I returned savely from my classtrip, it was brilliant by the way, berlin is definitely a city worth visiting. Thanks everyone for telling me that its Uchiha not Uchia, don't know where that came from, I'm very sorry. For the other mistakes i'm making as well. English isn't my native language so i sometimes do not spot mistakes. It can happen that i mess up some tenses, please don't mind too much, I work on it right now.

I also want to thank the reviewers, that are so much of a motivation. *Big Big Hug*

Nevertheless, enjoy the chapter, everyone! And, I don't own Naruto.


chapter 3

...

"Naruto!" Kakashi yelled, when the door closed and burst open again from the explosion almost the same second. Everywhere was dust and the world seemed absolutely quiet for a minute. Thrown off his feet by the shockwave, he tried to get up, glad for the support Sasuke and Sakura gave him.

"Kakashi-sensei, what happened?" The Jounin shook his head, partly as an answer, partly to get rid of his headache.

"I don't really know. There seemed to be bombs inside the office and Naruto took the Kazekage and his adviser out." He glanced to the right where the leader was surrounded by a few medic-nins and other shinobi. "Well, she turned back to another guy, who was standing in a corner, not moving. She talked to him but left without him. Then she saw me standing in the door, she seemed to hear something. She pushed me back and closed the door from the inside. I don't know if she is alright."

He noted his fingers trembling and tried walking to the door once again. The air started to clear and inside the office the destruction was visible. Furniture was shattered and the walls were half broken. The scent if gunpowder and burnt flesh lingered in the air.

Carefully Kakashi stepped into the destroyed room Part of the ceiling came down and buried the whole office under its stones, he noticed and his heart ached painfully for a second. He looked into the corner where the other guy had stood earlier. Instead there was a perfectly round ball made of sand. Slowly it began to run down to the floor, revealing a faultlessly healthy redhead who supported, better said carried, a badly injured Naruto, who seemed to be unconscious. Her blond hair was stained with the bright color of her blood. While the guy wasn't even dirty, her clothes were ripped apart and showed her burnt skin.

"Does she belong to you?" The guy asked the incoming shinobi. Sakura ran towards them and the green chakra glowed between her fingers, when she started a diagnosis-jutsu.

"How is it, Sakura?" The concerned look on her face worried Sasuke.

"She has a cut on her head, and about fifteen percent of her skin is burnt. To add, there are various bruises. She is unconscious and ought to have a concussion. Her current state is not good, but she hasn't any inner injuries and nothing's broken. She'll easily survive if I can treat her in a hospital. Don't worry, Kakashi-sensei, she'll be alright." He nodded his thanks to Sakura and immediately felt better.

"Alright let's take her to the hospital." Kakashi looked at the redhead who plainly lifted her from her feet and carried her bridal style. There was a storm of sand and the two were gone. Getting his mind together Kakashi dragged Sakura out of the room made his way to the hospital with her.

XXX

Everything was hot, she remembered. There had been fire; stones had flown around, hitting her hard on the head. She also recalled Kakashi's shocked look, as she had pushed him away. When she had closed the door, she didn't feel regret. She had known that this wouldn't end too well, when she had seen the flames getting closer, but she had been calm.

The only things that had made the ground shaken were Gaara's sea green eyes. During the meeting he hadn't shown any emotion, his face still was still unmoved but those orbs were trembling now. Filled with questions and also a hint of sorrow. Naruto wasn't able her the words he said but since she was an ANBU she was skilled in lip-reading.

"Why?" It was a single word that he had on his mind.

And to his surprise she had smiled. It had been a sad smile, though beautiful. It was confusing he thought her beautiful, since he only found the moon and the blood from his victims beautiful, why her? In her eyes had been an understanding he never had experienced a sharing of grief and suffer. She had known why he had asked, couldn't grab the action she made to save Kakashi in a reasonable way. That hadn't been what life had been teaching him. To give up yourself to rescue someone else.

His sudden urge to help came too late. He saved her from most of the down coming bricks, but the flying furniture and the fire had hit her at full force. His mind still hadn't worked out, why he had helped her at all; she was just a Konoha-jounin on a diplomatic mission. Nothing special, so why had he pulled her into his sand defense. Why the hell did he care? He never did. So why start with this blonde. Why couldn't he forget her cerulean eyes, clear as the deep blue sea? Why did he want her to open them again and smile?

