Narika's Note: I really intended to complete this before Halloween, but I didn't finish the last few parts in time. Beware of Halloween. xP

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Ghost: Konoha's Halloween Legend
By Narika

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Tsunade had fallen asleep on her papers again when thunder cackled loudly, wind whipping against the windows. She snapped awake, rubbing her eyes in frustration. The whole week had been gloomy and rainy, and it was predicted to continue to be gloomy and rainy for yet another week. Tsunade promptly decided that it was in her best interests to treat herself to some wonderful sake.

While Tsunade whipped out a bottle from her stash hidden beneath the floorboards under her desk, Jiraiya was already in a drunken stupor downtown at the Ichiraku ramen shop. If he had been awake, he would have noticed the figure gliding past the shop going further into Konoha.

---

The figure lurked outside Sakura's windowsill, watching her sleeping peacefully. Curious, he drifted inside and observed her from a closer distance, finding that her eyelids fluttered slightly while she dreamt. He reached forward and pressed a cold hand to Sakura's cheek. Her eyelids flew open in seconds, eyes searching for the source of the chill, landing on a mysterious figure. She fainted having seen the steady gaze of the pale figure.

Frowning since his source of amusement had ended abruptly, he slipped across the street into the shadows of the Yamanaka flower shop, patiently waiting.

---

Ino stretched her arms out while releasing a large yawn. It was always troublesome to get up early in the morning to pick fresh flowers. "Oh my," Ino wondered aloud, "Shikamaru has had too much of an influence on me!" She lifted a palm to her forehead in annoyance. Pushing all thoughts out of her mind, she went to pick the flowers for her mother's shop.

---

Ino hummed a tune while she choose and arranged beautiful, delicate flowers for the shop. She went to the back to grab more plastic bags for the daffodils, going back into the shop hurriedly since it was almost time to open. As she ran through the doorway into the shop, she felt a cold tension befall the air. Horrified that the flowers would freeze, she swiftly ran to check on them, only to find a dark figure looking at the daffodils.

"Who are you? How did you get in here?" Ino gasped, "You're a missing nin, aren't you?"

The figure spoke in a voice familiar to her,

"Lovely daffodil.
Resisting the cold winter.
It is of no use."

Ino tried to keep her eyes on the figure, but suddenly blinked slowly, the frosty air and figure was gone by the time her eyes opened again.

When Ino regained her senses, she glanced around finding that everything looked perfectly normal. "It must have been a dream," she said aloud to reassure herself, but her voice was not reassuring enough so she added, "This is so troublesome." Surely there were no faults in Shikamaru's wise words...

"INO! YOU WON'T BELIEVE IT!" Sakura exclaimed after she had rushed into the shop.

"Believe what?" Ino asked, still a bit dazed.

Sakura breathed in deeply..."I was having my usual dream that Sasuke would come back to Konoha and that he'd be safe and sound when I felt something extremely cold touch my face. I opened my eyes immediately and bolt up in my bed to see none other than Sasuke standing at the foot of the bed! SASUKE'S BACK AND HE CAME TO SEE ME!"

The bouquet Ino was holding dropped from her hands. She panicked, her chest growing tight.

"That can't be possible! I must've been daydreaming that he was in the shop this morning. He was looking at the daffodils and then he vanished! It couldn't have possibly been the real Sasuke! You must've been dreaming too. Yea, there's no doubt about it...you must've been dreaming too!"

The two of them argued until Ino's mother came to open the shop, telling them both to calm down and talk it out somewhere else as to not scare away the customers.

Shikamaru found Ino and Sakura at the training grounds, both sniffling and mumbling incoherently. Now Shikamaru was a get-to-the-point kind of guy so he asked them, "What happened?" not knowing that he would be in for the worst story ever.

Before lunch, the whole town had heard of Sasuke's ghost that had come back to haunt all the girls in Konoha. Sasuke smirked at the chaotic effect he had caused. It was time to visit the next person.

---

As he approached the river, his heart wrenched as memories flooded his mind. He stood upon the hill, simply observing, just the opposite of how it was in the past. Sasuke used to be the one sitting at the bottom, contemplating whatever came to mind, and Naruto used to be the one watching him from above on the hillside.

"Hey," Sasuke said softly. "It's been a while."

---

Naruto froze for a second upon recognizing the voice, but when Sasuke sat beside him, he felt a weight had lifted from his shoulders. They sat in silence for a bit, simply thinking of what to do next. Naruto blinked back tears, but only distorted his vision with bubbles of water. He felt Sasuke shift closer, and when his vision cleared up, he saw Sasuke reach towards him in an embrace. Sasuke and Naruto fell backwards, the tall grass providing privacy in their affections.

Sasuke lacked much while working as a subordinate of Orochimaru, sleep included. Well, he had sleep, but it was just that his mind was never at ease. The warmth and fuzziness left Sasuke as he glanced at Naruto for one last time before moving on. Time to have the village float in a pool of rumors.

