Exodus

By: EDelta88

Rated M for language violence and my own paranoia

[Insert Disclaimer Here]

How this drabble came to be…

It all started with a stray thought while I was bored at work: "What if it wasn't Sasuke that defected?"

Next came: "Well… who would defect?"

After eliminating most of the other choices because they were boring, didn't make sense, required too much work, or ended in "Why the fuck am I doing this?" I decided that the only option with any real substance that I was willing to make an effort with was Naruto.

After that I wondered: "Why?"

What could possibly drive Uzumaki Fucking Naruto, loyal through thick, thin, stupid, and bullshit to defect? This question was the most fun part of the whole challenge for me… or maybe I was just that bored. Who knows. After all, it seemed like there was absolutely nothing that the villagers could do to him to make him bug out.

Then I thought: "What about something they would do to someone else?"

After that, I found a theme song and then I went a little nuts. A little adjustment of birth here... a little tension between hormonally charged teenagers there… add in the stress and pressure of ninja life… one thing led to another and this is what I got.

Background and Story Notes:

A.S. [After Sage] is my timeframe for the story. 0 being either the defeat of the Juubi or the death of the Rokudo Sennin, 1000 A.S. being the founding of Konoha, 1100 A.S. being the year Naruto was born and going from there.

For the purposes of this Drabble Naruto is female and had a physical relationship with Sasuke that started at some point following the Sand/Sound Invasion. They were not dating. They were not hopelessly in love. They were two teenagers in a high pressure lifestyle looking for comfort where they could get it.

Also for the purposes of this fic, Naruto's graduating class will be 14+ at the time of the Defection Arc. Also keep in mind that ninja kids are more mature due to their upbringing (this Naruto especially) so they would be older mentally; perhaps 16 or 17; in Shikamaru's case 28+ given that his IQ is over 200. (Note: IQ is mental age divided by physical age, multiplied by 100)

Prologue

Uchiha Residential District, 1122 A.S.

It was a hot night, even for mid-summer in Fire Country, and incredibly humid… not that either of them cared.

Her skin was hot and slick underneath his hands, her body quivering every time he ran his fingers up her sides.

She twisted in his grasp, growling his name as she flipped him over.

He chuckled as she opened her mouth to snarl something at him but he didn't wait to hear her. Instead, he fisted his fingers in her hair and jerked roughly, pulling her into a none too gentle kiss.

She groaned, pressing herself against him, the muscles of her forearms rippling under her skin as her deceptively delicate hands balled up around the sheets.

He smiled into the kiss, pressing his knee into the apex of her thighs as he traced patterns in the smooth skin of her back..

"Sasuke..." she growled, warningly only to gasp, arching into his knee, when he ran his fingers down the length of her spine. Whining like a cornered animal she sank her teeth into his shoulder in retaliation, a final warning to stop teasing her… or else.

"Hn," Sasuke cuckled, giving a victorious smirk, hooking a hand under her knee before effortlessly lifting her into the air.

"Unh!" she gasped her powerful legs wrapping around his waist as he pinned her to the wall with a dull thud.

With the barest thought, his eyes bled crimson, his sharingan spinning to life as he started kissing her neck, licking, biting, touching her in every way he knew she liked.

Time lost all meaning and, for just a little while, the world narrowed down to the two of them. No missions, no duties, no worries, no cares. Just the two of them in this moment where everything was just right...

His sharingan began to whirl faster and faster until the black tomoe blurred out of sight, his eyes searing the image of her dazed face glistening in the moonlight into his mind as she threw her head back and...

Sasuke's eyes snapped open, staring at the ceiling of his bedroom, her voice still ringing in his ears as the world came into sharp focus.

"Just a dream…" he murmured, a sharp stab of disappointment digging at his chest as it always did when he woke up from any dream she appeared in. He wouldn't say he had been in love with her. They'd had fun, but that was all it had ever been. Fun.

Sasuke blinked turning to stare at his hand that had strayed to the opposite side of the bed… her side of the bed. He frowned, his fingers curling into a fist as he pulled it away, rolling over to face the other direction to stare out the window.

Perhaps there had also been a certain degree of comfort to their relationship as well. He could admit that much, if only to himself.

With the invasion and their run in with Itachi they had both been a little… stressed. And that had been before they had started missions again. With the loss of manpower, the pressure Konoha had put on its gennin, especially those with a high success rate, had increased drastically. Considering how they seemed to routinely achieve the impossible every time they were given poor intel, Team 7 had been in high demand. Then one day after that debacle in Spring Country they had been sparring, one thing had lead to another and, well... but it had never really progressed beyond the physical.

