A/N: This is the last chapter before we get back to the main plot! Wow, it better be good!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto/Naruto Shippuden.

Chapter 9:

Secrets Revealed: The Past Final Part

"Hey!" she called out to him waving as she ran.

The boy looked up at her. At first he didn't really believe that she was talking to him, but she made direct eye contact with him. He stopped walking and waited for her, following her every movement with his eyes.

When she was only a few feet from him, she stopped and put her hands on her knees panting. She took a moment to catch her breath before she straightened herself and looked back at him. He was actually an inch shorter than she was.

"I'm glad you're still here," she said with a pleasant smile on her face.

"Still?" the little boy asked in a meek voice.

Tonbo knew that he would say that, and she knew exactly how she would respond. "Yeah, I came all the way from another village. I was hoping that you would be here."

The boy was visibly confused and uncomfortable, and so she continued. "Well, I was wondering if you wanted to play with me for the day. I know this must be strange, but I was hoping that we could be friends."

Beyond this point, she had no idea how he would respond, but she still hoped for the best. The boy's eyes widened, he looked shocked at her.

At seeing his initial reaction, Tonbo lost most of her confidence in talking to a complete stranger. "W-well, um... if you don't want to that's okay... I-I wasn't really sure if-" he cut her off with his smile.

It was strange, the boy so timid a moment ago, but now he looked at Tonbo as if he had been waiting for her. Tonbo grew more curious about him.

"Friends? We could be friends?" There was a certain longing in the boy's eyes that Tonbo understood. Before Sasuke and Hinashou, Tonbo didn't have friends at all, and she was always lonely. She may not have known what the boy had been through, and for all she knew he may not have been through difficult things the way she had, but she knew that friendship is valued by almost everyone.

"Of course, do you know any fun games we could play?" Tonbo thought it would be polite to ask.

He looked down and thought, "No, not really."

Tonbo grinned, "Okay then..." she lurched forward and tapped his shoulder with her hand. "Tag!" she shouted and started to run off watching over her shoulder and laughing.

It took the boy a minute to understand. He had never played with other kids before in his life, but he had seen other kids playing before. He knew how to play tag only because he was always watching kids play while he sat alone.

But after realization hit him, he ran after her. As they played there game, he was smiling. Finally, someone wasn't too afraid of him to play with him. He couldn't be more content, but at the same time, he was afraid. He knew that since she was from another village, it was likely that she wasn't afraid of him because she didn't know who he was. Or rather, what he was host to.

For that reason, she couldn't know. He wouldn't tell her, he didn't want her to be afraid of him like everyone else has always been.

Meanwhile, the Kazekage had his third eye following them around. He was initially surprised that she had walked up to Gaara like she had always known him, but there was something that intrigued him even more. Hmm... when the girl tagged him, Gaara's sand didn't get in the way. His sand didn't even react.

This was all very interesting to the Kazekage. Although a child tagging Gaara didn't pose any sort of threat, the Kazekage still had expected the sand to react when she moved towards Gaara suddenly. He would be keeping an eye on them for as long as she stayed in the village.

Gaara and Tonbo played almost every game they could think of until they were out of breath and lying on their backs, breathing hard. The other thing they did, was talk. At first, neither of them knew what to talk about, but eventually they both opened up at least some bit. There were things that neither of them wanted to tell each other, but they did talk about their families.

Gaara didn't have all that much to say about his own family, he was always very isolated. Tonbo eventually told Gaara that Fugaku and Mikoto were trying to adopt her. Gaara was of course curious about what happened to her real mother and father.

Tonbo told him about how she had come to live with the Uchihas, leaving out most of the details about what her parents use to do to her. But that conversation made her realize that she had no idea what had become of her parents since the night she left. She never really missed them, but she felt bad for not knowing what had happened to them.

The day went by faster than expected and they really had spent the entire day with each other. It was almost sundown when the Kazekage came back to the village entrance.

The two ANBU men were still outside the gates waiting for Tonbo to come back. When they saw the Kazekage walking towards them, they both stiffened and fixed their postures. "Lord Kazekage," they bowed.

"It's sundown, do you know where the girl you were escorting is?" he asked in a testing manner.

"No, she is still somewhere inside the city," one of them responded.

