Chapter 3 – Run Away

[Okay, here's the result. FieryKitsune and I have talked to each other
about the situation of this story and have arrived at a conclusion. Originally, this story was just going to be, I suppose, a normal general one but there will be a few more changes. A genre as been added and it is Angst, that is sort of self-explanatory with the changes. I apologize for
any confusion the first two chapters might have caused. Disclaimer: I
don't own Naruto.]

Sasuke looked at Ino with an annoyed look and he really wished that he could just get all of them to leave him alone. First of all, he disliked people taking care of him as if he was a helpless little boy that didn't know what to do. Second, having Naruto taking the opportunity to taunt him was almost driving him up the wall... the hyperactive genin should have already stopped already or at least known his limits...

"What are you doing here?" Sakura asked through clenched teeth. "Don't you have anything else to do, Ino pig?"

"Just to check up on Sasuke-kun..." Ino said in a matter-of-fact way. "Besides, forehead girl... I'm sure he could use some cheering up after not seeing anything beautiful in this dreary room..."

Throwing the hidden kunai was looking to be a better and better idea to Sasuke...

"Nani?!" Sakura almost screeched, her hands balled into tight fists. "How dare you say that!"

Naruto looked at one girl then to the other, disliking the fact that they were arguing about Sasuke and always fussing over him when anything happened. He hmphed and folded his arms behind his head as he started leave.

"Ne, I have better things to do... Besides, it's after lunchtime and I'm hungry... Ja." He said as he walked out.

"Hn..." Sasuke almost glared almost hatefully towards the two genin-level girls. "Why don't you two leave..."

"Eh?" Ino looked over at Sasuke. "Oh no. Why would we leave you be yourself while you can have some beautiful company?"

"I don't want company..." Sasuke said bitterly.

"You heard him, Ino pig! Go back to work at the flower shop!" Sakura started pushing Ino back out the door.

"You too..." Sasuke added.

"Nani?" Sakura watched Sasuke worriedly. "But Sasuke-kun..."

"You heard me... I want to be alone... I'm fine..." He turned his head away, as if dismissing the girls with that action.

Sasuke continued to look at the wall and waited until the two girls finally decided to leave. Again, he heaved a heavy sigh.

"I'm going to train..." He said to himself. "I don't care what they say... I have to. This isn't a field day..."

He carefully got out of bed, making sure that he at least had some balanced before he made his way out of his room towards the kitchen. Listening intently, he paused for a moment to make sure that Sakura and Ino were really gone before entering the kitchen and holding onto the counter cautiously.

"Damn it..." He muttered, closing his eyes for a moment until he felt the slight dizzy feeling pass again.

Sasuke opened his eyes and glanced around the kitchen, finding the chair tipped over and there was only one answer... Naruto. He found the shopping bag of herbs that Kakashi had brought earlier and he walked over to it, taking a glance.

"Che... I don't have time to be sick..." He said to himself as he grabbed an apple and started eating it.

He coughed a bit, almost choking on the small pieces of fruit as his throat felt scratchy again. He ate the apple, deciding not to eat another one and started looking for something to at least sooth his throat down slightly before he was going to sneak away to an empty training field.

"This is Naruto's fault..." He muttered again, searching through the bag of herbs until he found the right one he was looking for.

Walking over to the counter, Sasuke found that the kettle was still warm and quickly made a smaller cup of lukewarm tea with the other herb mixed into it. He looked at it for a moment, partly thinking of a way to get out of the main part of the village to a training area before taking his chances and drinking back the beverage in one swoop. He covered his mouth and dropped down to one knee, not letting himself spit it back out. It tasted horrible and almost made him want to bring it all back up but he forced himself to swallow the homemade medicine and waited for a moment.

'I can handle this myself...' He thought, getting up from the kitchen floor and stashing a few more food items into his backpack. 'I have to make up for lost time...'

Checking the provisions he had packed into his bag with his forehead protector, Sasuke slung the backpack over a shoulder and spied out the windows for any sign of Sakura, Ino, Naruto and especially Kakashi. He knew for a fact that their sensei would be one of the first ones to send him back to bed so he put extra effort to keep an eye out for the weird teacher.

