My dear readers, I'm sorry for taking so long to update, but school's been a bitch, and I also had to work on my other fic, The Longest Year Ever, I'd recomend everyone to read it, I personaly like it a lot, This one too!!
I hope you all like this chapter, I put a lot of effort into it, and -drum rolls- the beggining of SasuSaku moments starts at the end, its still not much, but it's the intro to everything else!!
I already have a few ideas for next chapters, but my ideas need a lot of organization, so, be patient and bear with me please!!
Disclaimer: Naruto and all the characters of the series belong to Kishimoto-san!
Enjoy, and please review!!
It's a pleasure to open my mail box and have all those wonderfull reviews waiting to be read!! Also, please give me your opinions, critics and ideas, it helps!! Reviews are always welcome and make me a very happy person!!
Previously on The Secret Behind:
Sick and tired of playing hide 'n seek, Sakura goes through all the Akatsuki bases that Itachi signals on a map, and finds herself in Rain.
She meets a nice man called Fay, and he offers her a place to stay, which she accepts, paying by helping him with his bar.
As she talks with Fay, she finds a new alias, one that, supposedly, suits her better: Tsuki no Hikari, which means Moon of Light.
As the clouds allow the sun to warm the city, Sakura finds out that Fay knows that his country is ruled by criminals, but doesn't mind, saying that they were the best thing that happened to Rain. She also finds out that Fay's best friend is an Akatsuki.
Chapter 11
Sakura stood in the living room, standing against the window door frame, while looking outside. The conversation she had had with Fay earlier still playing in her head.
"Still thinking about it?" she was startled when she heard him, but didn't show and merely looked at him over her shoulder.
"It's just that… it's hard to accept ideals completely different from my own." She answered truthfully. He nodded and smiled.
"It's not very different from having a Kage and a council as diplomats, the only difference is that they left their countries behind for some reason, personal or not." He paused and settled leaning against the other side of the window door frame.
"I'm the same you know, and I didn't turn out that bad!" he grinned and chuckled at her choked reaction.
"I can tell you about it if you want." He offered. She shook her head and swallowed, he was what?
"Please do." She spoke, her voice too high pitched, meaning she wasn't that comfortable.
"Well…" he looked outside. "I was born in Iwa, just like my best friend, we both followed Shinobi training, but he only had a couple of friends because of his kekkai genkai." He paused and tilted his head. "We had a 'happy' life, of some sorts, it was simple and we liked it." a smile graced his lips. "Suzume-chan, his sister, became my girlfriend when we were 14, he was always threatening me." He let out a serene laugh, one that held nostalgia. "They were twins, and they really looked like each other, but their personalities were different, she was calm and shy, while he was goofy and outgoing." He seemed sad, deep down.
"What happened?" he looked at her, his blue eyes almost piercing into her soul.
"I never met my father." He looked back outside. "And when I was 12 I found out why, my mother was raped, I don't know by whom though. He had a similar story, well not really." He let out a sigh. "His father was killed when he was 6, and he and Suzume were raised by their mother, who was a civilian." She listened attentively, his story, until now, wasn't that dramatic, but she wanted him to continue.
"He had some kind of knight in a shinning armour complex, and that's why he became a shinobi, to protect the ones he loved. I kinda had the same complex!" he grinned and crossed his arms over his chest. "The day it all came down to hating Iwa, was the day that we watched the worse thing in the world." He sighed again, and shifted, a sign that he was about to tell something that he didn't tell everyone.
"We were 15, and one night, we were ambushed while we were taking a walk, me, him, Suzume and our mothers, it was my mother's birthday." He paused. "We fought the best we could, being the best Chuunin in the village, but in the end we were trapped, tied with chains, and we…" he swallowed and closed his eyes. "We watched them torturing our mothers, and… then we had to watch them raping them…" his voice cracked, and he closed his hands, tightening his fist until they turned white. "We had to watch, without being able to do anything…" his voice was almost a whisper. "Without being able to protect the ones we loved." She could see the tears that he refused to shed. "After they tortured and raped our mothers, they killed them, cutting off limb by limb, until they were nothing more than a puddle of gore." She sniffed and clenched her fists, who would do something so inhumane?
"After that, they did the same thing to Suzume, the torture… the rape…" he stopped and shook his head. "He snapped completely, went into berserk mode, and he blew them all up, I can still feel the chill I felt when he started fighting them, he didn't torture them, he simply killed them, they never saw it coming." She let out a few tears and sniffed.
