Courage -a naruto fanfiction-

Chapter 28

I wont be following the storyline of the actual show from now on, I hope you will forgive me for that. Therewillbe missions and such, just made up by me. I am also introducing two new OCs soon.....Hope you enjoy! A longer chappie this time.

Love, Sky

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My team was worried about me, but I ignored their worried glances and their attempts to dig in to what had happened in the time I had disappeared. While they struggled to untangle what had happened, I tried to forget it. When we arrived back in Konoha, everyone had heard about my disappearance and was questioning me about it. I promptly ignored them, too. Years passed, and soon I was celebrating my sixteenth birthday.

Sakura and I where out training that afternoon, each of us fighting the other. She had challenged me and was giving it her all; I, on the other hand, was in my own world and was pretty much going easy on her. It had been two years since I had arrived at Konoha, two years since I had joined team 7. Last year, I had asked Kakashi for a "vacation" for two weeks so that I could secretly go to the Akatsuki base for my transformation. I was now wondering if I should tell my team mates. Maybe they had a place to contain me, it seemed wrong to rely on the Akatsuki to keep me contained. I was scary and I felt they did it out of friendship. But I still knew that it was stressful, to deal with such a scary monster. 

Sakura threw a punch, catching my off guard and sending me flying and landing with a thud fifteen feet away. "You aren't focusing, Sora-chan. Are you okay?" I nodded. I found myself mastering the art of lying day by day. "Well then, do you want to stop? Let's go get some ramen." Before I could answer, she pulled me by the arm into the town and down to the ramen shop. "Two bowls of ramen and two cups of Gyokuro tea, please." Sakura smiled. She and I had become friends, although it had taken a lot of effort. "Okay, I'll bring it right up young lady." The shop owner winked at her knowingly, and I stared at them, confused. The man brought us the two bowls of ramen soup and handed me my cup of tea. My tea, oddly, had Borage and Peony petals floating in it. I looked up at the cook, who only smiled at me. 

I shook my head and smiled back, tucking a lock of my long white hair behind my ear. My hair now flowed down to the backs of my knees in shiny locks, and I took great care of it. Sakura smiled at me, giggling. We had bonded as we studied medicinal herbs and plants together, she was , of course, a better medic than I; but I understood the medicinal properties of plants better than she did.

Suddenly, all of my "friends" popped out. "Happy Birthday, Sora-chan!" I let out a small squeak of surprise, jumping in my seat. This caused Sasuke to laugh. "Calm down, Tenchi-chan. Never had a surprise party before?" I wanted to tell me no, that I had not, but I was too irritated with what he had called me. Sasuke had recently taken a liking to calling me 'Tenchi-chan', a name whose cuteness made me shudder. Only he called me that, which somehow made it more annoying. Naruto shoved a bouquet of small white flowers at me. "I remembered that you said that you liked this flower and I looked at the picture in the book that you where looking at, the medicinal book, and found it in the forest....Queen Elizabeth's Frills?" He sounded excited. I raised an eyebrow. "You mean Queen Anne's Lace?" He scratched his chin. "Yeah, that. I knew that." I took the bouquet and examined it before bursting out laughing. Everyone silenced and turned to look at me in wonder, as I rarely laughed. "This isn't Queen Anne's Lace, Naruto. It's Poison Hemlock." 

I began to explain. "Hemlock contains the pyridine alkaloids coniine, N-methylconiine, conhydrine, pseudoconhydrine and gamma-coniceine (or g-coniceïne), which is the precursor of the other hemlock alkaloids. The most important and toxic of these is coniine, which has a chemical structure similar to nicotine. Coniine is a neurotoxin, which disrupts the workings of the central nervous system and is toxic to humans and all classes of livestock. Ingestion in any quantity could result in respiratory collapse and death. Coniine causes death by blocking theneuromuscular junction in a manner similar to curare; this results in an ascending muscular paralysis with eventual paralysis of the respiratory muscles which results in death due to lack of oxygen to the heart and brain."