DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Naruto.

Hey you guys! Sorry I took so long to update. I have had really hectic weeks. I'll really try to update as soon as I can. Tell me what you think! I'll love it if I hear what you've got to say! On with the story...

Chapter 4: When You Have That Feeling

As the sun started to slowly rise over the horizon Takara woke up. Today was colder than the usual spring weather. She stood in front of the mirror looking at her new outfit. She wore a short navy skirt, a tight long-sleeve navy shirt and on top of it she wore a white shirt. The white shirt, on the front, had her clan's crest and on her back it had a small outline of a tiger. Takara wore a new pair of regular, ankle high, navy shinobi sandals, because her favorite black ones were probably gone forever. She shook her head, wondering if it was even worth thinking they might still be there. Then her eyes moved from her shoes to her hair. Her bright black hair now reached her hips, and Takara loved it. She normally wore it in a high pony tail letting it fall down her back, but as she changed her outfit she thought it would only make sense to change her hair style too. She gathered all her hair in the nape of her neck, separates it into three even pieces and started to braid it. As she nearly reached the tip of her hair, she tied it up with a black band. She grabbed the long braid and let it fall over her right shoulder; it nearly reached her belly button.

She smiled to herself in the mirror, her white perfect teeth showing in her happy smile, her eyes bluer than ever. She tip-toed to the window and silently opened it. She jumped outside, onto the window's ledge. She turned around to close the window and when she turned around she saw her grandfather. He was slightly leaning against the door, shaking his head. Takara, surprised by being caught, jumped back and before she fell from her two storie house, she grabbed on to the window's ledge with both her hands. She gasped for air, she wasn't only afraid of nearly falling two stories down, she was afraid of what her grandfather had to say about her sneaking out. She pulled herself up and reentered her room.

"Grandfather!" she gasped for air, "How did you do that? I didn't even know you were awake!"

Her grandfather smiled but still shook his head in disapproval, "Takara, dear child, you've known me all your life, you should know better. I've had years of experience."

"No doubt." Takara said under her breath

She looked at him, considering what the odds were of turning around and making a run for it, not good. She frowned and turned to the door, and headed down stairs for breakfast, her grandfather behind her. They walked in silence, but Takara barley felt his presence, it was as if a ghost was following her. As they were nearly getting to the first floor her grandfather put his hand on her shoulder and Takara stopped. She turned her head to her left but didn't look at him

"May I ask where you were headed?" he sighed.

Takara shrugged, she was hoping he wouldn't ask, "I don't know, training I guess."

He removed his hand from her shoulder and replied, "Ah…."

When she walked past the living room and went through the open kitchen's door she was surprised. She saw her brother reading a book and chewing his breakfast. He looked up as they entered and spread his lips into a smile.

"But- how? How do you do that?" she said looking from her brother to her grandfather, "I didn't even hear you, I didn't even know you were here."

Kiyoshi turned to look at her grandfather and laughed with his mouth closed and her grandfather smiled.

Kiyoshi swallowed, put his book down and looked at her, "You should calm down Takara, after years of having to be invisible you get the hang of it."

Takara bit her lip, and thought about what he had said. It was true that he had to be practically invisible because he is an ANBU member, then again it runs through their veins. Their whole clan was barley known and to those who knew about it feared it.

Takara was finally far from the village's houses and entered deep into the forest. She opened her bag and threw all the many tools to the ground. She made the hands signs and two identical shadow clones appeared in front of her. Takara wasn't like other eight year olds, she was truly skilled.

"Here," the real Takara said giving each shadow clone a colored bandana.
Takara got the navy one and wrapped it around her neck. The shadow clone to Takara's left wrapped her white bandana over her forehead and the other clone wrapped her red bandana around her ankle.

"So," Takara said, "this is going to be basic training. Hiding, tracking, and combat. First round will be long range combat, whenever we find one another. Second round mid range and third round close combat. Run, hide and then we start."

The clone with the white bandana shook her head, "So we get as far as we can and try not to get caught but at the same time we try to catch one of you guys?"

"Yes." Takara said smiling.

"When we see one another we start to fight?"

"Yes, but these first rounds will only be long range combat."

The clone with the red bandana smirked, "So…only one can win right?"

The one with the white bandana looked at her, rolled her eyes and smiled.

"Fine on the count of three," Takara said, "One…two…three!"

When Takara said three all of them turned around and started running as fast as they could…

Takara was lying down on the ground gasping for air. She had beaten herself almost in every round. They had done all the three rounds four times each. She had lost seven times, practically to herself.

She now had blood all over her ripped clothes and body. Her hair was loose and tangled and smudged with blood and mud. Who would have known that fighting herself would hurt so much? She should have specified the rules, but because there were practically no rules, her clones and she went all out.

