Chapter 10

Uchiha Sasuke was the kind of guy who made you think back to that popular heart-throb of your graduating class...

...and then to when you saw him at the ten year reunion: overweight, single, and a taxicab driver of all things.

Or at least that's how he felt at the moment, sitting on his cell floor with dirty hair and insensible eyes. His arms were draped limply over his knees, his feet bare and flat against the cold, cracked cement floor, all confidence from his posture eradicated from his hunched shoulders.

Now why did it appear his very spirit was broken? Surely, after living with Orochimaru for nearly three years, little over a month's worth of interrogation should not have defeated the proud Uchiha Sasuke. It had certainly seemed so at any rate; the first couple of weeks he had remained remarkably tight lipped, often sneering at his questioners when he became too irked with their inferiority while and all through the burning pain in his neck.

He couldn't see the mark without a mirror handy but he knew something was happening to it; he could feel a part of himself being drained away. It was through the jounin Anko that he learned exactly what was happening to him: the tainted part of Orochimaru that was planted inside his very chakra was dissipating. In other words, with the snake sannin's death, any and all remnants of his being were being exterminated, following him in the afterlife. When he was first informed of this news he was furious at the loss of power. Had those the three years he sacrificed of constant training under the sannin for naught?

Even now, when he could no longer imagine how he had made it with that vile contamination within him, he didn't know the answer to that question.

It was by the third week of imprisonment that he began to feel something start to manifest deep within his mind, gradually spreading and consuming his consciousness; something that he hadn't felt since the night of his clan's massacre.

Guilt.

Over time this guilt started to seep into his psyche; he began to see more and more flaws to his past actions. At first he chalked it up to being his return to Konoha: it was making him soft, gave him too much time to think and doubt himself. But he later learned that it was the slow disintegration of the cursed seal. It was like his once narrowed vision began to broaden. He could find other things that mattered to him besides revenge and power. Hell, he even started craving foods again, something that he hadn't done in years. He felt...human again. He hadn't even noticed his humanity leave him. It was then that the information began to spill forth into Morino Ibiki's lap, hoping it would serve as some kind of repentance for his crimes against Konoha. No, not Konoha, his friends.

And that was what left him completely beaten on the lowest floor in the interrogation quarters of Konohagakure. He wanted to talk to Naruto, badly. He needed to apologize for so many things: for breaking their friendship and throwing it in his face, for trying to kill him, for hurting him with more than just words. What was that feeling? That feeling he had during the chuunin exams as he watched Sakura get pinned to a tree unconscious and Naruto getting kicked around by a semi-transformed Gaara while he was near powerless, his body having hit the wall. It was fear. Not the fear for his own life that left him paralyzed before his brother ten years ago—it was fear for their safety far above his own. He cared.

He had been played strait into his brother's hands from the beginning. His brother told him to run, to live, to hate...and he did. His brother abandoned his village, betrayed his family, and did the unthinkable to gain the Mangekyo Sharingan. As did he. He spent the last decade of his life believing it was his destiny to be an avenger. But who was he avenging? His family? Or himself? His family would have wanted him to uphold and honor the Uchiha name, not by wasting his whole life by chasing down Itachi, but by protecting Konoha with the dignity and grace of its most prestigious clan. Instead he disgraced the name by running to the man who attacked his village, betraying and hurting his friends in the process, abandoning all morals for his own petty solace. Now in retrospect, without Orochimaru's damnable cursed seal impairing his judgment, he could think of a hundred different things he should have done instead.

He heard a door outside of his vision open and quiet footsteps approached. He could tell by the pattern, pace and density of each step that it was female, young, and light-figured. His first guess was Sakura—the girl had visited him frequently trying to get him to warm up to her and was initially ignored out of contempt (he was still sore about her opinion of his worth compared to Naruto's) then, more recently, ignored out of shame. He was mildly surprised when a head of dark violet—not pink—hair came into view before the rusted bars of his cell door. He could recognize those pale eyes anywhere—a Hyuuga. Hyuuga Hinata, to be more precise. He was sure he must have seen her on the day he first arrived to Konoha though he felt like this was the first time in three years; she must have been in the room as well but he had been so furious with his dilemma that he hadn't noticed her. Not that he had ever noticed the wallflower before; he was only vaguely aware of her pitiable crush on his teammate and Naruto's even more pathetic oblivion to it.