'Looks like the coast is clear...' Sasuke thought before slipped out of the front door and walking down the street cautiously, sticking close to the side in case he had to hide at any time.

He still was feeling uneasy but didn't regret getting out of bed that afternoon to do what he needed to do. Training was the highest priority on his list, almost above everything else. He tensed and stepped into an alley, glancing out very slightly as he heard the giggles from some girls as they walked past. Sasuke watched them with his eyes carefully, noticing that they were some of the girls from his class before he had graduated to a Genin level.

'I'll have to avoid them as well...' Sasuke thought bitterly as he continued on his way. 'Knowing Ino and Sakura... the rest of the girls probably know... Sick... what a joke...'

He had managed to get away from the residential district and to the bridge that Team 7 had usually met at. Feeling all too exhausted from that cautious walk, Sasuke took a break and leaned on the railing, keeping his guard up.

"Oi." Someone said from one end of the bridge. "This is something you don't see everyday or should be surprised with..."

Sasuke grabbed a kunai from his pack and held it out at the intruder, finding the other person looking bored and a little scratched up.

"Shikamaru..." Sasuke muttered before looking in the other direction, not wanting to start a conversation.

"Feh... you're more irritated than usual..." Shikamaru said as he walked across the bridge towards the village, his arms folded behind his head. "Where's the rest of your team?"

Sasuke ignored Shikamaru, still holding the kunai tightly in his hands and wished that the other would get the message soon.

"Stuck up as usual..." Shikamaru muttered as he rolled his eyes. "How troublesome..."

Deciding that he had a long enough rest, and enough of contact with people, Sasuke continued his way across his bridge to where Shikamaru had just walked from. He leapt into a tree and started jumping across the branches to get to a secluded training area where he could be by himself and train without any interruptions...

'I couldn't get the bell this morning...' He thought as he carefully watched where he leapt to make sure he didn't slip and fall. 'If I'm not strong enough to get that, no matter what condition they say I'm in, then I have no chance against any unknown opponents...'

Sasuke scowled, the memory of being defeated and 'killed' by the needle user of the Hidden Mist Village. One who was disguised as a Hunternin was able to defeat the Uchiha boy and it only angered him more as he dropped down from the tree, landing on the ground on his feet.

"If I can't even defeat someone like that..." Sasuke said to himself, trailing off.

He scowled again, dropping his backpack at the base of the tree and walked towards the middle of the small clearing, deciding to practice some of his jutsu techniques to make them perfect to the mark. He stood silent for a moment with his eyes closed, focusing as he proceeded with the proper hand seals: Serpent, Tiger, Boar, Horse, Tiger.

"Katon Goukakyuu no Jutsu!" He said calmly then blew out a pillar of burning flames out in front of him, scorching the ground but then was cut short but another coughing fit.

He held a hand to his throat, trying to regain his breath from the interrupted technique and glared at the burnt ground.

He clenched a fist tightly despite his health, his knuckles cracking loudly. "I refuse to be reduced to this!"

Sasuke then started to focus his chakra on his feet, still breathing hard from the Ninjutsu technique that died halfway through. He bolted forward towards a tree, almost hell-bent on getting his training done despite how sick he was then started running up the tree as fast as he could. As he neared the top of the tree and leapt off onto another one; continuing to leap towards other trees around the area as fast as his chakra and body would take him.

Back in the main part of the village, Shikamaru was walking down a street with his arms folded behind his head and looking quite bored.

"Ino disappeared from training... Feh... and Chouji is probably eating a second course of lunch..." Shikamaru shook his head, sighing heavily. "How troublesome..."

"Shikamaru!" A voice called out from behind him.

"Eh?" He turned around, seeing Ino and Sakura running over to him. "And what was so important for you to slack off this time... And don't say it was Sasuke..."

"That's not important right now!" Ino snapped back.

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow. "That is definitely a surprise..."

