DISCLAIMER: No matter how much I want it, I do not own Naruto. I am still only borrowing the characters and promise to return them in good condition – well, maybe slightly battered...or slightly dead...

AN:

This is probably going to be a little confusing (and yes, there is a reason for that), but please stick with it to the end - everything will hopefully be made clear enough by the end of the chapter!

AZFAERYDUST

Chapter Forty-Six:

Road to Chunin – My Darkest Desire

So rise from the darkness, Eyes of the dismissed

Hearts of the used

Show me your worst, Show me you're cursed

Tell me the truth

~Black Veil Brides~

"Are you sure this is the right gate?" asked Naruto in frustration. "You didn't read the map upside down did you?"

Sai replied calmly, "For the fifth time, yes I am sure and no, we did not. Be patient, it has only been ten minutes."

"Seems much longer to…" Naruto voice trailed off as he saw Sai's normally expressionless face grow angry and Kiba's eyes narrow. He turned to see what was upsetting them. Ino was bending over her prisoner and removing the duck tape from his mouth while Shēn was openly leering at her. He stepped closer.

"Ow!" he winced, stepping away from Ino as he rubbed the back of his head where it suddenly throbbed. Shēn looked over his shoulder and found team seven and Kiba watching them with innocent doe-like expressions on their faces.

"I believe it was a Sciuridae from the Rodentia order," commented a stone-faced Sai.

"A what!?" he frowned.

"A squirrel," replied Naruto, somehow keeping a straight face.

"Vicious little bastards," agreed Sasuke solemnly.

"You should really be careful," Kiba added before mouthing "bitch."

"Who do you think you're messing with, dog-boy?" growled Shēn.

The harsh grating sound of rusty hinges made the whole group jump a little. The gate swung open and the proctor stood before them. He eyed the teams that made it through the second stage. There weren't very many there yet, but they had the rest of the day left.

"Congratulations to all. You have one month's time to prepare for the individual battles."

Team seven glanced at each other in bewilderment as the man dismissed them. Naruto sputtered and yelled, "A month?! I've been training my whole life for this and now I have to wait a month?"

"Calm down, Baka. This is typical procedure.

Naruto ignored Sasuke and yelled, "What, that's it? We aren't going to be told who we will be fighting?"

The man only laughed.

Kiba rolled his eyes and snarked, "Well, this really sucks big, red monkey butts."

~Several Years Later~

A young woman stood in the living room of a small cozy home and blinked in confusion. Her gaze brightened as she spotted the man sitting on the floor, deep in meditation. Her memories came back in a flood of pictures; the chunin exam, beating him, him falling in love with her and moving to her village, the wedding, their first child and then… the baby…

The baby…

She shivered at the ominous feeling that seemed to come from out of nowhere and then, feeling silly, shook her head and looked down at the little girl at her feet. She smiled lovingly and said, "It's your bedtime, pumpkin."

"Five more minutes, mommy?" she pleaded. "Can you tell me the story about how you met daddy and beat his butt in the chunin exams again?"

She glanced over at her husband sitting on the floor deep in meditation and laughed, "Again? You must have heard that story a hundred times already."

"Please mommy? It happened in Kirigakure and it was winter, but not like winter here…," prompted the little girl.

"It rained a lot while I was there," she began, "Although not that day. That day was full of clouds and cold, but not a drop fell during my fight. The arena was filled with green, brackish water with several small islands jutting out. Each one had several trees on it."

"And then they called your name and daddy's name and he was mean to you huh? That's cuz he liked you huh?"

Distant lightning flashed beyond the window. Thunder rumbled from the edge of the dark horizon. She avoided looking at the bedroom to the right where the small blue cradle gently rocked. She heard the thin cry. Although she didn't want her beloved to lose his concentration, she made no move to soothe the infant.

"Mommy, I hear my brother. Are you gonna go get him?"

She turned her eyes slowly to the bassinet, which stood in the shadows at the foot of the bed. In spite of the wind's incessant voice, she could hear faint unnerving noises that issued from the bassinet - a scraping and scratching. She absently murmured, "No, he's sleeping."

"Tell me what you said to daddy."

