Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
XXX
"What are you thinking?" Ino said as we crossed the threshold into my room. I closed the door, not wanting our conversation to float out into the hallway.
I thought on it only briefly to have come to the conclusion that I wanted to know more about Sai's history. I only knew so much that was in the history books. Sai should know so much more, and hopefully I would be able to pull it out of him at some point.
Sasuke Uchiha. The name alone practically sent shivers down my spine. I remember his picture well, his dark hair was just a bit longer in the front than it was in the back, which had a spikier look to it. And his eyes, his eyes were a dark abyss that sucked me in. He was the most handsome hunter I'd ever seen.
When I was younger, I'd stare at that picture in my school book for hours, like a crazed girl in love. I hadn't been able to fully grasp the insane concept that I had a crush on a dead man.
I paced to my bookshelf, my fingers dancing across the familiar titles. I stopped when I got to the one at which I'd been looking.
The spine audibly cracked as I opened it, from years of sitting on the shelf without any action. The pages shuffles quickly under my fingers, my eyes scanning back and forth searching for the familiar picture I could see clearly in my mind.
I accidentally flipped past it by a few pages, so I quickly backtracked to the correct spot. Just as I remembered it, Sasuke Uchiha's picture stared up at me with unflinching brutality. His dark eyes captivating mine wholly.
I ran my fingers over his picture and rested them just to the left of the picture's caption.
Sasuke Uchiha. B. 1822. D. 1845. Cause of death: Killed alongside his parents by his brother, Itachi Uchiha.
I set the book down on my bed and Ino leaned over to take a look. She began reading aloud the passage I memorized long ago.
"One of the most gruesome hunter stories has to be that of the Uchiha clan. In the clan, there was a family of four: Fugaku Uchiha (B. 1805. D. 1857), Mikoto Uchiha (B. 1810. D. 1857), Itachi Uchiha (B. 1832. D. Unknown), and Sasuke Uchiha (B. 1837. D. 1857)."
She paused then in her reading, and I took that opportunity to look over the other pictures on the page. They were of the other members in the family. Fugaku, the strict looking father, Mikoto, the warm and caring looking mother, and Itachi, the stern looking older brother.
"Fugaku Uchiha of the Uchiha clan was a prominent hunter in Konoha. He married fellow hunter Mikoto and together they had two sons, Itachi and Sasuke. Itachi quickly went through the ranks of hunters, graduating from the Academy at the age of 14 and became a Hunter Captain at age 19.
"On June 2, 1857, Itachi came home late at night and murdered his family in their sleep. A witness watched Itachi leave through a top floor window that night, never to return to the village."
That's it. That's all there was. I didn't bother turning the page because I had gone over this so many times before.
Such a short passage. Such a small little blip in our history, and yet it was absolutely terrifying. No one knew why Itachi murdered them all, and it continued to affect hunter's minds. Ino included.
But, it was so long ago. The tale was practically on the cusp of turning into a ghost story young kids told around campfires to scare each other. Just on the cusp of turning into a legend really.
"And Sai is an Uchiha," I murmured. "No wonder he was reluctant to tell us his last name."
No doubt, when people heard his last name, they instantly shunned him. The cursed Uchiha clan, that's what they called it. A highly skilled clan, and one that has kept quiet ever since that fated hour.
I too found that I wanted to get away from Sai. But, I wanted to learn more. I wanted more information. I grew up with this story, as it utterly fascinated me. And yet, the dangerous enigma of the Uchiha name was a scary thing to face.
"I want to switch teams." Ino was biting her lip so hard I wouldn't be surprised if it started bleeding soon. "I'm not comfortable with this."
I let out a sigh. "I know you're scared, Ino. But, honestly, this happened such a long time ago. Nothing is going to happen because Sai is on our team."
"You don't know that," Ino countered. "For all we know, Itachi could be a vampire, lurking somewhere in the shadows. Looking to knock off the rest of his entire clan!"
My face scrunched in confusion. "But, that doesn't make any sense. None of his immediate family were bitten. They were killed mortally, no sign of immortal behavior whatsoever."
