Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, dammit. *Sobs*. It belongs to Kishimoto.
Pairings: SasuNaruSasu mainly
Notes: Unbeta'd. This story I have playing with for a while, but haven't written because the Naruto-world confuses me. Don't get me wrong, I love it, but I am never sure what to put in and what not to put in – especially technology-wise. But here I have. It is an AU! Split off after Sasuke leaves, and I will say – just to cover myself from any mistakes – that the 'normal' Naruto verse is a little AU!
This will have an even more AU world which Naruto will flick between. I can't wait to introduce this alternative dimension. I really can't. Of course, Sasuke and everyone will act differently in the other dimension as certain things have not happened and other things have.
Wow that was vague. Anyway, I hope you like it. Even if Sai seems a bit off :/ How annoying aha
/\/\
Chapter one
Chains. They rattle on his wrists, the bindings of his sins. Delirious. Choking. He tries to scream but he is gagged, heavy, thick something in his mouth, stuffing down his throat. Suffocating on the threads of life.
Glittering colours swirl around him as he struggles. Disorientated. How did he get here? When? Who?
Dying. Always dying.
Naruto's eyes fly open as his lungs scream for air. Chest heaving, hair damp with dream-induced sweat and a pulsing heartbeat, rapid as a rabbits in a raging panic. His stomach swirls sickeningly; he feels queasy, sickened with a strange motion sickness. His mouth is dry.
He struggles upright; gazing around his meagre room with bleary eyes and shakes his head. His breath is not to desperate now, his heart has steadied in his chest and no longer is it trying to burst from his ribcage. And he is glad; he had been generally worried his heart may just achieve what it so desperately wanted to do. Kyuubi can fix many things but even Naruto, one for at least attempting to make the impossible possible, believes that is a bit of a stretch.
Eighteen years Naruto has been alive – eighteen years of nightmares plaguing him, evening beasts he cannot defeat. But recently, these last few months they have altered. No longer are they memories of his youth twisted with the darkness of his own psyche. They are flashes, psychotic flashes of images and moments in time that have never existed. He sees his parents, he sees Sasuke smile, he sees Sasuke's parents, his brother – hell, he has seen many of the Uchiha Clan – and, perhaps best of all, aside from the image of his parents, is that Naruto has seen his own face, whisker-free. He has seen things beautiful in their impossibility, they were dreams he ached for.
But recently the content of the dreams has shifted, and Naruto is no longer seeing such beautiful things as family and love, but an impending darkness encroaching upon each image he is presented with, a black harbinger of pain and misery. And for the past week, his own anticlimactic death has been playing on a loop in his mind.
He drowns. Chained and gagged like a prisoner of war, he is always drowning. Thrown to the bottom of a lake somewhere, Naruto sinks to the sandy bed, struggling to breath, to move, to escape and yet he can do nothing. He doesn't have the Kyuubi in this dream plane, he has none of that demonic chakra to aid him, to help him bust free of the restraints that drown him.
If he didn't panic as much, the glittering lights that swim in and out of his line of vision would almost be pretty...
Naruto shakes his head, drawing himself out of the sight of his own body suspended uselessly in a body of cool water, eyes still open but dull, blonde hair swaying around his head like an undeserved halo. It is disturbing to witness one's own death, watching like an audience and yet feeling the effect upon your body.
The blond coughs before smacking his lips together in an effort to wet his mouth. He kicks the smothering covers away from him; his legs are a little shaky as he stands, a small bit of distaste at his weakness in the face of a dream is hard to ignore and worse to taste.
The short walk to the kitchen allows him to regain perfect control over his legs. He leans against the side, gulping down water like a dying man, ignoring the trickle of liquid own the side of his mouth. He slams the glass back onto the side, harder then he first intended. The sound falls on the silent flat like a cloak in the dust. Dusk is blinking over the horizon, Naruto can tell from the window, signalling a new day.
