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CHAPTER TWO
"Every society has the criminals it deserves."
- Emma Goldman -
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All of Konoha knows about Itachi's defection, and everywhere Sakura goes she hears rumors about why the Yondaime's eldest son would abandon the Leaf: because he hated his father or envied his position as Hokage or wanted to marry a girl from a different village. She hears a dozen theories, some so ridiculous that she wonders who could possibly believe them. At first she expects one of the search parties to return with Itachi in tow, but five, six, seven days pass, and the shinobi assigned to retrieve him all return empty handed.
Itachi is the first of his clan to forsake the village since its establishment, and Sakura herself wonders why he wanted to leave. The Uchiha are practically royalty here; what could have possibly driven him to give up his home and his family?
On the eighth day since Itachi's disappearance, Iruka calls her and Naruto to their usual Academy classroom to wait for Sasuke and their jounin teacher. The other squads were united and matched with their new senseis last week, but Team 7 has been waiting to meet for the first time out of respect for Sasuke.
"Do you think he's okay?" Sakura asks. She might not like the Hokage's second son very much, but she doesn't wish him ill.
Naruto shakes his head. "Doubt it," he says. "It seemed like he was pretty close to Itachi. Kinda looked up to him, yanno?"
Sasuke arrives before their sensei. He takes the seat to Sakura's left, props his elbows on the desk, and rests his face against his interlaced fingers.
"I'm sorry about your brother," Sakura says.
"I don't have a brother," Sasuke answers, cool and even. "Not anymore."
She wonders if it's easy for him, dismissing his own family. He makes it look so simple.
They sit in silence until the door opens, and a tall, masked man walks in. Sakura recognizes him, of course. Hatake Kakashi is known as one of the most deadly shinobi in Konoha. His dark eyes crinkle at the corners, and she thinks he might be smiling beneath his mask, but it's difficult to tell.
He takes them to the roof of the Academy and asks them to introduce themselves, to discuss their likes and dislikes, their hobbies and dreams for the future. Naruto loves his mother's cooking and hates how his father is always away on long missions, and he wants to become Hokage.
"All right, next," Kakashi says.
Sakura feels oddly nervous, even though she's known Sasuke and Naruto for years. "I'm Haruno Sakura. I like practicing my jutsu and spending time with friends. My hobbies are reading and playing trivia games, and my dream is to be the strongest kunoichi in Konoha someday."
"And what do you hate?" Kakashi asks.
She steals a glance at Sasuke and wonders if she dares to be honest in front of him. "I hate the way the Uchiha run this village."
Naruto's mouth falls open and Kakashi's lazy, heavy-lidded eyes widen, looking suddenly alert.
Sasuke turns to Sakura, frowning, and says, "I'm Uchiha Sasuke, and I don't like you talking about my clan like that."
"What are you going to do?" she asks. "Run and tell your father?"
"Okay, enough," Kakashi says. "Introductions are over."
As their new sensei explains that their real final test will be tomorrow on the training grounds at five o'clock in the morning, Sasuke stares at her, dark eyes assessing, judging. Maybe she shouldn't have said that, but the Uchiha are harsh, unjust rulers, and Sakura can't quite feel sorry for telling the truth.
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Team 7 passes the bell test, and the next few weeks are a blur of training and D-rank missions, everything from catching cats to hunting bandits. Sasuke never understood until becoming a genin the mercenary nature of the shinobi life. Anyone can buy their services, contract them for an assignment of whatever kind, no matter how dull or distasteful. He doesn't like the idea that for the right price he can be bought, but Sasuke accepts that some missions will be important, necessary to the betterment of Konoha, and others will not.
Team 5—Masami, her squadmates Akanishi Sojiro and Mizushima Jin, and her sensei Uchiha Obito—joins them for chakra control training.
Nohara Rin comes along as well, and Sasuke finds himself watching her with Kakashi and Obito. He heard some ugly rumors about the three of them. That Obito refused his intended, an Uchiha girl, for the sake of Rin, only for his love to turn to Kakashi. Now Obito is the only Uchiha to live outside the compound, disowned by his mother and father for dishonoring the clan.
Sasuke watches Rin and tries to see what's so special about her. She's a pretty woman, certainly, but not beautiful, with common coloring and an unexceptional figure. Rin seems kind, and he's heard that she's a talented kunoichi, one of the best medic nin in the village. Even so, Sasuke doesn't understand why Obito would give up his family for this woman who doesn't even want him.
