Disclaimer:

I do not own Naruto. It was created by and belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

The silence that followed nearly made Elva go insane. She stared up at Sasuke, her face contorted in a mixture of horror and shock. Every muscle in her body was frozen, but her instincts, her mind, both told her one thing.

Run.

She didn't know what was keeping her still standing there in the kitchen, eyes locked on Sasuke Uchiha. The Uchiha Sasuke. The one who wanted to kill her father. She could have melted, but somehow she didn't. Elva tried desperately to move her feet, yet they remained nailed to the floor. Then, suddenly, as if there was a special alarm in her head that had just gone off, specifically for emergencies inside emergencies, she began to panic.

This is genjutsu. He's going to kill me. That's exactly what he's going to do, Elva thought to herself, coming to conclusions quickly. I'm never going to see my dad ever again. I want my dad. As her panic began to overwhelm her, Elva felt tears springing to her eyes, and as she felt her muscles begin to relax and allow to move again, she said the only thing she could think of. "I want my daddy!" she shouted, falling to her knees. By now, she was bawling, unable to stop.

There was a brief awkward silence above Elva while she continued to cry, until Sasuke broke it, his tone bitter. "Are you kidding me, Karin?" he demanded quietly, still retaining his ever-calm air. He turned on his heel to glare at the red-haired teen behind him. "You have better be kidding me. This—" he gestured roughly at Elva, who had abruptly stopped crying, "—is your Uchiha Itachi?!"

"Well, I…" Karin's voice faded for a moment, then came back. This time, her tone was more joking, more confident, more flirtatious. "You can't really blame me, Sasuke. I was distracted by your standout-good-looks."

Sasuke was a centimeter from her face in an instant, openly angry now. "Maybe," he hissed, "you're losing your touch. Maybe Snake doesn't have use for you anymore." To make his point, his fist once again closed on the hilt of his long katana, and even the now-flirtatious Karin tensed a bit at that.

"No," Karin insisted, shaking her head confidently and standing up straighter. "I was sure he was here. I could sense his chakra. I couldn't have been wrong." She paused, then when she saw Sasuke obviously wasn't convinced, she stepped around him, toward Elva. "There has to be some reasonable explanation, Sasuke-kun," she continued. "I mean—"

She stopped suddenly, eyes downcast, falling silent for several heavy moments before smirking and raising an eyebrow. "Well, that's interesting," she murmured, bending down to pick up a piece of paper. One of the birth certificates from the manilla folder. Elva's.

Elva watched her, a feeling of dread creeping up inside of her. Wiping away some of her tears, she forced both the feeling of dread and that of fear down for a moment, focusing on one thing – she had to get out of there, immediately. She got up on one knee quietly, then the other, remaining in a low crouching position. She glanced up to make sure she knew where the door out of the kitchen was, then stopped when she looked towards Sasuke.

It's not that Sasuke was watching her; his full attention was on Karin, ignoring Elva. But behind him were two more young men, looking maybe a little older than Sasuke, maybe not. One was taller and had orangey-red hair that was spiked up. He wore a blue or purple robe, or whatever it was supposed to be. The other was about Sasuke's height, and had long, straight white hair. He had a huge sword strapped to his back, which reminded Elva of Kisame's sword, Samehada. Actually, the two looked a lot alike, except this boy's was unwrapped.

Focus, Elva reminded herself, tensing up her leg muscles to jump toward the door. Karin was holding up the paper triumphantly, waving it in the air.

"Sasuke, this is rather interesting," she said, the smirk growing on her face. "I think you'd like to see it." As Sasuke reached out for it, though, Elva made her run for it, getting up and running out of the door and down the hall as fast as she could.

Elva pushed open the first door she saw, hoping she had taken enough twists and turns in the numerous hallways in the hideout to lose anyone. If anyone had actually decided to follow her, anyway. She quickly locked the door – as if it would help against four trained shinobi – then turned around, catching her breath.

She was in Konan's room. Origami flowers and birds and other figures littered the floor, and random sheets of white paper lay in wait on the dark blanket covering the blue-haired woman's room. In the corner, behind the bed, was a closet. Glancing back at the door to the hallway, Elva hurried over to the closet and got in, shutting the door and sitting down.