Naruto absently wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, blue eyes blink languidly now that the remaining hold of the dream had fully ebbed from his body. He leans forward, resting on his forearms, eyes closed for just a moment. He isn't looking forward to today. He found waking up these days a little awkward, and you would too if you had to face your own failure every day.
Sasuke Uchiha. He hadn't lost his mysterious appeal over the years; in fact, the confirmation that the man was genuinely dangerous had only heightened it. He came back two years ago after his merry little teenage angst session of treason and murder. Naruto had failed on his promise, and Sasuke had come back on his own and not even acknowledged Naruto when the blond appeared at the trial.
Naruto meant nothing to him anymore.
Naruto fears he never had.
Two years on, Sasuke was proving his worth to the village, gaining grudging respect and slow trust from the elders, who can still see the value in having an Uchiha around. But not Naruto. He had spent so long chasing after Sasuke, trying to understand him and his goals, and he can't help but find it odd that Sasuke should just come back so easily.
He hated Konoha.
He hated all of us, Naruto thinks. Why come back like nothing happened? Perhaps Naruto is simply too suspicious but even in the face of Sasuke, the person he had once treasured above all others, he cannot shake the feeling that Sasuke is not finished, that he has more plans for this village.
The Elders may have forgotten his rampage and his treachery in favour for their own gain, but Sasuke is not that kind of man. Sasuke will not have forgotten the trespasses against him so easily, nor will he have forgiven such wrongs – whatever wrongs they may have been.
Even Tsunade, intelligent Tsunade chosen to rule this village for a reason, seems to have fallen under the spell Sasuke has woven with his placidity. Naruto doesn't understand Sasuke, because Sasuke is in a league all of his own. No one can understand him, not the horrors he has been through nor how everything he has done, because the only person who had been through those horrors is Sasuke. Naruto will never claim to understand his fellow Chuunin again.
He cannot know what went on when Sasuke disappeared, nor what Oochimaru had told him. He can never discern the lies from the truth, or assuage any remaining rage Sasuke may be nursing beneath that indifferent mask he calls a face.
All he knows is when Sasuke does act (if he does, because Naruto is not completely unforgiving, and is willing to believe that there is a chance that Sasuke is genuine) it will be him and only him to battle against the last Uchiha. That is one tradition Naruto is not willing to break. He has fought Sasuke every step of the way, even if these last two years they have only spoken under duress. If Sasuke is to snap, Naruto will request to carry out the execution himself.
He is strong enough to do that now. He will sacrifice Sasuke for the village. He will never again waste time in trying to change the stubborn bastard's mind.
Naruto straightens, rubbing a hand down his face. What a depressing train of thought to haunt a beautiful morning. He rolls his shoulders as he stretches his arms above his head, before turning his back on the weak warmth of the morning sun to head towards the shower.
Fifteen minutes later and Naruto is fit to face the day. He had put his orange jumpsuit to rest a few years back, on the day he failed once again to return Sasuke to his home. That had been two years ago, he had hung it up, still torn from the last fight with Sasuke on a hanger and left it in his wardrobe. It still hangs there, a reminder of the past, a reminder to him that some promises have to be broken lest you risk your own wellbeing.
He pulled on some comfy black trousers and an orange sleeveless shirt. He had abandoned the jumpsuit, but the colour remained in abundance in his wardrobe. What could he say? He just looks amazing in the colour. He doesn't bother with his hair, leaving to dry naturally as he shoves his feet into some sandals and is out the door.
It is early, too early for old man Teuchi to have opened up shop, and Naruto, with a glance down to his stomach, is starting to regret having left his home so eagerly. He rubs at his nose absently as he wanders the streets – silence prevails, shadows splayed across the buildings in the rising sun. Naruto clicks his knuckles, blue eyes following the fractured skyline, seeing a wheeling bird before it disappears beyond the village limits into the great backyard of the world.
How small Konoha truly is.
