What the New Year Brings

Thank you to everybody who has read, reviewed, faved and alerted this story throughout the year. Seeing how this story was only supposed to be a 300 word drabble, you've proven that a few kind words really do go a long way. You've encouraged me through writer's blocks, moves, family crises, and basically a not so great year, so thank you for making a not so great year a better one for me! See you in 2009! Happy New Year, everyone! ^_^

Chapter 46-The First Time Sakura Learns What Marriage Really Is

There's just something about being back home, especially after having been gone for a very long time. It's just such a comfort and relief to be back where you know where everything is, how everything works, and everything in general is simply familiar and more convenient.

As much as I had enjoyed the openness and foreignness of Wind Country with its clear, blue skies soaring high above my head and flat desert land spread out infinitely all around me (except in the busy, crowded streets of Suna itself, of course) I prefer being back in Fire Country with its thick overhanging canopies of leaves and branches and dappled rays of sunlight. It makes me feel sheltered, protected, safe and sound...at home.

Home.

The mere thought of it makes me feel a warm, wrenching feeling around my heart that slightly hurts, but it's good to feel that longing kind of pain every now and then...It reminds you to be grateful for what you have and sometimes (sometimes too many times) take for granted.

"You look eager to get back," a voice next to me states rather than asks.

"I am." I smile. "It's always the same when I leave for a mission: First, I can't wait to just leave and go to a new place and experience life differently from the way that I'm used to, but once the mission is over and we're headed back for home, all I want is to get home as quickly as possible, take a shower, and crawl into my own bed. Even the softest, most comfortable bed up in the castle can't compare to sleeping in my own...No offense." I quickly add.

"None taken. I feel the same way. I can't wait to get home either!" Madam Shijimi laughs in agreement.

I take a sidelong look at her, wondering if it's even proper to ask, but know that if I don't, then I'll always regret not having done so.

"Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?" I say tentatively.

"Not at all. Go right on ahead," she smiles at me kindly enough.

"Well, seeing how we're almost back to the castle I was just wondering...How can you go back to your husband after all the things he said and the awful way he acted?" I ask in a quick rush, wanting to get it all out before I change my mind and say nothing at all.

Madam Shijimi looks at me for awhile without saying a word and I worry if I had gone too far. Sure, I have a closer relationship with her than most Fire Country citizens after all we've been through, but she's still the daimyo's wife and her husband is the daimyo himself. It's not my place to question her reasons for going back to him, no matter how big of a jerk he may be.

"I'm sorry." I apologize. "I'm completely out of line. I didn't mean to-"

"No, honey. Don't worry, you haven't offended me." Madam Shijimi says, gently squeezing my arm in reassurance. "I'm just trying to figure out the best way to explain this to you."

For a moment her eyes leave mine and wander to the back of Kakashi's jounin flak vest as he continues to walk a few paces ahead of us with Yamato, but when she looks back to me, her eyes are bright, like she's figured it out.

"Alright, sweetheart. So this is how it is..." Madam Shijimi looks down at me sagely, the way all mothers seem to when they're passing down wisdom regardless of whether or not the person they're speaking to is actually their child. "The first and most important thing you need to remember is that marriage is one of the most difficult things that you'll ever do in your life. When you're young and haven't experienced it yet, it's easy to imagine marriage as this ideal, this goal of living 'happily ever after,' but that's not what marriage really is."

"It isn't? What is it then?" I ask, genuinely intrigued.

"Well, once the big, extravagant party of a wedding is over...Because that's all it really is: A big party...And the honeymoon is over...Which is just a vacation meant to procrastinate the inevitable...That's when the real marriage begins and that's when you quickly come to realize what marriage really is: The commitment to spend the rest of your life with only one other person no matter how badly they get on your nerves!"

I laugh, but Madam Shijimi's "I'm serious!" quickly sobers me up.

"Honey, you just asked me how I could go back to my husband after all the bad things he said and did, and there's your answer: Any long-term relationship is going to have its rough patches and the only way to make sure that relationship continues to last is to learn how to tolerate and accept differences in opinion and move on. When I agreed to marry Urusai, I already knew what his personality was like and how he reacted to certain situations. I just needed to make sure that I was okay with that and with him even when he's at his worst, and since Urusai basically acts like a bratty baby when he's angry and doesn't act any worse than that, I figured I could deal with that and so I agreed to marry him."