"W-what about Suzume?" she asked quietly.
"We tried to save her, but she… she died in our arms." He cleaned his face with one hand. There was silence.
"After that, we saw the hitai-ate of one of the corpses, they were from Iwa, just like us, and when we managed to see who they were, we even saw our sensei." She cleaned her tears, it was a tragic story, a really tragic one.
"After that night, we tried to tell the story to our superiors, to the Kage, you know what he told us?" she shook her head. "He told us that nothing wrong had been done, and that nothing had been reported, that we must have been delusional." She was shocked. "So we left Iwa, we had nothing left there for us anyway, and we never did like all those rocks and the dirt." He tried to smile, but he just couldn't.
"So… you became missing-nins?" he nodded.
"Yeah, we did. And one day, the Akatsuki went to him, and he was forced to join them, and that's what he did, he actually didn't have a choice." He walked into the veranda and leaned against the railing. "While he was in the Akatsuki, I stayed in the Tea Country, it was calm, and it had trees, the ocean, I loved it, and so did he!" he smiled, his face facing the sky. "I only came to Rain when the leader stopped being Pein, 7 years ago, also, only 3 of the previous members remained, everyone else is new to the organization." She nodded. He took a deep breath and then turned around to face her.
"Being a missing-nin doesn't mean you have to be someone bad, in my case, it just means I couldn't stay in the same place as rapists." She nodded and lowered her head.
"I'm sorry." She whispered, to which he walked closer to her and put his hand over her shoulder.
"Don't be, I know it's tragic, but it's the past, we can't do anything about it." she looked up at him. "Besides, if that hadn't happened to us, right now, we'd probably be the same as them." He smiled gently and she nodded. "You can't judge people by their status, you have to get to know them to be allowed to judge them correctly." She nodded and lowered her head again.
"I know." And she did, all those years ago, she had judged so many people, and then they had turned out to be the opposite, like Naruto for instance.
There was a quiet silence, until someone broke the silence, and it wasn't them.
"You know, it's not very polite to talk about someone that isn't present." Fay walked outside again, only to receive a punch as soon as he did.
"Oy, what was that for Teme?" Fay muttered while nursing his now sore arm.
"Shut up Dobe." That reminded her of something from her genin days.
"You shut up Teme." Fay muttered back.
"Didn't I already tell you not to talk about her." Fay tilted his head and looked away.
"You can't keep it a secret from everyone, talking about it makes it easier to deal with." Fay spoke quietly, not facing whoever was leaning against the wall.
"It's the past, it should be forgotten." Fay looked down at those words. Sakura, now Hikari, took a deep breath and spoke, trying to break the tension that had settled.
"The past should never be forgotten, we should get over it and not live in it, but having memories of our past reminds us of who we are, what we did, how much we changed, and we also learn with the past." Fay looked up at her, surprised.
"Wise words." The unknown person muttered. "She'd have said the same." He whispered.
Sakura lowered her head and walked inside, then standing next to one of the couches. For the past years, she had only thought about herself, her close friends and her twins, hearing something so tragic from someone she barely knew, she was brought down from her own little world to the real world. She should pay attention to what was surrounding her.
The awkward silence was broken, when the unknown male spoke.
"Oy Dobe, happy birthday by the way." Fay looked at the male and smiled.
"My birthday was 3 weeks ago." A snort was heard.
"Been busy, hn." Fay rolled his eyes.
"Right." And then he walked inside. "Get in Teme."
"Stop ordering me around Dobe." Fay stopped and looked back over his shoulder.
"I'm older than you Teme." A grunt was heard, and then the male walked inside. She was shocked when she saw him.
"So what Dobe? Hn?" the blond muttered and made himself comfortable in one of the couches. "You're almost 30, I ain't!!" he grinned when Fay glared at him.
With that piece of info, she was distracted and looked at Fay.
"You're almost 30?" she asked quietly. "But you seem around 20." She mused. Fay kept glaring at the other blond as he answered.
"I'm 26." He muttered. She nodded.
"It's not polite to not introduce your best friend to your guests." She turned back to see the bomber artist looking at her in amusement.
"I'm Tsuki no Hikari." She spoke politely, maybe she could fool him.
"Hikari huh?" she saw him containing a chuckle and felt like punching him. "It's suits ya, yeah!!" he grinned and turned his gaze to Fay.
