Yes, I know it's been a while. No, I'm not losing interest, like most everyone else here, I'm experiencing difficulties making time for my precious fanfics. As for Kurama's Foxy Rose, that came out wrong. I myself do find Sesshoumaru to be rather attractive. I mean the oni-type demons that you see in the japanese scroll paintings like tengu and kappas, not the hot ones in anime.
Disclaimer: Well, let's just say I'm working on it.
Failures
"I'm just off my game. That's all. I've only just regained my body and I need time to adjust," Muramusa said in his throaty voice to his mirrored reflection in the dirty, public bathroom. A civilian man entered the facility, rusty door hinges screeching violently. The sound alerted Muramusa's sharp, pointed ears and the hulking demon turned to the offending man. After a brief moment of hole-draddle-rats-there's-a-demon-in-the-bathroom, the civilian man whipped around and ran screaming for the hills. The demon in question grunted.
"Huh, maybe I smell."
"Dammit. My first failure," Tenshi confessed to Kakashi, tears leaking out from under her mask. The man draped his arm around her shoulder in what he hoped would be a comforting gesture.
"If it happened twice, then it was inevitable." Uh, that could've come out better.
"But I was supposed to save him. Not let him die!"
"Tenshi, listen, if he hadn't died, the Fifth wouldn't have come along. That was a good thing, wasn't it?"
"If it weren't for her, I never would've made it this far," Tenshi admitted, settling her tensed muscles. Kakashi seized the opportunity.
"Don't waste your time wallowing in the 'what-if's and 'if-only's. Focus on what you can do now." Tensh shot upright, inspired and enlightened.
"You're absolutely right!" Tenshi exclaimed, eyes ablaze, "Thanks Kakashi-sensei, you're the best."
Abandoning Kakashi at the Memorial Stone, Tenshi splashed through puddles and sloshed through muddy expanses before reaching the funeral procession.
Everyone had paid their respects and cold rain mingled with hot tears. Something really touching about the Will of Fire. Tenshi, still garbed in glowing, snow white, laid her matching rose atop the pile and took her required post at the podium. Superhero, eh?
"The Sandaime was a great man, He was involved with the people of this village and actually cared about every one of us and knew each of us by name. He—" Tenshi's hand clutched at the side edges of the podium as she dropped her head and laughed callously.
"I'm sorry, I can't do this
"I don't need to tell you that he loved you. You already know. And I don't need to tell you how he loved you, or how much he loved you, or why or in what ways. You already know the answer to those too. And we all loved him. That's why we're here.
"He kept the Will of Fire alive, even dying for it. So we owe it to him to keep it going. Not because we need a new Hokage, or because we need this village to function, but because we owe it to him. I will personally go and help seek out our Godaime . . . " Tenshi's mind fell flat, not able to find a good place or way to end her speech. So she bowed her head quickly and left before the crowd could react.
She fled to the tori gate bridge and sat upon the highest perch. Rain poured fierce needles, and for once, Tenshi needed to feel the rain. She removed her porcelain mask and drew her head back, exposing her skin to the sky.
"Tenshi, I—" Guard dropped like her mask from her startled fingers, a brilliant symphony of dribbling shards and needles swelling on the painted red platform of the tori gate bridge. Sakura, by accident, had shattered Tenshi's mask.
A sharp breath darted out of Sakura's lips and her hand reached up to catch it as she staggered back slightly. Tenshi jerked her head forward, covering her true identity with a curtain of pink. She pushed herself off of her perch and landed on the site of the ruins of her disguise.
"T-Tenshi?" Sakura took a hesitant step forward; a small pooling of water pulsed outwards from her foot. Tenshi, caught red-handed, decided not to run.
"I wish I could've hid this longer," she confessed as she turned to face her younger counterpart, bracing herself for the reaction. The rain reigned for a moment, as Sakura gathered her thoughts and Tenshi steeled herself.
"Oh." Tenshi blinked.
"That's it? 'Oh'?" Sakura shook her head and restarted.
"No, it's just . . . I don't know how to respond to . . . this."
Tenshi looked past Sakura and saw Kakashi with his hand on Naruto's shoulder, the boy poised with his arm and hand outstretched and his mouth opened into a dark void.