Philosophical thought has never come easy to Naruto; it has been something he has had to work hard at. He is not stupid, he doesn't think, a bit ditzy and often acts before any thought comes into the equation, but ultimately not stupid. And yet here he is, wandering the lightening streets of his home, streets in which practically every corner hides a memory he'd rather forget, pondering the size of such a village in comparison to the world out there.
So many lives exist here, within the walls of this place – so many horrors have taken place, so many children born and so many elderly died. Many have not seen past the gates of this village, and they never will.
But Naruto has seen so much – he has seen the cruelty in people, and he has also seen the flickering light of hope illuminate a soul. He has seen people die, he has seen unwavering loyalty. He has seen what the world can do to the people not strong enough to uphold it, and what it has done to those who are strong enough but are slowly crumbling beneath the weight.
It sickens him and enlightens him. Naruto has lived as many a thing – a monster under the bed to be feared; the cretin to be hated; a friend to be protected; a son to be loved; a clown to be laughed at; a student to be taught; a killer to be punished and yet he has become nothing. None of these lives have created one singular person. He finds he still is all those different people, each and every personality pushing and pulling within until some nights he feels he cannot take it anymore.
But he is just one person in hundreds upon hundreds in the world, just one measly problem with issues, just the same as everyone else. What makes him so special? What makes this village, his home, so special?
Nothing, really. Just one in a million. Odd how a place he would do anything for is really so inconsequential. Should Konoha be destroyed, life would go on and only those who knew of it would mourn. Soon the memory would be lost to the ages.
Naruto sniffs, squinting his eyes to slits as he glares upon the sun. It's too early for depressing thoughts, he thinks. It makes his brain hurt. The art of philosophical doubt is ever painful to him. Deep introspective thought has never been Naruto's forte.
He passes by a darkened shop; the windows over the top are glowing, signifying life within. He peers into the glass of the shop window, absently gazing over the clothes that hang there before catching a glimpse of something just to the right of him in his reflection. He spins around, eyes darting around the area, trying to spot whoever it was.
But the space is empty. He straightens with a frown, stepping forward once, twice. He glances back at the window and sees nothing but a black, shadowed glass. Naruto scratches his head, glancing around him, turning on the spot to take in the hushed streets.
The glare he spares the window once more is a cautious one, confused and annoyed.
"Yo, Fox-face, what did that window ever do to you?"
Naruto turns around, still in his semi-crouched position from where he had been peering and grinned as he straightens. "Dog-boy," he says, clapping Kiba around the wrist as the brunette did the same. Akamaru, a beast of a dog, thumps his bottom down as his tongue lolls out of his mouth in a relaxed doggy contentment. "What you doing about?"
Kiba shrugs. "Akamaru was restless for some reason." He pats the dog on his head, scratching the dogs' ears. "I thought I'd take him for a walk." Naruto and Kiba start to move away from the clothes shop, Akamaru trotting between them. "Why are you down here so early?"
It is Naruto's turn to shrug. "Nightmares," he answers simply, glancing down at his feet in a moment of insecurity before levelling a gaze at his friend. "Nothing too bad, not like a used to get but enough to... affect me."
"And what did you dream of?" Kiba's gaze is penetrating – most people forgot that amidst the childish delight and immaturity, Kiba really is quite perceptive at times. Even Naruto forgets such a fact, for it doesn't appear often – just when you need it the most. Then Kiba flips a one-eighty and your back to toilet humour, wicked pranks and mooning after Hinata, who still hasn't picked up on Kiba's almost painful crush.
Naruto clears his throat, gazing off into the distance. "I was... drowning," he starts, rubbing his nose absently. "I was chained and gagged and drowning. It's never pleasant to witness your own death." Naruto chuckles weakly before the expression falls from his face and he shrugs. "I dunno, like I said it's not the worst I've had."
He turns to Kiba and grins. "But that shit is depressing, it's a new day, my friend and that means..."
Kiba returns the smile just as brightly. "New pranks."
"Dude, will we ever grow up?"
