This just kind of randomly came to me, 'cause I've been on a weird Disney kick lately.
Again.
I do not own Naruto or The Lion King 2.
Sasuke walked out of his lonely compound, hands deep in his pockets. His obsidian eyes were on the ground as he passed the countless villagers. He felt their accusing eyes bore into his back, and heard the whispers between women.
"Deception," they whispered.
"Disgrace," they hissed.
"Evil as plain as the scar on his face."
Sasuke hunched his shoulders, tilting his head down even more. His midnight hair fell forward, covering the jagged scar that spread across the lower, right side of his face. He touched it gently, remembering how he had acquired it.
Naruto's Rasen-Shuriken had caused it. The blonde had purposely missed when he, Sai, and Sakura had trapped him against a wall. The force of the jutsu had knocked him out, and it was because of Sakura's power that he was alive now.
She had purposely let him scar, though.
Deception.
"An outrage!" they villagers had whispered, when Tsunade had announced that he was allowed back in Konoha.
Disgrace.
"For shame!" they yelled, when he walked down the street.
"He asked for trouble the moment he came," whispered the man at the Ichiraku ramen stand, laying a protective hand on his daughter's shoulder. Akane watched him walked by, her brown eyes accusing.
Deception. An outrage.
"He can't change his stripes!" the mothers would say to each other, their eyes watching him as he breathed. "His family's name is tarnished forever."
Sasuke winced. The secret of the Uchiha family trying to destroy Konoha had become common knowledge. Tsunade had finally explained to him why his family had been killed, and why it had to be Itachi that murdered him.
Disgrace. For shame!
But the people of the Village Hidden in the Leaves only understood that the Uchiha family had tried to destroy Konoha, and that their son, Itachi, was the only true hero of the family. Even Sasuke's mother, Mikoto, was now despised among the people.
Sasuke was an Outsider now, just like Naruto had been.
"You know these Outsider types," men said to their wives, patting their kunai pouches in warning to him. "Can't be trusted."
"He asked for trouble the moment he came," hissed a vender, abruptly closing his shop as Sasuke walked by, heading nowhere.
"See you later, agitator!" laughed a gang of younger kids, snickering as his shoulders hunched again.
Deception. An outrage
Disgrace. For shame.
Sasuke passed the Hyuuga manor's great oak doors, and winced, remembering.
He had been trying to speak to Sakura one night, a few months ago, and she had been spending the night at the Hyuuga manor. He had spent almost the entire night outside Hinata's window, calling for Sakura, until, at three a.m., Hinata stormed outside in a speedy fury and blocked his chakra points.
"Just leave us alone!" she screamed at him, after promptly throwing him out.
"Traitor, go back with your own!" called a teenage boy, shaking his fist after Sasuke as the last Uchiha passed him.
He asked for trouble the moment he came.
See you later, agitator!
Sasuke's pace quickened from a walk to a jog. And then from a jog to a full out sprint. He couldn't stand those eyes, those voices. He had to escape them, he had to run away.
But the voices echoed after him. The people watched him run, and muttered to each other.
"Born in grief," they said. "Raised in hate, helpless to defy his fate."
"Let him run, let him live," the young shinobi added.
"But do not forget what we cannot forgive!"
Sasuke ran on, his eyes prickling with tears. He gritted his teeth, and pushed himself harder. The eyes followed him, the voices echoed in his ears.
"And he is not one of us."
"He has never been one of us."
"He is not part of us."
"Not our kind."
And he wasn't. He was Orochimaru's pet, a hero's villain brother. He was no longer a citizen of Konoha. He was an outcast, an Outsider. He belonged nowhere, with no one.
Not even with Sakura, Naruto, and Kakashi.
"Someone once lied to us, now we're not so blind."
"Going back to Orochimaru!?" called a snobby brat of a shinobi.
"For we knew he would do what he's done."
"And we know that he'll never been one of us."
Sasuke stopped at the bridge where he and his team had used to meet. He stopped, turning to the water and looking at his reflection.
He is not one of us.
He saw a tired young man of nineteen, with disheveled black hair and lonely black eyes. Skin so pale it was almost unnatural, exhaustion gracing his handsome frame. Loneliness swirled around Sasuke like a black cloud of depression.
Deception.
Disgrace.
Sasuke gritted his teeth, and then hurled a shruiken into the water, shattering the reflection.
Deception.
Disgrace.
The picture of himself melted back into focus, and now the lonely boy was angry. The handsome face had been turned ugly with anger. Anger at everything that moved.
Deception.
Disgrace.
"Sasuke-kun?"
Sasuke turned, and saw several people standing before him.
Sakura, Naruto, Hinata, Kiba, Shino, Ino, Chouji, Shikamaru, Temari, Tenten, Neji, and Lee were there. They all looked at him with startled faces, but no accusations were there. Naruto grinned, stepping forward.
"Attacking your own reflection now?" the blonde teased, winking at his friend. "Thought it was a clone?"
Hinata giggled, and Naruto beamed. The others exchanged rolled eyes and knowing looks. Sakura looked past Naruto's bright head, her green eyes met Sasuke's own obsidian ones, and they were clouded with worry.
She approached him.
"Are you all right?" she whispered, her voice quiet beneath the loud chatter of the others.
Sasuke looked away from her, eyes off into the horizon.
"The villagers will change," she said.
"No, they won't!" Sasuke snapped.
Everyone turned to look at him. Each of the girl's eyes hardened, ready to rush to the defense of their pink-haired friend. Naruto looked startled, and the guys raised their eyebrows, wonderingly.
"They'll never forgive me," Sasuke hissed. "Even you haven't!"
He gestured to the group that called themselves the Konoha Eleven.
"Of course we have," Naruto argued. "At least, I have."
"Me, too," Sakura said.
Sasuke rounded on Hinata.
"You haven't!" he accused.
She blinked at him, startled.
"Of course I have," she answered. "When I attacked you a month ago, it wasn't because of your treachery."
Sasuke blinked at her, and Temari stepped up.
"It was because you had been acting like an ass to Sakura all week," the blonde-haired Suna kunoichi explained.
Sasuke blinked at her.
"Seriously, dude, you need to relax," Kiba said, with a laugh. He punched Sasuke in the arm, grinning his dog-like grin. "We're your friends, we forgave you when we beat the shit out of you when you first came back!"
Sasuke stared at the group as they laughed.
"The villagers will forgive you, eventually," Sakura said, and he turned back to her. "Except for those stingy ones, but who cares about them?"
The pink-haired Jounin reached out and lightly touched Sasuke's shoulder.
"You are our friend, Sasuke-kun," she said, smiling like only Sakura could. "You're one of us."
And Sasuke believed her.
FIN.