Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or any of the canon characters. All I own right now is Caruh and any other OC's, courtesy of SamuraiKai.
It was only about three minutes after they had left that I realized something: I was bored. A couch, even an apartment, wasn't enough to amuse me for long. In that three minutes I had turned on the TV, realized I was not in the mood to watch TV, turned it off, wandered the place and got familiar with it, sat back down and turned the TV on and off again. That was when I had made my monumental discovery.
As far as I was concerned I needed to go find interesting things to do, or at least an interesting thing to do. Going to the market was out of the question, I had no money. Well, none of their money. I had $11.46, but that was American money, and not going to do me any good. I could wander and get acquainted with my new town, but that seemed silly as all I could do was wander and I felt out of place still.
Then it hit me, and I wondered how I could possibly be so stupid. I mean, really, safety or not, how did the idea of following Kakashi and Naruto not enter my head until then? Five perfectly good minutes of my life wasted, and I was not about to lose another one. Quickly, I ran out the door, asked the person nearest to me which way they had gone, and followed their directions. I saw them not long after, waiting by the northern gate; exactly where the person I had asked said they would be.
Funny thing, after a moment of thinking about it, I realized that I had never heard of such a mission as the one they appeared to be going on. Kakashi would kill me if he realized what I was doing, but it was worth it to figure out what was going on and maybe learn something interesting in the process. So sue me, I was not about to let them have all the fun even if all I knew was taijutsu.
I ran up to them, knowing I would not be able to trail them silently. Kakashi, as expected, glanced at me and glared.
"What do you think you're doing?" he asked, not happy to see me there.
"Going with you."
"Oh no you're not."
"Stop me," I demanded, which was a stupid thing to do. Next thing I knew, everything was black again. Arguing with a jounin wasn't the smartest thing I had ever attempted, but don't think that meant I was down for the count. My stamina kicked in about three minutes later, as he had not hit my pressure point very hard, and I sat up quickly. I was annoyed to realize that they had left without me, especially once I realized I had only been unconscious for such a short amount of time.
In that case, I was going to go find my own adventure. I decided to walk towards the southern gate, and was pleasantly surprised when I caught the guards talking while switching shifts. The perfect time to get out and I took it. Just had to wait for another switch in shifts to get back in now. Hopefully I did not die in the meantime.
In the forests beyond Konohagakure, I found plenty of animals to wrestle with, but nothing of too much interest. Not until I was heading back a few hours later anyways.
I guess you would not believe that I actually did get ambushed by ninjas on my way back. Three to be exact, all of them Sound ninjas. These were the three that worked for Orochimaru, and me all alone with my sand hitae-ate. That explained why they attacked, but not how capable I was of fighting back.
When Zaku Abumi ran at me, I seriously just jumped away from him. What other choice did I have? I was not about to get blasted by sound waves, I wasn't suicidal. Then the fight took a voluble turn for the worse.
Dosu Kinuta lunged at me from behind, and I wasn't fast enough. He tackled me to the ground and left me, basically, defenseless. Kin Tsuchi stepped forward, looking me dead in the eyes, and then laughed.
"Dosu, she has no chakra," she mocked.
He corrected her quickly, "She has a lot, an unusual amount in fact, but no connection to it."
"Yeah, yeah," Zaku muttered, walking over and hovering above me. "So, what do we do with her?"
I struggled in Dosu's arms, trying to pull away but to no avail. "How about, absolutely nothing!" I shouted above their talk, and they all looked at me. Rather uncomfortable I have to say. "I mean," I adjusted, "you could just mosey on into the Leaf Village and prepare for the Chuunin Exams like everyone else…?"
"You're funny," Kin laughed, and then she squatted beside me. I turned my head to look into her eyes, and she… well, just continued to stare. "As long as you're out here, without your team, little Sand Ninja, you're all ours. Less competition."
