"Hora hora… Yoko… Do you remember what you looked like?"

Yoko hadn't been sure what she had been expecting upon walking into the bathroom that particular morning, but what she found was not it.

She had gotten up as usual, her sleeping pattern having adjusted itself to the now closer proximity to the academy, and had gone through her usual morning routine.

She had started out by performing the Will of the Mountain technique, followed by then carefully pulled herself out of the cocoon she had crafted herself out of her futon and blanket in order to go to the bathroom.

She had briefly noted that Miku's spot on the couch had been vacated, although she dismissed it and assumed she had gone out.

Miku had been leaving in the early mornings for the hospital recently. She never told her why she went out that early, but when she came back she would always be much paler than usual.

As per standard, she would recover at an accelerated rate by whatever she had been doing, but it still stressed her out considerably.

After finally getting up, she took a shallow turn to the bathroom.

She only took half a step before she had noticed two crucial things. One, the door had been left ajar, and two, the light was on.

She carefully tiptoed over and pushed the door, the creaking sounding frighteningly loud in the silence of the apartment.

There was Miku, lying with her head tilted into the bathtub, her arms lying uselessly by her sides.

She had that pale coloration to her skin that she had become accustomed to seeing recently, except this time it was closer to what one would consider white instead of the usual light peach pigmentation.

Her eyes were completely unfocused, staring aimlessly at the ceiling, her breathing near completely still.

She could also make out tear stains on her cheeks, which meant she had probably come back from whatever she had been doing, holed herself in the bathroom again, and had started crying.

She absolutely hated it when she did that.

Her sister was suffering and there was nothing she could do. Miku refused to tell her the reason for her distress, and she refused to pry into her sister's personal business, so all she could really do was be there for her, as her mother had said, but she didn't seem to ever make much of a difference.

She had been about to take another step, when the corpse-like body of her sister shuddered and the head rolled on its axis, changing from hanging over the edge of the bathtub to hanging in front of her, her hair covering her face, her head slowly oscillating back and forth a few times before coming to a rest.

And then she had asked her that question, her voice sounding airy as though she hadn't had any water in a while.

Yoko had to take a second to try to understand what she meant. Did she remember what she looked like?

"Can… Can you… remember?" Miku lifted her head up, the combination of her dry lips, her skin coloration, and her dead eyes giving her an unsettling appearance. "Two days ago? A… year? Five, maybe? Before that even?" She let her head fall again, her hair following after a brief delay. "You have a good memory, Yoko… Not like me… Do you? Do you?"

She briefly considered her question and thought about how she looked like so long ago. It took her a second, but she eventually had what she thought was how she appeared around five years ago.

"Yes…." She stated. "I think… I do…"

She lifted her head back up, this time at an angle, a small sad smile gracing her face. "Hora… you're lucky then…" Once more, she let her head fall. "Because I've forgotten, Yoko. I forgot how I looked like… I tried to henge into what I used to look like, right? I couldn't… Do you understand Yoko? I forgot… How much else have I forgotten, Yoko? How much more will I forget? I don't remember Yoko… I forgot… I forgot..."

Her sister laughed weakly, her laugh shaking her entire frame. "I think… I need help, Yoko… I can't seem to move…" She rolled her head again, revealing a few droplets of water running down her face. "Your onee-san did something stupid and overextended herself, so could you help her to the couch…?"

Yoko knelt down and took her sisters arms, lifting them by the crook of the elbow so she could have some leverage. Once she was up, she took her sister and slumped her over one of her shoulders before dragging her out the door.

Despite being physically very weak, she knew she could at least put in the effort to drag her sister over to the couch.

"I'm… so sorry, Yoko…" Her sister whispered in her ear. "I'm sorry…"

She sighed to herself and nodded.

Miku had been saying that line over and over for the past couple of weeks. Sometimes even with no context.

She had no idea why. Just like every other question she had about her sister's actions.

She hated mysteries.

Eventually she reached the couch and carefully placed her sister on it. She immediately went to go get a glass of water for her, if her appearance was any indication of severe dehydration.

She pushed the glass up to her lips and watched as her sister quickly guzzled it down, completely ignoring any repercussions from drinking something she knew was quite cold that fast.

Miku gasped after drinking the whole glass. "Ha… Ha… More…"

Yoko diligently went to work in getting more water for her sister, grabbing a second glass just in case she needed more than two glasses of water.

Miku drank both glasses let her head collapse into the couch. "Thanks… Yoko…"

"Sleep." She replied.

"…Guess I do need some right now, don't I? Alright…"

She tossed her blanket on top of her and made sure it covered her.

"Sleep." She reaffirmed.

"I got it, I got it…" Miku shuddered again and shifted her position to make herself more comfortable. "Night…"

She closed her eyes and passed out.

Yoko's gaze lingered a second longer before turning around and heading back to the bathroom.

*thud*

She paused.

A quick glance behind her revealed that the noise had been from a small book that now lied open on the ground.

A cursory investigation revealed that it had fallen out of her sister's jacket pocket.

She went over to it and picked it up, her eyes hovering over the page it had opened up to.

This one was covered in her writing, with most of it being in that strange language that she occasionally glimpsed when she knew her sister hadn't been paying attention.

There were small pieces here and there in elemental, such as 'emergency power' with a check mark ticked next to it and another that said 'Cloud? Rock? Iron? …Rain?'

There was also a list of her classmates she could read, but the descriptions next to them were also in the language, so she couldn't read them.

She closed the book and placed in back into the pocket it had fallen out of.

She could probably try to decipher what was written in it. It wouldn't take too long. Maybe a day or two, at most. She could already see it in her mind's eye. That word had a similar connotation to this one, that matched up with this, and-

She shook her head. Now was definitely not the time to work on it.

The academy had actually ended three week ago, but Naruto had decided to keep the meeting spot at the academy so that they could all meet up at a familiar location.

Despite having a tendency for being late to the academy (It was around 92.34% chance of him being late, by her estimate), he would always show up to the meeting spot either on time or just a bit earlier.

Her gaze flickered to the clock for just a moment. Hm. It looked like she was going to be late if she didn't hurry up.

She looked to the sleeping form of her sister once more before taking off to the bathroom.

There was a light fog covering the academy grounds that particular morning.

Summer had begun a while ago, yet it still felt like it spring due to the cold mornings and the aforementioned fog.

She hated the cold.

When summer had started, she had expected it to get warmer. Instead, she got extended spring.

She supposed that was good news for Miku. She knew her sister loved cold, rainy weather. Too bad she was too stressed to appreciate it.

She sighed. Every other thought seemed to go back to Miku nowadays. She couldn't help but worry.

At first, she had assumed that she had become suicidal, what with her symptoms of late matching up with severe anemia, but those thoughts had been stricken out upon realizing her sister had a horrible fear of dying. She had always placed her own life over everything and everyone, which was why Miku tended to perform favors for her, because she knew her sister felt guilty for placing herself over her.

Being the little sister, she liked exploiting that feeling as much as possible.

Not that she had done so recently. She wasn't that cruel. Especially since her sister seemed to be suffering silently…

She thought over Miku's actions to try to make sense of it. Normally she was a carefree, lazy person who liked to play games and read in her spare time. So, what was out there that could turn her into the mess she was currently?

She shook her head. No, she was going about this all wrong. She didn't need to know what, she needed to know why.

Why was she like that? Not sleeping, barely eating, incoherently rambling, inflicting anemia on herself…

There was really only one explanation she could think of.

Her sister was terrified over something.

But what would scare her so much?

Did she think mother was not coming back?

Was someone blackmailing her?

…Was someone going to die?

That thought stuck out in her mind. Miku tended to only care about things if it concerned herself, so if someone was going to die, she would be sad, but not for long.

But if she were to die?

Yes, that would probably cause quite a bit of panic within her.

That theory fit her some of the things she thought of, but not all of them. There were definitely other options, but that one seemed to speak to her the most, almost like she could see the edge pieces of a puzzle and that particular line of thought seemed to match the best with the picture made with solely the border.

She supposed she could always just drop the entire notion altogether any time she wanted should her theory not work out. It was all theoretical, after all.

So, she had to work backward. She was going to die. What was going to kill her?

Yoko couldn't be sure of that one. She left that one alone and moved on to the next part. How long had Miku known she was going to die?

Judging by the fact she was steadily getting worse, she had a general idea of what it was or when it was. Perhaps both.

Now she just had to be Miku and try to think of what she would do.

First off, was the problem she was facing an internal one or an external one?

At first glance, it would look like an internal one. If she had some terminal disease, her hospital visits would make sense. Perhaps one of the side effects of the medicine she is taking is making her anemic.

But that can't be right, she thought. If she were sick, then she would tell her or mother. She knew mother has enough money saved up to at least pay for some form of treatment… Also, if the disease was terminal, then why was she stressing so much? There would be no point. Miku isn't the kind of person to stress over something if there is no point.

So it had to be an external problem.

Someone or something is going to kill her. But why?

No, no need to go there quite yet. Just assume for now.

I am going to die. Of course, I don't plan on dying, so I would try to find a way not to die.

I would make a plan.

Yoko nodded her head. Yeah, that sounded like her. She would try to work around it instead of letting it happen.

She took a look at what she knew. If it were her, she would of course try to train to beat whoever was going to try to kill her or try asking someone for help.

However, this was Miku, so she had to think like her.

Miku would probably say she would ask for help if she asked her sister what she would do in a life threatening situation, but her sister liked to lie. She was positive that even given the option to ask, she wouldn't.

But, if the situation was truly that bad, she was sure Miku would be able to overpower her own quirks in favor of survival.

Unless what she was facing eliminated asking for help.

Yoko decided that she would assume the worst case scenario. Miku was currently facing a situation where she would surely die, and there was no one she could go to for help.

She guessed that Miku had known for quite some time this was going to happen. At least a month in advance.

That was more than enough time to make a plan and enact it, in her opinion.

She imagined the scenario from Miku's point of view. She assumed that Miku had a plan. Seeing as Miku was acting completely out of character, the plan had a chance of failing. In other words, the plan wasn't as simple as get out the way when the time came, it had to be complex.

Meaning she could rule out the thing killing her being a thing and instead call it a one, as she wouldn't need to fool something inanimate.

Then came the next question. Was the person who was tracking her looking for her and her only?

No, that could not be the case. Miku was only a little bit older than her, and if she assumed the worst case scenario, then the person that would kill her was so far above her that if she tried to escape with even her most complex plan it would fail.

Meaning two things. One, the person could be fooled. Or, two, she wasn't the main goal. She was simply a side effect of what was actually going to happen and she was simply collateral.

Yoko went with number two.

Something was going to happen where she would be considered collateral damage. What could possibly…?

She went over her sister's actions the past couple of days. Blood loss, her remarks toward her, her fear…

No, could it be?