Kiba laughs. "Man, I really hope not." Naruto laughs with him, shaking his head and clapping an arm around his shoulder, a happy Akamaru prancing ahead of them, his tail swatting back and forth.
/\/\
The sun reaches its peak at noon, smiling upon the bare-backed image of a sweating Naruto. He and Kiba had wandered around for hours discussing and planning like children, the wicked glint of mischief flickering in their eyes, an immature glee lighting up their faces. At a more reasonable hour, they ventured to Ichiraku's for ramen-y goodness.
They had parted ways not long after that, promising to meet up later in the evening with the others, just for a little get together to catch up. Everyone was busy with partners and duties that catch-up time had been scarce for the lot of them. They had all reached Chuunin level at least, and they were being deployed in various assignments at different times. Tonight would be one of a few when everyone would be around – Kiba said he would get word around to meet at Naruto's whilst on a few errands for his mother.
That had been two hours or so ago. Since that departure, Naruto had wandered around and ended up in the third training ground – his second home. This was a favourite haunt for him, one of few places that held good memories for him. It had been the second time Naruto had felt proud of himself for achieving something, even if it hadn't been specifically him who had allowed them to pass Kakashi's test. This was when Team Seven had truly been born, where a chapter of his miserable past had closed and given way to something new, something that would become frightening and emotional and yet brilliant and exciting despite of that.
He hadn't thought to bring any weapons with him, of course, nor could did he want to practise a jutsu without an opponent to test them on. So he settled for working on the more physical, hand-to-hand combat. He rarely has use for such a combat method, preferring the quick and more damaging power of jutsu's but it helps to keep him fit. A good work out until he burns out is sometimes just what the doctor ordered, even if it leaves him in achy pain the next morning.
Naruto drops his arms from his defensive position and rolls his shoulders instead. His chest is heaving from the jumping and ducking and swerving of the imagined enemy. His legs feel a little like jelly and his skin has a sheen of sweat and dust that is vaguely uncomfortable.
He blows air from his lips and swallows thickly, hands on his knees before he straightens, running a hand through his damp hair. He wipes down his mouth before jumping a little to kick in a cooling down routine, loose, light exercises like he had been taught.
He rolls his shoulders again before the little jumps turn into a slow jog around the training ground, a steady pace pulling protests from his burning limbs. It is when Naruto starts his stretching that he notices the eerie sensation of being watched. The hairs on the back of his neck are standing to attention and Naruto pauses, allowing his arms to fall to his sides.
He glances around the training ground curiously. He had chosen one of the quieter areas, not often frequented by others. It was too far deep into the wooded area, into a smallish clearing he discovered a few years ago when he went on a random amble.
Naruto's eyes searched the trees and their shadows for the source of the uncomfortable feeling, skimming the treetops, turning on the spot before he sees it – him.
Sasuke Uchiha.
Naruto and he just gaze at each other, Naruto standing a little perplexed on the ground and Sasuke seated quite comfortably in a tree, eyes as dark and unreadable as ever. This is perhaps one of the first times they have been alone together, except for the awkward silences left when Sakura (in a bid to salvage their friendship – a loose term Naruto wishes he could equate their bond to, but the pessimistic side not quite letting him anymore) decides she needed the toilet or saw someone she needed to discuss something with.
Naruto drops his gaze and stares elsewhere before looking back up at Sasuke, figuring he must've really been lost in his exercise to not have recognised the chakra. "Hello," he says neutrally. "Any reason you're here?"
At this Sasuke seems to jerk out of whatever hypnosis he had been under and simply redirects his gaze to the horizon, effectively ignoring Naruto's presence. Naruto grits his teeth, the cold brush off something he has never quite gotten used to.
Sasuke always used to react to him – in fury, in contempt, in something. Everyone else he would ignore, he could do it with ease. But never Naruto, never before – he would always have a reply, a smirk, a glare. But that changed.
It had been a long time since any emotion from the Uchiha had been aimed at the blond. Not fury, not contempt – nothing.