---

Hinata and Neji were training in the Hyuuga compound, working themselves to exhaustion. Their relationship had improved greatly after the Chuunin Exam and they sat down together for some hot tea. The both of them took quiet sips of the hot tea, only to feel a very cold breeze from behind. Hinata and Neji activated their Byakugan immediately, only to see what they feared from the recent news—Sasuke, pale as a sheet, drifted behind them. Neji turned around to see that Sasuke was gone when he heard a noise beside him. Hinata had fainted.

Neji quickly found Hinata's father and reported the incident, the news traveling not only within the Hyuuga household, but also all the way to Tsunade. Shizune was fussing over how Tsunade needed to quit sneaking drinks and finish all the paperwork on time with drooling all over them when Jiraiya jumped in through the window.

"Did you hear? Sasuke was sighted in the Hyuuga compound," he stated.

Tsunade replied, "And what can I do about it? We can't spare any nins to go on a manhunt for Sasuke. Half the people think that it's not really him, but a ghost."

And at that precise moment, they heard something tap the glass of one of the windows. Their heads snapped in that direction and saw an almost transparent Sasuke. They stared in horror.

Sasuke spoke in creepy voice, "Were you talking about me?"

Jiraiya and Tsunade both had the same reaction, "WHERE'S THE SAKE!"

Shizune was also scared out of her mind, but she was thinking, "Now Tsunade-sama is never going to finish her work..."

---

Meanwhile, Chouji and Shikamaru were watching the clouds in Chouji's backyard while eating chips—their fifth bag to be more exact. Ever since the rumors spread in the morning, they decided to stay together so that Sasuke couldn't try attacking them when they least expect it.

"Hey Shikamaru, doesn't that one look like an ice cream?"

"Yea." Shikamaru lazily replied.

"...And the one next to that one looks like a flower."

"Yea."

"Doesn't that bunch of clouds look like popcorn?"

"They're a certain type of cloud that always looks like popcorn."

"Oh." Chouji continued to munch on his chips.

"Hey Shikamaru, doesn't that one look a bit like Sasuke? Well, the hair does anyways..."

"Yea."

"Boo," said Sasuke.

Their eyes widened in utmost terror. They ran inside without a second thought, grabbing their chips too. The sound of scraping was heard as they locked the windows and doors. Sasuke smirked inwardly.

---

"What's wrong Akamaru?" Kiba asked, warily glancing around. Akamaru barked in response. "Oh, Shino's training there. Let's go join him then!"

Shino and Kiba trained together for an hour before stopping to rest. Kiba took Akamaru for a walk around the area when they spotted Sasuke holding a kunai above Shino. Shino, too preoccupied in the new bug he found, didn't notice anything at all. Kiba ran over to attack Sasuke, but his hand swiped through the air and Sasuke had disappeared.

Shino noticed Kiba and just said, "Oh, Kiba. You're back. Let's continue training."

"Sure..." Kiba replied, but he kept glancing all around in case Sasuke decided to come back again.

---

"Please let me in! I know I'm not a jounin, but I'm a teacher too!" Iruka pleaded.

"Sorry, Iruka-sensei. It's a jounin party, not a teacher's party." Asuma replied firmly.

"But it's not my fault if I prefer to be a chuunin and teach at the Academy."

"It's a jounin party. Sorry." Asuma said and then shut the door. They didn't want to be mean, but the party involved jounin jokes, jounin drinks, and jounin food. No one else was allowed and that was final.

"Wow! That's so cool! I'm going to be jounin!" Moegi exclaimed.

"Yea! Then we can go to the jounin parties!" Konohamaru added.

"Yup." Udon agreed.

The Konohamaru Corps were trailing Iruka to see what he'd do, and they discovered the wondrous nightclub that had jounin parties. On the other hand, Ebisu was discreetly following the kids to keep them out of trouble. He glanced in the direction they were looking and saw the familiar nightclub that held every jounin party in all of Konoha.

He then realized, "HEY! THEY DIDN'T INVITE ME!"

Ebisu rushed to the door and knocked furiously. How dare they not invite ALL the jounins!

Asuma answered the door to see a not-very-friendly Ebisu. He quickly tried to shut the door, but Ebisu shoved until it opened.

"HOW DARE YOU NOT INVITE ME TO THE JOUNIN PARTY! As a punishment because you forgot to invite me, you have to let Iruka in as well as Konohamaru, Udon, and Moegi!" Ebisu claimed while indicating the four people behind him, except that it really wasn't four people—it was five.

"So you have parties here..." Sasuke said coolly while glancing around inside.

People dropped their jaws and their drinks. Broken glass blanketed the floor along with the remnants of anyone's drinks. The bartender forgot to let go of the spray nozzle and Kakashi's drink overflowed. Gai was already fighting drunken fist, but he stopped dead in his tracks, punching the wrong guy, which started a fight. It was pure, jounin chaos.

The Konohamaru Corps stared in horror at the mess that the jounins were causing, appalled that they would react in such a way to just one person. Their dreams of becoming jounins were forgotten in mere seconds. They ran home, scarred for life by Sasuke and the jounins.

