Author's Note: What's this? An update? Two weeks and four days after the previous ones?

So happy hauntings, everyone - and I know it's not Halloween. I've just started my senior year, and a lot of new administration is making a lot of new rules and a lot of new whatnot and stupidity and etc. on top of the previous whatnot and stupidity and etc. So it's pretty hectic.

And on top of that, Egypt is bestowing its lovely powers of technological deficiency and I am living on an internet USB stick used solely for homework - and now, updating. So hooray.

On the other hand! I LOVE your responses! Seriously! I might print off all my reviews and put them in a binder with the title "For Rainy Days". . . . Okay, maybe not, because 1) I have an Egyptian (not working) printer, and 2) Egypt does not have rainy days. But I love you guys!

Last words to end this rant:

THIS CHAPTER MAY BE SLIGHTLY BORING.

What? An author is saying the chapter is boring? Well yes, I'm being honest. I had to explain a lot, and lead up to a lot of things. Now it's up to you guys to start workin' those mind cogs. More and more clues are being revealed. But remember: with a boring chapter comes a SUPER EXCITING ONE. Meaning ACTION! EXCITEMENT! SUSPENSE! . . . next chapter.

Enjoy!

Chapter Eleven
:::Troublous:::…

Running to where Sasuke lay motionless was an understatement. Kakashi flew. He was not entirely sure how appearing at Sasuke's side quicker would be a benefit in any way, but it made him feel better. Naruto and Sakura were at his heels, with Jun following curiously behind.

Sasuke lay on his back, hands folded on his chest in what Kakashi would have been fooled for a sleeping position had Naruto just told him he had been shaking the Uchiha for several minutes. Kakashi tried himself, grabbing Sasuke by the shoulders and chanting his name until it was evident that Sasuke was just not waking up.

It was not until he received a sharp poke to his shoulder did he realize Sakura had been trying to tell him that she was going to inspect the boy. Her disability was creating a hindrance already.

Nice one, Hatake.

Swallowing thickly, Sakura placed her glowing hands over his chest. Her brow furrowed. The more her hands moved, the more her eyebrows drew together and her mouth twisted into a grim frown. She looked up.

"There doesn't seem to be any sort of injury," she said, "but his nutrient levels are extremely low. And he didn't get any sleep yesterday –"

"Sakura," Naruto interrupted. His sapphire eyes had been watching her lips move. "He hasn't slept for three months." He saw her eyes widen slightly.

"His body crashed. Little food and no sleep for three whole months! I'm surprised he's been holding out this long."

"So what, he's going to sleep for three months?" asked Naruto. "Sleep off everything that he's missed?"

"There's no telling how long he's going to be unconscious."

Kakashi leaned back and slid one hand over his face, oddly growing frustrated at the situation. Sai had left, he cursed. There was no easy means of transportation for the Uchiha, and they could not stay in the cabin to wait for Sasuke to wake up, especially since Sakura had said the amount of time it would take was unknown.

"Sakura, please, just see if there's anything you can do," he said quietly as he tried to wrap his mind around their situation.

Unconscious Uchiha.

Feudal Lord in need of escorting.

No means of transportation other than walking.

Kakashi sighed and cursed. Cursed everything. Cursed Orochimaru. Cursed the Elders. Cursed the ANBU. But most of all, he cursed himself. Sakura turned to him, eyes set in apology as she told him there was nothing she could do; just as if Sasuke was merely sleeping, she could not wake him up.

"We can't stay here," he instructed, standing up at last. "This mission is about escorting the Feudal Lord. The next village is a day's travel away, about eleven hours of walking, less if we take a faster pace. I'll be carrying Sasuke."

He was inwardly slamming his head against a wall. Carrying the Uchiha? While Kakashi had intended for this mission to be some sort of team rehabilitation, he did not mean for it to turn into a single rehabilitation. He cursed himself above everyone – it was his fault Sasuke had ended up this way. His fault he hadn't done anything the second he noticed the decrease in weight, the darkness beneath his eyes, the weeks of insomnia. His fault he hadn't tried to reach out to Sasuke harder last night. If he had just tried a little more . . .

They were packing now. Everyone was bustling about the cabin, stopping to stare into the room Sasuke lay in whenever they passed the door, as if they were waiting to see the dark-haired boy suddenly jump up with his hands spread wide and screaming, "Ahh, I fooled you all!" rather uncharacteristically. It never happened, no matter how many times Naruto prayed for it.

Up Sasuke went, over Kakashi's right shoulder next to the silver-haired man's swinging bag, and out everyone went, back into the cold. Kakashi was ahead of the rest of the team to set the incredibly fast pace. From above, they looked like power walkers running a competition, like trekking ants in a mountain of snow.

"We'll make it in eight hours this way," Kakashi said, not turning around. Sakura relayed the message to Naruto. "We'll stop at a village, and we'll have time to set everything straight then."

Simple, Kakashi thought. No enemies in the surrounding fields. A fast pace. His team would be fine. That is, until he could feel the presence of someone that certainly was not on their team. And that was when Kakashi knew – oh, he knew now – that someone sick and twisted, cruel and unusual was in charge of their fate.


Sasuke's eyebrows furrowed.

He was quiet the entire time, the eyes of the ANBU watching him for the slightest hint of intention for escape. But he had no intention of escaping. He was going to show the Elders that he could withstand whatever kind of torture their twisted minds decided to inflict on him.

