Alexander Jay: I'm sorry for not updating last week as planned. My aunt is in the hospital, and as you might imagine, my schedule got a bit disturbed. Thankfully she's doing much better, and my writing has picked up again. For now, I hope you all enjoy this new chapter. A few people commented on not liking Konoha's involvement, but Naruto was from there originally and they are important in the grand scheme of things, so they will be around for a bit longer. But I can say that Naruto is not going to go back.
Chapter Eight
The Uchiha may have been weak, but Naruto had to admit that he wasn't totally incompetent. As they were both picking themselves up off the floor, he saw the Uchiha's eyes narrow suspiciously.
"You have chakra," he said, hands drifting towards a poorly-concealed weapon pouch. "Strong chakra. Who are you?"
Naruto smirked, letting his Transformation come apart, enjoying the slight widening of the Uchiha's eyes, and the stiffening of his spine as he realized who he'd run into. "You shouldn't get confrontational with someone unless you know you can handle them," he advised. "Not everyone's as nice as me."
He was already walking away, back to looking for the kitchens, when Sasuke found his voice. "Don't act so innocent, you monster."
It took all of Naruto's willpower not to just knock him unconscious with one punch. He forcibly reminded himself of how useful it was to not have Konoha as an enemy while he turned to face the Uchiha.
"What was that?"
"You heard me. You're a monster, using the Kyuubi's power like that. You and your monster friends massacred a bunch of people just for money, then pretend you're good people by giving away a bit of it."
Naruto cocked an eyebrow. "Your sensei was killing those same people just for that small bit of money."
"It was a mission. We're serving our village and country. You just serve yourselves."
Naruto nodded, striding forward. "Yeah, we do. No one else will help us out, what choice do we have?"
"You were in Konoha, I remember seeing you in the Academy."
"So does the Hyuuga girl," Naruto reminded him, smirking. "She doesn't have a problem with me."
Sasuke balled his hands up into fists. "You should have stayed there. You should have been a shinobi, fought for something other than yourself."
Naruto nodded slowly, his smile gone, blue eyes gone cold as he stared at Sasuke. "You mean I should've kept living around people who hate me and wish I was dead, then become a shinobi to try and protect those people? I should've fought for everyone who cursed me for existing? Get real, Uchiha. That village, every ninja village, is a waste of space. I wouldn't bother throwing a single kunai to defend its people."
Sasuke bristled at that, eyes starting to turn red. "So you're just a traitor. Don't care about anyone but yourself."
"I care about other people as much as the citizens of your precious village."
"Don't try and put this on them," Sasuke sneered. "You might have had a hard time, but it's no reason to become a monster like this."
He never saw the punch coming. All he knew was a sudden, intense pain in his face and his vision going white as his body hit the wall. Then a hand was around his throat, powerful fingers tightening just enough to make it painful to draw breath.
"You don't know a fucking thing, Uchiha!" Naruto growled, voice livid. "You grew up with as much money and friendship as you could want, no one ever denied you anything! If you had my life, you wouldn't last a week! Don't ever talk to me like you know what I went through!"
Sasuke's vision was just clearing, letting him see Naruto's face right up in front of his own, teeth visibly lengthening and sharpening, pupils narrowed to slits, like an animal's, before Naruto turned and threw him down the hall, sending the Genin tumbling across the floor until he hit another wall painfully.
#
Naruto was gone by the time his vision cleared a second time. He tried to get up, leaning against the wall, but his knees gave out and he fell. He wasn't pleased to see Sakura come around the corner. His pinkette teammate gasped in shock and ran to him.
"Sasuke-kun, what happened? Who did this to you?"
"Naruto," he forced the word out. His throat still hurt from Naruto's grasp. "They're here too."
He tuned out the stream of babble from Sakura, which included numerous condemnations of Naruto, his friends, and rogue ninjas in general, along with far too much concern for his condition. All that he cared about was that she got his arm around her shoulder and helped him walk back to the room. The weakness in his legs had gone by the time they reached the door, and he moved pointedly away from Sakura. All that hurt now was his nose, which he'd realized had been broken, given it was steadily dripping blood down his face, and his bruised throat.
"I'm fine, Sakura," he managed to say as she opened the door.
