AN: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters or settings. I can't quite remember who to give credit to, but the only thing that I made up is Karinami Iruzika and everything having to do with her, including Roka and her lineage. For some reason, I made it so that the characters are 15-16 years old but…they're still Genin. NO they aren't dumb. I just made it that way—Dattebayo! Also, some of the people may be a little out of character. I am not an expert on Naruto. The end.

*Karinami's POV*

By the time 8 a.m. came along, I'd thoroughly memorized every pattern on every ceiling tile in the hospital room. The word 'bored' doesn't even begin to cover my emotions—or lack thereof—while I was there. I was so ready to get out of there and do something, no matter how much it hurt to move. I'd rather be listening to one of Roka's sensei-y rants about chakra for the ten billionth time.

I was finally able to down breakfast today, thankfully, which made the doctor ecstatic. At about 10:30 in the morning, a Chunin medical corps assistant came in and asked me if I would be able to stand a visitor or two. I nearly died.

"Able to stand? Heck yeah! I'm bored out of my mind!"

The assistant chuckled and mumbled something about youthful energy, then disappeared for a couple of minutes. He reappeared with Lee, Tenten, and Neji, all who had apparently arrived back sometime early this morning. All had darkish circles under their eyes but were otherwise unharmed.

"Hey! Kari! Heard you got pretty banged up on your mission, eh?" Tenten chuckled. "I mean come on, why do you get to have all the fun? We didn't even come across so much as an angry bear, and you get to battle it out with the Akatsuki!"

I laughed painfully. "Oh, yeah, it was loads of fun. Especially the part where Uchiha had to carry me half way across Hi no Kuni. Trust me—you guys didn't miss out on anything."

Lee grinned. "Good thing you're not too bad, right? Then I couldn't whip you in taijutsu anymore! Who'd I practice with? Naruto's not near as good—Believe it!"

We all laughed at that one, even Neji. "So you guys had a good time?" I affirmed, and they nodded.

"Still," Neji sounded deadly serious—surprise, surprise, surprise—as he spoke, "you should be more careful. Not just anyone can say they've lived through an Akatsuki attack."

"That's the truth, and no wonder," I groaned. "Whatever Kakuzu used to slice me up hurt like crap. Like, I was ready to go and die, or throw up, or maybe both. Well, not at the same time and certainly not in that order, but you get my drift."

Lee grimaced. "Eew. That's a nice mental picture."

"Oh, shut up, Lee," I rolled my eyes. "Seriously, though, just give me a day or two and I'll be back on the training field."

"That's funny; the medical corps assistant told us that you wouldn't be out of here for a week or so." Tenten grinned teasingly.

I shot her a look. "I'm about ready to crawl up the walls I'm so bored already; I can NOT stay here for another week. I can't just be holed up like somebody's pet! I, like, have to be doing something that involves training or some sort of Shinobi mission or I go stir-crazy—you know that!"

"True," Neji admitted. "But would you seriously bust your way out of here just because you were bored? Don't you want to have a chance to heal rather than to train with an unhealed wound?" He, unwittingly, smiled. "But really, it's not like it matters, whatever happens is your destiny."

We all laughed, knowing that he'd ditched his destiny obsession long ago. "I'm not even joking," I smirked, "I'm outta here as soon as possible, 'k?"

"Oh, so I should just tell the corps to increase the security—?" Lee asked.

"HEY!" I protested. "Mum's the word, here! If they figure out I'm gone, I'll be forced to stay here for even LONGER!"

Tenten sighed. "Oh, fine, I won't tell. C'mon, guys, let's go; she needs her, uh, rest and stuff."

"Uh-huh," Neji agreed sarcastically but left the room, as did Lee and, rather reluctantly, Tenten.

"Oh, yeah, just leave me alone so that I can be bored until I die," I sighed, then grinned and began thinking up how I could get out before I lost my ever-loving mind.

