Starting over

#86 Their Life Until Now

Sasuke POV

Flashback no jutsu: The evening before

I walked into the restaurant and looked around looking for my friends from the academy.

I found them sitting on a round table in the corner chatting quietly amongst themselves.

Going over to them I smiled as I sat down on the only free seat between Ino and Choji. Smiling I looked over the small group of nine. It had been a hard time for us, since the chunin exams.

Hinata sadly was killed, when there was an attempt to kidnap her from the Hyuuga clan compound. While officially the act was committed by a rogue shinobi who had no ties to any village, everyone knew that it had been ordered by Iwagkure, who wanted to get their hands on the Byakugan, for centuries. After her death, almost everyone started to slump.

Neji blamed himself for not being strong enough to protect his cousin and thus took his training even more seriously than before, causing him to keep training until he was exhausted and then not to show up for missions, because he would faint from chakra exhaustion and not wake up until one or two days later. That was the only reason, why he had not been promoted to jonin until two months ago.

The whole of the new Ino-Shika-Cho team combo took a hit also, since all three had been so overcome by grief that they couldn't come to their training sessions for a while and Ino and Choji even had to go to a psychiatrist, to get over the death of their friend. Shikamaru just kept playing shogi, as if to try not to acknowledge the whole thing.

Sakura was the only one that had improved because of Hinata's death, since she realized weak she still was. She began to take her training seriously and even toned her flirting with me down to a minimum while we were on missions or training. In our free time she still was annoying me, but even that had become less over the years. She had quit her ridiculous diet and had started to build some muscle and skill, growing into her role as chunin.

Lee had been hit hard by the death of the purple haired girl. I suspect that he had a small crush on her, since when she got killed, he stopped training for a whole week, until Gai sensei somehow managed to get him back on track. In hindsight, this was probably the calmest week anyone of us had, although we all had our own problems to deal with, so no one really cared about that.

Tenten and Shino were only slightly affected by the incident, since both hadn't really much to do with the girl, outside of missions and the occasional meetings where they would chat briefly. They were of course sad, but that didn't affect their training or their overall mindset too much.

Kiba was hit the hardest. He and Hinata had gotten together only a few weeks before it happened and you could see that he really loved the girl. He blamed himself for her death, since it was after she had been with him, that she was kidnapped on her way home. He used to say, that he should have walked her home that day, but no one could have known that something like that would happen. He still blames himself to this day, but he has stopped sitting in front of the memorial stone for hours per day and has turned his grief into fuel for his training.

I myself wasn't hit as hard, I had considered her a good friend, so it still hurt, when I got the message, but I think, that that message even saved me a bit, because it brought me down from my path of revenge, which I had followed, to kill my brother. But Hinata's death had shown me, that it didn't matter, what you have lost or who is gone, but that it mattered, who was still there and what you still have and that you should be grateful for that. After I had realized that, that I would become Jonin and shortly thereafter I was recruited into Anbu, under the codename crow.

We had made it a habit to meet at least once every month to see how everybody was doing. Initially we had done it, because Ino and Choji's therapist had recommended it, since he thought it would help them recover, but we just kept it going even after everyone had bounced back. It lead to a few funny moments in the otherwise cruel world of the shinobi. But these two years weren't all bad. Shikamaru, Neji, Shino and I got promoted to Jonin, the rest of us had all gotten themselves to the rank of chunin, although Ino, Choji and Lee had a strong argument for Jonin and most likely will be promoted soon. Ino had gotten together with a boy named Sai, who originally came from Root but was incorporated into Sakura and my team, since the uneven numbers had meant that we were only two genin in one team. As I mentioned earlier, Sakura had been getting stronger and stronger and she had stopped chasing me all over, which made me in turn look at her in a new light. And honestly, I think that I might be developing feelings for the pink haired kunoichi, but I will have to wait and see, how that goes. Tenten and Shino had gotten together just recently, which surprised everyone, since they had apparently met in secret for almost half a year, before making it official.

Shikamaru had taken a place at his father's side in the strategy department and apparently already was viewed as an equal to his father, supposedly even beating him in a game of shogi. I moved up the ranks of Anbu until I was appointed Squad leader of my own squad, that consisted of Kakashi or Dog, Yugao Uzuki or Cat and Sai, who was the only Anbu to refuse to wear a mask.

Everyone had greatly improved in terms of skill, which mostly was due to our senseis pushing us harder than before, because they didn't want to have to bury another one of their students.

The Hyuuga had quietly reformed their whole internal system, which had included getting rid of the caged bird seal. It had also allowed Neji access to the advanced techniques of the hyuuga main house, which had boosted his impressive skill and arsenal even more.

I got pulled out of my thoughts, when Ino waved her hand in front of my face. "Hello, anyone there?", she asked, with a smile on her face. I shook my head and smiled at her. "Yeah sure, sorry, I was thinking.", I apologized. "Shikamaru and I had been talking about something and wanted to hear your opinion on it.", she began. I nodded and while she was rambling on about if her parents should buy a bigger store and move their flower shop there or if they should open a second store and what Shikamaru and Ino thought what the best strategic decision would be, I smiled and looked around our small group.

Everything was alright

Flashback no Jutsu: Kai !