Chapter 10

The bandaged Sound Ninja growled at the new arrivals. "These Leaf Village worms keep crawling their way into things that have nothing to do with them. I can't wait to be done with them."

Megumi saw as the new arrivals fought with each other over whether or not they should have come. They were a strange group, the boy with his spiked hair up seemed to be just too bothered to even fight, the chubby boy was begging to leave, and the blonde girl who had brought them there looked a little hesitant to fight now. 'How strange.' They continued to argue and didn't seem to be getting anywhere when Zaku laughed.

"Better a live sheep then a dead lion, right fatso?" Megumi saw a change in the boy named Choji, his ear twitched and he stopped struggling with the grip his teammate, Shikamaru, had on his scarf.

"Did I just hear that right? What did that guy just say?" Choji said in an ominous voice. "You wanna try saying that again?" Shikamaru looked panicked as he looked at Choji and then at Megumi.

Zaku just smirked as he saw he was provoking Choji. "I said you're smart to leave while you still can, fatty."

"Who are you calling fat? I'm just a little chubby, Ok!" Megumi looked on in confusion as he seemed to gain a flame in his eyes. 'How is this the same guy?' She pondered. "That's it, now this is personal! It's a battle to the death between Leaf and Sound."

Shikamaru and Ino were no longer worried; they even seemed a bit confident. "Mist ninja! Move out of the way, we seem to have a handle on this now." He said towards her with a smirk. She put her blade away thankful that she could rest even if it were a few minutes and moved towards Sakura to help her take care of Naruto and Sasuke.

Ino looked back and gave them a reassuring smile before she looked at the battle ahead. "Ok team Ino, let's show them who's boss. Formation; Ino-"

"Shika-"

"Cho-"

Sakura and Megumi looked on as Choji used the Expansion jutsu to grow rounder and bigger. "Human Boulder-Jutsu!" He rolled towards Zaku but he only stopped him with his slicing sound wave but Choji kept going which made Zaku try harder, what he didn't notice was that Choji was picking up speed with the wind and soon jumped over it to reach Zaku.

"Zaku!" The bandaged ninja saw that his comrade would not survive the impact at Choji's incredible speed. "What?" He almost reached him when he suddenly stopped; his shadow was stretched out and was connected to Shikamaru's shadow. Every move Shikamaru made, his enemy would copy and at one point he kept him standing with his legs apart and hands at his head.

He tried to get out of his grip but he wasn't in control of his body. "It's some sort of paralyzes jutsu." He grunted.

Shikamaru tried looking as serious as possible as he made strange stances. "Ino, I'll leave the girl to you."

Ino stepped up and put her hands together aimed at Kin. "Alright, just take care of my body. Ninja Art, Mind Transfer-Jutsu!" At first glance it looked like Ino had knocked herself out as she fell against Shikamaru when in reality, Kin had been hit directly with her soul.

"Kin! What's wrong with you?" Her teammates yelled. They gasped at her next move.

"Party's over fellas" Ino stated from inside of Kin as she held a knife to her throat. "Take it easy. One false move and your teammate here gets it. So here's what you do, just drop the scroll and walk away." After recovering from their initial shock, they smirked at the opportunity that presented itself to them.

Megumi's eyes widened as she saw their reaction. "Ino move! They're going to attack you!"

"Wha- Choji!" Ino called to Choji to block Zaku's attack towards her. He wasn't fast enough though and was knocked out of his jutsu dizzy. As for Ino, she was thrown at a tree and both Kin's and her own body ended up bleeding from the side of the mouth. She tried to get up from the ground but found it too difficult. "I- I don't get it, what kind of monster attacks their own teammate."

"Dosu and I aren't really playing by your rules, we don't care about stupid scrolls." They laughed as they aimed at their own teammate on the ground.

Dosu looked down in time to see Shikamaru's shadow receding from his own. "Oh, I see. The paralyses jutsu only works for a certain amount of time."

Shikamaru looked on in frustration as his jutsu undid itself. "It's Shadow Possession –Jutsu, get your jutsu right."

"Whatever. And your little friend can slip her soul into her enemy's body. But it's dangerous, any damage her enemy receives she also receives, so say Kin were to die." He explained as Zaku aimed towards Kin with his hand.