"Will you stop glaring already, I'm supposed to be the childish one, not you." Fay snorted, crossed his arms over his chest and looked outside, to which Sakura giggled, he was acting so not like the man she had come to know. Deidara turned back to her and smiled, crossing one of his legs over the other.
"If I had to guess what you came here for, I'd say you came to get something back, hn." He tilted his head. "But that would just be me musing around." She gulped, was he gonna turn her in?
"Stupid Teme." Deidara turned back to Fay and glared in annoyance.
"Oy, be glad I'm not dead, 'cause 7 years ago I was." That was right, hadn't Sasuke killed him when they were 15?
"You were killed?" she asked curiously, as if she knew nothing about it. He turned back to her and tilted his head.
"Yeah, I was. I was 19 back then. Now I'm…" he paused and counted his fingers "23!" He paused and glanced at Fay, to then roll his eyes. "But 3 years later Leader resurrected me with a jutsu he created, doesn't needs sacrifices for each day I live and all." He waved a hand over his head. "I'd rather be dead than to live by other's lives." She slowly sat down on the couch and let out a breath, why did it have to be the bomber who had a grudge against her because she had killed his master.
Silence, once again, filled the room, until Fay broke it, he actually had no idea they knew each other from the past.
"Ne, Hikari-chan, can you make some tea?" she looked up and smiled, an excuse to get away from Deidara for a while.
"Sure." She got up and walked to the kitchen, glad she didn't have to be in that awkward silence anymore.
After about 20 minutes she figured she should actually go back to the living room with the tea she had prepared, so she put it in a trey and walked to the living room, to see Fay and Deidara having a glaring contest. She giggled, they looked just like Sasuke and Naruto when they were genin. They both turned to her and had the same reaction, they smiled.
"I made tea!" she said and walked closer to them, holding out the trey so they could take a cup of tea.
"Thanks!" they said at the same time.
"By the way, I haven't introduced the Teme to you!" Deidara rolled his eyes, and she simply smiled. "He's Deidara!"
"Nice to meet you!" she bowed lightly and then sat down, taking a cup of tea for herself.
"Nice to meet you too, yeah!" he replied just as politely. She was starting to get a different of opinion about Deidara.
"Ne, Jin, do you want me to go get him?" the blond haired boy looked at her and shrugged.
"Do as you please." He spoke, to which she glared at him.
"Why are you such a jerk?" he looked up at her, his sapphire blue eyes staring into her also sapphire blue ones.
"Why are you so annoying?" she turned her back at him.
"Would it hurt you to at least pretend you care?" she whispered and started to walk away, when suddenly he was behind her, holding her wrist.
She stopped walking, not turning to face him.
He lowered his face until his breath was fanning her neck. He ran his free hand over her raven locks and sighed.
"Sorry." He mumbled and let her go, and then walked back to where he had been sitting.
She smiled and looked at him over her shoulder.
"You're forgiven." He kept his poker face on, but deep down she knew he was smiling, even if he didn't show, she knew him enough to know.
"Keep an eye on them 'kay?" he gave a curt nod. "I'll go get Deidara-sempai. Do you want anything in particular for dinner?" he looked up at her and shook his head.
"You choose Kaorin." She smiled and nodded.
"Okay!" with that she walked into the veranda and started jumping from rooftop to rooftop to go get Deidara-sempai.
They had been chatting about random things, mostly Deidara and Fay talking and Sakura listening, when someone interrupt them.
"Anou." The 3 stopped talking and looked to the veranda, where a girl with long raven hair and sapphire blue eyes stood. She wore black clothes, a black skirt over black shorts, a black fishnet shirt with a blue strapless top over it and then a black sleeveless vest over it, half zipped.
"I'm sorry to interrupt Deidara-senpai." Deidara shrugged.
"Don't worry 'bout it Kaorin-chan, hn!" he grinned and got up.
Sakura looked the girl over, she looked like a teen, and she was pretty. What had Sasuke been doing to the organization?
As Fay and Deidara said their goodbyes, she walked to the veranda, where the girl was waiting patiently.
"Who's getting dinner tonight, yeah?" Kaorin looked at Deidara, who was walking out of the room.
"I am." She replied, to which the blond nodded and stopped next to Sakura.
"I'll help you, yeah!" Kaorin smiled. Deidara leaned down so he could whisper into her hear.
