Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ The Monster in the Forest ❯ Cherry Blossom with Thorns ( Chapter 5 )

Sorry for the wait people, they’re nice enough to give us a week off at Easter so I have time to write again even though I should be doing homework. (I lost my USB with all my homework, I’M DOOMED!!) I have a lot of uncertainty about this story so I’ve decided to just tackle it one chapter at a time. Usually I start and then the chapter’s finished before I know it. Excuse the prood reading, I hate it too much to bother/

I’ve figured out the majority of my plot line. I think its supper smart and cool, you might not though. Just to let you know Kanji are chinse symbols that the Japanese use when writing verbs and objects. There’s thousands of them so it makes reading pretty difficult. Manga’s great because they write the Hiragana (the base alphabet) next to them.

Currently listening to ‘Famous last words” by My Chemical Romance, tis a cool song.

Cherry Blossom with thorns

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Sakura was by no means a patient girl. She was a single child who was used to getting all the attention she desired from her mother, teachers, and friends, which was why she chose to finally give up and throw the book in, or more precisely at Naruto.

A single “Goddamn it,” was the only warning he received before the forth year academy text book came speeding towards his temple. He was slowly beginning to master the art of avoiding airborne objects which his tutor took great care in assailing, but only managed to doge into its path rather than to safety. Thus Uzumaki Naruto was given another opportunity to get to know his grass a little better.

“Ah, Honestly!” moaned Sakura as she began to pull at the ends of her hair in frustration. In the past week or so she had managed to get Naruto up to scratch on preforming a half decent Henge, but his skills with bunshin were not progressing at all. For the first few days he hadn’t even been able to do anything, and recently all he could manage was a washed out dummy illusion that just wouldn’t do at all. How hard could it possible be to make a single clone? If all the toddlers could do what was wrong with this fool?

Yes she had searched, she had dug deep, and what did she find behind the Ninetails stigma that overshadowed Naruto?

She discovered this useless idiot.

The useless idiot was now trying to estimate how big a bruise would form on his forehead by pocking the area with slight apprehension. He had long learnt that it was simply easier to let Sakura vent out her anger, rather than protest against it and start an argument. She seemed to hang around longer when there was a human punching bag to freely bash when the time called for it.

With all her fury vented out Sakura collapsed onto the ground out of exhaustion and sighed. The feeling that she should be studding for Orochimaru refused to relent, but she had learnt as much as she could for now. “Everyone I know mastered these techniques back when we younger than you,” she moaned. “How old are you anyway?”

Now that the pain had subsided slightly Naruto managed to sit up in the grass so that he was eyelevel with Sakura. “13.”

“Eh! 13,” she was slightly taken back before she began to count the years since the Kyuubi attack and wonder why it never came to her sooner. “That’s right you’re my age, I always thought you were 11 because of your hight.”

Naruto stared back blankly, obviously not pleased that the only girl he knew took him for a child. No wonder she’d been talking down at him since the day they met.

“Wow,” Sakura muttered as she stretched out her legs and stared towards the sky. “Had you attended the academy we might have been in the same class.” ’Thank god you weren’t,’ She said silently to herself. ’This guy would have never passed’.

It was not simply his pace of learning techniques that deemed him an idiot in Sakura’s eyes. It hadn’t taken her long to realise that Naruto had the attention span of a five year old and a reading age to match. Any theory she attempted to explain just went straight over his head, and he was off in day dreamland from the moment she opened her mouth. He was only slightly less crappy at learning by example, and despite his efforts, progress was always painfully slow.

The only explanation she had managed to form as to why she was still in the company of this moron was extreme loneliness.

“Well then,” she uttered while searching though her pile of academy books which had been carelessly dumped on the grass despite their perfect organisation. Eventually she found what she was looking for and shoved it into Naruto’s face. “That means that by now you should be able to correctly identify and write all the following Kanji.”

She opened the book to unveil a list of characters that had been neatly stapled to the inside cover. Despite his hate for the alphabet Naruto though he might somehow be able to cope before the list unfolded itself, once, twice, three times, until the bottom edge was hovering just above the ground.

“You need to at least know two hundred of these to read easy technique scrolls, even more if you want to learn some half decent stuff.”

