A/N- To avoid confusion, the beginning of this chapter takes place just an hour after the last one ended with Naruto and Sasuke's conversation.

Enjoy!

Standard Disclaimers Apply.

Battle Within

Chapter 28

Tsunade studied the four men before her with open suspicion. She expected trouble whenever Naruto was involved, but when you threw Sasuke, Lee, and Neji into the mix it could only mean one thing.

"What did she do now?"

Sasuke just barely managed to suppress a smirk.

Lee helplessly shrugged his shoulders. "Naruto-kun asked us to come. He said it was of the utmost importance."

Neji remained in silent agreement but he too had a suspicion about who this might involve.

"Um, how to say this," Naruto scratched his head. "You see Sorano is… um, Sorano has… no wait, um Sorano…"

Tsunade leaned back in her chair with obvious amusement. "At least I know it's about Sorano."

"I started her on target practice with kunai today," Sasuke finally said. If he and Naruto had any doubt about Tsunade's awareness of Sorano's instability, it was wiped away in an instant with the widening of her eyes.

"What?" she hissed.

Lee and Neji shared similar shock but for a different reason.

"Sorano-san allowed this?" Lee asked. "But she has always adamantly avoided weapons of any sort."

"Did she hurt anyone?" Tsunade demanded and all eyes snapped back to her grim and knowing expression.

"No," Sasuke said. "She remained focused on the target until Naruto came and drew her attention."

Naruto laughed nervously. "Heh, yeah, well, I didn't know she was going to attack me."

"She attacked you?" Neji and Lee asked in shock.

Sasuke rolled his eyes while Naruto waved his hands in front of him. "No, no, I mean she was going to but Sasuke stopped her." His hands fell. "I don't think she even knew who I was."

Tsunade dropped her head in her hands and rubbed at her temples. "What ever possessed you to attempt such a supremely stupid thing," she growled.

"She can beat it," Sasuke said, ignoring the insult, "and she wants too."

Angry, amber eyes met his own. "You have no idea what you are messing with, Uchiha."

"Then tell us," he snapped back. "You want her to serve our village, you want her to start over and be whole again, then stop keeping us in the dark!"

"It's not that simple," she said.

"Were you ever intending on telling us that she's a loose cannon?" he demanded.

"No more than you are," Tsunade snapped back and that gave them all pause.

Sighing out her frustration, the Hokage turned her chair to look out the window. "Why now," she asked. "Why did you decide to test her on this now?"

Neji made the connection instantly. "Yesterday, when she went to speak to you, she caught that kunai you threw…" he met Sasuke's dark gaze and understanding passed between them.

"Her eyes changed," Tsunade surmised and glanced at Sasuke who nodded once.

Lee shifted uneasily. "Were they gold, like an eagle's?"

"You've seen it?" Naruto asked.

Lee nodded. "When she showed me her technique."

"She showed you?" Tsunade asked in surprise.

"Yes. She wanted my opinion on how best to utilize taijutsu with her family's technique. Her eyes changed for a moment but she was entirely of her own mind."

"Blades trigger intense memories," Tsunade said. "She looses herself to the past." Her hard eyes shifted to Sasuke. "You really think you can break her of it?"

"Given time, yes. Her will is strong."

"Do it," she ordered then turned to Neji. "Until then I want a two man Anbu tag on her at all times, night and day. If she is ever seen with a weapon in her hand when not training with Sasuke, she is to be apprehended immediately at all costs."

Neji blinked at her in surprise. "She's that dangerous?"

Tsunade grimaced. "She is the death you never see coming."


Sorano woke with the distinct impression that she was being watched but when she opened her eyes, the apartment was brightly lit with the morning sun and she was very much alone. Shrugging it off as an unpleasant side affect of the previous day's activities, she set about her morning routine but the feeling did not fade. In fact, it grew stronger as the day wore on.

For starters, Lee had a speculative look in his eyes that even his eye-blistering smile could not hide. She decided he was working on a new technique to try on her. Work at the library was pleasantly soothing now that most of the dust had been cleared away. Even then she felt eyes upon her, but every time she turned around, there was no one nearby.

She met Hinata and Sakura for lunch at their usual spot and she chalked her unease up to the busy flow of patrons in and out of the café. Since Hinata had the morning shift at the hospital, she offered her services in the library for the afternoon and they wiled away the time talking and working on the catalogue. The unseen eyes remained.

By the time evening rolled around and she was to meet Sasuke once more at the training grounds, Sorano was seriously annoyed.

"Someone has been following me all day," she said as soon as she stopped in front of him. Obsidian eyes blinked at her and she felt her eye twitch. "Would you happen to know anything about it?"

