The Last Uchiha?

*Zetsu impression* HELLLLOOOOOO hahaha -_- Man I have got to stop doing that...

A/N: I feel like I should appologize. This chapter seems somewhat overdue. It took me a while to try and piece it together the way I thought felt right and also I had a bit of trouble portraying Nagisa's jutsus just how I wanted them. I guess we all come to a little bump in the road now and then,right? But the best thing to do is to take your time and not rush when you are writing,because the result of your work will be worth it ^^

Golden Kitsune: Thank you for pointing out the errors. I am sure that there probably were a few in the last chapter,as I did not read it thoroughly enough...T~T
Sorry about that!
IMPORTANT: I was skimming through a chapter that I'd already written,and I realized that I seemed to have made another error but I will make the correction right here: I mentioned that Nagisa has been with Itachi for nine years,but I'm going to have to say it was approximately thirteen,in order for things to fall comfortably into place as the story progresses. Nagisa is currently 19,making her first encounter with Itachi to be around the age of 6....did I do that right? UGH it's like eleven am and I just woke up as I'm putting the finishing touches on my A/Ns...bluh. Don't hate me for being terrible at math...anyway.

Well,let's get on to the story then,shall we?

I hope you enjoy~

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From across the clearing they faced eachother,determined expressions etched onto their faces.

Saidlast two Uchihas readied themselves to fight.

Nagisa flexed her fingers excitedly at her side,as she felt her chakra flow begin to accelerate throughout her body. The sight of her opponent gave her the familiar giddy feeling she'd felt in their first encounter,and just thinking back to earlier that afternoon caused her energetic high to become refueled. She was fully prepared to take on the male Uchiha,and for whatever reason,going into a fight with no knowledge of her opponent's abilities was something she found rather thrilling.

Sasuke rolled his shoulders a bit,stretching his limbs to warm up some while the Nagisa kept her eyes on him. What was she staring at? Didn't he tell her it was rude? She seemed to be easily distracted by the most frivilous of things. Sasuke was confident that while she would definitely put up a decent fight,but he had the upper hand in all of this...

"Any day now,Uchiha!" Nagisa called impatiently. "And let's make it quick,because I want to get up early tomorrow and go see the Orange Ninja!"

Naruto? She wanted to get up early and go all the way back over to the village just to see that blonde idiot? Sasuke titled his head up to the sky and closed his eyes,resting his palm over his forehead. 'Of all the...'

"Come on,come on!" the energetic Uchiha urged,practically jumping up and down.

Sasuke's hand slid away from his face,revealing eyes that had begun to eclipse with black and garnet. The female Uchiha crouched slightly,fingers at the ready to create their first set of handseals. Without warning,the raven sprang into a sudden leap,coming straight at her in almost a blur. Nagisa snickered inwardly at the open assault,until he abruptly vanished from her view. Her eyes rose to the sunset sky. Left. Right. None of these. Below?

No.

"So that means..."

"Behind you,"

The sound of a twig snapping behind her brought her to attention only a second early enough to apprehend the full swing of Sasuke's leg pivoting around to knock her clear across the open field. Ducking down at just the right moment,she felt a whoosh of air as his foot grazed the top of her head. Nagisa took the fleeting opportunity to grab onto the male's ankle before his leg could complete it's course of action,and sent him flying past her to be thrown into the woods. He quickly rebound,using the momentum to push off a tree with his feet,and then sprung forward again in her direction,having gained twice as much speed.

Nagisa was still recovering from her the previous assault,not having long to lift her arms in front of her and cross them, as Sasuke extended a foot that was meant to send a crushing blow into her chest. When the attack had failed to land,he thrusted his other leg forward in exchanged for the first,his torso twisting sharply with the movement.

"Is this all you got?" Nagisa taunted,opening her hand to catch his foot into her palm. A pained expression flickered on the male Uchiha's face as she gave his foot a twist,and seeing it,though only briefly,Nagisa let it free. Sasuke's mouth curved up into a triumphant grin then,and he used to blunt weight of his body to take the two of them down,hovering over his opponent now with his knees drawn apart.

"You haven't seen a thing," he whispered,pressing his hands firmly down onto her shoulders. Uneven dark locks hung around his face,barely shadowing a glint in his charcoal eyes. In a small instant,Nagisa found herself staring into them; they attracted her own like magnets. The weight of his body pressing against hers was heavy,but not uncomfortable. Had the look on his face not been so sardonic,she might have even considered not bothering to resist...

