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Blah Blah Blah basic text (i.e. description, speech, etc)

Blah Blah Blah Thought or some transaction within someone's mind (also flashbacks)

Blah Blah Blah Kyuubi talking

BLAH yelling, or emphasis of some sort

Wrath of a Woman Scorned

By: EDelta88

Rated M for: language, violence, adult situations and concepts, lemons, and graphic imagery

Chapter 8: A Complicated Code

Nami no Kuni

Aki watched through the window as two thugs strutted up the pier that lead to Tazuna's house pausing only to kick in the door. Aki growled irritated as she slipped down the stairs. "This won't be much fun… but they're bound to be wanted somewhere so it isn't a total loss I suppose," she sighed, boredly sipping her tea as she turned and walked silently down the stairs.

In the kitchen Tsunami screamed dropping the bowl she had been washing as the door caved in. She tried to run, screaming for Inari but one of the men to grab her by the wrist a second later throwing her to his partner.

The second thug laughed and shoved her to the floor and turned to his friend. "Hey Zori! Why don't we have a little fun first? Gato just needed her alive right?" he suggested, laughing some more.

The other thug walked over and knelt down. He grabbed her face and tilted it side to side, as if examining it before he smirked. "I don't see why not," he said as Tsunami whimpered.

Around the corner Aki's eye's started to glow a furious red, just about to step out from her hiding place to gut these two scumbags when she paused, her head cocking curiously.

Suddenly the bigger thug lurched forward as heavy a ceramic mug collided with the back of his head, shattering on contact. Reaching for his katana, the mercenary spun around, expecting to see one of the ninja that had been guarding the bridge builder or one of the fishermen that lived close by but...

"Inari no!" Tsunami cried, trying to get to her son only for Zori's scabbard to crash into the back of her skull, sending her to the floor in a daze.

"Get away from my mommy!" Inari screamed, brandishing a small kitchen knife as he charged the two.

Watching from the shadows Aki quirked an eyebrow and smirked. 'Interesting,' she mused as the one eyed thug kicked Inari away.

"Well will you look at that Zori? The brat thinks he's a hero!" the larger one laughed, standing over the wheezing boy.

Zori laughed. "Well you know what we do with-"

"I believe he told you to leave her alone," Aki said, casually sipping her tea as she stepped into the kitchen, looking for all the world that she had simply come for another cup of tea.

"And what are you going to do about it? Cut us with your soup cup?" Zori snorted, throwing his head back, laughing at his own cleverness. Who was this little slip of a girl to tell him what to do? She was tiny!

"Tea actually," Aki corrected, draining the last dregs from the cup.

"What was that?" Zori's partner demanded.

"I'm going to kill you... with my teacup," she told them evenly, setting the cup upside down on the counter.

Zori stopped laughing, eyeing the girl as she stared back at them completely unafraid.

The two thugs flicked their thumbs, loosening their swords in their scabbards.

Aki didn't react.

Smirking, the one eyed thug dashed forward, drawing his katana, raising it above his head and bringing it into a downward slash at Aki's head.

Aki just sighed in disappointment. Snatching the cup off the counter, she stepped forward deflecting the sword with the cup as she slipped past his guard. Before anyone else had even registered that she had moved, Aki was standing behind him, her left hand snaking under his chin and lifting it as she drew the edge of the teacup, sharpened from its contact with the man's blade, across his throat.

Aki didn't even blink as she turned around, dodging a quick swipe at her midsection from her victim's partner, and snatched Zori's sword arm, sweeping his feet out from under him so that, for just a moment, it seemed as if he were simply lying down a couple of feet off the ground before she drove the cup into his chest with such force that it cleaved skin, muscle, and bone with frightening ease.

'Teacup?' was the last thing that went through Zori's mind as Aki followed through with her attack, he was dead well before his body slammed into the floor.

Staring into the surprised face of her victim, Aki smirked. "I told you."

Tazuna's Bridge

'This is not good…' Sasuke decided, staring around at the many images of his enemy looking back at him. No, this wasn't good at all. And things had been going so well! They'd introduced themselves. They had exchanged banter. They had crossed weapons. They had exchanged more witty banter before the impostor unleashed a surprise attack. He had avoided the surprise attack with great skill and grace. And so their exchange had continued for several minutes.

Suffice it to say that Sasuke had been feeling very good about the fruits of his labors… until his opponent summoned these accursed mirrors!

Now he was completely surrounded. For every senbon he dodged another buried itself somewhere in his body. His fire jutsu were almost completely ineffective. He could barely track his opponent's movements. He was bleeding. He was exhausted. He was…

To put it simply? He was fucked.

"Damnit," Sasuke growled, glaring around at the ice mirrors. It would be just his luck to end up facing a skilled Hyoton user alone. What a stupid way to die. This was not how he'd imagined it, and that was saying something because he had imagined his death quite often.

Haku sighed audibly. "Won't you please surrender? I would really hate to-"

"Two little ninja, dancing to and fro. Spinning round and round, on their little toes…"

Both Sasuke and Haku froze as the familiar voice, barely above a whisper, echoed eerily over the bridge.

"One said to the other hmm hmm hmm hmhm hmmmm…"

'What the… Is she humming?' Sasuke wondered incredulously. That was just bizarre… and incredibly creepy. Then again, perhaps that was the point.

"Two little ninja, dancing to and fro. Spinning round and round, on their little toes…"

'Of all the… Why did she have to show up now?' Haku wondered, cursing his luck as he searched the mist for the girl that had nearly killed his master.