"But wouldn't it be better to just find someone who doesn't act like that in the first place?" I ask.

"Sweetie, nobody's perfect, and if you do find someone who never gets angry and never gets on your nerves, then that person is a living, breathing saint! No...a God! You can't expect to find the 'perfect' person because neither you, or I, or anybody else is or ever will be perfect. Like I said, the most you can hope for is to find someone you can deal with even after you've seen him at his worst and he's seen you at your worst.

"I know it's been said a thousand times before, but the reason it's so overused is because it's true: Marriage really is about compromise and communication. It's what ensures that you'll get along with the person you're with in the long run, because trust me, when you've been with someone for a very long time, he will get on your nerves at some point!" Madam Shijimi says with conviction. "Boy, will he ever!" she adds, shaking her head ruefully.

I laugh again and this time Madam Shijimi laughs with me.

"But don't let me scare you. Marriage may be one of the most difficult things you may do in your life, but it's also one of the most worthwhile. When things are bad, they're bad, and when things are good, they're SO good," she smiles warmly at me.

"I'm glad you told me this," I tell her. "What's been going on between Kakashi and me has been happening so fast that I question if what I'm doing is the right thing, but at least now I know that it is. I've known him for half my life, I've seen him at his worst, and I know that I can put up with him, and I know he can put up with me, and really, that's the important part because with my temper, not a lot of people can handle me!"

Kakashi suddenly laughs in agreement several feet ahead of us and I come to realize it isn't just a coincidence, he's been listening in on my conversation with Madam Shijimi this entire time with his super-sensitive hearing.

I narrow my eyes at the back of his head and whisper in my softest voice so that not even Madam Shijimi, who's standing right next to me, can hear, "If you eavesdrop on me again, I swear I'll buy a dog whistle and use it against you!"

Kakashi visibly stiffens in fear and turns to face Yamato to really, REALLY concentrate on what he's saying instead.

I smile in triumph.

"What?" Madam Shijimi drawls with a crooked smile on her face.

"If the worst Kakashi can do is annoy me every now and then, I think we'll be okay in the long run." I smile back at her.

Then, from the corner of my eye, I see something quickly whiz by just inches from her head, and another one headed straight for her.

"NO!" I scream.

I quickly push Madam Shijimi aside, pull a kunai out from my holster, and divert the shuriken away with the flat of my blade.

"We're being attacked!" I scream at Kakashi and the others, but when I turn to look at them, they're already deflecting shurikens with their own blades.

"Scatter!" Kakashi instructs the unarmed members of our convoy.

In an instant, maids and servant boys alike dart in different directions through the densely thicketed woods.

On the way to Suna and on the way back, Kakashi had instructed every member of our convoy on what to do in case we were attacked.

"We're a large group," Kakashi had explained, "And unless their number equals or exceeds ours, the enemy can't go after each and every one of us, so you need to scatter. There aren't enough of us to protect all of you, so that's your best chance of survival. Keep moving and don't move in a straight line. It's more difficult to hit a moving target, especially one that's moving erratically. Find a place to hide. Even a cat can't catch a mouse if it's deep inside a crack in the wall. Don't worry about finding us, we'll find you. I have tracking dogs, so don't worry, we WILL find you again, but the most important thing to remember is to MOVE and to HIDE."

After all the servants had done exactly what they were told, our enemies are systematically flushed out of their hiding places thanks to Kakashi, Yamato, and Naruto.

There are four of them in total and their hitai-ates are engraved with the music note indicative of Sound Nin, but they aren't the Sound Four who were obliterated by mere genins and one chuunin a decade ago. This is another team, one that none of us have ever encountered before, consisting of three males and one female, and although the female is nothing in comparison, at least size wise, to her teammates, just the way she carries herself tells us that she's the leader of the pack.

"She means nothing to you," the female states, referring to Madam Shijimi, "So just hand her over and we can all go home happy," she says with one of the most wicked grins I have ever seen, second only to Orochimaru's.