The advantage of using shadow clones is that instead of only doing it twelve times she actually did it thirty-six times total, in every round there were "three Takaras". Takara was totally and completely exhausted she had started early in the morning, right after breakfast, and now she noticed that the sun was setting. She saw as the clouds started to drift away and her eyes slowly closed and she drifted to sleep.

Her eyes fluttered open violently as she heard leaves rustle. Without thinking twice Takara jumped up to a defensive position and she threw a kunai knife at the direction of the rustling leaves. She heard as her kunai hit, probably another kunai, and was deflected to a tree trunk.

"Hey! Calm down! It's just me!"

When Takara recognized the voice, still weary she sat back down to the ground and rubbed her eyes, as to rub the sleep away. She felt relieved it was only him. Kakashi came through some bushes and Takara saw that he was wearing his normal black pants, shoes, and black shirt, although surprisingly he wasn't wearing his mask.

"What are you doing here?" she asked sleepily looking up at him.

Kakashi chuckled "You see, I was coming back from a short mission this afternoon and I met up with your grandfather. I suppose he knew we were together yesterday because he asked me if I knew where you were today, and asked me if I could find you."

Takara looked around and saw that it was dark. She could see Kakashi dark standing near her. She didn't want to be nagged about again but she figured there was nothing she could do about it now, she was already in trouble.

"Wait, where was this and what exactly did that old man say?" she asked confused.

"It was at the entrance, he was leaving somewhere, I don't know where. He actually threatened me to protect you and not to ever put you in any danger." He said the last sentence as if it didn't really matter that her grandfather had threatened him, "Then he asked if I could find you."

"He what?" Takara said surprised and stood up in front of him, "He threatened you?"

"Yeah you know, nothing too bad." He shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm sorry. He's very overprotective sometimes and sometimes, like now, he goes overboard."

She rubbed her eyes again, "By the way what time is it?"

"I'm sure it's for the best, he really cares about you," Kakashi frowned trying to calculate what time it was, "Nine…Forty?"He shrugged.

She started to pick up all the bloodstained kunai and shuriken that were thrown all around her small "battle field". Her clan had very good eyesight in the dark so it wasn't hard to gather them all up. She normally wouldn't pick them all up and save them but her grandfather never resupplied so Takara had to save them if she wanted to train.

"What happened to you?" Kakashi said with a hint of humor in his voice.

Takara noticed that he was looking at her from head to toe. She looked down and saw that her shirts and skirt were ripped and bloodstained. Her legs, arms and face had dried blood all over. She had lost the rubber that kept her hair in a braid and it was all tangled up with blood and dirt.

Takara giggled, "You know, training. Looks like I need a bath."

Kakashi rolled his eyes and shook his head. Takara looked around to check if she missed anything.

Scratching her head she said, "Well, do we go?"

Kakashi nodded and headed the way out. She walked in silence behind him until they got to the villages relatively empty streets.

"See you around," he said smiling slightly.

"Sure." Takara nodded and gave him a full smile.

From there they both headed towards different directions. Takara turned left as Kakashi turned right. She peaked at him from over her shoulder as he walked calmly away, his hands in his pockets and his head looking straight in front of him. For some reason Takara felt unease inside of her, she truly disliked that image: Kakashi walking away from her, getting farther and farther by every step he took. Takara smiled and shook her head slightly, she really liked Kakashi as a friend, he was a nice and fun boy. Even though he was always serious and always went by the rules she liked it when she was alone with him. He would smile and laugh even take his mask off, some things he wouldn't normally do.

The same goes for Takara, she would giggle and joke and tell him her secrets, she knew she could trust him. Takara didn't really have best friends, only her brother. Her grandfather was too old to consider a friend, she did have many friends at the academy but none of them were her best friends. Now she looked at Kakashi walking away and she felt as her new brother, her new best friend walked away. She didn't feel unease anymore because she knew deep inside that this was far from the last time she would see Kakashi. She had that feeling, knowing everything would be fine.

Takara turned her head and started walking towards her house. As she took a few steps she suddenly felt a searing pain on her upper chest. She felt as if melted metal was covering her chest, it burned like hell. She grasped her torn shirt and started running as fast as she could to her house. She stared at her the two story, concrete house, all the lights were out. That was never a good sign. She burst open the wooden door and closed it behind her as she ran upstairs to her room. Strangely Takara didn't feel anybodies presence, strange because her grandfather would always be home and her brother would have told her he was going on a mission or something. She slid open her bedroom door and ran to her bathroom. Once inside she quickly ripped off her two shirts. She now only had her bra to cover her up. She looked at the mirror and saw her chest was completley red and it burned even more than it did before. She looked closer to her upper chest and saw a symbol forming.

