_._
The Story of Us
'For those who never gave up'
Naruto x OC
Friendship, Adventure, Romance
Chapter 25: To The Light
The closer we are to the light the longer our shadow grows.
Odd Future- UVERworld
It was silent as we walked through the tower.
Sensei greeted us upon completion of our task, and informed us we made it to the third round. For the next few days we were expected to amble around and not kill each other. Fighting had to be strictly performed during the exams, but while in the tower we were all considered safe. There were places to rest, and food pills we could chew on if we sought them out. However for the most part we were left to wander.
Nothing had been said about what happened in the forest. Sensei could see how shaken up I was, but even he never commented. I was slow to walk, but adamant on doing it anyway.
I didn't know what to say to my teammates, no doubt they had a million questions about why I reacted the way I did. How could I put 'I had a panic attack and flashback to when my parents were brutally slaughtered by an Uchiha' more succinctly? I couldn't, not really. The reality was I had never really disclosed my history to either boy.
Looking over to them, both resting against the far wall of the large room I had been pacing, I figured I owed them at least a small explanation.
"My parents were killed by an Uchiha."
Their heads snapped up, it was not how I intended to open up this conversation. Immediately I thought of ways that I could possibly back track it all, but the words never came to mind. I balked.
"Wait that- um- I didn't mean to drop it like that but-" Akira cut me off.
"So that's it. That's why you couldn't make eye contact with Uchiha. He was staring at you the entire time." He tilted his head to the side, understanding the situation better. "But you knew that, and yet you wouldn't look at him."
I lowered my gaze to the floor.
"So why now?" Akira asked. I loked back up at him and saw his arms crossed over his chest casually. "Why tell us now all of a sudden?"
I blinked a few times, looking up to Akira; was it not obvious?
"Well, you're my teammates right? Shouldn't we know these kinds of things?" I thought it was a pretty straight forward thing. I had been slowly learning more about these boys in the past few months we had been together, and in the last few weeks it had felt like walls were slowly coming down. Mostly around Akira, I noticed Reiji still kept a polite distance, but still, I felt closer to both of them.
Akira's eyes changed then. I noticed, if only for a split second, his eyes stopped being- for lack of a better word- angry. They softened into something else. I stared for a moment, wondering what it was that I saw, before realizing that Naruto would give me the same look all the time.
"That Sasuke sure has become dark lately." Reiji broke our stare as I turned to him. The blind boy rested further down the wall, resting against the ground. His head tilted up towards me. "I can't pretend to know the kid much, but everyone who was anyone knew about the last remaining Uchiha. Well, the last good one at least."
"Tch," Akira snorted. "Good one my ass. Kid's been a punk his whole life. Even before the massacre he had an attitude."
Reiji nodded. I couldn't say anything, considering Sasuke only came up on my radar after the death of my parents. I had never even heard of the Uchiha before that. Back then Naruto and I had our own little world to ourselves.
"So you both knew him before?" I found myself asking. Reiji shrugged.
"I saw him at events, sometimes. He was always hanging off the arm of his older brother. The one that did it all." Reiji looked at the ground, a sardonic smile spread across his face. My blood ran cold at the mere mention of him. My heart ached too, hearing how close Sasuke had been to his brother, the one to kill them all.
The one to-
My heart stammered at the thought.
"After the incident, it became a mad dash to become friends with the last surviving Uchiha. Or at least our parents felt that way." Akira explained. He slumped back against the wall and let himself slide down it. "We were told to befriend him, get his favour. As the last Uchiha, he has fortunes beyond imagining, along with power and a good family name. Girls were throwing themselves at a seven year old boy trying to get his affections. Guys were treating him extra special to get a good word in. He shut every one of them down though. Not surprised really. How can you trust anybody who is kind to you when you know they want something?"
I bowed my head slightly, remembering the gaggle of girls that would follow him around. He truly didn't have a choice in it. They didn't care.
"Poor Sasuke."
Akira snorted again.
"I guess, but the kid's an ass anyway. I've only seen one person get close to him and not get reamed out."
I looked up, surprised.