She was also going to die.

Of course. It made sense. Whoever was going to kill Miku was probably going to kill her too. And possibly mother. And who knows how many other people.

How large was this going to be?

She was going to die too. Miku was planning on leaving her behind which was why she was saying sorry to her over and over.

She remembered her brief glance at the book Miku carried. It had a list of destinations in it. She was planning on leaving Konoha. Permanently.

She was just going to run, faking her death by creating large pools of her own blood where she should have died.

… No.

That couldn't be it.

It was too simple. Too easy to see through. Her sister wouldn't think up something that simple for a plan…

It had to be more than that. Much more.

"So, you finally showed up! We've been wondering when you would get here!"

Yoko broke out of her thoughts and looked to her left to see Naruto hanging upside-down from a tree, his legs wrapped around a branch.

She tilted her head to the side and shrugged. She supposed she would return to those thoughts later.

After all, Shino wouldn't want her to be thinking depressing thoughts, would he?

"Not… Late…" She specified.

A voice made itself known to the two from behind the tree Naruto had been sitting in. "Indeed, Uzumaki-san. By all accounts, she is thirty seconds early."

Ah, there was Shino.

She rushed over by him and gripped his arm, nuzzling her face into his coat.

"Bleh." Naruto hopped down from his tree, landing with a soft thud on the ground below. "Mushy gushy stuff can come later. We have stuff to do! Important things!"

Yoko glared holes into the blond. She might be friends with him now, but that still didn't mean she couldn't get revenge…

"…Hinata…?"

Shino pushed the sunglasses he was wearing back to the bridge of his nose, Yoko shifting along with the movement. "Hyuuga-san stated she wished to use the facilities. She should be back soon enough."

She slackened her grip on Shino's arm and nodded.

"So, what do you guys want to do first?" Naruto grinned and took out a kunai. "You want to play some ninja or something?"

Yoko shrugged. She didn't feel like doing anything too intensive today, but she didn't really bring anything with her that she could do in the meantime other than a go board. So, she supposed that would work for now.

"Alright! What do you guys want to try today?" Naruto leaned against the tree and started tossing the kunai into the air, the swishing sound it made adding to the silence of the morning. "I was thinking… what was that one called again? You know the one where you get all the sticks?"

Shino responded. "I do not believe it has a proper name to it, Uzumaki-san. Although I believe colloquially it is known simply as stick defense."

Naruto tilted his head. "You sure? I'm pretty sure it has a name. I see it every time I play it…"

"Excuse me, Uzumaki-san?" Shino questioned.

"Oh, uh, forget I said that. It's nothing…" Naruto turned his head so he wasn't making eye contact with Shino. "So yeah. Are we going for the normal teams?"

Yoko nodded. She absolutely refused to be on the same team as Naruto when Shino was an option. It didn't matter that they always won, so long as she got what she wanted.

Plus, she liked winning.

As an added bonus, she knew Hinata liked Naruto, so it was a win-win situation for everyone except Naruto.

Just how she liked it.

She spotted someone coming her way out of the corner of her vision, who she instantly recognized as Hinata.

"S-sorry for taking so long…" She looked down and poked her fingers together. "I hope I didn't miss anything…."

"Nah, we were just talking about playing some ninja." Naruto smiled at her. "We're going to be on our usual teams today!"

Hinata nodded. "I-I see… What are we doing today?"

Naruto took out some bundled up sticks from his pocket. "Stick defense!" He threw the sticks at Shino, who caught them. "We're going to be attacking first!"

Yoko smirked.

She liked the feeling of victory in the morning.

The words 'Capture the objectives: game start!' dissipated above Naruto as Yoko and Shino took off in opposite directions.

Now he had around ten minutes to kill while Shino and Yoko prepared a 'base' for him and Hinata to break into and take the sticks back to their own base.

He smiled as a timer appeared above him. He had found out not too long ago that playing games like this counted as training and actually gave him experience, which was great news for him.

Helping Iruka clean erasers and washing pots with Teuchi was all good and stuff, but it wasn't fun.

This was.

Plus, it helped him raise his relationship score with his three friends!

… even if Yoko's seemed to go up extremely slowly.

Like really, it had only gone up three points since that time he gave her all those cranes! Three! At that rate, it would take him forever to make a party!

He had learned from the tutorials that occasionally popped up around the academy that he could make something called a party, which sounded really cool to him because then he could actually share his abilities with other people, but apparently he needed a relationship score of 25 with at least three people around his age to make one.

He had already gotten to above 25 with Shino and Hinata, so all that was left was Yoko.

And, as usual, she was being frustrating.

He guessed he could try to raise his relationship score with someone else, like kiba, but he didn't really want to give up with Yoko.

Plus, he really couldn't add Shino without adding her since they went everywhere with each other, so he couldn't really not include her.

He was still somewhat angry at his horribly slow progress though. He knew he had all the time in the world to get her score up, but he couldn't shake a strange foreboding feeling that something was going to happen soon…

He felt another headache come on and quickly took a pill from his pocket to swallow it.

He dipped his hand into his pocket again to see how many pills he had left and found that he had only one left.

Great, he had to go buy more.

"So, Hinata, what's the plan for today?" Naruto asked. "My plan last time didn't go so well, so…"

Naruto found that he liked Hinata. Originally, he had thought she was some weirdo, but when he had met her the first time so long ago, his sense about people had given him a feeling that he had little experience with.

Happiness.

He didn't quite know why, but when he was around her, he felt really happy all of a sudden.

It kind of felt like when he was with the old man or Iruka, but it was… different? He couldn't quite place it.

And his gut feeling hadn't really been wrong. She was quiet and tended to act kinda weird with her whole fainting thing, but unlike everyone else, he found that she actually believed in him. Him, Naruto, the pariah. She believed without a doubt that he could be hokage one day.

She really was his closest friend at the moment.

"W-well… we could always t-take the head on approach… They always make their base in the same location, after all…"

Naruto scowled. Yoko, he learned, was probably as good as Sasuke, if not better, when it came to being a ninja. Shino was no slouch either, so the teams were kind of lopsided.

They knew that too, so to rub it in their faces, they always chose the same location whenever they used bases in any of their games. 'To give them a fair chance' they said. They even used the same traps every single time!

Naruto nodded. "Yeah! We know how they operate! Let's just go!"

Naruto looked up. He still had three minutes to wait.

This time, he was going to win!

Yoko waited patiently at the edge of a rather large, familiar clearing that was in the middle of the small forest by the academy.

It was mainly soft dirt with only a few sparse areas of grass here and there, the trees surrounding them far apart from one another. There were splotches of sunlight here and there, with one large beam of light right in the center where branches did not block the light. In that light were ten sticks in a circle, with Shino guarding them at a distance that was in between her and the sticks.

There were plenty of openings, both from above and around them, making it a pretty easy location to infiltrate.

It was also why she and Shino chose this particular location.

The game they were currently playing was one she was not too familiar with, but she knew the rules.

There were two teams. One with the objective to get at least one stick, and one that had to guard them. The ones that had to guard could only guard outside a certain radius of the sticks, with the two man teams meaning that one would guard an inner ring and one would guard an outer ring. The base was split up into four sections, and the attackers could only attack the sections the defenders were in. Since she was guarding the outer ring, if one of the attackers got past the outer ring defense, then she couldn't stop them as at that point only Shino could stop them. If they got past Shino, if he could run around in time, and to the sticks, then they were in a safe zone where they couldn't touch the person inside.

At least until they touched a stick. Then they could go after them and ignore the radius, as well as do with the sticks as they pleased until the attackers left the base.

Of course, if they happened to escape with a stick, then she or Shino could chase them down to get it back, but that would leave the base down a person, so staying within the clearing was usually the best option.

However, out of the ten sticks, there was one decoy stick. If that stick was taken back to the base and taken into the radius of their base, then the attacking team would lose.

Usually it was pretty easy to tell which stick was the decoy stick, with said stick having a red half, but occasionally when it was covered in dirt it was hard to tell. Also, as soon as they touched a stick, they were swarmed by the defense so there was little time to check if it was the decoy stick.

If the attacking team dropped a stick outside the inner circle, then it was returned to the base. If they happened to drop the decoy stick, then they also lost.

If a team member happens to get caught and says yield, they are taken to the center of the circle where they cannot take any of the sticks. The only way they could leave is if another team member happens to enter the circle. If both team members are captured, then they lose.

They had only played the game once or twice before, and it was clear that Hinata and Naruto were no match for the two of them together. So, they had decided to make a variation that specified instead of getting as many sticks as possible within fifteen minutes, they instead simply had to get one stick out and back to their base.

Yoko yawned. Ten minutes had to have passed by now.

She had already decided that she would capture Naruto in ten moves; eight if she had what Naruto's plan this time was going to be correct.

She took out two kunai, both blunted, and double checked that the wire in between them was still functional.

Yes, if she happened to be right, eight moves until victory.

She heard a rustling sound from a position slightly to the left of her and tossed the two kunai in that general direction.

Naruto, who had been the source of the rustling, forward flipped over the two kunai, as she had predicted and landed a fair distance in front of her.

One.

"Ha! Not gonna tie me up this time! I've caught on!" He jerked a thumb toward the two throwing implements, which had buried themselves into the soft dirt in front of two trees. "I'm going to get one of those sticks or my name isn't Naruto Uzumaki!"

One of the corners of her mouth curved up slightly. "Lose… by trap…"

She lazily lifted a hand toward an obvious rope trap that rested openly on the ground behind both Naruto and the two kunai she threw.

She could see the flames of anger rise in Naruto's eyes. "Alright, it's on!"

She smiled softly. Everything was going according to plan.

Naruto rushed toward her, fist cocked back for a punch.

She could see it already. One-two punch. Dodge both and get behind. 180 degree haymaker. Over the shoulder throw.

Naruto took a swipe at her face, but it missed the mark because Yoko had taken a step back and leaned, letting the fist sail by, her hair instead taking the brunt of the force, some of the wind caused by the force of the punch buffeting her eyes.

Two.

Naruto, unfazed, took another step forward and used his momentum from the previous punch to send another one her way. She took a similar approach to dodging this one, except instead of taking a step back, she took a step to the side, tripping him with her foot as she passed by.

Three.

Now came the tricky part. Naruto could just rush to the center, seeing as it was currently open as Shino was on the opposite side and facing away from her to guard the back, but she was positive that she had sufficiently riled him up so he would ignore the primary objective and instead try to attack her.

Naruto hopped to his feet and once again tried to rush her. "Take this!"

He opened with a wide swing of a fist.

Just as she expected.

She twisted around the fist so that her back was now digging into Naruto's torso and grabbed the protruding arm with both arms, redirecting the force of the punch downward and throwing Naruto back toward the clearing entrance, where he had originally entered.

