This one-shot was brought to you by Le Frye.
[Noticeably OOC Naruto and slightly OOC Sasuke]
...
"Sasuke!" Naruto wailed towards the center of his viewpoint.
The boy began to sprint towards the sight, only to be stopped by a hand in front of his chest. Two fearful blue eyes met a cautious lone onyx one.
"Let me go first Naruto," Kakashi said calmly in a firm tone.
The jonin walked towards the scene with Naruto and company close behind him.
Sasuke Uchiha lay beaten, bloody and unconscious on the ground.
Parallel to him was another man that shared a striking resemblance towards the half-dead youth. His name was Itachi Uchiha… or at least it had been only hours ago. His throat had been slit in the climax of what looked to be an incredibly intense battle, the bloodied kunai that had been used to end the prodigy's life lying a small ways away from his brother's body.
The legendary copy ninja stared at the Uchiha - the one without a gash that had dripped now dried blood all over his neck - boy's eyelids.
"Kakashi-sensei, h-he's alright isn't he?" The blond adolescent frantically asked.
The man said nothing but placed two fingers to the Uchiha's throat.
"…"
"He's been banged up pretty bad, but he still has a faint pulse," said Kakashi reassuringly.
Loud sighs of relief were let out from the group behind him.
"Sakura, can you heal him?" Yamato asked.
"Of course I can!" The girl was almost sobbing tears of bliss as she plopped onto her knees. She hung her hands above the unconscious boy's chest and a green glow began to emit from her palms.
Naruto smiled at his "best friend's" comatose figure with pure glee. Sasuke would finally be coming home after so many years. He would be able to rebuild the clan he so dearly deserved; they would be able to fight side-by-side again and push each other to the limit until the warm embrace of the sun began to approach at dawn. At that moment, it felt as though nothing would be able to ruin his radiant train of thought. That was, at least, until he glanced directly to the right of the boy.
Itachi Uchiha.
The only man more at fault for Sasuke's defection than the snake sannin himself.
"What'll we do about him?" Kiba asked.
"We will likely have to bring him back to be autopsied - I think it would be foolish to write off a neck wound as the sole cause of his death. Since this is Itachi Uchiha, the Hokage herself will likely be the one to conduct it," said Shino as he stared at the body of the dead man..
"N-Naruto? Are you alright?" Hinata asked, her eyes latching onto her crush as he stared so vigorously at Itachi's corpse that it looked as though his head would burst open.
"…It's nothing," said Naruto, suppressing his hatred as he managed to form a smile. "Thanks."
...
"He's stable," The pink haired girl announced as she turned to face Kakashi..
The last Uchiha's body was free of the previous cuts, bruises - noticeably a nasty gash that had taken refuge on his left cheek - and burns, but his bloodstains were still intact and he remained unconscious.
"Great work. Sai, I want you to carry him back with one of your birds. The same goes for Itachi," ordered Kakashi, surveying the scene once more before reaching into his pocket and pulling out an orange book.
"Yes, sir." The sickeningly pale boy complied as he immediately began drawing two large ink birds in his sketchbook.
'It's about time we brought him home…' Kakashi thought to himself.
...
"It would seem the Leaf arrived here before we did," a black and white man with venus flytrap-like extensions emerging from its sides said in a deep, raspy voice.
"Sasuke's been taken away," a higher pitched voice coming from the same man added.
"Itachi's corpse has been taken as well."
"What will you do now, Tobi?"
"… A minor setback," a man wearing an orange mask with a spiral pattern decided halfheartedly.
"Do you have a plan B?" White Zetsu asked.
"…" Tobi gave no response.
'It seems as if I'll have to try a bit harder...' Tobi thought to himself.
...
'Where the hell am I?' Sasuke thought to himself as he opened his eyes.
Stripped of all of his ninja gear and tools, he leaned onto a wall. His torn clothes he obtained during his travels were gone and he donned an outfit similar to that of Jugo's attire.
Lifting his left forearm he realized he had a seal with the symbol for earth written on it strapped onto him. He felt considerably weaker than normal and it was noticeably difficult to stay awake. The seal was likely a chakra draining seal made for keeping prisoners at bay.
He was in a near pitch-black room with the only visible light coming through the bars on the window.
The Uchiha was in a jail cell.
"It's about time you woke up," said a large figure with aged wounds and scars from the outside of the cell.
"It's actually kind of sad that a kid with such promise fell so far from grace. What a pity. It seems like just yesterday you were a twerp taking my portion of the chunin exams."
The figure was faintly familiar to Sasuke, though he didn't care enough to remember the man.
"Where am I?" the last Uchiha asked bluntly, focused only on gaining information.
"Well, this is your last day alive so I owe you this much I suppose," muttered Ibiki.
Sasuke had to prevent his eyes from widening with a start. If he hadn't been listening to his jailor before, he certainly was now.
"After you killed your brother, a retrieval squad found you lying unconscious outside of the Uchiha hideout. That was about one week ago. Kudos to you for taking down an S-class criminal, but I would've appreciated it if you left him alive so I could interrogate the bastard…" Ibiki explained.
