Title: I'm With You
Author: LadySable (LiveJournal)/StoryBard(here)
Pairings: See author's note below.
Rating: T
WARNING: This will have heterosexual and homosexual pairings. If either offend you, this is not the story for you. TRIGGERS: This chapter will have child kidnapping.
Disclaimer: The characers are property of Masashi Kishimoto. I do not make money from this fan made work.
Summary: Gaara was kidnapped when he was five. Naruto when he was nine. Eight years later, Naruto is saved, and has to venture out to different dimensions to find Gaara, and stop Madara's plan to throw the universe into chaos.
Prologue: When the Universe Shifts
It was a cloudy day, but these clouds hovered, a waste of moisture and air. They never poured down with rain or lightening, nor did they part to let even a trace of the sun through. Yet, for the city of Stagnare, that was normal. The eyes of the people had gotten so used to the immortal clouds that if even a peek of sunlight came through, they would be blinded.
The town was stagnant. The people never moved on, nor did they move backwards. It was a rare thing to laugh, to cry. No one was interested in furthering their positions in life, apathetic to any new technology, new people, new feelings.
Gaara hated it.
The people just flowed around him, avoiding him, caring very little that he could reach out and touch them, and they would be dead in an instant. At least at his old town they went out of their way to avoid him. That meant he existed, and was to be avoided, but this, this place didn't even care that he existed. The entire town reflected the gray clouds. It was everywhere, even when someone wore a bright red, it just bled into the sea of gray, drained of its vibrant nature.
He was distracted from his grocery shopping when he noticed a bright yellow bobbing in the sea of gray. The boy blinked, as the color strained his eyes for a moment, so used to the drab gray, that the bright color blinded him. The yellow flashed in and around, weaving around people. The seafoam colored eyes focused on it, followed it, and tried to figure out its pattern, but decided that it had no system; it was random.
He kept his eyes on the bright yellow, and tried to follow it, only to bump into someone.
The sudden contact caused him to freeze, and he looked up, waiting for the large person towering over him to fall down, dead. Instead, he shivered as strange eyes watched him. The man squatted down, and placed his hand on Gaara's head, and looked him in the eye.
"Hello, little boy," the man said, almost robotic. The boy shivered, wanting to be far away from this man, and yet, enjoyed the feeling of being touched for the first time. The thought that he should be dead was far away. "How old are you?"
Gaara looked down, and then back up, and with a nervous bite to his lip, said "Five."
The man grinned, and the hairs rose on the red head's neck. He moved his hand away from the red hair, trailing it down to the pale right arm, tracing the tattooed numbers: 001. "Perfect," he breathed.
Then they were gone, the grocery list that fell out of Gaara's hand the only thing that showed he was even there. The apathetic people walking around may have blinked in surprised, but dismissed it, uninterested.
The yellow flash that the sea-foam eyes had followed, zipped by a minute later, and then paused, right next to the abandoned grocery list. The bright blue eyes frowned, and looked down. He picked up the grocery list, and shook off the uneasy feeling he was getting. Then he walked over to a trash can, and threw the list away, muttering, "People shouldn't litter."
Nothing changed in the four years since that incident. The sky was still a dull gray, and the people still matched it.
Naruto was sniggering in a dull green bush, his bright yellow hair sticking out, giving away his position. His prank was going to work this time, he was sure of it, no one was able to not get angry over this one.
He held a string, and as he saw his victim walked up, he pulled it, tightening the string. He watched as the woman, someone he didn't know, walked up, and broke the string. His eyes brightened as he watched bright yellow paint splatter the woman's expensive red dress.
The woman looked down at her dress, unconcerned, and then continued on her way.
Naruto watched as uncaring eyes looked at him for a split second, and then turned away, uninterested. The blond couldn't even wonder at their apathy, as it was something he was accustomed to. If one of them had even gasped, or blinked, or did something, it gave him a reason to do another prank. Anything would work, but nothing happened, and they didn't care. It was officially his 101 prank, and he still got the same reaction as the first one.
He got up, a heavy weariness to his body, and wandered down the street, careful of touching people. The only time someone spoke to him was to remind him that his touch was death. That to touch people caused them to vanish forever. Yet, no one cared. They were careful not to touch him, but no one avoided him, no one cared that he could reach out and touch them, and they were gone, their life meaningless.
He stopped by a park, and sat on a decaying bench, and stared up at the gray clouds. He groaned, and wondered why people who wrote books thought watching clouds together was fun. The clouds didn't move or make shapes like they said they did. They weren't white or fluffy, just a sallow yellow-gray that matched the city.
The city held nothing. There was no hope of becoming a better person, no trying to move on to a better position, and what position was better? Naruto always wondered about what he was going to do when he grew up, but there didn't seem to be anything. No grand position that would make people look at him, nothing that amazed or wowed people. The only thing he knew to do was create pranks.
He was musing on whether that yellow cloud right next to the gray cloud had moved, when a shadow fell across him. Naruto blinked up and saw a man with bright orange hair and weird piercings towering over him. His eyes were a strange color and had multiple rings.
Naruto scrambled up, fear buzzing through his body.
