Nascence

---

VII: Blood Swirled

---

Naruto was brooding.

Sakura could tell, even as she was just walking into the living room, from years of experience with the brooding type of guy; his blonde head was resting on his chin, shock of hair ruffled from multiple running-throughs of his own tanned fingers. He was sitting, slouched, on their old, beat-up black couch, tapping the leather seats with callused fingertips.

She shot a confused look at Sai, but the ink-user merely shrugged disinterestedly as he repacked supplies for the Suna mission, his movements slightly more sluggish than usual. I guess we're all kind of slow, Sakura reasoned mentally. Death puts a huge burden on everyone's shoulders.

Sighing, she moved from the portal doorway and sat next to Naruto on the couch, grasping his hand to keep his fingers from tapping. "Are you all right?"

Naruto frowned. "The elders say I can't go on the mission with you."

The green-eyed kunoichi nodded; she had become uncomfortably aware of that fact as she'd laid awake the last night, wondering how Naruto would take it. "I heard. You are Hokage, now, though. Your responsibilities are a little less concentrated, mission by mission. You're in charge of a country of shinobi. You can't be expected to help a team individually now, not when you have so much to do after Tsunade-shishou's death."

Naruto shook his head, blue eyes narrowed in a frown. "Sakura-chan, I'm worried for you. And don't," he added quickly, shooting her a look, "give me any of that strong-woman bullshit. You are in danger on this mission, now more so than ever because I'm not there to divide or distract this guy's attention away from only you."

Sakura frowned at him. "It's my job, Naruto, I can't just quit. If…" She hesitated, looking away slightly. "If anything, I feel even more justified in going there now… because of Tsunade-shishou." She looked up to him, glaring, although Naruto knew it was more to the murderer than himself. "He killed my 'mother' and two innocents already… and there's no telling who he'll get next. I mean, he obviously doesn't care who he goes through to get to whatever he's after And I'll be damned if it's you or me." She paused. "I… I just have to go. D'you understand that?"

He sighed and nodded, whiskered cheeks puckered slightly in discontent. "Yeah, I understand that. I just wish… I wish you were more careful, like you were when we were younger."

She poked him hard on the thigh, staring at him in half disbelief, half anger. "Naruto, if I was as careful now as I was back then, I wouldn't have that ANBU mask over there," she told him in a low voice. "God, Naruto, you're marrying Hinata! That kind of shows that everyone's grown substantially since our genin days, ne? Didn't you realize that? We have to deal with things like death and murder and… and what shinobi have to deal with every day! We're not little kids anymore."

Naruto stood from the couch, eyeing the Hokage's hat and robes that hung from the doorknob to his room with a thickened mixture of pride and anxiety.

"I know, Sakura-chan. It's just… sometimes, I wish we still were."

---

They ANBU squadron out before the sun had even risen.

It had, in fact, just been peeking from the trees, a pastel-yellow circle, when they'd taken off. And the group, short one member now, had gone as fast as humanly possible to get to their goal, reaching Suna by the time the sun was cresting the sand dunes in the other direction. Twelve hours, Sakura grumbled silently as she walked into the too-familiar bedroom with TenTen. Sighing, she flopped on the bed, shading her eyes from the sunlight pouring in the window with a lazy hand.

TenTen sat next to her, biting her lip as if trying to say something. "How are you feeling?" she asked carefully.

Sakura gave a one-shoulder shrug. "Not horrible. Not good."

The weapons master shook her head. "I'm sorry."

"We all are," Sakura said quietly. She hesitated. "TenTen?"

"Hm?"

"Is it terribly wrong that I want to kill him?"

Her companion's eyes creased in puzzlement, and TenTen pushed up her mask to show it. "What?"

"I want to kill whoever is behind this," Sakura repeated. There was a hollow note to her voice, a vibration that shouldn't have been there. "I've never felt such an uncontrollable hatred. It's like poison, getting worse and more violent every second."

TenTen turned fully towards her. "Sakura, I understand. But we have to take him in alive for questioning, if we get him."

Sakura tore her own mask off, as well. "I know. But… I don't know if I'll be able to control myself. There's this part of me that always screams to do the wrong thing… it gets angry so easily. And now…" She swallowed. "It's like I'm suffocating. I want to kill this man more than anything I've ever wanted in my life."

TenTen glanced at her with a concerned frown. "Sakura, I can give you a psycho-analysis if you think you need it."

