CHASING NARUTO CHAPTER 1

Sasuke's perspective

As I raced through the trees towards my best friend, I could not fathom how I had not seen the signs, I mean, I had seen them before, in Itachi. But I needed to know why. I had to understand, why would he leave, after convincing me to stay? If I had to guess now, it all started six months ago, about a week after my first Chunin exam.

Seven months ago...

I had just begun my genjutsu training with Kakashi, it was arduous and painful, but my Sharingan was progressing nicely, according to anybody who had known one before the massacre. It had been a long day and I was just starting to regain my chakra. I activated my Sharingan just to test it out. It came on without pain, so I assumed my chakra was getting back to normal levels. As I casually strolled through the village, I came upon the river that split the village into two distinctive pieces. It was a beautiful day and the water slowly bubbled by. I looked around me to check if anybody was near, and once I was satisfied, I leaned up against one of the rails on one of the many bridges and admired its peacefulness. The reason I had looked around was because I knew that if Naruto or Sakura saw me, I would never hear the end of it.

I must have simply enjoyed the tranquility of the sight for five minutes, before I noted something unusual about it. It seemed that the water level was slightly rising, and as time went on, I noticed it begin to rapidly rise, and then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a surge rip down the length of the river and only barely evaded the splash that would have surely knocked me off my feet. I was alarmed to say the least, so I ran along the side of the river in the direction that the wave had come from, to see that a battle was going on between Kakashi, Guy, Kurenai, Asuma and two people wearing large black robes with a red cloud print. Upon closer inspection, Kakashi looked like he was hurt, and had his Sharingan out. I was silently alarmed, and then excited. One of the two men was exceptionally tall, and had what appeared to be some sort of unusual sword, and he had blue skin. The other seemed to be of average height, and had black hair that was tied up in a pony-tail that was eerily familiar.

The genjutsu that I had learned that day was one that required eye contact, so I thought that if I could get the drop on at least one of them, the others might be able to better handle tall, dark and blue. I briefly recalled Rock Lee's speed and mimicked it. I appeared face to face with pony-tail and made eye contact. I remember identifying the Sharingan, and then realizing who I was messing with, I put too much chakra into the genjutsu, and thus failed in the execution and then I tried to punch him, but he quickly and efficiently broke my arm and sent me flying. I recall these events rather stoically, but don't think for a second that I was not consumed by rage. Then I did the stupidest move possible, and stood up and looked him defiantly in the eyes, which was all he needed to put me under his Tsukuyomi.

For what I recall as the next Seventy-Two hours, I relived my parent's and clan's deaths, in graphic detail. After all of that, there was only darkness. I don't really know how I can really relate time in what that abyss was to me, but it felt like both forever and only a few seconds. When I woke up, I opened my eyes and looked around to see that I was in the hospital, with Sakura by my side. She saw my eyes and immediately shouted at me, "OHMYGAWDSASUKEAREYOUALRIGHT?!"

I flinched and then glowered at her, she could be such a pain in the ass. Then all of what had happened recently flew into my mind, and I rapidly started to scan the room for my murderous brother. I shouted, "Where is Itachi?! Why was he here? Where the hell is Kakashi?"

As I shouted all of this Sakura looked at me incredulously and then mumbled something about fetching the nurse. She quickly left the room and I moved to get up. "Granny Tsunade said that you shouldn't move until she sees you to do a final check-up," said Naruto.

And as I looked around me I noticed that he wasn't there, thinking I was crazy, I just continued to move. But then he spoke again, "I told you Granny wouldn't want you to move, so just sit still..."

Again I scanned the room, then looked up, expecting another one of Naruto's monkey-tricks, but he wasn't there, in fact, the only person who was there, was some poor soul in a full-body cast. I twitched my leg, and Naruto once again forewarned me, "Don't. Move. Stupid."

I checked under my bed and then under my covers, but no Blondie. So I sighed and said, "Where the hell are you hiding Naruto?"

"Over here dummy!" was all I got for a response, but then I noticed the body cast seem to squirm...oh yeah, that was most definitely Naruto...