What caught him more by surprise was her appearance, or rather, his reaction to it, because the very first thing he noticed was her sizable bust even through the heavy jacket she wore. This concerned him very much as he was Uchiha Sasuke and he did not ogle girls' breasts. It seemed his hormones were something else that had returned to him with the loss of the cursed seal, and now that he wasn't twelve but sixteen and that much more at the mercy of his own body, he was left almost wishing that he could stay in this cell forever in fear of how he might respond to fan girls now. That is, if he had any left.

"H-hello Sasuke-san," the heiress began in her demure voice. She wasn't slouching, he noticed, and while there was more confidence in her posture she didn't seem to be looking down on him in any way. "I've been sent to escort you to the Hokage's office."

He raised a questioning eyebrow at her. The only other place he had been allowed besides his cell was the interrogation room. He stood stiffly as she opened the door to his prison, the metal releasing a cringe-worthy screech in its old age.

"Does she wish to interrogate me personally?" he asked in his low voice. She did not make to put any restraints on him and instead motioned for him to follow along side of her so that she could keep him in her peripheral without having to resort to using her Byakugan.

"Oh...n-no...I believe that they are going to begin your probation...," she said unsurely, as if afraid she was relaying the information incorrectly. Sasuke almost smiled—almost—as this would mean he would be allowed back in his estate.

"Thank you," he said sincerely, even if it were unclear on what he was thanking her for. Though his face remained passive the Hyuuga eyes could not miss the stretch of the neck, settling shoulders, and gratification in his eyes. Against her better judgment, Hinata blushed.

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"Hahahaha...oh man...hehe...I can't believe he got you with that—!"

"Sh-shut up!"

But Harry did not shut up. In fact, he only laughed harder as the memory of his apprentice getting hit inches away from his crotch with a jet of acidy spit from, not the demon itself, but a growth-like mini head protruding from its neck replayed in his mind over and over again. Naturally Naruto wasted no time in blasting that particular expansion off and then settled on the demon's real head. Currently, said blonde had his arms crossed and wore his trademark pout, cheeks puffing out and whiskers broadening across the skin.

"Honestly, kit," Harry wheezed as he wiped a tear of laughter from his eye, "didn't you see that thing speaking before? It obviously was there for a reason."

"I thought it was a wart or something!" Naruto defended, frowning down at the baseball sized hole in the upper thigh of his pant leg. Naruto shuddered. If that had been only two inches more to the left... "It seemed harmless when I was fighting the demon!"

"I think you just lacked vigilance."

Naruto's scowl only lasted a second longer before it transformed into an impish grin and he slapped Harry on the back in a deceivingly friendly manner with a little too much vigor.

"FUCK!" Harry yelled, hopping away from his former source of his amusement. His arms grappled fruitlessly behind him as attempted to somehow stop the stinging throughout the long gash that ran between his shoulder blades.

"What was that about vigilance?" Naruto asked with false indifference. After all, it was Harry who was caught off guard by a demon resembling a large praying mantis, taking a scythe to the back.

"Evil," Harry muttered with a dark look, "...evil..."

"Hater," Naruto shot back.

"You wish small fry."

Naruto made another swipe at the elder's back but his hand was smacked down with a stinging, thin whip of blood.

For the last three months Naruto spent nearly everyday training or fighting demons. Some were easy, third-class demons that had managed to scamper their way out of some small loophole in the barrier separating Hell, and some were not so easy, often times requiring Harry to step in at some point.

He could now appreciate why the bijuu were thought to be impossible to kill by humans back in the shinobi world. He had found that when using jutsu against demons he had to force nearly twice as much chakra into each attack in addition to using the higher ranked and more destructive ones. While this did drain him faster it also built upon his already impressive chakra reserve. It made him realize that the average shinobi would find it impossible to expend this much chakra on a jutsu let alone multiple to take out a demon. No wonder demons were considered indestructible...

"When are you going to teach me blood magic?" Naruto asked while rubbing his smarting finger. There was a tiny scorch where Harry had struck him but it was already being soaked up by fresh skin.

