Hello everyone! Kichi Hisaki here!
(breaths deeply) Gah, how long has it been since I've put something up here? Really? Can someone tell me the date? 'Cause I'm just too lazy to do it myself.
Anyways, This is Dreaming of Reality, the revised version. For you people who read all four chapters that I was able to post of the original, you'll notice that I stuck chapters 1 and 2 together and made them longer. I also added in some other crap that details in hints at Naruto's life. Personally, I like this so hell-of-a-fuggin' lot better. So, you people enjoy.
ALSO: Readers, you get the special opportunity to choose who Naruto gets to be paired with. I don't care if your a Het fan or a Yaoi fan, just pick a person. The romance is to ride a VERY TINY side car in this story, though, and won't be apparent until WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY LATER chapters. The rules of the vote are as follows:
You must be either logged in to leave a vote or leave an email address THAT EXISTS so I know exactly who has voted and who hasn't. If you don't do either, I will NOT count your vote.
To make sure everyone only votes ONCE, all votes will be made in a review for the FIRST CHAPTER. No votes will be counted if they are posted in other chapters.
There are certain people I will not allow myself to see Naruto with in a Romantic way in any shape or form. These people are: Jiraiya, Tsunade, Orochimaru, any of the past Hokages (gross, people!), Kyuubi (boy or girl) Iruka, Konohamaru's gang...and my brain hurts right now, so I think that's it. Anyone else is fine.
I'm also okay with the NaruOC vote, as well. Though if it is an OC, be prepared to probably not meet them until way later. Like I said, romance is riding a VERY TINY side car in this story.
If you also have another pairing you would like to see in here, you may leave that in your vote as well. Though that must follow the conditions of the original vote.
If you wanna flame me, go ahead, but if you're going to flame me about the romance bit once I finally write it just because you don't like the pairing, I WILL be posting a reply message back to you on the next chapter. Remember, you guys are voting for the pairing, not me. So if it doesn't turn out to be the pairing you want it to be, don't blame me, blame the other readers and GROW UP.
Plus, I'm only adding the romance bit because (WAY) later in the story, I have something extremely hilarious planned for Naruto with his romancing. I originally wasn't going to make Naruto paired up with anybody, but I suddenly got this ridiculous side plot running around in my head, and I liked it so much that I want to share it with you. So VOTE, people, VOTE! XD
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Naruto in any way, shape, or form. I'm simply a fan (who, by the way, hasn't gotten passed episode 211, and has never watch or read Shipuden. But that doesn't matter, because this is an AU fic and I'm going to be writing things my way and you're going to FUCKING DEAL WITH IT.) that has taken some liberties and messed up the characters' lives in her head. They are running rampant through my head right now, and I'll give them back after they've gone through some extensive therapy. :)
Enjoy!
Dreaming of Reality: Revised
Chapter One
He was running.
Everything was dark as he ran, he sight obscured by blinding blackness. The only sounds being the echoed slap of his bare feet hitting stone and his harsh breathing. All around was nothing, and yet at the same time, he felt as though there were...things...surrounding him from all sides. He wasn't alone. 'Where am I?' he thought. He didn't dare speak, for somehow the illusion of him being invisible would be broken if he did. Something was telling him that he didn't want to be found. 'Where is this place?'
A little farther in front of his running form was a light. It was faint, as if it were from a single flame on a moonless plane. He squinted, and forced himself to run faster, if only to catch a glimpse of what it was. Whatever it was, he knew he had to see it.
The moment a scream erupted around him as he got closer, though, made his blood run cold.
A man lay on the ground. His bare body, given only the decency of a small cloth around his middle, was covered in welts and bruises, decorating his skin in a terrifyingly morbid painting of black and blue and yellow and violet and red. His breathing was horribly labored and heavy, and his face, eyes closed in agony, was contorted in absolute, monstrous, grotesque pain. As he tried to stand, a foot would suddenly collide with his bleeding side, and another horrible cry of pain would come from his chapped and bleeding lips.
"Have you had enough?" asked a sickeningly sweet voice, dripping was sadistic love. A woman came creeping from the shadows, her tall and elegant body delicately covered with the tight and binding pieces of leather robes. She calmly walked up to the broken man in front of her, and prodded her clawed foot into a deep laceration near his neck. He screamed in pain again, and her laughter echoed sharply off the walls. She sauntered around him with a devious swagger, smirking to herself.
