Previously on The longest year ever:
Sakura's on a coma, no one knows when she'll wake up, or even if she's going to.
Everyone is worried and wishing with all their hearts that she'll be alright.
Ryuusuke, Sasuke's inner, took possession of the body and hasn't let Sasuke out yet.
Sai did a painting with all his emotions in request of the kids, who want do to something for Sakura-nee-chan.
Kakashi has his mind filled with memories of his students' genin days.
Yamato tries to distract himself from his friend state by doing wood sculptures, which he will give to Sakura when she'll wake up.
The Suna siblings have a small problem with the grass nins that are attacking their borders. Temari makes a scene because she wants to see Sakura, Kankuro backs away from his sister, but is ready to kick some grass nin ass to be able to see their friend sooner.
Gaara stays composed, but worried.
In conclusion, everyone is worried, in his own way.
Konishiwa my beloved readers!! I'm so very sorry to update so late, but... school started 2 weeks ago and my senseis have been giving homework already... --'
plus... to make it worse, i've bneen having this major block... i'm serious people... i mean... i can't write anything, i have a few ideas, but when i start writing, it comes out too short and too crappy...
anyway, enough with the sad stories about the poor author that worked so hard to make this chpter.
i hope you all like it, i know it's a bit short, but hey! better short and now than big but in 2 weeks ne?? lol
Important: i've been thinking about changing the summary of my fic, but i'm out of ideas, if any of you have a proposition for a summary, please do tell me, it'd be of great help!!
Sai entered the kindergarten with a wrapped canvas, Sasuke watched as the artist nin set the canvas in a low table and unwrapped it, he had to admit (only to himself obviously) that the painting was… "Beautiful." Ryuusuke finished, still in possession of their body.
The kids started arriving and surrounding Sai, whose mood seemed to lighten around the gaki. "They're children, not gaki idiot." Ryuusuke remarked, Sasuke glared.
"Onii-chan." A shy voice was heard, he looked down to see Saya.
"What is it Saya-chan??" the girl showed him what she wanted to do for Sakura with a shy smile.
"Let's start working." Saya's smile widened as she started to work on her 'present' with Sasuke's help.
Chapter 10 – Paintings, Teddy bear and Help??
On the other side of the kindergarten, Sai was explaining some things, in the canvas he had painted, he had left some area around his painting for the kids to paint and draw their own creations for Sakura.
"You can draw, but no drawing over other peoples' drawings." The kids nodded and started drawing, one at the time, calmly.
Orochimaru walked calmly in the darkness, his eyes searching the girl he had seen previously.
After a while he found her sitting in the floor, drawing in the floor, people without faces.
"You seem to have forgotten a lot." He remarked in mild amusement, causing her to snap her head in his direction. He noticed she was ready to cry, her face held confusion and despair.
"What did you do to me??" she demanded.
"No child, what did you do to yourself." He corrected, she got up.
"Why can't I remember anything??" she screamed and lunged forward, her fists ready to hit him.
"Now now." He said calmly as he grabbed her wrist a mere cm away from his stomach. "I do not have the answer to that question." She stared up at him. "It never happened before." He added, more to himself than anything and looked down at her with a mischievous smile.
5 months had passed since he had came back to Konoha, today would be the last day he would work at the kindergarten. Sai had already left, the kids and him had made several paintings for Sakura, all of which were made only for her. As for himself, he had done something for Sakura with Saya.
"Onii-chan." He looked down at the girl with a questioning look. "Kaa-chan said I can't go visit Sakura-nee-chan just now." She said sadly. Her mother appeared behind her, the lady had raven black long hair and brown eyes, Saya really resembled her mother.
"Thank you for taking care of her." Sasuke stared at the woman smiling at him. "She usually stays all alone, but after you came…" the woman paused and took Saya in her arms. "She talks a lot about you, you seem like a nice person." Ryuusuke burst out laughing mentally, keeping the cool and composed façade of course.
"A nice person?? You're being way too flatered." Ryuusuke mocked, to which Sasuke merely shrugged.
"Saya has been talking a lot about giving Sakura-san something, but we will be going for a trip tonight, could you possibly give Sakura-san Saya's present?" Sasuke nodded lightly and took what Saya had done for Sakura.
"Sasu-onii-chan." He looked at the girl. "Thank you!!" the girl moved in her mothers arms and kissed his cheek.
The woman thanked him for taking care of Saya once more and then walked away, Saya kept waving at him until she was out of sight, before she disappeared completely he gave a curt wave.