It had occurred to Naruto about a month into training and after taking a substantial number of injuries that his regenerating ability—courtesy of the Kyuubi—was developing. Fighting demons was way more intense than fighting shinobi, the largest difference being the scale on injuries. He would have thought that under the strain and high demand for fast healing (he was usually struck many times in a fight and couldn't afford the time to recover) his regenerating ability would have been impaired some, but it seemed the more he got hurt, the faster he healed. It was like exercising a muscle—you take the pain while working it but afterwards it repairs and builds up.

"We haven't even showed you the book yet. Besides, you have elemental training with Inuyasha today."

"Oh yeah!" Naruto grinned. He loved training with Inuyasha, mostly because he was such a character, but also because it brought him that much closer to mastering one of his more preferential weapons.

:: Flashback seven weeks ago::

"Oi, pup! Get in here!"

Naruto ran into the house after hearing Inuyasha's beckon, quickly drying down with a towel so he wouldn't get yelled at by Kagome for leaving puddles of chlorinated water from the pool he, Harry and Bridget were playing in. Oh sorry, chilling. Teenagers do not play.

He quickly found Inuyasha in the living room, smiling like always. Normally Naruto would have responded with a simple "yeah?" or "what's up?" but today was different.

"What the hell is that?"

He was, of course, referring to the mushroom colored, mammoth boomerang resting against the wall next to his mentor. It glinted from the ceiling lights, clearly well cared for and polished. A leather shoulder strap ran from one rounded end to the other as it was meant to be carried on the back. Something told him in the back of his mind that it would not remain this pristine for long.

"This," Inuyasha grabbed a hold of the top end and pulled it away from the wall so that it was perched upright, standing a little above his shoulders, "is your birthday present!"

"My—," Naruto cut himself off, not knowing what to say. It was an impressive weapon to say the least though he had no idea how it was used in battle. He reached out to touch it; the cool ware was smooth and expertly crafted.

"It's called Hiraikotsu," Inuyasha explained, smiling and stepping back to allow the boy to examine it, "It once belonged to one of the greatest demon hunters I ever met...one of my first friends."

Naruto's head snapped up to meet Inuyasha's softened gaze.

"It's made of demon bones," he continued, "so it's extremely sturdy and resilient to other attacks. It works great as a shield, but foremost can cut through most demon hides—often multiple at the same time."

"Wow..." Naruto awed, turning his attention back to the ancient weapon in his possession. He tried to lift it with some difficulty. It was certainly solid bone; the thing had to weigh at least forty or fifty pounds.

"Are you going to train me how to use this?" he asked, excitedly. Inuyasha nodded.

"Yep. But can you tell me how you're going to make this weapon even more awesome?"

Naruto didn't even have to think about that.

"Add my wind chakra to it, of course!"

"Got it in one, pup."

"Can I keep it in a scroll for now?" Naruto asked, already heading towards the cupboard where he stored some spare scrolls (he liked to leave his ninja gear in both Inuyasha and Harry's residences).

"Sure..." Inuyasha said slowly, watching as the boy pulled out a blue-tipped, empty scroll, a brush and some ink. "And it's 'May I'."

Naruto ignored the grammer correction as he settled on his knees in front of Hiraikotsu, rolling out the scroll before him and immediately beginning to decorate it with unknown calligraphies; his wrist flicking across the once clean parchment with practiced expertise. He then made a few quick hand seals and a puff of smoke later left the Nagasaki living room void of one giant boomerang.

"That," Inuyasha said, "was pretty damn impressive."

Naruto gave his signature foxy grin and scratched the back of his head.

"Yeah well...I did spend the last two and a half years training under a seal master..."

"Naruto! Get back out here! I need help!" a feminine voice screamed from outside followed by a series of squeals and splashes. "Harry's trying to take my virginity!"

"He damn well better not be," Inuyasha growled, immediately going to the window.

"What the hell?!" Naruto could hear Harry yelling back, "I'm on the other side of the bloody pool!"

::EndFlashback::

It was hard learning to master that weapon. Even now, he was still in the process of building the strength to throw it long distances let alone add wind chakra to its edges. It was mostly used as a shield when he used it in actual battle, though his progression with it was steady.