"Come, I will take you to fetch her," he gave a motion with his hand and turned to walk.

The ANBU followed closely as to not alarm any of the citizens of Suna. He led the men through the sand streets lined by sand buildings, to where Tonbo and Gaara were sitting and talking.

Tonbo had her back towards the direction of the approaching men, but Gaara's eyes widened when he saw his father.

Tonbo turned around to see what had caught Gaara's eyes. "Time's up. We have to escort you home now," one of the ANBU men told her.

Tonbo looked back to Gaara and opened her mouth to say something when a hand reached in front of her. One of the men had come over to help her off the ground, but this was really more of a gesture to get her to come more quickly.

She accepted the hand and then was pulled along back towards the village entrance. "Bye!" she called waving. She didn't smile, and he didn't either. She decided to walk backwards in order to see the boy as she left.

Gaara stood up but stayed standing in the same place. "Bye," he whispered, mostly to himself. But then he realized something.

He ran after her. "Wait! You never told me your name!" he called out to her. Gaara realized that he hadn't told her his name either, but that was because he was afraid she might have heard his name before, and not in a good way. He figured that at this point it didn't matter to him whether she'd heard of him before, she was his first friend.

Gaara could see Tonbo tug her hand away from the man and she said something to him that Gaara couldn't hear. She then ran over to him while the men escorting her watched from a distance.

"How about we make a deal?" was the first thing Tonbo said.

"A deal?" Gaara wasn't sure where this was going.

"Yeah, we won't tell each other our names right now."

"But then when will we?"

"Next time we see each other."

"But how do we know if we'll ever see each other again?" Gaara wasn't sure about this.

"We know because we have to tell each other our names. This way we'll have to see each other again if we want to know the other person's name. That way, there'll be a next time," Tonbo smiled at her plan.

"Uh... okay," it was obvious that Gaara wasn't reassured that they would see each other again in any way.

"Listen," Tonbo began to explain. "The reason I came here is actually because I had a dream about coming here. You see, I'm going to be taken away from my village and from my family very soon. I'm supposed to be locked away for a long time." Tonbo looked up at the few visible stars that shined even with some sunlight left. "I used to have everything planned out for myself. I thought I knew exactly what I wanted for my life and exactly how I was going to get that. But now, things have changed. I won't be able to live my life according to a plan anymore," she looked back at Gaara. "Because I have no idea what lies ahead in my future now. Believe it or not, coming here made me realize that. The way I saw it, being locked away meant that I had no future anymore, and I would only be forgotten. Even though I saw you walking in front of that building in my dream, confirming that you'd be here made my realize that I still have a future, and one that I cannot see. I came here looking for hope, and you gave me that hope. That's how I know that we will see each other again."

Gaara simply stared at Tonbo for a while. He hadn't expected all of this, and he didn't know how to respond to her. She flashed him a smile to affirm her new trust in him.

Gaara didn't smile back, he couldn't. So instead he said, "It's a deal then."

Tonbo's smile faded as she was a bit surprised, but it soon returned and with a new brightness. "Okay! Then until next time," she waved to him as she went to join her escort once again.

"Yeah, bye," Gaara said, this time in a voice that was audible to her. He gave her a wave and watched her until she had completely disappeared from his sight.

He hung his head and started walking, watching his feet with sad eyes.

His father, who was leaning against a wall, continued to watch Gaara. That girl may have shown Gaara friendship, but she has only made his suffering worse. Now that Gaara has felt friendship, his longing for that kind of relationship will grow. His desire for companionship and his loneliness will be much worse. I can't say for certain how much longer he will last without wreaking havoc, he will be six in a little more than a month. The Kazekage continued to think on as Gaara made his way to the central tower.

At the Uchiha's

Fugaku and Mikoto left the job of telling Sasuke and Hinashou where Tonbo had gone and what would be happening to her as soon as she came back, to Itachi. Neither of the boys took it very well. Neither of them would say anything about the subject. They both had things to think about, and it would be at least six days before Tonbo would return.

On the sixth night of Tonbo's absence, Hinashou let himself into Sasuke's house. He closed the door behind him, trying his best to be quiet. It was late and he knew that if Mikoto found him, she would take him back to his house.

