Starting to hit a few minor writers block in the plot but i am feeling confident i have it all planned out now. So please read on, over 900 views now. :D

Comments, questions, reviews are all welcome. I am still trying to improve my writing style.

Note added: I've also changed the tags to from tragedy to romance, as my story developed i felt it better described where i am heading.

Fukushi and Monica's perspective.

Monica had been carrying Fukushi for an hour or so. He was still unconscious from her cauterising his shoulder wound. Her load wasn't heavy and she was surprised because she was expecting his strength to be present in his weight. Nevertheless, she was weary by the time she found the nearby hot springs. The water steamed up into the cool night air and the liquid shone a bright blue illuminating the surrounding ravine which hid the waters. Monica carefully slid Fukushi off her back and leaned him against the rock. She fiddled with a small pouch tied to his belt and retrieved a small jar of healing herbs which he had used on her when they first met, almost a month ago. She smeared the green gel-like substance over his angry looking scar which she had burned. After which she just sat and looked up to the stars and waited.

"Uh how long was I out?"

Monica squeaked with excitement. "Fukushi! You're awake! Uh urm. An hour I think?"

"This is starting to take its toll on me, I hope we can get the last page before things get ugly."

"We will do it, your plan will work." Monica reassured Fukushi who still looked drowsy.

"You can use the pool over there if you like, I won't bother you, too tired." Fukushi muttered as he sluggishly got up to take his cloak off. Monica blushed and walked away behind a large wall of rocks. They both got undressed and once naked they entered their respective pools. Monica dipped her foot into the pale blue waters and realised how warm it felt. The perfect temperature to not scald her but not too cool that her body would climatize in minutes.

Fukushi meanwhile had ungracefully entered and sat by the edge and rested his eyes. His battle earlier had drained him almost completely of chakra. He should have cauterised his injury earlier but he was too concerned about enemy reinforcements to stop the bleeding. He was listening to the quiet trickle of water which refilled the pool and washed away the grime and blood that coated Fukushi's body. He hadn't heard Monica entering his pool until he noticed the silent ripples lapping across his chest. He looked up and before he had a chance to react, Monica lunged at him and wrapped her arms around his neck for support. He was stunned for a moment when he realised she was pressing up against him with her naked body. Her skin felt soft as he quickly gave in to her embrace and with a blink back into reality he looked at Monica, her hair was wet and stuck flat to her scalp in a deep, almost red, colour. He focused his gaze on Monica's eyes which reflected the blue light surrounding them. He didn't dare look any lower in case she took offense so he remained looking up into her eyes.

Monica was blushing as usual but she didn't tremble or find her actions uncomfortable. She gazed into Fukushi's remaining deep purple eye which also glinted blue from the surrounding pool. He still had a ribbon of cloth covering his left eye but it wasn't enough to hide the long scars, one that took his eye and the other to save her life. She gave him a little smile and before the silence of the moment settled she leaned in to his right ear to whisper.

"I think I know how to repay you for saving my life."

She quickly looked back to see his face, he looked curious about her statement. He had his guard down which made Monica confident he was listening to her. She remained focused on Fukushi's face.

"I'm going to stop your suffering. Stop your pain. I can't bear to see you carry on like this anymore." She smiled but her face spoke volumes of how upset she was over him. With a small crack in her voice she continued. "I-In the past month I was with you, I watched as you dragged me through hell. We worked and trained, slept and ate in rain, sleet, wind. Not once you gave a thought for yourself. We've been attacked and we attacked others. You've just ploughed through everything the world has thrown at you. You never complain about the world, and lord knows you've never smiled or enjoyed any of it either." Monica shot her eyes around to pick up on any emotion. He gulped as if forcing sadness down. She noticed a bloody tear meander down Fukushi's cheek by his nose. She rested her head on his chest to feel the slow and rattled breathing and could feel the dull thump of his heartbeat.

"Just now, when I saw you, I didn't see a strong warrior, a powerful shinobi, or a god-like human. You looked exhausted from life as if you were ready to drop off and die. I finally saw the weight of your actions and they are much heavier than you make them out to be. Tell me if I am wrong."

