Chapter 5 is on the line! I know I've been absolutely everywhere but here, but I'm working on changing that. I haven't had a computer at all for a while now, and we got one at my mom's house for Christmas. So I'll do my best to write this stuff now. But, again, I've not been watching Naruto either, so this may be a bit OOC. But I have (hopefully) come back with an improved writing skill. Anyways, you guys know the drill, the characters and such are not mine, but the storyline is. Thanks!
Chapter 5
The eyes that peered into the living room of Sakura Haruno's home that night seemed to pierce the room and everything in it, without so much as making the visitors inside aware of their presence. Those red eyes were clear as the crescent moon that was hung in the sky that night- And as silent. He was as still as the house on which he peered in, all except for the few moments when the wind blew ever so slightly and moved his black hair from around him. No one noticed. The children, Chuunin, were far too young to even sense the presence of an outsider when so enraptured in gossip, games, and the romantic ideas of the passing evening. However, the red-eyed man could easily see-that there was also a Jounin among them. And though she knew not why, she felt a disturbing presence coming from the window where he perched and chose to wait, though she was not brave enough to leave the game and investigate it herself.
He saw that she was looking towards the window every few seconds from the corner of her dark, glistening eyes. But as soon as she did, one person or another would tear her attention from it, pulling her into a game or a conversation. That is why he worried not about her seeing him, or anyone seeing him. So he waited. And as the night went on, he could see people pairing off to talk, curling up beside one another on sleeping bags or cramming on the small couch that the Haruno family had. Kiba had held Kaiya Kaniwa's attention for quite a while, and it was obvious that Sasuke was envious of the fact. But she was clearly tenser than she had been, this red-eyed man was sure as he watched her shoulders tense and relax before anyone could notice that she'd tensed up at all. She laughed at something Kiba said. His dog barked disapproval of something said by the lazy one, Shikamaru Nara. The shy, purple-haired girl blushed and whispered something to her, which caused her to smile and whisper something in return. Sasuke scowled.
Be patient brother. You can't have everything you want whenever you like. She was mine first, and she'll be mine again, before you can have her, Itachi Uchiha thought.
Itachi was a very patient soul; he could stand completely still throughout the entire night, simply watching her to see her movements. The roll of the arm as she playfully threw a pillow at a "grumpy" Sasuke, the easy, swaying motion of her hips as she walked over and gave him a hug to cheer him up after her attempted pillow fight had only made him angrier. He watched the way her lips moved as she spoke, and the sound of her laugh, which seemed so innocently pure that it disguised completely the things she had been through in her short time as a ninja. He remembered. He remembered the sword she carried on her left hip, a crooked carrier holding it in place that accentuated her features. He remembered those eyes, those dark, brown, shiny eyes that could not hide her fear, though she refused to scream and show it physically. He remembered her arms and legs, so small, lean, but strong, powerful, beautiful as she fought to get away from his grasp. He remembered her lips, full, dark pink, lips that parted slightly at one point, as her breath caught in her throat. She would NOT scream, but she wanted to do so with all the power in her being. There was no point in screaming that night. She had no team that he'd known of at the time, and he'd been watching for quite a while. She had let the horse out to graze on its own, and he wondered if it would come back, sensing that the girl was in danger.
He didn't even hear it coming from behind him. He had her pinned to the ground, just finishing what he had started, when he felt the deep, metallic pain straight between his shoulder blades. The impact of the horseshoe in his back made him fall over her again and she gasped, but felt a newly acquired sense of power in the presence of the large red creature that had caused him minimal damage. She managed in the split second to react, pushing a kunai into his stomach and twisting it as she pushed him to the ground. She took a sword from the carrier on her horse's breast collar and drove it straight through him and deep into the ground. The horse reared and pushed it in that much further, before carefully placing his hooves, one by one, over the hands of Itachi Uchiha, breaking each small, fragile bone in its wake. The horse made it painful. He made it slow. He made it intentional. He made it personal. She did not wait for him to scream, or even attempt to escape the sword's hold on his intestines, before jumping onto the back of the fierce red roan and riding away at top speed. He could tell she was broken-the blood on the back of her kimono had said it all.
She hadn't tried to kill him, just to give herself time to get away. That's all she wanted at that moment. She hadn't thought about him coming back to get her all over again, until later he was sure. But now, as he watched her bed herself down in her sleeping bag between Kiba and Sasuke, he was overly aware that she could feel his presence. It was almost as though, he assumed, his mere presence held an air over her. She would be the one to know. Every ounce of that night had been etched into her memory in explicit detail. He was sure that she'd know the scent of his blood, his cloak, his hair, his breath, HIM. But at that moment, she lay in the sleeping bag, finding it difficult to lie in the right position for too long because both Kiba and Sasuke were moving in on her, trying to get closer. This made her uncomfortable in the sense that she knew she'd have to sort it out later, but better because whatever monster was outside the window peering in on them would have more than simply her to deal with.