"You know what, fine!" She threw her hands up in exasperation. "If we get murdered in the middle of the night, I'm blaming you."
"So kind of you," I responded cheekily.
The night passed as we dropped the Uchiha subject to focus more on our mission. Hours and hours went by, and I committed all the details to memory even when Ino passed out at the foot of my bed sometime past one in the morning.
Ino's snore broke me from my focus, and I looked back at the textbook we'd put away earlier. I bit my bottom lip before rising from the bed to get the book. Rather than sitting back on my bed, possibly jostling Ino back awake, I sat cross legged on the floor.
My heart pounded in my chest as I flipped through the pages. When I got to the right one, my eyes rested on the figure of Sasuke and then his brother, Itachi.
Sasuke's position wasn't all that different from what mine is right now.
An older sibling with high prestige in the hunter community. Just a few years younger, trying to prove ourselves to the world that we weren't to be overlooked. Truth be told, I busted into the student records office at the Academy a few years back, specifically looking for Itachi and Sasuke's records.
When I found them, I was highly impressed. Those two had to be the best students that Konoha Academy had ever seen. With Itachi being the youngest ever graduate, Sasuke wasn't that far behind when he graduated at 18 years old, two year earlier than normal.
Their grades were flawless, teacher's raved about them in reports. The two literally had no bad marks during their time in school.
So what had made Itachi snap like that?
It felt stupid for me to keep doubting the idea that Itachi was a vampire, but for there to be no vampire attack evidence on his family members...Well, it just didn't add up.
Itachi was out on a mission before he murdered his family. It wasn't a very long mission either, so if Itachi was a vampire he would be a young vampire. Young vampires are highly irrational, barely able to sate their bloodlust. With the blood spilled in the room, Itachi would have lost it and started biting everyone in sight.
That made me think that there was no possible way he could have been a vampire. He would have gone on a killing spree throughout the entire village if that was the case, not just stopping with three murders.
No, it had to be something else. Something that no one had thought of yet.
I shook my head trying to get it clear, but it didn't work.
Flashes of Tsunade came to mind. What if that happened to us? What if Tsunade snapped one day and came home to kill mom and me. I shuddered at the thought, goosebumps lining my forearms.
I closed the book suddenly, putting it back into place on the shelf, unable to lock eyes with the dead any longer.
What felt like two seconds later, Ino was shaking my shoulder to wake me up.
"Hey there, sleepy. Wakey, wakey," she cooed.
The room was still a bit dark. Outside the window, I could see that the sky was just beginning its metamorphosis into daytime.
"Why'd you sleep against the wall like that?" Ino asked. "Weirdo."
My body was stiff from sleeping so long in a strange position. I got up and rubbed at my behind and shook out my legs and arms for good measure. Slowly, my body was waking up, my mind not too far behind.
My eyes wavered to the book on the shelf, the spine staring up at me in all of its literary innocence. My breath came out a bit shaky before I pushed my feet to move in the direction of my closet. I took out a new outfit, one made for easy movement, and then walked a few steps to my bedroom door. I grabbed the bag I'd packed yesterday and slung it over my shoulder. Inside were a couple changes of clothes, various weapons, and then some books on magic I wasn't sure I'd need.
Ino had her bag slung across her back, and she was in a new set of clothes, ready to embark on our mission.
As my hand touched the handle for the front door, a wave of excitement passed through me. I was finally doing it, finally taking the first step in proving myself a successful hunter. And nobody, not even Tsunade, was going to ruin this for me.
Well, I could hope…
The journey to Fumaren was pretty noisy. Naruto just wouldn't shut up, his constant babbling seemed to wear on everyone's nerves but Sai's. Even though he was an idiot, he knew not to overly piss off the three female hunters of the group, so he talked Sai's ear off for most of the trip.
My body had been trained in many physical ventures. Sprinting, fighting, sleeping on the ground, but what I wasn't prepared for was all the walking.