Sakura (that know-it-all) explains the balance of spiritual and physical energy you must maintain in order to produce jutsu, and then Kakashi and Obito direct them to climb the surrounding trees without using their hands.
Sasuke runs up his tree five, six, seven, eight feet, until he uses too much chakra and gets thrown backward. On one side of him, Naruto lies on the ground, and on the other Masami struggles to climb more than three or four feet before slipping and falling.
She stands, brushes off her clothes, and says, "This is hard."
Obito laughs and points to Sakura's tree. "Not for everyone, apparently," he says.
Sasuke looks up and sees his teammate sitting on a branch a good twenty feet above them. She sticks out her tongue at him, and he has the childish urge to return the gesture, but he doesn't.
Rin calls up to Sakura, "With chakra control like that, you should consider becoming a medical ninja. I can show you a few things while I'm here, if you're interested."
Sakura walks down her tree, as steadily and easily as Kakashi had demonstrated earlier.
How is she doing that?
"Definitely," she says. "Thanks!"
Rin nudges Kakashi in the shoulder playfully. "What do you say, sensei, can I borrow your student?"
Kakashi shrugs. "Go ahead. It doesn't look like there's much more I can teach her here."
Sakura blushes and follows Rin. Sasuke watches the white circle on the back of her red dress as she walks away, and for the first time he notices the way her clothes hug her small waist and cling to her hips.
"Sasuke?" Masami asks. "Don't you want to practice?"
He's been standing stock-still, staring after Sakura, instead of trying to run up his tree. Sasuke focuses his chakra to the soles of his feet, careful not to exert too much physical or spiritual energy, and tries again.
Obito allows Team 5 to quit at noon, but Kakashi tells Naruto and Sasuke to keep working until they've mastered the exercise. It doesn't much matter, because Sasuke doesn't intend to stop until he's exceeded the benchmark Sakura set, and he'll be damned before he allows Naruto to beat him.
By the time Rin returns with Sakura, the sun is low in the sky, and Naruto and Sasuke have scarred the trunks of their trees from the bottom up. Just to show off, he thinks, Sakura leisurely strolls up the tree next to Naruto's and takes a seat on one of the upper branches.
Sasuke bends over, hands on his knees, exhausted.
But he still hears Rin say, "Your girl's chakra control is perfect, Kakashi, and she has more natural aptitude for medical jutsu than anyone I've ever seen. If you want, I can put in a word to Tsunade about her."
Kakashi shakes his head. "Not yet. She might have the talent, but she's not ready to patch up dying men. She needs more experience in the field first. They all do."
"You're probably right about that. These kids do seem pretty green." Rin kisses his masked cheek and asks, "See you at home?"
"Yeah," Kakashi says. "As soon as these idiots figure out how to walk up a damn tree. Speaking of which: Sasuke, stop eavesdropping and get back to work."
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"Is it really our first C-rank mission?" Naruto asks. "Where are we going? What are we doing? Should I bring—?"
"Slow down," Kakashi says. "If you stop interrupting me I can brief you."
Naruto scratches the back of his head. "Sorry."
Kakashi tells them that they will be tracking down a missing-nin by the name of Masanobu Ryu, an experienced Leaf chunin who fled Konoha last night.
Naruto looks at Sasuke, and he wonders if it will be difficult for him, hunting a rogue shinobi, a deserter not unlike his own brother. But if he's bothered by this, Sasuke doesn't show it.
"Team 8 will be coming with us," Kakashi says. "They're responsible for tracking Masanobu, but once we find him, everyone will work together to capture him."
"What's going to happen to him when we bring him back to the village?" Sakura asks.
Kakashi gives her a level look. "You already know the answer to that."
Missing-nin are executed, always (although Naruto doubts Uchiha Itachi would have suffered that fate, had he been recovered). It's the law. He knows that rogue shinobi are a threat to Konoha's security, that they take the secrets and skills which belong to the Leaf with them when they flee, endangering the whole village. Catching a deserter is necessary, and he should be happy to finally be given such an important assignment. But Naruto doesn't like the idea of killing a man just for running away, and from the look of Sakura's frown, neither does she.
"Can we refuse the mission?" she asks.
"Not if you want to remain a Konoha shinobi," Kakashi says flatly.
