Where Naruto Realizes He Has to Take Care of Everything (Gods Forbid People Saw to Their Own Problems!)

046. Star

Uchiha Sasuke had been a pretty big deal ever since the Uchiha Massacre. The Last Uchiha, the star pupil at the Academy everybody expected big things from, the star pupil of Hatake Kakashi – or so it had seemed at first. But while he couldn't complain about the time the man put to teaching him, Naruto just kept catching up with him, inch by painstaking inch. And then there had been Gaara…

The last time Sasuke had been so afraid had been that night, that terrible night when the brother he had always loved and admired stood above his parents' still warm bodies, his swords red and wet, dripping on the floor boards like a raincloud. His mother had been quiet, but she sang in his memories: It's raining; it's pouring. The old man is snoring.

He could never forgive Gaara for making him feel that helpless again. Sometimes, in his dreams, there was no difference between the red moon and the red sand, and he could hear his mother singing, but she was so far away.

He went to bed and bumped his head and couldn't get up in the morning.

Such morbid songs for the once-strong Uchiha, taken down by their own. The truth was that being a star pupil in the Academy just meant that Sasuke was a big fish in a little pond and being dropped into the bigger pond that was the whole of Konohagakure no Sato was a shock to his system he never quite recovered from. There had to be some fault in Konoha for making him weak, for he couldn't stand the thought that there might be a fault in him. He had sworn to leave that stumbling self behind him with the rest of Konoha, moved his team picture from one shelf to another, the one where he kept the pictures of his dead – and in a twisted sort of way the decision to kill his heart had worked. He had been ready to pay the price.

To say that he was less than pleased when he realised his former teammate had managed to infect one of his new teachers with the friendship nonsense would be an understatement. He was, in fact, livid beyond measure; and that he was stuffed into a barrel again, this time against his will, did nothing to help. Inside he was more asleep than awake, only distantly aware that the barrel was moving. The grogginess persisted when the lid was finally pried open and strong arms dragged him out and pulled him into a basket hold. The sudden light stung, and everything was blurry in his watering eyes. His ears were ringing. He was helpless.

Or was the hold… a hug? And he could swear he saw a hint of those birth marks under the floppy, obnoxiously yellow hair…

"Sasuke! You are back!"

"Naruto! I will kill you!"

Sasuke struggled against his captor's hold and glared at Yakushi – that traitor! Yakushi looked distinctly pleased with himself, but then, he always did. That smug snake.

"I'm not going to let you hold me back," he snarled at Naruto and twisted to get one hand free, but the orange-clad idiot's arms were like bands of steel. "Konoha only made me weak, like you. Gods, it's contagious!" Somebody laughed in the background and that made the noise in his head louder, shriller. His curse mark was burning like a brand freshly plucked from a fire.

"Now you're just being stupid. Orochimaru became strong in Konoha. Kabuto became strong in Konoha. Your brother became strong in Konoha! Just stop being stupid and come back home, it's not like you're really a missing-nin or anything," Naruto insisted. Sasuke latched onto that last part, a clear sign that Naruto didn't know what he was talking about. And even though Itachi and Orochimaru were both Konoha-born and Konoha-trained, it was easy to ignore in the light of that one glaring falsehood.

"What you mean, I'm not really a missing-nin? I tried to kill you, remember? By what Kakashi-sensei said, that would make me lower than trash," he reminded his former teammate, finally managing to work his arm into a position he could use to break the basket hold. And of course that dumb Naruto had to destroy all his effort by thrusting him arms' length away, making the manoeuvre unnecessary. Didn't he even know how to keep someone captive?

"Stop being so hard on yourself! Self-esteem is for everyone, you know? And I'm totally over that almost-killing thing so don't worry," Naruto said breezily.

"What do you mean, over it? You can't just be over it!" That had been one of Sasuke's worst moments, the moment when he almost took the life of someone who was, sort of, his friend. And he hadn't even managed to do it in the end, making the whole thing a double failure, and if he wasn't over it, Naruto wasn't allowed to either, dammit! "And there is nothing wrong with my self-esteem."

