The Much Awaited Return of Mato Tsuki!

Chapter Three: Dancing in the Darkness! Find me by the sound of my voice!

As soon as she had finished three instant cups of ramen, the raven haired elite fell asleep yet again. Mato tended the fire and kept watch for the entire night.

The night passed rather un-eventfully, the only significant thing that happened was his cursed bloodline activated on its own again, and it took him an hour to supress the Kegaregan.

Huurin woke up around 7am to an empty camp. She heard the sounds of wood splintering and stood, walking with outstretched hands to the source. Mato saw her and managed to stop her before she walked over a steep edge, earning himself another lung full of elbow.

After realizing that it was again the person who had saved her, she apologised and tried to help him up, only to trip over a root and fall on him.

"I'm so sorry!" She said, attempting to stand, but stumbling a little.

"Its...Fine" Mato wheezed, steadying her.

He led her to the small clearing he had made in the forest and told her that she couldn't return to her village just yet.
She put up her fists in a defensive stance. "Why the hell not! Are you trying to kidnap me!" She yelled angrily, prompting Mato to clamp his hand over her mouth, which led her to again fill his lung with elbow and his nose with knuckles.

"Huurin...those...shinobi...went to the village...they will realize you did not go that way and come back this way...in about one day...please...do not alert them" Mato choked out, standing slowly and brushing himself off.

"How the hell do you expect me to believe you! I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO YOU ARE!" Huurin said, striking at the air viscously.

The thought of telling her his identity quickly vanished from his mind. Saved by a Tsuki had actually become a phrase in their village, meaning some form of bad luck had caused them harm. This option was quickly thrown out. Also he would have to knock her out or put some form of genjutsu on her so she wouldn't see his face. They had went to the academy together, but Mato had remained mostly silent and his voice had changed a little since then, but if she saw his face, he feared the worst.

"Stop yelling! They'll kill us if they see us and I don't think I can kill all of them by myself! Which means I have to teach you how to fight blindfolded!" Mato whispered, an undenieable urgency in his voice.

Since Mato regularly hid his eyes, he had become quite adept at functioning with no vision. In the forest clearing, after finally convincing her that he was trying to help, he started training her.

He taught her how to tell the difference between a human breath and a small gust of wind. How to tell which way a person was moving by the sounds their feet made. How to hear the direction of a speeding Shuriken.

Many, many hours later they moved into Hand-to-hand fighting (Huurin's specialty), and after many an ice pack for Mato, he pronounced her fit to the travel.

"Hehe...you take can take a punch quite well...say, I still don't know your name. Would you mind telling me it since you know mine?" The raven haired kunoichi asked, walking with Mato's help back to the camp.

"Well...er...Its..." Mato stammered, thinking of a quick lie. "they-erm...call me...Yuremaru!"

The Tenrikyo frowned and sighed. "Why don't you just tell me what your real name is?" she asked in a semi-irritated tone.

"I assure you Huurin-sama, that is my real name." Mato said, attempting to sound convincing.

"Oh really? Yuremaru of which clan?"

"Er...I'd rather not say... My clan is from a foreign village...I..er...was seperated from them a number of years ago, and grew up here!"

Please...Please believe that...Mato thought, waiting for her response.

"Eh, Whatever." Huurin said, sitting down by the campfire unassisted. Mato breathed a small sigh of relief.

"I just hope your not this rude when you take me back to my family" She added, laying down on her stomach on the make-shift bed Mato had made for her.

"Erm...well...we leave tomorrow, bright and early ok Huurin-sama?" Mato said, avoiding the question like it was an arrow with a poison tip.

"Please Yuremaru, call me Huurin-chan! I hate it when people treat me different just because my family is the ruling clan of the village!" Huurin said, rolling onto her side.

"Sorry Huurin-sama...I can't change" Mato said quietly. What he said was true, he felt that he could never talk to anyone like an equal. He knew he was hated in the village, and even when he disguised himself to do odd jobs, he still referred to everyone like they were his superiors, even small children, let alone the daughter of the leader of the entire village.

"What was that Yuremaru-kun?" the sleepy Tenrikyo said, rolling over on her other side.

"Nothing...you can sleep, I'll keep watch again" Mato said, staring into the fire.

"Are...you..." She fell asleep before she could finish the question.

Mato looked over at her and blushed a little. He almost felt like he was a normal person, something he pined for. He still didn't quite know why he was hated, because he had no one to ask. He thought it had something to do with his eyes, and how they changed. He figured he must have been some kind of a freak, and that the villager's were just intolerant. And he truly felt that the only reason that Huurin didn't hate him was the fact that she had no way of knowing who he was. But he felt some feeling of friendship, or what he imagined friendship to be like, when he trained with her today.

He shook the tought away and went back to staring at the fire until it started going out. The sun came up, and even after two sleepless days, Mato was still fully awake. He packed everything he could without waking his guest up. He put out the fire by smothering it so the smoke emitted was reduced greatly.

