Naruto; I thought you only said awesome.
LC; I do but sweet is okay too.
Sasuke; Is it true your inventing a new language?
LC; Ah Sasuke, your awesomeness shines brighty with the light of awesome! My new awesome language is Awesome-ese and it's as awesome as the word awesome!
Naruto; I lost count, how many times did she say awesome?
Sasuke; About six times.
LC; On to my awesome story!
Disclaimer; I hardly own anything at all! I swear! *Lawyer puts away briefcase* Phew. That was close.
Chapter 2; Bad expierences, new friends, and bitter rivals.
Naru didn't know what to say as Haradai stayed kneeled before her, offering her his sword. Finally steeling her courage, she took the sword from his hands before flipping it and catching the blade.
"Haradai, I respect your oath, but I wouldn't be able to live with myself if you were to die because of me." She chose her words carefully. "I would like the company though, it gets kind of lonely on the road."
Haradai looked up at his offered sword and looked up, bewildered, at the face of the blonde angel who was offering more than a sword, she was offering his life.
His own decision.
An hour later, the two saddled up and rode to a nearby port city. On the trip, Naru told him of her life before and after her banishment.
"You were banished because you almost got killed trying to bring back a traitor?" Haradai asked, eye brow twitching with annoyance. Naru nodded to him, a little nervous about his reaction. "THAT IS THE DUMBEST REASON TO BE BANISHED I'VE EVER HEARD!" Somewhere about fifty miles away, Jaraiya could have sworn he heard someone whisper that to him.
However looking around, he decided to label it under, 'imagination' and 'old age'.
Back with the dynamic duo, they had stopped by a stream to get a drink of water and make some lunch. Naru wiped her mouth and stood, stretching while not betraying her tenseness.
She hadn't gone through all those damned lessons with Pappy so she could be ambushed the moment she set foot off the mountains!
Whoever it was, she didn't recognize their signatures. She'd purposely gone a distance away from Haradai to see who he was after, and he'd followed her to the stream.
Standing tall and looking over the clearing with a care free expression, she swiftly pulled and threw several senbon with enough accuracy to outline the stranger's body against the tree.
"Why are you following me?" She demanded to the nearly invisible shape. He sighed and dispelled the genjutsu he had placed over himself.
It was Sasuke.
It was Sasuke, and yet, he looked and felt so different. His eyes were hollow, he had lost weight, and while he did seem stronger, he also seemed weaker.
"Hi, Naru." He sighed tiredly, not meeting her eyes.
The biggest change, were the white milky eyes, revealing blindness.
"Sasuke?" She asked, not wanting to believe this defeated man was her best friend.
"Nice to hear you again." He answered, his eyes unblinking and lodged at a point to the right of her.
Haradai ran over to where he had heard Naru raise her voice and found her staring at a young man with the eyes of the blind.
"What did he do to you, Sasuke?" She asked softly.
Haradai was stunned. This, defeated man, was Sasuke Uchiha? "Naru, is this the same Sasuke you said turned traitor?" He asked uneasily, eyeing the man wearily.
"Yes, this is my best friend Sasuke Uchiha." She answered gravely. Slowly, trying not to startle him, she approached him until she ruined the moment by sticking her toungue out at the blind boy.
Naru was surprised when he didn't react but swiftly began to wave a hand in front of his face. "What are you doing?" Sasuke asked, feeling the wind from the wave.
"Your really blind?" She asked, putting her hand down to her side.
"Orochimaru tried to put a lot of different blood line traits in me, starting with the byakugan." Sasuke told her sadly. "Something went wrong during the procedure, and made me lose my eye sight. He didn't want to take over my body anymore, so he left me in the woods."
"That bastard!" Naru cursed vehemently. "When I get my hands on him I'm gonna pound him to the next century!" (No Naru! I don't want to deal with a pedo vamp! Don't send him here!)
At first, Haradai wanted nothing more than to chop the stupid traitor's head off with his blade himself. However, for the sake of his mistress, he heard the man out.
"I don't even remember how I got there." He sighed tiredly. "I just, woke up in his hide-out."
"What's the last thing you remember?" Naru asked suspiciously.
"Me and Kakashi were talking in a tree, right after our little spar." He answered. Naru used a subtle amount of chakra to read his own and was slightly surprised when she found that he was actually telling the truth.