The ropes that bound his hands to the pole dug into his wrists. Brutal hands tore at his clothing, nails digging into his tender skin and drawing blood.

He gritted his teeth.

"Seven days, you're out in the sun," one ANBU said behind his ox-faced mask. "Night falls and you're still there. Seven more days, you're ours."

He stared at them through glaring eyes.

SLAP!

"Don't look at me that way, you filthy traitor!"

His head was jerked back by the roots of his hair and the world went black. Someone had placed a blindfold roughly over his eyes and was tying it with painful tugs behind his head.

"Can you see anything? Shake your head. Shake your fucking head!"

He smirked and did no such thing, earning another slap to the face that drew blood. He spit out a puddle of his life liquid at the foot of one of the ANBU guards.

"I can't wait for the villagers to see you out there," he heard someone say, and there was cruel laughter all around.

He couldn't wait.


"Sakura! Naruto! To the left!"

Naruto held tightly onto Jun as he sprung into the air to narrowly avoid the bolt of ice that came hurtling at them like a thrown dart. It split the team up: Naruto with Jun, Sakura to the right, and Kakashi with Sasuke just a little ahead.

"How many?"

"Five!"

Kakashi quickly dodged another oncoming ice missile, eyes narrowing. The enemy was enforcing their odd tactics again, attempting to take down one at a time. Had they taken him as the larger threat again? It seemed all ten were closing in on him, all of them attempting to take him out with ice jutsus from the left and lightning jutsus coming at him from the right.

He jumped and dodged and skidded and stared, trying to force the cogs in his mind to work faster to figure out just what was going on. Jutsus bombarded him. Ice missile after lightning strike after slicing air current attempted to put a stop to his movement, but he held tightly onto Sasuke and ran for their lives, retaliating with any jutsu that opposed their elements when he could.

There were more chakra presences, Kakashi suddenly sensed, and he gritted his teeth in agitation. Just what the heck was going on –?

ANBU.

The enemies had suddenly disappeared, leaving ANBU members in their wake. Kakashi narrowed his eyes, the sudden sight of fellow Konoha members surprising him yet bringing suspicion. Root ANBU, he thought – like Sai. Before he could open his mouth to speak to them, however, they disappeared. All of them.

Okay, this is where I draw the line at sanity and cross over it.

The Root ANBU had been after the same enemy? But why?

The events had been so fast that Kakashi stopped just for a moment to recall what had happened. The enemies had come. Attacked. ANBU came? Attacked?

"Kakashi!" came Naruto's breathless voice, and Kakashi turned around to find the blond pulling at Jun's hand as he ran below. "We just saw –"

"ANBU?"

Sakura dropped gracefully to the branch Kakashi stood on, her head turned to face him so he would see her lips move.

"Three of them," Kakashi finished for her. "Root ANBU. Sai is supposed to be working with them."

"Couldn't they just be on different missions?" asked Naruto, trying his best to decipher Kakashi's lips fro behind his mask.

"Root ANBU only operates in a maximum of two groups. The odds are rather unlikely."

"So Sai's mission is connected to ours?"

The cogs of Kakashi's mind were getting rusted and old from their constant turning.

"Honestly," he said with a sigh, adjusting Sasuke's dead weight over his shoulder, "I'm not sure about anything anymore.


A long line of villagers came to see Uchiha Sasuke tied to a pole in a secluded area of Konoha. To see the traitor, the scraps of the Uchiha clan, the pitiful excuse for a human that had killed Orochimaru. The sun beat mercilessly upon his porcelain skin, and his arms ached terribly from their position.

His heard had pounded in his chest at first when he heard voices all around him but could see no one. Darkness. Darkness like the shade of night that filtered through the windows of his parents' room. Darkness like the flashing first stage of Tsukuyomi. Darkness like the cell he had been introduced to one too many times at Orochimaru's lair. And although he was usually – no, always fearless, he was growing afraid of the dark. Quietness? Solitude? He loved. But solitude and darkness did not always go hand-in-hand.

The villagers were not allowed to touch his bare skin, or his arms tied behind his waist, or his burning back. They could only speak to him. They could tell him all about how much they hated him – and they did, too. They could tell him all about how traitorous he was – and they did, too. They could tell him all about how there was a reason all the Uchihas were dead, how unwanted he was, how lucky he was to have this second chance, how he had ruined his life and how the villagers would never find it in their power to see him as a member of their Konoha family again –

– And they did, too.

He didn't care. Really. Konoha people had always been single-minded, idiotic wastes of space, with their Will of Fire theme that drove him insane. He allowed himself to stay because he had made the stupid mistake of being found, and should he leave, he would be killed. He was a man on a mission; to allow himself to be killed would clip the string to the kite that was his brother, and all his dreams of vengeance would fly away. It was simply the darkness that bothered him more than the burning of his skin.


The shambles of the team made it to the next village.

Setting was the sun, but Jun did not stop to stare in mesmerized awe at its beauty. He was tired. He was not a trained ninja who could jump through the trees endlessly; he was a normal human being with a large title. Walking through the thickening snow for hours was not normality. And so, when they ventured through the gates of a small, snow-covered village, he could barely hold himself up in his relief.

It was an unusually small village. Naruto could see the end of it in the near distance, and could count the amount of buildings in it on his fingers and toes, but he thought it had a rather quaint look to it. Single-floored houses covered in snow were built in scattered, unsystematic places as if someone had thrown a handful of pushpins onto the blueprints of the village and proclaimed that the areas they landed on would be where the houses were built. He laughed to himself – it was his kind of planning.

