A/N: Hi there! Sorry for the dry spell with no updates, it's been a hectic two months. Happy New Year, by the way. May it be better than the last :)

Also, because it's been so long I'll give you a quick rundown on what has happened in this fic. Pretty much, Ayaka (the OC main character) is the reincarnation of a PhD student named Chelsea from our world. Reborn into the Narutoverse and into the Yūhi family, she realises that she has a kekkai genkai by accidentally unleashing it upon her sister – Kurenai – and erasing all memories of Ayaka's existence from Kurenai's mind. The kekkai genkai takes the form of what Ayaka describes as being 'invisible hands' that can reach into people's minds and seem to generally have malevolent intentions. Scared that Ayaka might harm someone else, the Hokage makes Orochimaru place a Seal on the back of her neck that supress the Hands—only Orochimaru – as Sealer – or Ayaka herself – as the Sealee – are capable of undoing the Seal. Regardless, for a while now, Ayaka has been feeling anxious that someone will kidnap her because of the uniqueness of her bloodline ability, of which she knows very little about thus far. Her fears are proven true when a stranger enters her home and attempts to drug her…

And so Chapter 10 begins…

Chapter 10: Taken – Part II

I was going to pass out and… be taken… and… and…

No one would care.

Blackness yawned before me—then something exploded.

The backdoor leading to our backyard burst off its rails violently with a loud bang, slamming into the dining table before falling to floor in large fragmented pieces.

Had I not been bound, gagged and drugged I would likely have jumped out of my skin, instead all I could do was loll my head to the side slightly to get a slightly better view of the door.

A figure moving so fast that they were almost a blur rushed into the room and my assailant released me immediately. Without his physical support keeping me upright, I toppled forward, the side of my face landing hard on the hard wooden floorboards. Eyes drooping, I struggled to keep my eyes open and make sense of my surroundings. What was happening? Was I being saved? By who?

It was Papa.

His black hair soaked wet from the rain and red eyes furious as he flew towards the man. He looked terrifying. His red eyes, wet black hair and snarl on his face made him seem as… well, demonic. I really hated that adjective.

My assailant darted backwards as Papa rushed him. It seemed almost like a game of cat and mouse whereby every time Papa made a strike, the man would evade the hit but wouldn't strike back.

"Kurenai! Get Ayaka out of here! Now!"

A second person entered through the broken doorway.

Kurenai.

Darting towards me, she wrenched the drugged cloth from my mouth before pulling my arm over her shoulders and dragging me towards the backyard. I gasped in huge breathes of clean air before choking and spitting as the sickly sweet taste from the cloth and the sense of vertigo persisted.

My eyelids fluttered.

Unable to keep myself upright, my foot caught on the backdoor's railing and I slipped from Kurenai's grasp, collapsing to the floor. My head slammed into the flooring hard enough for my ears to start ringing as I watched my assailant fend off Papa's attacks and flee.

He was good, I numbly acknowledged. To not just be able to fend off Papa's attacks, but evade them entirely. It was… unbelievable…

I watched as the man deftly dodged the two kunai blades Papa was swiping at him with. At that moment, another bolt of lightning lit up the sky and revealed his features for a split second. Up until that point, the only description I could give to describe my attacker was that he was a male with broad shoulders. Not the best traits to narrow down a list of subjects. But the flash of lightning lit up his face for a single instant that could have been missed by the blink of an eye.

But I saw it.

With a square jaw and shaved head, he had to be in at least his early to mid-thirties. But the lightning cast a deep shadow over the hollows of his eyes, making his face appear eyeless. And for that brief second, it appeared as though his eyeless gaze was on me.

My heart began to pound harder and I felt as though I might vomit, and not just because of drug in my system. This… this feeling… of abject terror. This indescribable notion that he was after something from me. This horrible feeling of…

Recognition.

But a recognition not of this lifetime.

It wasn't the man that I was afraid of, I realised. But rather something he represented. Or someone. Someone I associated with terror, but I couldn't remember. I held no memory of ever feeling this scared in my life—lives, if I included Chelsea.

