Authoress' note: I am so terribly sorry for the long wait. My internet was down for what felt like forever, so, naturally, I had nothing better to do with my time than write, write, and write! So here's two chapters and a gaiden for all you lovely people that have supported me all this time!
Changes
Chapter Twelve
Fade
Her eyes opened just to take a small peek, but saw nothing but blackness. They blinked a few times and urged her to rub at them. She tried to lift a hand but a sudden jolt of surprise shot through her arm, causing her to realize that she hadn't the freedom to move. A groan escaped her lips, which twisted into a pout. Not that the lack of light really had to do with anything; she nearly had perfect night vision.
Thin wisps of highlights were spotted on what appeared to be the furniture around her. She examined as much as she could before her eyes felt the urge to shift away and look for things to help her get free. When she thought they could use a rest, she closed them and then commanded her sense of touch to help detect her surroundings.
Only then did she feel that something was wrong—why was she so cold? Then it struck her: she was naked. Her body was exposed to who knows what, and she felt softness underneath her. A bed…with straps, she guessed after trying to rotate her wrists and ankles. Where am I? Her mind wandered impatiently. The thought of lying naked on a bed with straps in a dark room sent a wave of chills down her spine and she, quite suddenly, started feeling self-conscious.
Willing her ears to take over, she concentrated as hard as she could to see if she could hear anything but her steady breathing. Inhale…exhale…inhale…exhale. The pattern carried on as her ears began to feel strained, and she tried to take some pressure off of them.
After what felt like forever to her, she started drifting off to sleep until she heard something slither in the darkness, and she was fully alert again. The weight shifted on the bed and she felt hands touch her all over, gently caressing her skin. Soft lips pressed onto hers and a tongue slipped into her mouth, sending a tantalizing through her body.
"Who…who are you?" she said breathlessly after the sweet taste pulled away from her mouth. Her right temple felt a kiss on it, and a hot breath tingled at her ear. Another hand ran between her thighs and her intakes of breath became shorter and more rushed.
"You know who I am," a sexy voice purred into her ear, and her body started to ache as she tried to resist the temptation, and her head from thinking too hard, narrowing down a list of possible men.
Opening her eyes, she saw a pair of glowing orbs twinkle in front of her own, and she gasped.
A week and a few days after the festival was over, Tsumi carried out the new mission given to her by Kisame: accompany the shinobi team that had befriended her, and gain as much information as possible about the Kyuubi.
She walked down the street beside Sasuke. Expecting Kakashi to be late again, they gave themselves a good two hours of free time to roam around to kill time.
"So what are your plans now, Kobochi?" Sasuke sneered.
"Oh stop it, Sasuke."
"Fine then; I will."
"I don't really know. I still find my mission utterly pointless," she sighed.
"Oh. So how is…he…nowadays?"
"Good, I suppose. But he's getting moody a lot." She frowned.
"It's because of me, isn't it?"
"…most probably…"
"What; is my incompetence to hate you infuriating him?"
"I suppose."
"He should know that, by now, I love you."
"Sasuke, I—"
"Kobo-chan!" a cheery voice interrupted them. They turned around to see Sakura in her leisure clothes, waving at them. "Sasuke-kun!" she grinned as she ran towards them.
"Saku-chan!" Tsumi grinned automatically.
"Kakashi-sensei called training off today," Sakura reported as she eyed her companions in their training attire.
"What the hell? So he decides to not tell us things now!" Tsumi scowled.
"I didn't think that someone that gave up being a shinobi like you would be so enthusiastic to train again. Besides, you're so strong! I have so much to learn from you."
"Actually, it's just that I need to get all prepped up again before Hokage-sama will give me my rightful rank as something other than genin."
"Oh."
"Kobochi, do you want to head back to change?" Sasuke cut in suddenly.
"Sure!" Tsumi rolled her eyes as he dragged her off, leaving Sakura behind.
'Come on, Sakura! You can beat her out! Yeah,' her inner self cheered in her mind, and she grinned. "I can do it!" She pumped her fist up in the air, causing the villagers to look at her strangely as they walked by. "Uh, there's nothing to see here!" she said quickly and chased after Sasuke and Tsumi.
Sasuke's place
"You did that to get away from her, didn't you?" Tsumi asked as she threw off her fishnet wear and pulled on a black tee and a pleated black skirt that fell to her knees.
"Obviously," he sighed as he leaned against the frame of the doorway and watched her.
"Do you mind?" she glared.
"No."
"You're helpless." He smiled slightly as she pretended to pout at him. "You think my hair's alright?" she glowered at her raven black hair.
"Yeah, yeah, it looks fine. I just don't want to stand here for the next three hours as you try to sort your hair so that it looks too fancy. Come on, I'm bored." He grabbed her wrist and dragged her out to the streets again.
