Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.
Warnings: Spoilers up to and including chapter 437. Profanity.
Naruto had never really understood the meaning of love, or the point of it. A part of him had always longed for love, but it was in the same way that he longed for a new toy or a better grade. He kept these feelings suppressed; he told himself that he didn't want what the other children already had. It wasn't as if he was jealous: after all, weren't all the other Academy students always complaining about how kaasan did this, or tousan did that?
It still didn't keep him, sometimes, from wondering what his life would be like if he had a mom like Sakura-chan's or a dad like Chouji's.
He allowed himself to feel slightly optimistic of having such a parent—of sorts—when Iruka-sensei started buying him ramen. By now Naruto had compiled a mental list of what parents were supposed to do: yell, hug, and buy stuff. Iruka-sensei already yelled at him—really, if that were the case, then Sakura-chan was already his mom, and the old pervert Hokage was his…great-great-grandfather, probably.
However, Iruka-sensei was the only one of them who had graduated to the stage of buying him stuff. The old fart was probably rich, Naruto mused with annoyance; he should be buying Naruto ramen too.
Sakura-chan didn't buy him anything, but Naruto supposed that was all right. It would be weird to have a crush on his mother, anyway. And she spent all her allowance on buying things for herself, to impress her beloved Sasuke-kun.
No one had, so far, hugged him, but he supposed that had less to do with the parenting styles of the villagers and more to do with the fact that he hadn't bathed in a week.
So Iruka-sensei was technically his only real parent; he kept Naruto out of the trouble he was around to stop, and he fed him, and he even spent extra effort trying to make Naruto actually pass the Academy, which was no easy feat. Naruto liked this arrangement.
He stopped liking it as much when Iruka collapsed in front of him with a shuriken sticking out of his back.
Love was a double-edged sword, he decided. If Iruka died protecting him, then wouldn't that mean it was his fault? And if he died, wouldn't he hate Naruto too? Naruto didn't want to go back to having every person in the village hate him.
When he expressed this thought to Iruka on his hospital bed, Iruka suddenly looked very sad.
"I would never hate you, Naruto," he said, smiling, and reaching up to pat his head.
Naruto pouted. He really needed his growth spurt.
Naruto was barely conscious, and every inch of his body was throbbing dully. He could see the meters monitoring his heart rate and blood pressure and chakra levels, and the needles that were stuck into his veins (kind of like Haku's needles in Sasuke, but he didn't want to remember that right now). I must be on pretty strong painkillers, he mused.
He could hear the faint click of high heels coming closer, like the ticking of a clock, and he tried to crane his neck, only to have pain course through him. Naruto gave up, going limp and sinking deeper into his pillow.
A flash of sunlight caught his eye, and his body tensed automatically, assuming that the glint was from the metal of a weapon.
It wasn't. He relaxed as he saw a forehead protector lying on the table next to the hospital bed. He sighed and looked away from it. It was Sasuke's, or it would have been, if not for the enormous scratch directly over the Leaf symbol.
It's still his, a more rational portion of his mind supplied. Naruto mentally gave himself the finger.
Naruto finally heard the doorknob turn and the door creak as someone opened it. He turned around a caught a glimpse of a silk robe, which barely covered enormous breasts.
"Baa-chan?" he called out weakly. Tsunade walked over to one of the bulky pieces of equipment beside his bed and adjusted a few dials. "Don't talk, brat. You sustained some pretty heavy injuries."
"I can tell," Naruto grumbled petulantly. Tsunade rolled her eyes and leaned over him.
"You nearly died, brat."
"I kind of figured that out, too, old lady," Naruto said with a sigh. Tsunade furrowed her eyebrows, and Naruto wondered if she had sensed that his heart wasn't into their banter.
She stood up straight and pulled the blanket slightly higher up on the bed, so that it was up to his chin.
"Don't do that too often," she answered, and left the room. Naruto watched her leave, high heels and huge breasts and all: It's a shock how she walks so… normally, he thought.
He looked down to see the necklace he had won from her resting on his heavily bandaged chest. She had some right to being an unreasonable old lady, he thought. She had lost so many of the people she loved.
At that moment, it hit him, and he almost smiled.
"I won't," he whispered. "I promise."
Naruto cautiously pulled down the last corner of the tent, wary of Sakura. She watched his movements with narrowed green eyes. Naruto exhaled, somewhat annoyed.
"Gee, Sakura-chan. I know how to pitch a tent!"
