Lea POV

"Mami would you stop looking at yourself in the mirror and come on?" I glanced over at the conceited cat, purring as she stared at her reflection.

"It's such a blessing to have such beauty, you know," she said, swishing her tail. "You can never get enough of it."

"Well I can." I quickly pulled my white hair up into a ponytail and faced her. "Come on. We have to go train."

"That's all your mind is on, huh?" She rolled her eyes at me. "Training, training, training. One day you're going to train yourself to death and I am not going to be responsible when that happens. Just stating that from now."

"Sometimes I miss the old respectful Mami who dared not say anything against her queen."

"Well it's too late for that now."

"You sure about tha-"

"Hey would you pass me that brush over there?" Her tail pointed to the hardback brush lying on the dining table. "My fur looks a little loose. I can't go out looking like this. What a mess!"

What a conceited little cat...

I looked at the brush and a small smirk appeared on my lips. Yeah, you'll get your brush alright. I grabbed the brush at its handle and hurled it at her head. It collided with a 'thunk'.

"Ow!!" she yelped, her tail raising instinctively into the air. "What was that for?!"

"You see, if you were training more often, you would have been able to dodge that." I tsked at her, reveling in the feeling. "Which ninja can't dodge a brush?"

Mami did what I assumed was a pout. Her tail limped and she walked over to the window, looking out. "If you wanted to leave that badly, you could have just said so."

I rolled my eyes and made my way over to her. "I believe I did. Over and over again. These ears aren't just for decoration," I said, flicking her ear.

"Oh, you would know wouldn't you," she muttered under her breath. Unluckily for her, my ears were way past the decoration phase.

"What was that?" I asked, menacingly.

"Wooow, what a beautiful day, it is!" Mami's eyes widened in pretend awe as she tried to avoid mine. I lifted an eyebrow. "Aren't we going to train? What are you waiting for?"

"Yeah, that's what I thought you said."

I hopped unto her back, feeling her body coil under mine, as she got ready to jump. I grabbed her hair as she sprang out of the apartment window.

"Where to, boss?" she asked.

My mind went to Sasuke immediately. It's been three days since I carried him to the hospital and I haven't been back since. I had been planning to go check up on him some time ago but then I totally forgot. I have been training, training, training, just as Mami said. My friends are probably wondering if I fell off the face of the earth since they haven't seen me.

"Let's go to the hospital," I said.

"Why there?" Mami asked, even as she set off. "We can't train there - ohhhhhh, you're going to look for Sasuke aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"Aww, that's so sweet. I bet he would love that you came to visit him, even if he's in coma."

"If he's in a coma, how would he know I visited him?"

Mami sighed. "By the power of love, of course."

"That again? I thought you were done with that."

"How could I be? You two make the cutest couple."

I ignored her. She's been saying that a while now and every time she brought it up, I just blocked her out. It was much better than actually thinking about it.

She skidded to a halt in front of the hospital. I slid off her back.

"You coming?" I asked.

She wasn't paying attention. Her head was darting to and fro as she watched the crazy swirling of a bee buzzing over her head. Finally she made a lunge for it but missed.

"I see you're too busy." She didn't even answer.

I shook my head and walked away. I should get her a toy one day.

I didn't say anything to the lady behind the counter. I just walked right past. But as I past she whispered something to herself, which wasn't much of a whisper at all.

"Ooh, looks like a fight is going to go down."

A fight?

Why would there be a fight in the hospital? Unless there were enemy ninjas inside, which I seriously doubted, then that made no sense.

She's just a batty old lady who likes to fantasize, that's all. I should just ignore her.

I made my slowly to Sasuke's room. Before I could push through the door, I heard sounds coming from the inside. It sounded like crying. I frowned wondering who was inside.

"Sasuke please wake up. You need to get up right now or else I'm going to hurt you ... Please."

I knew who it was as soon as I heard the voice. It was Sakura and that fact made my heart hurt a little. Slowly I pushed through the door.

She looked up as soon as I entered. I didn't say anything I just stood there looking at her eyes water even more and tears stream down her face. She was clutching Sasuke's hand tightly in her own. I looked at their clasped hand then looked at Sasuke.

He was still as unconscious as ever.

"What are you doing here?" she asked tears cloud in her voice.

"I'm here to see Sasuke," I said. I found myself rooted to the floor I couldn't move and I felt that should I have gotten closer I would be destroying a personal moment which I had no business interfering with.

I awkwardly ran my hands through my ponytail. "Is he okay?" I asked. She looked at me then looked back down sadly. "No. He still won't wake up and the doctors don't know what to do. They'd never seen anything like this before."

"Yeah, well Itachi really did a number on him."

Her head snapped up sharply. "How do you know?" she asked.

"Well I was there. Didn't you know? I was the one who carried him to the hospital."

"No I didn't know. I didn't really think about it. When I heard he was there I just freaked out and came running."

"How did you find out?"

"The lady at the counter downstairs told me while she was in the market. I knew her personally because I always help out at the hospital so when, she saw me, she told me that my friend was in here. I just dropped my groceries and ran."

I nodded my head. Looking at Sasuke, I made my way over and placed my hand on his forehead. His forehead was cool. No fever burning. He looked peaceful. I stared a while longer before I caught myself and looked up to see Sakura looking at me.

"Why are you here again?" she asked, suspiciously this time.

"Sasuke is my teammate," I told her. "I came to see if my teammate was alright. Is there something wrong with that?"

"No, no. I'm not accusing you or anything. I just found it weird that you were being so concerned, that's all. You aren't always like that, you know." She wiped her tears and gave me a watery smile. I didn't smile back.

