-Chapter 10-
"I'm sitting here, by the fire, strumming a guitar, it's awesome. Alright thank you folks." Naruto addressed his three-person audience. "Hey Gaara, would it be gay if I wrote you a song?"
"Yes."
"Right then, any requests?"
"Yes, could I request that you stop playing?" Neji asked.
"Uh, no because I'm going to keep playing anyway. Any song requests?"
"Could you play a real song?" Shikamaru asked.
"Who do you think I am Eddie Van Halen? I just started playing guitar a week ago, I don't know and 'real songs.' "
"All in favor of using Naruto's guitar as firewood raise your hand." Neji said raising his hand. Naruto looked to see Shikamaru had his hand raised as well.
"Aw, come on Shikamaru!"
"Sorry Naruto."
He still had one last hope; Gaara hadn't raised his hand yet.
"Gaara, buddy, pal, friend."
"We'll spare your guitar with the understanding you will refrain from playing it." Gaara spoke for the group."
"Yes! Thank you, thank you, thank you." Naruto said excitedly as he embraced the Kazegage. Had he been more observant he might have noticed the other go slightly pink in the cheeks.
"Fine, but we still need to get more firewood." Neji replied with an angry tone.
"Don't worry, I've come up with brilliant strategy to decide who should go." Shikamaru assured Neji, "Nose goes." He said calmly bringing a finger to his nose.
"What kind of strategy is that?" Naruto argued, but his protests did him a disadvantage. He noticed after he calmed down that even Gaara had placed a finger on his nose. "Fine, I'm going." He sighed as he jumped off the forest ground disappearing into the canopy of the trees.
As he began to snap twigs off of trees he muttered complaints to himself about how annoying his friends were, and at the same time assured himself his guitar playing abilities weren't as bad as his friends had made them out to be.
He picked up a weird smell on the air that he felt himself strangely drawn to. After a few moments of contemplation he headed in the general direction of the smell and began inspecting the forest floor for any indication of what it might be. Suddenly the smell was so intense it was almost unbearable. Blood. It was just as he had suspected only more disturbingly peculiar. There was an entire sentence written on the ground in blood.
Abandon all hope (1)
"That's almost as cryptic as 'work will set you free'." (2) Naruto commented as he jumped down out of the trees to inspect the scene. Upon closer inspection he noticed who ever had written it had laid a dead fox on display underneath the words.
"Now that was just uncalled for." He said to himself as he approached the body to get a better look. The body twitch a little as though possessed. He took a step back but then to his relief noticed that it was just another fox prodding the dead one. He was a little taken aback by the size of it. It seemed so small and helpless.
He tried to approach it but as it did it ran away. He followed after it but found it difficult to keep up while carrying a large pile of sticks. Finally he saw the fox dive into a hole.
He laid his load down to peak into the hole. "Come on now, I'm not going to hurt you." This is too much he thought, as he looked in on a pile of tiny foxes some of whom he assumed to be dead. Suddenly without warning a small heard charged at him but instead of attacking they began to snuggle against him, one even attempted to climb under his shirt. "You lost your mom huh? I wish I could take you back but my friends will get mad at me." He looked down at the happy family that was climbing all over him, in particular he looked at a rather enthusiastic orange fox annoying a black haired one that reminded him a little of Sasuke. "But who needs friends right?"
--
He observed his friends annoyed looks as he returned with a rather small pile of wood and a rather large pile of foxes.
"Naruto. We sent you out to get fire wood, not adopt an entire litter of foxes."
"Aw Neji, you're so cold hearted. Look at them!"
"Get rid of them." Shikamaru commanded.
"But, look at them, they're poor orphaned foxes."
"Let nature take its course." Shikamaru continued.
"This isn't nature, somebody killed their mom!"
"I'll take them back." Gaara offered cutting into the argument.
"Ok, thanks Gaara. Naruto hand them over." Neji said peeling a fox out of Naruto's arms.
"Just drop them off by the cryptic writing in blood." Naruto said transferring the foxes over to Gaara who nodded in understanding.