Four.

Naruto managed to reorient himself in mid-air and prepared to land on his feet, but while he had still been flying, Yoko had thrown another kunai at him.

Five.

Seeing as this was just a game and she had no intention of harming him (well, not much, at least), she had thrown it late enough that Naruto would have enough time to dodge her thrown kunai without getting harmed.

And he proceeded to do so, tilting his torso backward and slightly to the left as the kunai.

What Naruto did not know, however, was that when she had gripped his arm, she had wrapped wire around it. Said wrapped wire led back to her left hand.

She pulled.

Six.

Naruto, who was half-way though dodging the kunai, suddenly jerked to the side, throwing his arms up in order to regain his balance.

The kunai she had thrown, which was now a good meter or so beyond Naruto, suddenly stopped in midair and proceeded to bounce backward, the kunai now wrapping around Naruto's arm because the projectile also had some wire tied to it, its movement directed by Yoko's other hand.

Seven.

"Hey! Lemme go!" Naruto exclaimed.

Naruto pulled against the bonds keeping him in place. Yoko had been counting on him to move backward instead of forward, as any person who could think about such a situation for about half a second would have done, so when he was half-way through taking a step back, she let go.

Eight.

Naruto lost his balance and back-pedaled to try to regain it, but he instead tripped over the wire strung between the two kunai that Yoko had thrown earlier.

He tumbled backward and hit the tree where she had pointed out the snare trap earlier, and Naruto found himself hanging upside-down, rope keeping him in the air.

Yoko slowly walked over, gathering her kunais as she traversed the distance between the two. "…Yield?"

Naruto seemed to grumble under his breath before sighing. "Yeah, yeah, I yield. Can you get me down now?"

She nodded and cut the rope.

Eight moves. Just as she predicted.

Yoko felt content.

The game had ended in his and Hinata's loss.

He had told Hinata to go around to the side and wait for an opening, but he had been taken out so quickly that she could neither reach him in time nor use the small opening he created to get to the center.

Losing to the two happened pretty often, so he wasn't all that upset. Plus he got some experience and raised his relationship score despite the loss, so it wasn't all bad news.

There was something strange that he had noticed, though.

Afterwards, they had sat around and talked a bit, as they usually did. However, Yoko seemed… spacy? Yeah, that was the term.

He was more surprised he even noticed really. She didn't speak much and when she did, she spoke really quietly.

He only found out about how out of it she was because she had taken a while to respond to a question Shino asked.

Shino.

The guy she followed around and lit people's apartments on fire for.

Naruto was still slightly miffed at that.

She had left soon after they had lunch, saying she needed to go back to the apartment she was staying at, leaving him alone with Hinata and Shino.

"Hey, Hinata, Shino, do you think Yoko's acting a bit… strange?" He took another chopstick full of his ramen, blowing on it to make sure he didn't burn his tongue on it. "She looked kinda out of it."

"Indeed." Shino commented while staring into his own empty bowl. "I am surprised you took notice, Uzumaki-san. I did not take your sense of other's emotional states, especially that of Yoko-san, to be so… acute."

Naruto put on an irritated look. "Hey! I can be acute!" He took another bite and turned to Hinata, who was also eating her own bowl. "Right Hinata?"

"Oh… Y-yes, Naruto-kun can be very receptive to other people's feelings, Shino-san." After she finished the sentence, she seemed to say something else, but all Naruto caught was "If only he could…. My…."

Naruto assumed that it probably wasn't all that important if she hadn't said it out loud.

Naruto turned back to Shino. "See?! Hinata backs me up!"

His coat wearing friend looked up from his bowl and nodded. "Very well. I am sorry for having doubted you, Uzumaki-san. As you were saying…?"

He nodded in triumph. "Yeah! So, anyway, Yoko seems to be a bit out of it. You two know anything about that?"

Shino shook his head. "I'm afraid nothing immediately comes to mind, although I have been worried about her mental health these last few weeks." He moved his head so he made eye contact with Hinata. Or, that's how it looked like to Naruto. It was hard to tell with the sunglasses. "Do you have any ideas, Hyuuga-san?"

"N-no… I don't think so…" She took a ramen noodle and placed it in her mouth, chewing it slowly in thought. "Oh! It might be that…"

"So you have a clue then? Mind tellin' us?"

Shino also responded. "Yes, please enlighten us, Hyuuga-san."

She looked back down at her bowl and slightly away from the two of them. "W-well, it's k-kind of personal… I-if she hasn't told you then…"

Naruto placed a hand on her shoulder and made sure to look her in the eye when she lifted her head up. "Come on, Hinata! This might be important! She's your friend too!"

Her face reddened and she nodded quickly. "A-alright…" She took a deep breath and released it, sending steam from her ramen floating lazily away from her. "Do you know Yoko has a sister?"

Naruto looked bewildered. "She has a sister?!"

"I have met her on occasion." Shino replied. "She… is a very laid back person, from what I recall."

Hinata nodded. "Yes… from what she has told me, her sister takes care of her since she's older…" She sighed and leaned into the table. "And now she hasn't been feeling all that well as of late…"

"Does she have the same thing Yoko has then? Where she can't move around much and stuff?"

Hinata shook her head fervently. "N-No. It's just that she's been getting really sick lately…"

"So she went home to take care of her?" Naruto tilted his head in confusion. "Wait, if her sister is sick, why'd she come out here to play with us? Shouldn't she just stay at home?"

Hinata sighed. "Yoko told me that her sister always got better by the afternoon…"

Naruto became even more confused. "What kind of person gets sick, gets better in half a day, and then gets sick again?"

"I-I'm sorry Naruto-kun. Th-that's all she told me."

He stared into his ramen bowl and swirled some noodles around. "So, we need to do something for her, right? If her sister is sick, then we should help by doing something about it!"

Hinata shook her head. "I-I don't think that would be a very good idea, Naruto-kun."

"And why wouldn't it be?! All we would be doing is going over to her place and-"

"-and that is precisely the problem, Uzumaki-san." Shino interjected. "I have met her sister and I believe I know Yoko-san better than you do. Her sister prefers being alone, as being with others makes her uncomfortable. Yoko-san also likes to separate her home life from her life outside, so it would be folly to intrude on her personal space."

Naruto gobbled down another few clumps of noodles as he tried to think the problem over. He still didn't quite get why he couldn't help a friend who sounded like they needed help, but if they said that he shouldn't, he probably shouldn't.

Normally, he would just do it anyway, but he trusted his friends' judgments enough that he would do what they told him not to do.

So, since he couldn't solve the problem directly, then maybe he could just try to cheer her up?

… He couldn't really think of any ways of making her happy other than setting the academy on fire.

As much as he would have liked to do that, that would be illegal and he already knew how angry Iruka-sensei got when he accidentally broke something.

"Do you guys have any ways of cheering her up? I can't think of anything…"

Hinata looked back down at her bowl in contemplation. "I-I don't know…"

Shino gave his thoughts. "Her birthday will be coming up soon."

Naruto straightened. "Birthday? She has a birthday?"

"Yes, Uzumaki-san. Yoko was conceived on a day, just as everyone else was."

He was about to question what Shino was talking about, but he decided to push the question back for later and instead ask, "When is it?"

Shino shifted his posture and was about to speak, but Hinata answered in his stead. "I-it's July 21st, Naruto-kun…."

July 21st? Naruto tried to count how many weeks away that was. Today was the 28th of June so… "That's in three weeks!"

"Three weeks, two days, if you prefer accuracy." Shino said offhandedly.

"But that's still super close!" He slammed his hands next to his bowl, causing it to bounce and clatter against the table. "Alright, I've decided! We're going to try to be the best friends possible for the next three weeks and then give her the best birthday she's ever had!"

Naruto picked up the bowl in front of him and finished off the rest of the contents, his future plans decided.

He was going to try to cheer her up as much as possible!

Yoko arrived back at the apartment to see Miku and their current caretaker lounging on the couch.

"Hora, Yoko I was waiting for you!" She heard her sister call. "Mind getting me some water? I'm kind of thirsty."

Outwardly, Yoko gave her best annoyed expression, which basically consisted of a slight downturn of the lips, but inwardly she was sighing with relief. She was fine. Everything was okay.

The other occupant of the couch, who she assumed had come back from her mission recently as she was still clothed in her work garb, twitched and opened an eye, her single iris locking onto her own eyes. "Sup palm tree chibi." She stretched and let herself fall into the couch. "Mind getting me a tray of dango too? I ate all the ones in the mini-fridge."

She narrowed her eyes, but decided it wouldn't be very nice to her current landlady to refuse a request.

She went to the kitchen and took a glass from one of the cupboards, filling it with water from the tap. Then she grabbed a plate of dango from the fridge and balanced it on top of the glass, before sitting down in front of the two, placing both requested items on the table that separated them.

"Thanks, kiddo." Anko used her foot to grab the plastic wrapped plate and threw it toward her face, which she lazily caught with her left hand. "It was a long week…"

Miku slowly got up from her lying position and reached for the glass, which was just out of reach of her fingertips. She leaned slightly further and gripped the glass firmly, before bringing it to her face and downing the contents in a few gulps. "Thanks Yoko."

Yoko rolled her eyes.

She knew it was illogical to worry, seeing as previous evidence suggested that Miku would be alright by the time she returned, but she couldn't help but have the irrational fear that one day she would come back and find Miku just as she left her in the morning.

She supposed that irrationality was the only rational response.

She loved her sister, after all.

Yoko reached into her inner coat pocket and pulled out a worn scroll, unravelling it on the table.

She placed some chakra into it and a similarly worn Go board popped out.

"Hora hora, want to get beaten already, Yoko?" Miku smiled at her. "I suppose I can't just say no, can I?"

Same cocky attitude, same relaxed expression, same lazy movements…

Yes, that was the Miku she knew.

"So, you want to go for a penalty? Also, first or second?"

But that Miku would be gone tomorrow morning. Just as it seemed to every morning for the past couple of weeks.

"Oh, you two are playing again? Move over, chibi, I wanna watch this."

She took a piece out from one of the pots and placed it on the board, signifying that she would take no penalty and that she would go first.

"Really, Yoko? Alright, I got this. I'm callin… win by two and a half?" Miku nodded to herself. "Yeah. Two and a half."

If what she had been hypothesizing earlier had been even remotely correct, then she supposed that this might be one of the last games she might play with Miku.

"… Baka…"

Anko chuckled. "She called you a baka. You gonna sit there and take that, chibi?"

"Heh. She calls me baka all the time. It's cool though. Like I said, I got this." Miku took a piece and made a flourishing movement with her hand before carefully placing it on the board. "Since when were you under the impression I wasn't going to win this, double onee-chan?"

"And what did I tell you about calling me that?"