"My last day alive?" the rogue ninja repeated, uncaring for whatever else the man had to say..
"Oh right. The interesting part…" he began.
"The Hokage for some reason let herself be persuaded by some of your old peers to actually let you live and go back to being a Leaf ninja after some rehabilitation. The council unanimously proposed that you would be executed immediately and so she was outvoted by a large margin. A blond kid tried to get physical once he learned of your sentence, so we had to put him under house arrest along with some girl who kept whining about how you deserved a second chance."
Ibiki rolled his eyes with a false smirk.
"After a long and tiring process, the paperwork has been finished and you'll be put down today. It's too bad you woke up today instead of when we first bought you in; then, you would've had time to actually accept your fate. Tough luck kiddo," Ibiki remarked sarcastically.
"I've heard enough." The boy's onyx eyes spun into a deep red with black tomoe designs all around them.
"T-The seal! What happened?" The special-jonin exclaimed in shock as he watched the doujutsu activate.
"You don't place an earth seal on someone with a lightning element. Especially when that someone can stream chakra," said Sasuke boredly, not even giving the man the courtesy of a smirk.
The roar of birds chirping assaulted nearby eardrums as loud sparks of electricity began to crackle around the Uchiha's hand.
"Later."
…
Naruto slowly accepted the realization that he had failed as he cried in solitude. He was not having a good time.
After finally getting his best friend back into the village, he was helpless to save him. There were a small group of Anbu members scattered across his apartment that prevented him from exiting. It wasn't that they could actually physically prevent him from leaving; he could defeat them with ease but that would be an offense against the village.
Suddenly, an enormous explosion erupted from the center of the village.
The blonde looked outside to see that the prison had a huge chunk of it missing and smoking.
"Sasuke…."
...
Sasuke dashed through the village, swiftly dealing with every chunin, jonin and even Anbu swiftly.
His taijutsu was a bit rusty as he had relied on his sword too much for his own good, but so far his fists alone had been able to handle the onslaught of ninja.
The corners of Sasuke's mouth lifted in a smirk.
Standing in front of him in a unique stance was a boy roughly his age, possibly a year or two older than him, wearing traditional Hyuuga robes with black hair running down his back in a long ponytail. The man had protruded veins on his face focused around his eyes.
"Hyuuga," Sasuke mumbled out of reflex.
"Sasuke, give up. There's a warrant for your arrest, dead or alive. I do not wish to deliver the finishing blow out of respect for Naruto, but if you do not surrender you'll force my hand," Neji said truthfully.
"Don't get in my way," The Uchiha said instinctively reaching for his sword before realizing it's absence.
"In that case I'll-"
Sasuke punched the Jonin directly in the jaw knocking him back a bit.
'He's fast!' The Hyuuga thought to himself.
Recomposing himself, Neji returned to his stance.
"So be it then…" Neji said aggressively.
Charging the Uchiha with his gentle fist, the two engaged in close combat.
Neji assaulted the Uchiha with a two finger strike aimed at his torso that was barely evaded due to the comprehensive abilities of the sharingan. Sasuke took the opportunity to strike as he delivered a fist aimed directly at the Hyuuga's face. The Jonin blocked the strike with his palm and guided it in another direction. Sasuke then attempted to kick his opponent in the abdomen to which Neji sidestepped delivered a strike to the area near the jugular.
"Ngh!" he grunted, noticing the tenketsu suddenly being blocked.
This wasn't going to work; the Hyuuga's perfected taijutsu form was too much for Sasuke who was weakened and unarmed.
Sasuke dashed backwards in attempt to recompose himself and pondered a way to defeat his opponent quickly and efficiently.
'Damn it, I need to conserve chakra. This guy… I need to finish him now.'
"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!" Sasuke wailed as a gargantuan fireball the size of a truck headed towards the Hyuuga
"Eight Trigrams: Air Palm!" Neji cried out as a blast of wind shot out from his palm, effectively cutting through the fireball allowing him to stand unscathed.
Neji had proved to have refined his skills over the course of a few years. He was nothing Sasuke felt he wouldn't be able to handle, but this was taking too long and wasting too much chakra. It was time to finish this.
Sasuke bit his thumb and went through a flurry of hand seals and placed his palm on the ground.
Neji's lavender eyes widened as his byakugan allowed him to see through the sudden puff of smoke.
Sasuke had summoned an immense green rattlesnake coiled up and rattling its tail. His opponent had abandoned the ground and moved on to stand atop the snake's head.
"Arata, take care of this." Sasuke commanded leaping away from the summon as it lunged towards the Hyuuga.
"Damn it, if only Guy sensei weren't out on a mission…" Neji mentally moped as he prepared his Eight Trigrams Rotation.
...
Sasuke sprinted towards the edge of the village.
The gates were in sight, but there was one more obstacle: his old sensei, the copy ninja himself, Kakashi Hatake.