He has somehow become the invisible man, and it cut him deeper than Naruto would ever admit. It irritated old wounds, tearing the barely scabs and infecting them with a bitter tasting poison.
To Naruto, the confirmation of his existence came from the reaction he could get from people, be it negative or not. But Sasuke now is denying him that. Naruto shouldn't need this, he knows. The village and his friends recognize his existence; he shouldn't need this acknowledgement from the Uchiha to validate himself, to anchor himself in reality.
But somewhere, deep down, somewhere primal and needy, he does. And he fears that the Uchiha knows it.
God, it aches. Why must old wounds continue to pain you?
Naruto shakes his head, marching across the clearing to collect his abandoned shirt and shoves a corner into the back of his trousers. He allows his gaze to flick back to the motionless figure in the tree, still stoutly ignoring his presence. And he nods his head, setting his jaw.
"Bastard," he whispers, the old insult-come-endearment tumbling from his lips almost silently. He shakes his head again, dislodging the fondness attached to the word, an affection there is no point in nursing. The bastard from his past is gone, and the creature wearing that face is someone different, someone undeserving.
And not for the first time Naruto is the one to walk away from a situation with Sasuke, giving him free reign of the area the Uchiha has momentarily claimed as his own to find another.
Goodbye Sasuke.
It is not the first time Naruto has bid the memory of twelve year old Sasuke farewell, and it would not be the last.
/\/\
"Come in, it's open," Naruto calls from his bedroom after hearing a fist pound on the door of his flat. He listens as the door swings and collides with the wall and the loud voice of his partner-in-crime discussing something (a decidedly one sided conversation, Naruto suspects with a grin when he hears Shino's short reply) rather loudly.
Naruto gets up from where he had been sitting on the floor, sorting through a few things he has been neglecting – a shoebox of things, memorabilia that he shouldn't really keep. This had, among other things, one of the bells from that first exercise as Team Seven (this had involved a lot of sneaking and slyness and a promise to report his incompetent teaching to Iruka to get that bell – the perverted lazy-arse didn't want to replace it), one or two of Haku's needles (cleaned of blood of course) in memoriam of a great man who Naruto respected and lastly, Sasuke's old head protector. He had been planning to give it back to him after the trial, but Sasuke had blanked him and never given him the chance. And so he kept it, rather pathetically, in this box.
How he despises the sight of it.
It isn't healthy for him to keep clutching to a twelve-year-old's ideal of someone who proved himself to be no better than the villages that turned away when Naruto was bullied.
Naruto snorts to himself and throws the worn protector into the box. Geez, abandonment issues or what?
"Hey Fox-face, you wanking in there or something?" Naruto jumps at the sound of Kiba's voice just outside his door, unprepared for when his friends' body wedged itself in the doorway. He had momentarily forgotten Shino and he had arrived. He quickly slides the box under his bed but Kiba had already seen.
Luckily, the brunette is the best kind of pal, and simply ignores it.
"Come on, everyone will be turning up soon," the brunette pushes away from the door frame. "I am so glad you weren't wanking; I got enough of an eyeful last time."
"You didn't knock! That was entirely your own fault!" Naruto says with a heated glare. "Besides we all know you're hiding latent gay tendencies, I mean, come on. You hang around with me; no one can resist my amazing charm and awesome good looks." His smile is blinding and Kiba shoves him playfully.
"Yeah sure, that's why Sakura kept rejecting you."
Naruto chuckles as they step into the living room where Shino is laying out some food and alcohol Kiba had brought along with him. "She was simply intimidated by my amazingness," Naruto explains cheerfully as he crosses the room to grab a couple of glasses from the kitchen.
"Who was intimidated by what?" Sakura has just arrived, with the rustling of more bags a few clinks of bottles.
"Hinata by the sheer size of Kiba's cock," Naruto grins cheekily, coming out of the kitchen to greet Ino and Sakura, and place the glasses on the table.
