SUMMARY Close your eyes now, it's all just been a bad dream. In a world where there is no death, life comes at a price. Naruto is plagued with nightmares of a disremembered past, Sasuke must decide his fate, Obito has chosen to forget, and reality is just a matter of perception.
PAIRINGS [NARUTO] Sasuke/Naruto, general
RATING/WARNING PG-13 for profanity.
AN: So I'm sure this has been done before, but the idea would NOT leave me alone. I tried to stick as close to canon as my writing style would let me, while also keeping a "dreamy" feel. I'd say this story is an "alternative ending" fic. I've been re-watching Naruto lately and I just started watching Shippuuden for the first time... and seeing it animated... is eyegasmic. Also eargasmic because the music is ace. SORRY NOT SORRY.
So I wrote a Naruto fanfic. Why? Because all my feels. I like Sasuke and my opinion of Orochimaru has changed to one of like as well. Villains. Gotta love 'em. Ugh why do I do this to myself.
This story is complete at seven chapters, 20k-ish. I'll probably post a chapter a week or so. So yeah, enjoy? :D
DREAMCATCHERS
We didn't need a story, we didn't need a real world
We just had to keep walking
And we became the stories, we became the places
We were the lights, the deserts, the faraway worlds
➳ M83, Intro.
It is nothing like a dream. Dreams are fluid and ephemeral, they shift and blur and scatter and recollect. Dreams make sense one moment and the next, they make none. Dreams are consistently inconsistent-and so is life.
Naruto wakes to insistent pecking against glass; beyond his small hospital bed and table, and beyond the window, sits a large crow, scraping its beak repeatedly against the partition, impatient beady eyes glaring with unknown intelligence.
It's cold outside. And damp. Naruto remembers thinking, it's nothing like a dream.
Dreams are goals. They are wishful and hard-working and full of promise. They are the hopes for the future and the memories of the past. Dreams create, and they also destroy.
There's no rain, but the sky is heavy and dark with thunderheads.
The machine linked to his arm beeps. Once, twice, as if its just now noticed he's awake. Alive.
It takes only seconds for a nurse to scuttle in, clipboard in hand, wearing a vibrant smile that did not match the weather outside or the dim glow it cast upon the fluorescent lights of the hospital.
"Did you have a nice rest?" The nurse asks him, checking his chart, "Uzumaki Naruto?"
Naruto's first instinct is to ask, "Where the hell am I?" which he quickly replaces with, "How the hell did I get here?" It seemed like the more logical question. He can't remember much; his mind is drowsy and idle like a rusted engine.
The nurse pushes a strand of hair behind her ear. "You suffered a severe head injury during a mission last Friday. You've been here for five days. How are you feeling?"
"My head's all foggy." Naruto slumps back into his pillows, arms crossed. He remembers now, in hazy bits and pieces. "Wait. Does this mean-"
The door slides open, and before he can continue a familiar voice is chirping, "Naruto! Finally!" Even her green eyes are smiling with relief.
"Sakura!" Naruto's face lights up, eyes crinkling into his feline grin.
The nurse hooks the clipboard at the edge of the bed. "I'll have the doctor swing by to approve you for discharge." She nods politely to Sakura and slides the door shut behind her.
Sakura takes the seat beside Naruto's bed. "You took some serious damage back there, you know," she reprimands. "Sasuke and I were afraid you'd never wake up! But like that'd ever happen, right?"
"Huh?" Naruto stares dumbly at her. Oh, right. The mission. He'd been sent to Wave on an errand, basically. "Ah! Not again!"
"You need to stop trying so hard." Sakura sighs, crossing one leg over the other. Naruto's utterly crestfallen expression makes her laugh. "If you keep getting carried away on missions, Yondaime will lower your rank."
"Shit." Naruto mutters, crossing his arms. "You don't have to chastise me. I get enough of that from my mother."
"There's always next time." Sakura shrugs nonchalantly. "Anyway, I just dropped by to check in on you. Thank the Kyuubi you're a fast healer."
Kyuubi. The word shapes itself in his mind's eye, before images and memories flood past, subtle but strongly influential. There's a shrine not far from his apartment. He'll have to pay his respects later.
"Yeah." Naruto nods.