Yeah,right.

Nagisa shifted beneath him,and brought her knees into Sasuke's stomach,earning a bitten groan to which she flipped him over and briskly stumbled to her feet. Having been tossed so ungracefully,Sasuke hit the ground just a few feet behind the woman,holding the chakra firmly to his shoes in order to halt the back slide that followed his landing.

The female Uchiha righted herself,and assumed a defensive stance. She wanted to attack him soon with a bit of ninjutsu,but decided that she would hold out a little longer. She wanted to taunt him for a while,until he grew tired of fending her off in their spar that so far only consisted of taijutsu. He wasn't quite serious yet,but the moment she managed to agitate the raven,she was sure that he would start tossing jutsu at her right and left.

The sparring went on for a good half hour,neither of them daring to go beyond the basics of what their fight had started out as. The number of hits they'd traded were even,due to the fact that with the aid of the sharingan,they could easily predict one another's movements. There had even been times where their attacks would land equally,colliding fists and clashing weapons.

The course of the battle was beginning to irk Sasuke. Nagisa was relentless in cleverly copying everything he was doing. At this rate,he figured their fight would lead to nowhere. He wanted to admit anything but the fact that they were currently matched,but this,as he was sure she knew,was not the true extent of his power; there were other forms of jutsu that the raven wanted to exercise.

After sending the two of them skidding back on their feet in opposite directions due to an equal blow,Sasuke straightened himself and reached for the sword behind his back. "Come at me like you intend to kill," he told Nagisa. "You're taking this too lightly. What happened to all of your confidence?"

"Hn," the woman scoffed and rotated her left shoulder while massaging it with one hand. "I don't see you doing anything different. You're holding back,just like earlier,"

"I'm much stronger than you can probably imagine," replied the male,no hint of arrogance in his tone. If anything,it sounded like he truely believed in his own words. Was that just a high level of confidence or was it the truth?

"I don't believe you," Nagisa smirked,and dropped her hand at her side. "No one is stronger than my sensei,"

Sasuke's brow furrowed,as he whipped the sword from its sheath. "You talk too much," he said,and then launched forward. He raised the blade of the sword into the air,silver metal shining in the last remaining glimmers of the sunlight. "Let's see what this almighty sensei of yours has actually taught you,"

'Hmph...just that sword again?,' Nagisa grinned inwardly as she with drew a kunai from her coat. The female Uchiha leapt upward from the ground,bending her knees to avoid the air slicing swing of the long blade that waved suddenly at her feet. Now in the air,she hoisted herself onto her opponents shoulders,hands grasping the top of his head as she sprung off and flipped forward to land in a crouch behind him. An irritated growl reverberated from the raven's lips as he spun around quickly,extending his arm so the sword's sharp edge moved to meet and slice a small lock of Nagisa's hair away.

Threads fluttering away in the winds of their movement,Nagisa raised the kunai in her hand to fend off the blade that was now aiming at her face. With her other arm free,and her target within an appropriate distance,she brought two fingers to her lips,cheeks puffing out as a dragon's breath of white fire came bursting from her mouth.

Sasuke had only seconds to avoid the strangely altered dragon flames jutsu,and withdrew his sword to allow his body to fall below the heavenly smoldering flames. He quickly tumbled off to the side,gaining momentum to pick himself up as the flames spread around the area,only to douse themselves immediately before they had the chance to incinerate the landscape.

Nagisa's hand fell away from her mouth as her feet touched the ground again,having only an instant to perform her next jutsu. Sasuke,already up and moving again,stuck his sword into the earth,promptly weaving a series of rather long handseals.

Nagisa fell into a ready pose as she was uncertain of what her opponent's first jutsu would lead to. She kept herself at a fair distance,but close enough to attack when she decided to.

Sasuke had completed the last handseal,to where he now held onto the handle of his sword. A surge of blue sparks flickered suddenly,conducting through the blade,and then a sharp jolt of lightning rose to crack loudly in the darkening sky. The bolt expanded,sending smaller shivers of sparks into the ground around them through series of kunai that were stabbed into the earth. Suddenly aware of the trap that had been set unnoticed around her,Nagisa took a step forward inside the now narrowed sparring field.