They meet Team 8 at the gate an hour later. Hinata blushes and stammers hello, Shino says nothing, hiding behind his high collar and his sunglasses, and Kiba brags that this is his squad's third C-rank mission, so Team 7 better follow their lead.
"You're just here to track down the target," Naruto says. "It's us who'll be capturing him! You wait and see."
Kiba laughs. "Like you'll be capturing anything, dead-last."
Kakashi catches Naruto by the back of his shirt to keep him from pouncing on Kiba. "Save it for the mission."
"But he called me dead-last—"
"Well, you were dead-last in your year," Kakashi says reasonably. "You can't beat up all your peers for telling the truth."
Naruto pouts. "Some sensei you are."
So far Kakashi hasn't taught him much of anything useful besides the shadow clone jutsu (the only thing he was better at than Sasuke). He always has time enough for the Hokage's son, teaching him new techniques and practicing taijutsu one-on-one. And ever since Sakura outshone both of her teammates at chakra control, he's allowed her to take medical ninjutsu lessons with Rin. Naruto isn't learning anything special, though, and even though he'll never say it out loud, he's starting to worry that maybe all of his classmates were right to call him a loser. That he's just a mediocre shinobi who'll never advance past the rank of genin, much less ever become Hokage.
But whenever he starts to think like that, Naruto reminds himself that he'll make up for his shortcomings in dedication and guts. I'll show them on this mission, he decides. No matter what.
It takes Akamaru all of a minute to pick up Masanobu's scent, but their target has half a day's head start on them, and so they follow the trail for hours. South, then east, until the sky darkens, and when Naruto glances over his shoulder he sees a blazing sun of red and orange seeping into the dusk. Every muscle in his body hurts after a day spent running, but it's a good ache. A present sort of pain that reminds him of where he is and what he's doing.
Kurenai calls for both teams to stop just a few miles shy of the shoreline. Naruto sits in the grass, breathing heavily, too tired to care whether or not this makes him look weak. But then the other genin (except Sasuke) do the same. "It looks like Masanobu caught a boat somewhere near here, so we're going to lose his scent," Kurenai says. "We'll need to split up into pairs and question the locals to see if we can find out where he went."
"I want to work with Sakura." Naruto glances at his teammate, hoping she might agree, but Sakura just rolls her pretty green eyes and says, "I don't think we get to pick our partners."
"Right, as usual, Sakura," Kakashi says. "Naruto, you'll be with me."
"Why?"
"Because you're the most likely to cause trouble," Kakashi tells him flatly. "Sakura, you go with Sasuke."
Before her graduation from the Academy, Sakura had never been outside of Konoha. The Hokage's laws prevent travel between different districts of the country without a permit. Laws that did not apply to the Uchiha, naturally, who could come and go across the nation as they pleased. And so the ocean to the east of this nameless fishing village is the first that Sakura has ever seen. She's struck by the wide, unforgiving breadth of the waters. Waves rolling in under the new moon, more black than blue, speckled with reflected starlight.
"It's beautiful," Sakura says, without really meaning to.
Sasuke frowns. "We're here on a mission. Not to sight-see."
"Maybe it's not special to you because you can leave Konoha whenever you like," she says. "Missions are the only time I get to see new places."
She knows it's irresponsible, but Sakura isn't about the visit the seaside without swimming. She runs to the beach, feels herself kicking up sand in her wake.
"What are you doing? The village is the other way."
Sasuke sighs, obviously annoyed, but he follows her anyway.
Sakura stops, removes her shoes and weapons pouch, then unzips her dress and pulls it off too. She's still decent enough, wearing a practical bra and green leggings. Not the best swimwear, perhaps, but it'll have to do. The sand is gritty against the tender skin of her bare feet, and when she draws close enough for the waves to brush her ankles, she almost jumps at the coldness of the water.
"This is a waste of time," Sasuke says, impatient.
Sakura turns around so that she's facing her teammate and walks backward into the water. Icy ocean creeps up her calves, tickles the backs of her knees, her thighs, her waist. She laughs and says, "C'mon, get in here!"
Sasuke looks at her oddly for a moment, almost as if he's considering her proposal against his better judgment. But then he says, "No way."
Sasuke does what he pleases when he pleases, as arrogant and inconsiderate as the rest of his clan, and normally she wouldn't care. But for some reason, tonight, it matters to Sakura that he does the wrong thing for once instead of being so insufferably perfect all the time.