*Third-person perspective, at an Akatsuki base*

Konan walked up the small huddle of Akatsuki members, a set look on her face. "Hey—look alive; we have our orders from Nagato—Pein—here. Besides, if you look too dead, Zetsu might eat you." The half-Venus-fly-trap in question grinned evilly.

Sasori looked up. "Well?"

"Hidan and Kakuzu, you are to head to the Land of Wind; you'll meet up with two other ninja who will tell you more about your task. Itachi and Kisame, you need to go check out the base up north and make sure that none of the Konohagakure kiddies got smart and sent some Jonin to investigate. Sasori, I need you and Deidara to go and re-check around Konoha, you need to report anything that seems suspicious. Don't engage anyone in unneeded battle; it was bad enough having Kakuzu fight that one girl—her and Sasuke may know too much already from what they saw. Let's just hope that they hadn't somehow figured out Hidan's ritual—I'm not so sure that any of the Great Shinobi Nations know about that yet; it may give us an edge in certain situations."

Deidara looked downcast. "Sasori-senpai, do we have to do the recon in Hi no Kuni? Couldn't we, like, switch with Itachi and Kisame or something, un?"

Sasori glanced at him sternly. "Don't let your love for your former cousin to get in your way, baka, we'll do what's assigned to us."

"Former cousin, un? I'm still related; we are family by blood," Deidara murmured dejectedly.

"The Akatsuki is your family, and no one else," the puppeteer corrected harshly. "Now let's go. I don't want it to be winter before we get back; hurry it up!"

"Fine, un, I'm coming," he replied testily, and followed Sasori out of the base.

*Karinami's POV*

When I finally felt well enough to run around a bit, I busted out of the hospital. No surprise there. I'd done it more than once back at the small office in Umi no Kyuuden—with the help of Gaara, Kiba, Akamaru, and Kankuro, of course. Temari, on the other hand, was the one always trying to get me back in the hospital. Still, this time, I'd managed to flee all on my own. I was even free from the medical corps, Gaara having threatened them that if they found me and hauled me back to the hospital he would kill them and make it rain blood and all that junk. Needless to say, it worked.

Kakashi-sensei, though reluctant to continue training with my still-partly-unhealed wounds, commenced our daily exercises. Often, the four of us trained one verses one, kind of like the Chunin exams or something. Other times, we'd just go on super easy missions, leaving everybody bored out of their minds.

In the weeks that followed—as I got better—I only noticed one large change, which was the relationship between Sasuke and me. Within the month, we went from mortal enemies to fairly close friends, much to Sakura and Ino's dismay. For me, it was just kind of confusing. Had my little soap box rant really changed his behavior? At least around me, he didn't act like such a jerk anymore and he was actually pretty nice. Of course, his growing friendliness did have its bad side, as he was constantly doing his annoying eye-smolder thing when I refused to get some rest so my wounds would heal. I mean, sure, I'm as stubborn as an Irish mule, but Sasuke is soooooo persistent. Can you say, "annoying"?

"Sakura-chan, are we still on for training this afternoon?" I asked politely as we were eating lunch on a particularly rainy day.

"Oh, uh, no," she stammered, suddenly looking nervous. "It's—well, you know…it's raining and, uh, my hair…it just kind of…" she made a 'poof' motion with her hands to indicate that humidity made her pink locks go all frizzy. Preppy much?

"Okay, then," I sighed, feeling that there was more to her decline than whacked-out hair. "I guess I'll just go and practice taijutsu with Lee; he said he was going to do some serious training today or something."

"'Kaythanksbye," Sakura gushed in one long indecipherable string of words, half-skipping out of the room.

"Somebody's happy," Naruto remarked. "What the heck happened to her?"

"Dunno," I admitted, and then looked at the clock. "But I do know that I'm gunna be late for training with Lee-senpai if I don't move my butt, so I'll see you guys later, 'kay?"

"Sure, Kari-chan," the hyperactive blonde plastered a cheesy smile on his face.

"Hn," Sasuke droned, which was the approximate equivalent of, "Okay, I'll see you later."