"I told him that I was going to beat him in only five minutes." Drawn to the bedroom against her will, the young woman took a step towards the room and then stopped herself. She shook her head and began to relive that fateful day… the day she beat Sasuke Uchiha.

~o~O~o~

Zabuza Momochi, the proctor for the third stage of the exams looked up at the board as the two names appeared on it. "Mearī Sū of Kusagakure and Sasuke of Konohagakure," he announced.

Up in the stands, Naruto was bouncing up and down in excitement, Sai was rechecking his scrolls and weapons in his pouches and pockets for the third time and Sasuke was leaning against the wall with a bored expression on his face.

"Don't hurt her," cautioned the blonde with a concerned look on her face. "She's going to be my woman someday."

"Tch, how many times do I have to tell you that she isn't what she seems? She put you in a genjutsu."

"No, she didn't."

"Yes, she did."

"Nope," he said, making the word pop.

Sasuke growled. "You know you're annoying, right?"

"Yup," he said unconcerned.

"You were dropped on your head as a child, weren't you?"

"Once or twice," he mused. "And besides, Mearī Sū would never do that. She's too sweet and kind and perfect and…"

Sai shook his head at their antics and asked, "What about the loud-mouth?"

"Who?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes and jumped down into the watery arena where Zabuza and the girl waited. "I've seen you before," he stated as he stared at her. "You were at the gates to the Crucible. You were wearing a Kiri hitai-ate then."

"You must be mistaken," she said sweetly. "I am from the Village Hidden in the Grass." A single ray of sunshine broke through the cloud cover and shone down on her, highlighting her matchless beauty. With grace and dignity, she nodded to her opponent and declared, "It doesn't matter what you thought you saw. You will still lose to me."

Being as sweet tempered as she was perfect and beautiful, Mearī Sū didn't get angry when the teen haughtily replied, "Tch, it takes an Uchiha to defeat an Uchiha. Fighting you is almost an insult to my clan's pride. However, this is the chunin exams so I will do what I must."

"I've heard that the Uchiha were arrogant jerks, but I never believed it before. How on earth do you carry that huge ego around? It must weigh the ton."

"Arrogance is the assumption that one is always right. I am simply stating a truth."

Although she didn't get angry – this was the chunin exams and she had something to prove. She was fast. She struck before the proctor had even finished giving the command to begin. As Sasuke sailed through the air, desperately trying to breathe, she struck from behind.

"She hits hard," he thought, his hands flowing through one of his more destructive jutsus. But before he could finish the remaining hand signs, an enormous boom echoed through the arena and a boulder slammed into the ground inches from him followed by flying rocks.

The hit took Sasuke backwards, but he compensated by throwing a dozen knives at the girl and multiplying them a few dozen times. Mearī Sū concentrated and threw a ball of flame at the knives. Molten metal steamed on the floor as the two of them eyed each other.

He tried his jutsu again, faster this time. Blowing out the massive fireball, his Sharingan monitored her every move as she evaded.

Mirroring his next move, she unsheathed the short sword hanging at her waist. "Ha, fire can't hurt me Uchiha. I am invincible. I will beat you in five minutes."

Sasuke smirked. "I don't need that much time."

She moved first, jumping across the distance between them and making a wide sweep with her sword. Sasuke easily sidestepped the maneuver, ducking down low to make a quick counter with his own blade. He leapt upwards and came down in a big cut. Mearī Sū stopped him in midair with a big block and pushed him back. Sasuke came underneath and slashed out at the girl's legs as he flipped over his shoulder and brought the blade under himself. It cut the shin of the female.

She ignored the bleeding injury and jumped forward. Sasuke caught her sword with his own. A few seconds, that was all he needed. He summoned chakra from within and formed a ball of blue chirping light in his free hand. He rammed it into the cut leg of the girl and rolled back.

A shocked scream of pain escaped before Mearī Sū could stop herself. She slashed out toward his torso again, but missed as he leapt into the air to step lightly on the guard of her sword. Though he wasn't on her weapon for more than a second; her arm dropped down from his weight. Being that she was such a perfect person and not the type to get angry, she frowned in frustration.