The motel was only two floors and set at the heart of the quiet village, run by an old man who had given them the wrong keys for their rooms the first time and who spoke to Sakura after introductions were made and called her "Hatake-san".

"We've got a little clinic a few buildings down from here for that youngster o'er yer shoulder," he said as he handed Kakashi the real keys and gestured to Sasuke.

"Oh, he's not injured. He's just sleeping."

At least, Kakashi hoped he was.

He had placed Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto in a single room and he and Jun would be occupying the other. Naruto took the motionless boy from his shoulder with a promise to take care of him and a grin. Kakashi was left to his thoughts and heaved a sigh, putting one hand to his forehead and closing his eyes.

"If he does not wake up, you could call for backup from your village." Jun spoke up hesitantly, seeing Kakashi's weary struggle. "You can leave Sasuke here until the backup arrives."

The silver-haired man looked at him in silence, thinking. He knew the importance of the mission: returning Jun. Just returning Jun, because Tsunade requested a highly important meeting with him. His mind, however, was adamant on returning to the motto he held so dearly to his principles: in the world of ninja, those who do not follow the rules are considered trash . . . but those who abandon their friends are even worse than trash.

The mission? Or Sasuke?

Kakashi did not sleep that night.


There was one day he hated worse than the eternal darkness.

The long line of villagers had shortened before it disappeared for the day completely when what he thought was dinner time came around. He slumped as best as he could in his position, his heart beating loudly in his hears, and tried to sleep.

Sleep.

Ha.

The coming presence of someone woke him up anyway, and he straightened again, ready to take another pointless lecture from another pointless village. He turned his head to the steps of the figure and entertained himself with figuring out whether or not it was a boy or a girl, a man or a woman.

His heart stopped.

The figure did not say anything, but he knew. He knew – and God damn it! – he knew. All he could hear was crying. Choked sobbing, like whoever was staring right at him was trying to speak but could not from the overflow of emotion and tears.

Hands pounded against his chest suddenly, and now Sasuke was doubtless.

"You bastard!" came the watery roar.

The hands held no power. They hit lamely, in sync with each staccato sob. Sasuke, blind, kept silent until he felt the hands that pounded illegally against his chest slide against his sides as the figure in front of him fell to his knees.

"You bastard," came a quieter whisper. For a while, all Sasuke heard was crying, and then he heard silence. The figure had left. And suddenly, Sasuke was more afraid of the darkness than ever.


"At least communicating is easier." Sakura heard the jingle of laughter she had not heard in a while and could not help but smile. Naruto, the epitome of optimism and golden rays of sunshine, stared at her with his sapphire eyes. Of course she could not help but smile, what with his own two rows of glistening teeth.

"Unless I speak really, really quickly," she told him with exaggerated lip movements.

"But you wouldn't do that to me." Naruto batted his eyes mockingly. His grin lessened to a smile as he stared at the motionless Uchiha. "If you can hear me, you bastard, get up and dance."

(You bastard!)

Naruto did not expect to receive a twitch in return. He jolted in his position suddenly, catching Sakura's eye, and put all his attention on the brunet.

"Sasuke?"

Nothing.

"People twitch in their sleep, Naruto," Sakura told him.

"Sasuke doesn't twitch."

The night moved on. Naruto and Sakura had little conversations with each other, Naruto's laughter ringing out loudly sometimes when he was truly amused and could not hear his own voice. Sakura asked him for advice on overcoming communication when she was mute.

"It's a lot of animation," he told her, grinning. "You always have to get peoples' attention, and you've got to stop assuming that they're always listening to you, you know? Otherwise you'll start trying to talk but no one will be watching you."

She grinned, too. "Remember your blue and orange phase? That outlandish, obnoxious boy you used to be? You've grown up so much."

Naruto's grin only widened. "I still have that blue and orange outfit somewhere."

The blond was pulling the covers over Sakura's body a few hours later when the pink-haired girl had fallen asleep reading a medical encyclopedia. He slipped the book from beneath her fine fingers, folded one of her slender arms over the other, and tucked her in with a whispered good night before he turned around.

"Sasuke!"

(What do I say to you now? Huh? After everything I've done, Sasuke, after everything I've done -!)

Obsidian eyes were open and blending in with the dimly lit room. The Uchiha had not moved, but Naruto could tell he was definitely awake again. He excitedly crawled to the motionless boy and looked over him.

"Come on," he said. "We should get you something to eat. I'll just go and tell Kakashi-sensei . . . Sasuke?"

(You don't even care, you bastard. You don't even care that we were hurt when you left us.)

Naruto shook the boy very slightly and very gently, but Sasuke did not turn to face him. He simply rolled over to one side, one arm clenching his shoulder and the other flat out in front of him. The blond bit his lip, unsure of what to do.

"Come on, Sasuke," he urged more gently. "I'm going to go get Kakashi-sensei if you don't say something."

(I tried so hard to bring you back. I wasn't going to stop, either, until you were back. But now you're here. What the hell am I supposed to do?)

Sasuke could have said something, but Naruto could not see his face anymore. Naruto knew he should not have gotten angry, but he did. He was annoyed ever-so-slightly, his see-the-good-in-everyone nature growing tired of trying to put up with Sasuke every step of the way. But his help-everyone-possible attitude overwhelmed him and he sighed, standing up to see the sun peaking over the horizon (had he stayed up that late?) to retrieve Kakashi.

