I know there's a lot of confusing things in this story that seem like inconsistencies and don't make much sense, but I swear they're all intended at this point. It'll either be explained in this story or in the companion/sequel story World's End Rhapsody! Also, this is AU and very different from cannon at this point (it was originally published in 08/09) so some things, like the fact that the story is in stasis somewhere between after when Naruto remeets Sasuke and before Gaara gets taken but Naruto is a Jounin and has some amount of control over the Kyuubi are kind of taken as part of that AU.
So, all will be revealed and/or make sense at some point, I promise, lol. Except for the grammar mistakes. Those are just plan old mistakes.
"I'm not late, am I?"
Tsunade looked up from the enormous scroll she seemed halfway into, and both Sai and Sakura looked back with paradoxically unanimous unimpressed faces.
He chuckled nervously, sliding in place between his two teammates.
"Back to what I was saying," Tsunade gave him a brutish glare, as if to point out that it was him who had cut her off in the first place. "We've noticed growing reports of Otogakure spies encroaching on Konoha territory—"
"You're serious?" Naruto gaped, eyes widening.
Again, he somehow managed to unintentionally cut the blonde Hokage off. "Yes, quite serious." She answered, drily. "Also, Jiraiya has stopped writing porn, Kakashi left for the monastery, and I'm actually paying Shikamaru overtime."
"Funny." Snorted the blonde.
Tsunade gave him a low, narrow glare. "This isn't good, Naruto."
"You don't have to tell me!" Argued the blonde, before turning to his teammates. "You think that was what Sasuke was after?"
"Undoubtedly." Answered Sakura.
Sai gave a noncommittal hum. "So our assumption was right after all."
"You don't have to say it so optimistically." Naruto frowned. "But they have no proof, right?"
"Orochimaru doesn't need proof." Replied Tsunade, looking quite sure of herself. Though most likely she could be, as aside from Jiraiya and the late Sandaime she probably knew the slimy bastard the best. "If he even has an inkling of something he wants, invariably he'll go after it."
"So Naruto's in danger?" Sakura's eyes widened, whipping quickly to study the blonde, who seemed ossified into stone.
"Inadvertently." Tsunade agreed. "Most likely he won't go after it himself."
"It's still a danger." Sakura cut in, obviously fearing for Naruto's safety. Perhaps a little overly so.
Naruto seemed oblivious to the conversation, staring pensively—and a little fearfully—into the lines of wood that made Tsuande's desk, as if they held the answers to his most complex questions.
Naruto snapped out of his reverie as Sakura's voice ascended in decibel.
"And it sounds even worse to me if we don't do anything at all—
"There's no point in retaliating for something that hasn't happened." Tsunade shot back, wisely, "Fortunately for us… there are many places for Naruto to hide which Orochimaru likely won't be able to follow."
At this, his two teammates turned to him curiously.
"Really." Sakura deadpanned, eyes narrowing.
Naruto swallowed.
Tsunade waved her hand. "At any rate, that's up to Naruto's discretion. For now, I'd like you, Sai, to deliver this," She pulled a scroll off the massive heap of paperwork on her desk, "To ANBU." And then, whipping out another one, "And you, Sakura, to bring this to the guards. We're not having another ambush by Otogakure any time soon—everyone's going to be alerted well in advance this time."
The two nodded obediently, though Sakura looked like she'd rather drop-kick Naruto in the face and wrangle out all his secrets. Fortunately, she only turned smartly on her heel and walked out curtly, Sai at her heels.
Tsunade turned to him. "You know what to do."
He nodded, numbly.
This was what he wanted… right? So why did it sort of feel like he was running away?
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X
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He was still musing on this when he landed in the past, so engrossed in his thoughts he found the first pine tree and jumped to the top, dropping onto the branch and staring sightlessly at the looming faces on Hokage Mountain, instead of immediately taking off for Minato and his team.
He wasn't a quitter, and he never gave up—that was his ninja way.
