/~/~
Title: New Wind Nation: Alliance
Chapter 3: Lair of the Snake ~ Deep Breathing (part 2)
Notes: Hmm, I guess the first chapter of a story always receives far more reviews than the second. Or maybe everyone hated the second chapter. Who knows?
/~/~
Sasuke glared. Naruto glared back.
"Why are you here?!" Naruto demanded, snapping first and pointing accusingly at the other genin.
"Isn't it obvious, idiot? I'm here to question the only person to return after being spirited away," Sasuke snapped.
"Are you following me?! That's it, isn't it!" Naruto accused. "I won't let you take the lead! I'll find out first!"
"I'm not following you! I investigated and found out about her. It wasn't even hard!" Sasuke hissed.
Admittedly, it had taken some persistent questioning, since the locals were reluctant to discuss those incidents at all, but after the better part of another day, Sasuke had learned that one person had returned from among those that disappeared - a girl, who now lived alone on the far side of the island.
Naruto had actually found out about her faster, being more stubborn and refusing to take no for an answer, but he had instead gotten lost along the way.
Not breaking their locked glares, Naruto and Sasuke moved toward the small house near the water - their steps in sync. Once in front of the door, they raised their hands as one and knocked simultaneously. "Excuse me! Is anyone home? I'd like to ask you a few questions!" they both called out.
Matching each other just made them even angrier, and they continued to glare, while still knocking against the flimsy wood of the worn door, until it suddenly slipped open a crack.
A single dark eye peered out through the narrow gap. "...What do you want?" the girl on the other side of the door asked quietly.
Naruto reacted first, ducking around Sasuke and blocking him from view. "You're Isaribi, right? I wanted to ask you about what happened ten years ago…"
The girl's eye widened, and she gasped quietly, a short, startled breath. "Go away!" Isaribi exclaimed. She tried to slam the door shut, only to find it jammed by a kunai Sasuke had stuck into the doorjamb.
Shoving Naruto aside, he ripped the door open - on the other side, Isaribi scrambled back in surprise. Unconcerned by her reaction, Sasuke stepped inside and advanced slowly. "You are the only person who returned after disappearing. Tell me everything that occurred," he ordered.
Isaribi had tripped, falling to the floor but still scrambling back like a crab. She glared at Sasuke, though her expression was tinged with fear. "Just leave me alone!" she yelled, shifting into a defensive crouch. "I don't know anything!"
"I think you do," Sasuke said coldly. Grasping the kunai he had stuck into the doorjamb, he pulled it free and spun it menacingly. "And you better tell me."
Under his piercing glare, Isaribi was forced to look away. She hunched, curling in on herself protectively. Her eyes darted around, looking everywhere except Sasuke. "I don't remember anything," she insisted, though rather weakly, and even Naruto could see she wasn't telling the truth. "Just leave me alone…"
Sasuke took another step forward, ready to continue pressing her, but Naruto cut him off. "Oi," he said sharply, clamping a restraining hand down on his shoulder, "back off. Can't you see she doesn't want to talk?"
The other genin's frigid look was turned on Naruto instead. "So what?" Sasuke snapped. "It doesn't matter if she doesn't want to. We need that information."
"Don't be such a jerk!" Naruto berated him. "Think about how other people feel a little! Some things... it hurts to talk about. Don't you have stuff like that too?"
For Naruto, that meant first and foremost Kushina and her pained expression the few times she had spoken of her life before their nomadic existence. Where Hidden Eddy Village was concerned, Kushina had at least been able to lay those ghosts to rest, and she spoke of her clan and ancestral home with a melancholy, bittersweet remembrance. The ache of those memories had at least dulled somewhat.
But Hidden Leaf? Naruto suspected Kushina had only forced herself to talk about it for his sake, feeling he needed to know the full truth of his origins, and it had always been with great difficulty. She had only been able mention Naruto's father by name twice.
Sasuke continued to glare, jerking his shoulder out of Naruto's grip, but his look had taken on a different edge and he didn't try to interrogate Isaribi again. "Everyone has their own circumstances. You're not the only one with problems," Naruto added, more quietly. Maybe it was his own selfishness, but he rather thought his own reasons for gathering information were more pressing than Sasuke's.
Judging by the cold look he shot back, Sasuke didn't agree.
During their argument, Isaribi had continued to edge away. Her hand groped along the rough floor and finally closed around a loose stone. As the two boys fell silent in another standoff, she drew her arm back and hurled the rock at them.