The silver-haired man jerked his head up the second Naruto stepped into his room, one bleary eye staring at him in confusion.

"Sasuke's awake," the blond whispered apologetically, thinking he had awoken the man. He heard the longest sigh of relief blow from beneath the mask of his sensei, watching the man stand up slowly from his bed and follow him out of the room.

Sasuke was still in the same position. Before Kakashi could even bend down and talk to him, the boy had said, rather bitterly, "I'm okay, Kakashi."

"Well, obviously not," came the drawling reply.

"Just getting used to the darkness."

Kakashi hummed in reply, his mind taking Sasuke's words so much further. He remembered what Sasuke did: the times the Uchiha endured with a blindfold over his eyes. His mind put two and two together and calculated four and a half.

"Oh, so to get used to the darkness, your body shut down completely for a day? I see. That makes perfect sense."

"Don't talk like you know me, Kakashi."

"We're playing this game again?"

"There is no game."

Kakashi shifted the weight to one leg and put a hand to his chin in feigned thinking. "So this isn't rather similar to the last time we spoke before you decided to run away to Orochimaru? I tied you to a tree and you told me that I couldn't speak like I knew you, yet I gave you a thousand reasons why I was the one who could relate to you the most."

He bent down closer to Sasuke, his presence ominous at that moment.

"If you don't want me to talk like I know you, how about you talk to me? Let me know you so I won't get the facts wrong. Tell me just what went on. I can't change it, but I can help you, Sasuke. That's what I'm here for."

(I tried to help you, Sasuke! And you turned away from that! You turned away from me! You turned away from Kakashi-sensei, from Sakura, from Konoha, and all we wanted to do was help!

You shut up, Naruto!)

Sasuke remembered the darkness, and he allowed himself to be swallowed by it. Kakashi sighed. He was tired of failing.

He wouldn't fail. Not again.

The morning came officially. Sasuke had been left alone, Naruto had been left to sleep, and Kakashi had sat in his bed in an attempt to put together the pieces of the mission to form the bigger puzzle, but he was missing just one piece.

The next morning, he found that one piece, and everything after that changed.

However, a lot occurred between the current morning and the next.

The entire team set out again to the next village; it would only be five hours away at a normal pace. Sasuke was falling in and out of focus, his malnourished body swaying from time to time and his knees buckling beneath him so that he fell to the snow, unsure of which direction to stand up in until Naruto was there to pull him by his arm and guide him again. Kakashi had wanted so badly to stay another night at the motel, but he knew he would simply be a hypocrite in Jun's eyes since he had forced the Feudal Lord to leave his own village. And so, Kakashi could only hope that rest in Konoha would fix the broken Uchiha.

The main event that unlocked the treasure chest to the final piece of the puzzle was another attack. Again came the enemy, and again the team formed a square around Jun so that they could protect him. But again, the enemy used their odd tactics and aimed to take out Sasuke.

Sasuke, the obvious least threat.

Kakashi narrowed his visible eye. Something was wrong. They had always aimed for what Kakashi assumed to be the largest threat. Sasuke, who was completely helpless in that battle, who fell all over the place and was bumping against trees and allowing the enemy to knock him to the ground, was the least threat of all four of them.

At first, Kakashi thought they had simply been attempting to take out one corner of the square that protected Jun so they could attack from that corner. Kakashi's thoughts changed when they continued their attack on Sasuke even when he was far from the broken square. Changing tactics, Kakashi told the team to split up and fight, and he would protect Jun.

It had turned from protecting the Feudal Lord to protecting Sasuke.

Sakura was finally able to repay a little of what Sasuke had done for her back at the Feudal Lord's residence. Without her voice, she could not yell at Sasuke to watch out for the deadly, fiery punch aimed at his head, and so she ran forwards, chakra building in both of her arms, so that she could stand in front of the falling Uchiha. She put her arms up in defense from the punch, scorching her vulnerable skin in the process, and pushed the flaming arm away to send the figure hurtling into the distance with the sickly crrrrack! of his arm echoing after him.

Naruto was thinking like Kakashi. He was worried, yes, but he wanted to stop worrying and find answers. Try as he might, he simply could not figure out why the enemy was attempting to kick around Sasuke like he was a rag doll.

The attack was quickly over when Kakashi, fed up with the enemy, made do of the remaining ninja and ordered his team to carry on, leaning over to whisper to Sakura to watch out for the dangerously wobbling Uchiha.

And still, Kakashi thought.

He thought in the uneventful time from the end of the attack to the entering of the village. He thought as he let Sakura lead them to the hotel (a rather lavish one at that) and order two rooms. He even thought as he settled himself down on his bed, and did not break that train of thought until Sakura came tentatively into his room.

"Kakashi-sensei," she mouthed, poking him forcefully on his shoulder so he would snap out of his trance and look at her. "I was thinking we could all go to a restaurant to eat before night falls because we haven't had a decent meal in a while. Maybe that'll get Sasuke motivated."

"That sounds like a good idea," her sensei replied wearily, but she did not miss the look in his eye that clearly told her he still was not completely with her. "But I've got to stay here for a while. Take Jun-san with you. Here."

He fished around in his back pocket for a second, producing several bills of cash.

"Dinner's on me."