Leaping again, he flipped over her head. Halfway over, he reached out with his free hand to grab the sleeve of her shirt and pulled her down with him. However, she immediately reacted. With a quick hand sign, she smashed her now rock-encrusted fist into his stomach.

He cringed. It was unwise to succumb to pain for even an instant, especially when facing this impressive opponent. His feet were immediately kicked out from underneath him, and he was thrown, facedown, into the muddy bank of one of the small islands. His left arm was twisted up while Mearī Sū planted her sole at the back of his neck. With his sword trapped beneath him and his hands unable to forge any sort of seal, he was powerless.

~o~O~o~

An odd feeling broke her out of her musings. The little girl asked, "And then you beat him, huh mommy? You beat daddy and he fell in love with you cuz you were so pretty and smart huh?"

Mearī Sū blinked as the room came into focus again. She discovered that during her thrilling tale, she had moved closer to the bedroom. She stopped mid-stride and cocked her head. Then she heard it, a dry gasping and then a papery whisper. The cradle shook. The harder she strained to block out those sounds, the more clearly should she could hear them.

Brittle crackling.

The sounds of a demon.

"Oh Kami," she moaned. She shook her head to get rid of the horrible image. "It's just your imagination, Mearī Sū," she told herself firmly, "Get a grip… demon baby? Plu-ease! As if anyone as perfect as me would have a demon baby." In the bassinet the baby cried out again: a short, sharp voice almost like the dog's bark. She tuned the sound out as she gazed at her husband.

Mearī Sū gave a smug smile. She bagged an Uchiha! She was the envy of every ninja village for having done so. She just knew that one day she would become the leader of a village… any village. Here she was loved and appreciated – not like it was where she had been born…

"The fight wasn't over quite that quickly," she said to her daughter. "Your daddy was an incredible shinobi even then. He laughed at me…"

"Have you already forgotten?" he mumbled before his eyes flashed red with the Sharingan. "I am an Uchiha, controller of the Eternal Mangekyou."

Mearī Sū snapped her eyes shut and leapt backwards before he could put her in a genjutsu and then boldly proclaimed, "You haven't seen anything yet." She slapped her hands together and slammed them to the surface of the water at her feet. The ground exploded and a whirlpool surrounded him, spinning faster and faster.

Sasuke rose to his feet and stood calmly in the center of the vortex. "I am impressed with the skills you've shown so far. It is unheard of for a genin to have earth, fire, and water natures. I commend you for overwhelming me for a moment."

The girl's strange eyes glittered brightly as she responded cheerfully, "Like I said before, Uchiha, you haven't seen anything yet." Again her hands flew through a series of signs. The storm-dark afternoon sky grew steadily darker as the thunderheads changed color from grey to blue black, thickened, and pressed closer to the earth.

"You are underestimating me," she said to him as she completed the gestures. The air thickened, and then everything became white and silent around them for a second as the jutsu struck and an explosion shook the arena. No shinobi, no matter how powerful could survive the attack in one piece and Sasuke couldn't either. It was only due to her formidable skills as a medic that saved him from the brink of death.

~o~O~o~

"Mommy, the baby's awake. Aren't you gonna go get him? Maybe he's hungry."

She glanced at the darkened room and shivered. "No. He's…he's not awake. I… I don't want to wake him." Mearī Sū had no idea why she feared the baby. It was crazy. It was irrational. It was…

Something tapped on the window screen behind her. Mearī Sū twisted around, looked up, startled out of her musings. For a moment she couldn't see anything; just darkness out there.

Tap-tap-tap.

"Who's there?" she asked, her voice is thin as tissue, her heart suddenly beating fast. Then lightning spread across the sky, a tracery of fiery veins and arteries. In a flickering pulse of light, there were large white moths fluttering against the screen.

"Oh Kami," she said softly, "only moths." She shuttered, turned away from the frantic insects and looked towards the room with the innocent blue bassinette. She couldn't live with this kind of tension. Not for long. She couldn't live in constant fear. She had to do something soon.

Kill the baby.

Where did that thought come from?

Sasuke still sat on the floor deep in meditation. He couldn't hear anything. Their daughter had fallen asleep on the floor next to him. If she could just take that one step closer to the bassinet she could put her hand over its mouth and kill it and they wouldn't hear a thing. She stepped into the kitchen to grab a glass of water to bolster her nerves.

