In Konohagakure

A Naruto-Neko original

Sasuke's thoughts

Mayumi's thoughts

Chapter 7- Life as Sasuke's hostage

I woke up, but on a king-sized bed, complete with down pillows and comforter. I had a strange urge to giggle, because I remembered Sakura had been left behind on a bench when Sasuke knocked her out.

How did you know that? Ah great, Sasuke can hear EVERYTHING now. This complicates life…

Again, I wasn't lying earlier. I'm not from this world. And I also happen to know a lot about certain people here, including you. And Naruto.

Hn.

Sitting up, I realized Sasuke was sitting across from my foot board, in a mahogany chair. The whole room was lavishly decorated, and looked to be strangely European in style. There was a pretty painting of peonies on the western wall, next to a large bay window. It was the sort of room that really appealed to the bookish side of me.

Sasuke, still in the chair, had raised a single eyebrow questioningly at me while smirking. This expression confused me, and I raised my arms in a gesture that said, "What are you looking at, huh?" He still only hn'd in response.

"What is up with you? You're acting really strange, Sasuke-baka. Unlike yourself."

Sasuke's mood changed suddenly. "You don't know me," he responded coldly. The atmosphere of the room seemed to drop tangibly in temperature. My brow furrowed in frustration.

"Yes, I do!" My voice was hard and defiant, showing no signs of giving up. Our eyes met, and there were visible sparks in the air from my genjutsu trying to overpower his, though after a minute they both cancelled out.

Draining myself of emotion as to remain calm and not try to murder Sasuke recklessly, I went into my ninja-mode.

"Where did you take me?"

"An Uchiha summer house. I use it sometimes to hide out. I get tired of being underground." He appeared to be emotionless in his pause, but then he added, "By the way, we're in the middle of nowhere. You can't escape."

He exhaled slightly as he exited the room, leaving me with that warning. I sat on the bed for a while, wondering what had come over Sasuke. I wondered if he was being controlled by a creepy stalker ninja that had a random obsession with me, but I doubted it only because Sasuke wouldn't let himself be controlled by such a person. But this meant that it was he who had the random obsession with me.

Changing quickly from my dirty, ruined garb to the back-up identical outfit that I keep in my bag, I wondered idly how big this place is. I also thought for about 2 seconds about how I could mentally block out his thoughts. As if on cue, I heard him roaring in his mind about something.

Why didn't I kill her back there near Tenchi Bridge?

That's what I would like to know, Sasuke-baka. He was startled out of responding for a brief moment.

Shut up.

I rolled my eyes mentally at him, not amused by his sudden, confusing child-likeness. That he was acting this way because of me was mentally out of the question. Now I needed something to distract myself. I padded slowly to the bay window and peeked out, not sure what to expect.

To my surprise, there was a huge garden, with almost any flower you can imagine. The garden included my personal favorite flower, the camellia. I thought only for an instant how strange it was that Sasuke would have something so girly at his hideout kept up, but I dashed out of my room in search for a way out to the garden.


By the time I made it out, it was nearly twilight, the sun just barely above the horizon. The garden looked something out of a fairy tale bathed in the pink-crimson light this particular twilight gave off. Near a small Koi pond grew a large Camellia bush, probably as old as the surrounding forest. Its boughs were particularly sturdy, allowing for me to be able to rest in the bush. The camellias were a deep red, their color brought out by the crimson light.

Resting quietly in the ancient bush, I watched the twilight turn into dusk, and finally night washed over the garden, filling it with the moon's silvery light. The garden was so peaceful I fell asleep without trying to.

I woke up later at an ungodly hour. The moon and stars looked quite beautiful. Out of the village, I realized I could see the Milky Way, something I've never actually seen before. I was awestruck by the river of light in the heavens, yet I was not happy.

I'm sorry, Naruto. It looks like I won't be able to go back for a while. I knew Sasuke would be the one to hear me, but I didn't care. I missed the village, my home, and before I could stop them wet, hot tears rolled down my cheeks. I felt as if there was a hard, painful knot in my throat, preventing me from making a sound.

In a situation like this, I would normally calm myself down, counting to 10 over and over in my head until I was under control. However, since I didn't sense Sasuke in the garden I just let myself cry. It was right then I detected Sasuke standing right under my bush. I didn't even look at him; I just exhaled sharply and forced the lump out of my throat.

What do you want now? I was obviously not in the mood to deal with my kidnapper.

"What's wrong with you?" He asked this out loud, surprising me he even bothered to ask that. He was the one who kidnapped me, after all.

"Take a guess."

"Hn." Wuss.

Do you wish to be stabbed this fine evening? No, didn't think so. Trying to leave the conversation at that, I jumped deftly to a tree nearby.

You can't just run away. Oh crap, he's starting to make remote sense in his reasoning.

Leave me alone, baka.

Stop calling me baka.

Fine, TEME!

He ignored my insult. What's wrong?

What the heck is your problem? Why do you bother asking? All you care about is freaking revenge! That's why you left your teammates, one of them you best friend! My anger boiled over and exploded like a highly active volcano. I was seeing in tunnel vision, towards Sasuke. Oh yeah, and by the way, if you DARE try toying with me like your stupid master, I will personally kick your butt. Hard. With a kunai sticking out of my shoe. I had to add the last part, considering Orochimaru was his master. But, then again, Sasuke did kill Orochimaru. Partially. Sort of.

