At Dawn (A Naruto Fanfic)

Chapter 10

Author's Note: For some reason this chapter took longer to write than I expected. Hope you'll forgive me for the wait. After I had written the entire thing the last several paragraphs were deleted. Sadly, I wasn't able to recover exactly what I had written, so what's there is an abbreviated version of it... Sometimes I wonder how many of you bother to read these Authors notes... Well, either way, please enjoy!

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Cain's POV

I stood in the entrance of the ice cream shop that Nami had instructed to meet. It seemed like I'd walked in on some kinda fight between the two girls. Cora was currently sitting on top of Nami both stubbornly refusing to give up on their argument.

"Can't say this's what I expected." I stated.

Both their head snapped towards me. They seemed to be a bit surprised by the intrusion in their quarrel. However, Cora was the first to react. Leaping off her seat she made quick strides towards me.

"Cain!" Her face was first overly excited, however, in a split second her face changed, turning furious. "Where the heck have you been?!"

Out of nowhere she pulled out a white bag and swung it at my face. I instinctively ducked, it whistled through the air in an arc above my head. Twisting my torso, I used the momentum I swung my leg out to knock her over. She let out a startled cry as she fell.

Feeling mildly pleased I rose to my feet, however, unknown to me, she had let go of her bag. It flew through the air, unfortunately in my direction, and struck me in the side. I grunted at the pain as I stumbled back.

What ever was in there was both hard and heavy.

Someone seized me by the arm and began dragging me out of the shop. It was Nami. In her other arm she had gotten Cora who made a wild grab for her bag and barely managed to snatch it before we were out the door. Funny thing is, Nami didn't stop. Not til we had rounded the corner.

I shot her a glare. "What was that for?" I demanded angrily.

"My ice cream!" Cora cried, as if heartbroken.

"The employee behind the counter. She was going to send us out of the shop in a sec." Then she turned to Cora sternly. " You don't need sugar anyway."

I couldn't help but agree with her on the second part. If this is what Cora was like normally, I didn't want to be near when she was hyped up on sweets.

Giving up on Nami, Cora appointed me as her next target. "Who are you really? Where did you learn to fight like that?"

I folded my arms. "Why should I tell'ya anything?"

"Because you've got the most secrets!" She exclaimed it as if it were clear.

"Says the girl who made a contract with my brother behind my back." I grumbled, just loud enough for Cora to hear me.

She didn't expect me to know that.

Nami looked completely bewildered as she tried to figure out what was going on. It's a harsh world out there, you either make it or you don't, I thought mildly sympathetic.

"Well- well." For once Cora was at loss for words and completely out of character. "Since you know that, tell me how the Akatsuki got here!"

"Well, you see," I grimaced, out of all the questions she could ask. "I don't know exactly how they came to this world; just a bunch of theories."

She stared at me for a moment, dead silent. "What have you been doing running around Dawn this entire time?!"

I was about to counter back but the expression on Nami's face caught my attention. "Wait. Do'ya know how they got here?"