"Five minutes, and then I promise we'll go straight back to work."
He scowls and looks away, and right when Sakura is certain that he's ignoring her, Sasuke pulls his shirt over his head, then bends to take off his shoes. She doesn't understand why, but by the time he joins her, treading water where it's just barely too deep to stand, Sakura's heart is beating faster than it should. He's close enough now that she can see his dark eyes and the lines of his finely carved features. She's noticed Sasuke's good looks before, of course, but he's never been this close to her outside of sparring, and it occurs to Sakura that he's perhaps the most handsome boy she's ever met.
She feels a flash of guilt, because Sasuke belongs to Masami. She's irritated with herself for thinking stupid things, then irritated with her teammate for being as brilliant as he is conceited, as beautiful as he is untouchable. So she splashes water at Sasuke and smiles as he splutters and shakes his head. There's a split second where he stares at her, dumbfounded, as if he can't believe she'd dare, and then he splashes her back.
She knows Sasuke well enough to guess that this is only the beginning of his reprisal, so she swims away, then wades to the shore. She doesn't make it a foot onto dry land before he tackles her. Sakura hits the earth hard enough to knock the wind out of her, but she remembers from training how to push him away before he can get her in a good hold. He's back on her in a second, though, and they roll in the sand, half in the surf, until Sasuke gets the upper hand and pins her to the ground. She struggles, but Sakura is slightly smaller than him and he's skilled enough to know how to exploit her weaknesses.
"Fine, you win," Sakura says. "Now get off me."
Sasuke doesn't let her go, doesn't say anything, but he's looking at her in the strangest way, frowning even as his gaze lingers on her wet hair, her eyes, her mouth. Almost as if he's trying to puzzle out a difficult problem and he expects to find the answer in her expression.
"Sasuke," she says softly, as much an entreaty as her pride will allow.
He startles and scrambles away from her, and in the moment their bodies separate Sakura misses the warm weight of him, protecting her from the cool night air. They dress in silence, and Sasuke says, all business, "Let's get to the village and start asking questions."
"Yeah," Sakura says. "Sure."
They walk westward toward the town, side by side but with a careful distance between them.
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Sasuke spends two hours with Sakura, making inquiries of the local fishermen, hoping that Masanobu may have paid someone for the use of a boat, but no one in this backwater village has seen any strangers in weeks, and they return to the rendezvous point empty handed. Of all people, it's gentle Hinata's questioning that bears fruit. A young woman saw a man fitting their target's description stealing a neighbor's skiff, then sailing east.
"If she saw him taking it, why didn't she stop him?" Naruto asks.
Sasuke can't keep himself from snorting. Sometimes Naruto really is an idiot. "Because most people aren't that noble."
Kakashi orders all of them into a boat large enough for eight shinobi and a puppy.
"We can't just take this," Sakura says. "It's probably someone's livelihood."
"Get in," Kakashi says, in a tone that commands obedience. "We'll return the damn dinghy before anyone has time to miss it."
Sakura takes a seat between Naruto and Sasuke, and Kurenai uses a wind jutsu to fill the sails.
"Where are we going?" Kiba asks.
"There's only one thing east of here," Kurenai says, "and that's Whirlpool."
Naruto looks up suddenly. "But there's nothing left of Whirlpool. It was destroyed in the last war."
"How do you know that?" Sasuke asks. Naruto usually slept through their history classes.
His teammate shrugs and says, too-casual, "My mother's from Uzushio."
Sasuke has met Uzumaki Kushina a few times, and she seems like a nice enough woman, if more temperamental than his own mother, but he considers her with a newfound respect in light of this revelation. What must it be like to lose your family, your home, your entire way of life? This is a hardship Sasuke is unlikely to ever face, and he's grateful for that.
It's a short but boring trip from Fire to the ruins of Whirlpool. They leave their stolen boat on the shore and continue on foot, led once again by Akamaru's nose. Luckily enough, he picks up the scent again. So Masanobu is here. Sasuke is frankly surprised. He expected that their target headed east only for as long as it took to escape the sight of nosy lookouts, then changed directions. This, after all, is what Sasuke would have done if he was a missing-nin.
