Gomen! This chapter has been coming along rather slow… I had a few assignments due and etc… well here is the next chapter! Have fun reading!!
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Naruto or Naruto Shippuuden, if you want to use any ideas feel free! But just tell me …
Recap:
"I'll help pack up the rest. I haven't done as much as everyone else." Sai said. Everyone paused at the door, stared, and then focused on getting food. Neji glared at Sai through over protective, suspicious narrowed eyes.
Silence then followed his exit.
"Ah…" Sai begun uncertainly.
"How have you been?" He followed up with. He was nervous, his heart pounded against his ribcage. Sealed emotions began to flow from it like raging water. The wall of ice around the muscle began to crack under the strain of the flood of feelings. The strong current caused the small opening in which his friends had begun to dig out, to widen. It worked at a faster pace than that of his friends. It was stronger, a deeper, warmer feeling.
"Uh… it has been a bit rocky, I've been graduated for about nine years… Just a year after you left."
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CHAPTER 5: a fake smile…
Her answer evoked the previously neglected feeling he had for the girl standing before him.
"I've … missed you?" Sai said uncertainly.
He had heard his fellow ANBU members say the seemingly simple phrase. When he asked Sakura and Naruto about missing someone…
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Naruto scratched his short blonde head.
"When someone you care about goes away… you… miss them," he said vaguely.
Sakura twitched and took Naruto's head between her chakra charged fists and grinded them against his temples.
"Missing someone literally means someone who holds a place in your heart goes away. So you don't see or hear of them for a while." She elaborated on Naruto's answer, leaving the yellow head to nurse his head.
"When you don't see them, it leaves a hole where they use to be and you feel uncomfortable, sad and perhaps lonely.
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'She also said it usually was just a thing that wasn't too deep, but that hurt nevertheless.' He thought.
Somehow, the missing feeling he harboured for HER ran deeper than what Sakura had told him. His heart felt as if it was frozen numb when they parted.
Yumeko smiled at his attempt.
"Me too, but I am not quite the person I was when you left." Of course by that she didn't mean anything in particular. But Sai took it differently.
"Oh…so… lets forget the past and those… feelings." He said as a half question. Both their hearts dropped, shattered. Both their pride got in the way of taking what they said back.
"I…ah…Hn" she confirmed with a nod. She looked away, to see anything but his face, to show the blood that was rushing to her eyes, the cruel redness enforcing tears. But no. She would not cry. Not in front of him. Not when she promised him, in this same room ten years ago.
She cleared her throat and forced herself to smile at him.
'A fake smile' Sai noted, something he knew all to well.
"Ano…what happened to you and Sakura-san?" she asked trying not to sound too interested.
"That was just something that's all over now, she was just trying to replace Sasuke, and I…" he clamped his mouth shut after the 'I', he wasn't going to tell her, not after that conversation they just had.
Yumeko decided to end the uncomfortable atmosphere. She could see he was reluctant to say whatever Sakura meant to him. And that fact stung, like salt on a fresh wound. But she was not the kind of person that would neglect Sakura after all this.
"Well its good to see you safe." With that she gave him a hug, which was returned without hesitation.
She breathed in his scent of oil paints. Diluted smells of metal, strong enough to be smelt, gentle enough to never cause you a headache. But behind the paint was his scent; it was sweeter than a peach blossom, to her at least. Yes it had been so long.
The two Konoha shinobi both knew the feelings that resided in their hearts for the other would never be forgotten, only suppressed. Their feelings shall be buried, lay untouched under blankets of snow and ice. Until spring comes again…
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"-Because it is always better to overestimate your opponents that underestimate them." Yumeko explained.
"Lets just pretend that he was so fast that you could not see him, and could not hear him before it was too late. This is with just normal eyes of course." She motioned towards the Hyuuga's.
"So I'm going to alter our training. The room will be submerged in Genjutsu. Please don't dispel it, or else I'm going to…cry…" she was going to say something else, but after that conversation with Sai and their long catch up session before dinner. She felt like crying, she just needed a good excuse.
