Disclaimer: Naruto's not mine.

Warnings: Sasuke's bit here is as depressing as this story gets; things lighten up from here.

Moving On

Chapter Nine

By Michiru's Mirror


School. However far Naruto went in life, whatever accomplishments he made, whatever job title he held, it didn't seem to matter. Somehow he always wound up back in a school desk, staring at Iruka-sensei who was glowering at him and snapping, "Naruto, pay attention!"

Iruka didn't care that Naruto was now officially in charge of Konoha, no. As far as he was concerned Naruto would always be his pain in the ass student.

From next to where Naruto was crammed uncomfortably into his desk (he had never imagined a situation like this when wishing to be tall as a child), Sakura leaned over and smacked him on the head. "This is important."

"I know that!"

He did, too. If he was going to go out and talk with the Tsuchikage soon, he had to know more about Iwagakure then he already did. But he was not a man suited to sitting behind old wooden desks when there was action to be had. Twenty minutes of listening to Iruka lecture about Iwagakure's political history was enough to have him bouncing around in his seat.

Worse yet for Naruto's ability to concentrate was Sasuke's abrupt disappearance, which made absolutely no sense. He had no mission, he wasn't at home, he wasn't training…it was as though he'd fallen into a hole and vanished. Naruto was rapidly going from worried to alarmed, and he had every intention of organizing a search party as soon as this whole mess was over.

At this point he'd already forgotten most of what he'd been told by Iruka anyway.

Hopefully his classmates—re: his retinue—were fairing better.

Though she hadn't been able to find Sasuke, Sakura had done a brilliant job of getting everyone from the Konoha Eleven that she could to back Naruto up. Naruto himself was quite touched by how many of them had turned out.

Team Eight was regretfully absent save for Kurenai. Shino was, of course, deceased and Kiba's whereabouts were unknown like Sasuke's. As this was normal for Kiba Naruto wasn't too worried.

Meanwhile, Neji had showed up with Hanabi in tow and informed Naruto that though he knew how important this meeting was to Konoha, Hinata was too important to the Hyuuga to put herself in danger. Thus, Hanabi would stand in her stead. Neji himself was all that remained of Team Gai, save for Gai himself who was away on a mission and could not make it back in time.

Perhaps the universe's idea of irony was making all of Team Ten available (save for their long lost instructor) when the other teams Naruto had grown up with were so full of holes. Not only had Chouji and Ino made it, so had Shikamaru. Back from Sunagakure with Temari and all five of their children, the couple had announced that they were once again going to try and patch up their marriage. Chouji gave it a week before Shikamaru was sleeping on his couch again, but for the moment the two were sitting next to each other in the back row of the classroom, looking bored.

Naruto knew that their being present was a show of support. Chouji was a teacher and already knew all of this; Shikamaru knew everything; and Temari was a Sunagakure diplomat, well versed in foreign cultures and history.

A thwack sounded throughout the room. Naruto almost jumped out of his seat; Iruka had brought his pointer down on the desk right in front of him.

"Are you trying to make yourself look stupid?" Iruka snapped. "Because that's what's going to happen if you walk out there without even knowing the Tsuchikage's name."

"I know the Tsuchikage's name! Ganbyoki Tsubaki—"

"Ganseki Tsuyoshi!" Sakura hissed into his ear.

"—Ganseki Tsuyoshi!"

Iruka turned bright red. Everyone knew what was coming; Naruto shrank down in his seat and most of the Konoha Eleven scooted as far away from him as possible.

It was Chouji who bravely sat up in his seat and said, "Ah, Iruka-sensei, maybe we should just skip to information directly related to the Tsuchikage. That would be less to remember and more…direct."

Iruka took a moment to visibly regain control of himself. Then he nodded. "Given our time restraints, that's an excellent suggestion. Now you—" He swiveled his pointer right into Naruto's face. Naruto squeaked and moved back. "Pay attention or I swear I'll put you in detention so you can't meet the Tsuchikage and embarrass Konoha!"

"You can't put me in detention!" Naruto said, straightening up. "I outrank you!"

