“Introduce yourselves,” Kakashi urged after he shut the door and stood behind the genin who had taken seats in the chairs beside her bed.  “I’m Uzumaki Naruto!  I’m the strongest genin in the village and I’m going to be the next Hokage!” boasted the blonde boy, Hatsumomo smiled, “I wish you luck with that Naruto-kun, you remind me very much of the Yondaime, I’m sure you’ll match his strength one day.” She said politely causing Naruto to scratch his nose with a grin.  The girl sighed with annoyance, “Ms. please don’t pay any mind to him, and I wouldn’t encourage him it’ll only inflate his head even more,” the girl advised.  “Well you seem like you know a lot, and you are?” Hatsumomo asked with a smile, she wished she were allowed to be that cheeky when she was her age.  “Haruno Sakura, its nice to meet you, Kakashi-sensei has brought you up before,” she said with a smile.  “What a pretty name you have,” Hatsumomo said causing Sakura to blush, “Make sure you don’t forget that flowers with beautiful names are not always as beautiful,” she advised leaving Sakura confused.  Hatsumomo looked at the last boy expectantly but he was silent and stared at her for a moment as if searching his memory for something.  “Uchiha Sasuke, is that correct?”  Hatsumomo said for him, Sasuke nodded but remained silent, his eyes were filled with hidden anger and rage.  “Hey, hey, Miss, you didn’t tell us your name,” Naruto said, catching Hatsumomo’s attention.  “Oh I’m very sorry, I’m Hatsumomo, and it’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said politely.
Sasuke froze, he had been almost positive he had seen this woman’s face before, and now he was sure of it.  Hatsumomo noticed his sudden realization and couldn’t help but smile a little, but she remained silent and spoke only to Naruto and Sakura.  “Well I don’t want to burden you guys when you should be out training so you can leave if you want to,” Hatsumomo said politely to Kakashi and his team, “Besides visiting hours will be over before long.”  Kakashi nodded, “I do have things I have to get back to, I’ll leave the rest of you to decide what you’re doing on your own,” Kakashi said and left with a wave of his hand.  Sakura was dumbstruck; she was obviously hoping Kakashi would tell them they had to go so she wouldn’t feel rude leaving after coming to visit and all.  Naruto looked at the door where Kakashi had left and then back to the kindly woman in the bed, “Yeah I should probably get going to, it was nice to meet you Hatsumomo-oneechan, get well soon,” Sakura growled “Naruto” under her breath thinking he was being rude, and gave Hatsumomo a quick bow, “I’m sorry he’s just so annoying,”
“Not at all.  I enjoyed his company very much, but you should run along too,” Hatsumomo replied with a kind smile.  Sakura nodded and gave another bow, and glanced at Sasuke before leaving the room.  “You should get going too Sasuke-san,” Hatsumomo said, using –san like she did when Sasuke was younger because it always made him feel like he was larger then life to be called –san when everyone else called him –kun or –chan.  “Where have you been for the past five years?” Sasuke asked, completely ignoring Hatsumomo’s previous comment.  “Doing the same thing you’ve been apparently, training for reasons only you’d understand.”  Hatsumomo replied seriously.
“Its not your job to kill him its mine!” Sasuke said firmly now on his feet, “I considered myself to be apart of that family too Sasuke-san,” Hatsumomo replied heatedly.  “It’s not your place!  You were never part of the family!”  Sasuke said with even more force.  Hatsumomo looked down at her knees covered by the bed sheets, “Yet…was I not considered a family member to you Sasuke-san?”  Hatsumomo asked cauing Sasuke to freeze.  She continued, “You can’t honestly tell me you did not consider me a part of your family,”  “Just because I did doesn’t mean you were,” Sasuke said simply.
“I understand,” Hatsumomo replied, her voice was barely above a whisper, she sighed and leaned her head back into the pillows.  “How did you get these injuries anyway?” Sasuke asked, as though actually attempting to start a conversation.  “If I told you, you’d hate me,” Hatsumomo said, Sasuke already understood, “You fought him!” he started in angrily, “Yeah,” she mumbled after flinching from Sasuke’s harsh voice, “I’m actually very lucky, most of the damage was done to my legs,” she said while staring at them, “I suspect it was so I wouldn’t follow him,” Sasuke looked at Hatsumomo curiously, “Why didn’t he kill you?”
Hatsumomo laughed, “You sound like you wanted me to die Sasuke-san.  Who really knows though, since the first day I met Itachi-sama I’m never been able to figure him out.”
“You still call him –sama?” Sasuke said accusingly.  “Old habits die hard I guess,” Hatsumomo replied.  Sasuke didn’t reply, they were both silent for a moment before Sasuke spoke up again, “Don’t chase after Itachi anymore.  He’s my brother, he’s part of my family, its my responsibility to kill him,” Sasuke said as he began to leave.  As soon as Sasuke closed the door Hatsumomo muttered, “I can’t make any promises,” she pulled the sheets up to her shoulders and attempted to get some rest, but every time she closed her eyes, she dreamed of coal black eyes staring at her…watching her.

