Disclaimer: I don't own any of Masashi Kishimoto's characters.
Summary: After hearing his team insult him behind his back, Naruto leaves the village in a quest to get stronger and to show them how much of a "dunce" he really was. Never did he expect to fall in love with one of Konoha's worst enemies…
This is a yaoi fic of the pairing ItaxNaru. If you strongly dislike this pairing, or you don't like yaoi at all, I advise you to click the back button. And now, on with chapter one!
Ages:
The Rookie Nine – 15
Neji – 16
TenTen – 16
Rock Lee – 16
Gai – 29
Kakashi – 29
Iruka – 28
The Legendary Sannin – 53
The Sand Siblings – K: 17 G: 15 T: 18
Itachi - 21
Chapter One
Cracked and Captured
He who abandons his companions in the time of need gains nothing, but loses everything.
It was supposed to be a regular day for Uzumaki Naruto. It was supposed to start off with him and Sasuke insulting each other. It was supposed to be the kind of day that is normal for ninja pranksters. But it wasn't.
Now here he was, hiding behind a tree and carefully concealing his chakra. He had grown up a while back, knowing that he couldn't remain hyper and sunny for the rest of his life.
He could hear Sakura's banshee-ish voice complaining, "Kakashi-sensei, Naruto is such a drag! He slows us down and he fights with Sasuke-kun all the time!"
"I understand, Sakura, but it's only in the nature of a dunce like him to be resistant and utterly stupid," Kakashi said.
"I agree. That dobe never should've joined our team in the first place," said Sasuke.
These comments deeply stabbed him in the heart. So his teammates had never trusted him in the first place? Had they all thought the same thing? That he dragged them down and had to have them save him every time they went on a mission together? Had he been a fool all this time to believe that they'd ever truly been kind to him?
He clenched his fist. That was the last straw. He would run away from here, and get so strong that he'd show them how much of a "dunce" he was.
I'll show them…those worthless fools…Naruto growled.
He disappeared from his spot and reappeared in the Hokage's office. Tsunade was sleeping on the desk again. Naruto walked over to her and said loud enough for her to hear, "Tsunade-baachan, wake the hell up!"
She shot up in an instant. "Naruto? What're you doing here?" she asked, yawning widely and rubbing the sleep from her hazel eyes.
"I'm leaving."
Tsunade stopped what she was doing. "What?" she was afraid of the answer, afraid that what she heard was true.
"I'm leaving," Naruto repeated.
Tsunade caught the brief flash of pain in his sad azure eyes. And she understood. "You're leaving because this village finally cracked you?" she asked.
"Not quite. It wasn't the villagers. It was my very own traitorous team. I overheard them just now, talking behind my back, saying that I never should've joined them in the first place," Naruto answered. Tsunade gasped. "Ironic, isn't it? Maybe I should believe that stupid saying…trust your enemies, for you friends might turn out to be asses."
Tsunade looked down at her desk sadly. The one she thought of as a son was now leaving her. And it was all Kakashi's fault. "You'll…come back to visit me…right?" she asked, trying to keep her voice as calm as she could.
Naruto smiled. This smile was not any smile. It was a special one he reserved only to those he knew and trusted with all his being. Tsunade was one of them.
"Of course I will. You are one the people who care for me. I'll even send you letters to tell you how I'm doing, if you want," he said.
"All right, just be careful out there. I don't want Akatsuki capturing you," she said. Naruto turned to leave, having been granted permission.
"Wait…"
Tsunade's soft voice stopped him before he left. "Take this with you." She walked around the desk and handed him a small mirror.
"What is it?" he asked.
"It's a Voice Transfer mirror. If you need to tell me something and you don't feel like sending a letter, just contact me using this. Just open it and speak the person's name to the mirror, whom you want to talk to. Jiraiya has one, and I'll give Iruka one too. Just so he's comfortable knowing that a piece of his "son" is with him," Tsunade explained.
"Thanks, Tsunade-baachan. And goodbye."
Naruto left, closing the door softly behind him. Tsunade stared for a long time at the door, a single tear slipping down her cheek.
Goodbye…Naruto.
X-X
Naruto took one last look around the place he'd called home for the last 12 years. He would be leaving this place, and not knowing when he might come back.
He locked the door and used a jutsu to teleport to the front gates. Sparing one last glance at his home village, Naruto walked away and disappeared down the road.
But he didn't sense a pair of crimson-colored eyes watching him from the tops of the trees.
X-X
In Sunagakure, Gaara was busy shortening the enormous stacks of paperwork that were piled on his desk. A knock on the door drew his attention away from an ally contract with Amegakure.
"Kazekage-sama, I'm sorry if I disturbed you, but there is someone named Uzumaki Naruto who wishes to see you."
Immediately the pen dropped from Gaara's fingers and he leaped out from behind the desk. He almost wrenched the door open in his haste to see his old friend from Konoha, whom had helped him understand that he was not a demon, no matter what.
Naruto stood a few feet from the door, accompanied by one of the Sand jounin. "Yo, Gaara," he said casually, stepping forward.
"Come in, Naruto. I have something I need to discuss with you," Gaara said, gesturing him inside the office.