Although the cascading water was loud when it struck the sink Mearī Sū could still hear the baby. Hissing. Dragging its small fingers down the inner surfaces of the bassinet. Trying to get out.

No. Surely that was just her imagination. She couldn't possibly hear those types of sounds over the drumming water. She turned off the tap.

For a moment the world seemed to be filled with absolutely perfect tomb-like like silence. Then she heard the sighing wind once more. And from within the bassinet: scratching, scrabbling. Suddenly the child cried out. It was a harsh, grating screech, a single, fierce bleat of frustration and anger. Then quiet. For a few seconds the baby was still, utterly motionless, but then it began its relentless movement again.

A distant crack of thunder seemed to answer the child; the celestial rumbling briefly blotted out the unceasing voice of the wind, and it reverberated in the walls of their tiny home. She looked at Sasuke again.

Still deep in meditation.

The baby cried out again as if it sensed her intentions.

"Shut up!" she screamed, "Shut up, shut up!"

It cried louder. The bassinette shook, rocked, creaked as the infant kicked and writhed in anger.

She restlessly paced through the house for several minutes before going into the bedroom and stopping the foot of the bassinet. She switched on a lamp that produced a soft amber glow, and the shadows crawled away to huddle in the corners.

The child stopped the struggling with its covers. It looked up at her, it's a eyes shining with hatred. She felt sick.

"Kill it," she told herself.

But the baby's malevolent glare was hypnotic. Mearī Sū could not tear her eyes from its reptilian gaze; she could not move, she felt as if she had been turned to stone.

Lightning pressed its bright face to the window again, and the first fat drops of rain came with the subsequent growl of thunder. She stared at her child in horror, and beads of cold sweat popped out along her hairline. The baby wasn't normal, it wasn't even close to normal; but there was no medical term for its deformity. In fact you couldn't rightly call it a child. It was not a baby. It was a thing. It didn't seem deformed so much that it seemed to belong to a species entirely different from mankind.

It was hideous.

"Oh Kami," Mearī Sū said, her voice quivering. "Why me? What have I done to deserve this?"

The large, green, inhuman eyes of her offspring regarded her venomously. Mearī Sū wanted to turn away from it. She wanted to run out of the house, into the crackling storm, into the vast darkness, out of this nightmare and into a new dawn.

The creature twisted, flared nostrils quivered like those of a dog, and she could hear it sniffing eagerly as its sorted out her scent from the others smells in the house.

Kill it!

In the bassinette, the small, swarthy creature raised one hand reaching toward Mearī Sū. It wasn't a hand, really. It was a claw. The long, bony fingers were much too large to be those of a newborn infant, even though this baby was big for its age; like an animal's paws, the hands of this little beast were out of proportion to the rest of it. A sparse, black fur covered the backs of its hands and bristled more densely around its knuckles. Amber light glinted off the sharp edges of the pointed fingernails. The child raked the air, but was unable to reach her.

How can it possibly exist? She could not understand how such a thing could have come from her. The creature continued to stare at her, and she had the unsettling feeling that its strange eyes were not merely looking at her but through her, into her mind and soul. She had a feeling it saw her for who she really was and what she had done to get here.

Its pale, speckled tongue slowly licked its dark, dark lips. It hissed defiantly at her.

Wind-driven sheets of rain drummed noisily against the small home. Thunder picked up the night and vigorously rattled it again. The child squirmed, thrashed, and managed to push aside the thin blanket that had been draped across it. Hooking its bony hands on the edges of the bassinet, gripping it with its wicked claws, it strained forward and sat up.

Mearī Sū gasped. It was only three months old - too young to sit up on its own like that. She couldn't help it… she screamed out in fright.

It hissed at her and then began trying to get out of the bassinet.

Kill it.

Slowly she walked over to the bassinet and leaned down to lift the thing off of the pillow. It responded with such shocking fury. The creature squealed and clawed her with unimaginable strength.

She cried out in pain as the sharp, thin edge of it claws gouged and sliced her forearms.

Slender ribbons of blood flowed down her arms and dripped to the floor.

