Sherbet Mayhem: Hi guys, welcome to my Naruto fic. Hope you enjoy! I'm not sure on pairings any more...I get the feeling it may be SasukeXOC and that's about it. It's gonna be adventure packed, and fun stuff, and scary, and moving at times, and I'm gonna give it a high rating just to be on the safe side, as always.
So...yah, enjoy!
Ooh, by the way, it's set just before the mission to take out Akatsuki – major manga spoilers found in here. So...yeah. I won't be letting on huge details, but there'll be information only attainable by reading the mangas up to the latest chapters; anything after chapter 300.
Thoughts are in speech marks and italics, anything in italics on its own without speech marks is just like a little sub theme going on in the chapter and is relevant.
This is Sherby, Over and out. Datte Bayo!
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Another
Chapter One: Revelations
My life...you electrify my life...
The stars were dying. In the cold night air, they faded miserably, hot clouds hungry for attention. The trees of Konoha stretched their wispy, starving arms upwards, begging for light, ghastly silhouettes against a ghastly skyline. The air was bitter and stunk of dry cold; it hadn't rained in three weeks although the clouds had been gathered and waiting, pregnant and angry. The leaves in Konoha were all dead. Winter was at its most angry.
On a small bench near the outskirts of the village, Kakashi pulled his cloak a little tighter around himself. He gazed about himself with his one exposed eye. Any plants scrabbling around on the floor were doused with frost and hung weak, defeated. The soil glittered like a snail track, glazed with ice. Kakashi had exchanged his sandals for a warm pair of boots. He didn't like to get his toes so cold that he couldn't feel them.
Three days before, Tsunade had announced the mission. Akatsuki. Search and destroy. It wasn't a mission that filled Kakashi with warm feelings of hope and glory; the last time he had fought any member of Akatsuki, it had been simply a manipulation of Itachi, and it hadn't gone well. Gai had recalled a similar encounter with Kisame; there was reason to worry. Kakashi knew well that lives would be lost in this.
He glanced up at the sky, his silver hair falling into his eyes. He wished the stars were brighter. He didn't like it this dark. Or this cold. Offering his watch a quick look, he decided that his two pupils were later than he was, and he had every right to shout at them for keeping him sitting out in the freezing cold like this.
A sharp wind blew through his hair, and Kakashi stood up, long legs stretching. He yawned, enjoying the crack of his knees, and then sat down again, taking out a small book from his pocket and opening it half way. The moment his eyes glanced the words...
"SURPRISE!"
He didn't jump; Jounin level Ninja were above starting in fright, but he couldn't stop his body tensing up and preparing for battle. A split second later, the two voices registered, and he smiled.
"Very good, Naruto, Sakura."
Two bright smiles beamed at him amidst layers of warm clothing, and for a moment Kakashi didn't worry about the hidden stars.
"You managed to suppress your Chakra almost completely, and I didn't notice you coming. Well done."
His voice was the way it always had been; Sakura couldn't remember a time when Kakashi's soft, calm voice had risen to anger. She smiled at him playfully, pleased with her own performance. Chakra manipulation had always come a little easier for Sakura, but still, it was no small feat to suppress it almost completely; to avoid detection by a Jounin was exceptional.
"Enough small talk!" cried Naruto as Kakashi slipped his book into the back pocket of his trousers, "Can we get some food? I'm starved!"
Kakashi chuckled, and Naruto wondered what was so funny. He could hear his stomach gurgling fiercely, and the cold only made him want to fill up with warm ramen.
"Now, hold on a second, Naruto," Sakura reprimanded as she took a seat on the bench, her slim legs wrapped in tight double-layered bandages to fight the cold air. "Kakashi called us here for a reason."
She had many memories of this bench. Some were happy; some were too tragic to bear. That night: a soft wind instead of this harsh one, leaves full of life, not coiled in death, a friend, his voice, those words...
She pushed the thoughts away, brushed a lock of pink hair behind her ear, and smiled at Kakashi.
"So...why did you call us here, Kakashi-Sensei?"
He smiled at her, the eye visible to all crinkling warmly.
"It's the night before one of the most dangerous missions of all of our lives. I thought we could go and get some food together, and enjoy each other's company."
Naruto's smile grew two-fold, and he laughed aloud.
"See, Sakura, food is on the schedule!" He pulled her up from her seat, "Come on!"
