Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Fire ❯ Chapter One ( Chapter 1 )

Fire

Chapter One

Naruto

Buni-San

Rated: MA

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

“Talking”

`Thinking'

`Inner People Speaking'

*Motion/Sound*

*~* Scene Change *~*

*~*~* Flashback/ Dream Sequence*~*~*

(*AN: Authors Note *)

 

*~*

 

Sakura's house burns down and she ends up living with Sasuke! Turns out though that the fire was an arson attempt by someone who's out to kill Sakura. Sasuke investigates and comes up with three possible suspects, can he find out who's after Sakura before they finish the job?

 

*~*

 

“You'd be able to hit your opponent more often if you'd raise your arm.” Sakura rolled her eyes.

 

“Thanks for the tip.” Sasuke watched her massage her sore shoulder out of the corner of his eyes and mentally winced when he saw the dark blue bruise when she accidentally brushed the strap of her sleeveless dress aside. He had caused that wound, during training yesterday and didn't know that it had been that bad. Maybe he shouldn't have pushed her so hard today…?

 

“Sorry.” Sakura blinked and looked up at him with surprise and confusion clear on her face. Did THE Uchiha Sasuke, renown hard ass and someone who didn't even have the WORD sorry in his vocabulary just apologize?! She looked at his suspiciously for a moment and brought her hands together.

 

“Kai!” Sasuke's eyebrow twitched.

 

“Sakura… I'm ME.” The pink haired kunoichi blushed profusely and quickly shot her hands behind her back. So, it wasn't Naruto using a transformation to look like him again… she blushed a little deeper when she realized that that had meant that Sasuke really had just apologized to her and she glanced up at him a bit bashfully.

 

“S-sorry, it's just that well… I didn't even think you knew how to apologize- hey, what did you say sorry for anyway?” She asked confused. Sasuke shoved his hands in his pockets and looked along the sidewalk with the ever present Uchiha scowl on his face.

 

“I messed your arm up worse than what I thought I did, it's why you weren't doing so well in training today, isn't it?” He asked, not really sounding like he cared. Truth was he didn't, he already knew the answer.

 

“Yeah, well, what can I say? I was too slow to block you're kick and I'm learning the hard way to watch my back around you in a fight. It'll heal.” Sasuke almost smirked; you really had to admire how tough she was.

 

“Spoken like a true Shinobi.” Sakura scoffed at him and rolled her eyes as they continued to walk down the street.

 

Sasuke didn't know why he had decided to walk with her… something in his gut told him too, it wasn't because he liked her or anything, it was because for the last week there had been unexplainable accidents surrounding his teammate, most of which could have easily ended in serious injury if Kakashi sensei, Naruto or himself hadn't been there. And today was no different…

 

*~*~*

 

Sasuke glanced down at the water that flowed rapidly under the bridge that he and his team were to meet at from his half asleep seat in a high tree branch. It was the beginning of a harsh winter, so the water was at an extremely cold temperature and had, more often than not, incredibly sharp shards of ice flowing in the currents. He shuddered at the thought if anyone fell or jumped off the bridge. If the ice shards didn't stab them to death, then it would be the jagged rocks or hypothermia.

 

“Good morning Sasuke-kun!” The Uchiha watched with his sleep deprived eyes as Sakura made her way to the bridge. She knew better than to try and talk to him in the morning, after all, saying that he wasn't a morning person was a HUGE understatement. He gave a grunt/ growl sound that somewhat resembled a `morning' and shifted his weight to get a little more comfortable as he, for a lack of anything else to do, watched her.

 

`Hn… she waived at me with her left arm… isn't she right handed?' It's amazing what you'll realize or think about when you're still in zombie mode (* still half asleep*). It was then that he realized that it was the arm he had kicked and dislocated the day before. The Uchiha shrugged the thought out of his head and continued to watch her look at the water curiously, he noticed a rather large fish make it's way down the river and observed as she walked up to the banister and leaned against it to get a better look.

 

*SNAP*

 

“KYAAA!!!” Sasuke was jerked awake when he saw the banister break away as though it was held together with gum and flew out of his tree with a speed he didn't know he possessed and flew to catch her. He barley managed to catch her wrist before she hit the deadly water and threw their weight so that they tumbled to the muddy shore of the river completely filthy, but unharmed never the less.