Suddenly Sasuke frowned, tilting his head thoughtfully as something occurred to him for the first time.

Could it have progressed beyond what they had? After all, you never know, right? If nothing else, they had certainly compatible enough in… that way.

A nostalgic smile tugged at his lips.

Sure they had their differences but they were just kids, rivals at that. Tension was to be expected, right? But had she been what he wanted in a girl? Hell if he knew, he hadn't been looking. He still wasn't, not really. But she hadn't exactly been hard on the eyes or anything and she, unlike so many other girls, had been more than a little serious about her ninja career. So maybe they could have been something eventually…

But now he might never know. It had been eight years without word. Not a clue. Not a trace. Nothing. Eight years of searching and there was still nothing!

Eight years… had it really been that long already?

What went wrong?

Why had she run?

"Where the hell are you Naruto…" Sasuke muttered wistfully, staring out his window at sky beyond the village walls as a dull ache developed in his chest.

Chapter 1: Absent Without Leave

Uchiha Residential District, 1114 A.S.

'It might be worth it,' Sasuke mused, fingering the mark on his shoulder as he paced around his living room, weighing the pros and cons of the offer Orochimaru's minions had given him that afternoon.

Just the idea of a more controllable version of his seal was tempting but training from-

Wham! Wham! Wham!

"What the..." Sasuke muttered, palming a kunai as he went to check the door. 'Who the hell comes knocking at two in the morning?' he wondered as he peeked out the window.

Wham! Wham! Wham!

"Shikamaru?" Sasuke asked the empty house wonderingly. He had never seen the lazy Nara so… awake? At this hour? 'What the hell?' he wondered as a curious sense of dread in his chest as he watched the Nara raise his fist and slam on his door again.

Wham! Wham! Wham!

"I'm coming! Hold your horses!" Sasuke barked as he undid the bolt to the door and came face to face with-

"We've been activated. Get your kit. Pack light, we need to be as fast as possible. Meet up at the east gate as soon as you're ready," Nara ordered before turning to leave.

"What's the mission?" Sasuke asked, taken aback by the uncharacteristic urgency in his normally laid back comrade.

"I'm going to be briefing everyone on the way. Time is a priority. Now get your fucking kit!" Shikamaru threw over his shoulder, before leaping out of sight.

For a moment, Sasuke stared after his old classmate, momentarily stunned into inaction. Then, without a second thought, Sasuke rushed back into his house to find his equipment, all thought's of Orochimaru forgotten. After all, it something could light a fire under Nara Shikamaru? Well… it had to be important, right?

Twenty minutes later, Sasuke came to an abrupt halt in front of what he assumed was the rest of Nara's hastily gathered team.

'Hyuuga Neji and Inuzuka Kiba,' Sasuke thought, easily recognizing them both. Add in a Nara's shadow and Sharingan's penchant for detail and genjutsu… this was a tracking and capture team.

Not a second later Shikamaru dropped into the street, Chouji hot on his heels, tossing a scrap of black cloth to Kiba. "Get that scent," Shikamaru ordered before rushing over to the guards.

Kiba took a bemused sniff of the cloth before gaining an even more confused look. "This is…Hey, is this who I think it is, boy?" Kiba asked, offering the rag to Akamaru.

Akamaru sniffed the cloth experimentally then gave an affirmative sounding yap.

Kiba frowned. "Yeah, that's what I thought," he muttered, not looking too happy about being right.

"What is it?" Neji inquired, his face schooled to his usual impassive mask.

"It's Naruto's scent," Kiba replied, sounding confused and more than a little worried.

Sasuke's choked, his eyes widening ever so slightly. Naruto? What did his idiot teammate have to do with any of this? But before he had any longer to dwell on that train of thought Shikamaru was back.

"Do you have it?" the overly tense Nara demanded practically glaring at Kiba.

Kiba and Akamaru nodded.

"Good, you two are in front, circle north until you find her trail then follow it," Shikamaru ordered before turning to the rest of the team. "I'm in the middle. Neji, you're rear guard. Sasuke, Chouji, take up flanking positions on either side of me. Keep the formation loose, we move as fast as Kiba can track, understand?"

Everyone nodded.

"Then let's move!" Shikamaru barked before taking off.

"Mind telling us what's going on shadow boy?!" Kiba called as they leapt into the trees. "Why am I trying to find Naruto?"