It started out great, but then after half the day went by my feet were starting to feel it. A slow ache spread from my heels to the middle of my feet and then the ache shot up my calves. I didn't dare say a word about it, not wanting to look weak at all.
Naruto had no problem voicing his complaints.
"We almost there?" he asked. "I don't know how much more walking I can take. Can't we find some horses or something? A wagon maybe?"
Tsunade gave him a reproachful look. "Your body needs to be ready for an attack at any moment. You need to do more exercising if you're tired after walking for a handful of hours."
"Yeah, yeah, but are we close?" He wasn't assuaged by her reprimand. Rather, he looked at her with a hint of aggravation.
I shrugged my bag off of one arm and slung it onto my stomach. I produced my map, zipped the bag back up and looped my arm through the strap once more. We all kept walking as I undid the map to look, Naruto walked over next to me to take a look as well.
"We started here at Konoha," I said, pointing to the dot that was our home. "This is where we need to go." Now my finger hovered over Fumaren. "I'd say that we're somewhere around here." I pointed at a spot in between the two dots. "We seem to be walking at a three miles an hour pace. After walking for six hours, we should have travelled 18 miles. Fumaren is forty miles from Konoha. We should get there by nightfall if we keep this pace."
Out of the corner of my eye, Tsunade nodded. I brushed off the shocked expression she wore at my deduction. What did she think I was doing all these years instead of studying my head off?
Naruto looked forlorn. "Aw, jeez. That's so far from now."
I smacked him in the back of his head. "Idiot. Stop complaining. This is what we signed up for, you know."
"Sakura, carry me." The way he said it was like a command, no joking in his voice whatsoever.
"Idiot!" I repeated my favorite name for him. "I don't care if you start crawling, I'm not carrying you."
Sai struck his arm out to the side just at the same time Tsunade reached for a stake strapped to her hip.
Naruto and I shut up, and I instantly tensed, grabbing my own dagger. My fingers wrapped around it tightly, my blood ran cold around the grip. Normally I loved the way a weapon felt in my hand, the way it made me feel confident. Right now, I did not feel that familiar feeling. I was anxious, eyes darting all around us.
It took my mind a few seconds to catch up with the adrenaline. It was midday, the sun was shining down on us. I thought it odd for Tsunade to have taken out a stake rather than a regular dagger. Vampires don't come out during the day, they'd burst into flames if they came in contact with it.
"Afternoon," came a dry voice out of nowhere.
My head snapped to the left, and there stood a man with dark auburn hair, tousled from the wind. There were shadows beneath his eyes, making his face sallow and tired looking. Though, his light blue eyes were very aware, scanning the group of us meticulously.
I shifted my weight to accommodate a new defensive position. He wasn't a vampire, but there was no doubt he exuded a strange aura. He wore loose, black pants tucked into worn boots, and a red cloak that he pushed more towards his back, exposing a white shirt and black, fingerless gloves on both his hands.
"Gaara," Tsunade breathed out a sigh of relief. She lowered her stake, putting it back into place beside her hip. Her legs took her a few paces closer to the strange man. "Been a while."
"This is an interesting sight for you, Tsunade," he crooned, the words coming off his tongue slowly. He measured a look over the rest of us again, this time I wanted to shiver as his eyes raked over my body.
She shrugged, indifferent. "Something new. Shaking things up." She turned to us then, pointing to each of us in turn. "This is Ino, Sai, Naruto, and my sister Sakura."
He tipped his head slightly, making a slight bow in welcome to us. "Sorry to have frightened you."
My body relaxed, but I retained the grip on my dagger. The others mimicked my motions as well, finding safety in Tsunade's knowledge of this man.
"Gaara is a warlock," Tsunade explained. "He has helped me in a couple missions actually."
I've never met a warlock before. The instant curiosity took over my body. I wanted to know more about him.
From the books I'd meticulously studied and the lectures from my teachers, I knew that warlocks and witches were powerful beings. Some went bad, rogue, performing more dark magic than good. There were plenty of those, however, that held good relations with hunters, helping them out occasionally like Tsunade had said.