"You just called yourself trash," Naruto pointed out pleasantly. Behind his back an unknown girl covered her mouth with her hand, but not quickly enough to hide a smile. A boy by her side bit the ball of his thumb and Sasuke's already frayed temper snapped. He threw the annoyance against the table, which broke with a satisfying crash; but quickly as a snake, much quicker than he used to be, Naruto leaped back and pushed him flat on his back.

"I didn't say it! Kakashi said it!" he shouted at the top of his lungs while Naruto just looked infuriatingly vague and worried.

"Uh, yes you did. And Kakashi-sensei isn't even here. Did you hit your head when Kabuto stashed you in there?" Naruto asked; and now the unknown boy was hanging from the girl's shoulder, his whole upper body shaking with silent laughter. Sasuke snarled wordlessly.

This was when a boy wearing Konoha's hitai-ite crashed the scene and tried to kill Yakushi on the spot.

047. Heart

When Naruto pressed a snapping, snarling Sasuke to the floor he thought that this was the best day ever. He had gotten two of his best friends back in one fell stroke and maybe Sasuke-teme wasn't yet fully onboard with the idea, but Naruto was sure he could change Sasuke's mind. He was certain that his and Sakura-chan's worst failing the first go round had been that they hadn't gotten enough words in edgewise quickly enough. This was the best day ever and he was a bit afraid his heart would explode like a tag, just BLAM and pieces of Naruto would be all over the place from sheer happiness.

Then a strange Konoha shinobi crashed his party and attacked Kabuto. For a second Naruto was torn as he sat atop Sasuke, not daring to stand for fear that the jerk would just run away again, afraid that Kabuto was about to get hurt. Tsubaki-chan stood like she had been turned to stone, Taiki and Konatsu-chan and Kaede all shifted, touched the handle of a sword or a kunai or pushed their fingers together, ready to flash through the handsigns of this or the other jutsu, but no one did anything.

No one except Kabuto, who moved so quickly Naruto only saw a blur and the simple fire jutsu the stranger had used hit the wall instead.

"Somebody put the fire out!" he shouted and Konatsu-chan turned around and spat the water bullet with the ease of one who has used the jutsu again and again and again over the course of the last few days. The floor flooded instantly; Naruto was spared from most of it thanks to his perch on top of Sasuke, but said duck-butt was starting to resemble a wet puppy instead, in the space of a few heartbeats.

"Let me up!" Sasuke commanded him and pushed at his chest. It wasn't hard enough to move him, but maybe making Sasuke lie in what amounted to a puddle was a bit mean? Nah.

"What should I do with him, Naruto-sama?" Kabuto asked as he dodged yet another strike. The words made the shinobi to look at Naruto sharply before jumping towards him, but now Kabuto struck; again there was a blur, but now it ended with a meaty thump and a pained groan, then splash when the pale boy hit the floor, but stood up immediately.

"Please, shinobi-san, this isn't what it looks like. Yakushi Kabuto has defected from Orochimaru and offered us the Uchiha and information," Tsubaki-chan spoke quickly and took a half-step closer to the boy, making a placating-looking gesture with her hands. The boy only frowned as he let his eyes move from Tsubaki-chan to Kabuto, then to Naruto and Sasuke and eventually to the rest. No one made a move to attack him, only staring in a way that made Naruto grimace a bit from sympathy. That had to be uncomfortable.

"Ono Tsubaki, suspected of working for Orochimaru," he said flatly and pulled a sketchbook from his bag, along with a brush dripping with ink. Just a few months ago Naruto would have thought that totally harmless, but these months with Jiraiya had taught him what seals could be good for.

"Just don't kill him! Or terribly maim him!" he shouted to Kabuto, adding that last bit because he had a feeling that Kabuto might need it. Then everything happened quickly.

Everybody stading leaped aside, giving the fight on the way a lot of room, now pulling their blades as well, but still not attacking...

and Sasuke struck him quickly as a snake, sending him crashing on the floor...

and something rose from the sketchbook, something black that he couldn't really see from the corner of his eye because he was looking at Sasuke-teme and climbing back to his feet...