"What's this about?" she asked,watching the blue sparks dancing around her. She had never seen a lightning style jutsu before,so to say the least,it deeply intrigued her.

"Keep running around plotlessly like you have been for the last half hour and you'll find out," the Uchiha threatened,abandoning his sword and also stepping forward. "You've been holding out so you could get a taste of my ninjutsu,right? Well now that you can't move around as much I think it's time I showed you,"

"Who said you could decide to do that?" the woman snapped,arms crossing over herself as a pout crept onto her lips. Sasuke sighed inwardly and rested his hand on the sword behind him. "Just shut up and watch the light show,will you?"

"Wh-why you--!"

Before the blue eyed Uchiha could retaliate with a cheeky reply,Sasuke was coming at her,eyes set ablaze with the Sharingan activated. Nagisa's heart sped up in her chest,both elated and anxious at his agile approach. They met again at the center of their shortened sparring field,trading punches and dodging other surely lethal blows. With her own sharingan activated,Nagisa kept her eyes trained on the raven,trying to focus on his movements rather than the taunting way he arched a brow now and then,or the curious way his lips curled...were they curling? They did ever so slightly that she couldn't tell if the gesture was passive or like the rest of his usual countenances,brazeningly arrogant

"You're pretty full of yourself,Uchiha," Nagisa pouted slightly,forcing her eyes away from his face. It was just so arrogant and frustrating how he could simply flash her a smirk or allow that sinfully dark and deliciously velvet-like voice of his to carry to her ears,carressing it in such a way that brought on an inignorable pleasure to blur her shinobi senses. He knew what he was doing to her; this was his strategy.

Sasuke smirked and went in for the kill when he found his opponent momentarily marveling at him,taking the bait that had been simply a hint of a smile; a twitch of the mouth. From the pouch of weapons he carried,he extracted a kunai and sent his fist into a lower cut in Nagisa's stomach. The impact caused the Uchiha woman to double forward as Sasuke twisted the closed hand firmly into the partly exposed flesh,feeling the muscles loosen weakly in inferiority to the unexpected assult.

Stars dotted Nagisa's vision as small sparks of pain prickled within her,attacking every nerve in her middle,even traveling up the center of her spine. Her stomach convulsed with a sharp pang,and the aftershock of the sensation left her feeling momentarily cold,before it returned to hit her with a wave of nausea. The metallic taste of blood pooled into her mouth,and as she hit the ground without a chance to rebound,small crimson droplets fell from her lips and dotted the earth. She laid there on her back as she struggled to regain her stolen breath,her lungs burning and begging desperately for a reclaimation at once.

Sasuke stood before his fallen opponent,kunai still in hand as he approached her. He knelt down slowly,deliberately crawling forward so that he was now hovering over her once again. The weapon in his hand pointed at her with the sharp below her chin. He lifted it slowly,allowing the flat of the blade to tilt her face up so they would become eye level.

"You lose," Sasuke said in a low timber,dark eyes boring into hers. Nagisa's slid closed slowly as her breathing became even,and she pulled herself up,curling blue-purple nailed fingers around the man's broad shoulders. Her dark lashes fluttered a few times and Sasuke realized that her eyes were not closed,but she was looking down. She smiled inwardly as he tensed under the grip of her hands.

"Not even," she whispered,and then lifted her head. The knife in Sasuke's hand fell into the grass with a soft brushing sound as his eyes were met with his opponent's sharingan.

Well,it looked like the sharingan; but something wass different.

The pattern? No...simple and clean,on its very first phase. It was the color that had the raven male feeling so alarmed and suddenly so anxious to break the eye contact between them. Two orbs of white,pupiless and adorned with the trademark trio of black teardrops stared back at him hauntingly as he was forced to behold them entirely. Staring to the platinum colored sharingan,Sasuke felt as though something inseperable within him was starting to pull away. It was nothing physical as his body remained ridgid and unmoving as it'd been since its subduction.

Was it his very soul inside him that had begun to tremble? An arctic chill swept over the very surface of every inch of Sasuke's skin,leaving him shivering and numb to the bone. He wanted so badly to look away from those smoldering white eyes,but his body was no longer able to respond or comply with his panic stricken mind.

Nagisa's grip loosened on the male Uchiha's shoulder,but he remained still as if by the force of a phantom hold.

