Summary: Behind me was everything was everything I had ever known, and in front was a future, maybe. And even though I was afraid to leave everything I had ever known, I also wanted a future, maybe. And so, hesitating, and then not, and then moving quickly, running, sprinting even, desperate, I crossed and found a future. Maybe. And left behind everything I had ever known.

Homesick Dirge

Naruto–

I am currently north of Konoha. Once you go north of Konoha, the landscape starts winding down real quick, doesn't it? It's all majestic forests before that. As you go further north, it's like you forget the grandeur ever existed.

I don't think the landscape is that bad, really. Just…anything's a letdown from the forest.

Behind me was everything was everything I had ever known, and in front was a future, maybe. And even though I was afraid to leave everything I had ever known, I also wanted a future, maybe. And so, hesitating, and then not, and then moving quickly, running, sprinting even, desperate, I crossed and found a future. Maybe. And left behind everything I had ever known.

Now that I'm finally free of my burden, I realized that there are a lot of different types of freedom. We used to talk about freedom the same way we talked about art, like it was a statement of quality rather than a description. "Art" doesn't mean good or bad. Art just means art. It can be terrible and still be art.

Freedom can be good or bad, too. There can be terrible freedom.

You freed me, and I didn't ask you to. I didn't want you to. I am more free now than I have ever been, and I am spiraling. I am spiraling across the world. Maybe you are, too.

I want our lines to cross, even one more time.

It's getting dark. And when it gets dark, over the grass, it really gets dark. Like being on an ocean. The distant lights of towns out there, like marooned ships. There's only a last lingering orange on the horizon, and it's just me on this road.

I stopped at a town for the night. The sign said "Sugi Village". Have we been there before?

Suffice it to say that it is town like many towns, with a town hall, and an onsen, and a teahouse, and a market, and, of course, a inn. On all sides, it was surrounded by forest. It is much like Konoha, perhaps. It might be more like Konoha than you'd like to admit, Naruto.

I can't stop thinking about what's behind me. Not what I'm carrying. Me and my cargo. Hauling what needn't have ever been from the place it needn't have been made to whatever came next.

I'm not getting distracted. I know what you're thinking, Naruto. This is intentional avoidance. I don't have to explain myself to you.

But I will.

I'll start with the man in purple cloak.

There was a man. He caught me staring at him in the local teahouse near the inn and he stared back. Now we were staring at each other, something electric and monstrous there in the teahouse between us.

He got up and approached my table. His clothes were filthy. He walked like his legs weren't muscle and bone, but just sacks of meat attached to his torso. He sat across from me and he licked his lips. When he spoke, his voice sounded like the rasping howling of the wind.

"It's a fine evening," he said. "Doesn't look much like rain."

At first I didn't say anything. I thought if I was quiet, he would go away, but…that only works with people who aren't already in it to bother you, who haven't already made up their minds to be awful.

"Hope you don't mind if I join you," he said. Not a question or a request, but…a joke.

"I actually was hoping to eat alone," I said.

"Good people deserve good things," he said.

I didn't know what to say to that.

He scratched his cheek, scratched it really hard, and I swear that some of it peeled away under his fingers.

"It's dangerous out here," he said.

"Out where?" I said. "This state? This country? Life? Life is dangerous? Did you come over here to explain death to me?"

He laughed.

"Yes," he said. "I came over to explain death to you."

He leaned in close. His breath was rotten. Not bad, but like fruit turning to soil.

"Want to see something funny?" he asked.

He set a small slip of paper on the counter. On it, written in dull, smeared pencil, were the words "ŌTSUTSUKI". The handwriting was shaky and the pencil had been pressed down hard.

I couldn't stop staring at it, even though I didn't know what about it was interesting.

"Interesting", I said.

I got no answer so I looked up. He was already outside. From the window, I could see the man outside the teahouse. He was running out to the forest, just barely at the edge of radius of light of the teahouse. His arms were swinging wildly, his dirty purple cloak fluttering with the speed of his motion. His legs were flailing, great puffs of dust kicked up behind him, his head thrown back, sweat visible running down his neck even from where I sat. The kind of run that was from something and not toward. Then he left the faint edge of the light and was gone.

I hope never to see him again. There may be more danger ahead, and I think things will be getting more difficult for me from here on out. There's noise outside my bedroom window now, in the inky darkness of the forest. Roaring and shifting, like an enormous angry animal.

The noises stopped just as suddenly as it started. They let me off with a warning, I guess.

I guess it's a warning I'm going to ignore.

You might know what to do, Naruto. You would know exactly what was going on, looking like nothing was a surprise to you.

Nothing ever was a surprise to you, was it? You always knew everything.

Remember when I was first released? I went to groups. I sat in circles and talked about you. That's what we do now, right? As a civilization, we sit in a circle and we describe the shape of the monster that is devouring us. We hope, like a talisman, that our description will provide some shelter against it.

It won't, though. We are helpless.

The circle was fine. It wa– It was good, actually. I talked about you, How you were always a little strange, but Naruto, I never thought….I never thought.

I never.

I stopped going to the groups a few months afterwards. I stopped sitting in a circle. I started to leave, started leaving the village, trying to understand, trying to get a grasp on the…you know, the…the…on the...

Oh, I don't know.

I'm still sitting in a circle. Just writing the story over and over on this paper, hoping that you will read it, and understand.

Hoping to ward off the monster by describing the shape of it.

Every relationship, no matter how long, no matter the history, is expected to be temporary. Separation is never a surprise. After a few months since my return, I started to look through the things you kept for me since I first left. I had left them alone; didn't want to get tangle in the memories just yet. But now they weren't memories. They were evidence. Clues to a story you had failed to tell me.

Maybe I'm chasing a ghost once again.

Chasing a ghost over many creeks. Not by that many bays. Mostly land. Mostly lots of land.

I'll keep running. I'll keep wandering this world.

Every time I look behind, I worry that I made a mistake of leaving you behind.

This better be worth it, Naruto.

Nothing ever could be.

–Sasuke

A/N: Please read and review! Should I continue with this as a long-form series? Should I just keep it as a oneshot?