A/N-Thanks to Emily-The-Elemental, Tiffanylicis and 'Kat' for reviewing Chapter 11. To Kat-I'm sorry for making you cry (sweatdrop)...I made my friend who doesn't cry about anything cry over that chapter when it was first written...sorry about that! With this posting, there will be a new one-shot in 'Pieces of an Altered Reality'. Just so you know. R&R
Disclaimer-I don't own Naruto
Chapter 12
In retrospect, when she looked back, she had only been knocked unconscious for about a minute or so. For, when she woke up…the member from Akatsuki was still held tightly within the Desert Coffin-being squished to death. The person was still only inches away from her and she struggled, wincing from her wound, away from him.
Abruptly, however, the screams stopped and silence rang in the stairwell. The body was dropped from the Desert Coffin, very unceremoniously, to the ground, several feet away from Mika. He was obviously dead.
Mika, however, wasn't paying any attention to him. Her thoughts and her eyes were trained at the bottom of the stairs. There was only one place where that much sand and…that possessive voice that sent shivers down her spine…could've come from.
Gaara. He was standing at the bottom of the stairwell looking up at the ninja's body, almost to avoid her eyes.
"Why are you here?" She wasn't one to beat around the bush so she wasn't going to do that now. "For some reason the vial broke. I sensed blood, I came. If I hadn't you'd be dead. Be grateful Yourusashi." 'Clan name again…does he really want to distance himself from the that much?' She quickly checked the vial that was supposed to be in her pocket, only to find shards of glass and several grains. The rest was on the ground where she had been thrown into the wall.
Ignoring, if only for now, the presence at the bottom of the stairs, she called up the stairs, to her friends. "Hey Michelle, can you toss down the scroll you will find in my backpack?" Michelle, almost robotically, searched through Mika's bag until she found a scroll that looked, mysteriously enough, like something out of Naruto. She brought it down to her friend who was in the middle of extracting the knife from her leg.
"There's only one way to do this…." Gasping in pain, Mika wrenched the knife out, causing Seyann (who was still upstairs and had a deep hatred of seeing blood) to yelp in shock. As soon as the kunai was out, Mika took the scroll from Michelle and, opening it up, began to heal her leg. "Sakura taught me some basic healing jutsu's. She said I have an affinity for getting hurt." Mika said, fake laughing, trying to ease the tension that existed now with her friends and herself.
Michelle didn't join in her laughter and, instead asked her friend, eyes on the Shinobi at the bottom of the stairs. When she finally managed to wrench her eyes away from Gaara, it was to bend over and whisper into Mika's ear. "The person that did that to you…told you that loving you was a mistake…was Gaara? The Sabaku no Gaara?" in a disbelieving voice.
The wound on her leg fully healed, she sighed and turned to her friend. "Listen, 'Chelle, I'll explain everything. I promise. Just…let me take care of something first. Go back upstairs and wait with Sey. Scream if something out of the ordinary happens."
After ensuring that Michelle returned upstairs, Mika turned and faced downstairs-and the person with whom she had to take care of something with. Walking down the stairs she didn't say a word until she was face to face with him. "How dare you come. After what you did to me." A statement. Not a question. "I answered that already. I sensed blood. So I came." He turned his jade eyes on her and, for a split second, Mika was sure she saw hurt in them.
"But why…." Unable to take the look in his eyes anymore, she looked over to the side and, evaluating what she had said to the enemy nin. Her eyes widened when she realized just what she had said in the heat of the moment and muttered, "How much did you hear?"
He placed a gentle hand on her chin and slowly, but firmly, rotated her head so that she faced him. Leaning down so that his face was inches from hers, he said in such a voice, that it sounded like he'd never been so sure of anything in his life. "Mika, I never said I didn't love you." Her eyes widened as they became fixed on his jade orbs.
"Then…why?" her voice broke. "Why would you do something like that…why would you…" 'Hurt me' was what Mika was going to say but she soon forgot about it when she felt his lips on hers. In fact, it was hard to think about anything with his lips on hers. Her arms went around his neck before she could stop herself, while he kissed her fiercely before backing up to their former distance of 3 inches, arms tight around her.
