With the campsite packed and the fire put out, Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke were ready to get themselves on their way homeward bound. Naruto took a fresh, deep breath of air and exhaled, the oxygen he inhaled filling his lungs with spirit and desire. Sasuke, on the other hand, looked at his feet worried. He thought about the thoughts that would possibly be passed around within the ninja in his age group. He worried that many would not accept his return. He feared the icy shoulder...
"Sasuke, are you alright?" Naruto asked, pausing a few meters ahead of Sasuke.
"Oh, yeah, sure Naruto," Sasuke said hesitantly, showing an obvious look of worriedness on his face.
Naruto saw the look, but decided to give Sasuke time to think.
"Alright. Are you up for dashing?" Naruto asked.
"I think I'm alright, but we can't go too fast, k?" Sasuke said.
Naruto smiled with big, bright eyes, trying to cheer Sasuke up. Sasuke looked up and smirked slightly, yet his eyebrows still slanted in a concerned manner. Naruto quickly leaped into the tree branch above him and into the next. Sasuke groaned and quickly followed Naruto. The two ninja traveled extremely quickly, pushing against a few of the branches to propel themselves forward.
"Naruto, slow down!" Sasuke yelled ahead.
"Sorry, Sasuke," apologized Naruto, "I'm just so excited to bring you back to the village!"
"Stop acting so cute and hyper for once, will you?" Sasuke complained.
"Alright," Naruto said begrudgingly and slowed his pace slightly to even Sasuke's.
Sasuke spotted something in the corner of his eye. Something disturbing.
"Naruto!" Sasuke yelled. "Stop!"
Naruto nodded sent chakra to his feet, gluing him onto a tree branch alongside Sasuke.
"What is it?" he asked Sasuke.
"Look. By that tree over there," he said.
Naruto nodded again and put his fingers together, summoning a Shadow Clone. The Naruto bushin leapt toward the tree ahead and stared at it quietly. Out of the blue, a blade protruded from trunk of the tree and directly into the Naruto clone's head, rendering it lifeless and causing it to explode in a poof of white smoke.
"A trap," Naruto whispered. "This forest is bobby trapped."
"What if it wasn't a trap, but really an enemy's jutsu?" Sasuke inquired.
"No. Before the bushin died, it saw a very small etching on the tree. Whoever did this doesn't want us to make it back to the village." Naruto explained.
"So, what do we do now?" Sasuke asked again, almost flabbergasted by the notion that he was asking Naruto for help.
"We set off all the traps," he said. "Kage bushin no jutsu (shadow clone jutsu)!" he yelled, and a thousand Naruto clones appeared before him.
"Wait, Naruto!" Sasuke said, interjecting the clones' movements, "What if there are other types of traps in this forest? We don't know what this enemy is capable of."
The Narutos all thought for a little bit. Then, all but ten poofed into white puffs while the rest huddled.
"We can't take the alternate route, because that could cause a breach in security if we lead the enemy straight through the secret entrance." One clone said.
"And we don't know how widespread the traps could be," another clone said.
"Ack! What if there's only one trap?" one said frantically.
"What if they weren't even meant for us?" another asked.
"Why don't we just continue ahead and see if there are more?" another clone suggested.
"We were going to do that before. I guess Ockham's Razor prevails!"
Sasuke sighed.
"Alright, break!" the clones shouted in unison and then shot off into the woods.
The real Naruto stood behind.
"This shouldn't take too long," he said confidently.
"Let's hope so," Sasuke replied, yet in his heart he wanted as much time as possible to ponder how his companions would react to his leaving the village.
"Anyway, let's chat," Naruto said, sitting down on the branch.
Sasuke's senses perked. "About what?"
"Well, what're you gonna say to everyone when you return to the village?" Naruto asked inquisitively.
Sasuke pondered shyly and looked away. "I haven't really..thought about anything ...yet."
"C'mon. How about 'I'm back, everyone!' or 'It's the return of Uchiha Sasuke!'" Naruto joked. "Or how about 'Orochimaru was an asshole anyway!'"
Sasuke tried to smile, but sighed and sat down before Naruto.
"Or you could apologize," Naruto said, putting on his serious face.
Sasuke looked into Naruto's deep, blue eyes.
"You could tell them how you feel about leaving now that you're back home. You could say hello to everyone, or-"
"I'm afraid," Sasuke said.
"Don't be afraid of them, Sasuke. They worked hard, hell, even risked their lives to see you back here in Konoha. Don't you think that the way to make them happy is by being there for them?"
"Sakura-chan," Sasuke said. "I vaguely remember her new appearance. How is she?"
"She's strong. She's probably as strong as Granny Tsunade. And she's also got the healing touch. She's a tough woman, but weak when it comes to you."
Sasuke looked at Naruto directly again.
"She misses you," Naruto said. "We all miss you."
Sasuke blushed. "Is she still obsessed about me?"
Naruto looked up in thought.
"I actually don't know. We both were kind of obsessed about you. Loving you, well..."
"What?" Sasuke asked.
"I guess we moved on. I sort of parted with her, and she sort of parted with you. I went to you..and she..."
Sasuke smiled. "Who's the lucky guy who got her?"
"...Me," Naruto said looknig at Sasuke's feet in shame.
Sasuke was stunned.
"She looked at me differently when I arrived back at the village. I was taller, more mature, and stronger than I was when I left. She finally saw that in me, and, it took her a months, but we recently hooked up."
"I see..." Sasuke said.
"Yeah," Naruto said shyly. "It's not the same, though. When I was younger, I didn't know what I wanted. All I knew was that Sakura-chan was the one for me. Then, as I grew older, I thought about you more than her. She was secondary, but I could never really say that you were the one for me, y'know?"
Sasuke nodded.
"So, even though I loved Sakura, I also loved you behind all that. In fact, I thought I could never have you, so I decided to finally be with her."
"You did love her first," Sasuke said.
"Yeah. I was crazy about her. Now, I don't know who to pick. Morally, I guess she would be the right choice. But, it won't be the same knowing I could have you. I can't imagine breaking up with her. I might as well break my skull right now; at least she'll pity me."
Sasuke nodded, a sad look appearing on his face.
"What am I going to do?" Naruto cried and buried his head in his hands.
Sasuke reached forward and kissed Naruto's head gently.
"What does your heart tell you?" he asked.
Naruto looked up at a smiling Sasuke.
"To bring a smile to your face, no matter what," Naruto said.
"You're a smart guy, Naruto. And a better ninja than I, or anyone else I know. You'll figure this out."
Naruto smiled and looked up a bit more, soon followed by another frown and averted eyes.
"What about Sakura? I don't want to hurt her. If she knows I left her for her other love interest, she'd be devastated. Both of her loves, me and you, her original anti-drug... gone."
Sasuke embraced Naruto tightly, wrapping his arms around him and gripping him with his hands.
"I don't know. She's so strong, she'll get over it quickly."
"I hope you're right. I love her, but not the same as I love you."
Sasuke blushed and kissed Naruto gently on the lips.
"Sir!" came a loud voice from the woods. "Everything is in order, sir! No more traps are left from here to Konoha!"
Naruto stared at his bushin and made it vanish.
"We'd better get going," he said, standing up. "Now you got me worried about returning!"
Sasuke chuckled.
The two sprinted forward, leaping confidently from tree to tree. Much was on their minds, yet they both knew one thing. That their love would make everything better. Eventually. No...
...hopefully.