Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ The Butterfly ❯ The night fades into day; the beat goes on ( Chapter 2 )

Disclaimer: Still don't own Naruto.

A/N: Well…I got one review (thank you so much Kashshaptu!) and that review said I should continue. Seeing as I had nothing to do and really felt like writing, I decided that writing for one person is enough. So here we have chapter 2 of The Butterfly. I'm not really sure where the fic is going yet…guess we'll find out as I write. As for pairings…I dunno yet. I can tell you it will be het though and will involve Sakura. Not that I've anything against yuri and yaoi, I've just absolutely no talent for writing it ^^(). So yeah, here's chapter 2, please review, let me know what you think and let me know if you've got any ideas, I'm always open to suggestion and will credit the idea to you. Oh also, this chapter is very slowly paced…the whole fic will probably be that way; I find that a lazy and broken storytelling conveys my words best for this story. Hope you enjoy!

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The Butterfly: Chapter 2

By: Tea Leaf/Banana Soap

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The blood dried, flaking off her arm slightly. Listless eyes stared out the window, over the alley, over the shorter building beside hers, past the walls, past the forest, out to the horizon. She hadn't moved for hours but she was only vaguely aware of that. She hadn't slept; she was simply in that hazy place between alertness and sleep. The sky was beginning to lighten; the moon had set a while ago. The stars were slowly being snuffed out, one by one.

Still a cold finger vaguely stroked the black and crimson wing. The butterfly watched her. She felt so small, so helpless. She'd been with her mistress for six years now, ever since as a broken child she had wandered into their field. The butterflies had loved her. They'd felt a bond with her. They, like so many others who have known her, had sworn to protect her with their lives. The butterfly suspected that that was one of the reasons she had steadily grown further and further away from them, further and further into her own shell.

The girl sighed as the sun started to peek over the horizon and the sky took on a multitude of colors.

She lifted the butterfly from her knee and stood. The butterfly took off and disappeared out the window, blending into the sunrise. She watched as it left, watching its back, a part of anatomy that was all too familiar to her eyes.

"I live my life trapped in the endless sunset. My world is neither light nor dark, it is merely fading from one extreme to the other." She muttered in a voice that had become husky from lack of use. She didn't have much to say anymore.

She wandered to the bathroom and stripped off the previous days clothes before turning on the water. As she waited for it to heat she took a look at her reflection in the mirror over the sink.

Her hair had grown out again; she had just never gotten around to cutting it again. It now brushed the tops of her thighs. The color had faded; it was still pink of course but not nearly as lustrous. She certainly wouldn't be accused of being a "sexy shinobi" now; she mused with a slightly arched eyebrow. She was thin, if she moved or stretched her upper body in any way, her ribs and spine became visible. Her hips had rounded out with age but her hipbones were still sharp and prominent. Her breasts had grown as well, larger than she had expected them to but no one aside from her knew that, she kept them tightly bound all the time to keep them from interfering with her movement in combat and training. There were angry red chaff marks marring her skin but she liked them, if she rubbed the marks hard enough, pain finally crept through her system, and feeling pain was better than feeling nothing. Her body was lean but heavily muscled; she trained her body almost brutally every day in hopes of expending enough energy so as to pass out from exhaustion.

She wasn't so lucky.

What she liked the most about her body though where the things everyone else thought to be flaws.

She loved her scars.

She ran her hand over a thick one near her right hipbone. That was where Orochimaru had stabbed her with a kunai three years ago. She'd ripped it out and thrown it right back at him, stabbing him in the same spot.

It was one of her favorite scars.

Steam started to rise from the water and she turned towards it. But as she did, she noticed another favorite wound on her back. Between her shoulder blades were three jagged scars about two inches in length each, shirukens had given her those.

She loved those scars; they were a reminder that she really wasn't as clever as she once had thought she was.

She climbed into the shower pulling the tab that moved the water from the faucet to the showerhead, eyes closing as the scalding water hit her like drops of fire, searing her skin.

She turned, letting the water soak her hair before reaching for the soap and scrubbing viciously at her skin.

The wounds on her arm opened again and the soap stung.