I shook myself and remembered about Itachi, so I swung my feet out of my bed and started for the door. As I was going out the door, Naruto stopped me with this comment, "So, you are going to go after Itachi?"

I stopped in mid-step. Who had told him about Itachi? "What?" I asked, "What do you know about my brother?"

"He is the one whom you have sworn to kill, right?" Naruto replied, "He killed your entire clan, and then told you to grow strong and then take revenge, didn't he? He attacked the village recently. You saw him and went nuts, the entire village saw what he did to you. I was part of the team that went out to convince Granny Tsunade to come back to the village and fix you. That guy has some serious jutsu in his disposal, if I was you, I would just drop this whole thing."

I turned to him and responded, "You don't know what it is like to lose everything, Naruto, and that is what he did to me, he took away everything I held dear to my heart. What do you know about any of that?!"

By the end of that I was yelling at him. He calmly replied, "You know, I didn't have anybody here for the longest time, I was a nobody, but then I met Iruka-sensei, and then Kakashi, and then you and Sakura, and I guess I started to think of Iruka as my father, and of you like maybe a brother...Don't tell me that I don't know what it feels like to hate, while Itachi was here, he killed Iruka."

My eyes widened, did he really feel that way? Then all of his words registered, and I snapped back at him, "If he killed Iruka, whom you say is like a father to you, then why the hell are you trying to turn me off of my path?"

Then Naruto said something incredibly wise, (something I had never expected from him, at the time) He said, "Because that is exactly what he wants. I am not going to give him that satisfaction. He is the type of guy who takes pleasure in causing pain, and I won't let him cause me or my other special people any more pain by my going AWOL and hunting him down, only to get killed by his hand in the end. Don't get me wrong, if he shows his face around here again, I will face him, but I can't do that to the people I love."

I was deeply disturbed by Naruto's argument. He had a valid point, but I didn't have those special people. I had already lost all of them to Itachi. As if sensing my counter, Naruto said, "and, yeah, I don't know what it feels like to lose everybody, but I know that if you were to leave to go and take him out, then, I would do everything in my power to take you back. Itachi is a crazy and evil man, don't get me wrong, but he is not worth your time, here, you could make the village a better place, here, you could affect the lives of all the people who live here and here, is where one day you may revive your clan."

I sat stunned in the thoughts that were now racing through my head, I liked what Naruto was saying, but I could not accept the idea of Itachi getting away with all that he did, and I said so to Naruto, who nodded. He then said, "Look, on the way back to the village, I made Granny Tsunade promise to send out some ANBU to kill Itachi, and she gave me her word. Itachi will be taken care of, but not by you or me. I think the ANBU left as soon as I was hospitalized, as to how I got hospitalized, well, that is a story for another time and place, cause I feel the morphine kicking in again, nighty...night."

With that, Naruto fell into a deep slumber, with much snoring. I stood up and crept out of my bed just in time to see Sakura and a largely endowed Blonde woman walk in the room. I stared, not in an impolite way, but in a questioning way to the newcomer, and she introduced herself as Lady Tsunade. As I tried to make a polite as possible exit, she stopped me and said, "Look, I get the idea of why you want to kill your brother, it is understandable, really, it is...but I don't think that you will ever get that strong unless you start to really train like a Jonin level ninja, so today you will rest, and then tomorrow, you will begin training to defeat your brother. I know that your training has been a bit...slow shall we say to make sure that Naruto and Sakura could keep up, but as of today, Squad Seven is officially disbanded."

I wondered at how quickly she had adjusted to her role of Hokage, and then demanded, "What is it that you could offer me now that is so different from what has come before, I need power, not more teamwork lessons!"

Kakashi walked into the room in the middle of my little outburst, and then said, "because, Jonin training isn't entirely accurate, as of tomorrow, you are going to be trained as an ANBU. I will see to it personally, you will be trained by me until the next Chunin exam and then we shall see if you are ready for the true training to begin, after that, you will be trained by none other than the Gallant Jiraiya," he changed directions of conversation to Sakura, "and you shall be taken under the wing of Tsunade as you requested."