"Oh, Kari," Kakashi cut in suddenly. "Don't come by for training tomorrow; everyone is supposed to have a day off for spring cleaning. I forgot to tell you guys earlier…make sure to tell Sakura if you see her, okay?"

"Of course, Kakashi-sensei," I grinned. A whole day off for spring cleaning? Dang. It would take me, like, five minutes to clean my whole living space, minus the time it would take to persuade Kiba into cleaning up his room and the period that it would take to shove all of Akamaru's forgotten dog toys out of my bedroom. Waving good-bye, I ran out swiftly and headed towards the normal training spot.

"Hey, Lee!" I hollered, jogging to catch up with him.

"Yo, Kari-chan!" He turned and called back, stopping where he was. "Why're you here?"

"Can I train with you? Sakura totally bailed on me 'cause of the weather or something lame like that."

"Yeah, totally!" He grinned. "Don't blame me if you get reeeeeeeally tired, though, today's training will be especially hard!"

"I'm a tough cookie," I insisted. "I'm the one who runs into the demonic Akatsuki jerks, remember?"

"Of course," came the amused reply.

"Let's go, then!

"First one to the large rock gets to go last!" He challenged, and we shot off into the soggy forest.

*later*

"Uhhhhnnnnnn, I'm tired," I complained to Lee as we tottered back into the city.

"Me too," he agreed. "I'm gunna have bruises for weeks."

"Well, you two look like death," came a sarcastic voice from the shadows. Definitely Sasuke.

"Yeah, the Grim Reaper says hi," I mumbled. "He wants to know when you're going to get a move on and kill Itachi."

Uchiha snorted loudly and emerged from the shade of a large home. "Tell him that I'm working on it."

"Oh, there's Guy-sensei," Lee pointed over to another street. "See ya later Karinami-chan."

"Later, man," I acknowledged as he doggedly wobbled over to his sensei.

"Shall we?" Sasuke asked, making a motion towards the buildings where we made our homes.

"Sure," I shrugged and started walking. There was a long pause where only the birds could be heard, but Sasuke broke it after awhile.

"I know why Sakura-chan ditched today," he confessed.

"Oh?" I made my voice sound pseudo-surprised. "It wasn't her hair?"

Sasuke smirked. "Uh, no. Definitely not."

I looked at him, expectant. "…And so…" I prompted.

"She asked me out."

"Uh, yeah, she's done that more than once."

"No, like, get-all-dressed-up-and-come-to-the-door-bearing-flowers kind of asking me out. It was really awkward, especially after I turned her down."

I grimaced. "So she cut training because she wanted to look all schmancy?"

"I assume so," Sasuke admitted. "She was seriously thinking I would say yes."

"Aah. Well, at any rate, did you tell her about the off day tomorrow?"

"Mm-hmm. I think she was pleased about that at least; a whole day to mope around and feel sorry for herself, since I'd imagine her room is immaculate…"

I laughed shortly, despite feeling slightly sorry for Sakura. "Totally."

We stopped at the my dorm for a minute, standing in total silence, until Tenten looked out of her window from a story or two above us and shouted down, "Hey, Kari-chan! Are you going to sit there until summer or are you going to get your butt up here and tell me how training went?"

"I'm coming, Tenten," I laughed, and waved good-bye to Sasuke before entering the building.

*later*

Oh yeah, free day, I sang mentally as the sun rose the next morning. Nothing to do, nobody to see…and a conscience that's telling me to train. Ugh.

Kicking the wall that Kiba and I shared violently, I shouted, "Get up, Kiba-shinseki, you have to get all of Akamaru's dog toys out of here before I blow a gasket!"

"UHNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN," he replied tiredly, falling out of bed like normal. Akamaru yipped and started running into the door with loud thuds, clearly needing to take care of some business al fresco.

Sweeping open the curtains in an insanely blissful mood I quickly got ready for the day, threw open the windows, and started cleaning.

I was done in about ten minutes, dog toys included.

"Well, now what do I do?" I mused, thumping onto my bed. The options scrolled through my head like movie credits.

Take a walk

Train

Visit Sakura and get her out of her world-will-end mood.