 

“S-Sasuke-kun wh-what happened!?” She asked, in a complete state of shock as she tried to stand, but slipped in the mud and fell down against his chest. The Uchiha grunted in discomfort as he pulled out a kunai and stuck it into the ground to get a better sense of balance and managed to stand. He shook his head as he pulled her with him up to the grass and wiped away the heavy amounts of mud off of himself, Sakura doing the same.

 

“The banister gave away- if I hadn't caught you before you hit the water-!!” Sasuke's aggravated snarl was cut short by her gasp. The Uchiha turned his attention to her, and frowned in confusion when he noticed that she was looking at the bridge. He turned his attention to see what she was looking at and froze when he saw what was, without a doubt…

 

“… Sawdust?!” He cried, totally shocked. Somebody…

 

“Somebody had purposely weakened the banister!! Anyone could have been killed!!” Sasuke frowned. Nobody ever came along this bridge, only team seven, his team. Sasuke jumped up to the bridge to get a better look, his eyes widening when he realized that the sawdust was fresh, only a few hours old.

 

“…Sasuke-kun…?” Sasuke stood up straight, glaring at the powdered wood in his mud covered hands and turned around to Sakura, showing it to her. Her own eyes widening with realization.

 

“Somebody tried to kill one of us.”

 

*~*~*

 

Sasuke bit his cheek, trying to figure out why someone would do that- WHO would do that. It didn't make any sense… it seemed that whoever was doing it… was targeting Sakura… all the attacks, or accidents seemed to happen to her, and seemed to occur in places she usually was. Like the edge of the bridge for instance, he always- ALWAYS leaned against the other side if he leaned against the banister at all, Naruto sat in the middle of the bridge, either trying to get a conversation out of her or, catching a few last minute moments of sleep or sat there complaining about Kakashi's tardiness to himself, loudly, but to himself. Sakura, on the other hand, either leaned against the banister or sat up on it, watching the fish and the water rush by every morning. Somebody had targeted Sakura…. And he didn't like it.

 

“Goodnight Sasuke-kun. Thanks for walking with me.” Sasuke snapped out of his thoughts when he saw Sakura facing him with a light blush on her face while a gate to a decent sized house sat slightly ajar. He recognized it as her house, and nodded.

 

“D-…would you like to come in for some tea? I really would like to pay you back for saving me this morning…” Sasuke frowned as he focused on the ajar gate… Sakura had mentioned that her parents were out on a mission and would be gone for at least a week, and no matter how much of a hurry she was in, Sakura was a perfectionist. She would never leave her gate open. A sudden sense of suspicion overcame him as he glanced up at the house. What if… what if whoever was after Sakura came to her house today…? What if they were still in there?

 

“Sasuke-kun?” She asked, wondering if his silence meant that he didn't want the tea even though he was still standing in front of her. The Uchiha seemed to snap out of whatever daze he was in and looked at her slightly confused face with a frown.

 

“Sakura… sure.” Sasuke didn't want her to go in there alone if whoever was after her was indeed in her house, yet he didn't want to seem completely paranoid because her front gate was open. He'd have to take her up on her offer for tea and go in her house to get close enough to feel if there was an extra chakra signature inside. He ignored her beaming face and followed closely after her, his hand close to his shuriken holster incase of an incident. But frowned when he absently noticed an odd scent. It was faint… but unnerving none the less.

 

“Sasuke-kun, do you smell something?” So, he wasn't crazy. The Uchiha snatched her arm, pulling her behind him when he realized what the smell was.

 

“Gas.” Sakura's eyes widened.

 

“G-GAS?!” Sasuke nodded and brought a clothed forearm up to cover his nose and mouth as he walked closer to the front door. It was closed… if he could smell the gas outside… Sasuke frowned and moved to the window, leaning over so he could see just behind the front door.

 

“Sasuke-kun, I'm getting worri-“ Sasuke brought his hand up to tell her to be quiet as he reached into his side back and pulled out a small flashlight. The Uchiha turned it on and shined it indoors so he could get a better look at what was lying just in front if the door. His eyes narrowed dangerously when he finally made out what it was.