"I never said you didn't!" she replied sincerely. She still walked over to him and corrected the placement of the cloth.
Naruto kicked the pole. Nothing happened. "See, Sakura-chan? It's perfectly fine."
"Don't kick it," she reprimanded absentmindedly, more snappish than usual. Naruto studied the slump in her shoulders that wasn't usually there. Well, he thought sadly, she did have a reason for dejection. Sasuke had gotten away, again.
After drawing straws, Sai had been made to share a tent with Yamato, and he with Sakura. Yamato was too tired to care; Naruto was just relieved he wouldn't have to deal with Sai's awkward attempts at consolation. As for Sakura…she was no stranger to sharing lodging with boys, but that hadn't kept her from shouting at him.
"If any part of your body comes in less-than-innocent contact with my body, Sai will have a valid reason to call you dickless," she said.
Naruto decided not to take any risks.
He rolled out their sleeping bags while she and Yamato boiled something disgusting in the pot over their campfire in an attempt to prepare dinner. After managing to stomach the slop and bemoaning the lack of Ichiraku ramen, Naruto retired. Yamato braved the unappetizing meal, but Sai and Sakura wisely chose to skip dinner.
Sakura looked to be asleep by the time Naruto went into their tent. He crawled over her prostrate body, careful not to disturb her, and collapsed in his own sleeping bag, eyes immediately sliding shut. His body was exhausted, but even in his state, the image of Sasuke wouldn't leave his mind.
Stupid (he had never been) ugly (yeah, right) obnoxious (well, at least that was accurate) bastard; lording over all of them as if he were better than them, as if all the crap his life had thrown him somehow awarded him a higher status in the general order of things.
Naruto really wanted Sasuke home again.
Sakura shifted next to him, turning her back to his sleeping bag and burying her face in her pillow. He narrowed his eyes at her, worried. Her breaths were coming out shaky; she was either dying or awake.
He was on the verge of yelling for Yamato, flipping her over and performing CPR when he began to hear her barely audible sobs. His chest tightened at the sound, and he ground his teeth together. When he dragged Sasuke back to Konoha, the asshole would be black and blue.
He turned his head away from her and let out a long sigh, knowing that Sakura wouldn't appreciate him being aware of her current weakened state. He lay awake for nearly an hour, listening to her breathing, until it finally evened out and wasn't choked with tears.
He had drifted off into a light slumber when a rustle woke him up again. Sakura's breathing was closer—much closer. Naruto stiffened with shock when he felt dry, chapped lips graze his cheek. His eyes popped open.
"Sakura-chan?"
If it hadn't been so dark, he would have been able to confirm that she was blushing.
"Shut up," she said. Her voice was still weak from the crying. "It was just a friend kiss, all right?" She paused for a moment. "…sorry."
Naruto met her eyes for just a second before she leaned back down on her sleeping bag and closed her eyes. "Naruto…" she began quietly. He turned his head to look at her again. She was staring straight ahead, up at the roof of their tent with sad green eyes.
"I'm…I'm, uh, glad you're around."
Naruto couldn't hold back a smile. Sakura tossed and wriggled into the sleeping bag, one arm gripping her pillow.
"Hey, Sakura-chan?"
"What?"
"You kissed me."
"Shut up, Naruto."
"You have to go out with me now!"
Sakura sat up, staring at Naruto. He wilted under her glare. It softened ever-so-slightly before she muttered, "Don't make me castrate you in your sleep."
Naruto yawned. "Yes, ma'am."
"Good."
"Is that a yes?"
"Naruto!!"
"Shit!"
Kakashi looked up from his book in time to see the Rasengan spinning in Naruto's hand explode into fragments of chakra and disappear.
The real Naruto kicked his clone with annoyance, watching it dissipate in a cloud of smoke.
He yelped when he felt the pain in his shin.
Kakashi chuckled and returned to his reading. Where was he? Oh, Aimi had finally overcome her inhibitions and admitted her love for Akio.
"I was scared," she whispered, her creamy brown eyes, like pools of chocolate, studying every contour of Akio's handsome face, from his pink lips to his thin black eyelashes. Akio swallowed the lump in his throat and pulled her into a quietly passionate embrace, exhaling slightly as her ample breasts massaged his chest. "It's all right, darling," he said comfortingly. "At last, we can—"
"FUCK!!"
Kakashi grumbled and looked up again to see the Rasengan dissipate from Naruto's hands. Frustrated, the real Naruto punched the three clones which had failed, wincing as he felt the effect of his own fists.