Iruka said nothing, but moved slowly to put his enraged face eyelevel to Naruto's.

"…Yes, sensei," Naruto squeaked again.

Iruka straightened up. "Right. Now that we've got that settled.

"If you remember nothing else about Iwagakure, remember that it's spent generations stuck in a rut. It's dominated many chuunin exams with extremely strong ninja and has produced some of the most powerful jounin in history, but it's very weak on strategists and leaders.

"This goes back in history to the days of the great ninja wars, where everyone was relying on brute strength and the "strongest" country was the one with the biggest men versed in the most powerful jutsu. Strategists and thinkers were cowards afraid of a good, direct fight."

Shikamaru snorted audibly.

"Most ninja villages have revised their opinion since then and learned to put value on their intelligent ninja as well as their more powerful ones."

Naruto thought of Kakashi fighting Zabuza and Shikamaru fighting Hidan, and could see the worth of doing this.

"But Iwagakure is…traditional. They value their hulking neckless wonders over their less powerful geniuses, and a lot of talent is squashed before it can even form.

"They've been reaping the results in the last few generations. Iwa simply began falling behind other ninja villages in everything from job offers (as their success rates were lower then many others) to new talent (since they had the highest mortality rate of any village). In international conferences they were a joke.

Temari spoke up from the back. "I remember once attending one where the former Tsuchikage got up to make a speech and everyone was talking over him. Not a single person in the room had any interest in what he had to say—everyone knew he was too stupid to merit listening to."

Iruka nodded at her before turning again to Naruto. "With me so far?"

Naruto's turn to nod. With dumb Iwagakure jokes being as popular as dumb blonde jokes around Konoha, he had guessed at some of this. Still, he was surprised by just how badly Iwagakure had screwed itself by holding onto its traditional thinking. What the hell was the point of holding onto tradition if all of your living citizens were suffering?

"So that's where Ganseki Tsuyoshi came in. He was strong and powerful enough to appease the traditionalists, but he was also an unusually bright young man who was very reform minded. There were a lot of Iwa citizens who liked that, mostly younger people who were questioning the way previous generations had run things, though there were a few older people who wanted a better future for their children.

"Personally I think Ganseki would have been a great choice, if he'd been given another decade to mature. At eighteen years old he lacked the experience necessary to really lead a village."

Eighteen? Naruto balked. True, Gaara had made Kazekage at fifteen, but he was hardly a typical case: He was very experienced in leadership and combat, extremely powerful, and totally devoid of any childishness. Your average shinobi, or even an above-average one, couldn't hope to lead more then a three-man cell at that age.

As soon as Naruto thought that, he began to feel old. Hadn't he found the idea of a teenage Hokage perfectly normal when he was twelve? Then he turned twenty, and the idea of a Hokage that young become ridiculous. When he hit his forties he was going to start scoffing at Kage in their thirties.

But that thought lead to Tsunade and thoughts of her led naturally to Jiraiya. The pain that flooded his heart in response was too much to bear, so he forced himself back to the present, where Iruka had begun talking again.

"—did a marvelous job considering the forces against him, and he would have been a good leader under normal circumstances. But the situation wasn't normal, and Iwagakure didn't need a good leader, it needed an exceptional one. Ganseki just didn't have the experience necessary to deal with what happened next.

"He seemed to think that just because people understood change was necessary meant that it was going to be easy. He tried to institute broad, sweeping reforms in everything from education to government in his first year, and was shot down so quickly and completely that it amazed even the people who'd been expecting it."

Naruto frowned. "But they'd wanted reform."

"Some of them. But even the people who knew reform was needed didn't necessarily want it."

"But—but—then why did they elect him in the first place? Either they wanted to change or they didn't!"

Sakura's hand was on his arm then, and he turned to her. "Naruto, it's not easy to overhaul your life overnight. Iwagakure knew it needed change, but it had lived for generations one way, and it was comfortable with that way of life. Imagine being told that ramen was suddenly outlawed because it was bad for your health. You know it's bad for your health, but you don't care, do you? You love it because it's ramen."