She ignored it.

~~~

Rock Lee walked quickly through the streets of Konoha. He knew she would be awake, he usually saw her already training in the fields when he woke up. Today he was going to ask her to train with him.

He'd been doing this about once a week for the past few years. He kept hoping that maybe if someone treated her like an equal again she might start to come out of the apathetic shell she lived in.

The fact that he fantasized her falling madly in love with him over one of these training sessions and magically re-becoming the bright and energetic girl with her heart perpetually on her sleeve and the most incredible devotion in heart, was entirely beside the point.

Deep down, he thought he might know what was wrong with her. She had some wound, that even she wouldn't admit to having, that was still wide-open and festering. The infection was affecting her in every possible way.

He'd asked Neji once if he knew how to heal that kind of wound. He'd hoped Neji would know because he could always read people so well. He'd been told that there was no way for someone on the outside to heal it. The person with the wound had to heal it himself.

Gaara had been there and disagreed. Gaara said that the only way he'd been able to heal had been with the help of others.

Neji had pointed out that the difference between Gaara and Sakura's situations was that Gaara had actually wanted to heal. He hadn't been so sure that Sakura did.

Lee had sighed and decided to try anyway. So far he'd had no luck.

~~~

She stood in the shower. She had finished washing quite some time ago but she didn't want to move.

She liked the heat.

She always felt so cold and nothing could really drive it from her. If she were honest with herself, she'd admit that the hot water didn't really warm her at all; it just distracted her.

Slowly the water started to cool and she closed her eyes in resignation as a long fingered hand rose and turned of the water. She stepped out of the shower and dried off with a threadbare towel. She really should get some new ones but she just didn't care enough to bother. She hung the towel back on the rack and walked naked to her bed; there were dressers underneath where she kept her meager wardrobe. She pulled out a pair of underwear and black pants as well as some fresh rolls of gauze. She dressed her lower body and held the corner of a roll of gauze to her rib cage before proceeding to bind her ribs and breasts painfully tight. She then wrapped her forearms with two rolls of black gauze. That way if they bled, the blood would be hidden in the black. As for the long strands of wet hair, she simply twisted them into a messy knot and the back of her head, securing it with an elastic.

A knock sounded lightly at the door as she finished.

She merely raised her eyes at the offending sound.

"Sakura-san?" questioned a now deeper but still childishly eager voice.

She closed her eyes briefly before walking over to the door, throwing open the lock and opening the door.

Lee stood there, dressed as he had always dressed in the green body suit with his forehead protector worn as a belt and bright orange ribbed leg warmers. The only difference was now he wore the jounin vest, just like Gai-sensei.

She lifted a brow questioningly.

"Sakura-san!" Lee exclaimed with a grin, dimmed slightly by her impassive and disconnected expression.

"I was wondering if you would like to train with me today?" he questioned hopefully.

She looked away for a moment, considering, the shrugged and opened the door wider so that he could enter.

As he walked past her she observed the changes time had made to him. He was taller, about 5'11" she guessed. He was built the same though, still thin and lean and his muscles were still very well developed, she could see them shifting beneath his clothes.

She closed the door and walked back to the bed, crouching to the drawers to find a shirt. She found a black mesh one and pulled it on then walked over to the door and pulled on her sandals and grabbed her shirukens holster to strap to her right leg and her kunai pouch which she threaded on her forehead protector which she used as a belt and passed it through the loops of her pants.

"Let's go." She said monotonously.

Lee nodded and bounced up from her kitchen chair before heading out the door. She snatched her keys off the table and followed, locking the door behind her.

~~~

He slowly made his way back to the village. He'd had an assassination mission and had been away for the past week and now, finally, he could come home.

It had taken a lot for him to be able to call this place home but now that he could he was fiercely protective of it. Nothing was going to take his home away from him again. Not now that he could protect it.

To be honest, he wasn't sure what it was that made this place home. He knew what it had once been, it had once been home because of his family, but his family had been murdered and home had been ripped away. Then it was home because of what he had come to think of as his surrogate family but he hadn't been able to enjoy it then because he still hadn't avenged his family. Once that had been done, he had not hesitated in returning and finally appreciating his surrogate family and enjoying his home again.

But something had been off. Something was still off. His surrogate family had changed while he was away and he still didn't really understand or accept the changes. He ignored them, acted as he always had and deluded himself that the others acted the same as well.

The gates came into view and he sighed with relief. He made his way towards it, exchanged passwords with the guards and was admitted. He hobbled along the street soon coming to the bridge that was so very familiar to him. As a child this had been more home than his house, this is where he always met with his surrogate family.

But they weren't here to meet him. They never met here anymore. He could barely remember the last time they had.

He heard a large snap coming from the clearing that was just behind the tree line on his side of the bridge, the clearing where the hero monument was.

Curiosity came over him then. He had found that now that he didn't have the responsibilities to the past weighing him down anymore, he really did enjoy indulging his curiosity so he wandered over.

