From Darkness to Light (The Little Senju Series Book Two): A Naruto Fanfiction

Izumi and Sai's Story

Izumi's POV

Why couldn't he have just left it as it was...? I scowled flicking a strand of blue behind my ear as the two finally walked back solemnly and Naruto gave me a wary glance, probably not the right time to chat, huh? "So, get out everything you wanted to say, huh?" I gave the brown-haired man's shoulder a hard smack before heading toward Sakura, "Thanks, for healing me, Sakura. I'm feeling much better now."

"Yeah..." She replied slowly as I marched off kicking lightly at the grass.

"Have the two of you gotten your chatting out?" I muttered flashing a glare at my Sensei from over my shoulder, "I can carry on perfectly fine now...!"

"Shit..." Captain Yamato muttered to himself as he brushed a hand through his hair, "Right, let's get a move on people!"

Yamato's POV

Izumi moved to the front of the group with a wide gap between her and the rest of us. Surely that wasn't good given her condition... I sighed slowly catching up to the girl as I grimaced to myself. She obviously noticed my approach twitching her shoulders lightly, but despite such she ignored me keeping her eyes focused straight ahead.

"Izumi." I broke the silence, "You know I had to tell him what really happened, right?" She gave little response only flicking her eyes at me for half a second, "Hah... Regardless you know he would've found out eventually."

"I know... I just..." Izumi shook her head a light glistening coming to her eyes as she slowed a tad, "It's not just that. What does this mean for me, huh? I told the lot of you that I shouldn't come back to the village. You saw me back there as much as everyone else did. Did that really look like someone in control to you?"

"Izumi, that wasn't a big deal. You need to believe in yourself." I looked at her firmly catching a gentle grip at her wrist, "Regardless of what happened earlier we can work it out."

"Stop!" She ordered suddenly removing her hand from grip before casting in front of me, "Someone's up ahead..."

"Right." As always, her senses were spot on, "I suppose someone was here..." A body with dark hair lay motionless in the path looking far too much like Sai for comfort and a long slash across the throat with splatters of blood on either side of the victim, "Just as I thought..." I breathed upon examination of the body, "This is a fake dead body... Probably Kabuto's doing..."

"Hmm..." Izumi was leaned over next to me looking at the unusual stitching toward the top of the skull, "They already figured out that we're following them, then?"

"Yeah..." I remarked with a low grunt, "For them to have already figured it out... I thought I was doing okay, but... we're going to have to be extra careful from here on out."

"Hey...!" Sakura's voice broke in, "You all need to check this out!"

Izumi's POV

I stood up before quickly jotting toward the girl and the small book in hands, "Is that...?" I mumbled as the three of us made our way for the pink-haired girl.

"Ah! That's Sai!" Naruto confirmed with a shout, "What's with this picture book?"

"So, Sai drew this..." Tenzo Sensei remarked looking at the work.

"But look..." Sakura spoke again apparently pointing out something important, "This book... The two pages at the center of the book are different from the rest here..."

Before she continued Naruto interrupted, "There's something that's just creepy about that..." His expression was an extremely uneasy one.

"The pictures on all the rest of the pages are finished. It's just this one..." She spoke once more carefully inspecting each image, "It appears almost as though this is the story of two boys. The one from the front cover and the one from the back cover. In other words..." The girl pointed her two index fingers toward each other, "It works out so that the stories of these two boys starts with their respective covers and works its way inward. Both characters are silent throughout and not a single word is written." She explained carefully, "For instance, if you start with the black-haired boy..." A single page was flipped showing both the boy and an opposing ninja donning a mask and cloak. The page was flipped again the dark-haired boy reappearing with a new opponent, "The same boy is always on the right with the left side being a different person every page." The page turned once again, "

Something sparked in Naruto, "Hey...!" He leapt as he noticed something, "Wait a sec... Go back one page!" Sakura gave a light look of surprise but obeyed, "I thought so... See the boy on this page... On the next page his outfit is a little different and not just that, but look he's carrying the same weapon as the guy that was drawn on the last page..."

"I guess it's a story about a boy vanquishing his enemies one after the other then..." The brown-haired man reasoned.

"And look..." Sakura began turning the pages again, "He takes the weapons and armor of each of his enemies after he defeats them... And yeah, the next one and the next... So two stories about boys growing up as they fight their enemies... While it starts at the other end the white-haired boy has the same kind of story. If this is Sai, then this other character might be his brother..."

Hey folks, really sorry I missed last month's update, so here it is! I hope you're all doing well still... and hope you all have a lovely rest of your day. If you didn't see the post on my profile there will be another update coming soon enough for this month. Until next time!