We made it into the abandoned building and inside there were Scorch marks and slashes in the walls from previous people. But this helped our story since Sasu has a fire affinity and I have wind. We all spill into the open space and start to stretch out our muscles. Kakashi calls out to Sakura and says, "Pick a sparring partner."
She looks over and stops to think. Then I saw a drool inch down her chin; I could practically see the types of fantasies that had started to fill her mind as she responded, "SASUKE-KUN!"
I look over to see him go to an empty area to start the spar with Kakashi. The others and I do the same with our own respective partners. I hear the older man with a mask call out. "Hey, Naru. Is that the old scarf? You know the one that-"
"Yeah, he felt more on the colder side this morning."
"Really?"
"Yeah, really. Why?"
"It's nothing, it's just that..."
"That..." I say while drawing out the word to urge the grey haired man to continue.
" It's just that I haven't seen that scarf in a long time and I didn't expect to see that scarf again. Especially on the grumpy emo boy of the group."
"Yeah well..."
The beautiful raven haired boy leaps gracefully and lands on Sakura's back. After successfully pinning her down. I cleared my throat to continue," he was feeling cold, that's all."
With that we both get warmed up and start sparring with Kakashi-nii. A few hours later we decided to finally take a break. Kakashi, Sakura, and Kurenai start to heal our kunai/shuriken cuts and bruises since we had to walk back into a foreign town. True that they are allied with our own village but the sensei's have been a bit on edge after the previous leader tried to kill us and all.
It wasn't even him though. It was that perverted snake guy.
Yeah, but no one but the council members and a select others like yourself are aware of that fact. As anyone else knows, their Kazekage tried to take over and kill us. But the third gave up his life to bring the old bastard down along with him.
I guess. Still-
"Sasuke," I heard Sakura say out loud while she was healing Sasu.
"Hnn?"
"How are you hurt this much? I mean, yeah we were training but a lot of chakra is being drained while trying to heal all your wounds."
As Kakashi-nii finishes up with me he walks over to see what was going on. I walked up behind him as Kakashi asked Sasu, "What about you being really hurt? I didn't see you get hit badly this time around."
Not many notice but the brunette started to get nervous as he quickly glanced my way before anyone noticed. With that Kakashi sensei requests, "Take the scarf off."
"What?"
Sasu's eyes widened slightly with fear. I feel a drop of nervous sweat drip down the side of my face. Kakashi then takes a dominant step forward while saying in a commanding voice laced with worry, "Scarf. Off. Now."
"Calm down Kakashi," Asuma Sensei says, "He probably has an embarrassing hickey or something."
Kakashi looks over towards the other teacher and replies nonchalantly, "Then who gave it to him? Who gave him the hickey that bruised him enough for Sakura to notice while healing him. Because that either means that he has a vampire as a girlfriend or he's hiding a pretty bad injury from me."
"HE HAS A GIRLFRIEND?!" pinky yelled.
" I DON'T HAVE A DAMN GIRLFRIEND!" Sasu replied loudly while throwing me another panicked glance.
All I do is nod my head as a go ahead. As he reaches to grab the scarf another hand comes in and does it for him. The pink banshi bitch has my scarf in between her boney little fingers. With that she yells out, "WHERE'S THE DAMN HICKEY!"
The whole room stills as we all see the large discoloration on his porcelain neck. The girl gasps along with a few others. Kakashi-nii asks in a scarily quiet tone, "Who did this to you?"
"Well.."
"Well..."
"It's... complicated."
"How is it complicated? I'm asking you a simple question. Who did this to you? Because I'm pretty sure it's not a lucky lady that you spontaneously met last night."
I chime in trying to lessen the weight of the situation, "Hey! You never know! I mean it can be a girl with HUGE lips. It wouldn't be too surprising. I mean look at him!"
Sasu catches on and steps toward me while "angrily" retorting, " What do you mean by that?!"
Ino joins in by saying, "He means that you're a really attractive guy and if women were all over you it wouldn't be too surprising."
"RIGHT- Wait. NO. NO I DON'T MEAN THAT IN ANY CASE WHATSOEVER!"
Sasu gets ready to yell back at me only for Kakashi to catch on to what we were doing and stops us from continuing. "Answer the question Uchiha." Kakashi spit out harshly making us all flinch.
"Who did this?"
We all waited a few seconds until I saw Sasu's discrete panicked eyes and before it became noticeable to others I rub the back of my neck and sigh. Taking a step forward I say, "It was me."
The others freeze and look at me in shock. "What?" Kurenai questioned as Kakashi briefly looked away from us while running his game through his hair while taking a deep breath.
"I said what I said. I did it. I hurt Sasuke."
The guilt that has been building up since then started to grow even more as I began to explain, "This morning we... we got into a fight. It was stupid. I don't even remember what we were fighting over. And things escalated and got physical. I got lucky and pinned Sasuke down while choking him by his throat. I realized what I was doing and immediately got off of him. We both agreed not to say anything and I gave him my old scarf to cover it up. Figured that the bruising would go away eventually."