A five year old Takara was in her grandfather's arms and close behind him was her brother. She cried in his arms as they ran for their lives. Takara could hear the screams of pain and anger being left behind as they ran through the tree branches farther and farther away from her home, her village, her clan.

"Don't worry dear one, you are safe." she heard her grandfather say.

She looked up to see his face she squinted her eyes slightly trying to use her ability to see in the dark. His face was tense, jaw clenched and looking straight ahead. After hours of running Takara noticed that her grandfather was slowing down. He was turned his head looking for a place to hide. He found a cave in the distance and sped up again.

"Kiyoshi keep up!" he whispered urgently under his breath.

Kiyoshi, who was being left behind, put more force on the pushes he gave when his feet touched the branches. They finally reached the cave and they were looking around. Takara heard them both panting, Kiyoshi much louder and faster than their grandfather. Takara suddenly felt an excruciating pain on her chest. She fell to her knees clasping both her hands over her chest. She wrinkled her light blue dress with her hands and an ear splitting scream left her mouth. Both her grandfather and her brother ran to her.

"Takara! What's wrong?" Kiyoshi said, his voice full of worry.

"Takara what hurts?" her grandfather said, much more soothing.

He grabbed Takara in his arms and with one big hand brushed her hair.

"It-it hur-hurts s-o mu-much." Takara said between sobs.

"Where love, where?" her grandfather said slightly more urgently.

Takara pulled the top of her dress down with both her hands, exposing her upper chest. Her grandfather and her brother gasped.

"Grandfather is that..."Kiyoshi started saying but covered his mouth with his hand not being able to finish.

"Yes, it is that jutsu." her grandfather said shaking his head. His eye brows furrowed and frowned.

"But that means..." Kiyoshi fell to his knees and buried his face in his hands, "Mother, Father." his words came out slow and muffled because of his hands.

Takara then knew her parents had...died.

Remembering what had happened last time when she felt the pain tears started to fall from her eyes. She knew very little about that jutsu but of the little she knew, she fell to the floor not bothering to stop herself from crying. She knew what the jutsu implied, you had to give your life away, you died when you used it. Takara already had two small marks on her chest, they were the symbol of her clan, the one she had earlier on her, now useless, shirt. From what she understood their clan's symbol came from that jutsu. The two small black markings represented both her parents.

You don't have a choice but to do the jutsu, it's part of the part of the death of a clan member. You just had to accept it. Her parents had both done the jutsu on the verge of dying. Now she had a third symbol starting to form, she knew that it was bad. Despite all the stories she had heard about how the jutsu gave the receiver a ridiculous amount of power, she knew that someone had died. The overwhelming feeling of losing your parents and now loosing someone else dear to her made her hyperventilate. Had it been her brother? Had it been her grandfather? Had someone she didn't know from her clan died to give her power? She felt her heart burning as it pumped faster and faster. She could feel her head throbbing and hurting. She felt as a wave of darkness started to cover her up and before she knew it, Takara lay unconscious on her bathroom floor. Funny how she had just been happy about Kakashi, now had that feeling that made the brightest day become the worst day of your life.

Takara was now staring at her grandfather's grave. Two nights ago, her brother had come bursting into her room and running to her as she lay unconscious on the floor. He had picked Takara up and held her in his arms. Tears escaping his eyes as he remembered the bantered body of his grandfather, lying lifeless on a table, surrounded by many medical-nin. He then stood up and put Takara in her bed, covering her up with a blanket, he saw her upper chest which now had three black symbols. He remembered how much pain she fad felt last time it had happened. She was knocked out cold, a five year old couldn't withstand such pain not even now three years later at the age of eight. The pain and the sorrow was overwhelming causing her to eventually lose consciousness. When she finally woke up he had explained what had happened and Takara burst out crying while Kiyoshi held her tight in his arms. He truly hated seeing his sister suffer and vowed to never let her feel this much pain again, not ever.

Takara turned her head around as she heard someone walking up to her, the Third.

"I am deeply sorry," he said solemnly, he continued "He was a great man and a very close friend."

Takara nodded, not knowing what to say. She turned back around giving her back to the Third and facing her grandfather's grave. She had visited the Third many times, he was a very nice man but this wasn't the time to talk to her.

The Third noticing that she didn't want to talk, put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently.

"He truly loved you and your brother. There will never be a man alike." And he walked away.

Yes, her grandfather was like no other. He had died as he protected the village and Takara from missing-nin. Takara kneeled in front of the grave and put the white rose she held in her hand in front of the tombstone.

"Goodbye." She said as her hair danced wildly in the wind.

Hey, Thanks for reading! Loved it, hated it? Was it missing stuff? Well, I've left some things a mystery but you'll soon learn all about Takara. I'm already starting chapter five!

Take care! God bless *blows kiss*