I didn't know how to explain it. Somehow, her presence here made me feel ... made me feel ... angry. I had no reason to be acting that way however. She will Sasuke's teammate too. And since the preliminaries I always knew that she had a crush on Sasuke. So why was I feeling so jealous? As if she was taking what was mine. As soon as a thought came to my mind I quickly made it disappear. Sasuke? Mine? What crap.

"Well, now that I know that he's OK and that you're taking care of him, I'm going to go do some training."

I got out of there as soon as I could without looking back, even when I heard her call my name. I ran downstairs and rushed past the lady at the counter who was giving me a knowing smile. I ignored her. She was becoming very annoying.

Outside Mami was still playing with the blasted bee. As quickly as I could, I clasped the bee in my palms. It stung a bit but I ignore the pain.

"Hey! What did you do that for?"

I ignored her too. Instead, I jumped onto her back. "Training grounds. Now!"

I was grateful that Mami understood when I was angry. She said nothing. I didn't know why I was angry. I just knew that the feeling was coursing through my veins and that I needed to let it loose or else the next person I saw was going to feel the wrath.

Sasuke... Sakura... They we were both getting on my damn nerves. But why?

When we reached the training ground I jumped off her back and quickly sent I did my fist into the nearest tree. It crumbled to the ground. Its trunk fell just a hair away from Mami. She yelped.

"Okay! I get that you're angry but there's no need to try and kill me in the process."

I ignored her again. It was getting easier to ignore people nowadays. I found another tree and slammed my foot into the side. It went straight through to the other side and the tree fell.

"Okay, at this rate you're going to cause deforestation and then who's going to be blamed for it? I am. So can you please stop?"

And of course, I ignored her. I located the next tree and my fist was just about to collide into its thick trunk before Mami's face appeared. I stopped just in time.

"Why are you so angry?" she asked calmly.

I didn't know how to answer that. I just look at her a little while longer before I slid to the ground. My mind was in a jumble. I had no idea why I had acted so out of place. I mean, yes I've noticed that my anger has been an issue lately, but over something so stupid? It was so stupid that I don't think I could ever understand it. So even now when she asks a question I was at the loss.

"I have absolutely no idea." She sat down in front of me looking at me worriedly.

"Are you sure?"

I nodded slowly. After a few moments in silence, I got up. The anger had slowly drained away. Maybe it was because I realized that I had no reason to be angry.

"You ready to train?" I asked her. Mami got to her feet and nodded. For the next hour or so we fought until we couldn't fight anymore. We both lay limp on the ground tired and breathing hard.

"So... Did you think about the ritual?" she asked.

"What ritual?" I asked back. Mami sighed and flopped over on her belly.

"The ritual I was telling you about when we were doing the finals. I can't believe you forgot."

"I can. I forget a lot of things, especially when they aren't important."

"This ritual is. Come on, you need your spiritual animal. You can't keep summoning me when you need me. I need to be able to get to you whenever I need to, whenever you're in danger or so on."

I lifted my hand and looked at my wrist. I stared at the tattoo and I knew she was right. Danger was coming for me and one day I was going to need her. I had no idea where this tattoo came from and just that simple fact made me terrified. I let my hand fall.

"Okay."

"Okay?!"

I sat up. "Yeah, okay. I'll do it."

"Yes!" Mami pranced into the air in obvious joy. "Those stuffy elders are going to be so proud of me!"

I stood. "Let's just get this over with."

Mami calmed down a little but her joy was still very much visible. She walked over to me, her eyes sparkling with happiness. I rolled my eyes.

"Hold out your hand," she said. I did as she asked. She placed her in my palm and closed her eyes.

"Close your eyes," she ordered. I did ad she asked.

"Queen of the Spheonix

I call out to you.

Accept me as your humble servant.

For you I would do whatever you need.

To you, I give my eternal service."

The words came even though I had no idea how I knew them.

"I accept you, my child."

As soon as I heard myself, I knew that it wasn't me who had spoken. It was the Ten Tails. She had taken over.

A low hum ran through my body. My senses tingle at the touch of Mami's palm. The hum ran from my toes to the roots of my hair.

"I accept you, my child," I said again. And then it was all over. I opened my eyes I see at Mami who was grinning like a Cheshire cat at me. I couldn't help but grin back.

"We're bounded together now," she told me. Bounded together. That doesn't sound too bad at all.

Hey guys! I'm soooooooo sorry I took so long to update. You see, my parents got my report card a few weeks ago and trust me when I say that it was NOT PRETTY.

They weren't really furious, but yeah I have to cut off the internet for a little while. So they told me that I had to study and do my homework and all of that wonderful stuff during the week and on the weekend I can use the internet a little so that's why I'm updating right now, I took the time to do this chapter. And I'm so sorry that this chapter was so short. I was having major writers block, that was kind of another reason why I took so long to update.

Yeah, you see CXC is coming up and I am so stressed because I am NOT ready for such a major exam and I have my oral exams next month and trust me when I say that I cannot even speak English properly, much less French so I don't know how I'm going to do that.

By the way guys I just wanted to tell you that I am Jamaican. Yep, I live in the Caribbean and that is the reason why I'm so stressed about CXC right now because I am in grade 11 in high school, I'm 16 years old and this will determine my whole future so just bear with me please, because this is a lot a lot of work. Trust me.

And I'm sure you guys understand that so thank you for your understanding. And please vote  and please comment and tell me what tell me what you problems you have with this chapter or what problems you have with the whole book and I'll try to work on it tell me what you like and I'll try to incorporate more of that.

Thank you!!!