Among a life I have also had an incredible lack of inspiration, other known as the infamous plague or Writers block.

Disclaimer: I don't not own Naruto or any other character except Artemis Mathews, although I wouldn't mind if I owned Sasuke ). But like I said, sadly I don't.

Dedication: To all my wonderful reviewers and Jennjenner who I found out it is not only a great reviewer but a wonderful writer as well.

Warnings: Sexual abuse, Sexual inferences, Language, Violence, Self-mutilation, Drinking, anything delightfully filled with sin.

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The dirt clumped underneath her nails as it stained and soaked her white silk shorts. Earlier it had rained drenching the muddy ground and the dried grass, the storm was welcomed and children were heard screaming and laughing through the pounding drops. The rain had soon cleared and now only small droplets fell from the still dark sky, not a sound was heard throughout the Cherry Inn and the woman enjoyed the momentary silence. Bickering and name-calling always pursued by chaos was a constant with her friends and the smallest chance of silence was embraced.

Her confrontation with Sasuke the other day was enough to send her hurtling to years ago. Nothing seemed to have changed yet everything had changed. All chance of her former innocence was lost; she was no longer the foolish little girl head over heels for the brooding Uchiha boy. But it seemed he was no longer the emotionless bastard either, his confessions on revenge and love shocked yet intrigued her. Was she falling all over again? Opening her eyes she shook her head to clear her thoughts only to come with realization that someone or something was walking towards the inn.

Dusting off the dirt from her now brown white shorts Sakura began to run towards the inn preparing to warn her friends of approaching danger, only to collide with the man of the hour.

"Uchiha"

He smirked down at her shocked features, "Watch where your going Haruno."

Sakura's stomach flipped as more unwanted memories flooded back to her, shaking them off she remembered the reason of her hurry, "An unknown figure is approaching the inn, I was going to warn Naruto."

With another cocky smirk the Uchiha prodigy shook his head as if mocking her foolishness, "No need to warn anyone, I'll just go take care of it."

With an impatient growl the Kunoichi glared at the man before her, "Stop pretending to be so tuff, what if you get hurt?"

"Glad to know you care." With a mock salute Sasuke disappeared in a cloud of smoke leaving a shocked and very angry Sakura behind.

Cursing at Sasuke she continued running towards the inn in search of Naruto.

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When Sasuke heard from the once pink haired woman that unknown figures were approaching the cherry inn he wasn't worried, he had no reason to be, someone still had yet to provide him with a sufficient challenge. And when he saw just who these two figures actually were he had to suppress a chuckle, Sakura really panicked over nothing.

The first figure nodded his head towards the prodigy in disgust and greeting. "Uchiha."

The raven-haired man nodded in acknowledgement to the two sand ninja, "Gaara, Temari."

"I saw Sakura run off, hope we didn't scare her too much." Temari grinned up at Sasuke, "Don't want to get the poor girls knickers in a twist."

Smirking at the thought the Uchiha boy shook the dirty thoughts from his mind returning his attention to the guests, "What brings you here? Never thought you two were ones to run for cover."

"Our brother was murdered." Gaara replied emotionlessly almost emphasizing murdered like it was a blessing from heaven. He really did not seem to care for much, but Sasuke wasn't one to talk.

Sighing at her brother's bluntness on the situation she furthered the statement, We got word from Sakura that she was offering sanctuary here and we decided to come, we need rest, even if its only temporary."

Deciding to scold the once pink haired Kunoichi later, he shook his head glaring at how this would for sure bring unwanted trouble to the resident ninjas.

"Hn." Sasuke gave his trademark reply not bothering to offer his condolences for their murdered brother. There were too many deaths and there was no point wasting his breath on unwanted comfort.

Half way back to the inn's entrance he turned to see the two sand nin still standing where he left them, "Are you coming or do you just want me to kill you so I don't have to waste my time being polite?"

With another trademark smirk he walked into the inn leaving the two standing outside.