She sighed and shook her head. "No. I know exactly what's wrong with me. I'm just worried I won't be able to control it."

Shikamaru's lazy knock was easily discerned. "Yare, yare, what are you two doing in there? We still have a mission, even with tragedy."

TenTen looked uneasily at the door, then back to Sakura. "Hold up a minute," she called. She faced Sakura squarely, dark eyes looking into light. "Are you sure you'll be okay? And I mean really okay, not just fake happy-go-lucky."

The pink-haired woman hesitated for a long time, and then nodded, pulling on her mask and tying it behind her head, hiding her face from view.

"I'll try my best."

And the two girls walked from the room.

The group faced Neji, all masks turned towards his, all faces hidden. The captain spoke quietly. "I realize we're tired from the trip, and emotionally wrung out from the late Godaime's funeral. But I also need you five to realize that we are on a mission, and it is just as dangerous-" his eyes flicked to Sakura, "-even more dangerous. We have to find this guy quickly." A muddled "hai" came from the group, and Neji stared at them. "Since it's late, the Kazekage has decreed this as guard duty. TenTen and Lee, you're stationed at the Kazekage's tower. Shikamaru, Sai, you're at the border with the other Suna jounin. And Sakura, you and I will be patrolling the streets."

TenTen gave an involuntary start, and Neji turned his head. "Yes?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. Just flinched." But inside, the wheels in her mind were turning. Why did Neji always discreetly match himself with Sakura? Sure, their specialties complimented each other, but why always her? He'd always done just as well fighting with her or Lee. And wouldn't Sakura rather be matched with Sai, a man that was like a brother to her, than with someone she'd only just started talking to about a week before?

What was Neji thinking?

What was going on in that genius mind of his?

And then, the answer hit her like the proverbial ton of bricks: Neji's in love with Haruno Sakura!

And then another: HOLY SHIT.

---

The first hour or so of patrol was done in absolute silence, something that bothered Neji greatly. It wasn't as if he didn't enjoy the quiet-- it was, actually, rather soothing to hear the desert winds soar above the city-- it was just that Sakura was never intentionally silent. Something (he had a good idea of what) was very wrong, and for some, inexplicable reason he wasn't sure he wanted to admit to himself, he was extremely concerned about it.

But what, he reasoned silently as they passed a locked-up store, can you say to someone whose loved one has died? 'I'm so sorry' doesn't sound nearly good enough. 'She's in a better place' didn't hold for someone of Sakura's nonreligious background. And he'd already said 'she lived a good life', but did anyone really want to be reminded of someone's life when they'd just lost it?

So what could he do?

And then he knew.

By some uncontrollable force, his hand inched to the right. It hesitated a moment, rational thought breaking through, and then that rational thought was immediately pushed back to the far corners of Neji's brain and he grabbed her hand.

He felt her stiffen slightly, but then relax her muscles, and she tightened her grip on his hand. One of his thumbs slowly stroked her knuckles, sending a series of silent messages: I'm here for you. We're all here for you. You're not alone in this.

Sakura turned her face to him, and in the glimmering moonlight he saw her mask shining, a beacon. "Arigatou," she muttered quietly.

He gave a little half-shrug. "What else could I do?"

She understood with a start that this was his way of comfort, and she smiled a little beneath the clean-cut hiding place of her mask. Maybe this thing she felt when she was with Neji could develop into something more… something better. Maybe it wasn't in her imagination-- maybe, just maybe, he felt it, too. And if so, what to do about it? Nothing now, she reminded herself, not during a mission. But maybe afterwards… back in Konoha…

And maybe not.

After all, the chances were slim to none that Neji felt the same way about her-- or, if he did, that he was brave enough to admit it.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Neji's hand on her arm. "Do you feel that?"

Sakura snapped to attention, tuning her senses by instinct. The desert wind, cold in the night, sent a chill down her spine as it sped through the streets. Store signs flapped and bells on doors rang out warnings. Behind her, a door slammed. She looked at her companion. "Aa."

"This isn't natural," he murmured. "A wind jutsu."

Sakura felt a sudden pain in her arm and looked down; there was a fresh cut on her right forearm, seeping blood. Her heart clenched. "There's chakra in it!"

Neji cursed as the wind built up in front of them with a rumbling sound. "This'll be a gust in a minute," he muttered. "Get behind a building, quickly! It'll tear us apart!"

