"This Changes Everything" - by Ichigo-chan
Chapter Six: Take Me Back
******
Ichigo: ONCE AGAIN! WE ARE UNABLE TO POST WHEN WE SAY!
Sakura-kun: eh heh.... T_T
Ichigo: I'm too mad at you to say anything... **glare** ¬ ¬
Sakura-kun: **ehhhhhhhh**
Ichigo: ...
Sakura-kun: **nar**
I didn't mean for this chapter to take so long to go up. This SHOULD be the longest wait ever - but, I could be lying again, I seem to be good at that. I hope we're doing a better job with the spell checking and stuff too, we're doing more and more re-reads before posting now a days. I feel SO bad when I get letters about it... T__T **ehhhhh** Well, lets hope you all like where this is going! ^^ Thanx!
Plot Summery (again, again, again) - The relationship between Sasuke and Naruto has changed a lot over the years, especially now that they both seem to have come to the same realizations. However, Sasuke finds himself unable too runaway from links to his past - especially those in the form of a strange, tragic, second generation, missing-nin. To find out more about himself, his brother, and to save a life, Sasuke has to decide just how far he's willing to go - as well as what, and who, he is willing to leave behind.
Now, about this SIXTH chapter - It's always hard for me to explain other peoples feelings without them sounding over/under done. So, that was the biggest challenge here. But, I think I'm satisfied with it. The hope is that I get better with it as I go along.
Chapter Summery - **nehhh** I didn't even do one last time! DAHAHAHAH! Well, this time around - the missing-nin girl finds herself confined within Konoha, and not much to her liking. Sasuke seems upset about the whole ordeal, but Naruto does his best to help in his own way. The girls feelings of injustice toward Konoha and everyone in it make her difficult to deal with - and impossible for Sasuke to approach about his brother.
Warnings - none here right now
(Once again, this is my disclaimer: "not mine")
***
Feeling groggy and disoriented she sat up slowly. Rubbing her eyes she waited for the darkness to fade - but it didn't. The ground below her was unfamiliarly cold and hard be neither her legs, as she reached out her hands around her in the pitch-black darkness. Looking around she strained her eyes to see into the nothingness of her unfamiliar surroundings.
It was hardwood floor beneath her skin. Knowing something was amiss she began to panic, trying to make out anything in the dark. She struggled to her feet and tried to move forward, but she was met by some sort of invisible barrier - keeping her from going more then a few feet.
"What?!" she gasped, her heart beginning to beating quickly in her chest as she felt her way around in a circle but found no way to move on.
"Let me out!" She screamed - clearly frantic - as she pounded her fists against the walls of her invisible cage.
"Calm down child." a voice told her from within the darkness.
Lights came up from out of nowhere as she found she was in a wide-open room with high ceilings and cement walls, and standing before her was a young woman in a kimono, trust up in such a way that her huge breast where held back only precariously.
"LET ME OUT!" the confined girl continued to scream, tears welling up in her eyes. Her breaths were shortening as she felt her ears getting hot, and she began to shake as she felt a familiar dark static welling up inside her body.
"LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!" she went on, throwing herself against the walls of the cage, beating at them furiously with her fists.
The darkness surrounding her began to mass slowly, taking on a solid form, like an erratically scribbled static. Casting her arms forward she seemed to command the masses of pure chakra which flew, like dark streaks, at the walls of her confines, only to explode and dissolve upon impact.
"Don't bother, you can't break through the circle." the Leaf Village's Godaime, Tsunade, assured her.
However, she just continued to scream, pulling her knees up tightly to her chest, tears streaming down her face and her vicious chakra beat against the force field surrounding her.
"So that's what she did to Sasuke." Kakashi observed, standing next to Tsunade, his hands firmly in his pockets as he watched the frantic girl.
"It has the same principal as the Rasengan or Chidori, with user massing their Chakra into a more physical form, but I've never seen anything like this before. Her emotions seem to be what causes it." Tsunade agreed.