Risk life and limb helping Naruto with his room

Annoy Sasuke.

Oh yeah, we have a winner. I mean, sure, Naruto probably needed help (if he was even out of bed), but annoying Sasuke? Teasing or not, that was practically the best thing since sliced bread. There's nothing more fun than bugging the crap out of him, knowing that you're faster and can run away if need be. Ah, good times.

Jumping off my bed, I headed outdoors and started walking to the dorm building next door. All around me, Konoha citizens were beating rugs, sweeping like mad, and generally washing everything in sight. The city was practically suboceanic there was so much water.

Getting to Sasuke's room didn't take long. "Sa-su-ke," I called, purposely drawing his name out into syllables like Sakura did. "Are you there?"

"No dip," came the monotone reply, followed by the click of the door opening. "Why the heck are you here? Aren't you supposed to be cleaning?"

"I'm done," I bragged. "Just thought I'd come and annoy you for awhile."

He scowled, but let me in.

His room was generally devoid of messy piles, I guess, but there was still a rather large mound of junk in the corner. He started going through it, searching for something. Perched on the only chair in the room, I struck up a conversation, occasionally presenting a witty statement that racked up my aggravation points big time with the Uchiha the Emo Brick. After that, there was a long pause and then—

"Sasuke-kun," I complained, not trying to annoy him but gravely bothered by something. He glanced at me sideways. "The sizes of those dust bunnies under your dresser are seriously starting to scare me."

Sasuke scowled at me. "Oh, so you can face an S-ranked super-dangerous Akatsuki ninja with no fear but dust bunnies…I mean, jeezums, they're soooooo scary…"

I stuck my tongue out at him as he rolled his eyes. "Hey, just because you're too much of an airhead to figure out how to use a vacuum cleaner," I accused. That shut him up in a moody silence until he straightened up from the pile of stuff, a genuinely confused look on his face.

"What he heck is this…?" Uchiha asked.

"What the heck is what?" I pulled myself out of my thoughts from curiosity.

"This necklace thingie," he specified lamely, walking over. "I think it used to be my mom's; she said that she got it from a good friend of hers—"

"Hey!" I exclaimed, snatching the necklace from his hands and examining the pendant closer. "This is the symbol for Umi no Kyuuden! See, four different color petals forming a flower for The Crown upheld on a platter of water. The Crown is the giant tree that sits high above the city on a cliff—it's actually a bunch of trees twisted together. The different color flower petals on the symbol represent the different blossoms that grow on each tree, and the platter of water is for…well…the ocean." I looked up at my teammate. "Where did you say your mother got this…?"

"A friend," he repeated, sounding surprised. "Why?"

I outlined the engraved petals with my finger. "I've seen my mother wear it in very old pictures—like, when she was still in school. I asked her what she did with it right before she died…she said she gave it away."

"It's yours, then," Sasuke shrugged and went back to the pile. "It was your mothers ultimately, so…"

"Technically, your mother had it," I insisted. "Wouldn't she have wanted you to keep it?"

"Heck no," Sasuke smirked. "Can you see me wearing a girl's necklace around everywhere? My mom would definitely not have shoved that on me."

"Naruto wears Tsunade's old necklace," I uttered, but put the jewelry around my neck with my Shiraseru-Omamori.

Just then, there came a crash from somewhere in the building, followed by an aarrrgg! of annoyance.

"Uh…what was that?" I questioned, a little nervous.

Sasuke just sneered. "Naruto, I think. He must've dropped something."

"Yeah, a very large 'something'," I corrected. "If he put that down, hard, on his foot, I bet it would've broken."

Uchiha shrugged and went back to his work. After awhile, he began arranging things oddly on his bed as if he were cataloging his belongings, once in a while stopping to throw something away. I nearly asked what he was doing when he emptied his closet, folding everything on his cot as well, but then justified that he was going to rearrange everything.

"Well, this is utterly boring," I chirped optimistically as the sun was setting. "I'm going to go be productive and take a walk."

