(skip to the part that says "Chapter 9" if you don't care about disclaimers and author's rantings)

The funny thing about this story is that I don't think I ever made an actual conflict. Just complications. This is where it all starts to get funky. Ehm, starts to.

Oh, and what I have so far? As of yet, there are three parts. There are only eleven chapters in the first part. Then it skips to Shippuden. Which is...um, sixteen chapters, I think. And has an epilogue. And then...more complications which I would rather not talk about. But, yeah, just a basic road map.

And...I guess I'm really wierd for thinking so much about their whole signal thingy when they think they're being followed? Oh well. I knew that already.

Naruto world and characters (c) Masashi Kishimoto

Haruka, Misaki, Kazuki, Masami, as-of-yet-annonymous Sound ninjas 1-3(2 and 3 don't really appear, but we're technically aware of them) (c) me, Zopponde. Usage without permission=deathwish.

I don't think any trademarked characters actually appear here, so I don't think any of them can be acting out-of-character or anything, but, yeah, if they are, much appologies.





Complication
Chapter 9

Almost another week passed. Misaki and Haruka had basically made rounds on most of the villages, where they did some petty theivery or similar to attract attention, specifically avoiding Sand and Leaf. Normally, they might not have been so obvious, but the way Haruka saw it (and told Misaki that she saw it), if the Sound Village had reason to believe that they had a weakness, they’d be more likely to attack, and they wouldn’t be spending so long looking over their shoulders and waiting to be attacked.

In that time, they had become quite close, and Misaki earned the title Misaki-neechan. More usefully, they had developed a system that helped them in an ambush situation. They had all the lines rehearsed, knowing that Sound Village ninja would probably be able to hear absolutely anything, and knew all the motions and systems for it.

Really, it wasn’t such an overall help, but it seemed useful at the time, and soon enough, it proved its use.

Haruka led the way down a path that came relatively close to the Akatsuki living quarters, which, among them, was known better as “Prison”.

Haruka thought she sensed someone following. She slowed down a bit and asked, “Are you getting a bit hungry, Misaki-neechan?” The internal meaning asking if she had heard something.

Misaki slowed down, too, and responded, “I suppose so, a little bit.” Meaning that she agreed

Haruka nodded. “I still have some dried fish, maybe we could have some of that?” Meaning that they should do something about it.

Misaki bobbed her head indecicively. “I don’t know, I feel so filthy that I’d rather take a bath right now.” Meaning that she wanted to scout out and figure out what kind of people they were up against.

Haruka nodded again. “Sounds fair. I think there’s a spring up ahead, I think that would be safe away from prying eyes.”

Misaki nodded again. “Okay. I’ll go there and you can do whatever.”

Haruka nodded back. “Yes, I’ll just be sitting on this odd little rock, waiting for you to finish up.” It was pretty hopeless that their supposed pursuers would say anything about the strange moss-covered rock, but it was worth a shot; Haruka hadn’t been terribly focused on any one thing, but she did take a good deal of time from combat training to learn some medical skills, so she wasn’t exactly a wonderful fighter, and Misaki’s biggest asset was her Byakugan, which weren’t too specialized, either. She once confided in Haruka that she never knew her parents, but she could be quite certain that at least one of them wasn’t a pure Hyuuga, and she had a poor mastery over the bloodline trait. If something could increase their chances to delay the enemy, they would take it.

Haruka saw Misaki stretch not too far away; this was a part of their signal. The bath was a cover to see what kind of people were following them, if they did have followers. Misaki would basically use the bath as a reason to scout the area a little better; namely, she would use her Byakugan to see who was nearby.

Haruka carefully observed the way she stretched. She knew that Misaki knew better than to just stretch on instinct (if she wanted to do that, she would have done it sooner), so she could trust that the signal she meant to get across this time was that there were four ninjas following them.

Haruka was careful not to nod and give away their plan but she did sigh and close her eyes for a moment while Misaki went on to put up the next part of the signal.

Misaki “accidentally” splashed in the water with her clothes still on, which meant that she’d have to hang some of her clothes to dry, or for the intended purpose of sending a signal. In their system, the way she hung up her robe to dry would indicate how many people had followed her.

Haruka watched and got the total message: they had a team of four Sound Village ninjas after them, out of which two girls had followed her to the spring. Either they were being polite or they were balancing the ninjas between Misaki and Haruka.

Seeing as they chose the girls to go after Misaki, they were probably being polite. Probably.

Haruka sighed and tried to pinpoint the other two that supposedly were after her. She sat perfectly still and listened, closing her eyes and tweaking the cells in her eardrum and the auditory part of her brain so that she could better hear and identify these people.

She sighed when she didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary. I should have known, she reminded herself, Sound ninjas would probably be able to hide their sounds better. Or at least they’re probably better at sounding like birds or something.

Haruka frowned and wondered how to get the ninjas out of hiding. Then she thought of it.

She exhaled, and concentrated really hard on doing exactly what everyone always told her not to do with her ability: play dead.