You know too much about me. I need to know how.

Oh you REALLY wanna know? It sounds just as crazy and whacked up as me beating Naruto at a ramen eating contest, and it's just as true!

So… it's a lie then?

NO! I HAVE LIKE, 100 WITNESSES TOO!

Hn. At this point, I was really close to slapping that jerk. But, with a grin, I realized there was nothing stopping me from doing so.

I jumped down from my perch and strode over to Sasuke. I looked him in the eye, and smacked him hard on the left cheek. My face was straight, until I saw the somehow shocked look on his face. I stalked back in the house, laughing hysterically all the way. Of course, I later felt bad for laughing in this situation, but I figured that my friends would understand if they had seen the look on his face.

I lay down on the bed in the European weird room, wondering if I'd have insomnia away from Naruto. And I did, for about two hours. I eventually passed out though, because you know, slapping your kidnapper was some pretty exhausting stuff.


I woke up early the next morning, before dawn. I spent most of my time in that garden, and I slept outside in the camellia bush. However, on the night of the third day, after I had gotten dressed for bed, Sasuke informed me we were leaving the next morning.

"Oh yeah, you are an outlaw. So, when do plan to destroy Konohagakure?" At the same time, I shot him a look that said 'If you tell me the wrong answer, I'll kill you.'

"Eventually." Tomorrow. I replied with threats with poisoned kunai and shuriken in his sleep.

Che, fine, not tomorrow.

Better. Good boy.

The next morning, I had to leave my fantasy garden. It was quite sad, actually. I knew I'd never see it again.

"How do you know I'm not going to run away?" I asked as we started out of the huge mansion.

"Hn. Naruto taught you. You won't break your promises."

Turning my head away from view, I blinked away tears and counted to ten. The mention of Naruto hurt horribly at this point. Sasuke was starting to completely ignore my overflowing emotions at this point, though. My thoughts explained enough, I guess.

We passed through several small villages. Sasuke was of course disguised, and I wondered silently why we didn't just bypass them, but he didn't answer. I figured he missed civilization. But before long I saw some posters that gave me some hope.


Missing!

Nakamura Mayumi

If seen, contact Konohagakure

Reward: 2,000,000 ryo


But unfortunately, Sasuke saw them too. So, of course he made me waste tons of chakra using my stealth jutsu when going through villages we didn't even have to go through. Him and his stupid man ego gets on my nerves.

We traveled like that, seemingly to nowhere, for about 3 weeks. I already knew a little too much about Sasuke, but he seemed to start to kind-of understand me. I wished it was Naruto, though. For one, it'd be less scary and less against my will.

Sasuke was right though. I couldn't break my stupid promise. Plus he found it (gag) amusing. That's pretty much the last thing I want to do, amuse Sasuke.

Eventually, we did stop at yet another Uchiha mansion. I wonder who keeps up these mansions… does Sasuke keep slaves for life? I shudder randomly at that thought.

This mansion had really and truly amazing training facilities, part of it remotely reminding me of Bleach. In this mansion, I managed to create a new jutsu, despite only being there for a few weeks. It is a water style (Suiton) jutsu, and its name is pretty much what it is. It's called "Suiton: Chakra Claws".

I ignored Sasuke most of the time. I had no clue, even while being able to hear his thoughts, day in and day out, why he did just kill me, or try to anyway. Honestly, I was getting to the point where I didn't want to know.

Sometimes, Sasuke would train with me, if only to show off. And every time I charged him with my chakra claws, I couldn't get him. Well, I know charging in like that isn't my style, but sometimes it's really fun to just do that. I can see why Naruto does that ALL THE TIME. Well, not being able to scratch him was really annoying anyway. I was going to escape eventually…

So I'm working on my chakra claws. It's rather difficult to control. If I'm not entirely focused, the chakra will distort, making it useless, or dissipate completely. Strangely enough, the cat-eyed side-effect of the stealth jutsu improved my control of chakra claws, and it distorted or dissipated about half as much, maybe less.

I sliced the nearest dummy in two. It wasn't any normal straw dummy; this was 6 inches of solid steel. It would be kind of fun destroying these with Sakura.

I was in my zone, now. Slice, slash, thud; another dummy down. Sasuke entered the room. As usual, I ignored his presence. I started working harder, slicing dummies in two in giant sweeping motions, murdering 10 at once. I pretended I was slashing barriers to Konohagakure.

Eventually, I ran out of chakra. I had to stop. Sasuke, still watching, started to train. He was just trying to prove he's better than I. Teme.

As I stalked out, my stomach growled. I craved ramen quite badly. And then I made a decision to take a walk. A long, long walk. I strode out, not really thinking about anything special, but I didn't "plan" my destination. I just walked in the direction I felt like. After about 2 undetected hours, I was at the gates of Konohagakure, too weak to even try to use my stealth jutsu. I had made it, and Sasuke had no idea. I collapsed at the gate, barely holding onto consciousness.

In my head, Sasuke's voice whispered, where is she? Heheheh. Baka.

The guards of the gate shouted. I heard my name called out by one of my friends, and the last thing I saw was a flash of orange.

I'm home.