"Who?" I asked, wondering if he meant Naruto. I couldn't say he gets away with much around Sasuke, but they did seem to be getting closer lately. Akira looked up at me, surprised. Then annoyed.
"You can't be serious." He said lowly, clearly unamused. I opened my mouth to say something more, when another voice cut me off.
"Well well, looks like you made it in after all."
Entering the room was the last group of people I had wanted to see. The sand ninja sauntered their way over slowly. Mitsuki and Gaara closer than the others, with Mitsuki's teammates staying rather far away from the group entirely. It was bizarre to say, but there seemed to be a mirror effect in my mind watching those two.
It reminded me of Naruto and myself.
Unspoken things went between them. Tiny shifts indicating a reaction that I couldn't decipher, but the other gave a reaction in response. I am here is what they were saying. Maybe I could only notice this because of my closeness with Naruto, but it became obvious quite quickly to me that these two were a lot closer than I initially imagined.
"Well? Cat got your tongue?" Kankuro taunted. Akira and Reiji stood swiftly as the others approached. Something told me they weren't here to attack, but that Gaara guy... there was a smell on him. I had smelt it before on several high ranking ninja. Kakashi-sensei, after especially arduous missions, always had the same smell.
The smell of death lingering on the one who granted it.
Gaara himself had not looked at our group. In fact it really did look like they larger group was just passing through. Akira and Reiji stayed still where they stood, and we watched the other group pass right by us.
Except for Kankuro.
He stopped before passing us and stared down at me. I stared straight back, the muscles in my shoulders tensing in preparation. Chakra pulsed to my feet, ready to aid me in a quick escape. The rest of his group stopped moving as well, I couldn't hear their footfalls and couldn't look over lest I stopped the staring match.
A snarky grin came over Kankuro's lips.
"You're a sneaky one, aren't you?" He teased. I didn't respond, didn't move. As Kakashi-sensei said, never let your enemy get an opening. Kankuro didn't like that though, and took a step closer. That was the last I saw of him though, as Akira stepped right in front of me.
"You don't get to talk to her. She already outclassed you." Akira taunted right back. Both boys were the same height, though Akira had a stronger build to him. I looked at Reiji, who nodded once, then over to the group that were watching. This was bad, we didn't need to start a fight with a volatile group.
"What's that? Outclassed? Hardly. The second part of the exam is a warm up, everyone knows that. The real battle has only just begun."
I sensed a change in chakra nature in the group. It was coming from Mitsuki, and she was staring straight at Akira. I immediately sidestepped between them, coming up to Akira's right side. Her eyes snapped to me, and for the first time I saw a hint of energy in those eyes. It was hostile, negative energy, but it was something. She knew that I was prepared to block her attack, and everyone else seemed to get that sense too, as Reiji came to flank me as well.
"I trust you can handle that one on your own, Akira?" Reiji voiced calmly as he angled his stance. Akira sneered behind me, his arm bumping my back from how closely we stood.
"Pfft, please, and let you two have all the fun?" I heard something heavy hit the ground behind me, likely Kankuro's wrapped weapon. 'The Crow' Temari had called it. Speaking of, the blonde and the two other ninja I didn't know the names of all seemed very against a fight. The other three looked very keen. My eyes locked onto Gaara's, and for the first time I realized he had an extreme killer intent in his gaze.
It didn't sway me as much as I expected it to, but I knew if I messed up he wouldn't hesitate to kill me.
My body coiled.
A huge blast of smoke plumed between us, stopping any movement we may have wanted to perform. I squinted my eyes from the smoke, not fully relaxing at the arrival of another ninja.
"What the hell is going on here?!" Anko's loud voice echoed through the empty hall. All of us stood still. Nothing was said as she continued to berate us. "Fighting is strictly done in the examinations! Any fighting is immediate expulsion from the village itself! And you three, show some dignity as leaf shinobi!"
Kankuro shouldered his weapon again, looking almost sheepish.
"Sorry, got a little carried away." He didn't sound the least bit sorry. Anko on the other hand surveyed the room before turning back to us.
