Hello Narutopedia, it's been a while since I needed you but you were damn helpful. Also, artistic license is nice. Also, plot. Also, I had to update because gorgeous reviewers were making me feel really terrible about my updating, or lack thereof :P Also guest reviewers! Log in or something so I can respond to your utter gorgeousness!

LiK: Chapter 10

Naruto taste tested the tea out of morbid curiosity before passing it to Sasuke, his face screwing up. "Yeah, that's gross. Never really acquired a taste for sake."

Sasuke didn't seem to hear him and sipped at the spiked tea, staring down at a point on the table Naruto was pretty sure wasn't all that fascinating. The time it took to make green tea and then thoroughly ruin it with sake was all the time Uchiha needed to withdraw again. Not that Naruto could blame him. The bomb Tsunade threw at him was very nearly atomic and he wasn't quite sure how to broach disarming it.

He understood where the Hokage lady was coming from though considering a few of the houses looked as though they might cave in if Naruto even breathed near them. If the compound meant so much to the crazy bastard, he wondered, why'd he let it fall in to such disrepair?

He sat opposite Sasuke at the low table, sitting cross-legged so it was easier to slouch forward and watch the other teen over the rim of his own tea, thinking. Sasuke had said he'd been nothing but a snot-nosed kid when his brother went all serial killer crazy on their clan so it wasn't like he was in a position to maintain a whole compound at that age. And then it sounded as though he'd left Konoha for a while, maybe years.

Wouldn't the responsibility of fixing the place have been palmed off to Tsunade somehow then, Naruto mused, or whoever was in charge all those years ago. Though he kinda got the feeling the massacre was something everyone but Sasuke tried to forget. Just avoid the blood-stained chunk of land, pretend it wasn't there, walk around it because people sure as shit weren't going to walk through it.

Naruto still couldn't believe Sasuke had stayed on as a kid. That at an age when Naruto's gran tucked him in and read him bedtime stories, Uchiha was scrubbing his dead parents' blood out of the tatami mats in the main room and living alone in a compound full of the ghosts of his relatives.

That Sasuke had only killed two people for, Naruto decided, in the grand scheme of things generally pretty okay reasons as far as offing people went, was rather amazing. That he was a bit fucked up and not certifiable was beyond astonishing. Konoha was strong and independent, Naruto thought, but fucking hell they needed to pay more attention to the shit that kept people happy, healthy and generally functioning like normal.

He startled a little and focused properly when Sasuke's low voice pierced the silence.

"Thanks," he said, not looking up from his cup. "For the tea."

Naruto waved a hand immediately, shaking his head. "Nah, man, wish I could do more, you know?"

Sasuke nodded once but said nothing further, so Naruto thought it best to steer clear of Tsunade's demolition order for the moment.

"So," he hesitated, not wanting to be that douchebag who talked about himself but figuring Sasuke might care for an update on it. "I checked out the forest clearing with Sakura and Shikamaru, ya know, where we all disappeared, reappeared, whatever."

"Anything new?" Sasuke asked, looking up to watch Naruto closely, clearly more than fine with the topic change.

"Yeah, sort of. This girl Hinata came with and she used her eye power thingy," Naruto explained, "but that was basically a waste of time."

"Byakugan revealed nothing?"

Naruto nodded. "Yeah. But Shikamaru reckoned that made sense. He thinks if I pretty much need it enough, or feel enough, the door will go on and swing wide open."

"Feel?" Sasuke frowned, tilting his head to the side as he mulled it over. "You mean in terms of emotion? That will open your invisible door?"

Naruto shrugged. "Fucked if I know for sure but that seemed the gist of it. Strong need or emotion."

"If that's the case then I'd imagine it would've opened for you by now. I'm sure there's been plenty of times when you've wanted to get the hell out of Konoha."

"Yeah, sure," he said slowly, thinking over the past few days, "but not a real powerful or intense want. Like, not even when Kiba jumped me with a damn kunai."

"Pardon?" Sasuke asked instantly, his gaze sharp. "Inuzuka did what? Today? Weren't you with Sakura and Shikamaru?"

"Ah, yeah. But him and his huge fucking dog must have a super keen sense of smell or something," he felt a lot like he was dobbing Kiba in, and tried to sound casual, but Sasuke's concern was embarrassingly warming and felt nice. "He knew straight away that I wasn't, you know, Konoha's Uzumaki. It wasn't a big deal."

"Hmm."

Sasuke could fucking tell he was skimming off bits of the truth, Naruto knew, but thankfully let it mostly slide.

"I thought you'd be fine with them," Sasuke said, frowning.

So did I, Naruto thought immediately but pushed that to the side fast. It was more than unfair to think he'd be safe 24/7 in such a dangerous place. And it was fucking ridiculous how fast ninja moved.

