A/N: Ah, the final chapter.
But there will be an epilogue (:
It's not great, in fact I think it's kinda bad, but yeah.
And there will be a sequel eventually :D
Thanks to my reviewers!
Disclaimer: I own only when I'm dreaming.
Layuki groaned and moved so her head was stuffed under the pillow. "Shut up Ino, you're so loud." It actually went silent.
But not for long, Ino was never quiet for very long. "Layuuuki-chan!!! Guess what?" The blonde girl started pulling on her pillow and tried to yank of off her.
"Honestly, Ino. I don't care. I'm tired, my leg hurts, I'm leaving tomorrow, and I'm in a bad mood right now. Let me sleep and you can yell at me in a couple hours, kay?" She had unsuccessfully managed to sound angry, mainly because her voice was muffled by the pillow which, with one final heave, Ino just managed to rip in two. And now Layuki started to sneeze as the little white feathers brushed her nose. When she turned to glare at Ino, she saw someone else instead and gaped. "Shikamaru? A chounin? Wow that's like…almost respectable."
He glared at her with no specific emotion other than boredom, which probably qualifies as a specific emotion. "Don't make such a big deal of it, it's too troublesome."
"How do you manage to make that word pop up in every sentence you say?" Layuki thought for a moment. "Anyways, who else was made a chuunin? If you tell me Neji was then I'm going to go and kill that heartless bastard." She still hated him, and he probably hated her to. It was a line of hate.
Ino grinned somewhat maliciously "Shikamaru was the only one? Isn't that great?"
Layuki was speechless for a moment, but not for long. "What?! How? Why him? He's probably too lazy to do anything." Then she thought for a moment. "Didn't I beat you in the exams?"
"I recall that I was the one that quit." He sighed and stood up. "This is troublesome, I'm leaving." And being a man true to his word he was out of the room in a matter of two seconds.
"So," Ino started and the other girl looked over at her wearily. "How's your leg?"
She merely stared at her for a second. "Fine. I feel lopsided though." With that she flung the covers off of her and walked, slowly so she wouldn't fall, over to the counter where her clothes were.
"How do you do that?" Ino's voice was agitated for some unknown reason as Layuki shamelessly took her hospital clothes off and dressed in her usual outfit.
After throwing her shorts on and turned to Ino as she took bandages out of her weapons pouch and wrapped it over the ones that were already around her chest. "Do what? I'm not doing anything."
"Stay so thin? You eat so much." It was true, Layuki was a pig and proud of it. She looked up from her work and grinned.
"Blame the metabolism. It sucks, it'd be nice to get some meat on these bones, but I guess that would look kind of weird, being as short as I am." She finished that and threw on her grey shirt.
Ino watched as she sat down to pull her shoes on. "You're lucky. These diets suck."
She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "Then stop going on diets Ino. You look great. Besides, if you're still swooning over Sasuke-san then you'd better get your mind out of the gutter. That kid's messed in the head." Layuki frowned as she noticed that the scar she had made on her left arm had vanished. Probably from when Shizune had healed her. When she looked at her right leg again she frowned even more when she noticed that long scar that ran from above her knee to her foot.
"That's one hell of a scar Layuki."
"Way to state the obvious." She took out her bandages again and wrapped them around her leg so she would have to see the long pale line. When she had finished she stood up and walked out. "Come on Ino. I'm hungry and since I just got out I'll let you treat me to some ramen."
The blonde huffed. "I'm not buying you anything." And as soon as they were out of the hospital Ino walked the opposite way from Layuki, making her sigh.
As she began to walk she remembered that she had forgotten her weapons pouch and shruiken holster. She sighed as she turned on her heel and walked up the numerous flights of stairs to get to her room. She walked in the room and grabbed the beige pocket and secured it on to her shorts. Then she grabbed her holster and wrapped it around her left knee, as she had grown accustomed to using weaponry with her left hand.
When she walked out of her room she was roughly pushed into the wall by none other than Uchiha Sasuke, who was also followed by Naruto. Layuki was about to yell at them when Sakura ran past her, following the two boys. Now genuinely curious, the shorter girl abruptly shut her mouth a followed the three members of squad 7.
Due to her slow-ness, which she was definitely need to work on, when she reached the roof Layuki saw the pinkette staring worriedly at the two boys who were saying something about the equality of wearing a hitai-ate.