"Hora hora, at least it's only double onee-chan and not obaa-san, eh?"

Anko stuck her dango stick in her mouth grabbed her sister in a choke hold, pressing her to her chest. She then started to rub her knuckles across the top of her skull. "No more nice Anko, chibi!"

"Hora! Let go let go let go let go it hurts! Stop stop stop stop!" Miku wriggled in her hold.

Yoko smiled.

If she happened to live through whatever was going to happen, she was going to miss her sister…

Naruto dodged another swipe from Yoko as he tried to prevent him from getting to the center of the clearing he and Hinata had set up.

They had decided to play the stick defense game again, this week, with Naruto being the defense this time.

Yoko had attacked Naruto solo, leaving Shino free to attack from somewhere when she found the opportunity.

Although, it was actually rather dangerous for Shino to attack because they had decided to let Hinata use her gentle fist.

Shino had also stated that this time Yoko would not use any of her plans on Naruto to give them a fair chance, since the last few games had always wound up with him on his back staring at the sky or hanging from somewhere with no clue as to what happened.

Sure, he had a danger sensing ability to help him, but it only told him danger was coming a split second before it would actually occur, leaving him with not enough time to react, and it didn't help all that much if he couldn't change his movements because he had tripped because Yoko had placed a wire or something.

Maybe he should have put some points into speed after all?

He saw another punch come toward his face, and he jumped backward. However, Yoko seemed to expect this and jumped after him, kneeing him in the solar plexus and sending him rolling backward.

Naruto quickly rebounded by rolling into a ball and flipping back onto his feet, taking a few steps forward to keep himself out of the boundary he was supposed to be defending while also closing the gap between himself and Yoko, who was slowly moving forward.

Naruto knew Yoko was weak. He had asked her to punch him as hard as possible once just to try to gauge her strength physically, and what he had discovered was that her punch, while it had hurt, hadn't even caused him to wince.

The Yoko in front of him, however, was someone he could only describe as strong.

She was brutally efficient. When he tried to punch her, it seemed more like he missed rather than she moved, and when she hit him, she hit him where it hurt. Stomach, neck, eyes, it didn't matter. It was all fair game to her.

Sure, she didn't put much force behind her blows, but she didn't need to. She used his own force against him. If he happened to be moving toward her, she would sidestep and elbow him in the kidney, using only the force of his run toward her to cause the damage.

He of course, had protested her brutal methods, but she would respond with a finger pointed at him along with a single "fine" and his entire argument would fall on deaf ears.

He couldn't even show any bruises because he healed quickly.

Sometimes he hated his abilities.

Fighting Yoko was difficult. If he could describe it, it was like she had a bubble around her. Anything that entered the bubble was hers to destroy. She had an area of control that he simply could not conquer and it was starting to grate on his nerves.

The only time he had ever managed to surprise her was the time he had caught her in a bear hug, but that hadn't lasted long enough for him to make a move, as she simply head-butted him using the back of her head and escaped.

Naruto was really glad he had her as a friend. He couldn't imagine what someone like her would do to an enemy…

Oh, wait. He could.

Naruto decided to wait for a strike from her this time because every time he tried to throw a punch or kick she just dodged. However, she simply continued to walk forward as though he wasn't even there.

Feeling angry, he once again stood in front of her and held his arms out, creating a blockade.

In an instant, she changed her speed from a slow saunter to a dash and spun under his arm, wrapping her leg around his own and taking his head in a choke hold.

She squeezed her arm, strangling him, and followed that up by using her hooked leg to make him lose his balance and cause him to fall back, right onto her knee. She then pulled him up using her arm and slammed him back onto her knee again. This maneuver was repeated a couple of times before she finally let go of her hold, punching him in the face on the way down.

"Oww…" Naruto moaned. Despite having only the briefest sensation of pain, that brief second contained so much of it…

Yoko continued onward as though nothing had occurred, completely ignoring him.

He got up once again and cupped his hands to his mouth. "Hinata! Switch!"

Naruto rushed around to the other side while Hinata took over on his side, seeing as he couldn't go any further past that point.

He clapped Hinata's hand as he raced by, but as soon as he entered the quadrant she had just left, Shino ran forth from the opposite side.

Naruto, of course, refused to let him just have a straight pass to the sticks, so he leaned down and tried his best to tackle Shino to the ground.

Shino tried to dodge, but Naruto swung his arm out and managed to pull him into the tackle.

Naruto didn't feel much force to his charge. He stopped his charge and Shino kept moving backward, before eventually stopping.

He figured he had jumped backward with his strike, keeping the bulk of the damage away from himself.

Naruto once again charged him, sending a kick toward his torso. Shino raised both arms to defend against the strike, and then used an elbow strike to push Naruto backward.

He followed that up with a chop to the chest followed by a powerful punch to the abdomen.

Naruto would have been stunned from the force and pushed back slightly, but that did not happen. Shino had grabbed his arm, twisted around him, and thrown him toward the sticks.

Unlike Yoko's throws, this one had more force behind it, so he while he was able to reorient himself in midair to land back on his feet, he tumbled a few times right into the center circle, knocking all the sticks out of their holes.

One of the sticks had hit his hand and was sent flying into the air, and Shino used the chance to throw a kunai at it and change its trajectory.

Instead of following an arc, the kunai smashed into it and sent the small, wooden object in the general direction of where Hinata was keeping Yoko occupied.

Yoko disengaged from her spout with Hinata and reached out to grab the stick. Hinata, having her back turned, had not seen what had happened behind her and was too late in compensating for Yoko's sudden movement away from her.

Yoko plucked it out of midair and rushed out of the zone along with Shino, who dashed out in the opposite direction.

Naruto got up from his position on the ground to see that the field was empty except for Hinata and the sticks scattered around him.

He counted the sticks and groaned loudly, before letting himself fall back onto the dirt with a dull thud.

They had lost. Again.

"-I still say it's completely unfair!" Naruto said as he munched on a cinnamon bun. "I mean, you didn't even reach the center ring!"

Yoko had decided to stay with the others after finishing her meal instead of leaving like she usually did.

The stand was, as usual, warmer under the canopy than it was outside due to the heat and the steam generated from the cooking going on in the back. She had already eaten all the ramen Naruto had bought for her and had decided to rest her head on her arm, listening in on their conversations as she usually did.

Yoko personally didn't really care for the ramen here. To her, it was filling and it tasted alright, but she had no clue why Naruto seemed to swear by it. However, Naruto had bought her a bowl, so she had eaten it.

She took a quick nibble of her own cinnamon roll and swallowed, delighting in the sweet taste. Hinata had brought them for everyone today, so she had taken a couple and stashed them away for later, knowing if she didn't Naruto and Hinata would eat them all.

Those two had bottomless stomachs. She didn't even know a single human being could eat so much without looking like an akimichi, let alone two…

"We did not need to, Uzumaki-san" Shino countered. "I believe you were the one who stated that merely having touched an object that reaches the center ring counts as making it there."

"But I thought that would be a kunai or something! Not me!"

Shino simply dipped his head. "But you do not deny that I am correct."

Naruto stabbed his chopsticks into his ramen. "It's still unfair…"

Yoko remembered telling Shino about that particular loophole. Naruto had stated that if the two of them happened to have touched something that landed in the circle of sticks, then they could fall back and defend the sticks from the center position. Seeing as the circle of sticks would be much easier to defend with the two of them unconstrained from the boundary rules, they thought it would be a rule that would tip the odds in their favor.

She had seen through it and had told Shino to toss Naruto into the sticks. She had hoped he would dislodge at least a couple of the sticks and leave Naruto disoriented, letting Shino rush him and pick up the sticks that had fallen away from the center and into the inner circle.

The blond idiot had managed to finally figure out that fighting against her was folly this time. Hinata was a much better matchup against her, seeing as her zone of control was shattered with the hyuuga gentle fist.

Of course, she knew despite the fact that Hinata would never use gentle fist on her due to her condition, she still treated her as if she were using it.

Even despite that, most of her plans tended to fail when it came to Hinata. Hinata was much better at taijutsu than she was, so her plans, which mainly involved positioning her opponent, couldn't operate seeing as she couldn't pressure her into places she wanted her to go. She also wasn't Naruto, so she couldn't act merciless as she usually did.

However, she could definitely keep her in place and prevent her from moving back.

Which was exactly what she did.

She liked when plans came together.

"A-ano… Yoko… Is your sister feeling any better?"

Yoko lifted her head up and refocused on Hinata, who had decided to sit next to her today instead of next to Naruto. Usually, the seating order went, her on the far end, followed by Shino, then Hinata and finally Naruto. Today, however, Hinata had decided to sit on her other side.

She shrugged. "Not… Really…"

"Still?"

Yoko nodded slowly.

"O-oh… Okay…" Hinata stared into her bowl of ramen. "A-are you sure she'll be okay alone?"

Yoko nodded once again. Her sister hadn't nearly been as delirious today as she had been over a week ago. If anything, she seemed to actually look better than usual.

She had been thinking over her theory for the past week and found it to have too many holes. For one, if her sister had decided to leave as she thought she did, then it would be too easy to work out that there was foul play.

Judging by the number of times Miku had been coming home looking like she was about to keel over, then the theoretical amount of blood she had to have stored somewhere would be about as much as she could have possibly contained in her body. Maybe even more so.

If she were to dump all of that on the floor somewhere, it would be way to obvious her death was faked.

There was also the fact that she would need a body. Yoko had no doubt in her mind that if push came to shove, Miku could and would kill someone without remorse.

She remembered a test their mother had given them a long time ago. She had bought a rabbit and had kept it in a cage, letting the two of them pet it and feed it. She had even named it Shiro, because of its white coat.

And then, one day, mother had told them that they wouldn't receive any more food from her until they had accomplished a task she had set.

The task had been to kill the rabbit.

She had stated that the world of ninja could be cruel and heartless, and that sometimes you had to do things you didn't want to do. She had held the rabbit by the scruff and handed it to Miku, telling her that they had to kill the rabbit by slitting its throat. They couldn't do it any other way either.

Miku had objected, of course, but mother had left before she could get a word in edge-wise.

Yoko hadn't really wanted to either.

She liked cute things, after all.

Soon after she had left, Miku had dumped the rabbit back in its cage and gone to sleep, telling her she could kill the rabbit if she wanted to.

Yoko had gone to pick up the rabbit and had gotten as far as putting a kunai to its throat, but she found she simply could not perform the task.

She had done what Miku had done and placed it back in its cage, before going to sleep.

It had gone on like that for three days, with mother not giving them anything to eat for those three days. She had even stored the fridge and all the dry foods in separate scrolls, leaving them without anything to eat for those days.

At that point, Miku had started to get irritated from the lack of food. Mother had noticed her irritation and had jokingly suggested she could eat the rabbit if she was hungry.

