Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own Naruto. Please don't sue.

A/N: Sorry for a slight delay folks, yesterday had to be taken off so I could study for my English lit exam that I wrote this morning. On a plus note though, the time off has helped me set out and organize my ideas so I actually have a vague but clear idea of the plot. A huge hug and thanks go out to dragonflyelj, her help and advice have been absolutely essential in the creation of the actual plot of the story. So thank you drogonflyelj, and thank you to everyone who had reviewed my story, you really make me feel like my writing is worthwhile. So, I hope you all enjoy this new chapter and please remember to let me know what you think. I guarantee the next chapter will be up by tomorrow night at the latest.

~~~

The Butterfly: Chapter 5

By: Tea Leaf / Banana Soap

~~~

The sky was that inky blue black of midnight. A small spattering of cold stars peeked out from behind the dissipating storm clouds.

It had been raining again.

The moon was missing from the sky; she guessed it was renewing itself.

Alone, she sat outside of the lingering light of the campfire and the noise of the tribe. A thin piece of charcoal was in her hand, a faded sheet of thick paper rested on her knees. Her eyes were numb as the words flowed to the page.

//Step out the front door like a ghost

Into a fog where no one notices

The contrast of white on white//

She couldn't tell if the words were hers or if they were from something long forgotten. All she knew was that she felt relieved to write them.

//And in between the moon and you

Angels get a better view

Of the crumbling difference

Between wrong and right//

Her inner self sneered slightly now, too cynical for the imagery of angels.

//And I walk in the air

Between the rain

Through myself and back again

Where? I don't know.//

She looked up to where the moon should be. There was only darkness but it was a quiet darkness. She felt calm.

She folded the paper, stashing it back into her pack with the charcoal. She then leaned back, untroubled green eyes watching the sky.

There were steps coming from her left. She didn't look; she didn't want to talk to anyone right now.

"Ah, new girl!" Came a slightly slurred voice.

She didn't react.

"You're quite the pretty little thing you know. A little scrawny but you'll do." The voice continued as a hand reached out towards her.

She caught it and pushed it back until there was an audible snap.

The man cried out in sudden pain.

"You bitch! You'll pay for that!" He roared as he tried to lunge at her.

He passed right through her shadow clone, reducing it to mere wisps of smoke. The real her sat undisturbed in the tree, simply waiting for him to leave.

She didn't like fighting the gypsies.

The man looked around in a rage and then sudden fear, as he believed she had disappeared.

She sighed.

{Well, at least the men won't harass me of they think I'm a witch…}her inner self commented.

Her outer self simply watched as the man with the broken wrist ran back to the camp then she turned her eyes back to the sky.

~~~

Gaara walked slowly down the trail. He always walked slowly; he didn't believe in haste. He was a young man with all the time in the world on his hands and so he used it.

He was heading to the leaf village, he had a feeling that Sakura could use some support around now.

Last week had been the anniversary of her parents' deaths. Next week would be the anniversary of Kakashi's disappearance.

She tended to get a little desperate around this time.

~~~

He glared at Hinata as she apologetically force-fed him some ramen. Naruto had him in a body-lock hold and was plugging his nose so that he had to open his mouth to breath.

"Well, if you could just be bothered to eat on your own we wouldn't have been brought to such drastic measures." Ino said tartly from the door.

He simply glared. He didn't want food.

"Man, this is such a pain. I should be training not baby-sitting Uchiha." Shikamaru muttered under his breath.

Ino gave him a swift kick in the shins and a "smarten up" glare. Shikamaru kept his muttering to himself.

"So Sasuke-kun, have you heard anything from Sakura?" Ino asked brightly.

Sasuke's glare deepened and he clamped his mouth shut before Hinata could shove the next bite in his mouth.

"Heh, I swear Ino, sometimes you're such a blonde." Shikamaru said snidely with a smirk.

Flames flared in her eyes and this time she gave him a swift kick somewhere a little more painful.

Hinata tried her best to keep a straight face, Naruto looked traumatized and Sasuke was turning blue.

"Ah, Sasuke! Open your mouth, you'll suffocate!" Hinata exclaimed, her voice slightly louder than usual.

Sasuke simply glared.

"Open your mouth you moron!" Naruto piped in.

Sasuke continued to glare, turning bluer and bluer.

"Oh Naruto, just let go!" Ino said crossly, still stinging from Shikamaru's comment.

Naruto held on for another second before finally relenting and letting go.

Sasuke's color returned to normal as he took deep breaths from his nose.

Hinata sighed; they wouldn't be able to get any more food in him now.

"Well, I guess that's enough for today. But we'll be back tomorrow to check on you!" Hinata told Sasuke sternly.

He rolled his eyes and looked away.

Naruto glared at him and punched him in the arm. No one rolled their eyes at his girlfriend, not even Uchiha Sasuke. Hell, ESPECIALLY not Uchiha Sasuke!

Sasuke bit his lip to stop from reacting, the bastard had charlie-horsed him.

Finally Naruto let go of him and he collapsed on his bed again, easily finding the deep groove his body had formed after days and days of immobility.

The group sighed collectively. At least Sakura had put some effort into living, Sasuke was just wasting away.

Hinata stood and cleared up the dishes from the food they'd been forcing on Sasuke. Naruto went over to Shikamaru to help him up now that he was recovering from Ino's kick.

"Remind me not to crack blonde jokes about Ino again." He muttered.

Naruto chuckled "With the amount of pain she's put you through because of them, it should be conditioned into your brain by now."