"You couldn't be more wrong." I glare at her, adjusting my stance and tightening my grip around my kunai as she slowly circles Madam Shijimi and me. Her movements are too smooth, too cat-like. Even with me standing in front of Madam Shijimi for protection, I can sense that I won't be quick enough to stop this enemy if she decides to suddenly dart around me. I need back up, someone who can read her every move before she pounces.

I need Kakashi. I need him and his Sharingan.

But Kakashi is several yards away fighting his own fight with the largest and most formidable looking of the four, and Naruto and Yamato can't come to my aid either. Naruto has summoned so many Shadow Clones on the other side of the tree break that I can no longer tell which one is the real him, and Yamato is driving his Sound Nin further and further away from Madam Shijimi with his Mokuton Jutsu, but consequently he's beyond my reach for help as well.

"You look panicked," the cat-like Sound Nin says teasingly. "What? Does the pretty little princess need one of her princes to come rescue her? Can't fight your own fight, is that it?" she asks with that infuriating evil grin.

"I am NOT helpless!" I snap and punch the ground in front of me so hard that it erupts into a pile of stone and rubble at my feet, creating a chasm between me and the cat Sound Nin, but she jumps backwards light and easy, as if I had simply flicked a feather her way.

"Ooo...Seems I've hit a sore spot," she says delightedly. "Well won't this be fun, weakling?" she says viciously.

Letting my temper get the better of me, I grab the largest boulder I can find without leaving Madam Shijimi and hurl it with all my chakra strength at the cat Sound Nin.

Again, she jumps lightly away, but not quite fast enough. The edge of the boulder literally wipes the snide smirk off of her face, causing blood to gush from the corner of her mouth. She wipes at it with the back of her hand and when she realizes the smudge on her pale skin is actually blood, her head quickly snaps up, her eyes glaring at me.

"You BITCH!!!" she screams at me, then pounces so high up in the air that she closes the distance between us in no time at all, tackling me down to the ground so that I'm flat on my back with her on top.

Sharp, razor-like claws shoot out from her knuckles aimed straight for my face.

I quickly grab her wrists with my hands and push her off with my legs and feet.

She somersaults over my head and lands lightly on her feet about a yard away.

Then, crouching down on all fours and hunching her back like a true feline, she screeches the most ear-splitting sound I've ever heard, a cross between a cat's yowl and the high pitched sound of fingernails raked against chalkboard. The painful noise pierces through the forest, causing each and every one of us, even her own teammates, to cover our ears with our hands.

From my bowed down position, I see Kakashi in the far distance also bowed down, ears covered, looking straight back at me.

Help. I tell him wordlessly, because for all my chakra strength, I'm of no use with a long range enemy like this cat nin.

Kakashi doesn't say a word, doesn't even mouth it, but I can see it in his eyes, "I'm coming," he tells me, yet he's still nowhere near where I need him to be right at this moment.

Suddenly, a burning stab of pain tears through my body like fire, originating from my stomach, and I realize a second too late that the cat nin had used my distraction to her advantage, closing the gap between us to stab me with her four sword-like claws.

"NO!!!" I hear four different voices shout simultaneously, but my eyes are focused only on one person.

I see him trying to run towards me, but he keeps getting thrown off course as one and then another of the cat nin's teammates try to stop him.

I see Naruto and Yamato trying to help, but to no avail.

I taste copper in my mouth, even smell it in the air, and when I raise my hand to touch the warmth I feel spilling from my mouth, I see dark blood on my fingertips.

I look desperately around me feeling dizzy and weak, and for some reason the trees that should be emerald green are now a monochromatic shade of gray, and the people who I know should be wearing orange and black, and blue and green, are now only dark silhouettes blurred at the edges.

My ears are muted, almost deaf, like I'm listening to everyone and everything underwater.

But I hear Kakashi.

I hear his unmistakable cry of "RAIKIRI!!!" and see the crackling electric ball of light as it pierces through the silhouette with the gleaming white teeth and infuriating evil grin.

"Kakashi..." I say, not even knowing if I'm saying his name loud enough to be heard, but he's the last thing I hear, the last thing I see, and the last thing to bring me both joy and relief before the world around me fades to nothing at all.

To be continued...

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Um...Happy New Year?