He wasn't surprised that she blew it out of proportion within minutes of walking in. While Kurenai fixed his nose - a little roughly, yanking it back into place - and Hinata made a cup of tea with lots of honey, Sakura went on at length about how Naruto had attacked Sasuke without provocation and tried to kill him. He was glad that no one seemed to be taking her seriously; he'd long since concluded that his teammate just liked the sound of her own voice and didn't notice when people thought she was being silly. Once he could breathe through his nose again and had downed half the cup of tea, Kakashi turned to him.
"What happened?"
Sasuke explained, concisely but clearly, what had transpired, starting with running into Naruto by accident and ending with Naruto's overreaction to Sasuke saying he shouldn't have become a monster. He finished the tea while he spoke, and Hinata had another one ready. He took it from her gratefully. She may have poor judgment when it came to people, but she made good tea.
"That was foolish, Sasuke," Kakashi said when he finished talking.
Sasuke scowled, and both Sakura and Kiba looked askance.
"It was awesome!" Kiba said. "It's about time someone stood up to him!"
Kakashi raised one eyebrow at him, his visible eye conveying a look that was both bored and condescending. Kiba visibly wilted under the Jonin's stare, turning his eyes to the floor. Akamaru whimpered slightly and burrowed against Kiba's side.
"Yes, Sasuke stood up to him, and came out of it injured with nothing to show. All he's done is made a rogue Jinchuriki more antagonistic to Konoha. And that Jinchuriki has two other Jinchuriki who are friends, along with a fourth individual who we know nothing about. Between my conversation with him earlier today, and Asuma Sarutobi's brief meeting with him a few months ago, we can conclude that Naruto doesn't see us as enemies, even if he wants nothing to do with us. All Sasuke achieved was to risk changing that. Without a loyal Jinchuriki, the last thing we need is for three rogue Jinchuriki to actively work against us. The moral high ground is useless here, Sasuke, even if you had claimed it."
The room lapsed into silence as the six Genin absorbed what he'd said. Sakura was slowly looking chagrined as understanding sank in. Kiba kept scowling, like he wanted to refute Kakashi's statement, but couldn't find a way. Hinata seemed troubled. And Sai and Shino were both inscrutable.
"If I had claimed it?" Sasuke suddenly repeated.
To his surprise, it was Shino who answered his implied query. "As Naruto himself explained, you should not lecture him on his choices. Why? Because the two of you have extremely different assumptions of the world and approach problems from radically different starting points. It is highly improbable that you could reconcile your differences and agree on what is right and wrong."
"I've lost things too," Sasuke reminded him bitterly.
"Not the same, Sasuke," Kakashi cut in. "You had a good family which you lost. They're gone, and that's painful, but you know you were loved and they were proud of you. They give you something to fight for. Naruto had nothing. No one to love him or show pride, no one to fight for. It was mostly the exact opposite."
His eye drooped down towards the end. Looking at Kurenai, Sasuke saw a look of regret on her face. "Are you saying he was right?" he demanded. "That it was a good thing for him to abandon us?"
"I'm saying the village failed him," Kakashi answered. "All of us. Even the ones who wanted to help, even the ones who cared about him, didn't do anything to make him feel wanted. He believed, might still believe, that everyone in the village hates him."
Most of the people in the room glanced at Hinata. The pale-eyed girl's face had gone several shades of red and she was looking down at the floor. Kiba and Sakura looked pained to see her reaction, and even Shino reached across to place a gentle hand on her shoulder. Even Sasuke thought it was harsh, telling her someone she cared for thought she'd hated him.
"The past is the past," Sai spoke up calmly. "Regret is a useless emotion. If we are to deal with the Jinchuriki again, we ought to consider how to win them over."
The cool, emotionless declaration helped snap everyone else out of the grim mood that had settled over the room. Kakashi's one-eyed gaze sharpened. "Correct, Sai. Now, obviously we shouldn't follow Sasuke's example."
Several light chuckles from the other Genin helped lighten the mood, and soon they were all discussing what to say to the Jinchuriki.
#
"What happened to your Transformation?" Yugito asked as Naruto walked back in the room carrying drinks.
"Oh, I forgot," he said. "Turns out the Konoha shinobi are also here, I bumped into the Uchiha. He could tell I was using a Transformation, so I dropped it."
"Anything happen with him?" she asked, taking a bottle of chocolate milk from him.