Shikamaru seemed to be trying to come up with another plan but obviously couldn't think of anything. "Oh man, what a drag."

"It seems we arrived at the right moment." They all looked up and saw Rock Lee's team member speaking with the female member next to him. "It looks like someone used our teammate as a punching bag, no one gets away with that!" His look seemed to be piercing everyone he looked at and his eyes widened when he saw a strange bit of chakra.

Dosu had lost his patience with him. "Well? Are you going to do anything about it?" Neji closed his eyes and relaxed when he spoke next.

"It looks like it's been taken out of my hands." They all had confused faces until they turned and saw Sasuke become completely engulfed in a purple chakra and wake up.

Sakura looked in excitement as she saw him stand, "Sasuke! You're awake, ah!" Her expression changed to fear as she looked at Sasuke. Megumi couldn't believe this was him, he had a very evil aura and had strange marks on half his body. 'Sasuke…'

He looked up in anger with his sharingan blazing, and something close to excitement but Megumi told herself she must have been mistaken. Why would he be excited over a situation like this?

"Sakura, who did this to you?" He seemed to grow angrier as he was answered with silence. "Who was it?" He growled, he saw everyone's confused and scared faces staring back at him as he clenched his fist. "Don't worry; it's only the power going though me, in fact, I've never felt better. He gave me this gift, this power, he showed me that I am an avenger and I need to be willing to do anything to gain more power even if it means being consumed by evil. Now tell me, which one of these people did this to you, Sakura?"

'This isn't Sasuke. What's happening to him?' Megumi shook the tears coming to her away as she looked back at Sasuke.

Zaku smiled widely at Sasuke as he answered, "That would be me." Megumi watched from the sidelines as he turned towards Zaku with absolute hatred, from the corner of her eye she saw Kin faint after Ino had returned to her own body and hide with the rest of her team behind some bushes. 'Should I get out of the way? I'm not sure if I'm in danger with Sasuke like this.' She gasped as she saw the rest of his body be covered by the strange marks. 'This chakra! It's unreal; no one can beat him like this!" Her breath shuddered as she saw Zaku use his supersonic wave on Sasuke and his team despite Dosu's pleas to stop.

She cried out as the force of the attack threatened to take her along with the others. All that could be heard afterwards were Zaku's pants as the dust cleared. "What do you know, blew them all away." He laughed.

"Not quite." Before he could react, Sasuke punched Zaku on the side of the head, sending him a few feet away on the ground. While he tried to recover, Sasuke took advantage to quickly send a jutsu, "Fire Style, Phoenix Flower-Jutsu!" Zaku tried to blow out the flames with his slicing sound wave only to uncover shuriken coming at him. He was hit directly and tried again to recover but wasn't quick enough and ended up having his arms caught behind him by Sasuke with his leg on Zaku's back. "You seem to be very proud of these arms of yours, you must be very attached to them."

"Sasuke no!" Megumi's cry went ignored and she covered her ears to muffle the cry of pain Zaku emitted as his arms were broken and pulled from their sockets, severely damaging them. She barely noticed Dosu leave behind his scroll and take his teammates away; she also didn't notice Sasuke coming towards her until his feet were in her eyesight. "Sasu- Ah!"

He grabbed her by the throat and held her to his height. She clawed at his hands and gasped for breath. "S-Sasuke! It- It's me!"

"I know it's you, Megumi. Although, how do I know you aren't an enemy." He stated with a satanic smile as he tightened his grip on her throat. "Why didn't you tell me you were a ninja? What else did you lie about? …Well?" She was losing consciousness when she heard Sakura yell out to him and felt Sasuke loosen his grip.

"No! Don't do it." Megumi gasped for air as she fell to the ground on her side. She turned herself over and could feel the bruises beginning to form on her neck while she still struggled to breathe, the last thing she saw was a trembling and fearful Sasuke staring at her.

…

Megumi eyes fluttered open as she woke up, it was morning and she could smell cooking fish. She sat up straight and looked around. 'Where am I?' She looked around and saw that she was on a shore next to a river, but how had she gotten there?

"Hey! You're finally awake!" She looked up to a shirtless Naruto carrying fish, she blushed and looked down, Megumi had never seen a guy shirtless before.