"Sorry." He gulped and sighed. "I shouldn't have allowed you to come with me." Fukushi muttered She could feel his tears slowly drip onto her head, it didn't faze her she knew it could easily be washed away.

"shhhh, no need. I don't regret leaving. I don't regret learning. And I don't regret you."

"But you've lost everything and I've dragged you through hell. How could i forgive myself if something happened?"

"And you were grasping at the last of your humanity. I think I understand now why you allowed me to join." She sighed heavily and with her right hand she traced the intricate black tattoo Which covered half of Fukushi's chest and his entire left arm. She knew better than to ask but she still wanted to look at it. The tattoo on Fukushi's arm had an air of pain about it has he'd always avoid talking about it. Monica had no idea what it meant but as she traced the markings; Monica heard him about to say something but with her reflexes she surprised him with a kiss onto his lips. Fukushi was stunned for sure this time. His eye was wide open as the orange haired girl kissed him with her eyes closed. They enjoyed each other's embrace until the water settled back to the smooth pool it was before. Monica pulled away and with a blush and a giggle as he didn't want to stop.

"Let yourself hope once in a while. I've made my choice." Monica confirmed

Fukushi noticed her breasts and with a blush he looked away. Monica smiled that she finally got him to blush. Her heart skipped a few beats and she felt a few butterflies rush through her stomach.

"Why me?" He mumbled.

"Could have been anyone." Her voice surprisingly cold suddenly. Echoing what he said to her weeks ago. "But you are my saviour and I meant it when I said I'll do anything to return the favour." She whispered her next sentence slowly. "And, I, Will, Do, More." She giggled again and nuzzled her head back onto Fukushi's chest.

Fukushi had his emotions conflicted. He wasn't used to letting anyone get so close to him. He had a voice telling him to accept it, she will help. However, experience was flashing painful memories of betrayal and mistrust. He hadn't internalised his conflict well enough and Monica sighed.

"Hold me if you think I am pretty." A trap which forced Fukushi to make a choice there and then, He wrapped his arms around her back and brought the naked lady closer to him. He could swear he heard her purr in enjoyment. "That was my first kiss, I used it as a promise. So you know I am serious." Fukushi closed his eyes despite past experience screaming in his head. The comfort and warmth eventually dragging him into a deep sleep.

Morning came and Fukushi woke up with a gasp. He had been dreaming again, but his sudden movement brought back a dull aching throughout his body, especially his shoulder. He looked around because he noticed he was alone. A blue flash brought his attention to out of the water and he saw the back of Monica, she was fully naked and Fukushi saw her toned body and stared a little too long at her ass. She was using her fire chakra to quickly dry out all her clothes while Fukushi's had already been dried and folded next to her.

"Like what you see?" She didn't dare turn in case he noticed her bright scarlet face from embarrassment.

Fukushi coughed. "Yeah, you're beautiful." He blushed over his forwardness.

Monica covered herself in her cloak and skipped off to get dressed out of sight. She simply got too nervous to go any further. However once out of view she grinned and felt ecstatic that she could break him out of his shell and last night wasn't just wasted effort.

They both got dressed and Monica was still blushing, Fukushi had left his cloak aside for now and it has been pretty unusual to see him without the well-worn fabric hiding his body. His sleeveless jacket and shirt had many tears in and he really needed to buy new clothes. Fukushi had him arms folded and he had collected himself back into his prior posture. Monica looked back at his left hand which had always looked sore with the dark red bruised hand which never seemed to fade.

"I'm going to need you to stay in the village."

"What? Will you be coming?" Monica looked shocked at his calmness, and after everything she said. Her mouth fell open and she was about to speak.

"Only for a few days, I need you to get that page. You." He looked away and sighed heavily. "You've proved to me that you're willing to help and, with my chakra worsening with each fight, it'll be easier if we split up to get the page. Besides, shouldn't your, urm training? Group be around still. I remember you mentioning it."

Monica frowned but with a quick thought to herself. "Yeah they should be still training."

