Disclaimer: Naruto – both the series and the character – belong to people much older and wiser than I. This is depressing.

Higurashi House

Chapter Two: Awake

Sasuke awoke to the very unpleasant sensation of Naruto's foot in his face.

He lay there, blinking, for a moment before attempting to extricate himself; a plot that did not succeed as well as he had hoped it might. Naruto only thrust his toes further into Sasuke's delicate nostrils and muttered something about the wonders of all-you-can-eat ramen.

"Oh, no," he continued, "I couldn't eat another bite…well, if you insist…"

This was followed by slurping sounds and excited squirming, which served only to further complicate Sasuke's life with the introduction of Naruto's other foot into his ear. Sasuke began to feel stifled, a feeling that was compounded when Naruto's thrashings about tossed the thick, heavy blanket right onto the Uchiha's encumbered face.

As the crisp morning air touched his skin, Naruto let out a blood-curdling yelp that Sasuke actually felt and yelled at his teammate.

"Damn it, Sasuke! Stop hogging the covers!"

He proceeded to grab the quilt from Sasuke's head, and managed to get a rather sizeable chunk of black hair in his fist at the same time, which he didn't notice as he industriously covered himself with it and snuggled into the couch, an action which only served to impregnate Sasuke's nose and ear more fully with his grubby toes.

It was at this point that Sasuke decided that he had had enough.

Sakura stirred from her slumber at the sound of his voice and raised her head sleepily in a cloud of pink glory.

She stared in shock at the stormy glare that, while making its way to Naruto, who was crawling backwards on the floor, rested on her for a brief moment – which was more than enough to make her shiver in fright.

"Naruto no dobe! I've had about all I can take! First you ram your foot in my face – in my FACE – then you shove another one on my EAR, then you SMOTHER me with blankets, and, then, after attempting to KILL me with all of this, you have the NERVE to accuse ME of STEALING YOUR BLANKETS!!! YOU ARE A MORON! And, furthermore…"

As Sasuke continued his impassioned rant, Naruto continued crawling ever so slowly towards the big fireplace, where the embers of the blaze lay glowing lazily, casting his petrified shadow on the floor and making Sasuke look all the more frightening.

Sakura's eyes opened wide.

She had never seen Sasuke this angry – in fact, she couldn't remember the last time she had seen him express any emotion stronger than annoyance. And all of it over a foot in his face…

She gulped as she realized the extent to which the stalwart Uchiha valued his personal space. No wonder he silently fumed when she and Ino (and all the other girls in Konoha for that matter) hung off him.

Her thoughts and Sasuke's yelling were cut off abruptly by the crashing sound generated by a certain blonde bumping into the wood stacked neatly beside the hearth.

After a moment of shocked silence, Naruto and Sasuke began yelling at each other, and Sakura began to get angry herself. A vicious three-way argument ensued, and would have erupted into a fistfight if their hostess hadn't risen from her chair, fire in her eyes, and grabbed the boys by their ears.

"I," she remarked, bending slightly so as to be at eye level with the three genin, "am not impressed in the least. You three are acting less like shinobi who have faced life and death together and more like spoiled children."

Naruto began to explain, but she cut him off.

"Are you always like this, you three?"

Naruto scratched his neck.

Sasuke stood impassively, arms folded.

Sakura sighed as she realized that her teammates weren't going to speak. "I…I apologize for our behavior, firstly. It was rude of us to act this way in a house where we are guests." She bowed formally before carrying on. "Unfortunately, we're like this too often. We can fight well enough together, but we can't manage to get along for very long away from the training field."

Seeing that the boys had calmed down, the woman let go of their ears, and they both sulkily retreated to the couch.

She glared at them and turned back to the pink haired kunoichi who looked guiltily at the floor.

She sighed. "And your sensei does nothing about this? What has Konoha come to, that this should happen?"

Sakura looked up in surprise. "You have been to Konoha?"

Sasuke and Naruto slowly got up, and moved stealthily towards the door, keeping their gazes fixed steadily upon the woman.

"My dear girl," she replied, stepping closer to the fireplace, "I was trained there."

With an action quicker than Sakura's sleepy eyes could follow, she tossed Naruto and Sasuke their dry clothes.

"If you're leaving," she told them without turning from Sakura, "then you'll need these. It's cold this morning. Just don't go far – I'd hate to have to search for you again."

