Chapter One
THWOCK THWOCK THWOCK! Naruto ducked into a crouch as three shuriken buried themselves into a tree behind him.
"Jeez! Are you trying to kill me Sasuke?!" Naruto exclaimed, eyes wide. Sasuke simply smirked and reached back to draw a kunai from his holster.
6 months earlier Naruto had found Sasuke after the five Kage summit. Unbeknownst to the blond it would finally be his successful attempt at bringing Sasuke back to the village hidden in the leaves, after so many bitter failures. He had found the raven glaring hatefully at Kakashi and Sakura. The fight, which had ensued, brought them both to the brink of death, their skills being an equal and deadly match for the other. The fight had concluded the way it had those years ago when Naruto had tried to stop Sasuke leaving to join Orochimaru to gain the skill she needed to kill his older brother Itatchi. A chidori, and a rasengan, colliding. Neither had woken until three days later, in a small room in a small village on the outskirts of the land of fire.
They had spoken for hours. Sasuke had been unusually quiet and subdued. Naruto saying
"Guess this means I lost, again." His eyes cast down at the floor. Sasuke's reply had stopped his heart.
"No. Not this time. I'm tired of fighting. You, Kakashi, Sakura and everybody else. I'm just so tired. My brother is dead, and despite what he told me, about why he destroyed my clan, I realised something. It wasn't his fault. It was Danzo, he ordered him to do it. And he's dead now. I had fallen, so far. I lost myself, to the darkness. The only time I surfaced from that dark place was when we met, and fought. I fell so far." Then Naruto saw something that he would never forget. A lone tear, which slid silently down Sasuke's left cheek.
Naruto was startled out of his memory but he sound of a kunai being drawn from its holster.
Fifty shadow clones appeared in an instant and surrounded the Uchiha in front of him.
Hm. Sasuke thought to himself. Fifty shadow clones, I have ten shuriken and five kunai, might have to use my kusanagi. Kuso.
"Heh!" Naruto laughed. "You look nervous Sasuke, want to call it quits?" he said with a cocky grin on his face.
"Shut up dobe. Just trying to think how I can beat you without getting my shirt dirty, it was clean on this morning." Sasuke retorted.
Naruto's left eyebrow arced up in an amused way, and a small a=smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
"Sure, ok, if you're ready…"
"Always…"
"Fine, LET"S GO!"
The teens leapt at each other. Sasuke let fly with three of his remaining shuriken, managing to nail five of the clones that surrounded him, which each disappeared with a poof and a cloud of smoke. Whilst the raven was occupied with his clones, Naruto slipped away to the trees.
A clink sounded as two kunai collided. A deft and well-placed fist punched another clone out of existence.
It seemed to Sasuke that for every clone he hit two more appeared and came at him.
"You might want to think about giving up soon Sasuke." One of the clones smirked.
"I can produce as many clones as I need." Another said with nonchalance.
Casting his eyes around the blond's surrounding him the raven laughed quietly.
"Oh, you got clones? Well see if your clones can take this." The Uchiha quipped. Grasping his left wrist with his right hand a chidori made itself known with a threatening crackle.
"Chidori!" Sasuke moved his hand out to his side the extended it forward. "Naruto – the real one, show yourself, before I accidentally hit you." His voice amplified through the clearing they were in. after a pause with no movement from any of the jinchuriki clones, the raven simply 'hmed' to himself, shifted his stance slightly and said,
"You asked for it baka." Standing upright out of his semi crouch he turned his palm outwards and faced the nearest shadow clone.
"Chidori scream!" he boomed in that powerful voice of his.
His chidori extended, blade like, to a distance of five metres, with an accompanying scream, to match the name. In the first trike of the extension he hit seven of the clones. Spinning in a fast circle he nailed the rest of the clones before any of them could react and dodge.
Naruto observed the destruction from the tree he had climbed up earlier. He watched as Sasuke let the chidori die in his hand, then as he looked around the empty space before him, trying to fin d the real blond.
"Oi! Get out here Naruto! Or are you scared?" Sasuke sneered sarcastically as his jet black eyes darted around trying to spot the orange clad ninja.
Naruto held perfectly still. Trying to think up a strategy to either beat Sasuke without hurting him, or to not get himself hurt. He didn't want to run, and look like a coward, but he also didn't want either of them to get hurt.
Eventually Naruto made another clone and sent it through the trees to emerge a quarter of the way around from himself.
The clone cleared his throat, making Sasuke spin round to face him. "Come to give up finally?" the Uchiha enquired confidently, smiling slightly.
The answer came from behind him as another clone emerged from the trees.