"What crawled up his ass?"

Gaara smirked down at his sister, "Lets go before he decides to stick to his words and I have to get my hands bloody again."

Sighing at the two boy's impudence she followed her little brother into the Cherry Inn leaving the dark skies behind her.

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Naruto was having a surprisingly bad morning. He was a morning person always happy and jubilant when it came to tackling another day, but today was different for two reasons. One, Sakura came panting and screaming into the inn about danger and that he needed to ready for a fight, happy at the chance he jumped into his old orange suit and ran down the stairs only to find a smirking Uchiha listening to a rambling Temari and a bored Gaara looking for shelter, not a fight, and two, when he ran to the kitchen to prepare a wonderful feast he realized that they were out of Ramen.

They were never out of Ramen.

"HOW ARE WE OUT OF RAMEN?"

Sakura rolled her eyes at her best friend's idiocy, "Maybe because someone finished it all."

"WHO IS THIS BAKA? WAIT TILL I GET MY HANDS ON HIM!"

Sighing Sakura pointed her finger at him, "You are."

"OH IM GOING TO KILL HIM! I WILL… Oh…" With a practiced grin the blonde-boy scratched his head realizing his own stupidity, "Then I will just have to send the Teme to get some!"

With this Sakura cracked a grin, "You think Sasuke is actually going to get up and buy you Ramen? Since when has he done anything for anyone?"

"Since you're going with him!" With a toothy grin he turned towards Sakura, "And you can't object Im your boss remember, it's either that or no pay check."

"Since when have you paid me?"

"Since when has that stopped you from being the best Sakura-Chan ever?" Naruto turned towards Sakura widening his baby blues in a pleading puppy like expression.

Cursing incoherent things under her breath Sakura walked to pick up her coat from the coat rack, she had changed out of her rain soaked clothes and into a pair of dry baggy dark blue jeans and a tight short red cotton top, her black sports rain jacket hugged her figure but the sleeves were long and baggy to guarantee warmth and dryness.

"Looks like someone grew up. Grew a pair of boobs huh she-man?" Temari sneered haughtily at Sakura.

Glaring and mumbling under her breath Sakura retorted with just as much venom, "Still going blonde I see, I thought the rain would've washed all the hair dye out by now."

The boys cowered behind the venom in their words then giggles broke out and the two girls hugged each other tightly.

"Girls, I will never understand them." Naruto shook his head in wonder at the two Kunoichi's before breaking into a whine, "Hurry up Sakura-Chan, the Ramen isn't going to buy itself!"

Still giggling at Naruto's behavior Sakura began to walk out the door only to stop and realize that Sasuke wasn't following her, "Aren't you coming, Mr. Royal pain in the ass?"

Shrugging of the icy tone Sasuke shook his head, "Just because Baka says so doesn't mean I'll go out and buy Ramen. Take Temari, I mean aren't girls supposed to do those type of things anyway?"

Not feeling like arguing with Sasuke Sakura just sighed grabbing the unaware blonde girl's hand and proceeding on dragging her out the door.

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The inn was quiet once again as the residents had retired to their rooms a couple hours past sundown. Now it was dawning towards midnight and the Uchiha boy still couldn't sleep. Days were passing by and he still hadn't come any closer to his plan of killing Orochimaru. The quicker he killed him the quicker he got paid, and as soon as it was all over he could continue his tireless quest for something to complete him. He had nothing now, and each day he spent in the inn made him realize that he had no one either.

What if he had done things differently? If he hadn't become power hungry, if he hadn't pushed anyone that ever cared away, would he have a family now? Would he be happy?

Growling at his sudden insecurities he turned his thoughts to Sakura. She was different now, filled with a sort of confidence that she lacked in her fan girl days. It sort of attracted him to her, but it seemed the tables had turned and she truly wanted nothing to do with him. A noise brought him out of his pensive ways.