So why in the hell did it feel like he was?
A strategic retreat isn't the same thing as giving up, He reminded himself, with a voice which sounded oddly like Kakashi-sensei.
But he'd never been one for strategic retreats; or retreats at all, for that matter. If he ever fell into a situation where he should probably be high tailing it out of, normally he just summoned more Kage Bunshin and did whatever the fuck he could to win.
Although, this wasn't some crazy battle. In fact, there wasn't a battle going on at all. This was waiting, waiting with uneasy trepidation for the moment to start, peering into the abyss of the future and wondering what lay in its depth. Quite honestly it made him uneasy.
He shook his head.
There's no point on dwelling on it now! He reminded himself. I'm already here, and it was the hag who told me to do it.
At this, his stomach gave an opportune grumble.
May as well get some ramen while I'm at it!
There was nothing like the smell of Ichiraku ramen when he was really, really hungry. It only took a matter of seconds before he was sliding into one of the stools, cracking open a pair of chopsticks, and spewing through a list of orders. Teuchi looked incredibly bewildered with this, much to Naruto's amusement—how long had he been coming here doing this? You'd think the man would be used to it, even in Minato's time.
Speaking of Minato, it was curious to see an Ichiraku without his presence, or at least, his future wife-to-be's. Turns out, Kushina was the real ramen lover in the family; she made Minato look like a passing connoisseur. And if not those two, than at least Obito—he was a close second to Kushina, though Naruto had a sinking suspicion he was quickly passing both Minato and Obito in that particular race.
He was entertaining himself so much with the idea he hadn't even gotten a good look at the bewildered Teuchi—a young, teenage boy with an apron a few sizes too big.
In fact, he didn't even notice anything was amiss until he'd finished up his unnaturally large portion of ramen, paid the bill and was perusing languidly through the streets. He stretched, heaving a great, contented yawn and peeled open his eyes—
Only to be met face to face with the Hokage Mountain, looming up in the distance.
It wouldn't have been all that surprising, had Naruto not taken the opportune moment to really look at it.
And count how many faces were on it.
Hold on… His eyes widened, pausing mid-stretch.
There's the Shodaime, the Nidaime, the Sandaime… And then, with growing horror, Where's the Yondaime?!
Although Minato wasn't technically the Hokage yet, the moment the Sandaime had revealed his intentions to give up his seat once Minato was ready for the job—which at this point, was rapidly approaching—the village had made quick work of carving out the latest head onto the mountain. They'd made such quick progress that by the time Naruto had even gotten to the past Minato's face was almost half finished, and the last he'd taken the time to look, it was nearing completion.
But now, it wasn't there.
At all.
Naruto numbly sat himself down on the street curb, feeling like his legs were about to give out.
Calm down. He told himself, breathing in deeply and hoping like hell he wasn't about to hyperventilate. Calm the fuck down!
He had to think through this rationally—which unfortunately, was never one of his strong suits.
The seal must have fucked up. Was all he could think. It was the only logical answer. It must have fucked up somehow—but the question was, how? It couldn't have been through his time seals, if he'd fucked up on those, either it wouldn't have worked and he wouldn't have jumped through time, or he'd be dead right now because he'd managed to destroy himself in the process. Considering neither of those happened, it must have been a malfunction on his tracking seal.
But if it was a problem with the tracking seal, then he would've been having problems this entire time. And unless the tracking seal had magically disappeared from Minato's time, then—
His eyes widened.
It hadn't disappeared.
It'd been charred clean to ashes.
He'd taken to keeping it in his Jounin vest, and wearing it around whenever he was in Minato's time. When it came to leave, he'd strip it off and hide it somewhere safe, and then put it on again whenever he returned. He hadn't even thought of the consequences of not dodging Obito's fire technique—fire never hurt him anyway and at the time it seemed like good fun to give Obito a surprise like that.
Now though, it was increasingly seeming like an awful idea.
Because without that tracking seal—
There was no way back.
.