"I could keep this up for all eternity, you know," she commented lightly, examining a rather nasty wound above the man's knee. "Just you, me, and my many servants here, in this dark, cold dungeon, beating you a thread away from death, and knowing you would live to see another day," she gave another laugh, softer this time, and kicked the man into a nearby stone wall; his scream came again, "and then we could start all over for another eternity."
He stood, watching in growing, sinking horror as the woman slowly and leisurely strode over to the man's trembling body. 'What is going on?' he thought, raising a hand to his mouth, trying to hold the rising bile. 'This is sick...'
The man raised himself from the ground with shaky limbs, teeth gritted in obvious pain, only to be shot down again. "Wh...what sort of...s-sick pleasure do you get out...of beating me...?" he panted through his teeth.
The woman only smiled devilishly and raised a slim, beautiful hand. A whip was conjured in it. She raised it slowly. Her smile turned into a manic grin. And she brought it down.
The man's eyes shot open as he screamed again, and his cerulean met his. (1)
"Ahh!"
Naruto shot up in bed, panting feverishly. He sat there for a moment, letting his heart rate slow down. His mind was foggy as he slowly came to himself; it was always like this in the mornings, ever since a month ago. He would wake up screaming bloody murder to an empty apartment, his heart racing, and as he calmed, the dream—nightmare, whatever he was having every night—would disappear from his memory. He sighed once he was sure that his heart wouldn't start to beat wildly again, and glanced over at his clock.
"7:34 a.m. Great." He groaned as he climbed out of bed, wiping the cold sweat from his face. Once standing, he stretched a little to pop the kinks from his neck and back before grabbing a stray towel from the floor and heading off for the shower.
* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *
Naruto yawned as he walked up onto the bridge, waving a greeting to Sakura and Sasuke. He was too tired this morning to really say anything, and the strange dreams from last night weren't helping.
'Stupid dreams. I've been having them for over a month now, and I can't even remember them?' he sighed in his head, resting his arm on the railing of the brigde and plopping his head into a waiting hand to slouch. 'Just perfect...' He yawned again, and let his eyes slip closed. Naruto wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep again, he truly and deeply wanted to, but the harsh memory of Kakashi springing up with a surprise "Thousand Years of Pain" to wake him up was more than enough incentive to not try sleeping during the wait again. "I hate Mondays..." he grumbled quietly.
Sakura rolled her eyes at him. "Come off it, Naruto. It's not like it's the end of the world to have to wait here for Kakashi-sensei to show up on a Monday morning, is it?" she asked, crossing her arms in attempt to hold in her loud yawn.
Even Sasuke gave her a pointed look as she failed.
She huffed. "Well, alright, I admit that waiting here so darn early is pretty unproductive, but still. What can we do about it? We're only..." yawn, "Gennin..."
The short blonde groaned. "Yeah, but it would still be nice if Kaka-sensei would just get here on time for a change." He yawned. "I wanna go to sleep in my bed instead of waiting here with nothing to do."
Sasuke smirked. "Oh? Usually you're wanting to do a mission as soon as possible instead of sleeping."
A growl erupted from Naruto's throat. "Well, for your information, bastard, I had some trouble slee—" He cut himslef off quickly and turned away, not wanting his rival to know he'd been having nightmares. "Nevermind. You're not worth it."
Sasuke raised a brow, as did Sakura, but after a moment they shrugged and continued to wait in slience.
For an hour they waited, yawning every now and then, before their teacher fianllly showed up.
"You're late!" Sakura and Naruto shouted in unison, pointing angry fingers at Kakashi. He didn't even have the decency to be ashamed.
"Sorry, I was caught up with an old woman—she needed help getting home from walking her cat," he lied as he walked up, waving a lazy hand at his three students. "Glad to see you're all awake. I have a mission for us to complete."
Naruto immediately sprung up and glared at him, blue eyes flashing. "Don't tell me it's another low-class, stupid, kiddy mission. I'm sick and tired of those! I want something challenging for once!" he yelled, pumping a fist in the air. Kakashi smiled with his eye.
"Well, it's not a D mission, but it isn't exactly a B mission either..."
A groan was heard.
