Written by Kiara Nicoliar
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of its characters!
Summary: Sasuke runs away from Orochimaru & meets Naruto in disguise. Fearing of Naruto's reaction to his true identity, he embarks on a new life and tries to forget his past.
Warning: This is a yaoi pairing, will include lemons and m-preg! If you can't handle these, leave. Also, it includes slight character mental disorder further in the story.
Pairings: Naruto/Sasuke and a surprise pairing!
Destiny
Part 1: Bars & Fights
The bar was full tonight, but not as noisy as usual. People were all huddled in small groups, talking in lower and quieter voices, creating an atmosphere of secrecy and privacy.
Most of the people being of the gullible, local populace from an unimportant, small, non-ninja village didn't have much idea about ninja ways of eavesdropping. To some, talking quietly and not attracting attention was enough to put a stop to a potential eavesdropper, but to others, ninja were like gods, capable of doing everything they wanted and listening to anything they desired. However, that did not stop them from gossiping to their heart's content, because it wasn't everyday that an event, that was currently the center of the topic of all these gossips, occurred in their sleepy little village. Even the fact that it had been a little more than six months since it occurred, and it happened not so much as in the village, but three miles from it, did not deter them from talking about it. As it was the only village around for miles and its inhabitants, the only ones who heard the noises and glimpsed whatever happened, they were only too happy to be the center of attention for once and supplied their stories with lots of details and added facts.
"… then there were these gigantic explosions and earthquakes …"
"… thunderbolts blasted apart the trees and earth…"
"… huge snakes with gleaming red eyes…"
"… yes, yes and poison dripping from their mouths…"
"…flying dragons with fire shooting from mouths..."
"… thundering roars …"
In all the buzzing background noises, a quiet figure, dressed in a long black, hooded cloak went unnoticed. The figure was sitting alone, in the darker end of the bar, on a stool with a cup of sake in front. Chin resting on interlaced fingers, arms raised diagonally on the counter, and eyes closed, the figure seemed to be either meditating or sleeping. On closer inspection, the figure's eyelids seemed to be fluttering too much to be peacefully doing either. Slight creases between the eyebrows and the almost nonexistent frown were the only things indicating that the figure was deeply immersed in thoughts or memories…
– Flashback –
In the pouring rain, a figure was lying on its chest in the mud with its face turned sideway. It was looking at another figure, standing fifteen yards away, clad in a black cloak with red clouds imprinted on it and mud that was being wash away by the rain.
The standing figure had long black hair, in a low ponytail, with long bangs currently sticking to his face, and red eyes with swirling black dots. Even though from a distance the figure looked still like a statue, he was panting hard and his breathing was coming in small, rough gasps. Several tears adorned his cloak and from a visible cut on his right cheek, blood was being constantly washed away by the rainwater. Like the other figure in the clearing, he was also looking at his opponent, the figure lying in the mud.
Blood mingling with rainwater was turning the surrounding mud around the lying figure reddish. Small, pained gasps were escaping from its mouth. Its skin had an unnatural – as if decayed – red tinted with murky brown color to it, with flaming black marks all over the visible body parts. The back of its cloth was ripped to accommodate two giant wings. Red eyes similar to the other figure's in the clearing seemed to be haunted, familiar to the ones seen in a crazed beast. The aura coming off of it screamed of pain, rage, hatred, and insanity. By nature, the figure's overall appearance was not that of a human but rather a monster. A monster drained of its energy to attack and tear apart anything and everything within its sights or lash back at its enemy, in this case the other figure in the clearing.
However, as time passed and the two figures continued to look at each other. The fiery marks retreated and disappeared in the seal on the neck of the figure, as did the giant wings. After a few moments, a boy covered in mud, blood, and soaked in rain was lying in the place of the monster. The only things indicating that they were the same being were the still swirling red and black eyes, which had changed their shape to look like the ones found on the other figure's face, his older brother.
Despite the same eyes and appearance, what truly set them apart were the looks in their eyes. Unlike the younger brother, Sasuke, the older brother's eyes held no emotion. Itachi's eyes were blank, as was his face.
Nevertheless, as they were staring at each other, for a fleeting moment, there was something in those expressionless eyes beside the eternal void they seemed to be composed of. A glimpse of emotion, too quick to be deciphered as he looked at his younger brother lying in the mud under the pouring rain, left no trace that it was ever there or even actually appeared. The only thing indicating it might not have been a hallucination, on an onlooker's part, or a trick of the rain was the absence of his ever present and only human trait, at the moment – arrogance.
Through the hazy paint of reality, Sasuke looked on as his brother turned away from him and started to walk away. For the third time in his life, he was walking away, leaving his younger brother lying on the ground wounded. But this time, there were slight differences, there were no words left for him, no path set for him to follow, and most of all there were no nightmares in the realm of tsukiyomi to torture and torment him. In total, no motivation to get strong enough to kill him because this time, there was no need for nightmares in a false world of tsukiyomi, he was living in a continuous nightmare in the realm of reality. Worst of all, this time, no one was there to wake him, to end his nightmare, but himself. The ones who could were either lost, or far away and unwilling to end it for him, to save him.
With the very last ounce of energy in his body, Sasuke forced himself to get up and stand. His hands flew through a series of seals and electric blue chakra appeared in his left hand, his last reserve of chakra necessary to survive.
