Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or its characters.

A/N: Thank you so much for the support you give me! It really means a lot, I hope you know that.

Oh, and I found a song that inspired some new ideas for the new chapter: Inside Out by Kate Voegele. So I named this chapter after that song and when you've finished reading this chapter, you'll understand why. XD


FLASHBACK

Kakashi was watching out of the window. It was raining and the world seemed somewhat gray. The water trickled down the smooth surface of the window forming lines and finally vanishing from his sight.

He was in the kitchen and Aiko was sitting by the table. He knew without looking that she had her arms crossed on her chest. He could hear her breathing unsteadily; she was crying. He couldn't bear looking at her. All the pain and the blame were on him. Only on him.

"Why?" she whimpered. How many times she had asked that question, he had lost the count. That was all she had been able to say for a few hours now. It had been all he had been able to think about since… since he confessed everything.

He didn't know what to say. He didn't know how he had let it all happen. "I'm sorry", he managed to say quietly. It only made her cry harder. He wished he could turn around, walk to her and hold her. But that was impossible, he was glad to be able to be even in the same room with her.

He heard her shifting a little on the chair. There was a small clinging sound and the chair moved. He closed his eyes momentarily and tried to gather his thoughts. He knew exactly what the sound was. Opening his eyes and turning around, he found himself alone in the room. She had left.

The engagement ring lied lonely on the white table.

THE END OF THE FLASHBACK

Carefully watching the woman in front of him he knew the abrupt ending of his previous relationship had been a good thing in the long run. Sakura made him feel when he felt dead inside, she understood him better than anyone ever had. He was sure of his feelings but thinking back, he wasn't sure if he had been sure of his feelings years before when he had been with Aiko.

Sakura was leaping from branch to branch silently, gracefully. Every now and then she'd turn her head slightly to stick her tongue out at him and speed up her pace as a challenge. It made him smile under his mask and he too would leap faster. Challenges made by over a decade younger girl didn't scare him, more like excited him. She made him feel younger… especially when he won. And, seeing her sulking after losing was a price itself.

"Did you know that you're old enough to be a grandpa?" she asked laughing. Sakura was almost next to him, close enough to touch. He glared at her with his visible eye causing her to giggle. He shook his head slightly and sighed. She also made him feel very old at times.

"If I had a kid when I was 16. And he had a kid when he was 16. But when I was 16, I didn't have time for women", he notified hoping she'd change the subject. But he knew she never did.

"Can I assume then that you were a virgin when you were 16 years old?" she asked and laughed harder.

Her question shocked him. Where did she get her thoughts? Did he want to talk about losing his virginity? No. Again, he looked at her sternly and fortunately for him, she got the hint and fell silent. Though, he could see her still shaking from silent laughter.

"I don't want to hear anything about Kakashi's sex life. Nothing! Not a thing!" Naruto yelled from a few meters away from them. The blond ninja felt obligated to "lead" the group as always. And, Sasuke felt obligated to try to take the first place.

The Copy ninja shot another glare at his lover. It was an if-this-turns-into-a-conversation-I-will-have-my-revenge –glare and her body seemed to stiffen a little. He smirked under his mask. She was afraid of his revenges.

Thinking more about his past, it had been the best thing in his life that the engagement had ended. But only the way it had ended haunted him.

The forest became sparse as they got closer to their destination. There weren't as many spruces anymore so they needed to continue their journey on the ground.

After hitting the ground, he looked up and saw dark clouds. The clouds hinted for a storm and the air felt hot and pressuring. They might have to stay in the town for the night. He smiled at the irony of their situation, searching for a place to sleep from an empty town. Others in the team seemed to have had the same conclusion as him.

Sakura glanced at his direction and he noticed her eyes were stained with worry. She had never liked the thunder or lightning. They came out of nowhere just as suddenly as enemy ninjas did sometimes, she said thunder or lightning didn't have a physical form. She had said she was afraid of only the lack of knowledge. It made perfectly sense to him.

"When we get to the town, we search it and if the weather allows it, we continue to the next village", Kakashi said loudly and received "ok's and yeah's.

They decided to have a small break before it would start raining too much to be sitting on the ground. He was eating an apple under a big oak tree. He felt a light weight pressing on his shoulder and noticed Sakura sitting next to him. She was leaning to his shoulder with her head. He had barely even noticed her sitting down next to him.

"You look worried", she said quietly as he was studying her face.

"Yeah", he admitted and turned his gaze to in front of him his eyes really seeing nothing. He was worried but they came from fear. He couldn't remember the last time he had been truly afraid. Even in battlefields seemed somewhat safe when it came to… he wasn't sure what he was exactly afraid of. Losing Sakura as he had lost Aiko? He knew it'd never happen again.

