Vengeance in Seven Days

By: Crystal Avatar

Disclaimer: I do not own the character names Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke and Hinata. Oh yeah and another apology: sorry for the late update! I've only just recently got some sort of crude Internet connection established… hope it'll last!

Author's Note: Welcome to chapter three! A heated rivalry is born in 'Day Three- Betrayal'! Keep up the reviews if you'd like me to continue. After all, I'm an insecure guy!

C.A

Punctuation Notes

"Talking" 'Thinking' SFX (Author comments)

Day Three – 'Betrayal'

Naruto, the blond-haired, Tokugawa ninja arose into a new dawn.

Liquid sunshine kissed his white, milky cheeks and his yawn sucked cool morning dew into his body. It was as if he had been reborn into a world of bliss and blessings.

He had, he dared to assume, 'fallen in love'.

But… with whom? Or what? The mysterious beauty he had met in the marketplace had only solidly revealed a name and an occupation. She was Sakura, Geisha of Leaf. Two details easy to falsify. She was tall, elegant and graceful. She was also a praiseworthy cook- something he couldn't help but notice on this cute, feminine being. He was in love with a potential enemy.

A very dangerous predicament had become apparent. A wild variable in his mission.

He choked inside and thought to himself, 'could everyone here really be guilty of the crimes Tokugawa-Sensei (Master Tokugawa) accused them of committing? Could they all be as dangerous as the general had warned? What about Hiroko and Misa, the charming innkeepers? And Sakura… Sakura was just too beautiful to even consider dangerous…'

'How women, especially kunoichi (female ninja), were cunning and dangerous,' he pondered.

Naruto's thoughts began to cloud an originally delightful awakening. He silenced his mind for a brief second with a distraction: 'What would be for breakfast? Could he already smell the odor of sweet, miso soup wafting its way up the stairs?'

He turned his head and saw Misa, the young, pretty daughter of Hiroko, standing in his doorway. She had managed to open the door to his room without making a noise.

"Misa-chan? Good morning! Has your mother prepared breakfast for us today?"

Misa remained silent. Naruto felt something in the air change. He shivered.

"Naruto-san. We have discovered who you are. You must be punished…"

Her voice was a hoarse whisper, like a ghost haunting him from beyond the grave.

"Misa-chan, I…" Naruto paused.

He hesitated when he noticed what the teenager was wearing: a crimson-red outfit that was baggy all over. The handle of a well-shaped sword poked from behind her shoulder. Dark braces adorned her forearms and this is where her right hand now dipped to retrieve something. She was drawing something small, shiny, long, slender, thin… sharp…

'A kunai (throwing knife)!' Naruto's mind flashed.

But it was too late. Misa-chan, young kunoichi, under the disguise of a charming innkeeper, had penetrated his awareness and would end his life quickly and efficiently. It was too late.

"Misa! Don't…!"

Suddenly… his vision blacked out…

And Naruto found himself lying in his bed once more.

Naruto got up again, as a feeling of déjà vu clouded his thoughts, and looked at the same doorway he had envisioned in his recent nightmare. There was no Misa-chan in a ninja outfit. No kunai and no one who had discovered his true identity.

The young, blonde man cursed at himself. It had only been three days and he was already beginning to lose focus. His unfinished plans, surveillance reports, suspects lists lay waiting on his table. He had to get work for nearly half of his time had already expired.

At that thought, Misa-chan barged through his door. Naruto jumped up in an heartbeat.

"Shinta-san! Shinta-san! Are you okay?" Misa cried.

"Yes… I'm okay… thank-you," Naruto sighed.

"We heard you shout something. Was it a bad dream?"

"Yeah."

"Something to do with your scars, Shinta-san?"

"Kind of."

Misa was running out of hope that she would get more than a few words reply from her new friend. She felt like he was distancing himself from her and her mother, but then again, she had always been an insecure little girl. How she had longed for a father…

"Breakfast… Shinta-san? My mom, she-" Misa was cut off by a raised hand.

"Not today, Misa-chan. Tell your mother I am grateful, but I'm just busy and not that hungry this morning. Many thanks, Misa-chan, but I've decided to go into town today."

Naruto got on his feet and looked at the little girl for a few moments. He could've sworn he saw something inside her break, but she was good at hiding it on the outside.

"Okay, Shinta-san."

Naruto didn't know where else to go except the one place that had plagued his heart since he had left the doors of the Inn. He made his way across the connecting bridge and to the gardens that served as a hub for the richer side of town.

It was a beautiful place in the morning. The lanterns, which had been lit the night before, now hung lifelessly on their poles down the footpaths. The garden had a warm, summery glow during nighttime, but its features were much easier to appreciate as they basked in the sunlight.