Then why did this man trigger a sense of déjà vu?

Kurenai tried pulling me up again but I kicked her off savagely, my eyes blurring with tears. A high-pitched keening sound persisted in my ears until I realised it was my screams. Shrieking the word 'no' over and over again as I crawled out of the house and into the backyard on my belly. I fell into a puddle of wet mud as the rain lashed down above, but I crawled on, desperate to get away from that man.

It was like my conscious had been pushed back as some primal instinct to survive took a hold of me. I couldn't think rationally anymore.

I crawled through mud, and rain, and grass, until a combination of the drug, stress and fatigue won out and I collapsed in the mud, fading in and out of consciousness.

A figure approached.

"No…" I murmured. "No no no…"

Kurei Yūhi was a troubled man.

Trudging home through the rain with Kurenai from a quick training session after her Academy classes had finished for the day, he couldn't help but dwell on his past and the sorry state of his family in the present. Before he'd had children – before he'd married Kagura, even – he'd considered himself a family man. Family had always been important to him, considering there to be no bond tighter than that of blood. That and the absence of his own shinobi father made him promise himself to always set aside time for the things in life that were important to him. And family, whilst important, was not the most important thing to him.

As a high-ranking jōnin of a large shinobi village he had many preoccupations: jobs that had to be done, people that needed training and borders that needed watching. He remembered that he'd drifted into his work after the birth of Kurenai, renewed in his vigour to make the village a safer place for his little girl. Before he knew it, it had been her first birthday and he could only count the number of hours he'd spent with his daughter on one hand. The birth of Ayaka had levelled him out a bit, he knew. He had spent countless nights reading his favourite history books to a young but extraordinarily perceptive Ayaka, and had begun training Kurenai in genjutsu.

It wasn't something Kurei would do to relax, but there were definitely moments of satisfaction with the burden, especially when Kurenai cast her first genjutsu or when he witnessed Ayaka taking her first steps. At last, he had thought. At last I'm the father I've wanted to be for my children. He was happy, Kagura was happy, and both his little girls were healthy and strong.

Ayaka had always been perceptive. Even as an infant she had paid him rapt attention when he'd read to her and would squall if he began reading her an old book for the second time. Kurei had thought it odd at first, he had never noticed Kurenai being as observant as a babe – but then, he hadn't been around much then. It was only when Kagura brought it up in conversation that he realised just how unusual his second daughter was.

"Is it bad?" He had asked, cringing at the fact that he had had to even ask at all.

"No, of course not." His wife had frowned at him. "She's just a smart baby. It's not that unusual. Especially for shinobi-born children."

Kurei was surprised by how much the words had soothed him; he hadn't noticed how worried he'd been – of what exactly, he wasn't sure.

Ayaka had grown further, becoming impatient to begin learning jutsu, but he made her wait until she was nearly four before starting her training. Even now, Kurei wasn't sure why he'd made her wait so long, but he liked to think that it was so she wouldn't be forced into a shinobi's life. But Ayaka had chosen to become a shinobi by her own volition and he had been pleased. She was clever, yes, but she was also tough; she had the makings of a great shinobi at just the age of four.

And then everything changed.

Or, rather, everything had changed for him.

Kagura's family kekkai genkai – the Uso no Sekai – had culminated in Ayaka, and he knew it was only a matter of time before his in-laws found out and began lodging for custody. He had seen shinobi custody battles before and they weren't pretty. To be honest, Ayaka herself hadn't noticed her abilities until the incident with Kurenai all those months ago, when she had inadvertently attacked Kurenai and erased every memory of herself from Kurenai's mind.

It was the realisation that she was powerful enough to cause lasting damage that scared him—the fact that she had the mind of an adult and a strange power that most genin wouldn't be able to fend off. Would she become conceited? Would she turn on the village? Her friends? Her family? Kurei couldn't be sure, so he opted for stepping up Kurenai's training sessions, training her to defend against attacks on the mind so that if Ayaka did begin to abuse her abilities then there would still be someone to stop her—someone to keep her human.

