His gaze swept across the streets below him, barely tracing the features of each and every person that walked through the afternoon sun. Hungry eyes yearned for sharper angles than the ones they were given. They spared only glances at the people below, knowing that none of them would fit the written bill for onyx on silken white.

Naruto stared passively over the tops of the village buildings, elbows and arms hanging limply off his knees, back hunched. Exhaustion began to sweep his mind, the sun now setting beyond the gates. How long had he been up there, atop the 4th Hokage's statue? He didn't know, but his fading chakra told him that it had been long enough- no, it was never long enough.

Back cracking as he stood, the young ninja started on to the village, channeling chakra into his feet to aid in his journey. He found it hard to concentrate though, speed wandering, as his heart was not with him at that moment, nor had it been for weeks. As he slowed, villagers began to take notice of his presence as well as his unsettling demeanor. Naruto had been gone for a long time- they could all see that. What was left was simply an empty shell, left searching, wandering aimlessly, for the other half that would once again bring Naruto home.

The floor of the apartment was cold and saturated with dust and stains. Clothes were thrown haphazardly across chairs and the foot of the bed, plenty of other knick knacks taking up all space on the floor. Never the less, Naruto flopped uncharacteristically onto his bed, landing face first.

It felt as if there was a large weight pressing into his back, pushing all of the air out of his lungs. There was nothing left in him to lift the weight, to ease his own pain. It had all been taken away those many weeks ago – however short it actually had been, it felt like it had been both yesterday and years ago.

There was animals, mulling through Naruto's mind, alone inside him without Kurama to keep a watchful eye out. Caspian blue eyes looked to the side, unblinking as they reveled in their loneliness. The stampede never stopped, keeping a quick pace, causing his heart to race at the speed of lightening and a sickening feeling to take rest in his stomach – it had been there for a while now.

Death felt like a better option at that moment, the pain that was living in his soul too much to bear. It seemed that wasn't an option though, the ANBU whispered to him wordlessly through their watchful position outside his window. He didn't know how long they had been there – at least three weeks; that was when he noticed them. It was too much to consider why they might be there – someone was obviously concerned enough to assign them the mission. Were they afraid he would go rogue? Run amuck again? Concern for health never crossed the young man's mind.

Depression continued to crush his bones as Naruto stirred for the first time in hours, turning onto his back. His stomach was twisting even more – when was the last time he had eaten? Really, it was too much of a bother to even try. The ceiling was much more interesting, like pebbles in a creek, water moved through them in his imagination, catching the colors of the stones and running brown and silver.

Outside, the night became bitter and cold, rain pelting at the windows. Naruto's head snapped in that direction, eyes catching the picture perfect image of water hitting the panes of glass. You could almost hold the individual droplets in your hands, they were so real. They were just within reach to the man, but yet it was like grasping at smoke.

Like reaching for Sasuke in the darkness of night.

Pain began to stab at his chest again and a stray tear rolled down his cheek losing itself amongst the others that soon followed, resting on the blankets.

"Can I invite myself back inside." A voice growled from somewhere deep in the pit of Naruto's heart.

"Bring him back…" Naruto clutched at the sides of his head, grabbing onto his hair in clumps. It was dirty, mangled with sweat and tears and too many other things to distinguish.

"You go looking, if you are so desperate."

Dead.

The word rang over and over again in his head. No, he couldn't go looking for Sasuke because he was DEAD. He wasn't coming back, and that thought just made the pain all the more worse. Like adding salt to a wound, everything began to sting, like when the cut was fresh and he was falling to pieces just outside the Hokage's door. There was no going back to that – no embarrassing loss of self, although the ANBU had probably seen much worse since then, he thought.

Oh yes, they had. The broken glass in the living room said as much, remnants of a late night fit of either rage or sadness- it was hard to tell the two apart sometimes. Blood had trickled from his hands that night, raw with distress and the calluses only served as a reminder of what that pain had felt like, in his heart not his hands.

Yet there seemed to be a nagging, somewhere in the back of his mind. Why else had he spent so long atop his father's head, than to continue his search for his companion? Such a befitting word – not quite friend, not quite comrade, not quite…something else. Somewhere in between, just like the place that Sasuke held in him, just not quite as big as the piece he had taken.

The aching of his heart never seemed to stop these days, and sometimes, Naruto found that is was best to wash his hands of the memories.

He stood, walking towards his door, sliding on his sandals. Not sure where he was going, Naruto stood like a fool in front of his apartment, looking either way down the crowded street. He was vaguely aware of the pitying glances that people were casting in his direction.

There was an empty bench waiting for him just inside the dango shop. Its cloth doors fluttered when he entered, catching on the breeze outside and he took a seat. Save for himself, the shop was almost empty, not quite late enough, quite past early.

Naruto didn't really want to order anything, the anxiety sending his body into a spiral having long since gotten rid of that need. Suddenly, his heart seemed to move from his stomach into his lungs, squeezing the air from his body in a last ditch attempt for him to join his comrade.