"Naruto, help Neji put your pathetic pile of sticks unto the fire. I'm going to go out and see about those cryptic words."
As soon as both Shikamaru and Gaara disappeared Naruto leaned into Neji and asked a question he had wanted to ask Shikamaru. "How do you think I can get Gaara to have sex with me in order to make Sasuke jealous?"
He watched as Neji turned painfully slowly toward him. "Naruto, this is real life, you can't just expect that Sasuke will get insanely jealous, shove you against a wall and kiss you passionately."
"Oh no, we don't kiss. That's to 'intimate'." Naruto said rolling his eyes.
Neji sighed and continued. "No matter, jealousy doesn't work, unless you're in a Charlotte Bronte novel and dress up like a woman in order to trick someone into confessing."
"Brilliant! All I have to do is dress up like a woman and…"
"Please, stop talking."
"Right, sorry about that. I just have to find a way to get Sasuke back."
"Are you going to spend your whole life chasing after someone who keeps running away from you?"
"What's wrong with that?"
"Everything!" Naruto was a little taken aback by Neji uncharacteristic out burst. "Sorry, just promise me you'll leave Gaara alone."
"Oh, I see how it is. Ok I'll leave him alone so you can have him all to yourself." He winked. Neji just glared back.
"That's not why. You don't seem to understand how cruel it is to give someone false hope."
"No, I understand."
They had already thrown most of the sticks onto the fire when the others returned.
"We've got a good idea where the enemy has headed off to. Tomorrow we'll attack his base. Naruto, we need you do go after the puppet so we can track down the real killer. There is a certain radius he needs to be within in order to control another entity so accurately and with Neji's byakugan it shouldn't take to long." Shikamaru said. Naruto now understood why Gaara had originally requested both Shikamaru and Neji and was starting to feel more like baggage. Maybe this was all he could do.
"Rodger that. He's close, I can feel it."
"Our target?"
"No, Sasuke."
"Why do I think the two go hand and hand?"
--
When he split up with his friends in the morning he couldn't help but to be envious. They are going to where Sasuke is. He knew it was probably unhealthy for him to keep thinking about him but it was hard not to. Sasuke wouldn't go after some pawn. I won't see him. The realization was actually rather liberating.
The encounter with his opponent happened rather unexpectedly. He was walking in no particular direction when he caught the sight of a burley man who was about a head taller than him dragging a corpse. Good, I caught him before he could tear the limbs off. He smiled to himself before realizing how terrible his thought was.
"Hey, I think you could help me. I'm looking for a serial murder. I think he might be around this area tearing limbs from living people!" He yelled over in the direction the man. It turned toward him giving him a better view of the corpse. "Never mind, it looks like she's dead, you must be the wrong guy."
The man gave an evil smirk. "She's still alive."
"Excellent." Naruto smirked throwing a series of well-aimed punches at the larger man's face causing the body of the nearly dead girl to fall with a thud.
"How unfortunate that you chose to fight me, by doing so you have chosen your own death." The bigger man managed to kick him in the stomach and knock him against the tree.
"You're wrong!" he yelled throwing a kick that was blocked that was kicked to the ground. Ok time to get serious. He took off his traveling pack and guitar and launched himself at his opponent again managing to get a good kick to the head before being grabbed by the neck.
Lips came crashing down on his own but they weren't kissing, they were sucking. He felt himself getting weak. My Chakra, he's stealing my chakra. He managed to break free but ended up in a pile on the ground. I can't let him do that again. He looked up at the man standing over him.
He licked his lips as he pulled Naruto up off the ground. "I've never Tasted Chakra like yours before. I think I want more." He was about to suck more away when Naruto pulled away and landed another punch to the side of the creepy guy's face. His wrist was grabbed and he was pulled forward once again. The last of his Chakra was being sucked away from him and he could do nothing. There was only one thing he could do, give in.
Finally he was dropped to the ground. He heard the other smack his lips together. "Delicious." Finally the man began to choke. "What have you done to me?" he gasped.
"It seems you got a taste of my special Chakra." Naruto said smirking from where he laid on the ground. "You should feel honored, I don't release it for just anybody."