"Sasuke-kun is missing!" Sakura pushed past Ino. "Kakashi Sensei held a training session this morning and he had to cancel it because of Sasuke- kun! Sasuke-kun told us to leave him be and we did so he could rest for a while. I tried to check on him not even a few minutes ago and he's not there!"

"Sasuke isn't missing..." Shikamaru said as he looked skeptically from one girl to the other. "I just saw him a while ago..."

"Where?!" Both girls yelled, grabbing the collar of the boy's shirt.

Shikamaru blinked in surprise and leaned back. "Oi, back off... It's not my business of what that guy does anyway..."

"Just where did you see him?" Sakura asked again, hoping that her suspicion was wrong. "Onegai, tell us..."

"Hai, hai..." Shikamaru pried their hands off of his shirt and crossed his arms, thinking back. "I was walking back from one of the training fields since Ino 'mysteriously' disappeared from training and Chouji was too hungry to train any further... And I saw Sasuke standing on the bridge..."

Sakura clenched a light fist near her chin in worry, really hoping that she was wrong.

"I asked him where you and Naruto were and he was just being his usual snobby self..." Shikamaru continued. "So I did what I do best... Minded my own damned business..."

"He's training!?" Ino yelled. "But he can't! Not in the condition he's in!"

"That's what Kakashi Sensei said this morning..." Sakura said to herself quietly. "Sasuke-kun..."

"What do you mean in his condition?" Shikamaru asked, glancing at Ino. "He seemed like his normal self... a little more distant than usual but I can't really tell the difference anymore."

"We have to find him..." Sakura said, looking a little sad. "He shouldn't be training..."

Shikamaru didn't like the look that Ino was giving him. "Nani... Oi! Wait a minute! I am not getting involved in this!"

"You already are!" Ino said, grabbing his arm. "If you won't do this for Sasuke-kun then at least do it for the honor of the village by helping one another!"

That was a weakness or even a low blow to anyone in any Shinobi village and Shikamaru just sighed. "How troublesome..."

"Let's go already!" Ino and Sakura started running down the street, with Shikamaru reluctantly following them.

The three ran up the path towards the bridge and stopped, glancing around and finding the area soulless. Sakura walked to the other side of it, looking around the area for any sort of clue of where the Uchiha boy could have gone but found nothing; not even a branch out of place.

"We'll have to split up and look for him... Ino, you check upstream and I'll search for him downstream... Shikamaru, you'll have to search the training areas in between..." Sakura said then she ran off in her chosen direction.

"... How do I get myself involved in these things... He can take care of himself..." Shikamaru muttered before leaping off into the trees that were before him.

He continued jumping through the tree branches, seeing nothing much but the usual forest area and he continued to mutter about how Sasuke was more independent and he didn't need girls fussing over him. After several moments longer, Shikamaru was ready to give up on searching for the quiet Uchiha boy when he finally got a glimpse of someone training all too hard in a clearing. He stopped, crouching quietly on a sturdy tree branch as he took a look on who was there through the leaves.

"Took long enough..." He muttered then noticed something odd about Sasuke... "Eh... what's his problem..."

Sasuke was barely standing on his own two feet as he panted heavily, visibly trembling from weakness that he couldn't put back anymore. He snapped his gaze up, hearing Shikamaru in the tree and threw a few shuriken at the other boy's direction as accurately as he could. Shikamaru jumped down from the tree to avoid ending up being a pincushion and he landed on one knee on the ground, watching Sasuke warily.

"Oi, what's with you..." Shikamaru said, standing up.

"Go... Go away..." Sasuke forced out the words harshly, holding up another handful of shuriken with a shaking hand.

Shikamaru sighed once again, walking towards Sasuke with his arms folded behind his head. "You can stop acting... Ino and Sakura aren't here-... What the hell do you think you're doing!?"

Sasuke dropped the shuriken to the ground and repeated the same hand kata as he did before. Shikamaru immediately stopped.

"Katon Goukakyuu no Jutsu!"

[Sort of leaving it off there and I give an apology to FieryKitsune and Sweetdreams0701 for any sort of uneasiness I might have caused them. I hope this modified idea will be sufficient. And there are most likely spelling errors...]