"Where are you now?" the gentle caress of her voice melted Sasuke's frozen state,and his hands flew to his face,beads of sweat beginning to form on his skin as physical panic began to overtake him. There was a heaviness in the air that left him panting for oxygen,his lungs having trouble with drawing so much as one breath at a time. Something around Sasuke began to tremble again,and he felt as though his entire body would seperate and fly away. He wrapped his arms around his body,and looked down to find himself sitting in the same position,kneeling down with his knees drawn apart where he sat on them.

"This is my world..." Nagisa's voice said. The atmosphere around him abruptly began to warp like a picture who's paint had begun to melt,until all that remained was a simple,white campus. The grass retracted slowly,leaving a similar surface beneath it. No longer,was the sparring field that Sasuke had remembered just moments ago. Gone,were the trees,the grass and even the dark,star-riddled sky his eyes had been trained on before they'd become entranced by the strange white sharingan. Nothing but a blank area was left for the raven to lose his sight to. Continuing to look at it any longer and he would surely forget that a more colorful world existed outside of this. He knew for a fact that he had been foolish and let his gaurd down the moment he'd pinned his opponent.

This was Nagisa's genjutsu; her world,as she had put it.

"Everything here is slowed with time. Every breath you take. Every beat of your heart,and every blink of your eye," Nagisa's voice said,and Sasuke's eyes stopped wandering long enough to realize that she was no longer sitting in front of him. He felt her presences all around him,entrapping him as if she were every inch of the blank white canvas that surrounded this empty little world.

The sound of a bird startled Sasuke suddenly,and his eyes scanned the limitless white atmosphere,searching as if he hoped to find the source. Hearing it just a few times,he realized that the sound was not coming from anywhere around him at all.

It was coming from within him.

"I can sense something dark about you..." Nagisa's voice traveled slowly in the heavy air,reaching Sasuke one syllable at a time. His body tensed suddenly at the sensation of his heart beginning to flutter rapidly in his chest. There was no pain within the feeling,rather it had certainly felt strange. Every nerve in Sasuke's body felt loosened then,as his limbs became free. Every fiber of his being abruptly seperated itself,and he watched in morbid fascinnation as his body dispersed into several,white birds.

They were doves.

They flew away slowly,glowing with what he thought to be the very fragments of his soul. Even knowing that he was watching every part of himself flying away,disappearing to melt into the white nothingness around him,Sasuke knew that somehow it was simply an illusion. Still,how could he tell himself that after seeing something so...he couldn't rightly describe it.

His body had never felt so seperated from itself. Watching the pieces morph and fly away like pure white winged creatures was something he found both calming and very alarming. A ninja could lose his both his arms and even sacrifice something more vital,but what was worse beyond the point of his death? Sasuke didn't believe that he would be graced with anything serene and heavenly once his soul had left his body for the proverbial afterlife,but now seeing something close to divinity dividing himself and his very essence,he couldn't help but feel a pang of fear. He couldn't control something that did not effect him physically. In a shorter conclusion,this genjutsu was nothing like the one he had immediately mistaken it for.

It was altered completely; and it scared him.

The division of Sasuke's essence and his body repeated on an infinite loop for what seemed like an eternity,leaving him to feel more vulnerable than he could ever hope to imagine in his outter,physical body. He'd never felt so completely exposed before,seeing every dove that symbolized everything that he was. Not wanting to watch the genjutsu reperform itself for the thousandth time,he bent his head down.

That's when he saw it.

It's beak emerged from the very center of his chest,ebony feathers ruffling as it freed itself less than gracefully while the other birds around it flew past without so much as leaving a feather behind. Sasuke watched with morbid fascination as it tilted its head and flew upward to join its purer counterparts,clearly a sore thumb among the rest. It was the only black bird within the flock,and Sasuke couldn't figure out how he'd neglected to see it after enduring the strange jutsu for this long.

"What....what is that?"

"The impurities in your heart," Nagisa's voice came in reply. Sasuke's hands fell away from his chest to rest and tremble slightly in his lap. He didn't know where to look,as Nagisa remained hidden within the platinum bleakness of her world.

"Everyone has them. The smartest of enemies,if they can successfully find it,will definitely use it against you," her voice suddenly came close to the raven's ear,and Sasuke felt himself divide and flutter away for one last time. The white melted before his eyes into something so vivid and colorful that he found himself closing them to avoid a fit of epilepsy.

