fell the towering fifty feet to the ground, as he almost slipped off the recently rained –on branch he had just leapt to; the only thing saving him was a rushed push of his already very limited chakra to his feet.
The wind was not as loud as it rushed through his ears as it had been; it was a testament to the fact that he has been slowed drastically.
The already ambiguous shapes around him became even more obscure, and his head swam with nausea. The weight of the body draped awkwardly over his shoulders became even less bearable as his remaining chakra was being eaten away by the poison coursing through his system.
He could feel himself becoming slower and slower with each second, weaker and weaker…. His already labored breathing came to him in short, wheezing breaths.
He knew that his geographical position was only a few miles south west of the fire country's borders… if he could make it to the nearest ANBU outpost once inside the border, they would be alright.
One last push, that was all he had left; and he hoped it would be enough. He fed whatever remaining and useable chakra he had left to, to his legs, and just enough to his arms, to relieve this screaming shoulders, a tiny bit.
Each step was a horrible, sharp pain that threatened to take away what little breath he had left, it was like running on liquid fire when he took a step. Every action he made, all the slightest movements hurt too much to describe with words….
Finally, he could see the faint, gouged marking on a thirty five foot high tree in front of him. The lighter living wood of the tree contrasted sharply with dark-brown of its bark, allowing him to read the number that was etched. 6.
At last he had reached ANBU rendezvous point six. As he made a rather ungraceful leap to the mushy, muddy, ground and he was immediately surrounded by his fellow operatives.
He felt the weight relieved from his shoulders and was extremely grateful for it, he had been unsure of how he was going to keep carrying his friend in his current condition.
He was suddenly aware of the noises around him; it was a big difference from the sound of the wind in his ears.
He became aware of the fact two of the other operatives were speaking to him.
"Captain? Sir, are you alright?" The one in on the right of him asked.
His comrades' masks blurred into patternless blobs in front of him.
He was aware that his legs had given out when he finally hit the ground.
Shouts from his fellow ANBU, pain from his many wounds, whatever adrenaline had kept those wounds from hurting had finally worn off, making his already pained state all the more intense.
Liquid fire consumed all of his senses, smoldering in his vision, burning in this throat and all his limbs, his lungs felt as though he had inhaled hot ash.
Then, the darkness came inform the edged and clouded his vision, his hearing was cut off by a roaring static in his ears and he became unaware of the world.