Sasuke walked home with Saya's 'gift' and started preparing dinner quietly.
After he ate dinner, he settled in his room, sitting in the floor, Saya's 'gift' in front of him, it was a brown teddy bear with a blue ribbon around the neck, it's eyes were green, its fur was really soft. But this particular teddy bear was special because Saya had made it with his help, although it wasn't quite finished, Saya had started doing something on its stomach and it wasn't finished yet.
He took a few sewing things and started working on the teddy bear, for some reason he wanted it to be perfect.
"And if you report this to the Hokage I'll hunt you down." He said blankly to the ANBU, who had settled in his balcony.
"I can always use this to blackmail you." The ANBU joked and stared at the Uchiha. "This would sure ruin your badass reputation." The ANBU chuckled as Sasuke twitched, but kept working on the teddy bear.
The ANBU looked around to see the balcony door still broken, the glass still in the floor.
"He's really messed up inside." The ANBU sighed and sat over the railing observing the Uchiha, well aware that since the incident the week before, he had his chakra back.
Borders of the Wind country
The grass nins kept trying to invade Suna, but they were already being thrown out of the Wind country by Suna shinobi.
"Damn it." Kankuro cursed, he had been up for 48 hours, and his chakra was weak, he could only control 1 of his puppets by now. "Temari." He yelled, said girl looked at him while avoiding some poisoned senbon.
"I know, we have to get this over with." She yelled and sent a wave of powerful wind to the 3 ninja attacking her. "But they're too many." She avoided a round of kunai. "And we have too many poisoned shinobi." She growled as 2 grass-nins charged at her.
"Damn it, where's Gaara when we need him." Kankuro muttered while dodging some kicks and punches from 3 grass-nins.
"Temari-sama, we've been reduced to only 50." A ninja said, Temari groaned, they had sent 100 shinobi to stop the 200 nin grass-nin squad, but they hadn't been expecting a trap where most of their nins would be trapped and poisoned.
So now they were 50 against around 110.
"GAARA." Temari yelled in frustration, where was the all mighty Kazekage when needed??
As Temari lost her balance and was about to be stabbed in the chest by a poisoned kunai, a wave of Sand covered everyone. The Suna nins were brought to surface, while the grass nins were held within the sand.
"Is everyone there??" Everyone looked around counting to see if everyone was there.
"Everyone's here Kazekage-sama." A ninja said in relief.
"Finally." Both Temari and Kankuro said at the same time, breathing in relief, fighting the exhaustion.
From a sand platform above everyone, Garra made a hand seal.
"Sabaku Sousou." Muffled agony screams were heard for a second, until all sounds faded, the enemy was dead, crushed within the sand.
"Good work, take the injured to the hospital and rest." Gaara ordered while going to the ground.
"Took you long enough." Temari muttered as Gaara walked to his siblings.
"Please do not blame me, blame the council if you want, they kept blabbering about the economy when my shinobi were out here being massacred." Gaara shot back.
"Whatever, I want to go see Sakura." Temari stated, Gaara merely stared at her.
"I said everyone has to rest, that includes you 2 too."
"But…" Temari and Kankuro protested.
"No buts, it's an order." Gaara stated.
"Fine." His siblings muttered while pouting.
"Where are you going Teme??" Naruto asked Sai as they walked down the street, basically Naruto following Sai.
"Leave me alone Dickless." The artist nin muttered and turned to the left.
"You're going to Sakura-chan's house aren't you??" Sai slowed down for a second, but said nothing.
"You know she doesn't give the keys of her house, she didn't even let me borrow her keys." Naruto muttered, now walking side by side with Sai. Sai smirked and took a key from his pocket.
"You were saying Dickless??"
"No fair, she gave you the keys of her place??" Naruto said and then pouted. At least Naruto was good for something, he had made Sai forget about his grief for some moments.
Once in Sakura's apartment, Sai walked to the living room, still followed by Naruto.
"Wow, her place is immaculate." Naruto stated in awe at the very clean house.
"Yeah, painfully immaculate." Sai muttered, remembering Sakura threatening to break all of his bones if he didn't help her clean her apartment, which turned out to be him cleaning everything except the kitchen.
"You said something?"
"No." And Naruto didn't catch what he said, what a relief.
Sai took a scroll and in a pouf of smoke, multiple painting appeared in the living room.
"So many paintings." Naruto almost yelled.
