Well, hopefully I didn't keep you all in too much suspense since the last time I updated this story! I just hope to get more feedback and at the moment, I haven't been able to

update as much as I had hoped to do so, since with school and everything. But please enjoy this chapter, and I'll try my best to update again as soon as possible.

Thanks to everyne who has reviewed this story so far, especially Venza, who has encouraged me to continue on with this story! Thank you so much!


Chapter 10: With Power Comes Responsibility

As navy eyes opened to be met up with the bright light of an unfamiliar room, the Uchiha's eyes blurred as she slowly got accustomed to the lighting. Slowly getting up from a strange bed, she looked down to realize that she was in a totally different attire. An oversized shirt served to cover up her body and as she tried to sit up, her head panged her with pain.

Her eyes quickly shut closed and as Katara clutched onto her head in pain, she swiflt laid down and put her head on the soft pillow. As the Uchiha rested her hurt head on the bed, she slowly opened her eyes and meet up with the bright light again. She struggled to move her body on its side as she felt that her heart was beating in her head, but as she was able to accomplish her goal, she slowly opened her navy orbs to meet up with several people in the room. (Sakura, Naruto, Kakashi, Itachi, Sasuke).

Her eyes were wide as she saw all of them in the room. She was shocked to see them there as she believed she was already far away from them. As her senses hit her again, she looked towards the left of the room and saw there more people, Koji, Neji, and Shikamaru.

All eight shinobi had waited patiently for the Uchiha heiress to awaken, ever since she was brought back unconsciously by Koji. As they all saw that she was awake, all eight slowly approached the bed and stood in front of her.

Seeing them all approach her, Katara quickly shut her eyes and pretended to be asleep, but as Hatake Kakashi's voice broke through, he forced her to stop pretending when he said, "Katara, we all know you're already awake. We just want to talk."

From the tone of the jounin's voice, Katara knew that he was being serious, and as a result, she slowly opened her eyes and sat up in bed.

As soon as the silver-haired male knew he had gotten her attention, he continued what he was going to say. "Katara, out of everything you've done, how could you completely give up…do you know how many people are counting on you?" Kakashi said as he watched Katara take his words in, so he continued again. "You're just going to quit, is that it? Then everything the hokage did for you was for nothing?!" exclaimed the jounin as Katara flinched a bit as his tone became louder.

The Uchiha heiress was about to say something back, until she was stopped by one of her friends. As Takahashi Koji stepped forward, Katara couldn't help but look away from his disappointed gaze as she stared back at her. Out of all the people she never wanted to let down, one of them was Koji. After all she had been through, he was someone that was always there for her and helped her become more confident, therefore, at the moment, she couldn't help but feel disappointed in herself as well.

Katara stayed silent as her friend stepped forward and said, "Kay, I'm not going to yell at you like sensei just did now, but do you realize how much trouble you put yourself through?" the Takhashi said as he sat on her bed, close to her and continued. "You endangered your life out there. And it's not because you're expected to save your kingdom that we care, we all care about you and we always did, even before this whole ordeal. And we are all going to stand by your side."

The Uchiha heiress stayed silent for a few moments, until she looked back at her friend and said, "Koji, how can I do this, if I don't even believe in myself? I don't want anyone to die for my sake." She said as she looked around the room at everyone with concerned eyes. "I-I'm afraid of losing any one of you guys. I can't stand there and just watch all of you risk your lives for me, not while I'm still alive, I'm willing to put my life on the line."

The Uchiha heiress continued to look at all her friends as she finished with her conversation. And as she kept looking at them, her hyperactive, blonde best friend stepped forward to say, "Kay, if that's all you're worried about, everything will be fine. I assure you that we're all strong enough to handle this. And when this is all over, we'll all still be here, standing right by your side."

The Uchiha heiress looked up into Naruto's blue eyes and saw that he meant what he said, and as she turned to see his goofy grin, she couldn't help but smile herself. "Arigatou, Naruto-kun."


After an hour of being able to cheer Katara up, she felt better and as she quickly got out of bed, everyone followed her out in order to have some dinner. As everyone met up at the huge dinner table, they all enjoyed each other's company as they dug in and had a feast.

In fact, from the corner of her eyes, she could see Naruto happily eat ramen and as Katara turned back towards her food, she was glad to be around everyone and actually be social.

As Katara dug into more rice and pork, she had turned towards Itachi and felt his gaze on her. Her eyes met up with his and as navy met onyx, Itachi broke the silence by saying, "I'm glad you're back, Katara."

The Uchiha heiress smiled back at her companion and said, "It's great to be back, Itachi. Thanks so much for everything. You've helped me the most through this whole experience. And I thank you for that." She finished up as she gave him a hug to show her own gratitude.


After dinner, everyone gathered around the large living room, to just hangout together around the fireplace and to enjoy eachother's company. Everyone saw the new determination in Katara's eyes along with her newfound happiness and they were assured that she was ready to know what was going on. As she sat down on the couch next to Deidara, she gave him a gentle smile and turned her attention to the three new comers and asked, "What are you guys doing here? How did you even get here?"