"...But it will take us about a week to complete. We're escorting a man to the borders of Suna to meet up with his partner. You have an hour to pack up your bags and meet back here. Our client will meet us here at noon, and we'll head out." Kakashi nodded to himselft as he pulled out his book and read for a moment. "I already have all of my stuff together," he indicated to the the small pack that was on his back, "so I'll be waiting here for you guys to return if you want to get here nice and early."
The three students nodded and began their walk home, each planning in their heads what to bring.
* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *
It was on the way home that Naruto ran into Iruka just coming out of the Academy.
He gave a wide smile and jogged over. "Hey! Iruka-sensei!" he called, waving his arms above his head wildly. The young man looked up from the papers in his hand, the scar on his nose standing out on his dark skin. Iruka smiled when he saw who it was.
"Naruto-kun! Hey, what brings you over here? Don't you have some missions to do with your teammates?" he asked, reaching out an arm to give his student a half-hug. "And what happened to your tackle-hugs? I can't believe you're giving me a normal hug all of a sudden."
Naruto rolled his eyes. "What, you wanna be tackled to the ground? What if all those papers got stuck in some mud? Or if I tackled you into a wall and you got knocked out? Because if you wanna, I can easily go back and do this all over again."
A laugh was his answer. "Aa, no thank you, Naruto-kun," Iruka said, ruffling the boys hair.
Naruto snickered. "And I'm walking this way because I've gotta go home and pack." He grinned widely up at the teacher. "I'm going on a C mission to Suna!" he declared, pumping a fist into the air.
"Really? What are you doing?" the man asked.
"Escorting someone there. It isn't much, but at least I'm getting out of the village to do something, right?" he said, shrugging. His eyes went wide suddenly. "Hey, you don't think that since the last C mission I went on turned out to actually be an A mission—"
"Don't even think about that Naruto," came the sharp order from the instructor. Naruto snapped his mouth shut with a pout. Iruka sighed. "Look, I know you're eager to get out and do something, especially since you didn't pass this season's Chuunin exam," he paused to roll his eyes when Naruto scowled at the ground, "but you shouldn't be looking for that kind of excitement to prove yourself. Train extra hard, and complete all the missions you can with your team, and I'm sure you'll pass next year!" Iruka finished with a smile.
Naruto continued to sulk. "But I can handle it."
Iruka ruffled his student's hair again. "Well, I don't think I can handle worrying about you if you were to go out on an A mission," he said. He grinned. "I'm too young to be getting gray hair like your Jounin Sensei, don't you think?"
Naruto laughed loudly at the joke, mood lightening up. "Yeah, and I don't think you'd look good like that either." He smiled up at the Chuunin. "I'll try to stay away from the dangerous things just for you, okay? But I can't promise that the danger won't find me instead."
Iruka grinned. "It's either that you're a trouble maker or a trouble magnet, huh?"
"Yep!"
The two laughed. Naruto, once his giggling fit was over, looked over the instructor again. "Ne, ne, Iruka-sensei."
"What is it, Naruto-kun?"
"Do you think you could look after my plants for me while I'm gone?" he asked, peering up at the man. "They need to be watered every day, and you're the only I can trust not to ruin my place while you're doing it, so could you?"
Iruka gave an almost sad smile. "Of course, Naruto-kun," he said. "You can trust me."
A smile made it's way to Naruto's face, and he hugged the Chuunin tightly once more before running home. "Thanks, Iruka-sensei! I'll see you in a week!"
Iruka watched quietly as his ex-student ran home.
'You're a good kid. Why can't anyone see that?'
* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *
Naruto looked at his stuff, looked at his ramen still tucked safely in his kitchen, glanced at his plants which he knew Iruka would take care of for him because he ran into the kind-hearted man on the way home, and then back to his stuff again. He nodded, and grabbed his pack, walked out the door, locked it behind him, and then set off toward the bridge. 'I still have half an hour to get there, so I'll grab something to eat.' His stomach gave a cry for ramen, but he told himself that if he stopped to get some now he wouldn't make it in time, so he settled for getting a bun at the store nearby.
"Oi! Ji-san! I'd like a bar-be-que pork bun, please!" he ordered when he walked into the store, ignoring the glares from the other people in the store. He man behind the counter gave him a leveled glare, which Naruto responded to with a wide, closed eyed grin, hand holding out the appropriate amount of money.