"The kids asked me to make them and painted around what I did." Sai explained for no reason.
"Cool." Sai started to hang the paintings around the whole house, until only one was left, and Naruto was admiring it.
"This one is beautiful." He was admiring the first painting he had made since Sakura was in the hospital, the one he made with his emotions.
"Thanks." He murmured and took the painting, which had several drawings around it that the kids had made, and also messages from the kids, basically saying 'get better' and 'we like you very much'.
He opened the door to her room.
As Naruto entered Sakura's room he gaped, the walls were filled with paintings, big ones, small ones, square ones, round ones, paintings of every shape and size.
Sai took a few paintings of the wall in front of her bed and put them in the window wall, and then he put the painting he had recently made and put it where the others were.
"I never thought Sakura-chan would have so many paintings from famous people." Sai twitched and sweat dropped.
"I did them." He said as they left her room.
"What??"
"I did the paintings Dickless, all of them." Sai said in annoyance at Naruto's denseness.
"All of them??"
"Yes."
"Are you and Sakura-chan together??" Sai stared at Naruto with a void gaze.
"If we are or aren't, isn't of your business." Sai stated in a void tone, which didn't help to figure out if they were together or not. Conclusion, we still don't know if they have a relationship or not.
Night fell, and Uchiha Sasuke was trying to figure out how he could go to the hospital without anyone knowing, he walked to the balcony and saw the ANBU surveying him sitting in the railing of his balcony to his left.
"I have a deal for you." The ANBU stared at him.
"And what is that deal??"
"I'll give you this." He showed a roll of bills in his hand. "And you'll leave me alone until tomorrow morning." The ANBU stayed quiet for a while.
"What are you planning??"
"I'm not gonna leave the village, neither steal anything, nor doing anything you're thinking, I just want time for myself."
"Fine, I'll be back tomorrow at 6:30." He threw the roll of bills to the ANBU, who disappeared in a pouf of smoke.
After 10 minutes, Sasuke took the teddy bear he and Saya had made and walked to the hospital through the roofs, not wanting to be seen, he settled in a tree branch in front of Sakura's window.
She was still connected to the machines, Kakashi wasn't there anymore, Yamato was sleeping in a chair next to her bed.
He moved silently in the darkness, opened her window and slipped inside the room. Once inside, he half closed the window and walked closer, stopping next to her bed.
She looked so fragile like this, she looked weak, needing to be protected, she looked like when they were genin.
He just stared at her for a while, until the crushing felling in chest was too unbearable and he looked away.
He saw the empty table next to her bed and decided to put the teddy bear there. He turned back to her, how he wished she would just open her eyes so he could see her enticing green eyes again, but she wouldn't, and it was his fault.
He hesitantly touched her forehead, he remembered she was picked on by the other girls, said girls said her forehead was too big and were always mocking her.
He leaned down so his face was close to hers.
"Your forehead's fine." He whispered and leaned his face so their cheeks were touching, his face almost buried on her neck.
"I'm sorry Sakura." He whispered, his right hand cupping her cheek, his right cheek against her left one. "And… Arigato… for what you did." This time his 'thank you' had an explanation, she deserved as much.
Yamato woke up from his light slumber to the sound of light shuffling, but when he looked around, there was no one there, only the window was open. He got up and closed the window. When he sat back down, he noticed the teddy bear on the table.
"Who was here?" he asked himself but soon fell back in a light slumber, keeping company to his friend.
The girl in the darkness stared at the snake sannin, tears at the rims of her eyes, he was still holding her wrist.
"What's happening to me??" she asked and swallowed a sob.
"I told you already child, I do not know." He could see and feel her despair.
"Where am I??"
"You are where you want to be." He let go of her wrist and walked to where she had been drawing.
"What do you mean where I want to be??"
"You are in your mind child." He looked back at her and then at the drawings in the floor.
"My… mind…??"
"Yes, your mind."
"Then why are you here?? I don't want you here." He bent down, still looking at the drawings.
"I'm in your mind because of the seal you acquired." He stated as if it were nothing.
"Seal?? What seal??" now she was getting even more freaked out.
"Look at your right arm." She lifted her right arm and saw a dragon shaped black mark going from her elbow to the back of her hand. Some tears started falling down her cheeks.
"Why??" she asked shakily, her eyes fixated on the mark in her arm. "And how can you be here??"