Sakura nodded eagerly, and then asked, "but wait, what about Naruto?"

Naruto was apparently awake again because he responded, "until the next Chunin exam, I will be training with Pervy-sage, then, I guess I will go to the toad mountain...I haven't thought about it too much since all this was decided, but I think that is how Pervy-sage said it would work."

back in the present..

It was this very conversation with Naruto that made the current situation all the more difficult to accept. Why would he leave now, and with Itachi? Why? I have all of these questions and absolutely no answers. For example, another question is why did Hinata leave the village too? Maybe something happened to the two of them on that night that drove them so far off the edge. It was about five months ago today...

five months ago...

Training had been going exceptionally well, I could feel myself getting drastically stronger by the day. Naruto and Jiraiya it seemed, were meant to be student and teacher. They had caused all kinds of trouble throughout the village now, and were usually banished to the training grounds on sight, simply to avoid property damage, and now they were running about the countryside, "training". They also seemed to have saved quite a few lives in their random acts of "ninjaosity." I had heard of all of this, but I wasn't really paying attention, I had other things on my mind. For example, in recent times, public opinion of the Hyuuga cursed seal had taken a turn for the worse, since Naruto's little scene in the Chunin exam, people had stopped allowing Hyuuga's to eat at their restaurants, or shopping in their stores in protest. That day, I had been in charge of guard duty around the Hyuuga household. It was my job to catalog all the people who came and left the household. There were twenty two people outside of the large estate. Hinata was with Shizune learning the fine art of healing salves and chakra control, Neji was out on a mission, and the other twenty were just out and about on private business.

I had changed a lot from my training. I no longer wore the t-shirt and shorts that I had been so fond of recently, but I had switched to the traditional garb for Uchiha ninja, which was white robe covering the upper body, and black, baggy shorts all being kept in place by traditional shinobi ropes. I had an ANBU issue sword stuck in my rope/belt and my headband hung around my neck. (AN: think a mini version of shippuden Sasuke, but with a headband.) I was meditating, and trying to keep my chakra signature as small as possible when twenty of the Hyuuga all walked back at the same time, two abreast and ten deep. They walked in a perfect march towards their home and I made note of each of them in the journal I was given by Hiashi. After they were gone, I have gathered what they did, but I do have many questions about how they did it, but I know who caused it. For after about thirty minutes a Yamanaka clan member walked up to the house and asked to be let in. "I can't let you in without permission from the clan head," I replied, "if you would give me a moment of your time, I will take care of it."

This man was not satisfied with that for whatever reason, and he barged past me and into the estates. The sight that awaited me gave me nightmares for weeks. The twenty who had walked in had silently killed women, children and the other members in complete silence. Then they had attacked the clan-head. Hiashi had killed them all with the curse seal as soon as he figured it all out. He had been too late to save Hanabi, however. He was holding his dead daughter in his arms amongst all the blood. The Yamanaka man then went forward and attempted to stab Hiashi, who promptly killed him, then twenty more Yamanakas came out. I was in total stultification, what the hell had happened to cause this? I broke the disaster seal in the scroll that Tsunade had given me in case something not even half as bad as this had happened. Then Hiashi just went to town on them, he took down ten before they finally overwhelmed him. As he lay dying, Hinata walked in from her daily training. She saw everything before her and dropped to her knees. Then something bloomed in her eyes that I had never seen before: hate. She stood up and attacked her clan's murderers. She seriously wounded three before the rest reacted, but by that time my training had kicked in and I began to disable them one by one. The remaining seven were soon tied up and ready for transport to the interrogation room. Tsunade arrived on the scene with Naruto and Jiraiya in tow. Tsunade ordered Naruto to take Hinata to the tower, and to wait for further instructions there, and for Jiraiya to go and get Inoichi.