As they follow Akamaru, his thoughts drift to Itachi. Sasuke wonders where his brother is and why he left, what could have driven him to abandon Konoha. Itachi's desertion has hardened his father and wounded his mother, and Sasuke wants more than anything to face his big brother and demand answers.
He shakes off all of this and tells himself that this isn't the time or the place. He knows he needs to focus if he wants to complete his first C-rank mission.
The land here is all green hills, swirling rivers, and lush valleys, no trees in sight. They pass through an abandoned town, its buildings torn down and burnt, the blackened rubble overgrown with moss and vines. An empty shell of a place, inhabited only by a few stray cats.
Naruto lingers beside the remains of a house, his hand pressed to the one wall that's still standing.
"Who would do this?" he asks, his rough voice softer than Sasuke has ever heard it.
"That's what war looks like," Kakashi says. "Hope you never have to see it in your lifetime."
Kiba pets Akamaru and says, "We're close now, about a half-mile away."
Hinata activates her Byakugan, and the chakra coils beside her eyes swell. Shino crouches and presses his ear to the ground. Sasuke can't guess what the Aburame boy is doing, but a moment later he sits up and says, "We have a problem. Masanobu isn't alone."
"How many are there?" Kurenai asks.
"Five," Shino says.
"All right," Kakashi says. "This changes things. We know our target's abilities, but his companions are wild cards. Hinata, we're depending on your Byakugan. When we get close enough for you to see, tell us what you can about the people with Masanobu. All right?"
Hinata nods, and they set off again. Sakura looks worried, and even Naruto appears subdued. This mission just got much more complicated, and possibly more dangerous than C-rank, depending on who's with Masanobu. Sasuke has the sense to be wary, but he isn't scared. There isn't much that frightens him, and he's always been confident in his skills, no matter his opponent (except against Itachi).
Hinata stops their group and says, "Three of them are sleeping: Masanobu and two samurai. The others are keeping watch. A woman wearing a Sand hitai-ate and an old man. He has chakra like… like Naruto. Very strong."
"An Uzumaki," Kakashi says. "We should split up and encircle them."
Kurenai nods. "Ambush them from every side. If we're lucky we might be able to subdue the ones who are sleeping before they gather themselves."
"Team 7 will take the two who are awake." Kakashi turns to his squad and says, "Sasuke, Sakura, Naruto: I'll attack the old man while you all fight the Sand kunoichi. You're not to interfere with my battle. Understood?"
"Yes," they say, the three of them together, lying without meaning to.
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Masanobu and his companions are camped out in the ruins of Uzushio itself. The four of them sneak through the broken buildings, silent on light feet, using fallen walls and pillars marked with the Whirlpool emblem for cover, until they reach their target.
Hinata was right; only the Uzumaki and the Sand shinobi are awake. Naruto watches the old man, wondering if he's some kind of cousin or great-uncle. His long hair is as red as Mom's, but threaded with grey. Naruto has never met another relative from his mother's clan, and now he's expected to look on while his sensei defeats him.
Kakashi gives the signal, and they charge into the middle of Masanobu's camp, shuriken flying ahead of them. Naruto can just see Team 8 ambushing the three sleeping men from the other side, but he follows Sasuke (the bastard is fast, ahead of him as always) and pulls a kunai as he approaches the Sand shinobi.
She's quick, though, and easily dodges the attacks from three genin.
"This is too easy," she says, then makes hand seals Naruto can't follow.
Dirt rises from the ground, the very earth coming alive around them, forming into a half-dozen giants. Men ten feet tall with dull hollows for eyes, noseless and mouthless.
"I'll take her," Sasuke says. "You guys get rid of these things."
And then he rushes the Sand kunoichi, kunai drawn, but Naruto can't wait and watch his teammate's fight, because the creatures under their opponent's command are stirring.
Sakura dodges an earthen fist and flings two shuriken at the creature. They land precisely in the empty sockets where eyes belong, but the giant seems unaffected. It stomps the ground beside Sakura, and she jumps backward.
"Let's climb the rubble so we have some height," Naruto says.
They run up the nearest wall, and Naruto is suddenly thankful for all those hours practicing chakra control. Then he throws more shuriken, for all the good it does.
The giants are slow but strong, and if they land even one blow, it could mean his life or Sakura's.
"We need to find their weak points as fast as possible," Sakura says. "Naruto, use your kage bunshin to attack one all over until you find its vulnerabilities."
