As I "rewrote" Ruby, I found myself beginning to hate it. At one point, I considered dropping it entirely, but didn't out of sheer spite.

I remember being at church one day and the pastor said something about how in order to "stay alive" [in faith] , you need to find a balance between passion and respect.

Now, this fanfiction is hardly God, but the method is still the same, as I'm beginning to learn.

So here you go.

PROLOGUE

Uchiha Sasuke was a master at keeping a straight face.

But even that couldn't stop the corner of his mouth from twitching upwards. It had been nearly a year of probation. Nothing but D-rank missions for nearly a year. It was humiliating at best, and torturous at worst.

Although, he supposed, it could have been worse.

It took his killing Orochimaru and a fair share of Akatsuki members, frantic pleas from his teammates, and careful speeches about the effects of a Curse Mark (a perfectly true statement… just "colored" in his favor) , to let him off with anything other than execution.

(Not that he would've died.)

Tsunade had sworn that he would suffer a little over two years of the punishment, the time that Sasuke had been a missing-nin, but was now forced to cut it short, something that irked her to no end.

The Uchiha was tempted to be amused, but he was more curious than anything else. "Why me?" he asked.

The Hokage grunted noncommittally. "Sharingan'll let you see the spells better. You're a decent shinobi, too, so there's no need to worry about you inconveniently dying in a back alley somewhere… And our snake probably gave you some fun facts."

Ah, so that's why, he thought.

"Well, if that's a good enough answer for you," she said, pushing a scroll towards him. "The details are in here, now take that and go away."

He picked up the scroll, and as soon as he left the building, he opened it up.

Inside were directions, which was expected, but also a storage seal. Curiosity piqued, the black-haired ninja shunshin-ed to his house and released the contents. Appearing in a small puff of smoke was a ceramic, hawk-like mask.

For a moment, he wondered why it wasn't a snake, then he remembered that the mass-murderer he was supposed to hunt down apparently had a thing for snakes (So essentially another Orochimaru, but with less human experimentation. Hopefully). Walking around with a mask like that on would be a more detrimental than helpful.

The Uchiha raised the mask to his face and was surprised to find that it was actually fairly breathable, and not as uncomfortable as he'd anticipated, although it was constricting and inconvenient.

He set the mask down and returned it to the scroll, then straightened up. For a moment, a flicker of something flared to life in his chest. He paused and frowned. It was like a dull ache, something that struck him as extremely familiar… the thought dissipated, and he shrugged, squashing the strange pang.

It's nothing important.

"You're leaving?!" Naruto asked/shouted, sending bits of ramen flying out of his mouth. The blond Jinchuriki searched Sasuke's face, for what, the Uchiha didn't know (although he did know that one little piece of noodle had landed on his pants, to his disgust). "How long?"

"Ten months to a year. Maybe more, maybe less. It all really depends on my ability," he replied, monotone voice a contrast to his… friend(?)'s… expressiveness.

Sakura frowned. "Where?"

Ugh, not you too. I thought interrogations were finished three months ago. "Britain."

For a moment, the duo were uncomprehending, when slowly a look of horrified/fascinated realization painted their faces. The Uchiha suppressed a smirk (I'm not thirteen anymore, goddammit). "It's a country on the Outside," he elaborated.

"You - why aren't you - I mean, it's the Outside!" Sakura sputtered. "You're really calm about this."

The Uchiha shrugged. "Learned about it from Orochimaru. I believe he had a contact, so to speak, who's going to get me past the border and into Britain," he explained.

Naruto held up a hand. "Wait, wait, wait. If he's a friend of Orochimaru, why are we trusting him?"

"She," Sasuke said, shooting Naruto a pointed look, "was hardly on friendly terms with Orochimaru. They just supplied each other with information sometimes. And anyways, after he… took me in… she left."

At their still disapproving glares, he huffed, rubbing the bridge of his nose in a rare show of emotion. "Look, it doesn't matter. I'm going, regardless of who's taking me," he growled, standing up and turning around. He shunshin-ed away before they could chase him or call out, ignoring the feeling that had blossomed in his chest again.

He finally knew what it was, and for a moment, he contemplated ripping away the stronger seal placed on his Curse Mark.

The Uchiha tried to ignore the two sets of vaguely betrayed eyes on him, instead fixing the contact-with-the-unpronounceable-name with the coldest, most intense stare he could come up with.

She just hummed along to some song he couldn't hear, only meeting his gaze once she finished setting up the gate. "Alright, Sasuke-san," she said, voice slightly accented. "Step into the main circle. I'm warning you now, the ride is extremely uncomfortable, but we can't do anything about that."

He complied, and the red paint decorating the large stone slab began to glow blue. For the first time, seeds of apprehension grew in his stomach, and he looked up at the contact, whose eyes began to gleam the same color.

"Get ready," she mouthed.

The last thing he saw was the sun, blazing in all it's glory.

I'm determined to do well, yes, but I also want to enjoy writing. I'm not going to let this story become a burden.

But anyhoo, thanks for reading!