Naruto shrugged. "He got mouthy, so I popped him in the nose and told him to shut up."
Yugito nodded understandingly. "So, wanna take bets on Gaara and Haku?"
"Yugito-chan, we've already got a dozen bets running on them," he chuckled. "That's why they always get a room together when we can afford two."
"I know," she said. "But we're still waiting on all those bets! It's boring, let's add some more!"
"I think they know now," Naruto said. "They're just quiet all the time. Gaara practices with his sand, Haku practices with her ice. She sleeps, he doesn't. That's about it."
"I knooow," Yugito moaned. "It's so boring! At first it was a lot of fun to listen to them arguing all the time, but they're actually acting friendly! Kind of. I mean, for Gaara, it's friendly."
"Y'mean he's not picking fights and wishing he could maim her?" Naruto asked dryly.
"Yeah. I'm still waiting to collect on Haku trying to freeze his eyeballs."
Naruto grimaced at his girlfriend's imagination, simultaneously wondering if they should get a different hobby. "Yeah, and I bet on Gaara using his sand to break her nails."
Yugito sighed despondently, flopping back on the bed. Naruto lay down next to her, their hands automatically coming together, fingers intertwining. They were silent for a minute, listening for sounds of any kind of fight, even an argument, from the adjacent room.
#
"I think they've given up," Gaara murmured. The small bullhorn made of sand was silent. Haku was also listening. The bullhorn was connected to a sand ear he'd created in Naruto and Yugito's room, allowing them to eavesdrop on their friends. They'd been doing it ever since Haku, practicing stealth techniques, had overheard Naruto mention betting on the two of them. They'd both been incensed by the revelation that their fights had turned into a source of entertainment for their friends, and had quickly agreed on a truce just to spite the pair. It seemed to be working, too, judging by how irritated Yugito was.
"Hopefully they'll just forget about it all," Haku agreed. Half her attention was on a book she was reading. Once they'd quit arguing about their jobs all the time, they'd both found a lot of time to spend on more enjoyable pasttimes. Haku read fiction, mostly romance, while Gaara read books about shogi and go. Both games had become a mild obsession for him, and he'd taken to studying old masters and their strategies. He and Haku were both sitting on the floor, backs against the foot of his bed, the sand-horn between them so they could eavesdrop while they read.
It was actually a comfortable silence for a few minutes. Then they heard something else from the horn and paid attention to it again. Once they realized what they were hearing, Haku blushed while Gaara smirked. Clearly, Yugito and Naruto were doing what most couples did when they were all alone and had nothing better to do. The tender noises continued for a minute before Haku created a large stopper of ice to plug up the horn.
"Don't need to hear that," she muttered, going back to her book.
"You don't want to tease them about it tomorrow?" Gaara asked.
Haku raised her eyebrows at him. "I do actually like them, Gaara, even if I don't like that they were betting on us. What they do in private is their business."
"They invaded on our privacy, eavesdropping like they did," he pointed out. "You should know the saying 'turnabout is fair play.' This is just teaching them a lesson."
Haku mulled that over for a minute before waving her hand and melting the block of ice. Gaara collected the water in a cup of sand, drinking it as they listened.
#
Yugito was perched on top of Naruto, kissing him deeply and shivering as his calloused hands ran across her exposed skin. Suddenly, he froze, hands coming to a halt on her back and tongue pausing in her mouth. She pulled back, giving him an annoyed look. She recognized the expression on his face as the one he had when some flash of insight led to a new idea. If he'd interrupted their alone time because of some new jutsu he was working on...
"What?" she asked sharply.
He sat up, forcing her to move aside and sit next to him. "I just had a thought," he said. "About Gaara and Haku."
Yugito felt her eyebrows jump at that. If he was expecting her to go along with some weird kink, he was about to be disappointed. "What about them?"
"They're not fighting," he said.
"I'd noticed," she said dryly.
"No, but why? I've been wondering what convinced them to stop, and I just had an idea."
Now she was a little curious, if still put out that he'd interrupted over this. "What is it?" she asked, a little less harshly than before.
"Well, what if they're like this?" he slipped one arm around Yugito's bare waist, drawing her closer. "What if they've stopped fighting because they're like us?"
"You think they like each other?" Yugito gasped, eyes going wide.
