AN/ Yes, Ladies and Gentleman, your eyes are not deceiving you – Chapter 5 of 'Just Following Orders' is now up! Now, again, I would like to apologize for taking so long, and I'll try to work extra hard in making this story live up to your expectations, for having made you wait so long for it.
Also, thanks to all of you for being so understanding about my absence in writing, and I'll try to avoid going on a long break again.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Thankfully neither does Hinata, but Sakura does, and Kishimoto owns all three of them, plus more.
"Speech"
'Thought'
'Inner Sakura'
"Kyuubi"
Just Following Orders
Chapter 5: To be announced
As the sun rose the next morning, Naruto was once again found atop the Hokage monument, like he was every morning. The only difference being that this time, instead of glaring down at the villagers, he was deep in thought. So deep in thought, that he had yet to notice that gray clouds blocked the sun, threatening to let rain fall soon.
He kept repeating the events from the day before in his head, trying to find out why he had been incapable of breaking from that kiss with Sakura. He had tried to pull away, yet his body had done the opposite of what his mind said.
Closing his eyes and sighing, he wondered if he should try to contact Kyuubi-sama, who had been silent ever since he marked Sakura.
'Sakura...'
His mind was once again clouded with thoughts about her. After he had taken her to his home, and put her unconscious form on his bed, she had turned to her side, with the back of her shirt rising up, revealing bruises on her back.
-------- Flashback-----
Naruto appeared in his room in a poof of black smoke, carrying Sakura bridal style, a cross between a bored and an annoyed expression on his face. He then moved towards his bed, wanting to set down the unconscious girl. Unfortunately for the girl, after being raised by a demon, Naruto hardly knew the meaning of the word, gentle. As soon as he reached his bed, he dropped Sakura with a soft'thump.'
He watched, amused, as her face contorted a little before she turned her body, trying to make herself comfortable. As he was about to turn to leave, he saw a bit of blue on her back, visible since her shirt had raised when she turned.
Finding that odd, he moved closer, kneeling onto the bed and shifting her, so that she was on her stomach. He then proceeded to push her shirt up, revealing more blue spots on her back. He ran his hands over her back, feeling the small bumps on her otherwise smooth and silky skin.
Naruto's eyes kept shifting up to Sakura's face, which seemed to flash in slight discomfort every time his hand touched the bruises. Pulling his hand back, and getting off the bed, he headed towards the bathroom, looking for something to put on her wounds.
After finding a basic medical ointment, he headed back to the room, only to raise an eyebrow when he noticed there was noticeably less bruising. Slightly confused, he approached the bed, watching as the formally large blue spots healed slowly.
Although that did catch Naruto's attention, he quickly dismissed it as the mark's doing. It would make sense, seeing as the seal was made of Kyuubi-sama's chakra, which could both heal and destroy. When the bruises were almost gone, Naruto pulled her shirt back down before getting off the bed and moving to exit his room, it was still early so he figured he could get a bit of training in before the end of the day.
------ End Flashback-----
He had been unable to fully concentrate on his training last night, as he kept wondering why his mate had such injuries; Ninja usually go to the hospital if they're injured while training, and, unless it was a minor injury that a genin insisted be healed, the hospital tended to completely heal them before releasing them.
Bruising like Sakura had, although not the type to be hospital top priority, was bad enough to need to go get healed. So why hadn't she gone?
Naruto shook his head, trying to remove all the useless thoughts that were clouding up his mind. He had more important matters to think about, like why he seemed unable to make his strongest Jutsu strong enough to kill instantly, instead of killing the target slowly.
His thoughts were interrupted when he suddenly received a few sets of memories that weren't his. After a few seconds of sorting them out, he found that some of his shadow clones had been dispelled, embarrassingly, after getting into a fight with each other. If he wasn't mistaken, it was the group that he sent to the east side of Konoha.
"Tch," Naruto made his disapproval known before sighing. With a snap of his fingers, four shadow clones appeared behind him, each having as much chakra as a low Chuunin. Without a word, they jumped off the front of the mountain, before disappearing in puffs of smoke.
Naruto returned to looking out at the village, only now taking notice that the sun had risen pretty high, and from the way it looked, rain should be coming down around noon.
'Hn,' he thought, 'about an hour and a half until the academy starts. Better go see if Sakura's awake, we have to meet whatever Jonin is our sensei today,' in a poof of black smoke, he was gone.
---------------
Sakura had no idea where she was at the moment, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to find out. The reason being that she could tell, from just looking around the room she was in, that the people who had taken her didn't like Konoha to much.
