Here is chapter 11, I hope you all will like it.
"What do you mean you're here to help me" Shikamaru sighed.
"First things first. Let us inside." I look to the ground. "Naruto, I know it's hard but you need to trust us." I sigh and move out of their way. Kiba, Akamaru, and Shikamaru walked right in, Sai on the other hand stopped just a couple steps in the door.
"Why don't you trust us?" Sai asked in his normal voice. I was at first shocked by his question, then I remembered that he doesn't have that many emotions and he doesn't fully understand everything. 'I have to think about how I explain things to him carefully, if I do this wrong he'll ask a lot more questions than what I'm willing to answer.'
"In truth I have no idea. The only reason is because Sasuke trained me to trust nobody when he is not around. It's similar to your training."
"What do you mean?" He quickly asked. 'Damn it.'
"Well, you know how Danzo trained you to have no emotions, well Sasuke trained me to trust nobody but him. And now I have to work to trust people again, just like you have to work on finding your emotions again."
"Ah." He said as he went inside and sat down. 'Guess I did a good job at explaining things to him.'
"Hey Naruto you hungry?" Kiba yelled. I looked and saw that he was holding up a to-go bag from one of the restaurants just a couple of blocks from here. I could smell the food, I could almost taste it. I felt my hunger come back and without thinking I answered him.
"Totally!" I yell as I run over to him and grab the bag and sit down on the floor. I look inside and see that they had brought me two hamburgers, a thing of French fries, and a couple of cookies. I lick my lips and grab one of the burgers.
"Naruto while your eating I want to talk to you, I just want to clarify a couple of things, alright?" Shikamaru said, it almost sounded like he was nervous, though at the moment I couldn't care less. I nod as I take my first bite. 'Oh Kami it tastes so good. I haven't had one of these in a while.' "Alright so first I want to clarify that Sasuke was abusive to you, not only emotionally, but physically, and most likely sexually as well." I stop from taking another bite.
"Why does everyone want to talk about. How many times do I have to say the bastard like to hit me, how many times do I have to tell you people that yes he was abusive to me." I shocked myself by how I sounded. My voice had come out in a growl, I know I sounded angrier that I was, but I really didn't want to talk about it, I was tired of talking about what he did to me, all I wanted to do was to go hunt him down and kill him.
"I understand that, but all we've gotten is second hand information, we can't believe everything that we're told. All we want to know is what happened alright. There is one more thing I want to ask you." He said the last part slowly, I knew what he was going to ask. "Did Sasuke rape you?"
I go to take another bite of my hamburger but see that it was gone. I look around and see that Akamaru and happily taken what was left of it. 'Stupid dog.' I sigh and look back to Shikamaru.
"Yes, he raped me. It's not something I want to think about. Now, ask something that doesn't have anything to do with rape or abuse, please." I say calmly. This time Kiba is the one to ask a question.
"We over heard some stuff this morning. Is it true that Sakura is working with Sasuke, and that you and Itachi are together now?" These were the questions I had no problem answering.
"To answer your first question, yes she is working with Sasuke, and they are planning on killing me. And now on to your second question, I think we are, we never really had time to sit down and talk about it. Now I want to ask a question. You said you came here to help me, just what the hell are you going to help me with?"
"We want to help you fine Itachi and take Sasuke down." Kiba said, for once sounding serious. "Hey if your not going to eat your other food, can I have it." I roll my eyes, and grab the other hamburger out of the bag. Then get up and go in to the kitchen. I grab a knife and rinse it off then grab a plate and do the same. I take the hamburger out of the bag and cut it in half. Then go back in to the living room and hand half of the burger to him while I take the other half for myself.
"There, you happy?" He doesn't answer, instead he just takes a bite of his half and smiles. "Why would you all want to get involved in this?"
"Because we are friends, and don't friend help each other?" Sai said, for once making me feel a little better about everything.
"Yeah but this is one big mess, it's not something I want you to help me with. Plus if you do help me you can all get in to some serious trouble. Think about it, Grandma Hokage isn't going to be happy when she see's that you're all gone."
"We'll deal with that later. Look you helped us when we needed you and now it's our turn to do the same to you." Kiba had taken a break from eating to put his opinion in. I looked to each of them and saw that they were going to go with or with out my consent.
"Fine, but I'm the one who gets to kill Sasuke." I say as I reach for the fries that were still sitting in the bag.
"We know, we wouldn't want it any other way." Shikamaru said quietly. He looked like he was already planning out everything.
"So what's the plan?" I really was curious to know what he was planning.
"I'm not sure yet. We know that Sakura is there with him, but do you know if he has anyone else helping him?"
"Um, no I don't." Shikamaru sighed.
"We are going into this blind."
