Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or its characters.
A/N: Alright, once again, sorry for being such a ... and for not updating. I'm just gonna say that I've had the worst depression period for about half a year and it hit the roof a month ago. But things are getting back to normal again and I'm trying to write as much as possible. But I'm also writing a book (in English of course) and it's going to be published soooo... Yeah. If anyone wants to read it and give me some constructive critisism, I'd be happy to send you some chapters. Okay, enough of babbling. Have fun reading and please, oh, please review.
Sasuke had been gone, running on some mysterious errands and doing short missions for a couple of weeks, which had given his fiancée a lot of time for herself. Some of her "free time" she spent training and reading jutsus, some of it she spent by lying on the bottom of a bathtub full of warm water. She had had also a lot of time to sort her thoughts and think about her future.
She had come to the conclusion about the mysterious man that he was just a dream. She knew it was irrational but in a weird way, it hurt to think that he was real. 'Sometimes lying and living in a lie is safer than…', she had thought but hadn't dare to finish her thought.
Her thoughts about Sasuke were in contradiction. She knew whatever would happen, she'd stand by him. She felt very loyal to him, in a neurotic way. She couldn't even think about double-crossing him, it wasn't even an option in her mind. The solidarity she felt scared her.
But one thing she was absolutely sure, she couldn't wait for her mission. She needed the action, the adrenaline and the fighting, part of her thirsted for a kill. She tried not to think about that part of herself. But every time she was in the same room with Sasuke, she wished he'd tell her when it was the time for her mission.
She placed a book she had been reading to the coffee table in front of her. It was getting late and she was tired. She yawned and stretched out her arms. She had lost her track of time reading the book. It had been about forbidden medical jutsus, what they can do to a human body at their best… or worst. She knew some of those and wondered who had taught those to her.
She moved a red blanket under which she had been reading to the other side of the couch and got up. She was too tired to start thinking about things she hadn't answers and most likely wouldn't get answers to.
Yawning, she walked to the kitchen and drank a glass of water. Again, yawning, she walked to upstairs and threw herself on the bed. She quietly thanked any higher power existing for the fact that she had changed into her pyjamas a few hours ago, she wouldn't have had the strength to change anymore.
She crawled under the comforter and breathed in deeply. She had a feeling that it would be another night she wouldn't get enough sleep. But she was happy for the fact that Sasuke wasn't there at the moment. Now, she didn't have to pretend to be asleep or avoid questions about their non-existing sex life and when it wouldn't be so non-existing anymore.
She closed her eyes and listened to her breathing. Some old song was ringing in her head. She thought it was from her childhood and she fell asleep listening to it.
"Ino, stop it, you are not going", Tsunade warned.
Ino was packing her bags, pacing around her room and searching for scrolls she might need on her mission. Every now and then she stopped walking and with closed eyes she held her head and groaned.
"You are in no condition to go there!"
"I am going. Kakashi can't do it on himself. He doesn't have enough information. He doesn't know how to fight with someone's SUBCONSCIOUS or how to bring something back from from…" her sentence trailed off as she felt cutting pain in her head.
"But you can't go. I'm ordering, as your Hokage to stay here. Ino, you are not going", the Hokage said angrily.
"You know that Kakashi can't do it without the information I have and I CAN'T ADVISE HIM ON THE PHONE HOW TO BRING MY BEST FRIEND BACK", Ino yelled and threw another book into her back.
"Ino, I'm warning you…" the older woman said and walked in front of her.
"I'll be careful. I'll take a 15 minute break in every hour on my way there. And I'll rest a lot. I'm having less and less of these… attacks. And you know that Naruto's team could use another ninja, and you know that Kakashi needs the information and you know, you know, you know that if you forbid me from leaving… I'd still leave. You can't stop me", Ino said furiously staring at the older woman.
Tsunade didn't say anything, she just stared back at the ninja in front of her. It seemed as if she was deep in her thoughts summing up the pros and cons.
"Please let me go, I cannot just sit here and wait. If they die…" she ended her sentence, brought her right hand to her cheek. Then she turned away and continued, "If they die, I'll blame myself for not running away from here and going to help."