"I'd be careful if I were you Sakura-san, Sasuke-sama always has an ace up his sleeve." He paused. "But since I'm not a dumb as everyone thinks I am and that I know a few things, I won' tell him you're here." She stared at him as he walked to Kaorin.
"Ne, Kao-chan, can we get ramen??" Kaorin sighed.
"We can't just feed them ramen senpai." She scolded.
"But, I like ramen." He whined and looked at her with puppy dog eyes. "Can we please get ramen?" Kaorin shifted, and it reminded Sakura of what Naruto did to her to get his ramen when she said no, and she knew for a fact that it was undonfortable to be in that position.
"Senpai…" she looked uncomfortable.
"Please?? Pretty please?" he whined some more.
"Stop torturing her with your childish attitude, besides, every idiot knows that eating ramen all the time is bad for health." Deidara turned to Fay with a deathly glare, while Kaorin turned to him with a grateful look.
"Shut up, you only eat onigiri and sushi." He crossed his arms in front of himself and pouted. "Let's go Kao-chan, hn." Kaoring giggled.
"Hai senpai!" she waved at the other 2, and then they departed, Deidara still pouting.
"He can be the most serious person in the world, and he can also be the most childish gaki in the world!" Fay mused and shook his head. "But either way, he's my best friend."
"I know what it feels like." Sakura, or Hikari, whispered back, she knew what it felt like, Naruto and Kiba were like that too. And now that she thought about them, she realised that she had left them out for so long.
Jin was sitting in the couch in the room while looking at the sleeping twins in the bed. He had been asking himself why Leader had kidnapped 2 kids, but he wasn't going to ask, he had the feeling it was personal. Over the past weeks, Leader hadn't been acting normal, he had been acting… well, he did things that he wouldn't think Leader would ever do, like… having a sad and hurt look whenever he saw the twins. He knew their Leader was someone that didn't show his emotions, but he was the same, so he managed to read Leader a little.
It was strange, he had joined the organization when he was 15, 3 years ago. At that time, the organization was still broken, not many members were still alive. Pein and Konan were kicked out, but were kept to do missions. The members had only been Leader, Kisame, Deidara and Tobi back then, 4 members in total. He had been offered the place, and at the same time Leader had offered a post on the organization to Kaorin as well.
He knew Kaorin since they were 3 years old, they had grown up together, been team mates, and left their home village together. They had always been together, in the war zone, and in the peace of the world.
A few months later Kai had joined, that was 2 years and a half ago. Kai was someone that befriended everyone, he was goofy, but not obnoxious. He was a missing-nin from Suna, and he had peculiar abilities, he was a great puppeteer, he had already seen Kai fight, and it was quite a show, but the thing that made Kai stand out was his strength, he was an average close combat fighter, but he had super-human strength. Usually, only medics with perfect chakra control had super strength, and even Hana, who was the Akatsuki's medic didn't had that, but somehow Kai was an exception. A very clumsy exception, he wasted a lot of his chakra on useless things, was always getting himself in trouble, but he somehow had superhuman strength when he fought seriously.
The next to join had been Ryo, a couple of months later. Ryo was another goofy character, but more serious than Kai. He was a missing-nin from Kiri and had a calm and relaxed personality, always being positive even in the most dangerous situations. His area of expertise were water based jutsus, but on crisis situations he used his 'reserve' jutsus, those jutsus being ice and snow jutsus, very hard to perform without a kekkai genkai, which Ryo hadn't.
Then 2 years ago, Ruki had joined, and a couple of weeks later it had been Hana, and the organization was complete, resurrected.
Ruki was a very serious character, even worse than Leader and himself, he liked to show off his abilities, without actually doing so. He had a very calculating and ruthless demeanor, and that kinda made him the organization finance manager, key word being kinda, because Leader liked to have everything under control. His area of expertise were wind based jutsus, and some earth jutsus, which he didn't use very often, being the neat freak he was. If he came out of a fight dirty, he became a royal pain in the ass.
Then Hana, she was a missing-nin from Iwa. She had a calm personality, and was always smiling, well, except when she had her emotions work wonders and she became very sensitive to everything around her. A very talented medic-nin, although she wasn't able of having super-strength. She also used earth based jutsus. Whenever they had to cook, she was the one that did, and she actually cooked pretty good stuff.
Then there were himself and Kaorin.
Kaorin was a talented nin, that used lightening and wind jutsus. A calm personality, with high risks of becoming very sensitive, she also had a high affinity of befriending almost everyone and to be quite annoying.
