Disclaimer: Of course I don't own Naruto.
Neji grabbed her wrist before Naruto even had the chance to reply to the sarcastic comment, earning him a quick glance. The steam wafting from her ramen, recently (and stealthily) placed in front of her, teased her senses. Lee and Gai were helping themselves enthusiastically to their own meals, she noticed, and Neji had already picked up his chopsticks to begin eating his own. She'd been the only one who hadn't even noticed the food being delivered; that rankled.
"Eh, what are you eating with him for, Neji?" Naruto asked blankly, staring at the group.
Neji looked at him from the corner of his eye, almost blushing before averting his eyes. "That's what I want to know."
"He's here because I beat him," Sakura informed him proudly around a bite of ramen.
Neji aimed her another glare. "No you didn't."
"I so did," she insisted yet again. "Right, Gai-sensei? I beat Neji."
The jonin's mouth was slap full of ramen, and his answer could have been anything from "I love dresses" to "damn good ramen." The proud tears streaming down his face, however, meant that either one was possible. Assuming that he'd even heard the question.
Sakura flashed another grin. "See? Even he thinks so."
"No way. He beat you?" Naruto exclaimed in disbelief before the dark-haired boy could protest that wasn't what his sensei was saying.
Neji glared, still slightly pink. "No."
"Huh." Suddenly, Naruto's face was inches in front of Sakura's, glaring at her. She turned bright red, glancing quickly toward Sasuke, and then away again. The Uchiha was watching the entire exchange with suspicion. "I don't see it," Naruto grumbled. "You don't look that tough. How could someone like you defeat Neji?"
She turned her attention back to her ramen, taking a small bite. "How could I defeat Neji...huh." Her voice was quiet. She smiled quickly, but the expression was entirely too false. "It was an accident."
It was. She still didn't know...was that win even based on her power--or her father's experiment?
And more importantly: tomorrow, would it even matter?
It was purely luck that she'd even noticed, constantly distracted as she was by petty arguments with almost everyone but the stoic Sasuke and the oblivious Gai and Lee. She'd turned her head to say something particularly witty to Naruto that was damn near guaranteed to go over the blonde's head, and saw a splash of red out of the corner of her eye that made her halt mid-sentence. The sun was just starting to set.
Before she'd even thought to hide her reaction, her skin paled. By the time she even tried, Sasuke, Neji and, a second later, Sai, had glanced over to see what it was.
Quickly, her expression turned guarded, even though she smiled the same little false smile. "Sorry, I forgot," she said quickly. "I need to be getting home. Thanks for dinner, Neji. See you tomorrow, Gai-sensei, Lee-san."
"What is it?" The Hyuuga interrupted before she'd even left the stand.
He froze for a second before turning her head with a vaguely embarrassed grin. "Well...I'm kind of afraid of the dark," she jerked a thumb at the sunset. "Have to get home quick."
That gained their attention. Naruto momentarily looked like he was going to laugh at her, but Lee immediately abandoned his third bowl of ramen. "I would be proud to walk you home, Akira," he said, smoothly stepping into the nice guy pose, with even flashier teeth.
Her eyes flashed. "You come within two blocks of my cousin's house, Lee-san, and I'll break your legs."
The threat caught him off-balance, interrupting Gai's immediate praising of his favorite student.
Stiffly, she turned back to the door, acutely aware of the six pairs of eyes watching her leave. She wished suddenly that she could disappear, be home, and not have to worry about the transformation that awaited her at sundown. The unavoidable pain; the unlikely cure. A poking and prodding mother and father who treated her less like a human every day.
Helpless; hopeless.
Nothing had changed at all.
She wasn't surprised, five minutes later, at the sound of footsteps behind her. She didn't pause; her footsteps neither sped nor slowed, and she didn't trip over the hole in the rode that had tried to break her neck countless times before. She didn't even glance behind her. "What do you want?"
"My house is in this direction," Sasuke explained, uncharacteristically. She didn't doubt for an instant that he had his hands in his pockets, trying to look both dark and cool in the red light of the sunset to make up for the fact that he'd never before done something so pointless.
"You live on the other side of town," she reminded him frankly.
She could feel his eyes flash. "How would you know?"
She scoffed. "You're Uchiha Sasuke. It's impossible for me not to know."
"Really." The doubt in his tone was obvious.
She sighed, turning around to face him. "What do you want, Sasuke? Don't make me ask again."
"I want to know why you're here," he said immediately, his gaze steady. "Who you really are."
"Akira," Tsunade's voice interrupted. "What are you doing?"
She turned immediately. "Tsunade-sama. Why are you here?"
"It's important that I speak with your uncle about that matter we discussed yesterday," she said. "I was on my way when I saw you. Sasuke. Why are you here?"
Sasuke hmphed, looking away, so Sakura spoke quickly. "He was walking me home," she said, not looking at him. "Since it's almost nightfall."
Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "Nightfall, huh?"
"Yes, Tsunade-sama."
She got it. "I see. Sasuke, I'll take over from here. You may return home."
He didn't move for a long minute, didn't show any sign that he'd even heard. Finally, he turned to the Hokage, an unreadable look in his eyes. "Where's Sakura?"
Still, Tsunade seemed to understand it. That eyebrow raised again. "On a mission."
"Where?"
It was steadily getting darker. Sakura looked helplessly at the sun, almost trembling. "Tsunade-sama?" She whispered shakily, both forgetting that Sasuke was there and being far too aware that he was.
A second as the Hokage looked first at her, then the sky. "Run," she said tensely.
She almost didn't make it. Actually, she didn't make it. She'd just gotten to the door by the time the sun finally went down. Her vision was white as she opened the door and fell through it, landing face-first on the carpet but too weak to care. Every slight pain she'd felt throughout the day intensified until she felt like screaming, but she already was screaming, because her bones hurt and she was ripping apart, she was, and help me, help me please.
Quietly, the door closed behind her, but she didn't see who closed it. She only recovered several minutes later, straightening to a half-sitting position just seconds before the door opened again and Tsunade followed her inside.
Tears blurred her vision, but she didn't dive for her, not like she had that first time. She didn't bury her face in the folds of the older woman's shirt, shaking like a leaf and silently begging for protection.
Tsunade's eyes were compassionate as one hand reached down to brush her hair out of her face and then help lift the girl off the ground. "Come on," she said quietly, "let's get you to bed."
Note: Finally. A chapter that I'm actually half-way happy with. That's the first one since like...Team Gai?--and I'm not kidding. Scene one is a continuation of the last chapter since, as kttykiwi said, the ending of that chapter was a bit abrupt--that's because I made the mistake of writing the closing note before finishing the scene. That's the perfect way for me to derail any writing I do.
As a sidenote, my brother finally got back from visiting his girlfriend today (well, yesterday now, I guess). Which means he'll be playing video games and such on his computer, and I'll have to wait until he's asleep to write on it. Luckily he always gets off the computer around 10pm to call his girlfriend and fall asleep on the phone, otherwise I might have to kill him.
Another sidenote is that we went to CiCi's Pizza for dinner after picking my brother up from the airport, and they actually had pepperoni and mushroom pizza. They never have it. They didn't have veggie pizza, which was surprising, but they had pepperoni and mushroom. Dunno why I'm surprised though; everything I say (serious, polite, in passing or completely exhausted) usually comes true. And I'm not even kidding.
Thank you kttykiwi, dark Alley and azianlovable for reviewing! Next chapter, SakuraSasuke interaction (not "Akira"Sasuke).