"I wouldn't say that." We hear a voice say from the front door. We all look to see Neji standing there. "Kiba the Hokage is looking for you, you have a mission to go on."
"What, now, you've got to be joking."
"Do I joke?" Kiba sighed in defeat.
"No." He looked like he had to force himself to get up and walk out. But before he left he said one more thing. "Sorry I can't help you this time Naruto." He sounded really disappointed.
"I wouldn't say that, you brought me food." I smile. I look and see that he was smiling too.
"Good to have you back." He said as he walked out the door, beckoning Akamaru to follow him." Once he was gone Neji came in and took his place. Shikamaru was the first to talk to him.
"What all did you hear?"
"Everything."
"And what are you planning to do?"
"I want to help you as well." I didn't expect Neji to want to help me at all. But then again none of the three that was sitting before me seemed like the type to go against the Hokage's wishes. "You can't rush in to battle blind like this, especially when it comes to fighting Sasuke Uchiha."
"You're right. Thank you." Shikamaru said.
"When do we leave?"
"When do you want to go?" Sai asked.
"Tonight, the quicker we leave, the better our chances of finding Itachi alive will be, right?" They all nod in agreement. "Then lets meet at midnight, by the gate." They nod again.
"Then tonight at midnight." Neji said again. They all get up and leave, saying goodbyes as they walked out the door.
I had the feeling of deja-vu again. I looked at the clock that was hanging on the wall, it read eleven-thirty pm. 'I think I'm going to leave early.' I look at my bag. It wasn't even close to being full. I didn't have that much stuff anymore, and as a result I didn't have much to bring. I take a final look around my apartment then leave.
I could see the gate just a head of me I could also see that I was the first one to arrive. "Naruto, why do you always have to do the opposite of what people want you to do?" I hear a fimilar voice say from one of the trees that lined the road.
"Kakashi why do you always have to interject yourself in to other people's lives. This is my choice." I know what I said had hurt him, but I didn't want him to try and talk me out of this. I wanted to go after Itachi, I wanted to bring him home, I wanted to kill Sasuke, and if it came down to it I was going to kill Sakura as well. I looked up at him and saw that he looked more hurt than I thought he would be.
"I'm not really here to talk you out of going, I'm here more or less to just talk to you. Lady Hokage wanted me to talk you into waiting for a couple more days, but you and I both know that there is nothing I can say to make you change your mind." I was a little happy with his answer.
"Okay, the others are coming at midnight." He nodded, he understood that I wanted to be done with this before the others came.
"First I wanted to ask you something. Are you planning on killing Sakura?" I sigh. 'I figured he would ask something like that at some point in this conversation.'
"Only if I have to, I really don't want to loose both Sasuke and Sakura, but I know that she won't come home without a fight, and if she becomes to dangerous then yeah I will have to kill her."
"You've changed a lot since the first time I saw you." He voice said he was reminiscing to the days when things were easier.
"Yeah, if I remember correctly, I dropped an eraser on your head." We both laughed a little at the memory. "But certain circumstances make people change. Sometimes the change is good and sometimes the change is bad, in my case it's most likely some where in the middle."
"Either that or your more like your dad than people think." I had learned about my father about a year ago. I had found an old file that contained my original birth certificate in it. I was shocked that I was the fourth Hokage's son, but at the same time both angry and proud. Angry because he had sealed the fox inside me, but proud because of all that he did for this village in such a short amount of time.
"Is that a bad thing?"
"No. Look Naruto I know when make mistakes, and I've made quite a few, some small, most big. But the most recent one that I've made is not dragging you out of that house with me that night."
"Why does everyone try to blame themselves for the what happened. First the Hokage, then Itachi, and now you. Every has those time where they think if I would have just done this things would have turned out differently. Look I may be an idiot most of the time, and I may not be book smart, but I am very observant of the world around me, I've seen people drive themselves crazy thinking that way. I don't want the people closet to me to feel that way as well. So please don't blame yourself for this one." Kakashi just stared at me. I just know under that mask he mouth was hanging open. Finally after a few moments he found something to say.
"One day I know you'll become a great Hokage." To me it was like he was saying I'm proud of you. I almost felt like crying. "Here take Pakkun with you, he should be able to track Sakura's sent." He summoned the little dog before I had a chance to say anything.
"Yo."
"I want you to accompany Naruto and friends to tack down Sakura."
"What happened?"
"There isn't time to explain at this moment, I think you'll be able to figure out what's happing on the way."
"Alright."
"Thanks Kakashi-sensei." He nods.
"Don't die." I smile.
"Who do you think I am? I'm Naruto Uzumaki, the next Hokage!" I say, trying to show him that the old me is still in there. He laughs then ruffles my hair then disappears. "Let's head to the gate, we'll meet with the rest of our group there." He nods and follows me.