"After coming out of hiding for a year, this was the last thing I expected." She sighed tiredly, helping the blind Uchiha sit down and grabbing him a bite to eat and some water.
Haradai wasn't sure wether or not he completely believed the guy's story, but he also knew Naru was happy to see her friend, even under these circumstances.
So he would remain the vigilante, keeping an eye on him, in case he was a threat to her safety.
"How'd you survive this long?" Naru asked after Sasuke had eaten some of the rabit stew she had made.
"I use my chakra to sense my surroundings." He answered. "It doesn't take up too much chakra, so I can keep it up all day if I want to."
"Why haven't you gone back to whatever village you come from?" Haradai asked uneasily.
"I haven't been able to find my way back." He answered sadly. "Kinda hard when you have no idea where you are."
Naru wasn't sure what she was suppossed to do now. On one hand, she'd made a promise long ago to bring Sasuke back to the village. On the other, she wasn't sure if she should now.
"Naru, what are you doing here?" She looked up, startled. "And who is the other man, I don't recognize his voice or chakra sygnature."
"This is Haradai, a friend of mine." She told him. "And as for what I'm doing in the middle of the dead lands, I was banished from Konoha."
His reaction was not what she expected. "WHAT THE FUCK!" He looked scared out of his wits. "DID THEY WANT THE UNIVERSE TO IMPLODE? THAT'S LIKE BLOWING OUT THE SUN!"
Naru was slightly impressed with the length and passion of his rant, and moved. Here she had thought he hated her, and here he was, defending her honor against the village.
Haradai had had his doubts, but after hearing what Sasuke had to say, especially about her banishment, he decided he was an okay guy.
"Sasuke, if you want I can take you back to the Land of Fire." Naru suggested later that night. "I'm certain if you explained everything, that you would be able to be a shinobi again. You say you can 'see' using chakra?" He nodded his affirmative. "Then there's no reason you can't be a shinobi there."
Sasuke was at a crossroads. On one hand, he hadn't really wanted to leave Konoha. On the other, they had banished Naru because of him, he didn't feel Konoha was worthy of his return. He didn't want to go back to the place that shunned his best friend.
All that night, he contemplated his choices, until he finally came to a decision. "Naru, would you take me back to Konoha?" He asked over breakfast. "And then, would you return to it with me?"
She hesitated before giving a response. "I'm not allowed within a mile of the Leaf village, I'm to be killed on sight. I can get you close enough to find your own way, but I can't go there myself."
"But it was because of me that you were banished, if you brought me back, wouldn't they let you back?" He asked her.
"I'm sorry Sasuke, but I have new commitments." She hadn't told him about Uzu no Sato yet. "It's gotten more complicated. I'll take you there, nothing more."
It took a month, a month of fun and jokes, but a month none-the-less, to get within three miles of the Leaf. "This is where you get off Sasuke." He'd been riding behind her because, though he could see, it was only when he was actually touching the ground so his chakra could spread out and show him what was there.
They tied their horses to a tree and spent their last few minutes together. "I'll tell everyone your alright and doing well." Sasuke assured her. "I just hope they let me say it before tossing me into a cell."
"Don't worry, all they got to do is confirm your telling the truth and your good to go!" She assured him in turn. "Just don't get yourself killed okay?"
"Deal." He turned to go but stopped almost arubtly. "Someone's coming." He announced worredly. It was actually ten someone's from the feel of it.
Naru glanced in the direction of the village that had scorned her, and tilted her head to one side in a pout. "I think I know who they are." She finally said. "But just in case, prepare for a fight."
Her weapon of choice happened to be a ninjato, a small knife about a foot long from handle to blade tip. It was a modest weapon, but in her hands could be quite deadly.
Haradai unsheathed his sword but kept a relaxed stance, subtly moving closer to his mistress in a single move. Sasuke activated his sharingan, which despite the odds, still worked.
They were ready.
Sakura didn't know what to say when she saw the friends she had been sure she would never see again. Over a year ago, one had left the village, the other banished.
And now here they both were, staring back at her with the same disbelief. Though it had only been a year, she had trained hard and gotten stronger, she was no longer the weak fangirl and was glad to see they both saw it.
The others had the same mixture of awe and disbelief on their faces as well. Even Akamaru's jaw had dropped unbelievingly.
"Naru?" She finally asked. "Sasuke?"