The baby squirmed and kicked causing Mearī Sū great difficulty just holding onto him. She screamed for Sasuke to open his eyes, but he sat frozen in place. Even her daughter made no movement. What was going on?

The thing pursed his twisted mouth and spat at her. A viscous, foul-smelling glob of yellowish spittle struck her nose.

She shuddered and gagged.

The kid peeled back his dark lips from its mottled gums and hissed at her.

Beyond the tall windows, lightning zigzagged down the sky. The lights in their home flickered. "Please," she thought desperately, "Please don't leave me in the dark with this thing."

Its bulging, green eyes seemed to radiate a peculiar light, a phosphorescent glow that appeared, impossibly, to come from within them. The thing screeched and writhed. It urinated.

The thing tore at her hands, scratching, drawing blood. It gouged the soft flesh of her palms and ripped off one of her thumbnails.

She heard an eerie, high pitched ululation quite unlike anything she had heard before, and she didn't realize for several seconds that she was listening to her own shrill, panicked screaming. If she could have thrown the creature down, or been able to run, she would have done just that, but suddenly she found that she was unable to release it. The thing had a fierce grip on her arms, and wouldn't let go. She struggled with the inhumanly ferocious child.

Cursing, straining, and trying to keep the key creature at arm's length, she managed to shift her left hand to its throat, and then her right hand, and she squeezed hard, bearing down, gritting her teeth, repelled by the savagery she felt rising within herself, frightened by her rediscovered capacity for violence, but determined to choke the life out of the thing.

It wasn't going to die easily. Mearī Sū was surprised by the rigid, resistant muscles in its neck. It pinched its claws higher on her arms and dug its nails into her again, making ten fresh puncture wounds on her skin. The pain prevented her from putting all of her strength into the frantic attempts to strangle the thing.

It rolled its eyes, then refocused on her with even more evident hatred than before. A silvery stream of thick drool oozed out of its mouth and down its pebbled chin. The twisted mouth opened wide; the dark, leathery lips writhed. A snaky, pale, pointed tongue curled and curled obscenely.

The child pulled Mearī Sū toward it with unbelievable strength. She could not keep it safely at arm's length as she wanted. It drew her relentlessly down toward the bassinette, and at the same time it pulled itself up.

"Die! Why won't it die?"

She was bent over the bassinette now. Leaning into it. Her grip on the child's throat was weakening by her new position. Her face was only eight or ten inches from the creature's repugnant countenance. Its rank breath washed over her. It spat in her face again.

Something brushed her belly.

She gasped, jerked. Fabric ripped. Her blouse. The child was kicking out with his long-toed, clawed feet. It was trying to gouge her breasts and stomach. She attempted to draw back, but the thing held her close, held her with demonic power and perseverance.

She felt dizzy, fuzzy, sick with terror, and her vision blurred, but she couldn't seem to breathe fast enough; she was lightheaded. Sweat flew off her brow and splattered the child as she wrestled with it.

The thing grinned as if it's sensed triumph.

Thunder pounded the sky, and lightning burst from the broken night. The lights went out.

And stayed out.

The child fought with renewed fury. The bassinette toppled with a crash, and Mearī Sū stumbled over it. She fell with the child and lost her hold on it. Leaping to her feet, she backed up against the wall, breathing heavily. Where was it?

And then she felt it – pulling at her pants and jerking her to the floor. It was close against her now… no longer safely at arm's reach. It was on top of her, gurgling and snarling. Its talons found purchase on her hips, and it tried to tear through the clothes she wore.

"No!" she shouted. A stray thought snapped to her mind: "I've got to wake up!"

But she knew she was already awake.

The thing continued to hold her right arm, its nails dug in her flesh, but it let go of her left arm. In the blackness she sensed the hooked claw reaching for her throat, her vulnerable jugular vein. She turned her head aside. This small yet incredibly long-fingered, deadly hand brushed past her throat, barely missing her. She rolled over, and then the child-thing was on the bottom.

Whimpering, teetering on the wire of hysteria, she tore her right arm from the creature's steely grip, at the expense of new pain, and she felt for its arms in the darkness, grabbed its wrists, and held its hands away from her face. She wasn't able to avoid its short powerful legs this time as its claw ripped through her stomach.