He would monitor her if the time between missions allowed for him to do so; watching her laugh with friends or gaze into the distance in deep reverie and would immediately feel guilty for thinking that she could become a monster—a demon. She struggled with the guilt of the acts she committed against Kurenai and Kurei made no moves to change it. It was tough—for her just as much as for him—but he wanted her to know that releasing her kekkai genkai upon anyone in the village wasn't okay.

Kurei loved both his daughters absolutely, and he knew that even if she became obsessed with the destruction of Konohagakure itself, he wouldn't have the stomach to kill the little girl that had once sat on his knee and pouted as he began to read a book he'd already read to her earlier in the week.

But he didn't realise that his tough love was also alienating his younger daughter from him and towards another father-figure. Sakumo Hatake.

Kurei sighed. He could hardly blame her. Kurei could hardly look at Ayaka without remembering the unconscious weight of her in his arms as he had rushed her to hospital after her first use of the kekkai genkai—the terror he had felt at the prospect of losing both his little girls at once.

He had pulled away from her first.

Kurei looked over at Kurenai, shivering wet but she still seemed to enjoy the Yūhi genjutsu he taught her. Kurenai couldn't pick up some jutsu as quickly as Ayaka had in the past, but that just made it that much more satisfying when she did it right for the first time.

"Let's hurry home," he said.

They ran the rest of the way home, Kurei hampering his speed so Kurenai wouldn't be left behind. They made their way around to the back of the house, not wanting to track water through half the house and give Kagura a heart attack.

He felt a small niggle in his brain, an unfamiliar chakra emanating from within the house. Kurei could feel the ping of Ayaka's chakra from within the house too—perhaps Ayaka had a friend over?

"Dad?" Kurenai queried, noticing her father's hesitation. Then she frowned too, sensing the foreign chakra within their home. "Whose—?"

A scream tore through the sound of rain, emanating from the house and before Kurei could even register what he was doing, he was kicking down the back door to his home. Ayaka was in the hold of a broad-shouldered man, struggling to breath through a dirty rag that he was pressing over her mouth.

It took only a split second for him to react, darting forward to break Ayaka away from the man, but by the time Kurei had taken two steps the man had already released her, turning around to face the bigger threat. Kurei could feel Kurenai enter the room, and he quickly commanded her to get Ayaka away from the house.

Kurei swung punch after punch as the man dodged and manoeuvred himself into the narrow entrance corridor, making it hard for Kurei to build up enough momentum for a solid hit, and impossible to launch a kick. He pulled out his kunai and swiped at him using them too, but was evaded once again. Trying another tactic, Kurei launched genjutsu after genjutsu at the man, using them to redirect his slashes but the illusions never seemed to work, and the man successfully continued to evade every slash and stab.

How is he doing that? Kurei thought. Most people need at least a few seconds to break through a genjutsu. Was he immune somehow? He had heard of theories whereby one could train eyes to not be fooled by genjutsu… That would mean he would just have to use the man's other senses against him.

Slapping together his hands, formed hand seals and whistled, forming an auditory genjutsu to trick the ear. Moving forward again, Kurei slugged the man hard in the face and he stumbled back, his darkened face coming into view for a brief moment from the light coming from the darkened sky passing through a window.

He has no eyes.

Kurei and the man stood stunned for a moment, each staring at the other—Kurei for having realised his opponent was blind, and the blind man surprised that Kurei had landed a hit.

Spinning on his heel, the blind man fled, escaping out the front door and into the rain. Kurei made to follow.

"Dad!" Kurenai yelled from the backyard. "I need some help!"

Kurei hesitated, realising he had too choices: find Ayaka's attacker, or protect his daughters.

"Dad!"

Kurei turned. It was an easy choice, really. His daughters were more important than anything, even justice. He raced into the backyard, finding Kurenai crouched over Ayaka, who was shuddering and covered in mud, her hair tangled and matted.

"Ayaka?" He queried gently, moving closer to her.

"No… No no no…" She moaned, as Kurei approached.

Bending, he scooped her up into his arms. She convulsed in his arms, her arms flailing madly as she sobbed, tears running tracks on her mud-covered face.