"Naruto's gone AWOL, we've been ordered to retrieve her or, failing that, delay her until reinforcements arrive," Shikamaru answered as the team fell into formation.

Sasuke frowned. That... made no sense at all. Naruto? AWOL? What? Something was very, very, wrong with this picture. "What the hell is going on, Nara?" he demanded. Sure she had done some stupid and impulsive things but even she knew better than to leave the village without permission or at least telling someone. Whatever this was, it was completely out of character for the Naruto he knew.

"At approximately 1900 hours last night there was a fire on the west side of the village. Destroyed a mostly abandoned apartment complex. There were no casualties but the preliminary investigation served to distract village security for several hours."

"Yeah? So somebody got a little happy with the matches and torched some slum. What does that have to do with little miss sunshine?" Kiba called back, Akamaru barking in agreement

"I was getting to that!" Shikamaru snapped, glaring at Kiba. "It was her building that was burnt and at approximately the same time, one of the barrier teams detected someone crossing the wall on the east side of the village. They determined the person to be approximately fourteen years of age and female. The threat level was deemed negligent and because of our reduced numbers no pursuit was called."

"Uzumaki, yes?" Neji guessed.

"That is the current theory, yes. Unfortunately, between the investigation into the fire, which just happened to be her home, and some kind of confusion with shift changes, no one put the two events together until the they tried to find her for questioning. That was at approximately midnight so she has several hours head start on us," Shikamaru explained with a frustrated frown.

"Got it! She came over the wall here and headed straight east. " Kiba called, changing course to follow the trail before he suddenly frowned, eying the path that Naruto took as they passed. "She was hauling ass too… I don't think she was even trying to hide her trail," he added, pointing at some broken branches and plainly visible scuffs on the larger boughs where she would have pushed off.

"Good," Shikamaru said, just the tiniest bit relieved. "That'll make it easier to follow her. Hopefully she'll burn herself out and have to slow down at some point."

"That sounds like she was running from something," Chouji piped up as they took off again. "Couldn't she have been attacked? Like, someone blew up her house or something then she ran away and hid in the woods?"

"That has yet to be determined. We are the first responders," Shikamaru explained. "My orders were specifically to try and determine her intentions. If she was attacked, we take her into protective custody. If she's defecting we are to capture her, if possible. Failing that we are to delay her until more advanced units could be recalled and sent to help us."

'More advanced units?' Sasuke wondered. That seemed like overkill… then again, she had managed to take out some pretty nasty ninja.

"What do you think we are dealing with?" Neji asked pointedly.

Shikamaru glanced over his shoulder at Neji before staring straight ahead. "I… I don't know. Whatever happened, it wasn't good."

Some time later and a significant distance from the village Kiba suddenly stopped, crouching down on one of the branches to take a closer look at something.

"What is it?" Shikamaru demanded.

"Her pace changed," Kiba explained. "Looks like you were right. She slowed down some, probably lost her wind and started pacing herself."

"That's something at least," Shikamaru sighed though he didn't seem at all happy to hear it.

'Pacing herself?' Sasuke wondered, frowning as they resumed their pursuit. That didn't sound like Naruto at all. She just had too much energy. Hell, the only times he'd seen her tired were her bedtime and the days she would train herself into the ground after splitting her chakra amongst a horde of Kage Bunshin.

What the hell was going on?

Hours Later...

"Shika," Chouji called, panting heavily. "We're going too fast. I need a minute to… to catch my breath."

Glancing at his friend then at the rest of his party, Shikamaru noticed signs of fatigue in all but Sasuke and Neji.

"God fucking damnit," Shikamaru cursed, signalling everyone to halt. It wouldn't do them any good if they were dead on their feet. "Take a break, drink something, get some rest, we leave in fifteen!" he called before walking a short distance away to pace like an angry cat.

"Holy shit, what's crawled up his ass?" Kiba muttered, not really directing the question at anyone in particular as he plopped down against one of the trees.

"Don't take it personally," Chouji said, glancing to this side where Shikamaru was pacing like an angry cat. "We all grew up with Naru-chan but Shika… Well, from what he's told me, his dad tried to adopt Naruto several times but kept getting stonewalled. If things had been a little different she would have been his sister."

Most of the group chuckled at that thought. Naruto? A Nara? Now that would have been an interesting mix.

"Still don't see why he's so bent about this," Kiba muttered.