 

“Someone rigged you're door with matches. If you opened it with how much gas is leaking. This whole block would have blown.” He all but snarled as he turned off his flashlight and stormed back over towards the now terrified kunoichi.

 

“All week someone's been making attempts on you- first they would have put you in the hospital at most, but lately- with the bridge this morning and now THIS?! Someone's trying to kill you Sakura, and if I wasn't here you'd defiantly be dead right now. WHO would be after you?! This is redicu-!!” Sasuke froze when he heard a bark from behind him. He tore around when he realized that it was Sakura's family's dog and in the blink of an eye, he had his hand around her waist and had teleported them to the top of a tall building a good ways away before a loud explosion could be heard.

 

Neither one of them could move, both frozen in shock. In the course of thirty seconds, Sasuke had proven someone was trying to kill Sakura, saved her life, and thanks to her father's stupid dog, Sakura was now homeless. The emerald eyed seventeen year old was the first to come out of her shock, and let out a chocked sob before wrapping her arms around a very surprised Sasuke and started to sob uncontrollably into his shirt.

 

His eyes finally focused, and he shot his attention down to the hysterical girl clutching onto him desperately. He had no idea what to do, she was terrified, crying and currently without anything. No place to sleep, should he take her over to her friends house while she waited for her parents to get back? No, who was to say that it wasn't one of them? At this point the Hokage could be the one after her!

 

`I'm the only one I know for sure isn't after her. Crap… what should I do?!' Sasuke hesitantly put his hands on her shoulders and slowly pulled her off of him, she was still crying and was incredibly shaken up about the ordeal, but he needed to calm her down- at least get her to stop crying.

 

The Uchiha frowned nervously as he cupped her cheeks and lifted her head so she was looking at his face, his hard eyes seemed to weaken a bit when he saw her usually smiling face red, puffy and tear stained. There were only two other times he had ever seen her like that. The first time when he had woken up on the bridge in the land of waives with her crying over his supposedly dead body, and the second time in the chunin exams when she broke down just before the preliminaries, saying that she was scared he would get hurt because of Orochimaru's curse seal. He swallowed hard, and lifted his hands slowly, using his thumbs to wipe away the tears.

 

“S-Sasuke*hic*-kun...*hic* W-what am I *hic* gonna do?!” Sasuke's eyes instantly hardened again when the slowing flow of tears suddenly came back at full force.

 

“For now, you can stay at the Uchiha Estate with me.” Sakura's head snapped up to look at Sasuke with owl-like eyes. In a state of complete and utter shock.

 

“W-What?!” She breathed, her jumbled mind trying to comprehend the… order. Sasuke growled at her, his hands dropping from her face and back in his pockets almost violently.

 

“Someone is trying to KILL you- right now, I am the only one I know for sure isn't the one after you. Your house also just blew up and I have an almost empty mansion. Now, unless you would like to sleep over at a friend's house- a friend who could be the one after you, or want to sleep at the hospital- where whoever's after you might be, go ahead. But, if you want to stay at my place until your parent's get back somewhat safe, you can. Now, are you or aren't you?” Sakura could only nod dumbly at him. How could she refuse?! It was SASUKE! The boy she had been in love with ever since she was a child! It was that moment that the complete shock of the situation set in, and Sakura suddenly felt very dizzy…

 

“Whoa!” Sasuke managed to catch her before she fell to the ground in a dead faint. He sighed and shook his head as he picked her up bridal style and turned around to head off towards home.

 

Somebody… had made Sakura cry…

 

And he was going to find out who.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Naruto: Hey! How come I wasn't in this chapter!?

Sasuke: You were you idiot.

Naruto: That was just telling people where I SIT on the bridge!!

Sakura: You were in it though moron! So shut up and sit down!!

Buni: *Sweat drops* Naruto, this is a Sasuke x Sakura fic, but you'll be in it…

Naruto: *rolls his eyes* Whatever…

Sasuke: *hits Naruto on the head* Shut up.

Buni: *agrees with Sasuke* Read and Review!!

 

~Buni-san