Kakashi watched, smiling, as the bitter cold couldn't quench their warm spirits.
"Through changes upon changes, they are more or less the same"
The 'less' part struck him a little painfully, as he remembered that Team 7 was significantly less; one member had been gone, considered by many a traitor, for almost three years now. Kakashi cast his mind back to the three of them, younger then, each filled with power they did not know how to control. His memories dragged up the tree-climbing exercise; Chakra control that Sakura had found so simple, but the other two had been forced to work and work. He recalled Zabuza, Haku, the Bridge-Builder. He remembered the scent of the mountain air and the sound of Chidori in a young man's hand, cracking blue and humming. He could see the blood red eyes of Gaara, sand whipping around him, his Team flashing away in the chase to catch him. He could see, could touch the photograph of all four of them. Their loss pained them all.
"Hopefully, destroying Akatsuki will relieve our loss," he mumbled as he thought. He realised suddenly that he was walking along with the other two, entirely unsociable, hands thrust deep in his pockets. He jerked himself from his memories and smiled.
"I take it you want ramen, Naruto?"
The young blond grinned, his bright eyes sparking. "You got it, Kakashi-Sensei! I'm hoping I can get Sakura to try the cheese and beef ramen I discovered the other night!"
Sakura giggled. "Good thing I'm a medical Nin...I get the feeling I may need to treat myself for food poisoning by the end of the night!"
Rolling his eyes, Kakashi resisted the urge to pull out his book and start reading again. He loved these kids as much as he'd ever loved anybody; but their ramen conversations tended to ramble on, and he could usually predict the outcome.
"Naruto calls Sakura a chicken one too many times, Sakura tries odd new combination flavour ramen, Sakura immediately dislikes odd new combination flavour ramen, Sakura whacks Naruto on the head, Naruto gets---"
Kakashi stopped and spun around, sharp all of a sudden. A twinge of Chakra was on the air. Sakura and Naruto noticed his movement, and stood silent. The street they were on was deserted. They'd only walked a few hundred yards from their meeting point. Ice smiled at them from the ground. The dark was heavy and brisk. The clouds hid the stars. The wind bit their faces.
"It can't be..."
After a moment's pause, Naruto, watching his teacher carefully, spoke up.
"Kakashi-Sensei, what is it? Danger?"
As he spoke, Naruto reached for his glittering sharp Kunai. Sakura did the same, her body tensing up, curves taut with adrenaline, fingers tight and ready. Kakashi watched the sky like a bloodhound. Concentrating. Rain began to fall, finally, tapping the frost on the dead plants, skeletal in their spider-web graves.
"Kakashi?"
He moved quickly, suddenly, sprung to life like a wind-up toy, and ran down the path they'd just walked. After a quick glance at each other, Naruto and Sakura followed nervously. The boots they wore eliminated the problem of the slippery frost and ice. The rain pelted their faces as the sky wept, heavier now.
They rounded a corner and watched as Kakashi came to a halt by the bench they'd gathered around minutes earlier. The light brown of the bench bled darker now as the spit from the sky drenched it. The shadows of the trees stretched, dripped. Nature was alive around them. A street lamp, not too far away, shed its light cautiously, and the rain slashed through it. It hissed on the floor.
Kakashi looked about himself, trying to catch it again. He was speaking to himself as Naruto and Sakura approached.
"I could swear it was here, I couldn't have missed it...that Chakra is unmistakable..."
Sakura watched her teacher with worried eyes. The rain dripped from her pink hair and onto the pale skin of her cheeks. Her clothes clung to her as she shivered.
She glanced towards the gates of the village, about two-hundred yards away. They were black in the night. Always open, always welcoming, they represented the caring, good willing nature of Konoha. Their existence proved the generous attitude of the people, but also displayed an ability to defend, to shut off, to conceal and to blockade. The trees seemed to lean towards them now, almost bowing in respect to these great gates. The wood had not perished over time.
A silhouette rested between the gates, and Sakura squinted through the rain. She couldn't make it out. An animal...? A person...?
She tugged on Kakashi's sleeve.
"Kakashi-Sensei...look..."
His head turned towards the gates, and Sakura noticed that his Sharingan eye was exposed, glowing bright red, almost fizzing in the darkness. Naruto peered through the dark and the rain, trying to make out the figure at the gates, placing a hand over his forehead to protect his blue eyes from the pelting skies.