"Sorry but you'll need to go back to being a leaf ninja for now." Fukushi quickly signed a jitsu and mumbled 'Genus Fulminis: libri' and with a flash and smoke he had summoned some plain scrolls with an ink set. Monica was trying her best with the odd sounding words the Fukushi occasionally spoke. He spoke Japanese fluently to her but she sometimes caught him muttering words she which she had no idea what they meant. Despite this she was starting to link that to his summoning of various objects he seemingly had stored. "OK I just need to remember what the teleporting pentagram looks like and burn it to the scroll then teach you how to store chakra."

"Teleport pentagram? But you can teleport without even needing hand signs." Monica was curios over what was different this time.

"I need a line of sight to safely teleport without hand signs basically. It is possible to end up inside solid objects and ending up killing yourself" Fukushi answered bluntly as he kneeled down while ignoring the ink. His finger on his left hand had begun to glow a golden yellow as he traced out the pentagram. A dark black line, like his tattoos was left in place has he traced out the drawing. "Mmn I'll need a drop of your blood once I'm so you can activate it too."

"Why do I need to activate it? Oh!" Fukushi's plan suddenly clicked in her head. "Whoever gets the pages first, teleports to the scroll. So, if I get it I can summon you?"

"You figured that out quickly." Fukushi teased.

"I said I was weak. Not dumb." She returned with a smirk.

"Anyway, about storing chakra. Unlike objects which can be in a small pocket dimension, chakra has to be in something physical otherwise it'll just dissipate into the air."

"So I still need a scroll for that?"

"Yeah or you can have it burned onto your body like I have."

Monica remembered seeing four identical tattoos down Fukushi's side. She blushed as she remembered she has seen him naked now. However, she hadn't realised they were used for something important until now.

Fukushi thought for a moment. "Scrolls for now, once you get their pattern memorised you can burn them onto yourself if you like."

"Hmm probably the best." Monica mumbled as she was gazing at what Fukushi was drawing, the large pentagram had started taking shape and she thought it looked beautiful with the intricacy of the pattern.

"After I've finished with the teleport scroll I'll show you what the shape for the chakra storage looks like and you can copy it. With ink for now." Fukushi added. He wasn't sure if she was listening or not she just watched him in silence finishing the large scroll. The end result was a large circle about two meters wide with an obvious pentagon in the centre. The space in-between the pentagon and the outer circle had lines, dashes, dots and words filling the space. To one side a branch lead out of more pattern work to a smaller circle with more lines and words fanning out from the smaller circle. In the very centre was a small star with a hollow middle and each point pacing a corner of the pentagon again with more words fanning from it. Fukushi summoned a kunai and cut his right hand thumb and let a drop land in the very centre of the scroll followed by pressing said thumb down on it to leave a thumb print in blood. The print quickly burned to the same black as the rest of the scroll.

"Ok, I want you to do what I just did but in this outer circle."

"Right, sure." Monica tried to summon a kunai manually, with hand signs, which worked until she tried cutting yourself and the kunai immediately dispelled as she lost concentration. Fukushi said nothing but handed her his summoned kunai. Monica showed a wave of shame that she couldn't manage the jitsu.

"You've been trying the jitsu for a week now. Don't worry it'll take time to form fully like it's second nature and you won't even have to concentrate to keep it." Monica sighed, 'at least he understands' he thought to herself as she pressed her thumb into the scroll.

"Alright, Basically the scroll works like this." He pointed to the centre where he had pressed his blood. "This is to summon me once the seal is activated. Where you put your blood." He pointed over to the off-branch. "That's so your chakra can also activate the scroll."

"So erm, how do I activate the scroll?" Monica mumbled, she had missed out on the sealing classes because one of her bullies had broken her leg in a 'friendly' sparring match. That and she was sure the teacher had something against her as well so she was too uncomfortable to come in late once her leg healed.

Fukushi kept a stoic face on, he didn't mind she didn't know and much to Monica's relief he didn't question her about it. "You just put your hands to either side of where you pressed your thumb print and push some chakra through it. Pretty simple stuff actually."

"Erm Fukushi?"

"Yeah? Need something?"

"Why does it take blood? I've seen you teleport without cutting yourself."

