**edited**
As always, comments would be appreciated ^^
I hope you find this version much improved from the original... because I wrote that when I was twelve and now I'm fifteen and I would hope that I've made progress...
Chapter 3: Team 7
We were waiting at the training grounds for Kakashi to show up. It was weird that he was late, since back when we had been teammates, he had always been punctual and would always lecture Obito without fail.
“Hey, Sakura,” I said. “Is he always late? It’s been an hour already.”
“Yeah,” she muttered, sighing. “I don’t know why we even bother to show up on time anymore.”
I had a feeling that it had to do with Obito’s eye. Perhaps some of his habits had been transplanted into Kakashi’s system along with his Sharingan.
“Hey, guys,” came his voice from above. I didn’t bother looking up, as he landed not far in front of us. Great; another day with Kakashi was another day of torture. I’d been cooperating with him for the most part, but there was always that feeling of hate nagging at me whenever I looked at him. I’d kind of been hoping that he wouldn’t show up.
“You’re late!” yelled Naruto and Sakura in unison.
“Right,” he said, without missing a beat. “We’ll be sparring today, Taijutsu only. Sakura, face Naruto. Sasuke, you can face whoever loses.”
“I’m beating you all today!” Naruto announced, glaring at Sasuke. Sakura hit him over the head, and I was glad for it because otherwise we would’ve had to break up the fight between the two boys. After a few minutes, Naruto came out as the winner, despite the fact that his Taijutsu kind of sucked.
Sakura made her way over to me and Kakashi as Sasuke went out to face Naruto. “Sasuke’s going to win,” she said dreamily, her green eyes following the Uchiha’s every move. “He’s so cool!”
There was definitely a love triangle going on here. I didn’t even want to think about it.
And Sasuke versus Naruto? It had been obvious from the first day that Naruto held the Nine-Tailed Fox, and if Sasuke pushed him to that point, it could get serious. On the other hand, normally, Sasuke would beat up Naruto in three seconds flat. I decided that this wasn’t the best idea, so I stood up to intervene.
“Sakura, go spar with Naruto,” I instructed. “Sasuke, you’re with me. Kakashi, just sit there and don’t do anything stupid – oh wait, you already are.”
I didn’t bother catching Kakashi’s response, if there was one, and Sasuke slowly made his way over to me. He was the only one who didn’t respect me at all, but then again, he didn’t seem to respect Kakashi either.
“You want me to fight you?” he said, and I nodded, taking up a fighting stance.
“Taijutsu and natural abilities only,” I said. “In other words, everything except for Genjutsu or Ninjutsu.”
“’Natural abilities’?” he quoted. “I’ve never heard that one before.”
“Come on,” I taunted him. “Come get me!”
He rushed me, but I easily deflected his blow. Striking out with my right foot, I went for his torso, but he blocked that and spun around with his arm flying toward my face. I jumped straight up, and with the help of my wings – a natural ability, of course – I used my old trick and disappeared from his immediate line of vision.
As he looked around wildly, I dropped to the ground, my wings folded now as usual, and easily struck him to the ground. Stepping away, I brushed the imaginary dirt off of my clothes. He slowly sat up, and I noticed the other three staring in our direction. Even Kakashi had put down his book to watch.
“You said no Ninjutsu!” Sasuke hissed. “Or Genjutsu. There’s no way you could disappear without using a hidden technique.”
“I didn’t disappear,” I said. “I simply used my natural abilities – no tricks involved – and flew out of your line of sight. You didn’t see me until I hit you.”
“Are you okay?” Sakura exclaimed, running over to the dark-haired boy, who slapped her hand away. Naruto’s eyes were shining.
“Teach me how you did that!”
“The old trick again, Kira?” Kakashi looked like he was smiling behind his mask. “I never could figure out where your wings go.”
“Wings – are you an angel?” asked the easily-excited blonde.