"In each of my seals I left a bit of my soul." He got up and looked at her. "But there is only one piece of my soul left, so I can not resurrect even if I wanted to." Somehow that piece of information relieved her a little, not much though.
"I can try to help you." She stared at him.
"Help me??"
"I have nothing else to do, I can't even control a body anymore, I can only control the seal."
"Help me??" she repeated, Orochimaru was going to help her? "And how are you going to help me??" he smiled mischievously.
"I'll show you something."
It was hard to see everyone so depressed, during the visit hour Sakura had had a lot of visitors.
Lee had stayed a few minutes and left a white daffodil for her, Neji and Tenten had stayed longer than Lee, then Ino, Shikamaru and Chouji had come, Ino had left a bouquet of cherry blossoms, and Shikamaru had left something that had confused everyone, he had left a piece of shoji in her bedside table.
After them came Kurenai-sensei with Hinata followed by Shino and Kiba, they had stayed for a while, Akamaru had also came and had settled next to Sakura's bed. Hinata and Kurenai-sensei had left a small bouquet of forest flowers they had caught.
Then came Kakashi and Yamato, who left after a while due to having missions to go on.
Then came Naruto and Sai, who only sat quietly looking over the lying pink haired girl.
Tsunade saw them all, they seemed really worried, all of them.
"Do you have any idea of who gave that teddy bear to Sakura-chan??" Sai loked to where Naruto was pointing and saw the brown teddy bear with a blue ribbon on the neck and some embroideries on the belly area.
"No." He knew who had gave it to her, he had seen him doing it with Saya in the kindergarten, he just didn't feel like telling Naruto it had been Sasuke.
The 2 team-mates stayed in the room until night came, Naruto left saying he had a mission the next day, but Sai stayed, he wouldn't leave her all alone again, he couldn't, if he did he would be betraying her, and he couldn't do that, not after she did so much for him, not after she was the only one to believe him.
Sasuke couldn't stop thinking about Sakura, he just couldn't. Ryuusuke had let him out from the back of his mind, but not before telling him that if he screwed up again he would be taking care of their body for a lot longer.
He looked outside and saw the ANBU on a tree, they didn't really hid themselves from him. He took a roll of money and threw it at the ANBU.
"3 hours." He told the man, who just shrugged, pocketed the money and disappeared.
He jumped from roof top to roof top until he reached the hospital, specifically, until he was in front of Sakura's window. He could see her, and he would have entered the room again if it wasn't for the teen leaning against the window frame, his back turned to the outside while the window open. Sasuke got a little closer and from the angle he was he could see Sai sketch with a pencil. He got a little closer so he could see the drawing, and what he saw made his heart ache.
Sai was drawing Sakura sitting on bed, her back facing him, her head turned so she was facing him, a beautiful smile on her lips, but what made Sasuke's heart ache was the fact that in the drawing Sakura was only covering herself with a bed sheet.
"Spying on other people's work is not polite." Sai spoke, without stopping the movements he was doing with the pencil.
"And she wasn't naked." He added as a reflection. "She was just…" he trailed off and started adding some details to the drawing, like adding light effects on her skin and hair and adding the traits of a bikini bra in her back.
With the information that she wasn't naked, Sasuke was relived.
"You may have had done nothing wrong." Sasuke got curious at Sai's words. "But if you actually did something to put her like this." Sai glanced over his shoulder at Sasuke. "You'll have hell to pay Uchiha." Sai hissed dangerously, the glare he was sending made the hairs of the back of Sasuke's neck stand up.
Sai closed the window and closed his sketchbook. Sasuke watching him as he walked to Sakura's bed and sat down on the wooden chair next to it, his hand brushing some strands of pink hair away from her face and staying in her hair, playing softly with it between his fingers.
The girl in the darkness stared at the pale man in fear.
"What are you going to do??" she asked while backing away, the man merely smiled and, in a swift movement, was in front of her, holding her down, a hand settled on her forehead.
"I told you already child, I am going to help you." He chuckled darkly as her body shook in fear.
So?? was it good?? please review and give me your opinions, i love reviews in my mail box, they make me very happy!!
i'll work very hard to make the next chapter soon, i promise, but i have to deal with school, homework... well... i bet many of you know what i mean...
please be patient and don't be mean to me, i try my hardest!!
and what about that, Orochimaru is offering his help, but are his intentions good ones?? And are Sai and Sakura really in a heated relationship??
find out in the next chapters of... The longest year ever!!
luv ya all, Kaori-chan!!