I will tell you how fire comes
And how fire runs as far as the sea.
- Carl Sandburg, "Fire Pages"
Kakashi's face is stained red from the intense heat of the day's sun - a fire with the promise of burning, so strong he could be feverish. His skin starts peeling from the intensity of that blaze, so he wraps a spare hankerchief around his nose and mouth, tying it tightly at the nape of his neck.
In this world without grass, without any source or soul of greenery, a glimmer of haze appears on the horizon. That vile force of nature Kakashi loathingly calls a sun, is just beginning to rise. The lingering edges of grey and deep deep blue being chased away with the night.
"The heat will drive you mad," Kakashi tells Naruto, drinking enough water to make him dizzy simply with the effort, his mask hanging at his neck becoming drenched with the fluids.
"Oh yes," Naruto agrees. "It's inevitable."
Between the shadows of the dunes is where Kakashi has finally found his old lost student, stumbling across the boy over a week ago with a day old empty water canteen and a two-day hangover, though he hadn't drunk a drop of alcohol for months.
And there Naruto was, drinking a cup of coffee in clothes that had not been washed for weeks, with a trace of stubble itching across the boy's scarred cheeks. In the midst of lazy mountains of barren sand, Naruto has set up a sort of base camp, and is sitting there now.
More unruly and dirty than Kakashi has ever seen him, with what looks like canvas bedsheets lassoed tightly into a tent behind him, is Naruto. Looking almost black against the night as he pokes a dying, unruly fire into life with a sleepy yawn.
The years have changed him, is all Kakashi thinks as he finally meets face to face his once student who always stayed after class and never was without a clean shirt, a smile, and a cheeky comment.
But this new version of Naruto stands there where the old once was, this Naruto who has left his boarding school in the middle of the night without a word, without any warning at all. Taking along just the clothes on his back to travel cross-country to this desert world, this planet of sand.
Naruto looks up from the embers, unsaven, his face looking dark in the still moonlight, with a stick twitching in his hand as he asks if Kakashi would like a cup of coffee.
"Isn't it hot enough already?" Kakashi answers, putting his shirt back on before the day is truly bright and his sunburns can worsen, sweat making his fingers slip over the buttons.
Naruto grins, and puts the stick down, making sure to rest it far enough from the embers not to catch flame and close enough not to be lost. He begins unwrapping the bandages around his feet, then grabs a rag and wipes his toes and ankles until they are clean. Then he dries them and rewraps them.
"Are we going to the market today?" Naruto asks, still smiling, as he pulls his sandals on and ties the straps tightly around his thighs.
"Hm," Kakashi comments, holding his boots upside down and slapping sand out of them. He makes a face when a lizard falls out and Naruto laughs at him.
"Probably should," Kakashi agrees, slipping his shoes on. "Since I am leaving in the morning tomorrow." He pauses and pointedly looks at Naruto.
Who just hums and ignores his old teacher.
"Yes. Going home," Kakashi tests, and Naruto only hums the more.
"Back to the Academy.." He leans forwards a bit until Naruto finally looks up at him.
"Sensei," Naruto laughs. "I'm not going. You can give it up now, it's a lost cause you know."
"Ahh," Kakashi remarks. "But then, where would I be if I just made it so easy?" He reaches over to pull the tent's poles out of the ground and bundles the canvas up, tying the whole of it with a long strand of twine.
And Naruto is tying up their belongings and hiding them in the dunes, disturbing the sands that mark his tracks there with short kicks across the ground.
"If we hurry we can probably make it to the city before sunrise." Naruto is standing before Kakashi, hands on his hips.
Kakashi checks the water canteen at his hip and his purse before nodding.
"I am not buying you a camel, Naruto. What the hell would you do with a camel anyway? For that matter, where in the world do you think you're going to put one?" Kakashi was definitely not out of shape before he came to visit his old student, but right now he very much feels like it.
Naruto laughs, not a trace of red on him anywhere, just browning skin and radiating body heat that almost seems natural. Saying, "Maybe he can sleep with me? You know, keep my sheets warm and all that."
Kakashi glares sideways at the bounding energy and mutters, "Don't you sunburn at all?"
Naruto grins with a twist of the face that almost seems knowing.
This glorifed suna without steam has Kakashi sweating so much, he would swear that tingling feeling down his back for the last hour was from sweat turned steam escaping out from under his shirt. He is first soaked by it, then becomes so dry as all the water evaporates that his throat burns for water.
"This," he tells Naruto between rasps, "is Hell."
".. yeah," Naruto agrees. "Probably is."
"Oh, look! Shade!" He points, and gestures wildy to Kakashi, jumping up and down as if he were a big neon arrow directing traffic. "This way! This way! Before you die, hurry up!"
"I'm not that old!" The man yells and lunges for the boy. But Naruto is still too quick. Especially since Naruto's pants aren't binding up from sweat and catching on his legs like Kakashi's are.
Honestly. Who wears black in the desert anyway?
Note: This is another 'written awhile ago but haven't posted because been trying to update /slash/ edit' thing. But.. I give up for right now. And I want to see if anyone'll read or review it. Has the second half of the manga scared everyone away..?
This is that story I told you about Momo, Sasuke and Naruto in the desert. It's supposed to be a SasuNaru, but I totally suck at romance so it'll probably be friendship at best. And, Kakashi won't go away. And.. as I was writing the plot down, Itachi kept popping up like a zit, saying "hi!" and "hi!", so he'll be here too.. So I don't know. Maybe it's not SasuNaru.
I would estimate that there are .. maybe six? Or eight chapters? I wouldn't go over ten, and that's pushing it.