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The vivacity he had once assimilated with Konoha and its bright, sunlit streets seemed to have left the city completely—along with the timeline he could no longer find his way back to.
Konoha seemed to have lost its vigor without them, cast in a dull, hazy gloom which Naruto had never experienced before in the Village. Not even when the majority of the people feared or loathed him, had it ever seemed so bleak.
He didn't want to go back—not to his own time, where all his mistakes seemed to linger in the strange attempt of a smile that sometimes graced Sakura's face when she thought he wasn't looking, not to Jiraiya and his narrowed, disapproving gaze, not to Kakashi and his aloof, older self. And yet, he didn't want to be here either. Teuchi was just a teenage boy, not even fifteen yet, running a shambled ramen stand with his father without a hint of recognition to his face. Everyone Naruto knew or cared about had yet to exist. The Second Shinobi War had turned Konoha into something of a ghost town, villagers quick to return to the safety of their homes at dark, huddled close together and murmuring quietly—nothing like the boisterous village Naruto had always known.
Who would be alive now, though? Tsunade and Jiraiya had to be around here somewhere, but the idea of going to look for them didn't hold much weight.
He tried to think how old they would be…Jiraiya would be in his twenties, so would Tsunade…and Orochimaru.
Naruto wasn't sure how long he sat on that curb—staring bleakly at nothing, probably blending quite aptly with the dull Konoha around him. He tried, and failed, to keep the images of Team Seven out of his mind, looping infinitely in his mind; every precious moment that ended so abruptly—until he was forcefully snapped out of it.
"Uhm…excuse me."
He jumped. Literally.
He blinked, the dimness of his eyes slowly coming back to life as he looked down and a little to the left to see who was talking to him.
His jaw dropped.
A boy was peering up at him curiously from where he had seated himself next to Naruto, a ways shorter than him and looking somewhat bemused by the funny faces Naruto was making.
It was like him when he was younger. Except the boy was a tad paler, in fact, he could use a little more sun judging from the smooth cream color of his skin; it almost reminded him of the Uchiha pale that Sasuke had. But he was blond, blond like the sun and goldenrod and saffron flowers. Blond like sun-kissed hair. And most importantly, blond like him. With that soft color that was not a true golden, but not platinum. Flaxen almost, it was a shade paler than his own mop of sunshine that was on top of his head.
But what caught his attention the most was—
"Are you okay?"
—the blue of his eyes.
Like the stratosphere in the bright early morning, like a cloudless summer sky somewhere where everything was beautiful, this glowing blue that Naruto couldn't explain as anything else as just an absolute mirror of his own.
Naruto slowly fished himself out of his thoughts. "Uh… fine. I guess you startled me a bit. Why?"
"You've been sitting on the road for a really long time now." The boy pointed out. "The owner of this shop asked me to kick you out."
"Eh…" He turned around, suddenly noticing a rather angry looking shopkeeper holding a broom rather menacingly from his stoop. He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "That's true."
The younger blond—who Naruto was very happy to say barely even came up to his waist (take that Jiraiya! There were people smaller than him, albeit the boy must have been ten)—blinked at him slowly, almost owlishly. Naruto found himself staring again. The beautiful autumn sky brought out the Prussian in both their eyes. Naruto new he'd curse this question forever, but looking in their eyes he knew he had to—
"So what's your name kid?"
The boy blinked quickly, it seemed he was caught off guard. "Uh, I'm Namikaze Minato, what's your name?"
Naruto almost lost consciousness.
He knew it. It may have been just a hunch that had launched with the identical eyes they shared, but for some reason, he knew it, he had just known it. This boy was Minato, about roughly fifteen years younger than the one he had met before, but still, this boy was his father. His father who was about the coolest man he had ever met in his life.
"Naruto, my name's Naruto."
"Cool!" The boy brightened.
Naruto grinned at him, but soon the sharpness of it faded into something softer, wistful, even, as he soaked in the last bit of Minato he'd ever get to see. He supposed he should be grateful, even, that he'd gotten a chance to see him at all.