"Get out! Just go away!" Isaribi yelled.
Her aim was off, but Naruto ducked instinctively. As Isaribi picked up and blindly threw the next closest thing - an empty seashell - he yelped and backpedaled toward the door, dragging Sasuke with him. The two continued to retreat under a barrage of stones, shells and other objects until they managed to duck out the open door and around to hide behind the wall. Finally, Isaribi let up, though Naruto could faintly hear her heavy, fast breathing beyond the thin walls.
"This is your fault!" Naruto hissed to Sasuke. "It's because you broke into her house!"
"I didn't-!" Sasuke tried to protest, only to realize that he kind of had. He had gotten too caught up in proving he was better at gathering information, and acted rashly.
Realizing his own mistake, and the fact that he was again letting himself get riled, Sasuke just got angrier. With a disgruntled sound, he turned on his heel and began to stalk away. "Fine," Sasuke hissed over his shoulder. "Do whatever you want! This lead's a dead end anyway."
'Whatever! I'll find the next one before he does,' Sasuke thought. 'It's not as if this is the only information source...'
/~/~
Naruto stared after him in surprise for a moment, before shaking his head and turning back to the house. 'I didn't say you shouldn't ask at all,' he thought. 'Just ask a little nicer!' Edging back to the open the door, Naruto peeked around the doorjamb into the house. He immediately had to duck back to avoid the piece of wood Isaribi sent flying at his face.
"Go away!" Isaribi yelled, though her tone was beginning to sound strained, like she was swallowing back tears.
"I'm sorry! I'm really sorry!" Naruto shouted back, not daring to show his face again. He didn't want to find out how long it would take for her to run out of ammunition. "I'm sorry we bothered you, Isaribi-neechan!"
Isaribi was silent for a long moment before she asked, more calmly, "How do you know my name?"
"One of the fishermen down by the harbor told me," Naruto replied, his tone light.
But it hadn't been that simple. All the locals were pretty reticent about the incidents ten years ago and about the girl who returned even more so. They kept talking about "that one" and the "cursed one." It reminded Naruto a little too much of the way people in Hidden Sand had talked about Gaara, when Naruto tried to ask around about him after they ended up on the same team.
So Naruto had ended up losing his temper and yelling at them to call her by name.
Judging by Isaribi's silence, she knew perfectly well how much he was leaving out.
"...Please leave," Isaribi repeated finally. "I can't tell you anything."
"Okay. I understand," Naruto replied, sighing. "But if you think of anything, please let me know. I'm staying in town here on the island. It's… it's really important, for my village…"
There was no reply, and after several long moments, Naruto pushed away from the wall he had been leaning against and began to make his way back toward the path. Kaze stood waiting there, leaning against a boulder with the same stoic expression as always - Naruto made a face at him on principle, which turned into a scowl as the man sneered back.
"A waste of time, I see," he said, in tone that made it clear he had expected nothing better.
"How would you know? Maybe she told me everything!" Naruto protested.
"I heard her yelling from here," Kaze said flatly. "And I heard the Leaf boy muttering when he walked by." Though he had concealed his presence from Sasuke, more out of habit than any real necessity.
He had also observed the entire exchange using his Third Eye jutsu, but he preferred to avoid revealing his abilities to Naruto. His Gold Dust techniques were rather distinctive, and even Naruto might very well recognize them. He didn't want to deal with whatever brash, loud reaction Naruto would have to that knowledge.
Naruto ground his teeth and glared, but before he could say anything, both shinobi glanced down the path - noticing several approaching presences. Clicking his tongue irritably, Kaze ducked out of sight, his presence disappearing even from Naruto's perception.
After one last glare in his general direction, Naruto turned to watch as several local kids rounded the bend in the narrow dirt path that led from the town to near Isaribi's home. They fell silent for a moment when they caught sight of Naruto, then broke out in loud whispers among themselves, all staring at him sideways.
"What?!" Naruto demanded. "You got a problem?"
The kids exchanged glances, and one of them finally stepped forward, apparently elected as the speaker. "Hey, did you see it?" the boy asked. "Did you see the monster? What's it like?"
"Monster? What monster?" Naruto repeated, his face screwing up in confusion. "There's a monster around here?" That sounded potentially useful.
"That monster!" the boy said, gesturing back the way Naruto had come. "You know… My parents told me a monster lives over there!"