"And it's a full moon this Thursday." Sakura smiles at him. Her hair has grown long, and she wears it in a messy bun, a jade pin with bloodstone droplets dangling from it. She's always been beautiful, Naruto thinks absently, and at twenty she is shining. "The viewing ceremony is at the crest this month. Are you coming?"
Team seven is given a mission early the next morning, and as upset as Sakura is that she's going to miss the viewing ceremony, ANBU do not question orders.
Naruto can't help himself when he drops in a few minutes late, he scowls fondly when he sees Sasuke leaning against the wall, looking for all the world like he was asleep.
Kakashi is later, no surprises there. "Yo. Here." He hands them the debrief files.
Sakura flips through hers, skimming through it quickly. "Hospital patrol? Suna? What's the deal?"
"It's a request for a medical team." Kakashi says, but he still sounds vague.
Naruto furrows his brows. "Then why us?"
Sasuke tosses the file onto the desk, pushing off the wall. "Sakura is the best medic in the village after Tsunade."
Naruto rolls his eyes. "You finally decided to join the team?"
"Well," Kakashi intervenes, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "The official request is for a medical team, but it's been written in code. There's rumors of a floating market making the rounds in Suna. Its next appearance is scheduled for the abandoned hospital in the City on the Beach. You are to report to the Kazekage tomorrow evening, and he will give you the mission details."
It's nearing one in the morning, and they're on the border between Konoha and Suna. They've stopped in a small onsen town to get some rest. Across the high walls, Naruto can hear Sakura humming in the women's spring. He's currently looking for Sasuke, however. It's easy enough to find him. He's on the roof of the traditional-style hotel, puffing on his kiseru and looking up at the large, vibrant moon.
"You're so predictable." Naruto greets, a friendly grin spreading over his face.
Sasuke shrugs, blowing smoke up towards the stars. "I prefer to call it routine."
"What's the difference?" Naruto snorts, coming to sit beside him. "Sakura was pretty upset we couldn't go to the ceremony."
"It happens every month." Sasuke sighs out more smoke. "I'm glad of it."
"Because it was on the crest? That's why Sakura was so excited. The Uchiha haven't housed a ceremony in years. Since before you were born, right?"
"There was one time..." Sasuke fades off, tapping the cached bowl of tobacco over the edge of the roof.
"One time what?" Naruto leans in, interested and intent. It's like he's literally hanging off of Sasuke's words-waiting for the memory to be spoken, remembered, and stored away. Something about that order seems off, but Naruto pays it no mind.
Sasuke hesitates. Only around Naruto does he let his guard down enough to show emotion. It must be painful to be so tense all the time.
"I was seven. Itachi was twelve, and following custom, he was to be betrothed to one of the feudal lord's daughters."
"Something tells me it didn't go as planned?" Naruto asks.
Sasuke sits up, resting his arms on his knees. "Things never go as planned with him."
"You think too much, Sasuke." Naruto gets to his feet. "There's a remedy for that." His eyes hold a prurient promise, one they are both all too familiar with. Neither will ever admit just what it means, though.
Naruto wakes drenched in sweat and out of breath. He's alone, but he can't shake the feeling he's being watched.
The scenes of his nightmare ricochet in his mind's eye, nine wisping tails destroying forests in one swoop, the control in his maniacal hands. Red eyes bleeding with morose anger, pairs upon pairs. Dust and dirt and sweat and tears and more blood. The fighting never stops, the enemy he cannot see.
A crow caws from outside his room, signaling the sunrise.
He'd forgotten to pay his respects to the Kyuubi, Naruto thinks, and it's easy to write off the dream as a colorful figment of his imagination.
They make it to Suna with time to spare, dropping onto the balcony where Gaara's already waiting for them, hands behind his back and lined eyes steady with patience.
"Long time no see!" Naruto greets, shoving his mask off his face without aplomb and pulling Gaara into a man-hug.
Gaara acquiesces, but his expression remains solemn. "There's not much time. I've got a meeting soon." he guides them away from the public eye. "For the past three months, we've only heard word of the market, but one of our spies sniffed out the next location." He pulls a scroll out of his robe and hands it to Sakura.
She opens it, makes a queer face, and reads:
"In the first day of Waning,
The floating market will come to be
in a place in between the black and the white,
the brightest sphere;
Is the mind a key?
Then the door is right here."