Walking up to her hysterical girl, directly through the barrier, and strait into the path of her attacks, Kakashi bent down and touched her neck again, causing her to go silent and her chakra to dissipate.
"I can't keep doing that to her." Kakashi sighed, rubbing the side of his hand across his cheek to wipe away the tiny bit of blood which her chakra had drawn from him.
"It must be the closed space." Tsunade suggested, "I would imagine she's ever been indoors. She's probably claustrophobic.
Picking up her limp body, Kakashi saw that blood had pooled around her stomach again and was running onto the floor.
"It's doing it again." he thought aloud.
"What is?" Tsunade asked. "Why is she bleeding like that?"
"It looks like some sort of stigmata." he said, picking her up and carrying her over to a low table by the wall and lying her down.
Pushing back the mesh of her shirt and rubbing away the blood they again found no wound, only an odd tatoo. It was a thick, black, bowed line which pointed at each end and dipped down bellow her rib cage - from the bottom of the line extended five points of varying sizes, shortest on the outside and the longest in the middle, rather like and inverted half sun.
"A curse of some sort?" Tsunade suggested.
"Must be."
"But who would do such a thing?"
"She a rouge ninja living on her own, I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere a long the way she pissed somebody off."
"I wonder if we could do something to seal it." Tsunade thought aloud.
"I don't know, but if we're going to do something we'd better try it now before she wakes up again.
******
"Sasuke?"
The dark haired shinobi boy was sitting alone, his knees drawn up to his chest, on the bank by the stream looking more solemn and distant than usual.
"Sasuke?" the voice questioned again.
"Huh?" he looked up to his right and saw Naruto smiling down at him.
"Why so glum?" He inquired, looking concerned.
"I, was just wondering about that girl."
"Oh. Don't worry about her Kakashi-sensei is taking care of it now." Naruto assured him taking a seat very near, yet safely away, from his side.
"I know, but, I still want to find out what she know's about my brother," he sighed, "she called him her sensei."
"What! Really?" Naruto asked, wide eyed in disbelief.
"Yeah." Sasuke nodded.
"Damn -" Naruto sighed deeply, "wonder what happened."
"Uh huh."
"Hey - Sasuke?" Naruto whispered.
"Yeah."
"You wanna, go back to my house for a while?" he smiled, his bright blue eyes questioning him playfully.
He looked over at the blond boy and smiled faintly, his own eyes half closing sleepily. Naruto just sort of smirked, pushing back at his longish blond tresses, and snickered.
"Yeah." he finally nodded, eager to go and take a nap, but perhaps with some company.
Yet, no sooner had they gotten to their feet then Kakashi appeared before them with a stack of long skinny papers in his hand.
"Yo, what's up?" He smiled.
"Nothing." Sasuke sighed.
"Hi sensei!" Naruto greeted him enthusiastically.
"Hey there. You two got time to do me a favor?"
"Yeah, I guess so." Sasuke nodded, a ting disappointed, but hiding it very well.
"Well I need to have these seals put up on the inside perimeter of the entire city. There's about a hundred of them here but for you two it shouldn't take more than a few minutes if you're quick about it."
"Sure thing sensei!" Naruto agreed, taking the seals from him.
"What are these for?" Sasuke asked, taking half of the papers from Naruto.
"Well, you know that girl we picked up yesterday?"
"Uh huh?"
"They're for her. Hokage wants to make sure she dosen't leave town and these seals will keep her from doing that by putting a barrier up against her specific chakra."
"Oooo, cool!" Naruto said, sounding impressed, "I can think of other people I'd like to use these on." he smirked.
"Well, whatever you do just do it quickly cuz I wanna have those seals up before she wakes up again."
"Sure thing." Sasuke nodded - and with that Kakashi disappeared again.
"You do the east side and I'll do the west side, meet back again later?" Naruto suggested.
"Sure thing, but after words I wanna go see this girl for myself."
