Author's Notes: Well, surprisingly enough, I got the chapter out! This chapter was going to be longer, with another long scene, but I decided to split it up to get things in there. There's not much else to say except that everyone should really go to my bio page and look at the links to the art for this fic, done by the uber-talented Skyscape. It is an absolutely gorgeous pic of Neji and Tenten. She also did a piece for Wane, Moon, another of my NejiTen fics. I strongly encourage you to go see it! Hopefully our fic-art relationship will stay strong!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and am making no profit from this fan fiction.

Cutting Water

Chapter Ten

By Nessie

There was a newcomer in the Uchiha camp. When Sasuke was told this by Kabuto, he half-expected his right-hand man to say that the arrival's name was Death. He felt enough pain and so weak that Sasuke would not have been the least bit surprised.

Instead, Kabuto informed his leader that Gaara, Kankurou, and Temari had found a woman wandering in the forest around the time Sasuke had been in the process of marrying Long Tenten. The three siblings, Sasuke recalled, had opted not to attend the ceremony but spend time together discussing their future after the Uchiha clan had joined with the Long clan.

Of course, this last never happened but Sasuke was injured severely enough to hallucinate as much if his mind was so traitorous. It seemed the makeshift clan's leader still had enough of his senses to comprehend Kabuto's words.

"I've no…" Sasuke had to swallow. The loss of blood he had endured had dried out his throat. "I've no concern for a lost woman."

"I believe you should," Kabuto urged, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "This woman is from Japan. She won't tell us her name. Only Gaara was able to glean a rather interesting fact."

Sasuke closed his eyes. Sometimes Kabuto's habit of delaying his point was frustrating, but he was too weak to properly project irritation at the moment.

"She is looking for the Long compound…in the hopes of meeting with Hyuuga Neji."

At this, Sasuke's eyes flew open. In the commotion of the last few days, he had forgotten entirely the mystery of a warrior from Japan fighting against his clan. Now his curiosity returned tenfold, beating at his brain with an ache that was nearly more excruciating than his chest wound.

He had to be connected, that Hyuuga. If Neji's situation was anything like his or Tenten's, then Sasuke knew Neji's involvement in the battle over land would have commenced prior to his birth. For that, Sasuke would be unable to grudge him.

Just as none should begrudge me for doing only what I must.

Yet this Sasuke knew to be naïve thinking. Humans were resentful creatures, but Long Tenten…she was strong. And stubborn. That alone had been proven by the bandages wrapped around his torso, by the bloodstains on the floor of his tent.

Again, Sasuke was forced to hold a reluctant admiration for her.

"My lord?"

The surviving Uchiha's mind flashed back the now, and he settled his dark gaze upon Kabuto.

"Shall I bring her to you? Kankurou made the decision to bring her inside the camp; her wandering brought her too near, and he worried she would tell the Longs of our whereabouts if she did find their compound."

Sasuke did not know what made him nod his assent. He had neither the mood nor the strength abide visitors from overseas. But presently Kabuto left and returned, the flap of the tent's opening alerting Sasuke to the coming and going. He struggled to prop him up against a post behind his bed, tightly shutting his eyes against the agony which gripped him by simple movement.

"You will kneel," he heard Kabuto command.

Gazing out, his eyes fell on the unfortunate intruder.

She was young. Underneath a fine later of dust from travel there was a shapely form, wrapped in well-spun, bright cloth that spoke of upstanding if not wealthy heritage. The build was lithe and knew work. Strawberry-colored hair obscured her face like a tangled curtain. Her hands pressed into the ground on which she knelt as her elbows quiver – not from fear, Sasuke gauged, so much as sheer exhaustion.

Very slowly, as though overcome by personal curiosity at just whom it was that she paid homage to, the woman raised her head. The glimmer of light provided by the tent's solitary lantern deepened the hollows of her throat, sharpened the angles of her face. But it was not until she lifted the dark lashes resting on her cheeks that Sasuke's pulse halted in the way Tenten's attack had meant to halt it.

Sasuke had never been on the receiving end of such a look. Rather, he imagined the glower aimed at him was an expression he often wore himself. And the woman, even in her current state of unkempt weariness, was beautiful enough to drive a man to distraction.

At the very least, the Uchiha was fascinated enough by her that he forgot his pain for several moments.

"Your name." The order was out before Sasuke could think twice of it.

She had to swallow before answering, and the flash of her throat had him briefly captivated. "Haruno Sakura." Falling back into silence, she offered no other information willingly.

Sakura? She quite frankly evoked thoughts of his native land's spring blossom, for sure, but the name still sounded too gentle for one with eyes so fierce. "And your business?" he went on, watching her carefully for any signs of a feeling besides loathing for her current position.

She met his gaze directly for the first time, and Sasuke felt a whole new fire brought on by something that was not his injury. "I'm looking for a man."

"Hyuuga Neji."

"Yes."