~~~

Lee ducked as Sakura came at him with a flying kick. The kick hit the tree behind him and with a large snap, the wood gave and the tree toppled over.

Lee's eyes widened slightly at the power. That would have hurt…

In the meantime, Sakura had recovered from the kick and was attacking again.

She came in with a punch that Lee blocked, then another from the other side that Lee blocked again, she then brought up her leg to kick him in the ribs but he dodged and backed up a few steps.

Sakura flipped onto her hands, her legs came up and locked around Lee's neck with her calves. She then reversed her motion and pulled Lee off his feet and set him flying into the debris of the broken tree as she landed on her feet and stood again, moving into a defensive position.

"You're holding back." she stated coldly.

Lee groaned, fighting Sakura seemed to keep getting harder and harder over the years. He couldn't really fight back because he really didn't want to hurt her but he knew she'd be hurt if she found out. So Lee looked for a way to change the subject. That's when he spotted his "get out of jail free" card.

"Ah, Sasuke-san! What are you doing here?" He asked brightly as he slowly stood up from the broken wood.

Sakura dropped her defensive pose and rose to stand normally. The sparing was over.

"I was just investigating that crash." He responded with disinterest as he lent Lee a hand to rise while watching Sakura out of the corner of his eye.

Sakura held his eyes for a second with cold detachment before looking away. She turned and left the clearing without a word.

Lee noticed and shouted goodbye to her, she raised her hand slightly in a half-hearted wave.

Lee sighed dejectedly. Another day, another failure.

"What happened to the tree?" Sasuke asked Lee, ignoring the fact that Sakura had completely ignored him.

"Sakura kicked it. She'd been aiming for my head…" he responded with apprehension.

"Good thing I ducked, eh?" he continued with a grin.

Sasuke smirked slightly.

"Yeah, good thing."

~~~

Sakura walked through the woods, soon coming to the field where she'd met the butterflies what seemed like a lifetime ago.

She collapsed under a tree, her right hand rising to rub her chest over her heart.

She hated seeing him. She loved seeing him. It hurt to see him.

He'd looked good…he always looked good though, didn't he? The dark hair that hid his face, shadowed it with mystery. Those dark eyes…bedroom eyes. Those features that had been beautiful as a boy that had matured to breathtakingly handsome as a man. He was at least 6 feet tall now and had filled out perfectly, with perfectly sculpted muscles. He was an artist's dream model.

Her fingernails on her left hand dug into her palm so hard they drew blood.

She lifted her head, staring off through the leafy canopy above her to the blue sky as she bit her lip.

She'd finally managed to not think about him. As long as she didn't see him, she was fine. But she always saw him. He just always seemed to show up everywhere she went.

Why did she have to see him? Why did she care? Why couldn't she just erase him?

A butterfly fluttered over to her and landed on her nose.

Her eyes crossed slightly as she looked at it.

Finally she sighed and lowered her head. That was why. She was a butterfly, forever loyal to one person. And she just didn't know how to change that. She didn't know how to just move on. She'd tried…oh god, had she tried!…but all he had to do was look at her and she'd crumble.

She was so weak.

Her heart hurt. Her body hurt. Her mind hurt. Her soul hurt.

She lowered her head to her raised knees, the butterfly fluttering over to land on her shoulder.

At least it hurt.

~~~

He made his way back to his house. He'd gone to see Tsunade-sama to make his report on his mission. He had gone to the hospital to get his leg treated.

He slid the door open and wandered tiredly to his room where he collapsed on the bed, his forearm rising to cover his eyes.

That was one of the things that had changed.

She looked the same from far away, but when you got close, it was like…she was a faded version of her former self.

She didn't smile anymore.

He missed that. He'd liked her smile. He liked to think that if she smiled now, he'd smile back. He couldn't have back then, but now he could. But now she didn't smile at him so he'd never gotten the chance to smile back at her.

Then there were her eyes.

Bright sea foam green eyes that used to have a myriad of emotions that would subtly mold the color of them. They were flat now. As if giant steel doors had been shut behind them. Now they were just a dull, numb and faded green.

She'd ignored him.

She'd acted as if he hadn't even been there.

Deep down, that's what he hated the most. Through it all, she'd always been the first on his side, she'd even said she would follow him through hell if he'd only allow her.

He couldn't do it.

He still believed he'd made the right decision. But…there were moments when he wondered if maybe…maybe he should have explained it to her. He hadn't. He probably never would.

He sighed and lifted his arm, sitting up slightly as he pulled down the blankets on his bed. Not bothering to get undressed, he slipped under the covers and promptly fell asleep.