"Sand ninja, I suggest you keep your distance for the next few days. It's a long wait between events, but I wouldn't want to have to take one of you out before the actual exam. And you three, I would head off to somewhere more crowded and you're not asking to get cornered. You get that?"
There was something in the way she spoke that bothered me, like she knew something more. It felt almost like she thought she was... rescuing us? I looked to the sand ninja as they made their out of the room, and considered myself safe once again. Anko watched them go, and I definitely got a sense that she was concerned about something.
I was getting antsy.
My back had more or less gotten better. I was covered in bruises but nothing that affected my general movement anymore. It was the third day since we entered the tower, and I hadn't come across Naruto's team once. They had one scroll, it shouldn't have been too hard to get another, right?
"Stop it." Akira complained. I hesitated in my pacing without even realizing I had been walking. This entire time I felt like an animal in a cage. We had come across all the other genin, but not once had I seen Naruto, Sasuke, or Sakura.
Were they ok? Was it the wrong choice to leave them? What if the other teams beat them? What if they couldn't find a scroll?
"Hikari, pacing isn't going to make time move faster." Reiji was calmly resting on a bench when he said this. Looking like not a care in the world about him. I huffed and walked over to the bench and plopped down. Akira was cleaning his equipment for the fifth time that day, trying not to look bored.
A gong sounded, and I jumped to my feet. We had been told that as soon as the last group made it in a gong would sound and we would have one hour to make it to the training arena for our debriefing.
I sprinted down the hall.
"I'm going to see who made it!" I called over my shoulder before vanishing around the corner. I rushed to the entrance rooms to see if I could catch the last groups coming in. I sensed chakra emitting from door twenty five and opened in a small gap.
To my dismay, it wasn't Naruto and his team.
My heart sunk, and for a moment I considered abandoning the whole exam and just running out to find him and the others. I slowly moved mechanically back from the door, trying to will myself not to leap out.
"Eh? Kari? Whatcha doin'?"
I spun on my heel and was greeted with the three I had been looking for. They were coming out of another room adjacent to this one. I practically lept at Naruto the moment I saw him.
"I was so worried!" I exclaimed, holding onto him tightly. He laughed and hugged me back. "You guys were taking so long I thought for sure something happened by now. I was going to go out and get you and-"
"Woah woah! And give up on the exam? That's crazy talk y'know!" Naruto exclaimed. Sakura snorted.
"Like you wouldn't do the same, Naruto." She taunted. His cheeks turned pink, and then he looked bashful. I paused, glancing at the other two members of Team 7. Sakura looked... different. Not just in appearance, but rather her entire demeanour seemed to have changed. She had her shoulders more square, her chin was held a bit higher. Even looking quite scrappy, she looked a lot more focused on what was in front of her. She looked at me, a small smile coming to her lips as she nodded. I smiled back, a flash of how she jumped in the way to protect me not three days ago surfacing in my memory.
Sasuke on the other hand, he looked different too, and not in the best way. There was something about his eyes that exuded darkness. Like the life was draining from them. I remembered the rage, and blood lust in his Sharingan and my body clenched. Naruto felt it and hugged me tighter. I stared into Sasuke's eyes for a while, wondering at what point he had actually changed? It couldn't have all been in the forest, right?
"Sasuke sure has become dark lately."
It had to have been building for sometime now. However...
"Naruto... Hikari... Don't... don't ever give up... on your... dreams..."
This was the Sasukle who jumped in front of an attack, knowing full well it would kill him, knowing full well he was tossing his life away to protect me.
It terrified me that he could rationalize this so easily. He hadn't even hesitated. And it scared me. It terrified me that there was a world where I could lose Sasuke, or Sakura, or Kakashi-sensei, Reiji, Akira, and worse-
I could lose Naruto.
"Then imagine this as a reminder. Everything will leave you. Everyone will be taken from you. And as much as you try, no one will be there to save you when you need it most."
Those words echoed through my head constantly. And I believed them, one hundred percent. Every day i woke I wondered if it would be the day. Surely it was close? I could see changes in everyone between each day. I expected the loss ro come and consume me eventually.