#
Gaara choked on the water he'd been drinking, quickly coughing it out onto the sand-horn. Haku had pulled away from him, eyes wide with horror as Yugito spoke. Both looked at each other in astonishment, not sure what to say.
"Well, yeah," Naruto's voice came through the sand-horn. "Think about it, spending so many nights alone, no one but each other for company, eventually they'd start finding things they like about each other. And, well, one thing leads to another, like in those trashy romance books Haku's always reading."
Gaara smirked as Haku's pretty face twisted in anger hearing Naruto deride her favorite books like that. Then they looked at each other again and remembered the real problem.
"Sorry about this," Gaara apologized in advance as he stood up. "But you understand."
Haku nodded, also getting to her feet. "I'll get things started," she said. Taking a deep breath, she scrunched up her fists as Gaara braced himself.
#
"TRASH!? THESE ARE MASTERPIECES, GAARA!"
Naruto and Yugito both jumped as Haku's voice came loud and clearly through the wall. In moments, Yugito was digging through her backpack for the notebook with all of their bets recorded in it and Naruto was searching for snacks.
"Put me down for forty that it gets hot and heavy when they make up," he told her.
#
Within ten minutes, Haku and Gaara's room was broken, along with several adjoining rooms, whose occupants had left hastily. Several of the Konoha shinobi helped evacuate the building, while Naruto and Yugito realized that their friends were going a little out of control. Apparently, having avoided every potential argument and disagreement between them for nearly a month left the pair with a lot of pent-up frustration to express.
In the end, Naruto delivered a heap of cash to the hotel owner, and all the shinobi left.
"That was spectacular," Kakashi mused as they all headed down the street.
Naruto glared at him. Yugito was too busy keeping Haku and Gaara apart - and mentally cackling over her winnings - to get involved in conversation. "Why are you here?" he asked. "We're going west, Konoha's east. That way," he helpfully added, pointing the opposite direction as they were walking.
"We'll stay the night somewhere else in this city," he explained. "No sense in exhausting my students by traveling all night long."
Shaking his head, Naruto looked away dismissively. "Your students are pathetic excuses for shinobi then," he said, disregarding the fact they could all clearly overhear him. "I'm the same age as them, and I made the trip from Iwa to Kumo in four days."
Kakashi grunted in a way that sounded mildly impressed. "You're a Jinchuriki," he pointed out. "Ordinary people have actual limits."
Naruto couldn't help smirking. "True. It's sad, really. Especially since we're the ones treated as monsters, when it's you who's inferior."
Kakashi didn't let the jab get to him, ignoring his students' tension. "That is a shame," he agreed. "We'd really rather prefer to get along."
Naruto laughed bitterly. "We do get along, Hatake. You're not dead, right? I even gave you your mission objective. Now go find a safe, cozy bed for your baby shinobi. We'll be on our way."
"Why are you so cruel?"
Kakashi kept any hint of the despair and exasperation he felt off his face as Hinata jumped into the conversation. This couldn't end well, in his opinion. Seeing Naruto's blond friend forgo her job of stopping another fight to the death to watch the Hyuuga girl closely, he mentally changed their likelihood of another incident from "probable" to "highly likely."
"You were n-nice at the Academy, Naruto!" Hinata said, stepping closer to him. "You were loud, but you weren't m-mean like this! You didn't m-mock people or th-threaten them! You didn't c-cut out everyone! What happened?"
"He isn't cut off from everyone," Yugito told the girl, joining Naruto and pointedly slipping an arm around his shoulders, leaning into him. "Just the people who never appreciated him."
"I did-"
"Didn't. Say. A thing," Naruto cut her off, biting the words out angrily. "So how much could you have cared, really, if you couldn't be bothered to tell me?"
"I w-wasn't- That's not f-fair to-"
"Not fair, not fair," Naruto repeated, pitching his voice higher mockingly, even as the volume of his words rose. "Life's not fair, Hyuuga!" he yelled at her. "No one gets what they want unless they take it for themselves!"
The Konoha shinobi all took a few steps back as his overwhelmingly thick and malevolent chakra began filling the air again. Kakashi and Kurenai noticed Hinata's expression change when he addressed her by her family name, as though she'd just been punched in the gut.
"I had to leave the village to get what I wanted, so I did! And it wasn't fair! I had to fight and kill over and over just to be allowed to live free, while everyone else got that privilege for nothing! Don't fucking talk to me about life not being fair!"