The two of them had killed plenty of rabbits before out in the woods, with both of them learning how to prepare game they had caught, but she had not developed any sort of attachment to them as she had with Shiro.

She supposed in retrospect the two of them could have gone to the woods and hunted food that way, but neither of them had thought to do that.

Well, perhaps Miku had, but Yoko knew her sister would lie on the floor starved than actually work to get food until the very last moment.

That night, she remembered Miku sighing and stating that enough was enough. She went over to one of the rooms and took one of the spare kunais that were stashed around the house. She then had taken the entire cage and made her way to the kitchen, where she had proceeded to carefully pull the rabbit out and hold it over the sink.

There had been no hesitation.

No remorse. Nothing. It had been a purely mechanical action. There had been a look of disgust from when the blood had dripped onto her hands, but that had been it.

Afterward, she had watched her sister wash her hands thoroughly, trying as hard as possible to get the blood off her hands. Her sister hated getting her hands dirty, so every time she went to make a slice to properly prepare the rabbit, she would wash her hands.

She remembered seeing her sister smile at her. 'Don't worry, I'll share,' she had said.

She remembered feeling a combination of sadness, anger, and terror at the sight.

Miku had always been like that. She could put up a front for caring, but when the time came, all the buildup of worry and anguish landed flat.

She wasn't sure if Miku just didn't bother to put in the effort to care or she was simply incapable of caring, but either way, it was disturbing.

Afterward, when her mother had come home, she remembered the disappointment in her tone. The entire thing had been a test, and the point was never to have killed the rabbit. All they had had to do was last three days and then she would have explained the point of the test. She remembered her saying that she had thought this had been she thought no one could possibly fail, but Miku had.

Miku had gone to sleep hungry that night.

She could kill no problem. That she was sure of.

The problem came with the fact that if she were to leave a body behind, it would have to be basically her twin. If anyone bothered to check medical records and compare the body left with what was on record, then the plan would fall apart.

It didn't make sense. It just didn't.

"Hey, Yoko! I was at the shop yesterday and saw these! They kinda looked like the stuff you use, so I thought I'd get 'em for you!"

Yoko broke out of her thoughts and turned her head the other way, looking down the table to where was waving something at her.

She focused on what he was waving and widened her eyes just a fraction.

Yoko snatched the stacked objects out of his hand and began to fiddle with them.

"Hey! At least you could say thanks!"

Yoko wasn't really listening. She was too busy trying to identify if what Naruto had handed her had the same properties as what she usually dealt with.

She lifted it up in the air, toward the sun, and took note of its opacity. Yes, that was definitely the same. She then folded it in half, noting the distinct crinkling sound that particular brand made.

Yes, this was the same paper she normally got when she tried to make origami.

Strange. This was specialty made paper from a store that was only in the Uchiha district. How did Naruto get it?

She took a quick glance at Naruto who seemed to really be straining a smile.

"…Thanks…" She said in her usual soft monotone. "…Baka."

"Hey! That was stuff was expensive! You know-" Shino leaned over and whispered something to him. She wasn't close enough to hear what was being said. "…Uh, I mean, don't mention it."

She decided to simply shrug it off.

She made another crease with one of the slips of paper Naruto had handed her.

Maybe Naruto wasn't all that bad of a friend.

She liked Origami paper, after all.

"… She's late."

Naruto had been sitting on the swing outside the academy, swinging back and forth as he waited for the last of his friends to show up.

It was really hot, too. Konoha summer had decided to slam into the village with a massive heat wave, so now, despite being under the shade of a tree and having the top of his jumpsuit tied around his waist, he was feeling overheated.

Beads of sweat trailed down his scrunched up eyebrows as he groaned in frustration. "Gah! When will she get here! It's so hot! I wanna go to the river already!"

"Patience is a virtue, Uzumaki-san."

Naruto glared at Shino. He had no idea how he did it. There he was, leaning against a tree in that big stuffy jacket of his, acting as if he wasn't feeling the heat at all.

"But I feel like I'm being cooked alive!" Naruto's grip on the sides of the swing tightened. "Come on, Shino! Can't you go over to her place and tell her to hurry up?!"

Shino shook his head. "Unfortunately, Naruto, I cannot. Her new location of residence is not known to me."

Hinata, who had been sitting by the swing on the other side of Naruto, lifted an arm up, a water bottle clutched in her hand. "I-if you like, Naruto-kun, I brought an extra bottle of water…"

He felt he could cry. "Thanks Hinata, this is perfect!" He took the bottle and used a bit of it to drizzle some water on his head, cooling it, before taking a big swig. "Ah… Much better!"

He gave his best appreciative smile at her. Her face turned red and she turned away. Was the heat affecting her more than he thought? She was still wearing that jacket of hers, even if it was unzipped… "Hey, Hinata, are you okay? You look kinda red…"

"I-I'm fine, Naruto-kun! Th-thank you for w-worrying though…"

Naruto stared for a second longer, before shrugging and returning to waiting.

"Uzumaki-san, I have been meaning to ask, have you obtained the materials?"

Naruto tilted his head and shot a quick glance at Shino before letting his head rest against the rope. "Yeah, yeah. I picked up the rest of it today. All we have to do is put it together."

"…I see. And have you obtained the goods, Hyuuga-san?"

"H-hai…" Hinata spoke up from next to him.

"Then it seems we have all we need."

Naruto gave a slow nod and a yawn in confirmation.

They had been planning something special for Yoko's birthday, so they had all pitched in to buy some stuff for a small get together on that particular day. They all knew Yoko was most likely going to spend that day at home, but they could at least have an hour or so of her time to celebrate together.

He just hoped it would be good enough for her to catapult their relationship score over the 25 mark. He was close, having gotten it to 21, but it still needed at least 4 more points.

And he had less than a week to obtain those points.

Naruto waited another five minutes before he saw a figure approaching in the distance.

"Hey, there she is!" Naruto pointed a finger in her direction. "You're late!"

Yoko slowly ambled over to the group, stopping directly in front of Hinata.

"Listen, Yoko, your birthday is in a couple of days right? So, we were thinking, you usually spend your birthday with your family, right?" Naruto pointed at his other two stationary friends. "We understand if you don't want to leave, but if you could, would you mind spending a bit of time with us?"

Naruto could make out her eyes widening a fraction and her mouth opening to say something, but she closed it instantly. Blinking calmly, she once again opened her mouth and spoke, "… Sorry…"

She then proceeded to turn around and walk back the way she came.

"Hey, wait, where are you going?!" Naruto called out. "And what's with the sorry?"

Yoko hesitated and then turned herself so she faced them again. "Nee-san… Sick…"

She then continued her previous course of action.

Naruto was about to call out for her again, but he felt his words stuck in his throat.

Soon enough, Yoko had disappeared, leaving the three alone.

"… So, anyone want to translate for me?" Naruto asked.

"I thought what she was trying to convey was obvious, Uzumaki-san." Naruto fumed silently. Not everyone could understand what someone meant with just a few words. "Yoko-san's sister has not recovered as per usual. Thus, she has decided today to stay home to look after her, possibly for the next few days after should her condition persist. Hence the sorry she said at the start."

The blond furrowed his brow and frowned. "Well that sucks."

Shino nodded. "Yes, it does, as you so eloquently put it, suck."

"… Does that mean if her sister is still sick in a few days, she won't come?"

"Possibly."

Naruto sighed. "I guess we can hope, right? Even if we can't hold a party on her birthday, we can do it later…"

He didn't feel like he had time though, despite how sure he sounded.

He winced, a dull throb forcing its way into his forehead.

His sudden headaches had stopped a while ago, instead replaced by a constant dull throbbing sensation that wouldn't go away.

He shoved a hand in his pocket and swallowed one of the few pills he kept in it, easing the pain instantly.

Time was not on Naruto's side… He didn't know how or why, but he knew, he had to do something, anything.

He just didn't know what.

"Hora… Yoko… What are you still doing here…?"

Yoko looked up over the book she was reading to see Miku, head poking out of the blankets that she had wrapped her in, the wet towel she had placed on her head slipping from where Yoko had placed it earlier.

Yoko shrugged. "… Sick…"

Miku had gotten sick a couple of days ago.

When Yoko had seen her a few days ago, looking worse than usual, she had assumed that, as usual, she would get better by the afternoon.

She didn't.

She had been surprised upon returning home to see her sister still lying in her blanket, her face red and her hair slightly damp.

She couldn't recall a time where Miku had been sick for longer than half a day. It was normally the other way around, with her sister taking care of her.

So, because she was both her sister and she owed her for all the times she had taken care of her, she had decided to ignore her friends for a couple of days to take care of Miku.

"Hora hora… I know that…" She wheezed out a breath. "But it's… your birthday… By the way… happy birthday Yoko… Sorry…. I don't have a present for you this time…"

Yoko blinked. "It's… okay…"

"No… it isn't…" Miku shifted her head into a more comfortable position. "You should go… have fun… No reason for you to stay here with me..."

Yoko shook her head. There was no way she was leaving her sister alone.

"Trust me, I'll be fine by the time you come back…" Miku attempted to sit up. "See? Feelin' better already…"

No, Yoko could not see. Her sister looked ready to throw up from just getting up and was breathing even harder than she previously was.

"Like I said… I'm fine, Yoko…" Her sister lifted a clammy hand out from under her blanket and patted her on the head. "Just go. Anko's going to back early today to take me back anyway… there's no reason for you to be here."

Yoko was about to argue the point, but decided against it. Her sister did indeed have a point, as much as she hated to admit it. While she did look bad, she didn't look like she was going to collapse. Anko was going to show up soon because their mother had sent a missive saying she would return tomorrow and that left Miku with someone to take care of her.

"Listen, you don't go out and have fun and I'll decide to just walk back home. All the way across konoha. Sick. Do you want me to do that? No? Me either. So just leave and have fun today…"Her sister took several deep breathes. "Like I said. I'll be fine. Just need some time to rest a bit…"

Miku let herself fall on the couch cushions. "Ah, yeah… that feels much better…"

Yoko took another glance at Miku and, after thinking on it heavily, nodded toward her sister.

"Great! Now leave… Your body heat makes me feel like I'm going to throw up…"

Yoko shook her head. "…baka…"

"Hora hora… whatever…"

Yoko closed her book and got up from her seat, leaving the apartment.

She did not leave, however, instead taking a deep breath and sighing, letting herself lean against the wall and slowly slide down it.

Miku hadn't been the only one not feeling well.

Yoko knew she had overextended herself the past few days taking care of her sister, but she hadn't thought she would actually get sick as well.

She had run out of medicine several days ago and was due for a refill tomorrow, so she couldn't take that, and because she had stayed up late taking care of Miku the past few days, she hadn't been able to sleep well, so her overall chakra reserves were lower than they normally were.