Laughter danced across her face as the boys crept sheepishly from the room.

Sakura stood still, her eyes wide and her hands clasped beneath her chin. Who was this woman, who could interrupt an argument, put them all to shame, and still laugh about it? Adults usually didn't have a sense of humor about such things.

The woman settled cross-legged into one of the big armchairs and grinned widely at the young kunoichi.

"Don't you just love them? They're the cutest little things…" she sighed happily, "Just like one of my old teammates and I, fighting all the time. Oh, this brings back so many memories!"

Sakura gaped.

The woman laughed at her expression and motioned for her to sit down.

Sakura sat.

"I suppose you'll want our names, then, if we're going to stay here until our sensei finds us," she began tentatively.

"Nonsense," the woman replied, shaking her brown curls, "it isn't House policy. If you want to tell me all sorts of details, far be it from me to stop you. But if you don't, then don't. It's as simple as that."

She shrugged slim shoulders and pulled one of the blankets onto her lap.

Sakura nodded. "I think I understand…you follow the old customs of the Higurashi Houses, don't you? No questions, no answers, no information of any kind. But I'll tell you anyway. I am Haruno Sakura, a genin from Konoha, and my teammates are Uzumaki Naruto – he's the blonde one with the whine and the big appetite – and Uchiha Sasuke – he's the really handsome one with black hair."

"Uchiha," mused her hostess, "now there's a name I haven't heard in a while…"

Sakura continued, her voice full of pride. "Our sensei is a jounin, of course – former ANBU, too! – And he is the renowned Copy Ninja, Hatake Kakashi!"

She looked expectantly at the woman, and was surprised to see the color drain from her listener's cheeks as she laughed shakily and mused, "Well, so many names I haven't heard in a while…Uzumaki, Uchiha," and her voice turned into a kind of caress as she finished in a whisper, "Hatake…"

"I forgot," Sakura said, "you were trained in our village. Of course you know those names! Did you ever personally know any of them? Oh…" she paused, remembering the "no answers" part of the Higurashi policy, "Never mind…"

The woman regained her poise and let out a clear, bell-like laugh.

"Don't think of it. I knew the last Uzumaki, a bitter old bachelor who just happened to be my sensei before I left the village. I was well acquainted with the Uchiha clan…in fact; our two clans were quite well connected. And one of my teammates was a good friend of your sensei when we were younger – so, you see, I did know quite a few of the people and clans you've mentioned. Konoha isn't that large – everyone knew everyone, for the most part. I suppose it's grown, though, since I left…and I'm forgetting my manners. You're probably wondering exactly who I am, aren't you?"

Sakura nodded.

The woman laughed. "How silly of me. My name is Higurashi Ayumi, and I am the last heir of the Higurashi clan. Let me see…I'm a jounin, I never did serve on an ANBU squad, although I would have liked to, and…let me think…I completed all of my training in Konoha, except my jounin certification was done in the Village Hidden in the Mist, for reasons that I'd rather keep to myself for now. Is there anything that I am forgetting?"

Sakura shook her head.

"I don't think so."

"Good," Ayumi replied, "then we can get started on your training. You probably don't get much individual attention, do you?"

Sakura's laugh had a bitter edge. "Of course not. Not with teammates as talented as Naruto and Sasuke. I'm just in their shadows – I'll never be much of a shinobi anyways. I don't have enough chakra."

"Nonsense!" Ayumi scoffed. "What stupidity! Kunoichi have something that no man will ever have – our instinct. Yes, it's all well and good that they are strong and skilled and have finely honed senses…but no man will ever have as sharp instincts of as strong a resolve as a woman. Just think, when a man is hurt, he cannot fight as well because the adrenaline in his body builds up to such a level that his movements are slowed. For a woman, this is not so. We have advantages, Sakura – big ones. Never let any man tell you that you are inferior."

She stood and folded the blanket, motioning for Sakura to get dressed as she did so.

"Come now. We've a lot of work to do, you know – your sensei is a man and cannot possibly know the best way to train a kunoichi. Only another kunoichi can tell the fine, womanly skills that you have, and you do have them. All we have to do is teach you how to use them. Shall we?"