The sun indicated it was the same time as yesterday, when they had sat in a circle in the center of the very same dojo room.
'She sounds so sullen.' Neji noted with his brotherly instincts.
They came up to the dojo to find Yumeko and Sai for dinner. They found them sitting together below the weapons. Kind of leaning on each other, to Neji's distaste. The two were so caught up that they hadn't noticed the rather large group's presence, which was slack for shinobi of their level and abilities. Bit Neji cut their catch up session short. His over protectiveness had cause his murder intent to flare.
He knew she could take care of herself no problem, especially against just one subordinate. I mean, she was sannin, Akatsuki leveled! Of course she could take Sai on. They were all below the legendary level, but not by much. And so it made them all the more surprised that Sasuke had killed Itachi, with Orochimaru's help.
"Gaara-sama. Onegai shimasu." She requested, nodding at the Kazekage. He replied with his own nod and sand begun pouring onto the wooden floors.
"Kokuangyou no Jutsu!"
And so Yumeko cast the room into a dark void. She then cast a silencing jutsu when she could hear people beginning their respective tasks.
She registered each of their chakra signatures.
'Each person despite having the same blue chakra, all have different patterns in which they flow and work, like a person's fingerprints, they are all unique.' She thought.
'They need to discover this for themselves, this can't be taught.'
One blue signature made their way to her.
"Naruto" she acknowledged without making a sound.
He stopped at her left arm and tapped out on her ANBU tattoo: 'Is this way of seeing people who use chakra what you wanted to show us?'
'Hai. Your time was one minute thirty four seconds.' She tapped back of his tattoo. Yumeko studied the flow of Hinata's chakra form.
'Byakugan. Hina-chan gets more of an advantage because she can see through this genjutsu. Although seeing chakra signatures not other than just chakra forms, she still is used to the concept.' She then flicked Naruto's Konoha tattoo in dismissal.
ANBU tattoos were designed to create a delicate, very sensitive spot in the center. This makes communicating easy in harsh conditions, you would still feel it is your arm was numb or in turmoil. Its sensitivity decreased the chance of misinterpreting a Morse code.
She saw Naruto's signature run back then pausing before dancing with another chakra signature.
'Hina-chan' she thought with a smile.
'A dozen more times for them then we'll finish for the day. After some details, I haven't filled 'nii-chan and Tenten-san in yet…' she made a mental note to her self as Naruto came back again after two minutes.
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After two hours, she stopped everyone. The circle reformed in the center of the room. She had lifted the silencing jutsu but had yet not lifted the genjutsu. Neji and Tenten came and sat down they had just been sparring as they usually did, except focusing on Neji's blind spot and disarming Tenten.
They always seemed to finish with a laughing Tenten pinned to the wall or the ground by a smirking Neji. Their conversation seemed to be behind them.
"Alright I have been thinking about teams. I have stuck with the four-man squadron template. I spent all night talking with Shikamaru to figure this plan out." A blond and two dark haired people winced at the 'all night' and the lack of a formal suffix on the end.
"We will travel in three squadrons, although it will be barely effective other than traveling. Meaning there is no need to sleep in your teams and or gather information in them. The first team will be the first line of defense and the locating team. The second is just a combat team and the third is a follow up and finish of the job team in case the first two teams can't handle the enemies."
"In team one, Naruto-san" the said person perked up.
"Hinata-" his cerulean eyes sparkled.
"Neji and Tenten-san" Smiles grazed the last two people's faces.
"You are the navigation, search team. Also perhaps with the strongest, under certain conditions. I tried to keep the teams as similar to the original three-man cells as possible, I made changes of course." Meaning Naruto and Hinata.
"team two, is the original three-nin cell of Shikamaru, Ino-san and Choji-san, with Temari-san. I wanted to make good use of your formation, well we did." Yumeko said looking as Shikamaru.
"Temari was put there on special request." She finished in a sly tone. Looking, this time, pointedly, at the brunette shinobi.