"Shh, you're safe now. You'll be okay," he murmured in her ear. He repeated it again and again, perhaps hoping that his words now would make up for his failures as a father. He should have kept her safe—instead he'd left her alone to be attacked.

Kurei held his younger daughter tighter in his arms, holding her until she had cried herself into unconsciousness.

He would be the father she deserved.

He would never let her go again.

I woke again, what seemed to be much later. The rain had stopped at some point, and the sun was shining merrily in through the window. The first thing I noticed was that I was clean and in my bed. Memories of crawling through mud and the sickly sweet taste of chloroform made me cringe. But I was still here.

Definitely a promising start.

But what had happened exactly? Had the man escaped? Had Papa beaten him? Was he in custody or dead? Somehow the thought of my abductor being dead scared me more than if he were not.

Sitting up in bed, I studied my hands. Although my skin was clean, there was a large amount of mud caked under my fingernails, remnants of the experience I'd had in the mud last night. Hurrying to the bathroom I scrubbed at my fingernails under the tap, wishing that erasing the evidence that last night had ever occurred would erase the reality of my situation.

Someone had tried to abduct me. Chloroform was the weapon of a kidnapper, not any regular thief. And what kind of a thief would steal the possessions of shinobi family comprised of two jōnin? The only thing that would make sense was that the man had been after me. Was he after my ability? But how had he known about my abilities? I couldn't think of any other reason for anyone trying to abduct me apart from trying to obtain access to my kekkai genkai. Kekkai genkai. Some days I could hardly believe that I had a bloodline ability, the Hands seemed like a distant nightmare from the past ever since I'd received the Seal in the Hokage's office. But the memory of the Seal burning white-hot on the back of my neck with the need to release made me shudder and my mouth twist.

The Hands could never be allowed to roam free again. I could almost imagine the angry twisting of the Hands locked within the Seal at that thought.

There was a murmur of voices from the dining room and I slowly meandered downstairs into the house to meet them. I briefly considered changing into another set of clothes but decided against it. I wasn't wearing the clothes I'd worn yesterday, thank goodness, the ones that I had gotten soaked in and dragged through mud. Instead, I was wearing a simple nightgown. Mama must have put it on me while I was asleep. How disturbing.

Catching a whiff of myself, I reconsidered and decided to get changed first instead.

I walked into the dining room not even five minutes later, feeling cleaner and fresher in a new change of clothes. My parents were sitting at the dining table speaking to two men I recognised quite well. They abruptly broke off from what they were discussing at my arrival.

"Ayaka!" Mama exclaimed, quickly moving over to engulf me in a tight hug. I let her hug me and whisper apologies into my hair for a short moment, basking in her affection, before pushing her away gently. We had guests, after all. She sat back down at the table next to Papa.

"Sakumo-sama. Jiraiya-sama. What are you doing here?" I asked by way of greeting, although I already knew the answer.

Jiraiya shifted uncomfortably from where he stood but Sakumo squeezed me in a quick hug. "Ayaka-chan," Sakumo said, kneeling down in front of me. "I was so glad to hear that you were alright."

I shrugged nonchalantly. "I'm fine. It was nothing I couldn't handle," I replied evenly, although flashes of my small breakdown as I crawled through the mud on my belly made me avoid Papa's knowing gaze.

Sakumo chuckled and I heard Jiraiya give an elegant snort behind him. "The kid's definitely got sass, Kurei. Are you sure she's yours?" Jiraiya jeered.

Papa frowned at him, which was probably as close to a glare that Papa would give a superior.

"Don't try to be funny, Jiraiya." Sakumo said, shaking his head in wry amusement as he stood. "It just makes everyone want to hit you."

"You mean hit on me."

"No. I mean hit you."

"Ayaka," Mama said, gesturing at the empty seat next to her. "Why don't you come sit down next to me?"

"Sit down?" I frowned. "Is there something wrong?" Or rather, was there something else wrong?

"No no, of course not," Mama soothed. "Jiraiya-sama is here on business for the Hokage."

