Goodbye
"Are you guys ready?" Yamato Sensei asked as we prepared for yet another mission.
"Yes Sensei!" Sakura beamed, nodding her head once.
Sai nodded in silence and picked up his bag, being ready to go for the past ten minutes.
"Has anyone seen, Naruto?" Yamato asked, looking around for him.
"I'm here," I said glumly, leaning against a tree. "I'm ready."
I slowly started walking before everyone else did. Ever since Sasuke left and the dreams began, I've dead inside. Receiving missions, training, and everything else the old Naruto loved in life never got a response from me other than sadness and dullness. The Naruto everybody knew was buried deep within the empty void of his conscience.
Sakura sighed. "He's been like this ever since he's been having those dreams, and lately he's been having them more than usual," she whispered to Yamato and Sai, thinking I was out of hearing range as they followed behind me. "Has he told you guys what they're about?"
They both shook their heads.
"I think one of us needs to talk to him. This is getting way out of line," Yamato said and the others nodded.
"He hasn't acted like himself for at least a year. To tell you the truth, I'm starting to miss the annoying side of him. The one who use to get too excited for receiving a mission, always energetic to train and learn something new, the guy who would never turn down a bowl of ramen. He's not Naruto anymore. He's just a shell."
"Maybe Lady Tsunade can help," Sai suggested.
"I'll ask her when we get back from the mission, but I wouldn't count on it. This is something Naruto needs to figure out on his own," Yamato said.
We continued walking towards our designation. Our mission was pretty simple: go to the Land of Tea and deliver a top secret package to the leader, although there has been reports of thieves in the area plotting on trying to steal it and it's our job to ensure the package's safety.
"We should set up camp here," Yamato said a while late, stopping and putting down his pack.
We nodded and stopped, putting our packs down also.
"I'll go get some water," Sai volunteered.
"And I'll help put up camp," Sakura said.
Yamato nodded.
"The shell that is Naruto will go gather some firewood," I said in a dull, quiet voice. "You know, when you talk about someone, you should really make sure the person you're talking about cannot hear you." Without waiting for a response or an apology, I walked into the forest, looking for firewood.
They sighed.
"I didn't know he could hear us," Sakura said lowly, feeling bad. "I think we hurt him… more."
"We can't worry about that now. We need to set up camp before it gets dark," Yamato said.
Sai and Sakura both nodded and got to work.
"If only they knew how bad it was for me right now… but I can't tell them… What would they think…?" I sighed and continued to gather wood.
Before long, I gathered enough wood for the night and walked back to camp.
"Here," I said, dropping the wood beside the fire pit.
They all stared at me with cautious eyes, trying to see if they saw hurt in my features. I looked at them and stared. "What?"
"Naruto, we're sorry about what we said… We didn't mean nothing by it," Sakura apologized, frowning.
"Don't worry about it," I said, trying to smile. This caused them all to frown, obviously they saw through the forced smile.
"Naruto, do you… want to tell us what the dreams are about?"
"I can't," I said lowly, looking at the ground. "I know you guys must be thinking I'm losing my mind, letting a stupid dream have control over me like this, but it's more than that. I just can't talk about it… please."
"Naruto, we're your friends, you can tell us…"
"Sakura, I can't," I said a little more sternly while staring at Yamato making the fire, trying to close the topic.
"Come on! It's not like we're going to resent you for what it is!"
A low growl formed in my throat as I turned my gaze towards Sakura, glaring. "I told you it's not for discussion!" I yelled angrily.
Before they could say anything else, I stood up and walked back into the forest towards the sound of running water to get away. When I got there, I quickly shrugged off my clothes and slowly got into the cool water.
"Why do I love that bastard…?" I said quietly to myself, staring at my reflection in the water. "You think he loves you back?"
I slowly closed my eyes, trying to relax and clear my mind. Before I realized it, I fell asleep and like almost every night, I started dreaming… about Sasuke… the one where I'm actually happy. When the ending came, I quickly woke up, but at the same time dunked underneath the water, disabling me from getting up. Someone was trying to drown me.
I flailed my arms, confused, trying to do everything I could to get back to the surface.
"I'm going to die…"
When I thought I was definitely going to die, I felt the pressure on the top of my head disappear and I was quickly pulled from the water. After coughing up about a gallon of water, I looked up to see a blurry figure slowly coming into focus.
"S… Sas…" I stammered, not able to say the word.
"Naruto!" I heard yelling in the distance.
I looked in the direction of my name being called then looked back to look back at Sasuke, but as soon as he appeared, he was gone. My eyes widened slightly.
"W… was he really here…?"
"Naruto! What happened!" Yamato asked urgently, squatting by my side.
"S… Sasuke… was here," I said, breathless and still confused about the encounter.
Everyone's eyes widened.
"Team, fan out and search the area," Yamato said quickly.
Sai and Sakura both nodded quickly and disappeared.
"S… someone tried drowning me… S-Sasuke saved me…" I stuttered.
"He had to be here…"
"Naruto… did you see who it was that tried drowning you?" he asked while helping me up.