Just why, he thought as he reappeared in the hospital and carefully dropped her on one of the beds. Almost the next second the Jounin with the half covered face and the girl with the odd hair color came around the corner. They were fast, he had to admit. He shot the injured girl another look. He didn't know if she felt pain, the word didn't mean anything to him, he never experienced it. But if she did feel it now, he wanted it to stop. It was supposed to be not too nice.

The effort the kunoichi made showed results. The skin healed right before their eyes and the violent colors around the bruises disappeared. Her expression relaxed and Sakura went over to the head to make a brain checkup. Kakashi stepped to the side of the patient.

"Naruto, what did you do?" He muttered and then laid a hand on her arm. "Think, what would your father say now?" Sakura eyed him curiously.

"He'd be proud." Everyone looked at Naruto, whose eyes fluttered open. Her voice was less than a whisper. "Because I protected a friend, his precious student. He'd understand, that I saved a comrade, don't you think?" Kakashi looked pained.

"Yes, you're right." He sighed. "You're just like him. There's a reason why he chose you for the difficult burden you're carrying. If he wasn't gone, he would apologize to you everyday for the task he gave to you. He loved you." Naruto's smile was soft.

"I'm not angry anymore. Today, I'd do the same." Sakura looked pretty puzzled.

"Kakashi-sensei, what are you talking about?"

"Nothing much." Naruto answered and turned to Gaara. She slowly lifted a hand and laid it on his. He almost backed away by the soft touch, but finally let it happen.

"You have a hard fate, I know that better than anyone else, I've been through the same pain." Gaara's eyes widened, Kakashi looked sad, Sakura even more confused.

"You don't have to be alone, Sabaku no Gaara. Don't lock your heart away." Her eyelids fluttered again and she fell into sleep again, her hand still holding his. Sakura swallowed the questions she had and picked up the work again. After a few minutes Sasuke entered the room.

"How is it?" He asked.

"She is sleeping now; she woke up a few minutes ago and seemed to be alright. She should take it easy and stay in the hospital for the next week, to keep her under observation, and she'll be fine. Her self regeneration is impressive by the way." Sakura explained. "Did you learn anything?" She finally questioned.

"Yeah, and quite a lot. The bombs were placed by some Suna-nins who are against the ally ship, we found out. They are already in prison; the Kazekage is going to interrogate them later. The attack was carried out that way, to break down the ceiling but not to damage the rest of the building." He grabbed into his pocket. "I found Naruto's hitai-ate. It got lost in the explosion." Everyone's eyes wandered to her arm, where it usually was tied, finding only the bandages there.

"Is that a scratch on her arm?" Sakura asked and pulled the leftovers of the fabric away, exposing the tattoo. The whole room went dead silent. After a while Kakashi found everyone look at him. He sighed.

"Yes, Naruto is an ANBU. I worked together with her from time to time."

"You knew." It wasn't a question but a statement. Sakura had an awfully betrayed look on her face.

"Yeah, I did. And I'm sorry, that I couldn't tell you, but it was the Hokage's order. Besides, ANBU are obliged to hide their identity. Naruto will get punishment as soon as we return to Konoha."

"Punishment?" Sasuke asked.

"Yes, she broke the rules." Both Cuunin were shocked.

"But she almost died. How can someone punish her for it?"

Kakashi started to explain his students the ANBU codex to provide misunderstandings. Meanwhile Gaara only listened with one ear. The other one was only able to hear the steady breathing Naruto finally had. His mind was far away as well. Her words were still very present; the feelings that came with them were as well. The surprising truth was, he believed her. That was odd, because meeting someone who had a comparable life with his was a very uncommon occasion. No one he ever got to know had been trough similar pain. And the same? Almost impossible. But nevertheless he believed her.

"She's a Jinchuuriki, isn't she?" He asked the Jounin who seemed to know her a bit. The man looked desperate.

"Yes, she is. She already suffered a lot in her life."

"I can imagine. You seem to pity her. Feel sorry for her. Why's that? Isn't she a monster who killed countless of your friends?" Now, Gaara got the sad look, which was also directed towards him.

"No, she's not. For many she still is, but to me she's a friend." The redhead thought about it. He couldn't really understand it. What made her different from himself?

"Gaara, are you alright? We heard about the explosion and were worried." Gaara didn't need to turn around to know, that his siblings Kankuro and Temari stormed into the room. Out of habit, he was about to say something evil, that would've scared them off, but he remembered Naruto's words.