"Then team three, Sakura-san to be able to heal the wounded. Sai, old team mate. Kankuro-san, he looks KAWAII!" she squealed.
"And me." She added as a side note.
"We decided to put Sakura with the strongest, well under normal conditions." She said that not in a conceited fashion. She saw the pink-haired kunoichi wince.
"it is not because you are the weakest. We need you and your chakra for healing, not fighting. Your training with Sai has improved your stamina and chakra reserves, it should reach twice what it was in a few more days. As you know we have six more days. We need to make the most of it."
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Yumeko sat in her cobalt blue room, and leaned against her bed. She flicked through the profile folder she was given for this mission. She stopped at Sai. She fingered the photo in the top left corner.
'Ten years…' she thought.
'I thought I would comply perfectly with that accursed rule of been utterly stoic at all times, when you left. I really did… comply flawlessly for ten years. And now you step into my line of vision, still perfect, still the only person to bend me to your will…still the person I…' she shook her head to try and rid of her thoughts.
'No matter how hard you try, you always distracted me on missions, why would you? You were never there… but maybe that's why… because you were never there for me to be sure … of … everything…' she bit her lip. She savoured the warm metallic liquid. It soothed her, calmed her pulsing nerves.
'I need to check on the others. Everyone has feelings for another, it will only lead to death, I have to erase them… or at least suppress…' she decided
'For the time been…' she added as she remembered her own feelings.
'But as Shikamaru said: "its better seeing them and know you can be there than having them in another team where they become a constant distraction as you worry about their safety." And he's right…' she noted bitterly.
She flung her head back in frustration.
'No more, I need to see everyone and talk.'
She made her way to Shikamaru's room. she entered after knocking briefly. A few subordinates were asking for advice, but bowed and scurried out of the beige room once they spotted who had come in.
"Yumeko-sa-" Shikamaru acknowledged standing up. Then the very person he was addressing cut him off.
"-Chan or none at all." She insisted firmly.
"Shika-nii-chan. I wanted to talk to you." She paused, shooting needles through the wooden door at the subordinates listening from the stair well. They once again scurried off. Yumeko surveyed the damage, then sighed.
"what do you feel for her?" she asked bluntly. The abruptness of her question shocked him.
"Do you love her? Just as a friend of what?" she pushed on.
He opened and closed his mouth, his spikes tipping back and forth. She smiled at the sight.
"You don't need to tell me, it maybe better for me to remain oblivious, what I don't know won't hurt me. But it is a different case for you, it could hurt her, and everyone else…" Yes, they had discussed more than just teams last night.
She left him to think. Before she slipped out the door, she saw him get into his thinking position.
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To be continued…
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Yes I realize this is progressing rather slowly and I know you just want to go on the mission and find Sasuke and maybe bring him back. BUT! There is still more character interactions and getting to know people conversations and such to go through before they can go on the mission! And there maybe just a little bit of perverted-ness later on… maybe to the extent of a little lime but probably no lemon… this doesn't seem like that sort of fanfic to me so… yeah…
Oh and KIZUNA means bonds if you didn't know… well if I didn't mention it before. Onegai shimasu is the polite way to ask or help … kind of… and I think I should put a list of suffixes and terms:
-Sama more formal than calling someone –san, kind of like a lord –whatever- in English, very formal, but a little bit less formal that lord.
-San supposedly a polite formal suffix for older women but also used for men someone you don't know that well.
-Kun suffix for a boy that's a friend.
-Chan a suffix for a girl that's a friend, its less polite and more friendly than addressing someone as –san.
-NONE- the most important thing to note about this is it means you are close to that person, closer than chan or Kun, in other words, closer than having to be polite.
Yumeko calls Gaara 'Gaara-sama' because he is a kage. How well you know people and perhaps even how long or what kind of relationship two people have can be deducted from how two people address each other.
ANYWAY! Enough blabbing! As always, suggestions are VERY welcome!!
Please review!! I am a 'developing' author and so would appreciate comments and feed back!!
Arigato!!
Kawaii Kunoichi