A Hatred That Will Never Bloom Into Friendship

"Kimina!" Naruto screams.

He catches me in his arms, and lowers me to the ground carefully. His blue eyes look at me with such anguish.

"Kimina, are you...are you okay?" he asks me meticulously. I nod in response. "You shouldn't have did this." He pulls one of his hands away from around me, and my blood stained his skin.

"I'm fine, Naruto...really," I assure him. Little did he know that my green chakra was already healing the wound away.

The Rain shinobi close in around us.

Naruto stands to his feet and growls deep in his throat, his hands balled into fists at his sides. "Alright, now you guys are gonna' get it!"

"Don't, Naruto!" Sasuke shouts. "You'll just be wasting your time on these guys! The real ones aren't there!"

Naruto glances down at me. "The real ones are here, Sasuke! Where else would they be? That attack was real!"

Sasuke yells back, annoyed. "If I knew that you idoit, we wouldn't be in this mess!" Naruto grits his teeth.

He falls to his knees, exhausted. He was reaching his limit.

Just then, a Rain ninja jumps in the air with a knife in his hand, and another one pops out of the ground under Naruto's feet.

My attention was so focused on trying to help Naruto that I didn't notice a Rain ninja coming up behind me as well. I turn my head and cry out when the kunai he held comes in contact with my face, slicing my skin open from my cheek to my temple.

I fly backwards from the force of the blow and someone catches me before I fall back onto the hard ground.

"...Lloyd," I barely manage to whisper. My entire face was throbbing with pain, and I could hear my heartbeat beating loudly in my ears.

Lloyd's eyes narrow as he gazes vehemently at the three Sound shinobi, who were now standing before us.

The ground then rumbles under our feet and tree roots suddenly sprout up from the ground between Lloyd and I and our three opposing foes.

"Where the hell did this come from?" one of them asks, baffled.

"Nice work, Rakuyo!" Naruto yells, coming up behind the Rain ninja's and kicks them all each in their faces, knocking them out cold.

"Did you find their scrolls, Naruto?" Sakura asks him, while glancing at me warily. "Are you sure your going to be okay, Kimina? That is a pretty nasty cut."

My left eye (my right eye was swollen shut) glimpses back at her emphatically. "Yeah, I will be. Don't worry." The bleeding had stopped somewhat, but I knew the long, deep red cut looked...pretty nasty. And it hurt like hell!

"I found it! Aw man!" Naruto grumbles unhappily.

"What is it?" Sasuke asks, taking a couple steps toward him.

"They have the earth scroll! But that's the scroll we have!"

"Wait a minute." Lloyd fumbles around in his weapon pouch and pulls out one of our heaven scrolls. "You guys have another earth scroll?"

"Yeah," Sasuke replies, pulling out the said scroll.

"Wow! I can't believe it all worked out this way," I say, stunned.

Sakura raises her eyebrows. "What are you talking about?"

"It just so happens that we have two heaven scrolls," Lloyd explains, gesturing to Rakuyo. Rakuyo pulls out the other heaven scroll.

"So, all we have to do is make a little switch and we'll both have the scrolls we need." Naruto tosses the scroll in his hand to Lloyd.

"Exactly." Lloyd flings the heaven scroll to Naruto.

"Great, so now both your teams have each the heaven and earth scroll. Now, we can all go to the Tower," Kabuto declares.

"Yeah, finally!" Naruto shouts happily.

I laugh at his zealousness, but I was pleased to get out of this Forest too. So, much has happened in this place, and I shiver involuntarily just thinking about it. Deep down, I knew that it was just the beginning. And I feared that it was going to get worse from here on out. Funny when I was thinking about all of this, I was looking directly at Sasuke. Talk about a eerie feeling, right?

~~*~~

When we arrive at the Tower, we all go our separate ways to the doors we were supposed to enter.

I give Naruto a farewell hug before we depart.

"What the hell do you see in him, anyway?" Lloyd asks me, out of nowhere, when we were out of sight from the others.

"Um..." I didn't know what to say. The question totally took me off guard.

"Here's us," Lloyd says. Well, apparently it was rhetorical. But I see an annoyed look in his eyes when he glances at me. Where the hell did all this come from?

We stop in front of our given door.

"So, what do you guys thinks gonna' happen now?" Rakuyo inquires.

I shrug my shoulders. "I have no clue." The green chakra rolls over my face, and the laceration clears up altogether, and the swelling in my eye goes away. I sigh. "That's better." I then restore all three our energies, and clear up the few bruises on both their faces.

"Thanks. But what about your back?" Rakuyo implores.

"Already healed," I reveal.

Lloyd raises an eyebrow. "When?" He leans over to see behind me.

"Right after it happened."

"But I didn't see the chakra," Lloyd says.

"Yeah, I still don't know. But I didn't want everyone to see the healing power, so I just made it heal me little by little. So, the green chakra didn't show that much." I smile.

"Whoa. So, your really are mastering this power, huh? Well, one thing's for sure, we won't have to be worrying about you in whatever happens next." Lloyd smirks back.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that," I lie through my teeth. Actually, it was really the opposite, I thought. The chakra was mastering me it felt like, but I wasn't going to tell them about it. Not yet, anyway, because that would mean I would have to tell them about the curse.

Rakuyo notices my faltered expression, and I quickly disguise it with an amiable grin.

Lloyd, oblivious to almost everything, gestures back to the door. "Well, come on, its time to find out whats on the other side of this thing." I nod in agreement.

A cloud of smoke then goes off behind us. We all turn around to see a man stepping out of the haze. Izumo, I think his name is. He was a chunin.

"Glad to see you three have made it. And just in time too," he walks up to us and adds.

"So, what do you need to see us for? Is this part of the exam?" I question. I observe the bandage over the top of his nose.

"No. I'm just here to talk to Rakuyo."

Rakuyo raises his head beside me.

"Rakuyo? For what?" Lloyd asks, but he doesn't get an answer.

Izumo just takes Rakuyo to the edge of the Forest several feet away, and they talk to each other for a few minutes. Well, Izumo does all the talking. Rakuyo just stands there listening, silent as ever.

"Can you hear what he's saying?" Lloyd asks me lowly. I shake my head.

After a few more minutes, Izumo disappears and Rakuyo walks back up to us. His features were completely unreadable, but I gasp silently when I take a glimpse into his eyes. They were filled with deep sorrow.

I gulp. "Rakuyo...what happened?"