The man sniffed and tonged out a bun, wrapping it and set it on the counter. "That'll be 1,500 yen," the man stated. Naruto's grin faltered for a moment, but he put it back up with renewed force. His memory wasn't so bad that he had forgotten the price of the buns that was painted on the message board just outside the shop—750 yen; they were cheap, after all—but he knew better than to argue with the man.
"Aa, Ji-san," he chirped, hand reaching back into his money purse and pulling out a few more coins. He then placed the money on the counter, swiftly grabbed the bun, and left with store with a loud, "Thank you!" He didn't look back in, even though he could hear the muttered cursing that followed his exit.
'Just ignore them, Naruto. Someday, you'll show them.'
He was walking back down the road and had just taken his first bit of the delicious bun when he spotted a man having some trouble carrying a rather large backpack. He grinned and, not one to ignore someone in need of a bit of help that he knew he could give, trotted over. "Hey, Ji-san, do you need some help?" he asked.
The man turned to look at him, but in his surprise he toppled over, body become trapped underneath his pack. Naruto yelp when the man gave a cry of pain, then scrambled around to the man's side, lifting up the large pack. A few moments later, when the man was up on his own two feet again, he gave Naruto a grateful smile. "Yes, thank you young man." He laughed. "I'm afraid that with me injuring my back alst week and needing to go to another country today, I'm going to be needing dome more help than an escort."
Naruto blinked, then grinned. "Well, isn't this a coincidence? I'm escorting someone somewhere today." He shifted the large pack to point at his headband with pride. "I'm a ninja."
The man gave a warm laugh. "Well, you sure look like one! And with those muscles, I sure hope so. People need someone with your kind of strength!"
Naruto smiled. 'Hey, I like this old guy.' He stuffed his bun into one of his large pockets and stuck out a hand. "Uzumaki Naruto, at your service."
The man smiled. "I'm Kata Mayakashi. Nice to meet you, Naruto," he said, and shook Naruto's hand with his larger one.
Instantly Naruto's smile fell. A cold shiver went down his spine, and he could have sworn that the temperature outside just got a few degrees colder. Everything suddenly went dark for a second, and he blonde could see the Kyuubi pacing worriedly in it's cage. "N-nice to meet you, too..." he trailed off, taking his hand back. Some of the warmth returned to him, but most of the chill remained. He forced another smile, though the reason was completely different than back in the store. Something was off with the man, he could feel it.
"Well, Kata-ji-chan, which way do you need to go?" He inwardly hoped that it would be close to the bridge; he needed to get there soon. And the faster he could get rid of Mayakashi, the better.
Mayakashi pointed off to the right. "Just over to the bridge over there. That's where I'm supposed to meet up with my escort."
Naruto's smile faltered again. 'Great. I'm his escort.' He walked up ahead of Mayakashi so he could drop the smile. "Well, what do you know, Kata-ji-chan. I'm going to be part of the team escorting you," he said with fake cheer. He prayed that the man didn't hear it.
"Isn't that a surprise? Something tells me this'll be one fun trip!" Mayakshi gave a hearty laugh, and Naruto tried to laugh, but it only came out half-hearted.
'No, I don't think so, old man... Something tells me this won't be very fun at all...'
* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *
Kakashi looked up from his book as Naruto came trudging onto the bridge, carrying a large bag and a half eaten bun in his hands with a man in tow of him. He raised a brow, then recognition came to him. "Ah, Naruto. I see you've met our escortee." Sasuke and Sakura blinked and raised their heads in surprise.
"Oh, this is the person we'll be escorting?" Sakura asked, tilting her head to the side in question. Sasuke just gave a small "Hn."
"Yes. Sasuke, Sakura, I want you both to meet Kata Mayakashi. He is the person that we'll be escorting to the borders of Suna," Kakashi gave a nod towards the man in greeting, then gave a long stare at the pack. "Are you really going to be bringing all of that with you, Naruto? We'll only be gone for about a week."
Naruto gave a small grunted as he set the large pack down onto the bridge. "This is Kata-ji-chan's pack, Kakashi-sensei. He was having some trouble carrying it, so I helped him out a little." He took a bite of his bun, grimacing at how cold it got. He was already cold enough. He shivered. "That's how we met."