The results of all the interrogations were that Inoichi was totally unaware of all this activity, and that this was the plan of a group of radicals. I don't think that Hinata ever believed it though, and after all of this stuff, Hinata seemed to have changed. She held herself differently, she no longer was shy, she was soft spoken still, and she wasn't bitter, but she seemed anxious to get something over with, maybe it was then that she started to talk to the Akatsuki, I don't think I will ever know, but I do know that this is when Hinata began to train with Naruto. After all of this, they were like peas in a pod, totally inseparable, and I don't think that Naruto even realized it at first.

I guess that I still wonder whether or not that tragedy contributed to Hinata's defection, but it definitely hit Neji harder than anybody would have thought. He was devastated to the point where he stopped training for a long, long time. It was only when he was pressed by urges from his teammates to train for the Chunin exams that he really began to train again, and that was some two months later.

Back in the present...

I knew that Naruto had headed off in this direction, but I couldn't guess if he was still heading this direction, truth be told, I was following my gut. Naruto was straight-forward, the trick in stopping him was to overpower him, which I was no longer sure I could do. His growth as a ninja was incredible, and I think, that it is because of the fact that like Rock Lee, he is a genius of hard work. I first really realized that we were equals I guess in the second round of Chunin exams.

A month ago...

The First two exams had been nearly the same as they were the time, before. They had even used the same questions. And because the exams were once again in Konoha, I found the Forrest of Death much less foreboding the second time around. For the following month, Kakashi had handed my training over to the seal master ANBU whose code name was: Weasel. It wasn't a month of training, per se, more like a month of experimentation. He toyed with the curse mark that Orochimaru had given me, and had quite accidentally activated it. Once we had done that, the rest of the work was simply learning to control that great and indisputably black chakra. I had begun to get the feel for it, and as the third exam was only a day away, I had begun to grasp the idea of only partially transforming my body, so that I could gain greater control of my actions. Naruto, had, according to rumor, begun elemental training while I was in the ANBU headquarters. He had made startling progress, according to Kakashi.

I went into the exams, knowing I would be impressed by my friend, but I was completely blown away. The first match was himself against Temari. He started out by casually walking down the steps to the arena, which immediately caught my attention, and Temari walked right next to him. They took their places, and the proctor began the match.

"Hey...Aren't you the one who Shikamaru let win?" he taunted, "If this is who I have to fight, then it should be no problem at all, I am going to own you."

Temari had tick marks all up and down her forehead while she said, "Well, I have got film on your attacks, and I have memorized your attack patterns, I am going to know what you are going to do before you do it."

"But are you going to be able to stop it?" Naruto's chakra began to visibly glow around his feet and then he did something that I had never seen before, he made the chakra contract and then explode, which propelled him forward at an astonishing rate. Once within a foot of Temari, he pulled back his fist and punched her right in the gut. I had activated my Sharingan as soon as the match had begun, so that I could refer to it later myself, and I could see that Temari had had the wind knocked out of her, quite easily. To her credit, she reacted well; she flipped back in midair and then swung her fan, doing her special wind-scythe jutsu to fend off Naruto.

With a poof of white smoke one of Naruto's shadow clones appeared and threw Naruto out of the deadly tornado's way. Naruto spun as he landed and formed three more shadow clones. The three clones sped forward and engaged Temari in combat, one by one Temari made them poof out of existence, and once they were all gone, Naruto was grinning from ear to ear, as if he had discovered some great secret in her attack patterns. Once more he created a shadow clone, but this time, the two of them started to form something in the real Naruto's right hand.

It was a ball of pure chakra rotating at high speeds in every direction imaginable. The chakra was rotating so fast, that it was making a strange noise. Naruto locked onto Temari and roared, "RASENGAN!"

Using his earlier chakra dash trick, he threw himself forward and straight into Temari's fan. This attack that I would come to know as the Rasengan, went straight to Temari and caused her to fly backwards while spinning in the air, and using my Sharingan, I saw that the attack actually disrupted Temari's chakra and thus, probably her internal organs. She had lost consciousness before she even hit the wall behind her. The proctor called the match and then called some medics to take Temari away. Internally, I was debating whether or not Temari had just stopped training, or if Naruto was just that good. The idea of fighting Naruto now was more than exciting, it was mouth watering, and it would be the perfect test to see if I was improving fast enough.