"No…" I said lowly, just now realizing I had no clothes on. Pink tinted my cheeks as I quickly threw on my clothes.
"I'm going try and track them. Stay here until we get back. With that said, he quickly disappeared into the treetops.
Ignoring his request, I quickly ran off too, in search for Sasuke.
"Sasuke!" I yelled, looking around desperately. "I know you're here, bastard! Where are you!"
I concentrated, trying to feel any signs of his chakra. After searching for over half an hour, nothing. I'm this close to him and I'm not going to let him go! I continued searching until I collapsed to my knees from exhaustion and panting for air.
"S-Sasuke…"
I closed my eyes for a moment, hoping to open them and see him, like I did earlier.
"I want to see you… I want to touch you, so I know that you're real…"
"Naruto…" I heard a familiar voice say. I quickly opened my eyes and saw him.
"Sasuke…"
He slowly walked closer to me and stopped a few feet in front of me, staring.
"Wh… why are you here?" I asked.
"You don't want me to be? I'll take my leave, then." He smirked and turned around, staring to walk off.
"Why show yourself to me like this if you're just going to leave again?" I asked, looking at the ground with my eyes closed, not moving.
His smirk faded and stopped walking. Slowly, he turned and stared at me. "I have my reasons."
"Then tell me," I said, looking up at him. I stayed quiet for a long moment, taking in the site of the aged Uchiha. "The only person I could actually call a friend left the village and breaks me every time we meet one another and I try bringing him home, but every time we encounter one another, it ends in battle and with him disappearing again. And now you think you can just walk up to me, say a few words and leave again? Why did you come? Did you finally decide to come back to finish what you started?" I quickly stood up and walked over to him until I was about an inch from his face. "You have no idea how much pain you've caused me when you left and it's that much harder for me with every encounter. Because I try keeping my promise to you and everybody else, I'm broken."
Sasuke stared me in the eye for a long while before speaking. "It's your fault for making promises you can't keep."
I started to yell at him, but stopped myself. Instead, I laughed humorlessly. "I honestly don't know why I fell in love with you."
Sasuke's eyes widened at the confession and stared in shock, speechless.
"The reason I've chased after you all this time is because when I believe in something, I don't give up on it, despite how difficult it is. The innocent and young Naruto use to believe in fairytales. Sometimes, trying isn't good enough. It doesn't matter how much I try, I can never have the one thing I've tried so hard to fulfill, can I?"
Sasuke stared deep into my eyes and watched a lone tear slowly fall down my cheek. "A dream is just a fantasy. No matter how hard you try to make it a reality, there will always be those missing pieces that prevent them from being real. Nothing is ever perfect."
"If you believe that then why the hell did you leave? Do you think getting your revenge is going to be perfect for you? You kill your brother, then what? It's not going to bring your family back." I glared at him.
"You shouldn't talk about things you don't know about," Sasuke warned, glaring back at me.
"And you think you know my problems? The promises I made? You talk about dreams, but have you ever truly had one yourself to know from experience?"
"There's no need believing in the perfection that doesn't exist!"
"Believing in something is what pushes you to try making your dreams a reality! If you don't believe that, then what the hell do you plan on accomplishing from killing the last family you have?"
"A piece of mind!" Sasuke glared even more, right in my face. "Knowing I've ended the bastard who destroyed my life is all I need."
A dead silence fell over the both of us as we stared at one another, calming down.
"What about the family you have now Sasuke? What about them? You drive them away with your blood lust for revenge to avenge your family that's already gone. Sometimes you have to make the best with what you've got." I stared him deep in his eyes, trying to trace any sense of emotion at all.
"Then why haven't you given up on me?" Sasuke huffed.
"Because you're still here."
Sasuke grew quiet for a long time after that, thinking about what I had said. He walked over to me, stopping in front of me. Slowly, he raised his hand and touched my cheek.I quickly shrugged away, staring off to the side. Everything right now was becoming almost too much to bear. My mind had already been on the edge and I was going to fall completely before Sasuke had left.
"Naruto…"
"I want you to leave," I said quickly and held my breath. I closed my eyes and didn't dare to look at him again.
Sasuke froze and took a sharp intake of air.
"I want you to leave… and never come back. I want to stop hurting." A few tears fell down my cheek but didn't make an effort to wipe them away.
"Is that what you want?" Sasuke whispered. I couldn't tell what emotions were going through Sasuke, but I wasn't going to open my eyes to look.
"If you're not going to come home, then I want you to stop showing your bastard face to me. I can't live with the suffering you cause me."
For what seemed like five minutes, we both stood there, frozen.
"Then I guess… this is goodbye," Sasuke said, breaking the ice. "Naruto Uzumaki… I'm sorry." He bowed slightly and disappeared into the treetops.
"Goodbye… Sasuke."
Finally I opened my eyes and stared at the ground in front of me, tears flowing more freely now. Sasuke was now gone… for good. Everything said in our last conversation together was the end. Sasuke was gone and now the only thing I could do is try to move on. I had to move on, but one question remained… could I?