"Bastard." The large man coughed out. "You can never win against me because I do not fear death. Even if we both parish here I will have won."
He couldn't help but to laugh a little. "You're right, I do fear death, but that only makes me stronger. And even if I were to die here I doubt anyone would be terribly upset, they might even be relieved. No one mourns the wicked right? So if I go down here I'll make sure I take you with me."
"You're bluffing, you have no energy left" The tall man said coughing out blood. "I bet you can't even stand."
"This time you're wrong, I have one more trick up my sleeve." He groaned as he reached over to his guitar case and unclipped the buckles that kept it shut.
"Ha! What are you going to do with that? You can't use music as a weapon."
"No, I can't use music as a weapon, but I can use a guitar." With the rest of his strength he stood up wielding the guitar like a sword then swung it over his head. With a loud twang the guitar smashed against his opponent's head. The other man fell to the ground unconscious still leaking blood from his mouth. Satisfied, he too collapsed to the ground and closed his eyes.
When he opened his eyes again he saw the man he had just knocked unconscious being staked by a strangely familiar looking sword. Instantly he knew who it was.
"What are you doing?" he groaned while attempting to lift himself up to look Sasuke in the eye.
"What you couldn't"
"But he's just a puppet."
"It doesn't matter."
Finally he managed to pull himself up onto shaky feet. "I came here to kick ass and play guitar, and I just destroyed my guitar." He took a step toward Sasuke before collapsing to the ground again.
After a few seconds he managed to open his eyes just wide enough to see Sasuke crouching in front of him. He flinched when Sasuke reached toward his face but instead of hitting him he wiped away a bit of dried blood from the corner of his lip.
"Sasuke, why are we so backward? Could we just start over again and do it right this time?" he let out in a hoarse voice. Sasuke smiled and shook his head as though it were the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard.
"You know better then that." Sasuke said as he stood up and stepped over Naruto's body. All the blond could do was crane his neck to follow the movements of the Uchiha.
Then out of nowhere from the bushes leapt out a rather uncanny enthusiastic orange fox, which proceeded to walk toward Sasuke. Secretly Naruto wanted him to be mean to it or at least ignore it in order to somehow get outside validation for his current hatred toward his best friend but Sasuke did neither of those things. Slowly he reached into a pouch, took out a cracker and laid it down for the fox.
As soon as he did that an entire heard of foxes that had been hiding in the bushes leapt out in order to get a chance at the cracker. Sasuke patted the orange fox on the head lightly before disappearing into the forest leaving a Naruto exhausted alone with the foxes that decided he made a very good log. Several of them fell asleep on top of him, and to his dismay one particularly fat fox fell asleep on his head and started flicking it's tail back and forth against his face. Eventually he got used to their weight and dozed off.
The next time he woke up was when all of a sudden every fox that had been resting on him ran away. There was something or someone coming toward him and he was praying it was anything but Sasuke. He would take a man-eating demon over Sasuke right now. Luckily it wasn't neither a man-eating demon nor Sasuke, it was his good for nothing friends that left him to face Sasuke all by himself, oh yeah and forced him to fight that serial murder's puppet.
"Couldn't you guys have shown up when I needed you, for instance before Sasuke showed up." Naruto pulled himself up feeling surprisingly much better then before.
"What, did he do something to you?" Shikamaru asked.
"No, but that's hardly the point! You guys were supposed to be there to help me beat his face in."
"Ok, it's time for a group meeting" Shikamaru announced. "It's time we reviewed one of the basics of battle. Repeat after me: 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'."
Naruto, Neji and Gaara all muttered the line.
"Good. So if we want to actually catch this guy instead of letting him get away because we can't seem to control ourselves we are going to have to play nice with Sasuke." Naruto was beginning to wonder exactly what had happened when he was separated from the group. "Ok, lets do individuals now, Gaara, repeat after me: 'I will not punch Sasuke in the face then proceed to start a fight with him.'"
"I will not punch Sasuke in the face and then proceed to start a fight with him." Gaara grumbled folding his arms in front of his chest."