It wasn't so bad, even, the blonde consoled himself, staring down at Minato, the blonde grinning outrageously, smiling ear to ear.
"Oh wait." The boy blinked. "Isn't that the swirly stuff in ramen?"
Naruto balked, but regained his composure quickly. "Uh yeah, I guess it is. I'm named after a guy in a book though."
"A book?" The boy blinked. Before he doubled over laughing. "That's the stupidest thing I've heard!"
Naruto wanted to point out that Minato was the one who named him in the first place, but he refrained from doing so. "Huh, what are you named after?"
Minato shrugged, his little shoulders almost looking bony under his shirt. "Um…I dunno. Never knew my parents."
Naruto's eyes softened as he watched him. People always told Naruto that he really, well and truly took after his mother—he was loud and obnoxious and stubborn and loved ramen—but perhaps that was only because you really had to know Minato to see how similar they were, and Minato wasn't quick to let people see that far into him.
Looking at him now, though, the slump of his shoulders and his downcast eyes, all Naruto could see was himself. The helplessness he felt as a child, the sadness and the confusion. He was once again enthralled and intrigued by the same sea glass eyes they had—how could anyone say he took after his mother after looking at those eyes? Except now, those eyes were glazed over in sadness, hopelessness, and lost emotions twisted away with the fading of his memories. Naruto looked down at him empathetically; he never knew Minato didn't know his parents either. It almost made him feel bad that he ever hated the man for what he had done.
He smiled, softly but genuinely. "Yeah I know what you mean, I never knew mine either."
"Really?" Minato blinked, looking up.
Naruto nodded. "Yup. My mom and dad died saving the village." And subsequently, sealing a tailed beast inside me.
"That's really sad." The younger flaxen-haired boy sighed. "The world is sad."
The boy kicked a pebble with his foot, watching the small gray colored rock skid across the pavement, bouncing off the sidewalk and tumbling around until it met the road. Somewhere in the distance, a man was bartering around for some paper fans, the street wasn't very long, or very crowded.
"Maybe, maybe not." Naruto grinned. "You know, I might not have known them, but I've found people that I relate to like that. You know what I mean? You don't really need a family when you have really great friends."
"Oh I know what you mean!" Minato brightened. "Hey, you wanna get some ramen?"
The Uzumaki boy—well man technically—could have fallen over in the sheer irony of this moment. "Yeah…sure."
He let himself be dragged over to Ichiraku's once more—the teenage Teuchi no longer present but a stern man instead—Minato seating himself comfortably onto one of the stools, Naruto following suit with significantly less vigor. He'd already ate his full, but there was no such thing as too much ramen, and the majority of the people he knew were convinced his stomach held a small pocket universe specifically for the consumption of ramen, so Naruto had no qualms with ordering again.
"One Miso ramen please." They both said in unison.
They looked at each other, stunned, before Minato burst into laughter. "Y-You like Miso ramen too?"
Naruto, who was used to these odd flukes he had with his father-to-be only laughed as well. "It's my favorite." He said, his good mood fading as he thought of a similar instance he'd had involving his father and their love of ramen flavors.
Minato seemed to pick up on the undertone in his voice, and slowly stopped laughing. "So…where are you from, Naruto-san?" He asked, with such a tactful change of subject for a kid his age Naruto suddenly remembered why they called him a genius.
Naruto tapped his hitai-ate with his chopsticks lightly, and Minato rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.
"Right…" He grinned. "Forgot about that. So what rank are you?"
"Jounin, you?" He might as well not lie about it, he was sure there were enough Jounin that it didn't matter anyways.
"Gennin!" The boy grinned brightly. "I'm almost Chuunin…and since the exams are coming up in a week or two and Jiraiya-sensei is going to teach me some ultra cool moves so I can win!"
"Jiraiya-sensei?" Naruto echoed. It had been a long, long time since he had called Jiraiya that.