Kaede was closest to Sasuke now and he attacked with taijutsu. Sasuke blocked easily, but then Naruto was already coming at him. The curse markings climbed up Sasuke's neck and cheek like some disgusting skin disease. Sasuke struck towards his sternum in a way Naruto was sure was going to broke something and hurt like hell even with Kyuubi's help. Ribs breaking and puncturing the heart or lungs were only cool when you were the one doing it and so he jumped and blocked. The pain shot up his arm, numbness at its heels, but he didn't think anything had broken. He then threw a punch that Sasuke didn't even deign to block, muttering "sloppy" under his breath as he dodged Kaede as well, aiming a kick towards the boy.

The kick never connected. Kabuto was there so quickly Naruto nearly jumped out of his skin. Kabuto's hand glowed with sickly green light and one tap, just one tap lighter even than the Hyuuga tenketsu hits, was enough. Sasuke hit the floor like a ragdoll and Naruto noticed that Kabuto was carrying the stranger over his shoulder with ease. Now that he could really look he noticed that the boy looked a lot like Sasuke. Kaede was leaning against the wall and clutching his chest over his heart, looking like he wanted to accuse Kabuto of almost causing him a heart attack. A bad day for heart health all around.

"The situation is under control, Naruto-sama. I believe we should restrain at least one of them before they wake up to avoid a repetition of this," he suggested and set the stranger down. And so they did. Naruto felt kind of crummy tying up Sasuke, but since he was the one who had run away before, well, precedent and all.

The first thing the Sasuke-lookalike said when he woke up was: "Were you attempting to engage in a tantric sex ritual with Uchiha earlier?" In their first show of united purpose in four months Naruto and Sasuke both tried to strangle him. Sasuke's attempt was really good, Naruto thought as Taiki pulled them away, considering that his hands had been tied behind him, not in front.

Even Lee didn't have that sort of legwork.

048. Diamond

Diamonds were the hardest known material in the world; only a diamond could scratch another diamond. Yet diamonds were born from carbon, soft and easily burned coal, useful in its own way, yet much inferior. Diamonds were born when carbon was placed under great pressure and heat in the heart of the earth, burned to last and shine. Only under the harshest conditions could shinobi reach their true potential, like coal. Sai was among the lucky few.

Sai saw the green glow of a scalpel made of chakra and his world went dark. He knew enough of chakra scalpels that he was very surprised when he realized he had woken up.

Someone had carried the tatami mats outside and dried the wooden floor the best they could, but the house still appeared a bit shabby and charred around the edges. He was even more surprised to realize that he was unrestrained – and that the Uchiha who was glaring at him near a wooden crate that had replaced the broken table had his hands tied. Yet Kabuto was free and he stood next to Uzumaki, though Ono stood behind him and had her hand on the handle of her sword. Sai was suffering from conflicting signals, which was never good when one was carrying a small armory's worth of knives.

"Were you attempting to engage in a tantric sex ritual with Uchiha earlier?" he asked Uzumaki. Uzumaki's face turned bright red and he jumped at Sai with his fingers spread out like claws. An unknown long-nosed man in blue clothes caught Uzumaki by the back of his jumpsuit, but this didn't prevent the Uchiha from delivering a kick to his chest and attempting to strangle Sai with his legs. It wasn't a bad attempt, really, but a kick to the larynx would have been a much more effective way to end his life. Obviously Orochimaru's training had been sub-par so far.

"It seems... you are the one he... spread his legs for," an unknown girl sputtered and now Uchiha turned towards her in the man's grip, his whole body language broadcasting barely restrained aggression that Sai attributed to the detrimental effect of the curse seal. But Uzumaki appeared to forget his burst of irrational rage – caused by Kyuubi, maybe? - and snorted with the girl.

"So I'm Uzumaki Naruto, though I'm called Satou Naruto here so you better use that name too," Uzumaki told him and extended his hand. "These are Tsubaki-chan, she's my back-up here and a really cool and strong jounin; Konatsu-chan and Kaede, they ran away from Kiri when their jerk-ass teachers told them to kill each other to graduate. They are a sister and a brother, you know. He's Taiki, he came after them, but we made him see the light so he stayed as well, and Kabuto used to be my friend and he came back to join my cult that I didn't ask for and didn't try to found. And Sasuke's still being stupid about things so he gets to be tied up." Uzumaki pointed at each and every person as he introduced them and thrust his hand out again. Sai stared at it and lifted his gaze to Uzumaki's face.