The boys stopped by their apartment for a moment to get cleaned up (they learned the hard way not to show up around Kagome looking like they just got the shit kicked out of them) and then headed over to Inuyasha's home.

"Right," Inuyasha said upon their arrival, "remember what we worked on last time? Directing wind from a distance?"

"Yep!" Naruto replied enthusiastically following his elder sensei outside while Harry dropped onto a couch to watch TV; he knew this would most likely take a few hours.

Naruto had recently been inventing ways to control the wind around him and not just from chakra points in his body or molding chakra into weapons. It was extremely difficult and called for much meditation beforehand. The reason for this, as Inuyasha explained it once, was that this method was utilized by the ancient elementals—wizard-like individuals who were attuned to nature and were granted powers pertaining to certain elements of the Earth. It was basically a 'become one with nature' philosophy and required complete detachment from the material world.

Naruto sat against the roots of a tree near the edge of the state forest, his legs crossed, and body strait but relaxed, letting his mind reach out to all that surrounded him and allowing his senses to embrace every aspect of his preferred element. His ears caught every blade of grass and every leaf that was moved by the wind, his skin could feel the very degree of temperature that would drop and rise with each gust, his nose could pick up the scents that were carried with the traveling air—the exhaust of cars and the sweat of people from the more urban part of Salem to the north.

"You've got a knack for this meditating thing, I ever tell you that pup?" Naruto could see Inuyasha's turquoise aura bobbing a bit to his far left in his mind's eye. He didn't respond, keeping his heartbeat low and breath steady. Inuyasha would often talk to him, saying that Naruto needed to be able to manage to stay in the state of unity-consciousness, the seventh and final stage of meditation, with distractions around him so that one day he would be able to reach it in seconds, not having to go through the entire mediating process as he was now.

"You know my brother could probably give you a few tips. He's a meditating fiend..."

That extracted a shudder out of the teen. He remembered quite clearly when he first met Inuyasha's brother Sesshomaru, a full-blooded demon. The demon lord arrived at the request of Inuyasha to deliver Hiraikotsu—something he had acquired from the feudal era of Japan and kept in his possession along with quite a collection of other memorable weapons and artifacts. Naruto was certain that he didn't make much of an impression on the man. All he could manage was an "uh..." as he was stared down by the cold, imposing figure. It didn't help matters when Inuyasha kicked Sesshomaru the leg and told him to "loosen the fuck up", making the demon seemed absolutely frigid—something Inuyasha didn't seemed concerned about at all. Then again, as far as he could tell nothing really concerned Inuyasha—if anything ever went wrong for him he was usually and conveniently in his own little world.

Naruto slowly opened his eyes twenty minutes later, feeling completely refreshed, relaxed, and in tune with all his surroundings.

"Okay," he said quietly so not to disrupt his state of being, "I'm ready."

He started with the basics, increasing and decreasing the intensity of the wind flow, not affecting it in any other way. He was becoming quite proficient in this and on his good days, such as today as he would soon learn, he would be able to turn a light autumn breeze into gale worthy of kite-flying.

Yes, he felt quite confident that he would make significant progress this session.

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Harry sighed and clicked off the TV, dropping the remote onto the glass coffee table with a loud clatter. He shifted to his back and stretched across the length of the couch, arching and yawning much like a cat would before settling comfortably on his side.

"So bored...," he moaned. He could watch only so many re-runs of Flavor of Love before he decided on starting a harem of his own. That would not bode well with Bridget. It was bad enough the kind of fits she would throw when he had one girlfriend...

He frowned to himself. He really needed so stop worrying so much of what Bridget would think. She was nearly ten years younger than him—though that age difference was completely insignificant in terms of demonhood. But still, there was no reason he should even be encouraging her advances on him. Hell, she would be more suitable for Naruto!

On second thought, that idea did not appeal to him at all for reasons he could not and would not even begin to fathom. As it were they only appeared to be a few years apart. He took guardianship of the gate when he was nineteen and thus stopped his aging until he relinquished the gate to another...or was killed. So...

'Okay, I'm getting off this subject right now!'

...in a couple more years they would look nearly the same age...

'Stop brain, stop!'

The garage door slammed shut in the kitchen behind him and he jumped into a sitting position. That couldn't be Bridget...she was still in school...