Even as Itachi felt the heat and force of the building energy behind him, he didn't stop or turn back to fight, he continued walking.
In the rain, the electric blue chakra illuminated Sasuke's face, hand, and clothing, giving off a surreal characteristic to the scene.
As he charged toward his brother, the world seemed to stop existing around them. Rain blanketed off everything except the blurry edges of his brother's figure and his vision focused only on him. Even the sound of thunder, his running feet, splashes of mud and water, droplets of rain hitting ground, seemed to cease making noise. His brother's figure became bigger and bigger as if each step was emphasizing the closing distance between them.
And for the first time, since he found his brother standing over the dead corpses of his father and mother with a sword soaked in their blood, there was something else in his eyes besides the rainwater. But the burning pain in his chest, hatred, malice and sheer desperation to escape this living nightmare didn't allow him to realize their presence. They became insignificant to the moment and forgotten.
At the last moment, before his Chidori could hit his brother, Itachi turned around. In a movement too quick to see, Sasuke was thrown back against a tree with enough force to leave an immense crack on its five-foot wide trunk and jar every bone in his broken body. With the last of his consciousness leaving him, Sasuke saw Itachi disappear in the ever-falling rain.
– End of the flashback –
The door of the bar suddenly opened and three, cloaked figures walked in. All the noises stopped as everyone turned to stare at them standing in the doorway. They looked around the bar and their eyes landed on the single figure sitting in the darkest corner, the only one who didn't turn around to look at them upon their arrival.
They strode across the bar and the figure at the front, with silver hair and glasses, placed his hand on the sitting figure's shoulder to turn him around.
Startled the figure turned around and a girl's face with long dark violet bangs, dark blue eyes, and fair skin previously hidden behind the hood of her long black cloak was revealed.
"Hm, it's not him." Kabuto voiced to the other two figures standing on either side of him.
After the revelation, everyone at the bar went back to their own conversations. The bar tender started to clean glasses with a rag again, still eyeing them with a certain amount of fear and distrust.
Even though the girl was not the person Kabuto was looking for, he continued to look at her. Two other guys behind Kabuto were looking at her hungrily.
"Eh, Kabuto-sempai. Can we have her?" the one on the right spoke with an eager voice.
The girl broke off from staring at Kabuto and turned sharp eyes on him.
"It wouldn't hurt to take half an hour break, we have been looking for him whole day – I mean, we are gonna get him sooner or later. So, yeah! Can we have her?"
The girl was saved from having to answer to the perverted Sound jounin, as Kabuto replied without breaking off his gaze, "Sooner than later. Sasuke-kun can be quite tricky to catch if we don't find him now and Orochimaru-sama won't be happy if we fail."
Finally breaking off his gaze, having decided that the girl wasn't Sasuke in disguise, Kabuto turned towards his companions.
"Let's go," as he said this from the corner of his eyes he saw a glint of a kunai heading his way from his left. Three men who were previously talking among the villagers were standing up with kunai, senbon needles, shuriken and other weapons. It was an ambush.
From their forehead protectors that were previously hidden, Kabuto deduced that they were from Earth country.
Instantly, they went into fighting stances and attacks began as the villagers and barman rushed their way outside.
However, the girl couldn't escape since she was directly behind the Sound shinobi and there was no exit behind her. She dodged the attacks from the fight between the shinobi of two countries and tried to make her way out. As she came half way towards reaching the door of the bar, the previous Sound shinobi she had recognized earlier as Jujiro, blocked her way.
He was leering at her, as his other two companions were busy fighting the Earth shinobi. Tables, chairs, and glasses were breaking and splinters and shards were flying in the air along with many jutsu and weapons, trashing the place, but that did not seem to hinder Jujiro. He advanced on her slowly.
"Hm, while they are busy fighting may be we can have some fun, ha? What do you say?"
8----8----8----8
On the outside, the girl was calm and calculating but on the inside, Sasuke was panicking. If he used ninjutsu or genjutsu, the jutsu that was currently hiding his own chakra signature and creating a false one would break off; they would discover that the girl was actually him at once. If he fought with taijutsu, Kabuto will recognize his fighting style and realize it was him, then even if he managed to escape; his disguise and cover would be blown. Orochimaru would hunt him down, in no time at all, before he could escape far enough from him.
Deciding on the best course of action, Sasuke stood still and let Jujiro advance. At the last second, when Jujiro reached out to grab him, with lightening speed he went around the shinobi and ran for the door.
Jujiro blinked, amazed at the girl's speed but still not discouraged to get his hands on her, turned around and went after her. Seeing that the girl had almost reached the door, he cursed her abnormal speed and threw several kunai after her.
With ease and agility rarely seen, Sasuke dodged the attacks without even looking back. Relieved that he had at last reached the door he didn't bother to dodge oncoming attacks and reached out with his hand to open the door. Suddenly, before he could grasp the handle, the door banged open with enough force to send him flying backwards and crashing into wall on other side, impaling at least three kunai in his back in the process.
Before passing out from searing pain in his head and back, he saw three silhouettes standing in the doorway against the light of the full moon. As the first person stepped inside, under long, spiky blond hair a Leaf forehead protector glinted in the candlelight from the still hanging chandelier.