The door did make a soft noise when he shut it, and he froze in place waiting and listening to see if it had disturbed anyone. When he didn't hear anything he turned around to almost crash into Itachi who had been standing over him, with an expressionless face.

Hinashou jumped backward as he was startled. He let out a noise but quickly covered his mouth.

"Hinashou, what are you doing here?" Itachi asked him.

Hinashou slowly removed his hand from over his mouth. "If Tonbo didn't spend a day in Suna, she should be back tonight, right?" he whispered.

Itachi took a moment before he responded, and Hinashou could swear he saw a faint smile cross Itachi's lips. "Alright, we'll wait to see if she comes." Itachi started to walk off, leaving Hinashou by the door in shock. "Sasuke asked the same thing."

When Itachi came back, he had with him Sasuke, and some blankets and cushions. "What are those for?" he asked in curiosity.

"If we're going to be camping out on the porch all night, we'll want these," Itachi told him.

Hinashou gave a smile, but even so, he still wasn't happy. None of them were. Each of them had mixed feeling about everything that was going on, and Sasuke and Hinashou weren't sure what to do with all their feelings.

They set up on the porch but they all stayed standing. Hinashou chose to stand on the edge of the porch, watching as far down the road as he could see. Sasuke leaned himself against the wall of his house and Itachi stood somewhat in between them.

They stayed in silence for a long while before Itachi decided he had to ask, "What are you each planning on saying to Tonbo when she returns?"

Sasuke and Hinashou both looked over at Itachi. If they were honest, neither of them had really thought about that yet. Hinashou then turned his entire body to face Itachi. He balled his hands up into fists and focused his eyes on the ground in front of Itachi's feet.

"What is there to say really? Goodbye?" He gritted his teeth, "Even when she gets back, she's just going to be taken away from us again, so what's the point?" He was clenching his fists so hard they were shaking at his sides. He looked up to make eye contact with Itachi and despite the fact he wouldn't blink, tears still streamed down his cheeks. "So you tell me, what is there to say?!" he yelled.

Itachi was unwavering at Hinashou's release of pent up emotions. He knew it would come out eventually, and it was better now than when Tonbo gets back. "Hinashou," Itachi was as calm as ever. "Don't cry. Tonbo will need all of us to have courage for her. If she sees you cry, she won't want to leave, and you know that this is for her own protection. I know that she is already reluctant. We have to be strong for her sake."

Hinashou's face soften and he released his fists. He looked back down but didn't bother to focus his eyes on anything. He thought back onto all the times he had spent with Tonbo. All his memories of her were filled with the three of them laughing and going on adventures. They had fun even if they were just talking, and the more he thought about it, he didn't have very many memories without her anymore. Her leaving was unimaginable, but there was also something else that he realized. She probably couldn't imagine leaving them either, and she was probably afraid.

Sasuke, who hadn't said a word, had his arms crossed and was still leaning against the side of the house. "Hmph, not worth crying over anyway," he said to himself so that it was barely audible.

Hinashou heard ever word. He re-clenched his fists and turned to Sasuke. "What did you say?!" he burst out in rage.

Sasuke simply turned his head away from Hinashou with a sullen expression. This only made Hinashou angrier. He moved and grabbed Sasuke by the collar, forcing him out of his leaning position. Sasuke let his arms fall to his sides, he didn't struggle.

Now that Hinashou knew he had Sasuke's full attention, he let all his anger out. "At least everyone knows that I care! What happened to you?! Ever since you heard that she left for Suna you've been like this! She considers you her brother! And you call her your sister, so why are you acting like you no longer care about her?! I know that you still do, no matter how you act!"

Sasuke gave him a hard and serious look. "She left without saying a word to us, she could have come to us, and we would have been there for her... but she decided to run away instead! We had to learn about what had happened from someone else! We had to find out that our sister can be more powerful than any of us and that if word gets out, she'll be targeted by enemies and allies alike, from Itachi, who was told by our parents, who were told by the Hokage! She doesn't deserve our forgiveness until she apologizes!"

Hinashou was now livid. He pushed Sasuke back against the wall, gripping to his collar even tighter. On instinct, Sasuke grabbed onto Hinashou's arm to keep him from chocking him, but he still didn't struggle to get out of his grip.