Just about a half an hour later, Huurin awoke, yawning widely and stretching. Today it would probably be ok for her to remove the eye bandages, but Mato told her to keep them on just to be safe. Well, partly just to be safe, and also partly to keep his identity secret.

They started out into the forest after a light breakfast and the first half of the day passed rather uneventfully. As soon as the sun started setting, they got a little more defensive. Defensive means that every poor squirrel that hopped onto a tree behind them, it got two shuriken thrown at it.

(Author's note: No Squirrels were harmed in the making of this fanfic. Although I saw one fall out of a tree today and just about laughed up a lung)

The band of ninja that had attacked them had arrived on the boarders of the Kage gakure no sato right when Mato predicted they would, and they quickly turned around. With no ransom child, they had no reason to be there, other than to meet a gruesome fate at the hands of the local ANBU squad. One of them was scouting ahead for enemy shinobi that were heading back to the village, when he spotted two youth's: one that was blindfolded, and one that had strange, glowing white eyes with no pupils and a curvy black box around his retina instead.

He recognised them as being the pair that had illuded them earlier and he hurriedly returned to his group with news of their good fortune. The regrouped and devised a plan: silently kill the boy, and quickly insert one of their members using a tranformation jutsu. This way she wouldn't try and fight back until it was too late. What they didn't count was the power of the Tsuki Bloodline.

The quickly surrounded the two of them, or what they thought was them. Tsuki Mato was terrible at taijutsu, and his ninjutsu capabilities were limited. But he fought on a nearly Kage level with genjutsu. His Kegaregan quickly noticed their assailants and he trapped them in a rather simple illusion. He tricked their minds into looking away for a split second, long enough for him to pick up Huurin and start running, while leaving an extra illusion of them standing still. The enemy ninja simply thought they were tired, and when they silently sprung from the shadows, the explosive tags he had left wrapped around kunai and shruriken exploded, sending the weapons into the bodies of the attackers. Three died instantly out of the band of five. One was injured enough to retreat and leave the rest of them, but the lucky last member had survived and hurried to take vengence on the two who had decieved them.

"What happened!" Huurin demanded as Mato continued sprinting with her in his arms.

"Enemy shinobi! I managed to trick them with an illusion, but I don't know how many survived the explosive trap I left." Mato explained as the village came into sight. Luckily he spotted a local Jounin on patrol.

Mato grew sad on the inside. He knew that the time he had with his almost-friend was up.

"Hey, Huurin-sama..." he spoke softly as they neared the gates. "Would you consider me...a friend?"

"Uh..that a strange question. But, yeah! You saved my life twice! And you like Shrimp flavored ramen! Your defidently someone that I would consider a friend!" The beautiful kunoici said sincerly.

A tear welled up in one of Mato's non-transformed eye. He hadn't cried since the day the Kumorikage had sent for him. But her words made him feel like he wasn't hated anymore. He shook his head and remembered what awaited him in the village.

"Then...I'm sorry about this" he said, placing a hand on her head and barraging it with a direct genjutsu, sending her into a deep sleep. Hopefully she wouldn't remember him when she awoke, but such things could never be certain.

He reached the Jounin and hid his face from her. "This is Huurin Tenrikyo...I didn't hurt her...she was temporarily blinded by a flashbomb, but she should be fine no---" he was stopped mid sentence by a spear sticking through his kidney as he handed over the unconscious teen to the female jounin. His attacker twisted the spear, making Mato roar in pain as the weapon was removed. "NOW DIE!" the spear-wielding ninja yelled, making a thrust for Mato's heart. He would never connect to his vital organs though, as several kunai pierced his skin, kunai volleyed by three other jounin that had been on patrol.

Blood pooled out of Mato as he was rushed to the medic tent. He had enough mental awareness to cover up his eyes with his forehead protector, hoping no one would recognise him.

The female jounin had passed the Tenrikyo youth to another on patrol jounin and was actually the one who carried him to the medic squad. She knew the wound was fatal, and wanted to try and save his life because he had saved her sister's life.

"Hurry up! We need to stop this bleeding first! Then we can start to repair his tissues!" The head medic yelled to his team. They all started working on the injured Tsuki, and truth be told, he might have been pronounced Dead on Arrival had they known his identity.

His disguise didn't fool Samui, the elder sister of Huurin. She could tell he was the infamous Tsuki of the village, and her knowledge of the clan's sins was overridden by the fact that he didn't drop her sister when he was impaled by the sharp spear. He flinched and a coughed up a little bit of blood, but the way he had been gently holding her never changed. He made sure that she was secured before turning to face his attacker. It was this dedication that convinced Samui that he not only wasn't lying, but that he deserved the chance to live.

After thirty minutes of constant chakra application, the bleeding finally stopped. They needed to rest however before they could repair his tissues. It was during this rest time that Mato went into shock. They did all that they could, but they couldn't bring him out of it with their shortage of chakra. His heartbeat ceased its regular 'thump thump' after five minutes of this...