"That's right," Jiraiya said, stepping away from the wall he'd been casually leaning on. "I originally came to just inform your parents to provide a formal statement for what happened yesterday evening, but since you're awake… well, I might as well here it straight from you."

Oh. So that's why Jiraiya was here. I looked at Sakumo, expecting a similar explanation from him.

"I was just visiting," Sakumo replied in response to my questioning gaze, giving a slightly amused smile. "I only heard about the incident earlier this morning and thought I'd drop in to see how the little princess is going."

I found myself blushing embarrassedly. He hadn't called me princess in a long time—actually, I hadn't seen Sakumo in months. I hadn't realised how much I'd missed him until this moment. Kakashi was so lucky to have a man like him as his father…

"There isn't really much to tell…" I explained slowly. "I didn't even get a good look at his face." An image of an eyeless face slid before my eyes and I shuddered involuntarily. It must have just been the shadows cast over his eyes, I told myself. It was just a trick of the dim lighting, nothing more.

"Anything you tell us could be helpful, Ayaka-chan." Jiraiya supplied.

"That's right," Papa agreed. "A detail you might think meaningless might actually be extremely significant in figuring out the man's motivations and goals."

"So… he got away, then." My eyes stung at the prospect.

The heavy silence in the room was answer enough.

"Ayaka…" Papa began.

"It's okay. I'll tell you everything I can." I interrupted, not wanting to hear his excuses or assurances that everything would be all right—that I was still safe within even my own home.

I told them everything I could about the five minutes in my life when it had happened. Had it even been five minutes? Everything had happened so fast. I told them about arriving home and calling out to find no one in the house; hearing the chair fall over in the dining room we were currently standing in; my realisation that someone was in the house after all; followed by the man appearing behind me and shoving a chloroform soaked rag over my nose and mouth. I knew for a fact from Chelsea's knowledge of drugs that chloroform needed to be administered continuously for at least five minutes to render a person unconscious

Did that mean that our confrontation had gone on for longer than expected? Or could it possibly mean that he had been using a different drug altogether? After all, this was an entirely different world. And although the sickly sweet smell of the drug was indicative of chloroform, there were a wide variety of potential incapacitating drugs that could have had similar properties but acted as a faster anaesthetic.

My brain hurt from just considering it.

There was a moment of quiet after I'd finished telling my side of what had happened, sans the small mental breakdown I'd had in the mud in our backyard. No one needed to know about that. I hoped.

The quiet was abruptly shattered by a boisterous laugh that exploded from Jiraiya. Stunned, we waited quietly for him to calm down.

"S-sorry…" Jiraiya chuckled, calming down. "It's just that—ha ha—the kid said that she—he he—had it 'handled'. Hahahaha! In what world was that scenario being handled?!" He began chuckling again and I glared at him.

"I was perfectly fine." I bristled, lying through my teeth. "A few more minutes and I would have had him trapped in a genjutsu so deep that he'd have never been able to get out by himself."

"Yeah… Haha. Sure, kid, suuuure."

I bristled again.

"Alright, let's just calm down here." Sakumo said, sliding in between Jiraiya and I. Lucky for Jiraiya because I had been about ten seconds away from decking the man myself.

Jiraiya was a jerk. Why had he been one of my favourite characters in the anime again?

"Can I go now?" I ground out between clenched teeth. "I'm late for my Academy classes."

"You won't be going to the Academy anymore, Ayaka." Papa replied evenly.

"What?! Why?!"

"It's not safe for you there. At least, not until the man who attacked you is in custody." Papa answered, levelling me a serious look that told me not to make any trouble while we had guests.

Screw that.

"Well I'm obviously not much safer here, am I?" I snapped. "It'd make more sense to send me to the Academy where there are chūnin stationed all the time."

"It's not that we think something will happen at the Academy," Mama amended. "We're more concerned with when you're travelling to and from the Academy—that's when you're vulnerable. When you're alone."

She… actually had a pretty good point, damn it.

"I'll go to the Academy with friends," I compromised. "I'll walk home with them too."

Papa huffed. "More Academy students are not going deter a determined kidnapper. If anything, it'll just draw them into the line of fire."