It wasn't anything she couldn't handle though. As long as she didn't do anything too strenuous…

She picked herself up off the floor after her quick breather and then finally left the building.

Naruto stared at the sky.

It was a clear day. There were a few clouds on the horizon, but other than that, the sky was a clear blue. The wind had picked up, making the heat wave that had descended upon konoha more bearable, but it was still hot.

Various birds sailed along the currents high in the sky, chirping away annoyingly like they did every morning. Occasionally he would spot a bird landing on a branch in the tree line, but he didn't bother trying to keep track of them after they had landed.

However, Naruto was focused on one thing in particular.

That something was the floating black numbers above his head, with text before it.

'Important Event(s)!'

'For Whom the Bell Tolls…: Prevent her death.'

'An eye for an eye: Help Sasuke in his time of need.'

'Time Until Event(s) Start: 70:10:42'

'Status: Accepted, Accepted'

Naruto frowned.

The black words had showed up when he had woken up. Being him, he had of course accepted. He wouldn't let anyone die on his watch! Plus, since it was a black mission, it meant if he failed then it wouldn't really affect him, but he barely even considered not doing anything.

Problem was, he had yet to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do.

Her? Who was her? And Sasuke? Why would Sasuke need his help?

He massaged his temples. Despite having taken the pain medication, he could already feel another headache starting to form.

Maybe he could try using that logic thing he heard Shino always talking about. Yeah, that always worked for him and Yoko, why couldn't it work for the great Naruto Uzumaki?

Logically, logically, logically… Logically. Logi-cally. Logic. Lo-gic.

How does one think logically?!

Naruto thumped his head against the tree he was leaning against. There. That should straighten his thoughts out…

Logic… He just had to start at the beginning. That's what Shino had told him.

What did he know? He knew that he had to save a she. A girl.

So a girl he knew?

He could only think of three girls off the top of his head.

Hinata, Yoko, and Ayame were really the only girls he knew. Well, according to his friends list, anyway.

Which one did he have to save?

…

He came up blank.

"Gah!" Naruto yelled in frustration. "This is too hard!"

He knew he should have put some points in intelligence!

"… baka…"

Naruto's face whipped around to see Yoko, looking down on him from his sitting position on the grass.

"Hey! You showed up! Great!" Naruto jumped to a standing position, previous thoughts forgotten. "I didn't think you would show up…"

Yoko just stared at him from behind the strands of hair that obscured her face.

"Yeah, so, uh, Happy birthday!" Naruto threw his arms up in celebration and gave her his best 'you are awesome!' smile. "So, since you're here, does that mean your sister is good and stuff?"

Yoko continued to stare blankly.

"I'll take that as a yes? Maybe?" Naruto started waving his hand in front of her face. "Are you even there?"

The Uchiha responded by kneeing him in the stomach.

"…Shino?" Yoko asked the now bent over Naruto.

The blond quickly straightened himself and glared at her, before returning a strained smile to his face. "Ah, yeah, well, they went to get stuff ready… Ya know, party stuff?"

"Hmm…" Yoko hummed in response. "…Where?"

"Up on top of Hokage monument. Best place in the village, really." Naruto said matter-of-factly. "They should be back pretty soon, since they went up there- Oh, there they are! Shino! Hinata! Yoko showed up!"

Naruto watched as Yoko turned around and lightly tread toward the two approaching figures.

Naruto followed her example and also took off to meet his friends.

"So? How'd it go? Get everything ready?"

Shino nodded. "Yes. Everything is ready. However, I believe it would be best to wait until late afternoon before going up there. It is currently very windy." He lifted up some rope that Naruto recognized as his own. "Thank you for the rope. It was… Useful."

Naruto took the rope and stuffed it into his pocket dimension, the others not noticing the sudden disappearance of the item. "So what do we do in the mean time? You guys want to play a game or something until then?"

Since no one spoke up, Naruto decided that meant everyone was okay with it.

"What do you guys say to another round of stick defense?" Naruto pulled out some sticks from his pocket. "I'll play def-"

"Defense." Yoko spoke up.

"Well, if you want… It is your birthday after all…"

Yoko snatched the sticks out of his hand and made her way toward the forest.

Naruto looked towards the others questioningly. "What's with her today?"

This had been a bad idea, Yoko thought in retrospect.

She leaned against a tree, trying to conserve her energy to last the rest of the day, but pretending to be fine was really taking a toll on her.

However, she had experience in both powering through sickness and masking it, so she felt she could hold out long enough today so that she could go home and rest.

Really, what had made her think coming out was a good idea? Her sister was sick, she was sick and low on chakra, and she had been planning on making a flowering tower today.

She decided she hated social obligations.

She was going to have to end this match quickly without wearing herself out.

Now, in what situation would she manage to perform the least while still winning?

Ah, she got it. All she needed was some ninja wire and…

"Yoko-san, are you alright?"

Yoko looked up. When had…? She really must be slipping if she hadn't noticed Shino walk up to her.

She nodded pushed herself off against the tree, letting herself lean into Shino instead.

Shino had, of course, caught her. He was reliable like that.

She liked reliable people.

"Yoko…?" Shino held her as though he were carrying glass instead of a person. She pushed into him a bit more. "…Very well…"

Shino wrapped his arms around her and gave her a light, yet warm, hug.

Yeah… If she could just stay like that forever, it would be nice…

Naruto brushed past the branches and shrubberies, carefully trying to home in on the position of the sticks.

He moved another branch carefully and took a peak upward, glancing at the ticking numbers that followed him around like a balloon that had its string tied around his arm.

While he was still trying to figure out what he was supposed to do, he felt that since he had three days to figure it out, he could take his time. Right now, he needed to try to win.

He wasn't going to go easy on Yoko even though it was her birthday!

… Not that she really needed him to go easy on her.

Naruto passed a few more trees before finally reaching the clearing.

It was the same old dirt clearing. Three rings were marked in the dirt with the outer in between zone divided in four and a circle of sticks defining the middle. He could see Shino facing away from him on the other side of the clearing, and Yoko… sitting on the ground?

Yeah, she was sitting on the ground. Facing away from him, even. This was his chance!

Naruto dashed toward the center from the corner of the quadrant, a fair distance away from where Yoko was sitting. She quickly positioned herself in a standing position, but Naruto had already gotten to the second circle.

He only had a few more meters to go and-!

He felt something thin press against his ankle.

Having some experience with Yoko's wire traps, Naruto acted before he thought and powered through the tripwire, which while it did cause him to lose his balance, he did not fall flat on his face.

Naruto rolled through the sticks, uprooting them from the ground.

His eyes dashed between them in an attempt to find one to pick up and found a normal one within his reach.

In the corner of his eye, he could see Hinata distracting Shino while Yoko was slowly walking toward him in her usual manner.

He pocketed the stick, the top half sticking out because his pocket couldn't hold the entirety of its length, and zigzagged toward Yoko, hoping that his maneuvers would be able to let him bypass her entirely.

She responded by throwing a series of kunai at him, which forced him to stop dodging because past experience told him that those kunai had wires attached to them.

He nearly missed the second volley of kunai she had thrown behind the first, this one covering the area in which she had corralled him into.

Naruto jumped over them and sent a wild punch in Yoko's direction.

She sidestepped, avoiding the fist altogether by grabbing it and using it to prevent him from escaping her incoming elbow to his ribs.

He pulled his arm in, pulling Yoko along with it as to avoid the blow to the ribs, but this simply ended with her headbutting him in the face.

He pushed away from her and decided now was the time for a somewhat dirty trick.

Naruto dashed toward her again, except instead of throwing a punch or kick as he normally would, he instead spun on his heel and used his other foot to send a spray of dirt in her direction, distracting her while he ran off in the other direction, where Hinata was still keeping Shino busy.

He ran by, Hinata disengaging as he did so, leaving them to run through the forest back to their own base.

He tossed a look over his shoulder to see Yoko gripping Shino's shoulder. Ha! They must have finally realized that they couldn't possibly catch up to him and thus lost!

He tilted his head to his right to see Hinata also looking rather pleased with herself, if the smile she was showing was any indication.

"Yes! We did it, Hinata!" He threw his hands up while he changed his pace to more of a skip to more visually represent his happiness. "We finally beat them!"

"Ha… ha… hai…." Hinata was a bit winded, but he could hear that she was definitely as happy as she looked. "We... finally did it!"

Naruto gripped her arm and pulled her along so they could get back to their base faster. "Come on! Let's hurry up! Go go go!"

He heard her eep in response to his sudden tug, but he was pretty sure she could keep up with his pace.

Soon enough, they reached the tree that was their base and gave a large hug to Hinata, swinging her around in delight.

"N-Naruto-kun! P-please put me down…"

Naruto immediately let go, feeling slightly embarrassed at his sudden action. "Sorry Hinata, it's just… that's the first time we've won! Ever!"

She simply nodded. "Ano… Naruto-kun, shouldn't you…?"

Naruto nodded quickly. "Right! Still gotta finalize the win after all…" Naruto took the stick out of his pocket without bothering to look at it and threw it into the soft earth, the tip imbedding into it.

"We win! We they lose! They suck! Team ramen is great beat Team creepy psycho! This day will live on forever!" Naruto danced in delight. "Come on Hinata, victory dance with me!"

Hinata, however, frowned and pointed at the stick. "N-naruto-kun? Did you take a look at the stick you took?"

Naruto nodded "Hm? Yeah? Why?" He turned around and looked at the thin object stuck in the ground. "Wait, what?!"

Buried in the ground was not the stick he had picked up.

Instead, the light tan top was met by a deep red at the half-way point on the stick.

Naruto felt himself deflate. "We… lost?"

"Indeed, Uzumaki-san. By your own hand."

Shino's voice spoke out from his position at the edge of the tree line, with him and Yoko walking casually toward their base.

"But I'm sure I picked up the correct stick! I checked! I'm sure of it!" Naruto exclaimed. "You cheated! There's no other way you could have done it!"

Yoko just shook her head.

"We did not cheat, Uzumaki-san." Shino crossed his arms. "You simply failed to notice an obvious ploy."

"Well, tell me whatcha did! I'm not gonna accept it until you tell me!" The blond harrumphed.

Shino looked as though he was about to speak, but Yoko tapped him on the shoulder to stop him. "… Later…"

"Later? Why later?!"

Yoko just shot him another one of her patented glares. "Later."

He thought it over. He could push the issue, but… "Fine, later… It's still my win until then though!"

Yoko continued to just stare at him. "…Party?"

Naruto took a second to try to piece together what she was talking about. "Oh, right! Yeah, the winds' probably died down now. Let's go!"

Naruto smiled. Yeah, today was going great! Even if Yoko was acting a little weird…

Yoko attempted to calm her breathing.