His rising chakra stilled as Gaara placed a hand on his shoulder. "Naruto, enough," the redhead said, voice low but ironclad. "They aren't worth it." Lowering his voice so no one else could hear, and turning so they couldn't read his lips, he continued. "You wanted to keep Konoha from seeing us as an enemy. Attacking them will change that. We should leave."
Naruto glared at him, dark blue eyes boring into seafoam green, but slowly his chakra subsided, the suffocating pressure dissipating. Naruto heaved a sigh. "When did you get to be the voice of reason?" he muttered.
"They're weak," Gaara explained, loud enough again for the Konoha shinobi to hear. "There's no value in killing them."
While Haku snorted in disgust, Naruto and Yugito both let themselves smile minutely. "You make a good point, Gaara." Turning to Kakashi, ignoring the fact that Hinata was still closest to them, he said. "We're leaving. Hope we never see you again."
The four of them sped away, chakra enhancing their movements so they disappeared from even the Jonins' trained senses in seconds. Kakashi heaved a sigh of relief as they departed without bloodshed.
"Hinata," Kurenai began, her tone clearly indicating that she was restraining herself. "You shouldn't talk to Naruto again."
She didn't receive an answer. Hinata simply wheeled around, stomping away from them all. Sakura glanced at Kakashi, who caught her gaze and nodded once. The pinkette hurried after the Hyuuga, the pair of them disappearing quickly in the streets of the foreign city.
"Let's go find a different hotel," Kakashi said. "Sai, I assume you can track either of them if necessary?"
His emotionless student nodded, and Kakashi felt an annoying gratitude towards Danzo for training the boy so well. "You and Sasuke will go find them later, once Hinata's had some time to cool down. Now come on."
#
For such a normally shy person, Hinata could give off a startlingly intimidating aura, Sakura reflected. Many of the late night pedestrians steered clear of the furious bluenette, letting her storm down the street without slowing down. Luckily, the bubble of space she was afforded made it easy for Sakura to catch up once she got closer.
"Hinata, stop! Wait!" she pleaded.
Hinata didn't stop, but she slowed down enough for Sakura to walk alongside her without too much trouble. "What?" the heiress snapped.
"Your sensei was out of line."
As she'd hoped, the comment gave Hinata pause, her rapid footsteps faltering for a moment.
"He's crazy, okay? I know you liked him, maybe you still do, even after that, but he's crazy, Hinata. It wasn't because of you that he blew up like that, it's just because he's so messed up."
"I know," Hinata said, sighing heavily. At last, she stopped walking. The two girls came to a stop under a streetlamp, outside a closed store. Only a few people were out and about at such a late hour; they had some privacy for the moment. "I know he's-" she struggled for a minute, as if forcing herself to spit out the words.
"He's not the same," Sakura supplied.
Hinata gave a humorless chuckle. "Yeah," she agreed quietly. "I j-just, I really l-liked him. I l-looked up to h-him when we were l-little. He was s-so v-vigorous, he n-never let anyone k-keep him down. I w-wanted to b-be st-strong like him, and n-now-"
She stopped speaking, her head lowered so her long, dark blue hair hid her face from Sakura. Soft, jerking sobs came from her, her shoulders shaking. Sakura stepped forward, hugging the other girl comfortingly. Hinata leaned into the hug gratefully.
Neither girl was able to react as a spray of toxic gas hit them in the face. The pair of them slumped to the ground, unconscious in moments.
#
"Are you sure you're doing this right?" Sasuke demanded as Sai changed directions for the third time.
"It's as though they're running every time we get close," the boy said flatly. "I can't understand why they're avoiding us."
"Kunoichi," Sasuke grunted.
"I don't understand," Sai said simply.
Sasuke sighed, loading the noise with as much disgust and exasperation as he could manage. "Just keep going. We'll catch up to them." He looked around, trying to gauge how far away the hotel was. "We're nearly out of the city," he muttered.
Sai stiffened, coming to a complete halt. "We're what?" he demanded, looking around.
Sasuke frowned. "I said we're-"
He was cut off by a spray of gas. The last thing he saw before his eyelids closed was his teammate, visibly struggling to stay awake and alert, drawing his short sword and then dropping it weakly.
Then there was darkness.
