Author's Note: Yikes, it's been a while since I've touched this piece. But as I was looking at it again tonight, I had a sudden urge to update it. And it just came. So it continues. :) Thank you to the people who emailed me in response to my request. I don't think I'll need the help anymore, but if I happen to, I'll know who to run to! And one more thing, for disclaimer purposes: I made up a war for this chapter.

Thank you for the reviews!

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When we get inside, I immediately reach for a shirt laying on the ground and hide it behind my back. Sasuke rolls his eyes. "Be glad it's not your underwear."

"What if it was my underwear?" I ask, curious.

"You'd be turning pink right now."

"No, I wouldn't!" I say, and heat rushes to my face anyway. We stand there for a while. "Umm…"

I walk over to the kitchen and pull out a chair. "Sit," I say. He remains standing. Sighing, I go to him, grab his hand, and lead him towards the table. His hand is cold, calloused at the palm. I push him down gently on the chair, then go over to the cupboards in search for food.

"What are you doing?" Sasuke asks.

"You didn't eat anything at Ichiraku, so I'm gonna make you eat here. You're too skinny."

"…"

When he doesn't respond, I look around. He is smiling, and I blink to make sure. Finally, after being certain of sincerity, I close my eyes in happiness and flash him my own smile. Then I turn to rummage through the cupboards again. When I find the ramen cups, I give a yell of "Aha!" and take out four to show him. "Pork, chicken, beef, or shrimp?" He is still smiling when he says, "Shrimp."

I grab a pot from underneath the sink, fill it with water, and place it on top of the stove. After setting the heat on high, I sit down at the table across from Sasuke. "Hard work, cooking ramen," I say, but my joke goes unattended.

"Do you feed all your friends ramen when they come over to your place?" Sasuke asks, and his smile is gone. Nevertheless, the word 'friend' doesn't escape my attention and I can't help but crack a smile before answering seriously, "No. Not really."

"Hm."

"You're the first," I say.

"Is that so."

We sit in silence, but it is no longer awkward. Maybe it's because I am at home, or maybe it's because I witnessed a smile. But for a reason I can't grasp, I am strangely relaxed. His presence - it seems peaceful this time. I think this strange all of a sudden. Was it not only a month ago we bared our fierce competition against each other, trying to climb up the trees? It was natural, then. Natural, yet chaotic.

Now, it is natural… and peaceful.

"Why do you sigh?" he asks, startling me.

I raise my eyes from the spot in space on which I was staring. "Me, sigh?"

He blinks in response, a Sasuke-esque affirmation.

"I don't know…" I say. "I was just thinking. Isn't it strange that we can sit here like this?"

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know, it seems so weird to me. It's like… Okay, you remember the Final Battle of Gairu?" The Final Battle of Gairu was the month-long battle that ended a war between Sand and Konoha more than forty years ago.

"Mm," he says.

"I heard once that at the full moon on the last month of the lunar calendar, ninjas on both parties ceased fight." I pause, lost in thought. "They ceased fight because it was the Annual Day of Praise." The Annual Day of Praise was a day in which all people were required to live peacefully – that is, no assassinations, no missions, and above all, no war. Of course there were members that did not adhere to such an idea, but most Hokages in that time period heavily enforced it.

"Isn't it strange how one day, people can be brutally killing each other… the next, be eating food in each others' presence, with weapons put snugly away… and then after that, killing each other again! The ninja who sat on the rock near you, chomping on his cheap rice cake, is once again your enemy. You're ordered to kill him! It's crazy!"

"Hn. It seems perfectly normal to me," Sasuke says, and I look at him as if he's the crazy one.

"How!"

"Humans feel little control when they get lost in the rules, in the devotion, in the long-term hate. They don't know why they fight anymore, but they believe they fight for something right. Or wrong, maybe, if evil rules their actions. But then again, as I said before… it's hard to say if there's a right way of thinking in the first place."

I find this answer unsettling. "You think that devotion causes you to lose yourself? Believing in something makes you lose yourself?"

"It happens all the time."

I shake my head. "No! It is different with them. It's because they lose sight of the goal! It doesn't happen all the time! If we believe we can reach our goals, we can reach our goals! You just can't lose sight of it. Otherwise you will lose yourself."

"Obsession will kill you," he says. Suddenly his face seems dark, and I can't help but wonder of the meaning to his words. He said once that he would kill…that man. I was oblivious to it, then, but now… I feel goosebumps on my arms.

"I will not lose myself," I say, staring straight at him. "And I won't let you, too."

He looks back at me, and doesn't say anything more.

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TBC