She could feel her heart racing from the trek to the top of the monument, and the slow chilling feeling taking over was not helping her cope in the slightest.

She shivered. Although the wind had indeed died down, there was still a breeze blowing atop the stone. Combined with the slowly developing fever she was sure she had, she was feeling particularly miserable.

"Tch…" She sneezed as quietly as she could.

She hated being sick.

As Naruto had stated, the view was beautiful.

From atop the fourths head, she could make out all of konoha. Off in the distance, she could see the Uchiha District, the crescent moon shape of the walls and the classical housing giving it away. Farther to the east she could see Hinata's home, a large square complex that dominated that particular quadrant of the village. Below her rested the academy and the hokage's tower, and all around her she could see the walls of konoha and the trees that stretched beyond.

When placed in contrast with the sky, it was like standing on the divide between heaven and earth.

"Come on Yoko! Stop sitting over there! We got stuff to show you!" Naruto bellowed out behind her. "Get over here!"

Yoko sighed and carefully moved her back away from the depression in the rock wall and got up, making her way over to where Naruto and the other were sitting.

"Finally! You were sitting there forever! I thought you went to sleep or something…"

She had actually been considering taking a nap considering how tired she felt, but Naruto's call had kept her from passing out.

"So, first off, Happy birthday! Woo!" Her other two friends started clapping and smiled at her. "I uh, don't know what to do after this. Guys, what do I do?"

"…Baka."

Really, Naruto could be an idiot sometimes.

Naruto stuck a tongue out in her direction, but then blinked and nodded to himself. "Right! I remember now! Where'd you guys put it?"

Hinata spoke up. "W-we put it behind that rock down there… C-careful! The rock we put on top is heavy…"

Naruto simply took a hand and clamped it on his bicep. "Don't worry! I'm plenty strong!"

He got up, knocking over some of the pebbles that had rested near his feet, and jumped down a level not too far away.

Soon enough, there was the distant sound of a rock falling down the side of the mountain and Naruto came back hefting a large triangular object over his shoulder.

"See? No problem! Rocks are no match for the great Naruto Uzumaki!" He then carefully placed the thin, opaque triangle on the ground, carefully opening it up. "And to start it off, here!"

Yoko took a few tentative steps forward and looked at what Naruto had brought was actually a giant origami plane glider. This one was of much better make, having clean edges and actually being symmetrical, with the edges lining up.

Contrary to popular belief, it was actually harder to make the edges line up properly on larger pieces and even small mistakes netted large discrepancies, so to have actually spent the time to line it all up properly must have taken him a while, even with help.

Inside, written in a thin layer of orange ink, were the words 'happy birthday! Here's to another year closer to becoming genin and being the best ninja I know! From Naruto, Hinata, and Shino.'

The names were written in different styles, so they had all signed it together.

"Uh, Shino told me after Hinata and I folded this that it would be kinda hard to just give it to you to keep, so we decided to do this!" He picked up the large piece of origami and slapped a long, thin object to it. "Let's hope this works…"

He went over to the edge of the mountain and propped open the wings, letting one of them rest on his shoulder while the other dangled, helplessly flapping about due to the breeze.

He took something out from his pocket and she heard the familiar sound of a lighter clicking.

"And… Go!"

He threw the plane with all his might.

Yoko walked over to the edge to see the plane nose-diving into the ground, before pulling up and sailing over the village, using the currents that traveled above the village to propel it.

"Wait for it…"

The glider reached about half-way over the village before she could see a glimmer of a bright blue flame make itself known.

The tiny flame quickly spread, devouring the entire plane in a blaze of glory.

Soon, the plane started to fall off, the bits being consumed by the fire, leaving no trace of it having ever existed.

Yoko supposed to a normal person that would have been insulting.

She didn't think of herself as a normal person, though.

She couldn't deny that it had made her happy to see the fire burn away something that flew so high.

She liked fire, after all.

"…Thanks." She tossed him a smile. Perhaps after she felt better she would come back up here and throw some planes herself. Maybe ask her mother to teach her that fireball jutsu she always heard the older ninjas talking about when she passed the gate…

"Ha! Knew you would like that!" Naruto's grin grew wider. "If only it was night though. Would've looked a lot better…"

She had to agree there. Night time was a good time to watch things catch alight. However, evenings were the best time to watch things burn…

"Yoko? Yoko~~! Yoko!" She snapped her attention to Naruto. She hadn't even realized she had lost her focus. "Great, you're still here!" He held out a slice of chocolate cake for her. "This is for you!"

Cake? When had he gotten cake? Where had he gotten it?

She glanced over to where Hinata and Shino were sitting and saw that they also had cakes. How long had she spaced out for?

"Go on, eat it! Hinata made it, and she's a really good cook! Trust me!"

Hinata rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. "N-naruto-kun kept eating the batter…"

"It was good though!"

She sat down next to Shino and started nibbling at the slice of cake in her hand, wary of her hands getting dirty. It was still warm, for whatever reason, with her fingers sticking to the spongy surface of it. The top was a messy spread of chocolate frosting with sprinkles, most likely Naruto's work with how uneven it was, but it still looked good.

She leaned against Shino, knowing that he would support some of her weight. She really needed to get some sleep; she couldn't keep going on like this.

"I know you don't want to stay here long, so after we finish eating, we'll give you some presents and then, if you want, we can take you back to that place you were staying at."

Yoko Halfway nodded before shaking her head in a negative. She pointed in the direction of the Uchiha district to clarify her point.

"Wait, you're walking back all the way over there?! Since when?"

She just kept silent. There was no point in answering.

"Fine, be that way…" He murmured.

She quickly devoured her piece of cake, Shino handing her a bottle of water to clean her hands with, and waited for the others to finish up, not really paying attention to the conversations they were having in between bites because of how horrible she felt.

"-Yoko-san? Y-Yoko-san?" She broke out of her disoriented state and gave a nod toward Hinata. "O-oh. I just wanted to give you this… H-happy birthday, Yoko-san."

Yoko looked down at the object in Hinata's hand.

A bookmark?

Yes, that was definitely what it was. It was a flat, well-made clear rectangle with designs imprinted on it, such as the Konoha and Uchiha symbol. Inside the rectangle, flattened against the two pieces on plastic that made up the bookmark, was a long, thin flower that looked as though it were on fire. It was extremely well made, and had she not known what Hinata's hobbies were, she would have guessed she bought it.

"I-It's a fire wing lily… They grow in the Hyuuga gardens, so I-I thought I could try making something with them…" She lowered her head in a bow. "I-I hope you like it!"

She examined it once again and nodded, stuffing the flower bookmark in her pocket.

Shino then held out his hand and presented her with… a coil of wire?

"I understand that you have taken a liking toward using wires." The pulled the end of one of the wires and tugged. "This wire is spun from one of our clan's bugs. It has an extremely high tensile strength while also having chakra conductive properties."

She gave Shino an appreciative nod. She could always trust him to be the most practical. She would definitely put it to good use.

"Best for last! Uzumaki Naruto presents you with…" Naruto put his hands behind his back. "Something! But not quite yet. There's two things I want to do first."

Yoko frowned. She had really wanted to just take her present and leave so she could finally rest, but she supposed she could wait…

He took out a four large cylindrical objects, each painted a different color.

"Let's see if the shop really does deliver…"

She took a closer look at the cylinders and realized they were actually fireworks, complete with the iconic cylinder with a cone top and swirls of different colors spiraling from the top down to the bottom.

He flicked the lighter she had heard him light earlier and began to light the fuses on each one in succession.

Naruto bounced excitedly as he watched the fuses get smaller and smaller, before eventually disappearing into the bottom of the entertaining explosive.

Four loud whistling noises filled the air as they all took off into the sky.

Yoko tracked their arc, with the rockets narrowly escaping her vision before she heard the concussive bangs of each one fill the air.

Huh. That was new. She had never seen fireworks do that before.

Up in the sky, instead of making the classical dandelion, they instead spelled out her name, with two of each forming one character of her Yoko.

Even more peculiar is that instead of exploding into sparks, they exploded into a multicolored wet substance which she assumed was paint. Said paint was probably splattering innocent bystanders on the street.

"Alright! That was perfect!"

Yoko had to admit that for just placing them without taking into account angle, wind speed, wind resistance, and explosive delay, that had worked too well.

She liked mysteries.

She hated ones that couldn't be solved.

"What'd ya think of that?! I spelled out your name and made a prank! It was perfect!"

Yoko just shrugged. It had been visually impressive, but she rather preferred the normal sparks to fade than the paint.

Naruto sighed. "Guess I should try hard next time, huh?" He plopped down next to her. "So, before I give you my present, mind telling me how you beat me in the game?"

Yoko considered it. She hadn't really wanted to tell him, considering how obvious the trick was, but she decided that she could give him a simplified version…

She pulled out the wire that Shino had given her as well as a kunai from her pocket. She then stuck the kunai into the ground and took the wire leading to it and moved it around her arm, making an angle.

She made a small walking animation using the two fingers from her free hand and made a show of tripping over the wire, with pulled the kunai out of the ground. She then pulled the wire and let the kunai bounce around her arm and into her palm.

Finally, she simply stuck it into his pocket.

"Wait, so the kunai is the stick?" Yoko gave a small, annoyed nod. "And… Oh, that wire I tripped over pulled the stick out… Hey, you replaced the stick when I charged you! That's cheating!"

"Not cheating…" Yoko countered. "Replacement… not in the rules…"

Naruto pouted. "I still say you cheated!"

Hmph. What was he getting so worked out? She had only replaced the stick. There was no rule against it. In fact, the rules specifically said she could do anything with the sticks as soon as the enemy team reached the base. Replacing a stick wasn't-

Wait, replacing?

"Fine, whatever, you win this one, but new rule! No more doing that! It's unfair!"

That was it.

She… she must have known for years. She must have been planning it for just as long. She had started going there a long time ago, after all. The visits made sense now, she guessed. She wouldn't have gone otherwise, especially considering her personality…

She would die, her mother would die… And it wasn't that Miku was not able to stop it. Well, that may be the case, but she was actually going to use it to her advantage.

She was going to make sure they died.

"So, here you go! I know it doesn't look like much, but this headband was really expensive, so please don't toss it! Plus, all that hair in your eyes must really annoy you sometimes, yeah? So I thought this would be the perfect present!"

She had all the resources to do it. It wouldn't be hard… No, it would be painfully easy. Too easy.

But her sister hadn't taken into account that she would figure it out.

"Just hold still for a second…" She felt something tie around her forhead and create a small band of pressure around her skill. "There we go! Huh, you actually look pretty good without that hair in your face, Yoko."

… No. She had. She had taken it into account.

That was why she was here. Why Miku had been like that the past week.