I look over at everyone and see them look at me with disappointed looks in their eyes aside from Sakura and Sasuke. Sakura in a fit of rage threw my scarf on the ground. Kakashi-nii, Sasu, and I watched in horror as she stomped down on it and tore it with a kunai.
Sasu grabs her and pushes her away. I walk over and kneel by the remaining pieces of the soft fabric. Gently gather it up strand by strand I feel my heart squeeze and twist in agony. Sakura stops her struggle to watch me. Sasu kneels down by me and helps grab my hand that had unconsciously clenched on the concrete of the building floor. I look up and see him looking at me empathetically as the others look in curiosity since they don't see Sasu's hand on mine.
Before anyone noticed, I unclenched and quickly squeezed the other teen's hand in return before letting go. Then I feel another hand on my shoulder. I look over to see Kakashi-nii comforting me with a somber look etched in his features. I pull out a scroll and put the scraps of material inside.
"Why are you comforting Naruto when you should be comforting Sasuke-kun?! This is all Naruto's fault anyways. Plus, it's just a stupid scarf."
I felt Kakashi-nii tense at those words. Ready to yell back I put my hand on his to tell him to stop before saying, "She's right. It's a scarf. I'll just grab another one later."
Sasu's head turned toward me with a look of shock on his face. "I thought you said that this scarf was something really important to you?"
"Well, it was."
In the tense aura of the room no one dared to speak as I stood. I feel tears start to gather in my eyes so I look up to stop them from spilling over. I hear a shuffle next to me and see Hinata start to walk over to me from the corner of my eye but she gets stopped by Shikamaru's hand. With that she stopped and Sasu tugs on my hand. He pulls me away from the group and opens his arms. I immediately buried my face in his shoulder and threw my arms around the slender teen.
The tears I was holding back started to spill out and sobs racked throughout my body. Sasu uses one hand to rub my back and the other to calmingly card his fingers though by sweat soaked hair. Once I calmed down I separated from him and looked up. I feel laughter bubble up as I wipe tears off my now wet cheeks.
I chuckle while saying, "Thanks Teme."
He turns away from me and starts to walk away. The group walk out of his way as I follow. All I get is a "Hnn."
I laugh and put my arm around his neck and he winces quietly so I let go and just walk beside him. The others silently trail behind me as Sasu and I get dragged into our own worlds acting as if nothing happened. We're just talking strategies when I hear my stomach growl. Sasu snickers and teases me. I retort the way I usually would but more in the way Naru would instead of my usual idiot persona. I feel myself being so comfortable that I don't care as much that my mask is a little loose. I'm just happy to have someone to really talk to.
We ended up going to a ramen place nearby since I think everyone is still in too much of a shock to really protest. This place is more like a restaurant so I request private seating seeing that the others will snap out of it in a bit.
Sasu, Kakashi, and I ordered as the others did the same but in a more dazed fashion. The three of us started talking about in field strategies as always. This continues until the waiter comes by with all our food. We all start eating when Kiba suddenly bursts out sounds and comments of pure shock. The others in turn asked the same questions like "What happened?" And "When did you guys get so close?" Eventually the long awaited question was eventually spewed out. Ino asked, "Why is that scarf so important anyways? I mean isn't that the type of scarf you can get just about any where?"
Not taking offense to the comment I sigh. I turn to my left to see Kakashi-nii look at me sympathetically and to my right Sasu looks at me with curiosity and a twinge of guilt. Under the table I grab the other teen's hand with my own. He intertwined our fingers and squeezed my own in reassurance. I turn to the others and take a deep breath before starting.
"Growing up I had this close friend of mine. And a month or two after we first met when we were around 4 years old. I was just walking around the village. It was winter so I had a jacket and red scarf."
I looked up at the others as they all took note of the scarf before continuing. "That's when I heard someone yelling for someone to stop. I run over and I see that it was them. They were surrounded by a bunch of drunk old bastards. They were trying to umm... y'know."
I see the group take a small intake of breath while others grimace in disgust of the mens' actions.
"Well long story short, I drove the men away. And my friend was wearing nothing but a torn up jacket and t-shirt with some pants. So I gave them my scarf to keep them warm. After a few more months we both decided to move in with each other."
I look beside me to see Sasu's eyes widen in realization as I continue to speak.
"A few years later we got really close. Living together and all. Next thing we knew, we had fallen in love with each other."
I shake my head in amusement as I said, " They wore that scarf nearly everyday."
I hear a few stuffed aww's and maybe a few no way's. I chuckle solemnly as I shifted my weight in my seat and tilted my head back while saying, "They passed away almost 5 years ago. And that scarf was one of the only things that I had left of them."
I went back to eating my ramen as the others stayed quiet once again. Sasu rubs my knuckle with his thumb in repetitive circular motions under the table; anchoring me. Sakura looks down in shame and Kakashi-nii goes back to reading instead.
Once we were all finished with our food. We paid and left. With the rest of the day left I heard Hinata say to us quietly, "What if we go back to the hotel so we could go to the hot springs again? I mean we- we did just - um. We just finished training so..."