His nose twitched a bit, recognizing the scent instantly and he grinned. It was about damn time she showed up.

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"Ugg! I don't get it! Why can't I control it?" Naruto moaned, two hours later. He had been trying fruitlessly to make the nor'easter winds perform a Uey around his body and then head back northbound. He had been gauging his performance on the direction of the dog-fashioned cupola atop Inuyasha's garage and so far the most he'd managed was a slight pressure against his back before the wind went back in its natural direction. The bronze head of the dog figurine stubbornly remained facing northeast.

"Because...you're trying to control it."

"...?!?!"

"Elements aren't meant to be controlled..." Inuyasha explained patiently to is quite impatient student, "especially the wind. That's what all the meditating is for; to connect your chakra to the element. You can't be so arrogant as to think that you can control an element of nature. Oh, no. You're just a product of this Earth. The best you can do is ask for its compliance...and I use that word loosely."

Naruto heaved a sigh, dropping back onto his butt and pulled himself quite quickly into a meditative state. This time, instead of just bringing himself to awareness of everything around him he tried to integrate his own being into nature. When he meditated he had always kept himself separate; trying to stay outside of the box so that he could 'see' all that was around him. He had thought that this was the way to gain control of elements, but apparently it not to be.

It was gradual, and he hadn't noticed exactly when it began or when it ended, but after some indefinite amount of time he was no longer aware of anything around him and yet, at the same time, everything. It felt like his chakra canals were being...blanketed was the best word he could think of. It may have been all along that this was happening and he was simply blocking it out, but for the first time he suddenly felt rather than sensed the full weight of what was around him. There was this suffocating but soothing power pulsing in every which way like a heavy quilt protecting his life force. Was this nature? He didn't know what to call it, but it was humbling to say the least. He was insignificant and completely at its mercy. But he was safe.

A sudden creaking broke loose, so loud compared to the silence that hung deep within his mind that it startled him strait out of his meditation. The strange blanketing power sapped from him in an instant as his vision took over, leaving him oddly cold.

"Pup...what did you just do?" Inuyasha's hushed voice reminded him that he was not alone and he couldn't believe he had forgotten the man was there, standing only feet away.

"Huh?"

Naruto was slow to process that question. He didn't think he had done anything wrong...in fact, it felt like he was getting it right. There was a warm feeling within him when he surrendered himself to what he could only assume was the essence of nature.

He turned his head up to see Inuyasha staring at him with an unreadable expression.

"Never mind," the dog hanyou said, shaking his head and slowly beginning his trek back into the house. "Let's go. We're done for today."

Naruto stayed seated for a bit watching the shoulders of Inuyasha's broad back sway as the distance between them grew. He still felt a bit distorted from both the recent sensation he experience and the peculiar behavior of the normally relaxed man. He couldn't recall anyone ever looking at him like that before: completely weirded out. He'd had people look at him in fear, disgust, hate, annoyance, confusion, anger...but never with incredulity. Never with such convolution.

The persistent creaking that originally broke his strange and wonderful state of meditation drew his attention to the roof of Inuyasha's garage, where the cupola continued to spin.

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Yay! I update before May! And I rhyme!

Okay, just to clear things up once and for all: this is a NARUSAKU. :3

—My feelings about Hinata are mixed. On one hand her handicapping insecurities annoy me and I know that any relationship between her and Naruto would never work—she's way too submissive. However, I feel she had a lot of potential—she could be strong and she has a lot of grace; if she could get rid of the shyness and just settle for being a quiet individual I think I would like her a lot more. And it seems to me that's how she's developing in the manga (even though we haven't seen much of her since the timeskip, so I could be proven wrong)

—No, I haven't forgotten about the seal. That will come up later. So will the Occlumency/legilimency training (where our young blonde friend learns more about Inuyasha), and the blood magic and other weapons and yadda yadda yadda. Basically there's training up the wazoo for the next few chapters. And I haven't forgotten about the Akatsuki either!

Oh, I've been informed that some people might not know what a Uey is. It's a U-turn. You know, that change of direction you only need to pull off in areas where they're illegal. Also a cupola is this little arrow thing on the roof of a barn, etc. that tells the direction of the wind.

Now that that's all settled...I love you all :) :) :) click that button and tell me what you think!