"He is upset because Naruto's behavior up to this point would suggest that she is deliberately fleeing the village and not simply avoiding some sort of attack," Neji observed, looking troubled.

"What do you mean?" Chouji asked curiously.

"She's pacing herself," Kiba answered, sounding depressed.

"So?"

"It means she's not acting out of panic anymore. She is deliberately putting distance between herself and the village," Neji explained, nodding at Kiba. "Combined with the fire… it would suggest she was attempting to destroy evidence of some sort as well as distract the village long enough to flee."

"Why's she heading this way?" Kiba asked. "She heading for an outpost? Claiming sanctuary or something?"

'Where the hell is she going?' Sasuke wondered. They were heading almost straight into the sunrise so that meant east. East? What was to the east? Why would she go that way?

"Unlikely," Shikamaru replied tiredly as he rejoined the group. "Most of the outposts are further north along the border or south along the major trade routes. She's heading almost east by north-east so she'll miss the garrison in Potogai and every other major settlement in the area. The only thing on her current heading is the ocean. Besides, the commercial ports don't open until dawn at the earliest and the fishing boats will have already left. At this point best tides for sailing won't be until noon," Shikamaru observed.

"Don't know why she's heading that direction, then. Not complaining though, that should make it easier to box her in," Kiba said, sounding as excited as he was depressed.

"Yeah," Shikamaru replied in an absent tone sounding a little more relieved.

'But that doesn't make sense,' Sasuke reasoned, a deep frown creasing his brow. Naruto? Boxing herself in? That didn't fit at all. In Sasuke's experience Naruto was terrifyingly good with evasion tactics. Even Kakashi had trouble catching her when she didn't want to be found. She would know better than to run straight into…

Pacing herself...

Sasuke's eyes suddenly grew to the size of dinner plates. "Nara! We have a problem!" Sasuke called, leaping to his feet as he turned to face Shikamaru.

"Wha?" Shikamaru wondered, his head whipping around. "What is it? What do you know?" he demanded.

"The water walking exercise!" Shikamaru gave him a look of incomprehension so Sasuke elaborated, "Naruto's a chakra monster. She never paces herself for anything! If she is now, she's saving it for something big or incredibly taxing."

Shikamaru's eyes went wide. "You think she's going to try running over the ocean?!" he asked incredulously.

"She's crazy enough to try it and when it comes to her and crazy she usually succeeds," Sasuke said back, becoming more and more sure of his conclusion as he spoke. Running the vast and unpredictable waters of the open ocean? It just wasn't done… which made it exactly the sort of tactic Naruto would try.

"The ocean?" Kiba wondered, sounding sceptical.

"This is Naruto we're talking about," Chouji replied matter-of-factly. As though that explained everything all by itself.

Kiba blinked. "...Right. Nevermind, forget I said anything."

"Damnit," Shikamaru growled. "Everyone pop a soldier pill! We're going to be burning a lot of chakra in order to catch up."

And then they were off… hopefully they weren't too late.

Forty Minutes Later…

"The scent's getting stronger!" Kiba called, taking a long breath to test the air. "We're catching up, her scent's a lot more dense here, still in the air. I'd say she passed through here less than five minutes ago."

"Neji!" Shikamaru barked.

Without a word, Neji's Byakuugan flared to life as he focused on the area in front of them, stretching his vision to its limits. "I see her. She's just a few klicks ahead of us," he reported.

"Has she detected us?"

"I do not believe so."

"Could we close the distance without burning so much chakra?" Shikamaru demanded.

"Yes, she seems to still be pacing herself."

"Lucky us," Shikamaru muttered sarcastically. "Chouji, you're with me. Kiba, Akamaru, flank her. Try to knock her out before she can react. Sasuke, Neji, circle around in front of her, cut her off in case we don't get a clean capture. And Sasuke..."

"Hn?" he prompted, glancing at the young Nara out of the corner of his eye.

"If this goes south, you have the best chance at a diplomatic solution… think of something good, yeah?"

Sasuke grunted agitatedly, already feeling the hum of adrenaline in his blood as he and Neji disappeared into the trees.

He, Uchiha Sasuke, was their best chance at talking down Uzumaki Naruto?

Nevermind that he and Naruto had been at each other's throats since they could walk or that Sasuke was the least empathetic of the group and, in Naruto's words, "socially retarded." No, talking the emotionally distraught and crazy people into doing her bidding was Naruto's thing… and she was scary good at it now that he stopped to think about it.