Naruto thought about that. When she put it that way it seemed similar to how he'd felt after finding out just how terrible being Hokage was. When the reality of the job he'd coveted since childhood had been shown to him, it was years before he could accept that it was the wrong job for him. He'd been unable to let go of the fantasy he'd had and the inspiration it had given him. Putting that fantasy aside to face reality had been so frightening that he'd hurt Sakura by shutting her out and himself by continuing in his apprenticeship, even though it made him miserable, rather than face the truth.

With a great rush of affection for her, Naruto thought of how Sakura had put up with the disaster he'd made of his life. She hadn't always been graceful about it, but she had never left him and made it clear that she wanted to help. Smiling over at her, Naruto grabbed her hand and squeezed it.

From behind them Temari began making ostentatious puking noises.

"Temari-san PAY ATTENTION!" Iruka roared. She jumped in her seat, eyes wide, before sinking down.

"Right," said Iruka. "As I was saying.

"So, Ganseki was trying to reform his village and being blocked at every turn. For example, when he tried to change the school system to include more tactical study there was a huge outcry from parents and teachers. They began accusing him of lacking proper respect for their traditional values and trying to undermine Iwagakure morals.

"Worse yet were the groups who hadn't wanted change in the first place; that is, the people who thought that Iwa was already perfect and bringing in some young upstart who wanted to change things was not only foolish but dangerous to their way of life. As things in Iwa have gotten worse, those groups have gotten louder and more powerful."

"And that's where Iwa is now," said Chouji from the front row.

"Right," said Iruka, looking sad. "It's been eleven years since Ganseki took power, and for all his efforts things have been moving steadily backwards. For the last three years the traditionalists have become so powerful that we don't know what's been going on—they've cut the village off almost completely to avoid 'contamination' from other ninja villages' cultures and ideas. In fact, we didn't even know Ganseki was still in charge until he wrote to the Godaime."

There was a moment of silence at the word "Godaime." Sakura's hand moved under the table to squeeze Naruto's in support.

"Well," said Ino in an obvious attempt to break the tension. "Given that he's walking this way, I think we can safely say he's still alive if nothing else."

"Yeah, and his being here ends the discussion totally." The sound of Genma's voice made half the classroom jump. "He's going to be at the gate in about half an hour."

If Neji and Sasuke were a blessing to the men of Konoha, Genma was their curse. In his mid-fifties he was still quite handsome, and women loved him as much as they ever had. His sly, come hither grin was almost always in place.

Now, though, even he saw the seriousness of the situation; he chewed nervously on his ever-present senbon, and his eyes were crinkled with worry rather then mirth.

Murmuring immediately broke out among the Konoha Eleven, and no one had to directly say that they were angry and afraid for the emotions to be clearly conveyed.

Naruto could easily see how control over a situation like this could be lost. People were frightened and soon with no leadership that fright would turn to panic. From there, panic could easily become violence.

He stood. "All right everyone!" He said, louder then he really needed to, to make sure he had his friends' attention.

"Genma-san, I want you to keep tracking the Tsuchikage. Obviously, if he speeds up or slows down or does anything unusual, tell me."

"You got it." Genma was gone in a flash, the faint rustling of his clothes the only sign that he had moved rather than simply disappeared.

Naruto turned back to the desks, behind which sat his now-silent friends. "The rest of you, get in position. I have to talk to Sakura-chan and then I'll join you."

The result was immediate. As an ANBU captain Naruto was used to having his orders obeyed, but it was still strange to see his friends do so. He supposed this was another reason one shouldn't usually give one's loved ones close positions beneath oneself—it just felt wrong to order around those you saw as your equals. He wanted them beside him for now on his first big assignment, but he knew he wouldn't be using them as his direct subordinates in the future if he could help it.

When the room was empty save for himself and Sakura, she walked up to him and asked, "What's up?"

He sighed. She wasn't going to like this. "I want you to stay at Konoha Hospital while I talk with the Tsuchikage."

Sakura's eyes bugged out. "What?"

Naruto cursed his blunt nature. He knew how sensitive Sakura was about feeling useless; most likely she'd take this order as a sign that he lacked confidence in her ability to handle things on the battle front.