"I'm fine, Temari. Thanks for you concern." The surprised looks, the siblings made were priceless.

XXX

Naruto woke up again late at night. The sky was coal black; there weren't any stars. Only the moon shone softly in her room.

Her whole body was aching, but all in all she was surprisingly well thanks to Kyuubi. Other people would still be unconscious.

She sat up and hissed at the pain in her back. Nevertheless she kept on getting in a sitting position. Her throat was dry as the dessert and she looked around for a glass of water in her reach. Of course there wasn't any. No one expected her to wake up already. A small curse escaped her lips.

"You seem to be better." Sasuke's voice came out of a dark corner of the room. Instinctively Naruto lifted a hand to her tattoo finding it uncovered.

"We all know." He said answering her unsaid question.

"Fuck" She stated. "Should've kept it a secret." Still dizzy from sleep and medication she tried to straighten herself but lost balance. He reacted fast and caught her midair. She panted heavily from the exhaustion.

"Thank you, Uchiha. I guess I'm not fit again."

"How should you? The accident is just twelve hours ago. It's impressive you already awake again."

"I heal fast." Carefully Sasuke placed her in the pillows again, then sat down on the bed next to her.

"You scared us, especially Kakashi-sensei. He was sitting in your room until an hour ago, when Sakura told him to get some sleep."

"I'm sorry. It wasn't my intention to bother you." He shook his head.

"We know that, Kakashi does… Naruto, there are some things I said earlier, I am very sorry for." He shifted his weight and Naruto could see he was very uneasy. "You were right, it wasn't fair to judge you and I thank you for protecting my sensei, I owe you."

"No, not really. He's my friend as well. He's one of the persons that told me to stand up for my important people. When I was going through a very difficult time, he was there as well." She paused. "And about the other thing, it's alright. Sometimes it isn't easy to be a good shinobi, you have to find your center. Don't worry about it, the time will come." They were both silent until Saskue spoke again.

"You were in ANBU together, right?"

"Yes, but there wasn't a time when we were both active ANBU at the same time. When I finished my training and joined a squad at thirteen, he already quit to teach you and Sakura. But we did Jounin missions together and he still sometimes takes ANBU missions, because he is one of our best men."

"Aren't you very young for being in ANBU. Because when you compare your age with other's they are often much older. Not that I don't believe you're good, but…" He trailed off.

"I am young, indeed. But my training started early as well. I was four when a very skilled shinobi started to teach me. Other brilliant ones followed." He looked at her interested, but didn't ask for the names.

"You experienced a lot of pain, didn't you?" She didn't answer the question for a long time. Her thoughts traveled especially through the first years of her life, before things got better.

"Yeah, you're right. But now I have friends and people I care for, that's the most important. I have work to do and someone relying on me. I'm more than just a little girl, which is hated by everyone. I'm more than…" She stopped, not wanting to tell Sasuke about Kyuubi yet. But he seemed to be concerned about her, maybe they could be friends.

"Being an Uchiha is hard as well, right?" He nodded.

"Since my father was executed things got difficult."

"Do you hate the Hokage for his actions?" He thought about it for a minute.

"No, he prevented the deaths of many innocent people. What the clan planned was wrong. A civil war would've been far worse for Konoha than breaking the Uchiha. Because of that, I want to become stronger and rebuild the Uchiha's good name."

"That's an admireable goal, Uchiha Sasuke."

XXX

The next day the Kazekage paid her a visit and apologized for the incident. He also thanked her for rescuing him and Baki, his adviser. He described the problems with the bombs weren't that easy to solve, but he didn't want to stop the diplomatic contact with Konoha.

He offered her to demand a backup-team from Leaf and Naruto immediately wrote a letter to the Hokage and requested a certain ANBU squad.

When she was alone in her room again, a big sigh escaped her. All the smiling and being friendly exhausted her mentally.

It was then, when she noticed a strong and evil presence of a skilled shinobi outside coming down the corridor and her senses were on alert immediately.


...

So this is it! You'll be happy to hear, that the 4th chapter is almost finished, I just need to write it on computer, because I had a creative phases in Latin classes(this is somewhat strange, i notice... maybe the chapters bad because of that).

I wanted to show, that there is a deep friendship developing between sasuke and naruto, but don't worry, there won't be such crazy love triangle. Too troublesome ^^

In the next chapter there will be new Konoha nin arriving in Suna, some known characters, some I thought about on my own, so please read!

Thanks everyone, cold moon