"It was no biggie," he reassured Sasuke instead, grinning a little. "Sakura's got this amazing 'don't fuck with me' tone. It's super effective."

Sasuke huffed at that, amused. "Yes, I know exactly what you mean. I think she may have learned more than ninjutsu from Tsunade."

At the reminder of the Hokage, Sasuke visibly tensed and dropped his gaze to his cup once more. Naruto sighed inwardly, right fucking back where they started, but he wasn't keen on giving up so easily this time.

"How'd your meet go with her and, uh, Uzumaki?" he asked after a long moment, sticking to the topic of the Hokage at least. "When she left with Sakura she said something about having an idea? For taking out the Killer Demon Fox thing?"

"More than an idea," Sasuke said, and glanced up again. "I'm sure it will work."

"What?" Naruto leaned forward, restless with curiosity and excitement. "For real?"

"We know that extracting a demon causes death in the jinchuriki," Sasuke explained, unknowingly fidgeting with his tea cup, "and we know it is possible for a jinchuriki to be revived from that death."

"Jinchuwhat? So, this sort of shit has happened before?"

"Someone who has a tailed demon sealed within them," Sasuke clarified, surprisingly patiently. "Yes, Gaara, a shinobi from Sand. But he was revived with a technique that killed the nin who performed it, and the secrets of that technique died with her."

"Damn," Naruto breathed, eyes wide. "That's one hell of a trade-off in any case. I sure hope Tsunade has a less fatal plan?"

"Well," Sasuke pushed his cup to the side and clasped his fingers in that practiced way Naruto remembered from his dorm, obviously pleased with the progress. "I've seen inside the seal with Sharingan. It's in the form of a cage. When a host dies the demon is weakened as well, so in that state it'll be easy to control it while Tsunade removes the cage and I can pull the fox out."

"So then Rampaging Killer Demon is out and loose?" Naruto asked, uncertain. "And Uzumaki is dead while this is all going down?"

"Essentially, yes," Sasuke nodded, continuing, "but Kyuubi will be restrained under my control. Once the fox is free of the weakened seal, it can then be resealed."

"Resealed?" Naruto frowned, confused. "Why not kill it while you've got the chance?"

Sasuke was already shaking his head. "Of course we thought about that but it's far too risky. Kyuubi is powerful, and self-preservation could be enough to break from my will and fight back. If that happened, well… I wouldn't be able to regain control."

"And Rampaging Killer Demon becomes Free Rampaging Killer Demon," Naruto realised, eyes wide. "Fuck man, this is only possible because of you. I sure hope you realise that, you crazy bastard."

"Yeah. I know," Sasuke's face was mostly hidden behind his bangs and hands, but he stared at Naruto for a long moment, before his gaze flicked away. "No pressure, right."

"Ha, none at all. Okay," Naruto ticked off on his fingers what he understood so far. "So Tsunade breaks the seal for good, you control the fox in the meantime, then what?"

"That will deplete Tsunade's chakra, so Kakashi will immediately perform the fuinjutsu to seal Kyuubi within a prepared scroll."

Naruto braced himself against the table and leaned so far forward he was almost bent double. "The fuck? Y'all are gonna put something that can destroy the world in a scrap of paper? Fold it up, shove it in a damn envelope and mail it to the ends of the earth?"

"Well," Sasuke said quite seriously, folding his arms over the table, "I was more thinking of burning the shit out of it with a well-aimed fireball, but Kakashi said the fuinjutsu required to contain Kyuubi will be so strong that it'll render the scroll basically indestructible."

"Dude," Naruto grinned but sobered quickly. "So what's the plan then?"

Sasuke shrugged slightly. "We do what we can. The Hokage will have the scroll locked away and protected, the less who know about it and where the better, and pass the duty of guarding it to the next Hokage, and so on."

"Which," Naruto mused aloud, "is Uzumaki anyway, so that won't be a prob."

"Exactly. Hopefully we'll work out something better along the way."

"Maybe I'm missing something," Naruto leaned back again, "but that only covers the whole extraction side of things. What about the part where the host is supposed to be pretty damn dead for this biz?"

"Yes, well, it's far easier to take life than to give it or return it," Sasuke admitted. "We're… still working on that bit. The shock of removing Kyuubi, however gently I suppose you could say, will stop Uzumaki's heart. Tsunade and Sakura are probably discussing medical avenues."

"But," Naruto frowned, remembering something Sakura had said on the way to Shikamaru's, "you guys do have ways of reviving ninja, right?"

"Revival ninjutsu is forbidden, not that that fact would honestly stop us," Sasuke added a little wryly, "but it's forbidden because it's usually performed at great cost. A skilled medic-nin can restore strong shinobi under regulated conditions but, as I'm sure you can appreciate, that's usually not the case when a nin requires that sort of attention."