Naruto celebrated briefly in the middle of the arena and then bounded up the stairs, seemingly back to his old self. He beamed out to the crowd. The proctor announced that the next match would be between Gaara and Sakura. That match wasn't exactly much of one, Sakura had made leaps and bounds under the tutelage of Lady Tsunade, but she was no where near Gaara's league. He made the match short and sweet.

After Gaara was back up in the competitor's box, the proctor called Hinata and Rock Lee into the arena. I was quite sure that this too, wouldn't be much of a match, but I paid attention to it anyway, and I am glad I did. Hinata had come out of nowhere apparently. Rock Lee spewed his usual bit about the Flames of Youth and then began to pump his fist into the air. He shouted out to everybody in the arena, "I am getting excited!"

Hinata began the match by chakra dashing, (I guess that she and Naruto learned it from the same person) straight at Lee, and she began one of the infamous Gentle Fist combos, Lee blurred out from in front of Hinata and then blurred back into existence behind her, but she could see this coming with her Byakugan, so Hinata ducked under one of his punches, and began her assault anew. Lee blocked most of the hits, but I noticed that the color of his chakra had become disrupted, which meant that Hinata had hit some of his chakra nodes. Lee looked at her as if she had slapped him instead of disabled him. He jumped backwards and waited for her to make her move. She dropped low into the primary Gentle Fist stance, but Lee became alarmed, and while Hinata was fine-tuning her chakra, he went in for the kill. He launched her into the air, and began his Primary Lotus move. As he was about to slam Hinata into the dirt, she broke free of Lee's bandages, which slightly broke her fall.

She rolled forward and turned around to face Lee. He was swerving around on his feet, apparently a little dizzy. She dashed at him again, but as she did it, the chakra in her hands seemed to change color, it was subtle, but I could discern it. She slammed both her palms onto Lee's torso and sent him literally flying. He flipped and landed awkwardly. The proctor was about to call the match when Hinata stopped him and pointed at Lee, he was getting up. He screamed, "I am going to use all of my power!"

His skin turned red, and his hair seemed to be waving up and down with the pulse of his own heartbeat his chakra flowed visibly from his body. He had opened five of the eight gates. He dashed forward and did what Guy called, "The Mad Dance of Infinity." which meant that he went absolutely ape-shit against Hinata. She took all the blows, once they were done, she surely looked haggard, but there was an air of determination about her. She calmed down and activated her Byakugan. Then it hit me, she had down everything she had without the use of her Blood Limit. It was astounding. Dropped into a new stance and waited for Lee. He charged in at her again, but this time, she was ready, so she dropped under him, and pushed him into the air. Then she formed long and very sharp needles out of chakra and jumped into the air. She begun to spin in the air, and slash at Lee and as she went, she disrupted the color of his chakra at an alarming pace, she was moving so quick that I had trouble following her exact movements. Her needles actually closed Lee's chakra points again and then sealed the gates he had opened.

Lee fell to the ground, totally unconscious. I could not help but stare, when the hell had all this happened to her? As I silently pondered at her growth, the proctor called my attention. Neji was already in the ring, waiting for me. I shook myself and jumped down into the ring. The crowd was pounding their feet and different people were screaming out "Neji!" or "Sasuke!" Once again, it seemed that I was the match to watch. I pointed at Neji and said, "Alright, I am going to take care of you!"

"It is interesting," Neji remarked, "that this match happens, I guess the greatest bloodline of Konoha will be decided here and now, I won't lose to you, Uchiha Sasuke."

Right from the get-go, I mimicked Naruto's chakra dash trick, but Neji seemed to have been waiting for just that, because he started his chakra rotation just as I was going to hit him, which repelled me effortlessly. As I observed him continue to spin even after I had been repelled, I remembered what Kakashi had told me, this guy was a close combat fighter, which meant I had two options, ninjutsu, or genjutsu. I silently formulated a plan of attack and then jumped backwards onto the wall, and struck the same pose that I had first used for Chidori. Neji had apparently heard of this move, because he had activated his Byakugan and was staring boldly up at me, as if daring to try it. Then I did something he obviously didn't expect, "Fire style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!"