The blonde female snorts her disbelief. "In his dreams, maybe."
Kiba growls. "I'll have you know, I am very well-endowed, I can show you –"
"Kiba," the room falls a little quieter under Shino's voice. "We are not drunk enough for indecent exposure to be deemed a good thing to do."
"Who needs to be drunk?" Naruto retorts, high-fiving the manically grinning Kiba boyishly and earning a punch from Sakura.
"What was that for?"
"Channelling Kakashi," she explains with a light smile. "And not giving me a hug." Naruto chuckles and envelops the girl in a bone-crushing embrace. He remembers a time when he would've killed to have this easy friendship with Sakura – when stroking her hair when she is tired, or hugging her, or even a light kiss on the cheek was normal and easy. Of course, back then he had wanted it in a completely different context.
"Don't forget me Mister," Ino's voice cuts in through the thought, shoving Sakura away and hugging the other blond. "You can't hog him all to yourself Billboard, you had your chance," she teases. Naruto laughs, throwing his arms around the shoulders of both girls.
"Ladies, please, there is plenty enough of me to go round."
Hinata, Neji and Lee are next to arrive, soon followed by Shikamaru and Choji and last but not least Tenten and Sai straggle in thirty or so minutes later, having bumped into each other on the way.
The crowd group together around the small table, two bottles of sake already having been opened and shared freely amongst them. Naruto himself is feeling a pleasant buzz from the alcohol, having dipped into his own private stash (Tsunade had felt the need to buy him a good supply for his eighteenth birthday and then gave him some more for the sheer hell of it, saying that if he ever needed to talk about anything, to just bring a bottle and come over. That had been an odd day and Naruto remembers vaguely wondering if he was dying because surely only an event like that would make Tsunade part with her sake).
A rambunctious laughter bursts into the room and Lee is on his feet, challenging Kiba to some contest of strength or youth.
"...And the looser should have to run around the village on his hands, doing back flips every third step!"
Naruto drops down on the floor beside the sofa and Sakura's legs. "You have been keeping him off the sake, haven't you?"
"Of course," she replies. "You think I could put up with him tonight if I hadn't? I'll be taking up your bed if even a drop passes his lips."
Naruto quirks an eyebrow skyward; his head falls back to meet the cushion so he can look up at his friend. "My bed? Where would I sleep?"
"The sofa," she shrugs before he glares down at him dangerously. "Surely a lovely gentleman like you wouldn't allow a female guest to sleep on your sofa, would you, Naruto?"
"No, Sakura." He all but whimpers. Sakura's rage, even when joking, is not something to mess with.
"Because that is bad hosting, isn't it, Naruto?"
Naruto nods with a swallow. "Yes, Sakura."
"And you're not a bad host are you, Naruto?"
Naruto wonders if this is a trick question. "No, Sakura?" She grins and he is off the hook.
"Dude, you are so whipped and you're not even dating the broad."
Naruto's head snaps forward and his gaze zeroes in on Kiba. His grin turns feral. "Did you just refer to Sakura in a derogatory way, Kiba, old buddy old pal? I think you did. Naughty Kiba." Naruto lightly touches Sakura's leg to get her attention. "Kiba just called you a broad, and he also mentioned something about your breasts or lack thereof..."
"He what?"
"Naruto, you shit!"
The conversation continues as Kiba darts out of the flat and an enraged Sakura, a pink blur of death, races after him.
Naruto chuckles. "All in a day's work." He settles more comfortably in his place, the bottle of sake in-between his legs. "So Shika, how are things going with you?" Considering he has Ino curled around him, Naruto feels things must be going very well for the lazy ninja, but he feels compelled to ask nonetheless.
/\/\
As the night begins to wind down, Naruto is pulled aside by Sai, who is leaning against the window sill. Sai has changed so much in the four years he has been here, only recently rediscovering his emotions and the importance of friends, he has his moments of instability but he has progressed so much. Not all of his smiles are that fake beam that grates on Naruto's nerves so much, mainly because he can see a reflection of self within it.