Though hopefully there would be no battle.

"Let me explain!" he said quickly. He couldn't let this become a fight. He was sick with grief and worry and a complete lack of self-confidence. If he had another fight with Sakura and they parted with hostile feelings he might lose his cool completely. He had found a sense of purpose when taking this mission from the elders; he couldn't lose it because of a petty row with his girlfriend.

"Sakura-chan, we have no idea what's going on here. We hope that Ganseki wants peace, but we don't know that.

"My best friends are backing me up, my most precious people. If something happens to them they'll need the best help they can get patching themselves up, and you're the best, right?"

"…Well, yeah," said Sakura grudgingly.

Naruto shrugged. "Well that's that, then. If anyone gets hurt they'll need you to patch them up and if you get hurt you can't do it."

Naruto had hoped to put her mind at ease with those words, but he had never dreamed he'd get a smile in response to them.

"Tsunade-shishou told me the same thing when she first began training me," said Sakura softly.

Naruto felt the familiar tug on his heart at the sound of Tsunade's name, but he also realized that he was smiling back.

"She was a cool old hag," he said, and Sakura laughed.

"Jiraiya-sama had his own charm too," she said. Then: "Well, sort of."

As Naruto waved Sakura off, he regretted that he'd had to lie to her. It was true enough that he wanted her to heal anyone who got injured. However the real reason he couldn't have her along was that she'd make a lousy subordinate.

She wouldn't mean to be disrespectful to him, just like he hadn't meant to be disrespectful to Tsunade by calling her "baa-chan" in public. Rather, it was just an expression of their relationship: they were equals. They had started out working that way and after over twenty years she couldn't just stop seeing him that way.

If he said something stupid (which was entirely possible) she might well bop him on the head or chew him out before stopping to think, and that would undermine all his credibility as a leader. It was unlikely—Sakura was much less impulsive then he, and if he was being honest with himself, much smarter in a lot of ways—but calling him on doing dumb things was so natural to her that it was a risk he couldn't take.

It was just one more reason not to become Hokage, Naruto thought as he made his way to the gate. He thought of never again being able to treat his precious people as equals, of having to order them around and reprimand Sakura if she was disrespectful in public, and shuddered.

The gate came into view, and Naruto was at last able to admit the last reason he had for wanting Sakura to stay behind: he couldn't stomach the thought of her getting hurt. She was a first class medic, but—and he would never say this to her face—he really did have low confidence in her fighting ability. One of the happiest days of his life had been the day that Sakura told him she was going to be stationed permanently at the Hospital, which meant that it would be a rarity for her to go out on missions. Up until then she had regularly been posted on missions without him, and he'd never been able to sleep until she returned safely.

He couldn't afford that kind of distraction now. The very idea of her injured was enough to make him physically ill, and as Hok—village leader his life would be placed before hers. It would be his aid, not hers, that the Konoha Eleven would have to go to.

Naruto reached the gates of Konoha, simple but majestic wooden barriers that had served the village well. Everyone was in position.

Neji and Hanabi were posted in nearby trees where they and their byakugan would let them see danger (hopefully) before it came. Kurenai was hidden away, ready to cast her genjutsu should a large-scale diversion become necessary.

Team Ten and Temari were at the gate, ready to flank Naruto and look intimidating. They were the primary gate defense, ready to blast back any would-be intruder.

Naruto took his position in front of them and took a deep breath. He was ready.


Ah…Sasuke knew the dark wouldn't be comforting.

He was floating in blackness, but rather than the feeling of oblivion he had been craving, it was one of suffocation. The darkness penetrated his lungs and brain, his heart and his very soul, squeezing and crushing him until he could feel nothing but pain and pain and pain…

Yet there was nowhere to go, no place to escape to. There was nothing anywhere he looked, not so much as a patch of gray to interrupt the dark that compressed him into a flat sheet of agony. This nothingness was all there was, the only truth in the universe. Everything but this feeling of strangulation had been fake, a fantasy that morons like Naruto were deluded enough to believe.