After some thought, she decided a pretend-heart attack would be best. She managed to set up her body to almost—but not quite—completely shut down for a little under thirty seconds. Hopefully, with their cute little specialty, the Sound ninja had decided to start listening to her heartbeat trying to figure out if they’d been spotted, and they’d soon know if her heart stopped.

She inhaled to prepare herself, made sure that everything would go just right, and stopped her heart.

It was a strange sensation, but at least she wouldn’t have to act like she was feeling it. There was a pain in her chest, and then her arm started to feel kind of weird before she passed out.

She woke up soon after, rather tipsy but at least conscious. She cracked her eyelids open just enough to see if there were shadows across her vision that would mean her attackers came out.

Sure enough, she noticed two shadows across her vision, and she heard them talking. She closed her eyes fully and brought her attention to their words.

“…looks a little familiar,” one of them said, an agreeably familiar, relatively young male voice. “Really familiar. I don’t think I could bring myself to do it either way.”

The other voice, another male but older, muttered back, “I think so, too. She looks a bit like…well, I haven’t seen that face in such a long time, I’m not even sure she’s alive. And this girl is definitely too young. But I’m not sure I could do it either, they look to similar.”

“Which face haven’t you seen in a while? She’s probably just the daughter of some person you saw once in Leaf Village.”

“…The daughter of? Hmm, that would be interesting. While I’ll admit meeting that person back at Leaf, I did see her after I left. And why, if this girl is the daughter of her, then I’d have to say that this girl is rather directly related to me.”

“Really? Who does she look like?”

“Have I ever told you about Masami-chan?”

“Yes, you have, and I remember it quite well because I’ve met Masami-san before, too.”

The name ringed a bell in Haruka’s mind, too. She decided to open her eyes a little, because it seemed that she wasn’t going to get hurt yet and her pursuers seemed slightly preoccupied.

Indeed, they were too occupied with each other to notice her, so she opened her eyes fully.

And one of them did look quite familiar. The other one, she had never seen, but the one who looked familiar…she knew she shouldn’t trust him anyway, but she wasn’t sure she could fight him with this nagging feeling that she knew him too well.

Now she strategized, but she couldn’t find a good way to ensure her safety. Finally, she gave up, and instinctively sighed, immediately decided it was a horrible mistake.

Both of them looked down at her, both of them frowning. The one she thought she recognized spoke up.

“Okay. Our orders were to find the new Akatsuki members and kill them, but neither of us can bring ourselves to do it. You really do look familiar; what’s your name?”

Being it the case that she thought she knew them, Haruka figured that she could tell them her name without really regretting it quite so much, so she told them, “If you really believe that it’s your bussiness, then I guess I can tell you that my name is Niroshi Haruka.”

The eyebrows on the Sound ninja she didn’t know flew up. “Niroshi?”

The one she did know frowned again a bit deeper, before he broke into a grin and flung his arms around Haruka.

“Haru-chan, I never thought I’d see you again!”

Haruka was slightly confused. “Um…you look really familiar and all, but I can’t remember your name, either.”

“Oh come on, did you really forget your older brother? It’s me, Kazuki!”

Haruka felt herself numb in pleasure. “Kazuki-niisan…!”

The other man looked on confusedly. “Kazuki-san, do you really know this girl? Her name sounds really familiar…”

Kazuki loosened his grip on Haruka to turn around and face his partner. “Oh, I’ve heard you talk so many times about Masami-san, don’t you remember what she said about her child?”

The man stood in thought for a moment before quoting, “ ‘…and I will name my child Haruka so that she will always be far from that wretched family.’ ” A look of comprehension dawned on him. “Kazuki-san, you’re hugging my daughter!”

Haruka was more than slightly panicked by this new development. “WHAT?” Haruka’s call echoed across the clearing, and she noticed that Misaki, who had just finished her (rather brief) bath, looked up from getting dressed.

“Crap,” Haruka cursed under her breath, her eyes widening with Misaki’s.

Haruka saw Misaki getting hurriedly comprimise for just wrapping her cloak tightly around herself as she rushed over.

“Get out of here,” Haruka ordered quietly. “Now. shoot, get out before she makes a fuss! Now!”

Kazuki let her go and stared her in the eye. “Okay, I see the issue, but…Haru-chan, I’m not leaving you this soon, so I’m really sorry I have to do this…”

Haruka felt a rather hard tap on the back of her neck before she passed out, without ever saying anything about the strange, moss-covered rock.



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More rambles:
(Sorry about the repetitive moss-covered rock. But...I like the moss on the cover on the rock! It's...okay, I don't know. I guess I just like the random stuff. Like MOSS COVERED ROCKS!

I started to make chapter introduction pictures. Mostly for on deviantART, to keep everything clear. It included warnings on individual chapters and random tidbits about the characters. Some day I'll go back and put those in front of the story. Then it would clarify things about what made it have what warnings.

Oh, and, um......nobody here has serious issues with yuri, do they? ^^;;;;; because, um...if you do, I advise that you don't read the next chapter...ehehe...cough)