"I think it's time to call it a day, Naruto," Kakashi said. Naruto turned to face his sensei and collapsed on the grassy ground, which was now covered in patches of burned dirt. He poofed the rest of his clones out of existence and cursed again as he was hit with the impact of their cumulative exhaustion.
"Hungry," he managed to moan. Kakashi exchanged a glance with Yamato. "You might just be overexerting yourself," Kakashi said. Naruto groaned as his stomach rumbled audibly.
Kakashi performed the seals necessary for his teleportation jutsu and disappeared, while Yamato, looking slightly worried, checked over Naruto.
"If you use up too much of your chakra, it could drain the seal," he warned. "You don't need Kyuubi getting out."
Naruto closed his eyes and yawned. Yamato finished his rudimentary examination and, finding Naruto little more than dehydrated, opened up a flask and tilted Naruto's head up, opening his mouth and pouring the water in. Naruto sputtered for a moment but then swallowed gratefully.
"Thanks," he rasped. He started a little when Kakashi reappeared, this time holding two steaming bowls of ramen. "It may not be enough to fill up the black hole that is your stomach, Naruto," he said, "But it should tide you over until we get back."
"I love you, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto managed to get out before shouting "Itadakimasu!" and attacking the bowl of ramen. Kakashi's single visible eye crinkled closed in a smile.
"I love you too, my dear little student."
Naruto looked up from his ramen, startled, and began to choke. Kakashi took more pleasure than necessary in pounding his back.
"What was that for? I don't react that way every time you tell me that you love me."
"That's because I don't mean it like that," Naruto muttered.
"How am I supposed to know how you 'mean it'?" Kakashi questioned. Yamato sighed and stifled a laugh.
Naruto snorted. "Shut up, Kakashi-sensei."
"Well, how do you know if I mean it 'like that'?"
"Because you're old, disgusting, always late and a pervert," Naruto grumbled by way of explanation.
"You're cruel," Kakashi said nonchalantly. "But I love you anyway."
Naruto sighed and returned to his ramen.
Aimi let out a small scream as she watched the cruel steel kunai pierce through the chest of her beloved. The heavenly golden skin did nothing to stop the kunai's destructive journey; it lodged in Akio's heart, which began to spurt out blood like Akio's cock had spurted his seed into her that morning. Aimi could almost feel all the love for her that Akio had stored in his caged, shattered heart, the heart only she could have melted, flow out. Saltwater rolled down her face, thick and fast, as if she were draining itself in sympathy. "No matter how many tears I shed," she called out in anguish, "I will only love you more each passing day!"
Captain Katashi gripped her around her waist, and for once she did not protest. "You will survive, Aimi," Captain Katashi assured her in his seductive voice, like liquid chocolate. Had she not been swallowed by grief, had she not been watching her soul mate's lifeblood drain, she might have succumbed to his charms, let him take her at that very moment.
"I can't read this anymore," Naruto complained, setting the manuscript down and rubbing his temples. "If this Aimi chick loved the guy so much, why is she so ready to jump into bed with Katashi, anyway?"
"Captain Katashi is a player," Jiraiya answered. "Aimi is just a young, innocent woman. She cannot be expected to resist him."
"She's not that innocent," Naruto muttered. "Or have you forgotten the time Akio snuck into the women's side of the onsen?" He snorted. "They had a three-way with her childhood friend Izumi! With Izumi tied to the ladder! With the door open and Captain Katashi watching…whilehe was fucking that messenger girl! With the scroll she had brought!"
"And Aimi knew he was there," Jiraiya sighed dreamily, his eyes glazed over. "That may have been one of the best lovemaking scenes I have ever written."
Naruto kicked the toad sage. "You're a disgusting pervert." He paused for a moment. "Is it even legal to make me edit this stuff?"
"Of course it is," Jiraiya answered offhandedly. "But if Tsunade asks, you're eighteen."
Naruto rolled his eyes and huffed. "You shouldn't have killed off Akio! He was the only hope of the village."
"Just read the next line," Jiraiya said. Naruto scanned the page again to find where he had left off. "'It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all,' he whispered into her ear."
"Isn't that a gem?" Jiraiya proclaimed proudly. "It leaves the reader wondering—is Katashi trying to manipulate her into sleeping with him in her weakened state? Or does he actually care?"
"I'm wondering how the village is going to keep from getting trampled by Osamu's zombie-jutsu minions," Naruto replied.