In the woods
"I still hate you for walking in on us," Itachi whined like a little kid.
"And what do you plan on doing when you get her all knocked up?" Kisame snarled.
"Who said I planned on getting her pregnant?"
"It's going to happen sooner or later…"
Itachi's eyes narrowed and Kisame flashed him a wicked grin.
"I wonder what she's doing with Sasuke nowad—hey, where are you going?"
"What, I can't go to check up on her now?"
"Well…umm…"
"That's exactly my point." He got up and walked away.
Konoha Mall
Kakashi popped the remainder of his sandwich into his mouth and chomped it down while reading his favorite book. He was sitting in the food court where the smell of delicious snacks and meals danced about in the air. A beep sounded from the watch on his wrist and he marked his book and pocketed it. Then, he picked up his garbage and threw it out in the can behind him and stood up, stretching and yawning.
His one visible eye scanned the area until he caught sight of Kobochi and Sasuke walking down one of the long halls—together. And they were talking and laughing. Something inside the grown man sparked and he was abruptly determined to wrench the girl away from his student, despite how fascinating Sasuke's unknown features looked.
To his momentary surprise, he saw another one of his pupils, Sakura, trailing after them, acting sneakily and not quite as stealthily as she thought she was acting, he concluded. After the pair passed with Sakura not so far behind them, Naruto appeared to be stalking Sakura as well—not that he was doing a better job of concealing himself than Sakura was, though people always had their eyes on him more so than Sakura, since he had a nine-tailed kitsune sealed within him. When the little line of his comrades passed by, he decided that he would do something that was intelligent by far and cut them off at the next intersection of hallways.
Unfortunately, he would have to walk quite a distance until the closest junction, and at a much quicker pace, seeing as how he had just started walking, and they were far ahead of him. So he quickened his pace and hoped that nobody would stare at him as he passed at a rapid walking speed while, at the same time, wondering why he was so determined to wreck his two students' relationship. Was he jealous of the young Uchiha? 'No, that can't be,' he reminded himself. That would make her a pedophile and he was sure that she would, hopefully, know better than that.
Within minutes, the corner lot was visible and he sped up his pace even more so that he was there within seconds, even though he was practically running toward it. Halting with difficulty caused him to run into a garbage can, though he didn't knock it over. Kakashi straightened himself out and then walked into the flower shop, pretending to look around while glancing out the other window quite frequently to make sure that his timing was perfect. But why was he even going through all of this?
"Welcome, sir," the shy teenaged girl behind the counter greeted him. "We just got in an order of fresh lilies and roses. Would you like to see them?"
"No thanks; at least not now," Kakashi muttered.
Just a few seconds later, Kobochi and Sasuke were seen walking by, licking at ice cream cones. Seeing his chance, Kakashi leisurely walked out of the shop after saying bye to the clerk and pretended to look around. Strolling right into the path of the two, hands in his pockets, the three of them collided.
"Oy; watch where you're goi—whoa, Kakashi?" the mass murderer in disguise stuttered.
"Eh? Oh, Kobochi and Sasuke," he smiled behind his mask, though it wasn't visible. With the one eye of his, he looked down at Sasuke to see him sprawled on the marble tiled floor with ice cream squished all over his shirt.
"Good job, sensei," he muttered but wasn't heard over the noise of the other civilians.
"Ah! Sasuke!" Tsumi panicked when she saw her own ice cream cone, along with his, spilling down his shirt. Kakashi felt satisfied with himself; his plan had worked, plus Sasuke's shirt was ruined. "Let me help you clean up!"
"Wh-what?" he blurted out and his one eye widened, but he remained ignored as she dragged him over to a nearby garbage can and started wiping the ice cream off of Sasuke's shirt. 'Now how did that happen…?'
"I feel terrible! I'm freeloading off of you and now I ruin your shirt? Ugh!" she scolded herself.
"You can stop doing that now," Sasuke said quietly as he grabbed her wrist in midair before she got a chance to start hitting herself. "It's nobody's fault. Besides, you're new in town and have almost no money."
"B-but…I…"
"Just shut up and suck it up," he faked a composed glare at her, though she could see a flicker of amusement dance in his eyes.
"Oh, alright," she frowned a realistic frown, despite the fact that it wasn't real at all. Then again, it's not like Sasuke was so dense that he wasn't able to sense it out. They looked deeply into each other's eyes and then started laughing. Uchiha Sasuke was actually laughing. That alone was enough to make Kakashi kick himself on the spot.
"Sasuke-kun!" a voice screeched, and Sakura ran over. "Are you alright!"
He only laughed harder, and she followed suit.
"Sasuke…kun…?" Sakura was scared.
He laughed even harder, and tears were rolling out the corners of her eyes.
"What's so funny?" she whimpered.
He was clutching his ribs, and she was lying on the floor clutching her stomach.