He performs the hand seals and concentrates, dividing his chakra amongst thirty clones. Naruto feels his awareness expand, somehow taking in the knowledge and experience of each clone. He jumps on the nearest giant, and a small army of clones jumps with him. They stab its forehead, heart, knees, stomach, chest, between its shoulders, the back of its neck—the earth here parts, soft as wet clay, and Naruto's clone digs into the dirt until his fingers close around something hard, no larger than a marble. He rips it out and finds that it's a black stone inscribed with kanji for heaven and earth. The creature can make no cry or expression of pain, but it trembles all over and falls to its knees.
He and Sakura make quick work of the remaining giants, pulling out the stones that animate them. By the time they finish, Sasuke has wound the Sand kunoichi in wire from shoulders to ankles and tied her hands behind her back. She spits at him and calls him the son of a tyrant and a whore.
"Be quiet," Sasuke says. He makes a few quick hand seals and her lips snap shut.
"Where are Kakashi and the Uzumaki man?" Sakura asks.
Naruto looks around and sees that their teacher and his kin have disappeared.
"They went north," Sasuke says. "Kakashi was leading him away from us, I think."
Team 8 is still busy with Masanobu and the samurai, and Kakashi told them to stay out of his fight, but he doesn't want to abandon his sensei.
"Let's go," Naruto says. "We have to help him."
It doesn't take long to find Kakashi. He's in a valley surrounded by the Whirlpool ninja and three enormous beasts: a falcon, ram, and snake large enough to put the Sand kunoichi's earthen giants to shame.
"Get out of here!" Kakashi shouts.
Sasuke charges in first, toward the enemy shinobi, leaving Naruto and Sakura to face the minions again. Bastard, Naruto thinks. How's he supposed to prove himself this way? It's probably for the best, though, because if there's one thing his mother has taught him, it's fuinjutsu.
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Sakura doesn't know how Naruto manages it, but within a few minutes he's sealed all three of the summons.
Before she can congratulate him or ask questions, she hears a sound like a thousand chirping birds, and when she turns she sees Kakashi with his arm elbow-deep in the Uzumaki ninja's chest. His hand is pushed through the old man, and it's alive with blue lightning. She's too surprised for a moment, stunned by the sight of her lazy, perpetually late sensei killing a man, to realize that Sasuke is on the ground, and he isn't moving.
"Sasuke!"
Sakura runs to her fallen teammate, but when she reaches him, she freezes. Blood soaks his torn shirt and stains his shorts. It looks like he was slashed with a katana, and his hands are a horrible, awful red from where he's been trying to keep his stomach closed.
She wants to cry over this boy she thought she didn't even like, and for a moment all she can think of is his beautiful face cast in silver by the starlight, hovering over her on the beach. So alive just hours ago, and now he's going to die if she doesn't do something.
Sakura uses a kunai to rip open his shirt. Dawn light creeps over the horizon, and under its golden glow she can see the diagonal wound that stretches across his stomach. It's deep, but not deep enough to have caused internal damage, and for that she's thankful. Rin has taught her how to close lacerations, but healing organs is a delicate business that takes medics years to learn. Still, she's only practiced on cadavers in the hospital morgue, never on a person whose life depends on her skills.
She summons chakra to her hands and places them over the wound. Sakura feels the muscle and skin and sinew that parted beneath an enemy's blade, and she focuses on knitting it all back together. It takes five minutes, ten, but the bleeding stops and his flesh closes, leaving a raw, pink line down Sasuke's stomach. Still, his face is too white and his lips are pale, and Sakura doesn't know the blood replenishing jutsu yet. Rin had planned to teach it to her after she returned from this mission.
"Sasuke," she says again, and Sakura doesn't know when she started crying, but there are tears dripping from her chin, falling to mix with the blood.
Kakashi puts a hand on her shoulder. "You did well, Sakura. If we get him to the Konoha hospital fast enough, he'll make it."
Then he lifts Sasuke in his arms and runs back to the ruins of Uzushio. Sakura wipes her bloody hands on her dress, stands on trembling legs, and follows her sensei.
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AN: An action-packed chapter (and action is the bane of my existence), but I hope you guys think it turned out well. Thank you so much to uchihasass and tall-girl-in-a-small-world, my fabulous betas, and thank you to everyone who reviewed, favorited, or followed the first chapter! So many people left awesome, encouraging comments, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate that. :D