"Suit yourself," Sasuke grunted, going back to his cataloging exercise which had shrunk his belongings into a small area. The trash bin was ready to burst as I walked out and, as a last disturbance; I kicked it open so that a few scraps of paper flew out. Who says that annoying people isn't fun?

*outside*

I was well into the forest beyond Konohagakure before I heard the noise. It was soft and muted, as if someone were trying to conceal their presence, but it was audible nonetheless.

"Uh, is anybody there?" I asked, feeling like a sheer moron.

"Yes, actually, un," came a voice that I knew all too well, and a figure jumped out from behind a tree. I took me a minute to contemplate the newcomer and then—

"DEIDARA-SHINSEKI!" I squealed in disbelief, recklessly glomping him. For a moment, we both just flopped on the ground, stunned, and then he burst out laughing.

"Kari-chan, you're not even bleeding! Sheesh, Kakuzu and Hidan made it sound like you were ripped to shreds, un!"

I sat up, snorting crossly. "I was, no thanks to those jerks. Dude, the stupid medical Shinobi stuck me like a pincushion with IV needles! It was terrible!"

Deidara scowled. "I was so mad when I heard, but even more worried. There was talk about making you join the Akatsuki when you were older and more experienced, and Itachi was doing all he could to annoy me by bringing it up."

"Me? In the Akatsuki?" I blinked. "Yeah, right."

"That's my girl, un," Deidara laughed, poking me in the forehead.

"Why are you here?" I asked guardedly.

"Info. We—well, they—wanted to make sure that nobody got too smart about things and had a lead on us. Sasori-senpai will kill me if he finds me talking to you, not to mention the rest of the organization…" he sighed and looked at me morosely. "I had to make sure you were okay, un, you had me worried."

"You're okay, though, right? I affirmed, throwing the last question on to the table.

"Yes, technically," he nodded, showing me his hands in proof that he didn't have his fingers crossed. I laughed as his hand-mouths stuck out their tongues out.

"Dude," I giggled, feeling like I was 10 years old again. "Can you even eat with those things?"

Deidara made a face. "You don't wanna know, un." Suddenly, he sat up straight, eyes wide. "I have to go."

"Huh?"

"Sasori-senpai. He'll maul me if I stay here and he finds out. Seriously, I have to get out of here."

"Oh," I lamented, wishing that he could stay. It had been too long…

He caught the sad note in my voice. "I'll try to come back, un. To say 'hi'. Just don't—don't get yourself killed, you hear me?" I nodded once. "Tell Roka…" he paused. "Tell him that I said 'hello' as well." I nodded again and, with another glance at the trees behind him, my cousin was gone again.

*later*

By the time I neared my dorm, the city was dark. Just one more thing to do before bed, I reasoned. I had to ask Sasuke if he wanted to train tomorrow, since Sakura would no doubt be moping and the Sand Siblings—usually my go-to antagonists—were going to be out for the day.

Thankfully, when I reached his room, I could tell the light was still on. "Sasuke-kun?" I asked, knocking on the door. I heard a rustling from inside, but no reply. Frowning, I started again. "Sasuke? Sasuke, are you in there?" Still no retort. I was starting to get peeved—was this punishment for annoying the heck out of him earlier?

"Sasuke, seriously, this is NOT funny," I huffed. "Can I come in?" I tried the doorknob. Locked. My brain whirled. He would've told me to wait if he was getting dressed or something. "SA-SU-KE," I repeated. "What are you doing?" More generally shuffling sounds, but nothing else. "You asked for this," I snarled quietly at the silence, and broke down the door with a well-aimed kick.

My heart practically died at what I saw.

The items that had been laid out on his bed earlier were nowhere in sight. All the drawers were empty. Nothing that belonged to him was lying around. Everything was packed, with him standing listlessly in the center of his room, staring at me.

He was planning on leaving.

And by the looks of things, he was never coming back.

AN: So, is the story still interesting? Are you bored out of your minds? Comments and questions would be great! The next chapter is going to wrap it up, so be prepared! Thanks again for reading! The end.