"UGH!" A loud bang was heard as the snake man punched the wall in anger. "That damned Uchiha!"
"Orochimaru-sama! Is everything alright?!" Kabuto barged in, worried. Karin, along with Suigetsu and Jugo followed behind him, curious as to what has made Orochimaru so worked up.
"That sneaky Uchiha stole my ring!" Just saying those words made him even more angry.
"Are you positive, Orochimaru-sama?"
"Of course I am!" He threw a small attack at the four of them standing at the door. It missed them by an inch and hit the wall behind them. "I want that girl dead!"
~○~●~○~
"I'm really not in the mood to train today..." Harumi thought to herself as she sat at the foot of her bed. "But if I'm not going to train today should I tell Kakashi..?"
Haru thought for a second before she quickly decided that she didn't care. She decided also to go through some old stuff in her apartment. She may be a well known deadly assassin in The Land of Fire, but even she liked to reminisce about old times.
She reached under her bed, pulling out a box of stuff that she had completely forgotten about since she had moved. It was a larger sized black box that had some weight to it. Haru plonked it on her bed and opened it, revealing a few gems from her past.
She had everything from her very first kunai, her old shinobi outfit and even the katana she used when she first starting training to be an assassin.
"Oh. That's where that went." Harumi spoke, pulling out the mask that she used to wear on her missions for Orochimaru and for her time in the ANBU. She had honestly forgotten about it since it had been a while. Haru put it on, looking in the mirror and frowning a bit.
'It suits you, child.' Reibi said with a chuckle. It was just trying to push Harumi to become an assassin again. She wasn't going to do that, she had Sasuke to protect.
"Ugh." She sighed, taking it off and throwing it back in the box. "Oh." Haru took out a white ring with a dark blue circle in the middle with the kanji symbol '空' in black. She thought for a minute, not remembering where she got the ring.
'That is the ring that Orochimaru had with him.' Reibi reminded. Oh yeah, she had taken the ring when she left his hideout. Reibi told her that it would be of use some time in the future. She didn't know what it was talking about but Haru listened anyway and had taken the ring.
"Actually now that I think of it, I remember seeing a similar ring on Itachi Uchiha's finger when I encountered him..." She stated out loud. "But what am I going to do with this, Reibi? Should I wear it?"
'Certain shinobi will attempt to hunt you down if they find out that you have that ring. Keep it hidden until the time comes.' It replied. Haru just shrugged her shoulders and placed the ring on her bedside table.
~○~●~○~
At this point, team seven's training should be over, so Harumi decided to visit Sasuke. She walked casually through the village to Sasuke's place.
'He's probably hungry, maybe I should get him something to eat.' Haru thought as she smiled, rushing to a nearby shop.
"Four rice balls please." She ordered. The man at the counter nodded and went to the back, coming back a few minutes later with her rice balls. She payed and left the shop, making sure to hurry to Sasuke's house.
*knock knock*
Harumi knocked on the door a few times, no answer. That's weird. The only other place Sasuke would be is the training grounds, so she went to go check there.
After walking for about a minute, she spotted Sasuke, as she thought she would. Harumi couldn't help but stare at Sasuke as he trained. His natural fluid movements put Haru into a trance for about 5 minutes until Sasuke had noticed her.
"Are you going to just stand there and watch me?" Sasuke questioned Haru. She chuckled a bit before walking over to him.
"Sorry about that, I just couldn't help myself."
"What's that?" Sasuke asked, pointing at a box in the Sakurai's arms.
"Oh, right," Haru started. "I brought you some rice balls, I figured you'd be hungry."
Sasuke wanted so badly to decline Haru's offer to keep up his tough guy act, but he just couldn't. There was no way that he'd just throw away rice balls like that, especially since Harumi had been nice enough to buy them for him. "I am. Thank you." They walked over to a tree to their rice balls.
"How was training today?" Harumi asked, opening the box with the food inside. Sasuke silently cheered in his head at the sight of one of his favourite foods.
"Same old." He replied, taking a rice ball out of the box. He took a bite, then continued talking. "We did some work with ninjutsu, nothing that you wouldn't know."
"I see. Is that it? Sounds kinda boring, I'm glad I didn't go." Haru laughed a bit.
"Oh yeah, about that." Sasuke said, taking another bite of his rice ball. "Kakashi was really upset when you didn't show up. He said something like 'You need to work on your teamwork and you can't do that when you're missing a teammate!'." Harumi laughed again, finding his impression of Kakashi funny.
"My bad I guess. You guys work well without me though."
"That's true." He added. "But for me it's more about strength than it is teamwork, and we definitely could use you if we're talking about getting stronger."
Harumi hummed, signaling that she understood what the Uchiha meant. She took her first bite from a rice ball, savoring the nice taste. Moments like these is what Harumi now lived for. Nothing else made her feel this way, it was Sasuke and only Sasuke who finally gave her the chance to feel again. It had been years since she last felt happy, and she had honestly forgotten how good it felt to finally feel emotions again. Whatever it took, she wasn't gonna lose the one person who made her happy. The first person in a long time who she actually cared for.
~○~●~○~
Harumi jumped from tree to tree, looking for her target.
"You can run but you can't hide~" Haru's voice echoed through the forest, intimidating the rodent that she was after.
Remember when Harumi said that she wouldn't do assassination again? Yeah, well, that was all out the window now. She was running low on money and she would get more, whatever she had to do. Her apathetic way of thinking sometimes got in the way of her reasoning.
The person she was sent to assassin was a shinobi who ran a small village of thugs and criminals on the edge of The Land of Fire. They've apparently been causing a lot of trouble and need to be taken out, so Harumi was hired to do just that.
Since this was a mission of assassination, Haru was wearing her mask and cloak. Her katana was in hand as she was now walking, just waiting to run into her target. She could sense his chakra wherever he went, so Haru always knew where he was.
'Ugh, I'd like to get home some time today. I'm tired of playing cat and mouse.' Harumi thought with a sigh.
She then appeared behind the man, slicing her katana along his back before he had any idea of what was going on. She then gave on final blow to his upper back, making sure to finish the job correctly.
"Well, now all I have to do is take him to Takaoka." Takaoaka was the man who hired her to do the job.
She picked up the man, hanging him over her right shoulder.
'Kami he's heavy.' Harumi thought with a sweat drop. She jumped into a nearby tree, jumping forward to another tree, then another and so on until she reaches her destination. At this point, there was only 2 days until the chunin exams. Harumi was beyond prepared for the exams, and also a bit excited to see Sasuke in action.
After about 20 minutes, Haru had arrived at her destination. The place was a huge house with all sorts of fancy stuff on the outside. Harumi walked up to the door, opening it an walking inside.
"It's Harumi Sakurai with the thug." She shouted slightly. "The job's done. I want my reward." She stated sternly.
~●~○~●~
Authors note
I know this chapter is pretty boring, but I'm just stuck on what to write until the chunin exams.
- Silver