A monster lived over there. Slowly, Naruto turned to look over his shoulder. All he could see was Isaribi's decrepit shack of a house. Now that he was no longer preoccupied with Sasuke, Naruto noticed the graffiti scrawled along the front and the broken windows. It didn't look like a fit place for anyone, much less a single girl, to live. "Demon!" one of the scribbles read, "Go away!"
Why was it, exactly, that Isaribi had been covered in bandages?
Something in Naruto snapped.
"You stupid brat!" he barked, making the children flinch. "Isaribi isn't a monster! She's a person like you and me!"
"B-but my mom said…" one of the children tried to protest.
"What do you have a head for?! Think for yourself!" Naruto roared. "Now get outta here! And don't come back until you learn how to treat other people properly!"
He watched them flee without any satisfaction. When Kaze stepped back out onto the path, smoothly and without a sound, Naruto was too angry to wait for him to say anything.
"What's wrong with you people?" he demanded, rounding on Kaze. "Everyone in Hidden Sand was like that to Gaara too! Why does everyone keep acting like this? What gives you the right to just decide that someone's not, not worth seeing as human? How can you do that?!"
Kaze's surprise at the sudden verbal attack lasted only a split second, before he shot back a frigid glare. "Don't act like Gaara is an innocent victim," he snapped. "Do you know how many of our shinobi, how many civilians he killed? He was treated like a monster because he acted like one!"
"Don't act like Gaara isn't a victim!" Naruto yelled. "He had to hold back that thing all alone, even when he was a kid! That thing…" He swallowed heavily, remembering the terrifying pressure of Shukaku's presence. Even just a few moments before it had been enough to make Naruto fear its power. "No one helped him! No one showed him how! No one even… no one even held his hand and stood beside him…"
To Naruto, Gaara was always strong and reliable, the one who never wavered on missions, was never overwhelmed, and even had enough power to protect Naruto. In Naruto's mind, if anyone was strong enough to overcome even a biju, it was Gaara - he had proven that too, when he took back control when Shukaku began to rampage in the Land of Rivers.
But even Gaara had been just a kid once. Naruto knew that the things that he could do now, as a shinobi, had been impossible for him as a child. Even if he could fight bandits and use cool jutsus now, he had been helpless and reliant on his mother's protection once. Kushina had always stood beside Naruto, always done everything she could to support him, and even her last thoughts were of him.
Gaara hadn't had anyone like that. Temari had admitted that, while she cared for her brother, she had never had the courage to approach him. Kankuro was so terrified any concern he might have had was eclipsed. The Kazekage… well, there wasn't anything to say there.
Gaara had no one.
'He has me now,' Naruto thought stubbornly. 'I'm doing this for Gaara too, for the entire village. I'll protect them my own way!'
"Gaara was scary, before," Naruto admitted quietly. "But that doesn't make it right. No one had any right to expect him to be able to handle it so easily. In the end, Gaara was able to become strong enough to control it. So I won't let anyone treat him like before!"
He glared at Kaze as if expecting him to object. But the jonin only pursed his lips, his thoughts obscured.
"He became strong enough because of you… is what you're saying," Kaze surmised.
"W-well…" Naruto stammered, flushing. He previous fierce look was quickly lost. "That's not what I'm saying! I mean… it's not like that. It's not because it was me or because of anything I did. It's like… Our bond gave Gaara strength. People become truly strong for the sake of others, with the support of others. That's… uh..."
'People become truly strong for the sake of others, with the support of others. That's love!' Kushina had always said. Naruto could easily imagine her beaming smile as she repeated it.
But he couldn't say that! "Love" was so… so sappy!
"Love, is it?" Kaze mused, making Naruto jump and flush. He hadn't read the boy's thoughts - he was simply remembering what Kushina had told him. "Does it truly hold such great value?"
'The vessel must first be filled with love. That matters more than any seal,' Kushina had said.
"What else would you live for?" Naruto asked, turning to him with a confused look. "It's for the stuff you love, right? And for your precious people."
"You're a shinobi. You exist for the village," Kaze said, frowning.
"Yeah, because I love our village. It's my home," Naruto replied. "If I didn't love the village, I wouldn't be a Sand shinobi in the first place. It's the same for you, right? You're a jonin, so you must love the village a lot. Otherwise, you wouldn't have trained so hard to get that strong."