I never considered being taken out in battle as the way I would die. I always assumed I would one day let my grief take me. Slowly, perhaps I would just stop trying to exist? Perhaps I would become reckless? I wasn't sure, but I knew one day I would face this world without any of them beside me.
Alone.
And that terrified me to my core more than the thought of dying.
Yet here Sasuke was, already slipping through my fingers.
When did your eyes start to look like that?
Sasuke was the one to break the stare. He turned and walked off, mumbling about needing air. His two teammates didn't buy it one bit, but we all let him go.
"You should go talk with him." I was surprised the suggestion came from Sakura. She looked over at me like it was an obvious choice. "Ever since that fight with the Sound ninja, he hasn't been the same. He's been pretty volatile to be honest, and I sort of wonder if your reaction is partly why."
It was such an astute observation I was almost taken aback. Sakura would normally be trying to find a way to bug the Uchiha. What brought on this change? Before I could reply, I felt Naruto's arms tighten around me further.
"I don't give a damn if he feels bad, he scared the crap out of Kari! He should feel bad!" Naruto grumbled. Sakura looked irritated and marched closer to us.
"Yeah well look how messy our group dynamic got the last three days. We almost died out there! So suck it up Naruto!" She knocked him upside the head, though I could tell it wasn't as hard as she could've by any means.
I looked between the two, well as best I could look at Naruto being right up close to his chest. My fingers gently pushed myself away from him, and Naruto released me immediately. He looked down at me. I took a breath.
"I-... I don't even know what to say." I confessed. Naruto tapped my head gently, then grinned down at me.
"Kari, I think you always say the right thing." He sounded so confident it sort of gave me a boost of confidence in myself too. I gave a soft smile and nodded.
I stared at Sasuke, who happened to climb to a private spot in the tower. He sat on a large window ceil opened to view the forest surrounding us. Sasuke was looking out the window, blatantly ignoring me despite knowing I was there. His body language feigned relaxed, but I could tell he was tense.
"Sasuke... I-"
"Get lost." He dismissed. I was a bit startled at first, until he remained quiet after. I frowned, not impressed by his attitude. i took a step forward.
"Sasuke you can't-"
"i said get lost." He didn't move at all. I bit the inside of my mouth to keep from cursing under my breath.
He was really drifting away, wasn't he?
I stood there for a moment, the sighed. Still he did not move.
"Don't grovel, it's unbecoming." I repeated. His shoulder's tensed. "Do you want to die?"
I took a breath, trying to compose myself.
"That was what the man... the one that ki-... the man who killed my parents... he said that to me... as he stared down at me with... with those Sharingan eyes." I rushed out the end of my sentence and took a deep breath. I could see his eyes vividly, could see Sasuke's right next to his.
The Uchiha's whole body whipped around as he looked at me. He looked surprised as I caught his gaze.
"I guess I never told you... haven't really told anyone. But... I was out late one night, running through the streets, and he found me. He- I don't- His motifs were clear. He killed them, right there. Right there..."
I could see the blood, the blood on his sword stood out the most. I could remember the dripping...
"And those eyes... In the forest I-... Your eyes reminded me of... of his." I looked at him then, my eyes blurring slightly. Sasuke stared so intently at me I was beginning to feel uncomfrotable under his stare.
"The truth is Sasuke, I don't think anyone understands us better than each other. And... I know what happened to you, it's worse because... because it was him but... I know that loss. And truthfully? In the forest, I wasn't afraid of you, or him in that moment... I was-... I was afraid of what you would become if we couldn't stop you."
The room felt cool, like all the heat sudden;y fizzled out of him. The fight was gone and it was like he was beign stripped raw. I could see the change, no longer fully behind a mask.
"He said- He told me... I'm going to lose everything. So... So be it." That seemed to startle him a bit. I didn't waiver. "Maybe that's just it, maybe in lfie we lose everything. No matter how hard we hold on it'll just slip through our fingers. And I'm afraid of that, but I think you are too. I think... we're a lot more alike that you let on sometimes."
He snorted and opened his mouth as if to defend himself, but I stopped him.