"Stop laughing!" she screamed and ran away with Naruto following her after coming out of hiding to see what was going on. Kakashi went to chase after Sakura, seeing as how his plan failed, and he felt extremely disappointed, though not knowing why.
Minutes later when the two of them had settled down, she managed to support her weight as she stood up and helped Sasuke after her. Together, they ran down the hall, out of the mall, and through the clusters of people on the streets. They reached his place in a matter of minutes that seemed to pass by so very quickly, and entered.
Tsumi plopped herself down on the couch and tried to catch her breath while Sasuke slammed the door shut and threw his shirt off. Discarding it into the laundry basket of clothes that needed to be washed, he plopped himself beside her on the couch and rested his rosy cheek on her shoulder.
"I haven't laughed like that in years," Sasuke said quietly; "especially when I didn't know why."
"I was laughing at how ridiculously good our acting was. That and how nobody figured out that we were even acting," Tsumi sighed heavily and rubbed at her sore sides. "Then again, it's not like it's honestly a bad thing though."
"That's true."
"What time is it?"
"I don't know exactly, but I'm quite sure that it's nearing dusk. Why?"
"He wants me back before nightfall."
"Oh."
"Even though I don't see why I should listen to him, I don't want him hurting you so I'm going to do it anyway."
"Why do you care?"
"But why shouldn't I? Why wouldn't I?"
"I…don't know."
"I didn't think you did," she sighed and closed her eyes. A moment later, Sasuke snaked his arms around one of hers and cuddled closer. It's not like she minded. It just felt awkward.
Just as she was about to fall asleep, the arm he was latched onto started feeling numb.
"Tsumi!" his voice sounded worried.
"Hm?" she kept her eyes closed.
"Your arm…" his voice trailed off, and she felt his arms let go.
"What about it?" she murmured, but snapped back into reality the same second it started pulsating. Her eyes looked anxiously at her hand, and it looked like it was…fading…
"What's happening?" Sasuke panicked.
"I don't know, but I'm going to go see Itachi right now. I'm sure he might have a solution, or at least go on a mad killing spree to find one," she chuckled. "Don't worry; I'll be alright," she cooed into his ear and kissed his temple.
"Come back soon," he said quietly as she opened one of his windows and jumped out into the shrubs. "I need you…"
Itachi and Kisame's camp
"Where is she?" Itachi tapped his foot impatiently. "It's dusk already!"
"Shut up, I'm sure she'll be back soon." Kisame rolled his eyes.
"Itachi? Itachi!" Tsumi's voice called out.
"I see you're back already. You're early, even. Good job," he grinned sheepishly.
"My arm was pulsating! And then it started to fade," she said quickly and the grin fell off his face right away.
"Are you sure you weren't dreaming?" Kisame slurred.
"I'm one hundred percent sure that I wasn't dreaming, drunk, or high on anything," she scowled at him, and he shut up.
"Do you think it has anything to do with—?"
"Shut up, Hoshigaki. You're merely stating the obvious here," Tsumi snarled at him.
"Alright, alright," he sighed, "but still; I was wondering if you guys could live your lives without having to worry about it and—" He got cut off by two pairs of glaring eyes.
"The only one who knows anything of this is him," her voice lowered.
"We can't see him right now though. Do you think you can hold out until the next full moon?"
"That's in…a fortnight?"
"That's about it."
"I can try…"
"Alright, then it's settled. For now, just go to sleep," he said and he kissed her quickly.
She pulled out her sleeping bag and laid it down on the forest ground. Then she climbed into it and zipped it shut as Itachi kissed her again and stroked her hair until she fell into a rough sleep.
Tsumi groaned as the unwanted sunlight managed to shine her eyes. She rolled off her back and onto her stomach, squishing her breasts in the process. Scowling, she sat up and rubbed her eyes and stretched her arms, feeling her loose tee with a wide cut slip off one of her shoulders.
She opened her eyes to see herself on a fancy four-poster bed, the sheets sprawled around and messed up. Her nose picked up the stench of sex and she suddenly became awake and alert. Looking down at the sheets, she saw stains all over them and her eyes widened as she stumbled for the side of the bed, tripping over a lump under the sheets. She recollected her calmness and then grabbed at the sheets, throwing them to the floor.
The sight threw a lurch of fear and panic at her heart; feelings completely new to her. Feeling surprised and confused, she fell on her knees and gripped at her ears, hearing a pounding in them that was uneven and rapidly speeding up. Her breaths shortened and her breathing sped up as well.
'What's happening to me?'
She shot up from her sleep and looked around her, making sure that she was still in the forest, sleeping in her sleeping bag with Itachi beside her. Waiting for her hitched breaths to even out, she lay back down again, but couldn't get back to sleep.
'A premonition…?'
TBC