"Sasuke how could you say that! We've both been by Tonbo's side for years! We both know her, but she lives with you, so you should know her even better than I do! And I know that she has to be scared!" he screamed as he visibly shook in anger.

"Being scared doesn't excuse her!" Sasuke shot back.

"No, but even though sometimes it's easy to forget, Tonbo's still a girl, and it's different when girls are scared!"

"I don't care what she is, it doesn't matter to me!"

That was all Hinashou could take. He began to raise his fist, ready to strike. "Hinashou, don't," came Itachi's ever so calm voice.

Itachi's voice awoke Hinashou from his enraged mindset and brought him back with realization. His angry expression melted and his eyes wandered to his raised fist. He slowly lowered his hand and loosened his grip before he released Sasuke completely and took a step back. "Sorry," he told Sasuke without making eye contact.

Sasuke said nothing. "Sasuke, you should listen to Hinashou. Being angry at Tonbo won't help anything, it will only stress her further. Don't let her leave on bad terms. That way, when we get her back, and we will get her back, you can all still pursue your dreams together."

Now it was Sasuke's expression that soften and turned downcast. In truth, Sasuke knew that he would miss Tonbo, and he had tried to hide it behind his anger.

Then, Fugaku slid the front door open and leaned out to find the three boys staring back at him. "What are the three of you doing out here? It's really late and I heard yelling," asked Fugaku.

Hinashou quickly wiped the tear streaks from his cheeks. Itachi was the one who spoke up for the other two. "We're waiting for Tonbo to return home."

"I that so?" Fugaku questioned.

"I'll look after these two while we're out here," Itachi reassured.

Fugaku took a minute before sighing. "Alright, wake me and your mother up when she gets here."

"Of course," Itachi responded.

Fugaku slid the door shut and went back to bed. The boys all finally sat down. After a while, both Sasuke and Hinashou had fallen asleep and by that time, it was early in the morning. Itachi knew that Tonbo and the ANBU assigned to escort her would have camped the night if they weren't already here, so he decided to carry the boys inside and put them in bed.

The next night, they all stationed themselves on the porch again, ready for Tonbo to return. They waited for hours and Hinashou was having trouble keeping his eyes open. They were all seated and leaning against the house.

Itachi heard footsteps. "She's coming," he said.

This brought Hinashou to his feet immediately, with his eyes wide awake. He sped to the edge of the porch and looked down the road. Sure enough, she was walking with ANBU on either side of her.

When they all came into the view of Itachi and Sasuke, they both got to there feet as well. The three arrivals stopped in front of the Uchiha house. Suddenly, another masked ANBU appeared in a puff of smoke.

"I have been sent here by the third Hokage to inform you that Tonbo Uchiha will have a week to prepare herself to leave and to say her goodbyes. Sasuke Uchiha is exempted from attending the Academy this week. And Itachi Uchiha is exempt from all missions for a week as well. At 9pm a week from tonight, Tonbo Uchiha is to meet with the Hokage at his office for her departure. That is all," the ANBU then disappeared in a puff of smoke as quickly as he had come.

Itachi and the two remaining ANBU exchanged nods. "We will leave you here," one of them told Tonbo, and then they too disappeared in a similar fashion.

There was silence for a while, everyone was just staring. Soon Tonbo couldn't take the blank expressions she was getting from her brothers and she hung her head so she wouldn't have to look at them. She opened her mouth several times trying to say something, but nothing would come out. She had no idea what she would say to them. She knew that they must have been angry and worried.

She reverted back into herself as she found herself being consumed by the thick, heavy atmosphere. Then suddenly, she found her head behind Hinashou's shoulder as he hugged her tightly.

"It's okay," his voice was calm and gentle. "We'll always be here for you. Even when your gone, we'll be waiting for you until we can get you back. None of us will go anywhere, we'll always be waiting for you right here."

Tonbo gasped softly. Looking over Hinashou's shoulder at Itachi and Sasuke, she saw that they were both giving her soft, reassuring smiles. She began to sob loudly. "Thank you... thank you so much."

The week went by quickly with everyone spending as much time with Tonbo as they could. Tonbo was a bit uncomfortable with all the attention, but she knew that it was for them as much as it was for her.