The room was pretty small, with only a bed, which wasn't too comfortable, and an empty dresser next to the bed. On the wall opposite the dresser, posters of the Third and Fourth Hokage, as well as maps of Konoha, were hung up. The maps seemed to have areas of Konoha circled, and the posters had slashes and kunai and shuriken in them. It also didn't help that the only window had been boarded shut and Sakura could tell someone was walking past the door every other minute, so it would be hard to remove the boards without getting caught.
All in all, Sakura felt like crying.
She had woken up from a dream turned nightmare, in which, at first, she was kissing Naruto, and he had said she was his, before everything went black and the next thing she knew, she was walking in a dingy sewer way. After following the sewers, she found a room that seemed to show images on the walls like movies. Among them she found one that horrified her.
-----Dream----
She watched, from someone else's eyes, someone walking down a dark alley, humming a song she remembered even after five years of not hearing it. The man had brown hair and bright green eyes, and wore the standard Chuunin uniform, a green vest and dark blue shirt and pants. It was her father, Kisuke Haruno, humming the lullaby he used to hum for Sakura at night.
Her attention caught, Sakura decided to stay and watch. The person watching her father moved along the roof of the building they were on and maneuvered their way down silently.
Kisuke, having felt someone nearby, stopped and turned around before calling out, "Come out, I know you're there."
The person came out of the shadows, and Kisuke sighed.
"You're just a kid," Kisuke said. "Well, what are you doing out here at this hour," he asked. There was no answer from the kid making Kisuke frown. He walked towards the kid and Sakura had almost smiled, it was just like her dad to go out of his way to try and help someone.
Suddenly, Kisuke jumped back, avoiding a barrage of shuriken and kunai. Narrowing his eyes, he glared at the child, realizing it had set him up. Kisuke's hand reached into his kunai pouch, drawing two kunai, one for each hand. When the next barrage of shuriken came, he deflected them all with all the skill of a Chuunin, not making one unnecessary move.
Though, while Kisuke was preoccupied with the oncoming projectiles, the child's gaze was partially blocked by a small, clawed hand, before it shifted to the opposite arm just as the clawed hand pierced the forearm, causing blood to leak out slowly.
Sakura had winced when she saw this, seeing as the claws dung in pretty deep, and she doubt she could do something like that without screaming.
Soon the blood stopped, but the wounds were still open, granted it was because the claws were still embedded in his arm. Quickly, red chakra began to cover the palm of the wounded arm, making the nails become sharp and longer than the other hand's had been. The child's gaze shifted back to Kisuke, who seemed to have been successful in deflecting most of the kunai and shuriken. All he had to show that he had been attacked were a few cuts on his clothes, and one on his ear.
That changed quickly.
The child began to get closer, before thrusting his chakra covered hand towards Kisuke, who blocked by crossing his arms. Both grunted as the sharp nails pierced his arms, and Kisuke quickly pushed the child away. It landed on a trash can, and from there it went back to watching as Kisuke dodged and deflected the projectiles.
Sakura hadn't noticed it at first, but Kisuke was definitely slowing down, like his body was becoming heavier as time passed. When the first shuriken hit the Chuunin's shoulder, Sakura could practically feel the smirk on the kid's face.
After that, it was one hit after the next, and Kisuke seamed to be unable to scream out loud, as no noise came from him, even though his mouth was opening and closing every now and then. Again and again he was pelted with shuriken and kunai, until the last one struck him on the throat. Moments later his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he fell forward.
------Dream End----
Sakura could feel tears coming to her eyes again. She had never gotten to see her father's body, so she didn't know if that was how he had actually died, but even so, it was a horrible nightmare. It was only made worse from the fact she saw it from the killer's point of view, giving her the sense that it was her that killed her father.
Tears falling from her eyes at the thought, she hugged her knees to her chest, trying desperately to get the memory of the dream out of her head. It was in vain as it seemed to keep coming back. And the fact that she appeared to be captured didn't help make her feel any better.
She was snapped out of her misery when she heard a smack like noise from outside of the door, followed by a, "Wake up, idiot." There was a groan before someone responded.
"Go away, I'm tired and it's boring around here." Said the second person. Another smack like noise was heard.
"It doesn't matter, we were told to keep an eye on her, so stay awake." The first person ordered. Sakura noticed that the two outside the door seemed to sound similar, but wasn't sure due to the voices being muffled on the door.
"Fuck off, you can't tell me what to do." There was another smack like sound, followed by what sounded like growling. "That's it, you're dead, fucker!"
Sounds of a struggle were heard, lasting for what felt like a few minutes, before two thumps rang through Sakura's room. Looking towards the door, Sakura saw two glistening points sticking out of the door, which were soon pulled out.
"Well, that takes care of those two nuisances." A calmer, more passive voice said. The sound of footsteps approaching the door were heard, followed by the door knob being turned.