"So she turned to him, a sad twinkle in her eye-"

Suddenly Haku was staring into a pair of deep blue eyes as fathomless and unforgiving as the sea.

"Won't you kiss me just this once, before we go to die?" she asked, cocking her head at him as a predatory grin spread across her lips.

'Shit!' Haku thought, throwing himself from his mirror just as Aki smashed the reinforced ice as easily as she would shatter a glass window.

"Oh, you're fast," Aki sang happily as she skipped into the house of mirrors.

'That's the second time she let me get away,' Haku thought, frowning deeply behind his mask. He knew full well that she had seen through his ruse once Zabuza-sama had explained who she was and now she was playing with him just like she had with Zabuza-sama at the lake. 'I must end this quickly,' Haku decided, readying a handful of senbon.

"Too slow," Aki snickered, hopping out of the ways as a storm of senbon cut through the air where she had been standing.

"I had thought you would recognize a distraction when you saw one," Haku replied trying to keep her attention as he formed a spear of ice out of a puddle to Aki's right.

"I meant those half seals you were making as you attacked me," Aki replied, snatching the spear out of the air and hurling it at the mirror the ice user was hiding in.

"Shit!" Haku hissed, stepping into an adjacent mirror even as the spear pierced the one he'd been hiding in like it had been fired from a cannon. 'That should have hit her at least partially. How is she tracking me? Is she a sensor type or is she following my movements?' he wondered. Then again, if she was focusing on him… perhaps he could use that.

Meanwhile, Sasuke stood all but forgotten as he watched the high speed exchange in morbid fascination when, in a moment of supernatural clarity, he saw it. Haku was coming from a mirror to Aki's left, melting out of the smooth surface as he released another brace of senbon. But the real attack was coming from behind, the shards of the mirror she just shattered rising up to fly at her unprotected back.

Until the day he died, Sasuke would never be able to explain what possessed him to jump in between Aki and the ice user's attack. He had already watched her dodge the boy's attacks with laughable ease but, for whatever reason, when he saw a storm of senbon flying at his teammate's back he found himself leaping to her defense even though, logically, she didn't need it.

What he never expected though, was for Aki to whip around and pull him out of the way, a motion that left her fully exposed to their enemy's attack for a split second.

Unfortunately, a split second in ninja combat is an eternity.

"Gurk!" Aki coughed, her eyes going wide as two of the senbon pierced her throat, her body jerking as the large shards of ice buried themselves in her back.

"Wha-You-" Sasuke stammered, catching her by reflex as she collapsed like a puppet cut from its strings. "Why didn't you let them hit me!?" he demanded, catching sight of a shard lodged in the back of her neck as he lowered her to the ground. 'It must have severed her spine,' he realized.

"I don't like to… owe favors," Aki whispered, struggling to speak through the blood pooling in her mouth. "Why did you… why did you try to protect me?" she asked as she stared up at Sasuke with an unreadable expression.

"I don't know, my body just moved on its own," Sasuke admitted. It was true, too. He hadn't thought about it, he'd just done it. It had felt right.

"I-idiot…" she gurgled, blood spilling past her lips as her eyes fluttered shut, the corner of her mouth twitching upwards ever so slightly.

All Sasuke could do was stare disbelievingly as her eyes fluttered shut. This couldn't have happened. Aki couldn't be… Aki was the most powerful person he knew! Terrifyingly powerful! Seasoned jounin were afraid of her. Kakashi was afraid of her! By the gods, she considered fighting A-rank criminals fun! This shouldn't be possible!

"This is not the first time you have seen the death of a comrade," the Haku observed solemnly.

Sasuke said nothing, just stared down at his teammate's corpse uncomprehendingly as he felt tears welling in his eyes.

"Your friend was… She was most impressive," the faux hunter nin admitted. "No one has ever given me so much trouble."

"Shut up," Sasuke whispered, his fingers curling into fists.

The imposter paused, appearing remorseful in spite of their mask. "For what it's worth, I am truly sorry. Under different circumstance I can honestly say that-"

"Shut up!" Sasuke screamed, jumping to his feet and spinning to face his opponent.

"I'm sorry?" the impostor asked, startled by Sasuke's outburst and even more surprised that Sasuke had found which mirror he was in.

"You know nothing about Aki…" Sasuke growled, glaring at the faux hunter nin as tears streamed down his cheeks.

Tears of blood.

"Sharingan!" the faux hunter nin gasped, staring in morbid fascination at the red and black star burst as a chakra condensed around the young Uchiha, forming a ghostly skeleton five meters tall.

"Die!" Sasuke snarled, thrusting his hand forward as skeleton's spectral hand did the same, smashing the mirror that Haku was hiding in like cheap glass and sending the young ice user tumbling across the bridge.

Edited: 1/2/16

A/N

First things first. I would like to give a shout out to all of you that reviewed. I tried to respond to most of you but some of you had pms disabled and I undoubtedly missed a couple of you. To those that fell through the cracks, I DID read your reviews and I DO appreciate it. Thank you all (^.^)V

Second, I've been getting some questions about pairings; specifically, who I am going to pair Aki with. Now, I'm already setting up a pseudo pairing, some of you may have already noticed it. That said, the actual romance won't start until shippuden and I will NOT tell you who it is… it's a surprise.

Third, yes I just gave Sasuke Mangekyo Sharingan, no Aki is not dead. In this fic Mangekyo Sharingan is unlock via the mental trauma of feeling responsible for the death of someone you cared deeply for and not by the mystic bullshit of canon.

And lastly, the fight between Aki and Haku did not turn out as... epic as I wanted. So, since I will most likely be coming back to it later anyway, I'm open to suggestions.