Kakashi's eye didn't miss how Naruto shivered. 'It's still fairly warm outside, even if it is fall,' he thought. He shrugged it off, putting it in the back of his mind. "Well, since we're all here, why don't we set out early? Just to get a head-start on the day," he suggested. He picked up the large pack that the blonde had been carrying for their client while Sasuke and Sakura picked up their packs. "I'll carry your bag for you, Kata-san. I heard that you had some trouble with your back recently; I wouldn't want you straining it during our trip."
Mayakashi smiled at him. "Oh, thank you, Hatake-san, for being so thoughtful. That would certainly take a load off," he said, already walking ahead of the team.
Naruto shivered as Mayakashi brushed past him. The temperature dropped several degrees again. He turned to Kakashi. "Um, Kaka-sensei?" he asked, gaining the Jounin's attention before continuing. "What do you think the temperature is going to be tonight?"
Kakashi gave him a strange look. "Well...there's supposed to be a cold front coming in tonight in the area, so I guess it'll get pretty chilly outside." He rose a brow at his student. "Why?"
Naruto groaned inwardly. 'I should have brought more blankets with me.' "Oh, no reason. I'm just wondering. You know me! Hehehe..." He gave a quick, unsure smile at his teacher, then began walking.
Kakashi stared after his student for a moment. 'Hmm...'
Sakura looked back at him. "Come on, sensei!"
"Ah. Right."
* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *
He was back again.
The fire from a nearby torch was the only source of light in the large, dark, damp chamber. His heart was pounding in his ears as he watched with wide eyes, unable to look away, as the woman repeatedly slapped the man's face, leaving bright red marks which turned to bruises. The man was forced to stay upright, held by some unknown force, his only movement that was allowed being the sharp snapping of his head as he was slapped.
The woman's beautiful face was twisted in a sneer as the man grunted in pain from each smack of her hand on his now bleeding cheeks. She held up her hand, and he expected her to slap him again, but he was suddenly released from his mysterious hold. He fell to the floor, hands coming up to feel his swelling face. Soft gasps of pain echoed around him as he pressed shaking fingers against the tender flesh.
A smirk of satisfaction stretched across the woman's face. She reached down to grasp his chin tightly in her clawed hands, obviously enjoying the way he flinched, he noticed grimly.
"Have you had enough, kind sir? Or would you rather we continue with the entrees?" she asked, stepping away to pace thoughtfully in front of him, caught up in her sick fantasies. "We could dish you up some whippings...or would you rather prefer some delectable slices of meat? Only the finest, of course."
He shivered deeply at her cold laughter. 'She isn't sane.... How can that man stand this?' he thought, clutching his bar body closer. He watched in horrid amazement when the man simply closed his tired eyes and bowed his head in submission. He wanted too scream at the man—'No! You can't give in!'—but the fear of being seen by the things invisible in the darkness made him still, and stay still.
"It doesn't matter what you do to me," he whispered through clenched teeth, staring down at the stone floor of the dungeon where a puddle of blood was slowly beginning to form. "Just as long as you keep up your end of the deal."
He was slapped in response.
The woman growled, the sound of that like an animal, her eyes flashing a familiar crimson. "What deal? The one where you serve eternity here in suffering, while he stays there and alive?" She grabbed him by his over grown hair, causing him to cry out in pain. "I'm keeping my end of the deal, you bastard. But remember this..."
She dropped him to the ground and kicked him roughly into a stone wall.
"I'll always be delivering the worst of my torture—"
She took a stone and threw it at his abused body.
"Because you so kindly decided to deprive me—"
She stormed over to pick up the torch, dropping it onto the man.
"Of the one thing that actually kept me SANE in this world!"
He screamed in pain when the flames engulfed his body.
"No!" Naruto screamed, sitting up from his resting spot.
Sasuke, Sakura, Kakashi, and Mayakashi all turned to stare at Naruto with wide eyes. They were sitting around a small fire they had made to make lunch, each holding a bowl of food. Kakashi set his bowl down (empty) and stepped toward the panting blonde with caution.
"Naruto? Are you alright?" he asked, hesitantly placing his hand on a shaking shoulder. He received a small nod in answer.