She flipped over, coughing and struggling, but to no avail. Blood and bile began to well up in the back of her throat when the demon child climbed on top of her and tore through her chest with wicked glee.

Her stomach and chest was shredded. With the building pressure, it felt like her eyes would pop out. The first of her ribs could be heard and felt snapping, yet it didn't hurt; she was completely numb to the absolute agony.

The electric power came back on and the night air was heavy with a coppery scent of blood, the stench of Mearī Sū's sweat, and the clean ozone of the thunderstorm. Sasuke moved out of his meditative pose and looked down unemotionally at his 'wife.'

"Tch, did you honestly believe that you could put me in a genjutsu?" he asked in haughtily disdainful tone. "This battle has been beneath me," Sasuke told the beautiful girl. He leered down at her. "Now, Mearī Sū, do you understand the foolishness of opposing the Uchiha?"

~o~O~o~

The three tomoe in Sasuke's eyes ceased their dizzying spin. The tranquil little house disappeared and they were standing in the middle of the water filled arena. Zabuza shuffled his feet impatiently. He growled, "Did you hear me? I said you can start."

Sasuke smirked as he stared at Mearī Sū, standing in a trance before him. Three seconds flat; that was all it took to overwhelm the genin kunoichi, though who knew how long it lasted in her own mind. For Sasuke, it was over the moment he activated his Sharingan. "I am finished," he replied as he turned away. Mearī Sū gave an ear-piercing shriek and fell down in a graceless heap.

Zabuza nudged her with his sandals and then shouted, "Winner, Sasuke Uchiha." He grabbed her by the arm as she started to sink into the water and dragged her to a small stretch of ground.

The stadium went dead silent for three seconds. Someone yelled, "What?! Nothing happened!" Complete pandemonium ensued as the crowd booed and threw trash down into the arena. Sasuke calmly walked across the water and into the stands where his team waited.

"Well, that was one boring-ass fight," commented Naruto dryly. "Will she be alright? I think you broke her."

Sasuke shrugged, unconcerned either way. "I thought she was your 'woman' Baka. Or did I imagine that?"

Naruto gave him a quizzical look and shrugged in confusion. "I don't know what you're talking about Teme. There is only one girl for me and that ain't her. Hey, so which one did you go with anyways, the number one or two?"

"The baby."

"Ooh… the number five. That one is freaky scary."

"Tch, it was your dream."

"Yeah, that one gave me nightmares for a week."

"Hn."

Medics rushed out to the girl. Mearī Sū convulsed, her head jerking back and forth. After a few minutes she sat up, her glazed eyes blinking stupidly. Her appearance suddenly changed. Her hair turned dirty blonde and her eyes became a muddy brown. Zabuza's eyes lit in recognition.

"Looks like you escaped the asylum again, huh Baba. You've been very naughty. You didn't kill anyone this time did you?" He shook his head and grinned down at the girl before stepping back and allowing the medics' access to her.

She shoved them away and frantically opened her shirt, expecting to see her torso shredded by the claws of the killer baby. As she realized she wasn't harmed, she gasped, seized with by knowledge and understanding that she had been prey to the legendary genjutsu of the Uchiha clan. She had lost.

"You didn't fight fair!" she yelled shrilly.

Up in the stands, Sasuke looked down at the girl disdainfully. "A true shinobi, Mearī Sū, never fights fair. We only fight to win."

AN:

I wanted to write a chapter about team seven's month in Kirigakure before the third exam and came up with several ideas, but I didn't like any of them enough for a full chapter, but I really wanted to show some of what happened during the month break. So instead, I decided to make them into a short series of Omakes. I have two for your reading pleasure. The second is actually more of an explanation than a story.

~The Battle Arena Omake~

Footsteps echoed as they walked through the narrow stone corridor. As the thin strip of light became wider, team seven felt their anticipation rise. This was it; the place where they placed all their hopes and dreams for the future – the battle arena.

Kakashi stopped at the entrance and held out his hand, urging them forward.

The low sky was mottled with grey-black clouds and the air brought the promise of incoming rain that would assault the village soon. "Surprise, surprise," thought Naruto wryly as he looked up.

Sai was the first to speak aloud. "Ah, I see," he nodded knowledgably.

