It wasn't easy getting here, but now we can live like a happy family. Konoha has five great heroes. Three of them are Uchihas. I'm so proud of everyone. They worked so hard. We fought with everything we had, and we won! To think, my story is just beginning...
Naruto jumped out of the bushes towards me. I jumped up and kicked at him. I hit my mark, but he vanished in a puff of smoke. Three shurikens came flying out at me. I grabbed a nearby branch to pull myself out of the way as the zoomed past, cutting my clothes.
"Hey!" I shouted. "Lay off the threads! We're training! Not trying to kill each other!"
"If they don't try to kill you, none of them will ever get stronger," said a familiar voice behind me. I grinned wickedly as I used that same branch to flip over and fly into the bushes behind me. Kakashi side stepped to avoid me, but my hand snatched his wrist and I pulled him down with me. We both landed on the ground with a thud.
"How about a new goal?" I said with a grin. "Whoever manages to remove your mask gets treated to ramen., your treat of course."
"That doesn't sound very fair for me," he said.
"Well, then you better make sure no one removes your mask," I said. Naruto had heard me and a thousand and one jumpsuits came raining down from the trees.
"That should keep him from remarking crudely like that for a while," I said before I took off, leaving Kakashi to deal with so many Narutos. As I raced through the trees, two kunai zipped just past my nose. I caught one, while the other went on to cut a string, springing a trap. Several shuriken came flying at me from behind. I jumped and twisted my body to avoid the shuriken and throw the kunai into the leaves below.
I watched Sasuke jump out of the way, and I was quick to follow him. He was good, better then I had been when I had first started.
*
"Phoenix! Are you paying attention?"
"Uh... maybe..." I replied. My supervisor let out a sigh and shook his head at me. What did it matter? I never wanted to be a part of this any way.
"You have a mission, a duty to Konoha, to the Country of Fire. You must do your best to fulfill it," he said.
"This 'duty'—or whatever you call it—was forced upon me," I spat. "I should at least have the option of whether to fulfill it or not!"
"It's not just about fulfilling it," he said. "When you are sent on your mission after the Uchiha, it will be a do or die situation. Either you kill him or he'll kill you."
"Yeah, I get it, but to answer your question on whether I was paying attention or not, I was," I said. "You were talking about how to hit the right points on the body to either just knock them, or kill them."
"Very good," he said and he went on with his lecture. I despised the ANBU.
*
I always would. I had to thank them though. I had learned a lot about myself during the time I was there, but I was glad to be out. Sasuke suddenly halted to face me. I stopped as well, anxious to see what he would do next when he suddenly clutched his shoulder and collapsed.
"Sasuke!" I ran to his side to see if he was all right. I got a glimpse of the curse mark before he faked me out and sent a fist my way. Luckily I still had my Sharingan activated and was able to avoid catastrophe.
"You little twit!" I shouted. He smirked before making some hand signs.
"Katon: Fire Ball Jutsu!" I bearly managed to get out of the way before it hit. As the forest lit on fire, a giant wave of water came crashing down on it.
"All right, who's the genius who used a fire technique?" asked Kakashi.
"Um, that would be Sasuke," I said. Sasuke glared at me but didn't say anything.
"I think we're done for the day," said Kakashi. He pulled out his book and was just about to take off when his book disappeared. One look at the cover made me want to give it back, but it was too late to do that. Kakashi was hot on my heals.
"Gotta hide! Gotta hide!" I kept repeating. There was no way to hide from Kakashi for long, but perhaps just long enough. At the very least, somewhere he wouldn't dare go. Then I found it! A public bath! I zipped into the ladies room and got into the bath with the book in hand.
"Tsukiko? What are you doing here?" asked a familiar voice. I nearly had a heart attach until I realized who it was.
"Oh, Kurenai, it's just you! I startled me," I said with a relieved sigh. She raised an eyebrow then noticed the book in my hand.
"Isn't that Kakashi's book?" she asked. I grinned maliciously. I could see her sweat drop.
"It is," I laughed maniacally. "I'm in here to hide from him. I know he won't come in here."
"Okay. This wouldn't happen to have anything to do with the ramen incident last week, would it?"
"No! Of course not!" I said as I waved my hand, dismissing the idea. The incident she was talking about was when I walked into the ramen shop, I tripped over Kakashi's foot and fell, and as I did so, I grabbed at anything to keep my from falling all the way. I had meant to grab the counter.
Instead, I grabbed a bowl of half eaten ramen and I landed face flat on the floor with ramen slithering through my hair and down my forehead.
Kakashi claimed it was an accident, but I knew better.
I studied Kurenai for a moment. I momentarily glared at her chest. Sometimes I felt that Sakura had a bigger chest then I did. I was nineteen and I didn't have any 'humps', if that's what their called now, to speak of. Life was just not fair. Then I noticed something on her neck.
"So, how's it going between you and Asuma?" I asked. She blushed.
"I thought I told you we weren't together," she said.
"Oh really," I said. "Then is that a birth mark? It looks more like a hicky to me." She quickly slapped a hand over the mark and her face was as red as her eyes. I laughed at her embarrassment.
"All right, so we have been seeing each other," said Kurenai. "What about you? You interested in anyone?"
"Me? Nope," I replied. "I'm just training to get strong enough to save the ones I care about most."
"You're a true shinobi then," said Kurenai. "That's exactly what it takes to be a shinobi, not the mission, but the ones you care about the most."
"Well, in that case, I'm glad I was forced into this," I said. "I think I've grown up some since then."
"If that's the case, then you wouldn't be stealing Kakashi's books," she said.