Shikamaru grinned "Well you know me, I like to live dangerously." He commented sarcastically.

Hinata laughed softly, Ino rolled her eyes. Sasuke ignored them.

"See you tomorrow Sasuke-kun" Ino called as they left.

{Finally, some peace and quiet.}

~~~

Rafael bit his lip. He was torn. The fellow members of his tribe had come to him with very legitimate complaints against Sakura. She didn't do any of the women's work, she'd injured several of the men who had tried to make her comply and they seemed to believe she used witchcraft.

But the fact of the matter was, the only women's chore she wasn't helping out in was something women like her weren't expected to do. She was from a society where women were people, not items as they were in this tribe. In her world, she was perfectly justified in defending herself against the male tribe members' advances.

But this wasn't her world, it was his tribe. She'd joined it and she should have to abide to the same code of conduct as everyone else.

He sighed and looked over to where she was helping with the laundry. Her hair was pulled back into a braid; there were a few stray soapsuds on her cheek. Her skin had started to gain some color from being outside and she was starting to get back to a healthier weight. She looked content participating in the menial chore.

He sighed again and turned back to the men he was conferring with, the most adamant faced him directly, his wrist in a split and a vicious gleam in his eyes.

As much as he didn't want to have to sacrifice her like this, if he didn't there'd be anarchy in the tribe and probably a violent revolt. It was the physical well being of one versus the physical well being of many.

With a pained expression he nodded.

The men grinned evilly and he already regretted having made the decision.

~~~

A/N: Well, that's all for this chapter, I'm sorry it's a little shorter but the next one should be fairly long to compensate.

A few notes on this chapter:

The words Sakura is writing at the beginning are lyrics from the song "Round Here" by the Counting Crows and are of course copyrighted to them.

For those who don't know (I'm not sure if the expression is used anywhere other then Canada which is where I'm from) a charlie-horse is a really strong punch to a pressure point in the upper arm or thigh and damn, do they ever hurt!

Aside from that, I've been getting a lot of questions in reviews lately so I'm going to make up for chapter shortness with a Q/A session. I'm not going to go to specific questions but rather generic ones that should answer the specific ones in the process.

So, where is this fic hosted?

This fic is currently on 3 web-sites and will soon be on a fourth as well.

On Fanfiction.net, my author name is Tea Leaf and the story can be found here: http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1825522

Also on my fanfic.net account are some older fics that I've written, two Gundam Wing ones and one Fushigi Yuugi, but I only ever finished one of them. There wasn't really much response so the inspiration left. But if you want to read them anyway, feel free and let me know if you think they're worth reviving.

There is one problem with the version on FF.net though, every time I upload a chapter, it seems to disregard any italics I make and I don't know how to fix it. So there are some thoughts, that would normally be in italic so as to show the difference, that don't show up in the previous chapters. This chapter has been edited just in case the italics still don't appear so thoughts are now between {} ßthose brackets.

Also, it appears that the site addresses get erased every time I upload it here so I'll put them in my author profile if you want to see them on the other sites.

On MediaMiner.org, my author name is Banana Soap. Banana Soap is actually my online artist name and my account at MediaMiner was originally solely for art gallery purposes so if you go there you can find some of my artwork. Be sure to review it if you do ^_^

http://www.mediaminer.org/fanfic/view_st.php/59698/

Soon, you will be able to find it on Rokudaime, a non-yaoi Naruto fanfic collective which can be found here http://aksarah.com/naruto/fanfic.htm , while there be sure to read "Wasted Years" by Mizerable, its increadible and helped inspire me to write Naruto fiction and brought about this fic.

Finally, it can also be found on AdultFanFiction.net at this address http://adultfan.nexcess.net/aff/story.php?no=25170

Now I've also been asked why it's on AFF when there are no lemons in my story. Well, the short answer to that is that I really am not sure yet. Suffice to say I'm an exposure addict and will put anything up anywhere I can. I'm really glad I put it there though because my first review came from that site and that's also where I met dragonflyelj who's help has been indispensable. Also, The fic does contain some heavy adult situations and I'm thinking that as the story evolves it will become appropriate for it to be on AFF. I'll be sure to keep the FF.net version clean though.

Pairings: Unsure, looking kinda SakuSasu, I may play on some SakuKaka in the past or maybe in the future if he's not dead, and then there's always the Sakura/Gaara option which hasn't been done often so might be more appealing to me while writing…So you'll all just have to keep reading to find out.

About Kakashi: What happened to him? Is he dead? Is he alive? Where is he if he's not? Will he come back into the story?

I can't tell you! It'll give too much away! So you'll just have to wait in suspense with me as we see what happens as the chapters come out. I don't have it all planned out, just a few general ideas after all.

I got a really good question about Sakura's fighting abilities, why is she not being given any missions? Why do people still think of her as weak if she has the butterflies?

Well, people don't think she's weak, she thinks she's weak. Most people are actually really afraid of her and the reasons for that will become clear in, well, the next few chapters.

As for the missions, it's not that she's not receiving them because she's incompetent, it's because she's mentally unstable. Tsunade can't trust Sakura's nerves and mentality enough to give her the responsibility of a B or A rank mission. She's not sure Sakura can handle it and at this level of mission, it's crucial that she can.

As for the nature of the butterflies poison and such, that will become clearer in the next few chapters as well.

And I think that's all for now, thanks for bearing with me through these long explanations ^_^

If you have any questions or if there's anything else that's ambiguous to you, please don't hesitate to ask your questions or ask for clarification.

See you next chapter!

~ Tea Leaf / Banana Soap