“Not an angel,” I said. “It’s something passed down genetically through my family.” I extended my wings, making them visible, and left them out for a moment; it felt good after being cramped for so long. They were purely white, except for the very top, where there was a thin line of golden-brown. I retracted them and let them disappear from sight, my teammates staring in awe.
“Where did they just go?” Sakura frowned, running over to my backside to try and get a glimpse. “Wait, what? How did they just disappear?”
I grinned; the trick to that was that nobody knew it, but they turned invisible once they retracted. She just couldn’t see them, but they were still there, folded up. “Let’s go get ramen,” I said, causing Naruto to cheer loudly. “But I’m not paying. And Kakashi’s not invited.”
***
I had gotten ramen with Naruto, the others having gone home, and was walking back to my apartment when I spotted a familiar figure sitting on a bench in the park. “Hey, Duck-butt,” I said, sitting down next to him casually. He glared at me and scooted farther away. I didn’t care. “What are you doing out here by yourself?”
“Thinking,” he said shortly. “Don’t bother me.”
I turned to him and said, as fast as I could, “Ahorsewalkedintoabarandthebartendersaidtothehorse’whythelongface?’”
He froze and turned to me. “What?”
I suppressed a grin and having successfully gotten his attention. “You don’t get it?” I asked, acting disappointed. He frowned.
“I couldn’t understand you, idiot.”
“You’re the idiot,” I said, but repeated it anyway. “A horse walked into a bar and the bartender said to the horse, ‘why the long face?’”
He blinked before I saw the realization spread across his face. He grunted and turned away. “That wasn’t funny.”
“But it got your attention.”
He crossed his arms defiantly. But underneath this simple act of rebellion, I thought I saw the loneliness behind it, too. His family was dead, and Itachi Uchiha was long gone, and so who did he have left?
“Hey,” I said, breaking the silence and catching his attention once again. “How’d you like to stay over at my place? I brought my kunai collection and I think there are a few that might interest you.”
“Kunai collection?” he echoed. “You collect kunais?”
“From important people, yes,” I replied, standing up. “Come on. I’ll show you. I even have one from your father, which he gave me a long time ago.”
This interested him, and he followed me home to my apartment. I wasn’t lying; I did indeed have a huge chest of kunai knives, carefully organized and labeled and preserved. The one from Fugaku Uchiha was slightly rusted on the edges, since it had been so long ago.
“You know,” I said, as he carefully examined his father’s old kunai knife. “When I was in Iwagakure and they took away my memories, they took away my kunai collection, too. But once I started going on missions for Iwa, I actually did collect kunais from my more formidable enemies, even though I had no idea I’d done the same thing in the past. So there’s a gap right in the middle of the World War, because that’s from the first few years in Iwagakure, before they let me go on real missions and such.”
“You were in Iwagakure?”
“Oh, yes, I don’t think I told you,” I realized. “Long story short, my team and I snuck into enemy territory, got into a bit of trouble that resulted in a death, and I was trapped under all these rocks. Iwagakure ninja found me and took me in, but wiped my memories first.”
“Why didn’t they just leave you to die or kill you? Iwagakure wasn’t allied with Konoha, were they?”
“No, they weren’t. But they thought I would be a good ally, so they spared my life and used me as a weapon on their side for years.”
He blinked at me. “Why would you be a good weapon?”
‘Because of me.’
“Because… I don’t know. Just because, I guess.”
He glanced at me suspiciously, but decided to drop the matter. He placed his father’s kunai back where it belonged before yawning, his hand over his mouth. I smiled at him as I packed away my collection.
“Stay over,” I suggested. “It’ll be fun to have company.”
I was thinking more along the lines of Sasuke will find it nice to have company, but that would’ve offended him and he would’ve stormed out, and so I turned it on myself. After a moment of hesitation, he finally nodded. “But on one condition,” he said.
“What is it?”
“You have to tell me what happened between you and Kakashi.”
That really made me think; did this little Genin need to know?
‘But he’s Itachi’s little brother. Fugaku’s son.’
“Fine,” I relented. “I’ll tell you.”