Part 5: Lost and Found, Chapter 34: With the end a new beginning is born

The door to the porch slid open and Sora slipped through. "You two making out back here?" She asked, moving to lean against the porch rail, spoon stuck in a carton of Death By Chocolate ice cream.

Naruto snorted from where he was perched on the railing and pulled Hinata closer into his chest as her cheeks colored. "No, we were just talking."

Sora snorted herself. "Yeah, right. You two better get it in now before you head down tomorrow. Because I don't think that Hinata's father is going to be as lenient with you two as I am."

"Lenient?" Naruto scoffed. "What the heck are you talking about? You put a huge picture of the two of us kissing up in the kitchen asking us to 'please control ourselves'."

Sora swallowed another bite of ice cream. "Hey, I said to control yourselves in public. I don't mind if you two suck face as long as I don't have to watch it."

Hinata let out a small 'meep' of embarrassment and buried her face deeper into Naruto's shoulder.

"Hey, cut it out, you're embarrassing Hina!" Naruto yelled, causing Hinata to wince. "Sorry." He added with a rueful smile.

"You two ready to go back?" Sora asked, her voice taking on a more serious tone.

Naruto sighed and looked back out at the mountains. "As ready as we're going to be."

The last five months had proved to be some of the hardest Naruto and Hinata had ever been through. They had gone to Sora and told her they wanted to train harder than ever. They were good, but they needed to get far better if they were going to make the Village Hidden in the Leaves into the place that they wanted it to be and defeat the Akatsuki. Sora had snorted, smiled, and shaken her head.

"Took the two of you long enough; I was expecting this to happen weeks ago." She said. "Come on, let's go talk to Yasu."

"Why?" Hinata had asked as they left the kitchen to go up to Yasu's room, where she had sequestered herself for the past month.

"Because first of all, she needs something to distract her, and helping me train you two is a good idea. Second, she can't train you just staying in that room and she needs to get out of it. Third, because she's still the best jutsu creator I've ever known and she needs to start getting back into the flow of things in terms of research." Sora explained.

"Why does she need to get back into the flow of things in terms of research?" Naruto asked.

"Because eventually she's going to start channeling her grief towards killing the man who did this. She can't go out and hunt them down with Yui, but she can give us the tools to do so." Sora smiled.

And when they had found Yasu, she was sitting at the desk in her room, staring at the picture of her, Nori, and Yui in front of their house. Yui was at her feet, quietly looking at a book. They both had become entirely too withdrawn since Nori's death, barely even interacting with the rest of the world.

"You…" Sora said, pointing to Yasu. "Are going to the library with Hinata where the two of you are going to start looking to see if we have anything on the Sharingan. And you missy…" She said, picking up Yui off the floor and pushing her into Naruto's arms, "Are going with Naruto, where he is going to teach you the first of the Heaven Fist sets."

"Sora." Yasu said with a warning note in her voice.

"No, Yasu." Sora replied, grabbing her arm and hauling her to her feet. "It's been a month. You need to at least do something, and if we're going to prevent these men from doing this to anybody else, you're going to have to get your butt in gear."

"Doing this to someone else?" Yasu asked, slightly startled, as if the idea that they wouldn't stop at just her husband was surprising.

Sora opened her mouth to speak, but Naruto beat her to it. "If we don't stop them, how many more people will die? We don't even know what their plans are, Yasu. Unless we have your brain working on it, how the heck are we going to figure it out?"

Yasu took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Right."

And so they did. For their final five months on the mountain, the four of them worked harder than they ever had before. They barely ate or slept, training all day and working on creating jutsu with Yasu late into the night. The training itself had taken on a different tone, a more focused, pressured feel. It took Naruto and Hinata a few weeks to realize that it was partially due to the fact that Sora had started training herself as well as them. They were still young and had a lot to learn from her, but something had changed. They were no longer her students as much as they were her training partners, her equals, and more importantly they where becoming a team.

Yasu refused to go down off of the mountain. She explained to them that she was never going to leave the house and Nori's ashes, buried deep into the side of the mountain. She intended to stay by his side for the rest of her life. Sora tried to explain to her that it was neither what Nori would have wanted nor what was best for Yui, but Yasu wouldn't listen.