Fukushi looked up at Monica with his remaining eye. He sat back to think for a minute. "I guess I can use both body and spirit types of the same jitsu. The scroll here is close to a summoning which is a body-type jitsu. It requires a physical piece of yourself with chakra in it. Mostly blood."

"So, spirit Jitsu is just chakra by itself?"

"More or less, it's the mental capacity to complete the jitsu. Think about it like that ink over there, to make sealing ink you need to mix your blood with the ink. But if you know the right jitsu then you can make scrolls without ink because you're using the spirit version instead of the ink and blood." Fukushi explained as best as he could but he was satisfied with Monica's nod of understanding. 'She just needs to actually hear it, how lousy had her training been?' Fukushi thought to himself. She seemed to be blaming her village for being clueless. As he thought to himself, Fukushi rolled up the scroll and handed it over to Monica who proceeded to taking out a smaller scroll and opened it out revealing a long banner which she drew when Fukushi taught her the storage jitsu. She needed the visual aid so she could get the patterns right in her head as she slowly signed and spoke out loud in time to her hand signals.

"Genus… Ignis… Sigillum… Libri" Monica concentrated and a wide banner of blazing blue fire stretched out to either side above the scroll before both disappeared in smoke. She smiled as she completed the jitsu. "This is so useful."

"Glad you like it, so want to try storing chakra?"

Monica beamed a smile at Fukushi to which he gave a small smile as he passed her the ink and a few wrapped-up scrolls. She got busy mixing a small drop of blood into the ink, using Fukushi's knife again.

"Now you just got to copy this pattern." Fukushi got started on quickly drawing out the circular seal with what looked like brackets to either side. He then made a small circle to the top right corner inside the original circle. Last of all, Fukushi drew a wreath of patterns and symbols around the circle. "I'll let you work on it while I meditate over there, I need to catch up on my own chakra."

Monica spent the new two hours trying to get the shape right, using a lot of the scroll paper which was now discarded around where she sat. Fortunately, the was no wind, otherwise the discarded scrolls would have blown all over the valley by now. Fukushi just sat with his eye closed and dead to the world he would sit for hours because it replenishes chakra much faster than sleeping or resting. Monica took this time to practice anything he teaches her so although nowhere near perfect or fast at her jitsu she now knew a lot more than what her old academy had taught her. A phantom giggle made her slip her hand and she cursed out loud before starting again with a fresh scroll.

"It's getting late, you should get moving." Fukushi spoke from out of the blue, causing Monica to jump and ruin the seal again.

"Hey! I almost had it before you made me jump!" Monica turned to Fukushi who had an amused face on him.

"I'm sorry, but you should get going. We need to get that page and while you're still fresh."

Monica flinched, she hoped that she could have just ran away from those people who hated her. Never to see them again and prove to herself she can be a great shinobi; better than the scum she had to grow up with. Both of them got up and looked around to see all the scrolls.

"Might want to get more scroll paper while you're at it. But, keep at it, having lots of chakra could save your life." Monica sighed in frustration that she couldn't get it down. Fukushi simply walked up to her and stood right infront of her. She was surprised when he held her hand, followed by noticing him placing two small scrolls in her palm as he let go. "When I am summoned I'll need the extra chakra, those are my last two scrolls."

Monica kissed him. This time surprising Fukushi.

"I'll do it for you Fukushi." Monica spoke as Fukushi lightly pushed her off him. She pouted but began walking out of the hot springs down a narrow crevasse. Fukushi watched her go. He sighed before calling after Monica.

"If I die, you must get those pages, they are too powerful if someone should translate them. It's something I must do before the wrong people use them. You understand that don't you."

Monica stopped and had a chill shoot down her spine. She found herself less worried about Armageddon and more worried about losing her saviour. She gave Fukushi a smile before she turned away and tried to hide the anxiety.

"You won't die." She called back trying to erase the thought from her mind.

Fukushi hoped she wouldn't end up caught but this way she has better chance of walking away from his life. As he sat down to quickly summon some bread and smoked meat. He stared into empty space with his remaining eye as he ate and quietly spoke to himself outloud.

"I should have pushed her away."