"K, I'll meet you at old hag Tsunade's then." He smiled with a nod and disappeared.
******
Sasuke arrived back before Naruto and was directed to go to the top of the Hokage monument to find Tsunade and Kakashi. When he arrived, they were no where to be seen, but laying there in the grass behind the rocky crags was the body of the girl from the forest.
Walking up to her slowly Sasuke ran his hand up and down his arm feeling the hundreds of tiny scratches freshly healed on his skin. She was laid out on her side, head rested on her arm and knees pulled up sightly, her long lengths of ebony hair spilling out behind her back. She was looking so much more peaceful then yesterday, more like Sakura, and less like some wild, rebellious, missing-nin.
Looking around, he wondered why she was just laying out here all alone. Her lips parted slightly he could barely even tell if she was breathing or not. Bending down at her side on one knee he reached down to feel her neck for her pulse.
A split second before his fingers could touch her skin her hand was gripped tightly around his wrist.
"What are you doing?" she asked quietly, without so much as opening her eyes.
"I thought maybe you were dead." he said morosely.
"Well I am not." she pointed out, releasing her, surprisingly strong, grip on him.
Sitting up she looked around herself uneasily, but seeing no walls or floors she felt her heart rate settling and her breathing go back to normal.
"You shouldn't sneak up on people like that, Uchiha." she sighed, reaching up and tucking some of her unruly, long, strait, lengths of hair behind her ears.
"I didn't mean to. And just call me Sasuke." he apologized half heartedly.
"Yes well." she sighed, pulling her knees up to her chest. "What the hell did you bring me here for?"
"I didn't." he said.
"Yes you did! With the blond boy and the pink haired girl, and that evil bastard who locked me up!" she snapped at him, visibly agitated.
"Kakashi?" He questioned, trying to think of what "evil" guy she could be talking about.
"They - they -" she began to stammer, eyes widening at the mere thought of being back inside that inescapable box.
"Whoa, it's ok." Sasuke assured her, kneeling down beside her, seeing the way her hands were shaking. "Nobody wants to hurt you you know."
She didn't say anything, just sort of looked at him sternly - upset at herself for showing anything which he would read as weakness.
"What's your name anyway?" Sasuke finally asked her. But she didn't reply.
"Come on," he sighed, "would you rather I just made one up?"
"Hoshiko." she said bluntly.
"Hoshiko? That's your name?"
"Yes. Is that a problem?"
"No." He shook his head.
"You know, you have a very cold voice." she told him flatly, as she looked back at him.
He didn't say anything.
"Who was he?" she asked quietly, resting her head on her knees and watching him intently.
"Who was who?"
"The boy, from before, the blond one with the strange aura."
"Oh - that's Naruto." Sasuke explained, that uneasy twinge rising up in his stomach.
"Is he your - "
"No." he cut her off sharply.
"Oh - I am sorry." she sighed. "You just seemed -"
"Forget about it ok." Sasuke stopped her again as he got to his feet and brushed himself off.
Reaching down, he offered her his hand up.
"Thank you." she smiled weakly as she got to her feet.
She was looking around uneasily, and he could see by her expression that she was unsettled and unsure of what to do.
"This is Konoha, right?" she asked, as she looked out over the city sprawling out beneath the mountains.
"Yes."
"I don't want to be here." she muttered quietly, hugging her stomach with her arms.
"Why not?"
"Why would I want to stay in a city filled with filthy murders?!" she scowled, never looking up at him, but glaring down at the vast city.
"It not like you think," Sasuke began.
"Then how is it!?" she snapped, hand reaching for her weapons.
In a snap Kakashi was standing by her side, his hand on her wrist holding her back.
"She wouldn't have hurt me you know." Sasuke told him, without greeting his timely entrance.
"I know." Kakashi smiled, the girl wrenching his arm from his hand as if he were diseased.
"Get away from me, you!" she glared at him, pulling her kunai from its holster and distancing herself from him, with Sasuke between them.