Three high speed fire balls shot down at him and he just barely dodged out of the way, so kept up my assault. After about three more volleys on my end, he just started to do his rotation again, which caused my fireballs to bounce back and hit the dirt, doing nothing, when I stopped shooting, he stopped rotating, so I established eye contact, which was all I needed. I put him into a genjutsu that would keep him absolutely still, and thus made him a perfect target. I began to charge my Chidori. Once it was fully formed, I charged down at him and as I was charging down at him, he began to slowly move out of position, but at the rate he was going, it wouldn't be enough. I got a solid hit with my jutsu, but then his body turned into a log, and my hand was secure inside of it. He smirked as he said, "But now, you are in range..."

My eyes widened as I knew what was coming next. He began his sixty four trigrams combo. And as he did so, I could feel my chakra fade out of my control. "SIXTY-FOUR PALMS!"

I flew backwards and hit the wall. Smoke poured out in front of me. I knew there would only be one way for me to win this fight now. So I let the first level of my curse-mark go. The black chakra flooded my system and re-opened all of my chakra points. The black marks appeared all across my left side and I knew that my left eye had turned black and a sickly yellow. Neji stared at me, in confusion, but that was all the opening I needed. I charged another Chidori, and dashed at him. As the curse chakra mingled with my own, my Chidori turned a sickening purple. Neji began his rotation, but this time, it wasn't enough. I broke through, and hit him solidly with my jutsu, I felt his blood on my hand, and removed it. He had a deep hole in the right side of his chest. He collapsed, and the proctor called the match. My match concluded the first round of matches, and as such, the combatants were to receive a break and food. The proctor called an "intermission" for the audience, and he directed us to a door inside the waiting box. Once inside, Tsunade personally saw to our wounds and then we were allowed to do as we liked for about an hour, inside this room were soldier pills, chakra recovery drinks, and electrolyte water. Once I had had my fill, I went to go find Naruto, but he was already talking with Gaara, and Hinata was facing the other direction, as if standing guard. I tried to walk around her, but she intercepted me. As I began to protest, she said, "Naruto and Gaara have asked to not be disturbed by anyone. Please, sit down on one of the chairs behind you and I will let them know about you once they are done talking."

After all this she bowed to me, but the whole time, stared me defiantly in the eyes, as if daring me to try anything else. I put on my best stoicism face and sighed and sat down right there. I tried to read their lips, but they were facing the other direction. At one point Gaara was shocked by what Naruto said, and Naruto slumped. Gaara obviously said the right thing, because Naruto nodded and stood back up. Gaara continued to talk for a long time, and Naruto kept nodding, and eventually, Naruto stopped Gaara and said something to him. Gaara's smiled at him and nodded, holding out his little finger and Naruto put out his own, and they obviously made some sort of promise. I could read Gaara's lips this time, he said, "That is the promise of a life-time, Uzumaki Naruto."

They turned around and saw Hinata standing in between them and me, and I saw surprise flash across Naruto's face and then a deep anger. He stomped over to me and said, "Did you use your Sharingan to read our lips? Did you?"

I shook my head; it was mostly the truth anyway. He looked like he was going to say something else, when Hinata said, "Naruto...I made sure he didn't use his Sharingan, so don't freak out."

Naruto calmed down immediately, but I was still in awe of Hinata, she hadn't turned red from simply being in his presence, and now, she was actually talking over him? Something was up, but at the time, I couldn't tell what.

After our brief respite, we were called back to the combatant's box, so the matches could commence. The proctor called Naruto and Gaara down into the arena. Naruto and Gaara walked down to the arena nonchalantly, and then walked five paces apart. "I am gonna run wild!" shouted Naruto.

"Take your time," replied Gaara, "and enjoy the terror of the sand..."