"Ino, there are things in this world that we cannot control."
"I know", she cried. Her head was bowed, her hands were hanging from her shoulders as if they were dead. She felt so helpless, hopeless and dead.
"And I cannot control you. I can command you as your Hokage but I cannot control you. I can order you to do mission but you have always the right to choose and you do that with taking full responsibility of your actions."
"Are you saying—"
"—I'm saying that you may leave in the morning. Your number on priority is to help out Kakashi and whenever you can, help out Naruto."
"So… you're letting me go. And, it's a mission?"
"Yes", she sighed, "maybe I'm getting old… Letting you go too easily."
Sky paced around the room trying to calm himself down. Everything he once believed in was about to burn and die. Everything he ever wished to stood for started seeming unimportant and it all came down to one man, Sasuke.
"You're compromising our operation", Sky said quietly to the man other side of the room.
The room was dark, neither of them could barely see each other's faces. They always stayed in the dark as long as possible, it was easier to vanish into the dark if anything happened.
"I'm not. She knows nothing", Sasuke said with his cold voice and looked out of the window. It was snowing but the every snowflake melted the second it touched ground. There were people running down the street with umbrellas, hoping they wouldn't get wet. 'Idiots', he thought sulkily and turned looked at a young girl in the middle of the street. She wasn't trying to stay dry, in fact, she was drenching wet. She had closed her eyes and her mouth was open. It seemed to him that she was "enjoying" the moment and trying to capture snowflakes with her mouth. It made him laugh a bit, 'that's just… stupid.'
"Well, she does know something but nothing enough to bring us down. She's with us now", the onyx eyed man continued, "and now we have someone who knows the most about killing a person, actually killing, making a body die. Making its cells dysfunction, wither away or starting an early aptopsis. And that is something what one would call an… asset."
Sky was in shock, he never believed that anyone could be as twisted as the man before him. He just stared silently at window hoping his shock wasn't way too obvious. Sasuke turned to look at him but he dared not to look back.
"But little after 9 months, you can have her. As my gift to you", the man smiled.
"The whole Konoha is after her now", Sky said and made himself look at the ninja at the window, "and if I happen to be correct, there is a few dozens of ninjas who love her and want to get her back. And, I think that I'm 101% correct there's a man who'd die to get her back."
"Hmph. Love, it's overrated, you know. When a kid is scared of the big monster under the bed, the mom always says something like, don't be scared, it's not real. So, when a man says something like, I love her with all of my heart, why doesn't anyone reply with the same thing? It's not real. Feelings are useless, they'll only bring you places you don't need to go. And if Kakashi wants to die, what's one more death in our lists?"
"Can you really kill the Copy Ninja?"
"Why not? We've had some tougher enemies than him. And besides, if I happen to be correct, I'm standing in front of another person who loves her and would die for her, am I right? Yes, I am right. And, if she's taken back to that village… we'll I'll bet you're not the one she's marrying then. So if he's ready to die for her and you're ready to die for her, too, it's a tie and as long as this all happens in the next 9 months, I'll make sure she stays here, right within my reach and protected, which would make one jump into the conclusion that we're gonna win this."
The Uchiha brother smiled his twisted smile and vanished into thin air. Sky didn't like anything that was happening, everything was getting out of hands and everything was getting too risky. He was on the verge of being discovered by the Akatsuki, which meant he hadn't a lot of time left…
Every time the Copy Ninja went out of Naruto's team's hiding place, he had to mask his presence. If he saw anyone he recognized, he had to hide right away. His appearance would compromise Naruto's mission. He wasn't famous but he couldn't afford taking any chances, his old enemies would recognize him and so would the members of Akatsuki. If he saw anyone he vaguely knew, he would change his appearance.
He was walking down the streets and thinking about the moments he had had with her about week ago. He replayed those minutes over and over again in his mind. She had been like a little child whereas he had been the lollipop. He silently laughed at that thought.
'She's still in there…', he thought sadly.