"I…had an argument with Shukaku last night. That foolish raccoon convinced me that if I stayed with you, enemies of mine, people who don't want me in Suna, would come after you to get to me. But then, this morning, you were…in so much pain when I said what I said. Pain to the point where you were struggling to defend yourself…I realized that hurting you the way I did only made you weaker. It put you in the danger that I had tried to get you out of." He pulled her closer and rested his head on top of hers-she could feel his chest vibrate as he spoke. "Please, please forgive me."
Mika pulled back-something extremely hard to do- to look in his eyes. She noted dryly that through this speech, he had remained characteristically stoic, but she somehow sensed that his words were true-how he felt was true. She leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on his lips. As she did this, she almost felt like...he was purring.
Suddenly a scream pierced the stairwell.
In an instant, Mika had a kunai out and was racing to the top of the stairs, Gaara right behind her. Michelle was sitting there, as was Seyann, and they watched the two come up. "What is it. Are you guys ok?" Said Mika in a panic. "You said scream if we saw something out of the ordinary….does the fact that we saw you kissing Gaara of the Desert count?" said Seyann with a smirk.
Mika gave her friend a hit over the head and walked over to Gaara, face upturned for a kiss. Breaking away, she said in an exasperated voice "No it doesn't. You guys scared me." Gaara leaned over and said in her ear "I can erase their memories now…" Mika looked over her shoulder and said, "No…I have a hunch…about them. But I'm not sure. I have to see Kakashi first and ask him about something." Gaara nodded. Mika continued "Just…so they don't think that the poutine they got from the Cafeteria was bad, get everyone to come here…and tell them to arrive in style." Gaara nodded once and was gone.
With that all said, the Kunoichi sat down with her friends and said, "So…what were we talking about before." The incredulous look that her friends gave her was only outdone by the incredulous look she herself had given the Shinobi of Konoha when she first found out that it was all real.
"What. Just. Happened. Mika." Said Seyann seriously. "Oh that? That was a fight with a Akatsuki member. Didn't I tell you?" Mika laughed nervously. "I found out last Friday that I'm a Kunoichi. I'm actually the last carrier of a very rare bloodline trait that wasn't mentioned on the show-the Yourusashi. I can turn anything into a metal weapon." She reached into her bag and pulled out a pen. Focusing her power, she turned it into a senbon needle.
"Wow." Was all Michelle could say. Seyann couldn't even say anything. It was during this silence that Mika sensed a tweak in the chakra levels of the stairwell. She stood up and leaned against the wall and said "Bring it on guys."
The first thing that happened was a windmill shuriken came up the staircase, flying at top speed. Just before it hit the brick wall with a dull 'thunk' smoke appeared and, with a poof, Naruto popped out of the shadow of the shuriken-as he had done in one of the fights with Zabuza and Haku- and he gave the thumbs up. He then leaned against the wall and waited.
Cherry blossoms began to randomly blow in the staircase. Enough of them swirling around finally formed a body and they fell away, revealing Sakura smiling sweetly. "A little something I perfected." She said.
Sasuke…. didn't really do anything. He just walked through the door and leaned against the wall, trademark Uchiha smirk on his face. Wait…trademark Sasuke grin on his face.
Sand flew in in a cloud and shaped Gaara's body in the corner leaning against the wall next to Naruto.
Finally, with a poof of silver smoke, the (appropriately enough) silver haired Jounin appeared, his eye closed, a smile obvious underneath his mask. Mika pushed herself off of the wall and, pulling a paper shuriken out of her pocket, she transformed it and went over to the other one, where everyone was.
It was like this-against one wall sat a shell-shocked Seyann and Michelle, staring at the opposite wall. At said opposite wall, stood 4 Shinobi and 2 Kunoichi. In the back, stood Kakashi, Gaara, Sasuke and Naruto with Sakura and Mika kneeling in the front.
Raising one hand, Kakashi smiled beneath his mask and said in a calm, cheerful voice, "Yo!"
A/N-Yeah…Here's Chapter 12. You'll find out exactly why Mika didn't want Gaara to erase the memories of her friends will be in the next chapter…but until them…I shall allow your minds to wander…and wander and wander.:) I'm evil.
But yeah….REVIEW!