He is still insensitive, not always getting whey people may be upset about something – but he is getting there, steadily progressing into a person rather than the robot he had been.
"You don't fool us," he says in a low baritone, glancing over the party and noticing everyone, Kiba and Sakura in particular, is paying half attention to the conversation and half on the separate pair. "You forget who you are entertaining, Naruto: Sakura, who is closest to you; Kiba, who knows more than he lets on; the Hyuuga's who see more than you know; Shikamaru, the most observant of us all; even me. I can spot a fake smile a mile off as I am sure you can. We all know things aren't right with you." Thos dark eyes are fixated on a point some distance away.
"You have taught me things Naruto – everyone has, but you most of all – about loyalty and friendship. The old me wouldn't have cared less if the smile you wore was fake or true, but that is changing. You made that change by being yourself. Do not make me regret that change by crawling inside your mind because that only reinforces my training that emotion is worthless." That being said, perhaps the most profound thing Naruto has ever heard Sai say, the dark haired boy moves away, back to rejoin the group.
Naruto gazes at them all. Shikamaru and Ino are still entwined, Ino having a girly chat with Sakura and Hinata and Shikamaru talking lowly with Choji, smiling lightly at his friend. Tenten and Lee are having an arm wrestle, cheered on by Kiba with Shino and Neji watching with a faint air of amusement. Sai draws the Hyuuga into conversation, his eyes carefully avoiding glancing back at Naruto, although he guesses he is the subject of that little chat if the way Neji inclines his head toward him just slightly is any indicator.
Naruto sighs, smiling lightly at them all. From Kiba's corner a triumphant Tenten laughs as Lee declares his punishment for not loosing is to do hundred and thirty push-ups with one hand and one foot after commending Tenten on her show of "Youthful exuberance."
He looks back to the window, his reflection smiling back at him before he notices something out of the corner of his eye.
It is those eyes again, those dark, solemn eyes that seems to be searching his soul. He leans a little closer and the eyes fade, as if moving backward, and still gazing at him intently. Those eyes have a purpose this time.
Follow me.
The sounds of his flat fade into a disturbing nothing as that voice; a pretty voice of liquid silver fills his head.
I do not have long in this realm and my powers are limited. Come to me, Naruto.
The blond steps away from the window, perplexed and uneasy.
Please. It can only be you...
Follow me, child. Follow me; there are people who need you.
"Guys?" he is speaking before he even realises the words are falling from his lips. He tears his eyes away from the glass. "I'm just going to go out for a moment." He smiles at the, best he can, saluting a little at them. "You can crash here if you like, I don't mind. No breaking things please – yes, Kiba that was directed at you – and I'll be back in a minute."
He doesn't leave enough time for questions, just jogs towards the door of his home and disappears into the dark of the hallway, leaving a group of confused friends to muse his sudden exit.
All gazes fall on Sai, the last to speak with the blond. The dark haired man shrugs. "Don't look at me, I just told him what you were all thinking."
"Oh well," Kiba says, tearing his eyes from the door and swallowing his worry with a grin. "We got ourselves a free house..."
/\/\
The voice hums her approval and thanks. Naruto doesn't recognise this voice, neither does the Kyuubi. It's beautiful in an almost haunting way, smooth as velvet. Naruto paces the streets, following the commands of the strange voice, knowing that this is a dangerous venture and yet compelled by his curiosity to continue.
He knows curiosity killed the cat, but a cat has nine lives – Naruto might not hat that saver, but he can sure as hell kick arse.
Besides it provided a distraction of what Sai had said to him. Sai's disappointment hurt him, not just because he hates to be a disappointment, but because he knows Sai sees parallels between him and his dead friend Shin. Is disappointment in Naruto equal to a disappointment in Shin? Or is Naruto simply being egotistical and stupid? Neither is an option Naruto likes.