Yes…really, this torture was something he had felt all of his life, ever since his father had first given him that cold glare that told him more poignantly then any words how useless his was. This weight of blackness had begun to press down on him then and grown heavier at Itachi's betrayal and heavier again after selling himself like an object to Orochimaru…

So now Sasuke had disposed of his body and all that was left was this, this screaming misery that he had always felt in the background whether he was training or sleeping or sneering at Sakura. But he had nothing to distract him here from these feelings, and Sasuke wondered if he would spend eternity here trapped and smothered from all sides, totally alone.

Ah…but he wasn't alone. Right there before him was Itachi, as plainly visible to him as the darkness itself. He appeared suddenly, and Sasuke wasn't surprised, because that was his brother's way.

He should have thought of this; it was one more thing to reproach himself for. Of course Itachi was dead, so with his own death it was only to be expected that he'd have to face this monster again!

Just one more regret.

"Foolish little brother…you're the most pathetic human being I've ever met. It isn't any wonder that father couldn't stand you, him or anyone else?"

Oh that pressure, that pain, it was so all-consuming that Sasuke couldn't answer to stand up for himself or even to beg for Itachi to stop talking.

"And that's really saying something, given how pitiful our clan was," Itachi continued. "When you were seven it was understandable that you'd think of our father as a great man and our mother as a beautiful, kind woman. That's just how children think; mother and father are perfect and the center of my world, so they must be the center of everyone's world.

"That's why I spared you, you know. I felt sorry for you for being so taken in, and I really thought that if I set you free you'd come to realize in time what a favor I'd done you. My mistake—I never thought you'd be so unbelievably stupid that you'd refuse to see the truth of our clan after almost three decades!"

That's not true, Sasuke wanted to say, that's not true, otherwise why would you have challenged me to find and kill you?

But was this really Itachi? Itachi had always been so cold, so void of emotion, and the man before him was quite different. His eyes alight with malice, he looked at Sasuke with naked sadistic glee. Had death changed his brother this way, or was it not his brother at all?

"But no," Itachi continued, "You're the same stubborn idiot who never stopped bothering me about training you no matter how many times I made it clear that I didn't want to be anywhere near you.

"Well, our family wasn't perfect anywhere but in your overactive imagination, you pitiful little boy. Our family was a military training cell that tried to stick all of its children into one mold. If the child didn't fit they were abused and beaten down until they did—and if that proved impossible they were thrown away. Many people asked me why I thought that human life was so disposable. Well, how could I not?"

Well what's wrong with that? Sasuke tried to cry. It's a child's duty to serve his clan, and any child that refuses has no right to call himself an Uchiha! Kinder for both the clan and child to separate.

"Ah, duty," said Itachi, as though he had heard Sasuke's silent protest. "Your duty as an Uchiha…well what about Fugaku's duty as a father?

"Let me ask you this. We Uchiha spent generations doing our duty and where did it get us? When I was a little boy in the compound I was so proud, Sasuke. We policed Konoha with our elite peace keeping force! We led Konoha with our sharingan and genius abilities! We were the elite, the most respected, the greatest warriors!

"It took me five minutes outside the Uchiha estates to be rid of that ridiculous idea. Foolish little brother, didn't you notice how no one seemed to miss the Uchiha? How you never found a single ninja who said he was the friend of any one of our family members? Or the way that Konoha policed itself just fine without the help of our mighty father's peace keeping force?"

Sasuke was crying now, he knew it. His humiliation could be no greater then it was already, his soul no more torn. Something had broken inside of him—no, something had been broken, and now it was shattering into pieces.

"No one liked our family, Sasuke, no one! They respected our power, but no Uchiha had a friend outside the clan because all of the ordinary citizens knew better then to speak to us. We were arrogant, elitist snobs and nothing more. Worse, we weren't even as good as we thought we were: None of the Sannin were Uchiha. No Hokage was an Uchiha. We were just genetically gifted, rule bound fools with delusions of grandeur, and when others weren't willing to put up with it we walled ourselves into our compound and played make believe!"

Sasuke was going to die. He couldn't hurt this badly and live. There was no more protest in him, no more fight, and in his exhaustion he realized how true Itachi's words were.