"Look, I'm sorry we scared you but we didn't know you were going to throw a fit."
"You locked me up!" she protested.
"Well look what you did to Sasuke," he pointed out, gesturing to him, "we didn't want you doing it to anybody else."
She looked down at Sasuke's arms and up across his face, to the hundreds of tiny cuts covering his skin. She lifted her hand to her mouth and bit her finger in frustration as she surveyed, for the first time, the damage which she had done to him.
"I - I didn't mean to, really," she whispered, a regretful look washing over her as she move to touch his arm but resisted, "I -"
"It's ok." Sasuke shrugged calmly.
"I know you can't control it." Kakashi told her, making her look up at him wide eyed.
"What?"
"Your chakra, I know you can't control it properly." he repeated.
"Yes I can!" she said blutly, sounding offended, "What would you know about it, you filthy murderer!"
"Call me what you will, but it wasn't me who killed your parents." Kakashi sighed.
"It doesn't matter! It was still the Leaf's fault!"
"Not so," he began to defend them.
"Shut up! I don't want to hear any of it! I want to go home!" and with that she took off, jumping off the side of the monument and disappearing.
Neither made a move to stop her.
***
To be continued -
******
Ichigo:**sigh**
Sakura-kun: **sigh** ???
Ichigo: I want to get back to the shounen-ai!!!
Sakura-kun: ^^ me TOO!
Ichigo: ALL in due time!!! It wouldn't be much of a story if there was a conflict now would it! Hehehe! ^__
Sakura-kun: WAIII! ^____^
Eager as all hell to hear from you guys about this! I mean, it may seem like I'm getting away from myself, but TRUST me! Hehehe ^^ Patients is a virtue!
What to expect in later chapters - Naruto and Hoshiko meet up for the first time, and Sasuke's demeanor becomes increasingly distant. The story of the missing-nin girls connection to Itachi begins to come out - but not without a fight. There's gonna be a lot for Sasuke to deal with now, living in the wake of what his brother has created.
Chapter Six: Take Me Back
******
Ichigo: ONCE AGAIN! WE ARE UNABLE TO POST WHEN WE SAY!
Sakura-kun: eh heh.... T_T
Ichigo: I'm too mad at you to say anything... **glare** ¬ ¬
Sakura-kun: **ehhhhhhhh**
Ichigo: ...
Sakura-kun: **nar**
I didn't mean for this chapter to take so long to go up. This SHOULD be the longest wait ever - but, I could be lying again, I seem to be good at that. I hope we're doing a better job with the spell checking and stuff too, we're doing more and more re-reads before posting now a days. I feel SO bad when I get letters about it... T__T **ehhhhh** Well, lets hope you all like where this is going! ^^ Thanx!
Plot Summery (again, again, again) - The relationship between Sasuke and Naruto has changed a lot over the years, especially now that they both seem to have come to the same realizations. However, Sasuke finds himself unable too runaway from links to his past - especially those in the form of a strange, tragic, second generation, missing-nin. To find out more about himself, his brother, and to save a life, Sasuke has to decide just how far he's willing to go - as well as what, and who, he is willing to leave behind.
Now, about this SIXTH chapter - It's always hard for me to explain other peoples feelings without them sounding over/under done. So, that was the biggest challenge here. But, I think I'm satisfied with it. The hope is that I get better with it as I go along.
Chapter Summery - **nehhh** I didn't even do one last time! DAHAHAHAH! Well, this time around - the missing-nin girl finds herself confined within Konoha, and not much to her liking. Sasuke seems upset about the whole ordeal, but Naruto does his best to help in his own way. The girls feelings of injustice toward Konoha and everyone in it make her difficult to deal with - and impossible for Sasuke to approach about his brother.