"Very good. Neji: 'I will not pretend to break up a said fight only to get a better swing at Sasuke.'" Neji mumbled the line back and finally Shikamaru turn to him. He was excited to see what Shikamaru had for him. "Naruto."
"Yes?" he said trying to contain his excitement.
Shikamaru sighed. "Just don't have sex with him again."
Naruto's jaw dropped in surprise. "Your vote of confidence is overwhelming. Do you really think I'm dumb enough to sleep with Sasuke again?" All three of his friends nodded. "Well I'm not, there is no way I'd ever get with Sasuke again."
"So what's your current plan to win him back?" Neji asked.
"I was thinking maybe writing him a song, but I've just smashed my guitar."
"Right." Neji said rolling his eyes.
"Now that's no fair, I'm just doing all this to rekindle our friendship, and if having his dick shoved up my ass happens to be part of that, then so be it."
"You really are hopeless" Shikamaru sighed.
"Hey, would you guys be willing to help me?" Naruto asked.
"No, but if he hurts you again we'll ides of March his ass." Shikamaru replied.
"Aaaw thanks guys, nothing makes a breaking sit easier then having your friends gang stab your ex in the back."
"How exactly did you and Sasuke define your relationship?" Shikamaru asked as he put an arm around Naruto in order to help him start to make the long trek back to Sand.
"The hell if I know. It was complicated." There he said it, he could practically see Iruka's smirk in his mind.
"We've got a lot of walking, and you've got a lot of healing. "
"It's ok, you know I think I'm already starting to feel better."
"You know, Neji and I go home after we get back."
"It's ok, I think I'll be ok on my own."
"Were you guys really going to leave this poor dying girl here?" Gaara asked breaking up his and Shikamaru's conversation.
"Damn, I knew I was forgetting something, Neji wanna get on that shit?" Naruto turned and asked. "In fact, why don't you get Gaara to help you?" Naruto winked.
Neji sighed and rolled his eyes as he walked over to the unconscious girl's body. "I think I can manage it myself thanks." But Gaara was already grabbing the girl's legs so Neji relented.
"I can't wait to get back to a place that has ramen." Naruto smiled. "Who wants to sing camp songs on the way back?" Naruto took their silence as a yes. "There was a village had a dog and Kiba was his name oh K-I-B-A… that didn't work as well as I hoped, why don't we try another one?"
"Shikamaru please hit him." Neji requested.
--
The trip home was rather uneventful. When they finally approached the gates of sand they had managed to drop the girl back to her village and heal Naruto almost entirely. Upon entering the village he had an idea. "Hey, we should throw a big goodbye party before you guys leave." Naruto suggested.
"Too cliché" Shikamaru said, "can't we just go out for a drink together?"
"Sounds good to me" Naruto smiled.
Some how one drink turned into about many, and several shots. Needless to say they were pretty wasted bordering on the point of passing out.
"I figured it out!" Naruto shouted.
"How to track down the murderer?" Neji asked.
"Could you guys forget the murderer for one second. I figured out the perfect song to sing to Sasuke to win him back! Now if only I had a guitar." Naruto lamented.
Gaara and Neji sighed as Shikamaru muttered something about needing to go say goodbye to Temari before attempting to stand. Seeing that he couldn't do it on his own he grabbed Neji who was slightly less drunk then the rest of them.
"Looks like it's just you and me." Naruto said wrapping an arm around his red headed friend. "Why can't I be in love with you Gaara, you're such a good friend." Naruto muttered as he began to pass out against the red head's shoulder. "Did you ever know that you're my heeeeero?" Naruto sang in a falsetto before breaking out into laughter. "If only I hadn't promised Neji I wouldn't have sex with you to make Sasuke jealous, you would be so easy to take advantage of right now." He whispered into the Kazegage's ear before collapsing onto the bar. "You should defiantly fuck Neji though. He's practically a woman anyway. Besides I can tell he really like you, that or he's just a nice guy and what are the odds of that?" Naruto muttered with a cheek plastered to the bar. "What do you think of Neji?"