"It's okay to be afraid." I assured him.
"I'm not afraid." He finally spoke. I smiled a bit, seeming to unnerve him.
"Yes you are. We all are. I'm pretty sure we're all scared of something."
It was quiet again. I looked down to my hands.
"But... maybe there is a reason to hold on. Maybe- I dunno... Maybe darkness isn't always the strongest? Maybe it just looks that way, grass is greener on the other side, right? What- What I'm trying to say Sasuke is- is..."
I looked up to him then and gave a soft smile.
"Whatever we face, even if it just for a little while, we can face it together, okay?"
He stared at me, seconds ticked by, and my nerve was slowly fading. Finally he hung his head, and his shoulders shivered a little. A snort escaped his lips, a moment later I realized-
This jerk was laughing at me!
"H-Hey!" i stammered, my cheeks turning pink. Sasuke looked up at me and stood. I was surprised by the look in his eyes as he approached. It took me a few seconds to realize he had arrived in front of me, I was still distracted by the look in those eyes.
The glimmer of light.
Just a glimmer, maybe it was a trick of the light? I wasn't sure. But it was gone a second later, concealed behind a mask as he flicked my forehead.
"Idiot, stop acting like I'm so weak I'd go begging for power. What do you think I am? Some weakling like Naruto?" He scoffed, then stepped around me. I snorted as well, then watched as he stepped away.
I hadn't expected an immediate change, if anything I hadn't expected anything at all. But that tiny glimpse into Sasuke's head, that little reveal, told me he wasn't completely gone just yet. Sasuke, the boy on the bridge, the bratty Uchiha...
He could still be saved.
Guys I haven't written in almost a year and it ABOSLUTELY SHOWS. I am SO SORRY that this chapter is not up to par, but I honestly for the life of me wanted to get this out so badly. i can't really say why I've been gone so much, other than I have been working incredibly hard IRL and life is just- so annoying. I've decided to give up on men compeltelya nd just own a bunch of dogs and call it a day. Stick to my novel romances y'know? Anyway, I'm so sorry for the long wait, but it's finally here. I rewrote a lot of this twice, but it's been a solid 4 hours and my fingies are sore now so I'm calling this one here. I find this work acceptable but it'll get better as I get back into a rhythm.
NGL reviews seriously motivate me. Like if you have another one of my stories you want me to update please just go over there and say something you like and that i need to update it soon. They get so jumbled in my ehad otherwise that I start making 'crossovers' in my head. Like teen Hikari went to the My Hero Academia verse and fought over there and helped save Japan and learned about cake in a can and loves it. Yeah... this is what happens when I haven't written in a long time.
Hope everyone is doing well though! Onto reviews!
Reviews:
Laraceleste: Thank you for the kind review! Honest I love it and it was this review that made me go 'ah jeez I really gotta update this now!'
Alsynea: Yeah the prelim is still up in the air tbh. I guess I gotta have all of that by the next chapter though. I know who advances and how it all pans out but I really wanted it to be a bit intense and a touch random. You cannot damage the epic fight that is Rock lee vs Gaara though man. It's legendary, even people who don't watch anime know about it! And I agree that hikari brings out emotions you don't get in the story. Honestly sometimes I wonder if it's too much and tend to try and tone is back a bit. She's a nice character with flaws and characteristics to work on,a nd best yet, she changes throughout the story. She evolves, and I love it.
lovinurbuks: Thank you! IU really do appreciate all reviews :D
Infinityxkrma: I know. God I know. Half the time I want Hikari to kick some ass, but that's kinda what makes her human too. She's changed a lot, at least from my perspective. It's subtle, but hopefully y'all see it too (or my writing needs to improve). I know it's a short story, but fun fact: It's almost as long as Lord of The Rings: Two Towers. And I'm just hitting the halfway point. The only books I know that are obnoxiously longer are the Song of Ice and Fire books. It's funny we consider this light reading, but it's actually a lot. This story is almost longer than the first two harry potter books combined.
I hope everyone is doing well! See you in the next chapter!
Iland Girl