Warnings - none here right now
(Once again, this is my disclaimer: "not mine")
***
Feeling groggy and disoriented she sat up slowly. Rubbing her eyes she waited for the darkness to fade - but it didn't. The ground below her was unfamiliarly cold and hard be neither her legs, as she reached out her hands around her in the pitch-black darkness. Looking around she strained her eyes to see into the nothingness of her unfamiliar surroundings.
It was hardwood floor beneath her skin. Knowing something was amiss she began to panic, trying to make out anything in the dark. She struggled to her feet and tried to move forward, but she was met by some sort of invisible barrier - keeping her from going more then a few feet.
"What?!" she gasped, her heart beginning to beating quickly in her chest as she felt her way around in a circle but found no way to move on.
"Let me out!" She screamed - clearly frantic - as she pounded her fists against the walls of her invisible cage.
"Calm down child." a voice told her from within the darkness.
Lights came up from out of nowhere as she found she was in a wide-open room with high ceilings and cement walls, and standing before her was a young woman in a kimono, trust up in such a way that her huge breast where held back only precariously.
"LET ME OUT!" the confined girl continued to scream, tears welling up in her eyes. Her breaths were shortening as she felt her ears getting hot, and she began to shake as she felt a familiar dark static welling up inside her body.
"LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!" she went on, throwing herself against the walls of the cage, beating at them furiously with her fists.
The darkness surrounding her began to mass slowly, taking on a solid form, like an erratically scribbled static. Casting her arms forward she seemed to command the masses of pure chakra which flew, like dark streaks, at the walls of her confines, only to explode and dissolve upon impact.
"Don't bother, you can't break through the circle." the Leaf Village's Godaime, Tsunade, assured her.
However, she just continued to scream, pulling her knees up tightly to her chest, tears streaming down her face and her vicious chakra beat against the force field surrounding her.
"So that's what she did to Sasuke." Kakashi observed, standing next to Tsunade, his hands firmly in his pockets as he watched the frantic girl.
"It has the same principal as the Rasengan or Chidori, with user massing their Chakra into a more physical form, but I've never seen anything like this before. Her emotions seem to be what causes it." Tsunade agreed.
Walking up to her hysterical girl, directly through the barrier, and strait into the path of her attacks, Kakashi bent down and touched her neck again, causing her to go silent and her chakra to dissipate.
"I can't keep doing that to her." Kakashi sighed, rubbing the side of his hand across his cheek to wipe away the tiny bit of blood which her chakra had drawn from him.
"It must be the closed space." Tsunade suggested, "I would imagine she's ever been indoors. She's probably claustrophobic.
Picking up her limp body, Kakashi saw that blood had pooled around her stomach again and was running onto the floor.
"It's doing it again." he thought aloud.
"What is?" Tsunade asked. "Why is she bleeding like that?"
"It looks like some sort of stigmata." he said, picking her up and carrying her over to a low table by the wall and lying her down.
Pushing back the mesh of her shirt and rubbing away the blood they again found no wound, only an odd tatoo. It was a thick, black, bowed line which pointed at each end and dipped down bellow her rib cage - from the bottom of the line extended five points of varying sizes, shortest on the outside and the longest in the middle, rather like and inverted half sun.
"A curse of some sort?" Tsunade suggested.
"Must be."
"But who would do such a thing?"
"She a rouge ninja living on her own, I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere a long the way she pissed somebody off."
"I wonder if we could do something to seal it." Tsunade thought aloud.
"I don't know, but if we're going to do something we'd better try it now before she wakes up again.
******
"Sasuke?"
The dark haired shinobi boy was sitting alone, his knees drawn up to his chest, on the bank by the stream looking more solemn and distant than usual.
"Sasuke?" the voice questioned again.
"Huh?" he looked up to his right and saw Naruto smiling down at him.
"Why so glum?" He inquired, looking concerned.
"I, was just wondering about that girl."
"Oh. Don't worry about her Kakashi-sensei is taking care of it now." Naruto assured him taking a seat very near, yet safely away, from his side.
"I know, but, I still want to find out what she know's about my brother," he sighed, "she called him her sensei."