Minato nodded. "Yeah! He's my really cool sensei. He's…kinda a pervert though, but," He leaned in closer with a harsh whisper. "They call him and his team Sannin! Isn't that cool? I wish my team had some cool nickname like that—" He got up abruptly, pitching his voice low as he cried, "Team Minato, feared from the coast of Iwagakure to the far flung regions of Kiri!"
Naruto chortled in laughter. "They don't actually say outlandish shit like that about the Sannin, do they?" If they did, he'd never heard it at least.
"No." Minato pouted, before brightening again. "But if my team ever got famous, I'd want them to say stuff like that about me!"
Oh, you'll get there… He thought, ominously. He'd get there, alright, and it'd get so bad that he'd have to start fearing for his family and his wife because of his reputation. But for now, it was just a childish dream, and there was no reason to scare him.
"Yeah?" He played along cheerily, "I'm sure you will someday!"
And then, he added, "So, these Sannin, huh? They're pretty legendary?"
"Yeah! They're super legendary! Let's see, there's Orochimaru-san and Tsunade-hime and Jiraiya-sensei." He paused, before adding, "I think Tsunade-hime is still Chuunin though, and I'm pretty sure Orochimaru-san just turned Jounin. Jiraiya-sensei just got inaugurated too!"
"Is that so?" Lucky for him, he got the timeline without even having to ask around for it.
Two steaming bowls of Miso ramen were placed in front of them, and the cook smiled at them indulgently. Minato grinned widely, in a way that made Naruto remember the way he used to when he was much younger and him and Iruka-sensei used to go out for ramen, except this time, the roles were switched. He was the older of the two who was reminiscing and Minato was the one who was grinning widely and chattering on. It made his heart thrum, remembering the Minato he would never see again…the one he was going to help defeat Kyuubi…
Watching the boy in front of him, Naruto wondered if Neji was right. Was there such a thing called fate?
Did this boy have the fate to die as a hero?
He was about to follow suit and dig into his ramen when a voice stopped him from doing so.
"Oi, Minato-kun, keep eating like that and you're gonna empty this man's pockets!"
Minato laughed sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head.
"Planning to fob the bill on me, huh?" Naruto smirked widely, as he handed the money to the cook anyways. "S'okay, I figured I would treat you anyways."
But as he looked up, he tried not to gape.
Jiraiya—who looked like a bit younger version of the one he knew—was smiling, hands on his hips like he was about to start a serious lecture as he rattled on to Minato about how that was a rather bad thing to do. Hypocrite, Naruto snorted, Jiraiya fobbed the bill on him all the time in the future, to the point that Naruto could have claimed bankruptcy.
"Honestly Minato, you little prankster—
"Oh, its okay." Naruto smiled pleasantly at his sensei to-be. "Minato helped me out anyways, so I thought it'd be fair to treat him."
"You'd be asking to go broke, right there." Jiraiya snorted, and Minato let out an indignant shout.
Naruto smiled, but there was something melancholic to the edges of it. "Ah well…I'd better get going, I have to turn in a mission report. See you guys around some time?"
The two grinned at him.
"Sure!" The said in unison, then turned to look at each other, already erupting in a new dispute about who was the original one and who was the word stealer.
Naruto would have laughed at their replica of Obito and Kakashi's antics, except for the fact that it hurt to even remember the fact that Obito and Kakashi would never have another spat like that in front of him, because he'd never be able to see one again. In fact, as his subconscious snidely reminded him, he wouldn't see Rin either, or Kushina, or his father—which was probably what hurt the most, because the Minato he had just encountered was not the one he was hoping to see.
He scuffed his feet in the dirt, watching as the last bits of light scattered over the horizon.
He might as well go home, have some ramen with Sakura, and maybe get an actual mission from the old hag, get back in the swing of things. Maybe he'd talk with Kakashi-sensei, because he honestly needed someone to talk to about this besides Jiraiya, but he wasn't entirely sure that was allowed. In all honesty, he wished he could talk to Sasuke, but Sasuke was out in Sound still with that pathetic excuse for a Sannin and probably wouldn't care to listen anyways. And more importantly, he was Sasuke. The bastard.