"So you're saying… what, exactly?"

Sasuke sighed, mirroring Naruto's frown. "Tsunade is the best medic-nin in our world, and she still hasn't found anything suitable. No herb, plant or poison that will do what we need and certainly no ninjutsu that won't permanently damage Uzumaki or the user. In any case, her chakra will be completely drained by the extraction so it would fall to Sakura to perform any medical ninjutsu. I'm sure you can imagine that Uzumaki is quite vocally opposed to Sakura using any technique that could hurt her."

Sasuke cocked a brow, but obviously agreed on the matter with his teammate.

"No doubt," Naruto understood completely. "So pretty much you guys are ready to yank the fox the fuck out, just as soon as you work out how to undeadify Uzumaki once you've done it?"

Sasuke paused before nodding slowly. "Yes. I suppose that's true. The seal is weakening, so sooner rather than later would be best before we don't get a choice in the matter."

And Naruto knew that 'not having a choice in the matter' would mean this world's Uzumaki stayed very much dead.

Still, The Plan was quite sound, he decided, for such an unstable situation that could take a turn for the worst at pretty much any moment. While the risk to the life of Naruto's lookalike was quite unpleasantly high, it was comforting to know that at least the world would be saved.

Now that everything else had been talked about though, Naruto was back to thinking about Tsunade's tense visit to the Uchiha Compound. He had no idea how to start and decided fuck it, opened his mouth and hoped for the best.

"How'd the compound get so rundown?" it sounded horribly tactless even to his own ears and Naruto quickly continued. "I mean, your house is in top nick but the rest are…"

He floundered, figuring he had been unintentionally insulting enough as it was about such a delicate subject but Sasuke folded his arms over the table and slouched, nodding slightly.

"I didn't mean for it to happen," he started, voice low and eyes shielded behind his bangs. "Years ago, after the funerals the Third Hokage visited at least once a week. He was kind but I refused to move out of the compound. I was stubborn, and being there kept me angry."

Sasuke's dark gaze cut through to lock on Naruto for a moment. "I wanted to be angry. It kept me focused on getting strong and avenging my family."

"But you never accepted his help?"

Sasuke shook his head with a self-depreciating chuckle that evaporated almost as quickly as it began. "Ha, I was too proud and thought I knew best. He couldn't get me to move but I couldn't stop him from helping me clean up this house. I never-"

Sasuke took a breath. "I never thanked him for it."

Naruto was relieved beyond words to learn that Sasuke hadn't been entirely alone. "I'm sure he knew."

"In any case, until I left the village at about thirteen the compound was really just a base. I spent as little time as possible here. If I wasn't at the academy or with Team 7, I was at the library or training by myself."

"So…" Naruto hesitated. "So why do you still live here?"

Uchiha stared at him so intently that Naruto realised with sudden clarity that holy shit his eyes were warm ebony not cold coal. He instantly wondered when it became okay to wax poetic like that in his own head and shoved the thought the fuck away when Sasuke spoke again.

"This is my home," colour flushed across his cheeks at the admission but he didn't look away. "I have happy memories here, under the bloodstained ones."

"Why don't we fix the compound then?"

It was out of Naruto's mouth before the idea had properly discussed the matter with his brain.

"Fix it?" Sasuke repeated faintly, eyes wide.

"Yes!" Naruto decided, eyes as wide as Sasuke's with quickly growing enthusiasm. "Why not? It's not like I have anything better to do, and repairing the damage would make the compound space more useful to the village than just fucking levelling it to the ground right?"

Sasuke was clearly on board for a moment before he shook his head and leaned back. "One person working on this? It's a huge job and no one else can help. Team Kakashi has to focus on the demon extraction and I wouldn't ask anyone else to do this."

Naruto shrugged, unconcerned. "I'll do it myself, man. I DIYed around Gran's all the time. It'll keep me busy and out of the way while you guys sort out the killer demon issue right?"

Sasuke hadn't bothered to stop shaking his head. "You're obviously forgetting about your custodial conditions and the fact that there's no way in hell it's okay for you to be meandering about by yourself."

"Meandering? I'm not a fucking old man," Naruto chuckled, but another thought hit him immediately. "Wait, wait, what about that thing that Konoha's Uzumaki does? That jizzy of his!"

"For fuck's sake, how many times-" Sasuke automatically started to correct his constant mispronunciation but Naruto didn't let him finish.

"The clone jizzy thing!"

The silence that followed Naruto's outburst seemed loud, but he watched with smug satisfaction as Uchiha's expression slowly changed as it dawned on him exactly what Uzumaki was saying.

"Holy shit," Sasuke said finally, a tiny smile edging away the anxiety of losing his clan home. "You're a fucking genius."