Naruto, whose reading ability didn’t exceed past children’s manga, felt his eyes widen and jaw drop. How could she honestly expect him to correctly identify and write two hundred when they all just looked the same? He’d done half alright by just looking at diagrams so far, reading was painful.

His expression was enough to bring a sadistic smile to Sakura’s face. Yes, it was finally pay back time for wasting so many precious hours of her life.

Welcome to study hell Uzumaki Naruto

A days training under the Fifth Hokage was usually enough to last the average Gennin a life time. Orochimaru had a tendency to expect too much of his students, and forced them to perform techniques that were far beyond a child’s capacity. Sasuke was not the type to settle for being average, he was also the type who was willing to endure the pain of his bruised limbs rather than fall into the pavement as he longed to do so.

And so the famous Uchiha Sasuke could be seen hobbling home through the village. Keeping to the back routes in order to avoid being seen by the majority of the population in his dishevelled state. He was almost home free until a young black haired girl who had a habit of jumping him in the academy appeared on the horizon. With a curse he forced his aching limbs around in the other direction only to see none other than Yamanaka Ino, who was possibly ten times worse, approaching from around the corner. The realisation that he was trapped came crashing down, and Sasuke was prepared to go though another training session rather than get trapped between the two.

At the speed of light he dashed into a nearby ally like a ferret, knocking down several trash cans in the process. Covered with vegetable peal and smelling of old noodles the Uchiha prodigy pinned himself to the side of the wall and prayed to god that his presence would remain unknown. He thought they’d leave him alone once he graduated, but becoming a student of the current Hokage only increased his popularity.

The yell of insults towards each other indicated to Sasuke that he hadn’t been detected by the enemy. They continued to banter back and forth for what seemed like a life time before the two of them eventually went their separate ways, and it was only then that he left out a sigh of relief. Sasuke was feeling quite proud of his ninja skills until he detected a trash can hurling towards his head to which he attempted to dodge but failed miserably.

Swearing and nursing his pretty boy forehead Sasuke looked up to see an unknown stranger looking down at him from the edge of the next door noodle shack, silhouetted by the setting sun. The new arrival relaxed and placed his hand upon his hip in a gesture that could be taken as amusement. “It’s quite unbecoming if you’re resorting to hiding in alley’s to get away from girls, Sasuke-chan!”

Sasuke twitched in anger as he recognized the voice instantly. “Damn you Shisui, why’d you have to throw a damn can at my head!”

The man now identified as Shisui gracefully jumped from the top of his building, landed perfectly in front of Sasuke, and removed his Anbu mask to expose his youthful face. “Why Sasuke-chan, that pretty little head of yours has been expanding at a rapid rate, I thought it could do with some down tunning, but it seems you’re already covered with garbage.”

Sasuke looked down at himself only to discover with horror that he was in fact enveloped with vegetable peel. In an attempt to salvage pride he began to hastily brush down his clothing while attempting to give Shisui the evil eye. Unfortunately Sasuke was not up to the level of intimidating an Anbu yet and the man only laughed at his efforts.

“What are you doing here anyway? How many times do I have to tell you not to call me Sasuke-chan.” he muttered.

“But little Sasuke, do I need an excuse to see how my favourite little cousin is doing? It’s been forever since we’ve had a proper family get together,” out of nowhere Shisui dramatically threw his arm around Sasuke’s shoulder in a gesture of fake angst. “You never come and visit, always training or brooding in a corner.”

“If you have time to act like a fool then you should be practicing your techniques,” Sasuke muttered coldly while evading his cousin’s grasp and trying to figure out his odd behaviour. “You’ve never done this before, what do you really want?”

Shisui looked slightly put off for a moment before he assumed a serious stance that was more becoming of his position, Sasuke suddenly realised that the older man seemed somewhat anxious which was unlike his character. “To be honest Sasuke, I came to talk you because I believe you’re going down the same path as Itachi.”

Sasuke unwillingly flinched at the name. A mixture of emotions began to swell within his stomach to which he had to suppress in order to maintain a nonchalant face. “So what if I am,” he replied coldly.

Shisui sighed and shook his head; he was now staring at the ground as though trying to plan his words carefully. “Sasuke we were all upset about what happened to the clan,” he said slowly and calmly, as though Sasuke was still ten years old. “But there is nothing you can do about it, Itachi was a genius, he gr-

“Graduated from the academy when he was seven, achieved sharigan at eight, became chuunin at 10, got to Anbu when he was my age,” said Sasuke, reeling the words off like he had a thousand times before “Don’t you think I know already?”