The two ran frantically and ducked behind a ramen shop just as the gust tore through the empty streets. Slices of blue chakra, visible throughout the manmade windstorm, sliced through signs advertising sales; desert flowers blooming in the homes of Suna's people were decapitated, the buds falling to the ground and being whisked away violently by the wind. Sakura peered out from behind the building, shivering. "This is powerful," she murmured.

Neji said nothing, but his fists clenched.

He's here for Sakura.

The thought came unbidden, but with it a startling truth: Sakura was in danger. She was being targeted by this murderer.

And they were out in the open.

Cursing himself for his stupidity, Neji ducked his head out. The wind had stopped, leaving a trail of debris behind it. Slow footsteps came from in front of them, and a silhouette appeared, indistinguishable for the dust its wind jutsu had created.

But Sakura stood up from behind him. Turning to hush her, tell her to get down, Neji suddenly froze; her mouth was open, as if she was in a trance. "Oh my…" she whispered, her voice trailing off.

Neji grabbed her wrist harshly. "Sakura, stay here! Don't you dare move!"

Sakura shook off his wrist with no apparent effort and started running towards the figure in the smoke, frantically so, her arms pumping and her legs carrying her as fast as they could. Neji cursed and sprinted after her, trying to get to her before she got to the mysterious figure in the dust, but she would get there first… she'd gotten a head start…

Sakura stopped short about a foot from the familiar silhouette, her mouth open slightly, her hands lifting up as if to trace the outline. She waved away the dust impatiently when the figure's hand caught her wrist in a searing grip of steel; she exhaled in disbelief as the smoke cleared from around its face.

"Sasuke."

Neji nearly fell.

The man caught himself in time and activated his Byakugan almost at once, his heart pounding. There was no way. There was no way. And, with relief, he found what his thoughts told him to be true. "Sakura, it's a kage bunshin," he called. "A distraction, most likely. Get back!"

But Sakura didn't move.

She stood there, her wrist trapped by the clone-Sasuke, the fake Sasuke, that little frozen smile still on her lips, as if the whole thing were a mildly amusing joke. "I know," she answered Neji calmly. "He's here to fight me."

Neji's whole world turned upside-down and backside-front. He heard his blood thumping in his ears. "Sakura, no! Something--" He looked around wildly in an uncharacteristic panic attack. "Something's not right here!"

As if waking from a daze at his words, Sakura blinked. Her green eyes cleared from a previously foggy state, and she wrenched her hand from the fake Sasuke's grasp; she reared her arm back and punched the clone square in the face with such force she nearly lifted her lower body into the air.

It didn't disappear.

Neji's eyes widened, and he rushed to action, grabbing Sakura's wrist and forcing her backwards as Sasuke bodily lifted himself and moved with his katana, rushing to impale her. The point of the sword just touched her stomach. Sakura lifted her eyes, horrified, and backed into Neji. "What is he?"

The Hyuuga prodigy was, for once in his life, totally stumped. His mind whirled as he placed himself in front of his petal-haired partner, cogs and wheels turning by design. "He's a kage bunshin, but… powerful. Too powerful for a normal clone."

The fake Uchiha smirked, and his voice emerged, a low, deep rumble. "Just checking up on you, Sakura."

Behind him, Neji felt the Haruno kunoichi stiffen.

"I wanted to see if you'd gotten as strong as you'd hoped to be," the clone continued, eerily calm. "Tsunade's gotten weaker, I see."

Neji braced himself. Wrong thing to say.

But no amount of bracing could have prepared him for what came next.

With an inhuman roar, Sakura knocked the brown-haired captain over with a savage elbow to the arm; she leapt at the Sasuke clone with nothing short of murderous intent, fists raised in anticipation. The smirking fake twisted elegantly to avoid her killer punches and grasped her wrists, pulling them behind her back and forcing her in a kneel, putting her hands behind her back. "You remember this?" he cooed to her softly. "At the Chuunin Exams?"

Neji remembered. He remembered witnessing the Uchiha nearly pull off that poor Sound fool's arms, breaking them in numerous places with a savage delight that could hardly be seen without the urge to be physically sick. Sheer terror rising in him, Neji leapt to his feet, running towards the clone, hands outstretched for attack.

But Sakura was one step ahead of him; her replacement jutsu disappeared, and Sasuke was holding a broken signpost. The clone whirled just in time to put up his hands in a weak block to Sakura's midair kick, her green eyes darkened with… what is that? Neji wondered.