"Hardly. Just trying to wear you out." Sasuke growled to himself in frustration at having fallen for another shadow clone trick.
"Stop fooling around Naruto! Come out and face me yourself, I promise ill go easy and not hurt you too bad." He grinned, sarcasm dripping from his words.
"Fine." The cloned snapped before disappearing.
"But don't go crying to Granny Tsunade when you get hurt." The real Naruto said whilst walking with confident strides from the trees in which he had been hiding. A confident smile played on his lips, and a mischievous glint was in his sky blue eyes.
Wow Sasuke sighed internally, as he watched those confident strides Naruto was taking towards him. He's grown so much, from that scrawny little kid he used to be.
Sasuke caught himself and fixed a half glare onto his features. Naruto stopped two metres away from the Uchiha survivor, arms by his sides.
"Finally come to fight me yourself then. Good. I've not had a decent chance to push myself lately." The raven said, just managing to keep his enthusiasm hidden. He loved sparring with the jinchuriki, it always gave him a chance to test his ability and see where he needed improvement, and it was fun.
"I got the feeling that you wouldn't have left me alone until I beat you." Naruto said sounding bored, and yawned for emphasis.
"Ha! You're right about not leaving you alone, but you wont beat me." Sasuke smirked. The two teens stared each other down for only ten seconds but it felt like forever to them. The tension was tangible in the air.
"Whatever, lets juts finish this quickly, I need some ramen." Naruto sighed and took a step back. Pushing his right foot back he stood in a lunging crouch stance, arms at his sides, out slightly, he stared Sasuke down.
The raven proceeded to mirror the blond and drop into the same stance, the only difference being his right hand that moved back to rest on the hilt of his kusanagi with a metallic thud.
Shit! I forgot about his kusanagi. Naruto gasped internally as he glanced at the sword held to the Uchiha's back by the rope that was tied around his slender yet toned waist. Which – Naruto noticed – was showing through his open shirt.
Naruto blushed, blinked then moved his eyes back up to the former Akatsuki member's jet-black irises and plastered a from onto his forehead, or the sliver of skin that was protruding beneath the black fabric of the leaf headband that he adorned.
With a wink and almost malicious gleam in those eyes, Sasuke lunged at Naruto with amazing speed. Expecting the move the jinchuriki dropped and spun with his leg extended, intending to catch the Uchiha off guard and land him on the floor. However Sasuke saw Naruto's intentions and managed to leap just out of reach of the leg and land safely with a 180-degree spin to face his opponent. Naruto stood up, ready for another assault from the raven. Blue eyes, met black.
"Multi-shadow clone jutsu!" the blond yelled, making ten cloned appear in a line before the Uchiha. Nine of the Naruto's surrounded Sasuke whilst the tenth hung back to create a fast spinning ball of chakra in the real Naruto's hand. When that was complete the clone stepped into formation with the others.
All at once they charged, distracting Sasuke with a fake frontal attack four of the clones slid beneath the raven haired Uchiha, throwing a kick each in quick fire to launch him into the air before the rasengan reached him. Following each kick with
"U!"
"ZU!"
"MA!"
"KI!"
Two more clones leapt into the air so that they were above Sasuke. Simultaneously turning a somersault they poised their right legs and came down hard both landing a decent kick on the ravens strong muscled stomach, shouting
"BARRAGE!"
A grunt from Sasuke as he fell, and he turned himself so that he was falling on his front.
Crouched in mid air Sasuke bellowed
"Chidori scream!" the screaming lightning blade appeared and stuck into the ground below him, allowing for a softer safer landing.
Letting the blade die but keeping his normal chidori the Uchiha righted himself and faced the fox before him.
"Not quite. Gonna have to do a lot better than that if you want to beat me dobe. Not that you will though." He said with a curt laugh.
'You were the one that god kicked not me, seven times at that." Naruto quipped back with an amused smile.
"You asked for it baka." Sasuke said in a low voice.
A metallic clack drew the fox's eyes to Sasuke's right had which now grasped the hilt of kusanagi, protruding from behind the raven. Drawing the sword from its sheath with a beautiful but threatening SHING Sasuke looked at Naruto, and raised an eyebrow, waiting for any movement. However there was none. Everything was still, and quiet, save the soft even breathing of the two teen ninja, and Sasuke's own heartbeat.
Naruto watched the blade shine menacingly as it was being drawn, and kept as still as he could. His heart was beating so hard that he was sure Sasuke could hear it. He watched as the one he had worked to hard to bring back shifted his grip on the sword, and let his arm come to rest slightly out to his side.
They watched each other. And they waited.