Here's a new chapter, and it won't be very long either, I just couldn't seem to get anything out. I blame the writer's block! I'm not very happy with it, either. It just seems so… I don't know, flat.

Anyway, there's something I kind of want to ask. That is, do have any preferences of who you want Yū to be with in regards to romance? I know she's still only seven, but I kind of wanted to know.

So, who would you want her to be with in the future?

. . .

Shit!

I was stunned and, not knowing what else to do, I just laid there.

The kunai and shuriken seemed to have come from nowhere, and I was incredibly perplexed.

Kazuki wasn't, though.

Already, our sensei was in action, hands folding through a sequence of hand signs that I couldn't hope to emulate.

She looked back as she was doing this, dark eyes frantically catching onto mine, "Don't just lie there, Yūmaru!" she shrieked, her hands finishing their motion, "Get up and do something!"

"What am I supposed to do?" I screamed back, to which she responded to with an angry glare, "I don't know any long-range jutsu!"

"Buddy up with Yashamaru!" Kazuki replied shortly, and then to my horror and fascination, she yelled: "Wind Style: Vacuum Wave!"

This was my first witness of elemental jutsu being used in this new world, and to be honest with myself, it was pretty horrifying.

Kazuki took a deep breath, then began to spin, and a few seconds later, I felt the air around me began to compress.

I was awed, yet also sickened with fear when the space around my sensei compressed into a single blade of solitary wind.

And as she threw it, all I could think was, Holy shit, they'll definitely feel something tomorrow!

A few moments passed, and there was an agonising silence, seeming to swallow the clearing, and I knew that the enemies were up there in the trees, right where Kazuki's attack was heading.

I froze when I heard a thud, and a few seconds later, a piercing scream echoed from the trees, scaring away any birds that were sure to be there.

Not that there would be any birds, considering that it was night time, after all.

I was completely unprepared for when the body fell to the ground.

Right in front of me, too.

It was a man, and he shakily got to his knees, even as I took a step back, and he was holding a hand to his side where a large wound could be seen, still bleeding sluggishly.

I eyed the man warily, and I tried to take another step back, only for my back to meet with the trunk of the tree behind me.

The man laughed shakily from his position on the ground, "What do… you think you're… doing, little girl?" he gasped, and I made a face at the blood spilling from between his parted lips.

"What does it look like?" I retorted, and I felt sickening fear crawl up my spine when the man only seemed to grow amused, if the blood thirsty grin on his face was anything to go by, "Getting away from you."

"Finish him off, Yūmaru!" Kazuki suddenly shrieked, sounding vastly panicked, "Finish him off while he's still on the ground!"

Something inside me jolted, and I shot her an incredulous look, "The hell, Sensei?" I snarled, ignoring her outraged, "I'm seven years old, and you want me to kill someone?!"

"If you won't do it, then get Yashamaru to!" Kazuki replied, already going through another set of hand signs, "And I don't really have time to argue, seeing as we're being attacked!"

"Listen to your sensei, little girl," the man mocked, the hand not gripping his side fishing around in the pouch on his thigh for a weapon. He soon had it, and the point of the kunai gleamed in the gloom, "She may be right."

"She's always right," I replied, swallowing the sudden lump in my throat, struggling to take everything in, because ohmygodIhavetokillsomeone!

The man staggered to a standing position just as I risked a glance at Yashamaru. He was too far away, and I had no doubt that if he were to aid me, then he would be struck down from behind, if his careful, cautious gaze scanning the tree line was anything to go by.

It was up to me.

It was all up to me.

Nobody would help me, as Kazuki was preoccupied with sending gusts of wind toward the trees, with Sasori on the defensive, a puppet hanging from his fingers.

I already had a kunai out; its cool, steel handle gripped in my clammy, shaking fingers.

"Going to fight, little girl?" the man shrieked.

I didn't even answer, knowing that such a distraction in a situation like this was futile and, taking the handle of the kunai into my mouth, I clapped my hands into a hand sign. I murmured the jutsu, and a clone poofed into existence beside me, its illusionary face mirroring my expression of shocked horror.

I didn't know what I was going to do with it, and it only mattered that it was there, there to defend me, all the while another voice was screaming that I needed to move out of the way, lest I'd be speared on the man's kunai.

The man was wicked fast, too, and before I knew it, he was right in front of me, driving his weapon down to my face. I countered it with the kunai in my mouth, but he easily brushed me aside with his superior strength, and I gasped as fire ran across my cheek.

Then I substituted with my clone, and the man's kunai slashed through it, the weapon's tip dissolving the clone at its head.

The man didn't seem to be deterred by the fact that what he had just disposed of had been a clone. No, he merely turned and staggered towards me like he had done only moments previously. His weapon gleamed and I took a panicked step back, because ohmygod how the fuck was I supposed to fight a fully grown man with nothing but a flimsy jutsu and a single kunai?

And then, in one of the most stupid, cliché moments in anime, guess what I did?

I tripped.

I let out a cry of surprise as I landed on my butt, and I knew what was coming.

I think everyone did.