"Kakashi-sensei –"

He smiled at her, his visible eye closing tightly. "Don't worry about it, Sakura." When she stood there still, he pushed her extended hands away gently and settled himself further into his bed. "Just make sure the whole team eats. I'm counting on you."

Sakura's chest swelled with pride and the ultimate need to not let her sensei down. She called Jun (rather awkwardly), Naruto, and Sasuke, telling them there was a restaurant nearby that they would be eating at. Her head buzzed with the urge to tell Naruto everything that had gone on in the past few days whenever Naruto tried to lure Jun from his quiet state with small talk. The Feudal Lord would simply smile and reply with a short response, nodding his head in appreciation.

The winter was reaching its peak before it would heat up for the oncoming spring. Blizzards became more frequent, dusting the tops of trees with its powdered snow. Jack Frost powered up and flew around to nip and bite at the slightest hint of exposed skin, his laughter but the faintest whistle of the wind, his sighs but the slightest ruffle of a scarf or a jacket.

Sakura felt Frost's laughter on her neck and pulled her cloak tighter around herself, moving a little faster to the lights in the distance. She shot a glance at Naruto, who was still attempting small talk with the Feudal Lord, and at Sasuke, who trudged through the snow as if it was almost painful.

A warm glow invited them into the restaurant, and Sakura dusted the snow off of her shoulders before she bowed slightly towards the waiter who seated them. Naruto watched the stray snowflakes fall from her unusually colored hair as if her head was a pink cloud from which the flakes fell in a flurry of snow. He stared, mesmerized, until Sakura tugged forcefully on his arm to lead him to their table.

The blond sat next to Jun when he saw Sakura sidle herself quickly next to Sasuke. He did not mind, especially when the menus came and the list of ramen took up an entire page.

"Have you eaten ramen?" he asked Jun. When the Feudal Lord shook his head with a sheepish smile, Naruto's sapphire, sapphire eyes grew wide. "What? No ramen? Ever? How old are you, thirty? (Had Sakura been drinking anything, she would have immediately spat out whatever was in her mouth and gone into a hysterical fit of laughter) Stop looking at the menu, Jun-san! We need to get you some ramen – stat!"

Naruto ended up ordering for everyone, since he was to pick Jun's ramen and since Sasuke refused to order anything at all. He grinned when Sakura smiled at him for ordering for her, but frowned when he stared back at Sasuke – back at those blank black eyes.

"So Sasuke," he said, leaning forward in attempt to lighten up the situation. "What're you thinking about?"


"Time to eat."

Never were there words dreaded more than those.

There were two methods of feeding him. Sometimes, when he was delirious enough to attempt to entertain himself, he would try and guess which method they would use on him. Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock, and the ANBU would appear with three bowls and one spoon. He called it method number one: overfeeding.

Straddled were his hips, pried was his mouth. Spoonful after spoonful of cold rice forced its way past his teeth before his nose was held to force him to swallow. Sometimes, he would choke. Always, he would vomit. They would feed him several bowls of rice or porridge or whatever they had at the time until it leaked from his mouth and his stomach threatened to burst.

He would always vomit after those feeding sessions. The food gagged him, and the dizziness he received would put him to sleep, but he would soon be awakened by the ANBU once more. It was killing him. He grew frustrated.

So frustrated, his adrenaline spiked. Wanting so badly – so badly – to just sleep off everything, he went insane when he had been awoken by yet another bucket of icy water. He stood up and thrashed his body, tackling the ANBU that had done it and taking him by surprise, launching his bony fists into that porcelain mask, watching the blood flow from behind it until he was launched across the room and beaten into unconsciousness.

At least he was finally asleep.


"Girls, right?" Naruto continued. "Sakura-chan, right? Or how sexy I looked before Kakashi made you blind?"

Sasuke remained in his silence, and Naruto grew disheartened.

"Fine," he said, but more to himself than as a teasing remark. "I'll just have to shove the food down your mouth myself."

When the food arrived, Sasuke groped for his chopsticks and began attempting to eat.

Naruto's eyebrows shot up into his hairline, exchanging surprised glances with Sakura before turning back to the Uchiha.

"I guess you'd rather eat yourself than be forced to eat, huh, Sasuke?" he said.

Sakura swore she heard the faintest of grunts from the black-haired boy's throat.

Dinner was over. With their bellies relatively filled, they stood up to leave. Naruto waited until they were outside to tell Jun and Sakura that he wanted to speak to Sasuke alone.

"Why don't you bring Jun home, Sakura? I'm just going to take Sasuke for a little walk."

He did not miss her stiffened shoulders, but it was Sasuke's cold fingers on his arm that made him realize the extent of the tension that followed his words. Somewhat confused, but understanding nonetheless, he took back his words and accompanied the two, with Sasuke, on the walk back to the hotel.

When the sign of the hotel was visible in the distance, Naruto was suddenly grateful he had not taken Sasuke on that walk. He had had full intention of giving the boy a talk – a rather angry talk, trying to knock some sense, any sense into that thick Uchiha skull of his. But he stopped to think maybe that was one of the reasons why Sasuke didn't listen to them in the first place.

Naruto did not like being told over and over again what he should and shouldn't do. Maybe he could relate to Sasuke. Maybe they had pushed the Uchiha one too many times so that, instead of being pushed in the right direction, he simply stumbled and fell forward. He stopped Sasuke just before they entered.

"Sasuke," he said simply. "Sasuke," he repeated, having hesitated with his sentence the first time and wanting to get a new start on the second. "You're a good guy. Take care of yourself better."