When he opened them,he found himself in the same position,kneeling before a staring,white-eyed Nagisa. The light from her eyes eclipsed in reverse,momentarily leading Sasuke to believe that it had only been a trick of the moonlight. Blinking a few times,the Uchiha shifted his body around experimentally,hands lifting to flex his fingers and drawing in a breath for a quick sigh. His body was in tact and solid,proving that what he'd just experienced was indeed,simply a genjutsu. He'd known that it had been all along,but...it felt so real. So familiar. Altered,in fact.

Sasuke flinched as a warm hand pressed against his cheek,giving it a light slap. Nagisa tilted her head to give him a curious look.

"Hey. You okay?"

The raven's eyes narrowed at her,betraying his uncertainty but he made no attempt to move. His eyes lifted away from her soft gaze and he turned his head to see his sword still stabbed into the ground behind him. Nothing had changed. Nothing had been real.

All a genjutsu. What sort of genjutsu,that was left to be determined. The Uchiha male sighed quietly and turned his attention back to his female counterpart,wary enough to avoid looking into her eyes. "That jutsu...what was it? Your eyes..."

"I don't know,actually," Nagisa replied,stretching her arms up above her,a few bones popping into place here and there. "My master taught me everything I know,but somehow when I do it,it all turns out a little strange. The jutsu I attempted to use on you was something I was also taught. The world I wanted you to invision was something so unreal,yet some place empty where you could feel every part of your being right down to the very fragments of your soul. It's supposed to be dark and gloomy world. For some reason I'm just not capable of creating something like that. Everything is always white and pure in that realm..." Nagisa sighed and readjusted herself beneath him. "So I just go with the flow and attempt to kind of make it my own,ya know?"

"A place where time and everything becomes slow...a place where you control..." Sasuke frowned,dark eyes narrowing. "Your sharingan also changed..." he looked up to meet her eyes,which were now their normal navy blue. "What kind of--"

"I know it's not normal," Nagisa interrupted,getting to her feet to continue stretching. Her face tilted up to the stary black sky and she folded her hands behind her head. "Sensei says...that he thinks I'm gifted. He can only teach me everything he knows so I can alter it with the strange malfunction in my kekkei genkai. We still haven't figured out what it is,but he's taken a serious interest in it and that seems to be why he..." she trailed off.

The raven's eyes studied the woman who's eyes were staring intently on the sky. Finally she sighed and dropped her gaze to the ground where she began to kick up a rock in the earth. "It's complicated..." she mumbled,and the tone of her voice told Sasuke that,though he couldn't quite see her expression in the darkness,he could tell she was pouting. He let out a small huff and crossed his arms over himself. Complicated didn't even begin to describe it at all. Strange. Dangerous,special and even beautiful. Perhaps she was just so extraordinarily gifted that even the mangekyo sharingan would be unable to withstand the assault of a genjutsu like that.

It went without saying that Sasuke had definitely lost the fight,but he couldt help but feel like doing some pouting of his own; he felt like he'd been cheated. He hadn't even been able to unleash the wrath of his own abilities before he'd become subdued by the dvinity of Nagisa's obscure,yet strangely familiar jutsu. Now that he'd gotten a taste of this newly discovered power,he felt envious and curious about it.

A nostalgic sensation washed over the raven at the mere thought of envy and he pushed it away from his mind. No way was he going to allow the events of today--anything-- trigger a power hunger. He'd had his fill and had become as strong as he'd ever hoped to be precisely three years ago,and now was completely satisfied with his current level of skill. To the old Sasuke,it would have never been enough.

Never.

But to protect his friends and everyone he'd come to accept that he cared about,it was sufficient and he would not push himself any further with the exception of training to keep those skills honed.

"Sasuke?" Nagisa's voice broke the Uchiha's train of thought. Her head was still tilted to the ground,but she'd turned her eyes on him. When his own onyx orbs shifted in her direction,her arms fell away from behind her head to drop at her sides,making her coat flutter slightly. "I...I've never meet another Uchiha before. Sensei is all I have,and so...do you think..." she gripped the hem of her coat. "...Do you think I'm weird?"

"Weird?" Sasuke arched a fine brow,eyes glinting curiously. "Well the only other Uchiha..." he paused to break off the forming sentence. "No I don't think you're weird...definitely different,but..." the words he'd formed in his mind didn't sound at all the way they did now as they left his lips. "Uh...No,"

Nagisa's countenance betrayed no sign of whether his answer satisfied her. She continued to look at him for a moment longer,and then gave her attention back to the sky.