"That is the riddle you must answer to gain access to the black market. This is not an ANBU mission, it is an undercover one."
"That's all fine and dandy, but what's the answer to the riddle?" Naruto questions, hands on hips.
Gaara shakes his head. "Only those who have entered the market will know."
"How are we supposed to get in, then?" Sasuke is not amused, taking the scroll from Sakura to skim the verse himself.
"I think it's referring to a genjutsu. The whole market is probably shrouded in one." Sakura suggests. "If we're going undercover then-"
"You'll have fake identities of sand nin. Come with me." Gaara leads them into his office and out into the main hall of the Kage building. They wind through a maze of staircases and rooms until Gaara slides the door back to a small, more private grotto, mottled shadows from willow leaves shifting in the breeze. It's a hybrid of a room, looking out onto a closed in garden; one with the earth and with the urgency of secrecy.
Temari materializes from the shadow of the tree, an unpleasant look to her eyes.
"Temari will set you up. I have another matter to attend."
"When we come back, lets get some drinks together, okay?" Naruto calls after him, and Gaara raises a hand in acknowledgement, shutting the door as he goes.
Temari flips the switch and light floods the room. "You can leave your ANBU gear here, it will be safe." She hands them each a folder.
Naruto complains. "More paperwork? I'm a ninja for a reason."
Temari rolls her eyes. "These are your identifications. Naruto, you are the attendant to the young Suna lord, Haruki. Sasuke, you are the young Suna lord, Kurosawa Sousuke." She goes on over Naruto's even louder complaint about their roles, "Sakura, you're also a lady from Suna, Minami Mio."
"Why do I have to be the manservant?"
"Don't complain." Sasuke is rifling through the expensive robes tailored for the mission. Heavy. Annoying.
Sakura, however, is delighted. A brilliant kimono, purple with prints of dogwood branches, sits folded before her.
Naruto just frowns at his common livery.
Life is so not fair.
They are dismissed for lunch, strategizing until it's time to head to the floating market on the coast; the riddle is still giving them trouble.
"I wish Shikamaru were here." Naruto sighs out his frustration. "He'd be able to figure this out."
"He is here." Temari replies, having been puzzling over the poem with them, though she wouldn't be attending on the mission: Leaf nin had been requested due to the fact they wouldn't be recognized at a Suna event. "I've already got him working on it. I'll go check up on him." she rises, before disappearing in a swirl of sand.
"Maybe we'll just have to go and figure it out." Naruto scratches at his forehead.
Sakura shoves him over roughly. "Forget the riddle for now. With Sasuke's sharingan, I'm sure we can find our way in. We're not going to cause any trouble this time around. This is an information gathering mission. What are they selling? Why? Who runs the organization? These are the questions we need to find the answers to."
Sasuke soaks all the information in, musing silently to himself. He might be able to find something of worth at the market. There's a sword he's looking for in particular. An oblong chokutō. He's been dreaming about it lately.
"This market isn't top secret." He says after a short bout of thoughtful silence. "It's underground. That means thugs and missing nin and twisted feudal lords and ladies. We can't let our guard down for even an instant. It would be best if we split up and communicated via radio."
"Good plans." Naruto nods amiably.
Temari appears along with Shikamaru a few minutes later. Shikamaru unleashes a heavy sigh.
"Did you figure out the riddle?" Sasuke asks him.
"Not even a hello? Thanks." Shikamaru grumps. "I have an idea about it, you could say."
"He's thinking it's an adapted translation of one of the Lost Scrolls." Temari cuts to the chase.
"That's basically it." Shikamaru nods.
"What are the Lost Scrolls?" Naruto looks confused.
"That's not what matters." Sasuke knows what they are. The Uchiha family has a few of their own. "Do you know which the verse belongs to?"
"Yeah, I just got to that when Temari snagged me." Shikamaru shoots her a mildly annoyed glance. "It's the Festival of Darkness-the Lost Scroll on death."
"Death?" Sakura racks her brain for a familiar sentiment. "I've read that before. What stanza is the riddle?"
"Fourteen. And the answer is in the closing verse." Shikamaru hands them an unraveled scroll. "This is just a replica, but it's here:
"Sealed away by hatred
Locked into place by blood
The end will never end;
In a world full of truth
The key lies in death
And death tells the only lie."
"Creepy." Naruto comments.