'We are so fucked if it comes to that,' he thought, shaking his head as he and Neji circled from the south, overtaking Naruto and setting up in a tree a couple hundred meters in front of her. Close enough to react but far enough away to give the others breathing room for the ambush.

And so they waited, ready to move at a moment's noticed.

Activating his sharingan, Sasuke scanned the forest, catching sight of Naruto in the distance, Shikamaru and Chouji closing in behind her as Kiba and Akamaru kept pace with her, just out of sight.

She was only a hundred meters away now…

He saw Shikamaru making hand signs…

Fifty meters…

Then he saw it, a small burst of chakra as Shikamaru stopped, his shadow warping, snaking through the shadows of the forest at remarkable speed toward Naruto, leaving the cover of the trees as she passed through a clearing...

Under the hyper observant gaze of sharingan, time seemed to slow to a crawl for Sasuke, giving him a unique perspective of what happened next. As Shikamaru's shadow made contact and Naruto froze in place, clearly taken by surprise if the look in her eyes was anything to go by. Then, just as they'd planned, Kiba and Akamaru in Juujin form rushed out of the bushes on either side of her, Kiba throwing an elbow at Naruto's solar plexus and Akamaru kicking for her head. Both aiming to at least stun her if not disable her entirely.

Textbook ambush, picture perfect even.

Sasuke watched as Naruto's gaze flick to the side, fixing on Kiba. What came next confused him though. Just for a moment Naruto's eyes grew wide and… afraid. No, Sasuke realized. She wasn't just afraid, she was terrified, her pupils shrank to pin pricks as she tracked Kiba's elbow.

Then her eyes narrowed to furious slits and Sasuke's knees nearly buckled under the pressure of her chakra.

She was literally glowing blue as she broke Shikamaru's Kagemane and brought her forearm down across Kiba's shoulder-blades crushing the surprised Inuzuka into the ground and knocking him unconscious as the force of her chakra sent Akamaru flying and sprayed debris in every direction.

It was like watching a train wreck, Sasuke decided as he watched Naruto's head snap up in slow motion, her wild, furious gaze sweeping the trees before coming to rest on Shikamaru crouched a short distance behind her with his fingers in the Nezumi seal.

Shikamaru's eyes went wide. "Oh fu-" he managed before Naruto closed the distance between them, bypassing Chouji entirely as she drove her knee into his chin with enough force to launch his now limp body into the air.

"Shikamar-oof!" Chouji cried only to be literally swept away as Naruto grabbed Shikamaru by the ankle and used him as a flail to club Chouji into a nearby tree with a sickening thud.

Sasuke froze, staring in shocked disbelief at what Naruto had just done. Less than five seconds and more than half their team was ruthlessly incapacitated. She had completely reversed their ambush on sheer brutality.

He watched, transfixed, as she landed in a hunter's crouch her long hair shining in the light of her chakra as it fluttered ominously behind her. For just a second, her eyes lingered on the unconscious forms of her friends before she turned, scanning the forest for anyone else. She found Neji first, her jaw clenching involuntarily.

Then she saw Sasuke.

For the briefest moment, their gazes locked and Sasuke was completely at a loss. Her body stiffened involuntarily, the furious storm of chakra dissipating as something incomprehensible flashed behind her eyes...

And then she ran, bolting south like a bat out of hell.

Cursing under his breath, Sasuke turned to Neji. "Do you know any first aid?" he demanded, hurriedly. Naruto hadn't been gentle, one of them had to check the others.

Neji nodded.

"Stay with them, I'm going after her!" he barked before diving into the bushes after Naruto. 'South, south, what's south?' Sasuke wondered, furiously trying to remember the geography of this region as he hurtled into the forest.

They were more than a few hours south of Fire Country's northern border. Most of the coast was sandy beaches and inlets; tourist traps and shipping ports. The further south you got the more rocky everything got until…

'The cliffs!' he realized. There was a stretch of the coast that was made up almost entirely of thirty to fifty meter tall rock walls. Potentially deadly if you weren't careful and almost completely uninhabited. 'She was probably going to go around them until...' He shook his head. He needed to focus. If Naruto got to the coast, it was all over. With her reserves there was no way he'd be able to follow her.

So he ran. He ran like he had never run before, putting all his training with Kakashi to the test as he practically flew along the ground, just barely able to keep track of her through the trees.

He was gaining on her.

They burst out of the trees. Much closer to the coast than he had anticipated.

She was just a few long meters away.

He wasn't going fast enough.

"Damnit," he muttered as he poured chakra into his legs and feet to increase his pace.