It was a beautiful night,and Nagisa wished she could spend it under the stars with her sensei. She knew it wasn't possible right now,but it was all she could do to keep him within her thoughts. She kept dreaming,hoping and imagining that they would be reunited very soon and that the results of this mission would prove to be successful enough to earn his pleasure. Following Sasuke back to his house,she began to wonder what Itachi was doing at the very moment. Was he sleeping? Traveling? Thinking of her? She could only hope...

Nearing the front porch,Nagisa fished through her coat pockets in search of a certain,familiar item. When her fingers captured the cool metal,her heart lept with delight. She didn't have to pull it out to examine it to remember what it looked like. Since the time he'd mysteriously detached himself from the group called the Akatsuki,Itachi had handed over the ring he'd wore as a sort of momentum. While she never really liked the strange,unlikely group of missing nin,Itachi's attatchment to the organization seemed to temporarily relieve any stress he'd endured during that time.

She was happy to be at his side,seeing him in that crazy cloaked getup whenever he wasn't spending all of his time with his cold-blooded,sharp-toothed partner,Kisame. Whatever Itachi ever saw in that guy,Nagisa would never understand. She'd spent much of her time out of his way when her sense was busy dealing with the Akatsuki,as he sent her own missions far away. Part of her was grateful for this,as she certainly never felt any good vibes around the cloak clad group of nin,but another part of her always wanted to stay where she knew she would always be safe at his side. She put every ounce of her trust in the only man that had been by her side for eleven years,and nothing less. He was her savior; she worshipped the very ground that he walked on.

Two two Uchiha made their way up the porch steps. After she walked in he followed after her and closed the door. The cool breeze of air conditioning and the naturistic spices of pine among other things greeted them once again,and Sasuke seemed to bring it about in another wave as he walked past her. She stood there for a long moment as she'd had when they first arrived,caught up all over again in the simplicity of that single aroma.

Sasuke had returned to the kitchen where he was holding a cup under the faucet,filling it to the brim with a generous amount of water. Nagisa watched him almost hesitantly as he lifted the cup to his lips and began to drink. His dark hair hung in wisps,slightly dampened with sweat from their heated spar,traces of it sheening lightly on his face and other exposed parts of his body. Something about the exhausted way he looked was so attractive that Nagisa had to force her eyes away,nearly forgetting how she'd been dragged to the middle of the woods to his house,and she was practically his captive.

Sasuke set the glass down on the small island and finally turned his dark orbed gaze on her,eyes narrowing slightly at the distance she'd yet to close between him. He laughed inwardly at the thought that even now,after all these years he managed to have such an effect on people in his presence. It wasn't as though he wasn't the type that enjoyed their personal space,but he had to admit that the person he once was,was likely to verbally bite or ignore anyone that dared to come within arm's length. With all of this said though,the last four years had done a lot to wear down on his unsociable personality and he had learned to at least acknowledge,sometimes even manage to communicate with the people that had the gall to approach the great,infamous Sasuke Uchiha.

There weren't too many that he could easily shy away though,as most of them knew him all too well to turn tail at a simple glare or the unfriendly cold shoulder. People that were team mates; people that were his family.

Sasuke knew right away that he wanted to take things in a similar direction with Nagisa,and it surpised him that he had so willingly admitted this to himself; even more so after their sparring match. Was it because she was techinally kin to him? Or was it because he already saw something within her that had immediately intrigued him the moment they met? The answer should have been quite obvious,but he did not allow himself to dwell on his inner thoughts for too long,as he'd momentarily forgotten where he was; who he was with.

Silently,the raven turned the empty glass upside down on the counter and looked up at the woman who still stood in the hallway by the front door. A small sound that followed a smirk came from his lips,and then he righted himself,leaning against the island with his elbows resting on either side of him on the surface.

"There's a bathroom upstairs if you want to clean up. I'm going to find something to make for dinner soon,so I'll let you know when it's done," with that said,the Uchiha turned away from Nagisa but left the room,disappearing down a hall that was within her eye sight's reach beyond the kitchen. After a lingering moment,she walked down the immediate hall in front of her,ignoring the contents of the new room around her to head down another,darker hall which held about three doors on either side of it. Nagisa wasn't much of a snoop,but she figured there was no way around peeking into all of the rooms in order to find the one that she was looking for.