“And yet even he couldn’t do anything!” exclaimed Shisui, spreading his arms out as though to emphasise the point. “Don’t you get it Sasuke, if even Itachi couldn’t do it, how do you hold any hope of killing the man who abolished our entire family?”

“No you don’t get it! I will become stronger than both of you and succeed when onii-san failed! I’ll be the avenger!”

Shisui screwed up his fists and let out a yell of frustration that echoed off the ally walls. “Avenger, Avenger, that’s all your brother bloody ranted, he was mad Sasuke mad! After everyone died all he ever talked about was revenge, he went out is search of this mysterious person who vanished in the wind and never returned!” he paused for breath, unpleased with how little Sasuke seemed effected. “ Is that a life you really want to lead Sasuke! Do you really want to throw it all away too for a goal you can never obtain?”

“Yes,” Sasuke replied instantly.

Despite being reminded of the same wall he had faced with Itachi Shisui was willing to try once more with a gentle approach. “They weren’t just your family Sasuke, I lost everything too, I managed to move on with my life instead of holding onto feelings of the past.”

“It’s different with you, you and onii-san weren’t there to see it happen,” Saskue closed his eyes only to see the same scene that haunted his dreams, his parents, his relatives, everyone he ever knew or love being slaughtered before him as he only cried. That man and his eyes, nothing seemed capable of penetrating them. “I don’t know why he left only me, I don’t know who he was, but I can’t ever move on until I can repay him for what he did to all of us.”

“Fine be that way,” Shisui muttered bitterly. “Be like Itachi and let your heat be consumed with hate and vengeance, spend your entire life following clues that lead to dead ends, waste your life away chasing that ambition, see if I care.”

Shisui replaced his mask and adjusted it back into a comfortable position. Sasuke momentarily wondered if he was that shameful to look at.

“I’m sorry Shisui,” said Sasuke.

“Don’t apologise,” he replied in a tone that was probably the one he used while on the job. “There is one more thing I want to talk to you about.”

“What?” asked Sasuke.

“Orochimau may be the Hokage of this village, but he’s a dangerous teacher, I’m assuming you go to him to gain power, but he has a tendency of injecting venom into his students, most to the point of death.”

Sasuke remained unfazed. “I know, but he’s the only man who could possibly help me to track down and kill that man.”

Shisui nodded, before he turned to leave, appearing more tired then when he arrived. “Then by all means be careful, you’re the only family I have left, I wouldn’t want to lose you too,” and with one final salute Uchiha Sasuke vanished in a mass of swirling leaves.

Sasuke looked solemnly to the place where his cousin had disappeared from and watched as the Konoha slowly drifted to the ground. Despite very few expectations placed upon him it was obvious that he had disappointed his last remaining family member. But how was Shisui, the peace loving fool, to understand how he felt. That day three years ago was constantly replaying itself like a broken record in his mind, every day he was haunted by the memories of his parents who screamed out for revenge. It didn’t matter if he couldn’t remember that man’s face, it didn’t matter that the ambition had consumed and indirectly killed his genius brother.

All that mattered was payback.

Sasuke looked to the sky as though speaking to the heavens themselves. “I’m sorry Shisui, but I can let them down, if Itachi has failed then I must take his place.”

And so with a quick swivel of his feet Sasuke left to go back out into the world and its many horrors that he was all too familiar with. If need be he would run, live pathetically, and resort to any means necessary until the day when he could feel that person’s blood on his hands and watch those haunting eyes turn cold.

It was after all, the closest thing he had to a dream.

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AN. I intended for Shisui to be serious, I don’t know what happened. I feel that Sasuke tends to get lots of bashing in the fan fiction world. I know he’s a bit of an arse at times but if my entire family was killed I’d be pretty pissed off too.

Ah the plot thickens. Will Sakura end up strangling Naruto to death? Who massacred the Uchiha clan? Why do people mysteriously disappear around the village? The answers to all this and more in the next exciting chapter of “The Monster in the Forest’

Coming eventually when I’m hit with my next onset of insomnia.

Missq