But as Sakura elegantly flipped from his hand and drew out three kunai, he realized it with a frozen horror:

Bloodlust.

Sakura was outlined in white, her limbs coated in black chakra as her fists flailed and legs lashed out. The two once-teammates were locked in a battle Neji could barely follow with his eyes-- Sakura's punches connected with nothing but air as Sasuke spun to avoid them, and his precise blows were lost to Sakura's wild parrying. Sakura let out a roar of frustration and punched the ground, blowing Sasuke into the air as the rocks exploded beneath him. Leaping into the air, Sakura twisted her body forcefully with kicks and punches, forcing the clone higher and higher into the air each time until he flipped direction and grasped her shoulders tight. The two went in a spiraling downwards motion, something Neji recognized as Lee's Lotus move.

His shoulders tightened and adrenaline coursed through his veins as he took off, pushing himself into Sakura in an awkward catch before the girl hit the ground with such force it probably would have broken her back.

Sakura fought against Neji's protective grip, her murderous intent never lessening. "I'll show you weak, you pathetic bastard!" she raged, kicking out as Neji held her. "LET GO OF ME!"

And then the steel-on-steel shing that came from Sasuke unsheathing his katana froze her blood in its tracks.

Charged with blue electricity and raging with the screams of a thousand birds, Sasuke's sword pointed menacingly at her chest. Out of surprise at the attack's rapidity, Neji dropped his hold, and Sakura sprang into action.

For a split second, Neji's world stopped.

She was heading straight for the sword.

She was going to run herself through.

"Sakura, STOP!"

She didn't stop.

Neji was already halfway towards her when she stretched her arms out, hands groping. They latched onto Sasuke's katana, the electricity charging up her arms, going down her torso to her legs. She grimaced in agony as the volts ripped through her. Neji grabbed her around the waist, feeling, for once in his life, helpless. "Sakura, let go! Let go, what are you doing, let GO!"

That's when he saw it.

The small current of water, evidently from a jutsu of some sort, was curling up her appendages, wrapping around her body, concentrating at her fists. Sasuke didn't seem to notice this, and he continued forcing electricity into her body. The sharp edges of the katana caused her gloves to split at the palms; blood leaked from the cuts. But still she would not let go.

Neji quickly formed hand signs, drawing water from the nearest well and wrapping it around his hands, once again holding Sakura tight. He felt a jolt of electricity as the cool liquid flowed from his skin to hers, mingling with her own bodily moisture. Her fists were coated in clear water, almost indistinguishable in the dim moonlight.

Sakura let out a little yelp of pain as the sword cut deeper, and Neji tightened his grip, whispering to her.

"Now."

As he leapt away, closing a tenketsu point from behind, Neji watched Sakura turn the katana around with a force and speed hardly befitting a kunoichi. Electricity danced across her water-coated fist, and she slammed it into Sasuke's stomach, making the clone's eyes go wide and cough with blood flying from its mouth and spattering the ground.

But it still stood.

Sakura was panting now, the bloodthirsty glow slowly dimming from her body, her eyes reflecting pain, loss, confusion. Her hands dripped blood. "What are you?" she muttered, horrified, backing up.

Sasuke's clone gave her a smirk that could freeze the blood; he sheathed his katana, holding her gaze. "The three tests have been passed."

Neji grabbed Sakura's shoulders, forcing her back, anger clouding his brain. Why, god damn it, hadn't he helped? "What the hell do you mean, the three tests?" he asked furiously.

The clone shifted his gaze to the moon, and then back to Sakura. It smiled slightly, an evil-looking smile that sent shivers up Neji's spine. "She's proved herself stronger physically," it said, "but mentally? She hasn't even begun to catch onto the trap I've made for her. The trap all of you are in right now."

Sakura froze. "A genjutsu?"

Sasuke chuckled mirthlessly. "That'd be the easiest answer, wouldn't it? But you of all people would know, Sakura, the easiest answer isn't the right one." He nodded to them. "I'll give you three days."

Neji stepped forward, confidence returning with the flood of confused anger roaring through his muscles, urging him to whip out his own katana and decapitate the Uchiha's clone right then and there. "You're in no position to be giving out orders, Uchiha," he snapped. "Three days for what?"

The clone reached into its shirt, and both Neji and Sakura automatically tensed. But the Sasuke-look-alike only drew out two photos, looking more than slightly amused, and threw them, face-down, on the broken ground. "To figure out my trap."