She started with the one closest to the side of the hall on which she stood,reaching for the handle and pushing it open gently. The room was dark,but she could barely make out the outline of a bed and some other potential piece of furniture. Maybe a dresser? This obviously wasn't a bathroom and so she pulled the door closed,returning to the two remaining doors that were left. The one on her right was the one she was sure of,and so she wasted no time in pulling it open. Her hand fumbled blindly along the wall until it hit a switch that brought light into the room,revealing the small room to be,indeed,the place that she was looking for.

Relieved to be abandoning all desire of snooping any further,Nagisa walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind her,shrugging off her coat and laying it on the counter beside the sink. The little room was nothing fancy. Nothing too generic either,but she wasn't expecting anything about a guy's bathroom to look especially attractive,let alone this guy. It had a tiled,step in shower,with a floor that was lower than the rest of the bathroom,and right across from it to the far left end was a toilet. The sink stood adjacent to the simple white shower,with the counter traveling horizontally all the way to the end where it seemed to connect to the front end wall of the tiled shower. It was all arranged in such a way that,now that she'd given it a more thorough inspection,it looked almost pleasant to her.

Turning back to the door,she flipped the tiny lock into place before beginning to disrobe. Her clothes she'd been wearing,she realized,had been the only ones she'd brought with her,besides the extra pair that was neatly folded into a small bag that she carried somewhere within the endless depths of her coat. She would manage for now,but any time after that would call for an escape into the village for a little shopping trip. As she stepped into the shower and began to run the water in the faucet,Nagisa wondered how her new caretaker would react to her request,going clothes shopping with a girl. Would he allow her to go alone? Or did he want to keep an eye on her in order to forbid her from stirring up anymore chaos within his precious Leaf Village?

Her laugh softly echoed within the shower walls as she closed the curtain and turned the shower's spray on. The warm rain casted down on her sore muscles,easing all the tension in her body that had managed to build up in her prolongued running spree today,with the additional sparring match with the male Uchiha. After all that'd been said and done today,there was nothing that a hot,comforting shower couldn't fix. Sighing through the clouding steam that the hot water had begun to create,Nagisa tilted her head back,and allowed the spray to engulf her completely under its cascade.

~

Shortly after her shower,Nagisa changed into her extra pair of clothes,abandoning her coat,practically transparent fishnet and the scant little garmnet she called a shirt,for something comfortable. A black,thin strapped tank top that came to about mid-driff with a small fanned Uchiha symbol printed on the front,along with a pair of black shorts; nothing too out of the ordinary about her new choice of clothing,except for the way the dark denim fringed a bit on the ends,and the way the the tank top hugged her breasts into a rather bountiful amount of cleavaged,but it was certainly not something her irritable housemate was complaining about.

No,certainly not.

Nagisa made her way into the kitchen padding barefoot while examining her nails and toenails,checking for any signs of chipping paint potentially resulting from her shower. While she hadn't been expecting any at all,she couldn't help but check every now and then. Itachi had scolded her once after using the special paint on her nails,shortly after discovering the small bottle within the coat pockets of his abandoned Akatsuki cloak one night. She'd found the color to be attractive,and even more so on the hands of her sensei. One thing she had noticed about the Akatsuki was that they all seemed to individualize themselves by painting their nails with color,all distinctively different from one another.

It didn't matter to her that this was a practice of the same group that ravenously devoured every minute they could manage from her time with her beloved sensei,because if it was something that he had done that she could do,she wanted it done just the same. However,after going through with her decision she was a little more than surpised to find out that the paint was quite permanent. A permanent ink created with some insane amount of chakra that would forever hold the paint to the user's nail,and after that there had been no turning back.

Fortunately,it was harmless and nontoxic though. Itachi had scolded her,but he didn't seem to be upset. He'd almost managed a smile at her,seeming to understand the precise reason behind her actions.

Nagisa's nails shined under the white glow of the lighting of the kitchen,as she remembered her sensei's faint smile. She really wished that she could see it now.