And so when the time came to pack their bags and return to Konoha, it was only Sora who walked down the stone passage with them. Wrapped in some of the best cloaking jutsus they could find, the three of them made their way back towards the village, keeping off the roads and camping out in the woods.

Every night, wrapped in the same blanket, Naruto held Hinata tightly. Once they got back, she would return to the Hyuuga household, and somehow he didn't think her father would let him spend the night.

Finally, they reached the part of the forest surrounding the village. It was night and the wind nipped at their cheeks as they stopped just off the road to say goodbye. The three of them stood there staring at each other, until finally Sora spoke.

"I'm sorry." She whispered. "You're going to fail your mission because of me. I'd go back with you, at least for a little while, but Yasu…"

"Eh, it's okay." Naruto said. He hated the idea of failing a mission, and he hated the idea of having his sister walk away even more. But he couldn't bare the idea of Yasu and Yui up on that mountain all by themselves. "You'll come to visit soon, right?" He asked hopefully.

She gave him a half smile. "Just give me a while to get Yasu back on her feet and I'll come to stay, how about that."

"You better, or I'll come up that mountain and kick your butt!" Naruto exclaimed with a grin.

Sora snorted. "Like you could."

Naruto's grin widened. "Just wait!"

Smiling, Sora wrapped her arms around him to give him a hug. Suddenly she burst into tears. Naruto hugged her tighter, looking over her shoulder at Hinata. The girl just smiled, a stray tear running down her own cheek.

"Hey, hey, what's going on with all this crying?" He asked jokingly.

Sora sniffed and laughed a little at his tone. "I'm sorry, it's just…you're taller than me."

"Huh?" He responded, pulling away slightly to look at her.

"You've grown a heck of a lot in the last three years, kid." She sniffed and reached up to ruffle his hair. "Told'ya you'd reach six feet."

He grinned at her and pulled her back for another quick hug. She squeezed him back and then turned to face Hinata. They smiled at each other and then embraced.

"You're going to stand up for yourself with your father, right?" Sora asked.

Hinata pressed her lips together and nodded. They were both crying, while Naruto looked on awkwardly. Sora sniffed and jerked her head towards Naruto. "You're going to keep him from doing anything too stupid, right?"

With a half smile, Hinata nodded again.

Sora grinned. "You're pretty much kick butt now; don't forget it and let people walk all over you."

Naruto snorted behind them. "Like I'm going to let that happen." They all chuckled a little, trying to shake off their sadness.

Finally Sora cleared her throat and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "All right; well, we can't stand here forever folks. You two scat off to your village and fix it already."

Naruto held out his hand and Hinata slipped hers into his. He squeezed it once before they both turned to say goodbye one last time.

Sora smiled at them, eyes glistening with tears. "You know you're always welcome up at the house. You're both family, you know, so it's basically yours anyway. If this place becomes too unbearable, just come on up. And the two of you better keep in touch; that's what the falcon's are for."

"Don't worry," Hinata said. "I'll write you about everything."

"Good." She nodded and chewed on her bottom lip for a second. Then she took a deep breath and said, "And if you need me for something, just let me know, and I'll come down."

"Eh, we'll be fine." Naruto said.

"But if your not…" Sora started before Naruto interrupted her.

"We'll let you know." He said.

She smiled and choked back another round of tears. "All right, that's it. This time you two really need to get going. I have to get back up to the mountain. I'll send one of the falcons with the rest of your things when I get there."

"Give our love to Yasu and Yui." Hinata said, a few stray tears sliding down her face.

Sora smiled. "Give it to them yourself when they get down her."

They nodded and turned to walk back towards the gates of Leaf. "Bye Sis! See you soon!" Naruto called back over his shoulder.

"Don't get into too much trouble!" Sora yelled back.

She watched them walk down the road that would lead them back to the gates of The Leaf Village. Suddenly her mind flashed back to the day they left, Naruto pulling Hinata along by her arm, anxious to get going.