The sightseeing and the recollections of a wonderful evening with the girl named Sakura was too much for him. They had not made arrangements to meet the next day, but Naruto knew he would always be able to find her at the mayor's house- the largest and richest abode in all of the town. She was, after all, geisha to the lord of the village.

Naruto stumbled around the gardens pretending to himself that he did not care whether or not he saw her today. He saw many faces that morning, trudging over the stones, watching the small fountains, talking and conducting their business. Many of them had become familiar to his trained mind, others he had never seen before. The same list he had hidden in his bag back at the Inn was now being added to in his photographic memory.

He was crosschecking all the villagers: what times, early or late, he'd notice them busy, where they tended to go, what they tended to talk about and look at.

They all had no idea that there was an assassin in their midst.

After an hour or so of this, Naruto had grown the intention to explore beyond the wide, ornate gates that surrounded the garden, introducing visitors into the small streets of northern Leaf.

The first door he picked was the largest and most richly described of all.

It was the lone door dedicated to inviting people into the mayor's private gardens, where his finely built home rested. Naruto knew this. Naruto was in love.

'What am I doing? Do I come here looking for evidence that Sakura is an enemy?'

Naruto paused to let the guards open the huge doors.

'Or do I secretly hope I'll be proven wrong?'

Either way, Naruto realized it was about time he had investigated the mayor- someone who most definitely had to be implicated in the uprising.

The first thing Naruto noticed as he walked through the large, wooden doors was a stunning, majestic cherry-blossom tree. It was the season of their ripening, and a few of the flowers now carpeted the floor with a rare, pink color.

A young man, probably not much different from his own age, was kneeling underneath the tree. His hair was dark and his eyes were closed. He appeared to be in deep meditation.

Naruto's instincts felt disturbed around him. A surge of hot adrenaline blew through his blood.

He felt his feet slowly shuffle their way closer to the kneeling boy. His advance was quiet and, to his understanding, unaware to anybody. He began slowly creeping towards him, and as he did, something he was muttering under his breath became more and more audible.

'Very interesting,' Naruto mused.

Suddenly, a girl in a dark blue kimono stepped out of one of the doors of the mayor's house and made her way to the base of the cherry blossom tree. It was Sakura.

She was dressed differently from the rich, red kimono she had worn the night before. But, Naruto had noticed subconsciously, something else was wrong with this picture.

Naruto quickly, discreetly, scuttled towards a nearby bush and shied behind it, watching the action unfold from within his hiding place. No one else seemed to be close by his operational zone so he allowed his ninja training to kick into gear.

Sakura crossed the short distance to reach the base of the tree and the boy sitting beside it.

He was a few yards away from the couple now and could hear what they were discussing.

"Sasuke, I've already told you: I'm sorry. Please don't be mad at me."

"I'm not mad at you. You're mad at me," was the boy's even reply.

"No I'm not."

"Really? Then why did you run away like you did last night? You know I can't help that which has been thrust upon me. Responsibilities were never meant to be holidays."

"Sasuke, all I meant was that… well, you had a choice, didn't you? You could've declined."

"Don't be ridiculous! Don't you have any sense of honor in family? Or has losing your parents when you were young affected that faculty of your common sense too? Idiot."

"Sasuke… please don't call me an idiot. Please try to see it my way- our lives would have been so much better if you had only said no to your father… now you must carry his burdens…"

"My father is sick. Let him alone. In time you may understand why I have done this."

Both remained quiet for a time. The one called Sasuke, the angry, young man, did not once open his eyes or move to accommodate Sakura's requests for his attention.

'What a bastard this guy must be…' Naruto thought silently.

And it was at that exact thought that Sakura made her next move: she bent over and cupped the young boy's cheek in both of her hands and frowned slightly. Sasuke opened his eyes with a shock and stared into her eyes. Then, Sakura moved in closer and married their lips together. The young man reluctantly accepted the kiss and returned it carefully.

Sakura was kissing Sasuke.

Naruto felt his heart fall to the bottom of the ocean.

Naruto's hands wandered to his shoulders but felt nothing. No hilt or blade to grasp, no tool for his fury. No implement for destruction. The ninja inside him suddenly died.

And a powerful rage swept over and took control.

He stood up.

The couple was still kissing.

He walked towards them.

And they were still kissing.

Then paused and left the mayor's quarter, back through the huge doors he had used to enter.

And as he left he turned and saw them both.

Still kissing.

The ninja, or the coward, Naruto knew not which, had regained control of his senses and forced him back outside before he could cause a ruckus. Before he could draw attention to himself and compromise his cover. Sakura and Sasuke, the very concepts, were huge, dark knives lodged in his back. A pain that stung and wouldn't go away.