"Memorize it." Sakura commands him. "It's time to get ready."
Temari leads Sakura into the neighboring room to help her change into her kimono. Shikamaru lingers with Naruto and Sasuke as they prepare.
"So what're you doing here, Shikamaru?" Naruto's voice is muffled as he pulls the tunic over his head.
"Sorry, I'm not allowed to talk about it." Shikamaru replies lazily, staring up through the willow tree's drooping branches. The sun is setting.
"Was it just to see Temari then?" Naruto teases.
Shikamaru's expression remains deadpan. "Say what you want."
"You're not allowed to talk about it, or you don't want to?" Sasuke finishes knotting his hakama, black and simple, and slips into the geta waiting for him.
"Both." Shikamaru says darkly. "But I can tell you this: you're going to be dealing with it soon. And it's not going to be pretty."
Sasuke is tempted to threaten Shikamaru into telling him, but that would be counterproductive. He tosses Naruto his radio-band just as Temari emerges from the adjacent room, followed by Sakura, dressed to the nines.
She's glowing with smug joy, and catches the radio Sasuke tosses her gracefully. "Is it okay to say that I'm looking forwards to this mission?"
"You don't have to say it." Sasuke replies. "It's obvious by the look on your face."
"It's not everyday a girl gets to wear such an expensive kimono." Sakura chimes. "Thank you for letting me borrow this, Temari."
"Please be careful with it."
"It's yours?" Shikamaru seems shocked.
The last thing heard in the briefing room is the sound of amused laughter.
"Hey, hey." Naruto chimes loudly. They'd been driven by coach to the coastal city's outskirts, and were continuing on foot into the darkening nightlife. "I was just thinking. If they're quoting the Lost Scrolls or whatever, do you think they have them? What if they're for sale? Shouldn't that be, like, in a museum?"
"I wonder what else they might have." Sakura muses as they shuffle along.
"We'll find out soon enough." Sasuke points ahead. There's a clearing on the forested path they'd been following, and a few hundred yards ahead is the visage of the abandoned hospital containing the floating market.
A solitary figure stands outside the chained entryway. They approach casually.
"Names." says the greasy-haired gatekeeper.
"Kurosawa Sousuke. This is my manservant, Haruki."
Sakura smiles politely. "Lady Minami Mio of the Hidden Sand."
"Hmm." The gatekeeper is satisfied with their introduction. He repeats the fourteenth stanza of the Festival of Darkness. Sakura quotes the response. They are let in without a hitch.
Sasuke has to forcefully keep his sharingan in check as they walk through the wall of illusion and into a busy, loud, over-stuffed building full of stalls and displays and all sorts of strange smells.
"Hearts! All kinds of hearts sold here! Hearts of fortune, hearts of prosperity!" shouts one scraggly old woman.
"Forbidden techniques, super cheap! One time deal only!"
The steady murmur of commerce fills the place with a new kind of life, and the genjutsu lights the hospital as if it were early evening, the sun just dipping past the horizon.
"This is weird." Sakura mumbles under her breath. "It doesn't feel like an illusion."
"More like..." Naruto searches for the word. "We just stepped into a bubble of somewhere else."
"Eloquently put, idiot." Sasuke can't help but tease him.
"Feh." Naruto flips him off. "We should split up here. I'll take the top floor."
"I'll take the second." Sakura says. "Radio only if you have an emergency, got it?"
Then the first floor is Sasuke's. "They've got tight security." he says, "Eyes open." before they go their own ways.
Naruto has to try not to get carried away. There are lists of interesting, if not questionable or unexplainable things, available in the market. Cursed weapons, jewels containing the souls of spirits, forbidden techniques stolen from hidden villages and clans. Anything and everything, it seems. He's scooting past a clump of men betting at a stall racing weasels when he spots it.
There's a small booth squished between two food stands, glittering with trinkets and unspoken promises. Naruto's eyes are drawn to a small wooden box, varnished with reds and blacks and adorned with the print a vexed fox.
The seller behind the booth is shrouded in a dark hood and subsequent shadows. "You have the blood of the fox running in your veins, eh, boy?"
"Hah," Naruto's not falling for it. But the delicately painted box-the fox-reminds him of his nightmare. "Saying something catchy isn't going to coerce me to buy anything. I'm just browsing."