Okay. All I have to do now is stay here. I'll be fine. Sasuke probably won't realize he's my uncle, and he'll leave. Elva continued on with these thoughts for a moment until she stopped. Wait. What if he leaves and finds my dad and kills him? What if it'll be my fault? Should I try to stop him? No, that would be stupid. I'd get myself killed! Unless he wouldn't kill a kid, in which case—

"Stop talking to yourself!" Elva shouted to herself, hitting herself in the head repeatedly. The closet door slid open.

Sasuke stared down at her, eyes narrowed. "Why am I your godfather?" he asked quietly. When Elva didn't respond, he raised his tone. "Answer me. How old are you?"

"Those were two different questions," Elva pointed out, frowning. "And how do you know that was even my birth certificate?"

"You were reading it," Sasuke offered, glancing behind him to where, no doubt, Karin and the others were. "Why would you be reading someone else's?" That's a good answer, Elva muttered to herself. "And you ran away when I had the chance to see it." He repeated his first question. "Why am I your godfather?"

Elva remained silent. Instead of letting Sasuke ask again, Karin stepped in, crouching down to be at Elva's level. "Hey," she said sweetly, an painfully fake smile plastered on her face. "Can you please answer some of this nice man's questions, honey?"

Elva instantly frowned. "I'm ten years old, you know," she snapped. "It's not like I don't understand him. I just don't want to answer him because I don't know the answer. How am I supposed to know why my mom chose him as my godfather?" She was lying through her teeth, but she didn't care. Anything that could keep her alive was suitable at the moment.

Karin resisted the urge to slap the younger girl, instead taking a hand and squeezing Elva's cheek too tightly. "Now, now, let's not be cheeky, brat," she said through clenched teeth. "You're going to answer us. If you do quietly, we won't kill you."

Elva just had to challenge her. She smirked, asking, "Now, now, not to be cheeky, but how exactly am I supposed answer questions quietly? 'Quiet' implies silence. Answering implies talking, which implies noise, therefore rendering the phrase 'answer us quietly,' useless and utterly confusing."

Karin went silent for a moment, Elva's twisted logic leaving her speechless, before she snapped out of it and glared at Elva. "You little bi—" she began, before being cut off by Sasuke once again.

He almost seemed amused by Elva's response. "I can handle this." He looked down at Elva, obviously thinking, before announcing, "I want to speak with her alone."

"What?" Karin snapped before remembering who she was challenging. She quickly smiled sweetly, forcing a laugh. "Just kidding, Sasuke-kun. Shout if you need me!" she called over her shoulder as she shoved the two others out of the door before leaving herself.

Sasuke gestured toward Konan's bed, watching Elva carefully. "Do you want to sit?" he asked, his voice immediately taking on a casual, leisurely tone.

"No, thank you," Elva responded politely, but nevertheless stood and walked out of the closet, taking a few steps away from Sasuke – and closer to the door. After a moment's silence, she spoke up, "You wanted to talk to me?"

"On the certificate, it said your mother is Meri Umeko, yet she died almost eleven years ago, and you don't look nearly that old," he began, keeping up the calm tone of voice.

"For your information, I'm ten years old," Elva informed him, trying her hardest not to sound annoyed. "Just because I'm short doesn't mean I'm young. I'll be eleven in a few days, actually."

"Right, on the twelfth of June," Sasuke agreed, toying with the hilt of his katana. "Which will also be the eleventh anniversary of Meri's death. So I'll believe she was your mother. But I still wanted to ask you something." Elva remained silent, waiting for him to continue. "How long ago did Itachi leave here?"

Elva was caught off guard, letting her surprise at the question show. She had been expecting something like 'Why am I your godfather?' yet again or 'Do you know she died in childbirth?' just to rub it in her face. "U-Um…" she trailed off, still surprised. "How would I know that?" she asked after a moment. She attempted to sound confident, but doubted it came off how she planned.

"Please, I'm not an idiot," Sasuke responded. "This has to be where Akatsuki is based. Karin is never wrong. At first I overreacted by thinking she had been wrong; now I realize it was impossible. So just make this easier and tell me. When did he leave?"

"Why would I tell you that?" Elva asked, beginning to feel more protective of her father. "You'd just kill him, anyway. So he made a mistake and killed everyone in his family except for you. Sue him. Don't kill him. You realize that if you kill him because he killed other people, that you're basically proving to him that killing is all right, because you can do it?"