And those simply words, those nine words sent Sasuke's mind into frenzy.

"Naruto," he whispered back harshly, slowly so the blond could see his lips move. I tried to hurt you. I tried to kill you. Shut the hell up. Stop talking to me. Stop caring about me. Just shut the hell up. But he didn't say anything else. He simply turned around with a plan.

"You are not joining us upstairs, Naruto?" Jun asked with sincere curiosity when Naruto did not pass through the front door.

"Nah, I'm going to take a walk," came the reply with an attached smile. "Clear my mind about some things."

"Be careful out there."

The blond watched three heads disappear up the stairs, one black, one pink, and one brown, bobbing in the light before vanishing in the darkness. He turned around on the heels of his feet and craned his neck to the side where he had seen Kakashi's figure earlier, lurking somewhere behind the bushes.

"Tell me you're not out being pedophilic, Kakashi-sensei."

"Oh!"

A head of silver suddenly appeared, followed by a swaggering body and a hand holding a rather famous book in its grasp.

"Caught me, did you, Naruto?"

Naruto grinned, but he had not seen Kakashi's lips move in the dark beneath his mask. "What were you doing in the bushes?" His grin disappeared and his eyes suddenly squinted at the man's uniform. Its front was completely covered in what appeared to be mud, splattered over him in bursts, soaking him to his knees. "Why are you all dirty?"

"Well," Kakashi began with a nonchalant wave of the hand with the book, "I was wrestling this tiger, you see, when it suddenly threw me so far that I landed in the bushes . . ." He trailed off, seeing Naruto's raised eyebrow and blank look, and he smiled. "I just stepped out for a quick walk, and I finally found what I had been looking for."

"I can't even see if you're talking to me, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto replied with a sigh. "You're just going to have to tell Sakura so she can tell me."

"Then we should get upstairs so I can clean up." He ruffled Naruto's golden locks with his free hand, but the blond quickly stepped out from under his arm.

"Don't touch me, pervert!" he exclaimed. "I don't know what you've been doing in the bushes! I don't know where that hand has been!"

Kakashi simply laughed.

He pocketed his book in his back pocket that had miraculously escaped the clay; it had not been mud, like Naruto suspected, but rather wet clay that had exploded all over his front side. With an odd twinkle in his gray eye, he followed Naruto to the room he shared with Sasuke and Sakura and leaned against the doorway.

"Sakura," he spoke loudly, watching Sasuke in the corner as well. "Could you do me a favor and watch over Jun so I can speak to the boys?"

Sakura's hands suddenly dropped the book she was reading. Her fingers quickly scrambled to reach for it again as she turned her head to answer Kakashi, but the silver-haired man put a hand to his chin in contemplation.

"On second thought, never mind. I'm going to go wash up."

And he left.


That night, Sakura awoke to the sound of the sliding of their door. She opened her eyes to squint through the darkness.

Sasuke was leaving in the middle of the night.

Again.

This time, however, Sakura said nothing. This time, she mustered up all of her will power that told her to stay, that told her to not follow him, to not make sure he wasn't leaving for good. She rolled over and forced her eyes closed.

This time, she would almost – almost – trust the Uchiha to come back.


"Sakura~."

Grumble. Mumble.

"Sakura~. Come on, Kakashi-sensei won't let me do anything to him because he says I'll only end up killing him and he told me not to wake you but it looks really bad and he's kind of being as stubborn as Sasuke, who, by the way, have you seen because he isn't in his room or downstairs but all of his stuff is here and –?"

Sakura shot up in bed, eyes wide.

"Wait, what?"

Naruto scrunched his face in mock disgust. "Morning breath."

"What's wrong with Kakashi-sensei? And where's Sas –?"

Gentle hands on her shoulders eased her back, silently telling her to calm down. "Slow down, Sakura," he said quietly. "I can't read your lips."

"Sasuke?" she questioned first.

"I haven't seen him all morning. He might've just gone out for a walk or something. I hear they're popular nowadays." He grinned.

Her slightly hammering heart did not find it funny. ". . . You don't think he's . . .?"

"Left us again?"

She was surprised at the bout of sweet laughter that bubbled from his throat.

"Sakura," he told her slowly, "trust me. Sasuke's not about to leave us any time soon."

He knew something she didn't, and it almost saddened her that she had been left out from the inside knowledge, but she turned her concern to something else.

"Kakashi-sensei?"

Naruto finally frowned, his eyebrows drawn together. "He has this injury on his chest. I don't think he even knew it was there, but it got bad overnight, and it's too bad for him to handle, so I was hoping you could . . .?"

She smiled. "Roger that."

Naruto's explanation, she came to realize, had only put a playful, not-so-serious image of Kakashi's injury. She walked into Kakashi's room to find him on his back on his bed, staring idly at the ceiling with one hand loosely around his stomach.

"Why hello there, Sakura," he said causally. "I see you're awake."

"Naruto told me about the wound, Kakashi-sensei. Let me see it."

But his visible eye was still on the ceiling and so he did not see her moving lips. She walked over to him, noticing the bulge beneath his shirt that she suspected was a towel. She poked him roughly to get his attention. The pained hiss, the jerk forward, and the subtle sound of a suppressed dry retch had Sakura reeling back in surprise.

She whirled around to Naruto, her eyes clearly asking him what had happened, but he shrugged helplessly. She was forced to confront the last person she ever wanted to speak to again: Jun.