"I said some, not all the way!" I laughed. "Back to girl talk though, I haven't been able to say that in forever. Any way, so, how far have you and Asuma gone?"
"What do you mean by that?!" she cried. I laughed. She frowned and looked away. "I heard Genma's really interested in you."
"What? Really? I would have never guessed!" I cried. "I never thought of myself as appealing."
"All the Uchiha were good looking," said Kurenai. "You are no exception to the rule. Have you ever seen the looks on the guys faces when they see you? I think the only one immune to it is Kakashi."
"Is that so?" I said. "Well, no matter, I think the only reason for that is because of this book." I waved it in the air.
"Don't get it wet!"
"I won't." I put it down gently on a dry towel. "If Kakashi thinks of me at all though, he probably thinks I'm just a bratty teenager with a little too much power."
"I don't know."
"Hey!" another voice chimed in. Sakura had come to join us.
"Oh, hey Sakura!" I called as she headed over in our direction. She grinned at me.
"I saw you steal Kakashi-sensei's book," she said. "That was good. I'm guessing that was pay back for last week."
"No..." I denied. They both stared at me. "Okay, it is, but you know it's his fault. He started it!"
*
I slipped my towels into the hamper before stepping out of the building to find the one I was trying to avoid standing across the road, waiting for me. I smiled stupidly and scratched the back of my head as he approached me.
"Can I have my book back?" he asked.
"What book?" I joked. He took another step toward me. "All right, all right, here it is." I handed it to him as I rolled my eyes. "I don't understand what's so great about it any way."
"Did you read it?" he asked. I felt a blush creep upon my cheeks. I took a deep breath.
"Of course not!" I shrieked. "I don't read porn!"
"Good," he said before disappearing.
"Yeah, you better run!" I screamed.
"Tsuki-chan, what are you screaming about?"
"Nothing," I muttered before turning to Naruto. He was grinning stupidly at me, and I couldn't help but smile.
"That was a pretty good joke you pulled on Kakashi-sensei," he said. My smile widened.
"Yeah, it was, but as soon as he has a new book, I've got another one," I said. I whispered my plot in his ear. His grin grew wider and more evil.
"That's the best one I've ever heard!" he shouted.
"You are just like your mother," said a hard voice behind us. We both turned to see Hyuuga Hiashi stepping towards us. I gave Naruto a look telling to high-tail it out. He got the message and vanished.
"Hello Hiashi-sama," I said. "What about my mother?"
"Let's talk more on our way home," he said, motioning for me to follow. I rolled my eyes. He was the last person I wanted to see. Ever since I had been freed from ANBU, I had felt more care free then ever before. Even my fight with Itachi would not bring me down. I was free.
He wanted to talk about my mother, my real mother. I did want to hear about her.
"Your mother was a wild spirit," he started. "Always running off to do things that the rest of the clan did not approve of. She would not heed to the orders of the Head of the Clan, and it would get her into such trouble. During the great war I had noticed that she had become tamer. Perhaps it was your father who had her tamed, if so she must have truly loved him. She became more active within the clan, but she would disappear at night.
"Her behavior was so strange it concerned us all, then one morning, the Hokage summoned us to proclaim that she was dead. My younger sister died the night you were born, but the Hokage withheld this information from us."
"He did it because my mom wanted it," I said solemnly. The Hokage was the only one who tried to keep to my mother's wishes. "She knew the clan would try to search out the father, she didn't want that, so she had me hidden."
"I suppose no one will ever know who your father was," he said. That wasn't true. I knew who my father was, but I wasn't about to go and blabber about it. Quite honestly, I almost wished I didn't.
"So I'm like my mother?" I asked. It was a rhetorical question. I felt an unusual sensation slide down my face. I wiped it away to find it was a tear. I hadn't cried since the Sandaime had died. "I wish I could have met her. I wish things were different. I don't have any brothers or sisters to fight with. I don't have parents to tell me I can't do this or that."
I had friends while with the Yoshikawa family. All of them could complain about their siblings and things, then after my fourteenth birthday, I didn't even have parents to complain about. For five years I had felt so alone with the knowledge that both my real parents were gone, I would never even get to see their faces.
I burst into sobs as Hiashi led me back to the Hyuuga estate. He was silent the rest of the way as I cried the tears that had been building up for five years. Ninjas didn't cry. I had learned that during my time as an ANBU, but that didn't mean they didn't feel emotion.
I cried all the way to my room, fell into my pillow and cried some more. I had never felt so relieved before. I still felt another burden press into my shoulder blades.
"Itachi, I'll save you and Sasuke. I promise."
*
I woke up the next morning practically jumping out of my futon. I washed my face of the remains of the tears I had shed the night before. The rest of the Uchiha clan may be emo, Sasuke, but Uchiha Tsukiko was not! I was not going to live my life with the sins of the past haunting my every waking moment.
"Good morning world!" I shouted as I stepped out of my room. Neji, who had been passing by at the time, stared at me like I was crazy. Which I kind of was.
"Good morning Neji!" I said cheerfully.
"Good morning Tsukiko, what's up with you all of a sudden? You came home crying last night," he said. I shrugged.
"Oh don't worry about that!" I said. I will admit, my happiness was a bit forced. "We haven't been able to talk about that prank we were going to pull!"
"Oh, Hinata and I just set it up," he said. As if on cue, a loud cry was heard down the hallway from Hiashi's room.
"Well, I've got to go. Gai-sensei wants us to meet up early," he said as he ran out the door. Hinata was already long gone, and I was left to fend for myself.
"Tsukiko!"
"It wasn't me this time!"
*
This was kind of a filler. I've almost decided on couples... almost...
Reviews are always nice.