"Y-yeah... Just a bad dream... Nothing to worry about..." Naruto shook his head, as if trying to clear his mind. He grinned, though a little forcefully. "Heck I don't even remember it anymore. I guess someone was trying to steal my ramen or something. Heheh..."
Kakashi sighed. "Well, if you're sure." He guestured to the fire and the boiling pot above it. "The food's ready if you want any."
Naruto nodded and rushed over, trying hard to ignore the chill that had set over his already cold body and grateful for something warm to eat. "Don't mind if I do!" he said, smiling and digging into his prepared bowl of food. He blinked at the taste. "Wow, this is good. Who made it?"
Mayakashi smiled at him. "I did. It's a special recipe that my brother's wife came up with," he said, laughing. "Though I can't tell you the ingredients—it's a secret."
Sakura smiled at her client. "Well, whatever you put into it, it's certainly delicious. Right, Sasuke-kun?" She looked over at said boy expectantly.
He looked up at the group and rolled his eyes, gave a grunt, and went back to eating his food slowly.
There was a pause as silence followed Sasuke's act, and then Naruto glared at him. "Well, fine, be a prick." Turning to Mayakashi, he smiled, shivering slightly. "You'll have to ignore him. He's just a cold-hearted bastard with no feelings."
Sakura, hearing this, smacked Naruto with the ladle that she used to serve the food with, causing Kakashi to break up the fight, which in turn got Mayakashi to laugh.
The group was in the middle of their second day, heading off to the border of Suna, where Mayakashi was to meet with his business partner—it turned out that he was part of the NIN Corps: Weaponry Division. He was in Konoha for a while for the connections meeting that was based there that year. NIN Corps was a corporation that made, styled, and created shinobu utilities, such as clothing, pouches, weapons, and other things.
Kakashi finally settled for whacking his two students over the head with the ladle he snatched from Sakura. "You two need to settle down," he said in a disapproving tone, causing them to look guiltily at the ground. "As punishment for such immature behavior, you two are going to pack up the cooking equipment before we leave."
They nodded and sat down to finish their lunch. It was silent for a moment, then Mayakashi spoke. "So, what sort of mission do you guys do? I'm not a ninja myself, so naturally I'm interested," he said, wiping his face clean of soup.
Sakura smiled. "Well, normally, since we are Genin's, we just do D ranked missions: things like straighening out gardens or finding someone's lost cat." She giggled as she rememebered the last time they had to find Tiger. The other two members of the team gave piteous groans at being reminded. "This is our first C ranked missioin that we had in a long time. The last one we had turned out to be something of a disaster and suddenly turned to an A ranked mission."
"Oh? Why is that?" the client leaned forward, eager to hear more. Sasuke, silently observing from where he sat off to the side, noticed dimly Mayakashi was just a little too interested in what had happened. He scoffed inwardly. 'Probably just interested because it sounds dangerous,' he thought. But he paid a bit more attention to the man.
"Oh, the guy that we were escorting turned out to be a target for some hot-shot rich man. We had to put up with random attacks while we took him back to his country, and then we had to protect him there, too." Sakura sighed. "It was totally crazy."
Naruto huffed as he gulped down the last of his soup. "Sakura-chan! You didn't tell him the best part!" He grinned as he turned, forgetting momentarily the chill he got. "The hot-shot bastard that was targeting the old man that we were protecting sent these two really strong guys to kill him—I mean, they were almost invincible! But on the bridge that the old man was building, we had to face them one last time. The shorter one—his name was Haku—had trapped Sasuke-teme in this weird ice-mirror-thing, so I had to rescue him!"
A snort came from Sasuke. "You ended up getting stuck too, Dobe."
Naruto shot his rival an ugly glare. "Shut up! Don't interrupt me! ("Hn.") Anyways! Kakashi was fighting the other guy, so I don't know what all happened with them. Sasuke ended up getting beaten real bad, and I was talking to Haku a bit—he was saying something about protecting the other ninja he was with—and I was going in for a final attack, then he suddenly disappeared! And...well..."
Naruto trailed off and began to calm down as he remembered how Haku and Zabuza died, remembering the bitter-sweetness when Gatou came and was chased away by the villagers. And as he calmed down, he suddenly realized that as he was retelling the exciting adventure, he came closer and closer to Mayakashi, who was smiling excitedly at him. The chill came back.