Maybe Shikamaru would listen… Rin listened a lot like Shikamaru—
Ugh.
Dammit he was thinking in circles again.
He could have slapped himself if he could.
Why did he keep thinking about them? He was never going to be able to forget them at this rate. They probably already forgot him—…he blinked back tears. Would they forget about him? Would they no longer think about him after a week or two that he was gone? He knew for a fact that Kakashi of his time was either an extremely good actor or he only remembered bits and pieces of the Naruto that had visited him back when he was Chuunin. Well, Naruto wouldn't hold it against him; the boy was only about nine or ten when they met in the past—not to mention the fact he always seemed to get sick at the most inopportune of times.
Would Minato name his first born child Naruto because of Jiraiya's book? Or because of the man he had met for a month or two while he was in the tumultuous process of becoming the Yondaime Hokage? Would Obito remember him—even though Naruto had the sinking suspicion that Obito would be long gone, if Kakashi's left eye was anything to go by—? Would Rin even remember him? Wherever she was in his time line, whether she was dead or just wandering around in the same way Tsunade was?
As the last outstretched hand of peach spread over the mountains, the sun finally succumbing to the darkness of the moon, Naruto finished his seal.
He didn't notice the tear that made his way down his face—rather, if he did, he chose to ignore it.
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X
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Naruto had a moment to lie there in the deafening silence of the hill, nothing but the faint whisper of wind and the occasional rustling of the forest to break the heady quiet, before his eyes snapped open.
He drew kunai from his pocket at lightening speed, throwing them out into the trees where they hit the branches and trunks with dull thuds.
Immediately after he leapt into the air, to put some distance between him and his attacker as well as dodging the spray of shuriken that landed where he once lay.
The blond flipped in midair, landing soundlessly on his feet in a crouch, weapons drawn and waiting for his attacker to reveal himself.
Turns out there was more than one, four figures dropping from the trees to the ground opposite the hill, and from here he could vaguely make out their defining features. One was obviously a girl, with blatant and fiery red hair, another with even more blatant and fiery orange hair, a shade of which reminded him grossly of his former jumpsuit, and another with faintly gray-silver hair and the last…
With dark black hair, almost blue in the current lighting, and spinning red eyes.
"Sasuke." He whispered, thrown for a loop.
As if he hadn't already gone through enough of an emotional rollercoaster these past twenty-four hours to have him running to the nearest bathroom to throw up all he's ate in his lifetime, his former best friend, and the meaning to his life for the past three years just had to show up now, of all inopportune moments.
He narrowed his eyes. "What do you want?" He called, to the boy whom he once thought of as his brother.
The Uchiha said nothing though, his teammate speaking for him.
"Was it really him who's been causing all these chakra surges?" The only female asked the Uchiha, incredulously. Half her hair was matted and wrangled looking, while the other was pin straight. Had she been here, Sakura would have called that, a 'fashion don't'.
"This kid?" The one with silver hair balked, eying up the blonde. "I'd be surprised if he could hold a kunai right."
Naruto growled, about to show them just how well he threw kunai when Sasuke lifted a hand, and his teammates immediately quieted.
"Underestimating him will be your downfall." Sasuke warned. Huh, so he'd actually learned something noteworthy these past few years after all. "Furthermore, we're to capture him—alive."
Capture? Unease crawled up his spine at what the word entailed. What did Orochimaru want with him? Whatever it was, it could be nothing good.
He didn't voice his fear aloud, only chuckling. "Capture?" He echoed, mockingly. "What, so Orochimaru's got you on retrieval missions now? That's gennin duty, Sasuke." He spit the name out with as much contempt as he could muster.