"What happened?"

But he did not meet her face to see her lips. Only when she jerked on his arm did he finally set his hazel eyes upon her nose (not directly into her eyes), and then to her moving lips.

"I do not know," was all he could tell her.

Kakashi was back on his back, back to staring at the ceiling with one hand lazily across his chest. "Well, I suppose now that you're awake, would you mind helping me a bit?" His lips twitched into an ironic smile. He tried to move his arm to no avail.

Sakura reached out to pull his dark shirt gingerly from his chest, revealing a blood-soaked towel. Kakashi hissed when she pulled it off to reveal the gruesome wound beneath. She began barking orders as she traced the wound with her bare fingers.

"Naruto, I need fresh towels and my medical kit. It's next to my bag. Make sure there's alcohol in there. Jun. . .-san," she faltered, "I need a basin of warm water."

Her skilled eyes began to take in the wound for proper diagnosis. It looked like the flesh on Kakashi's torso had been eaten away, as if someone had poured battery acid slowly but surely onto his skin. Bruises marred the outside of the wound. It was the inside she was worried about.

When she turned around to ask Naruto for the medical kit, she realized the blond and the Feudal Lord had never moved from their spots. Had never received their directions.

("You always have to get peoples' attention, and you've got to stop assuming that they're always listening to you, you know?")

Naruto's voice rang clearly in her head as she sighed, closing her eyes purely out of the frustration that bubbled into her stomach. With strained patience, she repeated her orders again and watched each man leave the room.

Kakashi smiled slightly despite the pain. "See?" he managed. "Your worst disability doesn't hinder you that much."

She shot him a look that could wither the Amazon Rainforest.

"What happened?" she asked him as she prodded at the bruises around the corroded flesh.

Kakashi frowned. "I'm not quite sure. I was out last night taking care of a trap the enemy had set around our hotel – now, don't be alarmed," he added at the raising of her eyebrows. "The enemy is long gone. The trap disintegrated and the mud from it landed on me. I was perfectly fine last night, so I'm guessing that mud had something special in it."

"You're a horrible liar, Kakashi," Sakura deadpanned.

"I'm not lying!"

The twinkle in his gray, gray eye told her otherwise, but she let her hands roam over his flesh slowly, weaving back the tissues until Naruto came back with her medical kit and towels, and Jun came back with the basin of water. She soaked a towel in the water to wipe the river of blood from Kakashi's abdomen before opening her medical kit quickly and swiping an alcoholic rub from it.

"Hold his shoulders down, Naruto," she told the blond when she was sure she had his attention, and in one quick movement, she swiped the alcoholic rub across the diagonal of Kakashi's wound.

The man gave a howling yelp of agony, trying his best to jerk forward in Naruto's grasp. His throat struggled to keep the bile down, tears of pain forming at his tightly pressed eyes.

"Sorry, Kakashi-sensei."

Whatever was eating away at his flesh was surely dead by then.

She worked quickly, pumping chakra into the wound as Kakashi lay limply on the bed from the exhaustion of pain. Cells regenerated, tissues weaved together, muscles repaired and skin turning flawless once again in a matter of minutes to reveal Kakashi's abdomen.

Sakura wiped her bloodied hands on a fresh towel, admiring her handiwork.

"Just a bit of bruising left," she told him when her eyes were on her lips. "I've killed any harmful organisms. How are you feeling?"

Kakashi tried to sit up with help from Naruto, his stomach screaming at him for moving.

"Peachy."

"We're down in strength by two men, Kakashi-sensei," said Naruto. "Sasuke's pretty weak, and you need to recover. I'm thinking we should stay another day –"

"Just another hour, Naruto," the man said to him, but the blond was oblivious to his words. Sakura had to translate.

Sakura felt it her need to interject. "Kakashi-sensei, from what you told me, we're bound to have another attack by the enemy the second we leave this village. You're really in no shape to go out on a mission. Don't you think that's what the enemy wants? Sasuke's not threat, and now you're no threat. We're down to two viable threats on our team. At this rate, Jun. . .-san," she faltered again with the suffix, "Jun-san will be vulnerable."

"I just need an hour, Sakura," he told her with a smile. "I promise."

She smiled, too. "Okay, fine. Let me just put on a few more finishing touches to those bruises, and I'll give you something to help with your healing."

She helped him ease into a comfortable position on the bed, prodded his bruises a few more times, and filled a cup of water for him to drink, to which she left the room for since he would not dare remove his mask in front of her.

And in a few short minutes, he was out like a sodden fuse.

"You gave him something, didn't you?" Naruto said with a knowing grin.

Sakura replied with a cheeky grin. "I dissolved a sleeping pill in his water. He'll be out for a bit."

"He might be a little angry when he wakes up."

"He watches out for us all the time, Naruto." She began to pick up the dirtied towels, to put away the contents of her medical kit. "I want him to know that we're watching out for him just as much. Where's Sasuke?"

"Taking a shower, apparently. I walked into the room to grab your kit and he was already in there."

"We've got a few hours of extra time. Do you need anything?"

"I'm all right."

Naruto turned to Jun, who had been standing silently behind them, reading from a book that had once been on his nightstand. The Feudal Lord looked up at the sense of being watched and smiled slightly at Naruto.

"Are you okay with staying for a little while longer, Jun-san?" asked the blond. "Kakashi-sensei's going to be out for a bit."