"Hey Sakura." Naru greeted, sheathing her blade again. "Um, I was just keeping a promise!" She pushed Sasuke in her direction. "Hear him out before locking him up okay?" She asked innocently. "He's had it pretty rough lately. And tell everyone back home I hope their doing well!"
She climbed back into the saddle of her horse, Haradai following close behind.
"Naru, where are you going!" Sakura demanded. "I'm sure if we tell them all that you brought Sasuke back, you can come back to!"
Naru sighed and turned in the saddle to face all her friends, who all gazed back into her ocean like eyes. "I've kept my promise Sakura, but I have other promises to keep."
"Wait!" Sakura called desperately. They had gone without word for over a year, not even Jaraiya had been able to find her, and now, when she was so close, she was just up and leaving again?
"Your far enough from the village that you won't be attacked, can we at least sit and talk?" She asked quietly. The others voice their opinions, urging her to stay for just a few minutes.
Naru didn't know if it was a good idea, but Sakura was right, she was far enough away to be safe, and she could leave at any time.
She wasn't sure how she could handle staying so close to her old home, but the lure of talking with her friends again was too great to ignore. With a final sigh, she jumped back down and retied her horse to the tree.
"For a little while." She allowed, motioning for them to sit by her fire.
"So where did you go after what happened?" Seemed she was more interested in Naru then Sasuke at the moment.
"For three months I traveled around, trying to find a meaning to continue my life." She admitted morosely. "I actually began to contemplate wether or not death would be preferable."
None of them could believe that Naru Uzumaki, the ball of sunshine herself, had actually thought about suicide.
"After that though, I found myself in a place called the dead lands, near a mountain range said to be cursed to swallow you and spit you out in either heaven or hell. Once there, I met an old man by the name of Pappy."
She continued telling them about the time she had spent with the old man, his death, her vow to restore his old home, and her meeting with Haradai and later Sasuke.
Kiba was the first to speak after she finished. "So Sasuke's blind now and he doesn't remember nearly killing you with a chidori?"
Sasuke paled when he heard that. "I DID WHAT NOW?" He cried. He immediatly turned to Naru. "Why didn't you tell me I did that! I could've killed you!"
"I thought it better you didn't know." She said embarassedly. "Besides, it's harder than that to kill me." She patted her stomach self conciously. "Kiba, you still have no sense of tact."
Kiba at least had the decency to appear sheepish and gave an apology, mainly because Akamaru had told him Naru had improved...a lot.
"So, how are things back in Konoha?" She asked. She hadn't realized how much she missed them all. Sakura turned her suddenly dead gaze to the ground, she wasn't looking forward to this.
"Naru, the Leaf has fallen." She told Naru about Danzo's rise to power a month after she vanished, the war they had started with Iwa and won, and about the new laws that made even breathing in Danzo's direction an offense punishable by ten years in prison.
She told how many of their old senseis who had refused to give up the third's teachings had gone into hiding and now lead a hidden rebellion. Finally, she told of the sannin's departure after being disgusted by what their village had become.
Hearing all these terrible things, Naru's heart ached, wishing she knew how to help them. "What about you, do you still believe in the Will of Fire?" She asked finally, afraid of the answer.
"Remember what Kakashi said?" Sakura asked in turn. "Those who do not follow the rules are trash,..." Naru mentally finished the sentence, realizing Sakura didn't want to say anything in case they had unwanted guests.
"Naru-san, it has come to my attention that you have grown stronger." Shino stated quietly. "You also seem to have matured mentally as well."
"Yes, I suppose I have." She said with a small, almost apologetic smile. Her foxy grin suddenly took it's place though. "Then again, despite the bad part of the news, it makes me happy!"
"Why?" Shikamaru asked. Sometimes he hated how the one thing he couldn't figure out was Naru Uzumaki. But then he would counter himself saying he loved a challenge and she was his best one.
"Because it proves life without me is awful!" She said victoriously, pumping a fist in the air. "I'm awesome!"
They sweatdropped.
In the shadows, Danzo watched with his usual conniving look. So Naru truly has found the ancient city of Uzu no Sato. It will make a wondrous base once I, 'convince' her to join me.
With the next breeze, he vanished, as though he'd never been there at all. And to the many old friends sitting in the clearing, he never had been.
After another hour of reminicing and joking and tomfoolery, the group finally prepared to depart. "Don't get into any more trouble, got it Teme?" Naru joked, punching him playfully on the shoulder.