The man was visibly disturbed, but he had the appearance of someone ready for anything.
"Sasuke… I'm sorry it had to come to this. I've failed you," he apologized.
"Kakashi, just stay out of my way. I have no intention of killing you if I don't have to," Sasuke said truthfully.
"I wish I could let you go but my loyalties to the village are more important than my own personal attachments. You're too dangerous, I'll have to stop you here," Kakashi announced, lifting his forehead protector to reveal his one sharingan eye.
Sasuke would never admit it, but he wasn't prepared for this fight. Even in top condition with his curse mark, Kakashi was no slouch. He'd done a good job of conserving his chakra thus far but that damn Hyuuga made his chakra plummet by hitting only one of his chakra points and making him waste a jutsu.
Sasuke was the first to move as he prepared his chidori and charged the copy ninja.
Kakashi swiftly caught his student's arm and delivered a kick to his abdomen. Sasuke winced from the blow and engaged the copy ninja in close combat where he was quickly outmatched.
Every punch the Uchiha threw was blocked and counterattacked accordingly and the damage was beginning to rack up.
Sasuke began to charge his chidori once more to Kakashi's dismay. He had taught the boy better; if it didn't work the first time why would it work now?
"Chidori Stream!" Sasuke yelled.
Suddenly rogue's chidori began to discharge into every direction sweeping across the vicinity.
The eldest sharingan wielder had no time to react and was electrocuted by the waves of lightning.
A puff of smoke erupted from Kakashi's body. When it faded, it became apparent that Kakashi had been replaced by a rock that had been adjacent to Sasuke.
'Substitution?' Sasuke thought as he flipped away from his former sensei.
"Fire Style: Dragon Flame Jutsu!" Sasuke said as two dragon-head shaped fireballs erupted from his mouth towards Kakashi.
"Water Style: Water Wall!" Kakashi said as a fence of water was blown from his mouth, effectively neutralizing the attack and creating a cloud of steam.
The smoke cleared and Kakashi was nowhere to be found.
The copy ninja's hand grabbed the bottom of the Uchiha's foot and dragged him down into the dirt so far that only his head was visible.
Sasuke was visibly enraged at the conclusion of his fight. He had been defeated by the same man who he lost to as a child; in the exact same manner as before.
"DAMN YOU!" The Uchiha cursed finally losing his composure.
"I'm sorry Sasuke… things shouldn't have turned out this way. Maybe we'll meet again some day," Kakashi apologized, clearly shaken by the encounter as he prepared his own lightning blade technique to finish the job.
Sasuke scowled, helpless and drained of chakra. Could this really be the end? After finally achieving his life goal, was he really going to be executed by the very man who had trained him for such a fight?
All hope was lost as the Uchiha closed his eyes and prepared for a sharp pain.
"RASENGAN!" A familiar blonde cried as he fell from the sky and delivered his signature attack to his own teacher's back.
The jonin cried out in pain as he fell to the ground with a gruesome wound on his, now bare, back. The last glimpse the masked man saw before falling prey to unconsciousness, the pain of the surprise attack too much for him to handle, was the blurry color of orange.
Naruto trembled as he stared at the unconscious form of his teacher.
"N-Naruto?" Sasuke questioned in astonishment.
"No time, we have to get out of here," the blond said hurriedly as he prepared another Rasengan and slammed it into the ground.
Rubble flew in all directions as the Uchiha was freed from his earth prison and leapt back onto his feet.
Naruto grabbed his visibly drained friend's arm and the two sprinted off into the forest directly away from the village.
…
Tsunade Senju had just received a briefing from Kakashi Hatake from inside his hospital room and had exited the premises.
'How could this happen?' the Hokage rubbed her temples as she tried to come to grips with the situation.
Naruto, a ninja she thought of as a grandson, had gone rogue to save another rogue. Though, when she considered that the rouge he had saved was Sasuke, she wasn't really that surprised.
His sensei seemed pretty torn up inside and out. He mumbled just about every sentence and his eyes were visibly red and puffy.
Though she would never admit it, Tsunade felt even more respect for the boy. Above his loyalty for his village and dreams, the comfort of his own home, he valued friendship even more.
"You stupid brat…" she mumbled.
...
The two rogues had run a large distance away from the village with the two resting on a log in the forrest.
"Why?" The Uchiha couldn't bring any other words to his mouth, the two not having spoken since they had escaped Konoha..
"I don't know… my body just moved," Naruto said reminiscent to the way Sasuke had muttered once long ago.
"…"
'He really values our friendship that much? This idiot is the closest thing to a friend I've ever had,' The Uchiha thought to himself.
Sasuke stood up and faced his visibly shaken savior.
He extended his hand out for the boy to grab it.
After a moment of silence, Naruto took his friend's hand.
"Thank you." Sasuke couldn't remember the last time he had sincerely thanked another person.
"…It was no problem. It was just something I had to do; you know that," Naruto said with a faint smile.
"So what now?" The retired avenger asked.
"I guess we're on the run…"
…
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