"Anbu," he said and she didn't know if she was more surprised by the answer or the fact that he offered it.

"Why?" she asked in confusion.

Sasuke studied her for a moment. "You know why."

Her brows creased slightly and then smoothed out in comprehension. "Oh," she said. "Tsunade?"

He nodded once and to his complete surprise, she smiled in relief. "Good."

She took it better than I thought. He had expected anger, frustration, even hurt, but he should have known she trusted herself even less than they did. Sorano was hyperaware of the imbalance of her own mind and had taken all precautions to circumvent the danger she presented. He was counting on this deep-seated desire to protect others from herself to maintain her sanity until the darkness inside of her yielded to her conscious mind.

"Someone should have told me sooner. Do you have any idea how irritating it is to know you are being watched and not why or by who?"

His lips twitched slightly in amusement. "I've had some experience with it."

Sorano shook her head and fixed him with a determined gaze. "Let's do this."

They developed an unspoken agreement about the process. Sasuke always strapped the kunai pouch on for her and removed it after she was done and once more in her own mind. She didn't want to take unnecessary chances on hurting him or anyone else and the entire ordeal agitated her nerves until she became little more than a fidgeting, twitching mess.

She learned to ignore the unseen eyes that followed her everywhere through the village. Unlike the first day she noticed, they made her feel safe. It was comforting to know someone was nearby to stop her if she lost control…if they could stop her. She tried not to dwell on that possibility too much, telling herself Tsunade knew her well enough to have taken the proper precautions.

With her suddenly tight and nerve-wracking schedule, Sorano found no time to spend with Neji outside of passing him on the street or when he watched her from the shadows, taking his turn as her Anbu guard. She wondered if Sasuke and Naruto took turns as well.

After a few days her restless agitation began to give way to exhaustion and several times she told Sasuke that she felt things were getting worse instead of better. The time she spent impaling a post with kunai was the only time of the day that she could not recall. For someone with an eidetic memory, it was very disconcerting.

Sasuke had looked at her strangely the first time she told him that from the moment she threw her first kunai to when he tackled her to the ground (his favorite means of breaking her out of it) she had no memory. It was as if she blacked out and someone else took over. Eventually she learned to interpret that look of his into curious concern. That was when he told her of the changes he had noticed.

There was less fury in her movements. When he told her that, she understood why she always felt so drained afterwards. All of her pent up rage and hatred was coming to the fore and being spent in the few hours she spent on that field. At this rate, it would take her years to come to her senses.

He only smirked at that, a knowing glint in his fathomless eyes.

On the eighth day of her new regimen, Neji and Hinata showed up at her door to drag her out for dinner at Ichiraku Ramen where they, of course, met up with Naruto.

"You're working yourself too hard," the timid heiress said with obvious concern.

"I know," Sorano said and left it at that. She just wanted to forget her internal battle for a little while and her friends were happy to provide her with the necessary distraction.

"Are you sleeping well," Neji asked once Hinata's attention was turned back to the blonde devouring noodles at an astonishing rate.

"No, why? Are you willing to be my pillow again?" Sleep deprivation did wonders to loosen the tongue and Neji smirked when it dawned on her what she had just said.

Sorano grimaced and dropped her face into her hand. "I can't believe I just said that," she muttered.

"I think I like you like this," he chuckled and she shot him a half-glare, to tired to put any real heat into it.

"Maybe you should get something from Tsunade," he suggested in sincerity. "You're going to get sick if you keep going like this."

Sorano shook her head. "Sleep remedies don't suppress the nightmares." Weariness was drawn into every line of her face and a part of him wanted her to end this madness, but he knew she couldn't. There was no moving on until she defeated her demons. Neji could only offer his comfort and support.

Without having the opportunity to pick up where they left off the day they picnicked on the monument, he was uncertain of how she would react to his touch, if the walls had been fixed back in place in his absence. So he took a gamble and gently brushed his hand against her back.

Her reaction was instantaneously and he almost lost his balance on his stool when she slumped against him with a tired little whimper. He quickly wrapped his arm around her so that she wouldn't fall off.

"Screw it," she muttered into his shirt. "I miss my pillow."

Neji chuckled softly and kissed her snowy crown. "It'll get better."

"Gah, what is it with you people and your optimism," she grumbled.

"Just keeping you balanced," he said.

She huffed and muttered something indignant that he didn't even try to decipher. Her frustration was becoming very obvious and even some of her Anbu shadow guards had expressed concern for her continued health. She had quite the fan club among his comrades and subordinates.