The moment Kakashi's Sharingan locked onto the figure, he leaped forward again, leaving Naruto and Sakura a moment to wonder as the word "Shit" slipped from his mind to the air around them. As they ran toward the figure, Naruto's stomach dropped. He knew exactly who this was.
They approached, and the figure, now clearly a human, dropped lower, their body reading of exhaustion and battle. One arm strayed up towards the neck, grasping it tightly. Kakashi skidded to a halt, the rain sloshing about his boots, mud beginning to form.
Sakura's eyes fought the darkness. Coupled with the rain, the darkness caused problems for her. She didn't have Kakashi's Sharingan eye. She couldn't move according to Chakra. She followed him and trusted. As she neared the figure, whose breathing was heavy and visibly pained, a lump rose in her throat and she shook for reasons other than the cold.
Kakashi knelt by the shivering figure, who had not the strength to even look up at him. Black hair hung over his eyes, dripped with the rain, trembled in the wind. Only a blue high-collared shirt and a pair of grey shorts protected him from the weather. Sakura knew he'd once worn material on his arms, but this was gone. Naruto knelt at the other side.
"Sasuke..."
Underneath the dripping hair, Naruto examined his face. He was dirty, and covered in numerous small wounds. Blood ran in a snake trail down one side of his pale skin. His eyes, so often bright with confidence and even the scarlet of the Sharingan, were dull, exhausted, dying. One hand grasped desperately at his left collarbone. The other arm hung awkwardly. It looked broken.
Kakashi slowly took the boy's hand away from the collarbone, looking for what they all regretted. In the pouring rain, in the freezing cold, Kakashi could see even without light that the curse mark was gone. Hacked out. A gaping wound laughed at them as the rain pounded on it, a chunk of flesh missing from the shoulder. Sakura dropped to her knees, right in front of her old teammate.
I'll never let you go, if you promise not to fade away...I just wanted to hold you in my arms...
"Sasuke...what happened to you?"
She could hardly get the words out. Her eyes had welled up. She was terrified for him. She watched him breathe, slowly, raggedly, watched the rain run down his nose and fall weakly off the end, watched him shake and tremble, watched his eyes, so tired, so lonely...
"Sakura, please go and alert Tsunade. If she's sleeping, wake her up. This is urgent."
Kakashi's voice was still calm, still smooth, and he watched her. She nodded, tears spilling from the corners of her green eyes, and she stood and was gone in an instant.
"Naruto, help me get him up. He can't stay out here."
Following orders without question, Naruto quickly slipped himself under Sasuke's limp arm. He'd never imagined this. Never imagined that Sasuke would return of his own free will. He'd been so certain it would be a battle, just like it had been the other times. He had to fight for everything.
"We'll take him to my place for now. It's nearer than the hospital."
Naruto nodded, glancing at his friend. Sasuke's eyes dragged along the floor. His legs, bloodied and shaking, could hardly support his weight.
"Sasuke...say something..."
Naruto was desperate, just to hear his voice, just to know that this wasn't a clone, wasn't a fake, or a dream, but was, regardless of condition, Sasuke.
The rain pounded hard around them, and the wind chased them, laughing like a hyena as the pellets of rain hammered their faces. Kakashi removed his cloak and draped it over the boy as they walked. Kakashi's house was less than a minute away.
"...A...Another..."
Naruto glanced at Sasuke as he spoke, his voice cracked as dry sand. "Another what, Sasuke?"
Plants wilted around them under the storm. The street lamps were drowned out. All was rain and wind. The stars hid behind the clouds.
"I'm...not...the only..."
His mouth hardly moved as he spoke. He was barely awake. Naruto was tense, on edge. They reached Kakashi's house. As Kakashi fumbled with the key, trying to ignore the rain, Sasuke spoke once more.
"Another...anoth...Uchiha..."
Naruto caught him as he passed out, his wounds and exhaustion getting the better of him. He leaned his friend's head into him as he glanced at Kakashi, who had turned in shock at Sasuke's words. The door was open, but neither of them moved. They watched each other for a moment, before turning their gazes back down to the unconscious Uchiha, for almost eight years the last of his clan bar the exiled Itachi, who shivered in the rain and bled where he'd gouged the chains of slavery from his own shoulder.
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Sherbet Mayhem: Ok, you know what to do, ladies and gents. Read, review, and the more reviews I get, the faster I update. Sorry it's short – I have to go to work now. I'll update ASAP though