Itachi was the only who didn't wait until the last minute to say his goodbyes. He found her sitting alone on the porch one night, dangling her feet over the edge.

He walked up to her and sat down beside her. "What are you doing out here at this time of night?" he asked her.

Tonbo didn't look at him, but chose to stare down at her feet. "Just thinking," she told him.

"What are you thinking about?"

Tonbo hesitated before speaking, "Just about everything that's happened. So much has happened, I don't think I've really processed it all yet. I'll be leaving in two days, and the truth is... I'm terrified. Maybe that's expected, but that isn't of any comfort. I just don't want everyone to grow up without me, and then when I come back, to have no one remember me."

"Tonbo, none of us will ever forget you. Whether you realize it or not, you've become a big part of each of our lives. None of us want you to leave, but we also want you to be safe and protected. We know that we can't protect you 24/7 by ourselves, otherwise we would have fought with the council to keep you here. So you don't have to worry. And besides, you'll grow up along with us, just in a different place," Itachi comforted.

"But Itach-" Itachi interrupted Tonbo.

"Tonbo, you will always be my sister." He leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead.

Tonbo was shocked speechless. She had never seen this kind of behavior from Itachi, but for the first time ever, she knew without any doubt that Itachi cared about her. This was the first time he didn't seem distant to her, and the first time his presence made her feel warm.

All the others said goodbye to her as they were seeing her off. Mikoto's words were, "Once we adopt you, we can have you released. I promise you we'll never stop fighting to bring you back home."

The other three just hugged her and said goodbye. She left for the tower that housed the Hokage's office. Once she arrived, everything was a sealed deal, and she was brought to a place underground and far away from the village. The location was so top secret, not even the people who built the place knew where it was.

Without Tonbo around, both Sasuke and Hinashou found a knew definition for melancholy. And they both found themselves thinking about her constantly.

One day, while Sasuke was at school, Iruka-sensei had let the class work on their homework for the ten remaining minutes of class. While some of the usual troublemakers were being scolded, and boy walked up to Sasuke.

The kid sighed, "Look, I know this is troublesome, but some girl asked me to ask you if you like girls with sort hair or long hair."

Not that Sasuke really cared to answer the kid's question, but with a quick glance around the room, he noticed that all the girls had sort hair. So without thinking, he answered, "Long."

"Thanks," the kid told him before walking back to a pink haired girl to report his findings.

It was then Sasuke thought about how Tonbo always kept her hair long. He remembered a conversation he had overheard between her and his mother soon after Tonbo had first come to live with them.

Sasuke had been walking down the hallway to his bedroom when he Tonbo yelling, "Ow! Ow!"

"Sorry Tonbo, your hair is just so tangled. The ends of your hair are split everywhere," Sasuke heard Mikoto's voice.

"It's okay, that's probably because I've never gotten a haircut."

"You've never had your hair cut before?"

"No, my parents never gave me one. And even if they had tried to take me to get a haircut, no one would ever have given me one," Tonbo replied.

"Hm... well then a haircut is long overdue. Why don't you get it cut short? I've seen many girls your age with short hair, and that way it will be a new look."

"No," Sasuke could hear the seriousness in Tonbo's voice. "Just because my parents neglected me, doesn't mean that I would want to change everything about myself. I like my hair long."

"I'm sorry." Sasuke could tell his mother hadn't expected that response. "I'll just trim the ends so that your hair can grow healthy, is that okay?"

"Yes."

Sasuke abruptly stood from his seat and collected his homework. He walked down the steps the rows of seats were on and straight past Iruka and out the door.

"Sasuke, class isn't over ye-" Iruka was interrupted by the sound of the bell signaling the end of class and the rush of students running out the classroom door to freedom.

Overtime, Sasuke and Hinashou slowly grew apart. Being with each other reminded them of Tonbo, so it got harder and harder for them to be around each other. Eventually neither of them had anything left to say to one another, and they stopped talking to each other all together. They were now strangers to one another.

Age 8

Tonbo had been put into a tank filled with liquid, and was strapped down to the bottom. She was under a very powerful jutsu that held her in a state of deep meditation. She was still conscious and was aware of her general surroundings.