He was going so fast now, too fast. If he didn't have sharingan he surely… but he was closing the distance, fast.

And that was all that mattered.

Ten meters…

Five meters…

Two meters…

One...

He was so close, he reached out, the tips of his fingers brushing the hem of her jacket…

He just needed a little…

Suddenly a sharp pain in his cursed seal caused him to flinch, breaking his concentration and he lost traction, his saddle slipping on a loose stone as the chakra in his feet dissipated and he fell, tumbling painfully in the dust and gravel as she pulled away.

Then she was gone.

Konoha Torture and Interrogation Division, Debriefing Cell, 1114 A.S.

"Staight your name, rank, and registration for the record," Ibiki ordered.

"Uchiha Sasuke, Gennin, registration: 012606," Sasuke replied dully.

"State in your own words, your relation with Gennin Uzumaki Naruto."

"She is my teammate," he answered.

"Expand on your answer," Ibiki ordered.

"We were in the same class at the academy for seven years before being placed on the same team. Most of our contact during that time involved her either challenging me to a fight or pranking me. At the end of that time we were placed on the same team. After that… we worked together almost continuously since that point. Went through the Chunnin Exams and the… incident, with Suna and Oto. More recently we started training together outside of team exercises…"

"Does anything during that time stand out? Actions of note. Things that might have influenced her behavior."

"Would you like an itemized list of the countries she saved or just the ones where they erected monuments in her name?" Sasuke snarked. It really was quite ridiculous how often that had happened to them.

Ibiki rolled his eyes but silently agreed with the kid. By herself, Uzumaki, and to a lesser extent Team 7, had brought in more good press for Konoha in the last year than most ninja managed in their entire career.

"Any changes in behavior? Perhaps she would disappear without explanation?" Ibiki prompted, narrowing the question.

"Not particularly, she was alone so often that her going off on her own wasn't really out of character. I just assumed she was training… or buying groceries."

"And if you could describe your relationship in a word what would it be?"

"She was… she was my rival."

"Explain your decision to leave Hyuuga Neji with the injured members of your team rather than take him with you to pursue Uzumaki,"

"I'm not a medic and as a Hyuuga he was better suited to give the others medical attention. Also, at that point I felt that in order to capture Naruto I wouldn't be able to hold back and some of my jutsu… well, they aren't very precise. I felt that since Neji and I had not worked together he would be in danger."

Ibiki nodded approvingly.

Sasuke sighed. While not entirely true, it covered what was and added a few points in case any bureaucrats decided to get nosey.

"You were the last to see Gennin Uzumaki before she escaped," Ibiki observed.

"I was," Sasuke answered.

"Given your personal relationship with Uzumaki, can you offer any insight into what might have caused her to flee?"

Why did she run? That was a question that Sasuke had been trying to answer since he'd gotten back. For the longest time Sasuke didn't answer, he just sat there, staring blankly at the table in front of him.

"Answer the question gennin," Ibiki ordered. Evidently he had been thinking too long.

Sasuke's eyes flicked up, staring defiantly back at Ibiki for a second before he sagged in his chair. "I don't know," he sighed, a sense of defeat finally settling over him. "Naruto is the most loyal person I know. Her entire life revolves around Konoha and people in Konoha. For her to run… she would have had to believe that what she was doing was in the best interest of the village or something so important it could supersede her loyalty. Whatever it was, I don't think she was happy to be leaving."

Ibiki looked up, fixing Sasuke with a penetrating stare. "Explain your answer," he demanded.

Sasuke's eyes gained a far away look, Sharingan spinning to life as he remembered that moment on the cliff...

He was out of control, rolling, skipping. He hit something, coming to a stop. He looked up… Just in time to watch the last wisps of her hair vanish below the edge of the cliff.

He was scrambling, unconsciously channeling the last dregs of his chakra to find purchase as he dashed forward.

He was standing so close to the edge, quivering with exhaustion as he stared down at the churning water, eyes flicking in every direction as he searched, trying to find her.

There! A flash of orange. His sharingan whirled, bringing her form into sharp contrast. She was skimming over the surface of the water like a comet, leaving a long trail of foam in her wake raced away from the mainland.

He called out to her, screaming her name over the thunderous crash of the waves.

He watched her shoulders tense. Her hands clenched into fists, trembling. She turned slightly, glancing over her shoulder. Her eyes found him, standing alone on the cliff...

She looked so sad…

She was...

"She was crying…"