As soon as the door was closed, Naruto tackled Gaara in a hug. Expecting this sort of action from him, Gaara evaded the hug attack and Naruto crashed into the desk, forming a goose egg bump on his head.
"Man, that hurt. What's your desk made out of, stone?" Naruto groaned, massaging his throbbing head.
"Anyways, why are you here, Naruto? Surely you wouldn't just show up to only visit me," Gaara asked, returning to his place behind his desk, buried beneath mountains of the evil paperwork.
"No, it's that I…left Konoha. My team betrayed me, so I came here to talk to you to lighten myself up before I started off again. I'm going to become stronger than I am now, and prove to them how stupid they were," he said, finding the floor somewhat interesting as he made his tale short.
"They betrayed you? Those fools!" Gaara growled.
"That's what I'm thinking now," Naruto said. "You can go talk to them briefly if you like. I can stay here and watch over your village while you "talk" to them."
"I'm going to show them never to mess with a friend of Sabaku no Gaara's!" With a flash and poof, Gaara was gone.
Naruto surveyed the office with a gleam in his eye. Gaara needed some decoration in his office, but he knew that the Kazekage preferred to leave the office…well, plainly empty.
He stepped outside to a balcony overlooking the village and waited for Gaara to come back.
X-X
Gaara reappeared in a whirl of sand in Tsunade's office. She was slightly startled to see him there. "Kazekage-sama, what a surprise!" she said. "Is there something you want?"
"No, I simply have business to attend to," he said, leaving out the door.
Gaara tracked down the remainder of Team Seven. They were in Training Field #17. Sasuke was sparring with Sakura. Kakashi watched them sweat and read his Make Out Paradise book at the same time, sighing and stifling giggles now and then.
"Hatake Kakashi, are you busy?" Gaara asked.
Sasuke and Sakura instantly stopped their sparring and looked at Gaara. "Kazekage-sama, nice to see you here. I'm sorry, but Naruto isn't here. You'll have to search elsewhere," Kakashi answered.
"I didn't come here for Naruto. He's back in my office, waiting for me to return. Now I believe I asked if you were busy," Gaara said.
"If he's at your office, he's out of this village. Thank God, I couldn't stand another period with him," Sakura said.
"That dobe, waiting for you? Looks like he's got even less brains than I thought he did. Frankly, I thought he had no brains at all," Sasuke sneered. "Now you can go back to your village and tell him that he's not welcome here."
"Don't provoke me," Gaara said. "It could end up with some nasty results."
At once the ground beneath Sasuke and Sakura exploded, throwing them off balance. Gaara's sand cocooned their bodies and sunk them halfway into the ground. Gaara turned his attention to Kakashi.
"Why are you doing this, Kazekage-sama? Have you decided to betray Konoha?" Kakashi asked.
"Why should I answer your stupid question? You know as well as I do that I came here to make you suffer for betraying Naruto!"
The shocking answer distracted Kakashi for a moment. But a moment was all Gaara needed. He quickly bound Kakashi's ankles with sand and made him fall. Kakashi tried to release the sand shackles that attached his hands and feet to the ground.
Gaara formed a sand clone and made a wave of sand carry a still-shackled Kakashi to a secluded area. From there, Gaara watched as his sand clone beat the shit out of the silver-haired sensei.
When Kakashi at last fainted out of sheer pain and pressure, Gaara walked away, satisfied. And if those two in the cocoons aren't rescued soon, they'll die from lack of oxygen, he cackled.
He reappeared back in his office, ready to take back his job. But Naruto wasn't there.
Panicking and nearly shutting down his brain from skimming through the many possibilities of where Naruto could be, he finally came to one solution. To sit down and do his paperwork while waiting for Naruto to come back. It seemed like a fine enough solution, so Gaara settled down behind his desk and began to work again.
Time passed, yet Naruto hadn't yet shown up again. Was his visit that brief? Gaara waited a little more, but after three more hours and no Naruto, he decided that yes, Naruto had left.
However, a kunai crashed through the window and struck the wall behind him. Gaara's eyes narrowed when he saw the note attached to the kunai handle.
His eyes rapidly skimmed over the paper, but when he was finished, he crushed the note in his hand.
Damn you to hell, Akatsuki!
X-X
"Itachi-san, was it wise to kidnap him just like that?" a man who looked like a mutant cross between a human and a shark asked his partner, who had Naruto's limp body slung over one of his shoulders.
"…" The Uchiha teen replied with silence.
Kisame wisely kept his mouth shut for the rest of the journey back to Akatsuki headquarters. When they returned, Itachi told Kisame to inform the leader that they successfully captured the blond jinchuuriki.
"Where are you going with him?" Kisame asked.
"It's none of your business what I do," Itachi said, walking down one of the long, windy corridors in the hideout.
Kisame shrugged and went the opposite direction. Pein needed a report, after all.
Itachi laid Naruto down on his bed. He was breathing evenly, even after Itachi knocked him out. Said missing nin stared at him with a slightly softer look in his crimson eyes.
What is it about you that attracts me to you…Naruto?
If you know already, yes, Itachi is falling in love with our favorite blonde jinchuuriki.
X-X
Was this chapter okay? This was supposed to be something really random, but it ended up being a chapter for a story. Weird, hunh? Not really. Please review.
IGS