A darker, more serious chapter. A lot of revelations about Samara and her past. The next chapter will have more hands-on action.

Please enjoy.

Disclaimer – I don't own Naruto.

Chapter Eleven: The Return of Hisashi Sato

I had not known Itachi Uchiha for very long.

A few weeks, maybe? A month at most.

From the very first time I had ever met the young missing-nin, however, it had taken me all of about 15 minutes and 45 seconds to realise just how much it actually took to be able to put the Uchiha genius on edge.

If 5 nuclear bombs hit him in the head at once, I'm sure he wouldn't break a sweat. I frowned at the thought. All it took to agitate me was a pizza delivered 10 minutes after the estimated arrival time.

And so, when Itachi's shoulders drew so straight that it felt like somebody had replaced his spine with a long metal pole, I knew something had to be terribly wrong.

I squirmed uncomfortably when I realised I was still held tightly against his back. If something was coming, or we were in some sort of danger, wouldn't it be better for everyone if he didn't have me weighing him down? His pale hands curled only tighter around the backs of my thighs in response.

I rolled my eyes and was about to tell him that for a genius, he was being stupid and that he would need both hands to fight in the absence of Kisame until; I felt something strange. A sensation I had not ever felt before.

My head snapped up, my aquamarine eyes darting to find the source.

I frowned. I couldn't see them, but I could definitely feel them. Seven ninja heading straight for our location. Time of contact? About 30 seconds. Not a single one Kisame.

I blinked and licked my lips. Who were they? Where was the overgrown, blue sea life we all know and love?

"Itachi." I gasped quickly, my eyes not leaving the forest line for even a second. I didn't need to look down, the strain in my voice should be enough to alert him of the impending threat.

Ten seconds and no reply later, I frowned. Apparently not. When my eyes met his crimson orbs, however, I paused when I realised the Akatsuki criminal hadn't even bothered to look in the direction of the oncoming ninja, but instead he held his gaze steady on me.

I blinked and both my eyebrows rose with disbelief. Judging by their skyrocketing chakra levels, these ninja were a huge threat and-

Peering down at Itachi's calculating scrutiny, it hit me like a flying rock.

Itachi had noticed even before I was able to come to the realisation myself. I could not see these ninja, they hadn't even broken through the towering trees and into the clearing yet.

I could…sense them – exactly how I was able to pick up on Itachi and Kisame's chakra when they had come to my rescue back at Orochimaru's lair.

As soon as my mind began to finally reach a somewhat logical understanding, a course of adrenalin shot through me. I knew it, I grinned. I knew it. Ever since my recent contact with the water my almost once nonexistent chakra had burst into some sort of wild frenzy. Something inside me was very different – I was very different.

I looked up, away from the watchful gaze of Itachi and out towards the now fascinating forest that stretched out all around me.

For a moment, my mouth hung shamelessly open and I felt like I was only just seeing the world for the very first time. I watched in awe as chakra lit up everything in my line of vision and much, much far beyond.

My mind, ripping itself into overdrive, was thrust into a whole other world of wonder as streams of chakra ran like a ravine through everything and anything, lighting up a twinkling pathway and flashing like beacons set heavily in a blackened, midnight sky.

Everything was connected, like the roots of a winding tree, glowing with an almighty, powerful energy.

I couldn't help my breathing as it grew heavy and thick, my eyes flying to the left and the right and back once more. I wanted – needed – to take it all in at once. It didn't matter if it made my chest swell with pain or my head throb with the foreign ambiance; It was breathtaking, like nothing I had ever seen before and I was afraid that if I looked away, or lost focus for just a small second that I would once more become blind to the world of chakra.

I let out a shaky, breathless laugh.

"Samara." A voice warned then, cutting through my reverie like a knife on silk.

I frowned and my eyes snapped down. Itachi. What did he want? Something was wrong, he looked concerned. I tried to remember what was happening, what we were doing at this very moment. I opened my mouth, but it was too late.

Seven ninja stepped menacingly into the clearing, weapons dangling dangerously from their hands, greedy smiles set upon their faces like badges of honor.

I grit my teeth.

"Well, well, well." A familiar voice hissed dramatically.