---

Later at night, Tenten and Lee were training together, which was a rare moment, but Neji refused to train with them that night. He muttered something that sounded strangely like, "Stupid Sasuke...I must take care of Hinata..."

Lee and Tenten were wondering where Gai-sensei was when a twig snapped and leaves crunched in not too far from them.

"It's nothing to worry about, right Lee?"

"Of course not! Tenten, let's keep training!"

More leaves crunched—this time the sound was awfully close.

"How about no? I'm not really in the mood anymore..."

"BUT TENTEN!" Lee whined. He was really oblivious sometimes.

The branches were shoved out of the way and someone walked over toward them.

"Tenten, there's really nothing to-"

Sasuke knocked Lee out with a sharp jab at his neck. Of course, Sasuke had a valid reason for knocking out Lee. It was because of the humiliation that Lee had caused when he beat up Sasuke before the Chuunin Exam.

Tenten didn't even bother to look back to see if Lee was okay. Without even glancing at Sasuke, she was freaked out of her mind.

---

Sasuke closed his eyes and relived the moments of amusement, chaos, and love. He definitely made his mark in Konoha. They would forever remember the day he manipulated the town into thinking that his vengeful ghost was haunting Konoha. Not a single trace of him was left in Konoha. No footprints. No fingerprints. Not a trace of DNA. Of course, it was because he's a ghost, right?

---

On his journey back to the village of Sound, he stopped in a small, neighboring village. While making his way down the street, he spotted a new target. Temari was having some tea at the nearby café. Moving silently, he sat down at the table in front of her, but at the seat across from so that Temari would see his face. He used the oldest trick in the book—he stared at her. It was less than a minute before she looked up from her teacup and saw Sasuke. She fainted.

Gaara found his sister lying at the café, obvious terror written across her face. He poked her gingerly. "Temari?" he questioned, poking her some more. She still didn't move. Gaara decided that someone was responsible for it and that someone would die today.

Sasuke snickered, observing Gaara's reaction from a good distance, "And Gaara claims to not be able to love anyone, even his siblings..."

He decided that he'd have some fun trying to scare Gaara, which would definitely be hard.

---

Gaara went around the town, questioning everyone around the café if they had seen the person who caused his sister harm. After many hours of attempting not to look intimidating, he found the lady who was supposed to be running the café. She told him that the guy's hair looked messy and resembled a duck's butt. Gaara knew immediately who it was. He had heard the recent rumor from Konoha that Sasuke's ghost had been floating around the whole village. He visited everyone he knew and caused chaos throughout Konoha. Damn. He wanted to kill Sasuke, but obviously since Sasuke's a ghost, it wasn't possible to kill him again.

Deep in thought, Gaara turned a corner and bumped right into someone. He looked up to see Sasuke with a smirk plastered upon his face. Sasuke ran away quickly and disappeared before Gaara could manipulate his sand.

Gaara got up, evidently upset that he couldn't kill Sasuke and then realized something. He had just bumped into Sasuke, who was supposed to be a ghost, and ghosts are usually transparent and you can walk right through them. He felt silly now that he came to the conclusion that he could have thoroughly killed Sasuke right then and there.

Sasuke saw that Gaara wasn't all too happy and decided it'd be for his own good if he did not bother Gaara again. It looked like Gaara figured out that Sasuke wasn't truly a ghost, and that would lead to many possibilities...

---

Sasuke checked into the nearby inn, thinking of spending more time away from the Sound Village. Orochimaru got on his nerves sometimes.

The lady handed him an envelope with the room number and key. He glanced at it for a few seconds and then went upstairs to find the room. He found the door, checked the number, and then jiggled the knob. He was too lazy to take out the key at the moment. Surprisingly, the door opened. Sasuke saw people already inside the room. He shut the door and ran back down to the counter.

"YOU GAVE ME THE WRONG ROOM OR KEY OR WHATEVER!" he yelled.

"No, that's the right one. Room 13, third floor."

"Wait, did you say the THIRD floor?"

"Hai."

Sasuke hadn't felt any stupider in his entire lifetime. Well, maybe except for that one time where he believed that water towers were landed UFOs but that's beside the point. He went to the wrong floor and now he was scarred for life. He saw the most terrible, horrifying thing that anyone could ever imagine—his brother Itachi and Kisame sleeping very close to each other on the same bed. The room was a mess, their clothes were strewn about the room...IT WAS UTTERLY HORRENDOUS!

---

Sasuke returned to the Sound Village soon enough, Orochimaru wondering what Sasuke had been up to.

"Welcome back, Sasuke-kun. You didn't have fun on your trip? You're pale as a ghost you know..."

Sasuke paled even more. Of course, he had his share of fun causing chaos at Konoha, but he couldn't get that dreadful image out of his mind. It had been bothering him the whole trip back to Sound Village. It gave him nightmares.

"It was a truly ghastly Halloween..." Sasuke replied.