"And if we're not able to?" Sakura inquired, her voice stronger than she felt.

"What happened to those two Suna chuunin happens to all of you." He smirked. "Clock's ticking."

And then he was gone.

Quivering, Sakura clenched her fists and healed her hands, green chakra covering her fingers. She put a healed hand on Neji's arm to steady herself afterwards, trying to catch her breath. "God, it's like a bad horror film," she whispered with a shaky laugh.

But Neji was reaching for the photos, picking them up. He turned from Sakura and turned them over in his hand. Almost immediately, he pocketed them, turning his back to his partner. He felt bile well in his throat.

Sakura was beside him in a flash, frowning beneath her mask. "What were the photos?"

"Ah… nothing important. Some copies of the murdered chuunin," Neji answered quietly, distractedly.

Sakura frowned at him, but said nothing; instead, she turned to the spot the Sasuke doppelganger had vanished from. "It was a kage bunshin," she murmured, almost to herself, "so why didn't it disappear when I attacked it?"

"It wasn't an ordinary bunshin," Neji answered, turning to her. "Byakugan picked up traces of real, human chakra-- fearsome chakra-- living within the heart of the clone. It contains a part of a shinobi within it."

The rose-haired woman in front of him collapsed to the ground, sitting cross-legged on the rumbled earth and pushed up her mask. Neji noted with an increasing sense of worry that Sakura's face was pale and slick with cold sweat; she was shivering, though the night had gotten warmer after Sasuke's bunshin had passed through. "How could someone do that? Wouldn't that take a lot of energy?"

"An extreme amount," Neji agreed, nodding. "I'm not even sure that the shinobi chakra inside the clone was Sasuke's. It could have been anyone's. A bunshin is only a clone, after all-- anyone can make one of any person."

Sakura frowned, shaking her head, holding her fingers to her temples. "I don't understand. Why would Sasuke-- or whoever's behind this-- create a bunshin instead of approaching me directly? What's the point?"

Neji knelt by her, cupping her cheek with his hand. She looked up, slightly surprised, and noticed his mask was pushed back as hers was. His eyes showed pity and a shocking trace of warmth as he spoke to her quietly. "I don't know, Sakura. But for whatever reason, this clone is after you. It wants you to solve this trap we're in somehow. It wants you to figure all of this out. It wants this desperately enough that it would kill for it-- kill quite a lot for it."

Sakura's lower lip trembled. "No pressure," she whispered.

Neji scowled. "Sakura, this isn't the time to cry," he rebuked gently. "I have no intention of you working on this trap."

She looked up immediately, eyes alight with suspicion. "What?"

"I'll get Shikamaru on it immediately," he added.

"What, I'm not smart enough or something?" she hissed. "What's all this about? I thought this clone wanted me to solve it."

Neji frowned, pulling his hand back and stepping back as she stood on shaky legs. "There's no reason we have to listen to what the enemy tells us to do. Sakura, this is in your best interests. Look at you-- you're in a cold sweat, you're shaking. You've fainted once during this mission, and you've been getting paler and paler. This case is making you physically and mentally sick."

"I'm fine!" she protested hotly. "Who are you to call me sick? Last time I checked, I was the medic. And who says I'm mentally ill?"

The ANBU captain stood his ground, standing tall. "Sakura, I saw you. When you were fighting, you wanted nothing more than to kill that bunshin. Kill it. That's not like you, not at all. You were encased in black and white chakra; you had bloodlust in your eyes. That's not normal."

"Let me see the pictures, Neji."

Neji, taken aback, automatically answered with a: "No."

Suspicion grew in those jade eyes, and she glared at him. "Why?"

He hesitated. "You shouldn't see them."

"Neji-"

"Sakura, you're going mad! I'm not going to let you see pictures that could further that!"

"What's in them?" she shrieked. "I'm not going mad!"

In a rage, Neji tore the pictures from his pocket and shoved them in her face.

Sakura's heart dropped like a stone at the sight.

Tsunade. Decapitated. Lifeless hazel eyes.

Her mother.

The anger started up in her again, despite her exhaustion; she could feel the rage boiling in her blood like a snake's poison, squeezing her lungs and making her short of breath. She grabbed for the photos. "I'LL KILL HIM!"

Neji grabbed her wrist, putting the photos back in his pocket. "Haruno, you're out of line! You're going practically insane, and you're going home! I don't care if this is personally tied to your not, we are not having you become a casualty because you're mentally ill!"