'Such simplistic reasoning… He's just a child,' Kaze thought, closing his eyes. And yet, Naruto wasn't wrong. Everything that he had done for the village, all of it stemmed from the love he held for it and the wish to protect it. 'And the thing Gaara loves, which became his impetus for truly controlling Shukaku, is...'
"I love our village," Naruto repeated, "and people in it - Gaara, and Temari-sempai, Baki-sensei, even stupid Kankuro. That's why I have to convince the Kazekage to call off that plan. If we go through with it, there's no telling how many people will die! I don't want that! What if my friends get hurt? What if the village is destroyed? I don't want us to go to war!"
"...No one does," Kaze said quietly. As the Kazekage, he could never admit it, but as just an unknown jonin, he could finally say it. "No one wants war, not even the Kazekage. But there's no other way. The village is dying. We have to win back our prestige and gain more contracts… This is the nature of shinobi. We exist to fight. And fighting each other… that means war."
"That's stupid," Naruto muttered. Puffing up a little, he recited meaningfully, "If that's what a shinobi is, then I'll change it. I'll find a new way of being a shinobi. I won't give up!"
The line in Tale of the Gutsy Ninja was, "Then I'll break that curse. If there's such thing as peace, I'll find it. I won't give up!" But Naruto felt a little improvisation was in order, and that didn't change the important message his favorite book conveyed.
"When you do, let me know," Kaze said, snorting. "Until then, it's all just talk."
"Fine then, I will!" Naruto declared, stalking back toward town.
/~/~
"You're awfully quiet tonight," Kakashi commented, slowly turning a page in his beloved book. "I expected you to be more frustrated about failing to find out anything."
Sasuke shot him a dirty look - he hadn't failed, he just needed more time - but refused to rise to the bait and turned to look out the window of their hotel room once more. It was long past sunset, and the horizon was hidden in the dark, the sea and the sky merging into one, seamless whole.
It was a meditative sight, and the repetitive sound of the waves helped clear his mind.
"I told you about that Sand shinobi who's been asking around too," Sasuke said, making Kakashi glance at him for a moment - he hadn't expected Sasuke to actually share anything. "I've been thinking about… his circumstances."
Everyone has their own circumstances, that boy had said. He wasn't the only one with problems. So what problems did that Sand ninja have? Why did he say his mission was so important? Was he just blowing hot air and trying to exaggerate his own importance, the way that Inuzuka loudmouth in Sasuke's class always had? Or was there something else going on?
"Where is the rest of his team? I think he's just a genin, so he can't have been dispatched here alone," Sasuke went on. "But I didn't see or hear about any other shinobi here. If he did get sent alone, why? This place is so far from Land of Wind. Is he being punished for something?"
Sasuke smirked a little at the thought. Given the Sand-nin's obnoxious personality, Sasuke could only imagine the sort of mess that loser must have caused to get such an assignment.
Kakashi hummed thoughtfully. "It's good to hear to hear you're thinking about these things. Considering your target's mindset and circumstances is an important part of being a hunter-nin. You need to get into their head, figure out how they think, what motivates them, so you can predict where they will go and what they'll do. See? Didn't I tell you this would be a great learning experience?"
The teasing tone of the last part made Sasuke scowl again, but Kakashi had been mostly serious. Sasuke had a tendency to be too focused, to the point of tunnel vision, so while wondering about a foreign ninja wasn't part of the mission, it was for the best that he was actually looking outside himself for once.
'Although, it would be best if he didn't end up making his first friend outside the village,' Kakashi noted to himself. 'That could become a problem down the road. And… I'd like to know what he's doing here, too.'
"So, tell me about your new friend," Kakashi said, in his most cheery, beaming tone, his lone eye closing into a happy crescent. "What's his name?"
Sasuke opened his mouth as if to reply, then paused thoughtfully. "...I don't know," he realized. They had started arguing from the first and never gotten around to introducing themselves.
'I'll ask him tomorrow,' Sasuke decided. 'After all, there's just one more lead after this.'
/~/~
"I'm telling you, kid, there's no one anywhere in the Land of the Sea who'll take you to Demon Island," the fisherman insisted. "That place is a death trap. It's not safe to approach. And it's cursed!"
Irritated, Sasuke shook his head, but he accepted the answer. It was the same thing he had been told by every other seafarer he had spoken to. The locals feared Demon Island, both because of the treacherous sea currents around it and because of its perceived curse.