Skillfully he eyed the room with his Sharingan there was no one here but him, but he swore he had heard something. Shaking his head he convinced himself that he was just getting jumpy, not another attack had been made on them since the clubbing incident. And since then none of them strayed to far without a companion, they couldn't take another chance.

"Do you always have to brood Uchiha?"

Jumping from his bed he readied in a fighting stand, how had he not detected the voice? He never missed a target, let alone had someone be in the same room as him without being detected.

"Don't kill yourself over it, it's just me."

"Artemis?" Sasuke shook his head in wonder as the redhead stepped out of the shadows of his unlit bedroom.

"Hey tiger." She sat down gracefully next to him on his small bed.

Not wasting any time he growled at her, "Get out of here."

"Attitude much?" Grinning eerily at him her jade eyes seemed to bare into his soul scratching and tearing making him feel dirty and useless, "Now before you get all anal on my ass, I just came here to say we need to move quickly, each day we're not getting any closer to locating Orochimaru and each day he gets stronger."

"How do we know hes not dead already?"

"Don't be daft, hes not that easy to kill, plus, if hes dying don't you think either you or me would have been summoned?" Her grin widened, "After all, you were to be his new host."

Glaring at the thought he remembered the day he found out why Orochimaru had recruited him, once again he was being used, "Well he trained me too well, in turn I killed him, there was no way he was going to be able to inhabit my body not until I had killed my brother at least."

"It's sad that you care so little about yourself, you killed the most feared ninja out of worry that he would stop you from murdering your brother rather than killing him for the sake of saving your own life." Her grin turned sardonic twisting into a tormenting laugh, "But you didn't kill him Sasuke-Kun, hes still alive, hiding somewhere bidding time and getting stronger."

"It doesn't matter, he no longer concerns me, forget our deal Artemis. Why don't you just kill him yourself?"

Green met black in a heated gaze, she would not give up, she had waited so long to kill him and finally she had met the man who could help her succeed, she would be dammed if he did not help her now.

"You know I can't do that alone, he knows me like no other, he raised me, I can not kill him. But you, you can. Sasuke you did it once, you can do it again. Please?"

Snorting he glared at the girl. "Now you've resorted to begging, pathetic."

Reaching a delicate pale hand forward she brought it quick to his face striking him firm in the cheek, "Idiot. I'm giving you a chance to bring meaning to your life. You are nothing now. You dedicated your whole life to killing Itachi, and now, now you're empty with nothing to live for. Take this opportunity and give some meaning to your drear life and dedicate all your hate to it. And once your done you can go back to being the worthless piece of shit you've always been."

The words stung him but he new the truth to them, they were the same words he repeated in his head over and over again. But she had no right to speak them, she barely knew him.

"Bitch." Without a second thought he tackled her to the floor. Raising his fist he punched her face, and watched in sadistic glee as blood trickled from her nose and down across her eerily pale flesh.

And the battle was on.

They were silent, almost floating in their strikes and blows. The inn remained in peaceful slumber as the two ninja went on with their pointless fight.

Kicks and punches were thrown leaving both panting and bleeding, no chakra attacks were made, seeing as neither wanted to wake the others and neither had the intention of killing the other. Not yet at least.

Artemis had delivered a blow to the Uchiha's stomach making him wince in pain, he no longer felt pain how could she penetrate his defenses enough to make him actually feel. He had become numb, and pain was new to him.

An idea sprung into his mind, if he could not end this fight with hand-to-hand combat he would have to change strategies.

With a blow to the redhead's chest her had her up against the concrete wall. Shivering at human contact he leaned down and did something he would later come to regret.

He kissed her.

And all hell broke lose.

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I know this is hardly the chapter you've been waiting for; it is short with no Sakura Sasuke fluffiness. And it ends in a cliffy.

Don't worry though hopefully I will have something more sufficient posted for next chapter, this is more of a filler chapter. Adding more characters, and better insight on the situation with Orochimaru.

Oh and don't worry Sasuke doesn't like Artemis, it was merely a way to have an upper hand in their spar.