Reality Bites
Part Seven
"Kakashi –" Tsunade hailed with a glance over her shoulder from where she kneeled beside Naruto.
"I'm alright," Kakashi interjected quickly, "just low on chakra."
Naruto lay still, trying to catch his breath now that Tsunade had healed the burns blocking his airway, listening to the conversation around him and wondering what had happened.
The last thing Naruto remembered was nearly losing his temper at Sakura – for being nice to him – and then coming to on the floor, covered in burns and unable to breathe because of them. He took a brief glance at what he could see of the room – confirmed that Kakashi seemed relatively okay, that Tsunade and Sasuke also appeared alright – but Sakura was nowhere to be seen and he feared the worst, resisting the urge to cry.
"What was happening here?" Jiraiya questioned abrasively, looking down sternly upon Naruto like he expected an explanation. "We've talked about that power, Naruto – you know it's not something you use lightly!"
"I wasn't –!"
"You could have hurt your teacher!" the man reminded in a chastising tone; Naruto looked like he was holding back tears. "Or your teammate!"
"Jiraiya!" Tsunade interjected unhappily; Naruto hid his eyes with his hand and let out a scared and frustrated sob. "That's not what's going on!"
Jiraiya was quickly flooded with regret and guilt when he realized that he'd jumped to the wrong conclusion; he'd been training Naruto for several months now, and so far he'd never been able to make the kid cry – no matter what he said to him – and Jiraiya had tried. Trying to discourage Naruto usually only had the opposite effect; his hard shell was one of his greatest assets and one of the reasons Jiraiya most loved training him.
So whatever was going on, it must have been serious, because it seemed it shook Naruto hard.
"Naruto –"
"I'm sorry," Naruto choked between suppressed sobs.
"Oh – shit, no I'm sorry, kid," Jiraiya corrected apologetically with a gentle hand grasping his shoulder where there seemed to be no burns. "I just assumed – which was really unfair."
"You really put your foot in your mouth," Tsunade reiterated unforgivingly; Jiraiya didn't argue because he wasn't disagreeing with her.
"Did –" Naruto stopped to gather himself a little and try again. "Did I hurt Sakura-chan?"
Jiraiya wasn't actually sure – he looked up at Tsunade for help, but it was Kakashi who answered before anyone else could.
"Everyone's just fine," the silver-haired man reassured gently. "Sakura just left to find you something to eat – you remember that?"
Naruto took a second to think about it and nodded – it was the last thing he remembered. "And then what?"
"Then you tried to get up and ended up on the floor – which was when Jiraiya-sama got here," Kakashi lied evenly.
Naruto looked skeptical, wanting to believe it but unsure it was as convenient as Kakashi made it sound. "Then how'd I get so many burns?" he asked. "And how'd you use all your chakra?"
"Kyuubi's chakra burned you, and I used my chakra trying to stop it."
Naruto absorbed the information with uncertainty; he had so many questions – but he also feared hearing the answers to many of them, so they all died on his tongue, trapped and left to churn around inside of his head.
Jiraiya watched the exchange, curious about what was happening before he arrived.
"Alright – bring me up to speed here," Jiraiya interjected. "Is it your seal, Naruto?"
"It's just –" he began, glancing toward his remaining visitors insecurely, "been bothering me."
"How?" the man pressed on. "Can you describe it?"
Naruto seemed to take a deep, frustrated breath while he tried to find the words to both explain everything that was happening and reveal nothing to his teammate or teacher.
"Why don't we give you two some privacy?" Tsunade offered, spotting Naruto's discomfort from where she kneeled beside him on the floor, closing up the last of his burns while Naruto responded with a look that spoke of how grateful he was for her suggestion.
When Tsunade was satisfied with the state of his skin, she helped Naruto back into his bed before ushering Kakashi and Sasuke out of the room with her, shooting one last glance over her shoulder at the pair left alone in the room.
"Is Kakashi-sensei lying to me?" Naruto asked when the door slid shut behind his exiting visitors.
"I dunno, kid," Jiraiya admitted simply. "I really did just get here."
"I think he's lying to me," the boy pressed on.
"What makes you think that?"
Naruto responded by grabbing one of the snapped restraints still fastened to the bedrails and held it up as far as it would go to show Jiraiya. "I think something happened and he's lying to spare my feelings."
"Then you should rest assured that even if something did happen, Kakashi doesn't hold you accountable," the man rationalized easily while Naruto dropped the restraint, gaze shifting away in thought. "Otherwise he'd have no problem laying the blame on you for whatever hypothetical thing you think happened."
Naruto inspected his hands as he twisted and wrung his fingers quietly, absorbing everything Jiraiya said; he understood the logic, but the guilt in his stomach wouldn't allow him to so easily wipe clear his conscience.
"So can you tell me a little more about what's going on?"