"Hello, little boy," the man said, and patted his head, hard. Naruto wanted to shy away from the touch, but it was nice, then he froze.
He looked up at the man, "Y-You should be dead."
The man blinked, then said, "I can resist your virus."
"Resist?" Naruto asked, the word not connecting in his mind.
"How old are you?" The man asked, lowering his hand to the numbered tattoo on Naruto's right arm, 009.
"Uh, nine?" Naruto said, then double checked it himself. "Yeah, my birth certificate says nine," he confirmed when the screen came out.
"Would you like to come with me?"
"Where?" Naruto asked rubbing his right arm, fidgeting as the screen slid into his chest plate, and dissappeared.
"It's a nice place. People can touch you without dying."
"Really?" Naruto said, he gave an energetic smile, his eyes shining up at the orange haired man. Then he frowned, "But I'm not supposed to go with strangers, or at least that's what they said at school."
"I'm not a stranger, I'm taking you to a relative of your family."
"Family?" Naruto frowned. "Why now, then?"
The orange haired man blinked, scooped him up, and then they were gone.
Naruto wriggled and squirmed in the man's tight grip, but everything he did was to no avail. The man's arm was stronger than a bar of iron, and Naruto's Life System was never updated or given applications that could get him out of a situation like this.
He banged on the man's chest, wondering if he could break the man's Life System, but was shocked when he hit flesh instead of the tough plastic that made up their Life System. "What are you?" he asked the man, afraid.
"I am Pain."
Naruto tried to swallow the sudden fear that tightened his throat.
He looked up as they reached a tall tower. It was the only building in the entire wasteland they crossed, and it was enormous. He tried to find it in his System, but it brought up a blank. "Where are we?" he asked, his fear prominent in his voice.
"We are in god's hands now," Pain said as he entered the tower.
The corridor's were a blur, and then they were in a clear tube, air pushing up on the platform. Naruto didn't know how many floors they passed, but he was pretty sure that, by the time they stopped, they were at the top.
Pain stepped out of the tube with an ease of familiarity, but Naruto gulped as he looked down, and could see the dizzy height they were at, glad that Pain was still carrying him, or he wouldn't have wanted to take that step across the huge gap between the tube and floor.
Pain strode down a corridor, and then stopped in front of large double doors. He entered, and Naruto's eyes widened as he took in the high ceiling and the stained glass window behind a large chair. It reminded him of the churches that were built a thousand years ago that were in his history book. A man sat in the chair, and he had tubes plugged into him. Next to him was a woman, who had an apathetic look about her.
The man coughed, and said, "Is that the Kyuubi vessel?"
"Yes," Pain said, dropping Naruto, who landed on his bottom, a soft moan wheezed out of his mouth.
"Jerk," the blond muttered, gathering his courage. He wasn't no ninny that was scared easy.
"He has the tattoo?"
"Yes."
"Put him in the isolated cell until we get the rest of them. Keep him completely isolated, I don't want anybody near him."
"Wha-?" Naruto said, the fear coming back, and he scooted away as Pain leaned down to pick him back up. He backed into something, and he looked up, eyes wide in fear. The woman looked down at him with a clinical observation. Then he was grabbed by Pain.
"You can't do this," Naruto screamed, pounding on Pain. "I didn't do anything!"
"You exist," the man in the chair told him, and Naruto froze in Pain's arms. Then the man dismissed him, and said, "Konan, tell Zetsu to remove his clones from Stagnare, and start moving in real people. Our mission is complete, and we need the town to start moving forward."
Then the door closed, and he was whisked back into the tube.
He laid unresponsive in Pain's arms, tears trickling down his face. He didn't understand, how could his very existance be wrong?
He didn't notice when they had gone below the first level, and went deeper into the earth. He didn't even notice when they got out of the tube.
He did notice when they entered a strange room, with only doors on either side. Everything was white and bright, and he blinked away the tears from his eyes as he tried to adjust to the light.
He couldn't see into any of the rooms, there were no windows, just white plastic looking doors, and buttons that blinked. There were screens next to each door, words constantly moving down it, like someone was writing a report.
Above all, though, it was quiet. The only thing Naruto could hear was Pain's feet thudding against the floor as he carried him down to the very end of the corridor.
The orange haired man shifted Naruto so he couldn't see what the man was doing. Then there was a whoosh. Pain lifted him up, and set him in the room, before the door closed, locking him in.
A/N: Thank you for reading!
So, about the pairings... the focus is on various sides of Gaara's and Naruto's relationship. Some of them will be friendshippy, others will be romantic, etc. I will say this though, in the main storyline, it will take a while before Gaara and Naruto will get into a romantic relationship (once you read the next chapter, you'll understand why). So, I hope those of you who enjoy shounen, but aren't fans of shounen ai will still read this, and continue even when it does have the romantic aspects. I promise, it won't be too blatant with the main storyline, but I can't promise anything of the other dimensions.
My main thoughts for creating this story was a shounen, shounen ai. Or a shounen, shoujo, that, instead of a heterosexual pairing, had a homosexual pairing, or some such. I just love the shounen, and young adult genres, and just adventure stories in general, and I wanted to try creating one, and get some practice in it, before I try making my own original story. I hope you'll stick around to see how the journey goes!