And to admit that was the end of him.

"And now you're trying to rebuild that disaster, that poor excuse for a family? What are you trying to do, ruin Konoha?

"You wonder why you're impotent when you're scientifically as capable as any man. I don't know, but I have two theories.

"The first is that you know somewhere deep down that it's in no one's best interest, least of all your own, to rebuild the Uchiha. You are an idiot, and you are as stubborn as a mule, but there is that streak of kindness in you that was so often your undoing. You're not the kind of man who wants to sire children to abuse into mindless little drones deep down, no matter how much it's been beaten into your head that you should.

"But that doesn't really explain the lack of desire before your marriage, does it?" Itachi's eyes were clear and dark, his expression calm as could be. It was as though he was reading a newspaper instead of destroying his helpless brother.

"No, Sasuke, I think there is simply no life in you to give. Father sucked the life out of you with his 'duty' and you beat what remained out of yourself by pushing away any love or pleasure. Those things were for lesser men, not great Uchiha. We had duty!

"Father and mother had a lousy sex life, you know. He'd turn out the lights and close his eyes and touch her as little as possible, and when it was over they'd rush to wash themselves and pretend it hadn't happened. God forbid that they have fun or express any affection for each other.

"There was little life in them, Sasuke, with their guilt and shame and responsibilities, and they passed that on to you…and I made it worse.

"You cannot create life, Sasuke, because you are not alive. You were never alive. Why did you think that just jumping into a lake would change things for you? This is no different then how you have always been."

No, thought Sasuke, I was alive once. There was life in me when I exercised with Naruto, and there was life in me when I realized how frightened I was at the thought of Sakura's death at Gaara's hands. I was alive after my family died because they were no longer able to torture me…it was me and only me who chose to die again by going to Orochimaru.

Perhaps this is right after all. I chose to become something foul and ugly to satisfy equally foul and ugly people who raised me to think that I should. Kakashi warned me, he told me I had a choice and people who loved me and it was only me who decided not to listen…

In the end, maybe this is what I deserve after all.


Sasuke awoke to feel another's mouth clamped firmly on his own.

Was this a kiss? He didn't think so. He'd never kissed anyone before—Momoko had tried once, but he had looked at her so disdainfully that she burst into tears and never asked again—but somehow he didn't think that his partner was supposed to have their lips sealed over his mouth the way these were.

Then his lungs expanded without his help and Sasuke realized what was happening: He was being artificially resuscitated.

Sasuke gave a weak cough, and the mouth on top of his own disappeared. A hand turned his head to the side and he vomited up a steady stream of filthy water, which felt so much better then it should have.

Weak though he was Sasuke had never felt such pure unadulterated happiness. That hell of pain and shame might have existed in the back of his mind for decades, but being fully immersed in it was worse then seeing Itachi standing over the bodies of his dead parents. At least then he'd had someone else to blame.

To be saved from there, to be pulled out and back into a place where he could speak, move and feel anything other than agony was pure joy to a degree that he would never be able to express. The ground beneath his body, the air moving over his face was glorious, the greatest thing he'd ever felt.

It had to be Naruto. Only Naruto was always there to save him from himself, to anchor him to reality and remind him of the world outside and his place in it.

When he could move, he turned his head towards the sound of the coughing next to him. He opened his eyes and prepared to thank Naruto for perhaps the first time in his life.

But when he saw who sat beside him, all he could do was freeze and stare in shock.

"Congratulations," said Inuzuka Kiba, wiping lake water off of his chin. "You just hit rock bottom."

Sasuke fainted.


A/N

Ganseki's disastrous attempts to change things were based on some prominent episodes in very modern US political history, but you can find his story in every country at some point in its past. The Uchiha, meanwhile (like the Hyuuga), come from historical noble houses. Contrary to Disney Princess legends, nobles were not nice people. Plus, my explanation for why none of the Uchiha ever seemed to have any friends outside the clan!

I'm going to repeat this because after that ending I know someone is going to ask: There's NO YAOI in this story save for that tiny off-screen mention in chapter 2.

Review please, good or bad!