I couldn't tell if it was his twin swords or his huge, bulbous nose that glinted most under the midday sunlight, but I was going to go with the nose.

My teeth ground together so loudly now that I'm sure the opposing ninja would be able to hear. Who was this man? His obsidian black eyes glinted back at me tauntingly.

I had only ever been in contact with Itachi and Kisame, hadn't I? Of course there had been others in various towns, but nobody that would have made quite as distinct impression. Yet, why was he so familiar? I clicked my tongue in annoyance, the sensation not unlike the mind-boggling task of trying to place a familiar actor in a movie. Before you know it, you've ended up spending the entire film trying to figure out where else you've seen him before.

I couldn't tell if it was my new found chakra setting me on the edge of frustration, or the fact that the odor of the man confronting us was so painstakingly hard to withstand, but I couldn't help it when my knuckles turned white as they curled against Itachi's shoulders.

The Uchiha in question let out the slightest of grunts and I looked down in shock. Was he worried about our current predicament? Or was my grip actually…hurting him?

I couldn't be that strong. There was just no way.

As I looked down at the crystal, blue glow slowly seeping from my fingertips, however, I began to doubt my thoughts and after a second of denial I let my grip loosen.

Itachi's arm twitched as he reached smoothly for his Kunai pouch.

"I see you've still got that little whore running around with you, then?" The crude man in front snorted.

I was just about to point out that with a nose that large, he should probably keep all snorting to a minimum; until he wheezed a loud, unnerving laugh.

When he smiled I felt sick. His teeth were stained and crooked and his gray, greasy hair stuck to his face like glue. When his taunting was met only with silence, however, the distasteful man's expression soured like that of a toddler not receiving enough attention.

He jabbed one of those hooked, dual swords in our direction angrily. His chakra was all over the place, I couldn't help but notice. He was off balance, movements clumsy and footsteps mismatched – things only just a couple of hours ago I would have failed to notice.

"What's the matter, woman? Akatuski cut your tongue out or something?" He snickered obnoxiously. "You're a lot quieter than last time and if I remember correctly-"

And then he froze.

He looked back at me, his dark gaze wide as he gawked. I counted the seconds before finally the strange man seemed to catch himself, resigning thoughtfully. Tapping the tip of his sword to his chin in contemplation, he seemed almost perplexed as he paced along in front of us.

"You couldn't be." He said softly, mostly to himself.

I raised an eyebrow and glanced down at Itachi, giving him a pointed look. This guy was definitely a nutter.

"Now that I think about it," He continued, his eyes glancing back over at me. "You do seem a bit…different. Is this a new found chakra?" He muttered in hushed tones before shaking his head in contradiction. "No, no. It couldn't be. No, because I've dealt with this exact chakra before…but where?" He stopped short altogether now, his eyes suddenly full to the brim with sickening glee.

He spun on his heel and turned to look me dead in the eye, a grin so wide stretched across his chubby, oily face making his already huge nose spread out like butter on toast.

"Impossible." He said, but the sadistic expression on his face told me he thought otherwise. "It can't be that you're…his daughter?"

My nails dug involuntarily into Itachi's shoulders at the mention of my father. My father was a man that I could not bear to let myself remember.

My father, the man who had burned down our home; the man responsible for leaving my heartbroken mother and I with nothing more than a crumpled, blackened photograph of what used to be. (A/N: Remember the photo that Samara mentioned at the start of the first chapter?)

As my chakra catapulted with the unwelcome memories, the grotesque man let out an ecstatic howl.

"Oh, but you are. I'd recognize that chakra anywhere." His eyes were bloodshot and bulging as he took another step closer. Itachi sunk lower, ready to move the minute the man made for an attack.

"Your sudden appearance back in the forest all those weeks ago was questionable; identical to the place we had found him unconscious all of almost a decade ago. How did I miss it? How did I not see it before?" he grinned sickly, ironically. "You've even got the same unusual color for irises, that same foreign accent."

My mind was reeling. My father, here? In the Naruto realm?

My head shook from side to side in insistent disbelief and my heart quenched. It was simply not possible.

"Oh, no." The man lurched forward, his hands shaking with an oncoming hysteria. "There's no denying it."