"You still on your mission from Suna?" Tsunade asked.
Suna, most famous for its vast deserts. Now that was one place I never wanted to go to. I could live without all the sand getting in my shoes. No thank you.
"I'm tracking the pack of vampires heading west of here."
Curiosity finally got the better of me, and I found my voice. "Why are you tracking them?"
He looked at me briefly, just a flicker of his eyes. "They took something."
My eyebrows rose at that. "You won't say?"
His lips tightened into a thin line. "Correct." His gaze returned to Tsunade, recognizing her leadership over us. "I do not want word of what they have getting around. You understand."
She nodded. "How long have you been tracking them again?"
"Just about a week now."
No wonder the shadows under his eyes were so predominant.
"That's why you look like complete shit," Tsunade added to my thought without even knowing. "We're heading to Fumaren if you want company."
He was still for a moment before nodding, accepting her offer of companionship. She turned to us then, flashing us a bright, scheming smile. "Hope you're ready to run."
Beside me, Naruto whined. "Somebody needs to come up with a better way of getting to places," he grumbled.
Tsunade and Gaara led the pack of us, keeping a fast pace as we sped down the path. Eventually, the path pittered out and we were forced to take to the forest. We still moved quickly, though now we had to dodge trees and duck out of the way of stray branches looking to take us down.
I wanted to laugh when Naruto got a branch to the face, but I kept going, not wanting to be left behind.
From back here, I wasn't sure if Tsunade and Gaara were talking, and if they were it was done too quietly for me to hear anything anyway. I really wanted to know what item they took from him though. What could be so important that he didn't want others to know he no longer had it?
Or maybe it was the other way around. He didn't want others to know who had it. Maybe that made all the difference in the world. Perhaps the item was completely harmless in the hands of a mortal, but when a vampire had it, the item's ability became unlocked.
My mind occupied itself by going through a list of magical items. I came up blank though when I tried to think of ones only vampires could use. As far as I knew there weren't any that existed. Unless, this item was kept out of the books, completely off the record.
I stared at Gaara's back. How powerful was he to have a magical weapon not marked in any book? What magic was he capable of?
"Staring is rude," his dull voice rang out through the quiet forest.
A blush settled on my cheeks, making my face heat up. Tsunade gave a chuckle at my discomfort.
"Gaara has fantastic awareness of his surroundings," she explained smugly.
I glared at the back of her head in return. And then something stopped my glare, catching sight of the stake at her hip brought back an earlier confusion.
"How come you took out your stake back there, Tsunade?" I asked. "Vampires don't come out during the day."
Rather than insulting my need to ask a question, she remained quiet. Trees continued to blur past us as I awaited her response.
From her left, Gaara sent her a warning look. And then it clicked.
"That has something to do with the item that's been taken from you," I deduced out loud. But, could that mean that with the item, vampires could now come out during the day? How would that even be possible?
Gaara stopped running to stand in front of me, effectively halting my own momentum. I stopped just in time before smacking right into his chest.
"You are not to repeat any of that," he seethed through clenched teeth.
It took all my will power to stand straight, to not back away or grab for a weapon. Over his shoulder, Tsunade had halted to look back at us. Although at first I thought her glare was pointed at me, but it was actually directed at the back of Gaara's head.
I stored that reaction in the recesses of my mind to dissect later when there wasn't an angry warlock in front of me. His eyes were still boring into my own with such will that I thought he was trying to use hypnotic powers or something to drive the fact that I should be quiet on the matter through me.
Steeling myself, I answered. "I won't."
He seemed unsatisfied by my tone, but turned around after a few seconds regardless.
I glared at his back when he started his fast pace running again. This time, he bypassed Tsunade to run ahead of the group on his own.
Tsunade gave me a reproachful look before saying, "All right, let's get a move on. We're almost there."
Naruto cheered, but the sound of his joy could barely be heard by the roaring wind of my own thoughts. The second we were clear of this Gaara, Tsunade was going to answer my questions one way or another.