"It is not your money I'm after." replies the cloaked woman, painted nail pointing to the trinket Naruto's eyes had first been drawn to. "Do you know what this is?"
"Don't tell me," says Naruto, "It's a kitsune, trapped in a box."
"No mere box could trap a kitsune. It would take a much larger container than that." says the woman, chastising almost. "It is a wish box."
That piques Naruto's interest. "What's it for?"
"Write your wish on the scroll inside, burn it, and store the ashes in this box. It will make your innermost desire come true."
"My innermost desire, huh." Naruto contemplates the intricate box for a couple moments, before thinking, why not. "How much?"
The woman's shadowed lips curl into a smile. "For you, there is a discount."
Naruto walks away with the box and a mostly empty wallet. He can't help but think he was ripped off. He keeps his eye and ears attuned to anything abnormal, but everything is abnormal, so he's not sure what should tip him off.
The top floor is less crowded than the previous two, but still crammed into every nook and cranny are foods and caged animals and trinkets and scrolls and weapons of all sorts. Naruto pretends to examine a set of short swords, simplistic in design, before a strange chakra floods his senses.
He whips his head around; the genjutsu about the market seems to be unraveling. He drops into a defensive stance. Shit. He'd gotten carried away again.
Sasuke sweeps the first floor quickly and efficiently, picking up through gossip and hapless chatter the rules and regulations, rumors and habits.
"Market's not really for material trade, though." had said one browser. "I heard top floor sells destinies. In bottles!"
"Third floor?" another had said. "You've gotta be invited up there. It's no joke."
Apparently floor three is serious business. Floor three is where Naruto is. Had he been allowed entrance, or sneaked in?
From the mic hidden within his ear, he hears Sakura key in. "This is ridiculous." she says, "Apparently, the organization running this market is called Akatsuki. Their agenda is profit related. Nothing special. Do you two copy?"
"Copied." Sasuke replies. There's a short pause.
"Naruto?" Sakura pipes in. No response.
"God dammit." she hisses.
Sasuke concurs. They meet at the west-wing staircase, wide and busy with foot-traffic, and he explains what he'd gathered as they ascend the last two flights towards the first floor. Another guard sits before a large metal door, painted in black, white, red. This one is much more collected and confident.
"Lovely couple like you shouldn't be interested in the likes of this floor."
Sakura turns her charm on. "What are the likes? I've been so curious."
It doesn't work. "You need an invitation to enter here. Got one?"
Sasuke is getting impatient. "Is that so?" he says, "Then tell me why my manservant managed to get lost on this floor."
The guard looks a mite confused. "Must have been some manservant." he grouches. "He'll come down."
Sasuke's eyes flick to Sakura's, and she makes a tiny nod. Seconds later, the guard is lying unconscious on the floor. Sasuke yanks open the door and they slip quietly into the madness.
"You," comes a slithering voice out of an unknown darkness, letters rolling off into strange sounds, "smell interesting ~"
"What do you want?" Naruto demands, all aspects of his usual happy-go-lucky self have been replaced by a tense focus. He closes his eyes, since he's always sucked at dispelling genjutsu. Behind his eyelids, he sees only blackness.
"Open your eyes, and see what I have to offer."
Naruto opens his eyes. Before him is a booth he hadn't noticed before, full of jars and bottles, some empty, others filled with unknown things. The man running the stall is as pale as death, pupils slitted. There's a mephistophelean twist to the smile on his lips.
"Who are you?" Naruto is still on guard.
"My name is Orochimaru. I am the merchant of fates and the trader of dreams." he leans forward, long hair spilling over one shoulder in a quiet hiss. "And you, I can sense it very strongly, are tirelessly searching for a new fate."
"Not interested."
"No matter." Orochimaru laughs delightedly. "All fates are bought at a price, but not all dreams can compensate for them."
A hand clapping down on Naruto's shoulder startles him out of his trance, and when he blinks, the mysterious merchant and his jars and bottles have vanished.
"You!" Sakura exclaims. "This is what I mean! You don't take this seriously enough. Lets go. We are not allowed to be up here."
"What are you talking about? They let me in." Naruto decides to keep that last strange happenstance to himself.
"Why?" Sasuke has narrowed his eyes at him. Naruto returns the skepticism.
"Because I'm fucking awesome. That's why."