Naruto looked up in acknowledgement and the room swayed deeply around him; with a heavy hand, he covered his eyes in an attempt to ease the nausea the feeling stirred in his gut.
"You alright?"
"Just – feeling dizzy for some reason," Naruto admitted lowly.
Jiraiya peeled off the paper stuck to Naruto's forehead, watching closely to ensure it was safe to do so. "It's this suppression seal – it's not ideal to have it on much longer than necessary."
"What's it do?"
"Essentially, it depletes all the active chakra in your system – yours and Kyuubi's. It won't affect your reserves unless we leave it on. That dizzy feeling – that's a sign to take it off."
Naruto nodded, feeling reassured that at least Jiraiya had the tools to manage Kyuubi's chakra should it try again to take control of him.
"Naruto," Jiraiya began again seriously, "I want you to tell me everything that's happened in the last few days. Anything that could be related to the seal – I need to know it all."
oOoOo
Sasuke had always been an unusually sharp kid – maybe not for an Uchiha, but among his peers his own age, he was usually always the smartest.
So while most kids overlooked the peculiarity of an unruly, unsupervised six-year-old running about the village, Sasuke felt ensnared with curiosity over the intrigue surrounding Uzumaki Naruto; so curious, that many times, instead of playing with other children his age vying for his attention, he sat somewhere just out of plain sight – this time the roof of the play structure – to observe the blonde and the maelstrom of trouble that usually followed him.
Naruto sat quietly in the seat of one of the swings, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet but never really kicking off and swinging much further than that.
For a quarter of an hour, they remained like that – Naruto swinging slowly, gaze directed at the sand below his feet while Sasuke watched quietly from where he hid atop the playground – until a pair of boys his and Naruto's age entered the park, two young ninja probably Itachi's age close behind supervising.
Sasuke watched while the two boys closed in on Naruto, in spite of the seemingly empty play structure behind them; he could tell already that they were looking to start trouble.
"What d'you think you're doing here?" the taller of the two boys antagonized while they closed in on the younger blonde.
"I'm swinging," Naruto mentioned casually. "Thought it was obvious."
"Shut your smart mouth," the stockier one warned unhappily.
"Yeah, shut it," the taller agreed. "And quit hogging the swing."
"No one's been here all day."
"Well we're here now," the taller boy justified simply, "so you should leave."
"Why don't you make me?" Naruto offered fearlessly; beyond that, he hardly acknowledged either of them.
The stockier boy responded by grabbing the back of Naruto's shirt to yank him backwards off the swing, sending him crashing to the sandpit below with a thud. Before he could recover, the two boys pinned him down roughly so he couldn't get away.
"No one wants you here!" the taller one yelled; it was something Naruto heard a lot – something that never seemed to get easier to hear.
"Just let me go!" Naruto yelled back, struggling fruitlessly against the boys holding him down.
"Why don't you make me?" the stocky boy mimicked callously; Naruto felt the unease of being trapped, and he used the adrenalin it gave him to wriggle free one of his hands, taking a handful of sand and throwing it toward the faces above, blinding them both in one, even toss.
The boys above him reeled back to wipe the sand from their eyes, and Naruto took the opportunity to struggle the rest of the way free, taking off for the park exit – but before he could make it to the street, he was intercepted by the two ninja supervising the boys he'd thrown sand at, and he knew by the unpleasant looks in their eyes, that he wouldn't get off easy for what he'd done.
They dragged him out of plain sight, behind an old garden shed where any park maintenance equipment would be held, close to the forest bordering the park. Sasuke was well practiced at listening to his gut, and right now, it was telling him to get Itachi, because even he knew that two older shinobi who had no qualms about beating the crap out of a six-year-old with no ninja training would probably also have no mercy for the other untrained six-year-old coming to his defense.
By the time he returned with Itachi, the boys in the park were gone, and probably so were the two ninja supervising them.
"What'd you want me to see, Sasuke?" Itachi asked tiredly, only half-convinced this wasn't some sort of trick of Sasuke's to get his older brother on the playground with him.
"Behind the shed, nii-san," Sasuke corrected, turning and giving Itachi an urgent wave to tell him to follow. "C'mon!"
Sasuke knew he'd probably see something unpleasant – maybe a bloody nose or the start of a black eye, but what he didn't expect was to find Naruto on the ground beside the shed with a kunai pierced through his arm just below his wrist, the sharp end driven deep into the wood of the shed at his side, effectively pinning him there.
Naruto yanked and pulled at the kunai, but he was too weak to find even a centimeter of wiggle room and he instead just held on to the handle tight with a small, shaking hand and a frustrated noise.
Itachi assessed the child on the ground carefully; he was pale and clammy – blood poured out of his wound even with the kunai still deeply imbedded in it. There was potential danger that he'd bleed out if nothing were soon done. "What'd you do, Sasuke?"