The man was practically standing over me, and a vicious grin twisted at his lips, "I'm going to kill you now, little girl, and when I'm done with you, even your own mother won't recognise you."

"Fuck you!" I snarled up at him, my cheek still burning.

His grin only widened, and when his sandalled foot came into view, I gripped my kunai even tighter than before.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, I thought, the fuck am I gonna do to get out of this?

I watched his foot inch closer, and this horrible, horrible idea popped into my head, but I didn't care, and I knew that it would by me some time at least. My fingers squeezed against my weapon's handle until the knuckles turned white, but I took a deep breath, his foot sliding closer, and I raised it into the air and brought it down, and-

He screamed.

I pulled the kunai from his foot, grimacing at the soft squelch that accompanied it.

The kunai dripped with blood, and I gasped when he fell forward with a soft groan, landing on top of me, crushing me to the ground with his immense weight.

He glowered down at me, and I cringed at the fury palpable in his eyes.

I that if I didn't make a move, and quickly, then he would kill me.

And I didn't want that.

I didn't want to die.

So it was either me or him.

Could I really kill him?

… Did I really have a choice? He would kill me if I didn't move fast enough.

The kunai in my hand was slathered in blood, coating my fingers with the foul liquid.

I swallowed, biting down a shriek as I thrust the hand gripping the kunai forward, watching it with wide, wide, wide eyes as the tip plunged into his throat.

I gagged as the man coughed weakly, resisting the urge to throw up. His blood pooled through my fingers, coating my fingers and face with its warm, crimson cover.

"You… you'll pay," the man rasped through the blood pouring from his throat and mouth, "Rei'll… kill you."

I didn't register the name, I was too horror-struck to realise anything of great importance.

I think I did throw up then, and let me tell, it wasn't pretty.

I let the man's corpse fall to the ground, before turning to the side and emptying the contents of my stomach, gagging as bile rose into my throat.

And after that, I just kind of felt… blank.

There were no other words to really describe what I felt after that.

I guess I felt guilty, and I didn't know if I was right in feeling that as I was a Shinobi- people died everyday. But most of all, I felt sad.

I mean, I had just killed someone.

I was only seven, and screw the fact that I was probably older than my two team mates put together. I had just killed someone.

That man could have had a family waiting for him back home, a family he could never see again, because I killed him.

Was this what Takashi had felt like when he had killed for the first time? This horribly blank feeling that seemed to consume me?

Maybe he had.

I didn't know.

And I never wanted to know this feeling again.

This… this feeling of killing someone.

"Switch on, Yūmaru!" Kazuki suddenly yelled, "I know what you just did, and I know that it hurts to do what you just did for the first time, but please, we're in the middle of a battle! Save your moping for later!"

I just in front of the body on my knees, not really aware of anything, aside from the blood covering my hands, clothes, and face, and the steady, painful throbbing in my cheek.

I knew that my eyes were wider than usual, and that my mouth was parted in a silent 'o' of surprise.

"Damnit, Yūmaru!" Kazuki shrieked, "Get off your fucking ass and fight, would you?!"

I looked down at my hands, blindly tuning out my sensei's pleas.

There were bright red patches covering my palms and fingers, and I knew that it had come from that man.

It had come from his body.

From his throat.

I shuddered.

And it had been me who had done it.

Me!

I had killed someone.

I was seven.

I had just killed someone.

My eyes began to sting and my vision blurred.

I could hardly see the outline of my hands now.

Now that I had killed someone, someone else was going to come and kill me.

It would probably be out of revenge, too.

A strangled sob escaped my lips and my eyes snapped open in mortification.

In my half-dazed state I could hear the far-off clang of weapons hitting each other, as well as the surges of chakra. But I couldn't see any fighting taking place.

Why was that?

Panic briefly struck my awareness, but I was to out of it to fully notice.

I did, however, notice my surroundings.

Instead of a dark, forbidding forest, I was currently in a dark, gloomy plain surrounded my mist on all sides.

I heard whispering, and I soon came to my full senses, clenching my bloodied kunai in my hand.

"Who's there?" I shouted, only to frown when my words sounded somewhat… off. I couldn't put my hands on why it was so, and I couldn't bring myself to care.

Something snapped from behind me and I shrieked, whipping around, my hair flying with the motion.

Only to scream again when bright, greenish-bluish coloured eyes pierced mine.

Who the fuck was this?

"Who the fuck are you?!" I shrieked, taking a step back.

I then took the time to fully examine the strange person.

It was a teenager, male, and perhaps 14-15 years old. He wasn't very tall, and his hair was dark blue, reaching the nape of his neck and spiking up at the back. He wore a black shirt with mesh under-armour on underneath and black pants. His hands were bandaged, as well as around his forehead.

There was a careless smile on his lips.

"My name is Rei," he said simply, as if that one answer seemed to explain everything about him.

I frowned again. Why did his voice and words sound… off?

Once I thought hard enough, it wasn't that difficult to wrap my head around it.

It was quite simple, really.

He wasn't speaking Japanese, he was speaking English.