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I love yoooooouuuuuu

-mayu

Innocence

Chapter 14

A groan filled the room as Kakashi slowly returned to the land of the living. In his sights was a bright yellow light…no a head with bright yellow hair. Who did he know that had bright yellow hair? Hmm….SENSEI! Kakashi's eyes flew open but only found a small blonde female…oh, its just Narue.

"Kaka-sensei!" she disappeared form his sights for a few seconds but he still heard her cross the room, open the door and then bellow down what ever hall there was "KAKA-SENSEI IS AWAAAKE!" the yell ran in his ears for a minute and when he could hear again, his other two students were there.

Narue helped him sit up against the headboard, and so the jounin took a second to examine the room he was in. It was simple with only a bed and a worn down dresser in the corner.

"We're at Tazuna's place…Narue dragged you here because you fainted from chakra loss." Sasuke voiced from the far wall, he was leaning up against it, staring at Kakashi with his dark Uchiha eyes. Narue was sitting on the foot of the bed cross-legged, fiddling with her sash. Shikamaru was crouched over his knees in a chair beside the bed, obviously deep in thought.

"Chakra loss huh... (Sigh) a rookie mistake." Kakashi rubbed his face, feeling embarrassed. Narue reached over and patted his knee, "Everyone makes mistakes kaka-sensei! Even people like you!" she smiled angelically at him, somehow setting him at ease.

"There is something I'm confused about…and I don't know what it is," Shikamaru spoke from his spot, "the hunter-nin….he was strange."

Kakashi brought his memory to the surface of his mind, reviewing it. Narue about to wallop Zabuza's face, the needles, the hunter-nin, the nin jumping of, "Wait! Hunter-nins have a protocol to burn the body and carry away the head!"

The genin's eyes widened, "that would mean..." Narue started, "…that Zabuza is alive." Shikamaru finished with a sigh and a muttered "troublesome" The room was quiet as they all went over this information.

"So, the bad-guy is alive and going to come after us again?" Narue asked, slightly fearful. Could they beat him this time?

"Yes…the bad guy is going to come back." Kakashi gave her an answer. Sasuke pushed himself of the wall, coming to a stop and the bed adge, behind Narue.

"So what do we do?" he looked steadily into Kakashi's eyes.

"Now, we train."

'How in gods name are they doing that?' Kakashi thought, shocked by what two thirds of his team was doing right at that moment. Sasuke was also amazed, even if he didn't show it and was crouched on a tree limb, resting.

Kakashi had brought them out here to learn how to 'climb trees' and Shikamaru and Narue had said they knew how to do it, Narue had also already thought of a better way to practice chakra control.

At this moment, the two were swinging around the trunks of the trees, using chakra to stick to the side of one and then jumping to the next. They were sparring sideways on the trees, running and jumping on them as if it was the ground. Sasuke was beginning to feel a flicker of jealousy at the skills of his teammates, what did they learn from those other teachers?

He had thought that since he had gotten the original teacher, he would get the best instruction…but it seemed not so. However, he fought the feeling, telling himself that Uchiha's do NOT get jealous.

Growling, Sasuke returned to trying to run up the tree, scratching a mark on the tree where he ended. Narue and Shikamaru paused their sparring to watch him. Shikamaru jumped to Narue's tree, asking her lowly, "Should we help him?" Narue nodded once, and they leaped to sasuke's tree, right in his path.

Shikamaru grabbed hold of his bicep and pulled him to a branch. Kakashi was watching this with some slight curiosity; he was leaning on some crutches so he couldn't jump up there with them and so settled for opening his trusty book.

Sasuke glared at the two and ripped his arm out of Shikamaru's hold, "What do you want?" he spat, the words coming out slightly angrier than he intended. Narue flinched at the hurtful words and said slightly hurt, "We just wanna help you get this done, so we can play the game!" She looked to the wood between her feet.

Shikamaru gave a hard look to Sasuke, and gestured to the sniffling Narue.

Sasuke sighed and said quietly, "I'm s-sorry Narue; I'm just irritated right now." He would never ever get used to apologizing to someone, but he did feel better when Narue looked up, happy that he had said sorry, tears like they were never there.

"That's okay! I know how to finish this training faster!" at Sasuke's questioning look, she continued, delighted he was actually listening to her, "You have to slow down and set one foot on it at a time. You know, find how much chakra you put in, then you walk up!" Sasuke found this explanation relatively easy to follow, and nodded.

He narrowed his eyes at her and asked a questioned he wanted to ask for a while, "Why are you helping me?" Narue and Shikamaru seemed surprised at it.

Shikamaru started chuckling and shook his head, jumping down form the branch, leaving the Uchiha alone with Narue. Sasuke glared after him and turned to the giggling blonde, searching for an answer

"Silly! It's because you're our teammate and friend, now hurry up and perfect it Sasu-chan! I want you to play with us!" she jumped down and resumed sparring with Shikamaru by chucking a kunai at his head. Sasuke was slightly confused, 'I'm their…friend?' A soft smile erupted on his face, a smile that hadn't been there for the last 6 years. A true, happy smile, it lasted a while, at least until another thing Narue said caught up to him.