"Looks like the jig's up. Don't tell Sasuke, he . . . when I explain, it will hurt him the most. I . . . " I don't know how to tell him that his evil is the reason I'm here.
Sakura nodded numbly, understanding. Tenshi knelt to the ground, gathering her shards gingerly, careful not to cut herself.
"I guess I'll need a replacement," she mused, accepting a shard from Sakura, who had begun to help her. Naruto joined the two, mind clouded and unfocused. Kakashi stood by idly, watching for Sasuke.
Tenshi deposited the shards in her weapons pouch and sat cross-legged on the apex of the bridge. Sakura and Naruto, realizing that it was story-time joined her.
"As you can see, I'm . . . Sakura. From the future. I'm here on a mission. I was supposed to change the course of time, for in only a couple of years . . ." she trailed off, but restarted, "Sasuke became a rogue ninja and invaded the village. I came back to try to stop him from leaving in the first place. I'm making side-trips to stop as many deaths as possible. Like Zabuza and Haku, they originally died. Please, keep this a secret. No one else needs to know my identity, and Sasuke . . . I'll tell him when I feel it's time."
Naruto spoke.
"When will that be?"
"I don't know."
Kakashi tapped his finger on Tenshi's shoulder, glistening with rain.
"Sasuke's here."
The silhouette of the boy approached lazily. Tenshi bolted straight up, exchanged good-byes and vanished in a flurry of cherry blossoms.
"So you're leaving for training?" Tenshi asked, her new mask returned to its rightful place. She had come across the two on their way to exit the village
"Yeah, Ero-Sennin's gonna teach me a new jutsu so I can become stronger than Sasuke!"
"You know, Naruto, knowing a whole bunch of jutsu won't necessarily make you stronger. It depends on how you implement the technique."
"You're just jealous!"
"So the craziest thing just happened to me. I was passing by and I saw Kakashi, Asuma, Kurenai and Sasuke. And Sasuke said he was planning on buying sweets. I mean, any dedicated Naruto fan knows that Sasuke hates sweets. What's up with that?" Tenshi shook her head in disapproval. "But then I found another scan that said he hated them and Kakashi said something like, 'Do you?'. I was thoroughly confused."
Tenshi's stance suddenly turned into one of hostility, without a word, she half-dashed to the right and a twirl of cherry blossoms overtook her. And with that, she was gone.
When Tenshi opened up her eyes again, she was in the middle of a concrete road, standing near the water, between Asuma and Kurenai, and Kisame and Itachi. She turned on the two Akatsuki members and pointed at them. Itachi muttered something like 'pointing was rude' and Kisame looked on with fading interest.
"What are you two doing here?"
Itachi examined the girl with a flowing veil of chakra around her, maintaining some type of jutsu, and based on the pattern, a space-time jutsu. His eyes traveled to her pink hair, the obvious pink hair that said you'd have to be an idiot not to recognize it. He had never expected tiny, sensitive Haruno Sakura would have been able to master a jutsu of that caliber. However, he distinctly remembered her to be the same age as Sasuke, true, a bit older, but only by months, not by years. And based on her mask, she must have been undercover, hiding from her own people.
Without warning, Kisame let loose his Samehada, whistling through the air, intent on crushing Tenshi's pretty little head. She escaped the infamous sword with a quick back flip and slid backwards, creating a fairly nice cloud of dust in her wake. Kisame, quick to react, instead lunged at Asuma while Tenshi and Kurenai hoped their genjutsu was strong enough to take on that of a Sharingan's.
Kurenai's jutsu ultimately failed and she was tossed into the river-canal, Tenshi too late in her timing, imperfect, doomed to failure. In hopes of redemption, Tenshi followed into the river to assist her battle partner. She heard a chant calling forth some dastardly water style jutsu. When Tenshi looked up from the water's surface with Kurenai's arm wrapped around her shoulders, Kakashi had appeared on the scene, Sharingan activated.
Although it seemed everyone knew everyone else through legacies and Bingo Books, they were all nervous. Would their opponents live up to their reputations? Would they simply disappoint?
One way to find out.
Kisame was restless to start, but Itachi delayed the process.
"Remember why we are here in the first place, getting injured is not the reason why we came here!" he warned his partner. Kakashi spoke.
"Then would you mind telling us why you've come here?" Although Itachi turned away, he held Kakashi's gaze.
"We've come looking for something."