Sakura, who was pushing herself against the wall behind her in a hopeless attempt to hide from whoever was at the door. Slowly, almost as if time itself was slowing to a halt, the door was pushed open, revealing a spiky haired person, whose features were blocked out by the light behind them.
"Oh, you're already up." There was no mistaking that voice, it had to be him.
"Naruto?" She asked, carefully.
"Yeah?" He responded, tilting his head slightly. When he got no response from the girl, he moved farther into the room, causing light to enter the room, lighting it as well as his face. With his ability to see in the dark, a skill he obtained after much training at night, he could see that she didn't truly believe it was him.
Sakura, although happy that it was Naruto, didn't know if it was really him. After all, What would Naruto be doing somewhere where the people didn't seem to like Konoha. But she also had no way of checking if it really was Naruto. They weren't exactly close, so it wasn't like she could ask him a special question to find out if it was him or not.
"Sakura," Naruto said, interrupting her thoughts, "could you hurry up and tell me what you want; I don't want my ramen to get cold." He finished, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb. Behind him, Sakura could see another room, resembling a living room connected to a small kitchen area.
Figuring that Naruto was the only person to eat ramen for breakfast – at least she thought it was still breakfast time – she figured it must really be him. But she now had a few questions to ask.
"Uh, Naruto, where are we," she asked.
"My house," he responded almost immediately.
That shocked Sakura, as she wasn't expecting that to be the answer. Taking another look around the room, Sakura saw everything she had seen before, only a little clearer, seeing as there was more light than before. She also saw that Naruto was beginning to get impatient.
"But," She began, looking back at Naruto, "how come the posters on your walls are like that," she asked looking toward the wall, missing the flash of surprise – and Panic – that passed through Naruto's eyes.
As fast as it had come, it was gone, and Naruto had thought of something to say.
"Well, the posters are like that because, since the villagers don't like me, they keep breaking in and destroying all my stuff," Sakura had turned towards him after he said that. "They rip the posters of the Hokages I get 'cause they say I don't deserve to consider them my heroes. The shuriken were from an accident this morning – Don't ask," he added when he saw the confused look in her eyes. "The map pretty much has the parts of Konoha I have to avoid circled," Naruto finished, going over what he said in head to check for anything he might have left out.
"But, then, who were the people outside," Sakura asked.
"Oh, those were my shadow clones. When I left to train this morning, you were sleeping, and since my place isn't the safest place, I left a few shadow clones to guard you," said Naruto. "Except, my shadow clones don't always behave, and fight with each other. That's why I dispelled them when I got home," he finished, scratching the back of his head sheepishly.
Sakura took a few seconds to let everything Naruto had said sink in. Everything she had wondered about had a reasonable explanation. She had noticed how the people of the village seemed to scowl and whisper whenever he walked in and out of the academy – when he actually went – or whenever they saw him in Ichiraku's. Even though she had no idea why they disliked him to such an intensity, it wouldn't be hard to picture some random villager breaking into his home and vandalizing it.
The map would also be reasonable, as it would be good to know what parts of town a person wasn't welcome in. From the looks of it, Naruto wasn't welcome near the Hyuuga compound, the Aburame compound, the Nara compound and the Inuzuka grounds. And the shadow clones were there to protect her -- and having seen the clones annoying her classmates the day before, she could tell they weren't always obedient.
'I wonder what he did to get the Aburame mad with him,' she thought. The Aburame were usually very calm, with unusually long patience. The Hyuuga she could understand – seeing as they hated everyone that wasn't a Hyuuga anyways – and the Nara and Inuzuka as well – as she could see how the Nara could get annoyed with an energetic Naruto, and the Inuzuka could hold a grudge with a mischievous one – but the Aburame?
Sakura was brought out of her thoughts when Naruto's patience snapped.
"Dammit, screw this," he yelled, turning around and walking out of the room. "If you have any more questions, come and ask them, but hurry, academy starts in about an hour," he said as he walked to the table.
Sakura, a little surprised by his sudden outburst, nodded. "Um, oka–"
"Fuck, I knew it, it got cold," came the sudden interruption. Looking over at Naruto, Sakura saw that he was referring to his cup of ramen. She walked out of the room and, for the first time, saw what Naruto's home looked like.
It was kinda small, with the Living room and kitchen being part of the same room. A small table was close to the stove and refrigerator, while an old couch was on the opposite side of the room. In another corner, there were a few weights, weapons, and other training items. The walls had nothing on them, except dirt and chipped paint, and the floor creaked every couple of steps.