The blond hasn't been paying attention to where his feet have been taking him, where the voice has lead him and so when he stops, Naruto blinks and gazes around him. The edge of the old Uchiha compound stares at him, a large defensive gate glaring down at him.
He hesitates at the gates that separate the world of the dead compound and the reality of the life thrumming beyond its grasp. In truth the places frightens him. It has a heavy atmosphere; death still clings to the air, making it stifling. The ghosts of the dead haunt here, not visible, perhaps not even real, but still imprinted upon the buildings and the streets of this lonely place.
Come, Naruto, none can hurt you here. There is nothing left but one broken soul.
Yeah, Naruto thinks, a broken soul that won't hesitate to kill an intruder upon the memories of his family.
No harm shall come to you. The boy sleeps.
Naruto nods to himself and steps over that invisible boundary that keeps him from approaching the gates. He feels no different, he notes, no chill or sense of foreboding. Not really. But the weight of the air is there, the weight that often lingers at the scene of a crime as horrifying and bloodied as this.
It doesn't surprise him that the gates are opened so easily. Only Sasuke still resides here, alone amongst million empty homes and a thousand memories. He wouldn't be so bitter, Naruto contemplates, if he didn't insist on living here. All this space and just one person, it isn't right.
It would have driven Naruto insane a long time ago. The silence of this place is the silence of the grave, and Naruto has to suppress a shiver as he follows the instructions of the voice in his head. He moves with ease, creeping past the house he knows to be Sasuke's, pausing just for a moment outside of it. It is a beautiful home, really. Even in the darkness of this night, the moon hidden by the jealous clouds, it is beautiful.
Naruto lowers his eyes and moves on without another glance. It's horrible, to walk down these chilled streets, not knowing if the last breaths of an Uchiha were taken where he treads. He feels queasy pacing down these streets. He would love to run, to jump the rooftops, but that feels disrespected to the lives lost.
He can't clamber over their homes nor run from their deaths. That would be like ignoring it ever happened, and that would be akin to forgetting them.
And no one should ever be forgotten.
When Naruto finally stops he is on the outskirts, a smallish training ground where he assumes the clan had trained. To the far North West there is a huge body of water, not a lake – too small for that, more of a large pond. And by that he can see a figure, bathed in darkness.
Come closer, Naruto.
Naruto doesn't think twice about approaching the source of the mysterious voice.
"Aren't you beautiful," the woman says, her face hidden by the hooded cloak she wears. "Your mother must be proud." There is a fondness in her tone, the same fondness he had heard himself use when he spoke of Sakura or Kiba, or anyone of his friends.
"My mothers' dead," he answers her. Not bitterly, no, not even sadly. You cannot miss what you never had, not truly. You can wish you had it, and feel loneliness and sadness at that, but not at the actual loss.
The figure nods her head. "Yes, here she is."
Naruto rubs his eyes. "Look, what am I doing here? Who are you?"
Naruto can feel the smile on her face as her hands come up to pull her head free of the fabric, dark hair falling around her face, ivory white skin like porcelain and those dark eyes that had followed him in reflections. Naruto steps back; he knows this woman. He has seen her, seen her with her family in the depths of his dreams; seen her smile and laugh; seen her lose herself in the domestic pleasures of a family life.
"You're dead," he says, his voice wavering. "He found you dead. We know that. We all know that." His voice is nothing more than a whisper, a broken whisper of confusion.
"In this world, I am dead. But there is not only just one world." Her gaze is soft as she looks upon him. "And some dreams are not just dreams, Naruto."
"You're dead." He is a broken record.
"So are you. In my world."
Naruto takes a step back, his mouth his dry and his brain hurting from the bewilderment of having a solid looking ghost of Sasuke's past here in front of him, talking to him. "What do you want from me Mikoto Uchiha?"
Her smile is a soft and sad one. "I want you to save my son."
/\/\
Whatcha think? Sorry Naruto seems a little off as well, but you know. I think I kept his character in there as well, when he is not alone. I'm not sure...