The female Uchiha's thoughts were abruptly interrupted as her new companion emerged from the hall and entered the kitchen. His ebony hair was damp and his clothes were now different from what they'd been before. He wore a simple white shirt,from which she could see on the back held the familiar clan crest when he'd walked past her,and a simple pair of black pants. Nagisa caught the lingering scent of freshness that indicated that he'd also taken a shower,as he slipped by her and went over to the small fridge in the corner of the kitchen. He leaned down,sticking his spikey head through the open door,shivering slightly as the warmth from the shower contrasted sharply with the cool air that emanated from the fridge.

"How do you feel about soup?" Sasuke asked into the appliance,though the question had clearly been meant for her.

"Uh...I like it?" she replied,flinching slightly as he stood up and allowed the door to slam closed.

"Great," his voice was muffled as he turned and brought a finger thoughtfully to his mouth. "Go find something to do. Dinner will be done in a bit,"

"But..." a frown came to Nagisa's lips. "You know,I'm not useless. I could help out if you wanted--"

"That's fine," Sasuke said,pulling a pan out of a bottom drawer and beginning to fill it with water from the faucet at the sink. "But it'd be nicer if you could stay out of my hair for a while. It's not your house,so you're not obligated to cook here,"

Nagisa snorted at the man's logic. "Not obligated..." but in some,ignorant way,she assumed that this was his way of telling her that she was a guest in his house and it was only right for him to do the cooking. Her careful personality had brought on the insentive to offer help when she thought he could use it,but he had turned her away rather rudely. There was no mistaking that,desregaurding the fact that they had both come from the same bloodlines,their similarities ran no deeper than that. This guy was a total prick whenever he could have the chance to be,and Nagisa realized she was going to have a hard time keeping up appearances,let alone attempt to be friendly if he was going to continue to behave that way.

With a sigh,the Uchiha woman retreated silently from the kitchen,and slipped into the room that she had neglected to look at upon entering the house for the second time. It was a homely looking room,with antique looking furniture and lots of different trinkets all aligned on wooden shelves in different parts of the room. A deep red sofa sat in the corner of the room,with a rug and a tv placed before it on the wooden floor. Nagisa giggled idley at the thought of the male Uchiha doing something as time deteriorating as staring at moving pictures,if even for few moments. He didn't seem like the type to pass the time that way,but who knew. She had expected a lot of things from him in their first encounter,to look and play the part of the young,handsome and man that he appeared to be.

But one could only get their hopes up about something so far fetched as this. Looks could be decieving,after all and that just as well applied to her sensei,who was just as equally attractive in every aspect.

Nagisa sighed,scattering her trivial thoughts as she walked over to the cranberry colored couch and sat herself down. She tucked her legs underneath herself and grabbed a nearby couch cushion,resting it on her lap as she leaned against the arm of the comfortable furnitutre. Sasuke had told her to find something to do until dinner was ready,but she found that hard since this was a new territory to her and she wasn't someone who just wandered freely around someone elses's house. What kind of person did he think she was,anyway? Surely he had a ton of questions about her,and his words in their first encounter reminded her that he did. She also had questions about him,but they could get to that when the tension between them had finally settled.

Bringing her knees up to her chest,Nagisa set the pillow on the sofa and wrapped her arms around her legs. She closed her eyes and began to relax when suddenly she heard the sound of feet padding on the wooden floor,and she opened them slowly.

Sasuke was standing in the doorway of the small kitchen with an unreadable look on his face. He had those eyes that held a hint of scrutiny but not enough to make her feel uncomfortable; more so,simply annoyed.

"What?" she mumbled,impatient for his response. He was just standing there staring like an idiot. Hadn't he told her that staring is rude?

The male Uchiha's mouth twitched up into what Nagisa could have almost called a half-grin,but then quickly twisted into a deep frown and his brows knit together in a faint hint of mutual irritation. "Dinner's done," was all he said before turning his back on her and disappearing into the kitchen. She gazed at the fan symbol on the back of his white t-shirt,eyes watching the charcoal black spikes atop his head sway just a little as he walked away. A small laugh came from Nagisa's lips as she realized that for some reason that looking at him from behind allowed her to conclude that he was rather short for a man around his age. Though not as short as herself; she was petite and she knew it,but that was an okay thing for a woman.

Still bearing a grin that she knew she'd have to discard before entering the kitchen,Nagisa pulled herself up from the comfortable couch and began to make her way out of the room. She thought,perhaps that just maybe during her stay,he would suffice for a tease that would be worth every irritable glare. No matter how many of those she'd be receiving in addition.