The first time he watched her train with Sasuke chilled him to the core. He had always suspected she could be dangerous since her skill was still largely unknown, but seeing those feral eyes, knowing she was lost inside her own mind, scared him. There was nothing he could do but watch from a distance and hope that Sasuke's methods prevailed and if there was anything Neji loathed, it was feeling helpless.

There was so much anger and pained hatred behind every movement and he wondered how she had survived so long with it festering inside. Neji knew what that could do to a person, had experienced it himself, had vented it on his own cousin in the chunin exams because he had no other target before him. Sorano was no different.

But her ferocity was edging away, burning itself out little by little and only then did he begin to see the intent behind Sasuke's methods. If anyone knew how to expend excess rage, it was Uchiha Sasuke.

"Awww, aren't you guys cute!"

Neji nearly rolled his eyes, but settled for glaring at Naruto who was watching them with a silly grin.

"I guess the rumors are true after all!"

"Rumors?" That caught Sorano's attention and she pulled away from Neji enough to meet Naruto's gaze. "What rumors?"

Naruto grinned. "Oh, you know, the rumors about Neji-kun's new girlfriend. Can't you hear the sound of hearts shattering everywhere?" he put a hand to his ear and pretended to listen.

"Oh for heaven's sake, if any one of your fan club starts harassing me because you wanted to hold hands in front of the whole of Konoha, I will not be held responsible for my actions," she glared at Neji and he blinked at her with well-practiced innocence.

"Fan club?"

Hinata giggled softly and Sorano instantly latched onto her. "Come on, Hinata, you're the only sensible one here," she said as she pulled the giggling woman off her stool and out of the noodle bar.

"Did you and Nii-san really hold hands in public," she asked in awe.

Sorano blushed. "I didn't expect him to get so jealous."

"I was not jealous," came the indignant retort behind them.

"Why was he jealous?" Hinata asked, ignoring her cousin's scoff.

"Well, I kissed Sasuke and he—."

"You kissed Sasuke?" Naruto shrieked. "Sakura is going to kill you!"

"It was on the cheek," Sorano glanced back at the two men behind her. "And you were too jealous," she shot at Neji who glared dangerously at her.

"But why Sasuke?" Naruto whined. "You've never kissed me on the cheek!"

"Naruto-kun!"

"Don't even start, Uzumaki."

"But it's not fair!"

Sorano pinched the bridge of her nose. "Of for the love of—."

The ground exploded beneath them.


To my adorable readers:

P60even- I think a lot of FF writers forget that most of these characters, especially the ones in Naruto, are multi-faceted. For example, with Sasuke like you said people either portray him as a complete jerk or the total hottie, but he is both of those at times and so much more. His character really fascinates me because despite his betrayal of his friends and Konoha, there is still honor and loyalty within him. He just has forced himself to suppress it in order to achieve his revenge. If you read the manga, or the summary of it on Wikipedia, you can see that despite Orochimaru's attempted influence, Sasuke is not a heartless killer. He and Sorano have a lot in common and now as we get into the darker aspects of her life, their relationship will become very important.

And yes, most people do try to involve too many characters at once. I personally find that distracting and annoying and therefore avoid it in my own writing.

Pixiedust8831- I can see why it would be difficult to see Naruto in Anbu. Have you see any of the shippuden episodes? He is a whole lot more serious than he used to be, but he still has his "naruto moments" so it isn't really too much of a stretch. I've seen some really great deviant art with him in Anbu gear too.

Hatsue Cybanne- Sasuke does like Sorano but not romantically. He didn't particularly want to like her either, but he gets the impression that she understands him in ways others do not so despite his usual habit of keeping distant, he feels drawn to her and is starting to develop affection for her, but again, not romantically.

VixentheHellraizer- Sorano's eyes, when they change, look like an eagle's. The pupil slit is very narrow whereas Sasuke's, when he changes with the cursed seal, is very wide. Just about everyone at this point knows Neji has a claim on Sorano (Anbu gossip quite a bit amongst themselves) and Sasuke's possessiveness is more based on the fact that he isn't good with sharing even his friends. He doesn't have romantic feelings for Sorano, but since he feels that she understands him in a way others don't (though he has yet to figure out why), he is very protective of the relationship they do have. Kakashi will have a cameo appearance, but there will be no Gai. I seriously don't think I could write him at all.

Also thanks to hieisgal790, AvidReaderAlso, destiny-penguin, runjumpfly07, TeenAnimeLover, Valinor's Twilight, Satta Kurosama, xtraenergy266, Darkangelsdevil, arrowgirl23, Bonita, and lil'rockgirl for your wonderfully uplifting and encouraging reviews.