"I think I've had enough of that." He assured her. He wouldn't be rejoining as a shinobi, but joining the resistance in their secret HQ, which Sakura had subtly told him through code on a piece of paper with ink infused with chakra.
"Take care of yourself out there!" Neji told her.
"Yeah, yeah!" She brushed him off easily. "Go on home, oh fated one!"
"Do not allow your YOUTHFULNESS to dim, Naru-chan!" Lee warned her. "If it does, I shall run a hundred YOUTHFUL laps around the Leaf village!"
"Right." Naru said hesitantly. Her youthful-ese was a little rusty, so it sounded like he was telling her to eat mud or run laps.
Haradai noticed Naru's sullen expression as they rode farther and farther from her home village. He wished she would be happy again, but he knew she was only sad that the visit was so short and that she couldn't see the village itself.
As they rode to a nearby village, he pondered on what he thought his life would entail now.
He would serve his mistress however she wished him to, be it to protect her from vagabonds and ninja, or to simply providing a shoulder for her tears, he would be there.
He now wished only that he could make her dream a reality, and vowed to do everything in his power to bring the village Uzu no Sato back to life, whatever it took.
As for Naru herself, she faced the Sunset with passionate blue eyes. While many saw being banished, an end, she found it to be a new beginning, a new start, a new life entirely.
And just like everything else she did, she would put everything she had into it. So she asked herself once more, what did she have?
A will. A friend. A dream. A gift. A soul. A heart. A mind. A body. She had many things, and these would all aid her in her goal.
The goal, to rebuild Uzu no Sato!
~~~~~~~~~~~ A week later.
~~~~~~~~~~~
The duo was now riding through the land of wind, taking a short cut back to the dead lands. "Haradai, you said that your sword once belonged to your master, would you tell me about him?" Frankly Naru was bored out of her mind and there was nothing to see besides sand, sand, dust, and sand.
Haraidai was surprised by the question, but answered nonetheless. "His name was Takemaru, and he was a great man. He found me as an orphaned child and took me in and trained me. He was killed by the same tyrant you in turn defeated. I swore to him I would live on in his memory."
Naru nodded. She liked the sound of this man, he sounded like a good man.
By the time the Sun had set, the two had finally arrived at Sunagakure. "Why did you lead us here, Naru-sama?" Haraidai asked curiously.
"I have old friends here who I believe I have neglected for long enough." She answered vaugely. They entered without being detected and made their way to the compound where the Sabaku family lived in comfort together.
"Alright, let's give Gaara a surprise." She whispered to her companion deviously.
Slowly, oh so carefully, they snuck into Gaara's room, which thankfully, he was not in at the time.
It wasn't long before all three Subaku siblings barged in the door, having been alerted by a silent alarm that there was an intruder in their house.
They couldn't believe their eyes when they saw Naru Uzumaki sitting on Gaara's body with a mysterious boy, grinning her trademark fox smirk at them.
"Yo Gaara!" She greeted him happily. "So how have you been?" Gaara had to fight the urge to slap his face. She had snuck into his bedroom and asked him how he had been?
"You really are the number one most unpredictable ninja." He sighed, calling his sand back into the guard on his back.
"Naru, what are you doing in Gaara's room with a strange boy?" Kankuro asked, wondering if the guy was her boyfriend or something.
Of course they knew Naru had been banished, they'd have to, considering it had taken everything they had to hold Gaara back from destroying the Leaf village right after.
"I thought I'd pop in for a little visit!" She pouted defensively. "And the strange boy, as you put it, is my new friend Haradai."
After they had finished speaking, Temari set up a room for Naru and Haradai to stay in for the remainder of their visit.
Naru lay in her bed thinking about what her next move would be. 'Definetely going to start looking for people like me first. People without anyone precious in their lives. I'll offer them sanctuary in Uzu no Sato.'
She slept with this peaceful thought, dreaming of the future she hoped to create for the outcasts of the world. Her own little utopia to share with whomever she wished.
~~STORY BREAK~~~~~~~ LC; YATTA! I'm done!
Naruto; Why do you take so long for one chapter?
LC; Cause I can't reel in my plot bunnies so I keep starting new stories.
Sasuke; You need some self control.
LC; HEY! You ran off to be with a pedo vamp! You have no room to lecture me!
Naruto; She's got a point ya know.
Sasuke;...F YOU!