The crowd roared as the battle began, and I turned on my Sharingan in case Naruto showed any more new tricks. Naruto dashed up to Gaara and was in the process of punching him when Gaara attacked. Sand flew up from all directions and encased Naruto. Chakra exploded out from the lump of sand, and Naruto fell to the ground, landed on his feet, and jumped backwards. He pulled two kunai out of his sleeves, (one for each hand) and put some chakra into each as he threw them. Gaara put up his defense of sand, but the kunai went through the sand somehow. Kakashi would later explain that Naruto used his wind affinity to enhance the blades of the kunai, so that they would even penetrate Gaara's sand. Gaara's blood splashed onto the sand in front of him, after the kunai gashed his left leg and scalp. Naruto then grabbed at something in the air in front of him and began to retract his two kunai. They were apparently attached to strings, but Gaara's sand wrapped around the kunai, and Gaara used that to pull Naruto towards him. With an audible thud, Naruto landed on the ground in front of Gaara, who then used his special jutsu, the sand burial. Blood seeped out of the coffin, and I really thought Naruto was dead, until his severely broken body tumbled out of the sand.

Gaara had used enough pressure to merely break bones, not implode him, thankfully. Gaara began to signal medics to come down and help his opponent out, but Naruto crawled onto his knees and said, "Don't underestimate me!"

The further he stood up, the more a strange chakra began to pour out of him. It was red in color, and it made my hairs stand up on end. The birth-marks on his face became more pronounced and as weird as this sounds, his eyes turned a deep red to match the chakra. It was obvious that whatever this chakra was, it was healing him quite rapidly. Gaara charged forward to stop this transformation before it was too late, but he was too late. Naruto appeared behind Gaara and punched through the sand that was his shield, and landed a solid punch. Gaara flew forward and Naruto appeared in front of him and kicked him back to his original spot. Now it was Gaara who was in bad shape. Naruto's powerful combo was making quick work out of the terror of the sand. Eventually, Naruto decided that Gaara was done fighting, because he stopped punching and called down the medics. It was all done in moments.

Naruto and Gaara were both rushed to the hospital for their wounds, so I walked down to the arena, expecting my match with Hinata. I looked over to her and said, "I don't feel like I am gonna lose."

"You are within range," was all she would say for the entire match.

I tried to jump back, but it was in vain, she just rushed me and began the sixty four palms combo. At the end of it all, I fell to the ground, on my back. I brought out the first level of the curse mark again, but Hinata was ready for that. As I stood up she spun and struck me on the center of my chest, and with her added wind chakra, I caught air. I smashed into a hard place for the second time that day. I looked around as the dust cleared to find myself embedded in a tree. In addition, I could feel that my heartbeat was irregular. Hinata had her Byakugan activated, and she simply stood there, watching me feel pain. I placed my hand over my heart and used a pulse of lightning chakra to fix my heart, and I coughed up blood. With nothing more than a slight woosh, Hinata appeared next to me, with a kunai at my throat. I shouted, "Lightning style: Chidori current!"

Hinata staggered backwards in shock to my jutsu, and I used that opportunity to jump out of my wooden prison and shoot some heavy duty fireballs. Hinata avoided the first two, but the third got her right arm, scorching it. We made eye contact and I launched one of Kurenai's favorite genjutsu. It ensnared the opponent and gave me the opportunity to stab them, but suddenly I felt myself wrapped up once again in a tree. Hinata's torso grew out of the wood, with a kunai in hand. She had reflected the genjutsu. She was full of surprises today. I stopped my chakra just in time to prevent my imminent death. She stabbed and missed. I charged a curse-powered Chidori, and charged toward Hinata, but she performed a deft substitution jutsu.

I turned in mid-air and met her kunai with one of my own. We glared at each other, and then shoved each other away. "Fire style:" I shouted, "Grand Fireball jutsu!"