She had deduced that the woman who cleaned the room she was kept in, as well as changed the filter on her tank and gave her nutrients through her IV, was an Uchiha. The woman may or may not have been aware that Tonbo could hear her because she would often speak to Tonbo when no one else was around.

She would talk about how Fugaku wanted to have someone on the inside, so he was the one who really put her in the position that got her there. The last day Tonbo heard her alive came with a particularly interesting one-sided conversation.

As the woman did her daily routine, she said some concerning things. "You know, Fugaku is getting tired of waiting. You may have been the plan at one point, but in here you're useless to him. It's been three years since Fugaku filed the paperwork to adopt you. If the papers don't go through soon, I'm sure he'll give up on you. We don't need you anyway, the Uchiha clan's power is undeniable."

The woman closed the area with the filter and moved over to her tray that had a syringe waiting on it. "It seems like Fugaku found an excuse to get me out of here. He's probably going to hold a meeting for the coup to overthrow the Hokage. Hn, for all I know he could end up telling me that we're striking tomorrow night. Looks like you won't be the end to the Leaf village after all. I guess the Hokage's plan to keep you here so that we couldn't use you against them worked well. Too bad for him, it won't save him."

Tonbo couldn't move, she had no way to communicate, and right now, she felt useless. She didn't want to believe that the Uchiha clan would do something like that. And she couldn't believe that Fugaku, who had been like a father to her, would ever use her. But listening to this made her extremely curious.

The next morning, Itachi, who was now captain of the ANBU black ops, went to see his grandfather. He visited the old man in his office in the library. When he came out, he had a freshly handwritten scroll in his hands.

He made his way to where the Naka shrine was located. He walked to the main hall and lifted up the seventh tatami mat from the far right. Underneath the mat was a secret passageway known only by the Uchiha. He walked down the stairs into a room with a stone tablet that had the Uchiha clan secrets inscribed on it.

He stood in front of it and stared for a moment before he walked up to it and placed the scroll on top. Before he left, he took time to think. Everything would happen later that night, and there was no longer anything anyone could do to stop it.

When night fell upon Konohagakure it wasn't at all peaceful. Tonbo couldn't get the words of the Uchiha woman out of her head, so she decided that she would use her chakra to sense what was going on in the Leaf village.

She was too far away to sense anything, so she used the scroll used for reverse summoning as a booster for the range of her chakra. With all the time spent sitting still, she had learned how to summon her chakra without using a hand seal, but this only worked while she was in this state of meditation.

What she saw, felt, and heard wasn't a meeting, nor was it a coup. She wasn't sure whether to believe that she was actually seeing this. It was Itachi, and he was... killing everyone.

Everyone in the Uchiha clan was being murdered out in the open... by her brother. She could see that already, almost the entire clan was dead. But what she saw next, terrified her.

Itachi came face to face with Hinashou. He looked older than the last time she had seen him. He had tears running down his cheeks, but he wasn't making any noise.

"Itachi," said Hinashou.

"Hinashou," Itachi acknowledge him. No. Tonbo thought to herself as she feared this was the end for Hinashou.

"I may not understand why you're doing this, but it doesn't matter to me. I need you to promise me something," Hinashou was in no position to negotiate, but it seemed he didn't care.

Itachi didn't say anything, but he waited, which let Hinashou know that Itachi was listening to him. "I need you to promise me that you won't hurt Tonbo, I don't want you to kill her."

This did prompt a response from Itachi. "What makes you say that?" Itachi was still stoic and hardened over.

Itachi's question made Hinashou briefly think back on all that led him to this point.

Ever since Tonbo came into his life, he's always had trouble saying no to her. The day he had met her, she had a cast on one of her arms and bandages all over her body, including one over her eye. He couldn't make out much of what she looked like, but she had long purple hair. That was what stood out to him.

He grew more and more curious about her as time passed. She was always trying to win his and Sasuke's acceptance. At first, neither of them would take her seriously. The first sparring match he had with her, he went easy on her and let her win. But she then called him out on that and told him to never go easy on her. She said that she will never get stronger if he's always letting her win.

The more he was around Tonbo, the more he took a liking to her. Even though he never said anything, the day Tonbo called him her brother hurt him more than it made him feel good. He knew then that she didn't think of him the same way as he was starting to think of her. He became jealous of all the time Sasuke got to spend alone with her.

