The Burden of Future

~Chapter 7~

Hello, friends! Thanks for all the sweet reviews that you've written for the past few days. I was so happy reading them that my dad almost got a heart attack. Yeah, I guess screaming my lungs out and running around while he was sleeping wasn't such a good idea… Anyways, here's chapter 7.

Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: You. Yeah, you. Come here for a moment. You know the person who writes this story? She's not the owner. Yeah, I know, I was surprised too.


"Aaaaaaaaah!" the boy shouted, a frightened expression painted on his face. He was trying so hard to move, but there was no way out. His body, over which he had no control, was sinking slowly in what seemed like blackish sticky goo of some sort, in which he realized it was getting hard to breath. The fluid had already reached his chin and he thought that was the perfect moment to panic. Unfortunately for him, his body wouldn't listen so all that fright was building up in him, with no escape what so ever. When the liquid was so close to his mouth that he could literally feel its disgusting aroma, he did the last thing that crossed his mind in search of a ways to free himself out of it.

"Kai," and the illusion disrupted.


"I'm impressed, Naruto. That could be easily considered your record. You took only two hours for this one." Sakura said, smiling widely at her blue-eyed friend.

"Really?", a toothy grin appeared on the boy's face, suddenly lit by the news." Wow, I never thought I would get rid of one in less than 5 hours."

" Nice job, Naruto. Now let's put you back to sleep," his friend (whose hair looked so similar to a duck's ass) said, locking eyes with him and casting him into another genjutsu.

"Oh, man…" Naruto complained before passing out and falling into slumber. The other two moved him to a bench, so he wouldn't catch a cold with all the long hours spent on the ground.

"He needs his rest anyway," Sakura said, fixing the blonde's position on the bench. They've been putting him in and out of genjutsus for the past few days as all of them knew that was his noticeable weakness in a fight. At first, he couldn't even get out of it, despite being in it for more than 8 hours. It was also a break from taijutsu, a much needed one considering how he overexerted himself whenever he trained in it.

She looked at the boy's features, mildly traced with exhaustion and somewhat confusion, the latter most probably from the illusion he was experiencing at that moment.

"Want to spar?" Sasuke asked, not really speaking her direction.

"Yes," she blurred the obvious answer while going to the center of the training ground. It became an almost rhetorical question as that was all they were actually doing while Naruto was fighting to get out of genjutsus. After two rounds of sparring and genjutsu training, respectively, they would train individually in ninjutsu: Sasuke with his fire jutsus, Naruto with chakra control, in which he seriously lacked, by the way, and Sakura with genjutsu and medic jutsus. Although they worked somewhat separately, they all took each opportunity to share their progresses and newly discovered ways through which they could improve their training.

"Ready?" Sakura asked, already set in her fighting stance.

"Hn," and the fighting began.


It wasn't much of it, really, compared to the level at which Itachi fought the one time she'd seen him do it, but each passing day, she could see even the slightest development in both her and Sasuke's skills. Their speed grew significantly, their aim was much more precise and their reflexes sharpened, bringing them to the level of a high-skilled Gennin. Their hands were a blur, making everything around them seem fuzzy, undistinguishable. Despite that, she caught in the corner of her eye a faint trace of black passing by them, which caught her attention enough for Sasuke to punch her in the face.

"Ow,ow,ow!" she cried, holding her bleeding nose. "Why did you do that?".

"I thought you'd dodge," Sasuke shrugged, "Sorry."

…. And the world opened its mouth agape and stared at the young Uchiha.

'Did Sasuke just apologize? To me?' Sakura wondered, gaping at her friend.

'Yeah, I know. Even I look like a fish on the shore at the moment…'

"Um, Sakura?"

"Y-Yes?"

"You're drooling."

"Oh, thanks." Guess she held her mouth opened a bit too long.

'Now what was that thing moving around us?' she questioned herself and enhanced her senses in hope of feeling a presence.

'There you go.' Sakura said smiling before trying to put a serious expression on her face.

"You can come out now, Itachi."

As soon as she called it out, the long-haired boy appeared, walking leisurely towards them.

"You get me every time, Sakura. I'm really curious how you manage to do it so easily."

"Haha, what to do? I'm just that talented on my own." Sakura said, smiling sheepishly at him.

"I see." Itachi said, eying her curiously. "I came after Sasuke. Dinner's ready."

"We'll come with you," she said and went to 'wake up' the blond-haired boy so he could join the stroll.


The four of them were walking slowly towards the Uchiha manor, habit they had whenever Itachi came back from a mission, which, unfortunately, was pretty rarely. She came to actually like Sasuke's stern looking brother and, at times, she would almost forget that he was the same Itachi that in a few months was to slaughter his entire family as a mission. She couldn't even imagine how he pulled it through, how he was able to murder his relatives in such cold blood. If she'd been given such horrifying orders, she would have probably killed herself. Yeah, better her that her entire family.

She'd thought about it more than once and she couldn't ignore the feeling that there was something more about the massacre than the simple fact that it was a mission. Itachi, even though he was a very skilled shinobi and an honorable one as well (at least at the moment), he was still a human being and unless he was crazy, he wouldn't have been able to kill them all, in spite all the laws of being a shinobi. There were some other details to the whole story that she didn't know and she was put on finding them out as soon as possible.

Reaching Sasuke's home, they finally parted, wishing each other good night as the sky was already dark. On her way home, Sakura thought about what was to follow and she couldn't wait for it to happen.

'Three more days left, ha?'

'Yeah…' Sakura said, a soft tugging at the corner of her lips. ' Can't wait to see Iruka-sensei and the others.".


That's it for today, folks! Don't forget to review so that I can scare my parents again with my uncontrollable cries of happiness :D!