Put that way, it made sense, but still of the numerous roles I did not like to play, innocent victim was high up on that list. Her words only managed one thing, to rile me into a fight. Which was probably exactly what they wanted. With a well-placed kick, I swung Dosu off of me and a few feet away, before going into a back handspring and flipping to my feet a few feet in the opposite direction.
They gave me odd glances, but I stood my ground as Kin took the next attack. She was fast, but admittedly I knew all of their abilities already. It would have helped more if I had known their weaknesses as well. The only one I did know the weakness of was Zaku, and breaking his arms was not going to work. I couldn't get close enough to him if I wanted to, and really, how could I deny Sasuke such a treat? Though, he did get the curse seal. I sigh, tradeoffs.
This left me with basically two options. Fight or flee, the basic instincts. My flee drive had been off for a while now though, so I was here to stay, at least until the fight was done. As she got close, I lunged towards her, prepared for the worst. She was caught off-guard and only dodged, leaving me to trip and land straight in the arms of Zaku. A blast of noise made my ears and nose begin to bleed. It was not stopping, and I was getting desperate. My body was losing control, and the next thing I knew I was on my knees.
Shutting my eyes tightly, I concentrated. Really, I was losing consciousness and my nerve, things were bad. Then, suddenly, it stopped and I was not in agonizing pain anymore. Talk about a fairy tale ending.
I stood up, and noticed that there were little sparks of light at my finger-tips. My chakra has never done that since, and I can only guess it was because I had just unlocked it. I had no idea how to use it though, so it did me no good. All I managed was an instinctual blocking of the noise that was bothering my ears and the rest of my body. Only later did I realize that this was not a normal accomplishment.
Anyway, I had done enough to get them off of my back for a while. Not that it was a happy parting, for me anyways.
"Poor weakling," Zaku laughed, walking past me. And Kin Tsuchi merely laughed while walking away. The only one that paid me any decent amount of respect, not that I really deserved it as I was pathetic at that point, was Dosu and all he did was nod. Then he left with them.
A few hours later, after waiting out the guard shift, I walked back into Kakashi's apartment, and he was sitting on the couch, glaring at me. "And where have you been, young lady?"
"Sorry daddy," I muttered irritatedly, wanting to glare. "Forgive me for staying out past curfew."
"Not amusing," was all he said in response, and I did not bother to give him the time of day by looking at him.
"So, she's the one?" a different voice broke-in. I looked over and saw another figure by Kakashi, not taking their eyes from me. The figure was hidden in shadows however, so I couldn't make out facial features. All I had to go by was a voice, which I recognized but could not seem to place. Then Kakashi answered.
"Yes, my niece."
"I see," came the feminine voice. Standing, the figure walked over to me, and I sighed. Depressing though it was, Sakura was the one standing before me. I wanted to cry, how did I not recognize her in all of this? I had thought I was good with this anime.
Then again, I only rarely watched the anime as I preferred the manga. With that in mind, it wasn't too much of a surprise I didn't know voices very well. Sakura's I should have known though, that should have been so obvious.
"Nice to meet you," she smiled, holding out a hand.
I shook it, and looked at Kakashi. "I feel the same," was my only response. I did not take my eyes off of Kakashi however.
"There is something I need you to see, Caruh," he said, and walked out of the house, obviously wanting us to follow. We did, and he led us to the edge of the village where I had followed them that morning. "Our mission," he stated, pointing. I looked over and on the grounds in chains was... Haku.
The stress of the day was too much, and I thought I was hallucinating. All I could think was, "Wha-?"
Hey guys! I'm sorry, I know this update is long overdue! The last couple of weeks have been very trying for me though and I haven't had a free moment since I last updated. T.T Please forgive me!
To make up for my horrible attention span and the fact I'm two weeks late posting this chapter, I will post two tonight. I have Chapter 4 edited already too so all I have to do is click ADD and it's there! Do you love me again? ^^ I hope so!
Arigato, minna-san! Ja!