"You are supposed to take it," Uzumaki said with strangely lilting rhythm. Sai did as he was told and Uzumaki shook their entwined hands up and down a few times.

"Now you are supposed to tell me your name," the jinchuuriki continued his instructions.

"My name is Sai. Are these manners common amongst people or only those who belong in cults?" he asked since Uzumaki seemed open to explaining the social convention he was following. It was very helpful of him, really.

"Are we sure this cult is a good idea on top of everything else?" Ono asked, displaying exasperation. She was leaning against the wall with one hand now that Yakushi was taking a few steps to the side, away from Uzumaki yet towards Sai at the same time, and he found himself re-evaluating is initial assumptions concerning her loyalties. If she displayed aggression towards Orochimaru's underlings and protectiveness towards Uzumaki, did she remain faithful to Konoha? Or the as-of-yet unnamed cult? Or rather, as she didn't seem to have a high opinion of said cult, to Uzumaki personally? He had been ordered to eliminate Ono if she turned out to be a threat, but so far the evidence was self-conflicting. He needed more information to reach a conclusion.

And Yakushi Kabuto was to be killed. He knew far too much to be allowed to live; but Sai was keenly aware after their brief fight, which he had only survived on Uzumaki's orders, that he wasn't a match in fair fight to the former Oto nin. But there was more than one way to defeat an enemy.

"What is this cult? May I join it too?" he asked. He had read an article about cult psychology and he was fairly certain that if he could get these people's trust as one of their own they would never expect betrayal of him.

He was ready to go along with Uzumaki's manipulation for now, he had no problems being isolated from the civilian society. Besides, one of the major threshold that needed to be crossed when initiating new members into a cult involved physical hardship. This could include sleep deprivation, chronic hunger, long hours of manual labor or other similar things; Sai figured that getting beaten in a fight should suffice. He was obviously prime cult material.

"Ah, maybe you will. I have seen eyes like yours before, Sai," Yakushi drawled. Sai looked into the man's dark eyes. Then he couldn't look away. He had once read that eyes were like water's cool surface underground, that it was romantic foolishness to try and seek the difference between an enemy and a lover within those depths. He knew that the expressions that were attributed to eyes were in fact formed by the muscles around the eyes and eyebrows. He had read this.

"I have seen eyes like yours before, Sai; too often in the mirror. Did you have a name before Danzo sent you here, or did you merely have a number? Who had to die so you had no-one to define yourself by, nothing left but memories, a little less bitter every year?" Kabuto's eyes were dark, but they seemed to hold a gravity seal that narrowed Sai's perception to those eyes and nothing else.

"Don't..." he started, but realized he had no idea what he was pleading Yakushi not to do. He was certain that if Root's files of Uzumaki Naruto were even marginally true, the jinchuuriki wouldn't allow him to be tortured.

"May I be alone with him for a little while, Naruto-sama? We could share our experiences and life lessons under Danzo," Yakushi asked. Sai could see nothing but his eyes. Sai had been carefully conditioned to not feel fear, but now he wondered if the small niggling at the back of his mind meant that he was scared. Only a diamond could scratch another diamond, but here, Sai thought, might be a diamond harder than he was.

049. Club

Seeing Sasuke again after all these months was strange and Naruto wasn't quite sure what to think or feel. Anger, yes, there was some of that. Actually, there was a whole a lot of it – what had that idiot been thinking, leaving him and Sakura-chan behind and running off to the snake freak, making Sakura-chan cry? Okay, he could see that Sasuke had wanted to be strong to beat Itachi and all, but true strength didn't come from a curse seal that twisted your body until creepy missing-nin could possess you, and bye-bye to your vengeance then.

Real strength was knowing that your friends gave you a reason to keep fighting and they were going to fight for you to help you reach your goals, even if the goal was a homicidal maniac missing-nin. Even if Sasuke was complete idiot he should have gotten this at least.