Speaking to them about the former, Sasuke was beginning to wonder more and more if the so-called "spirited away" disappearances weren't just a result of unfortunate accidents at sea, fishermen misjudging the water and being dragged under or being shipwrecked. Maybe the reason Isaribi hadn't wanted to talk about it wasn't because of anything she had seen, but rather because of the way she had been stigmatized by the others since returning.
There wasn't even any other "proof" of Orochimaru's presence in the Land of the Sea. No one remembered seeing him or his apprentice, no one had seen anything else. It really was looking like a wild goose chase. The only option left was to investigate the site of the disappearances in person.
He glanced around the docks absently, as he had been doing all morning. "Hey," Sasuke called out to the fisherman, who had begun to turn back to his work, "has anyone else asked to go there today?"
"Kid, no one's ever asked to go there," the man said, shaking his head.
The others had said that too. Sasuke had expected to run into the Sand-nin while they both tried to get a boat to Demon Island, but there was no sign of him.
'Did he find another lead? No, impossible. There's nothing else anywhere on these three islands,' Sasuke thought. 'And he can't have missed this lead. Everyone mentions it. So where is he and what is he doing?'
/~/~
Sasuke as right - Naruto had thought of the same lead and tried to follow up on it. But like everything else, Naruto had to do it in his own way. And that included not doing the reasonable thing and trying to get a boat. Instead, Naruto had decided to to just walk across the water between the islands.
It was far from impossible. Naruto's stamina and chakra reserves were more than enough for such a trip, and traveling across the desert quickly was basically an exercise in constantly using chakra to stay atop the sands, so he had experience in maintaining his control for long periods too.
Walking over the sea and its high waves was harder than Naruto had expected, but hardly undoable. He snickered, feeling smug and self-satisfied. That would show them! He'd find proof of Orochimaru's wrongdoing, track him down and make admit he was planning on double crossing them! Or something like that.
That stupid Kaze had refused to come - he had strategically snuck some Gold Dust into Naruto's pack instead, though Naruto didn't notice - but Naruto would just have to drag the proof to him.
Having worked himself into an enthusiastic, energetic mood, Naruto picked up the pace and was soon running across the channel between the islands in long, leaping strides. He could already see Demon Island coming up. It was much smaller than Mother Island at Naruto's back, and far more desolate. The sheer cliffs rose straight out of the sea, and the vegetation on its peaks was sparse at best. No wonder no one had bothered settling there.
Caught up in his excitement and having come to expect a certain degree of instability underfoot from the waves, Naruto was taken completely off guard when - on his next step - his chakra was completely disrupted and his foot slipped sideways.
The water around him churned and swirled with a dull, building roar.
"A… whirlpool?!" Naruto shouted, pinwheeling his arms and struggling to stay atop the waves. He tried to run in the opposite direction of the spinning water, but his feet slipped out from under him as soon as he put them down, his chakra unable to counter properly.
'If I get dragged down into that, I'm dead!' he thought gritting his teeth.
On his next step, his leg sank into the water to the shin. After that point, he wouldn't be able to pull himself back out. In a desperate move, Naruto clapped his hands together, molding wind chakra.
During the fight with Shukaku, Naruto had been able to propel himself forward by misaiming his Gale Palm jutsu to hit him in the back. If he could go forward, he could go other directions too, Naruto reasoned frantically. It was all just a matter of changing the point where Reppusho's wind blast originated and the direction it went.
And while Naruto was somewhat lacking in many areas, one thing Temari had been able to beat into him was flexibility in the use of wind-style ninjutsu.
Reppusho's gale blast hit him low from the side, pulling Naruto free of the water and sending him flying back the way he had originally come.
But Naruto had forgotten an important point. In the fight with Shukaku, he had been thrown straight forward and crashed into Gaara, quite literally, which had been his goal all along. But this time, crashing was not a good thing. Losing his bearings in his confused tumble through the air, Naruto couldn't catch himself before he fell into the sea.
Instantly, the underwater currents dragged him down further and into the grip of the whirlpool. Spun every which way, Naruto gasped out, losing the last of his precious air. Everything started going dark. Just before he lost consciousness, Naruto thought he saw a wavering silhouette, swimming toward him.
/~/~/
Q&A:
So, Sasuke and Naruto? *shrugs* I've been watching Shippuden again, and oh man, it's all SasuNaru all the way. I tried to do well by him. The long-term image I'm going for is "two people walking their own paths, that intersecting from time to time." I guess Sasuke's sort of… the hero of another story? The "Leaf-side" story that no longer has much to do with Naruto.
/~/~