"I understand completely." Smile, smile. "I'll get a bit of sleep myself."

"Go right ahead. We'll wake you up when we're ready to leave."

He bowed to the Feudal Lord ever-so-slightly and grabbed hold of Sakura's wrist, pulling her out gently and closing the door behind him. When they were safe in the vicinity of their own room, he looked her straight in the eyes. Sapphire met emerald.

"Sakura," he told her. "I don't like him."


Sasuke stood there, letting the water cascade down his body with the dirt to gather beneath his feet in a whirlpool of water. He had been out training himself clumsily, walking (and stumbling) through the streets of the village and attempting to use his other sense to help him around. Strength was, like it had been long ago, the only thing on his mind.

If he was stronger, no one would notice him. Naruto paid far too much attention to him when he was weak. Far too much. If he was stronger, maybe his ties with everyone else would loosen. Maybe he wouldn't be so bound to Konoha.

He found himself working with a lot of maybes as motivation, but he did not care. Uchiha Sasuke was not going to wallow around in his own depression for the world to baby him. He was Uchiha fucking Sasuke! Killer of Orochimaru. Traitor of Konoha. Soon-to-be Sole Wielder of the Sharingan. Not some beaten rag doll that couldn't get its limbs together. He almost felt disgusted at himself for falling into that bout of helplessness.

Uchiha.

Helpless.

He snorted.

He did not see Sakura and Naruto when he stepped out of the shower, but he could sense them. Walking outside that day had allowed him to do that. He stepped around them, but felt a hand grab onto his bare arm.

"I know, Sasuke," he heard Naruto tell him.

"Know what?"

"About Jun."


The first thing that came to Kakashi's mind when he woke up was that the ceiling was an odd, unnatural shade of gray. He blinked blearily, trying to remove any traces of sleep from his own gray possessions. The second thing that came to Kakashi's mind when he woke up was the odd aftertaste in his mouth, and he knew from the way the sun was no longer rising but was high in the air that he had been asleep for quite some time.

Sakura.

That girl . . .

Pain throbbed dully in his chest as he tried to sit up, in sync to the equally dull beat of his thudding heart. A pair of hazel eyes watched him stand, following him as he removed his torn and bloodied shirt (Sakura had torn it for him to remove the part that had covered his abdomen) and wore a new one, as he shuffled back and forth throughout the room to gather his belongings, and as he stood right before his feet.

"Jun-san," he spoke, a smile curving his eyes. "I apologize for the unplanned nap. Would you be ready to go in a matter of minutes?"

"It is no problem at all."

Their eyes met, and Kakashi was the one to break the contact.

"If you would just get your things together, I'm going to go gather my teammates."

Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura were talking to each other – talking to each other – in a way that made Kakashi close his eyes, rub them, and open them again to make sure Sakura had not given him something other than a sleeping pill. The three were sitting in a triangle on the floor; when one would speak, another would translate for the person with the respective hindering disability. Kakashi was unsure of what they were speaking of, and he would never know because the second he stepped into the room, the three of them silenced and turned to look at him (or stare in his direction).

"There's a change in our plans," he began, resisting the urge to raise his eyebrow at the antics of his students. "Because we're behind by a few hours," at this, he stared pointedly at Sakura, but with humor rather than anger, "and because we're about to be in the worst danger we've ever been in, we won't be stopping at the next checkpoint. We're going to continue all the way until we get to Konoha."

"Danger?" Sasuke tilted his head to the side.

"Danger. This is going to be one of the last chances the enemy has to attack us for a long time. They already know we're here."

He stared at the three of them – at his team. Team 7. They were Team 7 again. Almost.

At the beginning of the mission, Sakura was too proud to look Sasuke in the eye. Too proud to notice his existence. Too bent on trying to punish the Uchiha for what he'd done. Now, she sat directly next to him, his palm in her hand so that she could write on his skin.

At the beginning of the mission, Naruto was a broken wreck trying to bridge his friends back together again. Torn between Sakura and Sasuke, with no time for himself. Now, his bridging and his perseverance, his determination, his pure will sat around him in the form of a fixed friendship.

At the beginning of the mission, Sasuke had been set on being independent. Had pushed Naruto away and had been so angry at Sakura that he had been ready to hit her – twice. Had cursed his way through every mission. Now, he sat in content silence, no longer in the awkward tension, no longer in his little corner of darkness.

It took a month of blood, of sweat, of tears, of curses, of arguments, of torment, of shame, of betrayal, of deceit. A slow, slow month. But they had almost done it. They were a loose shadow of what Team 7 had once been. It might take many months more to fill in the shadow, but at least they were a thousand steps further than they had once been.

Kakashi's only regret was that his team had mended without him. That he had been left out of most of the bonding, of most of the arguments, of most of the repairs. His satisfaction was still fulfilled out of watching his students grow, but they grew without their teacher, and he wondered what his place was.

He really should tell them about Jun.


Me Again: What? What's this? OOC? ANBU would never do that? GTFO the internet, R.G. Waffles because this story is turning into a bunch of unrealistic, dramatic crap? Why was Kakashi randomly injured? You just want to injure everyone?

Hi guys. Sasuke was a missing-nin who was going to get the death penalty. Kakashi's injury requires thinking and putting clues together, but it's okay, because everything is going to be revealed in the next chapter. If I get any ignorant reviews telling me about things I've addressed in my author's notes, I shall kindly redirect you to my author's notes.