I tried another tactic.

"Who says that the man was even a kidnapper?" I protested. "He could have been just a petty thief."

"A thief that just happened to have a anaesthetic on hand?"

"A clever thief, then."

"A… clever thief?" Jiraiya guffawed.

"Someone who, in case someone was home, could incapacitate the victim before stealing his or her stuff." Even I could tell that my theory was flimsy at best, but it was still possible. Wasn't it? Yes. Yes, it was. I hoped.

"You're not leaving this house, Ayaka. And that's final." Papa snapped and I took half a step back in surprise before my own anger rose to meet his.

So, what? I'm under house arrest now?" I bit out, glaring at my father.

"Ayaka…" Mama warned, giving me a stern look that told me to behave.

"No. No! I'm not going to be stuck in this house!" I exclaimed. "What about my training? Who's going to train me in the mean time? You?" I pointed at Papa. "You haven't even so much as thought about my training ever since we learned about my kekkai genkai and I attacked Kurenai."

There was a still and uncomfortable silence after my small tirade, but I wasn't done yet. I had had so many feelings about what had happened and why Papa had abandoned my training that I wanted to sharpen them into knives and throw them at him.

Jiraiya shifted uncomfortably behind me and Mama was gazing with a sympathetic look on her face. Mama hadn't drawn away from me as Papa had down after the reveal of my kekkai genkai—after all, the ability did stem from her side of the family—but she'd been absent too, busy with preparing her little teahouse for its opening. I could hardly blame her for that, but Papa had replaced the time I had spent with him with extra training for Kurenai, as if he were…

"You… you're afraid of me," I realised. "You're afraid of what I can do. You're afraid that I'll attack Kurenai again—that I'll attack you or Mama, aren't you?"

"Ayaka. Stop." Mama tried again, but I was seeing red. This man was supposed to be my father; instead he was becoming my oppressor.

"Given the rarity of someone having a kekkai genkai I thought you'd be rejoicing at having a daughter with such an ability," I accused. "But instead you're afraid. I don't even know exactly what my kekkai genkai does and I've known about it for months! And how does keeping me locked up in this house stop my supposed 'kidnapper' from trying to kidnap me again?! He's already broken-!"

"That's enough!" Papa roared; his eyes burning as he stood up from the table so fast that his chair went flying backwards. "You're not going to the Academy any longer, and that's final!"

"That's ridiculous—" I began.

"You will listen and obey me while you are under my roof!" He warned severely.

"I don't deserve this!" I shouted, stamping my foot like I was six years old—but I was six so who cared? "I deserve to be safe, not kept prisoner at the expense of my own safety!"

"You forget. I am your father. You may speak well for your age, but you are still just a naïve child. You know nothing except what you are told!"

I could feel my insides boiling and my small frame shaking with feeling. I knew nothing? I knew nothing?! I had been a PhD student. And I was intelligent. I was not just a child. I could think and argue just as clearly and rationally as any adult. And naïve? He was calling me naïve?

"This isn't about intelligence!" I screamed at him. "It's about common sense! Which you obviously have none of! You might as well just throw me out in the cold and put a sign around my neck saying 'She's here! Come and get her'!"

"Stop it, Ayaka," Mama admonished, stepping forward. I spied Kurenai watching from the hallway, but I didn't care. I hadn't even known that she was home from the Academy today; she'd likely taken time off in preparation for her upcoming Genin Exam. I didn't care.

"You're siding with him!" I rounded on her. "I can't believe this!"

"Your father's right. It may seem safer to go about your normal business but it's not. There are many things you don't understand. There are people who would love to hold someone with your kekkai genkai under their sway. So you can't trust anyone. Not even in Konoha. Your family is the only thing you can trust."

"Family?! What family? A third of this 'family' doesn't even know who I am!" Tears pricked at my eyes like blisters and I had to turn away so that Kurenai was out of my peripheral vision. "I feel like I'm just a stranger in this house!"

Mama seemed genuinely wounded at my words, but they burst out before I could even help it.