"I think we should go soon", the woman next to him said and placed a quick peck on his masked cheek.

"Yeah", he agreed and stood up from the ground.


The small town reeked eeriness with its silence and gray post-rain colors. The air was misty and it felt like they cold reached the bones in their bodies. They felt no presences anywhere nearby and it seemed like there were no animals either. Some doors were left open and they were creaking from the wind.

"Oh wow", the pink haired woman said in amazement. She wasn't sure if she should turn away and follow her instincts and leave the town. But she forced herself to stand her ground as they watched the town in silence.

"Team up. I want nobody searching for clues here alone", Kakashi said evenly, "Naruto, Sakura and Itachi, you're together. And Sasuke will be with me. You take the east side and we'll go through the west side of the town. Meet up here in three hours."

She glanced at the men in her just assembled team and they started running to the west part of the town. The closest building to them was a big grocery store and the found it completely empty, abandoned. Cash registers were still turned on. There were fruits and vegetables on the floor but they could find no signs of struggle or anything. It was just a big and empty grocery store.

They went through the whole street building by building finding nothing but empty apartments. Again, there were no signs of struggle. Fridge doors were left open, some showers and taps in kitchens were still turned on.

Especially one house struck Sakura. It was a normal two floored house with three bedrooms but the master's bedroom caught her attention. There was a beautiful mahogany dressing table with a big mirror. A chair was in front of the table. Its place told that someone had been sitting on it and when the person had left, they hadn't bothered to move it to its original place. On the table lay an open powder case. The powder puff was on the table and there was still some powder on it. She could see that the wetness of the air had ruined the powder and it had darkened. She knew no woman would put on make-up and leave the powder case and the puff on the table like that. It was as if the woman had just sat up from the chair in front of the table and walked away not caring about anything.

"Found something?" she heard Itachi asking from behind her. She turned her head to look at him and shake her head, "Nah. It seems like the people really just left, willingly."

He nodded and glanced behind him as Naruto walked through the hallway to them. "Mizushima clan", the raven haired man said simply.

"Why would a clan make hundreds of people leave their homes?" Naruto asked turning the attention to him, "And where did they go? There has been really nothing on the news about… about nothing."

"We should go and see if Sasuke and Kakashi have found something", she said and turned her back on the dressing table.

Mizushimas could control other people using a large cloud of mist. The size of the cloud was always related to the amount of people they wanted to influence. Only the eldest of Mizushimas could control big crowds of people. It was a bloodline limit of some kind but not very useful in battles because summoning the mist was a long process and it left the summoner unprotected. They could make anyone do anything; Kages of hidden villages or normal civilian people. Of course, ninjas could fight against the jutsu but no-one had ever heard of anyone even surviving from it. Mizushimas never left survivors.

When Sakura, Itachi and Naruto reached others they figured out that Kakashi and Sasuke had found the town as empty as they had. It had been thundering warningly for an hour or so and the Copy ninja decided they would stay in the nearest house and rest.

"I think we might need some food", Sakura notified as they entered a big townhouse. She was the first one to enter and she took off of her shoes and walked slowly along the hallway.

"There might be something in the cupboards in the kitchen", the blond haired ninja said and hurried to walk next to his pink haired friend.

"That'd be stealing", Itachi stated and walked past the others in the hallway. He had been the last one to enter the house, it made her wonder where he was hurrying to.

"Yea", Sasuke cut into the conversation, "he's right. The owners might come back."

They entered a big lounge that had three sofas circling a coffee table. There were also long dark red curtains and behind the coffee table was a TV. She looked around but didn't see Itachi. She dropped her backpack on the floor next to the couch closest to her and decided to sit down for a moment. Naruto and Sasuke followed her example and also sat on the sofas.

The blond ninja put his feet on the coffee table and groaned. She rolled her eyes at him and he gawked at her: "What?"

"Pay some respect, it's not your house", she said coolly and slowly, he took his feet off of the table.

She looked around and didn't see either Kakashi or Itachi. Before she could ask where they had gone, the older Uchiha walked down the stairs holding a kitten in his arms. It was small and its fur was black and its eyes were bright green.

Sakura wasn't sure if she was supposed to laugh, be shocked or do both. She had never thought Itachi had a thing for cats. Or cats liked him, the kitten in his arms was purring. Also, they had thought the town was completely empty. But Kakashi and Naruto would've said something if they had found a cat from the house.

"Whaaat?" she asked silently and jumped off of the couch and walked to the man. She scratched under the kitten's jaw a little. "I thought the town was empty", she said and turned her attention to the man in front of her.

"Yeah. She was hiding under a bed", Itachi said.