"I didn't do it!" Sasuke defended quickly. "It was some older boys your age."
Itachi felt a stab of unease. Sure, he'd killed plenty of people and injured countless more himself, but those were all trained shinobi looking to do the same to him. He didn't understand what would motivate someone his age to beat the crap out of a defenseless kid – and he was pretty sure he never wanted to. "Did you recognize any of them?"
"No," Sasuke admitted, sounding dissatisfied with himself.
"Were any of them Uchiha?"
"Of course not."
Naruto turned to acknowledge the two boys talking about him, his features feral and mistrusting like he was hoping to scare them off without a fight. Itachi looked over his young face – noticed the whisker marks adorning each cheek – and suddenly all of this made a whole lot more sense.
"Don't move so much," Itachi warned, watching the blood pour out of the wound with every small movement the child made; but Naruto looked more worried about the two people closing in on him than the knife impaling his arm – Itachi knew, at this moment, Naruto saw them as a greater threat.
"Get away from me!" the boy warned, trying to sound intimidating but only sounding frightened.
"Can I help you get that out?" Itachi asked gently with a nod toward the kunai pinning him to the shed.
"Why?" Naruto bit back distrustfully; Itachi didn't blame him for his cynicism given his current position.
"So I can get you to the hospital."
Naruto responded with an unconvinced noise, growing defensive once again when Itachi approached him.
"I said get away!" the child reminded, tense and panicked.
Itachi pulled the kunai free and tried to grasp the child's uninjured arm to steady him; but before he could grab hold, Naruto smacked the hand away, sidestepping from the momentum of his own defensive maneuver before he lost balance, falling to his knees.
Itachi reached out once more and was again rejected, the fear in Naruto's features preventing him from trying a third time.
"Seriously, I'm just trying to help."
"I'm not dumb." Naruto scooted a little further away before trying, again, to get to his feet.
Itachi had to hand it to the kid – he was tough – but even the toughest ninja couldn't ignore the effects of extensive blood loss, and he knew he just had to wait Naruto out.
His final attempt to stand up was the last that his blood-deprived brain could offer, and he passed out cold on his feet; Itachi caught his limp body before it could crash against the forest floor, readjusting the small boy in his arms so he could both carry Naruto and apply pressure to his freely bleeding wound – it wasn't difficult. Naruto couldn't weigh more than thirty-five pounds.
"Go home, Sasuke."
And with that, Itachi disappeared in a cloud of smoke, leaving behind only a handful of leaves gliding through the air where he once stood.
Sasuke waited at home for the next half an hour impatiently, sitting upon the front porch and finally lunging from it when he spotted his brother approaching from down the street.
"Nii-san!" Sasuke greeted, running to the edge of the property to meet Itachi there. "What happened? Is he okay?"
"Medical ninja are amazing, Sasuke. He'll be fine."
Sasuke seemed dissatisfied with the response.
"Okay, but aren't shinobi supposed to leave villagers alone?" Sasuke pressed on while he followed Itachi to the porch and through the front door. "Why did that happen?"
"It's a really complicated situation."
"It doesn't seem complicated to me."
"What're you two talking about?" Mikoto interjected happily while she emerged from the kitchen where the smell of dinner came from to greet her sons.
"The boy with the whiskers on his face," Sasuke answered swiftly.
Itachi looked irritated, preferring to leave it at the door; Mikoto responded with patience, saying nothing.
"Why are people always mean to him?" Sasuke pressed on boldly.
"People fear what they don't know," Mikoto explained delicately.
"Yeah but he's six," Sasuke rationalized simply. "What's so scary about that?"
"Y'know, sometimes you're scary, Sasuke-kun," Mikoto redirected. "For instance, when I have to wake you up in the morning."
"Nuh-uh," Sasuke argued.
"Yes-huh, Sasuke-kun."
Sasuke responded by poking out his tongue in dispute.
"Sasuke?"
"Sasuke?"
Sasuke shook himself from his thoughts, bringing himself back to the hospital hallway he walked down when he realized someone had been trying to speak to him.
"Are you listening, Sasuke?" Kakashi asked impatiently.
"No," the brunette offered honestly.
"What are you so lost in thought about?"
"I was remembering something."
"Fine – listen, what happened up there – that should stay between the three of us that were in there."
"So you don't want me to tell Sakura," Sasuke assumed.
"I don't want you to tell Naruto," Kakashi revised firmly. "Naruto can never know what happened. The guilt would kill him."
Sasuke let the air in his lungs out in a deep sigh and nodded.
"I won't say anything."
A/N: Oh my gosh, I don't even know how to start thanking everyone who responded last week with all the encouragement to press on with the original plot for this story. I felt so touched and motivated by all the support: I'll do my best to stick to the original plot. Thanks for reading :] until next time.