As for himself, he used lightening and fire jutsus. As he grew up with Kaorin, they had created jutsus that they used together, like mixing fire with wind. They were both missing-nins from Kumo, and had been friends since they knew each other.
At first, he had been the one to walk away from the village, but she had followed, and begged him to take her with her, and so he had, and he didn't regret his decision.
Now, all of them, Akatsuki, were respected by the citizens, and were considered the best thing that had happened to the city of Rain.
But Leader, except for Tobi, Deidara and Kisame, no one knew about Leader's past, except that he had left Konoha behind, to then join Orochimaru, and later on kill the snake. The ones that actually knew about Sasuke-sama's past didn't dare speak of it, it wasn't allowed, it wasn't their place.
Without Leader's knowledge, while he had been on a mission to the Fire country, he had gotten a little more info about Leader from and old lady. He had learned about the Uchiha massacre, but he still couldn't understand why, instead of killing, he had only locked up his brother. Again, he wasn't going to ask. Then he had also learned about his team mates and sensei, only briefly though. He had learned that Leader's sensei had been the famous Hatake Kakashi, known as the Copy-Ninja, and that one of his team mates was the Kyuubi Jinchuriki, Uzumaki Naruto, the Rukodaime Hokage. About his other team mate, there lay the mystery, it was a girl, Haruno Sakura, she was said to be in all the bingo books, being the Godaime Hokage Tsuade's apprentice, and having surpassed her shishou. She was said to be the best medic nin of the whole world, being able to find cures for unknown poisons before the poisoned person died, and having superhuman strength that allowed her to break mountains.
He hadn't gotten much more about her, he didn't even knew what she looked like. He had already heard of her, after all, she was famous. But he knew nothing else, she was famous from years back, but then it was as if she had disappeared from the shinobi world without a trace.
He snapped from his inner thoughts when he felt a light thug at his sleeve, looking down he saw the small 4 year old boy looking up at him. He raised a brow.
"Anou, can I make a drawing?" Ryuuki asked quietly, to which he nodded.
"I'll go get some sheets of paper and crayons." He announced and got up.
"Arigatou Jin-onii-chan!" Ryuuki thanked smiling and then sat down on the couch, waiting obediently for Jin to come back.
The day, once again, was rainy. After a couple of days, the rain had returned, a light rain though.
She sighed and leaned against the counter, being bored, there weren't many costumers today.
"Hikari-san, could you go on an errand for me?" she tilted her head at Fay. Now that she thought about it, she hadn't seen any other Akatsuki after the day Deidara had came.
"Sure." She answered smiling. Fay handed her a small paper with a list of things he needed, and she got up.
"Here's the money, you can buy groceries for upstairs if you wish too." She nodded and ran her eyes over the list, mainly things for the bar, like tea, sugar, and all of that.
She walked outside, taking her umbrella, and then started walking down the streets.
She had already memorized the important streets of the city, the city was built on an uniform pattern, which made it easy not to get lost.
She entered the shops, chatting with the owner as he got her things, and then left. She repeated the process a few more times, until she had everything Fay had asked for, and groceries to fill his kitchen.
She walked calmly through the streets, her bags filling her hands, the umbrella held balanced between her left arm and torso, so she wouldn't get wet.
She suddenly stopped, and sneezed. It was as if she was missing something, but she didn't knew what. And that's when she saw him, walking down the streets, dressed in all black, his hands shoved in his pockets, eyes blankly staring ahead. He walked unnoticed in the crowd, blending in perfectly, as if he was part of the city from the very beginning.
She noticed he didn't have an umbrella, and that his hair was slightly damp, but he didn't seem to care.
The people in the streets, it was as if he wasn't there, but with his looks she doubted his presence was unnoticed.
He walked past her, without even noticing her. As he did, her heartbeat increased, and she suddenly forgot how to breathe. There was only his presence, overwhelming, making her senses go high, making her realise she would have to deal with him one time or another.
He walked past her, confident strides, and his always present arrogance and coolness. She was frozen, but then a thought crossed her mind, no matter what, she had to make things right again, she didn't want anyone paying for her mistakes.
I hope everyone enjoyed, please review and have a nice day!!
(I'm going to the teathre tomorrow... Yay!!) lol
I'll try to update soon, but please be patient!!
Love you all very very much, Kaori-chan!!