He slowly stepped back from him, laughing nervously. "A-and then we saved the day! Yeah, that's us. The shinobi that saved the bridge! Heheh..."
Kakashi rose a brow at Naruto's suddenly stiff attitude.
Mayakashi grinned, leaning over to rest his hands on his knees. "Well, that's certainly an intersting story," he said. "But how exactly did Sasuke get beaten," here Sasuke glared across the fire at him, " and you end up still standing? I would expect it to be the other way around." This time it was Naruto glaring at him. Sasuke smirked. "No offense, of course."
Kakashi, noticing the tension in Naruto's shoulders, decided to intervene. "Maybe it wouldn't seem like it, especially after he decided to take a nap while the lunch was cooking, but he has an incredible amount of stamina. That would be my guess to why he lasted longer than Sasuke; Sasuke usually beast him in a spar," he explained, patting the blonde on the head comfortingly.
Mayakashi nodded, taking in the information dully. Naruto glanced up at him, noticing his brow crease in a frown. He shvered as another chill ran down his spine.
Sakura shifted at the sudden tension in the air. "U...so, Kata-san, what is it like to work in NIN Corps?" she asked, changing the subject. She didn't know just how grateful Naruto was toward her at the moment.
* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *
Mayakashi yawned as he woke from his slumber. It was a beautiful day outside, from what he could tell from the morning sky. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and everything was perfect. Yesterday, walking around the way he had, had been tiring, especially on his back. 'Hopefully, today will be better for me,' he thought with a tired smile and a pop of his spine.
He reached over to his pack and pulled out his wash cloth and an extra pair of clothing and proceeded to wash and change. He had a tiring say ahead of him—after all, the road to Suna wasn't an easy one. Might as well start out fresh. The journey was yet to be completed, and his business partner was waiting for him back at home. 'I'm on my way, Yoshika,' he silently called to his partner. 'Just wait a few more days, and we can finally complete our project.'
But as soon as he stepped out the hotel door, he was confronted with two ANBU ninja.
Mayakashi furrowed his brow, taking a step back as worry seeped into his mind. He knew that one just didn't see the ANBU wandering about Konoha, even if he was a foreigner—unless you were ANBU yourself or the Hokage, they didn't show themselves to you. He played it calm. "May I help you?" he asked.
One of the ANBU, the one with the cat mask, stepped forward. "Are youKata Mayakashi from NIN Corps?" he asked, voice giving nothing away.
Mayakashi blinked. "Yes... Why would you need to know that?"
The other ANBU, a hawk mask, nodded. "We need you to come with us, Kata-san. The Hokage wants to see you. Apparently, there has been a misunderstanding." The ANBU paused. "A major misunderstanding."
Mayakashi began to sweat. 'I don't understand. My records are perfect. I remember turning my request for an escort in yesterday. Did something happen?' "What sort of misunderstanding?"
The cat and the hawk looked at each other, as if question whether or not to tell him.
"Either you aren't really Kata Mayakashi, or Cell Seven is going to need help."
To Be Continued
* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *
So, that's Chapter One!
(1) While I don't have a beta yet (aren't really sure I want or need one (not trying to sound full of myself, just stating!)), I do try to keep all mistakes to a minimum, even with my Dyslexia. So I just wanted everyone to know that YES, I did write that sentence like that on purpose. If you all continue reading, you'll find out why.
Okay, so when I was writing the part when the team all met Mayakashi, my friends next to me were talking about food—really good food—and my verbal response was, "Mmmm..." Well, just so happens that when I said it, I also typed it. And because of that, I've decided to put in the Dreaming of Reality: Revised Bloopers! So, here you go, enjoy!
Bloooper One: Delicious...
Naruto groaned inwardly. "Oh, no reason. I'm just wondering. You know me! Hehehe..." He gave a quick, unsure smile at his teacher, then began walking.
Kakashi stared after his student for a moment. "Mmmm...."
Sakura paused and looked back at her teacher. "Um...Kakashi-sensei? What did you say?"
A wet spot grew on Kakashi's mask around where his mouth was with drool. Kakashi giggled. "Oh, nothing, Sakura-chan. Absolutely...nothing."
He giggled again.
Sakura stared.
She walked away. 'Naruto... I fear for your safety...'
End.
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