So yeah, Naruto was angry. Sakura-chan had cried!

But he was also giddy with relief. Sasuke was still Sasuke, still the one in charge of his own body, not just Orochimaru's new fashionable body. Sasuke was paler now, like he hadn't seen the sun for a good long time, his hair was a little longer like he hadn't bothered to cut it, his sleeves were a little too short like he hadn't bothered to get bigger clothes and Naruto was kind of surprised that his quest for vengeance hadn't made him forgot to bathe. Okay, maybe that was a teeny, tiny overstatement, but Sasuke should have taken better care of himself. Still, he was Sasuke and no-one else.

"Can I trust you to not run or do I have to keep you tied up?" he asked his errant teammate. He was pretty sure that Taiki and Kabuto could catch Sasuke before he left Makimura's borders anyway, but that didn't mean he wanted to bother them like that. He didn't want Sasuke to run.

And he had to worry about Kabuto and Danzo and Sai and Orochimaru too. At least becoming Hokage should be a cake walk after this kerfuffle. Was he the only person with a whole brain in the whole continent that he had to take care of everything?

"I can't become strong enough to beat Itachi in Konoha," Sasuke complained in a dark tone, and struggled against his ropes. Naruto was pretty sure that Sasuke knew it was futile too and he was just being ornery like that.

So he had an idiot, and a clue club to hit the idiot over the head with. He was good at hitting things at least.

"Look, you idiot, Itachi became strong enough to kill your clan in Konoha! Orochimaru became strong in Konoha and so did Kabuto – okay, bad example since I'm gonna give that Danzo bastard his just desserts..." And how! Of course Naruto had known that the world was full of evil people and they weren't always going to be on the other side, but Danzo had still costed him something, some belief in his fellow humans. He had cost Kabuto and apparently Sai as well a lot more and he was going to collect that money's worth. Just wait, Danzo, the great Uzumaki Naruto was on to you!

"I've been in Konoha this whole time! Do you think I'm weak?" he shouted. Okay, so he hadn't been in Konoha, technically speaking, but he had been a Konoha nin the whole time so it still counted.

"I'm not an idiot, you moron," Sasuke snapped at him and his Sharingan swirled in a mess of red and black that was hard to track. "You've been cheating this whole time. I know about Kyuubi..." Just a month ago this would have made Naruto shout in anger, but now he just snorted and shook his head. He knew he was better than that now.

"Hey, Avenger-chan, which one of us agreed to be turned into a monster? And if you think Kyuubi helped any, have you seen my Academy grades?" he asked and took a deep breath. He kind of wanted to get mad, but he knew it wouldn't help any. "Look, I'm going to go back to Konoha to ambush Danzo before he can figure out Kabuto's with us again and Sai's gonna be too, and after that we'll go after Orochimaru before he figures it out. If you can live through that you are going to be one kick-ass shinobi and I bet they have a lot of cool jutsu scrolls too. And if Kabuto taught you in Oto he can teach you in Konoha too," he bribed Sasuke. There was no way he was going to let Sasuke-teme die, but he didn't have to say that, now did he. It was pretty obvious as far as bribery went, but hey, the hammer hadn't worked so why not try the club? And the Sharingan swirled slower now. Clue club for the win!

050. Spade

Tsubaki had interviewed Yakushi Kabuto carefully and thanks to Naruto's order to be honest she believed she had indeed received truthful answers – they were certainly disturbing enough. If they were in fact concealing something more disturbing, she didn't believe the man should be able to even function anymore.

"My professional opinion," she said. Time to call a spade a spade. "You are nuttier than a squirrel in a bag of crackers."

"I don't think I have ever heard that before," Kabuto said amusedly. "Usually people just scream "you are insane" or "you are crazy." Never for very long, though." His perfectly non-confrontational, matter of fact tone made Tsubaki grit her teeth.