"Looking for something?" Kakashi echoed. They began their postponed battle with a water jutsu. One shuriken and clone after another, an explosion, unfortunately missing a fireball and instead composed of water. Tenshi, invisible in her dress devoid of reputation and legacy, hovered, perched like a bird in the cover of leaves and branches, although she felt Itachi was still tracking her location.
Kakashi was suddenly caught in Tsukiyomi overcome with the genjutsu and incapacitated. He fell to his knees, struggling to stay conscious and not to break.
"You're looking for Sasuke . . . aren't you?"
"No . . ."
"We are after the Fourth Hokage's isan."
"Your target is the Kyuubi inside of Naruto, isn't it?" Kakashi, was straight to the point. It wasn't Naruto they were after, it was the demon inside him.
"You have begun to move, you think we don't know? The name of you organization, it's Akatsuki, isn't it?" The two exposed shinobi narrowed their eyes, threats aglow in the essence of their pupils.
"Kisame, take Kakashi out.
"It's time for these people to disappear." Tenshi, sensing this was the moment, let the panels of her fan cascade down. She leaned forward, and almost fell, following her halt in the realization that another Jonin had arrived to stop the disappearing.
"Leaf Whirlwind!" Tenshi reshifted her weight and decided this was not her fight. She aimed herself like a slingshot against the flexible branch and gathered chakra at her feet. She shot herself towards her fallen sensei and scooped Kakashi and hefted him over her shoulder. Tenshi skidded over the temperament of the water, giving rise to a cloud of mist.
"Tenshi, Kurenai, take Kakashi to get some medical help."
"Already on it."
Tenshi deposited Kakashi in his room's bed, and put him in the care of Kurenai, instructing her vaguely and giving a quick run-down of his condition. She tracked down Sasuke after a while and informed him of Kakashi's condition. When he asked if she was coming or not, Tenshi looked up and away into the sky and said she to meet up with her at the ramen shop when he was finished checking on Kakashi.
Moments later, Sasuke was there, asking about Naruto and Itachi. Tenshi pulled him by the collar onto the wall surrounding Konoha and pointed at the easily recognizable spikes of hair disappearing into the horizon. In an effort to conserve chakra, they ran.
The little town was hung with banners and Sasuke looked frantic. He ran into a motel and asked the receptionist if a blonde stupid-faced guy about his age and a large white-haired old man were staying there. Tenshi walked up behind him.
"Sasuke, that's not really how you properly ask someone that." He shushed her rudely.
"Yeah, I think I know the people you're looking for."
"Which room?" Sasuke sped up the stairs while Tenshi bowed respectfully and said 'Arigato' to the man. Sasuke immediately returned and yanked her by the wrist, signaling her to follow. She quickly recovered from the shock and jumped from wall to wall of the winding staircase in order to keep up with the Uchiha boy. He impeded his mad run at the room and knocked anxiously, sweat on his lips. Tenshi landed beside him and licked the salt from the skin around her mouth. The door hatch clicked open and Sasuke wrenched the handle the rest of the way open to find a couple of a matching description, but were, oddly enough, not Jiraiya and Naruto.
"Wrong . . ." Sasuke muttered, slamming the door.
"Gomen!" Tenshi called through the barrier, sprinting after Sasuke and the site of his next bold plan.
Tenshi, scanning the area for chakra spikes, put her hand on Sasuke's shoulder, halting his progress.
"This way!" she shouted in her adrenaline and flicked her head over in the direction in which she felt Itachi's presence. He did not respond instantaneously, which concerned Tenshi, so she gave him a sharp shake on his shoulder until his eyes looked more focused and anger welled up in them and he was gone down the street with her close behind.
By the time she had caught up, she was almost sent careening into Sasuke, because he had his feet planted firmly in the ground and was squaring off with Itachi and Kisame.
"Indeed, today is a special day, don't you think? This is the second time I've seen another Sharingan," Kisame mused and looked up at Tenshi, "And look, the little chickadee from earlier is here to play as well."
"Sasuke . . ." Tenshi warned, although she took a step back.
"I will kill you."
Well . . . yeah. I saw that whole sweets thing and went into mental shut down and I had to reload all my data and everything. SASUKE DOES NOT LIKE SWEETS. So who was he buying them for . . . ? -evil face-