“Are you sure you should be out of the hospital so soon?” Kakashi asked, not looking up from his Icha Icha book as he walked and talked.  Hatsumomo just smiled kindly and nodded, “I’ll be fine, look I’m not training and I’m not straining myself.  I’m just…walking,” she replied serenely.  “And that is over exerting yourself, with how many cuts we found on your legs you shouldn’t be moving around at all right now.” Hatsumomo’s kind face turned into a pout. “Tsunade-sama wouldn’t have let me out if I wasn’t doing well, so kindly get off my back.” She said, her temper growing thin.  “I’m just saying that you should’ve waited a little while longer before getting out, just to be safe, you’re body hasn’t been healing right since…that day…and you’ve been taking things really hard, sometimes almost worse then-“
“NO!” Hatsumomo said angrily causing them both to stop and a few passers by to stare at them, she cleared her throat and calmly continued, “no…I’m just fine, and I’ll be fine so don’t worry about me, I’ve always been fine its not my concern what happened to them.  I mean it is but…I’m not related so.  And don’t even finish that sentence, you don’t know how it feels for him, he’s taking it far worse then I.  I could never take it any worse then him, it was his family he was far closer to them then I’ll ever be.  And that’s a pathetic attempt to make me take it easy.” She finished as she continued down the crowded streets of Konoha, not looking at Kakashi because her anger was boiling over though she did a rather good job if hiding it.
Behind her Kakashi sighed and walked quickly to catch up and then slowed his pace to mach hers when he reached her.  “So what are you going to do now that you’re out?” Kakashi asked curiosity gleaming in his one visible eye.  “I think I’ll go back home and take this month’s punishment,” Hatsumomo replied with an unwavering eye.  “You go there and listen to them tell you you’re worthless every month, there’s no reason too,” Kakashi replied as he put his Icha Icha book away and eyed her.  “It’s my punishment for not keeping a better eye on my fiancé, and for falling prey to his best friend and his kind words.”
Kakashi stared at her with even more curiosity hidden in his coal eye; every time he had brought up Itachi she had mentioned something like this, about falling prey to him in some way.  He was beginning to wonder what she meant by that, it almost sounded as though she cared for him, as something other then how she had first described it.  He stopped outside Hatsumomo’s house and bid her farewell and left in a puff of smoke.

Hatsumomo entered her house and packed some things, she was going to stay at that house for a while, the house that she so dearly despised, especially now that she had come to her senses.  After gathering some clothes she opened the drawer on the bedside table and pulled out a thin leather-bound journal, though it looked far thicker then it should for crinkled and stained papers were shoved between its many pages causing her to blush slightly at her messiness.  She sat on her bed and flipped through it, pages of unwritten letters to Shisui, copies of already sent letter to Shisui (she copied her replies so she could remember them) and replying letters from Shisui.  Everything from how she hated her parents, to how she loved Shisui, to when she met Itachi, to before she was going to marry Shisui, every thought, every feeling, every word, all recorded to today.  She sighed and flipped to a new page, pulled out her favorite pen, specifically for this journal, and began to write.

It’s that time of month again…my bad week, it’s the perfect time to see my parents, that way I can snap at them and blame it on PMS.  I could probably go on a week that isn’t even my week and they wouldn’t notice.  A real mom would keep track of her daughter’s menstrual cycle, but mine is more like a harpy.   I wont even try to make friends with them; this is merely punishment that I deserve to receive.  I deserve it more then ever now, I saw him again.  It’s the first time in years; I cannot believe how much he’s grown!  I almost forgot that I was older then him.  He’s so much more mature now!  It makes me feel jealous.  And I’ve never seen such a handsome face- She scratched out the last sentence and glared at her betraying hand then continued as though it never happened- It still hurts, and I fear that this pain will never go away, as much as I hate to admit it, Kakashi is right I shouldn’t be out of the hospital this early but…there’s no pain…it doesn’t hurt at all.  Even Tsunade said there are no wounds left, they’ve been healing really quickly lately, I don’t understand why.  However my heart never stops burning, its as though its taking the pain for the rest of my body.  I wish it wouldn’t.
Hatsumomo set her pen down satisfied but then realized there was something else eating away at her, as though there was something she didn’t write down.  She never had good control of herself while she was writing, it was as though her body took over for her and sometimes she doesn’t even realize what she wrote until she goes back and looks at it.  She picked up her pen again and set it against the paper once more; taking a deep breath to calm herself so it was easier how to draw out whatever she wanted to write.
I don’t know why…but my pain subsided a little…when I saw him.  It was as though his face had given me some comfort, and that in attacking me the way he did, my pains and sorrows bled out of me.  I wonder if I should try that more often?  No, I couldn’t do that, and that’s final.  Its something I could never do, I don’t like pain.