My lungs constricted, breathing becoming almost difficult as I choked in what little air I could manage. It was simply not possible because ten years ago…ten years ago when this man claimed to have captured my father in the forest of the Naruto realm…

"Do you know what we did to your father when he fell from the sky that day, little girl?"

…ten years ago would mark the year that my father had left us. The year that he had torched our house and everything in it and voluntarily left us.

"Tell me, what element is it you've connected with? Your father had always had an unnatural talent with-" I didn't need to hear the end of the sentence. I already knew the answer.

"Fire." The man finished with a cruel snarl and cold gleam in his eye.

A shriek, loud and blood-curdling rang in my ears.

It took me a minute to realise it had come from my own pale, trembling lips.

My father hadn't fallen through to the world of Naruto. I felt my heart wrench painfully in my chest and I choked back an oncoming sob. He hadn't loved us, so he had left. That's the story I had to believe all these years – nothing else could be the reason. I couldn't have endured the thought of him leaving us all those years ago for that not to be the answer.

Even as the thoughts spun rapidly around in my head, pounding against the sides of my skull, my mind felt numb and I felt sick.

The kind of sick you feel when you finally realise the truth, and guilt spills through like the vile of a poison.

My mind wandered back to the day the vibrations had ripped through the University campus and I was thrown harshly from my own world and into the Naruto universe. Had my father experienced the same vibrations all those years ago? Would they have been the same vibrations that destroyed my house, pulling him into another dimension and attaching his chakra to the element of fire?

Was none of this his choice? His fault?

I thought back to my old home, a torched pile of ashes and couldn't help but question my own disappearance. Were the halls of the University left broken and flooded? Did my chakra, infused with the element of water, run deadly through the lecture rooms and cafeteria after my disappearance? Did my mother think I had left her, just as we thought my father had?

My eyes slammed shut and another scream of terror rocked through the air of the forest clearing.

"Enough." A sharp voice called, causing my eyes to automatically shoot back open. I barely noticed it as Itachi's; his Sharingan-lit eyes searched my own.

There was a moment then as we stared at one another, where my breath froze in my lungs and everything seemed to move indulgingly slow. Bars of sunlight cast through the winding oak trees, leaving streams of glittering warmth filtering through the air. The wind moved slow and forgiving, Itachi's hair danced airily around his face.

It was short lived.

Itachi twitched and suddenly we were pushed back under the onslaught of ninja as they lunged towards us is one synchronous movement. Itachi dodged skillfully, darting around the opposing enemies with an almost practiced ease.

No matter how I tried, I couldn't pull myself from the numb, comatose state of shock. An explosion lit up to our left, the crack deafening me momentarily and drowning out the next thoughts of peril before they could enter my mind. The force knocked me clean off Itachi's back and propelled me across the clearing. As I was blown like a rag-doll to the side, my eyes gradually made their way to the face of the wicked man.

He stood with a cruel smirk, watching the fight from the same position where he had taunted me not long before.

Scorch-marks marred and cracked the woodland ground, my ears rang excruciatingly in protest and suddenly through the amidst of rippling explosions, it finally clicked.

Hisashi Sato – this torturous, disgusting man was Hisashi Sato. The grungy, sickeningly rude man that had flung one of those trademark, curled blades at my face when I had first stumbled in on an argument between him and the two Akatsuki criminals only minutes after dropping out of the elevator and into the Naruto world.

I hit the forest line abruptly and was shortly engulfed by the thick, dense trees of the surrounding greenery. Stray branches cut and clawed at my bare skin as I sailed out of the clearing completely, tumbling head over heels before losing sight of Itachi and the sunlit haven altogether.

The last thing I saw before I was forced deeper into the wilderness was the scathing grin of Hisashi as he watched me with sickening excitement.

The chaos from the clearing disappeared, replaced with the damp, darkness of the claustrophobic canopy. As I was plunged into the shadowed hinterland, the only light seeped slowly from my fingertips in a perilous, electric blue current.

As I watched my chakra grow menacingly, dual and conflicting thoughts flashed through my mind.

Hisashi Sato had answers. Hisashi Sato would pay.