She turned to the other girl. "What's up with them? Didn't you guys just get back from a mission?"
Sakura apparently couldn't find her voice and merely nodded while letting out a small croak that could barely pass as an 'uh-huh.' Sighing, Layuki knew she wouldn't get any information out of her; she jumped up onto the roof and sat with her legs dangling over the ledge and watched Naruto and Sasuke fight.
If she did say so herself, it was rather entertaining. The two of them and ended spectacularly with attacks that could have killed each other, despite the fact that they were friends and comrades. But Layuki decided it was time to leave when Kakashi arrived. It would be kind to leave the squad to deal with itself.
First, she made her way to the Hokage's tower to pick up her fake ID and her healing ointment from Tsunade.
Then, unconscious of where she had been going, Layuki found herself in a clearing surrounded densely by trees. After a moment she took notice that in the middle of the clearing was the monument for shinobi who had died in battle. Cautiously, she walked over to it.
She brought her finger up to the names that were most recently added. Reading each name, she traced the ones that belonged to ninja who had died in the invasion of the sound. Her hand stopped at Karin's name. She smiled sadly.
"I'm leaving soon, so you'll have to take care of your brother." She turned and walked away, this time making her way around the village to scope around. Today was her last day for a while.
And luckily enough, she saw no one she knew very well on her walk. Layuki hated saying good-bye, and she was never really good at it too.
All too soon it was sunset. She made her way to Shikamaru's place and slung the bag she had gotten ready earlier over her shoulder. Then after scribbling a thank you not, she placed it on the bed and jumped out of the window.
She had hoped to be able to get out of the village without interference, but she doesn't usually get what she wants. Just as she was on the path out of the village, she heard footsteps behind her. Thinking it was someone like Shikamaru, she turned around to yell at him to go away. But different words left her mouth when she saw who it actually was.
"Sasuke? Where do you think you're going? This is the only path out of the village you know." She had stopped walking in the middle of the path making him stop as well.
He looked at her coldly. "You shouldn't be talking. I see that you're leaving too."
"Yeah." Layuki jerked her thumb at herself. "I have consent from the Hokage, and, no offence, but I seriously doubt that you do." Before she could say anymore he pushed past her rather rudely.
"Get out of my way."
She sneered behind his back. "You're going to him aren't you? Orochimaru? Well let me say that you're more retarded than you look, and that's saying something." She ran a hand through her hair and started walking as well, noticing that he had stopped. "You know, there are better ways for power."
Sasuke had suddenly appeared in front of her with a scowling face. "You don't understand anything. Itachi let me live so I could kill him, I detest him and I need my revenge. Staying in this village will only hold me back."
Layuki managed to suppress the urge to slap him. "You don't have to give me your whole 'revenge' speech because out of the whole village my past and yours are the most alike. So alike, for that matter, it's kind of creepy. But you don't see me running off to some crazy snake freak."
"Then where are you running off to then?"
"I'm not running anywhere. I'm going to the Lightning Country to train." She let out a glare before pushed past him.
But he stood his ground in front of her. "And I'm going to the Sound Country to train, what's your point."
A groan of annoyance escaped her lips. "My point is that…" She had no clue what to say. "You know what, do whatever you want. You're going to get yourself killed in the long run."
Just as she finally managed to push past him, she felt a hand squeezing her neck cutting off her circulation. She felt her legs dangling in the air, she really hated being short. "I will not get myself killed. To prove that, next time I see you, I'll kill you." When she looked into his eyes, Sasuke's Sharingan was activated.
Feeling the need to compete, she activated her Hirukagan and locked her iris-less eyes to his crimson ones. "I'd like to see you try." She made a movement to kick him in his manhood, but a voice stopped her. Sasuke had obviously heard this voice too and had dropped her to the ground.
Layuki turned around to see Sakura running towards them and she turned her back on the two teammates and walked away.
When she was out of the village gates she turned around and looked over at the sleeping village, tuning out the voice of Sakura's yelling.
With one last good-bye smile she turned and walked away without once looking back.
A/N: See, I told you I was bad at endings.
Be glad I didn't leave it with a cliffe :P
Thanks so much for reading!
Reviews are appreciated (come on, it's the last chapter!)
fanny-kun