Waiting Game

Chapter 10

Being drenched in water was bad enough. But then, I just had to hide ANOTHER secret from Konoha. A kekkei genkai.

A way to escape the Hokage had made its way clear to me; abandoning the village, and "betraying" Sakura, following what Itachi Uchiha had done. I would never leave her, not completely. I'd always keep an eye on her; that was for sure.

But I don't think I could stomach leaving her now. It just didn't sit right with me. It... it didn't feel right.

I would still need to come to terms with my new kekkei genkai(or at least I think that's what it is). Perhaps I could still be in a hallucinatory state... but, with everything going on, I don't think that's particularly right. My red eyes fluttered shut in thought, and I silently pulled out my senbon needle to fiddle. It was just about sunrise, I could tell from the warmth I felt from the roof. This was the perfect spot for isolation, since the other Genin could barely scale walls unlike me and Kakashi was still unstable on his feet... Foot. Unless he was truly determined or recovered, there was no way that he was coming up here.

All night, I could hear a kid crying to himself, wailing about his lost father. No one had explained to me about what had happened, which I knew that they knew, but I could tell that it was an uncomfortable topic. I didn't even know the kid's name, but he cried on my shoulder in the forest one day(a day that I experimented with the Genins' observatory skills) when the others thought I was still dead. I don't think he even really saw me that night, but perhaps that's for the better.

Breaking me out of my thoughts, I heard a dampened footstep. My senbon was flung into the precise direction of the perpetrator, and a dull thunk of the needle hitting wood resounded in the hollow air.

"You haven't been getting much sleep," a dull voice pointed out. My eyes slowly opened, and trailed over to Kakashi, who had used his crutch to block my senbon's true target. He let his crutch drop to the ground as he joined me, sitting on the ledge of the roof. "So, what's the story? Something's been bothering you from the moment you fell into the water."

I closed my eyes again, ignoring the question.

"Y'know...," he started again, "You're not as mysterious as you try to make yourself out to be." My eyes opened once again. "Your elusiveness... at first, it nearly stumped me! But," his voice then turned dark, borderline mocking, "you're just a kid that has nothing going for you! You're too reliant, to obsessed over Sakura! You're nothing!"

I closed me eyes again, all interest in his words disappearing.

"What would you do if she were gone, huh?!"

As if feeling the threat towards Sakura, chakra-infused wind pooled at my feet and fingertips. My eyes snapped open, and everything slowed down once again. Kakashi's figure, which was standing up again(which I hadn't even noticed at first) was shaded with the awakening of my new kekkei genkai. However, this time I could see that his forehead-protector was up to reveal his Sharingan.

The eye was blinding white, and there were many blue flashes of chakra pulsing up to it to keep it analyzing me. He knew that there was something suspicious about my falling into the water, and was trying to get me to replicate it.

And he succeeded, but I completely disregarded that.

Unlike the last few times that my eyes had changed, I could see multiple golden lines trailing from me to Kakashi. When I focused on one, I could see a shadowed version of myself engaging in an attack on Kakashi that would hit. One particular one was a blinding gold; it showed me using pure chakra to attack the Jounin, and he would have no way to avoid it. So I did it.

The snarl of a thousand voices resounded throughout the forest,

"Don't you dare lay a finger on her, b @ s t @ r d ! "