­­­­­­­­­­­­Naruto and Sasuke sat on the front porch of the mansion, drinking in the crisp, misty air. The rain had finally stopped, and they were reveling in the dryness of the air despite the fact that their seats were wet and their feet were damp and Sasuke was rambling on about the grounds and the House and the Houses when Naruto interrupted with a question.

"Sasuke," he asked, "I get all this stuff about the safe houses and all that, and I get the weird bloodline limit that this clan had, but something's been bugging me…how do you know all this?"

The taller boy shrugged.

"I listened in class at the Academy?" he guessed.

"No, seriously! You know details that Iruka-sensei couldn't possibly have taught us!"

"It's a bit embarrassing…"

"Eavesdropping?"

"No, it has to do with my clan."

Naruto stared at his shoes. "You don't have to tell me about it, Sasuke…I know how hard talking about your family is for you."

"No, no, this is older than my family…it goes back to a time before Konoha was founded, when my clan was mighty and revered by all, except for one pesky upstart clan, the Higurashi."

And Sasuke spun a tale that left Naruto's mouth hanging open wider than it had in a long while.

"Years ago, so far back most people don't remember it, the Uchiha clan took in a skinny, starving boy. He had been beaten and chased from his village because, in an attempt to protect himself from a soldier who was menacing him, he ended up committing a murder. He had no idea how it happened, only that he was desperate and whispered a spell that his mother had taught him, while making the sign she had shown him to ward off evil. He said that a purple light flashed, and when he opened his eyes, the soldier was lying on the ground, his dagger in his throat, and the entire village was running to see what had happened.

"My ancestors discovered that the hand sign was one for a jutsu, and the 'spell' he had whispered were the words that activated it. It was a bloodline limit, one that could reverse any jutsu or weapon. My clan always believed that the Higurashi were the most ancient of clans, and that they had gradually died out and that this boy was the last remaining member. His mother had probably given him the way to use his gift in the only way she knew how, and he had used it, and it was because of this that he came to us and because of us that the Higurashi clan rebuilt itself.

"The boy eventually married, and had children, who married and had children, and so on and so forth, until the clan was large and prosperous. But, somehow – and both clans have different versions of the story – they had a falling out with the Uchiha clan and thus began a feud that lasted nearly a century. They hated us, we hated them, but we couldn't battle – it was mutually destructive. We copied jutsu and analyzed moves; they repelled jutsu and weapons. Fights never went anywhere, and soon it was decreed by the Second Hokage that the two clans should have no involvement with each other. They went their way and worked with their Houses, and we went ours and worked on building our clan. You know the rest – how they eventually went almost completely extinct and all that.

"But what a lot of people don't know is that, when Itachi was done killing our clan, he killed the rest of them, which wasn't so hard because there couldn't have been more than a dozen weak, sleepy elders left."

Sasuke took a deep breath to still his voice and dry the tears that threatened to well up at the mention of his older brother.

Naruto nodded thoughtfully.

"I think I get it. So, will you be allowed to stay?"

"Of course. It's always been Higurashi policy to never turn anyone away from a House, and the Hokage's orders allowed for that."

"I see…hey, I wonder where Kakashi is… Do we have to wait for him for lunch? All this talk has made me hungry."

"Dobe," Sasuke murmured, but he followed the kitsune inside anyway.

Deep in the rain-soaked forest, Kakshi was growing more and more desperate by the minute. He had found the clearing without problem, and, upon examining the footprints and blood spatter pattern, realized that no major conflict had happened – probably just Naruto being jumpy.

The amount of Sakura's blood concerned him, though – losing that much blood was never a good thing. He knew from experience.

He shivered and thrust the thought away, resolving not to think of it again.

He slumped down at the base of a tree, dejected and exhausted.

He couldn't feel the presence of his genin, and he was obviously not going to be as effective after being awake for over 48 hours – he quietly cursed Gai and his drinking binges and his stupid rivalry and his stupid drinking contests…

After summoning Pakkun and pointing to the edge of the clearing, he fell asleep, drained and worried, and dreamt of fire and swords and the swirling red eyes of his best friend in the whole world.

A/N: So, yes…je update. This one is essentially just a connecting chapter, and I should be able to write more soon enough. Do let me know what you think…it's a lot better than the original, let me tell you that much. Thanks to superawesome Sweet-Plum and lilazndragonx for reviewing the last installments…love you forever!