"He's a talented Ninja from a respectable clan." Damn, did Gaara ever loosen up?
"You should definitely fuck him, that would be hilarious." Gaara seemed to be ignoring him now. "Hey Gaara!" he yelled.
"Yeah."
"Is there any meaning in lost love?"
Gaara seemed shocked by the suddenness of such a serious question. "No, there isn't. People will try to tell you there is but every time you give yourself to another person and they reject you it becomes harder and harder to give your whole self away again."
"That was bad, that was like teenage emo poetry bad. You don't have to worry Gaara. No one will reject you. Don't let anybody tell you you're not humpable, cause you're bumpable, now I hope that didn't make you feel uncomfortable." (3) Naruto laughed at his sudden spur of rhyming. "I should sing that to Sasuke."
"I don't think that's a good idea." Neji cut in returning to the bar only to collapse next to Naruto. "I think we should all probably get back to our residences now. I'll help the Kazagage, you live pretty close so you can drag yourself back right?"
"Ay, ay captain."
--
The next thing Naruto remembered was waking up to a loud knock on his door with a terrible hangover. He had no idea how he got back, or where anyone everyone else was, all he knew was that he didn't want to get up and get the door.
"Naruto, it's me, I'm coming in." he recognized the voice as Neji's.
"Uuuuun" Naruto groaned in acceptance. Neji entered the room looking a little out of it but not nearly as hung over as he deserved to be considering Naruto felt like death.
"I got some hangover food and a letter from Konoha, which do you want first."
"Letter." Naruto muttered with the slightest hope that it might be from Sasuke. He ripped it open and read
Naruto Uzamaki,
You have been requested to return to Konoha for your annual medical examin….
"Ah Fuck." He knew he would be sent back out after the examine was done but just the thought of returning to Konoha right now made him feel queasy. Odds are he won't even be there. Even telling himself that didn't make him feel better.
"Medical examination huh? Neji said looking down at the letter. "It's a pity there is such a strict enforcement that your own village must perform it."
"Yeah, so what did you do last night?"
"I don't really know but when I woke up this morning I was lying naked next to Gaara and my ass hurt, so I'm going to guess I had sex."
Naruto sat up straight. "This is huge! How the hell did that happen?"
"It didn't so shut up. All I know is I'm never drinking again." Neji groaned massaging his temples.
This small action by Neji reminded him of his own hangover that suddenly kicked back in "uuuug, me neither." He said flopping back onto the bed. "I can't believe you lied to me about something important like that." He muttered as he turned toward Neji.
"I can't believe you keep pestering me about getting involved with the kazagage."
"I'm just trying to help." Naruto moaned.
"Well don't. Today we head out to Konoha and I go on with my life, which doesn't involve Gaara."
"That plan sucks."
"It's better than the inevitable circumstance of being dragged along and crushed."
"I'm glad I could serve as a warning to you." Naruto said clutching his head.
"I'm going. Make sure you eat something before we head out."
"Ok, ok" He said as he winced at the sound of the door slamming. "That guy is so weird." He was too hung over to care beyond that point. "Lets see what he brought me." He dug around in the bag and pulled out what felt like a Styrofoam cup of instant ramen. Maybe this day could be saved, maybe it wouldn't suck completely, then he looked at the label.
I can't believe it's not ramen.
Fuck
--
1 What is written on the gates of hell in Dante's inferno.
2 What is written on the gates of Auschwitz the Nazi death camp
3 From flight of the conchords song "Brett, you've got it going on"
A/N sorry this chapter is a bit later then my normal updates as my last note tried to suggest through poetry my last computer died causing general havoc in my life. On that note please let me know if there are any formatting issues, FFN has a habit of doing strange things like putting the first few sentence of the chapter at the top. This one is short again but I promise the next one is already longer then this chapter… I should get on finishing that…
-Wenselydale
P.S I've been snubbing the reviewers and truly feel bad about it, so from now on I'm going to be good about getting back to you all, but until then…reviewers you've got it going on, not in a gay way, just in a hey mates, wanted to say that your looking ok mates.