'Uh, I think I liked the other room better,' Sakura thought as she reached the table where Naruto was. Said boy seemed to be staring at his cold ramen. "Naruto," she called him, wondering what he was doing.
He shifted his gaze towards her. "Hm," he responded.
"What are you doing," she asked. He just blinked before turning towards the cup of ramen again.
"Nothing," he said, picking up the cup of ramen and walking over to a small pot the was on top of the stove. "Just wondering how to reheat this," he answered, pouring the ramen inside the pot and turning on the stove. "You gonna want some," he asked, looking back at her over his shoulder.
"Um, no thanks," she declined. Naruto just shrugged and went back to staring at his heating ramen. A few seconds passed before Sakura finally asked the question that had been in her mind since she woke up. "Naruto, um, why am I here?"
"I brought you here," he said, not looking back at her. His answer only brought up more questions.
"Why," she asked, confused as to why he'd take her to his house.
"Don't you remember," he asked, looking over his shoulder at her. From the way her eyebrow rose in confusion, he guessed not. He turned the stove of and picked the pot up, pouring it's contents back into the ramen cup before turning to her, cup in one hand and chopsticks in the other. "You fainted yesterday," he paused to stir and blow on the noodles a few times before raising a few of them to his mouth, "after I marked you," he finished, putting the noodles in his mouth and slurping them up.
As Naruto ate his ramen, he didn't notice that Sakura had gone wide eyed. Had her dream actually happened? Unconsciously, her hand moved up to her neck, to the spot where Naruto had bitten, and felt around for the bite marks. Although she couldn't find the bite marks, she did feel a slight shiver go down her back when her fingers passed over a spot on her neck.
'But, if he really marked me, then the kiss must've been real, too,' she thought, remembering her dream, which was actually real. It seemed almost unreal, that he had actually kissed her. The teenage girl part of her almost felt like squealing and couldn't wait to tell Ino about it. But another part of her told her to not tell anyone.
"Well," Naruto started, bringing Sakura out of her thoughts of why she felt she shouldn't tell anyone, "I think we should get going," he said, putting the empty cup on the table. "You gonna want to go home and change, or just go straight to the academy," he asked, seemingly interested.
Sakura thought about it, and after figuring that her step father would probably be home already, decided against going to change – no matter how much she wanted to.
"Let's just go to the academy, I'll change after I get home," she told him. Naruto just shrugged before walking towards one of the three doors in the room. Sakura figured that the one he was walking towards was the way out, another was the room she was in before, and the last was the bathroom.
"Let's go then," he said, opening the door, revealing that they were in Konoha, but in the poor part of it. "Come on," he said before walking outside. Sakura quickly followed, and was surprised when Naruto only closed the door, without locking it, before beginning to walk away.
"Naruto, aren't you going to lock the door," Sakura asked, walking to catch up to him. Naruto only shrugged.
"Nah. This way I don't have to fix or replace my door if somone breaks in. They don't break the door if it's open," he said, as if it was common sense. Behind him, Sakura was frowning, wondering what kind of life Naruto must have lived.
'Besides, even if someone does break in, my shadow clones will take care of them,' Naruto thought to himself, the sides of his mouth curving up slightly. As they continued to walk, another thought came to Naruto mind. 'I wonder where Kyuubi-sama is...'
------ Inside Sakura's Mind -----
An annoyed Inner Sakura was trying her best to lock the nightmare that Sakura had in the back if said girl's mind, in the 'repressed memories' part, but the dream seemed to have a life of it's own, as it refused to be locked away. Slowly, the dream began to turn red, Inner Sakura, being interested in what was happening, got closer to it. As soon as she was close enough, it had already turned completely red.
When Inner Sakura raised an eyebrow in confusion, a large red eye opened up, startling her.
'What do we have here? A second entity,' a deep, guttural voice said. "I'll have to take care of you. I wouldn't want you to get in my way later," said the voice. Suddenly, what looked like red fog began to seep out of the dream, moving towards the scared Inner Sakura, and slowly wrapping around her. As she was lifted up off the ground, she saw the large eye narrow, as if it was smiling. "I think I'll do to you what I did to Naruto's spirit."
-To Be Continued
AN/ Well, there it is. Sorry I took so long in finishing it, I just got stuck, several times. Other, less important, stuff got in the way, too, but writer's block was the main reason. Also, even though it's not important, another reason was I had just found out I had Microsoft Movie Maker, and I had to give it a go. If you want to see my first tries at AMVs, go to my page, it has a link to my Youtube channel. Lastly, as you know, please review.
P.S. I thank Nickleback's "Savin Me" for helping me get out of my writer's block, it gave me ideas for this story, NWD (Naruto Wandering Demon, my other story) and a few new ideas, which I will hopefully have out soon.