"What?" asked Naruto.

"Princess Perky will be at a disadvantage here."

Sasuke somehow managed to control the urge to kill Sai.

"Mmm, that's right," agreed Kakashi. "Most of the genin participating in the third round are water users. As you know, water is stronger than fire." He pointed at Sasuke and said, "We will need to work on your lightning style."

At Sasuke's nod he continued, "As for you, Sai, earth is stronger than water. There isn't a lot here, but there is enough for you to work with. That is what we will be working on this month."

"What about me?"

"Well, your wind jutsus will be good against any long range attacks and your clones are good for short range. We will be working on your biggest weakness – genjutsu."

"What? I'm not that bad. The Teme and I have been practicing."

"Oh really?" Kakashi lifted his hitai-ate and stared at the blonde, who stilled instantly. He squinted up at the sky, judging the time, and said, "Mah, I have somewhere I need to be. You two take care of Naruto. We will meet up tomorrow morning for individual training."

Sai quickly bent down and rummaged through his pack. He pulled out a small, pink case and noticing the jonin's interest, asked, "Kakashi Sensei, do you mind if Sasuke and I get a little revenge?"

Kakashi chuckled and said, "I probably don't want to know why you have Ino's make-up case in your bag do I?"

Sai shook his head. "Most assuredly not, sensei."

~o~O~o~

The nightmare seemed unending.

Kakashi's genjutsu was broken when a hand slapped Naruto's back, applying a sudden surge of chakra. He looked around, an expression of revulsion etched on his face. He glared at Sasuke and then, without any warning, the dazed blonde's fist swung out and slammed into his face.

"What the hell, Baka?!"

He yelled with a slightly hysterical edge to his voice, "YOU PERVERT!"

Sasuke growled, "What the hell are you talking about? I broke the genjutsu."

"You…you…" Naruto dry heaved and then scrubbed his mouth with his hand. "You kissed me."

"Tch. That was a genjutsu, dobe."

"No it wasn't! It was… it was… oh." Naruto gave a sheepish grin and apologized, "Well, it sure seemed real. My mind was sent to a place it can never return." He paused and then added, "We must make a pact to never talk about this again."

"Tch, whatever. I'm out of here."

Sai waited until Sasuke left the arena and then commented, "Perhaps he kissed you because you look so attractive."

Without a word, Naruto gave him a sour look and stalked off. Sai smiled and yelled, "That was sarcasm. I have been practicing diligently. Was it too soon?" He briefly wondered how long it would be until his teammate noticed the garish make-up on his face.

"AAAAAGH!"

"Hmm, only thirty seconds," he said to himself before hastily drawing an eagle and taking off into the sky.

~Mearī Sū~

The screams and cries of the damned echoed throughout the fortified complex causing the girl to grit her teeth in anger. She didn't belong her. She wasn't crazy. She just had to escape again and the time was finally right - the chunin exams were coming.

Baba was different since the day she was born. She was stronger and more beautiful than anyone else was. No one else saw what she saw when she looked in the mirror. And the first deaths had been accidental…after all; she just meant to make her parents see what she did…

They were here – genin from another land. She was ready to take her place. Escape was easy when people underestimated her. She had been faking weakness ever since she overheard one of the guards tell another of the exams.

Pretending to be ill, she used her genjutsu on the medic and walked right out the door. That was the easy part. The difficulty lied in her ability to stay hidden from the shinobi who looked for her.

The grass team she came across was the perfect choice. She killed one and assumed her place. The other two had no idea that the real Mearī Sū was dead and their Sensei was just as clueless.

She was really good at making people see what she wanted them to see.

In the first exam, she saw him…

Sasuke Uchiha.

He was beautiful.

Instantly she knew that she had to be with him.

She just had to – one way or another…

AN:

So I hope that no one was confused. Sasuke put Mearī Sū in a genjutsu when Zabuza told them to begin. He made her believe she fought him, married him, and then had kids...all fake! This chapter was meant to be disjointed and confusing - like a genjutsu!

Thanks to everyone that followed/favorited/commented on the last chapter! I've got 900 reviews! You all are so awesome!

Ja Ne,

AZFAERYDUST