We didn't have to wait long for the others to get there, maybe 10 minutes at the most. "Naruto, what's he doing here?" Shikamaru said while pointing to Pakkun.
"Well you see Kakashi kind of found out about us leaving, so he came to talk to me."
"Talk to you, or follow us."
"He came to talk to him, if he really wanted to come he would have." Pakkun said. I trusted what he had to say about Kakashi, he was one of the few that knew Kakashi. Neji and Shikamaru both sighed, while Sai just stayed an emotionless statue. "We should be going, ANBU does rounds at twelve-fifteen every night." We nod and quickly make our way out of the village.
It took us a couple of days to get back to the hidden home away from home. We immediately began to look for anything that may give us a clue as to where they went. "Do you think we'll find anything?" I ask anyone that would listen to me.
"Yeah, Pakkun why don't you start looking for a scent?" Shikamaru answered.
"Alright." The little dog replied. We didn't really talk much after that, everyone was so focused on finding some sort of a clue.
About 15 minutes later Pakkun came running up to us at full speed. "I found her scent, but it's faint. We need to go now, if we wait any longer it might be gone soon." I suddenly felt anxious about finding Sasuke. 'No I can't start feeling this way, he needs to die, and I'm going to be the one to kill him.' I think, I was trying to reassure myself, but it wasn't working. I manage to keep my outside appearance calm, but on the inside I was ready to run in the opposite direction.
"Alright, we'll leave now. Naruto you sure about this." Neji said, his voice held a small hint of concern in his voice.
"Yeah, lets go, the longer we stand here talking the less likely we'll be able to follow them." They all nod in agreement with me. Pakkun runs off in the direction of the place that he found the scent, we had to run to keep up with him. Something told me he knew what was happening, even though we never really talked about it. I was glad that we had him with us.
After running for what seemed like days, though it was only a few hours, we were forced to stop due to hunger. We quickly found a place to eat. We all sat in a circle and began to eat. We sat in silence for the first few minutes but after a little bit Shikamaru spoke. "We need to figure out what we are going to do when, and if, we find Sasuke and Sakura."
"We know that Naruto is bound determined to fight Sasuke on his own, so that means that we are going to deal with Sakura, correct?" Sai interjected.
"Yes." Neji said plainly. "But we also need to think about the possibility that Sasuke might have picked up help somewhere."
"I was just thinking about that, we do need to plan for such a thing. I've thought of as many scenarios as I possibly can. There are only two that I think are the most likely to happen. The first is that it's only Sakura and Sasuke. That would be the easiest for us to deal with as it would be at best five on two, at worst four on two. The other scenario is that he got one, maybe two at best, other people to help him." Neji cut Shikamaru off.
"That would be less favorable, as that means that we would have less chance of having this end quickly."
"That's true, but no matter how you look at this it's going to be difficult." I felt like they had forgotten I was even here. 'Why do people always talk like I'm not there. I remember Itachi never did that. Oh wait he did do it once, but that was when I was in the hospital, he didn't really know me then. But now that he knows me, and he doesn't do it anymore.' I look around our group and see that none of them noticed that I was spacing out. I knew they would tell me their plan again later so I went back to my thinking.
'There is still a chance that he is still alive. No he is definitely still alive. This time he won't save me, I'm going to save him this time.'
"Hey Naruto, we need to get moving." Shikamaru said, his voice taking me out of my trance.
"Oh, yeah, lets go!" They nod in agreement then gather their things. We all leave together.
We ran until night fall. I wanted to keep going, but the others said that we needed to preserver some of our strength for tomorrow. We all went to bed at the same time, but unlike the others I didn't fall asleep. I found that it's hard to sleep knowing Itachi isn't at least in the same building with me. 'And it's worse when knowing that he is in danger.' I sigh and sit up.
"I'm not letting you go off on your own." I hear a familiar voice say. I look and see Pakkun sitting next to my sleeping bag.
"Who said I was going off on my own."
"You and I both know that you want to get there as soon as possible. Which means that you're going to go off on your own."
"Did Kakashi talk to you before he handed you over to me."
"Yeah, he told me to go with you. You should leave your sleeping bag here just take what ever is in your bag." He knew that I wanted to get this over with, and that meant leaving as soon as possible. I smile and nod. I quickly grab my bag and then look to my comrades, I see that they are still asleep. 'Seems like all the times that I had to sneak out of bed when I was with Sasuke is coming in handy here.' I nod to Pakkun and we run off into the night.
Please tell me what you think; I would really like to know what you have to say. You can be as mean as you want, I really don't mind. So if you favorite my story, tell me what you think. Alright I'm done begging.