'So much for love! A ninja has no use for it!' he assured himself inside a cage of agony.

Naruto soon found himself running, sprinting as fast as he could. Within moments he had crossed the bridges and was at the markets, bearing in the direction towards the Inn.

Naruto could not even bring himself to reply to the little welcomes his hosts gave him as he rushed up the stairs. As he stormed up the steps, he felt as if he were running into the sky, for at this moment, it felt as if it was all falling down on top of him.

He was smothered in a muddy cocktail of guilt, regret, conscience, rage and jealousy.

Which was when the strangeness really took heat and began to materialize.

It was only after he sat at his desk, cupping his throbbing head in his arms, ruffling his papers underneath his elbows, that a strange, luminescent voice filled the room.

'This is impossible. My emotions are making me create voices in my mind.'

Naruto looked up and opened his eyes. Outside the window he could see that night had already fallen over the town and a full moon was in solid glare, staring straight at him.

"Naruto…"

The voice had evolved from omnipresent whispers to wispy, alluring calls.

"What the…" Naruto begged.

"I am The Siren…" the voice introduced itself.

"What?"

"Listen to me… for I will direct you unto progression…"

"Progression? Who are you? How do you speak to me?"

"There is a young girl downstairs… she has just entered down below…"

Naruto was listening, but fought to learn more about this voice that filled his room.

"She has the answers you are seeking. She knows he who must be ended."

"What sorcery is this? Who are you?" Naruto screamed at the top of his lungs.

The voice's volume bounced up and down, waving in and out, whispering and calling him to do what it ordered. Her, or rather, its suggestions bounced off the walls and rebounded on him.

"This won't be our last meeting, Naruto. Friend or foe? Meet the girl…"

And as sudden as it had started… the whispering stopped and all was silent again. Only the insects of the night could be heard chirping their music into his bedroom.

And, as if it had been rehearsed from the morning, Misa burst into his room, together with her mother, Hiroko, this time. They had heard the young man screaming and had come to investigate why he had sounded in such a way when people had begun to sleep.

"Shinta-san! What was that noise? Why did you yell?"

"Huh? What are you talking about, Hiroko?" Naruto was aghast, pale as a ghost.

"You're shaking…" Misa noticed.

"You two didn't hear that voice… that voice that was just… like a woman's voice…"

Hiroko's face became twisted in confusion. "What do you mean? What voice?"

"Perhaps you must rest, Shinta-san," Young Misa worriedly suggested.

Hiroko nodded silently and began to nurse subtle fears for her guest's well being.

"I must hurry back downstairs, a new visitor has arrived…" Hiroko urged quietly.

Naruto froze suddenly.

"Is it a young girl?"

"Yes. How did you know?"

"I must go."

And with that, Naruto slowly rose from his seated position and left the room, making his way between a pair of stunned and thoroughly bewildered innkeeper ladies.

Naruto soon found the young girl waiting patiently in the lobby. A frown and some dried tears stained her face. She had recently been crying. Something she had become accustomed too regularly these days, but Naruto did not know that.

Her hair was tied back in a bun and her clothes were slightly stained. She had the look of a servant about her, albeit one from a generous family. She was attractive, in an adorable sense, but that was the least of Naruto's thoughts now. The first thing he asked was:

"What's wrong? Why have you been crying?"

"A cruel man, a tyrant, he is! He is evil and cruel! How the authorities should punish him, especially if they knew what he was up too! How I hate him! He really must…"

And the woman resumed her sobbing. Her outburst was very sudden and slightly loud.

The young lady did not know it, but she was stroking Naruto's interest.

"Really? Who?"

The two innkeepers had now brought themselves downstairs. Naruto turned to them immediately. He wasn't aware of how he had been treating them.

"Hiroko-san, could you please get this lady some food?"

"Of course." And Hiroko rushed into the kitchen.

"I will fetch water for her," Misa beamed, seeking his approval.

"Good girl, Misa-chan."

The stranger sobbed loudly.

"Sit down, madam, and relax. You can talk to me about everything."

Through the corner of her eye, she saw him leave through the mayor's portal.

As she kissed Sasuke, a small, out-of-place smile crept across her mouth.

She knew he had been hiding, watching them both from the beginning.

'How we combine so/Violently- it's progress/ How cruel time can be.'

HOLD THAT POSITION! NEXT UP! "Day Four- Accomplishment"

I hope you loved Chapter Three!

In the next installment…

Naruto sweats under the pressure of failure!
He has been ordered to spill blood and so he must!
But will it be his own or someone else's?

The price for failure is death!

Keep reading for some precise maneuvers in the next part!