Anko-dono: Here's chapter 3! .

To: Shells() ---Thanks for the review! Yup, Sasuke is a jounin here.

New Author's Note: Minor changes made. :D

Konohamaru jumped up and down when he heard what Mitsuri sensei said. Beside him, Udon was cheering and Moegi was squealing happily. Although none of them succeeded in getting a bell, Mitsuri sensei told them to keep up cooperating with each other. They'd work on their skills and abilities next. So now they were official genins! They wouldn't have to be sent back to the academy. Yeah!

"You may eat lunch now," Mitsuri said. "They're hidden behind those logs."

Together the eighth unit ran screaming to get their food. Mitsuri had to smile. She was starting to like the three of them. The wind was picking up and instead of the usual early afternoon brightness, dark clouds gathered above them. Rain was threatening to come down any time now. Mitsuri gathered the kids and ordered them to sit under a large tree with outspread branches. She looked around for her partner and saw him still leaning against his tree. What does he think about anyway? Fighting the temptation to eavesdrop on his thoughts, Mitsuri squatted on the grass with the kids. She couldn't take her eyes off Sasuke though.

Sasuke had a feeling he was being watched. He turned to look at the kids eating and found Mitsuri staring at him with curiousity etched on her face. When she realized she was caught, she smiled widely then stuck out her tongue. Heh. Sasuke didn't know how to respond to that. His eyebrows met when an arm hooked with his.

Mitsuri giggled triumphantly. "Your senses sure do suck! You didn't notice me at all?"

As usual, he just grunted. Obviously his heart was beating faster because he was caught off guard and no other reason. He decided to ignore Mitsuri's insult and went on staring at the distance. A slap met his cheek, renewing the pain of his still-present bruise. He frowned at the smirking girl beside him. What the hell was that for?

"Don't you dare treat me as if I'm a tree! You're ignoring me, Sasuke," she spat out. "When you said we should pass the team, I thought you weren't so cold. Now I don't know what to think."

Cold? Cold certainly wasn't what he was feeling at the moment. Even when the rain started, his skin felt like it was sunburned. He couldn't deny the fact that he was attracted to Mitsuri. Was it only physical? He wasn't sure. In an almost childlike manner, but he was only actually curious, he asked her, "Am I really cold?"

It took five seconds for Mitsuri to recover from her surprise. She had not expected him to ask her that. In fact, she had not expected him to ask her anything. "I—you—well! In a way..." she finally said. She was relieved when he didn't ask a follow-up question to that. Her arm slipped from Sasuke's as she watched the rain swirl gracefully with the wind. Graceful... She was anything but graceful. Unlike her old teammate, Junko, she was rough and nosiy. And annoying. Disguising a sigh as a yawn, she sat on the grass, feeling tiny drops of rain on her face, arms and legs.

Not on purpose, she began to think about her family, whoever and wherever they were. It was too bad she didn't get to know or love them even for a while. Maybe it was for her own good, because if she had known them, she might be missing them right now. There was one person she missed though. Sandaime. He had given her her family name and made her stay with his family for a few years until she graduated. Then she lived on her own, with Kakashi sensei checking up on her regularly.

Sandaime had told her that someday, when she will get fully-developed as a ninja, they might find out what clan she was from. She was never really told, but she felt that there was a possibility of her belonging to a noble clan. She made sure to report to Tsunade every time there was a change in her. The time she told her about her mind-reading ability, Tsunade had said she sort of had a guess as to what clan she belonged to, but she wouldn't say until she was sure. Tsunade also made her promise to tell only those she trusted about such a dangerous ability. That knowledge dispensed would put her in danger of being targeted by the other hidden villages.

"What are you thinking about?" Sasuke spoke up, breaking her train of thought. He had silently sat beside her but he wasn't looking at her face.

"Nothing," Mitsuri answered cheerfully. Somehow she knew Sasuke didn't believe her. Unconsciously she touched the welt on her back and realized that she had forgotten to tend to it yesterday. She couldn't see it but she could feel it. Maybe love was like that.

----------

Moegi sighed. How incredibly romantic! Sasuke sensei and Mitsuri sensei sitting beside each other, underneath a tree, watching the rain together. With a dreamy smile, Moegi turned to Konohamaru and Udon. "Look at our senseis. Don't they look cute?"

"I guess so," Udon said. He was totally dense when it came to mushy topics like love.

"I like Mitsuri sensei better than Sasuke sensei's other friend," Konohamaru declared. "Do you remember her?"

"You mean Sakura?" asked Moegi.

"Yeah! She's such a bakemono to Naruto-nii-san!" Sandaime's grandson scowled.

"But didn't you say that boyfriends and girlfriends fight all the time?" Udon reminded his friend.

"She wasn't nii-san's girlfriend after all." Konohamaru threw a used chopstick to the targeted stone and crossed his arms. "She was obsessed with Sasuke."

"Where is she now?"

"I don't know. I hope she never shows up."

----------

"It looks bad." Sasuke caught sight of the rope mark from yesterday on Mitsuri's skin.

"Nah. It doesn't hurt much... I wonder when the rain's going to stop."

Sasuke dared to touch her bruised spot with his hand. He felt Mitsuri stiffen but he didn't remove his hand. She was just like him, she also felt strange when touched by another person. "You did not put ointment on it."

"Yeah," Mitsuri relaxed a bit. "I forgot. Anyway, it's too troublesome to apply medicine on it, because I can't see it unless there's a mirror behind me. I don't want to blob ointment everywhere."

"I'll do it for you," Sasuke said calmly, trying to pin-point the reason why he felt compelled to offer his help.

Mitsuri stared at him in wonder. Was he saying that because she called him cold a while ago? She didn't know him well enough to guess his reasons. "Why would you do that?"

"I just want to."

And that was that.

----------

Fusubi knocked on the door of his old teammate's apartment. It had almost been four years since he last saw her. He was going to visit Junko, too, but he wanted to see her first. "Mitsuri-chan, it's me." The door opened and the expression on Mitsuri's face was worth keeping in his long-term memory.

"Fusubi!" Mitsuri threw her arms around him happily. "What have you been up to? How come you're only showing up now? Come in!"

The two of them went to the living room with Mitsuri chatting faster than Fusubi could catch up. He halted when he saw that there was another person in the room.

"That's Sasuke, my teaching partner." Mitsuri made Fusubi take the seat across Sasuke. "Sasuke, this is Fusubi. He was my teammate."

"Sasuke... Uchiha Sasuke?" Fusubi wondered out loud. Then he noticed the medical kit on the coffee table. "What's this for? Who's wounded?"

"It's not really a wound," Mitsuri answered sheepishly. "Just a little—" Suddenly, she dropped to her knees, coughing and gasping at the same time. Her skin was so pale it seemed as though the blood was drained from her.

Enjoy! Lemme know what you think.