It was a direct hit, but when the smoke cleared, Hinata was standing up, her clothes on fire, but a look of iron determination in her eyes. So I mimicked Rock Lee's speed, and ran behind her and chopped at the back of her neck, sending her into unconsciousness. I withdrew the black chakra back into its seal and walked up to the combatant's box, and then into the back room for medical attention. Naruto was lying on a nearby table, completely out of it, by the look of it, and Tsunade pointed to a nearby table. I sat down, and she went to work on me right away. In about ten minutes I was beginning to feel human again. I walked outside of the room for a bit of fresh air, and once I really felt back to normal, I walked back inside. Naruto was sitting up, and Tsunade was carefully studying him. He saw me and his eyes narrowed. "What crawled up your ass?" I asked him.

"Let's go outside," said Naruto, "Fight. Me. Now."

"You're still recovering; just relax for a bit, the fight can wait."

"Shut the hell up and fight me!"

It was then that I noticed his eyes, the normal, stupidly cheerful blue had become ice-cold. He was dead serious. He continued, "You always think that you're better than me. I won't stand for it! You think that you are better than me because of those damn eyes! I don't care what clan you're from."

I found myself smiling as I said, "Then the timing couldn't be better because I want to fight you too."

"Let's go."

He walked out of the room and jumped down into the arena. I followed suit. The crowd roared in excitement, they hadn't been expecting us for some time. "You are such a loser," he said, "Who do you think you are fooling?"

"You're talking a lot of trash, Naruto, are you regretting calling me out?"

"Shut up and bring it!"

I looked him up and down, there was something wrong about him, then it hit me, he didn't have his headband on. "Put on you're headband," I said, "I'll wait."

"I don't need it..."

"Just put it on!"

"You couldn't put a single scratch on my forehead!"

"That isn't it!" I cried, "It is a symbol of Konoha ninja, fighting as equals!"

"I already asked you!" he shouted, "Who do you think you're fooling? YOU THINK THAT WE'RE EQUALS?!"

"Yeah! I do. I have always been better than you Naruto!"

"You're making me angry, Sasuke!"

"That is because you're still weak, isn't it, Naruto?"

We both charged at each other, and punched with our right hand, then blocked the other's punch with the left, resulting in a stalemate. I disengaged and jumped into the air. I shouted, "Fire Style: Grand Fireball jutsu!"

I hit Naruto's general area, but I wasn't ready for what came next. The smoke cleared, and Naruto and two shadow clones were all charging something up. When it was done, it looked like a Rasengan stuck in the middle of a gigantic shuriken. Naruto cried out, "Wind Style: Rasenshuriken!"

I focused all of my power into one Chidori and shouted, "Chidori, The One Thousand Birds!"

I started towards Naruto in mid-air, and he jumped up towards me with his new creation. Right as we were about to meet, Jiraiya appeared between us and sent us different directions. I flew into a wall which shattered upon contact with my jutsu. Naruto, it seemed, was able to retract his new jutsu before he collided with the wall, so he merely bounced off. I rolled over onto my butt. "Why the hell would you throw that jutsu at a friend, Naruto? You know how powerful it is."

Naruto ignored him and walked straight up to me, spat at my feet and said, "I am done with you, Sasuke."

He turned around on his heel and hopped out of the stadium. That was the last I saw of him.

Back in the present...

About an hour ago I had received word that Naruto and Hinata had run away. I was selected to be on the team of five to take them back. It was me, Shikamaru, Neji, Kiba and Chouji. I want to know why they left. I thought it had been Naruto's dream to become Hokage, but that is never going to happen now. He will be lucky if he isn't put in jail for life, but I have to bring him back, because deep down, I know he would do the same for me...

END CHAPTER

Author's Notes

I felt that the direction that I was taking Chasing Naruto was the wrong one, so I originally only wanted to redo a couple chapters, but I went back to read some of my earlier chapters and I realize that I have improved, and some of the stuff I wrote earlier on just...sucked. There is no other word for it. It plain sucked, so now I have decided to redo the whole thing, and I have rethought the entire story, this will not be the same Chasing Naruto, the premise is the same, but it will be greatly different, in my eyes at least, I hope you enjoy it.

I would also like to thank my new beta, shingen takeda! You rock man.