The Hyuuga slowly looked at her with his white eyes and simply replied, "We're here to assist in whatever is necessary."

'It's always like Neji to give such a straight answer.' Thought Katara as she just nodded her head and waited for further details from Shikamaru and Koji.

As she expected, the shadow user began the conversation again, except with more details. "Well, after the invasion from Orochimaru's troops, most of us stayed back to see the damage. We saw that he managed to conquer the village and well, Koji, Neji, and I saw many of the shinobi become imprisoned. From there, we knew we had to think of another plan to free anyone that was caught, so we decided to meet up with you guys."

"So everyone is captured?" questioned Sakura as she turned towards the three shinobi.

"Yeah….everyone that we know. Lee, Tenten, Keiko, you name it. Other than that, I know that Jiraiya and Tsunade are being held up in a highly guarded area." Answered the Takahashi.

"Kakashi, Master Jiraiya also wanted us to give you a letter before he was capture. He said it was urgent." The Hyuuga said as he took an envelop from his pocket to hand to the copy cat nin.

Kakashi quickly opened the letter up and swiftly skimmed through it. After a few more seconds, he finished reading the letter and was about to tell the group what was in it.

"Looks like Orochimaru is going after you, Katara. And even more bad news, he's already taken over Lightning Country, he's headed for Wind Country now." Informed Kakashi as he addressed everyone in the group.

"This is bad….at this rate if we can't stop him, he's going to be able to take over the whole world." Stated Sasuke.

"Way to be positive…." Said Naruto as he turned towards his teammate.

"He's only being realistic, Naruto." Replied the Hyuuga.

"He's already got a huge area of land conquered, especially from his wins in Fire Country. At the moment, he seems to be heading for the largest land masses." Explained Itachi as he thgouth the whole process through his head.

"So what are we supposed to do now, un?" asked the blonde artist as he stared up to look at anyone for an answer.

But as everyone continued with talking, Katara's eyes suddenly glowed a bright white color, which indicated to everyone in the room that she was entering into a vision. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at her in interest.


The Uchiha heiress scanned the area around her as she watched some more snow fall down from the sky. As she was at peace with everything and was glad that her vision wasn't going to be bad, she was terribly wrong. She suddenly saw several stains of red in the snow, indicating blood and a sign of a fight. As the Uchiha turned to look towards the familiar cabin of their hideout, she could not recognize it as she saw it slowly burn down. Without thinking she saw herself quickly rush to the cabin and stand in front of it as she weeped with so many tears. As she saw herself try to enter into the cabin, the Uchiha covered her face and eyes with her own arms as the whole place exploded in front of her, causing her body to collide into a tree.

As she recovered from the blow, she looked up to see that she was alone and saw herself scream several names out at the top of her lungs as tears began to fall, "Koji! Naruto! Kakashi-sensei!"

As Katara watched herself quickly rush back to the area of the destroyed base, she only saw ash as there was nothing left. Her own form fell down onto her knees and slammed her fists to the ground and as she cried, the real Katara quickly gasped as she saw that from behind her vision self, was Orochimaru and his men.


"Katara, what did you see?"asked Kakashi as everyone else tuned in to what she was about to say.

"He and his men are coming here. They somehow managed to find us." Stated the Uchiha as she answered his question.

"So what should be do now, un?" asked the blonde artist.

"We need to spilt up." Answered Pein as looked at the blonde with his purple eyes.

"What good would that do?" questioned Naruto as he showed his confusion on his face.

"Geez, Naruto, do we have to explain everything to you? I thought you would get it by now." Complained Shikamaru as he put his hands behind his head and looked at him with an annoyed expression.

"Oh yeah, Shikamaru….." Naruto started until he was interrupted by Katara.

"Naruto, I'm sure Shikamaru didn't mean it. But getting back to the idea. I think it's great."

Naruto slowly turned towards his friend and said, "Huh? How is it a great idea? Isn't splitting up a bad idea?" asked the blue-eyed male.

The Uchiha turned to face the blonde and explained, "Well, usually splitting up is bad, but in this case, it's probably necessary. Think of it this way, Naruto, there's too many of us in one place. If one of Orochimaru's minions find one of us, they find all of us. That way by dividing ourselves, we can complete two goals at a time, therefore killing two birds with one stone."

"Precisely…" stated Kakashi as he smiled behind his mask.

"So what we need to do is to divide ourselves based on our strengths and weaknesses as a group." Stated Temari as she turned to see everyone agree with her statement.

"Alright then, I guess I'll spilt everyone up." Said Kakashi as he looked at everyone and saw that they all were paying attention.

The silver-haired jouin then continued with, "The first group will be Katara, Sasuke, Naruto, Sakura, Gaara, Shikarmaru, Koji, Konan, and myself. The second group will be Itachi, Kisame, Deidara, Sasori, Neji, Temari, and Kankorou. As for now, we'll talk about the plan in detail tomorrow, but we have two different groups made to perform different tasks."


Well, that's it for now, but the next chapter, I do have some KataraXItachi moments, so hopefully you guys will look forward to that!

Remember to review! :)

-Arigatou!