"Uh, N-Naruto. Do you know what day of the exam this is?" Naruto was setting up a place to start a fire when he heard her question.

"Oh, it's day three. You were asleep all day and night yesterday; you must've been really tired."

"Yeah, I need to go. I have to meet up with my team." She started to get up and look around for her things, they were in a neat pile next to Naruto's pile of clothes.

"Go? No, you have to rest more and you have to wait for Sasuke and Sakura so we can eat this fish together. Come on, it's barely morning anyway." He tried to convince her. She needed to meet up with Yuki though, no doubt he had found at least one more scroll and he would he would surely criticize Megumi if she arrived late and empty handed. She thought over her options.

"Alright, I can stay for a little while." She agreed. Why not prolong the inevitable. She was helping Naruto set up the fire pit when they heard the plants move, out came Sasuke carrying pieces of wood and Sakura with a canteen of water.

Sakura smiled at the sight of Megumi awake, 'Thank goodness.' "Megumi! I was worried about you, I didn't know how to help you."

"That's ok; it was probably just lack of sleep or something." Megumi looked up and saw Sasuke staring at her emotionlessly. As they started cooking the fish the fire began to die down a bit and Megumi volunteered to go get more wood in the forest. She was about to stand up and head back when she heard someone sit down next to her.

"So why didn't you tell me you were a ninja?" She heard Sasuke ask.

She sighed as she looked up him, "Because I'm not really a ninja, I was never really trained in an academy like you. I'm sure you figured out by now that I was part of Zabuza Momochi's team in the land of waves. He saved me from the streets and made me a who I am today, if it weren't for him I probably wouldn't be here." She explained.

"But you're a rouge ninja, the only reason you're not in the Bingo book is because you were never caught. How do I know I can trust you?" He seemed to be telling himself.

"Well, I never did lie to you." She was worried that he might try to hurt her again, she looked towards only to find him looking at her, or more exactly at her neck. She let out a nervous chuckle as she put her hand on her neck. "It doesn't hurt much anymore, so it's fine."

"I'm sorry," He said without moving his eyes.

"Like I said, it's fine." She couldn't meet his eyes; she was embarrassed for some reason. Sasuke sighed looking down at his lap. 'She can't even look at me.' He looked back towards her and took out a training scroll and took out a small object from inside.

"I'm still sorry, I don't know why I reacted that way but…look, I want you to have this back." He took her hand and placed the pressed purple flower she had originally given to him. Megumi looked up at him in confusion first, and then smiled towards him as if forgiving him. "You can give it back to me the next time we separate and see each other again; it's like a way to make sure we will stay friends." He was blushing by now, Sasuke Uchiha never said this sort of thing. There was something about Megumi though, something that made him want to stay her friend.

Megumi couldn't remember a time where she smiled wider, 'He doesn't hate me.' She smiled down at the flower in her hand and looked back at the blushing Sasuke, 'He doesn't hate me!' She suddenly pounced on him with a hug to the ground. She could hear Sasuke protest from underneath her but she didn't care, she nuzzled the crook of his neck and continued to hug him.

Sasuke had never felt more embarrassed. He had never blushed this much at one time but he had to admit, he sort of liked the attention. He wrapped his arms around her and could barely hear her say "thank you."

…Some time later…

Megumi had left the group shortly after her talk with Sasuke to go on and meet up with Yuki, it was time that they finished with this part of the exam. She stopped a short bit away from where they promised to meet at the tower and quickly did the Shadow Clone-Jutsu and Transformation-Jutsu to bring back Haru. She looked at her creation wistfully, "You're really lucky, you just do as you're told and keep on living for as long as tell you to. No confusing emotions or situations to deal with." She sighed as they both walked towards the gate and sat down to wait for Yuki.

It had been about half an hour when they heard someone land in front of them. "What the heck happened to you?" Megumi looked up at Yuki's confused face looking her over and could see that he had gone through some fights and damage too. She smirked up at him.

"Look who's talking."

AN:

It's been a while, Homework kind of piled up on me which is why I haven't written in a while but that won't be a problem anymore because I'm on spring break! Yay, so prepare yourself for more of my posts.

Please Review… and if you do, be kind but review. I want something to read too ^_^

-Michelle