"DON'T CALL ME SASU-CHAN!!!"

Kakashi giggled, '(snicker) Sasu-chan. (snicker)'

The moon was moving in a slow and steady pace, and Narue was mesmerized by the twinkling and sparkling of the stars.

"They're so pretty…" she murmured unaware that she was heard.

"Yes, they are." Shikamaru's voice startled her and she leaned back tilting her head up. She had leaned back too far however, and began to toppled, gasping a strangled cry.

"Gahck!" She was halted however, when a shoulder pressed into her back, and a hand pushed her back to the middle of the roof. Twisting her head, Narue caught sight of raven black hair. The avenger had turned his head away as to not look the female in the face.

"Thank you Sasu-kun." She smiled her quick apology and of course, Sasuke ignored her, and pushed himself about a yard away from his teammates, sitting silently and staring across the forest.

"What're you guys doing up here?" she asked, not even looking at them, still gazing up at the stars.

"Just came to see if you were okay, you weren't in your bed so we came to check up on ya." Shikamaru seemed to deem he was speaking for them both, since Sasuke seemed to have permanently nailed his mouth closed. They fell silent and thought their own thoughts.

"Sasu-kun, you wanna no something funny?" Narue glanced at the boy, she continued without waiting for a reply, "I used to call you Sasuke-meanie and Sasuke-jerk and you called me dobe-trash or something…isn't that weird?" Sasuke twitched, drawing his slim feminine eyebrows down in confusion. Her question had hit a cord in him; he had used to loath the girl, and would gladly let her die if the time came, but now?

Sasuke puzzled on this for the space of time they sat up there on the roof. It was finally time for sleep when Narue yawned loudly.

"Alright Narue, time for bed, I promised your parents I'd get you to bed on time!" Shikamaru stood and stooped throw Narue over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

"But shika-aaayaaah-chan, I'm not sleepy." Narue whined around another yawn, not even protesting to being carried like a ruck-sack. Sasuke watched the blonde girl as she drowsily lifted her head and called, "Night night Sasuke-kun, see you in the morning." He head fell like a rock against Shikamaru's shoulder, asleep in an instant.

Once the two were gone, Sasuke stayed and made a decision to himself, and maybe he would become stronger with their help. With the help of his…friends, his lips twitched upward as he made his way to his bed.

(So it's slightly cheesy, cliché, and downright awful, but bah! I need them to all cooperate with each other, and Sasuke couldn't do that as an asshole.)

"BREEEAAAKFAAAAAAST!" Narue yelled into the boy's bedroom, causing them to jerk and curse at the loudness in the middle of the morning. Narue grinned and ran over to jump on their mats. Launching herself on the closest one, (Shikamaru) hearing a satisfying grunt of pain before she leaped onto the other one (Sasuke) Listening happily the grumblings of an irritated Uchiha in the morning.

"Get up! Tsumani-chan is making food!" She bounced on the squirming/gasping boys before jumping up and like a hurricane, left the room in a mess. Both boys hade been pushed off the mattresses they had been sleeping on, dragging the sheets with them. They were sprawled around, trying to make their muscles move. (AN: just imagine the image of a sleepy Sasuke sprawled on the floor! xD cracks me up!)

"I hate Mondays." Sasuke's deadish sleepy voice growled from his position face-down on the floor, Shikamaru grunted in agreement.

Downstairs, Narue was sitting on her chairs, legs swinging about a foot away from the floor, saying wildly to Kakashi, "I woke them kaka-sensei! I jumped on them to wake them up too!" Kakashi patted her proudly on the head as the boys dragged themselves down the stairs to literally collapse into their chairs.

They glared at Narue who seemed to be consumed by the hyper-ness only young kids are capable to acquire in the early morning. Of course, their grumbles were extinguished when Tsunami place a bowl of food in front of them.

Nobody noticed a little kid with a real cool green hat peek around the corner from the bedrooms; he had been avoiding the shinobi since they had entered his house, only watching them from afar. The black-haired boy turned with tears in his eyes, mumbling something about "we're all going to die and" and "their all idiots." while wiping the tears from his cheeks.

Narue flickered her eyes to the roof when she heard the pitter patter of feet ticking across the wood. She cast her eyes around and noticed nobody else had heard anything so she stayed quiet. Maybe it was her imagination. Kakashi-sensei had said something about how her mind can trick her, and so she dismissed the noise.

It had been a week since Zabuza's attack, and Kakashi predicted that he would attack again. The team left with Tazuna fully prepared to whoop a demon of mist's ass!

Alright! Not the best chapter ever, but its just one to get some things out of the way.

Since Narue already knew how to do the exercise, she has not met haku, but she will. Oh yes…she will (evil cackle)

Review pleeeaase!

-mayu

Ps. I officially HATE writers block….. (Grumble grumble)