"How did you know it was here?" Naruto asked. He had walked to them and he was about to take the kitten in his arms from Itachi but the cat resisted by trying to scratch him. He stopped his intentions and looked at Itachi questioningly.

"Saw something in the window outside and thought I should check it out", he explained and walked to the sofa Sakura had been sitting on. He sat down still holding the cat.

Sakura rolled her eyes at Naruto and Sasuke. It seemed like they were as dumbfounded as she was.

"Who's up to going to some grocery store to get some food?" Kakashi asked from the doorway to another room. He was leaning on the doorframe and his exposed crinkled eye exposed his grin.

It thundered powerfully and she shuttered. She didn't want to go outside.

"I can go", the blond ninja said. He just wanted to make sure they would eat ramen, she was sure of it.


It was early morning and they were about to leave the house. The men were outside waiting for the pink haired ninja as she was trying to find where the cat was. She believed if they left the kitten, she'd die. Even though she knew, the cat would be just fine. But she didn't want to leave the poor creature. She found the kitten in the living room on a sofa and she was asleep. Carefully, Sakura picked her up from the couch and held her tightly against chest. The cat refused to be in anyone else's arms except Itachi's so she needed to use a little (not too much) force to keep her still.

"Sakura, we are not taking the cat with us", Sasuke notified as if he was the team leader.

Maybe it was her maternal instincts but she couldn't leave the little cat there all alone. She turned her attention to Kakashi who was staring at her. She had known him long enough to detect his emotions from his eyes and right now, he wasn't sure if he should laugh or cry.

"The cat doesn't even like you", the oldest man said matter-of-factly.

"But. But", she started to say something in defense when a thought popped into her head, "Itachi can carry it! She loves him! And she's tiny enough to fit in his chest pocket!"

All eyes turned from Sakura and the cat to Itachi who looked nonchalant. He nodded slightly and she brought the cat to him. As he took the kitten in his arms, she stopped fighting and started purring. He opened his jacket and placed the small ball of fur into his chest pocket.

"Can we go now?" the blond ninja asked and she nodded.

They headed toward the next empty town which was one day's journey to North-East.

The rest of the towns were as empty as the first one. They found out nothing except Mizushimas were the ones behind making the people abandon their homes.


They had returned Konoha on a cloudy morning and by a silent agreement they had decided to go out to a bar later during the evening. To Sakura it all seemed a typical evening, Genma was buying her drinks and trying to get her drunk enough to leave Kakashi and sleep with him, the Copy ninja himself was quite drunk judging by his droopy eye and Naruto had convinced some ninjas to take a part in a drinking game. But. Itachi was with them he was at the same table and he had a beautiful blonde ninja sitting next to him; Ino. She was openly flirting with him, throwing herself at him and licking his ear and every possible uncovered body part. Sakura did her best not to stare at them but most of the time she couldn't resist and she watched.

A rough man's hand placed a drink of some kind in front of her and she followed the arm to its owner with her gaze. Genma smiled widely for a short second and drunk some of his new pint of beer.

"Thanks", she said smiling and grabbed her new drink. She had a feeling she'd need the intoxication.

"No prob. So, the mission went fine?" the older man next to her asked.

She nodded and said: "Yeah. Kinda freaky but it was as successful as it could've been. Plus, we smuggled a cat for the older Uchiha. No, he smuggled a cat for himself."

"Why do I have a feeling that you had something do with him taking a cat with him?" he laughed and she joined the laugher. But as his laughter died suddenly and his attention was focused on something she followed his gaze to a woman a few meters away from their table. Aiko was there.

Sakura felt her heart dropping from her chest and hitting the sticky bar floor. She glanced at her love who had already gotten up from his seat. She wished the brunette woman would cease to exist.

Aiko was standing tall in her high heels. She had long chocolate brown hair and they were a little curly. Sakura was jealous of her hair, she wanted to have brown hair and look as stunning in it as Kakashi's former love did. She also had high cheekbones which were naturally slightly pink.

Noticing the brunette was crying and there were still tears rolling down her cheeks, her inner alarm system went off. Her mind played over different scenes where Aiko would tell Kakashi she still needed him and he'd end up kissing her.

Biting her left inner cheek hard, she tried to aim her anger toward something else than breaking the table in front of her.

"Sakura, it's nothing", Genma said and he sounded somewhat angry. She glanced at him and saw that everyone who had known Kakashi quite long was staring at her.

"Yeah", she said and drank the rest of her drink, "I think I'm gonna go home. Don't want to have a hangover tomorrow."

"I'll walk ya", the brown haired man said.


A/N: Writing this chapter took me tooo long. But I have a lame excuse! I got a new job and I've been working 30 hours in a week. Anywho, please tell me what you think and I'd love some constructive criticism (what was good and what could be improved). -danax