"Gennin duty?" The girl pitched, somewhat obnoxiously with her loud, high voice. "Please, this isn't your average retrieval duty. Orochimaru-sama has us working to—
"Karin." Sasuke cut her off swiftly, eyes never once leaving Naruto. "He's baiting you."
And then, "And you're falling for it."
She flushed, but shut her mouth.
"Is that all you guys are here for?" He tossed back. "Bickering and acting like children? Because if so, I was kinda in the middle of something and would really like to get back to it."
Then Sasuke tilted his head, turning to him and surveying him coolly. "Finally stopped chasing after me then, dobe?" He threw the word—that at one point could even be considered a backwards term of endearment—out like it was trash. Naruto couldn't tell anything from his expression.
Never.
But he swallowed the bile in his throat and lifted his chin. "Maybe I realized there were better things to waste my time on."
There was something there then, a flicker in those Sharingan. But Naruto couldn't be sure if it was anger at the insult or something more…
Naruto cursed inwardly though. There was only so much time he could waste riling them up. And Sasuke had already blocked his only way of getting information. The girl had seemed his best way to gather more information, too. He was in the dark here, and he didn't like it.
There wasn't anything in the world he could think of that he'd rather not do right now than fight through Sasuke and his new ragtag team of fucked up weirdoes, and once more it seemed his best bet would be for a 'strategic retreat'.
And god how he was starting to hate that phrase—it was really starting to define his life.
There was little else he could do, though, so without another moment of waste he summoned as much of Kyuubi's power as he could, drawing it forth from the seal and probably waking up the demon in the process.
It pulled and wrenched out of him until finally it erupted from the seal, a vesuvian explosion of red-hot heat taking shape in a long, almost incomprehensibly tall pillar of magma-like fire, looming above them all and flickering in the sky.
Juugo and Karin charged first, the other two lingering in the backdrop.
At first, it looked like their vision had been blacked out by a Genjutsu technique, but, once the fiery sensation of being burned at temperatures worthy of volcanic lava receded, they realized that this was not Genjutsu. The fire was almost like a ring surrounding Naruto, hot and the color of red ocher, dancing with delight and lapping at grass and flesh alike. The two jumped back, holding their burnt appendages and the entire group fled out of the circle.
As the circle of fire moved, they realized that it was a large tail of burning fire, flickering about at Naruto's will.
The fox, Sasuke realized, Naruto had called out the fox.
He was controlling the fox.
On his own.
"What kind of kekkai genkai is this?" Bemused the one with silver hair, looking far too excited at the prospect than he should be.
"What does it matter?" The red-headed girl retorted, shaking out her left hand—which was licked raw with burns—and drawing weapons. "We'll take him down either way!"
The silver-haired boy ran through seals rapidly as the girl sprinted forward unleashing a barrage of shuriken and kunai alike. The blonde dodged them easily enough, and what he didn't the large tail would swoop down, blocking for him and melting the metal into cooling drops of liquid on the ground.
The girl backed off, cursing in annoyance. "Damn, that's pretty hot!"
"Probably not hot enough." The boy smirked.
Sasuke turned to his silver-haired companion. "Don't. That's the—"
But he had already finished up his hand seals, bellowing, "Suiton: Suishousha!"
A wall of water erupted from the Suiton user, barreling straight into the large column of fire surrounding Naruto. Karin wooped at the hit, about to congratulate her teammate when the sound of hissing steam met her ears. A fine clout of mist covered the blonde for a few moments, before the red of the fiery tale swept forward, revealing that the water Jutsu hadn't done much of anything.
"Kyuubi no Kitsune." He finished.
His team turned to him, looking towards him with varying degrees of shock and apprehension.
His face was impassive as always, the pinched, almost bored expression seeming to be ossified from stone into his facial features, but it still looked like it pained him to say the words," We'll retreat for now; we cant beat him like this."
They took off soon after that, and Naruto breathed a sigh of relief.
The tail dispersed into wisps of flame, before eventually taking to the air in tendrils of smoke.