I don’t want to hurt anymore…

Hatsumomo took a deep breath before entering the large beautiful house; it wasn’t as beautiful as it could have been considering how much money they possessed.  However they kept their part of her rather larger family separate from the rest of her family who was also rather widely spread out.  She opened the sliding paper door and entered slipping off her shoes before she stepped on the lovely wooden floor.  She knew it would be rude to pop in on her parents unexpected, and it only made it worse considering instead of wearing a fancy kimono when entering the home of her “gracious” parents.  The same parents who have been “oh so good to me since the day of my birth” she mouthed silently as she tugged at her baggy black pants that were clinging to her ankles, the same parents that she was “So lucky to have because they gave me everything I could ever want and need,” she repeated mentally while glaring at everything around her.  She stepped to the side to walk around a blonde girl in a beautiful red kimono, Hatsumomo remained silent and hoped that the girl wouldn’t acknowledge her but as expected she pushed her shoulder roughly against hers as they passed each other causing Hatsumomo to turn unintentionally.
The blonde turned abruptly and glared at Hatsumomo with the deepest of distain, “Watch where you’re going Sumo-teme,” she said in a high-pitched voice while sucking in air to puff up her thin and lovely face to make it look fat.  Hatsumomo glared at her and anger boiled in her heart for the childish insult that had been used against her many a time.  The nickname “Sumo” was referring to sumo wrestlers, which was an insult because, compared to some of the other members of her family who had been married off to other clans, her face was slightly more round and plump then the rest.  “Ew what are you wearing?  You’ve been taught not to bring trash in the house Sumo-teme, but I guess if you really learned that then you wouldn’t have come back now would you?” she said in a mocking voice.  Hatsumomo took a deep breath and sighed looking up at her younger sister.  “Now, Chi-chan, just because you didn’t get to the Uchiha menace before he snapped doesn’t give you a right to act like a child.”  Hatusumomo said smartly with a placid face.
Her sister’s face burned bright read, all the way to the roots of her lovely long blonde hair, “You’re to call me Chinatsu-hime now!  Now that you’ve failed our family!  You’re not even my sister anymore!” she screeched loudly though Hatsumomo didn’t shudder at all.  “You should be bowing at my feet!  Not making mindless jokes!  You’re just jealous!  You’re jealous that you’re not the princess of the family anymore!  Not since you screwed everything up, not since you left!  Well I’m the princess now and there’s nothing you can do about it!” She finished, her chest heaving, causing the right sleeve of her red Kimono to slip past her scrawny, bony little shoulder.
“Chinatsu-hime?  What’s going on,” said a strict voice disguised by kindliness.  A tall and lanky woman with pointed features entered the room, moving silently, like a ghost.  She froze when her eyes landed on Hatsumomo, glowering at her with deepest hate.  “Hatsumomo…” she said in a tone of deepest loathing,  “Mother,” Hatsumomo replied with the same expression.  She smirked wickedly, like an evil stepmother from a storybook, and flipped her velvet dirty blonde hair.  “I should’ve known you’d come…slithering back to us once again, like the worm you’ve become.  Have you changed your mind about that…hideous lifestyle you’ve chosen?  We might take it easy on you if you come back now.”  She said, pausing at certain moments as though picking the most hateful words in her vocabulary.
Hatsumomo looked away from her mother, her lips pursed, and debated on the cruelest way to say no to the foul beast that had conceived her.  “No mother,” she said in her sweetest voice possible as she turned to look once more at her mother, “No I’m afraid not, I’ve made up my mind and decided not to be a snotty little bitch like you and ever other demon child that has been conceived in this house.  Of course I do mean this in the nicest way possible.” She said with a falsely polite smile as she bowed to her mother in mock respect. “And while I’m still here I would like to ask you most humbly to stop asking me stupid questions because it makes you sound even dumber then Chinatsu-hime looks,” she said, while saying her sisters name with the deepest disdain, “Now if you’ll excuse me, which I know you will, I’ll be showing myself to my quarters and if you could have the dolled servant-“ She waved towards Chinatsu, “Fix me a hot bath wont you mother dearest?  I would so appreciate a soak right now after a long hard journey, on foot, because unlike many people here I am capable of surviving outside in the real world, without a man.” She finished, emphasizing the last phrase.
Without another word she walked past her mother with a little bounce in her step, she hummed a tune and had an actual smile plastered on her face.  Chinatsu and her mother were both dumbstruck, completely amazed by Hatsumomo’s display of strength or what they would call “ill manners”.
“Poor dear must be on her period.”  The Harpy-mother said after regaining her composure, “She is such a dragon when she’s PMSing, it’s a wonder we were ever able to find her a husband at all,”