Sasuke sighed, rubbing his temples. "I don't have time for some annoyance to be preaching to me about what's right and wrong. We need to set out soon. You can either tell us now and we might not kill you or you can come with us and we'll kill you when we kill Itachi."

"So you will kill him!" Elva exclaimed, glaring at him. "You can't do that. Who knows? You might be ruining someone's life! What if he means something to someone? What if someone needs him?" she insisted, refusing to stop.

"Then they'll just have to suffer along with him," Sasuke responded, returning her glare. "He didn't stop to wonder if I needed my family, or if he'd be ruining my life. Why should I care about ruining anyone else's?"

"Because he's my dad!" Elva shouted, fists clenched. "And even if he doesn't realize it, he loves me, and I love him. I need him. He's the only family I have left." She stopped for less than a second, then kept going.

"And don't you dare say that you're my family, too, because you won't be if you do this. No family has a right to hurt one another. Sure, what my dad did was wrong, but even he can't change anything. He might regret it, but he can never take back what he did. You should be thankful that he didn't kill you. You should be thankful he didn't drive himself mad from the guilt of it all and killed himself, even. But if you're going to go ahead and find him and kill him without caring that he's your older brother, then go ahead. But don't you dare say that you're my family, because you're not."

Elva's last sentence had been screamed, half shouted and half cried out. Sasuke stared at her in shock, obviously surprised that anyone that young would have the guts to say that to him, after all he'd been through. It took Elva a while to realize that the reason her cheeks were wet was because she was crying, but by then Sasuke had found his words again.

"Well, that was big of you," he said quietly, walking past her to the door. Pure hatred was etched into his features, although for the first time he had allowed his Sharingan to fade away and let down his guard. He stopped at the door, turning to look at her one last time. "It's nice that you're so lenient and so forgiving, it really is, but I don't think you were the one to walk into your house and find your parents killed."

The door slammed shut, and Elva sat down on the bed, taking deep breaths in an attempt to soothe herself and stop her crying. She picked up one of the origami flowers that had already been folded on the bedspread. Turning it around in her hand, her brow furrowed.

Did I just make things better…or a lot, lot worse?

Author's Note:

Valbino You have no idea how much I laughed when I saw "Sauce-ghey!" That was hilarious! But, alas, you were right about Karin. That is how Sasuke got to Akatsuki…as you found out in this chapter…hehe…I'm just gonna stop talking now.

Sasori-Chibi I am SO sorry I took so long to update! I meant to update a week ago, but then I came to visit my grandma and family in Florida, and I completely forgot everything I had planned for this chapter! I am soooooo sorry!

Tricia010 Haha, yes, hooray! ...not anymore, though. I wouldn't blame you if you saw this chapter update and ignored it. I would have, at least.

Still the ever-chronic apologizer over here. Nothing changed in the past…what has it been? Month?? Once again, my most sincere apologies. I realize that this story isn't that good to begin with, and then once I have people that actually tolerate it and read every chapter, I take forever to update. Sorry again.

OMIGOSH. I CUT MY HAIR. ... Well, you guys could show more support, ya know. It was a big change. I had long hair once!! Now it's short, but on the bright side – my great-uncle Mike said he'd pay to have me dye my hair if I wanted! One of the perks of getting a crappy haircut and then visiting your loaded relatives in Florida! Haha. But he mainly just said it to annoy my mom.

But seriously. If I could, I would SO dye a strip of my hair blue. Bright blue. Well, I dunno. There are so many different shades of blue. Aquamarine, sky blue, baby blue, robin's egg blue, cerulean, ocean blue, etc., and then you get yourself into that whole "Does turquoise and teal count? How 'bout seaweed?"

AFTERBITE: The Itch Eraser ( FAST RELIEF FROM INSECT BITES AND STINGS )

Sorry for the randomness of that statement. MOVING ON.

Pleeeeease review! I know you all hate me, but I still hold a deep, burning passion for each and every one of you. In a none-creepy way, if at all possible. Although it's not.

Okay, so it's in a Jimmy-MacElroy's-stalker-what's-his-name kinda way. If you get my meaning. (Is his name Hector, btw??)

JUST REVIEW, GODDAMIT.

( Sorry, I'm hyper today! I ate bacon : 3 )

-Meri Umeko-