Jiraiya sighed. "One person does not make an entire village, Naruto. It takes trust, love, friendship and teamwork. If all the ninjas of the village band together to defeat Osamu, then they will succeed."
Naruto chewed his lip, his expression contemplative. "Provided they stop being sex-fiends any time soon."
"I need to sell books!" Jiraiya answered somewhat indignantly.
Naruto shrugged. "I'm supposed to meet Sai and Sakura-chan for lunch now." He stood up, pulling on his garish orange jacket (Jiraiya couldn't suppress a sigh at it) and walking to the door.
"When are you leaving?" he asked. Jiraiya pushed a chunk of his white mane of hair out of his face.
"I've received more intelligence about the latest movements of Akatsuki. I currently have a fair idea of the current locations of several members; I'm going to go see if I can establish if any of them are headed to Konoha or our allied villages." He scribbled a note in the margins of his manuscript with red pen and leaned back on Naruto's sofa. "I'm leaving tomorrow morning."
Naruto's hand stilled, leaving the door half-open. "And…what about Sasuke?"
"I'll try and track Uchiha Itachi's movements," Jiraiya said. A silence settled over both of them for a few seconds; Jiraiya broke it. "But you should focus on training. Now get to Ichiraku's before that crazy girl Tsunade's been teaching beats the pulp out of you."
***
Naruto lay prostrate on his bed, staring blankly at a copy of Icha Icha Tactics. Leave it to the old pervert to hide clues in porn.
His next novel's never going to get published, Naruto thought. And even though he was sure the world could do without the sexual exploits of the incredibly horny ninja that starred in ero-sennin's books…
"It could get published posthumously," Sai had said with a fake smile, in an attempt to cheer Naruto up. He had been met by a blank glare which either proved that Naruto had no idea what the word posthumously meant, or that he was in no mood for Sai.
Jiraiya had sent him the next draft of the manuscript a couple of months ago. He'd never managed to get past page seven; plus, hadn't he already read the first one? Nevertheless, Naruto leaned his torso over the edge of the bed and pulled it out. He flipped to a random page and paused, surprised, when he noticed the paragraph his eyes had landed on.
Saltwater rolled down her face, thick and fast, as if she were draining itself in sympathy. "No matter how many tears I shed," she called out in anguish, "I will only love you more each passing day!"
Captain Katashi laid a hand on Aimi's shoulder, squeezing gently. "He…he was a hero."
Aimi swallowed, her throat choked up with sorrow. "Yes," she breathed quietly. "And he died a hero's death."
Katashi's face was grave. "He was one of my best men," he continued. "And I could tell he loved you very much. Nothing could have torn him from you. I won't lie. I was jealous of him; I wanted you. But…" He turned his soft green eyes on Aimi, who was now watching him intently. "I know why you loved him."
Aimi dabbed at her tears with her sleeve, and broke again into sobs that made her petite yet shapely figure convulse. "I…I don't know how to go on without him."
"He'll always be with you," Katashi said. "In your heart."
"He left a wound where my heart should have been," Aimi rasped between sobs. "I wish I'd never known him!"
"It may be a cliché, Aimi," Katashi said quietly, "but it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all."
Naruto pressed his face into the sheets. Sometimes it isn't, he mused, remembering Inari and Tsunade and Neji and…Sasuke.
And what if no one had ever decided to love me? he asked himself.
Maybe ero-sennin was on to something after all.
"Because I…love you."
Naruto was too shocked to speak—and really, what could he have said?
That moment was all it took for Pein to strike her down. Naruto couldn't tear his eyes from her falling form—in his vision it slowed down; he could feel Kyuubi leaking from the seal: everything suddenly became much sharper. He could make out the texture of Hinata's hair, which was covered in dirt and blood and stuck by sweat to her cheek. He could see the dust clouds she had raised settling around her, around the ruins.
And then she was dead. Or nearly dead, he couldn't tell.
I was right, Naruto thought for a moment, his brain shutting down, barely able to process the scene in front of him. It was all vividly, blindingly real, but he couldn't accept it—Hinata wasn't dead (or nearly dead, he couldn't tell), all because somehow he had managed to make another person love him—
He could hardly hear Pein's words now; the blood rushing through his ears drowned it out, but he understood enough to know what he was saying. He was giving Naruto the moral of the story, the lesson in the fable he had just told about the stupid little girl who jumped in front of the boy with his head on the executioner's block.