Fury sparked in her tired green eyes as Sakura poked him hard in the chest, forcing him back a step or two. "Look here, Captain, I am not mentally ill. Naruto's gotten bloodlust before-"

"Naruto has a demon caged inside him. It's different!"

"SHUT UP!" she shouted, voice echoing throughout the empty city streets. "Naruto's not the only one with something else inside his mind! You don't-- you don't know what I am, you don't know what I think! You don't know me at all, you pompous prick, you only think you do!" She was breathing heavily, her chest heaving with every shout. Rage blinded her; every horrible thing she could ever say pooled in her throat and was on her lips with every second. "You don't know what kinds of pain I've had to go through, you don't know what losing a teammate, parents, and a surrogate mother-- you don't know what that's like! You-- you bastard! Fate, destiny… what good are those to me now? I hate it! I hate you!"

Neji watched her helplessly, watched her face contort in anger, watched spittle fly with all the fury she'd ever felt pouring from those desert-chapped lips like a frothing waterfall. "I hate that everyone I love dies! I hate that I have another self! I hate that I'm never quite as strong as I should be! I hate-- I hate that everything and everyone I touch seems to go wrong!" Tears caught the air as she shook her head, her mask hitting the ground and raising dust. Pink hair whipped from side to side, and Sakura clutched Neji's shirt like she had not two days before when hearing of Tsunade's death.

But this time, he didn't hold her.

And it broke her heart.

The tears poured rapidly now, down her cheeks, spilling onto her shirt like dissolving silver marbles. And she clutched at his unresponsive arms once, twice, three times-- willing for them to close around her and hold her tight and shoo her demons away. She moaned slightly and raked her fingers away from him, backing away, sniffing, sobbing. She looked up at his amazed face with glassy eyes and mussed hair, and she felt half-mad. "And I hate-" She choked, coughed, and looked up again, staring into his very soul… "I hate that I'm starting to fall in fucking love with you."

Neji's eyes widened considerably.

She shook her head, covering her eyes with her hand. "I don't want what happened to Sasuke and Tsunade-shishou to happen to you." Sakura took a ragged breath, looking up at him determinedly, a spark of something he didn't quite recognize in her eyes. "I don't want that to happen to you."

And she fell.

Instinctively, he caught her, her dead weight forcing him to his knees on the Suna streets. He gently cradled her head in his lap, taking off his shirt, drying her tearstained cheeks with it. Neji brushed the hair from her forehead and picked her mask from the dirt, cleaning it against the cloth of his ANBU shirt. And he looked at her agonized features, the corners of her eyes pricking with new tears in her unconscious state, and he realized he wouldn't be able to keep her off the case.

It would kill her if she didn't work on it more than it might if she did.

And he cared far too much to let her die.

Like she cared far too much to love him.

"Everything I touch seems to go wrong."

"I hate that I'm falling in love with you."

"I don't want that to happen to you."

Haruno Sakura, he realized, was not insane. She was not mentally ill. She was troubled with an inner persona, a raucously turbulent past, and regrets that would follow her for her whole life. She was a much stronger person than he thought to brave through all that with her perpetual smiling and joking and friendliness… And now, everything she ever feared and everything she ever wanted was all colliding into her with too much force for one person. It was so much to take, so much to take, everything was too much to take right now.

Neji felt a sudden and uncharacteristic uprising of tenderness come from a knot in his stomach he'd been trying to ignore for days now. He straightened her clothes and hung her mask round her neck, his fingers lying at her pulse for a little more than was friendly and appropriate. Her heart beat normally, her blood carrying oxygen and power and life to every corner of her body.

That life was in danger.

And Neji realized suddenly that he would do whatever he could to make sure it came out safely.

Smiling slightly despite the dire circumstances, Neji bent over, kissed her forehead, and waited for morning to come.

---

Author's Note: Whoo… this chapter's full of emotional complications, isn't it? Fun and challenging to write, though, I really enjoyed that…

And no. I know what you're thinking. It is not really Sasuke that's the bad criminal, but rather… well… it's complicated. You'll see towards the end.

So, three days left! Wonder if they'll make it in time…

--Dejeuner

(P.S.-- There's something wrong with my computer, and it's not letting me respond to your reviews. But I would like to say that I read them all, and that they're all greatly appreciated. I'm ecstatic all of you like this so much!)