"What! Really?" Naruto asked, wide eyed in disbelief.
"Yeah." Sasuke nodded.
"Damn -" Naruto sighed deeply, "wonder what happened."
"Uh huh."
"Hey - Sasuke?" Naruto whispered.
"Yeah."
"You wanna, go back to my house for a while?" he smiled, his bright blue eyes questioning him playfully.
He looked over at the blond boy and smiled faintly, his own eyes half closing sleepily. Naruto just sort of smirked, pushing back at his longish blond tresses, and snickered.
"Yeah." he finally nodded, eager to go and take a nap, but perhaps with some company.
Yet, no sooner had they gotten to their feet then Kakashi appeared before them with a stack of long skinny papers in his hand.
"Yo, what's up?" He smiled.
"Nothing." Sasuke sighed.
"Hi sensei!" Naruto greeted him enthusiastically.
"Hey there. You two got time to do me a favor?"
"Yeah, I guess so." Sasuke nodded, a ting disappointed, but hiding it very well.
"Well I need to have these seals put up on the inside perimeter of the entire city. There's about a hundred of them here but for you two it shouldn't take more than a few minutes if you're quick about it."
"Sure thing sensei!" Naruto agreed, taking the seals from him.
"What are these for?" Sasuke asked, taking half of the papers from Naruto.
"Well, you know that girl we picked up yesterday?"
"Uh huh?"
"They're for her. Hokage wants to make sure she dosen't leave town and these seals will keep her from doing that by putting a barrier up against her specific chakra."
"Oooo, cool!" Naruto said, sounding impressed, "I can think of other people I'd like to use these on." he smirked.
"Well, whatever you do just do it quickly cuz I wanna have those seals up before she wakes up again."
"Sure thing." Sasuke nodded - and with that Kakashi disappeared again.
"You do the east side and I'll do the west side, meet back again later?" Naruto suggested.
"Sure thing, but after words I wanna go see this girl for myself."
"K, I'll meet you at old hag Tsunade's then." He smiled with a nod and disappeared.
******
Sasuke arrived back before Naruto and was directed to go to the top of the Hokage monument to find Tsunade and Kakashi. When he arrived, they were no where to be seen, but laying there in the grass behind the rocky crags was the body of the girl from the forest.
Walking up to her slowly Sasuke ran his hand up and down his arm feeling the hundreds of tiny scratches freshly healed on his skin. She was laid out on her side, head rested on her arm and knees pulled up sightly, her long lengths of ebony hair spilling out behind her back. She was looking so much more peaceful then yesterday, more like Sakura, and less like some wild, rebellious, missing-nin.
Looking around, he wondered why she was just laying out here all alone. Her lips parted slightly he could barely even tell if she was breathing or not. Bending down at her side on one knee he reached down to feel her neck for her pulse.
A split second before his fingers could touch her skin her hand was gripped tightly around his wrist.
"What are you doing?" she asked quietly, without so much as opening her eyes.
"I thought maybe you were dead." he said morosely.
"Well I am not." she pointed out, releasing her, surprisingly strong, grip on him.
Sitting up she looked around herself uneasily, but seeing no walls or floors she felt her heart rate settling and her breathing go back to normal.
"You shouldn't sneak up on people like that, Uchiha." she sighed, reaching up and tucking some of her unruly, long, strait, lengths of hair behind her ears.
"I didn't mean to. And just call me Sasuke." he apologized half heartedly.
"Yes well." she sighed, pulling her knees up to her chest. "What the hell did you bring me here for?"
"I didn't." he said.
"Yes you did! With the blond boy and the pink haired girl, and that evil bastard who locked me up!" she snapped at him, visibly agitated.
"Kakashi?" He questioned, trying to think of what "evil" guy she could be talking about.
"They - they -" she began to stammer, eyes widening at the mere thought of being back inside that inescapable box.
"Whoa, it's ok." Sasuke assured her, kneeling down beside her, seeing the way her hands were shaking. "Nobody wants to hurt you you know."