He saw the way her hands clenched and unclenched, how the emerald orbs of her eyes repeatedly darted from his to other objects inside the tent and back again. Sasuke felt strange with her there. In an effort to fight against the foreign sensation rising within him, he hardened his voice. "You understand I cannot allow you to go to him now. We are enemies, that man and I."

"He is only doing what he was raised to do." Her tone shook in the same way as her body.

Unsympathetic, Sasuke finally took his eyes from her but felt hers on him. "Aren't we all?" he murmured inwardly.

"Please, I am not involved." Her politeness told him that she herself was as green as her eyes. "But I have to see him; I came from Japan! I'll not breathe a word—"

"There's no guarantee of that, Sasuke-sama," said Kabuto from the entryway. Sasuke had long ago lost the capacity to be shocked; otherwise he would have been startled by the sudden vocal interruption since this woman's presence had caused him to totally forget Kabuto. That in itself was new.

Sakura bowed of her own volition this time. "You're Uchiha Sasuke, aren't you? I was told of you. By the Hyuuga family."

Sasuke took a deep breath. The pulsing pain of his wound was growing steadily stronger. "And you came for Neji?" he said on a slight pant that disgusted him.

Sakura lifted her pink-haired head to eye him, and she saw him in some kind of distress, but the blanket that covered him hid his cut from her. "Yes…he is my—"

"Lover?"

If he were stronger, the flush in her face would have given Sasuke cause to smirk. "Friend," she murmured in response to his question. "So you see, my concern for him is great. If you would only grant me your permission to leave, I will seek him out on my own, and I would not trouble you more—"

Gray swam in front of his eyes, followed by an unwelcome starburst as a violent pang racked his whole body. He was faintly aware of himself roughly calling for Kabuto, heard the man shout to him in response, and then…

"What are you doing? You will kill him with your ignorance!"

Cool hands fluttered over him, and his senses reawakened to the touch of a woman, the scent of Japanese flowers, and the sound of the feminine strength he had first suspected of her.

He looked just in time to see Sakura thrown back by Kabuto. "Stay away, woman! How dare you approach Sasuke-sama so boldly!"

"Kabuto," he rasped. His eyes, this time, could not be taken from Sakura's cowering form. "Let her come."

It was an unexpected command, but Kabuto did as he was told and Sakura looked up with tears of fright threatening to fall. He watched as she shakily rose from the sprawl Kabuto had forced her into and half-staggered over to his bed. Kabuto subordinately moved aside and Sakura, eyes now dry, looked over him critically.

"You won't let me leave," she murmured. "And you are the enemy of my friend. For what should I—"

She was cut off by the press of Kabuto's dagger against her throat, put there by the bespectacled man who stood enraged at his apparent replacement. "You will heal him," Kabuto told her plainly, a touch of hatred in his voice, "or you shall die."

Sasuke saw that her options were not such that she could ignore, and so the newly-arrived woman only nodded until Kabuto drew the dagger away. She proceeded to staunch the flow of blood with the press of her own sleeve against the wound, ruining the gauzy fabric. Her delicate-looking fingers pulled out the clumsy stitches, and she held the gaping skin together between her forefinger and thumb as she calmly asked for hot water and clean bandages from Kabuto.

Sasuke was only half-conscious at this point, and as Kabuto left to fulfill Sakura's demand, he spiraled down into unconsciousness, thinking of green and pink, of Japan, of women who traveled to a foreign land for the sake of one man.

When he came to again, it was the middle of the night, and his lantern had gone cold hours ago. Sasuke intantly noticed his much higher level of comfort and craned his neck to see the small, straight stitches that kept his wound tightly closed. Eyes adjusting to the black of his tent, listened to the night birds and insects disturb the evening with their noise.

It was not until a movement very close to him seized his attention that he saw Sakura, sleeping on her side on the ground beside his mattress, facing him. The low rhythm of her even breathing harmonized with the creatures outside, her lips slightly parted with pieces of light hair visible even in the darkness falling over her face.

His sharp gaze took notice of her missing left sleeve – the sleeve she had used to keep him from losing too much blood, he now recalled. A gentle slope of shoulder was revealed. That part of her dress, along with his soiled bandages from before had been removed, and probably burned. He could imagine her directing for the creation of a proper convalescing environment, as even under pressure she had acted clearheadedly.

Who was this woman truly? What "friend" traversed dangerous seas to be with a man who had left her behind? Something rose within Sasuke at the thought, and though it sent a sharp jolt of electric pain up his arm, he reached out and brushed back the hair that had fallen in the woman's face. Sakura did not stir.

He did not need this distraction. There was enough to concern himself with, now that Tenten had disrupted the marriage that had nearly united them. How did that Long clan leader, with all of her stubbornness and pride, intend to find her peace – especially now that Kabuto had used a killing attack on that mentor of hers? Did she wish to fight Sasuke until all of her loved ones were dead?

Drifting back into sleep, Sasuke's last waking thought was that he now had two women to deal with; one who would sooner see him dead than allow him to grasp his aim and another who seemed likely to divert his attention until it got him killed.

To Be Continued…