The day his mother told him that he wouldn't be in the same class with Sasuke and Tonbo, he was crushed. Not because of their plans to all be on the same team, but because he knew that Sasuke would get to spend even more time alone with Tonbo than he already did.

What's worse is that after the first day of school, he saw Tonbo and Sasuke holding hands. He pretended not to notice and he put a smile on his face when Tonbo came to greet him, but inside he was dying.

Yes, it's her smile. Her smile became what I lived for ever day.

When he found out that she was going to be taken away from the village, he couldn't help but think it might be for forever. He thought about her every single day she was gone. The more he thought about her, the more abundantly clear it became to him.

"I say that because... I love her." Upon hearing this, Tonbo's heart rate sped up. She had never realized... how oblivious she had been.

Hinashou thought he might have seen the faintest of smiles cross Itachi's lips, but it fled too fast to tell.

"You should know, Tonbo was never in any danger from me. She isn't an Uchiha and I have no way of finding her." Itachi informed him.

Seeing no reassurance in Hinashou's eyes, Itachi decided to continue. "But... I promise you that I will never harm Tonbo."

Hinashou's expression changed to one of relief and his tears began to flow more freely. "Thank-"

Hinashou was cut off by Itachi's kunai slitting his throat. Tonbo screamed on the inside as loud as she could, desperately trying to make a noise. The lights exploded all at once as her chakra overloaded the filaments that conduct the electricity. She felt the liquid in the tank drain around her, and tears were streaming down her face.

Hinashou sunk to his knees. He knew that he would die now, but the knowledge that Tonbo was safe from Itachi, left him at peace. He smiled before collapsing on the ground and bleeding out.

Hours later, the team taking care of Tonbo was able to send a message back to the Leaf and the report was given to the Hokage, waking him up from his slumber. He was also later informed of the mass killing that occurred in the Uchiha district. They were still searching for survivors.

"It appears that sometimes the world likes to fall apart all at once," the Hokage had a grave look on his face. "Keep searching for any survivors in the Uchiha district. We also need to send supplies to the team guarding the secret information." He always referred to Tonbo as "secret information" to those who didn't know about her so that they were sure not to question him.

"Yes my Lord," the man bowed and left.

The Hokage knew that he would have some explaining to do to the team guarding Tonbo if the reports were accurate.

He called an urgent meeting with the village elders as well as Danzo. "Tonbo Uchiha might know what happened last night. Being a child, she won't understand it. But this concerns me deeply. The child hasn't had human interaction in two years. She will need someone to talk to," the Hokage prompted.

"Well we can't have her talk to anyone, we would have to let her out if we were to allow that," Koharu warned.

"No, that isn't true. If she was able to sense what happened, she has a way to access her chakra and a way to sense what's going on in the Leaf village. You all know that Yakuni told us that Tonbo can hear people's thoughts, right?" the Hokage asked.

They nodded. "And how she can also send electrical signals to people's bodies?"

They nodded again. "He told me that if she does both at the same time, she can hear people's thoughts and let them hear her own. You can call it telepathy if you'd like."

"She can do something like that? If we were to use that during combat, any team could be unstoppable," Danzo rose from his seat.

"Yes, however, it takes extreme focus and perfectly precise chakra control. It isn't likely that she would be able to do that in the heat of a battle. It isn't likely she would be able to do it while she isn't in a meditative state."

"Hm... then if she can do that, it would be a good way for her to have human interaction. If she stays isolated for much longer, she'll go insane. And if that ever happens, we'll never be able to let her out," Homura thought out loud.

"Exactly the point. Yakuni also suggested that we have a person with the same chakra nature as her, it would be safest for the person receiving her chakra signals," the Hokage already had this planned out in his head, he just needed confirmation from the others.

"Alright, then we have to find a person we can trust that's chakra nature is lightning," Koharu concurred.

Eventually Kakashi Hatake was chosen and two weeks after the Uchiha Slaughtering, Tonbo had human interaction for the first time in two years. At first, Kakashi treated it like just a mission, but after a while, they both opened up to each other and became the people they poured out their feelings to. They ended up knowing each other better than anyone else ever could. And thus their unique relationship was formed.

A/N: What did you guys think? Read and Review!