Shikamaru blew smoke away from his face this time, having read the look of pure terror on Naruto's face.

"You should see some people." There was no response from the young blonde man as he said this, too lost in his own head to hear anyone at the moment. In his mind, there were warm hands that were calloused from wrist to fingertip, a man faster than the wind itself that swung through Naruto's soul with such blinding passion, he couldn't help but marvel.

Shikamaru sighed.

"You gonna talk, idiot?"

"No." Naruto's voice was uncharacteristically dead pan. The only time that Shikamaru had ever heard this voice was in the middle of combat when the other was trying and failing, despite all his strength, to suppress the Ninetails. Given, it had been years since that voice came to realization.

Sighing, Shikamaru leaned back in his seat, a cigarette hanging loosely from his fingers.

"I remember the day we lost Asuma." He shuddered at the memory. "It was like losing a best friend and something more, ya know?

"Ya…" Naruto closed his eyes, knowing full well which direction this conversation was headed.

"He was a lot more than my sensei. I loved him too."

Tears began to well at the corners of Naruto's eyes before plinking delicately to the table. It was a balancing act of containing his grief, not only for himself, but for his friend, who, he knew, was also at a loss for words, spewing his secrets like casual chatter.

Shikamaru too was fighting emotion, blinking back the deftly coming, choked sobs.

"There isn't a day I don't miss him."

"If you are trying to cheer me up, this isn't going to help."

"I got you talking though, didn't I?"

The blonde man stared intently at his hands – he couldn't argue with that. Hysteria began to settle in his stomach, reaching for the corners of his eyes with wet, clawing hands.

"Your sadness – " Naruto choked on his words, stopping to swallow the rising stomach acid. He sniffed. "It hurts, ya know?" Losing the ever fighting battle, tears began to flow down Naruto's cheeks in rivers. "Will I always hurt this much?" He wiped his eyes with his sleeves, feeling the dampness on his upper arm.

"Chose your poison." Shikamaru said, offering a cigarette to his friend. Naruto shook his head, pushing the idea away. Someday though, he imagined that he would end up falling victim to some sort of soothing method. For him, he though, that might be the chase.

"I wanna kill those bastards."

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." Shikamaru took a drag from his lit cigarette, blowing smoke towards the sky and watching it dissipate – scatter itself in the wind. "Remember what happened last time someone went out of their way for revenge?"

It was a rhetorical question. Never the less, Naruto knew the answer, and it swam in his head day in and day out.

"I'm not looking for revenge. I'm looking for vengeance." His voice drifted off into the wind as well, fading into the night as he stood from the bench and walked towards the street, leaving Shikamaru in his wake. The forest was calling him – it breathed his name into the air.

Naruto.

It beckoned him closer, begging for him to become one with it once again.

Meditation; that was what he needed to clear his mind. No amount of training or waiting around and mourning was going to sooth his eagerly awaiting mind like emptying it completely of any and all relevant matter.

Naruto settled into the grass, feeling the prickling of every individual blade on his legs, through his pants. He felt the earth beneath him, damp and cold, and all the creatures that lived within it.

Tears began to fall even more freely then, as a picture perfect image of an older Sasuke came into mind. His hair was long, flowing in the breeze, and his shirt was open. His skin was scared but flawless and nothing could change Naruto's mind on that. There was a look of pain on the Uchiha's face, like having been homesick for far too long, or saying good bye to a best friend.

Naruto knew what this was. This was the final goodbye.

Letting go, it seemed, would be even more painful than mourning. Even in his mind, he was reaching for his friend – his companion. There was never ending darkness under his eyes – so many sleepless nights seemed to live there. But Sasuke didn't leave. He remained a solid figure before Naruto, who grasped helplessly at the air, trying to get closer. He was held at a distance though, never close enough to touch, just enough so that he could make out the scored skin of Sasuke's bare chest.

Naruto opened his eyes, having heard his own sobbing despite his entranced state. His face was wet, dripping onto his pants and the ground below. Flowers had sprung up around him and died soon thereafter, squelched by his overpowering grief. It was like a dream, it seemed. He could have looked at that face for an eternity, crying himself sick and breathing in the sweet air of silence and death and everything that Sasuke meant to him.

Reminding himself to breath, Naruto let out a shaky gasp when he felt, deep inside himself, a hand reach for his heart. Like it was being squeezed, indescribable pain was sent in a shock wave through his system, breaking his composure. Naruto screamed into the forest, sending deer running for cover as the overpowering chakra began to crush down onto the land.

Shikamaru was close enough to hear the distressed call through the trees. He tsked to himself, smashing his cigarette into the ground and pulling out another one. The pain, he knew, must be unimaginable, yet he knew as well as anyone else that there was nothing that could be done. It would be unfortunate, should the nine tails be released – he thought. But even more so, it would be soul crushing if Naruto were to follow.

"He is already half way there."