Miku hadn't been sick because she was ill.

She had forced sickness onto herself so that Yoko would wind up exactly as she was now.

But to assume she wouldn't figure it out until this moment… It shouldn't be possible.

But she could. Her sister occasionally looked at her notebook and was probably the best at reading her, next to their mother.

If she had figured it out any sooner, then…

"Yoko? Hello, Yoko?"

She couldn't possibly believe Miku would do that.

She couldn't.

But if she did?

"Yoko? Yoko! Yoko! Hey!"

… She supposed that even then, she could forgive her.

Yoko was her sister, and if she had to die to let her live? There wasn't a choice, she supposed.

She loved her sister after all.

"Yoko!"

Huh. She was really tired all of a sudden.

Yeah. Tired.

Sleep sounded… nice.

Naruto sat outside the hokage's office, his head in his hands.

He really should have seen it earlier. He should have.

Why hadn't he?!

He could have pulled up her stat window at any time, seen that her health was slowly going down, and told her she should have gone home.

Why hadn't he?!

The hokage had told him he really shouldn't have blamed himself, but he couldn't help it. He had asked her to come to the party he had set up, he was the one who had asked for a game, he was the one who decided to have the party at the top of a freaking monument!

He wanted to rip his hair out of his head for how stupid he had been!

After he had given Yoko the headband he had gotten from the shop (Which gave a boost to intelligence and dexterity according to the stats he had seen when he had bought it), she had spaced out and collapsed onto him. Hinata had come by and determined that she had been very sick, and probably had been since that morning. Which meant that she had been doing everything today while on the verge of collapsing.

They had been about to take her down the mountain, but soon some genin and Iruka had shown up to capture him because of the stunt he had pulled with the fireworks, but after seeing Yoko, they had taken him to the hokages.

Jiji had told him that he would see that she would be taken home safely after he had explained the situation to him.

He had asked why she hadn't been taken to the hospital, but he had explained that the condition she suffered from made it so that all the hospital could do was give her medication and bed rest and hope for the best. Both of those could be done at home with the comfort of her family, so he had said sending her home was the best option he could provide.

He also got a lighter sentence for his prank after explaining why he had done it, but he was still responsible for cleaning it up.

That was the furthest thing on his mind though.

All he could feel was guilt.

Yoko was his friend. Yet, the entire time, all he had really been thinking about was getting to level 25 in his relationship score. Sure, he had done that, but now it felt hollow. He was supposed to be there for her, as a real friend should have been, but all he had been thinking about were dumb rewards.

… He hadn't even formed a party with her, now that he thought about it…

Maybe if he had asked her to join his party when he had given her the headband, he could have given her something from his stash to help her out? He knew equipment and edible things didn't really give any kind of boost until the member had joined the party, so perhaps if he had done so, he might have been able to help her out.

Maybe he would be able to find something to cure her for good?

Yeah! He could do that.

The reason behind befriending her in the first place came to mind.

The hora hora guy…

He didn't even find himself caring about him anymore. At one point, he supposed he had only wanted to use her for information, but now…

Is this what real friendship was?

Naruto felt his heart tighten from the worry he was feeling.

He really hoped Yoko was okay…

He sighed again and looked out the nearby window to see the sky outside. Huh, it was dusk already. Had he really been in here all day?

He sat back down and sighed.

Now if only the hokage would tell him where he should clean and who to apologize to already so that-

*bzzt*

'Event Failed!'

'Important Event(s)!'

'For Whom the Bell Tolls…: Prevent her death. (failed)'

'An eye for an eye: Help Sasuke in his time of need.'

'Time Until Event(s) Start: 62:10:42'

'Status: Accepted (failed), Accepted'

… What?

[Ability: Partition Accel Activated]

It's time.

Yeah. I know.

… So why are you talking to yourself? Do it already.

… I don't want to.

No, you don't want to, you have to.

… And?

So do it.

You're me, so why don't you do it?

Psh. Yeah, I'm you. I won't exist after you start moving again. We'll be one person again. So technically I will be doing it.

I know.

Stop stalling.

… Nah. I just want to stay here forever.

But if you do that, you die. It won't be a quick one either. It'll be slow and painful. You'll probably go insane before you die.

No I won't. This is a game, remember? Insanity can't affect me…

But you'll still die slowly.

I deserve it.

Yes, you do.

So, I'll just lie here and just let myself fade away.

Ha. Like you would let yourself.

… Yeah.

It's weird, isn't it? We're too… calm.

Yeah. Intelligence and being the gamer tends to do that to ya.

I know.

I know you know. We're the same person.

Yeah. Both liars beyond compare.

Mhmm…

So tell me, myself, why cry tears of lies?

Because. It's the only thing I can do.

Yeah, makes you feel better pretending you care, doesn't it?

I do care.

No you don't.

I don't care, I do care, what's the point?

Emotions are the point. Human beings are defined by them. Are you still human?

Maybe. Maybe not. I can erase something I've given my heart and soul to and not feel a thing. What does that make me?

I have no clue.

… We're really fucked up, aren't we?

Fucked up doesn't describe it. You're talking to yourself, right?

Yeah, but I used to do that even before I got the ability.

Mmm….

… I'm tired.

You always are.

Yeah.

I just want to sleep.

Too bad you can't. It's either black or white. And unfortunately, despite how much you want black, humans gravitate toward white.

It's nature.

Can't stop me from dreaming though.

Dreaming dreams and living nightmares…

I don't want to die.

You don't. I don't. We don't.

What do I do?

Do what you must and live. Simple as that.

[Ability: Partition Accel Deactivated]

I twitched.

It was evening.

A warm trickle dripped down from my nose and onto my hand, meaning that I had given myself a nosebleed again.

Sighing, I took a nearby tissue box and quickly used it to wipe my nose of the red liquid, knowing that the capillaries I had burst would heal after wiping my nose a few times.

Once that was done, I let myself melt into the chair I was sitting in, my eyes locked on to the bed before me.

I was in Yoko's room. It was currently covered in dust due to disuse, but I wasn't really all that bothered by it.

Yoko rested on her bed, having been brought back hours ago by one of the guards by the gate.

She had been sick. Horribly sick.

Just as I had planned.

Just as I had hoped.

Yoko's theme, with its constant ticking, played loudly in the room.

I couldn't stand to hear the silence. It had been too loud.

I had needed something to drown it out.

Yet, even with the white noise, I could still hear it.

Yoko's shallow breathing had never sounded so loud.

I felt something trail down my face.

A tear…

Could I do it? Could I really do it?

I wanted to say no, but I knew, yes, yes I could.

Too easily.

I got up from my chair and went over to Yoko's side. I kneeled, letting my head rest on the bed, my eyes locked onto Yoko's own pale visage.

They trailed off her after a moment, going to the left to a table. On the table rested four objects. A book, a headband, some wire, and a bookmark.

It was all Yoko had had on her, beside her normal assorted weaponry.

It had probably been from her friends.

She wouldn't need them anymore…

Slowly, I reached into my pocket dimension and pulled out the Anbu mask, its earie smile ever present.

I got up carefully. I didn't trust myself to get up without falling back down.

If I did, I would probably wind up curled up on the floor for the next few hours.

Yoko looked so… calm.

How could I? How Could I?

I'm a horrible, horrible, sister…

I bent over, embracing her in a tight hug. She was incredibly warm, and there was a slight wetness as my cheek touched hers.

Weather it was from my own tears or from perspiration, I didn't bother with.

"I'm sorry Yoko… I'm so sorry…"

My voice sounded so weak.

I couldn't say anything else. There was nothing to say.

I gripped the mask in my hand tightly. My heart felt like it was going to rip itself out of my chest.

It was time.

I took the mask and removed the inside protective layer, leaving the inside bare.

Then, I took it and pressed it against her face with both hands.

"Activate."

The world seemed to slow.

Yoko's breathing hitched for a second, but to me it felt like an eternity.

The music, the one that had accompanied Yoko, slowed down and started to fade. The ticking within the song grew louder, however, acting as a metronome to the overbearing silence that was starting to invade once more.

Tick, it went. Tock, it went.

The sound invaded my senses. I could feel it shake my bones.

It grew louder and louder and then-

It stopped.

And along with it, so had Yoko's heart.

"It's done…" I whispered to myself. "It's done… I did it…"

A series of pop-ups appeared, but I ignored them, instead wallowing in the empty feeling that had replaced the intense apprehension and fear that had been there before.

I let myself fall back into the chair.

"Dammit…. Dammit, dammit, dammit dammit!" I yelled, my hands balled and shaking. "Why?! Why?!I never wanted to do this… I don't want to do this anymore… I don't want to live like this anymore…"

I didn't feel a thing. I didn't feel a damn thing.

I had just killed my fucking sister.

Where was the sorrow? Where was it?! Where was the anger? Where was the guilt?!

I didn't feel any of it.

Just as I had expected.

Just as I had planned.

"Hahaha… Hahaha..."

I was laughing, yet it sounded so hollow.

I felt tears fall down my face.

I was a horrible, horrible person.

This here, is what I've been working up to, well, not all of it, but one scene in particular I wanted to get to.

you do not want to know how happy I am right now; How much I'm laughing behind this screen of mine.

Despair... How I love thee.

Anyway, with this, I'm going to boost it up to M. Yeah.

I had this particular scene planned out since chapter 2, with another scene probably next chapter being the thing that had started off this story.

Yeah, I'm sure someone must hate me now. Don't fucking care, though. Too happy.

Also, legendary DOUBLE CHAPTER. look at that word count! Wow! I actually had half of this done since Christmas, but I had wanted to get to that scene at the end, so it just kept getting longer and longer, and... yeah.

So, I have been making a lot of mashups these days. Sexy and I know it and Ice ice, baby, Comp and Ornstein and smough, stylo and this day and never again... So many, so many... And i still want to make more. They are so much fun!

As for music, since she's dead, her theme was Memory, super paper mario. There ya go.

Speaking of music, this chapter was brought to you by: My entire mashup list, initial D eurobeat, Shoujo Fractals rendition of Cirno's theme, Rammstein, and other stuffs.

So, what has happened since last time? Hinata did indeed win the naruto-bowl, Christmas, New years... yeah. Stuff. Nothing too important.

Guess it's on to everyone's favorite part, the Cardinal Sins/gripes!

Cardinal Sin #19:

Evil Naruto

Is not really evil, but just a smarter Naruto with some edge pieces pasted onto him and random whore numero uno.

Why...?

Cardinal Gripe #32: So, as a reader, I prefer to experience things rather than having been told about things. As an example, I dont want 'And then Naruto went on a training trip for a week and learned X technique. He also did Blah blah and blah plus Blah and blah, where he picked up Y!' That is a summary, not a story. Please, I want to experience a story, not cross abridge for it (ha, puns).