At that time, he left the window, so quickly as to let no one assume that anything had been there before. He faded into the night, into the wind, the streets, the cold, yellow moon, and when he did, she closed her eyes and fell asleep soundly. He walked slowly, purposefully, over to the stables where he knew her horse would be kept. It was quiet in the barn, all except for the dull pat of hooves across the bedded stall floors. As he came in, most of the horses didn't bother to move, to look up, or to stand from their positions on the ground. But that one, the one next to the black one, he would be noisy. Itachi stopped at her horse's stall, waiting for it to realize who was in the barn. He didn't know that he had known for a while now. ChipperDoc's breath was deep, ragged as though he'd been running circles all night, his back and neck heavy with sweat. His ears were pulled back, flat against his head. He stomped the padded ground, as though threatening to jump over the door of his stall if the man made one step in the wrong direction. He gave a low neigh to his grey companion across from him. Smoke's ears perked up to listen, then laid back against his head the same way ChipperDoc's had. If they gave one cry any louder than that, they would have the whole barn stirring. But they made no move to do so. The eyes of the red horse might as well had been on fire; the look inside them told Itachi of exactly what had been done, all the pain he had caused it's rider, all the suffering she had gone through regaining what little she could find of herself after that, the strength it took to keep her going on to help other people, and thus having to tell them what had been done.
It told Itachi Uchiha that, yes, that horse would give its life to save her, even if she wasn't aware her life was in danger. It told him that the horse had been watching him all night, just as he had been watching its rider. If she could sense him, then she would have known instantly, would she have not? But, if she had sensed her horse, their obvious bond easily distinguishable, then she would only know that he wasn't in his stall. Which meant something wasn't quite right, but until given warning, she didn't know quite what it was that wasn't right. But he knew that by morning, she would know what had been done. She would know everything that had been thought, said, seen, heard, EVERYTHING. He smirked, and then tried to reach out and touch the horse. It reared and bit his hand as hard as it could, before releasing the bloody fingers from his mouth. Itachi flicked his hand to his side, splattering a bit of blood across the barn floor, before walking out into the night and disappearing. And as he did, he heard the clacking of hooves across the road, moving as fast as he could to the house of Sakura Haruno.
That horse would stand at the window all night, in exactly the same spot where the red-eyed man had been peering through the window, and a mere few feet away from where he had watched the man watching, where he had been standing tense,ready to attack if the need arose. And the horse would leave at daybreak, before the humans awoke, and go back into his stall to wait for her, after he was sure to stomp away all the traces of blood he could. He wouldn't tell her of her night's dangers, not yet. The horse had its ways of communicating, and he knew just who needed to be spoken to.
* * * *
The next morning, Kaiya awoke to Sasuke curled around her back, his arms entwined around her waist, and Kiba at her front, his forehead resting against hers, sleeping soundly, while Akamaru laid on the bottom of her sleeping bag. She carefully unlaced herself from both of them without waking either, and went to the bathroom to change clothing. Her mind was not as easy or pleased as it had been at the beginning of the party last night. She knew something must've gone wrong. She knew ChipperDoc had been close to her, too close. She brushed out her hair, sliding it into a loose ponytail, and pulled on a hot pink kimono, the flower on it a dark black, with black shorts, and put on her ninja sandals. She went through her hastened routine of getting ready for work, and walked quietly down the stairs. Kiba was leaning on his elbows, his hair sticking in all directions, when she caught his eye.
She whispered, "Got to head out for work. I'll see you guys later. Tell Sakura thanks for inviting me, and sorry I couldn't stay to hang out a little while." Kiba pouted a little, but nodded and lay back down on his sleeping bag. She rolled hers up and put it in its bag before heading to the barn. She stopped at the doorway and looked at the ground. Hoof prints were splayed across the dirt; two very distinguished pairs of prints had been underneath the window on the side of the house. This made her nervous. She looked at them closely. The markings were obviously horses, but there was something strange about this pair-they had ridges across them in the dirt. No other place in the Haruno yard had any ridges like these, except for the ones underneath the two hoof prints. She thought for a moment, and then looked at the bottom of her ninja sandals. She took off running for the barn as fast as she could, her face pale, and her eyes wide.
It was still early, most people were just beginning to open up shop for the day, as she ran through the stillness of the morning. She, unlike the blonde boy named Naruto at the party last night, would not break the silence of morning by screaming good morning to the business owners or waiting impatiently for the Ichiraku Ramen Bar to open up shop. The force of her body cut through the morning breeze like a knife, & as she reached the barn, her motions became more haphazard and less graceful. By the time she got to ChipperDoc's stall, she was breathless & clinging to the door for dear life. She looked at ChipperDoc with the eyes of a trapped animal. He leaned his head over the stall door and nudged her shoulder with his nose. She clung to a tuft of his mane and whispered, "Who was out there last night?"
He gently took his big head and nudged her in the forehead.
"If not me, who do you want to tell?" He took his huge head and motioned towards the entrance to the barn. She opened the stall door and let him out. He turned his head to look at her and perked his ears in her direction. She leaped onto his back and they took off to wherever ChipperDoc led them. But the horse knew exactly where to go. He headed straight for the bookstore, and as they approached, it dawned on her exactly who the horse was aiming to talk to. She peered through the glass, and easily found the huge mound of silver spiked hair walking leisurely through the aisles.