She didn't say anything, just sort of looked at him sternly - upset at herself for showing anything which he would read as weakness.
"What's your name anyway?" Sasuke finally asked her. But she didn't reply.
"Come on," he sighed, "would you rather I just made one up?"
"Hoshiko." she said bluntly.
"Hoshiko? That's your name?"
"Yes. Is that a problem?"
"No." He shook his head.
"You know, you have a very cold voice." she told him flatly, as she looked back at him.
He didn't say anything.
"Who was he?" she asked quietly, resting her head on her knees and watching him intently.
"Who was who?"
"The boy, from before, the blond one with the strange aura."
"Oh - that's Naruto." Sasuke explained, that uneasy twinge rising up in his stomach.
"Is he your - "
"No." he cut her off sharply.
"Oh - I am sorry." she sighed. "You just seemed -"
"Forget about it ok." Sasuke stopped her again as he got to his feet and brushed himself off.
Reaching down, he offered her his hand up.
"Thank you." she smiled weakly as she got to her feet.
She was looking around uneasily, and he could see by her expression that she was unsettled and unsure of what to do.
"This is Konoha, right?" she asked, as she looked out over the city sprawling out beneath the mountains.
"Yes."
"I don't want to be here." she muttered quietly, hugging her stomach with her arms.
"Why not?"
"Why would I want to stay in a city filled with filthy murders?!" she scowled, never looking up at him, but glaring down at the vast city.
"It not like you think," Sasuke began.
"Then how is it!?" she snapped, hand reaching for her weapons.
In a snap Kakashi was standing by her side, his hand on her wrist holding her back.
"She wouldn't have hurt me you know." Sasuke told him, without greeting his timely entrance.
"I know." Kakashi smiled, the girl wrenching his arm from his hand as if he were diseased.
"Get away from me, you!" she glared at him, pulling her kunai from its holster and distancing herself from him, with Sasuke between them.
"Look, I'm sorry we scared you but we didn't know you were going to throw a fit."
"You locked me up!" she protested.
"Well look what you did to Sasuke," he pointed out, gesturing to him, "we didn't want you doing it to anybody else."
She looked down at Sasuke's arms and up across his face, to the hundreds of tiny cuts covering his skin. She lifted her hand to her mouth and bit her finger in frustration as she surveyed, for the first time, the damage which she had done to him.
"I - I didn't mean to, really," she whispered, a regretful look washing over her as she move to touch his arm but resisted, "I -"
"It's ok." Sasuke shrugged calmly.
"I know you can't control it." Kakashi told her, making her look up at him wide eyed.
"What?"
"Your chakra, I know you can't control it properly." he repeated.
"Yes I can!" she said blutly, sounding offended, "What would you know about it, you filthy murderer!"
"Call me what you will, but it wasn't me who killed your parents." Kakashi sighed.
"It doesn't matter! It was still the Leaf's fault!"
"Not so," he began to defend them.
"Shut up! I don't want to hear any of it! I want to go home!" and with that she took off, jumping off the side of the monument and disappearing.
Neither made a move to stop her.
***
To be continued -
******
Ichigo:**sigh**
Sakura-kun: **sigh** ???
Ichigo: I want to get back to the shounen-ai!!!
Sakura-kun: ^^ me TOO!
Ichigo: ALL in due time!!! It wouldn't be much of a story if there was a conflict now would it! Hehehe! ^__
Sakura-kun: WAIII! ^____^
Eager as all hell to hear from you guys about this! I mean, it may seem like I'm getting away from myself, but TRUST me! Hehehe ^^ Patients is a virtue!
What to expect in later chapters - Naruto and Hoshiko meet up for the first time, and Sasuke's demeanor becomes increasingly distant. The story of the missing-nin girls connection to Itachi begins to come out - but not without a fight. There's gonna be a lot for Sasuke to deal with now, living in the wake of what his brother has created.