Sasuke frowned deeply as he looked around the clearing. When he had left the clearing to get fire wood there had been a Jizouko sleeping propped up against a tree, and now there was not a trace of her. He scanned the grass carefully for the signs of someone passing; perhaps she had woken up and then wandered off – something she had done often in Konoha.

His frown only deepened when he saw that there were three sets of foot prints. One was an animal's and two were human. He knelt down closer to the smaller of the two human prints and followed them with his eyes until they disappeared into the underbrush along with the animal's. He had two options, follow the footprints and see where they led, or wait and see if Jizouko came back.

After a moment of thought he started following the footprints, drawing a kunai just in case.

The forest chittered quietly around Jiyuudo as she made her way between the tree trunks. She was about half way down the mountain by her estimate, so that meant that she should be close to the crumbling remains of the house…

Her pace slowed a bit. The house that she used to live in before… before a lot of things happened. She was still remembering bits and pieces of her past, but she knew what had happened in the big picture. Her parents had been killed when she was very young, and she had lived with Isamu for a few years until the team from Konoha had found her and brought her to live with them.

Now she had all but stopped as she – finally – began to think about her situation. She hadn't thought about how her personal revelation would impact her relationships. She didn't feel like a different person, but who knew how she would feel when she rejoined society.

"Jizouko-chan?"

Jiyuudo looked around for the source of the voice, and a strange wave of emotions crashed over her when her eyes locked onto Isamu.

"Oji-chan," she managed to say in a choked voice.

"Jiyuudo," he said in a similar voice, his golden eyes shining.

"Uh… hi," she smiled weakly.

Makoto started sniffing the air, the only sound that Jiyuudo could hear until he padded off into the forest; apparently the canine didn't care much for family reunions.

"So you remember," Isamu said after a pause.

"Yeah," she nodded, biting at her lip. "I remember."

Isamu hummed softly and nodded to himself; eyes closed as if he was bracing himself for something.

"I… I was told to ask you," Jiyuudo started, rubbing at the back of her head. "Who are those people?"

"The man is one of two," he said after a deep breath.

"Two what?" she pressed when he didn't continue. "Isamu-san, who is he?"

"They came with the storm," he said, looking her in the eyes.

Jiyuudo's eyes widened as she stared at him in a stunned silence. There had been two? But she only remembered one, one with the Sharingan.

A startled cry followed by angry snarls interrupted her train of thought. She knew instantly that Makoto was involved somehow and took off towards the disturbance without a second thought.

Sasuke had followed what he assumed to be Jizouko's footsteps down the mountainside and the trees were beginning to thin out. He vaguely remembered passing through with Orochimaru and Kabuto, but he hadn't cared about the surroundings at the time.

Soft rustling in the bushes distracted him from the trail he was following, but when he looked up nothing appeared so he turned his attention back to the ground. Again he heard rustling but he ignored it assuming it was a bird or rabbit or something along those lines.

Oh how wrong he was.

Without warning he was knocked to the ground and pinned by a snarling white mass. His kunai had fallen out of his grip and he could just see it at the edge of his vision glinting in the light. He planted his hands against whatever was pinning him and began to push; only succeeding in creating a bit more room for his chest to expand with each breath. His fists wrapped around clumps of fur as he tried to wrench the form off of him when sharp teeth and claws started to scratch at his face and arms. He thought he heard yelling, but he couldn't be sure; maybe his mind had just imagined it in panic.

"Makoto, get off of him!" he recognized Jizouko's voice as another pair of hands aided him in pulling the beast off.

He rolled onto one side and breathed heavily, glaring at what could only be described as a white beast struggling to break free of Jizouko's tanned arms wrapped around its neck. The beast's black eyes shone with a feral light as it continued to bark and snarl at him. If he didn't know better he would've sworn that it was shrinking until it was the size of a wolf, still large by most standards but smaller than he thought it had been when it was on top of him.

"What is wrong with you?" Jizouko grunted as she let the wolf go.

The wolf – which he assumed was named Makoto – seemed to be sulking under the girl's stern gaze and only growled softly as it glanced towards Sasuke.

"Well, don't do it again!" she ordered.

Makoto whined in response.

"He's… he's a friend," she answered the beast.

Makoto just huffed and padded a short distance away where he lay down and trained his black eyes onto Sasuke. The Uchiha told himself that he didn't care that the beast was watching him, but he was a bit unsettled by the black eyes that he knew were following his movements

"What is that?" Sasuke asked as he got to his feet, he was reasonably sure that he had bruises now.

"Hm? Oh, him," Jizouko frowned at the wolf that was eyeing him suspiciously, "that's Makoto."

Makoto just growled lowly and pinned his ears back. Jizouko hissed sharply at him and he fell silent, causing Sasuke to arch an eyebrow; so she had some control over this animal?

His gaze shifted from the sulking white canine to the girl that he thought he knew. Only a year had passed since he had last seen her, but it was clear that she had grown much more than he had in his training. She was around his height now and her hair was longer, but she didn't carry herself any differently. Perhaps her physical changes hadn't quite registered with her yet. Past the physical he could tell that something else had changed too. If Karin was right about her being the one to kill the snake then she was strong, and he wanted to test this theory.

"Jizouko," he said, snapping her out of the stare down she had gotten into with Makoto. "Fight me."