They were kneeling on the opposite sides of the table in the safe house, a pot of tea and two cups between them. The house was still a bit bare, but the new inhabitants had left their marks: Naruto in form of potted plants; Tsubaki in the form of new curtains, yellow in colour and more importantly mesh-enforced (it had been a bit of pain to explain to the weaver that yes, she wanted this roll of wire mesh sewed between two layers of fabric, but the security they offered had made the ordeal worth it); Konatsu had left fluffy blue slippers by the door, and she could see through the window to the garden where Miwa was hanging the laundry to dry. Now Sai had decided to add some charring to the walls and they needed to paper over it, but that was neither here nor there. It was a lively place and pale, white-haired Kabuto looked even more ghost-like, lifeless, against this tapestry.

At least he wasn't trying to look lively himself. Tsubaki could still remember how he used to smile. Maybe, just maybe this was an indicator that the whole mess wasn't about to blow up on their faces.

It wasn't that he didn't have faith in Naruto-kun's ability to turn around a person's world view and perceptions of reality; he practically challenged reality on a weekly basis (or maybe these had just been exceptionally busy weeks) and shouted from the roof tops that reality could try to crush him all it wanted, he wasn't going to be the one to walk away broken. He had decided to rid the town where he was supposed to lie low from of yakuza because it was the right thing to do and gotten Tsubaki to go along with the mad plan – it had been so easy she was a bit embarrassed. He had decided that prostitution wasn't a complex social problem and a socio-economical issue that would just have to be tolerated, it was something easily fixable and people just liked to make things more difficult than they were. Two Kiri missing-nin asking for shelter? Good, let's just convert the hunter-nin as well. Tsubaki actually trusted Taiki quite a bit at this point; maybe she needed to get her head checked, but she did.

She could grudgingly swallow the idea of even Sasuke's kind-of-under-duress reformation sometime in the future, but Kabuto? Granted, she didn't know him very well; he had been there on the peripherals of her awareness, the Eternal Genin who just couldn't get a promotion, right until he turned out to be jounin-level and working for a man who made it to the Leaf's list of top five most dangerous traitors ever, order of entry undecided. And those hopefully-honest answers had decided her opinion: Kabuto was brilliant, but it was the brilliance of a broken crystal. The prisms made rainbows in the sun, but they were still undeniably broken and only a fool would grab one without thick gloves.

"I don't trust you. I'm keeping an eye on you and if you so much as twitch in a suspicious way before we can get you to the Hokage's office – or after – your head will part company from the rest of you." Kabuto tilted his head with a move like a snake's, his eyes raking up and down her body, not salacious, but assessing. To tell the truth, she wasn't entirely sure she could carry out that threat, but she was jounin as well and with Taiki by her side they should manage for sure.

"Letting me know you don't trust me wasn't a very good move, you know. In the completely hypothetical possibility that I'm playing you." Kabuto's voice was still pleasantly nondescript like the topic of their conversation was weather or something else equally inane, but there was the most minuscule twitch at the left corner of his mouth.

…It was official now. The bastard was enjoying this.

"It isn't as though I could make you believe in my sudden faith in your sudden loyalty so let me make my point in peace, okay?" Tsubaki glared at the silver-haired man and sighed, letting her shoulders slump and picking up a brown paper bag from the floor. It was an uncomfortable situation, true, but it was one she would just have to deal with for now.

"Here, take these. It's a tradition now, and let's call a spade a spade: you are here and I can't be rid of you so welcome to the group." She thrust the paper bag to Kabuto's arms and watched him check it carefully for concealed seals before opening it carefully. The face he made when he saw what was inside was most likely the first uncalculated expression she had gotten out of him.

"Pumpkin bread?" he asked and raised one sardonic eyebrow, but it couldn't quite cover the startled curve of his eyes.

"Konatsu got a bit carried away. But you aren't getting the bombs, don't even bother asking." She didn't trust him, but she was willing to give Naruto his one chance to bring the man around. One chance to catch an even bigger monster, and who knew? Maybe even two.

AN: And I have a beta reader! Many, many thanks to wonderful SpiegelofNowhere for her quick work! ^_^ My already existing chapters shall be betaed as well; I have already put up betaed chapter one.

Thanks to the other people who offered to help me as well. I appreciate your generosity.