"I hope you're happy with me, Nanashi, wherever you are," Sora whispered into the dark. Her eyes filled with tears once again. "I'll see you soon." She wished to the two barely visible forms in front of her.

She turned and headed back towards the mountain.

Naruto and Hinata walked hand and hand back towards the Leaf Village.

Free137 here, how is everyone?

That's book one of my edit of DameWren's Two Halves series. Hope you liked. Depending on the feedback I get I may write the next one (sense DameWren never did).

Warning: if you want to read the next book and don't want anything spoiled… stop reading this, I'm revealing some of my plans for Twice Shy (the next book).

I wrote this as Naruto(the first Naruto anime series) was becoming Naruto Shippuden(the second Naruto anime series that takes place after a three year time gap when Naruto leaves the Leaf Village with Jiraya to train), so I got allot of things wrong… duh. All you hardcore fans hate me, right? I'm sorry. I was going for what I wanted to happen in the story, not what the real story is.

In the next book I want to have at least one chapter of Sora's training with Nanashi flashback. And for all those who wanted to know, Nanashi means "one with no name" in Japanese. In an earlier part of Two Halves that was kinda insinuated.

I realize that as I was editing that Sora didn't favor any type of particular jutsu beside the Zetsumei. I figure sense her name means "air" in Japanese I'm going to make her a Wind Jutsu specialist.

Also I realize that I screwed up the chakra nature business, I already have a plan on how I'm going to fix that.

The Wind Style: Rasengan… I actually had a friend voice there concerns when I told them I'd been writing these books, so I'm going to explain a little about that. In Naruto Shippuden (the real deal), Naruto and Kakashi create a way to verse the Rasengan with wind chakra, creating a super powerful Rasengan. In Naruto Shippuden, Naruto can only use this attack so many times though or he'll eventually destroy his arm. In Twice Shy (the next book) I'm just going to have it that Naruto will not destroy his arm, but the Wind style: Rasengan will take a lot of chakra, even for Naruto.

Yamato: He won't be in any of the books, but his Kekkei Genkai will be.

Sai: I HATE THAT GUY

Itachi… I never really liked Itachi's character, but at the same time he was always one of those characters I respected… so I made him the arch villain. In Shippuden, Sasuke kills him(that may still happen)… when I found out how he dies it left a really bad taste in my mouth… I never really liked Itachi but I never would have though that would happen. It's just that Itachi always seemed like one of the strongest characters in the show… so I'll give him a run for his money (and Kisame will be returning, he is one of my favorite Akatsuki). As for Itachi's grand plan… I don't even know what it is yet, I'm winging it. Hell, I don't even know if he's the arch-villain or not.

The Akatsuki: I kept Madara Uchicha as the "Leader" of the Akatsuki, but it seems like Itachi is trying to stage a coup… Hehe. I'm adding a bunch of new characters to the Akatsuki. In book two the Akatsuki (and Itachi) will play more of a background role, controlling things from the shadows. You'll learn more about are main villain's, Itachi, Pain, and Madara. The fore front of the next book will be Naruto's training, the Jounin exam, and the war with the Sound Village and the acquisition of Orochimaru's new body. Speaking of which…

Orochimaru: I never liked him either. He is, more or less a puppet in my story, the clown shoes villain so to speak. In the next book he will serve as the Otokage (the leader of the Village Hidden in the Sound). I intend on wrapping that war up at the end of the next book (note: this war has been raging all the while Naruto was with Sora). The entire book he'll pretty much be looking for a new body, which might still be Sasuke.

Sasuke: Throughout the first part of the series it seemed like the show and comic should have been named 'Sasuke' instead of 'Naruto'. All together though I like Sasuke's character, so I plan not making him a villain like in Shippuden. And by no means will he be joining the Akatsuki. Although he will be a total asshole, and still may join Orochimaru.

Misc.: Did any one notice that though the story Sora started becoming more conservative? I tried to make that symbolize her becoming 'ok' with going to stay in the Leaf Village (which she will be, don't worry). I'm going to have a nice fat arc where Sora teaches the Zetsumei to Hinata like when Jiraya taught the Rasengan to Naruto.

That just about wraps this up… Thanks for reading!