Memories

Preparations

Hey, guys! Here's the third book!

Sorry, short chapter, but I wanted to get the book up so we have a starting point :)

Chapter 1

"One 3."

"One 4."

"Two 5's."

"One 6."

"Three 7's."

There was a pause.

"Three 8's."

Another pause.

"Three 9's."

"That's got to be a lie, Dumbo!" shouted Naruto, pointing at Sasuke. The latter just gazed back impassively. "How can you all have threes of each card?"

"Call it, then," Sasuke challenged him.

"I will! B.S.!"

Naruto flipped the cards over eagerly, only to discover that they were, indeed, three 9's. He growled in frustration, said something about how Sasuke must've cheated, and then recollected his cards.

"It's because you don't know how to count cards," said Sakura, which I agreed with. On this team, though, the only person who could accurately count cards was probably me. The other three made good guesses most of the time. Naruto, on the other hand, had no idea.

"Eh? Count cards? I can count..."

"That's not what it means, you idiot!" shouted Sakura.

I glanced over amid the ruckus to see Sasuke staring at his former teammates quarrel with a pensive look on his face. 'What's up?' I asked him. He gave a start, turned to stare at me, and then said,

'Nothing.'

I shrugged and decided not to press the matter further. The first day we'd returned to Konoha, he'd been the same way, staring off into space more often than not. As we'd prepared to go to bed for the night, he asked me, Why are you all just accepting me back into the village? I left.

That made things pretty clear to me. Why? Why not? I'd said, only to see him looking at me, completely seriously.

I should be a prisoner or something. I –

Sasuke, among all of us, only Lady Tsunade, my sister Melissa, and I know the truth. To everybody else, you're a hero. The fact that you killed an S-ranked criminal weighs out the fact that you left Konoha.

I went to Orochimaru.

Yes, but as you can see, most of us are willing to overlook that fact in favor of a more... well, a more favorable one.

That's just stupid. How do you know I'm not secretly plotting my revenge from within the walls of the vill –

Before he could even finish his sentence, Amaterasu's golden chakra was at his throat. I sincerely hope you're not, Ducky, but if you are, we will stop you.

Sasuke's eyes, dark and impassive, stared holes into mine. But he'd simply said, Fine.

So, to me, that was saying something. Sasuke wasn't really planning on doing anything drastic – for a while, at least, so that was really good news for us. Hopefully, we could warm him up and stop any future thoughts of revenge. Maybe we could just put him in the oven or something.