He was headed to the park in the middle of the city, Naruto had pinpointed the spot on a map and he had memorised the whole map. He thought that he would go there and try to sense her presence… though the feel of it had changed a bit but it still contained something familiar. And if he could not sense her there, he'd just start looking all around the town.
'If you should vanish, I'm sure to fade', he thought of a song he once heard.
The air was cold and the street was white of snow. White row of houses with shops and cafes in the street floor framed the street on both side of it. In the middle of the street there was a line of trees. 3 small maple trees in a row and those groups of trees were about 5 meters away of each other. Those trees didn't have much leaves anymore and they were wrapped with small lights. The town was pretty, he had to admit it.
Soon, he found himself in the park in the middle of the town. Many of the trees in the park were also decorated with small lights. There were many small paths crossing every other possible path and going all around. Some benches had been put next to those paths. There was more snow on the ground and he felt all Christmassy. He wondered if he could spend Christmas with her.
He saw an old couple sitting on one of the benches, he saw a couple of kids desperately trying to make snowballs but failing and their parents smiling at them.
He walked to a bench and started concentrating on Sakura's presence. It would've looked suspicious had he just stood in the middle of everyone's way and not moving. Now, people just assumed he was tired from a tough day at work.
He could feel her somewhere quite near, inside 3km radius. He got up from the bench and started heading to the direction he had sensed her.
The walk didn't take long to the house she was in. It was a big white house with two floors. It had a big brown door in the middle of the street level of the house. It had two pair of big windows on either side of the house and on both floors. There had been some flowerbeds but the cold winter had made them wither away.
He took a deep breath and thought what would be his next move. He couldn't just go and burst in to the house. He looked up to the windows and noticed one of them was open. He grinned to himself and decided to go around the house and see if other windows were open.
Meanwhile…
"Sasuke, have you seen my purse?" his fiancée asked. She had been going through their house and she hadn't been able to find her purse nor wallet.
"I don't know. Why do you need it?" he asked and drank some of his coffee and kept reading the morning newspaper in front of him. He placed his coffee mug back to the table.
"I need my money", she said and sat to the chair next to his. She looked at him and sighed.
"Why?" he asked and turned his gaze from the paper to her.
"Well, I think I've come up with a new jutsu. And I need to test it and I need flowers and plants… A lot. Plus I need to buy a few other things", she said and took his coffee mug and drank from it.
"How much?" he asked and started reading the paper again.
"20 000 yens", she grinned.
"20 000? What are you buying? Orchids?!"
"Well, I also need some money for a hairdresser, too. But if you knew where my purse was… You wouldn't have to loan me any money."
"I don't know where your purse is, Chinatsu", he sighed and took his wallet from the pocket from his pants. He opened it and gave the money to here, "would you buy more coffee, too?"
"Sure, sure", she laughed and got up from the chair. She left the room but came back again, "hey, when's my mission?"
"Friday you may leave. And tomorrow we need to go to our HQ. It'll be about 1 pm so make sure you'll be free then. No hairdressers", he said without looking at her.
"Oh yay! Two days!" she exclaimed and left the room. She went to their bedroom to change her clothes. She was energetic, for once she had something to do and she was dying to do anything to keep her mind occupied.
But as she walked into the bedroom she sensed that everything wasn't normal. Something flashed in the corner of her eye by her nightstand. She caught a glimpse of a figure vanishing. Quickly, she checked if anything was stolen but everything was in its place.
She closed the window next to her closet.
'Okay, this is creepy. Wonder if Sasuke has enemies…', she thought and looked around not sure what to do. She didn't think it was such a good idea to tell about it to Sasuke and she didn't think it was such a good idea to keep it herself either. 'But since I don't seem to have a life apart from Sasuke… I might as well wait. If he shows up again, then I'll talk to him.'
She stuffed the money he had given her into the pocket of her pants and let the house. She was eager to get out and eager to start a mission of her own. Something she had been planning a few days, something that hopefully would change things…
A/N: next update will be... asap. I promise, which means I'll start writing on Thursday or Friday. Please please please review! I'll try to answer to every review I get. Anywho, I totally love you guys!! -danax