Kurenai smiles and says, "That's a great idea. We should all head over and give our bodies some time to rest."
We all get to the hotel without a hitch and file into the hotel when I hear a small cry wail out. We all look over to see a baby crying on one of the steps heading into the building. I walk over and grab the small bundle into my arms. Swaying back and forth I try to sooth the baby.
"Hey there kid." I coo softly, "Where's your momma?"
The small baby was wrapped in a pink blanket with the name "Hanabi" embroidered on it.I looked around to see if there was anyone that would be this kid's parent. When I saw no one I felt dread trickle into the base of my stomach.
Hey, Kurama? Do you think that she's been...
Yeah, I'm pretty sure this child has been left here for someone to find.
Abandoned.
Hanabi's crying stopped as she fell asleep in my arms. I walk up to the group and say, "What should I do? I think she's been abandoned here."
"She?" I hear Choji say.
"Yeah, her name is Hanabi." I said as I showed them the embroidery on the blanket.
The others nodded and Kurenai said, "Here, give her to me and I'll go and talk to Gaara while you guys get settled in."
I nodded and gave Hanabi over to Kurenai when Hanabi woke up and started to cry again. Kurenai's attempt to calm the baby wouldn't work so I took Hanabi back. And for some reason she started to calm down.
Kit.
Yeah?
There's something different about this baby.
What do you mean?
I mean that there are two chakra signatures on her instead of one.
Is she a jinjuriki?
I don't think so but I can't really tell. The extra chakras there but not enough to be a tailed beast's I don't think.
I walk into the lobby and go to one on the lounge couches. I unwrap her from the blanket to see her bare stomach with a mark on it.
The cursed mark!
I re-wrap her before anyone else saw and grabbed Sasu by his wrist over to the end of the hall. I let go of his wrist and grab a talisman out of my back pocket and place it on the wall. With a bite to my thumb I smear my blood on the kanji and open the portal. Motioning for Sasu to jump in he walks up and slowly walks though with me in tow.
When we get to the other end of the portal we're in front of the sanctuary. I put my hand on the warm temple stone and say, "Aperta enim ego sum bringer of vita et causa interitus. Et da mihi benedictionem aeternae virtus."
The door shakes open and I rush in with Sasu following closely behind. Once we got into my room I set the child down carefully onto my bed. Pacing side to side a rack my brain for a way to get the seal off of her without the small child dying while Sasu waits patiently by Hanabi's side. A hand grabs my own and pulls me into a hug. The warm embrace calms my nerves and clears my thoughts. I speak out to the other boy in the room, "What do I do?"
"What do you mean? What's going on?" I hear Sasu say.
"That kid over there. That baby. He... that sick perverted snake bastard he... He put a cursed mark on her and now I don't know what to do. The only reason why I got the seal off you last time was because you're stronger than anyone else our age. You could take it. She can't. She wouldn't be able to handle the stress of removing the seal."
"Then don't remove it. She won't be able to use her chakra for a few more years so this will give us time to figure this out."
"Not enough though. Once she starts to grow a lot more her chakra will fluctuate and will most likely activate the cursed mark. Right now it's dormant but I don't know how long it will stay that way."
I grab Hanabi and place her in the other teen's arms. "Look at her," I exclaim, "She's probably only a few months old."
Sasu rocks back and forth to sooth the sleeping baby in his arms. We should talk to Lady Tsunade when we get back. She's better at the medical side of things anyways. For now let's just make sure she's okay for the remaining days we have here in the sand village."
"Okay. I'll talk to Kurama about it later. Maybe she knows how to help Hanabi."
"Kurama? Who's she?"
"The nine tailed fox."
"Wait! You can talk to her?!"
I laugh as I sit on the bed with my back against the wall.
"Well, yeah. I mean she literally lives inside of me."
"Oh, right. So that means you two must talk a lot. "
"Oh yeah, she talks a lot."
I'm here you know.
I snicker and start going on and on about how she taught me how to use seals and talismans. And how she would tell me about my parents and how they met. The night was long so we talked practically all day until the baby woke up and started to cry. I figured she was hungry so I went to my closet and grabbed an old baby bottle and some baby formula.
"Why do you even have that?" Sasu questioned as I started to wash the bottle in the sink.
"Well, I used to take care of a lot of babies from time to time. The people around here actually like me and ask that I babysat their kids once and a while. I have a lot of baby stuff in here and even more in the common area. I have diapers, formula, bottles, baby powder, toys, etcetera all thrown around here and there."
I grab an electric kettle out of one of my scrolls and heat some water up. By the time the formula in the bottle was ready and cool enough her cries had become excessive and borderline manic. The two of us sighed in relief when she calmed down with the bottle in her mouth.
After I burp her over my shoulder Sasu and I change into some comfy clothes before heading to bed. We place the baby in between us to make sure she doesn't roll off the bed.
"Goodnight Hanabi." I say softly.
I hear the other teen dramatically clear his throat. I roll my eyes and look up over at him while saying, "Goodnight Sasu."
He smiles back at me and replies sweetly, "Goodnight."