He stared back into the forest where his best friend had once more disappeared to, and wondered at the numbness, the lack of emotion, which felt cold and unnatural in his stomach.
BREAKBREAKBREAKBREAK
Naruto wanted to try it. He wanted to try it…(as he forgot about the tears that dried on his cheeks) because he wanted to just see where it would end up.
Actually, as far as those things concern, he wasn't really doing this for any sort of self indulgence—maybe he was, just not on a conscious level—he just needed to try it again, as an experiment, as a trial, just like it was supposed to be. And, while with one arm he carefully smoothed the ink brush over the glossy papyrus paper (the shop had, sadly, run out of rice paper in size 10x15, so he had to use the papyrus paper) and with the other he wiped his eyes, so that his tears wouldn't drip onto the paper. He sniffed, and told himself he hadn't, mainly because if he realized how upset he was over this, then he'd realize how depressed he had become too.
Somewhere, between the fluttering wind that carried his emotions, and the dripping water, a beast opened its eyes slowly.
Ram…Dragon…Tiger—
The heavens rumbled and the earth quaked, and then the flash of blue was gone, and the hill had yet another crumpling paper on its side.
.
.
X
.
.
It was raining, wherever he had landed, it was raining in sheets and torrents, and it soaked his black and orange jacket all the way through, the black undershirt clinging to his lean torso and soaking his skin. His hair dulled with the lack of sunlight, a faded saffron that matched his somber mood. His eyes didn't bother to leave the wet dew grass that it was watching dully, his rainy eyes a melancholy blue. He didn't bother…what was the point anymore? What was the point in anything? What was the reason that he even bothered to get up in the morning when everything had been stripped of him the moment he had been born, and from then on he had to climb with blood-wrenched hands and scars, the lifestyle of someone who never had a chance.
The rain was soft, a pitter patter and the faint rustle of trees in the wind.
He wondered where he was…?
But, he didn't bother—couldn't bother—and he trudged through the forestry and down the muddy grass, a small current of water passing by the wet verdant blades. His feet moved in slow patterns, soft and barely even noticeable, he moved so slowly it didn't look like he was moving at all. His face turned to the ground, watching the current move around his feet, puddles forming in some places and the dirt started to upturn itself. The water splashed as he moved about, but it was raining so hard and fast it seemed it'd never end.
With his conscious a broken mess of emotions and heart, his subconscious was the one to smell the ramen from somewhere along the water laden street.
He moved on his body's own accord, his eyes never leaving the asphalt, as the water ran like mice scurrying around, flooding the sewers and soaking everything to the chill bone. He didn't notice, eyes dull and lifeless and his mind so caught up in contemplating why the hell he was even here to really do anything. For all he knew, he could have been in the desolate regions of Iwa, in the middle of the war with a Konoha headband, and he wouldn't have cared.
At this point, he wouldn't have cared for anything.
Without knowing it, without seeing or hearing or smelling—he sat down and sank slowly into the old leather of the stool, his form dripping like its very own rain shower, the dripping of his jacket going as fast as the pitter patter of the storm on the other side. He was yet to realize where he was, wondering about more pressing matters, about why he was feeling like this, and how to forget…
"Can I get you something?"
Naruto said nothing, not even breaking out of his stupor.
"Sir…?"
"Just a Miso ramen." He hadn't even realized he had said anything, so used to sliding into Ichiraku with stools like these that he hadn't noticed where he was, or where he could have been.
"Okay, coming right up!"
"Huh?" Naruto started dumbly, finally pulling himself out of his depression-induced stupor to realize he had just said something.
The man looked at him strangely. "Miso ramen, right?"
"Oh…sure." Naruto agreed, wondering distantly how he had even said something without even remembering. He didn't even remember walking over here. Was he that in thought…?
The man behind the counter nodded, but Naruto wasn't really paying attention to him, in fact, he wasn't really paying attention at all.
Naruto realized—belatedly—that he really…didn't know what to do anymore.
.
.
He didn't have to wait very long, though.