A/N-A big thank you to all who reviewed Chapter 10, in no particular order-Kagime and the Owl, Emily-the-Elemental and Tiffanylicis. Yes, Gaara was an ASSHOLE last chapter but well…read. And Review. The review is important.

Disclaimer-I don't own.

Chapter 11

She sat on the school bus that, every day carted her to the place she called school.

A little piece of her was gone. Like…it had just shriveled up and blown away-she had absolutely no say in the matter.

She stared at the dull gray seat back in front of her and absently traced the patterns on it, thinking about other things. Namely a certain Sand ninja. Her eyes welled up with tears at the mere thought of him. One traced its way down her pale cheek. She furiously wiped it away as she replayed the scene that had occurred moments before she left.

FLASHBACK

She stood in her room, Gaara standing in front of her, his back facing her. "How….how could you do this to me? If last night truly meant nothing to you…if you're just leading me on…" she looked down and said softly but icily "Then you're no better than Uchiha."

He whirled on her and brought his face mere inches from her own. How she wished he would close the gap separating them and call what he had just done to her a joke. Instead he said in a sharp, cold voice "Shut up Yourusashi." He had called her by her clan name…

What did that mean?

He continued in that cold voice "Just forget it ever happened. It was…" he paused briefly then continued "A mistake. It was a mistake." He backed away from her and, once again, turned his back on her. Tossing something over his shoulder, he said (his normal stoic voice returning) "Don't forget to take this with you. Use it if something happens." The vial of sand landed neatly in her hand. She slipped it into her left pocket.

Turning around, she faced the door, a tear running down each cheek. As she left the room, Gaara sprinkled a little sand on the back of the sweater she was wearing. Maybe he hadn't known her that long but he figured he knew enough to know this-if she was angry, she would never summon him to help her.

Stubborn girl.

And that's something he loved about her.

END FLASHBACK

The first two classes of the day were a blur. If a teacher had asked her to recall anything-anything at all that had been said, she would've only stared blankly at said teacher, too depressed to do anything else. Fortunately the teachers noticed her somewhat lessened emotional state and, for the most part left her alone.

Then came lunch. The pain was still white hot and hurting like a deep wound.

She was the first one to the stairwell, where she waited for Seyann and Michelle. Her friends had gone down to the cafeteria for food, which left her alone to think. On a day like this, that was never a good thing. By the time her friends got there, she had sunk back into a crying state.

Sey and Chelle were shaken, to say the least. Mika hadn't even cried when she had broken two fingers at the beginning of the year. To see their normally strong friend crying like a baby unnerved them and they were quick to set down their food and go flank Mika, full of questions.

"I'll…explain." Mika hiccupped. "I've fallen in love with this guy…He told me he loved me last night but…when I talked to him this morning…something had changed." She buried her face in her arms so that only her glossy black hair showed. "He told me that telling me he loved me was a mistake." She said in a voice that was remarkably akin to a whisper.

Her two friends wrapped their arms in comfort around the girl as she continued sobbing, but it was Seyann who eventually noticed. "Hey Mika…you know you have sand all over your back…want me to brush it off?" When Mika nodded, she continued "What happened?" Quickly Mika made up an excuse-"A bottle of sand I have from Florida…it broke this morning over this sweater…I must not have gotten it all off."

The sadness that Mika felt melted away faster than a melting ice cream cone in the hot sun. Instead it was replaced by anger. 'How dare he try to keep tabs on me.'

Black rimmed eyes widened.

He couldn't sense her. And then, a message came through loud and clear. "Leave me alone Gaara. I have the sand vial, I don't need to be constantly monitored."

She allowed the last sand connecting her to him sift through her fingers, cutting him off from her…freedom. She turned to her friends and began chatting with them, attempting to ease her mind after a hard evening and morning.

A second. One measly second. This was all the time she was given to sense something abnormal before a thick smoke-like mist descended on the bottom of the staircase. 'Not here…don't attack me where my friends are…please anywhere but here.'

Seyann noticed the mist, however, before she could get them out of there. Standing up, she leaned over the railing and looked down at the bottom floor out of curiosity. "What's going on?" she said lazily.

"Sey…MOVE!" Mika leapt up from her spot the same instant she yelled the warning and tacked Seyann to the ground, away from the railing…as a loud 'Thunk' resounded in the stairway, causing everyone to look at the ceiling. Right where Seyann's head had been positioned…a kunai stuck out of the stucco.

Michelle sucked in her breath. "A kunai…?" she breathed. Getting up from her position on the floor, Mika whipped her hand into a pocket and pulled out a paper shuriken. Focusing her bloodline trait chakra on it, she turned it into a metal shuriken. She put it into her mouth delicately and preformed three hand seals. Ram. Snake. Tiger.

"KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!" she yelled. A week of training with Kakashi had paid off. Or maybe it was just because she was driven to protect her friends. Whatever the case, her chakra control was perfect. As were her shadow clones (2). Putting chakra into her feet to help herself balance, she leapt onto the railing.

Meanwhile, Michelle and Seyann were both staring at her. If Mika didn't know better, she would've said that their eyebrows were twitching in perfect unison.

"Ah…I'll explain when I'm done here." That being said, Mika whipped out a kunai from the holster beneath her pants and hurled it straight for the center of the mist. Her two clones leapt down and joined the fray. As soon as her kunai pierced the mist, however, it dissipated, leaving a tall pale ninja with back hair in the middle. He took care of her clones no problem. She leapt down to the level that was in between the two flights of stairs and waited for the nin to join her there.

When he did the first thing he said was "They were right." This caught Mika off guard. "What do you mean?" She queried. "Some members were spying on you when you saved your neighbors last night. And they were right. You fight a lot better when you're defending your friends." At the word 'member' Mika checked his forehead protector. It had the mist village symbol on it but the metal had a neat slash through it.

Akatsuki.

The black haired ninja turned his gazes to her two friends sitting at the top of the stairs. "So… it's one of you…" he muttered to himself, paying no attention to Mika-which was ticking said Kunoichi off. "Leave my friends alone. The fight is between us." The ninja turned back to her.

"If you heard that I'm such a fierce protector of my friends, then why attack me…where my friends are? You had to have known I'd want your life." Mika said, hazel eyes flashing. "Yes, about that. The ninja that we sent on recon in that area also noticed something…odd. Sabaku no Gaara…" the very name affected her, she couldn't contain a gasp. "Was kissing a black-haired girl last night. You are the only black-haired girl in that house. The same spies then noticed, this morning, that the same Sabaku no Gaara and the same black-haired girl…you…were in a fight."

"What's that got to do with anything." "Well…that got me thinking. You fight fierce when you're protecting your friends…but can you fight with a broken heart?"

Mika had heard enough. She hurled the shuriken she held in her hand straight at him. He dodged it easily and pulling out a kunai, aimed for Mika's blind spot. She couldn't dodge it easily enough and got a slight hair cut.

"You see…because your heart is broken…your reflexes aren't back up to speed. Kakashi should've taught you how to not feel. Otherwise you wouldn't be fighting so poorly right now. Observe this demonstration if you will, of your lack of speed." Before Mika could blink, a clone appeared behind her and, giving her a sharp kick in the back, sent her flying into the handrail. Her left side smashed into the wall, and she coughed, a little blood coming up. The clone vanished. "You didn't even sense that."

Sand filtered out of her pocket mingled with shards of glass and beads of blood from where the glass had cut her leg.

"So…why are your reflexes so slow? The reason for the fight this morning…was it because he doesn't love you? Or you realized that he can't love?" asked the Akatsuki member lazily, almost as if he were bored at how easy this fight was. "Shut. Up." Came the poisonous voice of the Yourusashi.

Sand exploded into the small alcove at the bottom of the stairs. As it cleared, a figure with piercing jade eyes could be made out.

"I beg your pardon?" Mika struggled to her feet from where she had been thrown. "I said shut up. I never want to hear those words again." Mika faced the enemy, standing proudly like…a ninja. "He can love-I know he can. I mean look, he loved his uncle before the betrayal didn't he?"

Eyes widened. They were talking about him.

"I guess…" she said continuing softly. "My problem is…" she stared the mist Akatsuki right in the eye. "My problem is that HE DOESN'T LOVE ME!" She yelled, yelling the only ways she had the courage to say as she did. "That's why I'm having problems fighting…I'm hurting."

"You have such faith in him." Said the ninja in a surprised voice. The sound of metal could be heard and the Mika cried out in pain.

The other ninja had been toying with her before now. Moving so fast that no one noticed him move, he had taken out a kunai and thrown it at Mika. Now with a weapon embedded in her leg, she couldn't move and she fell where she was. Walking up to her, the enemy nin took her by the hair and hoisted her to her feet.. "Too bad he's never going to see you alive again." He raised a kunai above his head and, amidst Michelle's and Seyann's screams; he said "Die."

His killing actions were interrupted a voice that said in a deadly calm but threatening (in an 'You're a dead man' kind of way) "Get your filthy hands off of her. DESERT FUNERAL!"

As the ninja's grasp on her hair loosened, she was allowed one glance at Gaara's livid face as he clenched his fist…before she succumbed to darkness when she hit her head.

A/N-I lied. The one-shot will come out after chapter 12. But it will come out. Oh and the hand seal pattern in this one-shot is actually the hand seal pattern for Kage Bunshin.

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Cool t-shirt I saw today-I know I'm not perfect…but I am Canadian. (close enough)