Sasuke Uchiha and I

Chapter 16 - Light and Dark

Winter's P.O.V

I walked through the snow laden forest, snowflakes falling softly onto my skin. Each snowflake is unique and different, melting at first contact.

Sasuke allows me to walk out here when it's snowing because my tracks will be covered quickly, no one can follow me. He trusts me enough to have some time to freely roam because I was tired and stressed every minute I was cooped up in his house.

Tomorrow marks 8 months of captivity, personally, I'm glad he hasn't killed me. There's still a chance I can rescue Haku and go home.

I sigh and stretch my arms out on either side of me, breathing deeply and then exhaling, white clouds of warmth escaping my lips. As much as I want to relax, something pokes at the inside of my heart.

Something holds me back when I think about leaving Sasuke, and I don't know what it is.

As I make my way through the trees, I hear a clanging. Ninja. What are ninja doing all the way out here?

Quickly and quietly, I duck behind a tree and peer around it. There are two ninjas against one girl, with an overpowered punch, both the men hit the tree with such force that it breaks their backs.

The girl with pink hair and emerald eyes lands, huffing, and puffing. She has a large gash on her right arm, blood dripping onto the snow. I watch as her left hand hovers over her wound, then suddenly starts to glow green. To my surprise, the gash starts to close.

I leaned back and got ready to leave when I hear the girl call out softly. "You can come out now, they won't hurt you."

Well, I wasn't afraid of them hurting me, but oh well.

I walked up to her casually and gazed at her healing wound. "It's called medical ninjutsu. You aren't a ninja are you?" She asked obnoxiously.

Well duh, I'm not wearing a headband. Even rogue ninja wear headbands but there's a slash across the village symbol, which is stupid because then other people can see that they're rogue. I shake my head and she tilts her face to look up at me.

"Where do you come from?"

I point the direction I came from and then think better of it so I point several other directions and wink at her so she gets the idea.

"Are you mute?" She asks gently like she doesn't want to offend me.

I nod and she gives me a pity look, embarrassed, I look down.

"Do you have a family?" What is this, 20 questions?

I smile at the sad memory as I remember my brother and I playing 20 questions. I would always think of tough things like werewolves and mermaids and he would think of things like grass, or sky. I would always win of course.

I shake my head. I remember that I brought my pad of paper with me and so I write my name on it. She smiles a closed-eyes smile and replies, "My name's Sakura. Winter is a cool name."

I sit down cross-legged in front of her, I'm enjoying this. This is the first time I've had contact with another person in 8 months. I write down on the piece of paper, 'Do you have any friends?'

Sakura, as in 'cherry blossom', nods and begins to tell me about all her friends. "There's this one guy named Shikamaru and we used to all think he was stupid until he beat his teacher at Shogi, which is this real hard mental game, and he comes up with all these crazy strategies when we are in danger and all of us owe our lives to him." She prattles on and tells me about all her crazy and amazing friends and I can't but help to listen to her voice.