"Ayaka! Enough!" Papa roared, his chakra spiking and almost visible in his state of fury. "You will obey me! You're staying in this house until I say otherwise." He began to walk off.

"So that's just it?" I shouted after him. "There isn't a problem so long as you deny it exists?"

"There is no problem, except you."

I spent the next week and a bit in silent solitude in my room, silently protesting the sentence my parents had served me. I only left my bedroom for meals and using the bathroom, otherwise I stayed secluded.

So far, the manhunt for my kidnapper had turned up nothing. Although Mama had attempted on several occasions to lure me out of my room, or tease a response from me that wasn't despondent but I wasn't up for it.

After two days in isolation, another manhunt began. For me. Anko had taken it upon herself to try to track me down, bless her. It hadn't taken her long to figure out that I was staying at home and when she rang the doorbell Mama would use the prospect of chatting with Anko to lure me out of my room. I declined every time, hoping to guilt trip Mama into letting me go back to the Academy, but after nine days of solitude, practicing basic genjutsu to perfection and awkwardly silent family dinners, I was ready to call it quits.

Today, I thought. Today when Anko came and obnoxiously rang the doorbell thirty times before Mama had the chance to open it, I would finally cave and talk with her. Actually it was kind of an exciting relief—I'd finally be able to have contact to the outside world again. Maybe I could get her to sneak me some dango…

That'd be nice.

There was a sharp tap from my window and I glanced over, confused.

It was Obito's head.

A hand briefly appeared next, making a motion for me to open the window. Each of his hands clutched the edge of my windowsill as the lower half of his body was dangling awkwardly below him from my second story window, his biceps flexing with the effort of holding himself up.

I shouldn't open the window. My parents wouldn't like it.

Whack. Up went the window.

"Obito-kun?"

"That's me!"

"What are you doing outside my window? You better not have been peeking while I was getting changed!" I accused. He nearly slipped from my window in surprise.

"N-no, of course not!" He stammered, blushing bright red.

"So what are you doing outside my window then?" I questioned.

"Could you let me in first? Y'know, maybe before I fall to my death."

I made room and he clambered in through my window.

"Phew! I thought I was going to die out there!" Obito exclaimed. I hurriedly shushed him. Mama was still home.

"Was it something I said?" Obito asked.

"No, it's just that my kaa-san is home. She'll throw you out if she finds you—and probably put bars on my windows…" I added the last bit as a mutter but Obito heard it anyway.

"Yeah I heard that they were keeping you locked up," Obito said cheerfully. "So I thought I'd come spring you out so we go practice our kunai throwing." He grinned proudly and I had to fight the urge to pat him on the head.

I paused. Should I sneak out of my house with a friend, or spend more time in lonely solitude but remain equally as scared that I might get kidnapped from my bedroom?

Easy choice.

"But we don't have any kunai," I begrudgingly admitted.

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards the window. "That's cool. I stole a whole bucket of 'em from school. They're outside."

Why did most of my friends have to be delinquents and deviants? I suppose that spoke volumes about my personality, but it was just luck really. Maybe.

We hoisted ourselves out of my window and dropped into crouches on the ground, using our chakra to strengthen our muscles to absorb the impact. Grabbing the bucket of kunai knives we trotted away from my house.

I didn't even look back.

But I should have. Maybe it would have made me pause—return home. Maybe that one glance could have made a world of difference.

But I didn't turn, so I suppose it didn't matter.

A/N: Thank you everyone who's following, there's like 260 of you! I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I've already gotten a portion of the next chapter written.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter: Qyndox, GlaresThatKill, helenGet, Marie, juste leave me alone, and ShugoYuuki123.

Interesting but useless information about the author and other stuff:

Nicole Kidman, the renowned movie star, has a fear of butterflies.

Ethiopia has 13 months, is still in the year 2006, and celebrates New Years on September 11.

There are so many different kinds of apples that if you ate one everyday, it would take you over 20 years to try them all.

By 2023, the average $1000 laptop will be able to communicate as effectively as the human brain.

I'm planning a trip to America at the end of this year! Any suggestions on where to go?

Reviews would be awesome.