His pupils turned to slits and his fingernails grew into claws as his world became a spinning inferno, and the change startled him back into his senses, trying to fight the fox's spirit which was seeping through his seal, his skin, with everything he had.
One, two, three, four…
He stopped counting.
The last of the funerals were over.
No more tears to shed or caskets to walk by; no more dead people to stare at with horrified fascination, wondering morbidly what they felt like, even while being too scared to touch them.
Sasuke didn't have a problem with recently dead people; that was part of his job description. He had seen enough of them in his life; touched them, too. His fingers had barely brushed his mother's cheek before the social worker scooped him up and shouted angrily at the guard who had been careless enough to allow him to slip into the crime scene.
The Uchiha clan had been given a mass funeral. There were too many dead, too few mourners, for individual ceremonies. The social worker, a different one this time, had held Sasuke's hand as he walked past the sea of caskets. They were all to be cremated.
There would be no more donning of black formal wear, or sitting in a single chair surrounded by hundreds of others, all set into neat little rows like an unplayed game of Shogi. No mourners with their tears, walking by the body in single file line, like ants.
No more funerals.
Not until the next dead person, anyway.
He didn't have anything to be complaining about. He had been in the hospital, and therefore excused from them. He felt vaguely guilty for missing Kakashi's ceremony, and slightly annoyed that Naruto, who was in worse condition than he was, had gone every single one. He was a sentimental idiot, Sasuke thought. He didn't even know most of the dead. Sentimentality was overrated.
But, then again, he was the one who was sitting at the pier.
It had changed, he realized. It was lighter in color and the wood was giving way in some places. His feet could now skim the surface of the water, and he remembered how he had once leaned over the edge, trying to graze the lake with his fingertips, and he'd fallen off. Itachi had to pull him out. He'd joked about Sasuke wanting to be a fish.
On a whim, Sasuke turned his head to the side and gazed out of the corner of his eye, expecting nothing.
Naruto was standing on the hill behind him, gazing at the lake. His thumbs were hooked on his belt loops and his feet were set slightly apart. The wind was blowing the abnormally long cloth that petered out from the knot of Naruto's forehead protector to the side.
He saw Sasuke looking and smiled. Against his own better judgment, Sasuke smiled back.
He turned his head back to the lake before Naruto saw him do something really stupid, like blush.
The tell-tale thump of Naruto's leap from the hill came a few seconds later, but Sasuke couldn't tear his eyes from the horizon. Naruto took a few steps forward, hesitating.
Sasuke didn't want to acknowledge Naruto's presence. That meant defeat. He didn't know why; it just did.
Naruto was still standing behind him; he could see his distorted reflection on the water. Sasuke threw down his metaphorical sword.
"Are you going to sit down or not?"
He could almost feel Naruto grinning.
The sky overhead had changed from black to a dark shade of lilac, and the stars had all but disappeared. The sky above the horizon was blazing orange, overpowering the sun itself and making it look a pale yellow.
"Why are you up this early, anyway?" Naruto said, shattering the perfect silence that Sasuke had built up around himself.
He shrugged. "I wanted to watch the sun rise."
Naruto laughed, adjusting his hand. The tips of his fingers brushed Sasuke's knuckles.
Their heads came closer, and Naruto's eyes slid half closed. Sasuke's hands grabbed Naruto's hair and pulled their mouths together.
Naruto's lips were dry, and his mouth was wet, and his breath was hot; he still tasted like ramen, and Sasuke wondered how much of the stuff one had to eat to develop a permanent flavor like that before Naruto's tongue slid into his mouth and his mind went to other places.
Naruto moaned into the kiss, and Sasuke felt the sound vibrate inside his mouth and through his body, turning into heat that pooled in his stomach. Naruto's hair was warm between his cold fingers; Sasuke could feel the heat coming off of Naruto burning at his own skin.
They broke apart, panting and gasping in air. Sasuke let his eyes roam over Naruto's face—the round curve of his jaw, the thin whisker-like markings on his cheeks, the dusting of blonde hairs on his upper lip that Sasuke could only see in the sunlight.
It occurred to him how fucked up it was that he had just been making out with a boy he had tried to kill on more than one occasion. The thought made his lips quirk upward.
Naruto furrowed his eyebrows and raised one hand, cautiously, to trace the curve of Sasuke's lips. "What?" he asked.
The words were there, lingering over them like the morning dew. They didn't need to be said; they both knew.
Sasuke took a deep breath and opened his mouth, and said them anyway.